Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Light rain tapped down on Lee’s shoulders, achingly gentle in the way it slid down his arms. The sea breeze that swept through his hair seemed to speak to him.

Hello hello hello, it murmured with each gust. I love you I love you I love you I love—

“Sap,” Lee muttered, sure that Percy was adjusting his aura on purpose—something he was generally horrible at as it required pushing his thoughts and emotions outward instead of keeping them locked up in his chest—specifically because he knew Lee would be reaching for it. Even his heartbeat, pulsing steadily against Lee's thumb, was a silent declaration of love—each ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum spoke of longing and love and waiting waiting waiting waiting. The pearl had been the one thing keeping Lee from losing it for the few days Percy was out of contact due to Alaska—and why it had worked when even the journal hadn't was beyond him, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe his dad would know, though.

“What?” Silena asked from next to him, already peering over the railing at the sprawling city that had shimmered into existence.

“My boyfriend’s being a sap, is all,” Lee focused on the longing in his heart, the warmth in his chest, the love love love love, and could almost feel the way it rippled out, no doubt reaching the ground below and touching the one soul who was waiting for it.

She turned to him, gripping his arms tightly. “You can feel him already?”

“He’s right below us,” Lee said, twisting her grip around to hold her hands in his own.

“Below us,” Silena whispered, like she couldn’t quite believe it. “You’re gonna let me get my hugs in, right?”

“I wouldn’t dream of depriving either of you of that,” Lee said honestly. “You’re as important to him as I am, you know.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Silena grinned, squeezing his hands before letting go and leaning back over the railing.

“You are,” Lee insisted. “In a different way, for sure, but you are.”

She smiled, nudging his shoulder lightly. “And thank the gods for that, honestly. I mean, I know we’re Greeks and all but that’s my little brother and—”

Lee shoved her away, already laughing, and she kicked at the back of his knees to try and deadleg him, which was just asking for it, honestly, and—

“We’re coming up on the Field of Mars now,” Jason reported, interrupting their impromptu wrestling match with little more than a resigned look.

“It was a good idea to suggest we set down there,” Silena said. “From what you told us, we wouldn’t have been allowed to land in the city with all the built-in weapons on this thing.”

Jason grimaced, “I’m just glad I remembered it in time. It’d hardly be a good first impression if Terminus had to pop up here and yell at us just because I didn’t remember the Pomerian Line.”

“Your memories’ll come back in time,” Piper said, joining them at the railing. There was still a slight tension between her and Jason, the remnants of their failed relationship built on fake memories stinging just slightly despite their best efforts to remain friends.

“Percy might be able to help with that,” Lee offered. “Induce a vision or something and take you with him.”

Jason turned away, an uncomfortable set to his jaw that always popped up when Percy was mentioned. It must’ve been horribly awkward to always be reminded of the guy he’d essentially been sent to camp to replace, especially since he was sure Jason had pieced together that Percy was the one to take his spot as praetor.

But Lee just couldn’t help talking about Percy at every possible opportunity, not when they were so close to reuniting that he could practically taste it.

A nudge to his side brought him out of his thoughts—or in Clarisse's words, pathetic longing—and he looked down to meet wide brown eyes.

"Hey there, bud," he murmured, scratching the almost year-old foal behind the ears. "You sense him, too?"

Arcturus snorted, stepping closer with a nervous flick of his wings and giving the others a distrustful look. Even after months, the colt was still horribly skittish around most people, not helped at all by Percy's disappearance, which was why Lee was surprised he was even emerging onto the deck at all. Last he'd checked, he'd been hiding in a mound of blankets in the storage room.

Frankly, Lee hadn't been sure he'd be up to the trip at all, but the prospect of reuniting with Percy was apparently just enough of a motivator to get him out of the stables.

A high-pitches shriek from Leo followed by the clopping of hooves told Lee that Arcturus's twin had also joined them up top, and he shook his head in amused exasperation.

He'd be amazed at how different two twins could turn out, but looking at his own dad and twin was enough proof of that. Regardless, he couldn't help wishing that Penelope had ended up with just a little less of her father in her, if only so Arcturus could have some.

"I'm ready to see him, too," he said to Arcturus, tactfully ignoring the commotion behind them—Blackjack had followed his children up and was, if Lee had to guess, trying to scold his daughter for being a menace and being rewarded with a nip to the side. He risked a glance over his shoulder to see the two pure black pegasi glaring at each other, pinned ears and fluffed wings and all, and turned back to Arcturus with an indulgent sigh.

"Thank goodness you're not like them, right?" He asked, despite wishing only a moment before that the colt had received at least a bit of his father's ferocity—or, even better, his mother's.

Speaking of—

Melody pushed herself between her unruly mate and child, knickering something that had both of them wilting—and never before had Lee wished to understand pegasi more—before stomping over to the group at the railing.

She nuzzled at her son and nudged at Lee fondly before hooking her neck over the railing. Her wings rustled impatiently, and he knew she was fighting the urge to dive over the edge.

Jason had had to talk them out of sending riders ahead on the pegasi, reminding them that New Rome was fresh out of a siege and even with the knowledge that the Greeks were approaching there was a good possibility of them shooting first and asking questions later. That hadn't gone over well with Melody and Blackjack—or Lee and Silena—but once Clarisse had agreed they'd been forced to acknowledge the risks.

"Almost," Lee whispered, and she rumbled something deep in her chest.

Clarisse and Chris emerged from below deck right as Leo started to shout out a countdown for landing, gleefully informing them to buckle up—there were no buckles—or prepare to eat dirt—there was no way they could fall off the railing unless they fucking jumped—as they were about to make a glorious landing thanks to his glorious piloting skills.

The landing was decidedly not glorious, and had them all either stumbling or clutching the railing tighter, but they were on the ground. They were on the ground at Camp Jupiter and a crowd of people were heading up the path from the city to meet them.

Jason was the first to disembark, familiar and somewhat friendly face and all, but Lee was right behind him, practically vibrating as he searched the faces of the people approaching.

Not Percy, not Percy, not Percy, not Percy—

Percy.

Oh, gods.

Silena gasped, her hand flying out to grip Lee’s wrist with bruising force, clearly having seen him as well.

Percy was arm in arm with a girl their age with dark hair braided tightly down her back, both of them wearing armor and a matching purple cloak. The girl could’ve only been Reyna, Jason’s old friend and fellow praetor, but Lee only had eyes for Percy.

He was taller than he’d been six months ago, his hair a little more shaggy, a little more windblown, as if he’d been strolling along the beach. He was wearing a deep golden toga—which definitely didn’t make Lee bluescreen because his legs good gods—under his armor, purple cloak billowing behind him regally—was a wind god doing that on purpose? Both his and Reyna’s cloaks were doing it—and Lee could see the moment Percy saw him.

There was a stutter in his step, his aura flaring out before he reigned it back in, and Lee spotted the way his grip on Reyna tightened momentarily.

For the first time in six months, Lee and Percy locked eyes.

Lee knew that the Romans likely had a protocol for this, that they were expecting a certain level of professionalism from their former enemies turned guests, but, in that moment, there was nothing—no person, no god, no monster—that could’ve kept him from rushing forward.

Percy moved at the same time he did, first a fast walk and then a jog and then they were both running, drawn to each other like two magnets, like there was a string connecting Lee’s heart to Percy’s and it was gradually reeling them both in.

They collided, and it was like the pieces of his heart finally slid back into place, that last little click of a puzzle years in the making.

Lee wrapped his arms around Percy’s waist, keeping the momentum going to swing him up off his feet and spin him round. Percy’s arms were around his shoulders, his face pressed into his neck so Lee could feel his breathy laugh against his skin. Lee stopped spinning, still holding Percy up by his waist, and then Percy was lifting his head and their lips were slotting together with an ease that came with two years by each other’s sides.

Idly, Lee thought that the world could’ve ended right then and he wouldn’t have known, nor would he have cared.

Lee set him down gently without relinquishing his grip, and Percy broke the kiss, tilting their foreheads together with an aching sort of softness.

“Hey there, Honeybee,” Percy murmured against his lips, and Lee let out a breath, a feeling in his chest that sung home home home ringing even louder at the words.

“Hey there, Hammerhead.”

Percy’s hands curled in his hair, pulling him across the scant distance he’d put between their lips into another kiss, this one just a tad less desperate, a tad more sweet.

This time Lee’s ears picked up more than the pounding of his own heart, and he was able to hear a piercing wolf whistle that could only be Chris, the little shit. He turned his head to glare and—yep, sure enough, he was smirking that stupid grin. Clarisse, next to her boyfriend, was trying and failing to look disgusted and annoyed at their ‘gross’ display of affection—Lee, who had once caught them in the armory missing several important articles of clothing as they sucked face, thought she had no ground to stand on there because seriously they hadn’t even locked the fucking door—and Silena was, oh, yep, she was crying already. Big surprise. Melody looked like she was half a second away from bulldozing them over so she could check on her little foal, and Blackjack didn't seem too far behind. But where—

Something tugged at his shirt insistently, and he glanced down to find a very indignant Penelope staring up at him, her teeth still firmly chomped down on his shirt.

"Pen?" Percy sounded equal parts choked up and shocked. "What are you—"

"You didn't think we'd leave them behind?" Lee snorted. "You couldn't pay me to tell Melody she couldn't come see you."

Percy made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob, and then he was folding to his knees to wrap his free arm around Penelope’s neck. A reddish brown blur joined the huddle, and then Arcturus was worming his way in between Percy and his sister, his wings fluttering excitedly.

Lee glanced up at the watching crowd as Percy cooed over the foals, giving them a somewhat awkward wave. Reyna looked like she was having to try her absolute hardest not to laugh at her fellow praetor baby-talking two pegasi, pursing her lips as she met Lee's eyes and raised a single brow. He dipped his head to her, knowing just from the few interactions he'd seen between her and Percy that they both respected and trusted each other.

Off to the side, Lee spotted the young girl from Percy’s drawing back in December—Nico’s sister Hazel, who’d been brought back from the Underworld—holding the hand of the tall, buff guy next to her, who Lee assumed to be Frank, the third member of the quest to Alaska. Both of them were staring at Percy and Lee with wide smiles on their faces, not seeming uneasy around the Greeks like the rest of the legion. Hazel caught his eye and gave him a small wave and—oh, she was adorable, Lee loved her already.

Also, he knew his boyfriend well, and if Percy hadn’t adopted her he would eat his bow.

Frank coughed something into his fist that Lee couldn't make out but had Percy's head shooting up.

"I will shoot you, Frank Zhang," he threatened, and both Frank and Hazel made identical faces of disbelief, making Percy stick his tongue out.

Melody and Blackjack joined them next, and Percy stumbled to his feet, wrapping his arms around Melody's neck without letting go of Lee's hand—which he was more than okay with—as Blackjack nudged his head and softly knickered.

What followed next almost certainly made members of the crowd snicker, and even Reyna lost her battle with containing her smile.

Melody nuzzled at Percy's head and then worked her way over the rest of him, sniffing insistently even as he tried to tell her that he was really okay, Mel, don't you think Lee would know if I were injured and Lee held up his free hand in surrender when that made Melody glare at both of them.

"Don't bring me into this," he said. "Mother him as much as you want, Mel. He deserves it."

Percy muttered a traitor as Melody huffed smugly and continued her mothering, but he was smiling. Despite his earlier thoughts, Lee was glad now that no one else here could understand pegasi because he got the feeling the conversation between Percy and Melody was intensely private.

Eventually, though, the family of pegasi stepped away, and then Silena was crashing into Percy so hard he let out an oof, staggering back a step before catching her. Lee stood a foot away, only a little awkwardly due to their connected hands, as brother and sister reunited. She said something in his ear, too quiet for Lee to catch even if he’d been listening, and he nodded into her shoulder.

Percy let go soon enough—sooner than either of them wanted, based on their faces—grabbing Chris in a hug before, for maybe the first time ever, finagling a quick embrace out of Clarisse. Lee wished he’d gotten a picture of it, but her face when she let Percy go told him he’d find himself on the wrong end of her spear if he so much as mentioned it—Percy, for the record, looked pleased as punch about it, despite his teary eyes.

Everything in him ached to just drag Percy on the ship and let Jason, Piper, and Leo handle the rest, but he forced himself to wait. They'd made Reyna and the rest of the Romans wait long enough, he figured.

Jason cleared his throat awkwardly, the noise cutting through the crowd’s murmurs and drawing their attention to their previously missing praetor. Lee could see his name on their lips, the way their eyes appraised him. To Lee, the guy still looked overwhelmingly Roman even after six months with the Greeks, but something told him they didn’t think the same.

“Jason Grace,” Reyna said, her voice not betraying her emotions in the slightest, and Jason straightened up under her scrutiny.

“Reyna,” he said with considerably more emotion. “It’s good to see you.”

Reyna pursed her lips, though Lee couldn’t tell if she was holding back a smile or hiding her displeasure—she was extraordinarily good at keeping herself in check, he noticed, something that he was sure had come in handy these past few months when she was the sole person in charge of an entire legion—and then turned to face the crowd at large.

“Romans!” She called, and the crowd of teens and young adults fell silent. “After six months, our beloved former praetor Jason Grace has been returned to us.”

Oh, she was good.

In one sentence, she’d affirmed that Jason no longer held the position of praetor despite not officially seceding the position himself, reminded them of how respected he was, and, by stressing been returned rather than just saying returned, she’d heavily implied that not coming back sooner hadn't been his choice.

Smart. Lee could see how she’d held onto her position of power even after losing her partner mere months after they’d risen to praetorship. She would get along well with Clarisse and Silena, he thought to himself.

Percy gave him a look, clearly thinking the same thing, and Lee couldn’t resist the urge to pull him closer, dipping down to press a soft kiss to his temple, staying there for a moment and simply breathing in the faint scent of the sea that accompanied Percy and all of his sea family.

“As I’m sure your centurions have told you by now,” Reyna continued. “Jason was chosen by Juno herself to partake in a leadership switch with the Greek camp, the other member of this switch being, of course, Percy Jackson, who came to us this last week and helped us protect our home and free Death.”

“Feels like we got the raw end of the deal,” someone in the front row of the crowd called out, and Lee’s hand twitched around Percy’s.

Percy just snorted, not seeming offended in the slightest. “Careful, Kahale, or I might just decide to go two-for-two with Cohort one’s centurions.”

The guy, Kahale, threw his head back with a bark of laughter, and the tension, which Lee hadn’t even properly noticed until then, dissolved like mist in the summer sun.

“Kindly refrain from slitting throats without good cause,” Reyna said dryly.

“I have good cause,” Percy protested before catching sight of Lee’s face and giving him a sheepish look.

“You’ll tell me?”

“I’ll tell you,” Percy sighed in resignation. “Believe me, you’ll get a rundown of everything I’ve done from Frank and Hazel, the traitors.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Lee said with a small smirk.

“I’m not,” Percy muttered to himself, prompting a quiet laugh out of Lee.

“Just promise not to give me the stare of disappointment,” he pleaded, looking so adorable that Lee almost fell for it.

Almost.

“Depends on how many reckless and life-endangering decisions you made on the quest,” Lee answered, and Percy’s eyes flicked away tellingly.

“Fine, promise not to refuse to kiss me, at least?”

Oh, well, that was an easy promise.

Lee grinned, leaning over to press a simple kiss to the corner of Percy’s lips.

“—procession through the city of New Rome to honor these new friendships,” Reyna was saying when he tuned back in, maybe a little distracted by his boyfriend’s smile and his eyes and his jawline and…well, everything about him, really.

Percy looked relaxed, his smile easy and his eyes light as he and Reyna led them down the path to the city—with the pegasi, who were steadfastly refusing to be more than five feet away from Percy, a sentiment Lee couldn't disagree with seeing as he was the exact same—as though the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders—a sensation Lee was unfortunately quite familiar with.

