Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 01

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This love was not some facile thing.

In the cool embrace of approaching dusk, their home was draped in amber hues. The final gasps of late sunset had ushered past the sheer, white curtains and bled unto their blushing forms. Every little thing and all of life was soft, serene, crepuscular and warm; time could never move forward again. So was the case each time he kissed her, when everything that was not her lips would fade away like melting snow. As he gripped her side just a little bit tighter—a mere anxious, impulsive squeeze—he pulled away from the dulcet kiss with a nervous, excited shudder.

“... Hazel...” Frank sighed, eyes half-closed, mere inches from her face. “Gods, you’re so pretty...”

A movie flickered in the background. Some time ago, they’d taken on the delightful task of watching films starting from the year that Hazel was born, all the way up to the year he was born. As busy praetors at the helm of New Rome, the two had few opportunities to leave the legion and treat themselves to proper dates, so their quality time had often been together indoors, cuddling before the movie of the week. Currently, they were in 1953 with the Monroe classic, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

The title did not include Frank (no offense to the blondes of the world). He preferred Hazel's deep brown curls, the flecks of gold scattered throughout her hair. Gods, he felt so lucky. Nine years ago, he’d have given anything for the privilege of tangling his fingers in her hair, of getting close enough that he might catch wind of her coconut shampoo. She still used the same brand to this day. His younger self would be so pleased.

But was he a gentleman? Well, he might like to think so. Over the years, he had become a little less clumsy, a bit less bumbling by his current age of twenty-four. His soft baby face had now taken on the shapes and angles of an adult. He had the respect of his juniors, his peers, and even a handful of high status Olympians. Many hard-earned achievements had piled beneath his belt, and by now, Frank felt like the golden title of “good boyfriend to Hazel” might be one of them.

But there was nothing very gentlemanly about the way he held onto her shirt, clutching the fabric with shaky fingers. He hated how unsuave, uncharming he could still be at his grown age.

Hazel had grown up quite a bit, too, but he was still so much bigger and taller, and it sometimes felt like his hugs would swallow her whole. As he embraced her on the couch, leaning against the back cushions, his nerves remained frazzled. She sat in his lap horizontally, legs strewn out across the rest of the couch as he supported her with his arms curled around her form. Pressed up against him like this, Frank felt impossibly warm, and not just because of her added body heat.

“Frank,” Hazel chimed, smiling. “That’s the fourth time you’ve said that tonight.”

“Oh.” Was it? He still hadn’t fully outgrown his habit of saying whatever nervous thought first popped into his head around her—and coincidentally, those thoughts often had something to do with her being pretty. “... My bad.”

“No, it’s okay. You’re too cute, Frank.” Hazel leaned over and planted a second kiss on his cheek. “You’re my adorably sweet, incredibly handsome boy.”

A flustered heat crept unto his face. Subconsciously, Frank gripped her a little tighter.

Her attention returned to the movie while the teasing phrase lingered in his ears—echoing, echoing, resounding like a precious song. For whatever reason, he really liked those sugary words in particular, spoken so sweet and lovingly in her voice. He imagined it sung to him in a golden, honeyed chorus, in a slow, syrupy whisper, in a decadent incantation—Hazel, his enchantress, whose sorceries caused even his soul to blush inside his burning body…

“You’re my sweet, handsome boy.”

Slowly, his eyes fell shut, and he took a deep breath through his nose. Her coconut scent usurped his senses. This girl, this woman, her presence could be intoxicating, and it took her such little effort to take siege upon his heartstrings and strum them to her own desires. How very, very Roman of her.

Hazel was the only person who had ever seen him that way. As someone “cute”, but also handsome. As a foremost leader in the Twelfth Legion Fulminata and as her good, sweet boy. He wouldn’t hate it if she forgot his name and instead called him that forever. Not around others, ideally, but in the protective confines of their home, a safe and private space to weaken him with those words—

“Did you hear me, Frank?”

He opened his eyes with a start. “—Wha?”

“I said, Jane Russell kind of looks like Thalia.”

“Oh.”

“You see it, right? The brows and eye shape—it’s so Thalia.”

Frank gulped. Paying mind to the movie now seemed like an impossible task as he struggled with the distractions of a fanciful musical and his girlfriend’s body in his lap. One was undoubtedly more compelling than the other. “Uh… yeah. I see it.”

Hazel looked up at him again, eyebrow raised, her head still cradled in the crook of his broad, sturdy arm. “Were you sleeping just now? You were, admit it.”

“N—no, I wasn’t. I just closed my eyes for a second.”

She tilted her head and frowned. “‘Closed your eyes’? Are you getting tired?”

“No, I’m good. Let’s, uh…” Frank coughed into his fist, for no reason at all. “Let’s keep watching.”

“Um, it’s pretty much over now, Frank.”

Frank blinked, flickering his eyes back up to the screen. Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell were strutting about in their wedding dresses as the final song and dance number played out. The heroines and their husbands lived happily ever after. Conflict resolved. True love achieved. Credits rolled. Just like that, the year 1953 had come to a close.

“Oh.” Frank uttered dumbly. “Yeah. It’s over.”

“What did you think?” she asked, now running her hand over his side.

“Uh…” He tried to think of something—ideally, not about the tender strokes she was giving to his body. “It was fun. It’s cool to actually see where the whole pink dress, diamond thing came from originally.”

“The what?”

Frank winced. He always felt like a buffoon whenever he made a modern reference that Hazel didn’t understand, and he usually tried his best to avoid doing so, or to always provide an explanation along with them. But Marilyn Monroe was the immortal face of Western pop culture, and it hadn’t occurred to him that her initial celebrity and lasting fame came after Hazel’s first time in this world. To him, Old Hollywood was some artifact of the distant past, a dazzling, glittery gem submerged beneath the rocky layers of now-modern earth. But for her, the bulk of that golden, bygone era was still fresh to be discovered—along with every other decade of media and homages to ascend from the 1940s.

So, he attempted to explain himself. “Uh… remember the scene where Monroe was in that pink dress, with the pink gloves? And singing about how diamonds are a girl’s best friend? It’s one of the most famous movie scenes ever, I think, but I’d never seen it firsthand before. It gets referenced a bunch in pop culture to this day.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Hm.”

The movie had come to its complete end and now remained frozen on a pitch black endscreen. Likewise, the sky was getting darker outside, and their sunset-colored home was falling into indigo, ocean hues. As the last few stretches of amber and gold daylight shivered from the cold, Frank considered that bedtime might be near. They lived together, but they kept separate bedrooms and rarely intruded upon the other’s space. Usually, Hazel would be eager to throw herself into bed by early nighttime. The life of a praetor could be exhausting, and she liked to get as much rest as was ever feasible—but not just yet, it seemed. Rather than climbing off of his body, kissing his cheek, and disappearing into her bedroom, Hazel pressed her face against his chest, nuzzling into the fabric as she continued rubbing his side.

Quietly, she asked his name, “Frank?”

He gulped nervously, distracted by her dtouches. “... Yeah?”

“Thanks for always explaining that stuff to me. I know that I’ve been… ‘here’ for years now, but I’m still catching up, and you’re always so patient. It means a lot.”

Right then, Frank considered resigning from praetorship and attending college as a full-time media studies major, or buying every magazine and film DVD from the past eighty years so that he could become a pop culture expert—anything in order to assuredly guarantee that Hazel would never miss out on these references again.

But that sounded like it might be a tad extreme. So instead, he answered, “Of course, Hazel.”

The melodies of New Rome chirped in the distant background; lares scolding unruly legionnaires, Hannibal the elephant stomping about the grounds, eagles squawking in the dusky sky above—but the only sound that Hazel seemed to mind was that which thundered from his chest.

“Your heartbeat’s really going, Frank.” she observed, lifting her head an inch from his body. “Sheesh. Is it usually like this?”

And he answered without thinking, “It is around you.”

Their eyes met right then. Frank blushed up to his ears.

Looking directly into Hazel’s eyes often felt like opening up a treasure chest. One could hardly tell the difference between heaps of gold jewelry and the amber in her eyes, shimmering like gilded shards of precious earth. As she stared up at him with those faultless, glittery irises, Frank thought to himself that she was still out of his league. This brave, stunning woman laying sweetly in his arms, whose dear love felt like a lasting fairytale…

His eyes wandered to her lips. Gorgeous, shapely little things—the lips that framed her every picturesque smile. At this moment, he couldn’t stop staring at them. He knew what he wanted to do. He wasn’t brave enough. What a poor excuse for a child of Mars, who could plunder the battlefield valiantly but now failed to summon enough courage to kiss his own girlfriend—

“You... you can kiss me, Frank. It’s okay…”

His heart stopped for a moment. Frank looked back up to her eyes and he felt stupid, graceless, embarrassed; he must have been staring at her mouth so obviously. Could he be any less romantic?

Hazel looked rather shy herself. Her thumb drew nervous circles on his chest, and she struggled to maintain eye contact... but she had uttered those heart-stopping words, and she seemed to have meant them. Her back had straightened so that her face was a little closer in level to his. Likely on purpose. Frank could barely control his breathing. They had already kissed not long ago, but with the daylight dimmed, with the fact that they would usually be preparing for bed in separate rooms by now, this felt… different…

Gods, he was so uncool.

For lack of a better course of action—aside from, well, kissing her—he gave her a slight nod and pulled her just a bit closer. He heard Hazel’s breath hitch. Was she nervous, too? He didn’t know whether to be comforted or more unsettled by that possibility; his partner was either just as uncertain as he, or she was scared and nervous because she lacked real confidence in him to do this well. But he tried not to consider the latter too harshly. They loved each other, after all.

Unable to delay this any further or rest on his laurels and hope secretly that she might take the lead, Frank’s eyes fell shut, heart beating in his ears as he leaned into her closer… closer… closer…

… Contact.

Time froze all over again. Her lips were soft like perfect pillows. Frank sighed gratefully through his nose. Suddenly every other thing in life felt inferior to this—the prize, the privilege of his girlfriend’s kiss, the heady sweetness of her pressed against his body. Her hand squeezed his arm and he squeezed her side right back. That seemed to be the signal to kiss her a bit more, so he applied more pressure to his lips and groaned ever slightly when Hazel reciprocated.

Frank knew he was no expert kisser. It had taken years for him to get comfortable laying his mouth on her casually, for he was incredibly slow-to-learn in these confounding matters of the heart and body; he'd always feared doing too much, going too far. Not solely for fear of offending Hazel and her 1930s sensibilities—although that concern was quite significant—but genuine worry that he might do something to hurt her.

As a teenager, he had struggled with his own strength; he still remembered the numerous embarrassments of the quest to Alaska, trying to offer Hazel a cracker on the sea boat—only to crush it to smithereens with his big, oafish fingers. She had been so much smaller than him back then. What if he'd done the same to her wrist? Or gave her a bruise from patting her back too hard? What if he’d leaned in to kiss her and he knocked her backwards from the gravitational force of his planet-sized head? So he had cautioned himself around her diligently, hoping that his chronic clumsiness would never put the girl he loved at risk of harm or danger. To mixed results.

But things had changed. She was not so delicate anymore—and was she so delicate as he'd feared, even back then? The girl had died saving the world, and then she came back and risked dying to save it all over again at age fourteen. A child of the lord of the underworld, a strong and selfless hero, his bright and breathtaking girl, who now relaxed in his arms and let him touch her with these fumbling hands of his. Gods, he wanted desperately to never screw this up.

So he kissed her now, and he kissed her more—hoping that he might find some courage or hidden suaveness buried deep inside of him and channel it to his lips, which motioned against hers with burgeoning ferocity. His body felt so warm. His heart drummed like it might burst from his chest. Shakily, his hand found the small of her back and pressed her further into his body. It was a subconscious act; he hadn't meant to be so brazen. But she then did something that shocked him to his core.

Hazel changed her position, adjusting her legs so that they straddled his waist. Her bottom pressed into his upper thighs and her arms wrapped around his shoulders. His uneasiness shot from one-hundred to a thousand. Frank thought that he might melt, that he might faint—this was on another level, and he was growing dizzy with excitement.

“Mmph, Hazel—” Frank gasped, pulling away from the kiss so he could gaze at her with wide, astonished eyes. But he had no follow-up. His dreary mind and eager mouth lacked capacity for words or coherent thought. They hadn't done anything like this in the past, beholden to only quick, temperate kisses and chaste, heatless cuddling. But Frank thought that he might burst into flames from the ardor now brewing within his body.

Hazel looked absolutely ravishing. The sight of her took his breath away just as harshly as their fiery kiss had. Her chest heaved with labored breaths and her brows wore an adorably flustered frown. Frank wished he could read her mind, peer into her heart and see what emotions had commanded her to climb into a risky, fearless, suggestive position like this—but he didn’t hate it. He didn’t hate it at all…

Despite how dark the room was getting, Frank could see so much in her eyes—not merely her ringlets of precious gold but the love that she had, the person she was. The wonderful girl who woke up and chose him every day, who was tender with his heart and promised to take care of it as though it were his wooden weakness from years ago. The woman she had grown into, no longer this tiny thing that he could crush if he wasn’t careful but a woman in his arms, a woman who had been there through his awkward adolescence and loved him into adulthood. Sometimes it felt like they had lived many lives together already, every high-stakes quest and low-stakes adventure its own volume in the story of their romance. So many pages, so many changes—and they were only in their twenties. There was so much to be written.

As though reading his mind, Hazel whispered those cherished words. “I love you, Frank.”

He could have cried from the intensity of the feelings they sowed in him, like an ocean’s wave of sweet true love had crashed unto his heart's vast beaches. The reply he gave came straight from the soul.

“... I love you too, Hazel…”

She smiled at him, eyes bleary with emotion. Frank was probably on the verge of tearing up, too—but their lips met again, and every negative feeling, every last shred of coherency fell away, disappearing as though they had never been there at all.

He loved her so. He truly did. He knew it as though it were dictated by the Fates, a prophecy whose certainness was set in stone. As their lips dared to kiss harder and Hazel fell back slightly for air, Frank did something unfathomably reckless—he pulled her back into him urgently and ran his tongue across her bottom lip.

Am I doing this wrong? Is this okay? I’m doing too much. Gods, I want to do more…

They never kissed deeply, never dared into each other’s mouths. Admittedly, he had sometimes wondered what it would feel like; in fact he wondered about many things, as anyone would after almost ten years in the same vestal relationship. But those unwelcome thoughts were kept for himself and nosy Venus only, restricted for delirious nighttime pleasures and the occasional racy daydream. Acting on them had long been forbidden by numerous adamant forces—his lasting awkwardness, his immense desire to never upset Hazel, his fear of burdening her with his unsightly male urges. He was good at keeping them to himself, he really didn’t mind waiting. And he probably imagined that things would remain this way until marriage, if not long after. However…

When he felt her sigh, part her lips, and mimic the same unfathomably reckless thing that he had just done, he could not stifle the small, quavering moan that escaped his throat. Frank tried to keep calm, body overheating, in utter disbelief that she seemed to want this, too—whatever it was amounting to be—and he gripped her even tighter. He prayed he wasn’t hurting her but he desperately needed to grab onto something as his scalding fervor escalated. Hazel would say something if she didn’t like this, right? She wouldn’t let him goad her into doing something she didn’t want, right? He wanted to make sure, he was about to ask, but then her tongue snuck past his lips and intruded upon his own and his whole body shuddered—he forgot himself completely, groaning again into her mouth as her form pressed further against his own—

“H—Hazel—” he gasped breathlessly between kisses, “You’re… you’re so pretty—”

She shut him up with her lips again. Frank offered no protest.

Every cell in his body yearned for this. Whatever it was. It was so unfamiliar and he was still dimly nervous—but it was hard to feel it fully as his body went on autopilot, as instincts that he never knew he had took over and compelled his hands to travel to where they pleased—one to her lower back, just above the waistband of her jeans, and the other to her hip. What few vestiges remained of his lucid thoughts were limited to short, stuttering conceits of excitement. Hazel. In his lap. Straddling him. Making out with Hazel. Can’t think straight. 

Their angled, moving jaws gave depth to the kiss. He had imagined before what her tongue felt like (and felt embarrassed for doing so—was it normal to ponder the sensation of another person’s tongue?), but this was beyond his wildest dreams. They were both admittedly timid about it, stroking each other oh-so-softly, their hesitance tangible, but Frank could die happy having finally experienced this, his girlfriend’s slow, sinuous tongue, relishing in the thrill of it shyly playing against his own. And he couldn’t stand the pleasure, he tried his best to keep up, but his mind was going feverish as her moans fell into his mouth, too, and he was so pleased to hear them that his palm left her lower back and found its way to cupping her cheek, imploring her to kiss him harder and give him more of those sweet, sweet sounds that set his soul on fire.

So this is what it meant, to lose oneself in passion. It was pleasant, and quite liberating. But it was also far, far too dangerous.

This is… this is too hot. I can’t take it. I think I’m gonna explode—

His eyes squeezed shut tightly from the sudden motion of her body—Hazel had ground her hips against his own, against that shameful, forbidden place, and it shocked him so hard that he let out a pathetic whimper and winced away from the kiss like he was in terrible pain.

“F—Frank?” she asked, startled, her eyes wide and concerned. “Are you okay?”

Had she meant to do that on purpose? It didn’t seem so. But Frank knew only two things for certain at that moment: he was mortified to have made such an unmanly, inelegant sound, and he seriously, desperately, urgently needed to remove her from his lap that instant.

“Imfine—” he murmured hurriedly, panting, fixing his hands to her waist and beginning to move her away. “Um. I—I need to go to bed now.”

“Oh.”

It was quite dark now, and she seemed rather surprised by this. Frank couldn’t blame her. They must have been kissing each other for a while, and time was so easily lost when her lips came into the picture. He didn’t really want to halt their perfect make out session, the very first of its kind, and he felt quite rude for ending things so abruptly. But he further lifted Hazel out of his lap and deposited her to the safe, guilt-free sofa cushion right beside him, knowing that anywhere in the world would make a better seat than his inglorious thighs.

For he had become afflicted with the worst ailment to ever affect malekind. The cruel mark of adolescence, the curse of avid manhood. Tonight had been a massive step forward for the physical side of their relationship, and he wanted to be excited about that, but not right now. Not after he’d ruined it by reacting a little too hard to her kisses and her body.

And alas, another problem: were he to stand up in front of her and make his way to his bed, even in this dimly lit room, she would inevitably see the abundant, guilty shame that had overtaken the front of his pants. And, well, he would rather die than let that happen. He would literally rather die. If her father, the lord of death, had seen Frank’s awkward indiscretions against his daughter, opened up the earth, and swallowed him into the clutches of the treacherous underworld, then Frank wouldn’t even be upset. He’d deserve it.

But in order to avoid that gruesome fate, he did what any person would do in his position: he shapeshifted into an adorable mini dachshund and hopped off of the couch. And then without another word to her, he bounded off to his bedroom like the coward that he was. 

Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 02

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In the early pace of morning, Percy sighed against the back of her neck.

He’s spent a lot of time in this apartment, waking up before classes and falling asleep in this twin-sized bed; over time, he has come to know its flaws and triumphs rather intimately, and now, it was familiar like an old friend—the wastebin filled with crumpled notebook papers, the mismatched posters on the wall (he had a painting of the deep blue sea right beside her maps of the ancient world; one might surmise that cartographers dwelled here). There were several dusty pens rolled up against the corners of the room, because as organized as this brainy girl tried to be, she still had trouble keeping her writing utensils in order. Not everyone was lucky enough to always have one in their pocket, and he quite liked to tease her about that—‘Hey, wanna borrow Riptide? Oh, wait—’, but right now, the most worrisome teasing of all was the rubbing of her body against his aching lower half.

Lying in his arms as they spooned like they usually do, Annabeth was barely dressed, and so was he. Her skin was soft like silken challis and her hair fell about the pillows in dizzied swathes of sandy curls. Still, she was asleep. It felt so good to cuddle her like this, to hold her warmth against his own and breathe her scent into his lungs. He could run his fingers along her sun-kissed shoulders and plant kisses of his own should he grow jealous. He could pull her tighter against his body and caress his hand over her thighs. Percy loved that she let him do that. He loved that she felt secure in his embrace, how she hummed blissfully whenever he stroked her flawless, naked limbs.

Sometimes his fingers would grow bold. They’d squeeze instead of massage. They’d write a sultry message on her thigh that she would rarely guess correctly—“Can I go down on you?” he’d scribe, and she’d answer, “Why are you going to a ‘dome’?” Other times she’d understand, and she would look at him like some lunatic and scold him abashedly for being so blunt. Was craving her upon waking such a bad thing, though? Was it wrong if the space between her thighs was one of his favorite places to be? Her embarrassment was so endearing—it was sexy, even. That she could get flustered around him this far into their relationship was its own special kind of marvel, for they were engaged, now. Four months ago, he’d proposed, and their journey towards a permanently intertwined life had begun.

It hadn’t been too fancy, because he didn’t think she’d like that. After a beautiful day exploring New York, venturing to all the familiar places after years of college in New Rome, Percy had taken her back to the strawberry fields of Camp Half-blood, where the sweet smell of luscious fruit prevails through every season and an aura of homesickness permeates the air. What better place than this to pop the question, a place that brings both of them comfort and reminds them of summer days from when they were kids? Adulthood had come and grasped them, thankfully—it was a privilege for any demigod to make it this far—but Camp Half-blood would always be there, and the blistering remembrances of adolescence etched throughout its grounds would linger forevermore, as though the memories were equally immortal as the gods from whence they came.

Percy remembered the day of their engagement very clearly. Its every beat and endearing moment was textured and woven throughout the membranes of his soul. He would close his eyes randomly and let the scene play before him on loop, for it always brought such joy. That day was apart of him now, and no deity could ever take away that memory from him.

When he gets down on one knee, she immediately gasps like the air has been ripped right out of her lungs. Her cheeks are swarmed by ardent blush and her eyes go wide in disbelief. Percy could chuckle if he weren’t so focused. Had she really not known? She hadn’t the faintest idea what his plans had been today? Kudos to him for actually surprising her, for that was no easy feat. He just hopes that this surprise is a pleasant one; gods forbid she turns him down. He has no idea what he’ll do if he doesn’t say yes.

Percy takes the ring box from his pocket, and he settles his seafoam-colored eyes upon her angelic silver irises.

He then goes into a rehearsed, heartfelt speech, a hopeful recollection of the trials that they’ve been through, of the tears they’ve shared together and the travails that they have conquered. He tells her each and every good thing about her—well not -every- good thing, because then he’d never stop talking—and he reminds her that he’s committed, that he’s not going anywhere, and in fact there’s nowhere else he’d rather be than with her: the love of his life.

At some point, she starts crying, but Percy is doing rather admirably for himself. It would suck if he ruined his speech by blubbering through every word, if he got tears on this lovely ring box of his. Unfortunately, his stoicism doesn’t last, and by the time he gets close to the actual, fated question, all the welled-up emotions in his throat bubble over and spill free from him abundantly.

“Annabeth, you’re everything to me. Gods, I love you so much, I—” and his voice gives out, a tear finally falls. He always thought that love had made him stronger, but in this moment, the opposite was true. His love had wound all throughout his body, it circulated through his veins and left him weaker than a shoddy house of cards; right now the softest gasp of wind could blow him over. His legs feel weak and his heart drums incessantly. She’ll say ‘yes’, right? In truth, Percy had been ready to marry her for -years-, now. It felt like a foregone conclusion; wasn’t it obvious that they were meant to be together? But he’d refrained from proposing, anyway. Maybe ages twenty-one or twenty-two were a little young for marriage. Maybe they should finish college first. Maybe they should get a little further in their careers, they should make clearer plans for the future.

Well, they’re twenty-six, now. They're both in grad school. They’re grown up enough to make big decisions like this. Why wait any longer? When he realized that he lacked an answer, it was then that he decided to propose.

He knows that she loves him, too. But doubt has a way of sneaking up on a guy, even in the most secure of relationships. He’s not afraid of any god lurching beyond the realms of mortal reach, because he’s been stubbornly impious since he was twelve years old. He’s not the god-fearing type; however, his love for Annabeth is more Olympian than the gods, and it has a far stronger grip on his heart and body than any righteous deity, Greek, Roman, or otherwise. So to be possessed by feelings this strong, to embrace the latent vulnerability and bear the chance of anguish should she not want this, too... well, rejection was a scarier opponent than just about anything he’d ever faced before.

Percy wipes his eye with the sleeve of his shirt and takes a deep breath to compose himself again. He needs to calm down and get out of his own head. Hopefully, he can salvage this just yet. “Uh... sorry. Never done this before.”

He had thought that she might poke fun at him or make a comment like, ‘We’ve been together since we were sixteen—I -better- be the first girl you’ve proposed to.’ Instead she blinks through her tears, she bends to his level, and she cups his cheeks with both of her hands. The amber daylight dances in her eyes. She looks so, so beautiful. The girl leans forward slowly, and his eyes fall shut as she presses her mouth against him soft and sweetly. Percy sighs into her kiss. It pacifies his nerves, for her lips are so Elysian. They transform the world around them into distant background noise, and he surrenders to her tenderness. Annabeth could always have that effect on him. When she separates from the kiss, she stands up to full height once more and gazes down at him with unfettered affection.

“Percy, it’s okay. You’ll never have to do this again.” she says with warmth in every word. His heart melts from the implication. “Go ahead. Ask me.”

‘You really want me to cry again, huh?’ he thinks to himself. Smiling softly, he nods his assent.

Percy opens up the box and reveals to ring to her—not a diamond, but an aquamarine of pale blue color. This one came from the depths of the ocean, and it is no ordinary gemstone; in secret, he’d brought Hazel on an adventure many months ago into the depths of the Aegean sea, where charmed, ancient gemstones lurk well beneath its glittery, blue surface. Doing so had been dangerous—foolhardy, even, the choice of venturing to the ancient lands, and he had actually felt guilty in bringing Hazel along, but she’d combated her seasickness to help him, anyway. The quest had been quite fruitful: together, they’d found the most flawless square of aquamarine, whose effulgent energy had centuries and centuries of Grecian vitality imbued within it. ‘This one is excellent,’ Hazel had said. ‘It’s filled with pure goodness and sincerity. She’ll love this, Percy.’

He already knew that Hazel’s curse had healed several years back (in fact, her gems seemed to bring nothing but good luck these days), and he certainly lacked the power to interpret energies of precious stones, so he’d taken her word for it. The result of their efforts is this ring: ancient aquamarine encased by empyrean silver, so powerful that it could endure all wear and tear and scratches for another late millennium. As Percy presents it to Annabeth now, so grateful for having gone the extra miles, he continues baring his soul to her and arrives at the end of his proposal.

“... Life without you wouldn’t be a life at all. Annabeth Chase, all I want is to be with you forever. So, uh—I—will... will you marry me—”

“Yes!” she can’t wait any longer, she grabs the box from his hand and wraps her arms around his neck. “Gods, yes, Percy! I’ll marry you!”

It floods like a waterfall, the way his heart bursts from overwhelming relief. Percy hugs her back and he squeezes her tight, letting out a small, overjoyed sob into her shoulder. He’s never grinned this hard in his life. The security feels so good.

Love had made him weak. It had also made him brave. This happiness was worth the risk, and the fact that he gets to share it with her forever is sweeter than the world’s most lovely ambrosias.

As he retrieves the ring and slips it onto her finger, Percy hopes more than anything else that he’s made her happy.

A perfect memory, for sure. That one wasn’t going anywhere.

On this calm, early morning, his fiancee was still asleep. The wedding was planned for next January, and though he’d tried to help, she and Piper have been toiling over the planning process for months (apparently, the latter’s mother was being quite invasive, and had urged Jason to propose so they could get married before his and Annabeth’s big day). Despite his efforts, everyone acknowledged that he hadn’t had much to offer, and she loved planning things, anyway.

Percy was a typical guy in that respect; as far as weddings go, he'd be well satisfied with a pizza party by the ocean. Sure, he was looking forward to that precious upcoming day, but in his head and in his dreams, Annabeth was already his wife.

In fact, he dreamed of her quite regularly. Often, they were mundane. Visions of a lovely girl as she went about her day, as she strolled through San Francisco, as she pulled her golden tresses into a messy ponytail. They were vivid like cherished memories, because he knew her form so well—all the freckles on her shoulders, all the shapes her lips could make. He adored her smile, of course. Even her frowns were charming. But sometimes his dreams were not so pure, and his subconscious mind envisioned Annabeth's mouth contorted in agonized pleasure. His name would pour gently from her lips or it would splash, it would drown within the sighs and moans of his wife as he made love to her...

Percy didn’t love those dreams. He would wake up from them and feel like a scoundrel, even though he had already been intimate with Annabeth before. Burying his face between her legs was a favored and well-practiced activity at this point. She always shivered beneath his tongue, no matter where it chose to stroke her. And every taste of Annabeth was its own relish of heaven, her timid sighs of pleasure like siren murmurs in his ears. He’s used his fingers in the past, too, and that could be particularly fun—because then he could have a more fulfilling view of all of her, or he could use his mouth in other productive ways whilst stroking her inner lust. But he still didn’t like those dreams. After all, it was extremely awkward to have a raunchy dream about a girl and then wake up with that same girl in your arms. 

As Annabeth ground her ass against him once more, Percy squirmed and bit his lip. She moved around a lot in her sleep and was simultaneously a very light sleeper. If he tried to move away, she’d wake up, but if he allowed her to keep moving around like this, he was going to have a serious problem. But then—

“—ah,” he gasped aloud, gripping her arm suddenly. Annabeth had moved against him again, this time rather roughly. Percy felt ridiculous. His sex was up against her bottom so perfectly. She wore only cheeky panties and a loose, silky camisole. Percy could feel so much of her through his boxers, and evidently, it was not a good thing as Annabeth began to stir, surely awakening from his tremulous groans right beside her ear.

“Ugh...” she began, raising her fist to rub her eye. “... Percy...”

“Uh, right here, babe.” he answered quickly, his voice slightly strained. “Sorry. I was trying not to wake you.”

Annabeth yawned, “What time is it?”

“Early,” he said, and because she was now awake, Percy took the opportunity to motion his hips a little further away from her. “Wanna get breakfast? Or go back to sleep?”

Instead of talking, Annabeth grunted. She turned around and buried her face in his warm, naked chest, wrapping her arm around his back as she pulled him further into her. Clearly, she was groggy, and she wished to lay with him a bit longer. And he would have been more than happy to do so, but...

“Hey,” he started, burying his nervousness in his throat, “Come on, you’re not hungry?”

“Not hungry,” she repeated, drawing him in even closer. Gods, she was so adorable like this. This sleepy morning voice of hers and the lazy motions of her limbs, one of which began to slip somewhere quite precarious—

In a hurry, Percy lowered his hand to her thigh and prevented her leg from grazing up against his excited length. Annabeth didn’t react much. It was normal, after all, for him to touch these thighs of hers, so she must not have thought anything of it. Percy let out a huff of air. He’d dealt with multiple world-ending conflicts in his storied past, but this particular problem came with no guiding prophecy, and he knew not if he would someday triumph over it. The issue had felt so pervasive. It was an unwelcome intruder, a phantom distraction that lurked in every room and sought to ruin any chance of intimacy with the woman he loved so much.

Frankly, it was just embarrassing. Percy Jackson, the so-called legendary demigod of his generation, who couldn’t even master his own sex. He did not understand himself. For now, though, he did not wish to advance.

Because if she noticed that he was hard, then she would try to act on it. Over the past few years, he'd been struggling with a rather mortifying problem of the flesh. He hated talking about it. He hated dealing with it. And he had long already learned and retained his lesson.

Annabeth hummed softly against his chest. He could feel the vibrations on his skin. With a worried gulp, he began to stroke her smooth and luscious thigh. In his head, he remembered the many times where he wore these thighs like accessories over his ears, the times his hand had sunk between them just for the sake of keeping warm. The surface of this skin, the bliss between these legs, to him they were more heavenly than the gilded pastorals of Olympus, more comfortable than a lush, blanketed bed prepared by Hestia herself. His breathing got just a little bit heavier, imagining the day when he could finally plunge into her paradise and gasp in perfect confelicity—

“Percy,” she suddenly spoke, and he was quite startled to hear his name out of nowhere. Quickly, he abolished those wanton thoughts from his loathsome mind and ceased to caress her leg.

“Yeah?” he answered, trying to sound as casual as possible. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” She nuzzled further into his chest and ran her hand along his naked back. Little actions like these would often make his heart flutter, as though it were a petaled flower bristling from a light breeze. Though he remained mildly anxious, it was no easy task to resist the corporeal comforts of this sweet romance in his arms. She then further explained, “Just saying your name, seeing if you’re still awake.”

Percy kissed her at the top of her head. “I’ve been up for a bit. You’re late to the party.”

“I thought you said it was early?”

“It is,” and for he could scarcely resist her flesh, Percy began stroking her thigh again, “honestly, I wanted you to sleep longer. Wise Girl’s brain needs more rest than anybody’s.”

“It needs the least rest,” she corrected, “and I only woke up because you were groaning right in my ear.”

Percy’s heart skipped a beat, but his insouciant demeanor prevailed. “Oh, you heard that? My bad.”

“It sounded like you were in pain?”

“Uh, nope. I’m fine.”

“Well, if it wasn’t pain—” she lifted her knee between his thighs and rubbed against his illicit secret. A sharp intake of breath stole into his lungs and he suddenly squeezed her leg in response. “—then what was it about?”

Secret no more, Percy acknowledged. Wincing as she stroked him again, he looked down at her with newly blushed cheeks and frustrated brows. Barely mustering a sheepish grin, Percy admitted to his guilt. “Okay, sooo... maybe you were rubbing against me a little nicely while you slept.”

“And?” the woman urged, so troublesome in tone, and she began to massage her thigh against his wanting pelvis, as if doing so might help to siphon from him the answers that she sought.

“—and,” Percy answered quickly, “... and, well, maybe I got a little worked up from it.”

“That’s what I thought.” Annabeth affirmed. He should have anticipated that furtive actions were nigh in vain when practiced in this girl’s presence. Man, she loved to be proven right. “You could’ve just said so.”

“I didn’t wanna make you mad. Or disappointed.”

“Why would I react that way? Percy, you know already that I like it when I get you...”

She left the sentence in the air, as if it were too sordid to be finished, but he knew what confidential word thus slotted in its place.

‘I like it when I get you hard.’

... The sentiment was bittersweet. But that was part of his major problem.

For some reason, Percy struggled to be engrossed sufficiently in intimate acts where his body participated. Many times over, Annabeth had attempted to pleasure him as he so often did for her, and each and every time, no matter how flustered and pent up he seemed to be, his vigor somehow faltered, unable to sustain its own enthusiasm.

Annabeth had been understanding. Unbearably so. But for all the notions in the world about men and how they live by rule of superfluous sexuality, Percy struggled to fulfill those male ordinances. And it felt somewhat impossible to explain his issues to a woman. “Look, it’s not you, I promise—” and “I don’t know what happened, I swear I was into it—”, numerous excuses had fled from his lips in a panic to his lover, each one as useless as the flesh that had tragically failed them both.

He didn’t want to make her feel bad. This had nothing to do with a lack of sex appeal—anyone with eyes could see that she was abundant in sensual charms. Percy was the problem. He hated that he couldn't do right by her.

There were “options” out there for men like him, and Percy knew of them already. He would never seek them out. Not only was this impossible to discuss with a medical professional, but he was merely twenty-six years old. How ridiculous would it be for a guy in his mid-20s to take pills to stay up in bed? It was not a matter of pride. It was an issue of shame and stubbornness. He refused to take recourse in chemical supplements, he’d much rather learn to overcome his grief through his own efforts. Somehow. No, he didn’t have an action plan, but he had commitment. He’d learned to command the sea like virtuoso commands an instrument. Surely he could someday do the same for his unobliging maleness.

Annabeth, too, had been convinced that she could prevail if she tried hard enough, if she studied his body and took great pains to learn what made him tick. Inadvertently, her efforts were sometimes patronizing.

“Percy, listen,” she begins one day, after yet another failed attempt to sustain his lust. “Don't freak out, but... I’ve been doing some research on ED, and I think—”

“Oh, gods,” he grimaces painfully, shoving his face into his palm. Great, she’s assigned a name to his problem, and it’s the horrendous medical term that he sorely loathed to self-associate with. “Annabeth, don’t—”

“Can you listen to me, please? There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“There’s -everything- to be embarrassed about.”

“No, there isn’t. Percy, it’s -so- much more common than you think it is. More than half of men experience it at some point in their lives.”

Percy takes pause. Over half of men? Of the billions that exist in the world? That’s very hard to imagine. “... Seriously?”

She nods, full of determination. “Yes. Usually, they’re over forty, but—”

Percy groans aloud, drowning in his misery as he thumps backwards onto the bed and pulls a pillow over his face. Muffled through its fabric, he complains, “Annabeth, just drop it before I die of humiliation.”

“If you’ll let me -finish-,” and she grabs the pillow from his face, “I was going to say that it’s usually a mental problem, -especially- for younger guys.”

“So you're saying that I’ve got mental problems?”

“I’m saying that -feelings- are a big part of it. If you’re not relaxed, if you’re feeling nervous, if you’re unconfident, then you’re going to have trouble... well, you know.”

Again, he’d much rather not talk about this right now. Or ever. But he digs deep inside of his resolve and tries to honor her intentions, which do seem to be sincere. He can at least afford to strike one option from consideration. “I’m not nervous around you, Annabeth. Not unless you’ve got a weapon in your hands.”

“Okay, I’ll make sure not to hold a knife when we’re making out,” she drones sarcastically, placing her hand onto his arm. “Look, I know that this feels awkward, but... you -want- to be able to... to do it, right?”

The question summons a frown and churns dejection in his gut. Does she even have to ask? The answer is so obvious. “Of course I do, Annabeth.”

“Then, think over what I said. Not for my sake—I’m happy with you no matter what. Just... I don’t know. Get in touch with your feelings. Try to isolate the disconnect between the part of you that -wants- to, and the part of you that isn’t able to. Analyze them closely. And then interrogate your mind and body until you have an answer.”

If he weren’t so anguished, he would grin. It was such an Annabeth-way of trying to get her point across. “Sounds like some kind of strategy for getting secrets out of your enemies.

“It is. But I’m sure it applies here, too.” The girl leans forward and cedes a kiss to his forehead. “Just think it over, Seaweed Brain. No pressure. Seriously.”

He remembered the conversation with mild sourness. ‘No pressure.’ she had said. He loved this girl so dearly, and he knew she had meant well, but the sentiment was laughable. He felt nothing but pressure. If his problem couldn’t be solved, then he was going to be completely incompetent on their upcoming honeymoon. These were modern times, of course, and rules of the olden times mattered very little, if at all, but... gods, would it be awful if he couldn’t perform on their wedding night, if he failed to consummate their marriage.

‘I like it when I get you hard.’

Oh, I like it way more than you do, he thought to himself rather bitterly.

Percy understood one thing only about his issue: that it was his issue to solve. As good as it felt to have her thigh massage his lust (which was currently quite rigid, but would inevitably soften by means of time or effort), he pushed his hand against her leg and gently urged her away from his pelvis.

Dropping another quick kiss onto her head, Percy spoke with intentional nonchalance as he led the subject elsewhere. “Hey, let’s go get breakfast, okay?”

For a moment, her eyes studied his, pensive and sympathetic. There was something else she wished to say, he could see it clearly in the subtle quirk of her lip. But thankfully, she understood that he wanted nothing more than to move on.

"... Yeah, sure.” Annabeth muttered, and she huffed as she sat up from bed.

Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 03

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At night, he dreamed of her.

Frank stood by himself in a narrow hallway. Below his feet was a long, red rug, the lavish sort for Hollywood stars. In fact, everything was covered in the lush, crimson material—the ground, the walls, the ceiling, as if the world had been swallowed by a velvet monster. Way overhead, he observed a massive, decadent chandelier, whose trinkling diamonds shone as brilliantly as a disco ball. It looked exactly the same as the old one back home, eager to greet and impress anyone privileged to enter the manor of the Zhangs. Frank had passed by it many times, disinterested; a precious antique, his grandmother had once said. Like every other boring piece of vintage furniture that had once embellished his now charred and ashen family home.

This comparison in mind, he was almost offended by the overabundance of flaming candles.

Like the room were not already decadent enough, there were tall candelabras lining either side of the hallway, each one adorned with dripping pillars of burning wax. They continued onward to the very end of the hall, where an ominous staircase awaited his ascension. Frank stood about nine meters away from it, and he wasn’t really tempted to come much closer.

In the air was a familiar scent. Coconut, he surmised, perhaps imbued with hidden notes of cinnamon and vanilla—maybe it was coming from the candles. The smell only added to the surreal, intoxicating nature of his predicament. Everything felt too constructed, too picturesque, like an indulgent music video or hedonistic movie scene. Frank didn’t belong here. What affluent world had he been spirited off to?

Suddenly, a fist-sized gemstone danced in his peripheral.

He set his eyes on the distracting movement and saw not one, not two, but an entire cache of glittering diamonds spinning in the air. It was as if they had minds of their own, drifting in trails like free, fluttering butterflies. Upon closer examination, Frank realized that they actually were dancing. Dazzling pirouettes, orderly conga lines, and all manner of cheery moves achievable by animate objects. And he would have written it off as yet another bizarre, opulent figment of his incomprehensible imagination, were it not for the direction that the flight of diamonds started moving towards...

“... Huh?”

The whimsical, beauteous jewels, spun by otherworldly compulsions, performed a flamboyant bow, filed into a straight line, and then fell gently, like dominoes, onto the velvet floor before him. His eyes followed the trail they left behind—a path of shining, exorbitant riches, beckoning him towards the staircase up ahead. They reminded him of a trail of rose petals, the kind used to lead one’s lover towards a sensuous bedroom. And then, for the first time, Frank lifted his gaze to the height of the staircase. There, he found the enchantress of gems whom he should have suspected all along.

“Frank,” the woman said.

She looked like an Old Hollywood movie star. Even from this distance, Frank could clearly see the glossy, delectable, dark red lipstick drawn across her gorgeous smile and the sleek eyeliner that gave her a seductive, feline look. And although her hairstyle was completely different from her usual do, it looked somewhat familiar—a length just above her shoulders, with her golden-brown tresses shaped into shiny, voluminous curls. Most shocking of all was the outfit: a pink, form-fitting, floor-length dress, cinched tightly at the waist by a narrow belt and an oversized bow in the back. She had glitzy diamond jewelry on her ears, her wrists, which were covered in equally-hot pink, long-sleeved gloves—

“... Oh.” Frank mumbled in awe. It made sense, now. He was imagining himself in that “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” scene from the movie last night, starring Hazel as Marilyn Monroe’s character...

It was jarring, to say the least. Hazel never dressed in this showy, glamorous way, not even on formal occasions—but man, could she pull it off well. The way the dress amplified her curves, well... he didn’t get to see them outlined like this ever, and he wasn’t so polite as to avoid admiring them.

His feet started moving before his mind had a chance to think. Right then, his every instinct and impulse was carrying him towards the woman at the top of the staircase. Following the trail of diamonds (and taking care not to step on them), Frank walked down the velvet hallway at a slightly hurried pace. He wanted to be near her. He wanted to see her up close. And when he finally made it to the stairs and climbed up those lofty steps, he was more than pleased to meet with his reward—a beautiful girl who was happy to see him.

“Glad you could make it, Frank.” She took his hand between her own and held it tenderly. “How’d you like the performance?”

He didn’t understand what she was referring to at first—until he glanced down at the diamonds on the floor and remembered the glittery show they’d put on for him. It had been her own orchestration, after all.

“I liked it,” he said. “And, uh, you look really good.”

Hazel smiled warmly at him, drawing his attention even more to the daring color of her lipstick. He understood absolutely nothing about makeup, and as far as he knew, Hazel didn’t, either—“My mom never taught me,” she’d once said, which had made him feel sad for her. In general, she seemed to have a sore relationship with glamour and extravagance. Frank remembered one tragic occasion in which he had walked with her through San Francisco Union Square and caught her admiring a floral-print dress in the window of a fancy boutique. One hadn't needed to see the price tag to discern how expensive it was—but, well, he could afford it. Frank had inherited the Zhang family bank account at age eighteen (thanks, grandmother), and by living in the off-beat society of New Rome’s Camp Jupiter, he didn’t really make use of it, anyway.

“You’d look great in that,” he speaks up, startling her. “Do you want it?”

“Um, no—” she says, and she shakes her head, as if doing so will dissolve the image of the dress from mind. “I don’t need something like that. It’s too nice for me.”

‘Nothing could be too nice for you,’ he thinks to himself.

It almost makes him angry, that she can still feel that way. Not at her, of course, but angry that, to this day, wanting and asking for nice things is such a challenge for her. She’s the sweetest, most self-sacrificing person he has ever known. How could a girl who had single-handedly saved world—and -died- in the process—deserve anything less than whatever her heart desired?

But knowing Hazel, pressing the matter would only cause her to insist even more that she deserved nothing at all. It always broke his heart, hearing her talk that way.

“Alright,” he replies. For now, maybe the best he can do for her is keep things moving and ensure that this unpleasant line of thought doesn’t spoil her mood. “We’re almost at the wharf, let’s try to catch the next bus.”

They cross the street and continue on with their day like normal. In the back of his mind, though, Frank is thinking about how beautiful Hazel would look in that dress, if she would only dare to want it a little more.

The following week, Frank returns to the luxury boutique, wondering if maybe it would make for a good surprise gift. It doesn’t count as overindulgence if someone else gives it to you, right? But by then, the store had completely rotated their inventory, and according to the shopkeep, his only chance of finding it again would be via online resellers. A thousand Google searches on Leo’s monster-proof laptop later, the beautiful dress was nowhere to be found...

... For this reason, seeing Hazel fully decked out like this was a marvel all on its own; not solely because she looked good, but because she deserved to indulge herself in the finer things every now and then without feeling guilty. 

Interrupting his thoughts, Hazel suddenly asked, “... Is there something in your pocket for me?”

His breath hitched. Oh, gods, had that problem followed him into this world, too—

“Oh... this?”

Frank glanced downwards, only to find that the sole bulge below his waist was a mysterious object protruding from his pant pocket. Curiously, he reached inside. What he then withdrew was a black, expensive-looking jewelry box of rectangular width and plush, velvety coverings. But how did it get there?

Hazel eyed the box intently, and as he was quite curious himself to see what fanciful jewelries he’d unknowingly picked out, Frank opened up his gift to her.

“Oh, Frank, it’s beautiful...” she whispered dreamily. Stealing a glance at the gift for himself, he was immediately impressed by his own subconscious efforts.

It was that gorgeous, incredibly hard to get Tiffany diamond necklace, the one that was all the rage over a decade ago. He remembered it from a boring black-tie event that grandmother had forced him to attend—the hostess had been wearing it, and he remembered that everyone was very impressed with her for doing so. As far as he could remember, it was a distractingly beautiful thing; Frank couldn’t recall a single feature from the hostess’ face, for the necklace’s presence had been too overpowering, had made it impossible to bother looking at anything else.

He wasn’t sure why he was imagining this particular necklace instead of the one Monroe had been wearing in the film; maybe he’d just forgotten what it looked like. However, Frank was quite sure that someone like Hazel could never be overpowered by mere gemstones.

“Can you put it on?” Hazel begged in a smooth, low voice.

Stupidly, he replied, “On myself?”

“Mm, no.” She gestured towards her bare neckline with her pink-gloved fingers. “On me.”

“Oh.” Frank gulped. “Y... yeah. Okay.”

Hazel turned around for him, and he stalled to appreciate how soft her body looked. It was a strapless dress, one that left her upper arms and shoulders nude. Frank was terribly tempted to reach forward and run his fingers across her perfect skin, or to massage her neck and make her feel good. But he also felt mildly ridiculous, getting all excited over shoulders like some over-stimulated pilgrim. It was just so difficult to interact with this ultra glammed-up version of his girlfriend, who had always preferred modest dress and almost never revealed anything above her elbows or below her knees.

“You alright back there?”

His shoulders jumped. How long had he been drooling over her skin?

Quickly, he answered, “Yeah, let me just—uh—figure out this clasp.”

Frank took the necklace into one hand and stuffed the box into his pocket once more. Shockingly, despite his big, clumsy fingers, he actually managed to undo the clasp easily, and with bated breath, he lifted the necklace over her head and wrapped its chain about her neck. Another working of the clasp, and the task was complete.

Swallowing nervously, he spoke up, “... All done, Hazel.”

The woman turned around, beaming radiantly at him. “How does it look?”

“Beautiful,” he lauded readily, “seriously. You’re stunning. I mean, I don’t even have the words—”

As though sensing the ramble he was about to go on, Hazel grabbed his hand. “Thank you, Frank. Can you follow me inside—”

“—yes,” he replied, sounding more enthused than intended. He also had no idea what “inside” she was referring to, but at this point, Frank would follow her to a garbage dump with a dopey smile on his face.

With her other hand, Hazel reached forward and turned the door handle in front of her (and he was sure that that door wasn’t there a second ago), revealing an entirely separate room from this velveteen hallway.

Frank peered inside. It looked to be a fancy hotel room—one that felt so familiar, but he just couldn’t remember where he’d seen it before. The bed was massive, and the warm moodiness of the lighting lavished the room in a romantic, suggestive atmosphere. Frank suddenly became grateful for her long, pink gloves; maybe she wouldn’t notice how clammy his hands had gotten.

As if he were yet another diamond under her control, Hazel led him further into the bedroom, and sneakily shut the door behind them.

“Wow... this room is amazing, Frank.” Once they were inside, she let go of his hand. Curiously, she started to remove the diamond bracelets on her wrist. “Are you ready to go to bed?”

His heart thumped a little faster. “Go to bed?”

“Mhm,” she hummed lightly. Hazel then held out her arms, drawing attention to her bright, silk gloves. “Can you take these off for me?”

First, she had asked him to put on the necklace, and a second later, she was asking him to help her prepare for bed? Frank had suspected for a while now that this must all be a dream. Absolutely none of it had made sense—the environment, the chronology, and well, Hazel herself—but he felt inclined to play into the absurdity. If it’s not real, then he should start to just lighten up, right?

Without replying, Frank reached for her left arm. His fingers pinched at the loose ends of her glove, and in slow motion, he began to slip the fabric down her arm...

Although there was nothing objectively illicit about the action itself, it was Frank’s first time taking off any article of a girl’s clothing before, and he was timidly excited to be undressing her like this. As more and more of her flawless skin came bare, he wondered if he was reading too much into things. She probably could have taken them off herself, but she’d asked him to do it for her. And they were alone in this bedroom. And there was only one bed. Was she trying to...

‘It’s just a dream, it’s definitely just a dream,’ he reminded himself. ‘Relax, Frank.’

It took him forever (and it felt like no time had passed at all), but eventually, the glove came off. To celebrate, he rewarded himself with a big exhale, for he’d been holding his breath the entire time. Within him was an anxious compulsion to neatly fold the glove and lay it gently into a dresser drawer, but his trembling fingers dropped it on accident. He was about to apologize, bend down, and pick it back up, but Hazel interjected quickly.

“The other one, too, please.”

Breathing heavily, his eyes flickered up towards hers. She met his gaze with a half-lidded stare, appearing amused and totally relaxed. So much could be said in one word-free look, and if he had to guess, he'd wager that Hazel was undressing him with those alluring amber eyes of hers. Frank’s cheeks got hotter. He might be in even more trouble than expected.

But he complied enthusiastically, applying just as much care and patience in removing her other glove. The room was silent. She eyed him the entire time. And like a switch had been flipped inside of her, the moment Frank removed her final glove, she reached upwards and grasped his flustered cheek. He raised his brows, his breath caught in his throat. Gods, his heart was pounding like he was at risk of attack—but the result was much sweeter as her soft, careful fingers smoothed over to the back of his neck and applied faint pressure. She was beckoning him to lean to her level, leading him towards the place where she really wanted to be touched...

Wordlessly, Frank lowered his head. The glove had slipped from his grasp once more. He didn’t care this time. His lover was luring him towards her lips, and as his eyes fell shut, as his hand found her back, he embraced her mouth with a tender kiss.

Something inside of him shifted. He felt so at peace. Although he knew it was a dream, her lips felt so real. Kissing her was always like falling into a blessed fairytale, whose sweltering rhapsodies could be felt in all fibers of the soul. Hazel hummed against his lips, and he kissed her a little more. His other hand rose to her side, which felt a little dangerous, but it was thrilling nonetheless—and he was actively trying to over come his reservations. If it was all in his head, then wasn’t this a safe space to practice being the kind of guy who could romance Hazel properly and sweep her off her feet? But he’d gotten so wrapped up in enjoying this kiss, that he didn’t notice Hazel undoing his front buttons until she began to tug his blazer off of his shoulders.

“... Huh?” he muttered, dizzy from her lips, and he looked down at himself. For the first time, he realized that he was in formalwear, too—a proper tuxedo like he’d been stuffed into for a number of social events in his childhood. Frank hated these things, and he was shocked that it took him so long to see what he was wearing. More shocking, however, was the fact of Hazel trying to take it off. “Um, Hazel—”

“Aren’t you ready to go to bed, Frank?”

“Uhh—” he stuttered, barely able to form a meaningful sentence. “Hazel, are we... together, in that bed? Sleeping?”

Hazel smiled at him again. The red on her lips still looked so pretty. Their finespun kiss hadn’t messed it up at all (and since this was still a dream, should he dare himself to try?), but Frank observed the rise and fall of her chest. She was breathing a little harder, and in her eyes was that same fiery stare. The answer to his question then came unsaid, and so he helped to facilitate the removal of his jacket.

The girl stepped out of her heels, and she became much shorter. Frank bent down more, his hand idly running up and along her side. Hazel reached for his neck and she kissed his cheek. Sighing gratefully, Frank’s eyes fell shut. A kiss on his chin. A peck on his jawline. A soft lick of his ear, to which he groaned and bit his lip. She was undressing him more, unfastening his tie and his buttons and his mind was floating—gods, he was breathless. He wasn’t thinking anymore, he was feeling too much. When she released the final button of his dress shirt, Frank shrugged it off quickly and let it drop to the floor. He was caressing her still, gripping her tighter at times, but Hazel pressed lightly on his chest to push him away. So he opened his eyes, and she spoke yet another breathtaking phrase that ignited his heart like the flick of a match.

“Unzip me, please.”

A rush of heat shot straight to his pelvis. Hazel turned around, revealing her back once more. And he understood what he’d been asked.

In his stupor of lust, Frank nodded dazedly. He found the zipper at the back of her dress, and he pulled it down in a slow cascade...

“... Hazel..." he breathed... and the zipper fell lower...

There was a simmering pause, and then she whispered hotly, “... Yes, Frank?”

... He didn’t say anything else. The lewdness of this act, the betrayal of his reservations, they were all commitments to acting on his lecherousness, the undesirable cravings of a man who wanted sex. In this careless dream world, he could reconcile years of quiet yearning and selfish temptation. He could smother the cowardice that stalled him from being brave. Every inch that separated their forms had become quite torturous. It would be so nice to get even closer.

So he tugged the zipper all the way down, and he helped her shed the dress from her body; it joined his suit on the floor in a gluttonous puddle of discarded fabric. Standing in front of him now was his lover never-before-seen, wearing a strapless white bra and matching underwear. Hazel turned around again, and for the very first time, he could see the riveting lines of her generous cleavage...

“... Frank, do you—”

Overcome by impatience, Frank pulled Hazel in and he wrapped his arms around her body. The soft heat of her skin was purely electrifying—how had he known her this long and never before gotten to hold her like this? Her hands came to his side. His fell to her hips. And they kissed each other again—more unbearably salacious than ever before.

The thrill of sex wrought arrant delirium. As her chest pressed further against his skin, Frank dimly sensed his desire stiffening, and all he could feel was this treasonous eagerness to make good use of it—so he undid his belt to a distinct clicking noise, and he tugged it free from the loops of his pants. Still kissing him feverishly, moaning hard into his mouth, Hazel hurriedly helped to undo his button, zipper, and wrastle his pants off of his hips. His shoes came off, too, and his socks and his watch—and now, thankfully, finally, the couple wore nothing but their undergarments and an overabundance of frantic lust.

As their kiss got deeper, wetter, hotter, Frank moaned desperately and squeezed her waist... gods, Hazel’s skin was so liquorous: smooth, deep brown, like her body were an ocean of chocolat chaud. Frank could drown within her easily—and in fact he sorely wanted to. He wanted to undo this bra and bury his face in her chest, to be overwhelmed by all of her perfect features, to be intertwined with this girl, forever. Would this dream ever end? If so, then he hoped to never forget each and every detail...

Between ardent kisses, he mumbled a familiar phrase, “... Hazel, you’re so pretty...”

In the same way that ambrosia summons favorite flavors unto the tongue, somehow Hazel smelled just like pleasant memories, as though vapors of nostalgia had possessed her body and soaked her skin in better times. He could breathe her in and get drunk on this intoxicating romance, which had only stiffened the crude ungodliness in his boxers.

As Hazel wrapped her arms around his neck and curled her fingers in his hair, he thought to himself that pure bliss had taken on his girlfriend’s form, or maybe it was the other way around, or maybe he was just struggling to think coherently at all. What he knew for certain was that this girl had abducted each one of his senses—the sight of her, the feel, her aroma, her voice... and of course, the sweet taste of her mouth, which flirted obsessively with his own. Gods, she was making him terribly dizzy—the coquettish mood that her tongue was in, sliding against his in one moment and falling back in the next as if teasing him to give chase. And chase her, he did.

Frank stole his lips away from hers and quickly gave them to her neck. It was a chaste collage of affectionate little kisses, of doting whispers of her name—“Hazel... Hazel... oh, Hazel," muttered urgently, repeatedly, desperately, like prayers—until he flattened his tongue against her skin and suddenly sucked her hot and vigorously—-

“—Aah, oh gods, Frank...” she moaned, tilting her chin upwards to expose more of her neck. “You’re driving me crazy...”

The urgent longing in his boxers thrummed with satisfaction. It was exactly what he wanted to hear. Hazel wanted him. He was making her feel good—and though he understood, distantly, that none of this was real it was still so thrilling to act on his passions, free from the hindrances of the daunting real world. Here, he can be suave. He can be confident. He can kiss his girlfriend like an expert and touch her body without fear that he’d mess up, without fear that he was somehow ruining everything for her.

Frank kissed the mark he’d given to her neck. The sight of it pleased him deeply—a faint but visible reddish bruise. But hickeys were just so pointless, and troublesome, and juvenile; the real Hazel would surely be mortified by this. If he were to actually risk one in the real world, she’d probably look at him with disgust in her eyes, asking, “Frank—why did you do that?” And he would be too ashamed to answer.

In real life, he would always oblige her limitations. But the hickey looked so good on her that he craved to give her another. So he dove in, and he did it again.

His hands massaged her warm, smooth hips. When she whined his name right by his ear and dug her nails into his back, Frank pulled away from her kiss-stained neck and chanced to look into her eyes. The sight of her made him blush—this gaze was pure desire. A golden, arsonous, hypnotic stare, inviting him now towards total surrender.

Frank needed to take her lips again, but he was beginning to notice an annoying problem, one that vexed him in real life and now had followed into his dreams—his maddening height. He was six-foot-five, and Hazel, who had barely gotten taller since they’d first met, was only five-foot-three. And the victim of this cruel disparity? His poor, tireless spine, bent over for the entirety of this back-aching exercise. Thankfully, in this fictional world of theirs, he was bold enough to attempt something that he’d always wanted to do, but was never brave enough to try.

Breathing deeply, Frank bent down a little lower. His palms found the back of her luscious thighs. And in one swift, heaving, effortless motion, he lifted his lover off the ground and held her up against his body. Hazel gasped—and for a moment, he worried that he’d scared her—but then a girlish giggle bubbled from her throat, the exact sound that always made his heart soar whenever he triumphed to make her laugh.

“Wow, Frank... this is new.” she droned appreciatively, stroking his shoulder. “I love it. But you won’t drop me, right?”

“I won’t,” he promised. Though unintentional, in lifting Hazel up like this, her pelvis was now in such close proximity to his own, and the thought that he might rub against her down there (through the thin fabric of her panties, no less) made his heart pulse with forbidden excitement. “Just hold onto me. I’ve got you.”

Even he was impressed by the cool suaveness of his tone. This dream world was so empowering; it instilled in him the notes of confidence that he’d always craved in these delicate, perplexing matters of sexuality. He could be the good lover that he longed to be for Hazel, holding her gallantly in the air as he acquiesced to her desires... and certainly, to his own.

Now at an improved height, Frank stole her lips again. This time, he took charge—kissing her hard, passionately, unrestrained. Hazel groaned in unveiled pleasure, falling back to the force of his insistent mouth as it sucked upon her glistening lip, as it eagerly oppressed her bowing tongue. When he felt her legs lock around his waist and fasten more tightly, he wondered to himself if... if... well—it wasn’t impossible. If he slipped his boxers off and moved her underwear just a little bit to the side, then...

‘Wait,’ his brain took pause, feeling the intensity of this moment starting to dawn on him all at once. ‘Can I... are we -actually- doing this?’

Frank withdrew from her lips once more, and when he saw her full face, his eyes went wide—gone was her red lipstick, her stylish haircut, and the bold, glamorous lashes. It was the real Hazel again, barefaced and beautiful as she always was. And no longer did she have that confident, flirtatious glimmer in her eyes; she was flustered, panting, with furrowed brows and kiss-bruised lips. The girl’s usual demeanor had been summoned back into her soul, and no longer was she the dauntless seductress that had gotten them this far.

In awe, he croaked, “H—Hazel?”

“... Frank...” she whispered demurely, eyes scarce to make contact with his. She still wore only her white undergarments, and the sex between her legs was still pressed against his own...

Like a dramatic drop in thermostat temperature, Frank’s confidence plummeted into an abyss. All at once, he became his real life, awkward self again—and he was now so nervous that his hands started trembling, his knees threatened to buckle, and he feared that he was at genuine risk of passing out on the floor.

Utterly speechless, Frank stared at the girl in his arms with panicked eyes. It felt so incriminating; it was as if the real, real Hazel had teleported into his dream and joined the insane conjurings of his humiliating lust. Should he let her down? Should he apologize? Would it be bad if he transformed into another canine and ran far, far away? But he was too paralyzed for these fight-or-flight impulses, frozen in place with her arms around his neck and her thighs in his grip and his hickeys on her flesh. Like usual, he was so, so, so uncool.

However, Hazel did not ask him to do any of those things. In fact, she proceeded towards another familiar phrase, one that ran a real risk of causing his heart to explode in his body.

“You can kiss me, Frank. If... if you want...”

And then his breath hitched, his eyes grew wider. Frank’s emotions were riding the rollercoaster of a lifetime. Had he heard her correctly? She was okay with this ridiculous concoction of his mind, and she actually wished to continue?

“I—I want to,” he stuttered, adding a quick, embarrassed caveat, “Um. If you want me to...”

Too shy for words, Hazel’s eyes flickered back towards his. Nervously, he gulped. But as she made an effort to adjust to this position (and his eyes nearly rolled to the back of his head, reeling from the hot, brief pleasure of her squirming against his crotch), the girl nodded her assent. So Frank took a deep breath, and then he did it again—he leaned forward, and he kissed her.

It started off slow and gentle. Frank sighed in satisfaction, feeling her body grow less tense as she melted into the kiss. Every now and then she made soft, sweet sounds—a quiet whimper, or a gratified hum—and each one made his body grow hotter all over again, made the fires inside of him ripple with desire. Tremulously, he began to part his lips against her own, hoping desperately that she would open her mouth, too, because he was starting to enjoy these wet hot kisses and yearned to coax more of these moans from her throat. No longer was he his ideal self, the confident man who had sucked her neck; he was the usual Frank, the inelegant one, whose hands trembled in grasping her thighs, too shy and hesitant to squeeze or grind against her like he really wanted to. He couldn't make the first move towards another sloppy kiss.

But she opened up her lips, and her tongue met his own. Frank shuddered with pleasure—it felt just like he remembered from last night. Groaning into her mouth, his tongue slid in further, it relaxed against hers, and he was helpless to resist her as she awarded his efforts with a lustful moan of his name...

The push and pull of amorous touches and blistering kisses could have melted any man’s restraint. He was Roman—a praetor. They were meant to be ruled rigid self-discipline and inflexible ethics. So could he bare this much longer? Each sigh and moan into his mouth was chipping away at his practiced self-control. They weren’t married yet. He shouldn’t be thinking about going so far. But in this perfect, wicked moment, Frank has never craved anything more in his life than entry into the heavens of her warm, wet, amorous paradise.

He needed to make love to her.

This kind of passion was all-encompassing. He was seriously getting desperate—he kissed her harder, he grunted like an animal, and his hands grew adventurous. His fingers traveled from her thigh to her ass and he squeezed the flesh as if doing so might satisfy him enough, as if it would save him from succumbing to his wanton weaknesses and pacify these unbearable urges—but it didn’t. Hazel moaned as he gripped her tighter, and her sultry voice was his final straw.

He tried to gulp down his hesitation. With every physical escalation thus far, the dream had begun to feel more real. The dizzying sensation of her ass in his palms, of her hands on his back, of her most private place up against his insufferable arousal, they were all felt as tangibly as the incendiary pleasures from earlier in the night, and so his nervousness had begun to feel more real, too...

“Hazel,” Frank began, sounding strained. “I...”

“You what, Frank?”

“... I...” he tried again, but his face was flooded in stubborn pinks and the lascivious tongue that had brushed her neck sat uselessly in his mouth like a slab of lead. He couldn’t bring himself to complete the impossibly dirty phrase. “I... want to...”

She ground up against his rigid sex and Frank instantly groaned in agonized pleasure, burying his face in the crook of her neck. It was just like that night again. His panting breaths were drunk with lust, for nothing more could stand in his way but the noticeably thin undergarments that clothed their groins and the stubborn reservations that plagued his mind. He should just say it. It’s not even real—it’s only a dream. Why can’t he just do it?

As if sensing his struggle, Hazel asked a crucial question. “What do you want, Frank?”

He panted miserably into her neck. What was he supposed to say? ‘Sex’? That he wanted to have sex with her? That he couldn’t wait anymore? And he desperately craved permission to pull her underwear to the side and feel her, finally, after all these years of innocent romance?

No, he couldn’t dare.

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Daylight rolled into the room like the coming of a fog. One would see it so often in San Francisco, how the gray, wet mist would curl throughout the city and obscure all things that lie in the distance. As Frank came to from that enchanted dream, his mind was entrenched in a similar fog. Its memory wouldn't fade any time soon, for it had burned so hot that he now found himself uncomfortably sweaty. Definitely, he was going to have to treat himself to a shower.

Somehow, he awoke with his groin unexcited. Most likely because the end of that dream had been awfully depressing. Basically, it was no different than what had happened the night before. Hazel made a daring physical gesture, and instead of manning up and reciprocating to fruition, he had flummoxed his way into achieving absolutely nothing.

If only real life were more like a dream; he still really wanted to be the kind of guy who could lift his girlfriend off of the ground and hold her tightly as they kissed nonstop...

Last night, when Hazel climbed into his lap, Frank had been absolutely shell-shocked. Not largely for the boldness of the action itself; she was one of the bravest demigods he’d ever met, after all, and she’d always been more courageous than he when it came to these delicate boundaries in their relationship. And although she was a kind, selfless girl who rarely asked for anything at all, Frank understood her as a person who was quite capable of going after things that she actually wanted—so the most shocking aspect of last night’s moment was the simple fact of her wanting to be on top of him, of her wanting to make out as intensely as they did whilst straddling him like she was out to devour. Hazel hadn’t merely reciprocated his clumsy kisses, she had escalated things to a level that their oft-shy selves had never even gotten close to before.

But... what did it mean? Before he backed out, had Hazel actually intended to go all the way, or was she just testing the waters, or was she testing him, or was sitting on his lap simply a casual, thoughtless impulse, no more significant or implicative than if she had randomly placed her hand on his shoulder?

That he didn’t know the answer frustrated him deeply. They’d been together for nine years and still, still, he struggled with reading these cues and with reacting to them sensibly. He was made to feel like a total novice in his own relationship, no more dexterous or perceptive in these matters of the heart than the younger Frank who had fallen for her instantly and barely failed upwards into courtship with her—just in time, before two guys with the surname Valdez came around and nearly distracted Hazel away from him, forever.

You’d think that he would have forgotten about that by now. More than enough time had passed to look back on it and laugh. And sometimes, they really did. But for Frank, who had never loved anyone before he’d loved Hazel and had never been desired by anyone before her, somewhere deep down was a terribly, terribly immature adolescent who shrank from the shadows of the other two in Hazel’s heart. They would always have some special significance to her that he lacked, even though all of them had obviously moved on. And because of that, Frank would always feel a little bit less important whenever Leo made her laugh. Because he knew that for her, in those moments, it was like being with Sammy again.

‘Whoa,’ he paused, ‘Where did all of that come from?’

Sometimes, he’d do that thing where one bad thought just led to another, like slicing through the head of a hydra only for more grow in its place. A bad habit, this catastrophizing—he could be so dramatic in the absence of reason. Especially in the mornings, while his mind was still dazed.

Lest this depressing doom spiral glue his back to the bed, Frank sat up quickly and got onto his feet. Despite the disorderliness of his thoughts, he fixed up the bed immediately like the good Roman that he was. And as he perfectly rearranged his pillows and folded the blanket margins beneath the mattress, he arrived at a more neutral, and perhaps motivating line of thought.

Of the few things which Frank understood about his slowly escalating physicality with his girlfriend, he knew only one thing for sure: Hazel’s feelings came first. He couldn’t selfishly impress his desires or paralogical immaturities on her person, and in order to make sure that neither of those things happen, he needed to learn how to manage these delicate situations and to better grasp these crude desires of his. Like, what was that dream even about? Dreams were practically never meaningless for demigods, so what did all of that say about his future, his feelings, and his relationship?

It had never occurred to Frank before that maybe, just maybe, he should have considered actively preparing himself for the day when he and Hazel go all the way—because imagining her in a lewd context felt like such a crime, and that day didn’t seem like it was coming any time soon. But what if that had been Hazel’s intention? If he hadn’t cowered away, would they really have had sex last night?

What he needed to do was prepare himself thoroughly. Become more knowledgeable, more adept when it came to charming women. And in order to do that, he would need to find a reliable source...

Frank glanced at the calendar on his wall. There were two dates in particular that gave him a terrible, awful idea.

Many months ago (days after failing to buy Hazel that boutique dress), he had decided to treat her to a special, surprise gift: this Saturday, he was taking her on a ten day-long romantic getaway to the Majorca islands of eastern Spain. And he had already taken care of everything—both of their schedules were cleared, Dakota and Jason were going to look after New Rome, and she didn’t yet know a single thing about it. Or at least, he really hoped that she didn’t; Frank wasn’t very good at keeping secrets to himself, but he’d tried really hard to be tight-lipped about it.

Also written on the calendar was another important date: today, Percy was going to teach an advanced sword-fighting class for the Fifth Cohort, and then they were going to have lunch together.

His idea grew more terrible. If he did this, and it went badly, then he’d probably never be able to look Percy in the eye again—but that was the worst case scenario. Best case, Percy could really help Frank figure out how to be less of a nervous buffoon the next time things with Hazel got hot and heavy.

He had always really admired Percy’s relationship with Annabeth. Their wedding date was a long ways away, but the two seemed like a married couple already. To be clear, he didn’t make a habit of thinking about his friends’ sex lives—and actually, he’d much rather think about anything else, but one could sometimes tell by the casual physicality of a given couple whether or not they had taken things to the next level. It was in the way that Percy and Annabeth hung off of each other, the way Jason and Piper touched casually and easily, the way that even Will seemed not to shy away from touching Nico’s thigh when others weren’t looking (Frank had been looking, once, and then he’d quickly looked away, cheeks scalded by blush). Knowing their crew of close friends, Frank had a strong suspicion that he and Hazel were way behind everyone else.

Furthermore... well, Percy’s always been a really popular guy. If Annabeth didn’t strike such fear into the hearts of many, Frank probably would’ve heard about a number of disastrous incidents involving New Rome girls confessing to his friend. So, he reasoned that Percy definitely knew a thing or two about women, and he must be quite suave in these complex adult matters which mystified Frank to no end.

Mentally, he added a new item to the strict schedule in his mind:

1 PM. Lunch with Percy.
*Talk to Percy about sex life sex how to reach fourth base - Romance. Girls. That stuff. Try not to die in the process.

Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 04

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A sky obscured by pensive clouds surveilled the roofs of fair New Rome. Despite the dour gray above, the city preened a pleasant mood. Seated just outside a quaint cafe, Percy waited for Frank to return from ordering their lunch, having just come from teaching a sword-fighting class to an excited Fifth Cohort.

Percy had been happy to do it; these days, living in New Rome as a dull graduate student, it was cool to come back into Camp Jupiter every now and then, especially to pay respects to the Fifth Cohort from whence he, Frank, and Hazel once came. Good times back then. Not really, though—those amnesiac days were some of the worst in his life. But hey, he’d met some of his favorite people as a result and found a safe haven in the Bay Area, so it wasn’t all bad. It was just mostly bad.

However, ever since meeting up with Frank that afternoon, Percy thought him to be acting sort of strange.

Percy had known him long enough to grasp pretty easily when something was off (granted, subtlety had never been the guy’s strong suit). He wasn’t talking much, and when he did manage to say anything at all, he did so with distracted apprehension in his voice—like he was trying to hold small talk with a bomb strapped to his chest. Would he talk about whatever it was that was clearly bothering him so much? Or should Percy bring it up himself? He didn’t like to pry.

Frank returned to the table with a tray of lunch for the both of them. As he distributed their drinks and food, his hands were shaking just a little. Percy took close note of this while they both took a swig of their beverages, trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t set him off. “So, uh, how’s Hazel doing?”

Frank choked on his orange juice. “H—Hazel? Why do you ask?”

He raised an eyebrow. Definitely not subtle. “Uh... I dunno, buddy. Haven’t seen her in a little while, just wondering how she is.”

“Oh.” he paused. “... Hazel’s good.”

If he didn’t know Frank to be a kind, pure soul, he’d have begun to suspect that the guy had murdered her or something.

Frank clasped his hands together, looking everywhere except for Percy’s eyes. His voice was hushed as if he feared an eavesdropper. “Um, actually... I need your help with something.”

“Another sword-fighting class?”

“No—well, maybe some time, I don’t know. But not that.”

Percy waited for Frank to elaborate. He didn’t. So he asked, “Okay, what do you need, Frank?”

Frank worried his brows and his frown tightened. Whatever he was trying to ask for had to be serious business if it was causing so much pain just to spit the words out.

He eventually sputtered, "I’m... I’m just gonna try to explain what happened, and you can just tell me to shut up when it’s TMI, okay?” 

“Okay.”

He lowered his voice even more. Shadows from the gray sky made it seem like he was about to tell a ghost story. “Last night, things with Hazel got kind of... weird...”

“Weird?”

“Yeah... weird.”

“How weird?”

“We... we were kissing.”

“Oh.” Percy blinked. That wasn't where he thought this was going. “Okay. Uh... do you guys not usually do that, or—”

“No, no, we’ve kissed before. But this time, we really kissed. A lot. Like, we were making out. And it was great.”

Out of respect, Percy tried not to visibly grimace. No offense to either of them, but Hazel was almost like a little sister to him, and it felt really strange to hear Frank talk of her like that. It just wasn't something that he wished to visualize.

“Okay,” he said calmly. Really. He was trying his best to be calm. “And?”

“Well...” Frank twiddled his thumbs. “We’ve never done that before. And it got really intense, and I... I kind of reacted to it too much.”

Now, here was some telling information, finally. Percy felt like he was starting to understand what his friend was getting at. But... their first time making out? Last night? Really?

Percy’s free time was quite limited, and he spent approximately zero seconds of his days thinking about what other people in his circle did behind closed doors. He’s a—‘That’s none of my business.’—type of guy, to the extent that Annabeth was often irritated by his lack of interest in demigod drama. She’d come to him with fresh, riveting gossip like, “Did you hear? Sherman and Miranda got caught in the Big House together.” and he’d have little more to say than, “I forgot they were dating.”

Like... sure, he figured that the couples he knew of might be sleeping together. He could even surmise that the singles he knew of might be sleeping together. But, so what? They were all adults, now; it wasn't really all that scandalous or interesting, and in fact, people not sleeping together seemed more interesting than the alternative.

So to hear that Frank and Hazel had never even made out before... not only was it interesting, considering how long they’d been together, but it was so surprising that he needed to know more in spite of his discomfort with the subject matter. Was this why people enjoyed gossip?

“Wait,” Percy started nervously. “What do you mean you ‘reacted too much’?”

Frank blushed, which made Percy even more nervous. “Um... Hazel was, well, we were on the couch, and we just finished a movie, and we were just really close, and I kind of—"

“Oh gods, Frank, you didn’t... do that, did you?”

“Do what?”

There was simply no elegant way to put “bust a nut in your pants” into spoken words, so Percy made the wise choice not to speak those words at all. “Never mind. What happened?”

“Well, I... it was just a lot, and I couldn’t handle it, so I... I turned into a dachshund and ran away to bed.”

Percy couldn’t help himself—a stray chuckle snuck past his lips, and he immediately raised his hand to cover his mouth.

Frank cried out in despair, “Don’t laugh!”

“S... sorry, man.” He made a harsh effort to swallow his laughter, trying all over again to remain stoic and calm. “But... a wiener dog?”

He exploded with distress, “It was all I could think of!”

“Okay, okay!” Percy assured. He inhaled deeply through his nose. Frank was a close friend. A close friend in need. Now was the time for mature-big-brother-Percy, not seconds-from-making-a-dick-joke-Percy. “You made out. Things got too hot. And then you turned into a wiener dog and ran to bed. Got it. Then what happened?”

“Um... nothing.” Frank admitted, avoiding eye contact still. “Hazel had stuff to do really early in the morning, so I haven’t seen her since.”

Percy tilted his head. “Wait, so you didn’t talk at all after? Did she sleep on the couch or something?”

“What? No, she slept in her room.”

“You don’t share a bedroom?”

Frank looked confused, unsettled by the question. “Um, no...”

Percy was starting to get a clearer picture of their relationship, and the picture looked like it came straight out of Disney Channel: squeaky clean, parent-approved, and safe for all audiences. And in knowing those two as well as he did, he supposed that this state of affairs made sense... but at the same time, it didn’t. Not to Percy’s mindset.

Possibly the worst thing about demigodhood was how quickly it forced you to grow up. You had to de-prioritize all the normal kid things—getting good grades, finding a date to the prom, fitting in at school—because survival and allegiance to the gods came first. How many times had Percy been ripped from his mortal life in service of the gods or viciously attacked by random monsters? It was maddening, infuriating. Over and over, the god in his genes had forced him to make tough choices, to act with the maturity of a warrior and a hero—not the teenage boy that he actually was.

And in kind, Percy had found himself eager to move fast instead of slow, to think of adult matters quick in case he never got the chance. He was dreaming of marriage and children with Annabeth at age seventeen, he was going to bed with her not even two years later. Genuinely, how could any demigod couple stand to wait for these things? How do you feel so secure and safe in the world as to refrain from speeding to those major life events?

Obviously, one shouldn’t have sex just because of the risk of a short lifespan. But Percy didn’t think of it that way. He would always remember the time Annabeth had kissed him in Mount St. Helens before they’d even officially started dating... and she had surely done it for multiple reasons, but Percy knew at least one of them to be her fear of never seeing him again. That’s just how things were for a demigod—being mindful, proactive against the devastating anguish of potential regret. You had to kiss your crush today, because they might be dead tomorrow.

Maybe his mindset was more abnormal than expected. There was no “one size fits all” to being a demigod, and unique experiences would inevitably morph people into unique shapes. From what he knew of Frank, the guy’s life before coming to camp was fairly normal; comfortable, even, compared to most others. But still, his life depended on a sorry little stick of old firewood—and Percy just... figured that his friends from the Argo II in particular would be more inclined than most to introduce sex into their relationships. Was that not right? Was he weird for thinking that?

So he engaged Frank again, putting forth concerted effort to not sound judgmental. “Frank... I’m not trying to make fun of you, honest. But what has it been, nine years? Why don’t you guys sleep in the same room?”

But it didn’t work. Frank buried his face in his shameful palms and groaned like the most miserable man on earth. “I don’t know!”

“Okay, okay!” Percy raised his hands, hoping to calm him down. “It’s fine, it’s not a big deal! Relax, man.”

“Sorry.”

Percy took a long sip of his drink, and he used that time to think carefully of his next words. Frank seemed particularly volatile today—understandably so. This subject had never come up between them before, and he should probably aim to be more gracious when asked for advice.

“Look... I can see why you guys haven’t done all that yet. Hazel’s from a different time, and you’re...” Percy paused—Frank looked up at him again with the wide, innocent eyes of a defenseless little fawn at a watering hole. Not literally. Though he had seen that transformation before. “... uh, really patient. I’m not trying to make you feel bad for any of that, because that stuff doesn’t matter. The important thing is that now, you... want to start figuring that stuff out, right?”

Frank emerged from the shield of his palms, looking like a shy turtle coming out of his shell (not literally, but he had seen that transformation before, too). The earnestness of his expression pained Percy just a little; this worry on his brow, the defeated look in his eyes... this problem was genuinely distressing his friend, and now he felt bad for ever poking fun at him.

“Right,” Frank said. “... This is delicate stuff. I have to be careful, you know? More than anything, I just... I just want everything to be okay for her.”

“Aww.”

“Percy, it’s not cute. I suck.”

“Come on, don’t say that. You’re one of the coolest guys I know. And you know what? I’m sure Hazel feels the same.”

Frank frowned. “She thinks other guys are cool?”

“Forget I said that,” Percy huffed, leaning back in his chair. He loves Frank like a brother—but gods, it’s like walking on a minefield with this guy, sometimes. Which made sense, for a son of Mars. “You’re not gonna get anywhere wallowing over this. Frank—you liked making out with her, right?”

Frank flushed again, touching his index fingers together. “... Um. Yeah.”

“And you probably want to do it again without going hound-mode, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, so...” Percy blinked. And then he realized that he didn’t have any actual advice.

“Yeah?”

He searched his brain for something smart and helpful to say. This wasn’t the first time he’d been asked for relationship advice, because for some reason, a lot of people from both camps seemed to think of he and Annabeth as the model demigod relationship. Neither of them really thought that way—they were just... Percy and Annabeth, they were their own thing. Certainly distinct from others and solid like a rock, but no more perfect or qualified than anyone else. Campers would come to him as if he were some authority on romance, asking him complicated relationship questions and hoping to hear of his exhaustive wisdom on the subject—as if it existed. It really didn’t.

He and Annabeth just seemed to... work. Well, most of the time, anyway. Percy didn’t quite understand their inner workings, he just knew that they functioned well enough as a unit. And yeah, they’d butt heads occasionally, but even with their most heated conflicts, they had learned, after years and years of dating, to give each other space, allow time to cool down, and then reconvene to resolve whatever the problem was. And doing so had worked for the majority of their conflicts (with some exceptions). Percy’s advice over the years had thus been informed by his experience with Annabeth, and he usually gave the same dull, uninspiring advice, “Why don’t you try talking to her?”

So he asked Frank, “Why don’t you try talking to her?”

His shoulders slumped, and he stared into the table. “I wouldn’t even know what to say...”

“Well, you might wanna start with explaining why you turned into a dog.”

“I know, I know, but... Percy, it’s more complicated than the dog thing...” Frank drummed his fingers on the table, looking to the dour gray sky in worried thought. “All this time, I thought that Hazel would need to wait a long time before sharing a bed, or making out, or... um, you know. Going all the way. But after last night, I think she might actually want me to start taking things to the next level. But I don’t know how. I don’t know anything. So I was just wondering if... if you could give me some pointers or something.”

“Oh...” Now it was Percy’s turn to feel embarrassed. “Okay. Uh. What kinds of pointers?”

“Like... how do I get everything started? And then after that, how do I make sure everything’s good for her?”

“What do you mean, ‘everything’? Frank, are you asking me how to...”

He trailed off, hoping that his friend would grasp the rest of the sentence unspoken—‘how to have sex.’ They were still in public, and Percy didn’t want to startle the ears of any nearby cafe patrons or prudish lares.

Frank continued, his expression serious. “Percy, I told you before that Hazel and I are going away to Spain this Saturday, remember? I need to be prepared in case something like last night happens again. You’ve gotta help me.”

“Well, Frank...” Percy began. He felt incredibly awkward, like a dad trying to explain to his twenty-four year old son where babies came from. “... I guess I can tell you a thing or two, but Saturday is only two days away, and this stuff can get complicated. I dunno if I can help you get to where you wanna be by then.”

“Then join us!”

If Percy had been eating his food right then, he probably would have choked on it and died. “What?”

“You and Annabeth, you can come with us, too!”

“Oh.” And then he chided himself for his dirty thinking. “Wait, what? On the trip, you mean?”

Frank nodded. “It’s just for ten days. Why don’t you tag along? And in case things get rough with Hazel, you can help me figure things out.”

It was an absolutely ludicrous suggestion; Percy stared at Frank seconds after he spoke with a frown on his lips and confusion in his eyes, half-expecting him to say, “Sike!” or admit that the stress of praetorship had caused his brain to malfunction. But seconds longer in earnest silence told Percy that the invitation was of genuine kind, forcing him to double back in disbelief.

So Percy tried to explain, “Dude... first, I don’t have going-away-to-Spain money just laying around, and second, it’s this Saturday, right? We can’t just drop everything and go away that fast.”

His eyes drifted elsewhere in thought. “Yeah, I guess that’s fair. But... I mean, I was obviously gonna pay for everything, Percy. My treat—call it a pre-wedding gift for you and Annabeth.”

Now Percy was double-surprised—and admittedly, a little intrigued—but he still couldn’t sign off on such reckless spontaneity. “Well, that’s real nice of you, man. But, like... I don’t need to crash your vacation just to help you with Hazel. You can call or text me if you need to talk about stuff while you’re there.”

“No offense, Percy, but you're terrible at picking up your phone and responding to texts. What if I need an answer right away and you’re busy back here and can’t help me?”

“Come on, Frank—is it really that serious?”

Frank slammed his palms on the table and cried out in distress—“It is, Percy!”

“Okay, okay!” Defensively, Percy raised up his hands again, half-fearing that the guy would turn into nervous bull and trample him right over—which hadn’t happened before, but one could never be too careful.

The degree to which Frank was anxious about sex had started to make Percy concerned for his well-being. It wasn't that he didn’t understand the general feeling of nervousness; he had been nervous too, back when sex was some new, mysterious thing in his relationship (and lately, his sex life with Annabeth was less than stellar—but Frank didn’t need to know that).

At risk of daring his thoughts in a too-dangerous direction... Well, Frank looked like a brawny football player these days. That “Blessing of Mars” had taken its course, and the guy had since shaped his body into his own through means of effort and the demands of being Roman. And from Percy’s point of view, Frank was a lot more confident in himself now than he used to be nine years ago. He was a leader—a great one. Frank and Hazel ran Camp Jupiter so well; way better than Percy ever could have.

In other words, at a glance, Frank wasn’t the type of dude one would assume to struggle in the bedroom, but he seemed downright terrified of sex, or at least terrified of doing it even slightly wrong. Why was he being so neurotic about it? Was there something more that made this especially hard for him to manage?

Percy suddenly remembered something Annabeth had said not long ago—that more than half of all men deal with... problems downstairs at some point in their lives. And Percy spent so little time thinking about what others do in their bedrooms that he had never even wondered if the men in his life might be having the same issue. It was pretty gross to think about, but... admittedly, he might feel better about his own problem if he knew that someone else was going through the same thing. So was there a chance that Frank, too, had maybe...

‘... Don’t be stupid, Percy. Just because you’re defective doesn’t mean that everyone else is.’ he thought bitterly. ‘Also, stop thinking about Frank’s junk. Seriously. That would be great.’

He wanted to ask Frank just how much he already knew. Like, what would Percy be working with here? Did Frank need to learn how to undo a bra, or did he actually still need to be taught where babies came from? Should he plan out a whole lesson with props and a whiteboard?

It wouldn’t be such a bad thing, he supposed, to help his friend find his way through the labyrinth of sexuality. It was kind of nostalgic seeing Frank this nervous about Hazel again, because if anything, in his eyes, they were the model demigod couple, being the illustrious co-praetors of Camp Jupiter—but back in the day? They were just two shy kids with massive crushes on each other. It was cute, even to a guy like Percy who never cared too much about other people’s relationships. Plus, a free vacation? That was a good wedding gift, alright. However...

“... Look, Frank.” Percy said. “I’m not gonna lie, you’ve piqued my interest, and I do wanna help. But this is still super short notice. I gotta talk to Annabeth first.”

“Oh, yeah! Of course. I’d love for her to come. Uh, just... don’t tell her about any of this, okay?”

“I won't, but are you sure you don’t want Annabeth’s advice, too? She could probably help you guys out. Maybe even better than I could.”

Frank shook his head. “No, I know how smart she is, but I want your help, Percy. This is a guy thing, you know?”

Percy understood that. He still felt intensely uneasy every time he talked to Annabeth about his problems downstairs. Which sucked. But it was what it was.

“Yeah, I know.” Percy agreed. “No promises, alright? I’ll ask her tonight and let you know by tomorrow.”

Frank nodded, his smile hopeful. “Thanks, Percy. Really.”

“No problem. But you’re on your own with the wiener dog thing.”

—

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—

The act of coming home was a sacred thing. It didn’t matter that they lived in safe New Rome and rarely quested for the gods these days, because it didn’t matter how “safe” a demigod ever thought he was. Mortal danger crept around sidewalk corners like pathogens crept into the human body—as a sudden and hostile violation of one's well-being. Was he paranoid? Yes. He didn’t like to be that way. But so was his shape as an ex-hero of Olympus: long-deformed by stress. And so with great reverence, as he always held, Percy stepped into his apartment, locked it shut, and leaned back against the door with his eyes softly closed, chin pointed outwards. A deep exhale. He made it home again.

And coming back to an empty apartment never pleased him much. It happened more these days, that Annabeth was gone until late in the evening, and despite himself, he always worried for her. They were both grad students: himself at New Rome, Annabeth at Berkeley—and so she left for the mortal world more often than he, without the needed protection of Roman auspices. She was working towards the end of a summer internship in Marin County whilst meticulously planning out the wedding in January.

Percy, at the same time, had been balancing an intensive summer reading list for school, a part-time job with the San Francisco Bay Ferry, and varying commitments to the Greek and Roman sectors. He didn’t hate being so busy. In a way, it was special to be working on themselves, together—for the sake of a shared future as husband and wife. But the distance was still so strongly felt when she left and he was home, when he slept and she woke. Even in living together, he still missed her a lot. The sap that he was.

He shot Annabeth a text, asking her what she was doing. They were both bad texters, her especially, but he also figured that most demigods were, because adjusting to the handiness of Leo’s monster-proof phones had been a lofty life adjustment after years of forbidden use.

To his surprise, she replied near-immediately:

Got mocha

And right after, a picture popped up on his screen.

It was Annabeth with an iced coffee in hand. Her lanyard hung loose about her neck and her hair was pulled back, some stray curls over face. It seemed like she was walking down the street, and the picture was somewhat blurry—the girl was probably in the middle of returning to work from her coffee break. She looked somewhat tired, but happy. Beautiful, as always. Percy smiled when he saw it. His chest flooded with endearment.

He answered her with the two simple words that perfectly summarized his thoughts:

pretty girl

Two minutes passed by until his phone beeped again. He opened the text. Annabeth sent him the Eiffel Tower emoji and nothing else.

Percy tucked away his phone then. She did that a lot—sending random things on accident while mid-transit, her hands too preoccupied to coordinate well. He did know that she’d be busy, but it was always good to hear back in case he had bad thoughts.

He threw himself onto the bed. His day wasn’t over; he really ought to get back to that summer reading list, because his professors had been clear that full comprehension would be needed in the fall. But Percy’s mind was distracted, maybe even more than usual.

Frank’s offer grew more and more tempting the longer he thought about it. Ten days with Annabeth on vacation, where they could focus on each other and leave their obligations behind? Gods, he could use a break; both of them could. And it would probably be fun to go out as a group. Frank and Hazel got along with Annabeth just fine. Especially Frank, who confusingly regarded her as some kind of wise, fun aunt or a really cool teacher.

Percy wanted to go, if he could just find a way to make it work. It’d be a hard sell to the likes of Annabeth, who preferred the tight structure of her strictly planned schedule and hated to have anything distort her needed order. She was less wild these days, compared to how she once was; adulthood did that to a person. And it looked good on her, of course. But against all odds, Percy sometimes longed for the intensity of their youth. The crazy summers at camp and spur-of-the-moment adventures. ... He didn’t miss it that much. Having fought so hard for the right to live like boring, dignified mortals, he didn’t relish all the anguish brought on by their pasts. What he did relish were the few spurs of adolescence that were joyous and free, which included some of the happiest moments of his life.

That Frank and Hazel had just stumbled upon the thrills and anxiety of physical intimacy, as if it were some buried treasure in their own front yard, made Percy feel almost envious of them. It was like the impossible wish of wanting to see your favorite film again, for the very first time; he wished he could go back to the very first time that he’d had a serious make-out session with Annabeth—just to re-appreciate how momentous and exhilarating it really was.

It was a bittersweet scene; he remembered it well. Funnily enough, it actually shared some similarities with Frank and Hazel’s less-than-ideal first time last night.

Percy relaxed more atop the bed. And in laying quietly like this, his mind found roads to wander.

—

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—

If a cherished romance should nourish the soul, then his heart was sick from its own fullness.

Her kiss ushers melodies of tireless love, and the decadent warmth of her soft, pink lips makes his heart tremor with its melodious hymns. As his body caves to the soul of her lyrics, Percy forfeits himself to this overwhelming bliss, kissing her back slowly, sweetly, gently, as though the task were as delicate as a soft whisper. Of the few thoughts he can capably sustain, Percy considers the blessing that it is to be alive. The privilege of surviving again and again, defying each and every odd, and somehow making it here—to this, the miracle of adulthood and the chance of moving forward. He’s an eighteen year old son of Poseidon, he’s finally in college, and he can kiss the girl that he loves in her bedroom. This is his reprisal; despite the best efforts of gods above and down below, Percy has survived to experience all the sweetest rewards of coveted normalcy.

