#now imagine you're Magnus seeing that memory

[poet-to-none]

[halothenthehorns]

Chapter 19: WE GET HELP FROM A THIEF

"Percy, Percy, Percy," Jason shook his head in sorrow as Percy reluctantly read the new title. "First the buying off of your friends, now this! Gods, two days without your mom awake and look what a delinquent you've turned into! What moral compass?!"

"Saving Rachel first," Percy reminded firmly. "Finding out what she stole afterwards."

"Fine," Jason nodded, "but if it turns out she reneged on her father's deal and stole that helicopter, I'm not asking permission for what happens next."

"A heart attack?" Alex asked in mock concern. "You can't lie and tell me those crisp pants don't have a problem with a little rule-breaking."

"I-" Jason opened, then closed his mouth in confusion as he stared down at his tan jeans and pressed purple shirt. The golden letters might be faded, but the laurels gave him a sense of warmth, and the shirt felt very lived in. It was an, odd combination of clothing that gave him no comeback other than his sense of being a tad outraged and a little to curious to find out what this all was about. Gods he hoped he made sense to himself when he got his own memories back.

Here's my definition of not fun.

"The opposite of riding a hellhound Percy, we know," Nico rolled his eyes.

"Shush and let the narrator talk," Percy seemed way to smug to be double-speaking for some reason. Probably because it made Annabeth roll her eyes like that.

Fly a pegasus toward an out-of-control helicopter.

"Oh, is that all it takes," Alex nodded as if some great mystery had finally been resolved. "Thanks, Perce, I'll mark that down so you don't have to come do that one with me."

"Alex-" Percy started, then stopped. Nope. He would not question any of that. He liked having his sanity intact.

If Guido had been any less of a fancy flier, we would've been chopped to confetti.

Nico couldn't help but imagine the feathers flying everywhere, the blood, how Percy would have survived by falling back to the ground spending the entirety of his life somehow blaming himself for a pegasus's inability to do this task.

He snapped out of it when Percy kept reading and Annabeth casually had her ankle hooked back around him while leaning against Thalia, making him glad for the bajilionth time it was only Percy's thoughts that ever got put on display. Even getting all of his memories back wouldn't be worth that.

I could hear Rachel screaming inside. For some reason, she hadn't fallen asleep, but I could see the pilot slumped over the controls, pitching back and forth as the helicopter wobbled toward the side of an office building.

"Ideas?" I asked Annabeth.

"You're going to have to take Guido and get out," she said.

"What are you going to do?"

In response, she said, "Hyah!" and Guido went into a nosedive.

"Duck!" Annabeth yelled.

"That's it huh? That's your entire plan? To duck! Gosh, and they call you the smart one!" Magnus was rambling, and he knew it, but his mouth was moving like word vomit as he pictured her heading for a careening helicopter and not being the invulnerable one! Was Percy going to summon a cloud and land it there?! He had no idea what was going on!

"I had a plan," Annabeth insisted with a sigh he was doubting her.

"And it was a good one too, we all lived didn't we," Percy said with confidence that really didn't soothe Magnus's current living nightmare of his very killable cousin once again jumping into a very killable situation and thinking this was normal!

We passed so close to the rotors I felt the force of the blades ripping at my hair. We zipped along the side of the helicopter, and Annabeth grabbed the door.

That's when things went wrong.

"This whole situation is wrong," Magnus groaned into his hands. How had the pilot even gotten so close without turning away like all other mortals?! Was it possible to wrap Annabeth in chainmail for the rest of her life?! He even accepted Percy's hand would get stuck in the process didn't care!

Guido's wing slammed against the helicopter. He plummeted straight down with me on his back, leaving Annabeth dangling from the side of the aircraft. I was so terrified I could barely think, but as Guido spiraled I caught a glimpse of Rachel pulling Annabeth inside the copter.

"She's awake?!" The three shouted in a concerning display that nobody could be mad for because it was funnier that that was the part they caught on. Not the part where Rachel reached out of a moving helicopter to pull Annabeth inside. That bit was clearly obvious.

"Hang in there!" I yelled at Guido.

"He dosen't have hands to be hanging onto anything Percy," Thalia frowned at him. She was so glad she'd missed this catastrophe, even if the results had been punching Travis when he'd told her this later because she'd thought he was joking about that at a time like this.

"Yes, thank you for that Thalia, don't know how I got through this one without you," Percy sighed.

My wing, he moaned. It's busted.

"You can do it!" I desperately tried to remember what Silena used to tell us in pegasus-riding lessons.

Percy didn't understand the painful jolt he felt throughout himself as he read that. His attention still wanted to be on the helicopter, he was forcing himself to help Guido so the poor pegasus didn't get even more injured, his heart was pounding crazy fast because he once again needed to be everywhere at once, all of that made sense.

But still, something in that bothered him as he caught his breath and pressed on.

"Just relax the wing. Extend it and glide."

We fell like a rock

"Everything falls like a rock, even winged creatures," Jason nodded with confidence.

"Feathers don't," Percy sighed as he waved his hand across his face at the malayee of white he'd been getting in his face during that spiral.

Jason nodded as he took in the visual, but still there was a plummeting feeling in his stomach and he brushed his messy hair out of his eyes like it was bothering him for some reason. Just the hint of a memory, more of a feeling than anything, but he glanced at Thalia with interest as he tried to connect some dots there that still had several missing spots.

—straight toward the pavement three hundred feet below. At the last moment Guido extended his wings. I saw the faces of centaurs gaping up at us.

"It's a bird, it's a plane," Thalia nodded, "ah shit, it's just Percy about to die again."

"Glad you weren't there," Percy huffed, "you would have used me as target practice."

"Please," she scoffed, "as big as you two are, not even a challenge."

Then we pulled out of our dive, sailed fifty feet, and tumbled onto the pavement—pegasus over demigod.

"What a strange recipe," Will gazed at the book in concern. "Might be to much salt in that."

"Ha, ha, ha," Percy said dryly, probably ruining it further. He hoped he burnt that joke to a crisp.

Ow! Guido moaned. My legs. My head. My wings.

Chiron galloped over with his medical pouch and began working on the pegasus.

I got to my feet.

Magnus wasn't so cavalier about Percy just shaking off the fact that he should have broken every bone in his body and maybe popped a few organs, but he was clearly the only one, as usual. That curse might make Percy invulnerable on the outside, but he was pretty sure the guy still needed his head examined for something else.

When I looked up, my heart crawled into my throat. The helicopter was only a few seconds away from slamming into the side of the building.

Magnus felt the urge to come over and start prodding his cousin to make sure she wasn't a ghost. He really wasn't sure if he should find that idea all that ridiculous anymore.

Then miraculously the helicopter righted itself. It spun in a circle and hovered. Very slowly, it began to descend.

All eyes were on Annabeth. Several of them had their mouths open. Percy's mind swiveled back to running from Circe's island with her in that white dress and thinking how ridiculous it was he couldn't fly a fighter jet out of there and how Annabeth might have been able to and just hadn't wanted to show off.

It seemed to take forever, but finally the helicopter thudded to a landing in the middle of Fifth Avenue. I looked through the windshield and couldn't believe what I was seeing. Annabeth was at the controls.

"Well," Alex said slowly but confidently. "I didn't really expect Kelli to appear out of nowhere in a sudden redemption arc, so that seems the only option left."

"When did you learn to fly a helicopter?" Magnus demanded with mingled concern and awe. Imagining Uncle Fredrick getting into some really interesting bonding time on the weekends or camp having some bizarre training Percy hadn't heard of yet.

"I explain to Percy," she promised, "but it was basically just giving it my best shot."

"Has anyone told you you're awesome lately?" Percy grinned as he gazed at her. She always did the most amazing things, even saving people's lives who she didn't really like.

Annabeth grinned and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Every day with him felt awesome.

I ran forward as the rotors spun to a stop. Rachel opened the side door and dragged out the pilot.

"Think I'd leave him in there actually," Will muttered. Might be mildly safer than on the street where the other civilians were still trying to be cleared out in the sparse bit of spare time they had.

Rachel was still dressed like she was on vacation, in beach shorts, a T-shirt, and sandals. Her hair was tangled and her face was green from the helicopter ride.

"So, she's obviously having a great time," Nico said in sympathy.

"I've accepted that's just how everybody feels when they jump into Percy's life," Jason already said with a resigned sigh. He could have done a whole color coordinated project by now on how the son of the sea managed to do that to everyone he met at least once.

Annabeth climbed out last.

I stared at her in awe. "I didn't know you could fly a helicopter."

"Neither did I until I did," she was actually blushing a bit at so many people staring at her. The centaurs and other bystanders had just moved on from this.

"I told you guys learning to do it on the way down was the best way to go!" Alex cheered.

Annabeth looked pleased at proving some past point of Alex's even if she was lacking the context.

"Neither did I," she said. "My dad's crazy into aviation. Plus, Daedalus had some notes on flying machines. I just took my best guess on the controls."

"That's not how that should work. That's not how any of this should work," Magnus groaned into his hands, again. Just because his mom was into nature didn't mean he went around eating whatever mushrooms he found with immunity!

"It is when you're dealing with a genius," Percy said with pride.

"You saved my life," Rachel said.

Annabeth flexed her bad shoulder.

"Talk about a literal thorn in your side?" Thalia nodded in understanding.

"Sure felt that way," but Annabeth's smile was affectionate and sad now for the anger coursing through her at saving the mortal girl's life who was now her friend. Gods what a mixed bag of emotions this book was.

"Yeah, well . . . let's not make a habit of it. What are you doing here, Dare? Don't you know better than to fly into a war zone?"

"You just asked a girl why she dared fly into a war zone like that's not your MO Chase," Alex sniffed.

Annabeth opened, then closed her mouth without bothering to argue the point.

"I—" Rachel glanced at me. "I had to be here. I knew Percy was in trouble."

"Got that right," Annabeth grumbled. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I have some injured friends I've got to tend to. Glad you could stop by, Rachel."

Jason mock shivered as if the cold icy tone of her voice had reverberated through time. Nico felt a lot of sympathy for Rachel, he'd been on the receiving end of that tone and it took someone with a lot of guts to not jump back into that helicopter and turn it around.

"Annabeth—" I called.

She stormed off.

Rachel plopped down on the curb and put her head in her hands. "I'm sorry, Percy. I didn't mean to ... I always mess things up."

It was kind of hard to argue with her, though I was glad she was safe.

"Percy!" Will tried hard to make that sound scolding for mentally kicking her while she was down, but it came out a little to much like he was holding back a laugh. Gods this boy couldn't stay mad at Annabeth for anything.

I looked in the direction Annabeth had gone, but she'd disappeared into the crowd. I couldn't believe what she'd just done—saved Rachel's life, landed a helicopter, and walked away like it was no big deal.

"Where is my poster with fireworks!" Alex groaned.

"Burnt to ashes, the camera got my bad side," she chuckled.

"It's okay," I told Rachel, though my words sounded hollow.

"And I bet Rachel heard it," Magnus sighed, resisting the urge to cover his face again. He'd never claim to be the most socially apt person in the room, but gods Percy was no great shakes at hiding his thoughts, and he clearly wanted to go after Annabeth but was staying for his friend.

"Wouldn't surprise me. She has ears," Will agreed with a sad sigh for her. He wished he could hand out popsicles or something for moments like this without it being super obvious what he was doing.

"So what's the message you wanted to deliver?"

She frowned. "How did you know about that?"

"A dream."

Rachel didn't look surprised. She tugged at her beach shorts. They were covered in drawings, which wasn't unusual for her, but these symbols I recognized: Greek letters, pictures from camp beads, sketches of monsters and faces of gods. I didn't understand how Rachel could have known about some of that. She'd never been to Olympus or Camp Half-Blood.

She'd never done any of that before she started drawing pictures of the future either, Jason frowned as a memory tried to tug its way to the surface while being held under by the heavy weight of his mind.

...something about toys? Plush animals...stuffing? No. None of it made a lick of sense.

"I've been seeing things too," she muttered. "I mean, not just through the Mist. This is different. I've been drawing pictures, writing lines—"

"In Ancient Greek," I said. "Do you know what they say?"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I was hoping . . . well, if you had gone with us on vacation, I was hoping you could have helped me figure out what's happening to me."

She looked at me pleadingly.

"Well that was a shipwrecked mission before it started," Percy said with an anxious look down at the black and white words. He couldn't fathom how Rachel had thought he had a clue, he barely managed to keep up with the problems in his own life!

"Oh I don't know," Annabeth brushed the gray bangs out of her eyes as she smiled at him, "you're usually my go to person for that too, can't be mad at her for it."

Percy looked around at her with a bemused smile. He clearly thought she was just saying that in some kind of apology for her past attitude, but she meant it from as deep down as she could. Percy might not have an answer, but he was still the most reliable person she'd ever think to ask.

Her face was sunburned from the beach. Her nose was peeling. I couldn't get over the shock that she was here in person. She'd forced her family to cut short their vacation, agreed to go to a horrible school, and flown a helicopter into a monster battle just to see me. In her own way, she was as brave as Annabeth.

Annabeth bit down on her lip hard to try and stop the flare of jealousy from rearing its head. Gods, she'd always known Percy could have, maybe even should have chosen to be with the mortal girl. Someone he effortlessly had fun with and matched him like she never would. Now she found even he agreed!

Percy gave her an apologetic smile and a wink. It made her heart flutter just like always. She sighed and took his hand, trying to take comfort in the fact that he instantly threaded their fingers together. That this latest thought bubble came in with comparing Rachel to her, saying they both had one of the most important attributes she knew he valued. In the flow chart she could have penciled in comparing the two, at least this was at the top of both...

But what was happening to her with these visions really freaked me out.

"You say that like those two sentences should have a pause between them," Alex shook her head in dismay. "Her bravery to show up there because those visions are freaking you out are one in the same Percy."

"I'd rather they weren't," Percy said in a hollow voice. Rachel could see into his world enough he never felt crazy, but was a whole other planet away in the mortal world and gave him a foot in it. He could tell her things he couldn't even tell his mom because he wasn't afraid of making Rachel scared. What if the opposite was happening? What if he was dragging her down into his life and she turned out like May Castellan?

The notion was giving him such a splitting headache the book was starting to blur in his hands, the words on the page fighting him for the first time until Annabeth squeezed his hand. The room steadied. He wasn't entirely sure if he'd been causing that literally or it had just been in his head.

Maybe it was something that happened to all mortals who could see through the Mist. But my mom had never talked about anything like that. And Hestia's words about Luke's mom kept coming back to me: May Castellan went too far. She tried to see too much.

Percy was jittering around in his seat like he needed to use the bathroom, bad. A voice that sounded like it was coming from a long ways away was telling him to calm down and stop trying to focus on this, but he couldn't figure out how. His friend was in danger. He needed to figure out how she got out of this, if he was supposed to help or step back from her life or-

"Percy," Annabeth's voice finally broke through and it caught his attention at last, as she was always bound to do. He'd swear she could interrupt any thought.

"Rachel," I said, "I wish I knew. Maybe we should ask Chiron—"

She flinched like she'd gotten an electric shock. "Percy, something is about to happen. A trick that ends in death."

"From, Chiron?!" Magnus yelped as he rubbed the side of his neck. He felt like he had whiplash from the wild speed of everything progressing.

"I don't know!" Percy spluttered before he blasted on reading without giving anyone else a chance to respond. There were to many deaths happening around him, he didn't know how he felt about another being confirmed by Rachel Elizabeth Dare and he didn't have time to process it!

"What do you mean? Whose death?"

"I don't know." She looked around nervously. "Don't you feel it?"

"Is that the message you wanted to tell me?"

"No." She hesitated. "I'm sorry. I'm not making sense, but that thought just came to me. The message I wrote on the beach was different. It had your name in it."

"Wait, back up," Jason said it in such a firm way Percy scowled on principle and wanted to read faster before he mentally checked himself. "She wanted you to go on vacation to talk about something, had the message in the sand and needed to tell you that right away, but now a trick that ends in death is the most recent update going on here?! There's two other things?"

"That was a terrible summary of this situation Jason," Percy huffed, "you took longer explaining that than Rachel's been talking!" He was probably exaggerating a bit and clearly annoyed at himself for indulging in this making it take longer.

"Perseus," I remembered. "In Ancient Greek."

Rachel nodded. "I don't know its meaning. But I know it's important. You have to hear it. It said, Perseus, you are not the hero."

Percy froze. Jason would have been a tad more resentful that now he could have talked as much as he'd like if he could think of anything to say, but his mind was just as blank at that.

I stared at her like she'd just slapped me. "You came thousands of miles to tell me I'm not the hero?"

"The, journey's more important than the destination?" Magnus said hesitantly, feeling very much like he'd had the rug pulled out from under him as much as Percy did. There was no way Percy had spent the past years of his life with everyone telling him this was his moment, only for his mortal friend to swoop in and say otherwise.

