Anthízo, Percy Jackson

VI. the idoit and the idiot's caretaker

PERCY COULDN'T WAIT.

he'd tried to, of course— attempting to take a nap, which turned out to be him staring up at his metal ceiling for two hours as his mind solely focused on karina, and how much he wants to just walk across the hall and into her arms. his stomach was tugging at him to just get up and go over there— but annabeth's words rung in his head like an annoying bell, and he knew that he needed to give her space.

so, to pass the time, he went into annabeth's room with a stack of cards and two cups of tea— which he'd never liked before, until karina introduced it to him— and now he's obsessed with it. especially chai tea, because it reminds him of christmas.

percy knew better than to expect a success in any game that they play. playing cards with annabeth was always a losing game, no matter how skilled or strategic you are. she will always win. and percy had learned that many years ago— but, it was the only thing that was able to keep him distracted from slamming down karina's door and letting her cry in his arms, so, he had to deal with it.

he could tell that annabeth would rather be doing anything other than this, but she knew how distraught percy was with having to wait for karina, so she pulled through for him and played uno, go fish, blackjack, and poker, until she finally forced him to go do something better with his life.

it was only midday, and karina still hadn't left her room. percy was beginning to lose his patience, but he forced himself to have at least some self-will, and refrained from going to her.

he swam a few laps around the argo II, talked to a few dolphins about his love-problems, and he even attempted to make a crocheted hat out of seaweed— though, it looked more like a ripped placemat than anything else. so, he decided to leave it at the bottom of the ocean instead.

he tried out a mediation lesson that karina had taught him a few mornings ago, but after he finished the second step, he realized that he'd forgotten everything else, and was stuck in a downward dog position for at least five minutes before frank found him and helped him regain feeling in his legs. he should've known better than to try and do it again— because when karina had taught him it the first time, he was mainly just listening to how attractive her morning voice sounded, and not the actual steps to the meditation method.

after that, karina still hadn't left her room, so him and hazel decided to make dinner for the two of them. even though they had magical plates that would give them any food in the world that they wanted, percy wanted to try and make something for himself.

it ended up being hazel who did most of the cooking after percy put cinnamon in the soup instead of paprika, and added the carrots into the pot without cutting them. so, hazel decided to stick him on the job of making a desert for the team instead. and, of course, he chose to make blue cupcakes.

it seemed easy enough, right?

wrong.

percy, being the dyslexic and adhd demigod dumbass that he is, read that the oven should be put at 650 degrees instead of 350, and five minutes after he put the cupcakes in— he set the whole pan on fire.

percy screamed like an eight year old girl as he slammed the flaming pan of cupcakes down on top of the stove, jumping around in circles as he wrung his hand out— obviously not using gloves to take out the pan.

"percy!" hazel screamed, dropping her latel that she was stirring the soup with to rush across the kitchen to percy, who was trying to put the flames out of his hair with a dirty rag that he used to wipe the cake batter off the table with.