Chapter Text
oh captain, make up your mind//before the salt burns your eyes and you run out of time
Adults always thought they were so much better than kids. Honestly, probably, but there was healthy self-aware superiority and then there was — well, then there was not telling your kid that he was a demigod, and all of his problems from ADHD to, like, fucking having a rotation of malicious teachers like Harry Potter were a result of being a demigod. George loved his mom. But he was sixteen, and at some point you kind of had to tell a kid secrets especially when said kid was involved .
Anyway, now he was running from some fucking harpy with fucking talons in his very private very safe boarding school ! He’d worked hard to get there, goddamnit — he’d fucking practiced coding on the library computers just so he could get admittance and a scholarship. The demigod thing wasn’t, like, an entire surprise though. (Or like, he could be insane. George hadn’t ruled that possibility out quite yet.) He’d realized his roommate best friend (who was coincidentally also in on a scholarship, poor kids stuck together) was a satyr — centaur? Whatever — a few weeks into school, because Grover was terrible at keeping secrets and also liked eating lettuce and plastic way too much for a supposed seventeen-year-old boy. Grover also didn’t know calculus, and hated being around computers and especially hated George being around any electronics, but had gotten in on the same STEM scholarship? Anyway. Then, because George had a terrible sleep schedule, he’d noticed Grover having a furry lower half and four legs at night.
Then George had gone on an entire dive into mythology. The weird history teacher noticed — the history teacher was also the only one who wasn’t giving George As on his report card, and he apparently didn’t give anyone As because “no one’s perfect” but also this was high school and colleges were going to see the fucking transcript, and fuck that dude. Anyway, the history teacher noticed and smiled wayyyy too bright every time George was reading Greek mythology, and then he’d give George an A-. So George kept reading Greek mythology in front of the weird history teacher, and when the weird history teacher and Grover started getting protective and the Spanish teacher began looking like she hated George for some reason, George steeled himself for another near-death experience with another malicious teacher.
He was fucking right. He ducked under the harpy’s talons again. Anyway, he knew he was a demigod because at least before the harpy attacked him, she had the grace to go, “Son of Poseidon,” blah blah blah, something about stealing a master thunderbolt, whatever that was, and then flew at him with entirely uncalled for bloodthirstiness when George had no idea what she was talking about.
“Can we, like, fucking talk this out or something,” George said.
The harpy screeched. So the answer was no, then.
“Look, all I know is that you’re, like, the eighth teacher or something to try and kill me, and none of the others have succeeded, unfortunately, so like —” George took a pause to skid around the hallway, crouching to evade another flying attack. “Like, if you could take a moment to fucking explain — like did you take drugs. Did I take drugs, because you said I was the son of Poseidon, but he’s a Greek god, so either I’m insane or you’re insane because I also saw that my roommate was like, a fucking centaur or something, so actually I think it’s more likely that I’m insane — fucking hell, can you stop?”
“YOUR MISDIRECTIONS WILL NOT WORK ON ME, YOU FOOLISH DEMIGOD!”
Okay. Well. “I don’t fucking know anything!” he tried again. “What even is a master thunderbolt? And also I haven’t seen my dad like, ever!”
Another screech. Fuck the harpy, too, if he hadn’t thought that already. What George needed to do was find some sort of small concrete bunker. If only there was such a place! Oh wait, the walls here were fucking thick, because no one had yet noticed his yelling, and there was a metal closet right there!
He dove in and slammed the door.
“LET ME INNNNN!”
“Let me innnnnn,” George mocked as he caught his breath. How the fuck hadn’t he died yet?
There was a crash and George watched, slightly horrified, as the metal in front of him dented. He really should know better than to tempt fate by now.
“You’re not nearly as scary as the other ones! They like, drew blood at least! You’re doing a shit job!” George yelled.
The harpy broke through. George ducked under — he was doing a lot of that, actually, but damn this school because there was nothing sharp! Nothing vaguely weapon-like in this hallway, even — and sprinted down the hall like his life depended on it. His life did depend on it.
