Work Text:
Percy sneezed. Again. For what felt like the hundredth time in the past five minutes.
Annabeth gave him a sharp look. “Go to the infirmary,” she said. “You’re sick.”
He shook his head. “It’s just a cold, I’m fine.”
“Uh huh.” She didn’t look like she believed him. He rolled his eyes. “I’ll bring Will here myself.”
He didn’t doubt it for a second. “Really,” he said. “I’ll sleep it off and be fine.”
Annabeth kept looking at him.
Percy looked around until he found Will. “Besides, you don’t want to bother Will,” he said. “Look at him! He’s eating dinner like the rest of us. Don’t you think he deserves a break?”
Annabeth hummed.
“How about this?” he asked, getting the idea when he saw one of Will’s countless siblings push some food off their plate for an offering. “I’ll send a prayer to Apollo, God of healing and all that.”
She quirked a brow. “You’re going to ask an Olympian for help with a cold?”
“Uh, sure,” Percy said, already grabbing his plate. “He likes cookies, doesn’t he?”
Percy knew he did. Apollo hoarded his mom’s blue cookies almost as badly as he did. The ones at camp weren’t the same, but they’d do.
“Shouldn’t you be asking Asclepius?” Annabeth asked. “If you’re really going for the divine intervention route?”
Percy felt his cheeks heat. They both knew there was more than one reason why Apollo was the first to come to mind, but he didn’t want to linger on that. He pushed the cookie into the fire and sent a silent prayer for healing up to Apollo. “Too late.”
Poseidon barely gave Apollo a glance when the other fell into step beside him. “What do you want?”
“Can’t I just want to spend time with my favorite uncle?” Apollo asked, bringing his hand up to his chest.
He frowned. “No,” he said. He still didn’t know why Zeus insisted on a meeting. He didn’t need Apollo’s dramatics on top of it. “Go away.”
“But I have so much to tell you,” Apollo insisted. “You want updates on your son, don’t you?”
Poseidon narrowed his eyes and frowned deeper. “What do you know of Perseus that I don’t?”
Apollo grinned and pushed his sunglasses into his hair to reveal shining, gold eyes. Poseidon didn’t like the cocky look on Apollo’s face, not when it came to Percy. He knew what that look often foretold.
“He prayed to me,” Apollo said, smiling wider. “He doesn’t do that very often, does he? I found it noteworthy.”
Somewhere on the earth down below, the oceans churned. He managed to grit out, “prayed to you about what?”
“Healing,” Apollo answered, standing too tall. “A little head cold.”
Poseidon froze. “Percy prayed for healing,” he repeated. “To you. He willingly asked a God for help, and he asked you?”
“Of course he asked me, Uncle. Who else?” Apollo asked.
He shook his head, quickly getting over the offense that Percy didn’t come to him to focus on the real problem. “What is his fate? Is he well?”
Apollo scoffed. “I said it was a head cold and I meant it. Fate has nothing to do with this, it’s a common human illness. He’ll be right as rain in a few days.”
“But what of the future?” Poseidon asked. He knew this was dangerous territory, but he needed to know. “What will become of him?”
“Perseus is mortal,” Apollo answered, looking at him with something akin to pity. Poseidon hated it. “He will die. It won’t be from this. If all goes well, it’ll be from old age. But he has refused immortality more than once. We know how this ends.”
He closed his eyes. Apollo spoke nothing but the truth, but still it grated. He'd make Percy better.
A few days later, long after his sneezes had cleared up, Percy woke up to the feeling of heavy eyes on him.
He couldn’t read the expression on Poseidon’s face, but the fact that Poseidon was here at all set off alarm bells.
They only got louder when Poseidon held out what appeared to be a to-go container of soup. “Your mother said she makes this when you don’t feel well.”
Percy accepted the soup, feeling like he was falling through the twilight zone. Concern. That was the look on Poseidon’s face. His ancient God of a father was concerned, presumably for him. He didn’t think he’d ever been as confused in his life.
“Thank you?” he said. It felt like the right thing to say.
Poseidon’s eyes flashed with something unrecognizable. Percy tensed, clutching his soup closer automatically. Catching the movement, Poseidon softened. He reached a hand out to squeeze Percy’s shoulder.
“I will never understand,” he said. “You’re more powerful than you have any right to be, and yet you are still burdened with this mortal fragility.”
“What do you mean?” Percy asked, clutching his soup tighter. It was warm and smelled delicious; definitely his mother’s recipe. He wasn’t sure he liked the implications of Poseidon stopping by his mom and Paul’s for soup of all things.
Poseidon sighed, deep and heavy. “Nothing,” he said. He squeezed Percy’s shoulder again before pulling away. “You will stay strong.”
It was too early for this.
His dad vanished, leaving the scent of sea air behind. Percy popped open the lid of the soup container. He didn’t bother to look for a spoon as he raised it to his mouth for a sip of the broth, ignoring the golden sheen on top.
He’d been feeling off all day. He didn’t know if he was able to burst from the amount of energy flowing through him or if he was about to keel over from exhaustion. He couldn’t tell if he was hungry or if the very thought of food made him want to puke. It seemed that the sneezes had only been a precursor for some nasty flu.
“Percy!” a familiar voice called out.
