Work Text:
Percy glances at the clock on the stove, his mind barely processing the 1:02 in green blinking brightly back at him.
He should probably get some sleep, or at least go and lay in bed in the dark for a few hours like usual, but his English essay he's been writing for The Crucible is due Thursday, and he knows if he doesn't get it done today, he won't have the motivation to later.
He writes The themes explored in The Crucible can be seen from different points of view, the most common of which include societal standards and then crosses it out and writes The reappearing theme of society's makeup in Miller's The Crucible and then erases that and writes ifuckcing hat it here.
He lets out a groan, purposefully a little too loudly because Paul and his mom are staying overnight in Albany – they're probably just finishing with the book conference and the drive back is too long for them not to ride it out in a motel for the next eight hours.
He stares at the cracked countertop, zoning out a bit as he considers giving up and just going to bed – but he won't be able to sleep anyway and this is worth thirty points of his grade, if he ends up with a zero for barely attempting it as opposed to a fifteen if he actually tries, at least he won't have to retake the class. Hopefully.
It's a little compressing, thinking about this with all but the oven and overhead kitchen light on at one in the morning – he has mounds of homework he has to do, and he's already behind in his classes. Apparently school doesn't account for middle-of-the-day quests, being missing months, or insomnia from demigod nightmares.
Maybe he just needs to get his blood flowing.
He pushes off the chair he's sitting in, stumbling a bit as the half-broken third leg gives way just enough to trip him, and heads to his room, flicking on every single light along the way. He wouldn't usually, because electricity is expensive and he's not actually using it, but he can feel his eyelids drooping and he needs to wake up.
He's picking up his backpack and getting ready to head back into the living room when there's a cackle and a bzzt noise above him, indicating somebody has just rang their (half-broken) doorbell. He holds his breath, ignoring the increase and heart rate.
He supposes there's nothing as effective at getting your blood flowing than the doorbell ringing at one in the morning in New York.
He drops his bag and it lands at his feet with a thump, slipping his hand into his pocket and fingering Riptide. He crosses his room in four easy steps, walks out into the hall, hesitating as he gets to the front door. He papers into the peephole, frowning in confusion at the head of long, black hair that meets him, pulled back with a pink hairband.
He opens the door, takes a surprised step back as Drew Tanaka looks up, – Percy barely has time to take in her appearance: three very large claw marks along the side of her left leg, blood seeping through a wound in her gut where her hands clasp protectively over, jeans and a Hello Kitty t-shirt in tatters, a smear of dirt on her face interrupted by tear tracks – and she lets out a guttural noise.
"I didn't know where else to go." She gasps, and Percy leans forward in shock and catches her as she teeters forward, "I'm sorry. "
"Woah," he says, "it's okay, it's okay –,"
She doesn't answer, just keeps letting out little gasps of pain, limping as he tries to hold her all weight. He'd tried to pick her up bridal-style if he knows she isn't stronger than she looks or more like Clarisse than she'll ever admit and she'd kill him for trying. He helps her onto the couch carefully, taking in the wounds as she leans heavily on the arm of it.
"Your couch - I'm gonna get blood on it." She mumbles, slurring a bit, and he squints, bending down a little so he's eye level with her.
"Don't worry about it," he says, starting when he sees a six-inch cut along the edge of her hairline he hasn't noticed before. It's bleeding and looks fresh, "Are you okay?"
She murmurs something incoherent, listing to the side a bit as her eyes close. He panics, shakes her just enough so that they flutter open again and holds up three fingers – "How many am I holding up?" – then moves one back and forth while her eyes follow, checks the size of her pupils – they're a little dilated, but they're not uneven. When she passes the test enough for him to continue to worry about her, but not be immediately concerned with a concussion, he guides her carefully to the floor, back against the couch.
"Stay here," he says, releasing her and holding his hands where they were in the air, just to make sure she doesn't fall again.
She slurs I'm not going anywhere, and giggles a little, so he runs into the kitchen to grab a towel and the emergency first aid his mom has under the kitchen, glad she stocked one in nearly every room. When he returns, Drew is still there and he exhales in relief.
He knows why she's here, and he thanks the Gods camp had actually gone through with the whole Demigod Safehouse thing.
It had sort of been an accident, the way it came about, if he was being honest.
Sally Jackson is well-reputable around camp for being the best mom of all the demigods and Percy isn't just saying that because she's his mom, and since it was, well, true; he's saying that because it seems that that was the general consensus for the entire population of camp.
He isn't oblivious to it, either, the way his mother's instinct are so maternal – It's why you're the Mom Friend, Grover had joked on more than one occasion, as if he didn't act like an overly supportive therapist in of himself, you worry about everyone around you, make sure they're taking care of themselves, etcetera – even at the expense of yourself – she had a natural charisma about her that drew people in that Percy had always admired her for.
