Chapter Text
Three years later, Percy sat cruising comfortably in the passenger seat of the Impala, feet on the dash as he drummed along with Metallica on his thighs. He bobbed his head, dark hair bouncing every which way. His cheeks were full and his eyes were bright, the sickly tone of his skin replaced with a warm glow, and he hadn't been hungry in a while.
Night was their guide, the stars sliding up the sky, accompanying Dean's nervous twitching. "What if he says no?"
"Then he says no, and we can sleep easy knowing we did our best," Percy chirped, reaching over and taking Dean's hand. Dean squeezed it tightly, thankful for the comfort.
"The thing is, Perce, I don't want him to say no."
"Well, he hasn't said no yet, so don't discount a yes. And even then, if he doesn't agree to come, well... we can find John on our own."
"Yeah." Dean nodded, left hand tightening on the steering wheel. "Yeah, we'll find Dad."
Percy only wanted to find John because Dean did, but he wasn't going to say that.
"Where even is Stanford?" Dean groaned, looking around at streets unfamiliar to him.
"Take a left at the next light," Percy said.
"How d'you know that?" Dean did as told.
"I lived here for a year or so."
"That long? I thought you drifted between cities every week or so."
"I did. I went to college here before I decided to become a nomad."
Dean blinked. "You went to college? Oh, gods, did you go to Stanford?"
"No, no, no, I woulda never gotten in, not with my record," Percy snorted. "I went to New Rome."
"Isn't New Rome harder to get into?" Dean choked, and Percy was thankful he could distract the hunter for this moment.
"I mean, I did have to get recommendation letters from three separate gods, so, yes?"
Dean, completely baffled, turned down another road when Percy said to. "You mean to tell me that New Rome, the most elite military college in the country, is actually for demigods? I'm still struggling with the Empire State Building being a mountain."
"There's also a record dealership not too far from here that houses the main entrance to the Underworld."
"Is California the hub for everything?"
"Gods, no, New York is the place to be if you want to die an early death. Like Magnus. May he rest in peace in Valhalla where he regularly gets his head chopped off, from what I've been told."
"Who's Magnus?" Dean's eyes went wide. "What are you talking about?"
"Here we are!" Percy cheered. "Park over there, I think that's his apartment. Ugh, I hate campus apartments. I stayed in one, and the place smelled like feet, no matter what I did. Do you want me to go in with you?"
Dean, previously distracted by talk of things he had yet to hear, suddenly shut down again, looking nervously up at the apartment building. He gave Percy's hand another squeeze, then said, "No. I've got to get him to come down myself."
Percy smiled softly. "Sure. Things'll be all right, Dean. Whether he wants to come or not, things will be just fine. I'll be here."
Dean shot him a grateful look, then clambered out of the car, slamming the driver's side door shut behind him a little harder than he meant to. Percy watched as he approached the side of the building, apparently deciding the front door was not the best possible route. Dean was normally one for direct confrontation, but him scaling the fire escape just to avoid knocking on the door was funny enough.
Percy was not one for direct confrontation. He would fight monsters, sure, but he'd much rather they come after him than the other way around. Under the unforgiving light of the stars, Percy turned away from Stanford, and looked out at the city. His friends would have graduated now, unless they were going into graduate programs. Hazel would've just turned twenty-one, she'd be in college. Nico had never shown interest in furthering his education, but Will would most certainly be studying medicine.
But he didn't know. He didn't know how they were doing. If they had graduated by now, or if they'd dropped out, or if they'd gotten married, gotten jobs. Maybe they were dead. He didn't know.
He wasn't the person Dean had taken in three years ago. He'd grown a lot since then. Life still hurt more than it had any right to, but things had gotten better. Why was he so scared to give his friends a call? He wouldn't have to answer their questions, they knew why he changed, knew it better than he did when he tore up his apartment, looking for that hat, or when he left, looking for a world that reminded him of nothing. They knew why he raged and cried and why, when the tears dried on his cheeks, he left everything he'd ever known behind.
