❛001❜
SURPRISINGLY, IVY HAD a peaceful sleep.
gabriel didn't though, with his dreams plagued by nightmares he decided it was a good idea to wake her up at 2:30 in the morning.
"ivy! wake up!" he shook her.
the brunette groaned out, "five more minutes." she rolled on her side and pulled the covers on top of her head.
"no more minutes! we need to leave now," he sounded stressed. gabriel bent over under her bed, bumping the mattress as he tried to reach something unknown to ivy.
"what're you doing?" ivy asked as she tried to wake herself up.
gabriel crawled out from under the bed, her emergency backpack (basically a big monster, we gotta go! alert) in hand. "i had a dream about camp. it's in danger."
that was all he needed to say to her to move.
ivy jumped out of bed. she scrambled to get something out to wear, hastily picking a pink hoodie, jean shorts, and sneakers. turning to gabriel, who was picking random stuff they may need from her dresser, she asked, "how are we going to get to camp?"
just as he opened his mouth to respond, sofia delgado walked in. out of breath, a panicked look in her eyes with a laptop in hand.
"found two tickets for new york," she said. the woman's hair was up in a messy ponytail, still wearing her pajamas. ivy guessed gabriel woke her abruptly with the terrible news, too.
gabriel made his way to the door, although he spun in a frantic circle on the spot. he had a way of acting like the mad hatter when nervous or scared. "at what time is the flight?"
sofia winced, squinting her eyes to the laptop. "3:30"
"in the afternoon?" ivy asked, rummaging through her nightstand. she wouldn't need medea's sunscreen spf 50,000, would she? no, no. ivy discarded the bottle of sunscreen deeper into the drawer.
"well – uh. it says a.m so... it's in an hour!" gabriel looked up from the screen, waving his arms around his head like he was shooing flies. " move family, move! the airport is twenty five minutes away!"
the son of dionysus ran out of the room, pulling his mother behind him.
now with privacy, ivy quickly got ready. pulling her hair in a ponytail and making sure she had all her weapons on her. she slugged her backpack on her shoulder, following the sound of gabriel's nervous breakdown at the entrance of the house.
"there you are, my mom's in the car already," he said in relief. gabriel spun again. "i'm not forgetting anything, am i? my sword. clothes. myself. am i wearing underwear?"
ivy shook her head at her best friend. she loved his crazy antics but right now there wasn't time.
the daughter of aphrodite placed her hands on his shoulders, looking up at him directly in the eyes. "calm down. we're fine. we'll make a plan on the way." there wasn't any charmspeak in her words, but they calm him down anyway.
gabriel let out a few calculated breaths, one of his breathing exercises. "yeah. plan. organized. stressless plans. i like plans."
she nodded, walking out of the door with her friend next to her. ivy made sure the security system was on when she closed the door behind her.
"i'll try to iris message annabeth when we get to the airport. we'll have to figure out a way to get percy to come with us if he isn't at camp already," ivy said.
she hasn't seen either percy or annabeth since last summer. but she kept in contact with both, exchanging lots of letters and iris messaging when available.
gabriel, being forever the gentleman, opened the back car door for ivy. he hopped in the front seat after she was settled. and they peeled off the driveway.
after three hours and a half on the air, gabriel and ivy landed in new york city. they've fabricated a plan, with a little from annabeth in a family restroom through an iris message call. the daughter of athena was already at camp, had been for the last week. she had experienced similar dreams to gabriel, about camp being in danger, so annabeth had made her way to the east coast as soon as she could. when ivy had asked why she hadn't said anything about being at camp, her best friend just said that she didn't want them to come running. or to come to camp at all.
annabeth was being very secretive of whatever was going on with camp half-blood. refusing to tell her anything other than, you're dumb, just don't come. but after ivy and gabriel had convinced her that they were getting there no matter what, the blonde had aided with the plan without saying anything about camp.
gabriel's part of the plan was to, well – simply get a taxi and go to camp. the information going out of camp was limited, but they suspected that the campers needed help. and the son of dionysus was a good fighter, he could be useful anywhere, really.
on the other hand, ivy really needed to get shit done. step one, pick up percy. step two, get to camp as fast as possible. step three, figure out what's happening at camp. easy peasy.
that was why the daughter of aphrodite found herself perched up in the fire escape outside of percy's bedroom window. like a fucking stalker. ugh, joe goldberg could never look as pretty as her while stalking.
ivy looked through the window, the curtains were open. percy was asleep on his bed. the bed sheets only covered his legs, leaving his torso exposed to the morning sun. and he was shirtless. toned muscles, a flat stomach with hints of nearing a six pack, and deep tan skin made ivy (for whatever reason) feel dizzy in the head. percy had changed a lot during the year, his hair was longer and he seemed to have lost a lot of the baby fat on his face. she shook her head, realizing she had been staring like the true joe goldberg.
