Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dear Calypso, 

I don’t know if you’ll get this, but I’m hoping that you will. If this summer has taught me anything it’s that hope can carry you pretty far. There’s definitely less rules about it than prayer. (I did also sacrifice my dinner to Hermes for the best chances since it’s his delivery service, but I’m banking on hope.) 

To the surprise of everyone, I’m alive. 

Most people I’ve met thought I’d be dead by now, some have tried to make it happen. When I landed on your island, I thought they were basing that prediction on my poor life decisions but turns out there was a seventy year old prophecy that basically said “percy jackson will die at sixteen”. 

Yeah, I was pretty messed up about that. It’s not that I thought I’d be the demigod to beat the odds and live a long life, but my mom had named me Perseus in hopes that I would. The chance of me dying was always a possibility long before I turned sixteen. I’ve literally seen two of my would-be funeral shrouds. The prophecy just made a possibility a certainty that I couldn’t avoid. It made me think of you, of what would’ve happen if I stayed. But just because I’d be free from that burden doesn’t mean everyone else would be free from the consequences. You know this, it’s why I left.

Okay, I don’t know how to say this gently, for all I know someone’s already told you, but Olympus hasn’t been answering me back for a while now and my luck’s always been piss poor when it comes to getting answers. I’m rambling. What I mean to say is that after Kronos was defeated, I was given a gift for leading the demigods against him and being the prophecy child. I asked for a few things and the king of the gods agreed. One of those was to free you from Ogygia. 

You’re free, Calypso. No more heroes washing up on your beach and no more being stranded on that island. If no one comes for you, build a raft? I’m honestly just spitballing here. I’m sending some drachma with this letter and once you’re in the mortal world, send me a letter or Iris message and I’ll pick you up on Blackjack. He’s my pegasus friend, the coolest guy you’ll ever meet. Or I can pick you up with a car, I got my learner’s permit a while ago! 

My mom’s been helping me grow your moonlace on our window sill, it’s not as big of a garden as you deserve, but I’ve been helping Grover, my best friend and the new Lord of the Wild, on his whole save the earth mission while I prep for my junior year of high school. The world has changed a lot, but I’m still your friend and want you to know that even though I couldn’t stay with you, I want to be there for you. 

Love, 

Percy

PS: I am not going to die because of a prophecy, it’s already passed and the next one, fingers crossed, shouldn’t happen for another lifetime. 

—

It’s all fun and games joking about dams when you don’t see who’s being damned in the process.  

He blinks at another fishway-less dam and has half the mind to hack at it with Riptide. He doesn’t listen to the horned figure on his shoulder that resembles a satyr more than a devil, that advises him down with private dams! Let the wild be wild! And instead plots another course along the Saugatuck River, because at the end of the day he’s not equipped to deal with an ecoterrorist warrant. 

The river used to be host to a large variety of fish, once it was known for its brown trout, but dams as he’s learned through impassioned speeches from Rachel, Grover, and a ridiculous amount of river spirits, have bad side effects that include destroying biodiversity. Fishways, little fish steps that are made in dams to let fish migrate, aren’t always a one size fits all solution and aren’t even included into every dam. 

He swims at a regular pace, not wanting his passenger to get discombobulated, and taking the chance to feel the flow of the river. Only one third of the world’s longest rivers are free running. He wonders if this is a topic of conversation in his father’s court. Somewhere below post-war reconstruction and before the top ten reasons of why Zeus sucks, they’d talk about the wild being bought up by business men and private citizens as if it doesn’t have a spirit. 

The Saugatuck River has a spirit. He had introduced himself alongside Grover who’s taken to know every nature spirit that’s ever sprouted like a new boss making the rounds with employees. She had been bloated, skin a greenish brown and hair a rushing stream as she told them of the groups of brown trout she used to welcome before they stopped making the trip. 

Contrary to what Clarisse would tell you, he’s not a sucker for a sad story, but when she introduces them to Bela, a brown trout who wants to have her babies in the first place she ever laid her fingerling eyes on, Percy can’t not help. 

So here he is navigating dams while his best friend chats up a bloated river because it wouldn’t be Connecticut without a flood.

Are you sure you know where you’re going?

Is he ever? 

“We’re going to get there soon,” he reassures. She dropped the “my lords” somewhere along the third time they’d been redirected. He gets that too much to even pretend at being offended.

Before or after I lay my eggs?

Percy rolls his eyes. If it was all as simple as going from point A to point B, Bela would be carried in a water bubble as he jumped over dams to her nesting ground. But she’s a migrating species, she needs to know the way as much as she needs to get to her destination. It’s not like riding the MTA where worse comes to worst you can use Google or just ask someone which train to take. There are things people need to do for themselves. 

He follows the rush of the river, avoiding the stifled currents. This water empties into the Long Island Sound, but the movement of it is halted in a way that makes him feel sick. Like if the river was an artery, it’s one that’s been treated for coronary bypass. 

He remembers how weak Pan was before he faded and how gods are half idea and half energy. Grover won’t give up on the wild, the same way he never gave up on Pan. If his beating heart is now linked to the wellbeing of this planet? Well, they already called him a terrorist for something he didn’t do, at least he’d earn the ecoterrorist label fair and square. 

Percy guides Bela through the last current as they land in their destined pond, the Saugatuck and Grover pause their conversation to watch the fish swim in glee at her new territory. 

Thank you, lost one! Thank you! Even though we took the scenic route, we made it!

Percy snorts, “Don’t mention it, Bela. Good luck with the kids.”

He swims up to Grover and holds a hand out that the satyr takes without hesitation to pull him out onto the marshy earth. He can feel the mud stick to his feet, he wiggles his toes. If he really tried, he could lift this dirt. 

Grover raises an eyebrow at him and he returns it with a shake of his head and a smile.

“It’s a pleasure to see her kind reach my waters. I used to host so many,” the river’s mouth is long like a whale shark’s. Seeing human words come from it instead of aquatic bellowing keeps his eyes on her tadpole eyes rather than risk staring. “What was is often forgotten in favor of current events.”

Percy blinks. Did she just- 

He locks side eyes with Grover, both of their mouths already open as if to ask “was that a pun? Did she really just do that?” And they close in muted amusement and understanding. No need to point out low hanging fruit. 

Grover speaks, “I won’t forget. Things might not revert to what it once was, but we can build a future to be proud of right now.”

He speaks with the confidence of conviction. He’s grown in their years of knowing each other, but he’s always been one of the bravest people Percy’s known, doing what he believes in even when it scares him. 

The river hums, “Perhaps we can.”

They part ways and pick their path into the surrounding forest. The silence is comfortable and punctuated by bird whistles and crunching leaves. 

“Are they saying anything interesting?” 

Grover snorts, “The robins are debating which group will migrate since this forest isn’t big enough for all of them. They’re arguing in circles since there’s a group that wants to stay and another that wants to go, but they’re so involved in their points they don’t realize they’re not disagreeing.” 

Percy huffs, reminded of the way the Athena and Ares cabins tend to argue when picking teams for Capture the Flag. 

He trips over a rock and waves off the shoes that Grover’s been carrying for him. “Our clearing is nearby, let’s just sit down for a bit.”

The fatigue from the curse hasn’t hit him yet, but it’s good practice for the cover Paul helped him sort out with his school. Accommodating for narcolepsy was easier for the administration to understand than “an Ancient Greek Curse that causes me to crash” or Sleepy boy disease as the Stolls called it.

He leans against a rock while Grover sits cross legged in the grass, panpipes pulled from his crossbody. The world seems to flourish around the satyr. The grass seems just that bit greener and the air just that much clearer. It reminds him of meeting Artemis, where the world seemed wilder under her silver gaze. 

If Percy called out via their empathy link, he doesn’t doubt Grover would hear it. Is that so different from prayer?

Emily Osment’s Lovesick gets a wind instrument rendition by the Lord of the Wild and Percy doesn’t even wince once. Over the years his playing has grown better and in turn Percy’s music repertoire expanded from Nirvana and the Pixies to include pop hits.

As the last notes linger in the air, a thought that he never had the guts to acknowledge comes out of his mouth, “Did you feel it when I was in the Styx?”

Grover pauses, lips centimeters away from cajoling another melody, and startled like a deer in headlights. 

The wind rustles the tree leaves. 

The smile Grover offers is pained, “Not as much as you felt it, but yeah.”

The implications twist his mouth, his voice is strangled as he asks, “What did you think would happen on my birthday? Why would you—Everyone thought I would die.”

When he was thirteen and the first friend he ever had asked if they should destroy the bond between them, the answer was always going to be no. There’s a desperate, selfish thing in him. It gets so overjoyed at connection that it’ll ignore all consequences if someone asks him to stay. He’s a bad kid, a product of a broken oath, and is full of so much power that does nothing but destroy. He loves Camp, but he remembers those first weeks as an official child of Poseidon. A place filled with people like him and he was still the worst one. 

No matter how many times he’s put his hoof in his mouth, the only person who has Grover beat in caring for him the longest is his mom. 

“Why did you think I could find Pan?” Grover retorts.

“That’s not the same thing!”

He shrugs, “I placed all my bets on you a long time ago, Percy. If anyone could defy the Fates, it would’ve been you. I wanted it to be you.”

The sincerity of it rises in the back of his throat. “You can’t just do that. You could’ve died, people have already died. I wouldn’t survive it if you did too.”

He scratches his goatee, “Well, you’d be dead already. And if I died for you, that would defeat the point so I definitely won’t be doing that.”

“I’d die for you first!” Not really sure why they’re arguing this.

“Please don’t do that.”

“Then don’t do it to me.” 

“Deal.”

“Good.”

They stare at each other for a beat and Percy can’t tell who starts laughing first but they’re laughing together. It’s stupid, as stupid as the robins’ argument jabbering above them. Grover isn’t a regular satyr and Percy isn’t a regular demigod and for once they’re living without the odds against them. He tries to forget Grover’s unconscious body under the grip of Morpheus and focus on the now, when it hits him then that he has two mortal spots and Annabeth already protects them both. 

If he wasn’t so selfish, he’d feel bad about putting that on her. 

“Does this count as a suicide pact?”

Grover bleats, “Dude, no! It’s like…it’s like that Death Cab for Cutie song!”

“I’ll follow you into the dark sounds like a suicide pact to me.”

“Well it’s not. Stop saying that, think of how Juniper would take it. Don’t do that to her.”

He raises his hands in surrender, “I was just saying.” His mind drifts to the new school year. “Are you sure you don’t wanna enroll at Goode for old times sake?”

Grover laughs, “It can’t be worse than Yancy.”

“Exactly, all the more reason for you to come.”

Grover scoots over so that they’re shoulder to shoulder. “You’ve faced the Lord of Time, you can make it through high school.”

“It’s crazy that I have to though, can’t Apollo do me a solid or at least give me my homework in Greek. I bet that’s what Luke pitched in his recruitment speech.”

Grover tenses, before giving a shaky laugh. “For some reason I don’t think he was concerned about future curriculums.”

All the more ways the guy was short sighted, he thinks bitterly.

“Are you still visiting her?” Grover asks cautiously.

“You know that I am.” 

It’s not his favorite pastime, if anything he always leaves that house feeling a little worse than when he came in, but he can’t just leave her.

Not when her worst nightmare has come true.

“Just…take it easy, Percy.” 

He grins, “When have I ever chosen the hard way?”

Grover snorts, fidgeting with his panpipes. “You know I’m just an IM away.”

“Don’t forget concerning dreams, you’re good at sending those.”

“I’m still waiting for you to return the favor.”

“I’m saving it for a special occasion. If I’m ever kidnapped.”

“Oh gods, please don’t jinx yourself.”

He knocks on a neighboring tree and jumps at the stink eye the emerging dryad sends him. His apology is ignored in favor of fawning at Grover. Percy’s nose scrunches, “He has a girlfriend.”

The dryad’s attention returns with full ire, but at Grover’s awkward insistence she returns to her tree.

Percy claps, “Well that’s enough nature for me today. Take me back to civilization.”

“City boy,” Grover shakes his head fondly.

“And don’t you forget it.”

They walk together until they reach the paved path to Westport, Connecticut. It’s the sort of place you’d envision when you think white suburban town by the water. It’s become familiar to him in the way that he can handle a trident but will always prefer a sword. 

“I’m heading West.”

Percy raises an eyebrow as he accepts his bag back, “More meet and greets or…?” Unease and curiosity rise in equal measure like the beginning of a tummy ache through their bond. 

“The earth has been feeling a little weird. It might be the after effects of Pan fading, but it feels different from what I’m used to. Somehow older than his magic.”

Percy frowns, “Keep me updated?”

“I will.” He looks down the street that Percy will eventually travel and pulls him in for a hug, “Take care of yourself, Percy.”

“Right back at you,” he murmurs. 

—-

It was at a campfire, after Luke betrayed them and before finding out that Silena did too (in other words after the beginning and before the end) that Drew Tanaka told him a story about a lioness. 

After the loss of her cub, the lioness adopted an oryx, some sort of goat-antelope that under normal circumstances would be prey. She protected the oryx, hunted meat that it couldn’t eat, and cared for it like her own. One day when she went hunting, her lion mate tired of the charade killed the oryx to eat. When the lioness came back to the murder, she attacked the lion, blinding him and chasing him out of the territory. And then she ate the carcass of her adopted oryx.

Drew was mean in a way that Percy understood. Her bluntness was only 35 percent ADHD and mostly just her personality. Worst of all, she’s kind of hilarious. He had asked her why she told him the story, she seemed disappointed before answering that Love is complicated.

At first he couldn’t stop thinking of Kronos and his kids, but now, at the doorsteps of a two story colonial house in Westport, Connecticut, he thinks of May Castellan.

“Luke, honey! I missed you!”

Thin arms wrap around him and he returns the embrace. “Hey, it’s been a while.”

“Come in, come in.” 

He’s braced for the smell and manages to smile through the strong aroma of burnt cookies and peanut butter sandwiches. The hallway is still filled with candles and mirrors, he catches a glimpse of beanie baby Medusa through them on the way to the kitchen table. 

“I got you something.” He tells her, pulling out the sandwiches and cut up fruit he had bought on his way, before she can offer food past its expiration date.

She gasps delightedly, “Look at you, taking care of your mom. You’re such a kind boy.”

He bites the inside of his mouth and misses the grounding pain from before the curse was in effect. Now he has to rely on pure emotional regulation, how fun. “I get it from my mom.”

May smiles softly and starts picking at the fruit. “I’m glad you’re home. You’re always traveling, you get it from the both of us.”

Percy hums, “Do you mind if I pack some food to go?”

Her grey eyes brighten, “Of course, baby! I made it for you. There’s Kool-aid in the fridge if you’re thirsty.”

Discretely, he pulls out a trash bag and cleaning supplies from his bag. He starts by throwing the inedible food into the bag and then moves to replace her water filter. He’s reminded briefly of cleaning the apartment that they had with Smelly Gabe. How each thing thrown away was like scrubbing the man’s influence from his life. 

He’s not sure what cleaning here means aside from fighting mold poisoning. 

May’s pleased voice is recounting a painting she made while pregnant. Something about a snake eating its own tail around the earth. He only interrupts her to ask about the lunch he bought, prodding her to eat more. She indulges him each time. 

He’s seen some of her paintings. There are canvases propped against a lot of the walls and undoubtedly more upstairs. Not only are there paintings, but sculptures. He stopped looking when he got to the surprisingly good children’s drawings.  He wonders if it’s a prerequisite of potential oracles to be able to create haunting pieces of art. Knowing Apollo’s Blue period, it probably is. 

