#annabeth and malcolm sibling fic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tsarisfanfiction · 3 months

Text

Laurels and Labyrinths

Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rating: Teen Genre: Friendship Characters: Lee Fletcher, Clarisse La Rue, Annabeth Chase, Michael Yew Being paired with Clarisse for Quintus' war game? Not a problem. Annabeth and Percy going missing? A problem. Otherwise known as: the war games in chapter 3 of BOTL from Lee's pov. Once again, I attempt something short and it ends up being rather longer than planned. There is a whole pile of headcanons snuck in here, from Apollo kids getting tired at sundown, to the harpies not attacking Apollo kids because they're the healers and have potential reasons to be out after curfew, and various other things in between. Also the logic that Lee knows about the Labyrinth from being the healer brought in to try and help Chris. Reminder that there’s now a discord server for all my fics, including this one! If you wanna chat with me or with other readers about stuff I write (or just be social in general), hop on over and say hi!

“Your armour’s crooked, Will.”

“Tha- hey!”

Lee turned around to see Will tilted awkwardly as Michael tugged on the straps, straightening out his breastplate – or what would be straight, once Michael let go and Will could straighten up again. Will wasn’t much taller than Michael – yet – but it was already enough to be noticeable. Confident that despite appearances Michael would get Will’s armour sorted out, Lee just allowed himself a small grin at the sight before he turned back to securing his own straps tightly and checking over the rest of his siblings.

Quintus hadn’t said what, exactly, these war games he wanted all the campers armoured up for were, but if it didn’t involve the suspicious crates that had disappeared from the arena during the day, Lee would be very, very surprised. He knew he wasn’t the only one to think that; most of the confused mutterings he’d overhead since the breakfast announcement had mentioned them at one point or another, until every camper had at least heard about the crates, even the ones that hadn’t seen them.

Lee just hoped that there wasn’t another drakon involved. He was still tired from chasing off the Aethiopean drakon at three in the morning – it had not wanted to be chased off, either, and if it wasn’t for the protection of the camp borders, Lee was well aware it would’ve tried much harder to kill him and his siblings, rather than just being stubborn to chase off. He was also aware that Michael was also grumpy from the lack of sleep as well as not being able to kill the creature, and the knowledge that it was almost certainly sent by Luke to scout out their weaknesses.

Well, at least they’d proven that they could still defend their camp, although Lee had his own concerns he hadn’t dared share with any of his siblings.

Clarisse hadn’t wanted to bring him into the know, but she wasn’t a healer, and both she and Chris had needed one. Will’s aptitude for healing was constantly improving, but this wasn’t something to put on the shoulders of a then-eleven year old, so it had fallen to Lee, instead.

Knowing that the Labyrinth still existed, and seeing the damage it could cause to demigods, was one thing. Add in the creeping feeling that if it connected to everywhere important as well as several seemingly-random locations, there was almost certainly an entrance within camp borders, somewhere, and if the scouting monsters outside of camp were any indication, Lee bet Luke was looking for it? Well, Lee was not looking forwards to Quintus’ war game.

Glancing over towards where cabin five were pulling on their own armour and arming themselves to the teeth, he could see Clarisse tensely checking her straps. He clearly wasn’t the only one – and a brief look towards Annabeth straightening Malcolm’s helmet in a fidget she didn’t usually indulge in told him that all three of the in-the-know campers were in agreement.

Still, Lee couldn’t just pull his cabin out of the war game, even though Quintus wasn’t as terrifying as Tantalus had been and might even let him. Doing that would signal to the rest of the camp that there was something very wrong, and they couldn’t afford the panic. Instead, he had to give his siblings one more check – Will’s armour was now straight, as Lee had known it would be, and Sam, who had been in camp for all of a few weeks and still painfully new to anything combat-related, now had his helmet on as an extra precaution – before herding them to where the adult demigod was waiting for them.

The campers gathered in a loose crowd, more-or-less grouped by cabin, although there were a few strays mingling – notably Beckendorf and Silena, and Lee wasn’t an Aphrodite kid but even he was getting fed up of waiting for those two to stop dancing around the subject and get together already – and waited for Quintus to explain what he wanted them to do.

“Gather round,” the assistant activities director instructed. None of them got too close to where he was standing on the head table, because Mrs O’Leary was scavenging around and no-one was interested in getting bowled over by an enthusiastic hellhound, even if she wasn’t trying to eat them, but the crowd shuffled a little in response anyway. “You will be in teams of two-”

Immediately, everyone started talking. Michael grabbed onto Will and glared daggers at anyone else that even looked their brother’s way, and Lee sought out Miri with his eyes, ignoring the arguments breaking out as multiple people wanted the same partner and would fight for them-

“-Which have already been chosen!” Quintus shouted about the clamour. Everyone silenced for a moment before letting out a chorus of complaint which went ignored as he kept talking. “Your goal is simple: collect the gold laurels without dying. The wreath is wrapped in a silk package, tied to the back of one of the monsters. There are six monsters. Each has a silk package. Only one holds the laurels.” No prizes for what was in the crates, then, although Lee would’ve liked to know what monsters Quintus had lined up for them. He hoped none of them were drakons. “You must find the wreath before the other teams. And, of course… you will have to slay the monster to get it, and stay alive.”

Around him, campers started talking again, excitement tinging the air. Lee had to admit it did sound like fun, even if they couldn’t choose their own partners. Quintus had never shown any signs of wanting the demigods he was partly responsible for dead, so the monsters he’d brought in wouldn’t be beyond their abilities to deal with, Lee was pretty sure – especially if they were going to be working in pairs, and he doubted they’d all been matched with their perfect fighting partner. If it wasn’t for the ever-present background Labyrinth worry that had been plaguing him since Clarisse and Chris’ return to camp in the winter, he’d probably be just as excited as Michael, who had bared his teeth in a grin at the concept even though he was clearly still annoyed about not being able to choose his own partner.

This sort of game was right up Michael’s alley, after all.

“I will now announce your partners,” Quintus said, bringing the murmuring back into silence. “There will be no trading. No switching. No complaining.” From the way Michael was bristling from where he was stood so close to Will that their arms were pressed together, Lee suspected the last order was a lost cause. Hopefully, Quintus had a good enough idea of camper dynamics to know who not to put together.

If Michael ended up with Clarisse, the monsters were going to be the least of anyone’s worries.

Quintus cleared his throat and unrolled a scroll – a long scroll, because it was far enough into summer that all the expected returning campers had shown up again – and began to read.

“Charles Beckendorf and Silena Beauregarde.” Both of them looked delighted, and around Lee, campers started perking up again, because if Quintus was paying enough attention to put those two together, maybe the rest of them were also paired with friends or partners. “Travis Stoll and Connor Stoll,” made it seem even more likely, and the brothers high fived each other as campers started drifting towards their preferred partners again, in anticipation of the trend continuing.

“Clarisse La Rue and Lee Fletcher.”

It didn’t. Lee grimaced at Miri, ignoring Michael starting to grumble unsavoury things about the daughter of Ares. At least Quintus had known better than to pair them together. Clarisse stepped away from her siblings, and made eye contact with Lee, jerking her head in a clear get over here message. Michael’s grumbling got louder, only to be cut off by his own name.

“Michael Yew and Drew Tanaka.”

The daughter of Aphrodite screwed her face up in disgust, and Lee’s brother glowered at her in return. It wasn’t a bad match-up, Lee mused as he finally made his way over to join Clarisse. Drew’s charmspeak wouldn’t affect Michael, and she was a decent enough melee fighter to go with his ranged attacks. As long as they actually co-operated.

He saw Michael leave Will’s side to join her with bad grace. Their matching scowls almost made Lee chuckle.

“They’re going to get each other killed,” Clarisse huffed next to him. She didn’t sound particularly cut up about it.

“They’d better not,” he muttered back as Quintus continued calling out pairings, which were met with a variety of reactions. Will got partnered with Malcolm, which was not the worst possibility, even if Lee would really have preferred for Will to not be involved in the war game at all. At least Malcolm was smart enough to not throw the pair of them straight at the monsters – or really competitive enough to care. Maybe that pair would just linger at the forest edge like sensible pre-teens.

Lee could hope.

The pairing finally finished with the curious duo of Tyson and Grover – the only satyr to be included, presumably for his friendship with Percy – and Quintus reminded them all that they weren’t allowed to complain before letting them head towards the woods.

It wasn’t dusk yet, but the sun was far enough across the sky that Lee suspected it would be after dark by the time they were done, and wasn’t particularly pleased about it. They didn’t currently have any Apollo campers young enough that the setting sun was an automatic sleep signal, but none of them liked being active after sundown, let alone in combat – and definitely not two nights in a row.

“I’ll take point,” Clarisse said gruffly, as they arrived at the edge of the wood. Lee nodded.

“I’ve got your back,” he promised her. “Let’s get this over with.”

She made a noise of agreement, surveying the shadowed woods in front of them intently, and Lee remembered that he wasn’t the only one that feared a Labyrinth entrance somewhere within the camp’s borders. Clarisse had no more reason to feel comfortable with the war game than he did.

Working with Clarisse wasn’t difficult, in combat. Lee had done it several times over the years in Capture the Flag, both as head counsellors and also when they were younger, to say nothing of when they’d had to organise the camp defences the previous summer. If there was something Clarisse knew, it was combat, and she stalked through the woods on high alert, electric spear silent in her hand. Lee shadowed her on light feet, not letting himself focus on any one thing, but spreading his attention around them in case they were flanked or approached from behind.

In the gradually fading light of dusk, the woods began to take on an ominous feel. Branches rustled in faint breezes, in conversation between the dryads that tended not to leave their trees, with the movement of almost a hundred demigods trying to move quietly, and in some cases failing.

Knowing that the noises could mean allies – or in this case, campers and not monsters – Lee forced himself not to shoot at any movement until he knew what it was. Unlike Capture the Flag, and other games where their opponents were each other, none of the Apollo kids had blunted arrows tonight. He couldn’t afford stray shots.

Ahead came the sound of skittering on fallen twigs, and Clarisse threw her hand up silently in a clear command to halt. Lee stopped where he was immediately, nocking the arrow he’d held loosely in his hand onto the string but not drawing, not yet. That hadn’t been a demigod or a dryad noise, and probably wasn’t the wind either, which meant monster but until he could see it, he wasn’t risking full draw.

Clarisse made another sharp hand signal, exaggerated in the dusk. Cover me. Then she crept forwards, fingers flexing around the shaft of her spear, poised to ignite the crackling electricity the moment she needed it. Lee stayed a little way behind her, padding forwards silently with his bow ready to draw and fire in an instant in his hands.

The skitter came again, closer, louder, faster-

Clarisse let out a shout of victory, silence shattering as her spear surged to life and she abandoned stealth to leap into action, fluid experience ducking her underneath a flailing scorpion tail – pit scorpion venom flashed through Lee’s mind, the discolouration of Percy’s hand, the revelation that Luke betrayed them, but he pushed it aside to deal with later, when Clarisse wasn’t dodging the giant scorpion (not a pit scorpion) and its attacks.

Scorpions were armoured, which was a pain in the half-light when Lee couldn’t see its weak spots so clearly, but they were in pairs for a reason and he wasn’t leaving Clarisse to take the creature on alone. He waited until she was down low, out of his line of sight, before letting fly with the first arrow, catching it in a chink between head and body armour.

Just like the drakon the previous night, armoured and needing to be shot at in the dark, that wasn’t enough to bring it down, and with stealth abandoned, Lee didn’t hesitate to yank more arrows from his quiver, the shafts whispering against the leather before nocks clicked into place on the string and he fired again. In front of him, Clarisse threw herself inside the scorpion’s guard, thrusting the spear forwards with enough strength that it impaled the tail and rendered it useless, before drawing her knife and stabbing at one of the gaps in its carapace.

Lee let more arrows fly into more gaps, too, and with one last grunt from Clarisse as she drove the knife in deep, the scorpion burst into dust, covering Clarisse.

Its silk-wrapped parcel likewise disappeared with a small explosion, leaving nothing behind.

“Not that one, then,” Lee commented as Clarisse spat out monster dust from her mouth and drank a swig of water from her water bottle.

“One down, five to go,” she replied, bending down to retrieve her spear and looking it over with a critical eye. Seemingly satisfied that it hadn’t been damaged by the scorpion’s tough exterior, she slammed the butt down onto the ground. “Laurel leaves or not, we’re killing them all.”

Lee didn’t disagree. While he knew the two of them were unlikely to be the ones finding and killing all six of the monsters – Percy Jackson was somewhere in the woods, along with Annabeth, and Michael, and the rest of the Ares and Athena cabins, and really all the demigods were trained for killing monsters – they couldn’t leave until they knew their woods were safe again.

Well, for a certain degree of safe.

“These things aren’t quiet,” he said, kneeling down to retrieve his arrows and check if any of them were bent. Some were, but not to the point of being unusable, so he put them all back in his quiver. “Not when they’re fighting.”

Clarisse nodded, looking around. “This one was alone,” she said. “The noise hasn’t drawn any more to us.” She started walking, changing direction and striking out further away from the setting sun, into the darker, deeper parts of the wood. “So we’re going to them.”

Lee followed without complaint.

They’d started off at the edge of the forest, tracking around the camp’s forest boundary, but now Clarisse was leading them further into the heart of the demigod-claimed territory. Quintus had probably released them from somewhere in there, near the creek they always used as the territory divider in Capture the Flag. Lee hoped he had, because that was familiar territory for all but the newest campers, and familiar terrain in combat helped, especially for the younger and less confident fighters.

As they headed further into regular demigod territory, they began to pass other pairs. Most of the younger kids hadn’t gone far into the forest, unnerved by the dense trees in the creeping darkness, and Lee was glad for that. Having now faced one of Quintus’ monsters, while it hadn’t been much of a challenge for him and Clarisse, the less experienced demigods would struggle.

At one point, they passed Michael and Drew. The daughter of Aphrodite had the tell-tale dust in her hair and was furious about it, shouting at Michael about something or other. From the brief snatches he caught, Lee surmised she didn’t like that she was the front line fighter in their duo, and that Michael was not covered in monster-dust because he’d been shooting from up a tree.

Neither of them were wearing golden laurels, and bringing Clarisse close to Michael while Michael was tired and grumpy and already dealing with Drew’s temper was a recipe for a disaster that Lee wanted no part in, so he forged past them without acknowledging their existence. To his relief, Clarisse likewise ignored the pair, holding her head up and deliberately not even glancing their way as she continued on her path towards what was hopefully more monsters to kill.

They ended up at Zeus’ Fist, and found three more of the scorpions at once. They were skittering around the rock pile agitatedly, as though there was something there that they wanted, and all Lee could think of was cornered demigods, even though he couldn’t see any sign of any.

Clarisse growled. “Shoot them, Lee!” she ordered as her spear crackled into life and she threw herself at the trio of eight-legged, skittering monsters. Lee didn’t need to be told twice, nocking arrows and drawing his bow back. With more scorpion than Clarisse in his sights, it was easier to let fly and trust that he wouldn’t hit her, although the steadily-darkening sky made it harder to spot the cracks in the scorpions’ armour. Clarisse’s spear gave off a faint red glow as Ares’ power coursed through it, enough to throw deeper shadows into the gaps, and Lee used that as a guidance as he steadily emptied his quiver into the three monsters, targeting joints to try and restrict their movement as Clarisse stabbed and slashed with her spear in one hand and her knife in the other.

Not for the first time, Lee suspected that Clarisse was the best melee fighter in the camp, potentially barring Percy when he got wet. It was hardly a surprise, but that didn’t make it any less awe inspiring to watch as she slowly but surely wore down the three scorpions. It wasn’t an easy battle for her – even with Lee’s supporting fire and the arrows wedging themselves in limb joints, she was still taking hits, although her armour deflected the worst of them – but there was no doubt that she was going to win, eventually.

Lee’s quiver emptied, the downside of dealing with three scorpions at once when each of them could get turned into a pincushion and still stay standing, and he set his bow to the side, drawing his knife and stepping closer to the fray. He wasn’t a melee fighter, really, but if he could even play distraction for a few seconds, that would help Clarisse.

“I’ve got this!” she snapped as he ducked under a flailing tail, and promptly proved her words by stabbing the scorpion closest to him through the head with her spear. A surge of electricity and Lee found himself covered by dust, a small, silk-wrapped parcel dropping down neatly into his hands. Remembering the previous one, he went to drop it before it went boom, only for the silk to shift and expose gold. Instead of dropping it, he stuffed it into his quiver and dropped to his knees in the middle of the dust pile, scooping up his arrows and frowning when he realised most of them were damaged in some way or another. Only two were still useable, and he scrambled back to his bow, nocking both arrows at once as he ran back into the fray.

