Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When they get to New York City, the first thing Luke wants to do is shop.

For clothes.

In Soho.

Percy regrets his life so hard right now.

It’s worse than shopping with his mom. Luke doesn’t even let Percy sit on an armchair and exchange commiserating glances with the other innocent bystanders. Instead, he drags Percy around with him, shoving hangers into his hands and telling him it’s for strength training when he complains. Percy’s about to just drop everything on the floor—not even Luke can get away with murder in a public place—when Luke glances down at his arms, then back up at his face, and raises his eyebrows. And then, well. It’s only when Percy finds himself press-ganged into a fitting room does he realize that Luke has tricked Percy into shopping, too. 

Evil. Pure evil. This trip is doomed.

Percy doesn’t need new clothes. His Camp Half-Blood shirt looks fine. It doesn’t have holes in it or anything. Honestly, they both have enough to wear. Luke even has two pairs of shoes now, since Percy gave him the flying ones back as soon as Argus dropped them off.

“Is this blood?”

“Yeah. But it’s my blood.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better about blood on my shoes?”

“Considering that you tried to kill me with them, yeah.”

At that, Luke had rolled his eyes, like Percy was the one being a big baby about a few drops of blood. Whatever. The stupid cursed flying shoes are Luke’s problem now. Percy’s going to use the free backpack space to pack actually important things, like snacks.

Luke buys a designer suit jacket, a shirt that isn’t bright orange, fitted pants and a pair of fashionable sneakers, pulling off the evil male model look as well as he did when he was raising an army of monsters and putting Kronos together like a one million piece puzzle. Percy buys one plain blue T-shirt, and then he drags Luke to a mini mart, where he makes Luke buy him ten packs of jelly beans and a couple king-size M&Ms. 

When Luke starts adding things like vegetables to his grocery basket, Percy tells him that he’s gonna wait outside. Thankfully, this time Luke lets him go.

Percy beelines for the skateboard shop across the street and presses his nose to the front window. There’s a bright orange longboard with “I SURVIVED SCHOOL TODAY” painted on it in big white letters, which seems pretty useful. Still, the boards aren’t as cool as the ones in the shop at Rockefeller Center. Percy will take what he can get, though. 

That’s pretty much his plan for this entire trip anyway.

Percy leans his forehead against the cool glass, only resisting the urge to knock his head against it a few times because the shopkeeper is already giving him a dirty look. 

What is he doing? They aren’t ready to go get the Golden Fleece. Percy’s operation in Camp Half-Blood can carry on without him for a couple days, but he needs to be there in order to really make progress. Without a camper to coordinate, there’s only so much the naiads and nymphs can do.

But, Percy also needs to figure out what to do with Luke. Keeping him at camp like this won’t end in anything but tragedy. And if Percy can’t defuse the landmine, he’s going to have to step on it, and he doesn’t want Annabeth or Grover or anyone else to be around for the explosion.

Yup. Percy’s doing just fine. He doesn’t need to know what he’s doing. This is how he rolls.

Suddenly, a shadow. Percy’s entire body twitches, and he hears a soft scoff.

“Why are you looking at skateboards?” asks Luke.

“Maybe Kronos wants us to get a skateboard.”

Luke presses a hand on the top of Percy’s head and physically turns him away from the window display. 

“Does Kronos want us to get a skateboard,” he says.

“…No.”

Luke gives Percy a dirty look. Then he lets Percy’s head go in favor of grabbing his wrist, dragging him away from the store like he’s an actual child.

Jerk.

Well, Annabeth wouldn’t have let Percy waste time by looking at the skateboards either, but that’s different. Annabeth is Percy’s friend. Luke is the guy who tried to drag him into Tartarus by his own flying shoes.

“Hey!” Percy protests. “You don’t have to pull me.”

“Then walk on your own,” Luke says. He tightens his grip painfully before letting go. 

Percy rubs his wrist, sulking, but he doesn’t stray from Luke’s side again. 

After a moment of silence for Percy’s dignity, Luke side-eyes him and asks, “What’s your plan for getting us to the Sea of Monsters? And don’t tell me that we’re skateboarding there.”

Percy shuts his mouth.

Last time, Percy had prayed to the ocean, and then his dad had sent a school of hippocampi to help him out. For some reason, Percy doesn’t think that’ll happen this time around.

So he just says, “Uh, hello?” while gesturing to his general son-of-Poseidon-ness

Luke makes a face that says, Oh, right, Percy’s a weirdly powerful demigod, but I momentarily forgot again because he’s such a Seaweed Brain. It’s a face that Annabeth wears a lot, and it’s making Percy miss her even more.

You promised, Seaweed Brain. We would not get separated! Ever again!

No. Things will be different this time around.

“Percy?” Luke says, in a tone that implies he’s already repeated himself several times.

“Right.” Percy blinks. “The Sea of Monsters. No big deal. Not to brag,” he continues, bragging, “but I could sail us there on a pool floatie.”

“But you won’t,” Luke says. He looks like he has a headache.

“...But I won’t,” Percy agrees reluctantly. “Well, how do you want to do it then? I don’t think anyone’s gonna sell two kids a boat for,” Percy checks his pockets, “four blue jelly beans and the destruction of Western civilization.”

“First of all, you’re a kid. I’m an adult. And second,” Luke pauses dramatically, looking pleased to know something that Percy doesn’t. “There is someone who would sell us a boat for that.”

——

Okay, Percy understands why Luke wanted that evil male model look now.

Luke’s boat seller lives in one of the fanciest skyscrapers in Manhattan, the kind with a doorman and a receptionist and personal elevators to the top floors. Framed in the weird geometric couch that Percy couldn’t figure out how to sit on, Luke looks right at home. Percy is getting dirty looks from the receptionist.

Honestly, Percy hasn’t felt this much like a bug crawling on someone’s shoe since he was fourteen and talking to Athena for the first time. And he wasn’t even pretending to be allied with a titan lord trying to destroy an entire pantheon of gods then. 

Percy shifts uncomfortably.

Yeah. This is much worse. But, it’s fine. Even if he isn’t dressed for the part, Percy can totally pull off evil.

He glances up at Luke, trying to figure out how to project the desire to exact vengeance on his parents and destroy Western civilization regardless of how many of his friends will die. Is it the scar? Percy doesn’t think he can give himself a facial disfigurement in the next two minutes and still have it look cool. 

Luke frowns. “What are you doing with your eyebrows?”

“Nothing,” Percy grumbles.

They sit in silence until—

“Mr. Germanicus will see you now,” says the receptionist, gesturing to one of the elevators. He sniffs imperiously as Percy passes his desk. Percy resists the urge to stick out his tongue. Then he does it anyway, since there has to be at least one upside to being twelve again. 

Besides, you know, being able to change the course of your entire life.

The elevator ride is direct and short, which is good because Percy isn’t sure if he can actually share a small space with Luke for more than twenty seconds without either one of them suffering a serious injury. So, it’s a pretty awkward ride to the top floor of the building. Luke stares stonily at the doors, and Percy tries not to fidget noticeably. At least the boat seller has better elevator music than the Underworld.

As the doors open, Luke straightens up further. Percy didn’t even know that was possible. He was already standing like Kronos had ironed out his spine.

And the guy he’s so nervous about doesn’t look like much either.

“Ah, hello, Mr. Castellan,” says the guy. “I thought we’d be seeing you again.”

Luke’s boat seller looks like a weird mix of Mr. D and Smelly Gabe, but with a neckbeard. His purple suit seems expensive, and he’s wearing gold chains around his neck. Lounging on the sectional behind him are two other guys, a beefier version of Hercules and a skinny guy who reminds Percy of a pike. Maybe they’re the boat seller’s more good-looking entourage. Rich people like that kind of thing, right?

“Sirs.” Luke nods at the boat seller and his entourage.

“And your friend…?” The boat seller smiles at Percy. It feels slimy.

Friend is a strong word, but Percy will let it slide, since, judging by the look Luke’s giving him, he might get tossed out the floor-to-ceiling windows if he doesn’t.

Luke clamps a hand on Percy’s shoulder and answers, “Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon.”

“Poseidon?” Pike Man asks. His gaze is flat and cold.

“Yeah,” Percy says. “What’s it to you?” 

Luke’s hand tightens like a vise. “Please excuse him. He gets cranky when he’s hungry.”

Percy opens his mouth to protest, but then Luke’s grip goes so tight that Percy becomes genuinely worried about whether he’ll be able to regain full use of his shoulder. As Percy tries his best to keep his face from twisting, Luke steps forward, walking half in front of him as the boat seller leads them to the couch.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Castellan. I know how children are. I have a young daughter myself, you know. But, enough pleasantries.” The boat seller settles down between Beefier Hercules and Pike Man. “Why have you come to speak with us today?”

Luke leans forward, lacing his fingers together. “I have a proposal I think you might be interested in.”

“Really?” The boat seller smirks. “Well, I do hope you’ve improved your pitch from last time. We are rather choosy, but that’s because we take each investment quite personally. We don’t involve any outside investors—just our own capital, and though it is substantial, we don’t like letting it go to waste.”

“Yes,” Luke says. It sounds like he’s forcing the words out through his gritted teeth. “I spent a long time thinking over your advice.”

The boat seller folds his hands under his weak chin. “Let’s hear it then.”

And Percy knows that Luke is charismatic. He’s a good public speaker, and he’s very convincing. That’s part of the reason why he was able to recruit so many demigods from Camp Half-Blood even before he had a shipful of monsters. But, Luke’s only ever put a token effort into coaxing Percy over to Kronos; he’s always been much more interested in killing him. That’s why Percy’s still surprised when he hears Luke explain his plan to the boat seller.

It doesn’t sound like the half-formed idea Percy described to Luke in the woods, constantly pausing and restarting, his voice so quiet that the creek almost drowned it out. With the bare bones Percy tossed him, Luke paints the end of Western civilization in brilliant technicolor. The retrieval of the Golden Fleece, the strategic recruitment of an army, the completion of the 1000 piece titan puzzle. Death. Destruction. The normal Kronos stuff. It’s a glorious vision of everything Percy spent four years fighting against.

Luke carefully skirts around the prophecy—probably because he isn’t sure if Percy knows about it yet—but the way he glances at Percy when he talks about the fall of Olympus indicates that the boat seller is probably aware.

The way that the boat seller’s eyes glint when he looks at Percy, too, confirms that.

Once Luke finishes, there’s a brief silence. Beefier Hercules and Pike Man exchange glances. The boat seller claps his hands together.

“Well,” he says, “this has been very interesting, Mr. Castellan. I must confess that previously we were somewhat skeptical of your...ability to execute your proposals.” Luke’s jaw twitches. “But you’ve made a good pitch.” The boat seller looks at Percy one more time, smiling in a way that makes him feel dirty, before turning back to Luke. “There’s a ship docked at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal. The Princess Andromeda . You’ll find it rather hard to miss, I’m sure, and—”

“Hold on a sec,” Percy blurts out. Is this guy for real? “You’re living it up in Manhattan. Why do you want Western civilization destroyed?”

Luke glares at Percy, his hands curling, but Percy’s more annoyed by how the boat seller is looking at him like he’s a particularly dumb puppy.

“Why, Mr. Jackson,” the boat seller cries, “it’s because we’re investors, of course! The current Western civilization is all well and good, but why be satisfied with good when there is always better? Mr. Castellan and you have so much potential. We want to provide our full support and guidance to young people like you two who can lead our world into a better future.” 

Beefier Hercules coughs into his fist. Pike Man rolls his eyes.

The boat seller grins.

“And to fertilize the ground for a better future,” he continues, leaning towards Percy like he’s sharing a secret, “there needs to be a true conflagration. Flames stoked by blood.” 

In his eyes, Percy can see a city on fire, people burning alive on crosses. He tries to move away, but he finds that he’s already flattened himself against the back of the couch.

Luke clears his throat. The boat seller sits back. He’s still smiling.

Wait a minute.

Incredible wealth. Investment in the future. Flames and blood.

Luke is speaking. “Thank you for your generosity—”

Flames and blood.

“You’re Nero,” Percy says.

Luke’s words cut off.

“My,” Nero says. “I’m flattered that someone as young as you would know little old me.”

“Commodus,” Percy looks at Beefier Hercules. “Caligula.” He shifts his gaze to Pike Man. 

“Three for three!” Nero turns to Commodus. “The Internet truly is a wonderful invention, isn’t it? Seven hundred years ago, your average child couldn’t even—”

Percy would like to say that he had a plan before moving. That it was a calculated decision to uproot a threat before it speared them in the back. 

But, the truth is that he wasn’t thinking about his plans.

He wasn’t thinking about anything but the quest he refused, the funeral he wasn’t invited to, the body he never saw. 

It’s Jason.

Emperors.

Murderers.

They should all just die.

Blades. Arrows. Blood in the water.

Die, like how Jason died.

Wait.

No.

First, they have to suffer.

It probably only lasted a few seconds. Maybe minutes. Definitely not hours.

Percy isn’t sure. At this point, all he knows is that he’s lying on the carpet for some reason. He’s cold. His stomach hurts. His cheek is sticky and wet.

“Percy.”

Someone is saying his name. He should answer.

Percy shifts his gaze in the direction of the voice. He sees a pair of stained sneakers, the pant cuffs above them ripped and splattered dark.

“Can you hear me?”

Slowly, Percy nods.

“Okay,” says the voice. “Okay. I’m going to move closer to you now.”

Don’t. No. 

Percy isn’t really sure what he does, but by the end of it, he’s gasping on the floor, and the sneakers are gone.

“Or not.”

The sound of someone walking, moving around him. Water running.

It comes to Percy’s attention that being in an unknown situation, possibly surrounded by people, is not a good thing. He should fix that. Probably by getting up and actually trying to figure out what’s going on.

But, Percy also feels like if he moves wrong, his body will collapse into a puddle of water, and he only hears one person’s footsteps anyway, and everywhere he looks, everything is covered with—with—

Percy doesn’t throw up. But that’s only because his entire abdomen might shatter if he does.

So he just lies there, shaking and shaking and shaking.

An indeterminable amount of time later, the voice returns.

“I’ve got the papers for the boat, Percy. Once you’re ready, we can go.”

Percy doesn’t move. 

“Can you stand?”

He concentrates on making himself breathe. It seems like such a chore all of a sudden. The air is too heavy. And it’s cold.

Why is it always so cold?

A long silence.

And then—

“Do you want me to help you up?”

No. All Percy wants to do is lie here and close his eyes and sleep forever.

Instead, he reaches out a hand.

Luke takes it.

——

The Princess Andromeda is officially the worst boat Percy has ever sailed. And that’s not even because he got Charlie Beckendorf killed here once upon another time. 

Percy just hates cruise ships, okay? They’re big and clunky and mostly electronic. Percy’s good with boats, not floating Lotus Hotels. Even the Pax moved like an extension of his body. Controlling the Princess Andromeda is like trying to do origami with his feet, except he has plastic sporks instead of toes. Also, it feels like bad things are always happening on cruise ships. This trip included.

At least Percy has managed to avoid Luke so far. The only reason why he knows Luke hasn’t toppled over the side of the yacht, thereby neatly solving the problem of what Percy should do about him, is because celery sticks and baby carrots keep on appearing in the bridge, where Percy spends most of his time coaxing the Princess Andromeda into giving them running water and keeping the lights on and actually going where they need to go. In return, Percy takes the candy bags he’s picked all the blue pieces out of and leaves them outside the admiralty suite’s stateroom. Even budding villains need a balanced diet, after all.

Percy’s not really avoiding Luke on purpose. That would be counterproductive. He’s just...busy. It takes a lot of work to run a cruise ship single handedly, especially when that ship would rather light up the indoor mall or fill the pool instead of sail at a respectable speed.

And if Percy spends way too much time inventorying the storerooms in such detail that Annabeth would be proud, that’s just because he doesn’t want to have to stop and resupply at Monster Donut. Not because he’s trying to take his mind off the thing he can’t think about because if he does, he’ll have to lie down, and then he’ll never be able to get up ever again.

Come to think of it, Luke seems to be taking that thing pretty well. He hasn’t even run away screaming. Possibly because he’s been avoiding Percy as much as Percy’s been avoiding him.

Luke hasn’t been ignoring Percy, though. Instead, it feels more like he’s observing. Carefully. He’s been moving around the ship like he has experience living around people who might go crazy at any second. Which he does.

Percy also tries not to think about that. Thinking about it makes him feel sorry for Luke, which he’s uncomfortable about and which would probably make Luke want to kill him even more than he already does.

Still, this means the scare-Luke-straight plan was never going to work, and Percy can cross that one off the list. Which is a relief, because he doesn’t actually know what would happen if he tried being scary.

Percy doesn’t want to know what would happen if he actually tried being scary.

Maybe annoying Luke into submission will work. Of course, this has never gone well for Percy before, and it involves actually talking to Luke, which has always been at the bottom of Percy’s bucket list. Why is he even considering this again?

Whether you feel like you succeeded or not, you reminded Luke who he was. You spoke to him.

Alright, alright, Percy knows that he’s procrastinated enough already. It’s fine. Percy’s an adult. He can speak to Luke. And if this doesn’t work out, there’s always the duel to the death.

And it looks like Luke’s already getting ready for it.

Percy follows the sound of something getting the shit beaten out of it to the mall, where Luke has dragged all the mannequins out into the plaza. He’s outfitted them in yoga mat armor secured with woven belts and is now dismembering them one by one.

It’s not that creepy. Percy has to tell himself this several times before he can convince himself to step away from the door and into the mall.

“Luke,” he calls from a safe distance. “I need to ask you something.”

“Busy,” Luke grunts, hacking away at one mannequin’s torso. Is it just Percy, or is he slashing at it even more enthusiastically than before?

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m training.”

“Can’t train without a sword.”

“What?”

Percy wags his fingers, and Luke’s water bottle topples over. A jet of water spurts forward, knocking Backbiter out of his hand.

“Percy!” Luke turns, finally letting the mannequin rest in pieces.

“Don’t you use your camp counselor voice on me,” Percy says. He keeps his voice light, trying not to sound intimidated or murderous or anything that might make Luke attack him. He still has the water from Luke’s water bottle if things go wrong, though, so it’s all good.

“Fine.” Luke folds his arms and narrows his eyes. “What do you want?”

Percy hesitates. 

“Can you tell me about Thalia?”

Luke blinks, his face gone slack. Percy spent a long time thinking about this approach, and this is the only opening he could come up with. If Luke decides to stab him here, then he won’t know what else to do.

Thankfully, Luke doesn’t stab him. Instead, he’s quiet for a long, long time. 

Then he says, in a low voice, “Why do you want to know about her?” 

He seems suspicious.

Percy shrugs. Be cool, be cool. “One time, Annabeth told me that we were pretty similar. That either we would be best friends or that we would strangle each other.”

Luke snorts. “Annabeth was wrong. Thalia would’ve strangled you after five minutes of hearing you speak.”

Okay, no, actually Luke’s the one who’s wrong. It only took two minutes.

But Percy can’t point that out, and Luke is still talking. “She was strong. Tough.” He looks Percy up and down, then shakes his head. “She’d be better at this than you.”

Percy isn’t sure if he should be offended or not. “Better at what? Talking? Serving Kronos?”

“Bringing down Olympus,” Luke snarls. He walks closer to Percy and picks Backbiter back up.

Percy stands his ground. “You really think Thalia would be into that?” he asks.

Luke smiles coldly, his scar rippling. “You don’t know anything, Percy. Because of the gods, Thalia and I lived on the streets for years, always running from monsters, always struggling to stay alive. And then, when Grover was sent to retrieve her—only her—she demanded that Annabeth and I be brought to safety, too. She stayed behind to fight off the Kindly Ones and save our lives. She was brave,” he says, voice growing lower and lower. “She was worthy. And then, instead of saving her, her father turned her into a tree.” 

Luke’s eyes flash, and then he’s suddenly yelling in Percy’s face.

“A tree!” he screams. “A fucking tree! After everything she did! She’d be happy to see Olympus destroyed! Every throne crushed to rubble!” 

Percy can’t breathe. He’s frozen in Luke’s shadow.

Luke stares at Percy for one second, two. Then he backs away, Backbiter trembling in his white-knuckled grip.

“If Thalia were alive,” Luke says, “she’d be on my side. And we’d tear the gods out of the sky. Together.”

Well? Are we going to stop him or not?

For some reason, Percy doubts that. He doubts that hard.

You don’t know Thalia at all, he wants to say. You’re disrespecting her and her sacrifice, and when you get your second chance to know her again, you’ll be too blind to even see her for who she is.

But, if Percy says that, then they’ll really have to have their duel to the death now, and there won’t be any third chances. For either of them.

So he tries another way. 

“Fine,” Percy says, happy that his voice doesn’t shake. “Then if Kronos ordered you to destroy Thalia’s tree, would you do it?”

A long silence. Percy knows they’re floating in the middle of the ocean right now, but he can’t even hear the waves.

