Percy listened, eyes shut tight, as warm honey drizzled over his forehead and cheeks.
Cloud nymphs swirled around him, combing his unruly hair, trimming his fingernails and cuticles, and exfoliating his skin. The incessant drip of water off stalactites was surprisingly relaxing, the way it echoed off the cave walls. Reyna, in the adjacent chair, had taken him to the underground spa in the bowels of the bathhouse for some sorely-needed stress relief, as Octavian had announced his intention to run for the open praetor seat — an election he was virtually guaranteed to win, given he was running unopposed.
"You ever been to a spa, Percy?" Reyna asked him. Percy's scalp tingled with pins and needles when a cloud nymph ran her hands through his hair. Reyna raised an eyebrow.
"I don't recall," Percy replied.
"Oh, right. Too soon?" She held up her fingernails to the light. "I used to work at a spa, believe it or not."
"Really?" he asked. "That doesn't seem like you."
Reyna rolled her eyes.
"Please, everyone says that. I love the spa, reminds me of better days. They act like I can't look good and kick ass at the same time," she said as she took a pointed look at Percy. "Of course, no one ever says that about the boys, but I respect a guy who's not afraid to get pampered."
Percy and Reyna shared a glance. She appreciated him. Percy quickly examined his fingernails and chuckled.
"I should get Theodore down here. I think he has two years of soot caked under here," he said as he held up his thumbnail.
"Ha, good luck with that one," Reyna laughed. "That boy's stiff as a board."
Percy felt the sudden urge to defend him.
"Hey, he's not that bad. We're friends now," Percy said. "I think."
Reyna looked at him strangely.
"What?" Percy asked, concerned.
"It's nothing, I—" She pondered her next words. "You are just the last person I would expect Theodore to get along with."
"Oh, we don't get along," Percy laughed. "But we're totally friends."
Percy readjusted himself in his lounge chair.
"I'm sure," Reyna said, wringing out tension in her neck. "You know he made my dogs, Aurum and Argentum? I told him I wanted some truth-smelling, metal canine companions and I swear to the gods I've never seen him more excited in my life. We spent weeks on them."
Something ugly and serpentine curled up in Percy's stomach. A green-eyed dragon ready to blow fire.
"He was back to his placid self after he finished though," she said plaintively. "He has the tendency to worship the work he does over the people he's with. A lot of Vulcan children are like that."
Percy's gut uneasily calmed down. The monster dissolved in acid.
"Is that why you trust him so much?" Percy began. "Despite him working so closely with Octavian?"
Reyna hardened at the intrusion of Octavian into her safe space.
"Percy, to me, Theodore's not a complicated guy. Rome is his home, literally, and he will serve it to his dying breath. He has no mortal family. He's kind of like Jason, in that way," she said. "From what I've seen from him, his judgments have always followed a compass that upholds this legion. He has been an outstanding centurion and senator. The fact that both myself and Octavian would trust him with our lives is proof of that."
A lightbulb went off in Percy's head.
"Then why don't you ask him to run for praetor?"
"Do you really think I hadn't thought of that?" Reyna smirked. "A praetor needs direction. An itch for change. To move forward. I see that in you, not him. Admittedly, that may be because you have no memory and there is no back to look back to, but from your display at the War Games, it's obvious you have a certain disrespect for authority. At least, the current authority."
Percy's recollection of the centurions of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Cohorts made his blood boil. Maybe she was right, he should take this opportunity for himself. Reyna played with the end of her towel.
"No, he's good where he is," she smiled. "He is stubbornly content where he is."
Percy was settled.
"How do I become praetor before the election?" Percy asked, finding a steely resolve. Reyna grinned.
"You're going to need a quest."
Theodore, it turned out, could in fact blow up a chocolate fountain with his mind. Who knew?
