Chapter Text
1.
Riptide is heavy on your hand. You’re tired. Blood trickles down from your brow, and while it doesn’t blind you, it feels like the last strand of control slithering out of your grasp. Kronos smiles. It looks nothing like Luke’s smile. He’s not as unharmed as you wish, but as much as you don’t want to hurt Luke, you also don’t want to die.
Have they made it down already? Annabeth knows the way. Both of them are fast. All you have to do is keep Kronos from descending the stairs behind them for long enough. Easy enough, right?
“You’ve been a bigger pest than anyone anticipated, I’ll give you that.” Kronos says. Luke’s voice’s behind his, but you cannot tell what he’s trying to tell you. “Congrats. Now do me a favour, and die.”
He flings towards you. You parry, sidestep, and duck. There’s no chance for a counter strike, and your feet keep retreating back and back until the terrain you step on changes.
You crouch, avoiding a thrust that was headed towards your neck, and grab a handful of sand. Following the teachings of one Clarisse La Rue, you throw it at Kronos’s face.
It gives you enough time to go back to attacking.
You send a quick prayer to any God who might be listening, so that they might help Annabeth fix this mess.
You don’t hear any of them answer you.
2.
The rumbling of the car engine reverberates through you, as you let your head rest against the glass. The landscape is a blur of colours. You blink yourself out of the stupor of having had your thoughts derailed from an inner ramble about how much Nancy Bobofit sucks–very much, that was the answer–, to realize that this is not the usual route to your summer house.
You turn to Grover, who’s happily playing one of those Pokemon games that were in your console just because Gabe insisted in getting them for you when he was on one of those kicks of pretending to be a good dad. He doesn’t seem worried about the change of direction.
You lean forward your seat, grabbing at the one in front of you for support. “Mom. Mom. Mom.”
Your mother rolls her eyes. “Yes, Percy?” She glances shortly at you, in the mirror, before glueing her eyes back to the road. “Is there something wrong?”
“Are we lost?” You ask. “This is not the way.”
Your mother gives you one of her smiles. The ones that mean she’s going to lie to you. “We’re just taking a short detour, you’ll understand when we stop.”
You don’t, in fact, understand later. Because you stop after going up a hill, somewhere in Long Island. Grover doesn’t seem to care about the change, and your mother insists it’s fine. But you don’t understand what a strawberry farm and college campus (how can a place be both, you wonder) can have in them to make you drive so far away from your holiday spot and into here.
The car stops at its entrance. Your mother doesn’t even like strawberries that much, why stop here?
She gets out, and so does Grover. Only after they look back you start to climb out of the car as well. Your legs are half asleep, but you don’t complain as you join them.
“Percy.” Your mother starts, kneeling to your level. “We had a bit of change of plans.”
You blink. “Oh.” You say. “Are we going to leave Grover behind?”
Grover makes an offended noise, and your mother shakes her head. “No, darling, we’re just… moving away from Gabe for a while.”
“You broke up with him?” Your eyes go wide as she nods.
“Grover and I thought this place would be good for you. For us.” She says. “There’ll be kids your age, and many activities, and you can enroll in the school here once September rolls around.”
“Yeah.” Says Grover. “And the people here are amazing! And– well, I’ll wait until mister Hades explains.”
“Hades?” You ask. “Like the greek dude? Why would a parent call a kid that way?”
“Dude.” Grover says. “Your name is Perseus.”
Your mother shoots him a look. “And what’s that supposed to mean, Grover?”
Grover pales, and starts raising his arms in a placating manner. “Nothing, nothing, it’s a lovely name! Great name! Beautiful, even–I’ll shut up now.”
“Wise choice.” Your mother says, and you snort. “Come on, Percy, grab your bag. We’ll come back to get the rest of our things later.”
You grab your backpack and throw it over your shoulder. It carries very little, a change of clothes, your headphones and a few stim toys that were halfway to breaking. Since it’s awfully sunny outside, you grab your hat. It’s a fishing hat you got at the docks the one time you managed to go, after an old man taught you how to safely release fishes back to the water. He had smiled at you, and placed it in your head in a way that led to no argument on whether it was yours or not.
You trek up the hill. It’s filled with green, the grass and clovers infiltrating parts of the path, and trees and bushes thriving as a somewhat barrier. There is a sign at the beginning, announcing the strawberry farm up ahead. Then, in between trees, a bigger more elaborate carved sign. Camp Half-Blood, it reads.
“Half a blood of what?” You joke. “Is this some weird eugenics place?”
Grover guffaws, and then coughs. “No, no, man.” He says, waving his arms around. “It’s something different entirely. No eugenics here. Pinky promise.”
