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Jason noticed first.
And first, it started out small.
Three days after escaping through the Doors of Death, Percy had lookout duty with him. Jason made his way from the bow to the stern, glancing up in case something decided to attack. Percy was staring off the port side, down into the ocean as if it was granting him visions of the future.
He didn’t mean to surprise Percy. In fact, before now, it hadn’t been possible; he was on high alert at all times. But Jason walked up and put a hand on Percy’s shoulder to let him know he was there and—the next second, Jason blinked in shock—he was being bent backwards over the rail with a sharp pain in his knee and hand around his neck and a sword at his eye.
Percy had full on kicked his leg out from under him and shoved him against the rail like a rag doll.
“Percy, it’s me,” Jason croaked.
Percy watched Jason, not responding, with unreadable eyes. Unreadable except for the ounce of recognition. Percy knew it was him, he knew he was safe.
For a moment—a brief, terrifying moment—Percy shoved a bit harder, like he was ready to throw him overboard anyway.
And then Riptide was gone, and Jason was set gently on the deck. “Sorry, man,” Percy said lightly. Jason knew he wasn’t imagining a new tension between them. “Reflex.”
“No problem, bro,” Jason replied with a forced chuckle. And he left, keeping his pace relaxed, walking to the stern like nothing had happened. Like he wasn’t reevaluating everything he thought he knew about the son of Poseidon.
It was cloudy when Leo realized that the only thing protecting the Seven from Percy was his own self control.
Clouds never made for optimal flying conditions, but considering the alternative was a three-day detour around a peninsula, and also they had a complete Demigod Children of the Big Three collectible set, Leo thought it was worth the risk.
He would take an endless amount of three-day detours if it meant never seeing Percy like that again.
Percy was on lookout, alone because he practically begged Jason for some time to think, please, Jase—and the blond superman was powerless against Percy’s infamous puppy dog eyes.
It was all going well until a pack of griffins decided the Argo II looked like a demigod-meat drive-thru. “I’ll get Jason!” Leo called over the alarm.
“Don’t bother,” Percy replied calmly. So Leo didn’t. He didn’t bother getting Jason, and instead stayed at the helm and watched.
Percy took Riptide out of his pocket, but for the first time in Leo Valdez’s monster attack memory, he didn’t uncap it. He chucked it over the rails of the ship. Instead of his sword, he leveled his hand at the pack of hungry griffins, who were circling the demigod-meat drive-thru, looking for a parking lot to set down on.
Was being a demigod burrito in Percy’s near future?
Leo wasn’t sure what was going on at first. But the clouds started swirling, moving—a drive-thru employee coming out to tell the pack that, sorry, we’re closed today. Please accept this coupon to our sister-store, Not demigod-meat, in the pits of Tartarus.
The clouds circled around the hungry griffins. A petulant squawk sounded in the air—a plea for the drive-thru manager. Unluckily for these monsters, Percy was the manager. He stared, hand outstretched, face blank, while the clouds reared their heads and lunged at the griffins.
Welp, we’re dead, Leo sighed. Clouds wouldn’t exactly be his first choice or even last choice of weapons against bloodthirsty, monstrous drive-thru customers. They wouldn’t even make the list. Except, instead of doing absolutely nothing as expected, tendrils of water vapor surrounded the griffins and tightened, immobilizing them. Cloud puff—a terrifying weapon, Leo decided after a quick reevaluation—worked its way into their beaks and ears and eyes, and some of the clouds must have cut into the griffins because they were cawing wildly and writhing around in pain.
And then, one at a time, they exploded into demented fireworks of golden dust, leaving griffin-shaped molds in the clouds before they retreated to the sky like nothing happened.
“Ala mierda,” Leo whispered.
Percy started as if Leo had just appeared. His sea green eyes met Leo’s hazel ones and a small smile slipped onto his face. “Let’s keep this between us, yeah?”