On the other hand, something freaky was happening with Rachel that was elevating her to a status way beyond his understanding. He did not take her word lightly right now, even if it scared the piss out of him if she was now destined to turn out like May Castellan in her future if this kept up.

"It's important," she insisted. "It will affect what you do."

"Not the hero of the prophecy?" I asked. "Not the hero who defeats Kronos? What do you mean?"

"Are they not, one in the same?" Alex asked blankly. This was about to get really confusing and off the rails, wasn't it? Her kind of story to be honest.

"I'm . . . I'm sorry, Percy. That's all I know. I had to tell you because—"

"Well!" Chiron cantered over. "This must be Miss Dare."

I wanted to yell at him to go away, but of course I couldn't.

"And why not?" Percy had the robust sense Thalia would have with no regrets. Sometimes he envied her that.

I tried to get my emotions under control. I felt like I had another personal hurricane swirling around me.

"I feel like if you did, neither of them would tell you," Jason said.

"I feel like if he did Annabeth would be turning green with jealousy," Will muttered. No way would she be glossing over Percy making hurricanes appear just because Rachel was around when that had never happened for her.

"Chiron, Rachel Dare," I said. "Rachel, this is my teacher Chiron."

"Hello," Rachel said glumly. She didn't look at all surprised that Chiron was a centaur.

"Got to wonder how many of those guys she's just seen chilling on her travels," Nico nodded. It wasn't exactly common, but by no means rare either.

"You are not asleep, Miss Dare," he noticed. "And yet you are mortal?"

"I'm mortal," she agreed, like it was a depressing thought.

Annabeth winced as she heard herself at seven, telling her little brother 'I'm not normal like you' in a tiny voice. They'd been to young to understand, to do more than hug her and promise they loved her anyways before their mother had called them out to the park where she wasn't allowed.

"The pilot fell asleep as soon as we passed the river. I don't know why I didn't. I just knew I had to be here, to warn Percy."

"Warn Percy?"

"She's been seeing things," I said. "Writing lines and making drawings."

Chiron raised an eyebrow. "Indeed? Tell me."

She told him the same things she'd told me.

Chiron stroked his beard. "Miss Dare . . . perhaps we should talk."

"Chiron," I blurted. I had a sudden terrible image of Camp Half-Blood in the 1990s, and May Castellan's scream coming from that attic.

"Bad 90's do's aside hopefully," Magnus muttered nervously.

"You . . . you'll help Rachel, right? I mean, you'll warn her that she's got to be careful with this stuff. Not go too far."

The obvious answer was, 'well duh Percy! He's an adult and a teacher and of course he'll steer her in the right direction that benefits her!'

The problem was, nobody said that to him. In fact, several of them grimaced as they looked right at Percy. Chiron was the leader of a group of kids, a trainer who had long since learned that heroes were going to follow their own path no matter what advice he gave them, like May Castellan before who had ignored everyone as she took on her role.

His tail flicked like it does when he's anxious.

Which was not a yes! Percy sighed and held tight to the idea that at least Rachel was alive and okay last time he'd seen her. He might still be able to fix something that had gone wrong...

"Yes, Percy. I will do my best to understand what is happening and advise Miss Dare, but this may take some time. Meanwhile, you should rest. We've moved your parents' car to safety. The enemy seems to be staying put for now. We've set up bunks in the Empire State Building. Get some sleep."

"You and everyone you love is in danger, again, happens once a year. Sweet dreams!" Thalia nodded. She couldn't even pack that much sarcasm into it.

Percy still frowned and wished he could throw her life in her face every once in a while. Stinking Hunters and their stinking adventures that didn't have books shoved in everyone else's face!

"Everybody keeps telling me to sleep," I grumbled. "I don't need sleep."

Annabeth frowned at him so deeply, he instantly felt bad. He responded by redirecting, "okay, but so do you!"

"I know," she groaned, no more pleased to hear those words than he ever was.

Chiron managed a smile. "Have you looked at yourself recently, Percy?"

"He has not stopped to check out his reflection, no," Will nodded. "Whoever tried to spread the rumor saying he was a secret love-child of Aprhodite really does owe me ten bucks."

"Thanks," Percy said blankly.

"The last time Percy looked at himself on a mission was in Calypso's cave," Jason nodded to himself, "and before that Circe's island. Why would Chiron think he has a track record of being vain?"

Percy gave him a sour frown for the snide hidden comment he didn't check his hair in the mirror every day before he left his cabin. Jason's little smirk proved that little remark wasn't all in his favor at any rate.

I glanced down at my clothes, which were scorched, burned, sliced, and tattered from my night of constant battles.

"Sounds like a miracle they were even still hanging on," Alex chuckled before giving Annabeth an obvious wink.

She blushed and quickly looked away, brushing her hair into her face, but not quite fast enough to hide her smile too.

"I look like death," I admitted. "But you think I can sleep after what just happened?"

"You slept through a dragon attack once!" Magnus exclaimed. "Sleeping and eating are at the bottom of your list of problems Percy!"

"Well when you put it like that, I sound lazy," Percy shrugged.

"You may be invulnerable in combat," Chiron chided, "but that only makes your body tire faster. I remember Achilles. Whenever that lad wasn't fighting, he was sleeping. He must've taken twenty naps a day.

"A nap is minimum thirty minutes," Percy looked so hurt for the poor lad. "That means he's barely awake for three or four hours a day! You have to actually wake up at some point for it to be considered a nap!"

They weren't entirely sure if his outrage came from to much sleep or not enough sleep until he looked at Nico and grousd, "Where's my Styx contract?! I want a refund! I refuse to be that inactive, I'll go nuts the few bits of time I get awake!"

"I think it's only a recommendation on how much you've been fighting seaweed brain," Annabeth said patiently. "You haven't been sleeping that much in here have you?" Glory, they'd still be on the first book if so.

"No," Percy nodded in relief.

Nico was smiling in surprise Annabeth actually stopped Percy from yelling at him. This was a good day!

You, Percy, need your rest. You may be our only hope."

Percy was clearly not in the mood for this and opened his mouth with a clear smart ass remark in place about that before Annabeth gently squeezed his hand and he reminded himself Chiron wasn't in here to hear it.

...Maybe he did need a nap, or a snack at minimum.

I wanted to complain that I wasn't their only hope, according to Rachel, I wasn't even the hero. But the look in Chiron's eyes made it clear he wasn't going to take no for an answer.

"Is he going to crack you over the head with heavier and heavier objects until you finally feel it and pass out? Or is he going to slip something into your food?" Alex asked with keen interest.

"I vote the first, I want to see him lift a manhole cover and that helicopter and slam them down on Percy," Thalia cackled.

Annabeth's tiny little grimace only made them laugh harder, and yet struck fear in Magnus because nobody denied he could do either! How many kids had he roofied to enforce naptime?!

"Sure," I grumbled. "Talk."

"Grumpy Percy," Thalia cooed as if to a fussy toddler. "Off to bed without a snack and not allowed to stay up past bedtime."

"If he ever tried that with you, you'd blow up the building out of spite," Percy scowled.

Thalia shrugged and didn't bother to deny it.

I trudged toward the Empire State Building. When I glanced back, Rachel and Chiron were walking together in earnest conversation, like they were discussing funeral arrangements.

"Is that not an appropriate thing to discuss after a helicopter nearly crashed?" Will asked blankly.

"You're not allowed to participate in this anymore Will," Percy scowled.

"Just try and stop him," Nico rolled his eyes. Percy clearly had no idea how stubborn he could be.

Inside the lobby, I found an empty bunk and collapsed, sure that I would never be able to sleep. A second later, my eyes closed.

In my dreams, I was back in Hades's garden. The lord of the dead paced up and down, holding his ears while Nico followed him, waving his arms.

Alex threw her head back and laughed. The kind of gasping right from her gut at such an awesome mental image.

"You have to!" Nico insisted.

Demeter and Persephone sat behind them at the breakfast table. Both of the goddesses looked bored.

Alex obviously couldn't breathe and it somehow just got worse. Magnus cautiously patted her shoulder.

"Percy no longer holds the trophy for most annoying demigod," Jason nodded in surprise. "Nico's over here battling him."

"I'll engrave him a trophy if it'll get me some peace," Percy sounded a tad reluctant though, like he wasn't sure how he felt about that. Alex was still giggling underneath them too which only had the others smiling at something that probably wasn't going to turn out to be funny.

Demeter poured shredded wheat into four huge bowls.

"At least you were invited to breakfast?" Will said blankly. He wanted to think that was a good thing, but clearly it wasn't going well.

"I wouldn't say invited when I was poofed in there," Nico sniffed. He hoped his father didn't think he'd be back allowed out of his room and not have something to say about it.

Persephone was magically changing the flower arrangement on the table, turning the blossoms from red to yellow to polka-dotted.

"I don't have to do anything!" Hades's eyes blazed. "I'm a god!"

"Can a god just stop doing their godly thing?" Percy asked in surprise. "Can Hades just decide to stop letting people into the Underworld? What would happen if my dad stopped...being the ocean?"

"I'm sure they can, but like, it might create an infinite loop of draining them because their godly thing doesn't exist anymore and then they'll lose power because they can't turn their own domain back on," Alex's eyes lit with excitement at the chaotic question.

Percy opened his mouth with intrigue and Annabeth quickly cut them off before their questions became potential plans. Those two got on like a house on fire and it was vaguely terrifying.

At least Percy easily allowed himself to switch back to Nico telling off Hades, something he'd gladly like to do himself.

"Father," Nico said, "if Olympus falls, your own palace's safety doesn't matter. You'll fade too."

"I am not an Olympian!" he growled. "My family has made that quite clear."

"You are,'' Nico said. "Whether you like it or not."

Alex felt ruffled. She never liked definitive statements. To be locked into something. Her first instinct was to chew Nico out and tell him not to put his father in a box like that.

She stood on that principle and would have engaged Nico on that even if it did help Percy in the long run, but chose not to because that felt like something that she didn't want to try and cram in around Percy's ongoing life.

"You saw what they did to your mother," Hades said. "Zeus killed her. And you would have me help them? They deserve what they get!"

Percy honestly felt that. It surprised him a bit to be so empathetic with this god, of all of them, but the amount of times he'd felt the same wasn't easy to ignore.

And Annabeth heard that in Percy's voice as he read it, and it made something in her quiver with unease how often that thought must have driven Luke.

Persephone sighed. She walked her fingers across the table, absently turning the silverware into roses. "Could we please not talk about that woman?"

Will made a huffy noise and should have felt more disturbed how often he wanted to strangle goddesses down here.

"You know what would help this boy?" Demeter mused. "Farming."

"How to help him hate the world and the slow passage of time and breaking your back for barely any payoff?" Thalia's scowl somehow deepend with each thing she listed.

"Not a fan of farming huh?" Magnus said without much surprise but mild hurt.

"Don't sweat it," she smirked, popping the hood of her jacket, both in answer to him and in explanation.

Persephone rolled her eyes. "Mother—"

"Six months behind a plow. Excellent character building."

"I mean," Annabeth said with a faint smile at Magnus still looking a little pouty and Thalia rolling her eyes. "I see both," she chuckled. If you worked hard for something and really earned it, somehow the reward felt better.

On the flip side, they should be gifted more without effort! Life was hard enough! She'd had more than one mental rant in her head to Hermes about him not gifting them all random presents just for the shit they put up with.

Nico stepped in front of his father, forcing Hades to face him. "My mother understood about family. That's why she didn't want to leave us. You can't just abandon your family because they did something horrible. You've done horrible things to them too."

Will squeezed Nico's arm tight with loving pride for saying that right to his dad's face, and then the feeling just kept growing so he started to chuckle and held his other hand up for a high five.

Nico immiedtily returned it with a proud smile, with the wild feeling of being accepted he hoped never wore off.

"Maria died!" Hades reminded him.

"You can't just cut yourself off from the other gods!"

"Good on you, don't let him redirect the problem," Magnus said with nothing but sympathy in his tone as he nodded at him. To much personal experience had told him that if he only focused on being the child with a dead mother would get him nowhere, especially not out of his sleeping bag.

"I've done very well at it for thousands of years."

"And has that made you feel any better?" Nico demanded. "Has that curse on the Oracle helped you at all? Holding grudges is a fatal flaw. Bianca warned me about that, and she was right."

Thalia grinned at him in delight. For taking his sister's words to such heart, for reminding a god they weren't infallible. It was truly sad how much Nico had been through to get to this moment, but she felt a misplaced pride for Bianca's little brother she wished she could convey that wouldn't come across as overstepping.

"Bianca would be proud," Jason said with simple confidence.

"I don't know I'd go that far," Nico shook his head. He knew exactly two things about her. She'd wanted to get away from him, and she'd still loved him anyways. She'd seemed to have some deep love for Artemis in her brief time as a hunter, though he wondered if that wasn't misplaced affection for fulfilling her desire. How Bianca would react to him shoving this in his father's face he didn't want to guess.

"I have a good feeling," Jason insisted anyways as he grinned at his big sister who was smiling back.

Bianca and her did seem to have a lot in common. Even if it wasn't a sound guess, Nico was starting to get the idea it was okay to go on your gut sometimes.

"For demigods! I am immortal, all-powerful! I would not help the other gods if they begged me, if Percy Jackson himself pleaded—"

Percy had a constipated look on his face. He really didn't like the image of groveling to Hades for help, even the fate of the world didn't feel worth that...but there had certainly been that moment when he'd seen Annabeth, hurt and bleeding at his feat.. maybe it wasn't the worst idea to be on at least this gods good side. He said it wouldn't work, but gods were fickle and just the attempt-

"Come back to me seaweed brain," Annabeth giggled as she shook his hand hard enough to jiggle his whole arm.

He flashed her a grin of agreement, but there was something lingering in his eyes that surprised her. It wasn't full-blown repulsion at any rate.

"You're just as much of an outcast as I am!" Nico yelled. "Stop being angry about it and do something helpful for once. That's the only way they'll respect you!"

Alex pressed her lips together tight to hide a twitching smile of understanding. Will looked a little hurt, and baffled at this somehow being Nico's goal in life right now, but honestly, she understood. Love was something they all instinctively wanted in their life, of course, but if you went to long without you started lowering your expectations. Respect was the only thing Nico had learned he could get from his ghostly minions, he probably couldn't fathom expecting more at that time.

Hades's palm filled with black fire.

"Go ahead," Nico said. "Blast me. That's just what the other gods would expect from you. Prove them right."

"Gods, now there's two of them," Annabeth moaned as she put her face in her hands.

"Yeah," Will agreed, digging deep to stop himself doing the same as he willed himself to accept this was how Nico was and how many times he'd kiss him before Nico no longer had a death wish. He might have to start comparing notes with her.

"Yes, please," Demeter complained. "Shut him up."

"I think the plant goddess just dropped to one of my least favorite goddesses," Magnus scowled at such carelessness. Could a god be used for mulch? That felt like to good for her.

Persephone sighed. "Oh, I don't know. I would rather fight in the war than eat another bowl of cereal. This is boring."

Hades roared in anger. His fireball hit a silver tree right next to Nico, melting it into a pool of liquid metal.

And the son of Hades didn't flinch, Percy alone knew as he looked around at him in concern. No matter how many times he'd faced death, Percy hadn't exactly gone out with the kind of quiet, angry acceptance that had been there as the fire passed inches from his face, the silver pooling around his boots before he blinked.

Sure he could have froze, but it seemed unlikely with the way he'd been able to fight the few times Percy had seen him.

This felt, like somthing else. Something Percy had no idea how to ask about.

And my dream changed.

I was standing outside the United Nations, about a mile northeast of the Empire State Building. The Titan army had set up camp all around the UN complex. The flagpoles were hung with horrible trophies—helmets and armor pieces from defeated campers.

Percy grimaced like he wished he had that omega axe back to stab each enemy with who dared do such a thing. Tossing them back off that bridge would just be the bonus.

All along First Avenue, giants sharpened their axes. Telkhines repaired armor at makeshift forges.

Kronos himself paced at the top of the plaza, swinging his scythe so his dracaenae bodyguards stayed way back. Ethan Nakamura and Prometheus stood nearby, out of slicing range. Ethan was fidgeting with his shield straps, but Prometheus looked as calm and collected as ever in his tuxedo.

"You know, it's probably because of that tux he's always so smug and calm," Alex lamented with a sigh.

She probably took that phrase, 'the clothes make the man' a little more seriously than the average person, but none of them were going to argue the point either.

"So you're saying we should rip it off him?" Magnus asked blankly.

She gave him a devilish smirk. "If that's something you think will work, I'm game to try."

Percy hastily read on from Magnus's red face at the implication.

"I hate this place," Kronos growled.

Glossing over the uncomfortable idea he'd moved out of Medusa's place to be able to hover even more over their every decision, Jason made a face of particular dislike for that for some reason as he grumbled, "sounds to me like he's hated every place he's been. Maybe he just needs a nice cabin in the woods to live out his time in grumpy silence."

"I'll build him a swamp and everything if he'll go for it," Percy agreed.

