We Hitch an Awesome Ride (SPN/ Percy Jackson and the Olympians Fic)
Title:We Hitch an Awesome Ride
Fandoms: SPN/Percy Jackson and the Olympians (book ‘verse)
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Genre: Monster-battle-gen-fluff. What? That’s a genre!
Word Count: ~4.5K
Warnings/Spoilers: Not really. Set vaguely in SPN S5, but no plot spoilers for the season. No plot spoilers for the PJ&O books, except for vague mentions of backstory.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective creators. Not mine, no profit.
a/n: Feel free to imagine Logan Lerman et. al. in this, but it’s set pretty firmly in the PJ&O book ‘verse. Which isn’t all that different, except that the kids are a little younger, and Annabeth is blond. Consider this a rec. for the books, though: everyone I know who starts reading them to their kids ends up sneaking off to finish them themselves.
a/n: for waxbean, who requested PJ&O fic at the help_haiti event back in January, with a big thanks for her generosity, patience, and willingness to let me try something I’ve wanted to do for a while!
Summary: Percy and his friends get a lift from some guys who might know as much about monsters as they do.
We Hitch an Awesome Ride
It hadn’t seemed like such a bad idea at the time. If we split our money three ways, we could get three bus tickets to a place about twenty miles from Camp Halfblood. Pretty close, really. We’d figure out those extra miles when we got there.
Only, the bus hadn’t set us down in a town, or at a gas station, or even on a well-lit intersection. No, it just dropped us off on an anonymous stretch of Route 27 in aastern Long Island, no people or buildings as far as the eye could see.
So, okay, maybe it hadn’t been such a great plan. But it had been a pretty brutal quest, and we were all beat, not thinking as clearly as we should’ve been.
And even so, it probably would have been alright. Except for how we hadn’t figured on it getting dark so fast in August. Or on the rain.
:::::::::::::::::::::::
So there we were, trudging down the side of the highway, hoping to hit some kind of shelter and getting wetter by the minute. Getting wet didn’t bother me-being Poseidon’s son had to be good for something, right?-but Grover and Annabeth were starting to look like drowned cats. Well, drowned goat, in Grover’s case.
“That’s it,” I said, after yet another spray of water from a passing car smacked into my knees, “we’re hitching. You guys hang out under those trees.” I turned to face oncoming traffic and stuck out my thumb.
“Not so fast, Seaweed-breath,” Annabeth said, “if we’re going to hitch, you’d better let me handle it.”
We glared at each other for a minute. But I had to admit she was right. Cars would stop for a pretty blond girl that would never stop for me. I wanted to tell her to be careful, but I knew I’d get an earful if I did, so I just made a face, and walked towards the trees.
I stayed where I could keep an eye on her though. Annabeth stood with her thumb out, the rain making her gray sweatshirt go black on her shoulders, her hair practically plastered to her head, as car after car went past without stopping. It kind of hurt to see her like that. It reminded me of how young she’d been when she first started doing stuff like this. I hated thinking about that.
I was just about to go back and force her to switch places, when a pair of headlights did slow, and a big, black muscle car eased onto the shoulder a few yards in front of us.
Grover and I were next to Annabeth instantly. Because there was only one thing that muscle cars taking an interest in us ever meant, and it wasn’t good: Ares, god of war.
I headed towards the car, already furious that he was interfering again, but Annabeth got a firm hard around my arm.
“Percy,” she cautioned, gray eyes serious, “take it easy. Don’t antagonize him this time.”
“I’m not antagonizing him,” I started to say, when the passenger side door swung open with a creak, and a huge guy began unfolding himself out of it.
He was so big I thought for a moment that I’d completely miscalculated and it was one of the Lastrygonian giants, come to wail on us again. But those giants were head-for-the-hills ugly, and this guy, though he could’ve used a hair cut and some new clothes, wasn’t too bad. Besides, he was doing this very un-monster-like thing where he was holding the corner of his jacket over his head to keep off the rain. Still, I glanced at Grover to make sure.
Grover sniffed the air. “Not a monster,” he confirmed. We all waited warily as the guy approached.
“Hey,” he said, hunching over a little to get his face down to our level, “you kids need a lift?”
Now, this guy had probably the nicest face I’d ever seen on a six-and-a-half-foot slab of muscle, but most ordinary kids would probably think twice about accepting a ride from a twenty-something dude in a car like that. And we weren’t ordinary kids by a long shot, but I could still tell that Annabeth was having second thoughts.
“Um,” she said, “that’s okay. I think maybe we’ll just wait out the rain.”
“You sure?” he said earnestly, “it can be dangerous out here at night.”
Ya think?, I wanted to say, believe me, man, you don’t know the half of it- But just then the driver’s side door opened, and I decided maybe I’d been wrong about it not being Ares in that car, because all I could see at first was a broad leather jacket-clad back. Then the second guy turned around, and I relaxed-he was handsome and all, but way too tired and cranky looking to be a god.
“Come on, Sam,” he said, scrubbing a hand over his face, “you heard the lady-they don’t want a ride. And we have a rule about hitchhikers, remember?”
“Dean,” the first guy-Sam-said, half whiny, half scolding--“look at them-they’re just kids. And they could get in trouble out here.” He said “trouble” like he meant something specific.
The other guy-Dean-glared at him. He was a little shorter, maybe a little older, dark hair cut close to his head instead of long and straggly. The two of them raised their eyebrows and waggled their heads at each other like they were communicating in some kind of code. Finally, Sam made a face like a sad puppy, and Dean scowled at him, giving in with the air of someone who gave in to that face a lot.
“Okay,” he said, “my brother’s right.” He looked us over, and his voice softened a bit, got kind of sympathetic, even. “It’s nasty out here and it’s gonna get worse. You kids should let us take you somewhere dry.”
There was something about them. In spite of the car and the muscle and the tough-guy clothes, they seemed like they really did want to help. I looked at Annabeth, and when she shrugged and nodded, we all piled into the car.