“How did you meet Hermes?” He asks before he can think not to. The house has evidence of many talents, from finished art to language books to sport medals to travel souvenirs. Before she was cursed, May Castellan lived a full life. He wonders who she was then. 

May laughs fondly, “Oh my sweet Hermes. He’d run around everywhere with his cute feathered helmet. I wish he’d still wear it.”

He makes the executive decision not to mention that he does…when he goes to war.

“He didn’t know I could see him and tried to steal my sculpture.” A smirk cuts through her face and for a moment he can picture her before everything. “I sold it to him for four times the set price.”

Percy snorts. Hermes would be the kind of god into that. 

“We ran into each other a few more times, I invited him home, and next thing we know I have the sweetest boy in the world.” She looks at him with such love that his heart aches. It’s like looking at his own mother, who despite everyone telling her her son is doomed, she asked for a sign that he’ll be home soon. 

He clears his throat, “You used to sell your art?”

She waves a hand, “I dabbled in a bit of everything. Have I ever told you of when I was a tour guide in Madrid?” He shakes his head. “I was seventeen, finished high school early, and had a knack for languages. I didn’t want to be in one place forever so I got a passport and flew out. Madrid’s not a hard city to understand, I took a few walks to familiarize myself and then stationed myself in front of an art museum, Reina Sofia, with a sign about tours. I was serious about it at first, but when it got boring I would make things up.” Percy smiles, slightly awed at how coherent she is. She leans in as if telling a secret, “You have to start off small, say things that sound right and can’t be easily refuted. A personal memory, how you felt the first time you visited, even if you’ve never visited before. And then you can build up, treat it like a rumor, facts can be proven but gossip sticks.” May laughs, “They banned me from offering tours in front of the museum around the time I was convincing tourists that ostriches used to roam the city square.”

He huffs a laugh. “What did that have to do about your art?”

“Everything is an art,” May says serenely, the fog in her eyes returns briefly, like the sun behind clouds. She hums a song beneath her breath staring at the shadow of Hermes formed from the light hitting the Hermes cutouts taped on the kitchen window. 

Percy goes back to cleaning. In the two times he and Hermes have crossed paths since the war, it’s always about Luke never May. And yet, she still talks about him like he’s her lover. There’s a celestial bronze snake hanging on the wall and the bills to this house are always paid, but it’s Percy who had sat the woman down two weeks ago to wash her hair in the water basin. 

He has half the mind to ask for the Ancient Laws written up so that he can understand what in the world direct intervention even means. It’s like finding out that before Thalia’s treeification, Camp was protected by the same demigods who needed protecting. 

He hands May a glass of water when she clutches his forearm in a vice grip. The water spills over them and Percy has to breathe through the adrenaline and instinct to break the hold. Her grey eyes are oracle green as that familiar smoke pours from her lips, “ Beware the earth, a mother’s curse rises from below. Foes or friends, gamble trust or triumph you forgo”

He flinches, staring at green that won’t stop coming,  his heart beating in tandem with the sirens in his mind. Her hands are still on him, white knuckled and on any other person, bruising. He waits for the rest of the prophecy but she never continues, so he pulls the woman into a one armed hug, glass still in hand as he lowers them gently to the floor. 

The green smoke is reflected by each of her mirrors, enshrouding the whole room in endless smoke. It’s terrifying, but not as terrifying as the sky on his back, not as scary as lava thrown onto his skin, not as frightening as a titan staring you down through the face of someone you once wished would be your friend. 

Besides, Apollo said himself that just because a prophecy is spoken doesn’t mean it’ll happen soon. He ignores the voice that points out that May’s only ever seen the Great Prophecy in her visions and that this was not that.

He zones out, tracing cracked tile with his eyes as his fingers tap an absent beat on May’s arm. It’s that song she was singing, it’s only now that he recognizes it and mutters along. “ There must be some word today from my baby so far away. Please Mr. Postman, look and see, is there a letter, a letter for me.”

Softly, May joins, “ I’ve been standing here waiting Mr. Postman. So-o patiently for just a card, or just a letter, saying he’s returning home to me”

Her grip relaxes into a firm hold, she has calluses on the side of her fingers that he never noticed until now. Lee had the same—artist’s hands. 

He’s never been much of an artist himself, only joining Rachel as more of a medium to her art than co-creator, his biggest art collaboration came from leaving Medusa’s head on his mom’s doorsteps and stepping aside. 

“May?”

Her hand tightens as she corrects him, “Mom.”

He looks to the ceiling and wonders how strong a belief has to be to create something from it. “Mom,” he corrects himself. “Do you think you could teach me how to paint?”

She straightens, her eyes clearer in her excitement, “Of course, baby! You stopped wanting to paint so long ago, but you were so good.” Obviously she hasn’t seen his arts and crafts projects, but he hands her the forgotten water glass at the sound of her voice. She finishes the glass with a fond eye roll. “We’ll have to go buy more supplies, but I should have enough brushes for sure.”

He blinks slowly, his fatigue catching up to him.

She huffs, “I know you hate to hear it, but you’re so much like us. Always trying to do so much.” She holds his face in her hand and traces a scar that he doesn’t have. “Let’s get you to bed, Luke.”

Percy nods, stumbling towards the cot he set up in the living room rather than the time capsule that was Luke’s bedroom. May follows him, easing him down with a strength that still takes him by surprise. 

“You know, I only started painting after high school. After the tours fell through in Spain, I painted in France.” She laughs, it echoes like her glass windchimes, “Don’t believe your father, I made an honest living there…”

Any interest he had in that story was weighed down by Clovis’ dad tag teaming with his curse to drag him to much needed sleep.

Percy opens his eyes to his family’s apartment. He’s sitting on a couch, a comfortable navy blue piece that his mom bought after that first summer at Camp Halfblood when he chose to come back. The couch is old but the apartment is new because it’s no longer the two of them.

He can’t make out the photos from here, but there are English books from Paul’s grad school days interspersed with his mom’s books. Pressed between the pages of an old library book on myths and legends whose borrowing history is inscribed with the jaunty cursive of Jim Jackson, are the remnants of a wedding bouquet featuring blue thistle. 

On the coffee table there are letters sent to Mrs. Blofis, abandoned coasters, and a scythe. 

Faint snuffling catches his attention to the arm chair where his mother sits cradling a blanket. 

She looks content in a way he’s not used to seeing her. Even on Montauk, there’s a wistfulness to her eyes. Looking down into her arms, gone are the worry marks between her brow and there’s certainty in her smile. She looks happy. 

Something lodges in his throat. 

“This one is mine,” His mom breathes out, gaze still caught on the bundle in her arms while Percy is stuck on her. “I’ll save this one.”

He tries to move closer to her, his throat clicking instead of speaking when he tries to ask her to come. But somehow he manages to see the baby in her arms. The child isn’t him. It has dark brown hair and long lashes like his mom and a nose that looks like Paul’s. 

He blinks and his mom is dressed in an earthy green veil, the child is made of clay. He blinks and his mom wears a goat skin cloak and the child is blond. He blinks and his mom has his eyes and the child is a rock. He blinks and wants to close his eyes forever. 

“The thing about children is that you never get it right on the first try,” His mom tells him like a secret between them both. “It’ll be different this time.”

For most of his life, the only place he felt safe was in his mother’s arms. There is no space for him there. The walls seem closer all of the sudden or maybe it’s the roof coming down. 

“Mom,” he croaks out. 

And his mother looks at him chidingly, reading the request on his face. “You’ve already had your turn. Let it be different this time.” 

There’s a scythe in his hands. It’s very different from a trident, he’d rather hold his mom’s hand. 

The roof isn’t breaking down, but the floor is caving in from his seat as his mother watches sadly from her armchair. He falls, further than Icarus did, further than St. Louis’ Arch and there is no water to greet him. There is nothing but the open earth. 

He wakes up to the taste of dirt in his mouth. 

Chapter Text

The school year starts decently all things considered. It would have been better if Grover took him up on his offer. It would have been great if Rachel didn’t actually transfer to Clarion in exchange for her last minute helicopter ride into Manhattan last month. But instead, he and Paul carpool to Goode, earlier than most students with the key exceptions being those in advanced classes that take place before the official first block of the day or clubs that meet in the morning like the National Honor Society and the JROTC. It’s ironic comparing the order and structure of the latter, preparing to prepare for war as though it hasn’t already happened in their city, to the newly christened veterans of Camp.  

The pegasus stamped hood of Paul’s Prius sits under the comfortable shade of their preferred faculty parking spot. September’s leaves are still hanging on to their branches, a casual reminder that summer technically isn’t over yet. Like with everything, it lingers.  

“This year will be good,” Paul proclaims, determination in his eyes like he’ll personally give detention to anything that tries to make him a liar–Percy’s terrible luck with schools included. The thought is honestly heartening, even his mom is choosy about definitive statements like that. 

“You sound like the orientation leaders.”

Paul chuckles, grabbing his traveller’s mug. “I’ll need more than coffee to get that cheery this early.”

Percy snorts and gathers his book bag.

They’d already sorted the ins and outs of Percy’s recent “narcolepsy” diagnosis and in a lucky coincidence, Goode is already accommodating a student with the condition. Going over the accommodations that he’ll actually get is such a difference from every other year of schooling that he had where at most he’d get an extra ten minutes on tests for his dyslexia. Hope is a tentative flutter in his stomach easily mistaken for indigestion. What does it say about him that he gets antsy when things go well for him? Maybe it’s a cultural memory of the Trojan horse or just his sixteen years of lived experience that things fall apart, but there’s no trio of old ladies following him that he can see and that’s not just because he avoids the knitting circles at libraries now. 

When they reach Paul’s classroom, he helps connect his stepfather’s laptop to the projector only to be met with his own smiling face projected back at him. Of all of the wedding pictures, Paul chose the one where Percy and his mom stand on either side of him, beaming with the same crooked grin. No matter how many times the man insists that he’s marrying into the family, Percy is always caught a little unawares by him actually showing it. 

“I don’t think Goode needs to see me in my Sunday best,” Percy drawls despite the warmth in his chest. 

Paul looks up from one of his lesson plans, amusement glinting behind his glasses. “Are you embarrassed for people to know we’re related?”

Percy snorts, if he claims the Olympians as family, he doesn’t think a mild mannered English nerd who makes his mom happy can even scrape the level of embarrassment that some of his divine relatives do. If anything it improves his street cred, he had spent his last year alternating between being a loner with the exception of Rachel and having students come up to meet ‘Mr. Blofis’ new kid’. The association made it easier to forget him as the kid who blew up the band room. “I should be asking you that.”

The teacher’s lips twitch downwards, “You’re the coolest kid I know, Percy. I’m proud of you.”

“It was just a joke, Paul.” He doesn’t linger on the affirmation, but he doesn’t deny it either. He looks back to the image they make. His brain pinpointing all the features that he and his mom share like the first time someone accused them of not being related. Aside from their matching grins and darker complexion especially when compared to Paul, there isn’t much similarity in a static photo, but he’d rather be his mom’s son in action rather than looks. 

Paul hums and suggests, “Get better jokes.”

–

He’s paying attention to his physics lesson when he smells warm milk and poppies drift his way. He looks to his side and a familiar sight greets him with sleep ruffled hair and a cow eyed gaze. After meeting Bessie, Percy thinks he has some authority when he says cow eyed, big round and shiny eyes framed by long eye lashes. 

Without this guy, Percy wouldn’t be able to be here—in class taking notes while his body is knocked out in a school provided sleep room. And since the curse sanctioned nap times, there are few people he’s hung out with more than this son of Hypnos. 

Clovis huffs settling in the seat next to him, “You have the world in your hands and you choose to go to high school.”

Percy shrugs, it’s not like he didn’t already make this choice when they offered him godhood. 

Clovis chuckles, “the heart wants what it wants, I guess.”

“I can’t have the most boring dream you’ve seen.” 

“Not even close,” Clovis confirms. “It’s just a little funny that people often dream of what they don’t have in the waking world and you’re dreaming about going to school without interruption.”

He doesn’t point out that this counts as an interruption, more glad for the company than he’d like to admit. “What are you dreaming about now?”

Clovis raises an eyebrow at him, looking around the room. 

He raises a skeptical one back, “All of your consciousness is here right now in my dream?”

The guy gives a slow nod, amused. “Dad says I shouldn’t play god too much. Might lose myself like one if I do.”

“What does that mean?”

Clovis rests his head on crossed arms, “You already know what happens to demigods who overuse their powers, they burn up.” 

The memory of Nico shadow travelling to his apartment rises to the forefront of his mind, the edges of him blurring in darkness like the gloom didn’t want to let him go. He tamps down the echo of hurtling towards lava, of calling for water and having his own body respond. In the distance of his dream classroom, a volcano erupts. 

He looks across the room and for a moment his classmates are all dog faced sea lions staring back at him. A warm hand settles on his shoulder and he’s looking into Clovis’ round eyes. 

His heart calms, everything always calms down around Clovis, panic is subdued under his sleepy gaze. 

“It’s your world, Percy.” Clovis reminds him without an ounce of chastisement. 

“I’ve never been that great at making things,” he responds wryly. Even with May’s encouragement, what he makes seems more of a waste of canvas rather than works of art. 

“Don’t sell yourself short. You made a promise and I got a pretty comfortable bed out of it.” 

He ducks his head with a huff, “You're welcome, I guess.”

Clovis hums contentedly. 

One of his classmates is chosen to answer their practice question on the board while the rest finish on paper. He conjures the paper for himself to work through while Clovis plays around bending dream matter. 

He’s hoping it’s not a fluke, but physics isn’t actually that hard. Maybe it had been algebra’s abstraction that made it hard even without a Fury as a teacher, but he finds himself actually following along in his science class and pre-calculus isn’t so bad as he dreaded. With Paul and Annabeth helping him with his humanities classes and ceramics being a class already offered at Camp, he can see himself actually doing well this year. 

He spares another glance towards Clovis. They’re the same age, but he had been a Camp veteran far longer than Percy had and a year rounder at that. Although Percy would put a decent bet that he spent more time awake at camp than him. Not like he can judge him for staying in his father’s realm. He had explained it to him before, the power of the sleep realm. How it’s possible to live lives here in one night, lives that you’ll bury into your memory until reminded of them again. 

Sometimes when Percy catches him, it’s in the aftermath of a dream. The demigod would look at him as though it’s been years since they’ve seen each other, like he’s not sure if he’s really seeing him or just a trick of his imagination. It’s easiest then to believe what he says about feeling like a god here when his eyes look so old.

“Something on your mind?” Clovis asks amusedly. 

Percy blinks and looks around. They’re sitting in his living on that navy blue couch. His mother isn’t there, but that scythe is glinting at him from the coffee table. “I didn’t mean to bring us here.”

He shrugs as if to say well we’re here now. 

“I had a dream the other night that my mom had another baby,” Percy says instead of explaining the scythe or the women or the ground opening up below him. He hasn’t told the dream to anyone. Not May Castellan packing an art kit for him, not Annabeth when she IM’d him later that night, and definitely not his mom. It just sat there, never coming back, but never leaving his mind. It doesn’t mean anything. 

Clovis’ eyebrows raise, “Cool?”

You’ve already had your turn. Let it be different this time.

Percy doesn’t reply for a moment. “How do you tell the difference between a demigod dream and a nightmare?”

