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Chapter Text

Rhodes, like most lands in the Mediterranean and the Levant, had a long and complicated history. The island, born from Rhodos and Helios, was a cocktail of cultures: Turkish, Italian, Sephardic, and Greek. Percy lived amongst the ancient Acropolis, medieval palaces, mosques, and the oldest synagogue in Greece. Most of their whitewashed houses stood near the sea.

The island’s beauty drew tourists from around the world, but to Percy, it had become her home. Her half-sister had graciously offered her sanctuary there after Sally’s death.

Percy’s mother was the most important person in the world to her, and fate had cruelly torn them apart. A car crash, of all things, was what killed Sally Jackson. She had been driving to Percy and Annabeth’s apartment for dinner when a Mercedes spun out of control and sent her car flying.

As Percy’s immaculate meal lost its warmth, the son of Hades banged on her apartment door. His face when she opened was more ghostly than normal, and the tremble in his voice as he began to speak made Percy’s knees give out. Annabeth held her waist tightly from behind as she broke down.

And everything had fallen apart after that.

Her relationship with Annabeth had already been like holding a crumbling building together with scotch tape, so the death of Percy’s mom ended it promptly. Her partner, the girl she’d loved since middle school, was driven away to California by Percy’s inability to cope.

Percy could no longer walk the streets of New York City, or Camp Half-Blood, or her father’s palace beneath the sea without a terrible cloud of grief descending upon her. It seemed that anything and everything reminded her of Sally and Annabeth and the memories they’d made. Even Grover – sweet, courageous Grover – was too hard to be around.

So she decided to leave.

Percy went to the Jackson’s cabin in Montauk one last time and set up a ring of sea glass around the rarely used firepit. Into the crackling flames she tossed Sally’s necklace, the leather one with the black pearl on it that Poseidon had given her the summer they met. Then, she prayed to a sister she’d met only once, Poseidon’s daughter by Aphrodite – Rhodos. She prayed for safe travel to Greece and permission to reside on the goddess’s island.

A gentle breeze rolled across the beach, smelling first of pine and cypress, and then settling on roses. Percy swore she could taste pomegranate on her tongue. Out of the sea came a lone fallow deer, a doe that most would find unassuming, but Percy knew better. The doe walked toward the firepit and stared at her before changing into a woman.

The goddess was perhaps better described as a nymph, as her power was much less than higher deities. However, Rhodos was a daughter of Aphrodite, and her beauty reflected that. Percy shivered in her presence. She was somehow even lovelier than when they first met.

“My lady.” Percy climbed to her feet and brushed sand off her khaki utility pants.

“Sister,” Rhodos greeted. Her hair was a perfect shade of blonde and tied up with ivory pins. She wore traditional Mycenaean garb: a flounced skirt and bodice with a knit shawl draped over her shoulders. Percy noted her lack of crown and jewelry.

“I didn’t think you would come,” she admitted.

Rhodos cocked her head. “Well, you have never prayed to me before.”

Percy’s cheeks flamed, and she looked away from her clear blue eyes. “I’m sorry. I haven’t had much reason to pray to anyone these past few years.”

“Have you forgotten us, Perseus? Have you forgotten your family?”

How could I ever, she wanted to ask. The gods would never let me forget them.

A soft hand tilted her chin upwards. “I am not angry with you,” Rhodos assured her. Percy gulped. “But if I give you my protection, a place to escape from your home, you must begin to honor us again.”

The word honor often left a bitter taste in Percy’s mouth, along with things like glory and service…but her sister wasn’t asking her to fight a battle in return for her help. No. She just wanted recognition and respect, the kind she hadn’t received in ages (or perhaps ever).

“I will,” Percy blurted. “I will. I’ll do anything.”

“There’s no need to be desperate, Perseus.” Her face showed pity, which is the last thing Percy wanted. “I will make sure your basic needs are taken care of. All I ask in return is that you incorporate some of our practices into your life.”

Percy nodded, tears starting to blur her eyesight. “Yes. Of course,” she whispered. Rhodos dropped her hand, and Percy found herself missing the touch.

“So be it. Walk into the sea in three days’ time. I will meet you. Bring nothing you cannot carry on your back.”

“Alright. Thank you,” Percy choked. “Thank you, Rhodos.”

The goddess kissed her forehead and returned to her animal form, trotting into the water. The scented breeze lingered for a few minutes after she departed.

Percy doused the fire with a wave of her hands and collected the bits of sea glass. Once inside the cabin, she returned them to their jar on the windowsill and went into the bedroom to sleep. The sheets were damp and musty, but it was the bed Sally always slept in, so she didn’t mind.

Her dreams featured a happy and healthy Annabeth. She’d rekindled her relationship with her dad and little brothers and was already the best architect at her firm. It was hard for Percy to be angry when she was so clearly better off without her.

Percy spent her last days in the little cabin, bored out of her mind. There was no internet or television, so she decided to spruce up the place with a duster and a big bottle of bleach. She did push-ups and lunges around the living room until her limbs ached (which didn’t take very long as she was out of shape). She packed and re-packed her meager belongings in a duffel bag. She napped and read Greek texts and ate Spaghetti-O’s straight from the can until finally it was time to leave.

Her bag held a week’s worth of underwear, a spare pair of jeans, an extra pair of Converse, t-shirts, and a familiar ballpoint pen.

The waves were rough and choppy, and grey clouds loomed overhead. Her father knew she was leaving, and was making it clear how he felt. To be fair, he could have whipped up a hurricane instead. Storm clouds and dramatic waves were him sulking.

Sorry, Dad. I need to do this.

The water calmed a bit, and Percy smiled. She started jogging toward the shore, and then sped up to a full sprint. When she hit the waves, her spirit soared and she laughed. It was time to say goodbye, and she couldn’t have been more relieved.

________________

Hermes was embarrassed that it took twenty sleeves of Tim-Tams to notice Percy Jackson had moved. Not to another borough, not to another state – to Greece. What in Hades was she thinking?

Normally, he would never be tasked with delivering something as trivial as chocolate biscuits, but because Percy was a demigod, and a powerful one at that, everything sent to her went through him. On another day, for another demigod, it would have bothered him, but Hermes was feeling chipper.

And Percy Jackson was his friend.

He found her on Rhodes, a location that was intriguing but ultimately unsurprising to him. Hermes couldn’t remember when he’d last crossed paths with its goddess, but he knew she was a daughter of Poseidon. Maybe the two had come to an arrangement. It wasn’t often a deity offered sanctuary to a demigod without wanting something significant in return. Then again, Rhodos was one of the more humble ones, a bit like his aunt Hestia in that way.

Percy’s residence was a modest whitewashed house by the sea (of course). The village was called Hohlakas and had few inhabitants. It was a secluded area, and many of the houses were abandoned, making it a perfect hiding spot for the young demigod.

He wondered how she'd survive the boredom.

Hermes had to give it to Rhodos; her island was beautiful and a befitting home for any child of the Sea. He decided to take his time enjoying the scenery, walking through the village, before knocking on Percy’s door.

Hermes eyed the small three-sided statue of Hekate that stood adjacent to the door. His suspicion grew. Percy opened the door with a guarded face, and he didn’t miss her hand clutching something in her right pocket. Her sword, most likely.

“Hermes,” she breathed. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Did you honestly think none of us would find out about your little vacation?”

She scowled, and he was struck by her beauty. She’d always been lovely, of course, but it had been quite a few years since they’d seen each other. The last remnants of childhood had melted off of her, and she now stood before him as a woman. Her figure was full and less defined than he remembered, probably from a lapse in training, while her face was more mature.

And those eyes. One could drown in those eyes.

He fumbled with the package. “Um, I received this for you.”

Percy looked at him strangely. “Are those my Tim-Tams?”

“Yes.”

“I thought I’d have to travel to the nearest town for that. Why are you interfering with something as unimportant as mortal mail?”

Hermes deflated, suddenly wishing he had donned more respectable garb than his KISS UR MAILMAN t-shirt. “One might think you weren’t happy to see me.”

“I’m sorry,” she winced. “I haven’t interacted with anyone from our world in…seven months? Maybe eight? Besides my sister and a couple of her nymphs.”

“It’s been ten since you left,” he supplied. Once getting the notification that he had a package to deliver to one Perseus Jackson in Elláda, he had George and Martha do lightning-fast research on the situation. Speaking of his companions, they were currently burning a hole in his pocket.

“Time seems to pass faster here,” she mused. “Oh! Come in. Please. I’m so sorry.”

He frowned at how apologetic she seemed. It was like she was trying hard to play a role.

“Thank you,” he said, and she shot him a demure smile. The inside of her house was much busier than the out. Woven rugs and tapestries of splendid colors adorned the main room, and he noticed with further interest the small figures lined up on the windowsill. His eyes widened as he spotted a particular one farthest from him. “Is that me?”

Percy blushed. “Uh, yeah. It’s traditional.”

He fought to urge to laugh again. “Very. It’s nice, though. I’m touched.”

She squinted at him, trying to discern if he was poking fun at her. “Yes, well. This is what I occupy my time with now.”

Hermes set the battered cardboard box of biscuits on the low couch beside him. “You don’t sound too thrilled to be here.”

“No!” Percy blurted. Her cheeks were still red, and her chest was heaving. “No. I am really, really grateful. I – I couldn’t stay after my Mom. And…my girlfriend left me.” She seemed embarrassed by that last comment. “Annabeth,” she clarified.

He knew of Annabeth Chase and was not overly fond of her. She was a bright young woman, the pride of Athena, and the subject of Aphrodite’s romantic ramblings. Her and Percy’s relationship had been a favorite of the goddess's.

“I know you don’t like her all that much –”

“Why do you say that?” he interrupted. She looked like a deer in headlights. “No, I genuinely want to know.”

Percy’s sturdy hands twisted the fabric of her t-shirt. “You blamed her for Luke,” she muttered.

“Yes. I did. But I don’t hold pointless grudges nearly as well as my father.”

“You know Luke wasn’t any one person’s fault.”

“Obviously. That’s why you swore us, all the gods, to be better. Isn’t that right?”

Her discomfort had come full circle; she now looked like the Percy everyone knew. “Yes,” she bit. “Now give me my damn biscuits.”

Hermes smiled against his will. She was too much, this one. “I’ll never be able to forget you, Percy Jackson.”

She stopped tearing apart the box to stare at him. “It’d be better for everyone to forget me.”

He blanched. “Nonsense. Why would we want to do such a thing? You’re a hero.”

“That’s my point,” she sighed. “I don’t want to be remembered, just…live out my days here. Alone. I want history to lose sight of me.”

“Is that why you came out here?”

Her mouth tightened. “I came here to forgot me, too.”

Well, that wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting a change of pace. But wherever you go, there you are. You can’t escape.” I would know, he almost said.

“Wow, thank you for that. You can go,” she huffed.

“That’s not very hospitable of you,” he chided. “That was the deal, after all.” Percy’s normally lush pout was a flat line, and her jaw was clenched so hard he could hear her teeth grind.

“Did you speak with my sister?”

“No. It’s pretty obvious what she’s having you do, though. Tell me, do you have a hieron as well?”

“…yes.”

“Ha!” He clapped his hands together. “Let me see.”

“Absolutely not.” Percy ripped open a sleeve of biscuits and stuffed one in her mouth. It must have been good because she let out a moan that would’ve made Hermes weak in the knees if he were mortal.

He coughed. “Uh…why not?”

“Are you joking?” she asked, crumbs spilling down her shirt. “It’s for my sister. If you want me to worship you, I can do it right here.”

The poor phrasing of that was not lost on either of them.

Percy groaned and plopped down on the floor. “I just meant that I give most of my prayers inside or over the firepit. Look,” she gestured toward his figure, “I’ve got you right there.”

“I haven’t heard you pray to me,” he scoffed.

“Probably because you weren’t listening.”

The corner of Hermes’ mouth twitched. It was in all likelihood true – there were so many messages and orders and whatnot being passed to him at any given time, so he tended to only focus on the ones from his children, and the ones that would get him into serious trouble if he ignored.

He hung his head. “I won’t make that mistake again,” he vowed.

Percy’s mouth fell open, just enough to show the cute gap in her front teeth. “I…appreciate that, but it’s okay. I know you’re extremely busy.”

“Never too busy for you.”

“That – that’s a nice thing to say,” she stammered.

He cocked his head. “You don’t believe me.”

“That’s not the purpose of prayer,” she explained. “You don’t just do it to be heard. It’s about paying respect.”

Hermes cringed. “That doesn’t sound like the Percy Jackson I know. Rhodos must have done a number on you.”

“Shhhh! Don’t say her name!” she hissed.

“Are you serious? She’s not your master, and she’s certainly not your father. She’s a nymph, Percy.”

“Oh, a nymph. I see. Not deserving of respect. Not like she’s the daughter of the mightiest god.”

“Ooh, don’t let my father hear you say that.”

Percy rolled her eyes. “The world is mostly water. He just thinks he’s best because he has the throne. Which is stupid because my dad has one, too.”

Smirking, Hermes leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. “Now this is more like you.”

Percy colored. “You provoked me! You can’t –.” She took a break to collect herself. “Please don’t talk shit about my sister.”

“That’s what gods do, sweetheart.”

“She rescued me,” Percy admits. “My mom died, and she was the only person able to help me at the time. So…yeah. I owe her. I want to fulfill my end of the promise.”

“Why do you think your sister has you doing this? Being a devotee? Surely she knows you’ll never be able to do more than play. You’re a good actor, no doubt. Almost believable. Maybe to others you would be, but not me. Definitely not me.”

Percy glared at him. “If you act long enough, it becomes real. I’ve changed a lot since leaving New York.”

“Why do you think she’s making you do this?” he repeated. Her shoulders slumped, the defensiveness dissipating.

“Maybe she’s lonely. Really lonely. She can’t stray from here all that often, so visiting our family is off the table for the most part. And…from what I understand, her husband – former husband – up and left her for another woman ages ago.”

“Yet he got most of the worship from Rhodes' inhabitants.”

Percy grimaced. “Well now he’s gone. Mostly? Has he faded?”

Hermes shrugged. “Partially. Obviously my brother took over his duty a long time ago, but the sun is still the sun. His name hasn’t drifted to the very bottom of history.”

“Do you think my sister is fading? Can that happen to a patron?”

“She’ll likely be here until the island disappears from existence,” he surmised. Percy’s look of dejection made his chest ache, and he crossed the room to comfort her. She looked up at him in surprise. Perhaps he had been too swift.

“You don’t need to worry about her,” he said. “Your father would not let that happen.”

“How could he have control over something like that? He can’t make mortals care about something they don’t believe exists.”

“As long as there are people to care about this island, it will survive, and so will your sister. It doesn’t matter whether or not they believe in us,” he said. Percy bit her lip and averted her eyes. He hoped it wasn’t because of him.

“I suppose…you can see my temple. But only for a few minutes!”

The change in subject was welcome. “Thank you, Percy. I was only teasing about it before, but I actually am curious.”

“Well, come on then.” She led him through a door at the back of the small kitchen, that led to a large, open space.

It turned out that the actual home was only half the size of the building; the hieron took up the remaining space. It was simple, which he found refreshing. Long before grand temples were built, people worshipped the gods in anything from stone circles to mud and stick huts. Even the wealthiest families didn’t start making everything out of perfect marble until later on.

The ceiling had four circular vents where sunlight streamed through and illuminated the room’s statue. Rhodos was made of terracotta and stood no more than a meter tall. Someone (Percy?) had painted what looked like a fresh coat of paint on her – yellow for hair and swirls of blue and green for the garments. Surrounding her was a ring of marble where Percy had left offerings.

Hermes glanced around the temple and saw shelves built into the bottom of the clay walls. Pithoi were neatly lined up in them, and he could only tell they were there at an angle. Clearly, they were not meant to be seen.

“What do you keep in those?” He pointed.

Percy’s eyes followed his trajectory. “Oh. Those are just for storage.”

“I know that. I asked what you keep in them.”

“Non-perishables mostly. Brown rice, farro, barley, nuts, some flour, etcetera. And olive oil. Lots of olive oil. But, uh, I do have one for treats, too,” she admitted.

Hermes grinned. “Like what?”

“Well, if I don’t eat all of the Tim-Tams today, I’ll hide them in here. Out of sight, out of mind, you know? Although, to be honest, I’ll probably sneak in and grab some anyways,” she laughed. “There are a bunch of other sweets people have given me, too. People are really nice here. They invite me to dinner sometimes.”

His heart swelled. So she wasn’t totally alone. “I suppose if you really won’t come back home, this is a good second option.” He turned his gaze to the statue. “Think I should say a little something to her?”

Percy let out a sputtering laugh. “I’d let you if I didn’t think it would get my electricity privileges revoked. My sister is kind, but not that kind.”

“Yes, we don’t take mockery very well.”

Percy glanced at him. “You’re better at taking it than most.”

“I’m old. Don’t see the point in being stuck-up anymore. Though, I can be temperamental at times.”

“It would be weird if you weren’t, Hermes.”

The name on her lips made his heart skip a beat, a mortal phenomenon that he rarely experienced.

“I…should be getting going,” he murmured. He’d tarried too long, but it was hard not to when she was standing there in all her glory.

Said glory took the moment to sneeze.

“Gítses.”

“Efharistó,” she replied. “Sorry. Fucking dusty in here – freaking dusty. Um, yeah. I guess it would be best for you to leave. My sister is probably getting curious.”

“This house is her domain?” he guessed.

Percy nodded. “I mean, the whole island is, so she has an idea of everything that’s happening, but this place and several others are her only strongholds on land.”

“So no bringing pretty girls home for the night.”

Percy gave him a half-hearted glare. “No bringing home anyone, which is fine by me.”

“Oh, come on,” he teased. “No one’s caught your eye?” Her face drooped, and he immediately wanted to take it back. “Sorry –”

“No, it’s fine,” she dismissed. “I’ve made peace with it.”

It presumably being Percy’s partner of twelve years leaving her, which Hermes was certain she most definitely was not over.

“Well…good. Love is terribly overrated, anyways.” That was probably not the most helpful thing to say, even if he sometimes believed it himself.

“Don’t tell Aphrodite that unless you want to be a eunuch.”

“I would never say anything of the sort. I’m rather attached to my parts, thank you.”

“Oh, I know.” Percy grinned, exposing her endearingly large front teeth. “Judging by your bounty of children.”

Hermes normally would have shrugged it off with a smirk and whippy retort, but the comment stirred up old feelings he desperately did not want to revisit.

He saluted her. “Thank you for having me in your humble abode, Ms. Jackson.”

She fell into a dramatic bow. “It was my honor, Lord Hermes.”

His mouth twitched, not quite ready to smile, and he whisked himself away.

Chapter Text

Percy didn’t actually mind her sister’s hovering…for the most part. There was one thing the demigod was hesitant to do under her roof.

She desperately needed to get off.

It used to feel unnatural to deny herself the pleasure, particularly because masturbating made her feel better. There were few things worse than being horny and not being able to do anything about it. The urge had hit her two weeks after her move to Rhodes and hadn’t left since.

A few weeks following Hermes’ impromptu delivery, the pervasive sexual thoughts in Percy’s head were becoming too much to bear. After a memory of a particularly good fuck with Annabeth popped into her mind during prayer, she decided she needed to do something about it.

The island had so much to offer beyond Hohlakas, but Percy had been afraid to leave. Rhodos didn’t say she couldn’t wander, though. She was her sister, not a tyrant. If the goddess had eyes and ears on the house at all times, Percy would simply have to venture elsewhere to get her fix.

It took nearly a week to muster up the courage, and during those days she was bombarded with dirty thoughts. Because Annabeth was the only person she’d ever slept with, most of the fantasies featured her: reclining on their bed with her soaking wet panties on display, playing with her hard nipples, on her knees sucking the strap, her face between Percy’s legs. As she recalled the sound of her ex’s whimpers and the sensation of her tongue, blood pooled in Percy’s center. It felt like she had a second heartbeat, and during the worst of the daydreams, her desire grew so strong it made her want to scream. She was so fucking frustrated.

It was a nearly a year since Percy had left, but sixteen months since she’d had sex. In the months leading up to her mom’s accident, her relationship with Annabeth had become strained, and their physical contact dwindled to nothing more than awkward hugs.

Saturday arrived, and with it cooler weather. The sun was still shining, so she didn’t have to worry about getting rained on.

Percy slipped on her sandals and one of the simple tunic things Rhodos had provided her with and tied the matching belt around it. She figured a dress made easier access than jeans.

She walked a mile from the village to a secluded spot that had plenty of shade. The bumpy ground was less than ideal, but at least there was some soft grass, and it was better than going another day plagued with horniness. A deep flush spread across Percy’s body as she situated herself against a rock. She couldn’t help feeling embarrassed, and putting herself in a vulnerable position didn’t make it any better.

Crossing her fingers that she wouldn’t get caught touching herself like a hormonal teenager, she hiked up her tunic and slid her left hand into her underwear. The skin around her clitoris was warm, sticky, and very sensitive. Just a light touch from her fingertips sent a jolt through her body. More tiny jolts of pleasure shot through her as she traced the rest of herself. Her inner lips were stuck together with wetness, and when she parted them a strand of the clear liquid coated her fingers. Percy didn’t hesitate to bring them to her mouth for a taste. She sucked them clean and sniffed the musky scent that remained. The heady smell of cunt never ceased to arouse her.

It was tempting to spend an hour bringing herself to the edge and back, but she was afraid of being away for too long, so she stuffed her hand back into her underwear and got to work. While light strokes and tapping felt really nice, they’d never been enough to make her come, even when she was this horny. She positioned her index and middle fingers on either side of her clit and adjusted the pressure. Her body responded at once, and she smiled at how gratifying it felt.

A good orgasm for Percy was one that built like waves of hot energy pulsing outward from between her legs. She’d start to feel warm to the point of perspiring, and her muscles would shake and contract impulsively. Annabeth told her once that it looked like she was being exorcised in a “slutty way”.

Percy had not been amused.

More fluid seeped from her hole, and she dipped down to catch some. Her relubricated fingers almost felt like a tongue when she used them right. An onslaught of Annabeth memories swirled in her mind, specifically the ones involving the blonde eating her out.

Gods, the way she worked her tongue.

Annabeth was never one to shy away from a challenge, and she took that mentality into the bedroom. Percy had spent hours, days, with her head on a soft pillow watching the view. Her girlfriend used to lick every inch of her from clit to anus before moving in for the kill. She’d suck each of Percy’s lips into her mouth and let them go with a crass popping sound, and then flick her tongue across her clit. When Percy would begin to tremble and let out frustrated groans, she’d latch on to her clit and attack it with her pretty pink tongue. It was sweet, sweet torture.

Back in the present, Percy was furiously rubbing herself, imagining her ex’s steel grey eyes peering up at her. It had been so long since she’d been able to get off that the image was enough to make her explode.

That ball of energy finally broke the surface, and Percy erupted. Heavy shudders racked her body as pure, hot pleasure burned in her cunt. She kept circling her clit until it hurt to continue.

When the aftershocks died down, Percy gingerly got up from the ground and arranged her tunic. Her underwear was sopping wet. Not wanting to make a mess of another item of clothing, she licked the evidence of her afternoon activity from her hand.

The air had grown still, and dark clouds hung overhead. Judging by the tempestuous waves at sea and the scent of coming rain, a storm would be there any minute.

Percy wondered if it had been her own doing, and got nervous. She scrambled away from the spot and made it back to the house in half the time it had taken her before.

The first drops fell the second her foot crossed the doorway, and it didn’t take long for the rest to catch up.

Percy spent the remainder of the afternoon distracting herself with breadmaking, which she had gotten rather good at, but it wasn’t having the effect she’d hoped it would. Truth be told, the intense orgasm from earlier hadn’t quenched her thirst; it had simply made it grow.

And instead of Annabeth’s sinfully tight body, it was another’s that plagued her mind.

________________

Percy’s birthday sneaked up on her, and before she could blink, August 18^th arrived.

During her first prayers of the day, she heard light footsteps approach and fell over in surprise. Hero of Olympus, everyone.

“Perseus,” her sister greeted. Rhodos wore a silk chiton dyed a pale shade of violet. Pearl brooches fastened the garment at her shoulders, and a belt of gold rope cinched in her waist. She was, as usual, resplendent.

Percy scrambled to her feet. “My lady,” she said, trying her best to appear composed.

Rhodos smiled serenely. “It’s my understanding that it is your birthday.”

Percy blinked. “Oh. Um. Is it the eighteenth already?”

“Yes.”

“Then, yes. I’m, uh, twenty-nine,” she coughed.

“How wonderful!”

Percy was taken aback. Though she did not regret turning down immortality, it was hard to get excited about being one year closer to thirty.

Rhodos pulled something from the folds of her dress and handed it to her. “This is for you. It’s from Father.”

Percy cradled the item in her hands. It was lightweight and wrapped in woven reeds. She felt tears prickle in her eyes and wiped them away.

“Thank you,” she said hoarsely.

Rhodos inclined her head. “You are welcome. He misses you terribly.”

The trace of sadness in her voice made a flicker of anger rise in Percy. Her dad hardly ever got into contact with Rhodos, and the first time he did in years was to pass along a present. There was a certain emotional burden that came with being Poseidon’s most favorite child, she thought.

“How does he seem?”

Rhodos shrugged. “The same. Father is always Father.”

Percy struggled not to grimace. “I see…” Her sister surprised her by laughing, which sounded more like a stream of music. “Rhodos?”

“Yes?”

“Do you ever speak with your mother?”

She paused, the light in her crystalline eyes dimming. “Only as much as Father,” she said, a false breeziness in her tone.

The flicker of anger grew to a small flame. Percy decided she would make a “suggestion” to Aphrodite tomorrow.

“May I see what he got you?”

Percy had planned on opening it alone, but there was a touch of hunger in her sister’s eyes, and she wasn’t in the business of disappointing goddesses.

“Yeah, of course.” She unraveled the reed fabric. Nestled in it was a small silver bracelet set with turquoise. When Percy squinted she saw two serpents entwined around the central stone.

“Oh,” Rhodos breathed. “It’s beautiful.”

Percy was perplexed, but she didn’t want to offend Poseidon. “Thank you, Dad,” she said toward the water. A salty breeze whipped toward them.

A small wrinkle formed on sister’s brow. “I wonder why he’s given you this. Perhaps…no. No.”

Upon further examining the bracelet, Percy came to a conclusion. “I have no idea what this is, but I think…I’m pretty sure it was made by my brother.”

“Triton? He’s never been good with his hands.”

“Tyson,” Percy clarified. “He works in the forges. He’s incredible.”

Rhodos frowned. “A cyclops? I’ve never met him. A shame.”

“You should visit Atlantis,” Percy suggested. “They’d love to have you.” Rhodos let out a scoff, or whatever a lady’s version of a scoff was. “At least, I know Tyson would. Triton is not the most patient, and obviously Dad is always busy.”

“Perhaps I will.”

Judging by her tone, Rhodos was just placating her, which Percy didn’t blame her for.

“You must keep this hidden.” Rhodos took the bracelet from Percy and placed it back into the fabric. She folded several layers over it for protection.

Percy looked wary. “Do you think there’s something off about it?”

A hesitant look passed over her sister’s face. “It would be unwise to question a gift from your family, but sometimes they can carry more meaning that we anticipate.”

Percy was familiar with that, so if it weren’t for the fact Tyson made it, she’d bury the thing in sand.

“I’ve lingered too long,” Rhodos sighed. “Perhaps another time we can…bond?”

Percy’s brow raised. “Yeah. Yes, I’d love to. It would be an honor.”

Rhodos’ painted coral lips pulled apart into a smile, and she started off toward the water. Percy waved to her when she reached the surf, and then she was gone in a flash.

The wrapped bracelet grew heavy in Percy’s hands, sending an unpleasant chill through her body. She held it at arm’s length and headed inside the house, determined to forget about it as soon as possible.

Approximately twelve hours later, someone came knocking at her door.

Percy cursed and wiped her hands on her apron. She was in the middle of cooking dinner, for gods’ sake. If it weren’t for Rhodos whispering the meaning of xenia to her every week, she’d smack the intruder over the head with her wooden spoon.

Another knock.

“Éna leptó, parakaló!” she called. Once satisfied the oil was mostly gone from her hands, she untied her apron and rushed to the door, grumbling the whole way. She flung it open (a good bit harder than necessary) and stared at the intruder.

“Happy Birthday, Percy.”

It was completely unfair for a man to be that attractive. If it hadn’t been for the funny flutters in her stomach she’d gotten when Nico showed her his skull tattoos, Percy would have thought herself a lesbian (or an Annabexual). Of course…there was one boy she’d had a legitimate crush on, if only for a summer, but she didn’t like thinking about him.

Especially not when his father was standing in front of her.

“I think your dinner might be burning,” he said.

Percy snapped out of her daze. “Shit!” She ran over to the stove, which was so old it needed matches, and wailed. “No! No. Dammit. Fucking hell. Fucking dumbass bitch –”

Her tirade went on until Hermes’ calloused hand touched her shoulder. “I fear this was my doing.”

“No,” Percy sighed. “It’s okay.”

“I brought you cake, though, and presents. Wouldn’t be a birthday without them, would it?”

Percy whipped around to gape at him. “Are you serious?”

He shrugged, but the smile on his face made her think the gesture was as meaningful to him as it was to her.

“Thank you. Thank you. I didn’t expect to see you again, at least not so soon.”

“I figured five weeks was enough time to stay away.”

She hated the way his voice sent a flush crawling over her body. She probably looked like a tomato.

“And,” he continued, “you’ve been burning an extraordinary amount of pita for me. I had to come see what that was about.”

“There’s been some fish, too! It’s just that bread is the only food I’ve really mastered. I don’t want to toss soggy spanakopita into the fire!”

“Calm down,” he laughed. “It makes me happy. I look forward to it every day.”

“I – really?”

His mischievous eyes twinkled. “Absolutely.”

Percy bit back a smile, and then inwardly cursed herself. Flirting was not the point of offerings! Not even remotely!

“Listen, uh. I am very glad to see you…”

He cocked one of his eyebrows. “But?”

“But I feel a bit…uncomfortable?” she winced. “Being in this house with you, just because it’s my sister’s domain.”

To her relief, Hermes didn’t look put out. “I know. I shouldn’t have stayed as long as I did last time. I thought maybe we could sit outside. On the beach.”

Oh! “Yes! I’d love that,” she gushed. “Thank you for not, um…being offended.”

Hermes snorted. “Please. I’d like to think you know me better than that.”

His comment made her heart go all fuzzy, but it wasn’t really true. Like, at all. He was a god; even if she spent the rest of her life studying him, he’d still be a mystery.

“You ready?” he asked, already at the door.

Percy nodded. She should’ve expected him to be so fast.

Beaches were the best places on Earth in Percy’s eyes. Sometimes she thought if she were a goddess, they would be her domain. Although, there was a nereid of sand, so it was a good thing she hadn’t accepted immortality. Figuring out what domains weren’t spoken for would have been a pain in the ass.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Her lips twisted into a smirk. “I was just thinking about the King’s face when I turned down his gift.”

Hermes chuckled. “The things he can’t fathom…Well, let’s just say you are a like a rather annoying puzzle he has yet to solve.”

“I’d like to keep it that way,” she said, digging her toes into the sand. A half-devoured blue birthday cake sat between her legs. “I can’t believe you brought me this. How did you know?”