A few years ago, on one of his trips out of camp, he and some of the other campers had found themselves at the movies, on edge for monsters trying to kill them but likewise fascinated by the movie they’d ended up watching. Lee was pretty certain he’d technically been too young for the rating, but some of the older demigods had snuck him in anyway.

The elf – Lee did not remember the character’s name – jumping on top of an elephant’s head and firing two arrows point-blank into the top of its skull had stuck with him. Typically that was far closer to a monster than archers were supposed to get, and the laws of physics dictated that by dividing the force between two arrows, both would’ve been fired weaker than usual, but Lee was a son of Apollo, and while he wasn’t as much of an archer as Michael, his father was still the god of archery, and that came with a few perks – like occasionally ignoring the laws of archery physics.

Lee sprung onto the back of one of the scorpions, the one behind Clarisse as she attacked the other with a fresh degree of ferocity, and ran forwards, ducking the tail that lashed towards him as he made his way to its head and aimed down.

The explosion of dust in his face also made him lose his footing as nothing substantial was beneath him anymore. He stumbled to the ground as Clarisse vanquished the other one with a cry, breathing heavily but seemingly unbothered by the dust covering her skin.

“One left,” the daughter of Ares said, proving that she had noticed Michael and Drew earlier.

Lee, too, wanted to keep going, but, “I’m out of arrows,” he admitted, picking up the other arrows from where they’d been dropped after the scorpions had dissolved. All of them were bent or even broken; the two he’d killed one of the scorpions with had shattered entirely.

Clarisse scoffed. “That’s the problem with you archers,” she said. It was something Lee had heard her say many times to Michael, who had always taken it as a personal insult and reacted accordingly, usually with arrows. Lee was not quite so temperamental as his younger brother, and simply drew his knife again.

“I still have this,” he said. She didn’t look impressed, even though her own knife had already been liberally used to kill giant scorpions. “Oh, and this.”

He rummaged through his quiver and stepped up next to Clarisse, plucking out the silk-wrapped parcel and wrestling the golden laurels out.

The younger girl gave him a nonplussed look as he deposited it on her head.

“Your kill, your laurels,” he said, and she rolled her eyes, but reached up and positioned the laurels more firmly in her hair.

“Whatever,” she said. “We have one more scorpion to hunt-”

Rustling in the nearby trees had both of them slamming back-to-back, Lee’s bow abandoned on the ground and his knife clenched in his fist as Clarisse’s spear crackled to life behind him.

Another scorpion? It was already weird that three of them had been together like that – surely there shouldn’t be a fourth one in their vicinity.

It wasn’t another scorpion, and Lee felt the tension drain from Clarisse’s body as her spear stopped crackling. Other demigods, then. He moved around until he could see them; it was Sherman, with his Quintus-mandated partner Jake following on behind him.

Clarisse’s younger brother immediately noticed the golden laurels gleaming in the rapidly-fading light and his shoulders slumped.

“Of course you got it,” he said. “Pairing you two up was just unfair.”

“How many have you killed?” Jake asked them, looking at Lee’s strewn and broken arrows.

“Four,” Clarisse said shortly, and the younger boys both whistled through their teeth. “Drew and the short bastard-”

“Clarisse,” Lee sighed, and her jaw tightened.

“-Michael got another one, which makes five.”

“We got one, too,” Sherman said, and now Lee was looking he could see the silvery dusting in his dark hair, “so that’s all of them.”

Lee’s shoulders slumped in relief; he hadn’t been looking forwards to hunting a giant scorpion with a knife as his only weapon. “That means this game is over,” he said. “We should get back so Quintus can recall everyone else.” He glanced up at the sky, where the sun chariot had all but disappeared and the first of the stars were starting to make their presence known. “It’ll be curfew soon, anyway.”

All four of them were old enough to understand that even with the camp’s defences still active, they didn’t really want any campers left in the woods after curfew, when night had fully set in and there were no more traces of Apollo’s light.

Lee set about gathering up the remains of his arrows; just because the shafts were broken didn’t mean the heads weren’t reusable, and maybe some of the less severely bent shafts could be straightened again. Jake and Sherman joined him; a glance towards Clarisse showed her scanning the deepening shadows of the trees, standing as still as a sentinel and no doubt keeping watch in case there was something that shouldn’t be in their area of the woods.

With three of them on the case, it didn’t take long to retrieve all the visible arrows. Lee’s quiver looked a sorry sight as he slid in the last handful of damaged arrows and straightened up again.

“Let’s-” he started, only to be cut off by a familiar horn. It wasn’t the dinner conch, but it was the summoning sound Chiron used to call all the stragglers in after Capture the Flag was over. Either they’d hit a time limit, or Quintus had somehow determined that the laurel had been claimed.

Lee wasn’t sure which option he preferred, but it didn’t really matter when it got all four of them jogging back towards camp, away from Zeus’ fist and the dust of slaughtered scorpion-like monsters.

There were several unsurprised eyerolls as the other campers caught sight of the laurels in Clarisse’s choppy and messy hair – the new, shorter hair suited her a lot better, Lee thought, although after so many years it was still strange to see Clarisse with short hair. The general consensus seemed to match Sherman’s initial assessment – of course Clarisse was the one to win.

Michael was eyeing the laurel with a scowl as he ditched Drew and slunk up next to Lee. “Why’s she wearing it?” he huffed, thankfully quiet enough that Clarisse, who had gone to round up her cabin as they reappeared, didn’t hear.

Lee shrugged at his younger brother. “She killed that one.”

“That one?” Michael demanded, eyebrows shooting up. “How many did you fight?”

“Four.”

“Fucking Hades,” Michael swore, shaking his head. “Could’ve left some for the rest of us.”

“One was plenty, you bastard,” Drew muttered, passing them on the way to reconvening with her siblings. “Do you even care how long it takes to get monster dust out of your hair?”

“No.”

Lee couldn’t help a fond chuckle as the daughter of Aphrodite rolled her eyes and stalked off, muttering “of course he doesn’t. If he’d just let us at his hair…”

Michael’s step to the side, subtly putting Lee between him and the gathering of Aphrodite kids, almost made him smile again. They’d both heard, several times, that Michael had nice hair if only he’d treat it right, according to the Aphrodite cabin. Neither of them were quite sure what they meant by that, and Michael was in no hurry to find out, either, even if Lee was secretly curious.

One by one, the rest of Lee’s siblings started reappearing from the woods. Sam looked pale, and Tris’ eyes were half-lidded with exhaustion, and the rest of the cabin were in varying stages of tiredness. Two late nights in a row was not fun, and while Lee hadn’t seen any nasty injuries from the returning campers, he was sure there would be a few people with scratches that they’d be expected to deal with before bed. Will yawned as he separated from Malcolm, the older boy gripping his shoulder briefly, and more or less walked into Michael, resting his forehead on his shoulder.

“Can we go to bed now?” he mumbled as Michael patted his head.

“Once Quintus and Chiron say so,” Lee promised him, scanning all of his siblings for signs of injury. “Everyone okay?” he asked, raising his voice enough to be heard over the mutters and grumbles of his tired siblings. Aside from him and Michael, he knew none of them had actually fought the scorpions, so they’d spent the past hour or so of fading dusk wandering around the forest on edge with nothing exciting to show for it. No wonder they were all crashing now the game was over.

Camp was now fully lit with torches, and the ever-present glow of the hearth. Their dad’s chariot had long since returned to its temple, and Artemis’ was only giving a sliver of light tonight. Apollo kids were not night owls and it was getting late by their standards, especially the younger ones.

Even Michael was looking a rather tired, the drakon messing up his sleep last night combined with another late night tugging at him, too. Lee wasn’t quite fighting yawns, but he couldn’t deny he was also thinking fondly of his waiting bed.

Tyson and Grover were the last pair to stumble out of the forest, both immediately separating and circling around opposite sides of the gathering of demigods. Grover headed for where the Athena kids had clumped together, while Tyson looked around before saying, “where’s Percy?”

Everyone silenced, and the entire focus of the camp landed on the Athena cabin, because if anyone would know the answer to that, it would be Annabeth, but Annabeth wasn’t there, either. Grover stopped still, and frowned.

“I can’t feel Percy,” he admitted, four words that sent the whole of camp reeling. Not everyone knew about the empathy bond he had with the son of Poseidon, but everyone except the very newest campers knew he and Percy were close.

Even the newest campers knew the disappearance of their resident Big Three Kid didn’t bode well. Lee couldn’t help but remember the first time it happened, Percy and Luke nowhere to be found until suddenly Percy was in his infirmary with pit scorpion venom and Luke was gone.

Why did he keep remembering that, tonight? He shook his head and stepped forwards, the same time Clarisse did.

“We’d better find those idiots before they go off on another stupid quest without leave,” she grumbled, and Lee remembered the second time Percy disappeared – this time with Annabeth. No-one had ever got the full story out of that incident out of them, but it was a common theory that they’d overlapped with Clarisse’s quest to get the golden fleece, even if none of them had ever said as much.

Clarisse’s voice was just a little too annoyed for Lee to think there wasn’t something personal in the accusation, though.

“Not all of us,” he cut in, to say his own piece. “It’s way past curfew and the younger campers need to go to bed.”

“Annabeth’s missing!” one of the Athena kids yelled. Lee couldn’t see which one, but the voice was young.

“Now, now,” Chiron said, trotting forwards into the centre of attention, Quintus walking beside him. “They may have just gone deeper than everyone else and are taking longer to return.” After Grover’s declaration, Lee didn’t think anyone believed that. “And if there is a problem, it is not your jobs to sort it out.”

“You can’t expect us to stay back and not look for them,” Travis called from the throng of cabin eleven, echoed by Connor.

Chiron raised a hand as more demigods began to clamour, but it was Quintus who spoke.

“A compromise,” he suggested. “Chiron, how about enlisting the help of our head counsellors?” His gaze landed on Lee and Clarisse, their weight old and heavy, before he looked up at the centaur. “Some experienced help.”

More protests exploded from the younger campers, and the Athena cabin, whose head counsellor was the one missing, and Chiron sighed.

“Very well,” he said. “Head counsellors, select one of your siblings to help you, and another one to take charge of getting the rest of your cabins to bed and staying there. Quickly, now.”

Lee glanced at Clarisse, and caught her glancing back at him, his suspicions reflected in her eyes. Disappearing mirrored appearing, after all.

It was barely a moment, before they turned back to their respective cabins. The choice of who was coming with him was obvious, and Michael stepped up before he could even say anything. Really, Lee should make him the one in charge of the cabin – they all knew he would be the one to succeed Lee once he went to college in a year’s time, after all, and needed the practice – but he was their best archer and spent more time in the woods than most. He’d be best suited to the search party, even if it meant having to work with Clarisse.

“Lawrence, I’m leaving the cabin to you. Make sure everyone goes to bed,” Lee said. Lawrence was one of the oldest campers, older than him, and due to go to college in the fall. He’d also arrived at camp the same year as Michael and lived there ever since, making him one of the more experienced demigods, too – and everyone loved him. “I’m also out of arrows, so if anyone’s got any..?”

“I got it,” his brother agreed, scooping Sam and Tris under his arms. “Right then, sleepyheads. Bed time for you guys. Will, Alice, that includes you two. Grab them, Morton, and give Lee your spare arrows. Anyone else with arrows, do that, too.”

Lee accepted the various arrows from his siblings, passing the ones that were a bit shorter than he could comfortably use to Michael, whose quiver could always do with more, it seemed. Once both of them were once again armed to the teeth – and relieved of their broken and bent arrows – they left Lawrence to wrangling the tired cabin and went to join Chiron.

Most of the other head counsellors were already there. Clarisse had Sherman by her side, both of them looking impatient at the wait, while Drew sneered at Michael from beside Silena. Lee glanced over at the rest of the Aphrodite kids to see Miri corralling them back towards their cabin. She sent him a short wave when she caught sight of him looking, and he grinned back.

Michael, like any self-respecting little sibling, made disgusted noises under his breath, which Lee ignored with years of practice.

Unsurprisingly, Malcolm had elected himself as the head counsellor for the Athena cabin in Annabeth’s absence. He wasn’t the oldest, or even the most experienced, but he was the one that everyone already knew would inherit the position when Annabeth inevitably went to college one day. He had, at least, had the good sense to pick one of his older and more experienced siblings as his partner, though. Beckendorf was accompanied by Jake, Katie had picked Miranda, and Travis and Connor and Pollux and Castor had obviously picked each other. Lee hadn’t expected anything different from cabins eleven and twelve.

Grover and Tyson finished off the official search party, still keeping their distance from each other but adamant that they were going to be involved, anyway. No-one was going to tell them no.

“We’ll split into two groups to cover more ground but keep safety in numbers,” Chiron told them. “Clarisse and Sherman, Lee and Michael, Silena and Drew, Pollux and Castor, and Tyson – you’ll be with me.”

“And the rest of you are with me,” Quintus said. “And Mrs O’Leary, of course.” The hellhound let out a massive whoof that made them all jump.

Quintus’ search party looked a little discomforted at the reminder they were going into the woods accompanied by a hellhound, even if she was a friendly one. Lee was privately glad that he wasn’t in that group.

Chiron gave all of them torches and whistles, “in case anyone gets separated, or to let the other group know if we find them.” Lee looped his whistle around his neck, while Michael tangled the string around his quiver strap.

Going back into the woods late at night, when there was only the light of their torches and the faint strains of moon- and starlight to show the way, was disconcerting. Lee didn’t like it, and from the tenseness of everyone else’s shoulders, nor did anyone else. Stealth was no longer a priority, so Clarisse’s spear was constantly crackling, lighting up with red sparks that made her still-worn laurels glisten as though they were on fire.

“Percy!” Tyson bellowed suddenly, almost deafening them. Lee had to grip Michael’s arm to stop him firing an arrow at the cyclops, trying to pretend his other hand wasn’t halfway to raising his bow on instinct, either. “Annabeth!”

“Oi, Jackson! Wise girl!” Clarisse echoed after a moment, and one by one they all took up the call as they wove their way through the trees, hooves and feet alike making noise on the undergrowth. Regular animals scattered, and in the distance they heard answering echoes of the same names from the other search party, who had entered the woods at the other edge of the barrier.

It was a similar pattern to the one Lee and Clarisse had taken whilst hunting the scorpions, although they hadn’t had anyone the other side to complete the pincer movement.

Despite being a single search party, as they moved they started to spread out, never losing sight of each other’s torches, but covering a greater area as they combed the undergrowth, in case the missing demigods weren’t-

Weren’t capable of calling back.

Lee refused to think of why, didn’t let himself think of pit scorpions and half dead sons of Poseidon limp in the infirmary, but made sure to check every darker pocket of shadows with his torch, just to be sure. Above him, he could hear Michael slipping along tree branches, his torch providing far more light from the skies than the distant moon and stars and his voice joining the calls. He was the only one of their party that could really navigate the trees so easily – not just for his size, but because Lee had known for years that despite his brusqueness with the other demigods, Michael had long since got on the good side of the dryads and was allowed to clamber through them like a monkey, so long as he didn’t damage their trees – and Chiron had swiftly agreed that the additional viewing angle would only help.

For once, Clarisse hadn’t made any snide or antagonising remarks about Michael’s tendency to hide in trees and sneak around, which had only proven how concerned she actually was about Annabeth and Percy’s disappearance. Lee couldn’t quite kid himself into thinking it was just because Clarisse was worried it meant there was a Labyrinth entrance, and that they’d found it – ever since the fleece quest last summer, she’d been a little less outrightly hostile to Percy, and she and Annabeth had always been more of a butting heads rather than hating each other’s guts relationship. Lee had known the younger girls long enough to know that they respected each other, when it came down to it.

Lee’s torch picked up a scattering of dust, recent enough to have not been blown away by what wind made it through the trees, and the beam from Clarisse’s torch, next to him in their line, crossed it. They both paused, and looked at each other.

“The scorpions,” Clarisse said, her voice a little hoarse from the shouting. It was almost drowned out by the yells of their companions, but she was looking at Lee.

“They wouldn’t be killed by those,” he protested, and she grunted, slashing her spear through the air.

“I’m not an idiot,” she snapped. “Think, Lee.”

Lee blinked at her, glancing back at the scattered dust. Around and above them, the rest of the search party kept marching forwards.

