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2017-09-03
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1,811
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There's Nothing Weirder Than Teenagers

Summary:

The kid is blinking startled, sea-green eyes at him, and Sam distractedly thinks that he looks a bit like a lost baby seal.

"Who are you?" He asks, as if Sam's identity takes priority over the fact that his friend just threw his body into a lake.
___________________
In which a goth kid attempts to drown his friend, and Sam is suitably concerned.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

The thing is, Sam's at a bit of a loss as to what to do with a lake. Dean usually bitches about anything to do with the great outdoors, and the last lake he'd seen drowned several people on dry land.

Still, it's 100 miles to the town experiencing a couple of murders that scream vampire, and Dean had been practically falling asleep at the wheel late last night before Sam put his foot down, arguing that at that rate he’d probably get killed immediately even if they did reach town that night. He made him stop at the next motel they saw, which turned out to be near a lake.

It was pretty big and surrounded by plain and semi-dense forest which meant, presumably, that it was a great place for a camping trip. Sam wouldn't know.

Yet, despite being an hour away from a nest of bloodsuckers, the lake looks pretty normal. It doesn't have anything close to a creepy or haunted look to it, not a single  sign that something's amiss, and Sam's seen his fair share of the lake-dwelling supernatural.

And maybe it's because the lake seems so harmless that he sits and makes notes on movement patterns on a little picnic bench next to it. It’s a nice change of pace, and a great escape from motel fever and Dean's idea of good background music.

Then all of a sudden, some black-haired kid lurches out from behind a tree close to the lake, supporting some other, also black-haired kid, over his shoulders. Both of them are breathing hard, though the kid leaning on his friend is breathing in sharp gasps that Sam knows means he's in a lot of pain.

Alarmed, Sam's just about to call out and ask if they need help, when the kid stumbles up to the side of the water and throws his slumped friend into the lake, who immediately sinks farther and farther below the surface.

The kid on the bank collapses into a sitting position, looking drained but somehow relieved, and Sam notices he looks like death, literally in that his skin is pale and he's got deep dark circles underneath coal-black eyes. He's a teenager, Sam thinks, some goth kid maybe, and he just threw his friend into a lake, and no one’s surfacing from where the water’s still rippling.

"What the hell, kid?" He yells out at Death the Teen, dropping his notebook on the table and tugging his shoes and jacket off as fast as he can.

The kid looks up and visibly panics when he sees him, dark eyes going wide.

"Wai- it's not what you think!"

The kid turns and glares at the lake like he wishes it would dry up in front of him. Before Sam can jump into the water, the kid curses loudly and rips off his shoes before doing it himself.

Around five seconds later, he and his friend both surface, with him looking miserable in a sopping wet black jacket and his friend looking vaguely confused in an equally dripping teal hoodie. They both move to swim to the bank, which they somehow reach faster than Sam (who's still watching them in disbelief) thinks they should, especially in full clothing.

Sam stuffs his feet back into his shoes and runs over to them, because what even.

The kid who was thrown into the lake is looking very bemused to find himself sitting on the side of it, and starts to ask "Nico, what—" before his friend (Nico, he guesses) shushes him and eyes Sam with a wary look.

Sam doesn't know what question to ask first, so he settles for "What the hell was that?"

The kid is blinking startled, sea-green eyes at him, and Sam distractedly thinks that he looks a bit like a lost baby seal.

"Who are you?" He asks, as if Sam's identity takes priority over the fact that his friend just threw his body into a lake. Luckily, his voice doesn't seem to have even a bit of the raspiness that signals being without air for too long, so Sam relaxes slightly. Nico pushes his face into his hands, looking so honestly miserable Sam would feel bad if he didn't think he'd just tried to commit murder.

"I think he thinks I tried to drown you." Nico mumbles into his fingers.

Nico's friend furrows his brow, as if he's struggling to make sense of that concept. He looks at the lake, then the table that Sam had strode over from, then at the lake again, and then finally at Nico, whose face is still burrowed in his hands, and his eyes light up with understanding.

"Oh, dude, no," he says to Sam, looking like he's trying not to laugh. "Nico was just, uh, trying to wake me up."

His eyes are twinkling with amusement. Nico spreads his fingers to look at him with a face that looks just as disbelieving as Sam feels.

"See, I sleep like the dead, and it's a real pain to wake me up," the kid continues, as if it all makes perfect sense. "But I could probably swim in my sleep, so throwing me into a bunch of cold water usually works out."

Nico's staring at his friend, before he glances at Sam and suddenly starts  nodding at the story.

"The biggest pain. The pain of pains." He deadpans, and sniggers behind his jacket sleeve at his friend's offended look.

Now, Sam's met a couple of Hunting pairs on the road,  people with hard eyes who'll beat at each other and toss each other into dangerous situations just because they know they can take it, but he's pretty sure this particular friendship is still one of the weirdest he's ever seen.