:::::
“So, how’d y’all end up out in the rain like that anyway?” Dean asked after we’d all gotten settled and introduced ourselves.
Annabeth, as usual, thought fastest. Her mother was the goddess of wisdom, after all. “We, uh, were on a camp field trip in the city,” she said, “and we got separated from our group. We didn’t quite have enough money to take the bus all the way back-“
“No cell phones?” Sam asked a little sharply.
“Not allowed at camp,” Annabeth said. Good save, I thought, since we couldn’t very well explain the real reason.
“Hear that, Sammy?” Dean chimed in, “summer camp.” And he didn’t sound like he was mocking us or anything. He sounded a little wistful.
I was squished up against one window in the back seat, Grover against the other, Annabeth squeezed between us. It was warm in the car after the chilly rain outside, hot even, with all the bodies pressed together and the windows closed. I was tired from walking, and from the quest before that, and I felt myself starting to drift off. Dimly, I heard Annabeth insisting that they didn’t need to take us all the way to camp, just to the nearest gas station, and then even that faded away.
:::::::::::::::::::::::
I woke up to the horrible sound of something sharp scraping against metal. The noise seemed to be coming from overhead. I was instantly awake, though it took a moment to remember where I was: driving through a rainy Long Island night with two guys we’d never met. Dean was swearing a blue streak in the driver’s seat, taking the best evasive action he could on the two-lane highway, the car swaying a little as he swerved around other drivers, some of whom were honking their horns at us.
“What the fuck is that, Sam?” Dean barked, as another series of rasps echoed off the car’s roof, this time accompanied by the thunk of what I could have sworn was a heavy wing.
I glanced at Annabeth and Grover, and they looked as apprehensive as I felt. A monster. A monster had found us-and a flying one at that. I felt a wave of guilt for getting Sam and Dean into a situation they would have no idea how to deal with.
“How should I know, Dean?” Sam said, ‘it sure isn’t the Amagansett poltergeist, I can tell you that. I think it has wings.”
“Thank you very much, Sherlock,” Dean said caustically, and pulled the car hard into the other lane, sped up some more to pass a pick-up before jerking it back. All the fast sudden movements were doing a number on my stomach.
Sam peered through the windshield, trying to get a glimpse of the monster. “You know,” he said consideringly, “I think it’s got three heads: lion; uh, goat, I think; and yeah, dragon.” He sounded way too calm, given how the thing was trying to scoop the car up in its talons. “Never heard of one with wings before,” he went on, “but I think it’s a chimera.”
“I don’t care if it’s Kiley-fucking-Minogue,” Dean ground out, not quite so calmly, “Why’s it dive-bombing the fucking car?”
“Dean,” Sam scolded, “language. They’re just kids.” A blast of fire from the chimera lit up the night sky in front of us.
“Seriously?” Dean said, making a heart-stopping pass through oncoming traffic again, “Seriously? They’ve got to be thirteen or fourteen at least. The mouth you had on you at that age? I remember when Dad-“
“Uh,” I said, interrupting the bickering, ‘cause I figured they deserved to know, “I think it’s probably after us.”
Dean glared at me through the rear-view mirror. “You?” he spluttered, “you?” Then he re-directed his annoyance back towards Sam, mimicking his brother’s earnest voice, “They’re just kids, Dean. We can’t leave them out in the rain, Dean-“
Sam ignored him with the air of someone who had a lot of practice ignoring his brother’s pissyness. He twisted around to face us, clearly trying hard to look reassuring. “Don’t worry,” he said, “we’re not going to let anything happen to you.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. Like they were going to protect us. Next to me, though, Annabeth was concerned with other things.
“You mean you can see it?” she asked, “you both can see it?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, puzzled, “why wouldn’t we?”
“See it? I can practically fucking smell it,” Dean said at the same time.
“No reason,” she said, “it’s just that mortals usually can’t see through the mist.”
But before Sam could press her on what she meant, Dean said, “Okay boys and girls, that’s enough chit-chat. Everybody hold on tight now.” And he swung the car into an abrupt u-turn, cut across the opposite lane of traffic, and took us over the soft shoulder into a dark field.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
I don’t know how he’d spotted it from the road, but Dean pulled the car up behind a two partially ruined walls, standing at right angles to each other at the edge of a field of low, green plants. Some kind of spreading tree hung over the walls, almost like a roof, and the space was a perfect makeshift windbreak. Or impromptu monster shelter.
“C’mon, Sammy,” Dean said, “let’s cowboy up,” and he didn’t sound tired or pissed off anymore. He sounded almost happy, like he was psyched to have something to battle. Kinda like I was feeling myself. “You kids sit tight, okay?” Dean said, “we’ll take care of that thing.” And he swung himself out of the car, Sam following suit.
As the doors slammed shut, Annabeth, Grover and I looked at each other. There was no way we could let these guys risk their lives on our account. We piled out after them.
Sam and Dean were peering into the trunk, hunching a little against the rain. When I saw what they had in there, I almost took a step backward: a lunatic array of weapons filled up the space, messily piled one on top of the other. It occurred to me that maybe we had taken up with vicious criminals after all.
Without sparing a glance for me, Dean handed Sam a shotgun, hefted out one for himself.
“Hey,” I said, screwing up my courage, because dangerous criminals or not, it wasn’t fair not to tell them, “those guns aren’t going to work against that thing.”
Dean looked at me measuringly, “They aren’t ordinary guns,” he said tersely, “They’re guns for exactly that kind of thing: they’re loaded with salt rounds.”
“Won’t even dent it,” I said.
Dean frowned, but didn’t ask me how I knew. “Well, if that doesn’t work, we have silver---” he started. I shook my head. “Iron? Consecrated bullets? I think I even have a cross-bow and some spelled-up arrows in here somewhere.” I continued to shake my head.
“Okay, kid, what will work?” he finally asked.
I held up Riptide. “This,” I said.
“Percy,” Sam said, like I was crazy, “that’s a pen.”