“I’m not following,” he admitted. “What about them?”

She rolled her eyes before stomping forwards again, breaking their search pattern. Lee hurried to follow, because none of them were going alone. Behind him, he heard Drew curse as she spotted their torches headed in a different direction. “Oi, wrong way!”

Clarisse ignored her. “The first one was by itself,” she said. “So was the one Drew and Michael killed, and Sherman and Jake.”

Lee suddenly realised where she was going, and where they were headed. “But the other three were together.”

“Took you long enough,” she huffed.

“They weren’t facing us,” Lee continued to recall, hearing their names also being called, and the frustrated grunts of Michael in the trees above them as he caught up with them. “They’d been following something else. But there was nothing there, was there?”

“Enough of the damn universe revolves around Jackson,” Clarisse snorted. “Why wouldn’t half the damn monsters?”

“What are you two going on about?” Michael shouted down at them.

“Fuck off,” Clarisse snapped at him.

“Clarisse,” Lee scolded immediately, before glancing up at the torch dimly illuminating his younger brother in the trees. “We’re going to check Zeus’ Fist,” he told him. “Tell Chiron.” He didn’t leave it a question, because if he did, Michael would say no, and then he’d be stuck mediating between Clarisse and Michael whilst trying to find missing demigods, and at what had to be well past ten at night by now, Lee was far too tired to be dealing with their arguments.

“Tell him yourself,” Michael groused, because Lee wasn’t the only overtired Apollo kid on the search, and Michael got irritable even with him sometimes, and Lee was not dealing with this.

“Michael!” he snapped. “Go tell Chiron, now.”

Above him, the torchlight stuttered, and Lee felt a flash of guilt because he never snapped at Michael, but then it turned around and the dark silhouette of his younger brother headed back towards the bulk of the search party.

Clarisse whistled. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Lee.”

Lee groaned. “Clarisse. It is stupid o’clock at night. We spent a good hour earlier chasing and killing giant scorpions. Now there are missing demigods. Michael and I were up last night chasing off drakons at stupid o’clock in the morning. I am past tired, and we’re both worrying that the Labyrinth is involved even though neither of us can say it in front of the other campers.” She stiffened. “Do not push me right now.”

That was the wrong thing to say to an Ares kid – the default response to do not push me with them was always what are you going to do about it, and Clarisse had never been the exception to that rule. Lee braced himself for the inevitable jibe.

It didn’t come.

“You too?” she asked instead, her voice quiet in a way that Clarisse wasn’t, except when the Labyrinth came up. Lee didn’t know what, exactly, she’d been through when she’d explored it, but he remembered the injuries she’d come back to camp with. The scar on her chin was the only one visible in polite company, but there had been several, worse, wounds that were now knotted and ugly scars under her clothes. The thing with being the camp’s head healer was that Lee saw these things.

“I hope it isn’t,” he admitted, keeping a careful eye on the torches now following them from behind, because even if it was only senior campers, he didn’t want them overhearing this. Clarisse wouldn’t, either. “But…”

“Grover could reach Percy from the fucking Sea of Monsters,” Clarisse said, roughly, and adding more weight to the theory that their paths had crossed on the fleece quest. “If he can’t reach him now, it’s something worse than that.”

And it’s in our camp, she didn’t say, but Lee heard it loud and clear, anyway, and there wasn’t anything he could say to that, because he didn’t think she was wrong, but admitting out loud that she was right…

Well, there was a reason she didn’t say it.

Hooves pounded the ground behind them, and Lee turned around as Chiron caught them up. “You shouldn’t be wandering off without telling us,” the centaur said, disapprovingly.

“Lee sent Michael to tell you,” Clarisse muttered. The tree leaves above them rustled, but Michael didn’t say anything else. The guilt at snapping at his younger brother gnawed a little bit deeper.

“I know,” Chiron said, but he still didn’t sound happy. Then again, Lee had sent Michael with a message and no company, although he trusted the trees to keep Michael safe better than anyone would’ve been on the ground. “Why Zeus’ Fist?”

“There were three scorpions clustered together there,” Lee said, before Clarisse could. “They looked like they’d been chasing something, but there wasn’t anything there. We didn’t pay attention to that at the time, but…”

“But you now think that might have been Annabeth and Percy,” Chiron sighed. “I see. I can’t say I would be surprised; Percy does attract more monsters than the rest of you.”

Not for the first time, Lee was glad to not be a Big Three kid. He’d seen Thalia’s death when he’d been ten – and subsequent resurrection last summer – and all the chaos Percy had been falling into since his arrival two years ago, and was quite content with not being at the heart of all of that. It was bad enough getting involved on the periphery.

Percy and his pit scorpion-stung hand in the infirmary while nothing Lee could do helped continued to haunt him.

The rest of the search party kept calling the missing demigods’ names, but Lee and Clarisse kept forging forwards, waiting until they were in earshot of Zeus’ Fist before readding their voices to the now-hoarse calls of the others.

They almost ran straight into Grover, who was also shouting for Percy and Annabeth, completely separated from the rest of his search party. Chiron didn’t say anything about it, but Lee could feel his disapproval at the satyr striking off alone, especially as with his empathy bond he probably had a better chance at guessing where Percy had last been.

His presence did at least support his and Clarisse’s theory, though.

“Annabeth!” he shouted, as his torchlight picked up more scattered monster dust, the edge of Zeus’ Fist casting a sharp shadow through it. “Percy!”

Somewhere ahead of him, Tyson roared the names again.

Lee called again, walking closer to the pile of rocks and ending up next to Clarisse once more.

Annabeth and Percy almost collided with them, looking completely unharmed – to Lee’s relief – and confused.

“Where have you two been?” Clarisse immediately pounced, her agitation and frustration finally reaching boiling point.

“We’ve been looking forever,” Lee added, mostly to stall Clarisse’s momentum before she really let loose. They did not need Clarisse exploding in the middle of the night. Lee did not need Clarisse exploding in the middle of the night.

“But we were only gone a few minutes,” Percy protested, which was categorically wrong, because Lee was pretty certain they’d been gone for at least two hours at that point. Thankfully, Chiron appeared behind him, and Lee gladly stepped back to let someone else deal with the younger demigods now they were found and not hurt.

They’d better not be hurt.

Tyson seemed happy to jump in and confirm it; Percy liked Tyson too much to lie to him, or so Lee hoped.

“We’re fine,” the son of Poseidon promised. “We fell in a hole.”

Lee had been playing Capture the Flag around Zeus’ Fist since he was ten and finally deemed old enough. There was no hole there big enough to hide two demigods so completely for so long. The rest of Percy’s explanation made sense – Lee could attest to the three scorpions together, given the laurel one of them had been carrying was now perched on Clarisse’s head, all but forgotten by everyone in the chaos of Annabeth and Percy’s disappearance – but his idea of the timeline was so far out it was…

Concerning, if Lee was honest. Missing time usually suggested some form of amnesia, but neither demigod were showing any signs of injury at all, let alone amnesia-inducing injury, and, well. Luke worked for Kronos, now, and Kronos wasn’t just the titan of eating his children.

“You’ve been missing for almost an hour,” Chiron said, which Lee couldn’t believe. It had felt like so much longer, but maybe the centaur was only counting how long they’d been actively searching for? Lee was still certain it was at least twice that. “The game is over.”

Grover muttered something about Tyson sitting on him, which stopped them winning. Lee hadn’t even noticed them nearby, so he wasn’t quite sure what the satyr was talking about.

Clarisse, unsurprisingly for Lee, given he already knew her concerns, but more surprisingly to his fellow demigods judging by the confused noises he could hear from the others behind them, focused in on the other concerning bit, the one that wasn’t time-related.

Or maybe it was.

“A hole?” she asked, sounding to Lee like she didn’t really want to know the answer, but also needed to.

Annabeth’s deep inhale told Lee all he needed to know. Her glance around at the gathered audience of demigods all staring at her cemented it.

“Chiron… maybe we should talk about this at the Big House.”

Clarisse’s gasp cut through the silence, the daughter of Ares not able to not react to the confirmation she (and Lee) had been dreading. “You found it, didn’t you?”

Annabeth’s verbal confirmation was enough to get the other campers demanding to know what was going on, and Lee was both glad that it was only half the head counsellors, and some other experienced campers, and frustrated that they were either going to need to explain it to everyone, or find a way to diffuse the curiosity – which was not going to be easy.

Lee got the distinct feeling that Michael was burning a hole in the back of his head for not joining in the confused questions, and was not looking forwards to dealing with that, especially as he also had to apologise for snapping at him, and both of them were too tired for serious, sensible, conversations this side of sleep.

Chiron raised his hand and slowly, the rest of the present campers faded into disgruntled silence. “Tonight is not the right time, and this is not the right place,” he said. Lee fully agreed with that, suddenly very disconcerted by the fact that he had spent the past seven years playing Capture the Flag right by a Labyrinth entrance. Having seen Chris, and Clarisse, he had no desire at all to fall into it, even if it was apparently possible to escape quickly enough you didn’t even realise you were there.

Except, no, Annabeth had realised where she’d been, and she’d been researching it thoroughly, so of course she’d known how to escape. Most demigods, especially those caught unaware, probably wouldn’t have done.

Lee had the sudden urge to get away from the pile of rocks and never, ever come back. Chiron, thankfully, seemed to be in agreement, as he told them all to go back to their cabins and go to sleep.

Sleep sounded amazing, but as one of the very few demigods already in the know, Lee couldn’t just leave, especially if Annabeth and Clarisse were going to start discussing it once everyone else had gone.

“Lee?” Michael asked him, clearly suspicious, but Lee could not deal with talking to Michael about it right then.

“Listen to Chiron,” he told him, keeping half an eye on Clarisse and Annabeth, who had drawn closer together and were muttering between themselves. He needed to be involved in that. “We’ll talk in the morning, Michael.”

“But-”

“Please, Michael,” he all but begged. “We’re both exhausted and it’s going to be a long talk, which I can’t have right now.”

Michael’s eyes burned into him, but eventually he caved, to Lee’s immense relief. “You’re telling me in the morning,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. Lee smiled gratefully.

“Everything I can,” he promised, knowing that Michael probably still wasn’t exhausted enough to miss the massive loophole he was leaving himself, but hoping he would trust him just a little more. “Go on ahead and get some sleep.”

Michael scowled at him, but after a moment obeyed, turning away and joining the exodus of the other demigods back towards the cabins and their welcoming beds. Lee watched him go, hearing Chiron blow the whistle to dismiss the other search party, before joining the muttering, concerned huddle that was Annabeth, Clarisse, Percy, Grover and Tyson in time to hear Annabeth filling Percy in on the Labyrinth.

He shouldn’t have been surprised that Grover and Tyson had already been drawn into the loop.

Chiron came up behind him. “We will discuss this in the morning,” he said, firmly but not unkindly. “Off you go.”

Lee was more than happy to leave the clearing, and the woods, but when they reached the open area of camp, he hung back as Percy and Tyson retreated into cabin three and Grover disappeared off as well.

Chiron escorted the rest of them to their cabins, one at a time, but Lee knew that the girls were going to reappear as soon as the centaur was gone. He obediently ducked inside the door of cabin seven, pleased to see that all of the younger kids were asleep, although the older campers were having a quiet conference – centred around Michael, who was presumably telling them that Annabeth and Percy had been found, and hopefully not telling them anything else. They caught sight of him and waved him over, but he shook his head.

“They’re safe,” he said quietly, glancing back out the window near the door to see Chiron’s shadow slowly traipsing away from the cabins and back up the hill, “but I’ve got to go out again before I can go to bed. Don’t wait up for me.”

“Lee, you’re exhausted,” Lawrence protested. “You barely got any sleep last night, and you’re not getting much tonight, either.”

“I’ll survive,” Lee promised. “And I won’t be long.” He and the girls could only dodge the harpies for so long.

Chiron’s shadow disappeared, and immediately he saw the door to cabin six crack open again. He couldn’t see the door to cabin five from the window, but Annabeth headed straight for the Ares cabin, so he knew Clarisse was making her own reappearance.

He slipped back out the door himself, darting across the short distance between the two cabins, and rejoined the girls.

“Go to bed, Lee,” Clarisse ordered, but she couldn’t raise her voice, and Lee was not letting the younger demigods cut him out of the loop now.

“What happened?” he asked Annabeth. Her face scrunched up.

“Percy summed it up,” she said. “When the scorpions cornered us, we fell into the rocks. It was pitch black, no light at all, and I had to grab him to stop him wandering off. Then I found the Daedalus symbol and pressed it, and the entrance re-opened so we could climb out. It really didn’t take any time at all.”

“Time moves differently in there,” Clarisse confirmed. Lee hadn’t known that, but if anyone was going to know that, it was the one that had spent time exploring it. “That… shit. That was definitely it. And if Luke doesn’t already know about it, it’s only a matter of time before he does.”

Lee remembered, again, the day Percy came to him with pit scorpion venom and Luke vanished into the woods, and his stomach curled unpleasantly.

“He already knows where it is, from this side,” he said. “That’s how he left.”

In the faint moonlight, Annabeth looked completely washed out, but it was Clarisse that finished the thought.

“He’s trying to find the entrance from the inside,” she growled. “Chris-”

Her voice broke off, and neither Lee nor Annabeth finished her sentence out loud. None of them needed to.

That was what Chris had been sent in to look for – if not the string, at least the route back to camp from wherever Luke and Kronos’ army were waiting.

“That drakon was a distraction,” Lee sighed, but Annabeth shook her head.

“Two-pronged attack,” she said. “If they can find a weakness in the barrier now Thalia’s not- Or a backup plan, if they can’t navigate the Labyrinth.”

Lee still couldn’t reconcile the Luke he remembered with the Luke that was actively trying to attack their camp. It just didn’t make sense. But Chris had proven that something was coming, and Luke and Chris had been good friends, for all that Chris was unclaimed. For him to throw Chris away like that…

The Luke Lee knew clearly didn’t exist anymore.

“We have to tell Chiron, in the morning,” he said. “This is…”

“Tomorrow will be a full war council,” Annabeth said, confidently. She looked at Clarisse, and Lee did the same. The daughter of Ares’ lips were thin where they pressed together tightly. “After this, Chiron can’t keep it from the other head counsellors.”

And that meant that everyone was going to find out about Chris.

Clarisse growled. “I know,” she said.

“Patient confidentiality still holds,” Lee promised her. “They don’t need to know any details.” He hoped he didn’t imagine her relaxing slightly, but it could easily have been a trick of the moonlight.

“Just the threat of the Labyrinth,” Annabeth agreed. The words, said out loud, made Lee shiver.

They were out of their depth, now. This was more than three demigods could handle.

“We can’t do anything about it right now,” he said. “And the harpies will be along soon. Try and get some sleep, girls. We’ll need both of you sharp in the morning, for this.” He looked over at Clarisse. “I’ll drop by Chris before breakfast,” he told her.

“Have you worked out how to cure insanity?” she snapped back, and he sighed.

“No,” he admitted, “but that doesn’t mean I’m giving up on him.” Even if all he could do was make sure Chris wasn’t in physical pain, wasn’t hurting himself in his insanity, he’d keep doing it.

Clarisse looked at him, for once looking like the fifteen year old she was, young and scared. It was a vulnerability Lee only knew he was seeing because she was tired, too. Not just physically, but emotionally, too. Ever since Chris had appeared in Arizona, she’d been struggling, and this seemed like the final straw for her.

Lee was impressed she’d held it together for so long. He was older, and only tangentially involved – brought in because they needed a healer, and now the only one of their trio that had never been in the Labyrinth – and he already felt like he was about to break under the stress, knew he’d started cracking if he was snapping at Michael and constantly cycling back around to Luke’s betrayal again. How Clarisse had held herself together for so long, he had no idea.

“Get some sleep,” he said, not gently because even now, Clarisse would not take well to gentle. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He glanced up at the moon, now high in the sky, and realised with a sinking feeling that tomorrow had arrived. “Later in the morning,” he corrected.

“Whatever,” Clarisse mumbled. Her hand travelled up to her head, gripping the laurels that still sat there, forgotten and ignored. Their victory hadn’t even been mentioned, with everything else, and Lee suspected it never would be. She pulled them off, and caught Lee out when she reached up and dropped them on his head, instead. “I’ll be there.”

She disappeared back inside her cabin before Lee or Annabeth could say anything else. The boar’s head above the door glowered down at them, and without an Ares kid, it suddenly felt wrong to be standing there.