A small smile with a threat clearly written behind it. Leo nodded vehemently. “Absolutely.”
Frank didn’t often hang around the deck as a seagull, but something was off, and he needed to find out what. Leo was spooked, and it had all started a few days ago when he was up here with Percy.
Percy had managed to convince Jason to let him take lookout duty all by himself. And Leo was avoiding him like the plague, so the only thing keeping the Argo II on course was Festus. Which, in all actuality, was going very well until a harpy flew into his head and the nav system went haywire.
Haywire systems tend to set off loud alarms, and loud alarms tend to startle both the flock of harpies drifting a few hundred feet off the starboard side and the recently-traumatized hell-survivor on watch.
The harpies managed their fright well enough; they started shrieking and dive-bombing the deck. They became high-speed, feathery missiles that impaled everything they could before retreating to go again.
Percy was a bit less refined in his reaction. He acted without thinking, and before Frank knew what happened, Riptide was sticking out of the speaker, having cut it clean in half. Due to a probably-related fault, it promptly stopped blaring the nav system’s going-haywire alarm, and continued its suffering in silence.
And here Frank had just assumed that Percy would be as bad at throwing swords and knives as he was at archery.
Percy was still Percy, however, because he took half a second to reach into his pocket for his sword before he remembered where it was. “Ah, fuck,” he cursed. He scanned the deck for anything he could use, but unless he could think of a way to use the bubble wrap Annabeth stocked up on as a weapon, he was dead out of luck.
Out of luck, but clearly not out of ideas. Percy cursed again, this time something truly vulgar in Ancient Greek that almost shocked Frank into laying an egg, then raised his arms.
Leo had mentioned something vague about Percy and clouds, but the sky was clear today. Frank watched Percy intently. A harpy cried out and fell from the sky. Frank hadn’t been looking at the flock, so he shifted his focus. It took a few more harpies taking nosedives and falling from the sky, but he finally figured out what Percy was doing.
One of the harpies had landed on the deck a few yards from Frank. He watched Percy turn his gaze on it and flex his fingers. The harpy stopped dead in its tracks and started gasping. A strangled shriek fell from its lips and ended in a croak as the harpy fell over and turned to gold dust.
But Frank had noticed something else. The whites of its eyes had burst into a gradient of pink and red.
Mother of Mars, he was rupturing their blood vessels.
By the time the flock was gone and the gold, dusty remains had blown away, dread had settled in Frank’s stomach like a boulder. He had a good idea of why Leo was giving Percy a wide berth. Maybe this even explained why Jason was watching Percy like he might reveal himself to be an eidolon at any minute.
A piercing whistle caught Frank’s attention while also almost blowing out his poor, bird ear drums. He faced the source of the noise.
Percy had a smudge of monster dust on his cheek. “You know, normal seagulls run for their lives when the action starts,” Percy said, turning to look pointedly where Frank was perched. He walked over to the helm and pulled Riptide from the speaker. “Hmm, Leo’s gonna need to fix that.”
And with a final glance in his direction, Percy left Frank alone on the deck.
Hazel tried not to involve herself with conflicts between her friends. Taking sides felt unfair, especially if there was really no reason to in the first place. Demigod disputes tended to sort themselves out fairly quickly, considering—well, there were different reasons for the Greeks and the Romans.
The Romans didn’t allow dissent in the ranks. So an argument, if it didn’t settle itself in a few days, was dueled out in the arena, or brought to a ranking officer. Hard feelings had to be sorted out quickly. And even after a full ten years of service, veterans tended to keep this method of problem solving. It just made for a quicker, easier solution.
The Greeks’ reason broke Hazel’s heart. Percy explained it to her once, when they were crossing the Atlantic and he and Jason were butting heads. He talked about how no one really expected them to live past sixteen, and there just wasn’t enough time to be angry at each other for too long because either of you could be dead the next day.
