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Everyone at camp (besides Annabeth, for obvious reasons) kind of sees Percy as their honorary brother sort of relationship. Even Clarisse, though she’d never admit it. When the Stolls put chocolate bunnies on the Demeter cabin (after laughing about it), he helped them clean some of it up. When the Iris cabin couldn’t get a hold of their mom, he taught them the whole “Fleecy, do me a solid,”. When the Ares’ cabin lost a ctf game, he teased them and laughed at them. When the Apollo cabin needed somebody to practice on, he volunteered. So, naturally, when the Aphrodite cabin camper went through a particularly bad break-up, he’d let them do his nails and shit.
One girl, Sarah- she was seven, loved him to death , and would run up to him during breakfast everyday.
She’d get all shy, and giggly, and she’d put a flower crown she’d made that morning on his head.
He’d sigh and say, “I knew I forgot something this morning,”
She giggles and runs away, and he’d do his best to keep it on the rest the day. The seven, who Chiron had granted permission to allow them to sit at the Poseidon table (they’d gone through much not too), would all have different reactions. Hazel and Piper would coo, and Leo would raise an eyebrow, making some sarcastic comment about Percy having a secret feminine side, which the others would roll their eyes too. Frank would just shrug, indifferently. Jason would pat Percy on the shoulder, and Annabeth would laugh.
It ws very likely that he’d show up to the arena with his nails all different colors. Very few people actually were willing to call him out on it.
One day, Percy knocked on the Aphrodite cabin, looking for Piper, when a little girl, about eleven, opened the door. Percy vaguely recognized her. Carrie? Kayley?
“Hi.” she said, sniffling a bit.
“Hey. Uh-” he frowned, cocking his head. “What’s wrong?”
She shrugged, “Some Ares’ kids. Not a big deal. Do you need Piper? She went to the stables,”
Percy hestistated before shaking his head, “No, I was looking for you,”
She looked up at him, “...Me?”
He nodded, “Uh-Carrie, right?”
She laughed, slightly, “Kennedy,”
He blushed, “Right”
He walks in, glad that nobody else is around, because now he can ask her about her without Kennedy getting embarrassed. So he folds himself into the girl’s bunk, cross legged on her flower bedspread. They start talking about her favorite songs and her favorite movies, and someway, somehow, Percy gets ropped into getting his nails done.
She’s got her tongues sticking out and she’s really focusing and she’s tells him really serious,
“You have to push back your cuticles first,” Percy nods, real serious, too.
And she begins painting. Pink, blue, black, yellow, orange. Whatever.
“So...explain this whole one direction thing. I heard there was like 18 of them”
And she giggles and says, “No, gosh ” and starts talking about it, and whatever else, on and on. When they’re done, Percy says something like
“Thank the gods that you pushed my cuticles back first, that clearly makes all the difference,”
And she beams like that’s the best thing he could ever say to her.
That’s what he does.
In fact, it becomes so common that if Annabeth can’t find Percy, first stop) his cabin, second stop) Arena, third stop) Aphrodite cabin.
And this seems to be the case today. She’s trying to find him because of some issue the littler kids are having with swimming, and she walks in and sees this sight:
There’s a piece of construction paper taped to the top of the bunk over her bed, and Nial Slano (nail salon) is written on it in pink and glitter, and the S is backwards. Underneath it is Percy describing some obviously exaggerated story (that probably never happened) about some violent thing he did, and Kennedy is on the edge of her seat, staring at him eyes-wide in awe. Annabeth doesn’t interrupt and Percy finished with
“Anyways, that definitely would have been avoided if we had hairspray, or something. But none of us did, because we weren’t from this, incredibly awesome, might I add, cabin.”
And the little girl is grins because like, he just told me this incredibly heroic story and he basically just said they would’ve kicked some more ass with and Aphrodite camper, and ohmygodsI’manAphroditecamper.
From that point on he never leaves Camp without hairspray from the Aphrodite cabin.