#let's face it percy would never give that up unless he's forced to

[pooks]

(Percy, Oliver, Penny and Marcus sneaking around at night in their fourth year) Percy: Alright, I go first. Oliver, you stay behind me. And stay tight. Marcus: ...Bow chicka bow wow. Oliver: Penny: Percy: Never mind. Marcus goes in front. Marcus: Eh, it was worth it.

[mrgladstonegander]

please tell me everything about dt47 (?) gladstone

dt47!gladstone is named Oliver Oca!

He grew up in Barnevelder Town (not equivalent to Duckburg) along with Frankie (and his siblings), Phoebe and Percy (Fethry, Della, Donald)

I do think his parents died and that he's taken in by Ludwig, but i haven't really thought about the logistics of it (and it's never gonna be plot relevant for what i have planned so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

He has similar experience to O Lucky Man and other comics like it where he feels lonely and that people just want him for his luck, and how his house is more of just a place to store the things he wins. HOWEVER, Oliver has issues with being passive and letting his luck handle things. If something seems to be going badly, it'll probably end up fine somehow, so while he'd rather avoid being in those sorts of situations, he wouldn't really do anything to get out of it. If people are using him for his luck, he just goes with it, because there's not really any harm in it, and things get good for him anyways*

(the exception to this is DT47's equivalent to Gal for Gladstone, where Umbra (Magica) tries to use him to get to Graham (Scrooge))

*stole this from Angones saying that he likes everyone because that's like. An interesting twist that gives him depth (bad coping mechanism).

** you know how stories make gladstone consider character development, only to get immediately distracted by a thing his luck is waving in front of his face? yeah imagine that but as a really shitty coping mechanism

With how his luck gives him things, he doesn't really have any attachment to objects (except to his hat. He's matching with Frankie :) ) because he'd probably just win a replacement anyways. There's no point in decorating a house if he's always on vacation or just using it to store things. (Definitely gives away the things he doesn't need. His house would probably be good for dumpster diving now that i think about it LOL)

He'd also rather be passive about things because then he avoids responsibility. nobody would really expect anything of him, and he's probably more comfortable with people attributing anything he does to his luck (because the man would die if any attention was on HIM)

The root of his character development is gardening. Because after a few houseplants die due to negligence you start to feel bad, lol. And if you have a garden, you care about the house that's connected to it, and if you know you're actually going to be in the house often, then you'd start decorating it. You can't just move on, you actively have to take responsibility.

but the actual breaking point for his character development is post-phoebe (because he's not being told anything about it, so he can't do anything), when he gets trapped in the casino. Because it forces him to confront if he's actually fine with not doing anything if he is given a comfortable life, even if it's alone

also, he's a foil to Luna (Lena) with how she wants to separate herself from magic, while he doesnt. among other things (spoilers)

TLDR: dude is the most passive man ever who would ever live and would rather do anything but self-reflection unless forced to. his identity is inherently mixed up with his luck. hobbies can SAVE you

[art-gelato]

posting a snippet of the perc’ahlia tam lin au i’m working on bc i’m excited abt it but idk how long it’s gonna take me to write the whole thing, esp since i’m working concurrently on like 4 fics for these crazy kids. anyway enjoy

...

Percy settled as comfortably as possible on a nearby log and busied himself with sketching. He enjoyed the close observation that revealed all the little details—how the leaves’ edges grew jagged, how thin veins webbed the lighter green undersides. He could not attest to exactly how much time he passed this way, only that the sun was descending from its zenith when he was at last satisfied with his drawing. Mild hunger panged his stomach, and he decided he would eat his sandwich and then head back.

Before closing his sketchbook, he reached for one of the leaves. He could press and preserve it, perhaps start a record of the variety of plants he finds in the area. It would be something to do until his workshop was finished, at least.

“I’d recommend against that, darling.”

Percy snatched his hand back and whipped towards the voice, every nerve in his body alight. He felt himself reflexively reaching for the rapier at his hip, though he was at a poor angle to draw it.

A woman leaned against a tree a few meters away, watching him impassively. Her long dark hair was pulled into a braid and woven with vines, and a pair of fresh green leaves were tucked into the locks behind her right ear. She was dressed somewhat plainly in earth-toned clothes that fit loosely around her for ease of movement.

But Percy’s attention snagged on the bow she held casually in one hand. He couldn’t help thinking about how fast she might be able to draw from the quiver on her back, how good her aim might be.

Diplomacy, as ever, was his first recourse. Still, he kept his thumb on the guard of his rapier, out of her line of sight.

“Indeed?” he asked.

She smiled, though her expression was void of mirth. “Indeed,” she replied. “Unless you’d like a nasty rash, of course.”

His gaze had wandered to her face, but movement snapped it back to the bow. She’d made no motion to raise it, though—the bow itself seemed to have an eerie life, the vines he’d taken for intricate etchings twisting and resettling. Ah, he realized. And now that he was looking for more oddities, he could see fine lines of faint green meandering along her exposed skin, as if she had vines in lieu of veins.

He forced himself to meet her dark eyes. “And it would have nothing to do with stealing from a faerie’s wood?”

Her smile sharpened. “That might have its own consequences, yes.”

Oddly, this eased his nerves. There were rules here—strange, dangerous rules, but rules nonetheless. Full of quicksand as it may be, it was a field he was familiar with. “I hope I’m not trespassing, at the least.”

“Not by my ken,” she said. “Though I hear there’s a new lord at the manor.”

Percy wet his lips. “I have his permission,” he said. “I should like yours, as well.”

Her eyes raked up and down him, considering. There was an edge to her, a hunger, like a void that could never be filled, and it made Percy feel distinctly hunted. It set his heart racing in a way he didn’t entirely mind.

At last, she said, “Well, you do seem to know your manners. Continue to mind them, and I’ll allow it.”

“Is there anything else I ought to mind?” Percy asked.

She tapped her chin in thought, though he had a feeling she already knew. “Stay out of the darkest woods,” she said. “Where even noonday sun struggles to reach through the leaves.”

Ominous. He liked it. “Very reasonable,” he replied. “This is a lovely forest, and I am grateful to have your leave of exploring it.”

She acknowledged this with a hum. “If you’re to be here regularly, we may as well have some proper introduction. What might I call you?”

It wasn’t outright asking for his name, but Percy still knew better than to give it. She was testing him, seeing if he’d let down his guard now that they’d struck an accord. In a fit of daring he was previously unaware he possessed, he answered, “I believe ‘darling’ will do.”

Delight sparked in her expression, cracking through the cool mask she’d worn so far, and she threw her head back and laughed. She kept laughing as she disappeared back into the trees, her light chuckle echoing like the call of a magpie long after she was gone.

[nepobabyeurydice]

A Kite Stuck By Lightning

Sally relives a memory, Hades wishes that Poseidon would go back to choosing the pretty idiot ones.

On AO3

The memory is old and half-faded, but it’s what solidified her marriage to Gabriel.

It begins with a trip to the park. Percy’s mouth slathered with mint chocolate ice cream because it was the closest approximation to blue ice cream. His blue eyes are wide as he takes in the people and the noise.

It’s a clear, windy day in the middle of spring, the sun is shining, the chill doesn’t deep through her jeans and Percy’s been eyeing the kites since they got here. 

What’s the harm? Sally had thought then. No one knows. It’s been six years and no one has figured it out yet.

It was just a kite.

Then the lightning hit it. It seared through the paper of the kite and slammed into the dirt with a vicious fury, and it was only Percy’s quick reflexes that saved him from being injured.

Sally froze for a moment, numb.

It was just a kite.

It was just a kite.

And all Zeus had to do was throw a single bolt and burn Percy into ash. He had just shown he could do that with a fucking kite.

.x.

“That’s enough,” a voice says and Sally gasps as she hits the floor. She doesn’t look up, Poseidon had warned her to never look up unless she was certain that the god was already in mortal form.

Her heart thuds in her ears, her cheeks feel wet from the tears she had probably let loose. 

“Look at me, mortal.” the voice says and Sally knows with absolute certainty who it is. “How dare you send your son to steal my helm.”

Sally looks up and regrets it immediately since her first thought is he would make an excellent redemption bait for my protagonist.

This, she’s been informed by one of her friends in Sweet America after she caught Sally staring at a distinctly shabby man going by Fred that Sally itched to make a mentor figure for her character, was not normal.

But it worked like a coping mechanism right now so who was Sally to stop what was keeping her from having a hysterical breakdown?

“Percy has done nothing wrong.” Sally says, and it’s by some miracle her voice doesn’t crack. “He could’ve never made it from one side of the Hudson to the other without getting expelled.”

“LIAR!” Hades roars and he paces like a caged lion. Souls writhe in his robes and Sally wonders what awful crimes must have you committed to be in his underpants. Or worse, what type of lover you were to him. She pulls a face of disgust at the thought.

“He has stolen something from me and if you don’t tell me where it is before the summer solstice I will stop Death.” Hades threatens. “I have no use for my brother’s lover if that is the case.”

Sally takes a deep breath, the air smells like decay and pomegranates, but somehow she swears she smells ozone. Maria di Angelo, she recalls abruptly, the conversation she had had with Poseidon all those years ago swollen with Percy coming to mind, had been killed by the Master Bolt. 

“He was six,” Sally begins and Hades whips around to stare. “When Zeus made his first threat. He struck Percy’s kite with lightning with enough force it should’ve killed him. Other times, eagles have appeared on his window when he’s in boarding school, they cut through the scent Gabriel offers. I’ve been married to that horrible, ugly man for six years in some vain hope I will never let my baby boy go. And now you tell me my Perseus stole something from the gods?”

“You do not understand the lengths a son will go to please his father.” Hades replies, eyes intense and perhaps mad with the destruction he had witnessed throughout the centuries. “Poseidon is charming and—”

Sally shoots up to her feet ignoring the voice screaming in her head. “I have raised a good boy. I don’t understand what else Olympus and the Underworld want me to do! Percy is sweet and caring and loyal. All I want for him is a happy ending and this war won’t give it to him. Why in the world would he do such a thing? Why would my son, not Poseidon’s, mine, do such a thing when sometimes I swear the only thing he hates more than Gabriel is his father?”

Hades snarls, truly snarls like a dog on a chained to a post in the streets of New York, and Sally flinches back, but she doesn’t stand down. She closes her eyes half-mast in preparation of what’s to come.

“We will see.” Hades says instead and Sally’s eyes pop open as he vanishes into the shadows.

We will see, she thinks as a crystalline substance forms over her body, sealing her inside of it. She doesn’t panic, she knows better than to panic at a time like this. We will see.

Once, there was a kite, and the kite was struck by lightning. One could not begin to imagine how many choices were begotten out of that simple moment. If you ask Sally Jackson for the answer you’d get in reply: more than you can ever imagine.

Percy Jackson will never learn of this. He doesn’t have to, all he has to do is rescue his mother and go home like his namesake before him. 

[youarestellarverse]

Happy WIP Wednesday Tuesday!

Today, we have a special treat: a whole fic. Because I need the dopamine boost of having finished a thing. This might not make sense if you haven't read appendicitis fic, and you can't atm unless you downloaded it (that's why that feature exists, by the way! Always feel free to download my fics for your personal enjoyment! Just don't upload them somewhere else without asking).

But if you have read it and you want to read about Jason's stepmom freaking out in the aftermath, here it is!

Content warnings/dead dove tags: alcoholism, family enmeshment, parentification of the surrogate spousal variety, latent trauma from conservative Roman Catholicism (get it get it), past miscarriage, past stillbirth, medical neglect, domestic violence, emotional abuse

November 14th, 1:47 PM (Sweeney Todd, intermission) >Hey, Mom >I'm sorry to ask but I just threw up in a trash can for the 3rd time :(  >can you talk to dad for me?  >I feel worse than I did last night >I don't think I can play like this and if I talk to him myself he'll just get mad  >you know how he is >Annabeth can tell, she's been finding excuses to put her arm around me when we're onstage  >I already got dizzy once and she was the only reason my knees didn't give out >I just feel really awful. something's wrong. 

I can't sleep.

-

November 15, 2 AM

This is all my fault. I want to throttle my useless husband. I can't look at myself in the mirror. Thalia's voice is still ringing in my head.

The problem is, she's completely correct. This happened because I failed him. I wasn't there when he needed me. I was weak, and because of my weakness my baby almost died.

It would be the fourth time I'd killed a child I claimed as mine. Maybe it really is me. Maybe that bitch carrying him kept him from being poisoned by the nuclear waste inside me.

He's alive. I'm sure he is. T, as angry as she was when I left, has kept her promise and sent me a picture every 3 hours on the dot. The most recent one was 2 hours ago, and Jason was fast asleep with his stuffed wolf toy in his arms. He looked about twelve years old. I cried until I had a blinding headache. 5 glasses of cab so far. Headache gone, will come back worse, don't care.

The house is silent in a way I haven't heard in years.

Jason is so quiet, but he's never silent. He's always here, even if he's in the periphery. I never realized how much I rely on his presence, how sharply it would wound to know he's gone.

He looked like death. He had no color in his face at all, no warmth to his cheeks, no spark in his eyes. I almost didn't realize what was happening at first, because I'm so used to looking for a towheaded player among the sea of purple.

He got up. Number twelve. He took a step, stumbled, and collapsed, coughing on vomit as Percy Jackson screamed for the medic and doused him in ice water.

No one has ever glared at me like P did when they were loading into the ambulance. I felt like I was moving in slow motion as I ran down the bleachers to his side, but P looked at me like a lion protecting his cub. I had absolutely no doubt in that moment that if I touched Jason, Percy would have torn my hand clean off. That's how enraged he was.

I deserved it. I deserve every bit of shame I'm feeling now. I should have put my foot down the minute I got Jason's text and I CERTAINLY shouldn't have let R see it. Part of me wants to leave, to grab Jason from his sister's apartment and take him with me to Milan, but I know I have no claim over him. I should have fought harder when his father talked me out of adopting him.

I keep staring at the pictures T sent me. Jason looks so small and frail in that bed, with tubes in both arms and huge circles under his eyes and that horrible dye job his sister did.

I want nothing more than to hold him and soothe his pain. I poison everything I touch. If I don't stand between him and his father, his sister will eventually break or lose in a show of force. He needs me, I know he needs me, but every mark I leave on him bleeds.

I'm no Mary. I'm no Merrhoe. I'm Jezebel, just like my father said. The whore of Babylon. Wicked. Beyond salvation. I don't know why I ever thought I could stroke his beautiful angel wings without soiling his feathers like petroleum drowning a seabird.

-

November 15th, 9 AM >Just checking in >Thalia's finally asleep, she's been awake since yesterday :( >anyway I'm doing ok, they said I can go home today or tomorrow >I'll be at T's for about 6 weeks. You should come by for breakfast sometime. >(I'll talk to her first. I know she's mad, but I think she'll understand if I explain. You're both just trying to protect me, and I think she knows that.) >Anyway. Thanks for trying. I hope Dad didn't blow up at you because of me. >There's sugar-free gatorade in the garage, the waffles I made from sourdough starter in the freezer and naproxen in my med cabinet. Stay hydrated and away from tylenol today, ok? >And try a plain waffle right out of the freezer if your stomach feels funky. >Always works for me when it's not, y'know, sepsis. ^_^; [a photo of Jason in his hospital bed, still looking pale but slightly less pallid. There's a whisper of color returning to his face and he has enough energy to smile, albeit tiredly. He is using one hand to lift Lupa the Second's paw in a wave.]

-

November 15th, 11 AM

I have many regrets.

I barely remember what happened. There are three empty bottles of wine in the sink and an open one on the counter. I think I threw a glass at my husband. I think I called him a murderer. I'm pretty sure he slapped me, but I think I deserved it, and I must have hit back since he has a bruised cheek and won't speak to me. (I think he deserved it too. My husband and I deserve each other, really.)

My poor little Moses knew somehow that I got lost in vino last night. When we lived in California and his father was still screwing his PA, I used to bring Jason with me on tastings. He would charm the staff by talking about the different cheeses, and I would skip the bucket while he had their attention.

He'd call a car and hold my arm and let me lean on him as we went inside. He'd make me a cool cloth and some rice, like M. taught him, and keep me hydrated and medicated until I slept it off.

It's been years since I embarrassed myself like that. Still, he knew. Like always, he didn't judge me or insult me or call me names or accuse me of humiliating him; he just made sure I was okay as best as he was able.

I was in my car with my keys in my hand before I remembered Thalia threatening me with a custody battle to keep me from going anywhere near him until she gives the okay.

I hate her. If it got that far, she'd win no matter how good Julie is in court. Thalia is the Mary to Jason's Christlike goodness— the frightened young woman who sheltered that sweet little boy as he grew into a glowing, golden hero. All she'd have to do is look at the judge the way she looked at me: shaking with fury, but teary-eyed from the kind of fear that can only be born out of agape. The purest, highest form of love.

She'd win the case before I even walked through the door, and I would have nothing left to buoy me through the waters of my own shame.

~fin

DAMMIT AO3 I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF POSTING A FIC

[eternally--mortal]

There’s no way Annabeth hasn’t been learning Egyptian magic spells in her free time.

Seriously. She and Percy have been suffering through close calls for so long. And Annabeth knows that she’s been at a physical disadvantage. She’s seen other demigods. Children of Athena are amazing and intelligent, but Annabeth can never face a problem head-on; she always has to work around it. In situations where the best way out is to brute force it, Annabeth has to work twice as hard to find a solution.

Well, guess what, Annabeth’s finally found a way to match Percy’s power.

And it’s through studying.

A whole new language of possibilities that she can mix and match when a powerful enemy shows up (because, from where I’m sitting, only two categories of monsters are chasing after Percy nowadays: One (1): idiots. And Two (2): major powerhouses who barge in, confident that they can take him out).

And let’s not forget Annabeth’s Norse heritage and the potential for Rune knowledge.

I promise you this. In the future of demigod history, Annabeth is going to be in bold print in the history books, not because she was Percy’s girlfriend/wife who tagged along on all his adventures with the power of friendship and spunky smarts, but because she was a master study of an amalgamation of pantheons to the point that she’s considered more dangerous than witches like Medea.