I opened it. They both kind of goggled.
“Whoa,” said Dean, “Awesome sword.”
“What’s it made of?” asked Sam.
“Celestial bronze,” I told them. “It’s the only thing that kills monsters.”
:::::
And that was about all the time we had for talking. The chimera had found us. It made a couple of low passes overhead, just to ascertain that the tree and the walls meant that it couldn’t just swoop over and pick us off like stray ducklings as it had been planning to. But it didn’t go away. Just settled a little way off and fixed six beady eyes on our meager defenses.
Even in the dim light from the road, it looked like someone’s failed experiment in monster-making. The purple scales of the dragon neck clashed with the tawny lion’s pelt over most of its body. And the goat part just looked kind of-silly. Plus, the heads didn’t seem to be getting along real well: they kept jostling for position and nipping at each other. But despite all that, it was pretty formidable. Not to mention mean-looking.
“So, what’s the plan?” Dean asked. We were all crouched between the car and the walls, weapons ready in our hands.
“Well, when Bellerophon took on a chimera,” Sam said, “he nailed it by flying his Pegasus over its head and taking it from above.”
“You know about Bellerophon?” Annabeth asked, looking at Sam like her opinion of him had just changed real fast.
“Uh, guys?” Grover chipped in, “in case you haven’t noticed, this one can fly.”
Yeah,” I added, “and our pegasii are back at camp.”
“Christ,” Dean said, “Just give me a clear shot at that sonofabitch and I’ll take it down.”
“Dude,” I said, staring to get irritated, “I told you-shooting it isn’t going to do anything. You guys just hang back, and let us handle it.”
But the words “let us handle it” were clearly not in Sam and Dean’s vocabulary.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::
Giving me a look that could’ve cut glass, Dean maneuvered himself around the edge of the car until he had the chimera in his sights, and fired. It was a good shot-a heart shot-and would have finished the thing off if it had actually been affected by bullets-salt-loaded or otherwise. As it was, the gesture just annoyed it enough for it to let loose another volley of fire out of its dragon’s head. We could feel the heat of it even back behind the car.
Dean scrambled back. I refrained from saying “I told you so.”
“Okay,” he said, grudgingly, “you got another pen that turns into a fire hose?”
“Sorry-“ I started to say. Then, I thought about it. The rain was still coming down, had left lots of big puddles in the furrows of the field. Maybe-
“Annabeth, Grover,” I said, “can you try and get that thing to open its mouth again? I have an idea-“
We had been through a lot together-a lot of battles-and they trusted me enough not to ask for any more information. The three of us just moved in front of the car and started towards the monster-no baiting required, that was enough to get it all excited, working its three sets of jawbones and pawing the air. Sam and Dean came too, probably just because they couldn’t stand the idea of staying behind. The dragon’s head mouth opened wide again and got ready to send a tongue of flame towards us.
As it did so, I let my awareness extend to all the little isolated pools around us. I got the feel of the water-heavy with mud and murky with plant life-and drew it towards me, knitting it together and drawing it out, until I had a long, flexible, liquid whip. My control over water was as perfect and inexplicable as always, and I sent it coiling around the chimera’s dragon head, and into its mouth like a watery noose.
Caught unawares, the thing hacked and gagged-like a cat trying to get up a hairball, or someone trying to spit in the dentist’s office. But it was no use: its fire was out.
Now that the flames were taken care of, we were able to actually approach it. But of course the problem with a creature with three heads is that it has three heads. Even though the dragon head was distracted, clacking its teeth together uselessly, the lion head was roaring and the goat head was whinnying. Not to mention the thing was trying to slash us with its talons, and beat at us with its wings.
I was concentrating on trying to get past its claws to deliver some kind of body blow with Riptide when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, its barbed tail come up out of nowhere and smack Annabeth hard across the right shoulder. She slapped a hand over the wound, but blood was already seeping out between her fingers.
“Annabeth!” I called, but before I could even start to go to her, Sam had scooped her up-like literally lifted her about three feet off the ground-and carried her back behind the shelter of the car.
For some reason, it irked me that someone other than me was rescuing her, but I couldn’t spend too much time thinking about it The monster was bearing down on me again. I parried its claws as well as I could, until I heard the unmistakable sound of Grover’s panpipes. The lion head couldn’t have cared less, but the goat head seemed to be drawn to the music, trying to drag the rest of the chimera in its direction. There was push-me-pull-me kind of moment where it lost its balance, and that was enough for me to get under its defenses. I plunged Riptide straight into its heart.
Immediately, it burst apart like an unpleasant puff of black smoke, and disappeared.
“Where’d it go?” Dean asked, bewildered, hands clenched on his shotgun like it physically hurt to have played such a small part in a fight.
“Back to Tartarus,” I answered, panting a little, and leaning on my sword.
::::::
Chimera dispatched, I hurried back to where Sam had Annabeth sitting propped against the back left wheel of the car. He had taken off his jacket and flannel and was crouching in front of her, pressing his wadded up shirt against the gash in her shoulder. Stripped down to his t-shirt like that, he looked even bigger and, well, more muscle-y. But Annabeth didn’t seem to mind-she was looking at him with a weird, dreamy expression on her face.
“It’s pretty deep,” Sam was saying, “hang on a sec, and I’ll get our kit and patch you up-might need a few stitches.” Annabeth just gave him a look like stitches wouldn’t hurt if he did them. It was really starting to bug me.
I beat Sam to the car, though, grabbed my pack and snagged the last of our ambrosia out of it. “Here,” I said to Annabeth, giving her the drink. “She’s not going to need stitches,” I told Sam, kind of coldly. And sure enough, as soon as she swallowed the ambrosia, the wound stopped bleeding, started to close up by itself.
“Wow,” Sam said, “neat trick.”
“Only works on halfbloods,” I said, trying not to be too snarky about it.
Dean circled around the car, tracing over the scratches in the paint with tender fingers, and looking sad.
