CW: hard drugs (referenced)
There's pain pulsing through Percy's body. It's a throbbing pain, but not the kind he used to get when he'd wake up in the Camp Half-Blood infirmary. He can't even pinpoint where the pain is coming from. He just knows it's there, it's really bad, and he wishes it weren't there.
Shit, it hurts to think.
Where is he? This is undoubtedly not his bed at his mom's house. If it was, his Jaws poster would be where that no parking sign is, and his laundry basket would be in the corner where that dumpster is.
Besides, Annabeth's here, and she hasn't been to his room since that time his mom caught him with his head between her legs. Sally can't keep the days of the week straight, but she sure does remember that unfortunate incident ten years after the fact.
Annabeth groans next to him, lifting her head off the pavement. Her grey eyes widen when they meet his green ones, and just as quickly, she drops her head back to her folded arms.
Then it all comes crashing down on him like a tsunami. Last night he went on the brewery tour with Annabeth. He's on a quest with Annabeth, his ex-girlfriend.
She said she'd take care of them both, but for some reason, he woke up in an ally and not in a bed.
He doesn't have the energy to get mad about that right now, so he asks, "Are you good?"
She lifts a finger, motioning for him to wait a minute. "I feel like my face got scraped across the sidewalk. Do I look okay?" She lifts her head again, and he notices the white powder under her nose.
He laughs a little but stops when it starts bouncing around in his skull. "You got drunk and ate donuts? That's hilarious."
"No, we were at the club. How would I have—oh fuck. Oh, fuck. Fuck me in the ass." Her nose bleeds, red blood trickling down to her lip. Desperately, she presses her fingers to her nose to catch the blood before it can hit her clothes.
"Hey, it... happens?" Percy wouldn't know. "Do you..." he starts, afraid of the answer. Does he want to know?
"No, Percy, I do not do cocaine regularly. Shit, it hurts," she whines.
He sits up, swaying slightly. It's so bright outside. He checks his phone, but the battery's dead. "Maybe we can go back to the hotel? That feels like a good idea."
"I have no idea where we are and I am starving," she says.
"Annabeth," he asks, "what happened last night? I promise I can handle it."
"I don't know if I can handle it!"
It takes him a minute to register what she's saying because of how loud it is.
But he eventually gets the point. Annabeth doesn't know what happened, which means she was so high... "This was pointless," he says. "We did all that for nothing."
"There might be a video on your phone," she whispers.
"My phone is dead and the charger is in the hotel," he says, rolling over onto his side. The reason why he can't pinpoint the pain is that everything hurts. "Is yours dead?"
"Yep," she says, using a conveniently located crate to pull herself to her feet. "Listen, I don't want to be a dick, but you mixed beer with liquor and may or may not have taken a pill."
Wait. "I did what?"
"Yeah," Annabeth continues. "And like, I know that's pretty bad, but comparatively speaking, I wasn't sure if I'd wake up today—if you know what I'm saying—and I'm standing-"
"Inside voice, please," Percy begs. Is she getting louder?
"I'm standing on two feet, and I am going to try to find a bathroom to clean up in, and then I am going to eat a massive breakfast and Google what I need to do to take care of myself after accidentally snorting cocaine."
"Huh." He regrets ever saying that Annabeth doesn't have her shit together. She just has very different shit together than what he has. He has a steady job and a sense of responsibility for all the things that make up a functional adult. She has street smarts, and Percy is certainly starting to see the appeal of those particular skills.
She's walking away. Somehow, she has gotten up on her feet and is about to turn the corner. "You're not going to leave me, are you?" he asks.
Annabeth looks behind her and raises an eyebrow. It's not as cute as she probably thinks it is; her nose is still bleeding and two dark circles are straining beneath the weight of her eyes. "Well, I'm not going to wallow in an alleyway."
"I wasn't-" He totally was about to wallow in an alley though. "Can you... Can you help me up?"
She walks back over and offers her sort of clean hand, which he gladly takes.
"Thanks," he says. Her hand is pretty gross-feeling in his, and he doesn't even want to begin thinking of all the germs he's coming into contact with, but at least it's not her bloody hand. Well, he's already come into contact with her blood on this trip, so maybe he should have gone for that hand. Then again, is Annabeth's nose blood really how he wants to start his day?
"What's the plan?" he asks.
It's at this moment that his stomach decides that now would be a great time to demonstrate a whale's mating call.