They would ask, but he wouldn't have to answer. They would welcome him with open arms. He had their contacts, had every worried message they'd sent. Even though he knew he wasn't going back, he could send them a hello. He could ask how they were. He could let them know he still loved them, even though it'd been six years since he last saw them.
Percy, ever in the moment, frustratedly threw his phone in the backseat, throwing the car door open and letting the fresh air hit his face. He moved to lean on the hood of the car, hating himself for not contacting some of the people who mattered to him most. Was he scared of their reactions? Of their pity, or concern? Was he scared they'd be indifferent? Six years of no contact was a long time.
He was scared of something, and that's why his phone lay on the floor of the back seat, a new crack in the corner. If he weren't such a coward, he could ask Leo to fix it.
He was a coward, though.
The stars guffawed at his lack of a backbone, the little spineless thing he was. He'd faced monsters, gods, titans, and worse, yet this was where he drew the line? Talking to his friends? Sure, they might not even be his friends anymore, but at least he could find out, right? Right?
The phone stayed in the backseat.
Evidently, Dean had discovered that doors existed, and exited the building by normal means. Percy watched their approach with detached satisfaction — Sam had, at least, agreed to talk with Dean. That was more than what Dean had been expecting.
"So what are you gonna do?" Dean said, voice accusatory. "You're just gonna live some normal, apple-pie life? Is that it?"
It seemed to Percy that if Sam didn't agree to come, Dean would be a large factor.
"No," Sam said, voice low with sincerity. "Not normal. Safe."
"And that's why you ran away," Dean huffed as they drew closer and closer to Percy, sitting comfortably on the hood, waiting for Dean to berate him for risking harm to his baby.
"I was just going to college," Sam scoffed. "It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing."
"Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already. I can feel it." Percy thought that it might be better for Dean if John was dead or stayed missing, but he wasn't going to voice that thought. He knew Dean loved his father, no matter how much of a douche the guy could be. "I can't do this without you."
"Yes you can," Sam said.
Dean, with a genuineness he didn't often display to anyone but Percy, said, "Yeah, well, I don't want to."
Sam went quiet for a moment, then asked, "What was he hunting?" He looked up at the Impala, freezing. Percy, shrouded by the darkness provided by night, had been pretty well hidden. Now that they were closer, he'd been noticed. "Uh, Dean?"
Dean stopped, baffled. "Huh? What?"
"Someone's there," Sam hissed.
Dean looked up, frowning. "Oh, yeah. That's Percy."
"Who?" Sam asked, baffled, and they continued the journey onward.
"Percy Jackson, the coolest person you're ever gonna meet," Percy greeted heartily, sticking out his hand. Sam hesitantly took it, only for Percy to shake it with all the ferocity of a lion with its meal.
"He's been traveling with us for a few years now," Dean said, pointedly ignoring Percy's raised brow. "He's a damned good hunter."
"Yup, that's me, I'm his damned good hunter." Percy nodded. "Pleasure to meet you, Sam I am! I heard a lot about you. Did you know that you can buy crack from the janitorial staff in this very university apartment? I didn't buy any crack, but you can also buy weed. Not that I bought that, either. Rich, addicted college students are the crux of the community, you know. I was neither, which is why Stanford didn't like it when I showed up on their doorstep announcing that I was going to beat their entire football team on my own."
Sam carefully extracted his hand from Percy's grip, turning to Dean with a look of terror.
Dean, used to Percy by now, just said, "He's got a few screws loose, but he could kick my ass blindfolded."
"Why would you blindfold your ass?" Percy questioned. "Anywho, did I hear you asking about what papa John was hunting?" Percy clapped his hands and made his way to the trunk, expecting them to follow. Sam was probably scared to do just that, but Dean moved, and so he did, too. Percy opened the trunk, then the spare tire compartment, rummaging through the arsenal of weapons the Winchesters had accumulated over the years. "Dean, where'd you put that thing?"
"It's in there somewhere." Dean shrugged, being very helpful.
"So when Dad left, why didn't you go with him?" Sam questioned wearily.