“Well, that’s one to add to the list” he said resignedly, putting his shotgun back in the trunk, “How ‘bout we buy you kids a burger?”
::::::::::::::::::::::::
There was an all-night diner another few miles down route 27. I was starving-we all were. It had been a long quest, and money had been tight at the end. To be honest, I couldn’t quite remember the last time I’d had a decent meal.
Dean chivvied us into ordering a lot of food, and watched us eat with a curious expression on his face. Then, without asking, he called the waitress back over and ordered another round of everything. Sam gave him a look, but Dean just said, “They’re kids, Sammy. They need their nourishment.” Sam made a little tchching sound-half annoyance, half indulgence-but let it go.
After a while, though, Sam seemed to get bored of watching us shovel food down our throats. He dug his laptop out of his pack and started tapping away on it. Dean, however, didn’t seem bored at all. He pushed his own empty plate away, hooked his elbows over back of the booth, and leaned back, surveying the carnage with a look of satisfaction, like it was the best thing he’d seen for a while.
“Thanks,” I said, when I came up for air.
“Don’t thank me,” Dean said, “thank David Lee Roth.” And he smirked like I should know who that was.
He must’ve had some kind of rule about grilling people on their nutty lives while they were still eating, because he waited ‘til I’d slurped down my second milkshake, Annabeth had cornered the last lonely fry on her plate, and Grover had sneakily started gnawing on his fork, before asking, “So, what’d you mean back there, about us being mortals?”
I looked at Grover and Annabeth for support. They looked right back at me. So I plunged in.
“Okay,” I said, “you know the Greek gods, like Zeus, Ares, Aphrodite?” Dean nodded. “Well, they exist.” No reaction. Dean just kept looking at me, like he was waiting for the good stuff. I forced myself to go on-they’d spent half the night battling a chimera with us, after all. “They exist, and sometimes--sometimes they have kids with ordinary people-mortals.” I took a breath. “Kids like us. Halfbloods.”
Now Dean did react, twisting up his mouth a little. “Uh-huh, right. Greek gods don’t exist. Sorry kid, but someone’s been pulling your leg about why daddy’s missing.”
Whoa, I thought, and started to bristle, ‘cause no one talks about my mom like that. But I took another look at Dean’s face, and decided he wasn’t trying to be insulting, just crude.
“I don’t know why you say that, Dean.” Sam emerged from behind his laptop, looking interested again. “pagan gods exist; sirens exist; angels exist.” And he narrowed his eyes at his brother in a particularly knowing way. Dean looked away.
“Angels don’t exist,” I said, before I could stop myself.
Dean and Sam turned to me with the exact same expression on their faces. Like they could say a whole lot on the subject, but I really, really didn’t want to hear it.
“So whose baby are you?” Dean asked, breaking the moment.
“Poseidon,” I said, “you know, god of the sea.” And, yeah, the truth always did sound just about that awkward when I said it out loud.
“Huh,” he said, taking it remarkably in stride, “guess that explains the trick with the water. How ‘bout you?” He looked at Annabeth.
“Athena,” she answered.
“Goddess of wisdom,” Sam said, “yeah, I can see that.” He looked at her thoughtfully. Annabeth got real interested in her napkin all of a sudden.
“And you?” Dean turned to Grover.
“Oh, I’m not a demigod,” he said, “I’m a satyr.” He took a big bite out of the spoon he was holding, like he did sometimes when he got nervous. Dean and Sam raised their eyebrows and cocked their heads at identical angles, but didn’t comment.
“But I still want to know how come you guys could see the monster,” Annabeth said, her courage returning. “Most mortals can’t see through the mist-that’s what we call the difference between our world and yours.”
“Sweetheart,” Dean said, “we’ve seen a lot worse than that. Seeing monsters is kinda our profession.”
Well, that explained the armory in the trunk, at any rate. Given what was in there, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear any more about their jobs.
“You, uh, see your parents often?” Sam asked.
“Not really,” Annabeth said, a little guardedly. I hoped I was the only one who could hear all the hurt wrapped up in those two little words. “But there’s camp. And we have each other.”
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Dean insisted on driving us all the way back to Camp Halfblood, even though we told him we could make our own way from the diner. Sam rolled his eyes, and said “Dean. Amagansett. Objects crashing into walls,” with a lot of heavy emphasis. But he didn’t bring up the fact that it had been Dean who had been so reluctant to pick us up in the first place. Maybe he was used to those kinds of reversals from his brother.
Everybody was pretty quiet during the drive. The rain was coming down harder than ever, its rhythm lulling on the roof, and we were sleepy and full from dinner. We were there before I knew it.
Dean got the car as close to the gates as he could, and the three of us piled out, mumbling awkward but heartfelt thanks for their help with the chimera. Sam watched us through the window, smiling just enough to bring out his dimples. He caught Annabeth’s eye, and waggled his fingers at her. She made a strange O shape with her mouth, and blushed so red I could see it in the dark. Then she spun away quickly, and scurried up the hill towards camp in a very un-Annabeth way. All of a sudden, I wasn’t so sad to see them go.
I was following her and Grover towards the gates, when I heard the car’s engine cut out, and a door creak open. I turned, thinking maybe we’d forgotten something, and saw Dean coming towards me.
“Hey,” he said. I paused.
When he caught up to me, he didn’t say anything, just took my right hand, kind of abruptly, and spread it open. Without asking permission, he wrote ten numbers across my palm, pen tip pressing sharply into my skin. When he was done, he closed my fingers back over the writing, and kept his hand, warm, over mine.
“Memorize that,” he said, “and if you guys ever run into something that can’t be stopped by celestial bronze, you give us a call, you hear me?”
I looked up at him. His green eyes had gone serious. They looked much older than the rest of his face.
“Yes sir,” I said, like I hardly ever said to anyone.
“Good.” He let go of my hand and clapped me on the shoulder. “Look out for your friends, Percy Jackson” he said, and was gone.