Annabeth may not be studying under the traditional title of ‘witch’ like Hazel is, but this girl is using magic to weaponize her brain.

There is nothing that this woman would not do to more conveniently protect her family —to put a stop to the absolute shit that she and Percy have been through.

I give you example A:

Sadie: This is our secret mansion which you can totally probably see with your holy voodoo magic god blood. Carter can show you the library, because Annabeth you’ll probably love that for some reason. The entrance is right—

Carter: Sadie, no, wait!

Carter: We have to invite them in.

Sadie: Wat? No, that’s only for—

Carter: *gesturing at Percy and Annabeth* Demigods

Sadie: Ooh. Right. Sorry. That could have been painful.

Percy: I’m sorry, but what?

Carter: We have a security system.

Annabeth: And it keeps out gods?

Carter: Only until you invite them in.

Annabeth: *eyeing Percy*

Annabeth: And could you, say, teach this spell to us?

Annabeth: Would it keep out Greek gods?

Annabeth: Even just one god, specifically.

Annabeth: Let’s say, a marriage goddess?

Percy: . . .

Percy: That would be great, actually

Percy: Now can we talk about how your house treats us like Vampires.

Annabeth is suddenly using magic everywhere, and it’s not just to protect them against monsters. It’s also to protect Percy from himself.

And I don’t just mean she makes him learn some hieroglyphs (which she does. He literally carries a pen with him. He might as well use it to write once in a while. Maybe the pen is as mighty as the sword).

Percy doesn’t have to use explodey-mountain powers when his girlfriend can speak just the right word and level a street. He won’t need to blood-bend against hostile gods, because Annabeth designs fortifications and pendants to keep the gods far away unless they have the proper permission.

Which totally spazzes Zeus out, by the way. All of a sudden, Annabeth isn’t just an inconvenient enabler for her Threat boyfriend. Annabeth is the Threat.

Zeus: I though you gave a prophecy to the Jackson kid.

Dionysus: Which Johnson kid?

Hermes: The new one. Charlie.

Dionysus: Ugh, the tiny one.

Apollo: I did. I mean, I tried. But the oracle doesn’t work around him.

Zeus: And why not?

Athena: Annabeth gave him a pendant.

Zeus: Well tell him to take it off!

Apollo: We, uh. We suggested that.

Zeus: And?

Apollo: *pulls up an IM screen recording. A twelve-year-old boy appears. He has Percy’s nose. . . Annabeth ears . . .*

Charlie: No. I am strictly grounded from quests. Forever. You have a prophecy for me, right? What’s Zeus gonna do? Kill me? Not if you want your prophecy fulfilled.

It’s also a great path for further developing Annabeth’s empathy for Percy’s frustrations with his own powers. We talk a lot as a fandom about Dark!Percy, but what about Annabeth’s side of things. She’s been terrified of her boyfriend, and he knows, and she knows he knows. Annabeth has seen Percy in his wrath, but she’s also seen how negatively her own fears affect him. There’s no way she would look at that and not search to the ends of the earth for some way to reassure him, or at least to support him.

Annabeth’s all calculated plans and building architecture and trying to make things last. She believed for years that Percy was going to die from the prophecy, and she attached herself to the idea of ignoring what would happen to him and instead trying to preserve Luke, because, by the gods, there was no way she was going to lose both of them. But look at how much Annabeth was ready to tear into Hera. More than ever, right now Annabeth has the motivation to throw out preservation and flip the script. I want Annabeth to experience what being destructive feels like. I want her to succeed and an want it to be beautiful and terrible. I want her to make mistakes. I want her to underestimate herself and overdo it. I want her to begin to understand her power to the point where she walks into situations with the weight of knowledge, debating whether it’s worth it to let a potential enemy live, or if she should just kill them now and save herself the trouble later. And I want Percy to step in and balance her out again.

In the end, I want Annabeth to realize that it’s not the power that’s scary, but learning to use it the right way and at the right time. Learning to lean on people, and to find people that will help you to balance it instead of just being afraid of you. Annabeth’s new magic—her knowledge—isn’t evil, and Percy’s power isn’t either.

[timelesslords]

invisible string

read on Ao3 

Missing scene from Mark of Athena- Annabeth realizes the curse of Achilles is gone. 

Annabeth wasn't one to call fighting monsters fun, but she might just have to make an exception for ones made of tar.

Okay, so the actual monsters hadn't been fun. And really, fighting monsters was never really fun. But she couldn't deny that there was something exhilarating about fighting alongside Percy again, after so many months apart. She had been worried that they might be out of step, that the distance and the time might have weakened the bond they shared. That Percy's memories wouldn't quite be the same, or still be distant and fuzzy like Jason's. But they were as in sync as ever. As soon as the first monster had risen from the tar, all it had taken was one glance to solidify their strategy for dealing with it.

Add in Percy's new shape-shifting friend Frank for a speedy getaway, and Annabeth had the most fun she had had in months. Of course, there was still the minor issue of actually getting the ship in flying shape once they got back. And being separated from Percy again, even if it was only a few floors away, instead of hundreds of miles. And the aftermath of trying to get the tar out of her hair– that had been something Annabeth seriously never wanted to repeat. 

But something was bothering her, something she didn't have the time or mental energy to explore until she was sitting on her bunk, trying to dry her hair. Percy had fought impressively; he always did. But he hadn't been the one-man army Annabeth had gotten accustomed to, during and after the war. He hadn't been invincible.

She wasn't sure– wasn't positive– but her gut was telling her that something was off. And she thought she might know what, even though the thought of it made her stomach do somersaults. 

They were going to have a meeting in the mess hall soon, and she didn't have a lot of time. But she had to know. So Annabeth slipped out of her cabin, making her way towards the one she knew Percy had claimed an hour or so earlier. She knocked, but didn't wait for a response before opening the door. 

"Hey," Percy said, sitting up from his bunk. He looked pleased to see her, his classic troublemaker smile tugging at the corner of his lips. 

"Hey yourself." Annabeth said, letting herself in and shutting the door behind her. It wasn't technically allowed for them to be in the same room together alone, especially with the door closed, but Annabeth had brought her invisibility cap just in case. She could probably slip it on fast enough to avoid being caught. Probably.

Percy scooted over, making room on the bed for her. She sat down next to him, and he wrapped his arm around her. It felt so nice to just be together Annabeth almost didn't bring it up, but the long, shallow scratch on the arm holding her made that impossible. 

She traced the scratch with her finger. It shouldn't have been possible, and yet here it was, staring at her in the face.

"It doesn't hurt." Percy said, noticing her attention, but misreading her concern. 

"But it shouldn't be there." Annabeth said. 

Percy looked at her strangely, like he didn't understand what she meant. Annabeth felt a cold and familiar fear in the pit of her stomach. Ever since they had cracked Hera's sick riddle and figured out that Percy and Jason had been swapped, Annabeth had been haunted by the very real possibility that even if they managed to find Percy, he wouldn't remember her. Obviously that hadn't happened, but this wasn't a small thing either. What if Percy's memories weren't as intact as he was letting on?

"The curse of Achilles," Annabeth prompted, trying to keep the fear out of her voice, "You should be invincible." 

"Oh! That." Percy said, recognition finally flashing across his face. Annabeth was suddenly torn between abject relief and the very strong urge to yell at him for making her panic. She settled on relief. 

"I had to give it up when I crossed the Tiber.” Percy explained, “Hera– or Juno, whatever, she said it was a Greek curse, that I couldn't carry it into Roman territory."

Without thinking, Annabeth took her free hand and slid it around Percy's back, brushing her fingers over the small of his back, his Achilles heel. Percy had told her that it felt like a thousand little lightning bolts were racing up and down his skin, when she touched it. She remembered the look in his eyes when he had guided her fingers there for the first time, equally terrified and exhilarated. She got no such reaction now; just a sort of sad apologetic look. 

She pulled back her hand. Annabeth had already known intellectually that it was gone, but it still felt like something had snapped inside her.

"Oh." Annabeth said. 

"Disappointed?" Percy asked. He was studying her expression carefully, like he was trying to decipher a puzzle. 

Annabeth sighed. She'd originally started calling him Seaweed Brain because he could be so obtuse sometimes, especially when it came to reading her. He hadn't even realized she liked him after they'd kissed in that stupid volcano, for gods' sake. But the longer they knew each other, the more difficult it became for her to hide anything from him. He was actually surprisingly perceptive, especially now that he knew to be looking.

"No, no." Annabeth said, wrapping her hand in his, "I just– I don't know. It feels like a bad omen." 

"I've honestly gotten used to not having it." Percy admitted. He interlocked his fingers with hers, and Annabeth was pleased to find that they fit together as perfectly as they had before. That, at least, hadn't changed.

"You never really needed it." Annabeth said, truthfully. Percy had always been a skilled fighter. And, okay, maybe it had been necessary for the war, but only because they had been so hopelessly outnumbered. But unless they were facing 250 monsters to one demigod again, Percy could easily hold his own without it.

"You're still upset though." Percy noted. 

Annabeth bit her lip. She felt a bit stupid for it, but she wasn't really upset about Percy losing the protection. Sure, it sucked that he was a little more breakable now, but he hadn't exactly been very breakable to begin with. 

In truth, she felt worse that the connection between them forged by the Achilles curse had been wiped away. Not just her having taken that knife for him, though that was part of it. Percy had told her later that the thing that had kept him tethered to his life, to himself when he bathed in the Styx had been her. She had been his lifeline, literally. Maybe that was how she had known to take that knife for him in the first place, because that little spot had tied them together in some hallowed, inseparable way. 

And now it was gone, along with their matching grey streaks, the only other physical reminder of the bond they shared. Annabeth was embarrassed to admit how much it had upset her when the grey had finally worn out of her hair. 

"It's just... I don't know. It feels someone cut an invisible string between us." Annabeth said. 

Percy nodded, like he understood, and Annabeth knew he did. knew he was thinking of all the same things she was. As if to prove it, he took his free hand and brushed the one curl that had once been grey behind her ear. She, too, could pick out his strand of hair that the sky had marred, even if it had turned dark again. 

"I felt like that too, at first." Percy admitted, "I didn't want to give it up. I knew it was important somehow. But I also knew if I wanted to see you again, it was the only way." 

Annabeth looked in his eyes, warm and earnest, and felt something in her chest glow. It was still incredible to her that he had remembered her, despite Hera's full force. She knew it had to have been him, and just him; Hera hated her too much to leave the memory of her in his mind. 

"I guess I can deal with you being a little more delicate. As long as we're together." Annabeth said. Percy smiled, squeezed her hand.

"Delicate, huh?" 

"Like fine china." Annabeth teased, "I'm going to have to watch out for you."

"You always watch out for me." Percy smiled. 

"Somebody's got to." Annabeth said.

They sat quietly for a minute, just enjoying each other's company. 

"You're still my lifeline, you know." Percy said, suddenly, "Wiping away the curse didn't change that." 

It was Annabeth's turn to squeeze his hand, because if she tried to speak she thought she might cry. She settled for kissing him instead, slow and sweet, revelling in the fact that he was finally back with her again.

They only broke apart when Annabeth heard footsteps coming down the hall. She managed to shove her hat on just as Piper knocked on the door.

"Come it!" Percy called, desperately trying to straighten out his shirt. Annabeth bit down the urge to laugh.

"Meeting in the mess hall in five." Piper said, poking her head in the door, "You too Annabeth."

"She's uh- she's not here." Percy said. It was so deeply unconvincing, what with Percy's flushed face and mussed hair, that Annabeth actually had to cover her mouth to prevent a giggle from escaping. Piper smirked. Even if she hadn't been a daughter of Aphrodite, the scene would have been fairly obvious to most onlookers. And Piper was most definitely a daughter of Aphrodite.

"You're a terrible liar." she said, amused, "But whatever. If you happen to see her, could you let her know?"

"Yeah. Yup. I can do that." Percy said, but Piper had already disappeared down the hall. Annabeth shimmered back into view, unable to hold back her laughter anymore.

"Is she always like that?" Percy asked, his face still red. 

"Oh yeah. I think you're going to like her." Annabeth said, standing up, pulling Percy with her. They walked down to the mess hall hand and hand.

So maybe the curse was gone, and the grey streaks in their hair had faded away. But they didn't need those physical reminders of each other, not really. He had remembered her, and she had found him. They were tying new invisible strings to each other, ones that couldn't be severed by any sword, or any river or any god. 

And Annabeth had a feeling this was just the start. 

[phykios]

honesty and promise me, part 10 [co-written with @darkmagyk] [read on ao3]

“If you don’t talk to me, I’m not going to leave you my keys.”

Annabeth looks at Piper from behind the loom, glaring through the threads. “Then you won’t come back to ten bolts of fabric.”

In fairness, it was sort of an empty threat. Piper has all the good stuff: the surger, the embroidery machine, the industrial sewing machines, plus a million sources for fabric that aren’t Annabeth’s stress weaving. Annabeth only has her own shitty sewing machine at home that she’d gotten for Christmas when she was fourteen.

Also, Piper wouldn’t actually lock her out. She needs those fabrics.

“Why don’t you just not go?” Annabeth says. “If you stay, I promise to tell you all the gritty details.” She’s joking, but the second she says it, she’s hit with a strange wave of desperation.

She wants to tell Piper all the gritty details. How she had giggled and smoozed and looked so pretty on Luke’s arm, tattoos and undercut and everything else so carefully concealed. She never wanted to tell Thalia the gritty details. The dirty ones, sure, particularly when the dirty things didn’t involve Thalia’s beloved younger cousin. But she had spent two years, two hard painful years, hiding vast swaths of herself from Thalia.

She thought of the night of the gala, of Thalia telling her family she knew Luke from college. NYU. They’d been actors together.

Annabeth hadn’t been the only one hiding things.

It had stung, in all sorts of ways.

Piper stares, narrowing her eyes. “How dare you tempt me into giving up my creative retreat for gossip.”

Annabeth shrugs. “It’s one or the other.”

The glare at each other, stubborn as all hell.

Piper throws up her hands. “Fine. Just make my fabric and call Leo if you’re having another crisis.”

The truth is, she will tell Piper. Eventually. She knows she will. It will probably be in eight months, when she gets back, when hopefully the shame of her false life and the devastation of losing Percy has lessened, but she will tell her. But eight months is a long time. “I do have other friends, you know.”

“Then call Luke. Or Thalia.”

It takes absolutely everything Annabeth has not to wince at the names.

She would never have told Thalia. Not really. Even things like this, even if it hadn’t involved her. Thalia wasn’t… good at relationship stuff. Not like Piper. And she never knew all of Annabeth’s romantic history--not like Piper did, anyway.

And it wasn’t just romantic relationships.

Annabeth might have been able to share her pain, and share her pain with Thalia, but it had, in many ways, only been a surface level thing. Thalia saw her pain after Annabeth’s mom had rescinded her approval of her life, but she'd taken Annabeth’s silence as the end of the matter, and responded to it by acting out, and arguably drinking too much.

But they never talked about her mother. They never talked about Thalia’s, either, and if there was something Annabeth learned from Hazel’s gala beyond how unfairly handsome Percy was going to look in thirty years, it was that there was a lot going on there.

It is a little hurtful on reflection. Making her feel less close to Thalia, but also less guilty about what she never said. And less willing to accept her reactions.

Her emotions have been all over the place the last few weeks.

Piper notices, because of course Piper notices, but she is an angel, and has known her for a long time, so she doesn’t badger her too much. She also doesn’t mention that Annabeth’s measurements all seem to be off. Not even to say something about beauty at every size or her well publicized efforts for diverse bodies in fashion.

But it was still nice to spend time with her. It felt like the old days, staying up too late making the next thing in fashion, and then passing out together, surrounded by bobbins and bagels, Gossip Girl playing on TV.

It did make Piper’s impending departure that much harder, though.

Two weeks into November, she meets Piper and Leo for dinner, and then sees Piper off to JFK for her eight-month creativity retreat in Oklahoma. “You know, like how you decided you couldn’t have a doorman for creative reasons,” she’d said with a raised eyebrow when Annabeth had questioned the move. Piper likes to treat the last two years of Annabeth’s life like some sort of creative exercise. Her dad had done that too, once, when she bothered to answer his call.

Not that she’s not doing anything other than helping Piper pick stitches, and sewing hemlines Piper is too important to deal with herself. She wishes that earlier estimation had been true.

Since the gala she’s been living on Uber Eats at Piper’s, unless she gets bullied home, in which case it's the same but less varied selection with more meat, so the night out with Piper and Leo the night before Piper’s flight feels like a radical departure from the norm. Even though they just go to dinner.

Which does not stop her from feeling hungover the next morning.

“You had half a glass of wine last night,” Leo points out from the door of her bathroom.

“I remember,” she agrees when it lets up for a moment.

“If you get me sick,” he says, “I’m sending you the doctor's bill.”

“Fair,” she chokes out.

Leo doesn’t hug her goodbye, but he does tell her he hopes she gets better before heading back to Boston.

Annabeth, hugging porcelain, wishes she could go with him.

She was very seriously considering it a few days later. Magnus would take pity on her and Alex was always fun to hang out with. Plus, they’d probably think she was too pathetic to be called on her shit. She only did not make plans to go up to Boston because on Wednesday Luke texted her: Already a shit week, brunch this weekend? And she knew if she ran off to Boston, she wouldn’t leave Magnus and Alex’s guest room until they forced the issue.

But it would be nice to talk to someone in New York City who doesn’t hate her guts, she thought.

So, on Sunday morning, she throws up the wonton soup she’d ordered in for dinner the night before, gurgles some mouthwash, uses the expensive concealer to hide the dark circles, and over does the mascara in hopes that she mostly looks awake.

“You look terrible,” are the first words Luke says to her.

“You have no idea how to talk to women,” she says, slumping down across from him.

“I do,” Luke says, “I just know not to bother with you.” But he frowns at her, taking her in. She’s broken out a Chanel jacket, but she isn’t sure when she last washed these jeans. A real winning combo, her.

“But really,” Luke says, “you look miserable. Is it about what happened on Halloween?”

