#Only thing she’s read in the last few years is Percy Jackson too… | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

phykios · 2 months ago

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If I Were A Blackbird, part 16 [co-written with @darkmagyk] [read on ao3]

Did you make it back okay? You didn’t text 🙁

[read, 10:47am]

????

Sorry got back kind of late Got lost in exarchia lol

Isn’t exarchia dangerous? Are you ok?

Nah it was np Ive seen worse at santa con

Everything good with you?

Whatever hans needed you for last night

Oh yeah it was fine Turned out to be a nothingburger Im sorry i ruined our date

Its fine

…

Hey i just checked with my car service and they said you didn’t call them last night?

Yeah i just caught a taxi Only out a few euro

…

When are you free next week? I wanna make it up to you

Its rly fine

Ok well i want to see you Before coach peterson traps you in the boathouse and wont let you leave

Lol What are you doing thursday?

Breakfast with the finns then 10 hours of teams meetings Does saturday work?

Practice

🙁

What abt sunday morning? We’d have to be done by 2

I can do sunday!! How do you feel about dawn?

—

A risky proposition–for her, not for him. Percy had no trouble waking up early, while Annabeth more than lived up to her night owl reputation.

But she had to make it up to him. She had to give him something spectacular.

Percy had clearly been so hurt the other night when she’d made him leave. And he had every right to be. She wanted him to be her partner, in all things. Even though that didn’t mean he could join her in fighting a dracena or a draugr or some other dangerous creature, it did mean he should be able to know about what was going on. Know about every aspect of her life. And even though the other night had not ended up being such a big issue, there had been dozens of monster fights over the last four years where all she wanted when it was over was to curl up with Percy and tell him what was really going on. Seek his comfort and support.

Percy Jackson was a world class cuddler. They should give him a gold medal for that.

She had known for a long time she needed to come clean. She needed to tell him everything. But this moment was really the line. It was creating divisions she didn’t like, that he didn’t deserve. And she wanted to share everything with him. Seek his advice and comfort and love as she navigated the challenges of being a demigod.

So, she had to stop pushing him away. It wasn’t fair. Percy had supported her 100% in all things since they first got together–the hecticness of royal life, her own demigod and ADHD flightiness, even her Harvard family pride.

He deserved better.

It steeled her resolve.

She had planned the event to a T, stocked up on Greek coffee, and called in an enormous favor with the Ministry of Culture to organize a private tour of the Parthenon for the two of them, just after dawn. The sacred hill, usually overrun with tourists, would be, for once, deserted, and they would have the place wholly to themselves. They’d get to walk the ruins together, alone, get to look out at the sun rising over the sea he sailed on, and then she would take his hand, and she would finally tell him everything. Let him into the most secret parts of her life.

The only hard bit had been figuring out what to wear. She wasn’t sure if she’d brought anything for this trip that wasn’t blue. She’d packed one bag, and Helen had packed the big one for her, but she’d acquired so much blue over the last four years that most of her closet had ended up blue, too. But she wasn’t about to go on possibly the most important date of her life without having an outfit ready to go by morning.

Blue was the obvious choice, but was also possibly jinxed–she couldn’t remember the last time she had worn blue on a date with Percy without being attacked by a monster. White, again, had a ton of bridal baggage, and she didn’t want to pressure him into doing anything, not when she was about to drop a mythological bomb on him.

So. What to wear.

She had spent probably upwards of an hour, wrapped in her bathrobe and conditioning her hair, as she sat cross legged on the bed, agonizing over the final three options: an orange romper with a gold belt and stilettos, the two-piece lemon-printed outfit from a D&G collection a few years back with flats, or the purple sundress with raw edges and a pair of white sneakers.

When she laid it all out, it was kind of obvious. Her mother’s temple, where millions of tourists walked each year, was not really known for its crisp, even walkways. Or its non-slippery marble.

The dress, she decided. Not just for the shoes, but for the color, a surprisingly intense hue for such a casual fabric. Deep and dark, like wine spilled over the ocean. Very Homeric. Hopefully he’d like it.

She bounced her sneakers against the interior car door, probably scuffing the leather and pissing Hans off to no end, as she waited for Percy to come out of the Village. That was the problem with white. Easy to ruin. She chanced another look out the window, and sat up at the hooded figure who came out, and made a beeline straight for the car. Without hesitation, he slid in beside her, taking down his jacket hood, revealing wet hair and tired eyes that still lit up at the sight of her. “Morning,” he said, leaning in for a kiss on the cheek. “Morning, Hans.”

“Sir.”

“Hey,” she said. “You sleep okay?”

“Slept alright, yeah.”

Annabeth frowned. “You look tired.”

“Yeah, well,” Percy shrugged. “Got a lot on my mind.” He continued before Annabeth could say anything. “I was hoping practice would tire me out, but… Probably going to need a nap after this.”

“My hotel bed misses you,” she told him, and then only cringed a little bit as the full dorkiness of the words came to her. “You could always come back with me. You know. If you wanted.”

He paused, then twisted his mouth in that way she knew meant he was trying not to laugh. “Maybe. But I don’t know if I’ll make it through this car ride.”

Well, she could help with that. “Way ahead of you there,” she said, reaching for the drink caddies. “Coffee?”

Successfully caffeinated, they enjoyed an easy, peaceful drive to the west entrance of the site. At this hour, the roads were largely clear, devoid of most traffic beyond a handful of delivery guys on bikes, or the odd clump of construction workers taking advantage of the time. It was still dark enough that the street lights were still on, the car passing beneath beautiful arches of string lights in the colors of the Olympic Rings as they rounded the corner of the National Gardens. In the distance, just barely over the tips of the buildings, she could see glimpses of the Acropolis, its columns lit up with yellow floodlights, like artificial fire.

Percy huffed a laugh as they passed the Arch of Hadrian and the Temple of Olympian Zeus, resting his head against the window.

“What is it?”

He shot her a sideways glance. “It’s nothing. Just, ah… it’s nothing.”

She frowned at the deflection. But instead of dwelling on it too much, she took his hand. “I’m really glad you came this morning,” she said, quietly.

Smiling, he squeezed her hand in return. “Hey, me, too. I’m always happy to see you.”

“And I’m sorry about the other night.”

“Seriously, you don’t–”

“I do,” she interrupted, lacing their fingers together. “You’ve put up with so much crap from me and my family and my country these last four years, and I haven’t…” She trailed off, the words drying up in her mouth.

Percy shifted, turning towards her. “Haven’t what?”

Been honest? Told him everything? Gods, what did she even say to that? Every other person she had ever been close to had already known the great secret. Annabeth couldn’t even remember if she had ever been told explicitly the truth of her birth and her heritage. It was just something she’d always known. Something she’d never had to question. Annabeth was a princess, her mother was a goddess, and her family was descended from another pantheon. These were the facts of her life. How was she supposed to tell him the truth?

How do you turn someone’s life upside down like this without driving them away?

For lack of anything to say, she squeezed his hand again, and brought it to her mouth. “I have something I need to tell you,” she mumbled into his fingers.

He only nodded, face solemn in a way it rarely was. “Me, too.”

She sat up, a new wave of anxiety breaking over her. “What is it?”

Taking in a deep breath, he moved his hand to her face, brushing his thumb against her cheekbone. She leaned into it, drank in the gentleness of his fingers, the quiet, deliberate touch of skin, and her heart couldn’t help but throb. “Annabeth,” he said, gathering his courage. “I… There’s…”

“Excuse me.”

They both jumped. Hans had rolled the car into park so smoothly, she hadn’t even noticed.

“Apologies, highness,” he said, not at all meaning it, “but we’ve arrived.”

And not a moment too soon. The sky above was just beginning to lighten, the shades of midnight just barely beginning to give way to gray and purple.

Hand in hand, they strode up the wide, cobbled pathway, their steps illuminated by the floodlights. If she ignored the hum of electricity, the distant sound of car horns, or the lack of stars above them, she could almost imagine that she and Percy were in ancient Athens, making a pilgrimage in the middle of the night to the sacred temple. Perhaps she would have been a priestess, and he a guard of the city, and they were coming in secret to make a supplication to the goddess, asking Athena to release her daughter from her vows so that they could marry without incurring her wrath.

The thought made her giddy, and she squeezed his hand, a new skip in her step.

“You’re chipper this morning,” he observed.

“Just happy to be with you.”

He smiled thinly, and didn’t say anything in response.

But she didn’t care. Her whole life was about to change–for the better. She didn’t have a care in the world.

The security guard, nursing a coffee of her own, let them in without a word. Hans trailed behind them, far enough away that they could speak privately, but close enough in case Annabeth needed some magical backup. She was lucky, she supposed. Her country’s affection for her family was high enough that mortal threats weren’t really a concern. But when they reached the base of the ramp which led to the Propylaia, Hans stopped in his tracks, waving her on. Trusting her alone with Percy.

She nodded at him, grateful. He turned away, pulling out a cigarette.

In silence, they continued on to the top of the hill, and Annabeth had never been more grateful for the choice to wear sneakers, giving her steady footing on the worn marble. Percy, however, wasn’t so lucky, one false step causing him to slip, teetering towards the edge of the switchbacked path.

“Whoa!”

Annabeth snatched him up around the waist, pulling him back towards a marble bench. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he breathed, shaky. “I’m fine.” He looked up at her, sheepish. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“This damn hill,” he grumbled. “I’ve been to the Acropolis, like, four times this summer, and I’ve tripped over something every single time.”

“Well, just be careful,” she said. “If you roll your ankle, I have to carry you out of here myself.”

“Not Hans?” he teased.

She shrugged. “I can handle it.”

“I’m sure you could.” A beat, and then he embraced her, so suddenly it almost knocked the wind out of her. He held her close, close enough that she could feel his ragged heartbeat, adrenaline sending it racing, and she shut her eyes, breathing in the ever-present sea salt smell of him. “I love you,” he murmured into her hair. “I love you so much.”

When he pulled back, she was shocked to see his eyes were red. “Percy?”

“I’m fine,” he said thickly, wiping his eyes. “Come on. Daylight’s wasting.”

Pink had begun to bleed into the sky, coloring the haze of the far off mountains, creeping ever closer to sunrise.

They made it through the gate without further incident, and even though Annabeth had seen the Parthenon hundreds of times, in person and online and in dreams, it still stopped her in her tracks. It was a magnificent building, of course, even with the scaffolding holding it together, and she couldn’t help but mentally run through the facts for the millionth time. Pentelic marble, peripteral Doric, perfect proportions. Fluted columns, ionic capitals, no base. Eight by seventeen, slight tapering to account for human perception. Once upon a time, it had been covered in color, a bright, shining beacon of civilization, a living record of war and conquest. The Giants, the Amazons, the Lapiths and the Centaurs, the sack of Troy and the victory over the Persians–the Parthenon was a monument to it all, and to the goddess who presided over them.

Now if only the British Museum would give back the damn statues.

“Let me guess,” Percy said. “You’re imagining what it would look like with all the marbles restored.”

She smiled, sheepishly. “You caught me. I have another meeting with the Prime Minister next month.”

“Fifth time’s the charm?”

“Here’s hoping.”

“You know, you’ve corrupted me,” he said. “Before I met you, a temple was just a temple. Now every time I see a Greek temple, I have to count the number of columns. The long side is always twice the number of the short side, plus one. I never noticed that before. Not until you showed me.”

“Sorry.”

He shook his head. “What for? I never said it was a bad thing. Here.” He took both of her hands, and led her over to the Erechtheion, picking his way around the stones which jutted up from the grass. The pink sky was beginning to blossom into a fiery orange, streaked through with yellow, heralding the sun. “Like with the Erechtheion,” he said. “There’s so much I never noticed about this place before you–the irregular construction, the decorative elements, the whole…” he waved a hand at the stone, but never took his eyes off her. “All of it. Before you, it was just another old building.”

“A fucked-up old building?” she recalled, remembering a warm spring night on the Aegean, tangled up with her lover on a boat and under the stars.

He grinned, hopefully recalling the same. “The building of the mighty Poseidon,” he corrected. “I don’t think he’d be too happy to hear you call it that.”

She didn’t think he’d be too happy with her in general, given the whole rivalry thing, but whatever. “Meh,” she echoed. “I’m dating his favorite sailor. I think I’ll be okay.”

In the fading dark of sunrise, Annabeth saw his face fall. The gray shadow of the temple made him look ashen, pale. Afraid.

“What is it?”

He glanced at the temple, shoulders tight. “It’s cold,” he said, finally. “Come on. Let’s sit in the sun.”

The sun was just about to break over the horizon, but she wouldn’t push it.

Percy led her out of the shadow of the Erechtheion, towards the very eastern edge of the site. There, where there had once been a circular watchtower, now flew the flag of Greece, hanging limp in the stillness of dawn. She sat on the wall-bench of the observation point, back against the lip of the retaining wall, and tipped her head back. It was quiet. Seagulls cried in the very far distance. At some point, the floodlights had switched off automatically, leaving them suspended in time, colorless, hovering between tonight and tomorrow, between her past and their future.