"We were working our own gig," Dean explained. "This, uh, voodoo thing, down in New Orleans."
"Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?"
Dean stared at Sam. "I'm twenty-six, dude. And I had Percy with me."
Triumphantly, Percy yanked a folder out from under a shotgun, waving it at Dean. Dean accepted the Manila folder. "All right, here we go, thanks, Perce. So Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy —" Dean took one of the folder's papers and passed it to Sam — "went completely MIA. They found his car, but he vanished."
Andrew Carey's headline of 'Centennial Highway Disappearance' wasn't particularly special for a hunt case, but the fact that John had undertaken the job but hadn't returned was a sign of something more sinister. Percy stared at the headline, willing it to reveal something more about John, but knew he would find nothing if he were to search again.
"So maybe he was kidnapped," Sam said, scanning the paper.
"Yeah, well, here's another one in April." Dean tossed another paper to Sam, then another, then another. "Another one in December. One in twenty-two, twenty-one, nineteen, fifteen, ten of them over the past twenty years." Dean accepted the article back from Sam, placing all the papers back in the folder. "All men, all the same five-mile stretch of road."
Percy pulled a bag out of the arsenal, saying, "It started happening more and more, so John went searching. That was about three weeks ago. We haven't heard from him since." Percy held the open bag out to Dean, careful not to touch the tape recorder.
"Then I got this voicemail yesterday." Dean took it, nodding his thanks to Percy. He pressed play.
The recording was shaky at best, warbling and cracking with the poor signal, but it was clearly John's voice. "Dean... something big is starting to happen... I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may... Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger." He pressed stop.
"You know there's EVP on that?" Sam said, eyes bright.
Dean grinned. "Not bad, Sammy. Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it?" Sam smiled slightly at that. "All right. I slowed the message down, I ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, and this is what I got."
He pressed play again, this time a woman's raspy voice pervading the air. "I can never go home..."
"Never go home," Sam said thoughtfully once Dean pressed stop.
Dean dropped the recorder back into the bag, closed the trunk, then leaned against it, voice falsely casual as he said, "You know, in almost four years I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing.
Sam sighed and looked away. After a moment of deliberation, he turned back to his brother. "All right. I'll go. I'll help you find him." Dean smiled at once. "But I have to get back first thing Monday. Just wait here."
"What's first thing Monday?" Dean asked.
"I have this... I have an interview."
"What, a job interview? Skip it."
"It's a law school interview," Sam said, "and it's my whole future on a plate."
"Law school?" Percy gaped. "That's so cool! Are you gonna be, like, a divorce lawyer? You'd make a great divorce lawyer. I only ever dealt with fish divorce, people divorce is so much cooler."
"Public defender, actually," Sam said lightly, looking at his brother. "So we got a deal or not?"
Dean didn't answer. Percy frowned and glanced at him, then smiled brightly. "You sure do got a deal! If we don't make it back by Monday, I'll kick Dean's ass blindfolded!"
Sam cracked an amused smile at that, then made his way back to his apartment to pack.
"You know, I was expecting you to just call me 'friend', not 'damned good hunter'," Percy smirked at Dean.
"I panicked!" Dean cried, making sure to keep his voice low enough so Sam wouldn't overhear. "I never actually came out to him."
"He's going to law school for public defense. He's definitely an ally."
"That is absolutely not how that works."
"Law school for public defense. Hey, fun fact, people who receive an education after high school are more likely to be liberal. Half of Stanford is liberal."
"None of that means he's cool with it!" Dean shook his head.
"I mean, you could find out. I'm not gonna out you, but I'm not gonna hide myself, either. I like men! Yippee!"
"Yeah, that's fine, I'm not asking you to hop back into the closet." Dean wandered back around to the front seat. "I just want to sit comfortably between these clothes hangers for the rest of the foreseeable future."
"That's a big word for you."
"What, 'foreseeable'?"
"No, 'the'."
Dean rolled his eyes fondly. "Can't believe you're a college boy. What'd you study?"
