He Just Seemed So Far Away (Percy Jackson) (Percy x Grover)

Chapter Seven

Percy

Fuck the slapjack game, I've been dreaming about this for five years.

His lips were soft, and he smelled kind of like a forest. Like the smell you get when you're wandering through the woods on a nice day. That uplifting smell.

I broke out into a smile once our lips had disbanded because that meant something. That's not the accidentally falling asleep on someone. That's not playing footsie or dropping hints.

This was a kiss. And that was not accidental.

It just... It amazed me that this could actually happen. That after five years of having the most insane crush on Grover, he returns the feelings and I didn't even have to tell him about them.

So he was dropping hints.

He was a dork asking me out to dinner after that. I just rolled my eyes and told him that sounded lovely.

Here's the catch: camp won't let you leave for a date. You need a legit reason to leave the camp.

So we're brainstorming ideas and Grover had a good one.

"Tell him you forgot your inhaler."

And then I realized.

"I actually did forget my inhaler."

"Percy!" Even worse, Grover had told me to remember to bring it because I forgot it last time and I was on the verge on needing it.

"I know exactly where-"

Nico bursted through the doors.

"Y'ALL!"

Both Grover and myself looked at the son of Hades, now interested in whatever he has to say.

"Yes?"

"Chiron wants you guys down at the Big House." He told us. "He's requesting a ton of us. I don't know why. But he said it's urgent."

Sighing, we headed with Nico down to the Big House. Where the counsel, Hazel, Frank, and a handful of other people were.

After us, one other person came in and a meeting was called. Because of a problem in the camp between just a lot of people. Including counselor to counsel. Camp was starting to turn in on itself for it.

Apollo was also here, yes.

"We've begun to notice that as it becomes more acceptive in the mortal world," Chiron worded it very carefully, "we are having more queer members in our camp. This does include a few of you, but for the sake of confidentiality I won't say who."

I knew they weren't staring, but I felt like they were and it made me uncomfortable.

"Which is a no brainier," Mr. D added on before we could make a remark about that. "But we've noticed that as we let kids in that are queer, kids are giving them harder time than was given 10 year ago. Not even 10 years. Have any of you noticed this? Because we can't allow it and if we have a campers that's encouraging it..."

We all agreed that she had to be thrown under the bus.

"Yeah, just recently." Grover was the one who said something about it. Maybe because he was there when I had the melt down, but who knows. "Uh, sorry to throw you under, Annabeth. But you started the rumor knowing that it was lie. And it's not that first time you've done it."

"A rumor?" Chiron questioned, because those never sit well here. "Annabeth, why would you start something like that? You know the consequences. Have there been any other instances recently that haven't been reported?"

Nothing was said and they told Grover and Annabeth to stay. Annabeth was sent into Mr. D's office. I waited out in the main room for Grover.

Grover

He did say it was okay if Mr. D or Chiron knew.

Chiron and Mr. D sat down with me, grabbing the paperwork for a situation like this.

"So what happened?"

I let in a breath before sighing.

"It was between Percy and Annabeth." I explained to them. "Percy broke up with her. He had reason. He had been thinking about it for a while. But Annabeth didn't take it well and she called him a faggot or something like that and told him to go have fun with something or another. I wasn't there. Nico was, so was Leo and Jason. Percy knew he needed people there to keep her more so level headed."

Writing that down quick, I don't think they had hear about the break up yet.

"So Percy has a panic attack." I go on to tell them. "And we you guys know, they happen every once in a while. Did Annabeth trigger it? Possibly. He said that it was like the last piece for him to go off. But they called him down and Nico called me and made it sound like he was going to die. So I high tailed my way to Percy's and got there not long after he left and by then Annabeth started the rumor. That Percy's gay and cheated on her with some random dude. So he kept getting texts about it. Some we're just asking if it was true. Others we're... One person called him a fruitcake, white nigger, faggot, gay wad, so on and so forth. Through text. And it just... It got the best of him."

"And Percy's isn't...?"

"No, he is." I tried to clarify that for them. "But he's uh, still getting used to the idea that it not a bad thing. He's come out to like two people, and Annabeth wasn't one of them. She made that up on her own. He wasn't cheating, though. He was too paranoid about people finding out. But he felt bad about dragging the relationship when he's gay. He told her he had reason that he just couldn't bring himself to explain to her. So yeah. He's gay. But she's not aware."

"Got it," Chiron said as he wrote down a few other things. "Would it be possible for us to get these texts?"

I told them that that was a possibility and they let Percy and myself out of camp for a few hours.

We stopped at his place first, and I waited outside as he ran up and got his inhaler. And I figured maybe Sally stopped him to talk for a minute or something.

But no.

When he came back down, he was dressed up like I had been. He was a little fancier, though. Percy had some nice, skinnier jeans on. Along with a dark blue, white polkadot button down, and then a nice sort of suit jacket thing. It complimented him well.

I smiled at him as he walked back over to his car (after Blackjack smashed the truck hood, they were able to trade it in), and he returned the smile.

Heading to Brooklyn, I had found a cute place a while ago that I wanted to go to but never had reason. It was really nice and there was a dining area outside, where there was a garden. It was beautiful. Milk and Roses.

It is a nice place.

But we got in, and they seated us in the garden room, which was nice. It was beautiful, really.

Percy

It felt weird, I was a little scared. But it was a really nice feeling, going out on a date with somebody I actually care about in a non-platonic sense. Somebody that I've had a crush on for years.

A guy. I was out on a date with a guy.

Once we ordered our appetisers, we talked for a bit and I didn't even realize that we had been holding hands. He looked really nice, though. I don't know if I've ever seen Grover dress up this nice before. And it wasn't even that nice.

I'm not complaining, though. I liked it.