here
It takes Jason a little more than an hour of aimless searching to find Percy the next morning, but eventually he does, in a clearing a little way into the Forbidden Forest. He’s thwacking away at a couple of hastily made training dummies, familiar celestial blade in hand.
Sword fighting is one of the rare times Jason ever sees Percy look dead serious: his face is all sharp angles, his eyes cold.
He’ll never admit it, but it’s intimidating.
Percy notices him, of course, almost immediately. The only sign that he does is a sharp intake of breath when Jason comes into view, his eyes glancing over for a split second before looking back, effectively ignoring him.
Jason watches for a moment, cold hands tucked into his jeans, his brain automatically studying and taking apart each of Percy’s moves.
He’s favoring his left side, Jason notices vaguely.
There’s a heavy silence in the air, tense with unspoken words. They both know why Jason’s here, but neither of them say anything — in Percy’s case, it’s probably because he just doesn’t want to, but in Jason’s, it’s because he’s struggling with how.
Finally: “I talked to Harry this morning,” Jason says, and then, as though it isn’t fully clear, tacks on, “Harry Potter.”
Percy makes no reaction to Jason’s words, instead beginning a complex chain of moves that leaves one of the dummies battered to an inch of its life.
“He was worried about you. Wanted to know where you were.” Jason continues, feet shifting awkwardly in the silence.
When Percy still doesn’t respond, Jason sighs.
He really doesn’t know how to do this, and it rankles. Being raised by wolves, while providing him with excellent survival skills and battle instincts, didn’t leave him with much in the emotionalskills area.
Percy still hasn’t so much as acknowledged him, but it’s easier somehow, not having to look him in the eye.
“He was worried you were hurt, since you didn’t come to the Med Bay last night,” Jason says. “I told him you were okay.”
Percy slashes too hard at one of the training dummies, and its head flies off into the forest. He does a fancy pirouette, his sword glinting dangerously, and fluidly begins attacking another of the dummies without a single pause.
Percy clearly hopes that Jason will give up and leave soon, but if there’s one thing the son of Zeus has, it’s patience. And he’s so close…
“He looked rough. Harry, I mean.” Jason clarifies, and Percy pulls to a shuddering halt, his chest heaving from exertion.
Sea-green eyes meet blue, and Jason fights the urge to punch the air in victory.
“Rough how?” Percy asks, his voice coming out interspersed with short, panting gasps.
Jason watches him carefully as though to glean injuries from last night, but Percy catches him at it and visibly begins controlling his breathing with an irritated look.
“Hadn’t slept well, I guess. But he’s not injured anymore.” Jason finally replies, and Percy winces, though from pain or from his answer Jason isn’t sure.
Jason sits down on a fallen log, gesturing towards Percy to come join him, and after a beat of silence the other demigod complies. There’s a bandage peeking out from underneath Percy’s t-shirt, Jason notes, and a fading bruise on his cheek, barely visible in the dim morning light.
“Why are you here?” Percy asks. His voice is perfectly light now, his expression cleared of the seriousness from before. Jason studies his face for a moment, trying to find a flaw in the facade, but fails and eventually looks away.
There’s a million scenarios running through his mind now, of what to say and what not to say and how to say it and how not to say it. Jason wishes for the thousandth time that conversations could be like sword fights, where things are simpler. Where he knows what to do.
He’s aiming for a combination of infinitely-patient and calm-and-soothing, but when he speaks it ends up coming out stilted. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
It’s evidently the wrong thing to say, because Percy scowls at the ground hard. “I’m fine,” Percy responds, his voice clipped.
Jason opens his mouth to respond, probably with something along the lines of “I highly doubt that”or “You don’t look fine”, but eventually admits that that will probably only make the situation worse and shuts his mouth with a sigh.
The silence is angry now, pounding on his ears and tight on his skin. Jason forces himself to glance at his friend’s face, then instantly regrets it. Percy’s face is marred by a frown, his eyes — a dark blue-gray color like a frothing ocean in a storm — staring determinedly at the ground.
This quest has just started, but it feels all wrong and Jason wants nothing more than to go home. To go back to Camp, where it’s safe and simple. Where everything is okay.
But the idea of running back home with his metaphorical tail tucked under his legs reeks of failure, of quitting. Jason doesn’t quit.
