"Hey, Dad!" I say, waving.
"Hey, Bud!" He opens his arms wide and I go crashing into him hard enough to make him give a soft, Oof. He rumples my hair and hugs me hard enough to pick me up off the floor. "What brings you to the base, Perce?"
"I'm just here to drop off some papers for mom and I was hoping to eat lunch with you today!– uh, that is, if you have lunch soon! I could wait?" He puts me down in front of him and I look up at him hopefully.
He rubs his chin contemplatively before breaking out in a smile. "Of course I have time to eat lunch with my son!" He picks me up again and throws me over his shoulder playfully and I giggle. The warm wind whooshes around my ears as I swing side to side.
"Da–ad! We're on the base! My friends will see me! This is embarrassing!" I latch onto him upside down so I'm giving him an upside down back hug. I feel his chest expand as he laughs and continues to walk through the base.
The packed dirt ground turns to tile and finally to linoleum as we enter the cafeteria. I'm plopped down on my feet in the lunch line to find a bunch of snickering peers. A quick mumbled shut up makes everyone crack and eventually, there's hysterical laughter filling the cafeteria walls. Soon there's pats on the back and raucous welcome back.
"Good to have you back, Percy!"
"Where you been, Jackson?"
"Comin' to slum it with us, are ya?"
"Aw, shut up guys. Give him some space, would ya?" Annabeth Chase says breaking through the crowd. Everyone says their farewells as she makes her way to us.
My eyes light up immediately. "Annie!" I run and tackle her in a hug. "I missed you!" She still smells like books and the library.
She pulls away, curls framing the big smile on her face. "How've you been, runt?" She says slightly shaking me by the shoulders.
"I'm pretty good, but I'd be better if we could let that nickname leave and never come back?" I smiling sheepishly.
"We'll see, runt. How're your parents?"
"You should know better than me, Annie. You're the one on base working under him—"
"Not those parents. Your other parents, kelp for brains. The gay ones—if you're still trying to figure it out."
"You know? All the name calling is beginning to hurt my feelings a little? You know I'm very sensitive," I say smiling.
She rolls her eyes smiling, "Answer the question, Perce."
"They're fine, geez. I come back to base and the first question I get asked is how Nico and Will are." I huff jokingly. "And you wonder why I left."
"Haha. Very funny." She squishes me up in another bone breaking hug and puts her chin on top of my head. "I missed you so much."
I slowly wrap my arms around her torso, mumbling, "I missed you too."
A shuffling of feet reminds us we have a one-person audience. We slowly break apart and we let our smiles linger before we step away completely to face my dad.
Annie clears her throat and playfully salutes. "Mark," she says.
He returns the salute and says, "Annabeth. Permission to have my son back?"
"We'll consider your request," she smugly says and gives me a playful raise of the eyebrows. Her smirk becomes a sheepish smile as she glances at her senior. My dad shoots her a no-nonsense look and she relents, "Fine. Take 'im." She shakes my shoulder once before going back to her lunch table to join her girlfriend. "See ya, runt."
I can only smile as I watch her walk away. There wasn't a better best friend out there than her. "See ya, Wise girl."
I turn back to my dad as she sits down with Piper and they share a brief kiss.
"How are you?" I ask returning my gaze to my dad.
"Pretty good. Things have been pretty calm. Especially since you left. Just sayin'."
"Wow. Very funny. The two of you. Is this a military base or a comedy club?"
"We're actually changing out the name to Aristophanes's Comedy Club," he jokes, raising his hands like he can see the new name hovering just between his outstretched fingers. I half expect the cantina to break out into four-part harmony.
"You're weird."
My dad laughs and bumps my shoulder with his playfully. As we gradually move up in the lunch line, I take short glances around the room, taking in new faces and old. But mostly a lot of new.
"You guys get a new shipment of Greenies or something?" I ask nudging my dad.
He looks up in surprise and then sees me looking at him. He smiles playfully, "Oh yeah. 'Tis the season." He then tilts his head thoughtfully before adding, "Though now you mention it," he says looking around, "I guess we did get a lot more this semester."
I just hum in response.
Lunch on the weekends is always either pink mush or brown mush. The brown mush days were better than the pink mush days because we weren't sure what exactly the pink mush was and we were pretty sure the brown mush was some sort of ground beef. Others thought it was better off not knowing.
Today ended up being a brown mush day. Oh, joy.
The lunch people unceremoniously plop some mush onto the trays and put them up for us to take.
"You'd think the lunch would be better here for a non-public school. This stuff is shit," I hear a student mutter from behind us in line. Snickers follow like a chorus of hyenas. My dad turns to me and winks playfully before spinning towards the cadet who had spoken.
"What did you just say, private?" My dad all but yells in the kid's face. I smirk internally because I know that my dad thinks the exact same thing as the kid had said; he just wanted to rough up the noobs a bit.
I watch in glee as the kid gulps hard and stutters out, "N-Nothing, Sir." The poor private lowers his eyes, practically melting to the ground.
"That's Colonel, to you, Greeny," my dad barks.
"Y-Yes, Colonel," the kid squeaks out.
"If you don't want the food, private, I suggest you don't eat it. These people are feeding you, and they really don't have to. In fact, if I were them, I'd let your ungrateful ass starve. Am I understood?"