Camp Half-Blood’s life expectancy shocked her. Annabeth had told her stories—about when Percy arrived at Camp, the oldest demigod was nineteen. How the fact that they had five demigods going to college was astronomical.
It really put things in perspective. And it made the fact that all the boys seemed to be avoiding Percy that much more obvious.
She asked Frank about it, but he clammed up, claiming they were all just thinking something through. But what could be that concerning, that they’d just steer clear of Percy like that?
She decided to ask him, because Percy had always been honest with her before. So one night after dinner, she slipped into his cabin and flicked the lights on.
Wrong move. Percy jerked in his bed and flung his hand out at her. Hazel felt something wrong take hold of her and shove her against the wall. She cried out as her head hit the wall. That seemed to snap Percy out of whatever dream he was in. He shot up, alert, and searched the room until his eyes fell on Hazel.
“Fucking shit—Hazel!” Percy dropped his hand and she could move again.
He pressed himself against the wall, trying to give her space, or maybe appear less threatening or something, but it didn’t work because the only thing Hazel could imagine Percy controlling in people is blood, and—shit. That wasn’t right, how could he do that?
“Gods, Hazel, I—“ Percy cut himself off and just shook his head. He was shaking, she noticed distantly. Hazel just—she couldn’t back up anymore. He’d slammed her against the wall. So she kept staring at him, keeping him in her sights as she fumbled for the doorknob. When she found it, she threw the door open and slipped out, never turning her back, not until it was closed again.
Then she ran.
Piper had decided: if she had a nickel for every time she opened her door to find a nervous teenage boy pacing in the hall, she’d have three nickels, which wasn’t all that many, but it was odd that it had happened more than once.
Especially on a greek warship that only had four teenage boys.
Jason, last week, had been dead certain that Percy almost threw him overboard. Even after recognizing that, first off, it was him, Jason, and secondly, he wasn’t a threat. Which, come on. Percy? Their Percy, who wouldn’t even walk near the railing when they were in the air? Maybe you’re just stressed, Jason.
And then it happened a few days later with Leo. Leo, who had looked up to Percy and tried to prove himself to him since they met him in New Rome. Leo ended up ranting to her about the clouds, Pipes, he used the clouds as a weapon, and he didn’t even kill those griffins quickly like we all know he could because come on, he’s a badass, he held them in place and they shrieked so much and then he finished them off and then he told me—oh, Holy Hephaestus, he said to keep it between us and I didn’t and now he’s gonna kill me! Pipes, I’m too young and handsome to die single, I can’t—
At which point Piper swore that no one would know they had talked, and Leo calmed down enough to repeat some of the finer points of what happened, and Piper started to wonder. Maybe Jason was right. There was no doubting that Percy was a hero, and they needed him to finish this quest, but literal hell probably changes a person.
Percy had trained since he was twelve to be a monster-killing machine. Maybe Tartarus enhanced that. Maybe it made him a bit too ruthless.
But of course, Piper had nothing to confirm her suspicions.
And then she found Frank. He wasn’t even pacing on two legs. He’d turned into a bulldog and gone at it like that. She watched him for a while—they weren't close, not really—but something about how tense he was, something about how he'd resorted to pacing as a dog told her he might need to talk.
He did. And Hera’s tits did his story scare her.
The first thing she balked at was, what if she accidentally scared Percy from across the room and he took her head off? Did they even teach knife throwing at Camp? Honestly, she wouldn't even have believed Frank if the alarm speaker wasn't still broken. What scared her the most, though? Blood. Percy Jackson—the guy everyone she knew said was the most powerful demigod on the planet, the guy that had a pet hellhound and had always acted with such mercy before—could control blood? How? In what way did blood relate to his control over water?
He slaughtered a bunch of monsters with it? One time, Percy told her he felt bad killing hellhounds because they reminded him of Mrs. O’Leary. And this boy turned around and tortured a flock of harpies by making their blood vessels explode?