“Bed, Annabeth,” Lee prodded. She was looking up at the laurels now in his hair, no doubt wonky – they felt like they were about to fall – but Lee was too tired to bother fixing them. “Your brain needs to be in working order at the meeting.” When she didn’t immediately move, her thoughts seemingly taking her elsewhere, he gripped her elbow lightly and began to steer her across the green, towards her own cabin. She moved without resistance, but didn’t jerk away until they were almost there, coming back from wherever her mind had gone.

“Thanks, Lee,” she said. “We don’t say that enough.” Lee gave her a quick, one-armed hug.

“You’re not in this alone,” he reminded her. “Now, go get some sleep.”

She scrutinised him with eyes that were somehow still sharp, despite the late hour. “You need to sleep,” she retorted. “Weren’t you up at three o’clock last night?”

Lee sighed. “Yes, yes I was,” he said. “So if you could get inside your cabin so I can be reassured that you, too, are in bed and safe so I can do the same, that would be great, thanks.”

“You’re not my big brother,” she pointed out.

“No,” Lee agreed. “But I’m the head of the infirmary and do not want to be dealing with a sleep deprived Annabeth in the morning. So, shoo.”

He wasn’t sure what part of that finally got through to her, but she did, finally, slip back in through her cabin door, leaving him alone outside – and not a moment too soon, as the tell-tale sound of wings filled the air.

“I’m going, Calaeno,” he promised as one of the harpies landed in front of him. She glared at him, eyes piercing even in the dark.

“Bed,” she ordered, one of her wings coming to loop around him. “Past curfew. No infirmary.”

“I know, I know.” Lee let her walk him back across the green and towards his cabin door. Being an Apollo kid had advantages, like blanket permission to be out after curfew, for reasonable reasons. The harpies wouldn’t attack him, although they’d force him back to his cabin more peacefully – like now.

“Stay until dawn,” Calaeno told him firmly. “Camp safe.”

She and her sisters had not taken kindly to the drakon the previous night, either. If it had come inside the barriers, Lee had no doubt that they’d have attacked it with the same ferociousness the campers were always threatened with.

He stumbled across the threshold, pushed over by the harpy’s wing, and the door was shut firmly behind her. Blindly, he groped his way to his own bunk, not even bothering to change and barely remembering to kick off his shoes before he face-planted his bunk.

The mattress gave way weirdly, as though there was already something on it, and more grasping found a small figure curled up asleep on his bed already. Lee couldn’t see in the dark, and wasn’t going to turn on a light, but he was pretty certain it was Michael. No doubt, his younger brother had tried to wait up for him, but he hadn’t so much as stirred at Lee’s ungainly arrival.

Good. He needed the sleep.

So did Lee, and it was hardly the first time he’d ended up sharing his bunk with a sibling – not even the first time said sibling had been Michael – so he didn’t bother to try and get his younger brother back to his own bunk. Instead, he just nudged him over slightly, so that he could get his own head on the pillow – ow, golden laurel leaves were not comfortable – and closed his eyes.

Tomorrow – today, after the sun rose – was going to be full of awkward conversations and more emotional stress, Lee knew.

Right now, he needed sleep. Thankfully, it came quickly.

23 notes · View notes

justabooknerdposts · 6 months

Note

possibly a fic of percy and annabeth with annabeths family, or ive always been curious about annabeths athena siblings, obviously she has to be very close to them(not just malcolm) and I think it'd be sweet to see their reaction to percabeth

*Tried to work in both lol hope you enjoy it!*

Annabeth had been nervous about this visit home. Things had gotten better between her and her mortal family over the last few years, but it could still sometimes be awkward. She'd probably be less nervous if she was on her own. But Percy was with her. And it was the first time she was bringing him to her dad's house as her boyfriend. Which seemed crazy, now that they'd been together almost two years and were at their last stop on their way to Camp Jupiter and New Rome University. But the last couple of years had been pretty hectic, especially with Gaea rising and Percy being kidnapped for six months. Plus, it was still a risk for Percy to fly, which made it tricky to get him across the country. So now here they were, driving the Prius down the street to her dad's house. And she was bringing her boyfriend to her family's house. Annabeth tapped her fingers against the car door, trying not to let her nerves show. She wasn't even sure why she was nervous. Her dad and stepmom had met Percy before. They'd just seen him a few weeks ago at graduation. But this felt different.

She flashed back to two years ago at Camp Half-Blood, after she and Percy had first gotten together. Once they'd climbed out of the lake and said good night, she'd crossed the green to the Athena cabin, unable to keep a huge smile off her face. However, when she opened the door of Cabin Six, a massive noise hit her, causing her to nearly jump out of her skin. It took her a few moments to gather herself and realize that it was her siblings, cheering and whooping for her.

"Oh my gods," she said, once she realized what was going on. "Are you all serious?"

Malcolm was the first to come forward and clap her on the shoulder, although he was definitely not the only one with a massive grin on his face. "We're just really happy that you're happy," he told her. "And we just also want you to know that if you're ever not happy with Jackson, we will be happy to help you come up with a plan to end him."

"Oh my gods," Annabeth said again, trying to roll her eyes, but she was pretty sure she was blushing to the roots of her hair. "I don't think you'll have to worry about that. But thanks anyway."

Her other siblings came up to her, too, giving her hugs and fist bumps and handshakes. Some of the younger ones hugged her especially hard, and Annabeth knew it wasn't just because they were happy for her. It had been a hard week. Really, it had been a hard summer. And she suspected they were glad to have an excuse to get some reassurance. So she returned their hugs tightly and tried not to think about the campers whose bunks were now empty.

She could always count on her siblings in the Athena cabin to support her. She was less sure about how Matthew and Bobby would react. Truthfully, she was a little worried they were going to be rude or ask Percy weird questions or something. Not to mention what her dad and stepmom might do or say.

As it turned out, she shouldn't have worried. Her dad gave them both one of the warmer greetings she'd ever received from him, including an extra long hug that made Annabeth swallow hard to avoid choking up. Her stepmom also smiled and hugged her, then Percy, and welcomed them both into the house.

Matthew and Bobby's greeting was pretty standard for Annabeth but almost too enthusiastic for Percy. They immediately started asking him questions about fighting monsters. Then Matthew blurted out, "Is it true that your pen turns into a sword?"

Percy glanced at Annabeth, then at Mrs. Chase. But her stepmom only gave a small smile and a nod, then said, "Just go out in the backyard." Percy shot Annabeth a quick smile, then all three boys disappeared out the back door.

"Thanks again for letting us stay for a couple days," Annabeth said. "The dorms won't be ready for move in until after the weekend. Something about summer semester."

"You're always welcome, Annabeth," her stepmom said. She frowned, then said, "I know it hasn't always felt that way to you. And I'm sorry for that. But you are welcome here any time."

Her dad nodded. "This is your home, too, honey. Now that you're out here, I hope…I hope we'll get to see you a little more?"

He'd ended it on a question, giving her the opportunity to choose. Not so long ago, Annabeth might have scoffed, or shot back a harsh remark. Now, though, after all the things she'd been through, especially last summer, she found she didn't have it in herself to respond that way. They were trying. And she was willing to try again, too. A fresh start for all of them.

"I appreciate that," Annabeth said truthfully. "I'll try my best."

"We will, too," her dad replied. After a moment of awkward silence, he clapped his hands. "Now, Annabeth, if you have a minute, I was wondering if you might look at a project I'm working on. I've been trying to recreate a wing joint that mimics those pegasi wings, but I keep running into a hiccup—"

Twenty minutes later, Annabeth escaped into the backyard to join Percy, although she had managed to have a pretty enjoyable conversation with her dad about aerial stability and the flight mechanics of rotating joints. When she stepped out onto the back porch, she narrowly managed to avoid being sprayed by a jet of water.

"Hey!" she yelped, dodging out of the way.

"Sorry, babe!" Percy called. He was standing in the middle of the yard with the hose in his hand. Riptide was no longer anywhere to be seen, but he was now making the water do crazy shapes and powerful bursts, which Matthew and Bobby seemed to find supremely entertaining.

"Okay, but seriously, you can't get it higher than that tree over there, can you?" Bobby asked.

Percy smirked. "Challenge accepted."

As a skinny jet of water shot thirty feet into the air, Percy glanced over at Annabeth with a smile. She returned it, feeling grateful that things were going well. It made her hopeful for the next few years of their life in California. It was nice to know that the different parts of her family could get along.

#pjo #fanfic #writing #fanfiction #ff #percy jackson #request #closed to requests #just catching up on old ones

13 notes · View notes

harryissuchalittleshit · 8 months

Note

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love

So I did six Harry Potter fics for my last one, but I’ve also written for Twilight and Percy Jackson in the past so I thought I would showcase some of my other fandom fics that I’m proud of!

Percy Jackson:

Hey Brother

This is the story of Annabeth and her second-in-command Malcolm. They have known each other for such a long time and have a very close relationship, in many ways they see each other more as actual siblings. Starting the moment they meet up to the moment when it all ends, through quests, through lasting relationships, through families made and forged in hardship, they are brother and sister.

The Homes of Leo and Calypso

This is the first ever PJO story I wrote, after HOO finished up but before TOA started and it is dated as such. I love Leo/Calypso ship and the little family I wrote for them. This is just the many ups and downs I thought they would have as they grew up and as Calypso slowly became more mortal. They move around quite a bit together and have three beautiful daughters and one mischievous little boy. I just wanted to give them a happy little ending.

Twilight:

Child’s Song

This fic got me into Twilight again, it’s basically an au in which “Bella got pregnant with Renesmee in New Moon, found the Cullens, and left her with them”. She goes on to have a life before Edward finds her and they get married and have a little boy. I hate the super fast demon pregnancy, so Renesmee and EJ are more human, tho Renesmee takes on more vampire traits as she gets older and EJ becomes more human as he grows. There’s a chapter and song for each of the four family members.

Junebug

This is the story of how Claire Young came back to La Push and fell in love with Quil Ateara after sixteen years of being separated. Claire gets to be with her family again while she falls in love with the reclusive older man, she rekindles her friendship with Renesmee, and she just gets to be a teenager while living with her Aunt Emily and Uncle Sam. She learns the Legends and her place in them. Part 3 of the Imprint Anthology.

The Angel and The One

Kim and Jared’s story in the pack, how they fell in love, how Kim learns about the imprint, how they grow up together as high school sweethearts. Kim has a lot of mental health issues, but Jared helps her heal and take care of herself. They eventually see their own happily ever after.

Also there is the story of Kati and Jay, childhood best friends that fall in love while separated because of school. They are a non-imprint imprint couple. Both of them know of the magic surrounding them, but neither of them possess it, doesn’t stop them from having a love as strong as their family members. Part 4 of the Imprint Anthology

Landslide

The Jacob/Leah story. This is probably my favorite of the bunch. Pet 5 of the Imprint Anthology, Leah is working forward from Billy’s death while Jacob is stuck back in time before his father died. Just a story about love and grieving told in alternate povs, it made me love these two as a couple and ship it even harder.

Part two is Mackenzie Black moving away to college and falling in love with someone who has no idea what they’re getting into with Mack.

#my fics #percy jackson #the twilight saga #twilight renaissance #ask game #still did six fics instead of five #I have trouble narrowing my choices

6 notes · View notes

technicallydeepbookworm · 3 years

Note

Malconnor headcannons? Please?

ofc babe!

Malcom hates rich people so like stealing from people? bad bad. stealing from some entitled millionaire? good

so he totally supports Connor's activity

he also LOVES rock music and when he is stressed listening to American Idiot helps him ( no I'm not projecting wdym)

and when Connor finds out he's like "first I wanted to kiss you, now I wanna marry you"

Dates with Travis and Katie when in the summer they come back from college

I saw a fic where Connor and Drew are bsf so also dates with Drew and Billie and Sherman and Miranda

but sometimes they just wanna be alone so they go on their favorite place : the lake

once they're making out here and Percy and Annabeth come here and she's like "YOU and my brother???" and Percy laughs

but Malcom is like "stfu don't act like y'all weren't making out in the lake like one year ago"and he makes both of them BLUSH and Connor wipes away tears proudly and goes "that's my bf"

like I said first, they love rock music. Connor starts to play the baxo while Malcom sings and they both are like "omg my bf is so cute I'm so in love" while they look at eachother

Connor loves painting his nails (usually black) and he also paint Malcolm's

they also both love streetstyle so they borrow eachother's clothes and sometime Connor st*ahem* borrows something for Malcom

so basically now they don't know which piece of clothing belongs to who but it's ok because they love to share

they have a way of taking care of eachother

like Connor makes sure Malcom eats and doesn't do too much work

and Malcom does Connor's homework when he's too stressed

sometimes they just.. talk about their trauma. Other than the war stuff, they bond over being overshadowed by their siblings (Travis and Annabeth)

" you are and forever will be my first choice, because I love you for who you are"

#malconnor #malcom pace #connor stoll

58 notes · View notes

whatohitsonfirewelp · 3 years

Text

I’m just going to adopt all side characters from J.K Rowling and Rick Riordan and make them mine.

Like yes Seamus and Dean are together and happily married.

So are Lavender and Parvati and they are awesome and have their own little shop with tea and tea leaves and all that stuff.

Blaise got a freaking vacation after having to deal with all the drama that he absolutely did not sign up for and when he comes back he’s really chill and it freaks everyone out at first but they get use to it. Just don’t get him angry, he will blow up at you.

All of them get therapy, I don’t care how old they are all these traumatized shits need therapy.

Next gen also gets therapy because it’s not easy.

James Sirius Potter is not a prankster but he does enjoy jokes and he has more of a dry humor.

Fred Weasley Junior is a prankster but he becomes a healer because he wants to make people laugh and heal them. His parents get really emotional over it and still call him their “baby boy”

Hugo Weasley adores reading but it’s mostly fictional and sci-fi and he gets them from muggle book shops. Ron ends up loving them and both will read a series together and argue (in a nice way) about whatever their reading and what they think will happen and stuff. He also gets diagnosed for adhd or something and that opens a whole new world for their family and their magical community.

Molly and Lucy are not twins and Molly is a squib. I read a fic about that but I can’t find it or remember who wrote it. She’s still a badass and adores who she is. Lucy has like mechanical leg but spells were created so that she can still fly on her broom and play quidditch.

Moving on because I can’t remember all of that right now

Drew is a bitch but she isn’t the worst person ever and after having a small breakdown everyone realizes that she’s still really hurt by Selina because that was her big sister who still betrayed her. Drew also can not paint her nails to save her life but she can walk in any heels without batting an eye and she’s tall, this is a tall girl who will wear heels without any shame and it’s the best thing ever.

Malcolm is the biggest nerd of all time. He knows everything about whatever he’s hyper fixed on but this boy can’t tell you anything about Greek mythology because he simply does not give a shit. Seriously, this dude can tell you everything about glue but he repeatedly mixes up gods and goddesses (it just got worse when he learned about Romans)

Clovis as we know travels through dreams and all that jazz, this dude when awake is the biggest gossip and no one (including him) actually knows if what he says is true because it’s from dreams. But he does give the great updates on celebrities and the younger campers love him because he’s the best story teller. He’s also lactose intolerant because I said so and he hates it with his entire soul and when he’s feeling petty he will eat an entire tub of ice cream even if he regrets it later.

Mitchell (son of Aphrodite) cares about what others think of him but he’s also really kind and while he won’t always stand up for himself he will absolutely destroy someone if they say anything about his siblings (and aren’t one of his siblings. Only his siblings can make fun of each other) and at some point he decides to change his entire bed and colors. Like this dude says screw social gender norms and now the cabin is this beautiful disaster and all of them love it. He also once shaved his entire head after one of his siblings got their eyebrows burned off.

After the wars Jake Mason is completely done with everyone’s bullshit. This boy is tired and he have zero fucks left to give. He’s unhinged and is chaotic lawful. He always has an energy drink in one hand and while he respects and listens to the camp counselor and Chiron he once climbed on top of his cabins table at lunch and sat in the middle while eating some sort of candy that he refuses to share.

Travis Stoll and Connor Stoll are not twins. Connor is trans and gay and Travis is bi and cis. Connor is literally one of the smartest people in camp and he had a small side business where he does homework for others (even over iris message) for some stuff in return. He and Annabeth are great friends and scare everyone when the team up. Travis changes a bit in college, it’s been so long since he didn’t have to constantly take care of other campers and younger siblings and at first he has no idea what to do. He’s literally the definition of disaster college student that has no idea how he’s passing class but he is. He’s also great friends with Annabeth but not as close to her as Connor. But the three of them absolutely consider each other siblings since they grew up together and with Luke as their older brother who hurt them.