The pair spent their entire days together at this point. At first, it was coincidental. Percy would wake up to go on a run then swim at the bathhouse and, lo and behold, would cross paths with Theodore as he took his morning ice bath in the frigidarium. This happened three consecutive times, at which point Percy suggested that Theodore join him on his run, then they could head to the bathhouse together. Afterwards, they realized they were both heading off to breakfast. And so it became run-swim-breakfast. Then run-swim-breakfast-forge. Then run-swim-breakfast-forge-lunch. Then run-swim-breakfast-forge-lunch-forge. Then run-swim-breakfast-forge-lunch-forge-dinner.
On nights of the War Games, they got a kick out of playing on opposite teams. Percy enjoyed how much his unpredictable nature and tendency to disobey whatever his cohort's senior officers told him to do infuriated Theodore. Theodore devised entire strategies involving the First and Second Cohorts solely to make Percy's life harder, no matter how much it affected the outcome of the Games. They often managed to find each other on the battlefield anyway and duke it out, ignoring the ongoing warfare. Their scorecard was kept by bruises, and was always even. The valley had no rainfall since Percy's first War Games, so no unfair advantages, just hammer versus whichever weapon Percy chose from the armory that day. They kept mental notes of each other's injuries, which evolved into a game of who could jab each other's boo-boos in a round of ninja. Due to Theodore's slightly longer reach, this usually ended in Percy on the ground laughing, cursing, and howling in pain, after his best friend stabbed two fingers into a sensitive spot.
The trident was coming along nicely. The teeth took significantly longer than Percy anticipated. Theodore was a perfectionist and he was adamant about getting curvature and angles exactly correct. Percy also had to learn how to control the water with almost as minute precision as Theodore did the molten platinum. Percy learned through repeatedly misshaping the first tooth that Theodore closes off when he gets frustrated and has entire mumbling conversations with himself. He didn't like when Theodore got like this, so Percy worked on his fine motor control, and soon they were almost done with the second. They worked together seamlessly.
Percy watched as Theodore put the finishing touches on the second tooth, shaping the end into a deadly point. Theodore sticks the tip of his tongue through his teeth when he concentrates, Percy noticed.
"Water," Theodore commanded. Percy traced his finger from the water bucket, pulling a single drop of water into the air. He moved it to wear the platinum glowed and enclosed the end in the water. The metal cooled and solidified into the rest of the weapon.
"Perfect," Percy smiled.
Theodore inspected the end. He shook his head.
"It's misshapen."
Percy took a closer look. It looked similar in construction to the first tooth.
"It looks fine to me," he said.
"It's misshapen. It needs to be fixed," Theodore replied, looking him dead in the eye, and that was the end of that matter. Theodore melted the end of the tooth down and the two of them spent another two hours repairing it. At the time of its second completion, Theodore simply looked at it and dunked the tooth back into the furnace of molten platinum.
"Wha—" Percy protested, out of breath. Theodore was right, spending so much time moving precise amounts of water to precise locations drained him more than he thought. Percy plopped to the ground.
"It needs to be flawless," Theodore said, his back to him.
"You don't have to try so hard! I thought the first two looked great."
"You don't make weapons all day," he said. "They weren't good enough."
Percy could feel the cold shoulder from there. Theodore had not been this flustered or distant in weeks.
"Is it me? I think it's me," Percy said. If there was one thing Percy could not stand, it was being the weakest link. Theodore turned to him and he softened.
"No," he sighed. "It's not you."
"Then what's up?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? It doesn't sound like nothing."
"Can we just get back to work please?" he snapped. The words rolled off of Theodore's tongue like punches. Percy blinked.
"I think we should just call it a day..." Percy said, crawling up onto his feet.
"No, Percy, don't go," Theodore exhaled, his anger deflating as Percy walked to the door.
"No, it's okay," Percy reassured him. "We all have rough days. Whatever's going on, I'd be happy to talk about it. Otherwise, I'll...see you in the morning. Get a good night's sleep."
Percy rocked on the balls of his feet, then rounded the corner.
"Percy, I'm sorry."
He froze.
"What was that?" Percy asked. He re-entered the room to see Theodore, lips sealed, shoulders drawn in.
"That sounded like an apology," Percy said. Theodore glared at him. He shoved his hands in his pockets.
"Could you repeat that?"
"Shut up, Percy," Theodore grumbled, kicking dust.
