Apparently, I'm Dead

Chapter Thirty-Three

MAGNUS

Percy's eyes are glassy with tears as his face breaks into a giant smile. "I-," he whispers, "Thank you. Thank you so, so much."

"Of course," I say back. "Anytime."

He ducks his head almost bashfully, discreetly swiping at his eyes. I walk towards him, wrapping my arms around him as soon as I get close enough. He lets his head fall into the crook of my neck and my shoulders, and I feel his tears slowly soak my shirt.

"Sorry," he mumbles a bit sheepishly. "I can dry your shirt off, if you want."

I huff, amused. "Nah, it's fine."

He pulls away anyways and flicks my shoulder. The patch of green that's darker than the rest becomes smaller until it disappears.

"Was that really necessary?" I ask.

"What?" Percy replies, "You wanted to stay wet?"

"No," I huff playfully, "Did you need to flick me?"

"Nah," Percy admits, "But I enjoyed it, and it didn't hurt you, so really, what's the harm?"

I concede the point to his flawless logic.

"Guys, loving the sexual tension over here, but we are literally two blocks away from the boat and it's taking us, like, an hour to get there," Alex drawls.

Percy's eyes narrow. "You're right. Not about the sexual tension part," he rushes to add as Alex wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. "About how long it's taking to get to the boat." His eyebrows scrunch. "I could vapor travel us there, but I'd probably pass out as soon as we got to the boat."

"You did it before, though," Sam notes, "With Harald's boat? You vapor traveled us all onto the boat without getting tired."

Percy winces. "Yeah, that was mostly adrenaline. I'm not running on adrenaline now, so it will, at the very least, tire me out too much to fight anything."

Alex shrugs. "We can fight without you, you know. Let's do it."

Percy places a hand on my shoulder and on Sam's. I put a hand on Alex's shoulder. Percy takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

I take a sharp breath in as the atoms that make up my body seem to buzz faster against each other. They expand until I'm in a gaseous state. Then we're

moving,

moving,

moving.

Going faster and faster and faster until I think I'm about to incinerate-

But then we reform.

"Oh my gods," I spit out. "Oh my gods. That was so much worse than last time!"
Percy raises an eyebrow. "It was?"

"Oh, definitely," Sam agrees with me, her face as green as her hijab. "It felt like I was being digested and then vomited up again."

"It was not great," Alex says.

"Oh," Percy laughs, "Sorry, guys. I'll try to make it more comfortable next time. But I'm just gonna sleep now." His words start to slur near the end, and he raises his arm in a lazy wave before his eyes roll up into the back of his head and he slumps forward onto the deck with a thump.

"What was that?" a voice yells up from below the deck. Thumping feet make their way up the stairs to the deck. T.J. and Blitz make their way towards us, smiling brightly.

"Finally, you're back!" T.J. exclaims. "Halfborn, start rowing," he bellows down to where Halfborn must be.

There's an audible groan from belowdecks, but the boat slowly starts moving. The boat creaks and groans as if it's waking up, but as soon as the noises stop, the boat starts moving on its own. Halfborn comes up onto the deck. "I hate waking up the boat," he grumbles, "I want to kill Loki, not row a boat." He spots Percy on the ground and hmphs. "Why's he on the floor?"

"He fell over," I say as if talking to a kindergartener.

"What did he fall over for?"

"Well, he didn't do it on purpose," Alex scoffs. "For someone who has a doctorate in Germanic literature, you're pretty stupid."

"That was rude," Halfborn says mildly. "I'm hurt."

*TIME SKIP*

It takes a while for Percy to wake up, but once he does, the ship moves faster. We make it to Harald's dock in record time. That doesn't say much, given that we've only gone to Harald's dock one other time on this boat, but the point is, we go fairly fast.

When we get there, Harald seems as if he won't even let us get on his dock. He seems to appear out of nowhere as soon as we set foot on the dock and screams at us until we go away. This happens at least six times before Alex gets fed up and threatens him with his garrote until he lets us onto the dock.

With that accomplished, he still won't let us on the boat. He says, "I was generous enough to let you on my dock after stealing my boat last time. When it came back, it was covered in salt that took forever to clean off!"

This time, Percy is the one who loses his temper. Harald is taller than him by at least a foot and a half, but he cowers as Percy bares his teeth in a mockery of a smile. He doesn't even speak before the giant gulps. "On second thought, you can use the boat. Just take better care of it this time!" he snaps, regaining some of his bravado. He scurries away, throwing a tentative glare over his shoulder that disappears as soon as Percy narrows his eyes.

"You have got to teach me how to glare like that," Alex declares. "The things I could do with that weapon in my arsenal..." she cackles. I blanch. I do not think that would be a good idea.

Percy seems to agree with my sentiment. "Sorry," he says in a voice that doesn't sound all that regretful, "I learned my glare from the mother of Rome. She's also the goddess of wolves. I don't think that I'm qualified to teach you." He flicks a hand, and the old, creaky boat starts to move through the water, towards where we found Ran and Jormungand earlier.

It doesn't take long before Ran comes out of the water. We don't even need the bait we brought. She just pops up, rolling her eyes.

"What are you here for?" she whines. "Don't tell me you've gotten all the ingredients already?"

We all smile triumphantly. Sam, our unspoken 'speaking to gods' spokesperson, steps forward. "Yes, Lady Ran. We have completed our task. If you could call the World Serpent...?"

"Oh, there's no need for that," she smirks. "He's already coming. He's not tired, you see. He's hungry."

"Well, that's not good," Percy whispers. 

Thanks,

ATOTALMUSICALNERD