That’s all for now!

#harry potter headcanon #riordanverse #harry potter next gen headcanon #side characters #long post

22 notes · View notes

biclarisselarue · 4 years

Note

Ok, Clarisse with a buzzcut, but Annabeth with a buzz cut? I think you had her muse on it in the fic where they fell into Tartarus. Isn't it kind of a powerful image. (I paused to reread you fic, and Annabeth also wonders if Percy would like it. So the million dollar question is, would he?)

ANNABETH WITH A BUZZCUT YES PLEASE (also here’s the link to the fic if anyone wants it)

after tartarus, after the war against gaia, after one too many nightmares where her long hair feels constrictive around her head and throat, she shaves it all off

it’s in the middle of the night, she has to search through malcolm’s stuff to find his electric razor, and annabeth sits in the dark, cuts most of it off with scissors, and then runs it over her head, looking out into the night sky

when she wakes up there’s a moment when she feels so light and can’t remember why until she brings her hands up and feels those little bristly soft hairs

‘oh, fuck’

looking into the mirror that morning is an awakening for her ok she looks hot (not that she didn’t before) and actually feels genuinely hot for the first time in her life

and, look, she doesn’t want to care about what percy will think... but she does and she is so so nervous

it takes all of her siblings coming into her room to ooh and ahh and convince her that everyone will love it for her to finally go down to the pavilion for breakfast

percy sees her first and his eyes widen

there’s a moment where she can’t read his expression and she feels caught, the moment stretching for longer than it possibly could

and then a huge grin spreads across his face and he gets up to walk over to her, asking if he can touch her head

when she nods, he runs a hand gently over her scalp, and it feels almost more intimate than anything they’ve ever done

he breaths out a gentle “annabeth, you look amazing” with awe in his eyes and she pulls him into a quick kiss to hide the blush forming on her cheeks

and everybody does love it, of course, and by the end of the week, after seeing how good it looks and how easy it is to fight with, at least ten other campers with long hair have shaved it all off (including piper)

she feels so fucking confident and strong and powerful

#annabeth with a buzzcut lives rent free in my head #along with clarisse now #thank u for reminding me of this anon #i have Many Thoughts #annabeth chase #percy jackson #percabeth #ask #anon #my ramblings

133 notes · View notes

connabeth · 4 years

Text

Happy Birthday to the queen of my heart, Annabeth Chase!

Here’s a ~7k fluffy birthday fic in her honor that got out of hand. I scrambled to write all this today so sorry in advance for mistakes. Enjoy the fluff!

Warning: Implied Sexual Content

————————————————————

Annabeth blearily blinked her eyes open and squinted as they adjusted to the bright rays of morning light shining unforgivingly on her bunk through the large casement windows of her cabin. She quietly groaned and stretched her limbs, rolling her wrists and ankles around before sitting up and yawning. Some of her siblings were already up while the younger ones were still burrowed in their blankets and pillows. She figured she might as well head down to the showers before breakfast, considering Percy had told her he had made big plans for the day. She wasn’t sure what that meant and honestly, knowing him, a part of her was just as scared as she was excited to find out.

“Morning, ‘beth. Happy birthday,” Malcolm said with a soft smile when he caught her eye. “So, how does it feel to be an adult?”

“Thanks, Mal. And I feel like I’ve been an adult for years.”

He laughed. “Fair enough.”

As the rest of her siblings woke up, she rifled through her trunk, trying to find a presentable outfit that was cuter than a typical camp shirt and jean shorts. Annabeth normally didn’t give a second thought to her appearance; sometimes she just didn’t have the time or energy to spare and Percy swore up and down she was the hottest thing he’d ever even when she was beaten and bloodied on the battlefield. She took care of herself to the extent everyone else did, but her efforts didn’t usually go beyond that. She admired girls that put in the time and effort to look their best every day because, honestly, it seemed exhausting. But sometimes she just wanted to feel pretty for herself, regardless of what anyone else thought. And today was one of those days considering it was her eighteenth birthday and she would be spending the day at her boyfriend’s side. Annabeth settled on a pair of army green tie-waist shorts she thought flattered her figure. She also pulled out a lacy white V-neck off-the-shoulder top Piper had forced her to buy. The outfit would show off a little midriff, but Annabeth didn’t train her ass off to not be proud of her abs.

Before she left for the showers, her siblings, who all had woken up, insisted they sing her “Happy Birthday” and she stood there awkwardly as her lips twitched up into an embarrassed smile. She never really understood what you were supposed to do while people sang you “Happy Birthday”, but she appreciated the sentiment.

read the rest on AO3

#percabeth #annabeth chase #percy jackson #sally jackson #paul blofis #estelle blofis #fluff #fic #some sexy stuff #clarisse la rue #malcom pace #connor stoll #grover underwood #thalia grace #percy jackson and the olympians #heroes of olympus #pjo #hoo #my fic

43 notes · View notes

your-honor-im-zesty · 1 month

Text

#percy jackson #pjo #poll #pjo fic

9 notes · View notes

1ooo-w0rds · 6 years

Note

"What Could Have Been" - jeyna fic commentaies pls and thank you!

Of course and thanks for asking!!

what could have been was me learning how to write Jeyna honestly. You can see it from the first few prompts. They’re rough, short and contained within themselves. It was a lot of feeling out Jason, Reyna and their dynamic and how they’re sort of trope is.

I started hitting my stride around 20s when I figured I could start interconnecting prompts together and creating mini universes. My infamous AU would be the Reyna/Annabeth swap instead of Percy/Jason.

Like a good AU, it clearly got out of hand. Stars was kind of a test to play with Reyna and Percy dynamic. I love Percy in the sort of mentor position to a confused Reyna. The next prompt Home I wanted to be the New Rome version of Stars. It felt good to write Jason in a more leadership position, make him feel a little bit of what Reyna had to shoulder throughout the books.

Confusion focused on the interaction between Jason and Hylla. There was a line about leadership and how there are some lessons leaders only learn when alone. It felt right having Hylla talk to Jason about leadership but her being Reyna’s sister made it more personal.

Thunder/Lightning kind of brought Malcolm in as a love interest for Reyna. The girl has a thing for blonds. Lol. I wanted to give her a place in CHB in her memory-less state. Thunder/Lightning kind of refers to Jason. I was originally going to have him be in a dream state, seeing Reyna at CHB but it was more fun to write it from Reyna’s perspective.

Fear was a jumble of ideas I should have broken up but didn’t. I mean, come on, a flashback within a flashback, what was I thinking? Haha. Anyways, Reyna’s trip home! Tbh she was supposed to talk to Percy on the boat instead of Malcolm but it felt right bringing him. Since Reyna wasn’t part of the seven and having Jason run off without a Greek rep in CJ seemed like a stupid move. There’s also hints of Liper if you squint. I couldn’t resist. So that’s why Malcolm was there. Reyna’s memory of Hylla was mostly triggered by the Jolly Roger flag. I love the badass Hylla is in it. It fit with the Fear theme and was actually my first time writing the sisters together. I should write them more. I secretly love Reyna tackling Percy in the flashback. It shows how frazzle she was by the memory and different than her usual composed self. I love this who AU since Reyna gets so many different sides.

Bond is the much anticipating meeting/conversation between Jason and Reyna in this AU. I can’t imagine her judo-throwing Jason like Annabeth did in canon. Romans are a bit more reserve in their actions. That’s why I wanted Reyna to get a bit more of her memory and feel for the city before talking to Jason. It felt right for her to talk to Annabeth before Jason as the two girls shared so much in common. I just reread the scene between them and it really does feel like a movie at times. I just have such a distinct image of Reyna standing at the top of the stairs looking down at Jason’s quiet form in the center of the room. And at the end, how close they were to each other but she’s trying her hardest to remember him in the way Jason wants her to remember him. Ah my heart!!! I love this pairing soo much.

Market revealed more of Malcolm in this AU. I think I was starting to warm up to him around her as a love interest for Reyna. Opening with Jason and Annabeth walking through the market felt right easing into the tense scene with Malcolm. I love Annabeth and Malcolm sibling relationship. I’m weak for a big brother/little sister relationship. I’m not sure if this is how guys act if they fight over a girl. I love writing sly remarks between the guys. Malcolm is kind of represent what Piper was in canon except not as assertive. Reyna does know Malcolm wants to pursue a relationship. She’s just lucky enough that Juno didn’t manipulate her memories.

Technology was half-dress up game and half angst because of old memories. I love the banter with all the characters. Having it from Annabeth’s pov is different since she’s sort of look into the situation between everyone. Though even if Malcolm is her brother, Annabeth is probably cheering for Jason and Reyna. Lol.

Smiles is the last chapter of what could have been, still part of the same AU. It kind of arches over the series from Percy’s perspective of Reyna’s various smiles. I intentionally broke it apart with all the different types of smiles with different characters focused. First was Reyna hanging out with Percy, Piper and Leo. A sort of carefree smile like she’s enjoying herself. The second is Reyna’s smile with Malcolm, soft and tentative with hints of fondness as she’s gradually falling for him. Last is Reyna’s smile with Jason, full of joy, happiness and love. At this point, Reyna and Jason are together but there’s bits of sadness because Jason is leaving off to war.

I should finish up this AU at least but tbh I kind of got distracted by Cafe Jupiter and other projects. One day, I would love to finish what could have been and put a big old COMPLETED stamp on it. Thank you for the wonderful ask!! Probably longer than intended.

#Anonymous #what could have been commentary #i'm going to reread the annabeth/reyna switch now #or just the whole collection since i skimmed it

8 notes · View notes

itsomgitsgreenblogging · 7 years

Text

Break My Heart: Chapter 11 (A Solangelo Fanfiction)

It’s here, finally! I hope you are all ready, because I know I am! Just a reminder, this fic is only very slightly canon divergent (Will having visions of the future, and I take a few liberties with some of the time line). Just a head’s up as a reminder for that.

Read on Tumblr: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10

Read on AO3

Preview:

“Really Nico? You can’t kill Leo!”

“Can I disembowl him?”

“No.”

“Skin him?”

“No.”

“Tear out his still beating heart and sacrifice it on the altar of my father? Use his blood as finger paint?”

“No Nico, though I give you an A for creativity.”

“This is why I hate this place,” Nico snapped. “All of you are so sensitive about perfectly reasonable things like manslaughter.”

The infirmary that day was empty, and the emptiness was eating at Will until it was nearly impossible for him to function. If he had something to do, then the silence would have been bearable. Will often found that keeping one’s hands busy was the secret to keeping the mind off of unpleasantness. But Will, as always, had terrible luck. So therefore, he was bored and dwelling on things that were probably left alone. Will spun in his chair, playing with the beads on his necklace nervously as he turned. Kayla looked at him from the desk, unimpressed with his fidgeting as Austin tapped out the bass line of Feel Good Inc with pens on a nearby chair while he listened to music on his ipod. Finally Will put his feet down, literally, stopping himself mid-swing. Both his brother and sister stared at him as Will placed his hands on his knees and offered up a sigh of defeat.

“Nico’s totally avoiding me isn’t he?”

“Took him long enough to admit it,” Austin noted as he popped a headphone from his ear. Kayla just primly rested her head on her hands and seemingly waited for Will to continue. Will groaned and leaned back.

“I thought I was just imagining things!” Will complained as he squinted up at the ceiling. “I don’t even know what I did. I thought our date went really well, he even agreed to go on another one! Gods, I must have done something. Maybe I was too hasty. What if I just was being an idiot and assuming things? Oh Gods what if he thinks I’m doing some weird peer pressure thing to him—?”

“Alright, slow down,” Kayla said as she held out her hands. “How about we don’t go into Apollo Panic Mode and try to think.”

“Don’t tell me not to go into Apollo Panic Mode! You were just in Apollo Panic Mode when you thought Holly and Laurel shot better than you at archery!”

“Okay that is neither here nor there, let’s deal with your problems before you drive everyone crazy!”

Will had the urge to whine. To say he didn’t want to, to throw a hissy fit and then bury himself under some covers and avoid the world. Maybe binge on chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with Lou and Cecil, maybe watch some bad TV dramas with Nyssa and Billie, maybe he could cry on Miranda’s shoulder, throw rocks into the lake with Clarisse, rant to Butch or Pollux, hide in Hypnos Cabin and just nap his days away, cry into the phone to his mom or his grandpa. There really were innumerable options in front of him. Honestly, he was a lucky guy. He had family. He had so many wonderful friends at camp. This bud, this fledgling relationship with Nico hadn’t even made it to autumn so it had to be doomed. What would be the point of trying to continue on with it?

But Will also wanted to kiss Nico. At least once.

“I don’t really know what happened. Everything seemed fine at the campfire. But after that…I don’t know, he’s just been distant. Like, he used to follow us along to our activities and he’s not doing that anymore. Maybe I just was going too fast for him, maybe I was just too overeager,” Will admitted softly, flicking a paperclip.

“Well, maybe the best thing is to give Nico space,” Kayla offered sympathetically. “I mean, it’s not like he’s out to the whole camp. Maybe he’s just processing.”

“Yeah,” Will said, attempting to brush aside the disappointment. He supposed that rushing forward foolheartedly probably wasn’t the best idea sometimes.

“Doesn’t your counselor meeting start in a little bit?” Austin asked him, and Will mustered up his best smile.

“Yeah, I should head over. Hold down the fort for me alright?” Will asked his siblings who both nodded. Will tried to ignore their all-too-understanding looks as he left.

Ever since the influx of cabins and campers that had occurred post-Titan War, they had moved head counselor meetings from the Big House to the Pavilion. Will was sure when most of the campers left camp the next week and fall really descended on Long Island, they would move back. But for now, the audience of counselors ranged from longtime campers such as himself, Jake Mason, and Pollux, to newcomers like the Victor siblings, recently claimed Paolo, and newly elected Butch and Piper. It certainly made for an interesting hodge-podge. Noticeably Nico was absent. Percy and Jason, who both occupied cabins of only themselves sat together playing paper football while Piper observed and added commentary to the ongoing battle.

“Where’s Nico at?” Katie asked in their direction as Clarisse unslung Clovis from her shoulder and placed him on the table where he snoozed contentedly in his sleeping bag.

“He got a Iris message from Camp Jupiter. Something about the assembly I think Hazel wanted his opinion on,” Percy said with a shrug before seeing Annabeth approach with her arms full of blueprints he got up to help her. Though Annabeth made a show of looking irritated, she allowed Percy to hold some of her things. Will tried to ignore the mix of relief and disappointment he felt.

The rest of the counselor meeting, as usual devolved rather quickly. Annabeth was presenting to the counselors the different plans she had worked up in order to provide new cabins for the newly claimed campers. Hermes Cabin on the whole was fully throwing their support behind any measure that would get kids out of their already overcrowded cabin as fast as possible. While cabins like Demeter cabin (who were also speaking for the dryads) were against clearing any more forest than necessary, and Hephaestus argued about the onus of construction work that would be placed on them. The different types of arraignments were also a point of contention. Hypnos Cabin, a new cabin that was boasting already three campers with more likely to come from other countries argued the necessity of space (with a rather impassioned Clovis who only fell asleep once), while Paolo, Chiara, and Damien who were all by themselves seemed to be fine with the tree houses or tiny houses plan.

By the end of the meeting, no compromise had been met. But at least the plans were out. Each Cabin was ordered to take a poll of their occupants and choose the plan that they all liked the most before they would reconvene. After the meeting, Will stayed with Annabeth to help her clean up while the others all went to make sure their younger siblings hadn’t caused any damage.

“Will, I don’t understand how you expect the additions to make sense if we allot more space then this,” Annabeth said as she pointed out to the plans for the tiny cabins.

“And I’m just saying, we don’t know how many children these minor gods have. I feel that it would be premature to commit to a tiny house design without considering that,” Will told Annabeth with a sigh. “Everyone deserves a little space for themselves. I mean, we barely go a week without the Victor sisters almost setting their cabin on fire as it is.”

Annabeth looked at Will, grey eyes glinting. Her gaze was serious, as always, and Will met it. He liked Annabeth a lot, but sometimes found her to be a little on the intense side. A little too all or nothing. But her penchant for ass-kicking was something that Will admired, even if it was his butt she wanted to kick. She sighed, seemingly content for the moment and leaned back. She massaged her temples and Will found himself moving close and offering his hands. Annabeth gave him a weak, grateful smile before sliding a chair close to him.