“A demigod dream?”

Percy shrugs, “Y’know the weird dreams about what happened in the past or the cryptic messages about what’s going to happen.”

Clovis blinks slowly, “Give me an example.”

Percy fidgets feeling weird about more than just the scythe on his coffee table now. “I had dreams that my dad and uncle were fighting before I even knew that the gods were real.” He still remembers it, the crashing waves and thundering skies as an eagle and horse faced off. The same scene in different iterations plagued him that summer, but the first had been at Yancy. “And while we were travelling the labyrinth, I kept on dreaming about Daedalus’ first life.” 

“Huh.”

“What do you mean, huh?” 

“I mean your dreams are not universal,” Clovis laughs incredulously. “I’d get it if it was one of my siblings or maybe even Nico since he’s an underworld kid–our half-brother was on the Titans’ side so I don’t know why he’d be giving you crashcourses like that, but let’s be honest, why does he do anything?” He looks at Percy curiously, “What dream made you ask that?”

“Nothing in particular,” Percy lied and knows by the easy way Clovis accepted it that he knows that he lied, because otherwise he’d play his favorite game of dream interpretation. It’s a skill only one Hypnos kid is rumored to have and it’s certainly not Clovis. 

“Demigod dreams,” Clovis muses. “I could try asking my dad, but he really lets my half brother deal with the minutiae of it.”

His sixth grade Latin class with Chiron pops up like it does sometimes: minutiae-late Latin for smallness or trifles. 

“Aren’t dreams your brother’s whole thing?” 

“Well yeah, but it’s like how C-section guy is the god of healing and medicine like his dad.”

“Who?” Percy asked, baffled, wondering how a god got an epithet like that and unaware that Apollo even had godly children to begin with. He tries to imagine the cherry red Maserati driving, young adult as an active father and comes up short.

“Asclepius?” 

“That didn’t help.” He tells him bluntly.

“His dad performed the first C-section to get him out of his mom’s burning body.”

“Why in the world would you expect me to know that?” He asks instead of ‘why didn’t Apollo help his burning mother?’

“You have the most piecemeal knowledge of Greek myths.”

“I usually study up on things that try to kill me after they try to kill me. Knowing about them beforehand feels like begging to set off Chekhov’s gun.” 

Clovis snorts and Percy internally high fives himself for using the literary term in a casual conversation. “How’s that working for you?”

“We were talking about your half brother?”

The demigod laughs before a rueful expression settles on him, “We haven’t spoken since the war started, but I might be curious enough to ask anyways.”

Percy’s face scrunches, his own curiosity isn’t actually ‘put myself on a god’s radar’ level big. “Keep my name out of it.”

Clovis hums, his attention already floating elsewhere as he schemes. Too used to him nodding off in conversation, Percy just shakes his head. As he tries to imagine his class again, Clovis slips out of his dream as though he was never there.

Percy blinks and the Goode hallway blurs in the corner of his eye in his distraction. He barely has the chance to acknowledge that his dream is slipping from him before he’s transplanted elsewhere. It’s like walking down the street only to be teleported mid-step, a minor kidnapping that you’re too jarred to fight.

“This is not pre-calc,” Percy informs the open ocean before him. The waves, energetic like bounding hounds, lick up his legs. It’s then that he realizes that he’s standing on water like a discount Jesus. Or his dad. Even when his dad does it, some part of Percy’s mind is aware that he’s talking to the sea just as much as he’s talking to his father. The domain too ingrained in himself to truly be separated from it. Personally, he’s never tried to stand on water outside of stupid dares taken on the Long Island Sound. Telling rushing water to be still, itches at something under his skin. Especially bodies of water with spirits. He’s had a lifetime of teachers telling him to hold still, that it’d be hypocritical of him to ask anyone else to. 

He spots a small rowboat in the distance, it comes to his attention like a sixth sense just as it did that summer traveling through the Sea of Monsters. It’s a rickety boat, too far away from shore to be safe for her passengers, in that grey space of courage and stupidity that he recognizes as necessity. 

It feels like threadbare peace. It’s an absurd thought, but if he was asked to describe the boat–he’d remember Camp before the labyrinth. Campers disappearing either to defect or die and pretending that there’s a way around the war. They laughed around the empty spaces of kids they grew up with and sang campfire songs without the soon to be familiar sound of war drums and cries. It’s the silence before a storm, or a string ready to be cut, of a kindling about to spark. 

Then he notices another vessel. A raft. He knows the craftsmanship, but can’t place his finger on it. It’s humble, but sturdy. Determination is written into its wooden base and desperation in its woven sail. 

He watches both vessels, they’re all small in the might of the ocean. But what is a comfort to him is not mutual to them. As the water rises like something inevitable, his heart lurches in foreboding.

Diverting the wave in one direction will cast waves in the other. Maybe if they had ships, actual sea worthy ships it wouldn’t have mattered, but they all look like future victims to the tide. 

“Dad,” Percy calls out. The god had implied that they’d see each other soon. Their interactions were steeped in implications, only blunt for heavy truths about how his life was going to suck. But he cares, usually cares enough to listen, to send help. “Dad, I need your help.”

The wave rises higher as if determined not to be the only thing to break. 

“Dad,” Percy pleads as he pulls. The adrenaline of the sea teeters into anxiety. The boats won’t survive without his intervention. One of them might not survive with it. He pulls at the wave, its desire to reach even further is like an iron to his skull. This is the heavy swell that welcomed Icarus, this is the tower that tried to reach the sky, this is— Percy drowning in the Styx lost from a harbor.

He thinks of his dad who ruled the sea for so long that he became it, he’s the man in a fisherman’s hat and he is the rushing currents. He is the high school student and he is the wave and he will evaporate before he hits these boats.

.

.

.

Percy gasps awake in the same bed he stumbled in earlier before his Curse kicked in. Orson, a senior and his fellow narcoleptic who had peered bleary eyes at his tape recorder and fidget toys in lieu of hand written notes and said, “Pick a struggle.” is already unconscious in his corner of the room. 

He pulls a hand down his face, trying to make sense of his panic. Physics, Clovis, the volcano, and the scythe. It was more discomforting than he realized if the way his hands shake means anything. 

Fuck. He needs to move. 

He debates finding a fountain to call Annabeth, but she’s one of the few demigods allowed on Olympus and again he really doesn’t need his problems on a god’s radar. He holds his face in his hands in mock-prayer form so that his index and middle fingers can massage his nose bridge.

The nap somehow took more out of him than staying awake would. Even his lucid dreaming is subjected to his ADHD so he wanders into every stray thought like a tangent. He once experimented with Clovis in taking a nap in a dream which just led to a series of dreams within dreams that left him unsure if he was actually awake. 

There’s supposedly no science behind dreams, but then again there is a science behind stuff like the stars. That science, he’s pretty sure, didn't account for a moon goddess breathing out the essence of her friend to the sky to make a constellation. 

He’s at lunch, eating sancocho ordered from their neighbor who he sometimes makes deliveries for as a side gig. With his mom focused on finishing her bachelor’s and him and Paul starting their own terms, they’ve ordered a week's worth of food to keep the burden off of all of their minds. If he plans to abuse the fact that Paul lets him use the teacher’s lounge microwave, that’s no one’s business but his own.

His unease doesn’t fully leave him, he half expects a monster attack to come out from it, but besides some odd lingering looks and giggling when he meets the gazes of his classmates, he’s in the clear. He toys with the idea of visiting Brooklyn where the monsters wouldn’t be his problem. He knows that Drew lives in that borough, but never actually asked if avoiding monster attacks was just a matter of jurisdiction. Another godly treatise that he’d love for someone to explain to him if he ever got the nerve to admit to knowing a non-Greek pantheon. 

After being threatened execution for the past four years, he’s almost wrong footed not having the crime of being born levered against him. There’s a chance that what gets him killed now will be his own decisions rather than the fact of his existence. If he wants to run a Greco-Egyptian experiment of how far a pantheon’s bullshit can travel, it might have him in front of a council that doesn’t have the looming threat of war to vote for or against him. It’s a free fall kind of feeling, technically freeing, but also terrifying because now they’re in uncharted waters. 

He brings it up to Thalia and Nico the following week. Their vague plans to hang out since the whole debacle with the Sword of Hades earlier this year had been put on hiatus with the war reaching its breaking point. A part of him hadn’t expected another hang out outside of the battlefield for that exact reason. His fifteenth year was a whole lot of coming to terms that a lot of his firsts would be his lasts, but suddenly that’s not true anymore and he’s eating dumplings in Central Park.

Sheep Meadow on a fall afternoon is still well populated, picnic blankets laid out and dogs chasing frisbees. They blend right in with Thalia and Mrs. O’Leary playing fetch with the celestial bronze discus that Beckendorf made last summer when Percy came to him with Annabeth’s concern that he’s not giving her enough enrichment. Even when they were in that tense period of snapping at each other every other word, her care for Mrs. O’Leary threw him back to that same fondness from that first summer when she played fetch with Cerebus. 

“On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst,” Nico says, watching Thalia send a Track and Field worth throw across the green. “Where would being hit by a flying discus land on the worst ways to find out you’re a demigod?”

Percy almost chokes on his dumpling and narrows his eyes at Nico’s innocent look. He totally timed that. He rolls his eyes, but imagines it anyway, being hit with the casual force of Thalia Grace before being told by the way there are monsters that will try to eat you and gods that might screw you over if you’re rude to them. But hey at least you missed the war. “Eight if you survive, six if you die.”

Nico nods. The boy still has a paleness to him that speaks to too much time spent in the underworld and away from the sun, but his hair has regained the jubilant curls that he first knew him by. That, Percy knows, was a result of his mom being around the kid’s rumpled appearance and asking is anyone going to care about this kid, or should I? The rest was curl cream and his mom’s research on what kind of legal documents a kid from 1930s Italy needs to have a future outside of the underworld. 

It's the sort of support that Percy believes every demigod should have. Imagine a system that worked with you, for you to succeed. If every demigod has dyslexia and ADHD wouldn’t a school accommodating that be a worthwhile project? But then again the way Paul talks about standardized tests and Board given curriculums, their subjects would probably be poorly hidden propaganda that Luke would’ve still raised an army about. 

Mrs. O’Leary tackles Thalia and the huntress is able to cradle the bounding bundle of dog that she is with a laugh. She comes their way, still holding the hellhound like a baby with the dog’s legs on either sides of her hips and head over her shoulder. 

“She’s the sweetest hellhound I’ve ever met,” Thalia sits cross legged across from them. Mrs. O’Leary lets out a joyful woof, dropping her discus in between them. She trots one time around the trio before running freely around the field. 

“Not the hardest bar to top, but she is the best,” Percy agrees. 

Thalia nabs his dumplings, her skill with chopsticks something he’s still jealous of. Go figure the two things he’s absolutely shit at, the bow and chopsticks, she takes on like second nature. 

“So what have you nerds been up to? You smell weird.”

“Have you been sniffing us?” Nico asks, face slightly mortified. 

Percy’s own face scrunches. Ever since becoming a huntress, the daughter of Zeus developed a keen sense of smell. She says the stuff Grover’s usually too nice to mention. 

“It’s called breathing.”

“Don’t be mean to her, Nico. Having a nose again is still a novelty.”

“Just for that,” She swipes his last dumpling. 

He flips her off. 

“Not in front of the baby,” Thalia scolds with a barely suppressed smirk that breaks at Nico’s scowl. “But honestly, you reek of the Hudson. And you smell sweet like honeysuckle.”

“She thinks you smell nice,” Percy offers a fist bump to the twelve year old who leaves him hanging. 

“And you smell like a polluted river.” Nico wrinkles his nose as if the scent is palpable to the regular nose. He eats another dumpling, his food left alone from the vulture grip of Thalia’s chopsticks—her own show of care for how thin this kid’s gotten since they’ve met him. 

“Don’t let him hear you call him that, he’s sensitive.” Percy snorts. “I’ve been trying to pick up trash from the river.” He pulls out this mesh bag that he’s been using to sift the waste from the water. The sand dollar had definitely helped, but centuries of pollution can’t magically disappear from one shell. “It’s easier than finding someone to spar with when I get restless.”

Thalia nods and looks at Nico who shifts under her gaze. He always wonders if the two of them ever drop in on each other like they do to him, Nico’s grudge of Bianca had been mostly at him and while they settled that, the boy had admitted that a part of his anger was at Artemis for getting his sister to join the same order that sent a barely trained twelve year old on a quest where two people were prophesied to die. He pushes away the ache that reminds him that Nico is the age that Bianca never got to live past. 

“I’ve been practicing my shadow traveling and landing in a lot of flower fields.” Nico answers.

Percy frowns, he wouldn’t think flower fields had much shadow. But then again didn’t Hades take Persephone from a flower field? “I hope you're taking enough breaks. We need more food for the energy we use, especially when we tap into our parent’s domains.” Percy tries his best not to nag, but Clovis’ reminder of how demigods burn up when they use too much of their powers like how the body starts burning muscle when there’s not enough sugar or fat. 

“Worry more for yourself,” Nico retorts like he doesn’t have the diet of a twelve year old with free range of his own diet—which y’know, he is. Gods he should’ve ordered the kid more vegetable dumplings, when was the last time he ate a vegetable? “What about you, Thalia?”

Thalia’s eyes dart between them, an amused smirk lining her lips but shakes her head. “Same shit, different day. We’re hunting the stragglers from the Titans’ army.”

Evidence of the war isn’t as obvious as it should be in the mortal world. The damages and moved statues all reverted to their original state that sometimes it feels like a bad dream. He had taken to visiting the maple tree that used to be the Titan Hyperion just for the proof of it. 

Besides for the few odd quests from Hermes and Apollo, Percy hasn’t had much run-in from the gods. A part of him thinks they’re avoiding him as if he’s the proof that they went to war and almost lost. Out of sight, out of mind, and their promise lives in the distance between him and the 600th floor. That’s a lot of floors to fall from. 

He thinks of an eyepatched face that actually made the fall. 

“I had a dream that my mom had another kid.” He doesn’t know what compelled him to say it, but it sits between them now like Mrs. O’Leary’s slobbered discus. 

Thalia and Nico blink and tilt their heads in sync like birds. 

Thalia’s brows pinch in confusion, “with your stepdad?”

“Paul,” Nico chimes in and Percy wonders how much of that respect is because the man knows the rules to mythomagic. 

“Who else?” He makes a face offended on his mom’s behalf. 

Thalia shrugs, fiddling with her milkshake’s straw. “S’not the first time a god went back for seconds.” 

His eyes dart to Nico, he coughs. “Well that’s hard to forget when the Stolls exist.” 

Thalia’s mouth tilts wryly, obviously not meaning them. 

“Are you going to ask her about it?” Nico says over the Bianca shaped elephant he tried to sidestep. 

He makes another face, “I’m not just going to ask my mom if she’s pregnant.” 

“Why?” 

“Because it’s a weird thing to ask. What if she is?” 

His head tilts in curiosity, “Do you not want her to be?” 

“It’s not like—if she wants another kid she deserves a normal one. I’m not mad at her for that.”

Thalia snorts, “sounds like you’re messed up about it.” 

