Chapter Text
One night my dad and I sat side by side,
staring up at the stars. And without hesitation,
I whispered, “I don’t think you’re a good person.”
“And you are?” he asked quietly.
“No. I’m too much like you for that.”
—
Percy’s eyes were closed, and his head was pounding something fierce. When he opened his eyes, he expected to see the camp infirmary, but instead he was greeted with bright fluorescent lights and a white room full of posters. The one nearest to his face proudly proclaimed, Ice and Lice that’s the School Nurse Life! With a cartoon ice bag smiling under it.
Do I have lice? He wondered deliriously, before forcing himself to focus.
School nurse? Last Percy remembered it was the middle of summer. What was he doing in a school nurse’s office?
Although, the more Percy thought about it, the less he could remember about the situation in general. His head ached, but he couldn’t remember what happened to cause it, which was never a good sign. The whole situation reeked of a monster trap. He felt his pocket for riptide, feeling the familiar ball point pen.
“Oh good! You’re awake!” A bright, loud voice said. It made Percy feel like a hammer was hitting his head. Repeatedly.
“Oh, sorry,” the woman—Percy assumed she was the school nurse—changed to speaking in a light whisper. “You hit your head pretty hard. We were all really worried about you. Do you want your friend to come in?”
Without waiting for Percy’s answer, which, why even ask in that case, the bubbly woman opened the door and let in a teenager who was roughly Percy’s age. He was probably 5’9 and had long black hair, falling into his face. He was wearing a necklace with a bunch of seashells.
“Percy, I was so worried about you after you took that hit in Tourney practice!” He said, reaching out to hug Percy.
But Percy pulled back before he got a chance, wincing as he did so. “I’m sorry,” he said, head still pounding, “but who are you?”
The seashell guy shot the school nurse a horrified look. She took a tentative step towards Percy.
“Do you know where you are, sweetie?” She asked, voice soft with concern.
“I mean, I guess I’m in a school nurse’s office, but other than that…” Percy trailed off.
“' A' school nurse’s office,” Seashell guy mouthed.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I was at Long Island,” he began, not wanting to specify he was at camp, but his supposed friend cut him off before he could continue.
“Long Island? Where is that?” He turned to the nurse, “Is that a real place in Auradon?”
The nurse shook her head and gave Percy a wide-eyed look. “What’s your name?”
“Percy Jackson.”
The seashell guy was now fiddling anxiously with his necklace, looking like he was about to start crying at any time.
“Oh sweetie,” the nurse began, and Percy knew whatever she was going to say next was going to be bad.
“Your name is Perseus Olympia.”
—
So apparently, Percy was transported into a fucking Disney movie or some shit. His apparent “friend” introduced himself as Astern, grandson of Triton.
Triton, you know the King of Atlantis from The Little Mermaid . Definitely a very different Triton from his brother, Prince Triton of Atlantis. Who was still prince because, you know, their dad was an immortal god. Made the whole heir thing kind of a moot point.
What was worse was that Percy knew his brother Triton didn’t have any grandkids. He hadn’t had any children after his daughter Pallas died, swearing he couldn’t bear outliving any of his children again. The hint that it was a Disney hellscape Percy was trapped in came when his friend/distant relative mentioned how worried Aunt Ariel would be.
Triton fucking hated Ariel after Percy had shown him The Little Mermaid, he certainly wouldn’t name any hypothetical children after her. So time travel was out of the question. Which means whatever answer left, no matter how improbable, was true. AKA Disney hellscape.
Anyway, he left the nurse’s office with a promise of a doctor coming to see him about his apparent amnesia. (It was a convenient excuse, so Percy decided he would play it up. Although, with that fact that he didn’t recognize anyone around him, he might not actually need to lie about it.)
From there, various classmates and ‘friends’ came in to check on him and give him homework he had missed while he had been asleep. ‘Aunt’ Ariel even called him to see if he was okay. Telling her he had no idea who she was made for a very awkward and concerned phone call.
Notably, his father, who Astern had let drop was still Poseidon, didn’t call. Some things didn’t change, he supposed. Disney universe or not. His father Poseidon would usually just show up at really inconvenient times instead of doing something as normal as calling him. (He usually showed up when he was hanging out with Apollo. Read *hanging out* with certain implications.) It was worrying that his mother didn’t call, though. He wondered what his Disney mom was up to. (Was she dead? He knew Disney had a thing about killing moms.)