"You're not going to believe this. I was a STEM kid."
"No f*cking way."
"Yeah. It's crazy. I don't know how I managed it."
"What'd you study?"
"It baffles me, even, that I managed to get as good of grades as I did. I don't know where it came from, like some innate part of me was actually a super genius."
"Dude, what'd you study?!"
"Marine biology."
"Asshole. You're a fish."
"I'm not a fish." Percy opened the back door, climbing in and searching for his phone. "But yeah. I had a bit of an advantage 'cause I could just talk to the fish. But I still had to learn stuff and write essays and all that. Plus, I dual majored. Triple majored? Swordfighting didn't really count, but I 'studied' it. I was better than my professor."
"What was your other major?" Dean raised an eyebrow. "Horse law?"
"Don't be ridiculous, you could never get any horse to abide by a standard set of code. Nah, I also studied creative writing."
"Creative writing?" Dean blinked in genuine surprise. "I didn't know you liked to write."
"I haven't written anything in a long time." Percy shrugged. "My mom is an author, you know, she's actually pretty famous now. I've seen some of her stuff in bookstores. Whenever the war against the giants ended, I was... withdrawn. Reticent. It wasn't as bad as when you met me, I wasn't completely depressed, but, well... it wasn't great. My mom had just had my little sister, and her career was just kicking off, too, so I thought I was going to be allowed to wallow in my angst and trepidation and all that, but my mom wasn't having it. She started giving me these writing prompts that I didn't realize were related to my life until I was word-vomiting onto the pages all these feelings I thought were ineffable, indescribable. But they weren't as big and bad as I thought. I could be understood, because I could express my emotions. For two years I wrote something every day. Some of it was about myself, but most of it was just... stuff. I wrote a lot of sad things and they made me feel better. And once I felt better, I was able to write happy things, too. Annabeth recommended I give creative writing a try, and I wasn't struggling in my other classes, so... I did."
"Why'd you stop writing?" Dean frowned, leaning over the seat to watch Percy as he continued his search for his phone.
"My world exploded. I was at my lowest point and the last thing I wanted was to see the light. I ghosted my family and friends and spent three years drowning in all the pain I could find in the world. I abandoned everything because I felt abandoned. That included everything I enjoyed, everything that helped."
"Okay, that's fair. Why are you still not writing?"
Percy blinked at him, then looked down, pensive. Why wasn't he writing anymore? Was it the same anxiety that kept him from talking to his friends? Was he afraid that he wouldn't like the words that spilled out of him like blood, mixing in not with water of worlds he wrote before, but gasoline? Was he afraid his melancholy youth had become something explosive, reactive? Was he afraid to find that he hadn't really changed at all?
"I don't know," Percy said quietly.
"That's all right," Dean said, smiling softly at him. "You don't have to know. You don't have to write if you don't want to."
"I don't know if I want to or if I don't. I don't think I know much of anything. An eternal dilettante."
"You know more than you think. You call yourself stupid all the time, Perce, but I have no idea what a 'dilettante' is. Most people don't. You're... demure."
"Now that's a big word for you." Percy grinned half-heartedly.
"I know. I learned it from you."
Percy, finally finding his phone, stared at his reflection in the cracked screen. Was he demure? He didn't feel quiet, or modest, or reserved. He felt flighty and destructive. It was a word Dean would hate to hear him call himself, but he felt meretricious, having no real value upon further inspection. He was walking despondency, eyes cast with ennui, not placid or calm but lachrymose. He was big words he learned because Annabeth liked when he used them, since they caught her off guard. He was esurient for that look on her face when he said things like 'melancholy', the way she'd laugh and tell him that's a big word for him. He had six years to grieve, and yet he still had none of the tenacity she had fallen in love with him for. He felt that way, at least.
He stared at his cracked phone screen, clicking the side power button and looking at the notification from his 'word of the day' app that Dean found ridiculous because he didn't know what it reminded Percy of. Euphoria, it said. Melancholy, Percy thought.