“I can’t even help on escort missions unless I’m playing bait.” He gets it, ever since he was a kid there’s been something punchable about him, or so he’s been told. This is maul, stabbed, slashed inclusive–he’s catnip to anyone with average to above average aggression levels. Still, he tries to articulate the dread about that dream. About the letters saying Blofis instead of Blofis-Jackson. Of falling without a hand outstretched catching him because you need two arms to cradle a child. It’s being in a two bedroom apartment and knowing that your room isn’t yours anymore. His mom would never turn him out, he knows that. No matter how much she’s sent him away for his own good, she’s always opened the door like her day is better for having him in it. 

And yet…

“I don’t think Sally cares about normal,” Nico says carefully, fingers fidgeting with a chopstick. “I don’t think any kid of hers can be normal.”

“Hey-“ His head getting hot in the way it always does when someone talks about his mom. 

“I’m just saying,” he raises his hands up. “She chose to get with your dad and have you while she was clearsighted. She did everything with her eyes wide open. You’re your dad’s kid, but you’re also your mom’s.”

Thalia barks a laugh, “you don’t pull your punches.”

Percy exhales through his nose, the kid’s trying to be helpful and he’s doing it in the most annoying way possible. He tries to just take the good intention as it is rather than an insult on him and his mom. “I appreciate you trying to make me feel better.”

Nico scratches his cheek, “I was just saying-“

“Your mom loves you,” Thalia cuts in. “She wouldn’t try to replace you. She wouldn’t abandon you to the wolves. She’s not gonna pull a Mr. Chase on you.”

“I know that,” Percy insists.

“You just don’t believe it,” she says not unkindly. 

He doesn’t believe in a lot of things. Things he’ll keep in his mind because it’s blasphemy to do otherwise. He didn’t believe he’d make it this long, living on bartered time that he got from trading bruises, good friends, and a knife. 

“It was just a weird dream,” Percy breathes out. Thalia’s blue eyes are the same electric blue as her father’s, but he’s never seen such understanding in his uncle’s eyes. 

“Right,” Nico says around his last dumpling. “Well siblings aren’t the worst thing to have.” 

“You already have Tyson too,” Thalia agrees. “And he loves you.”

Percy tries not to cringe remembering how badly he first treated the cyclops after his dad claimed him. He finger combs his hair out of his face, “Besides Tyson, you two are the closest thing I have to siblings.”

Nico’s face becomes hard to read except for his mouth that purses with displeasure. Thalia straight on flinches, which okay, ouch, let’s name something his Achilles’ Curse won’t protect him from. It’s whatever, no one ever died from unrequited siblinghood, probably. The air is weird between them until Mrs. O’Leary comes bounding back to them.

He wonders if he should break the silence with a Psych! You thought, Ashton Kutcher is right behind this tree and you just got punk’d–no Green Day!

To his surprise it’s Nico who breaks the silence, “Despite how it turned out, I’d rate my introduction to demigod life a solid five because of you.”

Percy does not respond with thanks that was the worst winter of my life. He smiles sheepishly, “I didn’t mean to ruin the mood.”

“You didn’t,” Thalia defends for all that she refuses to look him in the eye. 

Nico, doesn’t even try to lie, just shrugs, “It is what it is. I’m going to go run some errands for my dad. See you later.” It’s not the most elegant exit, but it’s better than him just melting into the shadows of a tree without a word. Something that he has done in the past. 

Rather than being allowed to dwell on this, Percy’s brought back to the present with his cousin who can’t teleport. Or at least he thinks she can’t. He’ll pray his dad a letter if he’s the only forbidden child who can’t speed travel like a video game character. 

“I had a brother once,” Thalia says, her hand absentmindedly stroking Mrs.O’Leary’s flank. “He was my full sibling, around yours and Annie’s age.” 

Percy stares at her wide eyed, no quips about Zeus breaking his own rule twice or teasing on the nickname Annabeth refuses to answer to unless it’s Thalia calling her that. Instead he thinks about Mellinoe and the ghosts she could conjure. 

“I was ready to run away at seven when Beryl somehow got my dad’s attention again. Then I had a brother I couldn’t leave.”

The unspoken isn’t left unspoken for long, Thalia’s good for that. 

“Beryl did that for me. She told me to grab our picnic basket from the car while she held Jason. And I didn’t like to leave them alone together but she had been getting better.” She says it like a well worn justification that’s long since lost its comfort. “When I came back Jason was gone and Beryl was crying about how she had to do it. He was two, almost three and they used to say how that forest had wolves. I searched for weeks.” She rubs at dry eyes, smudging her eyeliner even more. “Before Annabeth, I didn’t think I had it in me to care about someone like that again. I can’t apologize for letting you take the prophecy, it’s the only reason we’re all alive. But I give a shit about you, Percy.”

He barks a laugh, surprised. “I give a shit about you too, Thalia.”

Chapter Text

Dear Percy,

You impossible boy. When you washed ashore my island, I cursed the gods. I felt the fragments of my heart creating familiar scars on my fingertips in premonition. I thought knowing you would be my burden when it came time to lose you. You were already sailing away from my island, each moment an oar row to greater distances where I couldn’t follow. Nothing dies in Ogygia, it’s why I had to ask anyway. You could die out there but my love wouldn’t. On harsh days I could almost curse you for that. 

To receive your message and see you write about hope—I had already long given up before you met me. Life outside of this island, outside of occasional visitors, was a cruel daydream. And you write about hope.

If the Fates were fair, war would never touch you. You’d be collecting seashells with sand sprinkled in your hair, your eyes shining the same vibrant color as the sea behind you. I didn’t even know you for a year and I know it’ll be the world’s loss to only have you for sixteen. You’re alive and I’m happy to hear it.

For what you’ve done, for remembering me. I ask for a garden and you’ve given me the world. Perseus Jackson, never could I have fathomed what you’ve done for me. I hope this letter finds you well. I’ve built my own raft and will find my way to new shores. The journey won’t be easy, the tinker-god informed me after I shouted for his attention as my fleet-footed nephew played the cowardly messenger. (If he is reading over this letter, he should know that I mean this with all of my being). Thank you for freeing me, thank you for telling me, thank you for living.

We will meet again.

with love,

Calypso

—

“Are you coming over for Thanksgiving?”

Annabeth blinks owlishly at him. He can almost see the gears in her mind disengaging from her work. It had only taken four calls of her name this time. 

“You celebrate Thanksgiving?”

Percy shrugs. Thanksgiving was one of the few holidays Gabe cared for, any excuse to keep his mom in the kitchen. Their actual celebration of it was quiet, usually the morning after with Gabe in a sleep coma that he always prayed would turn into a real one. They’d go to a diner in East Harlem that always opened up at six in the morning with the Thanksgiving grocery money that his mom would put aside. Long before Zeus would ever accuse him of stealing a lightning bolt, he stole those moments with his mom. 

For the past few years, they haven’t had any sort of tradition except spending it together. The first one they had ordered everything from that diner and watched movies. Next they played MasterChef complete with timers and aprons, the only judges being each other. Then they actually attended the Thanksgiving Parade and later volunteered at a soup kitchen. And last year he brought her to that diner of stolen moments and used his own savings to pay for it, after all he had less than a year to use it. 

This year will be different. It’s not just him and his mom, but Paul and May and if they say yes, Annabeth and Nico. He had invited Grover and Thalia, but both of them are busy in the West and Calypso…Well he got her letter. 

She twirls her pencil, her proposal for Lady Hebe’s temple marked with annotations and lying over her GED textbook that she’s totally supposed to be working on.

“I told my dad I’d be too busy to come over for Thanksgiving.”

Percy nods, “Too busy at my Thanksgiving.”

Annabeth’s mouth twitches, “Isn’t this Paul’s first Thanksgiving with you guys?”

“Could be yours too.” 

She huffs, “Alright, what do I need to bring?”

Percy grins, “Just yourself and an empty stomach. I’ll be bringing May up with me in the morning and might drag Nico along if he’s up for it. Wanna come?”

Her lips purse for a moment, eyebrows drawing in. 

“What?”

“You didn’t tell me she was coming.”

“I just told you.”

She frowns, “You know what I mean.”

“I can’t just leave her alone.”

She scribbles on the side of her paper. Thinly spaced crosshatching and endless swirls. “Are you going to keep visiting forever? Pretending to be someone you’re not?”

“I’m not—Who else does she have?”

“I’m not talking about her, Percy. This is about you.”

She says it as if there isn’t a suicide committing elephant in the room. 

“I’m fine. She’s teaching me art.”

“Rachel can teach you art.”

Percy snorts, “That’s rich coming from you.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes, “Okay so Austin Lake can teach you art, he actually lives in the same city as you.” 

“Dude,” He doesn’t bring up the fact that the son of Apollo most likely cared more about his saxophone than offering visual art lessons to the untalented because, “This is like Tyson all over again.”

Her eyes narrow, “This is not like Tyson.”

“She makes you uncomfortable because she reminds you of a bad time, but she’s a nice lady. She gets confused a lot, but she’s not something to stuff in an attic and forget. Her life before everything sounds so ridiculous sometimes, I’m not sure she’s not pulling my leg. She’s patient when I mess up, and she’s lonely. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable, but Annabeth I can’t just leave her there.” 

She takes a deep breath, but Percy can tell that she’s folding. “You’re too nice for your own good.”

“I try,” he shrugs. 

“And if I remind her of a bad time?” 

He interlocks their legs together, knees pressing against knees under the desk. He saw the memory she’s referring to. Seven year old Annabeth was a cavity inducing sight even when you know she has a knife that she isn’t afraid to use. “I’ll handle it.”

Annabeth leans into their contact. “And you’re sure your mom is okay with me being there?”

Percy huffs, “She invited you to her wedding. Besides, you’re my best friend, you’ll always have a seat at my table.”

Her smile is that quiet, pleased one she gets that makes him want to rearrange the world to her preference. Oh wow, it’s not just seven year old Annabeth, he might actually get a cavity looking at her.

“What’s with that face?”

“You’re bewitching me, can’t help it.”

Her cheeks dust pink as she gives him a look of warm disgust. “Be serious.”

“I am,” he says solemnly. “This is a real serious matter, my heartbeat is quickening and everything.”

She rolls her eyes, “Finish your homework, Jackson.”

He snorts, “Sure, Chase, if you actually start yours.”

They nudge at each other's legs as they get back to their papers and in Percy’s case tape recorder and earphones. He wonders if the unsaid will ever be spoken, or if their future is a relentless march forward away from last summer. 

—-

When Percy first started visiting May, he didn’t tell anyone. It wasn’t a secret, per se just nobody’s business but his own. With his history of disappearing to help sea creatures and then being roped into helping a whole marine community, there wasn’t much deviation in his outings because those themselves were unpredictable. 

So it wasn’t really a slip of the tongue when he mentioned her to his mom, because he wasn’t hiding it. He just didn’t talk about it. 

His mom had blinked. They were eating dinner, just the two of them with it being Parent-Teacher Night and his mom having gone to an early session. “Is May a new camper?”

“No, she’s the mother of an old camper,” he corrected, not quite meeting her eye. It was a gamble, she could always tell when he’s lying when she looked him in his eye, but that also meant she got wise to what it meant when he avoided her eyes. There’s really no winning when you skirt the truth with your mother. 

“Percy.” 

“Yeah, mom?”

“Whose mom is she?”

“She’s a really nice lady.”

“I’m sure she is.”

The silence stretched between them. 

He folded under her expectant and concerned look. “She’s Luke’s mom.”

Her eyebrows shot for her hairline and airballed, but it’s impressive all the same. 

“Luke Castellan,” His mom grimaced.

You see, if he hadn’t overheard a conversation she had with Paul about Luke, he wouldn’t have thought about what his mom thought about Luke. He has his own issues with the guy, but it was sobering to hear vitriol in his mom’s voice as she said When I was nineteen, I had a baby. When Luke was nineteen, he tried to kill my baby.

It ignited mixed feelings. A vindication that someone could see how messed up it was after he had spent time post betrayal surrounded by kids more hurt and bothered by the image of Camp’s golden boy rusting rather than the attempt(s) on his life. Having to argue that Luke was a bad guy was demeaning when it felt like he tried to kill me wasn’t a good enough argument. 

There was guilt that he had even let her know how many close encounters he had with death. She really doesn’t need to worry more about him than she already does. And then there’s the dreadful urge to defend the guy, because while what he did was wrong, his circumstances were difficult. His dad wasn’t a campfire story, someone dead and forgivable, but a myth who chose to stay away. He didn’t have a Sally Jackson, he had May Castellan—well-meaning but unable to raise a child on her own. 

So he’s hardly indifferent to the guy and this is just for what he’s done to him. He doesn’t touch the cans of worms that’s Annabeth and Luke because half the can would be empty. He doesn’t know what they’ve been through, just knows what he’s put her through. That first half was enough to redeem him, enough to press celestial bronze against his skin because even broken promises can still be kept, but the second had him wishing he died on Mount Tam. 

His mom doesn’t have all of this information, just a big heart with little space for Luke Castellan.

Percy shrugged, “I visit his mom sometimes. She’s cool.”

A part of him will always categorize his life between mortal, demigod, and divine. He suspects his mom does the same when she interacts with him even if he hasn’t figured how that factors in. 

“I’ll have to meet her.” 

And she did. His next trip to visit her was driven in Paul’s Pegasus hoofprinted Prius with his mom and stepdad. Does it count as carpooling if you’re doing it with your mom? He’d think so. His normal mode of transportation involved the Metro-North from Grand Central. That’s his mortal normal at least. Blackjack is always down for a drop off in exchange for donuts, Mrs. O’Leary doesn’t mind the jump, and the Long Island Sound is right there if he decides to swim it. None of those options are particularly kosher for bringing your mom who’s not mad but concerned about who you’ve been visiting. 

The trip had gone well all things considered. The Castellan’s house was a sight better than it was the first time he had visited, he had seen to that. Sure it was a little odd with the Hermes shrine and beanie baby monster guard collection. But it wasn’t the biohazard that would have had his mom immediately concerned.

Awkward doesn’t begin to describe both women responding when he said mom, but no green mist emanated from anyone’s mouths so he counted his blessings.

They had gone for a walk along the Saugatuck, the river spirit watching lazily as May greeted them like a neighbor and his mom gave a short wave hello. Paul squinted behind his glasses as if he could peer through the mist now that he knows that there are things around him that he cannot see. He’s been a real trooper since they told him about the divine world and really attentive when Percy shared stories about what he does with Grover and Rachel. As a result he apologizes when he bumps into trees, always siding with caution in case there’s a dryad, and he treats even the gnarliest of sewer rats with respect because he’s not sure if Apollo claims rats under the same wing as mice and Percy honestly doesn’t know enough to tell him differently. The fresh air had been good for them after the hours stuffed in a car or house. It proved May’s familiarity with the town, that she lives on something other than Percy’s visits and memories. He’s not her caretaker, he just wants to make sure she’s taken care of. 

He tried to explain it to his mom, stumbled over his words, stuck on the electric blue yarn whose snip he heard echo at twelve. It’s how hubris sometimes sounds like wanting better for yourself and how that wanting damns you. He remembers a vision below a siren’s den that looked like peace and Annabeth certain that it proved something wretched about her. 

It’s C-section dude’s burning mother and Beryl Grace’s ghost begging the question: can the gods interact with mortals without ruining them? And knowing the answer is yes, because his mom is right there. The answer can be yes because May Castellan is walking around Westport. Divine attention is terrifying and divine neglect is enough to fuel a war, but people exist with or without them. 

“Are you sure we can’t shadow-travel back?” Nico breaks his musings. 

“Inky voids of darkness are no one’s preferred method of travel, especially not when you plan to eat.” 

