Work Text:
“Hey mom,” Percy asked. His mom glanced at him in the rearview mirror, one eyebrow raised before looking back at the road.
“Yes Percy?” Percy fidgeted, spinning Riptide around between his fingers, trying to work out how to phrase his question. He glanced out the window, checking to make sure that no monsters were nearby before looking back at his mom.
“How do we afford the cabin at Montauk?”
“What?” Percy grimaced slightly at the way he had worded the question that he had blurted out.
“I mean, I know we get it because it’s cheap because it near the septic tank. And I know it’s where you met dad. But I know money wasn’t easy when I was younger. And I always wondered how you could afford to rent Montauk all the time when we wanted to visit, and how no one else was there whenever we went, and why if we had enough money to keep going to Montauk why we lived in such a small, bad apartment.”
“Percy,” his mom sighed, eyes flicking up to look at him before looking back at the road. “Can we talk about this when we get to the cabin?”
“Yeah, sure,” Percy muttered. His mom sighed, looking up at him again and giving him a smile.
“Thank you. Now, tell me more about what you and Tyson got up to the last few weeks.” Percy grinned, pocketing Riptide and launching into a story about what Tyson and he had done in Chemistry last week. Sally’s smile grew wider as she listened to her son talk about his shenanigans with his newest friend. But her mind drifted as she drove and Percy talked, taking her back to the first time she had been at Montauk.
She had just buried her uncle and just needed to get away from real life for a while. He may have never truly cared for her, not like a parent would, but he had been the last of her family left. He had taken her in when he didn’t truly have to, and he had spent his last months battling with cancer. She had worked as hard as she could, working two or three jobs, just to make enough to pay for his hospital bills and let him exist as comfortably as possible while in hospice. And now he was gone. So yes, she needed to get away from real life. Just for a while.
So she had packed up her stuff, her essentials and majority of the money she had left over, and headed out of the city. The rent for the apartment she had been living in with Uncle Rich had been paid for, for the next few months by her uncle’s life insurance, so she didn’t have to worry about working to keep the apartment, or worry about not having somewhere to come back to when she came back. All she had to worry about was leaving the city. She wasn’t going to leave the state, even leaving New York was a lot, but somewhere just out of the city, where life would feel different, was what she needed.
She had ended up at a beach. A beach with cabins available for rent or to buy. She had spent barely a few hours on the beach, just existing outside of what reality had been for her for months, and knew that this is where she wanted to be. Not forever. But for now. So she rang the number on the sign, and asked how much it cost to hire a cabin. How long se could get a cabin for with the amount of money she had brought with her. And the cabin next to the septic tank was cheap enough that she could just exist at Montauk for a few months. And so she did.
Percy sat down on the sand, watching the waves gently lap at the shore. He had gone swimming earlier, but it had gotten dark and his mom and called him back to land. Now, he was just sitting, watching the ocean, his dad’s domain, waiting for his mom to call him for dinner. If he was lucky, she would decide they could eat on the beach.
“Percy, come get some wood for a fire.” Percy shot up, not even bothering to dust the sand off his legs or clothes as he ran to their cabin. If he was setting up a fire, it meant they would eat on the beach. And it meant s’mores for dessert. It would also mean, now that he was aware of the gods, that he should technically sacrifice to his dad since there was a fire available, but it was a toss up to if his mom would get him to do that or not.
He grabbed some of the logs next to the cabinet, carrying them out to the beach, to an area just in front of their cabin. He dumped the wood on the ground before heading back inside to get smaller sticks and kindling. He dug a hole in the sand, making a circle for the fire to go in, before starting to pile the wood up. He started with the kindling first, setting the smaller twigs and branches around it in a pyramid-type shape. Two of the smaller big logs went next, close enough to catch but not crush the delicate tower in the middle. And then he waited because his mom didn’t trust him with the matches. It didn’t matter how many times he had built the fire, or watched her start it. She didn’t let him use the matches. And especially not when she wasn’t nearby. She’d let him go to a camp that trained with real swords and spears and arrows and lava walls, sure. But no, he wasn’t allowed access to small sticks to start a fire. Then again, with the number of incidents that occurred around him, at school and on his quest last summer, maybe that wasn’t a bad idea. He could cause trouble without access to fire. But still, he had a sword in his pocket all the time. Surely he could be trusted with one match. But no.