“Why can’t you just leave me alone ,” he bemoaned. George made another sharp, skidding turn and barely dodged the next attack, the harpy’s claws ripping the sleeve of his shirt. George sped up, outpacing the harpy considerably in a few seconds.
“You can not keep this up, son of Poseidon!” the harpy cackled.
“Oh, fuck you,” George couldn’t help but mutter as he took another turn. The entire endeavour of surviving was terrible and also tiring. Also, in other schools he’d been able to improvise — like, there were sharp trees, or staplers, and on one memorable occasion, an actual knife. Nothing of the sort here, not even a floorboard to pry up — not that he’d have the time for that now, but you know.
More turning, more dodging. George was getting closer to the cafeteria where about half the school population was, so that was maybe helpful. If he could get to a knife without the students thinking he was batshit crazy, or if the centaur and weird history teacher could lend a hand. That was — well, that was a pretty big if. Better crazy than dead, though.
George almost didn’t notice the weird history teacher appearing behind the harpy, but he did, so when the teacher called his name, George didn’t flinch or slow down. When the teacher tossed some — pen? What the hell — to George, he caught it despite all logic.
It turned into a fucking bronze sword in George’s hand. What the hell .
“What the hell do I do with this!” George yelled.
“Cut her!” the history teacher yelled.
“ What ,” George muttered, dropping the sword because he wasn’t trying to get kicked out of the damn school for having an entire bronze weapon, and backed up.
Into a corner.
The sword clattered a harpy-length away with disgusting finality. Oh, for heaven’s sake. He was going to die, he was going to die, he was going to die —
Or not. George knew the history teacher was weird, but he didn’t expect a second, grown-up Grover. Anyway, Weird-History-Teacher-Who-Was-Also-A-Horse-Guy charged at the harpy. Now the centaur was gonna die.
The centaur yelled, “Begone, Kindly One!” So the harpy was not a harpy; it was a Fury. Lovely. George would wonder if he was hallucinating, except this situation was pretty much on par with all the others. Except for the fact that someone — something — was intervening, and probably going to die instead of him.
Stealing George’s chance to die — not that he wanted to, but it was the principle of the thing — was a no-no.
So like any reasonable sixteen-year-old faced with the prospect of a mythical death sacrifice, George semi-panicked. The floor seemed to tremor, oddly enough, and when George leapt in front of the history teacher, his vision felt changed, altogether too blue and blurry. His hands fisted, clenched tight enough that he drew blood near immediately, and suddenly it felt like his body was up in mutiny — like his blood was boiling, roiling, like he’d just run a marathon without water.
The Fury choked. George thought he might pass out.
“ WHAT DID YOU DO ,” she bellowed and seemed to immediately regret it. “I — can’t — breathe .”
And then the history centaur slashed through the Fury with his bronze sword (what the fuck was that about) and the Fury dissolved into sooty, vaguely blue-tinted dust.
“I’m gonna be sick,” George said and then rushed to the bathroom, where he threw up blood. Excellent, wonderful, what a fun experience! He was never going to let his instincts take over anything again, especially if it had to do with murdering via water control inside the body. This was probably shortening his lifespan.
When George returned to the cafeteria, feeling peckish and ravenous at the same time, Grover was nowhere to be found. Vikram, though, called him over. British boys shipped over to America, unite! Anyway.
“You look like shit,” he said.
“Thanks.” George took one of his fries. “Can you just talk. About anything. I’ll even listen to your Bitcoin opinions. I think I got into an altercation with the Spanish teacher.”
“ Altercation ? Wow, that’s four syllables. What did Mr. Escalona want?”
“Who?”
Vikram stared at George, evidently re-evaluating George’s health. “Our… Spanish teacher? Did you hit your head?”
“Actually, maybe,” George said. “I’m still not sure what Escalona wanted.” He should have expected that no one would remember the Spanish teacher. This happened every damn time .
“Hm. Maybe you want to go to the nurse.”
“But what would you do without my company?”
“The Sidemen are right there,” Vikram said as their other friends entered the cafeteria, extraordinarily loud and boisterous. George was going to get a headache.