“So I’m no one now.” Nico snarks.

Percy scoffs, “You have a race car driver zombie butler on speed dial. Shadow-travel is not your favorite mode of transportation.”

Nico ducks his head, his mouth is undoubtedly curling up because they both know not even Tracy Chapman likes a fast car more than him. “When we met her this summer I didn’t think we’d ever come back to invite her to an American holiday.”

“Did you think we’d invite her for boxing day?” He bites a smile at the unimpressed look levied his way. “But yeah, same.”

They go up the walkway to ring the doorbell, bundled up for the fall chill. Thankfully they don’t have to wait long before May opens the door and in a sense of deja vu she greets them both happily, referring to them both as Luke. 

Nico shuffles in his spot while Percy, used to this, lets himself in. She’s staying over for the weekend in his room. Tonight the living room will be home to an air mattress and a pull out couch that he, Nico, and Annabeth will share. 

He works his way unplugging non-essential electronics and locking windows, before he double checks with May that she’s brought everything she’ll need for the weekend. He re-enters the living room to her showing Nico a pair of dog tags. 

“My brother died out there,” She traces the embossed lettering. “Your grandma had him early, or as he would argue, she had me late. With the age difference, I never knew him as I thought you oughta know your brother, but I loved him.” She holds Nico in her gaze with that cloudy look that means she’s seeing something else. “We weren’t a military family, but we followed the law. He left with the draft and came back home in a box.”

Nico’s mouth tightens. “That’s awful.”

May smiles, “Isn’t it? Raising children for war. Afraid of dominos.” She stares at the necklace for a beat longer. “You wore these once. You had found them in my drawers and thought it was a birthday present. Do you remember?”

Nico shakes his head. 

She rubs the side of her nose, “You thought it was yours, I hadn’t gotten to telling you about the uncle you’d never meet and your sticky fingers were mostly metaphorical by then and almost as bad as your father’s. You just walked in the room with this chain around your neck and I got one of those awful feelings that I get sometimes. Like an anaconda using my neck as a tree branch, pressing its heavy body against my throat as it whispers dread down my spine. Oh, I couldn’t yank that chain off you fast enough.”

Percy steps forward, unease curling in his stomach. He looks down at the dog tags, the letters drifting until he makes out the first line. 

CASTELLAN, LUKE

Nico’s shoulders are rigid, shoulders curled up to his ears. “I’m sorry.”

Both he and May turn to the twelve year old, brows furrowed in worry. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

The trio blinks. Nico at the two of them and Percy and May at each other. May’s lips twitch up as Percy’s mouth opens in surprise and Nico huffs in amusement. 

She shakes her head, “Unless you’re Nixon or one of his lot, you’ve got nothing to apologize to me for.” Nico nods even though Percy’s ninety percent sure he doesn’t know any US president nevertheless one from the 1970s. “I’m sorry for bringing it up. I see such horrible things sometimes…I was always special that way.” 

“Let’s head out?” Percy interjects into the pause, already holding May’s packed luggage. 

“Always in a rush, this one,” She sighs fondly. “Did you get my paints? You wanted to practice, yes?”

“I still have the ones you gave me in the city,” he assures her. 

“Good, let’s pray to your dad before we go.” He doesn’t know what face he makes, but May squeezes his arm. “He’s your father. C’mon we’ll make the coffee together.”

Together the three of them make a carafe of coffee with enough sugar that he’s forced to consider if there’s a god of diabetes. There’s slightly more ceremony to the offering than Percy’s usual ahshootcrappleaseifyou’relisteningsomehelpwouldbegreatlyappreciated and something thrown into fire or water or air. 

May raises her hands above her head, facing the collaged shrine to Hermes by the kitchen window with an oddly serious countenance. He could imagine another time, where her bandana would be a veil draped on her head like a priestess as she recites words crafted to attract and travel. “O’ Beloved Hermes Hodios, sacred patron of paths and travels. I call upon your glory to fill our path with your grace as we begin our journey.”

The sweet smell of coffee lingers in the air even as the drink disappears between one blink and the next. May’s mouth curves into a satisfied smile, she claps.

“We’re good to go.”

They get to Grand Central rather quickly, never paying for their ticket since May waved them off. Let your father pay. It’s the sort of perk that Percy thinks should be detailed to a demigod as they grow up. He’s half considering if he could get a reimbursement for all the transport he’s taken on behalf of being cousins with the god. Or is this like a specific, Luke was my favorite son and I wanted to marry his mom sort of thing? 

He doesn’t question it. 

At some point during the train ride, he shows Nico how to braid. He claimed he should practice how to braid other people’s hair and they had an hour and twenty to spare. Whose hair he cared enough to learn to braid for? Percy doesn’t actually know, but he’s glad to hear that the kid is branching out. May played a gracious hair model to their hair endeavors so she sports two french braids, one side slightly wonky, but better than what it was at first. 

“We’re home,” he calls out into the apartment as he kicks off his sneakers. He sits on the shoebench as he hands off house slippers to May and Nico. 

His mom comes to the entryway, scanning him and Nico like she tends to for injuries and smiling when she sees none. “Welcome back, baby.” She kisses his forehead, which she can reach by virtue of him still sitting down. She squeezes Nico’s shoulder and nods at May, leading them to the living room. “I’m glad to see you all in one piece.”

“Kind of hard for me not to be.” He can’t really blame her for forgetting he’s practically invulnerable considering that he forgets it too half the time. 

“Getting cocky there?” a disembodied voice whispers into his ear. 

He smirks, leaning his weight back, laughing as his pillar rolls him off but catches his arm before he can fall. “Maybe.”

She takes off her cap, revealing herself in flyaway princess curls backlit by the living room light. He lets her drag him up so that they’re standing barely an inch of space between them. He can feel his face melt into a dumb smile, but his chest feels like fizzy soda seeing her in his house on Thanksgiving. 

“Hey,” he murmurs.

Annabeth smirks at him, “Hey, yourself.”

“Should I wait my turn or can I say hey now?” Paul wonders out loud.

His mom snorts, “Nico, sweetheart, I’ll carry the suitcase. Once my son stops standing in the middle of the living room, you should sit on the couch, you’ve had a long trip.”

“Oh, how old is your son? He might get along well with mine,” May enthuses.

Percy leans his head back, breathing out his exasperation. Shaking his head, he brushes their shoulders together before joining the energy that is the Jackson-Blofis house on holiday. 

May gets settled quickly in an armchair with the sketchbook that Percy’s been practicing his sketches on. Nico is helping Paul mix mocktails in the kitchen while Annabeth searches for the deck of playing cards somewhere in his room. He and his mom are tasked with fetching the last of the ordered food from their neighbor. 

“The trip went alright?” His mom asks as they head towards the apartment’s stairwell.

“Yeah,” Percy shrugs. “We prayed to the messenger god before leaving. Apparently, he covers transportation costs.”

Sally’s brows scrunch, “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” he nods.

“That’s convenient.”

They get to the door, but she just looks at him instead of knocking, that worried look surfacing back in her eyes. She combs a hand through his hair, the fringe of grey that he got two winters ago has already grown out, but now her own hair is streaked with grey. Stress-induced greying had been the verdict. 

She opens her mouth as if to say something, but changes her mind midway through, cupping his face instead. “I’m glad you got back safe.”

“You’ve said.”

“And I’ll say it again,” she pinches his cheek. “I don’t think I can stop thinking it. I’m thankful that I have my son home with me.”

“Mom,” he starts, unsure how to continue. He’s spent every tiptoed thanksgiving of his life grateful for his mother. 

“I know, Percy.” She pulls him in for a hug and a part of him regrets outgrowing her, where he could close his eyes into her shirt and be enveloped like she was the world and he was her son. 

They pick up aluminum pans of food, the food heavy and warm in their hands matching the feeling in his chest. 

Dinner passes happily. They play card games and they’re all given a reminder that Nico spent seventy years in a casino. Everyone gives input of where May should visit over the weekend and she tells one of her many adventures. Annabeth talks about the remodel and Percy updates them on his environmental cleanups. His mom talks about the stories she’s submitted for journals and Paul recounts his college days. Near the end of dinner, he helps his mom put the blue cookies in the oven for dessert and they bask in the surreality of a thanksgiving table meant for more than the both of them. There’s conversation and people they love and a lot to be thankful for. He imagines his future and stretches in front of him. 

Percy wakes up to Annabeth's grey eyes glowing in that part of dawn where Artemis’ grip is still firmly on the baton. Nico’s soft snores from his curled up form behind Annabeth juxtaposes the early movement of the city that never sleeps. In another year, he’d’ve been tiptoeing his way out of his apartment to get further uptown, joining the Friday crowd of people and their endless stories. This year, Annabeth watches him and he watches back.

“You still drool in your sleep.” 

His face heats. He should be used to this by now, he thumbs the sides of his mouth beneath his blanket. “And you still watch people sleep.”

She shrugs as much as a girl still laying on her side can shrug. “S’too early to get up.”

“Was I-” His words break with a yawn. “Was I fun to look at?”

“Practically bewitching,” she responds.

He snorts and they both still when Nico’s snoring stops, only relaxing as it eventually continues. He meets her eyes lit with the same wide eyed amusement and relief of getting away with something. “Thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for inviting me. I had fun.” 

He smiles softly at her. “Me too.”

“She wasn’t as scary as I remembered.”

He didn't realize he was tense until he relaxed. Scary. Not the best adjective, but miles ahead from crazy. Half the reason he doesn’t like to talk about May is because he can imagine the rumors. No wonder Luke did what he did, crazy runs in his family. It hits a nerve that got him in most of his anger management classes. No wonder he’s that way, did you see how young his mother is? 

Luke did a lot of shitty things because he convinced himself that it mattered like Ethan who doubled down with his cause in the Labyrinth. And maybe it did matter, maybe the gods would only care to change once they acknowledged what they had to lose. Maybe the only way to create something that lasts is in the aftermath of destruction like Annabeth’s remodel of Olympus. 

He’s going on a tangent. 

“Rachel thinks some of the oracle’s spirit is still with her.”

“How does that work?”

It’s Percy’s turn to shrug horizontally. “I thought Mr. D could help her now, like he did for Chris, but he’s still on vacation. I don’t know how much of it is the oracle and how much is just what she saw.”

Annabeth stares the way she tends to when she’s thinking, grey eyes pinning onto nothing as her mind races through possibilities. “He already tried asking once. It was part of why he hated Mr. D.”

Percy can think of many reasons to hate Mr. D and has to admit that that’s a pretty solid reason.  

—

Winter break starts with him picking back up his delivery job. There’s a universe where he kept his Lotus Casino Credit Card, but that is not the one he lives in. It’s probably for the best for the economy’s sake, Annabeth uses it enough for the both of them. The way most people think of his knowledge of greek myths, he thinks it with her view on money. She knows a surprising amount on fluctuating Amtrak prices and the raw costs of material for each of her sims houses, but he fears that if they went to school together he’d’ve upcharged the fuck out of her peanut M&Ms and she wouldn’t have blinked. 

He should buy her some M&Ms. He’ll pass by Chinatown and also get Koala’s March, this chocolate creme filled biscuit in the shape of koalas, that he’s been meaning to get her to try. But he’ll do all of that after he finishes his delivery in Lower Manhattan. 

He bikes down Second avenue at a decent pace, knowing deep in his heart that the only reason he accepted this gig was because of the restlessness that would turn into insomnia if he didn’t expend the energy during the day. Six miles might be an alright distance in Jersey, but in Manhattan? His neighbor/temporary employer let him use their bike for deliveries and made him wear this dopey yellow helmet. He tried to show her his own skateboard helmet which he hasn’t used in a year because his head grew bigger, and yeah laugh it up, he knows how that sounds, because it’s easier to understand than an ancient greek curse, but then she caught him riding without it and it became this whole thing which involved a WhatsApp sent video of cyclists eating dirt on the road. So yeah, he wears the helmet.  

He takes two rights, one on East Houston and the other on Lafayette to enter Civic Square towards the Court House. He chains up his bike with the delivery in one hand. This next part would be easier with a cellphone, just a simple text that he’s arrived. He walks Mrs. O’Leary enough that he knows her scent lingers on him, but he wonders if it’s enough to chance owning a cell phone. He’ll bring it up with his mom. 

The building’s frieze is inscribed with the words THE TRUE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IS THE FIRMEST PILLAR OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. Honestly it looks more like TEH RTUE ADNIIMSRAITON OF JUSTIEC IS THE FRIMEST PLILAR OF GOOD GOEVRENNEMT but he digresses. The architecture of the building itself leans more towards Roman than Greek. An impression reinforced by the arches opening every walkway as he enters the building.

The security guard takes one look at his helmet and delivery bag and waves him over. “What’s the name and title?”

“Uh-Percy Jackson, delivery driver.”

The guard blinks at him and clarifies, “For the recipient.”

His face burns slightly, “Tomas Santiago, jury duty.”

The guard nods and speaks into his walkie. “He’ll be down soon, you can wait over there,” he says, pointing at a stone bench.

“Thanks.” He puts the bag down on the bench, but opts to stay standing. He doesn’t take off his helmet. If there’s anything worse than wearing it, it’s the way his hair molds itself in its shape when it’s free–like a tiger pacing the perimeter of its open cage. 

He watches people walk in and out and across, busy in the way all government buildings are even when all everyone seems to do is wait for their turn to be seen. He had a grade school teacher who used to tell him if he didn’t learn to behave himself, it wouldn’t be long before he ended up in the courts. Messed up thing to say to an eight year old, but technically he did end up before a judge at the ages of twelve and fourteen. Gotta love his uncle. 

He zones out for a moment when a cry of “Nakamura!” rips him so quickly back into focus, he might have whiplash. 

For a moment, he believes Kronos decided that falling from the 600th floor was too light of a punishment for betrayal when being forced to wear business suits everyday in NY Courthouses would hit harder. But no, this guy has both his eyes and isn’t a boy that Percy knows–knew. He should stop staring, but it’s hard when the guy looks like Ethan Nakamura grown up without the sacrifices, like a world without war. 

“Hey, I think that’s mine?” A man in his mid thirties says entering Percy’s line of sight. 

He blinks, more jittery than he was when he started his bike ride over, “Tomas?”

“Yeah,” he confirms and grabs his delivery. “Thanks so much for this, they’ve had us waiting for forever I swear.”

Percy hums absentmindedly, palming the tip with a nod. “Enjoy your food.” 

He’s moving after Mr. Nakamura as soon as the interaction’s over. Body moving before the mind even though his mind is moving pretty damn fast because that’s Ethan Nakamura’s father. He doesn’t waste time debating if he’s mistaken as he crosses the room, knowing he needs to let him know in a way he can’t with May. Children went to war and most of them did not come back. Does he already know?

Would Nemesis tell him?

He’s struck with the thought that he doesn’t know anything about Ethan’s homelife. Did Ethan check in with his dad while he was traipsing in the underworld with a Titan? Does his dad even know that his son is–was a demigod? Did Ethan even like his dad? 

Ethan did what he did because minor gods like his mother weren’t acknowledged with their due respect. He slept with the unclaimed kids even when his mom claimed him because Camp wasn’t suited to house any non-Olympian demigod. Even now campers are working on cabins and plans for temples. Searching for a balance between respecting demigods on a physical level and the non-olympians on a divine level. This is the cause that Ethan died for. 

What does his dad know about it?

“Can I help you?” Mr. Nakamura asks.