But her future didn’t join her on the bench. He just stood there. Looking at her.

“Percy? What’s wrong?”

She could see his chest moving as he breathed, deep and measured. His mouth hung open, and she could almost see the wheels in his brain turning as he searched for what to say.

And then, warmth.

Looking over her shoulder, she saw the sun had just breached the mountains, the yellow glare shielded by the looming shadow of Mt. Lycabettus, the tallest point of the city.

When she looked back, Percy had dropped to one knee.

She felt her breath catch. Felt the tears preemptively pool in her eyes. She was a princess. She was a demigoddess, a hero, a feminist, a–a shieldmaiden! She was not supposed to be the kind of woman for whom her engagement was the pinnacle of her entire life. But it was Percy, on his knee before, looking up at her with those green eyes. Looking like he belonged here, between the Athena and Poseidon shrines. She felt like she was in some sort of movie. Every perfect thing coming down to this moment.

“I was really glad you wanted us to come here,” Percy said, “I… this seemed a fitting place for me to tell you. To say maybe the most important thing I’ve ever said before.”

“A question?” She asked, even though she probably shouldn’t have.

He smiled, lopsided and trouble-making and so, so beautiful. “Could be,” he said, and her heart nearly skipped right out of her chest. “But first…” he looked around, wary, like he was expecting something to jump out.

Or someone.

“This is the place,” he said, after a moment of silence. His eyes were stormy–thrilling… and scary. “This is the place where Poseidon lost the contest of Athens to Athena.”

Despite herself, she felt her smile drop. It was a story she knew well, had grown up with it and been weaned on it, curled up in her father’s embrace as a little girl as he read to her from the big yellow book of Greek myths every night before she went to bed–but she didn’t know why it suddenly made the bottom of her stomach fall out.

And then, he said, “This is the spot where… where my father lost to Athena.”

His… “Your father?” The words sounded like they came from very far away. Her face felt numb.

“My father,” he repeated. “Poseidon. God of the sea.”

She must be confused, she must not be understanding. An unusual place for her to be, but not impossible. Annabeth was used to being the smartest person in any and all rooms she was in. And so it only took her a few seconds to really, properly process what she was being told. To take that information in and put it up against so much else she’d seen but not really noticed over the past four years.

“That explains so much,” she said. Her mind quickly flicked through the many details and strange little facts she’d collected, but never been able to fit together.

At least her brain was moving too fast for her to stop for a second and feel.

His eyebrows pulled together, that little pinch she always thought was adorable. “It does?”

She nodded, and didn’t meet his eyes. “There was a sea monster, wasn’t there? In Mérida, at the last Olympics. That’s why you lost your lead.”

He froze, down on one knee. “...Yeah. There was.”

“And that day, when we went out on the boat, you got my hat back, and dried it with water magic,” she continued. “Hans’ team spent a truly insane number of manhours trying to track down your father. But they never could. It was like he didn’t exist.”

“...What are you saying?”

“I don’t think anyone ever guessed you were a demigod,” she said. “Which was probably silly. Hans should have known better. And Dad.”

He stared at her, mouth open and gaping like a– “Annabeth?”

The tears finally spilled from her eyes. “Percy,” she said, not sure if she was crying from joy or sorrow. “My mother is Athena.”

***

Percy’s whole body went cold. The ring box was heavy in his jacket pocket, weighing him down like an albatross. “Athena?”

She nodded, hanging her head. “Yes. I’m a demigod, too.”

And suddenly, every little thing that had ever felt out of place snapped into a neat, logical, devastating line.

Her proficiency with weapons–not just the hobby of some rich girl, but an innate skill. Jokes from her whole family about following the “old ways” that always seemed to hedge a little too close to seriousness. A gaping black hole where her mother should be.

Just like him.

How hadn’t he seen it sooner?

Stunned, the next few words just slipped out. “I didn’t know Athena could have children.”

She snapped her red-rimmed eyes to him. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“What? No! I just–isn’t she a virgin goddess? How would that even, uh… work?”

“You’re a classics major,” she said, crossing her arms, hunching in on herself. He could practically see sparks of irritation flying off of her, filling the space she left empty. “I assume you’re familiar with the birth of Athena?”

“Sure,” he hedged, feeling suddenly unmoored. “She was born from Zeus’ head.”

Annabeth looked at him, pointedly.

So… she was born the same way? “But,” he stammered, his thoughts scattered across the sacred rock, “but… you have a belly button.”

Pretty much immediately, Percy knew that was the wrong thing to say.

“Yeah,” she said, stony. “What, were you expecting me to be some kind of freak?”

Okay. He was now and truly lost. “That’s not–”

She crossed her legs, cutting him off. “Well, I’m not. I have all my extremities. Just like you.”

“I… didn’t think you didn’t.” Because why would he? He had seen them all for himself. He had, ahem, explored all the nooks and crannies of her body, many times, had touched and kissed every extremity, every inch of skin… every inch of scar.

He had seen her scars. Had traced the lines of them, up and down. He hadn’t commented on them, because why would he? His own body was riddled with the same scars. Claw marks and magic burns and the odd sword swipe. They were normal for him.

They were normal for her, too.

Because they were the same.

So why did the thought suddenly fill him with dread?

“When,” he started, mouth dry, “when did you know?”

“My whole life. You?”

“I was six. Luke told me.” It had been a weird day, but one he could look back on fondly. But right now, he could barely remember it. All he could cling to was the one shining, defining difference between them–she had known about her parentage her whole life, and he had only been told about his later.

And then, he huffed a laugh, surprising himself.

She frowned. “What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Just figures, is all.”

“What figures?”

“Figures that I had to have it spelled out for me while you had it handed to you on a silver platter.”

She rounded her jaw, eyes glistening in the morning light.

Fuck. This was not how he wanted this to go. “I–”

“Figures for you as well,” she cut in, avoiding his gaze. “Swimming, sailing, water polo–it all comes from your father.”

Anger, hot and spiky, lanced through him out of nowhere. “Are you saying I’m only good at what I do because of my dad?”

She snapped her eyes to him, taken aback by his tone. “No! Of course not!”

“Because if I wanted to coast on my genetics, I would have just gone with swimming,” he growled, surprising himself with his own vitriol. “Sailing is hard work. Keeping track of the winds, the waves, the sail, the physics–it’s hard work. And I picked it because I knew it would be hard work. Because I’ve had to work my entire life. Not that you would know anything–”

He cut himself off, standing, before he said something he really regretted.

Except the damage was already done.

Her hands tightened where they clutched her arms, the tips of her fingers digging into her skin. “I see,” she said, quietly. “So that’s what you really think of me.”

“No, it’s–” He sighed, hanging his head. Breathing in through his nose, he held his breath and counted to ten, before his anger got the best of him again.

When he looked back up, Annabeth’s eyes were fixed on the ground, her shoulders just barely trembling.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was out of line. And it’s not true.” When she didn’t answer, he sat down next to her, gratified that she didn’t at least move away from him. “I’m really sorry.”

Stiffly, she nodded.

“It’s just… I’m sick and tired of being out of the loop. You don’t tell me you’re a princess, you make me leave for meetings–”

“That’s a national security thing–”

“Everything about you is a national security thing!” He burst out, losing his grip. “Everything you are is some kind of secret that I don’t get to know about, even after we’ve been dating for four years!”

“I’ve told you plenty,” she said, eyes welling up again. “I’ve told you about my dad, and my insecurities, and all my fears about me and my country–”

“But nothing about you being a demigod!”

Her face went red. “What the hell was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, stranger, not only is my dad a king, my mom is a Greek goddess, wanna fuck?’”

“No, I just–”

“You said I was entitled to my secrets,” she stood, pointing at him accusingly. “Just like you were entitled to yours. That was your promise.”

“Yeah, at the beginning of our relationship, not four years in when I’m about to propose to you!”

She froze, as still and imposing as marble. Percy’s heart had crawled up his throat, threatening to choke him, and in that moment, he was overcome with the sudden need to assert himself. To let her know how she had hurt him. To speak a truth that was even more painful.

“It’s like–it’s like I don’t even know you.”

In one swift instant, her tears dried up, evaporating in the heat of her anger. She glared down at him, imposing and impossible, her gray eyes cold and sure and beautiful, it took his breath away.

Of course she was beautiful. Her mother–Athena–had been in Paris’s contest, after all. If Lady Athena had even half of her daughter’s beauty, it was a fucking miracle that she had lost, Helen or no Helen.

Annabeth whipped around, her blonde curls flying in the sudden wind, making her way back towards the Propylaea.

But she turned back to look at him, once, at the far edge of the Erechtheion, her mother’s temple to her right, and his father’s to her left. The clear concrete pathway between them felt as wide as an ocean, and just as insurmountable.

Percy felt like the Athenians, thousands of years ago, worshiping their patroness. Worshipful and fearful and in love in equal measures.

Percy felt like his father, so thoroughly cowed, so beaten. Forever changed, forever brought down by this great and powerful woman. Brought low before her like so many men had been for millennia.

How did you ever get over someone like her?

He thought back to his father. And to King Frederick and a handful of awkward dinners with Princess Consort Mary.

On both counts, Percy was pretty sure, you never did.

He sat there where their parents' rivalry began–and was still going strong, even after all this time –for a long time, as the sun slowly crept up the sky, until the security guard from earlier came to get him. “Excuse me,” she said, not unkindly. Which was unexpected. In his experience, security guards, Greek or Swedish or otherwise, didn’t take too kindly to him. Maybe they knew something he didn’t. “We’re opening to the public soon.

Percy nodded and stood up. “Sorry.”

“Your friend left thirty minutes ago,” she said, not responding. And then, curiosity must have gotten the better of her. “So… what happened?”

“I’m not sure,” Percy said, and he wasn’t. He really really wasn’t sure. The walk back down the hill didn’t clarify things, either.

A drink might. Or maybe a nap. Maybe he could go back to the Village, grab Jason and Frank and take them out for some midday drinks in Exarchia, take the edge off with some bro-time.

Halfway down to the city, he stopped to lean against a green metal grate. Just on the other side was a sign, in English and Greek, pointing the way to the Pnyx, the favored soapbox of great thinkers like Socrates.

He sighed, heavily.

Gods, he was so fucking sick and tired of classics.

They’d given him more than enough problems. And he wasn’t going to let classics ruin his life. Not over this.

In that moment, he made a decision. He wouldn’t go back to the Village and drown his sorrows.

Instead, he called in the cavalry, and asked them to meet him at the Tiki Bar around the corner of the Acropolis Museum. Because he was fucking sick and tired of classics.

“Weren’t you supposed to be having celebratory engagement sex right now?” Was Luke’s first question as he walked up to the bar where Percy had parked himself, a very bleary Nico and Hazel in tow. Honestly, Percy was surprised he had gotten the younger ones to even show up. The children of the Underworld fully lived up to their reputation as night people, and here they were, deigning to show their faces just after 8 AM.

Luke took one look at Percy’s face, and his own fell, instantly. “Kid? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Percy said, and it was true. He didn’t know what was wrong. And then he said, “Annabeth is a demigod.” That was true, but it wasn’t what was wrong. Why was that bad? It shouldn’t be bad.

As one, all three of their jaws dropped, eyes going wide. “What?” That was Hazel, now fully awake. “She’s a demigod?”

“That explains a lot,” said Nico, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “She had a real power vibe, but I thought maybe it was the monarch thing.”

Percy didn’t want to even try and dissect what that meant.

“She’s a daughter of Athena,” Percy said, but for the first time in about an hour, it didn’t feel like a terrible, horrible thing. In fact, it was almost a neutral observation. Possibly even edging towards something exciting.

Because Annabeth was a demigod–just like him. Another member of his extended family.

Hazel gasped. “But Minerva’s a virgin goddess,” she exclaimed, aghast at the very idea. “She’s not supposed to have children!”

“Annabeth kind of explained it,” Percy said, frowning at the memory. Brain children. It was still kind of a tough idea to wrap his head around. Even though she did have a belly button. “She’s born from Athena like Athena was born from Zeus. I think. I wasn’t paying great attention.”

“Seems like it should have been important–” But Nico’s snark was cut off by Luke cuffing his head.

“Percy,” Luke said, blue eyes staring at him. “What happened?”

“We had a fight,” he admitted, face flushing from shame. “I'm not even sure… I was just so surprised and kind of overwhelmed by the idea. and I think I kind of freaked out.” Understatement of the century. But then again… maybe she did, too. “I called her privileged and then she stormed off, and…”

“Did you two break up?”

He jolted, like he had been struck by lightning. Or perhaps a spear. Before that moment, the thought had never occurred to him. Athena or not, secrets or not, divine intervention, ancient rivalries, four years of lies or not, he didn't want to break up. Not ever. She was the love of his life.

“No,” he shook his head emphatically. “We didn't break up.” They had fought, sure, but there had been no resolution. And until she told him otherwise to his face, they were still together.

Hopefully forever.

“Do you want to break up?”

