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housemartius · 5 years

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i’ve had an hc that dakota is native american for a long time now, and after reading this awesome post i was inspired and like “what if he and piper were cousins??” so let me share some things i’ve imagined about them so far (warning: this is one long ass post):

- they were both born and raised in tahlequah, oklahoma (not in a reservation tho bc there’s no cherokee reservation in oklahoma, rick’s an idiot who doesn’t research anything)

- dakota is two years older than piper and that made him a bit overprotective of her while growing up. even when they were kids, piper got a lot of attention from mostly other boys (which would later make her feel super self conscious of her own looks) and dakota would pick up on her discomfort and shoo away all of them in an instant

- like seriously, he’s a pretty observant kid and piper would always flinch when a boy got too close for comfort. so dakota was always more than ready to help her out

- imagine how overjoyed grandpa tom was when he found out he was going to be a grandpa, twice, in such a short span of time. dakota had barely just turned 1 year old when tristan announces the woman he’s dating is pregnant tom cried so much, bless him

- now grandpa is no fool though. he knew something was up with the ppl his children were dating, he knew they weren’t ordinary folks. and he suspected his future grandchildren wouldn’t be exactly ordinary either. and how right he was

- just a few months after he was born in september 1992, baby dakota was taken on a little trip with his mom and grandfather around tulsa and they came across a huge vineyard

- it’s january and it’s hecking cold (like 50ºF/10ºC) and the vines, as you’d expect, are basically dead. that’s when something remarkable happens: the plants start to reach out towards dakota and the closer he is to them, the livelier they get

- grandpa is shocked to say the least but he plays it cool. he just turns towards his daughter and calmly asks “care to explain please” to which she then proceeds to spill the beans about how she met the roman god of wine whose son is currently being held by grandpa tom

- tom is really surprised that his daughter dated an actual immortal deity from ancient times, or that they even exist at all (he thought greek myths, and therefore roman by extension, were a bunch of bull). yet at the same time he’d been suspecting the dude wasn’t completely human for a while now...

- in the end he happily accepts both his daughter’s love for bacchus (if that’s even who he really is) and the son they had, and never loves dakota any less even now that he knows he’s a demigod

- except they don’t tell tristan bc 1. bacchus told dakota’s mom to keep it a secret (whoops), 2. tristan’s a skeptic who doesn’t believe in any kind of myths so what’s the point and 3. tristan’s sweetheart is pretty high guard about her own identity and grandpa’s noticed this and he thinks she’s hiding the truth from his son for a good reason (again, he is such a skeptical man, he’d probably think they were all insane)

- april 1994. piper is born and an almost 2 y/o dakota is finally introduced to the cousin he’d been hearing so much about

- both love their grandfather and listening to stories about their culture. and grandpa loves that his grand-kids are so keen on learning

- they live a pretty happy childhood overall. apart from dakota’s innate abilities to making vines grow whenever he walks by (though he remains oblivious to this bc his mom goes to great efforts to ensure he doesn’t find out so soon, he’s still a little kid after all), none of his other powers manifest all that much when he’s a toddler. and neither do piper’s

- ofc, being demigods they’re constantly exposed to the danger of being discovered by monsters but they luck out and continue living in ignorant bliss of their godly parentage

- they love being outside. playing, napping, talking, whatever it is, they don’t like being indoors. they’re always running around everywhere, climbing trees, rolling around in the grass, etc it’s a very rare occurrence when they manage to return home with clean clothes

- they just have a looot of energy and they like using it. getting them to calm down is a challenge in itself, they’re always goofing around. whether they’re having a nice family dinner (food fights tend to occur more often than not), or watching cartoons before bedtime (reenacting cool fight scenes is a must!)

- but then one day, just a few weeks after his 8th birthday, dakota shows up at tristan’s house with his mom and she says she needs to talk with his uncle and grandfather

- the kids are told to go play for a little while in the backyard to let the grown ups have some privacy

- dakota is uncharacteristically quiet. piper notices it right away, how her cousin’s shoulders are slacked and his eyebrows furrowed in distress. she asks what’s wrong, what happened to make him so sad

- “i have to move away” he says. piper is shocked, starts asking why. why, where to, and can’t the whole family go with him?

- “no. just me. somewhere far away”. “but why?!”. “because it’ll be bad if i don’t”

- the rest of the day goes by in a blur. piper can’t understand what’s happening. why does dakota have to go all alone? why can’t her aunt go too? why don’t her dad or her grandfather try to stop them?