A somewhat somber smile crossed his handsome face. “Your friend told me it’s the kind your mother always made for you.”

“What? Which friend?” Percy sputtered. “Oh, please don’t tell me you’ve been talking about me –”

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I haven’t said anything to anyone except your satyr. Grover? He went out to search for you, so I thought it best to let him know you were safe. No one from down below thought it prudent to inform Camp of your whereabouts. They were worried when you stopped showing up on the weekends to teach sword fighting.

“Anyways, I asked him if he wanted to pass on a birthday message, and he told me that blue was your favorite. I have no intention of further exposing you, Percy. I did what I thought you’d want for your friend.”

Percy was vaguely aware of small teardrops leaking down her cheeks. “I’m not mad. I – I didn’t anticipate anyone missing me that much. We were both busy with other things, so I didn’t think he’d be too worried.”

Hermes’ hand twitched in her direction. “You are well-loved.”

She sniffled. “Please, can we talk about something else?”

“Presents?” He pulled out a cellphone from the pocket of his worn jeans and shook it twice. It lengthened into his caduceus.

“Hello, George,” Percy greeted. “Hello, Martha.” They hissed at her, asking for rats as usual.

Hermes rolled his eyes. “None of that, you two. Ms. Jackson’s gifts, if you please?”

The snakes coughed up several items just like they had all those years ago, on another beach.

“Here.” The god handed her the first gift, a large package wrapped in colorful paper decorated with balloons.

After tearing it open, much less gently than with the bracelet from Tyson, she stared at the gift. “A Walkman?” she exclaimed. It was just like the one she used when she was a kid and everyone in school was being dicks to her.

“Yep. I know phones are kind of a no-go for demigods, but that doesn’t mean you can’t listen to tapes. Speaking of…” he handed her a much larger package, this one covered in plain blue paper.

Percy took it from him wordlessly. Inside was a simple chest that opened up to dozens of organized cassettes with handwritten labels. The warm, fuzzy feeling from earlier returned.

“Did you make these for me?”

“Mmhm. There’s a lot of different stuff. I can bring you more,” he suggested. “If you get tired of them.”

“There are at least thirty in here. I’m sure I’ll be fine. This is, excuse my language, so fucking thoughtful.” He beamed, and there was a certain vulnerability in the action that Percy found incredibly endearing.

“I’m glad you like it,” he murmured.

Maybe it was the consequence of eating too much sugar, but something made her bolt forward and press her lips to his. Only a second passed before he returned the kiss with passion.

It was possibly one of the stupidest things she’d ever done, but in that moment all she knew was bliss.

Percy had never kissed anyone but Annabeth (she didn’t count the peck Rachel gave her when they were fifteen), and this was a very different experience. Her girlfriend had been so…comfortable. She was Annabeth, the girl she’d bled with since they were angsty middle-schoolers. They were both demigods, both girls, both equals, and they’d spent three years getting to know each other before entering a relationship.

Hermes was a god, a divine being millennia older than Percy, and the father of the boy who’d tried to kill her half a dozen times. And he was distinctly male. While toned and athletic, Annabeth’s body was much smaller and curvier than his. Hermes towered over Percy, and his form was composed of broad planes of muscle. His skin was slightly rougher than Annabeth’s, and there was a distinct absence of ponytail for Percy to hold on to.

Perhaps most noticeable was the way they fit together. She and Annabeth were mortal, their touches fumbling and interspersed with giggles. Hermes’ touch was too perfect to be true. How could their very first kiss feel like the world was falling into place?

“Fuck,” Percy moaned between breaths. The spell broke, and Hermes laughed quietly, his forehead still pressed against hers. “What was that?” she panted.

Hermes drew back to look at her. His pupils were dilated so only a ring of blue remained around them, and for the first time Percy felt his aura change. Something around him shifted. It felt like there was a rope on her heart pulling her towards him. She gripped his arms tight, feeling unsteady.

“What do you mean?” he murmured, bemusement leaking into his words. His voice sent a shudder crawling up her spine, and her body broke out in chills.

“Sorry,” she blurted. “I don’t know what came over me.”

Hermes frowned, his eyes returning to somewhat normal. “Are you alright?” He cupped her cheek with one hand, and she keened, her eyes fluttering closed.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry –”

Hermes pushed her away from him so they could see each other. “Hey. Hey. Listen to me, Percy.” He smoothed the back of her wind-blown curls and stared into her eyes. “Please don’t apologize to me. Especially not for that.”

She still felt woozy from the kiss. “But I just crossed a huge boundary. I dishonored you, and myself.”

“No,” he said firmly. “No, you did not. It’s normal to…feel things –”

She interrupted him with a load groan. Fucking hell, she was mortified.

Hermes let out his own sound of annoyance. “I just meant that you’ve been mostly alone on this island for almost a year! It’s understandable that you’d have some…mistaken affection for me.”

Percy let out a laugh of disbelief. “Mistaken affection? Is that what you thought that was? You just gave me the sweetest gifts I’ve ever received. So, yeah, I’m lonely as hell, but that’s not why I…”

“Kissed me?” Hermes offered.

Percy nodded. “Please forgive me. I won’t touch you again, I promise, just please come back to see me.” His brow wrinkled, like he didn’t approve of what she’d said. “I know I asked for this, for an escape, and I love my sister a lot, but you’re – you’re different,” she finished.

“Percy…” Her chills returned in full force, and he rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “It’s the middle of August, why are you cold?”

She shook her head, still staring into his familiar blue eyes. “Sorry, you just…”

“I know this is your birthday and not mine, but I would very much like to kiss you again. May I?”

Her mouth parted. “Oh. Yes. Yes, you may.”

His brilliant smile returned, and they moved toward each other at the same time. His hands came to wrap around her body as his mouth fit into place against hers.

The sun was setting, and sea breeze rushed all around them. Sandy remains of cake lay forgotten at their feet. It was then she decided sixteen would no longer be considered her best birthday.

This would.

Chapter Text

Rhodos’ promise of sisterly bonding came sooner than Percy expected. Only a week after her impulsive kiss on the beach, the goddess appeared in her bedroom unannounced.

“Good morning, Perseus.”

The smooth voice jolted Percy out of her half-sleep. It was probably five o’clock – a whole hour before she usually got out of bed.

“Um, hello,” she mumbled, untangling herself from her sheets. Rhodos stared at her like an eager seal pup, which unnerved Percy. “Do you have a request of me, my lady?”

Her smile was much bubblier than usual. “I thought we could have a sister day,” she said.

Percy blinked. Oh. She hadn’t thought when Rhodos mentioned hanging out that it would be so soon.

“Yes!” she blurted. “Of course. That sounds really nice. Sorry, I didn’t expect this.”

Rhodos’ expression turned a bit sheepish. “I confess to being somewhat ‘stir-crazy’, as the mortals say.”

What a coincidence, Percy thought. So was she. “I didn’t think that was something that normally happened to gods.”

Rhodos shrugged. “This island is my home, and I care for it with all of my being, but from time to time I crave social stimulation. I thought that…maybe if I let you stay here, you’d grow to be my friend, not just a worshiper.”

Percy fought back a sigh. If only she had admitted this a year ago, they could have been keeping each company. Offerings were nice, but few immortal beings hung around Rhodes, including her sister’s children who had their own duties to attend to.

“Family is about more than who you’re related to,” Percy explained. “It’s nice to be friends with them, as well. So, I would love to be yours, my lady. If you’ll have me.”

The atmosphere in the room was perfectly still for a moment as Percy held her breath, and then a whoosh of heavily scented air hit her. It was her sister’s familiar blend of florals.

“Thank you,” Rhodos said.

Percy politely ignored the slight tremble in her voice and smiled. “Well, then. What did you have in mind for our day?”

The baths Rhodos took her to were hidden by the Mist. Over the years, even as she spent less and less time around the other world, Percy’s sight had gotten better, and she rarely struggled to see through the thick layer of magic.

There was a trio of baths carved into rock, and according to her sister they remained clean and full of water no matter who visited. As it was summer, their temperature was cool, and Percy let out a pleased sigh as she lowered herself into one.

Immortals didn’t need to cleanse themselves like mortals did, but most of them enjoyed it. These baths were much less lavish than some she’d seen, like her uncle’s (do not ask her how she’d ended up in his private bathroom).

A few glass containers appeared on the rim of the bath, and Percy looked to Rhodos for explanation. Her sister was sitting serenely with her feet in the water. Percy felt a little awkward being undressed in front of a deity.

“This one,” Rhodos said, picking up a bottle, “is made from a rare seaweed. It works wonders on the skin. And there is oil for your scalp if you need it.”

On her trips to Atlantis, Percy had been shocked at how much the nymphs and merfolk liked skincare. She grew up using cheap shampoo from the dollar store, and hadn’t changed her ways as an adult. The mermaid assigned to assist her, Cora, had scrunched up her nose at the state of Percy’s hair.

Rhodos wasn’t scrutinizing her like the mermaid had, but it was clear she wanted to give Percy a good scrubbing.

“Oh no, that’s alright! I can put it on myself.” Percy cringed as Rhodos jumped in and waded toward her. Was it an affront to the natural order of things to have a goddess bathe you? Or would it be worse to not respect her wishes?

Rhodos didn’t respond. Her hand shot under the water, grasped Percy’s right leg, and pulled it to the surface. Percy squeaked and immediately blushed at the state of her leg. Hair removal was not something she gave any thought to until it was staring her in the face. From what she’d seen of Rhodos’ body, it was hairless and without flaw. Percy was a wooly mammoth in comparison.

Oh, well. She was Puerto Rican and Greek, after all, and no goddess. It took time and energy to exfoliate, pluck, and moisturize her whole body. The one thing she did remove was the dark hairs between her eyebrows, a habit leftover from childhood. Kids were not nice about unibrows, and she’d already had enough traits to make fun of.

To Percy’s eternal gratitude, Rhodos made no comment about her furriness and lathered her up with the goopy seaweed stuff. It smelled a bit funky and made her tickle, but once Rhodos washed it off, her skin felt soft as butter.

After taking care of the left leg, Rhodos used a soft-bristled brush on Percy’s feet and toenails, making her involuntarily giggle. She hadn’t realized her feet were so dirty until now.

There was some stuff Rhodos politely left her to take care of, like washing her armpits. Percy experimented with some of the plain soap that, to her delight, foamed up like bubble bath. Before she knew it, the whole bath was overflowing with frothy clouds. Rhodos laughed at the display from the second bath. She’d undressed at some point and was now relaxing in a pool of pink rose petals.

Percy pouted. “I swear I didn’t mean to! This stuff is too fun.” Rhodos smiled at her like she was a particularly amusing child, which oddly didn’t make her feel patronized.

Once Percy was as clean as she could possibly be, she climbed out of the bath and snagged a towel. Its fabric was like the plushest lamb’s wool, and she giddily wrapped it around her like a wizard’s cloak.

Instead of climbing out of her bath like a normal person, Rhodos rose out of the water in a swirl of steam and petals, fully dressed in new robes. She leapt through the air in a very deer-like manner and landed silently in front of Percy, who tried to look impressed for her sake.

“Shall we?” the goddess asked. Percy took her sister’s outstretched hand and let her whisk them away.

They appeared back in Percy’s bedroom, and Rhodos motioned for her to sit at the simple wood stool that stood in front of her closet. Percy settled onto it and let her towel fall down to her shoulders. Rhodos hummed as she tousled Percy’s curls and started applying some sort of goop to them.

“Mm. What’s in that?” Percy asked. Her eyes had shuttered at the sensations of her sister’s fingers massaging her scalp and was now trying to place the ingredients of whatever the hell was being rubbed into her hair. Rhodos listed off half a dozen types of algae and sea mosses, amongst other things, which was a little too much information for Percy to process. She just nodded and pretended to understand marine beauty products.

“Your hair is lovely, Perseus.”

Percy snorted before she could stop herself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh. It’s just that normally when people mention my hair it’s to complain about it.” She felt Rhodos frown behind her. “I’m not very good at the whole…girly thing, you know? I’ve never really bothered to do anything more than the bare minimum. I mean, you saw my legs,” she laughed.

Rhodos tutted. “You had a very stressful childhood, and demigods have much more important things to worry about than their appearances.”

“Yeah, I guess. Once I became an adult, people started acting like there was no longer an excuse for it. Like I should feel guilty for being myself. That’s one thing I didn’t expect to miss when I reentered the mortal world. Nobody cares about your frizzy hair when they’re busy training to fight monsters, or actually fighting monsters.”

Rhodos put the finishing touches on her curls. “Well, whoever’s had the gall to criticize you is lucky I’m not Kym.”

Percy laughed, and it warmed her heart. This was nice – really nice – but she wanted to return the affection.

“Rhodos…” she said, getting to her feet. “Is there something I can do for you?”

Her Pixar-sized blue eyes widened. “You already pray to me twice a day.”

“Right…but friends ‘hang out’ in person like we’ve been doing the past few hours. They do things for each other, you know? Like you’ve just done for me.”

“…I see,” Rhodos said, although her bemusement seemed to have grown.

“I don’t know what you typically eat, but I could cook for you?” Percy offered nervously. Her skills in the kitchen were lacking, but she was heaps better than she was a year ago. Cooking had become a favorite pastime; she’d needed something to do besides swinging Riptide around aimlessly. One time, about seven months past, an older man named Stefanos had walked up on her while she was fake dueling and almost had a heart attack. He’d thought her sword was a gun. After that, Percy had to use more of her energy reserves to control the Mist and –

Oops. Her mind had wandered.

“Are you well?” Rhodos asked.

“Yep! Sorry. Demigod brain.”

Rhodos squinted. “Alright…if you say so.”

Percy cleared her throat. “So, uh, would you like me to make a late breakfast? Or early lunch, I guess.” She estimated it to be midmorning.

Rhodos nodded with a timid smile on her face, and Percy beamed. “Cool! I’ll, uh, go get dressed first.”

She shimmied to the bathroom and folded up her towel. There was no way she was letting that thing go. After slipping into a pair of blue jeans and a faded t-shirt, she joined Rhodos in the kitchen. Her sister was perched on the packed-out couch that sat low to the ground.

“So, what would you like? I can make some pita –”

Rhodos giggled. “You’re very fond of bread, aren’t you?”

Percy blushed. This was the second deity to comment on her prodigious breadmaking. “Well, it’s very versatile,” she sputtered. “You can dip it in olive oil, hummus, stuff it with things…”

“I’m sure whatever you make will be delicious,” Rhodos assured.

Percy nodded, still red in the face, and set about making a simple dough. Once it was put together, she set it aside to rest and started chopping onions for soup. When she glanced over at the couch, her sister was intently focused on weaving something. A basket maybe?

The two spent the next forty minutes or so attending to their respective tasks. It was a comfortable silence, Percy thought; it reminded her of doing homework in the kitchen while her mom cooked a cheap dinner for them. Sally and Percy hadn’t needed to fill the air with conversation all the time. It was nice to just be in each other’s presence, something Percy was now experiencing with her sibling.

It was domestic – familial – and she realized she hadn’t felt that in a long time.

Each pita took about four minutes total in the cast iron skillet. When the first one was perfectly puffy, she wrapped it in a clean cloth and walked over to Rhodos.

“Here.” She placed the warm bread in her hands and set a ramekin of olive oil and balsamic vinegar on the coffee table.

Rhodos’ closed her eyes and took a long sniff. “Ah.” Her mouth spread into a pleased smile. “I don’t often eat warm food. This smells delightful, Perseus.”

Percy watched her dip a chunk of the pita in oil and take a bite. When she let out a tiny sigh of satisfaction, Percy swelled with pride. The “It’s not much, but it’s honest work” meme popped into her head, and she swallowed a laugh.

“I’ll go fry up the rest,” she said. “The lentils are almost finished.”

Lentils were something she’d never really eaten before, but they’d become a staple. This recipe was simple, delicious, and came together in a relatively short amount of time. The only part that sucked was chopping onions.

Percy spooned the finished soup into two bowls and balanced them on one arm, the pita going in the other.

Rhodos looked up from her weaving. “Oh! Let me help you with that.”

“No, no, no. You sit. I got it.” She wasn’t actually sure she could carry the food without dropping it, but she was too stubborn to accept help.

“Alright…thank you,” Rhodos said. Her eyes gleamed as they took in the tall stack of pita. “And what’s this?”

“Just lentil soup. A lady a few houses away told me how to make it.”

“Smells nice.”

“Well, I hope it tastes nice, too.” Percy set the food down on the coffee table and situated herself on a cushion across from the couch.

Rhodos brought a spoonful to her mouth, and her eyes widened. “Mm! Percy!”

Percy let out a startled laugh at the enthusiasm in her voice. “Good, huh?”

“Yes! It’s so…comforting.”

Vindication! Hell yes. She’d just made food an actual goddess liked.

“When you cook for me as an offering, I can smell it and almost taste it, but it’s not as strong as in person.” Rhodos lowered her gaze with a sad smile. “I’m not sure why I craved it so much. Perhaps I was looking at the past through a rose-colored lens.”

Percy tore off a hunk of pita and dipped it the oil dish. A combination of bread, fragrant olive oil, and the sweet vinegar coated her taste buds.

“I don’t think you’re like the other gods,” she said. “Actually, I think the only ones who get real satisfaction from it are the Olympians. An ego thing, maybe. It doesn’t bother me as much as it did when I was kid, though. Adapting to modern life is difficult. They’ve been tossed back and forth between cultures so many times, but the only one they really care about is…”

“The homeland. Where we come from. Where we were created.”

“Yes. Memories are all they have left of it. Bits of broken history. I can see why they devour every morsel demigods give them.”

Percy’s stomach dropped as she realized what she’d just said, and she looked at her sister in horror. “I’m not talking about you, Rhodos. You’re different. It’s just my uncle and the others –”

Rhodos shushed her. “I’m a very minor goddess, Percy. I understand having those kinds of thoughts about the big and powerful, the mighty.”

Percy hung her head. She hadn’t meant to spill as much as she did. Some thoughts (many thoughts) were better left unsaid. “I love devoting myself to you,” she divulged. “And it doesn’t even bother me to pray to the others. No matter how I feel about them, they’re crucial to holding together the fabric of our world. I can let go of my complaints for a few minutes every day.”

“You don’t have to, Perseus. I know it is what I asked when you called to me for help, but you are a different woman now than you were all those months ago. You have made progress in overcoming your troubles. I thought the structure of prayer and focusing on others would be an efficient distraction for you, and I was right. But perhaps now you can ease your diligence.”

Percy absently stuffed another hunk of pita into her mouth and chewed it slowly.

“I’m sure it would confuse them if I suddenly stopped.”

“They’ll survive,” Rhodos said, a little smirk on her face.

Percy smiled in return and pulled her knees to her chest. “You’re right. Maybe I’ll tone it down.”

Rhodos took a few hasty mouthfuls of soup and set the bowl aside. “Speaking of Olympians, I was wondering about your recent relations with one.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, ‘oh’. Care to explain?” Rhodos’ tone was playful rather than upset, putting Percy at ease.

“First of all, I’m sorry I let him into the house. The first time he had a package to deliver. The second…”

“Was your birthday.”

Percy nodded. “I didn’t ask him to come or anything. He showed up of his own volition. He brought me cake and gifts, and we talked on the beach for a while.”

“I see. Is that all?”

Percy let out an exasperated groan and tossed the rest of her pita on the table. “This is too embarrassing to talk about.”

Rhodos cocked her head. “Why? Love can be a wonderful thing, at least in its early stage.”

Percy wondered if she was thinking about Helios. “Whoa, whoa. No. We barely know each other. I mean, we’re friends, but it would be crazy to take it further…right?”

“That depends. If you look inside yourself, what do you see? What are your true desires?”

“Desire is not a good enough reason to rub shoulders with a god, especially a male one! And…you know about his son, right?”

Rhodos frowned. “Who?”

Oh, boy. This was going to be fun. “His son Luke helped our grandfather take over the world. Try to, anyways."

“Oh. Oh. I hadn’t realized that was his child.”

Percy grimaced. “Yeah, well, it’s a major sore spot with him, and me, but we don’t hold it against each other. Luke and I were just fated to be on opposite sides.”

Rhodos stood up from the couch and padded over to sit by her. She sat down with the fluid grace only a goddess could have and placed one of her delicate hands over Percy’s.

“I did not realize you had such history with Hermes. I won’t speak of him again if you wish.”

“No, it’s alright. I like him, I really do, and I want to see him again. I – I think about him every day. Is that dumb?”

“Of course not, Perseus. You deserve something good after all you’ve been through. If you feel that he will bring you joy, I will support your relationship.”

Percy stared at her in disbelief. “Really? It would be alright if he visited again?”

Rhodos’ smile made her eyes crinkle, and their crystalline blue irises swirled like gentle waves. “Yes. He’s welcome any time.”

Percy threw enveloped her sister in a hug without a moment’s hesitation, and she froze underneath the touch before melting into it.

“Thank you,” Percy whispered. “You’re the best sister in the world.”

She could feel Rhodos beaming and snuggled further into the embrace. It had been too long since she’d given a proper hug.

________________

Hermes spent most of his time away from Olympus. His job never stopped, meaning his essence was pulled in dozens of directions at any given moment. It took enormous energy to draw himself into one form. And yet…

When Percy Jackson pressed her lips to his, every part of his essence scattered across the globe came together in an instant. For a few precious moments, he was there with her, on that beach, in his entirety.

The consequences, of course, had been near disastrous. George and Martha informed him that while he’d been busy “sucking face” (their words, not his), a mile-long clog in the godly mail system had developed. So, he had to spread himself as thin as possible over the following twenty-four hours to make up for it. It was miserable, sometimes, being the messenger. His other domains suffered from the lack of attention, all because his close and extended relatives were too lazy to bother with their own errands. They had more important things to do.

Truth be told, their growing disregard for him over the centuries had become exhausting. He used to be respected far and wide; mortals asked his favor for their travels, the health of their livestock, their bouts of theft, and general good fortune, amongst other things. Now he felt lucky to receive prayers from his children. Unlike some of his prouder, more tempestuous relatives, Hermes knew it was fruitless to lament the old days, and he rarely let himself do so.

Needless to say, Percy’s daily offerings to him had come as a bit of a shock, and in retrospect he felt ridiculous for not noticing them until ten months after they’d begun. Probably, in part, because he could have rediscovered the joy of her company moons ago.

Hermes couldn’t say why her allure was so potent. What he felt for her was more than lust, although that certainly played a part. It was a permanent ache in his chest, a breath caught in his throat; it was an all-consuming need to be with her and make her the happiest woman in the world.

In short, he was absolutely fucked.

Every day since that evening on the beach he looked forward to her prayers like a dog slobbering over scraps of meat. They were never enough to soothe his heartache, but he devoured and treasured them all the same.

Today, part of himself was caught in a “meeting” with his brother, who was attempting to regale him with one of his recent musical releases. Hermes had to bite down on his tongue to stop his internal mockery from making itself known. Honestly, though – who even cared about Disney films anymore? In his opinion, the first Frozen installment had not warranted a sequel.

He sighed. This country had started going downhill since they’d moved here, and Apollo was proof of that (not that he’d ever dare to say so).

As he was blocking out his brother’s boasting, he heard the beginning whispers of Percy’s prayer. Gripping his glass of nectar tight, he focused on her words.

Hello, Hermes.

A smile flickered across his face. It was Hermes now, not “My Lord Hermes”. Thank goodness.

I’ve been having some thoughts about our last meeting. Well, I haven’t stopped thinking, to be honest. I – I didn’t know what other way to ask, but…would you come visit me as soon as you get the chance? I have something I’d like to discuss with you. And, as selfish as this is, I really hope you’ve been thinking about me too.

His heart soared. Yes, he tried to tell her. You haven’t left my mind in weeks.

Anyways, she continued, thank you for your gifts, and blessing me with your presence. I look forward to our next meeting.

“Are you alright, brother?”

Hermes’ eyes jumped to Apollo. “Yes, of course. Why do you ask?”

The god’s cornflower blue eyes sparkled with gold. “That glass in your hand is about to break, and you know how I love my crystalware.”

“Oh, I know."

Apollo frowned. “You’re not yourself today. Is this jealousy, perhaps? Because of my accomplishments?”

Hermes sighed. “No, it’s nothing of the sort. I am simply…busy. You people don’t give me much of a break, you know.”

“Hm. That’s true, except you just had a smile on your face. A dreamy one, I might add. Now, what could cause my grump of a baby brother to swoon like that?” His face lit up. “A lady friend?”

Hermes swore he’d shatter every last one of his stupid crystal glasses the next chance he got. How his brother managed to seduce so many mortals was beyond him.

“I was listening to one of my children,” he snapped.

“Sure, but don’t think I’m dropping this.”

“You will drop it.”

Ignoring his demand, Apollo moved on to a new topic. “Speaking of prayers, I’ve been receiving a startling number from one Perseus Jackson, and so has Artie. Do you know anything about that?”

Damn Rhodos for making her so pious. Was it pathetic to want Percy’s attention all to himself?

“Uh, yes. She had a bit of a…revival, per se, after her mother passed.”

Apollo’s sunny face dimmed. “Ah, yes. I heard about that. A shame. Sally was a remarkable woman.”

“I’m sorry, did you know her?”

“Oh no, but I read all her novels. They’re delightfully risqué.”

Hermes cringed at his brother’s romantic sigh. He had not known those were the kind of books Percy’s mother wrote.

“Er…yes. Anyways, if you heard about that, you must have heard about the breakup, right?”

“Unfortunately. Aphrodite was inconsolable. Even Ares couldn’t stand to be around her for a few days.”

Hermes felt a tad disgruntled. Was Annabeth Chase really that special?

“Why now? Percy’s never been fond of me, not that I blame her, though I wish she wasn’t. You have no idea how traumatic it is to be turned down by that woman not once, but four times. Still, I’m foolish enough to keep asking.”

Hermes felt his form begin to blur around the edges. How dare he?

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to get on her bad side, brother. Or our uncle’s.”

Apollo winced. “Too true.”

The nectar in Hermes’ glass was no longer appealing, and he longed to be rid of his brother immediately.

“Thank you for your riveting stories, but I have to get going.”

“Fine, but I need you to deliver something for me.”

Hermes set his glass down and started to walk away. “No.”

Apollo’s mouth fell open. “Pardon?”

Hermes turned around and raised an eyebrow. “Do you need me to spell it out for you? N-O. No.” He resumed walking. “Take care.”

“Hermes!” his brother gasped. “You are not walking away from me!”

“Oh, but I am, dear brother! I am.”

When Hermes arrived at Percy’s doorstep, he was buzzing with anticipation. It took effort to corral himself into a solid body. Judging by the pounding of footsteps from inside, she was as eager to see him as he was her.

The door flew open, revealing her brilliant, toothy smile. “Hi,” she said, chest heaving.

His lips quirked up of their own volition. “Hello.”

“Rhodos said it’s fine if you come in,” she blurted.

Hermes started. “Really?”

“Mmhm. So…do you want to?”

“Come in?”

“Well, yeah. That’s why you’re here, right?” Her smile fell. “Oh. Did you just have a message?”

“No, I’m here to see you.”

A pretty pink blush spread across her cheeks, and she gestured for him to come in. “Do you want something to drink? I have tsái tou vounoú.”

“Yes, that sounds lovely,” he said. “Thank you.” She glanced back at him from the kitchen and smiled softly, sending his heart aflutter. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be human.

The tea steeped for a few minutes, and then she poured it into two small porcelain cups and drizzled honey into each one.

“Sorry to say it’s not nectar,” she said, noticing his interest.

He shook his head. “I get enough of that already. This is nice. I don’t often have time for…this,” he said, waving his hand across the coffee table. “Mortal practices.”

She frowned at him and opened up a pack of Tim-Tams. “You, sir, are overworked.”

“Well, it is my duty. Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate a break every now and then,” he admitted, accepting one of the chocolate biscuits from her. “Don’t get mad, but I didn’t think you’d have any of these left.”

Percy choked on a sip of tea. “Hey!”

He shoved the whole biscuit in his mouth and finished chewing before giving his verdict. “Good, but I’m not crazy about them.”

“Maybe you have bad taste,” she retorted.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stared at her. “No, I don’t think I do.”

Her blush deepened, and her cup clattered as she set it down with shaky hands.

“Listen, I don’t know if you heard me, but I wanted to talk to you.”

“I did hear you.” His tea was pleasantly warm in his hands, and he took a long sip of it. Traces of mint, chamomile, and citrus coated his tongue, along with the sweet honey. It occurred to him that he hadn’t tasted mountain tea in ages, and it stirred up memories from days long past.

“Hermes?”

He tore his gaze away from the soothing liquid. “Sorry, I’m listening. This tea is something I used to drink quite often.”

Her face softened. “I’m glad I had some on hand, then.”

“Percy…”

“Yes?” she replied nervously.

“I…I hope you don’t regret what happened the last time I was here. I’m not necessarily known for honesty, but I try to be with you. So, when I say I think about taking you into my arms and kissing you senseless every hour of the day, I mean it.”

Her eyes were as big as the saucer her cup sat on. “I – I guess I didn’t think you’d want a repeat. I mean, I’ve been hoping you would, but…”

His brow wrinkled. “I thought I made my feelings clear.”

She gave him an awkward shrug. “You’re a god. Those sort of things don’t matter much beyond the surface. To be honest, there are plenty of mortals that are like that, too. I’ve…been approached by gods before, and they never crossed me as serious. Obviously, I had Annabeth then, but I wouldn’t have considered them If I’d been single, either.”

He sighed. “You’re not wrong to be cautious. Apollo was sulking earlier because you turned him down multiple times. You certainly dodged a bullet with that one.”

“Fuck, don’t get me started on him. I make his prayers as impersonal as possible.”

Hermes laughed. “I won’t tell him you said that.”

“Wait…does anyone else know we’ve been meeting?”

“I’m not one to share my private business, unlike a certain brother of mine.”

“Right. He actually told me he hooked up with Robert Plant a couple times in the seventies. I think he thought it would impress me.”

“That would be just like him,” Hermes mused. He took another sip of tea and thought of what he should say next.

“So you are…interested?” she asked, studying his face. “In me.” The restless motion of the sea in her eyes was mesmerizing.

“Yes. Very much.”

She let out a shaky breath. “Well…good. That’s good. I – I’d like to explore this further if you want to also.” Wincing, she flopped onto her back. “Gods, this is so embarrassing. I was just as bad with Annabeth.”

“What do you mean?”

“Confessing my feelings. She kissed me when we were fourteen, and I ignored it for more than a year because I was too scared to respond. And then, after we won I didn’t know how to tell her that I liked her, so I just jumped in the water and sat with some naiads until I mustered up the courage.”

“You love her very much,” he observed, feeling a twinge of wistfulness. He could understand that. May Castellan, while markedly different than the daughter of Athena, had been like that to him, too.

But even she hadn’t made him feel the way Percy did.

“I loved her,” Percy corrected. She sat up and stared at him. “For over a decade, she was the only person for me. I thought we’d be together for the rest of our lives, as silly as that sounds, and I didn’t care how we’d die…just that we’d go out together. Spend the rest of eternity in Elysium.

“And then one day she stopped looking at me like I was her everything. We’d been each other’s reason to live for so long, but then she started to get over everything. Was able to move on. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that.”

