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It comes as something of a shock that Coriolanus and Castellan are actually friends .
Neither of them will come out and say it, of course. They act like fools, peacocking around one another like there's something to prove.
But when Lucy Gray wakes up to an empty, cold bed, she finds Corio clashing swords with Castellan in the dark. They share a water bottle between them, and Castellan pulls his punches. Corio does, too - otherwise, they'd beat each other to death.
They're still a flurry of metal and moonlight, though. Unrelenting, they keep up at it until dawn begins to break, and even then they seem reluctant to retreat.
Lucy Gray wonders if the two of them ever sleep.
She, herself, is much less suited towards long blades and spears than she is to her knuckles. Otherwise, she would step in the ring with them - but she doesn't. She sits in the dark of the treeline and watches them tire eachother out.
They're just as stupid as they are bloodthirsty. Gods only know the dangers lurking behind the treelines, waiting for one of them to take a knee and admit defeat.
After all, it's what she's doing.
Lucy Gray did not have Percy Jackson on her bingo card.
As far as children of the Big Three went, she had only just gotten used to not believing Corio shouldn't exist. After all, he's older than Thalia ever was. He couldn't be blamed for his father's misdeeds, but Percy Jackson.
A betrayal of an oath, his existence. Defiance of Zeus, a defiance of Olympus.
Worse, the kid thinks he's Just .
Three scraped knees, one twisted ankle, and one deep slash that had needed stitches. Lucy Gray was going to start charging Campers for getting hurt.
As the oldest in the Apollo Cabin, it fell on her shoulders to patch the occasional hurt kid up - but she certainly hadn't signed up for this .
"Thank you, Lucy!" A little Hermes kid chirps, and rockets out of the Cabin to get back to whatever he deems more important.
"It's Lucy Gray!" She calls after him, falling on deaf ears. A sigh wracks her chest, and she weighs the benefits of just staying in her Cabin all day. There'll be another kid soon enough, anyway.
Lucy Gray is lost deep enough in her distraction to not notice the next person who wanders through the door, and she jumps when he clears his throat.
Corio looks perfect as always, even if his Camp t-shirt is absolutely not his color. A silver bead around his throat, knot skewed every to the left as it always it.
"Hey, dove," He raises a brow at her, "You seem busy."
She smiles, only a little strained. "Do I?"
"You sure do." Corio leans against the wall, crossing his arms. "We missed you at archery today."
She gestures around the Cabin. "I was busy."
"Is this what you do all day?"
"Got a problem?"
"You know I didn't mean it that way."
She's already clicking her first-aid kit shut and moving to stand when Corio speaks next. "Let me teach you how to fight with a sword."
"I'm more suited to flyin' than fightin'," Lucy Gray reminds him. It's true - the last time she had been dragged into the ring, she had come out with her pride weeping and a gnarly cut on her ribs. It wasn't fun for anybody involved.
"Even doves hunt, birdie."
She sighs. "You ain't gonna leave me be, are 'ya?"
"Absolutely not."
Corio's hands rest on her hips, chin on her shoulder. "That's it," He encourages, "Just a little tighter, you've got it."
Lucy Gray groans and pulls the drawstring even tighter. Her bicep aches . "This?"
"Tighter. As tight as you can."
"It's going to snap if I pull any harder."
His laugh is a hot puff of air on her ear. "No, it won't."
" I'm going to snap," She amends.
An Ares kid shoots them a disgusted look. Corio sputters, and Lucy Gray laughs so hard she nearly drops the bow entirely.
"Archery was a failure," Corio announces to Castellan, who looks much more disappointed than he has any right to.
"It was not a failure !" Lucy Gray snaps, "It's just not for me."
Corio rolls his eyes, but there's a smile tugging at his scarred lips. "Of course."
The fire lights all three of them in an almost creepy shade. Both Castellan and Corio's twin scars look deeper than they actually are - and Lucy Gray would know. Her fingertips itch to reach out and trace them, to etch their roughness into her memory.
"Swords, now bows," Castellan complains, "For the sake of the Gods, will you just find your thing already?"
Lucy Gray frowns at him, and Corio smacks him upside the head. "Don't be a dick, dude."
Their three full plates remain untouched, a slight mockery to the Gods. Pretending to make offerings is a guilty pleasure of hers, the same for the boys. Just a little act of defiance, easily overlooked.
"Literally never seen an Apollo kid miss that hard, to be fair."
Lucy Gray stands up slowly, circling the table. "You wanna see what I won't miss?"
She lunges, and Corio dances away with a laugh.
The joint is as poorly rolled as she imagined it would be. Lucy Gray heaves a sigh. "Next time, just let me roll."
"Just let me roll!" Castellan echos, three pitches higher. He rolls his eyes. "Whatever. I get the job done, don't I?"
"I pity whoever sleeps with you if you think this is getting the job done," Corio chimes in. He pinches the roach between his fingertips, and passes it to Lucy Gray one last time. Castellan whines, but she wags a finger at him.
"Only competent people get the dregs."
He groans and throws his head back. His curls look so pretty in the moonlight, black and shiny. "I'm going to start hanging out with Clarisse," He threatens.
Both Lucy Gray and her boyfriend scoff.
"You can't even be in the same room with her without pissing yourself off," Corio reminds him, helpfully.