"United Nations. As if mankind could ever unite. Remind me to tear down this building after we destroy Olympus."

Alex had to fight very hard to swallow a laugh of agreement for him and mostly got away with it.

"Yes, lord." Prometheus smiled as if his master's anger amused him.

"That's called a death wish, something I'm not surprised Percy can easily read," Thalia nodded.

"I had to be good at something if not vowles," Percy shrugged.

"Shall we tear down the stables in Central Park too? I know how much horses can annoy you."

"Now he's actively giving him awful advice!" Annabeth scowled. "Some Titan of wisdom." Her disdain made them all pretty glad her mom wasn't in here to nodd along imposingly. None of them wanted to know what they'd do to prove Athena's superiority on the matter.

"Don't mock me, Prometheus! Those cursed centaurs will be sorry they interfered. I will feed them to the hellhounds, starting with that son of mine—that weakling Chiron."

"He says that like they're not all his sons?" Magnus asked in surprise. Weren't they all related?

"I bet it's one of those, when he's being annoyed he's his mom's son kind of thing," Percy shrugged.

Prometheus shrugged. "That weakling destroyed an entire legion of telkhines with his arrows."

"Wow, it took Percy using a whole volcano to manage the same," Nico said drolly. "I think maybe you over did it."

"It's a possibility Nico, but I already knew I could learn a lot more from Chiron than I've managed," he agreed.

Kronos swung his scythe and cut a flagpole in half. The national colors of Brazil toppled into the army, squashing a dracaena.

"What did Brazil do to him?" Will asked mildly. "I mean yeah, a Brazilian wax sounds painful, but that was a bit harsh."

"I'm a tad concerned that that's the first thing you thought of from there," Annabeth sighed, "Oscar Niemeyer has this style he used to-"

"Oscar Myer's from Brazil?" Percy asked.

"Not hotdogs Percy, get your mind off your stomach!" Jason tried to shush him and keep Annabeth going all at once, but that only seemed to make Percy lose interest in this altogether as he kept reading.

"We will destroy them!" Kronos roared. "It is time to unleash the drakon. Nakamura, you will do this."

Magnus instantly decided he didn't want to know what a drakon was. It was just to close in letters to dragon to be a good thing even before Kronos had one. Maybe, just this once, it would be a tiny lizard the size of his hand that would just crawl up to Percy's shoe and start nibbling on his good sneakers or something.

"Y-yes, lord. At sunset?"

"No," Kronos said. "Immediately. The defenders of Olympus are badly wounded. They will not expect a quick attack. Besides, we know this drakon they cannot beat."

Ethan looked confused. "My lord?"

"Never you mind, Nakamura. Just do my bidding. I want Olympus in ruins by the time Typhon reaches New York. We will break the gods utterly!"

"But, my lord," Ethan said. "Your regeneration."

Kronos pointed at Ethan, and the demigod froze.

"Does it seem," Kronos hissed, "that I need to regenerate?"

Ethan didn't respond. Kind of hard to do when you're immobilized in time.

"Sounds like he's just not creative enough to try," Alex sniffed. "Seems like a one trick pony to me. Now about destroying those stables..."

"I don't think Kronos is creative enough to follow this one Alex," Magnus chuckled. "Nice try though."

Annabeth wanted to laugh along, nod and make jokes about a horse dragging him back to Tartarus, but even now she couldn't stomach it quite right unless she imagined them as ghostly horses only there to rip Kronos away from Luke at last. Percy would probably just make some joke about flesh-eating horses doing the trick before moving on anyway.

Kronos snapped his fingers and Ethan collapsed.

"Soon," the Titan growled, "this form will be unnecessary. I will not rest with victory so close. Now, go!"

Ethan scrambled away.

"This is dangerous, my lord," Prometheus warned. "Do not be hasty."

"Hasty? After festering for three thousand years in the depths of Tartarus, you call me hasty?

"Um, yeah, but it's totally understandable man," Thalia said in mock simpering kindness. "Try going to long without eating a burger and you just inhale the thing, barely tasting it! You grabbed the first idiot who said yes to you and are rushing into your demise! Clearly hasty is involved!"

Annabeth bit back the urge to reach around Percy and shove her off her cushion. Didn't she hear that she was talking about Luke as much as Kronos when she said things like demise! It's like Thalia had really wanted him dead!

I will slice Percy Jackson into a thousand pieces."

"I'm not entirely sure you could even slice him into two pieces," Jason corrected clinically. "The spot on his back is only on the one side, he'd only be able to rip it off I guess, and that would be two pieces."

"Jason is officially fired from talking for the rest of this," Percy huffed. Next time he turned his back he'd probably pop up with one of those creepy circle-drawing instruments to get measurements and everything.

Jason pouted and looked minimally apologetic for suggesting the center of his back should be ripped out, so Percy reluctantly amended, "for the rest of this chapter."

"Ignore him Jace, he knows better than to pretend he could shut anyone up," Thalia rolled her eyes when Jason still looked a little reluctant.

"I wasn't saying Kronos should do it," Jason quickly agreed. "Just that it wasn't practical."

"Because that's better," Percy chuckled all the same.

"Thrice you've fought him," Prometheus pointed out. "And yet you've always said it is beneath the dignity of a Titan to fight a mere mortal. I wonder if your mortal host is influencing you, weakening your judgment."

Annabeth's breath caught in her throat, the hope, the fluttering smile she was trying to hide.

It was a lot for Percy to take. She'd been angry at this guy seconds ago, now she was latching onto his idea.

It at least gave him the modicum of hope every time she lashed out an opinion didn't mean she clung to it.

Kronos turned his golden eyes on the other Titan. "You call me weak?"

"No, my lord. I only meant—"

"Are your loyalties divided?" Kronos asked. "Perhaps you miss your old friends, the gods. Would you like to join them?"

Prometheus paled. "I misspoke, my lord. Your orders will be carried out." He turned to the armies and shouted, "PREPARE FOR BATTLE!"

'Kronos was a hasty fool,' Annabeth agreed with Thalia all the same even if she couldn't bring herself to say it out loud. Ignoring all counsel, acting as if his win was inevitable despite never having been able to beat Percy outright. It gave her a warm flash to think Prometheus was right, Luke had been in there all along, if not as strong a presence as his blue eyes would allow. The idea gave her a nasty sense of pleasure as she imagined Luke scheming under the surface to thwart him as Kronos had once manipulated his own mind. Whispering to Kronos to do one thing, knowing the Titan lord would do the opposite.

The troops began to stir.

From somewhere behind the UN compound, an angry roar shook the city—the sound of a drakon waking. The noise was so horrible it woke me, and I realized I could still hear it from a mile away.

Grover stood next to me, looking nervous. "What was that?"

"They're coming," I told him. "And we're in trouble."

"And what did Grover eat when you told him that?" Magnus asked with resignation, only imagining how many shirts that guy went through.

"I think it was part of that hotdog cart actually," Percy shrugged, not able to identify the steal any better. At least it explained his earlier craving.

The Hephaestus cabin was out of Greek fire. The Apollo cabin and the Hunters were scrounging for arrows. Most of us had already ingested so much ambrosia and nectar we didn't dare take any more.

We had sixteen campers, fifteen Hunters, and half a dozen satyrs left in fighting shape.

There had always been the possibility that Kronos could win this just by sheer numbers of the monsters at his disposal, and that seemed to be spiraling into this more and more as Percy's voice dragged a little bit on each word. It was clear he was growing restless, hopeless, to get to what the true conclusion was before he'd rally himself again as he looked at Annabeth.

He just couldn't believe she'd be so calm and stoic about this if they'd lost this day, lost everyone and everything but each other. He just had to keep living through this endless swirl of deja vu until he got there.

The rest had taken refuge on Olympus. The Party Ponies tried to form ranks, but they staggered and giggled and they all smelled like root beer.

"Heavy on the root, apparently," Will muttered.

Nico snorted in surprise, he knew Will wasn't that naive.

The Texans were head-butting the Coloradoans.

Jason leaned forward with clear interest, clearly planning out a spreadsheet in his head of how each state interacted with each other, full of complicated tables and cross-flow charts. It looked exhausting, constantly having that kind of attention span.

The Missouri branch was arguing with Illinois. The chances were pretty good the whole army would end up fighting each other rather than the enemy.

"Civil War II?" Alex said with disinterest. "This isn't over that whole, make pot legal thing is it? Bit anticlimactic after the last one."

"Let's focus on one fight at a time," Annabeth reminded in exhaustion, even if this one was happening amidst theirs.

Chiron trotted up with Rachel on his back. I felt a twinge of annoyance because Chiron rarely gave anyone a ride, and never a mortal.

"Perhaps it's just because there are no mortals at your camp," Alex offered with a cheeky smirk. "For all you know, he has a preference to let them and just never shared."

"I didn't see May Castellan getting a ride," Percy rolled his eyes.

"You didn't get to see the whole day either," she shrugged without concern for her brilliant idea.

"Your friend here has some useful insights, Percy," he said.

Rachel blushed. "Just some things I saw in my head."

"That's what all insights are," Annabeth couldn't help but grumble on reflex just hearing her name.

"I see things inside my head too and I don't call them insights," Percy said with his typical grin, at least getting a chuckle out of the others.

"A drakon," Chiron said.

"A Lydian drakon, to be exact. The oldest and most dangerous kind."

"Because, it doesn't like to kill people?" Magnus asked without any hope.

He just got a few sad little looks and some sadder smiles still.

I stared at her. "How did you know that?"

"I'm not sure," Rachel admitted. "But this drakon has a particular fate. It will be killed by a child of Ares."

"Oh great! We've got a fresh batch of those somewhere!" Thalia mock dug through her pockets like she lost a cookie.

Annabeth crossed her arms. "How can you possibly know that?"

"I just saw it. I can't explain."

"Well, let's hope you're wrong," I said. "Because we're a little short on children of Ares. . . ." A horrible thought occurred to me, and I cursed in Ancient Greek.

"It's always so rude when this thing glosses over use of another language," Nico chuckled.

"I'm buying a swear jar the moment I get home," Will said on instinct to that.

"It's your money," Nico shrugged without concern.

"What?" Annabeth asked.

"The spy," I told her. "Kronos said, We know they cannot beat this drakon. The spy has been keeping him updated. Kronos knows the Ares cabin isn't with us. He intentionally picked a monster we can't kill."

"You can't kill," Jason couldn't help but correct. He only had a vague feeling what a drakon was and still felt confident Percy was the only one crazy enough who'd like to try.

"Not that it's going to stop him giving it his all," Thalia chuckled.

Thalia scowled. "If I ever catch your spy, he's going to be very sorry.

Alex felt an internal twitch of distaste, Thalia using male pronouns. Obviously the Huntress had a bias, but she worried it would get Thalia into trouble if she started underestimating the underhandedness of one gender.

Maybe we could send another messenger to camp—"

"I've already done it," Chiron said. "Blackjack is on his way.

"He sent a horse to talk sense into the jackass? There are so very many ways I can laugh at this," but Magnus's heart clearly wasn't in it from the start.

But if Silena wasn't able to convince Clarisse, I doubt Blackjack will be able—"

"To talk to her," Annabeth couldn't help but say the more obvious part of that problem.

"Maybe he was hoping Blackjack would just scoop down and drag her there and her cabin would follow," Percy said, but he didn't really believe that. She might hurt his horse if he tried.

A roar shook the ground. It sounded very close.

"Rachel," I said, "get inside the building."

"I want to stay."

A shadow blotted out the sun. Across the street, the drakon slithered down the side of a skyscraper. It roared, and a thousand windows shattered.

A very, very tiny dragon with an usually loud roar, Magnus tried one last time in vain to convince his brain.

He could even feel his brain sending him waves of pity now for continuing this delusion.

"On second thought," Rachel said in a small voice, "I'll be inside."

"Well, I can't say she doesn't have a bright idea every now and then," Annabeth rolled her eyes.

"She? It was my idea," Percy sighed. "One might even call it a brilliant insight!"

"One who is not a blonde," she shook her head with a smirk while Percy grumbled a bit more she was not cutting him a break today. It was very distracting from his usual headache. He should thank her later.

Let me explain:

"Please do not," Magnus groaned.

Alex was aggressively-passive-aggressively soothing his nerves by kicking him and signing at him to chill. Drakons probably couldn't swim down here.

there are dragons, and then there are drakons.

Drakons are several millennia older than dragons, and much larger. They look like giant serpents.

Most don't have wings. Most don't breathe fire (though some do). All are poisonous. All are immensely strong, with scales harder than titanium. Their eyes can paralyze you; not the turn-you~to-stone Medusatype paralysis, but the oh~my~gods-that~big~snake~is~going~to~eat~me type of paralysis, which is just as bad.

Alex wiped a bit of drool from the corner of her mouth. She ached to transform, to test the limits if she could do that. Gods did she miss the feeling of fluidity that came with shapeshifting at whim.

Somebody, some God, was going to pay for taking this away from her.

We have drakon-fighting classes at camp, but there is no way to prepare yourself for a two-hundred-foot-long serpent as thick as a school bus slithering down the side of a building, its yellow eyes like searchlights and its mouth full of razor-sharp teeth big enough to chew elephants.

"I'd love to hear more about those classes," Jason grinned.

"Does Will get inside a paper mache' drakon and chase the kids around?" Alex chuckled.

"Pretty close," Percy agreed. "We take these weird fuzzy-string-noodle-bean things with googly eyes and a whole bunch of them, tie 'um all together, and we all pick a color. Then once it's this huge mass we put it on the Big House like somebody TP'd it, and we throw javelins and waterballons at it."

"Cabin that knocks off the most of their color 'killed it'," Annabeth nodded.

Jason looked demonstrably disappointed at how fun that sounded, though Percy and Annabeth exchanged a look as they weren't sure if that was more disappointment in their practice or that he couldn't join in.

It almost made me long for the flying pig.

"Oh, I'm sure we can find you another one Percy," Magnus told him with a disturbing kind of calm. "And another Minotaur too, hey, why not even bring the flesh-eating horses back! We'll build you your own zoo of monsters Perce!"

"Guys, I think we broke Magnus," Percy chuckled.

"Eh, was bound to happen eventually," Alex grinned.

Annabeth however gave her cousin an understanding grin, and he nodded back. These two constantly playing off the monster attacks was just how they accepted it all. She knew he needed just a second to breathe in this new thing like she so often wished for.

Meanwhile, the enemy army advanced down Fifth Avenue. We'd done our best to push cars out of the way to keep the mortals safe, but that just made it easier for our enemies to approach.

'There was just no winning,' Jason repressed a shiver as the thought flickered in his mind. He did not like that this idea swam so easily just under the surface of his thoughts, what it could connect to aside from this.

The Party Ponies swished their tails nervously. Chiron galloped up and down their ranks, shouting encouragement to stand tough and think about victory and root beer, but I figured any second they would panic and run.

Annabeth had more faith in them. Perhaps just prolonged association with Chiron gave her more hope for their skill, or she'd seen them charge in once more than Percy upon the ship as well meant that their wavering resolve to fight was fleeting but impactful.

"I'll take the drakon." My voice came out as a timid squeak.

Magnus had rarely looked so pleased in here, but he did so now as he grinned at Percy. Not a smirk, not laughing, but a pleased grin like he finally felt like he wasn't the only one who would have possibly weaped on sight.

Percy gave him a nod of agreement. He really would rather fight pool noodles at camp than be out here with his life in danger. He just played it off better.

Then I yelled louder: "I'LL TAKE THE DRAKON! Everyone else, hold the line against the army!"

"Oh, is that all?" Thalia made sure he heard her this time as she'd pulled her hunting knives ready. "Anything else come to mind Percy?"

"I wouldn't mind if someone brought me a rootbear float right about then," Percy agreed. "Heard the centaurs talking about it way to much."

"It's not my fault if Annabeth went off your regular feeding schedule," Thalia rolled her eyes.

Annabeth stood next to me. She had pulled her owl helmet low over her face, but I could tell her eyes were red.

Percy felt wretched he'd made her cry. Then he got angry at Annabeth. It wasn't his fault Rachel had shown up when she did! Why did she have to freak out about that every time he needed her help!

Then he really looked at her again in here at got frustrated with himself. He knew she'd had a really miserable life where practically everybody let her down, and he wanted to be the exception. To prove to her that he was the one person who would put her first. He knew she already trusted him, he just had to think up some way to prove he could be the most trustful.

"Will you help me?" I asked.

"That's what I do," she said miserably. "I help my friends."

Percy groaned and felt the urge to rip his hair out. She'd made it sound like a miserable chore helping him!

I felt like a complete jerk. I wanted to pull her aside and explain that I didn't mean for Rachel to be here, that it wasn't my idea, but we had no time.

"It wouldn't have helped anyway," Annabeth said sullenly as she watched him beat himself up over this. "I was so confused Percy, I don't think anybody could have said the right words at that time." She paused and smiled and said the one thing she was sure would help. "Not even Luke."

