AMANTI, nico di angelo

VII. a paranoid amnesiac walks into a bar...

0007. | A PARANOID AMNESIAC
WALKS INTO A BAR...

          Percy had oddly missed Fluffy. He felt since they came to Camp Jupiter they hadn't spent much time together. Of course they had barely spent any time apart, but after two months, Percy was used to spending almost every second with Fluffy.

          Waking up with no memories two months ago had been a struggle for Percy. He had a strange feeling that he must have come from somewhere, it must have been the case, he couldn't have just fallen out of the sky with amnesia! That would be a crazy, totally unrealistic idea for someone.

But the thing was, Percy didn't want to believe that he had come from somewhere. He must have had parents, or a mom at least because, thanks to Frank and Hazel, he had figured out he was a son of the Roman god Neptune, and he must have had a life with people he knew, people he'd shared laughs with, fought with, loved, hated—he must have! But a part of Percy didn't want to believe that because if he truly believed he had come from somewhere, then he would also have to believe that no one from where he came from cared about him enough to come find him.

It was a lonely thought, and one that solidified his camaraderie with Fluffy. Fluffy was a lycanthrope or a werewolf or whatever as it had been revealed, and he also had a real life and had friends and people he didn't like and a mom and a dad, maybe even a girlfriend (or boyfriend—Percy wasn't one to make assumptions) before he got stunted in his wolf form. But even then, Fluffy was alone, without anyone in the world, just like Percy.

He supposed that was what must have made he and Fluffy such good friends from the offset, although one was the son of a god and the other a dog, Percy felt they were similar beyond having no other friends. Sure, he was similar to Fluffy in the way of being nomads, but there was something more. Percy felt as if he knew him, even though he didn't, like they were friends in a past life or something. It was a stupid idea, and he scorned himself for it but he couldn't help but believe in it. Maybe if he believed that he and Fluffy were great enough friends, then this whole new terrifying world wouldn't seem so daunting. Something told him that Fluffy was insanely loyal, like he'd stick with him through anything, even war.

Now that was a stupid idea if ever Percy had had one. A war, pfft! As if.

He looked down beside the cot he had been given in the fifth cohort barracks where Fluffy had slept by his side the entire night. He looked better rested than Percy had ever known him to be. His ash brown fur had an almost golden tinge to it but Percy put that down to the morning sunlight that was strewing in from the window, and his ears were high on his head, like he'd had a good dream. Looking at him then, so peaceful, Percy couldn't ever imagine him in such an awful place as war, though his scar suggested otherwise.

Throughout the time he had known Fluffy, Percy had entertained himself with made up stories about how Fluffy got the scar on his face. Did he fight a shark and get a tooth through his eye? Did he fall down a nasty flight of escalators and split it? Did he get cut by some hideous monster trying to kill him? Did he cut himself shaving?