“Never.” He wanted to tell her Paris was a fool for not choosing her mother if Athena was half as beautiful as she was. He wanted to promise to fell sea monsters and the Minotaur itself for her sake. He wanted to return to the Garden at the very edge of the day, and bring her a golden apple taken from beneath the sleeping dragon’s nose. He wanted to sit in her little apartment in the palace in Stockholm and rub her feet and tell her all about his adventures and ask her about hers, and talk about where Norse monsters ranked on the scale of divine irritation.

“So, what are you going to do about it?” Sometimes Nico's bluntness was too much for him, but right now he appreciated the direction.

“I don't know. I was hoping you guys might have some ideas.”

The cousins glanced between each other, all equally lost. “Flowers?” Hazel suggested, hopping up onto the stool next to him. “Maybe a gift?”

“Maybe.” A gift wasn’t a bad idea. But it would have to be a hell of a gift.

Still, something on Hazel’s face troubled him.

It must have troubled her brother, too, because he placed a hand on her arm. “What’s wrong?”

A knife slowly scraped across the wooden bar, inching its way towards her. “It’s just,” she said, biting her lip, “if she really is the daughter of Min–Athena, then…”

Nico dragged a stool so he could sit next to her, bumping their shoulders together. Luke, taller than all of them, stood behind her, the three of them leaning in close to listen.

“There’s this story I heard from a friend once, about Minerva.” she mumbled. “When the Romans conquered Athens, they stole something from the city. Something that belonged to her. Supposedly, that’s why Athena and Minerva are so different, personality-wise.”

Percy nodded, following along. Mostly. The different aspects thing still hurt his head sometimes. Hazel and Nico had tried to explain it to them numerous times, but Percy just couldn’t seem to get it. “What was stolen?”

“No one knows,” she said. The knife started making circles on the bar. “Minerva’s descendents have been looking for it ever since. But no one’s ever found it.” She glanced at her brother. “Remember what Ella said?”

“Ella?” Luke asked.

“Tyson’s girlfriend–the harpy.” Nico twirled his skull ring around his finger. “She memorized the Sibylline Oracles. Whenever she’s stressed, she likes to spout random lines of prophecy, and the last time we saw her, she told us one. She said, ‘Wisdom’s daughter walks alone.’”

Percy stared. “Wisdom’s daughter walks alone?”

“Yeah.” Nico shivered. “I don’t know what it means.”

“I do. Luke, your mom, when we introduced her to Annabeth–”

Luke gaped. “My mom? That was, what, two years ago? How–”

“You know she has the power of prophecy,” Percy said. “And she gave one to Annabeth that day.” His mind raced, bits and pieces slotting together like a puzzle he just figured out he was doing. “Luke, do you still have that disk we found?”

He frowned in confusion. “Yeah?”

“Do you have it on you?”

“No, it’s back in my…” he trailed off, his hand automatically going to his pocket. Luke was as shocked as anyone when he pulled it out.

“I thought you left it in your safe,” Hazel said.

“I thought I did, too.”

Percy held out his hand, and thought of his latest adventure. The dice game, the cistern, the disk with the owl on it. The owl he knew from Annabeth's tattoo. “I don't know why I didn't see it before,” he said, taking the disk from his cousin, “but that's an owl. Athena's owl. It looks just like the drachma tattoo she has on her foot.” He thought about his own tattoos, blue lines forming the shape of waves and tridents. Thought about phykios, and codename Septentrion, and the million little hints in both directions.

“You think this belongs to Athena?”

“Yeah,” Percy said, “and she wanted us to find it. She wanted me to find it.” He couldn't help but smile, even if it wasn't really the time for laughing matters.

“Not sure what good that's going to do with you and the daughter of Minerva breaking up,” Hazel muttered, uncharacteristically harsh.

He didn’t know what would happen. But he knew what he wanted. And what the first step to getting it might look like. “Athena led me to the disk so I could give it to Annabeth. I owe her that much at least.”

“You think you owe Minerva?”

“No,” Percy shook his head, “Not Minerva. Not Athena, either. But I know I owe Annabeth.”

It was four years of lies, yes. But it was also four years of love.

If he could, he would give her the world. He wanted to give her his heart, red with his love, and he certainly wished he could give her the ring still burning a hole in his pocket.

But he could start with this: a message from her mother.

And what could be a greater peace offering, a better olive branch, than a son of Poseidon helping a daughter of Athena with her quest?

“Okay then,” Luke said. “Nico, get us a couple of piña coladas, and then we can get down to business.”

“At 8 AM?”

“Trust me,” he grinned, predatory, like he was about to hotwire a car, or sell a techbro a useless JPEG. Or steal some rich kid’s boat for his cousin so he could teach them a lesson. “We’re going to need them.”

#pjo #pjo fic #my fic #percabeth fic #percabeth #we're so back yall #part 16????? jfc this is long

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captainkirkk · 2 years ago

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✩ WEEKLY FIC ROUND-UP ✩

All the fics I’ve read and really enjoyed in the past week-ish. Reminder: This list features any and all ratings and themes. Please look at tags and warnings on ao3 before reading.

my dearly departed by redrobin1989

Kon heard the stories about how Tim had fallen apart after he died. He couldn’t imagine what Tim had gone through, what he’d been feeling. Even now, with the shoe now on the other foot, Conner doesn’t know how to cope. Especially when he needs to keep his boyfriend’s collapsing family together.

Exit Strategy by smilebackwards

Batman needs a Robin and Batman has a Robin. Tim is just extraneous now, vestigial. He’s a bandage over a healed wound. He doesn’t know what he’s hanging on to.

Or: Tim didn’t expect his exit strategy from the Batfamily to involve quite so much bonding time with Damian over Wayne Enterprises bureaucracy.

the capillaries in my eyes are bursting by Scarlet_Ribbons

Bruce grunts, standing up. “Jenkins said the same. What about what you weren’t told?”

And without dissembling, Jason says, “I think they fucked that kid up, B.”

[Jack and Janet die. As things get weirder and weirder, it feels like Tim might be at the center of the unfolding conspiracy.]

Stranger Things

and i know that you don’t, but if i ask you if you love me— by fakecharliebrown

Once, only a few weeks before his parents decide he’s too old to be tucked into bed at night, Steve grabs his mother by the wrist and asks, “Does Father love me?”

“Of course he does,” she says immediately, smoothing the blanket where it rests over his chest.

Steve blinks up at her. “Then how come he never says it?”

She purses her lips. “He shouldn’t have to, sweetheart. You should just know.”

(It isn’t until years down the line that Steve realizes she’d somehow turned that into being his fault.)

or; Steve Harrington through the years, on loving and being loved.

Percy Jackson

percy jackson and the scrutiny of his coworkers by pqrker

Jim turned back to the tank and looked at Marcie the seal, who was now staring at the spot his coworker had been standing just moments before with that same strange look of reverence in her eyes.

Percy Jackson truly was the oddest person Jim Elpool had ever worked with.

Or: 5 times percy's coworkers were confounded by his fish magic, plus 1 time they try to figure it out.

Star Wars

Bounty by smilebackwards

"You took a puck for Luke Skywalker?”

Din looks up at the tenseness in Cara’s voice.

“Yes?” The puck for Skywalker had been passed over by half a dozen hunters, surprising considering the price on his head, but Din had assumed that was because his last known location was Coruscant. The Core is a dangerous place to hunt bounties.

“If I didn’t consider you a friend,” Cara says, with a tone that sounds like she’s reconsidering it, “I’d shoot you where you stand for admitting that."

SVSSS

What Is Seen by CaveteDracones

....is not [always] the real truth.

Truth-compelling artifacts in the hands of an enemy to one side, SYSTEM-mandated silence on the other, and Shen Qingqiu caught between the two. Is it too late to go back to the Water Prison?

and judgment is just like a cup that we share by Kieron_ODuibhir

The blob finished rotating into place in a way that wasn’t quite compatible with geometry as Shen Qingqiu understood it, and cleared a throat it didn’t seem to have.

“Greetings,” it said, somehow clearly addressing him in particular more than the room as a whole despite its total lack of features other than blueness and translucency. “I’m here on behalf of the Hyper-Celestial Peace and Order Enforcement Bureau. Crime scene secure, proceeding to interviews. Beginning with Subject One: You are Shen Qingqiu, formerly Shen Yuan, also known as Peerless Cucumber?"

#happy monday everyone #i'm so exhausted i made this list with my eyes half closed #my posts #weekly fic round up #fic recs #svsss recs #sw recs #pjo recs #dc recs #stranger things recs

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shwarmii · 1 year ago

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You know the books and like Clarisse and I haven't read the books yet, so maybe you can explain something for me? They say the gods don't always claim their kids especially if they don't have 'glory' yet, and they say (and I see on tumblr) that Ares doesn't like his girls, and he's overly mean and almost abusive to Clarisse, but she's HIS.

Does it ever say when/why he claimed her? Was it a possession thing even though he doesn't at first like her or approve of her? Did she do something special and he went yup that's my kid I guess?

this ask is referencing this post

oooooh, okay, uh... important things to note: (1) i have chronic memory loss, (2) i havent read these books in years, so let's see how i do from what i remember lmao

regardless, thank you for asking me a question! very sweet that you thought id have the answer

the answer will be a bit of a spoiler in terms of world-building, so lemme just

⚠️ pjo world-building + mild plot spoilers below ⚠️

so, the last book in the first series ("Percy Jackson and the Olympians") reveals most of the unclaimed kids are actually the demigod children of minor gods

these minor gods were implied to have been fearful of what might happen to their kids if their kids were claimed. because then, their kid would need their own cabin, and a minor god getting a set-up right next to the big 12 could cause anyone in said big 12 to percieve that act as a slight, and might take out that fury on either the said minor god in question OR their newly claimed kid. not even Hestia had a cabin for her kids, and she used to be in the main 12 until she stepped down for Dionysus to be amongst the big 12 instead (when the minor gods are allowed cabins, she gets cabin 21). Percy Jackson is the one who makes the demand that every god claims their kid within a time-frame of arriving at Camp Halfblood, which then gives the minor gods a pass to claim their kid without being worried they or their child will be punished for doing so

Riordan makes this a very small reveal, considering how important it is. but Percy isn't friends with any unclaimed kids really, all the people Percy meets who are new to Camp get claimed within the book they are introduced in. so there's no one to really be our emotional throughline for that reveal, nobody for fans to theorize who such-and-such's godly parent might be. it takes up only a few paragraphs, unfortunately, not much; definitely not a full chapter. i dont remember if there were any stragglers from the big 12's kids who had been unclaimed up to that point? i dont think there were many, if any. it sets up and disillusions in one go that the whole "you get claimed if you are worthy" as having been an assumption the kids made to find "logic" (in a self-deprecation way, similar to how divorced kids or kids of a single parent may "logic" their parental situatuon as their own fault) to their unclaiming

however, the toxic notion of "achieve glory = godly parental attention" is still prevelant in the claimed kids too. it is why Clarisse targets Percy; he comes into camp having already fought a minotaur and won? him doing that sets off her insecurities about not being worthy and makes her jealous, which is why she goes after him so often before Percy's first quest. there's very few chances for kids at camp Halfblood to prove themselves, unless they leave; and they only can leave by either sneaking out (and dying, or at least risking death) or going on a quest (which also risks their deaths). so any chance to prove themselves for glory, in friendly or unfriendly ways, is highly covetted

i mention this because Clarisse HAS proven herself to her dad in some way. her electric spear is from Ares. now, because we dont get a lot of gossip about WHY Ares gave her a gift (esp since he isnt the gift-giving sort. he values violence/battle prowress, strategy, and victory (regardless of if that is an "honorable victory" or not)). she likely proved herself in an above-average way from her cabin-mates but not in a legendary way. if it had been legendary, we wouldve heard about how she got her spear when people were warning Percy about Clarisse. and we know Clarisse didn't earn her spear as a reward for a quest (or as "good luck" gift before a quest), because Clarisse's first quest comes in a later book. but yeah, makes it all the harsher in this world where it is so hard to get godly parental attention that Percy broke the one token of it that Clarisse had (and, no, Ares never replaced it. tho Clarisse does get a new spear called "Maimer"; but all the kids, including her cabin-mates, call it "Lamer" behind her back unfortunately), and Percy breaking her spear definitely adds to her hatred of him. so Clarisse HAS proven herself to her dad once. and it is unlikely that she did something so great that he claimed her and gave her a spear in one go. so the two (her being claimed and her getting the spear) are likely unrelated events

now, did she prove herself in order to get claimed? perhaps. the big 12 gods tend to claim their kids as a reward within their first year or less of being there (fucked up that Poseidon chose "good job humilating that Ares girl who misdirected her anger to be at you" for Percy's, but okay). it isnt until Percy Jackson wins the war that he demandingky bargins for all gods to claim their kids. but yeah, out of the big 12 (minus the Big Three, minus Artemis, and minus Hera = 7 gods), they all are decently prompt when it comes to their own kids. they are implied ot have been, at least. again, very few stragglers, if any, that were not the demigods of minor gods within the books

