Percy was agitated. For the past week, Theseus had been finding new ways to get on Percy's nerves. It started with the typical antics: Percy's belongings "mysteriously" vanished, only to turn up in the most inconvenient places for him to retrieve later; Theseus's foot discreetly slid out to trip Percy when he entered the dining pavilion; someone replaced his shampoo with hair dye, compelling Percy to embrace the new deep blue shade that appeared after he washed his hair. Annabeth assured him that she thought it looked very nice, but the event still irked him, and when placed on top of everything else, Percy was beginning to lose it.
It came to the point that Theseus didn't even have to try to piss Percy off. The sound of Theseus chewing grated in Percy's ears, and it seemed to him that Theseus was slurping louder than necessary just to bother him. Percy watched Theseus laugh and joke with the other Hermes campers during meals, and the sound enraged him. Didn't they realize who he was, that they were befriending a villain? Percy found his thoughts consumed by Theseus. Even picturing him caused Percy mental anguish; Theseus's very existence frustrated and annoyed Percy, putting him in a perpetual haze of frayed nerves and a very short temper.
"Percy!"
Jason's voice wormed its way into Percy's semi-conscious state, and he snapped back to focus. He was standing in the middle of the training arena, facing Jason, who was armored up and snapping his fingers to get Percy's attention.
"Percy? You with me?"
Percy blinked a couple of times to focus himself and nodded. "Yeah, I'm here. What are we doing again?"
"Dude, come on." Jason gestured to the group of new campers standing crowded around them. "I'm teaching a class. You've got your head in the clouds daydreaming, apparently. I thought Zeus didn't like you up there?"
"Hey, fuck you, Jason," Percy retorted, unbuckling his chest plate and throwing it to the floor. "I'm not doing this anymore."
"Whoa, what did I do?" Jason probed, throwing up his hands defensively.
Percy didn't respond, opting instead to leave the scene. He didn't reach the exit when Jason spoke again.
"Yo, where are you going? You have a class here. You can't just leave."
Percy turned over his shoulder. "Yeah? Watch me."
Jason was dumbstruck for a moment, only snapping out of his stupor to grab Percy's arm and yank him back into the arena. "What's gotten into you? You've been so out of it lately, and now you can't do basic training! You're supposed to be a leader, but you've just been running around causing problems. You need to get your shit together; otherwise, I don't think I can be friends with you.
Percy laughed derisively. "You think that's supposed to hurt me? Do you think I give a shit? I don't need you telling me what I need. And as for our friendship," he shrugged. "Can't say I'll miss it."
"Screw you, Jackson!" Jason called after him.
"Get in line," Percy shouted back, not bothering to turn around as he left the arena.
Annabeth caught Percy pacing in the dining pavilion, angrily sipping from a water bottle. "Hey, I thought you were teaching sword-fighting with Jason today. What are you doing over here?"
"Screw Jason. I'm never doing that again."
"Uh. Okay. Do you want to talk about it?" Annabeth asked tentatively, thrown off by his strong response.
"All you need to know is that we aren't friends anymore." He chugged the rest of the water, crushing the bottle and tossing it aside, just barely missing the trash can.
"What? Why? What happened?" Annabeth slowly retrieved the bottle and placed it in the trash for him.
Percy sat down on the steps to the pavilion entrance and sighed. "You wouldn't even want to hear about it."
Annabeth furrowed her brow. It was evident that most of Percy's newfound agitation resulted from his experiences with Theseus. While Annabeth did not necessarily approve of his fixation with Theseus, she had been pretty dismissive of his concerns before. I probably just added to his stress, she thought miserably. He should feel like he can talk to me about anything. She figured that this newest development was serious enough to warrant her attention if it had jeopardized Percy's friendship with Jason.
She sat down on the steps beside him. "But I do. Talk to me, Perce."
Percy stared at her from the corner of his eye, trying to gauge her response. He looked her up and down once before responding, judging her reaction to be sincere. "Okay…" Percy proceeded to tell her everything he had been experiencing with Theseus in the past few weeks. The longer Percy talked, the more words flowed out of him. It became increasingly easy as he felt more comfortable talking to Annabeth about all of this. He had been keeping this from her for so long that telling her now felt like an oppressive weight had been lifted from his chest. Once he finished relaying his story to her, Annabeth stayed quiet for a few moments, just staring warmly at him. Then she reached out and gently swept his newly-blue hair behind his ear.