There’s a million things Jason can say, but he realizes that none of them will work. Are there even words that can fit everything that happened, everything that’s awfully wrong and awfully right together?
Perhaps there are, but Jason can’t find them.
He could sit here, with Percy, for hours, in this unbearably thick silence, and maybe Percy would say something.
Percy’s eyes, hard and adamant, flash in his mind, and he knows deep in his gut that Percy won’t.
“Let’s spar,” Jason suddenly says, and Percy flinches in surprise.
“Spar?” Percy asks, disbelievingly. He’d clearly assumed that they were going to sit here, until one of them got tired and either spoke or left.
Jason stands up, pulling out his coin — a familiar and constant weight in his pocket — and flipping it over his palm. Fluidly it elongates, turning into the spear he knows so well, and he turns toward Percy, who’s only now starting to realize that he isn’t joking.
The relief on his face is gratifying in the best way, and Jason knows he chose correctly.
And when they’re done, collapsed on the forest floor in a tired and sweaty heap, they grin ridiculously at each other and laugh, because none of it matters, really. And when Jason, in between gasps of air(oh gods he’d forgotten how tiring sparring with Percy was), asks “you okay?” Percy looks him in the eye and nods, and Jason believes him.
They end up going down for breakfast afterwards. It’s late enough that the Great Hall is almost empty, save for a few stragglers eating sleepily at their tables. Jason had already eaten but he sits down anyways, letting Percy chastise him for not joining the Quidditch team and tell him about his latest exploits in attempting to convince Professor McGonagall to let him bring Mrs. O’Leary here, all while filling his plate with an impressive amount of food.
“I don’t know why she had a problem with the form I submitted!” Percy whines, in between bites of food.
The form, Jason notices, describes Mrs. O’Leary’s special skills as being “hella big” and having “demon red eyes that can stare into your soul.” Jason spends a few minutes tactfully rephrasing it, until it seems at least a little less ridiculous(though privately isn’t sure if anything can convince the wizards to let a dog the size of a tank roam the school).
By the time Percy finishes eating, the sun is already far out and it’s near mid-afternoon.
In a strangely wordless agreement they head out together, eventually finding themselves at the Quidditch pitch, where the Gryffindor team is having practice.
Percy seemed to have finally accepted the fact that Jason would be sticking to him like a burr for the rest of the day, because when he heads outside with Jason following closely at his heels, he just rolls his eyes in a resigned manner. They walk across the fields, comfortable silence in between them, and eventually find themselves at the Quidditch pitch, where the Gryffindor team is having practice.
Jason spends a couple of minutes explaining the game to Percy, who gives him a judgemental look at the end of it that clearly says why didn’t you try out for the team, and then they entertain themselves for a while watching as the Quidditch players zoom around the field.
The Gryffindor team, Jason has to admit, is pretty terrible. He’s not sure if it’s a today thing or an always thing, but the entire practice is a fiasco. One of the chasers ends up getting injured somehow, and the Slytherins on the bleachers don’t help with their constant taunts at the new keeper(whose face, Jason notes, is the same shade of red as his hair).
They finally seem to give up on practicing — not twenty minutes later — and begin landing their brooms, causing the Slytherins to jeer triumphantly. Harry is, surprisingly enough, there as well, but before they can watch him land on his broom Percy is hurriedly standing up, telling Jason that they should go.
They start walking across the field(Percy seems intent that they go the long way, for some reason) when they hear it.
A large, resounding crack echoes across the Quidditch pitch, and Percy and Jason freeze. A second passes, and then another, and another, and it seems like everything’s fine-
And then someone screams.
Percy and Jason don’t have to say anything to each other as they whirl around and race towards the source of the sound.
It’s nearby, so they’re the first to make it there(thankfully), and Jason estimates that they have at least a couple of minutes before anyone else arrives.
They round the giant wood lattice wall of the Quidditch pitch and scramble to a halt.
Because standing right in front of them is a giant, black scorpion.
In all of Jason’s life of monster fighting — and he’s fought a lot of them — never had he encountered a scorpion before.
This wasn’t necessarily due to their rarity; he’d heard quite a few not-so-nice things about deadly, giant scorpions from demigods(most of whom were injured, and that’s only for those who made it back), but he’d never had the admittedly unpleasant task of facing one himself.