“The life of a demigod is never easy, Percy. You have every right to be…maladjusted, I suppose. I know my own children are,” he said, feeling guilt wash over him.

She cracked a smile. “Last time I was at camp they seemed pretty happy. Things have changed a lot for the new generation.”

“Thanks in no small part to you. You were the one to make us be better. Try harder. But in order for that to come about you had to sacrifice a part your childhood and safety.”

“I know,” she said, “but even though it makes me furious on occasion, it made me who I am today. I’ll never be able to detach myself like Annabeth – don’t get me wrong, I tried for years – but that doesn’t mean I have to view my whole life as a tragedy. It’s been a while since my mom passed, and I’ve finally started to have hope for the future, and I guess I thought…well, I thought that maybe you’d be a part of it.”

Her olive skin was flushed with splotches of mulberry pink, a phenomenon he’d come to know was quite frequent (and endearing) on her.

“Percy, you are…an extraordinary demigod. Extraordinary person. I thought so when I first met you on that beach near Camp, when I asked you to try and save my son. You agreed, even though he’d betrayed you and your friends. Even after he’d sold his soul to my grandfather and brought war upon all of us, you declared him a hero. He got Asphodel, did you know that? Instead of the Fields of Punishment. I escorted him there myself. That wouldn’t have happened without your testimony.”

Percy nodded. “Nico di Angelo told me. I was relieved, but Annabeth was so angry. She thought he deserved Elysium. I didn’t know how to tell her that Asphodel was the best he was going to get. I hope…I hope he’s at peace, at least as much as he can be.”

Luke was an old ache for Hermes, a deep scar that could never fade, but she was making it hurt in a good way. Touching damaged tissue would not make it disappear, but it could stop it from growing.

“I hope so, too. More than anything.”

Percy squirmed on her pillow. “Um. I, uh, don’t want to be forward, but –”

“Being forward is one of the traits I appreciate most about you,” he said. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Well…how do we proceed from here? I have no experience with dating someone like you. A god. To be honest, it’s scary as hell. I’m nervous. I don’t know the rules.”

He swallowed the dregs of his tea and set the cup down in its saucer. This was a conversation that was always a bit uncomfortable to have, but she was a demigod. She was aware of the risks, she just wanted to hear them spoken aloud.

“I wish I could say our being together would be casual, but it won’t. It would cause quite a stir. Your father, I imagine, would not be pleased. There’s a reason many demigods, the ones who make it to adulthood, try not to engage with the gods in that way.”

Percy grimaced. “I really don’t want to think about my dad’s reaction, or anyone else’s, but…I’m my own person and always have been. I’m going to do what I want.”

A blend of admiration and affection swelled in his chest. “You’ve always stood strong against the beating of the waves, Percy. You brave the storm.”

The look that struck her face reminded him of soldiers’ flashbacks, but he suspected it was something else. “Did I say the wrong thing?” he asked.

“No,” she replied, still staring at him with wide eyes. “Sorry. You just reminded me of my mom. ‘Hold fast and brave the storm’ is what she used to say to me, because of Danaë and Perseus.”

“It sounds like your mother was wise, and that she loved you fiercely.”

Percy’s face scrunched up, trying to quell the oncoming tears. “My dad calls her a ‘queen amongst women’, which used to make me cringe a little just because, you know…that’s my mom. But it’s true.”

Hermes thought it too soon to say that she was a queen amongst women.

“Anyways, where was I?” she asked.

“Something about the reactions of your peers.”

“Right. I think maybe it’s best we don’t share this. I haven’t spoken to anyone from home since I left. It’d feel awkward for everyone to know that I’m involved with you, especially because you’re…”

“Luke’s father.”

“Yeah.”

He sighed, knowing she was right. Their relationship would have lots of downsides. “But is it worth it?”

Percy took a moment to think. “Yes, it’s worth it. I…like you. A lot. In a way I’ve never felt for anyone besides Annabeth. But it’s different this time. I don’t know why. Maybe because you’re you, and I’m me. I honestly don’t know, but whatever it is, I want more. I want you.”

Hermes let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding in. People often associated him with luck, and in this moment he could understand why. So he laughed, a laugh of elation, all shaky and breathless. He felt young - mortal - and it was sublime.

“Don’t leave me hanging.” All the muscles on her face looked taught, ready to fall at a moment’s notice.

He shook out of his stupor. “I’m afraid it might overwhelm you.”

“What might overwhelm me?”

“My…affection.” He winced as the word ‘love’ threatened to slip out. It was too soon for that – she’d get scared off – but even so, it was hurtling toward him.

Percy snorted, and he blinked at her. “Are you laughing at me?”

She shook her head. “You’re the one who should be afraid. I’m Percy Jackson. I think I can handle it.”

A smile crept onto his face. “Is that so?”

“Yes.” She rolled forward and got to her feet. “Are you finished?”

He handed her his empty cup and admired her shapely form walking into the kitchen. Her body looked so soft, but he knew there were solid muscles supporting it. His mouth went dry as he continued to drink in the sight of her.

“You’re staring,” she teased.

“Can you blame me?” he asked, but he still lowered his gaze out of respect.

Percy sent him a playful smile from behind the counter. “You can look all you want.”

Hermes groaned, and she burst into laughter. “Sorry, I know I can be too much. You’ll just have to roll with it.”

“You’re not. Trust me. Aphrodite is too much. Apollo is too much. You, my dear, are a delight. I just…”

“You just what?” She finished washing the cups and dried her hands on a dish cloth.

He let out a frustrated sigh. “Look, you are to know how beautiful you are.” She began sputtering out denials, which he immediately dismissed. “You are, Percy. I almost tripped over myself when I brought you these cookie things –”

“Tim-Tams.”

“– and I felt like a little schoolboy. Do you know how rarely I get flustered? You – gods. I didn’t know what had come over me. It wasn’t like that before. I mean, you’ve always been lovely, but then it was like wow, and I felt myself slipping. I’ve been distracted at work – I’ve even ignored some of my messages! And it’s a bit embarrassing because you’re my friend and my children’s friend, but now I don’t feel like a fool –”

“Hermes! Hermes!” she yelled. There was a laugh hidden in her voice. “It’s okay. I’m flattered. I don’t fully believe you, but I’m flattered.”

His shoulders drooped. “I’ll make you believe it, then. I promise.”

“I think I like you like this. It’s not what I expected.”

“What, a blithering idiot?”

“No. It makes me feel better to know that you get flustered, too. It’s also kind of hot. Knowing that I did that to you.”

It was his turn to blush. Gods don’t have blood, but his face became florid all the same.

“I arrived here hoping to be suave and charming, but that’s not how it’s turning out, is it?”

“Maybe not suave, but you didn’t need that anyways. I’m already attracted to you.”

“In that case, maybe we can revisit last time?” he intimated. She pursed her lips and looked him up and down. Her approval had boosted his confidence, and he no longer felt inadequate in his casual uniform.

“I suppose,” she said, that sneaky smile reappearing on her face.

Percy walked over to the couch, and he rose to meet her. Her height, typical of a mortal, was much less than his, and they both had to bend their necks at awkward angles to see each other properly.

“Hi,” she giggled.

Hermes’ hands hovered over her waist. “May I?” She nodded, and he let his fingers roam across her sides, from the soft handles on her hips to the nip of her waist.

Her breath hitched. “Tickles.”

“Sorry.”

She peered up at him and stood on the balls of her feet. “Kiss me already.”

“As you wish,” he said, quoting one of his (and, unfortunately, Apollo’s) favorite films.

His mind became a whirlpool of delight as their lips met. Percy’s mouth was full, the bottom lip puffy like it had been pricked by a bee, and he could taste remnants of their tea and biscuits on it. A crackle of energy went through his body, collecting at his center, and he pulled her closer to relieve the sensation.

Percy whined, gripping at his shirt, and he slid his arms around her back to lift her up. Her sturdy weight pressing against him was heavenly. Her legs wrapped around his hips, and her chest was flush against his. It was unclear which one of them was clinging to the other.

He knew demigods were bound to one form, but it didn’t feel like she was just kissing him. It felt like her essence was entwined with his.

“You are so perfect,” he said when they took a moment to catch their breath. “This is perfect. I don’t know how I’ve lived this long without it.” Her eyes bored into his like a meeting of the sea with land and sky.

“I’m sure there have been many ‘perfect’ women in your life.” Her tone was teasing but spoke to underlying hurt.

He frowned and pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m immortal, darling. Don’t think about the past, just here and now.”

She nudged her nose against his, asking for another kiss, and he responded in earnest. Their movements became harder, sloppier, and he found himself stretching her legs farther around him so their centers could touch. When he felt the heat of her through his jeans, he shuddered and broke the kiss.

“Why’d you stop?” she asked, her mouth an enticing pout. His fingers were pressed so hard into her backside that they’d leave bruises.

“I don’t want to move too fast. Rush things.”

She rolled her eyes playfully. “Alright. Whatever milord says. But know that I’m probably going to have to get myself off the second you go through that door.”

Holy Hades. “Percy…you can’t say stuff like that and expect me to –”

“Walk away? Not toss me on the couch and ravish me?”

He kissed her once, and then twice more on her cheeks. “Yes. You’re hard to leave.”

She mashed her face into the crook of his neck. “When do you think you’ll be able to visit again?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured, stroking her hair. “I’ll try my best to come back to you soon, but don’t worry if it takes a couple weeks.”

“I wish there was an easier way to keep in touch with you,” she mumbled.

“Just speak to me, Percy, and wherever I am I will listen. I always do.”

She drew back from him with a pensive look on her face. “What sorts of things can I say?”

Hermes’ brow wrinkled. “Anything, I suppose. Why?”

“No reason.”

He kissed the mischievous grin off her face and reluctantly untangled their limbs. When she was back on the ground, her smile grew sad.

“What is it, sweetheart?”

“This is going to be difficult, isn’t it? I mean, I went years without seeing you and I was fine, but now…I don’t want you to go.” Her voice had a slight wobble to it.

“I know.”

“I feel…stupid,” she confessed. “I’ve always known how gods work and what it means to be close to one, but I’m letting myself do this anyway. We’ll spend way more time apart than together.”

He grasped her shoulders firmly. “Your feelings are not stupid, Percy. Mortals and gods are like magnets. Occasionally, we will feel drawn to each other because our natures are so different, so captivating. I understand why you don’t want to be next on the long list of women who mingled with a god.”

“I’ve already made up my mind,” she assured him. “I’m the one who brought it up. I’m choosing this. I’m choosing you. The doubts I have might be normal, but I’m not going to let them get in the way.”

Her declaration was plain and final. The determination she possessed was admirable, and Hermes found himself deeply honored by it. This was really happening. Perseus Achilles, call-me-Percy, Jackson wanted to date him.

Chapter Text

October came and went without seeing Hermes, and Percy tried her best to keep her spirits up. He said he would come to her when he could, and she believed it.

She’d started “speaking” to him randomly throughout the day, so much so that her inner ramblings bled into the carefully crafted prayers she devoted to him. While making breakfast, cleaning the house, bathing, and doing a variety of other tasks, she could be found with her lips moving and a dopey smile on her face.

Sometimes it was a simple hello, I miss you, I hope your day is good, or good morning, Hermes, but many times she spoke of other things.

One of Rhodos’ sons visited the island today, even though he’s supposed to be banished. I think he’s kind of an asshole – who kills their own brother for being a nerd? – but it made her happy, so I guess that’s all that really matters.

Guess what! It turns out that if you leave olive oil in a hot pan for too long, it will smoke and almost burn down your kitchen! I was busy daydreaming about you in that slutty mailman uniform you sometimes wear…so this is all your fault really.

Apollo told me about your little cattle incident one time, and I have to say that was a baller move. Less than a day old and already stirring shit up.

If by chance you pop by and catch me with red face paint on, don’t worry. Rhodos’ idea of fun is dressing me in “traditional style”. The things we do for family.

By the way, you wouldn’t happen to know if your son is still with Katie Gardner, would you? I was just wondering if he finally got the courage to propose to her.

That last one received a tumultuous response. A sharp gust of wind knocked over her small bookshelf, and she took it to mean something bad had happened to one or both of them. Her mood the following days were somber. By the slim chance a demigod made it past early adulthood, their scent mellowed out, so it was easy to be lured into a false sense of security. Percy hoped that Hermes’ discontent had simply meant that Travis and Katie had broken up, although she felt in her heart that wasn’t the truth.

I’m sorry about whatever happened with your son…he and Connor are great men, and Katie is good to them.

Percy was able to keep the firepit outside dry no matter the weather, and she made sure it was always burning, even if there were just dying embers. She tossed a piece of semolina cake into it and watched it disappear into the flames.

For Travis Stoll, son of Hermes, and Katie Gardner, daughter of Demeter. May they stay safe, wherever they are.

The second of November brought a cold snap with it. Cold in Rhodes was much warmer than cold in New York, but the house was built to keep the heat out, not in. She woke up at four o’clock shivering and rolled out of bed to put on more clothes. Figuring it wasn’t going to get much warmer, she forced herself to go put on a pot of tea and some oatmeal.

Once the tea was steeped and the oatmeal soft, Percy drizzled them with honey and sat down on the couch. She’d grabbed the blanket from her bed and bundled up in it.

It was times like these she missed having a television. There were few things in life better than being cozy at home watching movies. However, some of the tapes Hermes had brought her were audiobooks, so it wasn’t too bad, especially since they were about subjects she enjoyed.

After devouring her oatmeal, she popped a tape in her Walkman and settled in to listen. Although she’d read The Odyssey before, at the behest of Annabeth, she hadn’t paid attention to it as much as she could have. And, according to Hermes, this edition was much closer to what “really happened.”

She spent the rest of the morning listening and building up enough energy to complete her daily tasks. Make the bed, wash dishes, tend to the fire, acquire some fresh produce for dinner, cook said dinner, bathe, evening prayer. All in all it was a lazy day, but those few tasks seemed monumental. She wondered if she were coming down with something or if it was just the sudden drop in temperature that made her want to curl up in a ball and nap for ten hours.

After forcing herself to carry out her daily routine, Percy flopped onto her bed and made a nest of blankets to sleep soundly in.

Unfortunately, sound sleep was not in store for her.

The familiar stirrings of a demigod dream hit as soon as she drifted under the veil. It had been a long time since she’d had one; the last had been after her mom died. She’d spent seven nights watching the results of Poseidon’s grief from her and Annabeth’s queen size bed. Her girlfriend had held her as she whimpered for hours, unable to be torn from the visions of horrible storms. That was the final bout of intimacy the two of them had shared.

This night’s vision featured the Stolls. The elder was sitting on a hospital bed with his brother at his side. She moved closer and saw a long, stitched wound on Travis’s eye. Actually, she wasn’t sure there even was an eye under it. Her heart clenched when she realized what it reminded her of.

Connor’s grip on his brother’s hand was so firm his knuckles were white, but Travis didn’t seem to mind.

“She’s going to be okay,” Connor murmured. He turned his head sideways and nudged his forehead against his brother’s shoulder.

Travis grimaced at the mention of who Percy assumed was Katie. “I know that. Losing a leg isn’t the end of the world. If we get in touch with Valdez, he’ll build her a prosthetic or wheelchair in a heartbeat. But that’s not the point. I couldn’t protect her. I failed.”

Connor took in a sharp breath. “No. Don’t say that. You can’t think like that, Trav. You know what happens when we fall down that hole.”

“What’s the fucking point of training to fight for twenty years if you go down after a single hit?” Travis let out a bitter laugh. “It got my eye, and I just fell to the ground in shock. I couldn’t get up before it got to her. Who leaves their wife to fend for themself against a fucking drakon?”

“You were in agony. In shock. Forgive yourself for needing thirty seconds to get to your feet.”

Travis sat up suddenly and unlaced his fingers from his brother’s. “Yeah, well, now I get to look like our traitor brother for the rest of my life,” he spat. “I’m going to visit Katie.”

Connor watched his brother walk away with a mournful expression, and Percy longed to reach out and comfort him. He pulled a small square of ambrosia from one of the many pockets on his cargo pants and leaned over to the bedside table where a candle was flickering. Letting the ambrosia melt in the flame, he said a hushed prayer to his father.

“Hi, Dad. It’s been a while. A long while. I don’t know if you heard, but Travis is having a hard time. He and Katie – they got married, by the way – they ran into a drakon. Katie killed it but not before it got to them. Her leg was shredded to pieces. It had to be amputated. And Travis…he lost his fucking eye, Dad. Luke’s eye.

“So, yeah. That’s all I had to say. Figured you might want an update.”

Connor’s voice cracked. He wiped teardrops from his cheeks and dropped the last nub of ambrosia into the flame. Once it had all melted away, he bent over and blew out the candle.

Percy woke up feeling groggy. A swipe across her damp eyes let her know she had shed tears alongside Connor during the night. Her fear had been proven wrong, but Travis and Katie’s escape hadn’t left them unscathed.

Sometimes demigod dreams were curses as much as blessings. While relieved to find out what had happened to her friends, she felt grossly voyeuristic.

Dawn had yet to arrive, so she burrowed further into her nest in hopes of getting another hour of sleep. As she was about to cross the threshold, the voice she’d come to love over the past few months spoke in her mind.

I am sorry if this wakes you, darling. Just wanted to let you know that I’ll be stopping by around noon to sweep you off your feet for a couple hours. With your permission, of course.

There was a twinkle of humor in his voice, and Percy smiled in the midst of her sleepy daze.

Despite the disheartening dream from hours before, Percy had a spring in her step as she went about her morning routine. Hermes was coming, and a day with Hermes would be a day well spent.

He arrived the second the clock struck twelve, and she sprinted to the door.

“Greetings,” Hermes said. His voice hinted at amusement, as it often did, but it didn’t give Percy the feeling of being mocked. To her, it meant he was happy.

“Khaire,” she replied. “How are you today? I hope you’re as good as you look.”

His face went blank for a moment before returning to its former smile. “You know…you may be more similar to Apollo than you think.”

“Excuse me?”

“What do the youth call it? Cringe?”

Percy clutched an invisible strand of pearls on her neck. “Forgive me, milord, for complimenting your impressive physique.”

The wrinkles around his eyes deepened, and he bent over to kiss the crown of her head. “Only joking, darling. Few can outmatch my brother in that department.”

Percy placed her hands on his waist and looked up at him with affection. “I’ll forgive you for a kiss.”

Inwardly she groaned at how sappy she’d become. It hadn’t been this bad since she and Annabeth were teenagers newly in love. Hermes, bless him, seemed to like it. He moved her arms further around his waist until their chests met, and then captured her lips with his own. The angle was awkward, but the pleasure of touching him again surpassed any trivial discomfort. There was something so comforting, so gratifying, about being enveloped in his powerful arms and distinct scent of incense. As his hands roamed to the vulnerable spot on her back, her knees buckled, and she gasped into his mouth.

Hermes pulled away, his mercurial eyes fixating on her. “You alright?”

Percy struggled to breath. His hands were still sprawled on the small of her back. “I – sorry. You…”

“Tell me.” He waited patiently as she took a few slow breaths to calm down.

“You found my Achilles spot.”

He stiffened, and his irises rippled like puddles of silver-blue. “I was told it had been washed away.”

“I assure you it’s very much still there. No one but Styx could ever strip it from me.”

“I assumed it had happened when you were –”

“No. The Kokytos was…awful, but it didn’t affect me physically. I was actually able to control it,” she winced. “I learned a lot about myself down there.”

Pain was writ upon his face. “You should never have been on that quest in the first place. You deserved peace. Hera is spiteful,” he seethed. “She has always meddled with your lives in the most detrimental way –”

“Hermes.” Percy gripped his arms in place, forcing herself to withstand the sensation. His breath hitched, and he started to caress the spot. Her face crumpled at the intensity.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not exactly,” she gulped. “It – it’s a weird feeling. I only told one other person where it is.”

“Annabeth Chase.”

What remaining strength she had gave out, and she melted into Hermes, who kept her upright. His hands shifted to her ribs, leaving the spot numb. She rested her cheek against his left pectoral and listened to the beating of his godly heart.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay. It sort of repels people, you know? So it was unexpected.”

“Can we start over?”

She drew back and smiled at him. “It really didn’t bother me. Besides, you promised to ‘sweep my off my feet’, remember?”

He relaxed and matched her smile with his own. “Yes, I do, and I meant it quite literally.”

“What.”

“Don’t worry. My father won’t do anything.”

Percy was starting to sweat. What exactly did he have in store for her?

“You’ve flown before, right? On a Pegasus.”

She glanced down at his shoes, which were sprouting wings. “Oh…no. No, no. We are not doing that – ah!” Her voice cut off as he scooped her up and shot into the air.

She clung to him like a koala and let out a stream of curses. “What the fuck are you doing? I am not aerodynamic!”

“Neither are horses, sweetheart.” He crowed like an overzealous rooster as a swift wind hit them.

Percy grumbled as her hair flew into her eyes. “Shit. You could’ve at least given me a warning. I need a hair tie.” Her curls were pulled into a bun on top of her head by some invisible force, leaving her vision clear to look at Hermes.

“So…are we just going to hover here?”

The twinkle in his eyes had returned full force. “I thought we could visit the capital. Get a coffee, look around, shop, whatever you’d like. You haven’t strayed more than a couple kilometers from here since you arrived. Time to expand your horizons, don’t you think?”

She thought about saying no for a brief moment, but realized that there would be no threat with him by her side.

“Alright,” she said shakily. “But you’d better not drop me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Hermes adjusted her legs so he was carrying her bridal-style, which she was certain looked ridiculous. Glancing down at his fluttering shoes, she braced herself for movement.

“Are you ready?” His body was buzzing with adrenaline. She took a deep breath and nodded. “It’ll only be a minute.”

The wind did not assault them as they sped through the sky, rather flitting around them playfully. It seemed to love Hermes, which she was grateful for. Winds on the Sea were the only kind that agreed with her; even riding Blackjack was difficult at times.

As they landed on a stone street in downtown Rhodes, invisible to the mortals, Percy decided that flying without a horse wasn’t too bad – especially when wrapped in the arms of a god.

“Well, it turns out you’re not such a bad pilot after all.”

“I started flying before my name was a whisper in the ears of men.”

Percy paused and looked up at him. “I forget sometimes how old you are. Being told about evolution in school and then being faced with a completely different version of creation is...well, it’s confusing, to say the least.”

Hermes inclined his head. “Yes, and to be fair, we immortals process time differently now than we did before. What humans consider to be tens of thousands of years went by much faster for my elders.”

“So you really did exist before modern man?”

“Zeus created you with the help of Prometheus and Athena, so yes. Titans, gods, monsters – all manner of immortal beings – existed before you, alongside the first race of man, who were eradicated after Kronos was struck down.”

Percy couldn’t process that, and to be honest, she didn’t know if she believed it either. The gods were real – that much was undeniable – but claiming something as old and mysterious as the formation of the world was a bit much. She was humble enough to admit that her mortal mind was incapable of understanding it.

“Wow, you’re kind of a cradle-robber. Does that ever make you feel ashamed?”

Hermes’ jaw slackened. “You’re fucking with me,” he accused.

She laughed until her face muscles hurt.

He made a grumpy sound and guided her toward a café. “Again, you and Apollo would be good friends if he wasn’t trying to hit on you all the time. He lives to torment me.”

“Hush. If it makes you feel better, the number of flings he has is way more than yours. Gods know how that’s possible.”

Hermes went quiet by her side, and she froze. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that in a negative way at all. I’m not judging or anything. You are one of the fertility gods, so it makes sense really –”

“Percy. I am not offended. Twenty years ago I may have been flattered, actually.”

She looked at him with worried eyes. “But not now.”

His face contorted with something like pain. “Surely you’ve noticed the age of my current children.”

Had she? Last time she was at camp, there were probably ten teenagers in his cab – oh.

“They’re all older…at least fifteen.”

He hummed. “I haven’t been with anyone since before Luke died. Melina and Clio are my youngest.”

Percy wanted to hit herself. This was their first date, and she’d been fucking it up since it started.

“No one at all? Not even a man?” It was unheard of for a god like Hermes to be celibate that long.

“No one until now.” He grasped her hand gently and continued leading them toward the café.

There were tables outside where families and friends were seated chatting. The inside of the building was small and smelled of coffee beans and pastries. Percy’s stomach grumbled, and blood rushed to her face.

Hermes ignored her embarrassment and ushered her to the counter. “What do you want?” he asked. “We can get anything.”

“Okay. How about everything?”

She was joking, of course, but he took it as a challenge and proceeded to list off every baked good they had. The poor lady working the register looked increasingly overwhelmed.

“...kai dýo kafédes chorís záchari, parakaló.” He finished and flashed his bright smile at the woman, who seemed to be thinking please, God, incinerate this man before I do.

Percy kicked his shin. “Hermes,” she hissed. “You work in customer service. Don’t you have any sympathy?”

He smirked at her and snapped his fingers. The sound rang out like a bullet, and when she glanced around, a table in the left corner had a heaping pile of treats and two coffees. None of the mortals gave any indication something strange had happened, and the woman behind the counter had forgotten they existed.

“…you’re going to pay, right?”

He snapped his fingers again and two hundred euros landed neatly in the register. “I’m wounded. It’s like you don’t trust me.”

Percy swatted his arm and sat down at the table. “I grew up with Connor and Travis.”

The mention of the Stoll brothers dampened the mood again. She took a sip of the dark coffee and tore apart a honey-drizzled pastry.

“How are they doing?” she asked quietly.

Hermes sighed and took a sip from his own cup. “Better. I visited their house last night to give them some healing salve. Easier for demigods than consuming nectar.”

“And Katie?”

“She’s taking it much better than Travis. Already walking around on crutches. I think one of Hephaistos’ kids is making her a prosthetic.”

Percy’s heart warmed. They had managed to reach Leo.

“Travis…I don’t think he ever got over Luke. I don’t think any of my kids did.”

“Can’t blame them,” Percy said. “Neither have I. Neither have you.”

He stared at her in contemplation. “Do you think I ever will?”

“Hmm…gods are funny like that. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“Sometimes you forgive and forget. Other times you hold on to your pain for centuries.”

“Let’s hope it’s not that long,” he said. His fingers traced patterns in the wood, and she reached out to stop them.

“One day it will fade,” she promised. “I’ll do what I can to make it better.”

“Percy…that is not your responsibility. Trust me, you do not want to act as a therapist for someone like me.”

She squeezed his hand. “Stop that. Friends help each other.”

”I am not mortal, and we are something other than friends.”

”You’ve always been my friend. That hasn’t changed because we’re…”, she gestured between the two of them, “doing this. Dating.”

His lips quirked into a tiny smile. “Gods don’t have friends. True friends, at least. There is always something behind our conversations.”

“And here I thought we were besties. Can’t believe you lied to me.”

Hermes chuckled and stole a chunk of her pastry. She watched him lick the powdered sugar from his lips and felt the seam of her pants press uncomfortably against her center. Arousal seeped through her body. It was a slow, sweet burn growing hotter the longer she was in his presence. With a proud, aquiline nose, high cheekbones, and strong brow, he was sculpted perfection, and she was dying to see if the rest of him matched.

Perhaps what had tipped her attraction over the edge was the parts of him that weren’t so perfect. Unlike the other god whose attention she’d captured, Hermes kept his physical form somewhat earthly. He had calloused hands, a constellation of freckles on his arms, and stubble on his chin. Percy’s favorite “imperfection” were the lines that appeared when he smiled.

Oddly, he was like her dad in that way. Poseidon was one of the more rustic gods.

“I meant that gods aren’t friends with each other. Mortals can be petty, but they don’t hold a candle to us. Your company is far more preferable.”

Percy’s thighs squeezed together as heat started to build in her center. “Well, that – that’s good."

“Are you alright? I love when you blush, but not if it means you’re uncomfortable.”

Yeah, you could say I’m uncomfortable, she thought. The horny demons had assaulted her out of nowhere.

“I’m fine. You look good when you’re eating, is all.”

His eyebrows rose to the top of his forehead, and it looked like he was struggling to contain a laugh. “Oh?”

“Yes. Could we take these on the road?” she pleaded. The pressure of her bladder was making the sensation grow at a dangerous rate.

“Of course. I’ll send these back to your house.”

She flashed him a grateful smile and rushed to the bathroom. To her embarrassment, she let out a small sigh as her bladder emptied. Hopefully it would help. She wasn’t sure if Hermes would be up for anything today.

He stood waiting for her outside. “Want to tell me what that was about?” His deep, smooth voice made her skin crawl.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Obviously.”

She dragged him to a less crowded area. “You know how you said I was super beautiful or whatever and it makes you nervous?”

To her surprise, his cheeks colored.

“Well, that’s how I feel literally every second I’m around you. You can’t just lick your fingers like that and pretend you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I –”

“Now I’m all hot and bothered, and we’re in public so I can’t do anything about it –”

“Who said you can’t do anything?” he interrupted. “I’m a god, sweetheart. You could touch yourself right here in broad daylight and nobody would see you.”

She took in a sharp breath as blood burned between her legs. “Maybe not…right here.”

His chest was heaving while the muscles cording his arms looked taut as a bowstring. “Then let me take you somewhere quiet. Let me take care of you.”

And because he was Hermes, and she was just a mortal, she said ‘yes’ and let him whisk her away.

________________

Hermes was confused. Ecstatic, but confused. What had he done to deserve this? Last time he checked, he hadn’t cured cancer, so…why was a half-naked Percy Jackson pinning him down on her bed?

“You…are glorious.”

Her hold on his wrists loosened as she laughed at him. “What do you mean?”

He squirmed under her delicious weight, searching for any measure of relief. “Do you remember your twenty-first birthday when I stopped by and made all your friends and family uncomfortable?”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s only because they weren’t used to random pop-ins from a god.”

“Regardless of how awkward it was, you looked beautiful, and I had no idea what to do with that fact.”

She pursed her lips. “I’m not sure I believe you. Twenty-one was not a good year for me. That ugly-ass undercut I had.”

He shook his head. “Even still, you were lovely. I had to leave before I made an idiot of myself.”

“Where are you going with this?” She released his hands impatiently and unclipped her bra.

His cock ached when her breasts fell out. They looked soft and heavy, and jagged white lines decorated each one. Her nipples were dark and thick as his thumb.

“You were saying?”

He swallowed and forced himself to look at her face. “Just…you’re very special to me, Percy.”

Her face softened, and she leaned down to kiss him. His chest was bare, and when her nipples skimmed his, sparks of pleasure shot through him.

That was it. He could tell her all the ridiculous, romantic things he thought when she’d had her fill.

His hands sunk into her flesh, molding it to his liking, and then he took one of her pretty nipples into his mouth and sucked. Her raspy moans sent blood straight to his cock, urging him to press her pelvis hard against his.

He released her breast only to kiss her again. Her tongue traced the seam of his mouth, and he let her in. This kind of kissing, wet and open-mouthed, was not something he liked to do very often. He preferred to use his mouth elsewhere, but Percy made him crave it. Her mouth chased his, never letting it go. She kissed him so hard he thought his lips would never be able to leave hers. Their bodies melded together, and despite hers being smaller, she made him feel like he was caged in.

Hermes wasn’t used to relinquishing control of sexual situations, but he wanted to see where she was taking him.

Finally, she came up for air. “Fuck, you’re hot.”

Sweat started to seep from his pores. “You said you’d let me take care of you,” he panted. She ground herself on his lap, and he could just feel the stickiness from her underwear.