"Did the sun just freeze over?"
"Shut up, Percy."
"Aww, he's back."
"So can we get back to work?" Theodore asked, straightening his spine. Percy shrugged.
"Nah, I'm still leaving. You need to sleep off..." Percy's smile faded, gesticulating at Theodore. "Whatever this is."
He turned on his heel and disappeared down the dark hallway.
Hours after curfew, in the dead of night, the engine that was Percy's body never quieted to less than an idle purr. Tossing and turning in his bunk, he first pleaded with the god of sleep for mercy, then, after unsuccessfully contacting Somnus, telepathically tried to get Frank's slumbering form to wake up and hit him over the head with a shovel. His fingers had a mind of their own, tapping and clenching and gripping the sheets. The worst part was that he wasn't even tired. His eyelids didn't droop. His heartbeat impatiently tapped its toes against his ribs like it was waiting in line at the DMV. And by the gods...he had to use the bathroom. His body was acting like it was the middle of the afternoon and he should be doing anything other than laying in bed.
What was he supposed to do? Inflict watching-paint-dry level torture on himself by cycling through supine positions until sunrise? He glanced around at the Fifth Cohort legionnaires, all in some peaceful state of rest (he liked them better this way). Dakota let out a porcine snore, then rolled onto his stomach. The senior officer, along with Gwen, slept on either side of the barrack door, for good reason. Curfew was strict… but it couldn't hurt to take a walk, right? Get some fresh air?
Percy, with all the time in the world, slithered into a pair of jeans centimeter by centimeter. With a final tug, he yanked the waistline past his butt. He snatched a camp t-shirt from the floor and made a barefooted attempt at pointe technique in his silent ballet across the room. Without a creak, without a stir, soon his toes were blessing the moon-cooled grass.
Camp Jupiter was foreign to him in the dark. He had never seen it so still, activity ground to a halt. No orders being shouted. No metal clashing on metal. No bustle of Roman civilization. For a moment, Percy pretended he was at a regular old summer camp, that he wasn't a product of Olympian blood. There was something so darkly funny about it all, being conscripted into an adolescent army to fight battles more powerful beings than him did not want to fight. If he could tear this place to the ground and build it from scratch, he would at least make it more fun. He's here for a good time, not a long time.
Percy found himself meandering the length of the Little Tiber, letting the invisible burbling of the river's flow guide him down its banks with the little light he had to see. Here, his breathing evened out, his blood pressure normalized. The proximity of the water calmed him. He kind of wanted to fall asleep right then and there, curl up in the silt and let the ripples tuck him in, but he knew the Roman penal system by then. The son of Neptune plopped himself onto the sand and sat criss-cross facing the current. His index finger dipped under the surface, tracing spirals in the downstream.
He knew, deep down, that he was the reason Theodore was brimming with frustration that day. Percy had elevated himself to friend status (or so he thought), which is perhaps why Theodore wouldn't say it to his face, but he knew. Percy was trying — really, really trying — but he did not have the technical skill Theodore had. He did not have the concentration, the capacity for art, perception of three-dimensional models. Most damning of all, he did not have the focus. His brain and body rarely sat still as it was. Exhibit A: the present.
So Percy found resolve. He straightened his back, pulled his shoulders taut, rested his hands on his knees, and closed his eyes. Deep breath in through the nose, controlled exhale through the mouth. Focus...
Focus...
Focus...
Focus...
The Tiber in front of him revealed itself in his mind's eye, became tangible — a faint blue aura just in front of him, crawling across the insides of his eyelids. He could feel the precise contours of its flow in a synesthetic sense — where it bumped rocks and swirled in eddies, where it caressed scales of the fish, where it leaked through the riverbed into the bedrock below. Percy cleaved current off the top and lifted it from the river. The blue phosphorescence molded to his thoughts. He held back a smile.
First, he attempted a sphere. It came out nearly perfectly round. He manifested two hands into his brainscape. He cupped the ball of water and squeezed, like molding Play-Doh. It was more oblong than the first. Percy bit his lip. His palms adjusted and rolled the water between them. He contoured it like pottery, envisioning how Theodore sculpts his weaponry. Still egg-like. He growled in frustration.
