Percy hadn't even heard of the song that Dean was currently rocking out to, but it might be his new favourite. Or at least in his top 10.
Percy couldn't help himself but smile as he watched his brothers. The constant finger drumming on the wheel from Dean and the almost audible, persistent thinking that was going on inside Sam's head.
They would both like Annabeth. The thought made his smile wider. She had brains like Sam and the battle prowess of Dean (although she would smoke both of them in their respective specialties - not that he would ever tell them that).
There was so much he wanted to ask them, and Percy knew that they probably had an equal number of questions to ask him. But no one wanted to start the q&a session they were all itching for deep down.
Instead, they simply enjoyed the presence of each other.
Percy hadn't realised how much he missed being in this car with his brothers. The sun beaming down on them as he looked out the window watching the trees fly past them. It could've been peaceful if it weren't for the hum of the impala and the slightly off-pitch sound of Dean singing loudly and the significantly more quiet hum of Sam joining in (a lot more on pitch of course).
Percy shuffled slightly in the back seat - it was a lot more squishy than he remembered it being. It had of course been five years since he had sat in the car, but Percy preferred to thoroughly shove that thought into the deepest, darkest crevice of his mind. That was something he would process properly at a later date - you know many, many weeks from now. Or, preferably, never.
He was brought out of his daze by Dean clearing his throat, "Now this, boys, was long overdue."
Dean laughed in excitement as he pulled in to the carpark of a diner.
Percy chuckled, "Pie."
Dean whooped, "Pie!"
He slapped the top of the steering wheel a couple of times as he pulled the hand brake and got out of the car. Percy sat for a second, almost giddy at the mere concept of what was happening.
He was with his brothers. Getting pie.
He was jolted from his thoughts as a large hand knocked on the window, and Sammy's face appeared smiling with an eyebrow raised, "You coming? Or are you just gonna sit there?"
Percy laughed slightly in response as he got out of the car, "Sorry, I was just trying to grasp that all of this is actually happening."
Sam smiled as he put his arm around his younger brother as they walked towards the diner where Dean had already entered and scored a booth and three menus.
Sam and Percy had barely even sat down when Dean called over the waitress and ordered three of the daily special pie with whipped cream (obviously).
Dean turned towards Percy and immediately asked' "So, where've you been?"
Sam hit him on the side and growled slightly. In a hushed tone he said, "First of all, not in the diner. Second, what happened to tact? Or have you forgotten what that word means?"
Percy laughed slightly at the two, "C'mon, Dean never knew what that word meant. We both know that." He was relieved that Sam had stopped that conversation from continuing. He had no idea how he would even begin to answer that question.
Dean let out a belly laugh, "You haven't changed a bit Perce. Just as sarcastic as ever."
He decided to change the subject, "Umm, how have you guys been?" he smiled sheepishly.
They made a face. One that Percy knew all too well, mostly because he was pretty sure he had just pulled the same one a few seconds ago.
"Okay, so ahh, if neither of us are gonna talk about the past five years. Why don't we find something else to discuss?" He asked optimistically before immediately playing with his thumbs as he realised he had nothing to ask.
"Well, uh, you got taller?" Dean offered.
Percy jumped on the conversation starter, "Taller than you, I bet."
Dean was momentarily taken aback, "Absolutely not," he grumbled.
"Wanna test it?"
"Ah, better not. Don't want to bruise your ego."
Sam laughed, "Yeah right, sure its not your ego that you're trying to save?"
Dean grumbled again, "My ego is very much intact, thank you. I would smoke all y'all in a beauty contest, and we all know it."
"Yeah right, tell that to all the ladies lining up to see you. Oh handsome one." Sam retaliated, bowing slightly in his seat.
Dean rolled his eyes as he changed the subject, "You got yourself a gal, Perce?
"Yeah, I do, Annabeth. You guys would love her. She is smart and dangerous, and amazing and the most beautiful person I've ever seen", Percy smiled, dazed slightly as he imagined her meeting them for the first time.
"Awwww, someone is all doe-eyed for a girl" Sam mocked.
Percy laughed as he flicked whip cream back at him with his fork causing more laughter.
'So what, maybe I am. At least I got a girl, unlike you two beef heads.'
He laughed and so did they although he could tell there was pain hidden deep down which they were clearly trying very hard to ignore.
Well, at least he knew that emotional suppression ran in the family.
"Hey, hey," Dean put up his hand, "How do you know we haven't got ourselves some lovely ladies?"
"Oh, my apologies, " Percy chuckled, "I just assumed from the general ugliness that you two couldn't possibly."
Sam and Dean both faked a gasp.