She shrugs. It isn’t not that. Percy’s words still circle through her head, his sad, defeated face as he bemoaned the, how did he put it? All the rich girls who fucked him to make a point. Made all the worse because she believes them. Probably not the same points as those princesses, but… probably not as different as she would like.

She wonders if Europe is full of very wealthy aristocratic women who are all secretly and shamefully still in love with Percy Jackson. And Frank Zhang.

It makes her feel hollow and nauseous all at once.

But she’s been feeling nauseous for weeks now, so at least it's not a new feeling. If it keeps up, she’s going to have to go to the doctor soon.

She hates going to the doctor. It feels like cheating when she just goes and pays and knows other people can’t. She had once lied to Thalia about getting money for a side gig, and then given her two hundred bucks for a trip to the clinic. Now that Annabeth has spent many hours in his cousin’s apartment, and has heard Nico talk about his yearly income on top of the money his dad gives him, she’s not sure how it came down to her.

“Not really,” Annabeth says, “I mean, I still feel just as terrible, but that’s mostly the problem. I feel sick.”

“It's been three weeks.” Luke looks genuinely concerned. “What’s going on?”

“I’m exhausted and nauseous all the time,” she says, groaning at the thought. She was okay right at this moment, but she knew it could come back at the drop of a hat.

Luke frowned at her. “That’s all?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“I mean��” He looked at her, his eyes gazing lower, to her body. Luke had never really come on to her in any kind of real way. But she’s not sure he’s ever looked at her with less lust than he does right at that moment.

It is calculating. She’s gained some weight, she knows. But if Luke points it out, she’s going to kick him in the nuts with her steel toed boots. Or maybe make him explain himself and his relationship with Thalia.

“Annabeth,” Luke says, his voice lower, a frown on his face, “please don’t freak out.”

She can feel her heart pick up, just a bit. “That’s a terrible place to start.”

“Have you been feeling… emotionally volatile lately? Having a lot of mood swings?”

She frowns. She’d maybe been crying a little more than normal at sentimental hulu ads, but she always has a soft touch for that kind of thing, and she’s going through some stuff. “I don’t think you should ask a woman that.”

“You are really not going to like my next question, then.” He leans close and says, “Are your… breasts tender?”

“You’re right, I don’t like that question,” Annabeth says, crossing her arms over her chest. Even though they are. “I don’t know why you thought that, and how you knew.”

Luke looks at her with such pity, she feels like she’s suddenly eighteen years old again, and crying on his couch at the end of freshman year about the greatest heartbreak of her life. (It had moved to second place. Lucky it. The boy in that bar had only been theoretical, mostly.)

Luke reaches out, grasping one of her hands, and for a second, Annabeth is sure he is going to tell her that she’s dying.

“Have you considered you might be pregnant?”

She yanks her hand away. “I can’t be pregnant,” she says. “I haven’t had sex in weeks.”

“Have you had your period since then?” Luke asks.

“Not that it's any of your business,” she says, “but I haven’t had one in years.” They do talk about sex sometimes, but periods had long been off the Luke table.

Luke grimaces. “Well, you’ve been sexually active recently…”

“It’s been more than a month!”

“When did you start getting morning sickness?” Luke asks “You were throwing up at Halloween.”

“That wasn’t in the morning,” she snaps, “and I feel fine now.”

“You know morning sickness doesn’t just happen in the morning,” Luke says. “And with the rest of your symptoms, well--”

She shakes her head, glaring at Luke. His judgement would have been better than his patient mansplaining. “You think I don’t use birth control?”

Luke shrugs a little. “I mean… you’re… not great at things like daily medication. That’s what happened last time. And if a condom broke or you didn’t use one…”

Last time. Oh, last time. Last time had been the worst four hours of her life, in between realizing that she hadn’t been remembering her birth control pills every day, that her period was a few days late, and that she’d definitely been having unprotected sex with that boy in Luke’s cohort who was probably too old for her. Last time had been her having a panic attack on Luke’s Cambridge apartment couch while a very reluctant Leo was sent to buy a pregnancy test or twelve, and Piper reassuring her via speaker phone that it would be ok, while Luke rubbed her back and reminded her to breathe.

“I do remember what happened last time,” she says. “That’s why I got an IUD. Which, if you don’t know, from all your girlfriends' pregnancy scares, has the same failure rate as permanent sterilization, less than one percent. So…” So it would be okay. She couldn’t be pregnant. That’s why it had been okay for Percy and Annabeth to start fucking without a condom.

“When was the last time you got a new one?”

“August.” She says, thinking back. She was almost sure. “I remember because it was before the Eta thing--Leo called me to tell me about the ceremony while I was at the gyno.”

“So you were distracted and being a bad patient when they were trying to put it in?”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

But she won’t give Luke, of all people, the satisfaction. “They are professionals. They should know what they’re doing, even if I was on the phone.”

Luke gives her his most disappointed dad face. It is worse than Annabeth’s own father. “You’re the one who always tells me I need to not make people’s jobs harder by being a bad client,” he quietly reminds her.

She fucking hates him.

But despite herself, she pulls out her phone, and begins googling misplaced IUDs and pregnancy.  

They haven’t even ordered yet, but Luke is already standing up, probably based on the look on her face as she manages to fight through the dyslexia and figure out what it says. “Come on,” he says, helping her out of her chair, even though she’s not an invalid. She just might be pregnant.

She pushes that thought away as she follows Luke into a cab and then up to his apartment. He makes her some tea and hands her a banana while he goes to get her a pregnancy test, because Luke’s not quite shameless enough to have one at home. She waits for him in a living room straight out of American Psycho and reads up on IUD pregnancy complications online. Which she probably should not have done.

By the time Luke gets back, she is crying again. He’s gotten her 3 tests, which is very considerate of him, as she’s going to need them.

Walking into the bathroom, she’s shaking hard enough that she needs to brace herself on the wall. He lets her use the nice one off his bedroom, though it's not like she needs the jacuzzi tub.

When she’s done peeing, she sets a timer on her phone and sits on Luke’s bed. He tries to speak to her several times. She doesn’t respond.

It isn’t the longest ten minutes of her life, because the truth is, she knows.

She already knows.

When the alarm goes off, she shrugs off Luke’s arm and silently walks back into the bathroom.

Luke got a digital readout, because what else was he going to do. And so she looks at the little screen and just barely processes the word pregnant.

She doesn’t need to take the other tests. She doesn’t need confirmation or to be convinced.

She reaches down and pressed on her lower abdomen, lifting her shirt. She had noticed a slight change. But she’d also changed a lot of her daily routine lately, had eaten a lot more ice cream. Right now, she can’t see any kind of bump, not really, but she can see a shift. Something flat gone fuller.

Annabeth is pregnant.

Annabeth is pregnant with Percy’s baby.

Percy’s baby.

She bursts into tears all over again.

An eternity later, there is a knock on the door.

“Annabeth,” Luke calls, “can I come in?”

She manages to choke out a yes.

Luke finds her sitting on the edge of the tub. He looked at the test still sitting on the counter.

“Let me make a call,” he says, sitting next to her, resting a hand on her arm. “I know a doctor. He can get you a pill or maybe even see you if you need it. Probably today or tomorrow. We can get this all taken care of and then I’ll buy you ice cream and we can watch Legally Blonde, and you can complain about how it doesn’t accurately reflect the admissions process.”

Normally Annabeth would pre-complain, and point out that given Elle’s GPA, LSAT, and extracurricular activities, she would have been a shoe in for her program, and the movie was dismissive of her prior academic achievement. But she’s too busy parsing what Luke is saying.

He squeezes her hand in support. “It's going to be okay,” he says, sweetly.

“No.” She says. But not because it won’t be okay. “No, I’m not going to have an abortion.”

“It's okay,” Luke promises. “I would never judge you. And no one else would ever have to know. This isn’t something you have to do.”

“I know that,” Annabeth says. “I don’t have to do anything.” She detangles her hand from Luke’s and rests it on her stomach, where her uterus waits under her skin. “I want to do this.”

Luke looks at her hand. “Poseidon Olympianides’ son?” he asks. “That’s the father?”

She nods.

Blowing out a breath through his teeth, he sighs. “Well, you’ll be able to get some good child support out of him at least. That family is loaded.”

“Don’t say that,” she nearly screams, and Luke actually jerks back a little. “He doesn’t have any money. He’s his dad’s bastard kid,” she says, feeling a little bad about revealing his family history, but knowing that the word would spark something in Luke. “I don’t know if I’m even going to tell him.”

It feels like something cheap and shallow, trapping a man with a lie, then a baby.

She’s still crying and tentatively, Luke reaches out and wraps his arms around her, pulls her to him.

“Come on,” he says, pulling her up. “You still need ice cream and a movie.”

Annabeth cries. And she doesn’t fight him, but it feels so strange. Half way through her Caramel Sutra and the Legally Blonde proshot, she realizes what’s different.

For the first time since Percy walked out of her apartment without a good-bye kiss, Annabeth Chase is happy.

She’s pregnant with Percy Jackson’s baby.

She’s going to have Percy Jackson’s baby.

She’s not sure if she’s ever heard anything as wonderful in her entire life.

And if she’s going to be worthy of it, worthy of her baby, then she’s going to have to get her shit together.

[biderboy]

complete molly weasley hate cause she could have done better

anyways now imagine the marauders absolutely adoring the weasley kids

now imagine them all raising them

YEAAAA BUDDIE

bill and charlie took a keen liking to remus and hug around him 24/7, wherever remus was, there were two redheads following him

percy liked to hang out with lily and read with her, but other than that he kept to himself, unless he got lonely, which he then would join his older brothers

the twins LOVED james, they hung off his arms and crawled on his back. the stole his glasses and ran around the house with them on, shouting “look im prongs !!”

ron was the same age as harry so the two of them really just slid on the ground and giggles at the antics of the older boys, but ron had taken a liking to peter, and constantly crawled to the older boy

ginny was just a newborn but she absolutely loved sirius, nobody else could calm her down, she often times only slept if she was in sirius’ arms

IMAGINE REMUS READING TO CHARLIE AND TELLING HIM ALL ABOUT MAGICAL CREATURES

IMAGINE SIRIUS TELLING BILL ABOUT THE STARS AND ALL THE THINGS HE COULD DO IN LIFE AND ENCOURAGING HIM TO BE WHO HE WANTS TO BE

bill grew his hair out cause sirius had long hair and he wanted to be just like him

IMAGINE JAMES HOLDING BOTH RON AND HARRY WITH A WILD GRIN ON HIS FACE

IMAGINE PETER RUNNING AEOUND CHASING THE TWINS AND TEACHING THEM HOW TO GET AWAY WITH STEALING SWEETS FROM THE KITCHEN

IMAGINE LILY FALLING ASLEEP WITH GINNY ON THE COUCH AND ALL THE MARAUDERS LOSING THEIR SHIT CAUSE CARBON COPY GINNY COULD BE LILYS KID

IMAGINE SIRIUS TURNINGN INTO PADFOOT AND LETTING THE YOUNGER BOYS TAKE TURNS RIDING ON HIM THROUGH THE GARDEN

INAGIEN JAMES SNICKERING AS HE USES THE INVISIBILITY CLOAK WITH CHARLIE TO FINALLY PRANK SIRIUS AND THE TWINS

IMAGINE REMUS AND PERCY WATCHING ALL THE BOYS FLY ON THEIR BROOMSTICKS AND JUST SHAKING THEIR HEADS AT THE CHILDISH PLAYS

imagine the huge family dinners and the marauders just kind of sitting back and smiling at all the little red heads and listening to their squeals of laughter and thinking “yea, this is our family”

imagine having massive dance parties and ron being on sirius’ shoulders and harry being on james’, imagine peter jumping around with charlie and the things forcing remus to get up and dance

imagine james comforting bill when he’s scared to go to hogwarts, telling him things would be fine and they’ll visit him all the time

imagine them going out in public somewhere and sirius insists on the buddy system, and so witches and wizards all stop and stare because walking down the street is james potter, holding a small ginger girl, lily potter, who has both her hands full with redheaded twins, remus lupin, who has a small boy with glasses and a taller boy excitedly talking about dragons at his side, and sirius black, who has a boy too interested in his book to look where he’s going, and a taller boy with long bright red hair following behind him . what a sight indeed

lily 100% does the boys’ hair as they all grow it out longer, and each of them sit nicely for haircuts and styles and absolutely adore the times they have with her

remus gladly explains his scars to the older boys and and let’s them ask questions, in which he makes up ridiculous stories of fighting knights and riding dragons

james makes the have family baking nights and george always ends up with frosting in his hair and harry likes to throw his cupcakes at ron

sirius gives them ALL miniature leather jackets and charlie takes his with a giant grin on his face and proceeds to never take it off

fred sometimes had giant fire and peter is the only one able to calm him down, they often go on walks during the mornings and peter tells him about the pranks they pulled in hogwarts

james wants them to get a family pet and nobody can agree on anything, bill wants a cat, charlie wants a dragon (“or a lizard!!”), percy doesn’t want anything, fred and george want a giraffe (yes, they went to a muggle zoo and would not shut up about them), ron and harry want a dog, and sirius wants a lion (bad influence he is)

they let the boys, as they all get older and join hogwarts, add their own magic to the marauders map, and it’s the cutest thing ever really

ginny’s first word is definitely “fuck” after hearing sirius say it as much as he does

ginny, as she grew, loved messing with james and remus, she had them wrapped around her finger

bill brings home his first girlfriend and sirius and james go full on protective dad mode and well, bill cant say he didn’t expect it

lily is the one with the least repulsive fashion sense and so for family pictures she makes sure everyone matches and looks decent, the pictures come out lovely

during the holidays their house is a complete MESS, 13 stockings line the house, there are dozens of presents, too many kids to look after to know who stole the hot chocolate and who replaced the candy canes with stale ones

one day remus thinks it’s a good idea to take a family trip to the beach and the day proceeds as james has to run around to our sunscreen on 7 pale redheads who will definitely burn very easily, and sirius also has a heart attack when the twins run face first into the ocean

and i can go on forever dont test me

[ohmydamgods]

Some Leo Valdez Headcanons because I love him <3

You either like him, or you don’t? It seems very black and white around camp. On one hand, Leo is energetic and kind and his goofy personality makes him fun to be around. On the other, he’s always joking making him seem like he can’t be serious and his lopsided grin makes him seem untrustworthy

He’s generally really nice though to absolutely everyone. Regardless of never talking to Leo before, it’s common to see people ask him for a favor. He’s kind of hurt by it sometimes but he thinks he would prefer that than to not be talked to at all

That being said, all his friends adore him. Even if they don’t tell him. It’s pretty much impossible to just be acquaintances with him because Leo is just so out there that people feel comfortable with him really quickly

He has gorgeous curls that everyone touches. He kind of just sighs at it by now because someone’s hand is always in his hair and it’s sweet and all unless he’s busy unless it’s Calypso because she can if she wants to

Out of everyone in the seven, he’s the least threatening. Some of the seven have rbf like Percy, Annabeth, and Jason. And the others can go from 0-100 very quickly in terms of looking threatening. Then there’s Leo LMFAO He just can’t and it makes him the target most of the time (he’s not amused by it)

He’s very attatched to a very specific blanket in his room on the Argo ll because it’s weighted, he says it’s very comfortable and doesn’t let anyone touch it except for the one time when Piper was sick and wanted to stay with him

Speaking of Piper, Leo braids her hair all the time. It started at wilderness school because they were both stressed so Piper had just leaned into him and it was instinctive. Later on, when they were all hanging out on the Argo ll (ik not everyone was friends leave me alone ) Leo would just sit there quietly braiding her hair

When Leo’s sick he almost always has a fever and his fevers are mad high. Due to high heat resistance his like low fevers are 104. He scared the living hell out of Piper with this once because he felt like crap so he sat next to her and put his face in the crook of her neck and he was burning up

He can also just tell people’s temperature by sticking his hand against their forehead

He likes when friends give him validation but he absolutely cannot take a genuine compliment. One time Jason clapped him on the back, smiled, and went “nice job Leo, I’m proud of you” and Leo just looked at him and sputtered

He over-engineers blanket forts for no reason. He just thinks it’s fun. He was talking with Calypso and she mentioned she was bored so he spent three hours making a fort and both of them will agree it was the best thing Leo has ever built on such short notice

He wears a lot of rings! He just has a lot of them on each hand and it’s become like a mini tradition to give Leo one. His favorite ring is one that Harley made him

He gets really nervous when it comes to physical affection. Growing up, physical contact usually meant getting the crap beat out of him so he’s extremely wary of it. So if and when someone touches or hugs him, he tenses up and it takes a few seconds for him to force himself to relax

That being said, if he trusts you enough to initiate physical contact, he’s very touchy and he’ll seek you out if he wants a hug

When he’s tired he tends to let his guard down and it’s usually when he has serious conversations with people. When he wakes up the next day he doesn’t really remember what he said but he’s usually more comfortable around the person he talked to

Kids love Leo and Leo loves kids. Kids tend to not hide stuff and they leave their feelings out in the open. He knows how to interact with them because they aren’t complicating it by hiding everything. He says they’re like little machines except easier to understand because they tell him what they want

So at Camp if there’s a new little kid who’s pretty freaked out, they kind of just throw them at him and Leo will get them situated

However he isn’t good with babies and toddlers. He thinks they’re really cute and they still adore him and like to pull on his hair but he gets too nervous around them because they’re small, easy to hurt accidentally, and can’t communicate properly

He’s very specific with how he keeps his stuff. To anyone else, it seems like he just throws it around but there’s an order to the mess. If you mess it up, he actually gets really frustrated and upset (not necessarily at you but in general it freaks him out and he can’t do anything else until he fixes it) and it’s one of the only times Leo actually wants an apology instead of just letting something go

He apologizes every time he explains his feelings. At this point, he kind of just expects everyone to tell him to get over stuff so when anyone takes the time to sit with him and listen to what he’s saying, he apologizes a bunch but when he’s done he also says a lot of thanks

Some people around Camp think Leo is dating Piper and some people think he’s dating Jason. Leo isn’t dating either (mostly because if they were to break up it would be awkward asf), but everytime someone asks him about either one of them, he smiles and says “yes! I’m their boyfriend :)” simply because it’s fun to watch people be confused when someone else says he’s dating the other one and to annoy Jason and Piper

Leo and the Stolls are frenemies. They find each other mega annoying but they work well together so they pull off some pranks together

He likes to sing. His voice is really calming and a lot of people really love to hear it but he gets embarrassed easily so the only one who ever really gets to is Jason.