Gods, that just made him think of the last time he and Percy had been in San Francisco. Percy near death, Apollo trapped under the sky, that desperate fight on the mountaintop where Lee had taken his dad’s place under the crushing weight of Ouranos’s rage.

Something nudged his ribs, bringing him out of his thoughts, and Lee refocused to find Percy giving him a look.

“We passed Mount Tam on the way to Alaska, you know,” was all he said, and Lee blinked.

“How did you—”

“You always look at my hair every time you’re thinking about it,” Percy’s lips quirked, his eyes flicking up to where Lee knew he had his own strand of white peeking out of his blond hair.

“It was so…I mean, it looks so normal for being a place where I went through hell,” he continued. “Just a regular old mountain.”

Lee hummed, “I can’t tell how I feel about that. That it just…”

Both of them still regularly woke up from nightmares of holding the sky, aching shoulders and curved spines and bruised knees, and for the mountain to look so normal…he didn’t like it.

It gave the same feeling as walking the streets of Manhattan after all the rebuilding had finished, seeing the places where he’d lost siblings and friends that had been wiped of all reminder, that almost stinging feeling of not quite fear but close that screamed if there’s no signs did it even happen if I don’t have that reminder will I forget—

Percy squeezed his hand, his eyes narrowing at Lee’s clear distraction. “How much sleep have you been getting?”

Lee’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “You, Perseus Jackson, who regularly stays up for twenty four hours at a time, are asking me how much sleep I’ve gotten?”

Percy’s cheeks pinked, but he didn’t back down. “I’m literally a diagnosed insomniac though, that’s different.”

“It is n—”

“It’s a medi—I have a medical condition, Lee, and you’re making fun—”

“Oh, pfft, get over it,” Lee scoffed, but he was smiling. Percy played up his pout, and Lee couldn’t resist the urge to kiss it off his face.

“I’ll sleep better tonight,” he murmured against his lips, feeling the subtle hitch in Percy’s breath.

They were just coming up on the city boundaries where Lee and the others were forced to divest themselves of their weapons. He tried not to feel uncomfortable, reminding himself that the Romans were their allies now, that they’d accepted Percy and taken him in—and also that they weren’t allowed to have weapons within the Pomerian line either.

There was also, Lee told himself, a bonus in the appearance of Tani, who slid between the legs of startled legionnaires to brush up against his side.

“Oh, hello,” Lee said, giving her a good scratch behind the ears. “You been looking out for our boy?” She gave him a look, like duh, dude, and he snorted lightly as she moved on to greet the others.

New Rome was…incredible. There was no other word for it. Even with the piles of rubble swept to the side, the occasional cracked window or collapsed roof, the city was beautiful. Colorful villas and terraced gardens and intricate fountains and an entire hill in the far distance full of dozens upon dozens of temples for the gods.

There was nothing like this at Camp Half-Blood, for sure.

And then the people.

It hadn’t hit Lee until then that there were actual generations of families here. Great-grandparents and grandparents and parents with kids. The concept of having kids, having grandkids…that wasn’t something Lee had ever thought of as a real possibility. Not because he didn’t think he’d make it to an age where he could have kids—demigods surviving into their twenties wasn’t exactly uncommon, after all, provided they made it to camp and lived past sixteen—but because any kids of his would be legacies, and he couldn’t doom them to a life of being hunted like he was.

But if they could have a place like this back in New York—if they could make Camp Half-Blood into a place like this…

“It’s amazing,” Silena breathed from Lee’s other side, her eyes wide. Even Clarisse, who’d been scowling ever since she’d had to relinquish her spear and other assorted hidden weapons—of which there were an almost ridiculous amount—had a look of quiet wonder on her face.

“It really makes you think,” Chris said, a tinge of bitterness in his tone. “Could we have had something like this the whole time? Surely Chiron knew about New Rome and just…kept us as a summer camp anyways?”

In moments like this, Lee remembered that Chris had once turned away from the gods entirely, his disenchantment with Olympus worsened by the less than savory conditions at camp. He’d made his way back eventually, but not before almost killing Percy—which Lee knew he regretted horribly—and being driven insane in the Labyrinth.

But he’d never quite lost that bitterness, and it was all the more prominent now.

“That’s something only he and the gods can answer,” Silena said, ever the peacemaker. “But from what it seems like they’re pretty isolated here. Not a lot of people leave and go back to the real world. I’m not sure—I mean, I’d like to have something similar back home but…I don’t want to be completely cut off from the rest of the world like this place is.”

“Something in between what we have now and this,” Lee agreed. “And from what my dad’s said, camp wasn’t originally made to be so long-term. It was intended to be a temporary training facility where we learned how to fight and use our abilities and understand our culture before being sent back out to our families. But the last couple centuries monsters have started targeting us more and more frequently, making the real world more dangerous for us, and I guess Chiron just hasn’t had the means to adapt camp accordingly.”

Dad had a lot of opinions on that, considering he was the one who’d created the camp before handing it off to Chiron. Lee’d lost count of the number of journals Apollo had dropped off at the cabin over the years full of potential changes to camp for his children to bring up to Chiron, to no avail.

“And don’t forget,” Percy said darkly. “This city is protected solely by child soldiers who are forced to serve for years in order to get to live here.”

“Ah, yeah, definitely won’t be keeping that aspect when we recreate this place,” Silena said, wrinkling her nose.

“You’ll have to take a bunch of notes for the counselors to go over,” Lee said, noticing a group of kids watching them pass with wide eyes and giving them a wave and smile. The kids hopped and down excitedly as they waved back, and Lee felt himself soften.

The city had its issues—a lot of them, he was sure—but it was still a remarkable place.

Percy’s fingers twitched in his, and Lee looked over to find him waving at what looked like a family off to the side. One of the parents made a questioning face, pointing at Lee, and he watched as a devious grin flitted across Percy’s face. He had no time to ask before he was pulled into a rough kiss that was maybe just a tad too heated for public, Percy’s free hand curled in his hair while Lee’s automatically moved to wrap around his waist. Lee was actually gasping for breath by the time Percy let him go, and his face felt like it was on fire, but Percy looked incredibly satisfied with himself.

The guy, when Lee looked over, was giving the two of them a thumbs up while his wife was actively laughing.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Lee started when they left that crowd behind and headed down another street that would, according to Reyna, who was acting as tour guide while the rest of the legion marched in time behind them—which was just a little weird—lead them to the Senate House.

“I didn’t think you were,” Percy said in that smug way of his, and Lee poked him in the side right where he knew he was ticklish in retaliation.

“Is there a reason you just kissed me within an inch of my life?”

“Do I need one?” Percy countered playfully before growing a little more serious. “That was Tyler and Madeleine and their kids. He’s a legacy of Salacia.”

“Salacia…” Lee thought for a moment. “She’s Amphitrite’s Roman form, right?”

“Yeah,” Percy’s smile turned fond. “He and the other sea legacies have this whole—whole family and they…”

“Took you in?” Lee finished, inwardly marveling at Percy’s ability to make people love him in five seconds flat.

“They’re really nice,” Percy said, almost shyly. “They invited me—or, Gwen and Michael dragged me—to lunch earlier and I may have rambled on a bunch about you, so…”

“Sap,” Lee snorted, but he was smiling.

“For the record,” Hazel piped up, appearing on Percy’s other side from where she'd been cooing over Penelope and Arcturus. “He couldn’t go more than five minutes without talking about you on the quest, either.”

“Hazel!”

“Oh, really,” Lee drawled teasingly while Hazel giggled at Percy’s look of utter betrayal.

“Wh—I missed you!” Percy protested, pouting at Lee’s grin.

“Pathetic,” Clarisse said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, I think it’s cute,” Silena said, elbowing Clarisse in the side when she huffed. “He talked about you every chance he got, too, Perce.”

“Ha!”

“Fine fine, we’re both a pair of saps who’re minorly obsessed with each other,” Lee relented, and the others didn’t even try to hide their amusement.

“I wouldn’t call you two’s obsession with each other minor,” Chris snorted, and Lee exchanged a commiserating glance with Percy when that set off another round of giggles.

They stopped at the Senate House before Lee could think up an appropriate revenge for the teasing, and Percy let go of his hand—more than a little reluctantly, from the look on his face—to join Reyna at the top of the steps.

“Legion dismissed!” Reyna called out simply. “You’re released until dinner at the mess hall, for which our cooks have prepared a feast worthy of the occasion that you won’t want to miss!”

The legionnaires cheered, pounding their pilums on the ground before dispersing. A few of them stayed—Hazel and Frank, the guy who’d joked with Percy before—Kahale?—and a number of others, all of whom were dressed in togas under their armor.

“The Senators from the legion,” Percy explained in a whisper to them. “There are some other Senators appointed by the city, veterans and the like, that are probably already inside. It’s stupid, but we have to have an official meeting to sanction the quest or they’ll get all in a tizzy.”

“Fun.”

“Oh, it will be,” Kahale grinned, coming up to them and slinging an arm over Percy’s shoulder. “After the dressing down Percy gave them earlier? They’ll agree to anything just to make sure he doesn’t yell at them again.”

Percy’s cheeks pinked, but Lee could see an echo of pride in his eyes that had him fighting the urge to kiss him again simply because Percy so rarely felt truly proud of himself for any of his accomplishments. It was a wonderful look on him, Lee thought, and a rather attractive one, too.

“They gave my father a literal tool shed for a temple and didn’t even bother with that much for the other sea deities,” Percy said, just a shade of anger in his tone. “I mean, you guys have to see it—it’s just plain disrespectful. Especially when you go further up and see Jupiter’s. Ughh.”

“Don’t forget the dinghy that was the mighty Roman navy,” Frank said scathingly, and Percy groaned.

“Don’t even get me started on that,” he muttered before rolling his shoulders back and dislodging Kahale’s arm. “So I may have potentially maybe yelled at them and threatened them an eentsy bit to get them to build a better temple for my dad and actually build temples for the others.”

“It was amazing,” Hazel said in an admiring tone, and Frank nodded emphatically.

“Literally one of the best things I’ve ever seen,” he said.

“And it was pretty hot,” Kahale said nonchalantly before catching sight of Lee’s face and straightening up. Lee didn’t know if the guy expected him to be mad or jealous or whatever, but right now all he could really think about was the image Kahale had put into his brain.

“I think you broke my boyfriend, Michael,” Percy commented casually after watching Lee implode for a moment, and he blinked, chasing away flashes—Percy in his current getup just absolutely reading all of those veterans to filth, that golden toga swishing around his thighs, accentuated by the shimmering laurel crown resting above his brow and the snakes crawling up his arms and curled around his lobes, purple cloak billowing as he paced, his smile sharp and cutting, his eyes dark and dangerous—

“Oh, for—”

There was a resounding smack! and Lee rubbed his head, drawn out of his very nice daydreaming to find Clarisse staring at him in utter disappointment.

“Quit thinking with your dick. It’s disgusting,” was all she said before turning to head inside the Senate House with Chris next to her, also shaking his head. Off to the side, Percy and Silena were actually wheezing from the force of their laughter, and, despite his embarrassment, Lee accepted their amusement with grace, listening to them cackle with a smile. It was the first true laugh he’d heard from either of them in months, and he was happy to hear it even at his expense.

“Ah,” Percy straightened up, reaching out to grasp Lee’s hand again. “I needed that, Honeybee.”

“Glad to be of service,” Lee said, only half jokingly, and Percy started leading their assorted group inside—Silena having attached herself to Michael who, Lee gathered from her ramblings, was a son of Venus and thus her brother, and Hazel and Frank, who both looked torn between mortification and amusement.

“Are you sure you don’t want to yell at people again?” Lee asked, more than a little plaintively, as they made their way down to the front rows of the room. “Just for me?”

“You,” Percy said fondly. “Are ridiculous. I’m not threatening people just so you can drool over me.”

Lee tried very hard not to pout, but he was quite sure he failed miserably. “You’re a mean boyfriend. A mean mean boyfriend.”

“There there,” Percy patted his head teasingly. “You can drool over me in private, promise.”

“I fucking better,” Lee grumbled, and then Percy was leaving him in the front row with the others, stepping up to take his place in one of the praetor chairs next to Reyna.

One of the older veterans inside tried to protest when the pegasi clopped their way inside—though Lee noticed he said nothing about Tani's presence—only to reel back with a stifled screech when Penelope promptly pranced up to him and gave him a sound bite on the arm.

"Penelope," Percy admonished, but he was clearly trying not to laugh. "You must forgive her, I'm afraid," he said to the shocked Senator. "She's still quite young and very…attached to me. Pegasi are sacred to my father, you know, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to risk slighting him again so soon…"

Nobody had anymore objections to the pegasi after that, and Lee stifled a laugh into his fist when they settled on the praetor's dais like they belonged up there.

Blackjack sniffed at Reyna suspiciously, but seemed to like her well enough when she reached out to pet his flank softly.

Percy looked so regal up there, Tani sprawled by his feet and Arcturus and Penelope curled up on either side of the chair with their heads draped in his lap, subtle gold gleaming in his ears and around his fingers and wrists, that Lee had trouble actually paying attention to what they were saying.

In his defense, it had been a long six months. Even though Percy’d elected to go back to Manhattan for the school year, they’d still taken advantage of Mrs. O’Leary’s ability to shadow travel and Blackjack’s need for weekly donuts to see each other at least a few times a week and every weekend. To go from that to nothing for six months…

Connor had likened it to withdrawal a few months back.

We’re all going through a bit of Percy withdrawal, he’d sighed, and Travis had laughed.

Some of us more than others, that had been accompanied with a wink in Lee’s direction.

He’d laughed then, but it felt a little more real now. Just being back in Percy’s presence was enough to have his skin buzzing, Lee’s heart gradually changing to beat in time with his. Percy wasn’t a drug, wasn’t an addiction. He was…

It was impossible to describe even to himself. Percy and Lee were two whole people on their own, but together they were just better.

An old myth sprung to mind. One where humans had originally been formed with four legs and four arms and one heart, and Zeus had, fearing their power, split all of them in half, leaving humankind forever searching for their missing half. It was one of the few myths from their pantheon that Lee knew wasn’t true—he’d asked both his dad and Chiron, at one point—but if it were true, he knew Percy would be his other half.

They could survive, could be happy, could thrive even, without each other, but there was a sense of belonging that came from being at each other’s sides, a sense of just…contentment.

Percy caught his eye, raising a curious brow, and Lee just smiled back at him before finally forcing himself to listen to the discussion.

“—disagree with the quest members chosen,” an older man was saying. “Surely, we should’ve been granted a vote for the legionnaires chosen. Nobody would’ve argued about praetor Jackson’s place on the quest, but the others—”

Percy’s eyebrows furrowed, his face only barely masking his annoyance. “You disagree with the gods, then?” He asked calmly, and the man stuttered. “Would you make your complaints to the queen of the gods herself? To the Moirai? Hazel and Frank are the other members of this quest. To contest this is to contest Fate itself.”

The man quailed under the force of Percy’s stare, sitting back down and trying—and failing—not to look like a scolded child.

There was a moment of silence, and then a woman braved Percy’s displeasure.

“Yes, but what of the numbers?”

“What about them?” Percy asked flippantly.

“Three Romans, four Greeks,” she said as though that explained everything. Lee spotted Reyna shaking her head almost imperceptibly, her lips twitching up before she schooled her face again.

“You forget I am one of those four Greeks,” Percy said sharply. “I have sworn to protect the people of Rome, yes, but I am Greek. They are my people, too, and I’ll not tolerate your disrespect to them any more than I did your spurning of the sea.”

The woman shrunk back, but she must’ve been made of sterner stuff than the guy from before because she stayed standing.