He sits with her on the edge of her bed. What had first been an effort to show him her family’s new California house (while no one else was there) had become a quick kiss, and then a long, tender play of his tongue against hers. Somehow, things had escalated to this point; he’d come to the bed, and then so did she, and she’d made some comment about how they’re adults now, but she doesn’t feel like one. ‘Neither do I,’ he’d said, but they’ll figure it out together. They’d stared at each other for a moment, feeling comfort from the other’s presence in the face of daunting adulthood. One of them made the first move. The other reciprocated eagerly.

Their tongues have only come together a few times before, and this is the first time that they’ve gotten so involved. And he can hardly bear how thrilling this is, feeling nervousness and excitement in twin pangs of fiery emotion.

‘Gods, she’s a good kisser,’ Percy thinks to himself. ‘Why don’t we do this more often?’

There’s a push and pull to deep kissing, he learns. It’s in the way that she leans forward and he draws back, the way he finds her tongue and she invites him to find more... He’s enjoying this chance to discover more about her. Sometimes she lets out this soft little hum that he can -feel- on his lips and the subtle vibrations coax sighs from his throat. Kissing her like this, Percy has never felt so... normal. So privileged to experience the crucial excitements of sighing into the mouth of his sweet first love. He’s an adult, but he’s still young. And he’s learning what it feels like to have his heart shaken by the touches of another.

Annabeth shifts her body slightly, and then their knees are touching. His heart thumps even harder. Percy has never devoted much thought to her knees, but now... they’re all he can think about. Their bodies are so close. They could get even closer. What is this shiver of warmth that melts all over his body? He wants to touch her even more. He wants to feel Annabeth and lose himself in the comfort of her body heat—but he doesn’t know what to do with these foreign, sweltering desires. Can he really act on them? How does he even do that? How far is too far?

Percy hadn’t strong instincts when it came to romance—not back when they’d first met and not even in the present. Is he doing this right? Is he kissing her well? Although he lacks the answer, Percy cannot neglect the magnetic force that urges his body to be closer to her—

Suddenly, her hand encroaches upon his thigh—shockingly close to an unspeakable place. Percy’s breath hitches and he recedes mere centimeters away from the kiss, panting heavily, eyes flicking back and forth from her half-lidded gaze and her soft, parted lips.

Their faces are very close. She’s breathing hard, too. The tension is electric, he feels it in the air and his mind is racing towards an absent finish line. Even he is not so dense as to misjudge the amorous attractions between them now, and he wonders if he should check in before going further.

Breathlessly, he asks, “... Annabeth, are we—?”

“Percy, I don’t know, just kiss me more—”

And she tangles her hand throughout his hair and urges him back against her lips. Percy groans as they make contact, his eyes falling shut once more. She’s still touching his leg, she’s -squeezing- it now and he’s dizzy with desire. He never knew what a turn-on it could be to have a girl grip his thigh, to feel her fingers curled into his hair as she kisses him forcefully—but gods, it’s driving him crazy. Is he allowed to just surrender to this feeling? Annabeth did give him an answer. And he is nothing if not inclined to oblige her request.

Mindlessly, his hand reaches for her waist. He isn’t thinking at all—he just wants more of Annabeth. And he caresses her with that adventurous hand—slowly, shakily, over the fabric of her shirt, and then he leans even further into the kiss. With his other hand he grasps her jaw, holding her steady against his lips as they part further and entrap her own in the push of his greedy kiss. Moaning softly, she grips his thigh tighter.

In this moment, Percy has never felt more that Annabeth is his and that he belongs to her. Every simmering slip of impassioned tongue and lustful sigh into each other’s mouths empowers the truth that they belong together.

She sometimes seems like a fantasy he dreamed up, an imaginary girl constructed to survive adolescence—her sense of humor, her voice, her face, her lips, which render him delirious as they enthrall his own. No one else could ever be so perfect for him, no one’s body could feel so exhilarating in his desperate palms and his head is swimming from the thrill of touch—it feels so, so good. Her tongue has this way of pressing against his that feels so right, so sensual, so... adult, and he shudders in relief when she does it again. But he’s keeping up, too—smoothing his tongue along her bottom lip, clutching her shirt tightly when she hums in return because he’s eager to give her everything she wants tenfold. Faster, deeper, their tongues trade lusts in frantic glissandos and her airy moans resound in his ears—

“Mmph, Percy—”

“—Annabeth,” he murmurs urgently, sparing only a second to breathe between kisses before diving back for more.

He increasingly depends on his limited instincts, obeying every impulse that commands his body. Wordlessly, their position changes; Annabeth slowly leans back onto the bed and Percy then falls along with her. In hovering over her like this, he’s reminded of their earliest days at Camp Half-Blood sparring together. He still remembers the very first time that he got the best of her, when he’d swung his sword with too much force and knocked her clean onto her back. Percy had rushed to the ground so as to straddle her there, his irreverent sword pointed at her bronze breastplate. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t get back up.

At the time, he’d felt nothing more than childish pride in finally overcoming the acclaimed Annabeth Chase (and a subsequent lick of fear that she might kill him in his sleep). Only now does he recognize the animal excitement of being on top of a girl like this—on a bed, no less. Her legs spread wider until they take hold of his hips, a touch which summons one tantalizing thought: ‘She wants me here. Between her thighs.’

He didn’t often risk such indulgent thoughts, because he didn’t want to be alone in experiencing them. If Annabeth had ever wanted him that way, she either hid it too well, or he’d been too dense to grasp any number of her hints. Both options seemed equally likely, lending no outlet for his indecent desires.

So the odes of lust that he’d sung for her in past were always quickly silenced through sheer willpower. He never let them reach their final note, he didn’t let dirty thoughts become full, lecherous fantasies. Not after a particularly brutal incident some years ago, a summer evening at camp by the lake boardwalk. She wore a tank top that her chest had outgrown the summer before, because a Stoll prank gone wrong had burned most of her clothes. Percy’s gaze had lingered for seconds too long, and then the image of her chest wouldn’t leave his mind. It distracted him as he tried to sleep, flashed across his eyelids each time they closed. He hadn’t stood a chance against his urges that night, succumbing to them twice over in an empty Cabin Three.

Percy had learned that fleeting solitary pleasures weren’t worth their lasting mortification, because facing her the next day had him yearning for deserved death. And so he became well-practiced in curbing illicit thoughts, knowing that mere inches in their direction would surrender him to miles.

Now, he really wonders if he was alone all that time. The way that her legs fasten around his lower half, holding him tightly as her fingers wander beneath his shirt... No, even he isn’t so oblivious in this thrilling, lewdsome moment; her touch is not merely suggestive. She may as well be stating outright that she wants him to—

“Touch me, Percy...”

Between wet kisses, she begs those incendiary words, that fervid demand and a desirous plea. Percy bites onto his lip, holding back a pleased groan. He might have a thing for phrases like this—plain honest admissions of her neediest desires, and he might be in love with this look in her eyes. Annabeth looks positively oversexed—her chest breathes fast and hard, uncontrollably, and her seraphic face, assailed by vibrant blush, portrays clearly her sordid desperation.

“Where...” he pauses to gulp, feeling his mouth going dry. “... where should I touch you?”

Frustration in her brows. Evidently, she expects him to be less dense and intuit her meaning—a rookie mistake; one should never assume his swiftness to social cues. But even if Percy had known exactly what she meant, he’d still want her to say it in her own sultry words. Breathing heavily himself, already stiff in the pants, he shudders to imagine more delicious phrases in her voice—a request for him to grab her chest, to massage her needy, aching soft spots. Both fantasies that are new to him. Maybe he loves the idea of her telling him what to do. Or maybe he prefers hearing her plead for his touch. Were he not so delirious with frantic lust, Percy might be learning new things about himself right now.

She answers him not with her lips, but her fingers—her palm flees his hard stomach and finds his right hand, to then beckon his fingertips down her lower abdomen... Percy weathers this journey with bated breath, watching closely how she reacts to the slow, hot trail of his fingers. Her hips twitch from eagerness, bowing into his doting touch, and her sighing lips quiver softly as he closes the distance, so torturously languid in unhurried speed.

Percy begins to think that all sanity is lost. He cannot make sense of this animal lust—which had started off just bearably faint and had now flourished beyond recognition. All of her afflicts his sex; her rapid breath and precious thighs, her zealous kiss and pleasant voice. Held closely in her body heat, he thinks himself likely to melt. This dreamy girl is driving him mad, and few armaments remain of his wavering restraint.

His fingers, she leads them lower and lower, past the stretch of her pant waistband and across the smooth ocean of her crotch. Is she freshly shaved? He’ll ponder that later. There’s no room left for intelligible thoughts as his touch finds the soft apex of her most delicate nerves...

Upon first contact, an uncivilized growl. “Fuck, Annabeth...”

He’s panting uncontrollably. The front of his pants suffers tight discomfort. He can’t believe that he’s actually touching her down there, and her panties are soused with proof of her ecstasy. This is too much—Percy’s losing himself, already fast-approaching his meager limitations. Barely lucid to the world, he makes his best attempt to oblige her request, rubbing her as his hips squirm from neglected arousal.

Slowly, he stumbles into a careful rhythm of soft, even strokes, a delicate massage that wets his fingertips. Percy attempts to prioritize that tender node, dimly recalling its importance in pleasing a woman. Where did that information come from? Health class? TV? Overheard musings from shameless campers by the fire? He doesn’t even remember—but the unknown source seems reputable enough, for the broken moan that plays on her lips is saturated heavily in tremorous pleasure.

“Oh, Percy...”

... Gods, his name has never sounded so good in his ears.

And although he’s never been more eager to do anything in his life, Percy rubs her with more hesitance than dexterous vigor—because he certainly doesn’t know how to do this right, and he’s even less sure of his chance of survival. Voracious lust is so insufferable—his eager flesh has made him easy. One brief flicker of full permission and he would shove himself inside of her with embarrassing readiness. That’s all it would take. He’d leave seconds to spare. If she would only ask to be filled with him, then he could demonstrate what good this rigid lust could do for her...

“Annabeth,” he says quietly; eros simmers on his tongue, “... you look so good right now...”

... As always, his words are more inelegant than the pathos within them. Were he a more eloquent man (and less stupid with lust), he would have told her that she looks pretty like a sunset. He can find its hues all over her face—the golden curls over her forehead, the ample roses of her cheeks. Her kiss-bruised lips are the perfect fuchsia as orange daylight parades in her eyes. Sunsets often made him smile, they inspired feelings of hope for the future. Annabeth had the power to do the same, tenfold. The impossible achievement that is demigod adulthood had only touched his grasp because of this girl. The anchor to his own mortality, the lone memory over weeks of his forgotten past—it was her. And as she mewls from barely sated passion, hips shy against this touch of his, Percy remembers all over again how lucky he is.

He doesn’t often think of his own miseries beyond sheer annoyance to have suffered them at all. He doesn’t point his ire like a gun at the Fates and demand his childhood returned in soldered pieces. The hideous fruits of resentment and anger could not satiate the anguish of a wayward hero with their startling bitterness or edenic consequences. Enemies from the past made this perfectly clear. 

And he would choke if he ever had to see them in the mirror. He is stronger than that. He won't ever let it happen. His philosophy is as crude as it is practical: he must fight for the future with gritted teeth whilst honoring the past that had shaped him into this—whatever he is, now. A man, hopefully. Not a boy. An adult. Someone with the capacity to be as human as everyone else in the world, because he had never wanted to be his half-blood self, leashed forever to the gods, their Olympian whims, and the countless villains who wish him dead for the crime of existing.

But if anything is evidence for the dignity of his past or consolation for the fruit he cannot indulge, it is this girl that lays below him now. He can deem his loss of civilized life as a worthwhile sacrifice for a future with Annabeth.

Love sometimes seemed like the most mysterious thing in the world, something incompatible with the simplicity of his nature. But then he’d be so privileged as to kiss this girl, to solace her clit, to siphon out her moans, and thus find love to be very simple, to think—yes, the violent hell of the past six years really was worth this first chance to give her all the ecstasy deserves. It really, really was...

'Annabeth, you’re amazing. You always are. In every possible way...'

Remembering this, in his stupor of arousal, instills desperately-needed patience in tending to her lower body. It’s their first time entertaining such daring lust; he should celebrate this chance to give his girlfriend what she wants. So he wraps a tight collar round the throat of his arousal, taking more care to the tender heat between her legs...

The girl tilts her head back, raising her voice. “P... Percy...!”

With firmer circles, he rubs her faster. And he still doesn’t know what he’s doing—but he’s listening to her, he’s watching her face, studying her response to various touches. Circles seem to do it best, not quick undulations or parallel flicks. And this harder pressure looks to steal her breath, because her thighs start tightening around his sides and her needy fingers are digging into his back. Squeezing her eyes shut, she rasps out weakly, “A—A little more, oh, gods—”

Complying to her plea, his touch grows harsher, “Is this what you want?”

“Percy—”

“Tell me—” and he buries face in the crook of her neck, brows tightened as he kisses just below her ear, “—tell me this is what you want.”

She exhales an enchanting, defeated little whine, “Y... yes... yes... I want this—oh, Percy...!”

Tension like a standstill on a battlefield. Wound up pressure like a tight garter spring. Somehow, he can feel it—that she’s about to come, and he needs her to get there as badly as she needs it herself. So he rubs her, strokes her, he does it harder and harder, he’s unrelenting against her sensitive and desperate clit, he’s panting as if doing so will get him there, too—and he builds up her pleasure to the highest note until it bursts with all the fervor of a passioned crescendo—-

“Percy—”

“—Annabeth, fuck, fuck, I need you to come—!”

—and her thighs squeeze tight around his form and her hips stutter hard into his touch. Her moans, her moans—ardent like vows, sing passionately as her head falls back hard onto her pillow and deep pleasure subjugates her exhausted body.

“Percyyy, oh, godsss...”

... If the sight of her coming were a morsel of sustenance, he could live off its taste for the rest of his days.

The way her lips suffer his sweet affections, the rapturous look atop her brow, and the helpless tremors of her thighs—he savors this painting of raw emotion, thinking that pleasure looks divine on an angel’s face. In hushed, low breaths, he murmurs encouragement, still stroking her, saying soft nothings like, ‘That’s it... fuck, you’re driving me crazy... Annabeth...’

And as her fiery orgasm finally crests, he rubs her slower, gently, still. Its delicate flames lap over her, and her fraught expression of torrid bliss cools down to an air of serene satisfaction. She is a sweating, gorgeous, blushing mess, and how he loves that he was able to do this to her.

Eventually, his circles stop. Her hips tremble lightly and then tremble no more. And the orchestra of their coupled sounds—her lilting sighs, his staccato breaths—follow long after her decadent climax. A restful, quiet aftermath. For a short while, neither of them say anything at all, and the air is blanketed in their exhausted respirations. 

... Annabeth may be sated now, no longer bedridden with desperate passion, but the animal lust that’s corroded his senses is not so tamed as his calm suggests. That he’s gotten this far and still wants more yields tacit guilt towards his own greediness. Restraint had become a fast-dripping candle; the few pillars of his weak inhibitions have melted from the heat of sweltering desire, and now he finds himself surrendered to this puddle of sex. Feeling its hot touch pooled all over him, Percy dares his fingers towards her sodden lower lips.

Voice hoarse from pleasure, she softly rasps, “... Percy, what are you...”

Though he’ll miss the soft feel of this sensitive clit, his careful hand finds her drunken entrance to an immediate hitch of startled breath—her sopping heat, it’s mind-numbing. How her slicken smoothness coats his touch, how his fingers easily glide up and down, how she pulses through ebbing afflictions of orgasm...

“... gods, Annabeth...” he drones shakily, reeling from a fresh shudder of hot arousal. “... You’re...”

‘You’re so wet for me.’

He’d say it out loud if he could be so bold. But it already rings so dirty in his head—he can’t imagine how filthy it would sound on his lips. Yet he seems to have his reservations confused, because the course of action that he opts for instead shocks even himself with its starving audacity.

“Wh... Percy—!”

He arrests her gaze with his half-lidded eyes, which are equally dazed as they are lecherous, and then his fingers desert her ruined panties to eagerly rest on his parched tongue—

“—Percy!” she fumes, adorably mortified. But he licks her taste off anyway, feeling another mindless rush of libidinous heat as he coats his tongue in Annabeth’s lust. And he savors her enduringly, he doesn’t stop until there’s nothing left; her flavor supersedes any nectar of the gods.

In the same spirit of obeying his impulses, Percy seriously considers wrestling down her pants and gluttonizing even more, for he’s been entranced by the taste of her pleasure and he yearns to be involved in those sopping lips—but she suddenly palms his forgotten crotch, and he can’t hold back his throaty groan. Percy grabs the bedsheets with his opposite hand, cruelly reminded of his own need for sweet relief.

“A... Annabeth,” he croaks thinly. “Uh, don’t... don’t get too excited down there.”

“Why?”

‘Because I’d come if you breathed on me wrong.’ he considers saying. A cruel consequence of his sorely unattended lust; Percy can’t even remember the last time he came.

He still isn’t well-acquainted with the arcane beast that is sexual desire, but he knows his body well enough to grasp the dire circumstances. He’s throbbing with so much pent-up need that not three strokes would make a mess of his pants—but he’s disinclined to tell her all that. Knowing her, doing so would be like offering explosives to the Ares cabin.

“Because...” Percy pauses to think. “... Just give me a minute. Can we kiss, first?”

He half-expects her to take issue with him—he’s the one who’s gotten too excited, after all, going so far as to taste her right in front of her eyes. But instead, Annabeth’s wry lips give way to a decadent smile, and he’s washed over again in her pools of affection.

Chuckling lightly, “You don’t have to ask. I love kissing you.”

How his heart is sick from this cherished romance.

And so their lips find each other again; they always do, they always will. And they sigh with satisfaction as the joyous warmth of their sweet emotions conjure up kisses of pure, sweet love. Her hand draws away from the bulge in his pants and returns to the surface of his blush-stained cheek. The other traverses to his mess of black hair as his body dips closer in contact to her own.

By being immersed in this sumptuous kiss, the external world fades to dull insignificance—because the universe of her lips and her love could enthrall his own until the end of time. Percy knows what it’s like to lose this world; all those dreary nights as a California vagrant, seeking memories of her and finding only her name. His lips should never leave hers again, and her promises her this as he sighs into her mouth—silently, that the gods won’t separate them this time. Gods, he loves kissing her, too.

Feeling fairly brave and voracious still, his tongue pushes into her mouth, because he’s learned much already from the start of this mess and he’s eager to put these new skills to good use—but then her lips go straight to sucking his tongue (whilst a sneaky hand grabs onto his ass) and his eyes squeeze shut hard, he can’t help himself—a restless twitch into her thighs becomes an indulgent grind against her sex, and her low, sweet moan charms every tenet of his frantic lust, sounding far holier than any sacred church hymn.

“Hah...” he breathes hard, flushed from exhaustion and embarrassment towards himself. “... Uh, sorry. I didn’t—oh—”

From below, her hips push up against his and he can barely stifle the moan in his throat—Percy compulsively jerks into her warmth again. He has no control. She feels so good against his crotch and he’s so, so stiff with need for her. Wincing from the brief hint of scalding pleasure, he channels all willpower to his lower half with a strict command from his restless brain: ‘Calm down. Seriously. You’re embarrassing us.’

But he doesn’t calm down, not in the slightest. And how could he when Annabeth is right there, still wet for him, and few layers of fabric remain between this coveted chance to plunge himself inside of her and make her come a second time?

Eyes still closed, he pants against her neck. His body is too hot all over. Maybe they should just stop here, they should take things slow, but Percy thinks he’s ready for all kinds of new things right now, and if she’ll still oblige him, then he’s eager to keep going—

—CRSHHHHH.

But then a heavy mass slams through the window and they gasp in shock—Percy grabs her form and holds her close to shield her body from the burst of glass. It takes just seconds to readily bolt to attention, because they know this drill. He finds Riptide, and she finds her sword.

Percy glances at the steaming object that broke inside—a bronze cannonball, somewhat small in size but undoubtedly deadly. Suspicion aroused; this weapon is familiar—and then a low, gruff voice confirms his thoughts, rumbling like an earthquake as the monster shouts from Annabeth’s front yard:

“Perseus Jackson! I am Panaphylus of the Northern Laestrygonians, arbiter of blood and fury and death, the merciless monster of Montreal! I have traveled for days to eat your heart until nothing remains—and finally, I’ve tracked you down! Child of the sea god, you will make for a most delicious stew—perhaps with a dash of cardamom and paprika!”

“Oh, come on!” he exclaims, dire frustration in his voice. “Really? Right -now-?”

Annabeth looks mildly irritated, but mostly, it just seems like she’s just trying not to laugh. “You know how it goes, Percy. Nothing is sacred for Canadians.”

“You -have- to stop calling them that.”

The monster bellows once again, “Son of Poseidon, I know you are in there! Come down so that I may feast on your bones and floss with your flesh!”

Percy sighs, vexation severe. His rigid excitement already wanes, replaced by an angry surge of demigod battle instincts.

So Percy goes downstairs by himself, and he opens the front door. With Riptide in hand, he fells the Laestrygonian in one fatal slash and returns to her bedroom without so much as a scratch on his cheek. It was a task equally loathed and mundane as the procrastinated act of folding one’s laundry days after its removal from a drying machine.

He and Annabeth wouldn’t go any further that night, for the delicate mood of lust they’d made had fallen prey to Panaphylus’ affronts, and the image of his flesh being flossed in his teeth was entirely too odious for Percy’s libido to recover from.

And he would come to realize over time that the “theory” about monsters leaving demigods alone as they turn eighteen is only half-true for a son of Poseidon, whose scent is apparently still so strong that even a Canadian could track him down to the Bay Area. And as the years go by, he’d corroborate this truth with the likes of Hazel, Nico, Jason, who all remained vulnerable to monstrous bloodlust and were victimized regularly as they set foot in the mortal world.

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Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 05

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The sudden thump of a door closing shut wrested Percy from his sleep. That slumber had even captured him at all was startling news—he didn’t remember passing out in bed, because he certainly had not been trying to. As consciousness melted over him, he heard her voice in the midst of a swear.

“—did I wake you up?” Annabeth asked just by the door. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were sleeping.”

“Nah, it’s fine. Didn’t even mean to fall asleep. What time is it...” His voice was low and groggy as he sat up in the bed. A cursory glance towards the bedside clock revealed his needed, shocking answer. “Whoa—seven PM? I slept for that long?”

“When did you get home?”

She walked further into the bedroom and began to undress. This ritual was familiar; tearing off her blazer jacket, slipping off her sheer stockings, and everything else she had to do to divorce from her clinical, working-self. She took her internship quite seriously, always dressing for success, but she didn’t love the formalwear (and he thought it looked real nice on her, but he felt that way about practically everything).

“Around three?” Percy guessed. He looked over at the clock again, just to make sure he’d seen it right. “... Man, I was not as productive as I meant to be today.”

“Oh, yeah?” She asked him, still unbuttoning her confounded blouse. “What did you do today?”

“Uhh... woke up.”

“Good start.”

Percy held up a closed fist, beginning to count his achievements with his fingers. “Brushed teeth.”

“Proud of you.”

“... Forgot to eat breakfast.”

Still undressing, she smirked over her shoulder. “A little less proud, now.”

“I read a few pages from a book on my reading list, aaaaand....” he tentatively raised up another finger. “... then I taught a sword-fighting class for the Fifth Cohort. Oh, and I got lunch with Frank. And took a nap, I guess.”

“It was nice of you to help the Fifth,” Annabeth said. “How’s Frank?”

“Good,” Percy answered, remembering his promise not to share the details of their discussion. It was probably the kind of gossip she’d appreciate and enjoy, that Frank and Hazel were just starting to be more physical with each other, but he still kept it to himself; it wasn’t his secret to share. “Hey, do you wanna go to Spain this weekend?”

“What?” she asked, chuckling from incredulity. She turned around and faced him then, her eyebrow raised quite humorously. “Where is this coming from?”

“Frank invited us to go with him and Hazel to Spain for ten days. Wanna go?”

“Percy, that’s crazy.”

He shrugged. “We’ve done crazier things.”

“Nothing we’ve ever done would be as crazy as ditching everything and going to another continent right now.”

“What do you mean? We used to ditch our responsibilities to go on wild adventures all the time.”

“Yes, and we were kids back then, remember? Adults can’t just drop their obligations on a whim and go on vacation like that.” Annabeth scolded. She finished undressing herself right then, and she looked more comfortable now—wearing only a white tank top and a black skirt... Percy suddenly noticed that it was a different skirt from usual; not one of those stiff, knee-length business garments, but something more loose and casual at mid-thigh length.

She continued, “it’s really sweet of Frank to offer, but this is way too short notice. I can barely make time to hang with Piper anymore—I have to schedule hangouts way in advance. It’s just not practical, Percy.”

Annabeth was right, of course; this response was exactly what he’d expected. And nonetheless, it was a disappointing answer. Part of him wanted this vacation primarily for her, because it seemed like she needed it more than himself.

As much as she proudly claimed otherwise, Percy knew that she wasn’t getting enough sleep, and he knew that it was starting to have an effect on her. Her stubbornness would not allow her to admit just how stressful everything had been as of late—her so-demanding internship, the everlasting wedding prep, the pervasive threat of graduate studies—because she still succeeded anyway, she persevered through sleepless nights that bled into the early mornings, commuting to work at 4 AM on an empty stomach, on coffee-fueled coherency, on the rigid commitment to excellency that only Annabeth Chase could have. No matter what Percy did to help (sometimes he woke at 3 AM and made sure that she ate some food), there could be no sufficient substitute for proper rest and relaxation... but unfortunately, the ill-timing of Frank’s proposition seemed impossible to get around. Hell, as much as Percy longed for vacation himself, he still didn’t know how he could get out of work for ten whole days on such short notice.

Maybe they could have gotten away with such a thing back when they were unemployed undergrads, but everything was so serious these days. The stakes of every task were so much higher, the payoffs of every accomplishment proportionately greater. They both had managers to answer to, incredibly lengthy To-Do lists, plus the occasional demigod distraction giving chase throughout the streets. He should be more responsible than to have ever seriously considered Frank’s vacation.

And he probably would have dropped the subject right there, were it not for that short black skirt she was wearing.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he admitted. “Hey, what’s with the skirt?”

As though he’d just brought up a sore topic, she groaned exasperatedly. “I spilled coffee all over the one I was wearing earlier. Had to run to an Abercrombie near the office, and this was the best they had.”

“You look hot,” Percy said without an ounce of shame. “You should wear it more often.”

She was flabbergasted—and she looked down at herself in disbelief. “Wh... this? It’s just a black skirt, Percy.”

“So? You look really good.”

“No, you just have a dirty mind.”

“Two things can be true at the same time.”

Annabeth rolled her eyes, but he still caught a subtle smile on her lips, the curl of which was quite alluring. Coupled with that skirt of hers, and his impulses were already taking control.

Percy swung his legs over the edge of bed so that he sat where Annabeth stood. Reaching slightly upwards, his hands came upon her slender waist as a devious grin melted over his lips. “So, you sure you don’t wanna go to Spain?”

Grinning wryly, her adoring fingers surfed throughout his pitch black hair. “I’m sure, Percy.”

“Think about it for a second, though.” Sitting still, he leered upwards. There was ample fondness in his eyes, as well as a certain mischievous glimmer. “Close your eyes, come on. I’ll help you picture it.”

“Percy, we really can’t go—”

“Humor me.”

She stared down at him with great skepticism—but not for long; as always, those smirking lips betrayed her façade of maturity. Even at their most puerile, Annabeth could rarely resist his pointless games. He preferred the blame on a slight suspicion that she might have a thing for him. Maybe just a little bit.

This romance had endured almost ten years so far, and he was more certain of their everlasting love than he was certain of anything else in this life; however, something he had come to understand over the years (and especially in these dreary graduate days), was that a calm, stable love life had to be fueled like an engine, nourished like the body, and tended to like a garden. It was different from the fiery love of their tumultuous youth, who was its own distinct and tireless beast—a beast with fangs and bleeding claws that slashed through villains seeking its destruction. It had been violent by force; summer after summer and year after year, there had always been something standing in the way of their peaceful romance: the gods, the monsters, the prophecies, and all else, as if the universe couldn’t stand to see himself and Annabeth together.

And so the stubborn violence of their mutual love was supercharged by sheer defiance to their enemies. It was a powerful feeling. It was the most perfectly juvenile ‘you-and-me-against-the-world’ sort of sentiment, one that curdled in their veins like staggers of adrenaline and kept them alive through numerous devastations. When you were constantly risking everything for the person you love—constantly in the thick of some earth-shaking conflict—it was quite impossible to go without knowing, ‘I am loved by you. I’m loved by you so much.’

... But that was no way to live. And how could you depend on love that’s only breathed in the harshest of climates? Percy found the real test in the fair-weather days, in truly cherishing the monotony of conventional adulthood with one person, the same person, for the rest of his life. He knew that he wanted to be with Annabeth forever, and his heart had known it long before his oblivious brain ever had, but “forever” was something abstract and immaterial; it had to be actualized brick-by-brick, day-by-day, over the course of a hopefully long lifetime.

So now, as temperate adults with fairly normal lives (barring the occasional monster attack or godly interruption), they had to nurture their love with manual affections. Like any other normal couple. And it really hadn’t been such a difficult transition; consistent displays of casual tenderness came naturally to them. Percy brewed her morning coffee in the exact way that she liked, or he washed her favorite thermos without being asked. She helped him with school when all sense was dethroned by ADHD, she kissed him in the morning before dashing off to work. He always touched her like something sacred. She made him feel so needed and important. If “forever” could only be like this, forever, then he was all the more eager to be her husband for the rest of his days.

And as her skepticism thawed fully, like a layer of snow, and thus revealed her plentiful affections, Annabeth began to lean downwards. Her lips found shelter in the presence of his own, and then a sigh of love passed through his body. It was a soft, brief kiss. It was warm, momentous, and kind. She pulled away from him then (as his lips quietly wished for more), and the dryness of her smirk became disastrously attractive.

“Okay,” she relented, closing her eyes just as asked. “I’ll humor you.”

A puddle of blush melted over his cheeks. How funny that she could still give them color with just a little kiss, with just a little smile. He was her fiancee, after all—not a fifteen year old boy brushing fingers with his crush. But it still felt like that sometimes. He thinks that’s a good thing.

“Alright,” he began, regaining his composure. “Picture us—just you and me, alone—on the Majorca Island beaches.”

“I thought Frank and Hazel were coming.”

“Well... yeah.”

“And there’ll be other people on the beach, too.”

“Sshhhh,” Percy urged. “I’m painting a picture here. Turn off the ‘logic’ switch for a sec, Wise Girl.”

Annabeth grinned, her eyes still closed. “Sorry, don’t have a ‘logic’ off—switch.”

“Not true. And I know where yours is.”

“Oh, do you?”

Smiling still, Percy stood up before her. She was a fairly tall girl, with her long, gorgeous legs, and he only stood above her by just a few inches. But it didn’t matter much, and in fact he found it ideal that their lips were never too far away from each other. How other couples with a major height difference—like Frank and Hazel, he suddenly remembered—managed to kiss each other at all was a mystery to him. Wasn’t that its own kind of long-distance relationship? Idly, and genuinely, he wondered if that had something to do with the years and years it had taken those two to start kissing each other deeply. Because it sounded like a huge pain in the neck.

And it was a criminally stupid line of thought, of course, but with those two on his mind now, he couldn’t help but analyze the differences between their relationship and his own—because he really did want to help out, after all. Maybe there was something in his own closeness with Annabeth that he could apply towards theirs, because Frank had asked specifically, “How do I make sure everything’s good for her?” And Percy didn’t know, either. He only knew how to make things “good” for Annabeth.

He may not be an all-knowing casanova where matters of sex and romance are concerned, but with years and years of experience under his belt, now twenty-six and engaged to the love of his life, he felt sufficiently skilled in kissing her, in touching her, in knowing the words that made her blush and catering to her distinct desires. It hadn’t always been like that; there was a learning curve to sexual intimacy and a special romance in discovering how exactly to please one’s partner. He could offer guidance, sure, but Percy couldn’t teach those things to Frank; with Hazel, he’d have to find out on his own. And good for him, too—that part was supposed to be fun.

Because Annabeth’s “logic” off-switch was no mystery to Percy, nor was it one single “switch” at all. It was a particular way of feeling her hip and grasping her thighs, of kissing her ear, her cheek, her neck, that rendered her perfectly incoherent. Staring down at her still, as her eyes were still closed, his hands were possessed of lewd mischief. With a fiancee who looked so good in a simple black skirt, how could he possibly defy these prevalent urges?

Percy laid his hands upon her waist, and his lips took presence on the curve of her jaw. He decorated her in sparse, brief kisses, until arriving at her temple, just beside her ear.

“Yeah,” he answered lowly, and he squeezed her waist slightly for good measure. “Need a reminder?

He could already feel her breathing a bit heavier, and he saw her face grow flustered in hue. Annabeth responded with a second question, and he didn’t miss the shudder that befell her whispered speech, “... are you still ‘painting a picture’ for me, or are you up to something else, now?

“Who, me? I’m not up to anything.”

“I can hear you smirking, Seaweed Brain.”

Percy chuckled quietly as he kissed her on her cheek. “Are you gonna let me convince you to come or not?”

“I’m not—” her breath hitched suddenly, for his hands had slipped beneath her shirt and begun to stroke her waist, bare-skinned. “—not... gonna change my mind... but, go on.”

She was adorable like this, with her eyes still closed, brows furrowed in concentration—as though extra effort were needed to resist his provocation and keep that logical side of her from forfeiting to his touch.

Regardless of his intentions, to touch her at all was its own precious act, and seeing her flustered from the way he made her feel would always fill him up with delighted satisfaction. It was something about him that would never, ever change, no matter how long they’d be together.

As his hands continued to massage her waist, her hips, Percy went on with his imaginings. “So, picture us on the beach again, and we’re by ourselves. The sun’s coming down on us in the clear, blue sky.”

“Yeah, it’s sunny, alright. We’d have to sunscreen ourselves to Tartarus and back.”

“Hey, I’ll help you with that.”

“Oh, I’m sure you would,” she emphasized, “if we were going.”

“And if we were,” he emphasized back, “we’d go diving in the Balearic sea. Out on those islands, it’s one of the prettiest green seas you’ll ever see. Just picture it.”

“I know what it looks like out there.”

“You know it?”

“I’ve read about it, I’ve seen pictures.” she explained. “The water is the same color as your eyes, but only half as nice to look at. So why go there at all?”

He paused in his ministrations, feeling new warmth reborn in his cheeks. Why was she flirting with him, when he was the one trying to make a move on her? “Smooth one, Wise Girl.”

“Mhm.”

Determined to persist, Percy gripped her sides just a little tighter. He began to lead her backwards—slowly, carefully, as her eyes remained closed, until her back came upon the nearest bedroom wall. He was gentle with her, pressing her there very softly to ensure that her head didn’t bump against its surface.

“Why go there at all...” he echoed thoughtfully. “For one, because it’s free. Frank offered to pay for everything.”

Over still-shut eyes, her brows raised up. “Everything?”

“Yup.”

“... Why?”

“Wedding gift, he said.”

“That’s nice, but why?” she insisted. “Why would he spring this on us two days before the day of?”

“Uh...” Percy trailed off. He didn’t want to be untruthful, but he also didn’t want to embarrass Frank by spilling his private business. Especially when explicitly asked to not do just that. “I guess it was a surprise.”

“That doesn’t sound like Frank... He’s a planner, like me—he knows how busy we are. Is something else going on?”

‘Man,’ Percy thought, ‘Should’ve known better than to try and keep things from her.’ After all, she was the most perceptive person he had ever known in his life.

“Okay, look,” he began. Surely he could find a way to phrase an explanation without lying to Annabeth or humiliating his friend. “... Frank and Hazel are just... uh, having some relationship trouble, and Frank kinda-sorta asked me to come with them on their trip and help out in case anything comes up.”

She raised her brows again, speaking incredulously, though she kept her eyes shut. “‘Relationship trouble’? Frank and Hazel?”

“Uh, it’s nothing major.”

“Well, it must be ‘major’ if he wants you to crash his romantic getaway just to help.” Annabeth urged. “I never would’ve guessed that those two, of all people, were having problems. What’s going on? Is it Leo again?”

“Sorry, it’s a guy thing. I’m sworn to secrecy.”

“But I can help, too, you know.”

“You mean you could,” he emphasized, “if we were going on the trip.”

Annabeth smirked. Her hand came to stroke his impish cheek. “Ah, right. How could I forget?

“Good question. We got distracted, I think.” His voice was hushed as he began to touch his lips against her neck. Warm, brief sparks of teasing contact, too light to be a proper kiss, too hot to be so innocent. “I want you to focus on us right now...”

In withdrawing inches from her neck, Percy noticed that Annabeth had re-opened her eyes, and within them was more than cunning silver. There was something fervent, longing, charmed, and desirous in a way that made him blush. He was easily captivated by her searing gaze. Gods, he could be so weak for her—he wished to feel those flustered lips and swallow her sighs as he touched more, he wanted to fill her up with pleasure and watch her brows contort in bliss. To know a girl like Annabeth Chase, who could so easily incense his lust, was a privilege that his body still strove to deserve. Because her eyes were more than cunning silver; she needed him badly, like he needed her, and it was blatant in the heat of her half-lidded stare.

She now seemed to be in a playful mood herself as she transferred her hand to the warm flesh beneath his shirt. She massaged that hand against his abs, soon daring towards his hard pectoral. In a tempting, sultry, steady voice, she uttered one torrid command.

“Then make me, Percy.”

He pressed her further against the wall. Sex dripped down every word he spoke.

“... Close your eyes, Wise Girl.”

She eyed him for a silent moment, possibly challenging him to make her do that, too—but she maintained her stare for not too long. So her eyes came shut, and she relaxed against the wall in a tacit admission of her willingness to play along. As her hand withdrew from his chest and passively rested on his hip instead, Percy leaned down towards her neck again.

“... I’m gonna tell you what I’d do to you,” he whispered to her. “If we were going to Spain this weekend.”

As her breath shuddered lowly, Percy smoothed his hands down from her hips to her bare thighs, resurfacing beneath the fabric of her skirt. Her skin felt so good in his touch—he squeezed her more and bit his lip, sighing hotly through his nose. Should he inch towards the curve of her ass and push her hips up into his own? Should he tempt his hand to the front of her panties and caress her through its thin fabric? Annabeth made him so gluttonous at times, and he sometimes worried that there wasn’t enough of him to provide her all the pleasure she deserved. All the things he wanted to do to her, for her, over and over—just thinking about it coaxed a reaction from the front of his pants. There's no point in weathering these thoughts by himself; she should know, too, the desperate indecency of his libidinous mind.

Percy bent down slowly, still gripping her thighs, until his mouth was just above the waistband of her skirt. He pressed his lips upon her skin, a hot and teasing little kiss, and he could feel her tense up instantly, perhaps in anticipation of where his might mouth might travel.

And then the pressing of his lips became an opening of his mouth, for he took the bottom of her tight tank top in between his teeth and slowly dragged it back upwards...

As he traveled north, he was breathing heavier and growing more delirious. Already, his salacious desire had spiraled into heat filling up his body, into vivid visions of avid lust that kept fueling his stiff arousal—because her words were so hot and so crystal clear. "Make me,"—she'd said. He was going to. But the true challenge of it all was the daunting threat of his unobliging thirst. Percy could only manage to get so involved before forgetting himself and doing too much. It was always like this. And he tried, anyway.

His teeth brought her top above her chest, revealing a bra that covered most of her cleavage. It was a simple, practical, undecorated thing—a blue garment that held her breasts securely in place. She owned a lot of plain blue intimates, and she seemed to wear them somewhat regularly. Would it be egotistical to think he was the reason for that?

When he let her tight shirt fall free from his mouth, such that it bunched up stiffly above her chest, Percy stalled to admire the shape of her body. Not just her breasts—her gorgeous waist, the battle-scarred skin of her slender abdomen. The whole sight of her was something like a glimpse of goddess in her truest form, something that could burn up all shreds of coherency and leave him foolish, dumbstruck, entranced. And like a true goddess, there could never be sufficient appreciation for her. He would always need to give her more and more, always revere her body with plenty of pleasurable adulations.

“Annabeth,” he suddenly spoke. She twitched in surprise, panting hard, though he had barely even touched her yet at all.

Before answering, he heard her swallow. “... Yes?”

“... You know that one swimsuit you have? The dark red one?”

“Yeah...”

“I haven’t seen you wear it in a while. It drives me nuts.” he said. “If you wore that on the beach, I wouldn’t last long.”

“Last long until... what, Percy?”

“Until I’d have to bring you back to our room,” he wove his hand throughout her hair and effortlessly freed it from her ponytail. “... and take it off.”

As her honey blonde curls fell finely on her shoulders, Percy continued stroking her thigh—occasionally breaching too close to the spot that would make her fall apart completely.

“Think about it, Annabeth. A nice hotel room with a view of the island,”—and like a practiced expert, he undid her bra using just one hand, stroking her lean, toned arm as he slid it off her shoulders—“and we can just relax. I can spend hours in bed just focusing on you, doing all the things you like.”

Percy let her bra fall onto the floor. He gave a tender kiss upon her breastbone, and although this was an attempt to beguile and seduce her, he wondered if he might be doing too much. The more he spoke, the more he envisioned, the more he thought of going away together and drowning in between Annabeth’s thighs, the more he feared becoming too hopeful and selfish. His pants could only bear so much tight discomfort.

“If we’re on vacation...” she paused, grunting softly—his hand had slipped back and squeezed her ass with all the roughness of a man who sorely wanted his lover. “... we’re... we’re supposed to go outside and explore. We can’t be inside all day.”

“Yeah, I know.” Was she still being coy? Still clinging to her logic? He’d have thought that it had already switched off, by now. Percy lowered his mouth to her pert, exposed breast, and before tempting her, he offered a retort. “No big deal. We’ll go out during the day. I’ll keep you up at night.”

“Percy...”

“You wouldn’t have to do a thing. I’ll make you feel so good, Annabeth.” And there was no uncertainty in his tone. He meant this like a promise, like a proven prophecy. “I’ll go down on you until you can’t take it anymore.”

As his mouth finally, finally came upon her nipple, Percy gave her one hot slip of his fervorous tongue, and the sound that she made was pure ecstasy.

“P... Percy—”

“Or you can sit on my tongue. You can grip the headboard and face-fuck me for hours. You can use me, Annabeth.” Percy kept licking her, kept stroking her with his tongue. Every word he spoke was more eager than the last—he had made himself breathless, he was possessed by his own unrulable desire, and he was losing to his neediness for her body. “Anything. I’ll let you do anything. As long as you feel good, I—ugh—”

A choked gasp suddenly caught in his throat—she wrapped one leg around his hip and pulled him tight into her body—and he couldn’t hold back—he ground his tensely burdened sex against the lust between her thighs, and it didn’t stop there, she just kept going, she humped herself against him more and every time, he gave it back. His brows tightened, his eyes shut hard, and hoarse groans tumbled from his lip as softer moans came from her own. Gods, he couldn’t think anymore—it had happened so fast, something this simple still felt so good, still hastened his defeat to these frantic, irrevocable, animal impulses.

“Fuck—aah, fuck, Annabeth—”

“Percy—”

They were grinding faster, harder, more, until both of his hands came back to her thighs and lifted her up off of the ground. The angle was perfect, he fit between her legs just so, such that he could push into her more through the fabric of their clothes. It was the most perfect, torturous tease—if only he could pull down his pants right now and give her everything he had. How had they gone this far? This wasn’t his intention. He had only wanted to tempt her with pleasure, and now instead, he had tempted himself past his own limitations.

But Percy had to calm down. This was how it always went. He’d give in to these impossible urges with the hope that this time, his flesh wouldn’t falter, but somehow, always, something awful and incomprehensible would happen, some mysterious disconnect would occur, and he’d fail himself again—he would completely lose his ability to continue, like the most anti-climatic end to a hard-fought battle. He didn’t understand it. It didn’t make any sense, not when he had this girl who was sex personified, whom he was so, so badly attracted to, who hadn’t done anything wrong at all, who blamed herself when the guilt was all his own. What good was he, as a man and as her fiancee, when he couldn’t achieve this simple, human thing?

It was a miserable, vulnerable kind of despair. Gods, how he hated his own body.

In the blistering throes of steepening ecstasy, Percy spat out an expletive with an air of finality and forced himself to grab her hips like a panicked driver halting his brakes. He dug his nails into her skin and held her utterly still in place. Everything stopped. They were closely intertwined, his chest up against hers, and they panted hard. His face burrowed in the space between her neck and shoulder. For some moments, neither of them spoke a single word. But Percy had a feeling that she already knew exactly why he’d stopped.

Eventually, his foremost desire found its way to spilling from his lips.

“Gods, I...”

His breath shuddered, his hands moved to grip her ass, and he spoke that desire without thinking.

“... I need to fuck you, Annabeth.”

... It was a little too honest for his own liking. Percy meant it, of course—but it was stupid to say. Because the only reason why he wasn’t shoving himself inside of her and relishing the heat of her satisfying sex right now was his own torturous ineptitude.

Her eyes opened halfway. She was breathing hard, too. In her gaze was lust and ample sympathy.

“... How badly, Percy?”

He panted several heated breaths, still gripping her body with painful desperation. “So fucking badly.”

Annabeth began to stroke his back. That she was so patient and considerate without fail, and after all this time, only made him feel worse.

“I wonder if...” she started thoughtfully, “... getting away from it all would help you. All the stressful things going on right now. Leaving them behind on vacation might be exactly what you need.”

His brows raised just a little. This was the first time that she had even slightly expressed willingness to come on the trip. But he didn’t like this reason; it made him feel guilty. “... Annabeth, you do not have to come just because you wanna get me off.”

“Percy, it’s not like that. I want...” As she seemed to deeply consider her next words, her thumb came to caress his flustered cheek. “... you’re always making me feel good. Is it so wrong that I want to return the favor?”

But Percy insisted, “You make me feel good already, Annabeth. Gods, you’re so hot when you come—it’s my favorite thing ever, I love seeing you like that.”

“You think I don’t know that? It shows, Percy. I promise.” Her tone was warm, lighthearted, genuine. She planted a kiss atop his cheek, brows furrowed in that particular way when she was utterly determined to achieve something important. “But we’ll figure this out, okay? Trust me—we’ll experiment, we’ll try new things. And I love you no matter what, so stop worrying about me all the time. You deserve to feel good, too.”

She said it frankly, as though it were fact, and the beautiful sincerity of her expression, the boundless devotion clear as day in her eyes—he was immediately wrapped in her love again, mesmerized by the person that was Annabeth Chase. A once-in-a-generation kind of hero. A genius in every sense of the word. A girl who deeply cared for him despite his countless inadequacies.

Even now, at twenty-six, he had quite a prestigious reputation for himself, and he wasn’t totally oblivious to the reactions that he got from others. But most of the time, it just made him uncomfortable, being praised and revered by hundreds of Greeks and Romans for exploits from nearly a decade ago. That wasn’t him anymore—and even back then, he had never thought of himself as some venerable, legendary figure like the hero he’d been named after, because he didn’t like to be regarded as some mythical great who deserved more respect than anyone else. Hell, every demigod deserved colossal praise by default; surviving past age thirteen was a herculean feat in Percy’s eyes, especially with gods for parents who could still be so neglectful.

And anyway, he’d only ever been a person who did what he had needed to do—not really for the gods, and certainly not for personal glory, but for the welfare of the people that he cared about most.

Annabeth knew that. He wasn’t mythical to her. She knew his flaws, she knew his full story, she knew all of the ugliest chapters and arduous miseries—and for some reason, she was marrying him, anyway.

‘She knows me. She knows my weak spots.’ Percy thought in admiration. ‘... I’m in love with her.’

“Trust me.” she’d said. It was impossible not to listen when those words left her mouth—because if anything was solid and knowable about this love they had, it was their loyalty built on years and years of unfailing trust in each other.

He had never wanted to be his half-blood self—but thank the gods that he was. Otherwise, he’d have never met the pretty blonde girl waiting at the Big House, who would then go on to be his savior, lover, and soon, his wife.

“I love you, too.” he uttered softly, and he kissed her on the lips. It was slow, close-mouthed, but true and satisfying. He held himself there for several lasting seconds, and when he finally withdrew, he laid his forehead against her own, angled so that their noses touched sweetly. “... but you have the lamest boyfriend in the world.”

“Percy. You have never—I’m not exaggerating—been more wrong about anything in your life.” She smacked his shoulder playfully. “I have the sexiest, bravest, most amazing fiancee in the history of all time. That’s a fact. And don’t you forget it.”

He could feel her affection melting over him sweetly, like ambrosia filling the body with warmth and flavors of the most joyous pleasures in one’s life. And though he still felt bad for failing her again, her pure reassurance was a rather potent remedy.

That he could always depend on her tenderness and care was enough to safeguard his heart from ruinous insecurities, especially in these delicate, awkward matters of sex. A demigod really needed these constants in his life. Any person did. How magical and restorative, what love could so easily do for one man’s bruised and anxious emotions. ... Still, he needed clarification on something.

“... Wait, so you do wanna go to Spain now?” Percy asked.

Annabeth shrugged. “We’ve done crazier things.”

“Hey, that’s what I said.”

“Look, I’ll... figure something out. I don’t know what yet. But I will.”

He could see it in her eyes and her concentrated brows that the gears in her head were already spinning, already conjuring up a plan to make the vacation work. “You’ve always been good at thinking up plans on the spot.”

“That’s the thing about being a demigod. All that experience thinking how to get out of life-or-death situations—it’s just practice for being an adult and thinking up a way to call out of work.”

As their foreheads still touched, they chuckled airily together. This was what he’d always wanted—sweet adulthood with her, this precious girl, where they could laugh off the anguish from their storied pasts, where their grief could be something dormant and peripheral, not a spectre permanently floating in the foreground. He wanted a life with Annabeth where they could worry over mundane, non-world-ending conflicts, like how they could get away with a spontaneous vacation to another continent. They could make it work. It was just as she’d said, they’d figure it out together. They always did.

But he wasn’t done with her just yet.

“Alright—it’s a date,” he concluded, an excited smile on his face. “I’ll let Frank know in a couple of hours.”

“‘Couple of hours’? Why not now?” she asked. “You should talk to him right away—the sooner he can start planning for us to come, the better. Does he even have a room booked for us? How are we getting there? And we’ll need an itinerary for a group of four—”

“—Hey, hey, we’ll get to that, alright?”

“Percy, come on, now. This is...”

He leaned downwards, and he kissed her chest...

“... this is...”

... and he kissed a trail lower, with roaming fingers that grabbed at her panties, to leisurely pull them all the way down...

“... time-sensitive...”

... soon, he was kneeling before her precious place, kissing her navel, her pelvis, and those soft lower lips, whose blatant wetness he massaged with his tongue.

Sex may be a wanted thing. Every time he got close, he was almost afraid of the intensity of his lust. But within him was an invincible affection for every part of this girl. He was always glad to lick her quite insane. 

“In a couple hours,” he affirmed once more, locking eyes with her as she bit her lip—and then he added on, in a muffled voice, “I’m busy right now.”

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Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 06

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Frank clung to his silence like the edge of a cliff, like it was all that might save him from a premature end.

Over the course of an unforgivably mundane day (he’d have welcomed and appreciated any sort of distraction), the answer to his problem remained quite elusive: he still hadn’t found a sensible explanation for his behavior last night, and he didn’t know how to face Hazel in the aftermath of it all. And it was incredibly unnerving to be so hampered by something that could only be blamed on his pathetic ineptitude in matters of the heart… and in particular, matters of—well—sex.

Being a praetor required multifarious skills, skills which he had sharpened until they were lethal like the tip of a spear. He could hold his voice over the legionnaires with faith in the importance of each word he spoke. He could draft battle plans with shocking alacrity and command an army with a flick of his wrist. And he could employ his judgment with more than cold Roman asperities, because he did not blindly follow Roman edicts; the bravest people he’d ever known—his mother, his dear friends from the Argo adventures—used their hearts in tandem with logic, and so he emulated them, he managed himself in conversation with logos and pathos, knowing that both had their uses, and both made him a better man.

So was the nature of his diverse skill set. After nearly ten years in this distinguished position, Frank had become the sort of leader that would make his mother proud. This was not a matter so flimsy as a guess or mere hope; he knew it to be true, that he had come a long way since age fifteen, since the scared, sheltered boy under his grandmother's roof—suddenly thrust into the realm of gods and monsters whilst haunted by the deaths of his entire family.

But believing these good things about himself only made him more ashamed of his glaring insufficiencies in other crucial areas, and all the more unhappy to feel like that clueless fifteen year old boy again. Wasn’t he a man now? Can he govern neither his body nor his emotions? How embarrassing it was—to be Praetor Zhang, a hero of the Prophecy of the Seven, and at the same time, a complete failure in bed.

Frank loathed to feel incompetent. Not many knew this of him. It was a given that failure should be unpleasant for anyone, and furthermore known that all fail sometimes—but for him, there was something distinctly painful in the lashings of failure and their injuries to his self. He should be good at taking care of Hazel by now. He should know her better than just about anyone, he should be able to decode her prismatic emotions and endow himself with each one of her colors. He shouldn’t be so stunned by the feel of her tongue or the heat of her body pressed against his own, to the extent that he reacts with such bumbling stupidity.

If Hazel actually... wanted to take things to the next level, if that were actually true—he didn’t know this yet for certain—then he should have reciprocated properly and endeavored to make everything comfortable for her. Frank only wanted to be capable of tending to her desires. He didn’t require perfection. But he wanted to be good.

And as he arrived home after a long day of work, still lacking for an answer of credible merit, he continued to worry for the time that he’d see her. What should he say to Hazel? And what of that illicitly intoxicating dream? How could he talk to her sensibly with those images in his mind? He couldn’t let her catch wind of those delirious delusions; as far as Frank was concerned, it hadn’t happened at all.

He took off his shoes, moving further into the house. It was a nice one, to be sure—the privilege of a praetor, renovated by Annabeth herself to suit two instead of one. Although they had separate bedrooms, and despite his current anxiety, Frank did truly love living with Hazel. The joy of having his best friend just off in the next room afforded his heart such abundant comfort. There was the plentiful kitchen where they talked and hardly ever cooked, the office where they discussed important matters of New Rome, and the restroom where they sometimes brushed teeth beside each other. But most familiar, as of late, was the living room area, where the large TV was affixed to the wall, and a wide, comfortable couch was laid just before it...

Frank remembered every movie night they’d had thus far on their quest to watch films from her birth year to his own. In a way, it was like time traveling together—and doing so actually made him feel like he was understanding her a little more. The films sparked her nostalgia in the most endearing way, how she’d excitedly point to the TV when an obsolete piece of technology came on screen—“Look, Frank! That’s called a ‘typewriter’. Back in my day, we had to take typing classes to use them. I was pretty good at it.”

As if he didn’t know what a typewriter was. Frank was usually the one teaching her about modern technology, though, so he let her explain the machinery in full. She deserved the satisfaction. And she was so devastatingly cute when she got that excited that Frank would gladly let her explain anything to him. Anything at all. As always, her voice was a most welcome presence in his ears.

... But then, there was last night. And on that very couch, their innocent movie night had become something else entirely.

Frank gulped, pausing in his tracks. He could see it all clearly as he stared at the couch, he could see that fiery, dizzying kiss. He could see Hazel as she shockingly sat upon his lap. He could hear her sighs as he grabbed her hips tightly and kissed her even harder, he could feel his instant pleasure when she ground her hips into his own—

“Frank?”

His shoulders jumped. It was Hazel’s voice. He didn’t know that she’d be home.

He looked around and didn’t see her. Was she in another room?

“Y—yeah, I’m home.” he called back, trying to quell his nervousness. “Uh. Are you in your room?”

“No, hold on...”

There were some indistinct sounds, and then the bathroom door opened...

“... Oh.” Frank mumbled. For the sight now before him, he lacked anything wiser to say.

Hot steam poured into the hallway as Hazel emerged from her recent shower. Her hair was fairly dry, dripping just barely onto her smooth, bare shoulders... which were perfectly visible in the towel that she wore, a thick, maroon fabric draped tightly around her body to reveal much of her legs...

... And he remained completely stupid. Frank had seen her in a towel before—not often, but in living together for so many years, the particular sight was impossible to avoid at times. And on those rare instances, he’d made an effort not to stare for fear of making her uncomfortable, often going out of his way to cover his eyes or turn away from her.

... But for whatever reason—his dumbfoundedness, his memory of last night, or his most prurient dream—he didn’t look away from his beautiful girlfriend right then. There was a full recognition in his frantic state of mind that Hazel, the angel that she was, was just as much cute as she was effortlessly sexy.

And it was only now that Frank realized how perfectly representative this behavior was of his closeness with her. Of course he wanted to look. Because he wasn’t immune to the allure of her body, the tempting curves of her waist, nor the shapeliness of those thighs—but he just as much wanted to be respectful of her limits—which he suddenly recognized that he knew little of for certain. With her modest presentation and the sensibilities of her past, Frank had always made assumptions about Hazel’s boundaries. But did she want him to avoid looking at her while she was barely dressed? Did she want him to keep his lust far away from her, to the extent that he should run the very second that his body has a physical reaction to her own?

If either of those things were true, wouldn’t she tell him clearly? ... And if he wasn’t sure... couldn’t he just ask? Shouldn’t he just ask?

“Frank... I’m not trying to make fun of you, honest. But what has it been, -nine- years? Why don’t you guys sleep in the same room?” Percy had asked earlier, such astonishment in his voice. And Frank didn’t have an answer. That was the real problem. He had never asked his partner, so he simply did not know.

Of course, his nervousness remained. How stupid would it sound to ask, “Hazel, is it okay to look at you while you’re barely dressed?” He should die instantly for even thinking of the question. But after so many years of being with this girl and so many years of wanting her quietly, Frank decided on something clear and actionable in that very moment: if he was too cowardly to talk about sex with his own girlfriend, then he didn’t trust her enough to be kind to his desires. And that was possibly his gravest foolishness. He had given Hazel the very object of his life in the past. That pathetic piece of wood, his single greatest fear, it was predestined to burn in his very own hands—so he had placed it in her palms, because even after knowing her for just a few weeks, Frank had trusted Hazel more than anyone else in the world. So why shouldn’t he trust her enough now?

“... Frank?” Hazel asked, seeming confused. “Are you okay?”

“... Um. Yeah.” he managed. And he swallowed his anxiety like a large, dry pill. Right now, he needed brave Praetor Zhang, not the nervous probatio from nine years ago. “Listen, can we... talk about something?”

Her eyes widened just a little, but her voice remained calm. “Oh... sure. What do you want to talk about?”

“I’ll, um... I’ll just wait for you to get dressed.”

“Oh. I have to do my hair, too. It could take a while...” she trailed off thoughtfully. “... You can come in my room while I do it. Just give a minute.”

His heart drummed like it might burst, but he, too, remained calm. “Okay. Yeah.”

On that awkward note, Hazel disappeared into her bedroom. He watched her hips sway as she walked further down the hall, and he thought of her body, never-before-seen nude, just beneath the one layer of her towel...

There was a sudden pulse of heat that swelled throughout his body, a twinge of hope and excitement for the chance of getting closer to her. Of this conversation, Frank didn’t know what to expect. He still didn’t even know what exactly he was going to say.

But just as occurred in his dream, the girl he loved and desired so much had invited him into her bedroom. And unfortunately, the salacious delirium of that titillating dream was ever present in his mind as he knocked onto her door some long minutes later.

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Like anyone else, Hazel’s room was quite particular to her comforts.

Generally, it was dark. She preferred sparse, ambient lights over the large, blinding kind. Her arrangements were fairly neat; books gathered in one corner, art supplies in another. Both drawings and photos of the people she loved were hung over the walls, and there were random precious minerals laying on the floor. On the few occasions where Frank did enter her room, the jewels were often levitating. Hazel seemed to barely notice. As she was ADHD (unlike himself), Frank assumed that it was an act of distraction, or perhaps stimulation—like Leo and his constant need to fiddle with some device in his hands. But he never brought it up.

And he certainly wouldn’t now as he stepped into her room. Hazel sat at her nightstand, wearing her nice pajama set. Her hands were busied with hair—doing “twists”, he remembered. Taking twin strands of her hair, coating them in moisturizer, and twirling them together so that they formed something like a tight double helix. Doing so helped her hair retain the shape of its curls, she’d explained in the past. There were many such rituals for her particular hair type that seemed exhausting to him—so he helped, sometimes. Yet for now, Hazel invited him to sit close on her bed. And nervous as he was, Frank complied without a word.

Seconds passed in silence. Hazel was busy at her mirror. Frank twiddled his thumbs. Probably, he should be the one to start the conversation. But where to even begin?

“Frank, you...” she glanced at him briefly. “... wanted to talk about something?”

“Um, yeah.” he acknowledged. “... Yeah. I did.”

“Okay.” Hazel said. “... Are you gonna tell me what it is?”

His heart beat even faster. His mouth felt dry. And his face was surely flushed with preemptive embarrassment—but he had made up his mind as to his next course of action. And eventually, he began, “um, I just wanted to talk about last night...”

Hazel’s shoulders stiffened, suddenly pausing in her ministrations. “Oh. ... I had a feeling.”

“Yeah. Uh. Hazel, I... I just wanted to say sorry.”

She turned her head towards him, knitting her brows in perplexity. “You’re... sorry?”

“Yeah. I, um... the dog thing was pretty weird, wasn’t it?

“Well...” Her lips almost seemed to be on the verge of a smile, but of her tone, Hazel was deeply sympathetic. “... Maybe a little. But Frank, you don’t need to apologize. I should be the one saying sorry.”

“You?” he asked incredulously. “Why would you apologize? You didn’t do anything wrong!”

“No, Frank. I don’t even...” Hazel huffed in frustration, staring down into the floor. “I don’t even know what happened last night... I freaked you out, didn’t I? You must think I’m disgusting.”

“No, no!” Frank urged. He couldn’t believe his ears—was this really how she’d been feeling for the entire day? He couldn’t forgive himself for ever letting her think that she’d done something wrong. “That’s not true at all, Hazel! Actually, I... everything we did last night, I really liked it!”

“... Really?”

“Yes, really!”

“But... if that’s true, then why did you run away like that?”

It was a fair question to ask. Frank was sure that he might die in the process of answering.

“Uh...” he began. “I—well—everything was just... there was a lot going on, and it was starting to get to me, and I didn’t want to freak you out, so that’s why I ran away...”

Hazel tilted her head. “What are you saying, Frank?”

Frank worried to himself, ‘Gods. This is too embarrassing. I think I really am gonna die.’

“Hazel...” he started quietly. “Um... we were kissing a lot.”

“Yeah...”

“A—and you were sitting in my lap.”

“I—I know, Frank.”

“And, um...” he surrendered eye contact for a moment—because he couldn’t handle looking at her as he admitted to this penultimate shame. As the words left his lips, Frank feared genuinely that he would combust at any moment. “... I thought it was so hot when you did that. I’ve never felt anything like that before. But I felt embarrassed of how much I was reacting, so I didn’t want you to notice...”

His guilty admission began to settle in the air. When he managed to look up at Hazel again, Frank could see it in her eyes and her shy expression that she had finally begun to grasp his meaning.

“... oh...” she muttered quietly. As though it were all she could say.

“... Yeah.”

Turbulence became the namesake of his emotions. He was possessed of a million concerns all at once—that Hazel was mortified by the perversion of his actions, that she would never want to get that close to him again, that she might be offended by such blatant lust for her—and nonetheless, Frank still hoped to persevere. He still wanted to trust that Hazel wouldn’t hate him for his behavior.

Hazel soon spoke again, “... So... you did like it, then? Everything that we were doing?”

“... Yeah.” he affirmed. At this point, there was no reason to imply otherwise. “D—did you?”

And to his utter shock, Hazel answered, “... I did...”

And their eyes met again. He wasn’t sure what to make of her amber-eyed gaze—and currently, he was becoming stupid all over again. Hazel’s beauty and allure was a most distracting thing. Even after all these years, she could place a hand on his shoulder and set his nerves abuzz, sending him back into the past, into the nervous body of his fifteen year old self, whose heart was ruled by a pathetic crush on the mysterious girl from the Fifth Cohort. And it would take concerted effort to remember that that was in the past, that it wasn’t one-sided—Hazel liked him, too. And apparently, he was not the only one who liked the feel of her body pressed hot against his own.

Hazel stood up suddenly, shifting from her nightstand chair to the spot right next to him. Frank became extremely conscious of her heated proximity, of the way the bed sank from the pressure of her weight, of the illicit danger that was sitting next to his girlfriend in a setting like this. Shyness melted over him—his breaths became heavier, and his disorderly senses were obedient to her body, as they so often were...

Frank was conscious of everything of Hazel. The slight vanilla scent from her recent shower, the impeccable smoothness of her dark brown skin, and the short distance between their bodies that could shrink easily—should he dare to make a move. He hadn’t planned on this earlier. But now, he really wanted to.

He felt unbearably adolescent. The oppressive emotions of his fast-beating heart and the sweltering desires of his overheating body yielded excitement so intolerable that he just had to get closer...

Already, as he spoke, he was leaning towards her lips. “... I’m glad you liked it, Hazel...”

And likewise, Hazel was eager to further close the distance. “I’m glad you liked it, too, Frank.”

His arm curled about her waist. Hazel’s arm found his side. And when their lips came together, Frank sighed with such eagerly pleasured satisfaction that he could instantly grasp the dire nature of his years-long pent-up desire for this girl.

And it didn’t take long for her to part her lips, for him to squeeze her side as his tongue slipped upon her own. He knew the feel of it now, her soft, sinuous tongue, and he was unsure how he survived going so long without it.

Hazel was endlessly giving. The girl always was. She was selfless in every aspect of her manners, and her tender affections said nothing to the contrary. He could feel her fondness in the motions of her lips, which were humble and attentive against his own. It was a slow-motion kiss, so patient and careful and abundant in pleasure that he was ensorcelled by the sweetness of it all, by the love that was latent in the warmth of her tongue as it slid against his, as it was kind and delicate, as though the kiss were a euphoric slow dance, a felicitous enchantment like a true love spell—and he moaned against her lips, he furrowed his brows tight, for he began to pull Hazel even closer against him until their bodies pressed together, until he felt the soft shape of her chest against his own...

He could almost feel guilty for his contrary attitude. Unlike her, he wasn’t selfless at all—and neither was his kiss. There was a growing greediness in the way that he touched her back, the way he grabbed at her waist, for he was now bestowed with the knowledge that Hazel didn’t mind this, and he was so inclined to make use of that privilege. They were so new to this. He was only now understanding just how immense his desires could be. For her heart, for her endearment, and gods, he'll admit it to himself—for her body. He was clumsy and crude and he needed her touch, just like last night, just like his dream, and no good sense could remedy those desires—they could only be assuaged by unrepentant action.

And how he craved even more evidence that she wanted him back. Wasn’t it so absurd of him? He wanted her to say clearly, “I need you, Frank.” It was pathetic how badly he hoped to be in Hazel's thoughts, to hope that she might have indecent dreams of him, too, to hope that she might have some use for his body—some desire to undress him and be just as selfish as his thoughts of her had grown to be.

Frank worried for his avarice. He really did want so much from Hazel. And he worried furthermore that more clarity was needed.

In the midst of moans and urgent lips, Frank forced himself to sever this sweet kiss—which, for him, was no small feat—and he stopped himself from grabbing her so tightly. Like frigid water poured upon steaming hot coals, their simmering relations came to a firm, cold halt.

Frank looked into her eyes, and hers wandered across his face—darting from his lips to his concentrated gaze. She was adorably shy, her lips parted as she breathed heavily. Despite his unperceptive nature, he could discern that most likely, once again, they both enjoyed doing that.

... Eventually, Hazel uttered one quiet, flustered word. “... wow.”

Of her awe, Frank was in complete agreement. And he might wonder if, after kissing each other deeply for the very first time, would it even be possible to go back to those chaste, pure affections that their lips had known before?

Both of them panted lightly. Their faces were still close. Easily, they could just kiss each other again, he could shut himself up and let this play out even more (for all he knew, as they sat upon her bed, perhaps things could escalate, on this evening, to the highest of euphorias). And greedy as he was, he really wanted to—but Frank stifled his desire, at least for just a moment, because he wanted even more to understand her feelings clearly.

He didn’t want more ambiguity. He didn’t want to guess or make assumptions about her thoughts and limitations. If they, as a couple, were ready to be more intimate, then he would rather depend on her explicit affirmations than his own undependable perceptions of her feelings.

“Hazel, I…” he began, his voice still labored by his lust. “... Um. This might be weird, but… can I ask you something?”

The girl nodded readily. “... You can ask me anything, Frank. Always.”

“Why... uh. Is there a reason why—I mean—I’m just wondering if...” Frank stuttered, huffing with frustration. There it was again, his miserable incompetence showing its face. With cheeks that were surely blushed beyond all sense, he bumbled through his next words, “... W—why don't we sleep in the same bed?”

“Oh… oh.” Hazel mumbled. She fanned her face with her hand the way she always did when she was flustered. “Um. Are you offering right now—”

“N—no, no!” he spluttered in embarrassment. Though the thought was still appealing. “I just… I'm just wondering. Is there a reason why we don't?”

He felt terrible for even asking. But the words were out there now, and he was helpless to try and take them back.

Without making eye contact, Hazel started to reply, her hands grasping idly at his camp t-shirt. “I don’t know, I guess... I haven’t thought about it. Back in my day, you weren’t supposed to do that before you got married.”

“Is that... is that the reason why?” Frank continued. “Because we aren’t married, you don’t want to?”

“... Um. Actually... I don’t know if that’s true.”

His heart flipped in his chest. Quickly, he tried to quell his excitement.

“R—really?” he asked, hoping not to sound too eager.

“I mean, I know that that’s an old-fashioned way to think... and I wasn’t exactly raised with those kinds of ideas. I sorta had other stuff going on...”

“Right...”

“Plus, we’re already living together, and people weren’t supposed to do that before getting married, either.”

“That’s, uh... kind of hard to imagine.” Frank observed. “Not to make fun of your time or anything—but, isn’t it better to try out living together first? Before getting married, I mean.”

“I think so, too. It was different back then.” she added. Smiling softly at him, Hazel gave him a quick kiss. “And moving in together was one of the best decisions we ever made. I feel so at home with you, Frank.”

All over again, his heart performed a joyous dance within his chest. The warmth of Hazel’s love was so sweet and comforting, stirring all throughout his core like golden jewels of honey melting into scentful tea. “I feel the same way, Hazel...” Frank replied. He could be so bad at containing his emotions—even now, with nine years together, he was still susceptible to tears each time he was touched by her sincere affection. “You’re... you’re everything to me. I really love being with you.”

He pulled her into a big hug—something quite innocent this time. Hazel reciprocated warmly.

As they continued their embrace, he heard Hazel speak, “it’s not weird of you to ask at all, Frank. It almost feels like we’ve never even had a chance to figure out this stuff. We’ve been praetors since we were kids, and we always have to worry about everyone else. I don’t think we get enough time to really think about ourselves.”

Frank considered this notion as their arms came apart. “So... do you want to talk about it, then? About us sleeping together?”

“Um—”

“—In a bed!” he sputtered quickly. “I meant sleeping in a bed! Not... you know! The other thing. I mean, I don’t know, maybe we could talk about that, too. About sleeping together. Not... you know. Like sleeping in a bed.”

He could vomit right now from his inane indiscretions. As Hazel seemed to be on the verge of laughter, he fell back onto the bed, covering his face with his hands.

Frank asked, “can I just die, now?”

“No, you can’t.”

“Dang...”

“Frank, you’re so silly.” the girl chimed, each word colored heavily with her affection. Hazel laid down onto the bed with him, her arm curled over his abdomen as she nestled into his side. “Let’s just say what we mean, okay? No embarrassment. No shame. No dying”—she poked him in his stomach—“just honesty, okay? What do you want, Frank?”

“What do you want, Frank?”

... It was like his dream all over again.

Here she was, giving him a perfect chance to express himself clearly, free from the pervasive ails of judgment or repercussion. Hazel was inviting him to show her the face of his hideous lust—if he could only gather up the courage to combat his shyness like he gathered up his courage to slay any other foe. For his shyness was merely one of a thousand emotions layered over his mind, and his fondness for Hazel, his trust in her sincerity, were superior to the beast that was his intolerable cowardice.

Frank moved his hands away from his face, then turning his head towards his beauteous lover. Their noses were nearly touching, eyes so close that their was no escaping that golden gaze of hers, which reflected even deeper her polite and charitable nature. So Frank remembered his resolve from before he came into her room. If he could not convey his honest feelings to the likes of Hazel Levesque, then not a soul else walked this earth to whom his confidence could be entrusted.

And upon a short inhale of breath, a scant closing of his eyes, Frank slowly found the words with which to confess his burdened feelings. “Hazel... I wanna keep doing things like we did last night. I want to kiss you and touch you and hold you close to me. I want to go to bed with you every night and wake up with you every morning. I want...” he had to pause to gulp. “I think I want to go all the way with you... and, um, I’ve wanted to for a long time.”

Her brows raised in shock. “A... a long time?”

“Yeah...”

“Really? ... Have you thought about it a lot?”

“Um... I think every guy does,” he offered. “Especially since we’ve been together for... a while. And it hasn’t come up before.”

“Oh...”

He saw her fan her face again—which was adorable, like usual—but his worry still remained that his admission had made her uncomfortable.

Frank understood that telling her of his feelings didn’t mean she was obligated to return them. The last thing he ever wanted was to make her feel pressured—he would sooner vow a life of chastity than push Hazel towards something that she wasn’t ready for. All along, his fear had been that he would be too much for her, a girl of an older era, and that his grotesque maleness would do harm to her innocence. And his complacency with that state of affairs had never compelled him to raise the subject directly... until now, that is. With an impetus as insistent as the urges from the night before, and from their mutual admissions of enjoyment for those urges, Frank fell more and more susceptible to the belief that she was bolder than he’d ever thought. That Hazel wasn’t so immune to the compulsions of eros as he’d long assumed of her.

When Hazel spoke again, her voice was clear, yet still infirm. “Frank, look... I’m... I’m definitely willing. But I don’t know much about all of this. I don’t really know anything...”

Frank was suddenly become with a myriad of dizzying thoughts. Had he heard that correctly? Had she just confirmed that she was willing to take things to that coveted next level?

But his excitement was contained by the latter half of her sentence, which had certainly not fallen on unhearing ears. She was willing. But she, like him, was bare for knowledge on this subject.

He, himself, did not quite know what to make of sex—except that he really wanted it. Not with someone; only with Hazel. He had as much lust within his body as practically anyone else, and for his entire life, he’d lacked the means and skill to express it. But as a man who was good at keeping his urges to himself, and who was neither miserable nor indignant to have to stifle those desires, Frank hadn’t actually pondered the act itself very much. It was either something that you did with the intent to reproduce, something that you did because you wanted to feel good, or something that you did to feel close with another person—or all of the above. Those were the four options, right? That’s what sex was all about?

And he understood the bare mechanics of how it worked. He took health class in seventh grade. He knew about safe sex and female anatomy. And then there was the version of sex that existed on television, the makeouts on the couch, the grabbing hands at your body, the slow and desperate grinding before wrestling off your clothes—into the frantic, heated urgency of the very first thrust, the lack of interruption—the continuous sighing pleasure and the moans between wet kisses, the absolute enchantment of the warmth of another person and the ever repeated motions of fast-moving hips—desperately seeking some release, leaving hickeys and scratches on the unsuspecting flesh, and the unencumbered ecstasy of finishing at the same time...

... That was all Frank knew of sex. He figured it was correct. And it was probably a more robust education than she had ever been afforded.

“Hazel, if you’re willing...” Frank began carefully. “If we wanted to start trying, I... I could try my best to guide you.”

“Really, Frank?”

“I mean, I can try—I’m not good or anything. You could probably guess, but I’ve never... uh. You know. I haven’t done it before.”

“I know.” Hazel said. “No offense. Sorry”

“That’s okay.”

They chuckled lightly together, a good mutual laugh that was brief, airy, and somehow encouraging. The ugly, dreaded part was over. Frank had overcome his reservations and made himself, his feelings clear—and not only had the cloud of vagueness over Hazel’s feelings dissipated; in the process, a new path forward had effectively emerged. A most thrilling path. Adults at twenty-four and twenty-two, coming now together with the intent to love each other physically for the very first time. It was exciting like the thought of their very first date, their very first kiss; a milestone in their relationship—and strangely, no longer did it feel like an illicit subject at all. How could it be, when they loved each other as much as they did?

“... I guess we’re doing this? Wow...” Hazel chimed, grasping his hand within her own. “Gods, I’m nervous, Frank.”

“I’m nervous, too. But it’s okay. I think we’ll figure it out together.”

He kissed her sweetly on her forehead, and then again on her left cheek. The beautiful smile that engaged her lips was every bit as mesmerizing as her amber, winsome eyes, as her mellifluous voice, as their kisses from tonight and the day before that lingered still in within his mind. Frank felt encouragement from the sight of this grin; it seemed to convey that she was not uncomfortable, that she was not even too shy or embarrassed despite all that had been said. This was important to him. He never wanted to make her feel nervous or uneasy.

And he never wanted to be greedy with this wonderful girl again. Going forward, Frank promised to commit himself to her enjoyment first and foremost. Whatever relations that they might have in the future, he wanted to ensure that Hazel benefited somehow. No matter what it took, he would become the kind of man that was good to his girlfriend to bed. There was no other option, no other kind of man worth being.

Hazel spoke up again, “um... so, did you plan on ‘starting’ soon, Frank?”

And then his cheeks flushed instantly. “Oh, uh—”

But out of nowhere, his phone began to ring within his pocket, thus startling them both. Frank asked her to wait a moment as he stood up to check the call.

“... Oh, it’s Percy.” Frank said, impressed by the timing. “Hold on, Hazel, I should take this.”

“Go ahead, that’s fine. I should get back to my hair.”

Frank kissed her once more, and then stepped out of the bedroom. He could guess the reason for Percy’s call, and he didn’t want to risk Hazel overhearing something unpleasant. As he arrived into the hall, Frank held the phone to his ear. “Percy?”

“Yeah, Frank? Hey, we’re down to go on the trip if you’ll still have us.”

“Oh, really? That’s amazing, Percy!”

“Yeah, it’ll be cool. Oh, and...” Frank heard a voice in the background that was almost certainly Annabeth’s. “... Uh, if you already had an itinerary, can you text it to me?”

“Yeah, sure. I’m amazed that you even agreed so quickly—especially Annabeth. How’d you manage to convince her?”

“Ehhh, you know. I can be pretty persuasive with my—ow!”

“Percy?”

“Annabeth pinched me.”

“Oh.” Frank said. “Hi, Annabeth.”

Annabeth chimed in, “hey, Frank. Thanks for inviting us.”

“No problem. Sorry about the short notice, I kinda didn’t plan on this.”

“Wow, so you don’t care that she pinched me? Frank, I thought we were bros.” Percy said.

Frank tried not to laugh. “It was probably deserved.”

And then Annabeth replied, “Frank, did I ever tell you that you’re one of my favorite Romans?”

The trio chatted on the phone for just a few minutes longer—mostly Annabeth confirming trip details with him as Percy meandered in the background—and then, without much consequence, the call came to an end. Nobody mentioned the details of the conversation that he’d had with Percy earlier in the day (to his gratified relief), but Frank understood, still, that his friend would be willing to help. And considering his talk with Hazel, that was fantastic news. All in all, this unforgivably mundane day had actually turned out to be rather momentous.

Frank returned to Hazel’s bedroom soon after the call, though not with the intent to linger there for too much longer.

“So, uh. Hazel?” he began.

There were diamonds and rubies floating pointlessly in the air. Like usual, Hazel barely noticed as she was busy with her hair, though she turned to face him as he peeked through her door. “Yeah?”

“I actually have a big surprise for you. And, uh... it might be the perfect opportunity for us to spend some quality time together...”

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Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 07

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A day later was the rush of fast travel adjustments—everyone had to pack, Annabeth was drafting up a fresh itinerary, and Hazel was tying up loose ends in her Camp Jupiter affairs before Jason and Dakota would take over in their absence. The whirlwind of it all had made it hard to keep organized, because everyone needed to be kept on the same track. And as for Frank, affirmed by the others as the “lead” of this vacation, he was mostly concerned about the mode of transportation.

In the late afternoon, Percy and Annabeth came down to the Praetor House where he lived with Hazel, and they’d made a dinner night out of finalizing trip plans, serving all blue food as Percy liked (for some reason). And the last few details had been taken care of swiftly (he had to bargain with Annabeth to eliminate a few of the group hikes she had planned), except for one major concern: how on earth were they actually getting to Spain the day after tomorrow?

“Look, man—I don't go up in the sky unless there's no other choice. That's Zeus’ territory.”

Annabeth sighed. “Percy, it’s been years. I'm pretty sure you're safe to be in a plane by now.”

“And count on the big guy to keep his bolts to himself for half a day of flying? The Argo II was one thing, but I don’t trust him not to blow up a mortal aircraft.” he argued, and his tone was quite firm; Frank grasped right then Percy's mind was made up. “Can't we take a boat? I'll get us there in four, five days max.”

“Boat…” Hazel echoed; the vowels seemed to sink into the back of her throat, threatening a bad reaction in the form of bile sickness. “Um, could we try something else? Anything else?”

“I forgot how impossible it is to travel with Big Three kids...” Annabeth mused, eyes distracted in thought as she considered all the options. “Hazel, how long would it take you to shadow travel us that far?”

“All the way from California to Spain? At least four or five days... I’m better at it now, but still not as good as Nico.”

“No, no, I don’t want you to exhaust yourself.” Frank insisted, placing his hand atop her own. “This is supposed to be a vacation. I don’t want you lifting a finger.”

“Frank, that’s sweet of you, but what other option is there?”

“I know some whales.” Percy offered. Without any added meaning. None were inspired by the suggestion.

He then volunteered to travel separately from everyone else, but Annabeth was adamantly opposed to the idea; not just for his safety, but for displeasure that an oceanic voyage would bite into the length of their ten-day vacation.

So, Frank puzzled over this. His original intent was a simple plane ride—tickets already purchased for his and Hazel’s seats, but the late add-ons of Percy and Annabeth wrought some taxing complications. Hazel could probably be convinced to take a boat should he really press the option, but the last thing Frank wanted was for her to feel discomfort. And a chariot drawn by pegasi might work for Percy, but they weren’t exactly going to have a stable on the Majorca beaches to house them in for ten days. If they were going to count on magical companions for travel, they’d need a fast, low-maintenance one, someone who could be left to their own devices and still be counted on for the return trip.

“If Percy can’t fly, and Hazel can't go on a boat...” Frank started, “then I guess there's just one other option. How do you guys feel about a throwback, Alaska-style?”

As his meaning dawned upon Hazel and Percy, he saw a smile on their faces—well, mostly Hazel’s, anyway. Who could forget their escape from the Amazons to the Great North?

Annabeth folded her arms. “Hey—don’t exclude me, I wasn’t on that quest. What do you mean, ‘Alaska-style’?”

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It would have taken days on Percy’s boat ride adventure, about twelve hours for a commercial airplane, and just as long for a pegasi duo—but for Arion, the great distance to cross between California and Spain was perfectly achievable within just six hours.

He was a god, after all; a son of Neptune and Ceres, the fastest being atop the earth, Frank’s worst enemy—and the favorite pottymouthed animal companion of his girlfriend. In sacrificing excess luggage and accoutrements, they could load into a chariot with three in the backseat as Hazel rode horseback and managed the directions. All that remained was to borrow Camp Jupiter’s most indestructible chariot, secure their suitcases with imperial gold bindings, and on Friday evening, the quartet was screaming for their lives as a horse god sped across the Americas at a billion kilometers per hour.

There were several pit stops (some for Arion to rest, others for Frank to be sick at the sides of random highways), and some awkward reroutings throughout the variable terrains, but matters were smoother once Arion could sprint across the Atlantic with Percy there to suppress some of the turbulence and keep them from getting drenched. Without pausing to stop, they glided across the Atlantic divide to the Mediterranean sea, and soon were they collapsing at the cusp of the Majorca Island beaches.

Upon setting foot at the crystal white sands, Frank dropped onto the ground and held his hands over his stomach, groaning as he struggled to make sense of their surroundings. “Ugh... Six hours with the horse, why did I think that was a good idea...”

Arion neighed something indistinct, but he knew his foe well, and he knew for certain that it was a scathing insult. “Great. Percy, what did he call me this time?”

Undisoriented, Percy helped Frank back onto his feet. “Yeah, you don’t wanna know.”

Frank grumbled as he stood up. “He thinks he’s so special, just because he’s a horse. Anyone can be a horse.”

“Maybe, but I’ve never met a human who could cuss as creatively as that guy.”

The horse clopped his hoof into the sand in what Frank assumed to be another loaded taunt, but ended up being the usual demand for his reward. Hazel stroked the beast’s snout, stuck her hand out towards the sea, and magically withdrew an entire cache of gold jewelry from within its deep blue depths. Before anyone could ask if the objects were buried pirate treasure, maybe one-of-a-kinds that ought to be preserved, Arion munched down the jewelry as if it were a honeycrisp apple.

As he chewed in satisfaction from the palm of her hand, Hazel addressed the weary group of travelers. “Hey, guys? I’m gonna take Arion a little further inland and find a good spot underground to hide the chariot. Do you want to start heading to the hotel, and I’ll meet you there?”

Frank glanced back at the other two, who seemed to not really mind one way or another (although, Percy looked like he was itching for a quick dip into the water). All agreed to wait until Hazel and Arion returned, and once they both disappeared, Percy flopped like a fish into the sea, submerging himself in the glittery domain of his father.

With nothing better for them to do, Frank and Annabeth sat on the beach and watched him, occasionally practicing some Spanish pronunciations together. Both were new to the language, but she was already much better than him—and Frank was happy to be tutored, when suddenly she changed the topic into something else completely.

“... Hey, so, is everything good with you and Hazel?”

Frank’s eyes widened and his shoulders jumped, so startled by the question that he almost turned into a bird. “Wh—what? Why do you ask that?”

“Just curious,” Annabeth said. Every aspect of her countenance was cleanly nonchalant, which had the fantastic effect of making Frank even more nervous. “I never hear you talk about how things are between you two, so I’m just wondering.”

'Oh... oh. So she isn’t asking about the stuff that I talked about with Percy. Thank Minerva he didn’t tell.’ Frank thought, feeling a sense of relief melt into his bloodstream. “I mean, things are good, same old same old.”

“You two are getting along well?”

“Yeah, definitely. Did you think we weren’t?”

“No.” she answered curtly. “But if you weren’t... you could tell me. I’m actually pretty good with relationship stuff.”

“Well, yeah, I’ll bet. You and Percy are the first of my friends to get engaged.”

Annabeth smiled, now distracted with the engagement ring on her finger. Eyes full of soft affection, her thumb traced along the silver band in a way that told Frank she was pleased to have the subject brought up. The blonde spoke, “honestly? I’m surprised it wasn’t you guys first. Everyone had bet that you two would be the first to get married and have kids.”

He almost turned into a bird again. “Wh... what? You guys place bets on stuff like that?”

“Not a serious bet with money! It’s just a guess that people had. Even Nico thought so, as much that weirded him out.”

“Oh...” He wasn’t sure what to do with this new information. Frank had always thought that in terms of milestones, he and Hazel were lightyears behind all of their closest, partnered friends. They hadn’t even made out until this past week—did others really think that they were so close to having kids? “... Well, we just don’t wanna go that far while we’re still running camp. It’ll be a little while before we actually retire into New Rome.”

“Hmm. Makes sense.” she mused, like he had just shown her his work on a hard math equation. “It’s good to not rush into things. But—word of advice? Don’t look for reasons to make her wait long.”

Frank stared blankly at her, then turned his gaze to the sand. In truth, the subject of marriage with Hazel was still a source of uneasiness to him. Faded in the white sediment, he saw a memory of a blackout with Hazel—a “memory” of something that had never happened: her wedding to Sammy that would have been reality, if only Gaea hadn’t come along and wrought fatal havoc to her life.

A strange, sad feeling hardened in his chest. He didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t want to think about Sammy right now. So he took the conversation on a detour of his own, “how does Percy still have the energy to go swimming after all that?”

The man was morphing waves within the water, fraternizing with a bottlenose dolphin, intermittently floating face down like an eerie drowned corpse. And he seemed like he was already having the time of his life.

Annabeth didn’t look to mind the subject change, chuckling as she watched over the antics of her fiancée. “Do you have to ask? He’s seaweed brained. It’s just what he does.”

Not long after, Hazel and Arion returned to the beach. The group took stock of their luggage, Hazel released Arion to roam freely throughout the island, and they made their way over to Frank’s chosen resort, chattering amiably with excitement for all that was to come.

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“Wow... this room is amazing, Frank.”

After checking in, the couples had agreed to separate for the rest of the day. Still reeling from the time difference and exhausting travel method, no one had the energy to go out and get to having fun right away—a good nap sounded better than just about anything else right then. So he and Hazel said goodbye to their two engaged friends (whose hotel room was right next to their own, given that Frank had purchased separate sleeping quarters when he’d planned this months ago), and then gathered their luggage into the room where they would stay.

Frank had seen his fair share of fancy hotel rooms in his lifetime, having grown up with his grandmother’s very refined, particular tastes, but this room was something else entirely. First, it was massive; as an unusually tall man with a rather wide berth, the average space was more constraining to Frank than it was for smaller people. But the room was beyond generous in real estate—he could transform into a dog and let the zoomies run loose without limitation if he really wanted to, and the bed was so vast, like an ocean in itself, a creamy white expanse that he could fit onto without his feet hanging over the edge.

And furthermore, it was choicely decorated. Latte colored walls behind delightful rattan furniture, sapphire bedsheets and throw pillows for every chair or sofa, with several verdant, leafy plants to accentuate the color scheme. But it was strangely familiar to Frank, somehow—familiar like something that he’d seen very recently, though he couldn’t quite place it...

Hazel ventured further inside, rolling her suitcase up before the wide chiffonier. “Oof, I can’t wait to go to bed.”

His heart thumped a little faster. “Go to bed?”

“Yeah, the bed looks so comfortable. Don’t you want to take a nap before it’s dinnertime?”

“Oh. Sure. But, um...”

“What, Frank?”

“... Well, there’s only one bed.” A pause. “Are you still okay with that?”

Hazel stared at Frank. Her eyes flickered between him, the bed, and then back to him again. When she answered, a new tilt of embarrassment had arrived in her tone.

“We already agreed to start sharing one, so... I think it’s fine. It’s fine, right?”

“I don’t know.” Frank said. “I—I mean, I think it’s okay. If you think it’s okay.”

“I think it’s okay.”

“Okay.” Was it going to be that easy? “So, um, let’s share a bed...?”

“Wait!” Hazel held out her hand as if to stop him from coming much closer, though he hadn’t moved from his same spot at all. “Can I shower first?”

Frank blinked at her. “Oh. Yeah, sure, go ahead.”

Hazel thanked him (what for?), gathered a change of clothing from her luggage, and let herself into the bathroom. As he heard the water running, and time dragged on further in solitude with his thoughts, Frank approached a floor-length mirror nearest to the television, and he wondered about the new events that might develop in their love life on this island.

Frank sometimes thought, on the days where his mind would drift anywhere, that if there were such a thing as “maximum intimacy” that one could have with another person, then he and Hazel had already achieved it within a month of knowing one another. Nine years ago, he had gone into her blackouts and worn her grievous memories as if they were the fabric of his very own life. He had given her the wooden object of his soul, given her total supremacy on whether he should live or die. They moved fast, they were intense. They weren’t total strangers to intimacy, they were intimate from the very beginning—and that intimacy had lasted all the way up to the present. It simply hadn’t translated into something more physical.

After a cursory glance towards the closed shower door, Frank took off his shirt, and he examined his reflection with rather unforgiving scrutiny.

He was a big guy. That was the simplest way to put it. Very tall. Wide shoulders. Big muscles that precluded him from fitting into most shirts. But his stomach wasn’t quite as flat as it had been after the blessing from his father, and its soft pocket of weight had become a growing source of unease. Although the idea of sex with Hazel was so intensely appealing that he could hardly understand how they'd dated for so long and never even gotten close, Frank suddenly realized, as he stared into that mirror, that he wasn't sure how to feel about being naked in front of her.

Undressing was an essential precursor to sex, he assumed. In that delirious dream of some nights prior, the “undressing” was one of the most tantalizing aspects of it all. Because they'd done it together. He remembered entering the hotel room, stripping off her gloves, how he pulled her dress zipper down in delightful slow motion and kissed her as her chest pressed against his body—and how she then unbuttoned his clothes, and he undid his belt buckle, kissing her deeper and more, possessed by the hot panic of desire to rush fast into sex—but he was mortified by the thought of doing so right here, right now.

With the Blessing of Mars had come a maelstrom of conflict—harsh winds of confusion, superseded quickly by a thunder of excitement. Any teen lacking for confidence held fast to the conviction that every problem could be fixed, every broken thing repaired, if only he could wake up in the body of his dreams. Broader shoulders, rigid stomach, something worth being admired, something pleasant in the mirror. Before Camp Jupiter, he’d been a normal, chubby kid in a normal school, dealing with normal kid problems in normal Vancouver—one of which was, indubitably, getting teased by other kids.

It was bad enough already to be bullied for his heritage—so many times had other kids made that ugly gesture with their eyes at him—and adding chubbiness to the equation made him a ripe target for harassment. It had been so easy to feel that the Blessing had mended something broken, would protect from ever being bullied as he had been as the past. Because cruelty towards big bodies was something almost spectacular in its absolute ubiquity—its sheer, grotesque abundance, insults emptied like gunfire, bullet shrapnel in the flesh, deeply penetrating wounds constantly bloody through a bandage. At times he felt surrounded even when in total silence, fearing that everyone was ready-armed with hateful epithets in secret.

Possibly that wasn't true. And probably, it wasn't. But growing up fat and undesirable to everyone around him had a lasting way of damaging his insights on the world.

Many times had incredulity absorbed his routine sadness—‘Really? People are that mean, just because they don't like my body? How dumb is that?’ he'd feel, indulging in the thought’s temporary comfort. There was something fundamentally stupid about a person who harassed others for their weight. That was something he could believe. And the thought could calm his sorrow until perturbed by remembering that he didn't like his body either, and harassed himself, too. So he would sacrifice his comforts and lay his wounded self to bed. Lights off. Mirror covered. Fully clothed, like usual.