“You’re letting me use you to get off. That’s how I like people to take care of me,” she said, her voice going husky.

Hermes short-circuited. “Fuck. Fuck, sweetheart. Okay. Do what you want, just please let me keep touching you.”

She smirked and placed his hand on her breast. “I’m not cruel.”

Oh, but she was. She was cruel and devious and loving and kind and everything he desired in the world.

“Do your worst.”

All the oceans in the world were trapped in her eyes, crashing and raging against their confines, and his body went weak at the sight.

“I don’t think you know what you’re getting into, so I’ll be gentle,” she teased.

His ego bristled at the jab, but the rest of him was just begging for her to get on with it.

She rolled off of him and shoved her cotton underwear off. After throwing them aside, she settled over him once more. Her lower belly was round, and more of those silvery white lines stretched across it. Her muscular body was padded with a dense layer of fat.

Hermes took in every dimple and mark before focusing on the part of her he was most eager to touch. Percy was unshaven everywhere else, so he wasn’t sure why he was surprised at the thick patch of hair spreading out from between her legs. Coarse black curls shielded her most private place and crawled up to her navel. He was the luckiest man in the world, lying here admiring her powerful figure.

He tore his lustful gaze from the spot between her legs and looked up. Percy was staring at him with an emotion he couldn’t name.

“I know I don’t look like a pornstar,” she said. “But I like my body. It’s served me well.”

Hermes’ brow furrowed. Had he given her the wrong impression? Gods, that was the last thing he wanted.

“I don’t really go for women who look like that,” he told her. “But even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. I’m attracted to you. All of you, not just this.”

“…but you do think I’m hot?”

He let out a laugh of disbelief. “I didn’t think I could make it more obvious.”

She was poised over him like a lion unsure to take its prey.

“Just checking,” she whispered.

He radiated all the affection he had and hoped she would finally begin to understand the hold she had on him.

Percy ran her hands down the planes of muscle on his chest and found a nipple. At the small groan he let out, she grinned and pinched it between her fingers. While she played with him she started running her slick center up and down his lap, which was regretfully still clothed. Her eyes fluttered shut as she grinded herself on him. He could feel the outline of her inner lips around his cock, and the stiff nub above them.

He bit his lip to stop obscenities from spilling out. It was taking most of his self-control to not flip her on her back and bury his face in her cunt.

Her thighs started to quiver, and she let out a frustrated grunt. “I can feel how fucking big you are through your pants. I’ve ne – ah – I’ve never done this before. Shit.”

His inner pride growled at the comment. He was the only man she’d ever been with, and gods above, he hoped he’d be the last. She deserved what he could give her. She deserved him.

“Come up here,” he begged, tugging at her hips. “Sit on my face.”

She stopped gyrating and stared at him. “You sure? I’m not light.”

“You said you were going to use me to get off,” he snarled. “So fucking do it.”

She sunk her nails into the tender skin on his stomach and scratched until he let out a hiss of pain. “This makes you so fucking hard, doesn’t it? You’ve been waiting forever to eat my pretty pussy, haven’t you? It’s all you could think about. Be honest…did you have to jerk off after you left last time?”

He so was out of his mind aroused that her mockery only made him harder. “Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. It looked like she was as affected as he was because he could smell the musky scent of her arousal. More slippery fluid dripped from her hole and dampened the crotch of his pants.

“Get up here. Now.”

Percy glared at him for having the audacity to order her around. He grabbed her thick legs, moved them to either side of his head, and mashed her cunt onto his face. Her hairs tickled his chin. She let out a surprised moan when his tongue flicked her clit and rotated her hips so he could caress every inch of her cunt.

Heaven was real (he lived there), but it couldn’t come close to the pleasure of having Percy Jackson fuck herself on your face.

His cock and balls were aching to spill seed, but he wouldn’t let himself go until she was satiated. Her cheeks clapped together as she rode his face, muffling the sound of his groans. She tasted better than nectar.

“Fuck. Fuck.” A long stream of grunts and moans flew out of her, and her movements grew stilted. “Yeah, right there. Uh-huh. Mm. Oh, fuck, baby. Fuck!”

She fisted her hands in his hair and fell apart. He could feel her peak hit, making her twitch and shake, and he lapped the juices still flowing from her hole. His scalp burned where she’d been tugging, but it was a good kind of pain.

He continued to suck on her until she couldn’t stand it anymore and collapsed backward onto his stomach. The sudden absence of her on his face was jarring, but the view of her flushed chest made up for it. Her pupils were blown wide with lust, and her skin glistened with sweat.

A smile crept onto his face. “Feel better?”

Percy, still panting, let out a sound halfway between a laugh and gasp. “You…are…such an asshole. Yes, I feel better. Holy shit.” She attempted to sit up, but her limbs were wobbly.

“Here, let me get up.” Hermes slid himself out from under her and stood up.

She flopped back onto the bed and looked at him with bemusement. “What are you doing? I’m not finished. Besides, it looks like you need help with that,” she said, gesturing toward the bulge in his pants.

“I was going to get you a drink. You need it.” Even her stamina would never be able to keep up with his. Water would replenish her, and they could finish what they’d begun.

Her legs parted, displaying her weeping red cunt and sticky thighs. “That’s sweet. Thank you.”

Near unbearable desire coursed through his veins.

“Fuck it.” He summoned a tall glass of water and thrust it into her hands. “Drink.”

She sat up far enough to chug the liquid, and as soon as the last drop disappeared he took it away.

“I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with,” he told her. “I know you’ve never…”

“Touched a dick?”

He blushed under her heavy gaze. “Well…yes. It’s different.”

She patted the spot next to her. “Come here. Having sex isn’t always about the parts. I used to…um, with Annabeth – I used to fuck her with a strap-on. You know what that is, right?”

He grinned. “Yes, I’m quite familiar with them.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re going to tell me more about that soon. Anyways, I was always the top. But…I’m not with her anymore. I’m with you, so this should be our own thing. We can figure out what we prefer over time. To be honest though, I don’t think there’s anything you could do that I wouldn’t like. Which is a kind of bizarre feeling.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know. It’s like you draw something out of me. I feel powerful around you, but not in a negative way. Does that make sense? The need to dominate isn’t as strong,” she confessed. “Annabeth was always in charge, so I guess…maybe I liked having one place where it was the other way around. I swear I’m not a controlling person most of the time.”

“I know you aren’t, Percy. What you do in the bedroom isn’t necessarily a reflection of personality. At least, that’s how it is for mortals. You can generally expect a god to behave like themself no matter the time or place.”

“Come sit.”

“So needy,” he scolded, crawling onto the bed. He pulled her into his side and brushed her damp curls off her forehead. “You really do think about this every hour of the day, don’t you?”

“Not every hour. I can’t accidentally tell my aunt I want to pound you into the mattress.”

Hermes winced. “I would never be able to look her in the eye again. And what if she mentioned it to your father?”

“Nope. I do not talk about my dad while naked. No, sir.”

“Right. Sorry.” He was growing impatient. “Please tell me you’re ready to go again.”

“I already told you I wasn’t close to being done.” She reached over and unbuttoned his pants with one hand.

“You’ve done that a lot, haven’t you?”

She pressed a kiss to his chest. “I have skills, alright. Women want me. Men fear me.”

“Apollo.”

“Stop comparing me to him! Especially not when I’ve got my fucking hand down your pants!”

In truth, he’d been keeping the conversation going to distract himself from her hand inching toward his cock. His pulse was speeding up, and all his muscles contracted with anticipation.

“Okay, I can’t take this anymore.” He tugged his pants down over his ass and sighed as his erection was released.

Percy hovered over it. “Can I touch? Is that okay?”

He warred with himself. On one hand, the thought of her jerking him off made him crazy, but on the other, she clearly needed to come again.

“Only if I get to touch you too.”

She grinned. “Deal.”

He cupped her face, and their mouths finally met again. She moaned into him, and as they kissed he felt her hand come into contact with his cock. He stifled a groan and slid his arm down her torso to touch her. His fingers parted damp curls and found her clit.

“Mm. Press down harder.”

He put more pressure on the sensitive nub and started to move it in circles. Her breath hitched, and she stroked his cock faster. For someone who’d never given a handjob, she was damn good at it.

“Fuck,” he mumbled. “So perfect. You’re so fucking perfect, sweetheart.” He brought his free hand to her breast and guided it to his mouth.

Percy moaned as he sucked her nipple into his mouth and swirled his tongue around it. “Do you – shit – do you have some kind of nursing fetish?”

Her tit fell out of his mouth. “No? Why would you say that?”

Percy broke into a fit of giggles. “Nothing! I’m just not used to having someone do that.”

Hermes slipped one of his fingers into her cunt and searched for that special spot. “Well, you’re going to get used to it.”

She moaned in response, parting her legs to give him access. He’d slipped only his middle finger in, the resistance it was met with was surprising. She was tight and would definitely need warming up before more penetration.

“Does that hurt at all?”

“Mm. No. Feels nice.”

He moved in and out of her slowly, dragging the pad of his finger on her upper walls. As he built up a rhythm, fluid accumulated on his fingers. If she hadn’t just been sitting on his face, he would’ve brought his hand to his mouth and licked it clean.

“Add another,” she ordered. “I can handle it.”

“You sure?”

She removed her hand from him and smacked his stomach.

“Yes. Fuck me.”

The sting from her palm made his cock twitch, and he was grateful that she immediately returned to stroking it. He added his ring finger alongside his middle, and the skin around her opening stretched to accommodate the extra digit.

Percy’s eyes snapped shut as her insides squeezed him tight. “Agh. Shit. Go faster.”

He did as his lady commanded. After about a minute, her breathing grew labored, and her muscles seized. The barrage of filthy words flying out of her mouth made his toes curl, and he knew in all certainty he had to come right then and there with her, or he’d go mad.

He nudged her hand off his cock and grasped it, moving up and down at the same pace his fingers pumped in and out of her cunt. White hot pleasure rushed through him.

“Come.”

She let out a strangled cry at the order and nearly cut off the circulation in his fingers from clenching so hard. His orgasm hit like a freight train, and he noted in the back of his mind that Percy was murmuring words of encouragement.

He returned to reality slowly, and then all at once. His seed was dripping over his knuckles and onto his belly. Percy guided his fingers out of her and sucked them clean, and then she did something that almost made him come again.

She grabbed his hand and licked all his seed up, and then kissed away the rest that had splattered onto his belly. He watched her tongue swipe out to taste the remaining evidence of his climax.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Percy pressed a chaste kiss to his open palm and then entwined her fingers with his. “I know. I wanted to,” she stated. Her eyes scanned his face before catching on something outside of his periphery.

He followed the path of her gaze. Through her bedroom window they could see the water, which was presently swelling and crashing hard against the beach. The sky had darkened, and small drops of rain were starting to hit the glass. He was startled to realize that he hadn’t noticed the storm brewing until now.

He placed a kiss on her brow, his lips picking up traces of her briny sweat. “So…does this happen every time you orgasm, or am I special?”

Percy curled into his side and laid her head on his chest. “I tend to…lose control when I’m overwhelmed. Strong emotions or sensations.”

“There is a wealth of power in you. It’s normal for some of it to spill over.”

She draped her leg over his so her pelvis came into contact with his hip. When she started to rock against him, he felt some of the warm fluid from her release coat his skin.

“Already need more?" he teased.

Percy responded by reaching between her legs and parting her lips, so her clit would rub directly against him. He slid his arm down her back and ran his fingertips over her Achilles’ spot, just to see if it would spur her movements.

The moan she let out was loud enough to wake the dead, and she started humping him harder.

“Does this feel good?” he asked, tracing letters onto her skin. The soft, translucent hair on her back stood on end, and the rest followed. Shudders ran through her while she fucked herself on him for the third time.

Through whimpers and groans that sounded more animal than woman, she managed to tell him that yes, it did feel good. Hermes cursed as he felt his cock stir.

“Percy,” he murmured.

“Mm – yeah?”

“Get on top of me.”

She rolled onto his lap, and they both moaned as their centers met skin-to-skin for the first time. He grabbed her ass and started to move her up and down like she’d done before. This time, however, he could feel the entirety of her cunt rubbing against his cock.

“Oh, baby.” A soft smile spread across Percy’s face as her juices started to drip down his cock and balls and into the cleft of his buttocks.

A feral growl rose in the back of his throat. She was the wettest woman he’d ever been with. Fitting, he supposed, for a daughter of the Sea.

Her slow, sensual grinding shifted into fast humping. “I’m going to come soon,” she announced.

Hermes gave himself permission to chase after his second orgasm. He set his feet flat against the bed for leverage and met each of her movements with his own. Soon they were nothing more than a sweaty, filthy mess. Their eyes were locked on each other, watching, waiting for ecstasy to hit.

“I’m going to fucking come all over you.”

“Come on my cock, angel. Yeah, that’s it. That’s it – fuck! Fuck.”

“Oh! Oh. Baby.” Percy whimpered, and her legs started shaking uncontrollably. “Gods, I’m coming. I’m coming.”

Hermes slid his cock through her folds one last time. The pleasure struck him even harder than before. He’d have blacked out if it weren’t for her ocean eyes piercing him (and the minor detail of ichor in his veins).

He was a little embarrassed that he’d spent himself all over the thick hair between her legs. He reached out to make it disappear, but her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist.

“Leave it. I’ll take a bath later.”

“You really want to spend the rest of the day with semen on you?”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Why do you phrase things like that sometimes?"

“Like what?”

“Like you’re not a god who’s had all kinds of freaky, nasty sex.”

“You don’t know that I’ve done!”

“Uh, yes, I do. Some of your kids have really loose tongues. And apparently so do their mothers. But don’t worry. I won’t tell,” she said with a wink.

Hermes sighed. “It’s different with each person, you know? Some…affect me more than others.”

“Hm. Who has ‘affected’ you the most? Out of everyone you’ve ever been with – every nymph, goddess, woman, man, whoever – which one of them made you go completely berserk?”

Hermes pondered her question. Memory was a fickle thing for gods. Maybe if he scoured every recess of his being he would be able to give her a satisfactory answer.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want. I was just curious.”

He guided her off him and to the side so they could cuddle. He tucked a few of her frizzy curls behind her ear and leaned it to kiss her. His lips tingled when they met hers.

The churning sea began to settle, and as they held each other, something warm and fiercely affectionate unfurled inside him. It was a dangerous feeling, the kind that made men and gods alike tear the world asunder.

Chapter Text

1.

Perseus, although she had mostly ignored Aphrodite’s attention, was nevertheless one of her treasured godlings. The girl possessed the rare quality of complete loyalty to those she loved. Her commitment to grey-eyed Athena’s daughter had led her to hell and back, and it made Aphrodite brim with joy. It had been so long since she’d witnessed a romantic story of that caliber unfold.

So, when she felt in the winds that the subjects of the modern world’s greatest love story had separated, she wept an ocean’s worth of tears. Days past as she continued to spurn the gods’ attempts at consolation. They were younger than her, below her; they couldn’t comprehend the devastation this had caused.

However, there was another feeling mingled with her melancholy: bewilderment. Tragedy was an inevitable end to many lovers, but she’d always been able to see it coming miles away. Matters of the heart were her foremost domain, so how had she not anticipated the fracturing of Percy and her love?

Time didn’t heal the wound, but it cleared the grief clouding her mind enough to pick up on a new and very intriguing development. Percy had begun to acknowledge Aphrodite, and the cloying scent of rose petals she offered the goddess made her days bearable. Every Friday, the day that had been dedicated to Aphrodite many years ago, Percy burned the petals of a pink rose one by one, and then the thorns and stem.

Aphrodite was perhaps the only deity who had never suffered a depletion of offerings, but that didn’t mean she actually valued the ones she got. Receiving one from someone who mattered to her was worth a thousand desperate prayers from another.

What had brought on this sudden attention? Did Percy wish for her favor? Was reuniting with the daughter of Athena her desire, or did she hope for luck in a new love?

Aphrodite decided to wait and see if the godling would divulge her troubles in prayer before investigating.

It ended up taking an entire year for her to say something of interest. On the last Friday of August, she reminded Aphrodite of the existence of one of her sisters, a nymph the goddess had conceived with Poseidon. A nymph whose husband she had led astray.

Rhodos.

The mention of her estranged daughter brought Aphrodite to her knees. Of all the things she had expected Percy to speak of, that was not one. The godling told her about the refuge Rhodos had provided and how she had come to love her. She also politely chastised Aphrodite for not mending fences with the nymph.

Ares found her that afternoon wallowing in her gardens, and he immediately threatened to destroy whoever had caused her pain.

“Babe, what’s wrong?”

Aphrodite smiled despite her internal crisis. He only ever used that tone with his lovers, and it was a far cry from what everyone else got.

“I’m just lost in thought. I received news of one of my children.”

Ares plopped down beside her, his massive form causing the ground to shake. “Monster get them?”

She sighed and moved to rest her head in his lap. “This is one of my immortal offspring. A daughter I had with Poseidon long ago.”

Ares growled at the mention of the god, but he kept massaging her scalp. “I remember her. Rhode?”

“Rhodos,” she murmured. “A beautiful daughter of the Sea. We passed down only the gentlest of our traits to her.”

“Mm. What did you do?”

Aphrodite frowned at his accusation. He knew her too well.

“Her husband was Helios. He blabbed to Hephaistos about our affair, remember? I cursed him to fall in love with a mortal princess, so I imagine that’s why Rhodos stopped contacting me. Although…he cheated on her multiple times before then of his own volition. So really he’s at fault because he would have cheated again anyways.”

Ares laughed, and she sunk her sharp teeth into his thigh. Instead of yelping, he kissed her brow. “I’m sorry, baby. You’re going to have to apologize for this one if you want to get back in her good graces.”

She licked his ichor from her lips and considered what he’d said. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Apologize?”

“No, I don’t know that I could win her affection back.”

It was funny how she was the master of everyone's love lives except her own.

“You won’t know unless you try,” he said.

She glanced up at her lover’s fiery eyes and pulled him down for a kiss. Maybe she would take his advice, and show Rhodos that she’d never know her mother’s cruelty again.

2.

Hestia was an idea, a feeling of warmth and togetherness; she was not a goddess who desired worship and fear. No, what fulfilled her was maintaining the hearth of each and every home, fostering familial love and harmony. She was in the hot broth you sipped on a cold day, the hug you gave your sister, the kisses from your dog, and above all, the crackling fire in the center of your home.

Perseus had been the first demigod in years to spot her humble form stoking the hearth in Camp Half-Blood. The girl, not yet thirteen years of age, had looked at her and waved. Hestia, in surprise, had disappeared from sight.

From there on she studied her niece, and when the time came for Percy to battle her father, she revealed herself as the last Olympian, the only remaining spark of hope for demigods. In return, her niece entrusted Elpis to her when the time was right, a decision that helped save civilization.

Percy was a firm believer in Hestia’s domains, albeit an occasionally violent one. For her faith in the power of hope and family, the goddess took a liking to her.

One day, years after the demigod had saved Olympos, her family line rip down the middle, and Hestia knew it would take something big to make her heart whole again. When she felt Percy start her own hearth all the way in Rhodes, she took a part of her own fire and sent it to her.

As the months passed, Percy’s hearth grew bit by bit, and then all of a sudden the flames began to soar.

She had found someone.

3.

Demeter didn’t think of her niece often. Once the girl had proved multiple times that she would not wield her power against Olympos, there was no reason to be concerned with her. Because she never got wind of Perseus hurting one of her children, or flooding crops with saltwater, Demeter left her be.

Which was why she recoiled at the scent of her first offering. It was delightful – warm barley porridge mixed with cinnamon and dates – but it was wrong. Perseus Jackson called waves and slaughtered monsters; she did not burn homemade meals for the goddess of grain.

And yet she continued to do so every single Sunday, the day named after Demeter’s father, who had passed his domain down to her.

The goddess would be lying if she said she found the development endearing, but the offerings were always welcome. It wasn’t until after her daughter’s hospitalization that Demeter felt more than indifference.

Lady Demeter, mother of the golden grain, please accept my condolences. Your daughter Katie has long been a friend to me, and she is an invaluable member of the half-blood community. I am certain she will recover from this and continue to thrive alongside her siblings, friends, and husband.

As always, I thank you for blessing this island with sustenance.

Demeter knew she didn’t love her half-blood offspring enough. Sometimes it felt like Kore was the only child of hers that truly mattered, and that was sick. It was twisted. It went against her mothering image.

Katie was everything a child of hers should be, and yet when her body was torn to pieces, Demeter didn’t even notice something was amiss.

It angered the goddess to be reminded of her maternal failure, and soon she began to ignore the delicious food Perseus left her. Guilt was a powerful thing.

4.

Hera did not want Perseus Jackson’s false prayers or her admittedly delicious pita. If her niece truly believed in the institutions of marriage and womanhood, she would have run to California and begged for her girlfriend’s forgiveness. And then they would get married like they should have years ago.

Few respected spousal commitment in this wretched modern age, so as much as Hera disliked Perseus, she was invested in her relationship. The two women could have solidified their powerful partnership once and for all, and perhaps settled down with several children. The queen of Olympos would have blessed them with a child herself, but no! They let something as common as the death of family member break them apart.

Hera had always admired (and envied) the love Perseus had for her mother, but there was only one thing she could do now that would ease the queen’s displeasure: find someone else to marry.

Many months after the disappointing breakup, Hera’s daughter Eileithyia approached her with an interesting development.

The arrival of the goddess itself was an interesting development; Eileithyia had sat beside the Moirai for the last nine thousand years and only left when duty called.

Hera was so elated at the sight of the goddess, her only child to inherit one of her domains, that she forgot to panic.

“Eileithyia,” she whispered.

Her daughter wore nurse’s scrubs, orthopedic sneakers, and a lanyard around her neck, but other than that she was the same. Same tired brown eyes, brown hair pulled pack tightly from her scalp, and a permanent frown. It was rough work, bringing babes into the world. There was never a break, and one had to put on a happy face for each and every mother that fell under their care. When she wasn’t swaddling newborns in baby blue blankets and coaching women through breathing exercises, Eileithyia was a picture of peak exhaustion.

It was beautiful.

“Hello, Mother.”

Hera let out a shaky breath. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Eiliethyia sighed and pulled a clipboard out of nowhere. She flipped through several papers before stopping. “I really should not be doing this, but I figured it would cheer you up.”

Beaming, Hera walked over to her and placed a white hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Your presence alone is enough to fill my heart ten times over with joy.”

The goddess cringed. “Uh. Yes. Thank you. Anyways, if I recall correctly, you were quite invested in Perseus Jackson’s love life.”

Hera froze. Was this possible? Was this really happening?

“No,” she gasped. “Really? Please tell me it’s true.”

Eileithyia held up a hand. “Slow down. Yes, it is true. However, that doesn’t mean she is married. Which, hey, is perfectly fine by me, but you…well, I hope you are able to overlook that and take it as a good thing.”

Perseus was most definitely not married, which was less than ideal. Did she have support? Was the father planning on taking care of them?

The walls of Hera’s rooms on Olympos trembled as her mind raced through every possibility.

“Why…why would you come here for one demigod? I would have found out soon. It is my domain, too.”

Eiliethyia raised a brow. “You never could be satisfied, Mother. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Hera’s face shriveled like a prune. How she detested that saying.

“Your avoidance speaks volumes, my daughter.”

“You’re a wise woman.” Eileithyia leaned in close, and her hot breath skimmed Hera’s ear. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

With that, the queen’s eldest child disappeared. Her departure was accompanied by a cacophony of feminine screams.

Hera’s ox eyes slammed shut to drown out the noise. The elation she’d felt minutes before had all but dissipated, and she was left with a pounding heart.

Her stepson was due for a visit.

5.

Mortals feared death. They misunderstood it, struggled to accept it, and therefore painted Hades as a formidable good whose name was not to be spoken. So, he needn’t lift a finger to instill terror in their hearts, unlike his brothers. While their domains had been attributed to science, the afterlife was still a mystery to mankind.

He was fine with his role, for the most part. He had a beloved wife, gardens of riches, and two wonderful children to call his own.

Demigods…well, they were a different beast. Death was as familiar to them as breathing. They hated it, lamented its hold on their kind, but they knew it was inevitable. They knew it would come for them soon enough, whether by the claws of a monster or the spite of an immortal.

Demigods looked Death in the eyes and said, “You may take me, and my brothers and sisters and all those I hold dear, but you will never own me. We are the spirit of mortality and divinity combined; we are the only ones to walk the line. So take me in your arms now; take me in your claws, your merciful, terrible embrace, and be done with it. I will live on regardless.”

He admired Perseus for refusing godhood, for seizing her mortality and never letting go, and reminding them of a half-blood’s worth. It was true that he was not overly fond of demigods, but he had an unspoken respect for their tenacity and defiance.

Nico was fond of Perseus, too. In fact, Hades was certain there wasn’t any living person he loved more than her besides his sister.

He overlooked her more…distasteful qualities for the sake of his son.

6.

Poseidon knew that people thought his protectiveness of Percy was because she was a powerful asset he didn’t want to lose. They had never believed in the ferocity of his love – not when he punished Odysseus for defending himself against Polyphemus, and not when he yielded the war to Zeus to save his daughter from being barbecued.

She had become his little pearl the moment he felt her kick in Sally’s womb, and no amount of destruction she could possibly bring would ever change that. He was used to monstrous offspring; if a monster was what she became, then a monster is what he would love.

Because she was so precious to Poseidon and they spent so little time together, her departure left him distraught. The hole in his heart from losing Sally grew a bit larger every day she didn’t come home. The one consolation he had was knowing she was safe with Rhodos.

Percy started to leave him food, something she hadn’t done since she was a teenager. Every twenty-four hours or so, the citrus scent of her cheap shampoo would show up in the water around him, and then a waft of fresh bread would fill his nostrils. It warmed his old barnacled heart to know she was thinking of him. However, when he learned via his obnoxious nephew that she had been feeding other gods too…

Well, let’s just say the coast of New England had an unfortunate Spring.

7.

Perseus was a constant thorn in Zeus’s side, a slight to his rule. She was as impertinent and volatile as his own daughter, but unlike Thalia, he hadn’t been able to wrangle her into joining the Hunt. If only Poseidon loved her a little less…then they could finally be rid of the little menace.

Worst of all her sins was how annoying she could be.

Perseus as a child had seemed incapable of not pissing him off, and she became no better in adulthood. One time she “accidentally” let loose the Ophiotaurus – whom she had named Bessie – into his private rooms, where even Hera rarely ventured. The creature had splashed around in its sphere of saltwater, soaking every bit of furniture in sight.

Zeus had been in the midst of a luxurious massage when the event happened. He looked up from the table and set his stormy gaze on Perseus, whose expression was one of absolute horror. Not horror at destroying the king of Olympos’ property! – horror at catching her uncle unrobed and slathered in oil.

That was just one of many infuriating incidents involving his niece. Over the years he had learned to accept them as inevitable, although it didn’t make his distaste for her any weaker.

When his brother’s storms became increasingly frequent, Zeus decided to intervene. While they technically fell in his domain as lord of the skies, storms formed at sea belonged to Poseidon more often than not. The overlap was something they’d bickered about too many times to count.

“BROTHER,” he bellowed, letting his voice crack like thunder upon the god.

Poseidon winced, and the fish on his ugly shirt swam around anxiously. “I’m right here. Must you raise your voice every time you want to ask me something?”

The other Olympians sighed, likely bracing themselves for another solstice of argument between the brothers.

“Yes, why? I’m sure the souls in my realm were able to hear you,” Hades drawled. He was pretending to be nonchalant as usual, so as to appear the most level-headed brother, but Poseidon and Zeus knew he was brimming with excitement. Who didn’t love an opportunity to watch their hated siblings verbally eviscerate each other?

“This does not concern you,” Zeus dismissed.

“Then illuminate us. We’re all dying to know.”

Ignoring the pun, Zeus returned his attention to Poseidon. “What is the matter this time? Did another one of your lovers die? Did that brazen daughter of yours finally make you snap?”

Poseidon’s fingers started to web together, his nails extending into sharp claws that itched to tear out his brother’s eyes. “I will not stand for mention of Percy or her mother to come out of your mouth again,” he snarled.

“Just tell me what’s got you in a dither.”

Ares snickered. “Dither. Who says that?”

Zeus shot daggers at him. “People with a better vocabulary than you.”

The war god bared his teeth but made no indication of responding.

“It’s none of your business,” Poseidon finally answered. “It’s over now. I’m fine. All under control.”

“You sure, Uncle P?”

“I will end you, Apollo. Be quiet.”

“Sure thing.”

Zeus bent over the arm of his throne as far as he could without falling. His face was only a fingerbreadth away from his brother’s. “What. Happened.”

Hades and the others sat as still as possible to pick up on the conversation.

“None of your business,” Poseidon repeated.

His voice was scathing, but Zeus was used to that. In fact, it egged him on.

“It is about Perseus. Has someone hurt her? Is that why you’ve been throwing a tantrum?”

“Please! Like you aren’t the whiniest, most sensitive person in this room –”

“For goodness’ sake!” Athena shouted. “Poseidon, we all know you’ve been sulking. Just spit it out so we can move on.”

Poseidon glared at her, but his claws retracted. “Fine. Fine. I have not seen my daughter in nearly four months, and I…miss her. Dearly.”

Dionysos rolled his eyes and opened up a trashy magazine. “I can’t say the same for myself, but her absence is taking a toll on the brats. Do you know how hard it is to find a teacher as skilled as her? When she pops up again, Poseidon, tell her she’ll be working overtime for the next decade.”

Artemis chimed in. “Why does this need to be spoken of? He said he was finished throwing his tantrum, so there’s nothing more to discuss.”

“It was not a tantrum! I have feelings –”

Zeus slouched back in his throne and admired the ceiling of stars while his brother continued to rant. This was going to be a long meeting.

8.

As it became apparent over the years that Annabeth would not be breaking up with Poseidon’s spawn, Athena begrudgingly accepted her daughter’s relationship. She’d made the mistake of treating her children as nothing more than extensions of herself time and time again, so it was important to acknowledge her daughter’s right to make her own life choices.

But then one day, years after Athena had come to accept them, they broke up. Annabeth packed up her things and headed to California. She got an excellent job, a new girlfriend, grew closer to her father’s family, and from the looks of it completely moved on from Percy Jackson. It was like she’d shed a skin.

As a mother, Athena was happy for her, but she wasn’t quick to place blame on Perseus. Rather, she was intrigued by what the woman would do next. Annabeth was the type to always land on her feet, but Percy was a wild card. Athena wanted to see what happened when that wild card was flipped on its ass.

Perseus proceeded to do what many young people do when their life is upturned; she ran away and hid because facing reality was just too daunting. It was weak and cowardly and cliché and…

Oh. Damn it. She was doing that thing again – that thing Annabeth told her was “narrow-minded”.

Athena pinched her brow. Why was she wasting her precious mental energy on that sea-spawn of all people? Her daughter was finished with the woman; there was no point.

So, when the goddess began receiving prayers from Perseus, she let herself relish the deference only for a moment before dismissing it. She didn’t know what the woman was up to, and she honestly didn’t care.

Athena let herself forget Perseus Jackson.

9.

Hephaistos counted Poseidon amongst his few friends, but the only offspring of his he more than acknowledged were the Cyclopes. Even when his daughter Perseus fell into the trap meant for his ex-wife and brother, he didn’t pay her any mind.

