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Percy has two soulmates.
Their marks sit just below his hairline, following his spine. A set of reed pipes, and a compass. By the time he's in fifth grade, he’s changed schools 4 times and never met either of them.
He’s not as bothered by it as most people are when they meet him. His mom hasn't found her soulmate yet either. If anyone deserves a soulmate its her.
Truthfully even at eleven years old, he thinks the pressure to seek out your soulmate is unnecessary. If they’re meant to be your other half (or thirds) they’ll find you.
——
At school number five, Percy is sitting on the bus on the way to the Manhattan Metropolitan Museum of Art on a field trip. His best friend Grover is sitting next to him, crutches tucked into the seat with them. Behind them, the other kids are being general menaces.
Percy gently bumps Grover, who's been staring into space for a solid minute now.
“Hey man, you doing ok?”
Grover’s eyes flick over to their chaperones, Mr Bruner and Miss Dodds, before settling back on Percy. “Yah. All good. Absolutely.” A pause, only interrupted by Grover picking at the beaded bracelets covering his forearms “Why?”
“I don’t know, you just seem out of it today.”
Panic crosses Grover's eyes before his expression steels into something vaguely displeased. “It's too loud, ya’ know.” A lie and they both know it. But Percy also knows when to let it drop.
“I get that.” He says, leaning his head on Grover's shoulder, “We’re almost there though. Then we can get this over with.” Grover mutters something under his breath before resting his head on Percy's.
“Yah, almost there.”
——
The museum is a disaster. The administration of Yancy Academy tells him he will not be invited back for the next year. Percy's disappointed but not surprised.
——
Percy overhears Grover and Mr. Bruner talking, late one night. He only half understands the conversation, but he gets the point. They expected nothing more from him. It stings, but he’ll move on.
The school year ends the next week. (He passes Latin.)
Grover insists on making sure he gets home safe. Percy doesn’t think much of it. Even when the bus breaks down, leaving them standing outside as a summer storm rolls in. Dark clouds covering the steely sky.
“It's not really hurricane season yet. Weird.” Percy idly mentions to Grover.
Grover doesn’t respond, only runs his fingers over the clay beads of his bracelets.
——
That night, when he’s just gotten out of the shower. His mother stops him on his way to change before they head to the beach for the weekend. “Percy! Your back!.”
“Yah? What's wrong?” He couldn’t see his marks at Yancy, but his mom sounds excited. He can feel excitement bubble to the surface.
“The reeds, they're green!”
He met his fucking soulmate at Yancy academy of all places.
Gabe grumbles something at the tv from the other room. Percy and his mother share a look. They both know Gabe and his mom aren't soulmates, they both know how he feels about Percy's two marks. Silently, they agree not to talk about it until they make it to the beach.
——
They don’t make it to the beach.
His mom dies, Percy kills the Minotaur with its own horn. Keeping it as a trophy feels like a hollow reward.
Grover's here, at least. Even if he's maybe a goat? Satyr, apparently.
Percy passes out.
——
Briefly he wakes up. He remembers a black girl with long braids, maybe his age, interrogating him.
“What’s happening on the solstice?”
“Wh-?”
Sleep pulls him back down. He dreams of ocean foam and his mom. It's nice.
——
No one notices the marks on his neck.
No one notices the look Grover and Annabeth send each other, matching Molten Silver and Leafy Green and now, Sea Blue.
——
When he finally wakes up. Mr, Bruner (who is apparently a horse, sure. Why not?) brings him up to speed.
He's a half-god, demigod, whatever. They stick him in Hermes with the rest of the unclaimed kids, it's crowded and smells vaguely like B.O.
Then he meets Luke.
Percy is enraptured, he almost wishes Luke was one of his soulmates. But Luke has no marks. It's not unheard of, but generally believed to be unlucky.
Luke drops him off with the girl from before. When her long braids shift, he can almost see a splash of green and blue on her collarbone.
The girl must see Percy staring, because she gives him a dirty look and brushes her hair back over it. “Who's your parent?”
“I'm sorry?”
She gives him another, harsher look, “Your godly parent?”
“I don't know. It's just been my mom and me forever.”
Her look softens a little, “I'm Annabeth. Cabin 6, Athena. Let's get you cleaned up before lunch.”
——
Percy gets cornered by the big Ares kids, Clarisse and her gang. They’re bullies. He really just remembers being angry at them, being angry at his dad, being angry at this stupid camp.
Then the taps explode.
And the showers.
And the toilets.
He blinks, Clarisse and her friends are soaking wet, sitting in the grass outside the bathrooms.
Annabeth's grin makes the back of his neck tingle like the water did. Percy doesn’t think anything of it. Maybe this whole camp thing isn't that bad.
——
At lunch, he manages to sit with Grover, despite the clearly laid out cliques. He looks better at camp, in an orange shirt like Annabeth's. His legs are out in the open.
So is the set of soul marks on both his wrist.
A silver circle on the Left. And a blue trident on the right.
Percy tries not to stare and he thinks he does an ok job, “How does this whole food thing happen?”
Grover grins and jumps into explaining it to him, showing how the magic plates work. Percy isn’t really listening, he's seen that silver shape somewhere. Now that he thinks about it, he's seen that shade of blue too.
“Ok man, look you just think about what you want, and boom!”
He nods, real amazement crosses his face when he gets the plate to work. Any and all thoughts of soulmates are gone from his mind at the smell of food.
——
Percy gets backed into a corner during that afternoon's game of capture the flag. Some sort of initiation, get the new guy. He can feel the pressure building up behind his sternum like it did in the bathroom earlier.
Before anything can come of it, a hell hound makes its way past the border somehow. It’s shot down, but Percy still ends up dumped into the creek.
There, knocked on his ass in the frigid water. Things start to make a little more sense.
The magic glowing trident sort of helps.
——
In his stupid, empty, sea-scented cabin that night, Percy remembers the conversation he had with his mom before the left. It’d completely slipped his mind it in the ensuing forty-eight hours.
He struggles with a handheld mirror compact he found in one of the bed side tables. But eventually manages to get it positioned to show his back in the bathroom mirror.
Percy feels vaguely embarrassed to have forgotten for so long. But that doesn’t matter right now. What matters is the two soul marks at the top of his spine, high enough to poke out of his shirt and touch his hairline.
A leafy green reed flute and a Silver compass.
Percy knows where he's seen that shape before. He knows where he's seen that shade of green.
You’ve got to be kidding.