There were other things, too, that had him wishing the blood in his veins outweighed the gold; he wished he'd gotten her wonderful spell-bound ability to weave a story like she was made for it; he wished he could be genuinely soft and kind and sweet for no other reason except it made others happy; he wished he gotten her calm demeanor and her outward presence and her hair. He wished he looked more like her too – being a God's son is easier when you don't look every inch like him and have a temperament attributed to his stormy nature and when monsters couldn't immediately recognize you for what you were.
His mother had offered up everything she'd had before she even had to – she'd met a god at the ripe-old age of twenty, when she'd had nothing to offer and even less to lose, had gotten thrown headfirst into a world she knew nothing about, with nobody to turn to, no support system, no sense of familiarity or home anywhere, she'd been thrown in and she'd held on and never let go. Sometimes Percy wonders if his mother has always been who she is or if her past helped her into the mold. He hopes, if it's the latter, that it happens to him – that the mistakes and regrets of his mistakes make him a better person, not a worse one. Not like how he's going now.
Anyway, it had been an accident, but about three years ago, somewhere between Chiron and Annabeth musing over a much-needed safehouse for other demigods and the Stolls talking about visiting Sally and bringing a gift because she'd helped them out of a "sticky situation" in one of their camp counselor meetings, communication got mixed and a few people ended up thinking that Sally Jackson's apartment was the demigod safehouse – one thing led to another and, after a few phone calls to his mother and four more counselor meetings, along with the creation of the Official Demigod Safehouse Committee, it had become official: Sally Jackson's apartment was one of (as of now) three places designated for demigods – claimed or not, not matter what age, so long as they could prove they were actually a demigod and not a psycho killer – to go that was guaranteed safe.
It was a little surreal, seeing it happen. It'd been a big deal, between the meeting Annabeth had setup for the entire camp (actually closer to six meetings, with kids split up into each by cabins) to make sure they knew it was there and available, the posters put up with Piper and Leo's help, the collaborating with Camp Jupiter – they'd gone over it, over and over again, tried to come up with every situation and scenario possible to ensure that this could really work, and, after months of preparation, it had happened.
They'd decided hanging a sign on Sally's, and other location's, doors and an orange outside light would be the best way to signal it being there without it being too obvious. The sign, designed from about eighteen different ideas mashed up into one, was bright orange with black letters, like a driving warning sign, that read ODSC: Local in little letters with a giant pegasus underneath it. It was a little weird and funky looking, and Percy's pretty sure the other people on his floor think he's crazy, but it works and it's visible. Attempts are continuing to be made to make one that makes more sense and looks a bit less conspicuous, but this is what they've got until then.
Hopefully, tonight, it'll help save Drew's life.
When Percy crouches back down next to Drew, he sets the first aid kit open and places it on the couch, watching for a moment to make sure it doesn't fall off. Drew's made herself comfortable – she really is bleeding quite a bit and Percy tries not to worry about the couch too much (the couch his mom was obsessed for no reason, he suspects, except because she never had the freedom for her own when he was a kid), stain removers , he reminds himself, but he still winces at the amount of pure red that's bleeding into everything. He slips the towel as well as he can behind her back.
"Dre-ew," he half sings quietly and she grunts. He snorts, "Just making sure you're alive." and then addresses the actual seriousness of the situation.
He's closer to this then he's willing to admit – Drew and Percy, when they were younger, kept at first accidentally getting partnered up for archery class and Capture the Flag games when Annabeth wasn't the one making the battle plan, until they started doing it subconsciously. Drew was actually cooler than she looked on the surface, although just as bitchy, and Percy couldn't help but find her take-no-shit attitude admirable. He couldn't count on one hand how many times he'd gotten in trouble during counselor meetings for laughing too loud at her jokes – usually terrible impressions of people she didn't like and crudely said insults – and she didn't say anything about him wanting to paint his nails, thirteen and thoroughly confused about love, when he was looking for Silena, who was out on some side quest, and they'd ended up talking about the differences between the patriarchy-based philosophies that society ran on and which sitcom was the best. Percy thinks their friendship surprised the other campers – he knows it surprised him, he suspects it probably did her, too – but they had a weird amount in common (and several things they heavily disagreed on, which brought some interesting conversations – or, more likely, arguments).
"I need you to learn forward so I can take your shirt off," he says.
She complies, not without first murmuring, "You could've just asked if you wanted to see me naked, Jackson." because of course she does.
She carefully pulls it off and Percy doesn't miss her wince. He readjusts the towel to guarantee full coverage and then opens the first aid kit and sets to work. He runs an antibiotic Q-Tip across a few of the deep scratches – Drew jolts forward and mutters a curse through gritted teeth and he apologizes – and places bandages over them. They're not completely bad, just enough so that keeping them covered for a day or two will be more beneficial than letting them breathe.
"You want to tell me what happened?" He asks, as he puts on the last one.
She shrugs, then seems to regret the action. "Do you want the long version, short version, or fun version?"
Percy pretends to consider, "Go ahead and hit me with the fun one."