The fact that his dad worked in New York makes him wonder if Ethan grew up here too. 

“Have you lived in New York long?”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry,” he apologizes. “You–” he struggles to word it. Not wanting to be the nail on the coffin, but unable to lie. “Ethan.”

Mr. Nakamura straightens. The man who had called for his attention is gone, having gotten what he needed from the conversation and leaving Percy to this one. “You knew my son.”

It’s not a question. Percy nods anyway.  

He looks at his watch, “Are you in a hurry?”

Percy shakes his head, his words all forming a speech that he’ll forget once he’s got the guts to say them. 

The man’s mouth tightens. “Do you mind going for a walk?” 

“The weather’s not bad for December.” 

They head out the door, Percy gives the doorman a short wave and gets a curious look back. The crisp air settles him. Civic Centre has a regality to its buildings too similar to Olympus for comfort. As beautiful as the place was and will be under Annabeth’s keen eye, he’s only ever visited when death was on the docket. Imposing buildings that aren’t skyscraper high, unsettle him. 

He clears his throat, side eyeing the man beside him. “Ethan never mentioned you.”

It’s not his best start, but he doesn’t feel at his best. 

“You were close then?”

We lived in the same cabin for two weeks. We were forced to battle to the death in an underground labyrinth and I let him go. We were on opposite sides of the war. He was one of two people who knew where my mortal spot was and he didn’t tell anyone. I was there for his last words and burned his funeral shroud. 

“Not really,” Percy admits. 

Mr. Nakamura’s hands fidget and rub the side of his mouth. “How did you know him?”

“How well did you know his mother?”

The man snorts, it’s an ugly thing. His eyes are not amused. “Which one? Don’t tell me you’re her kid too.”

Percy frowns. “My mom is mortal.”

Mr. Nakamura takes out a cigarette with a nod. “Mortal,” he mutters. Louder, he continues, “I know that she’s what makes him odd. He sees stuff I can’t. He needed help that I couldn’t give, time I didn’t have.” He looks at the wind and changes their position on the sidewalk so that he isn’t hit with secondhand smoke before lighting up his cig. “How is he?”

Percy looks down on the concrete. He’s seen them powerwash the sidewalks here before, the water stripping the ground of dirt through pure pressure. “He’s dead.”

Mr. Nakamura splutters in a way that despite not knowing him seems out of character. He brings the hand holding the lit cigarette to cover his mouth as he coughs and ends up burning his nose. 

He reaches out an arm to pat his back, moving with the man as he squats low. 

His voice is raspy when he speaks, shouldering off his arm, “What happened?”

This should be Chrion’s job, he can’t help but think.  “There was a war,” Percy starts. “He was killed in action.”

“He was sixteen.” 

One of the older kids. Percy doesn’t mention it. 

Mr. Nakamura looks at Percy, really looks at him in a way that he wants to shy from, all too aware of the scars that litter him from before his dip in the Styx. 

“Are you part of a gang?”

Percy blinks, “No.”

“If not a turf war, what war did my son die in?”

“A divine one. I’m sorry, Mr. Nakamura. He died fighting for a cause he believed in.”

“He was sixteen, children believe in too much.”

How else is the world supposed to change without those beliefs and its champions? He’s been told all of his life like a PBS broadcast that children are the future and yet has also been told that he has no future. His life is a liminal space, always on that shore of the Styx, between life and afterlife. He’s a cornered animal, fighting ragged for a chance. Maybe Ethan felt the same way, abandoned and doomed, and wanting it all to mean something. 

It’s not a comfort for a parent to hear that. He died for a cause. He could barely bear it when thinking of Beckendorf or Michael or Bianca. He thinks of who would show up at his door to tell him mom if he didn’t manage to come back from the fight. And the only comfort he can think of is showing up at the door himself. 

“I’m sorry,” he reiterates instead of explaining the promise he made for Ethan. How he’ll see his cause through. 

“I should sue,” Mr. Nakamura says vacantly.

“Probably,” Percy agrees, not sure if he means Olympus or Camp. “Would you represent yourself?”

“I’m a criminal defense attorney.”

“You defend criminals?”

“Everyone deserves representation,” he replies by rote. And Percy understands a whole lot more on how he might’ve attracted the goddess of Balance.

“That’s true.” The cigarette had fallen at one point, its embers dying out on the concrete. He’ll pick it up to throw it away if Mr. Nakamura doesn’t do it before him. 

“What’s your name?”

“Percy Jackson.”

Mr. Nakamura nods, “Thank you, Mr. Jackson. Who can I contact for his body?”

He hesitates, “There is no body, we had his funeral already.”

The man stares at him, “And I wasn’t contacted.”

“I’ll give you Chiron’s number, he can explain it better.” Percy says and feels like he’s lying. He hands over one of Camp’s business cards that he always carries to run his finger over the raised lettering. 

“I was going to send him abroad to my cousins,” his thumb smooths over the strawberry runner decal. “She told me not to.”

“His mom?”

Mr. Nakamura nods. “I was a fool to listen to her. My son is dead.”

Percy has nothing to argue. 

—

Dear Percy,

While I voyaged on your father’s domain, I thought I saw you in the waves. I had the strangest feeling as though you were there. Perhaps your favor granted me his, because even at the most vicious turns of the tides, the waves never hit me with something I could not handle. 

I docked in Washington. This land is so foreign from the island that I know and the world that I remember. You’ve tried to warn me of this. I could tell Ogygia’s beauty was something new to you, but the maps they have here say that we are on opposite coasts of the country. Will all of my exploration be met with this same incredulity?

The earth stirs beneath me, her magic distant from my reach as though my arms are constricted with chains. It’s an odd feeling. The only word that comes close to defining it is vulnerable.  

What was your deal with the King of the Gods? What were the exact conditions? Perhaps my unease is misplaced, but Percy, what did you trade?

We should speak in person. I tried to send a message through Arke, but she did not answer my request. 

with love,

Calypso

Chapter Text

“Hey, Boss, who are we visiting again?” Blackjack asks halfway on their flight to New Hampshire.

Percy snorts into his scarf as he leans closer to the pegasus’ body, wishing not for the first time that the cold resistance he has for the depth of the sea translated above water. “Remember Rachel?”

“Weird girl with the artisanal donuts?” He perks up. It’s a step up from ‘Rude weird girl who doesn’t know how to ride a pegasus’ epithet that she gained after the battle of Manhattan. She had spent the following meetings apologizing with fancy donuts, goaded by his and Grover’s translated conversations. It created a cycle of such indulgent eating that evened out the long flights. He hums in confirmation. “Did you tell her that I was dropping you off?”

“I think she just knows.”

“Wait. Are you saying she saw me? Is this another secret quest?”

“Definitely not. I told her I was flying over and figured she put two and two together. And if my life goes to plan, then no more quests for the rest of forever.” The closest thing to a quest that Percy would entertain from their resident oracle is a request for smuggled basketball shorts and a hoodie. 

“Whatever you say, Boss.” If the words sounded like a placation, Blackjack, as loyal as he was, was still a wild pegasus, he’s realistic. Percy will do them both a favor and ignore the skepticism, just like he tried to ignore the mini quests that Apollo and Hermes sent him on with Annabeth and Grover post-war. 

They pass a few Nephelae, cloud nymphs, who give him perplexed stares, like it’s odd for a son of Poseidon to be soaring the skies. He waves politely. They return to their tasks. They make the sort of picture that he wonders if he’d ever be able to properly paint, billowy dresses highlighted by autumn’s setting sun as water is guided by their hands to be collected into rain pitchers. The behind the scenes of the water cycle that science textbooks don’t want you to know. 

He considers capturing the scene in watercolor. It’s been his medium of choice recently only partly because he wants to be ready when people make the inevitable popsicle stick-grade joke of “What art medium does a son of Poseidon use?” For once, Percy is ahead of the curve. Rachel doesn’t use watercolor as often, preferring acrylic paint and Time Square think piece performances, but they have loose plans to paint together after he arrives.

By the time Clarion’s Ladies Academy comes into view, he gets the sort of fatigue that tells him a Power Nap is in his near future. 

“Are you staying in the area?” He asks as they start banking for their landing.

“I’ll be around,” Blackjack confirms. “Can’t leave you hanging in New Hampshire.” 

Gratitude warms him, “You’re a real one.”

“The realest.”

Rachel meets them behind one of the academic buildings, its red brick is easily seen from above and distinctive from the muted colors of the other academy buildings and according to her, not far from the dormitories. She’s wearing her paint splattered satchel bag and bundled up in the Goode Athletics sweater that Ms. Lam gave her when she broke dress code last year, the cuffs of them pockmarked from the summer night that they played with sparklers. He’s hit with nostalgia for the year when they walked those halls together and the summer that followed. High school will always be school, but it was nice having a good friend to go through it with and when his life seemed to be closing in around him as his birthday approached, she opened a door like the future was just another labyrinth that she could lead him safely through. 

“Hey, Red.” Percy slides off of the pegasus to greet her. Pulled short by her usual riot of hair straightened over her shoulders. He picks up a strand of red hair like it’ll curl back to its usual state and is baffled when it doesn’t. “The fuck is this?”

Rachel snorts, “Don’t keep your thoughts to yourself.”

He tries to relax his grimace, “Sorry, it looks nice. It’s just…not very you.”

Rachel tucks her hair behind her ear, the tips of it red from the cold. She doesn’t seem bothered by the weather. She’s not the type to be unprepared, or at least unresourceful. If she was really bothered he could imagine her braiding her hair enough to coil as earmuffs like that girl from Star Wars. “Dress code,” she shrugs.

“And you care about dress codes now?”

She rolls her eyes, “No, but I made a deal with my dad and I’m seeing it through. I have to give this place an honest try.” He’s reminded that this was the price for Rachel helicoptering into a sedated New York just to tell him he’s not the hero. His heart had stalled in the breath where both Annabeth and Rachel were in a crashing helicopter with the sort of terror that being nigh-invincible didn’t save him from. “Besides, I'm going to shave my head after this.”

Percy blinks. “Can I still call you Red after?”

Her mouth curves sharply, “Can I call you Blue?”

Something about the tease soothed the worry in his chest. This was still his red headed nightmare, still the girl who saw through him not just the Mist. Her hair was smaller, but she wasn’t, still as sharp and steady as ever. “Can’t exactly stop you, can I?”

Rachel tilted her head like she could argue, but didn’t disagree enough to actually do it. “So you guys get here okay?”

“It was a good flight. Starving, though.”

“The donuts,” Blackjack reminds him. 

“Blackjack wants his donuts-” he yawns. “And I need to eat something before I crash.”

“What am I? A bed and breakfast?”

He chuckles, “I’ll leave you a decent review.”

“Wow, a decent review.” She pulls out a donut box to feed Blackjack. She’s facing the pegasus as she continues, “I poured more feed in the horse stables if you’re willing to go.” 

He considers her and lightly nips at her hair, “You’re alright, donut girl. I’ll catch you later, Boss!”

Percy snorts. 

“What’d he say?” Rachel asks as he trots away

“Thank you.”

“You’re such a liar.”

“Rude.”

“Well I’m not getting a great review out of this either way, so deal.”

There’s a joke about finishing school and politeness that he doesn’t try to make. “Fair, but I wasn’t lying about needing to eat and knock out.”

“I’ve got takeout in my dorm.” She corrals him to her dormitory hall, having him duck his head near cameras as they sneak in. 

“I’m not gonna get in trouble, am I?”

“They don’t even know your name. If anything happens just leave,” She advises, jogging the last steps to her floor.

“That wasn’t a no.”

Rachel shrugs, “I might be the ‘oracle of Delphi’ now, but I can’t tell the future all the time.”

“And here I was gonna ask you for next week’s lotto numbers.”

She shoulders into her dorm room, “69 4 20 80 08 5”

“Just had that at the top of your head, huh?”

She flashes a grin at him and passes him a paper bag of chicken tenders and fries. He perks up even further when he sees the honey mustard. He stuffs a handful of fries in his mouth and groans at the salt and texture. 

“Where’d you get these? They’re really good.”

He stumbles to the bedding that she directs him to, stepping over three mugs that have clearly been confused for the other. He doesn’t comment on the paint brushes in the coffee and the whipped cream in orange juice nor the lip mark on the rim of what’s surely paint water. As a grateful guest, he plops himself on the futon and eats his food.

“Please don’t talk to me with your mouth full,” Rachel asks as she digs for the stuff he brought for her. 

He chews his chicken tender still looking at her expectantly.

“There’s a diner in town. I can’t tell if a monster runs it or some type of fairy, but I try not to give my name when I order.”

“I can’t even judge you for that because this really is that good.”

“Right? Turn around.” Percy does her one better and covers his head with a blanket. “You’re good now,” she says wearing the basketball shorts that she was apparently banned from bringing the first time around. 

“You can tear it up on the courts now,” he says approvingly, remembering to swallow before speaking. She does some crossovers with an invisible ball and takes a jump shot. He cheers, banging his chicken tenders together like noise makers. 

When he erupts into another yawn, Rachel hands him a pillow. “If I’m asleep when you wake up, there’s an ensuite bathroom next to the mirror and drinks in the mini fridge.”

“I can stay up for longer,” he says as if daylight savings hasn’t been kicking his ass. 

“Yeah, but you don’t have to,” Rachel points out. “Go to sleep, Percy. The world will still be here when you wake up.”

He wakes up in a familiar clearing in Westport, Connecticut where trees bank the open space like a cradle. In the center of it all, the mossy rock that Percy’s taken to leaning against is occupied. The man’s body flickers like a flame, casting shadows around them. He keeps his gaze on the being, unnerved by the whiplike shadows in a way he never is with Nico. Crouched on the man’s hipbone is an eagle whose crest is bloody, brown and white feathers dyed a deep red as it pecks and pecks into its perch, unbothered by the flames. 

Bile creeps up his throat. This isn’t the first dead body that he’s seen, but it’s gruesome nonetheless. Somewhere amongst Lee Fletcher with his brains splattered on the campground and the acid melted body of Silena Beauregard, he’d picture this man with the soft part of his body exposed to be devoured. A reminder of why demigod funerals cover the bodies with shrouds. 

The eagle looks at him, its eye an electric blue like its patron as it bites down. Percy moves to shoo the bird away, but his large movements just keep its attention. Slowly he approaches the bloody animal and asks, “Are you allowed to leave?”

The bird’s definitely winning their staring contest. 

“Alright,” he says. Taking in the shadows around him, they make shapes like demented shadow puppets. The earth appears bursting into flames and drowning in clouds like all of the climate change PSAs that Grover talks to him about. A crown hops between a trio of men, each man falling under its weight. A drakon is killed and a man and woman turn into snakes slithering away. Each sight is more bizarre than the last and repeating in cycles. He turns back to the eagle, his uncle’s symbol, and carries it off the lit corpse. Its talons drag red tracks, scraping against stomach muscle and pelvis, taking its pound of flesh as it’s pulled off. He thinks of it abstractly, convincing himself that the smell is a bad memory and the sound is a video game sfx. “I think you should fly away.”

The bird nips at him and rears back at the lack of reaction left in its wake. He snorts, “Did you think I’d be that nonchalant about grabbing you if I was biteable?”

The bird flaps its wings, almost as if in offense, hitting Percy’s face as it gains air. He watches as it disappears above the canopy, seeming so light in a sky that he knows weighs immeasurably. 