Something had happened. Percy wasn’t acting like Percy anymore.
And Piper doubted she’d get a fourth nickel, but maybe Percy needed someone to talk to anyway.
There were easy ways to get people to talk—Piper of all people would know—but the best way, she had found, was to make yourself available. Opening up didn't come naturally to anyone she'd met. Of course it would be hard for the toughest demigods she knew. Piper took to keeping near Percy, staying relaxed and open, in hopes he would come to her. He didn't; Percy would politely excuse himself each time, leaving Piper alone to wonder.
The next time she found herself alone with Percy, which happened just after lunch a few days later, she just started talking. Percy was doing the dishes, because he didn’t even have to move to do them and he was nice enough to volunteer for that particular chore. It was Piper’s turn to wipe down the tables. She filled the silence with stories of what foods she'd chucked at which monsters with her cornucopia, gossip about Coach and Mellie, drama from back at Camp. Eventually, she ran out of topics. "So," Piper tried, "anything...I don't know, new happen recently?"
“Nah,” Percy muttered, staring intently at the sink. The dishes were one by one being removed from a whirlpool of sudsy water and placed on the counter next to it by tendrils of not-sudsy water.
“Anything interesting?” She probed.
“Not really.” Piper thought; this wasn't going to be as two-sided a conversation as she'd hoped, especially because Percy hasn’t really talked much about anything to anyone since he came back.
“Annabeth kicked my ass in our training spar yesterday,” Piper told him conversationally, because saying things conversationally usually meant getting a conversational reply. She eyed him, looking for any reaction.
No such luck. “Yeah,” A little head nod, a small quirk of the lips, "she does that."
Subtlety wasn’t working. If Piper wanted to help him, she'd have to come outright and offer it. “Are you okay, Percy?”
He froze, just for a second, but Piper caught it. “Fine.”
She narrowed her eyes. Blatant lie. “I’m getting the feeling that you’re really not, though,”
He finished washing the dishes and picked them up. At his touch, they dried instantly. “I’m fine, Piper.” He placed the dishes in the cabinet by the door and turned away.
“Something’s not right.”
Percy sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe.” He seemed a bit annoyed, but this was Percy. Piper still had a hard time even imagining that he might be dangerous to anyone but monsters.
‘Maybe’ was progress. “Come on, Percy, why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” Piper pushed, lacing her words with just a whisper of power. “I can help.”
Percy’s face turned at the tainted words. He didn’t even think—just growled, “Stop,” and Piper felt it in her bones. Any plans floating around her head halted in their tracks, because he said so. Any thought she had of continuing to try and get him to talk about Tartarus, his powers, how he’s been changing, all shut down without argument.
Piper recoiled. That was Charmspeak. There was no way that wasn’t her power used against her. How? He had no real relation to Aphrodite. Percy’s eyes widened.
“That was—“
“You just—“
Piper stopped talking, because maybe if she let him go first, she’d get an explanation. Percy also stopped talking, but for a different reason. He snapped his mouth shut and directed his glare at the floor.
Piper didn’t know Percy as well as Annabeth or even Hazel or Frank did, but that expression screamed confusion and fear and stubbornness and if Percy was anything like the other demigods Piper knew, he wouldn't be accepting help. Piper knew from experience; she had that face every time she was shipped off to a new boarding school, and that was a burden she carried alone. Leo tended to get that expression when confronted with feelings, and he wouldn't talk about it with anyone.
Here Percy was, confronted with the fact that he just used a power that wasn’t even close to being associated with his dad. His voice when he did that…Piper wanted nothing more than to listen to him talk like that forever, and to never hear it again. That tone, that voice, offered a promise of safety while also lowering all defenses and striking where it hurt.
Percy’d gone through so much change in the last year, and he’d handled it spectacularly. But this was too much; it tipped the scales and everything came crashing down. Percy backed away from her, scared he’d hurt her, then turned tail and ran.