His connection with the water began to shake, the light bleeding out of his periphery like aurora borealis. Percy frantically tried to hold his existence on this plane, but he was practically scooping water out of a sinking ship. Focus, he repeated to himself. Focus. Focus on the flow. The flow of the water. Yes. I can feel it. The flow of the water. The water's aura began to sharpen, pooling back into the frame. He could see the Tiber, see the sphere taking hold.
The flow of the water. Flow of the water. Sweat dribbled down his forehead. The sphere was taking hold. Flow of the water. Yes, it's working. I can do it. I can do it. I can see it. The flow of the water. He could sense it everywhere — the grass blades, the air. The water in his own body…it was responding to him. A peculiar feeling nested below his navel. A pressure building up, needing release. Power flooded his veins. The flow of the water. The flow of the water. The flow of the water. The flow of the—
Percy gasped, breathing heavily, and the entire illusion fell apart. His eyes shot open. Blush crept up his neck and reached for his cheeks. A wet sensation was pooling down the inside of his thigh, seeping through his jeans at an alarming rate — and it wasn't the Little Tiberian sphere he had been molding. He jumped to his feet, absolutely mortified. He tried to stop, but the seal, so to speak, was broken.
"Oh my gods, oh, you've got to be kidding—" Percy hyperventilated, forcefully pressing his bladder through his abdomen as if that would get it under control. "Wrong flow of water. Wrong flow of water. Wrong flow. Wrong flow. Oh, oh my gods."
He let out a slew of curses and duck-walked towards the Tiber. Before stepping in, he hesitated. There was a rule about swimming in the Tiber. He had no reason to believe there wouldn't be a rule about washing off urine, but he also didn't want to be the reason one was created, you know? It also didn't feel right to defile the river like that. The bathhouse. Yes, the bathhouse. I can do it there.
"That is the last time I do that. Ugh, I'm so stupid...Theodore better reimburse me for this. Urgh," Percy complained through his teeth the entire speed-waddle down the via praetoria into the camp. "He still owes me a shirt."
He tore his t-shirt over his head and tied it around his waist to cover up the stain as he peeled out onto the via principalis, homing in on the bathhouse. His bare feet tread uncomfortably over the gravel, stones digging into his soles. He did not even want to fathom what would happen if his superiors found him out of bed, like this.
With a final shred of hope, Percy hobbled up the few marble stairs and heaved against the heavy bathhouse doors. They didn't budge. Locked for the night. Percy balled his fists, trembling with righteous anger, and drove a punch into the oak with a dull thud.
"Ow," Percy seethed, then nursed his fragile hand. "Di immortales."
He then sent an ill-thought-out retaliatory kick that fired pain missiles through his toes and up his shin.
"What are you doing?"
Percy whirled around. There, in the walkway, was the person he least wanted to see: Theodore, holding a fresh, steaming cup of coffee.
"I thought I told you to go to bed," Percy said matter-of-factly.
"You don't seem to be following your own advice," Theodore replied, eyeing him curiously. "Why are you out past curfew?"
"Why are you out past curfew?" Percy shot back.
"I'm a centurion, I don't have a curfew. And I like to work to distract myself from the other work I'm supposed to be doing. Now may I ask why you are battering down the bathhouse doors, looking..." Theodore drolled, analyzing the queer combination of jeans and a shirt tucked into the front like an apron. "Like that?"
Percy, as always, opted for the most chaotic of his options: tell Theodore exactly what happened, and hope he thinks it was a joke because no one in their right mind would admit at this age that they just had...an accident. Reverse psychology.
"I pissed myself," Percy stated as nonchalantly as possible.
Theodore blinked. Blinked again. Then blinked a third time. He chuckled for a hot minute, then his eyebrows scrunched together. He frowned.
"You— you really pissed yourself, didn't you?" Theodore squinted, stifling a laugh. He wagged a finger. "I know you, Percy. I know how your mind games work."
