Chapter Two: Pomegranate Seeds
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.
.
Previously—
Knowing is not the same as seeing; he was not prepared for the icy pit in his stomach or the sudden dead, unable to think feeling in his head.
"My arm's gone." He announced dumbly.
.
.
Hazel was crying. Her metallic eyes glittered and she wiped away her tears as soon as they fell, as if they were shameful. Nico looked scared. He kept pushing his hair out of his face and narrowing his eyes at Percy. Percy just felt empty.
"What now." It wasn't a question, because Percy already felt the answer. His job was done, the big bad guys were defeated, and now he couldn't even fight. There wasn't anything to do.
Hazel sniffled. "You just get better. That's all you have to focus on."
"Oh." Percy leaned back and laughed. Then, he kept laughing. It took him a minute to realize he was getting hysterical. He couldn't stop laughing. "Oh, I need to get better." The laugh that followed that was dead, cruel, even to his ears.
"Hazel, would you go Iris-message Annabeth? Tell her Percy's going to be staying for a while." Nico instructed, his eyes never wavering from Percy's.
She looked from Nico, who looked about 200% done, to Percy, who didn't know how he looked but was willing to bet it wasn't pretty. She opened her mouth only to close it again, and stood up. She walked around Percy, but paused on his other side. She pressed a kiss onto his forehead, taking him by surprise, before she slid from the room. She closed the door behind her.
"Perseus, I want you to listen to me." Percy's eyes snapped to Nico's at the use of his full name. "Got your attention? Good.
"You are going to stay here for a while. I need to keep an eye on that arm, and frankly you aren't in any state to be wandering around."
"Why not?" Not that Percy knew why he was arguing; he just didn't like being told what to do.
"You're damaged, and I don't just mean the arm. It's going to take some getting used to, and it'd be best if you were away from all," he waved his arm dismissively toward the ceiling, to indicate the world up above, "the stuff up there. Annabeth agrees."
Well, that was that. If Annabeth agreed, surely it was the only available plan. That thought only had a slightly sarcastic undertone in Percy's head, because he knew deep down it was probably true. One portion of Percy's brain was thinking of all the losses he had to come to terms with, his arm being one huge one that he still hadn't fully accepted. It seemed inconceivable that he could still be denying the loss in his heart and mind, as his nose itched and he tried to scratch it only to find that, hey, there's a limb missing there and he's going to have to get used to that. The other, less sane (ha.) portion of his brain was rocking in the corner in a tin foil hat, declaring that Percy had never needed time to recover from losses and certainly didn't need any now.
"Annabeth said you should take some time. I volunteered this place, because it's far away from other demigods, and monsters. We're in hell, nobody will bother you." Nico continued, absently drawing a pattern on the floor. He was sitting cross legged, with his back against the wall. Percy was still reclined in his spot on the floor, propped up with a pillow. He surveyed the room. It was small, concrete. It was clean, but still felt…tainted. Percy noted in a vague way that there was a lot of blood that had dried into the porous cement. That was his blood. He knew—had seen firsthand—how was hard it is to clean blood out of cement floors, even with lava like they used to use back at camp in his past life. Chances are Percy's blood would always be imbedded in the floor here in hell, in a—
Where the heck were they?
"Where are we?" Percy was actually asking because he was interested this time. "And why isn't Annabeth here?"
"We're in one of my buildings, on the banks of the Styx. Even if you can't control it and really shouldn't, I think being near water might help. Annabeth is safer above than down here."
"Good, then. Water should help, I think. As long as I don't have to get in again."
Nico's laugh was morbid and unsettling. "No, and I wouldn't let you get in again, I don't think."
That response made Percy look at Nico, hard. He looked both alike and unlike the Nico Di Angelo that Percy remembered. He was taller, stronger looking. His clothes were a similar, if not the same, pair of jeans and dark shirt. The skull ring, the black sword of death, the haunted look: it all screamed of the same Nico. The way he held himself was what was different. He wasn't shy, or scared looking now. He looked like he was in his domain. The last time Percy had seem him like this, he had declared himself the 'Ghost King'.
To be fair, though, Percy hadn't seen a lot of Nico after the wars. Percy had thrown himself into repairing the camps, ignoring the existential crisis of 'I've finished the prophecies, now what do I do with my life?', and spent spare time killing monsters that cropped up around. Nico had fought as hard as anyone in the wars, stood watch over Jason while he died, declared he would kill anyone who hurt Hazel, and vanished into the shadows. Hazel had mentioned once that he had become a commander of sorts for Hades' army.