He’d never been particularly torn up about this fact, until now, when a long and rather venomous looking stinger swings across the floor at them and he’s forced to scramble to the side desperately.
He was really wishing for some experience in scorpion-fighting now.
“It’s a scorpion!” Percy yells, like that needs to be said.
The scorpion makes a strange click-click sound in agreement, its giant claws(or pincers, Jason isn’t sure of the particular terminology right now) snapping together furiously.
Its claws aren’t the worrying part though. It’s the stinger, sickle-shaped, razor sharp, and dripping with blood that’s really bothering Jason right now.
The blood, he notices, trails over to a motionless body curled up against the wall. Their bright scarlet robes do little to hide the worrying amount of blood seeping from their wounds.
Before he can say anything, however, the scorpion is raging forward with all of the battle fury of a thousand Gallic warriors, and Percy, without hesitation, whips out his sword and does the same.
Jason hastens to follow, but can barely get his spear out before having to throw himself to the side out of the way of the scorpion’s stinger, which sinks into the ground with a satisfying thunk exactly where Jason had stood a second ago.
Percy, who’d been doing battle with its front claws, snarls angrily at the offending move.
And then he tackles the scorpion to the ground.
It’s not a move Jason imagined either of them doing, mostly because it’s insane.
But then again, it’s also Percy, so he really shouldn’t be surprised.
Jason darts around the scorpion’s front, deflecting its stinger once again as it comes hurtling his way, as he tries desperately to find an opening to attack. He jabs at it from the side with his spear, quickly discovering that it has armor, as his weapon bounces off of its rock hard carapace with hardly a scratch.
Percy makes a strangled sort of sound, clearly trying to talk but having trouble as the scorpion all but sits on him, and Jason has to riskily jab at the exposed flesh near its back to get it off of him.
This unfortunately results with Jason being directly adjacent to the giant scorpion’s tail, and it takes full advantage of this fact as it smoothly wraps itself around his body with a breath-stealing grip.
The stinger, curled close to him, looms closer, and Jason resorts to desperately swinging his spear to keep it away. Somehow it manages to make contact, and the scorpion makes an odd click-squeal sound in pain.
It proceeds to drop Jason painfully on the ground like a sack of bricks, backing away from him hurriedly.
Which brings him quite a bit of satisfaction, right up until he realizes that it’s backed up onto Percy.
Percy, who sometime during the fight had dropped his sword — now just painful inches away from his reaching fingers — and is barely keeping one of the scorpion’s giant claws from goring him with one arm, which is positioned dangerously close to its sharp edge.
“A little help right now would be appreciated,” Percy says through gritted teeth, arm shaking from fatigue.
Jason grabs his spear from where it had been thrown to the ground, thinking wildly. The solution’s right in front of him, he just has to…
“I got it! Just… don’t move.” Jason says hurriedly.
“Oh, yeah, that’s funny. A real comedian.” Percy replies sarcastically, still firmly pinned to the ground. The scorpion hisses as Jason starts edging to the side, and it turns to watch him, putting more pressure on Percy.
“If you could hurry up with your genius plan, that would be very much appreciated,” Percy calls out, his voice strained.
“Just give me a moment, Percy.”
A small pause. “Anytime, now…”
“Be quiet, Percy.”
“Fiiiine. Geez, somebody’s touchy when they’re working.”
The scorpion, apparently tired of waiting for Jason to attack, jabs its stinger towards him, and Jason dodges it smoothly, rolling to the side.
Finally.
Jason jumps.
The scorpion turns to face him, but it’s too slow. He vaults onto its back and the scorpion all but screams.
It can’t see him, but it can certainly feel him, and its stinger blindly goes for the attack.
His spear fluidly morphs into a sword as it nears.
Just a bit closer…
Jason smiles.
The scream that the scorpion had made when he’d jumped onto its back is nothing compared to the scream it makes at the loss of its stinger, which drops to the ground with a hollow thunk.
Jason, woefully unprepared, is thrown from its back, tumbling towards the ground.
Percy, on the other hand, has never been more ready to exact his vengeance. He grabs his sword, and with two sweeping slashes cuts off one of the scorpion’s legs.
It doesn’t exactly take this well.
It charges blindly at Percy, who narrows his eyes and nimbly dodges out of the way, letting it crash past him as he runs his sword against its flank, just below its carapace.