Piper just stood there. That voice…it offered her what she wanted most in the world and—holy shit. That’s it. It was an ocean thing. Sirens did the same exact thing. The only real difference is that sirens sang about what you wanted most, while that voice…it could be saying anything and it would feel the same.
Piper had no idea what to do with this information. She went about the next few hours mulling over what she knew, and planning what to do next.
She didn’t think she’d have to resort to talking to Annabeth until she found Hazel out in the hallway, pacing up a storm.
Percy used to comfort her when she woke up gasping and crying because of nightmares. He used to rush into her room when she shouted. He’d hold her, softly whispering about anything and everything to take her mind off of Tartarus.
And then one night she startled awake in his arms, and everything in her screamed danger. Annabeth flinched away, and begged him not to hurt her, please, please Percy, some things aren’t meant to be controlled. She settled soon after, became aware of her surroundings, but that damage was done. He wouldn’t look her in the eye, wouldn’t touch her. The look on his face…
He stopped coming after that.
He stopped coming, and Annabeth never woke up that scared again. And that killed her, to know that the scariest thing in all of hell was the person she loved most.
It killed her that he was doing his best to cope, that he was still making an effort to interact with the others and trying to help things get back to normal, and it just wasn’t working. She saw it when Jason, Frank, and Leo were laughing at something, and Percy was just watching them with a fake smile on his face. She saw it in the way he tentatively cracked jokes and closed up at the shocked reactions. Saw it in the way the other guys took to avoiding Percy.
It hurt to see that what she and Percy had been through seemed to drive a wedge between them and the world.
But Annabeth was never worried about it until Piper knocked on her door at three in the morning. She was awake—of course she was—but still tired. It took a bit to get up and trudge over to the door.
“We need to talk.”
“Pipes?”
Piper sighed. “It’s about Percy.” Annabeth’s stomach dropped, but she stepped to the side and let Piper in. The desk was messier than she ever would have allowed before, and the contents of her backpack were strewn across the floor, but she doubted Piper was in any mood to criticize.
“What’s going on?” Annabeth asked. “Is Percy okay?” It was a stupid question to ask, because neither of them were even remotely okay, but she hoped it would be easy enough for Piper to catch her drift. Is he safe? Is he still here? Is he alive?
“Did you know that his powers have been growing?” Piper asked.
Annabeth closed her eyes; a few memories flitted past: a half-skull face, death mist, poison, glowing green eyes. “We—he discovered a new aspect of his power, yes,” she explained, “and he's certainly grown stronger since last summer. Why?”
He promised he wouldn’t control poison again. He promised her. Annabeth hoped against all hope that Piper wouldn’t tell her that promise had been broken.
She didn’t. She told her something so much worse. “I’ve talked to the other guys,” Piper started. “Jason got a bit spooked by a reflex, but that’s not what I’m worried about. It’s…he used clouds—water vapor, I guess—to kill a flock of griffins. And a bit later, he killed a pack of harpies by using their own blood against them.”
“Di immortales,” Annabeth gasped.
Piper glanced at her miserably. “Annabeth…that’s not the worst of it.”
Percy had Riptide pointed at her as soon as his door slammed open. By the looks of it, he’d been laying in his bed, playing with a water bottle. Piper took a few steps back, because she hadn’t wanted this confrontation in the first place, but now that it was happening, she sure as hell wasn’t going to get in the way.
“Blood?” Annabeth asked quietly. Percy didn’t move, just watched her warily. “Percy, what is wrong with you? You promised—“
“I haven’t even thought about poison,” he countered, dropping his sword. “That’s all that promise was.”
“Don’t you remember? “Some things aren’t meant to be controlled,”” Annabeth quoted, crossing her arms. “That covers blood, too.”
“If they aren’t meant to be controlled,” he capped his sword, “then why can I control them?” He made a bit of a show of tossing Riptide onto his bed, but recent developments negated any calming effect that might have had.