I watched their red taillights fade away into the night for a long time before I turned again and headed up toward camp.
fin
Fandoms: SPN/Percy Jackson and the Olympians (book ‘verse)
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Genre: Monster-battle-gen-fluff. What? That’s a genre!
Word Count: ~4.5K
Warnings/Spoilers: Not really. Set vaguely in SPN S5, but no plot spoilers for the season. No plot spoilers for the PJ&O books, except for vague mentions of backstory.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective creators. Not mine, no profit.
a/n: Feel free to imagine Logan Lerman et. al. in this, but it’s set pretty firmly in the PJ&O book ‘verse. Which isn’t all that different, except that the kids are a little younger, and Annabeth is blond. Consider this a rec. for the books, though: everyone I know who starts reading them to their kids ends up sneaking off to finish them themselves.
a/n: for waxbean, who requested PJ&O fic at the help_haiti event back in January, with a big thanks for her generosity, patience, and willingness to let me try something I’ve wanted to do for a while!
Summary: Percy and his friends get a lift from some guys who might know as much about monsters as they do.
We Hitch an Awesome Ride
It hadn’t seemed like such a bad idea at the time. If we split our money three ways, we could get three bus tickets to a place about twenty miles from Camp Halfblood. Pretty close, really. We’d figure out those extra miles when we got there.
Only, the bus hadn’t set us down in a town, or at a gas station, or even on a well-lit intersection. No, it just dropped us off on an anonymous stretch of Route 27 in aastern Long Island, no people or buildings as far as the eye could see.
So, okay, maybe it hadn’t been such a great plan. But it had been a pretty brutal quest, and we were all beat, not thinking as clearly as we should’ve been.
And even so, it probably would have been alright. Except for how we hadn’t figured on it getting dark so fast in August. Or on the rain.
:::::::::::::::::::::::
So there we were, trudging down the side of the highway, hoping to hit some kind of shelter and getting wetter by the minute. Getting wet didn’t bother me-being Poseidon’s son had to be good for something, right?-but Grover and Annabeth were starting to look like drowned cats. Well, drowned goat, in Grover’s case.
“That’s it,” I said, after yet another spray of water from a passing car smacked into my knees, “we’re hitching. You guys hang out under those trees.” I turned to face oncoming traffic and stuck out my thumb.
“Not so fast, Seaweed-breath,” Annabeth said, “if we’re going to hitch, you’d better let me handle it.”
We glared at each other for a minute. But I had to admit she was right. Cars would stop for a pretty blond girl that would never stop for me. I wanted to tell her to be careful, but I knew I’d get an earful if I did, so I just made a face, and walked towards the trees.
I stayed where I could keep an eye on her though. Annabeth stood with her thumb out, the rain making her gray sweatshirt go black on her shoulders, her hair practically plastered to her head, as car after car went past without stopping. It kind of hurt to see her like that. It reminded me of how young she’d been when she first started doing stuff like this. I hated thinking about that.
I was just about to go back and force her to switch places, when a pair of headlights did slow, and a big, black muscle car eased onto the shoulder a few yards in front of us.
Grover and I were next to Annabeth instantly. Because there was only one thing that muscle cars taking an interest in us ever meant, and it wasn’t good: Ares, god of war.
I headed towards the car, already furious that he was interfering again, but Annabeth got a firm hard around my arm.
“Percy,” she cautioned, gray eyes serious, “take it easy. Don’t antagonize him this time.”
“I’m not antagonizing him,” I started to say, when the passenger side door swung open with a creak, and a huge guy began unfolding himself out of it.
He was so big I thought for a moment that I’d completely miscalculated and it was one of the Lastrygonian giants, come to wail on us again. But those giants were head-for-the-hills ugly, and this guy, though he could’ve used a hair cut and some new clothes, wasn’t too bad. Besides, he was doing this very un-monster-like thing where he was holding the corner of his jacket over his head to keep off the rain. Still, I glanced at Grover to make sure.
Grover sniffed the air. “Not a monster,” he confirmed. We all waited warily as the guy approached.
“Hey,” he said, hunching over a little to get his face down to our level, “you kids need a lift?”
Now, this guy had probably the nicest face I’d ever seen on a six-and-a-half-foot slab of muscle, but most ordinary kids would probably think twice about accepting a ride from a twenty-something dude in a car like that. And we weren’t ordinary kids by a long shot, but I could still tell that Annabeth was having second thoughts.
“Um,” she said, “that’s okay. I think maybe we’ll just wait out the rain.”
“You sure?” he said earnestly, “it can be dangerous out here at night.”
Ya think?, I wanted to say, believe me, man, you don’t know the half of it- But just then the driver’s side door opened, and I decided maybe I’d been wrong about it not being Ares in that car, because all I could see at first was a broad leather jacket-clad back. Then the second guy turned around, and I relaxed-he was handsome and all, but way too tired and cranky looking to be a god.
“Come on, Sam,” he said, scrubbing a hand over his face, “you heard the lady-they don’t want a ride. And we have a rule about hitchhikers, remember?”
“Dean,” the first guy-Sam-said, half whiny, half scolding--“look at them-they’re just kids. And they could get in trouble out here.” He said “trouble” like he meant something specific.
The other guy-Dean-glared at him. He was a little shorter, maybe a little older, dark hair cut close to his head instead of long and straggly. The two of them raised their eyebrows and waggled their heads at each other like they were communicating in some kind of code. Finally, Sam made a face like a sad puppy, and Dean scowled at him, giving in with the air of someone who gave in to that face a lot.
“Okay,” he said, “my brother’s right.” He looked us over, and his voice softened a bit, got kind of sympathetic, even. “It’s nasty out here and it’s gonna get worse. You kids should let us take you somewhere dry.”
There was something about them. In spite of the car and the muscle and the tough-guy clothes, they seemed like they really did want to help. I looked at Annabeth, and when she shrugged and nodded, we all piled into the car.