He looked over at his mom as she settled into the sand next to him, so they were sitting just behind the newly dug fire pit. She placed his plate on his lap, a knife and fork balanced precariously on top of the meal, and placed her own plate in the sand. She knelt forward, pulling the matches that he Wasn’t Allowed To Touch out of her pocket and lit the fire, dropping the match into the middle of the kindling and letting it burn. Percy watched as the fire caught and slowly spread across the tower of wood he had built; no matter how many times he saw it, it would never stop being cool. Fire just had a way of grabbing his attention and keeping it like basically nothing else did. The way the colours flickered and the embers sparked and the flames burned was just really fascinating.
Oh, yeah, maybe him having access to fire starters wasn’t a good idea.
Percy’s attention was pulled away from the fire when his mom scrapped some of her food into the flames once the fire was burning strongly. And it didn’t matter that h had experienced all it all summer. The fact that it didn’t smell like burning food, and instead smelt kinda sweet and nice, would never not be surprising. He sat up higher, onto his knees, scraping the best parts of his meal into the fire as well, with a small thought towards his dad, thanking him for the gentle waves that day. A small breeze came through, rustling his hair as the smoke from his food rose into the air, the scent of a cool sea breeze and a hint of wildflower drifting into the air.
They ate their dinner in silence, the sound of crashing waves and the crackling fire the only sounds in their darkening surroundings. Percy continued starring at the sea as his mom took his plate, returning with a bag of marshmallows and graham crackers to make their s’mores.
“You asked about our cabin,” his mom said as he toasted a marshmallow, waiting for the edges to catch fire to make it the perfect amount of crispy, with the hope that he would be fast enough to blow the fire out, without becoming captivated by the fire on his marshmallow, so his marshmallow didn’t become ash.
“What?” he asked, before hurriedly pulling his marshmallow from the fire, frantically blowing on it to put out the fire that had started in his second of distraction by his mom’s question. Fire out and panic over, Percy thought over his mom’s words before remembering what she meant.
“Oh, yeah. Can I have some biscuits?” His mom passed him two biscuits and a piece of chocolate that he hadn’t noticed she had, which just made the s’mores even better, and he squished his marshmallow between the graham crackers and chocolate, biting into the oozy, extremely sweet goodness that was a s’more with a hum. He wiped his mouth with the back of his palm after swallowing his first bite.
“Will you tell me now how we afforded renting the cabin basically every summer when money was always so tight?” His mom huffed a laugh, passing him a napkin to wipe his mouth with as he put the rest of his s’more into his mouth.
“We don’t rent it Percy. I may have chosen that cabin the first summer because it was cheap next to the septic tank, but we don’t rent it anymore. I own it.” Percy blinked up at her, halfway through chewing his s’more, his brain buffering.
“Wait, what? If we own it, why did we live in the city. Why didn’t we live out here? I’d love to live by the beach.” His mom laughed, shaking her head as she passed him another marshmallow to shove on his stick. He put his new marshmallow in the fire, watching it carefully to make sure it was cooked just right.
“I know you would. But there’s no places to work around here. Camp is closer than the nearest town Percy. No, it’s easier to live in the city. That way I could walk to work, and there was a lot of schools close by for you.” Percy sighed. He hated that that made sense. There went his dreams of living on the beach.
“But how did you have enough money to buy it? I mean, you told me you had basically no money left after Uncle Rich died because of his hospital bills.”
“I didn’t buy it Percy. I barely had enough money for the few months of renting the cabin that summer. Your dad bought it for me.” Percy pulled his marshmallow from the fire, poked it, and then stuck it back in again, watching his marshmallow even as he listened as his mom told him the story of how the cabin became hers.
