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TO QUESTION, to ponder, to seek out the gods is sacrilegious. the gods preferred their divinity to be kept strictly within the confines of worship — whether by completing their ‘menial’ tasks or by committing sacrifices, they, in their infinite wisdom, are not allowed to be objected to.
“so, my mom’s a god? of love?”
you sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose, and mentally counted to three. opening your eyes, you make eye contact with the newest addition to camp, and your newest responsibility. bruised and scuffed, the poor kid blinks back at you confusedly as you mull your options. “yes, and no,” you decide.
“our mom’s a goddess, and love is just the most common of her jurisdictions.”
the new camper looks around the cabin, taking it in, you follow their gaze, lingering on the painted swans on the wall behind you, and bouncing to the pearls adorning the vanity, littered with various seashell trays holding gold jewelry (the first time you had entered these very walls, your throat had tightened at the pure ostentatiousness of it all).
they glance back at you, confused. you sighed again, “yes, our mom is the goddess of love.”
“oh.”
the candles residing in conches flicker as if waiting to pass judgment, and silence blankets you and the new camper once more (this is potentially your fiftieth time attempting to explain the same concept, yet you’re no better at it than when you first started — shaking and solemn).
needless to say, it’s more than just difficult to explain this tacit rule to new campers — after whatever tragic event transpired for them to realize that the greek gods of myth and legend indeed exist, they simply don’t have the mental capacity to learn the unspoken rules of the whole being a demigod thing.
you could be warmer, somehow, you suppose, with your mother being the goddess of love and all — in all honesty, you’re still not sure how you became the aphrodite cabin counselor, over selina (the entirety of camp half-blood’s favorite daughter of aphrodite) but the counselorship would have ended up in your hands anyway, after everything (the sight of her once-beautiful face as she coughed up blood in clarisse’s lap swims across your memories).
you pinched the bridge of your nose again, sighing as the candles snuffed out all at once of their own accord (judgment has been passed), “take the empty bed in the corner, we get up at like the ass crack of dawn so you might wanna catch up on your sleep.”
you watched the kid sit on the bed (looking every bit out of place as you did when you first arrived amidst the sheer indulgence the cabin is), and you can’t help but feel a pang in your chest as the child (the entire camp is full of children, but the vast majority of you have never gotten the chance to be the children that you are) stared wide-eyed at posters of movie stars, like tristan mclean, adorning the walls.
with one last glance and forlorn smile at the kid, you walked out of your cabin, your expression hardening at the sight of other campers. the walk to the arena is a short yet bleak one, in the silence you can hear drew’s screaming ringing in your ear (drew is preferable to hearing your other half-siblings, ethan, or even luke; drew is alive).
in the middle of the sword-fighting lesson being taught, you slipped into the arena, undetected for the most part except for the pair of sea-green eyes trained on your figure as you came and stood next to him, clearly hanging back.
“this is usually your shit, jackson,” you say, ignoring how pitiful your racing heart is, and watching clarisse at the helm, steam blowing out of her ears as new campers fell over themselves trying to parry and block with wooden swords.
percy turns to look at you, and from the corner of your eye, you can sense the storm brewing across his face. “maybe i’m not the attention whore you think i am,” he snorts, and there is a small trace of bile in his voice, but you don’t focus on that.
instead, your face burns at the memory of your last argument after you dove in front of ethan’s knife (you still wince when you remember the way his visible eye widened when he realized it was you who caught the blow), and percy’s bitterness as will patched you up, what the fuck is wrong with you, you could’ve gotten yourself killed.
and your weak but indignant reply, i literally saved your life, asshole. are you that much of an attention-whore that you need to be the one on their deathbed right now?
“i’d say you kind of are,” you say, turning to meet his gaze (for a brief, stupid, second you wonder if somehow he was a son of zeus because of how the air suddenly became charged with electricity), arms folding across your chest. “the whole making the gods pay child support is a bit attention-whore-esque.”
percy laughed, a sound you and the other campers haven’t heard in a while (it’s different from before but it is still a sound that in your weaker moments, you admit to craving to hear). “someone had to do it,” he says, sobering up immediately.