"I like this color on you," she chuckled.
Percy groaned, pushing her arm away as he leaned his head out of her reach. "Annabeth! Were you even listening?" he asked with a grin. He hadn't felt this at ease in quite a while.
"Of course, I was listening. I know this was stressing you out, so I'm glad you told me. I believe you, I really do, but Percy, what can we do?"
"I don't know. I figured that after I told you, you would come up with a plan?"
Annabeth laughed, "There's just not enough evidence. The best I can suggest is to lay low and not give him any reason to come after you."
"Yeah, maybe you're right."
"I always am," Annabeth bragged sweetly, "There's no doubt that I'll always stand beside you, Seaweed Brain."
Percy kissed her, "Thanks, Wise Girl."
Piper caught up with Jason at the arena just before dinner. She could tell he was upset even before she reached him. Small sparks leaped from his skin as he dragged the equipment out of the arena.
"Hey, everything okay?" she asked slowly as she approached him and reached out to touch his arm, withdrawing her hand quickly when his skin delivered a static shock.
Jason attempted to shove the last shield into the already full box, only becoming more agitated when it wouldn't fit. Finally, he groaned and threw the shield to the ground. "No, it's not okay!" he shouted, turning to face Piper.
"Yeah, I gathered that, actually. I was just being polite. What happened?"
"Percy is such an idiot sometimes," Jason started. "You ask this guy to do one simple task, and he just… UGH." He stomped toward the exit as he began his rant. Piper followed, trying her best to stifle a laugh at Jason's response.
"What did he do this time?" she pressed.
"More like what didn't he do," Jason groaned and recounted his most recent argument with Percy to Piper.
Piper listened attentively to Jason's story and took a moment to consider once he was done talking. After a moment, she said, "I think you're both being drama queens."
"What? Piper, weren't you listening-"
"You told him you didn't want to be friends anymore! Come on, Jason, that's like petty middle school behavior."
"He was being irresponsible! He-"
"And he's your friend! Just talk to him and make-up, you big baby."
Jason opened his mouth but closed it after a few seconds, realizing that he'd been defeated.
"Come on, let's go find him at dinner. We can get this whole thing figured out."
Percy was sitting alone at the Poseidon table when Piper and Jason entered the dining pavilion. Piper elbowed Jason and started walking toward the table. Without a word, they both sat down across from Percy, Jason looking sullen and Piper radiating giddy excitement as she glanced expectantly between them.
Percy looked up from his plate slowly and sighed, looking down again. "Whatever you have planned, Piper, I'm not interested."
Piper feigned innocence. "What? I'm just here because Jason had something he wanted to say to you." She stomped on Jason's foot under the table, cueing Jason to speak next. Jason grunted in pain but nodded reluctantly.
Percy looked up again, glancing quickly at Jason before addressing Piper. "Like I said, I'm not interested."
Jason laughed, shaking his head. He aggressively waved a hand in Percy's direction. "See, Piper! He's just an asshole now. Why would I put up with that?"
"Jason!"
"Piper, I'm serious! Why should I be friends with a washed-up second-rate hero?" He spat the last word, finally turning to glare at Percy.
Percy didn't look up or say anything right away. Instead, he stared intently down at his food, sawing too hard with his knife, grating it against his plate until it finally cracked in half under the pressure. Shaking with anger, he unclenched his hands, dropping the utensils onto the table, and very slowly, he looked up at Jason. "So, what are you still doing here?"
Jason lunged at Percy over the table, but Piper grabbed his arm and yanked him back into his seat. Percy watched unflinchingly, having expected this kind of reaction from Jason.
"Jason, what the hell is your problem?"
"He is!" Jason shouted angrily. His words hung in the air as he fumed at Percy, and he noticed that the pavilion had become oddly silent. He looked around briefly at the other campers, realizing that he was making a scene that they were all silently watching unfold. He quickly composed himself, not wanting to set a bad example to the others. Thanks to Percy, there had been enough fighting around camp recently, so Jason was determined to be the bigger person and leave before things escalated. He turned and left the table without another word, leaving Piper behind.
