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cheers, enjoy x
You're gonna need the book to be able to read this.
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Three old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death. Apollo read, eyeing Percy from under his golden locks. Percy just shrugged, ignoring the questioning looks his girlfriend was sending him as well.
Percy whimpered. Poseidon glanced over his shoulder to his older son, and hugged P.J. tighter, as if he was afraid to let him go.
Nico and some other demigods began to laugh. "Perce, you are psycho."
Artemis rolled her eyes at them. "All guys are."
"Sis!" Yelled Apollo at his sister in disbelief, who rewarded him with a hard slap.
Frank giggled, at turned to his girlfriend. "I bet you 10 denarii it was Grover's fault."
Some gods raised their brows at the word 'denarii', while Hazel laughed at Frank. "Okay."
"HA!" Frank said, clapping his hands in joy. "Pay up!"
And Hazel reluctantly did.
"Ah, is Perce worried about is father?" Annabeth said in a jokingly tone, nudging her boyfriend. He just winked at her, trying to look casual, not letting on that the depressive mood his book-self had was pouring in his real body now.
Poseidon huffed.
Thalia and Jason eyed their father in suspicion. "Dad –" Thalia said after a silence, but her father interrupted her.
"Whatever has annoyed me," He said, his voice trembling with power, "has to be a good reason."
Percy paled on his couch, and pulled Annabeth closer.
Hermes started to laugh suddenly, and when the whole Throne Room fell silent to stare at him, he shrugged, with a devilish smile on his face. "I just realized that Perseus's grades were below C level."
The whole Throne Room bursted out laughing, including Percy himself, forgetting his crankiness.
Athena and Annabeth started to giggle.
"It means old drunk," Annabeth pointed out.
"So," Percy said slowly, a smile tucking at his lips, "I basically called him Dionysus?"
Dionysus glared angrily at the kid. "Why you little –"
P.J. looked up from his father's shirt – in which he had been hiding for a long time know – and glanced at his older self. "Homesick?" He asked, making Apollo fall silent.
Percy raised a brow. "Yeah. Duh. Mom." He said, as if that explained everything.
"But…" P.J. began hesitatingly, "what about Ga–"
"He's still there." Interrupted Percy quickly, and smiled sheepishly under the stares of whole the room. Only Grover was eyeing him with understanding. Nobody knew about Gabe – and Grover and Annabeth were the only people who heard the name before. "Uh, read on?" He asked after a while of silence.
The people gave up. Obviously, they had to wait for an explanation.
P.J. and Percy winced at the same time at the mention of 'stepfather'. Athena's eyes widened: she suddenly understood it all. The bruises of the young Percy, the lack of participation to talk about his past, the wincing constantly at words like 'whipping' – Percy had been beaten before by his stepfather.
Athena's heart broke.
Yeah, sure, she wasn't supposed to care for the son of her nemesis, Poseidon, but this wasn't what was supposed to happen to kids. And Perseus was so small. He looked so fragile in the arms of his father, shivering only at the thought of his stepfather, more afraid about that than Zeus blasting him to bits. That may even explain older Percy's indifference about being vaporized: he knew true fear already, before he even met the gods and other monsters.
Athena's eyes crossed with the sea-green one's of Percy, and she saw him shake his head slowly.
So he obviously didn't want his friends to know.
It was idle of him to keep hoping they wouldn't catch on, but Athena granted his wish of secrecy. She could only hope that she truly was the only Wise Girl in the room.
Thalia glanced at Percy's direction, not catching the big hints Percy was dropping. "I didn't know Paul was a gambler?"
"Paul?!" Said Poseidon with a snarl, and evil expression on his face.
Athena tried to keep the conversation away from the past abuse of the boy. "Jealous?"
Poseidon huffed.
"Paul came in later," Percy said to Thalia, this time with a real smile on his face. Athena relaxed a bit. Good. So this Paul figure would replace Percy's hell. That was good.
P.J. looked up at the mention of Paul, hope in his eyes.
"Thanks." Grover said sincerely.
"Any time, G-man." Percy said, giving the satyr one of those dazzling smiles that made the whole Throne Room wonder if Perseus wasn't a descendant of Aphrodite.
Grover huffed, and the whole room laughed.
Hazel suddenly laughed. "Is this why you understood the Latin at Camp Jupiter?"
Percy raised a brow. "I don't think so. I wasn't good at it. But you said the Latin automatically translated in your brain, like it did with me?"
Hazel blinked a couple of times. Annabeth fake-coughed, and said: "Uh, Seaweed Brain, even I can't talk Latin. You're a Greek demigod. Normally, only Greek's wired in our brain, like Latin is with the Roman demigods."
Percy glared astonished at his girlfriend. "Wait, you can't understand Latin? And I can? Whoa."
"That's not my point," Annabeth groaned, but all the demigods started laughing.