“luke tried,” you whispered (the name is still taboo around camp), shivering as you felt percy stiffen beside you. a beat passes and the resulting silence is suffocating.
percy offers you a sad, tight smile before walking out of the arena. you watch him go with a strange pain in your chest and a longing for the before, the laughter leaping across the sun-drenched strawberry fields, the joking i told you so’s during meals, and the softness of the campfire sing-a-longs.
it’s hard not to blame the gods, for that is blasphemy, but on most nights, you find yourself uttering your mother’s name with a tangible acidity, and you find that you’re not alone in this sentiment. the once-reverent echoes of aphrodite, promise me true love, promise me victory, promise me beauty, have now faded to lifeless whispers — formalities instead of prayers.
even your own prayers are different now, you pray for the sea — if your mother is allowed to be ambiguous with her gifts (curses) then she must expect the same ambiguity in your prayers in return. when you’re done half-heartedly muttering your prayers and sacrificing your food, your gaze meets a familiar pair of sea-green eyes across the campfire, glowing like a beacon in the dark.
standing up, you find drew, looking every bit as perfect as ever. you lean down to whisper, “lights out at eleven, i’ll be back.”
drew nods, squeezing your hand before she begins herding the rest of your half-siblings back to your cabin, solemn and toneless (an empty shell compared to the once vibrant and snarky drew from before).
the walk to the beach is silent, although you know that you’re being followed — you didn’t survive the war being complacent. when you finally do arrive, the mysterious figure reveals himself in the moonlight (again, you’d be a fool to not recognize the son of poseidon’s careful footsteps).
percy looks every bit of a character straight out of a tragic romance novel that your mother probably inspired, and again your heart squeezes painfully at the sight of him — under the scars and the jaded attitude, he is still the same percy jackson with stars in his eyes when he first introduced you to his mother.
“why do the naiads call you that?” percy asks abruptly, tilting his head to the side as if studying you as he approaches.
barely audible accusations of apatu’ria bubble at the surface of the lake like seafoam; the whispers have followed you since you arrived at camp, and you have never known why.
“call me what?” you ask, feigning ignorance as iterations of deceitful replay across your mind.
percy blinks, confused, “isn’t your mother related to the sea somehow? don’t you know they call you apatu’ria?”
you fiddle with the gold bracelet on your wrist (a gift from selina), percy’s gaze follows the movement as you hesitate. “well, yeah, like i know what it means but i don’t know why they call me that.”
percy shrugged, shoving his hands into the pocket of his jeans. “they call me ‘prosklystios’ a lot,” he said (in the way that he knows you, better than you know yourself).
“so what, we’re just reduced to epithets of our parents? what an honor,” you mumbled sarcastically, staring out at the lake, watching its surface ripple as the accusations grew more fervent. you paid it no mind however, the burden of being a daughter of aphrodite had already claimed its weight on your shoulders.
“careful,” percy sighed, his gaze focusing on you instead of the water, “might’ve just won a war but that won’t stop either of us from being smited if big guy in the sky thinks we’re being impertinent.”
distant thunder rumbled overhead as if proving his point.
“speak for yourself, pretty boy,” you say, eyes looking toward the firmament littered with stars, incognizant of your admission, “if i got the gods to basically pay child support without being sent to tartarus, i would do whatever the fuck i wanted.”
percy being percy, of course, did not register that last bit of your sentence, a shit-eating grin forming across his face, a slight red hue tinging his cheeks, “you think i’m pretty.”
you turn to look at him, ignoring how your heart hammers at the way he’s smiling down at you, you roll your eyes. “percy,” you say slowly. “my mom is the goddess of love, everyone’s gorgeous in her eyes.”
