Welcome To Hell (Percico)

Chapter Six

Percy

Mom and Paul we're on their honeymoon. Meaning we had the place to ourselves. Grover gives me a lot of crap about it, but I shouldn't expect anything else. I guess Clarisse and Thalia tease Nico a lot. He puts up with it, though. Gives Clarisse a lot of crap.

"Is Clarisse's crap worth taking?" I questioned as we we're on the couch, cuddling and watching some dumb show we found. "It sounds brutal?"

"It's worth it," My boyfriend insisted. "I can give her and Chris crap now, and she can't say anything about it."

Rolling my eyes, I gave him a kiss before somebody buzzed. Wanting to come up to the apartment.

I walked over and pressed on the buzzer.

"Yes?"

"Hey," I recognized the voice right away, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to deal with the owner of this voice. "sorry that I didn't call ahead of time. It's Annabeth. My dad's here for like a few days and he's being annoying because my step mom is with. Can we come up?"

"We?"

"My brothers are here. She was getting on their nerves, too."

I sighed and looked back at Nico. Hopefully he could stay over. This was supposed to be our day. He didn't seem to mind, though. Told me to let her up.

"Come on up."

Did I forget about what my room looks like now? Yes. Because there's a pride parade (the reason Nico was here) tomorrow, and we wanted to march in it. I've always wanted to, but I never had the guts to tell my parents I was going to a pride parade. So I had stuff laid out on my desk. There was a shirt that Grover got me when he heard about Pride. It said straight out of the closest. Then there was also my jacket.

You know, the one with my patches!? Along that, an actual flag for Nico and myself. A full sized one.

On top of that, there was a photo of us by my bed that was framed because I'm cheesy and it's a cute photo.

And the boys aren't much younger than we are. 12 years old. Nico's turning 15 in January and we're 16. So they're at an age where they're starting to learn about things. They're starting to realize who they are and where they fit in the world.

Annabeth told us that lately, Bobby had been really quiet. Which wasn't like him, I guess. He says he's fine, but nobody believes him. He's getting checked for depression and anxiety when they get home.

"I couldn't imagine having that," Annabeth remarked, having forgotten that I do indeed have both anxiety and depression. I told her like once when we were younger. She made a joke and I told her it wasn't funny and she asked why and I told that it had to do with my anxiety and depression. "I mean, if he does, I'll love him all the same. He's my brother and all. It's just a freaky concept. We don't know anyone that has that."

I gave her a weird look.

"Yeah, you do."

"Who?"

I pointed at myself.

"Remember?" I asked, and she seemed to recall that day. "Trust me, it doesn't go away. Camp just makes it seem normal."

We talked about that for a while, until suddenly Matthew interrupted our three way conversation.

"Dude!" They thought that Pride was the coolest thing or something. "You're marching tomorrow?"

"What?" I assumed that Annabeth didn't know what that meant based off of her confused reaction. "Oh, yeah. We are."

"Lucky!" Matthew remarked, sounding jealous. "If we asked, Mom and dad would probably disown us and then kill us or something."

"For what?"

I didn't even consider that she didn't know.

"Pride,"I explained to her for a change. "I didn't know your dad was homophobic."

"Very."she confirmed for me. "I'm bi and all and I'd love to march in Pride but..  it wouldn't end well. Why are you marching?"

"Because I finally have the nerve,"I answered her question. "Um... There's a store down the street that sells pride stuff. Just tell your dad your hanging around with me. Don't tell him you're marching Pride. We can meet up somewhere and have that be our spot to meet afterwards, too. I've never done it before, but it should be fun."

"Seriously?"

"No, I'm making you buy pride merch for no fucking reason." I replied. "Yeah, seriously. Go! Get stuff. I'll meet up with you guys tomorrow."

Grover

Clarisse's phone started to ring and it was Annabeth, so she answered.

"Hey, Annabeth," she said, putting her on speaker for us. "What's up?"

"Oh my gods, Clarisse." She had something to tell us. "You'd never believe what I found out about Percy."

I'm a good friend, and turned on my voice recorder for this. It could be harmless. But if she saw anything for tomorrow...

"Hm?" The other two don't know, though. I honored Percy's request to keep this a secret. He wanted to tell them, yeah. He figured after tomorrow, after Pride, he could.

"He's a fag," the daughter of Athena spilled it to them. "Both him and Nico are. He's marching Pride tomorrow. He told me where he's going to be, too. We can sabotage the shit out of him!"

"Annabeth that's not..." Thalia was the one who responded. "As much as we didn't know... That's not cool, Annabeth. When Nico told us, it was a big deal. He trusted us enough to tell us that. You can't just... You just can't."

"Why not?" She saw nothing wrong with the idea of hurting them. "They're freaks, Thalia! They don't deserve it!"

"Would you shut up?" I snapped at her, because this wasn't like her. Luke was gay. But he was never really our because he never dated anyone at camp. Crushes, sure. But they were straight. "Oh my gods, Annabeth. Why do you care so much if he's gay? The word is gay, by the way. Not fag. Just because your parents are judgemental assholes, doesn't mean you have to be, too. Didn't you say that your brother has been questioning himself lately? Are you going to do that in front of him?"

"You guys are fucking useless."

And she hangs up.

Percy

It was almost weird. Annabeth went missing the next morning. She texted me that she'd be there, and then she never showed. Her brothers said she was there when they got up. They figured she left early.

But either way, we had a blast. I felt... Joyful, no. Hopeful! I had hope and I felt like I could be somewhere for once. Like I wasn't just a total outcast.

I don't know if I've ever felt like that before.

Hell, I didn't realize that Clarisse, Thalia, and Grover we're here until we got to the end and they were a few yards behind us. Thalia being ace, Grover as an ally, and Clarisse as pan.

Afterwards, we went to Clarisse's place. Or, her dad's place. Not Ares. Her other dad.

Yeah, she has two dads. I didn't expect it either, but it makes sense. I've never met her dad before.

"He uh... Used to be really bad." Clarisse told us as we drove to her place. "That's why I moved to camp. He for married to this lady who was really nice, and her son was really shy. I don't remember their names. But he started drinking and he got mean so I went to camp. He sobered up a few years ago, though. He's really nice now. And, of course, he's accepting. He's bi, after all. So don't worry about that."

Getting there, Clarisse let us in and we head to the living room. Where her dad was.

I got light headed real quick, lucky that the toilet wasn't in use in the bathroom that I could see from the living room.

Because I used it.

I threw up in it, going to flashback mode.

Gabe was Clarisse's dad.