Chapter Text
Family reunions are always awkward, but Hercules is willing to bet a month’s worth of hair gel that nothing tops his family when it comes to social gatherings he would really rather not be at.
Dad and Mom are great, of course, but they are also as obnoxious as they are wealthy and sometimes Hercules feels like a trophy being paraded around – did you know our Herc plays on every sports team? Shoe-in for quarterback next year after Adam Bête graduates, they say. He and Peg recently won an equestrian championship; it’s all over the jockey news – that is, when they aren’t gushing over his siblings. Coach Phil wouldn’t be half-bad company in times like this, but he’d muttered something about “boy’s night” and “Like hell I’d put up with those bozos.” He was sending half-encouraging text messages every so often, though, like If it makes ya feel better, yer better-lookin than Ares and Yer bro Apollo totally outclasses you in archery but at least ye got a great personality! Which helped. Kind of.
And right now, Hercules needed all the help he could get – despite his parents’ best efforts Dionysus seems to have smuggled in all the booze he could this year (he suspects even the water’s a little spiked), and as a result everything is about seventy times worse than it normally is. Aunt Aphrodite is flirting with everyone she isn’t related to (and a few people she is, Hercules thinks, his stomach clenching a bit). Cousin Persephone is plucking flower petals off of his mother’s prize tulips. Artemis and Apollo have graduated from tossing insults at each other to tossing bits of food at other people, and Aunt Demeter is glaring at them, her nostrils flaring a bit larger with every bit of food wasted and Hercules prays his sister and brother have the good sense to stop. And worst of all, Dad is completely, rip-roaring drunk and Mom is sitting picture-perfect at the head of the dinner table, her tight smile growing a bit tighter every second, and Hercules can really sense that if something magical doesn’t happen right now everything’s going to blow.
A light touch on his arm. “Hi.”
He turns, and his eyebrows fly to his hairline. It’s Ariel, whom he’s talked to maybe a grand total of thrice in his entire life. Sure, she was on the girls’ swim team and they saw each other at meets sometimes, and yeah she was on the pep squad which meant she was pretty much required to watch every game of his, and duh she’s totally hot, but she was also double majoring in marine bio and anthropology, which meant that Hercules was completely out of his depth.
“Hold on a sec, we’re related?”
Ariel giggles. “That’s what I thought, too! But Dad finally decided to stop being an overprotective old moose and let us embrace our family ties, or something.” Her tone suggests this is fairly recent – she’d only recently joined the swim team and the cheer squad, as it turned out. “And, surprise! I know you!”
Hercules gestures to the mess around them. “I think you’re better off not embracing the family ties. Wait, how are we related?”
Ariel raises an eyebrow. “My grandpa’s Poseidon who’s your dad’s brother, so you’re probably my cousin?” Her face scrunches up. “No, uncle once removed. Man, you’re really young to be my uncle once removed.”
Weak shrug. “Ah, well, my parents had me late in life – y’know, several siblings and accomplishments finished ahead of me later.” It’s true – his oldest sibling, Athena, graduated top of her class from Harvard with a triple major, spoke six languages, and has a PhD in something Hercules can’t even pronounce. Hermes is a doctor and does stand-up comedy in his spare time. Artemis is a leading public figure on wildlife conservation and journalism and Apollo’s won two Grammys, one national poetry contest, and three lottery jackpots (he’s got a knack for guessing, is what he says). Hephaestus is nominally an engineer, but he’s so goddamn brilliant that his inventions are featured in scientific magazines every year. And his parents, proud that their brood has given the family spots on the Time 100 every other year, have turned their focus to their youngest son, wondering what he would contribute to the flourishing family legacy.
“Tell me about it,” Ariel sighs. “I have six older sisters – okay, three sets of twins, but still – and Dad totally loves them more ‘cause they better fit his ideas of what daughters should be.”
“Boy-crazy, fashion-crazy, goes to Sunday school and sings in the choir?”
“Yup. I mean not like there’s anything wrong with that and I really love them all, but–”
“It’s just… not your style?” Hercules offers her a weak smile. “Been there, done that.”
“It’s just – there’s got to be something more than what my dad wants for me, right? I can’t spend my whole life feeling like the odd one out.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean. I mean my siblings are all crazy overachievers and my parents want the same for me, but I’m not them.”
They sit in companionable silence for a bit, at least until Ares loses at poker and gets on the table and starts yelling, at which point Ariel asks, “Is it always like this?”
“Oh, yeah.” A smile finds its way onto Hercules’s face. “Runs in the family, Dad likes to joke. Mom gets offended. I like to think I’m exempt from the crazy. I lived at boarding school for most of my formative years, and the couple who ran the dormitories were as normal as you could get.”