Just pressing his fingers against Annabeth’s temples gave Will the sensation of a tightening cord ready to snap. The start of a tension headache. Will pulled off her hair tie which was doing her head no favors and placing it on his wrist before slowly focusing on pressing the pads of his fingers against the back of her neck and pulling up to her head. He spent time to gently add pressure and release, and become acquainted with Annabeth’s muscle movements. Then, once that was all established, he began rubbing little circles from the base of her skull to her ear, applying pressure on the scalp, and massaging temples and forehead, his power welling up and soothing.

“You have the most convenient power,” Annabeth muttered as her head fell foreword to allow Will to rub her neck and massage the back of her head.

“As convenient as a certain wisecracking aqua boy we know?” Will asked amused as he worked out a specific knot. Annabeth, like most children of Athena, kept all their stress in the head and neck. Considering their mother’s history with headaches, it wasn’t all too surprising. “I think not.”

“I don’t think you have much interest in the ocean, how useful would you find Percy’s powers?” Annabeth asked with a raised brow.

“True, true. But does the interest occur as a correlation or causation when the power is present?” Will offered. Annabeth was seemingly struck by this line of thought, tapping her foot as her eyes glinted.

“It’s never occurred to me,” Annabeth muttered under her breath. “It’s fascinating to think about, really. The implications I mean.”

“I’m not sure the others would think of a lack of free will in the same regards,” Will chuckled.

“I’ll have to run this by Malcolm. He’s always thrilled to have a sound board on philosophy. I don’t tend to have much of a sustained interest in the subject,” Annabeth said as she stretched, and Will handed back her hair tie.

“Well, I try not to think about things like that too much,” Will admitted as Annabeth stood up and cracked her neck. “In our lives, big questions don’t often beget rewards.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” Annabeth said as she looked out towards the camp finishing tying up her hair. Will watched as her curls bounced, rather cutely Will had to admit. “I sometimes wonder how much our parents have to do with our natures.”

Will didn’t have much to say about that. Will had never even met Apollo before, only seen him flash by in his chariot during the Battle of Manhattan. He had received a letter from him once, a few birthday cards, had gotten claimed by him. All of these were more than some demigods ever received, but he still had no real clue of what his father was like. He had heard the stories from Percy and Thalia about his father’s bombastic and dramatic nature. Had spoken to Rachel briefly about her relationship with Apollo as the god of prophecy, though since the last war Apollo had gone silent. A punishment by Zeus still probably in the works. At times Will wondered if he should be worried for Apollo. Well, certainly he was worried since Apollo was the sun god and the world couldn’t survive without the sun. But Will found he really couldn’t worry about Apollo as his actual father, because Apollo wasn’t in his life. He was just a flash across the distant sky.

Will wondered how much of him was like Apollo. Will knew he shared a smile with all of his siblings, habits, tastes. Will really doubted Apollo ever concerned himself with Will Solace and his siblings, but he had never been able to say that to any of them. After all, when Lee and Michael had died, not once did Apollo make himself known. Did Will have that ugly selfish side of him somewhere deep down? Will hoped not. He really did.

“I hope they don’t have much,” Will finally concluded, seemingly surprising Annabeth in his answer. “I don’t think I could bear it.”

“I know what you mean,” Annabeth admitted before finishing placing her blueprints in her box. “Tell me something, what’s going on between you and Nico.”

“Uh, what do you mean?” Will asked, taken aback by the sudden shift in conversation to another topic that Will didn’t really want to think about at that moment.

“Listen, me and Nico have had our own issues, but we’re good now. He’s been doing really well since he began tagging along with you and your cabin. But Percy mentioned to me that Nico’s been kinda down lately…and that has to be more so than usual mind you if even Percy’s picked up on it. So I was just wondering if you and Nico had gotten into a fight.”

“We didn’t get into a fight,” Will said as he nudged a leaf with his sandal before sighing. “I asked him out on a date.”

“Oh. Oh,” Annabeth said, obviously taken aback. “You asked Nico on a date? I mean—you know—”

“Yeah. I uh…I like Nico. A lot,” Will told her as he watched the leaf be dragged across the dirt by a breeze. “We went on one date, and I asked him on another. He’s been acting weird since then.”

“Okay, this…this all makes sense to me,” Annabeth told him as she shifted her weight between her feet obviously deep in thought. Will swore he could see the gears clicking and moving in her head, as she catalogued everything she knew into different places. “I do have to say, I didn’t think that after Percy he would go with a guy like you. Even though he swore up and down that Percy wasn’t his type, I kind of expected him to go with a guy more like Percy. Maybe a Hermes Cabin kid or an Ares Cabin kid.”

“I know,” Will said with a chuckle as he picked up Annabeth’s box. “I told him something similar.”

“If it means anything to you, I think you are good for Nico,” Annabeth said as gave him a look and Will handed her box to her. “I think you and Nico are pretty similar in some ways. It makes sense that you guys would get along.”

“You think so?” Will asked Annabeth curiously, and she just shrugged.

“I don’t really buy the whole opposites attract thing. People are always saying that about me and Percy, but me and Percy are a lot alike. Like, I don’t think I could date a guy who is okay just sitting around doing nothing. Percy may put up the front, but he’s always ready to go all in with me no matter what. And I’m always willing to do the same for him. I think that’s important, and that’s just one example. You and Nico are both serious when it comes to your responsibilities. And if anyone has seen either of you interacting with your siblings, you would know you guys were on the same wavelength,” Annabeth explained. “But of course, Nico’s a different person than you so you would need to take that into consideration.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you told Nico that you like him?”

Will stopped midstep.

“Told…Nico?” Will repeated, dumbfounded.

“Nico’s dense, Will. But more than that, he psyches himself out constantly. Nico’s probably thinking all sorts of worst case scenario stuff right now. You need to set the record straight, tell him that you like him.”

“Oh my gods you are so right. I haven’t been following my own advice,” Will said in shock before tossing Annabeth a smile. “Though there is nothing straight about this situation.”

“Holy Hera, really Will? Really?” Annabeth asked with her patent Chase glare.

“You really can’t blame me, you totally walked yourself into that one,” Will said with a wink.

“Stop flirting with me and go talk to Nico. You have to.”

“I do. I have to go tell him,” Will realized, his heart racing so fast in his chest that he could hear it in his ears. “I have to tell Nico that I like him.”

“I agree—”

It was at that moment that an ear-piercing scream came from the center of the camp. Annabeth dropped the box, and Will and her raced to the center of camp. Nyssa was comforting a nearly hysterical Harley on the ground as Nico held up a scroll that had seemingly floated in on the breeze. A holographic Leo Valdez, riding on Festus’ back with a brunette beauty by his side like the cover of a terrible romance novel for moms had appeared at the center of campus. The image spluttered and faded with static but by the time Will and Annabeth were within hearing distance Will caught,

“Love ya guys! Adios amigos, oh! And get ready for a taco party when I return!”

And with that the imagine cut out, leaving a stunned silence in its wake. Nico pulled his hand down which had been shaking and nearly crushing the parchment in his hand but Will clearly saw that Nico was shaking—no, seething, no erupting with rage. His usually colorless eyes were terrifying black pits, his teeth were gritted, and he was steaming up the late summer air with puffs of cold.

“I am going to murder Leo Valdez,” Nico announced his murderous intent before the various witnesses. Some of them nodded obviously very understanding of the sentiment, others like Percy and Jason face-palmed as the chaos continued to erupt.

“Uh…maybe I’ll tell him later. When he’s feeling less…homicidal,” Will told Annabeth as he swallowed.

“Probably a good idea,” Annabeth noted before jogging off to inform her cabin of what had just gone down.

“Why is he so angry?” asked Sherman and when he received the weird looks he shrugged. “Just because I’m a child of Ares it doesn’t mean I’m always angry without a reason. For example I’m always mad at Ellis because he’s a dumbass all the time.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Ellis grumbled, casting Cecil a look as Cecil cackled under his breath. Lou Ellen jabbed him in the ribs

“I think that’s why,” Lou Ellen pointed out.

Harley was still crying against Nyssa’s shoulder softly. Nyssa and Jake Mason sat red eyed and shocked. Nico was pacing beyond as Percy attempted to reason with him quietly. It all felt rather like some kind of late season twist like you would find in a show DeGrassi or Glee or any other trashy high school drama. But Will had to hand it to Leo, he definitely knew how to announce his comeback.

“Nico, I know you would probably feel much better if you went all stabby mcStabberson on Leo with your scary stabby sword, but has it occurred to you that it would just kill Leo again?” Percy asked him, half-understanding, half on the verge of nervous laughter.

“Oh but I do. I do want to kill Leo and make sure he stays dead this time,” Nico said with glee before bearing his teeth. “He. Made. My. Sister. Cry. I can’t let him keep breathing. I have my honor to uphold, so I need to utterly destroy him.”

“Really Nico? You can’t kill Leo!”

“Can I disembowl him?”

“No.”

“Skin him?”

“No.”

“Tear out his still beating heart and sacrifice it on the altar of my father? Use his blood as finger paint?”

“No Nico, though I give you an A for creativity.”

“This is why I hate this place,” Nico snapped. “All of you are so sensitive about perfectly reasonable things like manslaughter.”

“Stop being a murderous whiny baby!” Percy told him.

“Why don’t you make me you—“

The Grecian swear Nico used was so foul that Nyssa yelped and clapped her hands over Harley’s ears. Will lunged forward and grabbed Nico’s shoulder and physically got between both Percy and Nico before they could do something stupid like bring the whole camp down around their ears with their collective power. Sherman and Ellis looked rather disappointed, but Lou Ellen and Cecil held them back from joining the fray.

“Okay that’s enough!” Will demanded. “Nico you come with me. Right now—don’t even think about arguing with me so don’t open your mouth a single centimeter. If you do I swear you’ll be speaking in limericks for the next month Apollo protect me! Percy, go cool down in the lake!”

“Where are we even going?!” Nico demanded as Will grabbed his arm and trudged with him through camp. Will didn’t dare look back, or else he would definitely lose his nerve. No matter how brave he wanted to feel, the cold emanating from Nico like an air-conditioner on full blast was very intimidating. Finally they got to the nearly deserted training grounds. Will pushed Nico in front of a training dummy and handed him a sword from the rack.

“There. You want to stab, stab the dummy. Get out your anger,” Will ordered as he pointed to the dummy, hoping Nico wouldn’t decide that he was a better dummy to stab. Nico stared at Will incredulously before turning to the training dummy. The first few thwacks were half-hearted, but Nico’s hits soon took on a savage angry edge. Every hit Will could imagine bone breaking or puncturing muscle or tearing of skin. Eventually Nico had to slow down, breathing heavily and still glaring forward while not giving Will any sign of his weakness as he went through positions seamlessly, but he was no longer 10 below.

“This is stupid,” Nico spat towards the very beaten practice dummy.

“I don’t understand why you are so angry, but you are and here we are,” Will said as he sat on a log.

“You don’t understand,” Nico growled, whirling on Will. “Leo is out there trapezing around and you don’t understand?”

“He’s alive! You should be happy. You even said that he would be coming back,” Will said as he threw his hands in the air. “Honestly, Nico. What is going on with you?”

“Happy? Happy that…that idiot died, leaving only pain for those who loved him and thought he was dead, only to send some sort of half-baked message like that?” Nico demanded of Will. “What about my sister—my sister who agonized over Leo? Why didn’t he rush back for her? Or his siblings? Or anyone else?”

“He obviously went back for that girl.”

“Ha. He went back for Calypso. How fitting. The two of them ducking their fates and riding off into the sunset,” Nico said as he stabbed at the ground angrily as if imagining their faces there.

“So that’s it? You’re mad because of that? You aren’t mad because he hurt your feelings?” Will asked him calmly, brushing aside the fact that Nico was saying that somehow Leo had gotten Calypso, the famed nymph, to fall in love with him. Now that was a story Will wanted to hear at some point, if Nico didn’t kill him first.

“I don’t have any feelings,” Nico snarked as he threw the sword he was holding back in the pile.

“Nico—”

“Gods, why can’t anyone just stay. For the sake of the gods, why does everyone just have to go and—“ Nico muttered under his breath before grinding his teeth. “But obviously I’m just crazy, right? Everyone just loves me. No one was ever uncomfortable with me and wanted me to leave, right? Everything is just peachy keen. It’s just all in Nico di Angelo’s head, he’s just some wacky child of Hades, he’s just crazy. He’s not allowed to be hurt, or angry, or anything because he’ll just blow everything for everyone with his uncontrollable powers.”

“Nico, is this about the battle? What I said to you?” Will asked, totally floored at the sudden change. There was a growing pit in his stomach, as flashes of childbirth, Half-Blood Hill torn by the battle, and a pale and ghostly Nico di Angelo came back to him. “When I was telling you to stay?”

“Just forget it—”

“No, I won’t,” Will said firmly. He swallowed, trying to work past the suddenly lump in his throat. Will was ashamed and he could barely breathe. “I…I’ve never meant to tell you that how you felt wasn’t valid. How you feel is important to me. Really, it is. I’m…I’m so sorry that the way I said things made you feel otherwise. Oh Gods, I’m a total asshole. You must think I’m an absolute asshole.”

“Wait, what’s happening—are you crying?” Nico demanded, sounding horrified.

“No,” Will lied, equally embarrassed as he rubbed his face. Will was just as horrified at his sudden show of emotion as Nico was, his face was hot and his tears were warm and he wanted to crawl into a hole and stay there forever. “Yes.”

“Oooh my gods, di immortales, please, please stop crying,” Nico begged Will. “Oh gods I hate it when you cry. Please stop crying. This is my fault, it has to be my fault.”

“No, it’s my fault! It’s all my fault because I’m an idiot,” Will said impassioned at his utter stupidity. Suddenly everything was so clear to him. Nico wouldn’t break up with him because of anything that Nico found wrong with Will. It would be because Will was too caught up in himself and what he was feeling to be good for him. “I haven’t considered your feelings, not really, this whole time and I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“I…I forgive you,” Nico said slowly, but with feeling. “I do.”

“Is this why you’ve been avoiding me?” Will asked him softly.

“I…no…kind of…it’s complicated,” Nico said as his hands hung by his sides limply. “I just…I had a lot of fun on our date, Will. But I…there’s probably other people that you would rather go on dates with and…you are so nice to me. I just don’t want to feel like I’m being a burden on you.”

“Nico?”

“Yeah?”

“You aren’t a burden on me. I didn’t go on that date with you because I’m nice. I went on that date with you and I want to keep going on dates with you because I like you.”

Will woke up feeling chilled, sighing heavily. He didn’t want to get up yet, as his blankets and quilts were so utterly and deliciously warm, but finally Will forced himself out from the bed. The air was chilled, and Will enjoyed the scent of autumn was on the wind as he walked to the infirmary. It wasn’t like there was anyone in the infirmary, but there was a Keurig, and with a Keurig there was coffee.

He sat at the stoop of the Big House, sipping his coffee and watching the sky turn pearly, the edges just beginning the lighten in dawn. The sun was calling to him, and he waited patiently for it to rise as his coffee wafted and steamed in the air.

“Good morning Will,” Chiron said, hooves clopping as he stood beside him.

“Good morning,” Will greeted the teacher. “It’s a beautiful sunrise isn’t it?”

“That it is,” Chiron hummed, taking a sip of his own coffee as he rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “It has been a long time since I’ve enjoyed a sunrise, but I find no better company than the one I share with right now for it.”

“Now you’re just buttering me up for something,” Will said with an attempt at teasing, but his heart wasn’t really in it. He let his smile fall from his face, and continued to gaze ahead thoughtfully as the sky began to turn orange, brushstrokes of red deepening against the darkness and brightening with a shock of color. From there one could see the horizon stark against the sea, opening up the world to a bright new day. Will was so absorbed in his thoughts that he barely caught what Chiron was saying to him.

“Will, I believe I heard something about you and Nico,” Chiron said, and Will frowned as he wished he hadn’t heard Chiron at all.

“Oh,” Will said slowly, resisting his urge to blow bubbles in his coffee, however Will couldn’t bring himself to be rude to Chiron or duck the question. Chiron, who had let Will stay, who had taught Will how to suture a wound and perform an appendectomy and who seemingly knew Will better than he knew himself was someone he couldn’t lie to that easily. “Uh…yeah, that’s not happening. I kind of messed everything up, as usual.”

“As usual? I was under the impression that you only truly attempted to romance one girl previous,” Chiron said with an arched brow.

“Uh…Chiron, please, if we could avoid any blows to my ego I would be real grateful,” Will drawled slowly.