That did bring a smile to his face, and she smiled she was able to do that when he clearly needed it.

"Go invisible," I said. "Look for weak links in its armor while I keep it busy. Just be careful."

"Sure. Careful. What isn't careful about scaling a giant snake looking for places some other fool had once tried to peel a scale off," Magnus nodded in a broken seesaw kind of way.

"Just like the lava walls at camp," she agreed.

I whistled. "Mrs. O'Leary, heel!"

"ROOOF!" My hellhound leaped over a line of centaurs and gave me a kiss that smelled suspiciously of pepperoni pizza.

"Awww, she just wanted to share!" Alex said in delight.

"I've finally found a standard when it comes to food," Percy sighed as he waved his hand in front of his nose. "Nowhere near my dog's mouth."

"Congrats man, had to happen eventually," Jason said as if in personal relief for his diet.

While Alex and Magnus exchanged a look and then just as quickly looked away, neither of them willing to acknowledge that stealing food people would give to stray dogs wasn't the lowest option they'd ever fallen to.

I drew my sword and we charged the monster.

The drakon was three stories above us, slithering sideways along the building as it sized up our forces.

Wherever it looked, centaurs froze in fear.

From the north, the enemy army crashed into the Party Ponies, and our lines broke. The drakon lashed out, swallowing three Californian centaurs in one gulp before I could even get close.

Of course backup had only meant more death on the horizon, Will hated the bleak thought. The parade of dead centaurs that might have saved their camp from being down to single digits when this was all over. The mass memorial they'd done for all those unnamed but lost had included a gallon of root beer, despite Mr. D's previous banishment of anything other than Diet Coke being allowed in camp.

Mrs. O'Leary launched herself through the air—a deadly black shadow with teeth and claws.

Normally, a pouncing hellhound is a terrifying sight, but next to the drakon, Mrs. O'Leary looked like a child's night-night doll.

Magnus made a pretty good impression of a squeaky toy you'd give a dog. Why couldn't the too big but sweet dog he was grappling to get the hang of be the worst?! Why did he now have to imagine wanting the dog to win the fight! While picturing her looking small as a flea on this monstrosity! What was this cruel world?!

Her claws raked harmlessly off the drakon's scales. She bit the monster's throat but couldn't make a dent. Her weight, however, was enough to knock the drakon off the side of the building. It flailed awkwardly and crashed to the sidewalk, hellhound and serpent twisting and thrashing. The drakon tried to bite Mrs. O'Leary, but she was too close to the serpent's mouth. Poison spewed everywhere, melting centaurs into dust along with quite a few monsters, but Mrs. O'Leary weaved around the serpent's head, scratching and biting.

Alex cheered, bouncing in her seat like a trampoline and fist-pumping the air. She'd never bothered going to sporting events or anything in the past, but she understood why people did it now. It just felt good to shout at the top of your lungs for your side to win even if it didn't do a lick of good.

"YAAAH!" I plunged Riptide deep into the monster's left eye. The spotlight went dark. The drakon hissed and reared back to strike, but I rolled aside.

Magnus was breathing a little easier, a little faster than normal. Not that he'd ever claim to finally being adjusted to all this mess. It was just a tad easier picturing other dark-haired heroes he'd read about, who always won the fight in the end and came out triumphant too. Percy had managed to do that all this time, maybe it wasn't so crazy to hope he'd keep going that all the way to the end.

It bit a swimming-pool-size chunk out of the pavement. It turned toward me with its good eye, and I focused on its teeth so I wouldn't get paralyzed. Mrs. O'Leary did her best to cause a distraction. She leaped onto the serpent's head and scratched and growled like a really angry black wig.

"I heard a thing once that you could drown lice in maple syrup and hear their tiny screams," Will offered. "Perhaps George's slightly scarier older brother would like some tips," he finished in a smaller and smaller voice. Picturing this massive behemoth from his nightmares whining about wanting rats was basically the only reason he wasn't trying to curl inside Nico's jacket right now.

"You get the marmalade man, I'll try anything," Percy sighed.

"And if that doesn't work out, we can dump it all into that new swimming pool he carved out and have a different kind of fun," Alex agreed.

"I'll push you into a vat of maple syrup any time you like Alex," Nico cackled.

"Yes! Best friend ever!" She whooped all the louder, so much so it probably should have started growing Percy levels of loud, but nobody really had the heart to to try and keep her quiet.

The rest of the battle wasn't going well. The centaurs had panicked under the onslaught of giants and demons. An occasional orange camp T-shirt appeared in the sea of fighting, but quickly disappeared.

Will struggled to swallow for a few painful moments as he now vividly remembered how often Micheal had complained about having nothing to wear but his camp shirts, particularly on nights of capture the flag. It made them such visible targets.

Arrows screamed. Fire exploded in waves across both armies, but the action was moving across the street to the entrance of the Empire State Building. We were losing ground.

Suddenly Annabeth materialized on the drakon's back. Her invisibility cap rolled off her head as she drove her bronze knife between a chink in the serpent's scales.

The drakon roared. It coiled around, knocking Annabeth off its back.

I reached her just as she hit the ground. I dragged her out of the way as the serpent rolled, crushing a lamppost right where she'd been.

Magnus was starting to get a nervous twitch that was gaining a life of its own as he kept realizing how many times Annabeth had nearly died, he was starting to lose count! He was sure he could ask Jason for an exact number, and he wasn't sure which disturbed him more.

"Thanks," she said.

"I told you to be careful!"

"Yeah, well, DUCK!"

"That's a strange way to say thank you. Is it Turkish? No, no, Portuguese?" Percy chuckled.

"It's shut your trap, a language I invented just for you," she grinned.

"What a terrifying thought, the gods will be speaking it in no time," Percy shrugged before moving on.

It was her turn to save me.

Magnus at least got a good laugh out of that, enough to make Percy and Annabeth exchange loving grins. They knew they were the main source of the poor guy's constant consternation in here, but it was nice they could alleviate some of that too with something so backbone to their life.

She tackled me as the monster's teeth snapped above my head. Mrs. O'Leary body-slammed the drakon's face to get its attention, and we rolled out of the way.

Meanwhile

"Is that your new anyways?" Jason rolled his eyes. "Kind of weird for you to switch it up so late in the game."

"I wish I could have meanwhiled half the crap I went through," Percy huffed. "Meanwhile, Grover was eating nachos and chilling waiting on me to rescue him in comfort and style! Meanwhile, Thalia was learning to play the banjo!"

"Pass," she frowned.

"Fine, live with your demons, I tried," Percy shrugged.

our allies had retreated to the doors of the Empire State Building. The entire enemy army was surrounding them.

We were out of options. No more help was coming. Annabeth and I would have to retreat before we were cut off from Mount Olympus.

It wasn't lifeless, per say, Nico would know that tone, but there was a listless...hopeless tone to Percy's voice he could barely wrap his head around. Percy had been kicked, beaten down, and pushed to his limits multiple times before he'd ever sounded this defeated.

Percy just needed a win. A flat victory without some catastrophe immediately following.

... Annabeth being in here was probably the closest he was going to get any time soon.

Then I heard a rumbling in the south. It wasn't a sound you hear much in New York, but I recognized it immediately: chariot wheels.

A girl's voice yelled, "ARES!"

Jason lit up like a flare, he just knew Clarisse's duty to her people would overrule her hurt pride! He knew she had it in her all along!

He was the only one.

Magnus and Alex exchanged actual disbelieving looks. Another trick from Kronos? Nico's newest idea to help by taking possession of someone? It just seemed, pretty wild of her to have changed her mind even after Micheal had offered the chariot back! What could Silena have said to finally make her come around?

Hopefully they'd get to hear the full explanation soon, because this was the peak in the Bizaro Mountain path.

And a dozen war chariots charged into battle. Each flew a red banner with the symbol of the wild boar's head.

Jason made a face at them bothering to take the time to put up decorations while riding to their rescue, but hey, if it had made them get there a little faster to show off, couldn't complain to much. It did gender a sense of comradery he supposed...

Alex was beaming with pride and nodding along for them making sure everyone knew their aesthetics.

Each was pulled by a team of skeletal horses with manes of fire. A total of thirty fresh warriors, armor gleaming and eyes full of hate, lowered their lances as one—making a bristling wall of death.

"The children of Ares!" Annabeth said in amazement. "How did Rachel know?"

Magnus sat up very straight in his seat as something occurred to him. Kronos had used this drakon because of some ancient Greek proverb or whatever about it having to be killed by a child of Ares, same as Rachel had declared. Was it possible there was no spy in camp at all? But that Kronos had somehow got his hands on some poor mortal child with gifted eyes? Watching them for years!

I didn't have an answer. But leading the charge was a girl in familiar red armor, her face covered by a boar's-head helm. She held aloft a spear that crackled with electricity. Clarisse herself had come to the rescue. While half her chariots charged the monster army, Clarisse led the other six straight for the drakon.

Annabeth shook her head at herself. How could she ever have guessed what was coming? It was such a, Clarisse thing to do, something so insane only Percy would also be guilty of that action. How those two hadn't gotten along better she looked back and wasn't quite sure.

The serpent reared back and managed to throw off Mrs. O'Leary. My poor pet hit the side of the building with a yelp.

"Kick its scaly ass girl!" Alex declared with a predatory smile.

'She did not,' Percy winced at his gut reaction to those words. Something...something of this was wrong...he could feel it in every word coming out of his mouth, every time he said Clarisse's name...

Annabeth placed her hand on his shoulder. It was the kind of comfort that offered only support, no judgment for his stupid, useless mind never being able to grasp a simple concept like thank you.

I ran to help her, but the serpent had already zeroed in on the new threat. Even with only one eye, its glare was enough to paralyze two chariot drivers. They veered into a line of cars. The other four chariots kept charging. The monster bared its fangs to strike and got a mouthful of Celestial bronze javelins.

"EEESSSSS!!!!!" it screamed, which is probably drakon for OWWWW!

"Cool to hear you've been taking parseltongue lessons from Grover," Magnus said as he tried not to cover up his mouth in horror at the idea of a bunch of tiny humans stabbing the inside of his mouth with toothpicks.

Percy just gave him a blank look and decided he didn't want to know. He still wouldn't claim to be fluent in English.

"Ares, to me!" Clarisse screamed. Her voice sounded shriller than usual, but I guess that wasn't surprising given what she was fighting.

Jason's smug smile finally wavered in a bit of confusion upon that descriptor. Clarisse's voice had never once been shown to get higher, no matter how stressed. He'd expect it to get lower, gruffer as she took command. He might have been projecting a little to hard on her and probably needed some serious psychoanalysis...and maybe a separate talk about why he saw so much of himself in a girl...

Across the street, the arrival of six chariots gave the Party Ponies new hope. They rallied at the doors of the Empire State Building, and the enemy army was momentarily thrown into confusion.

"Sounds like it doesn't take much," Alex was still leering at Mrs. O'Leary having gotten hurt so bad and was vividly imagining all manner of distraction she'd like to do. Using their heads for bowling for starters and watching with glee as they disintegrated.

Meanwhile, Clarisse's chariots circled the drakon. Lances broke against the monster's skin. Skeletal horses breathed fire and whinnied. Two more chariots overturned, but the warriors simply leaped to their feet, drew their swords, and went to work. They hacked at chinks in the creature's scales. They dodged poison spray like they'd been training for this all their lives, which of course they had.

Thalia rubbed at the back of her neck awkwardly. Now didn't seem a nice time to mention they'd practiced with hoses, albeit Percy the one spraying them with totalitarian glee. Those kids were just doing the bravest damned job, if not the best one, for her to be condescending about it right now. She was more jealous than anything she hadn't the chance to shoot one more arrow into this stupid thing's other eye.

No one could say the Ares campers weren't brave.

"I don't think anybody's said that actually," Nico agreed.

Travis had once, and Will was still surprised he'd lived through it.

Clarisse was right there in front, stabbing her spear at the drakon's face, trying to put out its other eye. But as I watched, things started to go wrong. The drakon snapped up one Ares camper in a gulp. It knocked aside another and sprayed poison on a third, who retreated in a panic, his armor melting.

"We have to help," Annabeth said.

The fact that Percy hadn't leaped in to help was the only thing to prove to them how stunned he'd been by this turn of events. It only reinforced to Magnus and Alex how...amiss something felt, but for no good reason.

She was right. I'd just been standing there frozen in amazement. Mrs. O'Leary tried to get up but yelped again. One of her paws was bleeding.

If Sally had been awake, Magnus instantly would have suggested reuniting those two. Will certainly had his hands full. It was possible one of the injured party ponies sitting out could limp over to attend to her- his thoughts stopped cold as he realized what he'd been doing. Trying to cobble together ideas in actual concern, for a dog. An enormous wolf-shaped beast with her own glowing eyes!

He studied his hands in fascination, he'd swear they were glowing, just a faint bit, like he was about to explode from such a shift in viewpoint. Today really was just full of surprises.

"Stay back, girl," I told her. "You've done enough already."

Annabeth and I jumped onto the monster's back and ran toward its head, trying to draw its attention away from Clarisse.

Her cabinmates threw javelins, most of which broke, but some lodged in the monster's teeth. It snapped its jaws together until its mouth was a mess of green blood, yellow foamy poison, and splintered weapons.

Alex's mind was churning with distress at her lack of ability to do anything. Start forming a mold of this, get a really big shovel to help smack it over the head, gods even just to stop and take a breath and capture the mental image. She loved snakes, she wanted to rip this ones scales off one by one. There was a lot going on!

"You can do it!" I screamed at Clarisse. "A child of Ares is destined to kill it!"

'That should have bolstered her,' Annabeth nodded to herself. 'She'd always been proud of her father, for reasons beyond me.' Instead 'Clarisse had seemed surprised to hear such a thing, looking away from her target. She wasn't holding the spear quite as loose as she normally would, as if it were spontaneously a bit bigger in her hands.

All of these things, of course, were only clear as she looked back.

Through her war helmet, I could only see her eyes—but I could tell something was wrong. Her blue eyes shone with fear. Clarisse never looked like that. And she didn't have blue eyes.

"You've never mentioned her eye color, actually," Jason said, mostly to himself it seemed as his stomach swooped unpleasantly. He usually pictured her with brown eyes, perhaps with hints of hazel or amber...then he realized he wasn't trying to picture Clarisse's face at all, but someone else's. It was maddening as he tried to untangle his thoughts that had somehow mashed together himself, some unknown girl, and this daughter of Ares.

"ARES!" she shouted, in that strangely shrill voice. She leveled her spear and charged the drakon.

"No," I muttered. "WAIT!"

But the monster looked down at her—almost in contempt—and spit poison directly in her face.

The words to describe something like that felt small in comparison to the surge of feeling Percy had gotten upon watching. The anger, the fear, the regret.

'Not again,' the words had whispered somewhere in his mind as Bianca and Zoe, Beckendorf and Micheal studied him with their judgemental, ghostly eyes. 'She'd been wearing a helmet, it would have taken the brunt of the damage! Nothing a little ambrosia wouldn't fix, this hadn't happened again!'

She screamed and fell.

"Clarisse!" Annabeth jumped off the monster's back and ran to help, while the other Ares campers tried to defend their fallen counselor. I drove Riptide between two of the creature's scales and managed to turn its attention on me.

I got thrown but I landed on my feet. "C'MON, you stupid worm! Look at me!"

For the next several minutes, all I saw were teeth. I retreated and dodged poison, but I couldn't hurt the thing.

This was, a surprise, the longer Magnus thought about it. Percy had just broken a bridge! He'd weakened a Titan and then slaughtered a giant flying pig with nary a sigh. But a big snake? He couldn't punch it in the nose? Stab it in the roof of its mouth, especially because none of those teeth were a danger to his arm.

This was what, day three of a never-ending battle though? Everybody kept warning Percy of how exhausted he'd grow the longer he kept this up. Even in here, a week of sporadically using his powers and using more energy to control them than anything left him looking exhausted after a full night's sleep.

It was quite sad to hear now, of all times, Percy's battling starting to slow as Kronos's only grew by the hour.

At the edge of my vision, I saw a flying chariot land on Fifth Avenue.

Then someone ran toward us. A girl's voice, shaken with grief, cried, "NO! Curse you, WHY?"

I dared to glance over, but what I saw made no sense. Clarisse was lying on the ground where she'd fallen. Her armor smoked with poison. Annabeth and the Ares campers were trying to unfasten her helmet. And kneeling next to them, her face blotchy with tears, was a girl in camp clothes. It was . . . Clarisse.

Alex's mouth was just left hanging open before she could even begin to make an evil doppelganger joke. Magnus felt like his brain was lagging behind again, to slow to keep up with these half-god kids even when death and grief was one of the few things he most easily understood of their everyday life.

Jason, though, felt a stirring of something that didn't feel like surprise. No, it felt more refined, slowly kindling to life. 'History had a way of repeating itself,' Nico had reminded several times...and Jason had a feeling he'd read this story before as the dust settled in his mind of understanding why Silena had done such a thing.