You shrug. “Ok, then.”
There’s a man waiting for them. He’s lying against one of the poles holding the sign, checking his phone. There are feathers in his hair. And he’s wearing a strange mix of a post uniform, and normal street clothes.
He looks up when your mother waves at him, and smiles. There’s something wrong with the feathers in his hair.
“You’ve finally arrived!” He says. He puts the phone away and steps forward to greet you. “I was starting to considering telling dear old uncle that we had lost you.” He laughs. “Sally, right? Nice to meet you.”
Your mother smiles, and ignores the look you send her. “Nice to meet you too.” She puts a hand on your shoulder, prompting you to step up. “This is Percy. Percy, this is your cousin.”
You blink. “I have cousins?”
“I’m from your dad’s side of the family, kid.” The man says. He high fives Grover, as if they knew each other. “Nice to see you, little man! I see you’ve made friends!”
Grover nods. “Percy, you’re gonna love it here, come on, I’ll introduce you to everyone.”
Then he grabs you by the hand, and drags you through an invisible barrier you hadn’t seen, but definitively feel. You look back for a second, and see that the feathers in the man’s head have become little wings.
3.
“Mrs Dodds has taken my slug.” You announce, sitting with Grover in recess. You’ve just met him this course, but he’s been nice to you so far. Better than the rest of your classmates. You haven’t yet invited him to your place, but that’s cause you’ve been waiting for Gabe to go away for a while.
“The rainbow one?” Grover asks. You nod. “That sucks, man. Do you want to go steal it back later?”
You shake your head, while taking a bite of the salami sandwich your mother made you. “It’ll just get me in more trouble.”
“True.” Grover said. “We can steal something else, then. As retribution.” He has a salad, again. You think it’s a bit weird for a nine year old to be vegetarian, but you don’t tend to question it much.
“I don’t know, dude.” You say. “She’s very creepy.”
Grover shrugs. “I mean, she’s mean, but I wouldn’t call her creepy.”
“No, dude. She’s super creepy. Ultra duper creepy.” You lean in and whisper, “like, I swear there’s something weird about her teeth. And her nails. It’s like some weird vampire in hiding, or something.”
Grover laughs, but you can tell he’s slightly scared by what you’ve said. “You’ve been watching too much Buffy.” He says, and nudges you. You nudge back. “How does your mom even let you watch it?”
“She doesn’t.” You admit. “I watch it when she’s out, and Gabe never cares so…”
Grover laughs. He changes the topic. You forget completely about the conversation in little time.
A week later, Mrs Dodds leaves the school without any explanation. Grover is the first one to celebrate. You never get your slug toy back.
4.
The infirmary at Camp Half-Blood is huge. You saw the other buildings in your way here, a big blue house, a campfire that burns as if it would never die, a building reminiscent of the restaurants you see at the side of the road when you’re traveling from one state to another… they were not small by any chance, but the size couldn’t compare.
As you waited on the waiting room after the doctor’s assistant stuck a weird stick up your nose, you looked at the people wandering by. There is a girl your age at the receptionist table, wearing a tacky bright orange shirt. She’s been rolling her chair in circles, staring at the ceiling with an expression akin to either agony or boredom for the whole duration of your stay.
Some people came and go, none of them paying much attention to you. Until one of them, the one wearing both a yellow sundress and a doctor’s coat, approaches you and your mother.
Your mother gasps. As the stranger approaches, you realize why. He–now you know he’s probably a he, despite the dress and the long hair–, shares a remarkable similarity with you.
He makes a stop by the receptionist table first, and stops the girl’s motions. He speaks something to her. She rolls her eyes.
Then, he goes to you. “Hello.” He says, kindly. He seems to glow when he smiles. “We haven’t met before, have we?” He looks too young to be your father. But part of you wonders… “You must be Sally, am I right?”
Your mother stands. She tries to hide the way her fingers twitch behind a wide smile. “I am. Sally Jackson, a pleasure.” She shakes his hand, even though he hadn’t offered it. “We were just getting our checkup before settling down.” She gestures towards you. “This is Percy. Percy, this is, eh–”
“Apollo Acestor, nice to meet you.” He says, finishing the sentence for your mother. He looks at you, and you feel oddly scrutinized. “You’re allergic to pineapples. Mild allergy, though.”
You blink in confusion. “…Thanks?” You say in the end, because it feels like the safest thing to say. “Are we related?”
Your mother sputters, but she doesn’t scold you for the bluntness.
Apollo tilts his head. “Depends on how you think about it. We’re technically cousins.”
