The fight was lasting longer than Percy had stamina for.

The gryphon in front of him etched short, menacing claw marks in the ground before charging at him. Percy twisted, slammed into it like an NFL star, and seized the gryphon around its middle, throwing himself and the gryphon to the cement sidewalk. The pack of gryphons around them howled their disapproval as they wrestled, ripping feathers and skin, until he had the soft underbelly exposed. Percy roared, raised Riptide above his head, and stabbed. Blood sprayed up as the gryphon struggled. He tried to stand, but got caught in the grip of the dying monster. Others were starting to swarm.

Then Grover was at his side, cutting off the claw that had his forearm in it's hold, and wielding his small dagger with a ferocity that had the gryphons second guessing their attack. They fell into sync, back to back, as Percy slashed at another gryphon, grazed the side of its black wing, and sent a spiral of feathers around him.

"They're worse than New York pigeons," Grover shouted, stabbing at a smaller gryphon lunging for his neck. "Not by much, but definitely worse."

There were eight of them still circling the two of them, two on the ground dying, and one dead at the end of 5th Avenue.

Percy hadn't eaten enough—his stomach felt like it was desperate enough to eat his other intestines instead—and his head was spinning. But he had this stupid grin on his face, you know? Because he got to fight alongside their childhood best friend, in front of the 5th Avenue Lego store, defending the gold brick display they had in their front windows from a pack of ravenous, probably rabid gryphons.

His knuckles were dripping blood onto the wet pavement, making these dark red dots on the cement and soaking into his tennis shoes. He looked at Grover.

"I mean, can you imagine what little Percy and Grover would think, defending their dream store with their last breath?"

"I'd've thought we were the main characters of the next Odyssey," Grover said, smiling despite the blood dripping into the corners of his mouth from a cut on his forehead. "Do things like this happen often when you're on shopping sprees?"

Percy shook his head, then stepped into a lunge and cleaved a gryphon's wing in two. "More than you know, buddy."

Grover laughed one of those high-pitched laughs that screamed you're crazy, you son of a sea tyrant, and I can't believe this is actually happening. Percy'd heard it a hundred times over the years.

The street was almost clear now, the tourists and shoppers moving away in waves from whatever the Mist told them was happening. Maybe they saw two idiots fighting pigeons, or armed robbers, or maybe armed pigeons. Both of the Lego storefront windows were covered in bird shit and spiderwebbing cracks from the gryphon's attempts at breaking in.

"Look out!"

A fat gryphon dove at his head, and Percy ducked a little too late. The monster's claw struck the side of his face, and Percy hit the ground. Hard.

The gryphons were on him in milliseconds, claws locked into his clothes, beaks straining at his face. He could hear Grover's screams.

Percy felt a gryphon take a chunk of his flesh off his shoulder—almost his ear, if he hadn't pulled his head to the side and pushed at the gryphon pinning down his chest. The momentum had him tipping forward, head-butting another stupid bird, tears blurring his vision, legs wobbling underneath him, until another gryphon caught him from behind and shrieked, razor-sharp beak lashing into the back of his right calf. His knees buckled.

His body was on fire. Blood coated his hands. His shirt hung off him in ribbons, and he couldn't see Grover anymore in the chaos of flapping wings and claws—couldn't see him, but could hear him, even over the safety alarms blaring from the Lego Store.

"Percy!" was the last thing he heard before—

BOOM!

The sidewalk shook underneath Percy's feet, rattling the cracked window. Percy looked up—

"Percy no!"

White light seared through Percy's eyes, slicing, searing right to his brain. His whole skull convulsed under its intensity.

He vomited.

He could hear the alarms, hear Grover's voice, hear the panicked cries of the gryphons as their claws unlatched themselves from his skin and flapped their wings and—and then silence. Percy whimpered.

"Grover—I-I can't—"

Warm hands on his face, on his injured shoulder, on his face again.

"You're going to be okay," Grover said. His voice broke between heavy breaths. "You're going to be okay. Sh, shh. Look at me, Percy."

"I can't see."

"Holy shit," Grover wheezed. "You looked right at my flash grenade, I was desperate, I tried to warn you—I'm so sorry."

Grover's hands left his face and Percy felt his heart lurch into his throat. He was reaching for his friend with his good arm even before he could process it.

"Don't leave," Percy croaked. "Grover, I can't—"

"We gotta go."