“I didn’t mean to—” Chiron cut himself off and seemingly reformulated whatever he wanted to say, his hind quarters shifted and plodded nervously on the ground. “I do not have extensive experience with romantic issues. Granted, the only romance that I’ve been involved with is the romance of other demigods with each other, and even then I preferred to stay out of it. Forgive me for my lack of tact.”

“You are forgiven,” Will promised Chiron immediately, not having it in his heart to hold that against Chiron. “I guess I just don’t really know what to do. I made my feelings as clear as possible, but Nico just kind of…well, he freaked out and ran off. Maybe I was just too forward, but what else could I have done? I wanted him to know how I feel, but I’m sorry if I sprung it on him. Though, I don’t think he’ll appreciate my apology after my sudden declaration of love.”

“Love? I see, love.”

“Yeah.”

“I have to admit,” Chiron said as he obviously hid a smile, “that part of you is from your father. No one has more of a penchant for sudden declarations of love than he does.”

“Oh, great, and those seem to always go so well for him,” Will grumbled under his breath. “Well, thankfully my track record isn’t that bad. No one’s turned into a plant yet.”

“Well, this is also true,” Chiron chuckled before placing a hand on Will’s shoulder. “But as I was saying before, if I may give you some advice Will? In manners of the heart, it is valid to plunge forward recklessly. Some people can’t do that, and must take a moment to stop and think. Give Nico time to think.”

“You think he might come around? Or at least forgive me?” Will asked, recalling Nico retreating back to his cabin after his declaration without a single word, just a pale white ghost. As far as Will knew, he hadn’t once emerged from the cabin the whole rest of the day or night, and as far as anyone could tell he may or may not have even been at Camp Half-Blood anymore.

“I can’t say. But I’ll have you know, I’ve given this advice to your brothers before.”

“Great, which ones?” Will asked as he watched the waves crash against the shore from the distance, the waves of long grass being tussled gently.

“Michael and Lee, at different times of course,” Chiron said, the look on his face fond and gentle. Will had meant his comment as a joke, but suddenly he felt that lump return to his throat. Michael and Lee were hardly ever talked about by anyone, except to talk about how they died. Will had almost forgotten that they had lived outside the sacred place in his heart he had built for them. “Wait for Nico’s response patiently, Will. Wait for him, and listen to him well when the time comes. And when it does, you will choose how it plays out for you. But know that I am rooting for you, Will Solace.”

Will smiled the best he could before he finished sipping his coffee and promised that he would talk to Chiron later. He returned the mug to the proper sink before deciding that the best thing he could do would be to head back to his cabin. He could wake up his siblings, get going on the day—

“Will.”

Will yelped, tripped on a tree root and promptly wiped out. He groaned as he managed to pull himself up, before looking back to see Nico staring at him half-emerged from the shadows. He was pale except for the shadows that ridged around his eyes, he looked generally grungy like he had been for a long and sweaty hike in the woods, his clothing was disheveled and slightly torn.

“Oh my gods, you look terrible,” Will blurted out.

“Oh, wow, thanks,” Nico said with a grimace that pulled hard as his lips.

“What happened?” Will said, seeing blood dripping down his arm.

“I…uh…went for a run.”

“A run?” Will asked with a raised eyebrow. “And you got this beat up during a run?”

“I also might have run into a flock of Stymphalian birds on this run,” Nico explained. Will just sighed, put his head in his hands for a moment as he attempted to collect himself before pulling up to his feet.

“Well, come on then. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Nico was quiet as he let Will lead them back to the infirmary. Nico took a shower in the bathroom while Will collected the supplies he would need for the first aid. None of Nico’s various scrapes, bruises, or cuts would need healing magic, but they did need disinfectant and gauze. Will worked robotically as he tended to Nico’s wounds. When he offered the unicorn draught, Nico didn’t complain, but when Will began lining up other products and ordered Nico to wash his face Nico was hesitant.

“Stop grumbling and rinse,” Will ordered, and Nico splashed his face free of the suds.

“I don’t understand why we’re doing this,” Nico grumbled as Will pulled back the headband to keep his hair from getting any wetter before drying his skin and then patting on the toner.

“Because a good skin care routine is important and will keep you from looking like death warmed over,” Will told Nico a matter-of factly as he grabbed the eye cream. “Close your eyes.”

“It’s cold,” Nico commented suspiciously, though he allowed Will to continue without biting his fingers off. “What does this have to do with healing?”

“In the humble words of a wise person, treat yo’self.”

“But isn’t ten steps excessive?”

“Okay, unless one is a certain gorgeous child of Aphrodite, bless her heart, one does not have perfect skin. We work for perfect skin. It’s a necessity.”

“You are just a vain child of Apollo. Normal people do not care about their skin this much.”

“Ha, please. Don’t make me laugh,” Will commented as he finished putting on the moisturizer. “There, you look like a human again.”

“I’m not a human though, neither are you,” Nico commented wryly as he pulled on his shirt.

“Then we are just both vaguely human shaped and we have a charade to uphold,” Will told him as he put away his things into their various shelves.

“You know, I didn’t really know what to expect when you told me to come here,” Nico said as he swung his legs, not unlike a child would. “I didn’t really know what to think about you either. You weren’t scared of me, you were easy to talk to. You were funny, but you took what I had to say seriously. When I found out I might have a chance, you know, when you were joking with Antonio that one time, and when I saw Nyssa and Billie together, I freaked because I was so surprised and happy. It’s stupid, but most of the people I like end up hating me so I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t worth it giving it a shot. Percy told me that sometimes you just got to dive in, but I can’t really do that. Whenever I do that someone always gets hurt. Eventually…I don’t know how or when, I’ll hurt you. I’ll be selfish and I’ll hurt you. But…but for some reason I felt like you might be able to handle it but then I suddenly got so terrified that I…so I…godsdamnit I’m not making any sense am I?”

Nico was glaring at the floor ferociously, as if the floor had just insult him, his father, his sister, and his dog. Will sat next to him on the bed, at the creak of the springs Nico looked up.

“I like you, Nico,” Will said, because that was all he could say. He looked towards Nico, hoping that a fraction of what he was feeling was being conveyed to him somehow. His words weren’t enough, but maybe the rest of it could be.

“You said that before,” Nico said with a glare and narrowed eyes.

“But I do,” Will argued. “I really, really like you.”

“Did you not hear anything I just said,” Nico demanded with a huff.

“I did. And I know, Nico. I already know that you’ll probably hurt me and I might hurt you, but I still like you,” Will promised Nico firmly. “Trust me, I know it better than anyone. I’ve been agonizing over that for a while now, but I’m ready for whatever happens, because I like you. Do you like me?”

“I…I do,” Nico answered.

“Then do you want to go out with me?” Will asked him curiously.

“If you go out with me, I’m going to need a little bit of time…before we tell everyone. Just so I can get used to it,” Nico warned him.

“I can wait,” Will promised, grasping Nico’s hand. Nico squeezed his hand in return.

#Solangelo #Solangelo fanfiction #Nico di Angelo #Will Solace

47 notes · View notes

tsarisfanfiction · 2 years

Text

Lie To Me

Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rated: Gen Genre: Angst/Hurt/Comfort Characters: Lee, Michael, Luke Luke loves camp. Luke betrayed them. It should be impossible for both of those things to be true, but somehow they were. This was a fic written for @pod-together and my podficcer partner for the event was the amazing @stereden, who also happens to be an author I've admired in another fandom for some time! I've never been involved in an event like this before; writing something specifically to be podficced was a new and interesting experience. Working with stereden on this was amazing; we both knew we wanted to do something with Lee and/or Michael, and from there everything just seemed to fall into place. Lee's truth-sensing ability is a headcanon of mine that I'm particularly attached to, so I'm delighted stereden was happy to play in this sandpit with me! You can find the podfic to listen to here (go, listen to it! It's amazing!)

Lee is there when Percy’s brought in, shivering and sweating and dying. He’s the head of Apollo cabin, head of the healers, of course he’s there. He doesn’t know what’s happened, why their young hero, this son of Poseidon who stopped a war, is dying, but that doesn’t matter. Not right then. What matters is that Percy Jackson is dying, that there’s poison in his veins, and that nothing Lee can do is helping.

It's Chiron who saves the younger boy, Chiron who knows things Lee could never hope to learn, and he leaves the infirmary in the centaur’s capable hands while Annabeth rushes in. It’s disquieting, that something happened to Percy, but the forest has monsters in it and Lee puts it out of his mind.

He has other things to do, other responsibilities to focus on. It’s the end of summer; come morning most of his half-siblings will leave and as the head of the cabin, he has to make sure everyone’s packed up and isn’t going to leave anything they’re going to miss behind. He has half-siblings to say goodbye to, too, the ones that are off to college in fall. Percy will live. Lee has a cabin to corral.

Come dawn, the rumour mill is rife, and Lee doesn’t want to believe any of it. They believe what they’re saying , he reminds himself when his inbuilt lie detector (thanks, Dad) doesn’t react to any of the words. It’s a limit of his ability – if the speaker believes their words, it’s a truth to them, so it’s a truth to Lee. That has to be what’s happening here, never mind that there isn’t a single lie in camp, not one person who doesn’t believe what they’re saying, and that never happens.

Never mind that Luke – Luke, Lee’s close friend, the older boy who always treated him like a peer, like a brother, who Lee has always trusted with all his might because Luke has never lied to him – is missing. Gone, without a trace in the night, and it’s Luke that the rumours are about.

Luke was the Lightning Thief, he hears from Chris Rodriguez, and something sounds a lot like admiration in his voice. Chris is unclaimed, but everyone knows he must be a Hermes kid, and if there’s anyone who’d be impressed at a theft, it’s a child of the god of thieves.

Luke let the hellhound into camp, he hears Malcolm Pace explain to one of the other cabin six kids, fully believing his own words and having them taken as gospel by his half-sibling.

Luke tried to kill Percy, Annabeth Chase keeps saying, her voice wavering in betrayal but conviction in the words. Out of everyone, she’s the most surprising. Lee loves Luke but Annabeth loves Luke, worships the ground the son of Hermes walks on. The fact that she isn’t lying about this steals the breath from Lee’s lungs. He summoned a Pit Scorpion.

The truth of those words marries with the injury Lee saw on the son of Poseidon, and it’s a bitter pill to swallow. Lee doesn’t know who the source of these rumours is, but he knows Annabeth was with Percy when Percy woke. He knows she’s a reliable source, that she’d never defame Luke without proof.

He prays there’s a misunderstanding somewhere. Maybe Luke was the one to defend Percy, maybe the younger demigod was too delirious to make sense of what was happening. He clings to that shred of hope because it’s all he has and it makes so much more sense than Luke betraying them. Luke loves them, loves camp and all the demigods within it. He’s told Lee that, so many times, and there was never a lie in his words.

Luke can’t have betrayed them.

Lee’s world shatters at dinner, once the summer campers are all gone and only the handful of year rounders remain. The year rounders are closer to each other out of necessity; they live together full time so they have to be. It makes the stark absence of Luke and Annabeth stand out all the more – Luke hasn’t come back, and Annabeth decided to go to her father. Maybe she couldn’t stand being in camp with all the rumours about Luke floating around. Lee can’t stand it, either, but he has nowhere else to go and there’s still five other Apollo kids who need him.

“Luke joined the Crooked One,” Chiron announces gravely, and the absence of a lie sears Lee. He can’t believe it but he has to, because Chiron isn’t lying, and Chiron would never say something so accusatory without definitive proof.

If Chiron says it, it must be the truth, not a belief, and Lee’s world crumbles apart around his ears.

No-one is lying. He listens intently to conversations, eavesdropping like a nosey Aphrodite kid, but his senses never go off, no matter what he hears. Truth, truth, truth. All he hears are truths and his hands are shaking as he leads his cabin to bed that night.

Luke never lied to him, but Luke betrayed them, and those two facts cannot go hand in hand. No-one is lying now, when a camp full of teenagers is so full of lies Lee sometimes has to put on headphones and shut out the world before he explodes.

He doesn’t sleep. The lights go out and the rest of them crash out in their bunks the same way they do every night, but Lee can’t sleep because his hands are still trembling and his heart is in his throat. Why is no-one lying? How was Luke honest and deceitful at the same time?

It’s been over a day since Lee last sensed a lie and his blood is freezing over because what if he’s lost his ability? What if he’s surrounded by lies that he’s taking as truths because the thing that warns him is broken?

Sobs burst from his throat, loud in the silence of the sleeping cabin, echoing in his ears and overpowering soft breathing from his half-siblings. This is too much for him; he’s fifteen, one of his friends betrayed them, his ability is broken – he’s broken.

Children of Apollo don’t stir at night, so Lee pays no heed to how loudly he’s hiccupping and shattering because he won’t wake anyone anyway.

The small hand on his shoulder is a surprise.

It’s too dark to see; Lee’s night vision has always been terrible and he isn’t turning any lights on, so he doesn’t know who it is, but their fingers are digging in like a vice and he might have an idea.

“I’m going to kill him.” The words are spoken quietly but the venom in them could rival the Pit Scorpion. It doesn’t feel like a lie, either.

Michael is not the one to go to for comfort. His younger half-brother is small but vicious, brutally honest and refuses to back down. Lee knows exactly who he’s talking about, because Michael’s response to betrayal is to lash out. His response to most things is to lash out.

As his cabin counsellor, Lee should be calming him down, steering him away from his aggressive output and encouraging him to direct it more productively, but it’s the middle of the night and Lee isn’t cabin counsellor right now. He’s Lee, he’s shattered into pieces, and Michael’s anger can wait until morning.

He cries harder, sobs tearing themselves out of him mercilessly, and his bunk dips as a bristling Michael clambers up to sit on the edge of the mattress. “I hate him,” the dark haired son of Apollo snarls vehemently. There’s still no trace of a lie. “What the Hades does he think he’s doing?”

Lee makes a wild grab in the dark for his half-brother, finding something that feels like a limb, maybe a thigh, and clings on as tightly as Michael’s still gripping his shoulder. If they weren’t sons of Apollo, they’d be bruised in the morning.

Michael isn’t big on being touched without permission but he doesn’t protest as Lee claws his way into something that might be called upright, keeping hold of his half-brother the whole time.

There’s a thought in Lee’s head, and it’s the middle of the night so he doesn’t think it all the way through before his mouth is open and words are falling out. “Lie to me,” he croaks through a throat that’s sore from crying.

Michael pauses. The muscles in his thigh flex in surprise and Lee doesn’t know what he’s thinking but he knows he is thinking. Lee’s own thoughts are continuing on their train wreck, and it’s just starting to dawn on him that there’s no good answer to his silent question when the other boy speaks again.

It sounds like a truth. It’s something Lee has no way of knowing if it’s true or not without his ability and he’s grateful but also wants to curse Michael for it. For knowing, somehow, what’s going through Lee’s head, what Lee’s testing.

It’s a lie. It runs through him, sharp and prickly against his spine, and impossibly he’s crying harder because it means he’s not broken, but it hurts so, so much.

Lee doesn’t know why it didn’t work on Luke. He doesn’t know how Luke managed to hide so much from him, how every word out of the son of Hermes’ mouth registered as true, but he knows that Luke knows about his ability, one of the few Lee trusted with the knowledge, and used it against him.

He wails, head falling until it meets the top of Michael’s head, his body wracked with more sobs. Michael doesn’t pull away, but he curses Luke out in a mixture of Ancient Greek and English in a never-ending tirade and Lee’s too hollow, too shattered, to do anything but cry.

#riordanverse #riordanverse fanfic #percy jackson and the olympians #percy jackson fanfiction #lee fletcher #luke castellan #michael yew #tsari writes fanfiction #stereden

36 notes · View notes

tsarisfanfiction · 2 years

Text

Snake Day

Fandom: Heroes of Olympus Rating: Teen Genre: Friendship Characters: Will Solace, Apollo Cabin, Malcolm Pace, Clarisse La Rue

There’s an agreement between cabins six and seven: Cabin Seven takes point on the spiders. Cabin Six takes point on the snakes.

Just a silly little thing to get my muses back in order, based on my headcanon that Apollo kids have a snake phobia. No exact timescale in mind for this, but it’s probably around MOA - HOH but before the Tartarus Napkin.

Reminder that there’s now a discord server for all my fics, including this one! If you wanna chat with me or with other readers about stuff I write (or just be social in general), hop on over and say hi!

Everyone knew Athena kids couldn’t do spiders. Will felt bad for them – while he, personally, had no issue with the eight-legged creatures and would happily relocate them outside when asked, having a whole group of creatures that targeted you specifically for your parentage sucked. It sucked even worse when they were small and crafty enough to crawl in through closed windows and non-existent cracks in walls and floors.

