#Computer subject quiz

[townpostin]

BDSL Saraswati Shishu Vidya Mandir Excels in Cluster Quiz

Students win multiple prizes in English, Sanskrit, and Computer categories BDSL Saraswati Shishu Vidya Mandir students demonstrated exceptional performance at the cluster level quiz competition held in Baharagora. GHATSHILA – Students from BDSL Saraswati Shishu Vidya Mandir secured multiple top positions in a cluster level quiz competition held at Baharagora Saraswati Shishu Mandir on Monday. The…

[covenofagatha]

The Psychology of Love (Part 2)

The Perfume

Agatha shows you some examples of projective tests to clear up the questions you have

Word count: 3.8k

Warnings: none

On Wednesday, you can hardly look at Agatha when you walk into class. 

The shame from Monday night—from thinking about your professor while another girl fucked you—is too great, and you worry that if you make eye contact, she’ll somehow know what you did. You need to be careful with her.

After you had cum, the girl from the party had asked if you wanted to go back to her dorm with her. You could taste the blood on your lip from how hard you were biting it, because you didn’t know her name and you didn’t want to accidentally say a wrong name. She had shrugged when you shook your head apologetically and she walked away, leaving you to go stumble and find Wanda and Nat. 

You are definitely never going back to that sorority again. With any luck, you’ll never have to see that girl again. 

“Since we didn’t have time on Monday for introductions, let’s go around the room and say your name, major, and what you like to do for fun,” Agatha says. You inwardly groan; you’d rather take a pop quiz than have to do icebreakers. One of your least favorite things to do, possibly ever, is talk in class. 

She points to the girl at the end of your row on the other side to start it off. Your palms grow sweaty, your stomach twists, and you begin to chew on your thumb nail. 

The names of your classmates go in one ear and out the other and when it’s your turn, it feels like all the air’s been sucked out of the room. You stammer out your introduction, risking a glance at Agatha when you’re done, and she’s staring back at you with a dark, hot glint in her eye. 

You swallow roughly and train your gaze forward, the memory of thinking of her the other night—wishing it was her?—still fresh in your mind. 

“All right, let’s get into it then,” Agatha claps her hands once everyone’s gone. There’s significantly less people in the room than there were on Monday, so it doesn’t take long. She stands up and pulls the keyboard of the computer closer to her and you sneak a peek at her. 

Her dark navy pencil skirt is long, stopping mid-calf and she’s wearing black heels that must be killing her feet. Her blouse is a sky-blue color with puffy sleeves with a belt that matches her skirt and accentuates her hips. There’s an open space between the top button and the second button on her shirt, and you can see a sliver of her pale skin. Her dark curly hair is in a loose ponytail and her cheekbones are sharp. Your mouth goes dry now that you’re really taking her in.

As if she knows you’re staring at her, Agatha’s lips quirk up and her eyes meet yours. She winks and you quickly look away and take out your notebook and a pen. 

Agatha opens a slideshow titled Trait Theory. “The main question this approach looks at is ‘do individuals possess specific personality constructs?’—and to what extent? Like we talked about last class, personality is a construct. The only evidence for it is what we’ve measured in tests that we’ve created. 

“Personality testing is a big business and it’s used for a lot of different things: counseling, education, forensics, employment—even all of you use it in your everyday life just by assessing people. Some tests measure one trait while others measure multiple.” 

It’s hypnotic to listen to her talk and you realize how easy and practiced her words are. You’ve had professors that stumble over their lectures or who read off the slides the whole time, but not Agatha. The review that said she was a genius was not lying.

She clicks to the next slide and a picture of a pattern of inkblots appears. “Projective tests are based on Freudian ideas; the subject is shown ambiguous stimuli and it’s based on the idea that the subject’s responses reflect their inner feelings—they project onto the test. The Rorschach Inkblot Test has subjects scrutinize cards with ink and talk about what they see with the colors and details.” 

The next slide has a picture of a woman standing outside a door with a hand on her face. In the room, a man is lying in a bed. “This is an example from the Thematic Apperception Test. Everyone might interpret this picture differently—some think she found him having an affair, some may think she found him dead, some may think she killed him. It’s all about relating your personal experiences to what you see and that gives psychologists an insight to your inner thoughts and feelings.” 

You think back to the picture of the house and family she had everyone draw on Monday. It was definitely a projection of your own struggles and she had seen that. 

It does really make sense. Except for the inkblot tests—how can your interpretation of a couple of drops on a page mean anything?

“Projective tests have very low validity. Can anyone remind us of what that means?” 

Agatha’s eyes scan the room. Once again, no one raises their hand and you chew on the tip of your pen until you feel her gaze stop on you. You risk a glance at her to find her staring expectantly at you. 

Your stomach twists. You do really hate talking in class. “Validity is how accurate the test is measuring what it’s supposed to be measuring.” Luckily, you paid attention in General Psychology when you took it freshman year. 

“Very good,” she hums and your cheeks heat up, a pleasant feeling settling in your gut. “I’m going to hope that the rest of you were too shy to say something and didn’t just forget. Yes, projective tests have very low validity, especially predictive validity. Objective tests are much better. These are tests in which someone answers ‘true’ or ‘false’ or you rate your experiences on a number scale. Tests like the Big Five. Anyone know any other objective tests for personality traits?” 

Her gaze lands on you even quicker, but this time you’re ready for it. “The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory?” You sound much more confident and you feel much less nervous.

Agatha beams. “Right again. That one measures about ten primary traits, but you won’t need to know them for your test. You do need to know that the Big Five Personality Test measures extroversion, openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism though.”

A burn spreads through your hand at how fast you’re scribbling things down and you hear furious typing behind you. You can’t get her praise out of your head and you think speaking up and answering questions might not be so bad after all.

Despite your shame after Monday night, you still desperately want Agatha’s attention. It seems that she likes you at least a little. 

It’s hard to tell if you’re projecting your own feelings onto this. 

“All right, that’s all the time we have for today. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me them right now or during my office hours. Those are posted on the syllabus. Stop in to see me anytime,” Agatha announces, smirking at you when you accidentally meet her eyes. 

The questions about the Rorschach tests are still weighing on your mind, and as much as you’re tempted to leave and google them later, there’s a little voice that’s nagging for you to go ask her. 

So you trudge up to the desk, chewing on your nails, and wait there awkwardly. Agatha’s typing something on the computer but her face brightens when she looks at you and your heart leaps. 

“Do you need something, hon?” she asks and you ignore the heat that rises inside you. 

“Yeah, I’m just a little confused on the inkblot tests. Like, how are they analyzed? Does it really matter if someone sees a bat or a vase or whatever? How does that mean anything?”

She nods and beckons you to follow her when she begins walking out of the classroom. “Great question. I’m really happy that you’re wondering about these things and you’re not afraid to talk to me about them. I also really appreciate you answering questions during my lecture. Keep up the good work,” she says, playfully winking with a smile. Your stomach warms—you definitely will. 

Her perfume drifts into your nostrils from your close proximity as she leads you down the hall and your cunt starts to pulse. From the praise, from the smell, from her…you’re not quite sure. 

Maybe all three. 

Agatha pauses outside of a door with her name on it before fumbling to put the key in the lock. She opens it and steps to the side to let you go in first. Her office is spacious, with a desk and a chair facing the doorway, two chairs on the other side of it, and a couch pushed next to a bookshelf on the wall opposite the one with a window. 

You perch on a chair while she sits down in hers and ruffles around in a desk drawer before pulling a stack of cards out and plopping them down in front of you. They’re inkblots—some in black and white, some in color. 

She shuffles through them and points to the one on top. “What does this look like to you?” 

Leaning closer, your brows furrow as you try to make out the shape. It looks vaguely like lips, symmetrical down the middle and pink along the jagged edges. The color bleeds to red to make a smaller oval shape on the inside. 

It very much looks like a vulva. 

Heat floods through your cheeks as you sit back and clear your throat. There’s no way you’re telling your hot professor that. “I don’t know, I guess I can kind of make out a…butterfly?” Agatha snorts at your obvious lie. 

“You can say it, hon. It looks like a cunt.” You gasp and choke on nothing, feeling your underwear get damp. Agatha gives you a wicked smile. “Now, what does that mean? Does it mean that you like women? Does it mean that you’re thinking about sex?” 

Her scent coupled with her talking about that makes you spin and you grip the arms of the chair tightly. If you weren’t thinking about sex before, you definitely are now. 

You wonder what your professor tastes like. 

Agatha shrugs casually to answer her own question. “Probably doesn’t mean much. There’s some research that people with schizophrenia tend to see monsters in these. But if you see animals, does it mean that you’re depressed—or do you just like animals? The point is, these hold probably the least amount of validity compared to any projective tests. I wouldn’t read too much into it.” 

The fact that she brought you all the way here, made you look at the suggestive cards, just for it to not matter has you reeling. What does it mean? 

“Oh. Okay. I guess I was just confused about how they’re interpreted. Thought I would ask. It is really interesting how we can infer stuff like that off of this, though. Even if the predictive validity is low.” 

She nods. “As much as people hate Freud, it’s hard to deny that he wasn’t wrong about everything. Projective tests might not hold empirical value, but people do tend to transfer their feelings onto pictures and whatnot because it’s easier to separate their feelings from it and talk about it that way.” 

To highlight her point, Agatha pulls another paper out of her drawer. It must be an example from the Thematic Apperception Test. It’s a picture of two women, facing each other, in a dark hallway. One has an arm outstretched, the other is half-tilted away and looking at the ground.

“What’s happening in this scene?”

“This girl—” You point to the one with the cold body language, “—is wishing she was with someone else. Her girlfriend is really trying to connect with her, but it’s not working.” A cold feeling spreads through you at how transparent you just were. Your eyes dart around the room before meeting Agatha’s, who’s looking at you with a knowing gaze and you feel your stomach tighten. It doesn't mean anything, you tell yourself. She doesn’t know. 

“Very good,” she purrs and leans in closer. “That’s a perfectly reasonable interpretation. I see two students arguing about their professor. See how it varies?”

Just as you’re opening your mouth to agree, the door to her office opens. You whirl around like you just got caught doing something wrong to find a girl older than you standing there, with dark hair, pale skin, and hazel eyes. She’s wearing a green shirt and jeans and she regards you cautiously as she walks slowly across Agatha’s office to sit in the chair next to you. 

When you turn back to Agatha, there’s a glint on her face. “This is Rio. I had her a few years ago and now she’s one of my graduate students and my TA for your class,” she tells you and you awkwardly smile and nod at the new woman. 

Rio doesn’t even look at you. It feels like you’re interrupting something.

So you clap your hands on your knees and stand up. “Thanks, Professor. I’ll see you on Friday?” 

Agatha hums. “I’ll see you then, hon. Good job in class today.” 

You walk out, heart pounding, and have to take a moment to collect yourself. Your plan of being careful around your professor has nearly gone entirely out the window—you’ve become addicted to her praise and validation. Is it because of your mommy issues? Because she’s hot? 

Either way, you amble out of the psychology building and through the Student Union on the way back to your dorm, determined to pour over the textbook and learn everything you can about the Trait approach before Friday. You can wistfully imagine Agatha cooing about how proud she is that you’re studying up and how much you’ve impressed her. 

But before you can walk out of the Student Union, the smell of coffee from the bagel shop hits you and you stop dead in your tracks. It’s not Agatha’s perfume exactly, but the effect it has on you is undeniable. 

Very good. Keep up the good work. Right again. Good job in class today. 

Her praises swirl around in your mind, clear as day, and you quickly shoulder open the door to the outside so hard that it makes your arm ache. You bite at your thumbnail but the smell still lingers, her voice still haunts you. There’s a growing stickiness between your legs that you feel with each step you take.

It looks like a cunt. 

Good girl. 

You jolt—she’s never called you that. She wouldn’t call you that. Your descent into madness is concerning and her perfume is at the center of it. Is it too late to drop her class? Would she be mad at you?

But you can’t do that, because you’re a senior and you need this class to graduate. So you either have to pretend like your cunt isn’t throbbing at the thought of her calling you a good girl, or you need to get it out of your system. You could find the girl from the other night, you could go back to the sorority and ask around for her name. She was hot, fucked you well enough, and smelled like your professor. 

She could be a healthy way to sort out your feelings and stop obsessing over your professor. There’s a hint of guilt nagging at your brain for essentially using her, but maybe in time you’d grow to really like her. 

It turns out, you don’t have to wait that long to find her again. 

You’re in the dining hall with Wanda and Nat while they fill you in on their days—Wanda’s racist professor made a racist comment and Nat’s biology professor accidentally said “orgasm” instead of “organism”—when you notice that Wanda keeps looking over your shoulder. 

“What?” you ask, craning your neck back and scanning the crowds of students getting dinner, but you don’t see anything out of the ordinary. 

Wanda nods toward someone and subtly points in their direction. “That girl…she keeps looking over at us.” 

This time, you look closer and find the girl from the party on Monday staring at you. She’s sitting at a table all by herself, her laptop opened in front of her next to a plate of pizza. Your breathing freezes and you turn back to your friends. “We may have hooked up at the party the other day,” you tell them sheepishly. Both of them gasp excitedly. 

“Why is this the first we’re hearing of this?” Nat demands. 

Your cheeks flush. “I don’t know, it was just a one time thing, I didn’t think I’d see her again. It wasn’t a big deal.” 

“She clearly thinks it was,” Wanda teases. “She’s been checking you out since we sat down. Go talk to her.” 

Groaning in protest, you shake your head but they keep pestering until you get up just to make them stop. You drag your feet against the tile as you walk over to the girl and even though you had convinced yourself that she would be a good thing for you earlier, doubt starts to gnaw at you. 

“Um, hey, can I sit?” you ask, pointing at the empty chair across from her. 

She nods and closes her computer, giving you her full attention, but doesn’t say anything. 

So you start. “About the other night, I’m sorry. I think we both just got a little carried away.” You introduce yourself, since you still don’t know each other’s names, and reach out your hand across the table. 

“I’m Morgan,” she says and shakes your hand. Her skin is soft and you can’t help but wonder what Agatha’s feels like. “You don’t have to apologize. It was a party, we were both a little tipsy, I’m sure.” 