Drew nods and Percy starts working on her abdominal wound - it looks like whatever got her, got her good. Probably Empousa claws, and it runs from just above her left waistline to below her sternum. It's still very badly actively bleeding and it looks like it needs stitches. He wishes Camp had been closer – Percy's done hundreds of stitches before, and in fact it's one of the units demigods have to learn about in their basic med classes – he just wishes that someone more qualified was doing this. Besides, his hands weren't the steadiest.
"Empousa." She says, confirming his suspicions, "On my way to help out Effy and Dani with a supposed baby satyr when she attacked me out of nowhere. Last I heard, they'd made it back to camp."
Effy, a Demeter kid, and Dani, the newest daughter of Nike, were both fairly new. This was probably a beginner's quest to test their skills and see if they were ready to do bigger ones. Most demigods got some sort of reprieve, before going out "into the real world" – Percy wished he'd gotten the same welcome, as opposed to being, quite literally, thrown over the camp borders and into a world he knew nothing about.
He gets out the thread and needle before, cursing himself slightly for not thinking about it – "I'll be right back, stay here." "Again, I'm not going anywhere, aquamarine," – he heads back into the kitchen to grab an ice pack and a washcloth. He wraps it carefully, remembering tips from his mother when he was ten and had a sprained wrist, getting it a little damp so it doesn't stick to it.
He comes back, tells Drew to brace herself and then presses the ice pack to the wound. She twitches and he apologizes, holding it there for thirty seconds. He preps the needle, ties the string, and moves the icepack.
"Okay, brace yourself." He murmurs and Drew grips his wrist.
"Just get it over with," she says through gritted teeth.
"Three, two –," he pushes the needle through her skin and she groans her head lolling back with a curse.
"I hate you,"
"I know."
It goes relatively easy from there; not for Drew, obviously, because she doesn't stop cussing him out everytime she has enough breath, but there doesn't seem to be any complications and when he's finished, he takes a little piece of ambrosia he has extra of in the baggy in the kit. They're already proportioned, according to the Unofficial Demigod Handbook – another thing created thanks to the ODSC, thanks to Malcolm, Annabeth, and Clarisse.
"Here," Percy says, holding it out, "Eat this."
She takes it, stuffs it into her mouth and immediately relaxes. He gives her a minute as he picks up – puts the first aid kit away, hangs the washcloth over the kitchen tap, even puts his still unfinished essay into his backpack.
When he comes back, he sits next to Drew and slips her arm around his neck.
"Let's go."
"Fuck off." She says, batting him away, "Why? Wh're we goin'?"
"To my room." He says, grabbing onto her arm a little tighter, "You need sleep."
She huffs, but titls onto him, her eyes closing a bit, "Yeah. Sleep soun's nice."
Percy snorts and wraps an arm around her waist. He silently counts to three, helping her stand as she groans. She manages to balance, righting herself out and stumbling as Percy barely catches her.
"Here – you can lean on me." He says, shouldering her weight.
"Ah," Drew nods, "you're just a true gentleman, aren't you?"
Percy shakes his head and they trek their way forward.
Percy is as tall as Drew now and he remembers the first capture the flag game when he'd been on her team – he'd been thirteen and 4' 9" and she'd been twelve and 5'1". They may have had years past from then, but at least in that time he'd never grown taller than her. That would just feel unnatural.
She leans against him, limping on her right leg and swallowing down whatever grimaces tried to make themselves known.
She leans just a little closer – enough that he can tell she, unsurprisingly, sprayed on perfume before her mini quest – and sniffs the air twice. "You smell like mint. And apples. Apples and cinnamon, like oatmeal."
Percy gives her a look and ducks away, "Uh - thanks, I guess."
He blames it on the blood loss.
He manages to half-pull, half-drag her along, being as cautious as possible. They make it across the living room and past the kitchen, into his room, when she speaks again.
"You think your mom will be upset when she finds a girl in your bed?" She teases and he helps her slide into his bed, nodding.
"Yeah. She'll probably go psycho and kick you out. Forbid you from ever coming back again, maybe make you sign a contract. You know."
"Ah," she nods, sincerely, "so the usual?"
"Right."
It's nice to joke like this now, mostly because they both know they're being completely ridiculous, but also because after the post-bandaging, -gauzing, -neosporin-ing, and ambrosia-ing, Percy's a little exhausted and everytime he remembers he never finished the essay on The Crucible, he panics a little. He wasn't tired before, but now he definitely is, and nothing sounds better than collapsing and falling asleep.
He makes sure Drew can lay down and get comfortable without too much pain (or getting more blood somewhere else) and then switches the lights off.
"Night, Tanaka." he says.
"Night, 'cy," she slurs and he hears her snore softly behind him as he shuts the door.
He walks back into the living room, writes out a quick note for his mom – the girl in my bed is drew, if theres no girl pls ignor this, <3 u :^) – and then shoves everything off the couch and collapses into it. He closes his eyes and lets the sound of ever-busy New York lull him to sleep, vowing to finish his essay tomorrow.