Grover's arms were around his shoulders, and Percy couldn't feel his shoulder injury as much as he felt the hot wave of blood that rushed from it and down his arm and back. Then Grover had them moving by sheer force of will, because Percy's legs weren't doing anything to help.

The world was white. Like, Christmas morning white but worse. He let his head fall back, but meeting what should have been the daytime sky only made his eyes hurt worse. He felt Grover pulling them across the street, swearing at the cars that tried to peel through the cross walk anyway. Percy felt bile rising again.

"I might need some help, Percy," Grover said, his voice strained. He could tell their pace was slowing, felt the shaking of Grover's goat legs.

"Cn'move," Percy slurred.

But then they were stopped, and Percy's back was against a brick wall. He slid down it, the rough bricks scratching at his tattered shirt and skin, till he was sitting again.

Grover was fiddling with his fanny pack—Percy could hear the rustling of fabric and zippers—then he was pressing something to Percy's lips.

"It's ambrosia. I have more at your apartment."

There was a beat where Percy just shook, trying to convince himself he was capable of unclenching his jaw and swallowing the portion Grover wanted him to eat. He felt Grover pry his lips apart, push the cold ambrosia between his teeth.

Chocolate chip cookies.

Gods, how long had it been since he'd used ambrosia to heal his wounds? The taste melted across his tongue and chased away the taste of blood. Percy felt it coat his throat and warm his insides.

They sat there, panting next to each other, until Percy had managed to eat the small piece Grover had given him, and was pretty sure he wouldn't throw it back up.

"Better?" Grover asked. "Your pupils are still dilated."

"Everything's still white."

"Right. Okay. I'm sure it's not permanent?"

Grover didn't sound that sure. Percy hovered his good arm up until he was fairly certain it would land on Grover's shoulder, then grasped it.

"I would have died if you hadn't been there."

"Well, you're not out of the woods yet."

"I can't believe you carry a flash grenade with you in your fannypack."

"I can't believe you didn't hear my seventeen warnings I was going to throw said flash grenade from my fanny pack." He paused. "Oh, shit."

The hairs on Percy's neck stood. "Grover, don't say that unless you mean to narrate exactly what you're seeing to me."

"They found us."

"Who?"

"The gryphons."

Percy used his good arm to slowly, painfully, inch himself up the brick wall until he was standing—with some help from the wall. He flicked Riptide at where he assumed the gryphons were coming from.

Grover's voice. "Percy, get behind me."

"I can fight."

"You can't see, Percy."

"I can fight!" Percy took a step forward, but his leg buckled underneath him as soon as the wall wasn't there for support. He spat, breathing heavy, then raised his sword from where he knelt.

"Don't make me do this," Grover warned.

"I can fight," Percy coughed. The ambrosia taste wasn't masking the taste of hot iron in his mouth anymore. But he couldn't let Grover—his best friend—face the monsters on his own. He could fight through this. He'd fought through worse.

He lifted a hand, summoning every droplet from every puddle that would hear his call. His wounds bled into the wave. He shook from the effort, or maybe the blood loss.

The air buzzed with his power.

"I can't lose you, man," he heard Grover say. "We have to run."

Then he heard the gryphon's battle cry just as something flat cracked against the base of his skull, and the white, white world went black.

Percy woke shivering, and soaking wet.

"Hey, hey hey hey—" It was Grover's voice, but there was no face to go with it. No visuals at all. "It's okay, it's okay."

Percy didn't know much, but he did know that was a lie.

"I can't see," Percy said, his voice a hoarse whisper in the gauzy whiteness that was his world. "Grover—I can't see."

"I did some googling. It's going to be temporary. But… it's my fault. I'm sorry, Perce."

Temporary. Okay. It's temporary.

Percy let out a jagged breath. Then froze. "Did you tell Annabeth?"

"I was just going to call her—"

"Don't." Percy's heart was beating out of his chest. "Grover, she'd be on a plane and in New York in seconds and she'd spend next semester's money to fly here, and risking flying is already dangerous, and—"

Grover cut him off, his hands on either side of his face. "Breathe for me, okay? I won't call her if you don't want me to. I get it."

"You know I want her here," Percy said miserably. "I just… she can't know."

"I'm sorry."

He felt like he'd been run over multiple times, with a constellation of pain radiating over the map of his body. Percy flapped a hand in Grover's general direction.