With Beckendorf gone, she'd been a wreck. She'd needed to do something, fix a mistake she might not be responsible for, but one in her power to correct. When she'd charged off promising Percy she'd help, boy did that girl go to any lengths to do so.

My head spun. Why hadn't I noticed before? The girl in Clarisse's armor was much thinner, not as tall. But why would someone pretend to be Clarisse?

'Halloween joke gone very wrong?' But Alex sighed and didn't bother with the joke. It wasn't right, hearing in detail another brutal outcome of this war, of a teenager just trying to step up and do the impossible.

I was so stunned, the drakon almost snapped me in half. I dodged and the beast buried its head in a brick wall.

'Where it could stay,' Thalia thought with vengeance. That thing was good for one use only, Clarisse had finally gone into battle without looking over her shoulder to see if her dad was watching, and she'd earned his respect for it at last. The cost was just too high.

"WHY?" The real Clarisse demanded, holding the other girl in her arms while the campers struggled to remove the poison-corroded helmet.

Chris Rodriguez ran over from the flying chariot. He and Clarisse must've ridden it here from camp, chasing the Ares campers, who'd mistakenly been following the other girl, thinking she was Clarisse. But it still made no sense.

Percy waited for the laughter, for someone to tell him how slow he was on the uptake. He felt, as usual, the last pick, the idiot always having to be explained his own life story to.

They didn't. From what he could guess, at least Magnus also hadn't a clue what was going on, and he didn't have the best poker face to hide it. Well that was at least a small relief, if someone as sharp as Annabeth's cousin wasn't a mile ahead of him.

The drakon tugged its head from the brick wall and screamed in rage.

No one needed a translator for that either. Will had felt the whole building shake with its outrage, and his usual steady hands had shook terribly as memories of Lee blurred together with horrible visions of what happened to Micheal underneath that horrible hissing. Like every gas main in the city had broke at once, like the scales were wrapping around him, chafing every inch of his skin until he couldn't breathe.

He was probably holding Nico's hand too tight, but he never protested as Will kept stroking the smooth patterns of his warm skin to chase it all away, maybe for good at last.

"Look out!" Chris warned.

Instead of turning toward me, the drakon whirled toward the sound of Chris's voice. It bared its fangs at the group of demigods.

The real Clarisse looked up at the drakon, her face filled with absolute hate. I'd seen a look that intense only once before. Her father, Ares, had worn the same expression when I'd fought him in single combat.

When he'd cursed Percy's blade after his stupid ankle was stabbed, Thalia's smile looked cruel as she recalled, because it wasn't the greatest of memories to invoke, not with the end results. Somehow the war gods input, even his childrens, always had to go hand in hand with death even to assure a victory.

Still, there was no grudge against Clarisse for her father's blood rushing through. No amount of pamphlets waved in her face would have worked, not after this day. She'd snapped out of one kind of love for another when she'd felt Chris was in danger. She had no choice but to admire that, even if she wasn't so sure she'd ever feel the same way again.

"YOU WANT DEATH?" Clarisse screamed at the drakon.

Not even Alex had the split second to bother with a defense that this could just be an animal. Could be a peaceful dwelling snake safely asleep before Kronos had woken it up. It had killed to much already not to be asking for death in return.

"WELL, COME ON!"

She grabbed her spear from the fallen girl. With no armor or shield, she charged the drakon.

I tried to close the distance to help, but Clarisse was faster. She leaped aside as the monster struck, pulverizing the ground in front of her. Then she jumped onto the creature's head. As it reared up, she drove her electric spear into its good eye with so much force it shattered the shaft, releasing all of the magic weapon's power.

Electricity arced across the creature's head, causing its whole body to shudder. Clarisse jumped free, rolling safely to the sidewalk as smoke boiled from the drakon's mouth. The drakon's flesh dissolved, and it collapsed into a hollow scaly tunnel of armor.

That. That was what a part of each of them had been expecting Percy to do all along.

Everyone except Percy.

He'd stood numb in the street, even his Styx heightened abilities hadn't moved so fast as to take out its remaining eye, the slithering king had just been to fast for him. Clarisse had done it like nothing, leaving him in her dust. She probably could have dragged him along the way and shoved his head in that thing's mouth like another toilet all over again.

The prophecy nagged in his mind again, like he really had heard the Oracle's piercing voice carving the words into his brain. 'Cursed blade'...Riptide had failed time and again to do any damage to this thing what Clarisse's spear had done with the same blow. 'Hero's soul'...why did everyone keep thinking he was the great child of the prophecy when a hero was supposed to save them, not sit back and watch? Just because Nico and Thalia hadn't had some non-important birthday really shouldn't disqualify them...

The rest of us stared at Clarisse in awe. I had never seen anyone take down such a huge monster single-handedly. But Clarisse didn't seem to care. She ran back to the wounded girl who'd stolen her armor.

Finally Annabeth managed to remove the girl's helmet. We all gathered around: the Ares campers, Chris, Clarisse, Annabeth, and me. The battle still raged along Fifth Avenue, but for that moment nothing existed except our small circle and the fallen girl.

Her features, once beautiful, were badly burned from poison. I could tell that no amount of nectar or ambrosia would save her.

Something is about to happen. Rachel's words rang in my ears. A trick that ends in death.

Now I knew what she meant, and I knew who had led the Ares cabin into battle.

I looked down at the dying face of Silena Beauregard.

'Help from a thief,' Percy's brain still felt like it was moving through that pool of syrup as he stared down at the words. Silena, who had stolen Clarisse's armor.

Alex made no call-back jab at Jason for his lack of reaction, nobody demanded to be handed the book next to merrily skip on past this.

So Percy remained where he was, cradling the blood-red spine as broken images, memories clammered to be seen. Silena's death had not matched her beauty, but then nothing could, not even the best-built pyre. Her hair and eyes would shimmer different colors, almost as if a shapeshifter at times, perhaps a small extension of her mother's gift to be the most gorgeous girl around and match all of their appearances only to be the best of them all. He could still remember the first time he'd met her, blonde braid over one shoulder, eyes a shimmering silver in the high sun, but painstakingly beautiful make up that somehow still matched the orange camp shirt and cut off jean shorts.

She'd always been taller than him, of course, but one of the nicest girls he'd ever met from the Aphrodite cabin. He'd probably have fallen off Blackjack a dozen times if not for her tutelage. She passed out those chocolates at camp with the kind of smile that felt more like a reward than the sweet for being included.

There was a flicker of silver lingering in his mind he couldn't shake as he looked around at Annabeth's dark gray eyes for some kind of explanation. Why hadn't it all stopped there? Why wouldn't the world ever grind to a halt and realize it was missing a passenger?

Annabeth waited until she was sure he was ready before she took the book for herself, with no good answer for him any more than their parents could offer.

[studentinpursuitofclouds]

It occurred to me that Lance probably doesn't appear in Pelican Town often, given his occupation.

Imagine being in a relationship with Lance but none of the townspeople are really aware of him because most of the time he spends with the farmer is a) on the farm b) the guilds c) ginger island d) the outpost etc.

After a while though, someone might spot him with the farmer one day on the farm and now everyone knows the farmer has a handsome rugged adventurer for a lover 🫢

How would everyone react?

You're so right, dear anon. In fact, aside from festivals, Lance doesn't really show up anywhere except for the farm and the Guild in Stardew Valley. And the Farmer goes to Lewis one day and says, "This is my lover. Please marry us." He's fucking stunned at the news, and then everyone else who was invited to the wedding. Like excuse me, who the fuck is this handsome pink haired man?

Sorry if the answer came out a little short and chaotic, but I thought it would be better this way. I hope you like it. Thanks for the question!

_________________________________________

Lewis will be friendly with the now frequent tourist, but will keep an eye out for Lance and Farmer. Even if Farmer is a Lewis's friend, they can be such a daredevil! Robin and Marnie talk him into relaxing and "letting the young ones enjoy their youth".

Willy didn't realize Lance knew so much about fish. Some species even an experienced sailor had never heard of. Torpedo trout? Now that's interesting. Another friend to tell fish stories with over a beer.

Abigail, having gotten to know Lance better, would immediately beg him to train with her: "Let's sword fight!", "Train me, please!". Lance sees great potential in the unusual girl, and later agrees to show her a couple of self-defense techniques.

Victor almost shit his pants with happiness. An adventurer - and not just any adventurer, but second in command of the First Slash clan! Victor was a little shy, but he could see that Lance was friendly enough to chat, so he asked him questions about monsters and the adventurer's life in general.

Sophia will burn with shame when she accidentally mistakes Lance for a cosplayer, luckily Scarlett defuses the situation and also meets a nicely dressed man. Farmer's husband? No way! That means a new friend!

Lance wouldn't refuse to show the kids (Jas, Vincent and Leo) a couple of safe magic spells. Morgan wouldn't be surprised by magic, but they looked at Lance with admiration as well. He's just as cool as Marlon!

Shane doesn't give a shit about Lance, but he'll keep an eye on him. After all, Farmer has also become a friend to him, and he doesn't want them to get hurt, who knows what kind of guy this adventurer is....

The first rumors about Farmer's new lover came from the gossipy trio of Olivia, Jodi and Caroline. A stranger (and a very handsome one, Olivia said) suddenly appeared in Pelican Town, always with Farmer, and they were even caught kissing. You don't keep quiet about something like that.

Sam would probably be the very first of all the young Valley residents to welcome Lance with open arms. The Farmer's friend (lover?) is Sam's friend! Too bad, though, that Lance doesn't share his love of pizza (a food of the Gods!), but oh well.

For Marlon, Magnus, and Gil, the news that Lance has befriended their friend and student is not new. Although they didn't realize that the two of them would have an affair. Magnus and Gil congratulate Lance and Farmer. Marlon does as well, but he has a heavy stone of memories in his heart that was accidentally disturbed. After all, he too was in love with an adventurer. Faithful to her even now... Even when she has been with Yoba for a long time....

If Alex meets Lance for the first time at the Stardew Valley Fair, he'll definitely call him out on the strength meter ride (hoping to show off to Haley).... And lost to Lance. So yeah, whatever, he just gave in to him so Farmer wouldn't be upset! Haley, on the other hand, will be interested in Lance, since a new face in the Valley is a great excuse to gossip with the girls. And if she catches them two in an embrace. Oh-ho-ho-ho!

Susan and Evelyn will terrorize Lance with care and sweets as a sign of their first acquaintance. Poor Lance can't say no to such kind people. The Farmer is sure to be laughing their ass off when Lance returns with a basket full of pies, cake and other goodies.

The rest of the residents will react normally. They'd all congratulate the two of them, they wouldn't mind when Lance made the first step towards getting to know them, but they wouldn't be fanatical about it. After all, the Farmer knows Lance better than anyone.

[pynkhues]

I am very very curious about that tower scene because Sam said in an interview that he didn't think Lestat was at the tower voluntarily--so if Armand put him there, how much of Louis' memory of that scene is accurate? Lestat looks very well put-together for a prisoner, and how is he being kept there? So much about that scene felt intentionally odd (even, and you touched on this in your fic, that Lestat says that he wasn't kept in the room with the corpses/"disappointments", whereas he'd told Louis and Claudia that he was kept in a room with corpses).

I'm really curious too, anon! It definitely feels like one that's going to be revisited, probably in more ways than one given Magnus' tower is such a vital location across The Vampire Lestat, and it makes sense that Sam would say that too given Lestat's not there by choice in the book. Like you said, Armand takes him there after the trial (and pushes him out the window to debilitate him further) and I'm curious as to how much of that the show keeps. They've changed a few elements of that sequence already that I don't think can be reversed - like Claudia's dress ending up with Louis for instance, not Lestat - and the bigger fact of Louis seeing Lestat then at all when in the book Armand tells him Lestat died in the theatre fire even though he knows he didn't).

You're right though that it's an odd scene, both between how good Lestat looked (but then Louis' memories of how he looked at the trial too were coloured by other emotions given the revisited scenes at the end showed how unwell he actually looked) and that change in what Lestat tells Louis about where he was kept in Magnus' tower feels pointed given 2.08 spends quite a bit of time pointing out its own deliberate inconsistencies with s1 moments.

I think like a lot of these scenes, Louis' memory of it will be a partial truth, but it lacks the context that we have (and he now, at least, has some of). I also kiiind of imagine Lestat and Armand are probably talking to each other too with the mind link in that scene, but obviously we're not privvy to if that's happening or what it might entail yet.

I can't wait to see what they do with it.

[ryutarotakedown]

day 1: archival assistants/canon divergence, or day 7: free day @tma-girls-week

[a/n: hiiiiii magnus archives i missed you. sorry if this is out of character i did go back to read through the 158–160 transcripts (and 119 + 061 + 091 for funsies) to refresh my memory, but]

Summary: Post-159, Basira finds a weird statement in the midst of what she's about to send to Jon. Or rather, she doesn't find one? It's hard to explain.

-

It probably says something about Basira that she hasn't cried.

Well, not yet. But it has been two weeks already, and it still doesn't feel real. She can see Daisy whenever she closes her eyes — Daisy staring forward at the old man and his friend, reality beginning to ripple around her skin, honing her into something sharp. A missile with a locked target. Hunter, hunted.

She can hear Daisy say out of the corner of her mouth, promise me.

…It's not that Basira hadn't seen this coming from ten miles away. The face-stealing monster might have been a surprise, but the first time Basira read about "silent compulsion powers; assigned investigator: Alice Tonner; assigned location: Epping Forest," she knew exactly what Daisy was, and exactly how this would end…

She just wishes Daisy had at least looked her in the eye.

No. This is no time for stupid — sentimentality or softness or whatever; she can almost feel the disapproval radiating from her late father. That was how she'd gotten into this mess in the first place. No more thinking about Daisy or Melanie or Jon than necessary. Head up, back straight —

Right. Statements. That was what she'd been after. The police had finally cleared out this afternoon, so she doesn’t need to face any more questions about Jonah Magnus's corpse ("definitely a corpse") or the tunnels ("no, officer, I don't know of any maps for the place") or why she looked so familiar ("are you sure you're not imagining things?"). Instead she has the whole evening off to gather statements so her coworker (friend) (coworker) doesn't snap and start traumatizing random Scottish grocery store employees.

Oh, the joy.

Near the end of everything they had all stopped pretending that being an archival assistant was for actually organizing an archive, but now Basira thinks about it, she does recall Jon saying that he'd started from the most recent filing cabinets. So if she starts from oldest, she's most likely to find the statements he hasn't eaten yet. Yes, that makes sense.

She picks herself up, dusts herself off, and heads towards the back of the archives.

1870s, 1860s, 1850s, early 1800s. Here. Basira reaches into the back of the shelf — oh, cobweb, eurgh — and pulls out a pile of manila folders. As she shakes them in the air to get the dust away, one sheet of paper snags in the wind and falls out; then another, and another. She sighs and sets the whole pile down on the floor, dropping to her knees to gather the loose papers. Jon stopped telling them to staple documents together after Melanie said it was bad for archival purposes, but honestly, Basira could understand why…

Wait. When had she made it out of the archives?

She blinks down at herself. She's standing at the top of the staircase, the one that leads from the Magnus Institute lobby down to the archival basement. The statements are arranged neatly in her hands, free of the dust.

…She doesn't remember getting up here.

(In a universe just to the left of this one: Basira sighs to herself. She hasn't had an episode like this since right after the wax museum, when she felt like she was blinking in and out of existence as she picked up a payphone outside and managed to tell the police the address before hanging up — she hadn't trusted her hands to stay steady on any steering wheel, so afterwards she'd walked the whole way back to the Institute.

That whole section of memory is lost to her. All Basira can recall is the rhythm of her boots against the concrete, and then against the carpet of the entrance area, uncertain voices — Melanie grabbing her shoulders and asking questions she couldn't understand — where's Daisy —

The point is, it's not out of character for Basira's recollection events to just… glitch, sometimes. There's no point wondering what happened in between, not when she's the only person she knows left in the archives. She leaves the statements at the postal office and gets back to work.

The world ends two days later.)

But in this universe, Basira pauses:

She isn't thinking about Daisy. Basira is in fact very good at not thinking about things when she feels stable, and it's been two weeks and only one breakdown since everything. Besides, the fog in her brain doesn't usually just cut out her memories that cleanly, so that can't be why she just lost ten minutes of her life.

