Chapter Text
Percy yawned as he leaned against his arm that was being propped up by the car window seal of the car’s passenger seat he was sitting in. Finally spring break had arrived for the students of New Rome College. The past two weeks had been feeling like walking through mud to Percy. His wonderful girlfriend Annabeth on the other hand, who was driving the car, was conflicted about the break since she rather enjoyed working towards her goal of becoming a mortal architect. Emphasis on mortal considering she already had planned and helped build the layout for Olympus after its destruction. Not to mention her contributions in revamping camp and adding new cabins.
Percy let out a dramatic sigh suddenly, popping up from his previous position and raising his arms above his head to stretch. “Annnnniiieee” the man whined, fauxing a pout. “How much longer ‘til we reach camp?” Percy complained, his right leg bouncing in both anticipation and boredom. He was a demigod, a demigod who had been fighting for his life almost every day for the past six fucking years. Like the majority of older demigods, he tended to be a more hyper-active and restless person on top of the ADHD.
Annabeth let out a long, heavy sigh. “Seaweed brain, for the hundredth time, we’re still only in Illinois.” her tone flat as her hands gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter. Her eyes once again swept the surrounding desolate roads to check for any incoming monsters. Percy’s pout became more exaggerated at her words. “But we’ve been in Illinois for hours!” Percy groaned annoyingly. Annabeth glanced over and gave him a dead-panned expression. “If by hours you mean forty five minutes then yes, it has been hours.” The silence after the words stretched on for about 15 minutes before Percy opened his mouth again.
Before the son of Poseidon could even get a word out Annabeth slammed on the breaks and pulled onto the shoulder of the road. Her hand quickly found the car's gear control and shoved it into park. Her head snapped towards Percy, her eyes practically blazing. “Percy Jackson if you do not grab that damned sea-themed coloring book you begged me to buy you for this trip to stay quiet, Gods’ help me I will throw you out of this car tied up in duct tape and leave you for whatever monster finds you first.” Percy then promptly shut his mouth and dejectedly grabbed the coloring book and markers he had begged Annabeth for last Tuesday at Walmart when preparing for the 45 hour drive.
Annabeth, who was rather pleased by the development, turned the stereo up and pushed the car's gear out of park and into drive. A happy content smile plastered on her face as she drove the next 4 hours in silence next to Percy, who had been able to absorb himself into coloring the book as realistically as possible. Annabeth knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth and made sure to let Percy stay infatuated in his coloring book.
But of course, things can never go perfectly for Annabeth when she’s with Percy. The son of Poseidon’s luck liked to stick to everyone around him like taffy being stepped on, on a hot summer day. She knew that bad luck finally hit when she spotted a Manticore starting to tail them. With a defeated sigh Annabeth turned to Percy and tapped his shoulder, one hand one the wheel. “Percy, we’ve got some company.” Annabeth hummed, jerking her thumb back to signal to him to look at the road behind them.
Percy, slightly annoyed at being taken away from his half-completed coloring book, glanced behind him. His already annoyed expression turned sour when he caught sight of the Manticore. He was quick to turn back to Annabeth, a grimace on his face. “Can we just out-pace it?” Percy grumbled, a shake of Annabeth's head and he all but collapsed into his seat with a defeated grunt. “We’re almost out of gas and need to stop at a station soon to refuel on that and snacks.” Annabeth sighed, sounding just as defeated as Percy. Usually Percy would be ecstatic to fight a monster after being stuck in a car for…roughly 30 hours. That being said, he had been really invested in his coloring book.
Percy and Annabeth, in retrospect, were rather lucky thus far. They had only run into a few (mostly friendly) Party Pony centaurs, passed by a small flock of Stymphalian birds, spotted a hydra when going through South Dakota and Idaho near the border of Minnesota, and had a fight with three Empousa in Wyoming. In all actuality, for their combined Demigod scent, that was a pretty good monster count.
Percy fussed for a few more minutes while Annabeth looked for the most opportune side road to take so they could hop out. Once she found one Percy fussed even louder, only ceasing his whines when the car came to a complete stop. “Annie…If I kill it in under five minutes can I pick lunch?” Percy moaned defeatedly, setting his coloring book and colors aside and tightening his shoe-laces Annabeth paused for a moment, thinking before giving a nod. “Sure Perce, if you can kill it in under five I’ll let you pick lunch.” She decided, the reward in question, a rather good motivator for Percy to not drag his feet. If it meant she had to deal with buying another meal from Mcdonalds then she’d gladly throw her money at the damn place.
Percy, hearing his beautiful girlfriend agree to him possibly deciding lunch, was happy to jump out of the car. His hand digging into his pocket to fish out his sword-pen Riptide. He uncapped his trusty pen and gripped the entire pen in his palm. A grin made its way onto his face as he felt the weight change and his palm be engulfed. Now, instead of a pen being held in his palm, Percy held the hilt of the sword Anaklusmos in his hand. The blade pointed outward towards where the Manticore was gunning it towards their current location.