Dean was watching him, and saw the notification. He smiled, trying to lighten the world. "What's the word?"
"Euphoria," Percy whispered, as if the word itself were to be revered. "It means 'extreme happiness.'"
"Huh," Dean murmured, then grinned. "Well, I feel a lot of euphoria when I'm with you."
Percy turned away from his phone and toward his boyfriend, eyebrow raised in amusem*nt, but he couldn't help the smile that burst across his cheeks.
***
Percy lay hunched in the backseat, dead to the world. Sam glanced curiously back at him from the passenger seat now that Dean was out of the car and he was free to question. Dean hadn't said much about the guy when prompted, something nervous flitting across his features. He was twenty-something, older than Sam but younger than Dean, had curly black hair, tanned skin, and, when awake, the brightest green eyes Sam had ever seen. He'd spent most of the ride hidden under a blanket, drooling away, but he'd shifted, and now Sam could see scars on the backs of his hands, as well as some small ones on his face and neck.
Dean had said he was a damned good hunter, and Sam trusted his judgement, but he wondered and worried about how Percy had gotten into the business in the first place, especially if John trusted him enough to allow him to join in. How did they meet the green-eyed enigma? What all had he hunted before then, especially if he were to start so young? Was he as young as Sam and Dean were, or was he older?
Didn't matter, Sam supposed. He didn't think he'd be seeing much of him after this was over.
Percy rolled over again, pulling one arm out from under his blanket and rubbing at his nose. Sam started at the sight. He recognized that mark.
New Rome. A black tattoo on his forearm, a trident, his lines of service — eight lines? That'd make Percy, what, sixteen when he joined?
Okay. Maybe it did matter. Maybe Sam was very, very curious.
He thought about waking Percy up to ask, but decided against it. His brother was weirdly protective of the boy in the backseat, and if he came back from the gas station to see him being interrogated, he wouldn't be happy.
So, he would ask later, when Dean wasn't around. Sure, the guy kind of scared him, but he was just another one of those high-energy people with thoughts that played leap-frog. Sam would be able to handle it. He'd killed monsters before. How hard could talking to Percy Jackson be?
***
Percy chewed forlornly on his beef jerky, wishing the brothers had agreed to his demands to stop at a diner as soon as he'd woken up. Dean, ever the saint, had bought him snacks, but they would never beat death brought on by sugary, buttery, coated-in-syrup waffles.
"Thank you," Sam said before hanging up his phone. He turned toward his brother. "All right. So, there's no one matching Dad's description at the hospital or morgue. So that's something, I guess."
Percy leaned forward, about to retort how that wasn't exactly the something they wanted, then paused, eyeing the scene at the bridge ahead of them. With two cruisers and several officers, it was clear that something had happened.
Dean pulled over, promptly fishing around in the glove compartment. Percy smirked at the look on Sam's face as Dean procured some rather well-made fake IDs: FBI, DEA, everything. Percy was rather proud of his, as there had been a time where he'd been wanted by just about every institution he had fake IDs of.
Percy accepted the fake Dean handed him and climbed out of the car, stretching his legs with a dramatic groan. The three of them ducked under the yellow tape and eyed the bridge for clues. There was a car in the middle of the bridge that seemed to be the focus of the officers' attention, though Percy couldn't see anything odd about it.
A deputy leaned over the side of the bridge, calling down to two men in wetsuits who were scouring the water, "You guys find anything?"
"No!" One of the men answered. "Nothing!"
The deputy sighed and turned back to the car, where another deputy was waiting. The second deputy shook his head and said, "No sign of struggle, no footprints, no fingerprints. Spotless. It's almost too clean."
"So, this kid Troy." The first deputy frowned at the second. "He's dating your daughter, isn't he?"
"Yeah," Deputy Two answered glumly.
"How's Amy doing?"
"She's putting up missing posters downtown."
"You fellas had another one like this just last month, didn't you?" Dean questioned once the trio were finally close enough to speak with the deputies.
Deputy One straightened at once, eyeing them warily. "And who are you?"