:::::
“So, how’d y’all end up out in the rain like that anyway?” Dean asked after we’d all gotten settled and introduced ourselves.
Annabeth, as usual, thought fastest. Her mother was the goddess of wisdom, after all. “We, uh, were on a camp field trip in the city,” she said, “and we got separated from our group. We didn’t quite have enough money to take the bus all the way back-“
“No cell phones?” Sam asked a little sharply.
“Not allowed at camp,” Annabeth said. Good save, I thought, since we couldn’t very well explain the real reason.
“Hear that, Sammy?” Dean chimed in, “summer camp.” And he didn’t sound like he was mocking us or anything. He sounded a little wistful.
I was squished up against one window in the back seat, Grover against the other, Annabeth squeezed between us. It was warm in the car after the chilly rain outside, hot even, with all the bodies pressed together and the windows closed. I was tired from walking, and from the quest before that, and I felt myself starting to drift off. Dimly, I heard Annabeth insisting that they didn’t need to take us all the way to camp, just to the nearest gas station, and then even that faded away.
:::::::::::::::::::::::
I woke up to the horrible sound of something sharp scraping against metal. The noise seemed to be coming from overhead. I was instantly awake, though it took a moment to remember where I was: driving through a rainy Long Island night with two guys we’d never met. Dean was swearing a blue streak in the driver’s seat, taking the best evasive action he could on the two-lane highway, the car swaying a little as he swerved around other drivers, some of whom were honking their horns at us.
“What the fuck is that, Sam?” Dean barked, as another series of rasps echoed off the car’s roof, this time accompanied by the thunk of what I could have sworn was a heavy wing.
I glanced at Annabeth and Grover, and they looked as apprehensive as I felt. A monster. A monster had found us-and a flying one at that. I felt a wave of guilt for getting Sam and Dean into a situation they would have no idea how to deal with.
“How should I know, Dean?” Sam said, ‘it sure isn’t the Amagansett poltergeist, I can tell you that. I think it has wings.”
“Thank you very much, Sherlock,” Dean said caustically, and pulled the car hard into the other lane, sped up some more to pass a pick-up before jerking it back. All the fast sudden movements were doing a number on my stomach.
Sam peered through the windshield, trying to get a glimpse of the monster. “You know,” he said consideringly, “I think it’s got three heads: lion; uh, goat, I think; and yeah, dragon.” He sounded way too calm, given how the thing was trying to scoop the car up in its talons. “Never heard of one with wings before,” he went on, “but I think it’s a chimera.”
“I don’t care if it’s Kiley-fucking-Minogue,” Dean ground out, not quite so calmly, “Why’s it dive-bombing the fucking car?”
“Dean,” Sam scolded, “language. They’re just kids.” A blast of fire from the chimera lit up the night sky in front of us.
“Seriously?” Dean said, making a heart-stopping pass through oncoming traffic again, “Seriously? They’ve got to be thirteen or fourteen at least. The mouth you had on you at that age? I remember when Dad-“
“Uh,” I said, interrupting the bickering, ‘cause I figured they deserved to know, “I think it’s probably after us.”
Dean glared at me through the rear-view mirror. “You?” he spluttered, “you?” Then he re-directed his annoyance back towards Sam, mimicking his brother’s earnest voice, “They’re just kids, Dean. We can’t leave them out in the rain, Dean-“
Sam ignored him with the air of someone who had a lot of practice ignoring his brother’s pissyness. He twisted around to face us, clearly trying hard to look reassuring. “Don’t worry,” he said, “we’re not going to let anything happen to you.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. Like they were going to protect us. Next to me, though, Annabeth was concerned with other things.
“You mean you can see it?” she asked, “you both can see it?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, puzzled, “why wouldn’t we?”
“See it? I can practically fucking smell it,” Dean said at the same time.
“No reason,” she said, “it’s just that mortals usually can’t see through the mist.”
But before Sam could press her on what she meant, Dean said, “Okay boys and girls, that’s enough chit-chat. Everybody hold on tight now.” And he swung the car into an abrupt u-turn, cut across the opposite lane of traffic, and took us over the soft shoulder into a dark field.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
I don’t know how he’d spotted it from the road, but Dean pulled the car up behind a two partially ruined walls, standing at right angles to each other at the edge of a field of low, green plants. Some kind of spreading tree hung over the walls, almost like a roof, and the space was a perfect makeshift windbreak. Or impromptu monster shelter.
“C’mon, Sammy,” Dean said, “let’s cowboy up,” and he didn’t sound tired or pissed off anymore. He sounded almost happy, like he was psyched to have something to battle. Kinda like I was feeling myself. “You kids sit tight, okay?” Dean said, “we’ll take care of that thing.” And he swung himself out of the car, Sam following suit.
As the doors slammed shut, Annabeth, Grover and I looked at each other. There was no way we could let these guys risk their lives on our account. We piled out after them.
Sam and Dean were peering into the trunk, hunching a little against the rain. When I saw what they had in there, I almost took a step backward: a lunatic array of weapons filled up the space, messily piled one on top of the other. It occurred to me that maybe we had taken up with vicious criminals after all.
Without sparing a glance for me, Dean handed Sam a shotgun, hefted out one for himself.
“Hey,” I said, screwing up my courage, because dangerous criminals or not, it wasn’t fair not to tell them, “those guns aren’t going to work against that thing.”
Dean looked at me measuringly, “They aren’t ordinary guns,” he said tersely, “They’re guns for exactly that kind of thing: they’re loaded with salt rounds.”
“Won’t even dent it,” I said.
Dean frowned, but didn’t ask me how I knew. “Well, if that doesn’t work, we have silver---” he started. I shook my head. “Iron? Consecrated bullets? I think I even have a cross-bow and some spelled-up arrows in here somewhere.” I continued to shake my head.
“Okay, kid, what will work?” he finally asked.
I held up Riptide. “This,” I said.
“Percy,” Sam said, like I was crazy, “that’s a pen.”
I opened it. They both kind of goggled.