Blood spurts from the gash, spraying Percy and Jason with a fine mist of crimson. The scorpion, unable to stop, crashes into the wood lattice wall of the Quidditch boundary, spraying broken wood planks everywhere and finishing off their coat with a fine mist of wood dust.
Jason accidentally inhales a good portion of wood dust, and spends precious seconds coughing his lungs up, while Percy readies himself for another attack.
The scorpion steadies itself on its remaining legs, but its limp and the blood dripping down into a worryingly large puddle on the ground gives the both of them a newfound confidence.
It’s killable, at the very least.
Of course, that’s when they run into problem number two.
Somebody shouts, and Percy and Jason freeze.
Because while they’d been hearing distant shouts for a while now(on account of the very loud sound and the scream, Jason guesses), they had been far away. This one was very much not.
This could get very messy.
Explaining why two perfectly normal transfer students have swords and are currently fighting a giant magical beast like it is completely normal isn’t exactly something Jason wants to experience at the moment, and the horrified look Percy shoots at him is as much of an agreement as he can get.
The scorpion seems to have no such qualms about it, however, and decides to courteously let them know by charging at Percy, giant claws clipping his shoulder.
Percy recovers quickly and jumps at it, his sword making a bronze arc above his head, and sinks his blade into its face with a dull thunk.
“Okay,” Percy says, breathing heavily as the scorpion flails around in agony. “I’ll deal with our little friend here-” He’s cut off as he’s forced to dodge out of the way of one of its claws, which snaps just an inch away from its face, before continuing. “-while you go and distract those people.”
Jason obediently veers off to the conveniently made hole in the wall(the scorpion’s handiwork), where he can see at least a dozen people running across the pitch. They seemed to have had trouble locating where the original sound had come from, but the sizable hole in the wall had given them a pretty clear hint.
“Distract them? How?” Jason asks, turning back to Percy.
“Not sure if you’ve noticed, Grace, but I’m a teensy bit busy right now. Maybe you can, hmm, I don’t know, think of something?” Percy says, as he sinks his sword midway through one of the scorpion’s claws.
Jason fights the urge to grumble something rude under his breath, instead hurriedly turning back to the field and peeking through the hole from the side.
When he realizes what he needs to do, he cringes inwardly.
Sending out a mental apology to everybody on the field, he takes a deep breath and raises his arm.
The familiar feeling of power crackles over him, and the air suddenly smells like ozone. He closes his hand, and the sky turns dark.
The students, still far away that they resemble ants racing towards him, are sent flying as a giant gust of wind hits them like a truck.
The few people who’d decided to use their brooms are even more unfortunate, as Jason easily picks them off the sky and deposits them safely onto the ground.
(The sky belongs to him, after all.)
When he’s sent enough of them back to give himself a brief respite, he collapses against the wall, his arms still trembling from the effort.
Behind him, he can hear the slash of metal against flesh and the angry clicking sound of the scorpion, but he doesn’t turn around.
The students(and teacher, Jason notes with a horrified expression, because oh my gods he just threw a teacher) are already getting back to their feet, wands out and at the ready. Jason reminds himself for the twentieth time that they can’t see him and readies himself for another attack.
(Distraction, his mind corrects him. He really doesn’t want to hurt them.)
“Hey, Perce? Would you say that you’re nearly done?” Jason asks, as he throws another gust of wind at a group of wizards who had come creeping up against the wall and sending them tumbling across the pitch.
Jason hears a thud as something hits the ground, and then a strained “I might need another minute.”
Jason grimaces as he realizes what he needs to do. “Well then, I’d recommend plugging your ears for a second.”
He doesn’t wait for Percy’s reply, instead focusing his eyes on the middle of the pitch. He raises his hand to the sky, and his eyes flash blue.
Very few things will stop a wizard hell-bent on getting somewhere in their tracks, but a bolt of lightning certainly does the trick.
The effect is immediate and disastrous.
The loud crack that echoes across the pitch is so loud it leaves Jason’s ears buzzing, and everybody — save Percy and the scorpion, who are still fighting — stops where they are.
Well, playing it off as a crazy natural disaster would be pretty difficult now. Not that it would be easy before.
Behind him, he hears a victorious “Aha!” and he turns around, finding Percy standing there, covered in golden dust and breathing heavily.
That might also be hard to explain.