Dean cheerfully flashed his badge, Percy doing the same. He was tempted to stick his tongue out at Sam, who didn't have one, but he figured that wasn't in his best interests. "Federal marshals."
"You three are a little young for federal marshals, aren't you?"
Percy laughed — he was young, but he had this way of making himself seem older. He knew it was in the way he carried himself, like he had experience. "Thanks, that's awfully kind of you. What're your names?" He was tired of calling them 'Deputy One' and 'Deputy Two' in his head.
"I'm Deputy Jaffe," Deputy One answered. "This is Deputy Hein."
Dean stepped over to the car, scanning it for any sign of duress, preternatural or otherwise. "You did have another case just like this, right?"
"Yeah," Deputy Jaffe nodded, "about a mile up the road. There've been others before that."
"So, this victim, you knew him?" Sam asked, eerily in his element for someone who supposedly left all of this behind.
"Town like this, everybody knows everybody."
"Any connection between the victims, besides that they're all men?" Percy asked, wondering absently if it would look weird if he jumped over the bridge to get a look in the water. It probably wouldn't go over well with the deputies.
"No." Jaffe shook his head. "Not so far as we can tell?"
"So what's the theory?" Sam asked, also taking his turn to examine the car. Percy figured there was no need; if it was eerily clean like the deputy had said earlier, then they probably wouldn't find much evidence themselves. They didn't have the means to do a thorough search, so why search at all?
"Honestly, we don't know," Jaffe sighed. "Serial murder? Kidnapping ring?"
"Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys," Dean said cheerfully.
Sam, not at all cheerful, stomped on Dean's foot for the comment. "Thank you for your time." He started to walk away, forcing Dean and Percy to follow by cruel means of societal expectations.
Dean, once a bit farther away, smacked his brother on the head.
"Ow!" Sam scowled. "What was that for?"
"Why'd you have to step on my foot?" Dean whined.
Percy hadn't exactly doubted that they were siblings, but he was certainly sure of it now. It reminded him of all those times his father's other children had decided it was a good time to end their little brother's life. Good memories.
"Why do you have to talk to the police like that?" Sam's scowl deepened.
Dean stepped in front of Sam, forcing him to stop walking. "Come on. They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this. I mean, if we're going to find Dad, we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves."
Percy realized right then that the two grown men in front of him were probably the most emotionally stunted creatures on the planet, and that's including Ares when he's told he's not allowed to murder everyone he comes across. He'd assumed it was just his godly family that was that dramatic, but it seemed the Winchesters were out to prove them wrong. Could they really not keep walking while having this petty conversation?
"Howdy!" Percy said brightly, mostly to distract himself from the dramatics that would ultimately be his downfall. A real life sheriff was approaching. Maybe, if Percy would ask nicely enough, he would put on assless chaps and say 'this town ain't big enough for the two of us.' Unfortunately, the sheriff imagery was ruined by the two FBI agents posted on either side of the man. The Wild Wild West did not have the FBI, thank you very much.
"Hello," The sheriff greeted, eyes shifting between the three of them suspiciously. "Can I help you boys?"
"No, sir, we were just leaving," Dean said, giving the FBI dudes a nod as they walked by. "Agent Mulder. Agent Scully."
Percy could practically feel the sheriff watching them as they walked away.
***
Percy casually skated alongside Sam and Dean, bobbing his head along to music they couldn't hear. Sam curiously eyed Percy, then turned to his brother. "How'd you meet this guy?"
Dean glanced at Percy, and said, much to Sam's displeasure, "Dad and I were on a hunt."
"What were you hunting? Where were you?"
"We were in Iowa. Ames, I think."
Sam didn't miss the fact that Dean had neglected to mention what they were hunting. Dean didn't miss the look on Sam's face, and sighed, saying, "Look, man, this ain't my story to share. The day I met Percy was the day I knew he was as good a hunter as any."
"It's just... Dad's not exactly known for picking up strangers out of the kindness of his heart." Sam watched Percy skate ahead to excitedly pet some guy's dog.