It reminds her of — yes. Jon. The day he'd come to tell her about how to quit. It had gone something like this:

Basira: You're joking. Archivist: I wish I was. Basira: …………………… Archivist: You're… not going to do it, are you? Basira: What, did you eat a bit of my brain or — Archivist: No; I can actually read faces, Basira. Basira: (exhales) I'll think about it, but…… no, I don't think so. Archivist: Right. [A pause.] Archivist: …Right. Well — Basira: How sure are you? Archivist: What? Basira: I mean, this… tape you found, how'd you get it, anyway? Archivist: Oh. It's hard to explain… I was going through that box of tapes in Peter's office, and I tried to find a, a blind spot. Basira: You tried to find… your own blind spot. Archivist: I told you it was hard to explain! But — yes. There was one that I kept skipping over, like I couldn't see it — I sorted them into "interesting" and "not interesting," and then kept looking through the "not interesting" pile… and after I, after I'd isolated the least interesting one, that was when I actually — saw. It just… I couldn't recall seeing it there before. It was like, like a gap in my memory. Basira: Huh. Archivist: And even after I found it — my hand kept pulling away from it. So it must have been something the Web… It must have wanted to hide it. Basira: Hmm. Like someone trying to touch a stove countertop. Archivist: A stove—? Basira: If the stove countertop could also induce amnesia. Archivist: (doubtful) I suppose when you look at it that way…

Basira frowns now, as she looks down at the pile of statements in her hands. Another Web trick, then? In these statements?

Well. The tape Jon got did help Melanie escape, at least. So if Basira sorts these statements into "interesting" and "not interesting"…

After twenty minutes and several strange looks from employees milling about in the lobby, Basira sits back. One manila folder left in "not interesting." Or rather, left in the category "this doesn't warrant any further examination, go post it to Scotland already."

It takes several tries for her to open it. Several more tries for her to read it.

Statement of Hazel Rutter… That all seems normal. She forces her eyes to focus, go beyond the drab information box and take in every word.

And then: there it is. The hidden amnesiac stove countertop.

Hello, Jon. Apologies for the—

Basira sucks her breath through her teeth. Oh, this is bad. This is very bad. She has to go call Martin, warn him and Jon, scan through all the other statements just in case…

But first order of business: she drops Hazel Rutter's statement into the paper shredder, and watches Jonah Magnus's master plan dissolve into ash.

---

[a/n: i was going to finish this on day 1, but Then I Didn't. thankfully as it is i can just barely sneak it into day 7: free day!

i hope all of you basira enjoyers (and also non-basira-enjoyers) like it! i'm sorry i haven't been more active on discord recently, i swear i'll be back as soon as i get out of this country in like three weeks]

[imagine-dethklok-scenerios]

Hi! These imagines are pretty rad :) keep up the great work. Don't know if you're taking requests, but if you are; what kind of yanderes do you think Dethklok would be?

Ohhh thank you!! Of course of Course!! 

Nathan: He would be Shuuchaku-gata: Obsession type. Doesn’t help that this guy is pretty much silent about his thoughts. You would never know the amount of time he has spent obsessing about you. Pretty much the stalkerish type as well.

This type will try to learn everything about their love interests, including personal information, hobbies, routine, etc. They will send messages regularly to check on their love, asks why they haven't answered if they didn't, wants to know what they're doing always. And, if possible, walks around with them all the time as well.

The obsession type doesn't necessarily want to monopolize you. They'll let you hang around with friends, etc. but wants to know everything you do. They probably want to go with you, too. If they can't go somewhere with you, they might stalk you.

If they learn a person is too close to you, they might attack.

Pickles: I can see him as Ison-gata: Dependence type. Pickles is needy, especially from this discourse of his childhood and his parents neglecting him. He would need your attention constantly or else he may feel like he would die.

Can't live without their love interest, and will beg them to not leave or throw them away. Claim that they will die or kill themselves if they leave. May lose will to do anything if they aren't watching. If their love interest does, in fact, leave; they might go full crazy and end up doing something crazy like going on a murderous rampage. 

Skwisgaar: He gives off Dokusen-gata: Monopoly type. This Swede doesn’t want you with ANYONE but him. Shocking for this sex positive guitarist. He wants your love to only belong to H I M. 

They want to monopolize their love interest. And will ask who they're talking to and hanging with, in extreme cases won't let them be with anyone else, regardless if they are well known as a mutual friend.

This type of behavior is unfortunately common in real life. It displays insecurities and lack of trust in the relationship which might develop into much worse yandere behavior.

Toki: This poor boi would definitly be Sokubaku-gata: Restraint type. Nearly everything he loves always dies prematurely, always leaving him behind. When he set his eyes on you, he knew you had to stay alive. With him. Safety tucked away from things that you could hurt yourself with. 

They want to be with their love always, and always, and always, AND ALWAYS, AND ALWAYS. That means they'll probably kidnap them and lock them into their house so they're forced to stay with them.

There are variations, some lighter, some worse, but the general idea is that they want themselves and their love to be inseparable.

Murderface: Sadly he has the case of the Mousou-gata: Delusional type. An unrequited love, based on a misunderstanding on his part. But it’s too late, you already have his heart. And now he wants yours whether you want to or not. 

Similar to the "wrong idea" type above, but far worse.

When their insane love is unrequited (for obvious reasons), and they start running away from the crazy person, they'll think it's because they're embarrassed, and not because they don't want them. Their love distorts the reality they perceive. They see a bunch of delusions instead.

The delusion type may also be in denial something unpleasant happened. They'll just forget it happened. Their memories may also be replaced with delusions: they'll remember a love being extremely nice to them when they were actually indifferent, or them saying saying they liked them before they even met.

TW Under Cut: Self Harm. If this triggers you please do not read. This is your first and final warning.

Magnus: And lastly, Magnus here simply just can’t live without you. He NEEDS you. If you leave, he’ll make you stay... by Jishou-gata: Self Harm. He knows how badly you will feel if he hurt himself. A few drops of blood and you come runnning back. Like you always do. 

They harm themselves, cutting wrists, etc. in order to get their interests' attention. This often happens when they're ignored. The "dependence" type might evolve into this if they are abandoned.

There are two sub-types to this;

First, the one where they harm themselves in secret and have a love notice their injuries, then they say "it's nothing to worry about" hoping they worry about it more. This is usually something light like a knee bruise.

Second, the one where they harm themselves in a love's face as a way to say "I'll kill myself if you leave me", forcing them to stay by their side by guilt.

[tigereyes45]

You know there's a lot of great things about Transformers WFC but one thing I think they missed out on was the backstory of Ratchet and Optimus' friendship where the two of them had known each other from almost the beginning and how Ratchet met Megatron right after Optimus introduced the two of them to each other.

Like imagine how the scenes would've gone.

Wheeljack casually suggesting they go get Ratchet who can fix anything

Optimus knowing he wants to stay out of the war due to his past friendship with both himself and Megatron.

Him begrudgingly agreeing

Optimus not pleeing for help or pushing his agenda out of respect for ratchet. Ergo Impactor would realize 'Oh hey Optimus isn't a pushy dick. That's....kinda cool!'

Ratchet seeing the desperation Optimus is trying to hide. Him glancing over at the really beaten up Autobots.

"Fine I'll do it, but don't let Megatron know. Good will is the only reason he hasn't torn my operation down."

Optimus resting a hand on his shoulder deeply grateful, "I wouldn't dream of it old friend."

Impactor now insisting on coming as a body guard not because he doesn't trust the Autobots with Ratchet's safety but because he doesn't like them and is kind of jealous.

Ratchet later asks why Optimus is so desperate to get the bridge working, and at first Optimus refuses to tell him.

It takes Ratchet dismissing Impact and cornering Optimus as the commander tries to leave. Optimus warning him that he may not like what he hears. "To the Allspark with that. You're reckless on a good day but this all is foolish Optimus. If I'm risking my neutrality I deserve to know why."

"It-its Megatron," Optimus begins to tell the sad story of what happened to Ultra Magnus and Megatron's plan to rewrite the code of all Autobots into those of decepticons and erase everything they were.

"That," Ratchet can't believe his words. "That's insane! Megatron has done many things but I refuse to believe he would cross such a line." Optimus solemnly admits he believed the same thing but shows the arena recording of Megatron explaining how that is his plan exactly.

Ratchet mutters about working faster and how he doesn't have time to chat the last of their moments away.

Optimus doesn't know what to say. There was no comfort for him when learned the news and he isn't sure if there is anything he can say to soothe Ratchet. So he walks away and hopes that their is something left of them from the 'good ole days'.

Megatron hearing that the bridge is working only to reason yet another ally from the past has betrayed him. (Bonus: That sad fucking expression he can do. You guys know the one!)

The final scene as everyone is fleeing for the ark is Ratchet not sure he should get on. He's still holding Impact's body. Elita has already decided she's going to stay and steps back to see this instense glare from Megatron to Optimus.

They both call out to Ratchet. It's time to choose. Their 'respect' will no longer keep them from forcing him to choose. That chance was lost the moment the Allspark got involved.

Ratchet sighs and says one final farewell to Impact's body before offering a last, sad, regretful look at Megatron.

It's in that moment that Megatron knows. His two closest friends have both chosen and it's to stand against him.

A few months ago maybe that would've made him question his decisions. Perhaps even change his mind, but it's too late for that now. Anger makes him resolute and he tries to kill the two as the ark's doors shut.

As the door shuts Ratchet's staring at the burnt marks Megatron's last blasts left on the wall. It's in that final moment that he realizes just how far his old friend has gone. He starts to believe what Optimus has told him but none of it hurts less.

After that he doesn't really leave the ark for the first few months they're on Earth. He speaks only when necessary unless Wheeljack or Optimus is around. His attitude turns into a sour form of grumpiness and Ratchet's never really the same.

Basically all I'm asking for is a reverse of those episodes from the prime series where Optimus loses his memories and Megatron and Ratchet fight over him. In this version it's Megatron and Optimus trying to get Ratchet to join their side in the war but both not trying to hard out of begrudging, mutual respect.

[fictionalrambles]

Shadowhunters Fandom Story - Part Fifteen

Submitted by jwrites_

Five Favourite Fics:

1. What's It Gonna Be by @lemonoclefox

Why I love this fic: I'm a sucker for Pride & Prejudice. San was able to take that dynamic and put it all in a modern day telling of it. I can't count how many times I've read this. Sometimes I read it all the way through, other times I go and find my favorite parts just to get that rush of emotions it never fails to give. The enemies to lovers is done perfectly, the dialogue is great and flows seamlessly, the way she tied in the storyline between Simon, Isabelle, Valentine, and Alec together was genius. I truly love every word of this story.

Favorite scene: Awkward - love - confession - in -  the -  rain

Favorite quote(s):

(Yes. Love confessions are great but have you ever overheard someone say something rude about you and then have the opportunity later that same night to be able to casually call that person out for their comment?)

"Her friend is..." He trails off, as though searching for the word, and Magnus can imagine him gesturing in the meantime. "Interesting," Jace eventually settles on, pointedly.

"Who, that Bane guy?" Alec says, and as he does, Magnus is hit with a wave of intrigued surprise. Does Alec like men? Interesting. The assumption could be wrong, of course, but Jace's tone implies that that's why he's mentioning it. "He's a bit over the top, don't you think?"

He sounds almost disdainful as he says it, as though Jace's mere suggestion is laughable, and Magnus's intrigue immediately shifts to offended annoyance. He straightens a little where he stands, reluctantly affected by it.

--

"I mean, love songs are great," Magnus admits lightly. "But stringing a few pretty words together does seem a bit unoriginal when everyone does it."

Simon shoves him lightly in offense, and Magnus can't help but laugh.

"Then what do you suggest?" Magnus is taken completely by surprise when he realizes that it's Alec who's speaking, and he turns to him. The guy's expression is neutral, but seems genuinely curious.

"Oh, I don't know," Magnus says, swirling his drink around in his glass. He shrugs. "I suppose I'm more a fan of showing and not telling. I'd much prefer someone showing interest in what I like and who I am, than comparing my eyes to the night sky, and whatnot." He gestures airily, then hesitates. He suddenly can't seem to stop himself, the memory of the Lightwoods' overheard conversation bubbling to the surface. "I think most people can appreciate that. Even if some of us are a bit over the top."

--Okay...I'm gonna go ahead and throw in a love confession~

"Look, I don't expect anything from you," he says, as though the words are hard to say. "You've made your feelings pretty clear, and I respect that. But I heard you talked to my mom, and with the stuff you said to her... I guess it just kind of made me a bit hopeful, or something. A bit." He clears his throat, while Magnus just listens. He turns to watch Alec's profile as the young man struggles to find the words, eyes on the view in front of him. "Either way, I'll admit that how I feel hasn't really changed. Maybe it should have, but..."

Alec shakes his head, and Magnus feels his throat go dry. He wants to interrupt Alec, wants to say and show everything that's bursting out of his chest, but he waits. Alec takes a deep breath then, turns to him. He looks determined.

"If you want me to," he says steadily, "I'll go. I'll leave you alone, I promise. You won't hear from me again." He pauses, licks his lips. "But if you don't want me to, if something has changed since last time, somehow... I'd really like to know. Because that would be pretty great."

2. 42 North 71 West by @lecrit​

Why I love this fic: I was blessed with the opportunity to witness Lu working on this fic from its conception to its end. I was there and still I am blown away at the way she was able to work the time jumps. I remember thinking with every chapter I read, 'Wow. The way she is telling this story is amazing. She is amazing.' Lu has a way of presenting so much honesty in her characters. She writes them in a way that feels so real, that you can't help but understand their fears and hesitations even though it hurts. The story is a back and forth told through scenes set in the past and present. You get to see what they were and where they are. The story is beautifully heartbreaking. And she was able to make me enjoy a story that dealt with politics? What? Sorcery, I tell you. -- also, the bench.

Favorite scene: This was almost impossible to choose and I took way too long trying to pinpoint just one. But I'm going to go with one that I hold very dear. When Magnus goes to visit Alec on his birthday and he finds Alec playing the song he only plays when he's sad. That's all I'm going to say because I don't want to spoil~

Favorite quote(s):

“Magnus,” Alec breathes out.

The name feels almost foreign, as if he hadn’t uttered it in too long and now his mind is troubling to catch up with his mouth. Still, it manages to make Alec’s heart stutter.

--

“We should’ve stayed on that bench in Boston,” he murmurs.

--

The good thing is, he knows where to go to find his way back. It is inked on his body, engraved into his soul, sealed into his heart.

3. Lead The Way by Clockworkswan

Why I love this fic: Because it takes the wonderful adventure of Doctor Who and packs it in with Malec. This is the ultimate fun and feel good but you will also cry at one point fic. I always go back to it if I want a wonderfully written Doctor Magnus and his adorable companion Alec. Seriously, even if you're not into Doctor Who, give this fic a shot. It's written in a way that you will get so caught up in the adventure that you won't even realize it's based on something else. And if you're a Doctor Who fan, you're in luck with all the little Easter Eggs Heather left throughout.

Favorite scene: I really don't want to spoil anything. The planet of Ablorix. This will mean nothing if you don't read the fic (so you should ;])

Favorite quote(s):

Magnus extends a hand. It’s just like before, when they were in the hallway a couple of weeks ago. It’s just as inviting as it was the first time.

“How about it, pretty boy? Name a star. Any one will do. Or a date,” Magnus says. The double meaning is evident when he winks. He pauses then, and his expression shifts, growing solemn.

A clear shift in his demeanour happens. Magnus turns from playful to sincere in the blink of an eye. Although, there was also a serious tone to it. Magnus looks at him, and understanding eyes meet Alec’s hesitant ones. “Alexander, you seem like a man in need of a break, and I am very much a man in need of a friend. Adventures are always a quick way in figuring out what you want. What do you say?”

What does he say?

He says yes.

Of course Alec does.

--

Before Magnus can think of a good retort, he tries to ignore the clenching ache his stomach gives at the sight of a confident, smirking Alec Lightwood watching him so openly. He settles for pointing in a random direction. “I have to go and see a dog about a man. Meet back here in five?”

“Uh, isn’t the expression, ‘see a man about a dog’?”

“Not when the dog ran off with the man’s wife. A rather big scandal, it seems. The president wants me to try and step in. Smooth things over, so to speak.”

At that, Alec just stares blankly.

Magnus holds up a finger. “Yes, this is normal for me. No, you may not come along. Go.”

4. Love & Other Drugs prequel of Our Love Is A Harsh Chord in the Semi-charmed Kind Life series by @la-muerta​

Why I love this fic: I'm kind of cheating here by listing two fics but they're a package deal. Love & Other Drugs was a smutty one-shot that left me wanting

more...

backstory. Let me tell you the pining and 'unrequited' love between those two demanded a story to be written. Which is why when la_muerta ran a poll on whether or not she should start it or another series first, I campaigned for this one like it was my job (I lost but I still got the series eventually so did I really lose?) The writing in this and with all of la_muerta's fics will hook you. The sadness over the back and forth between them is done so well. It's angst that will grip you and hold onto you until you eventually finish. Just go on the twitter hashtag of #OLIAHCfic and see my screaming.

Favorite scene: Probably the LSD scene.

Favorite quote(s):

Alec was still here, in bed with him.

How many times had Magnus wished that he could wake up with Alec in his arms? He didn't dare to move, wanting the dream to last a little longer, but Alec was already stirring.

--

he'll wonder if life would be a little easier if he wasn't hopelessly in love with Magnus, but it is a fact of who he is now: Alec Lightwood is 6'3, has dark hair, is gay, and is in love with Magnus Bane.