“We still should’ve been consulted about the seventh member,” she said. “By former praetor Grace’s account, his two quest companions were chosen by the gods, but the other one—”

Percy understood it before Lee, standing from his chair in an instant, his face heralding a storm. The sky darkened near instantly. Thunder boomed in the distance. A harsh gust of wind swept into the building through the hole in the dome. Tani was up on her feet as well, prowling to the edge of the platform with her lips pulled back in a snarl.

Percy opened his mouth to speak, but Lee beat him to it, her meaning finally clicking.

“And who are you to decide whether or not I’m worthy of this quest?”

The woman had frozen at Percy’s initial response, those next to her shifting away like they feared she was in danger of being smote, but her eyes were full of disdain when she turned to him.

“I am a respected veteran of the legion,” she said self-importantly. “Sara Rakin, daughter of Mars Ultor, former centurion to the First cohort. Fifteen years in the legion, ten of which as centurion, and ten years as a Senator elected by the city.”

“And how many quests have you taken part in? How many wars have you fought?” Lee demanded, and she paused, opening and closing her mouth uncertainly.

“I have taken part in two quests, I have fought Titans and held the sky and traversed the Labyrinth, I have fought a war. And what have you done? You’ve sat in your Senate for the past decade and let children do the fighting for you, you’ve sat here and debated which child soldier should be sent to die for you, depending solely on your father’s power, on your family’s reputation, to gain any sort of status.”

The woman laughed, the sound slightly strained in the tense air of the Senate Building. “Is that not what you’ve done? Don’t take us for fools, boy. You were chosen for this quest because of your relationship with him.”

The ground rumbled faintly under their feet, a sure sign that Percy was rapidly losing patience with her.

If Lee wasn’t quick, the Senate would see blood today. And while he was sure it would be attractive as fuck, it wouldn’t do anything other than convince the others that he was only here as Percy’s sidepiece.

And Lee was no sidepiece.

“So pick someone,” he said, tilting his chin up. “Pick a legionnaire whose deeds outnumber mine. One who’s faced down Atlas and Kampê and the Nemean lion and the Titan lord himself, who’s held a siege for three days against an army of endless monsters with less than a hundred other demigods, who’s carried the sky on his shoulders and walked the tunnels of the Labyrinth.”

There was a ringing silence following his words, and Lee kept his gaze on the Senator who’d spoken up, letting her know he was waiting.

A minute passed and still nothing.

“Are we done here?” Lee asked, and she swallowed, giving a faint nod and sitting down. Lee sat down when nobody else spoke up, making eye contact with Percy, who'd retaken his seat and was watching him with an undeniably proud look on his face.

He raised a single eyebrow, an unspoken question in the gesture, and Lee rolled his eyes but dipped his head in acquiescence.

Percy smiled, a baring of his teeth that screamed danger danger danger, a shark lurking in the deep, a riptide waiting just below the surface, a hurricane forming on the horizon.

“Senator Rakin, I believe your term is up.”

Sara startled, blinking up at Percy in shock while the rest of the Senate broke out into mutters. Even the centurions looked uncertain, Hazel and Frank exchanging a cautious glance.

Reyna remained silent, her face a stony mask, though her fingers gripped the armrests of her chair tightly enough to turn her knuckles white.

“Praetor Jackson,” someone spoke up, a younger woman who looked only a few years out of college. “You do not have the ability to remove a duly elected Senator of the city. We respect your position as praetor, but we are outside your power.”

Percy tilted his head, his entire body still poised like a predator waiting to strike, a hunter assured in his victory. A single hand worked its way through Arcturus’s mane, wordlessly soothing the skittish colt.

The image he struck there was so incredibly powerful it took Lee's breath away. Two of his father’s sacred animals draped in his lap and a sacred animal of his grandmother and patron at his feet—and now Lee was wondering if Apollo was jealous of that, if maybe he should be expecting a raven or a snake or some other animal sacred to his father to make its way to Percy's side at some point in the near future—as he honest to gods lounged on his chair, golden jewelry sparkling in the light, a perfect match to the sigil stamped on his armor and the color of his toga—which exposed just enough of his legs for everyone to see clearly the muscle that told of years of careful training—and deep purple cloak thrown over the armrest to drape across the floor—all of it only served to accentuate the undeniable power beneath his skin.

This was a person that over half the Olympian council would go to war for, that the sea would rally to with only a spoken word, that the archer twins would wrest the sun and moon from the sky for.

Gods, how Lee wished there were no one else in the room with them, wished it was just the two of them because what he wouldn't give to absolutely—

"You're drooling," Clarisse muttered, sounding utterly disgusted, and Lee kicked her in the shin before very discreetly swiping at his mouth—and he was not drooling, the fucking liar.

“As praetor maybe,” Percy allowed after a moment of letting the room take him in. “But as an Oracle, I believe you’ll find removing those who conspire treason against the gods is well within my abilities, regardless of their own status.”

The word treason swept across the room like wildfire.

He turned his gaze to the cowering Senator—former Senator—Sara Rakin. “You were warned,” he said softly, an undercurrent of steel in his tone. “I will tolerate no disrespect to the chosen members of this quest, and neither will the gods, of whom I am the voice. Not when the fate of the world depends on the Seven and our ability to work together.”

Rakin trembled in her seat, those next to her moving away like they were worried they would catch treason like a cold.

“Please, I—it was a mistake, praetor. It won’t happen again, I beg of you to show mercy—”

“I think you’ll find that this is mercy,” Percy interrupted evenly. “Unless you wish to suffer the augur’s fate…”

The woman, if possible, paled even further, and shook her head fervently. Percy cocked his head to the side, clearly waiting for something, and Rakin curled in on herself even more, looking nothing like the proud daughter of Mars she’d been five minutes previous. Her footsteps echoed loudly through the silent room as she headed for the door, disgraced and ashamed, her reputation in tatters.

Percy watched her leave, his face carved from marble while his eyes gleamed with satisfaction, waiting until the door swung shut behind her before speaking.

“Is there anything else the Senate wishes to address?”

A flurry of shaken heads greeted him, each of the Senators from the city stunned into silence.

“I believe that will be all, then,” Reyna said with an air of finality, and the veterans couldn’t escape the room fast enough. Even some of the legion Senators disappeared, glancing over their shoulders worriedly.

Silena was the first to break, a strangled wheeze escaping her lips before she dissolved fully into peels of laughter. The rest of them followed her, Percy’s mask cracking as his shoulders shook. Hazel was leaning into Frank’s chest from the force of her nearly hysterical giggles, the big guy himself chuckling. Jason seemed torn, unsure whether he should laugh or not, while Leo was grinning like a loon and Piper was covering her face to hide her smile. Even Clarisse was smiling, shaking her head in amusement.

“You two don’t do anything by halves, do you?” She asked, and Lee shrugged unrepentantly.

“You two wholeheartedly deserve each other,” Reyna said dryly. “Truly, nobody else could hope to match your levels of insanity.”

Percy opened his mouth, clearly gearing up for an insanity joke, but Lee spoke up before he could.

“Thank you,” he said, only half jokingly. Percy sighed at having the opportunity stolen, but let it go.

“We try,” Percy added on, sweeping down the steps to join them at their seats. He dragged Lee up, kissing him soundly on the lips.

“You,” Percy said when they parted. “Were magnificent. Brilliant. One of the hottest things I’ve ever seen you do, really.”

Lee ignored Clarisse’s gag in the background, smiling sweetly at the love of his life.

“Likewise,” he murmured.

“Get a room,” Clarisse groused, and Lee turned to glare at her.

“You’re one to talk with all you and Chris get into—I mean, forgetting to lock the door when you—”

“I will murder you if you finish that sentence, Fletcher.”

Chris sighed, and Lee could see him exchange a commiserating look with Percy before taking Clarisse’s hand.

“They haven’t seen each other for six months,” he reminded his girlfriend. “We can allow them a little PDA without complaining, yeah?”

Clarisse narrowed her eyes but let out a huff and turned away, muttering about needing food if she was going to be subjected to their sickening displays. Lee knew she wasn’t really bothered—they just liked to rile each other up, truthfully—but he couldn’t resist flipping her off as she stomped away.

“Come on,” Percy said with a laugh, pulling him along by their entwined hands. “I’m starving and these guys know how to throw a feast.”

They did, in fact, know how to throw a feast. There was so much food that Lee almost didn’t know what to pick, ending up with a plate piled so high he knew he wouldn’t be able to make a dent.

The Seven sat together with Reyna and the Greek envoy, but the seats around them seemed to rotate every few minutes. So many people introduced themselves to Lee that he actually lost count—and the centurions must’ve already spread what happened at the Senate meeting because there was a certain look in their eyes when they shook his hand, when they spoke to Percy—and he didn’t even try to remember their names. There were a few people he made more of an effort with, if only because they seemed familiar and comfortable with Percy—a guy named Dakota, Lavinia and Bobby and Marshall and—

Curse Percy Jackson and his inherent ability to make friends everywhere he went, this was far too many people. Seriously, the guy didn’t even seem aware of doing it half the time, just drawing people in with the ease of a current sweeping unsuspecting swimmers out to sea.

Eventually the flood of people died down, though they may have had to do with Reyna’s narrowed eyes when the last few people sat down, and the group was left somewhat to themselves.

“When will you leave?” She asked them, and Percy and Lee exchanged a glance.

“The sooner the better,” Percy said after a moment, and Jason nodded in agreement from across the table.

“We need as much time as we can get,” the son of Jupiter said. “The longer we take the longer she has to raise more and more monsters from Tartarus.”

“She’ll try and slow us down,” Piper said unhappily. “There’s no telling what she’ll send to stop us.”

“As soon as the feast is over,” Percy decided, and even Lee paused in surprise.

“Not the morning?”

He shook his head, fingers tapping on the tabletop. His eyes were faraway, a look Lee recognized instantly.

“He only has six days,” Percy murmured, and Hazel let out a strangled gasp.

“Who?” Jason asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

“My brother, Nico,” Hazel answered, her hand coming up to cover her mouth, and Lee and the others from camp straightened up.

“What’s happened to Nico?”

“He went looking for the Doors of Death in the Underworld and she captured him,” Hazel said, her eyes darkening. “Percy saw…”

Percy tilted his head, still not all the way present. “The twin giants waiting, a bronze jar, they’re waiting, waiting—how’s that for a revelry—all roads lead to Rome, all paths end in—”

Percy sucked in a sharp breath, coming back to himself with a near imperceptible shudder, and Lee reached for his hand, grimacing slightly at the chill of his fingers.

“Are you always that…uh, cryptic?” Piper asked, looking more than a little uncertain.

“Pretty much,” Clarisse snorted. “Might wanna get used to it.”

Leo looked mildly horrified, muttering creepy under his breath. Percy heard it, given the way his muscles tensed, but he must’ve elected to ignore it because he very deliberately relaxed his grip on Lee’s fingers.

“The future is…indistinct,” he said slowly. “Everything will end in Greece, but the choices we make in Rome will decide how difficult the journeys are.”

Lee knew he wasn’t the only one to catch that last part, based on the way Piper leaned forward.

“Journeys?” She asked, stressing the end, and Percy twitched, his eyes going foggy again.

“We won’t all make it to Greece the same way,” he said, in that detached way that told Lee he was still parsing through visions. “If we even make it there at all.”

Leo leaned back like he was scared he could be infected by prophecy through sheer proximity. “What do you mean if we even make it there at all?!”

Percy let out a strangled noise, his gaze growing even more vacant, and his hand grew positively frigid in Lee’s grip.

“Okay,” he said. “That’s eno—”

“In some only five make it, others none, others all,” Percy murmured. “It all depends on Rome.”

“What do you mean?” Jason asked, and Lee leveled him with a sharp glare.

“Enough,” he hissed.

Percy’s jaw was clenched, the muscles in his neck straining from the effort of not speaking after being asked such a direct question. Fuck, Lee never should’ve let it go so long, should’ve stopped it before he got so gone.

“We need to know what he’s seen,” Jason insisted. “Percy, what have you—”

“Enough!” Lee snapped, slamming his free hand into the table as he stood. In the same moment, Tani, who'd been resting peacefully with her head in Hazel's lap begging for scraps, jumped to her feet and let out a bone-chilling growl. Percy jolted at the noise, snapping back into himself with a gasp. A quick glance around the table showed more than a few murderous faces, letting Lee know that the situation would be handled.

“We’ll see you on the ship,” he said, pulling a numb Percy to his feet.

“Telling us what he’s seen could ensure we all make it to Greece,” Piper protested, ignoring Silena’s warning. “It could save our lives.”

“It could also doom them,” Lee snarled, and she flinched back at the vitriol in his tone—he liked Piper, he really did, just not right now—looking at him like she was seeing him in a new light. “Knowing the future isn’t always a good thing. If Percy doesn’t think it's a good idea to share his visions, that means it’s not something we need to know.”

He drew a still silent Percy into his side, making sure those he was none too pleased with got a good look at the anger in his eyes. Tani brushed up against his legs, winding around him and Percy with her ears pinned back and her teeth bared. Those three should just be happy they'd convinced the pegasi to go back to the ship instead of coming with them to dinner, or they'd already be bleeding from Penelope's teeth.

“We’ll see you on the ship. You guys make sure to say goodbye,” he said, nodding to the trio that would be staying behind and then dipping his chin to Reyna, who gave him a tight nod back, her dark eyes filled with worry for Percy.

Then he turned and led his shivering boyfriend in the direction of the Argo II.

Chapter Text

Percy’s ears were ringing.

He was vaguely aware of people talking around him, of a warm voice turned sharp with anger, but he couldn’t…

His ears were ringing. His eyes were blurred, darkened with things he knew he shouldn’t see yet. There was a time for knowing fate and a time for ignorance, and he knew instinctively that if he focused on what he was seeing it would only end in death. There would be enough death at the end of this quest, he knew already—he would not add to it needlessly.

Even still, the things he had seen, the things he'd allowed himself see…they weighed on him.

The dark visage of Thanatos in front of him, a feather made of shadows resting in his palm—I cannot do more and you know this, but know also that I have never hated this constriction more—red blood dripping over the edge of an ancient stone altar, a grating voice chanting in a language that was older than Titans, scarlet soaking into the earth—I have nothing left to give please there is nothing more than this and it isn't enough but please take it anyway—

Hazel hunched over a familiar limp figure in the darkness, utter grief written in every cell of her body—but, no…another path, a better path—a trembling hand locked around her wrist, a weak heartbeat under her palm but a heartbeat nonetheless and—too far. Too far. To see anymore was to invite death.

There was heat along his shoulders, somebody pulling him somewhere. That should’ve maybe concerned him, but even lost in this strange fog that blurred his eyes and muffled his ears, Percy would know this touch on his skin.

He let Lee lead him away.

Let the world turn indistinct until he was floating in a haze of numbness. It was alright to float, he knew. Lee was there, Lee was with him, so he was alright. Better to float than to see right now.

The first thing that came back to him was a steady ba-dum ba-dum under his cheek, a heartbeat thrumming in time with his own. Lee’s hand was a brand against his spine, pressed against bare skin as it trailed up and down slowly. His armor was gone, as was his praetor cloak, leaving him in just the toga that Lee’d rucked up so he could reach his bare back.

He’d have to tease him about that when his mouth remembered how to move, but right now he was just so comfortable. He couldn’t bring himself to disturb the peace.

Lee was humming softly, a tune he recognized as one of the melodies he’d taught Percy on the piano that first summer, but he stopped when he realized Percy was present again, his hand stilling just above his waist.

“Don’ stop,” he mumbled, speaking both for the hand and the song. It was just so nice. Percy felt like he was home again, felt like he was really and truly safe in a way he hadn’t been since waking up in the Wolf House that first time.

The hand picked back up again, dragging nails up and down his spine, and Percy let out a sigh of content, practically melting into Lee’s chest.