He also likes to dance. He’s not as great at it as he is at singing but he thinks it’s fun

He plays with peoples hands. He fidgets all the time and if there’s no trinkets for him to take apart and put back together again, he’ll grab Jason or Pipers hand and start rubbing his thumb across it and playing with their fingers

He builds little trinkets for people all the time. Just for fun and just because he can but he likes seeing people smile because of it. He does it to the newbies too. Just drops it on their bunk. They never figure out who leaves it until later because they have to find out who left it themselves

[themadhatterofficial]

Eyes, Bodies, and Potions

The Golden Trio was always meant to take down Voldemort.

Perhaps, if things happened a bit differently, if the pieces managed to link together in another way...

(Dark Golden Trio AU)

********************

Harry Potter only knew violence growing up.

The young boy hidden away in the cupboard under the stairs would sit in fear and anticipation as heavy footsteps pounded above and rattled the dust onto his tiny bed. He had a single mirror in his cupboard that Aunt Petunia had given him as a Christmas present after his uncle had slammed his head into it hard enough to cause cracks to run through it like an overzealous spiderweb.

No matter how many times he tried to avoid it, Harry always ended up watching himself in the dingy glass. In anything remotely reflective, really.

Everywhere Harry went, people commented on his eyes. On how pretty they were, how they made him look respectable, how much they stood out against the darkness of his skin and the heavy bangs that resembled a rat's nest at the best of times.

It had jump started Harry's obsession.

Everywhere he went, Harry would stare at eyes. Brown ones, blue ones, grey ones, green ones, and every mix you could think of. He liked the emotions that ran through them, how they told stories that faces and bodies would never reveal.

He could see the happiness when a couple held hands.

He could see the fear when a man gripped his girlfriend's arm a little too tight.

He could see the joy in a father's eyes when his baby snuggled further into his neck.

The fear was nice sometimes. When it was someone who deserved it. Like when Dudley's friend Henry punched Harry hard enough to take out his baby tooth and split his lip. Harry had launched forward and kept hitting and hitting and hitting until Henry was crying too hard to make noise and he was covered in reds and blues that never blossomed on Harry's deep skin.

(Henry's eyes were grey. They were scared. It was nice.)

(Henry's parents also moved their whole family far away from the neighborhood the very next week. Harry chalked it up to coincidence.)

Harry liked the happiness a lot more than the sad or scared ones. He liked sitting in the little park far from the Dursleys' and letting the long cuffs of his torn hand-me-downs scrape below the swing, watching the happy families laugh and jump and run around with one another without caring about anything else.

For as long as Harry could remember, he had wanted that. He longed for it. He would sit in his tiny cupboard on the last night of July and beg and plead whoever was up there for someone to find him. At first, Harry wished for someone to take him away. Now, Harry would be content with someone approaching him to just talk. It was a far-fetched dream, something he only dared to dream of in the quiet darkness when he pretended that his parents weren't worthless drunks who cared for the bottle more than their son. That he had a mother that took the time to tame his bird's nest of a head and read to him at night, that he had a father who taught him how to play chess and cook breakfast for his mum in bed, and maybe even an uncle that bought him secret ice creams that ruined his dinner and taught him how to talk to pretty girls at school and maybe even a sister who laughed too loud and grinned too wide and let him wrap her up in soft blankets when she was too cold to ask for it.

But for now, Harry would settle for their eyes.

********************

Ron Weasley, in Ron Weasley's opinion, was not very special.

He was the sixth child of seven in his impoverished family. He got hand-me-down everything, and was expected to do as well as his brothers, if not better. It was nothing special if he could do this, because Percy could too, and if he could do that, well, Bill already had years before.

Sometimes Ron wished he was an only child, if only for the attention he would have.

(He never wanted his siblings dead, Merlin no. He loved them all and wished them the best, even if he was a bit jealous of them.)

Perhaps this was why he was often seen hanging on Harry or Hermione's arm, spending every bit of his free time with the first things that were his, and only his.

They weren't things, and Ron knew this. He knew that they were people, and he knew that they were their own people. He never claimed them aloud, and especially didn't hint at it to Harry. He was already treated like a Thing by his muggles. They locked him away and took him out when he was of use. Ron wanted to be with him all the time, even when he didn't listen and remained as stubborn as an ass.

But they were still Ron's. He didn't like when Fred or George or Ginny would try to covet Harry's attention, or tease Hermione until all the blood rushed up to darken her cheeks to a deep blue. She would hide behind her massive hair that curled around her wildly in a way that she wasn't.

Later, Hermione would shyly admit that she'd never felt wanted, and that she quite liked the way Harry and Ron so openly expressed their need for her. Harry would say the same.

Ron Weasley liked watching people.

He saw everything he needed to from a distance, even if he wanted to get closer. He liked watching quidditch especially, how their bodies moved so gracefully and held no hesitation in their gestures. (This did not extend to his brothers and sister. He actually didn't like watching them in particular, even if he could never pry his eyes away from Harry twisting and turning and reaching as far as he could.)

Every quidditch match was exciting. Ron would emulate certain things, ever since he could remember. Bill's easy-going swagger. Charlie's big hand movements. Percy's chin tilt he did when he was trying to make a point, or the seamless weaving and bobbing Fred and George had mastered together. He'd mostly out grown it before Ginny came along, but sometimes he even ran his hand through his hair like she did. His dad did it, and it was a small thing the three of them shared, and Ron coveted it.

The most ingrained thing about Ron was probably his tactile nature. His mum was the same way. They were probably the most expressive, always ready to give out a hug and kiss on the cheek or just to hold someone.

This came in handy later in life.

Hermione likes to stand on her toes.

It's a small thing that he's sure she isn't really aware of. She'd mentioned offhandedly that her parents had forced her to do ballet when Ron mentioned it, and it became more and more clear. When she stretched she pointed her toes perfectly, and when she turned to speak she'd often spin around on the tips of her feet. It was endearing, especially even when she went on her long winded tangents about anything and everything.

When she talked, her smile lit up the room and her hands flitted about excitedly. When she saw something that caught her eye, Hermione would stretch out her neck and raise her eyebrows high into her uneven bangs.

Hermione was also very awkward. She hid behind her big kinky curls, which Ron soon learned were in that weird frizzy stage because of repeated failed attempts at straightening it. (He quite liked her hair just the way it was, but Hermione didn't, which was disappointing.) Ron would shake his head and teasingly pull on one of her coils so it bounced tightly. She would flush, and when they first met she absolutely despised it. It wasn't until they'd known each other for so long that she would allow him to do so. He was the only one other than Harry that was allowed. Soon after she began to grow comfortable with his casual touches.

So when she would awkwardly put her hand forward to shake Ron's, he would push it away in order to wrap her up tightly in his arms. She'd tense at first before hugging back tentatively, then tightly, as if she never wanted him to let her go.

Harry tugs at his sleeves when he gets nervous.

He does it a lot, actually. When they ride up, he pulls the cuffs down to grip in his palms.

When adults speak to him, he squeezes himself inward to make himself smaller. When they raise their voices, his head drops down ever so slightly, as if it's an instinct he's trying to fight. When they get too close, his body twitches away as if it has a mind of its own.

Ron soon noticed that Harry couldn't handle yelling. Ron and Hermione began to fight about Merlin-knows-what one night by the lake. It wasn't until Ron's voice was slightly hoarse and he paused to take a breath that he remembered that Harry was still there. He was sitting on the damp grass, completely still with his hands muffling his ears and his head tucked between his knees.

Ron always warns Harry before reaching to him. Always asks if its okay. It's soon obvious to Ron that no one has truly hugged Harry, and does so whenever he has the chance. And Harry absolutely clings onto Ron, which is really nice. No one's really done that. His siblings weren't always the touchy-type and his parents were always too busy with this or that to dedicate so much time to the Least Favorite.

(Ron knew that they loved him. He never doubted that. But he was nothing if not a realist.)

But Ron's favorite thing was when Harry would jump on him. Harry never talked much unless one prompted him endlessly, and it was even rarer for him to initiate a conversation or reach out for anyone or anything. So when Harry would get so excited he tackle-hugged Ron into the grass or the floor of the common room, and Hermione would burst into giggles beside them, he'd feel his heart burst open for these two people that truly appreciated him.

Watching people fall was pretty fascinating.

Their bodies would turn and prepare for the inevitable, bracing in fear before the impact came.

They showed something real, in those moments. The shock, the resignation, pure, unadulterated fear that overtook their entire bodies dominated Ron's attention when it happened. And when the fear happened, he saw who they were. How one handles the fear, the harsh reality ready to break their nose it, shows who they truly are.

When Hermione fell into the Devil's Snare, and Ron and Harry were stuck in the stage of fear, he could see Hermione's brain turn over. He saw the way she went straight from the fear to the calm determination of someone who was not ready for the end. He could see the clear fuck you on her face before she sunk below the vines.

When Harry's broom began to shake and throw him off in a violent rage, Ron saw the fear. He saw the clear fear outline every bone of his body before his grip tightened and his body swung upwards. He could see the resignation, and he could see the acceptance of what would happen. But that wasn't standing out as much as the look that overtook his entire face. He could hear it from the stands, the way he was telling himself - not without a fight.

Ron quite liked the fear. He liked seeing them panic and squirm. He liked knowing who they were, if only for a moment.

When he punched Goyle in the face, he saw it. When he beat him over and over in the empty corridor, Ron knew. He didn't have that fight in him, the way his best friends do. He was pitiful, really. Ron felt no sympathy afterwards, merely watched as the larger boy scrambled away bloody and terrified.

And later, when Ron let Harry bandage his knuckles in a way that no eleven year old should be able to do with such ease, he watched the blood swirl down the drain with morbid fascination.

His knuckles were swollen and bruised, and Harry was endlessly careful with them.

Goyle had gotten a good punch in, and Hermione's hand flitted around his cheek worriedly for a good two minutes before calming down.

And the next day, when Goyle's bruises were yellow with some kind of accelerated healing potion, Ron was quite disappointed that the colors had left so quickly. He felt put-out, robbed even, of the satisfaction he'd wanted. That he'd earned.

But when their eyes met, and Goyle flinched to look down with shameful fear, Ron decided that he could settle for that.

********************

Hermione Granger had always been a smart girl. It was something she had always prided herself in. Top of her class, always on time, always perfect.

Her parents had made sure of that. The Grangers would not permit their only child to fail. They refused to have a fuck up for a daughter. It would disgrace them beyond belief, leaving the family humiliated and shame-faced for all of the world to see.

Hermione Granger was used to the low expectations. She had long since grown accustomed to people looking down on her. From her buck teeth, to dark skin, to her frizzy hair, not many expected much from her.

They were proper people, the Grangers. Practical and no-nonsense types that expected their child to achieve a level of success that they were never able to reach.

So it was quite a shock when one day a severe-looking woman appeared on their doorstep in a tall pointy hat and bright green bathrobe that smelled faintly of cat treats.

Hermione had had an inkling about the magic. Strange occurrences, things that logic simply could not explain.

"It snowed once," she had murmured under her breath.

The three adults stopped their snapping, which had been quickly escalating into a fully-blown argument, to look towards the girl.

"What was that?" the professor had sniped quickly.

Hermione looked towards her parents, their lips pressed together tensely as they stared down their daughter through narrowed eyes.

"It snowed," Hermione'd said a bit more clearly. "When... when I read Narnia." She barely kept from flinching when her mother's fist clenched at the mention of one of those horrid fairy tales, but Hermione looked down and twisted her lips from side to side.

"Why is that?" the woman had asked a touch less harshly.

"In the story the kids went through a wardrobe and found a place where it snowed all year round. I just wanted to visit somewhere... somewhere different. Like..."

When Hermione made no effort to finish the professor made the effort to kneel before her to match their heights.

And slowly, the professor's lips began to pull up ever so slightly into an encouraging (and slightly conspiratorial) smile. "Somewhere magical?"

"Yes," Hermione had breathed out emphatically, nodding her head so vigorously that the beads in her weighty braids clanked together loudly enough to echo around the silent room.

"Well, I think that I may be able to make that happen."

To be entirely truthful, Hermione didn't much like school.

She loved learning. She had always loved learning. It was her favorite thing in the whole world. But the pressure, both from the school and her family, made Hermione want to tear her hair out until there was nothing left. Her parents were terrible about it. They monitored her grades as closely as humanly possible. And it was't enough to just do good, or great, or perfect. She had to be better than everyone in anything and everything she did.

Hermione had done ballet when she was little. It wan't her favorite thing in the world, but it had been fun.

But she wasn't The Best.

So her parents made her quit.

Harry and Ron were different than most.

They were her friends. Her real friends. Most people sneered at her in class when her hand always shot up and she jumped at the chance to answer every question she could and fight to be the first one to demonstrate how much better she was than them. (There had been a period of time where Hermione had stopped doing so. Her parents found out. She began raising her hand again.)

Her boys sometimes did that. When Hermione got overexcited and cut off the teacher Harry would sometimes hide his face with his hand or Ron would groan and roll his eyes. But the second someone else said something to her, they would jump at the chance to defend her and take no prisoners.

The three of them were family. A real family. Not like at home where dinner was tense and silent while Hermione's father picked apart every single sentence of her school progress reports, or when Harry would talk about his relatives in quivering whispers before quickly changing the subject before they could ask about his over-sized clothing and the gruesome pattern of raised skin on his arms.

Hermione laughed more with them in her first year at Hogwarts than she ever had in her entire existence. While Harry had a strange kind of gasping laugh that she could hardly distinguish between joy or pain, Ron's was full-bodied and bright. But they were both amazing. They sounded happy. Safe. Kind of like home.

She had never been so happy in her life.

Hermione loved magic.

It had a strange set of rules to it. Strange. Different. But soon enough, Hermione understood it.

Her favorite was potions. There was a definitive way to it, logic that was always followed. Hermione could follow a method and it would be perfect. Action and reaction. That was all it was. Action and reaction. Action and reaction.

(Snape was obviously terrible. He made her face burn and tears spring to her eyes. But she couldn't stop raising her hand or jumping in to answer questions. She just couldn't. If it got back to her parents it would be a thousand times worse than anything Snape could ever do to her.)

But outside of the classroom, Hermione fell in love with the method of potion-making. It was soothing and gentle and welcoming and just so perfect for her. Outside of the dankness of the dungeons and the harsh bearing of Severus Snape's beady black eyes, Hermione Granger sat in the sunlight of the second floor girls' lavatory and created masterpieces. She used her tools to create art. From potions of brilliant greens to velvety purples to bright blues so clear that she could see the bottom of the cauldron through. It was stunningly beautiful. And it took her breath away.

But she wasn't The Best.

(not yet, at least)

It was early on a Saturday morning.

The sun streamed through the tall window of the second floor girls' lavatory and landed on Hermione and her cauldron at the perfect angle. It was a potion recipe that Harry had found in the restricted section and given to her. (Normally, Hermione would never condone breaking rules. At school, no less. But this was a Special Circumstance.) It caused the consumer's heart to beat so fast that the blood couldn't make it through the arteries quickly enough, causing them them to clog and trigger a heart attack.

Hermione hadn't planned on actually giving it to anyone. It would be disgustingly terrible. To cause someone's death...

But then, the colors were so pretty. Swirling pinks and purples moving like waves crashing upon the sand, splashing against the sides of the cauldron of their own accord. Her eyes traced their movements, transfixed into a deep state of pure calm.

She didn't even notice when some of it had splashed up over the lip of the cauldron. It landed on the tiles with a decisive plink that echoed in the silence.

Hermione hadn't seen the rat until it was too late. She watched in horror as the small rodent moved towards the spilled potion, sniffing at it before licking hesitantly.

Before she could yell for it to stop, the rat began to convulse on the dirty floor. Hermione could do nothing but watch as the poor thing's body shook violently, squealing pathetically and rolling around in excruciating pain.

And then the blood.

There was so much in its tiny body. It was actually quite shocking. Spilling from everywhere from its eyes to its mouth to its ears. It was a horror scene - party of one.

Hermione wanted it to stop. She wanted to save the little rat. It was cruel and unkind and unfair and...

Disgustingly beautiful.

The vividness of its blood threw her off. It was smooth and thick, running through the grooves of the tiles in gentle rivulets akin to that of the rivers that carved through the Forest of Dean.

It was very different to see this kind of pain tearing its course through something. It felt almost satisfying to watch. Like she was seeing her own pain manifest itself within a tiny conductor, forcing everything inside of her inside of it.

And it was Hermione that was doing it. Hermione's potion. Her own knowledge and power transferring into another living breathing thing, wreaking its havoc as it went.

Action and reaction.

Sometimes Hermione would watch others in school with the same lens that she had watched that rat. She would bore holes through the side of Pansy Parkinson's head or clench her hands to avoid tilting the entirety of her scalding potion down the back of Professor Snape's robes during class.

(She would fantasize about it. Sometimes Hermione felt like a monster for doing so, but then she would look at Ron when he dug his fingertips into the desk and glare at Draco Malfoy with a barely concealed type of rage that she Knew meant that they were the same.)

(Harry was a little different. He didn't always have that kind of rage inside of him. But he would watch when Ron would fight others, untamed and wild in every aspect. And it would glimmer behind the vibrant green of his irises that Hermione had yet to recreate with one of her potions.)

Hermione wanted to do it. She wanted to drip just the littlest bit of her art onto their wrists. Just a drop. She wanted to watch their skin shrivel and burn, eaten away by the nature of her poison. She wanted to hear them scream. She wanted them to feel what she feels, if only for a bit. She wanted to paint with their blood, tracing sigils of old into her skin and practicing the kind of magic that would have her mother fainting on the front lawn and her father puking into the ugly orange tulips tracing the stark white walls of her pretty little muggle home.