Her perfume floats around you and makes you think about your professor again and you hate the way it makes you feel. “Cool, yeah, okay.” The awkwardness after a college hookup is something you could do without for the rest of your life. “Would you want to get dinner sometime?” 

Morgan grins. “I’d really like that. I can give you my number?” 

You nod and pull out your phone, handing it to her so she can put in her contact. She gives it back to you and you stand up from the table. “Awesome, I guess I’ll be seeing you later.” 

“Perfect.” 

As you’re walking away, a thought overcomes your body and you have no choice but to turn back around. Morgan raises an eyebrow. “Sorry, this might be a weird question, but what perfume do you wear?” 

She falters for a moment. “Um, I think it’s called Black Opium. Why?” 

“No reason,” you answer hastily and quickly smile before walking back over to Nat and Wanda, who have been watching you the whole time. 

“So?” Wanda prompts once you sit back down and pick up your fork. You shovel pasta into your mouth to delay answering. 

Black Opium. 

It’s very Agatha. Dark, euphoric, addicting. 

“Don’t leave us in suspense,” Nat eggs you on. “Are you guys girlfriends now? Going to hook up with her again after this?”

Your nose wrinkles. “No, I just asked her if she’d want to get dinner sometime. She said yes and gave me her number.” 

Their synchronized “Oooh” makes you roll your eyes. No surprise they’re making a big deal about it. This is the first time you’ve actually had a date since your ex-girlfriend three years ago. 

Does this really count though?

You mull what a relationship with Morgan might look like and try to keep your thoughts from steering to Agatha while you zone out on Wanda and Nat talking about the homework they have. 

After you finish the rest of your dinner, you walk back to your dorm building with both of them. Out of the corner of your eye, you see their hands brushing against each other and you feel the same longing pang in your chest that you always do when you’re with them. 

Something like that would be possible with Morgan. 

But even the delusion that Agatha would like you like that outweighs the potential for something real with someone your own age. 

“I’m going to crash with Nat tonight,” Wanda says, bumping into you to get your attention. 

“Remember to be safe,” you respond solemnly. Wanda and Nat both snort and give you a hug before they part ways with you. 

When you get back to your room, you grab your laptop from your bag and plop onto your bed with it. The first thing you do is type your professor’s name into Google. 

A few things pop up, mostly just articles about her teaching at Westview University and you find some of her publications. There’s a few pictures of her from dinners and awards and her official university headshot. No mention of a family or a partner, though. You wonder if she would put something like that online. It seems like she’d probably want to keep that private. 

The link to her reviews is about the fifth site on the page and you decide to scroll through them again. There’s a few that were added from two days ago and you’re sure they’re from the people that dropped your class. You’re re-reading them and wincing at how mean some of them are, taking them more personally now that you know her, when you pause on one. 

You saw it the other day, but you didn’t think too much about it. 

If you’re lucky to be one of her favorites, you’re going to do just fine in the class. She can be very creative and maybe a little unorthodox when it comes to her methods of helping you understand something, but they’re very effective. 

It’s not the review itself that makes you intrigued—it’s the name of the person who left it. 

Rio V. 

This must be her TA that you met earlier. The one who didn’t seem to like you very much, for no reason. You make a mental note to keep an eye on her, if you see her again, and open a new tab. 

You type in “Black Opium” and click on the first brand of perfume you see. Chewing on your lip, you hover the mouse over the Add to cart button. It’s one-hundred dollars, way too much to buy just because the professor you’re becoming obsessed with wears it. 

But Agatha’s praises echo around in your head and you feel a fire stoking to life in your stomach. The dull heat becomes more and she’s all you can think about. 

She’s all you want. 

You buy the perfume. 

Part Three

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[clairewritesfanfics]

Villain Creation System Chapter 3

Pairing/s: Invincible x Reader x Invincible Variants

CHAPTER 2: Tutorial Mission START Series Masterlist <<read the synopsis and trigger warnings first>>

For a fake world, the chemistry lecture here was as dull as the real one’s. 

After Mark disappeared to who knows where, you resumed life as a college student and went to class. Biochemistry, a fascinating subject, but the teacher had a voice that could put dragons to sleep. Compared to your philosophy professor, the man detailing the steps to the citric acid cycle spoke without a change in his inflection and was less “discussing” and “more reading from his powerpoint.” 

It was a good thing you–this version of you–took up philosophy. The so-called “hard sciences” are fun, but being human means having limited time, and when buttloads of information is crammed into you without time for processing and then quizzed, the fun tends to diminish. 

The bell rang.

“I will upload the modules for the next session by tonight, and don’t forget to answer the formative quiz for today’s lecture. Have a good day, everyone.” 

You opened your planner. This was the last class for today, and there didn’t seem to be anything else written here, only this semester’s schedule. 

Huh.

[Accurate to the real thing, I’d say.]

“If that is a jab at me then you’re wasting your breath, or whatever energy you use to talk.” You didn’t like social engagements. It would seem this version of you was the same. Good. At least you didn’t have to worry about making small talk with strangers. You had this body’s memories, but they were limited, imperfect. 

“What should we do now?” You asked, walking out of the auditorium. 

[That is up to the Host. ]

[Your will is my will.]

“Is that your way of telling me you’re not gonna help me?”

[ ˶ˆ꒳ˆ˵ ]

You rolled your eyes and opened your phone. The list of contacts you had were straightforward; parents, several family members, some old classmates and friends. Vague figures in the back of this brain’s memory. The system told you not to bother contacting any of them. [It would be pointless] was its reply when you inquired why. 

You checked the apps. Facebook was a thing here but Twitter was replaced by “Z” and Youtube was “WeTV.” A lot of the creators “you” followed were news outlets.

You clicked a WeTV link to a livestream report of a monster attack in Australia, then another in Brazil, and one in the Philippines.

“Geez.” You were never going to complain about being bored again. “Those poor people.”

[Look on the bright side, Host, here the destruction of nations can be blamed on an external threat rather than the political leaders. In your reality, you humans have no one else to blame but yourselves.]

Spoken in a robotic voice with a cheery lilt. It seemed genuine in its attempt to comfort you, so you bit your tongue and continued scrolling.

Monsters, villains, more monsters, more villains. Hundreds of people injured, dozens dead.

Just then, a light bulb went off in your head. “I think I know what I’m supposed to do now.”

The dorm was too far so you went to the campus library. You found a vacant computer near the wall, far from prying eyes. 

[Resorting to cyberstalking, I see.]

“Before I can make him snap, I need to figure out what makes him tick.” 

Judging from his socials, Mark’s popular, not just as Invincible, but as Mark Grayson. He was on the debate team back in high school, played bass at a band called Indigo Muse, and, if the many, many, many posts about him were anything to go by, he was well-loved by the ladies.

When you couldn’t find any family pictures, you decided to study his superhero identity. 

This world’s Invincible wore a black suit with blue accents. Most pictures of him were blurred, which was either on purpose or incredibly fortunate, because he didn’t wear a mask or cowl. 

UNKNOWN SUPER SAVES BUS OF TEENS

NEW SUPERHERO RISES THE RANKS

INVINCIBLE HELPS OLD LADY DOWN THE STREET

Going by the news articles, he’s been a hero for a mere four months. “No wonder the corruption meter is mostly empty.” You’ve seen this play out before, not in Invincible , but in various coming of age stories. This Mark was a fledgling. His morals were still intact, but judging from that 3%, he’s starting to see that the world of superheroes isn’t squeaky clean.

You pushed down the pity in your chest and continued with your research.

From what you can tell, the professional supes were employed by the Global Defense Agency aka the GDA. The veteran heroes were known as the Guardians of the Globe, and there was the Teen Team, composed of younger heroes. Invincible wasn’t part of either. He assisted both groups in the past, usually to evacuate civilians. 

No interviews, no press conferences. 

He was surprisingly mysterious. With how much of a flirt he was, you thought for sure he would be the showboating type, but judging from the poorly recorded videos of him zooming around, he did his job quickly and left before news reporters could hound him. 

There were only so many news articles and blog posts about him before you realized there was nothing else to study. 

You opened your notebook and made a summary of everything you knew so far:

Womanizer

Doesn’t remember me from childhood

English major *shares same philosophy class

Bass player 

Debuted as a hero four months ago

Not part of a team

Popular as civilian and hero 

Home life?

You circled the last item on your list several times. Try as you might, Mark’s parents were mysteries to you. Omni-Man disappeared ten years ago and you had nothing on Debbie Grayson. Her son didn’t have her as a friend on Facebook and he had zero pictures of him and parents.

“Not even a hint?” You asked the system.

System: (づ_ど)

Giving up, you decide to switch topics and begin digitizing your lecture notes.

[You’re actually studying?]

“Not like I have anything better to do. I can’t exactly hack into the Pentagon’s database and my head hurts from all that research, and since someone refuses to be useful, I’m stuck on what to do now.”

[...]

The system fell quiet and let you be.

The minutes flew by as you typed.

“Excuse me.” A feminine voice whispered and your knee jerked against the table.

You gasped in pain, earning a few looks from the neighboring students. 

“Sorry,” the snooper said.

[Ding. The character known as Amber Bennett has made contact.]

No kidding! Couldn’t you have warned me that she was here!?

[Host looked so deeply invested in studying that this system did not wish to disturb you.]

[Fufufu.]

Rubbing your knee, you met Amber’s apologetic eyes. “I didn’t mean to spook you, but uh, your typing’s… a little loud.”

Ah. That would explain the hard glares from some of the people here. “Sorry, I got too excited I guess. I’ll keep it down.”

“Thanks.” She glanced at your desk. “By the way, I can’t help but notice, you're in Professor Gonzales’ class, right?”

When she saw your brows crease in confusion, she added, “Biochemistry?”

“Oh, yeah.” 

“We share the same class then, I’m Amber Bennett.”

“I know.”

She blinked, wide-eyed.

You quickly added, “You’re one of the scholarship students. I saw the university page congratulating you.”

“Yeah, um, about that…” She turned to your monitor. “Your notes are easy to follow. Especially compared to the professor’s powerpoint.”

“I try.”

She grabbed her shoulder. “This is gonna sound weird but are you available for tutoring?”

“Tutoring?”

There was a collective “shhh” from all directions and Amber ducked her head.

“See, I’ve been struggling with chemistry since the first day and I’ve never failed before, but–”

“Okay.”

“Really?”

You nodded.

She beamed. “That’s great! I think we’re already in the same group chat for the freshmen course but just in case–” She pulled out a pen and you pushed a blank page towards her. She scribbled her number.

“I’ll pay you, of course.”

“Sure, we can talk about details some other time.”

“I really appreciate this–”

You gave her your name and her smile brightened. “You’re a lifesaver! I should go now before the rest of the library decides to crucify us both.”

You raised your hand in goodbye and then picked up your notebook.

No, Amber, you’re the lifesaver here.

***

That evening, Amber asked to meet with you at the campus coffee shop. 

The Coffee Mug, more colloquially known as The Mug, was three storeys high and looked far more interesting than any Starbucks you’ve been to. Cubist and art deco paintings lined the bare brick walls, contrasting the wood and iron furniture. Bossa nova jazz played from the ceiling speakers.

“I gotta hand it to the author, or whoever, whatever made this place, they know how to design a good-looking cafe.”

You almost didn’t mind that the person who asked for your help was already eight minutes late. 

You were getting impatient, mostly because it was seven o’clock and you still haven’t had dinner. You had a black coffee to stave off the hunger pangs, but the scent of toasted savory pastries and the sight of cake called out to you like a siren. 

[Just order, Host, don’t tell me you’re waiting for Amber so she could pay.]

“What do you take me for?” You harrumphed. “I’d love to, but it would be rude to start eating without her.”

[!!]

[Really? How so?]

You shrugged.

“But drinking is okay?”

“Yes.”

[You humans sure do like making things harder for yourselves.]

“Tell me about it.”

God, where the Hell is she? 

As you started debating whether manners were truly necessary, your phone pinged. It was Amber. 

Hey, are u at the cafe?

Im so sorry, my group meeting decided to have overtime.

I wired u some money, dinner’s on me. sorry again! 

Well, damn. Guess God does listen. 

Spirits lifted, you got up and practically skipped towards the menu. This place might’ve been called a coffee shop, it had a big menu not unlike a diner’s, and the food selection was listed with colorful chalk on giant blackboards hanging behind the counter. 

You’ve been thinking about what to eat even while you were at the table. But even now you weren’t sure what to get. A sandwich and salad combo? The lasagna? Maybe something from their all-day breakfast? 

[Ding.]

“I recommend their three-cheese omelette.”

You barely had to turn your head to find Mark’s chin hovering over your shoulder. Soft dark bangs tickled your cheek.

“Mark.”

“Gorgeous.” He winked and then approached the counter.

The girl handling the cashier noticed him and her surprise turned to coyness as she pushed back a pink strand of hair behind her ear and smiled. “Hey, Mark.” If this were a cartoon you’d imagine her eyes would be in the shape of hearts right now. 

You couldn’t blame her. Looking around the floor, a mix of subtle and unsubtle staring were aimed at Mark. You understood. Six feet, jet black hair, strong biceps, a pretty waist that led to the most callipygous butt you’ve ever seen. 

That being said, you’d rather not get into the habit of ogling at rear ends without permission, so you walked closer and stood beside him.

Mark leaned onto the counter, flashing a flirtatious smile. “Hey, Kelsey. Can I get my usual, for dine-in, and an om–”

“I’ll get the large grilled chicken salad with honey mustard and one medium choco mint frappe.”

Mark snorted, but didn’t say anything else as he handed her a few dollars.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Don’t be like that, consider this my olive branch.”

“For what?”

“For cutting our date short and not walking you home.”

“First of all, that wasn’t a date, because if it was, then your standards need quality control. Secondly, it wasn’t like I needed to come home. I still had classes.” 

Not wanting to third-wheel, Kelsey put Mark’s change on the small metal plate beside the register and hurried off to prepare the orders.

Without skipping a beat, Mark put the change in the tip box. “Then what is your ideal date?”

You tilted your head.

“You said my standards need to improve, but how do I know yours is any good?”

“I guess you don’t.” You crossed your arms. 

His grin turned mischievous. “Let me guess, you want a fancy dinner? No, you don’t seem like the type who dresses up frequently. I know, is it this cafe? Are coffee shops your thing? Bookish girls like these kinds of places.”