“How long?”

“Half an hour, give or take,” Lee answered. “Brought you back to the ship.”

“And left the newbies to the combined anger of Silena, Clarisse, and Chris?” Percy guessed, whistling appreciatively. “I almost pity them.”

“I don’t,” Lee grumbled, his nails digging into skin briefly before he forced himself to relax. “They pushed you too far.”

“They didn’t know,” Percy tried, even though he knew Lee well enough to know it wouldn’t make a difference.

“They should’ve.”

“Not everybody recognizes the signs the way you do, Lee,” Percy sighed, sitting up so he could give his boyfriend a look. Lee just frowned back at him, his hand slipping down to curl over Percy’s hip, thumb rubbing across the bone in an easy, thoughtless motion. He had to try very hard not to let it distract him. It had just been so long and it felt so nice and—

No, he had a point to make.

“Not everybody knows me the way you do,” he said gently, ignoring Lee’s and thank the gods for that in favor of flicking him on the nose lightly. “Don’t hold it against them.”

Lee followed him up, a flicker of frustration crossing his face. “Percy—”

“We need to be able to get along, to be able to trust each other, and we can’t do that if half of the quest thinks you’re about to string them up by their thumbs for looking at me,” Percy pointed out, and he pursed his lips unhappily.

“I wasn’t going to…” Lee trailed off when Percy leveled him with another look.

“The others’ll handle it,” Percy said. “Let’s leave it at that.”

“And if it happens again—”

“Then I’ll handle it,” Percy finished, his tone sharpening just slightly before he made a visible effort to soften. He leaned over until his nose brushed Lee’s jaw.

“Let me take care of myself every once in a while, okay?” Percy murmured, and he gave a shuddering breath.

“You’ve been taking care of yourself ever since you woke up in the Wolf House,” Lee countered without any real heat. Percy drew back just enough to place both hands on his cheeks, forcing Lee to look at him.

“And I’m alright, aren’t I? I made it back to you just like I always do. Just…trust that if it happens again I can handle it myself,” he pleaded.

“I trust you,” Lee muttered. “I just—it’s just…”

“You’re an overprotective control freak,” Percy finished lightly, pressing a sweet kiss to his lips when he pouted.

“I don’t mind,” Percy said against his lips. “Most of the time I find it charming—and very attractive. And I know most of it’s coming from me being kidnapped and us not being together for six months, so I can forgive a little overprotectiveness. Emphasis on a little.”

They’d had this conversation before, and it never got any more fun.

Percy had issues with letting people help him—with even admitting that he needed help—and Lee had issues with not jumping in at any perceived trouble. Percy didn't always welcome that protectiveness, sometimes he lashed out at it, at being perceived weak and a burden and everything he'd been told he was his entire childhood. Sometimes, Lee stifled him. Sometimes, Percy said things he didn't mean in an effort to prove he could handle things himself.

The first time he'd yelled at Lee for trying to get him to eat, he'd cried so hard in the aftermath that they'd almost had to get Mr. D to get him to calm down and Lee'd walked on eggshells around him for the next week.

Needless to say, it had not been a fun point in their relationship.

Lee’s expression was tight, and he turned his face away so as not to meet Percy’s gaze. Percy sighed, swinging his leg over Lee’s hips.

“I’m not mad at you, Honeybee,” he said. “So quit pouting.”

“‘m not pouting,” Lee grumbled, very much pouting, and Percy laughed.

“What’s this, then?” He teased, poking at the furrow in between his eyebrows. It lessened, but didn’t go away completely.

“Stop. Pouting.” Percy said, punctuating each word with a kiss. “Let. It. Go.”

“I’m letting it—I’m letting it go,” Lee laughed, his frown replaced by a beaming grin.

“Are you? Because I feel like you’re not kissing me enough for—”

Percy let out an honest to gods squeak when Lee rolled them over, settling in between his legs with a devious light in his eyes.

“I’ll get right on that, then,” he promised, and Percy laughed breathily, the sound quickly swallowed by Lee’s lips on his.

They didn’t spend nearly as long as either of them wanted secluded in the cabin—Lee’s cabin? Percy’s? Did they have separate cabins at all? He was a little too busy to ask—if only because both of them knew the longer they spent in there the more likely one of their friends would barge in.

True enough, Clarisse grumbled when they emerged in what looked like a small dining room.

“Five more minutes and I’d have had you two,” she muttered, and Percy made eye contact with Chris, both of them waiting for the inevitable.

“You,” Lee said. “Are way too interested in what Percy and I do behind closed doors.”

Yep, there it was.

A beat. Two.

Clarisse turned bright red. “As if!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Percy, nothing if not an instigating little shit, chimed in. “You do try and catch us in the act a lot.”

Chris hunched over in his chair, a stifled wheeze escaping his lips.

“That’s not—I’m trying to catch you to stick you up on the wall and you know it!”

"Mmmm," Lee wrinkled his nose, making his disbelief obvious. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"I know what helps me sleep at night," Percy said, accompanying his words with a wink, and everyone in the room gave him an unimpressed look.

"You're an insomniac," Chris pointed out.

"And that makes it all the more impressive, don't you think?" Percy's voice deepened, something just a taste too close to a purr for their company, bringing Lee's hand to his lips and pressing a kiss to his fingers.

Lee's cheeks darkened, but he ignored them in favor of giving Percy a look that said, very clearly, do you want to end up on the wall of shame because if so do keep talking.

Percy considered it for a solid second before ultimately deciding he couldn't give Clarisse the win, not like that.

"Are you absolutely sure you want to catch them in the act?" Chris asked his girlfriend. "They'll be even worse than that."

He gestured at the two of them with a disgusted look. "I'm scarred for life already, honestly, and all they've done is eye-fuck each other."

"That's because you're weak," Clarisse grunted, prompting a gasp of mock betrayal from Chris.

Lee rolled his eyes. "Enough about our sex life," he said, ignoring Silena's noise of only half-mocking disappointment. “How badly did you scare them?”

“They’re alive,” Clarisse grunted, looking pleased with herself, which told Percy she’d managed to get out at least five threats of bodily harm before cooler heads—Chris—prevailed.

“And they won’t do it again,” Chris finished with a small smile. “I think they’re still avoiding us, though. Hazel and Frank went to grab your stuff, so they should be back soon.”

“Thanks,” Percy said dryly as he slumped down in a chair. “Now I can expect none of them to be able to look me in the eye again.”

Silena shrugged, entirely unrepentant. “They shouldn’t have kept pushing you for answers then.”

Lee crossed his arms over Percy’s chest, leaning down over the back of his chair to rest his chin on top of his head.

“Thanks,” he said, more sincerely than Percy’s. “Try not to terrify them any more, though? We still need to be able to work together to, you know, save the world and all that.”

Chris raised his eyebrows in mild shock. “I’m sorry, you’re telling us to let it go? You? The guy who put an actual arrow in one of my brother's asses just for scheming about asking Percy for a prophecy?”

Percy tilted his head up, making eye contact with Lee. “When did you do that?” Lee’s cheeks reddened under his incredulous stare.

“Like, two years ago,” Silena snorted. “Before summer.”

Percy squinted, doing the math in his head quickly. “We weren’t even out yet, then.”

“I told everyone I’d put an arrow in them if they asked you for prophecy stuff,” Lee said stubbornly. “I didn’t need to publicly be your boyfriend for that. Besides, I said that before we even got together, so…”

“But they didn’t ask. They just talked about asking.”

“They were scheming, Perce,” Lee said. “Scheming is close enough to doing for me.”

“You,” Percy stretched up to plant a kiss on his nose. “Are ridiculous, and I love you so much.”

Off to the side, Clarisse was making exaggerated gagging noises, followed by a resounding smack, likely from Silena.

“Anyways,” Chris said loudly when Percy and Lee kept looking into each other’s eyes. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

Lee sighed, extracting himself from Percy to sit on the table right beside him. “Guess,” he said wryly.

Three pairs of eyes turned to Percy, and he shrugged.

“We need to be able to work as a team if we want this quest to succeed, and we can’t do that if half of them are terrified to meet my eyes for fear of divine retribution.”

Silena pursed her lips, but Percy remained resolute.

“They need to know they can’t do it again,” she said unhappily.

“And they do,” Percy reminded her. “But they also need to see me as a person, Silena. I don’t want to be this—this…”

He hadn’t touched on this with Lee, and he could see it sweep over him at the same time as the other three.

Percy walked a fine line between person and possession, balanced on a tight rope of human being and voice of the gods.

When the news of his status had come out, Percy had watched the way people looked at him change, seen the wary respect in their eyes, and he’d hated it. For all that Percy liked calling on his patrons when dealing with councils and senates and gods, for other demigods? People that rubbed elbows with him at tables and tried to smash him into the dirt at Capture the Flag? For them to treat him like he was above them, like if they messed with him even in jest they would be smote—it stung.

These were his people, his friends, his family.

There was no pedestal amongst family, and he hated when they tried to put him on one.

“Percy,” Silena said, an unspoken apology on her lips, and Percy gave her a tight smile. Lee nudged him in the side with his foot, and he curled a hand around his ankle in response.

“We’ll let it go,” Lee said firmly, and the others murmured their agreement. Percy squeezed his ankle in thanks, the tightness in his chest loosening.

There was a clatter from the hallway, and then Hazel and Frank appeared with Tani beside them, their arms laden with bags. As soon as she saw him, Hazel dropped her bags on the table and made her way to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders in a quick hug.

“The others said you’d be fine after a bit, but…”

“I’m sorry I worried you,” Percy said, realizing that to someone who’d never seen something like that before it would likely be terrifying. His friends from camp had all seen him in that sort of state before, at least enough to know that he’d bounce back eventually, but he imagined it would be shocking to anyone else.

“Don’t apologize,” Hazel said, giving him a stern look, and he held up his hands in surrender as the rest of the group barely bothered to muffle their laughter.

“We’re going to get along great,” Lee said, smiling over at her, and Hazel blushed.

“Feels like we already know each other quite well, considering how often Percy talked about you on the quest,” she said, a sly light in her eyes, and Percy felt his own cheeks heat.

“Oh, I see how it is,” he grumbled. “You guys can bond over making fun of me.”

“It’s the best way to bond,” Hazel said cheekily, and he knew he was doomed.

Lee laughed, leaning over to brush a kiss against his temple. “I think it’s sweet,” he murmured, and that made all the ribbing worth it.

“They’re like this all the time,” Clarisse said conspiratorially, in what she would likely claim was a whisper. Percy elected to ignore her.

“Can’t be any worse than Percy’s moping on the quest,” Frank responded, and Percy’s mouth dropped open.

“That—you—” There was no response to be made to that, he knew. Because he had moped an awful lot on that quest, had spoken of Lee with more breaths than he’d bothered to count.

Percy couldn’t deny that any more than he could rip the stars out of the night sky or stop the sun from rising and setting—though he was sure Apollo would do it if he asked—couldn’t any more than he could deny that every part of him and more loved Lee Fletcher.

So, instead of continuing his blustering, Percy did what he always did when he and Lee were being teased for their affection—he made them regret it.

He promptly turned in his chair and fell forward into Lee from where he sat on the edge of the table, settling in between his legs and wrapping his arms around his waist. Percy laid his chin on his sternum so he could look up at his boyfriend plaintively.

“They’re being mean to me, Honeybee,” he said in what could only be called a whine, adopting a mock pout and blinking his eyes innocently.

Lee caught on instantly.

“Oh, poor baby,” he crooned, laying his arms around Percy’s shoulders. “Let me make it better, darling.”

Percy almost gave up the game at the pet names, unused to hearing them except for when they were playing things up, pushing down his laughter and continuing to smile sweetly up at Lee.

“Will you?”

“Of course,” Lee said, curling his fingers in the hair at the back of Percy’s head and using the grip to pull him up until their lips could meet.

He’d meant to keep playing it up, but he may have gotten a tad distracted by Lee’s lips on his, Lee’s hand in his hair, Lee’s ankles crossing behind his back, Lee’s waist under his hands and—

Thwack!

Percy drew back when something whacked his shoulder, looking over at a thoroughly disgusted Clarisse and mortified Hazel and Frank.

“I’ve never hated being proven right more,” Clarisse said, her arm still raised from the bag she’d sent their way—Percy’s bag by the look of it.

Percy flipped her the bird and slumped back into Lee’s chest, content to stay there.

“‘s what you get for making fun of me,” he mumbled, and Lee’s chest shook with laughter under his cheek.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Frank said faintly, and Percy turned his face into Lee’s shirt to better muffle his giggles.

“I think we all know now why Percy reappeared with less clothes than he left with,” Silena snarked, and Lee’s hand very briefly left his back, undoubtedly to present a rude gesture her way.

“You try cuddling with armor and that great big cloak getting in your way,” Lee huffed.

“Uh huh, cuddling,” Chris drawled. “Does that count as getting it on in public? I feel like it should.”

“It does not, fuck you,” Percy said without moving.

“I think you’re getting fu—”

“Alright,” Silena laughed, interrupting a jest that probably would’ve had Hazel fainting. “You guys are supposed to be setting sail, aren’t you? Not sitting around sucking face.”

Percy drew back at that, able to hear the sadness in Silena’s voice that she wasn’t quite able to mask.

He’d been gone for six months, and their reunion had lasted maybe six hours. It didn’t feel right, but he knew it was their best option. Their greatest chance of saving Nico was if they left tonight, and even then—

No, they would save Nico, or he would tear the world, would tear Gaea, to pieces.

Percy stood up, finding Silena already teary eyed. When he hugged her, she dropped her head on his shoulder with a muffled sob, and he felt her shaking just slightly.

“I’ll be careful,” he whispered, the best promise he could make right now.

“You always say that and you’re never careful,” she sniffed, and he rubbed his hand down her back.

“I’m careful,” Percy countered. “If I were careful the way you people wanted me to be, I’d never do anything.”

“You’d be alive.”

“Alive and miserable,” he told her firmly. “I’ll be as careful as I can afford to be.”

“That’ll have to be good enough,” Silena said, rocking back on her heels and swiping at her eyes. She looked up at him, and he realized with a start that he was taller than her.

He’d been taller than her for a while, he thought, but he’d never quite noticed it. In his mind, she was still the nice older counselor who’d taken him in all those years ago, and he was still the small, scrawny twelve year old who looked up to her. He wondered if she saw the same when she looked at him, saw that quiet boy who’d cried in the stables after being claimed and hesitated on the steps of the Aphrodite cabin, unsure of his welcome.

Silena swept a piece of hair behind his ear, looking so unbearably sad for a moment that Percy wished he could stay, wished he could pass this burden off to anyone else and stay with his sister who loved him.

But there was no one else that could do what Percy did, that could see what he’d seen. They would need his visions if they wanted to have any hope of saving Nico, of saving the world.

He couldn’t, and Silena knew that. She wouldn’t ask it of him, though he knew she wanted to.

“You two take care of each other,” she said, turning her head to address Lee and him both. Her eyes watered again when they both gave her their word, and she practically fell forward into Lee’s chest.

Lee nodded at him over her shoulder, and Percy moved on.

Chris met him next, his first friend from camp, who’d betrayed him and near killed him and then saved him. Their history spoke in the beating of their hearts when Chris pulled him into a tight hug, and when Percy drew back his eyes lingered on the white strip that fell over his forehead, the same as the white that marked Percy and Lee as survivors of the sky.

Chris usually dyed it, he knew, because he hated the reminder of what he’d done to Percy, but he must’ve let the dye grow out over the past six months.

“Felt right,” Chris said when he noticed Percy looking.

“Looks right,” Percy said softly, and he leaned up to press their foreheads together, bleached white hair mingling. “Watch out for the other two, will you? You’re the most level headed of all of us.”