Even his dear mother’s comforts had their limited influence—how he sobbed in remembrance of the fondness in her eyes, and those flower-sweet words for each occasion that he wept, saying, ‘Mom, they're making fun of me. They keep calling me names! I hate school. Don't make me go again!’

‘Frank,’ Emily says, a touch of pain in her voice. ‘I know it’s hard, I know it hurts, but you can’t give up on school.’

‘I’d rather go to Afghanistan with you,’ he whines, ‘than go back to school.’

‘Those are two very different battles, Frank.’

‘Going to war would be easier.’ he mumbles, each word soaked up in his petulance like tissue swallows moisture.

And he doesn't believe those words, even as they leave his lips. All he understands about war is that it’s far away and his mom makes it look easy. He doesn’t know why he said it. He knows that he isn't half as brave as his mother.

‘Maybe so,’ she hums, ‘but you can't seek out new battles just to avoid your current foes.’

Frank chews on this thought with his prepubescent teeth. Mom always speaks with the same weary life experience that most adults seem to have. An untouchable, mysterious thing, this adult affect; maybe all his problems will go away if he can learn to imitate it.

‘Then how do I beat my current foes?’

‘Hmm. I'm no expert on winning battles—’

‘Yes you are, mom!’

‘—but,’ she smiles, laying her hand upon his shoulder, ‘I’d say I know a lot about my family. I know you, Frank. I know how special you are. I know your kindness and strength. I know you're handsome like a movie star—and that there's so much good inside you exactly as you are.’

‘... Even if those things are true, no one else at school sees me that way…'

‘The right people will, I promise. You just don't know them yet.’ His mother takes his arms and lifts him in the air, which is no easy feat—he’s big and tall for a ten year old boy. ‘But the catch is, you have to be one of those people, too. And you will be. You can be anything, Frank.’

... It was an unfortunate thing, that he couldn’t shapeshift his ‘default’ form into something just a little bit more pleasant to look at. Maybe then he’d have an easier time becoming “one of those people”.

When the shower water turned off, Frank was quick to throw his shirt back over his head. And as Hazel came to bed for a nap and asked if he would join her, he decided that he wasn’t really all that tired after all.

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—

Several hours later, and they were walking along the beach.

Tourists milled about as the shoreline chirped with effervescent life. There were families and lovers admiring the pale stars above, which were scattered cross the indigo sky like flecks of spilled sugar. Palm trees shuddered in the soft rolls of ocean breeze, and they swayed amongst each other as if in a slow dance. The two of them held hands as they wandered along the surf, keeping a good distance from the sea for the sake of Hazel’s comfort.

Admittedly, the fresh, tropical night air was an improvement for his mood. Breathing it deep within his lungs, hearing the waves crash over the plump, white flesh of the Majorca beaches... Pure tranquility like this was a rarity at camp. The Berkeley hills were divinely picturesque, a vision of loveliness like a Monet painting—but the ceaseless distractions of praetorship made it rare to appreciate the brush strokes of New Rome. Here, strolling just along the soul of Poseidon, Frank could hardly think of anything but affection for the present. He was alive, here. Breathing still, and privileged. It was good to not think so much. He should try it more often.

Hazel was mostly quiet. He didn’t question her or want to prod at her temperament. Perhaps she was adhered to the present as he was, and the debris of her enjoyment was an amiable silence. She seemed content, at least, willing to turn her head and smile each time he pointed to some amusement—‘Whoa, look. Is that a constellation? That’s the Scorpius, isn’t it?’ only to be told, ‘No, I think that’s the Leo?’ And then he didn’t bring up the constellations again.

Nearly half an hour of undisturbed walking had prevailed before Hazel raised her voice, halting suddenly in place, stricken with some forceful compulsion.

“Hold on, I’m picking up on something...”

Frank looked around across the beach, not that he could see anything beneath the sand like she could. “Is there a giant gem around here?”

“Not exactly,” she said. “Come on, follow me. I want you to see it.”

Hazel took the lead, guiding him further by her direction, and he felt that he preferred this to her quiet passivity. It didn’t matter if she showed him a diamond or rusty metal spoon, he was only glad for Hazel’s eagerness to show him something at all.

Deeper they moved across the flustered shoreline, where not a soul stalked the sand and the elevation dipped. An massive enigma was poking up through the wet tissue of the sea—black in the nighttime, unattached to the beach, too indistinct for his eyes to make out clearly. He assumed that it was just a giant rock, and grew less sure of her reasons the closer that they moved, but as the distance shrank, and he could grasp some finer details, Frank saw the faintest of lights glowing at the base of the sea rock...

“Hazel?”

“It’s a cave,” Hazel spoke excitedly. “You can’t tell from the side, we have to get in front.”

‘Only you would be this enthusiastic about a cave,’ Frank thought. Caves were dark and wet and rocky—but sometimes, you just had to let demigods be with their unusual proclivities.

They moved closer towards its body, having to venture in the water still within the littoral zone (but she didn’t like to swim, so he’d turned into large dolphin and let her ride on his back). He carried them gently, attuned to the cold arrhythmia of the sea, until arriving at the mouth of the cavern.

“Holy moly.” Frank awed, or he would have were he not still in dolphin-mode—for the sound came out more like a cetacean whistle.

It was a tall sea cave about thirty meters wide. Nearly all of its floor was submerged beneath the water, except for the few patches of flat rock closest to the cavern walls. The cave seemed to be afflicted with a constant intake of air, as though it had been inhaling the ocean fog for thousands of years. At the very back of its throat was pure aphotic darkness, but closer to the entrance, there were dozens of dazzling gemstones malformed within its body, some affixed to the ceiling or stabbing up through the water. Their humble light glittered on the surface of the sea, imbuing its waters with benevolent color. Vivid purples and jovial greens—all glowing faintly in the overwhelming black.

Frank took her closer to the nearest bed of flat rock, changing back into himself once she climbed onto its surface. They stood together in the grotto, eyes scrolling past the limited scenery that their eyes could see under such dim lighting. A flashlight would have been great. There was little of comfort in this dark but the prevailing warmth of Hazel’s presence and the exiguous glimmer of the gems all around them.

“There’s calcite, limestone, agate, malachite...” Hazel said, fingers twitching as she counted. “... and a lot of other little things.”

“It’s... nice.” Frank replied halfheartedly. “I can’t see everything that you can sense in here.”

“Oh, you’re right, sorry... Um, we can leave.”

“No, no, this is good. Do you want to hang here for a little bit?”

“... Maybe not for too long. I just wanted to come see it.” she decided after some quiet. “Now that I think about it, sea caves aren’t all that great.”

He didn’t understand her meaning, nor the sudden change in opinion. Hazel stooped and sat on the flat of rock beneath them, so he opted to join in by sitting right beside her.

The girl had slipped back into that same quiet mood from before. Frank could do little with it but to entertain the silence. Although the threat of pitch black behind them still pestered his nerves, there was no denying that the scene in front was beautiful, that the moment was romantic—the wide expanse of the Mediterranean sea, uninterrupted, serene, and in total privacy with his girlfriend on an island...

At the leftmost corner of the maw of the cavern, there was an unusual, glittering substance in the water. It seemed to be a small patch, merely a meter in breadth, where the sea glistened with bright sparkles of blue neon. Frank summoned her attention, pointing out to his discovery. “Oh, look! Over there, that’s ocean bioluminescence.”

“Bio-lumo... what?”

“Bioluminescence. I still remember learning about it in science class.”

She was more suspicious than amazed. “I’ve never heard of it... Why is it glowing like that?”

“It’s pretty cool, actually—I was paying attention that day. There’s a chemical process that sea creatures have to attract their prey, or to throw off predators, or to lure in a mate, or...”

Entirely on accident, Frank obliged himself to lecture about the subject. He talked of plankton algae blooms and reactive enzymes, of sea creature evolution and pelagic environments. This was certainly more in Percy and Annabeth’s domain, but he was pleased to make use of his mortal education now and then. As he spoke, Hazel leaned into his side, her face pressed against his arm, and then a sway of pink blush dusted over his cheeks. Frank was always weak to any contact that Hazel initiated, and soon his senses were so mastered by her touch that he couldn’t think straight enough to ramble on any further.

“So, um,” Frank coughed nervously. “That’s basically how it works. Cool, huh?”

She didn’t respond, and his worries escalated. As lightly as possible, he nudged her at her shoulder. “Hazel...? Are you okay?”

“Oh, um, I guess I got distracted. What were you saying?”

“Ah, I was just rambling. Nothing important, it’s okay if you tuned out.”

“... Sorry.” she mumbled somberly. “Looking at the sea, it still makes me think about... you know. The same old stuff.”

Immediately, he felt stupid for prattling on as he did. Of course being near the sea would be uncomfortable for her. How could he be so dumb?

“You never have to apologize, Hazel.” Frank professed in earnest. His hand rubbed sheepishly at the back of his neck; the more he considered this, the more he realized how thoughtless certain other choices had been. “... Um, maybe this wasn’t the best vacation spot after all.”

“No, no, it’s great! I love it here, Frank. And I’m already having so much fun. The sea is just...” As she trailed off, a light wind of cool, saltwater-scented air whispered all throughout the grotto, rustling her hair in tandem with the waves up ahead. Hazel took a deep breath, her eyes closing briefly, and in her voice was the familiar lament that she so often had whenever her heart was absorbed by the past. “... Don’t tell Percy this, but I’ve always thought of the sea itself as a sad being. It’s beautiful, and there’s nothing else in the world quite like it, but there’s something about it that’s so inconsolable. It’s just... sad.”

Frank watched her for a moment, then cast his gaze over the sea, trying to take within his grasp the heavy meaning of her words. He saw the night-dark waves lick upon the crystal sand and the cobalt horizon lurching far in the distance. He saw the waters glittering beneath the white enchant of the moon, smooth like suede as they teethed with opalescent sea foam. Frank appreciated the sight before him now, but despite the weak pulse of Poseidon in his veins, he didn’t feel much of anything towards the ocean beyond a general sense that he was better off on land.

He supposed that it was one of the ways in which he and Hazel were simply different, one of the ways in which he still struggled to understand her, even after all these years. He would never know what it was like to grow up segregated in the American south. He didn’t relate to her Plutonian idiosyncrasies, how she could comfortably sit in a pitch black room and breathe well in a grim cemetery's chokehold. And where Hazel found something somber and poetic in the dark flicker of the sea, Frank couldn’t find anything. He only saw water.

Yet if anything in this moment were rare, melancholic, and beautiful beyond the definition of the word, it was Hazel. Her eyes were a sunset in the blue evening light, pensive as they surveilled the halcyonic sea. Frank thought of her emotions, of the history that they had, and remembered the person that she used to be long ago. So unhappy back then. She was guilt and sorrow in the shape of a girl—and over time, she had changed... or at least, he was so privileged as to believe that was the truth. But if the ocean were, to her, a being of such permanent sadness, then was the tragedy of Resurrection Bay also permanently affixed to her present life?

There were days where Hazel seemed especially distracted. She could suddenly stop in the center of a room and furrow her brows at nothing in particular, hanging eerily in place with her hands over her ears, hearing something just beside her, something shocking and unpleasant, and he wondered for the cause. It had to be some deadly magic. He wondered if her soul could phase back and forth between the mortal realm and the Fields of Asphodel. A special power, maybe, as a daughter of Pluto, or an abduction of the mind, a spiriting away—like the specters of the Fields had snuck onto the earth and dragged her soul back, leaving her corporeal in place, just to thieve her audience and make her listen to their longings all over again.

... He never voiced those suspicions to her. Hazel’s relationship with Asphodel was something separate from the one she had with him; she didn’t like to talk about it. And she never confided in him the specifics of the things that she'd heard, like the seventy years of whispers from the dead were secrets shared in confidence she’d promised not to share.

Lightly, his hand crept towards hers, and he spoke in a soft, solicitous voice that he hoped might compel Hazel to volunteer her thoughts freely. “Are you sad right now, Hazel? What can I do to make you feel better?”

Her eyes stole from the sea and connected with his. Then, her lips formed a polite smile, as though he’d merely asked what she wanted for dinner. “Nothing, Frank.”

“But you always say that...”

“I mean it, Frank. I didn’t want to kill the mood, I was just distracted.”

“Do you want to go back? Maybe it’s time to get to bed.”

“... I think I’m wide awake. I probably shouldn’t have napped.”

Her ribcage expanded with a long, deep intake of breath, and then she sighed somberly as she began to lay down. Hazel let her back upon the surface of the rock, which seemed not particularly comfortable, but she relaxed nonetheless.

Sitting upright still, Frank began to take off his coat. “Wait a sec, let me just...”

“Frank?”

“For the ground,” he said, and when she frowned for lack of understanding, Frank continued, “It’s really cold, isn’t it? You can lay on this instead.”

“Oh...” She brushed her fingertips along the rock, grasping a feel for its temperature. “You’re right, it is cold. Thanks, Frank.”

“Of course.”

“You can lay down, too. If you want...”

“O—oh.” Frank gulped. “... Um, yeah. I’ll lay down.”

After setting down his coat, Frank shuffled awkwardly to get in position with her. It wasn’t all that comfortable to lay down on his side; the broad expanse of his shoulders were too much for the position, like they were being bent at risk of collapsing into each other, but he wanted to be able to get close to her face, if only to feel her breath more than the dark chill of the cavern.

Hazel's fingers interlocked with his, nearly swallowed by his hand twice the size of her own. “... I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to everything that’s changed, Frank. You’re the only thing in the future that really makes sense to me.”

Frank swallowed slowly, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand. “... We’re in the present, Hazel.”

“I know.” she affirmed quietly, as though the fact brought her displeasure. Hazel's gaze lowered from his eyes to the ground. “I don’t even really miss the past. There’s too much in it that hurts for me to ever want to go back. But sometimes, I just wonder about...”

“About?”

“... About the future, growing old. I think dying from old age might be scarier than dying the way I did in Alaska. Is that crazy?”

“No,” he replied, unsure if it was the truth. “Why?”

“I think it's the inevitability of it... If I had made different choices, if I hadn’t let Gaea hurt my mother—”

“Hazel—”

“—If I hadn’t let it go on so long, I wouldn’t have died like that. But dying naturally? That isn’t a choice. You can’t change that, no matter what you do.”

His eyes were sunken in sorrow and frustration. What could he possibly say to this? It was just so unfair. Hazel already knew what it was like to die. Her father and his sway over death—it ought to protect her more. He should rewrite the governance of life and death to allow his daughter unattested immunity. Where was the justice in ever letting her die a second time?

And in thinking of this, he recognized that there was absolutely nothing in the world that could achieve the same horrid magnitude of Hazel dying again. Camp Jupiter, New Rome, it could burn in a hot sea of flames and he would mourn for it less than he would mourn for Hazel. The earth could collapse beneath his feet, falling slow to the gulp of a grim black hole, and he’d worry for it little if only Hazel could survive. He would harness all the power from his mother and his father and entomb mankind in vile Roman war before he’d ever let Hazel fall in battle. And he wore this conviction in such afflictive vehemence that it took dominion as the lord of his thoughts, and demanded for his lips to profess its resolution.

“I hope the entire world dies before you die again.”

Her eyes widened just a little—as though stunned or concerned, and instantly he wished to have not spoken at all.

Not because he hadn't meant it, and hardly because it was a frightening thing to say, but because he knew it wasn't helpful. No wound in the ruptured membranes of her life would mend from his impossible prayer for her immortality. And it was stupid to say something so selfish to a woman who had already died to save the world once before.

Another spike of wind, scented thickly with the ocean, trembled further through the cave and idled inside, carrying, too, the plangent hum of its waters and the slow articulation of Poseidon at the shore. Hazel’s deft fingers, so small compared to his, lingered up towards his chest, exactly where his heart drummed. It was a habit of hers, placing her hand just so, and he mused that his heart was a source of fascination to her. She had come from Pluto—her life had started with death, but Frank’s beating heart was proof of his vitality, and this beating heart of his was so full with love for her.

There was something macabre in loving a child of the Underworld. Closeness to one was a constant walk in the presence of Pluto, with the awareness that she still was not quite invincible from him. It was hard to believe that even she, who seemed more powerful than death, was vulnerable to the dark devices of her father, and would inevitably return to his domain in the end. Maybe old age was scarier than death of any other cause.

Her silence stretched longer. Frank thought of saying sorry. But just as the apology began to form in his throat, Hazel replied in a way that he did not expect.

“You... really love me, don’t you, Frank?”

The words were colored in the paint of surprise, which was unbelievable to him. Did she even have to ask? Was there ever room for doubt?

“I do.” And he could swear it on the River Styx as proof, but thought it more meaningful to kiss her forehead. “You know that.”

Her eyes glistened with sparkles of emotion. She seemed embarrassed just a little, and nonetheless absorbed in the dearness of this moment. Hazel moved in even closer to his body, her hand smoothing over his chest onto his shoulder.

And even this chaste touch was still so much. There was alchemy in the faint heat of her fingers, how she could transform this body that he loathed into something deserving of the romance in her eyes. He was reminded of his mother’s words in the past, saying that the right person would be enamored with his looks... Hazel had never, not once, behaved as if she didn’t like his appearance, and in fact, she was very quick to compliment. Frank only wished that he could synthesize with this, that he could cherish himself and his body in the same tender way that she always did.

“I love you too, you know...”

When her fingers traced the outline of his lips, and she spoke his name for no reason but to feel its weight upon her tongue, Frank wondered if his heart might grow beyond the region of his chest. Warm color melted like ice atop his cheeks, and thus came a flood of a thousand emotions, all of which were governed by the motions of her hand. How it caressed him so, and ignited his endearment, and assumed such prepossessing presence in his thoughts.

“Your eyes, Frank...” There was awe in her voice, still smoothing along his lips with the soft pad of her fingers. “This look you have right now...”

Gently, he took her hand within the grasp of his own, and slowly aligned her knuckles with the hot touch of his lips. Few thoughts accompanied this soft contact, beyond a tepid wish to kiss her down from her wrist to the prefix of her forearm, to her round, smooth shoulder and her small collarbone, to her neck up to her chin—if he were simply bold enough to give his love to her. How long might it take to color every part of Hazel with the imprint of his lips? He could devote hours and days of his life to showering her body in affection just so, and so enamored by this girl, there couldn’t possibly be a better use of his time.

But instead, he brought her hand back onto his face, giving her palm conformity to the shape of his cheek. Tall and broad-bodied as he was, Hazel’s arms were barely wide enough to ever embrace him fully—but Frank still liked to be held, and he always felt such assurance and delight whenever Hazel cupped his face with those powerful hands of hers. So he pressed his cheek a little further into her palm, and exhaled lovingly as she caressed the outline of his face by her own volition.

Dreamily, with his eyes half-closed, Frank murmured near her ear, “... What do I look like, Hazel?”

“You look... um. You look like you’re under some kind of spell...”

“... I think I am,” Frank said, under full hypnosis of her palm. “The way you touch me, Hazel... it's taking over me. I can’t think of anything else...”

A brief pause ensued, and all the while, she continued to massage his cheek.

Hazel spoke up again, “... Do you want me to touch you more, Frank?”

His heart seemed to soar far off in his chest like a volleyball catapulted out-of-bounds. Yes. Yes. Oh, gods, yes. he could say, were he honest enough, yet there was no answer that his shy lips could manage but a desperate single word, emerging from his throat in the form of a breathless little croak.

“... Please.”

His request was not for anything in particular. Anything, any touch anywhere on his body would be everything and more. Her thigh crept between his own, her hand squeezed his side, and she kissed him again, a touch so heavenly that he moaned instantly at first contact.

Their lips parted open, tongues reached forward at the exact same time—a hot slip of contact that shot straight to his groin in a pulse of scalding pleasure. It was their third time, ever, making out like this, and though the motions of deep kissing were becoming more familiar, it never got easier to contain his desperation. Only his shyness kept him from massaging her thighs and her bottom, only his fear of doing too much halted him from grabbing her hip with tight force and grinding up against her body.

Shakily, he laid his hand at the index of her waist and squeezed her just a little bit. It was such a meager outlet to express the scorching lust within. Already, Frank was maddened with perverse possibilities. Would they go all the way tonight? Was he minutes from pulling down her pants and filling up her body? And would he feel that private place, could her stroke her to completion? How would it feel to pleasure Hazel, give her all that she deserved, and feel her coming on his ecstasy in tight-gripping convulsions?

The heat was agony. No external force could cool him down now—not the frigid ocean breeze, not the sprays of ocean mist. Hazel volunteered her tongue deep within his avid mouth, and he fervidly reciprocated in lavish strokes against it. Her hands were roaming across his body, and so his hands ventured, too—they could not bear to stay in place, urgently smoothing at her arm, her back, her cheek. He wanted to do so much more, to touch her in places that he’d never touched before, and though he could be stupid to her cues, Frank sensed in her actions and her breathlessness that she didn’t want to stop.

And yet, maybe they should. His first time with her, he needed to make sure it was perfect. How could they go all the way right here, not even on a proper bed, in a poorly-lit island cave? Surely their room would be much better, if only the two of them could bring themselves to stop...

“Wait, um—” he broke between kisses, “—maybe we shouldn’t do this here...”

... But his words were one force while his actions were another. Frank panted heavily against her lips, waiting not two seconds before kissing her again. To slow down seemed impossible at this stage. Everything of him craved communion with something of hers—his lips needed this spectacular kiss, his hands sought the warm delight of her skin, and the surge of arousal below his waist was increasingly desperate to be in close contact with her own.

Another thread of his reservations came undone. He cupped her thigh within his hand and fastened it into a fervent grip. Hazel twitched into this touch, sighing loudly as he grew greedier with her tongue...

By getting this close, Frank began to notice just how much of himself and his honest desires he’d been suppressing over the years. This lust was nothing new; it was an old, stifled thing, something innate and rarely touched, it was a frighteningly forceful animal compulsion. He was not a careless person, he wasn’t prone to needless risks, but the red-hot scourge of his desire reigned supreme over his hesitance to go further with Hazel in a place like this. He was insane to massage her thigh and suck upon her bottom lip, to draw out these soft, sweet chirps of pleasure from her throat. He was stupid to consider pulling up her shirt and feeling up her chest in this location, of all places. But as he had come to deduce over this past week, there was little room for good sense when her lips were involved, and the magic of her touch was beyond intoxicating. And if Hazel had even registered what he’d said, his warning that they might want to stop, she didn’t show it all—seemingly perfectly distracted by this deepening kiss, her tongue emphatically in companion with his own. 

Frank sighed another pleased groan into her mouth, hips squirming as her thigh threatened to stroke against his crotch. He wanted her to reach down and touch him there directly, for her to see just how badly he needed her right now, and he wanted to do the exact same to her—to see if her desire might leave a wet stain on his caressing fingertips. And were they ready for that? Would Hazel let him touch her there? Frank could make her feel good, he could make use of his hands and he could use his mouth, too. He could bury his face between her legs, holding her hips firmly in place as her thighs crushed his ears—and the thought made him moan against her lips again, feeling increasingly tempted to unbutton her jeans... 

Another drunken mumble between kisses, far less sensible than before. “Mmph, Hazel... you taste so good...”

And the more that they kissed, the more he felt the hot stroke of her tongue and reeled from the sensation, Frank thought, stupidly, that sex might be too much for him to handle. Kissing her this deep excited something fierce in every part of his body, and he could feel that familiar urge getting harder between his legs. If only doing this much could push fast against his easy limitations, then how would he ever manage going all the way? Even thinking about it might summon early tragedy to the front of his pants.

One way or another—he didn’t understand how—their position shifted effortlessly. Hazel’s back laid flat upon the ground as Frank had come to hover over her, supported on his knees and forearms as their wet kiss continued. And he really did hover—the position emphasized their difference in size, and he felt almost like a monster who had trapped a small girl beneath his overbearing form. Was he scaring her at all? Gods, he hoped not—he was scared enough already that he might hurt her on accident, making conscious effort not to lean in too much and oppress her with his weight. And yet, still, Hazel’s body was shyly eager underneath, fingers clutching at his shirt as she gasped against his lips.

Her hand wandered to his hair, at first a slow caress that was pleasing to his senses, and then it harshened to a grip of the short, black strands. The pull was slightly painful, and she seemed unaware, but Frank didn’t ask her to stop, and he decided that he might even like this kind of aggression. Not solely for the feeling, but the considerations behind it—did she need him so badly that she had to grab him so, that her polite nature could grow so severe as to pull at his hair? Was that what it meant?

The overthinker that he was, Frank yearned so much for evidence of Hazel’s pleasure. He still didn’t know anything about her wants and needs when it came to sex, nor the ways that she might express her mysterious lust, reservations, and discomforts, but then his train of thought was halted—it was jolted by her fingers tugging on his hair again, and Frank was stricken with such a shocking thrum of pleasure that he yielded from her kiss, his voice cracked on parted lips—

“Hahh—!”

And this sudden, loud moan of his might have been mortifying, but was swiftly surpassed by a freezing thrust of water splashing hard into the grotto, a penetrating wave that buried them within its breast—

“—AH!”

—they both shrieked, and Frank quickly wrapped his arm around her, clinging fast to the rock so that they’d not be swept away. The current tugged at them and lingered, submerged them fully in saltwater, until its temper cooled and abated in defeat, giving back possession of the old, cavernous air so that they could breathe again, laying drenched and coupled on the freshly moistened cave floor.

They both sized each other up with concern in their eyes, and when it became clear that neither had been hurt, they were absorbed of gleeful gaiety and chuckled in good humor.

Hazel extracted a flimsy strip of seaweed from her hair. “Sheesh, I knew the sea hated me, but I didn’t know it hated me.”

“Maybe it was Percy?” Frank mused.

“Why would he do that to us?”

“Our room has the better view.”

They both laughed again, giggling like children in a close, damp embrace. It made him happy to see her in such higher spirits. Funnily, the somber ocean that burdened her mood seemed to have just as quickly done away with those grim recollections of the past, distilling her sad memories for a new one to share with him. He was happy about that, too.

“... That was probably for the best,” Frank admitted in final exhales of laughter, rubbing his thumb fondly over her cheek. “We should head back.”

“Yeah, I think we should.”

“We’re over thirty minutes out from the hotel, though... I could turn into a giant eagle and get us to our room faster?”

“Um, no.” Hazel raised up her hands. “I’ve got it.”

The darkness in the cave began to stretch and bend and morph, and the shadows at its walls peeled away in black strips, until coalescing under his and Hazel’s feet like a vast pit of tar. Reality flickered in and out, light was swallowed in the tenebrous forces of her power, and the last thing Frank saw was the dimming, purple radiance of gems within the grotto.

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At her insistence, Frank was first in the shower.

She knew that she would take a long while getting saltwater out of her hair, wanting not to make him wait as she shampooed and conditioned. Frank had almost joked that they could try showering together, but the very thought of it had made him too dumbly flustered to even say it, and he still remained nervous of his nakedness before her. So Frank had showered quickly and alone, fully redressed before reentering the bedroom. Thus, about an hour passed before they were in the same space again, with Frank left to his devices whilst she kept busy in the bathroom.

He crept back to the mirror and observed his form, drawing his shirt back up to examine everything beneath. There was no avoiding it now. They were to share a bed together. And for all he knew, they still might do even more than that... but was he ready? Could he handle letting Hazel see those parts of his body that he was insecure about? Frank did have pretty huge arm and chest muscles—he worked hard at that (and hoped that she might be impressed), but he remained nervous to show her anything else. Especially, well... not just his stomach. There were other private places whose size made him worry for her reaction.

And he let himself be distracted as she bathed, trying to pep talk himself into feeling more secure. Why couldn’t his dad hit him with a Blessing of Self-Confidence right now? But when Hazel came back, his every distraction and shred of coherency burned up into scattered cinders. The bathroom door opened up, and his girlfriend was a vision of all things divine in the world.

Her bronze curls tousled at her shoulders. Her lips coated in a soft sheen of balm. Bare thighs beneath a white slip dress whose satin luster begged for touch—and a loose robe to match that covered her arms, fluttering elegantly with every move she made. And she had such smoothness to her skin, evidently moisturized and soft all over. This was the girl he was getting into bed with?

He was blatantly staring at her slack-jawed, and immense effort was required to regain command over his senses. One couldn't be close to Hazel Levesque without intimately knowing the finer things of gold and jewels, but Frank had never seen a cache of glittering wealth that was half as richly pleasing as the woman herself.

“H—hi.” Frank sputtered, tugging his shirt down quickly.

“Hi, Frank.” Hazel smiled. She rubbed her forearm nervously. “Sorry for taking so long...”

“Oh, that's okay. Um, you look really pretty.”

Clasping her hands together and struggling to meet his eyes, she seemed terribly bashful (which inevitably endeared him further). “Um, thanks…”

“Y—your hair looks nice,” he stuttered.

“Oh, thanks… I brushed it a little.”

“And your dress. It, uh, looks really good.”

“Thanks. It's old, I’ve never worn it.”

“It looks really, really good.” Frank repeated. At this point, the last few neurons shouldering his senses were struggling hard to function appropriately. Under such limitations, there was little he could manage but to mutter his favorite phrase. “Gods, you're so pretty…”

Mercifully, she didn’t chastise him for repeating himself again. Instead, she suggested that they gather themselves into bed, and he croaked a pathetic sound that was probably an “okay”.

“Oh, I don’t remember if I said it yet, but thanks for doing all of this, Frank.” Hazel said as she slipped beneath the covers. “Really. This is an amazing trip. I’m so happy to be here with you.”

Frank followed in after her, though he was unsure how close he should really be getting. “Oh, no problem. We all deserve a break.”

He decided that, after the cave, getting close enough to touch her should be permissible, at least. Once again on his side, Frank skooched over to about the same distance as before, lining up himself so that they could rest at eye level. Her leg seemed curious to brush against his own, though her foot couldn’t reach any lower than his knee.

Cuddling wasn’t something new to them—in fact they did so often, but it had always been a very chaste exercise between the two of them. Perhaps laying in bed together could be completely innocent, too, but one could hardly feel as much in context of the beach an hour ago. As for Hazel, her embarrassment was all over her face—she looked like she was fighting not to draw the blanket over her head. At the same time that Frank wanted to be able to put her mind at ease, a selfish part of him enjoyed that he could make her feel so flustered. Though she claimed independence from the social orders of the 1930s, she was surely still perturbed to be in bed with a man that wasn’t her husband.

And he really didn’t know what else he could do for her. What he did know was that his heart was a tempest of emotion, beating fast and constantly for the excitement of it all. Their relationship had achieved so many new peaks recently, and how he wanted to see just how much further they could go...

There was a simple question that he wanted to ask. And he was scared to ask it. But he surmised that ambiguity had no place in a bedroom, so he overcame his nervousness and asked it, anyway.

“Hazel, are we... should we continue where we left off?”

She seemed surprised by his directness. “I... I think… we could, Frank.”

“Okay.”

“Okay…”

Neither of them moved.

Hazel quirked her lip, taking his hand in hers again. There was a lighthearted frustration to the words that she spoke, a calm self-deprecation in the lilt of her ask. “Why are we so awkward with this stuff, Frank? We know each other so well. We don't have to be this shy about… about the physical stuff.”

Frank nodded at her. Though he appreciated having this assurance, part of him felt bad that it was Hazel who had said it. What they’d agreed upon two nights before was that he would try to guide her through this—and who was he to even profess such a thing? He was so bad at this that he couldn’t even guide himself.

“Hazel, um... just so we're clear… you're still okay with this, right? Okay with… doing more with each other? Because you can change your mind, we don't have to do anything—”

“I'm sure, Frank.”

“Then… can I kiss you again?”

“You can kiss me as much as you want, Frank...”

“Are you sure?”

“Frank!” She squeezed his arm playfully. “Just… come here. Come kiss me, already.”

She laid her hand to the back of his neck and pulled him to her lips with a fierceness that he’d never known from her before. Frank grunted in surprise—but he was quick to give it back. Maybe Hazel was right to be a little frustrated. Maybe it didn’t have to be as hard or nerve-wracking as they made it out to be—because they did know each other so well, they did love each other so much. How would they ever get used to touching each other freely if they had to stutter and crawl through every single little step? She had told him repeatedly that she wanted this, too. Couldn’t he just bring himself to listen already?

And it was liberating to truly listen to her, now—quickly arriving at the same animality they’d touched within the grotto. His mouth opened to her kiss, and his hand soon found her thigh, and he pulled her up against him in a fit of crude lust. The separation of their bodies was beginning to feel much like the holding of one’s breath—he couldn’t tolerate the absence of Hazel any longer, he had to intake her until she coated his lungs, until they reached the peak of indivisibility from one another.

And this indulgence of her could not be more gratifying. She was so deeply warm and so deeply felt. A penetrating closeness, himself to her, where everything of this true love could melt through skin and pour into inside his body—Hazel, Hazel, Hazel, Hazel, his mind was filled with thoughts of her, his heart danced with vibrant emotions. She was gasping and moaning and clutching his body—growing wilder in touch as their tongues smoothed upon each other. Her hand at his pectorals, traveling fast to his stomach, diverting back unto his hip, and then finally, at last resolved to stroke his body where he needed it most.

Frank sputtered out a swear. 

Hot puffs of air came panting from his lips. Hazel rubbed him over his boxers, her motions delicate and smooth, and he was trying to prevent himself from passing away right there—she was shockingly good in this soft, slow massage, and he squeezed her thigh helplessly as hips beckoned up into her touch. It felt so much better than his own hand, than his imaginations and most perverted dreams. And easily could his chronic fretting relapse—‘Do you really want to do this? Are you sure you want to touch me there?’—but he was learning to let Hazel take mastery over her actions. She didn’t need him to remind her of her own agency.

“... Gods, that...” Frank groaned zealously, suddenly tightening his palm over her leg. “... that feels so good...”

He might have heard Hazel mutter an expletive, as her hand seemed to grow more impassioned from his words, and he could feel her gaining confidence in the ardency of her movements. The position changed again; Frank laid down on his back while Hazel moved above, kissing him intermittently as her touch asserted domicile. His hand surfed along her sensuous thigh and his hips tautly lifted up against her fingers. Just this alone infringed upon his limitations, and she could surely ruin him without attempting much more. 

Yet still, Hazel shocked him with her bravery. At languid pace, her hand began to withdraw from its placement—he nearly whined to feel its loss—and her wisplike fingers traveled back up to his waistband. They then dipped beneath the fabric of his boxers, and as her touch came upon the growing flesh between his legs, all his fears and overthinking took second place to his desire. 

A shuddering moan bled out between their kiss, “... oh, gods… Hazel...”

Soon her palm relaxed, morphing softly to the rigid shape of him, and at the tip, precips of wet pleasure had already accumulated and trickled down its length, which now smothered up her hand as it further teased him so. Hazel said nothing at all, though her touch had grown unsure, and she looked to him for guidance he was barely sane to give. So she idled for not much longer, resuming sportive strokes that induced more faltered, needy respirations of her name.

And more ravenous grew the appetite of his desire. On his heavier breaths, on the twitchings of his hips, pleasure swelled and saturated like the stroke of a brush, coloring his body in deep, sensuous hues. Despite her inexpertise, there was something artful in the soft motions of her palm as it massaged him more and again and more—and his head tilted back, his eyes squeezed shut hard, for he was having trouble keeping himself from falling apart. As badly as he wanted to let himself drown in this vivid red lust, dim awareness persisted that he might already be upon the cusp of orgasm.

Hazel finally spoke up, her voice imparting mild concern. “Um, is this okay, Frank? I—I don't know what I'm doing—”

“—It’s so good, Hazel.” he murmured gravely, holding back another groan as he bit his bottom lip. Frank continued through gritted teeth, "It’s so, so good, ugh...”

“Oh. Um, that's good.” Her sound was timidly pleased. “Is there anything else I should do?”

“Kiss me more,” he answered breathlessly, and then remembering his manners, he added on in quiet, “please.”

Hazel let out a soft hum, beneath it a timbre of humor, and he could feel the smile on her lips as she besouled him with another fest of messy kisses.

Frank, all the while, had become inconsolable for the sobs that worried in his throat. He couldn’t think, she stroked him faster, she licked his tongue, he couldn’t think—the pleasure was too conscious, too perverse and persevering—its preponderance was felt in every synapse of his mind. And the next words out of her mouth did something to him so potent that he feared he might spill into her fist right there—

“I love kissing you, Frank... I want to kiss you all over.”

His hips instantly stuttered hard into her palm and he couldn't hold back the loud gasping of his lips. The movement seemed to startle her, and her hand withdrew steadfast from its hold—thankfully (miserably) stopping him from finishing just yet.

“A—are you okay?” Hazel squeaked in a panic. “I’m sorry, I really don’t know what I’m doing—”

“No, no, um...”

Frank paused to breathe every few words, panting hard as he attempted to regather even a morsel of intelligence. He hadn't meant or expected to react like that, but those words in her voice... it was as if they'd gripped and stroked his arousal as directly and perversely as her fingers did. He knew that she was still shy about this, but Hazel sounded so good when she talked a little dirty...

Still barely coherent in his thought processes, Frank stumbled breathily through an attempted reply. “It’s okay, that was... good... um, you can keep going...?”

Her hand did not yet resume. Nervous skepticism colored over her features. Hazel huffed, “you keep saying that it’s ‘good’... is that true, Frank? There’s no way that I’m doing this perfectly...”

“... Um.” Was she asking to be criticized? He puzzled over what to say. “I guess your, um, grip. It’s a little bit... soft?”

“Oh.” She seemed genuinely surprised, which was a little funny to him. “Really? If it’s tighter, it doesn’t hurt?”

“Not at all. You could… you could be a lot firmer.”

Hazel looked discouraged, so he quickly added, “Not that you're doing anything wrong! Everything is really good right now, I promise! I just mean that, well… it's not gonna break or anything—”

Her face was become with pure horror. “It can break?”

“No!” Frank urged. Somehow, talking about this was more embarrassing than everything else that they’d been doing. “I mean, it can bend badly and stuff, but—that’s not what I’m trying to say. Um. I just mean that... tight is okay. Tight is good. That’s all.”

“Ah... okay, I see. Noted.” Her countenance had calmed. Gingerly, her palm returned to feeling him, testing out some different pressures. “Is there anything else?

“... actually... is there…” Frank trailed, scared to finish the sentence—but he swallowed his nervousness in a hefty gulp, thinking now was too late to succumb to reservation. “... is there anything else you want to do? T—to me, I mean.”

“Something else I want to do?”

“Um, I think it... helps,” he said carefully, because the phrase ‘turns me on’ was a little too dirty for his lips, “when you tell me what you want. I... like hearing you say what you like, and what you want to do to me.”

“Oh, um, okay. I get it.” she affirmed, though he wondered if she really did. Her hand started moving again. Frank closed his eyes and bit his lip, trying not to startle her by jerking up his hips again. “Well, um... I want to keep touching you, Frank. I just want to make you feel good. And, um...”

His breath shuddered in anticipation. “... Yeah?”

“... It’s really big, Frank. I like the way you feel in my hand.”

I really might die in this bed.

Frank covered his face in embarrassment, his cheeks so flushed that the cherry-red color might seep through his fingers. The motions of her hand continued nonetheless, and another weak moan warbled up through his lips. Every perfect, hot stroke was succeeded by a strained groan or hitched breath, and his head lolled back onto pillow once again, for as much as he was shy to hear such dirty words from Hazel, he was still so pleased that she liked the size of him, and his ears remained desperate for more praise and talk of filthy things.

His trembling hands slowly fled from his face, one resting on her side and the other helplessly grasping at the bedsheets. Shamelessly, Frank begged, “... please keep talking to me like that…”

“Oh, Frank…” There was romance in the soft breath of his name, which blossomed further in the constant up-and-down of her fist. “After… after that night, I've, um, I've thought about us kissing more. I think I liked sitting on your lap like that. And... I think I want to try being on top of you again...”

The words alone drew another eager moan from his throat, and he could feel the tension in his body straining closer to its climax. Frank clenched his fingers into her waist even more, lungs barely catching air as he struggled to reply, “I… I want that too, Hazel... ugh, keep going—keep going—hahh—!”

Mind consumed by the thrill of sex, he thought of her in his lap once again, but with her clothes stripped off, with his body stripped, too, and the feeling of her ass pressed onto his bare thighs, and the heaven of filling her completely with his lust, and the deep, frantic thrusts of her hips against his own—and did she really fantasize of such things, too? They could do it right now, she could fuck him just like that if she really wanted to—and he would gladly let Hazel do anything she wanted with his body.

“Oh, gods, I wanna do it with you so bad… H—Hazel... please—!”

A tighter grip. Fast strokes. Slicken wetness at the tip. His moans were high-pitched now, more rapid and more desperate, and his hips were jutting into her strokes again. He couldn’t help himself, everything felt too good, and he had never in his life been so defeated by another person.

She seemed enthused by this, her hand stroking a little faster. “'Please' what, Frank...?”

His words were in his mouth, phantom syllables on the tongue, lustful ghosts of desperate pleasure given shape only through moans—and only whimpers of her name, only rapid, anguished breaths as her hand became more lethal, as her fingers held him tighter. Frank was helpless in this grasp, hips magnetic to her fist, irrepressibly submitted to the pleasures that she gave. Every single stroke was to him an answered prayer, a deliverance to something far beyond his mortal senses. He gripped her thigh even tighter as his gasps filled up the air, hoping uselessly that she might anchor him to earth, as her touch so divine that he was fast-approaching the heights of a heavenly conclusion—

“Hazel—ugh—I can’t—I’m—!”

—and his hips jutted endlessly into her tight fist as his pleasure culminated in excessive climax. His dying groans were hoarse, impassioned, desperate, and his brows tightened from the agony of his satisfaction, and the built-up pressure holding fast between his legs spilled out in a multitude of hot, stuttering releases, and he felt himself twitching more within her halted palm as it all emptied out, choked sobs in his throat with every final jet of throbbing orgasm.

... And for a little while after, Frank’s entire being was overtaken. The ravages of climax still surfed throughout his body, passing in slow wavelets of reverberating bliss. On the occasions in the past where his own hand had traversed beneath his waist, he could hardly recall an instance of such long-lasting pleasure. Orgasm was usually something so ephemeral—piercing pleasure for two seconds, possibly four at best, and then the ensuing clarity that roused a quick cleanup, but the felicity of Hazel’s touch remained long after he’d come, and for half a minute longer, he was absolutely drunken with the ecstasy of everything she’d given.

... Eventually, Frank opened up eyes. Dazed and fully stupid, like he’d woken from a dream.

Still panting lightly, he had to reassure himself of his connection to this world. Had he now returned from heaven? Was this the mortal realm he’d known before? Sleepily, Frank took stock of his surroundings. A hotel room. The flustered face of his beautiful girlfriend. He was half-naked for some reason, and spilled all over his torso was... was...

The remembrance of events struck him like a bronze cannonball to the face.

“O—oh, my gods! Hazel, I’m so sorry!” Frank cried, sitting up from the bed in a fright. He couldn’t even decide what to panic over first—the disgusting substance spread all across his stomach, the way that its drippings had sullied her hand, the fact that he’d wanted to go further with her tonight—only to prematurely finish within minutes of her touch. There were too many options. If only he could just die. “Oh, gods, I’m so embarrassed—wait here, I’ll get you a towel!”

“Wait, Frank, umm...” With her unmarred left hand, Hazel gently pushed him back towards the surface of the bed. “You lay down. I’ll get the towel.”

Frank glanced at the mess across his abdomen again, then back up at her with panicked worry in his eyes. He would really prefer to lock himself in the bathroom right now, but she was right that standing up right now would likely risk dirtying the floor with something rather unsavory.

“O—okay.” Frank answered. It was all he could think to say.

Hazel went to the bathroom. He could hear the faucet running, a pause in which he heard nothing at all, and then the quiet beat of the cabinet beneath the sink opening. The girl returned to the bed with a towel moments later, and politely looked away as he dealt with the aftermath on his pelvis.

Some awkward shuffling later, and they were neatly positioned on the bed, laying mutely on their sides with their knees lightly touching. “Pillow talk” was a thing that Frank had heard of before, but he seemed to lack the gene that made it possible to make cutesy conversation after sex. There were a few things he could think of that might be okay enough as starters, such as ‘Wow, that was good,’ or, ‘Thank you,’ might suffice; or perhaps even ‘I want to have your babies.’ But the shyly mumbled words that he opted for instead were decidedly unsexier than all of the above.

“Um. Sorry. For all of that.”

She raised a brow at him and wore puzzlement across her features. “Huh? What are you apologizing for, Frank?”

He shifted about in discomfort, struggling to look her in the eyes but prevailing through means of effort. “I don’t know, I just... I don’t know if you meant to go that far. And I’m worried that I took advantage.”

“Frank... I’m twenty-two, you know. I may be completely new to this stuff, but I did grasp what was going on.” Hazel smiled slightly at him, her eyes beaming with content and reassurance. “If you’re worried that you tricked me into something, you couldn’t be more wrong. I was... um, I was into it. Okay?”

He gulped in surprise, but tried to absorb those words until he could accept them as true. “Okay. That’s good.”

“And I thought it was kind of nice. I like seeing you that way. It’s nice to...” Her fingers drummed along his arm, eyes searching for the words that possessed the right emotions. “... to have known you for so long, and still get to see a completely new side of Frank Zhang. It’s nice that I can draw out that reaction from you.”

“You... um... you drew it out, alright.” Frank joked. It was a bad joke, and she didn’t seem to get it. He continued, “you were so amazing, Hazel. It was really good for me.”

“Then I’m happy, Frank. So stop worrying. Everything was perfect.”

“... Yeah. Yeah, I guess it was, then.” He settled. The last drips of panic evaporated from his body, and he relaxed himself into the closeness of her form. Maybe he might get a grip on that ‘pillow talk’ thing after all. “So... what were those ‘new sides of Frank Zhang’ that you saw?”

“Oh, lots of sides.” she replied with shocking readiness. “I got to see what you look like down there, I got to see all the different faces you make.”

“Okay, that’s...”

“Also, you’re really loud.”

Frank did a double take. “I’m loud?”

“Pretty loud, Frank.” Sensing his horror, Hazel chuckled and assuaged him with a petting of his forearm. “And it was nice. You’re my loud,—” she poked him in his cheek, “—incredibly sweet, handsome boy.”

Oh, the bliss of those words again...

He might have invented a new shade of blush, and he might have even twitched between the legs once again, because hearing Hazel refer to him as “her boy” was a little too stimulating for this to be a normal reaction. Perhaps at a later time, that was a fact worth investigating.

“... um, okay...” he muttered dreamily. “So... so just to make sure, everything was okay? You weren’t grossed out or anything?”

“Seeing... um. That stuff for the first time was a little shocking,” Hazel began, fanning her face shyly. “But not ‘gross’. You could never be gross, Frank.”

“Really?”

“Well, of course. I like you too much. I don’t think you could repel me if you tried.”

The words wrapped about his heart in a soft hug of cotton and warmed him completely. Oh, Venus, he was in love.

With a slow, bashful smile, he reached down and took Hazel’s hand, raised it up to his mouth, to then pepper her in a light flurry of kisses. The lines of her palm and every fingertip. A trail down from her wrist to her inner elbow. And an odyssey up to the shoulder, jawline, and that adorable chin, where he thus sojourned at her paradisal lips.

And once he withdrew from that sweet, gentle kiss, Frank gazed at her with the kind of weakness in his eyes that one could only bear when looking at the other half of his soul. It was like the security he’d felt in the glimpse of her past, when he’d relinquished his firewood to Hazel, having utmost confidence in his decision. It was the calming sensation of uncompromising safety in the presence of another, of the woman he could trust with his entire well-being. Not just the physical weight of his wood, but the emotions that were buried in the deepest roots of his heart.

Frank squeezed her hand and cleared his throat. With her, he was often so quick to speak the first thought that arrived in his head.

“... um, I love you, Hazel.”

She nuzzled into his arm. The response seem to come easily to her. “I love you, too.”

Frank held her even closer. Probably, he had overreacted just a little. It was their first time getting that intimate before, and panic was better off surrendered for the satisfaction and excitement that it had happened at all.

But did it have to end here?

“So, um...” Frank started, running his fingertips along her side. “I guess we kind of only focused on me, huh?”

“That isn't true, though. I was involved, I was right there.”

“Yeah, but... I didn’t do anything for you. Like, at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I’m saying is, um... o—only if you want, I can...”

The hand at her side stroked smooth across her body, a sensuous caress from her hip to her thigh...

“... I can try to make you feel good, too.”

In his touch, Frank channeled all the remnants of his waning confidence and motioned up towards the sanctum between her legs...

And the moment that his touch achieved the softness of her lower lips, laden in the white cotton of her underwear, Hazel shrieked in a terror like she’d just been shot and smacked his hand away, closing up her legs tight.

He was consumed with shock—eyes darting about the room in search of some foe. ... But there was no one else in here. A monster hadn’t burst through the window. Housekeeping hadn’t barged in at an unusual hour. So what happened? Was that horror-stricken scream really in response to him touching her? “Hazel?”

The girl looked sick. She couldn’t make eye contact, holding the hand that she’d struck him with close to her breast. “... I’m sorry, Frank. Let’s stop for tonight. Okay?”

“O... oh. Of course. We can definitely stop.” He was hurt in his low voice and his expression, though he tried to suppress their presence within him, feeling far more concerned with Hazel’s well-being. “But, are you okay? Why did you scream like that?”

“... I don’t know. I’m sorry...” And still, Hazel could not look him in his eyes. She receded further from him in bed, and refastened the loosened ties of her robe. “Um, I’ll be in the bathroom for a second. Sorry. You can go to bed.”

Scurrying like a mouse, Hazel drew herself into the restroom just as foretold, and Frank was by himself again. Dumbfounded. Guilt-stricken. And concerned of two principal conditions—that he had crossed a boundary and offended her beyond remorse, or that she simply was repulsed by the touch of him entirely.

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Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 08

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The serenity was slain by a penetrating scream.

As the eve was drunk with peaceful rest, Annabeth slept within his arms, her back pressed against his naked chest. Beneath them was the hotel bed, its plush fibers a handsome accomplice. Together they were warm, relaxed, carefree; detached from the need of waking early, all-indulgence in the luxury of sweet vacation. He was calm under such immense comforts and had settled easily to the point of deep sleep—yet not so deep to be inviolable. At around midnight, and quite strikingly, Percy was awoken by a frantic plea whose vehement desperation could be heard from indoors:

“Help! Help! My lord, please, I need help!”

His shoulders jerked up and his eyes snapped open. Urgency came very easily to him; so often had he needed to grab Riptide in a hurry, so quick did his adrenaline sink fangs into his heart. Percy expected such things, he was in a constant of permanent anticipation. And the fact that Annabeth, the light sleeper that she was, remained completely unperturbed made one thing clear: the screaming voice was in his head—but it was still very real. And only certain beings could speak to him telepathically. And Arion would never refer to Percy as his ‘lord’.

And because Annabeth was so easily awoken, his best efforts to be subtle as he slipped out of bed were unsuccessful. Still sleepy in her voice, Annabeth spoke, “Percy...?”

He was throwing on some clothes, rushing to get into his shoes. “I’ll be right back.”

“What’s wrong? Did you have a bad dream?”

“No, I—”

“Hurry, my lord!” the voice cried again. “The current, it’s too strong!”

“—there’s trouble, I gotta hurry.”

Annabeth began to sit up, her voice growing more firm. “I’ll go with you.”

“No, don’t get up. It’s a sea thing,” he said quickly, hoping it would suffice as an explanation. “I’ll come back. Don’t worry, Annabeth.”

“Percy!”

But he was already out the door.

And he ran down the hallway, flew down forty flights of stairs (which was exhausting in itself), until he was barreling through the hotel lobby and narrowly avoided toppling over a bellhop and his luggage cart.

“Uh, lo siento!” Percy called out. Was that the right phrase? He’d done okay with Spanish in high school, but was definitely rusty all these years later—and if the startled bellhop understood him or replied, he didn’t have the time to stick around and find out. Percy rushed past the elegant lobby front doors and persevered a mad sprint down the cobblestone paths, which bled a slow gradient into the sands of the beach. The air was cool and the night was dark, but he could navigate just fine; even on an unfamiliar continent, Percy could always find his way to the sea.

Now at the neckline where beach met water, he tried targeting his thoughts towards the being in distress—but it was hard without knowing who on earth he was talking to. “I’m here! Where are you?!”

The voice was fast in response, blaring back into his thoughts with surprising readiness. “Thirty-nine degrees and forty-nine minutes north, two degrees and twenty-one minutes east! Oh, please hurry!”

He wasn’t expecting an answer in such clear-headed detail, but this was fine by him. Percy dove into the sea not two seconds later, and his fatigue from the sprint was thus apprehended by the forgiving embrace of the Mediterranean. His spirit bolstered and his muscles revitalized by its cold companionship, Percy swam ahead with an effective burst of speed, impelling the waters all around him to help surge his body forward.

Within mere minutes, a figure came into underwater view—a dolphin? No, it was a whale—but merely dolphin-like in shape, as Cuvier’s beaked whales typically were. He knew instinctively that it was a younger female, maybe fifteen years old, and she swam around in frantic circles as Percy moved in closer.

“My lord!” The whale sang. “Oh, praise to Poseidon, you really came!”

“Yeah, I did! What’s wrong?” He thought back.

“My things, they have been swept away!”

“Your what now?”

“The current, look!”

The whale used her tail to gesture pointedly behind her. If Percy narrowed his eyes, he could see a small wooden chest floating away in that direction, carried backwards by the vigorous sway of an undersea current.

Realizing now why he’d been summoned, Percy gawked at the whale. “Are you serious? I thought you were in trouble!”

“Lord, my things are more precious than my very own life! I beg of you, please rescue my things. I can’t go on without my things!”

He wanted to get mad. It was the middle of the night, and he was finally on vacation, and he had startled Annabeth to the point of disturbing her sleep over this panic. Unfortunately for his temperament, the whale’s woeful voice was maddeningly earnest. Percy couldn’t bring himself to anger in the face of such desperate pleas—and furthermore, she was basically a kid; Cuvier whales didn’t reach maturity until they were in their twenties.

The chest was beginning to disappear from view, swallowed further and further by the dark blue obscuration of the sea. He’d have to get going right now before it was lost forever.

So he resolved his course of action. “I’ll get it. Wait here.”

And Percy thrust himself forward. He swam as fast as he could, trying to bend the addled water to his obstinate will—but as he moved in closer, the current grew more forceful. He saw sea urchins and zooplankton wrapped up within its furor, dominated by the unrelenting mastership of the Mediterranean’s pull. Percy tried to calm it down, to usurp its movement and subdue, but the most that he could focus on was the precious chest itself. He could lose it easily if he got distracted for even a second.

And he locked his eyes on it steadfast. It was a brown, fist-sized thing, like a miniature treasure chest. He was gaining on it now, maybe sixty feet away—but he needed to go faster. It wasn’t enough to abide by the current’s pace, or else he’d never close the distance. Percy tightened his palms into fists and let his arms come close unto his sides. It was hard under such pressure, under the harsh, virulent compulsions of the sea’s upsurge, but he gritted his teeth and he furrowed his brows and he demanded that the waters all around him take his body even further—and suddenly, he shot forward like a sling-shotted rock, like a torpedo seeking contact with its villainous target.

And the gap was closing, now. He was closer, almost there. Thirty feet and twenty feet—now just ten and merely five. Percy outstretched his hand towards the fast-spinning chest, which just barely evaded his grasping fingertips—until at last, he could capture it within his tight-grabbing palm.

“I got it!”

And the second that he could pull the treasure into his arms, holding it close against his chest, Percy reversed the direction of his makeshift torpedo. He had to get out of this current before it swept him all the way to the shores of Barcelona.

Within minutes, he was free from the threshold of current’s worst impellents, and could easily swim back towards the Majorca islands. Soon the whale came back into view, and he could see her excitement even from thirty feet away.

“Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!!!” she thought to him, swimming further in his direction. “You did it, my lord! You saved my precious things!”

The whale moved about his body, nuzzling her face along his shirt. Percy couldn’t help but chuckle. This species was usually shy and skittish, but he could feel her affection and liveliness in every caress of her head against his body. Stroking her beak gently, he replied, “Yeah, yeah. Don’t lose it again, okay?”

“Okay!” she answered cheerily. “I need to go breathe now. Come to the surface, my lord.”

Without waiting for a reply, she began to swim upwards. Percy kind of wanted to head back to the hotel now, but he still had to return the chest to her, so he followed the Cuvier back up to the surface.

After spitting out a swell of water through the blowhole at the top of her head (he always thought it funny that he could breathe underwater while whales couldn’t—and was grateful not to have a built-in blowhole for that purpose), she pointed her beak at the chest in Percy’s hand. “Open it. You can have one of my precious things.”

He raised his brows in surprise. “What? No, I don’t want to take your... uh, precious stuff away from you. You clearly care about them a lot.”

“Yes. But you are my friend now. Friends can have precious things.”

Percy was touched by the gesture, but part of him was hesitant to even open up the thing. What kind of treasures would a teenaged whale have? Fish bones? Crustacean carcasses? But he also didn’t want to come off as rude, and now back above water in the open night air, Percy unclasped the keyless locking mechanism at the front of the chest and pulled back the lid.

So impressed by the glimmer before his eyes, Percy accidentally responded out loud instead of telepathically. “Whoa...”

The small chest that it was, its capacity was limited—but it was filled to the brim with all kinds of dazzling little trinkets. An ultra-fancy ballpoint pen. Celestial bronze keys on a silver keychain. There were several rings inside he could discern as valuable, yet there was one in particular that really caught his eye. An imperial gold ring with the most flawless little pearl he’d ever seen within its casings. Otherwise, it was a fairly simple object; much less intricate than the ring he’d proposed to Annabeth with—just a gold band and flawlessly spherical pearl affixed to the top. He was completely useless when it came to things like jewelry, but somehow, he knew instinctively that it would fit Annabeth perfectly.

“... I’m getting married soon.” Percy spoke. Saying so out loud often brought a tremor to his voice, still shaken from his disbelief that it was actually true, so he was glad that he could control his tone better via mental communication. He plucked the pearl ring from the chest and closed its lid shut. “I think I’ll give this to my wife, if that’s okay with you.”

“It is okay with me. That ring is nice. Good for friends with blowholes.” The whale said. Which Percy didn’t understand, but hopefully one didn’t need a blowhole to make use of it at all. “Also, I should come to your wedding?”

“Oh, uh...” Percy winced. Establishing the guest list and its seating arrangements had already been a hellish process, particularly for Annabeth. He felt unsure about springing a new one on her—especially, well, a guest that was a whale. But surely just one more friend couldn’t hurt, right? “Yeah, of course. I’ll, uh... see how we can fit you in the wedding party.”

“Hooray! My address is 323 Coral Road, Way Way Undersea, Majorca Islands, Spain. You can send the invite there.”

“Uh, yeah. Got it.”

He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to hand off the chest to an animal with no hands. Percy held out it out to her, and impressively, she opened up her beak wide and secured it in her mouth. Hopefully she wouldn’t lose her precious things again that way.

The whale thanked him again, said goodbye, and happily swam away into the sea. Percy was glad to help, and the ring was undeniably beautiful, but he certainly hoped that he wouldn’t get woken up in the middle night by frantic screaming again. This wasn’t going to amount to much of a vacation if he still had to be on edge twenty-four seven...

And with comically fantastic timing, his ears were suddenly disturbed by yet another frantic scream.

“Percy!”

It was Annabeth’s voice. Percy’s shoulders jolted up. Instantly, his heart was injected with a cold surge of fear and unbearable anxiety. Unsure of her direction, he shouted back into the air, “Annabeth?!”

“Percy! Where are you?!”

He darted his head all around him, searching for the origin of her voice. It was still so dark on the midnight Mediterranean—not a thing was clear to see but the distant gold shine of the resort’s active lights and the white stab of the moon in the charcoal sky. He couldn’t find her, couldn’t see her, he shouted aimlessly, repeatedly for Annabeth and she called his name back, but the only thing that this back-and-forth made clear was that she was somewhere far away.

The panic was setting in further. Did something happen—was she in trouble? Why was she even out here? Percy thought of all the times in the past that he’d feared for Annabeth’s life, every crisis in his heart, every single thrash of brutal despair that she was hurt, she was in danger—and a lump formed in his throat that he could barely breathe through.

And the magnitude of his fear threatened to eclipse all good sense and swallow him whole, if not for the sudden twitching sensation of some disturbance in the water. It was faint, but he could feel it more if he calmed himself down, if he just forced himself to focus...

Percy turned his head east. If he squinted, he could almost see her. A flicker of blonde hair in the far distance.

He didn’t waste another second to start moving towards her. “Stay where you are, I’m coming!”

By concentrating on all the subtle motions of the sea, he could just barely sense Annabeth’s movements—the kicking of her feet and the paddling of her arms, he just knew it was her, he just knew it was her body; it couldn’t possibly be anyone else. She was as familiar to him as his own reflection on the surface of the sea.

And Percy swam fast and hard in her direction. She was about three nautical miles away, and she kept calling out his name, which only compelled his arms to exert themselves even more forcefully. Once he was close enough to arrive in her line of sight, Annabeth yelped with relief and began swimming towards him, too—and soon they were colliding into each other arms, prevented from plummeting underwater only by his conscious efforts to keep the two of them upright.

Percy hugged her body against his chest, wrapping his arms tight around her soaking wet back. To hold her close and know she was okay summoned tidal waves of relief and nurturance throughout his body. Her heart was beating fast, her chest was panting from exertion, he could feel her every slightest movement in this loyal embrace, and for several moments longer, they were locked within each other. Every one of his emotions were contained inside this closeness; this woman in his arms, this essential, human presence with whom he was inextricably intertwined... Percy wasn’t sure how he had ever managed to extract himself from her at the call of the Cuvier. The thought of doing so now seemed unfathomably impossible. Not even the powerful currents of the tyrannous sea could steal him away from Annabeth’s arms right now.

And he flung his everything into a harsh, crushing kiss, an arm still about her waist as the other moved to hold her cheek. Panting heavily through her nose, Annabeth kissed him right back with her saltwatered lips, and the soft swaying of the sea motioned their bodies to and fro—but they held each other close. He wasn’t going to let her go.

When they finally broke from the kiss, Percy’s rapid respirations had yet to calm within his lungs; his heart rate had still not revisited an ordinary tempo, and his bewilderment remained to see her under these circumstances. Breathlessly, he asked, “What happened? You should’ve stayed in bed! What are you doing out here?”

“What am I doing out here?” she repeated, as though it were a ludicrous concept to even ask. “You didn’t tell me what was happening! I was looking for you!”

“Me? You didn’t need to come!”

“How am I supposed to know that?”

“Because I told you that you didn’t need to come!” he repeated, for it was ludicrous of her to ask. In an insistent voice that was angrier than intended, Percy exclaimed, “It’s too dark for you to be swimming out here, Annabeth! What if something happened to you? And you’re shivering, too—you didn’t even put on warm clothes before coming?”

“Oh, shut up.”

Annabeth grabbed him by the back of his neck and kissed him again, which was an admittedly effective tactic to get him to shut up.

And as she pulled away, her expression softened. Their faces remained close to one another, noses in contact, foreheads touching. Annabeth spoke softly, “... I had to come. I was scared for you, Percy. I didn’t know if something was wrong. What if you needed me?”

Percy opened his mouth to speak, feeling still the hot vigor of discontent, but he had no retort. Her sentiments were undeniably heartfelt—and furthermore, not without legitimate precedent. Countless circumstances in the past made her present concerns well-reasoned, to the extent one might assume fatal danger to prowl and stalk their every waking movement. His own paranoia was no exception to this rule; after all, he still worried endlessly for Annabeth each time she wasn’t well-within his line of sight.

Behind them, the sky could barely be distinguished from the flat line of the sea, seeming to melt into each other over shared hues of indigo and black. Far north was the moon still glowing and pale, a centerpiece amongst ornaments of miniature stars. They couldn’t see such views so well from their hotel room, but despite the ample darkness, it remained a beauteous painting of serenity to behold. And so his pulse fully relaxed, his agitation rendered calm, and the last snake of tension in his body dissipated into nothing.

Percy stared into her eyes, gleaning well their silver fondness. Her curls were damp and weighted all across her face and shoulders, which were still cold and trembling in these biting temperatures. She had run out into the night, into the dark, into the wide and frigid sea with no idea where he was—what had even been her plan? She’d have had no chance of finding him if not for luck and sheer coincidence.

But Percy knew very well the extremes that madness mastered by affection could compel someone to do. He couldn’t justify his anger that she put herself in danger any more than he could fault this girl for caring so much about him.

So he kissed her again, idly commanding the waters to begin pushing them back towards the beach. “Sorry. For making you worry.”

“Hmph.” By the remaining furrow of her brows, Percy got the sense that she was still mildly upset, but like him, no longer felt the impetus to war about the matter. “Well, what happened? The way you acted, it sounded like something really serious.”

“Uh, well, it did sound serious.”

“And what does that mean?”

The soft surge of the sea finally brought them the shore. After extracting the water that had soiled their bodies and thrusting it back into the sea where it belonged, Percy told her his story about the whale and her beloved chest of treasures. Thankfully, the dramatic tale managed to crack a smile out of her instead of making her more angry.

“Did you really tell that whale that she could come to our wedding?”

“Yeahhh...” Percy admitted. “She’s real nice, though. You might like her if you meet her.”

“Sure I would.” Annabeth rolled her eyes. “But you’re the one who’s gonna have to figure out accommodations for a whale.”

“Okay, that’s fair.”

“And it’s your job to get the invite to her.”

“Right... Hey, speaking of the wedding stuff, I got you something.”

Percy got down on one knee. Her face flickered from humorous to serious in an instant.

Shocked, confused, and quietly, she uttered, “Percy, what are you...”

The ring was hidden in his fist; he’d made sure to not let go of it whilst still within the water, and just the look on her face alone made the entire midnight oceanic venture worthwhile.

Percy revealed the ring to her, and he took the hand where she already wore her engagement ring into his own. As he began to slip the band onto that same ring finger—and it did, in fact, seem to fit her perfectly—her lips were parted slightly in speechless, flustered awe.

He pronounced her name with all the reverence, affection, and gravity that her name truly deserved. “Annabeth Chase...”

“Percy—”

“Will you make me the happiest man alive and go back to sleep with me?”

The ring was secured on her finger. Annabeth locked eyes with him. There was only a three second pause before she tackled him to the ground.

And to his own surprise, as she now had him straddled in the sand, Annabeth grabbed him by his shirt and kissed him hard instead of tossing him back into the sea. He could feel her lips curled into a barely-restrained smile as they pressed against his own, which offered him some appreciated relief. Percy didn’t know whether or not a joke like that would tick her off too much.

Once their lips separated, Percy chuckled lightheartedly. “Sooo, I’m guessing that’s a yes?”

She let out a long, drawn out sigh that he assumed to be sarcastic. “Fine, it’s a yes.”

“Good. ... Uh, you do still wanna marry me, though, right?”

“Are you really asking me that right now? Of course I do.”

“Okay, okay, just making sure.”

“Percy, you are so—”

“Romantic?”

“... Yeah.” Annabeth briefly kissed his cheek, then gave him one of her classic what-am-I-gonna-do-with-you looks. “Real romantic, Seaweed Brain.”

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With the resort’s breakfast hours set from 8 AM to 10 AM, they’d all agreed before arrival on the island to aim for 8:30 every morning. Neither he nor Annabeth had been enthusiastic about getting up so early, and their sole motivation to wrench their bodies out of bed was their unwillingness to keep their friends waiting that day. They were speeding to make themselves presentable enough, to throw on half-decent clothes and rush out the door, when suddenly, in the meantime of waiting for the hallway elevator, Annabeth pushed him up against the nearest wall and slammed her lips onto his in a fast, disordered kiss.

Now, ordinarily, Percy was all too eager to receive this kind of mad passion from his girlfriend. It happened regularly enough that she would shove him on the bed and hold his wrists beside his ears just to thieve away his breath by attacking his lips with her mouth. They liked to get a little rough with each other sometimes—as an entry into wild sex, or just because it was fun—and on plenty of occasions had he done the same to her. But never before, in their nine years of dating, had they gotten so bold as to do such things in public.

So at first, he was confused, and just mildly conscious of the danger that this posed, but he was forfeiting himself into this fusillade of sudden physical attention when she bit his bottom lip in that special way he liked whilst smoothing her hand along his stomach. As her daring fingertips caressed along his abs, lifting his shirt up to his chest so she could grab at his pectorals, Percy groaned into her mouth and closed his eyes shut tight. The sweltering indecency was immediate in pleasure—he was quick to grab her hips and pull them close against his own, quick to curl his fingers in her mess of blonde hair and suck her tongue between his lips, and he likely would have swapped positions to push her against the wall had she not pulled away, equally sudden in cessation as she had been to start it all.

And he was panting now, feeling hot in the face, feeling greedy and inconsiderate enough to lift her up at the backs of her thighs and take her back into their room (surely a quick text to Frank would smooth things over), but the elevator then sounded an upbeat chime into the air, and Annabeth was already beginning to walk inside.

“Hey,” Percy protested, wiping a line of saliva from his chin. “You leaving me already?”

“What?” she asked guiltlessly, but the allure in her voice was undeniably mischievous. “I’m starving, so I’m getting breakfast. You can stay there if you want.”

“I mean, I was kinda thinking we could go back to bed and maybe get the next lunch—hey!”

She was jamming her thumb into the ‘close’ button over and over—and he started sprinting forward as he saw the doors closing, just barely slipping through in time before it was too late. Her bright giggles filled up the elevator completely, and the sound was mesmerizing like a true love spell. Percy realized, in this isolated moment, just how much he had been missing Annabeth these days.

They did live in the same apartment, and they did continue to see each other daily, but the mutual confinements of their stifling obligations had made a rarity out of their quality time as a couple. When was the last time that they’d done something stupid, something silly—just for the hell of it? When was the last time they had gotten to laugh like kids, chasing each other through the Strawberry Fields or gliding in the air on the backs of pegasi? They couldn’t even spend their summers at Camp Half-blood anymore. They didn’t have time for any pointless distractions, because this coveted adulthood that they’d finally settled into offered limited reprieve from their burdenous commitments.

So to see this wondrous woman to whom his entire life had been promised, and know that she could still laugh, still fool around the way she did at sixteen years old, was a fresh and welcome reminder that adulthood hadn’t starved out their childish ways. This ebullient love and its adolescent joys, it was still there inside of their bodies—it merely had to be nurtured to give way to expression. He’d have to thank Frank again for affording them this chance to rediscover and embrace all of these indispensable emotions.

Still, just to get on her nerves, he pressed every button between the twentieth floor and the lobby, which then instantly and effectively made her stop laughing. It was funny in the moment (at least to him, anyway). Less funny when other guests tried to come inside and he had to awkwardly inform them that they should try a different elevator.

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As soon as he saw Frank and Hazel that morning, Percy could tell that something was wrong.

After arriving at the dining area over ten minutes late (he regretted his mischief with the elevator buttons right around the mark of the thirteenth floor), he and Annabeth sat next to each other at their friends’ table. Hazel was toying around with her food, having barely touched a morsel on her filled-up plate. She had greeted the two of them with some friendly enthusiasm, but a layer of discomfort was thinly buried underneath every word that she spoke.

And it was Frank who appeared to be especially downtrodden. He didn’t meet Percy’s eyes. His entire image reeked of lethargy—the sluggishness of his limbs, the slow blinks of his eyelids, the low volume of his voice, as though he didn’t even want to be heard when he spoke. And if this strange behavior was obvious to Percy, then it must have been as blatant as a bus crash to Annabeth—which she made clear by exchanging several side-glances with him, asking without any words—“Are you seeing this? What’s wrong with these two?” And well, Percy had a pretty strong suspicion of what might have been the problem.

Breakfast was made available in buffet-style, and Percy was beyond ready to make a glutton out of himself. He stacked his plate high with fresh pastries and hot entrees, with piles of scrambled eggs and breakfast potatoes. By the time he finished filling up his plate, he had to walk with careful balance to prevent his mountain of food from spilling all over the floor.

Upon his return, and looking mildly horrified, Hazel asked from across the table, “Percy are you... really going to be able to eat all of that?”

“Don’t underestimate this guy’s appetite,” Annabeth said. She’d been a lot more reserved with her own plate of breakfast. “I’ve seen him eat his entire body mass in food without stopping to breathe.”

Percy nodded affirmation, already sitting down and shoveling his food onto his fork. “Yeah, what she said.”

The group chatted over breakfast for about half an hour, with Annabeth and Hazel doing most of the legwork in conversation; Frank was still quiet, and Percy was very busy stuffing his face. It was when the girls got up to go grab a final set of pastries that he saw his opportunity to petition Frank for his thoughts.

Percy set his fork down and lowered his voice. “Hey, man. So... first night sharing a bed with Hazel, right? How did things go?”

It took a few seconds for Frank to respond, and when he did speak up, his words were of the same tangible discouragement as an athlete who had just lost an important game. “... It was okay. It was kind of bad.”

“Those are some different-sounding adjectives.”

“Yeah, um... Sorry, Percy. I’m kinda out of it right now.”

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Percy offered, though, in reality, he was actually feeling very nosy to find out what had gone down with his friends last night. “But are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I just... I think I messed up really bad last night.”

Percy waited for Frank to elaborate. He didn’t. So he asked, “What did you do, Frank?”

“... I guess I don’t really know, which is part of the problem.”

“Not following.”

Frank sighed deeply. His gaze stalked towards Hazel at the pastry bar, and in his eyes was a mixture of frustration and yearning that made Percy even more curiously worried. What could have gone so wrong to evince such abject unhappiness in his friend? The situation with the whale had been a brief complication, but Percy’s first night with Annabeth had gone well enough—and he felt sort of bad that Hazel and Frank seemed to have not been so fortunate.

Eventually, Frank attempted to explain. “Last night, Hazel and I, we... um. We did some stuff.”

Percy raised his brows; he wasn’t sure if he should be impressed or concerned. “Whoa, Frank. You guys actually got that far so quickly?”

“No, no. We didn’t go all the way. Just, um...” The man’s face reddened, still too shy to meet Percy’s eyes. “... You know. O—other stuff.”

“... Okay.” Percy nodded as if he understood—and he definitely didn’t. “Other stuff” could mean all kinds of things, and his own considerations of what “other stuff” might entail was probably a little different from someone like Frank’s. “And?”

“And that stuff was really great and all, but afterwards, I kind of... um. I kind of tried to make a move on Hazel, but she got all freaked out and ran off into the bathroom. And she didn’t come back out for over an hour—and when she did come back, she slept on the furthest side of the bed away from me. And I felt horrible about it all night, so I didn’t get much sleep.”

Okay, that sounded pretty bad. Percy wanted to ask, ‘Sheesh, man—what did you do to her?’ but he had to remind himself to stifle his judgmental nature on these delicate subjects. So he thought of an alternative—and hopefully more gracious—phrasing, “... What kind of ‘move’ are we talking here, Frank?”

He opened his mouth to respond, quickly shut it closed, and then opened it again. “I—I don’t want to say.”

“But didn’t you bring me here so I could help with this stuff? I can’t do that if I don’t know what’s going on with you guys.” Percy said. “You don’t have to give me every single little detail—in fact, you probably shouldn’t—but you’re being a little too vague for me to make sense of anything, Frank.”

“... I guess that’s true.” Frank mumbled. A quick glance to the buffet revealed that Annabeth and Hazel were returning to the table, which startled him to the point of sitting up straighter. “Uh, the girls are coming back. Can we talk about this after breakfast?”

He and Annabeth were supposed to be heading to the spa after this. And she probably wouldn’t like it if he derailed their itinerary to talk to Frank about his distressing sex life. But what was to be done? They owed this fantastic vacation to him, after all; it was the least Percy could do to spend some time trying to address his friend’s troubles and steer him in the right direction.

Before they were rejoined by the girls, Percy nodded his head. “Sure thing, man.”

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The full story was a lot more shocking than expected.

Privacy was not so easy to achieve indoors at a bustling resort, and it felt too weird to have this conversation in either of their bedrooms, so the two of them had opted for one of several beachside pavilions, likely devoid of other guests due to the total lack of chairs.

It took some anxious bumbling through his words and a lot of nervous blushing (even Percy felt his face getting warm when Frank spoke about what happened in the sea cave last night), but eventually, a sufficient summary of events had prevailed through Frank’s lips, and Percy could tolerate these intimate details about his friends so long as he didn’t picture any part of it in his head.

“Okay, so...” Percy started, following a pause for contemplation. “Uh, I mean... that’s a whole lot after nine years of nothing. Good job?”

Frank grunted. “Gods, Percy. Can you not say stuff like ‘good job’? I’m two seconds from walking into the sea and never coming back.”

“Geez, you don’t have to be so embarrassed.”

“I am embarrassed. I ruined things with Hazel on our first night on vacation. That’s gotta be a new record or something.” Frank woed emphatically. He leaned his elbows onto the wooden railing and buried his cheek into his palm. “It must be so easy for guys like you, Percy. You’re probably a natural when it comes to this stuff.”

“That’s definitely not true.” he said, joining Frank against the railing. It was almost funny that he would ever think of Percy as the kind of guy who was effortlessly good with women. Genuinely, where did people get that idea from? Still, he couldn’t bring himself to confess his own faults in detail; that he’d been having trouble downstairs for a long time was the kind of oversharing that Percy would never recover from. “But enough about me. It kinda sounds like you guys are going way too fast. Like, when you almost did it in a sea cave? That’s pretty cool, man, but you should probably be taking things a lot slower.”

“... Yeah. Maybe we did get overexcited.” Frank acknowledged. “How do you take stuff like this ‘slow’, anyway? What does that mean?”

“Well... you know how you, uh, made that move on Hazel?”

“Ugh. Don’t remind me.”

“Look—I’m just saying that that was probably too much. Especially for her.”

Frank huffed, sounding slightly indignant. “I only did that because it was the same thing she did to me, and I thought it would be okay... but you’re right. I can’t assume things that are okay for me are the same as things that are okay for Hazel.”

Percy patted Frank on the back. “See? That’s all. Don’t worry so much, you guys’ll be okay. Maybe try talking about what you’re gonna do before you actually try them next time.”

“... That’s a good idea. But it sounds mortifying.”

“Still probably less mortifying than the alternative, man.”

By the look of Frank’s gradual change in disposition, it seemed like he was beginning to feel more hope than despair over his blunders—which made Percy glad to be of some aid. He didn’t think of anything he’d said as particularly profound, but maybe it had been enough to be a sound voice through which to receive encouragement.

And another consideration then popped into his head that seemed worth mentioning. Percy added thoughtfully, “By the way, have you guys talked about... you know, protection?”

“Oh...” Frank muttered. “Um. I do have protection. And I always have one in my wallet.”

Surprised by his answer, Percy held back a wry smirk. “Really? Always?”

He blushed all the way to the roots of his hair. “I—I just thought it was a thing that guys are supposed to do!”

“Hey, hey, what are you getting all defensive for? You’re right. That’s a good thing, Frank.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Frank said sheepishly, his entire face still red. “... Um. I got them when we first moved in together, just in case. They’re available for free to all the legionnaires. Obviously, I’ve never used them.”

“‘When you first moved in together’?” Percy echoed incredulously.

“Yeah.”

“That was a long time ago, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, maybe five years back.”

“... Frank, you know that condoms can expire, right?”

“What?”

Frank urgently shoveled his hand into his left pant pocket, then found his wallet and parted its folds. Out of politeness, Percy made sure to look away; he didn’t want to observe his friend’s private ‘materials’ without being given permission.

Seconds later, Frank’s voice came out as loud and awestruck. “This thing expired two years ago!”

Percy winced. “Oof. Bet you’re glad you have me around, huh?”

“Oh, man... Percy, I had no idea! Oh, gods, if we had gone all the way last night, I—I might have...” Frank shook his head, as though the sentence were just too horrible to finish. “... Um. Thanks for telling me.”

“Yeah, you’re gonna want to stay on top of that and replace them yearly. Plus, you should always have a backup—just in case.”

He let out all his exasperation in a long exhale. “... I do have a backup. But it’s the worst thing on the face of the planet.”

“That’s, uh, that’s a weird way to talk about a condom.”

“That’s because it’s not a regular condom.”

“Yeah, I’m definitely not following.”

Frank slipped his wallet back, to then withdraw a black square-shaped package from his right pocket. Its width was narrow, and every side was about one inch in length. He offered it to Percy for closer examination, who accepted it into his palm and observed its alarming details.

A skull-and-crossbone symbol was printed over the front with red flames blazing through its empty eye sockets. On the back, Percy read the following words which were inscribed legibly in ancient Greek letters:

!!! — ULTIMATE ANTI-KID WAR MACHINES — !!!

★ FITS PERFECT ★
★ LAST FOREVER ★
★ NEVER GOES BAD ★
★ ENDLESS SUPPLY ★
★ GOOD TIMES FOR EVERYONE ★

Percy barely understood what he was looking at; all he knew was that it felt evil in his hand, and he wanted instinctively to chuck it into a hot pit of fire. “Uh, Frank. What the hell is this?”

“It was a ‘gift’ from my dad on my eighteenth birthday.” he explained, sounding miserable. “‘Protection’, basically. Isn’t that a joke? The only god who has more kids than him is Mercury.”

Now, he felt double inclined to toss the damn thing into a hot pit of fire. “Oh, gross. That sounds more like Ares’ doing than Mars’.”

“He was in his Greek form. I can’t stand his Greek form!”

“I can’t stand your dad in any form,” Percy said, offering the hideous package back into Frank’s hand. “Why do you even keep these?”

“Because it’s cursed.”

“Cursed?”

“Like your sword,” Frank grumbled. “I’ve tried throwing it out a million times before. No matter what, it always reappears in my pocket. So that I’m ‘always prepared’, my dad said.”

“That does sound like a curse.”

“You have no idea.” he agreed. “... Anyway, I’m never going to use them with Hazel. I don’t even wanna know what kinds of weird things they could do to her.”

The phrasing ‘GOOD TIMES FOR EVERYONE’ definitely warranted suspicion. Percy thought about the line on the package that had said ‘LAST FOREVER’. If that meant what he thought it meant, then maybe they possessed the power to resolve Percy’s particularly aggravating condition... but he wasn’t that desperate. No object of an enemy god like Ares was ever going to come near such important anatomy.

“Alright, so... I’m guessing you still need protection?” Percy asked.

“Um. Yeah. I guess I do.”

“You’re gonna have to buy some around here, then.”

Frank was dumbfounded. “What, like, go into the store? And buy them from a real person?”

“That’s how it usually works.”

“Wh—I can’t do that!” he exclaimed. “Then they’ll know that I’m... I’m... that I’m having sex!”

He almost said, ‘Well, you -aren’t- having sex.’ But that sounded kind of mean. And Percy was no one to talk. And it wasn’t going to help Frank’s current emotional state. Instead, he began, “I get that it’s embarrassing, but there’s no way around it, Frank. It’s gotta be you who comes prepared for your own junk, not Hazel.”

“Well, can’t you help me, Percy?”

“Me?”

“Yeah!”

He couldn’t even believe what he was being asked. “Frank, you’re twenty-four years old. You can buy your own condoms.”

“Well, can you at least come with me to the store? Just to help me make sure that I get the right ones?”

“They’re just condoms, Frank. All you have to do is pick the right size and go.”

“Percy, I didn’t even know that those things can expire! You might know this stuff well, but it’s a lot more complicated for me. And aren’t there a bunch of different varieties in the store? How am I supposed to know which one to get?”

“I don’t know, man, just pick one!” he argued, feeling his cheeks getting flushed from embarrassment. “Frank—it's really not that serious!”

He slapped his palms onto the railing and cried out in distress, “It is, Percy!”

“Okay, okay!” Percy raised up his hands defensively.

Gods, he really didn’t wanna have to do this. In truth, he hadn’t ever gone out and bought these things for himself, either. Like Camp Jupiter, protection was freely (and privately) available at Camp Half-blood, and even then—Annabeth had been on the pill since she was eighteen years old (for her own ‘girl reasons’, she had said, not to spare him from wrapping up his junk). The only reason why he was knowledgeable about the damn things was because she had insisted that they educate themselves back when they'd started being sexually active.

As a dyslexic, ADHD kid, health class was no exception to the courses Percy had struggled with in grade school. Having a learning buddy like Annabeth had made the subject much more approachable, embarrassing as it was to have done so with his first-and-only girlfriend. And even as they still struggled through their intimacy woes, which had poisoned the well of his ego with a most acrid and undrinkable self-loathing, he was grateful for Annabeth’s endless patience and understanding. Whatever malfunctions in his mind or in his body forbade him from pleasing her the way he wanted to, could at least be mitigated by his persistence to get better, as well as her unabating commitment to loving him regardless.

So he forced himself into painful deglutition of his disdain for Frank’s request and inexperience. At the end of the day, he was still an important person to Percy. A brother like Tyson, a cherished friend like Grover. He remembered the times in the past when he’d depended on Frank—when he and Hazel saved Percy from succumbing to the sickness of his lost memories, when he had rescued them from the basilisks on the quest to Alaska—as well as many other cataclysms in the past nine years, growing up alongside each other past the peaks of adulthood in fair New Rome. And if all of that weren’t enough already, he certainly owed that same patience and understanding to Frank for this luxurious vacation.

Percy knew without a mirror that his face must have gone red as a tomato by now. Begrudgingly, he tried to speak his assent to the matter without sounding as ridiculous as he felt on the inside. “Gods, Frank... I’ll go with you, alright? Just... don’t tell anyone about it.”

“R—really?”

“Yeah, yeah. There’s gotta be a convenience store around here somewhere.”

“Oh, man, I owe you, Percy. That’s a huge relief; I’d be clueless by myself.” Frank said. “And, um, sorry for making you do this.”

He made an effort to shrug as nonchalantly as possible. “I’ve been on worse quests.”

The two left the beach pavilion and began a brisk walk towards the nearest commercial center on the island, and Percy sent a text to Annabeth that he’d be busy for a little while longer. Hopefully she wouldn’t get too upset over his absence; he couldn’t tell her the specifics of what they were up to right now, lest he mortify Frank (and himself) in the process.

And on the walk over, Percy began to prepare Frank for what to expect. “So, there’s gonna be all these stupid, fancy varieties in the store. You don’t need all of that. We’re just gonna get the most basic ones there are.”

Frank nodded like an eager-to-learn student in a classroom. “Okay, got it.”

“And the sizes are based on length and, uh... girth. You gotta know your measurements. I don’t know how it works here in Spain, but if I had to guess—it’s probably goes something like pequeño, mediano, grande, extra grande, and extra-extra grande.”

“... I probably need that last one, then...” Frank muttered absentmindedly. And then he flinched when he realized that he had spoken aloud, glancing down at Percy with shy discomposure in his eyes. “Um, sorry. That was really TMI.”

And he was right. It was TMI. Guys weren’t supposed to know their friends’ dick sizes; it went against the unspoken rules of male companionship—hard-earned bonds could be permanently severed, men had started wars and perished over these inane prospects, and the knowledge could easily solicit doomed comparison or ails to self-worth. It was exactly what it was: too much information. He hoped that he would never learn such details about any of the other men in his life.

But when Percy had agreed to help Frank sort out his burgeoning sex life, what had he even expected? That it wouldn’t be awkward? That he wouldn’t learn more about Frank than he had ever wanted to? No, this kind of uncomfortable thing would have been inevitably unearthed at one point or another, and he should honestly expect, over these next nine days, to find out even more terrible things like the (perhaps predictable) fact that Frank was better endowed than he would ever be.

So he simply patted his tall, nervous friend on his left shoulder and made the conscious effort to ignore their mutual embarrassment.

“You know what, Frank? Don’t even sweat it.”

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Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 09

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He’d never had much love for shopping as a usage of his time. It was fine enough to venture to the mall for some massive cheeseburgers and sugary sodas—that he could appreciate, even if the ensuing stomach ache wasn’t so rewarding. But going out for groceries or shopping for new clothes were to him as unpleasant of a chore as putting laundry away and vacuuming the apartment.

And he had been like this for as long as he could remember. For one, Percy grew up with not a lot of money, and he had understood since about age six to avoid openly wanting things in front of his mom. He knew already how she strained herself to provide him with the basics, and he had learned that walking through the door with a new skateboard could easily incur his ex-stepfather’s wrath for “wasting his money on a no-good kid”. As if his mom’s meager paychecks from Sweet on America belonged in his wallet. As if they wouldn’t be wasted in the old bastard’s hands through failed poker games and cartons of liquor. Even after all these years gone past, just thinking about it made his face heat up with anger.

So he had an odd relationship with shopping in general. He was hopeless in accompanying Annabeth to the clothing store and exhausted by the endless varieties of denim jean styles. And he was just as beleaguered by the endless varieties of condoms at the drugstore where he made to help Frank.

In the end, Percy had pointed to a small, gray package in the sexual health aisle. It seemed to be the size that Frank would need, and was furthermore presented as far more plain than some of the other options. No bombastic decorations and designs on this one, which Percy interpreted as shorthand for ‘basic’. Surely Frank was better off without one of those varieties with ridges or bizarre flavorings... at least for now, anyway.

“This one, huh...” Frank noted, gingerly picking up the package with nervousness in his eyes—like he feared that the thing would attack him any second. “What does it say?”

Percy shrugged. “I don’t know, man. All I can tell is that it’s your size.”

“I thought you took Spanish in high school?”

“I did, but the tiny text on this pack is like alphabet soup to me.”

Frank blushed. “Oh. Sorry. I forgot you’re dyslexic.”

“You’re still the only demigod who’s ever said that to me.”

It seemed uncomfortable to just buy one pack of condoms and nothing else, so they’d thrown in a few bags of chips, a can of bug spray, and a small flashlight pre-equipped with batteries. As they were checking out, Percy hoped the cashier wouldn’t nurse any theories about him and Frank doing something inappropriate on the beach at night.

While walking out the store, he gave Frank a few more tips about using condoms—like to put it on inside out, and to leave space at the tip instead of rolling it down all the way—and since his mind was still on the subject of safe sex practices, it was hard to abate one particular concern which had lingered in his head ever since their chat at the pavilion...

Percy was fully committed to avoiding thoughts of Frank and Hazel... together. Like, in bed. He loved Hazel like a second little sister, so he seriously did not want to accidentally get any pictures in his head of his best Roman friends doing adult stuff. Still... this was probably going to be the first time for both of them, right? And hadn’t he just picked out a box of extra, extra grande-sized condoms for Frank?

He didn’t want to have to say anything at all. He thought that bringing this up might be going too far or violate their privacy—but his worries about Hazel getting hurt won out in the fight against his reservations. With hesitance, Percy decided to open his mouth. “Hey, so, it’s about time for me to go find Annabeth now. But, Frank... be careful, alright?”

“With what?”

“With... Hazel.”

“Hazel?” Cluelessly, Frank tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

His lips flattened from displeasure. There was no polite and sensitive way Percy could think to express an idea like, ‘You’re a big guy. You have to be really gentle.’ On one hand, maybe it was flattering? But on the other, well... maybe Frank would be uncomfortable with such direct commentary. It was uncomfortable enough for Percy to even think about it.

After considering his words longer, he attempted to continue. “You guys are new to this. I’m just saying, uh... if you aren’t careful, you could end up hurting her.”

His eyes widened in fear, like there was no concept more terrifying in the entire universe. “I could hurt Hazel?”

Percy’s face grew hot as if assailed by the sun. He couldn’t make eye contact with Frank anymore, so he pretended instead that he was speaking to the floor. “What we were talking about before—you need to take things slow. Like, you guys might need to warm up more than most people do. Because of... you know. Your size and all.”

Frank stared at him. And then his voice became quieter. “Oh. ... You mean how I’m bigger than her.”

“What? No, I didn’t mean it like—”

“Believe me, Percy, I know how big I am. And I know I have to be careful... I’m always thinking about that.” Frank said softly. He reached into the shopping bag, withdrew one pack of chips, then handed it to Percy. “Thanks for the help. I’ll see you guys at dinner.”

Frank was already walking away before Percy could explain himself—and even so, he wasn’t sure what he was actually going to say. ‘Frank, I was talking about your dick, not the rest of you’? Percy hadn’t ever been much of a wordsmith—but he was twenty-six years old now. Why was he still so terrible with his words at his age?

And now, he felt like a big jerk. If he had just been more blunt, then this wouldn’t have happened. Percy wished he could be a better guy friend with whom to discuss and advise on sensitive subjects like this. He wished, in that moment, that he were more like Beckendorf.

Talking about his own problems in bed was just too awkward with Annabeth, who always meant well but never seemed to understand exactly why those problems were so hard on him—and he couldn’t very well relate said issues to his best friend Grover, a satyr who wouldn’t get human male anatomy. Which left who—Frank? He was one of Percy’s best guy friends, sure, but... if there had ever been a chance of Percy confessing his humiliating dysfunctions to Frank, it was gone after agreeing to counsel the guy on his sex life. The way Frank assumed Percy to be some kind of all-knowing expert in the bedroom discouraged him from admitting a fact as disqualifying as, “Actually, I suck. Something’s seriously wrong with my body and I don’t know why.”

As the younger of the two, Percy wondered if he’d ever made Beckendorf feel that way. He was kind of like the big brother Percy never had. And now he didn't have one anymore. 

The guy had always been the person with whom Percy could discuss the worst details of his chaotic love life. When you had gods like Aphrodite meddling in your relationship and romance tugging your heart in three different directions, it was nice to have a guy friend with whom to lay everything out back then. He remembered how Beckendorf claimed to be wise with girls. He remembered getting teased about his complete idiocy with Annabeth—only to retort with a comment about Beckendorf’s extremely obvious crush on Silena. They’d made fun of each other a whole lot. And they had just as often traded earnest council on complicated matters of the heart.

Sometimes he thought about The Princess Andromeda while working at the ferry. The tour boats at work weren’t even half as big as a luxury cruise ship, but it was impossible to be surrounded by hundreds of tour guests and belay his memories of being surrounded by the massive crew of Titan Army foes, to remember fleeing from the scene so uselessly as Beckendorf detonated the control room whilst still on board.

And Percy was much older than his old friend now. The Charles Beckendorf that remained in his memories, so sensible and charming and fun to be around, was now just a kid compared to Percy’s grown age. And the same was true of countless other dead friends—and even a handful of deceased enemies. It was the one sad consequence of surviving to adulthood: comparing the mature features of your twenty-something face to the appearances of those who had died too young.

