Salle | Afternoon | Thursday | September 30

[seaweed-demigod.livejournal.com]

With the rain sheeting down outside and feelings of restlessness creeping up inside him, Percy found himself in the salle to work off some of the nervous energy. Parent's Weekend was creeping closer and he hadn't heard a thing from his father. His mother had called and told him she wouldn't be able to make it. Percy understood and assured her he was fine. She had Paul and she had things that were actually good now. He wanted her to be happy.

With a particular vicious overhead swing, one of the practice dummy's got mauled by the blade of Riptide. Percy didn't stop. He didn't stop when the sweat started running into his eyes or when his hand started to hurt from gripping the hilt of Riptide so hard. When Riptide's blade got stuck in the neck of the practice dummy, he stopped and blinked.

Well. That poor practice dummy had seen better days. Percy wiped his brow with his forearm and tried to calm down some. He flexed his fingers and didn't think about where all that anger had suddenly come from.

[Salle's an open place so this is an open post]

Comments

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

"What's with you?" Luke asked, having caught that last bit of Percy's routine. He had been blissfully ignoring anything to do with Parents Weekend and therefore was in a decent mood so far. He even almost forgot it was this weekend.

[seaweed-demigod.livejournal.com]

"Nothing," Percy snapped before he realized any better. He whirled around at the sound of Luke's voice, breathing hard and shook his head. He wiped his brow again.

"Nothing," he said, calmer now. "Just...practicing."

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

"Practicing pretty hard," he said, leaning against his sword. Luke nodded at the dummy. "I mean, you almost beheaded that poor guy."

[seaweed-demigod.livejournal.com]

"Who says he didn't deserve it?" Percy wondered, grabbing Riptide's handle and yanking the blade out of the dummy's head. "I didn't like the way it was looking at me."

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

"I guess I should have gotten the whole story before condemning you, I'm sorry," Luke said with a smirk. "Won't happen again."

[seaweed-demigod.livejournal.com]

Percy made a face and rested Riptide over his shoulder while he continued to calm down. "You down here to train?"

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

Luke nodded. "I'm bored and it's gross outside."

[seaweed-demigod.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, that's kinda why I'm here too." And he also needed an outlet for all the irrational anger and pissiness he'd built up. "Surprised you're not practicing your flirting some more."

Hey, no one said Percy wasn't allowed to occasionally check on what Luke was doing in class. It was his TA-ly duty.

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

"That's one thing I don't need to practice," Luke said. "Comes naturally. Hermes is also known as Charidotes, you know. Giver of charm."

[seaweed-demigod.livejournal.com]

"Right." Percy rolled his eyes and tried not to look at Luke. He made to run his hands through his sweaty hair, making it stand on end as an excuse to not look at him.

"You manage to charm those two girls in class?" Percy wondered idly.

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

"Maybe," Luke said, his eyes lifting up to Percy's hair. He liked when the idiot messed his hair up like that for some stupid reason. "Well, actually, the one called me cute and wanted to kiss me, so I'd say it definitely worked on her."

[seaweed-demigod.livejournal.com]

"Which one was that?" Percy asked, oblivious to Luke's enjoyment of his mussed up hair. That wasn't going to stop him from shoving his fingers through his hair a few more times to get it to stand on end further.

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

"Uh..." Focus, Luke. "Her name was Leia, I think? Cute brunette with the nice smile. The one not Nico's former roommate."

[seaweed-demigod.livejournal.com]

"Good for you," Percy said and wiped his face with his sleeve before tilting his head at Luke. "Why'd she wanna kiss you? You're not that good looking."

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

"Yes I am," Luke said. "I'm a good kisser too. She could probably tell just by looking at me."

[seaweed-demigod.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I can't tell that," Percy said, making a face. Not that he'd been looking or anything like that but still. "You look like a goon."

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

"Of course you'd say that," Luke said, ignoring Percy's insult. "You're inexperienced."

Luke had no way of knowing that, but he was making an educated guess.

[seaweed-demigod.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, you've got no way of knowing that," Percy said, shaking his head. "I'm plenty experienced."

Well, he knew a lot of girls.

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

Luke smirked. "I saw you yesterday, you looked like you were gonna pass out when that girl was talking to you."

[seaweed-demigod.livejournal.com]

"That was because of the -- "

Percy stopped talking and glanced at Luke, looking almost accusing (and a little interested).

"Why were you watching me?"

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

Luke shrugged. "Just curious to see how it'd play out. Why were you watching me?"

[seaweed-demigod.livejournal.com]

"I'm a TA," he said, going for an easy excuse, "so I was watching everyone to make sure things went okay. You weren't the only one I watched."

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

Luke rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure. I didn't think you knew what a TA did."

[seaweed-demigod.livejournal.com]

"I've been in the class like a month now, I can learn, Luke," Percy said, shaking his head. "It's nice to see you think I'm incompetent though."

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

"I never thought you were incompetent," Luke said. He smiled. "Just a little slow."