Anyway, adapting to the school—where everyone seemed to know him, but he knew no one—was rough. He took weird classes like Etiquette and History of our Heroes, which would have been almost completely new to him if it hadn’t been for his vague memories of watching Disney movies growing up. It was also taught by Hercules, which sucked. The guy seemed to hate looking at him, going out of his way to avoid eye contact.
Percy made a point of calling him Heracles everytime he had to talk to him. He seemed super irritated about it, so he counted it as a win.
At least he was given some slack for his work. Most of his teachers had taken him aside to talk to him about extra help and extended deadlines if he needed it, in light of his memory problems and concussion. It was nice, but frankly Percy should’ve been pulled entirely from classes to spend time with his family. It was absurd that he didn’t know anything about where he was or the people around him, but they still expected him to turn in his algebra homework.
Percy actually respected school a lot and was trying his hardest to graduate on time so he could go to New Rome University with his friends, but there was something about being thrown into the Disney Cinematic Universe that just made you give up on school. Plus Percy fucking hated Algebra.
Still, no family reached out. It seemed like it was just Percy and Astern, with the occasional call from Ariel as far as family went. That was okay with Percy though, it let him focus on how he was going to get home. Unfortunately, without any outside help, Percy was drawing a blank. It seemed like it was magic that left Percy here. So the logical next step was to use magic to get out of here.
Unfortunately, magic was, apparently, illegal.
“What do you mean magic’s illegal?” He asked Astern, voice jumping up an octave in disbelief. “It’s like, everywhere, according to our history class!”
“Yeah, well King Beast, and a lot of the other kings and queens, were uncomfortable with it.” Astern said, apologetically. “You might be able to ask Aunt Ariel though. Magic is still legal in Atlantis, since it’s not officially part of Auradon.”
It was honestly helpful advice, but now Percy had to figure out how to ask for Ariel’s help. There was no casual way to say hey we’re not actually related and I need your help to jump universes over a phone call.
Percy pondered what he would say to Ariel as he headed—alone, no Astern!—to his next class, Drivers Ed.
To his shock, there were no cars in sight, instead there were only chariots, a shit ton of horses, and a ton of horse shit. Haha, Percy laughed. Because if he didn’t laugh he would cry. And he knew better than to cry in a high school class.
Teenagers were like sharks. Blood in the water and tears in the air or however that expression goes.
Percy approached some of the nearest horses, and was just able to catch them saying.
Hey, the Bastard son is back!
Bastard! Bastard! The horses yelled together in glee. If they didn’t sound so happy to see him, Percy would be offended.
Bastard!
A beautiful gray horse greeted.
You should attach me to your chariot today. I will pull you so well! Almost as if you weren't a bastard.
Percy was about to respond when someone else caught his attention.
“Hey, Percy,” a guy, probably a little younger than him ran up to him. “I heard about what happened. Is it true your memory is,” here he made a weird gesture with his hands.
“If you’re trying to ask me if my memory is gone, then, yeah. It is.”
“Oh, oh my goodness. That’s so terrible.” The guy looked genuinely distressed, almost as much as Astern had been. Percy wondered why this guy cared. Then it hit him; everyone here knew him. Did he have a weird Disney counterpart?
Oh well, that’s a crisis to have later.
“It is terrible,” Percy agreed, just to be polite, “Who are you?”
The guy blushed. “Right, you don’t remember me. I’m Ben. I’m two years below you, but we’re in Tourney together. Though, I guess you won’t be playing for a while now.” He fiddled with a ring on his finger.
Oh my gods, was this guy in love with his Disney counterpart? He really hoped the ring wasn’t, like, a promise ring or something.
Disney counterpart, Percy , Percy prayed to no one in particular, please don’t be dating a sophomore.
“Nice to meet you Ben,” he gave him a small smile and a stiff nod, searching for an excuse to end this conversation. Luckily, the teacher called them all to order, and they were sent to attach their horses to their chariot. Percy decided to choose the gray horse from earlier as well as another one that was already standing nearby. Ben followed behind him the whole time, which was kind of frustrating. If he had been a little further away, Percy would’ve told the horses to stop calling him bastard, but that seemed like a conversation you definitely didn’t want a stranger to overhear.
Ugh, Percy just wanted to go home. The horses the school provided were nice and looked like they would ride well, but they were no Aethon, Eous, Phlegon, and Pyrois—Apollo’s sun horses. And they were certainly no Blackjack, Percy’s own pegasus and friend.
He missed them. He missed Apollo. He missed his friends, and he missed his mom.
