When I Don't Remember You (Percico)

Chapter Thirty Nine: By The Time I Was Your Age

Percy Jackson

I wanted to like Jason.

I tried to like Jason.

But I went on a side quest for Athena (it was some fucking symbolic idea to send me to like, patch up Poseidon and Athena's relationship), immediately after which I fall into Tartarus.

You know, where monsters go when they die?

Yeah. There.

I was minding my own business, giving my boyfriend a hug after finishing the aforementioned quest and then a string pulls on my ankle and yanks me away and because I'm hugging my boyfriend, he gets pulled down with me and we almost got pulled back out by Frank, but he couldn't reach us, so we fall.

It sucked. I wanted to kill myself most of the time. I did things I never want to talk about ever again.

We both lived, though, and we met everyone at the Doors of Death and closed them and went back to the ship and were pretty open about not wanting to talk about most of it. There were a few important things that happened, sure, that we found out. We told them about that stuff.

But we were hungry and tired and coming to terms with missing Venice again, so when we got on the boat and started making ourselves a late lunch because the others already ate, I didn't need judgment from Jason.

"You do realize that we're going to eat in a couple hours?" The son of Jupiter asked me, and I wasn't sure if they comment made me want to stab him or myself. "Like, together? As a group? Did or forget that we do that or...? You're wasting food."

Leo, standing behind him, read my expression clear as day: don't.

"Jason, I have had little to no food for over two weeks," I reminded the younger demigod. "I drank lava so I wouldn't die, I'm fucking starving and I'm making myself something to eat. I will also eat with you guys for dinner, but if I don't eat soon I'm going to lose my mind, and if Nico doesn't eat soon, he'll faint and then miss both meals."

"Oh, like it was that hard to find food," Jason responded, and maybe I would stab him. "you just have to look harder, dude, it's not like the gods would let you starve. We're their kids, they can't just let us die."

Was it bad that I laughed?

Like, I didn't say anything, and I tried to conceal it, but that thought was the funniest thing I've heard since I've gotten my memory back.

It's not like the gods would let you starve.

Like they give a shit.

"What?" Jason questioned and I tried to just shove it off and say it's nothing and he didn't listen. "no, Jackson, what? What's so funny to you? Do you not believe in our parents or something?'

"Do I- I've met my dad and the rest of the Olympians, Jason," I reassured him. "I'm well aware they're alive and that they're real."

"No," he corrected me this time as I handed my boyfriend a small plate of pancakes, knowing his appetite is a lot smaller again after what we just went through. "that's not what I'm asking. Do you not trust our parents, you dirty fucking Greek?"

Jason spit the last word at me (literally, he spit after it), and the tiredness and hunger turned off like a switch in me as the rage took over because I hate nothing before than;

1. Being accused of things I've never done

2. Being belittled for things I can't control

And while it didn't completely strike number one, it definitely fulfilled the second one.

He deserved every single punch I landed, though, and some part of me probably deserved the punches I got from him, before the others pulled us away from each other.

But any hint of respect or friendship that I had with Jason with out the window now.

"We left for like ten minutes to go grab groceries for tonight," Piper said as her and Grover returned right before or right after the fight was broken up, I'm not sure. "What happened?"

The only thing keeping me calm was the pancake I was eating and Nico holding me from behind both to keep me calm and make sure I can't go at Jason again.

"He punched me!" Jason shouted.

"You may as well have called me a slur and you spit at me," I reminded his royal highness. "After you critized me for making food."

"You were wasting it!"

"I'm literally eating it right now!" I shouted back, feeling Nico's grip tighten on my hand. "I haven't had a meal in over two weeks until now, let me live!"

"What... What did you say?" Hazel questioned Jason, because I don't use the word slur lightly but...

I was at Camp Jupiter. That has the same power as a slur there.

It's why I didn't say anything. Because I heard people talk about the Greeks, and how disgusting and archaic and idiotic they were.

I'm never stepping foot in that fucking place ever again, if I can help it.

"Nothing! I didn't do anything to him."

But luckily for me, I had witnesses.

"You called him a dirty fucking Greek," Leo seemed angry, as well. Which, considering what the insult was, made sense. "Verbatim. And then spit at him, yes you did do that, Jason. What does that even mean? A dirty Greek? Like we're somehow worse than the Romans?"

And you'd think he'd be smart enough to back down and say that sorry, it's a stereotype he's unlearning because his girlfriend, who is a Greek demigod, was standing on the other side of the table from him.

The girlfriend that, may I remind you, has been looking for a way to break up with him.

But no, he instead chose to dig his own grave.

"Yeah! Overall, you guys are a lot worse than we are!" And I watched Pipers respect for her boyfriend disappear within seconds. "I'm baffled that Reyna let any of you into Camp Jupiter in the first place because it's deplorable how you guys live and operate! It's archaic! Don't even get me started on the counsel, either, because it's chalked full with idiots who don't understand how to do anything they're supposed to do as a member on an important counsel. I guess you can't advance if the people running your establishment can't even operate properly. Half of them don't even know what they're doing!"

"Yeah! No shit, they're new to the job!" I wasn't letting him hit the counsel like that, though. "Our counsel went from 10 to 20 last August, and like four of those original 10 had to be replaced because they fucking died! They're still learning the job so they're ready when summer rolls around and all the kids are there! If you want to be racist, pick something better to bitch about, but I'm not letting it slide."

"Racist? You think I'm racist?"

It was a challenge I didn't want to bother with.

"Yeah, because you are racist," Jason's now former best friend, Leo, agreed, grabbing him by the back of his shirt and summoning strength I'm not sure any of us knew he had. "You're not welcome on my boat anymore, or on this quest. Fly home. Maybe by the time you get there you'll realize how racist and homophobic you actually are."

With that, Leo pushed Jason overboard, hooking himself to the deck in case Jason tried anything, and that was it.

Jason Grace was gone.