Percy Jackson, The Missing Hero.

57. Arthur, Percy's (Old) Godly Friend.

Percy closed his bedroom door behind him with a sigh of relief, wanting nothing more than to just slide into bed and ignore the rest of the world for at least eight solid hours. It had been a long day, filled from morning to night with exhausting conversations; the type of day that would have been tiring enough alone, but the fact it took place after a busy night where he'd gotten very little sleep made it even worse.

In fact, he wasn't overly certain when the last time he'd had a proper night's sleep had been.

Unfortunately, when he turned to look at his bed, he recalled a particular line from Apollo's note. The one that mentioned the fact the god was going to be leaving a stack of books on his bed for him, books that would let him fact check some of the things Nathan had said that day.

He let out another sigh, wondering if he could bring himself to start looking at them now, or if his tired eyes would take one look at the first sentence and make it even more undecipherable than usual.

"Percy?" Nico's voice sounded from the other side of the door, muffled through the wood.

Percy turned back and opened the door once again, giving the two people standing on the other side an exhausted smile. "Neeks, Will, what can I do for you?"

"Sorry for disturbing you, you look shattered," Will apologised, biting his lip. "Have you seen my dad since the meeting? We don't remember seeing him at dinner and we've definitely not seen him since."

"Ah," Percy sighed. "So it was only me that he told?"

"Told you what?" Nico raised an eyebrow.

"Come on in." Percy knew that a quiet evening trying to decipher whatever material Apollo had sourced was out of the question now. "You can entertain me while I do some research for our resident sun god."

The two filtered past him, hands intertwined. Percy was fairly convinced that they hadn't released their hold on one another all day and he didn't blame them in the slightest. If he was in their shoes, he'd do the exact same.

"So, my dad told you where he was going and left you with a bunch of books?" Will asked, eyeing the stack that lay at the foot of Percy's bed.

"He was acting a bit weird, if I'm being honest." Percy frowned, remembering how out of character Apollo had seemed just a few moments after he'd been laughing and joking with him.

"Weird?" Nico raised an eyebrow. "You'll have to be a little more specific, Barnacle Boy. 'Weird' is a pretty wide-ranging description when it comes to Apollo."

"Oi!" Will defended his father. "You may have a point but you could put it in a nicer way."

"He was fine after the meeting, he just went a little funny after I agreed to speak to Annabeth." Percy shrugged his shoulders. "Said a few things and then decided that he needed to go to Olympus immediately to talk about our talk with Nathan. He literally left in a whirlwind, I barely got the chance to process what he was saying before he was out the door – let alone say anything in response."

"Wait, you spoke to Annabeth?" Nico raised an eyebrow.

"I thought Luke would have told you," Percy groaned. "Yes, I spoke to Annabeth. We talked. We fixed things. We're friends again."

"And you said my dad went weird after you agreed to talk to her?" Will raised his eyebrow.

"Yeah, he went from joking that I was in trouble to saying something about hopefully getting everything I wanted out of the conversation?" Percy couldn't keep the confused look off of his face. Sue him, Apollo confused him to Hades and back. "Then he ran away. Like, literally."