Piper watched Jason's retreating back incredulously and turned to Percy. "I can't believe he just did that. I'm sorry, Percy. I don't know what's gotten into him."
"I don't understand why you're still with him," he said dismissively, leaning his elbows onto the table.
"He's not that bad, Percy. He's sweet and handsome and caring and funny and-"
Percy held up one hand to silence her. "Please. Stop."
"What was that about?" Percy and Piper turned toward Annabeth's voice as she approached the table and sat down next to Piper.
"I'll tell you later," Percy mumbled.
Annabeth turned to Piper for an explanation but was met only with a disdainful shake of her head.
"Boys…" Piper sighed and stood up. "I'm sorry about this, Percy. I'll go talk to him."
Percy grunted in response.
Piper spent half an hour crisscrossing the camp, checking for Jason in all his regular spots. She kept a mental list of all the places she knew he liked to go when he needed some time alone to think or to clear his head, and she made it all the way to the end of the list before she found him, jeans rolled up around his calves, a small pile of smooth stones sitting on the lake's shoreline beside his bare feet. She watched as he chose a relatively large stone and flicked it across the surface of the water before reaching down for another one. She approached him and silently kicked her shoes off where Jason had left his and went to stand beside him at the water's edge.
"You trying to get stoned?"
Jason paused mid-throw and turned to stare at Piper questioningly.
"Because. Rocks." She shrugged. "Shut up. I thought it was funny."
Jason shook his head, laughing. "That was so lame."
"Whatever. Like you could come up with something better."
"Yeah, I probably could, actually," he chuckled, throwing another rock into the water.
Piper playfully shoved Jason's shoulder. "Oh please, you suck at making jokes." Their laughter died down into a few moments of silence, but any tension that had been in the air before had dissipated. They stared out as the sun set over the lake. Finally, Piper spoke up again. "You okay?"
Jason sighed heavily in response. "Yeah, I guess."
"You can say you're upset. That was kinda messy." Piper scooped up a rock from the pile and threw it into the water. "But on the other hand, Percy's been dealing with a lot of stuff lately. We can't really hold that against him. At the end of the day, he's still our friend. He'll come around."
"You're right. You're always right." Jason rolled his eyes and chucked the rock he was holding into the water at his feet. "He's still being a dick, though."
"Oh yeah, that's an understatement."
They were still talking long after the sun had disappeared over the horizon. At some point, they had migrated to sitting hand in hand next to each other on the rocky shoreline, eventually laying down and pointing out their favorite constellations. Ultimately sleep overpowered them, and they drifted off.
Wake up.
Jason's eyes snapped open. In his early-morning brain fog, he couldn't be sure whether he had heard the voice for real or in his dream. He sat up groggily and took in his surroundings: the sun was just coming up; Piper was curled up against his side, still asleep, but the beach was otherwise deserted.
Go to the cabin.
So I wasn't dreaming, Jason thought to himself. He tried to remember if he had heard Zeus speak to him in his mind before, but he couldn't focus on the thought. The urge to obey the voice was too strong, and he found himself standing and slowly picking his way across the beach, not even bothering to retrieve his shoes from where he had dropped them the night before.
The camp was beginning to wake up around him as Jason walked toward his cabin, trance-like, compelled by the voice in his head. He pulled open the door. His body stiffened as he felt the blood drain from his face, and a wave of nausea washed over him. His fingers trembled around the doorknob, but he was unable to let go, unable to move at all. He stood frozen in the threshold as he took in the scene.
The giant statue that passed for the cabin's sole decoration had been violated, and Jason realized at once why he had been drawn here. Sitting mockingly in the center of the room was the head of Zeus, white marble face defiled by trails of blood flowing from the eyes, now stained red. Once Jason could finally pull his shocked gaze away, he noticed the words sprayed on the base of the statue: washed up, second-rate hero.
Before Jason had enough time for his mind to process what he was reading, he spotted it. It was small, too small for him to have noticed right away, but now it was all he could see. A camp necklace lay sprawled at the base of the statue, mangled and twisted. Jason picked it up, and his suspicions were confirmed when he saw the initials engraved on one of the necklace's beads: P.J.
Percy Jackson.