“yeah, but not everyone’s gorgeous in your eyes.”
gods, he was so aggravating but the way his eyes twinkled and the genuine elation on his face almost made you admit defeat.
you crossed your arms over your chest, narrowing your eyes at him, “this is why i never compliment you, you always let it go to your head.”
“aw, c’mon, you love me for it though,” percy says, still grinning widely, his unruly black hair falling into place perfectly.
“you’re an actual attention-whore,” you say, spinning around on your heels and trekking across the sand, leaving percy alone to stare out at the water. you walk back to camp, ignoring percy’s calls of wait punctuated by his laughter as he jogs up behind you.
“i hope mr. d catches you out past curfew and the harpies eat you,” you say deadpan, once percy has caught up to you.
“you’d miss me too much and would come to be my hero, again,” percy smirks at you, following along as you head toward aphrodite cabin (you’re secretly very glad for his presence, you hate walking around camp when it’s this deserted — the memories that you tried so desperately to bury try to claw their way to the surface).
“just because i caught a knife for you, once, does not mean that i’ll ever do it again,” you say, folding your arms across your chest as you stand outside the door of your cabin. “getting stabbed is not a ten out of ten experience.”
percy softens, his impish grin still there, but the intensity of his gaze is enough to make you melt, “good, can’t have you dying on me.”
you snorted, “even if i did die, i’d tell nico to raise my ghost so i could haunt you forever.”
percy’s still smiling, his eyes are still soft, and he’s so close to you right now. “go out with me,” he says, suddenly, earnestly.
blood rushes to your ears. “what?” you blinked, staring at him as if he’d grown another head.
percy shrugged, leaning forward to press a feather-light kiss to the crown of your head. you barely registered the action in your mind, trying to regain your ability to form coherent sentences as you watched him. percy looked away from your questioning gaze. “better go before the harpies eat me,” he said before jogging in the direction of his cabin.
he leaves you standing in front of your cabin door, frozen in shock for another five minutes, before you shake it off, and head inside, convincing yourself that you had imagined the entire encounter. the familiar scent of jasmine envelops you as you linger in the doorway. drew is still awake on her bed, her back pressed against the wall and her head in her arms. she doesn’t bother to look up at your entry until you’re sat next to her, curling an arm around her bony shoulders and pulling her into an embrace.
the two of you sit in silence as drew attempts to calm her heartbeats to sync with yours, her head resting on your shoulder as you rub soothing circles into the planes of her shoulder. you fall asleep in a tangled mess of limbs, a desperate attempt to close the gaping hole selina left in her wake. this is sisterhood, you think when you wake up and drew’s head weighs like lead on your shoulder.
the bright morning does little to assuage your burdens — you know it’s going to be a long day as soon as you hear campers giggling. rule number one of being a camp counselor: no matter how benign, giggling is the number one sign of trouble.
you took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before turning to the younger half of your half-siblings currently in the process of attempting arts and crafts. “what the fuck do you guys keep giggling about?”
your half-siblings only giggle harder.
after what seemed like eons, the new camper finally comes up to you — a kid no older than eight, who motions for you to bend down before they begin stage-whispering in your ear, “is percy jackson your boyfriend?”
you immediately feel scandalized, jerking away like you’ve been burned, “no, who said that?”
(when you’re being lulled to sleep by the sound of drew’s imperceptible snoring in your ear, your subconscious spends its time lingering, dwelling on could’ve been’s, and should’ve been’s, the obsession as stubborn as when you refused to believe that percy had actually died on mount st helens.)
the kid continues to smile ‘innocently’, “everyone says that you guys hold hands at campfires.”
sudden flashes of percy’s unyielding grip on your hand and his broad smile, as he forced you into a sing-a-long with him, rise to the forefront of your mind, but that was before — when annabeth still had a steely look in her eyes, when travis and connor’s antics still garnered laughs from everyone (and a rare amused glance from mr. d). now (the after), there is no such jocularity, and percy is kept at arm’s length, reduced to offering you sad smiles across the campfire.