Finally—“He wouldn’t,” Luke says calmly. But his jaw is tight.

“It’s strategic,” Percy insists. “Without Thalia’s tree, Camp Half-Blood is vulnerable. You could invade the camp, take demigods as prisoners of war, force them to join you or die. The gods wouldn’t be able to move against you if you controlled all their children. Kronos could be resurrected using the power of their pledged loyalties. He’d defeat the gods by sending an army of their children to die at their feet, and then he’d tear Olympus down stone by stone, just like you always wanted.” Percy smiles and nods, hoping he doesn’t look as sick as he feels. “All you need to do is kill Thalia.”

By the time the word “kill” leaves Percy’s lips, Luke already has Backbiter pointed at his throat.

“I won’t!” Luke says frantically. “I—” His eyes quiver, and he visibly forces his sword arm down. “It doesn’t matter! Thalia’s already dead!” He takes a couple breaths, before continuing, “The gods made sure of that.”

His voice has gone flat again. It’s the tone of a man who’ll do anything—hurt anyone—for revenge.

“No,” Percy tells him. “No. She’s still there. She’s the one protecting the demigods who’ll defeat you.”

And that’s when Percy goes too far. He knows it, because Luke smiles, and it’s not cold or calculating or even cruel. It’s just blank. A void.

“Tell me, Percy,” Luke says, creeping towards him at the pace of a predator. “Has Kronos really ordered Thalia’s tree destroyed, or are you just running your mouth again, just a stupid little kid abusing the name of the lord he serves?” He looms over Percy, Backbiter in his hand. Percy is once again aware of how small he is at twelve, how Luke towers above him. He always did. 

Luke leans into Percy’s face and whispers, “How do you think Kronos will punish you for this?”

Percy shudders. But it’s not Kronos he’s afraid of. Really, it rarely ever was.

“Somehow,” Percy says quietly, backing towards the door. “I don’t think he’ll find out. Besides, a stupid kid’s still a better tool than someone who’s blinded by their own rage.” He adds, in a stronger voice, “You don’t belong with Kronos, Luke.”

“Get out,” Luke says.

“You know I’m right.”

“ Go.”

“Luke,” Percy says, staring up into his eyes. “If you bring down the gods, then you will destroy the people you love. You’re going to have to make the choice to kill them over and over and over again. And once Kronos rises, it won’t matter if you change your mind. You won’t be able to protect anyone or preserve anything. You’ll only get what you want when everything that was once Luke Castellan vanishes from this earth.”

For the first time, Percy is telling Luke the complete truth, and perhaps Luke can sense that. He’s not moving, barely even breathing. He can’t seem to tear his eyes away from Percy’s.

Percy reaches the door. For a moment, neither of them say anything.

Then Percy adds, “I bet Thalia wouldn’t want that.”

The spell breaks.

“GET OUT!” Luke roars.

Backbiter clangs against the wall. He’s thrown his sword at Percy.

“L—”

“GET OUT!” 

Percy gets out.

Chapter Text

So.

That didn’t really go according to plan.

Then again, in Percy’s experience, nothing ever does. It’s always been his crazy ideas that keep his head above water, and luckily, he never runs out of those.

Still, Percy decides to go back to avoiding Luke. Just for a couple of days. After all, the duel to the death was looking pretty imminent there for a second, and Annabeth would be sad if Luke never made it back to camp.

Also, Percy’s never actually killed Luke before, and he isn’t totally sure if he can do it. He really doesn’t want to find out, either. 

Percy goes back to hiding out at the bridge. Neither Luke nor his vegetables come visit, and Percy is perfectly fine with that. It feels sort of like living with Smelly Gabe again, except instead of his mom coming to get him when it’s safe, Percy doesn’t have anyone.

Of course, that doesn’t mean he has the pleasure of pretending that Luke doesn’t exist forever. Percy needs a way to check on his operation at Camp Half-Blood. Unfortunately, Percy can’t I-M Annabeth or Grover for help because they’ll want to know where he is, what he’s doing, and why, which are all questions he can’t answer without putting them in the danger he’s actively working to keep them out of. And the other campers don’t really trust Percy enough yet, so he can’t trust them to not run off to Chiron or Mr. D the second that they figure out what he’s doing.

Basically, what Percy needs is a spy who’s already under his control. The good thing is that Luke has one of those, which means Kronos has one of those, which means Percy has one of those, since he’s pretending to be Luke’s hotline to Kronos. The bad thing is that this means Percy has to talk to Luke again.

Great.

Percy paces and thinks and plans. By the time he feels ready, it’s nighttime, but maybe that’s better. Maybe Luke will be less prickly when he’s sleepy. Percy’s also hoping that maybe Luke doesn’t sleep with his sword. The image of Luke brandishing a pillow at him instead is amusing enough that he musters the courage to go knock on the stateroom door.

Percy waits for a couple seconds. 

No response.

He knocks again. “Luke, I need to talk to your spy at camp.”

Nothing.

Is he already asleep?

Percy pounds on the door. “Luke!” he yells. “Kronos wants me to talk to your spy!”

The door suddenly swings open. Percy accidentally punches Luke in the chest.

“Sorry!” Percy says, leaping back. Luke folds his arms, leaning against the door frame. His hair is mussed, but Percy can’t tell if it’s bedhead or a specific look cultivated by evil nineteen year olds who are trapped on boats with preteens they’re debating whether or not to murder. His face is completely neutral.

Percy tries not to scowl. He isn’t that weak, is he? Actually, scratch that—It’s probably better this way. There’s no reason to upset a murderous teenager unnecessarily, especially when you’re asking him a favor.

Luke still isn’t saying anything or moving. He’s almost more intimidating this way. Percy really wishes his growth spurt would come sooner.

“Um,” Percy says. “Could you put me in contact with your spy, please?”

Luke just looks at him.

Percy tries not to fidget. “...You do have a way of contacting them, right?”

After a moment, Luke replies, “Yeah.” He doesn’t move out of the doorway.

Alright. Time to bring out the big swords. “If you help me, I’ll show you what I was doing for Kronos over the summer,” Percy cajoles.

Silence.

Luke taps his fingers on his bicep. He looks Percy up and down, clearly weighing his options.

Finally, he steps back, jerking his chin towards the inside of the stateroom.

So far, so good. Percy does not feel like he’s walking into a drakon cave at all.

The curtains are drawn across the huge windows stretching across the back wall, and that’s the only reason why Percy can stay in the stateroom at all, considering that the rest of it looks almost exactly the same as it did when Percy was thirteen and Luke was asking him about his mom at javelin-point.

Percy hears the door slam shut behind him, and he flinches. 

It’s fine. There’s no golden sarcophagus here. Things are different this time around.

Luke walks around Percy and starts rustling through his backpack. Unless he’s been keeping a sprinkler in there, he’s probably not going to I-M his spy, which makes sense. I-Ms aren’t exactly subtle.

Hold on a sec. Should Percy be concerned? He hadn’t been thinking about this before, but if Luke’s already recruited a spy and put a non-rainbow-dependent long-distance communication system in place at this point, does that mean—

“You don’t happen to have an army of monsters, too, do you?”

Luke looks up. He seems caught off guard. “No.” Then he adds, “But if Kronos needs one, I can—“

“Nope, that’s fine,” Percy says quickly. “Kronos doesn’t want us doing stuff with monsters. They’re too—uh, monster-y. He doesn’t like that.”

Luke shoots Percy a weird look, but goes back to his backpack. Percy swallows his sigh of relief.

After another second of searching, Luke pulls out the gaudiest hand mirror in existence. It’s a monstrosity, with curling roses and little angels sculpted around the rim. He takes it over to the sofa and sits down, raising an eyebrow at Percy until he walks over, too, settling down as far away from Luke as he can possibly get.

Luke clears his throat. “Mirror, mirror, in my hand—”

“Really?”

“—Aphrodite is the fairest in the land,” he finishes, ignoring Percy entirely.

For a moment, nothing happens.

Then there’s rustling, a quick curse, and the sounds of someone getting their shoes on and closing a door with a click, shutting out the noise of snuffles and snores.

“Luke!” a voice hisses. “Do you know what time it is? And—Where are you? What in the world are you doing? You told me that—“

“You’re not in a position to ask questions, Silena,” Luke interrupts. “Report.”

Wow. What an asshole. No wonder Silena defected. That’s a pretty good reason, on top of the whole evil titan lord killing all her friends and family thing.

A pause. Percy can hear Silena inhale.

When she speaks again, her tone is mechanical. “Your absence was noted a couple hours after you were supposed to return to camp. Two days ago, Chiron left to search for you and Percy with—“

“Wait, Chiron left?” Percy blurts out. He scrambles over to Luke’s side of the sofa, bracing his hand against the cushion over his shoulder, and then he peers into the mirror. “Chiron’s not at camp?”

“Percy!” Silena exclaims. Her hair is tied back in a messy braid, and she has dark circles under her eyes. “You’re—with Luke?”

Luke sighs and pulls Percy’s ankle out from under him, so his shoe isn’t on the sofa. “I didn’t kidnap Percy, Silena.”

“Yeah,” Percy says, too excited to protest being manhandled again. “I kidnapped Luke.”

“What?” Silena asks, while at the same time Luke flatly says, “No.”

“Yes,” Percy nods, mind spinning. “He had a nervous breakdown in the woods, so I decided to take him on a ten day cruise.”

“No, I did not—Silena!” Luke says, as he notices the sympathetic look Silena is giving him.

“You have seemed rather stressed this year,” she says apologetically.

“Well,” Luke bites out, “maybe I would be less stressed if—”

Okay, not the time. “Excuse me?” Percy raises his hand. “Can you guys do this later?” Preferably when he isn’t here. “Silena, I need you to go to Long Island Sound.”

“Huh?”

“Please?” Percy begs. “It’s important.”

Silena looks equally confused and grumpy about being asked to trek to Long Island Sound in the middle of the night, and she grumbles quietly the whole way to the fireworks beach. Luke doesn’t say anything as she walks, but he is watching Percy out of the corner of his eye, like he’s trying to read his secrets directly off his face.

“Okay,” Silena says. “We’re here.”

“Can you point the mirror at the water?” 

Percy squints at the dark waves. Then he takes a deep breath, leans towards the mirror, cups his hands around his mouth, and yells, “Hey! Is anyone home?”

His view of the estuary shakes as Silena fumbles her grip. Luke drags Percy back by the collar of his shirt, but he can still see the forms of the naiads swimming up to the surface.

“Hi, guys,” Percy calls. “How’s it going?”

The naiads float just beneath the waves, a little shy in front of Silena and probably more than a little wary about Percy yelling at them through a fancy mirror. Still, they wave and point down and give him a thumbs up. One naiad even mimes a chef’s kiss before winking.

Percy knows what that means.

“That’s great!” he says. “That’s—That’s better than great.” The naiads work a lot faster than he expected. Maybe all of Percy’s plans would go better if he just let other people do them. “I owe you guys. A lot. Tell you what, how about the next time I see you, I do another flush of the narrows, get some of the runoff out of there?”

The naiads all nod enthusiastically. If there’s any body of water that deserves a good sand dollar or twelve, it’s Long Island Sound.

“Did you seriously wake me up just to flirt with the naiads?” Luke hisses.

Percy ignores him. “Cool. It’s a date. Do you mind setting up tonight? Silena will help pick a spot.”

“I’m doing what now?” Silena says, sounding almost as irritated as Luke. “Percy, what’s going on?”

“Awesome.” Percy flashes the naiads two thumbs up. “Keep up the good work.” Then he adds, “Silena, you should probably take a few steps back.”

“Percy,” Luke begins dangerously, but he never finishes his sentence. Probably because he gets distracted by the splash of something huge emerging from the water. 

There’s a building floating on the surface of Long Island Sound. It looks like a cross between the Hermes and Poseidon cabins. The roof is wood, but the base is stone, and the windows are mosaics of sea glass.

Luke’s whole body tenses. “Is that...”

“Is that a cabin?!” Silena shrieks.

“No,” Percy says. He’s grinning so wide that his cheeks hurt. “It’s a small house that’s going to magically appear near the cabins tomorrow morning.” 

“So it’s a cabin,” Luke says numbly. “Another cabin. You’re building cabins for the minor gods?”

Ack. “I’m not,” Percy says. “The minor gods don’t have cabins at Camp Half-Blood.”

“So we should start building cabins for them?” Silena asks. She sounds really excited.

“No, I meant—”

“No, Silena, you heard Percy,” Luke says. “He wants you to start building small houses for—“

“Hey!” Percy snaps. “Look, the minor gods don’t have cabins in Camp Half-Blood, because if they did—and they don’t—it would look like Camp Half-Blood was trying to destroy the balance of power on Olympus—“

“When, in fact, we’re trying to destroy Olympus—” Luke mutters.

“—But,” Percy says louder, “if campers want to participate in a new arts and crafts project on campgrounds, that’s our business, right? The gods shouldn’t care about that.”

A pause.

Luke mouths the words “arts and crafts” like he’s never heard them before.

“Well,” Silena says. “I don’t see why they would.” They’ve never cared about anything else we’ve made before, she doesn’t say. But Percy still hears it.

At Percy’s direction, the naiads start floating the house down Euros Creek. Silena helps kick branches and rocks out of the way, keeping them from clipping the house’s edges. 

Luke doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t look away from the mirror either. Every time a view of the house flashes by, his lips thin, and his eyes gleam.

Once they make it to the lake, Percy tells the naiads to take a break. Silena recenters her face in the mirror. Despite how tired she looks, she’s beaming. “This is…This is amazing, guys. I can’t believe it.”

“I can’t either,” Luke says. “Once Mr. D sees that thing, he’ll blast it to pieces.”

“Mr. D won’t notice.” Percy assures him, though he doesn’t even find himself very convincing.

Luke gives Percy a look that makes it clear he’s questioning his intelligence. “He has eyes.”

“He doesn’t even know our names,” Percy points out.

“Yeah, but he can count to twelve.”

Percy considers that for a second.

Then—“How often does Mr. D leave the Big House?” he asks sweetly.

“…Fine.” Luke gives in. Or maybe he just gives up. “The cabin might last a couple of weeks.”

“You mean the small house—“

“We get it, Percy.”

Percy turns back to the mirror and finds Silena looking at them with big, glittering eyes. She’s still smiling.

“Silena?”

“Sorry.” She laughs. “I just—I’m so happy. I feel like I’m finally doing something that helps.”

“Uh,” Percy says. Whether this will help or not is still very up in the air. Like, so up there that Zeus couldn’t hit it with his Master Bolt. Percy actually feels very bad about dumping all this responsibility on Silena, too. But he can’t think of a better option. In the end, he trusts her to do what’s best for the demigods. “Then—do you mind doing some more helping?”

“Not at all!”

“Um,” Percy takes a deep breath. “I need you to find campers who’ll help the naiads build. And people who’ll negotiate with the dryads—They’ll exchange timber for protection against satyrs, and if you prune their branches, you’ll get to keep the clippings. And you should pull a couple people from the Hermes cabin right now and have them occupy the first house. Mr. D can’t harm campers. If he doesn’t like our arts and crafts projects, we’ll need to have people who’re willing to shield them. And they can’t be afraid of being turned into dolphins. Try Ethan Nakamura first,” he suggests. “I think he’d do a lot for his own bed.”

Silena looks a little overwhelmed, but she nods firmly. “Got it.”

“Thanks,” Percy sighs. Then—“Wait, there’s one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Could you also find a way to actually get some beds?” Percy glances away from the mirror, his cheeks hot. “I, uh, I forgot about building furniture.”

Silena laughs again. “Don’t worry, Percy. I know someone who’d love to help.”

Oh. Percy doesn’t know how he feels about getting even more people involved in this. Well, he does know how he feels, but it isn’t something he can explain to Silena without talking about the hundred other things he can’t talk about. Then again, Percy has never fought any of his battles alone before, so there’s no reason why he should expect things to be different this time.

It’s just—hard. While creating a future where his friends are in less danger, how much danger should he be okay with putting them in? None of Percy’s math classes have ever taught him how to balance this equation.

While Percy worries about class action and divine retribution and plausible deniability, Silena directs the naiads in their placement of the house. Luke interjects occasionally, displeased with “a vaporization ready to happen” being planted so close to the Hermes cabin. Silena makes a comment about waterfront aesthetic, Luke retorts with a note on land-use regulation, and then they quickly descend into a hissed debate about city planning and yard space and form versus function in the construction of operational bases—Houses, Luke, not bases. Small houses!

Personally, Percy’s on the side of the naiads, who are sighing and rolling their eyes as they bob the new cabin along the surface of the lake. 

And then—Okay, Percy wouldn’t say that he fell asleep, because it would be dumb to fall asleep in the same room as someone who has tried to kill you before and has done nothing to suggest he won’t try again. Percy’s stupid, but not that stupid. But, he really doesn’t care about Camp Half-Blood’s feng shui unless it prevents more campers from having their own beds. So, can you really blame him for blanking out halfway through Silena’s argument against parallel house plots? Or...Actually, Percy isn’t really sure when he stopped listening. It feels like he just blinked a couple times, and then bam! Everything’s quiet, and the mirror’s gone, and pale light is peeking through the drawn curtains.

And Percy’s drooling on Luke’s shoulder.

Holy Hades!

Percy scrambles backwards, almost falling off the sofa. Luke lifts his head and eyes him, looking bored. 

Percy opens his mouth, but the only thing going through his head is fuck fuck what the fuck and I can’t believe I woke up alive and also a lot of incoherent yelling. So, in the end, he doesn’t say anything.

Luke smirks, but it doesn’t last. He runs his hand through his hair. He seems tired.

“The gods are going to notice,” he says quietly. Then he must see Percy’s look of total confusion, because he adds, “Your little house, Percy. It’s a fool’s errand.”

Looks like they’re just going to pretend that Percy wasn’t just burrowed into Luke’s side like a cat seeking warmth. Cool. Percy’s down. 

“That’s weird,” he tells Luke. “It’s like you think they care.”

Luke makes a face. “I’m just saying. This seems like a pretty shitty plan for Kronos.”

Uh oh. Quick, um—“Because his plan to have one demigod steal Zeus’s Master Bolt while all the gods were meeting on Olympus was so much better,” Percy says.

Luke glares. He looks like he regrets not smothering Percy in his sleep now. 

It would be more intimidating if he didn’t still have that patch of drool on his shoulder.

Percy pretends to zip his lips.

After a moment, Luke says, “Dedicating space to the minor gods will help the Hermes cabin’s overcrowding problem a little, but it doesn’t fix the fact that the undetermined still don’t belong anywhere.”

You can get claimed and have your own cabin and still not belong, but Percy knows that’s not what Luke’s asking about. So, instead he shrugs and says, “Then all we have to do is determine them.”

Luke looks at him like he’s the dumbest demigod on the planet. “And how will we do that?”

“The question isn’t how we’ll do it,” Percy says. “The question is how Ethan will do it.”

For a moment, Luke just stares.

Then he collapses to one side, burying his face into the arm of the sofa. “Someday,” he says, his voice muffled, “you’re going to say something that actually makes sense.”

“Someday, you’re gonna say something that doesn’t make you sound like a total jerk,” Percy grumbles.

“I heard that.”

Percy’s about to respond with something that doesn’t make him sound like he’s actually twelve—something that’s not just “So what?”—but then there’s a crashing sound from above deck. 

And the wind howls.

Luke lifts his head.

“Did you hear that, too?” Percy whispers.

“Yeah,” Luke says grimly. “Something’s wrong.”

——

“Hurricane?” Luke asks, squinting at the black clouds in the distance.

“No.” But the storm looks familiar. Percy’s seen this before. Where—”Oh, hey,” he realizes, “it’s Charybdis.”

“What?” Luke says, even though Percy knows he knows who Charybdis is. He’s probably just confused because Percy pointed out Charybdis in the same way that you say “Oh, hey, it’s the Statue of Liberty” or “Oh, hey, it’s my friend’s weird aunt who works at Dollar General.”

Percy nods. “Looks like we finally found the Sea of Monsters.”

“Found?!” Luke says, rounding on Percy. “You mean you didn’t know where you were going before? You’re the son of Poseidon!”

Percy crosses his arms and looks away. “I know exactly where we are. I just—didn’t totally remember where everything else is. But I got it now,” he adds quickly, since it looks like Luke would throw him overboard if he didn’t know he could survive that just fine.

Hey, it’s not Percy’s fault that he can’t remember the exact coordinates of Polyphemus’ island. He still managed to sail them to the Sea of Monsters on this floating island of electronic garbage—That has to count for something, right?

Luke doesn’t seem to think so. “Okay,” he says through gritted teeth. “So if you know exactly where we are, do you know how to steer us in exactly the right path so that we can actually get into the Sea of Monsters?”

Percy shrugs. “We can just sail right through after Charybdis is gone.”

Luke takes a couple moments to process that. Then he stares. 