It never got easier to remember old friends in past tense. He felt too simple of a man to understand his own grief, except to know chiefly that it hurt him sometimes. Chiron had once said that the only way to live was to row alongside one’s lowest emotions, to feel their waves as they pass through and forgive the current for its offending directions. Percy had told the old horse that sea metaphors wouldn’t work on him just because he’s a son of Poseidon. And he hadn’t been in the mood to feel better, anyway.

Still standing stupidly just outside the convenience store, Percy let out an unhappy huff of air. What was he doing with himself? He felt annoyed of his sullen headspace and annoyed to have brought this mood upon himself. He should figure out how to reassure Frank. And he should really be with his fiancee right now.

And as if triggered by the mere thought of her name, Percy’s phone suddenly beeped in his pocket.

He relaxed his shoulders and glanced at the notification. A text from Annabeth scolding his delay was his guess, because they were supposed to have gone to the spa after breakfast. Instead, he received a photo from her that was so shocking he nearly jumped out of his skin and dropped his phone on the floor.

Holy fuck—

—he let himself stare wide-eyed, slack-jawed at the image for just two seconds before blinking away the surprise and hastily turning his phone screen off. Percy struggled to swallow the lump in his throat, dumbfounded and now overwarm in the face. A quick look over his shoulder and he saw that no one was behind him, no one was near his side—so no one could have glimpsed the striking image but himself, right?

His heart was galloping away from his chest. If he opened his phone and looked at it again then he might go permanently stupid with amazement. Why had Annabeth sent this to him out of the blue?

Percy took himself away to the first location he could find where no one might disturb him, nor could they stroll beside shoulder and peer over his screen: a copse of Spanish maple trees climbing out from a battalion of wind-stirred gravel. No tourists or locals were occupied here, as it was off the established paths groomed well throughout the island. And it was probably overkill to venture so far, but he couldn’t bear the risk of a stranger chancing by and seeing something so absolutely private and sacred: a nude from his fiancee.

... Or rather, it was not a nude, per se, but it was lewd like one and every bit as titillating. Paranoid as he was, Percy checked around him one more time—no figure hiding in the trees, no monster camouflaged among the branchlets—and then he turned his phone on. The screen flickered back to life, and thus was the image that immediately snared his rapt attention.

It was a photo of Annabeth in that one swimsuit he liked, a stringy little thing whose crimson colors paralleled hotly against the soft-tanned bronze of her skin, conjuring about her an aura of warmth that he could feel radiating through the touchscreen. Cropped from just above her lips to an inch below her knees, she was posed leaning back against something; he couldn’t tell what it was, but the lighting made her appear to be outdoors. Her legs were crossed over each other, water rolling down her flesh, and the bikini top harbored her chest in such a captivating manner, to the effect that his breath shuddered with desire, his thumb passed over their presence on the screen, to the degree that he festered an unconscionable hatred for anyone around her who could see them in person while he was absent.

And she had never, ever, not once sent him a picture like this before. Vaguely he remembered addressing this with her one time, many years ago—something that had gone like, ‘Just so you know, I’m never sending you one of -those- pictures. So don’t ask for one.’ to which he had replied, ‘That’s cool. I prefer the view in person,’ and slid her bra off of her shoulders. But he weathered mild lament in secret; not often, and not significantly—but on the days when he really needed her, when she was utterly absorbed in far away obligations and he wanted so badly for her to be closer.

He was happy to receive any picture of her, be it a posed photograph or a goofy-looking selfie with her nose scrunched up. And whenever she sent him a picture of anything else, like a beautiful view she wanted to share or her countless materials at work, he would always search closer in the image for some evidence of her; an adorable thumb in the top right corner, her lovely silhouette cast over the ground, or a faint mirror of her in some reflective surface—because he loved Annabeth and her essence that much, and was gladdened to find her in any shape he could.

And in more perverse thoughts, which he rarely allowed, when red temptation embellished his mood—when he couldn’t think of her without thinking second of her pillowy breasts, and how good it felt to simply lie naked with her, and how abundantly he wished to replace his solitude with touching her in the way that she liked, fingers pushed inside of her as his lips adored her chest—he could almost shoot her a risky text, telling Annabeth he needed her, he was alone and getting hotter and touching himself, and that one racy picture might send him over the edge.

But he would never do that. He could never say that. Not when she explicitly did not want to be asked, and not when he kept sabotaging himself, when he knew that his desire could starve as needily as anyone else’s and still struggled so much to fulfill its own needs.

So he had never initiated something like a serious sext, nor petitioned Annabeth for a lusty photograph—when now, suddenly, he had received one out of the blue.

Seconds or minutes might have passed. He wasn’t sure how long he spent staring at the picture. He wasn’t sure of his own name or where he was right then—all he knew was Annabeth and her perfect body, and the way her curves danced at her waist, forming the arch of her hips and the smooth shape of her thighs. But he was roused from his stupor with quickness when his phone flickered yet again, and there was the follow-up text newly at the bottom of the screen:

At the beach doing something really fun without you. Just so you know

His heart leapt over its next beat. Percy scrambled to get a hold over himself, smacking himself twice at the cheek in hopes of waking up, growing sober. Once his brain could resume power over its faculties, his feet set pace to find her at the beach as his thumbs rushed across the keys to enter in a quick reply:

on my way fast

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It wasn’t that he actively sought to have thoughts of Tartarus; really, it was mostly accidental—an occasional tenant of his peripheral vision. Nearly ten years after the fact and Percy never understood that about himself. At the most random instances, he would notice something beautiful in his line of sight and pointlessly compare it to the grotesque underbelly of the Underworld in some errant, invasive, unnecessary thought—‘This is nothing like Tartarus.’ And now, in rushing down from the commerce courtyard to the beaches bordering the resort, there was no shortage of pleasant images against which to bear that same jarring thought.

For every kind fixture in his gaze was a champion of beauty compared to that sunken, evil place. The plumb beads of growth feathered in the olive trees were nothing like the black foliage in the netherworld’s depths. The Mediterranean and its gleaming waters could not be further from the Phlegethon river’s fiery billows. And every breath he siphoned of sweet Majorca air, a rich saltwater scent interlaced with wild herbs, were to him so abundantly sensuous that he couldn’t reconcile its coexistence with the air of Tartarus: how stiff it had been, how it sickened the lungs with moldery sulfur, how each inhale was a gulp of burning, fumatory poison. The comparisons themselves were so unreal; such brutally opposite experiences had no sense to interact in one person’s single mind.

And said thoughts continued as he made his way to the shore. The island swelled with broad rays of sunshine and the air was thick with pleasing timbres: tourists laughing in gleeful accents, the cool susurration of the wind as it stroked through swaying almond trees. He didn’t have his bathing suit on hand, but it also didn’t really matter for a son of Poseidon; upon reaching the sands of the beach, Percy removed his socks and shoes and braced himself for the warmth of the sun. It would have been too hot without the aid of the fresh sea breeze, which was not at all like the boiling temperatures with which Tartarus had seethed.

He thought the sea was especially confident here; not in the way of some deity’s inhabitance, but in the unapologetic ebb and flow of its waters, in the maneuvers of its waves as they swept over the beach and the vividness of its effusive green glitter. Percy could easily sense such things, the temperament of any body of water, and thus was his immediate attraction the surf up ahead. He could almost feel himself getting stronger just by looking at it, suddenly mastered by an urge to thrust himself into the sea right away.

And he absolutely would have done exactly that, if not for the presence of an angel in his line of sight.

The sight of her made his chest hurt, attacked in the heart by the stab of his attraction. Sitting on a white jet ski ten feet from the beach, idly swirling her leg in the water, was Annabeth in the same dark red swimsuit. As impressive as that photo had been, it could never summarize the full beauty that she was. She seemed to notice him at the same time that he noticed her, and then gestured with her hand for him to approach.

“Percy, come on!” she shouted peremptorily, exhausted of her patience. “I’m gonna take off without you!”

Before complying, Percy stalled to reaffirm his current reality: it was a beautiful day, he was on a luxurious vacation, and an attractive woman in a red bikini was inviting him to join her on an insanely cool-looking jet ski. And he was marrying her. The scene could just as easily have been a siren vision meticulously crafted to perform a teenage fantasy of his. Every cell in his body now agitated with excitement, he dashed madly to the water, swam his way to her at an inhuman speed, and easily pulled himself up aboard the craft, jostling its base and her steadiness in the process.

Annabeth chided him as the jet ski shook in the water, “Careful—you’ll capsize us.”

“Pretty sure I can keep us afloat.” he assured. Percy pointed to the steering wheel. “I’m here now. Can I drive?”

“Nope. You missed our spa appointment, and you’re late for our jet ski reservation. That means I drive.”

“Right...” Percy winced. He didn’t think she would actually be angry about that—but if she was, then he’d have to make it up to her somehow. Still, if she was mad at him right now, then why did she send him that picture? “Sorry. The, uh, the thing with Frank took longer than I thought. Also, about that text—whoa!”

She slammed her foot on the gas pedal and suddenly shocked the jet ski forward—and Percy quickly lost his balance, tripping backwards off its base and plummeting into the sea with a yelp and a plentiful splash of water.

But given his father, he didn’t thrash for long. He regained his bearings and assured himself to float steadily, getting his head above the water and finding Annabeth now eight feet away, giggling airily at him.

“Foot slipped, my bad.” she spoke in a teasing lilt which made clear that her foot had not slipped, and she did not feel bad. The blonde waved for him to approach her again. “You can hop on board now.”

He thought about summoning a tidal wave and capsizing her and the jet ski on purpose—but he had already made her mad, and she still looked really sexy, and he would rather be holding her close as they sped across the sea than risking her ire and getting revenge.

So he hauled himself onboard for a second time (and his clothes remained dry, as was his will to do so), taking a seat just behind her at the wheel. Percy leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her waist. The hot touch of her skin was enough to instantly render his intentions—yes, this was way better than being by himself, than retaliating against her mischief, and a way better means of spending time together than skulking through Tartarus as their bodies fell apart.

Annabeth waited for him to get secure this time, and then the motor thrummed with vigor, and the jet ski fired off with a breakneck jolt, because she wasn’t interested in starting off slow.

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—

Under a sky that was blue like forget-me-not petals and a sun now softened by dandelion clouds, together they surged across the wide palm of the sea, bearing refreshing mists of saltwater droplets buffeting sparsely against their skin. The sour mood into which he had enlisted—his unhappiness that he’d offended Frank, his sudden remembrance of friends long-gone—was now forced to surrender to the euphoria invoked by the Mediterranean, and further wound into submission by Annabeth’s presence. She was kind of like blue food coloring in that way; being with her automatically made everything so much better. But women probably didn’t dream of their fiancees comparing them to something so inelegant, so Percy wouldn’t open his mouth and liken her to food dye any time soon. And his good, sweet mood was unharmed nonetheless.

“WOOOOOO!” he exclaimed, feeling strong and energetic as the wind swept fast through his night-black hair. The San Francisco Bay ferry couldn’t ever compare to this—it was so much fun already, and it almost felt like riding the hippocampi again, just as they had with Tyson over ten years ago when they’d fled from Camp Half-blood against Tantalus’ orders. But they’d ridden on separate beasts that time, and now he got to hold her close against his body, and there was no overhanging threat of Grover getting married to a cyclops—which made the jet ski experience a whole lot better in comparison.

Behind them, the motors stirred streams of frothing white water and the island began to shrink in the distance. There seemed to be no method to her driving; she was gladly speeding as fast as she could, whirring them in random circles and sharp, angled pivots that would have easily disgruntled someone prone to seasickness.

Tens and tens of minutes had passed, minutes whose length translated like seconds. Percy didn’t feel the time passing at all. He didn’t even pester her to give him a chance to drive. How could he when she was laughing so much, and it was such bliss to have his arms around her waist, and she appeared to have forsaken her irritability for merriness and daredevil navigation? He wondered if life could get any better than this. The only improvement he could possibly think of was to be married to her, already.

Percy thought himself a fairly hopeful person—hopeful, as it were, but not particularly positive. The distinction was his brute-force attitude towards his own life. A positive man might believe that his work was done, that he’d survived two world-ending prophecies and now the Fates would be kind, allowing himself and his loved ones permanent reprieve from despair.

And he was a little thick-headed, but he wasn’t that dumb. He would never let the lull of mundane adulthood seduce him into thinking that the war was really over.

And he knew better than most that apocalyptic fires could ignite anywhere, at any time. Yet he was hopeful in his belief that his shoulders could bear that Atlas burden, he could tolerate the weight of demigod sufferings as long as Annabeth was alive and near—and that belief was strong enough to slash through every obstacle on the path to a long lifespan. It would be worth everything to see each other gray-haired—in the natural way, together through old age, until their beating hearts stopped, and at last, knew peace.

And in riding with her, he felt more peaceful than he usually did. More carefree, elated, and even a little bit safe. So he hoped that Elysium would be exactly this—himself and Annabeth sailing across the sea, for the rest of all time, married permanently in a hero’s afterlife but finally divorced from all chance of misery and harm.

She curbed around a massive, scraggly boulder sticking up through the water, a grayish-brown mass standing about thirty feet tall and forty feet wide. In circling to its backside, the Majorca beachfront was no longer visible at all, which reminded him to consider just how far they’d driven from the shore.

He had to shout to hear his own voice over the thrash of the water and the volume of the ski motor. “Are we allowed to take the jet ski this far out!”

“No!”

“Cool!” he replied, because he didn’t care and he knew that she didn’t, either. The boulder was so wide, it would take a while for the ski to circle all the way around it. In case any mortals might be watching from the beach, now could be a good time to disappear from view for a little bit. “Wanna go for a dive!”

She tilted her head back into the crook of his neck. “A what?”

“A dive!” Percy gestured downwards with his hand. “Underwater!”

The jet ski shuddered to a smooth, clean halt, and stationed right around the midpoint of the boulder’s backside. Annabeth turned the engine off. She leaned back into his arms more, although she didn’t feel relaxed—it almost felt like her body had suddenly grown more tense.

“... I don’t know if we should go diving this far out.” Annabeth muttered pensively.

“What? How come?” Hoping that she wasn’t mad anymore, Percy kissed her at the top of her head, then slid his fingers softly down the slope of her arm until they could interlock with her own. “Are you worried? It’s just the sea, Annabeth. You know I’ve got you down there.”

“This isn’t just any sea, Percy...” she said, and he didn’t understand what she was getting at—but seemed to resolve herself before he could ask. “We can go. Just for a little bit.”

In touching her hand, Percy noticed that she wasn’t wearing her rings—neither the engagement band nor the new ring from the Cuvier whale’s treasure chest last night. And it was almost definitely because she didn’t want to risk losing them in the water (a perfectly sensible reason to take them off), but their absence still afflicted him with mild displeasure. It was the sort of needless and unjustifiable emotion that was better off smothered, not expressed openly. So he kept his mouth shut.

They both stood up from the jet ski seat to stand on the narrow footholds which formed a crescent radius around its base. Standing shoulder to shoulder, Percy glanced at his lover and was suddenly distracted. He couldn’t find a single fault in her stunning lineaments. He loved the way her nose proudly protruded from her face and the thoughtful storm always brewing in her eyes. He loved the knit in her brows and harsh indent of her arching cupid’s bow. Even the scars long-etched into her flesh were mere documentations of adversaries overcome—and to him, there was nothing in the world more precious than her survival.

So he kissed her on her shoulder, where one such scar was criss-crossed down from its topmost curve to her jutting elbow. It was a slow and warm and lingering kiss, a kiss that was rendered for probably too long, and when he finally stopped and arose to find the silver irises he favored so much, she was smiling softly—a momentous and gleaming and heartfelt smile. She was so pretty when her lips curled like that.

He would have told her so, too, but then she jumped into the water without added ceremony—hand still interlocked with his, dragging him along with her into the cold embrace of the welcoming sea.

As was always the case, the waters gifted him with a fresh resurgence of energy and power. He didn’t need to do anything to breathe, but he forged a large bubble of air around both of their heads; for the sake of her breath, and also so that they could talk and actually hear each other. Unlike horses and sea creatures, he couldn’t communicate with Annabeth telepathically underwater.

“Look—over there!” he exclaimed as their bodies swam lower. Not far in the distance was a school of small fish, no greater in length than his hand, whose glittering scales were speckled in electric blue and neon green. They didn’t seem to regard him much, which was a little unusual—he was used to being overwhelmed by beings of the sea excited to meet the son of Poseidon for the first time. Maybe these guys just had better things to do.

“They’re beautiful...” Annabeth awed. “What are they?”

He knew the answer instinctively, just like he knew their exact nautical coordinates and the exact temperature of the sea right now. He also had his Bachelor’s degree in marine biology, so that was a helpful supplement.

“They’re ornate wrasse fish.” Percy said. “They live in the Mediterranean—uh, obviously, and the Atlantic, too. If we go lower, we’ll probably find the coral reef they came from, we just can’t disturb the reef itself.”

“You want to go lower than this?”

“Well, yeah. We’re only just getting started.”

“Percy...”

“What?”

Mysteriously, Annabeth looked away from him. “... Nothing. We can keep going.”

He was starting to wonder what her issue was. Sure, it might be dangerous for inexperienced divers without any gear, but it wasn’t like they’d never gone deep into a body of water before. Something else was on her mind. Something that she wasn’t telling him outright.

And now he, too, felt some misgivings about going deeper in the water, when his eyes were next caught by something down below—something green and lovely and softly billowing, an entire parade of oceanic foliage that instantly dashed his reservations for emboldened excitement to continue their venture.

“Just twenty feet deeper?” he asked. “There’s something down there I wanna see.”

Annabeth consented, so he guided them lower, corrupting the waters ever slightly to give their bodies a smoother downwards glide. Percy made sure to retain a firm hold of her hand; maybe her worries could be sated just a little by assurance that they wouldn’t be separated down here.

Soon they were upon the sea floor, about fifty feet down from the surface. They were fairly far out from the coast of the island, but not yet so far that they would enter the real vacant deep sea. Just below was a meadow of flowing seagrass: thousands and thousands of thin, green tapers softly swaying to-and-fro, shooting up through a wide bed of beige, cushiony sand. Percy reached out and ran his thumb along a tongue of the dancing grass blades, pleased by its smooth feel and the health of its color.

“Posidonia oceanica,” Percy explained. “More commonly known as Neptune’s grass. It’s only in the Mediterranean, so I’ve never had a chance to see it before. This is amazing stuff right here.”

“The scientific name is Latin, but they still chose the Greek name? And the common name is still the Roman version of your dad?” Annabeth replied, sounding puzzled.

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“I dunno.”

“Hm.” She stuck her hand forward and touched a blade of grass for herself. “Why is it amazing? Does it have some special properties?”

“It doesn’t look like much, but it’s basically the lungs of the Mediterranean—it absorbs more carbon dioxide than an equivalent area of the Amazon rain forest. And it’s good for the sea, even after it dies. The way the dead leaves matte up is really good for trapping debris, too, like plastics and stuff. And with the oxygen, it’s like...”

A few minutes passed of his continued explanation. He could go on and on for longer, but it would ruin his mood if he started talking about how Neptune’s grass was diminishing in the Mediterranean at an alarming rate. Percy had chosen his major largely because he wasn’t really interested in anything else, and because he’d thought it would be cool to get paid to look at fish. What he hadn’t expected was to learn so much about how humans were destroying the ocean that he’d sound like Grover every time he talked about his studies.

When he was finished talking, Percy smiled at her. “Anyways, that’s why Neptune’s grass is cool. Was that as boring as I think it was?”

“No. It wasn’t boring.” Annabeth said. Her voice was so assured, the words earnest and definitive. “It’s nice to hear you talk about sea stuff. Feels like getting to know you all over again.”

“Like getting to know me?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

Her brows furrowed slightly, eyes searching for an explanation. “... Hard to say. You talk about it so naturally, it almost feels like hearing you say something about yourself. Does that make sense? I just think of the sea as another part of you.”

Heat rose to the surface of his cheeks. He wasn’t sure why he suddenly felt embarrassed, and he honestly wasn’t sure he’d even understood what she said—but well, Percy thought very highly of the sea, so he couldn’t help but feel flattered to be considered in that way.

“Come on,” Percy said with a smile, tugging her slightly by the hand. “We can’t disturb the grass, but there’s an empty spot over here. I wanna lay down with you.”

He led her to a vacant patch of sand in the middle of the meadow, perfect in size for two people to rest. Once they were neatly in place, lying comfortably on their backs, Percy expanded the air bubble around their heads into a full dome surrounding their entire bodies. The effect was like one of those aquarium tunnels, the ones where you can walk safely underwater, insulated by thick walls of glass as fish swim up above. He remembered walking through one such tunnel with Frank and Coach Hedge in Atlanta years ago, searching for some sign of the sea god Phorcys. They’d been trapped in his aquarium of forcibly sedated sea creatures, and Frank had gotten stuck in the form of a giant goldfish. It wasn’t exactly a cherished memory. This was way better in comparison.

And in every way, it was a breathtaking view to behold. Tendrils of sunlight burrowed down from the surface and seeped beneath the sea like shining spotlights. Dozens of dazzling creatures swam by, among them colorful jellyfish and sleek dolphins. Overhead, thousands and thousands of gallons of water were gathered and flowing, a fact which seemed too overwhelming to be true, too wonderful for words. The powerful aroma of saltwater and seaweed, the constant and wavering gales of the current, the bed of ancient sands embracing his body—it was nothing like Tartarus. It was simply the way that life was meant to be here.

Not so far ahead, towards the northeast, was a steep drop off into the deep end—the true, open sea, a void of distant dark blue. Percy stifled an intrusive impulse to start swimming after it and disappear permanently from his busy adult life. Laying here, one could easily forget and abandon the entire world up above. It made sense for his dad to prefer the deep ocean and his underwater kingdom over dry, mortal land. The sea was so precious in its latent antiquity—it predated all human civilization, and within its body was millions and billions of years of life, of power, of history. A fact too difficult for him to begin to understand, and another reason why he’d made the right decision ten years ago. He could never be immortal in the way that the sea was meant to be.

Eyes softening on the enigmatic dark of the drooping deep end, Percy recalled that the majority of the world’s oceans were unexplored to this day, because humans were not equipped to endure the worst of its depths. He wondered if he could find everything, every tenet, every stretch of his father’s underwater secrets. If it were like Annabeth said, that the ocean was a piece of who he was, then could he learn something fantastic about himself in demystifying its unknowns?

Well, who could say. Percy wasn’t the sort to deeply ponder the meanings or histories of things. He was simple in his deep affection for the ocean and its soul—it was a tender and constant and uncomplicated love. And he was glad to share the view with Annabeth.

After minutes of silence admiring the view, Percy uttered one small request. “Can we just stay here forever?”

“Stay here. Under the sea.” she laughed. “What’ll we do for food?”

“Seaweed and rocks.”

“That sounds disgusting.”

“Nah, you’ll get used to it.”

Annabeth kissed his cheek. She always liked kissing him whenever he said something stupid. “Okay, fine. I’ll have the seaweed. You can eat the rocks.”

“Deal.”

She poked her hand through the threshold of his air bubble dome and idly stroked a blade of nearby Neptune’s grass. “The water feels really nice. Have you talked to your dad lately?”

“No,” Percy said. His dad wasn’t checking in much these days, although he had a suspicion that the old man liked to bother him at work from time to time, usually by smacking him in the face with a random spray of bay water. “Not sure when the last time we spoke was. How ‘bout you, have you been talking to your dad?”

“... I was.” she admitted. “The day before we came here.”

“Oh, you did? How is he? And your, uh, stepmom.”

“They’re both mad at me.”

Percy raised his head from the sand in alarm. “What? What happened?”

She sighed and snuggled more closely against his body. “... I don’t wanna get into it right now.”

He hated it when she did that.

And he hated even more that she was still having problems with her mortal family. Matters with the Chase family had always been complicated. After everything she’d been through, why couldn’t Dr. Chase and Mrs. Chase just get it together? Why couldn’t they just be nice and good to her all the time like Paul and his mom?

But he knew better than to push the subject, so he opted to raise another that was still bothering him.

“Why were you so nervous about diving out here?”

She looked at him in the way she often did whenever she was dumbstruck by how slow he could be. “You really don’t remember, Percy?”

“Remember what?”

“... You really wanted to go on this vacation, and I didn’t wanna spoil anyone’s good time, so I didn’t bring it up.” she explained. “We... we should be fine as long as we’re on the Balearic side, by Spain, but this is still the Mediterranean—the Mare Nostrum. Where the Sea of Monsters used to be. And the ancient lands aren’t that far away... so we have to be careful out here.”

The reminder hit him in the face like a giant sack of bricks. How on earth had he forgotten about that?

“Oh.” he mumbled stupidly. “Right. I forgot how close Rome is to these islands.”

“That’s why I was so freaked out when you ran off into the water last night. I had no idea how far into the sea you were going to go. Again, the Balearic sea should be alright, but it’s not safe to go beyond the east coast of the island.” Annabeth squeezed his hand. “So just don’t, okay?”

Percy swallowed slowly. Suddenly he wasn’t so enthusiastic about staying down here forever and living off of seaweed and rocks. “I won’t.” he promised, beginning to sit up. “Should we head back up now?”

“Well... hold on. Maybe I was worrying too much.” She laid her hand on his chest and gently pushed him back down. There was a new mischievous air to her tone. “We already came all the way down here. There’s something else we could do before we leave.”

“Like what?”

“Like something we did a long time ago. Something that only we can do.”

He had no idea what she was getting at, which made him feel even dumber. “Huh?”

She looked at him with a wry smirk that said, ‘Ugh, do I have to do everything around here?’ And then she climbed onto his lap.

Annabeth straddled his hips comfortably and easily, slipping into place perched on top of his body. Eyes widening, cheeks dashed with a growing pool of red, Percy gulped as her half-lidded gaze settled on his face, a gaze that was undeniably dirty in nature.

“Percy...” she whispered sultrily, her hands smoothing over his chest. “Are you really not gonna make a move on me?”

“... Uh, you mean right now?” he questioned, gesturing to the dome of air and the wide spread of saltwater all around them. “Down here?”

“No, I mean back on the beach where everyone can see.” she droned with blatant sarcasm. “Yes, down here.”

“Oh... wait, was that your plan all along, or is this a spur-of-the-moment thing?”

Perhaps losing her patience, Annabeth bent downwards and levied his lips into bold and greedy kiss, a fast and torrid attack against which he bore no defense or rejection. Tongues met, breaths shuddered, vigor surged within his loins and he groaned a sigh of hot air into her mouth. Percy set his hands over hips as they rowed softly over his crotch, brows tightening from the pleasure of her motions.

And the kiss was as brief as it was forceful. Annabeth withdrew from his mouth to a soft puckering noise and leaned back all the way into her previous upright position. In a voice whose sensual notes could hypnotize an army, she proposed, “do you wanna keep asking questions when you could be fooling around with me instead?”

“... Uh...” Still dazed and breathless from her lips, his brain was processing information at half the normal speed. “No?”

She smirked again, seeming amused by his stupor, and then reached backwards to undo the ties of her bikini top.

When she revealed her chest, the mounds dropping free to a delightful little bounce, Percy’s breath quickened. While he could easily obsess over any part of her, Annabeth’s breasts were a particular source of amazement for him—even now, after ten years gone past having seen them hundreds of times. The shape, the feel, the irresistible allure of her nipples, were to him like a favorite show whose reruns he could watch over and over and over again. There was no tiring of a sight so luscious and arousing.

And yet despite his eagerness to watch her, to touch her, to assert control and encircle her chest with the tip of his salivating tongue, something unignorable had perturbed his consciousness. He wasn’t sure if he could thrust himself into a proper mood for messing around like this, not after being reminded of the nearby ancient lands. In the back of his mind was a lurking paranoia, a burning and festering and ugly agitation that he might be attacked, that any bloodthirsty demon of the sea could emerge from the deep end and stab its fangs into his flesh. How could he lose himself in the thrill of her touch and her grinding hips whilst actively worried for their survival?

“Wait, Annabeth, uh...” Percy trailed miserably. He hated himself right now. He didn’t want to disappoint her—and he hated how it made him feel like a coward to refuse to fool around just because he was nervous of their surroundings. “I don’t think I can do this.”

Annabeth frowned. “You don’t want to?”

“No, I want to—I just can’t. I can’t... concentrate on keeping the water from crashing down on us if we keep going.”

It wasn’t really true. He didn’t want to tell her the real source of his anxieties. Unfortunately, Annabeth was a maddeningly perceptive woman, and he could tell instantly from the cognizant look in those sagacious eyes that she knew he was lying.

But she wasn’t going to dig deeper or pester him to keep going. She wasn’t that kind of person. Instead, Annabeth slipped away from his lap and began to tie her bikini top over chest once again. “That’s okay. Don’t worry about it, Percy.”

Despite the even-tempered quality of her tone, she was obviously disappointed. Percy didn’t blame her. He was disappointed in himself, too.

The two of them both stood up, and Percy reshaped the dome into a large air bubble to surround their heads once again. They were only about fifty feet down, so it wouldn’t take long for him to shoot them back up to open air. Percy wrapped his arm around her waist and readied himself to swim.

“By the way, did you... see the picture?” she asked before he started propelling them back up to the surface. “You didn’t say anything...”

“Oh.” Right, he thought. I forgot about that. “Uh, yeah. I did. I saw it.”

Annabeth raised her brow. “... And?

“... And... you look good in red?”

Her brows lowered, and he was concerned again that he’d made her angry. But instead of raising her voice, Annabeth merely sighed and pointed her gaze elsewhere.

“... Just delete it off your phone, Percy.”

“What? I mean, I will if you want. But—”

“Let’s go back up. Our reservation for the jet ski is over by now, anyway.”

—

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—

His dinner started at eight. The food was served at seven.

He’d spent the rest of the afternoon confused over Annabeth’s mood and her behaviors. She wasn’t angry, not necessarily. Percy knew what her anger looked like, and this wasn’t it. But she was bothered, she was moody, she was offset in some inscrutable way. She showed limited enthusiasm in all of their continued activities—barely even gloating when she beat him at mini-golf, barely even eating when they went to grab lunch. The only thing that seemed to liven her somber temperament was their trip to the Castell de Bellver, a Gothic castle built in the 1300s, but even then, it had felt like she was enjoying the castle all to herself. She hadn’t included him much. She didn’t launch into a verbal dissertation over its architecture or history like she usually would, and that was absurd. It was downright blasphemous.

What in the world had gone wrong? Was it something he said? Was it the problem with her family she refused to tell him about? Not knowing the answer was making him irritable. Percy thought that their communication skills had come a long way since the crude manner with which they always used to bicker as kids, but this was worse. He could make do with Annabeth yelling and storming off. There was nothing he could do with a woman who had shut him out like this.

And yet the day went on regardless, and day became evening. It was time to reconvene with Hazel and Frank. He wasn’t happy to acknowledge this, but after a day of hanging out with a woman who didn’t seem all that enthusiastic to be around him, Percy was looking forward to seeing his favorite Romans again. And he was curious if they’d resolved their own problems, if his advice had helped Frank—and he still wanted to make amends for their misunderstanding earlier. Heck, he could even try talking to Hazel about his trouble with Annabeth. Maybe hearing from a woman would afford his clueless self some much-needed clarity.

But in a way that Percy never would have expected in a million years, matters grew even more difficult when they sat down at the table.

The dining room, like every other fixture of the resort’s amenities, was deliriously magnificent. It was a massive, circular area, almost like a ballroom in its excessive and intricate details. Golden accents in the shape of vines and cherubs climbed up the walls and tall windows encircled its perimeter. At the front of the room was a low stage and a live performance—a baritone singer and his band chiming Spanish adult contemporary tunes. There was space before the stage where no tables were arranged, such that one could dance to the music if their heart begged them to. Plush turquoise chairs environed ivory tables that were set elegantly with real silverware and fresh local flowers. The quartet was gathered towards the back of the room, where he sat next to Annabeth, and Frank next to Hazel.

After placing their orders—Frank pulled a lot of the legwork, because the cursive menu fonts were not dyslexia-friendly—they all managed to chat with pleasing affability. Even Annabeth reemerged from the sullen shell of herself, and he tried not to feel any type of way about that (‘So she’s moody all day with me, but she’s all happy to talk with these guys now? What gives?’). Mostly, he was enthused to see her smiling and laughing again, even though he wished he were the one causing his lover to express herself like that.

The food was served and devoured, and the hum of the live music was relaxing and smooth. A bilingual waiter taught all of them some useful phrases in Spanish. No one was in the mood to get up and dance, but it was entertaining enough to let the eve drift by as they enjoyed the performance from a fair distance. It was an extravagant and stylish way to receive one’s meal—his paella was so delicious that he didn’t even complain about the restaurant’s lack of burgers and Coke. Overall, he was having a good time with everyone and enjoying himself—and then Annabeth placed her hand on his thigh.

At first, a light touch. Just her flat palm over his pants; nothing scandalous or worth getting excited over. He was pleased and surprised that she would do so at all, because she’d done nothing more than hold his hand since leaving the sea and he was starting to itch from starvation of her touch—but then her hand began to slowly stroke him up and down, and against Percy’s will, his breathing started getting heavier.

Nervously, he glanced at her, at her hand, and then their friends on the other side of the table. Neither one was paying attention to them right now. Frank and Hazel had the misfortune of being seated faced away from the performance, so they’d had to turn their chairs around to comfortably watch the show. Meanwhile, Percy was weathering the misfortune of Annabeth touching him underneath the table.

The music was loud and distracting enough that he could safely lean over and speak to her quietly. Percy whispered her name. “Annabeth...”

She didn’t turn to look at him, eyes trained on the performance. “What?”

The faux-innocence of her voice made him want to pull her ear. “Come on, don’t ‘what’ me... what are you doing?”

“If you want me to stop, then I’ll stop.”

Percy bit his lip. She was applying more pressure now, and the upwards glide was getting too close to the line of his pelvis to go unindicted...

He hesitated. “You should stop.”

“You want me to?”

Annabeth glanced at him from the corner of her eyes. On her lips was the curl of a self-satisfied woman, a flirtatious half-smile of mischief and desire. She was trying to provoke him, trying to provoke something—and what was it? What reaction did she want? Did she want to drive him nuts? Because it was taking considerable strength on his behalf to refrain from laying her flat on the table and hiking up her dress.

Percy didn’t respond. A slow fire of excitement was unfurling within him. Its heat persisted and diffused indiscriminately. If he had any good sense left then he would have made her stop, but the fires, they were madness—an increasingly monstrous surge of heat spreading fast to his cheeks, to his thoughts, to his loins. He didn’t tell her stop. They’d never done something like this. And it was starting to feel good.

Perhaps aware of the effect that she was having on him, Annabeth softened her scandal: her palm lifted from his leg, and instead she used only two fingertips to stroke over his thigh. The decline in feeling almost made him cuss out loud. It was too light of a touch. She was hardly using any pressure. How was it fair to get him fired up like that and then dash so quickly from the arson she’d committed?

And he was still breathing heavier. His mouth was going dry. Maybe he was overreacting. It felt good to be touched and challenged and provoked. But for him, the crime was more than the mere theft of her palm.

With Annabeth, Percy longed for constant contact. There was no being in the same room as she without feeling antipathy for her distance, and furthermore resentment that they were not the same person, that they had separate bodies, that he couldn’t kiss her endlessly if others stood in the same space. He felt cold without her warmth and often sheer without her gaze. His breath shuddered as her fingertips tip-toed along his thigh, thinking madly of his pleasure should she stroke him bare-skinned. The presence of their friends made it necessary she should stop. It was the selfishness within that made him want her to do more.

Frank and Hazel remained right across the table, still eyeing the performance. Velvety music swept throughout the dining hall, jazzy notes of baritone and piano serenading the ears with their hypnotizing measures. But he couldn’t mind it at all. He wanted Annabeth. And it wasn’t in his nature to be teased and accept it passively.

Percy reached for her knee and slipped his hand beneath her dress. Her breath hitched on his left. He then caressed her with a vengeance, massaging from her inner thighs and up to her hip. Annabeth turned to him with an incredulous look in her eyes.

“Percy.” she warned sternly.

“What?” he answered in a volume that only she would hear, sounding equally innocent as his predecessor. “Can’t take what you can dish?”

She winced as he softly squeezed her leg. “You’re making my dress ride up too much...”

“I wanna feel your thighs.”

Annabeth flushed. But she relented tersely. “Fine.”

Not wanting to be outdone (she was every bit as petty as he was, and he liked that about her), she went back to stroking his leg with all of her hand, not just her fingertips. Percy relished the sensation, and he relished their recklessness; was that childish of him? He didn’t even care. And it wasn’t his fault. Annabeth started it.

His arousal grew increasingly incensed. She was putting up a good front—no one would know what was happening beneath the table just by looking at her face. But he could feel her thigh twitch, her body rising in temperature, and he was no better off. About an hour had passed since they’d sat down together. Was it a good time to excuse themselves from the table? No offense to their friends, but now he wanted Annabeth to himself, and he was about ready to just pick her up bridal style and carry her away to their hotel room...

But then suddenly her palm shifted to his crotch and directly massaged the aching flesh underneath—and he was so startled that the water in his glass sprung up into the air and hit the table with a splash.

“Huh?” Hazel recoiled as a drop of water dashed her arm. She turned around and faced them both. “What was that?”

“—Uh, my bad,” he answered breathlessly. “There was a bug. I overreacted. Woops.”

Frank craned his head over his shoulder. “A bug? Where?”

“It’s gone now!” Percy insisted, and he hoped that his face wasn’t as red as it felt. Annabeth’s hand was still where it shouldn’t be. He turned to her with a silent look of panic that said, 'Hello? Can I get some help here?’ But he could see on her face that it was taking all of her power not to burst out laughing.

And yet neither of their friends seemed to mind him much. Hazel calmly wiped her arm with a napkin and remarked, “this song is lovely. Do you know what they’re singing about, Percy?”

Percy cursed internally. He wasn’t paying attention to the lyrics at all—and he had to divert Hazel’s attention before she caught on to their indecent behavior. “Hard to tell—but I’m pretty sure it’s about a horse?”

“A horse...” she echoed dreamily.

“They’re singing all sultry like that over a horse?” Frank perplexed.

“Uh, yeah.” Percy lied, pretending not to hear Annabeth snickering on his left. “Something about a horse running really fast. Really, really fast. And how being in love is like riding a really fast horse. Because you can’t get off it.”

“That’s so beautiful,” Hazel awed.

Annabeth laughed again. “Must be a pretty loose translation.”

Percy scowled at her. ‘I’m getting back at you for this.’

Hazel returned her attention to the song, newly endeared to its hymns thanks to his falsified meanings. Frank smiled at her fondly. As for Percy, he was done fooling around like horny teenagers. Now, he was craving something with more of an adult touch.

He shot Annabeth another pointed look, and he didn’t have to open his mouth for her to understand; the tightness in his brow and the urgency in his eyes were unmistakable.

‘You. Me. Hotel room. Now.’

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The elevator ride was a blur of scalding, frenzied touch. Not a second after the doors slid shut was he smashing his mouth against her own and crushing her thigh within his palm. Annabeth gasped—and she kissed him right back, and she hooked her thigh over his hip to pull him deep into her form. He let her lean against the wall for more support as he trapped her body firmly in place to indulgently grind against her sex. Annabeth moaned, and he grunted with contempt—not for her, but the maddening pleasure of this small contact and the fact that he needed to wait until the elevator lurched to the twentieth floor to remove her clothes. The things that he wanted from her right now and the things that he wanted to do to her body... Percy couldn’t fight back against those penetrating urges, he couldn't protest desire this strong; it was as though he'd lost a portion of his own free will, and was now ruled by a wicked triumvirate of lust, of greed, and unfettered gluttony.

When the doors slid open, Percy didn’t stop kissing her. He lifted her up by her thighs and carried her to the front door of their room. He knew where it was without needing to look. Annabeth scrambled to scan the key card. When it finally opened, he rushed inside with her still in his hands and slammed the door shut. Privacy at last; he’d make good use of it.

A deluge of fast-paced undressing ensued. Shoes off. Shirt unbuttoned. Percy stripped her of her dress and Annabeth tore his pants off. When only their undergarments remained, he was leading her back onto the bed and moving to hover on top of her body.

“... Percy...” she sighed his name in a pleased tone as he plastered her neck with a bevy of impatient kisses. “Sheesh, you’re an animal right now.”

“Don’t act like it’s my fault,” Percy huffed. “Kissing me in the hallway this morning, sending me that picture, coming on to me under the water, and touching me like that in public...”

He withdrew from her neck and paused for a moment. Having recounted the long list of her petty crimes, it occurred to him that this really was unusual for her. There could be a couple reasons for that—like, maybe she was just eager to let loose now that they were finally on a real vacation. But something else was gnawing at him. It just felt like there was something more to her behavior.

Percy kissed her again—and it was calm this time, a brief spark of contact before withdrawing back from her lips. In a low voice, he asked, “are you trying to drive me crazy, Annabeth? What’s gotten into you today?”

She earnestly considered the question, eyes tilting to the ceiling in thought. When she decided on an answer, she spoke matter-of-factly. “I am trying to drive you crazy.”

Percy smirked. “Any reason why, or are you just having fun messing with me?”

“Oh, I’m definitely having fun messing with you.” Her hand cupped his cheek affectionately. “But also, I just want...”

“... Want what?”

Her brows furrowed. Whatever the answer was, it seemed difficult for her to say. And that bothered him a little.

Yet she smiled softly, caressing his cheek with the pad of her thumb. “... Just touch me, Percy.”

... Percy swallowed slowly. He had a nagging urge to keep pressing her to talk, but he knew that she wouldn’t want to, and her sultry request to be touched was just too tempting to be neglected. He was reverting back into an animal again, an animal leashed to his base instincts. After a long day of enduring such concerted provocation, there was no time left to delay what he needed from her.

“Take these off, Annabeth,” he slipped a finger beneath her underwear, “and sit on my tongue.”

Roses blossomed in the pores of her complexion. She nodded and complied, drawing down the fabric from her hips to her knees, to her ankles, and they were off. Percy didn’t help; instead he eyed her as she moved, hypnotized by the unveiling of her sex as though it were a cloche being lifted from his plate. Her surface was a meadow of dark blonde curls, neat but unabashed of its natural state; he never cared about her shaving—and so she’d stopped caring, too, during those first few months of getting intimate when they were eighteen.

The two swapped positions: Percy laid on his back and Annabeth maneuvered her legs on either side of his head. As always, this was a ceremonious event for him; like a grand opening of his lips for her pleasure. Anticipation swelled within his tongue, excitement rushed through every one of his extremities, and his eagerness eclipsed as her vulva settled on the furnace of his mouth.

“Mmph...” Percy hummed relaxedly, consonants muffled in her savory lips. His eyes fell shut and his hands found her hips. Annabeth gasped and steadied herself by gripping the headboard. It was his preference for her to be facing this direction, which afforded a lovely view of her breasts and a slight glimpse of her blushful face, as well as nearer access to that sensitive node most vulnerable to the lashings of his tongue.

“You don’t have to do this. You just went down on me for two hours the other day.” Annabeth said. She sounded notably calm, so he marked his goal to break through that stoic facade. Considering her shenanigans throughout the day, it was the least he could do to wrestle and distill her composure.

Percy smiled on her, and wondered distantly if she could feel it on her inner lips. “My bad. Should’ve gone for three.”

“I’ll never understand why you like—aah—” her entire body twitched as his tongue passed through her folds, “—why you... why you like doing this so much...”

“Wet,” Percy offered.

“Uh-huh...”

His tongue stroked a slow, hot trail between her inner lips. “Tastes good.”

Thighs trembling from pleasure, Annabeth could only shudder in reply. “Hnn...”

“Turns me on...” Percy continued, “... and you deserve it.”

Her fingers swam throughout his mess of black hair. The sensation was ticklish, lightweight, pleasing, and soon enough would it phase into a firm grip of brutality. He was familiar with her habits; she liked to pull his hair whenever she was getting close (or perhaps she didn’t like it; maybe she couldn’t control herself), but Percy wasn’t in such a hurry to get her there anymore. Her flavor was something like a sedative, a relaxant to the workings of his aggression. He wouldn’t attack her with his vengeance just yet; instead he would inflame her body with a slow, uproarious burn, a refined and gradual torture. Although she deserved to be lavished in tongue, Percy decided it was fair that he take his time.

So his course was one of slow-paced licks and teasing motions; delicate whorls on her inner labia, unhurried prods at her throbbing clitoris. Her drifting exhales were soft and affected, satisfied expressions in the form of hot vapors, and a current of need ran beneath her every breath—a need that induced subtle agitation in her hips, which couldn’t help but actively massage against his tongue. She was growing more desperate. She wanted more vigor. He wouldn’t give it to her. His commitment was to drag this out like he dragged his tongue along her folds; lentissimo affections; suppressed voracity; inconstant contact—just to torment her for the way that she’d tormented him, and her agony was evident in the tremors of her thighs.

“Nnh, you...” Annabeth began to speak—and she couldn’t—and she had to try again, and he knew instantly what he wanted to hear: ‘Tell me that you need me. Beg me to go faster,’ were his internal commands—but when she persevered through the anguish of her pleasure, she pronounced a shockingly lucid declaration of her own, “you deserve to feel good, too, Percy...”

He paused all motions of his tongue. His heart was a mallet pounding against his ribcage.

Going down on Annabeth was so much more than what it was. He could only conceive this act as a vehement expression of love: pushing his tongue inside her folds was the deepest kind of kiss, every long stroke of tongue was warranted adulation—and whenever she’d fasten her thighs over his cheeks and cry urgently that she was nearing her denouement, he could almost come, too, from his empathized excitement. Her pleasure was the source of his survival; it was hard to explain, but it was enough for him. Percy endured, over the years, his inability to finish through vicarious enjoyment of her satisfaction, as well as the simple truth that he genuinely liked being able to make her feel good.

But a pang of guilt throbbed in his chest that he might be robbing her of the same thing, and that wasn’t the kind of torment he wanted to inflict upon his lover. He was broken, and neither his guilt nor her plea for his pleasure would mend the inequality that had circumscribed their bedroom for the past several years.

Percy tightened his hold over her hips. “Don’t think about me.”

He fixed himself with renewed determination. A diversion was necessary. He had to make her feel so good, make her come so hard that she wouldn’t bother to concern herself with a lack of reciprocation.

He firmed his tongue until its tip was as rigid as could be. He readied himself to relinquish his restraint. And then he launched a fast-paced and vigorous incursion against her defenseless clitoris.

“Oh, fuck,” Annabeth cursed, fingers tugging on his hair. “Oh, gods—Percy—”

Her body arched forward, oppressed by the sudden onslaught of absolute pleasure, dependent on the headboard to keep her upright. Her hips stuttered and trembled, her voice cried and it quavered—this was exactly what he wanted. His tongue, a habitual agent of impertinence, was now an instrument of ecstasy for Annabeth’s indulgence.

And Percy’s own lust corrupted and tyrannized him ruthlessly. This was his utmost contradiction; he wanted to be pleasured. He wanted it desperately. Every flicker of his tongue and sample of her flavor stoked the fire in his vitals; every sigh and every moan of his name was continued provocation. And when it got to the point that she was squeezing his head with her thighs—truly squeezing him, without regard for his strain—he was sure of Aphrodite’s presence in the room, casting spells whose invocations would supplant his sanity for irrepressible desire.

“Fuck,” Percy growled hoarsely, his hips bucking up into the empty air above. He could hardly make room for his words between his rapid pants of breath. “Fuck, tighter—”

“Percy, I—”

He puckered his lips and dared to suck upon her clit at the same time that his hands took her ass within palms. Annabeth didn’t stand a chance. She gasped and thrust against his face, a sob breaking from her throat. His tongue soothed her gently as he suckled on her harder, a favored cheat of his to make her thighs crush him even more.

Percy had a number of incredibly specific weaknesses—her caress against the sensitive small of his back, or the feeling of a hot kiss just beside his ear—but none were ever so electrically euphoric as Annabeth squeezing him just like this. He wasn’t sure why he loved it so much. It just felt good to be locked within her most private place, to have the noise of all outside influences silenced and defeated. Percy couldn’t think straight. He was safe and protected beneath her. He didn’t need to keep his eye on the window in case a monster broke through and attacked him with its fangs—no, he couldn’t do so if he tried. The universe was all between Annabeth’s thighs, and the tightness of their grip over his head was a promise to Percy that nothing could ever separate them.

And before he knew it, he was moaning along with her, too. Harsh, externalized airs of gratification coming out in muffled grunts against her sensitive flesh. Maybe Annabeth had worked him up past the point of no return; maybe Eros himself had empowered his tongue, for he scarcely recognized this incarnation of his desires. His emotion was ferocious, bleeding, unenslaved—a vulture with only one purpose, one goal: to devour this girl until her sacred liquors were running like a river down the corners of his mouth.

‘Screw dragging this out,’ he resolved silently. ‘I need her to come on my face right now.’

“Aah, gods, it feels—” his tongue then slipped inside of her body, and she rewarded him with a stutter of her hips against his mouth and a moan like a chorus of siren melodies. “Oh, I hate how good you are at this—aah—Percy!”

“Mmph,” Percy grunted, his tongue still buried to the hilt inside of her body. This was his final act; Annabeth was almost where he needed her to be. Percy fucked her with his tongue, thrusting inwards and out, salivating as she made a sopping mess of his lips—and he savored her eagerly from the inside, curling and stroking her rigorously—and she sobbed like the act was killing her sweetly, like the force of her life was being sapped through his mouth. But her hips kept moving, she kept riding his tongue, one hand in his hair as the other clung to the creaking headboard, and there was no possibility of her surviving any longer.

“Fuck! Ugh, Percy—!”

—were her very last words as her climax came, and erupted, and punished her body with long-lasting pulsations of unbearable pleasure. And everything she lost was swallowed readily by him, tongue embowed within her still as her walls contracted. And even as her hips squirmed, he held her in place so that she couldn’t break away just yet, because he wasn’t finished. Percy wanted it all to himself; the sensation, the drippings, the unfiltered taste of her orgasm. Soft groans accompanied his gulps, and thin rivulets of pleasure flowed slowly down his chin.

Annabeth panted relentlessly. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she lazily extracted herself from his mouth and fell onto the bed right beside him. She had no rigor in her limbs and no lucidness of mind. He as well was a man in a harmonious daze, exhausted pleasantly from his persistent efforts. Intelligible thought was now a mythic object, a rare and inaccessible jewel. All Percy knew was the lingering flavor of Annabeth on his tongue and the satisfaction of knowing he’d delivered his lover to gates of Olympus using only his mouth.

And now coming down from heaven, they shifted into a soft and languorous embrace. Her head rested on his bare chest and her arm wrapped around his abdomen. Percy curled his arm around her form. Brusquely wiping off his chin on the surface of his arm, he nestled his head against the top of her own and gave her a small kiss on her forehead. Love was incumbent in all manner of their touch; her hand caressing his bicep, his finger aimlessly twirling one of her golden curls, and the tender motion with which she grazed her foot along his calf. He was warm in a way that felt like he could endure any cold front; the girl was summer in his arms, and the blooms of her heat seeped down through his pores unto his marrow.

“... That was hot,” Percy mumbled dreamily, eyes at risk of falling shut. It wasn’t so late that they needed to be heading to bed, but well, they were already in bed, and a good night’s sleep was sounding pretty good right about then.

She smiled at him. “You always say that after eating me out.”

“That’s ‘cause eating you out is always hot.”

“Yeah, well...” The blonde snuggled tighter against his form. “... I’ll admit, you really outdid yourself this time.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m pretty good with my mouth.”

“Alright, don’t get a big head about it.”

“... But the head I gave you was pretty big, wasn’t it?”

“Ugh. Regretted that as soon as I said it.”

Percy chuckled softly. It didn’t matter that he’d just finished eating her out; she was going to have to put up with his jokes, good and bad, regardless of the occasion.

And he felt like messing with her still. Percy dipped a hand to her stomach, and threatened to encroach back towards her sodden lower lips. “Sooo... part two?”

Annabeth looked at him like he’d just asked her to jump naked out the window from the twentieth floor. “You’re kidding, right? I’m exhausted.”

“But I can keep going. You came way too fast.”

Her entire face turned red. Annabeth smacked his arm. “Don’t act like that’s my fault!”

Percy snickered unapologetically. She was right, it wasn’t her fault; past a certain threshold, all of his patience had totally evaporated—replaced by his expedients to finish her for good. But she was cute when she was flustered, so she didn’t need to know that.

But as was the norm with Annabeth (they had their differences, and they were yet so alike), she wasn’t going to lay down and tolerate being teased like that.

“You say you can ‘keep going’, Percy.” she crooned, and then her hand engulfed his crotch over the front of his blue boxer-briefs. “... is that why you’re still hard?”

His breath hitched with surprise and he grunted lowly as she squeezed. She was right. He was rigid as a column, and now he was feeling more sensitive than usual.

Percy gulped slowly. His breath was getting heavier again. Of course he wanted to be touched—her hand felt so good that he was barely holding back pulling down his underwear and making her resume against his bare skin. But it was pointless; he was cursed. No matter how badly he might want to be stroked and appeased, he wouldn’t be able to finish what she started.

Trying not to sound too miserable, he replied, “Uh, I mean, I’m... good. You don’t need to do anything.”

Her brows furrowed with frustration. Clearly, it wasn’t what she wanted to be told. With a huff, Annabeth withdrew her tempting fingers. “It’s not about needing to, Percy...”

The air suddenly became more awkward, more tense, weighing on him like an overwarm blanket. And now he felt bad all over again, just like he had when he’d turned down her advances below the sea. How long was he going to have this stupid problem? How long was he going to keep being such a disappointment?

Percy worried that they might end the night there on an unpleasant note. But to his surprise, Annabeth had other ideas to express.

“Percy, I... I might have a theory on how to help you.”

A lone brow quirked up. “A theory?” he asked.

“It’s not exactly scientific. And it might be a little crazy.”

“Well, don’t get too crazy where my junk is involved.” Percy warned. And then he began to think. “... Does this have anything to do with how you’ve been acting today?”

“... Kind of.” she admitted. “I was thinking that... maybe I need to put some pressure on you.”

“Pressure?”

“Not as in forcing you to do anything—not like that at all. In fact, I mean the opposite of that.”

“Not following.”

Annabeth propped herself up on her forearm, half-hovering over him as he remained on his back. “We’re on vacation now. We’re on this beautiful, relaxing island, and we don’t need to be stressed out by any of the usual stuff that keeps us so busy. We’ve got a lot of time to just focus on each other.”

“Yeah... and?”

“What I’m saying is...” Her hand slipped beneath his waistband without coming into contact with his most sensitive place, and the burden of her fingertips so near to his stiff arousal was like the Mount Tam sky in its insufferable weight. “Since I have you to myself, maybe I need to drive you crazy. Until you can’t take it anymore.”

And it was the lightest touch ever, but it still sent a pulse of electricity down his spine. He felt shy suddenly, and he didn’t know what to say. “Annabeth...”

“Percy,” she kissed him just below his ear, “I want to make you feel as good as you’re always making me feel. And to do that, I think I want to try riling you up a lot more than usual.”

He was still distracted by the placement of her hand and the imprint of her lips, so his delirious mind was struggling to make sense of her proposal. “Wait, so... edging? Is that what you’re getting at?”

“Not literally edging,” she scolded, “but kind of. Whatever it takes. And then, when you’re at your limit—when the only thing you can think of is how badly you need to come, when you’re at a point where you can’t even function anymore, then you can tell me so. And then we’ll try again.”

Her fingertips closed in—tracing his length from the base to its tip. Percy swallowed an unwanted groan in his throat. “Do you... do you think that’ll work?” he asked.

“I have no idea.” she said, and then she stole her hand from his crotch. “Theories have to be tested. And I think now of all times must be the best time to try.”

Percy already missed her touch. “So... starting now?”

“No, starting this morning. But you took the life out of me just now, and I can’t keep my eyes open, so I’m gonna pass out.”

She yawned, drew a blanket over herself, and did just that. He was impressed by the speed of her downfall; most likely, she was still catching up on days of missed sleep thanks to her job. And before he let himself join her in slumber, Percy took more time to consider her intentions.

If he understood her correctly, then Annabeth wanted him so pent up that his lust would have no course left but to burst from its dam. He thought about everything they’d been through today, every act of exacerbation, every nymphlike tease and effort to arouse his desire. So that was her plan all along.

And though he wanted to fix his problem all on his own, without running the risk of embarrassing himself in front of her, he hadn't thought of anything yet. She only wanted to help. And her plans were usually pretty good.

Maybe Annabeth had the right idea. Maybe soon would be the time that he could actually, finally go all the way with her and last long enough—because he was still hard, even now, and that wasn’t like him.

But what was she going to do with him? Should he be fearing for his life? If more affronts like that which had occurred throughout the day were on the agenda for tomorrow, then he wondered if he might forfeit to his urges much faster than either of them would expect.

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The realm was a nightmare glade. Sharp grass like talons clawing up through the muck. Monkshood flowers with their stalks bent in half. Eddying blackness festered in the gloom above the meadow, a smog with the stench of spoils and mullock and lung-scratching fumes. The smoke was endless in its spread, lurching out in all directions for what seemed like an eternity. It was undoubtedly a dark netherworld.

Percy knew he was dreaming. His body wasn’t really here. He was a phantom overseer of a truly wretched place, but even though he understood that he had nothing to actively fear, the atmosphere was still afflicting him with a rotten sense of dread.

He had been here before.

A jolt of panic shocked his nerves as a ghastly wail broke out from the fog—a tortured and raspy cry of despair like a horror movie scream. Percy couldn’t block it out; it went on and on for what felt like entire minutes, the violent and earsplitting screech, and it might have stopped his heart if his heart were really there.

As the worst of the noise petered out, a fresh crop of flowers spiked into existence at the center of the meadow. Hemlock, nightshade, and infernal sprigs of oleander. Percy knew right then that that was where the voice had come from. Shrouded thickly in the mist, he could almost see the being’s gnarled claws lurching up into the air.

With such powerful maleficence that he could feel his subconsciousness beginning to dissolve, the voice bellowed out an order to a pitch black sky:

“COME TO ME, HIPPOCRENE!”

Beads of glittering water dripped sparsely from the night-dark heavens. Percy looked upwards, but he couldn’t see anything. He had no idea where it could have come from. This was not a land ever to be blessed by rain.

A new voice then emerged from depths unseen, pouring directly into his mind like cool, sparkling liquid filling up his cup.

“Look away, hero.” it spoke in a flow of soporific calm. “Look away. Do not come for me.”

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Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 10

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There was no substance so bitter in the entire world as the caustic guilt that wounded him whenever he made Hazel upset. To Frank, it was no different than committing a crime whose deserved punishment was untrialed execution. She was too good and too kind of a person for anything less severe.

In becoming her boyfriend, Frank had appointed himself the all-time defender of her joy; he couldn’t protect her from the torrents of depression that would sometimes break loose and flood her mood in excessive melancholy, nor could he rescue her from ancient and intangible foes like recurring nightmares or her looming fear of death, but he could fight back against any monster that threatened her, any human whose barbs were a little too reminiscent of what she endured in the 1930s. Frank took his role seriously. Even minor affronts were declarations of war. If she so much as nicked her finger on a wicked sheet of paper, then it stood no chance against the shredder in his office.

And he was so defensive and protective of Hazel that if he did something to offend or bother this precious, precious woman, then he assumed the role of his own antagonist, struggling against the urge to slam his head into a wall, to mutter, ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid!’ and incur a swift concussion. She had already endured legions of sadness in her past. It was just too horrible to be the source of even more in her second chance at life.

And the guilt—the acrid, horrid substance—corroded his mood throughout the entire day. He’d gone too far the evening before, she had screamed and locked herself in the bathroom, and then she’d kept her distance from him for the rest of the night, retreated to her side of the bed, silent like a corpse whose death was his doing.

And the gap between their bodies was a chasm in its width. Several times in the night, he had considered rolling over to her side, holding his lover close, and choosing from a pool of pathetic phrases, such as, ‘I’m really sorry, Hazel,’ and ‘You feel so far away from me,’ and ‘I don’t want our first night in bed together to be like this,’ and ‘I know I messed up. Can we talk about it?’ But he hadn’t been able to expel a single word from his body. Frank knew that if he spoke, a rock would form in his throat—an obstinate lump that would choke his intentions as a sob lurked behind it, having nowhere else to go. So he had jailed the meager words like inmates of his rib cage until they died inside of him, and their souls emerged as phantoms haunting all corners of the room.

It was a long, long night. And in the morning after, she was still uncomfortable with him. Limited eye contact. Soft-spoken words. Not the Hazel he was used to. The one solace he knew was Hazel’s hand, a life raft in the form of his loved one’s touch. He would have drowned without it. If after last night, she hadn’t even been willing to hold his hand as they walked to get breakfast, if his touch was now that offensive to her, Frank’s anguish would have capsized him past the point of resuscitation.

At the time, they still hadn’t been willing to address the obvious issue: why did she react that way? He simply wasn’t sure. It wasn’t easy to bring up. And with his tendency to catastrophize fast, Frank was already filling up her silence with the worst possibilities: ‘She wants me dead now. I know it. Should I just let her kill me?’ It would sound ludicrous if said out loud, so he kept that thought to himself to retain the bit of sense that it made. Even the worst conclusions were better food for his anxiousness than ambiguity—than no conclusion at all.

After breakfast, after being advised by Percy and going to the drugstore with him, Frank had rejoined Hazel, only for her to request time with Arion to make sure that he was fed and take him for a ride around the island. Which was fine by him (that horse really got on his nerves sometimes), although it left him disappointed. She didn’t say anything like, ‘I need some time alone after last night,’ but he internalized her behavior as such nonetheless.

So he determined that Percy’s advice had to be followed strictly: they needed to take things slow. He may have armed himself with appropriate protection (and what a good friend Percy was to have helped with that), but Frank wasn’t expecting to make use of it any time soon. Not if it meant incurring another bad reaction in his girlfriend. Not if it meant Hazel choosing the horse over an afternoon with him on an island vacation.

Hours later, Frank regathered himself. It would soon be time for a scheduled check-in with Camp Jupiter, where Jason and Dakota were filling in as co-praetors—the former of whom really hadn’t been Frank’s first choice. It felt incredibly awkward to ask Jason to come back to New Rome after all these years, especially in the role of praetor again. But there hadn’t been anyone else available, and few people could be trusted with the discreet nature of a surprise romantic getaway for Hazel.

When the time came, Frank returned to their hotel room, and as expected, at exactly three in the afternoon, the shimmer of a sheer rainbow swept into existence, forming the shape of a mirror-like oval through which the appearance of a man with blonde hair and shocking blue eyes appeared right before Frank as he stood near the window. An Iris message—now standard use for Romans after meeting the goddess herself at Rainbow Organic Food & Lifestyles. Not his favorite memory from that particular quest. But it was a productive trip nonetheless.

He appeared to be sitting in Frank’s chair in the Principia—the praetor building where meetings were often held. Jason hadn’t ever been a praetor for too long before he went missing, but Frank couldn’t help but notice how naturally the guy could still blend into the setting. If he was uncomfortable to be there at all, he really wasn’t showing it.

A twinge of meager envy pricked at Frank’s skin like a small mosquito bite, a fully minor wound undeserving of a bandage. It had taken Frank years to feel like he was fit to run Camp Jupiter—to feel like he didn’t look ridiculous sitting in that praetor chair. And for no good reason whatsoever, it was a little disappointing that Jason was still such a natural, even after all these years.

“Frank? Can you hear me?” Jason asked.

“I can hear you.” Frank said. A quick shake of his head and he scattered every unpleasant thought he’d been having in a dozen untraceable directions. “Jason. Good to see you. Is Dakota there?”

“It’s just me right now. I can give you the whole report, though. But to be honest, there isn’t much to say.”

Jason launched into a dutiful recollection of everything Frank had missed in the past day and a half, which, as advertised, did not amount to much. The First and Third Cohorts won the war games last night. Terminus stopped a stray dog from running into the city with a knife in its mouth. A small crack was discovered in the Principia’s roof and readily replastered. And every other aspect of camp’s daily machinations had been proceeding smoothly without perturbation.

All of which was a great relief to Frank. As pleased as he was to finally take a long break, there was no burying the anxiousness that lurked within his chest whenever he was far away from his camp.

“That’s great, Jason. Thanks for keeping things running while we’re gone.”

“I’m happy to help you guys out. You’re amazing praetors, and everyone knows how hard you two work. You deserve the vacation.”

Frank smiled. In the midst of feeling like a big dunce on this vacation, a compliment went a long way towards appeasing his inner dismay. “Thanks, that’s nice of you to say. And you’re doing alright over there? It’s not too weird to be back in Rome?”

“... Uh, no, it’s definitely very weird. Being back is kind of...” Jason’s voice slowed. He seemed to struggle to find the right words to express his thought, and struggled further in weighing whether or not to finish his thought at all. “It’s not important. You and Hazel, though—you guys are having a good time?”

Frank’s entire body tensed. “Uh... yes.”

Jason raised his brow. “You don’t sound sure.”

“It’s not important.”

“So you -aren’t- having a good time?” he asked. “Something wrong on the island? I know you aren’t too far from the Ancient Lands, so I was a little—”

“No, no, it’s not that. It’s a personal issue. But—uh. Not important.”

He got the sense that Jason understood what he was getting at—well, not all of what he was getting at, but the interpersonal nature of the problem. And as kind as Jason was, he raised up his hands and opted not to pry. “Alright, not important. I’ll let you get back to it then. I should go wake up Dakota and prepare to head up the morning meeting for the legion.”

Frank nodded. “Thanks, Jason. I’ll talk to you again the day after tomorrow.”

“Same time, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds like a plan. See you later, Frank. And tell Hazel I said hi.”

“Will do. Later.”

And at the exact moment that the rainbow fizzled from existence like evaporating mist, the electronic lock to the hotel door clicked with a pitched, buoyant beep, followed by the sound of the door swinging open.

“Oh—Frank.” Hazel said as she walked in, sounding mildly surprised. “There you are. I didn’t know where you were.”

“Welcome back? I was just on an Iris message with Jason to check in on things.”

Hazel closed the door behind her and began to take off her shoes. “With Jason? You talked about camp stuff?”

He wasn’t sure why she still sounded surprised. “Yeah? I know it’s only been a day or so, but I just wanted to see how things are going.”

“I know, and that’s okay. I’m just... I wouldn’t have gone out with Arion if I knew. I’m surprised you didn’t tell me there would be a meeting.”

“Oh.” Frank blinked. “Right. I didn’t tell you.”

“Yeah...”

He rubbed the back of his head. “Um... sorry. I just wanted you to focus on having fun, I figured I’d deal with all the camp stuff while we’re here.”

“That’s sweet of you, but you don’t have to do that... I’m a praetor, too.” She walked over to him and set her hands on her shoulders—and automatically, Frank bent down a little lower to grant her better access to his face. The girl planted a kiss on his cheek, a soft, sweet kiss full of fondness and affection that warmed up his entire body.

Frank gave her a small smile, then wrapped his arms around her waist. “Alright. I’ll let you know when the next one is.”

“Thank you. So, how was the meeting?”

“Good. Jason says hi. And a dog tried to lay siege against the city with a knife.”

Hazel gawked at him like he was insane. “What?”

“It’s okay, it was just one dog. Nothing Terminus couldn’t handle.”

She stared at him with wide eyes for a moment, only to descend into a lighthearted air of giggles. “Right. Nothing Terminus couldn’t handle.”

Her laughter could have healed any infirmity he had, any wound and any strife, or any fatal sadness that had stripped him of his vigor. It really was such an adorable, mellisonant sound, and the accompanying smile enswayed his heart to the tune of her voice.

And all over again, he remembered how he mourned their troubles from the evening before, and how she screamed so shrilly after he’d touched her, and how she’d locked herself in the bathroom, and how she barely looked at him the morning after...

But Hazel was looking at him now, and the gold lambent of the light in her eyes, and the emotions delivered in her gleaming gaze, were gentle and desperately needed assurance that he wasn't hated by her, and the unpleasant ending to their first night in bed was not the conclusion to anything else—not to this dreamy, enduring romance of theirs, nor even the end to the newly contoured shape of their intimacy. Like usual, he had probably had an overdramatic reaction. If he could just talk to her, just take things slow, just make sense of everything, then maybe he would learn how to repair his worst errors from the night before.

Frank touched his forehead against hers, arms tightening over her back. “Look, Hazel... can we—”

“—talk about last night?” she finished.

Their noses were in soft contact. He could angle himself a little lower and kiss her right then—which he craved desperately. In spending the night on opposite sides of the bed, having such closeness to her now was so pleasant, so needed, grounding him with her warmth after floating aimlessly in the fog of his dejection. He had to nullify the begging impulse to press her tight against his body and kiss her until her lungs didn’t know air. And maybe he still would. But Frank needed to ensure first that they were taking things slow.

And he affirmed her response, nodding as he gestured with his arm towards the bed. “... Yeah. I think we should.”

Together, they sat down at the edge of the bed—not far from one another, which gave him continued relief—and they held hands as their knees brushed against each other. Hazel didn’t seem particularly nervous, and strangely, he didn’t really feel that way, either. He wanted to talk and clear the air. And there was nothing Hazel could say that would hurt him worse than silence and avoidance.

She began to speak first, rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand. “Um... first, I just wanna say sorry for being so weird last night. And this morning. I really didn’t know what was wrong with me... and I’m still not sure what’s wrong with me, even now.”

“Why do you think there’s something wrong with you?” he asked. “I thought... well, maybe you were just nervous or freaked out. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I was nervous. I know that. But there was more to it. You were so gentle with me, Frank. I had no reason to scream and shut you out like that...”

If he weren’t unhappy with the guiltiness in her voice, he might have felt pleased that she considered his actions “gentle”. “You shouldn’t feel bad about anything, Hazel. I was the one who... who touched you like that without asking first. I’m so sorry. I really shouldn’t have...”

Her eyes widened. “What? No, Frank, that wasn’t it at all.”

Now it was his turn to gawk at her. “It wasn’t?”

“Well, not in the way you’re thinking. It had nothing to do with the way you touched me. As soon as you... um. As you reached down... there...” she lowered her voice like she was afraid of being overheard by a nun. “I panicked. It felt like I was letting you do something that you really shouldn’t, and that feeling just attacked me completely. Does that make sense?”

“Uh... no?”

Her shoulders slumped. “I know. It doesn’t make sense to me, either. Especially because... well...”

“What?”

Hazel fanned her face and averted her eyes. “... I was into it, Frank. As much you were. That’s, um... part of why I spent so long in the bathroom.”

“Part of why you spent so long in the bathroom...” Frank repeated. “Wait... d—do you mean you were...” Frank pointed at the bathroom door. “In... in there? You were doing... by yourself?”

“What? No! Frank, that’s just perverted!” Hazel shrieked, now fanning her face even more furiously. Her tone was utterly incredulous, as if he’d just suggested the sleaziest, most disgusting act of debauchery the world has ever known. “Sheesh! I would never do that. I was talking about how long I spent in the shower.”

“Oh.” Now he felt even more embarrassed, although he had no idea what being in the shower had to do with anything. “Sorry. But... wait. Hazel, are you saying that you’ve never... done it by yourself before?”

“No, I haven’t. Why are you looking at me like I just said something crazy?”

“... Um. It’s not crazy,” Frank said carefully. He was beginning to worry that this might be too sensitive of a topic for her. “But I guess I’m just surprised that you’ve never done it even once. Y—you do mean you’ve never done it even once, right?”

Hazel chewed her lip and nodded, less sure of herself. “I haven't. It's just, that’s... that's not something I would ever spend my time on.” And she sighed a deep, frustrated sigh, gripping his hand a little tighter. “That must be one of those strange modern things. Folks weren’t doing stuff like that back in my day.”

Frank was no historian, but he was pretty sure that humankind had been touching themselves since they were living in caves and swinging giant clubs at rocks. He didn’t say that to her, though; now didn’t feel like the right time to start unpacking all of that. “Um... alright. I’m just glad I didn’t hurt you or disgust you or anything. That was my biggest worry.”

Hazel rubbed his arm reassuringly. “You definitely didn’t do either of those things. So don’t worry about that. In fact, next time, maybe we should... just skip to the big part?”

A tide of shock hit him so hard that he nearly fell off of the bed. “Skip to the big part?”

“Yeah. I ruined everything over something so little last night. I was thinking that if we... um. If we just handled the big part right away, then little stuff like that would stop being such a big deal to me.”

“... Uh,” Frank hesitated. “I was actually thinking that we should take things much slower.”

“How much slower?”

“Like a lot slower.”

“Frank, we’ve been together for nearly a decade—and we didn’t start doing anything until this past week. Don’t you think we’ve already been taking things much slower than we needed to be?”

When she put it like that, he could suppose the sense in her assertion, but Frank couldn’t help but feel that there was something wrong about her sudden urgency. “I... I guess so. But I’m surprised you feel that way, Hazel. Do you really want to rush things like this?”

“Is it really rushing if we’re ready for it?”

“Are you ready for it?”

“Didn’t I say I was?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Well, I am.” Hazel huffed. “I... I want to be close to you, Frank. And I don’t want to keep you waiting anymore.”

“Hazel...” Frank said. He lowered his brows and raised her hand to his mouth, where he offered her one single kiss on the back of her hand and straightened his voice into a phrase that was equally firm as it was sincere. “You shouldn’t ever worry about that. I would wait for you through this lifetime and the next.”

Her lustrous eyes, gilded like fine jewelries, softened sweetly on his face. And then she smiled in the usual manner that she so often did whenever she was offered something, but was too mastered by abnegation to accept or internalize it. “You don’t have to.”

Hazel leaned closer to his face, one hand on his thigh and the other on his cheek, and then she kissed him so. The tender motions of her lips were dizzying and passionate, more learned and composed than their clumsy first attempts from that precipitous first night.

And he closed his eyes and accepted her affection—only half-eager, despite himself. He was confused. He knew he wanted this. He was already succumbing to his heady emotions, to the pleasure of her palm as it stroked over his thigh and the hot sensation of her tongue in his mouth. But how could he abate this arresting inner conflict? Last night, he had learned not to question Hazel’s willingness so much—to listen to her when she said, “Yes, I want this. Yes, stop worrying about me.” And the payoff had gone beyond his wildest dreams, but now he was second-guessing himself—no, he was second-guessing Hazel again. Was she only getting so impatient because of what happened last night?

But she was kissing him harder—kissing him so deeply that his hands had to grip the bedsheets for dear life. Frank moaned as she sucked his tongue into her mouth—gods, that felt really good—and he gasped as her hand massaged his crotch. She really was going fast, he could feel her urgency in every move she made. Was this going be like what he’d seen in the movies and TV? Where you grab needily at your lover’s body and tear off her clothes, and you kiss her insane, and you push yourself inside of her over and over at a breakneck pace as she gasps your name and begs you to go faster?

Would it really be like that? Was that what Hazel really wanted?

“... Hazel,” Frank paused between kisses and made eye contact. He was panting hard and clutching tightly at her hip. “... Lay down on the bed.”

Hazel didn't reply, but there was growing fervor in her half-lidded eyes and fast-rising pitch in the air of her breaths. She moved backwards until her head was stationed on the pillows and Frank followed. His body came to hover over her own and he kept kissing her as she relaxed against the bed. Hazel's sighs were filling up the air, and the sweetness of her voice was appealing directly to the bulge beneath his waist. He was already hard, and he was already maddened by the frantic evocations of his name that were fleeing from her lips. Hazel’s charms and appeals were gathering over him, spiritizing his arousal with imperative compulsions. And what little sapience survived within his mind was then annihilated by her surreptitious hands as they moved towards his hips and undid his front pants button as well as his zipper.

‘... I don’t know if I should do this,’ he was thinking to himself, ‘but if I am, I won’t let it go like last night again. I’ll focus on Hazel and make sure everything is perfect for her.’

And Frank thought this to be the most sensible course of action, but the fact remained that he didn’t actually know what he was doing. Not only was he a complete and utter novice in general, but he didn’t know how to please Hazel specifically. What exactly did she like? How would she like to be touched? Given the fact that she had never even touched herself before, it was probable that the answer still eluded them both.

Frank operated on instinct and memory alone, breaking away from her mouth to furnish her neck with a plethora of kisses. He remembered doing so in his illicit dream from a few nights ago—and it would be stupid to assume that the Hazel of that dream would like the same things as the Hazel in real life, but he didn’t have anything else to go off of.

And he couldn’t see her face while buried in her neck, but he hoped that his kisses were pleasing enough. Frank was too wary to dare his hand below her waist just yet—and thought it safer to make attempts  to please Hazel elsewhere. But she was still fully clothed, and he wasn’t sure how much could really be achieved without more contact to her bare skin...

He remembered a suggestion from Percy earlier in the day; to announce his intentions before taking action. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but the execution itself was now such a perilous act. Frank swallowed his anxiousness down and fought to keep it from reemerging in his throat. “I’m... I’m gonna take your shirt off. Is that okay?”

It was an unforgivably mortifying thing to say out loud. Frank felt so much heat rising to his face that he worried he would pass out or go stupid from embarrassment. And Hazel was visibly embarrassed herself, flustered as she directed her gaze to the wall instead of his eyes.

“... I guess you should at this point, right?” she reasoned quietly. “... Go ahead, Frank. You can take my shirt off.”

Oh, gods. She’s so cute. She’s so cute, I’m gonna die. What if I die before the clothes come off?

A pleasured moan rose from his throat and perished before escaping from his lips. Her consent alone was a tantalizing phrase that made him throb with deepening desire. Even Hazel’s swimsuits were of modest style—and she almost never went swimming regardless. In nine years of dating, he had never seen her without something covering her chest before... and the exhilaration of finally getting this far really might be so potent as to overexcite and kill him dead.

Hazel sat up fully, half-raising her arms up on either side of her head. With nervous, shaking hands, Frank leaned in closer and set his hands at the base of her shirt. Before lifting it upwards, they made brief eye contact—which startled them both, and they quickly looked to their laps instead. Looking each other directly in the eyes as they helped each other take off their clothes... it was just too lewd, too advanced for their beginner-level sensibilities.

But he began to pull her shirt upwards, and the gradual reveal of her skin was setting off bombshells and landmines in his nervous system. It wasn't the fast-paced tearing-off-clothes that he’d envisioned—Frank couldn’t go any faster and he didn’t want to. The thrill, the anticipation of this gradual reveal—Hazel’s abdomen, her navel, her bare rib cage... and then at last, the shirt began to ascend over the hills of her chest, where her stunning mounds were sheathed in a mauve, unwired bra—

“... Frank, aren’t you going kind of slow?” Hazel spoke.

“Oh. ... Sorry.” he answered stupidly. “I’ll just... um.”

He wasn’t sure what else to do, so he took off her shirt in one swift, disorienting motion. Hazel fell lightly back onto the bed—for which he offered a second nervous apology—and then he puzzled over what to do with the shirt. People usually threw them on the floor in the movies, which had never struck him as strange until now. Why would he throw his girlfriend’s clothes on the floor? That seemed kind of rude, and even disrespectful. So he laid it flat on the bed, folded it in the way that legionnaires were trained to do, and then set it aside on the nightstand for now.

When he finished, Frank noticed Hazel smiling at him. “What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

Her arms were folded over her chest, which was a little funny to him. The bra itself covered most of her breasts, so he wouldn’t have been able to see much of her no matter what.

“Um... should I not look?” Frank said.

“Oh.” Hazel looked down at herself and raised her brows. Maybe covering up was simply instinctual, and she hadn’t even noticed herself doing so. “... Sorry. I... I guess it’s okay.”

The girl moved her arms away, and then seemed unsure of what to do with them, so she laid them at her sides in twin straight lines. In looking at her and appreciating the view, a fresh surge of disbelief spiked within his bloodstream. Several intense developments had broken into their relationship over the past few days, but they hadn’t ever gotten so far as to fully remove an article of clothing. And now, it really did feel like they were about to go all the way. He was going to see Hazel in a way that he never had before, he would enter her body and give her pleasure from the inside, he would finally know how it felt to be enclosed in the warmth of a woman who loved him...

Frank gulped. His heart was pounding fast. His nerves were agitated. And the sight of Hazel like this, flustered and half-naked before him in bed, had now fully stiffened the growth in his jeans. His body was more than ready for this. And according to Hazel, her body was, too...

“... Gods, Hazel—um. You’re... you’re really pretty.” Frank mumbled. How difficult it had become to stay ahead of his waning coherency. “Uh... I’m gonna take off your jeans next. Okay? I won’t do anything else without saying so.”

Hazel nodded shyly. Her fingertips moved over her lips as he undid her pants, and then pulled them down from her hips, to her knees, and then beyond her ankles. After folding them and putting them away, he noticed that she was wearing what appeared to be Halloween-themed underwear with little bats and jack-o-lanterns printed over the fabric. It was summer. Nowhere near Halloween.

He chose not to comment on that—especially considering how close they now were to losing their virginities.

“Okay. Um.” He was so nervous that his voice had gone up an octave—so he forced himself to speak lower, which may have sounded even more unnatural than the alternative. “I’m just gonna... feel you. I think. Uh, I’ll be careful. Tell me right away if you don’t like something and I’ll stop, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you for laying everything out like that beforehand. I think it might be helping.”

A warm spread of relief diffused throughout him. Thank goodness he was doing at least one thing right. “Of course. I’m... I’m glad it’s helping.”

Frank kissed her on the lips again. A slower kiss this time, not as fiery as the one she’d initiated before. And as their tongues calmly relaxed against each other, Frank ran his hands along her thighs, her hips, the bare skin of her waist. He could feel her shuddering as he caressed her body, could hear her starting to breathe even harder. And now he really wanted to try massaging between her thighs again, but it still seemed too risky for her, so he moved to kiss down from her lips to her collarbone... and then a hand at her side carefully began to approach her chest...

“F—Frank?”

Startled, he lifted his head. “Uh, yeah?”

“Do you... have to focus on me so much?”

“Focus on you?”

“Yeah, I mean... you’re only doing stuff to me right now.” she said. “Maybe I should, um, do stuff for you, too.”

“... Well, I just want to take care of you, Hazel. I want you to feel—oh—”

Frank gasped. Her hand had slipped beneath his boxers and wasted no time in stroking him with a tight, devoted grip. Beads of arousal had already soaked the tip, affording her a smooth up-and-downwards glide across the entire length. And it paralyzed him completely, overwhelmed by her deliberate pace such that he could no longer manage to do anything else.

“Hazel...” Frank groaned, face tightened with pleasure. “Hah—that’s... you don’t have to do—oh, my gods—”

“I know I don’t,” she chimed, “but this is... this is how tight you like it, right?”

He panted even harder, answering in higher pitch. “Y... yeah. But—oh, fuck, ugh—Hazel—haah!”

She wasn’t holding back, stroking him over and over and faster than he could breathe—and he cried out loud and buried his face in the pillow right by her head. It was too much all at once and he was helpless against these familiar sensations, which had speedily seduced his fulsome length and ingratiated him to the point of mesmerism. He was panting—panting—groaning—jutting his hips into her hand against his conscious will. Frank’s arousal had assumed an obstinate mind of its own, and it now required this—Hazel, and the perfect tightness of her fist, the way her thumb swept over his flesh and coaxed more infatuations from the tip.

“Hngh, aah—oh, g—gods! I’m... I’m getting close—!”

Frank bit into the pillow and grunted relentlessly, eyes squeezed tight shut, fingers digging into the blankets—and it would have been so easy to give in to this fast-paced touch, to let the great waves of hot pleasure ascend their highest peak and come crashing over him in brutal, salivating torrents, but then a sudden grip of panic seized him—and penetrated through his hazy mindlessness. A flash of the night before replayed before his closed eyes: how he’d selfishly indulged in all that Hazel gave, how he’d finished much quicker than he’d ever wanted to, how he’d pathetically attempted to reciprocate the feeling, only to fail miserably and ruin everything. It didn’t matter how good—how impossibly, inhumanely good—this felt; Frank never wanted to see last night repeated again.

And so his hand shot out below his waist and coarsely grabbed onto Hazel’s wrist, sternly halting all motions of her fist. Exhaustion wore upon his body, infecting all his muscles the same shock and fatigue of a true near-death encounter. Only his diligence and inner stamina kept him from collapsing—which had to be avoided at all costs, knowing how much bigger he was. Eventually, after gulping countless inhales of life-giving air, he found the strength and the glimmer of intelligence he needed to express a single coherent thought.

“I...” Frank began. He could barely speak through his labored breaths, but he lifted his head and set his wanting gaze on Hazel’s frazzled countenance. “I... I can’t finish yet. I want... I want you, Hazel.”

Her eyes glimmered like an opulent sheet of bronze. “I want you, too, Frank.” She tilted her head and kissed him sweetly. “And I’m ready for this.”

He was sure that his face was as red as a ruby, but he nodded at her with an unexpected degree of confidence. Not so much in his ability to be a good lover, but his feeling that it was okay for them to do this right here, right now. Hazel wanted him. She said she was ready. And he was going to listen to her.

Frank made quick work of removing his pants and his underwear, though he made sure to remove the pack of condoms from his pocket—the new ones, not the atrocious gift from his father. And he asked Hazel to look away while he fumbled with actually putting it on. He ruined two of them before successfully getting a single one on (and quietly bemoaned that he had never practiced this on himself beforehand). It felt like a decent size. He could probably fit into the next size up, but condoms were supposed to be a little bit snug, right?

By the time he set his attentions on Hazel again, she had already taken off her underwear—and the sight of such a private part of her detonated about a hundred more bombshells across the surface of his vitals. Her bra stayed on, but Frank hadn’t taken off his shirt either. She didn’t say anything about it, which he appreciated, so he had no grounds to comment on her remaining garment.

Full of excitement and anticipation, as well as affection for her and appreciation that they could experience something so special with each other for the first time, Frank lined himself up between her thighs as Hazel laid flat on the bed. “... I’m gonna put it in, okay? But I’ll go slow. Just tell me to stop at any time, and I will.”

Hazel nodded again. They smiled softly at one another, and tender words of deep love were written on the air between them. Gales of romance swept all throughout the room and wrapped devoutly around his body. He was in love with this woman, and he loved the oval shape of her cheeks, the warm brownness listed over skin, and he loved every letter of her name and the particular way that she pronounced his. Frank already felt so close to her, but now revealed before him were untold depths through which to know and be intimate with her like he never had before.

The movies and TV shows made it seem like one could just slip it in easily, but Frank found it necessary to hold onto the base and angle it more purposefully than expected. And then, when he ascertained that he was aiming at the right place, he finally began to push inside of her... but... then, something wasn’t right. There was an unanticipated friction to the first contact and an awkward resistance to his forward movements.

Frank started over—receding a few inches from her entrance and pushing back inside... and then he had the same problem again. It didn’t feel right. He wasn’t going in easily at all, and nothing more than a few centimeters of the tip could enter her without feeling like he was going to overstretch something. The latex of the condom rubbed uncomfortably against her inner lips, and it felt like he was trying to force himself into a place that was too small to hold him.

“... Hazel, um...”

“Yes, Frank?”

“... It’s not going in.”

“What?”

Frank huffed in frustration. “It’s just not going in.”

Hazel propped herself up on her elbows and stared at him. “How is it not going in?”

“I... I think it doesn’t fit.”

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Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 11

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“I should probably stop...”

Seven minutes of awkward shifting and reevaluations. Seven minutes of his heart beating for the wrong reasons as the wall clock ticked like a bomb just behind him. It was about seven minutes of her stroking his arm with her lightweight fingers and pursing her lips, her shoulders tensing up every time he started over and tried again to move himself forward—

“Are you sure? Maybe if you just... push it in a little more—”

“Um, I really don’t think I should.”

Seven minutes of confusion and concern. He didn’t want to let her down, and he wanted more than anything to ensure he didn’t hurt her. Seven minutes of struggling to look her in the eyes and witness her discomfort, her frustration, to risk seeing her troubled expression and know that he was once again too incompetent to give the girl he loved the first time that she deserved.

“Frank...?”

“Sorry, Hazel...” He isn’t sure what to do with his body, and he doesn’t know much about sex in general, but whatever this is, whatever is happening between them—it doesn’t feel right. So Frank draws himself back, and he says pensively, “I don’t want to force it. Maybe right now is no good.”

After about seven minutes, they decided to give up.

Privately, they put their clothes back on—Hazel taking hers into the bathroom as Frank gathered up his own and redressed. He was worried that she would hide away in the bathroom for an hour like she did the night before, but to his surprise, Hazel returned only minutes later, seeming mildly unsettled but not as mortified as anticipated.

“... Well,” she attempted, readjusting her shirt. “That’s that, I guess... Um, what do you want to do now, Frank?”

“‘What do I want to do?’” he repeated quizzically.

“Yeah.”

“Uh... do you mean...” Frank glanced pointedly at the bed.

Hazel followed his gaze. And when she realized what he meant, the girl fanned her face in embarrassment and quickly looked away. “Um. No. I meant, is there anything else you want to do now? It’s our second day on vacation, but we haven’t really done much together yet.”

“Oh. Uh, well...” Frank rubbed the back of his head. They did have about two hours before dinner with Percy and Annabeth, but was now really a good time to go on some fun couple’s activity? Right now, after trying and failing so awkwardly to go all the way with each other?

Frank considered their options further. “... We could go visit one of the churches?”

Hazel balked at him. “A church? After what we were just trying to do?”

“What? They have really nice architecture here.”

She covered her face with her hand and sighed. “... Let’s just go for a walk through the shopping areas. Until dinnertime, anyway.”

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Skinny olive trees sprung out from a long cobblestone path, a path that was bumpy from the unsoftened stones compressed within the mortar. Excited tourists lathered in sunscreen were passing through in both directions, wide-brimmed sunhats perching on their crowns to cast soft shadows over florid expressions. On either side of the road was an endless horizon of shops; souvenir stores and their Majorca-themed trinkets, casual stands selling handmade jewelries, boutiques packed full of flowy skirts and dresses. With the sun still beaming so gloriously, its unfettered glows panting over the island, he could feel the essence of summer so deeply with his senses: the floral-scented winds and bird songs in the air, the plentiful blue sky and impassioned warm weather. They loosened the tension that had knotted within him; he still felt embarrassed about their earlier mishap in the bedroom, but if he could just let himself be present in the moment, then all the wonderful distractions ahead might protect him from a worsening mood.

She was by his side with wandering eyes, looking all around at the numerous attractions—looking, but not stopping anywhere, not choosing any one shop at which to take pause and consider the offerings. This was always the case whenever they went out; she could endure window shopping well enough, but nothing ever tempted Hazel to transform her unspoken wants into tangible purchase and ownership.

Frank was her opposite. After only half an hour in the market, his backpack was half-full with needless and exciting souvenirs. A snow globe. A picture book. A t-shirt that probably wouldn’t fit. A dumb sheet of stickers that looked really cool. And even more after that. And it got to the point that he was stopping at nearly every store that he saw, giving very little thought to indulging himself like a toddler reaching out for shiny and colorful amusements.

Hazel was an agreeable companion. He held her hand and he chattered to her, he’d ask for her opinions, he’d say, “Is the print on this dog handkerchief tacky?” and she’d say, “It’s nice. But we don’t have a dog.” And he would reply with mild offense, “What are you saying? It’s for me. If I turned into a schnauzer, I’d look good in this.”

But no matter how many times Frank brought her attention to gifts and glamours that he thought she might enjoy, no matter how many times he insisted that he would buy her anything, Hazel turned him down. Nine years of dating and she remained like this, abstinent of human comforts like some kind of demigod nun. She didn’t buy new clothes until her wardrobe was worn out beyond use, nor did she ever really purchase any non-essentials but basic art supplies. She could afford to be the most self-indulgent person in the world; her diamonds and jewels were no longer cursed, she could treat herself to anything she wanted—and she didn’t.

Frank was so at odds with her in that respect. Maybe he was just a spoiled-rotten guy at heart; maybe he had grown up with far too much and he was too unreserved in satisfying his desires. Especially as a leader of Camp Jupiter where he had to be strict in every other respect: waking up before dawn, marching through his stringent daily schedule, acting as the disciplined Roman general that he was born to be—Frank had even more appreciation for the joys of little material things than he did when he was younger.

How difficult it could be to reconcile the differences in their upbringings even now, after being together for such a long time. At the very least, she let him purchase for her a small serving of churros from one of the street carts, so he resigned himself to avoid offering to buy her anything else (as he already knew the answer he’d receive).

... That was until, to his startling shock, Frank passed by one particular chic storefront, swiveled his head in a dramatic double take, and quickly turned back to observe the selections on parade in the display window.

Frank's jaw dropped. He was so excited that he nearly started jumping up and down. “Hazel, look! It’s the dress!”

“The dress?”

“Yeah!” he exclaimed. "The dress! Oh, man, I can’t believe it’s here! I looked everywhere for it online and I couldn’t find it—how crazy is it that it turned up here of all places?”

Hazel tilted her head. “Why are you so excited to see a dress?”

“You don’t remember? That’s the exact dress from that boutique in Union Square—the one you were looking at a few months ago!”

She stood beside him with an earnestly puzzled expression, then paused to scrutinize the floral garment in the window. “... Oh, you’re right. That is the same dress. Huh. I’ll admit, that’s a crazy coincidence.”

“‘Coincidence’? Hazel, this has to be fate or something. You’ve gotta go in and try it on!”

“What? I’m not trying that on.”

His eyes went wide with disbelief. “What do you mean you’re not trying it on? It’s right there!”

“The fact that it’s right there doesn’t mean I need to go in and try it on...” Hazel said. “Frank, if I wanted to do that, I would have done it when I saw the dress the first time.”

“You don’t even want to give it a try, just to see how it fits?”

“That’s a long dress. I’m probably too short for it, anyway...”

Frank frowned at her. “We could just get it tailored, Hazel. Or maybe they have petite sizes inside.”

“Frank, it’s just too much—it’s too... nice. It wouldn’t be right for me to have it.”

He shook his head, utterly bewildered. “I don’t understand. You really liked the dress. Why are you being so—”

“—I don’t want it, Frank. Okay? I said I don’t want it.”

Her harsh tone struck him like a slap across his face. The golden gleams of Hazel’s eyes were now sharp and metallic, her short-framed posture stiff with agitation. Frank was stunned into silence; in an instant his happy and enthusiastic mood crashed and sunk inside of his chest, ascended by a current of hurt and confusion. It was just so jarring—he had no idea where this reaction had come from—but he knew at minimum that he had made her upset, and his anxiety spiked to be the cause of her ire.

Hazel must have seen the damage on his face, because it took only a few seconds for her hard expression to soften considerably. She took a deep breath whose descendant was a frustrated exhalation. Remorseful, but still solemn, she demoted her gaze to the ground and lessened her volume.