Sally stood at the counter of the cabin, staring out at the beach through the stained glass windows. A white stick was in her hand, another handful more in the bin. They were all pregnancy tests, and they all showed the same thing. Positive. She was pregnant. Pregnant at 19. Pregnant by a god. She leaned on the counter, watching the waves crash on the shore, waiting for her lover, for Poseidon, to emerge from the waves. He had said he would return around sunset, having had duties to do during the day that he had been putting off. And she didn’t know how she was going to break the news to him. How was she meant to tell the God of the Seas, a god who was married, that she was pregnant with his child?
“Sally?” Sally spun around at Poseidon’s voice behind her, snapping out of her thoughts. And there was the god, in his typically Hawaiian shirt and board shorts, eyes crinkled as he smiled at her. “Is everything alright, my love?” Poseidon stepped closer, wrapping an arm around her waist before moving a hand to cup her cheek gently. Sally hadn’t even realized she was crying until Poseidon’s thumb was wiping away the tears staining her cheeks.
“I’m pregnant.” Poseidon froze, and Sally stayed still, unsure how to react around the god now. She had never had an issue before, but now she wasn’t sure. What if he reacted badly? What if he became the angry god who had killed thousands at sea, rather than the gentle and kind lover she had gotten to know over the months she had been at Montauk?
“Oh.” The word was soft as an exhale, and Sally looked down, unsure.
“I’m nineteen, Poseidon. I don’t know how to take care of a child. I can barely take care of myself.” Poseidon cupped her face with both hands, staring at her intently.
“Allow me to take you under the sea. I can build you a palace fit for a queen, for you and our child. I can provide you with everything you would need, you will want for nothing. You are a queen amongst woman Sally. Allow me to treat you as one. Let me bring you under the sea.” Even as Poseidon spoke, staring into her eyes and seemingly so truthful and adoring, she knew she couldn’t.
“I can’t. You can’t do everything for me Poseidon. I love you, but if I’m going to live my life, I’m going to live it for myself, and make my own way in the world.” Poseidon pressed a kiss to her lips, gentle and sweet, before pulling back and taking a step away.
“I can not be involved with our child, Sally. I am forbidden from having any part in their upbringing, or their life. I will have to leave once you reach your second trimester. Staying any longer will only put you and our child in danger from my brothers.”
“Why would your brothers be a danger?”
“I swore an oath to not have any more demigod children. Years ago, with my brothers. I had intended to keep the oath. I had not intended to create a child with you Sally. As much as I love you, I did not wish to burden you, or a child, with that life. Our child will be cursed from my broken oath, and they will have to live a hero’s life. And you will be in danger from the monsters they attract, and my brothers’ fury when they discover I broke our oath.”
“I won’t abort, Poseidon, if that is what you are asking me to do.”
“I would not ask that of you. Not if that was not what you wished. Please, allow me to protect you, bring you under the sea where my brothers can not reach you or our child.”
“I won’t run all my life Poseidon. I may not have expected a child, but this child is mine as much as they are yours. And I will make a life for both of us, in the mortal world where we belong.” Poseidon closed his eyes, turning so he was leaning against the kitchen bench, looking out at the beach.
“Then there are two things I must ask you, my love,” Poseidon said, without turning to look at her. “I ask that you allow me to buy this cabin for you, so that you may bring our child here as often as you can. Allow me to see them, to sense them in my waters, to know they are alright, in this place where you allowed me to love you. And I ask that, when the monsters start coming, that you send him to camp, to the place that trains demigods to become heroes and live through monster attacks.” Sally nodded, a few tears slipping down her face, before reaching up to wipe them away. This felt too much like a goodbye, and she wasn’t sure she could handle another goodbye so soon after her Uncle’s death.
“Yes,” she said, stepping forward and leaning against the god. He turned, pressing a kiss to her forehead and wrapping her in a hug.
“Thank you.” They spent the night together, like they had spent so many nights before, and when Sally woke up the next morning, Poseidon was gone, a few papers on the bedside table on his side of the bed. A note saying he would be back next week, a card for a Camp Half-Blood, and papers placing the cabin, fully paid for, in her name.