Dean stared at Percy, too, expression softer than Sam had ever seen it. "It wasn't out of the kindness of Dad's heart. It was mine."
Sam's stomach did a little flip. Dean had never been cruel by any means, but he wasn't one for sympathy. Yet here he was, openly admitting to have taken in this (allegedly) capable guy who looked like he was perpetually off in Wonderland.
"If you want to know more about him, I suggest you talk to him," Dean said quietly, head tilting as something caught Percy's attention. "He won't bite. Not for asking questions, at least."
And then he was marching forward, giving Sam no room for response. Percy had stopped skating, holding his board casually. The three of them went on, and Sam finally noticed what the other two had.
Tacking up missing posters was a young woman similar in appearance to Deputy Hein. The name on the poster read 'Troy Squire.'
"You must be Amy," Percy said kindly, the first to be noticed and the first to speak.
"Yeah," she said suspiciously, frowning at them.
"Yeah, Troy told us about you." Dean nodded. "We're his uncles. I'm Dean, this is Sammy."
"He never mentioned you to me," Amy looked between the three of them, eyes faltering on Percy, who definitely didn't fit the bill for blood relative. Percy's smile was the kindest, though, the most soothing. She looked at the underside of his skateboard, the print being a pink, purple, and blue gradient. She didn't see a ring, but she supposed not every couple wore one.
"Well, that's Troy, I guess." Dean just shrugged. "We're not around much, we're up in Modesto."
"We're looking for him, too, and we're just kinda asking around," Percy said, still smiling. He nodded his head in greeting at another young woman who approached.
This new girl put her hand on Amy's shoulder. "Hey, are you okay?"
"Yeah, Rach," Amy said, smiling back slightly at Percy.
"You mind if we ask you a couple questions?"
***
Percy did not particularly like being trapped between the two brothers while sitting in the booth. It had been the unfortunate luck of the draw, things being a bit too awkward to shuffle around, and so he sat there, glum and uncomfortable, unable to stop bounding his leg in spite of the annoyed look Sam was shooting him. He pressed closer to Dean, who didn't seem to mind nearly as much.
"I was on the phone with Troy," Any said lightly, immediately clocking that it was Percy and Dean in the relationship by the way they were sitting. "He was driving home. He said he would call me right back, and... he never did."
"He didn't say anything strange, or out of the ordinary?" Percy asked. Perhaps something about London bridge falling down and eating him up, making him vanish into thin air? Seemed plausible.
"No," Amy said painfully. "Nothing I can remember."
"I like your necklace," Sam said suddenly. Percy glanced at the necklace, then looked at Sam, baffled.
"Troy gave it to me." Amy clutched at the pentagram pendant. "Mostly to scare my parents—" she laughed, for a moment forgetting about the nightmare she was facing "— with all that devil stuff."
Sam's laugh was quieter, almost shy. "Actually, it means just the opposite. A pentagram is protection against evil. Really powerful. I mean, if you believe in that kind of thing."
"Okay. Thank you, Unsolved Mysteries." Dean shook his head, then leaned forward, facing Amy with a look of pure seriousness that felt just a bit too serious, in Percy's humble opinion. "Here's the deal, ladies. The way Troy disappeared, something's not right. So if you've heard anything..." Amy and Rachel shared a knowing look. "What is it?"
"Well, it's just..." Rachel said slowly "... I mean, with all these guys going missing, people talk."
"What do they talk about?" Sam and Dean said in sync, like some creepy Shining twin sh*t. Percy, horrified, was tempted to scream from the rooftops. He did not wish to get kicked out, though, so he settled on looking at Dean with terror in his eyes.
"It's kind of this local legend," Rachel said, ignorant to Percy's internal turmoil. "This one girl? She got murdered out on Centennial, like decades ago." She looked a little scared herself, shrinking back into her seat and speaking with a small, hoarse voice. "Well, supposedly she's still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up? Well, they disappear forever."