Dionysus especially was prompt (bc he is AT the camp). which, i know this is a tangent, but i gotta talk about Dionysus as a godly parent because the books barely do. but part of his punishment regarding being exiled to Camp Halfblood isnt just about his punishment being no throwing parties and no Olympus. his punishment is his own kids, and not in the way that initially sounds. Camp Halfblood kids dont live long. theyre considered lucky to make it to college-age, and absurdly lucky to get to their 30s. Percy himself never imagines himself getting older. this fucked up lifespan is resolved in many ways thanks to the "Heroes of Olympus" series. but, before then? Dionysus' exile is about being forced to be a present figure in his kids' life and watch them all die tragically young, being forced to help bury them. he's actually very traumatized from it all. he even begs Percy at one point to keep an eye out for any Dionysus kids during the war's final battle; and he even runs up to some of his kids who survived (i think? it was his twin girls?) and hugs them, crying. we dont get to know any of Dionysus' kids through virtue of none of them being friends of Percy, so we don't get to really know how Dionysus is like as a parent, especially as a godly one that is very present in his kids' lives. we get glimpses of him in the background, and for a guy who misdirects all his bitter anger about his exile onto the campers who are not his kid... he sounds lovely to his own kids? idk, thats at least from what i remember. shitty and bitter to other kids at camp, very loving in a quiet and traumatized way to his own. its not an excuse but it does make sense. (its also why he hates Percy; his presence means dangerous things will happen as long as he is alive, which therefore puts his own kids in danger. ...maybe thats why Percy isnt friends with any of Dionysus' kids, maybe he forbade them from getting close to Percy? idk)

but yeah, the big 12 are all p good about claiming their kids in the book, in retrospect once its revealed that the unclaimed children are largely the minor gods' kids. the timeline Percy forces them into does demand they somewhat untangle the "claimed as a reward" aspect too which is nice, they now just have to claim their kids p much as they are (unless their kid doesnt something great FAST), and not during a moment where it is good for the godly parent's image to be associated with this "moment of glory"

that being said, that doesn't mean Ares is a good dad in the books. the one moment we do see Ares and Clarisse together is in a later book, and she is uncomfortable in his presence and one time even flinches around him. i dont think Ares physically abuses his kids, mostly because i dont think he is present enough in any of his kids' lives to find a fucked up "reason" to hit them (i would not be surprised if the flinch and whatnot was from a sparring match gone too rough the last time they met tho). i think it is more so a flinch because Mrs. La Rue likely has gone after similar men to Ares, therefore making visual markers of Ares (eg. a leather jacket, motorcycle, etc) triggers to Clarisse's mind to be on guard as these other men have been unpredictable and/or abusive; and Ares hasnt been around Clarisse enough for her to trust him not to be the same nor does she trust him enough to be comfortable in general around him (as it's an Event when her dad shows up, not just some Tuesday). and that's in the books. thats not accounting for the tv show deciding "Clarisse will never be good enough to Ares because she is not one of his sons" (which i think makes sense in a representation point of view; but i also think it makes less sense sense about Ares specifically. because Athena is also a god of war, and theres even evidence that Aphrodite is/was a god of war when she was initially worshipped, so Ares is aware of women being equal and capable; Ares was also the patron of Sparta, which was the city-state with the most rights for women, one of which was that it was only one that allowed women to protect themselves against their husbands. and you could also argue, due to some of his actions in his legends, that Ares protected mistreated women. however, "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" states that Olympus' move to New York meant that the gods changed to better reflect their enviroment, and Ares is the most likely best-fit to represent the Western/American brand of toxic masculinity. so. his depiction in the books works well enough for a man still in an affair with Aphrodite who upholds glory in battle as the pinnacle of human greatness, and his built-up depiction in the show to be more abusive and sexist does and doesnt make sense. i care more about representation and a good story than i do have Ares be academically perfect to how we understand his lore to have made him out to be, personally). but yeah, in both versions, he's been set up as a shitty dad. he's inattentive and lacking self-awareness at best (and, again, is still actively having an on/off affair with Aphrodite, which no doubt complicates his kids' feelings for him the same way any irl dad cheating and/or paying more attention to his girlfriend than to his kids would) in the books. which does then feed into Clarisse's relationship with him. Ares, like many of the gods, sees their kids as extentions or representations of themselves. so its good when things are good and you make them proud, but then anything you do badly then "reflects badly on them too" which can be really damaging to a kid

the only gods we see as exempt from this mindset of extension/representation (other than obviously Hera and Artemis, as neither have any biological demigod children. Artemis does have her mistresses of the hunt tho) is arguably Dionysus as aforementioned, kind of Poseidon as he keeps trying to connect with Percy (also maybe Hades for the same? we don't see him a lot, so it is hard to tell), as well as Apollo kind of? Apollo had his initial personality kind of backtracked and retroactively better-dad-ified, as he got his own POV book series ("The Trials of Apollo"), which includes a very heartfelt scene for when he got reunited with his son, Will Solace. so the gods arent terrible parents with all the same ideaologies, but they are absent more than they are present (with the exception of Dionysus, whose punishment is to be present and get attached 💔 not an encouraging move, guys)

which brings up another important point: that we dont really get other points of view in the first series, Percy is all we get. and though Clarisse is his ally (i love that Riordan did not have her betray the camp for the war in the first series. she just doesnt fucking like Percy lol), she is his most argumentative ally. in order for the reader to know Clarisse's backstory and know if she had to earn her claiming or not (which again: i dont think she had to. she may have been manipulated to think she did tho via the whole "i will claim you as a reward/i will claim you when it makes me look good and i can have some of your spotlight" bit), as well as learn how she earned her electric spear from Ares that Percy broke, Clarisse or someone close to her would have to sit down and tell Percy about it. and Clarisse wouldnt do that because she is not close with Percy; and nobody close to Clarisse would do that because they know Clarisse would feel betrayed if they talked about her private stuff to anybody, Percy or otherwise. all we really know about Clarisse La Rue's backstory is she was born in Phoenix, Arizona; and the satyr who led her to Camp Halfblood was Gleeson Hedge. that's it.

and i have a lot of complaints about how Rick Riordan writes (mostly how he writes women and people of color, especially women of color. but other parts of his writing does suck too). and part of the novel aspects of the new show is it allows "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" have a new re-write with a team of writers (which does still include Riordan), so there are likely things that will be changing. hopefully, unclaimed children will have a spotlight (i would love to have a show-exclusive character be unclaimed, but thats unlikely to happen). again, i havent seen the show yet, but it is possible that they will not follow the books in the aforementioned claiming details and will instead go "no, all claimings happen in a moment of glory", rather than "it was going to happen if you were a kid of the main 12 regardless, and we are just waiting to do it when it most looks good for us to announce you are ours". maybe they will explain the circumstances around Clarisse's claiming and spear, i dunno. the first series of books are all written in First Person POV and limited to just Percy's, and the nature of television is to be more Third-Person Omniscient, so there is a good chance we will learn things outside of what Percy knows this time around

but yeah! that's the climate around claiming and parenthood at Camp Halfblood, which even impacts claimed kids post-claiming; and everything we know about Clarisse past and her relationship with Ares before Percy Jackson arrives (at least in the books, lol) if you read this far, i do apologize that this is very long and that i kind of meander into some tangents. i have a habit of overexplaining. however, i hope that makes sense!✌️

#never did i imagine id get asked a clarification question on pjo lmao #didnt mind it tho! thanks for the fun time ♡#clarisse la rue #percy jackson show #percy jackon and the olympians #ares pjo #pjo ares

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raisethestake · 2 years ago

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Hatred?

Sirius Black x reader (NSFW)

18+ only please

If you want a THIRST story, here you go.

From a few years back, but may as well put it into the world for anyone simping for Sirius as hard as I do.

Warnings: dominance, light BDSM, full on sex, suggestions of abuse.

Character backstory here (not relevant to enjoy this story, but might provide more insight):

Hatred?

She heard footsteps, and instantly prepared herself for the worst.

A few moments later, Sirius appeared at the dining room door, where she was cleaning the stove. Her hair was tied back messily and her hands were covered in black muck. She returned her attention to scrubbing after brief acknowledgement of his presence, seemingly unwilling to begin a conversation, so Sirius took this liberty.

Bad idea.

"You realize the dirt has been made by magical creatures? You can't remove it permanently." Sirius was right. For the past few days, she had been so tense that any words exchanged between them had led to an argument. She seemed to have taken to rising and going to bed later and later just to avoid his presence, and frankly he'd had enough.

"Do you realize there's also a hell of a lot of plain dirt from the fact that since living here you've not even lifted a finger?" She didn't even have to look up to deliver such a retort, and its infuriated Sirius all the more.

He scaled the side of the long room, down to where she was, picked up her bucket of water and began to make his way to the back door, when he felt a burning sensation. She had her hand wrapped around his wrist, exuding so much energy it was scorching his skin. He tried to snatch his hand away but she held firm, her eyes finally meeting his. He'd got her attention.

"Give it back. I'm busy." Her voice seemed to come out as a menacing growl. Sirius fought back a strong urge to give her back the bucket. If he hasn't had so many years practice with Remus' wolf speech, he would've given in. Instead, he managed to use his free arm to open the closest window and toss the bucket out.

He expected her to attack him, but she simply let go of him and attempted to make her way to the kitchen to get another. He discreetly pointed his wand and whispered a barrier spell, smirking a little when she was unable to walk down the stairs. She stood on the first step and every inch of his skin burned as she looked at him with shining golden eyes.

"Why are you trying to stop me from being useful?"

"Because you’re only doing it to avoid me." Sirius stated confidently. He refused to let her get her way this time.

"So, I'm useless."

"I didn't say that. I said cleaning is useless"

"Why are you trying to control what I'm doing? I'm my own person not a fucking servant"

"A fucking servant would do a better job"

At this, she snapped. She took a step back from the stairs and advanced on him. "How am I supposed to do a better fucking job if you won't let me?!"

"You-"

"You offered me this house as my home! And you do nothing but act like a self-righteous brat who fucking owns the place!"

"I do own the-"

"Then treat the people in your home with some fucking respect!"

Sirius hated when she interrupted him. She seemed to be the only person who had the nerve to, which just fuelled his anger. "Look at you talking! If this is your home too, why don't you treat me with some fucking respect?"

"You don't deserve it!"

"Right, okay. I don't deserve respect but don't think you have a permanent place here.” Sirius instantly regretted his words as she finally broke her gaze away from his, a trace of hurt in her eyes.

"Yeah, sure. You can guarantee I'll be gone by the morning." She began to walk out of the room. He'd fucked it. He didn't mean that last comment. If she was to leave, things would go back to the way they were. Drawling days and lonely nights, just him and Kreacher. The rooms would no longer fill with music and geranium oils, but the same old dust mites and musty stench; his voice would crack when greeting someone after days on end of silence.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't go back to normal. The thought alone filled him with an aggression he couldn’t contain.

What he did next even surprised him. He moved before he had the chance to think, grabbed the back of her neck, and pulled her into a violent kiss. A few moments passed, and he could have sworn she started to kiss him back, when yet another sharp pain shot through his body. She had bitten his lip. Her neck still in his grasp, she pulled away by lowering her head onto his chest - the only way to separate their lips.

"Sirius, you can't do that." She said in a low, quiet voice.

"I can and I know you won't stop me." He felt like he had no control over his own body as he watched himself swallow down the taste of blood and pull her mouth back onto his. They continued to kiss - he was right. She was kissing him back. He dared to loosen his hold on her neck, and she didn't pull away. In fact, he wasn't sure she'd even noticed he'd practically let go. He used both of his now free hands to rub down the back of her thighs, pick her up and set her on the table with her legs spread.

"I could kill you right now." He heard her growl as he grabbed her hips and pulled her pelvis in to meet his.

He leaned over her, pushing her back, one hand keeping a firm hold on her backside, and said with a smirk "You definitely could but you don't want to."

"Oh, believe me, I want to."

As he pulled her in for another rough kiss, he ran his hand down her torso, down her pelvis and slid his fingers over her dripping pussy. "Oh, I can tell you want to." He said with a sly grin.

"I have a boyfriend, Sirius!"

Sirius grasped her jaw and pulled her gaze up to meet his. "Then tell me, right now, to stop."

Her eyes seemed to glaze over slightly, but she held his gaze firmly. "...I have a boyfriend, Sirius."

He held her gaze as he proceeded to slide his fingers inside her. He heard the smallest intake of breath as her whole body tensed. "Tell me you want me to stop."

She seemed to stare into his soul for a moment - her eyes filled with hatred. Sirius took the silence as a cue to kiss her again. He noticed her writhing unwillingly under his touch as his fingers moved inside her.

A few minutes passed, leaving them both panting and barely able to contain themselves - thirsty for more. His brutal side long having taken over, he pushed her further onto the table and climbed on top of her - using one hand to pin her wrists above her head, and pressed his hard cock into her body - letting out a low groan as he did so.