“High praise considering my competition is comprised of two people who start brawls every time their significant other is insulted, one person who makes people jump into the lake when they annoy her, and you,” Chris snorted.

“Why do the others get explanations and I don’t?”

“Do you want me to—”

“No no, nope, that…no need for that. I’m good.”

A moment of silence, and then the two of them dissolved into giggles. Chris pulled back first, clapped him on the back, and that was that.

Clarisse narrowed her eyes when he turned her way, and Percy knew he wasn’t lucky enough to get another hug out of her—the first one had been a surprise enough, honestly. He settled for a quick clasp of forearms and a short nod, a quiet acknowledgement of blood shed together, of hours spent in the arena learning each other’s tells.

“I expect a full report by the time we get back,” he said lightly, and she dipped her head.

Clarisse, never one for long or sappy goodbyes, was first out, wrangling a promise to spar when this was all over out of a mildly terrified Frank—so I can see what you Roman half-sibling fucks are really made of—clapping Lee on the shoulder and hefting her bag up higher before disappearing out the door. Chris followed her soon after, but Silena lingered.

“I don’t think—I can’t say goodbye to you so soon,” she said hoarsely, and Percy felt a lump well up in his throat.

“I know, I’m sorry,” he choked out, stepping into her arms again. “I’ll be careful. I’ll come back.”

“You always come back,” Silena whispered. “But in what shape?”

Her words stung, if only because he knew she had a point with them.

Percy would drag himself back to the people he loved, would crawl broken and bleeding across the ground, would stumble blind and barefoot and bruised, would pull himself up over and over and over again, would give everything and more just to return to them.

He’d returned from his first quest having held himself up over an ancient and evil abyss, still shrinking from the touch of the dark. He’d died and been brought back over the course of his second, after pushing himself past the limits of his mortal body over and over. After his kidnapping, he’d returned pale and cold and anxious, looking over his shoulder constantly.

He’d escaped Calypso with burns across his shoulders, terror awash in his veins. He’d made it back from the Labyrinth, scarred and near suicidal, locking himself in his cabin for days on end.

Percy always returned, but he was scarcely ever the same when he did.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and her shoulders shook.

“Here,” Lee said from next to him, and Percy turned to find him holding up his notebook.

“What—”

“I don’t need it, not when I’m with you,” Lee told him simply, as if he wasn’t handing over one of the possessions the two of them clutched to their chests above all.

Because Percy’s sister needed it more.

“Everytime I think I can’t possibly fall anymore in love with you,” Percy said wonderingly, his heart swelling impossibly in his chest. Lee’s cheeks pinked, but he did nothing except offer up the notebook to a stunned Silena.

She took it numbly, blinking up at them both. “Are you…are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Silena brought it close to her chest like she still couldn’t believe she had it, and then she rose up on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on each of their cheeks. She was gone a moment later.

In the reigning silence that followed, Percy reached out and took Lee’s hand, needing the reassurance that he wasn’t alone here.

“Let’s find the others,” he said, and if his voice was a little rougher, well…nobody mentioned it.

They found the other three members of the quest on the deck, huddling around the controls. Piper and Leo didn’t even attempt to look him in the eye, to no one’s surprise, but Jason lifted his head when he heard their approach, locking gazes with Percy with the steadfast acceptance of a Roman.

There was something wary in his eyes, something cautious that he knew had nothing to do with Percy’s sight and everything to do with his parentage.

A tinge of bitterness, too, but he’d expected that.

Percy and Thalia had clashed frequently and harshly in their first few weeks of knowing each other, a fierce competitiveness in their chests warring with the camaraderie that came with being a forbidden child. He’d expected the same with Jason, expected more with Jason by virtue of the fact that Percy had risen to praetorship within a week when it’d taken him years, had ‘stolen’ a position Jason had spent his entire life working towards.

That was fine. He’d expected that. He could deal with it.

Just…maybe not now. There would be a time for conversations later, a time for a reckoning. Percy and Jason, above all, would need to learn to work together or this whole quest would dissolve like mist in the summer sun.

Melody and Blackjack were waiting near the railing with their foals, all of them looking unhappy.

"Quit it," he said firmly. "You can't come on this quest and you know it."

Melody stomped her foot, but they'd had this conversation before dinner and he'd come out on top then, too. They had to stay in New Rome in case Silena and the others needed a ride back to camp—in case they needed a quick escape, too, though Percy trusted Reyna and his friends in the Fifth enough to believe that possibility unlikely.

We've just been reunited, little foal. And you want me to say goodbye already?

"Penelope and Arcturus are too young for this quest," he reminded her. "They can't even fly for more than a few minutes yet, Mel. If something happened to them…"

Blackjack can stay with them here, she pleaded. Let me come with you.

Blackjack snorted indignantly. Now hold on—

Even you know better than to get in the way of a mother and her foal, Melody snapped, shooting him a look so venomous he actually stepped back.

Percy had to swallow around the sudden lump of emotion in his throat. There was no shortage of those that were not his biological father that liked to claim him these days, much to the displeasure of his actual Dad—Apollo and Rhea, for obvious reasons, Aphrodite, on account of her children adopting him, Artemis, both to annoy her twin and make him do that thing where he cried happy tears, Arty, they're happy tears quit calling me a loser, Amphitrite, by virtue of being Dad’s wife, Lee's family, which had certainly never made him cry, that one pod of whales off the eastern coast, more than a few sharks, Hades, but specifically when he wanted to piss Poseidon off—but Melody…Melody had been the first. She’d claimed him as her own before even Silena had drawn him into the Aphrodite cabin.

Percy was her little foal, and gods help the poor soul who tried to get in the way of that.

"They need you more," he said softly. "Please, Mel. This quest—it isn't for you. Stay here."

Oh, little foal, she sighed, stepping close and nuzzling him. Just make sure you come back. And you have to tell them.

"Cruel," Percy whispered.

Penelope was the first to slink up to him, having dodged around her father's legs, but Arcturus wasn't far behind.

"None of that now," he told them both, aiming for stern and missing by a mile. "You're too young for questing. Stay in New Rome with your parents."

Penelope blinked up at him pleadingly and he knelt, kissing her forehead almost reverently. "My little spider," he murmured. "This quest is not for you."

She pawed at him, passing along a fervent insistence bordering on faith—you will come back, she seemed to be telling him—and then trotting back over to her parents.

"And you, my sweet star," Percy crooned to Arcturus. "You be good, yes? Watch out for your sister and try not to let her bite too many people."

Arcturus snorted like he was saying you think I can stop her? but didn't offer up any complaints like his sister, nuzzling softly at his face in a pegasi's version of a kiss and then heading for the railing.

Percy's heart hurt as soon as they were gone, but he knew it was for the best.

He cleared his throat, pushing that ache to the back of his mind and turning to the others.

“We ready?”

“As we’ll ever be,” Leo muttered, still messing with the controls so he didn’t have to make eye contact.

Percy gave Lee a look, like see? See what I meant? He can’t even look at me, and Lee rolled his eyes.

“Up, up, and away,” Frank murmured from his other side when Leo yanked up on the joystick and the ship lifted off.

Percy couldn’t stop himself from heading to the railing, leaning over to watch the city and the people. Night had fallen since dinner, which meant he couldn’t pick out people, but he knew they were watching the ship in the same way he was watching the ground. Knew he was leaving people who loved him behind, leaving them hoping and waiting and praying for their return.

Lee joined him, laying his head on his shoulder with a long breath.

“Alright?”

“No,” Percy said honestly. “But I have to be.”

A warm arm snaked around his waist, a pair of lips brushed against the shell of his ear.

“Not with me,” Lee said, and Percy felt a smile flicker across his face.

“Not with you.”

They stayed at the railing for some time, until New Rome was long gone and the only thing they could see was the clouds below them and the stars above them. Warm lights were set into the edges of the deck, illuminating the wood beneath their feet and the control panel, and they made Lee’s eyes flicker just slightly.

“Tell me about the ship,” Percy said softly, mesmerized by the way the blue turned almost yellow, like the sun gleaming over the open ocean.

“Ten cabins with en-suite bathrooms on the middle level, a truly giant storage room on the entire lower level, a dining room on the top level with enchanted plates and cups from camp, as much enchantments as we could work into the wood and metal from the Hecate kids, extra supplies in the storage room for repairs,” Lee recited easily. “We’re not sure how well the enchantments are gonna hold up, especially with three Big Three kids on board, but your suggestion of using spells to mimic extremely mortal smells was a good one, I think.”

“Comes from experience,” Percy snorted before pausing. “Ten rooms?”

“In case we pick up extras. And, officially, we have two separate rooms even though literally everyone knows we’ll only use one.”

“Oh?” Percy asked teasingly, raising an eyebrow at his boyfriend. “How presumptuous of you, Honeybee.”

“You like when I’m presumptuous,” Lee’s smile tipped up at the edges into a lazy smirk.

“I like when you’re a lot of things,” Percy flirted back, leaning closer just to see the way his eyes flicked down tellingly. “So, whose room were we in earlier?”

He backed away from the railing, Lee following him without a thought.

“Yours, but I’ve been sleeping in it the entire trip because I know you like when your bed feels like me.”

Lee stayed at Percy’s cabin often enough that even when he wasn’t physically there the bed carried a faint impression of his aura, of that gentle summer sun and singing warmth, and Percy loved it.

Falling into bed and finding himself surrounded with that feeling of home and love and warmth…there was nothing like it. Except, of course, for the real thing.

“I am ridiculously in love with you, Lee Fletcher.”

“Well, I’d sure hope so,” Lee said cheekily. “Be a bit awkward if you weren’t.”

Percy let out a mockingly offended noise, kicking out at Lee’s shin lightly and then backtracking further across the deck. “What are you, Han Solo? You too cool to tell me you love me back or—ack!”

Lee lunged forward before he could make it out of range, catching him around the waist and swinging him round. Percy tried to wriggle his way out, but his grip was ironclad.

Lee subjected him to a barrage of kisses all over his face, a smug I love you said between each one. It would’ve been sweet if not for the fact that his fingers were very purposefully digging into Percy’s sides right where he was ticklish.

“Stop stop sto—oooop,” Percy’s voice rose higher and higher as he was mercilessly attacked, giggles spilling out of his mouth as he tried fruitlessly to escape.

“You wanted me to profess my love,” Lee said, his fingers unrelenting even as Percy twisted around like an eel. “I’m professing my love.”

“The ti—the tickling! Negates the lo—ooove profession and you—”

A final wriggle, a single misstep, and both of them tumbled to the deck in a tangle of limbs and laughter.

He could feel the way Lee’s breath rushed out of him in an oof, his hair meshing with Percy’s as their cheeks brushed.

“You know,” Lee huffed, pulling himself up just enough to smush their noses together. “There are easier ways of getting me on top of you.”

Percy let out a bark of laughter, shoving his boyfriend off of him to the side. “You’re the one that tripped while attacking me.”

Lee stuck out his tongue, but still held out a hand to help Percy to his feet, planting a quick kiss on his lips as he did.

“Better?”

“Better,” Percy agreed softly, twining their fingers together with an appreciative smile. Their moment was interrupted by somebody whistling here comes the bride, and he turned to find Leo on the deck dramatically serenading an unimpressed Jason.

“I will shoot you, Valdez,” Lee deadpanned, but Percy just hummed.

“I don’t know, I could really rock a wedding dress.”

Lee made a hnngh noise, his hand tightening around Percy’s like he was considering dragging him off somewhere more private.

“Strategy meeting?”

“That was the plan,” Jason said. “Lay everything out and set up a guard schedule before bed.”

“Sounds good,” Percy nodded, pulling Lee behind him as he headed for the dining room. Hazel and Frank were already in there with Piper, who was showing the two Romans how the plates and cups worked.

“I just tell it what I want?” Hazel asked, frowning at the plate doubtfully.

“Pretty much,” Piper said, demonstrating on her own and asking it for a veggie wrap.

“How’d you get them to work outside of camp boundaries?” Percy asked, settling in a chair and quickly filling his cup with blue Coke. He took a sip, giving a low, content hum at the taste.

“Asked Chiron,” Lee shrugged, slumping in his chair. Across from him, Frank was staring at his plate in wonder.

“Salad,” he said, almost dropping his plate when a bunch of leafy greens appeared.

“Literally every food available and you choose salad?” Leo asked, looking askance from his waffle monstrosity plate.

“I’m lactose intolerant,” Frank defended himself. “And salad is good!”

“For rabbits,” Percy snorted into his cup, ignoring Frank’s betrayed look.

“Piper got a veggie wrap! That’s practically a salad with a wrap around it!”

Percy and Leo made an identical ehhh noise, exchanging an amused glance, and Frank looked between them for a moment, his eyes narrowing.

“I think I liked it better when you were afraid to look at him,” he said to Leo, and Percy groaned when that made Leo realize who he’d been joking with.

“Oh, dude, sorry,” Leo said quickly. “Really really—”

“Please, stop,” Percy said tiredly. “I promise Apollo’s not going to rain fire down for literally joking around with me.”

“And for earlier?” Piper asked hesitantly. “Because we really are sorry—”

“I’m sure,” Percy said evenly. “Especially after the others threatened you extensively for it.”

There was a tense silence before Percy forced out a heavy breath.

“It was a mistake. You’re not the first ones to make it, you won’t be the last. And I’m not in the habit of smiting people for mistakes,” Percy said, feeling Lee shift beside him and laying a hand over his. “Now, I’m only going to say this once, so let me make it clear: the first time is a mistake, the second is a choice. And I’m not as forgiving about choices.”

All three of them dipped their heads, apologies spilling from their lips—some more sincere than others.

Piper seemed appropriately contrite, likely due to the fact that she knew how close Percy was with the rest of her siblings, Leo was still quite obviously afraid of offending him and probably a little creeped out, and Jason sounded like he was just saying it because the others were.

There was a look in his eyes that Percy had seen before, one that said he knew what he’d done but didn’t quite understand it, that said I would do it again for the greater good.

Percy didn’t have the energy nor the patience to address that today. Jason would learn, hopefully with as little cursing and smiting as possible.

“Wonderful, moving on—”

“Nico,” Hazel finished, biting her lip worriedly. “You said he only has six days.”

Percy held back the instinctive shudder at the reminder, at the flash of limp hands and bronze jars and chewed up pomegranate seeds. “Six days,” he said roughly. “Six days to get to Rome and save him, and then we can head to the Doors as soon as he tells us where they are.”

“But can’t you…” Jason trailed off expectantly. “I mean, don’t you know where they are already?”

“They’re somewhere in Greece,” Percy said reluctantly. “But my abilities aren’t exactly a homing beacon. And pressing more after earlier…”

“So we have to go Rome,” Jason sighed, slumping back in his seat. Percy’s eyebrows shot up, but Hazel beat him to it.

“We already had to go to Rome, Grace. For my brother, remember?”

“Somebody had to go to Rome,” Jason refuted. “There’s nothing saying it had to be us. We’re on a world-saving quest—”

“He’s my brother!” Hazel protested fiercely.

“And mine,” Percy added sharply, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table in clear warning.

“I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve to be saved, okay? Nico’s my friend, too. I’m just saying it would save us time if someone else could save him while we went straight to Greece. Especially since Percy said these giants were waiting for us, which means going to save Nico is a definite trap,” Jason said stubbornly, and Hazel bared her teeth at him, incensed beyond words.

“We have to go to Rome,” Percy reiterated firmly. “Not just for Nico—though I’d like it to be stated that I’d be heading for Rome regardless. Those fuckers put my little brother in a jar and I intend to make them pay for it.”

“What else is in Rome?” Piper asked quickly when it looked like Jason was about to open his mouth again.

He pursed his lips, drumming his fingers on the table lightly, and his eyes flicked to Lee for a single moment.

“Difficult choices,” Percy said eventually.

“Is that…is that all you can tell us?”