“You want to kill Charybdis,” he says slowly.

“...Yeah? Better her than Scylla.” At least in the water, Percy thinks he might stand a chance.

Luke gives Percy a look that says I already knew you were crazy, but this is really pushing it. Which is sort of offensive, considering that this is the guy who started a war and got himself possessed by a titan lord in order to say “Fuck you, dad.” 

Percy stares Luke down.

Luke looks out at the stormy sea, back at Percy, then down at his feet. He heaves a long sigh. Finally, he shakes his head and says, “Sure. Why not? Let’s go.”

Percy blinks. “You’re coming with me?”

Luke frowns. His eyes narrow. And then he snarls. 

“You think I’m going to hold you back,” he accuses.

“What?” Percy says blankly. Then—“No! Are you crazy? Have you ever looked at you and then looked at me?” He waves his hand at Luke’s—everything, before gesturing back at himself.

Percy didn’t think about this too much when he was actually twelve, but standing next to Luke does nothing for a guy’s self esteem. Yeah, Percy got taller eventually, but he didn’t look as fit as Luke does, and when it comes to sword fighting, they never truly got to compare. Either one of them was a kid at the time or the other had had his sword melted down and reforged into a scythe by the titan possessing his body. They really were like two sword fighting ships passing in the night.

Luke appears slightly mollified, but Percy can still see the tension in his jaw, the scars from years spent trying to get used to being pitied and underestimated and demeaned.

Percy turns away, gazing at Charybdis’s faraway whirlpool. “You don’t have to prove anything to me, Luke,” he says. “I just thought I’d go alone because I can’t drown, and it’ll be easier for you to fish my body out of the water than it will be for me to get you.”

A pause. The roaring wind pushes the pool chairs across the deck with a cacophony of screeches.

Finally, Luke says, “No one’s going to need to be fished out of the water if we do this right.”

Percy whips his head around. “You have a plan?”

“Yeah,” Luke says, his expression relaxed again. Then he raises an eyebrow. “You don’t?”

“Uh.” Percy hesitates. “Stab her until she dies?”

Luke looks like he really wants to put his head in his hands.

“You use the water to restrict Charybdis’s movements and keep her from submerging,” he tells Percy, “so I can get in close and ‘stab her until she dies.’”

“Sounds good,” Percy nods. “But, how are you going to…”

Luke’s already tying on his flying sneakers.

“You got the blood off!” Percy says.

“Yeah.” Luke straightens up and smirks. “Your toothbrush was very helpful.”

Before Percy can react, Luke calls “Maia!” and shoots off towards the oncoming storm.

“My toothbrush?” Percy yells after him. “Luke? Luke?! Fine! We’ll revisit this conversation once we finish kicking monster butt!”

Percy grabs a lifeboat and throws both it and him over the deck, pulling the waves forward so that he’s moving at the speed of a pegasus. The lifeboat isn’t Percy’s favorite combat vehicle, but he’s never tried walking on water, and now is not a good time to figure out if he actually can.

By the time Percy reaches the edge of the whirlpool, Luke’s already swooping around Charybdis’s open mouth, scanning for vulnerable spots and weaknesses. He seems very grossed out by her clogged braces.

If Percy had had his way, Luke wouldn’t be within a mile of Charybdis’s teeth. Still, he’s kind of glad he’s not the one who has to play orthodontist. He gets to wrestle control of the tide from an ancient monster who Odysseus barely survived instead. 

Fun.

Percy stands up and clenches his teeth. Then he reaches for the ocean.

It’s like playing tug of war with a giant, except the rope is his guts. It’s like holding up the sky again but sideways, so the force is pressing his rib cage into his lungs. But, it’s fine. It’s totally fine. Percy can do this. He’s actually held up the sky before, and that hadn’t even been the worst part of his day.

The whirlpool slows, then calms completely, fading into the normal rocking of the waves. Charabdis’s mouth remains gaping open as she sucks and gasps like a fish drowning on air.

“I think that’s the best I can do!” Percy calls breathlessly.

Luke flashes him an okay sign before raising Backbiter and diving into Charybdis’s maw, disappearing completely from Percy’s line of sight.

Percy tells himself to breathe, slow and even, and he does his best to ignore the part of his brain that’s screaming You just let Charybdis eat Luke! How are you going to explain this to Annabeth?!  

Luke’s doing just fine. Percy can tell, because each time he lands a blow, Charybdis thrashes, and then Percy has to focus really hard on calming the new waves so that none of the water makes it into her mouth.

Ugh.

How long does it take to stab a huge sea monster until she dies?

After what feels like an eternity, Percy can’t take it anymore. “Hurry up!” he screams.

Luke flies out between Charybdis’s molars just so he can glare. “It’s not that easy!”

He says that, but Percy can see the half-grin on his face, the sweat slicking his hair back, the relaxed grip he has on Backbiter’s bloody hilt. Percy knows what Luke looks like when he’s toying with his enemy. 

Luke’s taking his time. He’s enjoying this.

Percy’s arms are shaking. “Luke?” he asks.

“Stay where you are, Percy. Don’t get in my way.” And then Luke goes back to—to taking out his repressed anger on Charybdis’s gums.

Percy wants to throw up. He wants to lie down. He wants to go home and hug a hot water bottle to his stomach and let his mom brush his hair away from his face and sit with him, like she always does when he’s sick.

He’s tired. He wants to be with someone who cares about him, since Luke apparently doesn’t.

This battle needs to finish now. Percy carefully turns his attention to the water sloshing inside Charybdis’s throat—His lifeboat jerks to the side—and he thinks hard about spears. Whaling harpoons.

He brings his hand up sharply.

Charybdis lurches, and Luke yelps.

“Hey!” he says. “I told you—stay out of this!”

“You’re. Being. Too. Slow!” Percy bites out, punctuating each word with another slash of his arm.

The ocean rocks around him as Charybdis moans. The lifeboat almost tips over, and Percy staggers.

“Shut up and follow my—Shit!”

Charybdis flails.

Luke’s sentence cuts off.

Fuck.

“Luke!” Percy screams. He forces the choppy waves to push him closer and closer to Charybdis’s open mouth, searching for a glint of gold hair, the shine of Backbiter’s blade.

But, there’s nothing but sea and sky and darkness.

Oh no.

Come on, really? Like this? Is this for real—

That can’t be—

But, maybe it’s better—

No, shut up, no. No, no, no, nonononononono—

It’s his fault. Why is he always so—

Charybdis makes a gargling noise as Luke blasts into the air, his sword twirling, his face furious. There’s seaweed on his head. He’s bleeding from a puncture wound on his calf.

Percy’s never seen a more beautiful man in his life.

“You,” Luke sputters, so angry that he can’t even speak. “You—” Then his eyes widen. “Percy, don’t let go of—”

The rest of his words are lost when Percy’s lifeboat capsizes. 

Percy probably hits his head on some driftwood or a shark or something, because by the time he’s done processing Luke’s alive! Thank all the gods and I can’t believe I’m happy that Luke’s alive and I lost control of the whirlpool , he’s floating in complete darkness, buffeted by the storm of debris swirling around him.

He’s...inside Charybdis’s mouth.

Wow. That was really stupid, wasn’t it?

Just as Percy’s reaching into the black, trying to figure out if he’s in danger of being impaled any time soon, he hears someone say, Mother told me you would come.

At first, he thinks it’s one of the sharks—maybe he hit one on the head as hard as it hit him—but then he realizes that the voice is vibrating through the water, coming from everywhere around him. Everywhere.

Charybdis?

I was once Father’s favorite child, too, you know, she tells him. I was beautiful, powerful. Under my hand, the sea swallowed so much land that Zeus made me a monster in fear that we would conquer all. 

Mother? Father?

Oh, gross, wasn’t one of them enough—

Father doesn’t like monsters as much, Charybdis says sadly. So now I only retain the hungry tide. What do you think he’ll leave for you, faithless brother?

It’s getting colder. Charybdis must be diving. But why—

I bet Mother will be happy to see you, though.

Mother.

No. Nope, no. Percy refuses. He can’t. Ignoring the rocks and wood and fish crashing into his arms, Percy calls upon the sea and tries to press his way out of Charybdis’s throat, tries to cut through her, burst her open. 

But, nothing happens. The water might as well be concrete.

Shit.

Is this favoritism? This is favoritism, isn’t it? Maybe Percy should’ve been burning his blue jelly beans—

No, that’s not helpful, Percy. How did they defeat Charybdis last time? Tyson was there, and so was Clarisse, because they were all on the creepy Confederate steamboat Ares had given her—

Is it because Charybdis was turned into a monster against her will, and Percy—

Shut up, shut up, shut up! They didn’t defeat Charybdis last time, stupid! They never did. They barely even got away. If the engines hadn’t overheated—

Wait.

That’s it.

Percy thinks hard about light. Warmth. Fire and explosions and Mount Saint Helens erupting at his back. Steam. Please, let it all turn into steam. 

Luke is waiting above. Annabeth and Grover and his mom are waiting back home. They still need him, the di Angelos still need him, Camp Half-Blood still needs him. And—and Percy doesn’t want to go into the cold and dark again.

Warmth. Please.

Ever since she came back, it’s just been Percy Jackson this, Percy Jackson that, Percy Jackson says that Devil’s Ivy will instantly bring life to the drakon swamp, but—What are you doing? What—No! Stop! You’re burning m—

Please.

Chapter Text

Percy wakes up feeling like he’s gone a hundred rounds with the Minotaur. His body can’t seem to decide if it’s freezing or feverish, so he’s shivering as he sweats, and it’s making him ache.

He blinks up at the ceiling and tries to decide if being conscious is worth it.

“Finally,” Luke says.

Percy tilts his—ow—head up. Luke looks down at him expressionlessly from where he’s leaning against the headboard of the bed. Which means that the soft thing Percy’s lying on must also be the bed.

What…?

Something nudges against his lips. It’s Luke’s water bottle. “You’re on the Princess Andromeda,” Luke tells him, as he pours water into his mouth. “We made it into the Sea of Monsters. After Charybdis swallowed you, she never resurfaced. It’s been a day since I had to fish your body out of the ocean, and you’re an idiot who’s incapable of following the simplest order. Anything else?”

Ouch. Percy coughs, choking. Once Luke withdraws the water bottle, he clears his throat and asks, “Are you okay?”

Luke snorts. “No thanks to you.”

Percy’s chest feels tight. Luke has dark circles under his eyes. He must’ve packed some ambrosia squares, because the wound on his calf is healed over. The new skin is shiny and pink. 

It’s the wrong shape for a bite mark.

“I’m sorry,” Percy whispers.

Luke glances away, lips pressed tightly together. Percy closes his eyes.

This trip is a disaster. Percy got swallowed by a sea monster, almost shish kabobed Luke, t—did something really bad to some really bad people, went shopping in Soho, and all he’s learned is that he still can’t let Luke live, and he still can’t let Luke die.

He really is bad at this, isn’t he?

Luke could ask for that duel to the death right now, and Percy honestly wouldn’t blame him.

But, Percy must look truly pathetic because instead of storming away or yelling or grabbing Backbiter and chopping his head off, Luke just says, “I figured out how to operate the bridge and docked us at an island. It looks like some sort of tropical paradise.”

Whoa, does this mean Percy could’ve been making Luke sail the stupid yacht this entire time?

Wait. Did he just say tropical paradise?

Percy pushes himself—ow, ow, ow—up and off the bed. Then his knees decide that now is a good time to mutiny, so he’s left half slumped on the mattress, kneeling on the ground.

“Percy?” Luke says. He sounds alarmed.

“Fine, I’m fine,” Percy says. He sits himself all the way down on the floor. The floor’s a nice place anyway. Why doesn’t he spend more time on the floor? Fumbling in his pocket for Riptide, Percy asks, “Do you have some paper?”

Luke pauses halfway through his circuit towards Percy’s part of the floor. He eyes Percy like he’s a rabid hellhound and says, “...Why?”

Percy uncaps his sword, tries to ignore how Luke tenses and steps back, then taps the cap on the hilt, transforming Riptide back into a pen. “I need to take some notes.”

A pause. Luke opens his mouth, then closes it again, like he doesn’t know if he’s more confused by Percy’s pen or his words.

In the end, he just says, “You need to take notes. Here. On this random island.”

Percy nods, then immediately stops nodding because it’s making his head spin. “Kronos really wants some detailed drawings of this random island’s, uh, plants. And stuff.”

Luke takes a deep breath, holds it for three seconds, then exhales. He does this a couple more times, looking like he’s doing his very best to find his happy place. Percy wonders if that’s where he satisfies his inner desire to viciously beat up Hermes.

Finally—“Fine,” Luke says lightly. He walks over to the nightstand and pulls one of those little hotel notepads out of the single drawer. Percy can see that it has Andromeda’s terrified face printed at the bottom instead of a logo, which is just great.

Luke holds the notepad above Percy’s head. Percy lifts his—ow—arm and finds that the tip of his middle finger just barely brushes the cardboard backing.

“Hey,” Percy says, wiggling his fingers.

Luke glances down at him, the corners of his lips curling up. “No nature drawing unless you can stand. I’m not going to carry you all over the place.”

Wow. Okay, be that way then. Percy already knew that Luke was just hiding his inner evil deep, deep down.

With a lot of cursing, grumbling, and pushing off the wall, Percy manages to move himself into a standing position with minimal pain, since he’s now distracted by the headache caused by the realization that Luke must have carried him to bed like he was a total baby.

Luke taps him on the forehead with the notepad before Percy snatches it away and stumbles towards the door.

Using his palm as a desk, Percy writes down “Caldecott Tunnel - Oakland Hills, San Francisco, CA, USA” as neatly as he can while using his stupid shaky hand, shuffling to the lower deck, and keeping the notepad away from Luke, who’s shadowing him from two feet away.

Wait. That’s not going to work.

Percy whirls around, almost trips over his own feet, and has to be steadied by Luke’s hand on his arm. Embarrassed, he straightens up immediately, hiding the notepad behind his back. “Why are you following me?”

Luke shrugs. “Kronos wants something here. I’m allied with Kronos.”

Whoa, hey, Percy’s the only one allowed to use Kronos-shaped excuses around here.  “Luke,” he says seriously. And he’s probably still kind of delirious from boiling himself in the world’s grossest pressure cooker, because he puts his hands on Luke’s shoulders, whacking him in the cheek with the notepad, and yanks until Luke is at eye level. “Luke,” Percy says, patting him on the cheek with his non-notebook hand. “I need you to tell me something. Do you secretly want to spend the rest of your life as a guinea pig?”

“What?” Luke says.

“Do you like celery? Have you ever tried being a vegetarian but just needed one last push to commit? Deep, deep down, do you want to become a guinea pig?”

A pause. 

Luke stares, wide-eyed.

“...No?”

Satisfied, Percy says, “Then don’t follow me.” He pats Luke on the cheek one last time before sprinting for the gangway.

No time for doubt. Percy leans over the railing and calls, “Excuse me?”

“Yes?” says the placidly smiling lady with the clipboard.

Even with the blue business suit, tight ponytail, and perfect makeup, there’s no denying her resemblance to the Amazon queen who had it out for him for years. “Are you Hylla Ramírez-Arellano?” Percy asks.

Hylla’s smile goes stiff. “Where did you learn that name?”

“If Reyna ever gets tired of combing hair on a magical island, tell her to go to this address,” Percy tosses the notepad onto the boardwalk. Hylla jumps back, staring at it like it’s a dead rat.  “It’s a refuge for demigods. She can go to school and train and make friends her own age. She’ll be safe there.”

“Who are you?” Hylla says, pulling out her dagger. “How do you know Reyna?”

Yup, time to go. “I know you want to protect her,” Percy says quickly, backing away from the railing, “but she should have a choice.”

Percy runs back to the door and slams straight into Luke.

“What is going o—”

“Stop!” Hylla yells. She sounds like an Amazon queen already. Percy can almost feel the traumatic flashbacks coming on. “Attendants!”

“No time to explain.” Percy spins Luke back around and shoves him in the direction of the bridge. He doesn’t think Luke would eat any of his dad’s fun multivitamins even if Hermes did show up with a bottle, and Percy really, really can’t spend the rest of his life as a guinea pig. 

Though that would be a fitting conclusion to the practical joke that is his life. 

Nope, this is not the time! Percy pushes Luke harder. “Go, go, go, go—”

——

After their quick stop at C.C.’s Spa and Resort, Luke can’t seem to decide if Percy was hallucinating from fever or just plain fucking with him. Percy doesn’t care either way, because Luke apparently concludes that the appropriate response to both these possibilities is enforced bedrest.

Yeah. And Luke is taking the “enforced” part really seriously.

He tries tying Percy’s wrists to the bedpost with a towel before giving up on that idea, probably because Percy kicked him in the nuts during the attempt. Then he settles on rolling Percy into a blanket and tucking him under the sheets very, very tightly.

“Get up, and I’ll flush the rest of your jelly beans down the toilet.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

After a mistimed escape attempt, Percy learns that Luke does indeed dare.

It’s tragic. Percy almost calls for a duel to the death right then and there.

Eventually, once they’ve both survived another incident involving the M&Ms, Luke’s non-flying shoes, and better timing on Percy’s part, Luke just starts locking Percy in the stateroom. Apparently, he doesn’t need a key to lock or unlock doors. 

And that’s fine. Percy doesn’t mind being locked in a room he once had nightmares about. He can keep the curtains closed. It’s totally fine.

While Percy’s wasting away in time out, Luke sails the Princess Andromeda . Every hour, he’ll come ask Percy if he’s going in the right direction, but otherwise he handles operating the giant hunk of floating garbage on his own. And Percy will never tell him this, but he’s not half bad at it.

Maybe, when this is all over, Luke will retire from evil and become a cruise ship captain. Percy tries to picture it and then immediately stops trying to picture it. He can’t tell if that image is the product of a fever dream or a new nightmare.

Either way, once Percy gets out of here, he’s going to have to convince Luke to teach him the normal person way to sail. Yeah, he can control the ship without ever touching a button, but, well, the more you know, right?

Right. Percy can’t rely on his power over water for everything. Maybe he shouldn’t be relying on it at all. 

No, wait, stupid thought. How’s he gonna do anything without water? The ocean, on the other hand—

Okay, for real, just stop. On a cruise ship with a guy who might still want to murder him (possibly?) is not a good place to make this decision. Maybe Percy just...needs a little time. More time.

It’s fine. He’s not a monster. Not a monster. Not a monster.

Anyway, bedrest is boring, even when Percy’s so achy that he doesn’t want to fight his way out of Luke’s blanket burrito the second he leaves the room. Eventually, once Percy gets tired of sleeping, he rolls out of bed and uncaps Riptide. Luke can take his jelly beans, but he can’t take his pockets, and Percy needs to practice fighting somewhere with a ceiling. After he lands a killing blow on the sofa, he decides that that’s probably enough sword fighting training for now. Artfully rearranging the sofa cushions takes up a little more time, but then Percy finds himself trying to figure out the best way to shatter the windows and free himself from this hellhole. 

Sometimes he thinks he can see a glint of gold out of the corner of his eye. It’s driving him crazy.

Hey, wait, is that Luke’s backpack? Did Luke leave his backpack here?

...Percy has an idea.

“Okay, give it another try.’

Ethan stares two inches to the right of the mirror, dead-eyed. With all the passion of a middle school news anchor reading off a teleprompter, he says, “I am Ethan Nakamura, son of Nemesis, and she hath bestoweth upon me the power to shame those who have wronged her by inflicting their children upon them. Step forward, and with mine eye, I shall—“

“What is going on in here?” Luke says.

“Evil,” Percy says, while at the same time Ethan deadpans, “Torture.”

“Evil torture,” Percy amends agreeably. He hops up from the floor and runs to Luke, handing him the mirror while trying not to be too obvious about slipping towards the door.

“Luke,” Ethan nods. “I like the new arts and crafts projects. Silena told me I have you and Percy to thank for that.”

Luke grabs the collar of Percy’s shirt before he can make it into the hallway. “Right,” Luke says. “The projects.” He pauses, then adds, “Ethan, you should know that we’re not just—“

“Hey, Ethan,” Percy says loudly. “We should totally show Luke what we’ve been working on.” He tells Luke, “Ethan’s fixed the undetermined camper problem.”

Luke raises an eyebrow. He still hasn’t let go of Percy’s shirt.

“Do I have to?” Ethan says. He sounds like he’d be whining if he didn’t consider it beneath his dignity.

“Yes,” Percy nods insistently, even as he tries to untangle Luke’s fingers. “But, maybe try putting a little more, uh, emotion in it this time.”

Ethan takes a deep breath. He gazes up at the sky, like he’s begging his mom for mercy. Then he recites, in a complete monotone, “I am Ethan Nakamura, son of Nemesis, and she hath bestoweth—”

“No, that’s fine, Ethan,” Luke interrupts. “I’ve already heard—enough.” He turns to Percy, shaking him gently by the collar. “Are you planning on convincing the gods to claim their kids through second-hand embarrassment? Because if they don’t care about how their kids live or die, I don’t think—“

“We’re not trying to make the gods claim their kids,” Percy explains. “We’re just gonna tell their kids who their godly parent is.”