“... I’m sorry, Frank. I didn’t mean to say it like that. Can we forget about this and just keep walking?”

“... Yeah. Okay.”

Hazel took his hand in her own again, which made him feel just a little bit better.

They started walking again, and Frank tried desperately to silence the voice inside of him that insisted with fervor to take pause and examine this—the inner wisdom urging him to consider that there was more to Hazel’s reaction than what had risen to the surface. He just had to let it go. She said she wanted to forget it. He couldn’t turn into even more of a pest than he already was.

But Frank couldn’t resist casting one last backwards glance to the dress in the window. He thought about the dreamy glimmer in Hazel’s eyes on the day she’d first seen it, about his poor fortune that the dress was sold out the next day and the hours that he’d spent looking for it elsewhere—and how pretty his beautiful girlfriend would look if she just gave it a chance. Had he done something wrong? He never wanted to make her mad. He only wanted for Hazel to have something nice.

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With dinner time around the corner, they returned to their hotel room and prepared to meet their friends downstairs. Like usual, they were dressing in separate rooms.

Although he himself was nervous about taking his shirt off in front of her, it was a little disappointing that Hazel, by default, would still gather her clothes and abscond to the bathroom in order to change—as if doing so were the only feasible option, as if getting dressed before her boyfriend of nine years were such a far-fetched and unthinkable act that it had never crossed her mind, not even while sharing a room and a bed with him on vacation.

It wove an unpleasant tightness in his gut. Hazel was from a different time, he understood that. He needed to be patient with her limits. He shouldn’t be feeling frustrated over this. But Frank was frustrated—and it had nothing to do with unsatisfied perversions.

Steadily building within him for years was a craving for casual closeness with her, and that unattended thirst had now begun to tangibly ache like a sore. If they hadn’t gone so far these past few days, if things had simply gone on as they always had, then maybe Frank would have been fine for a while longer—but now he had a taste of what closeness with Hazel could feel like, and it had felt too good for him to go without having more. He wanted to be able to slip his hand inside her shirt just to fill his palm with the feel of her skin. He wanted Hazel to want him back, to grasp him all on her own and warm her cold hands with the heat of his body. He wanted thoughtless touches and immersive sensation, to lay bare-skinned in bed as they melted into each other, to let the physical bounds outlining their forms dissolve like mist so he could no longer tell where his body ended and his lover’s began.

Doubt was overshadowing hope for those distant pursuits. Would there ever be a point where they could be comfortable with one another as other couples were? Or was that still so infeasible, was there something so incompatible about them that the current state of their intimacy would never develop past hugs and kisses and fully-clothed cuddling?

Having just tried and failed to have sex only two hours ago, and having just dealt with her outburst over the dress, Frank chafed under the strange tension that was weighing them down. They just weren’t meshing together today. But maybe things would get better once they spent time with Percy and Annabeth—those two were so easy to be around. He was jealous of how perfect their relationship was compared to his ongoing struggles with Hazel.

It didn’t take long for him to get ready. He wore dark slacks, a freshly ironed dress shirt with a burgundy tie, and a nice silver watch about his wrist. Frank had read on the resort’s website that semi-formal dress was encouraged at dinner time, so an effort seemed worthwhile to make himself look good. It was a highly unusual assortment for him, but he didn’t hate dressing up every once in a while.

Hazel returned from the bathroom after about fifteen minutes, and though she had a gold necklace around her neck now, he was a little surprised by the outfit she chose: it was the standard purple Camp Jupiter shirt tucked into the waistline of a pleated calf-length skirt with black stockings underneath. She was beautiful in anything she wore, no doubt about that, but this choice was particularly confusing. She wanted to wear the camp shirt to a fancy dinner?

The sharp contrast in their attire would have been blatant to any onlooker. He stared at Hazel and she stared at him back, seconds passing by in awkward silence.

In an attempt to lighten the mood, Frank joked, “Am I over-dressed?”

Hazel grinned, though he sensed discomfort in her posture. “No, you look really handsome, Frank. That shirt looks good on you.”

“Thanks, this one’s new. And you look pretty.”

“Thank you.” she said. “... I know I’m the one who’s under-dressed. I didn’t bring anything nice to wear. Sorry.”

Frank raised his brow. “There’s no need to apologize, I don’t care what you wear. But Hazel...” he paused briefly, unsure if he should finish his thought out loud; he didn’t want to be rude, but he didn’t understand how she could have neglected to bring formal clothes for this occasion.

Careful in his tone, Frank finished, “... Well, that night Percy and Annabeth came over to sort out details for the trip, I did tell everyone to bring formal stuff for dinner.”

“I know, but...” Hazel looked away from him. “I don’t actually have any fancy clothes at home, so I didn’t have anything to bring.”

Fire sprung to life on his tongue. He knew instantly what he wanted to say. It was curt and petulant and perhaps even a touch unkind.

You should have just let me buy you the dress.

But he didn’t say it. He captured the impulsive retort in a grip of hot iron before it had a chance of escaping his lips and dragged it back down through his throat. Frank swallowed, finding the flavor unpleasant, and closed his eyes. He exhaled shortly and opened them again.

Frank turned around, approached the chiffonier, and began to search for a more casual top than his current dress shirt.

“That’s okay, Hazel.” he said, unfastening his tie. “You don’t have to dress up.”

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“Frank, you’ve been living in the U.S. for almost a decade now—and you still aren’t legally a permanent resident?”

“Does Camp Jupiter even count as living in the U.S? It’s not even on the map.” he answered with a laugh. He thought the disbelief in Annabeth’s voice was pretty funny. “Just because I live around you Americans doesn’t mean I have to be one of you.”

She leaned back into her chair and stirred the ice in her drink. “Well, what are you waiting for? Were you and Hazel planning to move to Canada or something?”

“Please don’t,” Percy said. “Whose house will I hide in when Annabeth is mad at me?”

“Ah-hah, so that’s where you’ve been hiding.”

Despite the awkwardness from earlier, dinner carried on smoothly. Annabeth was excellent at making conversation, and though Frank sensed an indecipherable tension between her and Percy, both of them were great company. Hanging out in a group of such important friends and laughing as they dined on exquisite food, he could finally enjoy the ease and merriment that one was supposed to feel on vacation.

Percy was inhaling his food in between sentences. “Hey, speaking of Rome—your ten years of service will be up soon, right? What’s the deal with that? You guys know what you’re gonna do after?”

“Oh, we’ll probably hang on as praetors for a while after that.” Frank answered readily. “If the Senate will have us, that is. We still have some projects that we want to finish, and that could take years.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.” Annabeth nodded. “Hazel, is that what you want, too?”

“Oh... yeah.” Hazel spoke after a pause, seeming surprised to have even been asked. “It’s our responsibility to leave camp in the best possible shape before we leave. ... So I guess it’ll still be a few years.”

The adult contemporary band at the front of the room played some of the smoothest music that Frank had ever heard—and he had seen the Muses perform live with Apollo before, which was saying something. Confusion briefly overtook his amusement when Percy translated the lyrics into something or other about a horse, but every time he glanced at Hazel, he saw a gorgeous smile sustained on her face, brows softened and relaxed as she watched the show go on, and her happiness intensified Frank’s satisfaction. She was such a sweet girl. Sometimes he forgot what a miracle it was to experience the bliss of being alive on earth at the same time as her.

Percy and Annabeth left the table after a while—it looked as though they were in a great hurry to get themselves to bed, which made him wonder if they were still reeling from the time zone difference—and he remained by Hazel’s side. Just the two of them again. No human buffers to deflect from the awkwardness which had dampened the mood throughout the day.

And maybe that would have been uncomfortable. But the sultry music in the room was getting to Frank’s head, its mesmerizing melodies still adrift in the air, and lingering just beneath it were all the enchanting flows of syrupy romance; love songs, sunsets, kissing to convey one’s affection, kissing just because it felt nice—images summoned to his mind even without needing to grasp the Spanish lyrics. Spirits of light were phasing through the bay windows as the moon’s shy visage emerged through the evening dark. Waterfalls of emotion poured unto his beating heart. He decided that the intense feelings building up within his chest were too exorbitant to go without being shared.

Frank stood up from his chair. And then he held out his hand to her.

“Do you want to dance?”

The gold luster in her eyes was as radiant as it always was. Hazel blinked at him twice, confused or unsettled by the offer. “Dance? You mean up there?”

She pointed to the center of the massive dining room, a wide, vacant space in front of the performance that was evidently intended for dancing. Only a few couples were up there at the moment, which meant plenty of room for himself and Hazel should they dare themselves to be that bold.

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “I think it’d be nice. Do you want to?”

He wondered if he was asking her for too much. He considered that he was pestering her to do what he wanted. He feared that his selfish attitude was once again at odds with the selfless person that she was, and that she would shrink into herself like the moon shrinks from daylight, bringing back the shy revenant from the Fifth Cohort who was too ashamed of herself to be at peace with her rightful place among the living.

But Hazel softened his worries in one single touch. She accepted his hand. She smiled that heart-melting, pretty-lipped smile. And she stood from her chair with a modest curtsy. “... I’d love to, Frank.”

He felt like a schoolboy whose crush had just agreed to go to the prom with him, not a man who was nine years deep with the lover to whom he’d entrusted the wood of his life. Frank stifled his giddiness and hoped that he wasn’t already starting to sweat. Joined by the hands, he led Hazel to the dance floor.

As they settled into position, a few minor issues became apparent. He was too tall. He couldn’t dance. Hazel looked too pretty, and it was making him flustered. She couldn’t reach his shoulders and wrap her arms around his neck comfortably, so she entwined one hand with his own and allowed the other to rest on his bicep. Frank was holding her waist, and having her so close to his body was already leaving him breathless.

Too clumsy for anything that might resemble a proper dance, they swayed to the slow tempo of the music. He was too heavy for mistakes—if he stepped on Hazel’s foot, he might actually break a toe or something—so he made sure not to get so wrapped up in the dance that he lost track of where his feet were going.

“... This is nice. We should do this more often.” Hazel mused thoughtfully. “I can’t remember the last time we danced like this...”

Frank tried to recall the occasion.. “... I think it was Piper's twentieth birthday. Remember when her mom showed up uninvited?”

Hazel’s eyes lit up. “Oh gods, you’re right! And she cast some curse that made everyone dance with a partner for an entire hour—”

“—and she made Jason and Piper do the tango!”

“And Nico and Will had to waltz...”

“At least we managed to get away with some tame swing dancing. Man, I still can’t believe Piper’s mom and my dad are...” He had to take a mid-sentence pause. That was a forbidden line of thought. No, he couldn’t ever think about that. “Uh, never mind. I don’t wanna have any nightmares tonight.”

They managed a laugh together. A few more couples had entered the dance floor. But as the song went on and their bodies kept swaying, he noticed a distracted frown forming on Hazel’s face.

Growing more concerned, he asked, “What’s wrong, Hazel?”

“Oh, it’s just... well, people are staring at us again.”

Frank tilted his head, then glanced at their surroundings. She was definitely right. People were staring at the two of them specifically; not really smiling or grimacing in disapproval, just... watching, as if there were something about them that was bizarre, perplexing, out-of-place. And Frank knew it wasn’t because of the less-than-formal clothes they were wearing.

It was par for the course. Any time he left New Rome and re-entered the realm of mortals with Hazel, they could count on at least one stranger doing a double take as they passed by, on at least three sets of eyes scrutinizing the huge Asian guy with the small black girl. Rarely were they met with tangible hostility, but it was almost funny how many random people could approach them with needless commentary on their relationship—“Your kids will be so unique!” from the older woman at the post office was his favorite. “So you couldn’t find one Chinese girl to put up with you?” from the bus driver was among the worst, even if it was a joke.

To Frank, the excessive attention and weird comments weren’t a huge deal. But Hazel was such a welcome and integral part of his life that he would always forget how, to the outside world, they were an usual and weird-looking couple. It was so ludicrous. If these people staring at them right now knew what they’d been through together, if they knew how immensely he cared for this woman, then they wouldn’t think anything strange about the fact that they were in love, that he found her beautiful, and that their different backgrounds mattered not at all when you could see a fellow human as they were on the inside, beyond mere flesh and bone, when you could find in her soul a most special and gleaming spirit whose vapors were deserving of all the affection in his body he could give.

But Hazel hated being stared at by strangers. The legionnaires were one thing, but as she had told him before, being watched by mortals gave her the uncomfortable sense that they “knew what was wrong with her”—which left him no choice but to stare those mortals down with all the ire he could conjure as the son of a war god until they twitched in fear and hurriedly looked away.

That was his usual deterrent, anyway, but his current desire was to relax and sway to the music together. He wanted Hazel to be at ease in his arms and know that he would protect her from anything she was fearful of. Most of all, he wanted this moment—this rare and precious and marvelous evening—to belong only to the two of them, without influence from watchful strangers and their unpleasant judgments.

“Don’t worry about them,” Frank said quietly, and he pulled her in closer until her cheek was softly pressed against his body. His hand touched the back of her neck, grasping it with reverence as though it were a sacred and delicate reliquary. “No one else matters, it’s just you and me right now.”

“Frank...” she whispered breathlessly. Her warmth, her closeness, it was pouring all over him, his lungs and his heart were filling up with Hazel and his fondness for her was tripling in size. Hazel stroked his back with her soft fingertips, and the sensation robbed Frank of his coherent thoughts. The girl that he loved was touching him, and even this light morsel of physical affection could coax a pleasured sigh from his throat.

“You’re right, Frank. I’m sorry. It’s just me and you right—”

Her entire body stiffened suddenly. And in one sharp jolt of motion she extracted herself from his arms and pointed her stare at the floor instead.

Frank reacted instantly. He attempted to put his hand on her back and spoke to her in a low, concerned voice. “Hazel? What’s wrong?”

Her eyes were wide and her lip was trembling. Slowly, as if possessed by the influence of a creeping apparition, she covered her ears with her hands. “This... this song...”

“This song?”

Frank turned his eyes to the band. They had just started playing a new song, and to him it was just as nice as any of the others had been, although it didn’t have that same jazzy, adult contemporary sound to it as the previous songs had; this one sounded... older, like something that would play in a black-and-white movie.

And he didn’t know why she was having such a strong reaction to it, but it seemed to Frank that maybe he should escort her out of the dining room so that she wouldn’t have to hear it any more. Lightly, he placed his hand on her arm and tried to tug her in his direction. “Hazel, we can leave if you don’t like it. Let’s—”

“Don’t!”

Frank flinched. His hand retreated from her arm. What was happening to her? And how could he help?

“I’m so sorry, I...” Hazel began, but then she shook her head like there was no hope of explaining herself. “I’m fine, I just... I need to go, Frank. I need to be alone for a bit, okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, she waved her hands and disappeared in a blur of black, eddying shadows. It happened so fast. None of the mortals reacted strongly to this, which suggested that Hazel or Hecate herself must have bent the mist to obscure her shadow travel vanishing act.

As for Frank, he was stupefied—an idiot all by himself on the dance with a girlfriend that he still didn’t understand and couldn’t keep up with. They had been so close mere seconds ago that he felt like he was being cast out from his own body. Why did this keep happening? The way she reacted to the dress in the window, the way she’d screamed and locked herself in the bathroom last night, and now this—how was he supposed to keep pace with her emotions? He was at war with Hazel’s distant and disheartening behavior, and against the ordinances of his godly heritage, he didn’t want to be at arms. He just wanted for the two of them to be at peace.

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She could have swung her sword and perforated his flesh and drawn less blood than the wound inflicted by her sudden absence.

Hours passed in the hotel room. He was alone in bed and his pillowcase was wet, so he flipped it over to the other side and failed regardless to get any sleep. Hazel hadn’t yet returned. He was increasingly tempted to turn into a hawk and scour the island for some sign of her—but he refrained. She told him to leave her alone, and for all Frank knew, she could come back any second now and he would hate to miss her.

Granted, he wasn’t sure what he would even say upon her return. An inventory of his feelings had revealed several damaging conditions: loneliness. Disappointment. Dejection. Worry for her well-being. A sense of alienation from his own relationship.

And even an unwelcome quantity of annoyance.

But as much as he wanted to suppress the emotion, it was as real as all the others: his frustration had festered into irritability and indignance. Why was he the one continuously playing guessing games, worrying again and again that he had done something wrong because she hadn’t given him a reason to think otherwise? And he was beginning to regret the entire vacation, too; their smooth-sailing romance hadn’t been this turbulent in years, not since the Sammy/Leo debacle that still pricked his nerves any time he thought about it. Percy and Annabeth could stay, but if matters remained like this, he’d rather deal with them on a home playing field instead of this tropical island, whose unfamiliar affordances were as hot-and-cold as his girlfriend’s moods.

And he really, really thought that when Hazel returned, he would speak his mind openly. He would voice his complaints with the professional even-handedness that he was used to employing day-to-day as a praetor. But when he heard the electronic beep of the door clicking open and the soft sound of footsteps that he knew to be hers, a torrent of remorse broke loose from a hidden crevice in his mind and collapsed over the asperities burning within. The door closed shut. Hazel entered the room. Frank sat up in bed, and it didn’t take any conversation at all for her to come towards him, for him to move towards her, to stand up and bring her back into her arms all over again. Just the sight of her face folded him like construction paper.

It was dark in the hotel room. With the window wide open, he could hear the gentle crush of the sea as it stroked itself, ebbing and waning and ebbing again, laving softly like a wet tongue over the beach, disappearing from the sands and always coming back; the wind hollow and humming the music of the island; currents flowing from him to her, from her to him; the globe spinning assiduously on its axis. The waves were giving, taking, flowing, a pause, and they were ebbing again. And the calming, constant repetition of the earth, of the sea, and all devout machinations of the ceaseless universe, were kind assurances that nothing was out of control, nothing was so hopeless that he needed to admit defeat to his emotions just yet.

Hazel hugged him back eagerly. He could smell the ocean breeze on her body, which made him confused—she didn’t like the sea, surely she hadn’t been near it this entire time—but he didn’t quiz her on her whereabouts. He didn’t bombard her with questions or the force of his spiteful irritation. Hazel in his arms right now was the entire summary of his foremost desires, and he was so, so glad that she was back here, and that she was alright.

With her face pressed against chest, she uttered through the fabric of his shirt, “Frank...”

The way she pronounced his name... it was just one syllable, one simple and curt-sounding name, but when spoken in her voice, it was all the loveliest poetries in the world, imbued effortlessly with the magic of a woman who cared for the man beneath every letter. Just one syllable enlivened with her energy, and it worked like a love spell that enchanted his heart.

He wasn’t keeping count of the time passing, and to him it didn’t feel like time passed at all. Eventually, Hazel allowed for some space between their bodies so that they could lock eyes and hear one another speak.

After a stressed exhale, she began, “... Um, listen... I’m really, really sorry. I can explain if you give me—”

“—Hazel...” he interrupted, rubbing his hand over her back. “It’s okay for now. We can talk about it later.”

Her brows lifted in surprise. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. You’re tired, aren’t you? Let’s just... let’s go to bed together.”

She seemed flustered by the invitation, and Frank was feeling pretty shy himself, even though he really didn’t mean it with any illicit undertone.

Hazel nodded, breaking away from him fully. They agreed to get ready for bed, but then he was reminded of one potentially relevant concern that seemed worth bringing up.

“And Hazel, um...” He spoke up quickly before she could leave for the restroom. “... you can do whatever you have to do, but, I mean—I don’t mind if you get undressed in front of me.”

Hazel looked at him like he had suddenly started speaking in a foreign language. “You don’t... ‘mind’...?”

“Okay, uh, obviously I don’t mind—I would love to see you, you know, undressing. But—I didn’t mean it like that. Not, like, in a dirty way. I just meant that, well, I don’t know—I... I’ve known you for a long time, and I want you to feel comfortable around me, so you could take off your clothes in front of me. As—as in you don’t need to go to the bathroom. That’s all.” Frank finished. His face was probably bright red, even in the darkness of the hotel room. “Okay. That was really stupid. Can I start over, or should I just die?”

Meanwhile, Hazel looked like she was trying not to laugh. As if meant to calm him down, she briefly patted his arm. “Frank... don’t worry about it. I hear what you’re saying.”

“You... you do?”

“Yeah. I, um... I need to—I want to lighten up. About a lot of things. So...”

The daughter of Pluto trailed off. And then she began to unzip her jacket.

Frank’s heartbeat quickened, his eyes went wide, and his entire back straightened. The jacket came off, and then her shoes came off next. Shyly, she lifted up her shirt, revealing the dark gray bra underneath, and she met eyes with him—to which he quickly receded and looked elsewhere. Gods, he hadn’t meant to watch her the entire time, but the sight of her removing her clothes was getting him excited in a way that would severely impede his ability to go to bed soon...

“Y—you can look, Frank. It’s okay...”

“I... I can?” Frank squeaked in a higher-pitched voice than intended.

“Yeah... Probably defeats the point a little if you have to look away the entire time, right?”

“Um... yeah. I guess so.”

“Shouldn’t you be getting undressed, too?”

“Huh?” Frank glanced at his own body. He was still wearing the outfit that he’d worn to dinner, which was of genuine surprise to him. How had he not noticed that? Maybe he had just been too upset by her disappearance to acknowledge the discomfort of laying in bed in jeans and a sweater.

“Oh...” he mumbled. “Right.”

“You don’t have to... but I don’t mind you getting undressed in front of me, either.”

Frank gulped nervously. If he were to undress right now, right before Hazel’s eyes, then that would mean taking off his shirt in front of her...

But he needed to lighten up, too. Hazel was being so brave, opening herself up to him in a way that she never had before. And in the back of his mind, he understood that his insecurities were inane. No, his stomach wasn’t flat anymore, but Hazel could already see that just by looking at him. And she was asking him to do this while knowing what to expect, asking him to unveil his vulnerabilities in the same way that she was daring herself to do.

Hazel’s skirt came off next. He was still watching her. And then she sat herself down on the bed to carefully unroll the stockings from her legs... Frank was mesmerized. Without looking away from her, he started to unfasten his belt.

Jeans off. Socks off. His sweater came off, too. He was trying to do it quickly, just to stave off paranoid thoughts from entering his head—She’s gonna hate me, anyway, she won’t like how I look, I’m way too big—and he kept his boxers on.

Now Hazel was staring at him, and she started fanning her face with her hand as she usually did whenever she was embarrassed. “Oh, wow...”

“‘Wow’?” he echoed nervously. “Like, good wow or bad?”

“Um... Good. ‘Good’ wow. A very good wow.” She was still fanning her cheek, and she still wasn’t looking away from his body. “You’re just... you’re so good-looking, I’m getting a little flustered. You’re a hunk, Frank.”

“A hunk?”

“Well—yes! What, folks don’t say ‘hunk’ nowadays?”

“Uh... not for guys that look like me.”

“Are you kidding? You’re so tall, and strong, and healthy, and handsome... If I picture a ‘hunk’ in my head, you’re exactly what comes to mind.”

“... Oh.” Frank blushed even harder. The praise and compliments were doing all kinds of dizzying things to his psyche. “Um. Thanks. Your body is, uh, it’s amazing, too, by the way. I mean, you take my breath away... You look like a supermodel.”

“A supermodel?” Hazel laughed. “Now, that just isn’t right. I’m barely over 150 centimeters tall, Frank.”

“It’s right to me. If I were gonna picture the world’s most beautiful woman, it wouldn’t be any of those celebrities—the person that comes to mind is you.”

Her eyes softened with tenderness, and the sweet smile born on her lips was further vindication towards the truth of his praise. A lecherous eye could reap great satisfaction from her sensuous skin and mature, abounding breasts, and Frank did have an admittedly ravenous spirit within, but at the moment, he was just so dazzled by the enormity of this occasion—Hazel liked him enough to share so much of herself with him, and not only had Frank overcome his fear of doing so in return, but apparently, he’d been a hunk all along. Him, Frank Zhang, a hunk of all things. It was laughable, impossible, too outlandish to be true—and yet the amour in her flattering gaze and the earnestness in every word she spoke, may as well have been incriminating evidence that he really was more good-looking than he thought.

‘I know you're handsome like a movie star—and that there's so much good inside you exactly as you are.’ says Emily.

‘... Even if those things are true, no one else at school sees me that way…’

‘The right people will, I promise. You just don't know them yet. But the catch is, you have to be one of those people, too. And you will be. You can be anything, Frank.’

You were right, mom. Frank thought. Get a load of this—I’m a hunk, now.

Now that he was shirtless and Hazel was looking at him, he had to fight off an urge to start flexing or ask her specifically what she liked about his body, just to coax more heart-fluttering praise from her lips. Doing so might ruin the moment. So instead, Frank conjured the gentleman inside of him and gestured politely to the hotel mattress. Hazel feigned another curtsy, wearing only her bra and her underwear, and then climbed into bed.

And maybe it was excessively presumptuous of him, but Frank thought it would be okay to lay down right beside her instead of the opposite side, because his heart couldn’t bear to recreate the distance from the evening before. Silently, gratefully, he laid down on his back as Hazel curled up on his side and set her head upon his chest.

And it may have been the happiest single moment of his life.

Her delicate yawn was the sigh of an angel as she nuzzled softly against his skin. Frank closed his eyes and bathed in the warm vapors of her presence, feeling blessed, privileged, and healed of his miseries from not long ago. This was a temporary resolution, perhaps. He still wanted to know why she’d abandoned him on the dance floor and to where she’d spirited away for the past few hours—but that wasn’t a conversation to be had here in bed; he would much rather concede to the indulgent mortal pleasure of sleeping together as the Mediterranean’s vivacious ebbs and its flows lulled his consciousness to rest.

Hazel’s palm stroked a path from his stomach to his chest, resting in place over his heart, and whispered sleepily, “... this is so different. I’m not used to doing this.”

He rubbed her shoulder with his thumb. “I know... we’ve been together such a long time, I just can’t believe that we’re finally doing this together.”

“It’s not just that... I sleep on the floor most of the time.”

“You sleep on the floor?”

“I do. That must sound really strange.”

It was strange. Frank was a creature of comfort: he required a soft, comfortable bed to fall asleep and mountains of plush, cloudy pillows. But in his years and years of dating the daughter of Pluto (as well as his years in proximity to her brother, who was much like her despite the indirect relation), he was used to distinctly odd behaviors from children of the Underworld. At this point, the quirks were more endearing than anything else.

“Well, you are a little strange,” he agreed. “I like you that way.”

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In Frank’s possession were a good handful of admirable talents—the workings of competent leadership, adeptly honed powers handed down from his ancestors, uncompromised mastery over the bow and arrow—he was confident in those achievements after nearly ten years as a trained legionnaire and son of the father of Rome, but the faint lurking of Poseidon in his blood was no rival to its thundering presence in Percy’s veins, which had Frank bested again and again and over again each time they swam in the sea.

He was an average swimmer; painfully average. The sport was absent from his portfolio of well-trained skills, and that was usually fine by him; if there were ever a circumstance where he needed to swim in an emergency, Frank could simply turn into any aquatic animal of his choice. But at Percy’s giddy and childish insistence, they’d been racing each other in the sea for the past twenty minutes, and like anyone would expect, the sea god’s son was an unsurpassable contestant even without making use of his powers.

“Percy, this sucks,” he wheezed, voice ragged with exhaustion, “this isn’t fair. I’m not gonna beat you.”

“Aw, come on, Zhang.” Percy jeered, splashing water in his direction. “I bet you’ll beat me if we go one more time.”

“I’m not going another time. You win, okay?”

“Hey, I’ll let you turn a swordfish or something. Those guys are crazy fast.”

“No, thanks. I hate turning into fish; breathing through gills feels gross.”

The sun was shyer now than it had been the day before, obscured faintly by scatters of white cloud plumage, and still the late afternoon was privileged by a delightful climate; bearable temperatures and lenient sea gales, summertime enchantments in the atmosphere as the island chirped with ebullient life. No one held such love for the glee of swimming like his friend Percy did, but Frank couldn’t deny that the Mediterranean had pleasing arms, and that feeling them wrapped around his body was a fine and cooling sensation as penance for the antics of the green-eyed ruffian on his left.

And now, he didn’t want to swim, he yearned for simple relaxation. Tired of Percy’s pointless competitions, Frank leaned onto the water until he was floating serenely on his backside. Floating wasn’t hard, despite his size, and the sun’s beclouded visage was soft on the senses, such that he could gaze over the sky without strain on his eyes.

More splashing sounds near his ear, and then Percy was floating on his back, too, a comfortable berth of space between their forms but not so far that they couldn’t talk and hear one another if they wanted to.

But they didn’t talk for a while. Susurrations of the sea and ambient chatter from the island performed quiet songs in his ears. And Frank realized that, in nine years of tight friendship, it was quite rare to just sit in silence together—pleasant, tension-free silence in each other’s company, where they could mind their individual thoughts and still enjoy the presence of a friend nearby.

And what kinds of thoughts were occupying space in Percy’s mind right now? The sea? Annabeth? Was he relaxing, perhaps not thinking much at all, or was he wearing the burden of adult stressors and obligations back home?

Frank didn’t have a clue. Having seen each other transition from adolescence to adulthood, he didn’t feel like much had changed in Percy’s personality over the years; he was the same goofy guy that had shown up in rags at Camp Jupiter’s border, still the guy whose impossible depths of formidable strength were quietly dormant within his palms, still the legendary demigod whose monstrous power could shatter the illusion of his fun-loving grin in the blink of an eye.

Same old Percy Jackson, just a decade older. Frank imagined that little else would change in Percy or their friendship in another ten years, except that they might know the personage of fatherhood by then, and their kids, sharing mutual status as legacies of Poseidon, might float together on the surface of the sea exactly as the two of them were doing right now.

Whoa, Frank paused, struck suddenly by the weightiness of his thought. Me and Percy—our kids playing together? What a crazy thing to think about...

His eyes wandered towards the beach. Hazel and Annabeth were not far away on land, working together surely to build the most elaborate sandcastle the world had ever known. One was an experienced architect and the other had skill in manipulating gems and minerals. Their combined talents would no doubt yield an impressive fortress in a small matter of time.

Today was planned for a long list of group activities, and after early breakfast and an adventurous hike, they were recovering with a few lazy hours by the sea. Hazel seemed okay enough on the beach so long as she wasn’t in the water. She wore an indigo, one-piece bathing suit and a sarong that covered her backside and most of her legs. Even while covering up this much, she still looked really good...

Without thinking, Frank mumbled aloud, “She’s so pretty in her swimsuit...”

“Yeah...”

He raised an eyebrow and glanced at Percy—an act which instantly made clear that he was committing the same offense as Frank, except that the man’s dreamy-eyed gaze was decidedly pointed at his own fiancee instead. It brought a small smile to Frank’s face; of their numerous differences, one compelling similarity was apparent: both of them were crazy about the women they loved.

“Have I told you how happy I am for you guys?”

Percy, with his head cradled in the nest of his palms, set his eyes on Frank.

“You mean the wedding and stuff?”

“Yeah. And not just that. I’m happy that you and Annabeth get to be happy together. You guys are such awesome people, you really deserve it.”

Percy lifted his brows up high, like he hadn’t all expected something like that to come out of Frank’s mouth. And then the surprise quickly softened into an appreciative grin. He replied in a voice that was warm and decisively earnest.

“Thanks, man. And thanks again for having us. We haven’t done something like this in ages, plus Annabeth is finally sleeping again. I think this trip will end up being really good for us.”

“Hey, glad to hear it. It only took me turning into a wiener dog to make the offer.” Frank joked.

“Right...” Percy winced as if he’d just been reminded of an accidentally neglected task. “Hey, Frank...”

“Yeah?”

“About yesterday, uh... I wanted to say sorry.”

“Sorry about what?”

“Uh, that thing I said at the convenience store yesterday. When we were buying... well, you know. The thing you needed to pick up.”

“Oh...” Frank blushed. “Wait, what? What did you say at the convenience store?”

“When I brought up your size... uh, as in, when I mentioned that you had to be careful in order to not hurt Hazel. I was thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up at all. But I really wasn’t talking about your whole body, just so you know. And I don’t want you to think that I was saying there’s anything wrong with you.”

Frank blinked. “Oh, that? I already forgot about it. That wasn’t a huge deal.”

“Wait, really?”

“Well, yeah. You didn’t really say anything bad. But—wait, if you weren’t talking about my body, then what did you mean?”

Percy looked like he’d just taken a bite of an awfully sour grape. And then to Frank’s bewilderment, he swiftly repositioned such that he was wading vertically in the sea again—and then he dropped sharply into the water as if wrenched at the ankle by a monster in its depths. Frank would have panicked, alerted the girls, and then dived in to save him, but it only took a few seconds for Percy to shoot back up with a calamitous splash—and the only difference since he’d last been seen was the new look of determination on his face, perhaps invigorated by his brief submergence in the sea.

Frank still didn’t know what was going on, why his friend was acting like this, but he, too, flipped half-forward so that he could wade in place as Percy was right now. When the son of Poseidon began to speak again, his ensuing speech was among the worst assemblies of words that Frank had ever heard in his life.

“Frank. I don’t wanna get you mixed up again, so I’m just gonna be blunt and say it—you have a big dick. Alright? Waaay bigger than average. Or that’s what I’m assuming based on the condom size that you said you needed.”

“Wh...” Frank’s entire face heated up, his expression overcome by red-hot flames of mortification, and he almost lost balance and started floundering in the water. “Percy! Wh—what are you bringing that up for?!”

“Because you need to be careful!”

“Careful with what?”

“With Hazel!” he insisted emphatically. “You’re huge, Frank. That’s why you need to be careful. You can’t just swing that giant thing around—”

“Gods, Percy! Can you not—!”

“—without prepping Hazel for it first!” He rushed through his speech, a fast pace at every word in his desperate hurry to finish up what he needed to express. “Either it’s not gonna go in, or you’ll hurt her by trying to force it. Okay? You have to get her in the mood and loosen her up first. Like, a lot more than most people would need to do. That’s why you have to take things slow.”

A watery grave would have become Frank’s final resting place if not for the key words that sounded off alarm bells in his head.

‘It’s not gonna go in’?

“... Anyway,” Percy huffed, smoothing back his wet bangs over his forehead in distress. “That’s all I was trying to say yesterday. Now, let’s never speak of this again for as long as we live.”

Without further regard or added ceremony, Percy fled from Frank and began swimming back towards the beachfront. The abrupt departure left him in a stupor-like state, too dumb and embarrassed to decide on a new course of action. But even so—Frank couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d just been given half an answer to a difficult puzzle, and maybe one last hint would do away with his confusion over what had gone wrong last night.

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The resort spa was especially luxurious, even by Olympian standards.

One could tell right away what a pristine establishment it was. Just the lobby alone, into which the group walked some hours following the beach, was impressively decorated. A tall, concave ceiling that was painted over in a lovely mural of a colorful garden. Slow violin music played subtly in his ears, and its soporific hymn already made his shoulders relax. An overall smell of sterile cleanliness was masked heavily by the aroma of fresh lavender, roses, and other strong-smelling flowers, a harsh and overwhelming scent that arrested his senses and made him cough out loud. Annabeth was audibly admiring the architecture with such extended eagerness that Percy had to encourage her to get a move on if she wanted a chance to experience its other offerings.

Among the available treatments were several options that Frank had never even heard of before—what on earth could a ‘snakeskin facial’ possibly be? He wasn’t exactly a ‘spa day’ kind of guy; Frank enjoyed the excess of material things, that much was true, but having strange substances lathered on his face and unfamiliar hands feeling up his back just wasn’t quite up his alley. This group visit had been Annabeth’s suggestion, otherwise he could have gone the whole ten days without setting foot in the spa.

Having read through the list of treatments on a pamphlet she’d found, Hazel’s mindset was predictably similar to Frank’s. “Er... is it okay if I don’t really want to try any of these?”

“You don’t want to try any of them?” Annabeth said. “But there’s lots of interesting beauty treatments you could do. If you get the ‘Azalea Package’, they’ll do a clogged pore extraction and a bee sting deep-tissue scalp treatment.”

Hazel blanched. “Um, no thanks, I’m good.”

“I kinda feel the same...” Frank agreed. “All these packages say something about a ‘cactus massage’. I don’t really want to be massaged with a cactus.”

“What is this, a Roman thing? You guys need to relax.” Annabeth chided. “You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to, but me and Percy are gonna get the Couple’s Special Treatment package. Isn’t that right, Percy?”

“... Huh? Oh.” Percy answered in a daze. For some reason, his face was a soft shade of red despite the spa’s mild temperature. “Uh, yeah. What she said.”

Frank glanced at his watch. “Well, it’s four-thirty right now. Why don’t you guys go enjoy the spa, and we’ll meet back up in two, maybe three hours?”

“Deal.”

The couples parted ways again. Annabeth struck a deal with the main lobby attendant, and then the Greeks disappeared into the spa’s endless hallways.

So far, the entire day had been spent in each other’s company, which he was plenty happy about, but Frank had now come to a point where he was eager for more alone time with Hazel. They’d finally spooned together as they slept last night, an event deserving of celebration as far as he was concerned, and now Frank yearned for more one-on-one quality time together. It was a romantic getaway, after all—and well, following the achievements of the eve before, his heart and body were particularly gluttonous for even more romance.

Especially after what he’d learned while at the beach with Percy... Frank hadn’t gotten a chance to bring up the subject again to ask more questions (and Percy seemed like he wanted to bury the subject anyway), but at the very least, now he understood a little bit more about why he and Hazel had failed to go all the way. If they had only slowed down, then maybe things would have gone well—and as the hours of the day wore on, Frank kept glancing at Hazel through the corner of his eye, perversion laden in his gaze as he wondered when a chance would finally arise to kiss Hazel’s neck, to take off her clothes, and lay at her altar his most rigid and obscene offerings.

But they’d been hanging out with Percy and Annabeth all day. And the mood hadn’t been quite right. And he didn’t actually know how to initiate things—“Hazel, could we ditch our friends and go have sex right now?” She would probably hit him if he said something so vulgar.

But he had to be honest. He wanted to say something. He just felt like he’d be able to do it right this time. They had a few hours to themselves now, and surely that would be enough time to take things as slow as necessary...

Exiting the spa premises, a healthy stretch of carefully groomed olive trees greeted them outside arranged on either side of a white stone walkway. The feathery reach formed a lovely tree tunnel, their branches arching over the runway as they spread plumeous shadows above the ground. Amber sunlight leaked through crevices in the leaves, bouncing over well-matured olives and dancing brightly on their faces. Passing through the picturesque tunnel, her hand in his, he considered that maybe this was a romantic event in itself, or maybe romantic moods were something that required more intentional provocation...

“Um... shame about the spa,” Frank spoke. It was a long walkway. He was starting to sweat, and it had nothing to do with the weather. “Sorry about that.”

She smiled sweetly at him. The way that the phasing glimmers of sunlight passed over those gorgeous, golden irises of hers delivered earthquakes directly to his heart.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for, Frank.” Hazel replied. “I mean, you know me. Getting pampered like that really isn’t my thing. Especially not by total strangers.”

“I could pamper you,” he said without thinking first. “I mean, because I’m not a stranger.”

“Trust me, you’re already pampering me enough by taking me on vacation with you.”

“Well, maybe, but, uh... I could still give you a massage or something...”

“... Hm. I don’t know, I’ve never had one before.” she answered thoughtfully. “Don’t they kind of hurt?”

“They can hurt a little bit.” Frank admitted. “But if I gave you a massage, um... I would try to make sure that it feels good for you.”

“Maybe I’m the one that should give you a massage as thanks for planning and paying for all of this.”

“... You already gave me a really good one last night.”

“What? No, I didn’t. Frank, what are you...”

Now arrived at the end of the walkway, he paused in his place and gently took hold of her other hand. Blush diffused madly on his cheeks, and when they locked eyes again, he could see the dawn of realization on her face as she finally made sense of his clumsy innuendos.

“Hazel, can we...” Frank swallowed nervously. His heart was drumming faster than he could keep count of its percussion. “Can we go back to the hotel room?”

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Over the course of the past few days, one fact of their romance was steadily becoming more factual than anything else: Hazel was his superior in the enigmatic sport of kissing.

She had heightened instincts which he simply lacked; somehow she knew when to curl her tongue into his mouth, to stroke his in a soft and sinuous motion, to draw back, glimpse the desperation in his eyes, and mutter an innocent phrase like, ‘You’re so cute, Frank,’ which drew out from him a breathy, uncivilized moan, forcing him to tug her by the shirt and pull her back urgently against his unattended lips.

She didn’t have to do much to get him excited. Mere seconds bearing the scald of her lips and he was already under her sweeping influence. Frank really thought that he’d been getting better, that they were able to kiss on an equal playing field, but a powerful seductress had awoken in Hazel’s spirit; her spells were framing about his form and tightening round him a paralyzing rope of formidable passion. The incantations were corrupting him still, bestowing his mind with visions of salacious desires. He could see clearly all that he desperately wanted—the momentous pleasure of needed penetration, the unknown depths inside of her body, the unhurried thrusts and effusive moans—and he wanted it with her. And gods, he really wanted it now. After several failed pursuits of those lustful attainments, he was immensely eager to at last end the hot-footed chase and devote to Hazel everything that his body could give.

He was sitting upright at the edge of the bed whilst Hazel was firmly equipped to his lap. One hand was supporting himself on the mattress surface as the other was tentatively curled over her waist. He was caressing her beneath the fabric of her top as she leaned forward against his abdomen. Burdened like always by their lofty height difference, Frank still had to crane his neck and his back in order to kiss her at all—but it was worth the strain. Hazel was kissing him breathless, and he wondered if the fervor in her lips had emerged from the same impatience he was feeling today—which reminded Frank of Percy’s advice, and of the exact reason that they hadn’t succeeded on the day before.

“Hazel...” he managed to speak in between fiery kisses, “... however far we’re going today, we have to take things slow, okay?”

She could have melted his body with the heat of her half-lidded gaze, which gave his face an even deeper flush of rich carmine and his heart a slight stutter in its pace. There was no interpretation of the look in her sun-ray eyes but that of a fervor whose penultimate want to have its way with him.

And he probably would have had a very hard time resisting if she insisted again that she wanted to rush, but thankfully, Hazel acknowledged his concern, touching his blushed cheek with the soft pad of her thumb. “Alright... How slow, Frank?”

“As slow as we need to go until you’re...”

Until you’re wet enough to take me.

—No, gods, no way, he couldn’t say that out loud. He didn’t even try to place the words on his lips—they would probably cause his body to evaporate in a panicked cloud of smoke and strike Hazel’s life with a sudden heart attack. He had to think of an alternative phrase. Something clear and clean and sufficiently mature for their novice sensibilities.

“Um... down here.”

Frank slipped his hand down from her waist to her thigh and squeezed her slightly, hoping that she would be able to grasp his intended meaning.

“You need to be turned on down... here. That’s the only way I can fit.”

“Fit?”

“Um... my you-know-what. I—inside of you, I mean.”

“Oh, gosh...” Hazel covered her face in embarrassment—a gesture so unbearably cute that he almost wished he’d chosen the dirtier phrase instead. Still half-covering her face, she mumbled through her fingers, “O... okay. I see. Should we stop... doing what we’re doing?”

“Well... is it turning you on?”

“Frank!”

“What?!”

“Do you have to say it like that?”

“I don’t know how else to say it!”

Now it looked like the embarrassment might actually cost her the life in her lungs. When she brought her hand back down, her mouth was pulled in a pouting frown as her brows were tight and low on her face. She drummed her fingers in a row along his bicep, and eventually freed her reply from containment.

“... This is the same position we were in on that night a few days ago. When we finished watching the Marilyn Monroe movie and you turned into a dog.”

Frank winced. He remembered that part. She didn’t have to bring it up.

Hazel continued, “... and... well, Frank, you weren’t the only one who had a strong reaction to what we were doing.”

“A strong reaction? You mean...”

She nodded meekly, though she couldn’t make eye contact as she spoke. “I was shocked... I had to take a good shower after that.”

“Oh...”

The implication began as an understanding in his mind and transformed into a hot pulse of intense arousal.

Making out on my lap actually got Hazel wet?

Gods, how stupid was he? His regret was as tall and eternal as a skyscraper. If only Frank hadn’t run away so pathetically that night. Had he been brave enough to pursue more prurient deeds, he could have slipped his hand inside her jeans and felt for himself just how turned on she really had been... but that was the past, and this was the present. They’d come a long way since then, and he wasn’t going to panic and scurry away this time.

Hazel adjusted her position in his lap and his lungs withdrew a sharp intake of air as she briefly made contact with the stiff mound at the front of his pants. Frank felt as if he were perhaps more sensitive than usual, a fact which endowed his chest with pressing concern—because lewd acts like this necessitated a temper of vigilance; he couldn’t lose himself in the tyrannous throes of abject pleasure or else he would finish before they even started.

And he did want to ask Hazel more questions about the aftermath of that fateful evening—like, did she have any tempting dreams after that, maybe a dream in which she wore a certain pink dress like that of a certain old Hollywood star? But the flustered look on her endearing face was pure indication that Hazel could not bear more investigation, for the indecent admission alone was already too much stress on her vitals.

Fanning her face again, Hazel spoke, “I’m only bringing it up because of the question you asked, Frank. What we’re doing right now is the same thing as what we were doing that night, so... so maybe that’s a good thing?”

“Um... yeah. Maybe,” Frank tentatively agreed, though he felt that the answer was in her hands, not his. “Yesterday, too, you mentioned that you wanted to try being on top of me again... is there something about this position that you like?”

“Well... maybe I just like the feeling of being on your lap.”

Gods, it was so hot when she told him what she liked like that. Frank smoothed his hand along her side, breathing even heavier as his body rose further in temperature. “Yeah?”

Hazel nodded slightly, and her hand began to stroke the side of his neck. “Yeah... or, um. I might like the way you hold onto my waist.”

“Do you like...”

Frank drifted off. Her hand gradually raised up to his cheek. A hot shudder travailed his breath as he leaned his face into the cup of her palm. It took effort to remember that he’d begun to speak at all, growing dazed by her sweet sensations comforting his body.

“... do you like grinding against me?”

Exactly as he hoped, Hazel suddenly pushed her hips against his. Frank gasped and bit his lip. Even minor assaults like this were powerful enough to sorely incense the ache in his loins.

“I... I do,” Hazel said, and she continued moving her hips, “or, um... maybe I just like making you feel good.”

“Hazel...” he quavered. She was softly rocking against him again and again, he had to close his eyes as her heavenly movements persisted. Frank tilted his head back and sighed dreamily, “Oh... oh, Hazel...”

He gripped her thigh tighter. Hazel grew more forceful. And he was hard past the point of no return—hazardous compulsions stirring inside of his body that lusted for her, hopeless as he began to needily rut his hips back in return. They kissed each other again, and he moaned in her mouth, and she exhaled shakily in his, and then a devilish spirit took possession of his hand, infecting his palm with its perverse impulses. Unconsciously, he was beginning to slip his hand beneath her shirt, and then affected her breast with soft, sudden squeeze—to which she suddenly reacted with a loud, high-pitched whimper—

“Nnh!”

“—Hazel?” he asked, chock-full of concern. Frank cursed himself and immediately drew his hand back down. “Oh, gods—I’m sorry! I’m so stupid, I—I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t know what came over me. Did I hurt you?”

She was panting as if already exhausted, but she didn’t appear to be irreparably shocked or wounded. Rather—and he didn’t know this for certain—it almost seemed like the sound she’d made had been a whimper of pleasure..

“No... um, that was fine.” Hazel breathed with a shudder. Shyly, she reached for his criminal hand and curled her fingers around it. “It’s... it’s okay if you do it over my bra.”

His erection twitched visibly in his pants, and he could see by the shock in her eyes that she had felt its sudden movement against her crotch. Frank flushed all over again.

“Um. Sorry. I got excited.” he muttered pathetically. Gods, his body was such a mortifying object. “It happens sometimes.”

Despite her shared embarrassment, Hazel chuckled quietly. “It’s good if you’re excited, right? And let’s... let’s take off our clothes, now.”

The fervor twitched a second time, which made him want to strangle it for such impertinence, but unfortunately—and fortunately enough—he still needed the disobedient jerk for whatever excitements lied ahead.

They separated briefly in order to undress—and he was a little disappointed that they were doing so independently instead of helping each other, but it would be too greedy to insist upon that right now.

Hazel kept her bra and underwear on still, so he didn’t take off his boxers just yet; it wouldn’t do to shock her with the full nude sight of his length before they made it to that stage.

She was sitting fully on the bed now, a glint of insecurity in her eyes. “Sorry, I’m not sure how to... how to ‘pace’ this. Should we try putting it in now?”

“Uh—already?” Frank asked incredulously. “I mean, I don’t know—I think we could probably... well. Warm you up a little more.”

“But how much is enough? I think I can... I can feel that I’m already...”

She was too shy to meet his eyes. Frank blinked at her like the idiot he was.

“Um. You mean that, right now, you’re...”

“Yes...”

“Oh.”

Gods, that’s so hot.

“Uh,” Frank struggled to talk through the growing lump in his throat. If Hazel were already turned on that much, then maybe she really did have a thing for being on top of him. “Okay. W... wow. I guess we can give it a shot...”

He fumbled with the box of condoms that he’d set aside the day before. Frank slipped off his underwear, blushing furiously as he broke another one before arriving at successful placement. At this rate, he’d use all of them up before actually having sex.

Hazel had already laid down on the bed and taken off her panties. Her bra was still on, (which he didn’t mind—he was blessed enough already to have her permission to touch them,) but he was fully naked this time around, and even though he knew that he was a ‘hunk’ in her eyes, it was impossible to ignore the slithering snake of self-consciousness, to go without feeling the pressure of vulnerability. She was about to be more intimately familiar with his body than was ever previously known in these nine long years of dating...

Frank settled his position in between her thighs. Her most private place was right in front of him. Hoarsely, he proclaimed, “... Alright... I’m gonna try putting it in. And you’re sure you’re okay with this, Hazel?”

Hazel nodded readily. “I am, Frank. I know I want to do this with you.”

“... I want to do this with you, too...” he concurred softly. “O—okay. I’ll try it now...”

He held himself in his hand and aligned his tip at her entrance, delicate in his initial attempt at first contact. Frank shuddered instantly at the hot touch of her inner lips. They were slicken with arousal, and he could easily glide the tip up and down if he wanted to. Her heat was already afflicting him heavily, saturating his sex in her warm, pleasing spirits. He then reared up his hips, and at last angled them forward in an act of romantic ingress.

Both of them gasped as the head pushed in. And it was in—he could tell that much—and it felt so good. This alone invoked a guttural whine from his throat, brows knit tightly as her walls stroked over the sensitive tip. He was melting inwardly from the scorching flares of his lust, which ignited below his waist an even stiffer erection. But this was only the tip. He had to keep going...

But when Frank attempted to push himself in further, he was met with familiar resistance. There was some kind of limit, some threshold inside of her that would not allow him to seamlessly proceed much deeper. Pressure encircled him on all sides, as if constricting him intentionally to dissuade the incursion. If Frank kept this up, then it was going to be an undeniably tight fit.

He could probably force himself inside at this point, maybe one harsh inward shove would do the trick (and that was a change from yesterday, when he couldn’t so much as even push the tip in), but Frank would never do that. His understanding of female anatomy included only the basics from health class, but he wasn’t such a hopeless, self-serving lover that he would risk doing harm to her body like that.

Hazel’s voice was one of disappointed stock. “Is it still no good..?”

“Um... hard to say. I think it’s a lot better than last time, but...”

He remembered what Percy had said—that because of Frank’s size, they would probably require more preparation than other couples would. He did understand that he was bigger down there than most, and had been led to believe by the world that that was a really cool, attractive thing. Only now did he realize what a pain it actually was—what if it was so big that it was totally useless? What if it did fit, but he couldn’t move his hips without causing her pain? What if he could never make love to Hazel in the way he’d always dreamed of doing?

—Ugh, stop that. Frank corrected himself. There he went again, spiraling to the absolute worst conclusion like usual.

“... I think we just have to warm you up more.” he elected, withdrawing himself fully from her entrance. “Maybe if I use something smaller, like my fingers, or—”

“Your fingers?”

“Um. Yeah?”

“Why on earth would you do that?”

“Uh...”

Frank blushed. Did the act of fingering sound especially dirty to her? To him, it was significantly more tame than sex... Maybe touching her so directly with his hands was more scandalous than doing so with his erection. It didn’t make much sense to Frank, but he wasn’t the one from a different time period.

He tried to think of an explanation that wouldn’t offend her. “... Because it might help you loosen up a little more?”

“No, that’s just... there has to be another way.” Hazel shook her head. “You were right, I was rushing it again. Can we just go back to what we were doing before?”

Frank scratched his head. “Um, alright... Do you need us to put our clothes back on?”

“No... um, you can just switch places with me.”

His heart skipped its next beat. He wasn’t really sure what was going on anymore, but he also wasn’t going to say no to having his girlfriend on top of him again.

Hazel collected herself from the bed. She was gorgeous as she moved, her petite frame and mature, curving hips like a picture of the goddess of beauty herself. Frank laid himself down in her place. It was a briefly awkward readjustment of body and limb, something he imagined they would have to get used to as the physical nature of their relationship grew new branches and transformed its colors.

Now back in her position—Frank had heard it referred to as “cowgirl” before, though he wasn’t expecting actual penetration right now—Hazel gently removed the condom that he’d just put on, then lowered her body on top of his arousal.

“I’m not too heavy on you, am I?” she asked as she settled over him. “Not... um, hurting you?”

Frank almost laughed. Was she joking? “No. Not at all.”

“Okay. Good.”

He was positioned flat on his back, and when Hazel leaned down to his level, they realized that her face couldn’t reach any higher than his sternum. Disappointed, she drew backwards until she was sitting upright again.

“Hm. I guess we can’t kiss each other in this position. I’m too... too short for it, I guess.”

“Or I’m too tall.” Frank added.

“Well, you are too tall.”

“Yeah. But you know, I don’t think you’ve bothered getting taller since the day I met you.”

“I haven’t bothered?” Hazel laughed. “And look at you—still gaining centimeters year after year. What are you running away from me for?”

And Frank laughed, too. It was welcome levity. Sex, the inscrutable thing, had always seemed like such important adult business. He didn’t want to do it wrong. He wanted to get everything correct on his very first try. But having a sweet, lighthearted chuckle in the midst of this—whatever it was becoming—relaxed and abetted his troublesome nerves like cool waves pouring over sands harassed by a vicious white sun.

They were both so nervous about this, the two of them, running away from each other over and over—and why? If things became awkward, overwhelming, embarrassing, why couldn’t they just laugh about it?

Meager childish amusements, like his pointless souvenirs from the shopping area, had somehow reframed his perception of the crude act itself, as well as each one of their failures thus far, which had struck him repeatedly with rending pangs of brutal dejection. Was sex that serious? Was it worth all the trouble? They were naked right now because the animal pulsions in their brains had grown agitated and decided that rubbing their privates together was an urgent need to be satisfied at once. It was the silliest thing Frank had ever heard in his life.

Hazel leaned forward again, and instead of delivering a kiss, she laid her hand on his pecs for leverage. Her vulva was a furnace on his crotch, which spread its burn over his length as she started moving her hips again, and Frank then closed his eyes. The grind of her strokes drew more strained gasps from his lips. Her pace was slow, but then it got faster, and she was coating his sex in her essence, she was caressing him over and over again, and instead of his standard fare overthinking, Frank surrendered to the ungodly pleasure she evinced.

Gods, this is so hot. Thoughts blurred into each other in his heady, heated consciousness. I can’t believe we’re doing this—oh, gods, oh, gods, I might be—oh, gods—

“Are you okay, Frank?”

The question snatched him from his stupor. Frank opened his eyes. “H... huh?”

The girl stopped moving her hips. “I asked, are you okay?”

“Oh. Uh, yeah. I’m okay. Why?”

Hazel exhaled nervously. “I just wasn’t sure. You’ve just... you’ve been saying, ‘Oh gods,’ over and over. I thought you might be in pain.”

“Oh.” He’d gotten so lost in the pleasure that the blurs of his thoughts must have wandered to his lips. Now, that was embarrassing. “No. It, uh... it’s really good for me. Are you okay?”

“... Um, yes... I’m definitely okay.” She shifted her legs on either side of him. “Should I keep going?”

“Yeah,” he answered a little too quickly. Frank coughed and tried again. “I mean, if you want. I don’t know.”

A smile formed on her lips. “You don’t know?”

“Well, what I meant was—” she suddenly thrust hard against his cock, a push that slid briefly over his sensitive glans—“Oh—there—”

“Frank?”

He threw his head back onto the pillow and squeezed her thighs with a tight, desperate grip. “Th... the head. Can you keep grinding there?”

“Does it feel good when I do that?”

She was asking in such an innocent tone. He was shy to answer. And oddly, he kind of liked how it felt to be made so flustered and breathless underneath her.

Frank could only nod in reply, barely making eye contact. Hazel was panting softly; his breaths were much more ragged. They grew even more harsh when she started moving again, and each time her body massaged hard over the tip like he’d asked, his hips twitched upwards—he throbbed and pushed back against her clitoris, yielding soft moans from her precious, parted lips as the cycle of giving and receiving hot pleasure continued.

All of his interiors were soaked by Hazel’s presence. Her airy exhales had become his needed inhales, her touch sunk through his flesh to kiss his soul directly. Even she seemed to be losing herself in her messy thrusts, in her dripping ecstasies, which had smothered him completely and afforded them an even smoother, fast-paced glide. Frank groaned endlessly, oversexed and overheated, panting, thoughtless, drooling from the satisfaction of her strokes and the unbearable eroticism of being lathered in Hazel’s never-before-seen wetness.

His elevating pulse, his torrid emotions—the ongoing pressure of her indelicate massage, and the uninterrupted passage of her hips, and the increasingly exorbitant pleasure of it all—all were tremendous affronts to his limitations; he groaned and sighed and professed his devotion through endless recitations of her name, begging for something, begging for her—for his ending that was now within reach; his endurance wasn’t going hold out much longer.

Frank could barely even speak. It took several foolish attempts at expression for his lips to form sounds that weren’t merely frenzied, unintelligible moans. “Hazel—if... if you don’t stop, I might... I might come soon...!”

His breath quickened. Hazel didn’t stop. She was squeezing his chest, sweat pouring down her forehead, thrashing her hips relentlessly—and if his sanity were just a little more treacherous—if he were not so ensorcelled by her influence, he might have dared to get on top of her again, to bury his face in Hazel’s lower lips and imbibe drunkenly from the tantalizing reservoir between her thighs.

It was such a dirty thought from the likes of him. He would never cease being frightened and impressed by the rigors of frantic, ferocious desire and the things they could do to one’s mind.

“You were so amazing when you finished last night, Frank...” Hazel said breathlessly, and then she asked in a sultry, torrid voice, “is it okay if I just want to see you do it again?”

Gods, that’s so hot.

“If... if that’s what you want...” was all Frank could say. He was too flustered, and he couldn’t think straight, and Hazel’s body felt so, so good. Frank was still under her sorceress spell. And right now, he would let her take him anywhere, including to the near and coveted summit of orgasm.

“C—coming—haah—” Frank sobbed, and he knew he was loud, he knew he sounded pathetic, but he needed this so desperately, and his selfish cock was begging Hazel for the gift of climax. He thrust himself harder and harder against her folds, an animal mania in control of his hips, humping her like an untamed beast—gods, he needed to come so bad, and the pressure of her grinding back in return was enough provocation to push him over the edge.

“Gonna come—Hazel—! Ugh—don’t stop—almost—oh, f—fuck—!”

—and like a prophecy spoken into action, white jets shot out across his stomach and pectorals, a reckless hot spread from his hard, twitching cock, and he groaned and gasped and cried as orgasm aggressed his body with its passionate throbs, as every wanton emotion he had arrived at their peak. The enthralling pleasure penetrated Frank’s everything; his body, his spirit, his weakened sanity. He was gone—half-sentient and stuporous, eyes in the back of his head, grunting as the final convulsions carried out their last, most decadent assaults to his senses.

And gradually, as he panted and panted and breathed, the attack of his climax soothed its aggression, caressing him in more relaxed, careful motion. The pleasure was no longer a combatant, but a soft, sweet tongue rolling over his body. He couldn’t manage one coherent thought if he tried.

“That was...”

It was Hazel’s mesmerized voice. He opened his tired, labored eyes ever slightly and saw her leering over him, still in the same position as she fanned her sweating face with her hand.

“... gosh, Frank... I could watch you do that a hundred times and never get tired of it.”

Were he more lucid, he would perish from the thought of Hazel making him come a hundred times—but he was still feeling very stupid at the moment, so he was dead to the world for just a bit longer.

Hazel left briefly and returned with a slightly damp towel. This time, she cleaned up the mess on his body herself. There was something sort of pleasant, something almost too intimate about being cared for like this, especially in the aftermath of the most fantastic orgasm of his life.

By the time she was finished with the towel, Frank was partially revived. He wanted to say something lovely and romantic, a delicate phrase that would convey every tender emotion for her in his heart with eloquent meanings and literary softness like a Shakespeare poem.

“Hazel...” Frank sat up halfway. “... Um, I’m still hard right now.”

She looked like she was going to fall off of the bed. “You... you are?”

Her eyes wandered to his crotch. The truth of his words was painfully self-evident.

“Y—yeah... I am.”

He didn’t know why, but he was feeling pretty bold. And if Hazel were turned on enough to take him now, Frank had a good feeling that he could make this occasion even more pleasant and memorable for the both of them. “So if you want, we could... could still try to—”

Bzzzzzzzztt.

It was the sound of a raspy, electronic buzzer—the hotel room’s version of a doorbell.

“Frank? Hazel?”

Percy’s voice on the other side of the door.

“We’ve got a situation on our hands. Can you guys come out?”

“A situation?” Frank guffawed.

“But... we’re naked! We have to shower!” Hazel squeaked.

Bzzzzzzzztt. Bzzzzzzzztt.

“Frank, Hazel! Uh, it actually might be kinda serious. Like, we need you guys ASAP.”

“I don’t think we have time to shower,” Frank said.

Hazel threw up her hands in distress. “Okay, fine!”

Panicked, they rushed to throw their clothes back on—a ten second hurricane of forgetting where on earth his underwear went, scrambling to fit into his jeans, almost knocking each other over in their frenzy. Frank shouted to Percy that they would be out in just a second, and they were about to answer the door, but then Hazel looked over his person and gasped dramatically.

“Frank!”

“What?!”

“Your... your pants!”

“My pants?”

He looked down at himself. Not only had he forgotten to pull up his zipper, but at the front of his jeans was his erection protruding as blatantly as a mountaintop over a horizon.

“Aw, man!” Frank whined, zipping himself back up. “Hazel, throw me one of the pillows!”

“You can’t use a pillow, Frank—that’s way too obvious! Can’t you just put it down?!”

“No, I can’t!”

Frantic, Hazel stuck out her hand. Reality flickered like a TV screen and the sight of his pants seemed to weave itself into a new image entirely—a shimmer, and it was gone, the tent in his jeans, wiped from existence as though it had never been there at all.

“Okay,” she pronounced, out of breath. “This... this works. I can keep that up for a good while if I have to.”

Amazed, Frank waved his hand back and forth over his crotch, but to him, the optical illusion didn’t shatter. “Oh, man—Hazel, you’re a lifesaver!”

“Well, just so you know, I can still see it,” she wheezed, “and I’m gonna be mad at you later for making me use mist magic on something like this.”

Bzzzzzzzztt.

“We’re coming!” they both shouted back at the same time.

Frank rushed to the door with Hazel just beside him. They opened it to find Percy on the other side, who appeared to be completely unharmed, but he had a strange look on his face, a look of annoyance and exasperation like he was the one who’d just had his precious private time interrupted, not the other way around.

“Percy! What’s wrong?” Frank asked.

“Where’s Annabeth?” Hazel followed.

“She’s fine,” Percy answered quickly. He pointed to the elevators further down the hallway. “I’ll try to explain on the way, if I can.”

Frank followed Percy to the doors, Hazel closely behind—but then she suddenly stopped in the middle of the hall. Her expression was miserable, flustered, and panicked all at the same time, frozen in place where she was.

Percy asked, “Is she okay?”

“Uh, just give me a second. You can press the elevator button.” Frank said. And then he jogged back down to her side.

When he made it back to her, Frank made sure to stand facing her front. He was big and tall enough to block Percy’s view of her completely, just in case there was something that she didn’t want him to see. And then, in a gentle whisper, he asked, “What’s wrong, Hazel?”

Mortified for reasons unknown, Hazel quickly whispered back. “I... I really can’t be around other people right now.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because?”

“Frank...” she intoned weakly. Shame hung over her head like a moody storm cloud. “I really need to take a shower, okay? I’m not decent. I’m... I’m still a mess down there.”

He almost moaned out loud from the sharp spike of arousal in his body. Gods, that’s so hot.

Hazel tugged and twisted the bottom of her shirt like she often did whenever she was anxious. “Maybe... maybe I have time to run back and take a shower really fast. Or I could at least change my underwear.”

“I’d lick everything off of you right now.”

“What?!”

“Oh.” Frank blushed. “O... oh, gods. Uh. Did I say that out loud? Sorry. That was an inside thought.”

“Frank!”

“Sorry!”

Hazel covered her face with both of her hands in embarrassment. In a muffled voice, the girl huffed, “Forget it... Let’s just go.”

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Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 12

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Percy awoke to a sickness in his body. It was heavy like a rock and ruthless like a viper.

The dream unfurled unto the son of Poseidon a tumultuous wave of nausea and feverishness; thrums of a headache reverberated through his skull as excessive body heat gave life to his malaise. He was battered on the backs of his eyes by belligerent throbs and militant pains, both armed with vivid repetitions of his harrowing nightmare:

“COME TO ME, HIPPOCRENE!”

Dark, eddying smog. Hemlock, nightshade, oleander.

Poison.

Annabeth snoozed on his left. He heard the easy sighs through her nose, breathing slowly in and out without interruption. By the serenity of her expression and calmness of her posture, it was likely that her dreams, in comparison to his, were kindly untroubled by fraught images of such triggering nature.

It was a rarity that they’d remain wrapped around each other after going to bed; they moved around too much, and he often threw tireless fits in his sleep, and she did not much like sharing a pillow with him. And this was the usual effect of their habits, that she was laying relaxed on her side, separated several inches from he while Percy was stiff like a board on his back. He was breathing too hard and his skin was flushed from the warmth of his sickness. His muscles were strung out tight as his fists clenched deep into the mattress below. Body overheating. Percy closed and opened and closed his eyes again. Headache throbs. Hemlock, nightshade, oleander.

He couldn’t stand to listen to the nightmare echoes, so he listened instead to Annabeth’s breathing. Its rhythm was lethargic, unlike the fast-paced rush of his turbulent inhales and stuttering exhales. Try as he did, Percy failed to synchronize his lungs to the unhurried tempo of Annabeth’s breaths, but he listened to them as he would listen to a soft piano chord progression, or a hushed lullaby like his mom used to sing, or the improvised tunes that he would hum to young Estelle, now nine years old, and those sweet recollections seemed to gradually enter his bloodstream—healing, happy memories that flowed like an antidote at war against the venom. The poison flowers wilted. In their soil rose pleasant thoughts of Annabeth, his mom, his little sister. His ailing spirit wandered through the meadow. It swallowed the ambrosia that blossomed on the petals. At last, Percy managed one slow, tremulant breath. The heat of sickness abated in defeat. And then he opened up his eyes.

Indigo darkness shaded the hotel room, drowning its tropical designs in ghoulish shadows and unsettling atmosphere. The thick, velvet curtain was drawn over the window. He wanted to turn the lamp at his bedside on for a quick reprieve from the void-like dark, which threatened to drag him right back into the nightmare, but Annabeth was light-sensitive and still asleep. She was kind enough that he could shake her awake and seek solace in her arms if he wanted (which he did), and he could talk with her about what he’d witnessed—the black smog, the mysterious term Hippocrene, and the softly sung phrase, ‘Look away, hero. Do not come for me.’

And Percy did nothing of the sort. Being called back into thought of that miserable realm would no doubt unsettle Annabeth as deeply as it had shaken up him, because she would recognize the nightmare glade and the poisonous flowers. She would know where his phantom dream self had wandered off to. And she could probably arrive at the same conclusion as he: that the dream possibly was not a work of fiction, but a reflection of events taking place in real time, as demigod dreams so often were. This was the worst possible outcome. He shouldn’t bother her with it.

It wasn’t that he actively sought to have thoughts of Tartarus so much as Tartarus had a way of harassing his thoughts. Nearly ten years after the fact and he was still thinking of it randomly, still uncomfortable with the fact of its existence—gods, it was still there. No further in distance to earth than the earth was distant to the heavens. Tartarus was still there as he listened to beautiful chirping birds or observed the gleaming waters of his father’s domain, still there when he looked in his favorite silver eyes and stroked the scarred, tan skin of his lover’s perfect body. Every sequence of his life was merely aftermath of the events in the place worse than Hades—all radii to its circumference, all reaction to its action, all background to its foreground. Percy Jackson was a substance that had bubbled from the netherworld’s acid, and its corrosive chemicals were circulating still in his rotted membranes.

Even now, he felt exceptionally abnormal. Not in a dignified way, like a legendary hero who’d survived the unsurvivable—instead like an indescribable Other in the skin of a demigod who couldn’t stand to show its bare face to anyone but Annabeth, because there was an Other inside of her, too, and it recognized his own. For the most part.

‘Percy, please don’t ever...’ Her voice broke in a sob. ‘Some things aren’t meant to be controlled. Please.’

For the most part.

It wasn’t lost on Percy that he could go back someday, where Kronos churns, where the worst villains of humankind scream in agony, if the most crucial foundations inside of him quavered. This had happened before. Always in the corner of the room was the elusive alter whose rage might break loose in a violent burst of wrath and abuse his power like a real villain would. It had happened before. His dream was a dark reminder of that painful memory.

It was the worst nightmare that he’d suffered in a very long time, which was a significant achievement in itself. Percy didn’t want to touch it; he sought to push the noxious dream into his mind’s undercroft and abandon it there—to let it suffer and writhe and perish on its own. But even as he had managed to level his breathing and calm down to an extent, he could still feel tendrils of nightmare slithering up through the floorboards. This was the long-term torture of being half-immortal. Not only was everywhere in the world but New Rome and Camp Half-Blood a dangerous place, but his dreams, even his dreams were unsound. Percy wondered if he might finally be able to relax after he died.

He sat up and swayed his legs over the edge of the bed. Annabeth did not stir. The hotel room was still dark. He didn’t feel nauseous anymore, but everything inside him felt putrid, felt gross, like his formerly relaxed mood was a mouldering fruit gone morbidly rancid. It would not become fresh again by only staying in bed. Desperately, he needed to go where his body would heal.

Percy could be silent and sneaky when he really wanted to, and he really didn’t want to wake up Annabeth this time, so he rose from the mattress carefully and found some clothes to throw on. He gathered nothing else but his room keycard and his phone, which reminded him, after recent exploits with the Cuvier’s beaked whale, to offer Annabeth an explanation in case she chanced to wake up and notice his absence.

On a low-brightness touchscreen, he typed out the following message:

went for a swim. nothing serious

Percy hit send. And then he stared at the text with a frown on his face, realizing what an ominous-sounding message it was, so he followed it up with twenty-six blue fish emoji just to afford it some needed levity. And then he exited the room, silent as though he’d not abandoned her there at all.

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He was shocked, after days of a perfectly idyllic tropical vacation, to discover the bedlam taking place outside.

From the elevator, he approached the lobby front doors, which were built of a thick and adamant glass, and quickly observed that the Majorca Islands had been swallowed by a monstrous, grueling storm. Impressive mechanisms held the doors stiffly in place, such that they hardly even rattled in response to the savage, angered winds beating up against their surface, but the winds carried on their currents a ceaseless fusillade of frenzied rain droplets—and it attacked the glass doors with a visible mess of thrashing, sprawling water. It was beyond midnight, too dark on this moon-shy evening, and past these blurry, rain-ridden doors, Percy could only imagine the full storm’s severity should he step out into the chaos.

He moved towards the front entrance, undeterred (and increasingly curious if anything), but only to be halted by a stranger’s arm in his path. Percy froze in tracks and looked up to a uniformed older man, whose disapproving frown and suspicious brows made him think that guy had already assessed him as some reckless ruffian.

“Young sir,” said the doorman in tentative English, perhaps guessing whether or not it was the language Percy spoke. “Are you going out into the storm? It’s dangerous out there. Guests are recommended to stay indoors for the time being.”

“Uh, thanks, but I’ll be fine. We get plenty of bad weather where I’m from.” Percy answered. “But wasn’t it completely normal outside not that long ago? When did it start storming like this?”

“Very suddenly—only in the past half hour. And no word of a storm on the forecast.”

“But isn’t that weird? It barely storms in the Mediterranean this time of year.”

“Yes, unusual. The sea is in a grim mood this evening.”

A cold spat of paranoia quarreled in his body. Did I do this?

He pushed past the doorman and opened up the doors himself. “Sorry, I need to go out.”

“But, young sir—”

Percy was already outside.

Groundlight strips on either side of the hotel’s cobblestone paths were the sole brightness in the black nighttime. Only in the air just above their pale, white glimmers could Percy truly see the rain blowing by. Palm trees in the surrounding locale were blasted back by passionate screams of the harsh sea gales and their limp fronds flailed in lugubrious defeat. The dissonance of it all was harrying his ears: choleric rain, the crushing winds, and tempestuous roars from the angered sea. It was a hideous and harrowing tropical storm, and Percy would have turned around had he lacked good reason to persist forward.

He was soaked instantly by ruthless horizontal rain. The cold rampaged his body. He could move without being tossed back by the wind, but had to fight the resistance of its endless gusts.

He should have stayed inside like the doorman said, but fear was gaining weight on his conscience that this was all his fault, that his reaction to the dream was the beast that had summoned this ugly sea storm. Percy wasn’t much of a risk living in New Rome, but back when he still lived in New York, more than once had he accidentally caused some kind of climate event just by getting overemotional—losing his temper, becoming too aggressive, and then suddenly there was flooding in the Hudson River and a great uproar coming in from the Atlantic. He couldn’t stand it when he lost control like that. Even Annabeth seemed fearful each time that it happened. These were the only days when the son of Poseidon ever loathed his deep connection to the ocean.

Percy dashed towards the shore. It was within sight in just a few minutes, he could see it dimly in the dark. If he just dove into the water and allowed it to revive his troubled nerves, then maybe the storm would die down—and if it didn’t, he could try to control and suppress the growing typhoon with his manual powers. It hadn’t reached deathly emergency-level danger just yet, but he wouldn’t forgive himself if he let it become even worse and the island or its people were injured as a result.

When he came to the beach, the horror became clear: a tropical storm on the horizon coming closer to the island. He knew automatically that it was a category two cyclone teetering on category three, winds quarreling at over a hundred miles per hour. Agitated beach sands were being tossed in the air and the water was at war within the sea. Percy was on his way to the flailing, turgid shoreline, but then he halted—someone else was on the beach.

Percy squinted at the figure in the dark. Probably a woman, he thought. She looked young going off of her petite frame alone, which heightened his concern; these winds were difficult for even him to withstand, much less a small, young girl. But further attention and discernment of her whole person—the curly mass of hair, dark skin, the purple t-shirt—made him realize that he knew exactly who the girl was.

“Hazel?”

He hesitated, then shouted her name even louder because he was certain of it: there she was, only fifteen feet away, and her presence was absolutely baffling. She was standing right before an art easel of all things, fronted by a thick sheet of vellum paper, where several colored pencils were seated in the easel’s lower margins. Hazel appeared strangely undisturbed by her surroundings, and when she noticed him there, after his calling her name, she made no attempt to move in his direction.

So Percy jogged over to his friend. He had several questions for her, and opted first for the most obvious one in his head. Speaking at a loud volume to ensure he was heard through this noisy climate, Percy asked in a bewildered tone, “What are you doing out here?”

Hazel stared at him before responding, and he couldn’t help but be disturbed by her posture, her eyes, and her whole disposition: ghoulish like a wraith on this strange evening, and otherworldly in such a literal way, as though she wasn’t really there, as though the raging elements were occurring somewhere else, as though there wasn’t any spirit moving inside of her body and she were merely some hollowed out thing, a small automaton with painted gold eyes and a blank stare like she was looking at him but hardly seeing anything at all.

“Drawing,” Hazel said. “What are you doing out here?”

He would have called her out on such blatantly intentional vagueness, but was stopped by his own desire to keep his motivations under wraps. “I couldn’t sleep, so I was gonna go for a swim.”

She gave him a very, very small smile. “You and your thing with the sea, Percy... I’ll never understand it.”

He raised his brow at her. She was wearing the same outfit that she’d worn to dinner hours ago, the Camp Jupiter top and a long, pleated skirt, no coat over her body, which led him to believe that she might have come here directly from the dining hall. She was soaked, her hair beaten backwards by the wind—but there was something off about what he was seeing. On her canvas was the start of a drawing of the sea, the cyclone, the virulent waves, and yet the paper itself was completely dry. The easel was rigid like a stone monument, completely unperturbed by the same riotous winds that were laboring the palm trees into arched, back-breaking positions.

Percy asked, “Why are you pretending to draw?”

A flicker of surprise on her face. Hazel opened her mouth to speak and nothing came of her voice. She looked to her faux-artwork, seeming vaguely unimpressed by its depictions, and then sighed as she waved her hand over the paper like she was wiping at a window. The mist faltered quickly and dissolved. Nothing was left of it. It wasn’t there anymore.

“... I do that sometimes.” Hazel answered shyly, maybe sheepish of her odd behaviors. “It’s less messy this way.”

Percy didn’t understand. “But it’s gone now. It looked good so far. You just lost your whole drawing.”

“I just wanted to make something, Percy. I didn’t want to hold on to it after.”

He put his hands in his pockets. There were more pressing issues at hand, but for some reason, he only wanted to keep talking to her. It had been a long time since they’d been alone together and meaningfully spoken about anything—which was natural and normal; they were both such busy adults back in New Rome, and thus far on vacation, the two had been notably preoccupied by their own partners.

“... I know a little mist magic from Chiron,” Percy began, “but I could never use the mist against myself. I can’t even wrap my head around that.”

Hazel tilted her head. “I think it’s pretty simple. Haven’t you ever fooled yourself into believing something that wasn’t true?”

“Uh...” Percy drawled. He didn’t like this question. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Well, that’s all mist magic is. Making people see whatever they want to see, whatever makes sense to them.”

“Could you make me see a cheeseburger or something? A really huge one? The stuff here is good, but I’m starting to miss American fast food.”

Hazel laughed sweetly. She seemed to be growing more material—more actually there, no longer translucent and severely disaffected. “I could, but then you’d have to pay me real money.”

“Sheesh. World’s wealthiest demigod is a huge rip-off.”

The girl chuckled again. Percy was glad to brighten the mood. It was a glimmer of peace in the surrounding war: the missile-like winds and the attacking rains, the confident waves that were swarming the shore like the front-line surge of a skillful armada; it was war, it wasn't supposed to be pretty, and still a saltwater fragrance wandered blissful on the gales, and the tint of the sea was mystical and rare, it was this impossible blue laden thickly with obsidian black, and so breathtakingly saturated, almost glowing with a tangible and godly energy. If this vivacious sea storm were the workings of Percy’s tangled mind, then he, too, was in sync with the beast’s frightful animation; it was him, a reflection of himself, the thing that most empathized with the son of Poseidon. He could feel the Mediterranean all over his body without even touching it. Seawater in his blood. He was powerful again.

“No Frank?” Percy said. “Thought you two would be in bed by now.”

He instantly regretted his unfortunate word choice, but Hazel either didn’t notice or didn’t mind. She spoke, “No, I haven’t seen him since dinner. He’s probably in the hotel room.”

“Probably? Well, where else would he be right now?”

Percy didn’t know why or how, but it looked as though his questions struck a nerve. An invisible weight dropped upon her shoulders, now sagged with depression, and then she bent down until she was sitting on the sand, arms hugging her knees close to her chest. Hazel exhaled a long, miserable sigh and set her chin atop her knees.

She didn’t say anything else. In his years and years of knowing her, Percy understood that Hazel was not the forthcoming-type. A rare event it was that she would confess her troubles openly, without being prompted first—they had to be drawn out of her with effort, like they could only be won via a contentious tug-of-war.

Percy joined her in the sand. The waves had slowed down, but their pulse was still tense. He could feel in the river of his veins that the sea remained reactive, and was prepared to sow mayhem at a moment’s notice.

“Uh, sorry for leaving so randomly at dinner.” Percy said awkwardly. It hadn’t occurred to him that his desperation to be alone with Annabeth hours ago might have been somewhat rude, and he hoped that their absence was not the cause of any trouble with their friends. “Everything go okay with you two?”

She paused for some moments, and then shamefully admitted, “... We were having a nice time. And then I ruined it.”

His brows bent in concern. “What happened?”

“I don’t know, I just...” Hazel trailed. Even in the blurry rain, in the rayless midnight, he could see the secret unhappiness buried in her face. “We were slow dancing together in front of the band, and it was nice at first, but then I overreacted to something—and I ditched Frank without explaining myself. I’m not feeling good about it.”

“An overreaction?” he asked. “You don’t have to tell me, but... well, you can tell me about it if you want.”

“Percy, I appreciate that... I do.” she spoke softly. “But don’t worry about me. I don’t need anything right now.”

“... I think you need an umbrella, at least.”

A self-deprecating grin arrived at her lips. “No umbrella could hold up against a storm like this.”

“Hey, come on, now.”

“What?”

Percy focused his thoughts on the rain. It wasn’t exactly effortless, so with his dedicated concentration, he managed to stop all of the incoming water droplets an inch before slamming into himself and Hazel. All around them now was a magical event: they were surrounded by an illusory invisible wall against which every droplet made impact and bounced onto the beach sands. No longer were they affected by the ongoing storm downpour, and even the white brawl of the cyclone’s thrust seemed to have softened its forward furors, shy in its willingness to approach the island shore at which they were seated.

And for good measure, he extended his fingertips, to then siphon out the heavy dregs of water that had dampened her hair, her clothes, as well as his own, and toss them backwards into the sand. Percy couldn’t stop the barreling winds, but they were both now at least thoroughly dry—a vast improvement from the wet misery of just seconds before.

Hazel’s lips were parted in awe, and she looked to him with sparkles of amazement in her eyes. “... Of course. How could I forget how amazing Percy Jackson is?”

His smile was equally sincere as it was falsely vainglorious. “Right? How could you? You’re not the only one who can do cool stuff.”

After a wry, pointed grin, the girl turned her gaze back to the sea. Meanwhile, at that moment, the wind blew one item in his direction: a weathered and lightweight flower, whose silvery-blue petals were so bright that they were almost lumescent against the black backdrop of shadowed nighttime. Percy took it in his hand, startled at first by its appearance—how shockingly reminiscent it was of the moonlace bloom that was still active and glowing at his mom’s place. But it wasn’t the same thing. It was only familiar.

He let go of the flower, and then it passed him by on the hurry of the rushed winds. Percy still didn’t understand what Hazel was doing here. Despite their friendship, it was no secret that she hadn’t much affection for the ocean.

“You should still go back to your room soon, Hazel. The weather might get worse.” Percy said.

“Shouldn’t I say the same to you, Percy?”

“Well, you know how it is—they don’t call my dad Stormbringer for nothing. I’ll be fine out here.”

“‘Stormbringer’? Does that mean he did this? Because I’ve been here for hours, and it wasn’t storming at all thirty minutes ago...”

“Uh... no, probably not.”

“Then... did you?”

“... I might have.” he admitted without looking at her face. “... I had a rough dream. So I might have overreacted.”

“Oh.” Tenderly, her hand came to rest on his arm. “I’m sorry. Are you okay, Percy?”

“I’m alright, it happens sometimes. I just hate it when it does.”

“What was your dream about?”

“Just... stuff that reminded me of things from a long time ago. Stuff that I’m better off not remembering.”

“Ah...” Hazel uttered quietly. “I get that. That’s actually why I...”

She bit her lip and looked away, abandoning the end of her sentence. But his curiosity remained persistent.

“Why... things got weird with you and Frank?” Percy finished. “Is that what happened?”

“... Yes.” she expressed with a troubled exhale. “The band, they... they played this song, and it was the one song—the song that... um, that Sammy used to love. He used to always listen for it on the radio and tell me join in and listen with him. Hearing it at that moment was just too shocking—it felt like I got zapped right back into the past, and that hasn’t happened to me in a long time. I haven’t even heard or thought about that song since I came back from Asphodel, but I recognized it instantly. I completely freaked out about it.”

“... Oh.” Percy said. He knew that Sammy was Hazel’s old boyfriend from her previous life—or something like that. What he didn’t know was the correct way to approach this conversation topic; it felt like a very sensitive issue, one that almost never came up between them. Unsure of what else to say, Percy asked, “What song?”

“‘Bésame Mucho’.”

He knew enough Spanish to quickly grasp the title. “‘Kiss me a lot’?”

“Um. Yes.”

“Ah.” he said. This was starting to get embarrassing. “... And that’s why you ran off from Frank, and haven’t checked in with him since?”

It seemed to be the wrong thing to say, because he could see the girl’s sullenness intensify immediately, and she went back to resting her chin on her knees. With a sigh that was stiff with dejection, Hazel affirmed shakily, “... Exactly. Frank put this entire vacation together, and this is how I’m treating him. I’m such a horrible girlfriend...”

“What? That’s not true. You’re a great girl, Hazel. Frank of all people knows that.”

“But Frank doesn’t know why I left him. And he’s still in the dark while I’m just sitting out here, all because I’m scared to go back to our room and explain myself to him. How could I look my boyfriend in the eye and tell him that I ran away because I was thinking about Sammy?”

“You didn’t do it on purpose, Hazel...” Percy insisted. “Why are you being so hard on yourself?”

“I just... I shouldn’t be reacting to stuff like that at all anymore. I made my peace with everything that happened with Sammy a long, long time ago. I don’t understand how a song that he loved can still affect me so much, all these years later.”

“Well... love can be complicated, right? I don’t think anyone’s ‘good’ with relationship stuff all the time."

"I wish it were simple. I feel like I'm too old to be struggling like I am. Nine years with Frank, and I'm still having a hard time with the most basic things that anyone can do."

... He had a suspicion that she was referencing recent intimate developments with Frank. She probably didn’t know that Frank had come to him for advice on the subject. On one hand, being able to talk candidly about matters of the bedroom with a trusted guy friend seemed extremely important and necessary for Frank. And still, on the opposite hand, Percy was now in the uncomfortable position of knowing more about Hazel’s sex life than he’d ever wanted to. More than Hazel knew that he knew. How was he supposed to reconcile that?

At minimum, Percy wanted to console her. He scoured his entire brain thoroughly, sponsoring a stressful and feverish scavenger hunt for the right thing to say, for solace that might rinse her conscience and gentle her worries. He was no Piper McLean; water and fish and boats were the tenants of his domain, not issues of romantic quality; yet in thinking of her, a potentially cogent thought did come to his mind.

“Yeah, well, listen—sometimes the complicated stuff isn’t really your fault. I’ve met Aphrodite herself a few times. One time she told me to my face that she got a kick out of messing around with my life. Like most gods do.”

Percy meant it lightheartedly; the meeting in reference took place over a decade ago, on the quest for Annabeth and Artemis (and he looked back on it now with only mild annoyance, because the goddess of love hadn’t really done any harm), but the information seemed to make Hazel even more downtrodden and uncomfortable.

“... That’s not a good thing. That she can just mess you up if she feels like it.” Hazel quietly replied. “Maybe Venus is messing with me, too. I don’t know. The gods have never been gentle.”

In the distance, the cyclone scourge was dissipating. The winds were fervent in their propulsions, but noticeably less severe than before, and the rain, the beating and devilish rain, had soothed into a scattered, silver mist trembling through the air, and the Mediterranean hummed plaintively, instrumented by the trouncing of its waves and writhe of its currents. Percy stole a deep breath of the air into his lungs, eyes losing their gaze in the dancing of the mist, in the plump congestion of its fog. He ordered himself to consider what Hazel had said. Somehow, only one idea prevailed in his thoughts.

“Hazel, I’ve told you about Luke before, right?”

Her brows raised in surprise, startled by the subject change. Tentatively, the girl replied, “... Yeah, you have.”

“I told you about the Battle of Manhattan and all the stuff that happened with him?” he continued.

“Yeah.”

“And how Annabeth grew up with him at camp?”

“Yes, Percy.”

“Did I ever tell you that Annabeth had a thing for him?”

Her amber stare went wide. Percy could see her performing calculations in her head—pondering the meaning of this, how it recolored her conceptions of the second Titan war, which had ended because of Luke, because of Annabeth’s pleas, because of a decision to trust in the goodness of his worst enemy. These incidents of the distant past, their graves were so shallow; he could dig them up easily with just one brief and blistering remembrance, to discover in the dirt a familiar corpse whose lurid tissues were disturbingly fresh.

When Hazel answered him, she appeared uncertain of herself, speaking in a careful tone, as if every utterance of her reply had to dodge a landmine before being spoken spoken aloud. “Um. No... I don’t think that ever came up.”

“It’s not my place to talk about it. But...” Percy lowered his eyes to the sand. His fingers curled into its damp granules, toying idly with the shapes and hollows he could press into their surface. He proceeded to explain, “she did. I know she did. He was really important to her—and he still is. And every now and then, I see her get this look in her eyes whenever we’re at camp and we pass by the Hermes cabin, and there’s still something in the way she says his name. I don’t think she knows that I notice it all, but I do.”

Hazel hugged her knees closer to her chest. Her eyes were concerned, and then she looked away from him.

“Percy, why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want you to know that it’s... okay.” He said the last word with labor in his tone, hoping to pronounce it with confidence but finding its cadence surprisingly shaky. “... It’s okay if you think about Sammy like that sometimes, even after all these years. I understand why Annabeth does it with Luke, and I... I’ve accepted it. I’m sure Frank would understand, too. If you let him.”

His gaze was still centered on the churning waves and frothing seafoam and the etheric mist that haunted its body. Hazel was silent like the dead. After many seconds in lack of reply, Percy finally looked at her again, and then he discovered the wet lines curling over her cheeks, the golden eyes inundated with heavy, joyless tears. Her lips trembled from insuppressible sorrow, the rend and wreckage of bloody heartache, the bereavement of unforgotten past loves, which climaxed finally in submission to her feelings and a woeful exclamation that would wound any being with a tender heart to hear it:

“Percy, how is it okay? How could you possibly be okay with that?! I was having a great moment with Frank, and I ran away—because I started thinking about someone else! You wouldn’t be okay with Annabeth ditching you like that! A good girlfriend wouldn’t do that to you! I’m just—I’m messed up! It’s everything I do on this vacation, I’m messing up everything with Frank!”

She covered her face with her hands and cried miserably into her palms. The sobs and sadness were everywhere in her body: in her shuddering chest, her quivering shoulders, the fragility of her whole person. And his heart shattered for her. It hurt to see a dear friend so ruined by strict self-loathing that she didn’t deserve.

Percy thought about the day he met Hazel. He remembered how his voice broke from the weight of his anguish and exhaustion while praying at Neptune’s altar, and feeling strange to have done so in front of her, for she was younger than him, and he didn’t even know her at the time, and he was pretty good at keeping his sorrow to himself. But after so long on his own, feeling lost and forlorn, Hazel had readily consoled him—Hazel, who was privately suffering even worse than himself. The quest to Alaska was so long ago. He’d gone through so many trials and adventures in his life, but few had stirred such twisting, rending emotions as the fight to free Death, fearing all the while that its very execution would result in the end of her life. Thanatos was supposed to kill her. But he didn’t. Hazel was fourteen back then. She had now made it to age twenty-two and would turn twenty-three this winter. This was a special sort of miracle, and Percy decided right then that he’d not been grateful enough over the years for its occurrence.

Percy moved in closer to the sobbing girl. He pushed back the curls over her forehead and kissed her there. And then he said:

“You can be totally happy with how your life turned out and still wonder about what could have been.”

... Percy leaned away, feeling mildly embarrassed. A gesture like that wasn’t really like him, but Hazel was affectionate enough to kiss him on the cheek sometimes, and he couldn’t remember reciprocating even once. Now more than ever, sitting beside a girl as dear as family while unjust tears beset her eyes, it seemed inarguable that he should finally return the expression.

Something silvery-blue and familiar was swaying and floating in the dark sea glimmers. He only noticed it in the corner of his eye, and he allowed it, calmly, to reside in his peripheral, until it was no longer there, until it was carried away on the push of the current, and then for only some seconds, his eyelids closed. Memories of the distant past in a shallow grave. His entire mind’s cemetery, where lay dozens and hundreds of crystal clear remembrances buried beneath a thin coat of dirt. Fresh corpses in his mind’s undercroft. Calypso's moonlace flower. Percy opened and closed and opened his eyes again.

“... Even I’ve had my what-ifs, like you,” he spoke, turning his gaze fully away from the sea. “But I chose Annabeth, and she chose me back. Neither of us regret it. And you don’t regret choosing Frank, right?”

Hazel had emerged from the shield of her palms, her expression still stunned from his kiss. And then something inside of her seemed to change directions. The sniffles continued, but she wiped the tears from her eyes, her cheeks, and insistently gathered her numerous sorrows, demanding them back within command of her breast.

“No.” Hazel answered firmly. “Choosing to be with Frank is the best decision I’ve ever made. I’ll never regret that. I only want to be with him.”

Percy smiled softly at her. “And I think you and I know better than most people what a good guy Frank is. He’s not going to hate you over this. So just... take it easy, alright? And don’t be so hard on yourself. It’ll be okay.”

He couldn’t know if his assurances had healed her completely, but the emotions coursing through her at least seemed, to him, much less turbulent now, and their fractured pieces were soldering themselves back together. She wasn’t crying anymore. Her expression was earnest and maybe even a touch inspired. And then, without any preface, she leaned close and wrapped her arms around his body.

“You, too, Percy.” Hazel said, still holding him close in her small embrace. “Whatever happened in your bad dream, whatever things are bothering you now... it’ll all be okay.”

It was a warm and pleasant and sisterly hug, and he could feel her affection as though it had its own life, with soul, beating heart, and a voice that spoke directly to his spirit in hushed, comforting tones.

The midnight horizon was perfectly clear of its ravage, the Mediterranean liberated of its troubles, and even the winds that had spawned from the sea were now only cool and harmless zephyrs. He could see the moon beyond the evaporating mist, and the white lambent imparted from its visage, which shone soft light unto the welcoming island and reflective waters. It was a lovely picture that the night had become.

