A Son From Lands Unknown (PJO x Male Reader)

No Water Beds, Please

With some spare change from Ares's backpack, the group took the bus into West Hollywood. (Y/N) showed the driver the Underworld address slip he'd taken from Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium, but he'd never heard of DOA Recording Studios.

"Your friend reminds me of somebody I saw on TV," he told the half-blood. "He a child actor or something?"

"He's a... uh..." (Y/N) began, trying to find a reason on the spot. "He's a really lucky extra, gets in the foreground of a lot of movies."

"Oh! That explains it."

The group thanked him and got off quickly at the next stop. They wandered for miles on food, looking for DOA. Nobody seemed to know where it was. It didn't appear in the phonebook or local directory. Twice they were forced into alleys to avoid cops.

Percy froze in front of an appliance store window because a television was playing an interview with his stepdad. He was talking to Barbara Walters as if he were some kind of huge celebrity. She was interviewing him in their apartment, in the middle of a poker game, and a young blond lady was sitting next to him, patting his hand. A fake tear glistened on his cheek.

"Honest, Ms. Walters, if it wasn't for Sugar here, my grief counselor, I'd be a wreck. My stepson took everything I cared about," he was saying. "My wife... my Camaro... I-I'm sorry. I have trouble talking about it."

"There you have it, America," Barbara Walters turned to the camera. "A man torn apart. An adolescent boy with serious issues. Let me show you, again, the last known photo of this troubled young fugitive, taken a week ago in Denver."

The screen cut to a grainy shot of Percy, Annabeth, Grover, and (Y/N) standing outside the Colorado diner, talking to Ares.

"Who are the other children in this photo?" Barbara asked dramatically. "Who is the man with them? Is Percy Jackson a delinquent, a terrorist, or perhaps the brainwashed victim of a frightening new cult? When we come back, we chat with a leading child psychologist."

"C'mon," Grover told them, trying to get them to move away.

"But first, we return to our breaking story from this morning," Barbara continued. "A crazed gunman attacked the Las Vegas Strip earlier this morning. While no one is certain which of the many casinos he was attacking specifically, we were able to get this photo of him driving away in the BMW M5 that he stole from one of the jackpot podiums." Barbara cut the feed to a picture of (Y/N) in his medical mask pointing his gun out of the window like something out of an action movie poster.

"If anyone has any information on this violent, disturbed individual, please contact the FBI at this number."

Grover pulled the others away from the TVs before either boy could punch one of the televisions out. It got dark soon after, and hungry-looking characters started coming out on the streets to play. Now, being from New York, Percy didn't scare easily, but L.A. had a completely different feel from New York. In the Big Apple, everything seemed close. It didn't matter how big the city was, one could get anywhere without getting lost. The street pattern and subway made sense. There was a system. A kid could be safe as long as he wasn't stupid.

L.A. wasn't like that. It was spread out, chaotic, and hard to move around. It reminded Percy of Ares. It wasn't enough for it to be big; it had to prove it was big by being loud and strange and difficult to navigate, too. (Y/N) didn't know how they were ever going to find the entrance to the Underworld by sun-up, and that wasn't even accounting for the fact that the Underworld might have the same time-distorting effect that the Lotus had.

They walked past gangbangers, bums, and street hawkers, who looked at them like they were trying to figure out if the group was worth the trouble of mugging.