Luke looks like he’d be rubbing his temple if his hands weren’t full. “How do you know who their parents are?”

“Ethan’s eye knows all,” Percy says mysteriously, at the same time that Ethan says, “Percy has a list.”

“A list?” Luke’s eyes narrow.

Ah, shit. “Ethan!” Percy says. “I told you not to tell!”

Ethan rolls his eyes. “You didn’t tell me not to tell. You told me not to ask where it came from.”

“It was implied!”

Luke’s jaw is tense again. He’s definitely going to have teeth problems by the end of this trip. “We’ll contact you later, Ethan.”

“Practice your speech!” Percy calls, right before Luke closes the connection. “Traitor,” he mumbles.

Luke spins Percy around and slams him into the wall, pinning him there with a forearm across his neck. So this is where Annabeth gets it from.

Luke leans forward, drawing Percy’s attention back. “A list?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Percy says, staring at the air over Luke’s right shoulder. “Kronos told me who everyone’s parents are. He’s a real family guy once you get to know him.”

Silence. Luke seems to be considering the pros and cons of trying to shake all of Percy’s secrets out of him.

Percy tugs at Luke’s wrist. “So…am I done with bedrest now?”

Luke blinks, realizes that he’s a quarter inch away from choking Percy out, and abruptly lets him go. Percy rubs his throat, eyeing the half-open door. Luke looks away.

“I’m going to go train,” he says, striding into the hallway.

Freedom! And just in time. Percy glances at the stairway to the aft deck. He hasn’t been outside in so long...But—Percy trots after Luke, asking, “Again? Don’t you do anything else?”

Luke ignores him.

Percy zips around Luke, forcing him to either trip or stop. “Hey, if you want to serve Kronos, you can’t just train. You also have to learn how to work with other people.”

“I don’t want to serve Kronos,” Luke says. “I want to bring down the gods.”

“And I’m sure that fighting the mall mannequins is helping you a lot with that, but I have something better for you to do.”

Luke stares up at the ceiling. He looks like he’d be praying for patience if he still believed in the gods. “You really are a little brat, aren’t you?”

“I prefer pain in the ass, thanks,” Percy says. Then he grabs Luke’s hand and starts pulling him towards the staircase. 

——

“No,” Luke says. “What? No!”

“I know this is a big step in our relationship—“ Percy coaxes.

“There is no relationship! We don’t have a relationship!” Luke points at Percy and says, “I am not talking to your mom.”

Fine, they can do this the hard way. Percy crosses his arms and tells Luke, “This is an order from Kronos.”

If possible, Luke looks even more freaked out. “Kronos wants me to meet your mom?”

“Hey,” Percy says, “my mom’s awesome. And Kronos says that moms are important. If he didn’t have his mom’s help, he wouldn’t have been able to chop his father up into tiny little pieces or throw his dick into the sea.”

Not that Percy’s trying to drown any dicks or chop anyone up into little pieces (right now?). He just wants to see what his mom thinks of Luke. He trusts her judgment, and he needs to make sure that this growing attachment isn’t just some kind of Stockholm syndrome that you get when you’re stuck in a cruise ship with only your mortal enemy for company. If she can see what Percy sees in Luke, too, then...then something. Percy hasn’t totally figured that part out yet.

But he knows it’s important.

“Percy—” Luke starts.

“Also, it’s my birthday,” Percy says, “and you owe me a birthday present.”

“You can’t know if it’s your birthday,” Luke argues. “We don’t know what day it is. Time moves differently in places where—”

Yeah, yeah. “Present.” Percy sticks out his hand. “More jelly beans will work. Or we I-M my mom. Or,” he adds, “I’ll tell on you to Kronos.”

Luke gives Percy a look that says Are you thirteen or are you three?  

Percy gives Luke a look that says The only way you’re getting out of this is if you jump off this ship, and even then, I’ll figure out a way to haul you back up. At least Percy hopes it says that. These sorts of looks usually involve a lot of eyebrow. Percy’s not great with his eyebrows.

Luke stares out at the sea, clearly considering his options.

Percy frowns. He knows Luke flushed all the jelly beans. Does he really care so little about what Kronos does to him, or is he just allergic to moms?

Neither option is good.

“Fine,’ Luke sighs. “I’ll do the I-M.”

“Great!” Percy says. Then he ponders the sparkling fountains for a moment. “Do you think we can set those up so it looks like we’re underwater?”

Luke pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why do we need to look like we’re underwater?”

“So we can pretend that we’re in the canoe lake.”

“...Is that what you were doing in the lake all summer? I-Ming your mom?”

Percy pleads the fifth.

The underwater background doesn’t happen, but Percy thinks he can pass off the outside of the cruise ship as a weirdly shaped cabin, as long as they don’t stand near the railing. Using the drachma he snuck out of Luke’s backpack, he starts the I-M, trying not to get too nervous about saying his mom’s address in front of Luke. 

And it seems like his mom’s been waiting for him to call, since she’s yelling even before the connection is stable.

“—cy Jackson! Do you have any idea how worried I’ve be—” She cuts herself off as soon as her eyes fall on Luke, who shifts uncomfortably. 

Percy clears his throat. “Hi, Mom. Sorry I missed last Saturday.” He grabs the hem of Luke’s shirt and tugs until he’s standing a bit closer. “This is my friend Luke.”

“Ah,” his mom says. She’s glancing between them, wide-eyed. “It’s nice to meet you, Luke.”

“Ma’am,” Luke says stiffly.

Silence. 

So. This is awkward. 

Percy looks at his mom, trying to ask What’s wrong? with his eyes. She’s never been this quiet with someone he’s introduced as a friend before. 

Is it because Luke’s so far gone that she can tell he’s evil without him saying more than one word to her?

Percy’s heart starts going cold.

“Uh,” he says, floundering. “I know I haven’t called in a while, but I’ve been busy with, um, camp things.”

“Right. Camp things,” his mom hesitates. Then she asks, “Darling, are you alright? Is—Did something happen? I got a call from Chiron...” She trails off, quickly glancing at Luke again before giving Percy a meaningful look.

“What?” Percy says. 

Luke tenses. 

Then Percy realizes—

”Oh my g—No, Mom, he didn’t—”

As Percy sputters, he can see his mom relax a little, though her brow is still creased with concern.

Percy can’t believe Chiron got his mom involved! Okay, he can believe it, but that was so not cool, man! So not cool.

Even though Percy’s been I-Ming his mom all summer, he’s never told her about what he’s really been doing. And he’s never going to. He knows it’s unfair to her. He knows that his mom’s the only person whose life he’s definitely going to make worse, after everything is over. But, what choice does he have?

She’s his mom. And she’s a good mom. And he’s not an easy kid. And—And as long as she knows that he’s out there somewhere, she’ll never stop worrying about him.

I’m telling you we have to go up! My son—

That’s going to kill her someday.

These IMs are Percy’s way of spending time with her, using what little time he can spare. Soon he won’t have any. Yes, he knows it’s cruel. But, what choice does he have? Her life will be sadder, but at least she’ll have one.

He wants to be there with her so badly.

No time. His mom will be able to tell if he’s lying, so Percy gives her a half-truth. “I wasn’t—doing great, after the whole Underworld thing,” he explains. He’s still holding onto Luke’s shirt, just in case he tries bolting away in mortification. “And camp’s nice and all, but it gets a little—I just needed to blow off some steam, so I, um, I sort of ran off without telling anyone?”

“Percy!”

“Sorry, Mom. But it’s okay. Luke followed me and talked to me, and he got us a boat, so now we’re doing some sailing before we head back. Don’t worry, I’m feeling a lot better. Luke’s the sword fighting instructor at camp, and he’s been teaching me how to kick monster butt!”

Percy feels like he’s laying it on pretty thick, but his mom seems cheered by his enthusiasm. She turns a smile on Luke, who makes a face like he’s staring down Medusa.

“Oh—” Luke stutters. “Uh, I haven’t really—”

After another couple seconds of incoherency, Percy’s mom takes pity on him and says, “Thank you, Luke. I’m glad to hear that Percy’s found such a good role model.” Percy swallows his snort. Luke goes kind of green. “You should come over for dinner the next time you’re free.”

Luke blanks. It’s like he’s never heard of dinner before.

Percy nods, adding, “My mom makes the best meatloaf in the state.”

And it appears that her urge to make Luke into that meatloaf evaporated completely after Percy explained that Luke had not, in fact, kidnapped him. It’s a relief to know that Luke isn’t giving her bad vibes. No one’s going to survive this if Percy’s judgment is that terrible.

“Oh! That reminds me—” His mom walks out of view. There’s the sound of the fridge opening and closing, and then she comes back with a blue cupcake covered with blue frosting. “Happy birthday, baby. I can’t believe you’re already thirteen. It feels like I was giving you bubble baths just yesterday.”

“Mom!” Percy complains. Not the bathtime stories again! 

Then there’s a candle and some singing, and Luke still standing there awkwardly, his expression caught between discomfort and longing. Percy still won’t let go of his shirt.

“Are you really gonna eat my birthday cake in front of me?” Percy says sadly.

His mom takes a huge bite. There’s frosting on her nose. “Well,” she says through a mouthful of cake, “you did go missing this year, so I think I deserve it.”

Percy makes his eyes big and pathetic. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

She continues sending him a stern look until he adds in an exaggerated pout, and then she breaks, laughing. Then she turns to Luke and says, “You really should come over and visit, Luke. I’ll bake you a thank you cake. We can eat it in front of Percy together.”

Luke blinks, then cracks a grin. It softens his entire face. “I’m looking forward to it,” he says.

Percy groans. “I never should’ve introduced you two.”

“Percy’s always been easily embarrassed, but he used to blush more. It was a lot of fun, actually,” his mom confesses to Luke. “There was this one time when he was four—”

“So, Mom,” Percy interrupts loudly, “how’s your writing class going?”

As his mom talks about journaling, the short stories she’s been reading, and this classmate she’s becoming friendly with, Luke nods and makes affirmative noises. When she mentions her GED, he asks about how her admissions process went, and then they’re talking about extracurriculars and requirements and how prepared she feels compared to the other students. They both seem pleased to have someone to talk to about this.

Percy slowly loosens his grip until he’s let go entirely. Luke doesn’t run.

——

After they finish the call, Luke shoots Percy an extremely confused look before he shuts himself in the stateroom, probably to sort out all the warm and fuzzy feelings Percy’s mom has infected him with. She’s good at stuff like that. 

Percy goes to the bridge and curls up on the captain’s chair, staring out at the sea. He thinks about his mom and the blue cupcake that was waiting in the fridge. He thinks about the empty apartment, still freshly de-Gabe-ed. He thinks a lot about the people he’s left back home. Maybe that’s why he dreams of Camp Half-Blood when he falls asleep.

The first thing he sees is Annabeth, aggressively slamming clay onto a pottery wheel in the Arts & Crafts Center. Grover hovers over her, looking on nervously.

“The Oracle still won’t give you a prophecy?” he says.

“No,” Annabeth grunts. She punches the clay twice, rattling the wheel. “I I-Med Chiron, and he said—Well, you saw the penthouse.”

“Yeah. All that blood…” Grover shudders. He hesitates, before continuing, “Annabeth, you don’t think Luke and Percy…”

Annabeth whips her head around, glaring. “Don’t say stuff like that,” she bites out. “They’re fine. I bet Percy just got worked up over a lost dog flyer, and then Luke followed him to keep him out of trouble.”

Hey! Percy’s not that bad, is he?

“Yeah,” Grover says. “Maybe.” Then his eyes widen. “That’s it!” he exclaims.

“What?”

“Lost! He went looking for someone who’s lost!”

“Grover.” Annabeth stands up, grabs Grover’s shoulders, and shakes, getting wet clay all over his shirt. “You better start making some sense right now, or I swear I’ll—”

“Pan!” Grover bleats. “Percy asked me not to go looking for Pan over the summer, because he had to take care of something first. I bet that wherever Luke and Percy went, it has something to do with Pan.”

Oh no. Come on, man. Percy really understands why loose lips sink ships now.

Annabeth’s eyes light up. “So if we go looking for Pan—”

“—we might be able to find them,” Grover finishes.

“Do you think you can—”

“I’ll tell the Council of Elders tomorrow. They weren’t happy when I had to delay anyway, so they’ll definitely approve. But, Annabeth, if the Oracle won’t give you a prophecy…”

“I know,” Annabeth nods grimly. “I’ll figure something out.”

Just when Percy’s about to try yelling at the people in his dreams again—Because what if it actually works this time?—he glimpses a shadow moving at the door and hears—

“You don’t need a prophecy.”

Annabeth jolts. Grover shrieks.

“Clarisse?” Annabeth says. And it is her, looking angry and grim, with a pale cast to her face that Percy doesn’t remember her having at this age. “What do you mean?”

“I’m leaving camp tomorrow,” Clarisse says, “even if the Oracle isn’t giving out prophecies anymore.”

“But—” Grover begins. Annabeth cuts him off with a raised hand. “Why?” she asks instead.

Clarisse presses her lips together. “My father gave me a steamship. And a mission.”

That’s weird. She doesn’t look excited at all. She’s not even gloating.

Annabeth obviously senses the same wrongness that Percy does. Her voice is quiet and careful when she says, “What is it?”

Clarisse swallows, looking down at the rattled pottery wheel.

“Kill Percy Jackson.”

Percy spills out of the chair, awake even before he hits the ground.

He stares up at the ceiling and breathes.

Later, Percy will worry about Annabeth and Grover trying to make it to the Sea of Monsters on their own, Clarisse coming to assassinate him on Ares’s word, the clash of these two quests with his own and the danger his friends don’t even know they’re heading towards.

But, right now, lying spread-eagle on the floor, all he can think about is Annabeth telling Grover that the Oracle won’t give her a prophecy. The Oracle won’t give anyone prophecies. 

That means—

Percy grins, laughs to himself in relief. He can’t believe—Of course, they’d suspected this would happen, but they hadn’t known for sure. Now he knows. Now he’s sure.

The Oracle can’t give prophecies anymore. No one knows what the future looks like. And no one can control it.

That means they have a chance.

Chapter Text

“Percy,” Luke says, “let’s train.”

“What?” Percy’s busy right now, thanks. “No, I just figured out where they were hiding all the real food.” There’s a box of thin mints lying half an inch away from his outstretched fingers, and he can hear it taunting him. How evil do you have to be to shove all the cookie boxes behind the jars of pickled vegetables anyway?

Luke makes a strangled sound, grabs Percy’s ankle, and then pulls him out from underneath the storeroom shelf. Percy takes this with his usual grace, which means he’s wiggling like a fish on dry land and cursing Luke out with everything he’s ever heard his mom yell while driving.

Ever since Percy got a somewhat confused Luke to teach him How to Sail a Cruise Ship For Sons of Not Poseidon 101, they’ve been swapping shifts at the bridge, getting closer and closer to Polyphemus’s island. It’s slow though, slower than what Percy could do on his own, using his power over the ocean. But Percy still can’t—He just doesn’t want to spend so much energy on controlling this steaming trash pile of a ship anymore, okay? Even though he’s worried about Annabeth and Grover also trying to make their way down south and Clarisse gunning for his head and what if they catch up before Percy and Luke get the Golden Fleece? Why is Percy always leading his friends into danger? Why why why why—

Anyway. Percy’s been trying to eat his feelings, which is hard when he used the last of his M&Ms to get back at Luke. He needs these cookies.

Luke shakes Percy’s ankle, drawing his attention back. He looks a little concerned. “You can get hopped up on sugar later,” he says. “You need to train now. You’re out of practice.”

“You’re out of practice,” Percy mutters. 

But he still lets Luke help him up and lead him to the aft deck. Luke has never asked Percy to spend time with him like this, and it makes the part of Percy that still feels like his dumb twelve-year-old self get all excited. The other part of him is wondering if this means he’s finally made progress in smothering Luke’s inner evil, and the other other part of him is still screaming, It’s a trap! You better kill him before he kills you!

So, Percy thinks he’s earned the right to sound whiny when he asks Luke, “Do we have to fight on the yacht? Can’t we wait until we’re on land?”

Luke shakes his head, kicking some of the deck chairs out of the way. “You never know where you might bump into a monster. Do you really think a hellhound will stop and wait if you say ‘Hey, do you mind moving this fight somewhere else?’”

No. “I won’t know until I try.”

Luke sighs heavily, shooting Percy a disapproving look that rivals his mom’s. 

Percy scuffs the toe of his sneaker on the deck. “I just don’t like fighting on yachts,” he mumbles.

Luke settles into a ready stance, nodding Percy forward. “Considering who your father is, I’d expect you to prefer it to land.”

“I’m not my father.” Percy uncaps Riptide. “Just like you’re not yours.”

Luke’s eyes flash. Looks like he still can’t quench his instinctive rage at every mention of Hermes. That’s fine. It’s better that he spends his anger on Percy instead of hiding it and letting it simmer. Maybe someday he’ll learn to be an angry knitter instead of an angry sword fighter. He and Annabeth can start a club.

And Percy should probably start paying attention now because Luke has just lunged forward and cut a stray thread off the hem of Percy’s shirt sleeve.

“Keep your guard up,” Luke says, smirking.

Percy’s undoubtedly clever comeback is drowned out by the clang of Backbiter’s blade on Riptide’s.

At first, it’s just the easy back and forth of a Camp Half-Blood warm up. Slash. Jab. Thrust. Parry. If Percy doesn’t look at Luke’s face, he can pretend that he’s just getting ready for another sword fighting lesson, another day trying to teach kids who’re too young how not to die under a monster’s claw.

Then Luke picks up the pace.

He’s faster than Ares, but his hits are lighter. Backbiter’s still a foot longer than Riptide though, and Percy isn’t willing to get closer to Luke, no matter how much he presses. That means Percy’s mostly restricted to defense.

Luke doesn’t seem very happy with that. He lunges forward, even quicker than before, and hacks downward.

Percy’s head fuzzes out. It’s like his soul is going through a tunnel and losing its connection to his body. On instinct, he rolls. A deck chair is halved under Luke’s blade. 

Luke grins.

I’ll kill you quickly.

No. Percy pulls himself back. They’re training. Luke isn’t even carrying a shield. It’s different this time.

Stay focused, Percy. Stay present.

Percy’s sweating, but he feels cold. Luke jabs, he leaps back, and then he realizes that Luke is herding him towards the pool.

Percy sprints towards Luke, feints, and then somersaults over Backbiter, putting Luke between him and the water.

Luke spins around, eyebrows raised. He looks reluctantly impressed.

Then his eyes narrow. “Why aren’t you using the water, Percy?”

“Don’t need it to beat you,” Percy says, before leaping forward and smashing his blade against Luke’s.

Actually, Percy’s kind of been thinking about this a lot, too. Water is his father’s element. So, how much of Percy’s power is a gift from his father, and how much of it is really his? How much can he rely on? How much can be taken away?

In the past future, Luke didn’t seem to rely on anything of Hermes’s. The flying shoes were cursed to Tartarus. His sword was not a weapon of the gods. Percy bets that if Luke had recognized any part of his power as Hermes’s, he would have burned it out of his veins even before Kronos burned out all the rest of him. Hermes certainly wouldn’t have pulled away. He loved Luke, even though he sucked at showing it. Percy never did quite figure out if Luke hated him because he didn’t know this or because he did.

Percy doesn’t hate his dad. He’s resented him, yeah, but he’s not angry. Or he’s not angry in the same way Luke was angry. But, Percy doesn’t know if he can love him like he loves his mom. They just...haven’t had enough time together. And if Percy can’t figure out how to love his father, then he definitely can’t expect his father to love him. Especially now.

Maybe that’s the best answer. Maybe it’s better to push people away before they can reject him. 

Percy’s tired of being expelled. 

Thrust, parry, jab, slash. Percy moves around Luke like a moth dancing around a flame, trying to touch a part of him without getting burned by Backbiter.

“Come on, Percy. You’ll never hit me like that.”

Luke’s bigger, stronger, heavier, and Percy is out of practice, if you call losing years of conditioning and muscle memory to time travel getting out of practice. Either way, it feels like he’s moving through syrup. Like time is slowing down.

Percy leaps out of the way of a downward strike, and the scythe cuts a gash in the deck right between his feet.

Wait, no, it’s a sword, not a scythe. Sword, not scythe.

Luke takes advantage of Percy’s momentary distraction and shoves him to the floor, leaning his weight on their crossed swords.

“Use the water,” he says in Percy’s face. “Or are you too much of a coward to face your own power?”

Cheap blow. Percy can feel the familiar anger boiling at his arteries, can taste the brackish sweat on his lips.