He made sure to return the hug fully, and then they separated. Percy hadn’t expected any of this to happen at all, but he felt better for its occurrence. Still, these were heavy and exhausting subjects to throw out into the open. He wished that he could do something just to lighten up the mood.

“You know what we could use right now?” Percy asked. “Some fireworks. That would be awesome.”

“Fireworks?”

“Yeah. The sky’s clearing up now, so we’d be able to see them really well. But, uh, I don’t have any fireworks in my pockets. And I’m guessing you don’t, either.”

“Hey, come on, now.”

“What?”

Hazel winked at him. And then she stood up from the sand. Her arms raised up towards the heavens. And suddenly the night sky was filled with bursting color—bright blue explosions of orchestrated light, coupled with even the gunshot echoes of true fireworks. The complete picture was something truly spectacular: an enormous and breathtaking spectra of lights—she was giving him a full firework show, and the finished picture in the sky was a three-pronged trident, the symbol of Poseidon.

And it wasn’t real, he knew that, but his eyes were sparkling all the same.

Percy smiled a kiddish smile at her that was so big, he thought it might surpass the margins of his face. She was so kind to oblige his unintentional request. What could he do for her in return?

He got onto his feet. Putting one hand forward, he bent his fingertips half-downward. A great geyser sprung out from the sea, rising over fifty feet in the air. The water surged up and spilled over itself like a fountain, but he was forcing it to curl and bend into one particular shape—the Pluto symbol, of course, an emblem like a legless stick figure with its arms raised up, and a horizontal line that cuts through its waist.

Percy didn’t really use his powers for things like this; he wasn’t all artistic like Hazel. Still, he thought it looked pretty good, though it did feel a bit strange to send the symbol of the underworld god up into the sea. Hopefully, his dad would forgive him for that—and if not, well, the happiness in Hazel’s expression made it all worthwhile, regardless.

Their magical shenanigans did not cease there. With no mortals around, they could pretty much do whatever they wanted. In her false fireworks, Hazel conjured up a fish. Percy carved out a geometric diamond shape within his waters. She painted a horse in the sky. Percy made a second horse, and they both laughed about it. The horizon was filled with imagery of Pluto and Poseidon. And for the rest of the night, after saying good-bye and setting back for the hotel room, he couldn’t even remember what his bad dream was about.

—

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.

.

.

.

.

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—

There were no gifts or mortal pleasures comparable to the feeling of Annabeth’s warmth in his arms.

Somehow, after coming back to bed, and now in the slow-paced wake of early morning, they had come back into each other. It was a sloppy position: both laying on their sides, her nose under his chin, thighs tangled messily beneath the covers. His arm was curled over Annabeth’s back while hers was awkwardly bent over his shoulder. They were not an adorable or picturesque couple but two mongrels sloshed over one another in a strange, crooked shape. Drool crawled down sickeningly from the corner of his mouth and her hair was a hurricane of curls splayed all over her head.

As they both came to, seemingly at the exact same time, they stroked the other’s body passively and naturally. Years and years and years of knowing and loving each other had culminated in this; he was able to run his palm across her waist and her legs, she could swim her hand across stomach, to his hips, and squeeze his rear just because she felt like it (and she did so numerous times in a row, for her love of his backside was well-known at this point). Even in the headiness of his post-sleep wakening, Percy consciously loved every second of this. He liked to pull her in tight, fill his crevices with Annabeth, until they were as close as was humanly possible.

Gaining wakefulness propelled more adventurous motions into the bed. Annabeth’s thigh was between his, and it stirred deliberately against his crotch. He reacted as he usually did to such teasing provocations: with two hushed cuss words and a shuddering exhale. But this meant that he could reciprocate by reaching for her breasts, which were thankfully naked, and fondle the soft and delightful mounds until his lover was sighing aloud and muttering his name. And he liked those sounds. He wanted to hear more.

Without much effort, and without saying anything, Percy moved himself on top of her.

She didn’t have any underwear on. She didn’t have anything on. The blonde had fallen asleep immediately after he went down on her last night, and her nakedness only incensed his desire to touch her and kiss her everywhere that he could. After wiping dry his saliva, he kissed Annabeth’s cheek, her neck, her collarbone. Percy had no plan, not even a particular goal. He just wanted to hear her sigh and moan in response to his touch, and to fill up his morning with Annabeth’s voice. And then, unexpectedly, in the midst of his south-traveling kisses, the woman revolted against his incursion.

He was caught off-guard by her lively energy. Annabeth, from underneath, smoothly flipped Percy onto his back and then pinned him down with her hands on top of his chest. They both stared at each other—him with drowsy eyes, her with a satisfied glimmer in her silver irises.

“Morning.” she pronounced nonchalantly.

“Morning,” Percy slurred in a sleepier tone than she. He could probably push her back to where she’d been if roughhousing was on the agenda today, but he was still pretty tired (especially after going to the beach last night), and was furthermore just as happy to have Annabeth on top of him instead (especially with her utterly nude like this). Percy added, “You look good.”

Annabeth smirked. “Eyes up here, Seaweed Brain.”

He was definitely not making eye contact with her. “Wha? Eyes up where?”

Percy expected her to pinch his cheek or roll her eyes at him, or perhaps even throw a shirt on as a penalty for his attitude. Rather than any of the above, she leaned forward and kissed him directly, and the touch startled his heart to a sudden uptick in its beat. And it was startled even more severely when her hand crept down towards his pelvis, and then began slowly to caress the bulge hidden beneath his boxers.

As their lips separated, and his hips could not help but push upwards into the touch, her name escaped his throat in one low, tremorous breath, “... Annabeth...”

“... Don’t forget what I said last night, Percy.” she decreed. A soft, stroking motion smoothed over him continuously, and he was biting his lip and wincing from how good it already felt. She continued, “We’re not focusing on me, we’re focusing on you.”

Percy began to relax his head back onto the pillows. “Uh-huh...”

“And once you’re so desperate that you can’t take it anymore, you tell me directly, and then we’ll take it from there. Remember?”

Oh, I remember, alright. Percy thought. He was still agitated from her numerous teases of the day before, and he could already feel how pent-up he was, how eagerly he yearned for pleasure and satisfaction—such that his body felt more reactive than it usually was. When she ran her palm over her tongue for its moisture, and then dipped her fingertips into her boxers, his heart shook with a fresh pulse of excitement. It was woefully rigid off of this little stimulation; he

“... Yeah. I remember.” he answered breathily. “So, what, are you just gonna—ngh—”

Already, he was enclosed within her fist, and she was working him up with the exact tightness that he loved; the pace alone was enough to have him suddenly gasping for air.

“—gonna...” he trailed. The whole thought was gone, evaporated from his mind, and replaced by the mad delirium of his famished arousal. “... uh... gonna... fuck, Annabeth—”

“Yeah. Pretty much that.”

About now was the time when Percy would usually grow anxious and tell her to stop. The nature of his problem was predictable by now: she would touch him, he would have a physical reaction, and then midway through, Percy lost everything. His body was trapped in some unalterable and hideous cycle of arousal, failure—for no reason at all, and he was so used to it now that he barely wanted to attempt going all the way anymore. The shame of being unable to finish was too discouraging to deem the risk worthwhile.

But if Annabeth was correct, that this vacation might be what he needed somehow, and that tempting him past the point of no return was the logical step toward overcoming the worst adversary of his demigod career, then he was willing to try—except, this time, Annabeth was the one to suddenly halt the festivities.

She released him mid-stroke, without any warning. There was nothing particularly sadistic or amused of her expression, either; she wore the same proud look in her eyes that surfaced whenever she completed a task, and was visibly proud of her own performance.

Annabeth began to climb off him. “Okay, that’s a good amount for now. I didn’t shower last night, so I’m gonna take one before breakfast with the Romans.”

His breaths were still heavy, his mind still addled. Percy wasn’t sure what to feel in response to this—beyond a sensation like he’d been awarded a delicious plate of his favorite foods, then had the meal stolen before he was even half-full. Was this what Tantalus had been dealing with for hundreds and hundreds of years? No wonder the guy had been such a cranky, antagonizing jerk.

“... Uh... shower? Right now?” Percy asked.

“Yup. Trust me, I need one.”

“Can I come?”

He didn’t think about the irony of his word choice until he saw the humored grin on her face. Now fully stood up, Annabeth gestured to the bathroom door.

“Good thinking. That works, too.”

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“You went out to the sea again last night?”

Just before setting foot in the shower, Annabeth glanced at her phone.

He was already in the shower himself. The water droplets posed a hot rainstorm over his body, and so began the outpour of steam unto the bathroom. The space seemed excessively commodious to him, more than quadruple the size of their apartment back in New Rome: a whole region of shining white marble and impressive light fixtures, with two great mirrors just before the sink basins that were lined with bright turquoise trim. It was a great glass box that environed him—a standing shower that could not be employed for a bath—and as Annabeth spoke, he was in the midst of reaching for a scalloped soap bar, the fancy hotel kind that he’d expect, fashioned in close resemblance of a seashell. He liked seashells. It was a nice touch.

But the shower rainstorm, the growing white mist from its steam, and of course, Annabeth’s question, reminded him of the tropical storm from the midnight before, which had blown as recently as six or seven hours ago. No harsh consequence had come from its brief outrage (as far as Percy knew, anyway), for it hadn’t escalated to the point of rampacious danger. He was uncertain of the means to talk about everything that had gone down. Should he frighten her with the story of his nightmare? Should he explain the cyclone? Ought he to mention the late night encounter with Hazel? None could be justified without attachment to their preceding events, and that matter was his trouble; he could talk about Hazel, he could talk about the storm, but he didn’t want to talk about the dream.

“Yeah.”

“You needed to swim that bad?”

“Yup,” he affirmed. This much was undeniably true. “I couldn’t sleep, so I went out.”

She set her phone away on the counter, and in the midst of tying up her hair so that it barely met her shoulders, she replied, “and you didn’t go farther than the Balearic sea?”

“Nope. Ancient Lands, not safe, I know.”

“Okay. Good.” Annabeth sighed in relief. She joined him in the shower. It was spacious enough that they could clean themselves separately without even splashing the other with a drop of water. “And you didn’t invite any more whales to our wedding?”

But they preferred to stay together. Percy welcomed her into the shower with a brief kiss, and then closed the glass sliding door behind her.

“Nope, didn’t find any whales. Sorry, I don’t have another ring to give you.”

“Mm, I’ve got plenty, now.”

“But hey, the new ring from the Cuvier? She said it’s ‘good for friends with blowholes’.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“No idea.” Percy shrugged. “But pretty cool, right?”

Without reply, Annabeth only smiled at him, and then stepped forward in the shower. Beneath the angled showerhead, the vibrating waters decanted over her; the stream missed her head and sprung unto her collarbone, casting fresh droplets down her breasts, down her stomach, and her tanned, athletic thighs. Cupped palms stole a portion of the spring and splashed its contents onto her face. Steam fogging up the glass. Water dripping down her chin, neck, shoulders. Percy was entranced.

His fount of appreciation for this image, no matter how many times he’d been so blessed to see it, was a reservoir of greater holdings than the deep sea itself. Annabeth looked too good. He always liked to see her wet. He always liked to see her touch her own body, how she raised up her arm and tilted her neck and assisted the waters in reaching her hard-to-access spots. And then, as she lathered up a scrub sponge with soap, she glanced back at him.

“Percy...” Annabeth said softly, “you know, we haven’t showered together in a while.”

Distracted by the fineness of her form, it took several seconds for her comment to enter his cognition. He was probably blushing, or maybe it was just the heat of the hot water and steam.

“... Huh? Oh, yeah. It’s been a while.”

“Must be our different schedules. We don’t go to bed or wake up at the same time.”

“Yeah.”

“But it’s... nice to shower together sometimes, isn’t it?”

Percy gulped. “Of course it is.”

“And doing it together is even nicer than just watching each other shower, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. ... Wait, huh?”

“Gods, Percy...” Annabeth sighed. “I’m saying that you can help me shower. Unless you don’t want to, then I’ll just do it by myself.”

“Oh. Oh.” Percy sensed that the blush might be darkening. He was still a little dazed from just waking up, and even more addled after having been stroked by her fist and so swiftly abandoned. In an attempt to disguise how flustered he was, he followed up quickly, “No, uh, I want to. Didn’t know that’s what you were getting at.”

“You’ve always been bad at taking hints.”

The scrub brush was placed within his hand. Percy started with her back. She was right; they hadn’t done this in quite a long time.

The soft patter of droplets falling from the showerhead was the only utterance of the wide bathroom. Percy focused on his task. Annabeth’s back was criss-crossed in numerous scars, some of which he knew the certain cause, and of others, he still knew nothing. Sometimes he thought about the younger her that he’d never met, the seven year old that had fled from her home and taken to the hazardous streets, where any monstrous being—monsters, but any mortal, too—could have savaged the girl and ended her life, were it not for her chance discovery of Thalia and Luke, and Thalia’s courageous sacrifice at Half-Blood Hill, succeeded years down the line by the ending of a life high on Mount Olympus.

... That was all in the past. And now here Percy was, engaged to the adult version of her. The old wounds had matured with the rest of her body. Her unfiltered appearance was something deeply special to him, but it made him sick to imagine that anymore scars might occur unto her flesh in the future. His most important mission was to ensure that this worrisome thought would never come true.

As he cleaned her back, Percy was especially tender with the marks of her wounds. None were so fresh that it was necessary to do so, but he was careful, anyway. And he decided for sure that he would not upset and disgust their vacation by openly sharing the contents of his dream last night. She had been through so much in her life already, and if she were anything like him (and he knew that she was), being told what he saw might ruin her relaxations for the rest of the week.

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Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 13

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Shortly after breakfast, a group hike led them through the Serra de Tramuntana, a sprawling mountain range carved through the upper margins of Majorca. Miles of walking delivered the quartet through bright olive groves and glorious sceneries. Moss smoothed over the rocky mountainsides, embedding healthy florets of green even in the grayest stone crevices. The Balearic Sea gleamed turquoise in the distance as the highlands triumphed from the southwest to the north. A clear, continuous breeze shook the verdant woodlands to rustle tree branches lurching overhead, and with it came subtle pine-like scents and woody aromas that were laden in the natural perfumes of the sea. It was the kind of sweet, fresh air that could prolong a lifespan just by wetting the lungs. Percy remembered the corrosive smog of Tartarus, how the poisonous sulfur had almost burned like acid through his aching throat tissues, and then indulged in an avaricious gulp of the island sea air. He’d drunk plenty of water, but now his mouth felt dry.

And for the past three hours, Annabeth had served as an expert tour guide, pointing to all noteworthy attractions in an excited voice, such as “That’s the Sa Calobra beach down on our left, see?”, accompanied always by trivia or historical facts learned from extensive pre-vacation research. Percy was not predisposed to enjoy hiking; he didn’t hate it, he just preferred beaches over mountain trails. Still, he had to give it up to the Majorca Islands: this had turned out to be a pretty wonderful experience, as well as a grand old time with his friends. Everyone was talking to one another, smiling, taking group pictures and keeping pace with one another. Percy found himself thinking of Grover, Tyson, and his family back home as he walked. They would have loved these sights, this delightful summer mood. What a shame that they didn’t get to come.

Time was an invisible haze, passing right before his eyes like an apparition unnoticed. Before Percy knew it, his stomach was rumbling for lunch, so they had settled on a flower-bathed hillock to enjoy a simple picnic of packed goods and even wild berries in the meadows. But then Annabeth distanced herself from the group suddenly, and not wanting to be apart from her for long, Percy followed her down to a woodlet of Spanish maple trees, where she was sitting at the base of a wide, robust trunk. A notebook sat against her knees. She was drawing something. He approached her on her left and peered over her shoulder.

Thin sketch lines in navy blue ink, he observed, and not graphite, were gathered on the page to form a great cylindrical building, almost like a colosseum in lack of arches and windows. Soft shading and numerous footnotes were itched across the page. She employed no reference, no rulers; each dash of the blue sketch lines were perfectly straight when they needed to be and smoothly curvaceous in the opposite case. Soon, Percy realized that he knew exactly what she was drawing.

“Is that the castle we went to yesterday? The Castell del Bellver?”

Her eyes did not move from her picture, nor did her hand abandon her blue ink pen.

“Yes,” she answered distantly. “... I’ve hardly drawn any castles since I did Olympus. Most of the projects I do in the mortal world end up being pretty bland. The Bellver has such a unique shape, it inspired me to draw a castle again.”

Percy whistled and raised an impressed eyebrow at her work. “You’ve only been gone for a few minutes, and you’ve already got that much of it done? Not bad, Wise Girl.”

“Well, thanks.” Annabeth said, and then she scowled briefly at the notebook. “But it’s not that good. I haven’t brought it to life yet.”

She had used the phrase before to describe her pre-designs and even her floorboard schematics. “Haven’t brought it to life yet”. Percy respected her craft, but he couldn’t say he knew the meaning of the word in such context. Weren’t buildings supposed to be dead?

Percy sat down beside her. She immediately leaned against his body, head perched on his shoulder as she continued sketching. A syrupy flow of affection poured over his body. Maybe she hadn’t yet livened her art to her liking, but she’d already aroused in his heart a fresh spark of life just by wanting to be near him. The smell of the woodland carried on through the trees. Gently, he leaned his head up against her own.

“... What?” she asked. “Just gonna watch me draw?”

“Yup. Hey, you’re good at castles.”

“You think so?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Hm.” A sigh passed through her nose. Her pen finally stopped moving. “Speaking of Olympus... lately, I’ve been wishing that I hadn’t ever taken on that project when I did.”

“What?” Percy said. “That’s news to me. New Olympus looks awesome because of you. Why would you regret it?”

“I redesigned Olympus when I was sixteen, Percy.”

“Yeah, and?”

“Well, don’t you see the problem? That was my magnum opus. I’m in my mid-twenties now, and it’s completely impossible to top a project that I did when I was a teenager.”

“... So, you’re saying that you think you peaked in high school? Is that the problem?”

“Ugh. Don’t say it out loud like that.” Annabeth grimaced, tilting her head back against the tree. “It’s not just about my architecture portfolio. It’s other stuff, too.”

“Like what?”

Her fingers slipped down to the space between their bodies and found his hand.

“... Isn’t it crazy that the quest for Zeus’ bolt, holding up the sky itself, the Battle of Manhattan, Tartarus, the war against the giants, and a hundred other things—isn’t it crazy that all that happened during the earliest parts of our lives? Do you ever think about that?”

Percy’s heartbeat quickened. His eyes surveyed their surroundings closely—hunting for disturbances, any abnormalities, and his entire body stiffened, his gut grew tight with apprehension. Could there be a monster hidden in the mountainside? Was it stalking just behind, or waiting for them up ahead? The winds fluttered on again; they hummed a cool whisper through the maples, and he could almost swear that he’d caught something beastly on its breeze. The sound of a monster’s snarl, maybe, or talons scratching through tree bark.

But there was no evidence of his anxieties as far as he could see. Nothing in their surroundings had meaningfully changed to incite such alarm, only his reaction to them was distorted. He didn’t like that about himself. The mere suggestion or remembrance of danger could render his entire person on alert, could make his breathing heavier, could trap his body in a state of fight-mode when there was nothing to fight, and the worst part was the lack of exit strategy; the adrenaline rush had crashed like a wave on his shore and flooded his demigod battle instincts. How was he supposed to calm down now?

And he couldn’t prove himself wrong, either. A group of four powerful demigods in the mountains should easily appeal to the nose of a monster. Any place beyond New Rome and Camp Half-blood was a hazard by default, anything could happen at any time. A god could steal him from current life, take his memories away, and throw him to the wolves on the whim. Percy wasn’t afraid of the gods themselves; he was afraid of the legitimate possibility that everything could rapidly change at any moment.

It didn’t feel good to be so cognizant of this, particularly not while attempting to relax on vacation. But he’d rather be in fight-mode than unprepared for an attack.

“Percy?”

Subconsciously, he confirmed that Riptide was still inside his pocket. And then he took a deep breath, trying to remember what he was going to say before getting distracted. “Uh, not following?”

“... If we’re lucky, we’ve got a lot of life ahead of us.” Annabeth considered. Her tone was neither downtrodden nor hopeful. “But we’ve got entire lifetimes under our belts already. Too much happened when we were kids. Too much in such a short time span. And now, there’s just so much aftermath to deal with.”

Aftermath. Percy paused to consider the word. It was an odd way to describe the entirety of life after childhood. But it made sense to him.

“... Well, maybe we just got all the craziest stuff we’ll ever deal with in our lives out of the way.” Percy suggested. And it was only a suggestion; he didn’t believe a word that he said. “Now, normal stuff feels kinda dull in comparison. Or something like that.”

“You don’t ever feel like you still need to do more? More quests, more fighting for some huge cause?”

“What? No. Not at all. I’m done.” Percy said. He was shocked that she would even suggest it. “I miss the cool, fun stuff. I don’t miss fighting off a cyclops from marrying my best friend.”

That managed to crack a smile out of her, but she was still staring at the castle sketch on her notebook, brows pressed as though she were looking on in disappointment at some broken, unfixable thing.

“I know, me too. I just... I hate the feeling. I hate feeling like I’m already a has-been. I couldn’t stand it if I’ve already done all the great things I’ll ever do.”

Annabeth sighed, and then she began to stand up.

“Ugh. I’m in a weird mood right now.” She folded the notebook closed. “I don’t know why I started drawing. The plan was to focus on you today.”

Percy stood up after her. “The ‘plan’?”

“Yes, and I already had everything figured out. I’m gonna fix your problem on this vacation. I have to.”

He wasn’t sure why, but he felt uneasy about Annabeth’s word choice, and he was curious—suspicious, even, of the sudden shift in conversation topic. “... That’s nice and all, but what if it’s not that simple? Maybe ‘fixing’ me isn’t even possible.”

“I can do it, Percy. I know I can. What kind of fiancee would I be if I let you go on being unsatisfied forever?”

You forgot that it’s -my- problem, not yours... was Percy’s first thought. This was the familiar nature of a years-long, unresolved, back-and-forth issue. Percy couldn’t seem to keep it up or finish in the bedroom. It was always his fault. Annabeth would insist that they keep going, she could satisfy him this time if she just kept trying. And it still never worked. Lately he’d been so demoralized and exhausted by his body that he didn’t even want her to try touching him down there—what was the point? He’d always intended to repair the issue on his own somehow, and now here Annabeth was, appointing herself as the leader of a mission to revive his wing-clipped Eros. He knew that she only wanted to help, but it was starting to feel like there were stakes in the matter for her that were misaligned with the directions of his own.

No reply to her came. The voices of their friends were calling out their names, no doubt hoping to deplete the picnic and conclude the final leg of the hike. Percy and Annabeth returned from the tall maple grove, and he studied the notes of their conversation in his head repeatedly, turning over ideas and concepts again and again as if doing so would surely onset a much-needed revelation.

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When Annabeth abandoned the group hike for the second time, she took Percy with her.

One slight tug of his arm in her direction and they were off, assuring Frank and Hazel that they would return soon, there was just something in the opposite direction that she wanted to circle back to with Percy. They’d done a lot of sneaking off together in their lives, but this felt like an admittedly lackluster cover-up. Hazel’s response was one of mild perplexity (and Percy wondered if she and Frank had been able to resolve their troubles after the storm last night), but her boyfriend didn’t appear to be confused at all. He assured Percy and Annabeth that they would keep their distance and allow them to catch up at their own pace. Embarrassing, but nonetheless appreciated.

Annabeth led the way to a dip in elevation, past the mossy mountain ridges and unto the nearest stretch of grass-covered plains. She moved with intention, and he sensed that she definitely knew where she was going. Piles and piles of montane hills rolled over the earth, and once successfully surpassed, Percy’s legs were starting to hurt from the effort—but there, at a distance now of about sixty feet, Percy could now see a large, rectangular building in the distance, built of beige cobblestone exteriors and a number of bluish, arch-shaped windows. Tall, confident trees boasted an entire forest all around it, and a happy blue sky poured soft sunrays over the roof. Most significant of all was the white pathway jutting out from its side, a path that crossed over the sloping mountainside and led to a modest pavilion overlooking the sea. Of any single looking-point in the entire Serra de Tramuntana, it was understood instantly that this overlook would offer the most exceptional sightseeing imaginable.

“Is that where we’re going?” Percy asked. He couldn’t tell what kind of building it was; a personal residence? Some kind of trinket-selling business? “Are we allowed in there?”

“To answer your first question, yes. To answer your second one, no.” Annabeth said, peeking over her shoulder to exchange a wry grin. “It’s called the Son Marroig mansion, used to belong to Archduke Ludwig Salvator of the Habsburg family. He was rumored to be a legacy of Ceres. After ditching the administration, he bought land on the island and settled here for most of his life. He contributed a lot to environmental conservation efforts on Majorca in the late eighteen-hundreds, which was a pretty unusual thing to do back then. Apparently, the locals really loved the guy.”

She spoke in a delighted voice, but then scowled suddenly. He suspected that she wanted to speak in great detail of its architectural features, only to hold herself back because it wasn’t worth the effort.

“It’s a museum now, but it’s undergoing repairs this month, so we can’t even go in. There’s a lot of old Greco-Roman furnishings and statuettes in there that I would have liked to see...”

“Dang,” Percy said. “So we can’t go in. What are we heading there for?”

“We’re sneaking onto the pavilion and enjoying the view.”

“Oh, okay.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I was just expecting you to say we’re breaking into the mansion itself. That’s probably what the old Annabeth would have said.”

She stopped in her tracks. “Old Annabeth?”

“Well, yeah. Back in the day, Old Annabeth wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of seeing old Greek stuff. Not even trespassing.”

There was no particular reason for his teasing beyond a sudden and inexplicable desire to be a nuisance. Percy smirked down at her. Her brows were furrowing adorably.

“We’re international, Percy. If we actually get in trouble out here, that’s a big deal.”

Percy shrugged. “Worst case, we’ve got a student of Hecate on our side. There’s no trouble with mortals that a little mist magic won’t solve, right? But that’s only if you still remember how to pick a lock.”

Annabeth glowered indignantly. “I can pick a lock faster than you use your car key to turn on the ignition.”

“Oh, yeah?” Flames of mischief were alight in his eyes. She was cute when she got all boastful like that, and he was feeling spirited for some juvenile exploits. Percy gestured to the mansion with a gallant sweep of his arm, bowing as if to say, Ladies first. “Then let’s do a private tour of the Son Marroig.”

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Percy didn’t know why he expected a typical museum once they made it inside. The Son Marroig was less like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and more like the house of some modest rich guy that had secured his prized possessions in glass display cases. The interior designs were not so extravagant as expected, either; rooms were decorated in weary oak furnishings and the carpets were covered in simplistic patterns. Stone walls and low ceilings hugged the air tightly such that no single room felt particularly spacious. After remembering to brag about how quickly she’d gotten them inside, they moved carefully throughout the mansion, unsure if anyone else was present in the building.

Independently, they wandered the first floor. Fine plates and antique pens were framed in glass covers on the wall, which weren’t so interesting to Percy, but he didn’t know what else to bother looking at. Annabeth delighted herself with the ancient paintings of Olympian gods on Grecian amphoras. The mansion felt to be quite vacant, so they traveled its grounds freely.

In the foyer, Percy’s eyes were drawn to three statuettes clustered together in the corner of a room: a trio of white marble women looming more than six inches above his head. On instinct, he got the sense that they were all goddesses, not mortals, though he wasn’t sure how.

“I’ve seen hundreds of these half-naked statues by now, and they still weird me out. Like, these ladies are probably my cousins, aren’t they?” Percy asked.

“That’s Clio, Urania, and Polyhymnia.” answered Annabeth from six feet away. “So, yes. They are.”

“Aw, man.” The middle statuette had her breasts fully exposed. Percy directed his gaze to everywhere else in the room. “I can’t be all ‘artistic appreciation’ about stuff like this. It’s always gonna be weird no matter what.”

“They’re just breasts, Percy. Do you have to be so immature about something that small?”

“Hey, I didn’t say it had anything to do with how big or small they are.”

“That is not what I said.”

“Well, what you said isn’t what I said either.”

“You’re just getting on my nerves on purpose.”

“Yeah.”

Annabeth sauntered back to him. Low eyelids awarded her silvers a playful impression, and the growing curl of her lip fastened her smile with a flirtatious hook. She laid her fingertips on top of his chest.

“Forget about the statues, Percy. While we’re here, you should focus on mine instead.”

Annabeth’s fingers drew a circle over his left pectoral. He stared at the spot she was touching for several seconds before meeting her eyes again.

A shudder trembled on his breath. It was a very light touch, but it still felt kind of nice. “... Focus on your what?” he asked.

She wore tight athletic shorts and a gray tank top. When she lifted upwards the bottom hem of her shirt until it bunched in place over her collarbone, a red sea of color flooded his entire face. The reveal was a delicious bralette never seen by him before. Dark blue lace encircled her mounds, and Percy stood there dumbstruck, shocked by such bold action, and the full illustration of her chest quickly gathered his gaze beneath its lusty influence.

“Were you...” Percy gulped mid-sentence. “Were you wearing this during the entire hike with Frank and Hazel?”

“Of course not.” she dismissed. “I had this in my backpack the whole time. Thought I’d change into it while you were gawking at the statues.”

“Oh.” Percy said. His stare did not travel elsewhere. “Why?”

For reasons not understood by him, Annabeth pouted.

“We just talked about this, Percy... Is this not sexy to you?”

“Huh? It is!” he assured, flabbergasted. “Of course it is. Like, crazy sexy. You look awesome, Annabeth. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

They were standing by an arched window. The sun loitered in the sky beyond the blue-tint glass. He focused on her face, where daylight rasped the planes of her cheeks and effaced the shadows in the hollow of her eyes. And she was lovely in this lighting. He liked the color on her. But the tattletale light revealed hidden truths of her expression: a subtly tense, worried face; low, anxious brows; soft blush breaking through her thinned sunscreen. She was feeling uneasy, this was obvious now, and though he was unsure of the root cause, he wanted right away to be able to soothe her.

A sigh ragged her body. Her posture was tighter, less boldly flirtatious. She folded her arms and responded quietly:

“Percy... I really hope you aren’t saying that just because I asked. The plan isn’t going to work if you aren’t honest with me.”

“I was telling the truth. Promise. You could drive me crazy in this bra without even trying.” he replied, taking a step towards her. “And I don’t know what you were thinking, Annabeth, but since we’re alone in here, and Frank and Hazel aren’t waiting up for us... we could have that round two of last night that I mentioned before. I could get you there quickly if you want.”

His hands found her waist and laid residence there. Her skin was so warm, so pleasing to the touch. As his hands stroked slowly to her hips, he could see her mood reviving from its half-determined funeral. The blonde spoke, “... After hiking for hours? No way, you can’t do that. I haven’t showered.”

“So? Heck, that just means more—”

“—Alright, hold your horses, Jackson.” Annabeth smacked his shoulder. “I already know you’re about to say something gross, so I’m stopping you there. And secondly—how many times do I have to say it? We’re focusing on you today, not me.”

“Mannn.” Percy complained. “But what if I wanna focus on my hot future wife instead?”

The blonde raised her brows at him and smiled. She liked that title. Percy inscribed a mental note to remember that detail.

“You focus on me way too much already.” she assured. “Let me focus on my hot future husband for a little while.”

His heart panged, cheeks reddened with heat, which led to a discovery that he liked it, too. And then his hips were in her hold, clutched by famished fingers, her chin positioned as if intending to kiss him—but she didn’t. Her lips were near to his own. Percy wanted that kiss, the want in her eyes, and more secretly he craved the mysterious pleasures she was promising to him. Dim hopes of ever becoming the sort of lover that he wanted to be, and ingrained discouragement from his past disappointments, were increasingly prepared to abandon their ramparts and let her take the lead, to have her aggress his body with the full-scale armaments of her temptations.

“... Alright, so...” Percy started, throat dry, voice heavy with anticipation. He was smooth enough in coming on to Annabeth now (a practiced skill learned after years and years of being with her), but he wasn’t sure that he was all that good in the reverse. Sometimes it felt like he was just plain bad at being seduced, if that were even possible—how he could completely miss the cues of her advances, could say the wrong thing and utterly destroy the mood. He decided that he would try his best to do as she did and closely follow her lead for now. “What do you wanna do, then?”

“Look around the mansion some more.” she spoke bluntly, discharging her hands from his hips.

“Oh.” he said. That was a little disappointing. “Okay. Anything in particular that you wanted to see?”

“Yeah. Come with me, Percy. There’s gotta be a bedroom around here somewhere.”

Annabeth smirked and fled from his body. Her light footsteps weighed the old floorboards on a path away from him, beyond the foyer, up the whining staircase. Percy blinked several times, stupid from her sudden disappearance like he’d just been hit with a white flash-bang. And then her words sunk in, and with them potential for amorous meanings—meanings that made his breath catch, heart race with excitement, and warm recollections soared in his thoughts, remembrance of delirious emotions from youth; how startling it was to be a teenager in love with a girl, the euphoria of mutual romance, and the trouble of secretly wanting her physical love; chaste kisses by the river, lip moved by lip, tongue eager yet forbidden, guilt for well-hidden thoughts enslaved by passion—the confusion of needing something that he didn’t understand; the mystifying word, his gluttony for all of its unknown, earthshaking pleasures: sex.

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What little he can do to give a name to the way that Paris smells. There’s no simplifying the conglomerate of scents in the night air, not without the whole summary of enterprises: ghosts of morning baguettes in the city after-hours, dinner plates flush with braised red meats, tobacco waft from apartment balconies, the underbreath of car pollution, and the constant moan of eau de parfum—they swell in unison to forge a most obscure, combined entity. Percy kind of likes it, kind of doesn’t; having just trudged through the Manhattan sewers, the amalgamated aroma of Paris at night is hard to complain about... that is, until a north-skewed walk takes them nearer to the River de Seine, and then a sour stench marauds his senses—and he grimaces wildly, covering his nose with his sleeve.

“Eugh.” Percy gags in disgust. “Why’s it smell like pee all of a sudden? It’s not the river, is it?”

Annabeth, hand in his other hand, wrinkles her nose, but she isn’t so taken aback as he is. “It -is- the river, Percy. This is the Seine—it’s notorious for smelling like this.”

A black sky up above. Amber city lights melt on the river’s textured surface. Tour boats cross leisurely in the nighttime Seine and a bridge connects their margin of the river to its opposite side. He can still see the glowing Eiffel Tower in the near distance. They had just devoured a delicious dinner on the tab of the messenger god and his Olympus Express credit card. A sensational spree of exploring Paris followed—and having fun with the card, because, well, why not?—and led to this sight. A pretty picture it is; only the stench of urine in the air is notably unpleasant.

He broadly observes the river, admiring its beauty but mourning its condition. Ever since the death of Pan, he's been more mindful of these matters, more often thinking to himself, ‘How nice could nature have been if not for all this mortal influence?’ But the question soars far beyond his teenage comprehension, and should he even find the answers, they’ll do nothing for the health of human-sullied waters all over the world.

“Geez. I thought Paris was the fanciest place in the entire world. How come the river water quality is this bad?” Percy asks, not expecting a real explanation. Her response is surprisingly optimistic.

“It’s not as bad as it used to be,” Annabeth says. “I’ve read about some government measures in the past twenty years that have made the river much better. There’s still a ways for it to go, obviously, but there’s a lot more species of fish in it now than there were when you and I were born.”

Percy hums thoughtfully. Hearing this soothes his troubled conscience. It’s nice to be reminded that humans can bring about positive changes, too. Impressed by her background knowledge, he applauds her. “You just know everything, huh?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Are you calling me a know-it-all?”

“Huh? No—well, I mean... yeah, I guess I was. But in a good way—it’s cool that you know all that, is what I’m saying. It’s cool that you know stuff about the fish and the water. Usually I’m the fish-and-water guy, but this time it was you. So that’s cool.”

The day is September eighteenth. Their one month anniversary.

The waters of a new relationship and of being someone’s boyfriend for the very first time remain troublesome to navigate. By his own assessment, this has been a pretty awesome date so far, but he’s still getting used to understanding Annabeth as his girlfriend. With the change in status arrived so many wondrous comforts and enjoyments (namely holding her hand, kissing her, finally getting to touch her hair without making things weird, et cetera), but it was a double-edged sword. Now, he can lose her in a way like he never could before. What if he says the wrong thing—as he’s doing right now—and then she doesn’t want to date him anymore, and then their friendship is never the same afterwards? The stakes of everything he says and does are so high. After only one month of dating, Percy doesn’t feel secure just yet.

And then Annabeth grasps his cheek, smiles at him with the same infectious warmth of a gleaming summer day. The heat of her beauty incinerates his anxious thoughts; all at once, he is enraptured in the overwhelming artistry of her appearance. It’s how the sleeveless green dress pours over her body, and the pearl necklace draws attention to her throat, and how her shining blonde curls dance over her shoulders. Hermes had dressed them both up after miring in the muck of the sewers for his staff, and Percy looks okay in his suit, but she’s just disastrously attractive—which is to say, disastrous for him. He can’t think straight when she smiles that sweetly, when she looks this good, when he’s alone with his girlfriend in Paris at night and there are no chaperones, no godly distractions, no looming threats of monsters or prophecies. Her proximity has never made him feel as dizzy-headed as it does right now.

“Relax, I’m just messing with you.” Annabeth cups her palm over his arm. “You’ve been wound up like a spring all month, Percy. As cute as you are when you’re nervous, I don’t want my boyfriend to be like that around me all the time. Things are different between us now, but I’m still the same girl you’ve known since you were twelve.”

Okay, so she just totally read his mind then. Embarrassing. Like usual, Annabeth can see right through him.

“My bad,” Percy admits. “Don’t have the hang of this ‘boyfriend’ thing yet. I guess I do need to chill out.”

“You’ve been doing a good job so far. Minus forgetting about our one-month anniversary and the dinner you promised.”

“Yeah, but I made up for it, right?”

“Hmm. Yes. You could be making it even better right now, though.”

Slowly, her thumb caresses his jawline. Percy’s heart does a pirouette beneath his chest.

Stupidly, he asks, “Uh, like how?”

“By kissing me, fish-and-water guy.”

“Oh... yeah. Gladly. I can make that happen.”

In those shiny black heels that Hermes put her in, Annabeth stands nearly an inch above Percy’s head. He remembers being twelve, thirteen, and annoyed that she was taller than him, annoyed that she was a month older, too, and how she would wield those facts like a sword to defend her superiority. So stupid what bickering little kids rouse themselves into caring about. That kind of distance never mattered. Now, he wouldn’t care if Annabeth were the height of a professional basketball player—because the only distance he concerns himself with is his nearness to her, and how fast that distance can close until her lips are just one beat away from his own.

The cityscape glows. Annabeth’s eyes are riveting. He doesn’t know what to do with this monstrous love for her. It feels too big to be inside of him, like some tangible presence, a whole second being within that neighbors his soul and moves his limbs, as it does right now, hand approaching her hip, arm rounding her waist, crushing the distance between her torso and his, and then, wanting this, Percy finds her lips and kisses them sweetly; their mouths are a show of subtle, hesitating movements. An elevating pulse. Pounding, pounding heartbeat. ‘Calm down,’ he self-assures, ‘don’t go overboard,’ he attempts a second time, but the monstrous love cannot chasten itself; it growls and presses his mouth more firmly, it dares to massage her sensuous hips, it swallows a sigh from Annabeth’s throat. Red cheeks, redder lips, parted open from worsening breathlessness—and a ravenous tongue considers the opportunity: could it romance hers, could its solitude end, could it slip inside of her mouth for the very first time?

Gods, he really wants to.

And if he’s honest with himself, with the way her body feels in his arms, and how exciting it is to feel her chest pressing on his—then her mouth is not the only place that he’s craving access to, for the very first time.

But the hand that strokes her side is trembling, and his breaths are only getting heavier, and he doesn’t know how to kiss using tongue, anyway. Fantasies of the act reside in his head—saliva-ridden tongue writhing, moan echoing moan, his name written on her pleasured exhales—and he knows little of arousing that dream to real life. How awful would it be to injure this romantic evening by showing her what an inexperienced kisser he actually is?

An external force makes the decision for him. On his left, in the river, a cruise boat bursting with dozens and dozens of tourists lets loose a mighty blast of its horn—and they jolt away from each other, shocked and reminded of the whole world surrounding them. The boat sails on. He doesn’t know why it honked like that. Maybe the captain just hates it when American teenagers kiss within sight of his tourists.

A full foot of distance dwells between them now. Annabeth looks as startled and flustered as Percy feels, which affords him some comfort; at least he wasn’t the only one to get immersed so deep in that kiss. Then he remembers where his mind had wandered off to before being found, the imagined pleasure of kissing with tongue—and how maybe, if the night grew long, they could do even more—

“—So, uh, how come you know so much stuff about the Seine?” Percy speaks quickly. Bad thoughts. Bad thoughts. They just started dating four weeks ago. He’s getting way too ahead of himself. “Besides the whole, you know, daughter of Athena thing.”

The girl relaxes her shoulders from their stiff position, inhales, fluffs her hair to correct it, and then exhales. Annabeth returns to his side and scowls at the disappearing cruise boat. She still looks hot, even while grimacing like that.

“... Because I’ve studied lots of major cities and their ecosystems. Architecture is more complicated than just making cool buildings, you have to care about all the surroundings you’re building near. If you don’t, you’ll design a city where domestic sewage goes right into the local rivers...” she says, her eyes trailing toward the Seine. “Like I said, the French government has made gradual improvements. But that won’t ever be me. I refuse to be an architect that makes those mistakes and hurts the environment.”

A surge of affection and attraction for his girlfriend crashes over Percy in one riptide. He’s always been dazzled by Annabeth’s passion and confidence when it comes to architecture. Gods, he’s crazy about her.

“Man, if only they’d let you build the place.” Percy says, taking her hand back into his own.

“I know, and I only missed the application window by a couple of years.” Annabeth jokes. “At least I get Olympus. Of course, the design rules up there are a completely different playing field than the mortal world.”

“Oh, I bet.”

“You have no idea. Olympus is an architect’s dream—I’m telling you, this is going to be my magnum opus. I’m shocked by how much free license the Olympians have given me—and no budget! The gods have spared no expense!” she awes happily. “I still can’t believe how much has changed in the past four years. It feels too good to be true—like my whole life now is a vision from the Sirens, and everything I’ve ever wanted is right in front of me, except...”

“... Except?”

He remembers her Siren vision, even now, with perfect, haunting clarity. Her dreams of redesigning Manhattan—perhaps satisfied by remolding Olympus. How she desired secretly to reunite her father and Athena someday, which would likely never happen, but at least she was happier with her mortal family now. Percy begins to understand what she’s getting at; it’s different than she’d hoped for originally, but in a way, her dreams have still come true, and she seems to have what she truly wanted all along these days.

Except for Luke. He was in her Siren vision, too. And he died right in front of her last month. And Percy can tell by the twinge of pain on her face that she’s thinking about him.

“Annabeth?”

“... Percy, I...”

Her body trembles. She worries her lip and squeezes his hand desperately.

“... I’ve never felt a connection with anyone like I have with you. I used to make myself sick worrying that the prophecy would take you away from me. And now it’s over, and we finally get to be happy together—but I still worry about all the other possibilities. I get these terrible thoughts of everything changing out of nowhere, and they keep me up at night. So don’t... don’t leave me, okay? We’re a team. I need you by my side.”

The pleading notes of her voice, and its sorrowful delivery... he hasn’t seen her this emotional since the final battle on Olympus. Confusion, shock, and concern for her emotions seize Percy all at once. Everything was okay just minutes ago, and now the mere thought of losing him has her shaken up like this?

It might have made him feel important, seeing just how much she cares about him. It should have soothed his anxiety that he would foul up this new relationship and repel Annabeth to the unbearable consequence of losing her forever—and yet all Percy can consider at the moment is the breaking of his heart, and its inward grief that she worries so much, and his desire to mend that gaping wound where the blood of her fears weeps continuously.

Percy takes her, hugs her close. And then he speaks beside her ear, “Hey, hey, don’t get so sad. I’m here right now. We’re together. I’m with you.”

Breath shuddering, the girl shakes her head emphatically. “You’re here right -now-, but you could leave eventually, Percy. You could change your mind about me, or—I don’t know—anything might happen, and you could leave!”

“You are way too important to me for that to ever happen.” He assures with confidence—and then his confidence dips sharply, for a particular phrase itches the lining of his throat, it rasps for air and liberty of self-expression—is nearly swallowed back by prevailing hesitance—and yet it claws upwards still, escaping from his lips in a graceless, bungling leap of faith:

“And I... uh, I... I lo... I love you, so... even if something crazy did happen, I’d still find my way back to you no matter what.”

Boiling self-resentment. Scalding fire on his cheeks. He should throw himself over to the stinking Seine River. Anything to cool down from the embarrassment of admitting his love, for the very first time, in such an awkward, clumsy, uncharismatic manner.

By the look of disbelief on her face, Percy half-suspects that she’s thinking the exact same thing. Contrary to expectation, Annabeth moves in close, and then she kisses him hard.

Stars dance behind his closed eyelids. It’s only a transient kiss, brief as it is powerful, but the stain of it lingers for longer on his lips, which he touches softly using the pad of his fingers. Awed, mesmerized, Percy stares at her speechlessly. The girl is smiling again. She does not look the least bit anguished anymore.

“I love -you-,” Annabeth declares proudly, “and I’ve been waiting a long time to hear you say that.”

Lightning emotion shocks his heart. Fountains jet upwards from the Seine’s dark waters. No mortal misery could conquer joy as heavenly as this, what he feels right now, the elation in his veins, the giddy fervors in his spirit. Did he hear her correctly? Well, there’s love in her eyes—and it shines for him, and it’s clear as day, even on this night. It only took four years to arrive at this mutual conclusion.

Percy rubs the back of his head bashfully. “... I could’ve said it a little smoother than that.”

“You can say it again if you want more practice.”

“I could try, but my heart might fall out of my butt.”

“Okay, don’t do that. You keep it up there.” Her hand idly rubs his lower back—and for a heart-stopping moment, he thinks that she might touch him even lower. Instead, Annabeth takes a deep breath, looking equally as bashful as he does currently. Percy doesn’t know if he’s relieved or disappointed.

“... I freak out like that sometimes,” she explains sheepishly, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I don’t know why it happens. It always comes out of nowhere. If you keep dating me, you might have to get used to it.”

“That’s okay. As long as you’re alright now.” Percy says. He has a feeling that she doesn’t want to dwell on the topic any further, so he attempts to change the subject. “Should we just try to enjoy the rest of our time here? We haven’t got much left.”

Annabeth nods. “Still wanna walk along the Seine? The smell’s not going anywhere.”

“To be honest? Not really. I don’t want my last memory of Paris to be the smell of piss.”

“Me, neither. I would’ve loved to go to the Louvre and see the Athena of Velletri in person, but it was already closed by the time we got here...”

“We could go tomorrow.”

She frowns in confusion. “I thought you said Hermes would teleport us back at midnight. It was five o’clock when we were last in New York, but now, it’s almost twelve in France.”

“He -is- the god of travel. I bet he knows a thing or two about delayed flights.”

“What are you saying?”

Percy clasps his hands together and veers his gaze up to the sky.

“Hey, Hermes? Percy Jackson again. You think you could reschedule our departure to, I dunno, twelve o’clock tomorrow morning? Do me this solid, and I’ll burn a whole baguette as an offering to you at breakfast.”

A spirited blitz of wind sweeps inwards from the south, and on its gust comes a paper rectangle that smacks him hard in the face. Percy grunts and stumbles backwards in confusion. Annabeth laughs at him. Once he gathers himself (and spares a brief glare for his girlfriend), he peels the paper off and finds that it is not only a paper, but a sealed envelope.

The timing is too perfect to be inconsequential. He opens up the envelope with careful hands. There, he finds a letter with the following message, written in black ink ancient Greek text that his brain translates easily:

‘I PREFER BRIOCHE.’

Grinning, Percy shows her the paper. “See? Now you can see the Louvre. We’ll go as soon as the doors open tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, that’s great—except for one issue, Percy.” Annabeth chides. “Where are we going to sleep for the night?”

“Oh, right.” he says. They do still have the Olympus Express credit card. “There’s gotta be a hotel around here that has room for two teenagers on short notice, right?”

“So you want to spend the night at a hotel, just the two of us? Is that what you’re saying?”

His whole face turns red all over again. Percy splutters, “Uh, well—I don’t know. If you’re okay with that. We could get separate rooms, if you want.”

Suddenly, Annabeth can’t seem to meet his eyes. She twirls her hair demurely, staring at her shoes and replying in softer tone, “... Well, you know... that would be more expensive than a single room. If we’re using Hermes’ card, we shouldn’t run up a crazy tab.”

Percy can’t help but feel like an Olympian-tier god isn’t going to spare much sweat over their expenses, but he’s also disinclined to argue with Annabeth’s logic.

“So you wanna share a hotel room tonight? Is that... is that what you want?” Percy asks.

“Is that what -you- want?”

“I asked you first.”

Annabeth huffs. “We’ve slept right by each other a bunch of times on our quests. It was fine back then, so it should be fine for us to sleep together now.”

‘We weren’t dating back then. And we weren’t sleeping in the most romantic city in the world.’ Percy thinks to himself. Nervousness bubbles in his veins. His body is warm despite the soft chill of Parisian night air.

He thinks himself compartmentalized. One half of Percy Jackson is the unsophisticated juvenile; a little boy harassed at school who never mingled with the girls, who never got a Valentine’s card from anyone besides his mother, who’s only sixteen now and doesn’t know too much about relationships or love. The other half is a survivor of the Great Prophecy, the demigod with iron-strong Achillean skin who was mature enough to make decisions yielding consequences for the entire world—so he must be mature enough to handle whatever lies before him now. He should be capable of taking everything the night wants to give, of remembering that he has mortal needs and mortal wants, which he can choose to suppress—or he can recognize the fact that he desires Annabeth, and that he wants to taste her tongue, that he likes it when they hug and he can feel her weighing breasts, and that he’d like to see her naked, and that her touches leave him breathless...

Maybe he’s ready to go all the way with her. Maybe he isn’t. At the very least, Percy knows for certain that his body wants hers; no denying or distorting that fact. What a scary thing to think about.

And thus, the scarier issue: what is Annabeth thinking? Does she want him back? Has she ever thought about it? Percy has no idea. It’s too frightening to ask.

“Okay, uh...” The boy gulps. His hands have gotten too sweaty. For now, he’ll just try to not make it obvious that he’s thinking about sex, or that he’s thrilled by the possibility of having it tonight. “Then let’s find a hotel.”

—

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—

He was already groaning on the first thrust inside.

“Annabeth...” Percy whispered her name dreamily, smoothing his hand along her thigh. Only an inch had made it in. He was pushing in slow, relishing the sensation, biting his lip—groaning again, arriving at the second inch and closing his eyes. “Ugh... fuck...”

And he was standing just behind her. Her hands were flat against the wall. She spoke to him in a soft, sultry voice, “Feels good, Percy?”

“Yeah...” he admitted in a trembling, breathy exhale. “... Gods, I just wanna grab you and fuck you ‘til you—”

“Slow down, Seaweed Brain. Don’t forget the rules that I asked you to follow.”

The rules, he bemoaned internally. A.K.A., your evil master plan. Right.

A quaint bedroom had been found on the second floor of the Son Marroig mansion. Thin white sheets were cast over much of its furnishings and various power tools were scattered over the ground, which led him to believe that this was one of the rooms undergoing repairs, hence the temporary closing of the museum.

Annabeth had been quick to escalate—opening the door to the room, closing it shut, seizing his lips with a turbulent kiss and ravishing his tongue like it was hers for the taking—and he loved her for this, he loved being able to pay it right back, full-fervored in her mouth, saliva dripping as he groaned, hugging her body needily, hands grabbing ass, groins chafing, lusty sucking of the tongue, names rasped in companion with swear words and filthy promises. It was over when she stole her mouth from his and squeezed his fast erection, saying, “Take it out, Percy,” and like the words were a charmspeaker’s requisition, he nodded at her dumbly and slid his pants below his hips.

But then they slowed rapidly. While stroking him at a torturous pace, she pronounced that she had no intention of fucking him in the way that he probably wanted. Panting with animalistic pleasure, watching her breasts trounce in her blue bralette as she moved her hand, Percy somehow managed to listen to Annabeth’s stipulations:

Rule one: no touching the furniture. What they were doing right now was not only highly illegal, but probably immoral—to fornicate on a dead Archduke’s property. It was the least they could do to keep the place clean (which wasn’t difficult, given the white sheets everywhere). For this reason, they’d have to do it standing up. Percy would rather bend her over a table or something, but they couldn’t do that. Wall sex was good, too.

Rule two: though he was necessarily doing all of the work, she was calling the shots, so he’d have to listen to her. He thought her bossy side was sexy, so he didn’t mind that, either.

Rule three, the most devastating of its kind: he wasn’t allowed to use more than two-and-a-half inches of his dick. This was the unendurable restriction that he had protested immediately—‘Seriously? Two-and-a-half? Why? At least let me use four.’—but the mastermind did not relent, and for further arguments, see rule number two again.

And now, her tight shorts and underwear were still looped around her upper thighs, pulled down the minimum amount for him to access her lower lips. By his own estimation, Percy was now inside of her as much as the rules allowed—and if his estimate was wrong, Annabeth would notice and withdraw her hips accordingly. She was facing the wall and bracing herself with her hands. He was holding her sides and panting in frustration. Just two-and-a-half inches. Little more than the head. No doubt about it—she wanted to drive him insane, and it was already working.

“I can’t even do anything,” he complained. “No way this is any good for you.”

“Haven’t I reminded you enough times that we’re focusing on you, not me?” Annabeth chided. “And since when are you this narrow-minded? You know the saying. It’s not the size of the boat that’s most important, it’s the motion in the ocean. So get moving, ocean boy.”

The retaliatory impulse was to shove himself all the way inside for that remark—but he didn’t, and he wouldn’t. Percy agreed to her rules. She was challenging him to make do with her agonizing limitations; to what extent he could, Percy truly wasn’t sure. But it was tempting, in a way. Could he make it good for both of them using only that much of his full length?

Percy fastened his hand over her hip. “Alright, then. Your rules. Tell me how you want it, Annabeth.”

She glanced over her shoulder, eyes leering and rapacious, lips acquired by a subtle, pleased smirk. Only one syllable was her torrid reply.

“Slow.”

The word reverberated all throughout him like rippling waves of sonar. Percy followed her instruction, and he didn’t hesitate, giving Annabeth exactly what she wanted: a gradual withdrawal of the glans, and then a soft, unhurried push back inside of her. They sighed in unison when he did it again.

A while had gone since he last entered her; intensely he had missed the feel of her body... it was the heat, and her pillowy walls, her tender, squeezing, slicken sex. Gods. The slow withdrawal and slower relapse. Like he was massaging only the sensitive tip with her heat. The neglected remainder craved deep penetration. But he followed her rules. Soft, slow thrusts. Two inches over and over and over.

A whisper of a moan from her lips. “Oh, Percy...”

“Annabeth...” His eyes were closed. Soft, slow thrusts over and over. “... fuck...”

An ache was gathering steadily within. He could keep this up for now, but pleasure was catching, and the sparks were risking destructive fires. Her mewls inflamed the growing arson; it burned so good, but it wasn’t enough. Percy wanted the scorch, the unbearable heat, and to bury himself in the full warmth of her interiors. Grunts rasped in his throat. Twists of frustration on his brow. As he gritted his teeth through his slow thrusts and the hot soak of her walls, a powerful shudder coursed through his groin. The whole length of his dick was throbbing from pent-up desire. Already was his lust incensed from the fevers of yesterday—when she kissed him breathless in the hallway, when she sent that lewd swimsuit picture, when she touched his thigh beneath the table at dinner—and now, his fiery want for her physical love was stoked tenfold by this maddening tease of soft, slow strokes, two inches over and over and over.

“Annabeth,” Percy grunted her name, squeezed her hips a little tighter. “Can I...”

Palms pressed against the wall, panting faintly, she looked to him and delivered another scorching command. “Can you what? Use your words, Percy.”

The words risked disappearance from his mouth. It was embarrassing to speak his request so directly.

Percy huffed, and then he managed, “... Can I put it all the way in now?”

“No,” she teased. “But you can go faster.”

The immediate compulsion was to disobey. He was the one doing the work, after all, and it would be so easy to take that delicious plunge and fuck her until her breaths went ragged—or he could reverse the torture, he could fill her with his cock and slowly massage her delicate clit, stirring up her insides while he kissed her on her neck, pleasuring her just enough to feel good but not enough to go stupid with lust or ascend the sweltering peaks of climax. Only his inner will kept him from acting out the dirty images. He effaced the debaucherous scenes from his thoughts. Gritted teeth. Tightening grip on her sides. And then he released a beleaguered exhale. He’d resolved to follow her lead for today. How pathetic would it be if he abandoned his intentions and succumbed already to his usual impertinence?

“... Faster,” he repeated. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

And so, readily, Percy doubled his pace—and instantly, it was so gratifying. He was shocked by the augmented pleasure, the great difference that it made just to rut his hips faster using only two-and-a-half inches of himself. He started breathing heavier. Low grunts became intemperate moans. The pace of his strokes doubled over again, and soon he was losing himself; cussing and biting his lip, holding back the excluded inches but hardly holding back anything else. Percy leaned forward until his front met her back, and then he grabbed onto her bouncing chest from behind—which siphoned a dizzying cry from his lover; he could almost feel her hips stirring, wanting more, that she loathed her own rules but was fighting herself to uphold their integrity. Encouragements aired from her lips—“Yes, yes, oh Percy, that’s good—” and he moaned his delirious replies, “Annabeth, ngh, fuck, you’re so hot—” and the heat, the wetness, all were exquisite torturings. The river of his lust was swelling upwards. Its roaring waters teemed, threatening an overflow, threatening to carry him away to glorious climax—but these threats, they were hollow. It was so close, it was almost enough, but he needed more pleasure. He needed deeper penetration. Even one more inch might kill him succinctly.

Teeth-gritting ecstasy. Red, bleeding prurience. These ephemeral strokes were destroying him fast, and he wanted to come even more desperately than ever thought possible. It had been so long since he’d known that bliss; every single time that Percy got this far, he was foiled by his body for no reason at all, hopes riven, his arousal insufferably lorn—but maybe this time, this time, just once, if he kept going, he wouldn’t have to weather that shame, nor would he disappoint himself and Annabeth again.

He gasped, he grunted, he clutched her breast more intensely. “Annabeth—fuck—oh, fuck!”

The other hand squeezed her thigh. His hips bucked even faster. She tilted back her head and moaned vocally, “Oh, gods, Percy!”

And then, without meaning to, in the headiness of sweltering arousal, his eyes glanced toward the bedroom window; a faint glimmer of consciousness resurged, and then Percy remembered where he was.

A mansion where anyone could walk in, nestled in the wilds of the Serra de Tramuntana, in the harrowing woods where malignant forces might lurk. Beyond the Balearic was the infested Mare Nostrum, and further still were the parlous Ancient Lands—Greece, old Rome, and even the hellish pit into which they had fallen nine years ago, splashing hard onto the miserable haunts of the River Cocytus. All were near, all were remembered, and all were feasibly injurious.

“Okay, that’s—nnh,” Annabeth winced, staggering slightly. Her hand reached backwards and stifled his hips. “That’s enough for now. Let’s get going.”

“... Huh?” Percy mumbled dazedly. “Wait, what? You wanna stop now?”

“Yes. I was timing us in my head. We’ve done this long enough, so we should make our way back to Hazel and Frank.”

She drew herself back, such that Percy’s mere two-and-a-half inches slipped out of her easily. He grunted as she moved away, already missing the rapturous warmth of her body. Was she really being serious? All that, just for neither one of them to actually finish in the end?

“Annabeth, are you...” he wheezed, “... trying to, I don’t know, kill me, or...?”

He saw the tempting glistens of lust between her thighs for one last second, and then they were vanished; she brought her panties and athletic shorts back up to her hips, then pulled her shirt down over her torso again.

The blonde explained, “No, Percy—this is the plan. I’m pushing you on purpose. The idea is that you’ll get so pent-up that you have to come. And you must be feeling pretty riled up after this, right?”

He pulled his pants back up, still feeling rather dazed from everything. Percy wasn’t sure where exactly his head was at at this point, but even as he softened gradually below the hips, conscious of the fact that it was all over now, the hunger wrought from lack of satisfaction lingered within. Maybe even more than usual.

“Yeah, I guess so?” he replied.

“That’s good!” she rejoiced. “Then we’ll keep following my plan. I knew this would work—and this vacation was the perfect time to try it. There’s no work, no distractions out here. We can focus fully on you for once.”

He was glad that she was so excited about this (any positive emotion was better than disappointment or frustration), but Percy wasn’t sure that he was ready to start celebrating just yet. His doubts had little to do with her plan, which, from all angles, was at least worth attempting to fruition; rather, he just thought it was a risky gamble to bet against his ability to mess things up.

In the aftermath, they tidied up the bedroom to the best of their combined abilities, then attended the bathroom mirrors so as to straighten their mussed appearances. They exited the building soon thereafter, but still spared time to enjoy a quick rest at the outdoor pavilion. No lusty shenanigans ensued, only quiet enjoyment of the azure welkin up above and the mountain verdure spread peacefully beneath it.

The glorious serenities before him allowed Percy more clear-headed assessment of his internal workings. For one, he was undeniably agitated—as though inside of him were an unscratched itch, a story discontinued before its proper resolution. He was still thinking about sex, and how he wanted to have it. The embers of his ardent desires were glowing ebullient red, and they were certainly reactive; little prodding would be necessary to ignite the coals in billowing flames once more.

Secondly, he was worried about Hazel and Frank. He hoped they’d made it back to civilization in one piece. Like himself, Hazel was a demigod child of the Big Three pantheon—and even Frank had Poseidon buried in his lineage. In other words, they were hiking through a thick forest with a powerful scent, one that monsters would gladly observe and pursue. His Roman friends were strong, they could fend for themselves. He knew this, of course. But confidence in their powers did little to obstruct the dark concerns wading through his mind’s peripheral.

Still gazing over the view with Annabeth, Percy examined his thoughts. Combined, these emotions—his lust, and his fear—were now laid before him in a singular shape; the result thus observed was a most disturbing and cryptic alloy.

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Having found a modest hotel that would rent to two teenagers on such short notice, they’ve settled down for the night.

Hermes had sequestered their belongings in a little backpack (their camp bead necklaces, their laundered clothes, etc). Normally, Percy would just go to bed in his boxer-briefs and nothing else, but he can’t bring himself to do that here, in the company of Annabeth—so he changes out of his suit and tie and puts his old shirt back on. Annabeth chooses to wear a soft bathrobe courtesy of the hotel. Teeth brushed, bodies showered, and then before they know it, it’s time to go to sleep. Together.

The decision to sleep in the same bed had been a mutual one, motivated largely by a mutual unwillingness to openly acknowledge the danger of doing so. They didn’t need a room with two beds; accommodations like that would cost Hermes even more money, and they were mature enough to handle sharing a mattress—only they weren’t mature enough to say the quiet part out loud. As they near the bed, the ‘quiet part’ screams and thrashes in the cage of Percy’s thoughts. He’s too nervous to let the inmate roam free. And is it even worth talking about? Maybe she hasn’t brought it up because the topic is too perverse for her. The last thing he wants is to make her feel uncomfortable.

A comfortable bed awaits the two of them. The curtains are closed, and only twin bedside lamps keep the hotel room modestly lit. He’s about to sit down, when a sudden, sharp pain bites into his upper back.

“Ow!”

Annabeth comes to his side in a heartbeat. “Percy? What happened?”

“Ugh...” He grimaces and touches his shoulders. “It’s the back pain. Still hits me out of nowhere after holding up the freaking sky.”

“Ugh, I know. That’s the worst. I get that too, sometimes.” She lays her hand on his back, beginning to steadily rub his muscles. “But wait... how are you still getting back pain? You have the Curse of Achilles. Aren’t you supposed to be immune?”

“I don’t think it stops me from having pain on the inside.”

“Well, that sucks.”

“Yeah.”

Seconds in silence pass. She’s still rubbing his back through the fabric of his shirt.

“... Um, Annabeth?”

“What?”

“You’re touching me.”

Annabeth blushes. Her tone grows defensive. “I know that, Percy. I’m just rubbing your back a little.”

Now he’s blushing just as much her. “Weren’t we going to bed?”

“We will, after I give you a little massage. You’ll sleep better.”

“But I’m fine now. You don’t have to do that.”

“Let me help you. I’m great at these.”

Having declared herself to be skilled in the art, it seems to him that she now has an interest in proving the assertion to be true. He doesn’t have a good reason to protest, and it’s not like he doesn’t want his girlfriend to touch him, so... it’s probably okay. Chances are it won’t lead to anything else.

“Should I take off my shirt?” Percy asks.

“Oh.” She sounds taken aback. “... Yes. You should take off your shirt. It’s better that way.”

The shirt comes off. He discards it on the floor. Dim lamps cast soft light over his naked upper body; shadows curve in the grooves of his faint-but-visible abs, the lean muscles of his arms, the subtle protrusion of his pecs. Percy doesn’t think much of his own physique—which is to say, he just doesn’t think about it, and has never much considered how desirable it is. Now, given how Annabeth is eyeing his form in total silence, he’s starting to feel self-conscious.

“What?”

Annabeth splutters, “I—I wasn’t staring at you.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

The girl scowls. “Just sit down, already.”

His rear lands on the edge of the bed. Annabeth takes position just behind him.

And when her hands touch his neck, brushing the flesh softly and flowing onward to his trapezius, Percy exhales lowly and closes his eyes.

Careful fingertips press firmly in the muscle. Dexterous circles are massaged into his skin. She seems to know what to do, where to go, and her hands are strong enough to knead and stroke him with thorough dedication, to get deep into the muscles and the knots, to hunt and soothe the points of soreness. Minutes go by like this.

She is skilled with her hands, that’s for certain, but he’s starting to wish that he had turned her down. The massage is great—he just can’t focus on how nice it feels when a beautiful girl is touching him this much. His breath shudders audibly as she smooths a flat palm over his shoulder blade. Too much of his blood is rising to his face (as well as another regrettable region) and he’s starting to get worried that he’ll pass out soon from how nervous he is.

“This position isn’t good,” Annabeth says suddenly. “It’s hard for me to go lower. Can you lay down on your stomach instead?”

He answers without thinking, “Uh, okay.”

Percy lays down on the bed as she asked. Annabeth, too, begins to reposition, and for a heart-stopping moment, he wonders if she’s going to sit on the backs of his upper thighs or something—because masseuses do that sometimes, don’t they? But she doesn’t, and only positions herself on his left side. His overactive imagination will be the death of him.

The massage proceeds still. He can feel how attentive and caring she is. The rough of her thumbs burrow in Percy’s afflicted tissues and solace their woes with slow tenderness, which draws more shuddering sighs from his lips. He tries his best to level his breathing. Illicit thoughts are not welcome right now; he should not be making something dirty out of this act. He should focus on how good this feels. Has he ever been pampered like this before?

“I’ve been a little rough with you,” she states after more minutes in silence. “Does this hurt?”

“No,” he replies calmly. “Massages usually hurt a little bit, and they still feel good. But because of the curse, what you’re doing doesn’t hurt me at all, so...”

“... So?”

‘So, it doesn’t hurt. It only feels good.’

He nearly says it out loud. Percy swallows a lump in his throat.

“So...” he continues carefully. “I’m just saying you don’t have to worry about hurting me. I’m fine.”

“How much do you feel what I’m doing, then? I’ve been meaning to study the ramifications of your curse. Are you getting anything out of this?”

“Uh—yes. Definitely yes. I mean, anything you do to me is gonna feel good, so...”

“... So? What’s with you trailing off your sentences over and over?”

He buries his face in a pillow. Muffled, he grumbles, “Give me a break, alright? It’s hard to think straight with you touching me like this...”

Her entire body freezes for a moment—he can feel her stiffen up without looking back. Did he say something wrong? Another lump in Percy’s throat. His pounding heart is starting to aggrieve his ribcage.

“... You don’t have to think,” she responds softly. “I’ll stop asking questions. You can just relax now.”

... He wasn’t expecting a reply like that.

That ‘relaxation’ is a thing he can enjoy now is still difficult to understand. The past four years of demigod hellishness were preceded by over a decade of mortal miseries. He recalls how he struggled in elementary school, how he’d get banished to the principal’s office for being too hyper to sit still in class, and how embarrassing it was when teachers called on him to read written phrases on the board—and he couldn’t—and there was always some jerk that derided him for it. He remembers every time he fought back against those bullies, every subsequent expulsion from school, every tremble of grief that he’d let his mom down, every rifle of anger for his cruel ex-stepfather—all of it. Those were his first twelve years. And then the following four brought anguish and violence unlike any nightmare Percy could have ever dreamed up.

He almost feels sorry for himself.

Now, a month has gone by since the end of the Great Prophecy. He doesn’t believe that he’ll ever get to have a truly normal life, but the worst of it has passed. He can stop holding his breath. He can stop worrying about the future. For the first time ever, Percy can finally enjoy his life with the people that he loves.

‘You can just relax now,’ Annabeth said. It sounds true in her voice, so he listens to her.

Percy’s shoulders untense. His muscles loosen up. Annabeth’s hands roam over his back, rubbing him, assuring him, and her touch feels good. It’s only a massage, but it doesn’t feel completely innocent. This is the kind of love that’s burned hot in his dreams and left him breathless in the morning, sweating and aching and throbbing for more. He’s had so many of those dreams where he takes off his clothes, she takes off hers, and then he gets on top of her, kissing her slow, stomachs touching, hips roving over and over and over til it’s past midnight and he’s gasping her name, she’s sighing his own, and they finish together in a mess of sweat and limbs and tongues and moans. He doesn’t know what she really thinks about sex, he doesn’t know anything of her sexual side, but one whisper of permission from those lips, and he thinks that he’d be ready for anything tonight.

The girl’s hands journey lower. Soon her fingertips are nearing the small of his back—and on instinct, his hips twitch, body stiffens in defense. Is she going to massage him down there, too?

Breath hitched, Percy warns quietly, “Careful, Annabeth. That’s my...”

She nods assuringly. “I know. I’m being careful, I won’t hurt you.”

Her hands glide from his back to his sides, holding his body gingerly. And then, unexpectedly, he feels her body lowering towards him, blonde tresses brushing bare skin—and those lips that he loves so much come close, even closer, and press a soft, warm kiss directly on his weak spot. The pleasure that he feels goes beyond starlight, moonbeams, all the heavens above, and spirits him away to ethereal bliss like he’s never known before. 

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Morning carried on slowly to the late afternoon. A bloated itinerary involved constant group activities, the usual sort of an island holiday: the guided tapas tour, the stroll through Old Town, lounging on the beach together, where he’d offered more embarrassing bedroom advice for Frank (and had those two made up after the dance incident and the storm last night? It seemed like they were in a great mood today, so maybe they had, but Percy didn’t want to ask). This was all for which Percy had hoped of their vacation, an opportunity to let loose and have fun with his friends, thinking little of his troubles and the risk of a monster assault—but there was a hidden operation buried in the folds of that itinerary. Annabeth was driving him mad, and she was not being gentle.

All throughout the day, the woman teased and prodded at him. She would find him from behind and close her hands over his form, seeming innocent enough, and then she’d kiss his neck, lick his ear, dip her fingers in his waistband without touching it directly. She would steal him from the group, pull him in a quiet alleyway, kiss him stupid, rough her thigh against groin—and abandon him only seconds later, leaving him with the burden of the stiffness in his pants. ‘Just say the word, Percy,’ she whispered coolly through the day, ‘Tell me when you can’t take it anymore, and we can do it in any position you want this time.’ Her eyes flirted with his constantly, grinning slyly with those alluring sparks of gray—and even this was agitating him. He found himself watching closely when she opened her mouth, when she drank from a straw, when a spoon met her lips, which made him feel ridiculous—but everything she did now was exciting his lust, to the point that he couldn’t pay attention to anything that wasn’t her body or his steady eagerness to foist her over his shoulder, take her to the hotel room, and savage her until the whole staff from the roof to the lobby knew his name.

If this method of torture ended up successful, he doubted his ability to handle it a second time. What Percy suffered now wasn’t immature desire. He was leashed at the neck like a dog to his arousal. Any tugging of the collar and he’d move in its direction. An overzealous ear listened close for its demands, and his palms were made ready for excessive delegations. Annabeth was by his side, and he wanted her with exigent intensity. Fantasies of pleasure led a dictator reign over his thoughts, and his whole person begged that the lustful images would rouse to animation in real life.

Time came for a group attendance of the spa amenities affixed to the resort. It was there that Annabeth’s plot, and their simple holiday, having reached its boiling point, pivoted harshly to an alternative direction.

“Er... is it okay if I don’t really want to try any of these?”

The quartet was gathered in the lobby and observing the pamphlets that detailed all available services—or rather, most of them were. Percy was of his own mind, staring at Annabeth’s long, slender legs, tan and bare beneath those short denim shorts that she wore so often. He was thinking about pushing them back, holding them high over his shoulders as he plunged inside of her over and over and over—

“You don’t want to try any of them?” Annabeth asked in response to Hazel’s question. “But there’s lots of interesting beauty treatments you could do. If you get the ‘Azalea Package’, they’ll do a clogged pore extraction and a bee sting deep-tissue scalp treatment.”

“Um, no thanks, I’m good.” Hazel spoke.

“I kinda feel the same...” Frank agreed. “All these packages say something about a ‘cactus massage’. I don’t really want to be massaged with a cactus.”

“What is this, a Roman thing? You guys need to relax.” Annabeth said. “You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to, but me and Percy are gonna get the Couple’s Special Treatment package. Isn’t that right, Percy?”

“... Huh? Oh.” Percy answered dazedly. What was everyone talking about? He had no idea. “Uh, yeah. What she said.”

Frank glanced at his watch. “Well, it’s four-thirty right now. Why don’t you guys go enjoy the spa, and we’ll meet back up in two, maybe three hours?”

Annabeth smiled and nodded. “Deal.”

Frank and Hazel exited the building. Annabeth took his hand in hers, brokered a deal of some kind with the lobby attendant, and then began to lead him down a pristine, well-decorated spa hallway. The flowery scents in the air would have been overpowering, but Percy’s nose fixated on the smell of her hair, fresh from strawberry shampoo after swimming at the beach, and yet the faint aroma of the sea still wandered in the air as she moved.

“In here,” she pointed to a closed door in the hallway. With the turn of a key, Annabeth led the way inside.

In comparison to the rest of the luxuriant resort spa, this particular room was veritably minimalistic. It was spacious, but it didn’t feel underfurnished in the slightest. Cider brown walls enclosed the room in a box-like shape. Potted gardenias sat in all of its corners, and at its farthest backside was a row of sleek wooden cabinets on the floor, on top of which resided several voltage candles and a shiny bronze sink. A sizable massage bed was stationed in the center of the room with soft, cream blankets and a single roll-shaped pillow. The single pendant light fixture suspended from the ceiling wept a gentle golden glow over the scene, but its reach was faint, and so their surroundings remained dim—but it was peaceful nonetheless, making for, in his unprofessional estimation, an atmosphere conducive to a relaxing massage environment.

Through the hazy weather of his inarticulate thoughts, he was visited by a single wind of lucidity. “Wait, we’re getting a massage now?”

Annabeth approached a metal tray in the corner of the room and found a lighter. “Well, we are in a spa.” she replied casually.

“There’s only one bed,” he acknowledged. “Who’s going first?”

“You are. Go ahead and lay down. And take off your shirt while you’re at it.”

“Uh, alright. Cool.”

As he undressed and approached the bed, Annabeth found the candles on the cabinets and set them aflame with the lighter. Their shadows flickered on the wall, and the smell of rosewood and springtime soon filled up the room.

Percy took a deep breath. He was only sitting on the bed, not laying down yet. If he’d been paying more attention, he likely wouldn’t have agreed to come in for a massage. After a full half-day of messing around with Annabeth in secret, all he yearned for was some private time between the two of them. The only hands that he wanted on his body were hers, and he wasn’t particularly enthused by the concept of some masseuse feeling her up, either.

She was coming back to his side when her phone started ringing suddenly, disrupting the calm atmosphere with its bright, bouncing default tone. The blonde clicked her tongue and stared at the screen with low eyebrows and a frown on her lips.

“Ah... it’s my stepmom.”

Her stepmom?

Percy then remembered something she’d said yesterday, after the jet ski ride, when he brought her undersea to the meadow of Neptune’s grass. Mr. and Mrs. Chase were both ‘mad at her’—and he didn’t know why, because she said at the time that she didn’t want to talk about it. Whatever the problem was, he assumed that circumstances probably had not improved in the past twenty-four hours.

Concerned, Percy asked, “Everything okay?”

An exhausted sigh. “... It’s fine. I’ll deal with it later.”

After a few seconds, her cell stopped ringing. Maybe Mrs. Chase dropped the call, or maybe Annabeth hung up on her. Percy knew by the melancholic look on her face that she was troubled by the call, and that still, she wouldn’t want him to dig for more details.

He made a mental note of this occurrence nonetheless. In half a year, her family would become his mortal in-laws—Mr. Chase, Mrs. Chase, and Annabeth’s little brothers, Bobby and Matthew. Beyond his consideration for Annabeth’s well-being, Percy had all the more reason to concern himself with the affairs of the Chase family for the future.

“Anyways,” she began, “I think that’s enough candles to set the mood. You can lay down on your front now.”

“I can wait. Do you know when the masseuse is coming in?”

“She’s already here, Percy. Don’t you remember? I’m great at massages.”

The realization settled quickly. She had the same mischievous look in her eyes with which she’d aggressed him for the entire day.

“Let me guess. This was all part of the plan?” he asked with a raised brow, impressed by her antics.

“Mhm. I’ve handled everything—the masseuse is on break, but I asked for the room key so we can wait here until they’re ready.”

His hands reached forward and rested on her waist. “What if someone walks in?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan in case anything happens. Why don’t you let me worry about that stuff,” her fingers lifted his chin, softly caressed his jawline, “and relax while I give you a massage?”

Again, he was smitten with the look in her eyes, and thrilled by the prospect now laid out before him. Even the small provocation of Annabeth touching his face was fanning the embers of his idled desires.

He couldn’t help himself, so he leaned forward and kissed her briefly. “Have I ever told you that it’s hot when you do risky stuff like this?”

“What can I say? You were right, what you said earlier. We used to be a lot more wild when we were younger. I need to come back to the ‘old Annabeth’. This vacation is the perfect time to start letting loose again.”

She motioned for him to lay down, so he positioned himself flat on the bed with his bare back exposed. Her hands started with his deltoids, caressing the tissue softly. Soon they were massaging his neck, the taut muscles between his shoulder blades. Minutes flew by; he was slowly immersing himself in the pleasure of her touch as well as the sweet twinges of pain. Percy felt a little bad to receive so much attention. Maybe he could massage her, too, after he’d gotten his turn.

With time, his lower back became the focus. The longer that she touched him, the more his thoughts were trespassed by indecent images. Her massage had been straightforward thus far—but he wondered, was she going to fool around with him again? She definitely would, right? The suspense was nagging at him hard. Percy hadn’t expected that his itching horniness would become so severe that he’d start actively craving her maddening teases.

A lone thumb neared the small of his back. After a while in silence, Annabeth cooed, “... You used to be so sensitive here, back when you still had the curse.”

“It’s still a little sensitive.” Percy explained. “Waaay less than it was before. But it still is, just a little bit.”

“Mm.” A finger traced the spot without touching it directly. “Do you remember that night in Paris?”

“Oh, I remember. I’ll never forget that.”

“You know, I was waiting for you to make a move on me. We could have gone all the way that night. I was more than willing to.”

“Really?”

“Definitely. And I dropped plenty of hints that went right over your head,” Annabeth sighed, “but I’m glad we didn’t go that far until we were a little older. All that waiting, all that buildup, all that anticipation to get what you want... kind of makes it more exciting when you finally get it, don’t you think?”

Her thumb was stroking the small of his back, and it felt distractingly good—so good that he was too addle-minded to think of a response.

“... Uh...”

A firmer thumb massaged slow, deep circles into the same spot. Air fled from his lungs in a shaky exhale. Wincing, Percy dug his nails into the bed. A strong reaction was forming in his pants, and it was aching more and more for the penultimate pleasure—the loosening of tension, the indulgent release from which he’d been stalled longer than his only-mortal body could bear. He had to hold himself back from grinding up against the bed just to taste even a morsel of life-giving satisfaction.

Annabeth leaned back. Her hands returned to her sides. “Percy, can you turn around for me?”

It was the most he could do to comply. His consciousness was limited; thoughts of coherence and articulate words were a decadent expense that he could no longer afford.

He was laying on his back now. His eyes were half-lidded and his breaths were shallow. Annabeth kissed his collarbone, his sternum, his abs, and his body twitched at every touch. Her lips traveled lower, lower, lower, laid still, and then she unbuttoned his jeans.

She’s... she’s really gonna...

“Percy...” she whispered warningly, “... this is riskier than usual. Are you okay with this?”

Green met gray. She was blushing and breathing as heavily as he was. If Percy weren’t so riven by the claws of his desire, he might not have been able to overcome his hesitance, to look her in the eyes, and pronounce with clarity his lustful affirmation.

“... Yeah. I want you to.”

She nodded, and then she slipped the waistbands down. The son of Poseidon held his breath.

“... Oh, Annabeth...”

Hot, salivating tongue on the sensitive tip.

He shut his eyes instantly and groaned from the sensation. First tongue, then lips, and then he was an inch inside her mouth. She didn’t take him any deeper just yet, but her fingers enclosed around the base and began to stroke him softly as she sucked. His need for this was so immense. Every flicker of her tongue was a nuclear event; the reaction was a heat wave trembling through his soul. Not a glacier could withstand a rush so hot, nor could Percy stand the torrid gale that breezed throughout his valleys. It flowed and burned warm color at his cheeks, it was brushing all his sensitive spots, and Percy gasped from every lick and each suck. This was ungodly satisfaction already, and there seemed to be a rapture waiting for him on her lips.

“... fuck...” Percy groaned under his breath. Another soft suckle on the tip and he was fighting not to moan openly and thrust into her mouth. Shakily, hips squirming, he rasped out her name again, “Annabeth..."

“You like this, don’t you, Percy.”

Her voice sung too confidently for the phrase to be a question.

“You look like you’re already gonna come, so I’m probably right.”

She resumed her fairy-like pleasures, which made it still so difficult to talk; he had to throttle his lust for mastery of his intelligence. Percy slotted a performative smirk onto his lips, though its curl was noticeably strained. “Wh... who, me? I’m not even close.”

Muffled, she spoke with the glans still on her tongue. “Sure, not even close.”

“Don’t... don’t believe me? This is nothing. But, I dunno, you could take it deeper in your mouth. Or I could—” As her mouth kissed and sucked softly on the tip, saliva coursed down the full length—which enabled her to jerk him even harder. The speed was unforgiving. Percy choked on his words. “Could—gh—fuck, that’s—fast...!”

Her fist kept pace. “But I shouldn’t stop, right?”

His toes curled, he threw his head back onto the pillow, he clenched his fingers harder in the edge of the bed. The burning tempo of her fast-moving fist was releasing through his body such a sweet and agonizing pleasure. To finally have his awful aches massaged, his throbs met with wet tongue and a dexterous hand, was the greatest accolade she could bestow upon his person. His face twisted from her motions, eyelids fluttering, hips thrusting into her palm as she lavished him in her affection.

What could he do? The thought of her stopping now was too horrible to bear. Percy had no course but to swallow his reservations and confirm, “Don’t stop, Annabeth...”

This was the charmed phrase that seemed to bolster her fervency. A guttural moan sounded from her throat as she fellated him deeper—a second, third, and fourth inch all at once, bobbing her head, sucking him—and her mouth was so hot—and then anarchy ensued among his frenzied nerve endings; it was chaos everywhere, his insides, his heartbeat, his cock pulsing faster than he could even count its throbs, and now his hips demanded that they buck into her mouth, and he could not reject their whims, and so he doled out small thrusts in tandem with her efforts, grinding up and down against that slippery tongue—and now he felt objectionably selfish; he couldn’t let his hedons skyrocket this high without reciprocating something.

“Annabeth,” he quavered breathlessly, “let me... let me touch you back. I can—”

“No. Relax, Percy.” Oral withdrawn, her palm smoothed lovingly over his thigh as she adored his length with sparse, lightweight kisses. “What I want is for you to lay there and take it. All you need to do is relax and focus on how good this feels.”

She reapplied her lips to the glans languidly, at rest for some moments, and his everything shuddered in anticipation for more. He really needed this—all the sex that she was offering to him, and yet he still wanted to give her satisfaction in return. If only she would join him on the bed and get on top of him. He could make something useful of his lolling, drooling tongue and kiss her pussy. He could finger her while she swallowed his cock and exalt this pleasure into something mutual—but she was urging him to let her do all of the work, and to prioritize her simple request:

Focus on how good this feels.

Could he do it? Banish all distractions, all his want for influence, and let himself vacation on her tongue? Percy tilted back his neck. She resumed once again. And he challenged himself to relish every last sensation:

Saliva dripping on the underside of his arousal. Her tongue’s papillae. The scalding fever in her mouth. The subtle gulps and twitchings of her jaw and the sweet vibrations when she moaned on the tip—and his green eyes swiveled to the back of his head, lips croaked out her name as his senses overloaded. It must be sex on Annabeth’s tongue; not the act but the cosmic power of the word, the unknowable workings that besoul mortal lust as irresistible and sorcerous as this. She wanted him to let his inhibitions melt, and for his needs to dock only at the harbor of her lips, and he wanted her to let him deep inside the back of her throat, and then he cussed like a sailor when she read his mind and did exactly as he wished. Sinuous caresses from her tongue like waves that massage the stiff hull of a boat. Plenteous waters in her mouth that trickled down slowly from her chin onto her neck. If Percy anchored himself in how good this felt, could he at last curb his body from its usual mutiny?

But a spa attendant could force their way into the room. Any monster could come knocking on the door. A bronze cannonball could fire off and crash through the wall. And—gods, Annabeth’s mouth, she was really sucking him, bobbing her head faster and deeper. More scandalizing licks from her tongue. His legs trembled from the building, winding tension in his body, but she held his thighs in place.

Focus on how good this feels.

It was too difficult to even speak. “Feels—nngh—fuck, I—”

Soft, hot tongue laving over his sack and his breath hitched. Percy knew it then and there—this was the ceiling of his body’s limitations. He couldn’t take it anymore, he couldn’t think of anything—thought after thought crashed into his pleasure like vehicular collisions; agitated nerves and mind-numbing sensations were at war within his body; he had no sense of anything but his desire to feel good. Annabeth deepthroated him again, every single throbbing inch—and it was sloppy this time, and she moaned raggedly—and he shouted out another breathless expletive. The faucet in the back of the room trembled and erupted. Water spewed chaotically from its broken pipe. Percy didn’t give a fuck. Neither did Annabeth.

“Fuck—fuck, fuck, haah—!”

He was stupid, incoherent, couldn’t form a proper sentence, couldn’t keep his eyes open, couldn’t stop his hips from writhing. Percy’s brows were tight from strain, drool whined from his lips. More licking, more sucking—gods, he was about to come. Heavy, inward thrusts diseased his hips. He pushed up into her mouth. It was so embarrassing. He was not a demigod, not a feeling, thinking person, but a rutting animal in desperate need of stimulation.

“Should I...” he wheezed, “... in your mouth?”

She answered by throating the whole length even faster. Percy moaned desperately, choking on his expletives, and he clung to the mattress beneath him for dear life.

“C—coming—”

He stopped breathing altogether. Annabeth did not relent—nor did he stop moving his hips, and his fingers curled into her hair—

“Oh, fuck, I’m gonna come—”

Rougher thrusting, wetter sucking, more lashings of her tongue. He started breathing again—he started panting, panting, panting, and then, finally—

“Annabeth—fuck—Annabeth—!”

A drawn-out groan stretched out from his lips as a monstrous orgasm ravished his entire body. Come emptied in her throat. He was twitching on her tongue. The faucet water hit the ceiling. Everything he had was devoured by this pleasure—thoughts bitten, mind swallowed, and his powers overtaken by the relentless maw of Eros. He nearly cried from the relief, how insanely good it felt after going so long without knowing such unearthly climax. It was too much, too much, too good, it wasn’t finished—

“Nhgh—fuck, fuck,, haah, aah—oh, gods, I’m—still—”

The vicious climax held him down, consumed his spirit, didn’t stop. Percy almost couldn’t take this elongated pleasure; his vitals begged for release from its rapturous throes. He was gasping and groaning as more of him jetted inside of her throat—and were he conscious, he would awe at just how much was coming out. She had to hold his writhing hips down as she swallowed ceaselessly, breathing heavy through her nose, and suckled softly on it still—which made him shudder even harder. By the end of everything, Percy was overridden with enormous exhaustion.

The aftermath was a tranquil, deluded reverie. He had no idea how long it really lasted. Annabeth was soothing and patient; after using a towel to dry his saliva-soaked lap and her still-dripping chin, she squeezed next to Percy on the massage bed and stroked his hair until his breathing died down. Water from the ruptured faucet eventually stopped spewing. Once lucid, Percy made a lazy effort to gather all water that had spilled everywhere and return it to the sink basin. Nothing he could do about the broken faucet, though. That was an issue to be figured out later.

“... So?”

After an unknown period of silence, the word broke loose from Annabeth’s mouth. Percy opened his eyes dazedly and observed his lover’s face. She was pretty, and a satisfied smirk danced sprightly on her lips.

“... so...?” he trailed, unsure of what she wanted to hear.

“So, how was it? I did really well, didn’t I?”

“Well, yeah. You outdid yourself, Annabeth. You sucked the life out of me.”

Her nose wrinkled. “That doesn’t sound very good.”

“No, I mean it was so good that I thought I was gonna die. Like, my soul almost left my body at the end.”

“So I almost killed you?”

“Yeah.”

She snuggled in closer and hugged her arm over his chest. “I’m gonna take that as the highest compliment, and not an attempted murder accusation.”

Percy laughed and stroked his hand over her arm. “So this means... your plan worked, huh?”

“Why yes, it does. You can thank me for thinking of it later.”

“Hey, I think I do owe you a massage. How ‘bout I make it up to y—”

Ssssssssssssss.

“Huh?” Percy blinked, sitting upright. “Do you hear that?”

“Yeah, it sounds like...” Annabeth looked over the room, and then, startled, she pointed to the sink. “Percy, are you doing that?”

He whipped his head around. Behind the massage bed, a single, clear stream of water started pouring out where the faucet head had broken off. The temperature was boiling hot, filling up the room with clouds of mist like the wafting steam from a shower.

Percy tried to stop it with his powers, but he couldn’t. “No, it’s not me.” he said warily.

Soon, the whole room was engulfed in a great, congested fog, and the heat had him sweating as if he were stowing in a sauna. Both stood from the bed. Percy fixed his pants back up to his waist. He was about to suggest that they vacate the room, when suddenly, a heavenly sound started swelling in his ears.

♪ Hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm... ♫

The sweet harmonies of a feminine chorus sang louder and louder. On any other occasion, it should have been a lovely tune for any lucky audience, but his paranoia spiked. Percy reached for Riptide and readied himself to choose between fighting and fleeing—but then he realized that neither option was possible. The singing had penetrated him through the flesh, taking hold over his limbs, and riveted his body in place. He could flail his arms, but he couldn’t lift his feet from the ground.

“I can’t move!” Percy yelled.

Annabeth cursed in ancient Greek. “I can’t, either!”

The harmonies were joined by the soft strummings of a string instrument—what was it, lyre music?—and the steam became fully opaque. He could barely see Annabeth anymore, so he grabbed onto her wrist just to make sure that he wouldn’t lose her.

In the same spot where the hot water poured, an amber wave of buttery light grew large and sprawled over the back wall of the room. There, within its golden glow, appeared the shimmering upper body of an adult woman. Her dark hair was pulled back in a fancy updo and a gilded headpiece was fixed atop her crown. Elegance radiated off of her form, though her image was slightly transparent, which led him to believe that she wasn’t really there. Percy knew for sure that he was looking at a goddess, and she was definitely familiar. He vaguely remembered seeing her on Olympus a long time ago, possibly more than once, but he had never approached the woman or gotten to know her name. Thankfully, Annabeth was a little wiser than he was.

“You’re... you’re Calliope!” Annabeth gasped. “The leader of the Nine Muses!”

Comprehension dawned on Percy. Yes—that’s who she was, he had seen her performing with her fellow Muses on the winter solstice over ten years ago, during the end-of-year meeting of the Olympian gods.

“I dare say, the glorious Lord Apollo is the true leader of the Muses,” the goddess purred softly. “But you are correct, child of Athena. I am Calliope, the goddess of eloquence and Epic poetry. I must apologize for this half-form in which I’ve manifested; I fear I would expend too much energy should I appear before you in these lands.”

“Um, that’s fine,” Annabeth said, her voice bewildered. “But, well—why have you come here?”

Her bright expression darkened. “... Desperate times, child. I come to you with an entreaty of frightening importance. On behalf of my sisters, we Nine Muses of the arts—I must petition to you heroes to a quest."

Oh, great. This can’t be good. Percy bemoaned in his head.

“Uh, ma’am,” he started, “I hear you, but you probably want someone else for whatever crazy thing is going on. Me and Annabeth are kinda retired—”

“What’s the quest?” Annabeth asked.

Percy raised his brow and gave her a pointed look—or at least, he tried to do so, but the mist was still quite thick, making it hard to see anything that wasn’t the bright image of the poetry goddess.

“I applaud your eagerness,” Calliope said, “but I shall wait to detail the nature of my request until I have the full audience.”

“‘Full audience’?” he echoed suspiciously. “What are you talking about?”

“The daughter of Pluto. I foresee that her talents will be needed for the purpose of this quest. I thought that I might find her in this facility as well, but I see that matters have changed since I last observed your group, hmm...” Calliope clicked her tongue. The pitch of the ongoing harmonies dropped lower, and Percy found that he could move his legs once again. The goddess spoke to him directly, “Son of Poseidon. Will you deliver Hazel Levesque to me? I already use too much power to appear before you now, I cannot split my consciousness into even more fragments.”