You turned on your heels. “I’m ignoring you now.”

Folding his hands behind him, he trailed after you, remaining two steps behind, pretending like he couldn’t outpace you with those long legs of his.

“Wait, is that why you’re here? You’re waiting for a date?” He watched you take a seat. “That can’t be it though, who orders before their date?”

Refusing to look at him, you opened your phone as you expressed your gratitude, “Thank you for paying, now would you kindly get lost?”

[Host, what are you doing? This is the perfect time to seduce him.]

Yeah, not happening. I need to be five kinds of drunk before I even consider– “What are you doing?” 

He slid into the seat across from yours. “Hey, I’m hungry too.”

“There are other tables, y’know.”

He cocked his eyebrow and you briefly scanned the room. Right. This was a university cafe. Dammit. He did pay for your food, and he wasn’t totally obnoxious to warrant a kick out. 

With a sigh, you opted to just ignore him and kept refreshing your phone.

“So, are you going to study here?”

“...”

“The music’s pretty nice, if a little basic.” 

“...”

“I can’t really stand music when I’m studying, or the sound of people talking. When I’m reading, I’m reading. When I’m listening to music, that’s all I’m going to do. I guess I’m not a multitasker, I like to think of myself as–”

You slammed twenty-five dollars on the table. “Please take this and leave.”

He put his elbows on the table and leaned closer. “Nah.”

Ugh.

“What do you want from me?”

He flexed his arm and leaned his chin on the palm of his hand. “Tell me why else you’re here.”

“To eat dinner.”

“And?”

“To study.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“You want me to leave, don’t you?”

“...I have an appointment.”

“Is the appointment romantic in nature?”

“Not even a little bit. It’s purely academic, and I’d like to keep it confidential, so could you–”

Kelsey arrived holding two trays. “One large grilled chicken salad with one medium choco mint frappe, and one freshly toasted cheese and sausage eggdesal[1] with a cup of black coffee.”

“Thanks, Kels, but you didn’t have to bring it here, I would’ve gotten it.” Mark said. 

She giggled, “Nah, it’s the least I could do. It’s not everyday you stay here to eat.”

“Well, I still feel bad since the place is packed.”

“It’s my pleasure. We’re not super busy right now since most of the students here just buy one drink for their whole stay.”

“You’re a doll.”

“Enjoy your meal.” She smiled at both of you and returned to her station.

He took a sip of the coffee. “Sweet girl, that one. You know, she’s a physics major–”

“How do you do that?”

His lashes flickered over the rim of the cup.

“How can you… charm people so effortlessly?”

Foamy coffee squirted through his mouth and nose and onto his sandwich. Luckily for you, you reflexively pulled your plate back just in time.

You pulled out the pack of tissue you kept in your backpack and slid it towards him. 

He patted his chest and coughed into the tissues. 

You folded your hands over the table and waited patiently for him to regain his bearings. Once his coughing calmed down, you asked, “Well?”

“Wow. You…wow.”

“It’s a genuine question, I think I deserve a genuine answer.” If it weren’t for your unique circumstance, you would have folded like a cheap hooker if Mark Grayson approached you the way he did after the philosophy lecture. The rest of your brain would’ve had no chances in overriding your hypothalamus. Or your loins. 

“I don’t know where to begin, I–”

“Mark?” 

Amber was here.

“Wow,” he breathed, attention switching from Amber to you. “You really did have a meeting.”

She looked baffled but there was no trace of anger or anything. “Why’re you here, Mark? You hate eating here.” 

“I was just about to leave.” He picked up his sandwich. “See ya, girls.” And with that, he departed, leaving you alone with Amber, who was–according to past posts–his ex-girlfriend. 

Amber laid her bag on the now empty chair. “Sorry for being late, I didn’t expect us to take two hours deciding on how to divide a simple report on childhood obesity.”

“It’s okay, ‘cause of you I just found my second favorite place.” The first will always be your bedroom. 

Amber twiddled with her fingers as you poured the honey mustard over the salad.

“Mark didn’t, I mean, he–”

“I didn’t tell him about the tutoring,” you reassured her. “I didn’t know if you wanted people to know, I just told him it was for school.”

“Really? Thank you! But that’s not what I was going to say.” She cleared her throat. “How do you know Mark?”

“We attend the same philosophy class.”

She looked everywhere except your gaze. “This probably isn’t any of my business, but you seem like a nice person so you should know that Mark doesn’t do the girlfriend thing.”

You used your fork to toss your salad. “I see.” 

“Don’t get me wrong, he isn’t evil or anything. He’s a sweet guy, it’s just that, he isn’t boyfriend material.”

You nodded. “Thanks for telling me.”

She let out a sigh of relief. “Good, good. Listen, if you do want to hook up with him, that’s totally your call, I just thought I should tell you.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be too busy for a boyfriend, anyway. Thanks, I really do appreciate it.”

Mark Grayson? Please. Not even in a hundred lifetimes. 

[ Ding. ]

You dropped your fork.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah… yeah, my hand slipped,” you muttered, trying not to gawk at the system’s holographic screen.

[Affection: 12%. Darkening: 3%.]

Glossary: [1] eggdesal: an egg sandwich that uses pandesal, a sweet and salty bread roll. It can be served plain with just the egg (either with scrambled or over easy), or with other fillings like bacon, sausages, and/or cheese.

@weponxwrites @ratkidcalledallie @qxuanii @lilacoaks

CHAPTER 4: Just Cut Their Red Thread of Fate Series Masterlist

MASTERLIST | request rules | ask box

[kokonoooi]

✧ cockwarming draken while you study :

cw: fem reader, cockwarming, draken teasing, dirty talk/praise, hair-pulling, backshots, spanking, big dick warning lolol

wc: 634

Imagine cockwarming Draken while you study. You're sitting on your bed with your laptop and books all around you and you're naked from the waist down as you try to focus on taking your notes, but it's hard because all you can think about is how deep his fat cock is nestled inside your warm hole.

He's got an arm wrapped around your waist, making sure that you don't move as he watches your screen over your shoulder while you type.

Experimentally, he gives you a little nudge just because he loves to see you fall apart for him so easily. He smirks and nips at your ear when you whine and your fingers fall from the keyboard and onto his thigh.

"Keep typing. Be a good girl for me. Gunna ace this test, aren't ya, baby?"

You're too dumb to talk so he grabs your jaw and squeezes, making you face him as he moves your head up and down in a nod.

"I know you are, because you're my smart girl, after all. Get to it, baby, so I can fuck this sweet pussy just how she needs to be fucked."

—-

“Focus.”

Draken growls into your ear as he kneels behind you, balls deep in your cunt.

You’re bent over your laptop taking a quiz, breasts dangling heavily beneath you and almost touching the keyboard from the mean arch that your boyfriend has you in.

“‘m focused, Ken…” Your voice wobbles as does your hand; your mouse shakily hovers over a wrong answer before you suck in a breath and correct it.

“That was a close call, but you caught it, baby. Look at you, you’re doing such a good job.”

He spanked your butt a couple of times then rubbed the supple flesh with his big hands.

“I-I’m done…” The quiz was now submitted: you scored 100%.

Draken’s grin grew wider, showcasing two rows of perfect white teeth that you could see reflected in your laptop screen.

“Good fucking girl.”

He moved over you to close the computer lid and slide it onto the floor, pushing himself even further against your womb before he eased about half of his length out.

“Put the rest of that shit on the floor,” Draken commanded, referring to your multiple books, pens, and highlighters.

You hurriedly brushed the items off the edge of the bed, some of the pens rolling across the hardwood while Draken grabbed your hair up into a makeshift ponytail and began fucking into you relentlessly.

“Ah ah ah ah! Ken!”

The bed squeaked and rocked, the headboard banging loudly against the wall that was sure to have your neighbors pissed at you, but how could you care when you were getting the best fucking reward? Literally.

Draken slowed down and eased himself in and out of you to let you hear the squelch of your wet pussy a few times before he was buried deep once again.

“Shit girl, your greedy pussy is squeezing me so fucking tight.”

Something in him snapped, and the next thing you knew, his entire weight was pressing down on you as he pulled your arms behind your back and held your wrists against your ass.

SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

Draken pummeled your pussy with ferocity until the both of you were moaning each others’ names out and spiraling into mind-numbing orgasms.

Finally, you were released and your fatigued body collapsed into the soft mattress. 

You could still feel your legs twitching while simultaneously your cunt contracted, releasing a thick gush of Draken’s cum.

Soft pecks were then pressed into your sweaty back until you rolled over to face your handsome lover, eyes fluttering dangerously as the urge to sleep swept over you.

“Rest for now. When you wake up, we’ll be on to the next subject.”

[phykios]

Academic Dishonesty for Fun and Profit [read on ao3] 15k, rated G

Does Percy like his job? 

Of course. 

Well, mostly. 

Kind of. 

See, the thing is…

Percy is on his computer, which is half the problem. 

There were a lot of things he could have been doing right now. Like grading, or finishing next semester’s syllabus, or responding to the avalanche of emails from anxiety-ridden freshmen and overbearing admins. Or grading. Gods, he has a lot of grading to do. Why hadn’t he listened to Paul when he said there was so much grading!

But to be fair, he is, technically, actually working right now, proctoring his Latin 3 exam. Never mind that he can definitely hear the kids in the front row whispering the answers to each other. Absently, he notes that Jamie has made leaps and bounds since her first Latin class—she’s the one supplying the answers this time around, rather than Junie. 

But to be frank, the Minotaur could parade through the exam room in his tighty-whities and Percy wouldn’t care. Or even notice. He’s too busy refreshing his email over and over again, tapping Riptide against the wooden table. 

Fucking ADHD. 

He can’t focus on anything else, except for the fact that the mid-April soft deadline has long since passed, and he still hasn’t heard anything. Which could mean nothing. These things take time. Or it could mean he was rejected. Which would suck, of course, but it would also make things a lot simpler in terms of his immediate future. But there’s been no change to his application status since last December. So here he is. Not paying attention to the final. Refreshing his email. 

Quickly flipping over to the Mythomagic subreddit, he refreshes that page, too. Nothing new. 

He refreshes his email again. No news. 

“Professor?” 

Only years of battle training keeps him from jumping out of his seat. “Mm?” 

Sierra, one of his straight-As, is standing before him, brandishing her exam. “I’m finished,” she announces, proudly.

He can see that. What, does she want a medal? “Great,” he says, “you can leave it on my desk and head out.” 

“Actually, could I ask you a question?” 

“...Sure.” He set down his pen, cautiously. “What’s up?” 

She beams. “I was just wondering when you were going to post our last weekly quiz grades.”

Internally, he groans. “I'm working on it—promise.”

“Totally!” she chirps, “but have you gotten to mine yet? I was just wondering how—” 

“I’m sure you did fine,” Percy interrupts, gently. Behind her, another student drops off his paper, and, blessedly, leaves without comment. “I’ll try and get the last of the quiz grades up in the next few days. Sounds good?” 

Sierra nods, clearly disappointed. “Sure thing.” 

But she doesn’t leave. 

Percy rolls his tongue behind his teeth, counts to ten. “Was there anything else?” 

“Yeah, so, a couple weeks ago, you mentioned the possibility of some extra credit? I’ve been reading Cicero, and I thought that maybe I could…” 

But what Sierra was imagining she might do with Cicero, Percy will never know. Because, looking out of the corner of his eye, he sees that his email has just refreshed. And the subject reads “Application Update.” 

His heart starts racing. 

“...And so I have about three pages of an essay already written comparing him and Catullus and contemporary views on homo—” 

Percy lifts a finger, and she falls silent, her jaw closing with an audible clack. “Sorry,” he says, tongue numb in his mouth. “Sorry, I’m so sorry, I just… gotta read this real quick.” 

Fingers trembling, he moves his mouse, the cursor hovering shakily over the unread email. The email preview isn’t very long, a simple, “Thank you for your application to the…” which tells him literally nothing. He has to open it. All he has to do is press down, and open the email. 

But his thumb won’t respond. The email remains unbolded, unread. 

Just click already, he internally chides his thumb. 

His thumb does not click. 

Oh, for the love of—“Sierra?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I will give you one point of extra credit right now if you open this email for me.”

She blinks. “Seriously?”

“Two if you read it out to me.” 

“Okay!”

Percy scoots out of the way, pressing his eyes into the palms of his hands. He might actually be sick. 

He barely has a chance to hope that he didn’t leave anything embarrassing open on his computer, before her soft voice quotes, “Thank you for your application for the Campbell Fellowship for Bronze Age Research at the American Society of Underwater Archaeology. Attached is a letter about the status of your application.” 

His heart is beating so loud, he’s surprised she can’t hear it. “Is that it?” 

“Well, there’s also the letter.” 

With his face covered, she can’t see him roll his eyes. “Can you read the letter as well, please?” Undergrads. Di immortales. 

There’s a beat where Percy thinks he might actually explode, and then, her voice barely audible over the blood racing in his ears, he hears her read: “We are pleased to inform you that—” 

“Wait.” 

Pleased? 

He stands. “I got in?” 

“Uh—” 

Perhaps a tad rudely, he yanks the computer out of her hands, bringing it up to his face. For once in his life, his dyslexia doesn’t act up, entirely cooperative as he reads for himself, in neat, tidy, Times New Roman: We are pleased to inform you that the ASUA has awarded you the Campbell Fellowship for Bronze Age Research for the upcoming academic year.

He gapes. 

“Professor?” Sierra asks, shyly. 

He’s in.

He’s in!

“I got it!” He shouts. Every head in the exam room shoots up, staring at him.

“You got it?” echoes Sierra.

Brandishing his computer, he can only gesture to the screen, excitement bubbling up in him like a Coke about to explode. “I got the fellowship!” 

Fifteen pairs of eyes blink at him, uncomprehendingly. 

“Uh, I’ll be right back.” Inelegantly, he plops his computer back down on the desk, snatching up his phone. “Give me—give me five minutes. Stay put.” 

Bounding up the steps of the lecture hall, he already has the phone to his ear, dial tone ringing, and he barely makes it out of the room before his wife picks up. 

“Percy?” 