Percy kicks Luke’s feet out from underneath him and rolls, scrambling to his feet a safe distance away. Then, as Luke’s climbing to his feet, he leaps forward and slams Riptide down.

Luke parries, stuck in a crouch. “Now that’s more like it!” he says.

Faster, even faster. Percy gets in close, striking Backbiter’s hilt and aiming for Luke’s joints, trying to disable, trying to disarm. Luke dodges and ducks, slashes and thrusts—the best sword fighter in three hundred years—and when Percy’s arms wobble and lower, Luke whacks him in the ribs with the flat of his blade.

A pause. Both of them back away, recover distance.

Percy blinks the sweat out of his eyes while Luke examines the tear in his shirt. Then his eyes shift back to Percy, who brings Riptide up again. He belatedly realizes that Luke has forced him back towards the pool.

“The water, Percy,” Luke cajoles. “What’s the point of all that power if you aren’t going to use it?”

There is no point. There was never—“I don’t want to,” Percy says.

Luke shrugs. “It’s your funeral.”

And then he hits so hard that Percy believes him.

Slash, miss, recover. Percy barely has time to attack now. He tries the feint and leap again, but Luke is ready for him and uses an arm across his gut to keep him grounded.

As Percy reorients himself, Luke crouches and jabs—

Percy’s leg is burning. His vision is blacking out. He’s crawling towards the pool, but he’s never going to make it, and Luke’s going to let his bear minions kill Annabeth and Grover don’t do it why Luke please—

No. That’s not—

The blade grazes Percy’s arm, and he stumbles backwards. Black spots crowd his vision. He lunges forward blindly, even though he knows the strike won’t land.

A poor performance, Percy Jackson. Luke tells me you were never his match at swordplay.

No, wait. This is wrong. Where are the giants? Where’s Beckendorf? And—

The boat lurches to the side, and water shoots out of the swimming pool, dousing Percy and Kronos and everyone on deck. The water revitalizes Percy, and he thrusts his sword forward, and—

An exhilarated laugh.

Luke’s laugh. 

He’s laughing?

And it’s his voice. Not Kronos’s. And his scar still looks faded. 

Are his eyes—

He parries with Backbiter, knocking Percy off balance, but he doesn’t take the opportunity to stab Percy in the thigh. Instead, he drops his sword and pushes Percy into the pool.

What—

Percy falls.

This is wrong.

Underwater, the world is quiet and calm. And even through the ripples, Percy can see—

Luke’s eyes are blue.

Percy resurfaces, panting like he’s just escaped from Cerberus again.

Luke’s breathing hard, too. His hair is plastered to his forehead, like he’s dumped his water bottle over himself after another bout in the arena. And he’s smiling in a way that reminds Percy of why he once mistook Apollo for him.

“See?” Luke says. His shoes squeak against the wet floor. He crouches down at the edge of the pool and reaches out a hand.  “You’re fine. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

You’re an unreliable weapon. You need to be replaced.

No. Percy caps his sword. He lets Luke pull him out of the pool and hopes Luke doesn’t notice how he’s trembling.

“Percy?”

Percy can’t look at him. He dodges Luke’s outstretched hand and runs down, down, down to the engine room, tucking himself into a corner so small that Luke won’t be able to reach him when he comes looking. 

The noise drains all the chaos from Percy’s head. It’s warm. He presses his forehead to his knees and tries to breathe.

Luke doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

——

Eventually, Luke lures Percy out with the box of thin mints and a box of samoas thrown in for good measure. He eyes Percy carefully while Percy shoves cookie after cookie in his mouth, not stopping until he feels sick. 

It’s fine. At least it’s a different kind of sick from before. At least Percy knows this sick will go away.

He pulls himself together in time to check in with Silena, who seems both more frazzled and more animated each time they call. Luke is reluctant to let Percy hold the mirror, which is annoying, considering that Percy’s hands are only kind of shaking. The sugar rush will wear off soon anyway. Still, Luke gives him uneasy looks as he dodges Silena’s questions about how their cruise is going and when they think they’re coming back, instead telling her stories about helpful hippocampi and magical resort islands.

“Did that really happen?”

In another life. “Sure.”

Once the pleasantries are over with, they dive into business.

“Has Mr. D said anything?” Percy asks. The houses are important to him, but he really doesn’t want any campers to be turned into dolphins for them. If anyone should be standing in the line of vaporization, it should be him. 

Thankfully, Silena answers, “Nope! He’s been holed up in the Big House. Castor told me that he’s been having headaches.”

Headaches. Percy wonders...

But that’s something for another time. Percy has priorities, too. “What about Chiron?” he says. “Is he back yet?”

Silena hesitates. “Yeah. He’s...I’m not sure if he approves, but he hasn’t made any official announcements about us. He seems a bit—preoccupied.”

Percy glances at Luke, who looks back, eyebrows furrowed. In Percy’s dream, Annabeth had mentioned the Manhattan penthouse. Percy can’t—doesn’t recall how they left that place, but he’s sure it wasn’t pretty. Luke managed to dig up the paperwork for the Princess Andromeda there. And Chiron knows about the Romans. Is it possible that if he searched the apartment, he would have found—

Not the time. Silena’s looking worried now, so Percy tells her, “Just keep going then. And if he really does start threatening the new arts and crafts projects…”

Percy pauses. Will Chiron threaten them? If he knows about Camp Jupiter, then he should also know about New Rome and what it offers to demigods. Then again, community development is not what Chiron is at Camp Half-Blood for. Sure, he cares about the campers, but in the end, his job is to train heroes. Not raise kids. 

Chiron’s a good teacher. The best Percy’s had. But, he’s seen a lot of kids die young, and he’s resigned to seeing a lot more. He’s used to mourning over heroes who sacrifice themselves to preserve humanity’s good.

That’s not what Percy’s fighting for. And it never has been.

Something hits Percy’s knee, and he flinches. It’s Luke’s thigh. He’s sending Percy a concerned look, and Percy realizes that he’s been quiet for too long.

He shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts away. “It’ll be fine,” he tells Silena. “We’ll figure something out.”

She doesn’t look reassured. Honestly, Percy isn’t either.

Luke presses his lips together and looks down at his hands.

Silena lets out a shaky breath, then smiles. “On a brighter note, I brought another person who wants to help out!”

She turns to the side, waving someone over, and it’s—

“Hey, guys,” Beckendorf grins. “I heard that you’re building ca—“

“Houses. Small houses,” Silena interrupts. She nudges Beckendorf with her shoulder, then just stays there, leaning against him. “Just a couple of arts and crafts projects, really. Charlie, we’ve been over this.”

“Right,” Beckendorf rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry, Silena.”

Percy smiles, hoping he looks welcoming and not absolutely horrified. Beckendorf is definitely the guy you want on your side in any situation, but Percy does remember what happened the last time he helped him out.

Maybe Percy should be asking the naiads to help him build underground apocalypse bunkers, too, so that he can lock all his friends away when—

“We’re happy to have your support, Beckendorf,” Luke says. He seems to waver for a second before continuing, “But I think Silena’s given you the wrong idea—“

Okay, no. “Yeah,” Percy says loudly. “Because it’s not just houses. We need furniture and decorations too.”

“Decorations?” Beckendorf asks, looking intrigued.

Percy nods. “Some of the campers might want to customize their arts and crafts. With decorations. Related to their specific abilities or their heritage or the things they like,” he adds. This way, it’ll be easier to pass Beckendorf off as just an admirer of godly abilities or an innocent artist if anything happens. Not that anything will happen, since Percy refuses to fuck up again.

Beckendorf winks. “Gotcha, Percy. Leave it to me.”

While Percy flounders through Beckendorf’s questions about the other stuff they might need, he also keeps an ear out for Silena, who’s addressing Luke quietly at the side.

“—ted to say that I’m sorry for doubting you. I didn’t tell you this but—” Silena glances up at Luke, then away. “The way you were talking last winter kind of scared me. I—I was afraid that you were just using us to get back at the gods. That we were just your pawns. But, this—” She smiles. “This could really be something. Did you know that Ethan actually laughed the other day? And Chris and the other undetermined campers—they finally look like they have hope for the future. They’re finally—”

Silena looks down, then wipes her eyes. Beckendorf, distracted from his speech about wall fixtures, turns to her, whispering something Percy can’t catch. She shakes her head, and he hugs her closer to his side.

After a moment, Silena faces the mirror again. She says, “This is really helping, Luke. This could save lives.”

“Yeah,” Luke says blankly. “Saving lives.”

When Silena and Beckendorf both grin at them through the mirror, they look like a better representation of love than any temple of Aphrodite.

Luke’s expression is slack and strange. He looks like he’s staring at something all the way across the sea.

Hey. Percy reaches out and tugs at Luke’s index and middle fingers until he looks down and sees that he’s pressing pink crescent moons into the back of his clasped hands. He untangles his fingers and places his palms on his thighs.

“You know, Luke,” Silena says. “I think you really needed this cruise. You look a lot better than you did at camp.” She flashes Percy a look full of mischief and adds, “You should thank Percy.”

“Yeah,” Percy repeats, “you should thank me.”

Luke glances down at him, unamused. “I’ll thank you with some extra sword fighting practice later.”

Percy fakes his look of horror, but his shudder is all real.

Better change the subject. “So,” he says to Beckendorf. “How soon do you think you can finish a set of furniture?”

Beckendorf frowns. “Not quickly enough to meet demand. Especially if the campers also want something that’s—specific.”

“Most of the campers who’ve—um, who’re really dedicated to their projects are still in sleeping bags,” Silena says.

Luke furrows his brow. “You should prioritize getting them off the floor. Can you mass produce a basic bed and then work on the custom builds later?”

“Not exactly,” Beckendorf says slowly. “I could probably get some of the dryads to help, but that would take manpower away from home construction.”

“Dryadpower, Charlie.”

“Right, dryadpower.” Beckendorf grins adoringly at Silena. “My bad.”

“The Poseidon cabin has a ton of extra beds,” Percy says. “You could take some.”

Beckendorf makes a face. “I don’t really want to be turned into sea foam by your father, Percy.”

“But he doesn’t live there,” Percy points out. “I do.”

“Yeah, but I’d be the one dragging your furniture out the door, not you.”

True. And Percy really doesn’t want Beckendorf to be sea foam either. Maybe—“Do you think you could convince some other campers to donate furniture from their cabins? If they move their own stuff out, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“We can try!” Silena says. “A lot of people have been interested in getting involved in the arts and crafts projects already. Don’t worry,” she tells Luke. “We haven’t told them that they’re for—a specific purpose. But, I don’t think many of them will be happy if we start asking for their things.”

Yeah. Percy deflates. He can’t see Clarisse or her siblings willingly giving up a chair or two to some reject wimp they’ve already dunked in a toilet.

Then Luke says, “What if you’re not asking for their things?” 

Huh?

“Huh?” Silena asks.

“What if you’re offering them something in exchange for some old furniture they don’t even use?” Luke says, looking thoughtful. “You said people were interested in getting involved? A lot of Athena kids, I’m guessing, and maybe some from Hephaestus?” he adds, glancing at Beckendorf, who nods. “They’ll want input and creative control, a place to show off their skills—Delegate the design and construction work to them, and they’ll be willing to donate more than just their time.”

Silena’s eyes brighten, but Luke’s just getting started.

“The Ares cabin already wants the Hermes cabin to be split up for strategic purposes—The only good part about being overcrowded is that we sway Capture the Flag victories towards whichever cabin we’re allied to,” he says sourly. “Take that angle to convince them.”

Beckendorf nods in agreement. Silena’s scribbling down notes in his pocket sketchbook.

“Offer the Demeter kids free reign over the yards—You have been allocating yard space, right? The Apollo kids might be willing to help as soon as they figure out we’re resolving the Hermes cabin’s fire safety problem. The Aphrodite cabin…” Luke trails off.

“I’ve already talked to some of my siblings,” Silena explains, “but they aren’t very eager to get their hands dirty.”

Luke thinks for a moment, then says, “What if we promised to build them a space where they can—” He glances down at Percy, before continuing “—enjoy some private time?”

Silena goes red, her gaze flickering to Beckendorf for a second. “That...That might work.”

“Good.” Luke ignores Percy’s scowl—He’s not a little kid!—finishing with, “And you should be able to convince Castor and Pollux to give furniture and run interference against Mr. D by telling them you know about their secret wine stash in the strawberry fields.”

“I knew it!” Beckendorf exclaims. “No one can be that happy about sitting around and making plants grow all day.”

“I’m sure growing strawberry plants is very relaxing,” Silena says.

“Not as relaxing as getting hammered,” Beckendorf mutters.

Silena elbows him in the side, and he doubles over, groaning exaggeratedly.

Luke gives them a moment, his lips curling upwards with reluctant amusement. The set of his shoulders and the tone of his voice remind Percy of the young general who headed Kronos’s army and almost killed him on this boat. But, his face is quite different. 

Percy stares up at Luke, not bitter or cold or spilling over with hate, and thinks, How long did he spend coming up with this stuff?

Does this mean that if things had just been a bit different last time, if Luke’s life hadn’t been so warped by the wills of gods and titans, if he had realized what power he already held in his own two hands, then maybe—

“Did you get all of that?” Luke says.

“Yup!” Silena flips Beckendorf’s sketchbook shut and shoves it back into his pocket. “Just leave it to us, Luke. You’ll be looking at a totally new camp by the time you get back.”

“Good,” Luke nods. “There’s no reason for kids to be on the floor when we have empty beds.”

Maybe he does have a place in the future Percy came back to create.

After a couple more assurances from Silena and Beckendorf, Luke shuts down the mirror call. It takes Percy a second to remember to put his hand down.

Luke lets out a breath, sitting back and stretching his arms across the length of the sofa. Then he glances down at Percy, one eyebrow raised. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks.

“No reason,” Percy says.

Just thinking about hope.

Chapter Text

The stars are bright tonight. Bob would’ve loved this.

Percy wishes he could show him, sit him down on the neighboring beach chair and let him gaze up at the sky. But Bob isn’t Bob, and Percy won’t be able to be his friend again.

Shut up, Percy. This isn’t the time for thoughts like that.

Percy came to the upper deck to watch for—Well, he actually doesn’t know. A cannonball from Clarisse’s steamship? Annabeth and Grover paddling towards him on a lifeboat? Even though he’s the one who should always know what’s going on, he feels lost. He never imagined he could be lost at sea.

It’s keeping him awake, the plans and back up plans and back up back up plans spinning around in his head. There’s so much he can’t control, an entire ocean of variables pushing up against his ribs and abdomen, and he’s already so tired. But, it’ll be worth it. He has to believe—The future he’s making will be worth this. Worth everything.

It’ll be fine. Luke is different, he thinks. And Annabeth and Grover and Clarisse—They won’t be in danger if Percy destroys every danger before it can reach them.

Annabeth will have to protect Grover from being guinea pig-ed though. Percy’s not powerful enough to do anything about that.

Percy looks up at the stars, the ocean breeze brushing against his cheek. As he waits, all the monsters inside him slowly go quiet. 

Footsteps.

“So that’s where my jacket went,” Luke says, amused.

“I’m cold,” Percy tells him.

“Then you should’ve bought a jacket before we left.” Luke plops down on the chair beside Percy. He leans over, tugs the jacket’s lapels closer together, then starts doing up the buttons.

“I was saving up for a skateboard.” Percy bats Luke’s hands away before they can reach his neck, and Luke flicks him in the chin in retaliation.

“It’s not even that cold out,” Luke says, sitting back and folding his hands behind his head.

“I’m a fish,” Percy insists. “We’re cold blooded.”

“Your dad is a fish,” Luke points out. “You’re a half-fish.”

“Do you have to argue with me about everything?”

“I’ll stop arguing with you when you start making sense.”

Percy snorts. Luke’s definition of sense has never agreed with his own. Then again, maybe that can change, too.

The Princess Andromeda is big enough that the waves can’t rock it. Here, underneath the stars with Luke lying quietly beside him, Percy can almost understand why people actually pay money to go on cruises. 

Almost.

Still, Percy muses, “Maybe if Mr. D blasts the arts and crafts projects, we can just move everyone here.”

Luke shifts. “We should be moving everyone here anyway. Building an army on enemy grounds isn’t a good idea.”

Enemy grounds? No, wait—“An army?”

“Isn’t that what Kronos wants the projects for?” Luke turns to Percy, bracing himself up on his elbows. The starlight isn’t bright enough for Percy to read his expression.

Percy takes a breath, lets it out, and tries not to sound too annoyed when he says, “We’re not recruiting campers for Kronos’s army. They’ll die.”

Luke tilts his head to the side, not arguing.

The anger shoots through Percy’s veins like poison from the Chimera’s snake head, acrid and sudden.

He sits up and asks Luke. “Why do you want to kill demigods so badly?”

“I don’t want to kill demigods,” Luke says coolly. “I want the gods to fall.”

“And letting demigods die is the only way to do that?”

“Soldiers die in war. That’s natural.”

“We’re not soldiers. We’re kids.”

Luke shrugs. “Kids die in war, too.”

Asshole. What a fucking—“They shouldn’t have to,” Percy argues.

Luke laughs, pushing himself all the way up, and Percy almost punches him in the jaw. “Don’t be naive, Percy,” he says, leaning forward until they’re nose to nose. “Demigods are born to fight their parents’ battles for them. Our lives are messy and violent and cursed and short.” His voice is tight and bitter.

“Then why join Kronos?” Percy says. “What makes fighting his battles for him any better?”

Luke smiles, but his eyes are dark and cold. “At least with Kronos I’ll get to take Olympus down with me.”

Silence. Percy searches Luke’s face. 

Nothing but shadows.

“Is revenge really worth your entire life?” Percy says, not quite sure if he’s asking for a real answer or begging for the one he needs.

Luke doesn’t say anything for a long time.

Then he throws his head back, stares up at the sky, and sighs. “My life’s already over,” he mutters. “This is what I have left.” 

Before Percy can figure out a good response to that—something besides “Fuck that noise”—Luke asks, “What about you, Percy? Why are you with Kronos?”

Uh. Well. About that.

Percy shrugs and hopes that his expression is as unreadable as Luke’s is in the starlight. “I just want to keep some people alive.”

A pause. 

Then Luke snorts, shaking his head. 

“You’re such a child,” he says.

Okay, first of all, fuck you. Second of all, fuck you. “I’m not a child for wanting to protect my friends,” Percy snaps.

“You’re a child for believing that you can,” Luke says. And the worst part is that he doesn’t say it like he’s taunting Percy or making fun of him. He says it like he’s stating something as simple as A cyclops has one eye or Zeus is a dick.

Percy stares at Luke’s face, shrouded in darkness. He doesn’t know whether he wants to shout or swear or just grab him by the shoulders and shake and shake and shake until he finally stops saying things that make it seem like this world can’t be saved.

They’ve been in the same boat for days, and yet there’s still an ocean between them.

Why is Luke like this? What can Percy say?

You can’t give up on your family, no matter how tempting they make it.

But how can Percy change someone who doesn’t want to be changed?

Luke sighs again. He stands. “Go below deck if you’re cold. It’s past your bedtime anyway.”

Percy watches Luke walk away, a black silhouette against the dark sky. He wonders if he’ll soon have to accept the fact that the only thing Luke wants from the bottom of his heart is the destruction of everything he hates, even at the cost of everything he loves.

Of course, because Percy’s life is a joke, that’s exactly when the Sirens start singing.

——

Actually, Percy doesn’t realize what’s happening at first.

He just sees Luke stop halfway to the door. For a moment, he’s standing perfectly still. Then he slowly turns in the direction of the railing.

“Luke?” Percy says.

Luke sways. 

And then he starts sprinting. At full speed. Straight towards the side of the yacht.

“Don’t—!” Percy leaps off the beach chair and tackles Luke in the legs, downing him right before he can crash into the railing.

Note to self: Luke isn’t just a great sword fighter. He’s also a half-decent wrestler, even when he’s trying to jump into the ocean and drown himself.

While Percy tries to get his hands around Luke’s ears, he takes an elbow to the face and a knee to the gut. As Luke tries to kick his legs free, Percy scrabbles forward and throws his entire weight onto Luke’s stomach, knocking the breath out of him. This gives Percy enough time to put him in a guillotine choke hold.

Not for the first time, Percy is very grateful that Annabeth agreed to spend so much time sparring with him.

Unfortunately, Annabeth learned how to fight from Luke, so Percy actually holds him for about one second before Luke’s rolling and smashing Percy into the deck floor. Luke presses his shoulder into Percy’s neck. It doesn’t take long before Percy’s wheezing and seeing spots.

On the bright side, at least he can’t hear any Siren song over the buzz of blood rushing to his head.

Percy is breathing like a fish out of water, but he can’t let Luke go. He keeps his legs locked around Luke’s waist even as his clamp on his neck weakens enough that Luke pries his arms off. Luke climbs to his feet, Percy still clinging to him like a koala with mild smoke inhalation, and continues stumbling forward.