Yet, Sam's getting a feeling , the slow excitement where he knows there's something he doesn't know, and he's going to have to dig and dive if he wants to come even close to getting it. An excitement that meeting the same monsters on the daily killed, and the fact that Sam not knowing something meant that someone usually paid for it stomped on its grave.

But these kids were interesting, a puzzle waiting to be solved, and not in the "figure out what it is before it kills me" way, but the "Dean's shotgun is smoking in the ballerina's hands and that ghost is definitely fading out" kind of way.

A shift of movement catches his attention, and Sam realises the kids are looking at him uncertainly, waiting for him to respond. He flounders.

"That's... kind of unsafe," says Sam a little weakly, for lack of anything else to say.

Both of them shrug at the same time. Nico's friend looks proud of himself at Sam’s acceptance, but Sam's pretty sure he came up with that story on the spot. He wants to call him out for it, but neither of them look all that perturbed that Sea-Green could've died, so Sam can't really come up with a fitting protest.

Suddenly, Nico grabs his friend's wrist. His friend jolts with surprise, but doesn't pull away.

"He's awake now. We're going. Sorry for the disturbance." He says much more calmly, though he sounds so, so tired and is barely standing up straight.

His friend looks concerned, pulling at his wrist to stop them before quietly whispering something to him. Nico's face screws up in irritation, but his friend simply looks at him steadily, seemingly not budging. Nico finally shuts his eyes in resignation, probably having lost their silent argument, and his friend beams at him.

It’s like a practised routine, Sam thinks, bemused. Then Sea-green turns to him with a wide grin.

"My name's Percy," he says cheerfully, putting out one of his damp hands for Sam to take. Sam looks at it for a moment, figures that it couldn't hurt, and shakes it firmly.

"Sam," he replies. Nico, his hand still around Percy’s wrist, simply nods at him. Percy continues speaking.

"My friend Nico here's real tired, and we're both starving. You mind pointing us to the closest place we could get some food?"

There's nothing but road for miles, which is why he and Dean had stopped here in the first place. Sam wonders why they don't know that already, if they're in the area.

He's wondering about lot of things, like why they're so tired, why they seem to have no belongings, and how they didn't notice him by the lake despite having been moving at a stumbling pace. In particular, he's wondering about the barely visible crimson stains adorning Nico's black jacket that he probably thinks Sam hasn't noticed, as well as the tell-tale red tinge on some parts of Percy's hoodie which meant his undershirt was probably soaked with blood.

It's wrong, Sam thinks, something in his stomach clenching. But he keeps his questions to himself, thinking of careful ways to drop them more subtly later.

It's hard not to grin once he realises what he can do, but Sam tries to make his face look apologetic before he replies "Sorry kid, the closest thing's a motel, and the owner's stopped even saying hi to the few people who come. It's been a little scary around here lately."

Sam can see the exact moment that Percy's smile turns careful. Nico only nods again. Neither of them look confused or ask him why. Sam's not surprised.

"But," Sam says in a considering tone, "my brother and I are pretty used to crappy motels, so we bought a ton of food and snacks before we set off. You know, way too much - we were shopping hungry, and now we’d probably kill ourselves trying to eat it all before some of it starts expiring."

Dean's probably going to kill him first for offering up his precious fuel without his permission, especially since he could absolutely put away all of it without a struggle. But Sam wants answers, and he wants time with these kids while they're distracted with meat and sweets so he can pull out the stops. Not to mention they both look ridiculously tired and hungry, and Sam's still got a mushy heart.

"What I'm saying is, you can have some of it."

Nico narrows his eyes at him, and Sam immediately lifts both his hands up.

"Sealed and branded packaging. Swear on my life."

Nico looks slightly appeased at that. Percy's grin is gone, replaced by a careful, considering look. He glances at Nico, who just shrugs a little, swaying on his feet. Sam guesses he's a lot hungrier than he's willing to let on. Percy seems to make up his mind when he looks at him, and when he turns back to Sam, the bright, earnest smile is back in place. 

"Lead the way, Sam!"

Sam smiles back at him, his mind already racing.

Notes:

I wrote this in bullet points on a note in my phone to get the idea out, then polished it and shoved it into paragraphs to see if it was worth anything. I've been trying to write something that I can post for ages, but I ended up using something I wrote on a whim rip rip

Percy's water healing factor is one of my favourite things in pjato and I crave fics that mention it even in passing. I just find so much amusement in his friends throwing him into various bodies of water to help him out.

Yeah also there was no way Percy was going to let Nico go anywhere without eating, so there ya go. A new friendship is born, Sam can satisfy his knowledge cravings (Athena's probably in that ancestry somewhere) and Dean can glare at some teenagers for a while (should probably satisfy his dad tendencies).

Sorry there's no "we're demigods" scene, I just wrote an overly long joke, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.