Now, Percy’s wife is a legitimate genius. She has known him almost her entire life, and in that time, she’s become a master at picking up the little nuances of his voice, the change in tone indicating the little undercurrents of emotion, no matter how hard he tries to hide it. She also knows that he knows that calling her in the middle of the workday is generally not helpful, as she’s usually in a meeting or deep in the zone, and taking her out of it is bound to mess up her flow for the rest of the day. 

But of course, Annabeth is a genius. She knows him inside and out. And she knows he wouldn’t call if it weren’t extremely important. 

“Annabeth—”

She doesn’t even let him finish. “You got in?”

He grins. “I got in!”

Over the phone, she gasps. “He got in!” Through the tinny connection, he hears her office cheering. 

And in the empty hallway, he jumps for joy, punching his fist in the air. 

***

Because his wife is brilliant, Percy doesn’t even realize that their walking date ends at the Greek Embassy until the three of them turn the corner. It’s just one of her many talents, making sure that Percy gets to his appointment on time. 

Percy wouldn’t exactly call it the perfect weather for a walking date. Gray clouds blanket the sky, enveloping the tips of skyscrapers in mist, and through the alleyways, the wind howls, whipping at their jackets, sending Percy’s messy hair into further disarray. Even Annabeth, who has recently taken to keeping her curls in a short bob with a rotating collection of headbands so that they don’t get in my gods-damned eyes so I can see what I’m working on, isn’t faring much better. Still, he’s out with his wife and daughter, enjoying a leisurely walk down the streets of New York, and it’s hard to be in a bad mood with that kind of positive energy around. “Alright,” he announces, slowing to a stop outside the consulate. “Here we are.” 

Automatically, Annabeth looks up, appraising the exterior, and Percy merely grins, awaiting her judgment. 

She frowns. “That’s the embassy?” 

Percy nods. “Uh huh.” 

“But it’s so… nothing.” 

He shrugs, readjusting his backpack, gripping the strap before it slides off his shoulder onto the wet pavement. In his other hand is his eldest daughter’s, squeezing it tight as she twirls around, her sneakers making little whirlpools beneath her feet. “That’s what I thought.” 

Now, technically, it is a Tuesday, and Junie should have been in Pre-K, wowing all her teachers and outperforming all the other kids by a mile. But, well… turns out the genes run a little bit deeper than just looks. The teacher had not been exactly sure how Junie had managed to flood the classroom via the little sink in the corner, but it seemed pretty clear that she had. She hadn’t been expelled, exactly, but it had been suggested she seek education and enrichment somewhere else. Honestly, Percy and Annabeth were a little charmed by it. Apples and trees and all of that. But they did worry that it heralded things to come. 

“I mean, there’s nothing,” Annabeth says again, craning her neck upwards. “No decoration, no sculpture… There’s nothing there!” 

“Nothing but pilasters.” 

She gags. 

“At least the one in Boston is next to the bar from Cheers.” 

She blinks at him, uncomprehending, and Percy makes a note to himself. 

“So how long do you think this will take?” she asks. 

“Dunno.”

“Because if it’s not that long we can just wait out here for you.” 

He shakes his head, kissing her on the cheek. “Don’t waste the rest of your lunch break on me.” Besides, his back itches in the way that means it’s probably going to rain soon. “I’ll pick up Lucie from my mom’s place, and I’ll have dinner ready by the time you get home.” 

Percy is long-since immune to the domesticity of such a statement. Or at least he thought he was, because the way Annabeth grins at him, leaning forward to capture his lips in a stronger kiss, makes him want to do a little jig with Junie, right here on the sidewalk. 

His daughter certainly seems to agree, if the way she spins faster is any indication. 

Annabeth slides her own bag off her shoulder, and pulls out a bulky file folder, handing it to him. “One last check?” 

“Hit me.” 

“Award letter?” 

“Check,” he says, thumbing through the pages. 

“Proof of insurance?” 

“Check.” 

“Background check?” 

“With fingerprints, and without allegations of underage terrorism.” That had been a fun and nerve-wracking experience, getting his fingerprints taken. He had been sweating bullets for a week, expecting his brief career in monument-related arson to have the FBI kicking his door down. 

“Visa application?” 

“Plus immunization forms, birth certificate with apostille, and two hundred dollars cash.” 

“Passport?” 

He blinks. “I thought you had it.”

Annabeth snaps her gaze to him, eyes blazing. “Are you serious?”

“Kidding!” Reaching into the folder, he pulls out his shiny new passport, flapping it in the air. “Kidding.” 

She swats at him. “Seaweed brain…” 

“Sorry, sorry,” he laughs, kissing her again. “It’s all good, promise.” 

“Don’t be an idiot in front of the ambassadors, or whoever it is you meet in there, okay? Save your dumbassery for something less high-stakes.” 

Scoffing, he slips the passport back into the folder. “Excuse you, my dumbassery is only reserved for the lowest of low-stakes operations.” 

“Just go and get your stupid visa.” 

Percy crouches down. “See you soon, Honey Dew,” he says, kissing her forehead. “Go have fun with mommy!” 

Junie’s only response is to kick water in his direction.

Yes, he stands and watches them leave, smothering a laugh, even as it begins to drizzle on him, until they turn the corner. 

After checking in with the security guard at the door, he is directed to sit in the hallway, on a low, uncomfortable wooden bench. The floor is not marble, but it has the same kind of glossy shine to it, in a black and white checkered pattern that makes his eyes hurt. Tapping his foot, he casts his gaze around for something to focus on, and finds very little but blank walls, dim, yellow lights, and a fake marble statue in the corner of the winged, headless Nike (he knows that one on sight—Cabin 17 had made their own replica with an intact-head and placed it on their cabin roof after a series of Hermes-related pranks gone awry). 

Directly across from him, mounted on the wall, is a large, nearly-square painting. From his vantage point on the bench, Percy can make out a brown landscape, a blue, cloudy sky, and… not much else. There are lines of white blobs, dots of red and green and blue, and it takes Percy an embarrassingly long time to realize that they are people. Okay, the blue blobs are cannons, and the white are soldiers, he presumes. The subject begins to take shape, clues falling into place before his eyes.

Percy is, after all, quite familiar with sieges. 

He checks his watch. He made sure to arrive five minutes before his appointment, but it’s been fifteen minutes, and so far no one has come to collect him. 

Returning his attention to the painting, for lack of anything else to do, he stands, leaving his folder on the bench, and walks over for a better look. He can see much more clearly this close, can much more easily make out the lines of attackers and defenders. The white-robed people, armed with curved swords, are defending some kind of castle on a hill, with walls and towers and… columns.  

He frowns, tilting his head. 

In the center, towards the top of the canvas, is undoubtedly a temple of some kind. He counts eleven columns, gleaming white, in a row, with a gaping hole in the middle, filled instead with a circular building with a terracotta roof. Beneath the temple, on the slope, are even more columns, and a wall unevenly dotted with arched openings. 

There is something eerily familiar about the image that he just can’t quite place. 

What the hell is it? 

But he doesn’t have too much more time to dwell on it. “Mr. Jackson?” 

An older woman with a shock of white hair strides towards him, her heels (her very tall heels, dang) clacking against the not-marble. 

“Yes. Ms. Georgopoulou?” 

She shakes his hand, firm despite her age. Her wrists have so many bangles, maybe it’s a covert kind of weight training. “Yes,” she nods. “Please, follow me.” 

He takes a step to follow, before remembering that he left all his shit on the bench. 

Swiping it from the bench, he turns, grinning sheepishly, only to see that she is already halfway down the hallway. Percy has to actually jog to catch up with her. 

Several turns and one staircase later, Percy is in her office, seated on a leather chair that has seen better days, all but twiddling his thumbs while she painstakingly types in his application information. Which seems kind of a waste of time to him. On Paul’s recommendation, Percy had filled out his application on the computer, as he did not want to subject some poor admin worker to his terrible handwriting. If she’s just going to retype everything, why don’t they make the whole system digital? 

Ms. Georgopoulou types slowly, precisely, her bracelets occasionally scraping against the ancient-looking keyboard. Every so often, she will gaze at him over the thick, brown rim of her glasses, appraisingly. 

He stretches his mouth in a not-quite smile, feeling, once again, like a little kid who’s been sent to the principal’s office, waiting for the inevitable scolding or dressing down or disappointed sigh at his “antics.” 

Squinting, she takes another look at his passport. “Ah!” Then she beams, years shedding from her face. “Perseus?” 

He pauses. Only monsters call him by his first name. 

Surreptitiously, he slips his hand into his pocket, fingering his pen, tensing his legs just in case he has to make a run for it. Wouldn’t be the first time an old lady turned into a demon, but boy does he wish it happened less often. It’s not even surprising at this point anymore. “Yes?” 

But then, she does something maybe even scarier than spit venom at him. 

She starts speaking at him in Greek. 

He’s sure he looks like a dumbass, sitting there, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. “Um,” he starts. “Uh, I don’t—I don’t speak Greek.” 

Which is true. He technically speaks ancient Greek because of magic genetic fuckery. But modern Greek? It’s about as foreign to him as Korean. Except he’s actually picked up some Korean just from the restaurant down the block from his mom’s first apartment. So really, it’s about as foreign to him as, like, Martian would be, or something. 

Ms. Georgopoulou hmms at him, a wordless judgement, and goes back to her typing. 

It feels like an eternity before she talks to him again. “You have somewhere to say?” 

Percy nods, grateful for English. “I’ll be living in, uh, Piraeus.” Though he imagines he’ll mostly be living on his boat, or whatever island he ends up closest to for however long it takes to re-survey whatever part of the ocean he’ll be in. 

More typing. She flips through Percy’s sheaf of papers, frowning. “Where is your proof of insurance?” 

For a heartbeat, he panics. 

Oh gods, did he forget the insurance? 

He snatches them out of her hands, his own trembling as he thumbs through them. There’s no way he forgot the insurance. He and Annabeth double-checked, triple-checked—

“Here we go!” Percy brandishes the lucky paper, relief so intense it almost makes him dizzy. “Got my insurance right here.” 

Thankfully for his nerves, the meeting wraps up fairly quickly after that. Percy hands over the cash for the visa fee (no card, no check, cash only, because of course), and is summarily shown the door, letting him know that he will be notified about the status of his visa application in no less than fifteen days. 

More waiting. Joy. 

Still, Ms. Georgopoulou is nice enough to lead him back out of the labyrinth of the consulate, rather than let him embarrass himself further by getting lost. Walking once again through the hallway with the painting and the checkered floor, he spies that same painting out of the corner of his vision, the one with the siege and the temple and all the little blobby figures—and it hits him, all at once. 

“Oh!” he exclaims, stopping dead in his tracks. “It’s the Acropolis!” Because what else would it be? 

Ms. Georgopoulou eyes him, oddly. “It is,” she agrees, with a tone that she probably uses on her grandkids. Her dumb grandkids. “See?” 

She gestures to the label, and Percy has to squint to read the tiny letters. 

The Siege of the Acropolis, reads the caption, once he manages to make the letters fall into place. Painting by Panagiotis Zografos, under the guidance of Yannis Makriyannis.

So he’s off to a great start. 

***

Frederick Chase takes them all out for dinner the evening his visa arrives—by which he means all of them, including his mom, Paul, Estelle, and Junie and Lucie. They get a big corner booth in the back of a fancy, Japanese-Spanish fusion restaurant that one of Percy’s grad student colleagues had recommended, for which Percy is infinitely grateful, as Frederick had suggested a Greek restaurant at first, before Annabeth commented that Percy would soon be eating his weight in Greek food, and would probably prefer something else for the time being. 

Some concern had been expressed about the littles one finding something to eat, but Estelle had taken to the chicken katsu with aplomb, and Junie had eaten enough of the tempura green beans that Percy wasn’t too sure there’d be room for dessert. 

She sits in Percy’s lap now, painting water trails with her straw on the wood of the table, while his mom holds Lucie so Annabeth can run to the bathroom. Frederick, on his third glass of wine and more animated than Percy can ever remember seeing him, is regaling them all with stories from his own research trips, a handful of which had taken him to the Mediterranean. 

“Let’s see,” he begins, counting off his fingers. “I’ve been to… Sardinia, Malta, Samos, Samothrace, Lemnos—oh, Lemnos!” The wine in his glass almost sloshes over the rim, and Paul has to move out of the way of his elbow. “Lemnos was wonderful. Such a lovely, remote island with all these incredible volcanic formations, and did you know that ANZAC used the island as a staging ground for the Gallipoli campaign?” 

“Oh, really?” Asks his mom, genuinely interested.

“That’s what I was there for—I wanted to see whether the Axis had used the geography in the same, or set up their bases and commands in roughly the same places, as part of a broader investigation into how the Axis built off leftover infrastructure outside of Germany. In any case, I had a letter from the Ministry of Culture, I had all my permits, I even had the Deputy Ambassador notify the local Air Force base when I would be arriving.” He pauses to take a sip of wine. “All I needed was one historical map from the 1910s—just one—but the local commander would not let me look at it!” 

Paul gasps, a little theatrical. The wine must be hitting him, too. “No!” 

“Oh, yes. The man would not budge. Kept citing national security concerns. I told him, in not so many words mind you, but I told him that I had come all this way to see this darn map, and that the Greco-Turkish war had been over for almost a hundred years at that point, and not only was there no reason to keep the contents of the map classified, but satellite technology made the whole thing moot anyway, so what was the harm in letting me take a look?” 

Chuckling, Percy spears the last of his potatoes, popping it into his mouth. He’s heard this story before, heard all about how Frederick managed to convince the stodgy Greek Air Force commander to let him study the map by promising him a citation in his article. 

“So,” he goes on, “I am arguing with this man for what feels like hours, until finally he’s called away for something or other, and that’s when I realize.” Frederick leans in, a savage glint in his eye that Percy instantly recognizes as Annabeth’s war games face. “I don’t know what they were doing with it, I don’t know why it was there, but there, on his desk, was the map—and there, in the corner, was a copier.”

“Wait,” says Sally. Percy takes a drink of water. “Did you—”

“Make an illegal copy of a classified map from 1917 and smuggle it back to Virginia? Of course.” 

Percy spittakes so hard it nearly comes out on his daughter’s head. Estelle thumps his back while he coughs, spots appearing in his eyes. 

“Alright there, Percy?”