Spiders were a horrific thing to have as a natural enemy, and every time cabin six erupted into terrified screams and cabin seven led the charge to evict the culprits, Will found himself incredibly grateful not to be on the receiving end of that. Still he, personally, had no quarrel with spiders and was quite happy to be Annabeth or Malcolm (depending who was filling the head counsellor position)’s first port of call when they had an infestation that needed removing.

Cabin six and cabin seven had an agreement, after all.

Will almost trod on it when he left the cabin that morning, and immediately thanked his dad that his foot – clad in just a flip-flop, as per usual – missed it by a scant inch.

Well, he thanked Apollo after letting out a shrill scream he’d be embarrassed about in any other situation and scrambling backwards, away from the hss and strike of the fanged monster lying in wait. He slammed the cabin door shut, gaining the attention of any siblings that had somehow missed the shriek and bodily pressed his back against it, aware that he was trembling like a leaf.

His siblings didn’t ask questions. There was only one thing that his reactions could possibly stem from, and it had them hurrying to barricade the windows, faces white. Unlike cabin six, they were only rarely plagued by creatures, much to Will’s ongoing relief. He wasn’t sure why there was a general lack of snakes in Camp Half-Blood, but he certainly wasn’t complaining.

He just wished it was an all the time lack, rather than just general.

He also wished that the snakes, when they came, weren’t so big, or numerous. It was as though the serpents co-ordinated their attacks, because when they came, they always came in droves. Will had only seen the one, but prior experience told him that there would be several other snakes lurking in the grass outside of the cabin.

They were also vicious, nasty things, and maybe it was the sheer terror welling up inside him that led him to insist that every move they made was an attack, or preparation thereof, but he had no positive snake experiences to compare it with – and as far as his siblings were concerned, he’d got off the lightest when it came to the snakes.

Austin had scarring on his leg from when he’d arrived at camp, half-carried by his protector, the satyr whiter than Will had known satyrs could get. Will remembered staying by his new brother’s side day and night for three days as he desperately made sure that all the venom was neutralised – proof that the snakes were dangerous, and were actively trying to kill Apollo kids.

Not one of them would be leaving the safety of their cabin – safe only as long as none of the snakes had managed to slither in before they put themselves on lockdown – until every single snake was removed from camp. It was a tall order, that was true, and it was definitely a good thing that the serpents didn’t come often because clearing out the snakes was a huge operation – far bigger than relocating spiders away from cabin six – but cabin seven had horror stories about too many of their number succumbing to snake bites even inside camp to risk it.

Thankfully, the rest of the campers liked Apollo kids enough to rally against the snakes (either that, or they just didn’t want to lose their healers; Will was pragmatic enough to know that some of them, at least, saw them as nothing more than handy healers). Cabin six took the lead, Will knew, the same way cabin seven took the lead against spiders. It was a mutual understanding – as the only two cabins with an inbuilt fear straight from their godly parent’s natural nemesis, they knew exactly how debilitating the phobias could be.

Will was still shaking like a leaf, his back plastered to the door. He wouldn’t be able to peel himself away for several minutes, past experience told him. It wasn’t the first time he’d been the first one to discover the snakes. He was dimly aware of Raphael talking him through the stages of breathing, guiding him into getting air into his lungs again, but his body remained frozen in place.

It wouldn’t take camp long to notice the snakes. Even if Will’s scream hadn’t alerted them to the fact that something was wrong – unlikely, given that it was early morning and therefore too early for the daily screams of training – it was difficult to miss the carpet of snakes that invaded camp periodically. They just had to wait; at some point, someone would come by with food, because snake-evicting was an all-day job and thankfully at least some of the campers liked Apollo cabin enough that they didn’t want to see them starve. Malcolm – because Annabeth was off on the Argo II, leaving him in charge of cabin six – would let himself in to let them know when the snakes were gone.

Eventually, Will peeled himself away from the door, breathing mostly under control and limbs no longer trembling so much he was about to collapse, and made the shaky rounds of the cabin, checking up on the rest of his siblings.

All of them had bleached skin, simply the knowledge that the snakes had come enough to strike terror into them. Austin, whose phobia was further exaggerated by his bites, was on the edge of passing out – Emma was with him, trying to keep him from hyperventilating despite not looking much better herself. Kayla and Sam had armed themselves with whatever projectiles they could get their hands on – bows were, at Chiron’s insistence, kept in the camp armoury, but stray arrows often wound up in the cabin, and Will was pretty certain Kayla was hoarding them. Sam had acquired a set of darts from somewhere, and Austin’s blowpipe had been set next to him on the bed by Alice.

The Snake Days were never fun for any of them.

Outside, he could hear yells as the rest of the campers mobilised. Malcolm couldn’t be heard, but Clarisse was loud and unapologetic in her serpent scourge, her fellow Ares kids following her lead. Will didn’t know if they were capturing or killing, and for once in his life, didn’t care. As long as the snakes were gone, it didn’t matter how.

A knock on one of their windows – a high one, more akin to a skylight than anything else, drew his attention. Jake Mason was perched at the top of a precarious-looking contraption, holding a big hamper, and Will gestured for Kayla – whose bunk was closest – to open it.

“Breakfast,” the son of Hephaestus announced. “Don’t worry; it’s all under control.”

The clamour of roaring Ares kids gave no indication about how truthful he was being – whether they were winning or losing the rout, they’d be just as loud. Still, Will appreciated the reassurance as Kayla heaved in the hamper before all but slamming the window shut in Jake’s face. He didn’t seem offended, instead giving them a friendly wave before the contraption he was perched on began to retract.

Breakfast was picked at. None of them had much of an appetite, and each of them managed only a few bites before the food was set aside for later, when they weren’t feeling near-nauseous with fear. Whoever had packed the hamper had clearly expected that because nothing was perishable enough to be in danger of going off if it wasn’t eaten for several hours.

Snake Days were one of the few days that music didn’t fill the cabin. It should have done – music never failed to lift their spirits – but none of them were ever calm enough to go near their instruments, much less play them. Snakes were the only thing that could truly silence cabin seven’s music.

Too wired into fight or flight mode – most of them firmly in flight with Kayla and Sam the only two more inclined towards fight – there was little they could do except sit in near-silence, listening to each other’s shaky breathing and trying not to let panic dig into them any more than it already had. Will hated it, hated how Austin was on the cusp of hyperventilating no matter what Emma did, hated the way Kayla’s knuckles were white around the shaft of an arrow and Alice was curled up into a ball on her bunk.

For his part, Will couldn’t quite settle until he’d done a round of all the windows himself, just to be certain they were all firmly sealed shut against sneaky snakes. It wasn’t that he doubted his siblings’ thoroughness in keeping the snakes out; it was just an itch, that of the big brother, the one in charge of the cabin. He kept his eyes firmly unfocused as he faced each window in turn, unwilling to catch sight of any snakes even as the vague fuzzy shapes of the other campers ran around outside, making sure all the latches were tight.

They were, of course.

All bar one.

The bathroom door was tightly shut, but when Will nudged it open to check on the small frosted window, he blanched and stumbled backwards.

A snake, thick and writhing, was worming its way through, and he had the panicked half-thought about why no-one outside had noticed before there was a rattle, down on the floor.

Exactly where Will’s foot landed, and pain exploded in his ankle.

He fell backwards, barely noticing the bang on his head against the floor, far more preoccupied by the hissing and the rattling and the snakes in the bathroom.

Behind him, there was screaming. Will would have joined in if he had the breath to scream, but his diaphragm had frozen solid and there was no air travelling in or out, even though his chest was heaving.

“THEY’VE GOT IN!” he vaguely heard a shrill voice shriek. Alice, maybe. He only had eyes for the creature latched onto his ankle, tail rattling ominously, and the other snake – snakes, how many were there – slithering closer.

“Will!” someone else was shouting, hands pawing at his shoulders but shaking too much to be of any use.

Or maybe it was Will shaking that much.

Projectiles zoomed past him, most glancing harmlessly off of scales but a couple of things sticking into the creature like a pincushion. If it let go of Will’s ankle, he didn’t notice.

Their door slammed open with a bang that shook the bunks.

“Wh- Solace!” Heavy footsteps ran across the cabin’s floor, and Will only caught sight of bulk and a ragged camp t-shirt before, with a war cry, a flash of celestial bronze neatly decapitated the snake. “Treat him!” Clarisse ordered; Will couldn’t see which of his siblings she was addressing, but it didn’t really matter when shaking hands started dragging him across the floor, away from the bathroom door.

Clarisse strode through and slammed the door behind her. There was the sound of chaos and snarling, but Will couldn’t tell much more as a trembling hand pressed the opening of a vial to his lips.

Nectar trickled in, although it felt like more was spilling down his chin than into his mouth. The auburn curls told him it was Emma, and he felt like he ought to be reassuring her but he still couldn’t breathe, his chest seized and frozen in position. Whether that was from the blind terror or the venom, Will couldn’t begin to decipher.

It felt like no time at all had passed when the bathroom door swung open again, narrowly missing Will’s foot and revealing a disgruntled-looking Clarisse. “All dead,” she reported bluntly.

Will tried to thank her but he could barely push air out of his lungs, let alone talk. The daughter of Ares didn’t seem to care as she came to squat next to him. He felt assessed as her dark eyes raked over him once, taking in his condition.

“Does he need Chiron?” By the time Emma had stuttered out a negative, bulging muscles had forced their way beneath Will and lifted him from the cabin floor. “I’ll leave him here, then. Easier to secure.” Rigid in Clarisse’s arms, he barely reacted as she crossed the cabin in a couple of strides and deposited him on a bed he recognised as his own.

On the next bunk over, he caught sight of Raphael cradling Austin, who’d apparently passed out. His other brother and sisters were torn between eyeing the bathroom in terrified mistrust, and glancing over at him. Emma hurried to his side as Clarisse moved away, storming around the cabin as though the invasion of the snakes was a personal insult before the front door opened and slammed shut again. Will hoped she’d taken the snake corpses with her.

“D-don’t move,” Emma told him, her voice shaking just as badly as her hands. Will felt her press down on his shrieking ankle and barely held in a cry as the pain increased. His whole body tensed without his command, not that he’d realised his muscles had had any slack left in them, and he jumped when fingers gripped his tightly enough to bruise.

Black and purple strands of hair in his periphery declared that Alice had left her bunk to curl up next to his. Shaking fingers with painted black nails passed through his vision before fingers settled in his hair. Will managed to force his head to turn enough to meet her blue eyes, focusing on her as strains of healing hymn stuttered their way out from where Emma was by his feet.

It didn’t do much for helping the pain. If anything, it seemed to increase, and with it came black flickers across his vision. Alice’s hand tightened around his and he tried to respond in kind, but his muscles appeared to be limited to involuntary actions only. In the background, he could hear Raphael muttering in Spanish, presumably quiet words of encouragement to Austin as their brother – hopefully – started to come around again.

Will wanted to check, but the pain was still causing little fireworks of darkness to explode across his vision and it was getting harder and harder to focus on anything. He chose to listen to the healing chant, the words familiar enough to mentally sing along with even if his mouth wasn’t working. If he could just stay conscious through the healing session…

Black spiralled across his vision, getting larger and more insistent, and he realised that something in the combination of snake-panic-venom wasn’t going to take no for an answer no matter how hard he tried to cling to consciousness.

“Will!” he heard faintly, a panicked voice he couldn’t identify as it echoed down a long tunnel before tapering away.

The last thing he was aware of was the sharp agony in his ankle.

Then nothing.

When his eyes peeled open, it was to a distinct lack of distant chaos. He was still in his bed, which was good news, he supposed – although as most of the camp’s healers shared his cabin, that didn’t necessarily mean much – and there was the unmistakable feeling of bandages wrapped around his ankle.

Shuffling noises indicated that his siblings were still in the cabin, but the head of blond hair sat on the floor next to his bed didn’t belong to any of them.

“Hey,” he croaked, feeling the tell-tale taste of leftover nectar in his mouth. More had been dribbled in during his spate of unconsciousness, apparently. Clearly the combination of godly food and Emma’s hymns had done their job, because his ankle no longer hurt, although if he concentrated Will could feel a dull ache.

Malcolm didn’t jump – Athena kids didn’t jump, not unless there were arachnids involved – as he placed a thin leaf of paper in the book he was reading and closed it carefully. Bespectacled grey eyes flickered over to focus on him, and Will gave him a tired smile.

“The snakes are gone,” Malcolm reported. Will felt for the sun and got back the flicker of late afternoon. He’d been out of it for most of the day, then. “I’m sorry, Will. I should’ve thought to check your windows from the outside.” He sounded like he felt awful for the oversight; whether that was because Athena kids weren’t supposed to make mistakes or because he was upset that Will had been injured, Will couldn’t tell.

“We’ll know for next time,” he reassured him, the implication resting painfully on his tongue. Next time, because the snakes never gave up. They’d be back, their numbers fully replenished no matter how many the Ares cabin had slaughtered, and the Apollo cabin would have to go through it all over again.

Malcolm adjusted his glasses. “It was an unacceptable oversight,” he insisted. “No-one ever gets hurt when you help us.”

Snakes are more dangerous than spiders, Will didn’t say, because it was objectively true but he got it, anyway. Godly parent nemesis induced fears weren’t comparable. They all, quite frankly, sucked, and no doubt if a larger, more venomous spider ever found its way into camp…

“We’re healers,” he said instead, pulling on a reassuring smile. “We do our best.” He pulled himself upright, immediately gaining a hoard of siblings fussing over him. Malcolm shifted out of their way, but it was him that Will kept his attention on even when Austin wriggled under his arm on one side and Alice tutted at him from the other.

He didn’t need the support, but he didn’t push them away. In Austin’s case, he tightened his arm around him in a reassuring hug, because his younger brother was still trembling somewhat.

“Thanks for helping us out,” he said sincerely. It might be a cabins six and seven arrangement ranging back generations, but that didn’t make him appreciate it any less.

“Any time,” Malcolm replied, a soft look settling over his face. “That’s what friends are for, isn’t it? Will you be fit for dinner tonight?”

Will barely had to listen to what his body was saying. “I’ll be fine,” he promised. Emma’s healing hymns had neutralised the venom, leaving just a slightly disgruntled ankle. “See you there,” he added as the son of Athena pulled himself to his feet, tucking his book under his arm and readjusting his glasses again.

“Don’t push yourself.”

“He won’t,” Alice answered for him, to a chorus of agreements from the rest of his siblings. Will let out a small chuckle.

“You heard them,” he said easily, and Malcolm gave a clear look of approval before letting himself out.

Leaving the cabin at the dinner conch put Will at the centre of attention. Word had clearly spread like wildfire about the bite, and the looks he received were a mix of sheepish (mostly the Athena campers, who seemed to have taken it as a personal failure), worried (the majority of the rest of camp), and assessing (Clarisse, who even went as far as going out of her way to walk directly past him as he headed for the table and glared daggers at where he was limping ever so slightly on the ankle. He got a firm grip on his shoulder as she passed).

None of cabin seven were fully at ease out of the cabin. They never were, after a Snake Day. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust the other campers to rout them all – they did – but there was a prickle in Will’s spine that wouldn’t quite go away, that misheard the crackling of the burning offerings as hisses and rattles. He didn’t often wear anything sturdier than flip-flops on his feet, but hiking boots had been dug out from hiding and rarely-worn pants had replaced shorts, just in case. His siblings were equally on edge, dressed in sturdier clothes and, in some cases, weapons hidden underneath layers.

No-one called them out on it. Not that night, not the next day. Will continued to be the subject of scrutiny until he stopped limping two days later, but even after that he occasionally caught Malcolm or Clarisse watching him – not that the latter ever admitted it – to say nothing of his hovering siblings, who insisted on checking it over multiple times a day until it was entirely healed.

A week later, screams from cabin six snapped them into action and Will was first inside, cupping a reasonably-sized one in his hands where it was crawling towards Malcolm with clear intent and sending his friend a reassuring grin. “We’ve got this,” he promised as his siblings poured in behind him.

He got a grateful look in response as a sea of blond heads fled the cabin, trusting them to handle the arachnid invasion the same they always did.

#heroes of olympus #hoo fanfic #riordanverse #riordanverse fanfic #will solace #kayla knowles #austin lake #apollo cabin #malcolm pace #clarisse la rue #tsari writes fanfiction #snake day

43 notes · View notes