"Sorry boys, " Percy's smile grew wider, "Just more evidence that I am, in fact, adopted. I'm incredibly handsome, and you're not."
"What?! How did you know?" Dean slapped Sam on the shoulder, "Did you tell him he was adopted?"
Sam, playing along, reached across the table and grabbed Percy's hand, squeezing it tight, "We wanted to tell you when you were 18."
The trio burst into laughter. Gods, Percy missed this so much. It was almost like Percy hadn't been missing for the past five years.
That one thought reminded Percy why he was here in the first place; he had to drag his brothers into a war. He was going to have to tell them that he was a demigod. You know, one of the very beings they had sworn to kill.
He would have to explain how he lives with a whole bunch of other demigods too. He'll have to explain to them how they aren't evil. How they are under attack and only they can help.
He will have to explain why he never came back to them all these years.
Percy looked at his arm, where Dean had shot him only an hour ago. Percy will have to explain how he can heal it. How he can control water, and that, technically speaking, he is related to all horses.
Well, maybe that last one won't come up.
But still! The thought of telling his brothers the rest made him feel sick to his stomach. And as Percy had his mini-crisis, Dean spoke up, breaking the silence that only lasted a few seconds.
"Mm, Mmmmm." Dean took in a deep breath as he shoved the last bite of pie in his mouth, "Now that is some gewddd pie."
Sam couldn't remember the last time he felt this happy. He had just eaten pie in a diner with his brothers. There was no talk about monsters, or demons, or destinies or the inevitable end of the world and everything in it.
It was great.
He didn't want to be the massive buzzkill that Dean often accused him of being, but he couldn't help but feel like there was something wrong.
Percy had been missing for nearly six years, why come back now? From the looks of his younger brother, he hadn't been battling the elements searching for them. Frankly, he looked good.
Sam couldn't - no matter how hard he tried - get rid of the itch in the back of his brain. It was telling him to question Percy more. It wanted to know why he had only come back now if his visions had come true, why he seemed so reluctant to tell them any information deeper than surface level.
The itch wanted to know what Percy was thinking of in the millisecond were his eyes drifted off into the distance before focusing back into the conversation. And this stupid itch watched Percy do this for the few hours they had been at the diner messing around and skirting around any topics neither wanted to deal with.
They had since left the diner and were back in the car. Sitting in silence, but enjoying the fact that it felt full, whole, once more.
Percy had sheepishly asked if he could direct them somewhere but refused to tell them where than actual somewhere was—repeating that he would 'explain more later'.
As time passed, the silence in the air progressively grew thicker and tenser. It was obvious to Sam that all three of them had spent their time thinking, creating more and more questions they were burning to ask.
Resigned to the fact that no one was going to ask or answer any questions until they arrived at Percy's mysterious location, Sam leant back, crossed his arms and decided he may as well take a nap.
Less than a minute later Sam was startled by the resounding 'SMACK' followed by the car swerving off the road and both Percy and Dean swearing loudly.
Barely phased by the collision, Sam straightened himself up and immediately tried to look for what they had collided with. He feared that it was an animal, or even worse, a person. Yet, somehow only did his stomach drop when he saw that Percy was already out of the car, alert and scanning the surroundings.
Sam continued to watch as Percy's hand crept towards his jean pocket, the boy crouched slightly as he began to spin around. It looked as though Percy already knew what had hit them, and he was preparing for it to jump out and attack.
This terrified Sam. What exactly he was terrified of was something he would have to figure out later. Was it that it took only half a second for Percy to be in a battle stance or was it whatever was inevitably about to jump out of the woods?
Probably both.
Sam let his instincts kick in as he reached into the glove compartment and grabbed a gun and the silver machete that looked way too big to have fit in there.
The sound of an object wooshing by made Sam immediately focus back to where Percy was standing, although now he was holding a bronze sword which, by the looks of it, had just sliced a spear clean in two.
He whipped his head to the direction where the spear had come from, and for the first time in a long while, he was shocked at what he saw. Glaring at his younger brother with eyes of malice was a humanoid female with twin serpent trunks instead of legs.
'Well that's new' he thought to himself as he cocked his gun and aimed it at her head.
"What in the holy crap is that Percy?!" Dean yelled from a few metres behind Sam, his gun also taking deadly aim at the creature.
"Umm, I'll answer that question with another question," Percy spoke as he inched closer to the creature, "What do you see?"
"I don't even freaking know Perce!" Dean responded, slightly panicked. Sam was sure he was also experiencing the same amount of shock that was currently making its way through Sam. Neither of them had seen anything like the creature standing in front of them.