“Yeah,” he wheezes, “I just never heard that version before.” 

Frederick blinks, cocking his head. He looks so much like his daughter it’s actually scary. “You haven’t?” 

“You told me you managed to convince him by promising to put him in your article!” 

“I did?” 

“Yes!” 

“Oh.” He flushes slightly, sheepishly dabbing at his mouth with a napkin. “Well, I, ah, must have given you the, um, undergrad version.” At Sally and Paul’s concerned look, he rushes to assure them, “Don’t worry, it was declassified the next year!” 

Looking plenty worried, his mom shifts her concern from Frederick to Lucie, a grin creasing across her face. “Aw, sweetheart,” she coos, “looks like someone needs a change.” 

Suppressing the last few coughs, Percy shifts Junie to Frederick, who is more than happy to take his granddaughter from him. “I got it,” he says, standing. “If the waiter comes back, make sure to order me some matcha brownies, yeah?” 

Luckily, they’re already in the back, so it doesn’t take too long for Percy, kiddo and new diaper in hand, to make his way to the bathroom, and summarily run into Annabeth, who is just coming out of the women’s room, flicking her hands clean of water. “Oh!” She laughs, “fancy meeting you here.” 

“Come here often?” 

She grins, then shifts her attention away. Not that Percy is upset by that. “Hi sweetie,” she coos, wiggling her fingers. Lucie laughs, and Percy falls in love all over again. “Everything okay?” 

“Just time for a diaper change.” 

Annabeth steps aside, with a grand sweep of her arm. “Be my guest.” 

The bathroom does not have stalls, and Percy breathes a sigh of relief. It’s not his fault that men’s rooms don’t generally have changing tables, and it’s nice not to get weird looks while taking care of his daughter. Or when Annabeth comes up behind him, and wraps her arms around him, hugging his torso, face buried in his shoulder blades. Like she is right now. 

“I love you,” she mumbles into his back.

“I love you, too.” He cleans and changes Lucie with all the speed and grace of someone who’s done this a million times, and as he looks at his daughter’s face, feels the warmth of his wife pressed up against his back, the muffled noise of the restaurant and all of New York city in the distance, the sounds of the city as familiar as a lullaby, he is struck with an almost painful pang of longing. “I’m going to miss you so much.” 

Annabeth tightens her arms around him. “It’s only for a few weeks. We’ll be there before you know it.” 

“I can’t remember the last time we’ve been apart for so long.” 

“Apart from being kidnapped by a rogue goddess?” 

“Yeah, exactly. I can’t remember it.” 

She snorts. 

Picking up his clean kid, he bounces her in his arms, and is rewarded with a giggle. She’s just about old enough to transition out of diapers. She’s growing up so fast. “It just feels so real, now,” he says, quietly. “The visa, the plane ticket… I’m really going.” 

“You are.” She comes around to his side, her hand never leaving his arm. “You’re going to go to Greece for twelve months, dazzle the crap out of the other archaeologists with your million shipwreck discoveries, and not have to deal with any grading or any undergrads the whole time. And we’ll be right there with you, the whole time.”

“Almost the whole time.”

“Almost,” she conceded.

“I just—I don’t want to waste this opportunity. I’m not…” 

“What? Not smart enough?” 

He shrugs. 

In response, she rolls her eyes, then gently cuffs him upside the head. “Ow!” 

“Percy,” she says, dead serious. “Do you know how many people apply for things like this?” 

“I dunno… a few?” 

“Try at least thirty per cycle. These are really prestigious grants. People apply from all over the world, in all stages of their careers. And you, seaweed brain,” she pokes him with her finger. “Beat out the competition.”

He feels the grin stretch across his face, slowly. “I did, didn’t I?” 

“We did.” She kisses him. “Half of that proposal is mine.” 

“The better half.” 

“Of course.” 

“Your name should be on this visa.” 

“And it would be, if I could breathe underwater.”

“I can’t wait for you all to join me,” he says, eyes going misty.

Annabeth kisses him again. “We’ll be right behind you.” 

They’re in the bathroom so long, dessert has already come and gone, but his mom manages to snag a matcha brownie for him before Paul gobbles them all up. Frederick leads them all in one last toast, to Percy’s great academic finds or whatever, but the true highlight of the night is when Annabeth nudges Junie, who, with a gasp of almost-forgetfulness, pulls out the little thing he’d seen her working at for the last few weeks, proudly presenting it to him. 

“I made this for you, daddy,” Junie announces to the table. “I hope you like it!” 

In her hands is a friendship bracelet, patterned with the Greek wave in blue and light green. Some of the waves are uneven, the crests a bit clunky, but in the center, Junie had woven an evil eye symbol in white. 

“I love it,” he croaks. “Thank you so much.” 

“Mommy helped with the mati, but I picked the colors.” She points at the band. “Blue is for the ocean. The green is for honey dew!”

He cannot stand it—he hugs his daughter, and doesn’t stop himself from crying. 

***

Percy, who in the last seventy-two hours, has suffered air travel, jetlag, a mattress as soft as a concrete slab, the Athenian metro system, and one really, really steep hill, now faces his final challenge of the day. Swallowing his fear, he runs a hand through his sweaty hair, and steps up to the front desk of the library. 

"Ah, signomi," he stammers, the word strange and unfamiliar in his mouth. The syllables are pretty close to ancient Greek, but the way they fit together is just… weird. "I have an appointment with, um, Aristides?"

The older lady at the front desk peers up at him over the rim of her glasses, her wrinkled hands resting on the pages of a yellowed book. With her red-dyed hair, large frames (are those Chanel?), enormous jewelry, and heavy eyeshadow, she reminds Percy of every school librarian he's ever had. 

She leans in, hand to her ear, one eyebrow cocked. "Eh?"

"Aristides?" he repeats, a little louder. It echoes throughout the main hall of the library, and he does his best not to wince.

"Ah, Aristides!" She perks up, babbling at him in Greek. "Edaxi," she says, "one moment, please," before rising from her seat, and floating across the hall, where she disappears behind a large, wooden door.

Unsure if he should sit at one of the tables, Percy elects to stand, hands gripping the strap of his backpack, tapping his heel against the floor. An older patron in the corner of the room, his table piled high with books almost tall enough to wall him off from the world, glares at him.

It's a beautiful little library. The attached museum had been a beautiful little thing, too, and if it weren’t the middle of the night on the east coast, he would have called her up himself, and shown her around via video.

He channels her now as he looks around, observing. The outside had been all neoclassical, almost beating you over the head with it, with perfect, fluted ionic columns, tapering gently at the top. Inside, beautiful, grand, wooden bookshelves surround the room, their contents locked behind glass. Some of them he can read instantly, of course—the library has a hefty collection of ancient Greek literature after all—but the rest swims in front of his eyes, scratchy gold lettering blurring together with blue and red leather. Wandering over to something that won't make his head hurt, he stops in front of a glass display of a book, open to a delicately printed page of text. 

It’s in Greek—ancient Greek, thank the gods—and to his delight, it’s the first few lines of the Iliad. Instantly, his shoulders unwind, and he relaxes enough to lean down and take a closer look, quietly mouthing the familiar words to himself. Percy doesn’t even bother with the label, instead tracing his eyes over the floral linework in the header illustration. He sees ram heads, fish, and pumpkins in the little cornucopia, and some kind of gorgon mask in the big, illuminated “Mu” that begins the poem. His master’s thesis had been a new translation of the Aeneid, but during that process he had come to appreciate the art of old, fancy editions of epic poems. It was kind of cool to see a physical, non-magical link to his past. He might be living proof of the Olympian gods, but plenty of mortals had dedicated their lives to carrying that legacy forward on faith and passion alone. And now Percy will carry it forward, too, without using his sword this time. It’s pretty cool, if you think about it.

A quiet voice behind him breaks the spell. "Mr. Jackson?"

Percy turns, and is greeted by a well-dressed man, probably in his early 40s. He looks as Greek as Greek can be, with a great beak of a nose and thick, wavy, salt and pepper hair. “Percy,” he insists, reaching out to shake his hand. “Thanks so much for meeting with me, Mr. Yiannopoulos.” 

“Please,” he returns, in a perfect American accent. “Call me Ari. Come on, let’s talk in my office.”

His office is huge, definitely bigger than Percy’s apartment back home, and covered wall-to-wall with books, in so many languages that it makes his head spin. As Percy closes the door behind them, Ari sheds his suit jacket, tossing it over a spare chair squashed between two teetering piles of books. He gets the sense that this guy and Frederick would get along famously. 

“You get settled in alright, Praetor? No problems with the apartment?” 

Percy sets down his backpack on the 70s-era linoleum floor. The things he’s picked up from Annabeth still astound him. “Yeah, it’s fine. But getting here was a journey, let me tell you.” 

“I’d bet,” says Ari, evenly. 

“That hill is killer.” 

“They’re building a new metro station in the neighborhood, but it won’t open for another few years probably.” 

“How do you stand it?” 

Ari shrugs, sitting down behind his desk. “Practice, mostly. But I live on campus here.” 

“Heh, must be nice.” Percy sits in the chair opposite him, zipping open his backpack and rummaging around for his documents folder… until something occurs to him, and he suddenly shoots his head up. “Did you just call me ‘Praetor’?”

“Took you long enough.” 

He blinks. “You’re a Roman?” 

“Yep.” Ari rolls up his sleeve, revealing the familiar, stark harp symbol, with twelve lines beneath it, signifying twelve years of service. “Third generation legacy.” 

Something in his brain might be broken. Or maybe it's jetlag. “You’re a Roman… but you work for the Greek government?” 

Ari raises his brow right back. “And you’re a Greek, but you teach Latin.” 

That does not at all clear anything up for him. “Did you know who I was when I applied?” 

He shakes his head. “I only learned you were coming after the review committee circulated the applicants. I saw your name, and I had to basically beg my supervisor to let me be your liaison.” 

“Okay… Why?” 

“I’m glad you asked.” Percy doesn’t think he looks particularly glad. “Because, Praetor, you,” Ari glares at him, as sharp and pointed as the finger he’s thrusting into Percy’s face, “have a bad habit of attracting attention.” 

Percy frowns. “Wait… Is this about the Gateway Arch? That was, like, fifteen years ago—”

“The Arch, Mount St Helens, the sinkhole in Rome,” he counts off his fingers. “Do you even know how much paperwork I had to do when you and your friends collapsed the Necromanteion in Epirus? Oh, and then you all decided that the best course of action would be to march on Athens and stage a battle on the Acropolis!” Ari slams his hand down on his wooden desk. “The Acropolis is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the entire world! We had to close the site for days! My bosses were about to have me crucified!” 

Percy would scoff, but Ari is a Roman. He knows exactly what he’s talking about vis-a-vis crucifixion. “Well,” Percy counters, “my bosses were going to have me—and also you—obliterated if I hadn’t gone there.” 

Ari glares again, a wolf stare so perfectly intimidating it could only have been taught by Lupa. It probably works on the skittish undergrads and beleaguered government employees he has to deal with on a daily basis. But Percy has also trained at Lupa’s knee. He’s faced the Titan king and the goddess of Earth. He has stared down Athena while hiding underneath a pastry cart—and has seen the exact same look on his two year old when she doesn’t want to be put down for a nap. 

Sensing, perhaps, that he is outmatched, Ari blinks first. “Fine,” he grinds out, “but I’m giving you an assistant.” 

“What? I don’t need—”

“Oh, yes you do. A grant this big comes with serious scrutiny, which will fall on my shoulders if you decide to trash another priceless heritage site.” He turns to his computer, quickly typing something out. “I’m sending you his resume right now. You are not to leave him behind or waste his time with useless data entry.” 

“But—”

“Don’t worry, he knows his way around a boat.”

Percy gapes, his whole day suddenly upended. In all his time preparing for the fellowship, he had not expected that he’d have a permanent hanger-on. Especially one he knows nothing about! “You can’t just saddle me with some mortal assistant and call it a day!” 

Ari levels him with another look. “Don’t be stupid—I’m sending you a legionnaire.”

“A kid?” 

“Yep.” Ari finishes typing with a final clack that brokers no argument, before swivelling back to face him. “You can pick him up from the port when you head out Thursday morning. He’ll be waiting for you at Terminal B.” From a desk drawer, he pulls out a folder, sliding it across to Percy. “I’ve booked you two tickets for an overnight ferry to Crete. You’ll have one day to settle in Heraklion before you start your first survey. Any questions?” 

Flabbergasted beyond speech, Percy can only take the folder. 

“Great.” He stands up, and goes over to open the door to his office. “I’ll be checking in with you next week. Have a safe trip, Praetor.” 

***

“How’s the kid?” Annabeth asks. 

Percy groans, dropping his head back. 

Over the Iris Message, Annabeth snorts. “That bad?” 

“No,” Percy admits. “He’s actually been really helpful.”

“Then what is it?” 

In truth, there isn’t a lot to complain about Arthur Taylor. A son of the Roman god Portunes, Arthur had spent the better part of his childhood sailing around the world with his mortal dad, before they settled in San Francisco when he was fourteen. After two years in New Rome High School, he had tested out of most of the classes, and was given permission by the Senate to take his senior year off for a long term Legion assignment—which, apparently, just so happened to be babysitting Percy. 

Still, he’s a good kid. He’s an excellent sailor, knows how to operate the very expensive diving equipment that Percy had to rent for appearances’ sake, and, to be quite honest, keeps Percy from going insane by giving him someone to talk to.

There is just one slight problem. 

“He keeps calling me ‘Mr. Jackson’!”

Annabeth, the heartless woman that she is, just laughs at him. 

“I’m serious!” He whines. “It’s weird!” 

“You know that I’m Mrs. Jackson, right?” She flashes the ring at him for good measure, like he’d ever forget one of the best days of his life. “What’s so bad about that?” 

“It makes me feel so old.” 

“I’m older than you.”

“And you’re aging beautifully.” 

“Ha ha,” she deadpans. Then she yawns. 

Percy frowns. “It’s not that late over there.” It’s only 8 AM here, and Annabeth seriously lives up to the night owl stereotype. 

“No, but I haven’t really been sleeping well for a few days,” she admits. “Taking care of all three of us is hard work.” 