“Whoa,” said Dean, “Awesome sword.”
“What’s it made of?” asked Sam.
“Celestial bronze,” I told them. “It’s the only thing that kills monsters.”
:::::
And that was about all the time we had for talking. The chimera had found us. It made a couple of low passes overhead, just to ascertain that the tree and the walls meant that it couldn’t just swoop over and pick us off like stray ducklings as it had been planning to. But it didn’t go away. Just settled a little way off and fixed six beady eyes on our meager defenses.
Even in the dim light from the road, it looked like someone’s failed experiment in monster-making. The purple scales of the dragon neck clashed with the tawny lion’s pelt over most of its body. And the goat part just looked kind of-silly. Plus, the heads didn’t seem to be getting along real well: they kept jostling for position and nipping at each other. But despite all that, it was pretty formidable. Not to mention mean-looking.
“So, what’s the plan?” Dean asked. We were all crouched between the car and the walls, weapons ready in our hands.
“Well, when Bellerophon took on a chimera,” Sam said, “he nailed it by flying his Pegasus over its head and taking it from above.”
“You know about Bellerophon?” Annabeth asked, looking at Sam like her opinion of him had just changed real fast.
“Uh, guys?” Grover chipped in, “in case you haven’t noticed, this one can fly.”
Yeah,” I added, “and our pegasii are back at camp.”
“Christ,” Dean said, “Just give me a clear shot at that sonofabitch and I’ll take it down.”
“Dude,” I said, staring to get irritated, “I told you-shooting it isn’t going to do anything. You guys just hang back, and let us handle it.”
But the words “let us handle it” were clearly not in Sam and Dean’s vocabulary.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::
Giving me a look that could’ve cut glass, Dean maneuvered himself around the edge of the car until he had the chimera in his sights, and fired. It was a good shot-a heart shot-and would have finished the thing off if it had actually been affected by bullets-salt-loaded or otherwise. As it was, the gesture just annoyed it enough for it to let loose another volley of fire out of its dragon’s head. We could feel the heat of it even back behind the car.
Dean scrambled back. I refrained from saying “I told you so.”
“Okay,” he said, grudgingly, “you got another pen that turns into a fire hose?”
“Sorry-“ I started to say. Then, I thought about it. The rain was still coming down, had left lots of big puddles in the furrows of the field. Maybe-
“Annabeth, Grover,” I said, “can you try and get that thing to open its mouth again? I have an idea-“
We had been through a lot together-a lot of battles-and they trusted me enough not to ask for any more information. The three of us just moved in front of the car and started towards the monster-no baiting required, that was enough to get it all excited, working its three sets of jawbones and pawing the air. Sam and Dean came too, probably just because they couldn’t stand the idea of staying behind. The dragon’s head mouth opened wide again and got ready to send a tongue of flame towards us.
As it did so, I let my awareness extend to all the little isolated pools around us. I got the feel of the water-heavy with mud and murky with plant life-and drew it towards me, knitting it together and drawing it out, until I had a long, flexible, liquid whip. My control over water was as perfect and inexplicable as always, and I sent it coiling around the chimera’s dragon head, and into its mouth like a watery noose.
Caught unawares, the thing hacked and gagged-like a cat trying to get up a hairball, or someone trying to spit in the dentist’s office. But it was no use: its fire was out.
Now that the flames were taken care of, we were able to actually approach it. But of course the problem with a creature with three heads is that it has three heads. Even though the dragon head was distracted, clacking its teeth together uselessly, the lion head was roaring and the goat head was whinnying. Not to mention the thing was trying to slash us with its talons, and beat at us with its wings.
I was concentrating on trying to get past its claws to deliver some kind of body blow with Riptide when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, its barbed tail come up out of nowhere and smack Annabeth hard across the right shoulder. She slapped a hand over the wound, but blood was already seeping out between her fingers.
“Annabeth!” I called, but before I could even start to go to her, Sam had scooped her up-like literally lifted her about three feet off the ground-and carried her back behind the shelter of the car.
For some reason, it irked me that someone other than me was rescuing her, but I couldn’t spend too much time thinking about it The monster was bearing down on me again. I parried its claws as well as I could, until I heard the unmistakable sound of Grover’s panpipes. The lion head couldn’t have cared less, but the goat head seemed to be drawn to the music, trying to drag the rest of the chimera in its direction. There was push-me-pull-me kind of moment where it lost its balance, and that was enough for me to get under its defenses. I plunged Riptide straight into its heart.
Immediately, it burst apart like an unpleasant puff of black smoke, and disappeared.
“Where’d it go?” Dean asked, bewildered, hands clenched on his shotgun like it physically hurt to have played such a small part in a fight.
“Back to Tartarus,” I answered, panting a little, and leaning on my sword.
::::::
Chimera dispatched, I hurried back to where Sam had Annabeth sitting propped against the back left wheel of the car. He had taken off his jacket and flannel and was crouching in front of her, pressing his wadded up shirt against the gash in her shoulder. Stripped down to his t-shirt like that, he looked even bigger and, well, more muscle-y. But Annabeth didn’t seem to mind-she was looking at him with a weird, dreamy expression on her face.
“It’s pretty deep,” Sam was saying, “hang on a sec, and I’ll get our kit and patch you up-might need a few stitches.” Annabeth just gave him a look like stitches wouldn’t hurt if he did them. It was really starting to bug me.
I beat Sam to the car, though, grabbed my pack and snagged the last of our ambrosia out of it. “Here,” I said to Annabeth, giving her the drink. “She’s not going to need stitches,” I told Sam, kind of coldly. And sure enough, as soon as she swallowed the ambrosia, the wound stopped bleeding, started to close up by itself.
“Wow,” Sam said, “neat trick.”
“Only works on halfbloods,” I said, trying not to be too snarky about it.
Dean circled around the car, tracing over the scratches in the paint with tender fingers, and looking sad.
“Well, that’s one to add to the list” he said resignedly, putting his shotgun back in the trunk, “How ‘bout we buy you kids a burger?”