Castellan replies by giving him the middle finger.
"Do you trust the Gods?" Corio asks.
The Zeus cabin smells faintly like rain, as always. Lucy Gray's thighs ache from their earlier workout, one she had tried her damndest to beg out of. As always, Corio was having none of it. Laying on his chest, it's plain to hear that his heart skips a beat when he asks.
"You can't ask me that."
"You think so?" Corio replies, dryly. "This isn't something you've thought about?"
Lucy Gray frowns up at him. "That's not it."
"What is it, then?"
"You can't ask me that when we're not alone."
He gestures to the empty Zeus Cabin. "We're alone as we'll ever get. Not even Luke is around."
And that, in itself, is a rarity. But alas, Corio's better half was occupied by new campers and tours galore. "We're never alone."
Corio rolls his eyes. " If , then. If we were alone in the universe, and I asked you, 'Do you trust the Gods', what would you say?"
"If we were alone in the universe," Lucy Gray muses, "I would tell you that I dreamed every night of having a father when I was a kid. I would tell you that I never expect to wake up alive, any more."
She weaves her fingers between his. Twisting the silver band on his thumb, she continues, "I don't think I've ever stopped craving being normal, no matter how easily I heal or that I glow when we fuck."
He huffs a little. "You do glow, that's a good point."
Lucy Gray squeezes his hand tighter. "Shut it. I know you feel the same."
"Well," Corio drags out. A harmless jolt of electricity dances over their knuckles, bright and itchy against her skin. "There's perks. I don't think we're ever normal, you and I."
"In any life?"
"In every life," He corrects. "We were always going to be different. It's just that in this life, I can charge our phones, and you glow like a glowstick when you cum."
Lucy Gray whacks his chest.
Upsetting younger campers of different cabins has always been an indulgence that Castellan takes part in. Mostly, it's fun because of how surprised they are by it.
Lucy Gray used to be exhausted even thinking about it - after all, she had to deal with armfuls of crying demi-gods after he was done with them.
She's resigned to it, now, but it doesn't make it any less tedious.
Castellan scoffs when she relays the sentiment.
"Tell them to grow up. They're demi-gods, not children."
Lucy Gray thinks that maybe they should be allowed to be children. Just for a moment, at least, they should be able to cry in someone's arms.
That's the difference between them, though. Between Corio and Castellan, and her. She doesn't resent her lack of childhood like they do.
She's further vindicated when Corio agrees with him, and speaks the sentiment that goes unspoken. "Why should they get that comfort when we're all bound to die a hero's death? What will coddling them do but dissolution them to that reality?"
"We were just kids too," Lucy Gray says, softly. The boys look at her, but keep silent. "We shouldn't have had to make peace with our fate either."
The distant crackling of thunder, ever present in the Zeus Cabin, is all that echoes in the wake of her statement. It's impressive, a little bit, considering how packed together the three of them are in Corio's queen-sized bed.
If there's one thing about her boyfriend that Lucy Gray envies, it's his bed.
With a thigh flung over Castellans, and a chin propped on Corio's waves, Lucy Gray thinks that she might be able to grow to accept his favoritism. They're a tangle of orange.
It's a shame Camp t-shirts are orange instead of black. They're all mourning something, after all.
The first time she kisses Luke, it's nearly dawn. He tastes like a split lip and the burgers they had for dinner. He's got her on her back, shoulder blades digging into the rough concrete of the sparring arena, and a trail of blood trickles from her nose.
It catches him off guard enough that it's easy to wrap her thighs around his waist and slam him into the ground.
Dumbass.
"Yield," Lucy Gray demands, digging the sharp edge of her blade into his Adam's Apple. Somewhere off to the side, Corio is laughing wildly.
The cut on Luke's throat does nothing to deter him in his rambling about the son of Poseidon.
Corio looks enraptured as he talks, but Lucy Gray couldn't care less. As long as he stays out of her business, she'll stay out of his, thank you very much.
Luke disagrees on principal, of course. The obstinate little shit.
Perched on Luke's thigh with Corio's arm wrapped over her shoulders, she ignores the two of them easily enough. Preferring to watch the younger group of kids jab wildly at each other with wooden swords, her attention is called back to the two of them when Luke points out a pair.
"See, she can't stop looking at him."
He's pointing at Jackson and Annabeth, Luke's de-facto little sister.
She's cute, a short little thing with a knack for being just as much of a little shit as her older brother is. The two are so similar, in fact, that Lucy Gray immediately recognizes the shrewdness of her gaze as she parries the son of Poseidon's blows.
"Drachma says she's going to lay him flat on his ass," Corio wagers.
Luke scoffs. Lucy Gray shakes her head.
"Hell no. I value my reputation."
"Drachma says she's literally obsessed," Lucy Gray amends.
Corio, unfamiliar and new to the dynamic that is Annabeth Chase and her obsessions, turns to fix her with a disbelieving stare. "She hates him."
She rolls her eyes. "Like you hate Luke, right?"
He visibly reconsiders the pair. "Ohhh," Corio intones. "Oh."
"Use your brain, next time."
Luke mimes kissing loudly, and Corio reaches over her shoulder to shove his face away. Lucy Gray huffs a laugh, and settles back against them to keep watching.