And before Percy can even think about going for Luke’s ears again, Luke tips them over the railing.

The cool air rushes past them, and Percy can see the stars falling away. The water below is dark and unforgiving, so black that it’s almost indistinguishable from the void that his dreams tend to feature.

Later, Percy will think about this moment and wonder why he doesn’t call up a geyser from the sea to break their fall. He’s done it before, so he won’t understand why he doesn’t remember to do it now. Maybe it’s because Annabeth isn’t with him. Then again, that’s the whole point of this trip.

Percy doesn’t remember to soften their landing. Instead, he remembers to fold and tangle Luke’s legs with his own, so Luke probably won’t shatter his shins on the ocean’s surface. He remembers to tuck Luke’s head under his chin. He remembers to close his eyes. 

Protect him. Brace yourself.

The water is cold.

At first, Percy thinks the darkness is from the ocean. But he doesn’t feel the weight of the waves pressing down on him. And his arms are empty.

The panic chokes him worse than Luke did.

Where is he?

“L—”

“Luke?”

Percy’s words break off. 

He knows that voice.

“Luke, I’m sorry it took so long, but it’s alright now. I’m here. Where are you?”

That’s...

“Luke?” And the creak of a door opening.

Light floods Percy’s vision.

It’s Hermes. He’s standing in the doorway, framed by the warm light. And he’s smiling down at—

Percy looks to his right. Then down. 

There’s a mini Luke curled up on the ground next to him. Percy’s never seen an elementary school edition of Luke in real life before. He’s really small.

“There you are,” Hermes says. He kneels down in front of Luke and holds out his hand. “It’s alright. You can come out now. Everything is alright.”

A pause.

Hermes doesn’t waver.

Slowly, cautiously, Luke reaches out with one skinny arm. He takes Hermes’s hand.

The dark walls around them vanish.

Percy barely recognizes Ms. Castellan’s kitchen. It looks a lot different without all the moldy peanut butter sandwiches stacked on the counter or the trays of burnt cookies on top of the stove or the Hermes collage taped above the sink.

It also looks a lot different with Ms. Castellan from before she tried to host the Oracle standing there in the middle of the room.

Hermes guides Luke towards her, waiting patiently as he hesitates.

When Ms. Castellan spots Luke, her eyes well up, and she drops to her knees. She opens her arms.

For a brief moment, Luke shrinks into himself, eyeing her cautiously. After she does nothing but blink tears out of her unclouded eyes, he glances up at Hermes, who nods.

Then he rushes forward.

Luke’s hugging Ms. Castellan so tightly that Percy’s surprised she even has the breath to speak, but she does. “I’m sorry I scared you, baby. But I’m okay now.” She rubs Luke’s back, presses his head into her shoulder. “I’m okay,” she says softly. “I’m sorry I hurt you. It’ll never happen again.”

Percy doesn’t really remember what Ms. Castellan’s voice sounds like. The glowing eyes made a much deeper impression. But, right now, she kind of sounds like Percy’s mom.

Down to the way she says, “I love you.”

Hermes joins the two figures kneeling in the kitchen and wraps his arms around both of them. Whole, balanced, and bathed in golden light, they look like a perfect family.

Then mini Luke shudders, rippling, and he grows into the Luke who Percy knows. Except he doesn’t have a scar. It makes him look—honestly, sort of weird. Like there’s something essentially Luke missing from his face.

Luke’s parents don’t stop hugging him, but after a moment, he gently untangles himself from their embrace and helps them to their feet. Ms. Castellan beams and pats his hand. Hermes leans close to Luke’s ear and says something that Percy can’t catch. 

Then there are footsteps pounding towards them from the living room.

Annabeth and Thalia tumble into the kitchen, smiling, laughing. Luke’s eyes widen. And then he grins, as warm as the sun.

Percy watches Luke hug Thalia before lifting her into the air, spinning her in a circle while she yelps in protest, pounding his back, and Annabeth giggles. 

They look so happy.

This is how it should have been, Percy thinks.

Suddenly, Luke meets Percy’s eyes over Thalia’s shoulder. There’s a flash of—something.

And then it all disappears.

Somehow, Percy feels like he’s falling again.

The water is cold. And dark. The waves press down on him with suffocating weight.

But, Luke is still here.

That’s enough.

Percy feels Luke thrashing in his arms, trying to kick them towards the surface, and for a second, he thinks that he’s still fighting to get to the Sirens. Then he remembers that Luke can’t breathe underwater.

Right.

Percy concentrates on summoning bubbles until there’s an orb of air around Luke’s head, like an astronaut’s helmet. Once that’s done, Luke finally goes still. 

He’s not limp, which is the only reason why Percy doesn’t freak out about accidentally drowning him. But he doesn’t react when Percy ducks down to check if his feet are broken. And he doesn’t react when Percy hooks an arm around his waist and jets him back to the yacht. And he doesn’t react during the whole time they spend trailing the yacht through the dark water.

At first, Percy’s glad. He doesn’t know what he’d do if Luke began crying in front of him. He’d rather fight Charybdis again, actually. But, after about ten minutes of zero reaction from a guy who just got shown his deepest desire before it was ripped away, even the most heartless monster would start getting worried.

Percy tightens his grip around Luke’s waist, focusing, and he manages to shoot them out of the ocean and onto the gangway. Honestly, it’s not one of his more graceful landings, but Luke doesn’t seem to mind. He just rolls onto his back, taking deep breaths of the night air. After a moment, Percy crawls forward, patting the ground blindly until he touches Luke’s wrist. He dries Luke off.

Luke flinches like Percy’s burning him and quickly shakes him off. He gets to his feet, looming over Percy.

“Luke—”

“You saw nothing,” Luke says. His voice is low and hoarse and brittle. “Nothing. Got it?”

“Okay,” Percy says, raising his hands even though Luke probably can’t see them. “Okay. But, hypothetically,” he adds carefully, “if I had seen something, then I’d tell you that you don’t have anything to be embarrassed about.”

Luke scoffs. “Of course I don’t. Why would I feel embarrassed? That wasn’t my deepest desire. That was—”

He cuts himself off. 

A heavy silence, broken only by the crashing of waves into the sea.

Percy wonders if they’d both been expecting the same thing. Luke enthroned in the rubble of Olympus. The gods’s heads on pikes outside of whatever nightmare palace Kronos wants to build in its stead. Hermes, beaten and bleeding, kneeling at his feet.

The reality of what Luke really wants is shocking to Percy. He can’t imagine how Luke feels.

Percy watches Luke carefully. Maybe his shoulders are shaking. Maybe it’s just the boat.

Either way, no matter how much Luke is hurting right now, Percy can’t allow him to deny this truth.

It may not save Olympus. But, it’ll definitely save him.

“Annabeth told me,” Percy says slowly, “that the Sirens show you things that you didn’t know about yourself.” He gets to his feet, facing Luke in the shadows. “I didn’t see anything, but maybe you should think twice about whether you want to stay blind.”

Luke makes a sound that’s caught between a snarl and a sob. Other than Kronos’s voice, it’s the scariest thing Percy’s heard come out of Luke’s mouth.

Percy stays still and silent as Luke struggles to regain control over himself. His harsh breathing grows slower, quieter, until he can say, with his normal amount of dry bitterness—

“And you, Percy? What pretty lie did the Sirens show you?” 

Percy blinks.

Right. He didn’t plug his ears this time. So why did he see—

“Nothing,” Percy says.

“Come on, Jackson. Get off your high horse.” Percy can’t make out Luke’s face in the darkness, but he can imagine the sneer twisting up his scar. “Or are you afraid to admit you’re just the blind leading the blind?”

“I’m telling you the truth,” Percy insists. “I really didn’t see anything.”

Luke pauses. Percy wonders if he can hear that Percy is as incredulous as he is.

Then Luke shakes his head, evidently giving up on making sense of any of the impossible things that’ve happened tonight. “Were your ears plugged with the fuzz from your brain?” he mutters, stalking back inside.

“No,” Percy calls, “but listening to your stupid justifications did make me go deaf!”

Luke doesn’t respond. His angry footsteps quickly disappear into the bowels of the ship.

After a moment spent considering if Luke might respond well to being pushed a bit more right now, Percy decides to just let sleeping demigods lie. Luke deserves time to think. Besides, Percy needs to think a little bit, too.

He lowers himself back onto the deck, staring out at the dark sea until light starts creeping up over the water.

Looks like Percy can’t be shown his deepest desire.

Maybe it’s because he’s already living it.

 ——

After a night spent gazing at stars, dodging Sirens, and watching the sunrise, Percy’s looking forward to getting some shut-eye. Not in a bed, because Percy has a hard time falling asleep in a room where he once saw Kronos’s body recomposing. Fortunately, the captain’s chair is big enough (Or is it that Percy’s still small enough?) to be comfortable. 

Unfortunately, as soon as Percy enters the bridge, Luke slams him into the wall. Again.

Between Annabeth and Luke, Percy’s been getting closely acquainted with a lot of walls this year. He doesn’t remember Thalia being so much of a wall slammer. She’s his new favorite now.

Luke pulls Percy out his thoughts by pressing his forearm to his throat. “Kronos didn’t tell you to build cabins,” he says.

“Small houses,” Percy corrects automatically. Then—”Wait, what?”

“You’re not loyal to Kronos,” Luke enunciates carefully. “And everyone knows they’re cabins, Percy. We’re not stupid.”

Well. 

Fuck.

Turns out that being busted for not worshiping an evil titan lord is better than coffee. Percy is very awake now.

The sting of alcohol on Luke’s breath helps, too. Percy hates having beer breath in his face. It always makes his heart start racing. Where did Luke even find a bottle? Or maybe it was vodka. Whiskey? Percy doesn’t know. He hasn’t tried a lot of the stuff. In his experience, a drunk demigod is more likely to become a dead demigod. Besides, it’s never fun when Percy loses control over himself.

Hey, wait, focus, Percy! Remember the angry demigod pinning you to the wall!

Should Percy try denying it? Would Luke even believe him? He accused him with the confidence of someone who’s been gathering evidence for a very long time. Then again, drunk Luke.

Bang! Luke slaps the wall next to Percy’s face. Then he leans forward, eyes narrowed. Apparently drunk Luke isn’t patient when he wants answers.

Okay, uh—“I don’t have to be loyal to Kronos to fight for him,” Percy reasons. He’s pretty sure most of the demigods who defected last time didn’t do it because they wanted Kronos to rule. If anything, they were more loyal to Luke.

“But you don’t even want to fight,” Luke smiles meanly. “You’re having us build houses. I bet you’re gonna tell us to hold hands with our parents and sing ‘Kumbaya’ around the campfire next.”

“Hey, how’d you guess?”

For that, Percy gets two seconds of Luke leaning what feels like his entire weight on his throat. Then Luke draws back, watching as Percy coughs.

“You have a lot of secrets, Percy. And I’ll admit it: I still don’t know how you interfered with my connection to Kronos. But, it doesn’t matter.”

Luke reaches behind the captain’s chair and pulls out Backbiter, twirling it in his hand.

Shit. Percy tenses.

“I’ll just beat it out of you,” Luke says. 

And then he charges.

Percy doesn’t even have time to grab Riptide from his pocket. He ducks under Luke’s first slash, which gouges into the wall, and rolls closer to the controls, so Luke won’t be able to hit him without sacrificing his ability to sail the cruise ship.

Luke doesn’t seem to care about that, though. He swipes at Percy and takes out the captain’s chair when he dives. 

Not good. Luke’s tearing up the floor as Percy throws himself out of the way of his blade again and again, trying not to make it obvious that he’s moving towards the door. It’s harder than it should be, because Percy’s still wearing Luke’s stupid designer jacket and it’s restricting his movements.

Luke is doing just fine, despite stinking like he’s played ten games of poker with Smelly Gabe. He moves with the care of someone who knows they’re drunk and is doing their best to not show it. But, he’s also swinging Backbiter like he doesn’t care about which part of Percy he hits as long as he does actually hit him. That’s different. Even when Luke lashed out before, he always grabbed Percy with purpose: to threaten, to silence, to disarm. Not now. Now he just wants to hit him.

So, this is when Percy really starts feeling scared.

“Undo what you did,” Luke says between blows. “Give me my dreams back.”

“So Kronos can hurt you again?” Percy manages. The door is finally within an arm’s length. If he can distract Luke for a little longer—

Luke hacks downwards, and Percy curls up, using the momentum to roll to his feet so that he doesn’t lose them.

Both of them are breathing hard, the sound harsh and unsteady over the hum of the bridge. Luke’s eyes are red and unfocused. Despite being the one who’s been swinging his sword around here, he looks wrecked. And small. Like mini Luke curled up in the closet, waiting for someone to finally come get him and tell him everything’s okay.

Percy knows he should be grabbing Riptide right now, but he can’t bring himself to fight Luke when he’s like this. If Percy just—runs and lets Luke tire himself out, is there a chance that he’ll forget this ever happened when he wakes up?

Can’t it just be another nightmare?

Percy glances at the door. When he looks back, Luke is already smashing Backbiter’s hilt into his side.

Hard.

Percy staggers, falls, slams his head into the wall. He’s seeing stars again, though they’re not the nice kind this time.

Then there’s a hellhound on his chest and a line of ice on his neck. When Percy’s vision clears up, he finds Luke holding Backbiter against his throat, frustration pulling at his scar.

“Undo it,” Luke says.

Percy hopes he doesn’t look as scared as he feels. He swallows and feels Backbiter slice into his skin. “No. You don’t belong with Kronos, Luke. You’re just gonna have to find another way to get your revenge.”

Luke presses closer. His eyes are moving rapidly across Percy’s face. And—his hand must be shaking, because Backbiter is twitching along Percy’s neck, like Luke is the worst barber in the history of demigod barbers.

“Undo it,” Luke whispers. Then Percy actually feels Backbiter sink into his throat, cold and burning and only deep enough to hurt.

Percy breathes, quick, shallow. The air feels thin.

How did he get here? Is this really how this is going to—

No. Percy refuses. He can’t die here. He can’t.

Fuck, Luke’s hand is still trembling. Percy can feel the itch of blood crawling down his neck and pooling behind his collarbone.

Wait.

Blood. 

His blood. Percy can. Percy can use that.

Luke has his arms pinned, but Percy only needs a finger. He is his own weapon.

If this is really Luke’s choice, then—then—

Percy will do it. He will. He knew when he led Luke out of Camp Half-Blood that this was one of the ways this trip could end.

A smarter demigod would have done it sooner.

Just—Why can’t Percy stop thinking about Luke in Ms. Castellan’s kitchen, the second before the vision fell apart, when Luke looked at him, smiling so warmly, and almost called him over?

Why can’t he just—

Why—?

Percy stares up into Luke’s eyes. “I thought you didn’t want to kill demigods,” he says.

The words pierce through the air like an accusation.

Luke blinks the grey morning light out of his eyes. His gaze trails down Percy’s face and reaches his neck, following the little stream of red into the collar of his jacket. For a second, he looks surprised.

And then he just looks haggard. 

Lost.

Luke takes a deep breath. And another.

Percy waits. He slowly curls his fingers.

Then—

Luke moves Backbiter away from Percy’s neck. The edge of the blade is stained pink. 

He tosses the sword aside, letting it slide into one of the gouges he left in the floor, and then he rolls off of Percy, slumping against the wall next to him.

“Killing you,” Luke says heavily, “won’t fix anything anyway.”

“That’s the spirit,” Percy says. His voice is shaking.

Sitting up is too much work. Percy presses his palm to his neck, and it comes away wet. Now that the adrenaline is starting to wear off, even his own blood feels cold and gross on his skin.

Luke reaches over, like he wants to finish the job with a good throttling or maybe like he actually wants to help. Percy can’t deal with that right now, and it probably shows on his face, since Luke jolts to a stop, then puts his hand down. He looks too shattered for being the one person in the room not currently bleeding out.

Percy needs Luke to stop looking like that. He pinches the cut closed, squeezes his eyes shut, and concentrates on keeping his blood inside his body. And he doesn’t really know if he can make his blood clot faster, but hoping that he can do something crazy has let him do a lot of crazy things in the past.

Ugh. It feels like there are tiny snakes moving through his arteries, which isn’t great, but it seems to be—

Whoa. 

Percy’s really dizzy. And weak, like, stomach flu for eight hours and battle with an ancient sea monster weak. This must be why people don’t eat their own legs when they’re starving.

But, hey, the bleeding’s stopped. Cool.

Percy opens his eyes and finds Luke staring at him like he just nailed Kronos in the eye with a blue hairbrush. So, that probably looked pretty weird from the outside.

But, there are more important things they need to talk about right now.

Percy drags himself upright, until he and Luke are sitting shoulder to shoulder. Luke still sort of smells like an open bar, but he seems more alert now. Maybe the sight of Percy’s blood sobered him up.

It better have. Percy hates bleeding for no reason.

Percy spends a couple seconds gathering his words. Then he carefully turns towards Luke. He tells him, “You don’t want Kronos in your head, Luke. You can live a long, peaceful life with the people you love if you just learn to let go.”

Luke keeps staring straight ahead at the bisected captain’s chair, but he doesn’t go for Backbiter again, which is an improvement. “You’re delusional,” he says.

Percy doesn’t even have the energy for frustration anymore. “The houses are being built. Did you know that Annabeth designed all of them? You won’t have to spend the rest of your life in a crowded cabin full of abandoned kids. She’ll jump at the chance to design another place just for you.”

Luke still doesn’t move.

“You don’t need to obsess over your revenge,” Percy continues. “You can just—live your life. And you’re a leader, Luke. Once the other campers see that they can thrive even if they don’t fixate on their parents—especially if they don’t fixate on their parents—more and more of them will turn their backs on the gods. No more sacrifices. No more pawns. Isn’t that what you want?”

Ow. Even Percy can hear the edge in his voice when he finishes. He hopes Luke didn’t nick anything really important in his throat.

He glances up at Luke’s face. Nothing.

Fine. Percy has time. The day’s just getting started.

Percy’s neck itches. Is it the drying blood or a consequence of whatever he did to himself? He reaches up to touch, but before he can brush skin, Luke catches his wrist and returns it to his side.

Luke won’t look at Percy, but he keeps his hand on his.

They sit quietly for some time.

Finally—“Half-bloods don’t live long lives,” Luke says. His voice is hoarse. “There’s always another fight. Another monster.”

“Well, what if all the monsters were gone?” Percy asks.

Luke gives him a tired look. “Monsters can’t die, Percy.”

Yeah, he knows, but that doesn’t mean—“Just humor me for a second,” Percy says. “Please?”

And he must look pretty pathetic right now, because Luke only hesitates for a moment before nodding.

Good. Time for a pop quiz.

“Picture this.” Percy waves his free hand in the air. “No monsters. No gods. If you could just—live without worrying about the next myth who’s gonna show up and screw you over, what would you want to do? Who would you want to be?”

Luke doesn’t say anything.

“A lawyer?” Percy guesses. “A CEO? An Olympic fencer, a cruise ship captain, a preschool teacher, an actor at a Renaissance fair? Oh, wait, I know, a Broadway—”

“Shut up!” Luke snaps. “A social worker, okay?”

Yes! Luke does dream of something besides the destruction of Western civilization!

Wait, what did he just say? 

Percy shuts up and hopes his eyebrows are doing a good job at broadcasting his surprise and confusion.

Luke sighs. Then he explains, “Before I knew about Camp Half-Blood, I wanted to be a child protection social worker. So I could help demigods whose mortal parents didn’t treat them well.”

“How?” Percy asks, curious. 

“Welfare checks where the kids don’t have to be afraid of being called liars for seeing through the Mist,” Luke says. “Advice for how to cope with their parents and their powers. Removal, if necessary.”

“Removal to where?”

“A community center. A community. A safe place where demigod children can be with people like them and know that they aren’t—” Luke cuts himself off, staring down at the ruined floor.

Percy keeps pressing. “Would you live there too?”

“No. That sort of place isn’t meant to be a permanent residence. The goal is integration, learning how to live in the mortal world and how to live well. I always wanted—” Luke thinks for a moment, then smiles wanly. “Well, a townhouse would be best for us. I’d like an ocean view, but it’d also have to be close to a university where Annabeth wants to study, and Thalia would—“

Luke shuts down again. 

Percy realizes that he’s squeezing his hand. Tight.

After a moment, Luke’s grip loosens. Then he takes a deep breath, staring out at the sea.

“But,” he says, “that’s never going to happen.”

“It will,” Percy replies, before he realizes that he has nothing to promise Luke with except his words. And Luke has a good reason not to trust his word right now.

Fortunately, Luke seems too drained to get mad again. He just glances down at Percy, hollow-eyed.

Percy squeezes his hand. “It’ll happen, Luke,” he says. “Just wait. I’ll show you.”

Chapter Text

As the Princess Andromeda approaches Polyphemus’s island, Percy can feel the power of the Golden Fleece, even from the ruined bridge. He stretches, pulling at the raised scar on his neck, and sighs.