He kissed her again as he grinded against her. Their muscles seem to work in harmony. Her abs contracted with arousal and he noticed she had closed her eyes, seemingly in the moment. Overcome with greed, he released his grip on her to take off his shirt. She tried to bring her legs together to slide off the bench, but Sirius had his legs strategically placed so she was completely immobile from the waist down. He unzipped his pants and released his hard cock from his boxers. He leaned over her, breathing heavily into her neck as he pushed himself inside her. Hearing her sharp intake of breath, and he just made out the words "You fucking vile bastard" through a sigh of pleasure, causing him to scowl.

"Useless whore." Grunting in pain from a sharp nip on his neck, he grabbed her hair and fucked her as hard as he desired.

• • •

She had not expected this.

Since a few weeks back, when Sirius had offered her a home, he had had a few fits of anger. Mainly from people shutting down his ideas or playing it safe in meetings. She had been told to always keep her distance when this happened. Other people turned their backs, ignored him or became extremely interested in the closest book. They seemed convinced this was the best way to calm him down, and she had followed this tactic with the determination of becoming a good housemate. They were, of course, right, but she'd had enough of treating him like a child. Over the past few days, she'd begun to put him in his place, and he did not like it.

Whenever he made a snide comment, she pulled him up on it instead of letting it slide. She forced him to eat proper sized meals instead of picking at a block of cheese from the fridge, and made him carry a fully charged phone whenever he left the house without an explanation. It was probably the hardest challenge she has ever taken on, and she had been dragged into the underworld to make Hades his very own pet sun. All the same, she found herself compelled to see it through.

But this? I mean, a few minutes ago she had been cleaning as she did almost on the daily. Now she was lying under Sirius Black on the kitchen table getting fucked to oblivion. However, it's not as though she was complaining.

Wait. No. Of course she was complaining! Charlie was the most perfect boy you'd ever meet. He was outdoorsy, had the most charming grin and never failed to crack her up with his humour. She loved Charlie. She had always been certain. She loved his family, they worked well together and never really fought. It was perfect. So why was she suddenly questioning that whole relationship? The feeling right now was brand new. Something strange in her body. She was almost certain it was just plain old hate, but there was something different - she couldn't put her finger on what.

He had the strength of a berserker. He was able to hold her down even with one hand, his heavy hands grasping firmly. They owned her body so confidently she almost begged for more before stopping herself. She told herself she wouldn't let him get any satisfaction from this, but the more she resisted, the harder he seemed to get.

At one point she thought he'd had enough. He pushed himself off her and left her wrists go. Feeling a little let down at this early finish, she almost forgot to take this opportunity to get away. She tried to slide off the table, but Sirius had pushed his legs out into a certain position which meant she literally couldn't move at all. It was when she felt his cock enter her that she completely gave in.

"You fucking vile bastard." She heard herself say, and heard the response "Shut up you ugly, useless whore." She pushed her pelvis up, hoping she hit his balls for this comment. Sure enough, he let out a groan in pain, and pushed his cock in even deeper.

Thoughts were forgotten and instinct took over. It was only afterwards that she was able to process what happened.

She should have felt guilty. She was very much cheating on her boyfriend. But in that moment, all she could feel was bliss. She opened her eyes for a second and saw Sirius looked the exact same way. She didn't understand how she felt so good. There was nothing but tension and hatred between herself and Sirius. They could barely be in the same room most of the time. How had she ended up in this situation, and why did she like it?

Besides, Sirius was almost twice her age. Trivial things like age had never mattered in the demigod world, but she was in the wizarding world now. She had to get accustomed to the things that were different, and she was sure this would be looked down upon should anyone find out.

When Sirius started to slow a little, probably nearing climax, she pushed him off. He allowed her to sit all the way up, and, standing again, she pushed him over to the kitchen counter. She used one hand to cup his jaw, the other to caress his cock. Looking powerfully into his eyes, he got the message and started to sink to the floor. She straddled his lap and sat on him, letting him sink inside her again. She rode him deep ad she stripped off her cami and let him kiss between her tits.

When Sirius was too desperate to wait, he grabbed her waist, held her close to him and maneuvered them so he was on top of her, lying on the floor. Both were nearing climax and fucked until creamy white fluid dripped out of her vagina onto the cold slate floor. Sirius collapsed on top of her, panting into her neck for a few moments, before kissing all the way down her torso and finishing with a single lick of her vulva.

He knelt up and they stared at each other in silence, both still panting. Still lying on the floor, she crossed her legs defiantly, as if to say 'No more.' As Sirius set his back against the counter, She knelt up and began to get dressed. Wiping Sirius’ blood from her mouth, she picked up the blackened cloth that had been forgotten, wiped the fluid off the floor, and made her way down to the kitchen to wash. Sirius, aware that he was now covered in black dirt from her hands, grabbed his clothes and head up the stairs to shower.

#harry potter headcanon #harry potter fic #harry potter #harry potter smut #sirius black fanfiction #sirius black headcanon #sirius black smut #sirius black x reader #sirius black #sirius x reader #sirius black x you #sirius x you

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frogofalltime · 1 year ago

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06.02.2024

as i am no longer taking adhd meds this is not a medication diary anymore but it has been helpful for my mental health to write about my day like this so i will continue it with a new tag :)

i slept very badly; i didn't fall asleep until very late and i kept waking up in the night having weird dreams.

i had to get up at 7:30 which was really hard but i did it. i ate breakfast and got ready and i was two minutes late for my 9am class but it's okay, the most important thing is that i went. i only wrote two lines of notes on the lecture though.

then immediately after that lecture i had a 3-hour long lab class. i did Not have a good time: i was so tired and the lab is so overstimulating even in the best of times, so i was really struggling. i also was very hungry, i think my body is catching up on the food it missed out on last week, so i went out of the lab for a few minutes to eat a snack and tried to mentally recover before i went back to continue working.

as soon as lab was over i had yet another lecture. thankfully this is the class that i have with @etherealspacejelly (seeing robin always cheers me up even if it's the worst day ever). it was just revision of some stuff we learned last year so it wasn't too hard but i was so tired that i just couldn't wait to get out of that room.

finally after 5 hours of back to back classes i finally could take a break. i went to the house where all my friends live to eat my lunch which i had left in the fridge there yesterday, and then i accidentally fell asleep on the sofa for an hour.

when i woke up we had to go to another class and by now i was Not feeling well at all. i had a headache, i was hungry again, i felt overwhelmed, and i just wanted to sleep. i spent most of the class with my head on the desk trying not to have a meltdown.

when that was finally over my friend tried to talk to me but i was unable to speak. i've struggled with this my whole life because i am autistic and i have situational mutism (?) but recently this has been happening every day. i left without saying goodbye and went home and stared at the wall for an hour because i felt like i was going to have a meltdown or cry or throw things around while screaming.

eventually i forced myself to get up and make myself some food and that helped a lot. i ate while reading percy jackson. by the time i had finished eating, i felt much better, though i still couldn't speak to my flatmate when she came in to the kitchen.

i washed my dishes and took a shower (which was very overstimulating, idk why showering has become even harder for me recently, and it was already difficult enough). i considered going to bed but it was only 8pm and i didn't want to wake up in the middle of the night so i decided to do some art instead.

drawing and creative things always improve my mood, but i often don't have the energy to do it, so i'm glad i was able to do that tonight. after that i was feeling hungry again. i was unwilling to eat Again because i already had eaten 3 meals and one snack and eating more than one "treat" food per day is against the Rules. but i know my body wouldn't ask for food if it didn't need it so i made myself some toast with nutella and seeds and i also had some grapes. it was very nice, my favourite kind of food, and i am proud of myself for letting myself eat it.

then i washed my plate and realised i had forgotten to take my antidepressant meds this evening, so i took them when i went to the bathroom to brush my teeth.

now i am in bed and i feel a lot better than i did all day. sometimes i guess i need some rest, a lot of food, a creative outlet, and some Autism Time, otherwise i turn into an insane little creeture.

goodnight everyone, i hope tomorrow is better <3

#binya of the day #< that's my new tag for these :)#because medicated binya doesn't make any sense anymore

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steelycunt · 2 years ago

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ten books 2 know me!

thank for you the tag @pancakehouse @fruity-individual @serethereal @rollercoasterwords !

-> skulduggery pleasant, derek landy.

starting with this one because this WAS my childhood i was. i never read percy jackson never read twilight read [redacted] and it wasnt even good but my dad thought id like these so he bought me the first skulduggery pleasant one day...oh man oh boy...these were. i was eight queuing up outside a whsmith with a schoolbag full of books for the author's booksigning...also he was so nice ta derek x

-> giovanni's room, james baldwin.

cannot get into this too much before i start wailing and biting and stuff but well. giovanni's room is my favourite book of all time i read most of it. last year in june laying on brighton beach while the sun was going down and i have never recovered from and will you bring me home again / yes. i'll bring you home again since and fear i never will. also! first james baldwin book i read who has come to be an author whose writing style i adore and carry in my mind whenever i try to write something myself.

-> young mungo, douglas stuart.

not the first book i ever cried at but. first book i ever experienced disgusting full body sobs while reading and fierce competitor also for. my favourite book. had to reread so much of those final pages because i couldnt concentrate with all the crying and after that i am so excited to never have to experience the physical chest-aching worry that i did for the duration of reading this. also i think the very quiet way love is written here through. very trivial small things is something i loved very much and that has stayed with me!

-> wuthering heights, emily bronte.

read this when i was about eleven, and then again a few weeks ago with my mum (whose favourite book it is) and it was still so. absolutely sickening i just think its excellent xx and without it we wouldn't have kate bush's 1978 single wuthering heights so xx think on that xx

-> the autobiography of malcom x, alex haley.

when i was a child my younger sister joined a sunday league football team and my dad used to give her a tenner every time she scored a goal. to even things out since i refused to get up at the arsecrack of dawn to contract hypothermia on a frozen football pitch, he started giving me books exclusively on malcolm x to read and would give me a tenner every time i finished one. this one was the first i read and was indeed the first book that ever made me cry at the end xx

-> my brilliant friend, elena ferrante.

so many of these are recent reads because it was only jan 2022 that i made a genuine effort to get back into reading for leisure and mbf is no different but well. the way friendship is written here is just unhinged and incredible and the series in general so far has been. there is nothing like it i fear

-> the raven boys, maggie steifvater.

gansey unfortunately.

-> macbeth, william shakespeare.

okay i know i know but. when you are studying it in englit class for your gcse it might as well be a book innit. anyway of all the texts i did for english both at gcse + a level macbeth is still my favourite and probably the most effort i ever put into an english essay. special shoutout to frankenstein which i can enjoy in hindsight but unfortunately it fucked me on the exam so out of bitterness it doesnt get a place here x

-> the secret history, donna tartt.

i did inhale this book but also it gets a place purely for being my first exposure to donna tartt's writing and style in general which is so very distinctive and has. undoubtedly had an effect on me for better or for worse we shall one day see but for now. who can say!

-> foster, claire keegan.

it is a little pamphlet of a book at eighty six pages but. i read it just over a month ago and havent properly stopped thinking about it since it was just everything quiet + mundane + understated that makes my brain start sparking and whirring and. im bringing it on holiday in the summer so i can read it again in the appropriate season xx

tagging. but no pressure. @gaewaren @dykefever @emerqldv @fastasyoucan1999 @forlorngarden @writteninverses @boyjoan !!

#also it doesnt quite earn a place but the enemy series by charlie higson? no one ever seemed to read those but that was my fucking last of #us. that was my mazerunner. that was my dystopian YA (bar the hunger games okay yeah i was a hunger games girl wasnt everyone)#considered putting the beatles in their generation on here but managed to avoid it thank god. also no future by matthew worley #which was a dense slog into british punk as a politics and youth subculture but also well i learned a lot about my favourite topic #tag game #reading tag #will b fun to see how i would do this a little while on from now. like what maintains its spot + what gets bumped n stuff

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bonesandthebees · 1 year ago

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Finally free from exams! My last one was English, so it wasn’t too bad (can’t say the same for the other poor people in my class who were actually crying, but I mean they’ve been cheating off me all semester so what do you expect)

But anyways I got to go home and watch the new Percy Jackson show!! I briefly remember reading it as a kid, but I read so much back then I hardly remember it 😅

Have you seen it? Any thoughts?

-🌻

ngl sunflower that made me laugh while I have no moral qualms with cheating it's only if you do it in a way where you're not stealing someone else's work without their consent. if they were cheating off you all semester and now they've failed... ruh roh

I also barely remember reading the books as a kid. I read them when I was... 11? 12? something like that so that was over ten years ago for me. I haven't read them since so I barely remember them. but yes I have seen the show!! I watched the first two episodes tonight and I LOVED them so much

I'll put my thoughts under the cut for spoilers

I LOVE THE KIDS SO MUCH AAAAA I especially love how much focus is given to Percy and Sally's relationship. She's such a great mom and Percy loves her so so much. He's Sally Jackson's son!! I just really loved how much effort they put into showing just how close the two of them are and how Percy doesn't give a shit about his 'real dad' he just cares about his mom and making sure she's okay. This boy is already going "fuck the gods" like they nailed his character so well from what I remember

speaking of characters, Annabeth my GIRL. Although we've only seen a bit of Annabeth in ep 2, I adore how Leah is playing her. I've seen posts saying she really feels like a centuries old soul inside a 12 year old girls body and that's exactly the vibe. You can tell she's constantly weighing the pros and cons of what to say and why, and with every look you can tell she's calculating something. But she's also so fucking weird at the same time and I adore her for it. Girl literally just stalked Percy and straight up admitted to it, and then she used him as bait for capture the flag before pushing him into the water with zero explanation. Percy has had, like, 3 conversations with her so far. I love it.