"It looks like a green cheerleader with snakes for legs and red laser pointers for eyes," Sam responded, trying to process what he was saying as he said it.
"Ah, Styx. That's not how it's supposed to work." Percy sighed. Sam was confused about the reaction his brother gave. "They're called dracaena. Not too hard to kill; don't worry about it."
Sam was becoming more confused by the second. The hell is a dracaena? What wasn't supposed to work like that? Why weren't they hard to kill? How did Percy even know that?
Sam tried to process this, but before he could, he watched his brother run headfirst towards the snake-lady hybrid. He was about to yell at him to stop, but the words hadn't even made their way to his throat before Percy had dodged another spear and sliced the monster in two, causing it to explode into a plume of gold dust.
Sam looked at Dean to double-check if he also saw the same thing. From the flabbergasted expression on his face, Sam concluded that he had. Sam slowly shifted his focus back to his brother, who was wiping the gold dust off his sword. Which, by the way, he still had no idea where Percy had produced it from.
Percy turned back to the pair who were yet to move since Percy had shown off his skills, "They rarely travel alone. We have to get moving."
Struggling to comprehend anything, Sam didn't move, and neither did Dean. Snapping his fingers in Dean's face, Percy repeated his urge for them to keep moving. This got them going as they silently got back in the car, both keeping their guns in close reach.
They rode in silence for a few minutes before Percy cleared his throat, "Um, are we, ah, do we wanna talk about any of that?" He asked sheepishly.
Sam opened his mouth to speak, but Dean beat him to it.
"What was all that yellow powdery stuff Perce?" Dean spoke quietly. Sam looked over to his older brother, confused. Out of all the questions to ask, why that?
Percy was also confused by his choice of question, but answered, "It was the remains of a monster. When you kill them, they explode, and their life force goes back to hell."
Dean took a deep breath. "It looks awfully close to sulphur don't it."
Sam was starting to see where this was going.
"Uh, yeah, I guess it does. More sparkly, though." Percy was very clearly lost. He leant forward,
"I'm confused. I thought you would be asking very different questions."
Sam finally understood his brother's thought process. "Percy," he took a deep breath, unsure of how to finish the sentence. "The night you went missing, the only clue that Dad found was scattered yellow dust."
"He thought a demon had taken you, a particular one. Perce, he thought you had died that night," Dean cut in, choking up at the end of the sentence. "Killed by a demon, is what he told me."
Dean sniffled slightly before continuing, "He disappeared that night, determined to find the demon that had supposedly caused your death. The same demon that killed our Mom. The same one that killed your Mom as well."
Sam watched as Percy sat back in shock, melting into the leather chair, eyes drifting off into the distance as they began to well up with tears.
Dean went on, "You weren't taken by a demon that night were you?"
Percy didn't respond.
"It wasn't a demon, was it?!" Dean's voice grew, as his anger increased, "It was a freaking monster! You killed one of those... those things and then disappeared into the fucking woods!
Sam sat in silence, too shocked at the conclusions his brother had come to and the anger he held. Dean continued with his rant, properly screaming by now.
"We lost so many good people following that hunch! Dad died following that hunch! He died looking for you! God, Sammy practically died too!"
Percy spoke up, his voice barely a whisper, "I... I didn't know."
"Of course you didn't fucking know Percy! You spent five fucking years gallivanting in the woods!" Dean's voice finally cracked, and his tone dropped done to a husky whisper, "Where were you Perce? We needed you."
Sam watched as his younger brother looked back up at both him and Dean, heartbroken, "I didn't know any of that was happening, I really didn't. I wasn't exactly living out my teenage fantasy though, " Percy took a breath, trying to figure out what to say, "I spent those five years trying to stay alive. Barely staying alive."
"Look, Perce, I didn't... " Dean began, but Percy cut him off.
"No, Dean, it's okay. I have no idea what you guys have been up to. I didn't know if you were alive most of the time, so it's fair to assume that you also had no idea where I was or if I was alive."
Sam took a second, thinking about his visions about Percy. They were horrific to watch, but as he sat in the car, only a metre away from his younger brother, they were even worse to think about.
He looked at his teenage brother, considering if he should ask him about those dreams. The ones were he drowned, was poisoned, blown up - Sam almost didn't want to know if they were real. He didn't think he could live with himself if they were, and he and Dean weren't there to help.
"Percy, " Sam spoke up, " Were you alone during the past five years?"
Percy smiled slightly, "No, I wasn't. I was never alone."
Sam smiled back, relieved anf slightly pleased at the glint that appeared in his brother's eye. He turned his head around to the road ahead of him, considering once again if he should ask whether the vision he had were real.