“we do not hold hands at campfires,” you say, struggling to keep the disdain out of your voice.
“but there’s a ‘we’,” the kid says, scrutinizing you up and down.
you have to mentally count to three so that you don’t end up arguing with a literal child (it’s not a great way to prove that your sanctity is still intact). “there’s no we.”
the kid shrugs in an if you say so gesture, giving you one last weirdly knowing look before turning back to their arts and crafts. a weighty silence settles, punctuated only by the sounds of scissors and rustling papers.
stares and loud whispers follow you around camp, more so than usual for an aphrodite kid — clarisse finds you in the midst of it all, lost in thought when her cabin is supposed to be pulverizing apollo cabin at volleyball, a sharp glint in her eye.
“you’d tell if me you were dating prissy, right?” she says, her hand faintly closing around your elbow, pulling you out of your reverie.
“what are you talking about?” you say, eyebrows raising in shock. this wasn’t your first rodeo — just before the war this summer, camp gossip had credited you to be going out with connor stoll, but this was different. clarisse was the fifth person today who had asked you if you were dating percy.
“so you are dating him?” clarisse looks offended, or well, as offended as clarisse can be, “and you didn’t tell me.”
you can feel eyes on you, watching your every move as other campers subtly pause their activities to listen in.
“clarisse,” you say slowly, reaching out to hold her forearms and looking her in the eye, “i’m not dating percy.” when she opens her mouth to interrupt, you add, “and i would definitely tell you if i was.”
clarisse exhales, shooting you a disbelieving look, but mercifully leaving you alone with a quiet, “okay.”
you know what she’s thinking, so you offer her a taut smile, patting her on her shoulder as you brush past her. you headed toward the lake, with a feeling that you’d find the answers you were searching for.
the lake is empty except for one solitary figure on the sand, facing the horizon with his hands in his pockets. you hang back for a minute or two, taking in the sight of percy with his eyes closed, and the peaceful look on his face.
a grin settled across his face as he addressed you, his eyes still closed, “i know you think i’m pretty, you don’t have to stare to prove it.”
you ignored his words, and he opened his eyes to watch you angrily march across the sand to stand face to face with him.
“are you the reason why everyone thinks we’re seeing each other?”
“yeah, why?”
to say that you’re taken aback is an understatement — you had anticipated some more denial but this was unexpected. and sudden.
you jab a finger at his chest, “everyone’s getting the wrong idea, so you need to stop whatever it is you’re doing like right now.”
“but they could have the right idea,” percy says, looking amused.
your heart scrapes painfully against your chest, “what the fuck are you talking about?”
“we could be dating, forreal,” percy says, excruciatingly slow, elongating each word.
the earth stops spinning on its axis for a minute, and time seems to freeze — for a split second you worry kronos has risen again before you calm your racing heartbeat and exhale slowly.
“i need you to be so forreal right now,” you say, your eyebrows furrowing.
“i’m being so deadass right now.”
“no, you’re not,” you say, turning and walking away. your heart squeezes pitifully in your chest, as you call out, “find me when you stop joking,” before leaving him alone on the shore.
when percy approaches you again, you think he’s finally come back to his senses, though a weaker, more primitive urge inside you hopes that he hasn’t (it’s for the better, you try and fail to convince yourself).
he interrupts your conversation with drew (though the two of you weren’t doing much talking), smiling charmingly at her before asking if he could steal you away for a minute during breakfast. drew shot you a concerned look, waiting for your reassuring smile before assenting.
“you’ve come to your senses?” you ask after percy leads you away from the mess hall.
“i’ve always had my senses, thank you very much,” percy grins.
you roll your eyes, trying not to smile, “oh yeah, i could totally tell when you played rock, paper, scissors with a hundred-handed one last summer.”
“hey,” percy says, throwing his hands up in the air defensively, “i won that one.”