“…Technically?” You ask again. You also have the impulsive thought of ‘another?’. How many secret cousins are going to be revealed to you today?
The girl in the receptionist table uses a rolled up magazine as a speaker. “Stop being ominous, Lord Apollo!”
Apollo waves a hand at her without even looking back. “Don’t eavesdrop, Chase, you’ve already got detention enough.”
The girl makes a sound and goes back to spinning on the chair.
“Anyways, I assume you’re here for the check up, then?” He says. He reminds you of your last psychologist–kind, and chill. Pity Gabe decided you no longer needed it.
“Oh, no, no, we’re waiting for the results?” Your mother says. She’s fidgeting with the straps of her bag. “An assistant did the tests already.”
The blond boy from before, the one that was your age, and wearing a doctor’s coat far too big for him and claimed to be the assistant, stepped out of the office that same moment. He scribbled something on a notepad, sticking his tongue out in concentration. Then, he looked up, and his face light up at the sight of Apollo.
“Dad!” He exclaims, and jogs up to you. “Look, I did all the tests on my own.”
Apollo pats the kid on the head and takes the notepad to read it. “You’ve done great. Pull your mask back up, though.”
“You’re not wearing one!” The kid–Will–says, though he complies.
“I’m a god.” Apollo says. “I don’t catch diseases.”
You laugh. Father and son stare at you. “I’m sorry.” You say. “Was that– Where you serious?”
Your mother sighs. “I didn’t know how to break the news to him…” She says, and you hate the way she’s not even looking at you. “Is… is his father–?”
“My uncle’s currently…” Apollo starts, then trails off, looking at the middle distance. Then, he snaps out of it. “Arguing with minor sea deities, well, technically trying to mediate between them, but oh, you know him.”
“You could go talk to Mr H!” Will tells you, excitedly. “He’s very cool. My second favourite of the first generation.”
“What first generation?” You ask.
“The Olympians, dumb-ass!” The girl in the orange shirt says, as she spins lazily, half of her body slipping off the chair.
“Chase!” Apollo chastises. “Language!”
The girl blows a raspberry. Apollo sighs, and your mom coughs to hide a snicker.
“Anyways.” She says. She grabs your hand and gives you a reassuring squeeze. “If we’re in the clear, we should probably take William’s advice, and introduce ourselves to Mr Hades, Percy.”
“Ok.” You say. And then, as you walk out of the hospital, you ask. “Where they being genuine about being gods or is this like, a theme?”
Your mother sighs.
5.
You find out that the orange shirt means detention three weeks into your life at Camp. Chiron gives you a long and droning talk about responsibility and proper reparation for your actions, even if those actions were committed by mistake. Then, he handed you the shirt you’re currently wearing, and sent you to clean the flooded halls of the school.
You think it’s fair. Even if you hadn’t meant to explode the toilet, the cleaning crew would probably spend days fixing that, so your help would be appreciated.
You aren’t the only one on cleaning duty. There’s that girl from three weeks before, and from that big dorm place next to Grover’s place, and from the class next to yours. She’s mopping with little enthusiasm, humming something under her breath.
The silence aside the unidentified notes she makes is unbearable. You need to hear something other than the dripping of water and the scrubbing of mops. Otherwise you might explode another toilet.
“So.” You say. “Why are you here?”
The girl looks up at you. Her eyes are a very odd shade of grey. She looks away and shrugs. “I live here?”
“No, I mean, what did you do to get in trouble?” You say.
“Oh.” She says. Then, she shrugs. “Voter fraud. Hermes was proud of me.”
You snort. “Really?”
The girl nods, very seriously. “They wanted to put it to vote, but it obviously should be Epic.” The girl says. “I don’t care that it isn’t finished, Lord Apollo can just tell us how it goes. Probably.”
You understand little of what she just said. You choose one of the several things that confuse you. “What’s Epic?”
The girl’s eyes light up with excitement. You gulp. She launches onto an explanation about the Odyssey, out of all the things. Halfway through you pick up on the fact that there’s a theatre club that’s fairly popular, and that they’re doing Hadestown, another myth related musical. You also learn the girl’s name.
Annabeth doesn’t let you run away from the conversation until you agree to listen to the entire released soundtrack with her. Then, she manages to weasel in a promise to also watch the snippets of songs to come as well.
An hour later, as you finish with the hall cleaning, she goes. “Hey, I didn’t ask, why did you get detention?”
“I blew up a toilet.” You say, and for the first time, you manage to stun her to silence.
6.
They are not, indeed, joking about being gods.