“I don’t know,” Annabeth replied, eyes on the pen. “And I might be able to excuse monsters,” she looked up and caught his gaze, “but Hazel?” Percy flinched. “Percy, how could you?”
“I didn’t try to,” he mumbled. “I thought—I forget sometimes that we’re safe now.”
“Are we? Can we ever be safe if you’re one nightmare away from stopping our blood flow?” Percy stared at her, and she caught a moment of shock before he covered it up. Damn his perfect poker face. It took a moment for Annabeth to realize what he was focusing on. Her “we” had deliberately left him out.
It was a far cry from “As long as we’re together.”
It was also the wrong thing to say. Percy visibly shut her out. “Then maybe you guys should just stay out of my way,” he bit, reaching into his pocket and bringing Riptide out. He started to fiddle with it like he always did when he was stressed. “I’d have to imagine killing you would be harder from a distance.”
That brought a new question into light: how far away could Percy reach? Part of Annabeth desperately wanted to forget all this trauma and delve into the science and facts that accompanied these powers. But that was besides the point, nevermind practically impossible. “Percy, come on, you know that’s not—“
“What, you didn’t mean it?” He asked. “Even if you didn’t, A, you said it. I’m too dangerous to be around, so stop being around me.” And something about the way he said it made her desperate to get away. It promised her the safety she wanted, so long as she listened. Almost like…gods damnit, Piper didn’t mention this.
Annabeth mindlessly took a step back, but a step was all he needed. Percy closed his door, and the lock clicked.
“Piper?”
“Mhm?” Piper hummed.
“Did you know about the Charmspeak?”
“Well…”
Percy was on guard duty when Athens came into sight. Festus had the controls, and the deck was empty save for him and a particularly annoying mosquito that he swatted away very gently, because what if it was Frank?
He’d been thinking. Sitting as far away from the rails as he could, basking in the warm summer air that held a dampness that told him dawn was coming soon. He’d taken to appreciating the nice weather after going so long without it.
They’d gone without a lot of things. Food. Water. Shelter. Sleep. Gods, it still felt weird to sleep. Annabeth had wholeheartedly fallen back into a nightly routine of at least eight hours. It wasn’t so easy for Percy. He’d grown accustomed to snatching a half hour here and there when he could. It was easier.
Now they were back and sleep was an option again. It had its risks, sure, but not nearly as many as it did in Tartarus. Here, all that could hurt them were dreams.
And they were just dreams. Percy didn’t get nightmares about Tartarus. They were just dreams, his subconscious whispering to him about what he could have done better. He could have killed Arachne slower. He could have kept going until Akhlys was a puddle at his feet. He could have helped Damasen kill Tartarus.
All he had were dreams that showed him the version of events he wished had happened.
But Annabeth did have nightmares, and it seemed he played a starring role.
She’d been terrified of him. Even after he promised never to control poison again. Which meant his promise didn’t really mean anything at all, then, because at some point, she’d stopped trusting him. All it did now was limit him. What if something happened, and he had to control poison? Could he betray her like that if he had no other choice?
But wasn’t she betraying him, too? Before poison was even a blip on Percy’s radar, they’d promised to stay together. She’d promised him. And now the only person on the ship she didn’t include in ‘we’ was him. That wasn’t together. That was…she was leaving him behind.
A huge fire roared to life in a dark spot in the center of the city. The green-tinged flames leapt into the air like a beacon—maybe it was. Maybe the giants wanted them to come. They did need the blood of Olympus to wake Gaea, after all.
And what better way to summon half a dozen powerful demigods than a greek fire beacon in the middle of one of Ancient Greece’s most notable ruins?
With half a thought and a twitch of his finger, a pipe in the kitchen burst to alert the others. Half a second after the initial eruption, the detached pipe clanged loudly against the wall. Leo would hate him for it, but that wasn’t their biggest problem.
The giants were waiting.