Deciding that it was now or probably never, Sam opened his mouth to ask before being interrupted by the sound of smashing glass and the weirdly recognisable sound of an object going through somebodies body. He tried to turn around to see who the object had hit before yelling out in pain as he saw a spear had lodged itself in his right shoulder.
Recognising the injury to be his own, and seeing the amount of blood that was dripping down his arm, pain flood through his body. Too focused on his shoulder, Sam hadn't noticed that Dean had already pulled over, jumped out of the car, and was running over to his side of the car.
Sam let himself get dragged out and propped up against the side of the Impala as Dean started to put pressure around the wound.
"Hey, Sam, Sammy. Hey, I need you to look at me." Dean spoke, concern laced into his voice, "I need you to put pressure on this for me. Just for a little bit."
Sam nodded slowly as he reached up to grab the jumper that Dean had been using as a rag to mop up his blood.
"Great, you're doing great. Now, I gotta help our idiot younger brother battle a hoard of monsters." Dean chuckled slightly, before his face dropped again, "I need you to just hold on for a few minutes. Can you do that?"
Sam nodded again, but Dean had already runoff. Only then had Sam noticed just how many creatures were out there. At least 100 of those dracaena things that attacked earlier - Percy was right when he said that they didn't travel alone.
Sam took a shaky breath as he watched in awe as his brother tore through the onslaught of monsters coming directly for them. Sam was becoming more and more sure that his dreams were right, and that was enough for Sam to forget about the searing pain in his shoulder.
Sam's attention moved over to Dean who was trying his hardest to shoot at the creatures from a distance, trying to prevent them from getting close to where he lay. It was a good plan, in theory, but from the looks of it, Dean's gun wasn't affecting the creatures.
"Uhh, Percy?! Bullets ain't doing nothing!" Dean screamed, evidently panicking as he reloaded his gun fro the second time. Well, at least Sam was with it enough to have guessed that correctly.
"Oh, Gods, I forgot about that!" Percy yelled back, "Yeah, your metals won't affect them!"
"What do these fuckers need then? Cause I've already tried silver and lead, and I reckon it went straight through them!"
"Yeah, they won't work, you need a special metal. Quite rare, I'll try and get some for you later." Percy spoke, almost nonchalantly as he continued to decimate the monsters that continued to attack them.
"Well, shit." Sam watched as Dean lowered his gun and ran back to him, helping put pressure on Sam's wound that was still gushing blood. "Perce, we need to get Sam help, NOW!"
Percy whipped his head back to look at him, and if Sam had enough energy to laugh, he would have at the face that Percy pulled in disgust of the wound that he displayed.
Sam looked up at Dean, "How are we going to get out of this? Those things aren't slowing down."
Dean responded by yelling Sam's words at Percy, and Sam watched as Percy turned his back on the hoard and sprinted over to the two of them swearing as he ran.
"You're going to have to promise to freak out, okay?" Percy spoke to both of them. He wasn't really asking a question though. If anything, Sam thought that Percy was the one who had to be told not to freak out.
Percy took a deep breath, nodded at both his brothers and turned back around to the hundred or so dracaena that were quickly advancing towards the car. Sam noticed that Percy was no longer holding the bronze sword - he really needed to figure out how that kept appearing and disappearing. But, first, he had to figure out whatever the hell his brother was about to do.
Percy outstretched his arms, pointing his fingers towards the trees that were lined up against the side of the road. Sam watched as Percy's hands begun to shake slightly before he quickly squeezed them into fists and whipped is arms towards his hips. For a split second, it looked as though nothing had happened.
That was until Sam saw the wall of water rushing towards the trio. Sam braced for impact, instinctively closing his eyes for the collision that never occurred. He looked back up to see a swirling ball of water in front of them, catching the spears that were being hurled towards them.
"What in the... " Dean tried to speak, but his voice failed him. Sam was not surprised; he too could barely process this.
Percy waited a few seconds, catching the incoming weapons, but as soon as there was a split second of a lul in their attack, he yelled as he pushed his arms forward, fingers extended towards the creatures. Sam watched as the once flowing ball of water instantly froze into thousands of daggers that were hurled towards the dracaena, immediately killing them all, and showering the forest with golden rain.
"Holy... " Dean attempted again, words still failing him.
Percy lowered his arms stumbling back a bit, Dean immediately jumping up to catch him.
"Thanks," Percy mumbled, he rubbed his eyes before pointing at the wound that was quickly coming back to the forefront of Sam's mind. " I can fix that."
Sam perked up slightly, trying to ask how, but the only thing he was able to produce was a curious, "Hhh?"
