Chapter 20, 2008, Camp Half-Blood, Farm Road2.718, Long Island, New York 11954

Percy didn't get on with some people. That was fine, part of life and all that. But he never got jealous of someone like he did with Thalia. She was just so annoying. It wasn't even anything specific, it was just her Thalia-ness.

Everyone wanted to be around her, and by that he meant everyone , even the nymphs that usually stayed by the canoe lake turned up near the climbing wall to say hi to her.

Percy was brushing down one of the pegasi, he finally got so bored earlier that he swapped the job with Darren in exchange for a few extra toiletries stolen from the camp-store. He probably shouldn't be thinking like that, he ralised when he got so annoyed that he accidentally brushed one of the pegasi too hard.

"Please be careful, my back doesn't need to be ground down." The pegasi whinnied. Percy got the impression that if he wasn't the son of Poseidon that he'd be getting a much more foul-mouthed rebuke.

"Hey sorry buddy, I just got a lot on my mind right now."

"Perhaps a flight would calm you down lord?"

That did sound like a great idea, but Percy knew how chatty pegasi could be. He just wanted to get annoyed at Thalia in the comfort of his own head.

"No thanks buddy, I guess I need to calm down a little, I'll be back later though!"

Ha see mom, I can walk away from stuff and not blow up . Which would have been much better if he didn't walk straight into a bunch of Apollo kids, who were all chatting about how freaking awesome Thalia was. Probably. They mentioned Thalia, and Percy just got too annoyed to listen.

Storming off, Percy decided to head to the canoe lake, and his brain helpfully picked up his Thalia-dislike from where the pegasi interrupted. Gee thanks brain, why can't you hold onto stuff like that when it actually matters?!

Sure Annabeth and Grover were the last people to see her alive, but the rest of the camp! He was pretty sure that most of them weren't around when Thalia got tree-ified. For the first few days, Percy could understand. She just got back and everyone knew her story, or knew about "Thalia's Pine", so he couldn't really get jealous then. She was literally a living legend.

But the weeks afterward, even Chiron and Mr D. were giving her more time and attention than Percy, with his time at camp, all his quests, and being the reason Thalia was even back, ever got. He didn't think he was that jealous, but in the weeks after she returned, it was really hard not to snap at people when they just kept going on about 'Thalia this' and 'Thalia that'.

Even Charlie from the Hestaphus cabin, who Percy could usually hang out with, was around Thalia and Ananbeth most days, along with almost everyone else.

He tried going to one of the Stolls, he'd known them from his first summer at camp and his brief time in the Hermes Cabin. They didn't follow anyone outside of the Hermes cabin, he was sure they would be immune to the 'Thalia is awesome' vibe that was running around the camp. It worked out for maybe two days. But then they tried to prank Thalia and somehow one of them ended up in the infirmary.

All Percy could get was that one of the Stolls tried to do something to her coat, and then got injured. Percy wasn't too sure if he believed that (another rumor said that Thalia was kissing the other twin, and got mad when his brother walked in on them, which kinda sounded more believable). Usually some of the Hermes cabin would be talking about 'crossing a line' or the other camper going 'too far', but not with Thalia. Apparently they all just brushed it off, no mention of revenge pranks or nasty rumors or anything . Percy knew the last time a camper overreacted to a Hermes prank, she had nasty rumors and revenge pranks following her for weeks afterwards. But now, there was nothing. Nada. Zilch.

That wasn't how cabin 11 pranks worked. It was always a massive prank war until Capture the Flag or something else big decided the 'winner' - you couldn't just back out of a prank war with the whole of Cabin 11 like that.

Kicking a small pebble along, Percy sunk down by one of the trees near the canoe lake, if he couldn't go in the water, then being near it was good enough.

Well obviously Thalia daughter of Zeus could. Maybe she had a thing for Hermes kids, Percy thought - images of Luke and - yeah that was enough of that. Maybe she did something to shut them all up. Percy really really wanted it to be the second option, if only so he could stop thinking about Thalia and like half of the Hermes cabin.

He didn't even know how Travis (or it could've been Connor) ended up there, and for a week at that. Usually somebody, either the Hermes cabin or one of the Aphrodite kids (especially if it was a relationship thing) would be the first to spread rumors. But here, virtually nothing, the rumors had to start from the Demeter cabin before building up around the rest of the camp and getting bigger and bigger. But the entire Hermes cabin was silent.

All Percy had heard (from David, one of the Apollo medics after a spar) was that the 'wound' was healed by Chiron and Mr D working together, and Thalia was super apologetic, but that was it. No mention of what the injury was or what could apparently do that. Everyone in the Hermes cabin just pretended that it didn't happen, or that he was the weirdo for asking about it.

Even a demigod that was attacked by a hellhound wouldn't stay in the infirmary longer than a few days at most (and he kinda had some experience with that). Even after his first fight with the Minotaur, he was out for like three days max. But a week ? How was Thalia special enough to put a trained demigod out for a week, but not even get chewed out for it?

A shriek distracted him, and Percy lifted his head up from his knees, and realized that the canoe lake was now really choppy. This always happened, whenever he thought about Thalia, whatever nearby body of water would always go berserk. But he couldn't not think about Thalia since that was all anyone in camp ever talked about. The lake started making waves faster and higher, but Percy wasn't focusing on that.

Even Clarisse wasn't as harsh on Thalia like she was to him, or any new camper when they first turned up. He even heard that they were sparring partners. How could Thalia the most annoying camper since ever (even Luke wasn't too bad compared to her) suddenly get Clarisse to spar with her?