Only when she made Mount Saint Helens erupt, destroying one of his favorite forges, did he give her more than a second thought. Her unbridled power stirred Typhoeus, the bane of Olympos, and he knew to be forever wary of the daughter of Poseidon.

However, he harbored no hate for the girl. He even visited her on Ogygia, where she’d been marooned, and gave her a hint to aid her quest.

And then Perseus called out the gods for their neglect, garnering his affection. He still wouldn’t touch her with a ten foot pole, but…she was alright. He would only do her harm if she hurt one of his own.

10.

There was nothing like the smell and taste of mortal blood. Ares had spilled an ocean’s worth of it in his lifetime, whether by his divine influence or own hand. Oddly, the blood he liked most was given freely. It tasted fresher, sweeter, when spilled by the person it belonged to. The deeper they cut, the better.

Demigod blood was unparalleled in its richness and flavor. When it coated his tongue and ran down his fingers in rivulets like a stream of wine, his divinity reared back on its legs and roared.

But very few demigods spilled their own blood for him anymore, which was understandable. Blood came often enough from the deaths of their friends. Why should they spill any more?

Nowadays, only his offspring slit themselves open for him. In the safety of their cabin, away from judging eyes, they made little cuts on their skin with their prized weapons; even just a pinprick of blood was enough. It didn’t stop him from craving more, though.

Ares was sitting at some random bar hitting on women when he saw a drop of blood hit the wood. He stared as the splotch of red was joined by another, and then another, and then several more until there was a small puddle in front of him. The blood was thick and dark and perfect. It was demigod.

As tempting as the ruby liquid was, he was hesitant to consume it without knowing the source. It definitely wasn’t one of his kids’.

Lord Ares.

The god’s eyebrows shot up. Percy motherfucking Jackson?

I know you hate me, and I hate you, but Clarisse told me once that this was your favorite form of offering. And I promised someone I care about that I’d start paying my respects again, so…here. I hope it’s tasty. Not telling you what part of my body it’s from though.

Her faint laugh filled Ares’ ears, and he scowled fiercely.

I’ll send you more every Tuesday if you like it. I don’t know. Maybe mine is gross because you don’t like me. Just send me a sign if you want more.

Anyways, um…goodbye. Lord Ares.

As the brat’s voice slipped away, he slumped over the counter and eyed the puddle. It was true that he still held a grudge against Jackson, but it had been so long since he’d received a blood offering from the child of another god. Camp barbecue just didn’t hit the same.

He drew a line through the puddle with his middle finger and brought it to his mouth. His tongue darted out to taste it, and the second it hit his tastebuds he let out a pleased groan.

Although he’d never ever admit to enjoying Jackson’s blood, Ares continued to lap it up once a week from then on.

And when the time came for her to beg his favor, he gave it.

11.

Artemis didn’t actually like mooncakes, but they’d always been one of her most popular offerings. She preferred freshly slaughtered goats to saccharine honey, so whenever she received a cake it was handed over to the Hunters. Her lieutenant enjoyed them the most.

“Man,” Thalia mumbled through a bite of cake. “Whoever has been sending these is a frickin’ wizard. A baking wizard.” The girls next to her made sounds of agreement as they tore into the remainder of the offering like starved wolves.

Artemis’ expression remained placid as she thought about the “baking wizard”. Percy was one of her biggest regrets. She would have made a wonderful Hunter, but the goddess knew that many did not view eternal girlhood as a gift. The woman’s partner – ex-partner – had also refused the gift fourteen years ago.

Although Percy’s cakes were a nice treat for the girls, Artemis didn’t know what to make of them. Every single Monday one would pop up in her tent, along with a short prayer, and on full moons they came with three chocolate biscuits stacked neatly atop each other.

Maybe she hadn’t been able to win over the daughter of Poseidon, but she had at least made an impression.

12.

Apollo remembered, in pristine detail, the first time he saw her.

His eyes had briefly scanned over his resurrected half-sister before settling on the girl standing beside the crowd of blood-thirsty Hunters. She wore sneakers that were falling apart and a threadbare jacket too thin to shield against the Maine cold. He made his sun a little brighter and smiled when her stiff posture eased and her fingertips returned to a normal color. Her eyes – her gorgeous, gorgeous eyes – were rimmed with red, and the lashes were clumped together from tears.

He felt a strong urge to stride over and wrap her in his warm embrace, but that would be inappropriate, and he was trying to be better about that.

The third time Apollo saw her was on Olympos.

After she’d taken the Sky from his sister.

The new strands of silver gleaming in her hair combined with downcast eyes and slumped shoulders showed that she was exhausted beyond belief. He hid his concern behind his usual façade, something he’d created using Birkenstocks, sunglasses, short shorts, and muscle tees. The front worked for the most part; even his fellow gods forgot from time to time how wrathful he could be.

If Percy was the girl who ate lunch under the bleachers, Apollo was the douchebag who drove to school in the Lamborghini his daddy bought him.

It never worked on Percy. She saw him exactly as he was, and that fucking terrified him. Sure, he pretended that his carefully built walls didn’t crack every time she fixed him with her piercing gaze, but he knew that she was capable of breaking him.

On the occasions the two saw each other, they didn’t speak of it. She spent most of the time responding to his conversation with snarky comments and, when he started making advances on her, rebuffing his affection.

He knew she would never reciprocate his feelings, or even humor him with a date, and it made the ichor in his veins boil and threaten to tear his human form apart. He wanted her more than anyone. So what if he’d had thousands of lovers? They paled in comparison to her grit and tenacity, and the little scowl on her face when he looked at her, and the terrible power that simmered beneath her skin.

Apollo understood why gods and half-bloods should never mix, but in the case of Percy, he didn’t care. He’d burn the world if she asked.

Eight months ago she started praying to him for some unknown reason. Every Sunday at dawn, noon, and dusk she murmured something along the lines of:

Phoebus Apollon, Slayer of the Mighty Python, Lord of Immeasurable Light,

I thank thee for the rising sun, or I offer you this gift for the health of my friends

Those few seconds he heard Percy’s mesmerizing voice were the highlight of his week, and he allowed himself to hope they were indicative of a change in her feelings. If nothing else, they meant she hated him a little less.

The little flame of hope in Apollo’s heart vanished when his oracle informed him of her newest visions. Rachel seemed odd, and not in her usual quirky artist way. Her ginger hair was matted, her eyes were red and vacant, and a week’s worth of paint stained her hands. Apollo had half a mind to yell at someone in camp for not taking care of her. They knew how she got when something wouldn’t leave her alone.

“Rach,” he said, gripping her arm. “Let’s get you into bed.” She nodded absently and let him guide her to her room in the Big House. The walls were covered head to toe with chaotic paintings and charcoal drawings. Apollo’s chest twisted when he recognized Percy in one. When Rachel was showered and cozy in bed, the god asked her about them.

“What’s been happening? Is it bad again?”

“I don’t know,” she mumbled.

“Is it Percy?”

Rachel nodded. Apollo sighed and crossed his fingers that there wasn’t yet another prophecy involving the demigod.

A wrinkle formed between Rachel’s brows. “She…she’s going to have a baby.”

“What.”

“She’s going to get pregnant, Apollo.”

“Okay. Okay,” he breathed. “Is something going to happen to her or the baby?”

“Yes.”

“Good or bad, Rachel!”

“Why are you pushing me?” she snapped. “You of all people should know how this goes.”

“I just…she’s an important demigod. Very important. If she is in danger, I need to know.”

“I wish my visions weren’t all over the place. It makes it so hard to decipher things. Do you think the child will be powerful?” A hint of panic rose in Rachel’s voice. “You can’t tell anyone. Please!”

“Shhh. Listen. I promise you that no harm will come to Percy. Her father would drown the entire planet.”

Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “You have to promise not to tell anyone.”

That would be easy, Apollo mused, seeing as it would be announcing to the whole world that Percy had been knocked up by someone other than him.

“I swear to you,” he said.

“Good. Do you have any idea who it’ll be? I didn’t even know she was into guys…did she start dating a transgender woman? Or will she use a sperm donor?”

Apollo hoped that was the scenario. He would donate all the sperm she wanted. He’d drain himself like a fucking shot glass for her.

“To be honest, though, I don’t think she’d do that…gods, I wish she’d just come home. You’d tell us if you knew where she was, right?”

He hesitated. “She deserves privacy, Rach.”

“So you do know? What the fuck?”

“I am the god here, not you. I have no responsibility to tell you anything.”

She stared at him blankly until he caved. “Fine…I think she’s with one of her sisters. Her dad didn’t tell me anything more than that.”

“Are there any men where she is?”

Apollo face-palmed. “Rachel…why does it matter who the guy is?”

“You know why it matters. And don’t act like you aren’t dying to know. Maybe she hasn’t even met him yet! This could be a few years from now, although…it feels like it’s coming soon.”

What Rachel had revealed to him only a minute ago was already taking its toll. Apollo felt anger surge inside him like solar flares, but there was a stronger emotion growing as well – fear. Fear of what Percy’s child would mean for Olympos, but much more for what it would mean for Percy herself. If anyone touched a single hair on her head…

“Keep me updated,” he ordered. “I don’t care if you’re not certain of what you’re seeing. You tell me. Immediately. Alright?”

Rachel studied him for a moment before nodding. “I will…Apollo?”

“Yes?”

“Do you still have a crush on Percy?”

“I’m leaving.”

She shot up from her bed and grabbed his arm. “No, no! Wait!”

Apollo sighed, a bit longer and louder than necessary. “What do you want?”

“Does it bother you that she’ll never go out with you?”

“Pff. No. Call me Icona Pop the way I don’t care.”

“Really? That song is so old.”

Apollo gaped at her. “It came out nine years ago!”

“Whatever.”

He scowled as her mouth started to twitch. I must not harm my own oracle. I must not harm my own oracle. I must not harm –

“Alright, I need to sleep. I’ve been up for thirty hours.”

“You have to be better about that,” he sighed. “And I need to have a word with my children. Why they didn’t check in on you –”

“They have been checking on me. I’m just good at turning people away.”

“You need to let people take care of you when something like this comes up, Rach. Holding the Oracle is a burden.”

“I thought it was an honor.”

“It can be both.”

She gave Apollo a sad smile, and he pulled the covers up around her neck. “Hypnos, I ask you to bring her peaceful sleep.”

Almost immediately Rachel’s eyelids closed, and her breathing started to slow. He exited her room with silent footsteps.

What was he going to do?

13.

Dionysos often fantasized about his father – his father being inflicted with the same curse he’d foisted upon his son. What would he be like if he was cut off from his domains? If the skies betrayed him, his golden throne crumbled to nothing, and the gods goaded him without fear.

Dionysos knew that his father would bear the pain much worse than he did. The god of wine (and many other things) had survived forced ascension; he could survive another five decades of diet coke and babysitting.That didn’t mean he enjoyed it. Not one bit.

Priscilla Johnson had been the single biggest pain in his ass since his son Casanova. She was a walking disaster, and it didn’t help her case that Poseidon was her father. Still, there was no denying Patricia was singular amongst half-bloods, and Dionysos could admit that he’d greatly overestimated her arrogance. She was actually quite humble given the status she had, and her impertinence came in handy sometimes. He’d been sitting in his comfiest lounge chair cursing the demigod for leaving him with one less instructor when the unmistakable aroma of chicken hit him. Chicken braised in red wine.

Coq au vin was one of his favorite mortal dishes (and one that he hadn’t been able to eat in years). How had the brat known? Had she cooked it for him specifically? If so…he would consider reevaluating his opinion of her.

Some weeks it was simply a cluster of grapes, others it was full meals, but they all delighted Dionysos. He could be spotted every now and then with a wistful smile on his face, which used to be an incredibly rare sight – so rare that the campers who witnessed it ran away like jackrabbits.

The best offering he received from Percy came well over a year past her disappearance: an entire bottle of Château Pétrus. It was challenging to shock the god, as he was often the one to shock others with his displays of madness and revelry, but she had done it. That wine was so far out of her price range that it would take half a year’s rent to pay for it. New York rent. Of course, smelling the drink was nothing like being able to taste it, but the scent was so wonderful he forgot about it for a moment.

Once the near ecstasy had faded, Dionysos began to ponder who had been her mysterious benefactor. He couldn’t see her dating some wealthy mortal…but maybe it was one of their own who’d given it to her. Either way, the fact that she’d wasted the expensive gift on him made him cackle with glee. Chiron found him bent over their poker table laughing like the Joker and immediately trotted away.

Chapter Text

Rhodos let her sister go.

When she saw the happy couple reunited after several weeks, she knew her time with Perseus was coming to an end. It saddened her, more than she’d ever admit, but it was selfish for one to tie down someone they loved.

She had provided Perseus with a home, a calming escape, and in turn the demigod provided friendship. It had been so long since Rhodos had felt the warmth of friendship and family, and she would be forever grateful for the months her sister resided on her island.

Perseus did not know the depth of her affection, and perhaps it was better that way. Their parting was less bitter and more sweet.

“Thank you for everything, Rhodos. I love you, and I’ll be back to visit when I can! I promise. And I’ll drag you to dinner with Dad.”

Perseus gave her a toothy grin and, after slight hesitation, a bear hug. Rhodos melted into the embrace and stroked her sister’s curls, which had grown substantially in the past year. Her skin was clearer, brighter than before and baked brown by the sun. The goddess was grateful that island life had treated her little sister well.

“I will be right here, Perseus. Go, enjoy your life. And if that man gives you trouble…come to me.”

Giggling, Perseus shot a glance over her shoulder where her lover stood waiting.

“Érrhōso,” she said.

Rhodos kissed her forehead softly and nudged her toward the god. When she was almost there, something crossed Rhodos’ mind. “Wait!” she called out.

Percy whirled around.

“The bracelet! Tyson’s bracelet! Do you have it?”

She nodded. “I didn’t forget it!”

Rhodos sighed, although she didn’t know why she felt such relief. She watched from the doorway as her sister and the god flickered away.

Perseus Achilles, my sister, to you I give my strength, my patience, and my courage. Hold fast, and brave the storm.

Snow was falling on Olympos, dusting the streets like powdered sugar. Each resident was in their respective quarters, save the Olympians, who were trapped in their solstice meeting. It was December, so the eldest brother was in attendance as well.

Hades sat with a bored expression on the throne he had brought himself (since his no-good family couldn’t be arsed to provide him with one). Poseidon, in contrast to last winter’s meeting, was almost serene in his worn fishing chair. The remaining Olympians were the same as always.

Except for Hermes. While he could almost always be seen vibrating slightly in his throne, this time he was still – perfectly still and quiet, with razor-sharp focus. Athena shot him narrow-eyed glances every so often, and his father frowned at his abnormal state.

“What’s this?” he asked. “My son paying attention?”

Hermes concealed a sneer. Zeus still addressed him as son after all these years, yet he only ever referred to his father as such when he wasn’t around to hear it.

Athena pursed her lips. “I’d applaud you for your concentration if it weren’t so unnatural.”

He’d grown tired of violence, but every now and then one of the wonderful members of his family tried his patience. Looked like today he was getting two at once.

Artemis scanned him briefly. “I don’t see how this is of any concern. Let us proceed.”

“Thank you,” Hermes said. It was the first time he’d spoken.

She stared at him, face stoic as ever, and gave a short nod. “Anyways…Father, what were you saying?”

Zeus’s billowing mass of silver-streaked hair sparked with tiny bolts of lighting, and the clouds in his eyes darkened. It was a minute change, but nothing the gods couldn’t pick up.

“I wasn’t saying anything,” he told Artemis. “I simply want to know what’s going on with that one.”

Hermes raised his eyebrows, a habit that looked almost comical as they already slanted upward on their own. “I am fine. Not that that’s any of your business, or the business of anyone else for that matter.”

Thunder boomed above them, and something other than total disinterest flashed across Hades’ face. Poseidon kept fiddling with that necklace he always wore, and the others merely sighed.

“Everything is my business if I say so, and I am telling, not asking, you to reveal what has been troubling you.”

Hermes hated looking Zeus in the face, but he did so now. “Nothing is wrong. I had something I was going to bring up later, as it’s not terribly important, but I guess I have to now.”

Ares laughed quietly at the frustration in his voice. Hermes was a relatively easy-going god, so his brother was probably lapping this up.

“I am taking a vacation. Effective on the 28th.” He returned his father’s stern gaze. “That’s me telling, not asking.”

Ares broke into full laughter. Apollo seemed bemused.

“…vacation?” Aphrodite asked. “Like going to Paris or something? Love…I mean no offense, but absolutely no one cares what you do in your free time.”

He brought a hand to his forehead and began massaging away a non-existent migraine. “Vacation means that all of me will be unavailable for the next month.”

Demeter stiffened. “What of my daughter? How will I keep in touch with her?”

Hades rolled his eyes.

“Well, Auntie, you’ll just have to toughen up, won’t you? You go years without speaking to some of your other children, so you’ll be able to weather this one. I believe in you!” Hermes sent her a dazzling smile and a pair of thumbs-up.

“I will ensure that every mail room in the country backs up next Christmas,” she hissed. A crusty loaf of sourdough hit the back of his head and tumbled into his lap.

“Ow.” Hermes sent her a withering look.

Poseidon coughed, and they all turned to look at him. “I, for one, think it’s good that you’re taking some time for yourself. Healthy, even.”

Hera gaped at her brother. “Healthy? It doesn’t matter if it’s healthy, he can’t make himself unreachable like that! Olympos relies on him!”

“Let me remind you,” Poseidon said, “that you and Zeus had a three hundred-year honeymoon.”

The other gods chimed in.

“That was quite ridiculous, wasn’t it?”

“Yuck.”

“– waste of time –”

“Bit excessive.”

“Say what you will, but I think it’s incredibly romantic.”

“No, I agree with him, babe. Do you know how much fighting you’d miss over three centuries?”

“It was very typical of you, brother and sister, to think the entire world should wait until you’d finished fu –”

“QUIET!” Zeus struck the room with a bolt of lightning.

Hera was fuming. “How dare you all speak to me like that?”

Apollo stifled a laugh and stared resolutely at the bow in his lap. Even Athena seemed to find the queen’s anger amusing.

Poseidon resumed caressing his necklace, which Hermes stole a look at. It was a simple leather cord that had only held up for three decades by godly power, and at its center was a smooth black pearl. He compared the amount of time his uncle had worn it with the age of his daughter and wondered at the connection. His heart swelled at the possibility it was related to either Percy or her mother.

“Hermes!”

He stared at the queen. “What.”

“You will not do this. Go have your fun, but do not close yourself off from us. I forbid it.”

Athena stroked the head of an owl that had just appeared in her lap. It was cooing happily. “I’m not so worried, but I do wonder, Hermes…what is so important that you must gather yourself into one form?”

He wanted to escape from their scrutinizing so much it almost ached. “Because I want to savor the experience,” he said simply.

Aphrodite focused on him then, her features melting into those of Percy. The shift in her appearance was visible to none but him, but he still felt a pang of anxiety in his chest.

She drew back, her visage returning to the stunning model it was before. “It seems our Hermes has a new love interest.”

Apollo perked up in his seat. “I knew it!”

Artemis frowned. “So what if he does? You know how many children he has. He’s never done this before with any of their mothers.”

“They must be quite special,” Hephaistos noted. There was a fragile expression on his otherwise gruff face.

Hermes blinked. Of all the gods, the smith was the last to take interest in someone else’s affairs.

“They are.”

Hephaistos stared at him for a moment before lowering his gaze.

“I’m all for it,” Hades piped up. There was a gleeful smile on his face. He was clearly stoked at the idea of Demeter not nagging him and his wife for the next four weeks.

“Of course you are,” the goddess retorted.

Zeus had been suspiciously silent, and Hermes squinted at him. “Are we finished here?”

The king’s hawk-like gaze pinned him to his chair. “I trust that Iris is aware? And that you’ve informed your daughter? It’s quite a lot to be thrusting on them.”

Hermes faltered. Was his father actually letting the subject go with just that?”

“I, uh…yes. Yes, they are.”

Zeus sneered. “How eloquent you are…one could almost forget you gave language to Man.”

Hera was still simmering in her throne like an angry peacock, but she too made no more comments about his little love-trip.

“Well, then.” Athena coughed to get their attention. “Let’s move on, shall we?”

There were mutterings of agreement followed by a shout of indignation from Hades.

“Does that mean Demeter will still be bombarding me with shipments of granola?!”

Hermes fled out of the temple when the meeting concluded like he was trying to chase a taco truck. He ignored Apollo’s watchful eyes and Ares’ cackling.

Percy. Percy. Percy.

There was a seemingly never-ending list of things he had to do before visiting her again, but the thought of her was enough to help him power through it. An entire month of her company awaited him. While planning their trip, he’d been floored to realize it would be almost as much time as they’d spent together in the past fifteen years combined.

Thirty days equaled seven hundred and twenty hours. He’d never spent that amount of time with a single one of his mortal children.

It was like a bucket of cold water had been dumped over him. Fuck. His kids. How the fuck could he forget? Six of them were here on Olympos for the night and he hadn’t seen them since last year. What if this was the last solstice he got with some of them?

“Shit,” he cursed under his breath. Changing his path, he fled through the streets toward his temple where they’d be staying.

“Shit, shit, shit.” He knew he was not a stellar parent, but what kind of father thought about his girlfriend before his own kids?

Melina saw him first. She and Clio were playing Go Fish on one of the large, plush beds he’d provided.

“Dad!”

Her smile was so bright, and it immediately melted his heart. Her twin spotted him next, and then soon he was encircled by a ring of his kids. His eyes looked over them hungrily one by one: Melina, Clio, Max, Rashad, Xander, Jade. His other four that were grown but still spent summers at camp were not there, and of course there were Chris, Connor, Travis, Cecil, Julia, and Alice who’d been in the mortal world for years at this point.

His grin fell when he realized he’d counted Cecil and Julia. They were not out living their lives. They were dead. They were dead and the older siblings they’d barely known or never even met were dead. Hermes didn’t have a living child over the age of thirty-three.

Xander’s mouth flattened. “Dad, what’s wrong?”

Hermes blinked, and stared at his son’s face, which had much less baby fat than before. “Nothing. It’s so good to see you.”

Clio moved forward with hesitantly outstretched arms. He immediately pulled her in for a tight hug. “Hi, my girl. How have you been?”

“Good. I came first in the races last week.”

He drew back and looked at her. “Really? That’s amazing! You were faster than Rashad?”

The teenager in question groaned. “Don’t let it get to her head, please. She barely beat me.”

They all laughed then. Hermes let Percy drift to the back of his mind for the next six hours and savored the precious time with his children. None of them slept a wink, too excited to swap stories and update their father on their achievements, woes, and new interests. Around eight in the morning, Melina slumped over, and Clio soon followed.

“When do you have to leave?” he whispered to Jade.

She yawned. “Noon.”

Hermes frowned. He didn’t want them to go so soon.

Jade sent him a knowing look. “It’s not like we want to leave, Dad.”

“I know that. Of course I know.”

“Come on,” she said. “Is there a breakfast buffet somewhere?”

He smirked. “Probably, but we can raid Apollo’s kitchen instead if you want.”

Max snapped out of his half-sleep. “Yes! Last year he had a huge stash of junk food.”

Hermes smiled. The only reason Apollo kept candies and chips and all sorts of snacks was for the annual visit of demigods, but they didn’t need to know that.

When the 27^th arrived, Hermes flickered to her home on the Rhodes with two stuffed suitcases (enhanced, of course) and George and Martha tucked away in his jeans’ pocket. They weren’t exactly pleased about being put on snooze for the next month, but when he told them they’d get a mountain of rats afterward, they complied immediately. They could use a long nap anyways.

She stood waiting on the beach with a radiant smile. Her sister looked to be processing a boatload of emotions. Although he was dying to reach Percy, Hermes sent Rhodos a respectful nod. He couldn’t help but feel like he was stealing something from the goddess. But that was silly, wasn’t it? Percy was not a thing.

He turned to look upon her face, and his body felt like it would fly away. Tamping down his excitement, he walked over to her with careful strides.

She had no such restraint. Before he could blink, she was launching herself at him with a gleeful cry.

“Gods, I’ve been waiting here for hours,” she said. Her familiar weight in his arms was blissful, and it took Hermes’ mind a moment to catch up.

“Wait, why? We said ten…didn’t we?”

Percy dropped down onto the sand and smiled up at him. “Oh, we did. Just anticipation.”

He cupped her face, loving the warm, soft skin beneath his hand. “Are you ready? Is there anything else you need to do?”

“I’m going to go say goodbye to Rhodos,” she told him. Her smile turned a bit doleful.

He kissed the top of her head. “Okay. I’ll be right here, darling.”

Percy was not fond of the Roman Empire for a number of reasons, but she had to admit the modern city itself was really cool. She and Hermes had spent the past week – week! – walking through it and enjoying each other’s company. Before then had been Berlin, and Paris before that. Regretfully, Rhodes was the only bit of Greece Percy would get to see. There was no way in Hades she would get away with waltzing into Athens, or anywhere else in the country.

It still felt like a dream to be on vacation with a god, especially one as busy as Hermes. He had assured her multiple times that his absence on Olympos would not be missed, and that his daughter Angelia was perfectly fine taking over his duties for a month. Percy didn’t believe that, but she was so happy to be spending time with him that she dismissed the doubt from her mind.

The trip was perfect. Their hotel was nice but not too nice, the food was delicious, and the sights were beautiful.

But the best part was falling in love.

Every time she looked at Hermes she got butterflies in her stomach, and her heart clenched in a wonderful way. It was more than a crush; it was more than lust. It was as close to euphoria as she thought she could ever get.

“Do I have to wear a dress? I know this place is kind of…out of my league.”

Hermes shook his head. “Wear whatever you want. You know you’d look beautiful in a trash bag.”

Percy rolled her eyes and continued rummaging through the suitcase he’d packed for her. It seemed to be bottomless, like Aphrodite’s entire closet could fit in it.

“Ha!” She pulled out soft sweater and held it up to her body. “This is nice enough, right? Even if I wear it with jeans?”

The god smiled. “I was hoping you’d pick that.”

“Please. Like you even remembered you’d packed it.”

“It’s blue! With little seashell buttons! Do you think I just went to a random department store and bought the first ten items I saw?”

Percy tossed the sweater onto their bed and cupped his face with her hands. “Thank you. I mean it. It’s very thoughtful.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re teasing me.”

She choked on a laugh. “No.”

“Yes, you are, and you know it.”

“I am not! And I’m offended you think so.” Percy grinned and stood on the balls of her feet to kiss him. Hermes smiled into her mouth before deepening the kiss.

That was the one issue with their relationship. She couldn’t keep her hands (or mouth) to herself, and neither could he. Romantic displays in public weren’t really her thing, so she found herself tugging him away every couple of hours. In the nearly three weeks Percy and Hermes had spent together, they’d had sex forty times – on the hotel beds, balconies (after he’d promised no one would see them), a seedy restaurant bathroom, and even an alleyway. Percy had to admit that it was little embarrassing how needy she’d become.

However, Hermes’ eager reciprocation always dulled those thoughts. Why should she feel shame when there was a god whimpering beneath her?

Their intimacy wasn’t just sexual though, which was probably what had sent her feelings careening toward love. Hermes understood her in a way others did not. Her friends were people she’d do anything for in a heartbeat, but in recent years she’d found herself feeling detached from them.

Hermes wasn’t just an ear to talk to or someone to hold on lonely nights – he had chosen to be there for her in any way she needed. Despite the weight of his divine duties, he was willing (and very eager) to be with her.  

Perhaps it was foolish of Percy to believe in a god, someone who could never belong to her, but she didn’t care. He could never be hers completely, but she could be his.

Hermes nudged her away. “I can feel you thinking. What’s wrong?”

Percy stared at him with adoring eyes and shook her head. “Nothing. Just happy. Let’s go eat.”

He studied her face a moment more before pressing a final kiss to her lips.

The food was incredible. Percy gorged on fried artichokes, pollo con i peperoni, which was some chicken dish, and pasta all’Amatriciana. Hermes was looking equally tasty, but she knew her stomach would churn if she attempted to have sex.

He smiled over his glass of wine, and she made a face at him. “Don’t mock me.”

“I’m not,” he laughed. “You just look so sad.”

“Listen, if you saw you right now you’d feel the same.” Percy lowered her voice to not offend the other customers. “Literally all I can think about is you bending me over this table, but if I move an inch I’ll gag. And I don’t want to waste this dinner.”

“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ll take good care of you in the morning.”

Percy blushed. “You better.”

Hermes’ hand reached across the table and entwined with hers. “Have you been having a nice time, Percy?”

His face was so earnest that she melted a little. “Yes. Yes. You’re spoiling me.”

“I want to.”

“I know, babe. But that’s not why I’m having a good time. I get to be with you. Wake up next to you every morning, talk like a real couple…it’s nice. More than nice.”

He pressed a quick kiss to her knuckles and let her hand go, and she was grateful. Although she had the bad habit of making inappropriate comments whenever and wherever, she was shy about showing that kind of affection in an exposed place.

“But I do feel guilty,” she admitted.

His soft look turned into a frown. “Why?”

She shrugged and tore her gaze from him. “I feel selfish for taking all of your affection. I feel like I’m becoming a bigger distraction than you need.”

There was a moment of silence, and she couldn’t muster up the courage to look back at him.

“Percy. I thought you wanted this. I want this. More than anything. I thought – did you not mean what you said this summer? About taking a chance? Or…or maybe you did mean it, but now that you’ve taken it, I’m too much. I knew this was risky. I was being stupid –”

Hearing a god doubt themself aloud was painful enough, but when it was your own lover?

“Hermes, no. I didn’t mean it like –”

Percy spotted someone hovering near the bathrooms, cloaked in shadows, and her breath hitched.

“…Percy?”

She finally glanced back at Hermes, whose brow was furrowed in concern. “You just saw something. What?”

“Can you not smell it?”

His eyes narrowed. “Demigod. Powerful one.”

She nodded and looked at the person again. It was Nico. Her edgy twink of a cousin was standing not twenty meters away.

“He smells like Underworld. Your cousin, I presume?”

Technically he was their cousin, but that was awkward to think about, so she just nodded.

“I…I need to go talk to him. He’s here for me.”

“I’ll wait. Be careful.”

Getting up from the table was not fun. Percy huffed and puffed as she walked over to Nico. When she grew close, his dark eyes finally met hers and he scowled.

“Where the fuck have you been, stronza?”

His accent had faded a lot since they were kids, but every now and then when he was really angry it would peek out.

“Hi, baby boy.”

His nostrils flared. “Do not call me that.”

Percy pouted, and she stroked his too-pale face. “I’m sorry for leaving. Forgive me?”

“No, you dick.”

His scowl was something that always scared people off, but not her. She wrapped her arms around him and peppered his head with kisses.

“Agh! Percy! Stop it!”

They were lucky Nico blended into the walls so well, otherwise the whole restaurant would have been glaring at them.

She fake sobbed into his shoulder. “My little Nicodemo.”

Nico shoved her off of him. “I hate you.”

“I love you too, bunny. Now, why the fuck are you here? I know you weren’t looking for me just because you missed your favorite gal pal.”

Nico gave her a withering stare. “You’re so embarrassing.”

“And you’re not? Have you forgotten your MCR phase?”