A pang goes through him, cutting through the gentle morning sun filtering through the window. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay. Sally’s pitched in a few times, and my dad has started sending me those fancy microwave meals.” She shrugs a shoulder, her t-shirt sliding down and showing some skin. Percy tries not to stare like a teenager. “We’ve been getting by just fine.” 

“I know.” And he does. Annabeth wouldn’t let a little something like her inability to cook stop her from being the best mom ever. “I just miss you guys so much.” 

Smiling softly, she leans forward, and he copies the movement. “We’ll be there next week,” she reminds him, “which means we’ll see you in just three weeks.” 

“What if I just cut my survey short and met you in Athens?” 

“Don’t threaten me with a good time. Besides, yesterday you told me you were onto something?” 

Was it only yesterday? Gods, Percy’s sense of time is shredded out here. They’ve only been surveying for a little over two weeks, but it simultaneously feels like forever and no time at all. The only way Percy can really mark the passage of time is by his twice daily IMs back home. “Maybe,” he hedges. “I talked to some sharks the other day, and they said I should try and find this nymph who’s lived in this part of the bay since the twelfth century.” 

“Any luck yet?”

“Not yet, but they said she liked to scare the tourists sailing back and forth from Chrysi.” 

“Is that daddy?” Junie waddles into view, rubbing her eyes with her fists. 

“Baby, you’re up so late!” Annabeth hoists their oldest into her lap, so she can get a better view. “What’s the matter?” 

“Hafta go potty,” she mumbles. “Heard talking. Hi, daddy.”

“Hi, Honey Dew,” he says, almost tearing up. He misses his family so fucking much. “Are you being good for mommy?” 

She nods, her eyes still droopy. “Miss you.” 

“I miss you, too, kiddo. But I’ll get to see you in just a few weeks! And then we’ll have our big boat adventure!” 

Smiling, she snuggles into Annabeth, burying her face in her t-shirt. “Adventure,” she repeats, dreamily. 

“Come on, let’s go potty so you can go back to bed.” Annabeth took their daughter’s hand, waving at Percy from thousands of miles away. “Bye, daddy! Have fun on your survey!” 

“Good night, baby!” 

“Night night,” his daughter says, clumsily flopping her arm. 

“Night, Percy,” says Annabeth. “Talk to you in the morning.” 

“Sleep well.” 

Annabeth blows him a kiss through the IM, and he catches it, rubbing it on his cheek, before swiping a hand through the image of her sticking her tongue out at him. 

Good timing—from above, he hears Arthur ring the horn to signal they’ve arrived. Percy emerges from below onto the deck, shading his eyes against the bright morning sun. “Morning, Captain!” Arthur calls from the wheel. “We’re coming up on site 23B.” 

“Excellent.” That’s the other great thing about Arthur. Aside from all of his other skills, he is also a whiz at deciphering their legacy data. “How’s the weather looking?” 

“Another perfect day.” 

They are currently cruising off the southern coast of Crete, cruising easily over the most perfect, bluest ocean Percy has ever seen in his life, beneath a bright, clear sky. It’s hard for the weather to not be perfect here. 

“Alright,” Percy says, “if that’s the case, do you think you can head back to Ierapetra and pick up some more supplies?” Their little galley kitchen may be powerful, but it’s still pretty small, and they need to restock every few days.

“Sure thing,” says Arthur. “Any requests?”

“Just clear out their entire stock of peach juice for me.” It may not be blue, but it is delicious.

Arthur opens his mouth, as if to say something else, but then closes it, ducking his head, embarrassed. 

“What is it?” 

“Um,” Arthur hedges, hands gripping the wheel, “would it be okay if I took some time to go check something out in town?” 

Percy frowns. “Sure. Is everything okay?” They haven’t been accosted by monsters yet, but he figures it’s only a matter of time. “Do you need backup?” 

“What? Oh,” Arthur flushes. “No, nothing like that. I just wanted to sight-see a bit.” 

“Sight-see?”

He nods. “There’s this house—supposedly, in 1798, Napoleon docked in town, incognito, for a single night, before he headed on to Egypt for the Mediterranean campaign.”

The kid’s been all over the world, has docked in every continent except Antarctica, but he’s practically bouncing to go check out some random house that maybe has a connection to the Napoleonic wars. Grinning, Percy makes a note to introduce Arthur to Dr. Chase at some point. “Sure,” he says. “Have fun.” 

Arthur beams. “Thank you, Mr. Jackson!” And he looks so excited, Percy can’t even bring himself to be annoyed with the whole “Mr. Jackson” thing. 

And if Percy decides to give the boat a little push after he dives in so that Arthur can get to shore faster… Well, there are multiple benefits to this decision. Arthur gets to shore faster, and Percy gets to have some time to himself. 

Hey, just because having the kid around keeps him from going crazy doesn’t mean he doesn’t need some Percy-time. 

Percy lets himself sink further down, enveloped by the warm, crystal clear blue water. Eyes closed, he tilts his head up towards the surface, breathing out a stream of bubbles, his t-shirt gently wafting in the calm undercurrents. A school of something swims past him, tickling his arms and face like a soft breeze. 

Yeah. This is the life. 

For a few solid hours, he just lets himself be moved around by the will of the ocean. He moves in something approaching a circle, simply drifting around the island of Chrysi. Dappled sunlight drapes like lace over the rocky seafloor and patches of seagrass, while parades of colorful fish stop in their tracks to look for a second at the weird obstacle in their migration path, before continuing on around him. Eventually, the current takes him by the waist and draws him further from shore, into the deepening dark of the sea. Beneath him, he can sense the slowly sharpening descent of the ocean floor, stretching further and further, past the hunting grounds of squids and octopus until, he knows, some hundreds of meters further south, the ground suddenly gives way to a steep, sudden cliff. And what lies beyond, no one knows. 

Which is crazy to Percy. He’s seen the surveys, read the topographical maps, and even asked his dad, but despite the seventy or so years of dedicated surveying and the literal thousands of years of nautical travel and trade, there are still, somehow, unknowns in the Mediterranean. There are creatures down here even his father doesn’t know. There is magic here older than the gods themselves. 

And there is also a nereid staring at Percy from behind a tall rock. 

He yelps, tripping on himself. Yes, tripping underwater. It happens, and it’s just as silly as tripping on land. “Ahem. Hello?” 

The nereid pokes her head out further. She’s pretty in the way that all nereids are pretty, by virtue of being an immortal in a pantheon full of pretty people, but there’s something distinctly different about her. Her skin is pale, her hair somehow sticking to her face, like she had just emerged from underwater… despite still being underwater. 

Percy chances a swim closer. She doesn’t immediately run away, but she still seems pretty shaken up by the appearance of a sudden stranger. “Hey. Uh, I’m Percy. What’s your name?” 

Her eyes widen, and she squeaks, blushing blue to the roots of her glossy, black hair. “My lord!” She bows, nearly tumbling into a full front flip, her long, skinny tail flipping against the rock with a thump so loud, Percy can feel the vibrations. 

Oh good. She knows who he is. “Hi.” 

“Hello! Good morning! Um, afternoon? My lord!”

The water ripples out from around her, shaking so hard she’s starting to cause her own localized whirlpool. “Percy is fine. Please.”

The nereid nods, sharply. “Lord Percy!” 

Well, that’s about as far as he’s going to get. 

She stares at him, starry-eyed, but still nervous. Also, she doesn’t look like she’s about to make off with him and drag him to her undersea lair, so that’s a plus. “So… what’s your name?”

“Eunice, Lord Percy!”

“Great—wait. Eunice?” 

“Yes!”

Eunice. Huh. Well, he’s heard weirder. “Eunice. You live around here?”

She nods, her hair whipping in the current. 

“I’m looking for—”

“For shipwrecks! Yes! Your father told us!” 

“Right.” Oh he’s well aware. He’s had random nereids accosting him all summer to tell him about the incredibly fascinating sunken lobster fishing boats off the coast of Maine they had found, and how about they go check them out together, just the two of them? “Well, actually, I was talking to Kostas the other day—”

“The squid?” 

“The shark.” 

She nods. “I know him well! We are good friends!” 

That had not been Kostas’ version of events. “He said you might know something about a bronze age wreck around here?” Specificity is important, he’s learned. There are so many shipwrecks around Crete, mostly from the last forty years, and specificity means he’s not wasting time chasing Cold War-era fishing vessels. 

In lieu of an answer, instead she turns and bolts into the deep, almost smacking Percy in the face with her tail. 

He stares after her. 

Then, just as quickly as she left, she swims back, beckoning with one webbed hand. “Please, Lord Percy! Follow me!” And then she shoots off once more. 

O… kay. 

With only some trepidation, he swims after her. 

She’s fast, and the further they go, the more she blends into the environment, but the sea puts his senses into overdrive. He can easily follow her bubble trail, weaving in and out of spiky rock formations, inching ever closer to—where else—the edge of that underwater cliff. Because of course. “Hey, Eunice,” he calls out. “Where are we going?” 

“We seek the edge of the Minoan Crown, my lord!” She sends back. Which means absolutely nothing to him. 

But it’s not like he can get lost, so, onwards and upwards. Or downwards, as the case may be. 

The water grows colder, blacker, heavier. Pressure curls around his ankles and wrists like weights, but Eunice is not stopping, so Percy swims through the water as thick and heavy as molasses. He can still breathe down here, but something about the water is just… different. Awkward. Like it almost doesn’t fit in his lungs. More disconcertingly, he feels like he can barely see, the darkness is so impenetrable. 

“Nearly there!” Eunice calls cheerfully. Percy wipes his brow, suddenly sweaty. 

“Nearly there” turns out to be something of an overestimation, but eventually, she makes a right turn, and comes to a hard stop, Percy nearly barreling into her. 

“Here, prince,” she says, approaching a dark shape in the dark(er) water. “Look.” 

This deep, in this thick, complete darkness, he’s essentially blind. Still, he can sense that they are in an underwater cave, some five thousand or so meters beneath the surface. He has an impression of spiky stalagmites and packed sand. Cautious, he swims closer. His eyes essentially useless, he closes them, reaching out with his feelings instead. 

The water here is still, unnaturally so. There is no life, no movement, aside from the gentle wave of Eunice’s hair. A cold hand brushes against his arm, and his eyes snap open as he jerks away in shock—not at the touch, but at the fact that he can suddenly see. 

Eunice is softly glowing. Her skin, already so pale, is translucent, enough that he can see her bones, but now he can also see the bioluminescent spines protruding from her forearms, casting the cave in an eerie, almost ultraviolet light. “Be at ease,” she says, her voice lower, suddenly confident. “I shall be your light.” 

It’s not great. He’d rather have a flashlight. But it’s more than enough to see the smooth, wooden curve of the keel which rises up out of the packed sand of the cave floor, about six inches from his face. He places a hand on a plank, running his palm over the whorls and grain of a piece of wood which had somehow, miraculously, survived all this time. 

“Whoa,” he breathes, a stream of bubbles escaping his mouth. How has the wood not completely disintegrated by now? 

“You must take care, my lord.” Eunice waves a hand, redirecting the current. “This cave has never known the anemoi, and a hero’s breath is a dangerous thing.”

He frowns, and then it clicks. “This cave is anoxic,” he says. “There’s no oxygen down here.” And no oxygen means no wood-eating organisms. No wonder the keel is so intact. 

She tilts her head at the unfamiliar word, frowning delicately, a personality change equal parts eerie and sudden.

“Nevermind.” 

With his portable nereid spotlight in tow, he swims around the exposed body of the ship, his astonishment growing with every look. Not only is the keel intact, but so is the deck, as is the single exposed mast, rising up into the black water, a thick length of rope—rope!—attached to the top. Turning and swimming down, he examines the spot where the ship emerges from its sediment casing. If the wood and the rope had survived this long, what else might there be? A sail? Some paint? What if the ship’s cargo survived, too?

“Eunice,” he says, remembering to pull his face away. “How long has this thing been down here?” 

She shrugs. “I cannot say for certain, for I had not yet come into being when this vessel came to rest in this cave, its passengers long since drowned.” 

The question is out of his mouth before he has time to register that it might be a little bit rude. “How old are you?” 

But she doesn’t seem to mind. Eunice smiles, her mouth full of long, sharp teeth, glinting in the light of her spines, and Percy shivers. He vastly prefers the awkward, nervous Eunice from earlier. “I am old enough to have guided the Argo safely through the clashing rocks, to have been challenged by Cassiopeia, and to have mourned the swift-footed son of Thetis, pouring honey and ambrosia over the silver casket of the greatest of warriors.” 

So, about as old as the Trojan War, then. 

Which means this ship is even older. 

He places his hand on the wood, and closes his eyes again, focusing, a trick he’s picked up from Leo. 

Machines have stories, and so do ships. How they’re made, how they work, how they’re broken. Percy just has to be willing to listen. 

“It’s not a cargo ship,” he says, mostly to himself. “It was a warship.” He can hear it, the furious beat of drums, the rhythmic grunt of oarsmen, the sharpening of blades and the readying of bows. The wood, hewn from a cedar tree, is warm beneath his touch, even here in the freezing cold dark. “And it was sailing north.” 

“North?” 

“It was… running away from something.” Limping away from battle. The captain had cut his losses, and had ordered his men to retreat. “There was a storm.” No doubt his father and uncle had been fighting again, this sad little warship caught in the middle of an explosive family dispute they had no part in. Percy hears the crashing of thunder, the howling wind, the mighty crack of a mast as it splits apart. “And then it sank.” 

An all-too common occurrence. But where did it come from?

Percy frowns, stretching his senses further. 

He sees round shields and horned helmets, and people exhausted by constant war. There is the spicy, floral red lotus, and the earthy, woody papyrus. A mighty river floods in an endless cycle, giving life in a barren desert. And in him is a spirit that covets this bounty, a feeling of envy so hot and sudden, it almost knocks Percy off his feet. 

He has to—he has to write all this down. If this is what he thinks this is, then this could be the find of a generation. Maybe several generations. Frantically patting his pockets, he pulls out Riptide, converting it to normal pen mode, before he stops, and smacks his forehead, groaning. 

Di immortales, he left his notebook with Arthur on the ship!

***

“Absolutely not!”

“Ari—”

“No!” 

“Ari, this could be huge.” 

“You’re talking about causing an earthquake!” 

“A small one!” 