“What, so you can glue her feet to the ground and make her go on this quest? I’m not doing that. And I’m not leaving Annabeth here.”

“Percy,” Annabeth warned, “we don’t know what’s happening yet, this could be important. We should hear her out.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Of course I’m serious. Can you just bring Hazel and Frank here? We don’t have to commit to anything. But I want to know what’s going on.”

Percy wanted to argue with her. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with this. Their vacation was supposed to be a break from their busy mortal lives, not an entry back into the chaos of the world of the gods. Plus, neither he nor Annabeth had gone on a proper quest in years. They were surely out of practice, and he didn’t want to change that.

But Percy knew already that Annabeth had made up her mind. Although the steam obscured her face, he didn’t have to look at her to know the determined look in her eyes.

“Alright,” he relented exasperatedly, “I’ll go find them. But I know your boss, Muse lady, and he still owes me a solid after me and Grover retrieved his celedon. So if you do anything to Annabeth, I’ll call Apollo and get him to write you up. Or something. I don’t know—but I’ll do it.”

The goddess tilted her head in confusion. “‘Muse lady’?”

“Percy!” Annabeth chided. “I’m fine, just go!”

Percy grumbled and grabbed his shirt in a huff. His good, blissful mood had been obliterated. It was the same situation that he always worried about: being a demigod meant that anything could happen at any time, and the timing of that ‘anything’ was usually terrible. For example, a guy could be getting a mind-blowing blowjob from his fiancee and finally stay hard long enough to finish, only to get ambushed by one of the Muses five minutes later and enlisted to a quest. Gods, he really hated his life sometimes.

Fully re-clothed, Percy left the massage room and bounded for the exit. Once outside of the spa, he gave both Frank and Hazel a call, but both of their cell phones were off, and he didn’t have any golden drachmas on him for an Iris message. Percy scowled. This island was huge, how was he supposed to find them? He didn’t know where on earth to look, so he decided to start with their hotel room.

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Percy returned to the spa with a set of two very flustered Romans on his hands. An active effort was made on his part to avoid thinking about whatever they’d been up to before he showed up. Unless Frank asked for more advice, it was none of his business.

He explained along the way the gist of what had happened; it wasn’t a long story (and he made no allusions to his scandals with Annabeth just before the incident).

“She wants me for this quest?” Hazel questioned. “Why me?”

“I don’t know yet,” Percy said. “But you don’t have to agree to anything she asks, Hazel. Neither do you, Frank.”

Frank grunted. “We have a process at camp for sending legionnaires on quests. It would be crazy for both praetors to go on one without even getting Senate approval first.”

Hazel sighed. “It’s happened before, Frank...”

With a little mist magic on Hazel’s part, they strolled past the spa staff without rousing suspicion and returned to the massage room. Annabeth was still in one piece, thank the gods—and if anything, their arrival seemed to interrupt an enthusiastic discussion about the works of Ovid and the goddess’ legendary son, Orpheus.

“Gods, it’s like a sauna in here.” Frank complained as he walked inside. “I thought you said this was a massage room.”

“It is—this is all her doing.” Percy gestured to the visage of Calliope through the mist, in the back of the room. Her presence startled Frank; he must not have noticed her at first.

“Ah, the praetors of New Rome... Many legendary heroes gathered in this room. There could not be a more fitting assortment of demigods for this quest. Greetings, son of Mars, daughter of Pluto.” Calliope said, and then she raised her brows in amusement at Frank in particular. “You’ve arrived in a strange condition, Frank Zhang. You are blessed to be so healthy, but you had better do away with that intrusion for now.”

For reasons unknown, Frank blushed furiously and covered his crotch with his hands. He shouted, “Stop looking!”

“Ahem,” Hazel stepped forward. “Percy filled us in, Calliope. Could you tell us about this quest you want us to go on now?”

As if agitated, the golden aura of light around the Muse’s body flickered. Trouble rose to her expression, like she had just been reminded of something terribly unpleasant.

“It is a simple, yet dangerous quest.” The goddess spoke. Without even moving her mouth, the harmonious hum of her voice continued to sway and dance about the room. “Hippocrene has been stolen. My sisters, the Muses, require the aid of heroes to retrieve it.”

Lightning flashed in Percy’s heart. Hippocrene?

“Hippocrene...” Frank pronounced, sounding out the word carefully. “I must have heard that word before. Something to do with horses, right?”

“It translates to ‘horse fountain’ in Greek,” Annabeth explained. “It’s an ancient spring on Mount Helicon, and it’s sacred to the Muses. It was formed when Pegasus’ hooves stomped into the mountain, hence the name. Legend has it that anyone who drinks from it will be blessed with poetic inspiration.”

“I am impressed, Annabeth Chase. The lore of Hippocrene is lesser known and lesser remembered. But her power is not so limited. She grants inspiration to artists of all distinctions—weavers, dancers, architects—” she smiled sweetly at Annabeth, whose shoulders perked up with excitement. The Muse continued to explain, “Hippocrene represents the artistry latent of all mortal vocations; to imbibe her waters is to be endowed with a powerful vigor of creativity. She is not only sacred to us; she is the lifeblood of the Nine Muses, and we are weakened without her. It is why we require your aid, dear heroes.”

“And someone stole it?” Hazel cried. “That’s awful!”

Frank folded his arms. “How would someone steal a mountain spring in the first place?”

“And who would do such a thing?” Annabeth implored.

Percy’s thoughts were running a mile a minute. His heart pounded so hard, he was worried it would burst. No, he thought. We can’t do this. We can’t go on this quest.

“I do not know,” said Calliope, “and I’m afraid that I haven’t much aid or guidance to offer you. Two eves ago, her blessed waters disappeared, and only the basin of rock harboring her body remains. We do not know where she has gone."

“How do you know that someone stole it?” Percy asked. “Couldn’t it have, I don’t know, just dried up overnight or something?”

“No. We suspect that her waters were taken underground, as though she were drained straight through the mountain. The circumstances of her disappearance are undeniably abnormal. This is foul play at work, though I wish it were not true.”

“Drained underground...” Annabeth wondered. “Calliope, where is Hippocrene located today? I’ve never heard any stories of her movement towards America.”

“Indeed, she is not gone West. Hippocrene has always remained in Greece, listed still in the great ranges of Mount Helicon. From her powers have come the works of the most prominent artists and voices of the ancients—the epics of legendary heroes, the greatest classical sculptures, and more. Her blood is too Greek to be moved by Western influences.”

“So she’s in the Ancient Lands...” Annabeth announced. “That’s where we’d have to go investigate. We’d have to travel to Mount Helicon—”

“No. We can’t.”

All eyes turned towards Percy. His hands balled up into fists.

“It’s too risky,” he attempted to explain. “Calliope—I get that Hippocrene is important to the Muses, but we can’t risk our lives just for some magical water. The Ancient Lands are the most dangerous place on earth for demigods. We can’t go there again.”

“I’m a little unsure about this, too...” said Hazel quietly, to his relief; Percy didn’t want to be the only one protesting this quest. “We don’t even have a prophecy for this. And how are we going to get there? Leo spent half a year building the Argo II—and all we have is a chariot and Arion. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t go, per se, but I think we’re underprepared for something this dangerous."

“... Your hesitance surprises me, Hazel Levesque.” the goddess spoke, her tone like that of a disappointed parent. “As I said, the Muses are weakened without Hippocrene. The artists of the world depend on us for inspiration. Are you not an artist yourself?”

“Um, yes, but—”

“Can you imagine a world without art, child? Can you imagine how dreary and colorless that world would be?”

Suddenly, the harmonic voices in the background faded out, and were swiftly replaced by the slow roll of smooth Bolero music. He heard a horrified gasp from Hazel on his left as a new, disembodied voice took place in the air, singing Spanish lyrics that Percy quickly recognized from his talk with the younger girl the night before...

♪ Bésame... bésame mucho...♫

Calliope crooned, “What of this song, so beloved by Sammy Valdez? It was the Muses who inspired its author, Consuelo Velázquez, and even now, it is one of the most recorded Spanish language songs of all time. How much joy did its hymns bring into the world, into the heart of your friend? Think of all the songs that have yet to be born and reared by the musicians of the world. Do you not believe that art as beautiful as this is worth fighting for, Hazel Levesque?”

“This is the song from dinner last night...” Frank said. “Hazel, what is she talking about? What does Sammy have to do with this?”

“I—” Hazel croaked. She sounded like she was on the verge of panicking just from hearing the song play. “I—I don’t—”

“Can you knock it off?” Percy shouted. “She doesn’t want to hear it!”

Strangely enough, the goddess seemed sympathetic. With a wave of her hand, the music stopped—and then her shimmering image began to flicker.

“I cannot project myself before you much longer,” Calliope said, her expression pained. “My powers are limited, as are those of my fellow Muses. Heroes—you must find Hippocrene. You must return her to the mountain in three days’ time, or the entire world will suffer the consequences.”

“Three days?” Annabeth exclaimed. “We only have three days?”

Calliope nodded grimly. “It is the well of Mount Helicon that sustains her life. She can only survive so long without its power. In three days, the magic of her waters will grow dull, her voice silent, and her spirit will die. There is no replacing Hippocrene—the origin of all inspiration. Without our sacred spring, my sisters, too, will go silent, and the artists of the world will have no nurturing muse with which to create the art that has always, since the beginning of time, made life worth living.”

Calliope’s figure was fading fast. The steam was dissipating. All of them were speechless before the goddess. Her final words to the group poured out from her chest and left a lasting, haunting ringing in his ears:

“Save her, heroes. Children of Pluto and Poseidon, your powers will be needed the most. Find Hippocrene before it is too late!”

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“... Okay.” said Annabeth, five minutes into a painfully silent group procession out of the spa. “We need to decide on some important things as soon as possible.”

Her mood was the least miserable. Hazel was still visibly shaken by the song, Frank troubled by the unexplained mention of Sammy, while Percy’s whole self was blighted intensely by withering dread. Everything he feared, that he’d tried to forget about was coming to the foreground, and he knew that he needed to talk. He had to explain what he knew. But he didn’t know where to start.

“First,” Annabeth continued when no one interrupted, “we need to decide when we’re leaving. We only have three days, so I’m thinking that we should leave as soon as we pack up our things. Any objections?”

No one countered her. Annabeth continued speaking.

“Okay, that’s settled. We also need to figure out how we’re getting there.”

“... Arion could take us some of the way, I think.” Hazel managed glumly, taking a deep breath to calm herself. “He’s managed it before, when he came to help me on the way to the House of Hades. But he won’t want to go all the way to Greece, he’ll get... skittish.”

“Or we can just take a train, instead of the horse.” Frank said. “We don’t have to worry about Gaea, so we can travel by land without worrying this time.”

Annabeth nodded. “Alright. At least we have some options, then. Next, we need to figure out... which one of us isn’t going on this quest.”

Everyone stopped in their tracks and stared at her.

“Three demigods to a quest. If you take more than that, usually only three come back alive.” she explained. “That’s the usual rule, and it shouldn’t be broken unless absolutely necessary. Three is a holy number—and only taking three will minimize the amount of monsters we’ll attract on the way. One of us should stay behind, so... Frank. I think it should be you.”

Frank’s eyes widened. “What? Why me?”

“Because of what Calliope said right before she disappeared—she said that Percy and Hazel have to go on this quest. Which means that the third person is either you or me.”

“Yeah, I get the first part—but why you and not me, Annabeth?”

“Because I...” Her voice faltered. “... I just, I should go. I want to go, and you don’t have to.”

“I’m going if Hazel’s going.” Frank countered. He wrapped his arm around Hazel’s shoulders and pulled her closer to his body. “Plus, the three of us—me, Percy, Hazel—we’ve already gone on a big quest before. You should stay behind, Annabeth. We can handle this together.”

The blonde frowned, looking offended. “You say that like I couldn’t handle this. I’ve been questing with Percy since I was twelve, I have more experience than you do.”

Now, Frank looked offended. “Is that even true anymore? I’ve been leading the legion for almost ten years straight. You’re basically retired, Annabeth. You haven’t gone questing in years. You have a normal mortal job and a normal mortal life.”

“I am not a normal mortal.” she spat defensively. “And you aren’t even an artist, Frank. My mother is the goddess of craftsmen—a child of Athena belongs on this quest.”

Frank didn’t seem convinced. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Don’t you think it might be important to know a thing or two about artistic inspiration for this quest? I was the one who explained Hippocrene to you—you didn’t even know what it was!”

Frank stammered, “Well—I know what it is now! That’s enough!”

“And if I don’t go, who’s going to take the lead, make the plans, be the strategist for this quest?” Annabeth retorted.

“Me!” Frank exclaimed, patting his chest with his fist. “I’m as much of a leader and strategist as you are, Annabeth! And I can shapeshift, which means that I can protect everyone, too.”

“Wh—and you’re saying I can’t? Are you calling me weak because I don’t have powers like the rest of you, is that it?”

“No—well—that came out wrong.”

“No, no, don’t walk back from what you said—that’s exactly what you meant.”

The air between the two was getting more heated. Percy and Hazel were watching the argument speechlessly like a tennis game—a ball getting smacked back and forth from Frank to Annabeth, from Frank to Annabeth, over and over again, back and forth repeatedly. Percy’s eyes found Hazel’s in the midst of it all, and they exchanged a silent, worried look that asked, ‘Should we say something?’ But neither one of them did. It felt impossible to cut into an argument between such stubborn personalities.

The tone of the debate became more animose the longer it went on, and the battle finally came to a head when Frank cut her off mid-sentence and asserted his title:

“—Annabeth. I’m a praetor, and you live in New Rome. I have the bigger say in who goes on quests. I get the final vote, so I’m going. You need to stay behind.”

“Are you—” she stuttered from her incredulity, “—are you pulling rank on me?”

“I have to. You haven’t left me a choice!”

Annabeth stomped her foot in anger. “This is ridiculous, Frank!”

“How am I being ridiculous? I’m not that newbie on the Argo anymore! I should be the one to lead this quest.”

“Because of what—because you’re a praetor? You know who else was a praetor? Percy!” she stormed, gesturing to him. “And you wouldn’t have that title that you’re swinging around if Percy and Jason hadn’t even wanted it—”

“—Enough!” Hazel shouted finally, pushing herself in between the two with her arms outstretched. “What is wrong with you two? You’re friends, you can’t talk to each other like that!”

Percy joined Hazel’s side, his expression serious. “Hazel’s right. You guys need to calm down, this is getting out of hand.”

“And we need to leave as soon as possible. We’re wasting valuable time that we could be using to pack our things and go. This is pointless!” Hazel added.

Percy was getting a sinking feeling in his gut. He hadn’t seen Frank this angry in years. His broad shoulders were taut like a board and his nostrils flared from how hard he was breathing. Percy almost feared that the guy would accidentally transform into some furious animal—like a fuming, raging bull or a fire-breathing dragon. Annabeth, on the other hand, looked even angrier than the son of Mars. Her face had gone red from how livid she’d become, and her posture was oddly defensive, as though she were prepared to physically compete for the right to lead the quest. Percy hated seeing them like this. He hated that he couldn’t make the world stop, couldn’t enjoy the island breeze, couldn’t turn back time to the start of the day and appreciate it more, knowing how much darker it would get, knowing that two people very close to his heart were fighting for a chance to risk their lives and die.

Not even Hazel could temper Frank’s indignation. He touched her arm and lowered it so that nothing stood in his way. Standing proudly with his perfect Roman posture, Percy knew that Frank wasn’t going to back down.

“It’s not pointless, Hazel.” the man declared rigidly. “Someone needs to stay behind. It’s not going to be me.”

Annabeth scoffed, circumventing Hazel to get up in Frank’s face. “You’re dead wrong if you think it’s going to be me.”

“Both of you are going!” Hazel commanded in a great, vehement burst of frustration. “Okay?! Both of you. If it’s that big of a deal, then both of you are coming.”

Now, everyone was staring at the daughter of Pluto. She was already short, but she looked especially tiny when surrounded by three tall demigods—and yet the power of her voice reached everyone, putting out the worst of the fire in the air with a dousing of her words.

Frank softened slightly. His hand reached for her back in an attempt to caress her. “... We can’t do that, Hazel. That’s the least safe option.”

“No, Frank.” Hazel pivoted away from his touch, invoking a hurt frown on his face. “The least safe option would be neither of you going, which is what’s going to happen if you keep arguing.”

“Then who’s going to lead the quest, Hazel?” Annabeth prodded. “Because, I’m sorry, but I’m not falling in line under your boyfriend.”

Frank glowered all over again. “Will you just—”

“I am leading this quest.” Hazel announced. “I’m an artist. I’m a praetor. I will do it. And whatever happens on this quest will be my responsibility. Now, everyone go back to their rooms and start packing. We should start going before it gets dark.”

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He was almost sad to say goodbye to the hotel room.

Somehow, the quarreling quartet had at least succeeded in conferring and agreeing the following matters of importance: first, having Hazel lead the quest was a choice that made sense. Her reasons stated previously held sufficient water for all sound minds, and her judgment was trusted by every one of her allies. Secondly, Frank and Annabeth’s attendance was acceptable enough; it was not the most objectively sensible decision, but neither arguing party was willing to relent, so it felt like the proper way to settle the issue. Plus, Annabeth’s first experience as a quest leader had involved way more than just three people—Percy, Grover, Tyson, Rachel, Nico—and everyone had come back alive. It was a compelling precedent on which to base the decision.

Percy didn’t take more than five minutes to pack. It was best to travel light for a quest, and they had these rooms reserved for about another week, so he left behind most of his belongings in the room. Hopefully, in three days, he’d return in one piece and make it back to the remainder of his stuff.

“... Try not to be too mad at Frank.” Percy attempted carefully, after packing in total silence. He knew as soon as he said it that would probably make her angrier, but he still wanted to try. “It’s not really about you. He just wants to be able to protect Hazel on the quest.”

“Oh, I’m mad at Frank, alright.” Her response was immediate, coming in as hot as he’d expected. The blonde jutted her head towards him and frowned. “And I’m mad at you, too, Percy.”

Percy sputtered, “Wh—me? What did I do?”

“You barely said anything back there. Why didn’t you back me up?”

“What was I supposed to say?”

“You were supposed to take my side!”

“What’s the point in taking sides? Both of you are going now!”

“Well, it would’ve been nice to know that you even wanted me to come!” Annabeth insisted. She stuffed a shirt into her backpack frustratedly. “We’re supposed to be a team. We should be on this quest together. I thought you would’ve wanted that.”

“Well, maybe I didn’t want that.”

“What?” she guffawed. “Why would you—”

“Because I know what we’re up against, okay?” he retorted—and as soon as the words left his mouth, a fast flood of anxiousness, suppressed by brittle guardrails, came loose in his consciousness and overwhelmed his protections. He’d held it back for long enough—he’d tried his best not to think about that horrid nightmare—but there was no avoiding it now. The vision had to be discussed, despite his ample reservations.

Standing on the opposite side of the room from her, his hand combed through his air exasperatedly. Percy knew that he had to keep talking, explain more, but the words were struggling to escape him without being overtaken by his fear. On his shuddering breaths, he tried his best to continue elaborating.

“Annabeth, I... I’m pretty sure I know who stole Hippocrene. And it’s bad news.”

Her eyes went wide. Annabeth gaped at him and asked, “... You do?”

He nodded miserably. “Yeah. I had this bad dream last night... I wasn’t gonna tell you about it, because I knew you’d get worried, and I was hoping that it didn’t mean anything—but after getting this quest, what I saw can’t be a coincidence.”

Percy proceeded to recount in great detail the events of his nightmare. The more he spoke, the heavier the air in his lungs seemed to weigh in his chest, as though giving breath to the dream was summoning its toxins back into his body. Gradually, the familiar descriptions of the scene dawned on Annabeth’s face, shifting from shock, disbelief, and then a surge of paralyzing horror.

“Oh, gods—no...” she moaned, her body trembling. “No, no, no! Why her?”

Hemlock, nightshade, oleander. Dark, eddying smog. The being who had screeched woefully and called for the fountain with her claws outstretched... Annabeth knew who she was without being told. The villain was the poison goddess, the epitome of misery, the foe that haunted him more, to this day, than any other being he had ever faced before: it was the creature of the death shroud, Akhlys.

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Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 14

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Blue dissolves into warm orange-gold on the horizon, and the gold, like dripping butter, melts onto a wide bed of crimson just beneath it. Dawn’s slow descent upon New Rome occurs as it always does, with vibrant color, chanting eagles, and its usual timing. Frank had awoken well before the sunrise, well before Hazel typically did, with intent to get ahead of a number of pressing Roman matters. He did so fairly often, even thoughtlessly, under the presumption that Hazel was better off sleeping longer, and he was better off working than laying in bed, and only one praetor’s judgment and authority was needed for certain executive tasks, anyway.

The autumn before Hazel’s twenty-second birthday is packed tight with urgency. There’s a major Senate meeting next week that he has to prepare for, and there are rumors of a monster hoard sneaking in from the American south, and Mercury is issuing a quest for which countless legionnaires are lining up to be selected—and he really has to worry about that Senate meeting, and what is he going to do for Hazel’s twenty-second birthday? So Frank is up early today, his bed already made, his dreams forgotten after waking, only a half-burnt shred of toast in his stomach as he’s exiting the house, feet bending out the door with purpose growing in each step—when he is startled by a man standing in the cold shade of an auburn tree, his gaze cool, almost peaceful as it softens on the timid flame dancing on his lighter, whose vivid colors—the red, orange, blue—are a mirror of the dawn sky burning just behind him.

At what age Nico di Angelo had taken up smoking, Frank isn’t sure. It had been the kind of new development in a friend’s life that coasted on the periphery, seeming almost rude to look at directly—and still, it was there, and it left him curious, and it had drawn out his concern but not quite his scrutiny. Hazel mentions it sometimes, mainly to say, ‘I wish he wouldn’t,’ as Frank nods in understanding. He thinks of Hazel’s words as he calls Nico’s name in surprise, and what little remains of the son of Hades’ cigarette is drawn to his lips, huffed one final time, and then disappears in a sudden surge of shadow tapers sprawling outwards from his palm.

“Frank,” Nico answers. “Good to see you.”

He approaches the younger man until he’s standing by his side. Nico’s hair is even longer and messier than it had been the last time they’d seen each other. Frank scratches his fresh military cut, idly wondering how anyone could have long hair without getting annoyed and chopping half of it off.

“Good to see you, too,” Frank smiles nonetheless. “You looking for Hazel? She’s still getting some sleep in.”

“I figured,” Nico says with a shrug. “I wasn’t expecting her this early. But you’re up at the crack of dawn already for work, aren’t you? Impressive.”

Frank smiles again. It feels nice to have his efforts acknowledged. “Just getting a head start on things. I’ve got a lot of important stuff to do.”

“You sound happy about that.”

“Oh, do I?” he chuckles quietly. “Yeah, I guess I am. I like being busy—especially for Rome’s sake.”

“Sounds like you’re pretty efficient all by yourself. Hazel told me that it doesn’t even seem like you need her around here.”

“What?” Frank asks, bewildered. “When did she say that? Why would she say that? Of course I need her here. Rome needs her here, too.”

Nico shrugs coolly. “It’s just a thing that she said.”

Silence lays a pause on the conversation. Crickets chirp in the grassy knolls beyond the radiant Praetorium. A tepid autumn gale winnows through the bronze tree leaves as the sun trickles higher in the sky. He can still smell the woody tobacco of Nico’s cigarette.

“... We’ve been here for a long time. I know our ten years of service to the legion are up soon,” Frank says, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “But honestly, I can’t imagine what I’d do without Camp Jupiter. Leading this place just feels like something that I was always meant to do. New Rome needs us, and we need New Rome. I would think that Hazel feels the same exact way as I do.”

“... Frank. No offense,” Nico utters stiffly, “but if you really believe that, then you don’t know my sister as well as I thought you did.”

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A tense walk back to the hotel room as a scourge ire was bursting in his chest. His arms were shaking from how angry he was and a fraught, rigid scowl was carved onto his features. He was boiling, his fists tight, muscles stiff with stress and tension, and no respite found Frank after departing from the Greeks.

He and Hazel arrived in their room without speaking to each other. He was too upset to talk, so he focused on preparing for the trip. Frank stuffed his clothes inside of his backpack without folding them first. He thought about punching a hole in the wall and paying for the damages. He remembered Annabeth’s words—‘You wouldn’t have that title that you’re swinging around if Percy and Jason hadn’t even wanted it,’—and how badly they stung, how they injured his pride, and then he thought about grabbing his bow and firing an arrow through the window on his left only for the brief satisfaction of hearing how the glass shattered—

“You’re—” Hazel suddenly gasped, her voice like a bullet firing through his consciousness; he might have forgotten that she was in the room with him. “You’re making me angry, Frank.”

“I’m making you angry?” he spat in disbelief, tossing his backpack aside as he turned to face her. His voice was louder than he meant for it to be. “What are you mad at me for? I didn’t do anything!”

“No, you’re making me angry!” she explained, her words strained, brows knit, pulling her hand to her forehead as if suffering from a headache. “You’re turning red again, Frank! You have to calm down, okay?”

Frank eyed her still, his scowl unaltered, and a second indignant retort would have followed if he hadn’t glanced down at his skin to observe the faint, red aura emanating off his body.

His eyes went wide. Frank cussed harshly in Latin. He stared at his hands, at his arms, seeing the blood red glow and feeling the invidious, threatening energy they exuded. It was the raw hostility of Mars, the war god—crimson power from his father curdling through his veins, seeping outwards from his skin, and spreading onto Hazel like an airborne sickness. She was right; his excessive anger was the cause, and he was failing to control it.

Despite all the reverence bestowed upon Mars at Camp Jupiter, every legionnaire knew to be wary when approaching the temple of Mars Ultor. Just looking at it from a distance could bolster their anger and instigate a fight. Percy had even told him once that a confrontation with Ares on his quest for Zeus’ master lightning bolt had had the same effect on his emotions. And for better or worse, Frank was his father’s son.

Like children of Venus could bat their lashes and court an onlooker’s attraction, the progeny of Mars could make people violent and furious with the contagion of their rage. Frank knew this about himself like he knew the dark color of his eyes and the radicals that formed his surname, Zhang. Hazel knew this, too. A dangerous temper was built into the man that he was, so he surveilled it carefully to keep the wretched thing subordinate. That it disobeyed him now, and still evaded his dominion, was materially frightening. This hadn’t happened to him in a long, long time.

Frank tried to talk, hesitated, grit his teeth. He didn’t want to say something that he knew he would regret, but he was so angry, and so wrought by the hot scald of his emotions—and only the persistence of his need to be careful with Hazel prevented him from snarling out an antagonistic accusation:

Are you gonna tell me why Calliope brought up Sammy’s name back there? You ditched me last night because you were thinking about him, is that it?

He thought that he wasn’t like this anymore. Was it his anger’s warfare that distorted his thoughts, or was it only augmenting what he already felt, and was he still as jealous and immature as he used to be during his adolescent years?

The rage had ossified within his skull. He couldn’t soften what it was or pretend it wasn’t there. Frank glared at Hazel still, his nostrils flared, and her breathing was intense. His powers were making her mad—which meant that he should be considerate and try to calm down, but he didn’t know how, and he didn’t want to. Through bricklayers of his rage, an insane thought cracked: Maybe I want you to be mad. Maybe you should get even angrier at me and do something about it.

His eyes leered over form, over her still-disheveled hair and her under-buttoned blouse. Before the issue of the quest and Percy’s rude interruption, Frank had been laying on the bed with Hazel right on top of him. They had gotten closer to sex than they’d ever been before—she’d been “a mess down there”, in her own shy words, and on top of all his building grievances, Frank was angry that he’d not had the chance to make her even messier.

He wanted to rip Hazel’s clothes off. He wanted her to tear off his. He wanted to stop taking things slow and take her up against the wall. He wanted marks on his skin and Hazel’s taste in his mouth. He wanted to make her come for the first time and then make her come again. He wanted her to moan filthy words beside his ear. He wanted hours in her body after years in separate beds. He wanted her to fuck him hard, to fuck her harder in return—and these desires were distinct from having sex and making love; these were images of rough, dirty, thrilling escalations that were foreign to him—or less foreign than he’d thought—and the perfect outlet for the pent-up frustration concentrated in his body.

“I—” Frank grunted, closed his eyes, and shook his head to scatter his thoughts. “—I need to call Jason and Dakota about the quest. Just go find Arion or something.”

“‘Find Arion or something?’” she shouted back in offense. The copper lamps at their bedside tables were beginning to rattle. “You can’t boss me around, Frank! I should be on that call, too!”

He clenched his fists even tighter. The red aura of his anger was radiating brightly. Frank needed her to leave the room before his limits burned down to the end of their fuse and something truly regrettable came out of his explosive fury.

“Just listen to me,” he tried again through gritted teeth, “and get out of this room, Hazel. I can’t be around you right now!”

“Even when it’s me that’s leading the quest, you’re still the one who has to be in charge. You can’t help yourself, can you? Frank Zhang needs to make the important phone calls while I just—just—go fetch the transportation—!”

A wire inside of him snapped. “He’s your stupid fucking horse!”

“My what?!”

CRSHH.

A sharp tugging sensation like a swift magnetic pull. The sound of metal slamming into wood. Frank’s eyes went wide and a gasp escaped his lips.

What just happened to me?

Two seconds ago, he was standing by the bed. Now his back was pressed up against the wall and his right hand was raised above his head, half-embedded in the blue wooden paneling behind him. Pulse quickened, nerves rattled, Frank looked over his head. Confusion was replaced by disbelief. The silver watch on his wrist had yanked him halfway across the room and thrown his arm five centimeters deep into the wall.

When he looked at her again, a horrified expression had usurped her rage and indignation.

“F... Frank, I...” Hazel shuddered, her arms trembling as she backed away from him. “I’m so sorry. I do need to go. You’re—you’re making me angry!”

Panicked, she grabbed her jacket and dashed out of the room. He couldn’t think of anything to say to her before she left, so he didn’t even try.

After some moments in stunned silence, Frank extracted his wrist from the wall. It didn’t really hurt much, but he was dismayed to see that the watch’s glass face had been shattered. It was a gift from Hazel on his eighteenth birthday, and with just a bit of help from Leo, the girl had made it from scratch using her powers. Frank had always taken very good care of this particular gift, and never would he have imagined that it would break under shocking circumstances like this.

Minutes passed in confusion. He found himself in an odd state of mind, now. He was still furious with Annabeth for the things that she’d said. He was angry at Percy for interrupting his private time with Hazel. He hated himself for his lack of control. His cheeks felt unreasonably hot and his mind was reeling from the strange incident of his sweet girlfriend using her powers to forcibly slam his body against a wall.

Her aggression left him breathless. He was a big, tall guy. No one else could pin him down like that—not that easily, at least. And now, within the sacred temples of his innermost wants, there moved ferocious yearnings and a drooling appetite. Frank played back the thrilling scene inside his mind repeatedly—the pretty ire on her brow, tempting outrage in her voice, and the eroticism of his back hitting the wall because she wasn’t being gentle, wasn’t speaking in hushed tones, and her roughness with his body was equally exhilarating as her soft kisses, tender motions, and hypnotizing pet names spoken just beside his ear.

With the same hand now suffering his broken, silver watch, Frank touched his parted, panting lips with the pad of his thumb. His other hand discovered the protrusion in his pants. It was as rigid and desperate as he thought it would be. Cheeks hot and flushed like they’d been smacked by sunray whips. Pretty ire on her brow, his back thrust against the wall. The scene played back again and again. He never knew that sex could be invoked by acts other than kissing hard and stroking privates.

For the most part, he was already packed. Hazel probably had gone off to find Arion. Percy and Annabeth were getting ready in the room right next to his. Surely he had a few minutes to deal with the ailment exerting itself beneath his waist.

He laid down on the bed. Frank closed his eyes and thought about Hazel. And there they were again: the images of her being rough with him, his being rough with her, heavy breathing, wrists pinned above the head, impatient thrusts and reckless sucking on the neck, and his need to see and feel and hear how badly Hazel wanted him without holding back, and his imaginings of how good it must feel to be inside of her. He licked his palm generously. He pictured Hazel on the bed with her bra torn off. He pictured her on top of him, giving praise and giving insults, too. Frank didn’t feel sane. His tongue laved over his bottom lip. He wanted Hazel, Hazel, Hazel, her body, voice, her ecstasy, he wanted to know what it felt like to finish at the same time as she clawed her nails down his back. He wanted her cunt on his lips and his name in her mouth. He wanted her to make demands of him. He wanted to give her everything she needed and to tease her body, too, enveloping Hazel in her arms after nearly ten years of a chaste romance. He pictured her ordering him to fuck her until the bedframe collapsed, and he winced, moaned out her name as his hand shook his length faster. He didn’t even want to want Hazel like this, he wanted to be patient and chivalrous and gentle with the love of his life, but inside of him was a person who was selfish, needy, desirous, and wanted larger escalations than these slow baby steps to full-blown intercourse. Frank groaned, bit his lip even harder, gasped her name meaninglessly as his hand moved faster, still buried in his jeans, feeling pathetic and ashamed of the love he really wanted. A final gasp jumpstarted from his lungs, and his whole body shuddered, and he grunted raggedly, and he wasn’t even finished after that, so he obliged himself to a third useless and indulgent orgasm afterwards.

When he finally got a hold over himself and the fervid, red glow of his anger dissipated, Frank straightened his clothes and attempted to remember who he was. With the burning intensity of his rage now dissolved, he was having a hard time clearly recalling what happened between he and Hazel, aside from the fact that he had said something particularly rude, and that had made her furious, resulting in her slamming his whole person into the wall.

The absence of the hardened knot of anger in his skull now left him feeling rather empty, almost sad. His fight with Annabeth was its own separate issue that he didn’t care to address, but Frank really didn’t want to be on bad terms with his own girlfriend.

In light of Annabeth’s comment, he didn’t feel like speaking to Jason, so an Iris message to Dakota had been sent where Frank informed him of the quest and assured that they would be okay. He saw that Hazel had nearly filled her own backpack with supplies for the trip before leaving the room, so he added in a few more spare shirts for her, as well as several pairs of socks and her forgotten toothbrush.

And then he considered slamming his head against the wall until blood trickled downwards from his brow. The acrid self-loathing had caught up to his heels, his endorphins fully withered, shame hot over his face. He didn’t feel like the disciplined Roman that he’d spent nine years trying to become. He felt too much like the worst aspects of his father. He felt like his mom would be so disappointed that he’d lashed out at the woman whom he claimed to love. And he was so twisted up inside, and so disturbed to have enjoyed Hazel’s anger that much. Even now, remembering the incident summoned blush to his face. Frank didn’t have an explanation for himself and what he’d done, beyond the one obvious truth that something was deeply, deeply wrong with him.

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In the lobby, he was seated six meters away from Annabeth.

Hazel’s backpack and his own were strung over his shoulders. Percy was beside his fiancée on a plush blue couch near the elevator doors. They were holding each other, which made Frank even more miserable than he already was. Did they have to show off their perfect relationship right now of all times? Couldn’t they pretend to be unhappy for just one second?

They were waiting for Hazel to return and spearhead the first leg of the quest. Half an hour had passed since meeting downstairs, which felt like a long time to go looking for a horse, but Frank didn’t want to go looking for her just yet. He still wasn’t sure of the words that he would say or the expression that he’d make when he saw her again.

Eventually, Percy came over to Frank’s side. He thought initially that he would try to bridge the divide between himself and Annabeth—which was the furthest thing from Frank’s mind at the moment; he was much more concerned about other things—but instead, Percy proceeded to explain his suspicion about the culprit behind Hippocrene’s disappearance.

“... So you had a dream where you saw the goddess of poison,” Frank recapped, “and you heard her calling out the name ‘Hippocrene’?”

“Goddess of misery, too.” Percy added. “But... yeah. That’s what happened.”

“Okay. That’s bad for a couple of reasons.”

“Like the fact that she might be dragging Hippocrene down to Tartarus?”

“Yes. There’s that,” Frank acknowledged, “and also—if it gets in her hands, then she could poison the thing, couldn’t she? Tainting Hippocrene with poison... that might have an even worse effect on the world than just stealing it from Mount Helicon.”

“Poisoning the spring of inspiration...” He trailed off, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “Yeah, that sounds like something that a miserable goddess would do.”

“Are you okay, Percy?” Frank asked, scanning his friend’s worried face. “You look kind of pale.”

“I’m fine.” he answered curtly. “I just... I’m not looking forward to this. Based on what I saw, Akhlys was dragging Hippocrene through the earth somehow, all the way down into her realm in Tartarus. But I don’t think she has it yet, like it’s taking her a long time to bring the whole spring there.”

“So that means, if we get there quickly enough, then we might not even have to have some big confrontation,” he continued. “I mean, it’s just a bunch of water, right? You could just draw it out from wherever it is and bring it back to the mountain.”

Percy nodded. “That’s what I’m hoping for. So we need to get there ASAP. I know you don’t wanna take Arion, Frank, but he’d be much faster than a train. Annabeth says it’ll take six hours, minimum. Arion got us all the way from California to this island in that much time.”

Frank sighed. “And I’m guessing you don’t want to take a plane?”

“If I had to for the quest, then I would. But Annabeth already checked. Calliope told us that we only have three days. We aren’t gonna be able to catch any flights for all four of us during peak travel season on such short notice.”

“But Hazel said that Arion would be too skittish to go all the way to the Ancient Lands...” Frank wondered, holding his hand to his chin. “I don’t know, Percy. It’ll be up to her to decide what we do.”

“She’s kinda taking a long time, isn’t she? Maybe you should give her a call, check up on her.”

“Uh...” Frank wheezed. “She doesn’t have her phone on her, but I guess an Iris message would be fine...”

Percy stared at him. Frank avoided eye contact.

“... So...” Percy said. “Are you gonna do it, or...?”

“Um. Actually, could you do it, Percy?”

“... Okay. Why?”

“Things are, um... just a little weird between us right now. It would be better if you did it.”

“Oh.” Percy blinked. “Things seemed good between you guys today. You aren’t seriously still mad at her over the Sammy stuff, are you? She didn’t mean any harm, man.”

“What?” Frank raised his brows. “What do you know about it, Percy? Did Hazel talk to you about that?”

“... Oh.” he frowned like he’d just stepped in something unpleasant. “Uh. Yeah.”

“When? What did she say?”

“Well... it was last night, during the storm. But Frank—”

“—last night? What?! That’s where she went? To talk with you?”

“Frank, it’s not even a big deal. It wasn’t planned, we just happened to run into each other out there. She was feeling down about some stuff, so we just sat by the beach and talked.”

“‘Feeling down’ about what? Sammy?”

“Dude.” Percy held up his hands in defense. “Can you calm down before you turn into a bull and trample me? Ask Hazel about it if you wanna know that bad. Plus, we have way bigger problems right now, don’t you think?”

Frank did want to turn into a bull and run Percy over—but that was just his anger talking, and he couldn’t let the beastly thing rear its ugly head again.

But the anger was still a friendlier companion of the heart than his sadness. He didn’t care that much about Percy and Hazel meeting up last night, nor did he care that he was only finding out about it now, but he did care about Hazel’s happiness, and he felt like a failure all over again to learn than he hadn’t been there to solace Hazel when she really needed it. He should have run out into the storm and looked everywhere for her. He should have found her before Percy did and consoled her with all the right words that she’d needed to hear—but instead he was the kind of boyfriend who could raise his voice at the woman he loved and make her feel bad, make her feel furious, and then distort her livid feelings into a racy fantasy for his loathsome perversions.

“I—” Frank scowled, pinching the bridge of his nose. He conceded joylessly, “Yes. Yes, you’re right. We do have bigger problems. Forget what I said, I’ll Iris message—”

—The lobby front doors snapped open and she came running inside, arms panicked, eyes fearful, her chest huffing and puffing. Hazel looked around and found him instantly, and to his surprise, she didn’t hesitate to rush to his side.

Frank shot up to his feet in concern and met her quickly. “Hazel! What’s wrong?”

Percy stood up, too, shoving his hand into his pocket to withdraw his pen. “Is there a monster?”

“It’s—” she was panting hard, like she’d just run across a football field without stopping. “—it’s Arion!”

“—Arion?” said Annabeth, having hurried to rejoin the group. “Did something happen to him?”

Frank then noticed how disheveled Hazel was. Her clothes were sweaty and her hair was a mess. She had dirt on her knees and her voice sounded weak from overuse. She must have spent the past half hour exerting herself with some difficult task, and by the anxious look on her face, he had a sinking feeling that he knew what it was.

“He’s... he’s missing!” Hazel cried. “Arion, he’s gone! He’s not on the island anymore!”

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There were probably no circumstances under which it was appropriate to call Arion a “stupid fucking horse” to Hazel’s face, but managing to do so just before the emergence of these present, harrowing conditions had Frank wondering why she hadn’t killed him yet.

For the next thirty minutes, all four of them had gone their separate ways and went searching all over Majorca for the horse, a heavy-hearted event which felt futile from the get-go. If Arion didn’t come galloping through the woods at the speed of light and sound as Hazel whistled for him with a promise of delicious gold treats, nor did he respond to Percy’s attempts at horse-telepathy firing off in all directions, then he wasn’t going to come running to Frank, whom he hated, and tolerated solely for their mutual connection to the daughter of Pluto.

When they regrouped, they did so with tense frowns on their faces. No one wanted to give Hazel the bad news. Not a trace of her beloved horse friend had been found during the search—and furthermore, no one wanted to remind her of the time-crunch they were operating on. They had just three days to rescue the fount of Hippocrene, and they needed to get going before it was too late.

“Hazel, is it possible that Arion just... went somewhere on his own, and he’s not in any trouble?” prompted Annabeth (and Frank had been thinking the same thing, but he still wasn’t in the mood to openly agree with her). “I know he’s your friend, but he’s an immortal—and the fastest horse to ever live. He could have gone anywhere in the world all on his own.”

Hazel shook her head insistently. “I know that, Annabeth. But he wouldn’t just leave the island without trying to tell me first. Something isn’t right about this.”

“The timing is suspicious,” Percy said. “We need to get to Mount Helicon as soon as possible for the quest, and then suddenly, the guy who could get us there in an instant goes missing?”

“That’s what I was thinking...” Hazel spoke, her voice miserable. “I don’t know who’s behind Hippocrene’s disappearance, but if I were them, and I were trying to slow us down, kidnapping Arion would have been my first move.”

“Um... about that,” Frank started carefully. He and Hazel still hadn’t really talked after their fight; he felt terribly uneasy every time they made eye contact. “Percy, you should tell her about your dream.”

“Your dream?” she turned to the son of Poseidon. “Oh, Percy... is this about your bad dream from last night?”

You talked to each other about your dreams, too? was Frank’s first errant thought, which felt laughably petty even by his standards, so he quickly flushed the interruption away before he accidentally spoke of it aloud.

Percy recounted his dream again. Everyone kept silent while he spoke. Annabeth was unwilling to look at him as he talked about Akhlys, as he described her haunting screech and the poison flowers of her shadowy domain. Hazel listened with a serious expression.

Frank didn’t know what was going on in her mind, but he wished that they could pretend the fight had never happened. He wished that he could take her in his arms and tell her that everything would be okay. And he wished that he could tell her that he loved her so much, and he would never let himself be consumed by the ire of the war god in his veins again—but he didn’t. He lacked the confidence to guarantee that his anger could be leashed as easily as that, and he didn’t have the words to confess to his vile indiscretions—and matters were too complicated now. Everything they’d been through on this island had to take a backseat to the bigger problems that they had. The blissful scene inside the cave (“Do you want me to touch you more, Frank?”), the way she touched him afterwards, the missteps and the mistakes, the new discoveries about a woman he had known for nine years (“You sleep on the -floor-?” “I do. That must sound really strange.” “Well, you are a little strange. I like you that way.”); for now, they had to be forgotten. He felt ridiculous for how massively crestfallen he was in accepting that fact.

Following Percy’s explanation, Hazel grew more certain that nefarious intentions were behind Arion’s disappearance. She didn’t yell or cry or shut down. Instead, she nodded stoically and balled her hands into fists; if Arion were captured by their foes, then that was just another reason to get moving urgently and track them down. Hazel announced that she would shadow travel the quartet as far as mainland Spain, but no further than that. As the leader of the quest, she couldn’t risk overexerting herself on the way to the Ancient Lands, which were notoriously dangerous for demigods. And she was taking it upon herself to protect everyone, promising that all of them—including Arion—would return back home in one piece.

“We’ll leave right now,” Hazel said definitively. “I just need to get my things in the hotel room, and then I’ll be right back.”

“Oh... I brought them for you.” Frank started hesitantly. He unwove Hazel’s backpack from his shoulder and offered it to her. “I packed more clothes. And some of your other things, too.”

The precious gold of her eyes met his dark irises. Her lips parted vacantly, on the cusp of saying something, and he was desperate to hear anything she had to say—falsified gratitude, even a nasty denigration, as long as she was speaking to him directly and gave any indication of the ground that they stood on right now. He couldn’t stand the tension and the ambiguity.

But as she moved to receive the backpack, he saw her eyes drift down to the broken watch on his wrist, and then an unknowable emotion filled her countenance—looking at the ruptured glass like a grisly flesh wound that no sip of nectar or taste of ambrosia would heal. She took the pack silently, and his guilt and his shame splintered off like fiery torpedoes and slammed into his heart, which dropped like an injured, sinking ship inside his chest as she turned away from him, and that was the end of their vacation, and their final interaction on the islands of Majorca.

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Inevitably, he was dreaming about her during the long train ride from Barcelona to Marseille.

“Frank, you can tell me anything.”

It started as a familiar scene. In the cool embrace of approaching dusk, their home was draped in amber hues. The final gasps of late sunset had ushered past the sheer, white curtains and bled unto their blushing forms. Every little thing and all of life was soft, serene, crepuscular and warm. She was laying in his arms, her chin resting on his chest as they were sprawled over the couch. The warmth of her body and the smell of her coconut shampoo were enchanting like a true love spell, and he could almost taste the sweetness of her soft, honeyed words, feel them melting over him, and he closed his eyes slowly. When he opened them again, Hazel was still gazing at him with affection in her eyes that warmed him deeply, to the marrow in his bones, to the spirit in his body.

A movie flickered in the background. He observed the images only via his peripherals: a beautiful woman in a tight, pink dress moving up a velvet staircase as a floating trail of diamonds obediently trailed after her. Frank had no interest in the television screen, preferring to caress his hand over Hazel’s back as he focused on the quiet hum of her breathing, and admired the splendid brown of her skin, the captivating curve of her lips—and the tempting curves of everything else. His hand smoothed over her side. Her chest was pressed against his body. And then he was seized by his wicked thoughts again.

“Hazel...” he mumbled, already regretting the words he was about to say. “I don’t think I can...”

“Why not?”

“I—nngh—”

Hot kisses on his neck. She mastered him with the lightweight pressing her lips, looming over him now to give herself better reach, and he squeezed his eyes shut, gripped her side more tightly while his filthy, horrid thoughts grew increasingly libidinous.

“Oh, gods...” Frank moaned as she continued kissing him. They were only soft, brief touches, but his neck felt particularly sensitive right now, and he might have been overeager to be flattered with physical contact of any kind at the moment.

“What do you want, Frank?”

She sounded so kind, so welcoming and eager to listen. She sounded like she earnestly wanted him to confess his fantasies, and that she wouldn’t admonish or judge him for being the way that he was—but how was he supposed to talk about it? He wouldn’t know where to begin. Hazel was even more inexperienced in these delicate matters of intimacy than he himself was, she hadn’t done so much as even touched herself before. How could Frank admit that her violence and aggression had awoken something dark inside of him, and that he couldn’t stop thinking about getting rougher with her body when it was so important to be gentle at this stage?

“Hazel...” Frank began to sit up, breathing hard, eyes darkened. His palm roved upwards, over her stomach and her chest, until he was holding her face in his hand. She was pliant to his touch, allowing him to keep her in place as she leaned in closer.

“I can’t talk about it.” he spoke lowly. The fire in his gaze was thriving intensely from the teeming, secret lust that he was trying hard to bury in a grave she’d never have to uncover. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me. I can’t tell you all the mean things that I want to do to you.”

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Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 15

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He was trying hard, currently, to think about the weather.

It was comfortably cool inside the long train car. Frank had been privileged to the window seat on Percy’s left side while the women were in seats right across, facing them. A square-shaped table was fixed in the space between them all. Over three hours had been carved into the five-hour ride, and despite the chafing and discomfort of his seat (as Percy had noticed, Frank was a little too big for the chair), he’d dozed off at least twice, dreamt salaciously of Hazel and awoken with a start—which was terrible for him, because her face was the first that he saw when he opened his eyes, and then he’d start thinking about Sammy, about their fight, getting slammed against the wall, how he’d enjoyed it too much, and then he would quickly reaffirm his gaze to the window and try to think about something other than his girlfriend. So he thought about the weather.

Gray clouds were an unpleasant smear on the evening sky, which, as the sun went down, had wrung its whole self into a flat, lifeless color: the most drab navy blue he’d ever seen in his life, accessorized by not one star that his eyes could see—and his eyes were searching for those bright, white glimmers as the train whirred and hummed along the tracks through pastorals and cities and dark landscapes, pausing at numerous stations every so often and whirring up again. Frank believed that he was witnessing a chill summer night, mild temperatures on the other side of his window seat. He wondered if Jupiter might summon the rain. He wondered if a somber, dense fog would roll in from the Mediterranean sea and invade the southern coastlines of France in the morning. They were passing by it now, the water’s dark visage about ten kilometers away, and he kept staring at it.

“I’ve always thought of the sea itself as a sad being. It’s beautiful, and there’s nothing else in the world quite like it, but there’s something about it that’s so inconsolable. It’s just... sad.”

… No matter what he did, what he tried to think about, his mind still relapsed into continuously dizzying thoughts about Hazel.

Frank was missing her voice. She hadn’t spoken in hours. Her eyes were closed, whole body forfeited to the cotton padding of her chair. He didn’t know if she was sleeping or not, but he suspected the latter; Arion’s disappearance was troubling her deeply. There was no way that she could relax until she knew that her dear horse friend was okay.

He really didn't like that foul-mouthed horse, and he didn’t understand Hazel’s friendship with him in the slightest, but Frank wished that he could find Arion and bring him back to her. He wished that he could take charge of this quest and send her back to the island to relax, enjoy herself. He wished that he had bought her the pretty dress in the display window back when he had the chance. He wished that he could rewrite the spelling of his name into a whole new word, one that reeked less of the essence of who he was and fix the ugly phonetics, a new name that hadn’t been stained by his numerous faults and that he could pronounce without invoking a foul taste in his mouth. He wished that he could do a lot of different things for Hazel right now.

A ghoulish white moon crept out from the clouds and haunted the Mediterranean sea. The motors of the train moaned quietly for hours. Frank couldn't muster one useful thought, only phantoms of emotion drifted through his mind. The whole day was scarce in his hippocampus; he remembered the ravaging flames of his ire but not the arsonist words that precipitated them. Frank closed his eyes shut. Metal scraped softly against the long train tracks. In vain he hoped that inspiration would appear in the dark of his closed eyelids, or a cleansing force would reveal itself and exorcise his worsening conviction that he was more violent and terrible than he’d ever known himself to be, but instead, after closing his eyes, he saw Hazel in their hotel room last night, when she'd come in from the storm and stripped her clothes in front of him, when the lights were off and he'd stripped off his own—but they were useless thoughts, and added to his detriment, so he opened his eyes again and stared vacantly at the enigmatic water.

“Hey, guys…” said Percy suddenly. The man was fidgeting in his seat; no doubt, it was hard for a guy with ADHD to sit still for hours like this. “You know what I just remembered from my dream?”

“What?” Frank and Annabeth replied in unison. She might have even glared at him for the offense, he wasn't sure; it was too brief to tell.

“So, at the end of it, I heard this voice… it's only coming back to me now.” Percy continued, twisting his brows in confusion. “I think that Hippocrene might have been speaking to me.”

“What?” Frank balked. “You mean… the actual Hippocrene? As in the water itself, you think it was talking to you?”

“What did it say?” Annabeth asked, closing her notebook shut.

Percy stared at his hands, at a loss. “It said... ‘Look away, hero. Do not come for me.’ That's the last thing I remember.”

“Uh… okay.” Frank said. He felt disturbed, but was honestly grateful to have something to talk about. It had been a long three hours in his train seat; he'd had enough time alone with his disconcerting thoughts for one night. “And you say it was the water that said this? Are you sure? Did it have, like, a face and a mouth?”

Annabeth scowled at him. “What’s so hard to believe about that? If a body of water could talk to anyone, wouldn't it talk to the son of Poseidon?”

What’s her problem? Frank furrowed his brows. “I wasn't saying that it was hard to believe—”

“Guys,” Percy interrupted. “Can we focus on what the thing actually said? I mean, I thought it was just a spring of magic, sparkly water. But it can talk—it spoke to me, and it told me not to come. That has to be important, right?”

“... Now that I think about it, Calliope kept referring to Hippocrene as ‘she’ and ‘her’,” Annabeth pondered. “So it’s possible that ‘Hippocrene’ isn’t just a body water—maybe she’s a naiad?”

“But why would it—I mean, she—tell you not to come...” Frank wondered aloud. “Naiads are protective of their water, right? If she’s in real danger of being dragged to Tartarus, wouldn’t she be begging for your help?”

Percy started to speak, his voice low and ridden with a shudder. “I was thinking that... I mean, this whole thing, maybe it’s just...”

“... A trap.” Annabeth finished. She was bouncing her leg nervously, digging her nails into her thighs. “Akhyls. She might be after us.”

“The poison goddess? Why would she...” Frank began, when it suddenly hit him—about nine years ago, Percy and Annabeth had fallen into Tartarus and survived. He didn’t know the full story of the tribulations they’d endured; for all the glory and reverence awarded to them in the demigod world for trudging their way through hell and back, neither of them ever spoke about the experience as if it were a wild misadventure that they could look back on with fondness. They didn’t like to talk about it. Even Frank wasn’t sure if he wanted to know all of the grisly details. Was this quest going to lead them right back to what they’d barely survived in the land beneath the underworld?

Hazel (fully awake, as Frank had suspected) spoke up, her train of thought moving ostensibly in the same direction as his. “Percy, Annabeth—do you want to turn back?”

“What?” Annabeth raised her brows. “Hazel, we’re already on our way. How could we turn back now?”

“I’m the one leading this quest,” she replied pensively. “What if you’re right? I can’t ask you two to go back down there knowing that it might be a trap. We don’t even have a prophecy to guide us... I don’t know what’s going to happen out here.”

Percy shook his head. “I’m not leaving you and Frank to face Akhyls. That’s out of the question.”

“I’m not leaving, either.” Annabeth said. “I need to be on this quest. I have to.”

“Annabeth... Why are you still insistent about this?” Percy asked, his voice pained.

“What are you talking about?”

“Calliope said that only me and Hazel have to go. It’s not too late, you could turn back.”

Frank muttered under his breath, “That’s what I said, and I was the bad guy.”

“What was that?” Annabeth snapped.

He folded his arms stubbornly and looked away from her. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You obviously did. Why don’t you say it with your chest, praetor?”

In that moment, he detested nothing in the world more than the way she pronounced his title, his honor, his livelihood, with the same venomous contempt as a charged insult. Frank suddenly remembered with sharp, scalding clarity exactly what she’d said that had made him furious—declaring herself more experienced than he, insinuating that he wasn’t as much of a leader or strategist as she was, and the worst, most slanderous offense of them all: she’d challenged the credibility of his praetorship as if it were never a rank that he’d really deserved.

Newfound anger snatched his sadness by the throat and strangled the pitiable breath from its lungs. He wanted to demand that she keep that word out of her mouth if she couldn’t say it with the respect it warranted. Was this how Annabeth had felt about him all along? Was he still an amateur, a novice hero in her eyes? Had she never taken Frank or his title seriously?

“Okay, fine.” Frank seethed. “I said—”

“Frank.” Hazel urged. It was the first word she’d spoken to him in hours. “Relax. Please. Don’t start this again.”

“I wasn’t—!” Frank started, bit his lip, hesitated. He gripped the armrests so hard that he almost crushed its aluminum material in his big, strong hands. Don’t get mad again. Don’t get mad again. was his imperative. If he couldn’t stop himself from snapping at Hazel a second time, he’d have to break the window open with his fist and immediately hurl himself out of the train, which was moving, currently, at over three-hundred kilometers per hour.

Frank huffed through his nose and he squeezed his eyes shut. He could almost hear the sound of his blood pumping in his ears. No, he couldn’t relax, he couldn’t do that right now—so he shot up from his seat and he opened his eyes, and explained himself only by announcing through tense, gritted teeth: “I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

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He did, actually, have to use the bathroom.

It had taken several minutes to walk down here; the restroom was all the way at the back of the train, and the group had been sitting somewhere just above the middle. As Frank had moved through the aisles and connected train cars, he noticed that there weren’t a lot of people onboard. Numerous confused stares had been volleyed his way, which was a normal event; even in the Bay Area, passerbys couldn’t help but gawk at the broad, bulky, massively tall Chinese guy before continuing on with their ordinary days.

A quick flush and he was washing his hands in the sink. Frank observed his reflection in the mirror. He could see a vein in his forehead swollen thick with concentrated anger. Seeing the evidence added to his irritation; this rage had never felt like it was only an emotion that inhabited his brain. To Frank, all at once it was a cursed heirloom forced upon him by his father, a throbbing excrescence sprouting upwards from his flesh, an axis upon which his entire self rotated—and it was maddening to him. He was grown enough to be aware of his temper, and yet he wasn’t man enough to wrestle it to the ground when it got out of control.

But I’m not glowing red or anything, he acknowledged hopefully. So that’s... good. I guess.

There weren’t any paper towel dispensers around, so he approached the stainless steel hand dryer affixed to the wall. Frank set his damp palms beneath its air vent. Seconds passed. Nothing happened.

“Ugh. Come on.” he grunted. “Seriously?”

He withdrew his hands from the dryer, and in immediate response came an automatic thrust of cold, high-powered air from the vent. Frank blinked, raising a suspicious eyebrow. The air continued flowing with vehemence.

He stuck his hands beneath the dryer again, and then the air stopped flowing.

“Is this a joke?” Frank yelled. “Just work!”

He flailed his hands beneath the vent erratically in attempt to reactivate the thing. He banged his fist on the top of the machine. He bent down and peeked underneath the contraption—and then the air sprang out relentlessly again, blasting his eyes with a sudden gust of cruel, chilling air.

“Ow!” Frank covered his eyes and fell back on his rear. “Why, you—!”

There was no controlling himself. The vein in his forehead was pulsing with anger. Frank wasn’t thinking at all—his right arm transformed into that of a wild grizzly bear and he slashed at the machine with his sharp, raging claws. The steel was no match for his wrath; he lashed and he sliced through the dryer over and over and over again. Metal screeched in the air, pieces flew across the room, and by the end of his explosive rampage, the hand dryer was a pathetic fraction of itself, mere bits of gnarled steel and scratch marks hanging limply off the walls.

Frank panted through his mouth and his nostrils flared. As his heart pounded and pounded and eventually slowed, he could feel the tempest inside of him dying down gradually. His claws receded back into mortal fingernails. The needly brown fur sank back into his skin. He was wholly human again, and along with humanity returned intelligent thought—namely, that Frank had overreacted somewhat. But it had still felt good to let loose and destroy something; he genuinely did feel a bit better now.

“... I should probably pay for that. Uh. Somehow.” Frank muttered aloud. He looked around the bathroom stupidly, as if he might discover a pay phone through which to send an order for a new automatic hand dryer.

But then the harsh sound of a blaring motorcycle interrupted his search. It was screechingly loud and absurdly close, like a chainsaw was revving inside his eardrums.

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Who the heck is riding a motorcycle right next to a high-speed train?

There was a small, square window on the wall opposite to the bathroom door. Frank got to his feet and pulled the blinds up. There, only a few meters away, was an overmuscled man on a black motorcycle. Its wheels were trailing hot, red flames as they scorched across the ground, and he was dangerously close to the outer walls of the train car—or at least it would be a dangerous feat, if he were only a regular mortal.

Frank was so startled, he almost tripped backwards and fell into the toilet. “Wh... what are you doing here?!”

The god turned his head and faced Frank. Glowing, infrared goggles obscured his eyes. A confident smirk was plastered on his angular face. Without saying a word, the man raised his hand and pointed backwards to the caboose of the train. Frank didn’t need audible directions to know that he was being ordered to meet him back there.

The man reared up his motorcycle and fell behind, disappearing from view. Frank opened a lock and pushed the window open to search for a sign of the god, but all he saw were the black scorch trails embedded in the grassy dirt paths along the tracks, shrinking and vanishing completely as the train outpaced its fiery scars.

Frank wanted to scream and destroy something else—like the sink or the toilet or the mirror on the wall. A family visit was not what he needed right now. He wanted to ignore the summons and go back to his friends, but he was a Roman, he was a praetor, and he was obligated to respect orders from the patron god of the Roman empire.

Passengers weren’t allowed to go farther back in the train, especially not while it was still in motion. He couldn’t just walk up to the back door and force it open, not with mortals around—but he did have access to this open window, and he had certain useful abilities that could aid him readily for a quick, discreet escape.

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He found the war god leaning against the train back door.

Fog was already marching forward from the sea and eclipsing the coast, and its cold, soft mist traipsed over the unprotected heathlands, threading its silvery haze through heather and rush and clusters of tall foxtail. Coal-black nighttime was the new backdrop, the moon a white thumbprint on its dark materials. Frank saw this as he flew in the air, damp winds sailing beneath his wide wingspan. He tilted and turned to the caboose backends, where a black, metal ladder was built onto its surface, scaling from the bottom margins of the train to its rooftop peak. Effortlessly, he flew downwards and curled his talons over a rung of the ladder. Once secure in his position, Frank shapeshifted again into his whole human self, clinging haphazardly to the ladder fixture as the train sped ceaselessly to its upcoming stop.

There was hardly any foothold beneath the door for Mars to balance himself on top of, but naturally, the man was fully unperturbed. An oversized rifle was slung over his back and a sash full of grenades was streaked over his chest. Frank didn’t see the motorcycle anywhere, but he figured that his father hadn’t lost track of it.

“Dad!” Frank shouted; the wind roared loudly, so he had to raise his volume. “What are you doing out here?!”

Mars bellowed a full, hearty laugh. “What? My boy isn’t happy that his old man joined him on vacation?”

“If you haven’t noticed, this isn’t a vacation anymore!”

“Correct.” Mars nodded. “I got something to say to you about this quest of yours. But first—we’re gonna sit you down and get your head on straight about a few things. Father to son. Man to man.”

Frank could feel his skin crawl. “What are you talking about?”

His father snapped his fingers, and then the whole scene changed. No longer did the wind whistle by with the fast-moving train, nor did the dark shade the flora in the dreamy French pastorals. He was now in a room that he knew too well; an infallible floor of pristine marble, around which the walls were enshrouded in crimson drapes of velvet. Military metals were arranged proudly over the far back wall as a long table stretched down the center of the room. It was the Principia building in the early afternoon, where administrative matters of Camp Jupiter were managed daily by the praetors, as well as anything else best handled in private by the government leaders of camp.

What had once been the frigid chill of an evening near the sea was now a pleasant and endurable temperature. Had they been teleported back instantly to California, or was this the deceit of a mist-given delusion? In considering the former, Frank felt the prick of a thin spear of envy; it wasn’t fair that the Gods could move around the earth so easily.

Frank was sitting in a gilded chair at the center table, which was littered heavily in scrolls and quills and a number of mundane materials. His father was standing behind an identical chair, one that was clearly too small for his war god body over three meters tall. Rather than humbling himself down to the size of a mortal, he snatched a grenade from his sash, bit off its safety pin, and dropped it to the ground. Frank winced and shielded his eyes as a small explosion of red-hot flames obliterated the chair instantly. When the ash and the smoke cleared, there was a taller, more grandiose seat left in its place, lined with iron spikes and hunting knives and red, fiery engravings. He then pulled back the seat and sat down in his new, hideous chair.

Frank wasn’t impressed. “Was that necessary?”

“What? Got a problem?” Mars bellowed.

“Yes. Put the old chair back before you leave, or else I’ll have to file paperwork explaining what happened.”

The man laughed heartily and openly, which cracked a half-smile out of Frank, despite himself. He used to be so intimidated by father, and so baffled as to why his mom had ever given this wretch the time of day. Even now, he didn’t understand it fully—but if there were any single charming aspect of his father, it had to be the way he laughed. It wasn’t violent or maniacal as one might expect from a god like him. The sound was so unburdened, so refreshed and unapologetic—like the laugh of relief that springs outwards from the throat after triumphing in war, that soothes the air of a ravaged battleground and gives way at last to peaceful recovery. One could hear Mars laugh and almost forget the lurid being that he was; Frank had come from this odd concept, this embodiment of military might and the masculine virtues of ancient Rome. It was one of many aspects of demigodhood that was so difficult to make sense of; Frank had come to exist only because the Romans of the past and the present worshiped everything that his father represented.

“So... dad,” Frank began, brushing his finger tips over the table. “Why do you need to talk to me all of the sudden?”

Mars smirked. “Word around the street is that you and that Pluto girl are finally starting to expand your empire.”

Frank paled. “Wh... what? What are you saying?”

He chuckled again, though the sound was no longer so endearing. “Legacies, kid. Continuing the spirit and bloodline of Rome. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what we’ve always fought for.”

Frank spluttered, “That’s—I—we are not trying to have kids right now!”

“Whatever it is that you’re trying to do,” he waved his hand dismissively, “I see that you’ve been bad at it. And you’re going to Percy Jackson for advice instead of your own father?” Mars shook his head in disappointment. “Didn’t even consider coming to me, did you, boy?”

It was true. Frank hadn’t exactly grown up with any male role models, and his mom hadn’t been around long enough to advise him on relationships by the time it would have mattered. It was part of why he’d often wished, growing up, that he’d had an older brother to learn from on awkward subjects like this. Percy was the closest thing he had, being a fellow descendant of Poseidon and a trusted, close friend.

But... Mars? Their relationship had smoothed out gradually over the years, but they weren’t exactly close—and furthermore, his trust for his dad was imprisoned by a wall of distance and reservation. Frank had learned to respect the good sides of his father as both a praetor and a son—his strength, his protectiveness, his status as the pater of the Romans—but there would always be the darker aspects and crueler mythologies, the ways in which Frank didn’t want to be like him. It was the reason why he bitterly resented his own hot temper, because Frank knew exactly which tree branch from which that sour apple had fallen.

“... I’m not a ‘boy’, I’m a man,” Frank challenged, then regretted. It sounded exactly like something that a petulant child would say. “And how do you even know about any of that? It’s not really any of your business...”

Mars scoffed. “Have you forgotten who I am? You come from me. You and the Pluto girl are the leaders of Rome. Everything you do, the way you represent yourself, is concerned with me, whether you like it or not.”

“I don’t like it. And the Pluto girl’s name is Hazel.”

“Hazel Levesque...” Mars murmured, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Yes. Strong warrior. Good woman. You’d be a damn fool to let that one get away.”

Frank doubled back in disbelief and genuine offense. “Who said I was letting her ‘get away’? We’ve been together for almost ten years already.”

“Bah, ‘ten years’—nothing more than a day in the grand scheme of time. Try a century or two and then get back to me, kid.”

He could feel himself getting angry all over again, but maybe that was just the violent aura of his dad that was incensing his emotions. “Can we just get to the point? What are you trying to say?”

“The point!” Mars echoed. “What do you think it is? I came here to impart some old-fashioned fatherly wisdom, because that’s the kind of man I am. You’d be smart to appreciate that. It’s not every mortal that can ask a god for guidance and receive an answer.”

“So... that’s why you’re here?” Frank scrutinized. “You want me to ask you for advice with my girlfriend?”

The war god folded his arms and looked away. Frank couldn’t see much of his emotions beneath those infrared goggles and the tautness of his father’s expression, but he almost suspected that Mars was genuinely irritated, and annoyed with the fact that he was irritated. Was he... upset that Frank had gone to Percy for advice instead of him? Was he angry that Frank hadn’t given him a chance to express his fatherly wisdoms?

That’s ridiculous. If you wanted to be a dad, then why couldn’t you try to be one when I was still a kid? Isn’t that the kind of man that you are?

Frank suddenly noticed how stiff his shoulders were, so he rubbed them in hopes of easing the tense muscles. Lately, he really had been feeling more like the same bumbling, hapless teenager that he’d been some years ago, and this enduring animus for Mars reminded him of being that teenage boy, that pathetic kid who’d just lost his mother to war—only to discover that war itself was the other half of his genetics. He didn’t want the bitterness of his father’s absence to be inside of him; its acrid flavor did nothing for Frank, and its existence wouldn’t change anything that had happened in the past for the better.

His fingers tapped the table nervously. There was no denying that he was confused and unsettled about many of the things happening in his life right now—and yet he struggled to even conceive of a worthwhile question. His troubles were of multitudes, they were bodyless, intangible things. How was he to ask for solutions when he could barely even prescribe a name to the problems?

“... Is there...” Frank paused, casting his gaze onto the floor. His brows lowered in frustration. “Is there... something that I’m just missing? All this... stuff, these new things with Hazel, they’re even more complicated than I thought. I feel like I’m just waiting for an epiphany that’s never going to hit. You’re a god. You’re omniscient. Is there something you can tell me that’ll make it all make sense?”

Mars leaned forward, his forearms supported on top of his knees. “What do you think, Frank? You think there’s an easy answer? You think there’s a magic word that a god can speak, and it’ll make the uncertainties of life go away?”

“Well, why not?”

He grinned an unsettling grin. “If we did that, you mortals would have no use for all those ancient philosophers that built up your civilization from the ground.”

“Ugh.” Frank leaned further back in his chair. “Then, no offense, but how are you supposed to offer me ‘guidance’? Isn’t there anything you can say? Something, I don’t know, helpful?”

The war god seemed to stare at him, maybe offended or impressed by his insolence. “Helpful, huh?”

Mars yanked off another hand grenade and rolled it across the table. Another explosion followed—a quick flashbang of bright red light that absorbed the whole room and then vanished in an instant. Frank shook his head and rubbed his eyes, disoriented. Through the haze of blurred vision, he could just make out some kind of package on the Principia table. It was a parcel the size of a cereal box, wrapped neatly in brown, linen fabric and secured with flax twine. The Chinese character for his surname, Zhang, was scrawled in ink on top of it.

“That’ll be there for you when you make it back to camp,” he announced. “Sooner than you think, you’re gonna have the chance to give your woman exactly what she wants. Something that she’s too selfless to ask for. When that time comes, think hard about the kind of man that you are. Know exactly what it is that you care about most in this life. Unlike her—you only get one lifetime to honor the name your mother gave you.”

“Exactly what she wants...” Frank wondered in awe. Gods, he wanted desperately to know what he could do to satisfy her. “L—like what? Is it something specific? Like... mouth stuff?”

There it was again—the full-bodied laugh from the god of war, so deep and powerful and utterly carefree. When he finally finished convulsing with humor, he adjusted his goggles and stood up from his chair.

“Take it from me, kid. Going down on your lady is the closest you’ll get to Elysium before you die.” he said. “But you’re gonna need to think a little deeper than that.”

Before Frank could sputter some nonsensical and incoherent response, Mars snapped his fingers again, and they were suddenly back on the train.

“GAH!” Frank yelped, panickedly securing his hold on the rungs of the ladder. They had returned to the caboose, still chugging along the south of France. The cold, night wind was whipping at his ears. “Mother of Ceres!” he shouted in alarm. “Dad, can you give me a freaking warning next time?!”

Mars was leaning against the backdoor once again, still smiling wildly at Frank. “That’s a negative, son. Now! About this quest... Where are your weapons?”

Frank reeled. “You mean my bow and arrows? They’re in the train, obviously!”

“In the train?! The boy is my son, and he isn’t armed at all times! Tch! Shameful!”

“I was going to the bathroom!”

“You think your foes can’t find you in a bathroom, soldier?!” Mars roared. He snapped his fingers again, and instantly, the full set of Frank’s bow, quiver, and arrows were hanging securely over his back. “You got three new arrows in there now, hear me?! Three—new—arrows! One of ‘em, you’re gonna shoot at what you can’t reach! One of ‘em, you shoot at the face you can’t see! And the other, you shoot when there’s no other way out! Got it?!”

“What in Tartarus does any of that mean?!” Frank shouted. “And which one is which?!”

“You’ll know,” the man declared. “You’re the son of the military god. The arms of righteous battle are your birthright. You know how to make your weapons serve you.”

He grabbed the rifle off of his back and tossed it onto a dirt road running parallel to the train tracks. Like the Transformers in the cartoons Frank watched as a kid, the gun grew and reconfigured itself into Mars’ black motorcycle. In a flash, the god was riding it again, the wheels a blur of flaming spokes and hot intensity. He veered the bike harshly in a sharp U-turn, then started speeding in the opposite direction away from Frank.

“Now, get back out on the field! Your comrades need you!” Mars yelled over his shoulder, his gravelly voice still powerful and blaring through the fog. “And kid! Don’t forget about that thing in your pocket!”

The motorcycle reared up, then shot forward at an impossible speed. A sonic BOOM and a cloud of combustion was left in its wake, and that was the last Frank saw of his old man; he was now redelivered to the stillness and the mist of the French summer eve, moonrays aglisten on the benevolent water. The tune of the wind was a lute-like whistle as its soft chill rasped and fluttered and bowed against his skin. Frank tightened his fists on the freezing iron ladder, feeling deeply bewildered to his core—and somehow, vaguely, almost encouraged.

“... ‘Don’t forget about the thing in my pocket?’” he said to himself, sparing a hand to venture inside of his pants. “What is he... oh, for the love of—”

In his hand was the gift he’d received for his eighteenth birthday. The small, square package that he despised, distrusted, and never planned on using: the ANTI-KID WAR MACHINES.

He raised his arm back and chucked the package in the direction where his father drove off, knowing, unfortunately, that this wouldn’t count as littering, because the sick artifact was cursed to reappear in his pocket no matter what he did, just like Percy’s ballpoint pen.

“Unbelievable...” Frank groaned. “So is that what advice from dads is supposed to be like? ‘Give her what she wants’ and a riddle? And what do you mean, ‘my comrades’—”

KRRRRRRRRRRRK.

Something—something rammed into the train—it happened out of nowhere, he didn’t know what it was—something massive like a truck and angry like bull that rammed into its side with a hideous crunch, causing the metal to incave, causing his pulse to spike high as the vibrations from the impact reverberated through his bones and knocked him off of the caboose. Frank landed in the dirt heavily, the train rolled off of the tracks and panicked screams from shocked passengers ripped into the atmosphere. No longer was the evening soft nor the landscape serene; in the blink of an eye, everything had changed, and Frank knew it from within that this wasn’t natural. They were under attack.

His palms were scraped from the fall but quickly he was back on his feet—eyes darting around, scanning for the danger. The impact seemed to have occurred at the middle car of the train, now rolled onto its side, and if anyone had been sitting there then they had certainly been brutally maimed, if not fatally injured. His friends had been seated somewhere around that point. Had they been hurt by the attack? There was no time to waste; he turned into an eagle readily and flew up into the sky in search of clarity.

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“Hazel! Percy!” Frank shouted at the top of his lungs. He was running up and down the point of impact. “Annabeth! Where are you?!”

Steam and smoke hissed off of the train. It was stationary now; he could hear the passengers still shrieking in alarm and confusion. Longer he went without hearing from his friends, and so deeper grew a chasm, a vacuum inside of his body wherein hope disappeared and anguish festered, a bone-chilling horror that this was it, this was the end—they’d been crushed by the collision and Hazel was taken again from her life, and he was counting in his head all the times he said he loved her and despairing because he knew he hadn’t said it enough—nor had he proven it sufficiently, and she had died hating him after a foolish argument, it should have been him, it should have been him! Or else he should have died with her; his heart throbbed in agony. He could wither up and die from this crushing, crushing pain and the madness of his thoughts if this was really how it ended—but then he caught the word if, clutched it tightly in his hands, and drank its hope-giving water. He was jumping to conclusions. He didn’t know what happened yet.

Stop it. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. he warned himself repeatedly. You don’t know if they’re dead. Focus on what you can do.

If even one of his friends had survived, they wouldn’t live for long should the enemy persist. What Frank needed to do was steady himself, make certain the attacker, and preserve the people still inside the train. Now, with firm grasp on his goals and a mind of clearer temperament, Frank concentrated hard. And then he scanned the area.

Only the moon was his light in the dizzy heathlands. Only the broken whirring of the train and panicked voices from inside were his scattered ambience. There were no houses as far as his eyes could see—this was an empty battleground, and briefly he wondered if the enemy had left, but then, in listening carefully, he heard the sound of fast, pounding footsteps like a horse galloping, getting louder every second. It was coming from his left side. Frank turned in its direction.

“What the—!”

“RHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Frank dove just in time. A colossal, hulking beast tore right past his side and shocked the breath out of his lungs. He saw but a flicker of its form before it disappeared again into the night—something grayish with massive tusks and a fetid odor abandoned in the wind as it sped forward. Frank gagged from the smell. Its speeding hooves left clouds of distilled gravel in the air. He got back onto his feet. There was no time to rest, for he could hear those clopping hooves thumping like a fast heartbeat, barreling yet again in his direction.

And he saw the being he was up against. It was a boar the size of an elephant with bloodshot, furious eyes and a paltry mane of fur across its back. The monster squealed like a pig as it dashed towards him at a launched missile’s speed—but Frank’s reflexes were quick. He changed into a lion and leapt horizontally again. The boar missed him by a few seconds.

Frank was shocked by its speed and its size. This was no normal boar, no ordinary assault from a wild animal; it sped just as quickly as the train despite its mass, and its thick, yellowed tusks were sharp and deadly. He supposed it was only a matter of time until four demigods in the Ancient Lands got attacked by a ravenous monster, but what exactly was it? Weren’t there a few myths about ginormous boars? It moved so fast, how was he going to take it down when he had to focus on dodging its attacks?

The boar squealed even louder as it sped off (which Frank interpreted as indignation that it hadn’t trampled him yet). It raced in a vertical path down the field, gradually cooled to a much slower pace, and then turned towards him from twenty meters away. He saw it pawing its front hoof in the dirt over and over like a frustrated horse, eyes locking on Frank as its nostrils flared. The beast’s head thrashed in frenetic fits, and then it surged towards him again.

Still in lion form, Frank attempted to jump out of the way—but as the boar chased and burred and neared his position, its writhing head lowered and smacked him hard with the blunt sides of its tusks. Frank roared in pain—the impact was so harsh that it knocked him back into human form midair, tumbling and tumbling as he finally landed and rolled across the dirt. Hot, screeching agony on his left side. He was certain that one of his ribs had been broken.

The boar kept tunneling in the same direction into which it had sped. Gritting his teeth through the pain, Frank brainstormed his options. He was beginning to notice that the boar had difficulty changing directions after it charged. It couldn’t manage sudden pivots, and it required several seconds to slow down enough to turn its body around. Thanks to his dad, Frank still had his bow and arrows slung over his back. Could he try to kill it from a distance during its cooldown?

He didn’t have much time, so he forced himself to ignore the searing pain in his ribs and stand up quickly. Frank took hold of his bow and he considered his arrows... In his quiver was the usual array of specialty arrows—some laden with poison, some that would unleash a net to capture his target, among others—and the three, new arrows just given by his father. Only now did he notice that their fletchings were glowing with three distinct colors: one bright gold, one pallid purple, and another as white as the aura of the moon over his head. How had his dad instructed him to use them again? One was for something he couldn’t reach, another for a face he couldn’t see, and the last for when there was no other way out—

“GAH!” Frank yelped—avoiding the boar by a hair as it rampaged towards him a fourth time. He was beginning to feel like the world’s worst matador; if he got hit a second time, he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to keep dodging its attacks, and to make matters worse, shapeshifting was so much more difficult to do when distracted by the pains of recent injury.

But he now had a good view of its rear. The boar had to keep plowing forward with its back turned before it could slow down and rotate again towards Frank. It would only be a few more seconds before it turned back around. He reached for an arrow, and then he wondered—should he use one of the gifts from his father?

It's foggy, but I can still definitely see its big, ugly face. Frank pondered. And technically, I can reach it. And I don’t think this counts as having no other way out. Or does it? Should I try it, anyway? What if I need it later?

He cussed in frustration and grabbed a poison-tipped arrow instead. Gods, why did his dad have to give him a stupid riddle? He didn’t have the time or luxury to examine its meaning during the heat of battle.

As quickly as Frank could, he drew back the arrow in his bow and fired it off at the boar’s backside. It sank swiftly into its gray-skinned hide, and the brief spark of excitement inside of his chest was overshadowed immediately by the monster’s reaction. It squealed as the arrow pierced its flesh—but it wasn’t the cry of a dying animal so much as a whine of mere displeasure, annoyance, like the sound Frank made whenever he stubbed his toe on something.

He realized what should have been obvious from the start. A single arrow in the rear wasn’t going to kill that thing, and the amount of poison soaked into its tip was intended for much smaller foes. To effectively fell an agitated creature the size of an elephant, he’d need enough poison and arrows in his inventory to kill... well, an elephant.

The beast was pivoting, pawing the ground and preparing to launch itself at Frank again—but then, something happened, he didn’t know what. A tortured squeal ripped from its throat, and its whole body spasmed and writhed in rage. He saw blood, the swing of a white blade, and a blur of blonde hair racing through the dark night. She was fast—not as fast as the boar, but still as swift and agile as an acrobat.

Frank’s eyes went wide. “You’re... you’re alive!”

It was Annabeth Chase, and in her hands was the hilt of her drakon bone sword. A nasty head injury had soaked the left side of her face with blood, but otherwise, she didn’t appear critically maimed as far as his eyes could discern.

“Frank!” Annabeth screamed. “This thing—that’s the Calydonian boar!”

He cussed in Latin again—the possibility had phased through his head, but Frank had hoped gratuitously that he was wrong, that it wasn’t that beast. Of all the myths he knew about powerful, rampaging boars, the Calydonian was the one that he feared most. In ancient times, the boar had been sent by Artemis to ravage the lands of Calydon as revenge for the king’s failing to make a sacrifice to her. The ensuing Calydonian Boar Hunt was legendary, and a favorite myth of the legion. Some of the fiercest contemporary heroes had been gathered for the hunt—Atalanta, Meleager, the Dioscuri Castor and Pollux, among others—like a fantastic band of ancient Avengers.

But that was just it—it had taken several hunters to finally take down the boar. They didn’t have the Avengers, they didn’t have all of their friends from the Prophecy of the Seven. It was just Frank and Annabeth right now, and he didn’t know yet if Percy and Hazel had even survived the train crash. He wanted to ask her if they were okay, but for now, they had to just focus on staying alive.

As the boar convulsed in pain from several meters away, Frank gleaned the damage that Annabeth achieved. She must have sneaked up on the boar and slashed her sword through the thick tendons of its hind legs, and was moving for a second offense to its front half, but the monster was just too wild. Its movements were sharp and erratic, head and tusks blindly swinging back and forth. Annabeth ducked and dodged and rolled through its front legs to avoid its spasms, a nonstop force of brilliant evasions, and Frank didn’t wait to attack. In rapid succession he licensed more arrows and shot five of them right into the boar’s face. One bounced off of its tusks but all others pierced somewhere critical—an eye, a nostril, the cheeks—and its head whipped back from worsened agony.

Increasingly horrible squeals in the air. Annabeth huffed as she evaded its violent thrashings. Together they had weakened the boar, but he knew that much more would be needed to kill it once for and all. They couldn’t keep this up forever, and Frank was getting sick and tired of this fight. He needed to find out if Percy and Hazel were okay; this monster was keeping him from finding his friends. Couldn’t they speed this up somehow? If killing it would take too much time and effort, was it possible to render the beast immobile instead?

He noticed, now, thanks to Annabeth’s attack, that the boar was barely using its hind legs anymore. Blood trickled from the gashes and its hocks were trembling. With wounds like that, Frank doubted that the boar could move as fast now as it was able to before.

“Annabeth!” Frank shouted from afar, readying more arrows. “The front legs! You already got the back—if we can hurt its front legs, it’ll stop attacking!”

“You think I don’t know that?!” she yelled back, turning her head towards him. “Easier said than—!”

Annabeth screamed. The boar whacked her right in the chest with its tusks and propelled her through the air until slamming into the side of the train with a terrible BANG. The blonde slumped over immediately, crumpling to the dirt in a defeated heap.

Frank’s heart skipped a beat and he shouted her name. All at once, a red-hot scourge of emotion exploded inside of him—the hatred for his worst insecurities, the anger he’d tried so hard to suppress, his fear that he wasn’t in control of himself—and for the first time in years, he didn’t pause, he didn’t meditate on the effect that it had, nor did he try to reject the intensity of the fervors that were coursing within. Frank allowed the power to consume him completely and willingly, as if laying himself in the Mediterranean, as if sinking deeper into its void and drowning his mind, body, soul in everything that he didn’t want to feel. The energy suffocated him whole. He died and returned to the earth as something other or more than his self. An aura of crimson emerged from his flesh; he knew, now, that neither beast nor god could stop him from protecting his friends and the people inside of that train.

The bloodied boar, thrashing less, stabilized, was preparing to ram into Annabeth and the train just behind her—but Frank wasn’t going to let it hurt anyone else. In a flash, he was a falcon that raced across the field and then human again, now standing defensively in front of Annabeth. The boar charged. It was only half as fast due to its numerous wounds, which was nonetheless impressively fast, but Frank wasn’t scared. He understood exactly what had to be done.

There’s only one thing I can do. Frank thought, his heart pounding immeasurably fast. I have to let it try and hit me.

The boar let loose a roar so loud that it could be heard from deep in the Underworld. Its speed picked up as it ran. Frank held his arms out wide, inviting the beast to target him fully.

“Come on!” Frank screamed. “You wanna kill me? Go ahead! TRY IT!”

Seven meters away, seven meters between him and death or seven meters between him and the triumph, the outlet he needed; the number shrank down. He stared at the boar head-on, radiating with the red power of his father, and between the two violent animals, he wasn’t sure which one of them had a more bloodthirsty look in their eyes.

“RHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Frank roared, and then he pulled back his fist.

The boar went flying back across the field—flying so far, so fast that Frank could barely see it anymore. The sheer force of his punch had sent it soaring over five kilometers in the distance, its screeches fading the farther and deeper it flew in the coast, but Frank wasn’t finished yet. He shapeshifted into a form that he’d never attempted before: an exact replica of the Calydonian boar itself, equipped with its massive tusks and its powerful berth. A screech erupted from deep inside of his body, and then he chased in its direction.

He was just as fast as the original boar, and in less than a minute it was back within his sight. The creature was weakened significantly, wobbling as if severely disoriented, but it still looked like it had the power and willingness to charge after Frank or his friends yet again, and he wouldn’t let that happen—so he rammed into the boar head-on.

But the beast held its ground better than Frank expected. They collided hard, tusk battered against tusk, force pushed back against opposite force, brawling like the wild animals that both of them were. Grunts and snarls filled up the air. Frank pushed and he pushed, and the boar pushed back but he didn’t give up—and with effort, with strain, he found his leverage and the strength that he needed to push harder, to twist his head and rally his tusks and pierce the monster in its front legs. Another furious wail of hatred and pain. Frank bucked his head as hard as he possibly could, slamming again into the body of the boar. Its legs gave out, and again it skid several meters backwards, landing defeated, on the opposite side of an empty road, completely unable to get back up.

Gradually, his heartbeat slowed down.

When he reverted back into his mortal figure, Frank was struggling to stand. The red glow around his body was rapidly fading, and with it his fire, his energy, his strength disappeared. He felt thoroughly depleted, his stomach empty and spirit infirm. Horrible pains attacked his body; the throbs of his screaming, broken rib, and something else. Frank touched a point of soreness in his upper left bodily and discovered a frightening injury. Blood poured eagerly over his arm and his pectoral. There was a hole in the space between his shoulder and his collarbone. Had the boar managed to stick him with its tusks at some point, and he hadn’t even noticed because of his power?

“Owww...” Frank complained, wincing hard. “Mother of Mercury, that hurts.”

He didn’t want to lose more blood, so he gritted his teeth and covered the hole with his hand for now.

Frank, breathing raggedly from pain and overexertion, observed the form of the boar again, which laid still only a short walk away. He couldn’t tell if the thing was dead or not. If it wasn’t, should he finish it off before he collapsed? Make sure that it wouldn’t attack his friends again? He could even make a sacrifice to his dad, though he didn’t have a lighter with which to ignite any flames. And burning the boar that big would probably require a much larger fire than Frank would be comfortable with.

With the last of his strength, he decided to cross the road and approach the boar. Maybe he wouldn’t kill it once for all. Maybe he’d just ask it very nicely not to attack any more European trains. His father would scoff at the idea—he could swear that he heard the god’s voice berating him in his head all over again, saying, You refuse your spoils, boy? Not Roman at all. You slayed the legendary Calydonian boar. Warriors were killed for the right to that skin, and you still reject it?

I don’t want that thing’s gross skin, Frank thought back. ... And even if I did, it wouldn’t only be mine to take. Annabeth helped.

The thought of her reminded him of how sick he was with worry for his friends, worry for Hazel. He had no idea if she had survived the initial impact. Considering that possibility encouraged and bolstered his vengefulness. No, he didn’t want the boar’s skin. But if it was still breathing while Hazel was gone, and it was the reason that he’d lost her forever... he wasn’t sure if he could hold himself back from tearing its whole body apart while its heart was still beating.

First, he needed to ascertain that it wouldn’t attack anyone again, then he would hurry back to the train as fast as he could. Frank began to cross the road, still covering the hole in his shoulder with only his hand, which was now inundated by a truly nauseating amount of blood that he was trying his best to ignore. He couldn’t afford to worry about himself right now.

And he didn’t even see it coming. He was only looking at the boar, only thinking about Hazel and his desperate need to make it back to her. He didn’t see the headlights and he didn’t even hear the fast-spinning wheels or the thrumming engine. He’d almost made it to the other side of the road, mere footsteps away from safety, and only at the very, very last second, when it was now too late, did Frank ask himself why he hadn’t listened to what his mother used to say, why he’d been too stupid to look both ways before crossing the street.

Blunt, crushing impact. A sick THUMP—BANG in his ears. Frank didn’t feel the pain—he felt only the collision and the loss of his footing, the brief weightlessness of his body flying through the air before it all went dark, and his consciousness collapsed into a void of empty nothingness, as though his life and the earth were now amorphous entities, snapped free from the tethers that bind to all things material and in-reality.

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Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 16

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He was moved by blurs of cognizance and rousing sensations. Every flicker of consciousness was drowning in obscure tonalities, in wraith-like fingers touching his body, some indistinct and ethereal pains, and odd suggestions of light overhead. He was too weak to raise his hands, to struggle his voice and attempt the phrases that neither mind nor lip could string together with any success: Is someone there? What happened to Hazel? What happened to me? Still—only blurs of cognizance and rousing sensations; someone prodding at his wounds and maybe low whispers, maybe a second and third being in the room, maybe a vague tugging inside of his body, like a hand of Thanatos closing over his unmovable soul, which refused to budge or give from his chest. “We will meet again under less pleasant circumstances,” he was told by Death himself nine years in the past. Another wave of delirious thoughts. He was almost dead, but not just yet.

Time passed, or Frank assumed that it did. Hours or days skirted by sneakily like a mouse scurrying in a crevice in the wall. Along with the slow revival of his spirit was a kind of anesthetized wakefulness, for his eyes opened fully yet failed to absorb any meaning in his current surroundings; they moved over the ceiling, the wall, the ceiling, the floor, and still he wondered, Am I outside? I don’t see the moon, is it morning already? Frank could barely move his limbs, barely even feel his fingers as they twitched and bent and closed into a fist. The mouse scurried by even deeper in its hole.

Gradually, the aura of numbness dissipated, and falling into his possession was full-bodied confusion and a dull, dreary headache, which rose over the base of his skull and radiated through to the backs of his eyes. Frank didn’t feel good, and he had no idea where he was.

“Ugh...” A groan scratched free from his dry, sore throat. “What happened to me...?”

First, he attempted to examine his own body. Thick bandages were set over his left shoulder where the boar tusk had pierced his flesh. Other wrappings were dressed over his arms. His worst ache was that when he took a deep breath; every inhalation ripped searing pain into his chest, undoubtedly an effect of the broken rib sustained in the fight. Moving his left arm, too, was a feat of distinct agony and worsened the upset in his shoulder, but he was more durable to battle injuries than the average demigod as both a son of Mars and a sturdy man overall, so with all events considered, he was doing alright now. With some ambrosia and nectar, Frank imagined that he’d be okay.

... But he didn’t have any. He didn’t have anything on his person, not even his bow and his quiver—and that was bad news, where were the special arrows from his father?

Of a sounder mind now than of previous attempts, Frank tried again to make sense of his surroundings.

It was a room of antiques and rustic moodiness. Beneath him was a twin-sized bed that could barely endure the size of his body, encircled by a rusting wrought-iron bedframe. A patchwork quilt was set over him as he laid on the stiff mattress. The wooden floorboards were tarnished and long-stripped of their luster, surely decades old and well-walked by the footprints of time. On the walls, low-ceiled, were beige wallpapers of an old Victorian pattern, but they were stained yellowish and peeling and littered with tears. Against the walls leaned countless artifacts: two antique dressers, an old rocking chair with a frilly throw pillow, framed sepia portraits of women from the twentieth century. If not for the bright light fixture above Frank’s head, the room would have almost felt of some haunted quality. It was neither quaint nor “cozy” nor charmingly drab. Frank could only describe it as almost unsettling, as almost abandoned; if he could help it, he didn’t want to stay there for long.

To the left, a closed window cracked ever slightly open. Hoarse whispers of air teased and startled the indigo curtains. Frank gathered all of his strength to his feet and encouraged himself to arise from the bed, which groaned lowly as the springs unbent. The room was silent but for harrowing creaks as his steps burdened the dry, withered floorboards.

Frank pulled back the curtains, and then his eyes went wide.

Pitch black nighttime. The moon was a distant and watchful figure guarded by grey cloud plumes dampening its light. What he saw was defined by absence; endless pools of layered darkness, and a far outstretch of utter nothingness. An empty countryside in the middle of nowhere. No Mediterranean sea, no signs of civilization but the wherever-room where he stood right now. What he saw was a cold and desolate landscape whose tufts of grayish grass were so widespread, so starved of water. A graveyard would be more lively than this, its tombstones suggestive of company below ground. Here there was nothing, nothing, nothing, no signs of life for miles and miles, no indication that even the sun would ever resist the tyranny of the moon. He wondered if he was the only thing left in the whole entire world with moving eyes and a beating heart.

