After some very intense cuddling (What did you think we were doing?) We got ready to actually sleep. We laid next to each other in bed and looked at microscopic water droplets in the air that reflected the light in such a way that they looked like stars. I reached for Annabeth's hand and she took it. "So, last night we got together, huh" "It wouldn't be if your school had also had a pipe break." "The chances of two schools encountering that problem at the same time are astronomically low." "You could have made it happen. Also, it already happened to one of the schools, so the chance wou-" "Annabeth, no math" "fine, no math" We then talked about what had happened today. We agreed that Damasen was a great ally for capture the flag, so great in fact that he would probably be banned from participating for the sake of fairness.
"I think I'm going to go sleep now. I'm tired and the dissociation isn't helping. Good night seaweed brain" "Good night my Wise girl"
Percy
Today was the day. My first school day in almost nine months. From when I woke up, I had around two hours left until I'd have to leave for school, most of which would probably be taken up by me saying goodbye to Annabeth and everyone else. And Annabeth. I woke her up using no cold water at all. "Good morning wise girl. Look what I got you." I pulled a tablet with breakfast out from under the bed. "It's probably a bit dry, but any type of water related problem is kind of my specialty." I increased the humidity in the air, reinfusing the dry food with water. "If you say you got me this, do you actually mean you got it, or did someone else?" "Well, let's just say I have my contacts" Annabeth gave me a just-tell-me-what-you-did-look. "Fine, I got the Stolls to steal this stuff for me. But it's not like I didn't do anything. They made me take their cleaning duties in exchange. That's called working together with respect to individual talents." "Oh really, that's what it's called? I thought that was called laziness" "Why would I do more than necessary if I can achieve the same result by using a strategy that gives an overall advantage regarding efficiency?" "Now that you say it, it's actually a good idea" Calling something a strategy is a great shortcut to get Annabeth to approve of something. Of course, it only works if said strategy actually brings an advantage. For example, if you make a 'strategy' that consists of you dumping trash on her (and you're not in a situation where you'd need to, for example, cover up your scent) she won't approve of that. Also, I'll probably kill be not very nice to you.
"At the end, it doesn't really matter where this food comes from. What matters is whether or not we eat it now. Which is the case" Annabeth said before biting into a croissant. After our breakfast, I packed all my school stuff. Annabeth had been telling me to do so for over a week but I hadn't done it yet. Next, I walked around camp and said good bye to everyone, which was a lot of people. When I was done, I had about twenty minutes left before I had to leave for school. After about twenty five minutes, I said goodbye to Annabeth.
"Annabeth, I'll have to leave now. I'll be back soon" "Promise it" She demanded. "Fine, I promise that I'll come back soon." I couldn't blame her. Years of emotional neglect and abandonment had given her severe abandonment issues. Many people, too many people, had left her and sometimes, it was still difficult for her to grasp that this was different. "Good bye" "Don't leave me" Annabeth said. I head a feeling she was being influenced by a little Or maybe the high pitch in her voice came from fear. "Sorry if I'm being weird about this. It's just that so many people have left me and now you're… like, objectively I know that you're only going to school, but still. I guess emotionally I still have problems telling the difference." Yes, there was definitely some heavy little influence. "Hey, don't be sorry. People left you in the past, so now you can't let me go. And I get that. But I'm not leaving you for long. I'm just going to school." "Okay. Good bye seaweed brain." "Good bye wise girl. And good bye to everyone else. I gave her one last hug before heading out the door.
Outside, I met Piper. "Hey Percy. Everything alright." "For me more than for Annabeth. Given her history, anyone leaving hits pretty hard emotionally." "What do you think, should I go in?" "Would be great. She's kind of not in a good state. There's also a little nearby and exerting some passive influence, so I'd say more extreme emotions than usual. You'll figure out how to comfort her. I really gotta go now. See you eventually" I made my way to the Pegasus stables to get Blackjack.