"Not your fault, buddy, don' worry about it."

"But—"

Percy's hands trailed along the floor he was sitting on, feeling the cold water pool around him. His shower. In his apartment.

"How'd we get back here?" Percy asked.

Grover hesitated. "I… knocked you out and dragged you back here when you nearly killed yourself trying to fight the gryphons that followed us."

Percy sunk against the shower wall. "So they're still loose."

"Yeah."

"You've checked the scanners?"

Grover cleared his throat. "I don't know, Perce. I don't want to know why you have one of those constantly spitting notifications on your phone."

"But did you check it?"

A beat of silence.

"Yeah, I did." Percy swallowed, closing his eyes as Grover went on. "They got into the Lego store, and a few of the stores around it. Sounds like the Mist has it covered up like an armed robbery of some sort. Police say 'suspects are still at large.' So… there's that."

Percy's head thunked against the shower wall. His whole face had a heartbeat—behind his eyes, inside the bridge of his nose, his jaw—and it was feeling like he was either going to throw up, or start to cry.

"Anybody get hurt?"

Grover put a cool hand against his forehead. "Other than you? No." His voice was soft. Too soft. Percy only heard that voice come out when he was in pretty bad shape.

"I'm okay, Grover. I'll heal."

"Well, half of the reason you're looking like a sad drown rat in a flooded shower is my fault, and I'm feeling pretty damn bad about it right now so don't—don't try and tell me your fine when I can see that your shoulder hasn't knit itself up yet, and you're blind because of my emergency flash grenade, and for some reason you're not panicking about that like a perfectly reasonable person would be? And then I'm the one that hit you over the back of the head. And we fell a few times on the way here, and I've tried to get the water warm for you, but either I'm incompetent or this shower has one temperature. And I'm really, really sorry."

Percy fumbled until he was fairly certain he had Grover's hand.

He angled his face until he was fairly certain he would be looking Grover in the eye.

"Did you say pretty dam bad?" Percy asked.

Grover snorted. "I guess I should know better than to think you'd've let that joke die."

Percy smiled, then flinched when it pulled at a healing scab on his lip.

"This isn't how I planned our week together going," Grover said weakly. "You, dying in a shower."

"I'm fine, Grover. And don't worry, I'm not dying."

Grover let out a worried, wet laugh. "It's hard not to worry when I look at your eyes like that."

Speaking of eyes—"Do you have the lights on?"

"Yeah—oh, do you need them off?"

Percy heard Grover get up, his hooves shuffling on the broken tile flooring, before the white sheet over his vision got a little easier to manage, the stabbing pain a little less potent. He let out an audible sigh.

"Thanks."

Percy let Grover check his eyes, check his head, check his neck. "You're not hiding some horrifying brain injury, right? You'd tell me if I knocked something loose?"

"Promise." Percy doesn't even flinch when Grover puts some sort of warm, wet fabric over his eyes, just obligingly held it in place with his good arm.

"Where else were you bit?" Grover asked as he wiped at the massive gash along his shoulder. "I know you can't see this one, but it looks bad. Like, ground beef patty bad."

Percy felt the bile rise. He swallowed deliberately. "Couple of places. Did you find my first aid kit?"

Grover's answer comes in the form of a spraying sound, then burning burning burning as the spray antiseptic soaked into his shoulder wound. "The giant, very official-looking red bag in your very empty cupboards? Got it here. Sorry—sorry! I should have warned you that would sting."

"Sting is what bees do. This feels like the fires of Hades," Percy ground out through gritted teeth, suddenly feeling not very grateful for the first aid bag that Duri gave him.

"Do you want me to just take you in to the hospital? I saw there was one across the street—"

"Not a chance," Percy said, thinking of Duri again.

Grover's pinching the loose sides of skin on his shoulder wound together, then sticking something on top of it to hold it in place. "Try not to move, I don't really know what I'm doing."

"Gods, that hurts."

Another strip across. Percy felt his skin complaining under the tension.

There's a silence that settled over the cramped bathroom for a while. Grover replaced the wet cloth over Percy's eyes, which were gummy and sore. He finished with the last butterfly bandages on the shoulder wound, and was just about to sit back on his haunches when Percy grudgingly told him about the chunk of his calf that he'd lost to a gryphon.

He almost didn't. He could feel it closing as they spoke from the water's touch.