But for now, she'd have to settle for the rats haunting the bathroom floor.

[today-only-happens-once]

(un)claimed

Title: unclaimed

Summary: Virgil is a demigod. The good news is that he is not alone. A Percy-Jackson!AU fic. Platonic/found-family DRLAMP dynamics.

Word Count: 4217

Warnings: some violence and weapons, Greek mythology, passing mention of curses, feelings of anxiety, some self-doubt and self-deprecation, parent issues (of course, it’s a pjo!AU), no Side is a bad guy but there’s some tension between Remus and Roman, I play a little loose with PJO timeline stuff woops, Janus has done some light antagonizing of the gods.

A/N: Honestly, it should surprise nobody that I wrote this. Heh. Just for fun to release the happy chemical in my brain. Not that deep or involved. Just a light little diddy. <3 Hope you enjoy! Edited by yours truly so all mistakes are mine. No tags because it’s a fandom-specific AU, not because I don’t love y’all. <3 

///

“See that tree on the hill?”

Virgil quirks an eyebrow at the boy beside him, taking in his bright orange t-shirt and the three beads on his leather necklace. He has what Virgil would swear was snake scales across the left side of his face. Janus, he had said his name was. (Like the god? Virgil had asked. No relation. Not unless Athena has some explaining to do, the boy had told him with a wry smile as if that was somehow supposed to make sense.)

He’d met Janus four hours ago in New York in Central Park after a very weird encounter with a cyclops. Though if he’s being honest, the cyclops had only been the most recent run-in with vicious creatures out of his mother’s old Greek myth anthology. He’d been ducking and dodging and outrunning them for nearly a year at this point. Janus had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, sliced the cyclops with a dagger and it vanished in a puff of gold dust.

Then Janus told him he knew a safe place to go. Perhaps he was an idiot, but Virgil had followed without much objection. The idea of a place that was safe was nearly too good to be true, but Janus had just dusted a cyclops. And Virgil figured there was at least some power in numbers, if nothing else.

Virgil follows where the other boy is pointing and sees a tall pine tree at the top of the steep hill. He nods.

“Go there. You’ll see a camp in the valley. Chiron will explain.”

“Chiron?”

“Yes. Activities director. You can trust him.”

“You’re not coming too?” Virgil looks at the boy beside him again. Janus is looking in the opposite direction of the tree back the way they’d come and he yanks the dagger out of his belt.

Janus’s mouth twitches. “We’ve got company. I will hold them off. The border is protected. You’ll be safe once you cross the tree line.”  

Alarmed, Virgil looks over his shoulder and sees a winged creature in the distance. It looks almost a like a bat, if a bat could be the size of a human person. “What is that?!”

Janus gives a slight shove to Virgil’s shoulder. “Run, Virgil!”

“I can’t leave you behind—”

Janus mutters something that sounds foreign, and yet Virgil understands it. A curse word in… was that ancient Greek? Virgil isn’t given time to process it before Janus grabs Virgil’s arm and takes off at a sprint up the hill. Virgil stumbles but he manages to keep his feet under him as he takes off at a run for the looming pine. As they get closer, Virgil chances a glance over his shoulder. The winged creature is maybe twenty yards away. It’ll be on them any second.

Janus whistles sharply. “Hey! We got incoming!”

Seemingly out of nowhere, three other kids appear from near the tree. One of them notches an arrow in an honest-to-gods bow. He aims, then releases. Virgil watches, stunned, as the blow strikes true and the winged creature vanishes in a puff of gold dust that gets caught in the breeze.

Virgil rests his hands on his knees as he catches his breath. Janus, beside him, is breathing hard as well but he nods to the kid with the bow and arrow.

“Nice shot,” Virgil tells him.

The kid looks to be maybe a year older than Virgil, and is wearing a t-shirt that matches Janus’s. He’s also got a necklace of beads, though his has five of them. Virgil realizes that some of them match Janus’s, plus a few more. He slings the bow across his back and flashes Virgil a bright grin.

“Thanks! I’m Sloane.” He extends his hand.

“Virgil.” He shakes the kid’s hand.

Sloane nods to the other two kids that had materializes near him. One of them is a girl that looks a little younger than Virgil, maybe 14, with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. The other is a guy in a backwards baseball cap and a plaid shirt over the orange tee that looks about Sloane’s age. His necklace only has one bead on it.

“This is Valerie,” Sloane introduces. “She’s from Cabin 10. And this is Kai. He’s from Cabin 9.”

“Sloane,” Janus interrupts. “Where’s Chiron?”

Sloane jerks his head down the hill. “In the Big House with the lead counselors.”

Virgil watches Janus’s brow furrow. “Seems unusual. Did something happen?”

Valerie sighs. “Kind of. Dionysus gave one of his kids a quest. Counselors are meeting about the prophecy to see who is going.”

Janus’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Which one?”

“Jack. The prophecy mentions a death. That never bodes well, and kids aren’t exactly lining up to work for Mr. D.”

Janus hums thoughtfully, his eyes trailing over the crest of the hill. Virgil watches as he shoves the knife into his belt. Kai cocks his head slightly, studying Virgil closely. Then, he looks at Janus. “Has he been claimed?”

Virgil frowns. “Claimed?”

“No,” Janus tells Kai, then looks to Virgil. “Follow me. I’ll explain as we walk.”

Janus nods to the other three and Virgil follows him down to the valley below. From this vantage point, Virgil sees the cabins Janus has been talking about, forming something like a horseshoe shape. In front of it is a large building that Virgil assumes is the ‘Big House’ that Sloane had mentioned. He sees other buildings and structures, but decides to wait to ask about them.

People mill around, most of them wearing the orange t-shirt that has a winged horse and the words Camp Half-Blood printed on them. When they notice Virgil, most of them throw a curious glance to Janus. Janus doesn’t even seem to notice.

“Welcome to Camp Half-Blood,” Janus says as they walk. “It’s one of the few safe spaces left for demigods like us.”

“Wait,” Virgil says, certain that he heard Janus incorrectly. “Demigod?”

Janus glances at him. “Hm. I gather you really don’t know very much. Yes, demigod. Half-god, half-mortal.”

“And you think I’m one of these, uh, half-bloods?” Virgil shakes his head. “Listen, I think you’ve got the wrong guy.”

Janus looks almost amused now, an eyebrow arching almost like a challenge. “You couldn’t have gotten across the border into camp if you weren’t. Let me guess… you have ADHD and dyslexia.”

“Wh—I mean, yes, but—”

“You were raised by either a single parent or no parent at all,” Janus continues.

“My mom, until—”

“You see things others either don’t see or don’t remember.”

“I—”

“Please. Do stop me if I’m wrong.”

Virgil falls silent, his chest a bit tight. He crosses his arms over his chest as they walk.

Janus waits for a beat before he elaborates, sounding like it’s a spiel he’s given a dozen times already. “The ADHD is the battle reflexes. Dyslexia is because your brain is wired for ancient Greek, not modern English.”

Virgil’s mind is reeling. “But—”

“The things you see are because you’re a demigod. You are able to see things as they are.  Mortals—most mortals—get deceived by this thing called the Mist. Someday, with training, you’ll be able to manipulate it as well. It’s a useful skill.”

Virgil feels suddenly way too hot, and yet still has the sudden desire to pull the hood of his hoodie up over his hair. “Demigod,” he repeats, though saying it aloud doesn’t help it make sense. “Are… Are you telling me that my dad is a god? Like a Greek god? Zeus? Apollo? Those guys?”

Janus glances at him and looks, for a split second, almost apologetic. “I understand that it’s a lot to take in at once. This is why Chiron usually takes the initiation. He usually has a more, ah, sensitive means of broaching the subject. But since he’s meeting with the lead counselors, I’m afraid the responsibility falls to me.”

Virgil blinks. He can feel the pressure in his chest building and he forces himself to take a breath. It doesn’t help as much as he’d been hoping it would. “Which one?”

“Hm?”

“Which god is my dad?”

They’re passing in front of the Big House now. There’s two people standing on the front porch—a blonde girl holding a Yankees cap and a boy with a goatee leaning against the railing—seeming deep in conversation. The blonde girl offers Janus a small wave. Janus nods back.

“To your question, the answer is that we don’t know,” he says. “Since you haven’t been claimed yet, your guess is as good as ours. But you might be claimed any minute now, or never claimed at all. I was claimed three days after arriving at camp by Athena. But we have several campers who haven’t been claimed at all. Remy Short is one such example.”

“Athena. Goddess of wisdom and strategy,” Virgil remembers. He’d read that name in his mother’s library when he was younger. And he has a vague memory from sixth grade social studies.

“Indeed,” Janus replies. They circle around the house and Virgil realizes that Janus is leading him towards the semi-circle of cabins. “Since you haven’t been claimed yet, you’re designated to Cabin 11. Hermes’ cabin.”

“Janus!” A bright, cheerful voice calls from behind them. Janus stops and turns, and Virgil follows his gaze. A boy that looks about Virgil’s age, maybe a year older, is running towards them from the Big House. He’s got a flop of curly hair and big round glasses.

“Patton,” Janus greets as the boy slows to a stop near them. “Virgil, this is Patton. He’s the head of the Hermes cabin.”

Patton grins and holds out his hand. “Hi, Virgil. Welcome to Cabin 11. I’ll talk to Chiron about getting you some supplies—”

“I’ll talk to Chiron,” Janus interrupts as Virgil shakes Patton’s hand. “I need to ask him about some things anyway. Patton, could you—”

“For sure,” Patton agrees readily. “I’ll show Virgil around!”

Janus excuses himself and starts towards the Big House. Virgil rubs the back of his neck and offers Patton an awkward smile.  Now that he’s closer, Virgil realizes that Patton is maybe an inch or so shorter than him. He’s got four beads on his necklace.  

“How ya doing?” Patton asks him, startling him out of his thoughts. Virgil meets his eyes. Patton’s are a warm brown, and his smile is sympathetic. “I remember my first day at camp. It’s always overwhelming.”

Virgil huffs. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“You’ll love it here,” Patton says with a surprising amount of confidence.

Virgil arcs a skeptical eyebrow. “I’ve heard that before. I don’t seem to, ah, stay in one place very long.”

“Kicked out of school?” Patton guesses. He starts walking around the cabins and Virgil follows, slipping his hands into the pocket of his hoodie.

“Yeah. Several times.”

“We all have,” Patton says, not unkindly. “That’s the best thing about camp. In the mortal world, we’re all labeled as weird or outcasts. But at camp? We’ve all been through it. Oh! This is Cabin 10. Aphrodite’s cabin.”

Patton walks Virgil around the semi-circle, explaining each cabin’s assigned deity. He adds that Cabins 1 through 3 are empty, though apparently there was a girl that used to be in Cabin 1—Zeus’s cabin—who joined the Hunters of Artemis and left camp. Cabin 2 was Hera’s, and since she didn’t have children, the cabin was mostly honorary. Cabin 3 usually had a kid in it, but he apparently was on some kind of recon mission and wouldn’t return for another day or two. Cabin 8—Aretmis’s cabin—is also, usually, empty except when the Hunters visit.

“Since you don’t know who your dad is, you get to bunk with us at the Hermes Cabin,” Patton explains. “We take all unclaimed kids, since Hermes is the god of travelers.”

“I thought he was the god of thieves,” Virgil says before he can think about it.

Patton smiles sheepishly. “Yeah, that too. If you’ve got anything important, maybe keep it with ya. Just in case. I try to dissuade stealing, but old habits die hard for some of these kiddos.”  

Patton leads him around the camp, pointing out the strawberry fields, the armory, and the forge that mostly gets used by the Hephaestus kids. A few of them wave at Patton, who eagerly waves back and calls a few of them by name. He shows Virgil the arena, where two kids are sparring. Patton takes a seat and Virgil sits beside him, watching the two boys circle each other.

Both of them are wearing matching orange t-shirts—Patton had told him that he’d be getting one too—and some armor. One of them has dark hair and square glasses. He’s got two knives, one in each hand, and even from a bit of distance Virgil can sees the slight sheen of sweat to his forehead. The other one’s hair is a couple of shades lighter. His sleeves are rolled up and he wields a sword and a shield.

“The one with the glasses is Logan,” Patton explains. “He’s a child of Athena. The other one is Roman. He’s a child of Apollo. I met both of them in Seattle before we made our way to camp together thanks to some help from a satyr.”

“All three of you have been claimed?” Virgil asks, watching as Roman charges at Logan who rolls out of the way and then nimbly jumps back up to his feet. He slashes at Roman’s back but Roman parries the blow with a well-timed flick of the sword.

“Not immediately,” Patton says. “Logan was claimed as soon as we got to camp, but it was a month or so for me. And Roman was nearly a year before Apollo claimed him during a campfire song. It certainly surprised a lot of people.”

“Why?”

“His brother was claimed by Ares three months before him, so most people thought Roman was Ares’ kid too.”

Virgil glances at Patton. “Roman has a brother?”

Patton’s mouth presses into a thin line for a moment, and Virgil gets the sense that it’s a touchy subject. “Yeah. Remus. It’s unusual for two kids of the same family to both be demigods, and the fact that their father are two different gods led to some… tension. Roman and Remus don’t exactly get along.”

Virgil nods his understanding and turns his attention back to the sparring pair. Roman blocks a quick slash from Logan with his shield and swipes at him with the sword, but Logan parries the blow with the other knife in his hands. Then in a series of quick movements—Virgil isn’t sure how it happens, exactly—Roman is flat on his back and Logan is on his chest with the knife to his throat.

Roman says something that Virgil can’t make out, and Logan says something in kind before he climbs off Roman and helps him up. Roman flashes a grin and shoves Logan’s shoulder before he glances past his sparring match and sees Patton and Virgil sitting on one of the benches.

Roman waves. “Heya, Padre!”

Logan glances over his shoulder and quirks an eyebrow at Virgil but stores his daggers as Roman jogs over. Patton stands and Virgil follows him down to meet Roman halfway.

“Hey, Roman,” Patton replies. “I didn’t know you started using a sword!”

Roman grabs a towel off a nearby bench and mops the sweat off his forehead. “It’s new. I’m still trying to get used to it. I think the balance is off.”

“The balance is fine,” Logan quips, stepping up beside him. “You just need more practice.”

Roman rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue. “Either way, Specs. I’ll take archery any day over waving a sharp stick around.”

“You are definitely a son of Apollo,” Logan rejoins back without malice. “And it would be unwise to only be versed in ranged attack.”

“And you are definitely a son of Athena.”

“Correct.”

Virgil snorts, and then a part of him regrets it as Roman and Logan both look over at him. Virgil flushes slightly, uncomfortable with the sudden attention, but Patton seems to only perk up more.

“Oh! Sorry, this is Virgil. He’s a new camper. Janus ran into him on his way back and brought him along.”

“Which cabin?” Logan asks.

Virgil shrugs. “For now, Cabin 11, I guess.”

“Unclaimed, then.” Virgil listens for the judgement in Logan’s voice, but he doesn’t hear it. It sounds more like a flat statement of fact, as if reporting the weather. Logan nods once. “Very well.”

“I was just showing him around,” Patton supplies. “You guys wanna join?”

Logan starts shrugging out of the armor he’s wearing. “Regrettably, I said that I would assist Harley with some blueprints when I had finished sparring with Roman.”

Roman slides the sword into the scabbard at his side. “And I’m overdue for a Pegasus lesson. I can’t miss it again. The last thing I need is Mr. D giving me another earful.” Roman gives a quick two-finger salute and rushes out of the arena.

Virgil blinks at Patton. “Pegasus?”

Patton grins brightly. “Come on. I’ll show ya.”

…

Patton spends the rest of the afternoon showing Virgil around the camp. They go to the stables (where Roman offers to take Virgil for a ride but Virgil immediately declines because he’s never been a fan of flying). They swing by the beach on their way to the climbing wall. Virgil watches, amazed, as two kids climb with impressive speed and narrowly avoid the magma that starts to pour down it.

One of the kids has a Morningstar gripped between his teeth, a green bandana around his upper bicep and a matching one around his head. He’s fast, scaling the wall with a well-practiced ease. Virgil hears him laugh delightedly when his hand slips and he almost gets burned by the lava. It’s somehow both impressive and disconcerting.

“That would be Remus.”

“That’s Remus?” Virgil repeats, though when he looks a bit closer he sees the similarity in hair color and skin complexion. “I guess I see the resemblance.”

“Don’t tell Roman that,” Patton says lightly. “C’mon.”

They pass the amphitheater where, apparently, there would be a bonfire tonight. Patton shows him the volleyball court where four kids are playing one another. They wave at Patton as they pass.

“You seem popular,” Virgil supplies. He’s lost track of how many kids have waved at them as they walk around.

Patton lifts a shoulder modestly. “I dunno. Since Hermes is the catch-all cabin, a lot of camp knows me since they come to our cabin if they haven’t been claimed yet. Sometimes we get kids that get claimed right away, or kids that already have been claimed, but otherwise? I get to be their lead counselor for at least a little bit.”

“Sounds like a lot of responsibility.”

“I kind of like it,” Patton admits with a smile. “It’s like I’m everyone’s honorary camp dad.”

The conversation cuts out as dinner is called and they head to the mess hall. Patton explains the offering to the gods prior to the meal, and Virgil scrapes part of his plate into the fire. He doesn’t know what to ask for.

It’d be nice to have a family again, dad, he thinks, unsure of who he should even direct the comment to. Patton waves him over, offering a seat beside him.

Virgil chances a glance around the mess hall as they eat. The Hermes table is certainly the most crowded, though Virgil can’t say he finds that surprising. Athena’s table has several kids reading while eating. Two kids at the Ares table are in the middle of an arm-wrestling competition. One kid at the Hephaestus table is pouring over a blueprint, and Virgil wonders if that was the Harley kid that Logan had mentioned.

Towards the end of the meal, a few kids at the Apollo table starts singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” and it’s not long before most of their table is doing the entire song with harmony. Someone from the Demeter table tells them to ‘save it for the campfire’, but it does nothing to deter the Apollo kids. Virgil catches Roman laughing as he sings, one of his sibling’s arms slung around his shoulders.

