Chapter Text
Grantaire wanted to point out that none of this was his fault.
Ok, so, yes, he did skip summer school, and sure, he had swiped some of his dad’s whiskey when he left the house for the city that day, but that didn’t mean that he deserved to have a rabid lion-thingy chase him down the street. It was the strangest lion he had ever seen, so strange that he wasn’t entirely sure it was a lion. For one thing, it had wings, and for another, it had a human head that was grinning at him as if it couldn’t imagine anything better than eating him alive.
Oh, and it had a scorpion’s tail that kept shooting darts at him. Just to add to the fun.
Grantaire yelped as one of the darts hit uncomfortably close to his feet. “Look out!” he called to the passerbys that he was dashing past on the sidewalk, but none of them seemed to give him a second glance as he sped by. And none of them seemed to notice the creature chasing him.
It would’ve been the strangest thing to happen to Grantaire — if only it hadn’t happened before.
Well, not necessarily being chased by a huge lion-thingy. But monsters had been a daily part of Grantaire’s sixteen years basically as long as he could remember. And while neither of his parents seemed to believe him—
Yeah, Grantaire had two parents. Why? Is that weird? Sure, they weren’t necessarily the best parents — his dad was always working and his mom just didn’t seem to care about him all that much — but they existed nonetheless. He had inherited his mother’s messy dark hair and his father’s hazel eyes, though if it hadn’t have been for that, he would’ve been convinced he was adopted.
Anyway, his parents had never believed that Grantaire saw monsters and all manners of creatures and strange things. One of his earliest and most vivid memories was going on a trip to the St. Louis Arch with his parents, and witnessing a Middle School-aged kid being attacked by a chimera before leaping out of the Arch and into the Mississippi River.
And that wasn’t even the strangest thing he had seen growing up.
Even worse than his parents not believing him was the ridicule and mocking he had drawn from his classmates growing up. It was no wonder that he hadn’t done well in school, despite good test scores, no wonder that he skipped school at every chance he got and slacked and goofed off. At least if his classmates were laughing at his antics, they weren’t laughing at the time he thought their seventh grade history teacher was a centaur, or the lunch lady was a harpy.
But now matter what weird things he saw, and for some reason only he saw, they didn’t normally attack him. Normally, they didn’t pay him, or any other humans, any attention at all. This time was different. This time felt bizarrely personal.
I didn’t do it! Grantaire wanted to shout at the creature — a manticore, his mind supplied, though from where, he didn’t know — but since he didn’t know what it was this monster thought he had done, he couldn’t very well say that he hadn’t done it.
Another dart smashed on the sidewalk near Grantaire’s feet and he yelped again, wishing for not the first time that day that he couldn’t see monsters, or that they just didn’t exist. The manticore was the fourth or fifth monster to attack him in the past few weeks, but none of the others had come this close to getting him. And none had seemed quite as dangerous or as liable to kill him.
He threw a panicked look over his shoulder. The monster was gaining on him, and he looked around wildly for some way out. Just ahead, a limousine pulled to a stop at the corner, and he glanced over it with a practiced eye. Armored. VIP. Could possibly withstand a manticore attack.
With a deftness he didn’t know he had, Grantaire dove toward the door of the limo, wrenched it open, slid inside and slammed it behind him before collapsing, breathing heavily.
“Well what do we have here?” a female voice asked coolly, and Grantaire looked up, suddenly feeling like he might have been better off staying outside of the limo.
Then again, maybe not, since the limo rocked wildly as the manticore slammed into it, and Grantaire closed his eyes, for the first time feeling truly scared. “Dearest, take care of it, will you?” the woman asked, sounding almost bored, and there was a low rumble of male laughter, followed by a snap of his fingers and a weird pop as the manticore...well, as the manticore seemed to just disappear.
For the first time, Grantaire managed to look up at the limo’s occupants, and his jaw dropped open. Sitting across from him was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. It was impossible to describe what she looked like, because her appearance kept changing, First she was brunette, but then changed to blonde, and her eyes went from brown to green to gray to blue. As for what she was wearing...Grantaire honestly never made it past looking at her face.
“You can stop staring at any time, punk,” the man at her side growled, and Grantaire only just managed to tear his eyes away to look at him for the first time. He was big and looked mean, decked out in leather and combat boots, and was for some reason wearing sunglasses indoors.
Grantaire bristled, but before he could retort, the lady laughed, and Grantaire again forgot everything because while the woman’s face was beautiful enough, it was nothing compared to the her laugh, a light and delicate sound that made Grantaire feel a little woozy. “Now, now,” she said, patting the big man on the arm, “that’s no way to talk to our guest.” She looked carefully at Grantaire. “And what is your name, young man?”
For a moment, Grantaire couldn’t seem to speak, but when the man shifted menacingly in his seat, he managed to stammer, “Gr—Grantaire, ma’am.”
“Oh, there’s no need to call me ‘ma’am’,” she assured him, smiling sweetly, though there was something sharp in her smile. “Grantaire, hm? French?”