Percy cursed.
"Don't. Laugh," he warned. "It is not funny."
"You did!" Theodore guffawed. "You totally did!"
"Theodore, I'm serious."
Theodore's laugh cut through the air like a sonic boom. Percy ran him down.
"Shut up. Do you want the entirety of New Rome to hear you?"
Theodore lost it. Percy shoved his hand over Theodore's mouth.
"I want ancient Rome to hear me," Theodore muffled.
"Help me, or I swear to the gods," Percy growled. Theodore escaped his muzzle.
"Give me a minute. Phew. Oh gods, oh, this is—" Theodore wiped a tear and wheezed. "Don't get your diaper in a twist."
Percy slapped him across the bicep. Hard.
Back in the forge, Percy draped his jeans over his forearms like it was a funeral shroud, holding it over the furnace like a sacrifice. An extra pair of Theodore's black cargo pants hung low on his hips. The pants' original owner stood back, clutching an ice pack to his left arm where a pink, inflamed handprint imprinted on his skin. Percy sighed. Standing so close to the heat was searing off his eyebrows.
"I think that's the hardest anyone's ever slapped me," Theodore said.
Percy was, uncharacteristically, silent for a while.
"Should I just burn them?" Percy asked. "I'm tired of waiting for the stain to evaporate."
"Burn them," Theodore replied. "They're piss pants."
Percy unceremoniously dropped the jeans into the fire. The denim immediately caught and smoked. He swatted the air and coughed. Theodore pulled him backwards by the elbow. He glanced at Percy with concern. The lack of sleep, the situation — it seemed to age Percy by a few years. The bags under his eyes weighed his cheeks down like melted wax. Besides the cry that lasted him all but a few minutes the other day, he had never seen Percy this...blue. It jarred him — Percy losing his sense of humor.
"You don't have to be embarrassed about it," Theodore reassured him. "I'm the only one who knows. I won't tell anyone."
"I know," Percy exhaled. He cringed. "But it's still really embarrassing."
"Would it be rude of me to ask what happened?"
"I'm flattered you don't think I just wet the bed like a child and that there must be some crazy story to go along with this."
"Percy, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that you're the physical manifestation of Murphy's Law. It wouldn't be Percy-worthy if you had just been using a urinal in a dream."
Percy crossed his arms across his chest.
"I knew you were frustrated with me about messing up the trident—"
"I wasn't frustrated with y—"
Percy held up his hand.
"Stop. I know you were, so just cut it, okay?" Percy said. Theodore licked his lips and backed down. "I went down to the river to practice and I felt this...I don't know...connection? With water that I'd never felt before. Like it was all mine, if I wanted it. All of it...then long story short I accidentally gave myself incontinence."
Theodore pulled his ice pack off and gently placed it on a workbench. He looked Percy in the eyes.
"I wasn't frustrated with you," he repeated.
Percy ran a hand through his hair and kicked at the floor. He pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Can you just, um, I don't know, work on something? I don't really wanna talk about it anymore."
Theodore nodded his head.
"Yeah. Yeah, no problem."
Theodore walked to his filing cabinet and fumbled around the array of cylindrical tubes arranged like arrows in a quiver. He pursed his lips, fingering indecisively between two adjacent tubes. Percy took a seat on a metal stool next to the drawing board, swiveling idly to and fro. Extracting a blueprint from his chosen tube, Theodore pinned the paper to the drawing board. It detailed the stirrups of a saddle.
Then, Theodore slid a blank blueprint across the table in Percy's direction. He clattered a couple graphite pencils onto the hardwood. Percy looked up at him.
"Here," Theodore grinned. "Practice your art. Gods know you need it."
So, tongues between their teeth, the son of Vulcan got to work on putting the finishing touches on an iron stirrup and Percy drew cottony clouds across the pale blue of the parchment. A half hour passed in comfortable silence.
"What do you think of these?" Theodore turned and asked Percy, showing off the rectangular rings in his fists.
But the son of Neptune was clunked out, drooling over the blueprint, arms splayed over a horrendous rendition of a dark pegasus.