“You know before the punishments,” An animal part of him coils—half predator, half prey. “My father and uncles held the sky. Between the four it wasn’t even a curse, just the natural state of things. The Morai often make children their parents’ pallbearers.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be laying low?” Hermes had mentioned how the Titan disappeared into thin air after giving his excuses of being a double agent against Kronos. Nobody seems to have bought it, but there’s been no quests to hunt the guy down.

The fiery titan straightens out against the small boulder, less of a corpse and more like a stubborn sunbather, his entrails drip like the world’s most gory faucet. “I’m laying as low as I can get without touching the ground.”

Percy hums, the boulder is more of an altar like this, stone stretching away from the earth. “Yeah, I can’t picture you getting your hands dirty.”

Prometheus tuts, “You can hardly be upset that I wasn’t more personal during the war.” It was more the fact that he still didn’t know where Prometheus stood. Self-preservant and cunning, the Titan obviously likes to keep his options open and Percy is tired of never receiving a straight answer that he can trust. “Nevertheless, I’m pleased to see you’ve survived. Your bold wishes let me see my lonely niece again. Although if we’re to be honest with ourselves, that thunderstruck dolt only let you wish for so much to give more of a reason not to commit to all the wishes.”

Percy narrows his eyes and shelves his thoughts about Calypso, he’d rather hear it from her than her uncle of dubious moral standing. The gradual silence from Olympus since the war had been concerning, chipping at his original desire to go about his life incognito. At first they were able to joke that the gods were locked in a council meeting deciding on what to fight over now that their big daddy issue resolved itself, but now all he can think of is Hermes admitting that they won’t see each other for a while. “Did divine oaths ever actually mean anything?”

The titan folds his hands over his exposed stomach, drumming his fingers over his intestines. “Our Hateful Lady Styx,” the words sound almost wistful, nostalgic perhaps. “You’ve seen her more recently than I have.”

He thinks back to that polluted river, miles worse than Hudson and East River with no one trying to sift the pollution out. His father had looked decrepit when Atlantis was attacked, he wonders if it’s the same with the river. What was once a goddess is now a fading trail of broken promises. And yet even at her lowest he and Luke were able to bathe in her waters and come out stronger than before.

“What are you doing here, Prometheus?”

“What are any of us doing, Percy Jackson?”

“Trying to get peaceful sleep,” he retorts deadpan. 

The titan smiles softly, and it unnerves him how much the titan seems to mean it. “An admirable ambition.” He sits up, carefully corralling all of his spilled blood back into his body like the nephele would bring water vapor into their pithos. “You’ve befriended the wrong Grace for that.” Percy frowns. “No offense meant to Thalia Grace–”

“She doesn’t go by that last name,” Percy corrects.

“Right, of course, she felt quite strongly about that. It’s unfortunate because it did help separate her from her half-sisters.” He waves his hand, “I digress. I simply meant to point out that Slumber’s wife–his kinder half, discounting his twin, would be the better option to pray to for peaceful sleep.”

He makes a mental note to ask Clovis who his stepmom is. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

Prometheus holds him in his gaze, “I suppose I’m curious how this ends. Perhaps I’ll offer you another gift.”

Percy’s face scrunches, “I already regifted your last one.”

“No harm done. I hear my cousin quite enjoyed it. And this gift is better shared so by all means regift it.”

Percy narrows his eyes, the nereid from four years ago comes to mind don’t trust the gifts! The shadows around them seem to deepen–wolves, spears, fire. “What’s the gift?”

“Something to think on,” Prometheus answers easily enough. “Spilled blood is always a sacrifice. Imagine how much has been spilled unto the earth.”

Well, that was ominous. 

“I don’t exactly bleed these days.”

Prometheus shrugs, “That only makes me wonder what she thinks of you.”

“She?”

“She.” He gathers the last of his blood, stopping a stray drop from rolling into the soil. “Sweet dreams, Percy Jackson.”

In between one moment and the next the shadows and the titan disappear. He drags his hands down his face and wishes Annabeth were here. This is the sort of riddle that she’d have appreciated from the Sphinx. 

“Grover, let’s share a concerning dream.” It’s a long shot, he’s still on the west coast so it must be around 1PM. He pokes, tugs, pulls at the empathy link until he’s thudding his forehead against a shoulder. The solid weight of a hand in his hair with the other around his shoulder, melts him into his friend’s embrace. “Hope you weren’t busy.”

Grover shrugs, “Was expecting an Iris Message but could do with a nap.”

“How’s…” he waves his hand in the air, not exactly sure where in the USA that satyr has been. “Not-New York?”

Warm air brushes Percy’s shoulder as he huffs, “It’s been weird honestly. I don’t know if it’s because I’m still getting the hang of my position or all the centuries without Pan actively roaming the wild, but…”

Percy lifts his head, dark circles haunt the undersides of his friend’s eyes and the pensive crease of his brow cuts his youthfulness in half with worry. “The earth’s still being weird?” They’ve tried troubleshooting the problem since September. Running surveys, cleaning forests and rivers, playing the pan flute—that last one is all Grover but Percy’s tried to do his part. And yet that odd feeling has been dogging the edges of his friend’s senses. 

“Really weird.” 

He thinks back on the parting gift from the titan of foresight and tells Grover about the dream-encounter. 

The satyr pales, eyes darting around the clearing as if searching for a trace of him. He does the familiar clawed hand sign warning off evil. “Why do people tell you the creepiest things?”

Percy shrugs, “Calypso had also mentioned the earth stirring. If it’s anything like the last stirring.” He cuts the thought off, tension resounds between them as if circling around a revelation can keep them from the drain. 

Grover’s face tightens, “The Meliae would know the best.”

“The who?” 

“The ash-tree nymphs. They make most of Olympus’ ambrosia and were born from the blood of the sky onto the earth. The oldest of them helped raise the king of the gods when they were hiding from the Crooked One,” he recites, the words sounding straight from a textbook. Do Satyrs go to school? Not undercover going to a school a demigod might be at, but actual school that your mom forces you to go to. Satyrs are usually birthed from nymphs, he knows Grover’s mom was a dryad. 

Suddenly he’s struck with the vision of blood dropping from the sky to create a tree and the woman who comes out of it has Grover’s face. 

“Do you think that’s what he meant by blood sacrifices?” The amount of stories of monsters and gods born from spilt blood is enough to warrant a bio-hazard safety module. If the issue lies with these people, are they in danger or the danger? Granted it was Prometheus who’s trying to clue them in, whether to earn brownie points with the Dodekatheon or seed dissent, it’s anyone’s guess.

“Crafty counsel, Percy.”

“I know, I remember,” he snaps. He clenches his fists, “Sorry. It’s just annoying not having the full picture.”

“I get it. That’s why I’m not too sure about the Meliae, they’re reserved. Even if they had the full picture they might not share.”

“It couldn’t hurt to ask.”

Doubt carries over from their bond. “I’ll try.”

“I can come with you if you want,” he offers, hoping to assuage the doubt rather than adopt it.

Grover’s shoulders straighten, “It’ll be fine. I’ll let the rest of the Cloven Elders know, but it’s just like any other nature spirit.”

“Totally,” Percy agrees. He looks around the clearing, knowing the Saugatuck is close by, he asks Grover to go on a walk with him while he’s there. They walk down their familiar path from the summer, enjoying the other’s presence more than talking. They had planned to Iris Message each other, but even that mode of communication has been cut down like someone changed their phone plan without a heads up. Calls are more likely to drop or not even go through and no matter who Annabeth asks when she works on Olympus, they’re awfully tightlipped. It’s a blessing that Hermes’ delivery company still works as well as it does. 

His mind drifts back to Calypso and her letters. 

Percy, what did you trade? 

He tilts his head back, keeping his eyes on the clear blue sky above them and breathes in the coming storm. He once hid under a gazebo with his mom and other park goers when he was a kid trying to wait out the rain. An old man with the sort of eyebrows that made you learn the word eccentric started telling them how you can’t trust the sky, it lets clouds roll in too easily. “Do you think he’ll keep his promise?” 

“He made a promise on the Styx,” Grover answers carefully. “He’s supposed to.”

Percy smiles ruefully. He already made the point when he bound them to his wish. Oaths can be broken, he’s the living result of that. “Calypso said she arrived in the States, but she doesn’t have access to her magic.” Grover grimaces. “She mentioned a goddess I never heard of, the rainbow goddess’ sister. Apparently when the Titans lost, her punishment for working for them was that he ripped off her wings and sent her way down under.” He wasn’t talking about Australia. 

Unease darkens the trees around them, the dream forest is quiet as he unearths thoughts that he hesitates to articulate while awake. In the US, convicted criminals have their rights restricted when they finish serving their sentences. Regardless of their circumstances, what matters is the crime that they committed and the consequences of it. Perhaps he was foolish to think that with Olympus in the US, the same structure would apply, because- “I asked him to pardon Calypso. Not end her sentence or reduce her sentence like with Mr. D, but to completely forgive. There wasn’t a trade.”

“What’s happening to her isn’t your fault,” Grover consoles. They make eye contact, sea green meeting cedar brown. The implied blame hangs heavy in the air. Grover clears his throat. He speaks carefully, “It could be something else. Maybe she’s so used to her island’s magic that the real world is just hard to grasp?”

“Maybe. Do you- You’re still on the West Coast. Can you check up on her for me? With school and everything I can’t head that way until at least June, but she’s been alone for so long. I thought she’d pop up around New York like I did, but she’s in Washington.”

“Perce,” Grover stops him with a small smile. “You don’t need a PowerPoint, I’ve got you.”

Tension releases from his shoulder, “Thanks, G-Man.”

“No problem, how should I reach her?”

“Depending on how fast you think you can get there, I can write her a time and place to rendezvous. We’ve been using Hermes’ delivery service.”

Grover nods before his face does a complicated expression, “What does Annabeth think of it?”

“Of Calypso?” He nods and Percy shrugs. “I told her about our letters and that I’m worried for her. She just said I should be careful about adopting other people’s problems.” And he gets where she’s coming from, really he does, but it’s Calypso. 

Grover chuckles, squeezing his arm, fondness radiating from the bond. “I don’t think you know how to do that.” 

“Some could say it’s a character flaw,” he smiles wryly, Athena’s words from two years ago float to mind.

“And there are worse ones to have.” 

“Scratch card addiction,” he nods solemnly.

“Litterer,” Grover points out.

“Doesn’t wait for people to get off the train before entering.”

“Feeds ducks bread.”

“Wait, why was that bad again?”

“Bread takes too much space in their stomachs without providing nutrients. There’s other reasons but malnutrition’s a big one.” 

Percy nods, “S’kinda sad. There’s some really good bread out there.”

“Can’t make enchiladas without tortillas,” he acknowledges solemnly.

“Is it sacrilege to say Amen to that? I usually end my prayers with ‘Please don’t blast me’, but that’s not what I’m going for here.”

“Do you actually end your prayers that way?”

“Mmhm, haven’t been blasted yet.”

Grover opens and closes his mouth before speaking,“Y’know? I’m proud of you for that.”

He grins, “Thanks, man.”

Green eyes glance at him, pale freckled face illuminated by the blue light of her laptop. “Okay so I’m the oracle of Delphi right? Even though my ‘office’ is on the Long Island sound, if everything is moving I guess everything’s got to move. But that’s bonkers because if the gods have been in the US for as long as they say, what are the boundaries to it? Like in 1959 all of the sudden Alaska and Hawaii were added to the Greek Pantheon's jurisdiction? Hawaii never even ceded to the US, does that matter? Also Greece still exists, why would the pantheon move in the first place? How is that decided?” 

Percy blinks, half wondering if this is another concerning dream and if so where is his emotional support satyr. “Hey man, I just know what the horse told me.”

“The horse who totally doesn’t have reasons to curate the truth,” Rachel shoots back like Percy isn’t well aware of how Chiron doesn’t explain shit. “You just woke up, I’m sorry, my History classes have been really weird knowing there’s something divine at play. But trying to figure out the actual divine system outside of my friend getting drafted into war has been insane.”

He gets the feeling she wouldn’t like the advice he’s gotten on the subject: don’t think too hard about it. He’s always suspected Chiron was wrapped in more legal tape than he had the right to say, spending a millennium of his immortal life coerced into keeping the gods’ secrets “Can’t you ask the sun? He’s like gotta tell you the truth, it’s one of his things.”

Rachel snorts, “Maybe if he hadn’t gone MIA.”

“Dam.”

“Damn,” Rachel echoes, narrowed eyes on her computer screen. 

He fishes for the leftover chicken tenders and fries and grabs a blue gatorade from the fridge, while he’s up he takes his duffle bag. His sketchbook is a beat up thing that he’s tried his best to keep in good condition, flipping through the pages there’s evidence of water stains from when he didn’t notice it getting wet in time to dry it. The last thing he’d been painting had been what he could remember of Atlantis. He’s only been there once while it was under siege, but its grandness was seen even through the destruction. Gardens filled with multi-colored coral and species of luminescent sea plants, the buildings of abalone, gleaming with its iridescent nacre reminiscent of his father’s hippocampi steed. Even the ground had been embedded with glowing pearls outshining the sparkly concrete of NYC by such a degree that it was almost obnoxious. The whole palace had resonated with his dad’s power, being a guest there was like a weight on his shoulder, a constant reminder that the sea was on his side.

He hadn’t seen his dad since last summer, he got quiet like the rest of the gods did, but considering the restoration that his kingdom has to go through, he couldn’t fault him. 

“Oh wow, is that Atlantis?” Rachel’s curious voice brought him back to her New Hampshire dormitory. 

“Yeah, what I can remember at least,” he hands her the sketchbook and watches her trace her finger lightly over his work. Her hands are stained with markers, he wonders what she’s been making. “As best as I could draw it.”

“It looks beautiful,” She says earnestly. “Are you visiting anytime soon?”

His mouth thins, “If he invites me. I don’t know what I’d even do there.” His dad and Tyson are amazing, he’d love to see them in their element, but the idea of spending time with Triton or Amphitrite has his stomach in knots. He’d rather take up Mr. D’s offer of turning him into a bottleneck than juggle the titles ‘forbidden child of an affair’ ‘hero of olympus’ and ‘the guy who called the king away when the city was getting sacked’. They’d probably turn him into something free of charge. 

Rachel stares at him for a bit in that creepy way of hers, piercing right through all his minotaur crap and grimaces in sympathy. “Fancy buildings do get boring quicker than you’d think.”

“It was definitely the fanciest building I’ve ever been in.”

She moves to hand him back his book, but tosses it on her bed when he brandishes his oily fingers. She’s quick to follow, her body flopping back on her bed, her hair, now in two French braids, falling to either side of her. 

“You look like the Wendy’s girl.”

Rachel looks at him unimpressed, “Wow, I’ve never heard that one before.” He gives a sheepish smile and offers her mouth a fry in apology. “Dude, these fries are cold now.” 

He shrugs and eats some more, “They're still good.”

“It’s the principle,” she mutters, silently asking for another. 

“I spoke to Grover in my dream,” Percy starts. 

“Grover-grover? Or your dream manifestation of Grover?”

He gives her a dirty look, “Grover, our friend Grover.”

She raises her hands, “Just checking.”

“He’s going to check on these Ash Tree Nymphs to see what they know about that weird feeling he’s been getting.”

“So it’s not the aftereffects of the big storm monster?”

“Maybe that’s a part of it, but I think it’s deeper than that. You haven’t spit out any new prophecies have you?” 

She shakes her head, “But May did, didn’t she?”