His mouth pinched. “That was over a decade ago and only lasted until I discovered Type O Negative.”

“Peter Steele was huge, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah, he – Percy. We’re off topic.”

She started. “Right. Anyways, why has my little love muffin been tracking me down?”

“I can just leave.”

“Sorry. O Prince of Ghosts, what hath brought thee hither?”

“My father has been acting weird.”

Percy tilted her head. “And that’s concerning because? He’s always like that.”

Nico’s face twitched. “No, it’s something specific. Something dangerous.”

Any amusement she’d been feeling dissipated. “What do you suspect? Has he talked to you directly?”

“You know how souls who choose rebirth can take a while to return to the mortal world?”

“Mm. Wasn’t Mozart the reincarnation of Orpheus? Or is that just some shit Apollo Cabin told me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Nico sighed. “The point is, anybody not explicitly sent to the fields of punishment by a god can choose rebirth, even if it takes centuries. My father can’t deny them. It’s the law of…well, it’s just the law.”

“Fuck, who is it? Please tell me it’s not Theseus,” she groaned. If it was any of her deceased, troublesome siblings, Percy would riot.

“I don’t know. That’s the problem. It has to be bad, and my dad doesn’t know that I overheard him talking about it. Whoever has chosen rebirth is a threat, and there’s no one better to help me deal with it than you. Please, Percy. I know you had to leave for a while, but we need you back. I need you.”

Her skin started crawling like it did before a fight. It had been so long since she’d felt the rush of killing. “Rebirth doesn’t mean anything most of the time,” she countered. “People rarely remember their past lives. Who’s to say they’ll even be a threat this time around?”

Nico’s heavy brow furrowed in thought. “Yeah…but if word somehow got out that the person was the reincarnation of some lunatic, others would choose to mark them as a threat. Either they’d be a danger or be marked a danger. Most likely both.”

“Alright,” Percy conceded. “But what the hell are we supposed to do about it?”

He laughed in disbelief. “Are you serious? We fucking deal with it, like we always do. What…what happened to you?”

“Are you really going to go there?” she growled. “Really? My fucking mom died, and Annabeth left me. Maybe I used to be able to use my anger and grief as fuel, but I’m not a teenager anymore. I can’t – I don’t want to be like that anymore. If I’m going to make it to forty, I can’t go around playing half-blood vigilante like I used to. Aren’t you tired, Nico?”

Suddenly he looked like the scared, angry, lonely little boy she knew all those years ago, and she wanted to wrap him in her arms.

“We don’t have to be responsible for the gods’ shit. We pay our respects and let them deal with their own problems. If they make a fuss about something as natural as rebirth, that’s their issue. Not yours, and definitely not mine.”

“When did you become so fucking selfish?” he hissed. The high ceiling of the restaurant started to darken and close in on them. “I’ve only been back to camp once in the past year and could tell the kids were a fucking wreck. You don’t get to decide that you don’t matter to our world, Percy. You don’t just get to – to spew all that shit about leaving gods alone when you’re fucking one!” His chest heaved, and glistening black eyes pinned her to the floor. “Especially him. What the fuck were you thinking?

“Oh, what, let me guess. He came to you when you were all alone and grieving, with presents and promises about loving you forever, and he told you that you were so beautiful –”

In an instant, Percy had him slammed up against a wall with Riptide pressed into his jugular. One click and it would spear right through his delicate neck.

“I didn’t think you’d ever stoop that low,” he choked. “Please, just forget him and come home. I need you.”

Percy tutted. “You are so pathetic. What have you been doing the past few months? Searching two entire continents on the off chance I would help you on your little mission? Look…I know that you’re lonely, and restless, and your heart is hurting, but that doesn’t mean you should insert yourself into some bullshit that doesn’t concern you.”

His eyes started to well up. “Why are you being like this? What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing. I’m just tired.” Percy released him and pocketed Riptide. “I’m so tired, and these past six months have been the best of my life. I won’t accept that I should feel guilty for taking a back seat. I just want to have a stupid romantic vacation with my extremely hot boyfriend like a normal person and forget about everything. He makes me feel good, and I deserve that, okay? I don’t like it when we fight, Nico. I love you. You have to know that.”

They stared at each other for a few moments until a voice intruded.

“Well, you two make quite the pair.”

Percy blushed under Hermes’ searing gaze. “Sorry. Nobody else heard, right?”

“Of course not. I took care of it. And you,” he said, shifting his gaze to Nico, “should be more careful with that tongue of yours.”

His voice was jovial but all three of them knew what lurked behind the words.

“It’s alright,” Percy told him. “Just some healthy family bonding. Right, Nico?”

The demigod sneered at Hermes but attempted a polite nod. “Forgive me, my lord.”

Hermes bared his teeth in a smile. “No worries. But I’d leave if I were you.”

Percy squeezed Nico’s hand and brushed her lips over his ear. “Find me if there’s a development. I’ll help. Promise.”

He remained tense but shot her a grateful smile. She and Hermes watched him melt into the shadows and disappear.

“Let’s go back to the hotel,” the god murmured. “You need some rest.”

Percy leaned into him. “That sounds good. I’m sorry for escalating that.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s not my place to judge someone for familial disputes.”

She laughed against his chest. “He’s a bastard, but I love him.”

“That sums up my feelings about my family, too.”

Hermes transported them to their room and laid her gently down on the bed. He took her shoes, socks, and jeans off and then tucked a blanket over her. Percy soon fell into a food coma and didn’t wake up until the sun was streaming through the curtains the next morning. Her stomach had settled, and she was more than ready to take him.

“Morning,” he said, glancing up from his book with a smile. “Sleep well?”

She stared at him for a moment. “Mmhm.”

“…okay?”

“Would you be interested in trying something new?”

He blinked. “Oh. Um. Like what?”

“Can I hit it from the back?”

The look on his face was something Percy would later add to her mental scrapbook.

“I – huh. Um…alright.”

“Just alright? I really don’t want to pressure you.”

Hermes stood up fast, his chair making a screeching noise. “No. No, it’s not that. I just thought you were always joking when you said you wanted to pound me into the mattress.”

Percy giggled. “No, I meant it very seriously. I think about fucking you like that all the time. I want to know what sounds you’d make.”

Hermes blushed furiously. “Well, you know that I’ve been with men before, but usually…”

“Usually you’re the top?”

“Uh, yes.”

She plopped down on the edge of their bed. “Would you be uncomfortable switching it up? I want to make you feel as good as physically possible, and I know that’s the best spot on someone with your anatomy, so…”

“Shit. Yeah, it is.” He gave her a hesitant look. “You sure you’d want to do that?”

She laughed. “Baby, I’m the one who brought it up.”

Hermes was staring wide-eyed at her now, and when she glanced down she saw the outline of his hardening cock. It made her legs clench together. Fuck.

“So…how do we proceed from here, then?” His tentative voice was so far from the confident one he usually had in bed, but she found that she quite liked it.

Percy’s face split into a devious grin. “I figured if anyone could get their hands on a dildo and a harness in a few seconds’ time, it would be you.”

Hermes’ posture loosened, and he smiled. “You figured right. Although, I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell anyone how quickly I can access sex toys.”

“Nobody would be surprised.” She tugged him forward and whispered in his ear. “But I promise not to tell.”

He let out a small groan and fell on top of her. With her body caged in by his, he began to grind himself on her belly. “Is this what you wanted? For me to get so turned on just by your words that I have to hump you like a boy?”

Percy sunk her hands into his ass and pulled his body closer. “Obviously. Now get some fucking lube.”

Chapter Text

The final leg of their vacation was upon them, and Hermes was already wistful for their time in Europe. While planning the trip back in November, he and Percy had discussed her returning to the States permanently. The conversation had lasted hours, and at its end she was still unsure how to feel about it. He told her he would set her up with a new apartment or house wherever she liked, even if it was far away from camp. She wouldn’t have to do anything or see anyone she wasn’t ready to.

When she finally made her up mind, Hermes began rattling off design ideas for a new home for her, but she put a stop to it.

“I’m going to live in our cabin part-time. The cabin where my mom met Dad in Montauk. It’s on the ocean, and I’ll be able to drive to camp pretty easily. I don’t think I’m ready for the city again.”

Hermes had understood the sentiment but couldn’t stop himself from deflating a bit. He’d be treading on Poseidon’s toes by visiting her there, and he knew she wasn’t keen on their relationship being discovered (of course Nico had found out already, but he was as close-lipped as they came).

“That sounds nice,” he’d managed to say.

Percy cocked her head. “But…”

“Can I at least polish it up a bit? Maybe put in a new fridge?”

She laughed then, and he softened. She wasn’t rebuffing him by living near her father. He’d miss her terribly, but they would still be able to meet away from the shore. Maybe he could take her away on the weekends…

Anyways, it was now officially their last eight days together, and they’d be spending all of them on the road. He’d been a bit shocked when Percy told him she wanted to do a road trip, but was ecstatic. There was a lot of the States she hadn’t seen yet, and what she had was mostly while running from monsters, so she’d be viewing it in a new light. Of course, eight days wasn’t nearly enough to see the whole country, which he lamented. If only they had more time.

Hermes was struggling to quell his rising panic at being parted from her. He knew logically that he had already shot himself in the foot by taking an entire month off, but the time frame seemed so miniscule to him now. He was in love with this woman – he loved her more than he remembered loving anyone outside of his children – and he was ravenous for her. He’d never stop wanting more.

There was another woman who had captured Hermes like this, albeit not quite as fiercely. May Castellan had broken his heart with her selflessness, and then he’d spent the next twenty-two years grappling with guilt over her and their son. Actually, the guilt had never left.

Oh, Luke.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Hermes tore his gaze from the road and loosened his grip on the station wagon’s worn leather steering wheel. “What?” he asked.

Percy sighed. “As you often say, ‘I can feel you thinking’. What’s going on?”

Tall trees still clinging to their dead leaves passed them by. The sky was overcast, but not too dark, and the air outside the car was frigid. Percy had told him once before that it took a long time for her body to succumb to cold (something about ocean currents and deep sea temperatures), but the mortal part of her still enjoyed the seat warmers in the car. They’d stopped at a coffee shop twenty minutes before, and she was sipping on a warm, sugary concoction. It filled the car with a delicious spiced scent.

“It’s nothing,” he murmured. “I’m being overly emotional.”

“Oh?” There was a trace of amusement in her voice. “Why is that?”

“You know why. I didn’t anticipate this.”

“Missing me already?”

Hermes let out a long sigh. “Like I said, I’m being overly emotional. It’s not like we’re going to be saying goodbye forever.”

Percy hummed in acknowledgement. “I guess that’s the sacrifice for giving up my little haven on Rhodes. But it’s time for me to come back. I think Nico might’ve been right. I’ve been selfish by staying away for so long.”

Hermes recoiled. “You really listened to that? Listen, I know you love him. A lot. But that doesn’t mean he was in the right. You don’t owe anyone a fucking thing, Percy.”

She winced, squeezing her travel cup harder. “My friends have been through hell with and for me. The kids at camp look up to me. No matter how much of a fraud it sometimes makes me feel, it’s cruel to deny them. I’ve been living in a bit of a dream for a while, and it can’t last forever.” She looked over at him. “Can it?”

Hermes frowned. Why did that sound like she thought they should break up?

“I mean, I’m not giving this up,” she said, pointing between them. “I won’t let that happen. I’m never going to give you up.”

His heart unclenched. “Never gonna let me down?” he asked.

“Ye – what?”

“Never gonna run around and desert me? Never gonna make me cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt me?”

Percy stared at him. “Did you just try to rickroll me?”

Hermes choked on a laugh. “What do you mean ‘try’? Is that not how it’s done? Fuck, I’m a failure. My kids will be so embarrassed.”

Percy smirked and took a sip of her drink. “I love you, old man.”

The world around him seemed to slow, until the trees passing by were moving like molasses. Hermes felt himself twitching in his seat and fought to keep his hands on the steering wheel.

“Hermes?”

Percy’s anxious voice brought him to, and he turned to look at her. “Sorry. What did you say?”

She gave him a small, hesitant smile. “Just said that I love you.”

Just. There was nothing ‘just’ about that statement.

“Sorry if that’s too soon.”

Hermes swerved and brought them careening onto the side of the road. Percy almost spilled her drink. He put the car in park, unstrapped his seatbelt, and maneuvered his body so he was facing her fully.

“Say it again,” he pleaded.

“I love you?”

“Yes.”

Percy set her cup down in the cupholder and leaned forward. “I love you. I’m in love with you.”

He brought his trembling hands to her face and searched her eyes for any sign of deceit. “Do you mean that? Really?”

“I’d never lie to you about something like this.”

Fuck. She wouldn’t. She would never. Which meant…Holy Hades. Percy Jackson actually loved him.

“I – I love you too, sweetheart. Fuck, I love you.” He surged forward and pressed his mouth to hers. The divider between them was an unfortunate blockage, but he ignored it. Percy let out a surprised noise, which was muffled by his kiss. The tip of his tongue caught traces of chocolate syrup from her drink.

Gods, he loved kissing her. The moment right before their lips met where her eyes widened and he could see the whole ocean in their depths. The way her lush mouth fit perfectly against his own. Even the awkward parts were perfect to him, like the time she accidentally bit his bottom lip to keep from moaning and a little drop of ichor welled up.

Percy pulled back to breathe, and he remembered that mortals needed this thing called air.

“Sorry,” he grinned sheepishly.

She laughed and cupped his face. “Should we check in to the next motel? Call it a day?”

“But what would we do the whole afternoon?”

She slapped his cheek lightly – a love tap, really – and leaned in to press a kiss to his cheek. “Anything and everything.”

“Fine. Have it your way,” he sighed, though his pants were already growing tight.

“What are you waiting for, then? Drive,” she ordered.

Hermes couldn’t manage to wipe away the lovestruck smile on his face as they drove towards the nearest motel. Sometime during the journey Percy’s hand migrated to his inner thigh. When her touch strayed a little too far, he swatted her hand away.

“Be patient,” he said. She scowled and slumped down in her seat like a kid who’d been denied their dessert, but he could tell by the tiny twitch of her mouth that she was laughing inside.

In his elated state, it took Hermes far too long to notice a presence up ahead. When he realized who it was, his entire face pulled into a frown.

Percy looked at him in surprise. “What is it?” she asked.

“My brother.”

Her brow shot up. “Where? Wait, which one?” she cried. After a moment of slight panic, her expression turned chilly. “Ah. That one.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, already mourning their peace. “I don’t know what he wants.”

It took less than a minute to reach their destination. The motel’s parking lot was vacant, all the rooms’ windows had their curtains drawn, and not a single light was on. His brother clearly had something troublesome on his mind.

Apollo stood leaning against the door of room number seven with his arms crossed. Not in defiance, though. He was holding himself like the embrace of his own arms would protect him from something. The sight almost made Hermes sad.

He sighed and got out of the car. “Hello, brother.”

________________

Percy studied the god she hadn’t seen in over two years. He was staring at her with the same intensity he always did – a hungry yet tender look reserved just for her.

“I have to say, you two are remarkably difficult to track down. Would have been easier if I’d known you were together. Percy.”

“Apollo,” she said, extinguishing all emotion from her voice. The darkness painted across his face reminded her why she’d never been comfortable around him.

He looked like Luke.

Yes, they’d both nailed the whole blonde, blue-eyed beach bunny vibe, but it was more than that. Shirts cut off to display their biceps, blinding white smiles that on later thought seemed predatory, shorts a little too short – hell, even their sandals were the same brand and style. Their voices were playful and attractive but spoke to underlying disease.

Apollo was the protector of male youth, and so his form reflected that. He and the Luke in her memory were like golden gods trapped in late boyhood.

Percy had never once considered mentioning Apollo’s appearance, even the time he asked her why she hated him.

She winced recalling that memory. His face in front of her looked much the same as it had back then.

“What are you doing here?” Hermes asked.

Percy glanced at him, trying to convey that he should not rip his brother’s throat out. At least not yet.

Apollo’s gaze flickered over to him briefly before returning to Percy. “Delivering a message.”

Hermes’ jaw clenched. “Whatever it is, it could have been sent through my daughter or Iris. Be truthful with me. I know you’re very good at that.”

Percy’s anxiety spiked, and she tore her gaze from Apollo’s. “I need to sit down,” she mumbled. Both gods shot her nervous looks as she stumbled over to the curb. “Percy!” they cried.

“Please just get this over with so we can bone.” Hermes reached out to touch her, but she swatted his arm away. “It’s okay.”

He frowned but slowly retreated. “Brother…I’ll ask once more why you’ve come.”

Apollo let out a sigh, one a bit less dramatic than usual. “Well, I’m not really here for you, Herms.”

“Don’t call me that, you –”

“I’m here to help Percy!”

Hesitance replaced the anger on Hermes’ face. “Why…would you need to help her?”

Percy peeked at Apollo, who was now visibly distressed. “Something’s happened…what’s happened?” she asked.

“You’re in danger, Percy, and if we don’t act now you won’t live another week.”

The air around them stilled, and Percy forced herself to stand. “Hermes, it’s okay. It’s okay,” she whispered. Her fingers brushed his arm, and the tension in his body eased just a little.

Apollo’s form became fuzzy, the edges blurring gold. “The queen came to me with a concern a few days ago.”

“And?” Hermes bit. Percy knew he was already thinking about clocking the goddess over the head with his caduceus.

“A very reliable source told her that Percy is pregnant, and she seems to believe that it means another ‘end of Olympos’ is nigh. In short…you and the little whelp are in peril.”

Percy breathed in and breathed out. In and out. In and out. In and –

“What exactly had you been planning to propose?” Hermes asked. His voice was dripping with vitriol.

She laid her cheek on his back and closed her eyes, letting the familiar scent of incense envelop her. Everything was fine. Nothing was wrong. It would all be okay because he was there.

Hermes grabbed hold of her hand and squeezed tight. “It’s alright, darling.”

“I want to offer her my protection. My blessing,” Apollo murmured.

“Trust me, she doesn’t need your help.”

“Brother, see reason! Hera spoke to me herself. She will not let this go.”

“Was there truth in it?”

“What?”

“Did she speak true, Apollo? Has Percy been dragged into another one of your oracle’s prophecies? Has one of my children been dragged into another prophecy?”

Percy choked back tears and drew away from him. She walked around his body, which seemed even larger than usual, and stared at Apollo.

“No,” he rushed out. “No. I mean…I don’t know.”

The despair hidden behind his words told Percy everything she needed to know. “Rachel’s seen me.”

“Yes. She knew you would fall pregnant…but Percy, I swear to you that no prophecy has left her mouth. If we’d known something more solid, something dangerous, I would have told you straight away.”

“Why?” she asked incredulously. “Why would you interfere with something your oracle prophesized? Rachel I could understand warning me. Maybe. But you? Why would you risk the queen’s wrath for one woman?”

Apollo’s mouth flattened. “Please don’t ask me that. Not in front of him.”

Hermes took in a sharp breath. “If you truly…if you truly care for her, you will do everything in your power to aid her. Whatever she asks, you will see it through. I’ll accept nothing less.”

Percy was still in shock from the pregnancy reveal, and Apollo’s not-quite-confession hit her with another wave of it. She’d known he had feelings for her, but never had she imagined they were something more than lust. Something pure.

“I won’t humiliate myself further by claiming to love her as much as you clearly do, but know that she will always have me on her side. And…if she so wishes, I can try to terminate the pregnancy.”

Percy blanched. “What do you mean? I thought that wasn’t possible.”

He shrugged uncomfortably. “By mortal methods, yes.”

She looked back at Hermes. Her lover was trying desperately to suppress his concern, and she knew it was for her sake. She knew without a doubt that if this was what she wanted, he wouldn’t argue.

“Let’s set that aside for now,” she suggested.

Apollo sent her a pointed look. “It would be best to attempt it as soon as possible.”

“Apol – my lord. Please don’t get offended but it’s in your best interest to stop talking.” She glanced at Hermes. “Now.”

“Fine,” the god sighed. “I will leave you to…discuss all this.”

Percy nodded. “Thank you.”

“Percy…”

Her eyes flashed. “Will that be all, my lord?”

The darkness in his features returned, along with a touch of venom in his voice. “Yes. I’m sure you’ll call when you need me.”

“Apollo.”

The god looked to his brother with a touch of surprise. “Yes?”

“…thank you, brother.”

Percy could tell it pained Hermes to say, but she was proud of him. Apollo wore an indecipherable expression on his face. He merely nodded at his brother and returned his gaze to her.

“Percy.”

“Goodbye. Thank you for your generosity and…discretion.”

He searched her face for a moment before seeming to accept the impersonal respect. She hoped he would finally understand that there could never be anything more than tentative friendship between them.

“Look away,” Hermes told her.

She obeyed, shielding her eyes in the safe warmth of his chest.

Chapter Text

Percy stared up at the ceiling of their small motel room. The bed covering had suspicious stains and made her itch, but any sense of discomfort was overshadowed by the bomb Apollo had dropped minutes before. Hermes was hovering on the other side of the room, and she could feel how anxious he was to hold her.

“What am I going to do?” she asked. The question hung over them unanswered for a moment, and then he spoke up in a somber voice.

“Whatever you need to do, Percy.”

Her brow wrinkled. “Yeah, but what is that?”

“I can’t answer that for you, sweetheart. But whichever direction you choose, we need to act immediately.”

She heaved her body upwards and stared at him. His eyes flickered away from her gaze after a second. Their shade of blue was the sole physical feature she ever noticed as belonging to Luke. There were other things that may have seemed similar in certain lights, when she tried her hardest to remember him, but the blue…that mischievous blue was the only real reminder of him in Hermes. It was a relief, and sometimes that made her feel guilty.

“Are you afraid?” she asked.

His eyes whipped back to hers as fast as they had gone. “Yes,” he said. “I’m terrified.”

Percy started. She knew gods felt fear as all beings do, but admitting it aloud…

“I’m sorry.”

He winced. “Don’t say that. It’s my fault.”

Percy rolled her eyes. “It takes two to tango, remember? I – we did what we wanted to. I could have told you not to finish in me, but I didn’t. I did the opposite…because I wanted you to. Sure, maybe I wasn’t contemplating motherhood when I did so, but I wasn’t totally ignorant about it either.”

“How do you feel about being pregnant? Or being a parent in general?”

Percy thought about it for a moment before concluding that it didn’t matter whether or not she wanted to be a mom. “That’s the thing, isn’t it?”

He cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“In this situation…it’s selfish. It’s incredibly selfish to have a child you know will be targeted. My dad loved my mom so much that the thought of creating a child with her outweighed the fact that I’d be in serious danger. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love him, but he was a selfish prick for impregnating her given that he knew the prophecy.”

“I see.”

“You don’t agree?” Percy asked.

Hermes shrugged. “I wouldn’t hesitate to if it were anyone else. I’m the first to admit that gods are astoundingly greedy beings. The idea of you not existing makes me ill, but…I understand where you’re coming from.”

“So – so you agree that it would be selfish to have this baby, then?”

The pained look on his face made her heart twinge. “I…cannot answer that. I think if you feel that way then we should seek out Apollo again. Straight away.”

Percy felt tears prickle in her eyes and cursed herself. She never used to be a crybaby. Adulthood had softened her somehow. That and hormones.

“Oh, love. Don’t cry,” Hermes soothed. “You don’t need to shed any more tears over this.”

Percy nodded, trying to gulp down the tears. He strode over to her and cupped her face, tilting it up toward him. Percy stared into his eyes and burst into sobs – the loud, heaving kind of sobs. His expression and touch remained gentle as she broke down. She cried until her face was sticky with saltwater and snot and her breathing finally slowed.

“I – I think I’m going to ask him to terminate it,” she divulged. “Will you come with me?”

“Yes, of course I will. Thank you for letting me.”

She let out a big sigh and laughed. “Okay. Wow. This was not how I expected out trip to end.”

“Same here,” he said drily.

They both laughed then, and she tugged him down for a kiss, despite the stickiness of her tears. When he pulled back, she clutched his shirt tight. “Please,” she whispered. “Can we? I need this right now.”

Hermes hesitated before returning the kiss, making her shiver. There was something about a huge release of emotions that made her want to fuck. But really, when didn’t she want to fuck him?

“Love you,” she murmured in between kisses. “Love you, love you…I love you so much, Hermes.”

He moaned and started peeling her clothes off with hurried movements. She broke away for a moment to assist him, and when they were both naked, she pulled him atop her. Wrapping her legs tightly around his waist, she ground herself against his cock and sighed at the resulting pulse of pleasure.

“Fuck me.”

Hermes obeyed, aligning himself and sinking in with one, slow thrust. Percy saw his eyes roll to the back of his head as her cunt gripped him. It stung a bit. Whenever they did this kind of penetration, it took a while for her to warm up beforehand. But today she needed him to be as close as possible as soon as possible. She let out a hiss at the pinching sensation, and Hermes eyes snapped into focus.

“You okay?”

She took a deep breath and shot him a quick smile. “Yes. You can move.”

He slotted his mouth over hers and began to rock between her hips, drawing out just an inch or two before thrusting home again. Her slickness grew as the minutes went on, dripping around his cock and onto the sheets.

She liked to talk during sex; it made the pleasure more intense to hear how good she felt, or how good she was making him feel. But today she let the heavy breathing and moans do most of the talking. She felt that she could survive off the sounds they made together.

When Percy felt her orgasm approach, she urged Hermes to move faster. He began to slam into her, each thrust making their thighs slap together. Each time his cock dragged along her inner walls, a spark of pleasure burned inside her, and it grew and grew until she was near bursting with ecstasy. Although she had no experience to say otherwise, Percy thought that sex with the person you loved was ten times better than someone you didn’t. It was heaven.

“Shit. Shit! I’m going to come,” she panted. Circling her clit with two fingers, she squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the peak to hit. Then Hermes let out a particularly sexy whine that sent her over the edge. All the muscles in her body tensed up, and her mouth opened in a silent scream. The white-hot bliss went on for gods know how long, and then her body began to shake.

“Shh. It’s okay, sweetheart.” He held her in place kept fucking her into the mattress after she came down. The pace was relentless and made her mind shut off from overstimulation. She recognized the incoherent babbling in the room as coming from her. Hermes had incredible stamina when he chose to, and she felt herself nearing the edge again. But she was so tired.

“I can’t,” she groaned. “I can’t do it.”

He silenced her with a kiss. “You don’t need to. Let me take care of you.”

And then he did something with his divine touch that had her back arching as far off the bed as it would go. Her cunt locked down on him until his movements grew stilted. Her legs were quivering like mad, and she struggled to draw breath as the best feeling in the world ripped through her.

“I love you,” he murmured as she gasped through the aftershocks of her pleasure.

“Oh. Fuck. How – how have you not come yet?” she panted. He didn’t respond, just pulled one of her breasts into his mouth and sucked on it lazily. The sensation was nice but not intense enough to make her uncomfortable. It was more a mental euphoria than a physical one. “Please fucking come. I want it. Please. I want it so bad.”

If he weren’t a god, she’d say it was impossible for eyes to darken that much. His pupils were blown so wide that only the tiniest ring of blue remained around them. Percy’s ego preened at the fact that she had done that to him. He loved her and would do whatever he could to make her happy.

Hermes’ hands gripped her soft hips for support as he let his climax wash over him. He didn’t move. He didn’t make a sound. His expression just twisted into one of devastating pleasure. Percy moaned at the feeling of his hot seed filling her up. There was so much that it oozed back out and dripped down his cock. She took a moment to savor the experience because it was something they likely couldn’t do again without protection.

He slipped out of her when the last drops had been released. She guided his body over hers and pulled him into hug. She ran her hands over his back and thighs and anything she could reach. They lay entwined on the bed in satiated silence for as long as they dared before cleaning up and calling for his brother.

The speed at which Apollo came to them almost made it seem like he was at her beck and call. One moment she was praying on the thin carpet and the next he was in front of her, buzzing with anticipation.

Percy stumbled to her feet. “Oh. Wow. That was quick. Thank you,” she told him, bowing her head. Hermes likewise nodded to his brother, who smirked at their gratefulness.

“You’ve come to a decision, I assume?”

She glanced at Hermes. “Um…yes. Yes, I have. I’d like you to, uh, take care of it, so to speak.”

“You’d like the abortion?” he asked clinically, like it was something he did every day. Percy wondered what other experience he had with assisting women like this. Her mouth flattened into a line, and she gave him a resolute nod. He clapped his hands together. “Alright! Let’s do this, team!”

The station wagon she and Hermes had been using was gone, but she wasn’t worried about her things disappearing. They’d make their way back to her at some point. In the car’s stead was a similarly beat up, unassuming vehicle.

Apollo opened the front door. “Percy.”

Hermes coughed to cover his laugh, and she shot him an apologetic glance. “Sorry, honey. Looks like I get to be the passenger princess today.” She would have preferred to sit with him in the back, but it felt rude to leave Apollo up front by himself like he was their chauffeur. Her impertinence didn’t extend that far, at least not anymore. Maybe Nico was right about one thing – she needed to (re)grow a pair.

Their drive in the air stretched over several states, but Percy couldn’t bring herself to feel excited about the beautiful scenery below. The sparkling clean clinic they landed in front of was out of place among the gas station and Burger King it was nestled between.

“Mist,” Apollo explained.

Percy fought the urge to roll her eyes. Yes, my lord. I can tell it’s the fucking Mist.

Hermes had been very quiet since the motel, but she wasn’t concerned that he was truly upset. He was a god; he was more than capable of handling this. But for good measure, she leaned over and asked him if he was okay. He gave her that dreamy smile he always did when they were in private, and she pretended that Apollo wasn’t standing right next to them.

“Ahem,” Apollo coughed. Hermes’ gave him a deadly side-eye, and his face split into an uncomfortable grin. “Time waits for no one.”

“Sorry,” Percy said.

Apollo blinked. “Oh – uh, no, I wasn’t directing that to you. Of course not.”

She and Hermes stared at him until he whirled around and entered the clinic. As they passed through the threshold, his clothes turned into scrubs. Percy peeked around and saw no one else. “Is this an empty establishment? Or is it normally in use?” she probed.

“It was once a sort of demigod hospital,” Hermes revealed. “Well, something resembling a hospital. I indirectly helped set it up.”

Percy’s ears perked up. “Really? That’s awesome. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about something like that. Why did it close? No, never mind, they probably all died, didn’t they? I need to tell Grover about this. He’ll be psyched –”

“I met Luke here after his quest to the Garden of the Hesperides.”

Her thoughts came to a halt. “Oh. Because of his eye? He must have traveled a long time with it unhealed.”

“Mm. That was the last time I saw him before he…turned.”

Way to dampen the mood! she thought, and immediately regretted it. Gods. Was Luke something that would always hang between them? He would, wouldn’t he? How could he not? Still…even if it was an old hurt that flared up frequently, it wasn’t necessarily bad. If anything it brought her and Hermes closer together.

“Hey,” she said, nudging his shoulder. He blinked out of the far-away look he’d had. “I love you.” He smiled, and in that moment she vowed to say those three words over and over again for the rest of her life.

“Alright, Perce. I’m ready,” Apollo called from one of the offices.

Percy stood on her toes and tried to kiss Hermes’ cheek, but she wasn’t tall enough and instead brushed his neck. He rectified that by tilting his head down and kissing her soundly on the mouth.

“You better not be canoodling out there!” Apollo shouted.