--

They are lying next to each other now, turned on their sides and face to face. The world is no longer warped and weird, but glowing and perfect. Magnus is tracing a path of lightning down Alec's body with his fingertips, and in a moment of clarity Alec understands that in Magnus' eyes he is as beautiful as he thinks Magnus is (it is the first thing Alec forgets when he wakes up sober later).

--

Words aren't enough to express how he feels, but they've always understood each other better when clumsy words don't get in the way.

5. The Lonely Hearts Hotline by @unrestrainedlyexcessive​

Why I love this fic: It's funny, it's endearing, it's heart wrenching, it's sexy, etc. The way Alec is written in this fic is one of my favorite characterizations. The way his situation can resonate with so many young adults today. That feeling when you're an adult and you feel like you should know what to do with your life and who you should be but the truth is, you're still just as lost as always. Being an adult sucks tbh and even when you're an adult, sometimes life doesn't quite feel like it. Alec's character and growth in this fic is beautiful. (I also really loved Jace in this fic)

Favorite scene: A tough choice. Probably the office party and follow up scene in Magnus' office.

Favorite quote(s):

The problem with being a new grad, in general, is that the world and job force demands you have experience, but you have to live a certain number of productive years on the planet to gain that experience.

Early adulthood is no man's land. You don’t have the experience to matter and no one wants to pay you to gain it, hence how he ended up in the precarious situation he’s in: dodgy sex work by night, an even dodgier roommate, and desperately hoping an internship eventually turns into an actual paying job.

--

Magnus runs his tongue down the knobs of Alec's spine. "You're so beautiful," he says, pausing.

"I'm really not," Alec insists, eyes fluttering closed.

"Why are you so kind to everyone except yourself?"

"I'm a work in progress."

"Aren't we all?"

[morgemuffel]

MALEC. ➰ DON'T LET ME GO.

This story takes place between episode 3Bx15 & 3Bx16.

I adapted the story and put my own thoughts & ideas into to it. What are MALEC up to when you don’t see them on screen?

*(Part 2 of my series: our heart beats like one)

Mmm... I love to feel his warm bare chest underneath me. His fine and soft dark chest hair like a fluffy pillow on my cheek, which tickles my nose every now and then when I move my head, to cuddle up to him. The familiar aroma of... of what exactly? It's hard to describe, but it's my favorite fragrance. Not like shampoo, perfume or laundry detergent, no. It is his own body odor. The scent, you only get to smell on your partner in the mornings, before he makes himself fresh and tidy for the rest of the world. Magnus loved this fragrance. It's a scent that evokes the memory  of a cool sunrise in spring season. The feeling of love and secureness.

As Magnus lies there half asleep, he slowly noticed that something wasn't right anymore. The warmth and the fragrance he loved so much, slowly faded away. He reluctantly opened his eyes and winked the sleep away as he looked around without moving. He was in Alec's room at the New York Institute. He remembered falling asleep in Alec's arms, one more thing he loved. He slept so well in Alec's arms, as he hadn't for years. Carefree and happy. But where was Alec? Magnus lay across the bed, taking up the whole space and his head was carefully draped on a pillow. Alec didn't want to wake him up and exchanged his warm muscular chest with his pillow. Also very cuddly Magnus had to admit, but no comparison to Alec's soft fragrant skin. As he raised his head, he looked up directly into Alec's already freshly washed face. "You sleep ok?" Alec asked worried. Magnus stretched as he answered "like a rock." Alec looked at him in a mix of nervousness and expectation so that Magnus wondered what he had overlooked, until his eyes moved over the bed and he noticed the romantic gesture of his boyfriend. A smile crossed his face. How was it possible that this man could always surprise him over and over again? In front of him was a tray with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and a small bouquet of flowers. The glass was filled to the top, not like Magnus' attempt from last week. When he could only squeeze enough juice from two oranges to reach the middle of the glass. "Oh. Freshly squeezed orange juice and a full glass. "He grinned at the memory. Alec blushed a little red but tried to suppress it. "One of the perks of living at the institute," he said with a smile. Magnus nodded impressed, but his attention was yet on the forced question, forming  itself in bold capital letters, inside of his head . It was by law not allowed for Warlocks to be in the institute. Nor to live there. Although he welcomed the loving offer to stay here until he had found a new home as well as the confident manner his boyfriend showed, but they both knew that this, also if only a temporary situation, was pretty tricky. Magnus didn't want to get Alec into trouble by staying here longer than necessary. Alec tore him out of his thoughts. "Come on, get out of bed. Breakfast stops serving at 9am." Theatrically, Magnus let himself fall back into the bed. Why did shadowhunters have to get up so early? No wonder most of them were always in such a bad mood. And walking into a warlock in this early hour must be the icing on the cake. So he started a half-hearted attempt to convince Alec that they didn't necessarily had to have breakfast with the others in the community hall. “Alexander, I appreciate the hospitality, but doesn't the clave have rules against downworlders living here?“ His boyfriend looked at him with that peevish smile as he hesitated “oh they‘re not rules, they‘re suggestions.“ Magnus sighed, his Alexander, who interpreted his life according to the rules is now only looking at them as a recommendation? He didn't want Alec to bend himself completely because of him. That just wasn't right, and yet his statement triggered a comforting feeling in Magnus. Alec went on to say, "You're not living at the institute, you're just visiting for an extended period of time." his arguments weren't bad, Magnus thought, but he hated to be the outsider. Not that he cared what others thought, but what if Alec suddenly felt uncomfortable? Magnus asked him "and what would your fellow shadowshunters think of a warlock wandering the halls?" "They'd be fine with it Alec clarified in a calm tone. "Let's go." With these last challenging words he turned around and disappeared through the door to brush his teeth in the bathroom. Magnus sat undecided on the bed for a moment. He urgently needed another apartment, but his  real estate agent had died years ago. But his good friend Cat has recently moved, so Madzie could have her own room. He took out his phone and wrote her a short text message:

Wanna have lunch today? I could need your help... Do you know a good real estate agent in New York? 🏠

Cat answered almost immediately. Magnus was looking at his phone while it indicated that Cat was about to formulate a message.

Yes sure, I have break at 12.30am. You can wait outside the hospital. Are you and Alec already taking the next step? 🐾

Magnus read the message and rolled his eyes in amusement.

He had told her that Alec had asked him a few weeks ago to move in with him and that he had refused his request. She agreed with Magnus that it was too early. But in the meantime, Magnus himself wasn't so sure about his decision anymore. With Alec everything felt so good and right. He had never dared to take that step before, but if he did, he could only imagine this scenario with Alec. Since losing his loft, he'd thought about asking Alec several times. Ask him if they wanted to look at apartments together and maybe even wanted to move in together. But he was too unsure, what if Alec didn't wanted that anymore? He still remembers how hurt his shadowhunter had looked at him, when he said it would be a nice idea for the future. Magnus had considered his decision as the best in that moment. But now he wasn't so sure anymore, so he didn't ask. He answered Cat with a maybe..., two thumbs up and a steak emoji, then he got up to get dressed.

Alec had just brushed his teeth when he started searching for Underhill. As he knew Magnus, getting dressed, styling his hair and putting on his make up would take a while even with his regained magic. When thinking of his boyfriend, who couldn't decide what to wear and what mood he wanted to present the world today, he had to smile. There was no one like him, and he belonged to Alec. He hoped to catch Underhill before breakfast, since he was Alec's only friend next to his siblings, he wanted to hear his opinion about Magnus' new living situation. He himself knew that his decision to let Magnus live in the institute went into the grey area, a real dark grey zone and that not all of his companions would be enthusiastic about it. But he didn't care he had a plan. Well it was more of an idea than a plan, but before he could enforced this plan, he had to go through the shadowhunters protocol again. If someone could help him with that then it was his friend Underhill, the head of security. Alec walked down the hall and knocked on Underhill's room. Nothing stirred. He was about to leave, as the door swung open and Underhill stood in front of him, dripping wet and only wrapped in a white towel around his waist. Small  water drops trickled down his trained torso like glistening pearls. "Uhm ... hey boss ... uh ... Alec?" He said clearly confused about meeting his buddy so early in the morning. "Does your head hum as much as mine?" He asked laughing as he grimaced. The two men hadn't been friends for a long time, and Alec hadn't even seen him in swimming trunks before. They were out for a beer the first time yesterday having a spontaneous men's night after work. Alec had told him about his fears and relationship issues after being Underhill's wingman. But a drunk soul striptease and checking out other men together was something completely different than this. Their friendship wasn't on the I can see you without your shirt level yet. Rather more on the I kinda trust you and we can talk about deep stuff basis. It was therefore an unprecedented situation for both of them. "Alec is enough, we're friends now right... aren't we?" Alec found himself wandering over Underhill's upper body. Well, yesterday they've talked about attractive men and they were all reasonably passable but he haven't really realized that Underhill himself was actually pretty attractive. No comparison to Magnus, Nobody is able to hold a candle to him, but he couldn't deny that Underhill was good looking and handsome. Stop look at him so closely Alec! He realized that he had been staring at his friend for quite a long time now and blushed. Thus, the situation was now officially a bit awkward. Is looking at others, even if in that harmless way, allowed in a relationship? Or oh God had he just cheated on Magnus? No, no, no calm down Alec. Magnus once said that it's natural that you want to look at beautiful things. Not that Underhill was an object. "Yes sure...we are friends", Underhill nodded slowly and became a little red himself. Oh damn it, pull yourself together Alec. Just open your mouth and before you even notice you'll be speaking. The warm steam escaping out of the room and into Alec's face finally brought him back from his thoughts. "Nah no, I'm feeling pretty good." He cleared his throat and asked, "Could you prepare the keys for Magnus, so he can come into the institute by himself?" Underhill frowned as he slowly asked: "So your boyfriend is suddenly living here now? What about the rules?" But Alec wanted to get out of this somehow embarrassing situation, as quick as possible so he answered curtly. "Just the keys Jack okey? Thank you." And walked in the direction of his own room. The protocol could wait.

Magnus felt the breakfast was... very weird, as expected. He was in the training room of the institute now and completed his morning Tai Chi exercises. These slow flowing movements and the meditation calmed him. He had spiced up the routine with his own flair and let a magic ball circulate between his hands. However, it was difficult for him to concentrate, because his thoughts repeatedly wandered somewhere else. - Everyone had stared at Magnus as if it was the first time they've ever saw a warlock. He had mumbled to Alec, "you know it's not too late to go out for breakfast, right?"But Alec ignored the others and asked in shock: “And miss pancake day? No way“. How could Magnus have denied him his favorite breakfast day at the institute? Nevertheless, Magnus would rather have sinked into the ground, preferably right through to Edom. But Alec stood proudly next to him and would have probably beat up everyone's ass or sent them to Wrangel Island for character-building, if they had dared to say something mean against Magnus. They had sat down with Izzy, Jace and Clary and explained them his current living situation. They all seemed genuinely enthusiastic and happy about him living here, which calmed him down a bit. Even though Alec was a huge fan of pancake day at the institute, Magnus preferred a fruit salad and a Mimosa cocktail, somewhere was definitely happy hour already. When he snapped his finger and his new breakfast had appeared, he heard a loud,  glaring and high ringing in his ears. It hurt it was getting harder and harder to repress and ignore the symptoms. He decided to talk to Cat about it later. Magnus was glad when Biscuit's cell phone rang and replaced the ringing in his ear. It was Luke who briefed her about the vampire attack at Jade Wulf. Soon after, everyone dedicated back to daily-shadowhunter-businesses. He returned to an upright position and stretched. He felt ready for the next hurdle now. He looked at his phone to reads the time 11:42, time to get his keys and get ready for lunch with Cat. Alec had told him where to find Underhill, who provided the new keys for him. So he made his way there.

After Magnus recovered from the let's call it a slightly unpleasant dining which topped any previous encounter with Maryse Lightwood (before she became nice) by lengths, he went to the security department. He wondered for the second time today if he should ask Alec to move in with him. He was torn between his feelings. And all of these high-tech machines and huge screens were giving him migraines. How did his Alexander endure that? He was looking for the big blond shadowhunter which he should get in touch with. Jack Underhill, Magnus thought. Alec went out for a drink with him yesterday, right? His heart suddenly felt heavy and an unfamiliar feeling spread throughout him. Well, it was more like several emotions at the same time and he couldn't exactly assign them. It was a mixture of fear, suspicion, and a bit of anger. Magnus didn't like these feelings, especially because he didn't understand them. He had only met Underhill once and he made a sympathetic impression. He was also good-looking, tall and muscular, bright blue eyes and well-haired blond hair. He was quite handsome Magnus thought. Underhill nodded to Magnus as he approached him. "You're here for the keys?" He asked curtly. "Yes, is this the reception to check in at the Shadowhunters Inn?" Magnus tried to lighten the mood with a joke. But the joke was bad so they just looked at each other silently. Underhill cleared his throat and instructed: "Please stand here and don't move. This is a retinal scan. If you move, we have to start all over again."Quite the soldier Magnus thought to himself, with these monitors all day long he would probably have a bad mood too. As he stood there so motionless, he wondered if Underhill thinks Alec is attractive. What a stupid question Magnus your boyfriend is a walking sex bomb! Everyone with eyes in their heads could see that Alec was attractive. And the most attractive thing about him was that he wasn't even aware of it. Hmm on the other hand... does Alec think Underhill is attractive? Before Magnus, Alec had no relationships, but his almost wife - Lydia was blond, Underhill is also blonde So maybe... Damn it, Magnus what's up with you today? You have no reason for such thoughts. He takes a deep breath and concentrates on the monitor with the built-in scan. After less than a minute - RETINAL SCAN COMPLETE - appeared in green on the screen.

"That'll do it" Underhill growled. "I'm finished?" Magnus asked in surprise, he had expected to have to stand there for hours. "Yeah," Underhill said curtly and gave him a bunch of keys. “These are your keys. I‘d explained what doors the open, but to be honest, I‘m not totally sure. Most of the shadowhunters just use the unlock rune. So good luck.“ Magnus at first thought that Underhill was just in a bad mood like all the other shadowhunters, because Magnus was around. But somehow he had the feeling that he had annoyed the man in a different way maybe with something he didn't noticed. He felt the urge to ignore his thought just like the ringing sound in his ear earlier at the breakfast table. That's why he just answered "Hmm" and turned to go. But then it occurred to him that Alec had just made friends with Underhill and he didn't want anything to stand between the two men. So he stopped and turned back to him. "I'm sorry, have I done something to offend you?" He looked questioningly at Underhill. "No, of course not." Underhill said but hesitated and crossed his arms over his chest before continuing. “I guess I‘m not sure having you moving in here is such a great idea.“ And here we go Magnus thought. He's one of them... as he said, “hmm because I‘m a warlock?“ Underhill interrupted him immediately. “No. No, no, no. Personally, I don‘t mind, but we‘ve got protocols against this sort of things.“  Magnus was surprisingly relieved to hear that it wasn't about him being a warlock. He should have known, Alec had a good sense for people, most shadowhunters were just poled to follow the rules. That someone like Alec suddenly starts to break the rules can be quite disconcerting. “Don‘t worry. I don‘t plan on living here longer than I have to. I love Alec but, these screens are giving me migraines" Magnus said and hoped to soothe Underhill a bit. Behind this serious expression seemed to be a nice guy, who actually meant well. He looked at Magnus with a honest expression and said something quite unusual for shadowhunters. “I‘m sorry. I didn‘t realize this was a temporary thing“ Magnus had already forgiven him and raised his hand to a let's forget it gesture and nodded smiling. Jack continues visibly relaxed,“and hey, for what it‘s wort, I‘m glad that you and Alec managed to work everything out“ Now Magnus was confused. What was he talking about? "Excuse me?" He asked perplexed. “Yeah, he... uh, told me you were having some differences.“ Underhill said. There it was again. slight anger, fear, suspicion and a light sting in his chest. These feelings were annoying. What was it about this blonde Shadowhunter, that Magnus suddenly felt so vulnerable? It somehow bothered him that Alec had discussed private matters with someone else, had discussed them with him. “Oh, he did, didn‘t he?“  was everything he managed to say. "Yeah," said Underhill again short tailed as in the beginning. He had noticed that, his statement somehow came across a bit strange. “Excuse me.“ Magnus said and made his way to the exit. He needed to talk to his best friend now.