Percy nodded, "The water and I are friends. I can help, if you trust me, that is."
Sam nodded as vigorously as he could, anything for the pain to go away. He looked up to Dean who looked a lot more cautious, but after a few seconds eventually nodded and gestured for Percy to go ahead.
Sam wasn't sure what he was expecting, so he probably shouldn't have been surprised when Percy somehow pulled water out of nowhere and directed it towards his wound. The smell of saltwater flooded his nose the second the water made contact with his shoulder, and he heard Percy mention that he was going to pull the spear out.
Before Sam could even prepare himself he found himself grunting from pain, rather than the scream he thought would accompany the removal. Sam looked down at his shoulder to see his brothers hand, coated in bloody water, wrapped around his shoulder.
Sam looked up to Dean, who watched with curiosity and concern written across his face.
"It doesn't hurt," Sam spoke, pleased to see his brother's face immediately relax.
"It should be all healed up, but you still lost a lot of blood, so you're going to need to rest for a bit." Percy took his hand away from Sam's shoulder, the bloody water following it, retreating back into the earth and leaving Sam's shoulder completely dry and wound free.
"Thank you, Perce, " was all that Sam could muster before a wave of nausea crashed through him. He was definitely about to pass out.
"No problemo" Percy responded awkwardly, looking to Dean trying to gauge his reaction to it all. Dean, in response, laughed, not a funny laugh however. A laugh you do when everything is a mess and nothing makes sense.
Sam could understand the reaction because, after all, everything was falling apart, and nothing made sense.
Somewhat relieved at his brothers' reactions, Sam watched as Percy gestured at them all to get back in the car. Despite the fact that it no longer had a front windscreen.
Sam was helped up with the support of Percy as Dean tried to quickly wipe all of the blood and glass out onto the road. Once in the car, Sam collapsed into the chair, still thinking about what his baby brother had just done. Whatever it was, Sam was definitely going to struggle to get his head around it.
Sam was lost in his thoughts for a while, but he was struggling to stay awake. Once he couldn't form proper thoughts, he let his vision fade away as he heard his youngest brother ask for help.
"Yo, Dean, do you have any snacks? I'm gonna faint if I don't eat like right now."
Percy shoved the remnants of the chips into his mouth as he spotted the sign he was ever so familiar with. "Stop, stop, stop. We're here."
Sam had since woken up and exclaimed that he felt incredible. He showed off his completely healed wound to which Dean responded with relief. Since then, however, no one had spoken. Everyone, for the millionth time that day, was at a loss for words.
He points over to a sign reading 'Pick your own strawberries', Dean immediately pulled the car off the road as Percy clambered to get out of the car.
Percy started to make his way into the forest, aware that time was very much against them. There was also the issue of his brothers still having no idea where they were or what was happening, but Percy had come to the executive decision that it would be easier to show them.
You know what they say, actions speak louder than words.
He was fully aware that the saying was in no way relevant to the current situation but, whatever.
Percy was already 10 yards into the woods when he heard the weirdly in sync sound of his brothers closing their doors. Percy knew they were chatting behind his back, no doubt concerned for his and their safety.
Dean called out, "Percy, wait, we aint taking another step until you explain what the hell is going on."
"We have been dragged around all day with no explanation," Sam pitched in. "We've been attacked twice, you can do some crazy-ass stuff, and we just wanna know what we are about to get ourselves into. Not to mention the fact that you have brought us to the exact place you went missing."
Percy made a face, contemplating what he could say, where he could even begin, "Can I just show you? It'll be a lot easier."
"Percy, no. Just tell us the basics." Dean bargained, "Let's start with how and or why you can do all that freaky water stuff."
"Uhhhh, well," Percy procrastinated in a high pitched whine.
Both brothers eyebrows raised more as their stare become even more intense.
Percy let out an exasperated sigh.
"Okay, fine. But, you have to promise not to kill, murder or harm me or brandish all those scary, scary weapons you got"
The two looked confused, "Perce," Sam spoke quietly, "why would we do that?"
Percy felt like he was going to throw up. He was about to tell his brothers that he was one of the very beings they swore to kill.
Telling them would betray their trust, but they were his only chance to save the campers. His friends. His family.
Dean gestured for Percy to go on.
He knew he had no other option. They had already seen him heal, and they had already seen him use his powers.
"Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood."
"A what now?"
Percy took a deep breath and spoke.
"A demigod."
AN:
Ahahahaha, what is even going on anymore.
Whelp, I am becoming increasingly better at doing everything but the stuff I should be doing, so mayhaps the next chapter will be done before the new year.
*gives you all virtual hugs*
Bye my little blue pancakes, xx