I also really loved the humor. the one-liners were great but not excessive. the show hit a really nice balance of being funny, but not trying to get a laugh out of you every few minutes.

other things I love: Grover, he's doing great and also shouting "I'm 24!" in the car when they're being chased by the literal minotaur just about killed me. Similar to Annabeth, you can tell he's got a lot more wisdom and years in him than what you would think just by looking at him. Percy, meanwhile, has no wisdom and I also adore him for it.

I'm really enjoying it so far overall and I'm super excited to see the next episodes when they get released

#ask #sunflower anon #pjo #pjotv

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urlocalnonbinarybastardwrites · 6 months ago

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hiii so i put in a request for the matching thing but you didn’t respond to it so im guessing i didn’t put enough info which i completey understand!!! very sorry about that, i hope ur still doing these requests if not i deeply apologize. anyway pls take ur time so so sorry!!

i’d also like to be matched with someone in pjo pls!

personal info ? 15 yrs old, i’m a girl, she/her(truly idc), bisexual, half mexican (white dad…)

physical: i have medium length wavy brown hair with grown out bangs, im 5’4 average weight, pretty tan, brown eyes, silver circle glasses, i wear smudgy eyeliner w/mascara, i either wear tank tops with big pants or big t shirt with shorts

personality: i’m honestly very weird with the people im close with, like very. i have brainrot humor so im always saying weird ass shit acting like it’s normal. i’m also very sarcastic and if im not very close with someone i give them like 0 reaction i guess? idk ppl tell me im nonchalant but that sounds rlly corny 😬 anyway im very embarrassing in public when im with my friends and they hate it but i think its funny idc!! im also pretty moody but im just a teenage girl!!!!!!! i dont get mad that easily tho like i can take a joke i just get ANNOYED easily but then ill be fine in a few minutes. also ppl tell me im very funny so 😇 meat riding myself YES IM A NO SABO KID I AM TRYING TO LEARN SOANISH.

hobbies/intrests: love love love listening to music, love tv girl, tyler, mitski, arctic monkeys, the smiths, depeche mode, the cure, lana, tame impala, beabadoobee and so many other generes and artists but i only know like 2 songs 😬

i also had a severe fnaf phase, avatar the last airbender, spiderverse, saiki, and obvi percy jackson

currently OBSESSED with slushy noobz they are my whole personality they are how i act. along with avascreams on tiktok ive literally had 6 different ppl tell me “you know that one girl on tiktok?? you act just like her” IM TRILY NOT EVEN TRYING TO ACT LIKE HER I SWEAR. also love sam and colby i full heartedly believe in ghosts just watch ima become a ghost hunter 😊😊

as of right now my hobbies are playing stardew valley and never getting my homework done, i also love to draw but im not very good at it. i also love painting but i haven’t done it in a while bc of school :(( i take piano lessons as well but again, not very good even after 5 years. i rlly like reading too but again bc of school i haven’t read as much lately, love playing with my pets (dog and cat) they’re so cute i love animals so so much i want more but yknow im busy, ive also gotten into working out bc im tryna lose this face fat🫥

likes: love carnival rides!!!! they’re so fun i love the fair SO MUCH. beautiful atmosphere truly. the zipper is so fun don’t let anyone lie to you. nature, i love going on walks in the woods but i can’t bc i don’t live near any😔 food i love food, korean, mexican, american, japanese, i love it all. english class! teacher is so sweet i love her and its also easy and boring so

dislikes: six flags. i hate roller coasters. annoying ppl like bruh stfu up OH MY GOD. when my mom asks me about college, leave me alone pls!

okay i truly don’t know what else to put i hope this was enough 😓😓

-faith 👐

Hey Faith, I am so so sorry that this took incredibly long to complete. I’ve been insanely busy these few months and lots of personal stuff going on so I really hope that this does it justice! And also also don’t be sorry I’m really sorry that this took so long

Your PJO ship: Leo Valdez 🔥🔥🔥 (man I’m jealous)

Explanation: honestly the best way I can explain this is that you’re crazy totally matches his crazy. Your freak matches his freak. is somebody gonna match my freak? Yes, someone will match your freak and that person is Leo. Starting off with your physical appearance, I think that he would be very attracted to you and I think you give a vague match of his mom like I feel like you look like his mom a little little bit, which is what kind of drew him to you in the first place I feel like he probably saw you in a crowd and his jaw dropped. He just thought that you were your clothing style. He also liked your eyeliner which he had you do on him whenever you guys got comfortable enough in the relationship he was like hey can I please have your make up routine done on me? He looked rlly hot but anyway- you guys are just so chaotic together with your personality like you match him so well I feel like Leo in order to make a relationship work with him. He needs to have someone that’s either vastly different than him or the same because I mean, I just see you guys as Deadpool and Vanessa, you guys so chaotic in public you guys would do so much embarrassing shit together and social anxiety would be afraid of both of you combined, a deadly duo. Whenever you were first getting to know each other, and you were more relaxed and chill around him less if you’re crazy with showing, that’s what kind of Drew him like he thought that your dynamic could be that you would kind of be more opposites, but then he slowly realize that you were just as fucking goofy and silly as him, and he would have a blast with you as you guys got further on into your even like just friendship that eventually turn into romance. You guys always have the funniest times together like I’m not joking. You guys would be the couple to go out with if you wanted a good time because you guys just yeah you’re chaotic and glorious and also really freaking funny and I mean yeah. (I would also like to let you know to do a deeper dive into your personality. I did research some of the people you mentioned that you were compared to and watched some of their videos and subjected myself to the painful amount of puns and batshit crazy, honestly I’m pretty impressed if people are comparing you) as for your hobbies, he would love playing Stardew Valley and I feel like he would romance. Sebastian don’t ask me why, but I just feel like he would. He would totally want Sebastian as I don’t know why OK I really don’t. I really don’t but anyway that’s just my personal theory. But he would love playing Stardew with you. He’s also a procrastinator when it comes to homework and work and taking things seriously in general so you guys would be quite the interesting duo and I feel like U2 would just end up making out during study date so if you want someone to study with? He’s probably not the best person. Also, I think that he would love your art and would be absolutely obsessed. If you ever did any artwork of him or just inspired by him like he would love that he would frame that shit he would brag to everyone about how good you are and same goes with piano he’s obsessed even if you think you weren’t very good after five years of playing he thinks you’re magnificent. It took everything in him to not compare you to Apollo because he knew that that would probably get you like blasted into the sky or something, but he just thinks anything that comes from you is good basically. That’s Leo Math.

You + Anything= Good.

He can never read very much because of his ADHD. I just feel like he would lose interest in books really easily unless they’re really exciting or exactly what he’s being into at this point, so I feel like he would get the being too busy to read. He also loves animals. He would absolutely snuggle all the pets in the world. I feel like he just loves animals. I feel like he especially loves dogs because they match his energy and he’s definitely like a golden retriever guy or maybe a Chihuahua guy one of them anyway dogs are very Leo core. Also, he thinks your chubby face is cute, and while he promotes working out for the healthiness of it, he thinks you have the wrong motivation if you want to get rid of that cute squeezable cheeks. (Multiple cheeks if ykwim) he also loves carnival rides and he’s a huge foodie so if you ever went out to him, you guys would end up eating more than your stomachs and belts can handle I mean yeah you guys would just be done if you ever went out to eat because he would order so much food and then I feel like because of his ADHD he’d be midway eating through another thing and then see other stand and be like babe. We gotta go there next. basically you guys would be extremely full. He also likes nature walks. I think that he kind of just likes the dirt of it because he’s definitely not afraid to get dirty and he loves just poking around nature I mean, I honestly that’s how I see him going on hikes like he’d pick up slugs, he do all kinds of like gross stuff. People normally wouldn’t do like I don’t know, letting a worm crawl on his arm or something. anyway you guys totally match each other crazy and match each other’s freak yes just like the song, and I really ship it 💕💓💗💞💗💞

#leo valdez x reader #Leo Valdez #leo valdez x you #hoo #hoo pjo toa #hoo Leo #Leo hoo

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slipping-through-my-fingertips · 1 year ago

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In My Head, I'm Yours

Chapter 6: Women's Hearts are Lethal Weapons

AO3

Goddamnit we look good together

Wasn’t that the truth? Tonight, Percy was wearing an orange camp shirt and black jeans. Maybe Annabeth would be able to restrain herself because these weren’t clinging too tightly to his thighs. But she could see the sweat on his brow.

Gods, Percy Jackson was going to kill her.

I’ll take what I can get from you

Annabeth ordered a drink. She found Thalia almost immediately but her best friend hadn’t spotted her yet. For just a moment, Annabeth wanted to watch Delphi alone.

Not seeing Percy for two weeks was supposed to make this easier. Sure, Annabeth had actually been busy with schoolwork but she could’ve made time to see him. She chose not to because frankly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be just friends with him.

Usually when she felt like this, she cut herself off from the guy instantly. But she kept coming back to Percy. Her brain couldn’t let him go, why?

Anytime she had wanted to go see Percy, she went and saw Hazel instead. The bookstore was quickly becoming her own version of therapy.

“People are gonna start talking, Beth,” Hazel had teased. “We can’t keep meeting in the stacks.”

In the last two weeks, Annabeth estimates she’s made six trips to Pages a Plenty. Two days ago, Hazel hadn’t been standing at the checkout counter so Annabeth wandered down the aisles. Annabeth had found Hazel restocking the romance book section and felt like the universe was laughing at her.

“Better they talk about us then me and Percy,” Annabeth had said.

“Okay, girl, we need to sort this out. I cannot have you showing up at my place of work to have the same conversation with me for the next four months or until you get your shit together and admit you like him.”

“Can I corner you at the Columbia library instead?” Annabeth asked, half jokingly.

Hazel rolled her eyes. “Out with it, Beth. What’s bothering you today about Mr. Jackson?”

“I miss him.”

Hazel paused her restocking. Annabeth wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“Annabeth.”

“It’s true, how can I miss some guy I slept with a few times this much?”

“Because he’s not just some guy,” Hazel replied, “and the sooner you admit that to yourself the sooner you can take this load off your shoulders.”

Annabeth knew she was right.

They restocked the shelves together in silence. Annabeth read the back of a couple books, looking at those happily ever afters. Guess none of those women felt like Annabeth did about graduating.

She wanted to be the best architect Columbia ever saw. She wanted to be at the top of her class. She wanted to be working at a top firm within a year of graduation.

But there’s one thing she had in common with all these women, she wanted Percy. Just like they all wanted their respective love interests.

Gods, why hadn’t she met him two years in the future? When she was already at a firm, established, and ready for a relationship?

“I’ll see you at seven?” Annabeth had asked.

“At the table in the left corner of the library by the windows,” Hazel confirmed.

They ended up working at the library until it closed at midnight. Annabeth had her noise canceling headphones, a pencil case filled with freshly sharpened pencils, and hours of work ahead of her. On the other side of the table, Hazel had her laptop and its charger.

“History majors have it easy, huh?”

“I’m sorry, do you want to write a 35-page thesis paper and an annotated bibliography on Terror Trophies of World War I in America?”

Annabeth smiled at Hazel’s frazzled expression. “I just meant, you don’t have to carry a bunch of supplies.”

“Oh, yeah that’s true. Most of my sources are online journal articles…”

Annabeth was really grateful for Hazel’s friendship but it did make her feel guilty for not telling Thalia. They rarely kept things like this from each other. Annabeth suspects the only reason Thalia hadn’t figured it out yet is because Annabeth had been avoiding discussing all things Percy since her best friend returned from California.

They still talked about Percy. In the abstract sense. About Delphi’s gigs, which Annabeth was now a regular attendee, about their new songs, about Percy’s weird thing with blue food, about Jason’s weird roommate.

But Annabeth didn’t tell Thalia about the afternoons she slept in Percy’s bedroom, the things they did to each other on his couch, in his kitchen, against his front door. She didn’t tell her how she dreamed about his eyes, his mouth, his body pressing down on hers, or the way he smiled up at her from between her thighs. She didn’t mention that last time she saw Percy, she went to his apartment expecting sex and instead they made cookies together and then just talked for a few hours. She didn’t ask Thalia if she thought that was odd.

Annabeth sipped her drink and looked up at Percy again. He hadn’t seen her, she was hiding at the far end of the bar, in the shadows.

Piper was singing now.

The men start wars yet Troy hates Helen Women’s hearts are lethal weapons Did you hold mine and feel threatened? Hear my lyrics, taste my venom You are still my great obsession

She really did have a magnificent voice. Annabeth grabbed her drink and stepped out of the shadows to begin walking over to the table Thalia was sitting at.