"Y-Yes, Colonel," the kid mutters.
My dad looks like he might mess with the kid a little more before he seems to let up a bit.
"Get outta here, Private!" My dad barks. The boy and his friends who laughed all but sprinted out of the cafeteria.
The entire mess hall breaks out into laughter including my dad and I. My dad pats me on the back and we take out food and walk over to an empty table.
I'm still chuckling a little when we sit. "That was cruel, dad."
He sends me a sly smile, "He's one of Annabeth's kids. She told me to rough 'em up a bit before she really started work on them."
"One of Annie's? She got cursed with the worst of them, huh?" I ask smiling.
"Yes, she really did," Annabeth says striding up to the table. "And when I said rough, I didn't mean: make the kid pee himself."
She seats herself next to me with her girlfriend in tow. Piper takes the seat next to her and, without hesitation, Annabeth leans back on her.
"Hiya, Percy," she greets with a sweet smile.
"Hi, Pipes," I smile at the two of them. They were literally the sweetest together.
"What's this Annie was saying about possible boyfriends prospects?" Her smile turns to a shark-like smirk as she winks at me. My mouth falls open in shock at her abrupt statement. Not so sweet!
The slag falls from my father's mouth dramatically and onto the tray.
"Oh, gross, dad," I say making a face. It looks the same coming back out, to be honest. I glare at Piper again and accuse, "Look what you did. Look—You broke my dad!"
"Boyfriend? You have a boyfriend, Percy?" My dad questions loudly.
I glare at Piper before dragging my most innocent countenance to the surface and face my dad.
"I don't know what Piper is talking about whatsoever," I say quickly glaring at the two backstabbers. I make a slashing movement across my neck with my hand in a "shut-up-now" motion.
"That's not what you said last time we called, dear Perseus," Annabeth replies innocently.
"Oh, so now I'm Perseus!" I mutter sarcastically. Around us, the other tables seem to have a normal, relaxed conversation. Why can't we just be one of those tables?
"I believe your exact words were 'tall, sweet, and gorgeous'," Piper says listing the traits on her fingers.
I feel like the poor private had earlier and all but sink into the table in embarrassment. I mutter into my sleeve, "You guys are worse than Nico and Will."
"Percy? Were you going to tell me about this boyfriend?" My dad asks and all I want to do is bond with the table.
I groan in embarrassment and mutter, "Dad, he's not my boyfriend. His name is Peter, and he's just a friend." I glare at the table imagining both Piper and Annabeth's heads exploding.
Annabeth and Piper giggle with each other and I can actually feel the headache they'd just caused my dad.
"I'm gonna— Oh hey, Ty!" I get up off the table awkwardly almost kicking Annabeth in the face. "Dad! It's Tyson!" I put an arm around my slightly taller baby-brother.
"Hey, Percy!" He says happily. I smile back sadly. Such a nice kid. Oh well.
"Oh, man. Sorry to do this to you," I whisper apologetically. "Hey, dad!" Before he can break away, I grab his collar and pull down revealing a dark purple hickey to my dad.
"I—! Percy—! Dad, it's not what it looks like!" Tyson shouts as he pushes me to the side.
I giggle and run off with Piper and Annabeth in tow.
We safely make it to another table with just the three of us. We all laugh hysterically until we have to stop to catch our breath. Eventually deciding to tell them my true purposes for being here, I frown seriously.
"So, guys. I did actually come back for another reason. I... I had to get away from home for a bit. From my mom, mostly," I admit breaking the joyful tone.
The two immediately share a worried glance. "Has your mom been hurting you, Percy?" Piper asks quietly.
"No! Oh my gosh, never. I'm sorry, that sounded really bad. She would never hurt me," I assure with low set eyebrows. I was taken aback that they'd even assume that.
"Percy, there are more types of abuse than the physical kind. We've been through our own abuses at home and we can help. You know that" Annabeth offers with mind eyes.
My face falls at the thought that they think my mom could be capable of that. But I suppose they were speaking from experience.
I cast my eyes downward and promise, "No, guys. It's nothing like that." I raise my eyes again to meet their concern. "She's just acting really strange lately. I mean, —So what happened, was that this guy, Poseidon, came up and approached us. Both of us! And separately at that! Crazy, right?—What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
They both exchanged a wide-eyed stare with pale faces.
"Oh now you two, too? Are you kidding me? What's everyone know that I don't?"
They don't break eye contact as Annabeth replies, "Nothing, Perce."
"Yeah, sure. Then why'd you do that thing that Nico and Will do when they're having a silent conversation?"
"We're going to —"
"Fuck later, " Piper finishes.
"Eat takeout for dinner, " Annabeth finishes also at the same time.
They both elbow each other and give me a pressed smile.
"Yeah, we're gonna go do that now, " Annabeth explains as they both get up.
"Nice seeing you, Perce, " Piper adds as they walk away deep in conversation.
I watch as the two of them walk out of the doors and snark to no one but myself, "Nice to see you two."
A/N
Hi. I'm so tired. That seems to be the trend nowadays.
Anyway, here's the next chapter I guess. Moving on and hoping to get this done so I can keep working on my secret projects. There's two.
~P.S.BROOKLYN