Luke inhales slowly, and his jaw relaxes for the first time since he dragged Percy into the bathroom, splashed the blood off his neck, and saw the clotted wound Backbiter left across his throat. Percy took a shower after that, but whatever he did made the cut heal faster on the outside than on the inside, leaving a bumpy white scar. Luke’s been a little on edge ever since. 

It was Percy’s turn to sail, but Luke had been coming in to check on him every fifteen minutes or so. It took Percy an embarrassing amount of time to figure out that he was doing full sweeps of the ship in some sort of drunken crisis. Pacing, instead of sleeping. After that, Percy tried pushing Luke back into the stateroom and rolling him into a blanket burrito, but he took to being burrito-ed with even less grace than Percy, which is to say none at all.

Eventually, they compromised on both staying at the bridge, Luke staring blankly at the sea while Percy monitors the controls. Backbiter still lies discarded on the floor, Percy’s blood staining the blade. That’s definitely a biohazard, but Percy’s had worse, and Luke doesn’t look ready to deal with it right now.

The Fleece seems to be helping him, though, even at a distance. Polyphemus’s island is just a blot of white sand and greenery in the blue water, but Luke’s already perking up. 

Can the Fleece cure sleep deprivation and teenage angst? If so, Percy wants in on that.

Once Percy starts steering them towards the back side of the island, Luke turns to him, brow furrowed. “If you’re not helping Kronos,” he asks, “then why are we getting the Fleece?”

He doesn’t really sound angry about it anymore. Nice. Percy should’ve spitted himself on Backbiter ages ago.

“The Poseidon cabin is chilly,” Percy tells him. “I want another blanket.”

Luke sighs so heavily that Percy’s surprised he doesn’t pull something. “You know, Percy,” he says, “if you don’t want to answer a question, you can just keep quiet. You don’t have to say something stupid.”

“But then how would I annoy you?”

Luke gives Percy a look. The look says I am very tired in general but especially tired of your shit.

Percy smiles back.

Then it’s down to business. Percy parks the Princess Andromeda by the cliffs that lead up to Polyphemus’s cave, so they’re not very close to the Fleece, but at least the ship is hidden. Even Polyphemus would be able to spot a gigantic yacht sailing towards him.

“So what’s your plan here?” Luke says.

They’re on the upper deck, Luke glancing up at the high cliffs then down at the rocks below. He’s wearing his flying shoes, which is good. He also has Backbiter, freshly cleaned, slung across his back, though Percy’s hoping he won’t have to use it. 

Maybe Polyphemus is taking a nap in his cave. Please let Polyphemus be taking a nap in his cave. Something about this trip has to go according to plan.

“Okay,” Percy says, “there’s a tree surrounded by carnivorous sheep on the other side of the island, and on—”

“Carnivorous sheep?” Luke seems intrigued.

Nope. “We are not fighting the carnivorous sheep,” Percy says sternly. “They’re piranhas with wool.”

Luke rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t going to say we should fight the sheep, but they might be useful for—”

“They’re humongous bloodthirsty fluff balls. They’re only useful if you’re tired of having skin,” Percy points out. “And they’re guarding the tree that the Fleece is on anyway, so we can’t—”

Percy gets interrupted again, but not by Luke this time. 

By a scream. 

Percy whips his head around, staring at the top of the cliff.

For a split second, he thinks—hopes—that it’s one of Polyphemus’s sheep, hollering about not having enough grass or something. Giant piranha sheep should be able to scream like people, too, right? 

But, Percy is too familiar with the sound of someone crying out in fear.

No. This can’t—

“That voice,” Luke says. His shoulders are stiff. “It almost sounded like—”

“Annabeth,” Percy whispers. “Polyphemus has Annabeth.”

Fuck. How could he let this happen again?

Percy starts to dash for the edge of the ship, but then Luke catches his arm. “Why would Annabeth be h—”

There’s no time. “She’s in danger! We need to get up there fast!” Percy tries to shake Luke off, fails, and begins dragging him along like a very annoying and well-armed anchor.

Thankfully, Luke seems willing to take Percy’s word on this one. Or maybe he’s finally learned that there are things he doesn’t want to risk. After stumbling two feet forward, he scoops Percy up, then cries, “Maia!”

Now, Percy actually likes flying, though being cooped up on a magical flying warship with six other demigods and a crazy old satyr does take a bit of the shine off the whole thing. This doesn’t mean that he appreciates Luke picking him up like he’s a little kid and zooming up the cliff at what feels like Mach 1.

Maybe he flails. Briefly.

But, Luke doesn’t get a sneaker to the face, so Percy thinks he’s handling everything pretty well, all things considered.

And then they can see the entrance to Polyphemus’s cave, and all concerns about bruised dignity drain out of Percy’s mind.

The first thing his eyes go to is Grover, lying next to the fire heating Polyphemus’s cooking pot. His right arm and shoulder look like they’ve been mangled by a school of giant piranhas. He’s not moving. 

Percy gags, and it’s only partly at the smell of blood and burnt flesh.

Luke places his hand over Percy’s nose and mouth. “Shh,” he whispers. ”He’s alive. Annabeth must’ve cauterized his wounds. But why would she—”

Any “why” question Luke might’ve asked is answered by Polyphemus, stomping up the path and shaking his fist like Smelly Gabe when the game on TV isn’t going his way. Then a Yankees cap falls to the dirt, and Annabeth appears, snarling, her face red. Polyphemus is holding her upside down by the legs.

Luke’s fingers are digging painfully into Percy’s shoulder, frozen and unyielding as steel. It’s hard to care about that, though, when his blood is turning into ice.

Polyphemus isn’t blind enough to shrug off invisible demigods becoming visible again. He raises Annabeth to his one cloudy eye.

“You a satyr, too?” he asks, squinting at her face. “Satyrs are good eating.”

Annabeth doesn’t answer. Instead, she does a hanging sit up and stabs Polyphemus in the pinky.

The good thing is that he howls and drops her. The bad part is that he drops her head first onto the rocks.

And she stops moving.

Percy doesn’t even have time to absorb this new wave of horror before Luke unceremoniously plonks him onto the ledge.

“I’m going to kill him,” Luke says, deceptively calm. Then he swoops down to do just that.

Percy’s brain doesn’t have the space to worry about Luke right now. His thoughts are just buzzing and white noise, waves crashing into a stormy sea. He dives off the cliff, rolling to spare his ankles and wrists, and dodges Polyphemus’s stumbling feet to sprint over to Annabeth.

She’s breathing, but her eyes are half lidded. Percy can see the whites peeking out. Her palms are red and blistered. There’s blood in her hair.

Please, no. This can’t—

Polyphemus’s heel lands too hard, too close, and Percy braces himself over Annabeth to shield her from the chunks of stone blasted their way.

There’s no time for denial. Trying not to think about spinal injuries and brain damage, Percy picks Annabeth up and moves as steadily as he can towards Grover. If he could think of a safe place, he would carry them both there, but he’s not smart enough or fast enough or strong enough to keep his friends out of danger, apparently. The only thing he can do is keep them together. 

And fight.

Luke’s gotten a head start on that. He’s zigzagging around Polyphemus’s head, slashing at the base of his neck, his forehead, his eye. Polyphemus’s face is scratched and bloody, but he’s just stomping around harder, not faltering. 

Actually, he’s yelling about grinding Luke into sheep chow while slapping at him like he’s just a really murderous mosquito. Which isn’t ideal.

Percy joins in by stabbing at Polyphemus’s knees and ankles when he’s not dodging around his feet, trying to push him back down the path, away from the fire. But even with Percy and Luke both fighting—or maybe because they’re both fighting—they’re not making a lot of progress. It feels like they’re trying to kill Polyphemus with a thousand paper cuts.

Too slow. This is taking too long. Percy doesn’t—They never killed Polyphemus either, did they? They managed to trick him, knock him over, outrun him, but they didn’t hurt him in any way that mattered. 

Who knows what it’ll take to really bring him down this time?

Backbiter flashes overhead, and Polyphemus howls, but he doesn’t stumble. Percy swipes at his calf, leaving a long gash. Nothing changes. It’s not enough. 

Percy glances back at where Annabeth and Grover are lying, as frozen as the dead, and he knows—

“Luke!” he yells. “Stop fighting! You have to go get the Fleece!”

“What?” Luke zips out of the way of Polyphemus’s palm. “No! I—“

No time. Percy stabs Riptide into the back of Polyphemus’s knee, and he growls, pulling away from Luke to slap at his legs. 

“Annabeth and Grover are hurt!” Percy says, leaping back. “They’re dying! They’ll die!”

Luke plunges forward, aiming for Polyphemus’s neck, but then he has to swerve to avoid his swinging elbow. “Then why don’t you—“

There’s no time! “You’re the one wearing the stupid flying shoes!” Percy screams, so loud that it feels like his throat is tearing. He can’t help it. He’s suddenly furious at everything, furious at Luke, furious at himself for needing someone else to save his friends again. Someone who he can’t even get to listen to him—

Percy dives, narrowly avoiding getting squashed like an ant. 

Okay. Obviously, being mad at Luke isn’t going to help him right now. Polyphemus only needs one blow to end this fight, and Percy’s vulnerable like this, weaving between his feet, especially with Luke up above making him jerk around unpredictably.

Except Luke’s not doing that, because right now he’s just hovering in midair like an idiot, glancing quickly between Polyphemus and Annabeth and Grover, Backbiter only half-raised.

“But—“ he says.

Holy Hades. 

What the fuck does he think he’s doing?!

“Don’t just stand there!” Percy yells. “Make a choice!”

Luke does just stand there, and he does not make a choice. Percy jabs Riptide under Polyphemus’s moldy big toenail—so gross—so he can’t swat Luke out of the air like the dumb hover fly he apparently is.

“Luke!”

And the sound of Percy calling his name combined with Polyphemus’s yelp must finally be loud enough to snap Luke out of it, because he jolts like Thalia just electrocuted him and flies out of Polyphemus’s swinging range.

Luke takes a breath. Then another. 

And then he lowers Backbiter.

Finally.

Luke sweeps down by Percy, jaw tight, eyes gleaming, and says, “Lead him away from them. I’ll come help you once they’re stable. And don’t you dare die, Percy.”

Percy bites down on the urge to reply “Don’t tell me what to do” and says, “Fine, just go!”

Luke zips off, so quick that the breeze follows him, carrying the scent of blood and burning with it.

Percy gives Polyphemus’s foot one last stab before backing away, Riptide up and ready.

“Okay, Ugly,” he taunts. “I’m Nobody, and if you want to kill me, you better be ready for the worst pedicure of your entire life!”

Polyphemus roars. Probably not about the pedicure part. But, it doesn’t matter, because he’s charging at Percy either way.

Without Luke distracting Polyphemus, Percy is the target of all his swipes and blows, which means he’s doing a lot of jumping and dodging and rolling. It kind of feels like he’s on a really deadly version of Wipeout , but at least it’s easy for him to lead Polyphemus towards the chasm that bisects the island like this.

By the time Annabeth and Grover are out of sight, Percy’s ready to go all out on attacking. It’s not really the smart thing to do. He’s sweating, his arms and legs burn, and he’s covered in dust and dirt. Annabeth would probably want him to continue feinting and eventually trick Polyphemus into falling onto the rocks under the bridge. But, Annabeth isn’t here right now.

Polyphemus hurt his friends, so Percy’s going to take him down and enjoy it.

And he does.

It’s exhilarating, letting himself go like this, pushing all his frustration and fear and anger into his blade, into Polyphemus’s flesh. It’s not like training in the woods or sparring with Luke. Percy isn’t even thinking about what he’s doing anymore. All that’s going through his head is he hurt them he almost killed them they might still die he’s gonna pay.  

The fury burns him bare. His body moves on instinct. His blade is an arc of destruction.

You just...with a sword...you just—

Percy barely even notices Luke passing overhead. It feels like a dam inside of him is breaking. Polyphemus yelps and howls like a wounded animal, stumbling back, getting knocked down and down by Riptide. 

Percy might be laughing. He can’t tell. 

Now he understands why Luke didn’t want to stop.

By the time Percy comes back to himself, the tip of Riptide is hovering an inch away from Polyphemus’s cloudy eye. Polyphemus is cowering next to the bridge, covered with gashes and the red of budding bruises. He’s shaking. They’re both shaking, actually.

“Don’t kill me!” Polyphemus whimpers.

Percy doesn’t say anything. 

He wants to. He should.

But.

There are worse things to suffer than death.

Without looking away from Polyphemus or letting his sword waver, Percy lifts his left hand, and he presses the base of his palm to the blade. He’s not used to hurting himself on purpose, so it takes some effort, but eventually he gets a good flow going.

As his blood pools onto the dirt, slowly sinking into the earth, Percy says, “Knock knock! I got you a guinea pig!”

A pause. 

Nothing happens.

Hey. Percy knows she’s awake. He smears his blood out more with a sneaker, drips it in an arc, stomps on the ground a little. Does he need to spell it out in Morse code or something?

“What is a guinea pig?” asks Polyphemus.

Percy’s too busy to answer that. Besides, he’ll find out soon enough. 

After jabbing Riptide another centimeter forward to dissuade Polyphemus from fidgeting, Percy stares unblinkingly at the dark earth for another moment, picturing his blood seeping down, down, down, down.

Still nothing.

Fine then. Percy will do it himself. He already knew he couldn’t rely on a goddess to solve his problems anyway.

So, Percy closes his eyes and thinks about the darkness and the cold, red clouds and black cliffs, the water screaming and burning and sobbing and devouring, falling into the heart of the earth, the earth reaching up—There she is—the earth reaching back, and he points his bleeding palm at the ground, and he pushes, and he shoves—

You should never take your eyes off of your enemy, even if he’s been knocked down. 

Good thing Percy doesn’t have to learn this lesson again.

When Percy opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is Polyphemus’s outstretched fist, ready to smash him into a pancake. But it hasn’t reached him, and it never will, because the ground underneath Polyphemus’s feet has cracked open. 

And below, there’s nothing but a void.

Polyphemus, eye wide and blank, falls into the tear in the earth, too surprised to even scream.

Percy inches over to the pit. “Remember to submit your complaints to the nearest suggestion box,” he says into the endless black. “Your feedback is valuable to us.”

And then, with a stream of his blood and a clench of his gut, he slams the fissure shut.

The ground is seamless. The sun is warm. The birds chirp, the sheep bleat. It’s like nothing even happened.

Percy caps Riptide with trembling hands. He wants to throw up. It feels like someone’s taken a baseball bat to all his internal organs.

But, he has to admit it. She was right. This way is a lot cleaner.

Not counting the blood he’s getting everywhere, of course.

Percy grips his left wrist tight. He tries to take a deep breath, but his lungs feel heavy. His heart pounds against his ribcage, quick and painful.

That seems bad. He’s sweating a lot, too. He should probably try that thing he did to scab his neck after Luke decided not to take his head off, but right now, Percy feels like he’s more jello than muscle. He knows that he can either do the thing and black out, or he can go back and check on Annabeth and Grover.

It’s not even a choice.

Dizzy, Percy staggers up the path as quick as he can. You know, he thought that with Luke and him both on board, getting the Golden Fleece would be a piece of cake, but it seems like everything Percy does is just destined to go wrong in some way. It’s like he can’t take his eyes off anyone without them getting hurt.

Wait, no. Destiny’s already gone on vacation. Percy’s just really bad at keeping his friends safe, that’s all. He’s just—screwing up again. And again and again.

It’s cold. That’s weird. Why is it so cold?

Percy’s watching the trail of smoke that marks the finish line of his terrible hike, so he doesn’t notice Luke until he’s roping an arm around his waist and keeping him from face planting into the dirt.

Luke is breathing hard, and Backbiter is in his left hand. He hasn’t had time to sheath it yet. He’s also shaking a little, his arm a band of warmth across Percy’s back. Actually, it’s kind of hard to tell, because Percy’s shaking, too. The adrenaline is draining out of him fast.

But, Percy still has enough energy to glance up at Luke and spy the edge of his grin, too wide for joy but too genuine for anything except relief.

Percy watches his scar crinkle and wonders, absently, if he’ll count this as a successful quest. Not something to cover up his last one but a balm, to push the memory back.

Kronos will never touch him. The scar will fade.

“Polyphemus?” Luke asks, half-dragging and half-carrying Percy the rest of the way back.

“Fell,” Percy says. He can’t focus on anything but Annabeth and Grover lying by the fire, the Golden Fleece draped over them both. They look better. Not as pale. Or maybe that’s just the flames.

“The Fleece is healing them,” Luke says. “They’ll be okay.”

The relief washes over Percy like cool water, and he shivers.

That was too close. If they’d gotten here a minute later, a second later...

Something touches Percy’s hand. He would flinch, but he doesn’t have the energy. It’s just Luke anyway, peeling Percy’s fingers away from the cut on his wrist. And isn’t that strange, feeling reassured by the thought of Luke.

Guess you really can’t be trapped on a yacht with only your (ex) mortal enemy for company and come out of it exactly the same.

“This is from a blade,” Luke notes. He looks at Percy, eyes narrowed. “Polyphemus didn’t have a blade.”

Uh. “That’s. Weird,” Percy forces out. He hopes Luke doesn’t press. He’s too lightheaded to think up a plausible—or funny—explanation, and talking is kind of a chore right now. His tongue feels like a deadweight anchor.

Luckily, massive blood loss seems to be a good enough excuse for not explaining, even by Luke’s standards, because he just places Percy’s hand back around his wrist and presses on his shoulders until he plops onto the ground, barely missing the fire pit. 

“Fine,” Luke says,  “But we will be revisiting this later.” 

Then he orders, “Get under the Fleece.”

Um. Percy stares blankly. He’s pretty sure even magical blankets have maximum capacities, and he’s not going to risk Grover’s arm or Annabeth’s brain over something he did to himself.

Besides, he doesn’t—You can’t make a manhole to Tartarus and come out of it completely clean. He can still feel the cold lacing his bones like frost, the darkness swirling in the pool of his gut. He doesn’t want to touch any of his friends—Annabeth especially—when he’s like this.

Percy will fix this on his own. He just. He needs some time to pull himself together.

Percy tries explaining this to Luke, but he must be further gone than he thought, because it just comes out as, “Nn…”

Luke raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Your lips are blue,” he says. 

And then he pushes Percy down, shoves him next to Annabeth, and rearranges the Golden Fleece until the three of them are covered. He even tucks them in, and Percy would feel really embarrassed if he wasn’t too busy feeling tired. They probably look like three kids sharing a blanket after a really unfortunate camping trip.

Percy starts to wiggle himself out, but then Luke sits down by his head. And his expression looks serious enough that Percy doesn’t think he’ll take an escape attempt kindly. 

Fine. The blue lips thing doesn’t sound great anyway, even if you are what you eat. 

Annabeth’s hand is brushing his. Percy uses the last of his strength to turn his head and look at her face, peaceful and painless. Even though he can’t see the healing going on beneath her skin, he still feels the need to watch. It feels like if he turns away from his friends for even a second more, they’re going to be in danger again, and he won’t be able to keep them safe. Again.

There won’t always be a magical healing blanket on the tree next door.

Suddenly, there’s a hand over his eyes, blocking his view. 

“Sleep,” Luke says.

Percy wants to protest, but he knows that he needs to regain his strength if he’s going to be useful. And it is very warm near the fire and with his friends beside him. 

They’re healing. Polyphemus is gone. Luke won’t let them be eaten by any carnivorous sheep.

Percy closes his eyes.

A little nap won’t hurt, right?

Two seconds later, he’s slipping into the darkness.

——

Percy wakes up to a rock digging into his back and hair tickling his face. He blinks a couple times, trying to get his eyes to focus, before lifting his hand.

Annabeth pulls him up so that they’re sitting shoulder to shoulder. “Well,” she says, “the zombie lives.”

Percy leans over. He gives her a hug.

Annabeth breathes out sharply, and Percy immediately lets go, worried about broken ribs, but then she’s squeezing him twice as hard, and Grover’s bleating “Percy!” and crashing into both of them, almost knocking them into the fire, so any caution that Percy’s put into this hug is all wasted anyway.

It’s great.

Percy feels safe in their arms. For the first time in what feels like forever, he lets himself relax.

And he’s still not happy that Annabeth and Grover are here, but he is glad that they’re with him.

After a middle school-appropriate amount of hug time—during which Percy slowly becomes aware that Luke is watching them very carefully—Percy extracts himself from the tangle of limbs. 

“Are you guys okay?” he asks.

“Yup,” Grover says, rotating his shoulder, “just like new. Though I think I lost a bit of hair on my—”

Annabeth decides that learning about Grover’s unfortunate hair loss comes second to her demonstrating her okay-ness by punching Percy in the arm. Hard.

“Ow!”

