haunting ＊ percy jackson

iv. dont talk to strangers, kids

Once the shock of the situation wore off, things were pretty miserable. It was rainy and cold, and on top of the weather making him feel like shit, Amos was panicking internally. Maybe his priorities were out of whack, but all he could think about was his  tube of concealer, forever lost thanks to the bus explosion.

As they walked, he pulled the sleeves of his shirt down to cover his hands slightly, protecting the make up that remained.

How am I supposed to cover the spots now? The hands I could maybe hide but my face... His mind raced as they walked. The idea of telling the rest of them the truth, admitting that he'd been hiding these ugly pale splotches, made him tense. He could imagine their reactions clearly.

Annabeth would wrinkle her nose at him, I knew there was something weird about you. Grover would give him a fake smile and try to be nice about it, telling him Oh it's not that bad, but there would be disgust in his eyes, Amos just knew it. And Percy... He dreaded his reaction the most. The son of Poseidon, his first friend, would frown, You were hiding this the whole time? I mean I get why you would, it's gross and the makeup is bad enough, but you're a liar too?

Amos felt his heart clench at the thought. No. He was resourceful, he'd come up with a way to hide it. His companions on the quest could never know, he'd never let them.

Grover's fearful voice snapped him back to reality. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once." All four of them were out of sorts, cold, and in shock. Amos could barely muster up a reply, merely shaking his head as he thought about the fight they'd just been in. Percy was in shock too, moving forward silently with wide eyes, like he couldn't believe that had happened either.

Annabeth was the only one keeping things going. "Come on! The farther away we get, the better."  She ushered them along with an agitated look.

"All our money was back there," Percy spoke up. His eyes were still wide, almost spooked, "Our food and clothes. Everything."

Wonderful reminder, Amos thought to himself, Not like we're barely holding it together as is.

What Percy had been attempting to get across, he wasn't sure, all he did know was that it irritated Annabeth tremendously. 

"Well, maybe if you hadn't jumped into the fight-"

"What did you want me to do? Let you all get killed?"

Their bickering was starting to get unbearable, and Amos shared a pained look with Grover. If this was what the quest would be like, Amos wondered if he would've been better off letting the Furies kill him.

Annabeth furrowed her brow, "You didn't need to protect me, Percy, we would've been fine."

"Sliced like sandwich bread, but fine." Grover interrupted cheekily.

She rolled her eyes, though her words were slowly losing their heat, "Shut up, goat boy."

Despite really not wanting to get between the feuding demigods, Amos felt bad letting Grover play peacemaker all alone. "Look, we can argue about it all day, but it won't change what happened." He played with the retracted spear in his hands nervously, a habit meant to ground him. "It sucks that we lost everything, but we all could have literally died, so I think we ended up with the best result, all things considered." His words dripped with slight sarcasm, because really, for as much as he was internally panicking about the lost supplies, they were lucky to all make it out relatively unscathed — the burn on his hand hurt, but Amos could handle it, he was mostly just grateful to still have a hand. "What we should be focusing on is deciding what we need to do next."