Grover Underwood
Was I planning on sleeping in my bed that night?
Yes, yes I was.
Did I fall asleep ten minutes before the movie ended and wake up really confused because I was sleeping on Percys floor wrapped in a blanket, with a pillow and an empty bowl of popcorn next to me?
Yes, yes I did.
Seeing it was still pretty early, I got up and figured I'd let Percy sleep. Went to my little cabin, got dressed for the day, and started towards the Pavilion for breakfast when I ran into Michael Yew, the counselor for the Apollo cabin. He was only a year older than Percy, Annabeth, and I, but he was the next oldest in the cabin after their old counselor left for college last summer. He's been here for a few years now, maybe four? He's a nice guy.
"Grover, hey!" The son of Apollo called out. "How did the quest go? I mean, you're all here so it couldn't be awful, but... Mr. D told me that if I see you that he wants to talk to you, and same for Percy and I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing, especially for Percy? I haven't really talked to him much, but he got the bolt back, right? Because he didn't steal it."
"He didn't, Ares had it," I confirmed, nodding my head. "I... Don't know why Mr. D would want to talk to him, actually. Maybe just checking in since quests can be stressful and he's new?"
Michael shrugged.
"Beats me, man," he said. "Good luck— don't get turned into a dolphin."
With that, I veered course to the Big House, where Mr. D and Chiron seemed to be debating back and forth about something as Chiron grabbed his stuff for archery class since he teaches the morning section.
"Who— oh, Grover, hello!" The centaur greeted me with a smile. "Good morning, we were hoping we'd get to grab you for a few minutes today. Do you have time before breakfast?"
"Yes, sirs," I responded. "Michael told me you guys were looking for me. Is everything okay?"
"Well—" Mr. D's voice made me stiffen up. "Oh, take a breath and relax, Grover. Sit down This has nothing to do with your searchers license, we'll talk about that later."
"It doesn't?" I asked, sitting down. "What's going on then?"
"We're in a little bit of a... Conundrum, I suppose you could call it," Mr. D told me as he leaned back into his chair. "Percy's been claimed by one of the eldest gods, which means that the Great prophecy is in motion."
How does Mr. D always manage to tell me the things I least want to hear and be reminded of?
I swear to gods, Dionysus is the god of wine, parties, leapoards, and ruining Grover's day.
"...this is true." I said. "He's only 12, though, so we have... Time, right? To prepare for whatever will happen when he turns 16?"
"If he turns 16," Chirons supplemented, which I didn't need or want to hear.
"If the kid doesn't turn 16, I—" Mr. D began in a defensive tone before the door of the Big House opened again, Luke and Annabeth stood in the doorway.
"We— oh, tense atmosphere, alright," Luke commented as he stepped inside with Annabeth. "What's going on? Michael told us to stop here before breakfast."
"One moment," Mr. D said before returning his attention to Chiron and I was wondering what kind of lovers quarrels they'd had about this in the last three weeks since Percy was claimed for Mr. D to become do defensive about a kid he's threatened to turn into a dolphin already. "I'm going to be crystal clear about this: the kid is turning 16. I don't care if we have to wrap him in bubble wrap and put baby gates around his cabin, he's turning 16."
"He has almost four years before then, Dionysus," Chiron reminded him as I looked at the other two demigods and mouthed Percys name to them and saw their expressions drop because we all knew. "Even in bubble wrap, fate will find him. Sure, he's been claimed, but until he's older, we don't know that he's the child of the prophecy."
"And we also didn't know that Thalia was the child of the prophecy," Luke piped in. "She had a little brother, I still don't know why we haven't sent a satyr to look for the kid. He would be old enough for camp by now, maybe he's older than Percy is, we don't know."
"And how do you suppose we track him down?" Chiron questioned, weirdly opposed to the idea, which made me make a mental bookmark to ask the Counsel if we could send a protector out for him— even if I have to do it myself. "Beryl Grace has passed into the world of the afterlife, Luke. We have no way of knowing where she left her son or who she might've handed him over to."
Mr. D looked down in annoyance.
"I could take a guess."
"Dionysus!"
"What? He was the second kid of Father's to Beryl, it's not unrealistic—"
"Do you wish your sentence here be prolonged by your assumptions?" The centaur questioned. "I understand that you want the boy to live, that you wish for Percy to stay alive, but four years is a long time. If Fate doesn't see him as fit for the prophecy, he too will pass."