They ignored him.

“…your silence speaks volumes.”

A laugh bubbled up in her throat, and she broke away from Hermes to let it out. “Just preparing myself!” she yelled. “Be there in a moment.”

They shared a few more breathless kisses before entering the office. Apollo was holding a clipboard for some reason (maybe it made him feel more professional?), and he patted the examination table that was covered in that weird, crisp paper nurses always changed out between patients. It was strange seeing the god like this. The sight of him dressed like a regular old nurse reminded her much more of Lee Fletcher than Luke Castellan. She stared at him dumbly until he patted the table again.

“I don’t want to rush you, but it is imperative that we remedy this situation in a swift fashion.”

Percy snickered internally at his word choice. Even though some of the gods could mimic average mortals, they never seemed like they were able to avoid some measure of pompousness in their speech. Zeus was the worst offender in that regard.

She hopped onto the table and winced at the crunchy sound the paper made as she shifted into a comfortable position. Apollo rolled himself over to her on his stool. “Okay, to start can you unbutton your pants and pull your sweater up for me?”

Hermes came to stand by her side. She tugged her sweater up under her breasts and unbuttoned her jeans. Apollo hovered awkwardly over her belly before rolling the waistline down. She took in a sharp breath when his hands touched her. Weird. Weird, weird, weird, her mind chorused.

“Just breathe,” the god said. She listened to the command and focused on remaining calm. This was fine. All normal. When his fingers stopped gently massaging her lower stomach, she craned her neck up. “Everything cool?”

His expression was cautious. “Yes…”

“But?” Hermes asked.

Apollo withdrew. “Do you still have the Curse?”

Percy blinked. “Oh. Yeah, I do.”

“Hm. I suspected so. Weird.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, there’s nothing wrong,” Apollo hurried to say. “I’ve just never heard of someone who bathed in the Styx and then became pregnant.”

That made sense, she supposed. There were so few of them anyways; it was unsurprising that she was the first to get pregnant. A thought popped into her mind. “Will it affect the abortion? No one besides myself is supposed to be able to physically harm me unless they find my Achilles’ spot. Well, there are a few ways I think, like electrocution.”

Apollo shook his head. “It shouldn’t affect anything. Don’t ask me how I know that. Just a feeling.”

She sighed in relief, and Hermes reached out to squeeze her hand.

“You’re about two months along right now –”

“I’m sorry?” she blurted.

“What?”

“But I – what – that’s not possible!” she sputtered.

“We didn’t have penetrative sex until a month ago,” Hermes informed him. She felt her face go up in flames.

Apollo scoffed. “I promise you I know what I’m talking about. The embryo is clearly seven to eight weeks along. Almost a fetus.”

Her brain scrambled to comprehend. “I swear I have never once let a man come in me before December 28^th.”

Pink dusted Apollo’s cheeks. “Uh…maybe you’re special? Wouldn’t put it beyond you. Demigods usually have normal pregnancies, but you’re not a normal demigod.”

Hermes let out an exasperated sigh. “Wonderful.”

“On the plus side, it doesn’t change anything,” Apollo added cheerfully. “This will be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.”

Percy gave him a weak smile. “If you say so.”

“What happens next?” Hermes inquired.

“Well, if this was a normal abortion, I’d give you some medication first and then examine you. The procedure itself only takes about five minutes. Dilating the cervix, numbing the area, and sticking a tube into your uterus to scoop out all the gunk. But, this thing is three-quarters god, so I’m going to have to get creative.”

Had anyone ever told him his bedside manner needed serious help? He was the god of healing for fuck’s sake.

“I’d prefer you didn’t refer to it as ‘gunk’, brother.”

“Er…right. My apologies.”

“So, you’re just going to wave your hands and do some divine mumbo jumbo?” she asked.

“Yep!”

“Sounds legit.”

Apollo’s abortional exploration was a silent affair that took much longer than Percy would have liked. Only a few minutes in she had to jump up to go pee, and after that it was a whole lot of nothing. She was literally twiddling her thumbs for the better part of the hour while trying to ignore both the gods’ increasingly troubled demeanor.

“Okay, what the fuck is going on?” she finally exclaimed. The defeated expression on Apollo’s face was freaking her out.

“I can’t. I don’t know why, I just – I can’t! It’s not working. Why won’t it work?”

“Calm down,” Hermes said. “Speak slowly.”

Apollo looked back and forth between them with almost frantic eyes. “Something is preventing any interference with the pregnancy. This is what I was afraid of when I went looking for you two. I don’t understand who would want her to – oh.”

Percy decided she’d had enough and hauled herself to a sitting position. She yanked her sweater down and rebuttoned her jeans. “Care to explain?”

His eyes pierced into hers, and she did her best not to flinch. “I told you how the queen knew you were pregnant before you did, right?”

She nodded slowly. “One of her daughters is the goddess of childbirth and labor pains. Didn’t the queen send her to kill Alkmene and Herakles?”

“Yes, and her power related to the creation of offspring is stronger than any other. She’s partnered with the Moirai themselves. My sister and even the queen pale in comparison.”

“Fuck’s sake,” Percy groaned. “Maybe I’m stupid, but this makes no sense. Why would she go tell the queen I’m pregnant if she wanted me to have the damn baby this badly?”

“She hates her mother,” Hermes supplied. “She said something to scare the living daylights out of the queen because she can get away with it. Ultimately, your pregnancy is in her, and by extension the Moirai’s, hands. The queen and her lackeys are helpless right now. At least, that’s the theory that seems the most plausible to me.”

Apollo grimaced. “I hate to agree, brother…but you might be on to something. It could be the Curse that’s preventing this as well. A combination of the two.”

“Oh, yeah, don’t forget the fucking Curse, Apollo!” Percy snarled.

The god recoiled. “You said my name.”

“Percy,” Hermes murmured.

“No. No! I’m fucking done!” she yelled.

“Percy…”

“Why? I just don’t understand why. Why is it always me? Why can you people never leave me and my friends the fuck alone?” she spat. “Now I’ve got to give birth to a child who will probably end up in some horrible prophecy, and they’ll probably fucking die, and I’ll fucking die too because everyone has always wanted me dead and now they’ll have a good excuse to off me –”

“Percy!”

“FUCK OFF!”

Her heart sank when she realized who she’d shouted that at. Hermes was looking at her with compassion, so much compassion, and it was more than she could bear.

“I need – I need air. I can’t breathe.”

Apollo jumped to his feet, but she ran out of the clinic on bandy legs. When the cold wind nipped her skin, she let out an agonized scream. Her emotions threatened to choke her, consume her, and the only thing she felt could help was release.

Way beneath the concrete Earth started to quiver. Each tremor built upon the other until all the ground except the patch beneath her feet began rattling. She vaguely recognized the yells coming from behind her and blocked them out. It had been far too long since she made the Earth shake. She deserved to do this. It was her birthright to split apart the world so it would get just a taste of her wrath.

Percy watched with cold detachment as chunks of land around her surged and crumbled like waves upon the sand. One car was thrust into the air, and the passenger inside looked like the embodiment of fear.

Something inside her snapped, and she collapsed to the ground. Her eyes darted across the ruined landscape with dismay.

What had she done?

Before she found the strength to return to her feet, a gentle hand touched her temple and sent her into darkness.

________________

Percy woke up to a ceiling of chipped white paint and the smell of blue chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven. She spent a few minutes processing the shitstorm her life had recently become and then rolled off the cot to find some non-godly food in the infirmary.

She opened a random cabinet and sighed at the sight of yet another shelf of bandages. “Dammit. What does a pregnant bitch have to do to get some food around here?”

And that was her reality now, wasn’t it? She was…pregnant. Going to be a mother. Fuck’s sake.

“Percy!” a squeaky voice cried.

She whipped around to find the owner of the voice and was shocked to see Joshua Lowell. The son of Apollo hadn’t hit puberty the last time she’d been at camp, but he now stood before her as a bundle of gangly limbs and acne.

“Hey, kid,” she said with a smile. The boy had warm brown skin and hair twisted into locs down his back. He hadn’t inherited his father’s expert skill with a bow, but he was still heaps better than her, and his healing abilities were already remarkable. Last Percy heard he was learning five different instruments at once, too.

Joshua ran into her open arms and gave her a bone-crushing hug.

“Oof,” she said for effect. “You’ve gotten strong. And you’re taller than me now! Jesus.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I still only hit the bullseye three out of five times though.”

“Well, I can’t even hit the target.”

“You’re not a child of Apollo.”

“Fair point.”

Joshua released her and let out a happy sigh. “You have no idea how glad I am that you’re back. Camp is a shithole –”

“Hey.”

“Hellhole without you.”

Percy gave him a rueful smile. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t able to give everyone what they deserved. I just needed space for a while.”

“It’s okay. I understand. Seems you’ve been busy,” he commented, nodding at her stomach.

Percy gasped. “Joshua! Your innocent, precious mind is not supposed to know how babies are made!” She burst into laughter at the goofy smile that split across his face.

“I didn’t actually examine you. I could just tell. Sorry,” he shrugged.

Her laughter died down after a moment. “Did you tell anyone?”

“Of course not!”

“Thank the gods,” she sighed. “So…how did I arrive here?”

His face grew serious. “My dad and Lord Hermes brought you. They said you’d had an ‘incident’ and needed to be somewhere safe. Percy…are you in danger?”

“When am I not, kid? When am I not. Look, it’s nothing you need to worry your cute little head about. I promise.”

“But the baby –”

“Hey.” She set a hand on his shoulder. “None of that. I can take care of myself, alright? Besides, this is one of the safest places on Earth for me.”

He looked her over for a second before nodding. “Alright. Just don’t go getting into trouble. My blood pressure can’t handle that.”

“Why are you saying that like you’re a sixty year old man with heart disease?”

“I might as well be! Do you know how stressful it is being the camp’s Most Awesomest Healer?”

Percy frowned. “You’re a kid. You shouldn’t have more responsibilities than you can handle. Your healing right now should be more about learning than patching up every camper who comes in. Maybe I need to have a chat with Mr. D and Chiron about hiring an actual medical professional. One from our world, I mean.”

Joshua ruminated on the proposition before giving her a slow nod. “That would make sense. I mean, my siblings and I take care of a lot of it, and the nymphs sometimes help, but…we are just kids.”

“Exactly. And just because another camper doesn’t have healing abilities doesn’t mean they can’t do basic medical work. Not every injury needs your special touch. What you have is a gift. It’s not an ability that someone of any age should be using all the time. We are, after all, only half god.”

“Maybe we are just half god. You’re something else, Percy. You’re a living legend. I think hundreds of years from now, if Earth hasn’t exploded or something, you’re the one our kind will learn about. More than Achilles, or Herakles, or any of those old guys. You’re an inspiration.”

The appreciative smile Joshua gave Percy made her old insecurities flare up. She was powerful, sure – her most recent incident proved that – but it wasn’t something she could ever completely tame. Some of her most impressive feats had left massive destruction in their wake. The worst thing about her “legendary” power was the darkness it stirred inside her veins. After the pleasureful rush from using her elements faded away, Percy often felt like a monster.

“Power doesn’t mean as much as people say,” she told him with a weak smile.

“Oh, I know. Trust me. That’s not what I meant by inspiration.”

She cocked her head. “Then what…?”

Joshua stared at her for a moment before waving a hand and shooing her away. “Get going. I bet you’re dying to get out of this place. And I know about fifty people who’re going to faint when they see you.”

Percy steeled herself for the onslaught of emotions. He was right; there were a ton of kids who would probably burst into tears or fall over from shock at the sight of their returned Camp Mom (an epithet she’d never felt entirely comfortable with – couldn’t she be the Camp Big Sister?). About a third of the campers were at home for the school year, though, so the reunion hopefully wouldn’t be as overwhelming. She thought about everyone she’d left behind, and her mind soon settled on the image of the curly-haired satyr who'd been her very first friend.

“Grover,” she whispered.

“Hm?”

“Nothing. I’m just ready to see an old friend.”

Joshua hugged her again (though more gently this time), and sent her on her way. She glanced back at his youthful face and waved goodbye.

She did indeed get pommeled by two dozen different people on her journey to find Grover. The first to spot her was a girl from Cabin Eleven, and the sight of one of her lover’s children took her breath away for a moment. Jade Gao, who must have been nearly eighteen by then, was bundled in a fleece-lined jacket and chatting with a younger male camper Percy did not recognize. Her once long black hair was dyed bright pink and cut into a bob. Percy was almost squealing at how cute Jade looked when the girl glanced in her direction and froze. Her mouth fell open, and she took off her glasses as if they’d been some source of hallucination.

“Percy?” she shouted.

“Heyyyyyyyy.”

Jade’s face fluctuated between indignation and elation before she gave in and ran towards her outstretched arms. Percy caught a glimpse of the boy standing awkwardly amidst the trees.

“Where the fuck have you been?” the girl grumbled.

Percy rubbed her back in a soothing gesture and drew back to get a proper look at her. “Love the hair,” she commented. “And new glasses! You’ve got a pink-on-pink theme going on?”

Jade laughed. “That’s what you have to say?”

“Not all…it’s good to see you, nugget.”

“Ugh. Did not miss that name.”

“How are your brothers and sisters?” Percy tried to not let all her emotions seep into her voice. Letting on that she was involved with their father was not on her agenda.

Jade was quiet for a few seconds before responding. “Good…mostly. Max has been a little moody recently, but I guess it’s just puberty or something.”

Percy took note of that, remembering from her teenage years that it was almost never just puberty. “And the others?” she asked.

Jade opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by a chorus of voices coming through the trees.

"Percy!"

"PERCY!”

“Miss Jackson, is that you?”

“MOM!”

That last one had definitely come from Gloria, a daughter of Nike who was a beast on the tennis court. The tall girl had taken the whole “Camp Mom” thing a step further by actually calling her Mom, and to Percy’s embarrassment, it had inspired others to do the same. But unlike Gloria, those kids were too young (and lacking in parental affection) to realize the moniker was meant as a joke.

In a matter of seconds, Percy was bombarded with questions and hugs. As they caught up, more campers followed the sound of their voices and joined the group. Soon it seemed that all the current residents of Camp Half-Blood were crammed into the small section of woods. A few dozen dryads melted off their trees to check out the ruckus as well, along with a handful of satyrs. Just as her heartbeat was becoming a little too rapid, and her armpits a little too sweaty, someone cut through the crowd and put their hands on her shoulders.

“Hey. Hey,” he murmured. “Percy.”

She gulped and focused on the familiar cadence of Grover’s voice. His face looked no older than the last time she saw him (of course) but the tips of his horns were a bit longer.

Grover let go of her and coaxed the kids away. “Give her some space, please.”

They let out cries of protest but eventually complied with the order. One of the dryads, a white-haired Epimeliad, assisted Grover in guiding them towards their respective cabins. Percy silently thanked her; she knew many of the dryads were shy around people.

“We’ll see you at dinner, right?” a quiet voice asked to her left. The Epimeliad took them by the elbow, but they wouldn’t budge.

Percy recalled their identity – Jamie, a child of Athena. She gave them the warmest smile she could muster. “Of course. I just need a short break.”

Their sober grey eyes, so like Annabeth’s, pierced into hers for a few seconds too long, and she felt a slight chill crawl up her back that wasn’t due to the weather. “I promise,” she added.

They gave her a short nod, and the Epimeliad tugged them along. Percy let out a whoosh of breath and leaned up against a tree, hoping she wasn’t interrupting a dryad’s nap.

Grover walked over to her, his hooves clip-clopping on the frozen ground, and she gave him an awkward wave.

“Long time, no see.”

His dark curls bounced as he shook his head at her. “You never change, Percy.”

“I don’t know how to feel about that statement.”

He cut her off by gently butting his head into hers. She relaxed against the weight of his forehead. “I missed you,” he murmured.

“Careful. You’re not helping the rumors.”

He snorted and drew back. “Those are hardly rumors. If people couldn’t tell we were just friends fifteen years ago, they won’t be able to tell anytime soon. I don’t even know how they could think that we were a thing given that you were making googly eyes at Annabeth for years.”

Percy giggled and punched him on the arm. “What have you been up to, G-man? Anything I should know?”

His cheeks turned rosy. “Uh…yes, actually.”

“And? Care to share with the class?”

“Well…let’s just say you and Juniper have something in common now.”

Percy’s eyes bulged. “Wait…what? Are you – no. No fucking way.”

His face split into a happy grin. “Yep! I’m going to be a Daddy Goat.”

“Holy shit. No way. Oh my gods, Grover. You’re only like 45!” she exclaimed. “You should be at the club!”

He shrugged. “We’re excited about it. I’m taking a sabbatical.”

A smile slowly formed on her face. “A dad, huh? That’s…that’s amazing, Grover. You two are going to be great parents. I’m so happy for you.”

His expression turned serious. “And should I be happy for you?”

Percy sighed. “I’m guessing you just knew I was pregnant?”

“I sensed a second life in you immediately.”

“Right, well…I shouldn’t really tell you about it here. Out in the open.”

His brow wrinkled. “Percy…are you okay? You’re not, are you?”

Her eyes felt watery all of a sudden. “Yeah, uh…I’m not.” He wrapped her in a hug, and her feet lifted off the ground. She remembered a time long ago when they’d been the same height.

“Let’s get you home.”

“No,” she blurted.

“No?”

“Ah…I mean, I think your cabin would be safer.”

“…okay. Come on, then. I’ll get you some hot chocolate.”

“Blue hot chocolate?”

He grimaced. “I don’t know how the brown and blue will look together, Perce, but sure. One blue hot chocolate coming right up.”

She ruffled his curls, and they walked arm in arm to the cozy home.

After a lengthy talk with Grover and a brief hello to Juniper, Percy stepped into her father’s cabin. All the surfaces were covered with a thick layer of dust; no one had dared enter while she was gone. The fountain and saltwater pool, however, were crystal clear, and her collection of aquatic plants seemed to be thriving. Something in her heart cracked at the sight of her old bed, which was still messy from when she’d last slept in it.

After using her sweater to wipe off the dust on her mirror, Percy stripped naked and took a good hard look at herself. As she stood there scrutinizing her stretch marks and dimples and belly that was just barely fatter than a month ago, exhaustion crept into her bones. She wondered if her pregnancy would continue to progress at double the normal pace and if it would worsen her symptoms.

Gods, she hoped not.

She padded over to the rectangular pool and lowered herself into it. The surface area of it was rather small, but the water went down about twenty feet into the ground. The walls were clustered with stony corals, and schools of colorful fish swam about. The very bottom was covered in soft seagrass, and that is where she decided to spend the next few hours napping.

When she awoke after a pleasantly dreamless sleep, Percy swam to the surface and got ready for dinner. She discovered that everything Hermes had packed for their trip was laid out on one of the empty beds. When she walked over to pick out some clothes, an envelope caught her eye. It was a pale blue and sealed with green wax in the shape of a conch shell. For a moment she believed it to be from Triton, but then the absurdity of that idea banished the thought from her mind. She picked up the envelope and attempted to open it without destroying the whole thing, but her fingers ended up mangling it anyways.

Hello, my darling, it began, and her breath hitched. She knew that handwriting, those hastily scribbled Greek letters.

Hello, my darling. I don’t know where to start.

Percy laughed, because neither did she. There was a tiny bit of comfort in knowing that even a god had trouble wrapping his head around the situation.

The letter contained both everything and nothing she needed to hear. After reading it in its entirety and then reading it again, she folded it up and placed it under her pillow to come back to later. The sound of the dinner horn rang out through camp, and she made her way to the pavilion. The smell of flavorful stew and piping hot bread made her stomach rumble. She was starving. At least there was one benefit to her pregnancy – she was eating for two now.

It seemed that Chiron had had a chat with the kids about giving her space because none of them got off their benches when she arrived. They did greet her with warlike chanting though, and she smiled despite herself.

“Alright, alright!” Dionysos cried. “Shut up!” They quieted down and waited for his pointless announcement. “Yes, as you can see…one of our instructors has returned. Finally,” he sneered. “Good-for-nothing brat has been skipping out on her job –”

Chiron coughed.

“Ah. Sorry. Anyways…welcome back to Penny Jenkins. It’s just peachy to see you again.”

A loud roar went up from the campers as Percy slid into her table. She grimaced at the feeling of the hard stone beneath her. It seemed much less supportive than she remembered, and she made a note to propose mandatory therapeutic cushions as soon as possible.

Although she’d had a large mug of hot chocolate earlier, she wanted more. Ugly blue-brown liquid filled her goblet, and she let out a pleasant sigh at the rich smell. Stew and hot chocolate didn’t really go together, but she gulped down two large bowls and a thick hunk of bread with it anyways. Halfway through the meal, she remembered her promise to the child of Athena. “Jamie!” she called.

They perked up. “Hello,” they replied in an airy voice. “I assumed you would forget me.”

Percy faltered. Damn. That was harsh. “No. I didn’t forget,” she told them. At this point, the rest of Athena’s table was watching the interaction like hawks. Jamie smiled then. Well, it was more of a twitch at the corners of their mouth, but Percy could tell they were genuinely pleased. “What’s your schedule tomorrow?” she asked. “I’ll come join you for weaving or something.”

Another Athena kid cringed. “Percy, no offense, but you’re garbage at it. You’re garbage at most crafts.”

Man, kids were fucking brutal.

Gloria piped up across the pavilion. “Don’t insult my mom like that, dickface!”

“Hey!” Percy shouted. “Language! I got a bar of soap with your name on it!” Jade started snickering at her table, and soon the rest of camp was giggling even if they didn’t know what was going on. Jamie silently ate their dinner. “Anyways,” Percy continued, “come find me whenever you have some free time in the afternoon, Jamie. We can do whatever you want.”

“Hey, what the hell?” a muscular boy from Cabin Five exclaimed.

Percy glanced over at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Aren’t you supposed to start training us again? Why are you giving them special treatment?” he fumed.

She raised a brow at him. “Can’t I do both? Be patient. You’ll get your turn.”

One of his sisters smacked the back of his head. “Be quiet, dumbass.”

The boy from Cabin Five suddenly looked like his bowl of soup was the most interesting thing in the world. He was flushed, and Percy felt a little guilty. “I may not be as active as I used to, but don’t worry. I’m going to make up for lost time,” she assured him. He brightened, although there was a trace of confusion on his face.

She got distracted by Grover mouthing something to her at the head table. She squinted at him. “Do you think I can read lips?”

He sighed and then cupped his hands around his mouth. “COME. TO. MY. CABIN. AFTER. DINNER.”

“Well, there’s no need to shout.”

One kid wolf-whistled, and she rolled her eyes. Seriously, who could possibly look at Grover and think he could love anyone but Juniper – his pregnant partner? The satyr deflated in his seat, and the sight of her best friend humiliated pushed her buttons. “Hey, whoever did that, know that I’m going to find you and kick your ass,” she announced.

The pavilion went silent.

“As long as you’re over fifteen,” she amended. Someone let out a sigh of relief, and with her quick reflexes she was able to pinpoint them. “A-HA! Found you.” She fixed the boy with a devilish grin, and he quaked in his seat.

“Please, ma’am, I’ve only just turned fifteen –”

“I’m not going to hurt you, kid. But you can round up a bag of tin cans for Mr. Grover, right? I mean, he is the Chosen One of Pan.”

The poor boy looked on the verge of tears, and Percy caught a glimpse of Dionysos smirking behind his goblet of Coke. He got a little too much enjoyment out of their torment.

Her very long day ended by spending another hour catching up with Grover, who informed her that Annabeth was engaged to none other than Piper McLean. Percy gaped at him for several minutes before downing another mug of hot chocolate (while crossing her fingers that she wouldn’t get indigestion). At this point, she was certain that nothing could surprise her. When it was time to return to her own cabin, Grover handed her a package wrapped in blue tissue paper that had clearly been torn apart already.

“What’s this?”

He broke eye contact with her. “Um…it’s from Annabeth and Piper. For you. I didn’t mean to be nosy, but I wanted to make sure it wasn’t some revenge present.”

Percy cackled. “Annabeth’s a big girl. She’s not that petty.”

“Says you. Anyways…I’m not exactly sure why she wanted you to have it, but here.” He placed the package in her arms. The object was flexible – maybe some kind of fabric? Percy removed the tissue paper and let the present unfold in her hands. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“It is,” she murmured. The small blanket was covered in nautical motifs, and it was one of the softest things she’d ever felt in her life. The craftmanship was exquisite. There was probably no one besides a child of Athena who could have woven it, except the goddess herself. “I cannot believe she made this for me. This must have taken ages.”

Grover looked like he was holding something back.

“What?” she asked.

“I can’t help but notice that it looks more like a…baby blanket than a blanket blanket. But that doesn’t make sense, does it?” he asked nervously.

She blanched. Was that possible? Annabeth would’ve had to have started weaving it months ago, before Percy was even pregnant. How could she…? “Rachel,” she hissed. “What was she thinking? And – oh my gods. Tyson.”

“Percy?”

She looked at Grover with wild eyes. “My brother – Tyson, I mean – he made me this bracelet for my birthday last year with serpents on it…and it’s so small.”

Something dawned on Grover’s face. “That’s right…Rachel knew you were going to become pregnant. But you said she never told anyone besides Apollo.”

“Apparently not!” Percy screeched.

“That just doesn’t make sense. Rachel would never break your –”

“I don’t fucking know anymore.”

“Let’s not jump to conclu –”

“What other explanation could there be? What, Annabeth just wanted me to have a blanket that only covers half my legs – oh my gods. Wait…If Tyson made that bracelet for my future child, and then gave it to Dad to give to Rhodos to give to me, does that mean he fucking told Dad?” Percy groaned and flung the blanket on Grover’s couch. “Oh, Tyson.”

“Seeing as all the continents haven’t been pulled underwater yet, I’d say no.”

“I heard there were those really awful storms a while back, though!”

“That was in 2020, Percy. I highly doubt Rachel knew back then. Your father was probably just throwing a fit because you left.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m good at feelings!” he cried.

Percy massaged her temples. “Okay…fine. How am I supposed to figure out what happened, then?”

Grover let out a sigh and picked up her blanket, folding it neatly. “Talk to Rachel, for starters. If everything you told me earlier is true, it may have been a higher power that let Tyson and Annabeth in on your little secret and not her.”

Percy paused. “Where is Rachel, anyway? She wasn’t at dinner.”

“She stays in the Big House most of the time. Painting and whatnot. We check up on her, but she likes being alone. She’s also been…strange for a while. Stranger than usual.”

“Well, now I feel bad. Do you remember me telling you about her visions during the first war?” Percy asked. “She was a wreck back then.”

Grover nodded. “She hasn’t been a total wreck since Lord Apollo started visiting her more often. Which isn’t often at all, obviously, but it seems to help a little. I don’t know, Percy…haven’t you seen Rachel becoming more and more withdrawn over the years? I think accepting the Oracle takes a toll. It’s a sacrifice.”

“It’s meant to be an honor,” Percy says. “But most honors are never what they claim to be.”

Grover looked at her with sad brown eyes. “Be gentle with her, Perce. I know this situation is incredibly overwhelming, but it’s out of her control just as it’s out of yours.”

“I know,” Percy sighed. She took the blanket from his arms and studied it again. It was bizarre how accepting of the news she was. A few years ago the thought of Annabeth marrying someone else – lying with someone else – would have made her sick. Now she merely felt a touch of wistfulness, an old heartache, but it was overshadowed by happiness for her ex-partner. Although she didn’t think she would want to see Annabeth anytime soon (actually, she probably couldn’t see her anytime soon), there would always be some form of love between them. The blanket, something handwoven for her future child, was proof of that.

“I’m going to turn in for the night,” she told Grover. “Please tell Juniper hello again, and that I’m going to wait on her hand and foot.”

Grover grinned, walking her to the door. “I don’t think you’ll be able to do that very soon, given your own condition, but I know she’ll appreciate the thought.”

“Fine, then. You have to wait on her hand on foot.”

“I already am!” he squawked.

Percy clapped him on the back in her best bro impression. “I love you, my dude.”

“I love you too, Percy.”

She sought out Rachel a few days later, after having all her time hogged by the various campers who’d been hurt when she left.

The redhead’s room was changed. It was positively covered in art. Large canvases, piles of sketchbooks, and easels filled up the entirety of the room. Even her bed had become home to some art supplies.

Percy hovered in the doorway. Her friend was thin and frail, despite the camp’s best efforts to put her on a regular eating schedule, but her eyes were not sluggish in the slightest. They darted to and fro across the painting she was working on.

“Hey, Rach.”

The redhead didn’t give Percy the courtesy of her gaze. “Percy. It’s been a while. How are you?” she inquired, picking up a crusty paintbrush and dipping it in a splotch of paint.

Percy stepped across the threshold and padded over to her friend. “Alright, how about you?”

“Been better,” she replied. The brush in her hand moved seamlessly across the canvas, leaving a smear of turquoise.

Percy wanted to see what she was painting but decided to keep her distance. “That’s not all because of me…is it?” Rachel shrugged noncommittally and continued making large strokes. “I feel like we need to have a talk, and I know that’s not going to be fun for either of us, but it’s necessary, don’t you think?” When her friend didn’t respond, Percy gave in and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Please speak to me, Rachel. I’ve missed you, and it kills me that visions of my life have been invading your mind. I wish I could take them away.”

Rachel’s brush hovered over the canvas, and then she set it down. Finally she looked Percy in the eye. “It’s not your fault,” she murmured.

"I know it’s not technically my fault, but I still feel terrible that you’re going through this and that I haven’t been here to support you. Ap – your patron didn’t tell me anything until recently.”

“I begged him not to say anything. To anyone.”

“Do you think it would have been better for everyone if you’d let Apollo talk to me sooner?”

Rachel’s lip wobbled. “It – nothing was clear to me, Percy. That’s why I didn’t want to trouble you. It was all…foggy. Every time I thought something came to me it would slip away. I’ve just been seeing bits and pieces, some of them directly contradicting others. It’s not like my prophecies. It almost seems like the future can’t decide what it’s going to be, or that it simply won’t tell me the truth. I feel like it’s taunting me, planting hundreds of different versions of your future in my head.”

“So all you knew for certain was that I was going to get pregnant?”

Rachel grimaced. “Basically.”

“Do you have any clue why this is happening? I was initially under the impression that there being trouble with my future kid was a ruse, but then it became clear that this pregnancy is completely unnatural. While I think the queen is projecting her fear for Olympos onto my child, it’s also apparent that a different power has something in store for me. Maybe…I mean, I hope this is all a ruse. But who would play a joke like this, and why? I’ve gone through a long list of people who might have it out for me, but forcing me to have a child is just bizarre. Do you think there’s something wrong with the baby? Like…they’re a monster?”

Rachel laughed. “You think you’ve got a little sea serpent in you or something?”

“Well, it’s not a crazy thought! At this point, I don’t think I’d be surprised if Freddy Krueger popped out of me.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Always.”

“Do you have negative feelings towards your baby? Future baby, I guess. They’re not quite a person yet, are they?”

Percy sighed. How did she feel? “Honestly, Rachel…I don’t know how I feel. Whenever I look at myself in the mirror and see my stomach a little fuller, I want to talk to it. Ask it what’s happening to me, if it’s a victim too, or if it’s here to punish me.”

“I – I don’t think they’re a punishment. I mean…I know why you might feel that way, but I don’t think – damn. Forget it. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“Yes, you do,” Percy said in a low voice. “Tell me what’s on your mind, whether or not it makes sense.”