—
Luckily, everyone at school seemed way too distracted with their own teenage woes to notice Percy’s strange behavior. Or maybe they just never noticed Percy anyway. He was pretty good at blending in the background when there weren’t gods and monsters involved. (If only Hercules would take a hike, then there really would be no gods or monsters involved, but alas, we can’t all get what we want.)
It was in chemistry class (ew) that Percy finally realized why everyone was so distracted. Well, outside of normal high school drama.
“The villains are coming today,” a girl wearing all pink whispered loudly to her lab partner, who was wearing all blue.
“The villain kids,” the blue friend corrected, with a side eye. From context, Percy assumed this was a nicer address than just the villains , though it still seemed kind of passive aggressive.
“Whatever,” the pink girl answered, brushing her hair dramatically behind her.
“What are the villain kids?” Percy asked Astern, who was his own lab partner for this class.
Astern’s knee bounced up and down. “I forgot you wouldn’t know about that. I’m sorry,” Astern looked down with that kicked puppy look he wore every time he was reminded Percy didn’t know anything. That his ‘best friend’ had amnesia.
To be fair, Percy imagined that probably does suck. Not as much as being transported to a fictional fairy-tale universe, though. Make no mistake, Percy felt that he had it worse and was basically always throwing himself a pity party. “Prince Ben invited some of the children of villains off of the isle to attend school here, with us.”
“The isle?”
“The Isle of the Lost. It functions as a prison for the villains. King Beast sent them there twenty-ish years ago. They can’t get in or out. Not that anyone wants to go in. It keeps us all safe.”
“And the kids are stuck on this isle, too?” Astern nodded, looking like he was about to say something else, but Percy stopped him before he could, “isn’t that, like, a war crime?”
Percy wasn’t actually that familiar with what constituted a war crime, but it certainly sounded like one. Although, fuck, this place apparently didn’t have a Long Island. What made him think they had a Geneva? Or a World War II? Though the gods did still exist here so—
Astern turned bright red, probably about to defend keeping a bunch of kids trapped on a prison island or something, but Percy couldn’t even pretend to care. The thing about being stuck in an alternate reality based on Disney movies was that everything here seemed ridiculous.
I mean, really, the kingdom was ruled by King Beast?
At least the kid was named Ben, Percy thought, getting up to throw away his trash. Even though he was maybe committing war crimes, at least King Beast was correcting the sins of the father in the naming department.
Astern followed him, talking about how Prince Ben was requiring all of them to be there to greet the new arrivals. He made it sound like a terrible curse, which honestly, based on all the pep rallies Percy had been to, it probably was a terrible curse.
Whatever, Percy thought, following Astern outside where a lively band was playing poorly, waiting to greet the ‘scary’ kids or whatever everyone else around him was saying about them. A guy said the name Maleficent, and his friend literally screamed in fright. Percy sent him an annoyed glare, and the poor kid started crying.
Before Percy could even consider apologizing, a limousine pulled up—and really, this school was ridiculously bougie—and out stepped four teenagers. Or, two of them stepped out. The other two fell out of the limousine doors fighting over something, which had Percy grimacing in empathy. He had embarrassed himself in front of other people a lot, and it was never fun.
Everyone around him seemed to be holding their breath, and Percy barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. Why were they so scared of a couple teenagers? I mean, Styx, the two girls literally had blue and purple hair. There was nothing less scary than that. (Not that he would ever say that to Thalia, but it was the truth.)
He could just barely hear the principal, who was the fucking Fairy Godmother from Cinderella by the way, welcome the four kids. The guy standing at her side, who Percy recognized as Ben, took over talking once she stopped speaking. Percy couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but there seemed to be a lot of forced laughter happening. Awkward.
Finally, the four kids were shown inside, and everyone broke off into smaller groups. Astern corralled him towards some buff teenagers, who were apparently their friends from Tourney. (Percy finally got the chance to ask what Tourney was, and one of the buff guys started to cry, doing his best to hide behind his friend. Whoops, that makes two teenagers Percy made cry today. Hopefully, he wouldn’t make it three.)
—
That night, Percy couldn’t sleep. He wandered out of his dorm room that he shared with Astern, and took the hallway he was pretty sure led to the exit. He hoped this school was near some kind of water. He needed to go for a swim, and really didn’t want to walk that far.
He almost ran into a short guy, with bleached white hair, but he managed to dodge him at the last minute with his demigod reflexes. Normally, he would send a sarcastic thank you prayer to Poseidon, but considering that guy still hadn’t reached out to Percy despite the school nurse telling him about Percy’s amnesia, he wasn’t getting any prayers—sarcastic or sincere—from Percy.
