𝐂œ𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐬é𝐬 [Percy Jackson]

34

It wasn't an ugly photo. Percy was sure Hadrian was like physically incapable of looking ugly.

Most of the polaroid was dark, and the only thing that was visible was Hadrian pulled a funny face flipping off Percy who was asleep in his own bed drooling over his pillow.

When had he taken that? Last night? Before Annabeth came? Or maybe even before that? Hadrian was shirtless, neck meeting torse with sharp collarbones. He was wearing pajama pants, but nothing else.

Percy had left the photo in his room.

"Has anyone ever told you, you drool when you sleep?"

And of course, would it be Hadrian if he wasn't an annoying little shit? It was around nine at night. Everyone else had gone below deck. Percy had offered to take the first watch, Jason had said he would take over at four in the morning.

"You'd be surprised," Percy chuckled.

"Do you laugh at everything because you're an idiot or is it to make other people feel good?"

Hadrian had a shirt on when he walked onto the deck. Percy wasn't sure why he was disappointed.

"So let me get this straight" Hadrian walked closer, "Annabeth took you to the stables at night which have a glass bay door, there was no one else around, and again.... It was night. And still, nothing happened?"

Percy shook his head, "I don't know why Coach thinks something happened, we just talked. It was nice. We hadn't talked like that in a while"

Hadrian's mouth dropped open. "Gods, you're infuriating. I pity whoever ends up with you"

Percy frowned, a little offended.

"She was trying to kiss you" Hadrian spelled it out, "Oh come on! You cannot possibly be that dense! What the hell is wrong with you?"

"She was?"

Percy blinked.

"Gods, you're dense"

"Hey!"

"Do you realize how frustrating it is to be near you guys? I can literally feel the sexual tension!" Hadrian was kind of entertaining when he was mad. Percy hadn't noticed that the first time Hadrian had charmspoken him to hold a scissor to his neck.

His eyebrows furrowed and he narrowed his eyes. He had started to pace the deck somewhere between his rant about how it was becoming annoying for him. He waved his hands around, a gesture that weirdly reminded Percy of Nico di Angelo.

Hadrian was a good three-four inches shorter than Percy, but managed to look intimidating nevertheless.

"I will make you a powerpoint presentation so help me gods"

Percy tried to hold his laughter in, he really did. But it was a losing battle. Hadrian only folded his arms.

"Stop laughing" He ordered.

Percy did.

Then he felt weird about doing it so fast. Had Hadrian charmspoken him? He feared that fear would never really go away. Everytime Hadrian spoke to him, there was the possibility that he was charmspeaking. And none of them would know.

"It wasn't romantic," Percy insisted. "We talked about when we went on our first quest, then we talked about this quest and we talked about my mom and..."

"And..?"

"And demigod nightmares" Percy lied. And Hadrian. They had talked about Hadrian.

"Nico di Angelo" Hadrian nodded, remembering from breakfast "Tell me about him"

"He's... well, a son of Hades. We have a complicated relationship. I managed to track him down with Annabeth, Thalia- daughter of Zeus, and weirdly.. Jason's sister and my best friend Grover when I was thirteen"

"Is she hot? Thalia?"

"How is that the only thing that registers for you?"

Hadrian shrugged, "Jason is hot, by association, Thalia should be hot"

"She's a hunter of Artemis. She took an oath to swear off romance"

Hadrian made a show of dropping his smile dramatically and sighing. "Why are all the hot ones always out of reach?"

"Hey! I'm standing right here you know"

"I said it before and I'll say it again, Annabeth is hotter"

"No argument here"

"AHA!" Hadrian said a little too loud and then looked around before lowering his voice, "So you admit she's hot?"

"I never said she wasn't?" Percy frowned. What the hell did Hadrian mean?

"So, she likes you and you like her so why the hell won't you guys get together?"

"Too much history," Percy shrugged. "Like the quest where we met Nico di Angelo, don't interrupt me."

So Percy told him about Westover hall, about ten year old Nico di Angelo with bright eyes and a wide smile, clutching his sister's hand desperately. It was hard to stop when he started so Percy narrated the whole story. Annabeth falling over the cliff, the Hunters of Artemis showing up, Bianca joining them, meeting Apollo.

He told him inside jokes, ("Damn right Apollo is hot", Hadrian had said), he told him about Nico making him promise to bring his sister back safe ("Let me guess, she died"). Percy told him about their journey, about Talos, about Bianca dying, about... everything really. He told him about Hoover dam ("So that's why you said we have a dam hole"), he told him about Zoe Nightshade, Thalia Grace, the fact that Annabeth had held up the sky and so had he, he even told him about Luke.

"Luke was... well he was an older camper. Driven by hate mostly"

"Annabeth told me what happened last year, she told me about Luke" Hadrian didn't look Percy in the eye when he said that, and besides, it seemed out of character for Annabeth to talk about Luke. What was Hadrian hiding?

It was late and the breeze was making him drowsy, Percy didn't care what Hadrian was hiding.

"Sometimes.." He said, "I'm scared I'm going to end up like him. Like Luke"

He wasn't sure why he was pouring his heart out to Hadrian of all people.

Hadrian's head snapped up. He looked at Percy incredulously and snorted, "No way dude, you're like the best Greek Hero of our generation"

That made the knot in Percy's stomach tighten. Everyone called him great all the time. They called him for battle, they joked around with him, he knew rumors about him were always exaggerated so he wasn't sure what version of the great Percy Jackson Hadrian had heard about.

Most of the time, Percy didn't feel great. He just felt scared.

"Aristos Achaion" Hadrian whispered.

"Best of the Greeks?" Percy translated. Ancient Greek was so infuriatingly easy to read and understand while he had to struggle to read a normal textbook.

"That's what they called Achilles"

"I had the curse of Achilles" Percy wasn't sure why he was bringing that up now. "It got washed away in the little tiber"

"DUDE"

"Hadrian" Percy whisper-yelled, shushing him.

"You were invincible and you let the blessing go?" Hadrian's brown eyes widened in disbelief. They were so close now, moving closer inch by inch everytime the night air was cold enough to make them shiver.

"Curse" Percy muttered. "It was a curse. Achilles got shot in the heel by Paris and died"

"Yeah, because he wanted to"

Now that drew Percy's attention. "What?"