“I can’t believe you left camp to find the Golden Fleece, and you didn’t. Take. Me!” Annabeth growls, punctuating each of her statements with another punch. She nearly knocks Percy onto his back again.

“Well,” Percy says, quickly scooting out of punching range, “I can’t believe you tried to fight a cyclops alone! You could’ve died!”

“You could’ve died!” Annabeth counters. She’s scooting after him, fists still clenched. “You could’ve—”

Luke steps between them and grabs the collars of their shirts, hoisting them to their feet and separating them like he’s wrangling kittens. “I’m sure we can all agree that you both could’ve died horribly,” he says. “Please don’t reinjure each other. Unless you want to spend more time cuddling under the Fleece?”

Annabeth flushes. Probably out of rage. 

Hey, did Percy survive sailing a cruise ship, living with Luke, and fighting Polyphemus only to be murdered by a thirteen-year-old version of his (past? future?) girlfriend?

That seems appropriate, considering how his life is going.

Meanwhile, Grover is examining the Golden Fleece. “It feels like Pan,” he mutters. “It must’ve been luring satyrs here for—for centuries! No wonder they never found him!”

At that, Luke’s eyes glint dangerously. He turns to Grover, letting Percy and Annabeth go. “By the way, Grover,” he says pleasantly, “I was wondering if you could explain why you and Annabeth are on this particular island in the middle of the Sea of Monsters with minimal supplies and no backup…”

Grover gulps.

Percy and Annabeth exchange a look. Then Annabeth grabs Percy’s hand, and they escape to the wall of the ledge, abandoning Grover to Luke’s tender mercies. 

Percy doesn’t feel guilty. Grover’s a big satyr. He’ll be fine.

Well, he won’t die.

And Percy can’t even say the same for himself, because Annabeth has thrown down his hand and is now looking at him like she’s trying to decide which part of him will work best as a new sheath for her dagger.

“I’m sorry,” Percy tells her. And he is. Probably not for the thing she wants him to be sorry for, but still.

Annabeth’s shoulders relax a little. “You do this again,” she says, “and you won’t have to worry about dying, because I’ll hunt you down and kill you myself.”

“Shouldn’t I be even more worried about dying then? Ow!”

Percy rubs his arm, pouting exaggeratedly. Annabeth rolls her eyes. 

“Just bring me along next time, Seaweed Brain,” she says. “We’re friends. I’ll always fight by your side.” 

By the time Annabeth’s done talking, her eyes have shifted from Percy’s face to the rocks by his sneakers, but Percy can tell that she means it.

She always meant it. Even after he stopped deserving it.

“Thanks, Annabeth,” Percy says. Now he can’t look at her either.

Luckily, they only have to weather a couple seconds of standing in an awkward silence and not looking at each other before Luke is waving them over, Grover hunched over miserably beside him.

“Come on,” Luke says, folding the Fleece into his arms. “Let’s get off this island.”

Percy pats Grover’s shoulder. Seems like Luke didn’t go easy on him. But then, before Percy can say anything comforting, Grover’s stomach growls. Loudly. 

Honestly, Percy would’ve thought that another monster was approaching if he hadn’t seen him blush.

Annabeth smirks. Luke glances back, eyebrows raised.

“Uh,” Grover stammers. “Do any of you happen to have any food?”

Percy laughs.

Good old Grover. Never change.

As Luke sighs, shaking his head, Percy throws an arm around Grover’s shoulders. “Don’t worry,” he says. “We’ve got plenty of cans on the yacht.”

“A yacht?” Annabeth asks.

“Yeah,” Luke says. “Wait, how did you guys get here?”

Annabeth hesitates. “Well—“

“You hijacked Clarisse’s ship?”

Standing before the CSS Birmingham, Percy can’t tell if Luke is disapproving or proud. But, judging by the smile he’s trying to tamp down, he’s leaning towards proud.

“Technically, no,” Annabeth says. Despite this, she looks very satisfied with herself.

“We just captured Clarisse,” Grover explains.

Oh, so they just captured Clarisse. Okay. Cool.

Wait. 

“Wha—” Percy starts.

“You haven’t captured shit, idiots,” Clarisse calls, stomping across the deck. “I’ve just been restrained.” She shakes her bound hands at them aggressively. “Once I get out of these ropes, your asses are mine.”

If possible, Luke looks even more amused.

“Nice to see you too, Clarisse,” Percy says.

“Prissy.” Clarisse glares. “Damn, I was hoping you were dead. Would’ve saved me a lot of trouble.”

“How could I deprive you of the chance to kill me yourself?” Percy asks, trying to sound more offhand than he’s being. He knows that Clarisse doesn’t actually need her hands free to kill him, even though she probably wouldn’t do it with so many witnesses around.

Though it is weird that Annabeth and Grover didn’t tie up her legs, especially since she flat-out told them that Ares ordered her to perform murder. If Percy was feeling optimistic, he’d guess that Annabeth and Grover might’ve made a deal with her, but they’re flanking him a little too closely for that. And Percy never feels optimistic anymore.

For the barest millisecond, Clarisse looks uncomfortable. Then she snorts dismissively. “You aren’t worth my time,” she says.

And before Percy can figure out what that means, Luke steps in front of him, examining the steamship. “Don’t you have any crew?” he asks.

“We were attacked by Charybdis,” Clarisse shrugs. “No other survivors. Unfortunate.”

“Charybdis?” Percy says. “I thought we ki—Ow!“

Percy turns to stare at Annabeth, who lifts her foot off of his toes without looking at him. Then he turns back to Clarisse, who blinks at him slowly.

“It was,” she says, “a very unfortunate monster attack. Right, guys?”

“Right!” Grover says quickly.

When Percy glances at Annabeth, she meets his eyes and nods meaningfully.

A tense silence.

Uh. They didn’t do what Percy thinks they did, did they?

“...Okay,” Luke says, looking between them, his eyebrows raised. “We might as well just take the yacht then. Get all your stuff. Let’s plan on taking off in two minutes. I don’t like the way those sheep are looking at us.”

——

Luke makes Annabeth and Grover untie Clarisse, reasoning that they don’t need to restrain her since they’re not hijacking her ship anymore. Annabeth and Grover protest, and even Clarisse seems reluctant—which Luke obviously finds confusing—but since none of them will explain why they still want her tied up, Clarisse regains the use of her hands.

There isn’t any rope burn on her wrists. Not even a red mark.

“What’re you looking at?” Clarisse growls.

“Your manicure,” Percy replies. “Did you get it done at the Kindly Ones’ Nails and Spa?”

Clarisse cracks her knuckles. Then Grover cuts in between them and drags Percy away, babbling something about cans.

Neither Grover nor Annabeth seem willing to let Percy near Clarisse, actually. Which is nice, but also annoying, because Percy needs to stay by Clarisse if he wants to catch Ares visiting the ship to yell at her for not murdering a fellow camper. That seems like the kind of asshole thing he would do, and Clarisse seems to think so, too. With each day that passes, she looks more and more nervous.

Though it’s also possible that she’s just cracking under the pressure of being stuck on a yacht with Percy.

“Go away, Jackson! Stop stalking me!”

“I can’t help it. It’s a small ship.”

“It’s a fucking gigantic yacht!”

Eventually, Annabeth tells, and Luke makes Percy help him at the bridge while Clarisse and Annabeth pulverize the mall mannequins under Grover’s extremely anxious supervision. At first, Percy’s sort of worried about Ares showing up when he’s not there, but then he reminds himself that Ares is the type of chicken shit who asks his teenage daughter to kill the thirteen year old who kicked his ass last summer, so he probably won’t visit a cruise ship with that thirteen year old on it anyway.

And he doesn’t. Still, Percy considers starting to keep track of all the gods who have it out for him, so he doesn’t have to worry about unexpected guests and murder attempts. Then he realizes that just means keeping track of all the gods who’ve met him. 

That’s much easier.

By the time they dock at New York, Percy and Luke have unearthed the yacht’s instruction manual from one of the dented cabinets and have thereby figured out how to actually sail fast, Annabeth and Clarisse have shredded basically the entire indoor mall, and Grover has developed a nervous tick under his right eye. All in all, it’s a smooth trip home. Percy’s proud of them all.

Not everyone is happy to be back, though. Luke grows more and more tense as they approach Half-Blood Hill. It’s a gloom that not even the Golden Fleece, which he’s carrying in his arms, seems able to cure.

Honestly, he’s making Percy nervous, too, even though Percy knows what’s coming. Last time he and Annabeth left camp without permission, their return was mostly ignored. And there’s nothing really bad about being ignored. At many points in his life, Percy would’ve paid the gods and titans and monsters to ignore him.

But, Percy isn’t sure how Luke will react. Even if he’s less murderous than he was when they left, Percy still doesn’t think he’ll be happy just sliding back into his role of counselor, sword fighting instructor, and all around nice demigod. 

He’s changed and moved forward. What if he gets frustrated that the world hasn’t kept up? What if he becomes lonely?

Fortunately, it turns out that Percy didn’t need to worry about any of that.

They don’t even make it past the Big House before they’re being swarmed.

At first, Percy startles, convinced that Ares has somehow coerced all his children into coming to murder him, but then he realizes that Clarisse’s siblings are just welcoming her back. They’re also checking that she’s okay in the family tradition: with lots of shoulder punching and back slapping and hugs that are tackles in disguise.

The rest of them aren’t spared this fate either. There are a lot of hands and a lot of arms and a lot of people saying a version of “Thank the gods you guys are safe!”

Annabeth seems disgruntled by her older siblings’s fussing, but Percy can tell that she’s holding back a smile. Grover pats Percy on the back before trotting off to the forest. Percy understands. Grover has important news, and the Council of Cloven Elders can’t wait.

Then Percy turns just in time to see Luke get dogpiled by the entire Hermes cabin. They’re all trying to talk to him at the same time, laughing like he’s just pulled off the best prank in all of Camp Half-Blood history. 

Luke looks so surprised that Percy can’t help but grin.

It’s good to be back.

Eventually, Beckendorf and Silena push their way over, Beckendorf digging Luke out from underneath the campers and helping him to his feet. 

After Silena gets a good look at Luke’s face, she laughs, too. “Did you really think we wouldn’t miss you?” she says. “The entire Hermes cabin’s been running wild since you left.”

“Not just the Hermes cabin,” Beckendorf adds. “The whole camp’s been restless. And then once Annabeth and Clarisse left, it really got crazy! At one point, the counselors started debating whether to send out search teams or interrogate the Oracle. Man, I’ve never seen Chiron so flustered—“

“We weren’t gone that long—“ Luke points out.

But, Silena’s already whirling on Percy, pointing a finger at his nose. “I thought you said it was a ten day cruise! You’ve been gone for weeks! We’ve finished four of the arts and crafts projects already!”

“Four?” Percy says, while Luke explains, “Time works differently in the Sea of Monsters.”

“You went on a cruise to the Sea of Monsters?!” Silena exclaims.

“Four,” Beckendorf winks. “Pretty fast, huh? Once we finish the...specific craft projects, we’ve been planning on building projects with more stories, for people who aren’t—or who don’t want to live in...specific housing. If that’s okay with you two,” he adds, glancing between Luke and Percy.

“Wait—” Annabeth shoulders her way into the conversation. “You guys are the ones in charge of the houses? I thought—”

“Don’t ask me,” Percy says, raising his hands. “I’m just a naiad coordinator. Luke’s the brains of this operation.”

“It wasn’t a cruise,” Luke tells Silena. “We were just on a cruise ship—Wait, what?“ He turns to Percy and Beckendorf.

But, Percy’s dealing with more important stuff right now. Like escaping Annabeth.

“—I knew those designs looked familiar! Percy, did you give my rough drafts to the naiads? You should have told me! I could have put—”

“Multiple story buildings,” Beckendorf repeats. “And nonspecific housing.”

Percy backs away and almost trips over Michael Yew. “I didn’t want to get you in trouble—Ow, ow, stop hitting me!”

“No, Beckendorf—” Luke is saying. “I mean, yes about the projects. Multiple stories would be great. I don’t know why we never insisted on expanding the Hermes cabin. And I think nonspecific housing is a good idea, too, especially considering how many people don’t want to live with their siblings for the rest of their lives, but you have to keep in mind the space—”

Once Percy feels like he may never recover full use of his arms, Annabeth leaves him alone, hurrying towards another Athena cabin kid while muttering about support columns. Percy takes this opportunity to duck out of the crowd, heading for the glint of gold he can see hiding in the tall grass.

Two paces away from the flock of campers, the Golden Fleece lies abandoned on the ground. Percy picks it up, dusts off a dirty footprint, and starts climbing up Half-Blood Hill, leaving the chatter behind him.

Thalia’s tree towers above him, healthy and green. Percy eyes the upper branches, wondering if there’s a way to hide the Fleece between the needles until Peleus can come guard it. Or maybe they should just tell everyone that the Fleece is a fake, so no one will really want to steal it. After all, there’s nothing like a full grown dragon to announce to the world that your glittery gold blanket is the real deal.

It’s only when Percy hears someone calling his name that he turns to look back.

“Percy!” Luke repeats, jogging up the hill. His hair is disheveled, cheeks red. He’s grinning.

Good. This is the Luke that Thalia deserved to see, all those years ago and never in the future.

“You know,” Luke says as he draws closer, “for a Big Three kid who can’t take three steps without getting into trouble, you sure are slippery. Why did you tell Beckendorf I was in charge of the—Percy?”

Percy glances up at him. Luke’s staring at the Fleece in his arms, his smile fading.

“Percy,” he says slowly. “What are you doing?”

“Showing you,” Percy says.

And then he reaches up and drapes the Golden Fleece onto Thalia’s tree.

Percy takes two steps back, so he’s standing side by side with Luke.

For one second, nothing happens.

Then—

Well, it turns out that when the Fleece doesn’t have to cure a deadly poison first, it actually works pretty fast. Which is good, because if it didn’t, Percy would be feeling pretty embarrassed right now.

Instead, he feels the rush of magic in the air and the rise of something in his chest as Thalia appears at the foot of the tree. She’s lying down, eyes closed, face peaceful, like she’s just been asleep for the past six years.

Like it was all just a nightmare.

Luke doesn’t move. The voices of the campers fade away, and the world goes still and silent. Percy listens to his breathing stutter and grow ragged. 

The magic lingers like early morning fog, gradually being chased away by the warm sun.

Then Thalia’s hand twitches, and her eyelids flutter. Luke makes a choking noise. 

He rushes forward, pulls her into his lap, braces her head on his shoulder.

“Luke?” Thalia says, her hand slowly rising to his face.

“Thalia,” Luke whispers. “Thalia.” He repeats her name like it’s a prayer.

“Strangest dream…”

“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe—Is it really—”

“Dying.”

“No,” Luke says, voice rough. “No. You’re okay, Thalia. You’re safe. It’s alright. Everything is alright now…”

Percy turns away, letting them have a moment of privacy. He stares out at the camp, at the campers who’re starting to notice something going on, at the new houses that trail out to the lake. 

Suddenly, he can see the future rolling out before him.

Now that Annabeth knows Camp Half-Blood is being designed to her specifications, she’ll be drawing up bigger and better buildings all the time; Percy will have to make sure he or someone else reminds her to eat. Beckendorf will continue making beds to put people into, and he’ll probably recruit his entire cabin into the effort by virtue of being Charlie Beckendorf. Silena will delegate and coordinate and set up a team that’s dedicated to protecting nymphs from harassment in exchange for all the help they’ve offered so far. Maybe she’ll even open a branch of her dad’s chocolate shop here, once there’s a space. Badgered by the cult of demigods who believe in the power of his magical eye, Ethan will develop a systematic way to identify godly parents as he crosses more and more names off the list Percy gave him; Percy will freely offer him very questionable advice. Maybe that can be his restoration of balance.

Luke will help Thalia process the six years that she spent covered with more pine needles than anyone was comfortable with, and Thalia won’t let Luke brood about Kronos or revenge or the destruction of Western civilization. Between her, the revitalized Hermes cabin, and the new arts and crafts projects, they have a pretty good chance of convincing Luke that the world he dreams about might just be the one he lives in now.

And Percy? He’ll watch over everyone and train and train and train, so that he’ll never make the same mistakes again. He won’t put another demigod in danger. No more sacrifices, no more pawns. No titans or gods will ever touch his friends, and hopefully things will be peaceful for some time.

——

In the end, Percy gets a month.

The nightmare starts like all the others do, with Percy on the banks of the River Cocytus, alone. That’s why he doesn’t notice that one of the mountains has a face on it until he hears—

“Percy Jackson.”

Percy swears that he must’ve jumped a foot in the air. He whips around, instinctively hopping towards the edge of the black water before he remembers where he is and who he’s dealing with.

“Hey,” Percy says, doing his best to sound nonchalant. Judging by the mountain’s smirk, he’s not doing a great job. “I don’t appreciate you talking about me behind my back.”

“My daughter acted of her own accord,” the mountain says, before adding in a snooty voice, “But, I do not appreciate her being exploded. She is exceptionally whiny when reforming.”

Percy definitely doesn’t want to unpack that. So, instead he asks, “How’s Polyphemus?”

“He’s a pathetic whelp.” The mountain scowls, which is a really weird look for a mountain, by the way. “You must at least attempt to beat some discipline into the riff-raff before sending them my way. I had to assign him to the mango grove by the lava moat. He’s no good for anything but picking his own food.”

“Huh,” Percy says. “Lava mangos. Do I want to know how you got the seeds or—”

“You are not using the Golden Fleece to mend my son,” the mountain interrupts.

No more small talk then. Fine. Percy’s not good at faking politeness anyway.

“The Fleece belongs to the children of the gods,” he says.

“We made a deal,” frowns the mountain. The river begins to boil, as the ground shudders.

“And I’m fulfilling it,” Percy says quickly. “I just thought you’d appreciate a more personal touch. Don’t you think your son would be happier with a shiny new body instead of one that’s already been chopped into a thousand little pieces?”

A pause.

The earth stops shaking. The river lies back in its bed.

“Kronos grows restless,” the mountain sighs. “He is a stubborn child. I demand that you render him hale, hearty, and back at my side within a fortnight.”

“Uh,” Percy’s never associated Kronos with the word hearty before. Kronos probably couldn’t grow a heart if he read all of Aphrodite’s romance novels. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

“Ready?” The bloody sky darkens as the mountain appears to tremble with indignation. “Of course I’m ready! I’ve been getting Tartarus to clean up his act for months! I’ve unchained my children, I’ve set up chore schedules, I’ve sewn get along shirts—We even have mangos now! Mangos! Do you know how much work it takes to grow mangos, Percy Jackson?! Tartarus is a model household! Everyone here is very happy!”

Wow. Okay. 

It seems like someone didn’t listen to the suggestion box tip. Maybe Percy should start asking his mom for parenting advice. She is the best parent he knows, since she’s the only really good parent he knows. Percy’s not a great example of why, but that’s not her fault. Everything wrong with him is entirely his own.

“Fine,” Percy says. “I’m the one who’s not ready. The deal includes all my friends, remember? And I haven’t even visited Camp Jupiter yet.”

The mountain’s expression is suddenly very, very neutral. 

“The Romans are not your friends,” she replies.

“Yes, they are,” Percy says slowly.

Silence. Now the mountain won’t meet his eyes.

“Wait,” Percy says. “Did you do something to the Romans?”

More silence.

Percy’s mind starts racing. Frank shouldn’t be at Camp Jupiter yet, and it can’t be Hazel—He doesn’t think he’s done anything that might affect them at this point either. Reyna might’ve made it there already, but it’s more likely that—

“Did you do something to Jason?” Percy asks.

The mountain hesitates. “...Perhaps if the blood of more demigods was offered to me, I would be strong enough to summon the Trojan Sea Monster back.”

Fucking—“No, okay?! You get my blood or no blood. We’ve been over this! Wait, the Trojan Sea Monster?”

If mountains could stick their noses in the air, this mountain would be doing that right now. “I have not broken our deal. Jason Grace will be fine. He defeated the Trojan Sea Monster in the other life.”

“Did he do it when he was twelve?!” Percy’s going to throttle this entire mountain. He’s going to figure out how to do it, and then he’s going to do it hard.

The mountain falls silent. Then she says, “The Trojan Sea Monster is no longer within my control. You did not inform me that the Romans were your friends. This is your responsibility.”

“No, it’s n—” The landscape starts swirling away into darkness as the dream pulls away. “Wait!” Percy yells. “We’re not done yet! We’re not done! Gaea!”

——

“—ou’re really that bored, you don’t have to stay.”

Percy blinks a couple times, then lifts his head off Annabeth’s shoulder. All of it—the sunlight, her hair, the drafting paper spread across the dining table—it’s all a big bright blur. Percy wipes his eyes once, twice. His arms are trembling.

Annabeth pulls his hands away. “Percy?” she says.

And Percy can only blame the post-dream confusion for what tumbles out of his mouth next.

“Fuck,” he says blearily. “I need to go to San Francisco.”