“on a gamble,” you countered, smiling (you missed this, missed him, and the feeling that everything will be alright enduring).
“not the point.”
“then what is?”
“go out with me,” he repeats, sudden, and earnest.
your heart stuttered pitifully. “not this again,” you sighed.
“why not?”
“why?”
“you know why,” percy tries to make eye contact with you. still, you avoid his gaze, watching the other campers heading into the mess hall give the two of you weird looks.
“no, i don’t,” you say firmly, before walking away, ignoring his protests, leaving behind a group of onlookers that you could care less about, and percy, who was staring at the spot you had just been standing in.
you returned to your cabin, to the familiar jasmine scent and pearl adornments, and promptly collapsed on your bed. more than anything, you just wanted your mother. you wanted your mother to smooth out your hair as you cried, offer you advice, and get rid of the stupid curse.
the door opens quietly and you immediately sit up, dabbing at your face and hoping that your eyes haven’t turned red and swollen already. drew shut the door gently behind her, her expression softening the slightest fraction at the sight of you.
“do i look that bad?” you ask, trying not to sniffle (and failing miserably).
a whirlwind of emotions cross drew’s face and you manage a watery grin. “okay, y’know what, don’t tell me then.”
drew sits next to you on the bed, handing you a box of tissues, “wasn’t planning to.”
the two of you sit shoulder to shoulder as she lets you have a minute to clean up before going straight for the jugular. “i heard what happened.”
you laughed, a choking noise that dissolved into weak coughing. drew patted your back. “so, the entire camp knows now?”
“no,” she says, before changing her mind, “well, yeah.”
“great,” you groaned, “my life is so over.”
drew tensed, tearing her gaze from the posters of hot people on the wall, to look at you, her brown eyes ablaze with fury and her silver earrings (also a gift from silena) jangle, “shut up, you’re the senior counselor of aphrodite cabin, and they’re all losers unworthy of your time. your life so isn’t over.”
(this is the drew from before, the drew that comes and goes in flashes so sudden that you try to piece her together like a puzzle that never seems to connect.)
“the curse,” you say, your throat tight.
drew’s eyes widen imperceptibly, her blue eyeshadow sparkling in the candlelit cabin, before her expression settles into a scowl. “what about the gift?” her voice sharpens as she stresses the last word, sparing the smallest glance toward the roof of the cabin.
you can’t continue, and you don’t have to — she knows what it is that you’re thinking of (she always has, from the minute you met her, two cold and shaking children alone in the dark).
she shakes her head emphatically. “silena,” her voice chokes, before dropping to a whisper, “silena left us — you can’t leave us too.”
“i know,” you whisper back, your eyes filling with tears. “i know.”
“oh, honey,” drew says sympathetically, drawing you into her arms, and smoothing your hair away from your face as you let out a sob against her shoulder. “break his heart,” she says.
“i can’t,” you mumble.
“you have to. he’ll die if you don’t, and a broken heart is better than dying.”
“i can’t do that to him, he’s so unbelievably good, drew, he deserves everything and more.”
“ignoring how ridiculously sappy that sounded, look at what happened to beckendorf,” you pretend not to notice how drew stumbles through his name (he looked at silena as if she had personally hung the stars in the night sky), “maybe he wouldn’t have gotten over it, but he would’ve been alive.”
you remember how silena had proudly said she was going to put an end to the archaic rite of passage your cabin was infamous for around camp; beautiful, idealistic silena with stars in her eyes (who liked beckendorf to the point she’d blush profusely at the mention of his name), who had no idea that this would all come crashing down around her some short months later.
at your silence, drew continues, still stroking your hair, “look, not to make this harder, but even i’ll admit jackson’s one of those guys you meet once in a lifetime—”
“thanks, drew, that was really helpful,” you interrupt, chuckling dryly.
“oh, shut up, i had a point,” drew says, swatting your shoulder playfully.
you sigh, letting her continue.