There was no hesitation as Percy dashed forward to meet the beast part way. In his mind he was contemplating his Mcdonalds order, listening to a random song on repeat that had been on the radio an hour ago, and assessing the Manticore’s next move. “Come on bud let’s dance!” Percy called, sliding beside the beast as it reached a paw out to claw him to ribbons. With the momentum Percy drug his sword into the side of the Manticores underbelly and pulled. It was just enough to cause the Manticore to let out an excruciating pained roar as blood exploded from the gash.
Percy flinched and moaned when blood splattered onto his face and clothes. “Oh come on! I just got this shirt!” He rubbed the blood off his face, mostly just so he could see. He had gotten the red liquid off his face just in time to dodge some spikes the wounded Manticore shot in his direction. Before Percy could rush forward again the thing took to the air. A dramatic sigh passed Percy’s lips. “Man, I thought I could avoid training before getting back to camp.” The son of Poseidon grouched, getting int a slightly crouched position. He tensed his muscles for a minute, hearing the blood coursing through his entire body. With a deep breath he took off and sprinted towards the back of the car. Using the glorified metal box as leverage, he jumped onto the roof and used it to propel hum into the air. Luckily the Manticore hadn’t bothered to fly more than 20 feet up in the air. He smacked one of the things spikes heading towards him back towards the Manticore and got it right in the wing. Percy smirked as his sword hit its mark once he was in reach and stabbed the thing right in the eye. The moment they hit the ground, gravity did its magic and dug Riptide even farther. The manticore, having finally sustained too much injury, exploded in a puff of golden dust.
With the lack of the Manticore’s body underneath Percy, he lost his balance and just barely saved himself from a rather embarrassing fall into a puddle of more blood and dust. Percy groaned and stretched slightly, looking down at himself with mild disgust when he saw blood and golden dust was already caked into his hair and clothes. With minimal embarrassment Percy waddled back to the car and held a hand out. Annabeth, with a rather amused expression, handed him a bottle of water. As Percy uncapped the bottle and moved the water out of the container and around himself to get all the dust and blood off, Annabeth spoke. “Good job, a solid three minutes and forty one seconds, a few seconds off from your last go.” she hummed, waving Percy back towards his passenger seat once the water had rid the son of Poseidon of all the grim that clung to him.
Percy sighed as he flopped into the car and back to his previous seat. “…so McDonald’s?” He murmured, glancing at Annabeth out of the corner of his eye. With a chuckle the daughter of Athena nodded. “Yeah yeah seaweed brain, we can go to McDonald’s after we get gas.” Her tone amused, a smile forming on her face when she heard the way Percy did a little victory cheer.
Sixteen hours later and the duo had finally made it to camp just in time to catch the end of dinner. It was the feast it always was, and both made sure to give a hefty portion to Hermes as a thanks to the safe travel the past couple days.
After dinner Percy rose from his table and approached Mr.D, a grin on his face. “Hey Mr.D” he hummed, a hint of teasing in his voice. If there was one thing he had grown to love it was messing with the gods. Thankfully, the camp had its own resident god to annoy! Dionysus, not dignifying Percy’s fretting with eye-contact, responded. “What is it Perry Johnson.” The god of wine grumbled, reading the news-paper in his hands. Percy let out an amused exasperated sigh at the gods words. “You will never say my name right will ya?” He hummed, crossing his arms with a smirk on his face and an amused glint in his eyes.
Mr.D grumbled at Percy’s attention. “What is it the kids these days say? ‘Nope’? Well Peter Jayline, nope, I will not.” The grouchy man stated, raising an eyebrow as he finally granted Percy with eye contact. Percy beamed at the camp director despite his attitude. If there was one thing he had learned since he first came to Camp at 12 it was that Mr.D liked to act like an ass when he really cared about shit. That shit in question tended be the campers, Percy included.
“Well, I won’t take up anymore of our directors' precious time. I’ll see you tomorrow Mr.D!” Percy beamed, turning away and walking towards Annabeth who was face-palmed with an amused expression. Behind him he heard Mr.D let out a groan of annoyance, knowing that Percy’s words were code for ‘I’m gonna bother you for hours later’.
Percy picked up his leisurely pace into a light jog until he reached Annabeth. He flashed the daughter of Athena a smile as he took her hand in his own. “You gonna crash in my cabin?” Percy hummed, tilting his head to the side as he asked his question. Annabeth gave a nod. “Yeah, I don’t feel like waking up at 5 a'clock in the morning to Malcolm ranting about one thing or another.” She chuckled, Percy following suit. “Well M’lady, to cabin three then.” The man jumped, tugging Annabeth along a bit faster than before. “Now I can make you watch Finding Nemo again.” Percy muttered under his breath as he plotted to torture her with his favorite movie once more.
That night Percy stayed up well into the night with Annabeth. They watched movies, documentaries, snacked, had a food fight at one point, and even a self-care routine courtesy of Annnabeth. Finally, at around 2am the pair had slipped into bed., their faces covered in a thin layer of a mud mask. Annabeth was the first to fall into Hypnos’ land of slumber. Percy struggled more, his eyelids heavy yet unable to close them long enough for slumber. He wasn’t sure why but his instincts were screaming at him that something was Wrong. However, sleep eventually won out around an hour after Annabeth had fallen asleep. The last thing Percy swore he heard was the sound of wind rustling trees.