Virgil glances over and sees Logan at the Athena table sitting next to Janus, watching the chaos unfold and the faintest quirk of his lips betray his amusement.

Virgil feels some of the tension in his chest relax just a little.

…

The bonfire starts around dusk. Virgil is making his way to the amphitheater from dropping supplies off at the cabin when Roman comes up from behind him and loops his arm through Virgil’s, chattering excitedly about how much he loved this part of camp. Virgil sees an ukulele case slung around his shoulder.

Logan appears a second later on the other side of Virgil, commenting dryly that the Apollo kids had done their vocal warm-ups during the dinner. This only served to lead Roman to do actual vocal warm-ups—trills and scales, specifically—as they walked. Patton and Janus were already sitting down, three rows back. Patton waves when he sees them file in. Remus is sitting beside Janus, seemingly trying to goad him into some kind of competition that he was having no interest in. The firelight glints of Janus’s scales.

“Hey,” Virgil says to Roman and Logan. “Can… I ask what happened to Janus?” He immediately regrets the question, cursing his lack of a filter, but neither of the other boys seem perturbed by the question.

“A curse from Aphrodite,” Logan answers. “Janus had gone on a quest for our mother, and it led to some… unsavory tension between himself and Aphrodite. From what he’s told me, he accused Ares of being a snake in the grass while in the presence of Aphrodite, and… well. The love goddess didn’t take kindly to that. But it’s purely cosmetic.”

Virgil arcs an eyebrow. “Remus seems chill with him.”

“I’m not sure that Remus is aware of the accusation Janus leveled at his father,” Logan muses. “And Janus is not one to hold the children accountable for the actions of their godly parent.”

“It doesn’t benefit him,” Roman adds in, using his free hand for air quotes. “Or something like that. Janus is all about himself and how he can improve his own standing.”

“Sounds like someone else I know,” Logan quips dryly.

Roman scoffs, but when Virgil looks at him, there’s a teasing glint to his eyes. “Well, I wasn’t going to say it, but you guys are half-brothers for a reason.”

Logan looks at Roman over the top of his glasses, but Roman just shoots him a cheeky smile as they approach the other three. Virgil slides into the seat beside Patton, followed by Logan and then Roman. There’s a few kids—Virgil isn’t sure what cabin they’re from—trying to lead a call-and-response chant as campers file in. Down the row, Remus enthusiastically calls out the responses at the top of his lungs.

“Roman!” A new voice calls out from the end of their row. A tall guy, a couple of years older than them, is holding a ukulele and jerking his head down towards the bonfire. “You ready to help me kick this thing off?”

Roman grins and jumps up. “Would be an honor, Thomas.” He rushes off and he and Thomas start playing a song together with practiced ease. He and the other Apollo kids start singing, and before long the vast majority of campers are joining in. A few of them, including Patton, sway a little. Virgil doesn’t sing, but he listens and tries to remember the words.

The sky grows dark. The Apollo kids eventually cede the floor to some Ares kids who start up another chant. More songs are sung, some snacks get passed around, and Virgil is starting to think that maybe, with time, he could get used to this.

“Oh! I almost forgot!” Patton says beside him, as the next song starts. He drops something into Virgil’s lap. “I got this for ya.”

Virgil looks down. It’s two camp t-shirts. The black winged horse and the Camp Half-Blood print stares up at him. He looks over at Patton.

Patton just smiles. “Claimed or not, you’re one of us. We claim you.”

Virgil feels like maybe that’s good enough for him.

[thewidowsghost]

The Daughter of the Sea - Chapter 9

(Y/n)'s POV

It doesn't take me long to pack. I decide to leave the Minotaur horn in the cabin, which leaves me only an extra change of clothes and a toothbrush to stuff in a backpack Grover had found for me.

The camp store loans me one hundred dollars in mortal money and twenty golden drachmas. The coins are as big as Girl Scout cookies and have images of various Greek Gods stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other. The ancient mortal drachmas had been silver, Chiron had told us, but Olympins never used less than pure gold. Chiron said the coins might come in for non-mortal transactions - whatever that might mean. He gives Annabeth, Percy, and me canteens of nectar and Ziploc bags full of ambrosia squares, to be used only in emergencies, if we were seriously hurt. It is god food, Chiron reminds us. It would cure us of almost any injury, but it is lethal to mortals. Too much of it would make a half-blood very, very feverish. An overdose would burn us up, literally, Fun.

Annabeth is bringing her magic Yankees cap, which she tells me had been a twelfth-birthday present from her mom. She is also bringing a book on famous classical architecture, written in Ancient Greek, to read when she gets bored, and a long bronze knife, hidden in her shirt sleeve. I'm sure the knife is going to get us busted the first time we go through a metal detector.

Grover is wearing his fake feet and his pants to pass as a human. He wears a green rasta-style cap, because when it rains his curly hair flattened and you can just see the tips of his horns. Grover's bright orange backpack is full of scrap metal and apples to snack on. In his pocket is a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knows two songs: Mozart's Piano Concerto Number 12 and Hilary Duff's 'So Yesterday,' both of which sound pretty bad on reed pipes.

We wave good-bye to the other campers, take one last look at eh strawberry fields, the ocean, and the Big House, then hike up the Half-Blood Hill to the tall pine tree that used to be Thalia, the Daughter of Zeus.

Chiron is waiting for us in his wheelchair. Next to him stands the surfer dude I'd seen when I was recovering in the sick room. According to Grover, the guy is the camp's head of security. He supposedly had eyes all over his body so he could never be surprised. Today, though, he's wearing a chauffeur's uniform, so I can only see the extra eyes on his hands, face, and neck.

"This is Argus," Chiron tells me. "He'll drive you into the city, and, er, well, keep an eye on things."

I hear footsteps behind us.

Luke comes running up the hill, carrying a pair of basketball shoes. "Hey!" he pants. "Glad I caught you."

Annabeth blushes, the way she always does when Luke is around.

"Just wanted to say good luck," Luke tells us. "And I thought . . . um, maybe you could use these."

He hands Percy a pair of sneakers, which look pretty normal.

Then, Luke says, "Maia!"

White bird's wings sprouted out of the heels. The shoes flap around on the ground until the wings fold up and disappear.

"Awesome!" Grover exclaims.

Luke smiles. "Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from Dad. Of course, I don't use them much these days...." His expression turns sad.

Annabeth stomps down the other side of the hill, after arguing with Percy, where a white SUV waits on the shoulder of the road. Argus follows, jingling his car kees.

Percy picks up the flying shoes and then looks up at Chiron. "I won't be able to use these, will I?"

Chiron shakes his head. "Luke meant well, Percy. But taking to the air...that would not be wise for you."

I nod, getting an idea, "Hey, Grover. You want a magic item?"

His eyes light up. "Me?"

Pretty soon, we'd laced the sneakers over his fake feet, and the world's first flying goat boy is ready for launch.

"Maia!" Grover shouts. He gets off the ground, okay, but then falls over sideways so his backpack drags through the grass. The winged shoes keep bucking up and down like tiny broncos.

"Practice," Chiron calls after him. "You just need practice."

"Aaaaa!" Grover goes flying sideways down the hill like a possessed lawnmower, heading towards the can.

But before I can follow, Chiron catches my arm. "I should have trained you two better, Percy, (Y/n)," he says. "If only I had more time. Hercules, Jason - they all got more training."

"That's okay. I just -" I stop myself.

"What am I thinking?" Chiron cries. "I can't let the two of you get away without these." He pulls two pens out of his coat pocket and hands one to me and one to Percy.

Looking down at it, I see a teal-colored gel pen. Maybe cost thirty cents.

"Gee," Percy says. "Thanks."

"Percy, those are gifts from your father. I've been keeping them for years, not knowing you two were the ones I was waiting for. But the prophecy is clear to me now. You two are the ones."

Instinctively I take off the cap, and the pen grows longer and heavier in my hand. In half a second, I am holding a shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a teal and silver leather-wrapped grip. This is the first weapon that feels balanced in my hand.

"That sword has a long and tragic history that we need not go into," Chiron tells Percy. "Its name is Anaklusmos."

"Riptide," Percy translates.

"I have never seen anyone use that sword that I'm aware of," Chiron says, turning to me. "Yours is named Τυφώνας."

"Hurricane," I translate, surprised that the Ancient Greek came so easily to me.

"Use them only for emergencies," Chiron says, "and only against monsters. No hero should harm mortals unless absolutely necessary, of course, but neither sword would hurt them in any case."

I look down at the wickedly sharp blade. "What do you mean it wouldn't harm mortals? How could it not?"

"Those swords are celestial bronze. Forged by the Cyclopes, tempered in the heart of Mount Etna, cooled in the River Lethe. It's deadly to monsters, to any creature from the Underworld, provided they don't kill you first. But the blades will pass through morals like an illusion. They simply are not important for the blade to kill. And I should warn you two: as demigods, you can be killed by either celestial or normal weapons. You are twice as vulnerable."

"Good to know," Percy says.

"Now recap the pens," Chiron says.

Percy and I touch the pen cap to the sword tips and instantly Riptide and Hurricane shrink to ballpoint pens again. I tuck it in my pocket, a little nervous because it's pretty easy to lose a pen.

"You can't," Chiron says.

"Can't what?" I ask, slightly confused.

"Lose the pens," he says. "They're enchanted. They'll always reappear in your pockets. Try it."

Warily, I throw the pen as far as I can down the hill and watch it disappear in the grass.

"It may take a few moments," Chiron tells us. "Now check your pocket."

Sure enough, the pen is there.

"Okay, that is extremely cool," I admit.

"But what if a mortal sees one of us pulling out a sword?" Percy asks.

Chiron smiles. "Mist is a powerful thing, Percy."

"Mist?" I ask.

"Yes. Read The Iliad. It's full of references to the stuff. Whatever divine or monstrous elements mix with the mortal world, they generate Mist, which obscures the vision of humans. You will see things just as they are, being a half-blood, but humans will interpret things quite differently. Remarkable, really, the lengths to which humans will go fit things into their version of reality.

I put Hurricane back into my pocket.

For the first time, the quest feels real. I'm leaving Half-Blood Hill. I'm heading west with no adult supervision, no backup plan, not even a cell phone - Chiron said cell phones were traceable by monsters; if we used one, it would be no worse than sending up a flare. I have no weapon stronger than a sword to fight off monsters and reach the Land of the Dead.

"Chiron . . ." Percy says. "When you say the gods are immortal . . . I mean, there was a time before them, right?"

"Four ages before them, actually. The Time of the Titans was the Fourth Age, sometimes called the Golden Age, which is definitely a misnomer. This, the time of Western civilization and the rule of Zeus, is the Fifth Age."

"So what was it like...before the gods?"

Chiron purses his lips. "Even I am not old enough to remember that, child, but I know it was a time of darkness and savagery for mortals. Kronos, the lord of the Titans, called his reign the Golden Age because men lived innocent and free of all knowledge. But that was mere propaganda. The Titan king cared nothing for your kind except as appetizers or a source of cheap entertainment. It was only in the early reign of Lord Zeus, when Prometheus the good Titan brought fire to mankind, that your species began to progress, and even then Prometheus was branded a radical thinker. Zeus punished him severely, as you may recall. Of course, eventually, the gods warmed to humans, and Western civilization was born."

"But the gods can't die now, right? I mean, as long as Western civilization is alive, they're alive. So...even if I failed, nothing could happen so bad it would mess up everything, right?" I ask, feeling rather uncertain.

Chiron gives me a melancholy smile. "No one knows how long the Age of the West will last, (Y/n). The gods are immortal, yes. But then, so were the Titans. They still exist, locked away in their various prisons, forced to endure endless pain and punishment, reduced in power, but still very much alive. May the Fates forbid that the gods should ever suffer such a doom, or that we should ever return to the darkness and chaos of the past. All we can do, child, is follow our destiny."

"Our destiny...assuming we know what that is," I say grimly.

"Relax," Chiron tells me. "Keep a clear head. And remember, the two of you may be about to prevent the biggest war in human history."

"Relax," I say. "I'm very relaxed."

When Percy and I get to the bottom of the hill, I look back. Under the pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus, Chiron is now standing in full horse-man form, holding his bow high in salute. Just your typical summer-camp send-off by your typical centaur."

Argus drives us out of the countryside and into western Long Island, It feels weird to be on a highway again, Annabeth and Grover sitting next to me, Percy on the other side of Grover, as if we were normal carpoolers. After two weeks at Half-Blood Hill, the real world seems like a fantasy. I find myself staring at every McDonald's, every kid in the back of his parent's car, every billboard and shopping mall.

"So far so good," Percy tells Annabeth. "Ten miles and not a single monster."

She gives Percy an irritated loo. "It's bad luck to talk that way."

"Remind me again - why do you hate us so much?" Percy asks.

"I don't hate you two."

"Could've fooled me."

Annabeth folds her cap of invisibility. "Look...we're just not supposed to get along, okay? Our parents are rivals."

"Why?" Percy asks.

Annabeth sighs. "How many reasons do you want? One time my mom caught Poseidon with his girlfriend in Athena's temple, which is hugely disrespectful. Another time, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of Athens. Your dad created some stupid saltwater spring for his gift. My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her."

"They must really like olives," Percy comments, and I stifle a snort of laughter.

"Oh, forget it," Annabeth grumbles.

"Now, if she invented pizza - that I could understand," I add, in a slightly teasing tone.

"I said, forget it!" Annabeth says, hitting me lightly on the arm.

In the front seat, Argus smiles. He doesn't say anything, but one blue eye on the back of his neck winks at me.

Traffic slows down in Queens. By the time we get into Manhattan, it is sunset and starting to rain.

Argus drops us at the greyhound Station on the Upper East Side, not far from my mom and Gabe's apartment. Taped to a mailbox is a soggy flyer with mine and Percy's picture on it: Have you seen these children?

Percy rips it down before Annabeth and Grover can notice.

Argus unloads our bags, makes sure we get our bus tickets, then drives away, the eye on the back of his hand opening to watch us as he pulls out of the parking lot.

I think about how close I am to the apartment. On a normal day, Mom would be home from the candy store by now. Smelly Gabe is probably up there right now, playing poker, not even missing her.

Grover shoulders his backpack. He gazes down the street in the direction I am looking. "You want to know why she married him, (Y/n)?"

I stare at him. "Were you reading my mind?" I ask, raising an eyebrow.

"Just your emotions," Grover shrugs. "You were thinking about your mom and your stepdad, right?"

I nod.

"Your mom married Gabe for you and Percy," Grover tells me. "You call him 'Smelly,' but you've got no idea. This guy has this aura . . . Yuck. I can smell him from here. I can smell traces of him o you, and you haven't been near him in a week."

"Thanks," Percy grimaces from Grover's other side. "Where's the nearest shower?"

"You should be grateful, Percy. Your stepfather smells so repulsively human he could mask the presence of any demigod. As soon as I took a whiff inside his Camaro, I knew: Gabe has been covering your scent for years. If you hadn't lived with him every summer, you probably would've been found by monsters a long time ago. Your mom stayed with him to protect you. She was a smart lady. She must've loved you a lot to put up with that guy—if that makes you feel any better."

I soften, looking down a the ground. I'll see her again, I think. She isn't gone.

You will be betrayed by one who calls you a friend, the Oracle whispers in my mind. You will fail to save what matters most in the end.

The rain keeps coming down.

We get restless waiting for the bus and decide to play some Hacky Sack with one of Groer's apples. Annabeth was unbelievable at it. She could bounce the apple off her knee, her elbow, her shoulder, whatever. Percy wasn't too bad either, but I found that I wasn't that great at it.

The game ends when I toss the apple towards Grover and it gets too close to his mouth. In one mega goat bite, our Hacky Sack disappears - core, stem, and all.

Grover blushes. He tries to apologize, but Annabeth, Percy, and I are too busy cracking up.

Finally, the bus comes.

I am relieved when we finally get on board and find seats together in the back of the bus, Me and Annabeth in one row, and Percy and Grover across from us. The four of us stow our backpacks.

I glance over at Annabeth beside me, who keeps slapping her Yankees cap nervously against her thigh.

As the last passengers get on, Annabeth claps her hand onto my knee. "Look!"

An old lady had just boarded the bus. She is wearing a crumpled velvet dress, lace gloves, and a shapeless orange-knit hat that shadows her face and she is carrying a big paisley purse. When she tilts her head up, her black eyes glitter.

I see Percy slump down in his seat.

Behind her comes two more old ladies: one in a green hat, one in a purple hat. Otherwise, they look exactly like Mrs. Dodds - same gnarled hands, paisley handbags, wrinkled velvet dress. Triple demon grandmothers.

They sit in the front row, right behind the driver. The two on the aisle cross their legs over the walkway, making an X. It is casual enough, but it sends a clear message: Nobody leaves.

The bus pulls out of the station, and we head through the slick streets of Manhattan.

"She didn't stay dead long," Percy says, his voice quavering a little. "I thought you said they could be dispelled for a lifetime."

"I said if you're lucky," Annabeth murmurs. "You're obviously not."

"All three of them," Grover whimpers. "Di immortales!"

"It's okay," Annabeth says, obviously thinking hard. "The Furies. The worst monsters from the Underworld. No problem. No problem. We'll just slip out the windows."

"They don't open," Grover moans.

"A back exit?" she suggests.

There isn't one. Even if there had been, it wouldn't have helped. By that time, we are on Ninth Avenue heading for the Lincoln Tunnel.

"They won't attack us with witnesses around," I say. "Will they?"

"Mortals don't have good eyes," Annabeth reminds me. "Their brains can only process what they see through the Mist."

"They'll see three old ladies killing us, won't they?" Percy asks.

She thinks about it. "Hard to say. But we can't count on mortals for help. Maybe an emergency exit in the roof . . . ?"

We hit the Lincoln Tunnel, and the bus goes dark except for the running lights down teh aisle. It is eerily quiet without the sound of the rain.

"I need to use the rest-room."

"So do I."

"So do I."

All three demons start coming down the aisle.