“Are you out of your mind?” 

“How else am I supposed to get it out of the cave?” 

“Arthur, tell me you think this is a bad idea.” 

“Um…” 

“Iuppiter dique te omnes perdant, Percy, you’ve gone and corrupted him.” 

“Look, it’s not Minoan or Mycenaean, it’s not Egyptian—it’s unlike any other ship I’ve ever seen before. The cave is anoxic, so the wood is so well-preserved, and Eunice says that it’s been there since before she was, so we’re talking 12th century, at minimum.” 

“CE?” 

“BCE.” 

“...And it’s not Mycenaean?” 

“Mr. Jackson thinks it could belong to the Sea Peoples!” 

“Arthur—!”

“Sorry!” 

“...The Sea Peoples. Really?” 

“I mean… yeah. I think so.” 

“...Let me make some calls.” 

***

Calls are made. And Percy waits. 

Luckily, he has a really, really nice way to pass the time. 

Annabeth, naked as the day she was born, lounges on the cabin bed, stretching her arms over her head, before she flops over onto her back, limp and boneless. Percy, drinks in hand and equally naked, has to force himself to set the bottle down on the little table, rather than drop the damn thing and jump her all over again. “Water or wine?” he asks, shamelessly leering. 

She shamelessly leers back. “Water, then wine,” she responds, already reaching for a glass. “I need to rehydrate.” 

Originally, the plan had been for Percy to go back to Athens to meet his family after they arrived. However, given the potentially paradigm-changing archaeological treasure stuck in the Hellenic Trench, Ari and Percy had both decided it would probably be best for Percy to stay put, and have his family come to him, rather than the other way around. Which is fine by him. They can explore Athens as a family any time, but the perfect weather off the coast of Crete will only last for so long. 

The tourists have begun to dissipate as the summer season gives way to a warm fall, so Percy, Annabeth, and the girls have the beaches and seas more or less to the locals and themselves. Junie is utterly enchanted by the Flying Dolphin, and has decided that her new favorite game is hiding in the various nooks and crannies aboard ship, then popping out to surprise him, giving her daddy a heart attack in the process. Lucie takes a little more time to adjust, laid low by a minor ear infection, made worse by the rocking of the boat. The only way to calm her, they quickly learn, is for Percy to hold her while they go for a dive, suspended in a little air bubble, her little eyes wide as she takes it all in.

Percy, Annabeth, and their family spend their days diving, fishing, making friends with the elderly women who come out every morning at sunrise for their daily swim, relaxing on the beach, and eating their way through the multiple gelato shops which line the promenade. Aside from a few hiccups, having this time with his family has been an absolute, perfect paradise. 

Percy is pretty sure he and Annabeth are guaranteed a spot in Elysium. Whenever they end up there, he hopes it’s exactly like this. 

Especially this part. 

After about a week and a half, Frederick, sensing that Percy and Annabeth were in desperate need of a little alone time, had graciously volunteered to take Arthur and the girls inland on a tour of Minoan ruins. Percy had essentially been put on shore leave while Ari did his bureaucratic, six degrees of New Rome separation thing to make sure Percy’s plan isn’t completely idiotic, and maybe even viable, and Frederick was already chomping at the bit to see some old rocks which had once been palaces, so it didn’t take much effort to convince Arthur to go along with them.

So, with the kids away and work on hold for the time being, Percy and Annabeth are engaging in some truly excellent sex. 

Like, a whole lot of it. 

Dehydration is a very real possibility for both of them.

“Tell me you have more of that cheese,” she says, after downing a glass and a half of water. 

“We finished off the graviera this morning. I’ll tell Arthur to pick up some more on his way back.” 

She pouts. “You mean to tell me that I’ll be cheeseless for two more days?” 

“Unless you want to get dressed and go get some yourself.” 

“Honestly, I’m considering it.” She lifts one leg, grasping her knee and pulling it closer, stretching out a cramp—and giving Percy one hell of a view. “I’m going to need some snacks if you’re going to keep making me come like that.” 

He grins. It had been explosive. “Hit your limit already?” 

“Not even close.” Percy settles onto the bed next to her, wine glass in hand, and she lifts herself to kiss him, slipping the glass out of his grasp. “But seriously, we should probably eat. I think we were fucking all through lunch.” 

“You hungry?” 

“Give me like half an hour. You’re not?” 

Percy frowns. He… really isn’t. “I’m fine.” 

Annabeth hums, thoughtful. “How much do you eat out here?” 

“The normal amount, I think.” Usually, he’ll have some yogurt and granola for breakfast, some cheese and salted fish for lunch, and whatever fresh fruit and cheese they had on hand for dinner. There’s an abundance of fresh fish, too, and catching some for a quick grill is comically easy out here. Arthur is largely in charge of grocery shopping, and he certainly doesn’t complain about the food, but he also seemingly has an endless supply of oregano flavored chips. Hopefully Percy isn’t accidentally starving him.  

“Hm.” 

“What?” 

“Just thinking.” 

“About?” 

“You.” With her free hand, she trails a finger up his chest, her nail ghosting over browned skin and white scar tissue, leaving a pleasantly tingly feeling in its wake. “Ocean life seems to agree with you.” 

“It certainly beats grading.” 

“Mmhmm.” Her fingers move further north, from his shoulder to his neck to the back of his head. “Your hair is getting long.” 

On reflex, he runs a hand through it, pushing it back from his face. “I can cut it.” 

“Don’t.” She tangles her fingers in it, tugging, and smirks at his quiet gasp. “I like it.” 

Thoughts of lunch are pushed to the wayside in favor of… other pursuits. 

It’s only much later, as the rim of the sun just barely kisses the horizon, that Annabeth puts her foot down. “We have to eat something.” 

“I can just catch us some fish,” he protests. 

But Annabeth shakes her head, pulling on her underwear. “I haven’t been on solid ground for forty-eight hours. I want to walk around the old town, eat my weight in stuffed peppers, and then get another twelve of those giant sfakianopita, so that the next time we have a two day sex binge, I’ll have something more substantial to snack on instead of just cheese and nuts.” 

“You can snack on my nuts,” he mutters, and is rewarded by Annabeth throwing his shirt at his head. 

Still, solid ground is a solid idea. As much as he enjoys living aboard the Flying Dolphin, she is one small ship. Ierapetra isn’t exactly the big city, but compared to his cramped quarters, it might as well be as bustling as Manhattan. To his chagrin, Percy hasn’t actually spent much time in town, rarely venturing further inland than the corner shop on the boardwalk. 

Annabeth laughs as he points it out. “Only you, seaweed brain.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Your first instinct is to go for the bodega.” She laughs again, bright and bubbly, her curls bouncing in the evening breeze. “Guess you really can’t take the city out of the boy.” 

Hand in hand, they wander the streets, Annabeth pointing out every architectural feature that tickles her fancy. She had used the flight to blast through an audiobook about Ottoman architecture, and she takes great delight in putting her newfound knowledge to the test. Almost as much delight as Percy takes in listening to her. 

“So why is this one square?” he asks, as they are admiring the remains of a mosque with its tower broken off. “I thought mosques were supposed to be rounder.” 

“It depends. Lots of mosques have unique layouts because of geographical limitations. This one is interesting, though. Look at the walls—see how they’re sticking out?” 

Percy nods. 

“And the tiled roof. This mosque is missing the qubba.” 

“The what?” 

“The dome.” She needs both hands to explain, and Percy tries not to pout at the loss. “Representing the vault of heaven. It’s not a requirement, but it’s still unusual for a mosque not to have at least one dome.”

“You know,” he says, “I have noticed that all the churches here have domes.” 

Annabeth smiles, proudly. “They’re definitely related. Most dome architecture can be traced back to the 6th century, and the construction of the Hagia Sophia.”

“There weren’t domes before?” 

“There definitely were,” she says. “Remember the Pantheon in Rome?” 

“I was a little busy fighting some nymphs that day.” 

“It’s basically a giant circle imposed on top of a big square. It’s the world’s biggest dome made of unreinforced concrete. But that means it’s also very heavy, and it needs a lot of internal support, which shrinks the available internal space. The Hagia Sophia, on the other hand, is so amazing because the architects basically invented an entirely new way to construct and support the dome. Instead of putting a sphere on a cube, the Hagia Sophia has pendentives in the corners to help bear the weight of the dome. They also reduced the weight of the dome by cutting windows into the bottom, which lets in a ton of natural light, and supposedly it makes it look like the dome is floating.” She sighs, happily. “I’d love to see it one day.” 

Percy is already mentally composing his vacation request. “I’m sure I can get Ari to get us some time off after we officially discover the paradigm-shifting archaeological marvel.” 

Annabeth takes his hand again, almost glowing. “I’d really like that.” 

With renewed energy, they finish their ramble, settling down at the first restaurant they see once they emerge from the maze of streets back onto the beach. True to her wishes, Annabeth manages to eat her weight in stuffed peppers, while Percy devours almost an entire grilled octopus, using his fries to mop up every last morsel. They share a couple bottles of wine, and endless plates of fried cheese, as the sky turns from purple to blue, the twinkling lights of the cruise ships off the port like stars. 

Percy has his arm around her waist as they walk back to the boat. He’s a little tipsy, and Annabeth is very sturdy. Still, he manages not to trip as they slow their roll, coming to a halt in front of the very annoyed looking young woman who waits for them at the dock, tapping her foot next to a giant package. 

She doesn’t look like a local. Percy’s spent enough time with the frequent fishers that he can easily pick them out of a lineup. But she does look mad. “Um… can we help you?” 

The woman sighs, tossing the sweaty strands of brown hair which have escaped her tight ponytail. “Percy Jackson?” 

“Who wants to know?” Annabeth adjusts his grip on her waist, giving her more room to draw her knife. 

“I need your signature for a delivery.” 

Percy is pretty sure he would remember making an order big and important enough to need a signature. “Sure…?” 

She hands him a clipboard and a pen. Then she stares at him when he does nothing. “Are you going to sign?” 

“Sorry,” he says, “I’m a little confused.” Annabeth snorts. “Who is this from again?” 

“Mr. Yiannopoulos commissioned the equipment from New Rome on your behalf.” 

Oh. Now that he looks, he actually does see the Senate insignia on the top of the delivery form. 

“What is it?” 

The woman eyes Annabeth suspiciously. “And you are?” 

“Annabeth Jackson.” 

“Hero and Architect of Olympus,” Percy adds. 

Turns out, that was the trick. The woman’s jaw drops open, her eyes widening. “You’re—you’re Annabeth Chase?” she gasps. 

“That’s me.” 

Percy chuckles, clumsily signing the form. The novelty of Annabeth having fans has long since worn off, but not the delight of seeing other people recognize her brilliance. 

After an autograph and a selfie for Drusilla, who apologizes profusely for her attitude, Praetor, she had just been told to wait by the Flying Dolphin for an unknown amount of time, and you know how the Senate doesn’t always give all the pertinent details, Annabeth is giving her directions to their favorite gelato spot while Percy crouches by the package. “So, what is it?” 

“I don’t know,” says Drusilla, still starry-eyed. “I only picked it up in Miami.” 

Percy frowns. “Is that a card?” 

Sure enough, there’s a Hallmark greeting card taped to a corner, nearly hidden beneath all the customs stickers. Tongue between his teeth, he gently pries it off, cleanly slicing it open with Drusilla’s pen. On the cover is a drawing of a dragon, lighting birthday candles with his breath. 

“Who’s it from?” 

“To Percy,” he reads the chicken scrawl inside. “Got a special request from NRU engineering to help make you a little present. As payment, I expect ten percent of every underwater treasure chest you find. (Babies are expensive!) Love, Leo.” 

“What does it mean?” 

“Who’s Leo?” Drusilla wonders. 

Percy stands, grinning. “It means that Plan Earthquake is a-go.” 

***

Plan Earthquake is pretty much exactly what it sounds like it would be. 

The Aegean Sea plate is surprisingly active for how small it is, and seismic activity is pretty common in this part of the world. If, say, for instance, there were to be a minor earthquake originating from the Hellenic subduction zone, maybe it could potentially dislodge any archaeological detritus from where it was trapped in an anoxic cave almost six thousand meters below sea level, sending it floating closer to the surface, where it could then subsequently be discovered by some passing ship surveying the area for wrecks. 

You know, possibly. 

But first they need to get it out of the rock. 

Unfortunately, Leo’s magic winch did not come with jackhammers, so Percy is warming up for the big act by gently shaking the packed sand apart. Eunice is helping, too, redirecting the currents to help clear away the loose chunks of rock. Annabeth is on standby on the surface, monitoring the seismological chatter, while Arthur mans the ship, and keeps an eye out for sea monsters. 

“How you doing, hon?” Annabeth says into his bluetooth earbuds. 

Percy shakes out his hands, jumping up and down. “Fine,” he confirms. “Think we’re almost ready to fire up the winch. How’s it looking up there?” 

“All clear,” she confirms, after a beat. “Arthur says we’re alone out here. No ships, no uninvited guests.” 

They should be. There’s no reason for tourist ships to come this far south of the coast, nor for shipping out of Cairo to come this far north. Also, the monsters have been leaving them alone for the most part. Hopefully they’ll stay away, instead of dropping in in the middle of Plan Earthquake and making things interesting. Percy breathes in, stretching out his arms. “Alright. Give me another hour.” 

It’s long, grueling work, but bit by bit, they uncover the wreck, freeing inch after inch of preserved wood. To his delight, he finds that he was right—the packed sediment did preserve the paint. There’s no way it will survive contact with oxygenated water, and there’s no way he could explain away any pictures, so he commits each color to memory, all the beautiful ruddy reds and browns, and the gold and white geometric designs on the prow. It’s truly a masterpiece of construction, shell-first with mortise and tenon joints, sleek and sturdy and beautiful.

Though, he thinks as he starts attaching cables to the boat, maybe a little too sleek. Hopefully it’s sturdy enough to withstand the pulling. 

“Eunice,” he calls, “you ready?” She’s not his first choice for an assistant, but he figures even she can’t screw up pressing a button. 

She frowns at the machine, the image odd on her delicate face. If he didn’t know better, he would say she was afraid of it. “Prince, explain again, what would you have me do?” 

Okay, nevermind. “You know what, just swap with me.” 