Grover looked at it, then dry heaved.

"Sorry," Grover coughed. "Just—that's so gross to watch."

"I'd trade you, but…" Percy said yawning, adjusting the cloth over his eyes and shrugging. He deserved the smack he got on his good arm for that one.

"No blind jokes, man."

Percy smiled, looking down.

"I'm thinking about turning the shower on again. Just to refresh some of the water," Grover said after a while. Percy's only response was a soft grunt.

He was falling asleep—he shook himself back awake, upsetting the wet cloth and startling Grover, who swore and tipped something over.

"That's your problem, you know," Grover said, his voice soft. "You never see enough is enough. Like… I don't know how to describe it. Like not doing something equals failure. And like all of the responsibility—all of the horrible things that happen to everyone, like its somehow your responsibility to be the punching bag between them."

Percy winced under the wet cloth, itched at his healing wounds. "Grover…"

"Why do you have a police scanner app? Why are you twice as scarred since the last time I saw you?"

"Would you believe me if I said I'm bad at stairs?"

Grover's silence told him no.

Percy cleared his throat. "Have you ever seen Ghost Busters?"

Grover listened for hours, as Percy's body slowly put itself back together again. Grover hesitantly gave him another piece of ambrosia to help him along.

"You really don't need an overdose right now," he said as he helped it to Percy's lips. "But seeing as you still have a gaping wound instead of a calf, I say we risk it."

And a half an hour later, and a lot more stories that made Grover ugly cry, swear at him, and threaten to strangle him, quote "you dumb saltwater ass," Percy felt as close to good as new as he had in a long time.

Well, except for the fact that his eyes were still functioning at about twenty-five percent.

Grover helped him into the kitchen, where they devoured Aldi-brand cereal bowls in the double digits, then dove into a peanut butter jar, then scoured his fridge until they found an ice-coated dumpling bag that Grover somehow managed to make delicious despite the freezer burn—with the caveat that Percy had to keep talking about his stupid New York ghost-busting.

Percy had just finished telling the story about the relic and the antique store, when he realized Grover had gone quiet. He squinted through his slowly-returning vision.

"Grover?"

"I'm good, I'm good," Grover said, voice tight. "Just… bleeding through my bandage."

Percy's heart jumped into his throat. "You're hurt? Grover, why didn't you tell me—why did you give me the ambrosia if you're bleeding—"

"Gods, Perce, it's just a scratch."

"I don't believe that for a second."

Grover hand him by the wrists, guiding his shaking fingers to his side. "Feel it, then. I'll be fine by the morning."

Percy let him place his fingers against the bandage as he strained to see, shaking his head. It made his heart ache worse than his eyes.

Then he looked up. "Can I hug you?"

Grover just pulled him straight in.

He couldn't say how long they stood like that, full of their smorgasbord of randomized carbs, in each other's arms.

"You scared me so bad, Perce," Grover croaked into Percy's chest. "I literally don't think I breathed that whole time you were out."

"I wouldn't have made it without you," Percy said. "And I'm really, really glad you're here with me. I've had… it's been hard. All of this."

Grover laughed, but it sounded forced. "I've lost count of how many times you've been stabbed this year, and you haven't even caught me up to the present day."

"I'm sorry—"

"And you can't see it yet, but I think my hair's gone gray since the Lego store ambush."

Percy did laugh then, a real one that gave him vertigo in his fuzzy-vision world. Grover dragged him to the couch, sat him down, and then that beautiful blanket was up over both of them.

"Do you have a TV or something we could—oh, right. Sorry."

Percy shrugged. "Usually I'm just passed out on the couch with nightmares for entertainment."

"Sheesh, Perce." He felt the couch shift, like Grover was getting up.

"Can you stay anyway?" Percy was holding onto Grover's bloody shirt sleeve before he even registered it, stopping his friend from moving any farther away. "Please?"

Gods, he sounded pitiful. He knew he did, as he felt Grover melt back onto his antique couch, pulling the blanket over both of them until they were swallowed up in its folds.

"Yeah. I'm not going anywhere."

Percy felt himself relax. "Man, I missed you."

"I missed you too. Now I'm going to fall asleep on this glorious couch and so are you—and you're going to manifest being able to see again so when you wake up you don't look so pitiful, and we can call your girlfriend."

But Percy was already falling asleep on Grover's shoulder.