"Hey boss. You got any donuts?" "This time I actually happen to have one." I got a donut from my school bag and gave it to Blackjack. "But we've got to get going now. School starts today and we're already ten minutes behind schedule" "Got it" I climbed onto Blackjack's back and he took off. He flew extra fast this time and I actually arrived at the school on time" "Thanks for the ride. You can pick me up at around three" "See you later boss." I walked into the school, ready to face the worst horror the mortal world had to offer (except maybe raging alcoholics, it depends on whether your teacher are monsters or not).
It took me a while to find my room. I would have walked past the right door, had it not been for a Male voice saying "Jackson" right as I walked past it. The voice repeated "Perseus Jackson" Oh, he was taking attendance. "Present" I said as I opened the door. The teacher checked his watch. "You're forty five seconds too late" "Sorry, I had problems finding my room. It's my first day at this school" "Well, I'm feeling generous today. I won't write your delayed arrival down" I looked around the classroom and found an empty table. "Welcome class to history. After finishing up the bronze age collapse last year, we will now be looking at one of the cultures that came from it: ancient Greece" when I heard those last two words, I knew that this was going to be an easy lesson.
"The ancient Greeks worshipped many gods, but not everyone worshipped every God. For example, Hephaestus was mostly worshipped by?" I raised my hand. "Perseus" "Please, just call me Percy. And Hephaestus was most important to those working with fire, for example blacksmiths. And probably also those who had their house next to a volcano and didn't want Hephaestus, who was also the god of volcanoes, to blow them up" "Exactly, many Greek gods were only important to certain groups and only received sacrifices from those groups. But there were three gods who were important to everyone. Can anyone tell me who?" "The girl next to me raised her hand. "Yes, Julia" "I'd say the king of the gods was very important. What was his name again? Oh, right, Zeus. And I think the other one would be Aphrodite goddess of beauty love and probably also sex, because everyone seems to need love, though I personally don't agree with that" The last part she had said more to herself, but I had heard it. I looked at her and saw a ring on her middle finger. Unlike Annabeth's ring, this one was white. If I remembered Annabeth's teachings correctly, this was an aro ring "My girlfriend would also disagree. At least about needing sex" I whispered to her.
"Percy, do you want to tell us the third universality worshipped deity?" Great, my teacher was pulling the old you're-talking,-so-you-must-know-the-answer-trick. Luckily, he might have actually been right this time. "All the gods raced through my mind. After a few seconds, I got the right answer "Hestia, goddess of family, home and the hearth. By the way, she's completely against the idea of relationships and sex so take that Aphrodite." I spent the rest of the lesson showcasing my knowledge on Greek gods and what the mortals did to honor them. After ninety minutes, the lesson was over and it was time for recess. I left the room approximately two seconds after the bell had dismissed us. As a demigod, I had amazing reflexes. (Yes, leaving the classroom counts as a reflex.)
"If you keep up that performance in the other subjects I think the teachers will forgive you for being too late." I turned around and saw my classroom neighbor, the girl with the white ring. "That was one time." "The good performance or the being late?" "I see, you have exactly the weird type of humor I love. Mildly insulting but still somewhat funny" "Hey Julia, you finally got a boyfriend?" Someone said from a few meters away. I could tell it was not meant to be a nice question. This was the tone bullies used. "He's not my boyfriend" Julia walked around the corner, out of sight of the bullies. I followed her. I kind of felt like I should address what had just happened but wasn't sure how. In the end, I just said "Nice ring" "Thanks. It's just a fashion thing" "Really? I've heard white stands for aromantic." "Maybe. Fine, you figured it out. Go join the bullies." That looked like internalized aphobia. Sometimes I forgot not everyone was as accepting as the people in camp half-blood. "So, are you gonna make fun of me now?" I had an idea "Follow me"
I led her to the nearest trash bin. "You think I'm trash. Really creative" No, that's not what I was- repeat the last thing you said. Before I took you here" "I think it was 'So, are you gonna make fun of me now?' which is clearly the case." "I don't want to make fun of you, I want you to take that attitude and- like, imagine that attitude like a paper in front of you. This is all of the 'people should make fun of me'. I want you to take that paper, crumble it up, tear it up, and toss it in here." She made some hand gestures that approximately matched my instructions. "You're not doing it right. This way, it's gonna jump right back out. You need to throw it in with more power." She raised her hand above her head, held it like she was holding a crumpled piece of paper, and tossed it into the trash with enough power to make the entire bin vibrate. "So, I'm assuming you're not going to make fun of me for being aro?" "Of course not. That's super valid." "Are you sure?" "Yeah. Remember what I just told everyone? About Hestia?" "You said that she was against marriage-" "aka aro" "And the most worshipped deity" "Exactly. She was the one that kept the family together. Aros are a valuable part of their community. If people don't accept you as such, well, she's also the goddess of fire" "So, you're telling me to set my bullies on fire?" "In a metaphorical sense" "Ok then. Well, there's somewhere I got to go now. See you later.