"Hazel said you're in charge of a lot of dead people." Percy blurted into the silence and then cringed at his own awkward wording.
"Hazel said right. I am in charge of a lot of dead people."
"I guess Hades trusts you now, then?" Percy didn't even know why he was pushing on what he knew, he knew, was a sore subject. Maybe he wanted to deflect attention off of himself, and the fact that he knew very little of what was happening in Nico's life now. Plus, he may have been a bit bitter by the fact that Nico once turned Percy over to Hades, even if he didn't know Hades' plan when he did it.
"No. Dad and I don't "trust" each other. It's respect on his part, because I can strategize and I'm a little maniacal. I respect him because he's a god, and I like not being turned to ash."
"That's cool."
"Hm." Nico hummed, and eyed Percy from tousled head to muddy feet. "Feel up to taking a walk?"
Percy's pride said yes, but his body yelled no. The obvious winner had him wincing and trudging alongside Nico a few minutes later.
"We aren't going far." He promised. Sure enough, he led Percy out the doorway Hazel had left and to the right, down a hall light by little glow-y stones, and into the room at the end of the hall. In the room there were a number of the glow-y rocks, a small bed, and a small dresser and stand. Nico pointed to the bed and said "Sleep if you'd like."
"Thanks." Percy patted his jeans pocket and went, if possible, a little bit weaker. The expression must have shown on his face because Nico quickly told him that Riptide had come back to his jacket pocket, but the jacket was in the dresser, along with another shirt, as they'd had to rip his to get to his arm. "Thanks." Percy breathed, a little more sincerely.
Nico shrugged and left the room, saying "Don't let the bed bugs bite."
Percy swept back the quilt, which was embroidered with little dancing skeletons and the souls of the damned, took a quick peek to see if Nico was kidding about bed bugs, then clambered in. He laid there for a moment, pointedly not thinking about the blood he had glimpsed on Nico's forearms or the fact that it felt like his left hand was itching, despite no longer having a left hand to be itchy.
Phantom pain, Percy thought. He snorted to himself, at the irony of having phantom pain amongst ghosts.
.
Percy opened his eyes hours later. The room was still dim. It seemed that the underworld had one light setting: dim. It explained Nico's paleness, anyway, although a pale Nico was still as dark as a tanned Percy. It must have been the Italian blood.
"Good morning, Sir Jackson." A voice declared from the corner. Percy grabbed for his pen, realized it wasn't there, grabbed for the other pocket with a cross body grab, and ended up falling off the bed. First impressions: bad. He normally never thought of himself as the savior of the world, except when he had done something embarrassing and felt he had failed 'savior of the world' standards. With the side of his face squished into the rug and one leg still on the bed, now was one of those times. He pushed himself up on his one remaining arm and let his leg drop off the bed, rolling onto his back.
The dead butler in the corner did not look impressed.
"Ah!" Percy yelled, further disturbing the complex he had been having. The skeleton looked vaguely disapproving, although how a bunch of bones in a suit can look disapproving, Percy wasn't sure.
"Do you need help, sir?"
"No, I've got it." Percy snapped, before proceeding to spend an unnecessary amount of time dragging himself back up. While Percy Jackson tried to get himself back into an upright position by use of both cabinet and Grateful Dead quilt, the skeleton spoke, utterly undisturbed by his cursing and flailing.
"Sir Di Angelo has requested I help you with anything you need for the next three days. He was called away on an unexpected job, but will be back the day after tomorrow. He says, and I quote, "Tell Percy not to leave, not to go swimming in any water source, and not to do anything Hazel wouldn't do.", unquote."
The skeleton paused. Percy coughed out a laugh. It was worth noticing that Nico hadn't said 'don't do anything I wouldn't do', which meant he recognized he was hardly an ideal example of exemplary behavior for people in the underworld. He also hadn't said 'don't do anything Annabeth wouldn't do', which was a little harder for Percy to understand. It had to be because Hazel was a bit softer, more passive than Annabeth, and Nico wanted Percy to just be passive for three days.
He could do passive for three days, surely.
"How can I help you?" The dead man inquired politely.
"What's your name?" Percy asked as he gingerly lay back on the bed, careful to avoid the pained area of his shoulder.