"What do you mean he too will pass?" Before Mr. D could even steel himself to form a response, Luke spoke up. "do you hear yourself right now, Chiron? He's a fucking kid, you're talking about a child. Will you even continue training him when I leave for college? Or are you deciding now that he's a lost cause because of his dad? Because of what his existence could mean. He's a child, Chiron. Not a ticking time bomb."
With that, Luke dismissed himself.
"I agree with Liam," Mr. D confided, which... Sure, Mr. D cares about the demigods here more than he actually lets on, but his interest in Percy seemed very odd. Annabeths facial expression confirmed that she seemed to agree with me. "The children are already aware of the oath that was broken, and I'm sure some of them will treat Percy differently because of it, assuming they don't already. We shouldn't model that behavior for them when we know so little. He will survive, mark my words, I will personally see to it, Percy will turn 16 and the prophecy will unravel whether or not he is the center of it, but we shouldn't treat him as some sort of explosive because of that. Many children here will have tragic ends, I'm sure. That doesn't mean we treat them any differently. That being said..."
The god turned towards Annabeth and I.
"Abby, Gunther, did either of you notice anything particularly... Concerning on the quest with Percy?" And as the camp director spoke, I realized something. "Anything we should be aware of?"
Mr. D was calling Percy by the correct name—something he never does with the kids. Done on purpose, as well, which made this conversation all the more interesting.
And as badly as I wanted Percy to get help, I wasn't comfortable disclosing what I knew in front of Annabeth or in front of Chiron, in all honesty.
He's a wise trainer, but sometimes he loses empathy and it makes it hard to talk to him. That's why we also have a camp director.
"I mean he did try and pick a fight with Ares, but I don't know if I'd call that him being reckless with his own life or just him being a teenage boy in a stressful situation," Annabeth figured, shrugging. "I was concerned, but I think we were all concerned for each other. He seemed okay last night, right? Tired, but okay."
"He does seem to have a shorter social battery than most demigods," Chiron agreed before looking to me. "Grover? Anything to add?"
But it wasn't my battle, as badly as I wanted to fight it for him.
"No, I agree with Annabeth," I told the camp supervisors. "He just seems... Tired. It'll take him a few days to recover. Maybe just keep an eye out to make sure it doesn't get worse?"
I hoped Mr. D understood what I meant by that, but if he did, he showed no change in his expression. The two of them simply nodded.
"We'll ensure that if we notice any decline, one of us will speak to him about it," Mr. D told us before being hit with some sort of realization. "Oh! Before I forget..."
The god reached over to the desk they had in the Big House, grabbing a small envelope with some writing on it, and extended it out to me.
"Congratulations, Gio," Mr. D announced with the smallest shred of pride in his eyes. "on obtaining your searchers license. You are on probation for the rest of the summer as you will require training before searching, and currently you are only approved for one search mission, but you've finally done it. By returning alive and successful with Percy, you've secured your searchers license."
•••
Percy Jackson
I forgot how lonely it was to be a one man cabin.
I got up on my own. Got dressed. Walked to breakfast on my own.
On the way to the pavilion, I was hoping to run into at least one of my three friends, but I didn't see any of them despite the fact that I saw their siblings and other satyrs in the area.
I ate breakfast alone, trying to tune out the other conversations going on but ultimately overhearing bits and pieces of each of them.
Kids didn't seem to care about the quest that I went on anymore, but they still cared about the decisions I made a little too much.
"Why is he still here?" I heard somebody from Annabeths cabin question. "Doesn't he hate the gods or something? I heard he sent them Medusas head in a box."
"Do you think his mom was actually kept alive?"
"It looks like he's starving himself— unless he broke the rules and got seconds already."
From the Hermes cabin, I heard a voice that I recognized but couldn't name.
"I hope we don't have to train with him," a kid said. "he's probably psychotic, going around challenging gods like that."
"Do you think he'll challenge Mr. D next?" One of their siblings asked, which got the table to laugh before the subject was dropped.
I tried to focus on my breakfast.
After traveling for ten days on a quest where we almost never had three meals a day suddenly made the idea of breakfast feel... Overwhelming.
Or maybe that was just the people talking, I don't know.
Usually I inhale my food until I'm not hungry, but I just... Didn't have an appetite this morning.
"Doing alright there, Perce?" Luke's voice caught me off guard as I looked up to see the son of Hermes with a fresh plate of food. "Bacon isn't going to eat itself, you know."