He froze mid-step, tensing and automatically reaching for Riptide. He knew Apollo was on a mission to be better or whatever, but some lessons ran too deep.
Apollo jogged toward Percy, smile as bright as his sun with his bow slung over his shoulder. And that smile and those eyes and that everything was exactly why Percy struggled to remember why he was so ready to fight.
“I was hoping to see you,” Apollo said once he got closer, running a hand through his curls in a way that highlighted the muscles of his arm and the sharpness of his jaw. “You’re a hard man to find.”
Percy snorted. “No I’m not.”
“Think what you want,” Apollo shrugged. “But I’m happy I found you. I have questions, Percy Jackson. Questions and concerns.”
He frowned.
“You prayed to me,” Apollo continued, standing a bit taller. “I must know what I did to deserve such a thing.”
“What?” Percy asked.
Apollo stepped closer, heat radiating off of his skin. “You prayed to me,” he repeated.
If Percy had known that throwing a cookie into a fire would cause such a ruckus, he wouldn’t have done it.
“Annabeth made me,” he said. It was only half a lie. “I don’t think it counts.”
Apollo stepped even closer. Percy swallowed. That look in Apollo’s eyes was sending all sorts of heat down his spine. “It counts,” Apollo said. “To me.”
What was he supposed to say to that? Apollo looked like he meant it, and that was dangerous.
“And to your father.” Apollo reached a hand up and pressed it to his forehead. Percy was pretty sure Apollo didn’t need to do this to check his temperature, but who was he to argue. “He was concerned. It was out of character. That it was for an illness, no matter how simple, had him ready to rip camp to shreds if it meant seeing you healthy again.”
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I was fine. He came and visited, which was weird, but—”
“We don’t handle concern well,” Apollo interrupted. “We don’t like caring, especially for something as fragile as you mortals.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” he said, deadpan.
Apollo, to his credit, chuckled. He lowered his hand from Percy’s forehead to his cheek. He couldn’t help but lean into it.
“You’re burning up,” Apollo said, brows furrowed together.
He blinked at the subject change. “I’m fine,” he said. “I just feel a bit off. I’ve been outside all day, maybe that’s—”
“No.” Apollo shook his head and brought his other hand up to cup Percy’s face and stared. After a moment, his eyes went impossibly wide. “Did Poseidon give you anything?”
Percy didn’t remember the last time he’d been this confused. “No?”
“Nothing at all?” Apollo asked.
“Wait,” he said when he actually processed Apollo’s words. “Soup. He gave me soup, he got it from my mom.”
“And you ate it?”
Percy nodded.
Apollo sighed and pressed his forehead against Percy’s, seeming to come to some sort of decision.
“I think,” Apollo whispered. “And I don’t know, but I think he might have put nectar in the soup. Enough that anyone else might not have survived.”
“What?”
“You’re fine,” Apollo assured. “And it might have been a misguided attempt to heal you.”
Percy looked to the side, unable to look Apollo in the eyes but not willing to pull away. “But I wasn’t sick.”
“Which is why I say might have been,” Apollo said. “Your father is unpredictable on a good day. He adores you, and that only makes it worse.”
“I don’t…” he trailed off. “He wouldn’t hurt me.”
That much he knew. In a fit of anger, that couldn’t be guaranteed. But he knew his father loved him, even if it wasn’t the way he wanted.
“No,” Apollo agreed, soothing his thumbs over Percy’s cheekbones. “He wouldn’t. But he almost did. Your eyes are gold around the edges. I’m surprised no one’s noticed.”
Percy sucked in a sharp breath. He didn’t know what being burned alive by nectar or ambrosia looked like. He’d always pictured smoking fingertips and arms bursting into flames, but there had to be something that flowed through them all from their Godly side that let them eat it in the first place. The Gods bled gold. It made sense and he hated it.
“Will I be okay?” he asked, voice small.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t faced danger before, but something about this— from his father, an accident of all things—had him shaking.
“Of course,” Apollo answered. His voice was deep, soothing. Comforting. “It would have burned through you by now. Just don’t eat any for a while.”
Percy took in a deep breath and nodded. “Okay,” he said. He’d deal with this later. Something about the idea of his dad accidentally killing him because Poseidon didn’t know how mortals worked was getting to him. “Great. Thank you.”
“Look at me,” Apollo ordered. Percy did. “You’re fine. I promise, you’re fine. You can trust me.”
“Can I?” he asked. He immediately winced. Why must he be cursed with a lack of brain-to-mouth filter.
The corner of Apollo’s lip quirked up. “Of course,” he said. “As much as anyone can.”
Percy snorted despite himself.
“I’m being serious,” Apollo said. “God of truth and all.”
“Of course.”
Apollo looked for something on his face, but he seemed to find it because he lowered his hands and stepped away. Percy hated it, he wanted Apollo close again.
But that was for later. Much later, because Annabeth was running toward them with a suspicious look on her face.
“Percy!” she called out. Apollo took another step back. “There you are! Come on, we’re waiting on you to start the meeting!”
“I’ll be right there!” he called back, not looking away from Apollo. “You really meant it?”
It felt like he was asking for more than whether or not he would really be healthy soon.
Apollo smiled, full of possibility. “I promise.”