Percy met Piper’s eyes, and whatever she saw in them made her shiver. He wondered if she caught a hint of what was to come in his irises—twin giants bearing down on them, a flood of black water in a stone room, a crumbling cavern and a golden statue—or if she was simply remembering his earlier warning.

“If I told you everything that awaited us in Rome, we’d never make it there,” Percy said honestly.

The air around them was tense.

“I’ll set course for Rome, then,” Leo said finally. “With the expectation of getting waylaid numerous times.”

“A good expectation,” Percy said with a humorless smile. “Watch shifts of two, switch off every four hours?”

His words were met with quiet agreement, Hazel and Frank offering to take first shift with Piper and Jason taking second, and they dispersed after that.

Hazel stomped off onto the top deck, looking faintly queasy but furious enough to push past it, and Frank followed her with a grimace and an awkward dip of the head to the rest of them.

“Bed?” Lee asked, hardly waiting for an answer before pulling Percy to his feet.

“See you in the morning,” he called over his shoulder, giving Tani a pat when the lioness made no attempt to join them in the room, remaining in her spot sprawled in the corner—there was even a comfy little bed for her there, which was just adorable.

“Something's still bothering you,” was the first thing Lee said when the door to his cabin shut behind them. He pursed his lips, turning to examine the cabin in lieu of answering.

The walls were a pretty blue, the floor a soft carpet, the bedsheets looked to be straight from cabin three with his heated blanket on top, and the desk was decorated with some of his favorite knickknacks—the miniature palm tree from Rhode, a small painting from Rachel, the crackling hearth from Hestia, one of the blue blooms he'd cultivated from Pan's flower, and a few of the photos Lee knew he loved most—him and Nico sleeping with Tani sprawled on top of them, him and Lee cuddled up on the porch of cabin three, him and the Aphrodite kids in a braid train, him and Clarisse at the campfire the one time he'd fallen asleep on her shoulder, him and his mom baking cookies—

Even his robe from Artemis was slung over the back of the chair.

Percy ran his fingers over the fabric, taking comfort in the cool slide of moonlight, the faint brush of silver on his skin.

Then he frowned, reaching into the pocket curiously.

"There wasn't anything in there when I put it on the chair," Lee said, coming to peer over his shoulder. "Oh."

"Knife holsters," Percy said with a quirk of his lips.

"You don't carry…ah. Explains why they were in the robe. And why the knives themselves kept appearing in my bag without me packing them."

"Apparently, Artemis thinks I'll need them sometime soon," Percy said. "Calf holsters, you think?"

"Looks like it," Lee said, moving to rifle around in the desk drawer and emerging with the twin daggers Artemis had given him over a year ago. They were a perfect fit into the holsters, which, in turn, were a perfect fit for Percy's calves.

The best part was what happened as soon as Percy tightened the straps on them both, when Lee let out a surprised noise.

"They're gone," he said, and Percy looked down at his calf and then back up at his boyfriend.

"When you say gone…"

"You tightened the last straps and they disappeared," Lee said. "You can still see them?"

Percy nodded slowly, and then reached down to pull on of the daggers out of the holster. "You see it now?"

"Yeah."

They were both silent for a moment before Lee spoke again.

"Did she give you invisible holsters?"

"Looks like it," Percy said, returning the dagger to the holster and then unclipping them both from his calves.

"Wicked," Lee breathed, and then they were both giggling. Percy peered out the porthole window, finding the moon already rising in the sky.

"Don't tell your brother," he said in a faux-whisper. "But you're way cooler than he is."

The moonlight brightened in a distinctly smug way, and Percy turned away with a small smile.

He set the holsters back down on the desk where he knew he wouldn't forget to put them on in the morning, and the smile faded when he remembered what he'd been thinking of before the distraction.

"About what I saw," Percy started, drumming his fingers on the desk hesitantly.

When he turned around, Lee was watching him. There was no expectation there, no question. Lee knew that Percy would tell him everything he could. He never pressed for more, never expected more than Percy could give.

“There’s a lot of different ways things can go in Rome, but…but I do know that one of us is going to make a decision there that will end in death.”

He looked at Lee helplessly. “One of us is going to make a choose that kills someone, Lee. I don’t know who or why or how, but I know that in every path, in every future, it’s one of us who makes the pivotal choice. We decide everything in Rome.”

The future was horribly indistinct, but all paths lead to Rome, all lead to death. He could sense the stretch of Thanatos’s wings awaiting the quest in Rome, the tightening of the strings of Fate around the two of them.

Lee closed his eyes, his lips murmuring a silent prayer.

“You said there are futures where all of us make it to Greece, though.”

“Death is patient,” Percy whispered. “It can take until the end of the war, but the choice will be made in Rome. By one of us.”

Lee was quiet for a long time but eventually he nodded, and Percy could see him compartmentalizing the news, rationalizing it in the way he always did. Percy envied that about him.

For all his own understandings of the workings of fate and inevitability, Percy could never quite rid himself of the guilt that came with making decisions for the big picture instead of the people.

“We’ve known since the beginning that at least one person would die on this quest because of the wording of the prophecy,” Lee said. “An oath to keep with a final breath. Maybe we—maybe we ask someone to swear an oath and they…”

Percy chewed on his lip hard enough to tear the skin, only really noticing when Lee stepped forward and gently pulled his lip out and wiped away the blood collecting.

“We won’t know how it works out until it happens,” Lee reminded him firmly. “But whoever—whoever dies, their life isn’t solely in our hands. I know it can get hard for you to see sometimes, but us ordinary people are capable of making decisions like that, too. Give us some agency in our own fate—you know that both of us would sacrifice ourselves if we knew it would save our family, would save the world—and we’re not the only ones. Every hero on this quest is ready for that possibility, Perce, don’t let it all fall on the two of us.”

He took Percy’s face in his hands and forced him to look at him.

“Tell me you understand what I’m saying,” he demanded. “Tell me that you understand that just because one of us is the catalyst that doesn’t mean the death lies solely on our shoulders.”

“I’m not like you,” Percy said. “I can’t just—I don’t…”

“I know,” Lee said gently. “Try to understand anyway.”

Percy closed his eyes, leaning his face further into Lee’s hold. “I understand—logically—that this death doesn’t lie only on us just because we make the decision that leads to it.”

Lee let out a huff, thunking their foreheads together. “And I understand that that’s the best I can hope for right now.”

“You know me so well,” Percy joked, nudging their noses together. There was a slight pause, and Percy wondered if now was the right time to tell him of what else awaited them in Rome.

Of who awaited them in Rome.

And then Lee hummed, wrapping his arms around his waist and pulling them back until his knees hit the bed and they tumbled onto the blankets, and the thought was gone. Percy laughed, crossing his arms over Lee’s chest so he could set his chin on them and give his boyfriend a look.

“You know,” he parroted. “There are easier ways of getting me on top of you.”

“Oh, I know, but this way’s my favorite,” Lee smirked, his hands running up the back of his legs to toy with the hem of his toga.

“Good to know I didn’t ruin the mood,” Percy murmured, only to squeak when Lee rolled them over.

“Six months, Hammerhead,” Lee reminded him. “I don’t think it’s possible for you to ruin the mood.”

Percy laughed again, the sound swallowed by Lee’s lips on his.

Later, much later, when they were both settled down in bed—Percy's toga had ended up somewhere across the room and it would have wrinkles but it was so worth it because it made Lee very appreciative of his legs—his skin still buzzing under his boyfriend's touch, Percy couldn't stop the dopey smile from crossing his face.

Six months. Six months since he'd felt Lee's hands on him, since he'd felt this steady heartbeat under his cheek, felt those warm lips against his own. He'd been asleep for most of it and yet his body had ached for it, had ached as soon as he'd woken up in the Wolf House and every moment since, as though even unconscious he reached for Lee.

And now they were together again.

Percy knew the trials ahead of them would be unspeakably difficult, knew they would be painful, and yet...he had Lee. He had Lee back with him again, and that made it seem just that much less impossible.

Percy hummed when Lee's nails dragged up his back, not moving from where his cheek lay against his bare chest, more content than he'd been since Hera's appearance in his cabin back in December.

Lee's hand dipped lower, and Percy shifted over his hips, moving up to capture his lips in a kiss again. Lee huffed out a laugh even as his grip tightened. Percy brought one of his hands up to mess with wavy blonde hair and then he stopped abruptly.

Lee made a questioning noise, but Percy was already moving.

“I have something for you,” he said, sliding out of bed to grab his bag and hoping Hazel and Frank had packed it. The first thing he pulled out was the bumblebee pillow, which he set to the side as he continued digging.

“What…”

Percy paused, glancing up to find Lee had joined him on the floor, staring at the striped pillow with a perplexed look on his face.

“Oh, that’s—I picked that up at a store before I got all my memories back,” he said. “Didn’t understand why then, but…”

Lee’s entire face softened, and he ran a careful hand over the stitched smile. “You got a bumblebee pillow pet before you even remembered what it meant.”

Percy’s cheeks pinked when Lee looked up at him like he hung the moon.

“You never cease to amaze me, Percy Jackson.”

“Oh, you flatterer, you,” he teased. “That’s not what I came down here for, though.”

Lee raised an eyebrow when Percy found what he was looking for, pulling them out with an aha!

“I got them in New Rome,” he explained, showing Lee the handful of stained sea glass hair clips. “For your hair.”

Lee picked up one, the shimmering one shaped like a octopus, and traced it with a finger. “For me?”

“You said I could mess with your hair when I saw you again,” Percy reminded him, and he smiled, handing him back the clip.

“In the morning,” he promised. “For now, come back to bed?”

Percy smiled, crawling back up to sit against the headboard. Lee raised an eyebrow but joined him, curling up with his head on Percy’s chest.

“You’re not sleeping?”

“Don’t think I can,” Percy said honestly. “But I want to stay with you, so you sleep.”

“You and your insomnia,” Lee mumbled, but didn’t offer any more protest before snuggling further into his side and promptly passing out.

The time ticked by slowly. Percy amused himself by casually braiding a bunch of miniature braids in Lee’s hair, hoping that he wouldn’t realize they were there for at least half an hour after waking up.

Maybe three hours had passed before he heard the sound of the shift change in the hallway, the door from the top level opening as two doors further down the hallway slipped open and shut, terse words from Hazel as she must’ve run across Jason on her way to bed.

Two more minutes passed before Percy heard another noise in the hallway, and he tilted his head curiously.

It was a strange noise, like something metal was being dragged along the floor, an even fainter jangling sound hidden beneath it.

Piper and Jason were on the top level, Leo, Hazel, and Frank in rooms further down the hallway, and he hadn’t heard any of the doors opening again.

So who was in the hallway?

Chapter Text

Percy slipped out from under Lee before he could reconsider, shushing his boyfriend when he shifted. The metal floor of the hallway was cold beneath his bare feet, but the lights along the wall were warm and bright. That only served to confuse him more.

There was no one in the hallway. The lights made that clear, and yet Percy knew what he'd heard.

Percy walked to the end of the line of bedrooms, listening for anyone moving inside that might’ve just been out in the hallway making that strange noise.

Nothing.

There!

Percy flung himself around the corner when the noise started up again, hand already moving to yank Current off his bracelet, only to stop cold when he was greeted with another empty corridor.

What the fuck was—

Behind him.

Percy caught the barest glimpse of someone at the top of the stairs to the upper level—dark clothes and a sword in one hand and a black sort of scarf hanging around their neck to drape down their back—before the entire hallway went dark.

Percy cursed, lunging forward preemptively, but no attack came, just the sound of the door swinging shut.

The deck.

Percy barreled onto the deck less than a second later, almost startling Piper off the railing.

“Percy! What—”

“Where did they go?” Percy demanded, twisting on his foot to try and catch another glimpse.

“Who?” Jason asked, coming over from the other side of the deck. Percy stared at him like he was an idiot.

“There was someone in the hallway, I followed them up here. Did you not see them?”

“The only person to come out those doors since we got up here is you, Percy,” Piper said hesitantly, and he just shook his head.

“There’s someone else on this ship,” he insisted, gesturing behind him. “I saw them—they had a sword, they made the lights in the hallway go out—”

“The lights? Percy, the lights were on in the hallway when you came up. Did you have a vision? Wake up from a dream?”

Percy glared at her. “I know what’s real and what isn’t! There’s someone else on this ship!”

“What’s going on?” Leo asked from behind him, and Percy startled so hard he almost took the guy’s head off.

“Woah, dude!”

“Percy, just calm down,” Jason said, holding his hands up.

“No, you guys are being too calm about this,” Percy snapped. “I’m telling you someone else is on the ship with us and you’re telling me to calm down?!”

“What do you mean someone else is on the ship?” Frank asked, coming up behind Leo.

“Are we being attacked?” Hazel added on, her hair still wet and dripping from her shower but her spatha clutched in one hand.

“No—”

“Yes,” Percy interrupted fiercely. “I saw someone in the hallway and followed them up here—”

“But Jason and I didn’t see anyone but Percy come up, and we’ve been here the whole time,” Piper said. “No one else is here, Percy. Are you sure you didn’t just have a dream or vision?”

Frustration welled up in Percy’s chest, but before he could respond with something he would probably regret later Lee was pushing through the crowd on the stairs.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Your boyfriend’s going insane,” Leo said matter of factly, only to shrink back at the look Lee gave him.

“Don’t call him insane,” he said, but it was too late. Percy flinched back like he’d been struck, trident slipping out of his hand to turn back into a charm.

“I’m not—I know what I saw. There was someone in the hallway,” Percy said, his voice turning pleading. Lee didn’t hesitate.

“Search the ship,” he ordered.

“But Piper and I—”

“Search. The. Ship. If Percy said he saw someone, then he saw someone.”

Thirty minutes later, when the ship had been swept top to bottom with no sign of anyone other than the seven of them, Percy could feel the judgmental stares increasing. Even Tani found nothing when Percy went with her to check the hallway, sniffing all over the floor and then looking up at him in wordless apology.

“Tell me what you saw,” Lee said quietly, moving them a few steps away from the others like he didn’t want them to overhear.

“I heard a noise in the hallway and went out to check because I didn’t hear any doors opening, followed the noise to around the corner and then heard it again behind me. I turned and saw someone at the top of the stairs with a sword and then the lights in the hallway went out. I heard the door open and followed them, but when I came on deck I didn’t see anyone and Jason and Piper said no one else came out,” Percy repeated. “But I know what I saw, Lee. I wasn’t dreaming or having a vision or whatever. Someone was here.”

“I believe you,” Lee said firmly. “But whoever it was isn’t here anymore. We’ve checked everywhere and found nothing. We’ll just have to keep a closer eye on everything until we figure out what happened.”

When he repeated this to the others, the trio from camp exchanged uncertain glances.

“Percy, are you sure—”

“I’m not insane!” Percy snapped so harshly that Piper took a step back, and Lee laid a warning hand on his arm.

“We don’t know what Mother Earth is capable of with the Doors under her control,” he reminded everyone. “She could be able to bring back people with abilities that can hide them from other people’s sight or transport them off the ship. Percy knows what’s a vision and what isn’t—if he says he was awake and lucid, then he was awake and lucid.”

Frank was the first to nod, and Percy tried not to cry at the blind trust the guy had in him. “So we keep a closer eye out while on watch, and if we see or hear anything weird at all we find somebody else.”

Hazel gripped his arm in silent support before she disappeared back below deck, Frank clapping him on the shoulder as he followed.

It was still Jason and Piper’s shift, and Percy didn’t feel like staying up on deck with their judgmental eyes following him even if the fresh air sounded nice. He went back to his cabin instead, Lee’s footsteps echoing after him with Tani's barely audible steps just behind.

"You should sleep," Lee said when the door shut behind them, and Percy shook his head.

"Not tired," he said. "And I don't think I could relax enough to even if I was tired."