It was pounding harder. He could hear its quickening percussion more than he could hear anything else. Frank wanted to transform into a bird and fly until he saw anything but this dark nothingness, but he was too injured. The pain in his ribs and his shoulder would scream even louder if he took on the shape of a smaller animal. And it was impossible to know how long he’d been unconscious. Had he simply collapsed after the fight? How far was he now from the scene of the attack?

The overhead light then suddenly flickered. Its brightness wavered and disappeared.

"Ah!" Frank gasped. “H... Hello?”

He turned from the window but could hardly see anything at all. The gloom of the bedroom was now all the more pronounced—

Ttch. Ttch. Ttch.

His shoulders jumped. A sudden noise in the room, it was an itching sound like a fingernail against sandpaper, like a tree branch scratch on an old wooden house, like a match being flicked repeatedly against the coarse exterior of a matchbook...

Ttch. Ttch. Ttch.

What was the cause? The room was vacant. He’d been so certain that he was alone—but maybe that had changed. He was staring wide-eyed at the pitch black room, disorientation swirling within, trying to remember where the rocking chair was, where the picture frames were just to feel more grounded in this dark reality, this place which felt like an alternate world and the match kept striking again at the book, it failed to ignite and it struck yet again, but what devious hands were so desperate for fire? With whom was he sharing this space?

“Hello?” Frank repeated more shakily. He could almost feel the aggravated pains of his injured rib as his heart pounded faster against the bounds of its cage. “Is someone there?”

And now, footsteps. Slow creaking sounds bearing against the wooden floor but not in this room, maybe somewhere beyond the door, footsteps that were hushed and uncertain like whispered rumors gaining in eerie volume and Frank’s blood ran cold, icewater in his veins as the steps got closer and someone kept striking that match, the ttch ttch sound and the groaning floorboards, gods, his heart was beating so fast. Paranoia was burrowed in his skin and crawling beneath like a writhing centipede, pinching every blood vessel with its sharp forcipules; he was certain of an unknown danger, and his imagination roared with dark possibilities.

“Are you gonna answer me?” he tried again, forcing false confidence into his voice. “Who are you?”

And then, coming just from behind, a witchlike voice assailed his ear with a targeted and hateful reckoning:

“TRAITOROUS BOY.”

Instinctively he reached for an arrow that he didn’t have—but then the ttch noise ceased and the door whipped open, and with it unfurled a bath of warm light that seeped through the darkness of the pitch black room.

“Awake now, young man?” said a floaty, feminine voice, clear like a wind chime, different from the one that had peaked by his ear. “Good... good. I’ve been waiting.”

Frank squinted at his visitor. She was holding an old-fashioned oil lantern at her bosom, so the amber glow of its flame bloomed from below her face, distorting its lights and shadows as a flashlight would when telling fireside ghost stories. Silvery hairs peaked out from her black ricinium, a head covering that wrapped over her crown and her shoulders. Her floor-length dress was equally black, so the woman blended in with the dark room, and thus her pale, aged face, absent of any color, alluded almost to a floating white mask unattached to a body at all.

“You can walk,” she observed. “Come.”

The woman began to turn around, but Frank was rooted to his spot.

“You won’t come?” she asked. “You wish to rest for longer?”

“Um...” Frank attempted to speak. He was so unnerved by these events, he was struggling to remember how to talk. “No, I just—what’s—what’s going on? How did I get here? Who are you?”

The woman smiled softly. He could smell a vaguely sweet, honeysuckle-like scent radiating off of her. Without explanation, she gestured to the darkness beyond the door and repeated politely, “Come.”

She turned and walked back through the door. Frank wasn’t sure what else he could do but to follow her obediently. So he did.

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A short passage through an old farmhouse. Its nature was mystic, brooding, strange. Hundreds of picture frames dressed on the walls, each filled with distinct images of various peoples—little girls, adult men, young women, all from various time periods, some with bonnets and stiff-necked frocks and others in modern blazers and starched pocket squares. No faces were repeated among them; these were not images of a large family, they were seemingly random human beings from across the ages. He wondered if the woman had simply purchased the frames and retained the sample images therein, but deep down he knew that that wasn’t the case.

Down the staircase, her lantern light led the way. She didn’t say anything. He didn’t make conversation. She took him to the kitchen, where a vintage cookstove was burning a delicate flame, on top of which sat a boiling pot. More disturbing portraits clustered over the walls. The woman gestured for Frank to sit at a table in the center of the room, and he didn’t want to, but he did it, anyway.

It was a threadbare farmhouse kitchen. Her shelves were lined with the typical accessories. She abandoned her lantern on the table and searched for a bowl in her old cupboards. With a ladle, she gathered soup from the boiling pot and portioned it into the bowl, and then she laid it in front of Frank at the table.

“Eat,” she said. “You will feel better.”

Frank looked down at the bowl. The soup had no scent whatsoever, so he had no idea what he was looking at. “Um... I’m not that hungry.”

“I am sure you are,” the woman countered. Her white mask-face was serene and pleasant. “Go on, young man.”

Eating mysterious food at a stranger’s home in the middle of nowhere was undoubtedly a terrible idea, but he didn’t want to be rude, so he allowed himself to indulge in the tiniest sip of its pale liquid. Immediately, a pleasant warmth spread all throughout his body, and his mouth was filled with a familiar, comforting flavor.

“Whoa, that’s actually good.” Frank acknowledged, taking a second sip. He could feel himself getting stronger, the pain in his chest and his shoulder subsiding gradually. “And I do feel better. It’s almost like...”

... Nectar?

Frank set the spoon down. He didn’t finish his thought aloud, but the taste of this soup, the way that it seemed to better his injuries... it had to be ambrosia and nectar, right? Or was this woman’s cooking just that good?

“Um... I’m Frank Zhang,” he introduced himself, even more wary of the older woman now. “Can you... tell me what I’m doing here? And who you are? I don’t remember what happened to me.”

She folded her arms into the drooping black sleeves of her dress. Frank observed her face even more closely, deciding that she was a woman in her late-forties. Her eyes were even darker than his own. When she spoke, her voice was just as calm and unfazed as it had been before.

“Let us mention that I... encountered you unexpectedly,” she mused. “You were in the road, young man. I was traveling back to this old home of mine. We collided, and you, without consciousness, could not care for yourself. I returned you here and aided your blistering wounds as you slept. It seems that you are much better off now than before.”

“... Wh...” Frank furrowed his brows. “Wait, are you saying that you hit me with a car? ”

“It was only but a small vehicle,” she smiled. “I do enjoy a quiet drive in the dark every so often.”

“But you hit me with a car?”

“You are strong. I think you will survive, young man.”

No matter the positive effect on his wounds, he was no longer interested in the soup. The sheer absurdity of this woman, and the events since the attacking of the train, wrenched Frank free from all his remaining stupor. A flood of urgency washed over his mind, cleansing his fear, his confusion, replacing their blights with newfound readiness to return to his friends. He still didn’t know if any of them were okay, and he had to go looking for them as soon as possible.

Frank shook his head at the woman. “Look, I have to go. Where exactly am I? I need to get back to—”

“—to Pluto’s girl, I suppose?”

His shoulders twitched. “What? How did you...”

That did it. His suspicions were confirmed. This was no ordinary realm into which he’d been taken, and this seemingly polite woman had already known who he was from the start.

“You’re not a mortal,” Frank judged confidently. “What are you?”

“Ah...” the woman sighed exhaustedly. “Questions, questions—are you that oppressed by the unknown? You, of the living, you labor me, harass me with this curiosity more-so than even the dead.”

Frank gulped. “The... the dead?”

“Indeed, Frank Zhang.” she crooned. “You ask who I am, what I am... you are suspicious of me. Yet I am somewhat fond of your ilk, and my affection for you should be the sole reason I cared for your wounds, when I’d have much preferred to extract your spirit whence you were merely half-dead.”

“My... ilk?”

“Progeny of the war god,” the woman explained. “Yes... war, death, mania, spirits—all fine companions of one another, co-existing, co-penetrating the same mortal axis. And if you are well now, then I gather you are free to leave whenever you wish. I’ve not imprisoned you, son of Mars.”

“But where am I? Who are you?”

She really must have been irritated by his ceaseless barrage of questions. Wordlessly, she turned her head and removed herself from the kitchen, exiting through an unlocked screen door.

Now, Frank wasn’t sure what to think or what to do. He could try to leave, just as he’d been given permission to do, but he wouldn’t know where to go. This woman, she did care for his injuries and allow him to rest in her home. She claimed to be soft for the children of Mars. For some reason, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he ought to speak to her a little more.

Ttch. Ttch. Ttch.

The match-strike sound.

A cold sensation of chill and dread. Frank turned his head around. He looked all over the kitchen and nothing was there that hadn’t been there before.

The skin-crawling sensation all over again. Whatever the source of this sound might be, he would prefer to never have to find out.

Frank, hurrying onto his feet, followed the strange woman through the kitchen back door. There, he discovered the farmhouse backyard.

Though he was glad to be outside of that ghastly house, the world beyond its walls was no less ominous. As Frank had thought back in the bedroom, this world was a barren wasteland. The soil was grayish and dry. Farther back he observed a dilapidated barn, a shadowy silo, and a slow-spinning windmill. It was still nighttime, so he could see very little without the aid of the moon, still partially obscured by a cloudy night sky.

The woman was now busying herself in the dirt. She had a large hand rake in her hands and was using it to till the dry soil. This land of hers didn’t look like it could possibly grow anything more than a weak blade of grass, but Frank decided not to criticize her operations.

“Um, ma’am...” he started, unsure of what to say. He didn’t want to start with another question, but questions were all that he had right now. “So... you know stuff about spirits and the dead, I’m guessing?”

She glanced at him, a wry smile on her lips. “I know them well.”

“Well, I’m actually supposed to be on a quest right now—and this quest, there’s a chance that it’ll lead us into Tartarus.”

“Yes; so?”

“So... uh. Do you know anything about the Underworld, or Tartarus, or...” Frank trailed off. He had no idea what he was even asking for. “Or, well, any of that stuff that might help us out? We don’t have a prophecy or anything, so we’re going in blind.”

The woman paused to consider this thoughtfully. And then she handed him the rake.

“Continue my work, Frank Zhang.” she commanded. “And I may yet offer some aid that will serve you well in the realms below earth.”

Ma’am, you hit me with a car. he wanted to complain, but Frank had half-expected something like this. If he was asking a goddess—or a spirit—or whatever she was for special help, it was commonplace that she’d expect something in return. Tilling farmland would be one of the less troublesome tasks for a divine being that he’d completed in his demigod life.

Frank accepted the rake. And then he got to work.

His left shoulder wasn’t totally healed just yet (which made him regret not finishing that soup), so he tilled the soil using just his right hand. It was surprisingly difficult to do, because the dirt was neither soft nor gentle. Sweat formed over his brow as he dragged the rake through the ground, fighting back against the strain of his protesting rib. After about half an hour, Frank succeeded in tilling nearly a full acre’s worth of soil.

“Ah... good!” said the woman from a meter away. “Your labors are sufficient. Come, Frank Zhang.”

He deposited the rake against the side of the house and returned to her side. Then, from her sleeve, she withdrew what looked like a packet of seeds. With a flick of her pale white wrist, she scattered its full contents over the entirety of the plowed acre. The seeds, which glowed with a ghostly aura, flew across the field as if laden with a will of their own and burrowed themselves in the tracks. And the earth started to shake.

At first, a slow, rolling tremble, like a shivering dog, but the convulsions soon worsened. The whole ground in front of them quaked and rumbled and turned—and then, all at once, as Frank’s heart beat against his chest and his mouth gaped with awe, a white surge of spirits shot upward from the tilled dirt like sacred waters sprouting outwards from a fountain and they surged, they moaned—a collective of iridescent phantoms flying into the sky. Frank couldn’t believe the sight he was witnessing; he’d assisted this woman in raising a hoard of phasma from the earth.

“What?!” Frank shouted, shielding his eyes with his arm because the flares of light were almost too blinding to look upon directly. “What is this?!”

“My children,” she whispered. There was almost a madness in her once-calm eyes; the glimmer of the ghouls were reflected in their depths. “Ah, look! Beauties that they are. They yearned to be free, yet they were too weak and dispirited to rise on their own. We have only aided them in springing forth from the Underworld.”

Children? Frank thought. And he suddenly remembered a hint from earlier that she’d expressed. The reason why she liked children of Mars. So long he’d spent wondering exactly what she was, who she was, when this ghoulish woman had already told him her name.

“You’re... you’re Mania!” he exclaimed. “The Roman mother of ghosts!”

She smiled wildly at him. “At last, young man. You’ve demystified your own unknowns.”

The swells of hundreds of ghosts spirited highly towards the moon—but then sharply pivoted in all horizontal directions, spreading absolutely everywhere and all across the sky. From the pallid gleams of their aura, the night sky was now horrifically bright, as though the surge of ghosts had replaced the moonbeams and it was newly daytime. The chorus of indecipherable moans was loud and grotesque, all wailing in search of something or someone as they diffused across the earth. When the surge finally stopped, the last of the spirits disappearing in the sky, Frank stumbled backwards and fell onto his rear. Every membrane in his body was tingling with dread. He had witnessed something for which he lacked the intelligence to speak into words.

Mania extended a hand for him reach. “Rise, son of Mars. You are alive. Remove yourself from the dirt.”

“Did I...” Frank wheezed. “Did I just help you raise a bunch of evil spirits from the Underworld? Please don’t say yes.”

She clicked her tongue in displeasure. “‘Evil’, good, I chide you for this. These are arbitrary words. They are the same as you—only they lack flesh and blood. They are the dead. Yearning, hateful, peace-seeking, maniacal dead. They are every bit as convoluted as you, the living, if not even more-so. And now, they haunt the earth. They will return to the soil if and when the time is right.”

If she had said something profound or truly deranged, he didn’t know. His mind was too disturbed to make sense of anything, his body ridden with cold, uncomfortable chills. Frank accepted the offer of her hand to stand up, and once back on his feet, he noticed a small capsule of clear liquid in the center of his palm.

“That,” Mania started, “is the gift that I promised. Cast it unto yourself, and you should find that the dead are more gracious and sympathetic to you beings of the flesh.”

“Um... thanks.”

Frank scrutinized the capsule in his hand. It was only half the size of his pinky finger, so he was sure that it wouldn’t be good for more than a few uses. Whatever those uses might be.

“This farm is only my temporary dwelling-place for siphoning spirits through the top layer of the earth. I will return to the Underworld soon,” she explained. “You, Frank Zhang, will just as soon be returned to where you are needed, likewise. You’ll find your weapons by the lantern in the kitchen.”

Frank pocketed the capsule. “You mean my bow and arrows?”

The goddess nodded her head. Then, she raised an eyebrow, as though noticing something that she hadn’t before. “Ah... I see. That’s right, you defeated the Calydonian boar, did you?”

“Yeah, we did. What about it?”

“Hm...” she pondered, looking past him and eyeing the farmhouse. “... I encourage you to watch your step. That particular boar... encounters such as that can be a powerful conduit for unpleasant memories.”

Frank followed her gaze, turning his head back towards the building. “What memories? I’ve never seen that thing before.”

He didn’t get a reply. When Frank looked over his shoulder, the white mask-face of Mania had vanished, and he was now alone in the dark night of her grim ghost farm.

—

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—

His bow, quiver, arrows, were again secured over his back, which finally offered some much needed relief. He was still too injured to shapeshift, so it was comforting to no longer be utterly defenseless in the middle of nowhere.

Ironically, without the presence of Mania, the farmhouse felt even more dead and forlorn than it already was. The warm pot of soup was now frigid and empty, every framed portrait on the walls had disappeared, and dust was gathered over the table that hadn’t been there before. If this place didn’t look like the set of a horror movie before, then it definitely did now. Frank didn’t plan on sticking around for a second longer.

“I still don’t know where to go...” Frank said to himself. “But Mania said I’d ‘be returned’. Is that car she hit me with gonna show up with a driver and take me back to the train, or—”

Ttch. Ttch. Ttch.

His only source of light, the lantern on the table, fizzled out. And then a wild roar of flames spread over the entire kitchen.

It happened so fast, he almost judged it as some delusion, as some vestige of mania carried over from the goddess herself, but the intensity of the red heat was real, the stacks of smoke wafting rapidly over the ceiling was true, and the burning sensation in his throat was worsening. The fire caught everywhere, on the dry wooden walls and the tables and the chairs. Frank, almost too shocked to properly react, pulled his shirt over his nose and searched for a way out—

“TRAITOROUS BOY.”

An invisible force smacked him into the stove, sending a fresh wave of pain through his wounded shoulder. The door was enveloped by fire. Frank coughed hard, he could barely open his eyes, the smoke was making him tear up.

“WHERE IS IT?” screeched a wicked, feminine voice. “WHERE IS THE FIREWOOD? I’LL BURN YOU, TRAITOROUS BOY.”

He was already becoming dizzy, the sheer density of the hot, gray smoke filling his lungs. His throat was tightening up like a closed fist. Frank attempted to stay low to the ground and crawl away, but he could hardly see, he didn’t know where to go. And whose voice was this? Who was targeting him?

“YOU COME FROM MY WOMB, AND YOU BETRAY ME.” said the voice. “YOU SLAYED MY BROTHERS, TRAITOROUS BOY. YOU DESERVE TO BURN.”

Frank was summoned back to memories from almost a decade’s past. The fire, his worst fear—the fire that overtook and demolished his home, when he had to watch the Zhang mansion burn down with his grandmother still inside. He was reliving it now, their final conversation only weeks after his mother had died. “Thank you, Grandmother. I’ll make you proud.” Her sick, pale face, barely muttering in reply, “You have,” and then he escaped the ogres with Hazel and Percy, the manor roof caved in, he never saw her again, and there was no body left behind to even honor with a proper burial.

He wanted to sob. Throbs of anguish seized and attacked his beaten heart. The terror had stolen his nerve and his will to persist. He couldn’t stop thinking about his mother’s last moments, and his grandmother’s, too, as his throat closed up more and whips of flame lapped at his clothes. The walls started caving inward, pillars of wood fell over the floor, the ceiling was succumbing to cinders and collapsing completely as the wicked voice screamed again, “BURN. BURN. BURN. DIE!”

Ambushed by the ravage of flames, Frank weakly turned upwards his head and saw, with the roof broken in, that now the moon in the sky was a visible beacon of possible egress. There was no other way. If he could just find the strength to shapeshift and fly through the ceiling—

“BURN! DIE! BURN!”

The invisible force thrust him against the floor with a bang. Frank’s throat was too swollen to cry out in pain. The fire, the smoke, the voice—he was too delirious to think straight or fight back. Doubles blurred in his vision. Flames lashed his bare skin. The burns were agony and he couldn’t breathe anymore. He would die from smoke inhalation before the fire had a chance to burn him alive.

A flood of memories flashed through his mind. He thought about his mom and his grandmother. He thought about his first day at Camp Jupiter when he’d first met Hazel. He thought about laughing with Percy and learning from Annabeth. He remembered shopping with Piper and fighting back monsters with Nico. He remembered the gift from Leo to protect his firewood and the look of pride in Jason’s eyes when he took over as praetor. He remembered Reyna’s praise as he excelled in the position and the sparkles of gold whenever Hazel looked at him—he remembered Hazel, Hazel, Hazel, the dimples she got when she frowned and the old-fashioned words embedded in her lexicon. His mind was filled with thoughts of her and his heart was ignited with vibrant emotions. He’d wasted too much time not tracing the outline of her lips, not pronouncing her name just to feel its weight upon his tongue. Frank closed his eyes shut and pretended that he saw her beneath his eyelids. He wanted Hazel’s face to be his final image of this world before he succumbed to this vile enemy and the smoke in his lungs. He only thought about her name, Hazel Levesque, the one love of his life.

An unknown power emerged in his wrist. He barely even noticed the sensation as it lifted his arm. Skyward, his body raised up through no force of his own. Higher and higher, slowly, as if summoned to rapture, Frank was lifted off of the ground and his feet found air. He was only so conscious to observe the mysterious phenomenon which carried him up toward the moon, just like the spirits released through Mania’s will, and far through the ceiling he rose out of the collapsing farmhouse.

He was flown gently a short distance away, incrementally decreasing his elevation until he was deposited safely onto a dry meadow of grass. Frank was heavily dazed and littered with burns, but the cold night air was a relish to inhale, and it seemed, through auspicious circumstances, that he’d again escaped death.

“Frank!” A familiar voice sobbed. Arms wrapped around his form and held him warmly. “Oh, gods, are you okay?!”

His back was down against the dirt. Frank tried to blink through his confusion and eyes disturbed with tears. His focus persisted; it was too good to be true. Those bright, weeping irises and this particular curve of the chin, the warmth of her touch and the hue of her voice...

“H... Hazel,” he rasped weakly, too injured to sound as incredulous as he felt inside. “... how did you...”

The girl rescinded her embrace. She hurriedly cleared the storm of her tears. “How do you think?”

Again, as if controlled by the strings of a puppeteer, Frank’s arm lifted slightly off of the grass. He glanced at his wrist. Wrapped tightly over his skin was the broken silver watch she’d gifted for his birthday.

“Unbelievable...” Frank murmured, awestruck. She forfeited control of the watch, so his arm drooped back down into the grass. “Hazel, you’re... you’re something else. There isn’t a word for how amazing you are.”

“Frank...” Her soft fingers cupped his cheek. “You look hurt... I wish I could have come sooner. Are you okay?”

“I... I’m alright.” he wheezed painfully. “Percy and Annabeth. Are they...?”

Hazel nodded. New tears were forming in her eyes. “Everyone’s fine. Percy was hurt the worst by the impact, but he’s okay now. I tried to help the passengers—and Annabeth, she got out and tried to figure out what happened. We didn’t know where you were, Frank. By the time I got everyone evacuated, Annabeth was knocked out, and you were nowhere to be found.”

The relief was too much for him to handle all at once. Knowing at last that all of his friends were okay crushed Frank altogether in a tight grip of emotion. Moisture welled in his eyes and dripped down the sides of his cheeks. He sniffled and wiped them away with his forearm.

“How did you find me? Even I didn’t know where I was.” he asked, beginning to sit up—then thinking better of it; too much pressure on his broken rib.

“Frank, I’ve been searching for hours. I couldn’t find you anywhere, and my Iris messages wouldn’t go through. It was only until a couple of minutes ago that I saw that horde of ghosts in the sky from sixty mile—I mean, a hundred kilometers away. I didn’t know what it was, but I thought it was worth a shot to come closer. I shadow traveled here as soon as I saw it, and then...” Hazel trailed off. “... And then... I don’t know. I just knew you were in that house. What happened to you?”

Frank opened his mouth to explain, but then her entire body went slack.

“Hazel?” he asked. Frank set his hand on her thigh. “Are you okay?”

Her chin was pressed to her chest, so he couldn’t see her eyes. Frank ignored the horrible pains in his upper body and attempted to sit up again just so he could observe her a little closer. “Hazel? What’s wrong?”

“... There it is...”

He could swear that his heart fully stopped.

Hazel’s lips were moved by a voice not her own. Her fingers dipped within her coat pocket, found the protective pouch inside, and removed the small strip of firewood. “This wood... I have it. And now, Meleager, wretched child—you will die for your treason!”

“Wh—!”

Imbued with immeasurable strength and stricken with the ghost’s compulsions, Hazel grabbed Frank’s shoulders and flung him backwards. He went skidding across the grass and the dirt for over two kilometers. To whatever extent Frank had healed with Mania’s care and the brief sips of nectar almost felt null and void—blood broke through from his bandages and the fire in his rib radiated all throughout his chest—and he was still disoriented from the toxins of the smoke, the burns across his skin. When he recovered enough from the initial blow to rise up to his hands and knees, groaning loudly with pain, before him was the most horrific scene that he’d witnessed all night.

The battered farmhouse was still teeming with furious explosions of fire. Hazel, under the ghoul’s influence, moved forward slowly, her gait corpse-like as she approached the burning house with the wood of his life in her hands. Frank was too weak and too far away now—he couldn’t possibly catch up to her quickly enough before it plunged his wood into the fire, and more importantly, what was stopping this ghoul from walking Hazel directly into the building, killing her?

“That particular boar... encounters such as that can be a powerful conduit for unpleasant memories.”

He recalled Mania’s warning. He thought about everything the ghost-voice had said up to that point. And the realization spread over him with a cold affliction of horror and helplessness. Frank was shocked to his core and chilled to his marrow. His heart drummed so fast that he feared it would crack through his chest.

“M... Meleager...” Frank repeated, panting heavily. “She’s confused. Because of the boar, and my firewood... she thinks I’m Meleager!”

The full mythos of the Calydonian boar hunt, he remembered it all—the story didn’t end after the boar had been killed. As reward for dealing the first strike on the boar, Meleager gave its skin to the hunter Atalanta. But his uncles were enraged that such an illustrious prize would be awarded to a woman, so they stole it from her. In the ensuing heated argument, Meleager killed them both. His mother, Queen Althaea, distraught and enraged that her own son had murdered her brothers, infamously sought revenge for the unforgivable offense.

And Meleager was just like Frank. Cursed to die when the piece of wood, to which his whole life was linked, was burned up by fire. His mother had thrown his wood into the family hearth, killing Meleager instantly in the same manner that Frank always feared would come upon him some day.

“Althaea! ” he screamed, tearing his voice through his smoke-burned throat. “I’m not your son—you already killed him! Let Hazel go!”

The ghost didn’t care or didn’t listen. She was in full possession of Hazel’s body, bringing her closer and closer to the burning farmhouse. Frank tried to shapeshift, he tried and he tried and he tried as hard as he could and it just wouldn’t work. Every breath he took was pure torment because of his displaced rib.

“I can’t reach her...” Frank despaired. “I can’t... I can’t—”

I can’t reach her.... I can’t reach her!

Using every last straining morsel of vigor in his soul, for none remained in his body, Frank got to his feet. His bow was singed but it was still usable. Shoot at what you can’t reach. He found the arrow in his quiver, the one whose fletching was glowing with purple. His father was right. Frank knew intrinsically that this was the one that he needed to use—so he lined up his shot. He pulled back the bowstring and the whole world stopped. Praying to his dad that this wouldn’t hurt Hazel, praying to Mania that this would subdue the ghost successfully, Frank let the arrow fly.

Midway in its path, the arrow shimmered with a larger and larger effulgent aura, which glowed so hot that it the arrow itself disintegrated into ash—but the light on its own prevailed, and it pierced through Hazel’s torso like a spear. She dropped to her knees and convulsed.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!”

Hazel spasmed—and then, gushing forth from her chest, spewed the full body of the phantom queen, though Frank could no longer feel her vivid, corrupting malice. Expelled from Hazel’s form, the translucent, white being lost hold of her own shape, steadily evaporating until nothing was left of her visible spirit.

The fire died down shortly afterwards. Frank reunited with Hazel and hugged her as hard as he could. A new calm soothed the night air, and a gentle wind caressed the grass meadows of Mania’s ghost farm. This was the cold dead of night, and the sole source of warmth for miles was the heat that bloomed from within their embrace. They hugged each other for entire minutes. Neither one could stand to let go after such a harrowing separation, and he told her he loved her, he loved her, he loved her, repeated her name and told her he loved her. She echoed the phrase each time, her hand smoothing over his back, and they only succeeded in extracting themselves from one another when Hazel remembered his injuries and offered him all of the ambrosia squares in her pocket.

When the voice haunted the air one final time, Frank wondered if her message was intended only for him, if he was the only one in the entire world, living or dead, who could hear her desperate pleas—or if he was simply a little bit mad and confused by the eve’s bizarre cataclysms. He wondered if it mattered at all. He wondered about Mania’s words again, about the precious woman whose hand he held was quite undead and warm with life. For the hundreds of ghosts to which Frank had helped give life, he hoped none of their otherworldly grievances were even half as miserable as the trembling moans of the dead Queen Althaea.

My son... The mother cried. Althaea wept mournfully. Oh, my poor boy... What have I done...? Meleager, I beg you, forgive me... forgive me...

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Once returned to civilization, they couldn’t stop kissing each other.

Before searching for Frank on her own, Hazel had stationed the injured Percy and Annabeth at a nearby bed-and-breakfast in Aubais, an idyllic commune in the south of France. Annabeth was still asleep, but they’d checked in with Percy, who was intensely relieved to see Frank alive and well. They agreed to trade stories in the morning, because far too much had happened tonight and it would be absurd to continue their voyage to Mount Helicon under these conditions.

It was a sweet cottage-like building; charming and quaint, accentuated with handmade festoons and embroidered wall decorations. Sympathetic to their plight following the train crash, an elderly couple (who could just barely parse through Hazel’s 1940’s Louisiana French), had welcomed the quartet into the facility, where they also lived, and spared them the questions which certainly could not be answered.

All in separate bedrooms, Frank and Hazel retired for the night. They endured separate showers. Hazel redressed his wounds and fed him as much ambrosia as he could handle, which, due to his sturdy constitution, was quite a bit more than the average demigod. Frank was immensely recovered; he was almost certain that he’d be fully renewed in the morning after some much needed rest. And yet, instead of falling asleep, they couldn’t stop kissing each other.

“Hazel...” Frank sighed breathily between kisses. They were together in bed, their legs interlinked beneath the blankets. He couldn’t stop smelling her obsessively, pouring his hands over her skin, seeking closer proximity than two separate bodies could have. “Gods, I...”

She planted her lips onto his briefly, then withdrew a short distance. “You what, Frank?”

What were the words that he should say in response?

To what extent can affection be expressed with tongue? How does he lay his fondness at Hazel’s altar? How should he wrap the whole sum of his measureless love and deliver that object to her front door? How does he say that she rouses in him a love so faithful that he closes his eyes at the end of his life and portraits her face on the back of his lids?

Frank stroked his hand across her arm, delighting himself with the feel of her skin.

“... I love you, Hazel...” he confessed. “Really. I...”

He wished he could say it in a way that felt bigger, more momentous, in a way that ousted the full emotion from his chest and buried itself inside of her body. But he wasn’t a poet; there weren’t any special words or brilliant metaphors in his arsenal for love. He couldn’t say it any other way than the common, redundant, three-word phrase that could barely uphold the weight of this feeling inside of his soul. How he loathed himself for his hideous faults.

“I know.” She nodded and smiled reassuringly. “I know. I love you, too, Frank. Really.”

And yet it wasn’t common or redundant at all when Hazel said it, which Frank didn’t understand. He imagined her singing that three-word phrase up against his ear, writing it down on a note and passing it over in secret, and his pleasure and rapturous happiness at the thought felt potent enough to lift him off of his feet, to rescue Frank from a burning building and lay him down in her sanctuary. This had always been Hazel’s particular magic; she enchanted him and drew him under her spells so effortlessly, even after nine years of being together, and after five years of living in the same home whilst in separate bedrooms, never holding her at night like this beneath the same blanket, touching the same pillows and warming her body. I love you, Frank. The three-word phrase swimming in his headwaters, rooted in the deep end, splashing all other thoughts— Hazel loves me. No wonder all words sounded sweet in her voice.

Just as he massaged her arms, Hazel’s soft fingertips caressed his own, igniting scorch trails up his healing burn marks, almost remedying the wounds, and traced an odyssey down from his shoulder, elbow, wrist, then stopped. Frank thought he knew why.

“Hazel, don’t worry about the watch,” he assured. “It wasn’t your fault, it was mine. And it’s not a big deal.”

But her look was pensive, and her voice was glum. “I ruined it...”

“It’s not ruined.”

“Of course it is, Frank. It doesn’t work anymore.”

“No, Hazel,” he urged. “I still love it. I’m keeping it. I’m never taking it off.”

“You should take it off. I ought to get it fixed.”

“If you insist... but I’m not taking it off. It’ll have to be an onsite repair.”

“Stubborn boy...”

Frank chuckled. “Maybe a little.”

She quirked her brow at him, and then, with her marionette powers, she slowly possessed his wrist without touching him, lifting it up to her face, and his heart started to race. Hazel’s mouth found purchase on the back of his hand, endowing his skin the heat of her lips. Red-rose flowered in his cheeks as if it were a springtime meadow. If only she knew how his mind could distort this innocent show of affection into something intolerably perverted.

“... I really like it when you do that...” Frank confessed shakily.

“When I kiss your hand?” she asked.

“No,” he said, then quickly corrected, “well—yes. But... when you control my hand with the watch like that, I don’t know, it... it does something for me...”

The words were an avalanche tumbling out of his mouth. He hadn’t intended to even admit that much, but the sensation was just too hot, his mind too addled, and now he prayed to every god that he’d not spoiled the moment already, and that she wouldn’t reproach him with understandable revulsion.

But then his hand of silver moved away from her lips, and journeyed away to the start of her shoulder. She did it all with her mind, controlling his wrist such that his hand could massage and stroke her arm in slow motion, just the pace she preferred, rubbing over her skin as his wide eyes moved from his wrist to her ambery gaze, which was just as shy as it was venturous. Frank’s lips parted open. His breaths grew heavier. His voice was husky and thick with need.

“H—Hazel...”

“What?” she asked, eyes lit suddenly with concern. She paused the motions of his wristwatched hand. “Was that too much?”

“Um. No. That’s not it.” Frank gulped. Sweat formed on his neck. “I just...”

“What?”

I’m getting so turned on, I think I might pass out.

“Nothing,” Frank attempted to sound calm, but he was already panting with lust. “You can... uh... keep going. If you want.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.” he answered too quickly and too eagerly, which he regretted right away. “—I mean. I’m okay with it. It feels nice.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” Frank confirmed. “I mean, there isn’t anywhere on your body that I... that I wouldn’t want to touch, so...”

A pause. Her nervous eyes were searching his for something. When she opened her lips again, Frank wondered if she found whatever she’d been looking for.

“... Anywhere, Frank?”

Oh, gods, I’m gonna pass out. I’m gonna pass out.

He gulped and nodded faintly, his eyes never leaving her own. “Anywhere.”

The hand ghosted away from her shoulder, still playing in slow motion, and floated a phantom’s trail down to her stomach. Frank didn’t think his heart could beat any harder and faster than it already was. Her control was deft and precise; she was able to move his hand beneath her shirt, and beckoned his fingertips like a tour guide cross the smooth plains of her skin, and he was panting even more, rigid heat in his boxer briefs as it moved up higher—she wasn’t wearing anything beneath this shirt, she wasn’t wearing anything beneath this shirt —and for the first time in his life he could close his hand over the pillow-soft mound of her breast, the delightful peak of her nipples and so he was certain now that if he died in this bed tonight, his ghost wouldn’t wander the earth; this plush heaven underneath his palm had satisfied his worldly wants, he would never want anything else and anything more—Frank knew the feeling of Hazel’s sacred chest, he knew the feeling of Hazel’s perfect chest, he wouldn’t have to imagine what it felt like on delirious nights of helpless self-pleasure because he knew what it felt like now. And it felt so good.

Anxious, thrilled, and hypnotized all at once, Frank squeezed his hand ever slightly. Hazel winced and gasped a lone, soft breath. She didn’t tell him to stop, nor did he tell her to release his wrist, so he fondled her chest sweetly, handling her as he would a precious thing, and soon her eyes fell shut, her breaths grew heavier, more ridden with shudders, and his painfully stiff erection rioted against the limits of his underwear, already throbbing and dripping with unbearable arousal. Since the start and end of their brief vacation, they’d manage to attempt a number of brand new excitements, but absolutely nothing came close to the fairytale eroticism of Hazel telling Frank exactly where to touch her body through the convenient conduit of a birthday gift.

The position shifted and the blanket came off. He couldn’t stand his own escalating arousal. Frank found himself on top of her now, growing bolder without even thinking about it—maybe it was the brink of near-death that had dashed his reservations, maybe he was so much more comfortable with her now, because he lifted her shirt up to her collarbone and lowered his mouth to her neglected right breast, and Hazel immediately threw back her head to the pillow and covered her mouth with her hand.

“ Nngh! ” she cried, muffled through her palms. “F... Frank...!”

His cocked twitched in his boxers from the way she said his name. The knot of arousal was tightening further; he wasn’t sure if it could possibly loosen at this stage, as his hot, salivating tongue rolled over her nipple, as his opposite hand kept fondling her chest, as embarrassed whines kept escaping from her throat and his hips couldn’t grind softly against the mattress just to appease himself a little. Aggravated desperation had him sucking on it too, not with too much pressure, the flat and the tip of his tongue still lashing the sensitive part as his fingers started rolling her other nipple.

“ F—Frank! ” Hazel squeaked in an adorably high-pitched voice. “H—haah, oh, gods—”

“F... fuck,” Frank groaned, weathering more unbearable throbs of desire below his waist. “Aah—Hazel, I... I wanna make you feel good... I need you so bad...”

He was so desperate to slip his hand inside her underwear and feel her arousal, but she’d reacted badly the last time he attempted to do just that, so Frank focused on the spots where he knew that his touch was wanted. He didn’t feel particularly skilled with his hands or his tongue, but he kept licking her, kept molding her breast and stirring her nipples, and her reactions were a feast for his eyes and torture for his desperate cock. Her hips writhed from beneath and her eyes were still screwed shut, her body was trembling and her breaths were heavy. She kept moaning his name in that shuddering high-pitched voice, which was always dulcet honey in his ears—and now he was forced to resist grinding his hips against the bed because he was too sensitive, and even a few more thrusts would demand from his body an unwanted orgasm. Circumstances were already that dire.

“... Hazel...” Frank began. He lifted his head an inch from her chest just to ensure he could look in her eyes. “How... um. How far do you want to go tonight?”

He was shocked by how hard she was panting; she could barely string her words together without pausing to breathe between syllables. Did it really feel that good for her?

“I... I think...” Hazel spoke, lifting her hands from her mouth. “I think... you could put it in, now... if you wanted...”

Frank reeled in surprise. “W—what? Put it in already?”

Hazel nodded shyly without making eye contact, but he wasn’t sure if he was able to believe her.

“Hazel... last time, we had to do other stuff in order to. Well. You know. Get you ready and stuff.” Frank said. “Do you really think that we can... do that right now? Already? Are you sure?”

She appeared to sober up gradually, the rapid rise and fall of her chest slowing down now that he’d stopped touching her. As her gaze came back from the wall and circled back to his own, there was an unexpected somberness in her eyes, an inscrutable glimmer of desperation and something more that he couldn’t parse through.

“I’m ready this time.” Hazel spoke softly. “After tonight... after having another dead thing in my body... Frank... I can’t explain it. I swear I feel cold on the inside. I need you to fill me with all the life you can spare.”

Before he could scrutinize or even allow himself to be confused by this odd declaration and troubling plea of hers, her leg phased upwards and began to massage his aching flesh, which awarded him fast with gratuitous pleasure through only the tender motions of thigh and knee against his length—

“St—stop—oh—” Frank sobbed and bit his lip, and though she did cease moving her leg, he couldn’t help but grind on her more after she’d already stopped. He wheezed in a strained voice, forcing himself to stop with Herculean effort, “Haah—fuck—okay, g—give me a second.”

He kissed her on the lips briefly, and rose from the bed to find his backpack. A near-panicked search for the condoms he’d purchased with Percy days ago ensued— Please don’t tell me I left them in the hotel, please don’t tell me I left them in the hotel squirreled through his mind—but he soon discovered them buried at the bottom of the front pocket. Crisis averted. Frank refused to acknowledge the evil contraceptives from his father.

As he fastened the condom over his erection, he wondered if this stage in the event would ever get less awkward. Frank felt like he was halting the sex just to put his socks on and get back into the mix afterwards, only the condoms were more necessary and less comfortable.

Once prepared, he arranged himself back in position over her, at first going back to her lips; he wanted to get his fill of her kisses first. Prior experiences had taught that due to their extreme height difference and alignment of pelvises, it wasn’t possible to kiss each other during the act—not without breaking his back in the process, anyway.

And it was hard not to lose himself in only the feel of her mouth. Hazel’s kisses were a fresh, healing balm over every wound, the physical and the mental kind; his lingering aches from the battle were soothed by the tenderness of her lips, the taste of her tongue, and the subtle moans from her throat. A hand in his hair, another resting on his back. Frank savored this unhurried kiss, exhaling some gratified moans of his own. When their mouths separated at last, he set his forehead on top of Hazel's. Only briefly, just to enjoy the heat of this intimacy, coveted for so long and at last growing more possible and more comfortable. They smiled softly together, kissed each other again, and then the underwear came off. Frank repositioned his body accordingly.

Arousal in hand, heartbeat like a fast metronome, heated anticipation heavy in the atmosphere, he first began by rubbing the tip up and down her sodden lower lips...

“Um... wow...” Frank awed quietly as his initial motions continued.

Hazel, who’d been closing her eyes, cracked a single one open. “What?”

“Oh. Nothing.”

“What?”

“You’re just... you’re really wet down here. I’m surprised that touching your chest and stuff... well, did that much for you. I didn’t know you liked it that much.”

“Frank!” Hazel smacked his right shoulder and fanned her face, avoiding eye contact. “Do you have to say embarrassing stuff like that?”

“Well—you asked!” Frank defended. He was blushing even harder himself. “I wasn’t trying to embarrass you. I like it.”

“Hmph...” she pouted endearingly. “I see...”

He continued to tease both himself and possibly her with these initial, prodding strokes. Evidence of her arousal had dampened the length of his sex, and coaxed from his mouth insuppressible sighs. How many attempts had been made in the past many days? How many of Frank’s nights over the years had been owed to Hazel and thoughts of her in this exact position? The finalization of a long-held dream and desire for closeness he’d never known before had stirred his vitals deeply. It seemed unlikely that matters were cross between them however many hours ago, because he felt so close to her now, so involved with her body and wrapped in her world, so drawn in her very existence and wound in her center. Moments like this could convince Frank that Venus above all was the most powerful Olympian god; no element he’d ever known was more gripping, had made him so ill and so strong, nor had shaken his nerves and observed his emotions with such rousing and passionate influence. He moved to kiss Hazel one more time, and a fount of romance spewed out from his heart; he assured her again of that three-word phrase, and thus readied himself at the depths of her entrance.

“I’m gonna try to put it in now...” he announced carefully. “You can tell me to stop at any point, Hazel.”

“Okay. Go ahead, Frank.”

Easier now than previous efforts, he began to push himself inside of her body; and no longer faced with blatant resistance, and aided by the excess lust that pooled all between her thighs, Frank pushed himself deeper; it slipped inside past the point of initial penetration. He sensed mild strain, but perhaps not excessively so—and he trusted that Hazel would warn him if it became too much. He moved even deeper. The comfort and heat of her walls was already driving him mad with impossible pleasure.

“Oh, gods...” Frank moaned lowly. One hand was pressed into the bedsheets for leverage. The other snaked down to her waist and was gripping her skin for dear life. “H... Hazel—”

“ —Frank, ” she rasped, her fingers pressing hard into his back. “Gods, that’s a lot... Is that... is that all of it?”

“Um...” He already knew the answer, but he glanced between their bodies just to be sure. “... No.”

“ No? ”

“I—I don’t have to use all of it,” he assured quickly. “We don’t have to do anything. It’s... it’s up to you, okay?”

“... Okay,” Hazel gulped. Her breaths were shallow and her eyes were closed. “Maybe not all of it to start...”

Frank nodded. About twelve centimeters were inside of her now. “Okay. I won’t use more than this.”

He wasn’t sure if there was anything else that he should do, any other questions he should ask. Because of the size difference, her face was aligned right around his pectorals, so he could only glean so much of Hazel’s expression. “Does it hurt?” Frank asked, remaining stationary.

“Um...” Her voice was a low, strained whisper. “N—not as much as I thought, honestly.”

Alarm bells went off in his head. “So it does hurt?”

“A bit, Frank.”

“I’ll stop—”

“No, just...” A deep breath, followed by a shaky exhale. “I can handle this. You can keep going, don’t worry about me.”

Of course I’m worried about you. He never thought that sex with his girlfriend could make him feel so guilty. Hazel was in pain—and meanwhile, it already felt so good for Frank that he was worried he would come in only a small matter of thrusts.

Just... take it slow, he urged himself. For her sake, and yours.

This mantra in mind, Frank drew his hips back as slowly as he could, and just as slowly reburied himself inside of her body.

And his motions repeated. He was oddly mechanical about it in his head, cycling his hips inward and out in the exact same way at the exact same speed. A tighter hand grasped at the bedsheets and small, pleasured groans crawled free from his lips. Frank mumbled her name dreamily, his eyes falling shut as the warmth of her body influenced his own, and swallowed him more, and held him dearly, but his veins coursed fire. A tighter hand upon her waist. His breaths rose steadily in volume, gasping, committed to this languid pace but knowing already that all fibers of his being were gathering in mutiny against his will, because she felt too good, and his body was vying for deeper penetration and fast-paced thrusts, a desire that felt ultimately traitorous—if he plunged in more and he didn’t go slow, then he would ruin this night in only a matter of seconds.

But she felt so good. His pleasure worsened the more that he moved; even at this pace, he could feel that she was getting wetter, and every inward push felt even more smooth, more slicken with arousal and mind-numbing heat. Feverish and almost surrendered to utter immersion inside of her walls, he collected his last remaining motes of intelligence and focused on her, her reactions, the small breaths and little writhes of her hips as his pressed into hers, the deeper her fingers pressed into his back, and he noticed that she was quieter than before, so he opened his mouth and gave life to words for the first time in what felt like a while.

“D—do you need anything?”

Her voice, lighthearted, was only slightly less strained than he’d last heard of her. “What, like stuff from the grocery store?”

Okay, she’s doing okay enough to crack a joke. That’s good. “No, as in, do you need me to do anything? Or do something different?

“Well, you are grabbing me a little too hard...”

“Oh.” He loosened his hold on her waist. “Sorry.”

Her fingers caressed his sides tenderly. “That’s okay. You keep asking about me, but how are you doing? How does it feel for you?”

“How does it feel? Um... hard to describe.” Frank admitted. Again, he was feeling remorse for his failures of eloquence. “It’s definitely... warm. And nice. I like it.”

“‘Warm, nice, I like it.’ Why do you sound like you’re reviewing a toaster strudel?”

Now both of them chuckled, although he felt somewhat embarrassed. He wanted to make her feel special somehow, not like a fresh piece of toast.

“Sorry,” Frank said. “I don’t know how to explain. You’re just... holding me, and it feels so hot. I’ve never felt anything like this—like you before. And when you laughed just now, I could feel you tightening around me a little bit. I already like it when you laugh, and now I think I like it even more.”

Hazel didn’t respond. He worried again that he’d said the wrong thing.

“Sorry,” he apologized again. “I can stop.”

“No, Frank—” her lightweight hand slipped down to his hip and tightened there, as if to encourage his thrusts. “Don’t worry so much, you’re not doing anything wrong. In fact, you can... um... go a little faster now, if you want...”

“... Faster?”

“If you want.”

Well, of course he wanted to.

A gradually increased pace then influenced his hips. Frank limited himself to the established twelve centimeters but was finding it hard to limit anything else. The grunts and sighs which he’d tried to suppress evolved into untamed moans, and even Hazel, who was quiet thus far, had begun to invoke his name repetitively, though he was long already mastered by the charms of his lover, and these faster thrusts were afflicted by unintentional stutters and interruptions—sometimes her hips bode back into his, and every instance of this chipped away at his limited sense and hastened his route to orgasm. He didn’t want to be—but because of her, and how good this felt, he was losing himself to his animal whims, beastlike impulses who were goading him to get even more rough, and to endow her body with the second half of his dick, which was grieved and throbbing from its dire exclusion.

“Frank... Ngh, Frank!”

“Hazel,” his voice was ragged, and drool almost slipped from the corner of his animal lips. “Aah—yes—fuck, oh, gods! Hazel!”

Earth slipped off its axis. The entire universe started and ended with Hazel’s body. He couldn’t remember or believe in anything beyond the hold of her soft inner walls. He couldn’t be religious to anything but these sweetly gripping and wet sensations where he really did feel that he was melting in her and they were a combined, bodyless something, her tender convulsions oppressing his sex, his hips riveting as deep as he thought she could take. The headiness worsened; sweat coursed down his muscles, heat radiated from his body and skin flattered skin. Frank’s gasps grew more strained and his face twisted with pleasure—

“Oh, fuck—” he slammed into her one more time and then he halted completely, now frozen in place, his chest heaving with air. Both hands were now holding the bed as if its firm material was the edge of a cliff. He panted brokenly. And he still didn’t move.

“Frank?” asked Hazel, her palm smoothing sweetly over his back. “What’s wrong, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m just...” Frank gulped, “trying not to come too fast...”

He was worried she would laugh, but she only continued to soothe his skin, and she spoke in a sympathetic tone, “Frank, you don’t have to do that. You can, um, you can ‘finish’ whenever you want.”

“... Gods... you can’t say stuff like that...”

“Why?”

Gently and slowly, his hips started rutting into hers again. Pleasure pulsed through his core and tore a strained moan from his throat, wheezing an octave higher, “... I might listen to you...”

Frank whined as she lifted her hips into his even more, and a bevy of expletives launched from his lips. They weren’t deep thrusts—they were small, tight arcs inside her body, like little hyperventilations as he humped himself into her. Moans tumbled out of Hazel, and the sound entranced him like a honeyed witch spell. Frank almost gave up—he wanted to pursue this intense climax and he could almost feel that he was on the cusp of a sweet ending; if he could just give her a little more of himself, then soon he’d be taken into that divine other world—but he wanted company. He wanted Hazel to come along with him.

“H... Hazel—” he was cut off by his own break to moan and bite his lip, churning his hips even faster, “—ah—hngh—aahh—can I go a little deeper? Is, hah, is that okay?”

He heard her consent, so he pushed himself inside of her more, and a hand returned back down to purchase her trembling thigh and tightened over her skin. She cried out his name repeatedly. Gods, he wanted to come so bad, he could feel that this orgasm would be something rapturous if he kept moving his hips, but couldn’t he get Hazel there first for once? Frank didn’t know how, but he knew that he didn’t want to finish before she did this time.

“F—Frank?”

The hand at her leg was approaching her inner thigh, but having heard his lesson several days ago, he didn’t dare to move in any deeper just yet. “Hazel...” Frank spoke, still moving his hips but less focusedly. “Can I—can I touch your clit?”

At this point, he was in too deep to feel scandalized by a phrase as audacious as that, but the same sentiment didn’t ring true for Hazel.

“Wh...” she sputtered. “My... wh—why would you do that?”

“... Uh...” Frank trailed. Although his reason was clear, he felt stupid trying to say it out loud. “It’s... ngh—it’s sensitive, right? I just thought—”

“No!” Hazel exclaimed, shaking her head. “No, Frank, what you’re doing—this is good. You don’t have to do anything else. You don’t need to focus on me.”

“... I know I don’t have to, but...” His thrusts slowed more than half their pace as he considered her response. “... Shouldn’t I, sometimes? I mean, this whole time, I’m the only one who’s been... you know. Finishing. I want you to get there, too.”

“That isn’t necessary... Frank, you really don’t need to do that.”

“I know, you said that already, Hazel...” He wasn’t moving his hips at all anymore, and now he was really detesting the height difference; he wanted to look at her face while they spoke about this, but Frank couldn’t see her much from up this high, and he didn’t want to startle her body by suddenly taking himself all the way out. “But is there a reason why you don't want me to focus on you at all?”

“I...”

She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. In her silence, Frank was clear-headed enough to finally observe a pattern in her behavior.

On several occasions, Hazel had discouraged Frank from doing anything that might prioritize her pleasure. “Do you have to focus on me so much? You’re only doing stuff to me right now. Maybe I should do stuff for you, too.” She seemed to rush into things without warming herself up first. “Frank, aren’t you going kind of slow?” She had told him that never in her life had she pleasured herself. “That's not something I would ever spend my time on. Folks weren’t doing stuff like that back in my day.” Even now, this long-awaited opportunity to feel and taste her breasts, which she’d clearly liked, had only been initiated because he told her that he liked it when she moved his hand for him.

What did all of it mean? Was she even aware that she was acting like this?

“As soon as you reached down there, I panicked. It felt like I was letting you do something that you really shouldn’t, and that feeling just attacked me completely.”

Through no intention of his own, Frank could feel his erection gradually losing its vigor. It might be resuscitated if he touched himself or resumed his thrusts, but he didn’t want to. The matter was beyond his control; he simply wasn’t in the mood or seeking climax as intensely as he’d been just a few minutes ago.

“I don’t understand. Hazel, do you... not... want to come, or...?

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Hours later, well past midnight, he was moved by rousings on the mattress.

Hazel slipped free of his arms mysteriously. She didn’t turn on the lights. Her movements were almost trance-like, approaching the center of the room and standing there motionless, facing the opposite wall, thus he couldn’t see her face. Moments later, her hands moved over her ears and still, she stood rigid like a piece of furniture. Frank was barely awake himself; there was something illusory about her and her silence, her stiff posture and her white slip dress, and his drowsiness further abetted the hallucination—if it were just that, but he didn’t think so, but maybe he was wrong, maybe the mystics of Mania could sustain an enduring effect on a person. He wouldn’t know unless he tried to speak to or touch her. But he didn't.

Eventually, Hazel abandoned her strange exercise, and then she laid herself down on the frieze carpet, and he thought about her and the numerous things he had learned about a woman whom he’d already known for nine years. She liked to sleep on the floor.

Despite his fatigue, Frank remained awake. He couldn’t stop thinking about Hazel. Mentally he revisited past conversations in search of buried treasures, clarities, mystified unknowns, and then he remembered one particularly troubling confession.

‘Another dead thing’.

Another dead thing?

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Chapter Text

possessed by vicious eros, our passions flow like water.

ch. 17

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The evening in Aubais was an oppressing one to him, despite the cozy furnishings of the small bed-and-breakfast where Hazel had settled the quartet for the night. Percy had slept in worse conditions on many quests in the past, but for an unknown reason, he wasn’t feeling comfortable. No soft, cotton pillow could have soothed his weary head, nor could a well-threaded blanket given solace to his nervous body. He was on edge, he couldn’t help it, and he loathed to feel so addled, so distempered, and so confused all at once.

Sometimes memory was tricky, having ADHD (though he suspected that a head injury was partially to blame). Percy remembered so little of the last ten hours. They were in south France now, no longer in Majorca. An assault against the train had taken place, which had knocked him out instantly and left him with two broken ribs. Frank had gone missing for hours whilst Percy laid in bed, unmoved until his consciousness relieved him—and there, just beside him, was his lover sleeping peacefully, gauze wrapped around her head, and he could only feed her so much nectar before it dribbled sadly from her motionless lip. All of this was distant from his mind, like a hazy landscape somewhere far in the horizon; he knew vaguely what they were, what had happened, but he couldn’t see them clearly.

Headache throbs, beats of pain throughout his ribs, a square of ambrosia every thirty minutes. Percy could not go back to sleep. The lone tangible thought around which he could wrap his fingers was a now-refreshed belief that he was still a demigod.

It was easy to forget that while deluded by New Rome, its placid nature, its protections from the worst threats of demigodhood and its promises that living there was nearly living mortal—or as close to that as possible for children of the gods. Percy thought about the Titan Army infiltrating Camp Half-Blood, and the day that the Twelfth Legion fended off Gaea’s invasion—he remembered this and thought of this for no reason at all. The headache throbs continued. He paced himself with intermittent sips of nectar and his ribs slowly mended. Gods, his mood was so disturbed, and he couldn’t reason why.

Percy should have been fatigued after such a long day, but instead, he was so restless. He thought of bad nights in the worst years of his youth; visions of young Nico and Theseus arguing in a graveyard; a nightmare of Thalia before he’d even met her; Kronos rising in the body of someone he used to know. Green eyes glazed over the ceiling. Fingers twitched beneath the covers. He couldn’t stand to stay in bed for one second longer. But as soon as he sat up, he heard Annabeth’s voice for the first time since the crashing of the train.

“Percy?”

Her voice was dry, quiet, weak. In an instant he was leaning closer with concern.

“Annabeth!” Percy cried excitedly—and then he rued how loud he was, so he lowered his voice so as to not upset her. “Annabeth... you’re awake. I thought you’d be out for the whole night. How are you feeling?”

She groaned and bit her lip, beginning to sit up. “I’m... fine. Where are you going?”

“Don’t sit up,” he countered quickly. “Frank said you hit your head really hard—”

“Where are you going, Percy? Are you okay?”

He blinked at her confusedly. “Well... I’m fine. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking, I was just getting up.”

“Getting up where? Where are we now?”

“A bed-and-breakfast. Frank and Hazel handled everything, now they’re in the other room.”

Although her face seemed tired, he could see how fast those sagacious silver eyes were processing information. They surfed through a bay of shock, a tidal wave of relief, and then a full riptide of discontent. “Frank... the boar. Did he kill the boar?”

“Uh... I don’t know anything about a boar. Hazel says I got knocked out by the train crash and woke up in this bed. We agreed to debrief everything that happened in the morning, so we’ll find out later.”

Annabeth scowled. “I bet he did. He killed the boar all by himself. And he took its skin, too.”

Now, he was even more confused. He knew that Annabeth was probably still mad at Frank, but why was she so bothered by the guy killing a boar? Personally, Percy was grateful to him for protecting everyone in his stead. After brawling over which one of them belonged on this quest, had Annabeth decided that she was in competition with Frank? Was she out to prove which one of them would pull their weight the most?

“Lay back down, Annabeth. For all we know, you could have a concussion from how hard you hit your head.” Percy urged. He remembered some counsel years ago from a certain curly-haired medic. ‘Medical Myth Number Fifteen: it’s usually not dangerous to let someone rest after a head injury. Rest is good.’ “We’ll figure out what went down later, alright? There’s no boar now, so we don’t have to worry about—”

“It was the Calydonian boar, Percy!” she snapped. “Do you know how many legendary heroes fought to kill that thing? If I had killed a monster that great by myself, if I could’ve sacrificed its skin, I might have...”

All remaining stupor had been knocked out of his head due to her outburst. His eyes surveiled her with even more concern than they had when she was still unconscious.

“Annabeth... who cares who killed the thing? It could’ve killed you, me, Frank—all of us. We’re lucky that we got away with our lives. And why do you care about making a sacrifice all of the sudden? Who are you trying to make a sacrifice to?”

Annabeth didn’t respond. Her frustration was apparent in the stiffness of her brow, in the tautness of her shoulders, and the way a lone fist tightly gripped the bedsheets. She raised a hand to her head, and the cotton feel of her gauze seemed to worsen her vexation.

Silence weighed heavily on the air. She refused to meet his eyes. Percy recognized that reticent behavior. He knew for certain that Annabeth was keeping something from him.

It was one thing to do so back when they were teenagers. A young, despairing Annabeth couldn’t bring herself to share the full prophecy for the labyrinth quest. She had sobbed her body ragged in his tight-clinging arms, unwilling to reveal what had shaken her so badly. He could see that girl now in the essence of this woman, the current Annabeth to whom he was engaged, the adult to whom his love was still immutable. She was a person who struggled to be open about the worries on her mind, no matter how much Percy assured that he would help her if he could.

Percy knew this in his head, but he didn’t feel good about it. Why the secretive behavior? More than half of their lives had been involved in each other’s. Why should she still feel a need to hold secrets closely to her chest?

It reminded Percy that they weren’t the same person, which felt moronic and obvious—but it stung all the same. It was as if, out of nowhere, a crack had formed in the perfect glass of their engagement, or a Mist delusion of his love life had wavered and dissolved. He and Annabeth would never be the same being, never inhabit the same skin, never become so intertwined that no heavy burden, painful secret would be stomached independently. Marriage wouldn’t meld them or their troubles into a single entity. And maybe he was stupid for ever wanting that to begin with.

‘I already had everything figured out. I’m gonna fix your problem on this vacation. I have to.’

‘That’s nice and all, but what if it’s not that simple? Maybe fixing me isn’t even possible.’

‘I can do it, Percy. I know I can. What kind of fiancee would I be if I let you go on being unsatisfied forever?’

The odd conversation on the Serra de Tramuntana passed again through his mind. Percy thought about himself quietly. He wondered what the difference between “helping” and “fixing” someone really was, because he thought he knew in language, but he wasn’t sure in practice. One sounded like a very good thing which should be given and accepted gratefully. The other made him feel like he was noticeably broken.

A persevering silence. He didn’t know what else to say, so he only reached forward and soothed the back of her hand with his warm fingertips. Her stormy grays followed his fingers as he moved, and then they swam back up into the ocean in his eyes. Hot fires in her body seemed to dampen. He continued stroking her with the pad of his thumb, and he hoped that doing so would communicate the words that his mind and his lips were too impotent to share.

“I... I need to go clear my head,” she announced softly, and before Percy could protest, Annabeth then added, “don’t try to stop me. I’m fine. I don’t need to be laying down right now.”

“I’m going with you.”

“Percy—”

“I want to,” he asserted. “I don’t need to stay in bed, either.

He expected her to argue. Maybe she’d insist on needing her personal space for the time being. Maybe she was off to do something in service of her secrets. She could have simply been feeling hyperactive, like him, and couldn’t handle sitting still for one more second. Regardless of the reason, Percy just couldn’t stomach the thought of being apart from Annabeth right now. She may have even felt the same, for her response was not combative.

“... If you want to, then let’s go.”

No destination in mind, they dressed quickly and sneaked out of the bedroom.

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In an attempt to refrain from disturbing anyone’s sleep inside the home, Percy and Annabeth ghosted through the hallway, their footsteps light across the cottage floorboards. In design, the home was sentimental and warm; curtains made of white lace, doilies on the coffee tables, an antique bookshelf filled with dust-free books. The elderly French couple that had rented this space to Hazel for the night was nowhere to be seen, nor was Percy sure in which room Frank and Hazel were staying. But it was a nice little spot for a quiet bed-and-breakfast, and knowledge of a good French meal in the morning gave him something pleasant to look forward to.

Holding Annabeth’s hand, the duo turned a corner, and then a muffled, strained voice phased through the cracks of a closed bedroom door.

“Hazel... ah—!”

“Frank...”

Percy froze in his tracks.

He and Annabeth gave each other a mutually wide-eyed look.

“Uhh—”

“I’m—” She shook her head back and forth rapidly, blushing to the roots of her hair. “I can’t think about that right now. Let’s keep moving.”

Percy nodded, his face just as red as hers. Part of him was happy for his friends; after all, he’d been helping Frank with his intimate life for days now, and if Percy’s clumsy bits of counsel had helped him out at all, then that was a good thing... but mostly, he felt embarrassed. Like Annabeth, he couldn’t give himself the space to think anything about it.

They abandoned the cottage. Outside, the night wind was lithe and spirited; it trounced over their shoulders and swept their hair in its direction; it carried pleasant summer smells across the grassy plains; its bouncy youth deplenished fast and died within the distance. Five miles were at repose between the cottage and the coast. Immediately she started moving, so he followed.

It was a long walk. Percy glanced at Annabeth as they traveled in silence, and he thought of how much her face had changed since it first found his, ogling him, saying—“You drool in your sleep.” The girl he loved had grown up. Her voice was more mature, her jaw was less soft, and the silvers of her eyes were fortified. Percy liked witnessing her changes as he liked the changing of the seasons, seeing the springtimes of her youth, the adulthood of her summer, though he couldn’t help but notice that her curls were quite the same as they had been since long ago.

The wind was born again, delivered from the sea. It stretched its limbs and tumbled from its mother. Percy felt himself succumbing to a fever of nostalgia. This sensation, he was not often given to experiencing. Too much chaos in his youth, too much fear of dying young, too much Smelly Gabe embedded in the walls of his childhood bedroom for him to yearn much for the past, but the cottage by the sea reminded him so much of the cabin at Montauk he used to visit with his mom.

They still visited each year—now with Paul, Tyson, and his little sister. There had once been a time when it was just Percy, just his mom, and the vague memories of his father’s warm smile on the beach. His life was so much better now than it was back then, and yet he missed it nonetheless. As the wind grew older and moaned farther inland, its final gasps peaceful as it withered on the plains, Percy made a note to give his mom a call soon. He hadn’t even told her that he was questing yet again.

The evening landscape was colored over generously by the pale moonlight. Near they were to the beach before the water. He assumed that said beach was their destination, but Annabeth led them further east. They crossed an empty road and climbed a tall, grassy hill, whose elevation carried into a modest cliff overlooking the sea. Once established at its peak, Annabeth sat down at its precipice, her long legs dangling over the edge.

Percy joined her there. The cliff’s edge held them sixty feet above the water. As if mirroring the image of his wavering emotions, the sea was churning like an upset stomach. Its waters thrashed and threw its body on the shore, itching, scratching itself, teeming with anxious energy. Percy took a deep breath; his slow exhale seemed to pacify the brawling wavelets just a little.

He tried to stop thinking about himself and all his odd feelings. Above was the haunt of a black evening sky, barren of stars and constellations. If Percy raised his hand and held his thumb over the moon, then the sky would have become a vacant black void, and the dark abyss of Nyx would conquer him, would swallow him whole. Percy fought back a sudden impulse to withdraw Riptide. Would they re-encounter Nyx on this quest for Hippocrene? Was Nyx already over him, laughing at him from above, hidden somewhere in the shadows or buried right behind the moon? The waves resumed their angry thrashing. Again, he had failed to stop thinking of the strangest things.

What was Annabeth thinking about? She had been so quiet, so deep inside her indecipherable mood. Percy looked at her directly. Moonrays softened her stoic features. She only wore a thin sweater, so he asked, “Are you cold up here?”

She spared little emotion in her response. “No. I'm fine.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“You'll think I'm crazy.”

“You're not crazy.”

“What I'm thinking about is crazy, even for me.”

Percy leaned over and kissed her softly on her cheek. “Tell me.”

At last, she let her eyes on his again.

“I was thinking about jumping from this cliff,” she began, and he felt his heart stop, eyes widen, his blood run cold, when she continued, “and I was thinking about diving into the Mare Nostrum. And I was thinking about finding a big sea monster that I could just—just kill with my bare hands. That's what I was thinking about, Percy.”

Percy had no idea what to say. She noticed this, and so she added hastily, “See? You think it's crazy.”

He tried to blink through how stunned he was. “Well… yeah. That is crazy.”

“But why is it crazy? You did it. You strangled a sea monster in the Carquinez Strait when you went missing years ago. You told me so. And I know that I could do the same thing if I tried. It might be tough, but I could do it. Therefore, it can’t be that crazy if you’ve already done it.”

He grew hyper-aware of their surroundings, and of the fact that she could slip away on a whim and dive into the sea if she felt like it. Percy couldn’t stop himself—his hand shot out and grabbed her fiercely by the arm. It was perhaps a tighter grip than necessary, but Percy wasn’t going to let her go jump off of a cliff after a head injury. Not without him, at least.

“What is this about, Annabeth?” he asked. There was no humor in his tone or his expression. He was dead serious. “First this talk about the boar, and now you want to pick a fight with a sea monster for no reason—”

“Do you think I’m stupid, Percy? I wouldn’t be thinking about something that dangerous for no reason.”

“Okay, then what is the reason?” he snapped in frustration. “You’re not making any sense. What am I supposed to do, read your mind? You’re in your own head, Annabeth—and you’re not even trying to let me in.”

“‘Trying to let you in?’I shouldn’t have to, Percy!”

Before her words had a chance to chisel cracks into his heart, the waves rebirthed the wind; a dense, gray fog stormed the surface of the sea as the air repulsed anew with vicious energy—and his nerves were lit on fire, heat coursing through his veins as his senses became certain of an unknown danger.

Annabeth could sense it, too. They both stood up on their feet. It was coming from the sea. He couldn't see much in the darkness, but some horrific entity was surging forward in the water—like an angry deity or a colossal sea monster or something else—something else barbarous, bloodthirsty, supermassive, so powerful that its aura was pushing Percy backwards like a hefty gust of wind. He held his forearms to his face and winced, shielding himself from the blunt blisterings of its hot energy.

“Annabeth!” Percy shouted, opening one eye to glance at her. In her expression he gleaned a most palpable fear, wide-eyed, paralyzed as the being threatened her with its mysterious terrors. The anticipation of an unknown beast and its unknown instruments of butchery was even more terrible than knowing surely what it was.

At least, that’s what Percy thought, until the monster came closer.

“M—my mom...” Annabeth muttered. “It’s a sign, from my mom. She must have summoned it to me.”

“Your mom?” Percy yelled back. “Summoned what? What is that thing?!”

Annabeth patted her sides frantically. “Fucking Hades—I don’t have my sword! Percy, give me yours!”

“What?! Why?”

“Because I have to kill it!”

RAHHHHHHHH!!!

They whipped their heads back towards the Mare Nostrum. Golden, glowing eyes cut through the dark vapors of the fog. Its head alone was the size of a truck, its roaring mouth encircled by rows and rows of blade-like teeth. Iridescent blue scales glittered endlessly across its hulking body and its long, thick neck thrashed above the water. It was a sea monster unlike any other Percy had seen in his life, and he had seen plenty.

His entire world reverberated. The lines defining reality blurred as the monster roared again—a deep, booming screech that vibrated through his bones like a heavy bass conduction. The monster wasn’t close just yet, maybe ten miles away, but it was speeding to them fast. And it was surely out for blood.

“PERCY!” Annabeth screamed for his attention. The wind was stronger now, whipping her hair around her face. “GIVE ME YOUR SWORD!”

Percy shook his head. “Annabeth—that thing’s the size of New York! We can’t take it on our own! I’ll hold it off, go get Frank and Hazel for backup!”

“I don’t need backup, I need you to give me your sword now!”

“You can’t be serious!”

RAHHHHHHHH!!!

“Percy!” Annabeth stomped her foot. “Do you know what this monster is? This is the Cetus! The sea monster that Perseus killed!”

Percy gaped at her. One should think that at his age, at the depth of his experiences in the demigod world, he would stop being surprised by the famous mythological beings he encountered. This was by and large true; he’d stood face-to-face with Kronos, with Daedalus, and even glimpsed the “legendary” Hercules before he was old enough to vote. But he’d never met his namesake, Perseus.

Already, the two had crossed paths across time through the creatures they had mutually faced—Medusa, the Grey Sisters, the Gorgons, and so on. But Cetus, the monster summoned by Poseidon—Percy’s own father—to destroy the kingdom of Aethiopia? The great beast whose slaying guaranteed that Perseus would live happily, that his story wouldn’t be another Greek tragedy? No, Percy had never faced this threat before.

A nonsensical, jarring thought crept into his mind surreptitiously, like a masked stranger slipping into the abode unnoticed. If Percy killed Cetus now, could that seal the promise of his own happy ending? Would he ride off into the sunset with his future wife and live happily ever after, just like Perseus did?

Gods, Percy wanted that. He was tired of the lasting paranoia, of the peace without peace, of his old battle wounds being stretched wide open. He was exhausted in every withered fiber of his dampened soul. He wanted Perseus’ happy ending so badly.

And the want thickened heavily inside his chest. Wind assaulted their bodies, lashing and whipping and pummeling, too, and the water down below the cliff undulated vigorously, bubbling over like it might soon erupt and Percy bit his lip hard—heart hammered in his chest as the monster’s golden eyes beamed through the mist with a glare even brighter than a lighthouse beacon.

Its evil eyes shone on Percy’s form. He thought himself half-dead from the imposing pressure of its aura alone. Cetus was looking at him as it had the old Perseus and the chained princess, with a glare full of hunger and lusting and scorn. Chills shot down his spine as its deep, slithery voice penetrated his consciousness with a message whose meaning was hauntingly clear:

YOU ARE THE BLOOD I AM OWED.

Mist veiled Percy’s eyes. A fierce conviction snatched his heart: If I kill Cetus, it’ll all be over. All of it. In the moment, he was certain of its truth.

Percy clicked Riptide. Out spawned the bronze tip. A hurricane of images whirled within his thoughts—Gaea snatching his body, Kronos stealing that of Luke, his mom disintegrating in the Minotaur’s fist—and Annabeth’s voice was ripped apart by the lacerating winds. She was saying something, screaming something, trying to grab Percy’s attention, but he was too fixated on his newborn goal to even hear her. I have to kill Cetus.

The sea monster screeched again. It was nine, eight, seven miles away now, closing the gap between itself and the cliff. A fast speed, but not fast enough for Percy to act on this red-hot impulse. He raised his empty hand and marched to the very edge of the cliff, solid and unmovable against the tumult of the wind. Possessed of his own vigor and mindless urgency to kill, Percy bared his teeth like a threatened dog and clenched his hand into a tight fist. The entire Mediterranean was stolen by his hold. He wrenched his fist backwards, as if yanking on a rope, and the sea relented to his will. The water surged rapidly in his direction and pulled Cetus towards the cliff at twice its prior speed.

“Percy! Stop!” Her voice finally tore through the loud whippings of the wind. Annabeth grabbed his arm to recenter his attention. “What are you doing?! It’s coming in even faster now!”

He didn’t listen to a word she said. He wanted Cetus dead and he wanted it dead before he took his next breath.

Percy’s snarl harshened more. He propelled the monster towards them faster and faster, channeling the waves to pull its body in. The effort of controlling so much water made his skin feel taut, made the veins in his forehead thicken and throb as the muscles in his body tightened from strain. The monster flailed, its tendrils loomed and quarreled with malice, and Percy’s whole mind was seized by hysteria—by the rush and intensity of it all, by the enduring belief that he could be Perseus if he killed this beast in the next five seconds, in the next five seconds—he swore to himself that this was the truth of his life, and his blood pumped fast, and a throb of splendid mania strangled his body—commanding him to kill this beast, kill it NOW when Riptide was snatched out of nowhere from his hold—

—Huh?

Cetus was so close. Moonlight glistened on its scales, and its jaw opened wide.

Annabeth grabbed Percy by his shirt and rendered him behind her, such that she stood brave at the edge of the cliff. His sword was gleaming brightly in her hand as the monster’s thick, serpentine neck spasmed, and its massive head twitched excitedly, for the pouncing of its long-awaited prey was imminent.

In that electrifying moment, Percy’s lunacy was tamed by a momentary glimmer of sense and clarity.

What had Annabeth been talking about? Why did she have to kill it? How could anyone kill a monster that big? The original Perseus used the glare of Medusa’s severed head to defeat Cetus in the ancient times. Percy didn’t have it anymore, and he didn’t have a plan, so what else could be done?

What else can I do?

Percy grit his teeth hard, and then he took a step back.

Everything he had left was gathered for one final push—all of his power, of his anger, of his confidence and principles and perseverance were externalized beyond his mortal innards. His godly might took reign over the waves—not as its companion, but its master. Percy domineered the water back to the cobalt horizon. Just as the monster aimed at Annabeth, its jaw positioned wide open to swallow her whole, Percy’s sharp reversal of the current hurled it in the opposite direction. Cetus bellowed as the sea abducted it at such a rapid pace, hurtling like a torpedo across its surface. Percy pushed it farther and farther and farther away, screaming as the strain felt that it might destroy him, that it would snatch his throbbing veins from the flesh of his wrists. The waves frothed ferociously. Cold droplets buffeted against his burning skin. Cetus became a shrinking, flailing figure in the distance. Percy wouldn’t stop pushing until the waves expelled the beast to the other side of the Mediterranean sea.

By the time he lost his vigor, Cetus was long gone. He couldn’t sense its presence in the water anymore. Breathing hard, Percy’s arms dropped to his sides lifelessly. Moving so much water so quickly had depleted all of his strength. Surely even his own father would break a sweat from thrusting a monster that size back and forth across the sea.

But at last, the threat had disappeared. Now the adrenaline and frenzy and power was gone, leaving him feeling utterly vacant. Percy nearly sunk to the ground and laid there for the rest of the night. Instead, he fell towards Annabeth. Reflexes as quick as ever, she dropped his sword and caught him in her arms.

“Percy?”

He went soft in her embrace, leaning on her bonelessly. Percy’s hand found her side and gripped her weakly.

“Percy!” she called again. “Are you—”

“I’m fine,” he panted, eyes half-open. “Just... tired.”

Annabeth lowered herself so that he wouldn’t have to stand. Slowly, they sank to their knees in unison. Percy steadily regained control over his breath. His lips floated by her collarbone, inhales and exhales giving heat unto the skin of her neck. Percy wanted to say something pathetic. Hold me tighter or something like that. Frigid air whistled by the florid tips of his ears. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t feel like Perseus.

“Why...” Annabeth began in his stead. “Percy... why did you do that?”

His brows tightened. Percy didn’t want to respond. He didn’t have the energy to answer any questions, and he wasn’t in the mood for an argument—which seemed inevitable if he were to explain himself.

“Annabeth... I don’t feel like talking right now. Can we just go back to bed?”

“For what? We just came out here.”

“Yeah, and we obviously shouldn’t have.”

Annabeth eyed him for a moment, assessing his condition. “Look, you’re obviously tired, so I’ll help you get to our room first. But Cetus might come back. Once you’re in bed, I’m going to keep watch for the rest of the night.”

“What? No.” He drew back from her arms until they were face-to-face. “It’s gone, Annabeth. And you’re still recovering from the attack with Frank. Don’t you think you should... go back to sleep, conserve your energy for the quest in the morning?”

“I know how to manage my energy, Percy. I’m staying out here until Cetus comes back.”

“It’s not coming back tonight.” he asserted, annoyance creeping into his voice. “It’s way too far away by now. I probably pushed it all the way to the Gulf of Sidra or something.”

“Yeah, and what did you do that for, Percy? I told you over and over that I wanted to kill it...”

“How exactly were you gonna kill that thing? By taking my sword out of my hands and standing still on the cliff? Moving it away from the shore was the best way to get rid of it!”

“Then why were you reeling it in faster when you had the sword? Because it seems like you only decided it was too difficult to kill once the sword was in my hands!”

Percy hesitated to counter. He didn’t like what she was implying, but he also lacked a good explanation for what had just happened. I thought that if I killed Cetus fast, we’d have a peaceful life together. No, he couldn’t tell her that. She’d think he’d lost his mind. He couldn’t stand being seen as mad, as in a state of disrepair. Not by anyone, especially not Annabeth.

Disgruntled, he turned his face away from her. “That’s not what happened. You’re just putting words in my mouth.”

She threw her hands up in exasperation. “Well—then why can’t you just put your words in your own mouth? I asked you why you did what you did, and you refused to give me an answer!”

“I could say the same to you, Annabeth! We just had this conversation. Always expecting me to read your mind instead of just telling me upfront what’s going on—”

“And you’re talking a lot for a guy who just said he didn’t feel like talking.”

“Yeah, because I was trying to avoid this dumb argument!”

“You think I want to argue, Percy?” she raised her voice in disbelief. “Believe it or not, I don’t! I’m not trying to have a stupid argument, I’m not trying to get angry over nothing, and I’m not trying to chase after a sea monster for no good reason. I’m trying to do something great—and being on this quest, being in the Ancient Lands, that’s my way of doing it!”

Beneath the cliffside, the waves were calm and quiet. Percy’s strength had yet to fully recover—but the emptiness within him, the ash of exhausted firewood, discovered new kindling in Annabeth’s confession. With it he found energy to rise to his feet, to find her eyes again and remember that above all else, they were supposed to be on the same team.

“‘Do something great’? What are you talking about?”

To his dismay, Annabeth already looked like she regretted speaking. She got to her feet and shook her head, her expression serious. “Forget it.”

“I don’t want to forget it, Annabeth.” he said quietly. “How can you say that you need to do any of that to be great? You're already a legend—everybody knows that. You rebuilt Olympus. You built all the new cabins for the minor gods at camp. You found the Athena Parthenos. You—”

“That was years ago.”

“So? You were great back then, and you’re still great now.”

“Ugh, Percy—you don’t get it. I knew you would say those things.”

“What things? That you’re amazing and always have been?”

“Doing great things in the past isn’t an excuse to be mediocre for the rest of my life. You heard Frank earlier today—he said I’m ‘basically retired’. He says I have ‘a normal mortal job’ and ‘a normal mortal life’. Like I’m not even a demigod anymore.”

Percy watched her with concern. Her argument with Frank felt like it had taken place forever ago. Only now did he realize that the praetor’s comments had wounded Annabeth much more than Percy could have imagined.

Of course it did. I must be some kind of idiot. he thought scoldingly. Having her pride threatened by anyone, be they an ally or an enemy, was the same offense as stealing precious treasure from her soul. He should know that by now.

Annabeth remained sullen and agitated. Her vigilant gaze was focused on the sea, as if still hoping for the monster’s return. Rigidly, she added, “... You’ll never have this problem. That’s why you don’t get it, Percy. You’re the son of Poseidon. No one would ever question how much of a demigod you are. You can change the direction of the waves like it’s nothing. I have to work twice as hard as you to make great things happen.”

Percy’s first impulse was to say, ‘What’s so great about me? What’s so great about changing the direction of the waves?’ or ‘That wasn’t nothing—that took up so much power that I thought my soul would give out,’ but he didn’t want to focus on himself or his feelings. Annabeth was his priority. He’d do anything to ease her distress, even if only for a moment.

Coming by her side, Percy outstretched his arm in front of her.

“Take my hand, Annabeth.”

“... What for?”

“Show me how you want the waves to move,” Percy said. “I’ll make it happen for you.”

Annabeth stared at him incredulously. Emotion welled up in her eyes. There was a pause—and in that brief, frozen moment, Percy remembered Tartarus sharply. The memory shot through him suddenly like a bullet to the chest. He remembered a time when Annabeth detested his power. As I was choking just now, I kept thinking: this is payback for Akhlys. The Fates are letting me die the same way I tried to kill that goddess. And honestly, a part of me felt I deserved it.

What he felt right now was eerily similar to what he’d felt back then. She hated his manipulation of the tides against Cetus, and she hated his offer to manipulate them again just to placate her mood. Frustrated tears fell from Annabeth’s eyes. Percy knew beyond doubt that he’d said the wrong thing.

“Don’t patronize me, Percy.” she muttered miserably. “Not you, of all people.”

Annabeth made haste of wiping the tears from her eyes. Then she quickly rededicated herself to watching the coastline in case the monster came back. Percy knew that it wouldn’t—not tonight, at least. He wanted to keep talking to her. He wanted to stay by her side and keep watch over the Mediterranean for as long as she decided to stay out here. But he also knew that Annabeth was done speaking to him for the rest of the night, and further attempts at protecting her or trying to make her feel better would be viewed as continuously patronizing. She wanted to be alone.

So, he let her have that. Helplessly, wordlessly, Percy turned around and departed from the seaside cliff, frustrated with his fiancee, with the entire argument they’d had, and especially frustrated with himself. A tumult of questions wreaked havoc on his thoughts for the entire long walk back to the cottage.

Was Percy crazy? Was pushing Cetus away the wrong thing to do? And how could a monster that powerful appeared out of the blue in the first place?

“M—my mom...” Annabeth muttered. “It’s a sign, from my mom. She must have summoned it to me.”

There was more to the cryptic problem that he didn’t understand. More secrets that Annabeth hadn’t revealed. What was going on between Annabeth, her mom, and the rest of her family? Why would Athena summon Cetus just for Annabeth to kill? ... And furthermore, did he just offend his godly mother-in-law by “rejecting” her generous gift of an evil, murderous sea monster? That couldn’t be good.

Percy scavenged through his memories for even a morsel of useful information. In doing so, recollection rewound all the way to a date two months backwards in the past, to the last time he encountered the goddess of wisdom.

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For Percy, it’s long been the norm that major life events are doomed to go absolutely haywire. Several first-days-of-school had been brutalized by monster attacks one way or another. His sweet sixteen had nearly brought forth the end of the world. So why should his engagement party be any different?

“Hey—enough with that worried look on your face. You’ve had it on you all night, I’m getting sick of looking at it.”

Heavy combat boots thud against the tiled kitchen floor as she approaches him. An oversized, ripped shirt hangs over her body as a row of silver bracelets dangles on her forearms. Her short, spiky hair and her pin-littered leather jacket made her quite the standout guest during the party. Not even on a formal occasion would his old rival trade in her usual punk look for more conventional black-tie attire. Seeing her unchanged self makes him feel envious; Percy always feels stupid whenever he has to show up somewhere in a stuffy suit and tie like the one he’s currently dressed up in.

Sitting down at the kitchen table, he smirks despite himself. “Man, am I that easy to read?”

“‘Easy to read’? You may as well be a picture-book at this point.” Thalia laughs. “Will you lighten up? Party’s almost over without a hitch. We’ve got you two covered.”

“Hey, there’s a ton of powerful demigods at this party—that means all the monsters in the entire state of California can smell us. Plus, I’ve got a lot of enemies. Can you blame me for being paranoid?”

Thalia pulls out the wooden chair beside him and sits down. “I can blame you for forgetting that you’ve got a ton of -friends-, too. You have the hunters running security. What better protection could you ask for?”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask—how the hell is that happening? Don’t you guys hate marriage?”

The huntress rolls her eyes. “Don’t insult the goodwill of Lady Artemis. She likes Annabeth. She thinks you’re... well, you’re alright, too. We protect our allies from harm, end of story. Nothing’s gonna mess up your engagement party, alright?”

Percy nods slowly. No matter what he does, he isn’t able to fully bring himself to stop imagining how things can go wrong despite anyone’s assurances or influence. But he doesn’t want Thalia’s efforts to go unappreciated, either.

“You’re right,” he relents. “Thanks.”

“And you’re welcome, kid.” she says. That’s been a running joke of hers for years—calling him ‘kid’, even though he’s in his mid-twenties while she’s still fifteen. It’s kind of funny. It kind of makes him sad, too. “By the way, I—”

Suddenly, the kitchen door opens again. In walks Mrs. Chase and one of Annabeth’s younger brothers, Matthew Chase.

“Oh, Percy, Thalia, there you are.” says the older woman. Her red hair bounces over her shoulders in luxuriant waves, and soft sheen of her blue, satin dress is emphasized by the bright lighting of the kitchen. “We’re getting out the drinks for the last toast of the night. It’ll just be a minute.”

At the same time, Percy and Thalia begin to stand up from their chairs and respond in unison, “I’ll help you with that, Mrs. Chase.”

Thalia flashes him an irritated look, as if to say, ‘Butt out. Don’t copy me.’ He resists a retaliatory urge to flood her boots with water from the faucet just for fun.

“No, that’s alright. We mortals can handle this much.” Mrs. Chase offers them a smile. Percy’s always thought she had a uniquely pretty smile ever since he first met her on the quest to rescue Annabeth and Artemis years ago. But something about her grin just now appeared noticeably shaky. Or maybe he just imagined it. “Matthew’s been a good helper, you two can just relax.”

Matthew, the older of the twins, nods simply. At twenty-one years old, he looks like a mini-Dr. Chase with dark hair: tall, thin-rimmed glasses, easygoing haircut, and the lean build of a surfer—though he’s anything but. In his few attempts to relate to Annabeth’s mortal brothers over the years, little has become more apparent than the fact that they have almost nothing in common. Percy likes swimming and marine biology. Matthew likes electrical engineering and rocket science. Bobby likes esoteric literature and French history. Suffice to say, they never have anything to talk about.

The mother and son are swift and methodical. On a fancy, silver serving platter, Mrs. Chase arranges row after row of champagne glasses. Matthew clinically pours the exact same amount of bubbling champagne into every bottle. The Chases insisted on taking full responsibility for hosting the engagement party, which is largely taking place in their huge backyard and the bottom floor of their three-story house. Most of his and Annabeth’s friends and family are mingling throughout the home, and that means a huge mob of ADHD demigods running amok. Plus a centaur. And a few satyrs. And some nymphs, and a cyclops, and an oracle, and a harpy, and Reyna’s metal dogs—and so on. Percy loves the diverse cohort of friends they’ve amassed over the years, but if Annabeth’s family is anxious about having so many non-mortals in their home, he can’t blame them.

A soft pop ballad drips through the overhead speakers; Mariah Carey, Percy thinks. Annabeth’s favorite. Coupled with the plethora of blue indoor and outdoor decorations, an obvious effort has been made to appeal to the engaged couple. He opens his mouth to thank Mrs. Chase, but then he notices that, in between meticulous pours of champagne, Matthew keeps pausing to steal glimpses at Thalia in particular. Percy wonders what that’s all about.

Pretty quickly, Thalia notices. “Something on my face, Matthew?”

“... Err, sorry.” Matthew quickly looks away, embarrassed. “I shouldn’t stare.”

“Let me guess. You’re wondering how I get my hair to look like this?”

“Not exactly.” Having emptied the bottle, he disposes of it and searches the fridge for a second one. “It’s just a little shocking. I don’t think I’ve seen you in six, seven years, Thalia. But you really do look the same.”

“Matthew, don’t be rude,” chides Mrs. Chase. She turns her head to Thalia, an apologetic look on her face. “Forgive him, Thalia. To the twins, you’ve always been Annabeth’s cool, older friend. That shift—being younger than you, then somehow becoming older... well, we’re only mortal. It’s hard for the boys to make sense of that.”

Thalia nods politely. Percy figures that she doesn’t actually like being reminded of how young she looks compared to everyone else—he certainly wouldn’t if he were in her shoes, had he chosen immortality—but one thing about Thalia is that adults tend to like her, and she’s good with people’s parents. Dr. Chase and Mrs. Chase are no exception; in terms of Annabeth’s demigod companions, Thalia’s probably still their favorite.

“You may be regular mortals, but you throw a good party for demigods.” Percy interjects. “Thanks for everything, Mrs. Chase. You, too, Matthew.”

“Of course, dear. It’s the least we could do.” she says. “Demigods, satyrs... we should be able to handle that much by now. As long as there aren’t any unexpected guests...”

“Like, uh, monsters?” Percy asks guiltily. “I don’t want you guys to worry too much about that. I’d keep your family safe no matter what.”

“Ahem,” Thalia coughs. “-I’d- keep you guys safe no matter what. Like I was just telling Percy here a second ago, me and the hunters have got everything handled.”

“Yeah. And I’d help, just in case anything happened.”

“You wouldn’t need to help, because we would handle anything.”

“Well, yeah. But if—”

“That’s enough talk of monsters, now—thank you.” Mrs. Chase cuts sternly. “I find that subject... unpleasant. I’d rather not speak of it at the moment.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Chase.” They respond in unison. Thalia kicks him under the table for copying her again. This time, Percy kicks her back.

Pouring out champagne into the final unfilled glass, Matthew adds, “It’s not the monsters that mom’s really concerned about, anyway—”

“Matthew!” His mother cuts him off. “Let’s get these drink platters out where everyone can grab them, yes? And Percy, Thalia, would you mind grabbing Annabeth for the last toast? I think she went up to her bedroom a while ago.”

“Of course.” Thalia says.

“Sure thing,” Percy adds.

Mrs. Chase and Matthew thank them both, champagne glasses balanced on the silver platters in their hands as they steadily remove themselves from the kitchen. The same Mariah Carey song is coming to an end on the speakers. He can hear Clarisse’s big laugh blaring from the backyard, folded into dozens of excited chatters and pleasant conversations. Why did he wander off into the kitchen by himself, anyway? He shouldn’t be in his own head like this, worrying about a monster attack. He should be celebrating a huge life event with everyone he cares about. Including his fiancee.

Together, he and Thalia wind through the crowd on the first floor to find Annabeth. When they reach the staircase, Percy remembers something that he’d nearly forgotten.

“Hey, what were you saying earlier?”

“Earlier?” she asks.

“Before Mrs. Chase walked in. You were saying something to me, but then you got cut off.”

“Oh.” Thalia grunts. “Well... I was just gonna say, congrats on the engagement. That’s all. I said that to Annabeth already. Haven’t said it to you, yet.”

“Oh... thanks. It’s, uh, been a long time coming.”

He’s heard a whole lot of ‘congratulations’ from everyone he knows lately, but hearing it from her feels different. Percy used to feel jealous of Thalia and Luke in the past—jealous whenever Annabeth spoke of her adventures with them, jealous of her love for her adoptive family, and jealous that he wasn’t part of it. And now, thirteen years later, he’s marrying her—building a permanent home out of their combined love for each other. Even now, he still finds it hard to believe in his own happy ending.

Having Thalia’s ‘congratulations’, it almost feels to Percy like the seal of approval from Annabeth’s second family. But he wonders if, now, Thalia might be feeling the same way as Percy did long ago, like an outsider to all her mortal companions and their mortal rituals. He hopes not. Immortal or otherwise, Thalia will always have a home with he and Annabeth—even when they’re old and gray and she’s still fifteen.

“You can say that again. Gods, it took you long enough. That girl had the patience of a saint, waiting for you to finally ask her out.” Thalia jokes. “I still remember when Annabeth was checking out those pamphlets for the hunters. Can you imagine?”

“I kinda prefer to not think about my future wife taking an oath of eternal maidenhood.”

“Ah, being single’s not so—”

At the top of the staircase, Thalia suddenly stiffens.

“Thalia?” Percy raises an eyebrow. “What’s wrong? You going senile already?”

She doesn’t play into the joke. “You don’t sense that, Percy?”

“Uh... no. Sense what?”

“Come to the top of the stairs.”

Percy follows her instructions. Standing by Thalia’s side, he doesn’t feel any different.

“What exactly are you sensing? Is there a monster, or—”

“No. Not that. Something else. But it’s something... powerful.” She points towards the lone door at the end of the hallway. “I don’t know what exactly it is, but it’s coming from there.”

Percy’s heart skips a beat. “That’s Annabeth’s room.”

They look at each other for a moment. And then they hurry to the door.

Stealthily, Thalia wraps her palm around the door handle. Percy lurks just behind her, fingertips already brushing against his ballpoint pen. Thalia locks eyes with him again, nods silently, and then cracks the door open just an inch.

“—made my conditions very clear, Annabeth.”

Percy’s eyes shoot wide open in shock. He recognizes that mature, feminine voice. It’s been years since he last heard it, but he could never forget the sound.

Annabeth is all he can see clearly through the tiny crack in the doorway. She’s standing in the center of her bedroom, facing a woman whose form he hasn’t any line of sight on.

Pleadingly, Annabeth responds, “Yes, but... is there anything specific you had in mind? Something I can do to honor you?”

“I am not so concerned with how you honor me, child. In that regard, you are already quite superior. No... what concerns me is how you honor yourself. How you dignify yourself in the future you have chosen.”

“Y... you mean the wedding? You don’t want me to get married?”

“My girl, I have long approved already of your betrothal to the hero Perseus. But you will disappoint me should you be mindless of my warning. Heed my wisdom, Annabeth: do not become Andromeda.”

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