“so, like i was saying before i was so rudely interrupted, because jackson’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime type of guys—” here, you coughed pointedly, making drew glare at you before continuing, “—you should be like more willing to see him happy and like living a long ass life because you’re so in love with him.”
“so what, either i reject him and ruin our friendship irreversibly or we date and i break his heart and ruin our friendship irreversibly, or we date and i don’t break his heart and he dies tragically and there’s a possibility that i die tragically too?”
drew shrugged, making a tiny braid in your hair, “pretty much.”
you turned your head in her lap to look her in the eye, “how are you so apathetic about this?”
“someone has to be because you’re not thinking this through rationally.”
you groaned, “aphrodite has to hate us.” (you haven’t called her ‘mom’ genuinely except to her face during the winter solstices.)
“no, she lives for this kind of thing,” drew rolled her eyes, braiding another piece of your hair, “she definitely thinks she’s doing us a favor.”
you groaned again, “what if i just avoid him until summer ends and he goes back to school and forgets this happened.”
“i didn’t think love made you this stupid,” drew says, amused.
“shut up, i can’t wait until you have the same dilemma, and you’re the one asking for advice.”
“doubt it,” drew says, wryly.
you rolled your eyes, “okay, but what if i tell him about the ‘gift’,” you make air-quotes, “and let him decide?”
“yeah, but what if that just makes it backfire and makes you die tragically either way.”
“well, at least he’ll know about the possibility? it’s better than just being like ‘oh i can’t date you even though i’ve liked you since i was twelve’ with like zero explanation whatsoever.”
you hear muffled footsteps coming from outside of the cabin, and the door swings open loudly to admit lacy, who looks flustered and out of breath. you and drew quickly sprang up off your bed at her arrival.
“your boyfriend’s asking for you,” she says, looking at you.
drew raises her eyebrows at you, an unspoken are you going to see him? behind it.
you furrowed your eyebrows back at her, conveying no, shut up.
drew shrugged at you as if saying if you say so.
lacy looks between the two of you, confusion apparent before cautiously interrupting, “he’s waiting outside, by the way.”
you panicked at the thought of possibly confronting percy, “lacy, whatever you do, don’t tell him i’m in here.” you paused, “wait, tell him i’m taking a nap or something, please.”
more shuffling noises can be heard from outside, and drew groans, smacking her forehead with her palm, “what is wrong with you?”
you ignored her, focusing on lacy, whose confusion intensified as she looked between the two of you. “tell him i’m sleeping and he should try coming back later.”
she nodded, before opening the door and stepping outside.
drew stared at you, “y’know, i thought people were exaggerating when they said love makes you stupid but after looking at you, they were so right.”
you scowled at drew. she raised her arms in surrender, “just calling it like i see it.”
lacy returned a second later, “um, he wasn’t outside when i went to tell him.”
that was decidedly odd, but you chalked it up to him being busy or something, and shrugged, “i’ll see him later, it’s fine.”
it was actually not fine, because you didn’t see him later. or the next day. or the day after. well, you saw him but you didn’t see him. percy had somehow uncovered a hidden talent for making himself appear everywhere and nowhere all at once. he was there at meals, laughing with tyson or grover, he was at sword fighting practices, leading the class or giving clarisse a partner, he was at campfires, sitting next to annabeth and connor. yet, the minute you tried to approach him, it was almost as if he’d vanish, like an immortal was running interference.
you’ve taken to wandering by the lake on most nights — your only company the voices of silena (go talk to him, her urging is as present as if she was really there, memories of the time the two of you hadn’t been talking for a week resurging) and luke (what’re you doing out this late, kid? a phantom hand reaching out to ruffle your hair, and the feeling of ice being poured down your back envelops you).
as the sun sets, the tall and lanky figure — a figure you could recognize on the darkest nights — stands overlooking the lake in true jay gatsby fashion, his hands dug deep into the pockets of his baggy jeans. you stop and stare for a second (maybe a minute, an hour, time has truly escaped you), and suddenly you’re small and shivering in the dark again.
percy doesn’t look at you when you approach, though he fidgets with his camp necklace.