It takes you several minutes into the conversation with the man that introduces himself as Hades–a goth looking man, with long hair and big eye bags–, until you realize that the weird thing about him is the fact that he seems to emanate shadows. That, and that when he steps to show you a map of Camp under a lamp, the light doesn’t affect him.
You don’t memorize much of the map after that. You’re too busy remembering all the myths you’ve read instead of doing your homework. Gods were real. Gods are real, currently. They’re real and they’re asking you which of the available houses you and your mother would like to move in to.
Ignoring the part of your brain that is screaming and trying to rearrange your worldview, you choose one of the closest to the beach.
Mr Hades smiles at that and writes a note down. He takes the liberty of ruffling your hair, and though at first you flinch, you can’t say you dislike it. His hands are cold.
“I’ll let you settle in for today.” He says. “You must be tired.”
“Thank you.” Your mother says, for the umpteenth time today, and in this conversation.
“Percy,” Hades referring to you makes you snap your attention back to him, and not to the conflicted mess of feelings inside of ‘Gods are real. Was dad a god?’. “Would you mind waiting outside for a second? I’d like to talk to your mother in private.”
You hesitate. Hades does not have the worst of the myths for what you’ve read, but he is a god. A king god, as well. Does he have a vicious ego fueled temper to match?
Your mother smiles assuredly. She looks calmer she’s ever been. Probably. Your memory is not great. Nor linear.
You shrug and mutter a half hearted ‘sure’, in the end. You close the door behind you, and press yourself really close to eaves drop.
The wood is thicker than the walls of your house–or, well, old house. Now you have a new one. By the beach. It still doesn’t feel real–, so you struggle to make much out of it.
“–he know?” Hades is asking.
You hear your mother mention your name, followed by a ‘I asked him for’, but that last word is drowned out by a cabinet opening, and something made out of crystal clanking.
“My brother wouldn’t hold it against you.” Hades says. Or you think he does, it’s hard to decipher.
Before you can continue spying, the woman you will later recognize as Persephone finds you.
7.
You’re training with Clarisse when her dad arrives. Part of you is disappointed, as it looked as if you might win a fight against your classmate for once, but your tired arms and shaking legs are ever so thankful at the interruption.
You slump back on the bench, and Grover passes you apple juice. As a silent thanks, you fist bump him. Annabeth looks up from her book on sword tactics–she’s been shouting unintelligible advice to Percy from the side lines whenever she isn’t practicing weird moves she read about. Only half of those worked–, to ask who won, but stops when she sees Ares. She makes a face.
“What’s wrong?” Grover asks. You’re too busy chugging the juice down to do so.
Clarisse is showing off to her father. You feel a pang of jealousy.
“Nothing.” Annabeth says, unconvincingly. “I just– It smells of blood, doesn’t it?”
You sniff the air, and wrinkle your nose. It does smell of blood, and gunpowder.
“Weird.” You say. “Add another tally to why Gods should be studied in a lab.”
Grover laughs, “I don’t think they’d let you.” He says. “Not so close to the Games.”
You turn to examine whether he’s pulling your leg or not. “Games?”
“Yeah.” Annabeth says. “Luke hasn’t told you? He took part on the last ones, that lucky bastard.”
You shake your head. Last time you had seen Luke, Nico had been pestering him about joining in the sword lessons. As if Luke had much hold over what Chiron decreed.
“Is it like the Hunger Games?” You ask. You needed to read the second book, you’d really liked the first one. Or, well, listen to the second one.
Annabeth looks at you like you’re dumb. “Sea-weed brain.” She says. “Why would anyone stay here if there was a Hunger Games reenactment every five years?”
“So the Games are once every five years?” You ask.
“Yeah.” Grover says. “Gods and mortals can both partake, if they want.” Annabeth opens her mouth to correct him, so he adds. “As long as you’re thirteen or older.”
You’re almost sixteen. “And how do they work?”
Annabeth lies forward, grabbing her training sword to draw a calendar in the dirt. “They last three weeks.” She says. “The first one is for us, the younger kids and wards and what nots. The adults break us up in four teams, and whoever does best in the most games wins.”
“They’re not as serious as she makes them out to be.” Grover says. “One of the games is literally hide and seek but in the entire Camp.”
You nod along anyways. “What do we win?”
“Honor and reputation.” Annabeth says.
“And candy.” Grover adds.
Annabeth nods solemnly. “And candy.” She points to the second week. “The second one is about the adults, gods sometimes included. They are recreations of Ancient Greek sport tournaments, with whatever safety regulations needed on top.”
“Gods tend to win that one.” Grover says. “But it’s still fun.”
“And the third week is the important one.” Annabeth declared, erasing the other two weeks off the calendar. “The entire Camp divides into two teams, gods and mortals collaborating together to get as many points. And it all culminates with Capture The Flag.”