Lee pursed his lips, scooting further up on the bed to lay down and then patting his chest expectantly.

"Lee—"

"Just come lay down," Lee pleaded. "Try and relax, if not sleep. I'll sleep better if you're with me, you know, especially after waking up out of the blue to find myself all alone just like..."

Oh, low blow.

"You're a menace, Honeybee," Percy said, but he was smiling as he joined him under the covers, able to tell that, while Lee had likely freaked out when he'd woken up, he was now milking it just for cuddles.

"Who, me?" Lee teased, letting out a quiet oof when Percy purposefully flopped down on top of him. He wriggled around until he was more comfortable, humming in content when Lee wrapped his arms around his back and Tani snuggled up on his other side, sandwiching him in warmth.

Lee fell asleep quickly, his heartbeat slow and steady under Percy's cheek, and, despite his earlier words, he soon found himself joining him, lulled into slumber by the subtle buzz of warmth on his skin and the familiar weight of arms settled against his spine.

His dreams took him to what looked like an abandoned vineyard, grapevines spilling out of their typically orderly rows to sprawl across the narrow walkways. He turned at the sound of footsteps and found himself face to face with a prowling panther. Its eyes were a familiar glowing purple, and it bared its teeth in a snarl. It opened its mouth to roar, but the noise that came out was far from that of a feline, resonating out like a sonic boom and pushing Percy back several feet.

The wind picked up around him, accompanied by the telltale rumble of thunder and the scent of rain in the air.

A storm was brewing.

The taste of salt on his tongue made him think it was one of the Stormbringer, or even himself, but there was a certain static to the air that had him unsure.

Somebody screamed, high pitched and terrified.

Percy turned around just in time to dodge a sword to the face, rolling out of the way of a blow that would've split his skull clean in half. Gold flashed in the edge of his vision and he spun around, Riptide already expanding in his palm to—

Jason?

Percy's feet moved quick, unaffected by the hesitation in his mind at the sight of his cousin, apparently overcome with familial aimed homicidal rage—not uncommon in their particular family—trying to off him in a vineyard, and he parried another blow before returning with one of his own that was similarly blocked. Rain poured down around them, the sky dark and angry, but neither of them were bothered in the slightest by the storm engulfing them.

He and Jason traded blows, Percy's body working on autopilot as his brain tried to figure out what the fuck was going on. Sure, he and Jason weren't exactly the best of buddies, but murder seemed like a bit of…well, overkill.

This didn't scream friendly spar, either, so—

Jason's eyes were the wrong color.

Percy barely had time to register the hue—bright and cold and metallic and familiar—before the vision shifted.

He was standing across from Jason on the deck of the ship, their swords crossed in between them, but Jason's eyes were his normal startling blue, his mouth lined with determination.

Around them, a storm raged.

And this one, there was no doubt, was his. This was the power of the Stormbringer answering his call.

The sky was near black, the wind was howling, rain was pelting down on them.

Just a little longer, he yelled, and Jason nodded, letting out a shout.

A flash of lightning lit up the sky, followed by a boom of thunder so loud it rattled his teeth.

Percy tightened his grip on Riptide even as his arms shook with exhaustion, and then the world fuzzed out.

A deafening roar, an exposed back—Percy lunged forward, sinking Riptide into flesh.

A monstrous hand around his wrist, a yank, a pop, and then he was flying through the air. He slammed into rocks with enough force to shatter bones, and then shot up in bed with a ragged gasp.

Sunlight streamed through the porthole, casting a warm light on the blue walls, but Percy wasn't in the mood to admire his surroundings, too focused on the ache in his bones and the pounding of his heart.

He hadn't had a dream about Polyphemus in years, memories of his close brush with death falling to the back burner in the wake of the sky and the Labyrinth and Ogygia, but there was a time he'd woken up from nightmares of that island every night.

And the only thing that could truly calm him then was—

A hand curled around his hip, fingers burning a brand against his skin where they slipped under his waistband.

"I wake you?" Percy's voice was rough, had he been screaming? It wasn't uncommon, but it was always a particularly rude awakening for Lee when he did.

"I was already up," Lee said. "Woke with the sunrise and let Tani out. Would've woken you, but you looked like you were…"

Percy's breath was still uneven, his chest heaving as he tried to calm down, and Lee noticed, his eyebrows furrowing.

"Alright?" His hand tightened around Percy's hip.

"I'm alive, right?"

Lee sat up immediately, blatant concern flitting across his face.

"Of course you're alive," he said. "What—"

"Can you check?" Percy asked even though he knew it was irrational. He was sitting up and breathing and talking and of course he was alive, but his brain just couldn't quite believe it.

Lee's gaze sharpened, recognizing the words from summers ago, early mornings in the infirmary with shaking hands and stuttered breaths, and he didn't hesitate to bring his hands up to Percy's chest.

Lee ran methodical hands over his ribs, pressing gently, and then he slid them down to his hips, his legs and ankles.

"Nothing broken here," he said, fingers lingering on his ankle. Next were his wrists, forearms up to elbow to shoulder.

Lee spent a minute checking the shoulder that had almost been ripped clean off back then, poking around the joint and rotating it slowly.

"Good here, too," Lee said, palm like liquid fire against his shoulder. "Better than good, actually. Like it's never been dislocated at all."

He walked his fingers down Percy's spine, confirming no breaks or fractures, and then brought his hands back around to his chest. Percy brought his own hand up automatically for Lee to twine them together and press them to where his heart beat like a war drum beneath his skin.

"You're not dead. Your heart's beating. You're alive."

Percy repeated the words, over and over and over until he finally believed them.

"You haven't dreamed about Polyphemus in awhile," Lee noted some time later, when Percy finally let their hands drop into his lap.

"I know. I don't like it," he said, something like dread building up in his gut. For that nightmare to reappear after all these years, that horror instead of any of the other ones…

Was it just because he'd been thinking about it? He'd remembered it clearly in the aftermath of Gwen's resurrection, had even spoken to her about it in an effort to ease her trauma.

That had to be it, surely. It had just been on his mind recently, that was all.

"It's fine," Percy said, trying to assure himself more then Lee. "Hand me my sketchbook though, will you? Had some other dreams first."

The strange dread settled in his stomach had yet to fade when they joined the others for breakfast, and he picked at his breakfast as a result, steadfastly ignoring Lee's attempts to get him to eat more.

He could practically feel the tension at the table, the heavy weight of stares and words unsaid.

Leo was watching Percy out of the corner of his eye like he was waiting for him to have a psychotic break, Jason and Piper had their heads leaned close together so they could talk without being overheard but their gazes lingered on him more often than not, so he was under no illusions as to the topic of their conversation. At the same time, Percy, still struggling with the remnants of his dream, couldn't stop himself from locking eyes with Jason every time he caught him staring, waiting for his eyes to shift to gold.

Lee, too, was clearly aware of Jason and Piper's attentions, if the way his fingers were tapping sharply on the table in a distinct pattern—the melody of an old ballad he'd once taught Percy how to play on the piano and now unknowingly played when he was annoyed at people—was any indication, and the hard line of tension in his shoulders grew the longer breakfast went on.

Hazel was glaring, incredibly unsubtly, at Jason for his callous words regarding Nico last night, muttering undoubtedly unkind words to Frank every so often. Jason, meanwhile, had caught on to her simmering anger and was shooting her wary looks.

Frank was watching Leo uneasily, like he was remembering that old photo from Hazel's home in Seward, the one with the boy that had shared Leo's last name and his image. And Leo, having noticed Frank's attention, was slowly scooting more and more away from him to lean closer to Jason and Piper.

Percy was laughing before he even registered it.

"Uhhh, are you—is he—"

Percy waved a hand, cutting off Leo's question even as he continued giggling. "Sorry, it—I just heheh…I'm fairly certain this isn't—isn't what Hera had in mind when she picked us for her dream team and I can't—"

He slapped his hand over his mouth, his shoulders shaking with the effort to repress his laughter.

Gods, they could barely even look at each other, how were they supposed to work together to save the world?

"Our dysfunction is amusing to you?" Lee asked, shaking his head when that only made Percy giggle more.

"We're the only…only hope of saving the world against an actual primordial and we can't even, ha, can't even look at each other."

Hazel's lips twitched like she was fighting back laughter herself. "When you look at it that way…"

Lee ran a hand down his face. "It's hardly the first time we've started a quest out with some interesting relationship dynamics."

Percy made a face, remembering the beginning of their Labyrinth quest—Annabeth hating Percy, Lee and Nico hating Annabeth, Percy and Grover trying very hard to keep the peace and finish the quest. "Let's hope this quest doesn't end up as disastrous as that one."

"The bar's in the Underworld," Lee snorted, ignoring the curious looks of the others at the table.

"The Labyrinth, more like," Percy said wryly, and that made them both chuckle a bit.

The tension had lessened at Percy and Lee's easy joking, and so, of course, that was when he glanced around the table and locked gazes with cold golden eyes.

Percy was moving before he even properly registered it, lunging across the table to tackle Jason to the floor. Somebody shouted but he ignored them, flicking a dagger out in half a second and bringing it up to Jason's face.

A pair of arms curled around his chest before the blow landed, and he found himself being yanked back. The dagger slipped from his hand, almost catching Jason as he crab-walked backward frantically before freezing in midair and zipping into Hazel's outstretched hand.

Percy struggled, but whoever was holding him had an iron-clad grip.

"Calm down," they grunted, and Percy realized it was Frank.

"Let me go, let me—"

"You just attacked Jason!" Leo yelled, having pushed himself into the corner in an effort to get away from him. "Out of nowhere!"

"His eyes—"

"His eyes?!" Piper had a spear drawn and pointed at him, and as he watched Lee stepped fearlessly in between them, placing himself right at the deadly tip without a word. "What do his eyes have to do with you trying to kill him?!!"

"They were gold," Percy snarled and Lee had his own knives out in the next breath.

"You're sure?"

"Positive. Saw it in a dream last night, too. We were…we were fighting."

Frank's arms loosened, and he took a step back. Percy knelt down, pulling out his second dagger but not raising it just yet. Jason was watching him warily, his eyes back to their electric blue, but Percy wasn't fooled.

He knew what he'd seen.

"That…that doesn't make sense," Piper protested. "I was looking at Jason when you attacked, and his eyes were blue."

"This another instance of you seeing something the rest of us can't?" Leo asked skeptically, and Percy only barely resisting the urge to snap at him because godsdamnit he was getting really tired of being questioned like this.

Lee leveled Percy with a serious gaze. "We've seen golden eyes before," he said slowly.

"This isn't the same," Percy said with a shake of his head, sure of that much. "We'd know if it were him, that kind of evil's impossible to hide. There has to be another explanation."

His skin was buzzing with danger, a chill seeping under his skin and making his fingers twitch around the grip of his dagger. Even still, Percy could tell that whatever this danger was, it was nowhere near the level of evil as Kronos. And it was weaker, for sure, just faint enough that he couldn't pinpoint what or where it was.

But it was there, he knew.

There was something else on this ship with them. And it had something to do with Jason.

"Yeah, that you're seeing things!" Jason burst out angrily. "First last night and now this? How many times do you have to see something that's not there before you realize you've completely lost it?!"

Percy reeled back like he'd been struck, and then Lee was lunging forward and Hazel was yelling something and Piper was waving her spear around and Jason's eyes were gold they were gold they were gold—

"Enough!" Frank bellowed, his voice ringing out with such authority that all of them stopped in their tracks. Piper shook herself out of it first.

"Frank's right, everyone just needs to calm down," she said, and a wave of calm flowed over the room. Percy twitched and the feeling slid off his skin like water.

"Watch the charmspeak, Piper," he warned, and her eyes widened minisculely. Despite his warning, the charmspeak had worked to smooth the brittle tension among them, and Hazel slipped into the middle of the confrontation, pulling Lee back and pushing him in Percy's direction, forcefully lowering Piper's spear and Lee's knives.

"Okay," she said firmly. "I have no idea what's going on, but we're going to stop flinging accusations around like they're hackysacks. My brother's life depends on us making it to Rome in five days, remember?"

Percy dropped his gaze at the subtle disappointment in her eyes, common sense catching up to him at last.

The buzzing underneath his skin had vanished entirely, leaving not even a whiff of danger or evil or cold behind.

The loss of the feeling was so sudden that if left Percy wondering if he'd even felt it to begin with. If maybe he'd just—

"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely, feeling the weight of everyone's stares. "I shouldn't have…I panicked."

The admittance churned in his gut like curdled milk.

"You panicked," Leo repeated incredulously.

"The last time I saw eyes that color it was because the guy was possessed by the Titan Lord himself and he was trying to kill me and very nearly succeeding," Percy said. "So, yeah, I panicked."

"It's clear we're all still rattled from last night," Lee said, stepping close and curling a hand around his arm in wordless comfort. "Let's just all take a breather. Jason, are you alright?"

"Are we really just going to ignore what just happened?" Jason asked in lieu of an answer. "This is the second time Percy's seen things that none of the rest of us have—"

"Don't finish that sentence," Lee said, his grip tightening.

"I'm not the only one thinking it," Jason said, and both Piper and Leo made vaguely guilty faces. "He's sure they're not dreams or visions but no one else can see them and we're just supposed to ignore it? You said last night that we don't know what Mother Earth's capable of, who's to say she can't make him…I mean, I've heard the stories—it wouldn't exactly be the first time."

Percy swallowed around the barbed wire crawling up his throat, unable to rid himself of the godsawful fear that Jason was right. The first time was easy enough to explain away as someone with the ability to turn invisible or something similar, but being in a room of people all of whom hadn't seen what he had…

"You might've heard a few stories, but you weren't there," Lee said firmly. "I was. If it were happening again, I would know."

Jason's face twisted like he'd swallowed a lemon, but he dipped his head. "I'll go get some air," he muttered, and then he was gone. Leo was quick to scamper after him, and Piper shot him a guilty glance before following.

Frank blew out a long breath. "Well, that was…"

Hazel shot him a look, and he clacked his mouth shut. She reached out to put a hand on Percy's shoulder, but he shied away.

"I'm, uh, I need—"

"Percy!" She called after him, but he was already out the door. He heard Lee saying something and then he was out of earshot.

Tani lifted her head as soon as he slammed the door shut behind him, and immediately she was up. Percy folded to his knees in front of her, hands shaking when he tried to run them through her fur.

"I'm not insane," Percy said. "I'm not—I'm not—

Tani let out a vaguely distressed noise, butting their heads together and licking his cheek in an effort to calm him down.

But Percy was too pent up, chest heaving, mind swimming. He couldn't—he needed—

Pain lanced across his skin, and he welcomed it gladly, chasing the sting and letting it drive out the godsawful fear that his mind had shattered under the pressure again.

I’m not insane I’m not I’m not I’m—

Liquid fire raced up his arms, replacing the sharp sting that he realized was coming from his nails. Lee was crouched in front of him, hands gripping his wrists tightly to keep him from continuing to gouge indents in his skin.

Tani had wormed herself onto his lap and was kneading his side with her claws, the subtle prick prick prick pulling him further out of his terror-induced haze.

"I'm not insane," Percy repeated like a broken record.

“I know you’re not,” Lee said quietly, hands smoothing over the bloody scratches and healing them instantly.

“I know what I saw,” Percy whispered, except did he?

There had been a very brief period of time following the Labyrinth in which Percy'd found himself plagued by phantoms. His sight had simply been through too much, been forced to show him so much death, that it had struggled to adjust to the real world once he'd left the maze behind him.

Dionysus had done what he could, but sight-driven hallucinations were outside of his jurisdiction and ultimately they'd been forced to wait for his sight to realign itself. It had been a miserable time—Percy'd always been able to trust his sight before that, and to be made unable to tell reality from hallucination?

It'd been hell.

