Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kronos would not necessarily call it dreaming, but he thought it was probably as close to the mortal concept as he would get to. The thought grated, but it was true. For millennia, all he did was dream. The world changed, was razed and built anew from its ashes, a new throne, a new age of gods, of heroes, and humans, brutalizing and worshiping and Kronos lay scattered among the ruins of his deadened kingdom, scattered in a million pieces in the deepest pits of Tartarus, and he dreamed. The children he had prevented from taking his power as was prophesied, had risen to it anyway and destroyed him. Kronos was many things, but he liked to think he learned from his mistakes. He had brought upon his own demise by devouring his threat, eliminating it in his gaping toothy maw, smiling bloodily at his wife. She had looked beautiful, as she always had, a lion pacing by her feet and lotuses blooming along her arms, providing each heir, and looking away when he took them from her. 

She had only tried to change his mind once, cupping his face and pressing their foreheads together with tears spilling down the corners of her sea eyes, just as they had when he had taken his mother’s wish, scythe held over a shoulder, right before he had set out to destroy their father. (“You have grown weak, Rhea,” he’d told her, and her tears came harsher now, her chest heaving in a stuttered half-laugh, and he didn’t know how he hadn’t realized she had turned from desperate to enraged, “No, Kronos, you have simply forgotten yourself.”)

Ah, Kronos did love when things came full circle. Perhaps an aspect of his domains over time. His children’s age had reigned long enough, and their own children’s minds were opening to that same rage a violent rebellion always started with. Time could be both painful and sweet, and as it passed, it grew ever easier for Kronos to creep into those bitter minds and taunt that despairing fury into his own leash. It was beyond a dream, in a way, and always it was Kronos bringing his demigods to his heel. 

And yet-

His first soldier was a son of the thieving god, useful in that way, useful because of the thick well of poisonous wrath that clouded his mind, a new scar slashing his face in half. He didn’t notice the intruder on their time yet, and so Kronos pushed him out, back into his own mind. And then he turned to look at the tiny spy. 

It was- practically an infant, really. A child, quite a few years younger than his first soldier, but still ichor and blood: another demigod. The infant thing wore ratty looking modern clothes, a purple bruise overlaying brown skin, crawling up his jaw and cheek, and it was staring right at Kronos with sullen, rather unimpressed eyes. Eyes, Kronos observed, as shifting and turbulent as the oceans. Poseidon’s eyes. Rhea’s eyes. 

The godling crossed his arms, “could you leave?” he said, “you’re creeping me out, dude.”

More than the eyes, he looked so much like Poseidon. Ringlets like the wine dark sea, swaying as the waves and gleaming and black as the depths. The regal cheekbones and sharp jaw softened by baby fat, the hint of shark-like sharp teeth, the dark brow and unreadable expression. 

Perhaps, Kronos thought, the fates were on his side for this. He reached to cup the infant's face, ignoring the disgusted curse, and examined him closer, smoothing his thumb over his cheek and lips, tilting his jaw this way and that. Poseidon’s appearance had always taken after his father, even if his unsettling unpredictability had wrestled Kronos for the future, snapping teeth and whirlpools and crashing waves as the world shuddered under his loping gait. When he’d been born, Kronos had in fact stopped for a moment, fleeting regret he hadn’t felt since his first, his golden eyed daughter. Poseidon had looked like a child of destruction, a true legacy of Gaea, and Kronos had always had a soft spot for his mother. 

“I said get your hands off , you psycho!” the child flailed in Kronos’ grip, head turning and biting down hard on his hand. 

It…hurt. He had not felt pain in ages, eons. It was unfathomable that he could feel it now, now as golden ichor welled up to stain the child’s teeth as he was dropped to the ground, smearing it against his cheek as he wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. Such a small thing, Kronos thought, elation slowly igniting in him, creeping up and outwards like trails of fire. He was looking into a mirror, but if he could only turn those eyes into honey gold, swaying wheat fields, amber waves of grain…

He banished the boy from his mind with a thought, lifting his hand to taste his own ichor. His tongue laved over the bite mark giddily, picking up the subtle traces of the godling. Kronos would rise again, he knew, and the boy would stand at the forefront of his ascension. 

He had found himself a body. Olympus shall be razed. Long live the Titan King. 