Rachel gulped. “It’s just a feeling, Percy. You will love them. I’ve felt you love them.”

A sharp feeling shot through her chest, but she ignored it. “I hope so, Rach. I really hope so.”

“I’m sorry about all the confusion right now.”

Percy waved her off. “Eh. What’s new, really?” They both laughed for a moment, and then she broached the topic that had been on her mind for the past few days. “Rachel…”

“Mmhm?”

“I have to ask – and I don’t want you to think I’m angry – but are you certain you haven’t said something about this to anyone? Because a few things have happened that are unlikely to be coincidences.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“Annabeth made a baby blanket for me, and Tyson made a baby bracelet months ago, before I even got with the father. And I’ve been wracking my brain but still can’t imagine how they could have known. So…do you have any ideas?”

“Who's the father?” she deflected.

“Hermes. But never mind that, how –”

“WHAT?”

Percy sighed. “Not important. It’s not important. Can we please get back to –”

“Not important? Are you joking?” Rachel’s face fell. “This makes sense, actually…”

“How?”

“I was hoping that the baby would be a normal half-blood, or a quarter-blood, but a three-quarter-blood? Wild. But you’ve always been wild so I shouldn’t be surprised, really.”

“Oh my gods, Rachel. Just – agh! Can we please get back to the damn blanket?”

She started wringing her hands and wouldn’t hold Percy’s gaze. “I – I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No,” she snapped. “I don’t.”

Percy took a few steps away from her. “Okay…okay. I believe you.”

Rachel let out a relieved gasp, and her eyes became watery. “Thank you. I promise I didn’t do anything, Percy –”

“Stop, stop. It’s okay. I trust you. For what it’s worth though, I wouldn’t have been angry at you if you did say something. Pissed off, yeah, but not angry. You’re always safe with me. You know that, right?”

Rachel nodded, her bottom lip wobbling. “Yes. I love you, Percy.”

Percy swept her up in a hug and patted her back while she cried. “You’re almost as emotional as I am, and I’m fucking pregnant.”

Rachel laughed through a sob. “I missed you so much.”

“Yeah. I know,” she whispered. “I know.”

For the following month, Percy worked herself as hard as she dared without attracting a worrisome Grover or Joshua. She simply didn’t have the heart to cut back her working hours any more than she already had, even though her ever-changing body could have used a six hour underwater nap every day. The campers’ eager faces whenever she showed up for lessons eased her discomfort enough to keep going, but it was fucking rough. When she wasn’t spending her days training or fighting, the Curse didn’t drain her a whole lot, but when she was active, it felt like a battering ram would hit her around two in the afternoon. That and she’d swallow her weight in food every day. No one at camp except Chiron, Dionysos, and Grover knew she bore the Curse, so she had put up with a lot of comments about her napping and eating habits for over a decade.

“Are you sure you’re not a legacy of Hypnos?”

“Omg Miss Jackson, you need to tell me how you metabolize your food that fast!”

“How did you have time to become a hero if you were asleep all the time?”

“Mom, isn’t it your naptime?”

And so on. However, since Percy’s return, the campers had stopped prodding her for answers. They didn’t make a fuss when she sat down while instructing them sometimes instead of sparring one on one, or when she took a copious amount of water breaks. The glances they shot her way spoke of concern though. They were used to Perseus, daughter of Poseidon, and Percy Jackson, their beloved mentor – not this fragile woman.

When she curled up in bed at the end of the day and all her troubles finally caught up to her, Percy felt like a complete and utter disappointment. In addition to mental distress, her body was being put through hell. Her belly was constantly itchy, the skin stretching to accommodate a rapidly growing fetus. She had a permanent low-grade headache, her breasts became tender, and her appetite was insatiable. There were more than a couple nights where she had to sneak into the kitchens and fix herself whatever repulsive snack her body was craving. Even the friendly fish in her cabin’s saltwater pool were tempting her. When the urge to snatch one up and rip into it with her teeth hit her one day, she started crying and spent an hour apologizing to them before Grover found her.

More than anything, she missed Hermes and the life she could have had. If her body was hers and hers alone, the abortion would have worked, and she’d be able to fall asleep in the arms of the god she loved. If Hera hadn’t decided to threaten her future in the first place, she would have been able to consider motherhood without outside influence. Now she was the puppet of Eileithyia and the Moirai, and the worst part was that their ulterior motive was still a mystery. Why exactly did they need her to have this baby, and so fast? As far as she and Rachel knew, there was no prophecy about her or the child, so…why? Was it simply that Eileithyia was using Percy’s pregnancy to toy with her mother?

Why became the most frequent word bouncing around Percy’s mind. The threads of fate were certainly a cruel and unusual punishment.

After much goading, Percy relented and agreed to let Joshua monitor her pregnancy every other week. It felt awkward having a fifteen year old as her OB/GYN, but he promised he wouldn’t do anything more than touch her belly.

“This will be good training for me, too!” he declared. “Besides, I’m a healer. A body is just a body to me.”

Percy squashed down her reservations and laid back on the cot he had sequestered for her. From what she’d seen in movies and TV shows, these sorts of things involved cold, clear jelly and some special wand. When she asked him if they were going to do that, he laughed.

“Do you mean an ultrasound?”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head. “An ultrasound uses sound waves to make an image of what’s inside your body. This is less science-y.”

She snorted. “Alright, then. Do your worst.” Joshua’s hands were gentle like his father’s as they wandered across her belly. And, like his father, he looked distraught at his findings. This time, though, she had an inkling of what was wrong. “Yeah, uh…I should have prepared you for this. Sorry.”

His mouth flattened. “I might be a beginner when it comes to observing pregnancies, but I am damn – darn – sure that you were only about eight weeks along one month ago…and now you’re sixteen to seventeen.”

“Hm. Yeah, that makes sense.”

“How does that make sense, Percy?”

She scooted herself up to sit against the fluffy pillows. “Your dad actually checked me out right before my, uh, incident. He told me I was eight weeks along when I had actually conceived only four weeks earlier.”

“I – I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. Is there some sort of…divine interference?”

Percy felt like shit. Poor kid. She should have trusted her gut and gotten an adult to check up on her. “Short answer is yes. Long answer is also yes.”

Joshua sat plopped down at the bottom of the bed and stared off into space. “Is this why you’ve been super tired?”

“Ah. So you have noticed.”

“Duh.”

“Well…partially. There is another reason I get super tired and hungry after training or fighting is over, and pregnancy seems to be exacerbating that.”

“Big word.”

“Hey, I know stuff!” she laughed. “But yeah, I have reason to suspect that someone is making this thing grow as fast as possible without seriously harming me.”

Joshua’s spotted face scrunched up. “I – why? Why you? It’s not fair, Percy.”

The sight of tears welling up in his eyes felt like someone had taken a cleaver and split her chest open. “Oh, Josh. Don’t cry for me. Please don’t cry. There’s nothing you have to worry about. I promise. I’m okay.”

No, I’m not.  

“Just a little mayhem with the gods. You know how that goes. They can’t get enough of me,” she joked awkwardly. His sniffles cut through the peaceful silence of the infirmary, and she got up to stand in front of him. “Hey. Listen. I can handle this. I’m Percy Fucking Jackson, right?”

He choked on a laugh. “Why do you get to cuss but not me?”

“Adult privileges.”

“Something tells me you were cursing fluently by the age of twelve though.”

“Yeah, but I’m an employee of this camp, so it’s my duty to annoy you about it.”

“You’ve already got practice being a mom then.”

Percy stilled. “I guess so.”

Joshua swiped at his eyes with the back of his hands. “Agh. I hate crying. Everyone says I’m too sensitive.”

“Well, fuck them.”

He peered up at her. “Yeah. Fuck them.”

After leaving a tear-free Joshua, Percy stuffed a handful of snacks into her jacket pockets and decided to take a stroll. She got all of thirty feet from the infirmary before the voice of the director stopped her.

“Primrose.”

She turned around. “Really? That’s a new one. Been reading The Hunger Games?”

Dionysos pursed his lips. “As if.”

Chiron was sitting in his wheelchair adjacent to the god. A deck of cards was spread out across the table, but it looked like they had stopped playing before she crossed their line of vision. "Khaire,” he greeted in a much warmer manner.

Percy waved. “Hello. Do you need anything from me?”

Dionysos crooked one finger and beckoned her forward. She sighed and made her way over to them. Fortunately, the only available seat for her was a nice and squishy armchair that had probably been there since the 1970s. If she was going to get grilled by a god, at least she’d be comfortable during it.

“What can I help you with, gentlemen?”

Chiron swirled his cup of tea around, avoiding eye contact. Dionysos, on the other hand, was piercing her with his wine-colored eyes. “It has come to my attention that you are in a delicate condition. Rather, it came to my attention a month ago and I’ve just been putting off having to deal with it.”

Percy stared at him and pulled out a bag of mango habanero beef jerky. She sunk her teeth into a piece and tore it apart like an animal. It was like chewing on a sweet, spicy, salty piece of leather. “What condition is that?” she asked, feigning ignorance, which was more to annoy him than protect her own hide.

Dionysos looked her up and down. “Well, you’ve certainly never been a svelte woman, but anyone with a working eye can tell it’s a bun in that oven and not a few too many nights of take-out.”

Percy lowered her piece of jerky. “Oh, you motherfucker.” Chiron’s eyes widened as if any moment she’d turn into a dolphin, or worse, a pile of ash. “I can’t believe I gave you an entire bottle of that fancy-ass wine –”

“Château Pétrus.”

“I made you that special chicken!” she cried, one hand coming to rest on her midriff. “Who else does that? Is this how you treat your worshipers? Oh, what am I saying. Of course it is. Of course you’re the same bitter old man –”

Dionysos scared the living daylights out of her and Chiron by breaking into laughter. Not cold or vindictive laughter – genuine laughter. Percy (wisely) shut her mouth. Gods…pregnancy really could warp the mind. She was lucky he seemed to be in a jolly mood.

He wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. “Ah, Poppy. It’s been rather dull without you, I will admit.”

She didn’t bother to correct him. “Excuse me, Mr. D. I was…out of line.”

He snorted. “So was I. Who cares? What that matters most is that you’ve relieved me from teaching.”

Percy nearly choked. “Were you covering my lessons?” She turned to Chiron, whose cup of tea was not a sip lighter. “How could you allow this?”

“I am a god, Pamela. The brats were lucky they got to witness my excellency.”

Chiron was the one to choke this time. “Uh, yes…anyways, Percy. I’ve been meaning to say that it is wonderful to see you again, my dear.”

“And?” There had to be a catch.

“Might we know your plans for the future? Do you intend to stay at camp permanently? Your teaching duties would be deferred to someone else, of course, but this is your home just as it is every demigods’. You and your child would be safe here.”

Percy caught the frown Dionysos shot him. “I don’t know” she said, keeping her gaze on the god. “He doesn’t think I should.”

Chiron started. “Mr. D?”

Dionysos’ fist clenched his Diet Coke can a little too hard, and it crumpled, spurting the sweet brown liquid onto the table. “Paisley is…a unique case, as you know. We can’t risk a child of hers being here.”

Whoomp! There it is.

“Nonsense,” Chiron retorted. “This is the safest place on Earth for them outside of Atlantis.”

“Then she should go there,” Dionysos snapped. “There are rumors on Olympos. Ones that haven’t been helped by my brothers dropping you off here unconscious.”

Percy’s hand stroked her belly absently. She did not like where this was going. Not one bit.

Chiron, ever the exhausted teacher, gave a big sigh and leaned back in his chair. “What is it this time? Surely they know by now she’s harmless.”

Percy coughed.

“Uh, harmless entirely by choice, of course.”

“We are deceptively fearful beings. Always at the back of our minds is the thought that someone or something is trying to take us down.”

“You don’t believe that I’d ever do that,” Percy spoke.

Dionysos looked at her with his wild eyes. “No, I do not. But that doesn’t matter. Hermes got some wonderful new girlfriend last year that everyone’s been talking about because this past decade or so has been a major dry spell for him. Somebody proposed that the girlfriend was you. As a joke, of course, but you know how Olympos is. So chatty. And now that you’ve been stung by a serpent, the rumor will continue spreading. Half-bloods don’t have children with gods. It’s simply not done anymore, and for a child with you as their mother and a god as their father…well, you know Olympos doesn’t like threats.”

Percy closed her eyes and breathed slowly. She conjured up images of warm blue cookies and Hermes’ bare ass to calm down.

“Percy?”

“Chiron.”

“My dear, are you alright? I promise whatever is going on up there is no more than conjecture. Isn’t that right, Mr. D?”

“Oh no, it’s very real.”

Percy opened her eyes and fixed them on the two immortals before her. “Who was the source of these rumors?” she asked, her voice poised at the edge of a knife. She knew it wasn’t Hermes or Apollo, so who would go around saying that? Hera? What would the queen have to gain from disrespecting her? Percy assumed she would have been trying to keep her suspicions hush-hush so she could take care of the “dangerous” baby problem without others meddling. And by the gods, had Poseidon caught wind of the rumors?

Dionysos’ eyes flickered with purple fire. “I have no idea. Prudence, it would be a big help if you told us who that baby’s father is.”

She scoffed in disbelief. “Do you honestly think that I’d feel safe sharing that with you? After you basically told me everyone on Olympos think I’m a devious whore?”

Chiron reached out a consoling hand, but she swatted him away. “Percy, you are safe here,” he assured her. “I promise.”

She let out a frustrated scream. “Fuck! Fuck. Like my life wasn’t bad enough already.”

“Perseus.”

Her eyes snapped to Dionysos. “What?”

“It’s okay if it is true. Heaven knows how seductive my brother can be.”

There was a pregnant pause in which she and Chiron stared at him like fish.

“I just mean that we wouldn’t be judgmental if you were involved with him.”

Chiron perked up. “Ah. Yes. He’s quite mesmerizing if you’re not used to his wiles.”

Percy gaped at them. “We’ve been friends for ages. He didn’t seduce me. I mean, he’s insanely attractive, but he didn’t take advantage of me or anything. What do you take me for?”

Dionysos grinned. “So it is you, after all. My, my. This is the woman who’s ensnared the Slayer of our dear Argus. Tell me, does he really sleep at the foot of your bed?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! We didn’t plan this. Part of his thing is being super fertile. Everything would be fine if my bitch aunt hadn’t gotten her panties in a twist over something that hasn’t, and probably will never, happen!”

“Wait, what does the queen have to do with this?” Dionysos asked.

Percy paused. “Is she not the one who spread the rumor?”

He stared at her in bemusement. “No. In fact, she’s been attempting to dispel it. That sort of gossip is below her, and I’d thought she’d come to like you. Almost.”

“She wanted me to build a perfect family with Annabeth. I think she liked to imagine we were her little project. When that ship sailed I assumed she would either forget or go back to hating me, but instead she’s scared. She knew I was pregnant before I did. That’s why I’ve been holed up here for the past month.”

“Ah…that does complicate things,” Chiron said as he stroked his beard.

Dionysos fidgeted with his crumpled can of soda. “How could she possibly have known that soon? Was she anticipating it?”

Percy shook her head. “Her daughter told her. Not Herakles’ wife. The other one.” Both men sucked in breath. “And something she said scared her enough to want to ‘take care of me’. I don’t think I’ll be able to leave camp or Atlantis for the foreseeable future.” Possibly ever, she added as a bitter afterthought.

“What of my brother?”

“What of him?” she sighed. “How could he take on the queen? He may be a master of lies and deception, but it’s very difficult to discreetly kill this rumor without implicating himself. There’s not much he can do besides ignore it. We can’t really have physical contact right now anyways, so that helps with not fanning the fire I guess.”

“I imagine Apollo cannot see you either,” Chiron mused. “That is why he brought you here with Hermes, correct? He is involved?”

“Shh,” Percy hissed. “Don’t say their names!”

Dionysos rolled his eyes. “Please. Since when do you give a damn about provoking us? We’re not always listening for every whisper of our name. I’m sure my father does, though, the bastard.”

“Mr. D,” Chiron warned.

“I don’t want either of them to worry about me right now,” Percy explained. “I’m keeping them updated as much as I can, but I’m leaving out the more unpleasant details.”

Dionysos scrutinized her. “Hermes is probably panicking over it anyways. You might as well be honest with him. He, and Apollo I suppose, shouldn’t only be aware of the developments on Olympos. If my brother’s actually your…boyfriend,” he said, grimacing at the word, “you should be transparent. Don’t pull your I-don’t-want-to-bother-my-loved-ones-with-my-very-serious-problems bullshit, especially in a situation as grave as this.”

Percy’s face turned an ugly shade of puce, and for the millionth time she cursed her inability to control blushing. “I – fine. Yes, maybe you are right. I didn’t consider that it would hurt his feelings instead of saving him a headache, and now I feel like a dick. Happy?”

The god smiled. “Very much.”

Percy angrily stuffed a piece of jerky into her mouth. Chiron shot her another worried glance, and she felt like smacking it off his face. And then immediately felt guilty for thinking about it. “I’m sorry,” she groaned. “I’m just so uncomfortable all the fucking time and the weight of the future is pressing down on me like an anvil and I miss Hermes and my sister and my mom – fuck, I miss my mom. I wish I could send him down to check on her.”

Dionysos looked at her with something resembling sympathy. “Have you considered asking Nico DiAngelo? That boy would do almost anything for you.”

Chiron turned to him sharply. “No. You know he is not supposed to summon.”

“He wouldn’t summon her, just speak with her. Perhaps it would bring Perseus some peace.”

Nico was grumpy the last time she’d Iris-messaged him. When she brought up the reincarnation situation in the Underworld, he bitterly admitted that he hadn’t been able to find out anything more. She didn’t want to add to his troubles.

“That’s the second time you’ve said my real name today,” Percy commented. “Percy would be better, but Perseus is definitely progress. Thank you, Mr. D.”

Dionysos rolled his eyes. “Don’t get sappy, Peggy. You just ruined it.”

The three of them laughed together, and it was enough to lift her spirits for a while. She was heartened to know they were on her team.

During a sword training session, Percy observed Max being more distracted than usual. His mood had seemed on the dour side recently, but until now it hadn’t affected his performance. After landing direct hits on him one after another, she paused their spar. Not wanting to embarrass him further, she kept her voice low and gentle so his peers could not hear. She also didn’t mention that she had been going easy on him.

“Hey, kid. You doing alright? You seem a little down today.”

The scowl that appeared on his face made her heart skip a beat. It was not an expression she had ever seen on his face before. The contrast of the dark look paired with his Naruto headband and velour jumpsuit was almost comical enough to make her smile, though.

“I’m fine,” he snapped. “Just keep going. And I’m not a fucking kid.”

Percy tried to keep her cool. “Well, I for one could call it quits for today. Maybe we’ll try again this weekend? I’ll make it a whole hour. Just you and me.”

His face crumpled. “Gods – stop. Just stop, Percy. Please.”

She returned Anaklusmos to its pen form and walked over to the other kids to dismiss them. After gulping down a large canteen of water, she went over to Max again. “I know something’s been up,” she revealed.

“Has Jade been spilling everything to you? Figures,” he said. The anger in his voice and posture was gone, leaving him looking bone-tired.

“Seems we’re both running on empty tanks. I know why I am, so how about you?”

His gaze turned downwards. “There’s something I have to do, but…I don’t know that I want to. Not anymore.”

They’d entered dangerous waters. How many times had she heard something along those lines coming from a demigod?

“Maximos.”

“You sound like my mom,” he whined.

“Well, it’s good practice, I guess.” Max froze, which did not go unnoticed by Percy. But still, she continued. “The main reason I’ve been off, is…um…well, I’m in the family way, so to speak. Bun in the oven. However you want to say it. And! I’d appreciate if you kept that to yourself for now. It’s not exactly something I want to advertise.”

“You’re pregnant.”

“Yes.”

“But I thought you were lebane – lesbanese. Lesbian.”

“Wow, that took you a moment. Lesbians can get pregnant too, by the way. But no, I’m not one. Or I thought I was? I was never really interested in anyone but Annabeth, so I didn’t spend time thinking about my specific orientation, you know? I guess technically I found Nico DiAngelo hot for like thirty minutes, but then he made fun of my awful haircut and ruined the moment. And there was one other dude who I liked for a summer, but he was way too old for me and turned out to completely suck, so…”

Max stared at Percy, and she couldn’t figure out what was going through his mind.

“So, whose is it? Obviously he left you.”

She let out a startled laugh. “You don’t pull any punches, do you?”

“I didn’t mean it like –”

“No, no. It’s okay,” she told him with a smile. “He didn’t leave me. We’ve been together since August. Things have moved pretty fast, but I’m happy with him. Really happy.”

“Is he from our world?”

She considers a response. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“A demigod or something else? Have I heard of him? Oh my gods, it isn’t Grover, is it? I thought that was a fake rumor! Percy…that is so messed up –”

“Max.”

He faltered. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be nosy.”

“Yes, you do, and it’s alright. But I’m not open to talking about it right now. It doesn’t matter who he is anyway.”

“I legit thought you and Ms. Chase would be together forever. It was kind of cold how she dropped your ass right after your mom died.”

“That’s…not exactly how it happened. It wasn’t a shock to me,” Percy told him. “Things had been a little rocky between us for a while. But she seems to be having a good time out in California now, so I’m happy for her. She’s getting married to a daughter of Aphrodite, if you can believe that. A woman very different from me, but I think they actually complement each other.”

Max looked pensive. “It’s nice that we can get married now.”

“What do you mean?”

He kicked a pebble across the ground with the tip of his sneaker. “Like…from what I’ve heard, we usually died before we could think about settling down or anything. Not all demigods, obviously, but most. After my…my brother died…well, I heard he asked you to make the gods promise to make life less shitty for us. I don’t ever want there to be another Luke, Percy. Because I like being able to have contact with my dad, even if it’s not in person. I like that my siblings and friends don’t have to do bullshit errands for the gods unless they want to. I like that the world is a little safer for us now.”

“Do you think about Luke often?” Percy asked quietly.

“Yeah. I hate him. For what he did.”

She had to close her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, Max was staring at her. “Don’t hate,” she told him. “Mourn, be angry at injustice, but don’t let hate consume you. That would make you like Luke. The thing is, Max, that he could have been any of us – could be any of us. He wasn’t a bad seed. He was a very sad, very angry kid manipulated by a force greater than you and I can fully comprehend. Kronos preyed on the darkness inside Luke, magnified it, and used it to take over our world. Try to, anyway. Gods know that didn’t work.”

“Can – can you say his name?”

“What, Kronos? Yeah, go wild with it. Might make some people wince, but you don’t care much about that anyway,” Percy said with a grin. “Though I wouldn’t recommend throwing around the gods’ names all the time, Kronos is currently spread so thin across the cosmos that he’ll never be whole again, or remotely close to whole. Shout it from the rooftops, kid.”

“He scares me,” Max revealed, a swallow going down his throat like a golf ball. She felt awful that the boy was so terrified.

“No one, demigod, titan, or other, will overthrow Olympos. There will be conflict, and people will conspire against the gods as they always have, but no one will succeed in toppling the thrones. We won’t allow it. That’s not to say you should never question the gods. I wouldn’t be Percy Jackson if I told you to love them blindly. But you don’t need to think about them any more than you want to, okay?”

Max gave her a fragile look. “Okay, Percy.”

He didn’t sound convincing, but there wasn’t much more she could do at that moment. “You never met Luke, and that’s for the best. It would hurt much more if you’d known him before he went down that path.”

“Percy…”

“Yes?”

“Would you kill someone who did what Luke did?”

She blanched. “I – if they brought destruction to this camp and dragged you into their idea of revenge, then…I would kill them, yes. As a last resort. You kids are under my protection. I could never let someone who harmed you get away without a major warning. And Olympos cannot fall. It would shatter our world.”

“Just checking. Thank you, Percy.” He adjusted the knot of his headband which had slowly been slipping down his forehead since their conversation. “I’m going to get some lunch.”

Percy opened her mouth to speak but closed it as Max turned tail and sprinted away. Their talk had gone to some uncomfortable places, and her concern for him was far greater than it had been before. Who had told him that stuff about Luke in the first place? His oldest siblings didn’t like speaking of Luke either, and on the rare occasions she spoke of him to the campers, she focused on the legacy of his story rather than the horrible things he’d done while guided by the hand of Kronos. She’d always been careful not to paint Luke as a total villain, but it was tricky. In the beginning, Kronos had only seduced him to his side; he hadn’t controlled Luke’s every move and decision.

It was fourteen years after Luke’s death, and Percy’s feelings about him were still a mess. Sometimes she even understood him, which was far worse than being angry.

The conversation with Max weighed on her for the rest of the day, and when it was finally time to retire, she was so preoccupied with thoughts of the boy that she forgot to look forward to it. There had been something tormented in the boy's eyes that reminded her of a time long ago when she was just a teenager and demigods were fighting and dying with their brothers and sisters.

Jade had mentioned that her brother had been unwell for a while, but it had taken Percy a few weeks to observe the behavior she had alluded to. After speaking with Max, she was certain his troubles had little to do with the raging hormones of adolescence.

Since returning to camp, Percy had been keeping a closer eye on Cabin Eleven. She studied their faces, words, mannerisms, and actions in hopes of seeing her lover in a new light. The physical resemblance between him and his children was the weakest. Many half-bloods took after their mortal parent, with only a few characteristics from their godly one sprinkled in. The slightly upturned brows and mischievous eyes and smiles tied Hermes’ children together.

Percy was an example of a half-blood that resembled their godly parent quite strongly. Yes, she was a woman and stout where her father was tall, her hair a bit curlier, her skin a shade darker, but it was still uncanny how much she looked like Poseidon at times (and, therefore, she looked a little too much like a certain Titan king).

In addition to their few physical similarities, Hermes’ children each carried his specific type of charisma. They were some of the best sweet-talkers around when they wanted to be, and unlike Aphrodite’s children, their looks played a relatively insignificant role in their persuasiveness. Luke had been a notable exception, and apart from him they looked like normal trouble-making kids. Percy hoped her child would follow that pattern.

When she spent time with Cabin Eleven, as a group and one-on-one, she felt a myriad of emotions ranging from comfort to longing. She had always loved all of the campers, even the brats, but now she viewed Cabin Eleven from a different angle. These were Hermes’ children, the most precious people in the world to him, even though he was far from an upstanding parent. Yes, Percy had no qualms (inwardly) saying that he was still a god and could never give his kids what they so deeply craved. That was part of The Demigod’s Curse - to share your most powerful qualities with someone you'd never truly know.

On occasion, jealousy would grip her with stinging claws. The mothers Cabin Eleven always spoke of became less likable, a source of poor self-esteem while she was in her vulnerable state. She hated herself for letting it bother her. It wasn’t the divine machination of the daemon Pthonos; it was entirely her own creation. Envy was beneath her, and it wasn’t something she knew well, but she was feeling its ache all the same. The ocean between her and Hermes became wider and deeper the more they became entwined. But at the same time, she felt so close to him that it seemed like all the forces in the universe could not tear her away.

Percy flopped on her bed and sighed. She could be so dramatic sometimes.

Biting cold air seeped through the walls, providing the cabin with an inescapable chill. Luckily, she had become increasingly resistant to the cold over the years, and so while the nights she spent alone may have been lonely, at least they didn’t make her teeth chatter.

She had meant to drop something into the hearth earlier, but one glimpse of Hestia had sent her running. She would have loved to catch up with her favorite aunt, but there was no way the goddess wouldn’t notice the baby in her belly. So, she lit a candle for Hermes, not daring to make a sacrifice to him through her father’s fountain. The candle was nothing but a stub of wax she’d scrounged up in Rachel’s room. There were probably a dozen campers that would have jumped at the chance to give her a nicer one, but she hadn’t wanted to take from them.

It was likely Hermes would take offense to her sacrifice, as she was his partner and the future mother of one of his children, but the unfortunate reality was that he was more reachable through formal prayer than when she talked at him in her mind. And on this day she needed more than just a gust of wind as acknowledgement.

Percy had carefully pruned some of her plants earlier and tied the trimmings together with twine. She held the small bundle over the candle’s flame. As the trimmings turned black and curled up, she spoke a soft invocation, hoping Hermes would hear it. Once the trimmings were ashen, she stared at the nearly extinct stub of wax, waiting for a response. After a few minutes of lonely silence, a letter appeared in the air and floated down to the ground like a feather. She picked it up, and the sight of the conch shell seal made her heart swell. If this was the closest they could be right now, then she’d savor it.

________________

Percy’s dreams shifted one last time. She saw the Big House at camp, but judging by the bright red paint it was a different era. The campers down at the volleyball pit had atrocious eighties’ hairstyles, which she thought were probably very effective at keeping monsters at bay.

Chiron stood by the porch, talking to Hermes and a woman holding a baby. The god wore his usual jogging suit with his winged high-tops. The woman was lovely and tall. She had soft blond hair, shining eyes, and a friendly smile. The baby in her arms squirmed in its blue blanket like Camp Half-Blood was the last place it wanted to be.

"It's an honor to have you here," Chiron told the woman, though he sounded nervous. "It's been a long time since a mortal was allowed at camp."

"Don't encourage her," Hermes grumbled. "May, you can't do this."

With a shock, Percy realized the person in front of her was none other than May Castellan. She looked nothing like the haggard woman from before. Luke’s mother seemed full of life—the kind of person who could smile and make everyone around her feel good. Percy imagined it had been very easy for Hermes to fall in love with her.

"Oh, don't worry so much," May said, rocking the baby. "You need an Oracle, don't you? The old one's been dead for, what, twenty years?" 

"Longer," Chiron said gravely.

Hermes raised his arms in exasperation. "I didn't tell you that story so you could apply. It's dangerous. Chiron, tell her."

"It is," Chiron warned. "For many years, I have forbidden anyone from trying. We don't know exactly what's happened. Humanity seems to have lost the ability to host the Oracle."

"We've been through that," May said. "And I know I can do it. Hermes, this is my chance to do something good. I've been given the gift of sight for a reason."

Percy wished she could yell at May to stop. She knew what was about to happen and finally understood how the woman’s life had been destroyed. But she couldn't move or speak. She was helpless.

Hermes looked more hurt than worried. "You couldn't marry if you became the Oracle," he complained. "You couldn't see me anymore."

May put her hand on his arm. "I can't have you forever, can I? You'll move on soon. You're immortal."

He started to protest, but she put her hand on his chest. "You know it's true! Don't try to spare my feelings. Besides, we have a wonderful child. I can still raise Luke if I'm the Oracle, right?"

Chiron coughed. "Yes, but in all fairness, I don't know how that will affect the spirit of the Oracle. A woman who has already borne a child—as far as I know, this has never been done before. If the spirit does not take—"

"It will," May insisted.

No! I wanted to shout. It won't.

May Castellan kissed her baby and handed the bundle to Hermes. "I'll be right back."

She gave them one last confident smile and climbed the steps.

Chiron and Hermes paced in silence. Luke squirmed.

A green glow lit the windows of the house. The campers stopped playing volleyball and stared up at the attic. A cold wind rushed through the strawberry fields.

Hermes must've felt it too. He cried, "No! NO!"

He shoved the baby into Chiron's arms and ran for the porch. Before he reached the door, the sunny afternoon was shattered by May Castellan's terrified scream.