Maybe in the next six weeks leading up to graduation, she’d be able to put her feelings for Percy into words and if she was really lucky he’d wait for her.

Maybe if she had some more non-sex hangouts with Percy, her brain could make a decision she didn’t trust her heart with.

… Every Wednesday, they gathered in Piper and Jason’s apartment for movie night. Annabeth fit in seamlessly. This was only her second annual movie night.

She was squeezed on the sofa between Thalia and Percy, Grover had taken up residence in the reclining chair, and the love seat held their group’s only couple. Leo had a date and was sorely missing out because tonight they were introducing Annabeth, who hadn’t seen a lot of movies growing up, to the wonder that is Disney’s Hercules. Percy just knew she was going to pick it apart for inaccuracies but he also knew she was going to fall in love with this film just as everyone did, she’d let the inaccuracies go just as everyone else did.

“I still can’t believe we never showed this to you,” Thalia said, “all those Disney movie nights over the years and we missed this classic!”

“It’s really a tragedy,” Grover replied, “to wait this long to see Hercules.”

“So the rules are, take a drink every time Annabeth makes a noise of disbelief,” Jason said.

Everyone held up their drinks in agreement while Annabeth huffed. Clearly, not happy to be the butt of their jokes.

“Does that count?” Grover teased.

“Actually, I think I’ll just leave you all to it, I have some work to do…” Annabeth said, pretending to stand up.

Percy pushed her back down. “Oh c'mon, live a little. Piper press play!”

As they sing along to the opening song, Percy thinks back to last week. Seeing Annabeth with Thalia by the bar; he really hadn’t expected her to show up. Especially when she hadn’t replied to his invitation.

After their set, Annabeth had apologized for not answering him.

“Seriously, I opened it and went into class and totally forgot.”

“It’s fine.” Percy wished his voice hadn’t cracked when he said it.

She was a busy woman. Percy tried to be busy too because every moment he wasn’t, he was obsessing over Annabeth. Which meant, in between classes and homework, he spent a lot of his time writing songs.

“Has Percy told you the band name story?” Jason had asked, clapping Percy’s shoulder.

Annabeth shook her head and had given Percy a look of confusion. “Why haven’t I heard this?”

“So we’re sitting around in this one’s dorm room,” Jason began, pointing at Percy, “I’ve just joined the band at this point.”

“After 3 months of auditions!” Piper chimed in, “I knew he’d be a perfect fit the minute he walked into the room.”

Percy cut her off, “Actually Piper’s exact words were ‘he’s hot.’”

Piper had shrugged, “I wasn’t lying.”

Annabeth laughed.

“Anyway,” Jason said, “we’re sitting in the dorm room, brainstorming names. Percy goes ‘we should just combine our names.’”

“And I said, like what? Perjaser?” Piper said.

“That would’ve been a sick name for a band,” Thalia said.

“Not as good as Percy’s next suggestion,” Jason replied.

He shook Percy’s shoulder, “tell ‘em!”

Percy mumbled the name.

“Sorry, what,” Piper said, cupping a hand on her ear for emphasis, “couldn’t hear you.”

“PP&J.”

The whole group started to laugh, Percy was pretty sure Jason was tearing up. How many drinks had he had? Because that story was seriously unfunny.

“Oh no,” Annabeth said, putting a reassuring hand on Percy’s arm. “Please tell me you were drunk when you suggested that.”

“Stone cold sober,” Piper assured.

“That’s real bad, man,” Thalia said, still smiling.

Surprisingly it was Annabeth’s outburst that pulled Percy back to the present.

“Oh c’mon!! Hercules is ROMAN, why are we in Greece?”

Percy chuckled.

“Drink!” Jason announced and everyone took a sip.

He was really loving this group of friends.

“But he’s not a god! He’s a Demi-god!” Annabeth said, “Hera hates him for existing!”

“Drink!”

Too soon, the movie ended. Annabeth was sufficiently riled, which had been their plan. Everyone else was fairly buzzed. Since she had spent most of the movie critiquing it, Annabeth had not touched her drink.

“But it’s still a classic right?” Piper asked, “tell us you enjoyed it a little bit?” She held her index finger and thumb close together.

“Yeah Annabeth, it’s a great movie, you have to admit that,” Grover added.

“Plus Hercules and Meg are such an iconic couple,” Jason said.

“Sooo…” Percy said, “what did you think?”

Annabeth paused, considering, “it’s inaccurate for sure, completely and utterly wrong about…well everything. And yet, I still found it to be enjoyable.”

“Enjoyable?” Piper repeated, “I’ll take it.”

After Thalia and Annabeth left, Grover hung around for another hour or so before heading out too. Percy stayed and helped his bandmates clean up. He was washing dishes while Piper dried when the call came.

Jason answered it. “Hey, Mr. D, what’s up?”

Unusual for their manager to be calling. Most days it seemed like Mr. D only wanted to be their manager when it was convenient for him.

“Okay, let me put you on speaker.”

If asked, Percy would swear he blacked out during this call. It had nothing to do with the alcohol he drank tonight.

“Yeah, sounds great, thanks Mr. D,” Piper said. “We’ll be in touch.”

“You better be! This is big for me, I mean us, I mean you! Ugh, just make a quick decision.”

And he hung up.

“He’s right,” Jason said, “this is big.”

Piper nodded. They all just stood in the kitchen wondering what to make of it.

An actual tour. People wanted to hear their music outside of New York? Apparently Mr. D discovered Delphi’s music was popping up all over the West.

“We’re almost done with school,” Percy said, “it’d be a cool way to kick off our summer.”

“I’ve always sorta pictured us touring in California,” Jason said. Probably because he had family out that way.

“So we’re doing this?” Piper asked.

“All in favor?”

They all raised a hand.

Delphi was going on tour.

#percabeth #percabeth fanfiction #percabeth fanfic

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thoughtfulfoxllama · 1 year ago

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I've been soo much happier the past couple weeks, being able to laze around & read (even though I'm still sick)

It's been so long since I've been able to read, not for school, but for fun. Even before then, I didn't have the time to just sit & read, it was always just a few minutes on my Kindle on my Break at work, or an when my brothers asked me to read to them

I love reading. It's how I survived Elementary & Middle School, how I joined the Church, and relaxed in High School. Covid ruined it though, as it tends to do. When my Grandmother died, I was too depressed to read. And since she was no longer making payments on the Storage Unit, I lost almost all of my Books (I had my Scriptures, "Fire & Blood," the "Leven Thumps" series, and I had my collectors sets of "Lord of the Rings" & "Percy Jackson" broken up, only managing to keep "Fellowship" & "Last Olympian" respectively. This is in contrast to the 100s I've collected, through thrift stores, book fairs, and gifts for 17 years)

I got some more books when working at "Deseret Industries," but my mother has a weird rule. If you're leaving on your mission, everything has to fit in two crates. Needless to say, between grief & work, I didn't get to enjoy many of my books before I had to re-donate them. That's how I lost "Fire & Blood" (I still regret that. It was the last book my grandmother bought for me, and I thought having the pirated audiobook would be enough. But it's not)

But, since I've been home, things have changed. I not only have the desire, but the time to read. I have another reader to talk to as my wife. And I'm the happiest I've been in years

All this to say, I've finished "Assassin's Creed: Mirage," and I need suggestions for Historical Fiction books that take place in the Islamic Golden Age

#books & libraries #books #booklr #book lover #book life

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pjo-rewrite · 2 years ago

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The Lightning Thief

Chapter One

I ACCIDENTALLY VAPORIZE MY PRE-ALGEBRA TEACHER

If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.

Don't say I didn't warn you. My name is Percy Jackson.

I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy with my sister, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.

Are we a troubled kids? Yeah. You could say that.

I could start at any point in our short miserable lifes to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan- twenty-nine mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

I know it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.

But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once Atalanta or I wouldn't get in trouble. Boy, was I wrong.

See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind- the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.

This trip, I was determined to be good and keep Atalanta under check.

Atalanta Jackson, my younger sister, has horrible anger issues. Just look at her wrong, and she’ll punch you; straight up. She’s technically supposed to be in fifth grade but Yancy Academy had realised that she actually listens to me; Sometimes. Which was better than none I guess, so they put her in most of the same classes as me. She has dark brown hair that she normally had in two nicely plaited braids, murky green eyes— maybe teal-ish if you looked close enough. Anyways, I didn’t really want to be put in charge of her, which didn't help my mood.

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.

Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."

He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch. But it fell on my sister.

"That's it." Atalanta started to get up, but Grover pulled her back to her seat.

"You're both already on probation," he reminded us. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."

Looking back on it, I wish Atalanta had decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess we were about to get ourselves into.

***

Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.

He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone col-umn with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month. It was a good thing Atalanta couldn't take that class.

One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.

Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"

Atalanta nuged me. It had came out louder than I meant it to.

The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.

"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ..." "Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-" "God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

"Titan," Atalanta called out. "He didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So Kronos ate them. But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind us.

"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," Atalanta continued, "and the gods won."

Some snickers from the group. It would probably help you to know by now that Atalanta has a slight accent. French/New York combo accent to be more specific. So, I had to admit, she sounded funny when she talked.

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," Grover muttered.

"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.

I thought about his question, looked to Atalanta for help but she was just looking at Mr. Brunner with a glare. I gave up and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."

"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Jacksons. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doo-fuses.

Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."

I knew that was coming.

I told Grover and Atalanta to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"

Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go- intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.

"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me. "About the Titans?"

"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

"Oh."

"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.

I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life. No-he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.

This was probably why Atalanta didn't like him, it was bad enough that she only started to understand how to speak English, fully, three years ago, but reading it was a whole different thing.

I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.

He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.

***

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.

Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.

I saw Grover and Atalanta sitting on the edge of the fountain— away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school-the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere— having a heated conversation; they never seemed to get along, well Atalanta that is. Didn't know what her problem was. I went and sat on the edge of the fountain in between them and they stopped their bickering.

"Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean-I'm not a genius."

No one said anything for a while. Then, when I thought that Grover was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"

I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.

I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to take Atalanta, jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug us and be glad to see us, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send us right back to Yancy, remind me that we had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me. I had to be a good example for Atalanta.

Why be a good example for Atalanta? Two reasons:

1) Atalanta had stumbled into my mom's work and brought her home with her that night. Atalanta had been six, knew no English, and dirty. Really dirty. So my mom took her in after translating French to English about how she had ran away form "A bad place." And 2) I’m her older brother.

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.

I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends-I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists-and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray- painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.

I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!" "Severes you right!" Atalanta yelled back at her.

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-" "-the water-" "-like it grabbed her-"

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a tri-umphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey-"

"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks." That wasn't the right thing to say.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Atalanta and Grover yelled at the same time. "It was me. I pushed her." Atalanta finished.

I stared at her, stunned. I couldn't believe she was trying to cover for me. She almost never covered for me.

She glared at her so hard she trembled. "Fine, come along Jacksons." Ms. Dodds said.

"Wait-" Grover called out.

"It's okay, man," I told him.

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at us. "Now."

Nancy Bobofit smirked.

Atalanta gave Nancy her deluxe 'I'll-kill-you-later' stare. Then we turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.

How'd she get there so fast?

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things. Atalanta had it too; supposedly.

I wasn't so sure.

We went after Mrs. Dodds.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between us and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.

I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop. But apparently that wasn't the plan.

We followed her deeper into the museum. When we finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.

Except for us, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds, even if Atalanta was right next to me. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.

I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?" The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.

She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.

I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am." Thunder shook the building.

"We are not fools, Percy and Atalanta, Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."

I didn't know what she was talking about. I looked to Atalanta. Her eyes were blown wide and she looked frozen in fear, her hand over her charm on her necklace. She seemed to be mumbling something that I couldn't understand.

All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

"Well?" she demanded. "Ma'am, I don't..."

"Your time is up," she hissed.

Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.

Atalanta pulled on her necklace and then she had a sword?!

"Come on bird brain! He doesn't know about anything! Come at me!" Atalanta yelled at Ms. Dodds.

Then things got even stranger.

Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air. Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.

With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword-Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.

My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.

She snarled, "Die, honey!"

And she flew straight at me.

Absolute terror ran through my body and I heard a cry from where Atalanta was. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!

Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

I was alone.

Atalanta was no where to be seen. There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.

Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.

My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or some-thing.

Had I imagined the whole thing? I went back outside.

It had started to rain.

Grover and Atalanta were sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over their heads. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

I said, "Who?"

"Our teacher. Duh!"

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. She just rolled her eyes and turned away.

I asked Atalanta why she’d left, and when she’d said “What are you talking about?” I instead turned to asking them where Mrs. Dodds was.

They said, "Who?"

But they paused first, and neither of them would look at me, so I thought they were messing with me.

"Not funny, guys," I told them. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.

I went over to him.

He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."