***
Growing up, libraries hadn't been the friendliest of places to the highly dyslexic Percy Jackson. They'd always seemed menacing, being tall, daunting buildings with shelves upon shelves of guaranteed headaches. They were much too motionless for his loud personality, stressing him out with Peace and Quiet.
He hadn't liked reading growing up, but he'd liked stories. In comes Annabeth Chase, introducing him to a wide array of books, guiding him through the things he didn't understand while being the first person who wasn't his mother to tell him that it was perfectly okay to struggle through reading. She excitedly asked him about the little kids' books he read and she continued to foster his enjoyment of reading every step of the way.
He hadn't been so scared of libraries after meeting Annabeth, which was quite lucky for him. Three years on the streets had introduced him to a world of suffering but, what no one talked about in regards to the homelessness problem, was the boredom. He couldn't afford to go to the movies or arcade, he wasn't physically well enough to skate (and he lost his old board sometime during his first year being homeless, anyway), and he didn't talk to any of the people he loved. Libraries offered him what nothing else did: comfort. He couldn't feel the happiness he'd felt before that terrible day, but through books, he could almost feel it. The ghost of a touch, a phantom feeling of good, of love, of something bigger and better than the endless despondency he had found himself in. Trauma had mellowed him out, had dragged him into the depths of the human soul and introduced him to the challenges of true independence, and, though ten-year-old Percy Jackson would likely vehemently abhor it, libraries became his momentary haven from all that tormented him.
Now, with more things to occupy him and access to money to pay for ebooks, Percy didn't really go to libraries anymore, unless they needed to do research. The place was still comforting, however, with unlimited opportunity for ease of mind and body. He looked around, feeling his perpetually tensed shoulders relax just a bit.
Percy spun around in the rolly chair, just fast enough for his hair to get pushed back. Dean glanced at Percy then the librarian, successfully mouthing 'ADHD' at her when she raised an eyebrow at the demigod.
The three of them were surrounding a computer, hoping to find some information regarding this little town's history of brutal death. The archive was opened to the Jericho Herald, the words 'Female Murder Hitchhiking' typed into the search box. Dean clicked search, and, after a moment of loading, they came up with nothing. 'Hitchhiking' was replaced with 'Centennial Highway,' but the results were the same.
Sam, watching his brother's attempts, said, "Let me try."
Dean smacked his brother's hand away from the mouse. "I got it." Sam promptly pushed Dean's chair away from the computer, taking over. "Dude!" Dean hit his brother in the arm. "You're such a control freak."
"And you're not?" Percy said wryly, smirking. Dean flashed him the look, and Percy rolled his eyes, knowing fully well that Sam was too caught up in his curiosity about Percy's past to be concerned with his present.
Practically proving Percy's point on the spot, Sam didn't hear what Percy said, or didn't care; he just stared at the screen intensely, saying, "So angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?"
"Yeah," Dean said, glancing back at Percy with eyes that begged him to not make any more sexual jokes.
"Well, maybe it's not murder," Sam said. He started typing, replacing 'Murder' with 'Suicide.' Percy stopped spinning, leaning in for a closer look at the article that popped up.
"What's it say?" Percy asked, squinting at the text. Sam moved slightly to the left to give Percy a better view. "No, dude, I'm dyslexic and that's the worst font I've ever seen for an article."
"Oh," Sam said quietly, brows furrowed at the revelation of actual information regarding the strange boy beside him. It took him a moment to realize that Percy was staring expectantly at him (with an impressively arched eyebrow, naturally) before he remembered that the guy had asked him what it said. Sam ignored the amused look on his brother's face and paraphrased: "April 25, 2000, Constance Welch's drowning was deemed a suicide after she leapt off Sylvania Bridge. She'd called 911 earlier to report that her kids had drowned in the bath."
A photo accompanied the article; it was of a woman with dark hair and a white dress. Scrolling down revealed another photo of a man with a quote beneath it reading: "'Our babies were gone and Constance just couldn't bear it,' said Joseph Welch." Behind the man in the photo was a familiar bridge.
"Well, Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today," Percy said, grinning at the brothers.