"I cannot recall. Sir Di Angelo always calls me Skeletor, or Jeeves, depending on his humor at the time."
"What do you do, here? Are you like a butler?"
"In a way. I owe a hundred years of service to Sir Di Angelo, and he kindly decided to have me cleaning and doing maintenance, rather than sending me out on monster patrol."
"Why?"
"I imagine he has a fondness for me. I've saved his life before, and Sir Di Angelo doesn't like debts."
"How'd you save his life?"
"Would you like me to show you the rest of this house and the yard?" Jeeves never missed a beat. He switched tracks quick enough to let Percy know that topic wasn't up for discussion.
"Yeah, that'd be great."
He led Percy back out of the room and down the hallway Percy recalled having followed Nico down. This time he noticed there were no other doors coming off the passage. They went back through the room that was Percy's impromptu surgery platform, where he could still see the rough circle of red. They went through the doorway on the opposite side, which led to yet another hallway lined with radioactive-looking rock.
"What are those?" Percy pointed to one.
"Witch lights. They are not literally from witches, nor are they made of witches. They are merely rock that glows in the dark. Sir Di Angelo prefers them to conventional lighting, like lanterns, because they do not need electricity and there is less chance of fire."
"You mean he likes the place to look creepy." Percy deciphered.
"Precisely. He does have a flare for the dramatics." Jeeves pointed out a bathroom to the left and suggested Percy take a shower. Percy accepted the towel Jeeves pulled out of a cabinet and stepped into the room.
The bathroom was small and circular, which struck him as odd. It was lit by several basketball-sized witch stones suspended from the ceiling by ropes. The floor was made up of concrete cut into blocks, leaving millimeters of space between each, probably for drainage. The shower was to Percy's right, in a concrete alcove. Percy locked the door behind him and tried to decide whether or not to remove the bandage. Deciding it would have to come off soon and he could properly clean it then, he left it on. There wasn't much point to bleeding out the day after having it bandaged. Percy showered quickly and wrapped the towel around himself, shivering slightly. The bandage had held up very well under the streams of water—it felt like a plaster-fabric mix and, while it was wet, it wasn't weakened or shifting out of place. Towel held in place securely with his right hand, he made his way back down both hallways to his rooms. There, he took the chance to get a good look at his arm for the first time.
There wasn't even a stump. The arm had parted company from the rest of him right at the top, where the joint from the shoulder met the arm. He couldn't see if the wound was bad or if the bone had splintered, because of the bandage that had been adhered to the spot. He recognized that the spot made a prosthetic practically impossible. Not that he had been hoping for one, as it wouldn't help much with anything he needed to do.
He took a deep breath in, followed by a deep breath out. Panicking would do no good.
Getting dressed was an undertaking. Eventually he managed to get boxers and jeans on, but it involved a lot of tripping, hopping and swearing. The shirt was a bit easier: one arm through and it just slid the rest of the way on. It had short sleeves, so the left sleeve didn't just flop around uselessly like it would've on a long sleeved shirt.
Percy just left his clothes folded up on the bathroom counter, where they would hopefully be taken care of. He entertained himself by imagining them being burnt.
That done, he stood in the middle of what was his bedroom for now, and wondered what the hell he was supposed to do with his life.
.
Twenty minutes later, he had come up with a list of objectives.
First—Visit the rivers nearby. Putting aside what Nico had said, because Nico wasn't in charge of him, Percy wanted to know what the nearby rivers could do and where they ran. He knew of the Styx and what it could do, and had no interest in going through that again. He didn't want that much pressure. He was somewhat familiar with the Lethe, because of the campers in Hypnos's cabin. He was extremely used to the Phlegethon, which had kept him and Annabeth alive for so long in Tartarus. He knew that one ran through Hades as well, only less so than in Tartarus. There were two more, but he couldn't recall them. It was possible Jeeves would tell him, if he asked nicely.
Second objective—he needed to contact camp. Rachel, the Oracle of Delphi, may have a prophecy for him. He needed some guidance as to what to do. He knew the Oracle was still giving kids quests like it always did, they just weren't big, apocalyptic ones like the two Percy had had to confront with the others. Percy was very happy those days were over, but he craved another adventure, another mission. Rachel had called him a quest-addict, which was an apt enough term. For so long Percy's movements had been aimed towards finishing a job, he was left without a proverbial finish line. Surely now, there would be a suggestion as to what Percy needed to do. There must be some job out there for one-armed demigods!