45 minutes later, Magnus stood in front of the Beth Israel Hospital in New York and waited for his good old friend Catarina Loss. The young dark-skinned and black-haired woman came out and smiled at her friend. "There's my favorite seriously-in-love warlock," she said, pulling him into a heartfelt hug. Magnus had to grin. He loved this woman, he had already experienced so much with her and she was one of the few people whom he practically trusted blindly. "Hello my dear old house," Magnus teased back. They walked for a while until they came to a small alley and Cat opened a portal to Zurich. Magnus was glad that she took the initiative and opened the portal, he still didn't know how to confess to her about the unpleasant symptoms he was having lately. But Cat had a totally different taste in food than him. "Don't you just only eat cheese in Switzerland?", he thought. Cat rolled her eyes as she noticed his hesitation. "Come on, I know a great hip brasserie at Zurich Hardbrücke, they serve the best tapas and seashells believe me." Magnus frowned, seashells weren't really his cup of tea either. He was more kinda the old-fashioned guy always ready for a good piece of meat, medium rare. And he's just barely escaped, the tasteless cardboard which the Institute calls pancake, today. "If you don't like it I'll pay", Cat tried again. So, Magnus gave himself a jolt, today wasn't really his day. Arriving at the restaurant, Cat ordered, in her fluent Swiss German, two portions of Moules et Frites and two cocktails, with hers being non-alcoholic, as she had to work quite long this evening. 20 minutes later they sat at a table outside on the terrace, laughing, smacking, reveling in memories and enjoying the sun. Magnus had to admit that the seashells were really excellent and that his wise friend could still introduce him to new things after so many years. Yes, she knew him so well, as almost nobody else does. "Cat because of the real estate agent, can you recommend me someone?" he asked. She nodded eagerly "Yes, I know the perfect man for you, he is from Brooklyn and knows the area, as I know you, this is very important to you. I've wrote him already and made an appointment for tomorrow, I assumed you would like to move out of the institute as soon as possible?" she looked at Magnus amused "It's not that terrible," Magnus said sheepishly. "Alec is trying so hard...and..." Cat interrupted him "speaking of Alec... I didn't know what to tell the agent about the apartment your looking for, I mean I know you and your expensive taste, but if you two are really about to take the next step...? she blurted out. "How many rooms would it need ... are we about to expect some small mini Alec's any time soon, I mean I know how good he is with kids?" Magnus' eyes widened and he blushed slightly. The two broke out in laughter. Magnus loved the direct nature of his friend. He valued her opinion and knew that he could always expect an honest answer from her. "Don't you no longer think that's it a bit too fast?" Magnus asked uncertainly.

She thought for a moment before answering, "Magnus you deserve to be happy and if it makes you happy to move in with him, then do it." You've never dared to take this step with anyone else before and I haven't seen you so happy, as with Alec, for a long time now. You're good for each other and if you don't try it, you'll never know how it could have been. After her speech, Magnus couldn't stop smiling. There's something else I wanted to ask you about, he started hesitantly. usually he has got the gift of the gab, but what he wanted to ask her next was a little embarrassing. "Do you think .. um... well... that I'm a jealous person...?" Cat looked at him pleasant as she spoke,"well, well, well, a jealous Magnus Bane, never thought that I'd live so long to ever experience that. Hmm...the fact that you have to ask me that answers everything, don't you agree? " Magnus rolled his eyes, knowing she was right. He had wondered the whole morning, what was it about these new curious feelings? and then it finally fell from his eyes like scales. Jealousy. He, Magnus bane was slightly jealous of Underhill. He didn't want to admit it at first, because he was embarrassed and he thinks Underhill is actually really nice. But here he sat in front of his best friend who could read him like an open book and knew she was right. "Magnus Alec adores you, how comes you feel threatened by someone?" She asked in surprise. Magnus sighed heavily, "Oh, Catarina, it's all me, my self-doubts are coming back. I feel that everything is going too good, that I don't deserve it and I'm just kinda waiting for something or someone to come across and take that happiness away from me...you understand?" She understood him all too well, all these dramas with Camille in the passt have left their marks. Cat reached for his hand on the table and looked at him seriously. "Stop sabotaging yourself. You deserve this ok?" She looked at him so intensive, he didn't dare to turn away his head from her. "You are worth it Magnus and don't let someone else tell you otherwise,...talk to Alec about your fears, but don't let those feelings get the upper hand. A little jealousy is okey just don't overdo it okey?" Magnus was reassured, Cat always knew what she had to say to cheer him up. He didn't want to destroy the moment by telling her that his body was rejecting Lorenzo's magic. Even as she looked at him questioningly with her tell me about the last thing that's bothering you expression, he just shrugged. "Thanks, Cat, I needed that, let's head back, I should probably talk to Alec." She nodded knowingly, he would tell her when he was ready she thought and the two made their way back to New York.

Back at the institute, Magnus went straight to Alec's office. Alec once told him he doesn't always have to knock, he rarely had someone really important visiting and the big meetings were mostly held in Alicante. So, Magnus just enterd. Alec wasn't sitting at his desk as usually, he was chilling in a comfortable armchair beside his little table and studied some reports. He looked up as Magnus entered the room and asked: “how was your first day? You all set up?“ Sitting down on the armchair next to him, Magnus resolved to begin this conversation rationally. “Hmm. Good to go.“ he started before failing miserably as he continued to speak,“Your handsome friend took care of everything“ Alec frowned and thought about what Magnus just said before asking hesitantly “Underhill?“ Magnus after that quick like a shot and curiously wide-eyed,“you think he‘s handsome? The second the question left his mouth, he regretted it. Damn it Magnus, he thought, we already had this topic. Now stop with this jealousy game. You don't need this. Alec looked at him sheepishly, as the awkward bath towel situation of this morning came back to his mind, when he answered uncertainly,“I guess?“ Magnus took in the new information and tried to find the right words to tell Alec what was on his mind. Alec got a bit nervous and added,“Is that a problem?“ Magnus saw that Alec was afraid he had done something wrong and said soothingly  “No.“ Alec wasn't sure if that was true, but still devoted himself back to his reports. “Yes“ Magnus corrected and decided to be honest. Cat had advised him to talk honestly about his feelings, so he did. “I just don‘t know if I feel comfortable with you airing out our dirty laundry to the entire Institute...“ Now Alec was quite confused for a second he had thought Magnus was jealous, but it sounded quite as if something else had happened between him and Underhill.“What are you talking about?“ he asked. Magnus sighed: now or never Magnus, come on. “You told him we were having relationship issues.“ Alec wasn't sure were Magnus was going with this conversation. “So I‘m not allowed to talk to people about my problems?“ he asked in confusion. Magnus realized how childish this sounded, of course Alec was allowed to talk with his friends about his problems. It was just... what was it that disturbed him? “Well, sure. But him? You barely even know him.“ Magnus was right Alec thought and he was sorry, not about him in principle talking to others about his problems, but that Magnus was feeling uncomfortable and he somehow understood him. He hardly knew Underhill that was true, but that's how friendships start. You get to know each other and Alec trusted Underhill. He would have thought Magnus would understand that.  “I just didn‘t think it was a big deal.“ Alec finally said. Magnus had a guilty conscience, he didn't want Alec to feel bad just because he couldn't control his feelings. After all, it wasn't Alec's fault that he felt that way. He tried to choose his words carefully when he started: “I know. I just feel... Sometimes, I...“ All at once Alec could see it very clearly. he hadn't been wrong before. Magnus was jealous! His boyfriend was truly jealous.

Alec was neither hurt nor angry at this newfound fact. He had asked Magnus last night already, after he went out for a beer with Underhill at Hunter's Moon and Magnus denied it. Weak denied, but still. Alec haven't been thinking about it afterwards. And he couldn't imagine, that Magnus the most beautiful and confident man Alec knew could be jealous. He smiled from ear to ear as he finally said it,“wait. You‘re jealous.“ Magnus contradicted slightly offended when he realized that he had just been caught,“I don‘t get jealous.“ Alec kinda liked the idea of a jealous Magnus, because from his perspective there was no one who could ever compete with Magnus. He couldn't stop grinning. No one has ever been jealous of another person because of Alec. Magnus was kind of sweet when he was jealous so Alec wanted to savor the moment and tease his boyfriend a bit.“You‘re jealous. You‘re actually jealous.“ Alec stated. Magnus had no chance, the cat was out of the bag now. But he still acted a little pouted when he said: “I‘ve never gotten jealous. This is not...“ Alec's phone rang and Magnus took the opportunity to pull himself out of the affair. “Answer it.“ Magnus command and Alec just kept grinning to himself as he answered the call.

After Heidi's death and turning in Rafael to the Clave, Alec became painfully aware again of how important rules are. He loved having Magnus in the institute, but he would prefer to live with him. Having a joint home, their Home. He had asked Magnus once back then, and he didn't want to. It was too early he said. Not much time had passed since then and yet it felt like an eternity. And Alec was a stubborn person so he decided to ask one more time. He wanted to ask Underhill for advice this morning and then didn't do it cause of sheer shame. He took deep breath and went to visit his friend again. He needed a bit of courage and assurances before launching his plan. That's why he asked Underhill for the official shadowhunter-regulations when he arrived the security compartment. Alec: "Jack, are you sure the head of the institute doesn't have to live in the institute?" Jack was still rummaging in a few other documents as he spoke, "pretty sure... aha here it is!" He pulled out the thick, brown-inlaid, rather dusty book and looked for the corresponding page with the inscription."So here it is," said Underhill, reading aloud:

RULES FOR THE HEAD OF A SHADOWHUNTER INSTITUTES

RESIDENCE AND ACCOMMODATION

Art. 23 para. 7 - the head of the institute receives a suitable room in the institute, where he/she can retire and plan his/her further steps if needed.

"Hmm ... yes you're right it's not written that you have to actually live in the institute. Only that you'll get a room to use, as a place to think." Alec said slowly. "So could I help you?" Underhill asked, smiling. "I think so, thanks for everything," Alec responds, lost in his thought and already turned to leave. Should he ask Magnus again or would that be too intrusive? He didn't want to force himself on Magnus but he could see their future clearly in mind. He knew that he was ready and wanted make all these new experiences with him. No matter how scared he was of another rejection, he would try it again.

"Magnus had realized that he had acted very irrational previously and he should apologize to Alec. Full of anticipation he opened the door to Alec's office and entered. "You where looking for me?" he asked, willing to admit his mistake. Alec looked down in distress and nodded "Yeah." Magnus, now ready  to stand the ground started his apology, which he had practiced in his head for the last half a hour, because that's the way to do it in a healthy relationship. Communication is everything. "Alexander if this is about what we were talking about earlier, I was wrong. You have every right to talk out your problems with your friends, no matter how good-looking they are."he started frantically. But Alec interrupted him gently,"this isn't about that. This is about you living at the Institute. "Oh." was the only thing Magnus could answer, he hadn't expected the conversation to lead into that direction. Alec spoke slowly, choosing each word carefully. "Believe me I want to live with you, but you were right. Having a outsider live at the Institute that is against the protocol. And how can I expect everyone else to follow the rules, if I don't follow them myself?" Magnus didn't blame Alec, he knew it was a logical conclusion. He was more than thankful that they had even tried. "I understand. I'll move out first thing in the morning "Magnus replied understanding. But Alec wasn't finished yet, something important to him, still seemed to be on his mind. "However, there is no protocol that says the head of the Institute has to actually live at the Institute. So when you find a place, I was hoping that we could...both move in...together." Magnus heart was racing, yes Alec had milled his plan to ask him to move in with him this time, but Magnus couldn't care less about that now. This time, Magnus didn't have to think about it, it made him so unbelievably happy that Alec really had the courage to ask him again. He had played with this thought all day long and having Alec ask him again made his self-doubt disappear. You deserve to be happy he heard Cat's voice in his head. He didn't expect Alec to bring up back this sensitive topic but his Alexander never ceased to amaze him. This time he was ready. He wanted Alec and he wanted everything with him.  At once, that throbbing pain in his head started off again and slowly but surely he couldn't ignore it anymore. But he pulled himself together cause he needed to answer this. He needed this, he needs to  make this promise before it's too late. "Only if I get my own walk-in closet."he answered while smiling full of love and Alec could hardly believe it. He was so nervous and surprised at the same time because he had already suspected a NO in the back of his head. "You mean that?" he asked in disbelief. "Of course. I love you." Magnus said and took a step towards him to kiss him. But in that moment, the ringing in his head began again harder and louder and everything around him began to turn. My body, what's going on with my body? His body cramped and blood shot out of his nose and then out of his mouth.

"Magnus?" Alec asked worriedly. Magnus coughed and turned away. Even now he tried to hide the pain from Alec. His stomach turned and he felt the warm blood in his mouth. "Magnus?" Alec asked worriedly. "I'm fine." He could just say before spewing huge amounts of blood on the floor and collapsing. I can't speak, I can't think straight, Magnus thoughts were a wild mess. Alec is holding me I'm not falling anymore, stay with me Alec, please don't leave me. Words, where are the words? I can't speak I can't invoke the right language."Magnus?" Alec is  calling me and I hear myself speaking. Why am I talking Indosnesian. "Magnus?" I hear him scream again. Pain, more pain. My head is pulsing. It's getting worse. Oh no my head is going to explode. "Magnus?" Alec yells. I can hear his fear and desperation."Medic! Somebody get help!" he screams. I feel like everything is slipping away. "Magnus!" Alec's voice is so far away now and even the pain feels dull. "Someone get help!" I hear him say and suddenly everything is dark.

[jaskiersbeloved]

Lol. So softshumjr wrote this: "(because straight ppl only know two orientations… het or gay, there’s nothing in between)" and she is right. You probabbly are the same. All the starights are gross and doesn't understand anything about LGBTQ+. And all of you never want to learn. You are all gross. I hate you. I can't stand you. I swear the next time I'm gona see you praising Malec and I'm sure you're doing this just beceause the actors are hot I'm gonna block you, lil bitch

Wow. I mean, wow. You really made it your goal to make feel bad. And congratulations you’ve accomplished that. I can’t ignore it, sorry. 

Sorry, people who care about me but I need to stand up for myself. First of all, why won’t you come off anon? It’s considered polite to talk to people face to face, you know. And I prefer to know who I’m talking to. 

You’re accusing me of not understanding the struggle that people of the LGBTQ+ community go through every da because I’m straight. And I agree, I can only imagine. Or, just talk with my friends who are a part of the community. Oh wait, you didn’t know that I have friends in the community? Hm, why? That’s right, because you know nothing about me, jon snow. 

My parabatai is gay. The girl who takes care of me like a mother would for her daughter, is bi. Most of my tumblr friends are a part of the LGBTQ+ community. So when i’m not sure about something, or simply don’t know what something means, I ask them. I make sure to educate myself because I don’t think I could call myself a supporter if I knew only two sexualities. 

You’ve said that I like Malec just because the two actors are “hot”. Excuse you, but can you EXACTLY pin point the post, where I’ve put you under this kind of impression. Because this is why I love Malec.

What they represent for the LGBTQ+ Community

No matter what, they have each other’s back

Their story is amazing

Their love is even more amazing

I look up to them. Seriously. I hope that someday someone will love me the way they love each other.

I learn from them. Because (surprise, surprise) a straight person can learn a lot about love from a LGBTQ+ couple. 

Besides the accusation that I love this ship only because the actors are “hot” makes me think that either you’ve come across a lot of “fans” like this or you’re doing this yourself. 

I admit that both Harry and Matthew are really handsome (yes I’m going with handsome not hot, because quoting Caleb from PLL “Call the girl beautiful, not hot. She’s a person, not a cup of tea.” and that goes to the boys also, because we usually tend to forget men get oversexualized as well as women.) but I love them for what kind of people they are, how talented they are and I look up to them. I don’t like people beceause of their looks, I like them beceause of their personality and if that’s gonna change (and I strongly hope that this never will change) then feel free to punch me in the face HARD. So glad that we have this cleared out. 

You know what this whole thing remindes me of, Anon? You watch Shadowhunters right? Your hate has the same consequences like the agony rune had for Magnus. Made me relive my worst memories which in my case is being constantly bullied in primary school. You know getting thrown down the stairs or getting called a bitch for no particular reason. And I hope you are happy for making me feel even more pain.

But EVEN putting aside everything you’ve made me feel let’s talk about how your hate influences people around me, who cares about me, right?. Oh, you haven’t thought that would happen? Too bad, shame on you. 

So let’s start with the person who’s words you were trying to throw against me. @softshumjr. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we know each other. What’s more I usually call her “mum” and she calls me “daughter”. So imagine how angry she got when I sent her a screenshot of your hate. Oh wait you’ve already seen it in her post, haven’t you? I hope you have. Beceause what you did is unforgivable. You used her words COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTEXT just to sent me hate. Wow rude af, Anon. From all ppl on tumblr you’ve chosen the worst person to use her words against me. Congratulations for your stupidity, really. 

Also you’ve made @spreadlovelikelegs feel bad. From what I know Gi felt bad even before I’ve sent the screen of your hate message in our chat. And this made her feel even worse. So wow you’ve hurt not one person but three.And I’ve almost done the worst thing I could. I’ve almost believed you that I really am this kind of person. I’ve started to blame myself for Marta’s angryness and Gi’s pain. If it wasn’t for all of the kind souls who actually care about me then I don’t know what I would have done. 

So from now on I’m shutting down anons. Marta’s right. Those anons have a bad influence on me. And I simply don’t want to be put through the pain all over again just because of who I am and what I like. I’m too tried.