(- later, when piper demands her dad for explanations, tristan only says what his sister told him: that dakota needs to go somewhere that’ll be better for him, that piper’s aunt can’t take care of him by herself. grandpa tom tells her the same thing whenever piper turns to him but he knows. his daughter told him the truth)

- saying goodbye is the only moment that seems to last an eternity though. piper is full on crying and sobbing, holding on to dakota with all her strength and begging her cousin to stay, stay and everything will be okay bc he’ll be with her and all the people who love him

- dakota cries too, though not as hard. he’s barely keeping it together but he’s the older cousin and he needs to be strong for piper

- inside though he’s terrified of what’s happening to him. to him and to his mom and now his dear little cousin and his uncle and grandpa. he wants to stay but bacchus was clear during his sudden unexpected visit: he needs to go to the wolf house right away

- his mom takes him there. this goodbye is even more terrible than the previous one. in the midst of all the crying he promises that he’ll be okay, that he loves her and will visit as soon as he can

- dakota hadn’t had the fortune (or permission) of visiting his mom and granddad back in tahlequah often. and the few times he had managed, piper had been away with her dad on his trips looking for a job as an actor in los angeles

- one day, now 13 y/o, he was at his mom’s place with his grandfather too, just sitting and talking and enjoying each other’s company when they decided it was time to tell him the horrible news: his grandpa had been diagnosed with lung cancer

- tom reassured him all throughout his grandson’s hysterics that he felt fine and that he was at peace with the situation

- and then dakota asked the dreaded question

- “... how long?”

- “... soon”

- when dakota made it back to camp he started asking around for possible cures, talking with praetors and centurions and just about anyone who might help him

- though in the end he didn’t find any medicine that could possibly save his grandfather

- and it’s not like the romans really cared for helping outsiders either

- the day he got the news grandpa tom had passed away, just a little over 2 months later, he refused to leave his bunk bed for the remainder of it and it took his two centurions to force him out of it the next morning

(- dakota swears that, out of all the days he’d felt the most lonely and in need of the warm comfort of his family, that had been the most painful one he’d endured in his whole life)

(- he also wondered if piper had known about their grandfather’s condition, and for one moment he actually hoped she didn’t just so she could be spared of going through the same despair he and the rest of their family had)

(- he’d also wished, more ardently than ever before, to be able to hug his beloved little cousin again just like he had so many times years before)

- fast forward to 2010. dakota is standing with the rest of the romans at cj, staring at a greek ship that quickly approaches camp

- his long time friend jason is said to be on board and dakota is just dying to give the dude the longest and most bone crushing hug ever

- plot twist: it’s piper who gets the pleasure of receiving the longest and most bone crushing hug ever. but she returns it tenfold rip dakota’s back

- their reunion was a hazard mix of tears, laughter and wrestling. he and jason happily gave piper a tour of the camp, though tbh she didn’t really pay attention to much, catching up with her fave cousin was obviously the priority

- during her quest to save the world, she iris messages dakota as regularly as she can and they talk for hours on end, sharing stories from their past, their family, their beloved grandpa tom whom they missed terribly every single day, everything really

- piper confides in him how much her dad’s lack of interest and pride for cherokee culture has rocked her own, how growing up with him so absent from her life and so worried with rejecting everything cherokee/native american related had made her feel so uncomfortable in her own skin

- dakota takes all this in silence and just lets her get it all out. he hears her every complaint and insecurity and fear. then he starts telling her the stories their grandfather had told them

- he tells at least 2 different ones every night they talk, always with a smile on his face, always trying to replicate the exact same tone and pace their granddad used

- and it eventually gets piper to smile too

- one night it’s dakota who confesses how much he regrets not visiting tahlequah more often, how he wishes he’d spent more time with thomas before he’d passed away, how he wished he’d been with him during those last few days if not to just hear him going on and on about cherokee myths like he loved to

- that gets piper crying in no time. dakota cries too. they just spend a good 10 minutes sobbing together through their reflections in the watery rainbow, neither saying much

- “i’m glad he told us. the stories i mean”, dakota says when they’ve calmed down. “feels like he gave us little pieces of himself bit by bit that’ll never go away”

- “yeah... it really does”

- when the war’s finally over, piper and dakota visit each other often, though piper’s the one who goes to cj more often since dakota’s a centurion and has his plate full most of the time

- they’re still as goofy and energetic around each other as ever, like the time they spent away from each other was like clicking pause on a movie and now they’ve hit play and continued on from there

- still hate being trapped indoors. when there’s camp meetings they both need to attend they just can’t help but joke around. everyone else dreads going to those now thanks to these idiots

- dakota isn’t as chaotic as piper so he somewhat helps to keep that side of her in check

- when leo accompanies her during her visits though... no point in even trying to hold back this Mess, dakota’s tried before and it was the most stressful and tiring day of his fucking life

- piper constantly teases dakota about his crush on her half-brother michael. he very much regrets the day she ever saw how he acted around the son of venus (a blushy neck scratching mess)

- wow this is getting long fhdkds anyway!! they’re amazing kids who love each other to death and constantly support each other through good and bad times, and they’re proud af to be cherokee and they’ll treasure their beloved grandpa tom and his teachings till the end of their lives, and if anyone ever wants to hear a story, they’re the right kids to go to!

#piper mclean #dakota #pjo #pjo.txt #my headcanons #i spent a lot of time on this and it made me very emotional fdsfjdsk #also if any of the bits regarding cherokee culture seem off or odd or bad then pls let me know and i'll fix wtv needs fixing #i tried to keep it as minimal and vague as possible bc i'm white and an ignorant to the topic

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