Third objective—Percy needed food. That one probably should have gone first, in retrospect. There were two major problems with this objective: he didn't know where to find food, and Persephone. Persephone wasn't the problem, exactly; the problem was that Persephone had eaten food of the underworld and had been stuck there. Here. Whatever. The point was, percy didn't fancy being stuck in the underworld for the rest of his life, regardless of the fact that he didn't know what he was going to do with the rest of his life. His plans didn't so far include sitting in the underworld with the creepy kid of the death god, who was his cousin, now that he thought of it (gah, banish that thought! Percy's head yelled), all because he ate the seeds of a pomegranate. He didn't even know what a pomegranate tasted like, but it couldn't be that good.
Food first, he decided, as his stomach growled its disapproval. He wandered back through the hallways, again, and out the end of the hall that contained the bathroom. That led him to a clearing full of fruit trees. There were probably a dozen trees there, and only half of those were in fruit. The fruit was red and round and Percy recognized them as pomegranates from carvings he'd seen. He was not going to eat anything here.
The grove was surrounded by a tall, metal fence. It was the kind of fence that you'd see around a haunted mansion. Percy turned around to see the house. It was concrete on the outside too, and small. He could see the house was shaped like two lines meeting at an angle, with a dot at the opposite side that must be his room, and the dot at the angle that must be the impromptu surgery room. He was at the end of the corner line.
Water was trickling nearby. Percy could hear the rushing sound, like when you put a seashell up to your ear. He walked past the stately, twisted trees across the cobbled ground. When he reached the fence, it struck him how tall it was. it was easily twice as tall as Percy, and he was six feet. Percy didn't touch the fence, because it would have been just his luck that it was electrified. Istead, he peered through it from a foot away. Sure enough, there was a river: the Styx.
He would have recognized it anywhere.
He could hardly claim it brought back happy memories. It did give him a sense of pride, a kind of 'hey, I survived that' feeling. It was the same feeling he had at the end of the Titan war and the end of the War with Gaea. It was an odd feeling, bittersweet. It left his stomach turned in knots and his heart heavy, as if his heart itself had become weightier for being broken. He found himself fingering the bandage on his shoulder.
.
"Would Sir Jackson care for a meal?" Percy jumped about a foot in the air and spun around. Of course, it was Jeeves. It was disconcerting to look at him and not being able to meet his eyes, because, duh, he had none.
"Yes," Percy said hesitantly.
"Fret not, it's not food grown in Hades' garden. Sir Di Angelo brought down saplings from a garden above, so they can be eaten without fear of enchainment down here." His tone of voice suggested he knew what it was to be chained down here, and not be able to leave.
"In that case, yes."
Percy took the tray from him. There was a glass jug of water, a sandwich on some dark bread, and a cup of pomegranate seeds. Percy stared at it for a moment, before sinking to the ground. Percy folded one of his legs under the other and balanced his tray on his legs, so that he could eat. Another thing on the checklist of things Percy could no longer do: eat standing up without a table.
Jeeves didn't even look down, just kept on addressing the spot where Percy had been standing.
"I suggest you get some rest, Sir Jackson. You can leave your plate here when you are done."
"You don't have to call me 'Sir'."
"Thank you, Jackson."
Percy decided that was not a battle he wanted to fight right then.
"Thanks."
That was the system for the next two days. Percy wandered around, not going very close to any one river. Jeeves popped in at random times, giving Percy four meals a day and herding him back when he got too far. Percy grew to like the taste of pomegranate seeds, if the texture still threw him a little. He couldn't get used to the bread, though.
.
After three days, his list of things he couldn't do anymore grew to twenty seven items, then thirty seven, when he counted the things that weren't a product of losing his arm.
It now included tying his shoes, sleeping in the dark, and asking for help.
Being a demigod was messed up.
.
.
.
Author's note: Thanks for the lovely reviews. The blackmail is still in place because we're still in the early part of the story—if you want more, let me know! Review if you've got questions or comments, too.
There will be a quest coming in the next chapter. I'm not going to say whose quest it is. There's some upcoming Pernico interaction of the tense variety on the horizon, as well. We will be seeing our great lady, Sally Jackson, at some point in the near future, if I get some responses. Otherwise, the story will end with a disturbed Percy hanging out with an indifferent Jeeves. Surely you don't want that!
Tobi.