Chapter Text

Objectively speaking, Percy knew he was dreaming. He’d been having them, weird dreams that was. Sometimes, it was just as though he’d been swallowed in something dark and hungry and alive, reaching up towards a rapidly disappearing pinprick of light. Sometimes, there were other people with him, bodiless, their voices whispering, scraping against his eardrums. 

Tonight, he was standing in an empty hallway, long and dark. In the living room, Smelly Gabe was playing poker with a bunch of his buddies, their laughter echoing strangely hollow and faraway, but Percy wasn’t focused on them. The television light spilled through the open door in a single lurid beam, splashing up starkly against the opposing wall, and just beyond that, stood a man, tall and staring intently. He knew, technically, he was scared. If he were awake, his heart would be jackrabbiting in his ears, his breathing labored, muscles coiled as though to run or fight. Then again, if he were awake, he wouldn’t be in the hallway at all, but barricaded in his room away from his smelly stepfather. There also would be no dream stalker at all. At least, he hoped not. 

The air was eerily still, his ears fizzing and popping with the blankness, the only thing audible being the distant clatter of poker chips, the static of the television, and that ringing false laughter. The man kept staring at him. He was blurry around the edges, as though he’d been smudged through oil, as though he were not quite there at all: a nightmare within a nightmare. And standing out from his shadowed face were a pair of gold eyes. Like wheat if the wind had been suspended in place and the sun had been covered in dense black clouds.

They stared, those eyes, unblinking, hungrily as though they were trying to devour him, and Percy stared back, equal parts annoyed and unsettled. 

“Brainboy!” Gabe hollered, voice a caricature of himself, “come here so I can punch your lights out!”

Percy turned his head, fists clenching. The man said smoothly, “who are you, godling?”

“None of your business,” Percy bit, shifting from foot to foot as he debated what to do.

“Brainboy!” Gabe shouted again. 

The man tilted his head, consideringly, “come here, Perseus.”

Percy twitched, bracing - he hadn’t said his name to this guy, like ever, but he supposed dreams worked strangely. He said, “don’t tell me what to do.”

“I can do whatever I please.”

“It’s my dream,” Percy informed petulantly, “and I say you can’t.”

“Brainboy!” Gabe screamed. 

They stared at each other again. Percy tapped his foot impatiently, ignoring the way the hair on the back of his neck stood on end the longer his stalker looked, “haven’t I already told you to go away?”

Percy had bit the guy once, admittedly not his best idea considering the taste of ugly and creep made him throw up way too much weird gold looking stuff as soon as he woke up. Not what he’d call healthy, but it wasn’t as though he could exactly afford a hospital bill. And he didn’t want his mom to worry. 

“You will find,” the guy said, “that one day you will seek me out. We are too much alike, you and I,” he turned for the first time to glance towards where Gabe was throwing a fit, “you won’t be content with how things are, Perseus.”

The way he said Percy’s name made his voice even slicker, his tone sweeter like spun sugar, and Percy frowned at him, thoroughly unsettled. He had a feeling that if the man had a mouth, it would be smiling, “very well,” he sighed at last, “it’s no matter, if you will not come to me, I will simply make you.”

Then he leaned closer, twistedly elongated until their faces were inches apart. For a second, Percy almost saw his own features, older, crueler, reflected back at himself, before it was again simply a blur of tar with golden pits where eyes should have been, “it is not a pleasant fall, admittedly, but a rewarding one. Everyone gets remade, here, and I am going to enjoy remaking you.”

…okay. Percy leaned back (if someone could teach his stalker personal space, that would be great) and reached out with both hands in a hard shove. The guy stumbled, and Percy toppled over, and then he was shooting upright in bed, panting. His mom withdrew from where she’d been gently shaking him awake, a concerned look written all over her tired face, and he immediately felt guilty. She shouldn’t have to worry so much over him, especially since he never made it easy to be around him (see: last Friday he accidentally dunked his classmates in a shark tank. Long story.). 

“Are you okay, Percy?”

He mustered his best smile, “I’m good.”

She searched his face intently, “is there…” she hesitated, seemingly gathering strength, “is there anything you want to tell me? Anything that’s happened recently?”

He blinked at her, one brow lifting slightly, “other than getting recommended for a psych eval ‘cause I couldn’t read a lever?”

Her face softened in relief, stress melting, even as her lips pursed, “I don’t know what that school was thinking…” she ruffled his hair, and he grinned cheekily at her. 

All was (probably) well. Maybe. At least, he hoped, but he should have known better. Things rarely worked out for Percy Jackson.