"Breakfast." Annabeth points a bloody finger gun. Percy can imagine she's choosing to ignore the sudden burst of blood coming from her nose. That's nasty.
"Uh, you have something..." Percy gestures to his nose.
She clears her throat. "We're going to find a bathroom to clean up in, and then we're going to eat so much breakfast. I'll buy."
"It's no problem," Percy says, "I can-"
"No objections, Seaweed Brain!" she says, dragging him out of the alleyway by the hand and out into the street.
He trips over a cobblestone but quickly regains his footing. "Can you stop shouting?"
***
Percy heard there are a lot of scams in Europe. People act like they're giving you things for free, and then—surprise—they're either trying to take your money, give you drugs, or more likely both. It's sort of the same when you're a demigod, except the nice lady who offers you shelter and food doesn't want your sensitive banking information. She'd rather just transform into a flesh-eating monster and eat you... And then, yeah, maybe pillage your supplies and take your money. It depends on the monster.
So Percy's demigod instincts are on one hundred percent of the time, no matter who he's encountering here in Prague. The guy who tried to give him a friendship bracelet could be a scammer or a monster, and based on what he's read on the internet, Percy can't decide which is worse.
Obviously, Percy's more than a little skeptical when he plugs his phone into a random charger at an internet cafe while Annabeth takes a turn in the family-style restroom.
This brings us to now. Percy and Annabeth take turns in the bathrooms and try to clean up as best they can. Most of the dirt is clean from Percy's hands; the grime on the rest of his body can be dealt with in the shower later. At least he has clean hands to eat with.
Percy just wants to make it very clear that he offered to help Annabeth out with her situation. There is a family bathroom with no family using it. They could share the space and help each other out, he offered, but she refused. Now he's trying to block the memory of her saying she's "gushing blood from more than one place" out of his mind.
"I was worried you fell asleep in there or something," she says when Percy emerges from the bathroom.
"I didn't."
"That's good," she says, absentmindedly picking at a bloodstain on her pink tie-dye t-shirt from Munich. He knows it's from Munich because it says MUNICH in big tacky lettering. The neck must not have been worth salvaging after her nosebleed because it looks like she might have hacked it off in the bathroom. The off-the-shoulder look kind of works though.
Annabeth cocks an eyebrow. "Are you checking out my shoulders? I mean, can't say I blame you, but-"
"No!" he stammers. "It's kind of stupid actually."
"What? Something on my face?"
Well, there is a tampon shoved up her nose and a little bit of blood under her lip, but Percy doesn't think she'd appreciate him pointing that out. Instead, he says, "You don't have a tan line."
She looks at her shoulder. "Uh, yeah, I guess not." Then, she winks and says, "Wouldn't blame ya if ya were, though!"
"Were what?"
"Checking me out."
"No," Percy says. "Definitely not. I mean, not that you're... I'm going to shut up now."
Annabeth doesn't give him time to come up with an excuse for himself because she is thinking with her stomach, and to be candid, so is Percy. They pass some places that Percy sort of recognizes from the brewery tour last night and a couple of other restaurants that don't open until the afternoon.
Percy looks back toward the alleyway they woke up in. Maybe they missed something back in that direction. He's so hungry that he almost doesn't notice the tattoo shop they woke up suspiciously close to.
Annabeth can deal with that later. She probably already knows. She is the tattoo expert, after all.
"Aha!" Annabeth shouts, pointing back in front of them. "We can even look out onto the river! You love rivers!"
Percy nods and concedes. "I do love rivers."
They're seated along the river, except you can't see to the bottom. Percy wonders what the water quality is like in Prague, or what kinds of codes the city has to protect the environment. Is building a restaurant so close to the river ethical? There are a lot of motorboats and little kayaks in the Vltava, and it is an urban city, so the water can't exactly be the cleanest, but Percy can't say he's feeling particularly weak.
"What's up?" Annabeth asks, not bothering to look up from the laminated breakfast menu.
"Huh?"
She folds the menu and passes it to Percy. "You have that son of Poseidon face."
"I do not have a son of Poseidon face." He opens the menu and glances down the list. He sighs, defeated because he does not know Czech. That on top of being dyslexic makes his head spin. The hangover might be contributing to that as well.
The server comes to the table and asks them something in Czech, which Percy cannot stress enough, is a language he doesn't know.
"Hey," Annabeth says to the waiter. Then, she looks at Percy and mouths, I don't know Czech.
Percy shrugs. He doesn't even know how to say hello.
