When I Don't Remember You (Percico)

Chapter Forty Five: Since Can't Remember When

Nico di Angelo

I was starting to dread the first of the month.

It came faster than I think any of us wanted it to, arriving to the battlefield where we'd try to shut down Gaea's plans once and for all.

The morning of August 1, the seven of us sat around the dining table with no talk of the plan, no discussion of battle strategy. We just sat together and tried to ease our nerves by playing cards and talking.

After all, we had a plan and we all knew the plan already. Talking about it even more wouldn't serve us much good outside of getting stressed, so we avoided the topic.

"Did any of you write like, any sort of will?" Frank asked after a few moments of silence as he put down a red four. We were playing uno.

"I wrote one up right after our first quest, when they told us about the plan to go to go here," Piper said, nodding her head. "There's a copy in my room and also back at camp."

"Same, I wrote mine before our quest," Leo agreed. "It's not like I have much of anything, but... Y'know. If my body somehow gets back to my mom's family, they were Christian and I don't want a Christian funeral."

"I've had one since I was 12," my boyfriend said like that wasn't extremely concerning. "I updated it pretty recently, my mom knows what to do if she gets the call."

"She... 12?" Frank questioned.

"After my first summer at camp," Percy clarified, which made more sense. "I knew there was some prophecy and that I would probably die because of it, and Chiron said I had a bit of time, but he wasnt allowed to talk about it and after that conversation, I went to my cabin and wrote my will and I've revised it over the years. I've had to tell too many people that other people are dead and seen them go through the panic if not knowing what to do to make my mom or anyone go through that with me. Plus, we're demigods, our chances of dying are like a million times higher, so my mom wasn't too against the idea when I told her about it."

"I don't really own anything, so I haven't written one," Hazel said. "I probably should, after all this is done. Do you have one, Nico?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah, I wrote it last summer," I reassured my younger sister. "Almost everyone I knew wrote one last summer if they didn't already have one."

"Either way, we're not going to have to use them," Grover interjected, sensing the growing tension around the topic of any of us possibly dying today, and he put down a wild card. "Red."

"That's the worst color you could've picked," my boyfriend told his best friend.

"What? Would blue be better?"

"Duh."

"Do you even have any blue?"

"That's none of your business," Percy responded as he definitely didn't have any blue in his hands, drawing and hoping for a red card.  "But you're right, my mom would probably threaten Hades into reviving me just to kill me again if I died, and then there would be a line of people to do the same thing after her."

"We wouldn't kill you again," I reminded my boyfriend, nudging his arm"maybe scold you a little, but..."

"Wow," Percy said in response as I played a +2 to Hazel because I just love her that much. "love you, too."

"Annabeth would be the one that would beat you up if you died," Grover said, which was accurate. "maybe Thalia, depending on how it happened. I don't know if Charon will let you through, though, if he hasn't gotten that pay raise yet."

"A... Pay raise?" My sister questioned, as I myself was also curious about this. "for Charon? The dude who ferries the dead spirits across the Styx?"

"Yeah!" The son of Poseidon told us like this was a normal topic. "back on our first quest, Grover, Annabeth, and I had to bribe him to let us into the Underworld and after a good amount of drachmas and promising to mention a pay raise to Hades, he let us go on the ferry and I mentioned it, but your dad wasn't uh... It was very bad timing."

"Percy, he almost killed you after you mentioned it."

"I would've felt bad if I didn't do it! We still escaped and my mom also lived so it worked out." He defended himself. "Besides the whole Ares hating me thing, it all went mostly according to plan. We lived, the bolt got returned, Gabe was Medusa'd."

"Oh, yeah, I was gonna ask about that yesterday," Hazel said, which felt like a bad idea. "why'd your mom use Medusa's head on him? Was he super shitty or something?"

Nodding his head, Percy called Uno for himself.

"Yeah, after I stopped at home I ended up finding out that he hit her when I wasn't around," my boyfriend told the others part of what he told me last night, and Grover, evidently, didn't know about that part. Nobody knew how to respond. "yeah, I was pretty pissed when I saw her flinch because he went to hit her in front of me. Then I saw the box on my bed after talking to her and I was ready to do it myself, but she insisted that it was something she had to deal with and that she just needed time. She did it pretty soon after, but yeah. My mom's taste in men sucks. My dad was okay as far as I heard being her boyfriend or lover or whatever, but Gabe was an ass and Paul was just really judgemental and kind of homophobic."

"Straight men just suck," Leo figured and then looked at Frank and Grover as they were seated next to each other. "No offense, you guys are great."

"Oh, none taken." Frank reassured the son of Hephaestus.

"Yeah, no, you're right," Grover agreed with him. "I'm not straight, but straight men have a tendency to suck."

Did I know that Grover wasn't straight?

Like, he's got a girlfriend right now, he's dating Juniper. They're a sweet couple.

"Oh, I didn't know that," Leo responded. "are you bi then, or...? You have a girlfriend."

"Pan, but yeah."

The moment he heard that, my boyfriend leaned toward and looked at the satyr.

"Grover," Percy said to his best friend, earning his attention. "look at me and say that again."

"What?" Grover asked. "I'm pan... I'm not joking! I swear it's not a pun! What do you want to say, I'm pan²?"

"Pan squared?" Piper asked, which prompted the explanation of Grover being Pan's chosen one and also one of the Lord's of the Wild.

He is also pansexual, though, so it's kind of funny.

After Piper managed to win the Uno game, nobody calling her on her Uno apparently, we dispersed for a little bit, agreeing to meet up in an hour or so to get ready to go.

Grover, Percy and myself ended up going to the room Percy and I have been sharing to hang out. We took a photo together and added it to a photo album I had that was Percy's that Sally gave me if we had to jog his memory. We've added a few different photos this summer, thanks to the polaroid camera Percy's had for as long as I've know him.

The others definitely seemed nervous. Not Grover and Percy. Those two were anxious, but it was the normal anxiety both of them seem to usually have. Not like a 'going into battle with a chance of dying' anxiety.

I guess it still doesn't feel real, either. Going into a battle with seven people? It almost seems like the set up to a terrible punch line.

An hour later we were making sure we had emergency kits on us of bandages, ambrosia, nectar, and gold drachmas before surging off into battle.

Little did we realize is that our friends back at camp were also charging into battle.