keeping herself from ogling like a creep, she noticed how percy was covered in sweat and shaking in his sleep. he was having a nightmare. maybe he was dreaming about camp like annabeth and gabriel.
she raised her fist to knock on the window when percy bolted awake. ivy ducked under the railing of the window, she didn't want to be caught stalking. footsteps neared to peek at her hiding place, the brunette prepared her fingers to snap them and use the mist against percy.
there was a knock on his door. "percy, you're going to be late."
ivy thanked the gods for who she assumed was sally jackson, percy's mother. she had never met her, not even through iris message, but percy has nothing but wonder of the woman. such a momma's boy.
no footsteps of percy walking away were heard.
"come on, dear," sally jackson insisted. "last day of school. you should be excited! you've almost made it!"
"coming," percy said.
ivy blinked as she heard his voice. last time they iris message was on new year's eve, they hadn't managed to schedule any more calls. percy's voice had changed a lot during those few months, it was a bit deeper and raspier.
but now, the daughter of aphrodite had to figure out a way to get percy alone so they could talk. she had completely forgotten how late new york schools ended, today was percy's last day of middle school. she sighed in frustration as she made her way down the fire escape. not so easy peasy.
the whole stalker thing was supposed to be a joke. but apparently, it was for real now. ivy had to follow percy all the way to his school, restoring to using the mist on the staff to infiltrate as a student.
meriwether college prep was weird, classified as a progressive school in downtown manhattan. in other words, the students get to sit on bean bag chairs instead of desks, and they don't get grades and the teachers wear jeans and rock concert t-shirts to work. ivy would take this over her ugly uniform at st. thomas academy.
unfortunately, the mist didn't work completely in her favor. the schedule that she received from the receptionist assigned her just one class with percy. ivy knew she could just ditch it and follow him directly, but she wasn't that good at manipulating the mist so she didn't want to test her luck.
social studies was the class she got to share with percy. ivy sat a few rows behind him, while trying to catch his eye she realized the mist worked over him too. like seriously, the mist really picked and chose when to work or not. the class was studying longitude and latitude, something she learned at school this year as well. boredly looking around, ivy noticed percy staring intently at something in his binder. she lifted herself a bit in her seat, peeking over his shoulder and she froze at what she saw.
percy was looking at a picture. a picture of her.
in the photo, ivy was standing in the delgado vineyard. she was wearing a pale yellow milkmaid dress with dotted pink flowers on it, light pink sandals, and sunglasses on top of her head. she had her hair down, waves of brain hair blowing slightly with the wind. her expression was calm, smiling wide with arms outstretched, as if she was welcoming the sun. ivy couldn't remember when that picture was taken, it wasn't uncommon for her to stroll around the delgado's property with gabriel. the days and memories kind of melted together, but she had sent percy that picture to show him how beautiful the vineyard was.
the daughter of aphrodite found herself blushing. she didn't see percy keeping a picture of annabeth or grover anywhere, just of her. the foreign but pleasant feeling in her stomach acted up, it needed to take a chill because she didn't even know where the feeling came from.
the son of poseidon sighed, about to close his notebook when a stupid looking kid reached over and ripped the photo out of the rings.
"hey!" percy protested.
the guy checked out the picture and his eyes got wide. "no way, Jackson. who is that? she is not your –"
"give it back," he demanded as his ears turned a violent shade of red.
scumbag (as ivy decided to name him) handed the photo to his ugly buddies, who snickered and started ripping it up to make spit wads. they were new kids who must've been visiting, because they were all wearing those stupid hi! my name is: tags from the admissions office. they must've had a weird sense of humour, too, because they'd all filled in with strange names like: marrow sucker, skull eater and joe bob. no human beings had names like that. ivy decided to keep an eye on them.
"these guys are moving here next year," scumbag bragged. "i bet they can pay the tuition, too, unlike your retard friend."
ivy recalled percy telling her about a friend of his, he never said much about him though. from the time she has been in the school, the brunette didn't see percy talking to anyone in particular. maybe that was because this class and walking towards the school was the only time she really got to see him.
percy had his hands balled up at his sides in barely contained anger. he rolled his shoulders, and said through grittied teeth, "he's not retarded."
"you're such a pussy, jackson. good thing i'm gonna put you out of your misery next period."
his huge buddies chewed up the photo. ivy couldn't believe how someone could be so vile to not only insult someone's situation like percy's friend. besides, she didn't appreciate anyone picking on her friends.
the bell rang.
as the class filled out, ivy saw her opportunity. they didn't share any other classes, so it was either now or she ditched the rest of the day. "percy!'" she hissed.
percy looked around, she pushed through the crowd of kids to get closer but she was pushed further away. losing her view of the black haired boy, she left for her next class with the weird visitors in mind.
about fifteen minutes into the class – which happened to be english, ugh – and a loud boom was heard from down the hall. the teacher stood up, looking alarmed as he looked out the door. ivy could throw a pretty good guess to who was probably behind the sound.