"I've got it," Annabeth says. "Percy, take my hat."

"What?" he says with disbelief.

"You're the one they want. You killed one of them. Turn invisible and go up the aisle. Let them pass you. Maybe you can get to the front and get away."

"But you guys -"

"There's an outside chance they might not notice us," Annabeth says as she glances over at me. "You're a son of the Big Three. Your smell might be overpowering."

"I can't just leave you," Percy says, looking desperately at me.

"Go," I say, frowning and Annabeth hands him the cap.

The old ladies are not old ladies anymore. Their faces are still the same - I guessed they couldn't get any uglier - but their bodies had shriveled into leathery brown hag bodies with bat's wings and hands and feet like gargoyle claws; their handbags had turned into fiery whips.

The Furies surround me, Grover, and Annabeth, lashing their whips, hissing: "Where is it? Where?"

The other people on the bus are screaming, cowering in their seats. They see something, all right.

"He's not here!" Annabeth yells. "He's gone!"

The Furies raise their whips.

Annabeth draws her bronze knife. Grover grabs a tin can from his snack bag and prepares to throw it.

Word Count: 3222 words

[kookie-doughs]

Y/N L/N AND THE HALFBLOODS

Percy Jackson X Reader -Y/N L/N met Percy Jackson and everything was now ruined.

CHAPTER 9: Percy Forces Me To Join A Quest

The next morning, Percy moved to cabin three. Luke was the only one I could hang out with from my cabin. He was also the one who took care of my wounds after the thing happened. Nobody mentioned the hellhound, but I got the feeling they were all talking about it behind my back. The attack had scared everybody. It sent two messages: one, that I managed to command a hellhound; and two, I came with the son of Poseidon. They all assume I would be as great as Percy. The other campers steered clear of me as much as possible. Only Luke struck around. Yes, even Percy started ignoring me. I figured it had something to do with water and stuffs. Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with him after what happened in the woods, so he had one-on-one with Luke. I usually sit in to watch them in hopes of Percy talking to me again. But nada. "You're going to need all the training you can get," Luke promised, as they were working with swords and flaming torches. "Now let's try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions." Annabeth still taught Percy and I Greek but on different times I had mine in the mornings. Even Clarisse kept her distance, though her venomous looks made it clear she wanted to kill me. I wished she would just yell or punch me or something. I'd rather get into fights every day than be ignored. I stayed with Luke most of my time. We'd gotten close that talking about gods wasn't such a touchy subject. He also told me stuffs about himself, like how he got his scar and small stuffs. I was still in bed in cabin eleven. My body told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. A storm was brewing. I hadn't dreamed that. It was so early that most of the campers were still asleep. "Good morning?" I saw Luke standing near the door. "Eh... good enough I guess." I said sitting on my bed. "It's really boring since I don't do anything." "Not sure if I'm bringing you good news or bad," He smiled taking the seat beside me. "But Mr. D wants to see you." "Really? Will I finally get to do something fun?" "I feel like I should be offended." He gasped dramatically. "Why? Am I not fun?" I laughed, "Pretty much yeah." "Ouch. Anyways, I'd better let him tell you what's up." "Walk with me?" I asked with an UwU face. "I would, but commitment and all that." He joked. "Aight then. I'll get ready, wait for me outside." "I said I won't!" "Geez don't need to be in a hurry. I won't take long." I got dressed and went out to see him with an exaggerated frown. "You better walk fast. I'll leave as soon as you get there." For days, I'd been half expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that Percy was declared a son of Poseidon, one of the Big Three gods who weren't supposed to have kids, I figured it was a crime for him just to be alive. They're probably suspicious of me now as well with Percy and I's relation. The other gods had probably been debating the best way to punish me for existing, and now Mr. D was ready to deliver their verdict. "So... with Percy being a big three material. What would that make me?" "Well, putting aside the fact that you suck, you drown at every body of water that's at least a foot deep, you don't smell like a half-blood. I'd say you're... one of the big three's. Maybe Zeus's." "Har har. I'm just really worried you know? With Percy getting claimed as Poseidon's... and I came with him. And water just loves me so much. I'd assume I'm somewhere along the lines of Zeus and... Zeus. Is there someone stronger than Zeus?" "Depends on who you asked." "If I asked Zeus he'd definitely answer Zeus." I heard a loud thunder echoed. "Someone's brave." Luke laughed. Over Long Island Sound, the sky looked like ink soup coming to a boil. A hazy curtain of rain was coming in our direction. I asked Luke if we needed an umbrella. "No," he said. "It never rains here unless we want it to." "So my kiss under the rain fantasy is a no?" "If it has to be here... probably." I pointed at the storm. "What the heck is that, then?" "Bad news. But don't worry, it'll pass by us." I realized he was right. In the week I'd been here, it had never even been overcast. The few rain clouds I'd seen had skirted right around the edges of the valley. But this storm... this one was huge. At the volleyball pit, the kids from Apollo's cabin were playing a morning game against the satyrs. Dionysus's twins were walking around in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow. Everybody was going about their normal business, but they looked tense. They kept their eyes on the storm. When Luke saw the front porch of the Big House. "Whatever they say. Don't choose the option where you'll die." "Half a promise. Depends on the other option." "Well I'll give you an easier promise. Don't die." "Not really easier but okay."

After he ruffled my hair, I walked up to the front porch of the Big House. Dionysus sat at the pinochle table in his tiger-striped Hawaiian shirt with his Diet Coke, just as he had on my first day. Chiron sat across the table in his fake wheelchair. They were playing against invisible opponents--two sets of cards hovering in the air. "Y/N!" Grover greeted. "Well, well," Mr. D said without looking up. "Our little celebrity finally got his request." I turned to see Percy who was looking at me and then moved away. I waited for him to greet... "Come closer, both of you," Mr. D said. "And don't expect me to kowtow to you, mortal, just because old Barnacle-Beard is your father." A net of lightning flashed across the clouds. Thunder shook the windows of the house. "Blah, blah, blah," Dionysus said. Chiron feigned interest in his pinochle cards. Grover cowered by the railing, his hooves clopping back and forth. "If I had my way," Dionysus said, "I would cause your molecules to erupt in flames. We'd sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. But Chiron seems to feel this would be against my mission at this cursed camp: to keep you little brats safe from harm." "Spontaneous combustion is a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron put in. "Nonsense," Dionysus said. "Boy wouldn't feel a thing. Nevertheless, I've agreed to restrain myself I'm thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead, sending you back to your father." "Mr. D—" Chiron warned. "Oh, all right," Dionysus relented. "There's one more option. But it's deadly foolishness." Dionysus rose, and the invisible players' cards dropped to the table. "I'm off to Olympus for the emergency meeting. If the boy is still here when I get back, I'll turn him into an Atlantic bottlenose. Do you understand? And Perseus Jackson, if you're at all smart, you'll see that's a much more sensible choice than what Chiron feels you must do." Dionysus picked up a playing card, twisted it, and it became a plastic rectangle. A credit card? No. A security pass. He snapped his fingers. The air seemed to fold and bend around him. He became a hologram, then a wind, then he was gone, leaving only the smell of fresh-pressed grapes lingering behind. Chiron smiled at me, but he looked tired and strained. "Sit, Percy, please. You too Y/N and Grover." We did. Grover sat between us. Chiron laid his cards on the table, a winning hand he hadn't gotten to use. "Tell me, Percy," he said. "What did you make of the hellhound?" "It scared me," I said. "If Y/N hadn't told it to stand down, I'd be dead." I saw Percy turn to my direction, which made me roll my eyes. "You'll meet worse, Percy. Far worse, before you're done." "Done... with what?" "Your quest, of course. Will you accept it?" I glanced at Grover, who was crossing his fingers. "Um, sir," I said, "you haven't told me what it is yet." Chiron grimaced. "Well, that's the hard part, the details." Thunder rumbled across the valley. The storm clouds had now reached the edge of the beach. As far as I could see, the sky and the sea were boiling together. "Poseidon and Zeus," Percy said. "They're fighting over something valuable... something that was stolen, aren't they?". Chiron and Grover exchanged looks. Chiron sat forward in his wheelchair. "How did you know that?" "The weather since Christmas has been weird, like the sea and the sky are fighting. Then I talked to Annabeth, and she'd overheard something about a theft. And... I've also been having these dreams." "I knew it," Grover said. "Hush, satyr," Chiron ordered. "But it is his quest!" Grover's eyes were bright with excitement. "It must be!" "Only the Oracle can determine." Chiron stroked his bristly beard. "Nevertheless, Percy, you are correct. Your father and Zeus are having their worst quarrel in centuries. They are fighting over something valuable that was stolen. To be precise: a lightning bolt." I laughed. "A what?" "Do not take this lightly," Chiron warned. "I'm not talking about some tinfoil-covered zigzag you'd see in a second-grade play. I'm talking about a two-foot-long cylinder of high-grade celestial bronze, capped on both ends with god-level explosives." "Oh." "Zeus's master bolt," Chiron said, getting worked up now. "The symbol of his power, from which all other lightning bolts are patterned. The first weapon made by the Cyclopes for the war against the Titans, the bolt that sheered the top off Mount Etna and hurled Kronos from his throne; the master bolt, which packs enough power to make mortal hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers." "And it's missing?" "Stolen," Chiron said. "By who?" "By whom," Chiron corrected. Once a teacher, always a teacher. "By you." "At least"—Chiron held up a hand—"that's what Zeus thinks. During the winter solstice, at the last council of the gods, Zeus and Poseidon had an argument. The usual nonsense: 'Mother Rhea always liked you best', 'Air disasters are more spectacular than sea disasters,' et cetera. Afterward, Zeus realized his master bolt was missing, taken from the throne room under his very nose. He immediately blamed Poseidon. Now, a god cannot usurp another god's symbol of power directly—that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But Zeus believes your father convinced a human hero to take it." "But I didn't—" "Patience and listen, child," Chiron said. "Zeus has good reason to be suspicious. The forges of the Cyclopes are under the ocean, which gives Poseidon some influence over the makers of his brother's lightning. Zeus believes Poseidon has taken the master bolt, and is now secretly having the Cyclopes build an arsenal of illegal copies, which might be used to topple Zeus from his throne. The only thing Zeus wasn't sure about was which hero Poseidon used to steal the bolt. Now Poseidon has openly claimed you as his son. You were in New York over the winter holidays. You could easily have snuck into Olympus. Zeus believes he has found his thief." "But I've never even been to Olympus! Zeus is crazy!" Chiron and Grover glanced nervously at the sky. The clouds didn't seem to be parting around us, as Luke had promised. They were rolling straight over our valley, sealing us in like a coffin lid. "Er, Percy...?" Grover said. "We don't use the c-word to describe the Lord of the Sky." "Perhaps paranoid," Chiron suggested. "Then again, Poseidon has tried to unseat Zeus before. I believe that was question thirty-eight on your final exam...." He looked at Percy. Chiron was waiting for an answer. "Something about a golden net?" He answered. "Poseidon and Hera and a few other gods... they, like, trapped Zeus and wouldn't let him out until he promised to be a better ruler, right?" "Correct," Chiron said. "And Zeus has never trusted Poseidon since. Of course, Poseidon denies stealing the master bolt. He took great offense at the accusation. The two have been arguing back and forth for months, threatening war. And now, you've come along—the proverbial last straw." "But I'm just a kid!" "Percy," Grover cut in, "if you were Zeus, and you already thought your brother was plotting to overthrow you, then your brother suddenly admitted he had broken the sacred oath he took after World War II, that he's fathered a new mortal hero who might be used as a weapon against you.... Wouldn't that put a twist in your toga?" "But I didn't do anything. Poseidon—my dad—he didn't really have this master bolt stolen, did he?" Chiron sighed. "Most thinking observers would agree that thievery is not Poseidon's style. But the Sea God is too proud to try convincing Zeus of that. Zeus has demanded that Poseidon return the bolt by the summer solstice. That's June twenty-first, ten days from now. Poseidon wants an apology for being called a thief by the same date. I hoped that diplomacy might prevail, that Hera or Demeter or Hestia would make the two brothers see sense. But your arrival has inflamed Zeus's temper. Now neither god will back down. Unless someone intervenes, unless the master bolt is found and returned to Zeus before the solstice, there will be war. And do you know what a full-fledged war would look like, Percy?" "Bad?" "Imagine the world in chaos. Nature at war with itself. Olympians forced to choose sides between Zeus and Poseidon. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so big it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight." "Bad," I repeated. "And you, Percy Jackson, would be the first to feel Zeus's wrath." It started to rain. Volleyball players stopped their game and stared in stunned silence at the sky. I had brought this storm to Half-Blood Hill. Zeus was punishing the whole camp because of Percy. I was furious. "So he has to find the stupid bolt," I said. "And return it to Zeus." "What better peace offering," Chiron said, "than to have the son of Poseidon return Zeus's property?" "If Poseidon doesn't have it, where is the thing?" "I believe I know." Chiron's expression was grim. "Part of a prophecy I had years ago... well, some of the lines make sense to me, now. But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. You must seek the counsel of the Oracle." "Why can't you tell me where the bolt is beforehand?" "Because if I did, you would be too afraid to accept the challenge." "Good reason." "You agree then?" He looked at Grover, who nodded encouragingly. Easy for him. He wasn't the one Zeus wanted to kill. Percy then turned to me, "All right," he said. "But, I'll go when Y/N comes with." "Woah there! I am not going anywhere." I hissed. You ignore me for days and now you want me to die with you now? "Why do I have to go with you?" "Percy---" "I don't want to leave without her." He looked down. I felt guilty about turning him down. Which was stupid since he's the one at fault. I gave a sigh, I hope Luke won't get mad at me. "It's better than you being turned into a dolphin." I mumbled. "I'll go." "Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Chiron said. "Go upstairs, Percy Jackson, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming you're still sane, we will talk more." Before Percy came up he took my arm and pulled me in a hug. "I wanted you there, so we could save our parents together. After this quest, you me your mom and dad and my mom, will stay together." I hugged him back and nodded. "Thank you." Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trapdoor. Percy pulled the cord. The door swung down, and a wooden ladder clattered into place. After he went up. Chiron turned to me. "Hmm? Something to say?" I asked in a hopefully not rude tone. "I've had enough of people staring at me thinking, I summoned that hellhound." "Y/N, I assure you I don't think you'd do that. I am just confused as to why it followed your command." "Did you maybe forget to tell us something? I really can't seem to find out who you are." "Well... I don't think I forgot to mention anything. Maybe the fact that water hates me, I've never been on a plane, and I am low-key kinda scared of the dark depending on the situation." "Water hates you?" Grover asked. "First time swimming, beach, I was 5. I drowned at a supposedly 3 feet deep water. I haven't been near any bodies of water ever since. Until I met Percy, I drowned at the beach again. If I wasn't mistaken I was few meters away from the water and it pulled me and I almost drowned." "It would seem, Poseidon hates you. Why would he?" "My parents must've realized that fish god hates me and didn't take chances on the others." I could tell Chiron wanted to continue but Percy came down, "Well?" Chiron asked. He slumped into a chair at the pinochle table. I could see he wasn't happy. "Are you okay?" I asked him. He looked at me warily and nodded. "She said I would retrieve what was stolen." Grover sat forward, chewing excitedly on the remains of a Diet Coke can. "That's great!" "What did the Oracle say exactly?" Chiron pressed. "This is important." "She . .. she said I would go west and face a god who had turned. I would retrieve what was stolen and see it safely returned." "I knew it," Grover said... Chiron didn't look satisfied. "Anything else?" "No," He said. "That's about it." I took a hold of Percy's hand. And he gave me a look that said, 'I'll tell you later.' "Very well, Percy. But know this: the Oracle's words often have double meanings. Don't dwell on them too much. The truth is not always clear until events come to pass." "Okay," I said, anxious to change topics. "So where do we go? Who's this god in the west?" "Ah, think, Percy," Chiron said. "If Zeus and Poseidon weaken each other in a war, who stands to gain?" "Somebody else who wants to take over?" he guessed. "Yes, quite. Someone who harbors a grudge, who has been unhappy with his lot since the world was divided eons ago, whose kingdom would grow powerful with the deaths of millions. Someone who hates his brothers for forcing him into an oath to have no more children, an oath that both of them have now broken." I thought about my dreams, the evil voice that had spoken from under the ground. "Hades." Chiron nodded. "The Lord of the Dead is the only possibility." A scrap of aluminum dribbled out of Grover's mouth. "Whoa, wait. Wh-what?" "A Fury came after Percy," Chiron reminded him. "She watched the young man until she was sure of his identity, then tried to kill him. Furies obey only one lord: Hades." "Yes, but—but Hades hates all heroes," Grover protested. "Especially if he has found out Percy is a son of Poseidon... ." "A hellhound got into the forest," Chiron continued. "Those can only be summoned from the Fields of Punishment, and it had to be summoned by someone within the camp. Hades must have a spy here. He must suspect Poseidon will try to use Percy to clear his name. Hades would very much like to kill this young half-blood before he can take on the quest." "Great," Percy muttered. "That's two major gods who want to kill me." "Hey, I beat you, I got all of them." I smirked. I was trying to lighten up the mood and Percy finally cracked a smile. "But a quest to..." Grover swallowed. "I mean, couldn't the master bolt be in some place like Maine? Maine's very nice this time of year." "Hades sent a minion to steal the master bolt," Chiron insisted. "He hid it in the Underworld, knowing full well that Zeus would blame Poseidon. I don't pretend to understand the Lord of the Dead's motives perfectly, or why he chose this time to start a war, but one thing is certain. Percy must go to the Underworld, find the master bolt, and reveal the truth." A strange fire burned in my stomach. The weirdest thing was: it wasn't fear. It was anticipation. I wasn't feeling scared of anything right now. I felt like I could face anything. I was ready to take him on. Anyone in a matter of fact. Besides, if my mom and dad might be in the Underworld... which would be unlikely. Who knows maybe I could bribe him and talk him into reviving them. Or what if he's misunderstood? What if there's a plot twist somewhere here, and it actually wasn't Hades's fault? Grover was trembling. He'd started eating pinochle cards like potato chips. The poor guy needed to complete a quest with us so he could get his searcher's license, whatever that was. This was suicide. "Look, if we know it's Hades," Percy told Chiron, "why can't we just tell the other gods? Zeus or Poseidon could go down to the Underworld and bust some heads." "It might not be him you know." I added. "She's right, suspecting and knowing are not the same," Chiron said. "Besides, even if the other gods suspect Hades—and I imagine Poseidon does—they couldn't retrieve the bolt themselves. Gods cannot cross each other's territories except by invitation. That is another ancient rule. Heroes, on the other hand, have certain privileges. They can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as they're bold enough and strong enough to do it. No god can be held responsible for a hero's actions. Why do you think the gods always operate through humans?" "You're saying I'm being used." "I'm saying it's no accident Poseidon has claimed you now. It's a very risky gamble, but he's in a desperate situation. He needs you." "Damn, my parent doesn't? I'm going on a deadly quest thanks to Arthur Curry right here. Least they could do is support me and let me know They'll be proud of me saving the world." I huffed. "You've known I was Poseidon's son all along, haven't you?" "I had my suspicions. As I said... I've spoken to the Oracle, too." I got the feeling there was a lot he wasn't telling us about his prophecy, but I decided I couldn't worry about that right now. After all, I was holding back information too. "So let me get this straight," I said. "We're supposed go to the Underworld and confront the Lord of the Dead." "Check," Chiron said. "Find the most powerful weapon in the universe." "Check." "And get it back to Olympus before the summer solstice, in ten days." "That's about right." Percy and I looked at each other then we looked over at Grover, who gulped down the ace of hearts. "Did I mention that Maine is very nice this time of year?" he asked weakly. "You don't have to go," Percy told him. "I can't ask that of you. "Oh..." He shifted his hooves. "No... it's just that satyrs and underground places... well..." He took a deep breath, then stood, brushing the shredded cards and aluminum bits off his T-shirt. "You saved my life, Percy. Both of you did. If... if you're serious about wanting me along, I won't let you down." I felt so relieved I wanted to cry, though I didn't think that would be very heroic. I wasn't sure what good a satyr could do against the forces of the dead, but I felt better knowing he'd be with us. "All the way, G-man." Percy turned to Chiron. "So where do we go? The Oracle just said to go west." "The entrance to the Underworld is always in the west. It moves from age to age, just like Olympus. Right now, of course, it's in America." "Where?" Chiron looked surprised. "I thought that would be obvious enough. The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles." "Oh," I said. "Naturally. So we just get on a plane—" "No!" Grover shrieked. "Percy, what are you thinking? Have you ever been on a plane in your life?" I shook my head, feeling embarrassed. My mom had never taken me anywhere by plane. She'd always said we didn't have the money. Besides, her parents had died in a plane crash. "We're not allowed to fly because Zeus is a stuck up who doesn't want others touching his stuff without permission." "Y/N!" Grover panicked when loud thunder echoed above us. I wanted to yell, 'Oh shut up thunder boy.' But I still wanted try fulfilling my promise to Luke with all I can. "Percy, think," Chiron said. "You are the son of the Sea God. Your father's bitterest rival is Zeus, Lord of the Sky. Your mother knew better than to trust you in an airplane. You would be in Zeus's domain. You would never come down again alive." Overhead, lightning crackled. Thunder boomed. "Okay," I said, determined not to look at the storm. "So, I'll travel overland." "That's right," Chiron said. "Two companions may accompany you. Grover is one. The other is Y/N. But someone else has already volunteered, if you will accept her help." "Gee," I said, feigning surprise. "Who else would be stupid enough to volunteer for a quest like this?" The air shimmered behind Chiron. Annabeth became visible, stuffing her Yankees cap into her back pocket. "I've been waiting a long time for a quest, seaweed brain," she said. "Athena is no fan of Poseidon, but if you're going to save the world, I'm the best person to keep you from messing up." "I'll gladly give you my spot and all but... Percy and I are a duo." I lifted my fist which he bumped. "But she's right, we can't leave the world at the hands of two idiots and a scaredy-cat." "Can't we have four people on a quest?" "You can also pick more than two people to join, but this is considered dangerous as three is a sacred number. Any more than three on a quest could result in a catastrophe, including a member of the quest going missing, dying, or the quest failing." "Willing to risk it Peabody?" She gave me a glare. No. I assure you no one shall be lost in this quest. They were all looking at me weirdly. "What did you say?" "I asked if you were willing to risk it...?" I was confused. "Y/N you're doing it again." "Doing what? I am literally not doing anything wrong. Wanna fite me? I will back out of this quest." I gave an exaggerated glare. Annabeth turned to Chiron, who was looking down on me. "I suppose... if Percy is willing to risk it and all parties approve. I could allow this as a four person quest." "Well, I call not it to the dying person." I raised my hand. "But you can come Peabody. We need a not so stupid guy." "Well, if she say yes..." "I-I... don't really..." "I want to come." "I suppose you have a plan, wise girl?" Her cheeks colored. "Do you want my help or not?" "A quartet," I said. "Hopefully it works." "Excellent," Chiron said. "This afternoon, we can take you as far as the bus terminal in Manhattan. After that, you are on your own." Lightning flashed. Rain poured down on the meadows that were never supposed to have violent weather. "No time to waste," Chiron said. "I think you should all get packing." I took Percy's hand and gave him a look to remind him about his quest. "I'll tell you later."