::::::::::::::::::::::::
There was an all-night diner another few miles down route 27. I was starving-we all were. It had been a long quest, and money had been tight at the end. To be honest, I couldn’t quite remember the last time I’d had a decent meal.
Dean chivvied us into ordering a lot of food, and watched us eat with a curious expression on his face. Then, without asking, he called the waitress back over and ordered another round of everything. Sam gave him a look, but Dean just said, “They’re kids, Sammy. They need their nourishment.” Sam made a little tchching sound-half annoyance, half indulgence-but let it go.
After a while, though, Sam seemed to get bored of watching us shovel food down our throats. He dug his laptop out of his pack and started tapping away on it. Dean, however, didn’t seem bored at all. He pushed his own empty plate away, hooked his elbows over back of the booth, and leaned back, surveying the carnage with a look of satisfaction, like it was the best thing he’d seen for a while.
“Thanks,” I said, when I came up for air.
“Don’t thank me,” Dean said, “thank David Lee Roth.” And he smirked like I should know who that was.
He must’ve had some kind of rule about grilling people on their nutty lives while they were still eating, because he waited ‘til I’d slurped down my second milkshake, Annabeth had cornered the last lonely fry on her plate, and Grover had sneakily started gnawing on his fork, before asking, “So, what’d you mean back there, about us being mortals?”
I looked at Grover and Annabeth for support. They looked right back at me. So I plunged in.
“Okay,” I said, “you know the Greek gods, like Zeus, Ares, Aphrodite?” Dean nodded. “Well, they exist.” No reaction. Dean just kept looking at me, like he was waiting for the good stuff. I forced myself to go on-they’d spent half the night battling a chimera with us, after all. “They exist, and sometimes--sometimes they have kids with ordinary people-mortals.” I took a breath. “Kids like us. Halfbloods.”
Now Dean did react, twisting up his mouth a little. “Uh-huh, right. Greek gods don’t exist. Sorry kid, but someone’s been pulling your leg about why daddy’s missing.”
Whoa, I thought, and started to bristle, ‘cause no one talks about my mom like that. But I took another look at Dean’s face, and decided he wasn’t trying to be insulting, just crude.
“I don’t know why you say that, Dean.” Sam emerged from behind his laptop, looking interested again. “pagan gods exist; sirens exist; angels exist.” And he narrowed his eyes at his brother in a particularly knowing way. Dean looked away.
“Angels don’t exist,” I said, before I could stop myself.
Dean and Sam turned to me with the exact same expression on their faces. Like they could say a whole lot on the subject, but I really, really didn’t want to hear it.
“So whose baby are you?” Dean asked, breaking the moment.
“Poseidon,” I said, “you know, god of the sea.” And, yeah, the truth always did sound just about that awkward when I said it out loud.
“Huh,” he said, taking it remarkably in stride, “guess that explains the trick with the water. How ‘bout you?” He looked at Annabeth.
“Athena,” she answered.
“Goddess of wisdom,” Sam said, “yeah, I can see that.” He looked at her thoughtfully. Annabeth got real interested in her napkin all of a sudden.
“And you?” Dean turned to Grover.
“Oh, I’m not a demigod,” he said, “I’m a satyr.” He took a big bite out of the spoon he was holding, like he did sometimes when he got nervous. Dean and Sam raised their eyebrows and cocked their heads at identical angles, but didn’t comment.
“But I still want to know how come you guys could see the monster,” Annabeth said, her courage returning. “Most mortals can’t see through the mist-that’s what we call the difference between our world and yours.”
“Sweetheart,” Dean said, “we’ve seen a lot worse than that. Seeing monsters is kinda our profession.”
Well, that explained the armory in the trunk, at any rate. Given what was in there, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear any more about their jobs.
“You, uh, see your parents often?” Sam asked.
“Not really,” Annabeth said, a little guardedly. I hoped I was the only one who could hear all the hurt wrapped up in those two little words. “But there’s camp. And we have each other.”
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Dean insisted on driving us all the way back to Camp Halfblood, even though we told him we could make our own way from the diner. Sam rolled his eyes, and said “Dean. Amagansett. Objects crashing into walls,” with a lot of heavy emphasis. But he didn’t bring up the fact that it had been Dean who had been so reluctant to pick us up in the first place. Maybe he was used to those kinds of reversals from his brother.
Everybody was pretty quiet during the drive. The rain was coming down harder than ever, its rhythm lulling on the roof, and we were sleepy and full from dinner. We were there before I knew it.
Dean got the car as close to the gates as he could, and the three of us piled out, mumbling awkward but heartfelt thanks for their help with the chimera. Sam watched us through the window, smiling just enough to bring out his dimples. He caught Annabeth’s eye, and waggled his fingers at her. She made a strange O shape with her mouth, and blushed so red I could see it in the dark. Then she spun away quickly, and scurried up the hill towards camp in a very un-Annabeth way. All of a sudden, I wasn’t so sad to see them go.
I was following her and Grover towards the gates, when I heard the car’s engine cut out, and a door creak open. I turned, thinking maybe we’d forgotten something, and saw Dean coming towards me.
“Hey,” he said. I paused.
When he caught up to me, he didn’t say anything, just took my right hand, kind of abruptly, and spread it open. Without asking permission, he wrote ten numbers across my palm, pen tip pressing sharply into my skin. When he was done, he closed my fingers back over the writing, and kept his hand, warm, over mine.
“Memorize that,” he said, “and if you guys ever run into something that can’t be stopped by celestial bronze, you give us a call, you hear me?”
I looked up at him. His green eyes had gone serious. They looked much older than the rest of his face.
“Yes sir,” I said, like I hardly ever said to anyone.
“Good.” He let go of my hand and clapped me on the shoulder. “Look out for your friends, Percy Jackson” he said, and was gone.
I watched their red taillights fade away into the night for a long time before I turned again and headed up toward camp.
fin