He's not sure he's ever been more thankful for Annabeth, because she reaches across the table, grabs the menu, and starts pointing at some things, finishing it off with a sweet "Thank you!" embellished with the ASL sign.
And then the server turns to him and he gives the American Sign Language sign for "me too!" which he didn't realize he knew until this very moment.
Annabeth smacks her palm against her forehead. "Percy, I got that for us to share."
"Oh," he says. And then he gets it. "Oh!"
"Yeah," she says.
"That is a lot of food." He has made a mistake. Sure, he's been known to eat a lot of food in his time, but he's not exactly what you'd call "a growing boy" anymore.
"We can eat it on the way to... to our next destination," she says, spinning the straw in her orange juice.
"Did you get any idea where we're going?" Percy asks. "I'm sorry about last night. I swear, I had no idea I'd be such a lightweight."
"I shouldn't have let you have so much to drink-"
"No, I sort of figured this would happen. I mean, I should be asking you if you're okay."
"I'm fine," Annabeth says, suddenly very interested in watching the river.
"Annabeth," Percy says, lowering his voice. "You snorted cocaine last night."
She chuckles. "I did, but it was probably worth it. Give me your phone."
"Why?"
She purses her lips in thought. "I could feel myself blacking out, so I took a video on your phone." There's more to it than that, Percy can tell.
"You're not telling me something," he tries to object. "Are you okay? If something else happened, you can tell me."
"Just let me see if we got the video on your phone." She holds out her palm.
Percy hands over the freshly charged phone and she searches for the video, cringing at the screen almost immediately after hitting play.
"That bad?" he asks.
She puts a hand over her mouth and nods.
"Can I see?" He takes the phone from her and looks at... Oh, gods, that's Annabeth snapping pink glow sticks in half and drinking the chemicals. "Are you okay?"
"I guess that would explain my upset stomach," she says.
"Let's end the details there," Percy says. He'd rather not hear about Annabeth's bowel movements at—he checks the time—ten in the morning. Then he sees something he's not sure he likes the looks of. "Annabeth, is this normal club activity?"
She chokes on her juice when he shows her the video of the Dalmatian furry dancing a little too close to Percy. "Normal is not the word I would use."
"Have you ever-"
"Nope!" she says.
"Hey, don't send that to anyone!" Percy says, reaching for his phone again.
Annabeth rolls her eyes. "Relax, Seaweed Brain, I'm just sending it to myself."
He crosses his arms.
"Okay, fine. Will won't believe me if I just tell him about you dancing up against a furry. You got me."
There's the stinger. He just laughs it off though. "Well, at least I don't need a screenshot for people to believe that you ate glow sticks."
Annabeth groans. "Oh fuck, I ate glow sticks. Maybe that's also why my mouth feels so weird."
Percy has to ask again. "Are you-"
"For the last time, I am fine. You're the one I'm worried about," she snaps.
He furrows his eyebrows. "Me?" He just had a little too much to drink. "Why?"
"Because you're my friend, dipshit. Got any more stupid questions you want to throw my way?" she asks. "And yes, asking if I'm okay counts as a stupid question."
Percy doesn't think it's so stupid to care about a friend, but he doesn't get the chance to fight her on that because the food is ready and dear gods, it is a lot of food.
"I am so sorry about this," he says, cutting into his waffle.
With her mouth full of bacon, Annabeth says, "Stop apologizing. New Rome's paying for it."
"I thought you said you were buying."
"With New Rome's credit card, I am."
Percy's not sure why he expected anything different.
"Do you like grapefruit?" Annabeth asks, pushing a plate of citrus across the table.
He raises an eyebrow. "I thought you liked grapefruit."
"I'm not supposed to eat it with the pill I'm on, not that Will's here to police me anyway. On second thought, give that back." She puts the grapefruit half on her plate and digs in with a spoon. "I haven't had this in forever."
Percy just smiles and pours some syrup on his waffle. He's not down to unpack Annabeth's medical history at the breakfast table. "Maybe we'll take it easy today," he suggests, trying to change the subject.
"Why would we do that?" she asks, causing Percy to jump and spill a little too much syrup on his waffle. "Weren't you the one that was so worried about getting things done? Last night was a complete dead end."
"I guess," he says, "but I'm worried about you."
"I already told you not to be. C'mon, let's finish up and get moving. Ask Zebediah where we should go next." She finishes the grapefruit and inches her chair out.