“Watch where you're going!” A short, purple haired girl yelled at him.
“It’s, like, midnight. Don’t yell.” Percy rubbed his eyes.
The tall guy beside her straightened up and said, “yeah, it’s past curfew. What are you doing out?”
Percy sent him a weird look. Who pointed out it was past curfew when you were also out past curfew? “Do I look like I give a shit about that?” He asked.
The purple-haired girl sent him a smirk. “Nice, well, we don’t care either.”
Zeus and Hera, these kids were ridiculous. Percy just nodded, not sparing them a second look. They, honestly, weren’t worth it. He could feel the ocean somewhere nearby.
It turned out to be a forty minute walk from campus. He got there around one in the morning, and took a nap in the gentle waves, getting back to his dorm at about five in the morning. No one saw him, except those weird kids. Now that he was better rested from the sea, he kind of wished he had gotten their names. Eh, he’ll probably run into them again based on how small this school was.
—
True to his predictions, he saw the four of them again at breakfast. They all looked dejected. He grabbed Astern’s arm and pulled him over to their table, Astern looking more and more terrified with every step he took towards them.
“Who spit in your bean curd?” He asked the group at large, sitting down across from the blue haired girl.
“Is that what this is?” The short guy asked looking down at his pancaked in confusion.
“Someone spat in it?” The buff guy said, outraged.
“Chill, it’s just an expression. And those are called pancakes.”
Everyone at the table seemed to calm down, except for Astern who still looked like he was about to bolt at any moment.
Gods, Percy can’t believe it’s up to him to break the awkwardness. “So…” he began, “what are your names?”
The four of them all looked at the purple-haired, short girl. Percy supposed she was the quasi-leader of the group. Like Annabeth. “Mal.” She said, sort and to the point.
Astern’s fear seemed to recede slightly in confusion. “Like, after your mother?”
“Kind of.”
“Who’s your mother?”
Mal gave Percy a weird look. “Maleficent.”
Percy pulled up vague memories of the singular time he watched Sleeping Beauty as a kid. “I thought she died.”
“She did, but King Beast demanded she be resurrected in order to spend the rest of her life on the Isle of the Lost.”
Percy’s face did its best impression of the squiggly-mouth emoji. You know the one. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He asked. Astern just shrugged, and Mal looked like she couldn’t care less about the conversation. Like it was no big deal that her mom was resurrected to be placed on a prison island. What the fuck, Disney?
King Beast should’ve stayed cursed if this was how he treated his subjects.
Eventually, when the silence lasted just a bit too long, the buff guy leaned forward and said, “Jay.” It took Percy’s brain a moment to process that that was his name, and he wasn’t just saying the letter of the alphabet for fun.
Cut him some slack, he was still thinking about the ramifications of resurrecting people for prison sentences.
“Evie,” the pretty girl with blue hair said.
“Carlos,” the last guy finished.
“I’m Percy,” with that Percy took a big bite of his own pancake. When Astern looked like he wasn’t about to say anything, he jabbed his side.
“I’m Astern, son of Aquata, grandson of Triton,” he huffed, not looking up from his plate. Percy thought it was kind of pretentious that he mentioned his relatives. “And Percy is the son of Poseidon.”
Ah, come on, now he made Percy sound pretentious.
Hearing his introduction, Mal looked at Percy, intrigued. “Are you the bastard?”
Percy’s milk went down the wrong direction. He started coughing. “What?” He managed to ask, once he could breathe properly again.
“Nevermind Mal. So Astern, are you named after the nautical term?” Evie asked, apparently desperate to change the subject. Percy and Mal both let her.
“You know nautical terms?” Astern asked, and Evie blushed a bright red.
“I mean, only a little.” She backtracked. “I used to date this pirate,” she was now twirling a blue strand of hair around her fingers. Percy wondered how they got hair dye on a prison island. The upkeep had to be crazy hard.
It wasn’t long before a new face joined their hodgepodge table. “Prince Ben!” Astern greeted.
“Astern,” Ben shot them all a bright smile. “Mal, Evie, Jay, Carlos, and…” here he trailed off, looking surprised at Percy. “Percy, I’ve never seen you at breakfast before.”
Percy still wasn’t sure if Ben was one of his ‘friends’ or not, and he didn’t really care. Sorry, if your parents are fairy-tale characters, Percy can only take you so seriously. “I was hungry,” he said, shrugging.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” Ben asked.