I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it. "Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"

#percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #annabeth chase #grover underwood #Atalanta Jackson #pjo oc #pjo rewrite #sally jackson #Mr. D #chiron #chiron pjo #camp half blood

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egglantine23 · 2 years ago

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All right reading Percy Jackson now got through the first series now on to heroes of Olympus but I wanted to share a little bit of an idea that I thought would be cute so I know at the end of the series when Percy's all like pay your child support Poseidon does say that Percy is his only kid. However at a cute little OC idea. And it will keep this whole Poseidon thinks that Percy's is only kid. I have named her Molly she's a selkie from Ireland. Grandma is also a selfie and her Grandpa is a lighthouse keeper along with her mom. She lives with her grandma grandpa and Mom, the reason why Poseidon didn't bring her up is because at like 2 months old she technically dies and her grandma goes to the Irish sea god(can't spell his name don't want to look it up) and begs him to turn her into a selkie like her. He does and molly gets another chance at life. I kind of want the Celtic gods to be very different to the Norse and Greek gods and how we see them act especially since we know in Canon that a lot of the Celtic gods have faded. Sort of like they cling to each other quite a bit maybe they're a lot nicer to their children and actually raise them because they've lost a lot of people in their life that they thought would last forever. AKA family is very important. Maybe for one reason or another a Celtic god needs something done because they're super busy and helps the foreign demigods get to Camp Half-Blood safely in return along with some gold. But I would find funny is that maybe Percy Grover and annabeth wash up on the shores of Ireland right next to her family's lighthouse and Percy wakes up to this 10-year-old little girl with big black eyes and dark black hair wearing a white sealskin coat and bright yellow rain boots. And just freaking out when she smiles and he sees shark teeth. Now little Molly wouldn't get the same powers that her big brother has, she's a selkie and get some more minor version of a shapeshifting power like she's not good at it and really can only turn her teeth the shark teeth. She's kind of a quiet kid and she doesn't actually speak but she is also a seal so she's kind of like a little wild animal. Like when they brought her back to Camp Half-Blood one of the Hermes kids around her age decided to prank her and she played dead and it freaked them out. Her favorite food is eels for some reason and she doesn't like using silverware she'll use it but she prefers just to eat things with her mouth and hands. She's kind of a creepy child but after a while you just start to love her. She's a lot like deep sea creatures I have a feeling that Percy is more of the water itself and not be what actually is inside the ocean while she would be more like what's inside the ocean especially in the midnight zone. All right now I'm going to put it into a list of fun little head cannons about her.

So walk up to Percy at random occasions holding a muscle or a clam just eating it Percy does not know where she gets them

Percy doesn't know that she is a selkie or that she can turn into a seal for the first few months he knows her

She shows affection by biting people not too hard and never with the shark teeth just a little nibble

If she ever gets scared or back into a corner like when she first stopped her first monster she immediately goes to bite them with the shark teeth

She has tried on multiple occasions to eat Chiron

Because of this Dionysus finds her entertaining

She doesn't really make a lot of friends with the other half bloods at camp but those water ladies love her

She doesn't like capture the flag at all she finds it too loud too crazy and too scary she much prefer to sit on the sidelines and watch

To allow her to live on land and last more than a day she changes her coat into a necklace when she opens the little locket on the necklace it turns into the coat she can't speak if the coat is a necklace but even with her coat she doesn't talk much

She tends to daydream a lot so she ends up staring at a lot of people it's very creepy

One time she got Percy to give her a ride on his shoulders when they were going to dinner and she grabbed a bird out of the air

The first time she met her dad was when Percy brought her down to Poseidon's Castle or whatever to meet Tyson and there stepmom, she thought Triton was a eel and tried to eat him

Before Percy knew that she was a selkie he would visit the random seal that was sunbathing by the camp and just complain about things because the seal was a great listener and didn't speak for some reason

And she's a seal she's like a double goofball like going on her back getting random people to carry her not a lot of people know she can turn into a seal and she takes full advantage of that

#percy jackon and the olympians #child of poseidon #pjo #pjo oc #seal #and don't forget the Derpy seal smile #pjo au

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letannabethchasesayshit · 2 years ago

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Summary: Ripley Curbello's father always told her how she was born of the night sky. As it turns out, he was telling her the truth. She is the Daughter of Nyx, Greek Goddess of the Night. After Ripley's father is killed, she is sent on the run. She is all alone but not for long. She finds Annabeth Chase, Thalia Grace, and Luke Castellan. All four of them lost their families or were rejected. All four were alone, but they found love and family together. It was the four of them against the world and Ripley thought it always would be. Ripley must grapple with finding a family, losing them, and her fear of herself. All rational people are afraid of the dark, and Ripley is not different.

Fandom: Percy Jackson

Read on AO3 here

Part 2/14

Chapter Two: Boy, That Sure Was Weird

The running never seemed to stop. No sooner had I outran the cyclops than I heard the roars of something else. I ran straight out of the city, leaving nothing but a trail of tears behind me.

I thought in the woods around the city I would be safe, but it seemed like the monsters only got worse. The first creature I met in those woods would also be the last. It was something straight out of my nightmares, or straight out of the mythology books my Papa used to read. The lion head was the first to see me, roaring to get the attention of its goat half. As soon as they both spotted me, the scorpion tail shot out at me. I managed to dodge, screaming and struggling to run away.

The creature did not hesitate in chasing me. I screamed louder, dodging branches and rocks alike in my effort to get away from it. The creature only continued to advance.

I was right on the outskirts of the city where an old elementary school resided. It had long since been condemned due to asbestos in the walls, but the thing was still standing. I saw the shattered windows and dark halls and I swore it was calling out to me. Something about that building was beckoning to me, promising me safety and hope all wrapped into one package. I don’t know what it was, but I listened, changing my trajectory to sprint straight to the abandoned school.

I swan dived through one of the shattered windows. The broken glass tore at my clothes and skin but my adrenaline was much too high to recognize it. I landed on my hands and knees as the creature roared. It was much too large to fit through the windows and began to run around the school looking for another way in. That gave me enough time to hide.

I ran into the hallways and began to hunt for somewhere to hide. I ran around a corner and nearly fell over the abandoned janitor cart. In it was a broken broom, only the hilt was remaining. A few jagged pieces stuck out of the end. Without thinking, I grabbed it, fully intent on stabbing the creature in the eye before it could get to me.

A roar shook the whole building. Just in that sound alone, I knew it had found its way in. I began to cry harder as I ran around another corner. At that very same moment, another girl ran around the corner directly across the hall.

The two of us froze with several yards still between us. It was not difficult to see her despite how dark it was in that school. It was the dead of night and the city had long since shut off any electricity to the school, but I saw the girl just as well as I would in the middle of the afternoon.

I saw her squint as she tried to make me out. She had to be about my age, maybe a year or two older. She was covered in just as many scrapes, bruises, and gashes as I was and her eyes were just as wide and full of fear as mine. Her jean jacket only had one sleeve left and her knee was bleeding pretty badly. She held a hammer in front of her, a much better weapon than my broken broomstick. Her stormy gray eyes did their best to see anything in the darkness without much luck. She pushed back her dark hair, some of which had fallen out of their braids, whimpering a bit as she did.

“Stay back!” she swung her hammer into the darkness, “I mean it!”

Another roar shook the building, this one sounding much closer. I covered my ears with my hands and let out a shriek. The girl blinked rapidly as I ran up to her, “It’s getting closer!”

“Get away!” she jumped away and flung her hammer around, making me duck, “Get away, monster!”

Another roar made me cry even harder, “I’m not a monster! I’m a girl!”

“What’s a girl doing here?”

“Running away!”

Another roar made both of us start to cry harder. The girl dropped her hammer to her side and reached out to grab my hand, “We’ve got to get out of here, it can smell us!”

“How? It’s too fast!” I shouted as she began to drag me behind her, “We can’t be faster!”

“I don’t know, but we have to try!”

We began to sprint as fast as our short legs would carry us. The girl struggled in the dark for a moment, she seemed to run into more walls than she passed. Eventually, I took the front and began to guide her around all the walls. Neither of us stopped to ask why I could see in the dark but she couldn’t. We were much too hopped up on adrenaline to find anything bizarre about it.

We finally made it to the gymnasium where a wall had crumbled. That was our ticket out, if we could make it through there we could lose the creature in the forest. The two of us kicked through the doors only to come face to face with exactly what we were running from.

The creature stood between us and freedom, illuminated by the full moon. It was pacing up and down the wall, snarling to itself until it saw us. The second its eyes fell on us it roared, stretching out its tail and letting poison drip from the tip.

“A chimera,” the girl breathed.

I held tightly to her hand, “What?!”

The beast roared again and began to charge. Both of us screamed, running back to the doors but finding them stuck from the otherside. The chimera had us cornered.

The girl held up her hammer while I held up my stick. Both of us were sobbing. At that moment, all I wanted was my Papa to come and save me. Instead, the girl and I were left to press ourselves up against the locked door.

The beast lunged and I screamed. Dark shadows surged out from behind us and attacked the chimera. It pinned the creature to the wall, blanketing it just as it did the cyclops. The girl watched the chimera fight against it as she mumbled, “How did you do that?”

“Come on!” I pulled her arm and tried to pull her away, “We gotta go!”

The girl blinked out of her trance and obliged. The two of us held each other's arms as we sprinted from the school.

It took most of the night to make sure we put as much distance between us and the chimera as we could. We only finally stopped running whenever the sun began to rise. With the first rays of morning, we found ourselves at a small creek where we finally took a break. I fell to sit on a rock, breathing heavily and clutching the broken broomstick to my chest. The girl sat next to me a little bit more hesitantly.

“How did you do that?” she asked.

I shrugged, “I dunno. I guess the darkness listens to me.”

“It can’t listen to you, it doesn’t have ears.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do,” she retorted, “Are you some sort of witch? With magic?”

I wrinkled my nose, “I’m not a witch!”

“Then, how did you do that?”

“I dunno. My Papa used to tell me my Mama was what made all those special things happen. He told me she would always protect me, maybe that was her.”

The girl stared at me for a few extra minutes. I swore she never blinked as she bore a hole right through my skull. I began to shift uncomfortably under her gaze but she still refused to break it.

“You’re like me, aren’t you?” she finally broke her silence, “Your mom’s a God just like mine is.”

I furrowed my brow, “Yeah, that’s what my Papa told me.”

“My Dad told me the same thing. Who’s your Mom?”

“Nyx, who’s yours?”

“Athena.”

“Who’s Athena?”

“Goddess of wisdom and battle strategies,” she responded with a grin.

I copied her smile, “Nyx is Goddess of the night.”

“What’s your name?”

“Ripley, what’s yours?”

“Annabeth,” she answered, “Did you run away too?”

I frowned and looked away, “My Papa and I were attacked by a monster. He-he told me to run.”

“Did your Papa die?”

“I think so.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Annabeth didn’t even hesitate, “The monsters- they can smell us.”

“We could take a bath.”

“Not that kind of smell,” Annabeth giggled, “It’s our blood, they can smell that we’re demigods. It’s impossible to hide, trust me, I’ve tried.”

I glanced up at her. A dark shadow came to rest across her face, making her usually bright gray eyes turn the same color as the sky before a storm. I tilted my head in order to look at her through her curtain of dark hair, “Is that why you’re running?”

“My Dad doesn’t love me anymore,” Annabeth responded, “He never wanted me in the first place.”

I glanced up at her, “Why not?”

Annabeth shrugged, “I dunno. I think the monsters scared him, and my stepmom and her two sons. He said they were my fault.”

“I don’t think they’re your fault,” I responded, “You said they could smell us, you can’t stop smelling.”

Annabeth giggled before frowning once again, “I wish my Dad thought the same. I ran away from him and my stepmom. I thought- I thought maybe I could find my Mom and I could make a new family. One that loved me.”

I listened to her intently. It never occurred to me to try and find my Mom. My entire face brightened as I bounced on the rock, “That’s a great idea! I wanna find my Mom too! Maybe we could find them together!”

“That sounds fun,” she cracked a smile, exposing her missing front tooth, “I don’t like being alone.”

“I don’t like being alone either. We could do it together! It’ll be just like we’re our family!”

When your life is so short, things feel much more intense than they truly are. Annabeth and I were kids, she was only seven while I was a year behind her. We didn’t have any concept of relationships nor the time they might need to develop. A kid will love someone with their whole heart from the moment they meet them.

Annabeth and I were both desperate. We were lonely and desperate for the family we lacked. That day, we created a bond that would play a significant role in both of our lives. Despite being just children, we built the one relationship that would never fade away, no matter what happened. Looking back, I’m grateful we made the choice that we did, even if it was made by two desperately lonely kids.

“We could be sisters!” I exclaimed.

Annabeth grinned, “I’ve always wanted a sister!”

“Me too!”

Both of us had the same thought at the same time, we rocketed forward and flung our arms around each other. After squeezing the life out of each other, we pulled apart and exchanged smiles.

“Together,” Annabeth muttered.

I grinned, “Together.”

#percy jackson and the olympians #pjo #hoo #rioardanverse #percy jackson #annabeth chase #thalia grace #luke castellan #oc

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