He would turn around to find one of the victims of the Labyrinth lingering at the edge of the room, would see them in the corners of his eyes, would hear their dying moments ringing in his ears. One memorable time he'd actually had a conversation with one of the hallucinations—a dying girl—and not realized he was speaking to someone who wasn't there until someone else had happened upon him.

The possibility that that was happening again…

“You’re not insane,” Lee said again, drawing him out of his thoughts. “Just because we didn’t see it doesn’t mean it wasn't there.”

“But what if it wasn't?” Percy asked desperately. Lee looked like his heart was cracking right inside his chest.

“I trust you, even if you don’t trust yourself.” The words were said with nothing less than absolute sincerity, like Lee couldn’t even fathom the possibility of not.

In the next moment, he was relocating them to the bed, leaving Tani to wind herself around him while he grabbed something from the desk. He was back a second later, pressing something into his hands, a small bundle of sticks with a flickering flame atop. Percy curled his fingers around it automatically before his mind even registered what he was holding.

Warmth spread across his fingers and up his arms.

The piece of Hestia's eternal hearth brightened the longer he watched it, and he could almost feel her sitting next to him, draping her cloak across his shoulders and pressing a kiss to his temple.

Hope survives best at the hearth, she seemed to whisper in his ear. Take hope from this piece of me, and trust in your own mind.

“Thank you,” Percy murmured almost inaudibly, and the flame flared up for a brief moment. Lee let out a long breath, his head thunking down on Percy's shoulder. Tani, her body curved around them both and her head resting just beside his hip, nuzzled at his side with a soft nose. Between her, Lee, and the flame in his palms, Percy could hardly feel any of the numbing chill that had accompanied him since seeing those cold, cruel eyes.

“Better now?”

"Better," Percy said, leaning his head down to rest on Lee's. Hestia's hearth still crackled merrily in his hands, a constant reminder of the power of home and family and hope, of faith and trust.

"Thank you," he breathed. "For believing in me."

"Always," Lee answered, the word coming with the ease of sand slipping through fingers, the inevitability of the ebb and flow of the tides.

The kiss Percy drew him into this time was achingly sweet, with none of the passion or heat from last night, soft and light and seeping with all of the love in his heart, that feeling in his chest that words simply couldn't describe.

"You think this is part of her plan to get us to fall apart?" He asked quietly. "Make the others lose faith in my abilities?"

"And make you lose faith in yourself," Lee said. "She's done her homework, I'll give her that—knows just where to drive the wedge."

"I don't know what to do," Percy admitted into the silence that followed.

"It'll work out," Lee said with such confidence that he had to believe him. "This divide's only temporary. Eventually, we'll be attacked by some monster or something that forces us to work together and then we'll all get over it."

"I hope so," Percy said. "Because we're about to be attacked."

He hadn't been aware of it until he'd spoken, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth he knew they were correct. The dread that had plagued him after waking had returned with a vengeance, buzzing under his skin in silent warning.

Something is coming, it whispered. Something is coming something is coming something is—

Lee didn't ask if he was sure, already moving for the door and slinging his bow and quiver over his shoulder. Percy and Tani were quick to follow, emerging on the deck right as the first hit came.

"—don't understand," Leo was saying when they joined him at the control panel. "There was nothing on the scanner at all until a few seconds ago! It shouldn't be possible!"

"Do we know what—" Piper's question was cut off by a yelp when they were hit again, and this time Percy got a glimpse of the missile.

"Is somebody throwing rocks at us?!"

"Odd choice of weapon," Jason said, looking remarkably steady on his feet as he kept both Piper and Leo standing with one hand.

"How are they even hitting us from so high up?" Lee asked. "We're literally thousands of feet above the ground."

"Twenty thousand feet, to be specific," Leo said offhandedly, hands flying across the control panel. "Gotta stay below plane level or we risk a collision at terminal velocity."

Frank peered over the railing cautiously. "Hey, Leo, we wouldn't happen to be passing over the Rocky Mountains right now, would we?"

"Yeah, why…oh, fuck," Leo groaned. "We're being attacked by the mountains."

"We're being attacked by the mountains," Frank confirmed. "Mountains with great aim."

"Ourae," Percy and Lee said in unison, exchanging a glance.

"Figures they'd be loyal to the earth," Percy sighed.

"Ourae?" Piper asked, ducking with a muffled squeak at another flurry of rocks collided with the railing and shattered over the deck.

"Mountain gods," Jason answered before waving his hand, and a burst of wind knocked the next batch of missiles out of the way. "We call them numen montanum."

"Whatever they are, they're fucking annoying," Leo growled, slamming a finger down on a button. "They're too far away for our weapons to hit."

"How long until we're out of the mountain range?" Hazel asked, clapping a hand over her mouth when the ourae barraged them with more rocks and sent the ship tilting to the side. "I hate boats," she groaned, and Percy reached a hand out to steady her.

"At this rate we won't make it out at all," Leo said, his hands flying across the control panel. "Another hole in the hull and our structural integrity'll really be compromised."

Percy frowned, glancing out at the clear sky and then over at Jason, who sensed his gaze and raised a cautious brow.

"What if we blow all their missiles off course?"

It took a moment for Jason to get it. "You want to make a storm?"

"I'm the son of the Stormbringer," Percy said, letting a grin flit across his face. "And you're the son of the god of the sky. Between the two of us, I think we can whip something up."

Percy, at this point, was well versed in calling storms, thanks to Kym's chaotic tutelage, but it was still hard for him to keep it up for long periods of time. With Jason adding his own power to the storm…

Percy uncapped Riptide, his vision overtaken with last night's dream until his limbs moved on autopilot. He watched, less with his eyes and more with his sight as Jason pulled out his own gladius.

They crossed blades, and Percy closed his eyes, pulling up on the saltwater in his blood.

I am the son of the Stormbringer, he thought fiercely. The storm answers my call.

Calling a storm on a cloudless day was no easy feat. The sun threatened to burn through the clouds as they tried to form, evaporating the moisture as it gathered, but slowly, slowly, they brought a storm to the sky.

He could feel the clouds gathering above them, could feel the moisture weighing them down, but it wasn't enough. He needed more.

The wind picked up steadily, tugging at his clothes, and he blew out a breath that was lost to the next gust.

More.

The first droplets of rain fell, pattering on the deck, but too light, too slow.

More.

Percy focused on the rain, letting his control of the rest of the storm fall to Jason, letting him carry the winds while he covered the water.

He pulled, calling the rain down from the heavens with an iron clad will until it pelted them with the rage of hurricanes. He let it soak into his clothes, let it bolster him.

And still, he needed more.

Percy could feel the shadows cross his face as the sky darkened to near black.

More.

Percy could feel the ache in his bones already, but he ignored it, pushing himself further and further. He needed a storm that would obscure them from sight, a storm powerful enough to blow any missiles off course.

He cast his mind out into the falling rain, into the heavy clouds above, and let himself spread into every part of it.

Don't let it get too big, Kymopoleia had cautioned him years ago, when she'd first started teaching him. That's the hardest part about storms. They can slip away from you, get a life of their own, go on a whole rampage, if you're not careful.

Percy was always careful when he called storms, keeping a tight grasp on it, keeping it constrained, but this time…this time he wanted it to rampage, wanted it to gain a life of its own. He wanted it to rage.

A static consciousness touched his, liquid electricity zipping through his bones, howling winds flying through his veins.

Jason.

More, Percy thought.

More, Jason agreed.

For those few moments, Percy and Jason were the storm, they were the fierce wind and the sharp rain and the black clouds.

The storm grew and grew and grew, and then, abruptly, it spiraled out of Percy's control, slipping from his grasp. He was still pouring power into it, but it no longer needed his steel will to push the wind into howling and the rain into falling, able to do that itself with just the boost of power.

His eyes flew open, finding Jason's blue eyes illuminated solely by the light of their swords.

"Just a little longer," he yelled, and Jason nodded, letting out a shout that heralded a bolt of lightning crackling over their heads, spreading across the sky, and a boom of thunder that made his teeth ache.

His arms were trembling from the strain but he kept it up just that little bit longer.

The storm had a life of its own now, was growing and raging with every breath, but it was also still a storm on a day where there wasn't supposed to be a storm.

Without Percy and Jason continuously feeding their power into it, it could easily dissipate.

No, they had to keep it going.

Just a little bit longer.

Just a little longer just a little longer just a little longer just a little—

Heat blazed along his shoulders, and it was only then that Percy realized he was almost numb from the chilling rain and the strain of his powers.

"—out—let—"

Lee.

"—let it go—"

Oh.

Percy pulled his power out of the storm so fast he almost gave himself whiplash, yanking himself back into his body.

The next thing he became aware of was the ache spreading through every part of his body, from the tips of his fingers and toes to, honest to gods, the roots of his hair.

"Owww," he moaned, and somebody pressed a warm palm to his forehead.

"Percy?"

He opened his eyes, finding Lee's concerned face above him.

"'re we out? T'll me w're out," he mumbled, and a smile flickered across Lee's face.

"We're out," he confirmed. "Gonna have to land for repairs though. You and Jason just…take a break."

Percy, in direct contradiction to Lee's words, immediately tried to sit up, only to find himself crushed up against his boyfriend's chest when his arms refused to support him.

"What did I just say?"

"What did I just say?" Percy mimicked, earning himself a flick to the forehead. "Jason?"

Lee turned his face to the side where Jason was being propped up against the railing and fed what he assumed was nectar out of a cup.

"If I set you up beside Jason and give you some nectar will you actually stay there?"

"Ehh," Percy said, and Lee rolled his eyes.

Being propped up against the railing gave him his first good look at the storm they'd created.

"Damn," he whistled, eyes caught on the black clouds still swirling in the sky. The storm was still raging, and probably would be for awhile, but it seemed to be heading away from them, letting the sky above them return back to the sunny blue that it was supposed to be.

"Not half bad," Jason said, his voice still breathless.

"Mmm, I should introduce you to my sister sometime. She makes some wicked storms," Percy said, wincing when he shifted on the deck and that reminded him that—hey, he kind of just summoned a massive storm on a clear sunny day and kept it going for however long and—owwwwwww.

"Motherfucker," he cursed. "Can feel that shit in every single godsdamn muscle."

"Tell me about it."

They fell into a silence that wasn't quite comfortable, but more just exhausted. Gods, Percy was gonna be so sore tomorrow, especially if he was this sore now. His skin was buzzing from the proximity to Jason, that same electric static aura as Thalia, and he shifted to put another inch between them.

There was a chill under his skin, too, one not alleviated by sun above him. It was the same feeling from breakfast, lingering in his bones, a prickle at the back of his neck that told him that, somehow, he was still in danger. 

It's not over, his sight whispered. This is just a break in the swells, a lull in the tides.

He pushed himself to his feet a few minutes later, unable to stay sitting down when his blood was singing that something else was coming.

Percy stumbled as soon as his feet were under him, grasping the railing tightly as he fought back the surge of nausea in his gut. Dear gods, he'd overextended himself.

"Perseus Jackson, sit your ass back down!"

"Can't…" His vision wavered, his ears ringing. A burning sensation began to offset the cold of his fingers, spreading up his left hand like—

Something skittered across his shoe, and he jerked back instinctively. His vision was swimming when he glanced down, but he would recognize what rested on his foot anywhere. His first betrayal, one of his oldest nightmares, dredged up from the depths of hell itself to gleam in the suddenly too hot warmth of the sun.

"—erc—"

It was still there, crawling up his leg, and he could see it—he could see it it was still there it was on his arm his shoulder his thigh it was everywhere there were five ten dozens of them they were all over him and he couldn't get them off—get it off get it off please Lee get it off—

Sunlight dappled his skin, warmth touched his face, so different from the blazing burning acidic heat in his veins.

The first true day of summer.

Lee.

His face appeared over Percy's, mouth moving a mile a minute even though his ears were still ringing too loudly to catch any of it, and then a hand was pressing against his forehead.

"—stupid, stupid, told you not to get up and what did you do—"

"Scorpion," Percy forced out, and Lee frowned.

"What are you talking about?"

"Pit scorpions. They were—they were everywhere. I saw them, felt them." Percy tried to sit up and was promptly pushed back down.

"Just now?" There was something in Lee's voice then, something cautious and heavy.

"Was on my shoe just like…you didn't see them?"

"I saw you stand up even after I told you not to and then promptly pass the fuck out," Lee told him, and Percy's eyebrows scrunched.

What he'd seen…he'd been so sure it was real. But then, he'd been sure about the figure in the hallway last night, and Jason's golden eyes this morning.

Could he really trust his eyes when he kept seeing things that he knew weren't visions but apparently weren't real?

Could he trust himself?

Percy didn't even remember falling, didn't remember ending up on the sunwarmed wood of the deck, and yet that was what had happened.

"Lee," he said, and that was all he could bring himself to force out. That same fear from earlier churned in his gut, the terror that he was losing his mind again rearing its head.

Lee pulled him up, drawing him into a tight embrace, as if he thought he could hold Percy together with his arms alone—not an unfair belief, given the whipcord muscles that hid under his shirt—and burying his face in his hair.

"You're not going insane," Lee whispered fiercely.

"But what if I am?"

"You're not—Percy, trust me when I tell you that you're not. If you trust nothing else, trust me," Lee shifted back just enough to lock eyes with him, letting Percy see the truth in his face, the unwavering faith.

Percy slumped into his chest like a puppet with cut strings. Lee would know. Lee would know.

He wasn't insane because Lee would know and he was telling him that he wasn't.

Because when everything else was stripped away, when his sight failed him and his mind played tricks on him, Lee was his constant. In the absence of everything else, Percy would trust Lee.

"What's the damage on the ship?" He asked when he'd pulled himself back together with the weight of Lee's faith in his chest. The others were gathered around the control panel, very tactfully avoiding looking in their direction. Luckily, they'd been too far away to hear Percy's words, but they'd almost certainly seen him stand up and then collapse back onto the deck.

"We've got four holes in the hull that need repairing, a leak in the engine room that could very well blow up the whole boat, twenty feet of railing and half our port side oars are completely smashed, and we lost at least half of our supplies in the storage room, including most of our celestial bronze. And all of our deck chairs blew overboard, which seems like a small thing in retrospect but they were really comfortable," Lee rattled off as they rejoined the others, and Percy let out a low whistle.

"Do we have enough left to make the repairs?"

"Everything except the celestial bronze," Leo said, not looking up from where he was examining a smoking hole in the control panel. "We need it to patch up these two holes in the bottom, reinforce the cracks in the ram, and fix the engine leak. We've got enough to patch the holes, maybe, but not the rest."

"I can take Arion and try to track down some of the celestial bronze we lost along our path," Hazel offered, ducking her head when the others looked at her.

"Arion's back?" Percy asked, and she nodded happily.

"Saw him running below the ship before the storm really picked up."

Frank made a face at that, but Percy just smiled.

"Won't that be like looking for a needle in a haystack?" Piper asked.

"Not for Hazel," Percy said, letting his pride shine through and making Hazel blush. "She can sense all precious metals in the surrounding area. That's a good idea, Haze. Be quick though, yeah?"

Hazel grinned, heading off with a jaunty wave goodbye.

"They'll be fine," Percy said when those that had yet to meet Arion looked a little unsure. "Arion's the fastest horse alive, can give Pegasus a run for his money, and he's fiercely loyal to Hazel. He won't let anything happen to her."

Lee nodded. "The rest of us can get started on what repairs we can do right now. Although I still think you and Jason should take it easy for a bit longer. That storm really took a lot out of both of you."

Percy was about to agree when he caught a faint scent on the wind and stopped cold. He took another breath just to be sure.

"No can do, I'm afraid. Jason, Piper, and I have somewhere else to be."

"And where exactly is that?" Lee asked, giving him an expectant look.

"A vineyard."