"Hey," Percy says, "Zebediah says we can wait for a little before going back out. Let's have a nice little breakfast in Prague before something bad happens. You don't have to be go-go-go all the time."
"I am not go-go-go," Annabeth says. "I am stay-stay-stay."
"Yeah, but..." How is Percy supposed to put this without her getting offended? "Have you ever noticed that you're always doing something?"
"I'm ADHD, you dumbass. It's the same thing that makes you stare off into space like some kind of brooding action hero," she says.
"And you don't catch yourself brooding from time to time?" Percy asks.
"What's there to brood over?"
"What's there to brood over?" he parrots. "What isn't there to brood over? Annabeth, we went to Tartarus and back. Don't you ever think about that?"
She flinches.
"If you're uncomfortable," he starts, "that's fine. I can stop ignoring Zebediah and we can go kick Pothos's butt. If it's okay with you though, I'd like to stop and smell the roses a little bit."
Suddenly, Annabeth is very interested in pushing a blueberry around in the syrup on her plate.
So that answers that. Percy reaches down into his backpack and pulls out the jar with Zebediah in it.
"Wait," Annabeth says, still not looking at him. "I do owe you an explanation."
Percy blinks a couple of times in disbelief before realizing what's happening. He should probably drop that habit; he looks like he's trying not to cry or like he has an eyelash.
"It's... hard to explain," she continues.
"You don't owe me anything," he says. This is it. She's opening up to him. He can't say this is what he expected after a night of questionable decisions, but he'll take it.
"It's alright," he says. "Take your time."
"I... I have these nightmares."
"Me too." It's getting easier to manage thanks to his therapist Cletus and this sleep podcast he listens to, but the nightmares from Tartarus aren't exactly escapable. What Bob and Damasen did for them... that's unfathomable. He supposes it's probably really hard for Annabeth to deal with this kind of thing, especially now that her best friend Will isn't around. Percy would be happy to fill that void—be her friend, that is—but their romantic history sort of impedes that.
"No," she says, still pushing that poor blueberry around in the syrup. "I don't think you do. Not these nightmares, anyway."
"Okay."
"It's the same way every time," she says. "It was at least. I've been getting some variation since coming here like I told you about on the train, but that probably comes with being on a quest."
"Sure," he agrees. He likes it when his therapist Cletus listens actively like that, so he can try to do the same for Annabeth.
"It always starts the way I told you," she explains.
And then she tells him a story he already knows—a story about a little girl who ran away from an unloving family, only to find monsters lurking around every corner. She fought them off with nothing but her wits and a hammer. On a cold night, she curled up under some trash or something for shelter, exhausted, but unable to sleep because of her fear. More than anything, she was fed up with monsters.
"And then one came," she says. "He always comes."
Now Percy's a little confused. This is all new to him. "Wait, so like a monster shows up and eats you?" He's not going to judge by any means, but that's a lot more tame than he expected.
She groans. "No, Percy... I said it was hard to explain."
"Sorry," he says. "I'm listening."
She waves him off. "I don't think I can get into this today. With you."
So she's just done now? It's like she flipped some sort of switch. Percy tries to object. "Are you sure you don't wanna-"
"I'm sure."
"It'll help if you talk about it," Percy says. "It always helps me. I could give you my therapist's number-"
"Thanks, but no thanks," Annabeth says.
"But just in case-"
"I said no, Percy," she snaps.
He shouldn't have pried. He should know better than to risk completely setting her off since that meltdown she had in Munich.
But gods, he has to know what it is that makes her tick. Besides, talking about his problems makes Percy feel better. Talking about your feelings and then feeling better is part of the human experience, isn't it?
He sighs. "Okay, fine, but if you ever want to-"
"I won't." Annabeth clears her throat. "Look, I get that laying on a couch and pouring your problems out over some stranger helps you feel better, but that's not something that helps me."
"What does?" Percy asks.
"Do I have to spell this out for you?"
He nods.
"Stuff like last night," she explains. "I mean, without the high stakes and drugs. It may come as a surprise to you what with your uptight lifestyle, but drinking and dancing are things that make me happy. I like going out and having fun like that."
He'd suspected it this whole time, but he didn't want to believe that Annabeth coped by not coping. That's no way to do things.
Then again, she's functional. Sure, she's barely functional, and not living up to her full potential, but she has a job that provides for her, and she has friends. It's the bare minimum, but it's working to some extent.