"stay calm, class–"
booom!
this one was way louder than the one before, the kids in the classroom all started getting up. the teacher failed miserably to keep them in order as there was boom after boom. as everyone was distracted, ivy slipped from between students to make her way to the door. ducking beneath the arm of histeric teacher, she took off to where the sound was coming from.
it was the gym. the class percy just so happened to be in. teachers and staff were walking around in confusion, they didn't seem to be as alarmed as they should with the sound. maybe they weren't hearing it like ivy was, and that could only mean one thing. monsters.
ivy pushed the gym doors open.
"well!" a giant with a tattoo that said jb luvs babycakes gloated. "i'm the last one standing! i'll have enough meat to bring babycakes a doggy bag!"
he picked up a massive ball, they looked to be burning – no, searing hot. the giant picked it up with no problem and aimed. taking what he said about meat, not affected by fire and its massive size, ivy concluded that she was looking at a laistrygonian giant. the odd named visitors had all been cannibals.
"stop!" percy yelled. "it's me you want!"
ivy realized that he was trying to protect the mortals, but she didn't see riptide anywhere. maybe it was one unlucky day where he wore shorts without pockets.
the giant grinned. "you wish to die first, young hero?"
percy's eyes flickered between the giant and the heap of clothes at his feet. his jeans with pockets, ivy knew he had no chance to kill the giant without a weapon. but the dumbass charged anyway, she propped kapsoura's keychain open. the bow appeared on her left hand, she reached for an arrow from her quiver.
the giant laughed.
ivy notched tan arrow.
"my lunch approaches."
aimed to his middle.
the giant raised his arm to throw. percy braced myself to die.
bullseye, ivy thought.
the giant's body went rigid. his expression changed from gloating to surprise. the ball dropped out of his hand. the monster stared down at the tip of the arrow that had just run him through from behind.
he muttered, "owie," and burst into a cloud of green flame. ivy hoped babycakes wouldn't get too upset.
the smoke lowered, uncovering an annoyed ivy to percy.
scumbag, who'd been standing there dumbfounded the whole time, finally came to his senses. he blinked at her, as if he dimly recognized her from percy's picture. "that's the girl ... that's the girl –"
ivy walked forward, remembering how he bullied percy. discarding the no harming mortals, leave the fight to monsters rule. she punched him in the nose. "and you don't get to insult percy, that's my thing!"
the gym was in flames. kids were still running around screaming. ivy heard sirens wailing and a garbled voice over the intercom. through the glass windows of the exit doors, she could see the headmaster wrestling with the lock, a crowd of teachers piling up behind him.
"fitzy–" percy stammered. "how did you ... how long have you..."
"all morning, basically." the brunette turned kapsoura back into a keychain. "i've been trying to talk to you, but apparently you're a busy guy that's never alone."
"the shadow i saw this morning – that was –" percy's cheeks tinted red. "oh my gods, you were looking in my bedroom window?"
"it was an accident!" ivy tried to cover up her own embarrassment, but her blushed face gave her away. "i just didn't want to –"
"there!" a woman screamed. the doors burst open and the adults came pouring in.
"i'll see you outside," ivy told him. she noticed percy looking over at the wall, a boy sat there – no, it wasn't a boy.
it had one eye. it was a cyclops. a baby one by the looks of it, but still a cyclops.
fear clawed at her throat, tears pricked in her eyes. those atrocious, horrible monsters that took him away. ivy tried to blink the tears away, but everytime her eyelids were closed it was like she was seven again. the screams. the blood. the fire. her dad's–
"ivy!" percy was shaking her. his hands placed on her upper arms, eyebrows knitted in worry. "what's wrong? you zoned out there."
"i – i'm fine, just..." she trailed off as she shifted away from where the cyclops was sitting, looking dazzled.
"that's tyson," the son of poseidon said. "my friend, i to –"
"you're friend?" ivy shrieked.
how could percy befriend someone like him? didn't he see him for what he was? this tyson friend of his was a monster.
"i need to go. you need to bring him."
percy shook his hair, confused. "what?"
"no need to explain," the brunette said. "hurry!"
ivy snapped her fingers towards the adults, blending in the crowd as she made her way outside.
a speaks!
i told myself i wasn't going to post the first chapter until monday but i have no self control fUck. but um anyways ivy doesn't has trauma. she had ✨trauma✨
thoughts???