You groan. “Why does Camp love Capture The Flag so much?” You complain, lying back on the bench. “It’s so bland. I never get to fight anyone when we play!”
“That’s ‘cause you’re still a kid.” Grover says, as if he isn’t a kid as well.
“So it’s what? Traditionally mandated family time?” You ask.
Annabeth blinks. “That’s one way of putting it.” She says. “I had thought of it more along the lines of keeping some of the more asocial gods in contact with us mortals.”
“Traditionally mandated touch some grass.” You say.
Annabeth kicks you. You grab your sword and hit her back. You end up getting dragged to the arena to spar. At least Ares seems to be amused by the violence.
8.
You put up new posters in your room. You didn’t get a chance to go back to your old apartment in New York, not that you particularly wanted to. But you wish that you could’ve gotten some of the stupid stuff that you’d taped to your old bedroom walls back. Your mom has given you boxes full of your old toys, and books, and clothes, and you don’t even know how she got them. Maybe a god felt charitable enough to go fetch them.
If gods were such great people, why had they done nothing about Gabe?
You shake that thought away, as you finish sticking glow in the dark stars on your ceiling. You have tried imitating some of the constellations you learnt about from the posters in Mr Chiron’s office–you still don’t know how he fits through doors, or how he sits in office chairs. Though now that you remember, was there even an office chair in his office?–, but you probably did them wrong.
You flop back on bed. There are still boxes of clothes to fit into the new wardrobes, with doors that close fully, and a distinctive lack of mold. But you feel as if were you to stand up, your bones would collapse and become dust. So you lie on bed instead.
Your mother has been smiling more often now. You still hear her pace at night, but now she doesn’t cry as often. Happiness suits her better, even if it’s confusing and unsure happiness.
The house smells of the sea and baked cookies now, instead of cigarette smoke and sweat. It feels as if the moment you get used to it, it will fade.
The odd clacking of hooves that you’ve finally started to associate with your best friend announces his presence before he starts knocking on your door like a maniac.
“Dude!” He says, the moment you finally stand up to open the door. “You’ve got to come to the lake, they’re having a water fight and they’re kicking our asses without you.”
You laugh at his strange confidence in your abilities, but follow him outside anyways.
9.
The sun carriage becomes a convertible first. Then Apollo frowns, and snaps his fingers again. Now it looks more similar to the car your mom had, before Gabe decided to sell it without consulting her.
You rush to sit on the front, next to the sun god. The man who gave you your eyes takes your bag and puts it on the back. You refuse to look at him through the rearview mirror.
Apollo dismisses the horses–you’ve never seen golden horses before. You wonder if they’d feel warmer than most, if you petted them.–, and they trot out of sight. Then he climbs onto the car, and without checking, tells you to put your seat belt on.
You obey. Your cousin does not look in the mood to be teased.
Apollo switches on the radio, but no music pours out. Just the news. You ignore them, same as you ignore the man in the back seat and the redness in Apollo’s eyes, and stare out the window.
You wish Grover’s parents had agreed to let him come.
10.
You wipe the sweat off your forehead, smiling through the pants of breath. You sheathe your sword just in time for Bianca to hug you so tight she lifts you from the ground for a few seconds. You laugh, and hug back. She’s disgusting right now, covered in sweat and mud. You’re even worse.
“We did it!” She says, after releasing you. “Take that, Clarisse!”
“Yeah, we kicked her ass so hard she won’t be sitting at the next banquet!” You add, gleefully imagining her face right now. That’s what she gets for bragging earlier. Jerk-face.
You and Bianca high five.
“Well done.” Says Zeus. You’ve forgotten he’s even here with you. He doesn’t seem as intimidating now, looking down at you with something that you hope is pride. “You’ve shown great skills today. Your father would be proud, Perseus.”
Your smile falters. “Yeah, sure.” You say. “Let’s meet up with Annabeth and Grover.” You change the topic, starting to walk.
Bianca nodded along. “She might need help, I heard Nico say he and Luke were going to try target her flag.”
You smile. You’ve just beaten Clarisse, you feel pretty confident you can take Luke too, if Annabeth’s there to help you.
You start rushing in that direction, impatient for another fight.
Thunder cracks the sky in two.
You stop. Clouds start to gather, and droplets of water fall around you.
You and Bianca turn to face Zeus. He isn’t supposed to use godly weapons in the Games.
Zeus doesn’t meet your gaze. He’s looking at the sky.
“That wasn’t me.” He declares.
Then, in the distance, you hear Luke scream.