“Go right ahead!” Astern exclaimed at the same time that Mal said derogatorily, “yes, we mind.”
Ben looked shocked and stood awkwardly in front of them. He looked like he had no idea what to say. Percy could barely stop himself from snorting; it was obvious ‘Prince’ Ben had never been bullied before.
Mal jumped as if someone had kicked her under the table, and Evie smiled at Ben, “She’s joking,” she reassured the prince, “of course you can sit with us.”
With that, Ben sat down right next to Percy. “I know you just got here yesterday,” he told the four kids sitting across from them, “but how are you liking Auradon so far?”
Percy tuned them all out and dug into his pancakes. He hated small talk. He loved the pancakes though.
Percy ran into Mal, Carlos, Evie, and Jay, or the ‘villain kids’ as the rest of the school called them, on and off for the next couple of days. They usually would join him for at least one meal. They seemed weirdly comfortable with him, and Percy wasn’t sure why. Most of his friends told him he was kind of scary. He could still remember when Frank recounted their first quest together to one of the new legionnaires and said he had a killer ‘don’t fuck with me’ stare that managed to scare off the gangs they encountered.
Percy wasn’t quite sure he believed that, but whatever. It’s good for scaring newbies, he guessed.
And where the villain kids went, Prince Ben followed, like a little puppy. He had had a couple more conversations with the guy during their Driver's Ed class (and Percy still couldn’t believe this school taught how to drive horse-drawn carriages), and apparently, they did know each other through Tourney, as they were two of the star players, but they didn’t actually talk a lot. “We don’t really run in the same circles,” Ben had said, rubbing the back of his neck. “We should, though! Talk more that is.”
“Okay,” Percy said, giving Ben an obligatory smile. The dude was nice, but frankly, if Percy woke up tomorrow in his own dimension and never had to talk to any of these people again, he would be one very happy demigod.
Ben blushed red. Percy told himself it was just because it was hot outside.
“I, uh, broke up with my girlfriend, Audrey, yesterday.”
Percy had never heard Ben talk about Audrey before, but he had heard Astern talk about her. He was pretty sure Astern was in love with her. Or maybe he just thought she was super hot. Though, those things tended to be the same for teenagers.
“Ah, man, I’m sorry,” Percy said, “or congratulations. However, you feel about it.” He closed his locker and squinted at Ben. “Are you sad about it? Do you want, like, a hug?”
“Um,” Ben looked like he had no idea how to respond to Percy. The bell rang, and he took the excuse to run off. Percy took a much more relaxed stroll to his next class. Percy was of the opinion that classes weren’t worth running to. He hummed a little tune as the teacher chastised him for being late.
That night, the villain kids knocked on his door. Percy got up to answer it, seeing their said little teenage faces through the peep-hole.
“Who is it?” Astern asked. He was laying face down on his queen sized bed. (Which, once again this school was SO bougie. Yancy academy cost so much fucking money, and they still only had twin beds. He was scared to know what the tuition here is.) “It’s past curfew.”
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll be back soon.”
And so, he followed his four raised-in-a-prison friends into the kitchen. They looked like they were going to bake cookies, a really devious thing to get up to past curfew. Fucking Disney, man. The least they could be doing was making some edibles.
Did they have weed in the Disney universe?
Percy was snapped out of his thoughts by a tentative Carlos asking for his opinion on something they were about to do.
“Yes?” Percy prompted.
Mal opened a book up and passed it along to him. Whatever the page said was written in really elaborate and old-timey cursive. He tried to read it for a brief moment, then gave up and asked. “What does this say? It’s killer on my dyslexia.”
“What’s dyslexia?” He heard Jay mutter, but no one responded.
Instead, Mal tapped her foot impatiently before saying, “It’s a love spell.”
Percy felt his eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “What do you need a love spell for?”
“For Ben.” Mal maintained eye contact with Percy, like she was daring him to say what she was doing was wrong.
Percy had never backed down from a dare before, and he wasn’t about to start now. “You could just, like, ask him out, you know? Maybe send a prayer to Aphrodite, if you’re nervous.”
“No, I can’t.” Mal said, stubborn like a mule.
“Well, morally, I can’t condone this.” At this, four sets of heartbroken eyes turned to him. “I mean, what? You’re a hormonal little teenager. Do you want to have sex with him? Because that’s rape, if he’s under a love spell.”
All four of the sixteen year olds around him recoiled, making various sounds of disgust.