Athena crossed glances with Poseidon, both raised a brow. The boy was something different – that was certain.
"I do now," muttered Percy in Annabeth's ear, and she laughed.
Jason huffed. "Those are like – a hundred percent easier than Greek grammar."
Annabeth rolled her eyes at him. "Like I said. Roman: Latin wired. Greek: Greek wired. Do I have to spell it out for you?"
"In Latin, if you could," he said back, resulting him being soaked by a wave caused by Percy. Percy started laughing at Jason's angry face.
"Don't mock Annabeth, Sparky," Percy said jokingly. Jason grumbled something back in Latin, which made Percy only laugh more.
Percy jumped up, quickly pulling off his shirt, screeching like a schoolgirl as if real ants were crawling inside his shirt. The guys – and guy gods – except Nico, Dionysus and Apollo started laughing at his idiotic behavior. The rest of them just gaped at the perfectly tanned and muscled upper-body Percy possessed, glowing a radiation of power and perfectness even Athena couldn't deny.
Annabeth threw Percy's shirt back at him, scarlet red. "Put it back on."
Percy's crooked smile returned, as he didn't feel anything tickle anymore. "Why?" He asked, sitting beside his girlfriend, but put on his shirt nevertheless. "Is my six-pack making you uncomfortable?"
Annabeth turned even more red when the whole room laughed.
"Aren't we all?" Said Annabeth in a dark tone, and all the demigods nodded slowly.
Poseidon paled a bit, lifting P.J. higher, so he could wrap his entire arms around the boy's body.
As did Percy, much to everybody's amusement.
"Valid point," Artemis said, surprising everybody.
"Waiting for such a thing to happen will take a long time, folks," Thalia said.
Athena wanted to disagree – but didn't say anything.
"What?" sputtered Poseidon, paling. "What are they talking about?"
Nobody answered.
Connor groaned. "And I thought you had potential!"
"Yet he honors rule number 80," Hermes said, and Percy smiled at him.
Annabeth whistled. "He was in true form in the mortal world?"
Percy shrugged.
"All right," thundered Zeus suddenly. "I want to know. Why am I angry – why am I fighting with my brother – and what happened at the winter solstice?"
Percy scratched his head, causing his black locks to look even more in chaos. "Er… Mr. Lord of the Sky, I guess that'll be explained in the books. No spoilers, remember?"
He grumbled angrily. This time thunder boomed in the distance. "And what idiot came up with that idea? No spoilers? Idiotic!"
Percy started laughing. "Actually, you did."
The whole Throne Room laughed.
Annie rolled her eyes at the younger Grover. "Dude, duh. Haven't you noticed his grades?"
"This is future me!" Mini-Grover squeaked. "Don't blame me!"
The demigods started laughing.
"You do know satyr's can read emotions, right?" Grover said to Percy, who shrugged.
"I didn't know it at the time."
"POOR KID!" Yelled Apollo, Hermes, Hades, and a few demigods at the same time.
Athena and Annabeth just rolled their eyes.
"Does anybody else notice that he relates everything back to water?" Apollo asked to nobody in particular, but Poseidon answered anyway.
"I didn't even notice it." He said.
"Of course not," Athena rolled her eyes. "I'm not afraid to bet that you think the same way. All Seaweed Brains do."
Everybody laughed.
"Ouch," muttered Piper. "He's going to take the wrong way, isn't he?"
"Those weren't sarcastic, Perce," Grover said, laughing.
Percy already was pissed off, and grumbled something angrily. Annabeth had the same angry expression – but not because a curse was causing it.
"Prissy," Ares muttered. Poseidon noticed, who gave his cousin a nice cold shower in return.
The ground around the couch of Percy began to shook again, but Zeus didn't blast him again. He was afraid his brother was going to live up to his promise, and throw the Lord of the Sky in Tartarus if he really did harm Perseus. Not that he was going to admit he was scared.
"Here we go," said P.J., a sort of adult-ish tone to his voice.
"And here I go," said Percy, winking at his younger self, but without the smile on his face, so it just looked sad.
"HEY!" Yelled all the gods in unison, causing such a wave of power that multiple demigods' sofa's toppled over. "Who are you calling nobody, kid?"
Annabeth – though she was laying on the floor – started laughing. "Percy is Nobody."
Percy started laughing as well. When the gods stared at them with anger, he raised his arms. "Inside joke, guys! And as if my twelve year old self knew you guys existed."
"At least someone's got decency," Hera said.
Hera huffed. "Never mind. They're horrible."
"Guys are horrible," Artemis said, causing half the Throne Room to roll their eyes.
"Same old, same old," Said Grover, bumping his fist with Percy. All the demigods had taken their places again on the sofa's, but this time Grover sat beside Percy. He figured Poseidon could watch over the little ones better than he could.
Grover bleated, and everyone laughed.
"Gods, Perce," Annabeth punched his shoulder gently. "You must have given him a heart-attack."