And he'll probably never admit it out loud—it goes against just about all of his morals—but it makes sense to Percy. For a moment last night, he forgot he was even a demigod. When he danced pressed against Annabeth, they were just two people enjoying a night out. There were no monsters, no gods, no imminent doom or built-up trauma. It felt good to drown his problems out with loud music.
But to live a life like that... Is it even living?
Finally, he asks, "Are you happy?"
Annabeth clears her throat and says, "Well, that's too many feelings for me in one day. What's Zebediah thinking?"
I think that-
Percy chooses to ignore the starfish. "Do you want to go back to the hotel and take a nap maybe?" he proposes. He's exhausted; he can't imagine how much worse it must be for Annabeth considering she all but babysat him last night while getting wasted herself.
She finishes off the bacon and says, "I want to get takeout boxes for all this food you ordered, drop it off in the hotel, and then go wherever Zebediah tells us to."
Of course, she doesn't want to take a nap. She just told him about the nightmares she has all the time. Percy wonders if that's like, a daily occurrence, or just an occasional thing. Either way, he's starting to understand her better. He used to work all day and then go volunteer at beach cleanups so he'd pass out from exhaustion at the end of a long day. It's an effective way to ward off nightmares, but it's not healthy. He's sure she doesn't need him to tell her that; she lived with a medical student.
Annabeth snatches the jar from the table and holds it in the air. "I'll shake him, Percy."
"Good gods, do not shake that starfish! He's been under a lot of stress!"
"Not more stress than us," she says.
Percy concedes because damn, she has a point. "Alright, fine. Zebediah, tell us where we're going next. It better be mostly safe or else Annabeth will shake the jar."
"Tell that starfish I think he lied to us about the club."
Zebediah starts to rant from inside his Mason jar. Pothos was there, you-
"Let's not call people misogynistic names, Zebediah," Percy warns. "If I hear one more c-word out of you, I'll let Annabeth dump you in the Hudson when we get back to New York."
I sincerely doubt your father would like that!
"The joke's on you," says Percy. "My father is absent. You can take up your concerns with my stepdad, Paul."
"How's he doing?" Annabeth asks, a shit-eating grin on her face.
"Fine," says Percy. "Zebediah, where are we going next?"
You're not going to like it.
"He says we're not going to like it," Percy translates.
She rolls her eyes. "Yeah, but can it at least take our chances of dying from like, one hundred percent to ninety-nine? Can I request not to do hard drugs this time?"
You'll need to go to Italy, Zebediah explains.
Percy's breath hitches.
"Shit," Annabeth swears. "Don't sugarcoat it."
"Back to Italy," Percy translates.
While you horndogs were bumping uglies on the dancefloor, I overheard Pothos saying he has a team of monsters and allies stationed in the Vatican.
Percy spits out his orange juice. "The what?"
"Yeah," Annabeth quips. "Tell me, Percy!"
"What else do you know?" he asks Zebediah.
Not a lot. They started playing "New Romantics" and your girl here screamed the lyrics so loud, I couldn't hear.
"Watch it," Percy warns. He turns to Annabeth. "Zebediah says he doesn't know too many details, but there's a team of monsters and allies at the Vatican."
"Good news!" Annabeth says, her speech laced with sarcasm. "The Vatican is considered its own independent state, so if you think about it, we're just in a small territory surrounded by Rome."
"That's... that's nice," Percy says. "So should we start looking at some train times?"
I can transport you.
"You can do what now?"
If you both hold the jar and believe, I can teleport you, Zebediah says.
"What's he saying?" Annabeth asks.
"He can teleport us to Italy."
"How?"
Wouldn't you like to know.
"Give that jar a little shake, Annabeth," Percy says.
Annabeth swishes the jar like you might do with a glass of wine.
Fine! Fine! It's kind of like how hellhounds shadow travel. If there's water nearby, I can get you there.
"Why can't I do this?" Percy asks.
Don't know. Don't care. The only problem is I won't be able to get you directly into the Vatican.
"Why can't you get us directly in?" Percy asks. "There's gotta be fountains or something."
You know how all traditions kind of just exist, right?
"I guess."
And you know how Mount Olympus is in the Empire State Building, so like Egyptian and Norse gods can't infiltrate it?
"I don't think I realized that was a thing, but yeah, I guess that makes sense," Percy says.
So the Vatican is like the Empire State Building for Catholics. We can't just rematerialize in its waterways.
Percy gasps. "Holy water."
Bingo.
Percy explains the situation to Annabeth.
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," she says. "When do we leave?"