“I don’t mind,” says Ariel. “The crazy, I mean. I grew up with six sisters, and I thought that was big – but this is something else. But they’re our family. It doesn’t make them any harder to love.”
Hercules is about to ask her to be his best friend forever when a gaggle of girls with Ariel’s perky nose and wide smile pop out of nowhere. “Hey, li’l sis, there you are!” says the one with long black hair. The blonde one with a ponytail turns to him, Dionysus’s telltale flush smattering her cheeks. “Hey, who’re you? Are we related?”
One of the brunette ones grins. “I hope not. You’re really hot.”
The one with short blonde hair sidles up to him. “Hey, mister, ya got a number?”
Hercules turns as red as Ariel’s hair and okay maybe he’d prefer putting up with his family to this because how is one supposed to react to a drunk niece flirting with them? Ariel seems to notice, though, and dives to the rescue. “Okay. Okay, gross. One, yes you are related and two, Arista, Adela, and Andrina, you three are clearly drunk, and – wait right there, I’m going to call Sebastian to pick you up. Dad can’t find out about this, or we’re all grounded for life.” She shoots him an apologetic look.
Despite Hercules and Ariel’s best stalling efforts, though, Cousin Triton does find out about his drunk daughters, and true to form Ariel’s sisters are grounded “forever” – although he admits to Ariel that it was a bit of a harsh sentence and he should really be mad at Dionysus instead and Attina manages to wheedle the sentence down to two weeks anyway, but Hercules and Ariel have a great laugh over it.
In the end Hera blows her top and kicks everyone out and the gaggle of intoxicated relatives slowly parades out the front door, and Zeus is sent to his room with three aspirins – “and no sex, probably,” Apollo says most unhelpfully, and Ariel laughs and waves goodbye and promises to meet up with him at uni more often and hey, Herc managed to get through this family reunion in one piece, which is more than enough to be proud of.
The next day Hercules realizes he actually has two classes in common with Ariel, who waves excitedly at him in English 212 and furiously pats the seat next to her. He obliges, setting his bag down on the hook and turning to her.
“Hey, long time no see,” he says.
Ariel laughs and gestures to the girls clustered around her – two blondes and a brunette. “Herc, this is Cindy, Rory, and Meg. Cindy, Rory, and Meg, this is Hercules, my uncle once removed.”
The one with long blonde curls – Rory – raises an eyebrow. “Uncle once removed? Seriously?” And then, remembering her manners – “It’s a pleasure to meet you. How come Ariel never brought you up?”
“We met at a family reunion last night,” Hercules says. Rory seems satisfied with that explanation, and she and Cindy turn away to discuss something else.
“Hey,” says the brunette, Meg, and Hercules’s heart stutters a little because okay, Meg is gorgeous and does photography for the uni newsletter and apparently does lounge singing in her spare time, and okay, he’s had a bit of a crush on her since forever, and if he’d known that he’d had a relative who was friends with her then maybe he’d have paid a bit more attention to his extremely complicated family tree. “I know you,” Meg continues. “Weren’t you in Hamlet last year? Or that whole lion-themed shebang that passed as Hamlet, anyway. You were…the Rosencratz stand-in? The meerkat?”
Hercules flushes as red as Ariel’s hair. “Haha, yeah, I was…” His friend Anna from the drama department had nagged at him, because they were chronically in need of actors, and who was Herc to turn down a damsel in distress?
Meg raises an eyebrow. “Dude, I did the publicity photos! You don’t remember?”
“Of course! You were great. With the picture things. And. Uh–”
Meg laughs, her dark eyes shining. “Yeah, last year was something. But here’s the thing – apparently the professors really loved the lion thing, so they’re continuing it this year – with Romeo and Juliet. I don’t suppose you’re up for a role reprisal?”
“Will you be handling the photos?”
Ariel shoots him a look which he approximates to real smooth, cuz.
Meg smirks. “Maybe.”
He’s going to say something else but Madame Bonfamille walks into the classroom, her cane tapping sharply on the floor, and class begins.
Ariel slips him a note under the table and it’s so grade school, but maybe his newfound love for his family grows a bit more when he reads what’s on it – Dude, don’t think I’m creepy or anything, but I’ve known for a bit that you’re totally into her. You’re not really subtle. Anyway, she just broke up with her boyfriend ;)
Aunt Aphrodite would be so proud. Hercules writes. I still can’t believe we’re related.
The red hair helps, is all Ariel writes back.