"𝚟𝚒𝚡𝚎𝚗" | 𝚙. 𝚓𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚜𝚘𝚗

𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚝𝚎𝚗, 𝚊𝚌𝚝 𝚘𝚗𝚎

The Gang Visits the Garden Gnome Emporium!

OR

Stelle Finds a Choppy-Chop

third person omniscient

-

IN A WAY, it's nice to know there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong.

For instance, when you're walking away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just really bad luck; when you're a half-blood, you understand that some divine force really is trying to mess up your day. 

But that's just a hypothetical example.

So there they were, Annabeth and Grover, Stelle and Percy, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind them, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in their noses. 

The one bag they salvaged, Stelle's, was put to good use. She had a square of ambrosia to heal herself (picking out glass was not fun), snacks were eaten, water was drunk, but it wasn't quite enough. She had packed for herself, not the entire group.

They discussed it as they used their precious drinking water to clean off the monster blood, at least most of it.

"All my money was in Annabeth's bag. we can't buy any food."

"I told you that wasn't a good idea." Percy grumbled, "Remember what happened the last time we put all our money in one bag?"

"I choose not to." Stelle said.

Nobody knew what to say after that. Percy decided to break the ice by bonding over their shared near death experience.

"So... the bus crashing was kinda me." Percy leaned back on the tree he was sitting against.

Annabeth swallowed her bar. "Yeah. We figured."

Percy decided to ignore her. "Did I do good?" He said hopefully, his gore-covered face looking at Stelle expectantly.

Stelle blinked. "Good? Uh, yeah, you did. You saved me."

The boy's smile widened, feeling a rush of dopamine. "Great. Good. Yay." He returned to cleaning off the blood on his face. He dragged a wet cloth across his forehead.

Annabeth's expression scrunched up, as if trying to figure out some mysterious puzzle that just happened to be caught between them.

"Give it here, Percy." Stelle gestured.

"M'kay."

When they got going, the shock was mostly gone. "You know, you didn't have to come back for us. We would've been fine." Annabeth said.

"Stelle would've bled out and we would've been sliced like sandwich bread." Grover put it, "But fine, I guess."

"Shut up, goat boy." Annabeth said scornfully, then stopping, "Sorry."

"It's fine, just... tin cans." He brayed mournfully, "A perfectly good bag of tin cans."

They sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry. 

After a few minutes, Annabeth fell into line next to Percy. "Look, I..." her voice faltered, "I appreciate your coming back for us, okay? That was really brave."