He tried to calm down, but couldn't while his thoughts were spiraling, thinking about how good and easy Thalia got it all.

"Hey Percy, cool it with the lake, some of us are trying to actually teach here!." Silena called out.

She was by the side of the lake and was coaching some kids from the Hermes cabin. Percy couldn't remember their names, but he recognized their faces. It was kinda difficult to actually see them since the canoes were being thrown around by a mini-whirlpool.

Sheepishly he waved and forced himself to breathe, the canoe lake calmed down instantly, which made one of the canoe's spin out of control before suddenly capsizing. There was another yelp and some splashing, but Percy had already gotten up from his tree and began walking away from the water. He didn't want to get chewed out for capsizing two canoes without even being on the lake.

He turned to the arena and was wondering if he could head to swordfighting or if he'd bump into Thalia, which would ruin the whole reason for going.

He jumped, with a very small squeak, when a manicured hand tapped him on the shoulder. (When Silena recounted this later to Drew, it was a full on shriek)

Selina stood behind him with a knowing look.

"Listen Percy, relationships are kind of an Aphrodite thing, you got anything you wanna get off your chest, well I'm here."

Usually Percy would have launched into a tirade about camp and Thalia, if anyone could understand being jealous of the whole of camp following Thalia it would be one of the Aphrodite girls. But, well they were Aphrodite girls and Silena was the worst for spreading relationship rumors. Percy didn't want to find out at dinner that he was suddenly in love with Thalia. Or they'd try and set up a crazy love triangle just for fun.

"Err, thanks Silena, but I just kinda need to think a little."

She turned and ran back to the Hermes kids when both demigods heard another shriek. One of them had managed to flip her canoe and the other two were laughing - well that would make for an interesting prank war, Percy guessed. Silena immediately ran back to the lake, probably guessing that she would get nothing from Percy.

Percy sighed and went off to the sword fighting arena. He couldn't sit by the canoe lake if Silena was there and wanted to talk relationships. He preferred the risk of getting skewered by Clarisse or running into Thalia than talking about relationships with an Aphrodite girl. Especially that Aphrodite girl.

When he began walking over to the arena, he thought again about Thalia and how he reacted. Sometimes he had to go off and clear his head, usually that was when Thalia was having private lessons with Chiron (entirely coincidentally the canoe lake would be seriously choppy at this time), or when her and Annabeth were hanging out (then the ground nearby would rumble ominously). He never really got the stories of Posiden's possessiveness in the myths and stories, but at times like that, he kinda understood his dad a bit better.

It was a relief that Camp was bordering the sea so that he could relax in the shallows and forget about his anger and chat to the naiads, for a while at least.

Usually his days at camp would consist of activities randomly split up by hanging out with Annabeth, Grover, or some Apollo kids that he was friendly with, but ever since Thalia showed up, hanging out was something that happened rarely - everyone wanted to meet Thalia, or be around her. And Percy couldn't stand everyone talking about her like she was so awesome, when she was just like a new camper.

What was worse, was that Annabeth was suddenly glued to Thalia's side, and Percy couldn't find a moment alone with her. When he and Annabeth were with Grover, it was cool, Grover knew them and was both their friend, and they had their own thing together. But now it was always Annabeth and Thalia, or Annabeth and Grover and Thalia, and whenever Percy hung out with them, he always felt like he was intruding. It just felt so awkward now.

He also finally realized what Annabeth meant when she told him that he and Thalia would either get on or hate each other because they were so similar.

Going off on your own for capture the Flag without any real plan? He'd done that more times than he could count, probably, but when Thalia did it, he just got really annoyed.

It majorly sucked. This was his last week before summer ended and he had to get back to his mom. The last time he would routinely see Annabeth and Grover until next summer. Except the only time he actually saw both of them now was when Thalia and Chiron went off on another lesson. But whatever.

He was determined to enjoy this last week before heading back to the Mortal world.

A/N:

Finally we get a bit of Percy and his POV (this chapter is part 1 of Percy's reaction to Thalia, I've been having trouble getting some of the reactions of other campers, so the next chapter will continue straight from this one and still be in Percy's POV, when I manage to write something that actually flows)

And yes, the coat that injured one of the Stolls (don't ask me which one) was magical, what could injure a witch/wizard would severly incapacitate a muggle/mortal, but since Harry has never really 'fought' a muggle, he doesn't know how much more dangerous a 'little' spell would be to them (when Harry gets more involved, this may or may not come back to bite him, he's an Auror used to dealing with Magical people/creatures that are 'tougher' for want of a better word than mjuggles/mortals, and if something happens in America well he doesn't have a safety net like in the UK)

So yeah, Percy is super annoyed about Thalia, but has the presence of mind to know he is (I guess that after Circe's island, for the remainder of the summer he's a little more aware of his own jelousy)

Yes he's weirdly fixated on Thalia which appears OOC, but

a) he's just gone through a very emotionally charged quest with his best-friend and (possible? future?) crush/girl he's interested in kinda, but then suddenly someone turns up and his best-friend and girl he kinda likes immediately join up with her

b) ADHD hyperfixations on random things happen (brain suddenly goes "Yep this thing is all I will think about for the next 3 hours, and then never again because reasons) and especially for a teenager it's super annoying

c) Thalia and Percy are so similar that they end up annoying each other (or at least Thalia annoys Percy)

d) Posiden in the myths is super possesive, and I like to think that Percy has inherited some of his flaws (imo Rick made him far too good and almost perfect compared to other demigods - his fatal flaw is basically being too friendly - he needs more flaws)

Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated as always!