She left for a different part of the school. I decided to look around. By the time I saw the trash containers I had fully understood what kind of school this was. My ADHD already made learning difficult enough, and I had just missed over half a year of school, which had apparently resulted in me having to go to the same school as people too stupid to put the trash into the containers. I estimated that there was a good kilogram of trash just in the immediate vicinity of the containers. I looked around. No one was watching. I summoned water to me and made it follow me to the end of the recess area. I then walked back to the containers, making the water pick up trash and eventually condense into the little brother of the great Pacific garbage patch. (No, Annabeth, I don't want you to insert an essay on why this was different from the GPGP.) I made the water disappear. The trash was still on the ground, but at least it was in one pile next to the container. I had done about 95% percent of the job that was the responsibility of the entire school, so maybe .3% would have been my job. Doing 95 was enough. About a minute after I had finished my cleanup, recess was over and the next lesson began.
We had art lessons. It began with a lecture about statues from different time periods I was somewhat listening during the ancient Greek and Roman part, but then my brain switched off. I was in the middle of thinking about the dam date when I heard the word Jackson. The teacher must have caught me daydreaming. After that, I pretended to pay attention. I was still deep within the attention deficit part of ADHD when I heard the word poker. In my experience, this word usually appeared in sentences like 'I'm gonna invite the boys over for poker' which meant 'You'll be abused by four people instead of just me. Due to this, the word poker was a strong, well, traumatic trigger was maybe not the right word, but it would most certainly get my attention. I looked up at the screen where my teacher was talking about yet another statue. This one was from 2006. It showed four men sitting in a semi-circle. The text below the picture read 'The poker round, Sally Jackson. I tried my best to contain my laughter. I failed. "Percy, would you mind telling us what's so funny?" "Oh, it's just that I never thought I'd be sitting in school and seeing smelly Gabe." "Smelly Gabe?" "That's the one with the crushed beer can. It's the nickname my mom and I came up with." "Your mom?" "Yes. My mom is Sally Jackson. Gabe is my former stepfather." "Former? What happened to him?" "He died shortly before the statue was created" "My condolences" The teacher muttered before continuing with the presentation. I was about to say something along the lines of 'don't say you're sorry. Smelly Gabe was an asshole and his death was one of the best things of my life" but then everyone would know that my mom had created a statue of someone she had hated which would have been very difficult to justify without saying she had used the head of Medusa. At the end of the presentation, the teacher announced our homework due next week: Find something we could build a statue of. Then, he released us into the afternoon. I took all my stuff to my dorm room and began organizing everything. When I was done, it was almost three. I was needed somewhere else now"
This originally started out as DID-representation but I feel like now it has become more of an aspec-rep thing. On the other hand, the best representation is casual representation so I still have the superior representation focused on DID with phrases like "Yes, there was definitely some heavy little influence", so you can't really say it stopped being a DID representation story. Also, I might have fallen into the trope of adding a character whose only purpose is being queer, but I wanted to accurately present that aphobia is a thing and prejudice doesn't exist in camp half blood and all non-camper characters are almost automatically side characters so characters who experience aphobia must be flat-ish side characters, which is the same justification I also used for why there's no round female characters in Dead Poets' Society, and now I'm getting super sidetracked and should probably post the chapter, only two days too late. Sorry.