"Pay-back," Percy just said, smiling broadly.
"Oh, only about everything," Nico said.
Grover turned red, as Hermes and his kids laughed.
Connor nudged his brother. "We're going to give him lessons, aren't we?"
Travis smiled, with a devilish twinkle in his eye. "You bet."
"Dionysus," groaned Athena. "Why do you have to torture the kids so much?"
The god of Wine shrugged. "It's funny to watch them struggle."
P.J. pouted, and all the eyes in the room turned to him. "You're rich?" He asked mini-Grover in a sad voice, who quickly shook his head.
"No! Why'd you think that?"
P.J. didn't answer.
Annabeth punched her boyfriend, this time harder. "Seaweed Brain! That's harsh!"
Artemis whistled. "You are very loyal, indeed, Perseus."
Athena nodded, much to the surprise of a certain Sea God and his son. But what she said next wasn't very complimentary. "It's your fatal flaw, isn't it? Loyalty?"
Percy didn't answer, and stared at his shoes.
Percy started coughing, and worried, Grover and Annabeth started clapping his back. Percy's face was written with absolute disgust; as if he was inhaling that rotten egg smell all over again. He quickly gestured Apollo to continue reading.
"Perseus!" yelled Annabeth with fear, and grabbed her boyfriend's shoulders. "Why didn't you tell me you met the Fates?"
"The Fates?" thundered Poseidon in his seat, his eyes glowing. "Hades, you devil's spawn! You sent the fates after my boy?"
Hades sighed at all the angry looks aimed in his direction. "You know I don't send them. The only thing I do want to know, is why that Perseus boy is still alive, sitting there."
All eyes turned on Percy, who tried to smile sheepishly. "Uh, good luck?"
Everyone who knew him, huffed. "Seaweed Brain, you aren't exactly known for your good luck." Thalia pointed out, earning some people nodding.
Annabeth pulled her boyfriend closer, and hid her face in his neck. "Perce," she whispered. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Percy wrapped his arms around her, as if he knew exactly where her body began and where it ended, positioning them as if they were two puzzle-pieces, fitting together perfectly. "I'm sorry, Chase," he whispered back. "I kind of forgot."
Everybody shuddered, even Nico and Hades.
How is that boy still alive? Athena thought, staring at the Sea Spawn's kid in wonder.
"Not funny Perce." Thalia muttered.
"Yes," muttered Poseidon under his breath, "get on the bus!"
"Seaweed Brain!" The groan was heard from all sides of the room, demigods and gods alike. Percy started to laugh. He obviously wasn't nervous, as his Book-self wasn't nervous either.
Some people caught their breath.
"Too late," Poseidon said, holding onto his son for dear life. Percy eyed the two of them with a raised brow. He was getting the feeling that his father wasn't comforting P.J. anymore by holding him – Poseidon was comforting himself by convincing himself that his son still lived.
It was kind of heart-warming to watch.
Percy whimpered on the couch, and he let Annabeth go quickly. Annabeth stared at him, first confused, then worried.
"Percy…" she began, but he cut her off by sending her one of his famous I'm-okay-don't-worry smiles.
"Much worse, kid," Hades said sadly.
"Observant," Athena said.
Thalia whimpered. "Wait – are you talking about me?"
The satyr fidgeted in his seat, blushed, and nodded.
She groaned. "Grover, nobody blames you for that."
Zeus huffed, as if he wanted to say that he'd beg the differ, but he stayed quiet after an angry glance from Hera in his direction.
Athena raised a brow. "Kid, you aren't as dimwitted as you make people believe you are."
Percy blinked at her. "Did you just.. compliment me? On my intelligence?"
The goddess sighed. "It appears that I did. Don't make me regret that compliment."
His smile was dazzling, and for a moment nobody could've noticed the difference between Percy and Poseidon – both equally handsome and troubled. "Thank you, Lady Athena."
"End," Apollo said, closing the book with a hard snap. "I got to say, kid, you've got some bad luck. Furies, and the fates?"
Percy laughed. "That's just the beginning. But shall we just read on?"
"I actually think it's time for lunch," Grover said, pointing at the little kids. Only now everyone noticed the rumbling of the stomachs of the little kids. "For all of us," he added, when Frank's stomach joined the symphony.
Everyone laughed, and got up to go get lunch.
X
End of the chap: reviews, comments, any form of communication in my way whether you liked this chapter or not and why is deeply appreciated!
Answers to anonymous reviewers:
Guest:Yeah, thank you for pointing it out! I'll try to remember it J
Pjoandhoo:o mg? That was really sweet, thank you? And I'm 19, had my birthday less than two weeks ago actually! It's not a gift, though… I just practice a lot – like, multiple hours per day a lot. And I don't mind answering those kind of questions, not at all. Keep 'em coming. I hope your day has been lovely. Xx
Guest:Maybe, I don't know?