Grantaire nodded slowly. “Yeah, uh, it was my mom’s maiden name,” he muttered, blushing furiously under her scrutiny. “Kind of stupid, I know…”
Her smile grew brighter, and Grantaire’s blush only deepened as she assured him, “No, no, I happen to be very fond of the French. They are a people who understand the deep and complicated nature of love, and you might say that love is my specialty.”
This seemed to be an inside joke between her and the man at her side, since both laughed slightly at that, and Grantaire tried to smile weakly, but couldn’t seem to manage it. “So, uh, what’s your name?” he asked awkwardly, shrinking back when the man scowled dangerously at him.
“That’s none of your business—” he started, but when the woman again touched him, he sat back, though he didn’t look happy about it.
“You can call me Aphrodite,” she told Grantaire.
Grantaire scratched the back of his neck. “LIke...the goddess of love?” he asked, feeling stupid. Who in the heck would name their kid after a Greek goddess? Even if she did look beautiful enough to fit the part.
Her smile widened. “Very much like that, yes.” She waved dismissively at her companion. “And as for my friend...you may address him as—”
“Lord Ares, god of War,” the man growled, something almost maniacal in his smile.
Grantaire looked from Aphrodite to Ares, trying to decide if this was some sort of cosmic joke. If it was, he wasn’t laughing. “So let me get this straight,” he said, shifting towards the door of the limo, figuring that if these two were as crazy as Grantaire thought they were, he could probably get out before they killed him. Probably. “You’re the goddess of love and the god of war, who I just happened to run into because I was fleeing a manticore, and you’re just chilling in a limo in the middle of New York City for...I don’t know, fun?”
Aphrodite smiled. “Technically, we’re waiting for my son,” she corrected him. “He was supposed to be hunting the manticore that instead decided to chase you. And as for why or even how you managed to run into us, well…” She shrugged gracefully. “There are some mysteries in the world even we can’t explain.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully with one perfectly manicured finger. “Though I do have my suspicions, and if I’m right…” She trailed off, her smile growing wider and her eyes gleaming as she looked at Grantaire like he was something she wanted to devour. “If I’m right, that means it’s long past time I had a conversation with Apollo. The spirit of Delphi has been quiet for far too long.”
Nothing that Aphrodite had said made any sense to Grantaire, but he found himself nodding as if he completely understood. “Right...the spirit of...right.”
Aphrodite snapped her fingers and a pad of paper appeared in mid-air, accompanied by a lurid glittery pink pen with a fuzzy heart attached to the end. She picked up the pen and started scribbling something down, while telling Grantaire, suddenly businesslike, “I do believe it was serendipity that we met today, Grantaire Durand.” Grantaire’s eyes widened — he had never told her his last name. “And I regret that I cannot spend more time with you, as I would love to know so much more. But there’s someone who will benefit from your company far more than I.”
She ripped the top sheet off the pad of paper, folded it in half and offered to Grantaire, who stared at it like he didn’t know what he was supposed to do with it. “This will get you safely to camp. From there, I have some wonderful surprises in store for you.” She looked so happy that Grantaire couldn’t help but smile, though his smile faltered as she continued, “Danger, indecision, possible heartbreak...oh, I haven’t had this much to look forward to in years .”
Grantaire’s voice didn’t seem to be working properly as he squeaked, “Danger? What kind of danger?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that just yet,” Aphrodite told him sweetly, and to his surprise, she leaned in to kiss his cheek lightly, ignoring the angry rumbling from the man next to her. “I can’t interfere much more or it just wouldn’t be fair. Of course, love isn’t fair. But I can give you my blessing before you even need to ask for it.”
His cheek was tingling from where her lips had touched his skin, and Grantaire raised an almost reverent hand to touch the spot, though he froze when he saw a strange reddish glow coming from his skin. As quickly as he spotted it, the glow disappeared, but it left Grantaire feeling strange, and he stared at Aphrodite, trying to make sense of everything that had happened in the past five minutes. “Take the note, kid,” Ares growled, and Grantaire shook his head slightly to clear it before reaching forward and grabbing the note.
“Be nice, dearest,” Aphrodite chided, though she suddenly perked up. “Oh, unless I’m mistaken, your escort approaches. He’ll take you to camp, and if I’m right, well beyond that as well.” She clapped her hands together happily. “I can barely wait! You may be just a mortal, dear, but I suspect you’ve got quite the role to play in this.”
Grantaire opened his mouth to ask one of the approximately eight thousand questions swirling in his mind right now, but before he could say anything, someone rapped on the window of the limo. Aphrodite waved her hand and the door opened to admit a young man about Grantaire’s age.
For the second time that day, Grantaire’s mouth fell open, because while Aphrodite had an otherworldly beauty, this guy was just plain gorgeous. He had blond curls and deep blue eyes, and even though he was currently scowling, Grantaire could tell that his facial features looked like they’d been carved from the finest marble. He looked like...like Adonis, like a Greek statue come to life, and Grantaire wanted to do nothing more than try to sculpt an exact copy. Or just make out with him. Either way.
Aphrodite positively beamed at them both. “Grantaire Durand, allow me to introduce my son,” she said, waving at the guy as if he were a prize on a gameshow. “This is Enjolras. And he’ll be taking you to camp.”