"I... Yeah," I tried to brush it off, but I felt like I could hear people whispering about me still. "I just grabbed too much, debating if I want to throw more in to the fire"
I looked up at the blonde demigod.
"Do you know where Annabeth or Grover are?" I asked, probably sounding worried. "It's... Weird that the rest of the Athena cabin is here but not her."
"Yeah, they'll be here shortly," Luke reassured me. "Mr. D caught them on their way to breakfast, probably just to check in after the quest. I'm sure he'll do the same with you later today."
Luke put a hand over my plate.
"May I?"
I pushed the plate towards him.
"Go for it."
And then, blatantly breaking camp rules, Luke sat down to grab a piece of bacon from my plate.
"Thanks, man," he said, taking a bite of the pork. "Oh, speaking of later today, do you do want to do one on one stuff for training? You don't wanna get sliced in half at the next capture the flag, after all."
"Uh, yeah, sure."
It wasn't a great response, but Luke decided against fighting me on it. He did raise an eyebrow, I'm sure suspicious of why I would be so dismissive right after doing what was supposed to be the coolest thing in my life.
"...sounds good," he responded carefully. "Well, I'm going to join my cabin for breakfast before Mr. D and Chiron get here and zap me for sitting here, but if you need anything just let me know, alright? Coming back is always a little weird— you'll adjust."
I ust nodded my head, trying to believe what he was saying.
It was harder said than done when the kids wouldn't shut up.
Not long after lunch, though, I did get summoned to the Big House. Passing by Michael Yew, he told me that Chiron and Mr. D wanted to see me sometime today, and I changed route from my one on one lessons with Luke (which is the worst thing for me to blow off) to head towards the Big House, where Chiron and Mr. D we're... Arguing?
I don't know if I've ever seen Chiron argue with anyone.
"Mr. D, it's just not in the budget." The centaur told the god, who didn't take the news well.
"So we make room for it!" Mr. D insisted as he tapped the pen he had in his hand into the small pile of papers that were between the two of them. "It's that easy, Chiron. If we don't have room for it yet, we make room for it. We can make more crop, we can figure it out."
"But what good will it do, Dionysus?" My former Latin teacher asked in return as I now no longer knew if I should even be in the room with them while they had this conversation. "I understand where the concern comes from, but what's with the sudden concern? Only a few kids will use these, and how much it costs—"
"A few kids that we can save, Chiron!" The retort silenced the centaur. "Kids that need somebody to save them! These kids don't have at least one of their parents anymore, Chrion! They don't have families or homes to go back to! It's not just a couple of them, it's all of them! They're angrier and they're bitter and they deserve a chance to live, and this is the only way I can think to give it to them!"
"Mr. D, this whole camp is their chance," Chiron tried to reason with somebody too stubborn to listen. "We train them for as long as we can, and when they leave, if it wasn't enough... There's nothing we can do."
Mr. D let out a stifled breath.
"There's nothing... So there was nothing we could have done about the three demigods who have killed themselves in the last two and a half years while staying here?" The disgruntled god questioned. "We couldn't offer them counseling? We couldn't talk with their parents, if they had any, about what they do at home that helps? Two of them wrote letters, Chiron. Letters that said that if the gods really cared, they wouldn't let that happen again! They're our kids, Chiron! Maybe not yours, not biologically, but some of them are mine! And if—"
"Perseus, hello," and I don't know if Chiron noticed me just then or if he chose then to act like he did for his benefit, but it shut Mr. D up very effectively. Not happily, but effectively. "Apologies. You haven't been waiting, have you?"
"N... No," I crossed one arm across my body, grabbing my other arm. "Michael said you guys wanted to see me?"
"Yes!" The centaur nodded. "I must go teach this afternoon's session of archery, but Mr. D will handle it."
The way Chiron worded it, along with him leaving suddenly, made me much more anxious. Because as I might've said before, Mr. D reminds of Gabe, but like... That can be a good thing and a bad thing and so far it's mostly been the bad stuff.
Also, I've never been alone with Mr. D before and since I've spoken with him last, I stabbed Ares in the foot and I was worried that this might be about that.
"Okay," I said before Chiron managed to escape. "It's not... You're not kicking me out again, are you? Of camp? Because I needed to do better on the quest?"
And while, on one hand, it was a genuine question because I was worried that I'd wake up to a note telling me to get out of camp this morning, it was also a slight jab at Chiron, which wasn't fair, but...
I don't know. It felt warranted.
For a moment, I felt like my body might just give out on me. I was so tense that it seemed like if I relaxed I would end up as a puddle on the ground and every time I tried to breathe in that moment, my lungs failed me.