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UwU Haha I'm better now :) I am sorry for being on haitus And for some parts that I might've forgotten to erase UwU -kookie-doughs

Taglist?

@gayer-than-the-gayest-gay @the-natureofme @booknerd-3000

[getferned]

frazel breakup thread from my twitter! this is mainly on @whatshazeldoing. the other half is on @copraetorzhang.

word count: i have no clue

hazel is talking with frank about their futures. hazel wants to go out and explore the world, while frank seems to stay quiet. hazel is about to ask him what his plans are, hoping that they involve her. she would gladly give up her dreams of traveling to stay with him. she opens her mouth to ask when she hears the words, “i think we should break up.” she doesn’t know how to respond. she thought that they would be together forever, that they would be inseparable. she thought he knew how she felt about him, that she would do anything for him. she feels her eyes start to water, ignoring it in favor of staring at frank in absolute shock. she feels tears leak onto her face while she tries to convince frank that this isn’t what’s best for them, that they belong together. he refuse to say anything but “this is what’s best for us, trust me” she doesn’t. she will never trust him again.

it’s been a few days. hazel hasn’t done anything with her life. there’s no purpose to her life anymore. why do anything if it gets you nowhere? it makes it worse having to live in the same building as him. she considered going to sleep with the 5th Cohort, but they would ask questions and she isn’t ready for that. she won’t ever be ready. so she sleeps in the praetor’s housing with frank on the other side of the building. she’ll think about the times when they shared a room, a bed, and start crying again. she tries to keep quiet so she doesn’t wake frank because even now, after he broke her heart she still tries to make sure he’s okay. sometimes though, she can’t silence her tears and she knows frank hears them. she hoped the first few times it happened, that frank would come and comfort her, that he had changed his mind. after he stayed on his side though, she didn’t bother hoping. just letting her tears fall, and her sobs ricochet around in the night, hoping he felt as terrible as she did. because if he didn’t, if he was fine with his decision to break her heart, then she didn’t know what she would do with herself. she knew that if she did that, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself. on the fourth day, she eventually decides to tell someone. she just doesn’t know who to trust. if she tells percy, he will definitely beat up frank. there would be no hesitation. and while that does sound nice, it’s not what she needs. if she told annabeth, she’d confront frank straight on and end up smacking him once or twice. piper, she’d almost definitely charmspeak him into dating hazel again. that would be nice and practical, but once it wore off he’d just break up with her again, and that would just hurt all the more. leo would threaten to burn frank’s stick unless he explained why he broke up with her. she was leaning towards that one, mainly because of the fact that frank wouldn’t be forced to do anything against his will or end up hurt. jason, jason would just give frank that look he does when he’s disappointed in you. nico, you never can tell with nico. in this case he’s a little too unreliable. she thinks that jason and leo are her best and safest bet. hazel hopes that they’re free to come over soon, because she really needs them.

hazel is sleeping, at least trying to. she’s also trying not to cry, but that’s going better. she’s learned how to cry silently now.

after leo and jason being unavailable to help, hazel is currently talking to gwen about what happened with frank. she swore she wouldn’t tell anyone because it’s a personal issue between her and frank, but she had to talk to someone after leo and jason couldn’t come. she got to gwen’s place and immediately broke down. gwen looked like shehad no idea what was happening, but she took her inside, closed the door, and gave her a long hug. she hugged her until hazel was able to calm down again. she wanted to stay in her hug and just melt, but she knew she had to pull herself together. she knew gwen needed an explanation. she sat gwen down and explained the whole thing. when she was done, gwen was livid. she got up and was about to go fight frank, but hazel stopped her. “you can do whatever you want after i’m gone, but not while i’m here.” gwen reluctantly agreed. hazel left the house, know that gwen was planning something. she didn’t know and didn’t need to know. after all, she needs to be able to plead plausible deniability.

hazel is packing her bags to leave camp jupiter. seeing as frank hasn’t made any moves to keep her around, she’s decided to follow her dreams of seeing the world. not all of her dreams are coming true though, because she’d hoped to do this with frank. but seeing as frank has made the decision to ‘do what’s best for them’ and is asking her to go along with it, she’s made the decision to go on without him. it might break her heart into smaller pieces, but her heart will heal. it might take months, years, decades, maybe it won’t happen until she’s dead, but it will happen. she knows it will. as she’s packing though, she sees a small stuffed elephant that frank had gotten her, and she feels ready to cry again. she shakes her head, trying to forget about it, and packs it into the bag, against her better judgment. over the course of an hour, she finds other things that frank had given her, and is in tears by the time she finishes.

hazel is conflicted. she saw the whole conversation between frank, mars, and venus, and now knows why frank broke up with her. she’s also still hurt by it. he could have just talked to her. she would listen to anything he had to say. for example, she listens when he broke up with her. it was the most painful, but she listened. she was still at odds with herself though. frank had broken her heart to save her heart. she now had suspicions that frank cried every night as well, and he probably did want to come to her like she had wanted to go to him. he was most likely more heartbroken than she is- or is it was? it doesn’t matter. he- frank zhang, the kindest and sweetest boy on the planet, son of mars, the changeling lord,broke up with hazel because he didn’t want to keep her from her dreams. it was very sweet of him, but it did not have its intended effect. she- hazel levesque, daughter of pluto, the favorite of hecate, had no clue of what to do. she had seen this look in frank’s eyes when he was talking to his dad, but that was it. it wasn’t enough to know what his plan was. but, his plan doesn’t have to matter to her. he was the one who ended their relationship, not her. she didn’t owe him anything anymore. hazel had made her decision. “frank? are you in here? i need to talk to you about something.”

[mccall-me-maurice]

LOTF Drabbles for every single one of my ships based on songs on my playlist while I wait for the movers to finish

Jalph [Boom Clap - Charli XCX]: “You’re the glitter in the darkness of my world.”

Jack glances at the fair boy’s face from across the classroom. Somehow, even with the disgusting lights the school provides for their students, Ralph manages to make them appear as if they’re worth $100. It’s probably just the way that the redhead views him, only knowing portions about the boy, as if he was glancing through a keyhole. The feelings that boil under Jack’s skin - froth spilling over the edge of the pot and into the fire - consume his every waking day, plague every thought that rushes through his skull. But he has to place a glass lid on top of the water because god forbid anyone figure out that he was in love with Ralph Allebach. God forbid anyone figure out he was queer. Because in the end, he was just a fucked up kid drunk on the love he had for his nemesis. A kid the real world would tear apart, limb by limb.

Rogermon [Walk Away - The Script]: “(S)he finds colour in the darkest places, (S)he finds beauty in the saddest of faces.”

A flower bud sprouts in the garden of Eden, without even knowing that it had just entered paradise. It sinks its roots into perfect soil, the plant itself never realising that it had found a home where other’s didn’t even know of its existence. Simon Cortés was like Roger Volkov’s garden of Eden. Every time the boy created a scar or slashed open a mental wound, Simon was there to heal it. He would administer the pill, absorb the bad things with his own light, stitch every laceration that used to leave Roger doubled over and overflowing with rage. Simon Cortés was an angel trying his hardest to turn a devil to the right side of the coin.

Mauram [The Other Side - Jason DeRulo]: “This could be perfect, but we won’t know unless we try.”

Maurice always felt like there was nothing in the world to fight for. No matter who came in and out of the house inside of his brain, nobody would stay for very long. Nobody could stay for very long. He never made room for anyone in the four walls, knowing that he had enough space for himself and that was good enough. Or, it used to be good enough. But one can only live in a house all alone for so long before they start to long for someone there with them. At the very least a neighbourhood surrounding him, so maybe he wouldn’t be all alone. Which is exactly what Sam Pinch did. He slowly found the materials and built his own residence right next to Maurice’s. A boy who the brunette never wanted to talk to, who he actively avoided at the beginnings of their friendship, had opened the front door and never swung it shut. Because, in the end, Maurice couldn’t call anything home if he didn’t have Sam.

Robric [Capital Letters - Hailee Steinfeld]: “When we lie so still, but you’re taking me places.”

Robert was honestly bored with his life before he met the twins. It was the same daily routine, get up, get ready, go to school, attend choir practice then rinse and repeat. Falling into something familiar did feel nice at times, knowing that every hour of the day was used to it’s fullest and that he could predict when things would get done or when he’d have free time. But the twins brought a specific spice in his life, one that everyone else had failed to do. In the end, it was mostly Eric who forced Robert up and out of his comfort zone, aiding him in more mischievous tasks and generally becoming the brunette’s backbone. Eric was there, in the hospital, when Robert sprained his wrist, apologising profusely about ever making him try to climb a tree to grab an apple. And even in the immense pain shooting through his wrist, he blamed himself for ever doing. It occurred to him then, in the hospital waiting room, that no matter what happened to the two of them, Robert would always find a way to defend Eric. Even if the boy was clearly in the wrong. When all was said and all was done, Eric was the most important thing in Robert’s life. And he was oddly okay with that.

Billiggy [Breaking Your Own Heart - Kelly Clarkson]: “The very thing you’ve been the most afraid of, you’ve been doing from the start.”

Bill can’t remember ever apologising to anyone. For anything. His pride has always been greater than that, never letting the blonde stoop so low as to get on his knees and beg someone for forgiveness. In all honesty, he’s never done anything bad enough to need to beg someone to just let him have another chance. If you really wanted to look at it through a kaleidoscope lens, then one could assume Bill was petrified of hurting someone’s feelings and then needing to apologise. But that heart gripping sensation was something he had to conquer upon apologising to Peter Curtis for past mistakes. He’d known he was probably in the wrong at the time and convinced himself that he was right in some sick, twisted manner. So when he stuttered out the words to try and excuse his behaviour, Bill knew that they didn’t sound as genuine as he wanted them too. But Peter just chuckled and claimed that he had known for a while that Bill didn’t mean it, and out of everyone in the choir to forgive, he was more than willing to part on good terms with the blonde. And that’s how Bill Borg found himself in an unusual friendship with the boy he once called Piggy.

Wilrold [Jet Black Heart - 5 Seconds of Summer]: “But these chemicals moving between us are the reason to start again.”

Of all the people in the world to fall in love with, Wilfred Lucio chose his childhood best friend. And he’s almost certain that Harold Miracle has fallen in love with him too. Between the way he spends every waking hour with Wilfred and how he clings to the boy as if they’re attracting sides of magnets. He’s never that way with anyone else, in fact, Harold gives most people serious attitude when they ask him innocent enough questions. It is almost as if nobody else in this world matters to him quite like Wilfred does. Which is probably why the two do everything together, they’re practically conjoined at the hip. And that’s why nothing hurts the teal haired boy more than watching Harold run off and be free on his own, blind to the fact that his own best friend was drowning in an unconditional love for him that couldn’t be stopped, no matter how many barricades were built.

Perciberry [This Town - Niall Horan]: “And I know that it’s wrong, That I can’t move on.”

Max’s worst fear was always losing Percival. It was always watching the soft smile that breaks out on his face dissipate like sugar in boiling water. So when the brunette comes to Max, tears streaming down his cheeks and nose tinged red from the crying he’s still doing, the boy assumes the worst. For once, his intuition is right. Percival doesn’t give a reason, doesn’t let the other have any insight. Just sobs out a break up and retreats, broken cries still ringing in Max’s ears. Weeks and weeks pass and the boy knows that he’s still in love with Percival, he still loves the way he laughs as if everything is the funniest thing he’s ever heard, he still loves how Percival insists people call him “Percy” because it’s easier for the boy himself to remember. Despite every path Max taking leading him directly to the feet of Percival Wemys Maddison, he knows that deep down in the base of his heart, something made him unloveable. He was the one who tore them apart, he was the thorn in their side. He wasn’t sure how he did it, but he’d lost the one person who swore to love him until death. And Max would still take Percival’s hand and grip it tight if he asked.

Jalter [Use Somebody - Kings of Leon]: “You know that I could use somebody, someone like you, and all you know and how you speak.”

Johnny is one of the only people in Walter’s life who doesn’t judge any of the choices he makes. He tries to advise the boy in the right direction; steer him on the right path, but he will never tell Walter what he can and cannot do. This fact is endearing in a way, making the dark haired boy want to wrap his friend up in a tight hug and spin him around until they couldn’t stand anymore. Everlasting support was something Walter always lacked from others, so getting it from the strawberry blonde just boosted his self confidence and the image he chose to paint himself as. It takes him years upon years of being Johnny’s friend before he realises that the boy was always by his side not because he just wanted to be there for Walter. But because he couldn’t stand to watch the boy do it alone. Johnny has made Walter the centre of his galaxy subconsciously, just letting the raven haired boy become the sun and letting himself revolve around him. But to Walter, Johnny was the sun and he was the moon. The boy would light him up no matter what happened, always shedding the pure radiance of joy onto Walter. He wouldn’t trade anything in the world for the feeling.