“Months ago,” he tries to shrug off. Like all prophecies, once you hear them they’re impossible to forget, like the Fates add a new fiber in your thread for having heard it. Beware the earth, a mother’s curse rises from below. Foes or friends, gamble trust or triumph you forgo.That, compounded with Prometheus’ food for thought, dresses him in unease. 

“That reminds me,” She rummages through her nightstand and picks up a familiar looking charm necklace. “Evil eye necklace.”

Percy takes the jewelry with careful hands. There was a time growing up when his mom would always tie black thread around his wrist for luck, it wasn’t the blue eyed charm that Rachel handed him, but the intention was the same. 

“It’s supposed to protect you from bad energy,” Rachel explains. “It apparently breaks when it does its job. I figured with your luck, you could use it.”

His lips quirk up, the fraying thread on his left wrist could use the back up. He lets the chain layer with his camp necklace. “You’re blinging me out.”

Rachel nods and says straight faced , “Your drip is so swaggy now.”

“Oh gods, please don’t ever say that again.”

Rachel lets out a peal of laughter, bright like sunshine and conspicuous like it too considering how her floor mate bangs on their shared wall. They share a surprised look, green meeting green before they burst into laughter again.

Camp is not the same place that he left in the summer. The physical changes are obvious, the finished building projects and renovated everything else can almost hide how this was a military base for over a year. He passes by Peleus’ slit eyed stare guarding Thalia’s fleece wrapped tree and enters the boundary where the December air suddenly feels like spring. Campers who should be picking strawberries stop to give slack mouth stares like they’ve never seen a boy and his hellhound. 

He had asked Mrs. O’Leary to take him to Nico and found himself at the top of Half Blood Hill, her monstrous nature prohibiting her from entering without permission. He had once thought permission to enter was a one time thing, but apparently like the city’s public pool, you have to prove your identity each time. 

“Percy!” An excited voice yells. It’s Jaleesa, daughter of Demeter, braids clinking with wooden beads and cowrie shells. “You’re back!”

“I’m back,” his mouth tugs into a small smile. The girl had come from a farm Upstate that ironically did take in a lot of animals. He had run into the Co-op booth that her dad was a part of in Inwood after freeing a very confused seal from the Harlem River. The man had squinted at him and his gold dusted sweater, because monster dust is as persistent as glitter to get out, and casually asked him if he’d fought any monsters recently. And somehow found himself regaled by stories of an even babier version of the eleven year old adopting strange creatures and occasionally hitting others with a shovel enough times that they exploded, y’know regular cute demigod stories. When she eventually got to camp she had a lot of thoughts on how strawberries were the only produce that Camp had going on, although Percy’s pretty sure the Demeter cabin has a secret vegetable patch somewhere in the forest, and firmly established herself in the change the Camp was still undergoing. 

Her eyes widen as she takes in his hellhound, “Mrs. O’Leary! I’ve been making treats, can she try some?”

“Sure, but no chocolate.”

“Duh, we have dogs on the farm.”

“It’s better to be safe than sorry,” he raises his hands defensively. “Did you get any further with your project?”

“Still testing. Billie’s been helping me with it. Do you wanna try some?”

He squints at her, “You’re offering me pet food.”

She shakes her head, but her smile has that edge of mischief that you’d expect from a Hermes’ kid. “Not all monsters are pets.”

“Oh, so I’m a monster now?”

Jaleesa shrugs, “Malcolm says that’s an ontological question.” She pronounces the word with the quiet pride of an eleven year old who learned something complicated, he sort of wishes she’d share with the class. “He said that your dad claimed a cyclops at Camp and he also claimed you. So wouldn’t the cyclops-“

“Tyson, my brother’s name is Tyson.” 

Jaleesa nods, “So shouldn’t Tyson be a demigod? Actually who’s his mom, do you know?”

He tries to follow her logic, “I think Dad just made him. And not all monsters are bad.”

“Well, duh. But what makes them monsters?”

“Monsters come back. Their souls aren’t judged the same way ours are.”

“And that changes what they eat? Do monsters really have to eat people or are people just easy to eat?” 

He’s reminded of Telekhine puberty, how it’s only later in life that they get a craving for demigods. “Did you ask Chiron already?”

She crosses her arms in a sulk, “No.”

He raises an eyebrow, “Why not?”

She avoids his gaze and mutters something.

“What?”

“Me and Janani were adding glitter extensions to the pegasi and I got really focused and didn’t realize he was there. And I,” the rest trails off into a mutter, but Percy snorts catching the drift.

“You gave him a makeover.”

“He thought I was pranking him and then other campers started calling him Toola-Roola and now he hates me.”

“I doubt he hates you,” he consoles, instead of asking what a Toola-Roola was. “You can’t control what other campers do.”

“But I did put the hair extensions on his tail.”

“Yeah, but are you calling him Toola-Roola?”

“No, he’s not even the right colors to be her.”

“Then don’t worry about it. He’s had to deal with the Stoll brothers year round for years, if he didn’t even put you on dish duty, he doesn’t blame you. Now do you know where Nico is?” Mrs.O’Leary perks up at the name.

Jaleesa shakes her head, “Can I bring Mrs. O’Leary her treats now?”

“Alright, kid. Take care of her for me.”

Mrs. O’Leary works as an unspoken announcement that he’s arrived at camp. It’s the same with Blackjack, with both of them being free spirited, they’re unlikely to be at camp without him there. So when a large black dog or Pegasus is spotted in camp it’s the same as shooting a text that he’s visiting. 

He parts ways with Jaleesa and Mrs. O’Leary by the cabins. Salt air wafts his way, tempting him to Cabin 3 like a welcome home, but he also knows a pitstop there will turn into a nap that most people would classify as a sleep, so he resists. Rachel is already at camp, probably nestled in her Cave and Annabeth was supposed to meet him later today after she was done with Olympus. Camp is at its barebones without its summer campers, but with all the new arrivals since the war, it’s still more than there was the winter that Nico first came to camp. And yet he can’t find that mop of dark hair anywhere. 

He hadn’t had a real reason to speak with the kid besides taking him out to lunch and while Nico being at camp lets him know that he has access to food, it doesn’t actually ensure that the kid ate a vegetable. Hades hired Jules-Albert to chauffeur the kid around, but will he make sure he eats enough citrus to prevent scurvy? These are the actual questions that haunt him. 

“Well look who’s decided to visit,” a droll voice drawled. 

Drew Tanaka leans against one of the rose arches of Cabin 10. She looks like the 80s decided to take an encore in the form of a fifteen year old demigod of Aphrodite. Her hair was long in perm ringlets, blunt bangs covering her forehead, cobalt blue eyeshadow bring attention to warm, chestnut eyes, and jelly bracelets and bangles adorning her arms like their own set of armor. Her camp shirt is one of the long sleeved ones DiY’d to incorporate a strappy shoulder. He vaguely recalls Silena running a lesson on customization during his second summer; those sorts of activities fell off as war came to their doorstep and no one’s been eager to pick up the mantle now. 

“Hey, Drew,” he waves, a little stupidly considering their distance. She makes him more aware of this by lifting a judgy little eyebrow. 

“Percy,” She returns. “I guess you heard about the new campers.”

He blinks, “How new?” The last demigod he knew was Kwame who was the son of Electryone, the goddess of morning. She’s a minor goddess and technically both his and Drew’s niece. According to the myths she was born mortal from Helios and Rhodes and later deified after her death, but not much is known about her. It had led to Annabeth trying to figure out a better method of honoring all minor gods when they had no concrete way of knowing which gods still existed. 

Drew straightens up, looking him over with more intrigue, “You don’t know.” It’s not a question. 

“Know what?” He asks, preemptively tired of how Drew likes to tease information. 

“Nico di Angelo escorted three demigods and their protector to camp.”

His eyebrows shoot up, “Is he still here?”

Drew tuts, “Will is the only one who bothers keeping track of when he pops in and out. He goes with the wind.” 

He makes a mental note to check the Apollo cabin’s schedule. “Nico’s a nice kid, it’s not really news that he’d help some kids get to camp.”

“Down, boy. I’m not insulting your friend,” Drew rolls her eyes. “Cabin 9 has a new brother. He practically screams runaway with how twitchy he gets, but Nyssa likes him,” she checks her nails absentmindedly. Her voice is decidedly less casual as she states, “I got a new sister. She’s my age, so thank the gods I don’t need to play babysitter.”

Sisters are a sore spot for Drew and new campers are another. While Percy’s wish to forgive the Titan’s Army’s demigods was held legally, it did nothing to the personal feelings of everyone involved. There’s a tension that comes with every new camper because of the idle thought that they could’ve been on opposite sides of a war literally four months ago or the envy of knowing that they missed the bloodshed. Clarisse had been an odd bastion against any hazing in an ironic twist of fate. Especially considering he knows she’d burn off Luke’s face if given even an iota of a chance. 

A sister, her age, arriving at camp? It’s a car crash waiting to happen and Clarisse might just have to play mediator. 

“A son of the Forge-god and a daughter of Love,” he recaps, and ignores the uncharitable thought that the gods are restocking their cabins. 

“Oh yeah and of course, they brought an absolute cutie with them.”

“I’m assuming you don’t mean their protector. Not that I’m judging, love is love.”

Drew snorts, “I’m not the one here with an empathy link to their protector.”

“How’d you know about that?” 

“After you tried to hijack Clarisse’s quest to save him,” she gives a condescending smile. “We put two to two together. And most people think you broke it after that, but thank you for letting me know it’s still active.”

“Dang,” he rubs the back of his neck. “Keep it on the low?”

“Duh,” she rolls her eyes. “Anyways, they came with another demigod. Powerful, but he’s got amnesia, thinks he’s fifteen. There are bets on where they were hiding him.”

“Who’s his parent?”

“Oh, you know, ruler of the heavens.”

His eyes bug out, his voice comes out faint, “He can’t keep it in his pants, can he?”

Drew waves a hand at the camp, “Can any of them?”

Fair. Not that he cares to be fair to Zeus of all people. 

Drew continues, “Anyways, it’s not the ruler that you’re thinking of.”

Percy’s brows furrow, “There’s only the King and Queen.”

Drew nods him along with a pointed gaze, “Exactly.”

“Not- No way,” he refutes. Zeus, has already proven to be shit at keeping the oath with Thalia,  but never once has Hera in all of their millenia of being married- “but doesn’t that go against her domains? I thought she couldn’t?”

“That’s what everyone thought, Chiron looked like he was having a stroke when he got claimed. But even after all that no one was smited, not unless you count Rachel spewing a prophecy-quest for him.”

“Who’d he bring with him?” He asks, tallying which veteran campers would have been there to help him out. 

“He imprinted on the newbies he came here with.”

“Did they even get training?”

Drew shrugs, “The cutie knows how to fight, enough to satisfy Clarisse. The cabin 9 kid got Beck’s dragon working again and Piper…Well, what’s another dead sister?”

Percy holds his flinch, “C’mon, Drew.”

Her eyes narrow, “I already told her why it was dumb for her to volunteer, if she wants to know why the hard way then I can’t exactly stop her.”

“I’ve seen you charmspeak people into doing your chores.”

“And it turns out she’s been doing it all her life too.”

Not for the first time, he resents that teenagers are supervising other teenagers and children. “Okay, alright, what was the quest for?”

“Saving the mother of the gods from the mother of the titans.”

He battles with the odd desire to ask why no one called him. After waiting for the other shoe to drop for this era of peace, the idea that trouble can come and he’s not in the middle of it is more disconcerting than he’d like to admit. He’s bathed in the river Styx, faced off titans and hordes of monsters, and survived the great prophecy that the gods had spent decades postponing out of fear. He wants nothing to do with a new prophecy and somehow it’s also none of his business. 

“Have the gods sent any word?” She shakes her head. “Chiron?”

“He looks his age.”

Percy winces. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

Drew shrugs.

Percy imagines these three schmucks on this quest with no divine intervention, something that all of the quests he’s been on have had whether he wanted it or not. Three newly discovered demigods, one of which is an amnesiac-

“Who’s making the shroud for Cabin 2?” he feels bad for thinking it and even worse for saying it. 

Drew laughs, the sound dances in the air and it’s melodic in a way that makes you understand how people fall in love with laughs. “Feel free.”

He ends up in the Hypnos cabin after checking with Will and Mrs. O’Leary and discovering that he has to pull another ‘Where in the World is Nico di Angelo’. It’s like playing hot potato with a water wobbler, you’re going to lose. So when Rina, Clovis’ half sister, tells him that Clovis is looking for him, he follows her. 

“So I did some,” Clovis yawns, swallowing his words between bleary blinks. Percy stifles his own yawn and nudges him to continue, “asking around about your strange dreams. Don’t worry I kept your name out of it. Morpheus says he didn’t send you anything, but said our aunties might have.”

“Your aunties?”

“Y’know,” Clovis insists, making a hand motion that looks like tossing salad. Did they have a Greek goddess of salad? Maybe there’s a relation to the salad dressing. “The Spinner, the allotter, the unavoidable?”

Percy stares, “The three grannies from hell are your aunties?”

Clovis rubs his nose and shrugs, “Everyone comes from either the Earth or Night.”

“And you’re related to them.”

“You’re related to every horse ever.”

Percy makes a face, “It’s not the same.”

“Well, anyways, I asked Morpheus to ask Dad to ask them, but I think he asked his twin to ask them and they said: You’re a loose thread.”

Percy blinks, “What?”

“You and Thalia actually. You’re not supposed to exist because of the oath, but you do. Prophecy works as a weight to bring tension back to your string.” He rubs a hand down his face. “It’s like tapestry repair, ask a child of Athena about it and I’ll-“ he yawns. “I can make the metaphor. But your weird dreams are to keep you existing.”

“Would I stop existing if my dreams stop?” The idea makes his stomach roil.

“No, no. You don’t have to worry about it, that’s their job. Dad said mortals weren’t supposed to know so much about their weaving.”

“And he still told you?” Percy asks incredulously.

“No,” he refutes defensively. “Morpheus did. He thinks it’s funny when people realize how close to Khaos we are.”

Triton hasn’t ever tried to screw with him that way, but he’s met other ‘older brothers’ from his dad's side and can believe anyone of them pulling the same if they could. 

“Did you tell Thalia?”

His brows furrow, “No. I’m not going to have my first conversation with a huntress of Artemis be about how her existence messes with the order of the universe.”

“Fair,” he concedes, even if he has the awful feeling that it’ll fall to him to tell her. Then again, does she really need to know? “By the way, who’s your stepmom?”

“Lady Pasithea,” Clovis continues without prompting. “She’s a Grace, her domains are relaxation, rest, meditation, and like hallucinations.”

He can see why Prometheus suggested her. He stews on this new information and considers the fact that he hasn’t been tied to any prophecies since the last one and considers that a son of Hera might need his own binding agent into the giant sock of destiny. “Do you think the prophecy was to bring tension back into the son of Hera’s string?”

“Jason?”

“You know him?” 

Clovis tilts his hand in a so-so gesture, “he asked me if I could help uncover his memories. I couldn’t because they were taken.”

Percy straightens. “By who?”

There’s a faraway look to Clovis’ eyes, “That’s the question.”

He tries to imagine it, having his memories stolen from him and being sent on a quest to save powerful beings from other powerful beings without anything but the two other kids he met a few days ago and is dubiously comforted by the fact that his life has never been that bad. He hopes Jason gets to burn his shroud.