Do I even want to be here?
"Wh— kid, no, you're more than welcome to stay here for as long or as short of a time as you want," Mr. D told me, which a was nice thing to hear— even from the wrong person because the person I wanted that reassurance from just exhaled and walked out of the Big House. "technically you're only supposed to leave at the end of summer or on quests, but if you don't want to be here, we can't really stop you. Just send Grover after you."
Until he leaves, my brain immediately jumped to that, slightly overwhelming me because I wanted to be happy for my best friend, but it was really hard to do that right now. Until he leaves to go look for Pan and he probably dies and then it's just another friend you don't have anymore.
"But we do recommend that you stick around for a bit," Mr. D summarized. "You okay kid?"
"Yup."
It's not like I was still against the wall and I was fighting down some sort of emotional response (what kind of response? I don't know. To what? I'm not even sure) right in front of him.
And he's no god of wisdom, but the D in Mr. D didn't stand for dumbass.
"Percy?" Getting called my actual name by the camp director was a little unsettling, I won't lie. It kind of scared me, even if his tone leaned towards concern. "come over here. Sit down."
But I felt like if I moved, my whole body would implode, so I didn't do what the god asked.
"Please?" The fact that he said that was shocking, but it wasn't the issue right now.
It might be another day, but it wasn't the issue right now.
Why can't I breathe?
"Percy?" Mr. D repeated, standing up as I started to slide against the wall because maybe if I sit down I'll be able to breathe even though sitting in a ball is going to confine my lungs and make it harder to breathe. "Hey, kid, I know we didn't start on the best foot before you left, but I'm just trying to..."
His voice drifted off as I sealed my eyes shut, silently begging my lungs to do their job.
Are they going to kill me?
Is that why... Is that's why Chiron said Mr. D could handle it? Because they're just going to kill me so that way they don't have to worry about me fighting more gods or... Or sending then monsters heads or....?
If that's their plan, why didn't they just let me do it in St. Louis?
"Help," Mr. D finished his statement, and when I felt his hand on the outside of my arm, I pulled away, wishing I could melt into the wall.
"Please don't touch— hurt me." I didn't mean to say it out loud, but it came out anyways because when my eyes are closed, Mr. D feels and sounds a lot like Gabe and I know... "Please don't hurt— don't..."
I know, realistically, that Gabe has been sober for over a week now and that he's going to AA and that he's going through treatment this summer, but it...
It hasn't been that long.
I don't know how long I sat on the floor against the wall near the door of the Big House.
I know that I dissociated for a while. I know that I probably had a panic attack. I think I might've heard Mr. D ask a kid to come back later.
I know I came out of it feeling like I wanted Mr. D to put me out of my misery.
It was quiet for a while, after I came to.
A few minutes went by, at least.
"Percy?"
Or maybe it was only a few seconds.
I looked up at who I realized was the god of wine and not my drunk dad.
"Hi," he said in a gentle tone. "I'm sorry that I touched you. Do you want to talk about what just happened?"
I shrugged, looking back down.
"I'm not going to hurt you in any way, Percy," the camp director told me, even though it didn't completely ease the anxiety. "I just wanted to check in since you just got back from a quest. I did the same with Annabeth and Grover earlier today. That was the purpose of this, yeah? To see how you're doing after your first quest."
Another wave of silence fell between us as Mr. D allowed me space to think and to form a response.
Which, I had one, even if it took time to get it out.
"So you're...." And as I said it, I felt like a fucking dumbass. "Not going to kill me or threaten to kill me for Medusa's head and what happened with Ares?"
I caught the god roll his eyes.
"Kill you for having a sense of humor and doing what you had to do to get the job done?" Mr. D asked in return. "I personally thought it was funny that you sent us Medusa's head. Hermes and Persephone also got a kick out of it at our solstice meeting. Even if somebody wanted me to kill you kid, I'm not doing it. I'm too busy arguing with Chiron right now about how we can keep more kids alive. He's... Oddly stubborn."
"His expectations are really high." I agreed as the drowsiness of coming down from a panic attack started to settle in. "I can only accept the best from you, Perseus Jackson. Jokes on him, I don't remember the last time I was at my good, much less at my best."
"Yeah?" Mr. D responded and I nodded my head. "Do you want me to make a cup of blue raspberry lemonade and we can talk about it?"
Feeling the regular hopelessness and dispair settle in, I nodded my head again.