“hi,” you say, unsure of where to begin.
percy sighs, “look, if you’re here to ask for space, i get it, i didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable the other day.” he doesn’t turn to look at you or even glance at you through the corner of his eye once.
“what?” you ask. “what are you talking about?”
“trust me, i get it, you don’t have to try to spare my feelings,” percy says. you want to will him to spare you just a glance. still, he avoids your gaze, focused on the horizon before you. “we’ve been friends for so long, i thought you could be honest with me.”
his words, though not said harshly (percy isn’t capable of being harsh, not to you at least) cut through you like a knife.
“you heard me when i was talking to lacy, then,” you say, with horror as the realization dawns on you slowly.
percy finally looks at you, and the sheer hurt in his iridescent eyes makes you inhale sharply. a lump forms in your throat.
“i did,” he confirms quietly. “why didn’t you say something earlier?”
fighting in a war hadn’t prepared you for man’s greatest folly, something that you, arguably, should’ve been good at. the lump in your throat is difficult to dislodge, yet percy is patient as you swallow uncomfortably.
“i never meant it like that.”
percy’s eyes flash, and you feel sick to your stomach. “have you ever wondered why so many of the other cabins hate us?”
his previously pained expression morphed into a look of confusion. you continued, “in aphrodite cabin, our rite of passage is to break your first love’s heart. silena—” your voice breaks. “—silena tried to put an end to it, and then both she and beckendorf—” you choke up again, and percy’s expression becomes solemn, “died tragically. we didn’t know the consequences of not doing it were real until then, and we realized it was a curse.”
you watch percy seemingly wrestle with his thoughts, taking a step toward you.
“why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” there is no judgment in his voice, yet you still feel embarrassment pooling in your stomach.
“can you honestly tell me that you’re okay with this? with the gods dictating another aspect of your life?” (somewhere in the back of your mind, you can hear luke’s voice repeating the same sentence.)
“you didn’t ask for this either.”
“it’s not our job to question them,” you say, trying not to let a tear slip.
“maybe we should,” percy says, still looking straight at you.
“careful,” you say, as thunder rumbled distantly overhead, “this is what luke was saying.”
“i don’t care,” percy says, “if you or i die a tragic death, we’ll just have to go through tartarus.”
he said it so simply, so matter-of-factly that your breath catches in your throat.
“so, you’re okay with this?” you ask, trying to suppress the tinge of hopefulness in your voice.
percy looked at you in disbelief, his face was so earnest, “why wouldn’t i be?”
you laughed, more out of shock than anything else. percy continued, “i think your mother would think we’d make a cute couple, so maybe she won’t curse us with a tragic end.”
you’re grinning now, tears forgotten, “more like she’ll give us a tragic end because she likes us.”
percy shrugged, “i think we’ll be fine as long as we’re together.”
he kissed you, finally, which was long over-due, and you felt like everything was finally falling into place.
“took you guys long enough.”
you turned around to find the source of the interruption, making eye-contact with clarisse, her arms folded and a smug expression on her face. beside her stands most of your friends, all adorning matching wicked expressions. your heart stops beating for a second before your cheeks flush with embarrassment.
“how much of that did you guys hear?” percy asked, suddenly looking bashful.
“most of it,” drew replied with a smirk.
percy looked at you, a mixture of embarrassment and amusement on his face as your friends surrounded the both of you, hoisting you on their shoulders.
“maybe the two of you need to cool off,” annabeth said with a laugh.
connor grinned at her, before calling out, “dump them in the lake!”
you groaned, begging, “annabeth, please.”
“this is payback for all the pining i had to witness over the years,” she said, grinning.
percy shrugged at you, a grin on his face as if saying accept your fate. you gave in, shaking your head as you laughed at their antics.