“I don’t want to have sex with him!” Mal screeched. Percy didn’t know people could blush that brightly.
“And you wouldn’t do it even if you did. Because consent is important, right?” Percy said, staring them all down. Raised on a prison island, he reminded himself. It’s important they learn about consent, no matter how awkward this conversation feels.
They all muttered their agreements, Percy hearing “consent is important” echoed four times, and he smiled at them.
Both Carlos and Evie returned the smile, while Jay looked happy. Mal was still blushing bright red. Gods, these kids needed positive reinforcement so bad.
Percy forced himself to get back on track. “Okay, so you just want to go on a date with him? He just dumped his girlfriend, you can just ask him out. He’s probably looking for a rebound.”
Evie looked mystified. Word around school was she was looking to land a prince. Percy couldn’t judge her. He had looked into the Isle a bit during his free time, and it seemed like a shit-show. He’d marry a prince to get out of it, too.
He wouldn’t drug one with a love spell though. While the four of them still looked disgusted about the implication that Mal wanted to have sex with Ben, he left, making a point of keeping the spell book locked under his arm. Ben was a good kid, he didn’t deserve to have a spell cast on him.
Percy decided he would just set Mal and Ben up on his own.
—
His opportunity came in between classes the next day. His locker was only a couple over from Mal’s, which he knew because of the large ‘Evil’ logo Mal had painted on hers. He was grateful for it; it actually made it a lot easier to remember where his locker was.
Mal approached him, making a point of stomping loudly as she did so, probably trying to seem threatening. It was kind of cute, in the way a small, toy poodle barked at a large German Shepherd.
You can guess who’s who.
“I want my book back,” Mal said, glowering up at him. She was probably five feet tall with her boots on and Percy was 6’3, so it made a funny picture. Percy had to actively try not to smile condescendingly at her.
“Oh yeah,” Percy said, acting like he had totally forgotten he had her illegal magic book. “Want to swing by my dorm after class today? I can give it back then.”
This only seemed to infuriate Mal more. “I want it back now.” Her face was screwed up in anger. She kind of reminded him of Nico.
Man, he missed Nico. And the rest of his friends. Gods, how much longer was he going to be stuck in this Disney movie hell?
Before he could respond, he heard a girl loudly proclaim, “I’m telling you Benny Boo, they’re both bad news!”
Percy couldn’t have stopped himself from looking over if he tried. Look, high school drama was hilarious, okay? And he needed to take any entertainment he could get trapped here, away from his family and friends. Also Benny Boo? What poor loser was stuck with that nickname?
Ben, and a girl he vaguely recognized as Ben’s (now ex-)girlfriend stood a couple of feet away from them. A tall, blonde guy smiled smugly in their direction at her side. He had a very punchable face. People with punchable faces shouldn’t smile like that.
Godsdammit, high school drama was only funny when you weren’t involved. Percy turned back to face Mal, only to see she was looking at the trio as well, likely waiting to see what Benny Boo would say, since she apparently had a crush on the guy.
“I mean, he came from,” here, Audrey looked around dramatically before lowering her voice to a stage whisper, “an affair.” At her side, the smug blonde guy gasped, as if shocked she actually said it outloud.
“And she—” Audrey continued, but before they could say jack shit about Mal, Percy interrupted them.
“You got a problem?” Percy asked, stepping right up in front of the two of them. He looked down at the blonde guy in the way he wished he could have looked down at Matt Sloan when he was thirteen.
They stayed quiet. “Yeah,” Percy laughed. “That’s what I thought. Some life advice: If you’re too scared to talk shit to someone’s face, don’t say anything at all.” Percy shot them his best (read most aggressive) smile. The two of them scuttled off, scared.
When he turned back around, Mal was looking at him with stars in her eyes.
Ben winced at them in apology, and Percy gestured at Mal to join them.
“Look guys, I’m really sorry about what they said—” he began, but Percy didn’t really care about what he had to say. He only came here for one reason.
“Mal has a crush on you,” he said. A truly inhuman sound came from Mal at his side, but he didn’t pull his attention away from Ben, whose eyes were wide in shock as he looked between Percy and Mal.
“You should go on a date with her.” Percy concluded, before walking away. Job done, he thought to himself.
And, as Evie told him later that day, the job was done well, as Mal and Ben would be going on their first date that night, and they would get back just before curfew if it went well.
Good for them , Percy thought. It was almost worth Mal yelling at him the next time he saw her.
She never came by his dorm to pick up her spell book.