“My lord?” 

“Just keep the boat from shaking too bad, and try and slip water between the wood and the rock to help wiggle it out. I’ll man the winch.” 

The winch is automatic, but Percy still has to keep his attention divided more than he’d like between the cable and the boat and the rock, making sure nothing goes catastrophically wrong. It’s slow going, and sometimes they have to pause the winch to maneuver around a particularly stubborn piece of earth, but between Eunice and Percy, they manage to slide the hull out of the packed stone. Percy winces a t every groan and every ding of rock against the wood, but that’s okay. No wreck is perfect. 

A particularly spiky shard of rock scratches a deep line across the gold paint, and Percy kind of wants to cry about it. 

Then, the winch abruptly stops, the mechanics whining in protest. The cables pull taut, and the wood screams. 

It’s over in a second, but to Percy, it might as well be slow motion. 

The keel can apparently no longer stand being dragged over the rough earth. Percy watches in horror as a catastrophic looking crack races across the wood, shooting up from bottom to top. The internal pegs on the mortise and tenon joints must have been more corroded than he thought, because as soon as they touch water, they disintegrate, and the ship pulls itself apart. 

Percy swears. 

“Are you okay? Percy!” 

“I’m fine—it’s the ship!” 

Eunice races over to the machine, overcoming her fear of technology to slam on the brakes. 

“What happened?” 

The port side of the hull has split in two, sharp splinters of wood floating in the water, and based on the creaking, the starboard side is just about on the brink, the force of the winch leaving it hovering in an awkward bend, listing to the right. The ship’s cargo has spilled out onto the rock, coins and ingots glinting in the soft light of Eunice’s bioluminescent skin. 

“It broke,” he says, not at all able to keep the horror out of his voice. 

“How?”

“I broke it.” A life-changing find that could upend the entire field of archaeology, and Percy goes and breaks it. He swims closer to investigate, running his fingers over the exposed wood. 

“Talk to me.” 

“The pegs must have been in worse shape than I thought.” Hopefully Percy can salvage at least one of them for further study. “The hull cracked towards the stern, and the joints just came apart.” 

She swears. “How bad?” 

“It’s not great.” The front half, suspended in the water, seems to have emerged mostly unscathed, but as for the stern, it is deeply, firmly wedged within the earth. “The stern is stuck, and I’m not sure I can get it out.”

“So, what now?” 

Percy blows out a breath. “There’s nothing for it—we’ll have to keep going and excavate what we can.” 

And break the other half of the ship in the process. 

A lot of bad things had happened to Percy in his life. This doesn’t make the top ten, but it definitely makes the top twenty. Right in between getting kicked out of Goode and getting electrocuted by Thalia. 

He takes a moment to mourn the loss of a beautifully made vessel, his hand over his heart, before waving back to Eunice. “Alright,” he calls. “Fire it up.” 

Of course, he has to amend his list after he watches the winch rip apart the other side of the hull. This hurts way more than a lightning bolt to the chest. 

But Percy’s been a soldier longer than he’s been an archaeologist, so he can get his job done, and grieve at the same time. 

He takes a deep breath, calls on the power deep within him, and cracks a fault line. 

It’s over, quicker and easier than blowing up Mount St. Helens, and less than forty minutes later he’s back on the ship, sitting too close to his wife in the galley, feeling sorry for himself. 

“It’s really okay, babe.” 

He groans, dropping his head in his hands. “I can’t believe I Schliemanned it!” 

Arthur pokes his head in. “How are we looking on the scanners, Mrs. Jackson?” 

Annabeth really likes Arthur. More specifically, Percy thinks she really likes it when he calls her by her family name. So he’s not surprised at her warm tone with him. “Minimal tsunami risk across the coast. Thanks for the save earlier.” 

He blushes, mumbling. “It was nothing.”

She had sworn up and down to Percy that she had never been in any real danger. Percy did not believe Annabeth Ingrid Jackson about measures of danger (she feels the same about him, so it works out.) But his earthquake had rocked their boat more than a little bit. Annabeth hadn’t gotten far. And probably wouldn’t have made it over the side. But Arthur, all about safe harbor, had managed to grab her before anything too catastrophic occurred. 

He slides in across from the now, tapping his feet against the base of the galley table. “So, what now?” 

Percy pinches the bridge of his nose. “Now we wait. We’ll come back at some point in the spring, officially discover what’s left of the ship, and get it ready for surveying.” 

“What’s left of it?” he wonders. 

“I had to leave like a fifth of the wreck in the cave.” A whole fifth, including hull, keel, deck, and cargo. Annabeth rubs his back, and another wave of misery crashes over him. He can’t believe someone paid him over a quarter of a million dollars to come all this way and destroy the first priceless artifact he finds. 

Arthur frowns, thoughtful. “Isn’t that a good thing, though?” 

Percy lifts his head. “What do you mean?” 

“Well, intact shipwrecks are super rare, even for stuff sunk in the last fifty years.” 

“The Uluburun was mostly intact.” 

“Mostly,” Arthur points out. “And it wasn’t stuck in a cave. What are the odds of a three thousand year old ship surviving being ripped out of a rockbed by an earthquake?”

“He’s right,” Annabeth says. “Honestly, the fact that it’s broken will probably add to its authenticity.” 

Percy hums, noncommittally. They’re probably right. But he still feels bad about it. Bad enough that he feels like an hours-long swim to clear his head. 

Annabeth is waiting for him when he climbs up on deck around midnight. Just Annabeth.

“Where’s Arthur?”

“Arthur went to bed,” she says. “I ended his watch for him.” 

“You’re not the captain.” 

“There was a power vacuum, on account of the captain going swimming with the fishes.” 

He kisses her, the last dregs of his bad mood floating out to sea. “I’m so glad you’re here.” 

“Me, too.” 

They hold each other, swaying to the gentle motion of the waves, under a dark sky littered with stars, and Percy has a strange, distinct feeling that they’d done this before. Maybe in another life. Maybe in his dreams. But something about this moment, so peaceful and beautiful, feels eternal, immutable, like a cornerstone of the universe. 

“Guess what?” she murmurs into his collarbone. 

“Hmm?” 

“I’m pregnant again.” 

He goes warm, from the tips of his toes up to his chest and his cheeks. “Really?” 

“I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner, given how excited you get on the water.” 

Then he blushes for an entirely different reason.

“Sorry.” 

“So not a problem.” She kisses him again. “So, so not a problem.” 

***

Percy takes a sip of lukewarm water. It gets hot in Greece in early March, and this room, even with all the windows and doors open, is still pretty stuffy. “Excavation is currently underway at the Chrysi site, and is expected to continue through June, before resuming this coming September. By then, we should have completed both the trilateral and photogrammetric surveys of the site, and may be ready to begin excavating the cargo and other material for preservation.” He clicks to the final slide, a picture Arthur had taken of him, Annabeth, and the girls on the deck of the Flying Dolphin, and the audience politely coos, applauding while holding cups of hot tea. 

Which makes sense, since this is a tea talk, something that apparently exists. But why do they all drink hot tea for these things? It’s over sixty degrees fahrenheit outside! 

“Thank you so much,” says the moderator, an older woman with straight, white hair, who speaks fluent Greek in the most Jersey-ish accent he had ever heard in his life. “Really, really intriguing stuff. Shall we open the floor for questions?” 

The audience is made up mostly of young grads, dutifully scribbling away in their notebooks, with some older academics scattered among them. They sit on couches and armchairs and rickety-looking wooden seats, lined up in rows, and the unlucky ones who didn’t get a seat either are relegated to the porch outside the salon, leaning against the door, or squished three to a person on the piano bench in the back. 

A girl in the front row with dark, curly hair and a flannel shirt raises her hand. She doesn’t look that much older than him. Actually, she might be a few years younger. That’s kind of a sobering thought. “Thank you so much for such an interesting talk. My question is, you have all these different types of data, between the legacy data and the weather patterns—how do you keep it all organized?” 

“With difficulty.” His audience chuckles. “For something with this many moving parts, I have to do it manually. However, drawing my own maps gives me the freedom to adapt on the fly.” And add data that would be, uh, inconsistent with mortal abilities. “Plus, my wife helps me keep everything straight.” 

Annabeth flashes him a thumbs up from her front row seat. Junie flashes him two, and Lucie kicks her feet, distracted by the amphora on the bookshelf next to her. He hopes that Annabeth, at six months pregnant, still has her reflexes ready if Lucie tries to make the bookshelf baby’s first lava rock wall. 

From the back of the room, a thin, reedy man with round glasses and a scruffy black beard raises his hand. “How do you choose your areas to survey? What made you pick Crete?” 

The fish tell him. “I have specialties in deep-sea diving and open water sailing,” well, that’s one way of putting it, “so, the Aegean is just a little too shallow for my tastes. Plus, there’s been so much maritime traffic in the Levantine Sea since, well, forever, it seemed like a natural place to start.” 

To the left of the first girl, another girl raises her hand, her sleeve falling to show off her amazing red figure pottery tattoo. “Thank you so much for sharing. The colors are just so bright and so strong, do you know, or do you have any theories as to why it hasn’t degraded?” 

He and Annabeth have spent days hammering out the details Percy would fudge, drilling the answers so often they become automatic, but he’s still proud of himself for not tripping over his words when he answers, “It’s unclear as of right now. There’s still a ton of tests that need to be run, but my best guess would be that, after it sank, the ship ended up in some kind of anoxic environment, maybe like the Bannock Basin, that was able to preserve most of the organic matter.” He ducks his head, full of false modesty. “Of course, that’s just a theory.”

Annabeth smirks at him from the corner of his eye, and he really has to fight back the answering one which threatens to spread across his face.

The tea talk wraps up in due time, and the chairs and couches are summarily put back into place as the audience all moves out onto the porch, carrying plates of crackers and cheese and tall, thin bottles of ouzo. Percy hangs behind, lingering at the podium, entertaining the stragglers who come up with questions and “more of a comment, really” and whatever else, leaning against the wooden mantle now that the project screen which covered it has been retracted back into the ceiling. Annabeth has more or less let the kids roam the now-empty salon to their hearts’ content, allowing them to check out the art and artifacts with strict instructions to Junie not to touch, so she can hold court with Percy. He’s grateful, always, for her steady support. 

“So you think it’s more of a warship,” says an older man, with a shock of white hair but the energy of a college student. 

Percy nods. “At first glance, other than weaponry, the cargo looked like it was mostly looted material—jewelry, precious stones, that kind of thing.” 

“I saw, those raw sapphires? What an amazing find!”

Next to him, Annabeth surreptitiously covers her brand new sapphire bracelet with her other hand. 

“Where are you headed next? My wife and I have spent pretty much our whole careers excavating in Crete, so if you’re headed back that way in June, we’d love to take you two out to lunch.” 

Annabeth’s eyes light up, a calculating spark. “Your wife is an archaeologist, too?” 

He nods, proudly gesturing to a silvery haired woman, chatting in Greek with the moderator, her hand over her mouth as she laughs. “I study Bronze Age Crete, she does Hellenistic, and together, we’ve been excavating at Mochlos for, gosh, I don’t even remember how long.” Catching Annabeth’s expression, he asks her, “But you’re not an archaeologist, yeah?” 

“Unfortunately,” she shrugs, ruefully. “I’m an architect.” 

“Somebody has to bring in the bacon.” 

The man laughs. “Well hey, it’s handy to have an architect out in the field! And to get to bring your kids with you, too…” He shakes his head, his gaze, like a magnet, turning back to his own wife. “I don’t have to tell you how special it is to have someone you love doing this work with you.”

Annabeth takes his hand, squeezing, but Percy has no qualms about public displays of affection, so he does not hesitate to sling his arm around her shoulders and kiss her on the cheek, loud and sloppy. She shoves him, laughing, and as he hears Junie and Lucie start playing around on the old piano in the corner of the salon, on this beautiful warm spring day in Athens, Percy can’t remember if he’s ever been happier. 

***

They decide to extend their trip past the end of May. Estelle had been put out all year that she wasn’t able to live with her big brother on a boat and explore the Mediterranean for ancient shipwrecks instead of having to go to school, ugh, so Sally and Paul agree that they are all in dire need of some island time. Percy had to return the Dolphin at the end of his fellowship, and while he was sorry to see it go, the Amalia is a little bit nicer. The man he rented it from said it belonged to his yiayia, and he had brought it with him when he moved from Poros to the mainland. Where the Dolphin was all business, the Amalia is all homey, quiet pleasure. The man, Kostas (Percy had snorted, and Annabeth had had to kick him) had done his best to remove all personal traces to make her fit for rental, but Percy can still sense the love in every inch, from stem to stern. He runs his hand up the mast, and he’s nearly bowled over by the strong rush of emotions practically radiating from her—love, sorrow, and a pride so strong it makes his heart hurt. 

As nice as she is, she still won’t hold all nine of them—the family plus Arthur, who is well on his way to becoming Sally Jackson’s third child—so Percy is spending more time on shore this one month than he has all year. He’s had to move out of the Piraeus apartment, too, but Paul got an amazing deal on a vacation rental apartment in Kolonaki, so Percy wakes up every morning to the sight of the Acropolis from his balcony, sipping on a nice, cold glass of peach juice. 

Don’t get him wrong, it’s pretty nice. There’s not a lot to complain about. 

But he’s very excited to get back out on the water for one last ride. 

Just him and the love of his life.

He had no destination in mind, just somewhere far enough from shore to see if they could catch a glimpse of some dolphin pods. Annabeth, just about ready to pop, is lounging on the sun-drenched deck while Percy takes a call in the galley. “How do you feel about Nat Geo?” Ari asks in lieu of a greeting. 

“Like in general?” 

“Have you ever had media training?” 

“...No?” 

“Well, you’re going to.” Through the IM, Ari is happier than Percy’s ever seen him, his features smoothed out into a broad, happy grin. “The permit application just landed on my desk. I’m fielding requests from all over to get a glimpse of the Chrysi wreck.” 

“I thought my problem was that I attracted too much attention.”

“You keep making life-changing discoveries like this, Praetor, and you can attract all the attention you can handle.” 

“Hope so,” says Percy, “because Eunice told me that she heard from her sister that there’s another Bronze Age ship floating around Ithaca that needs discovering.” 

He squints, suddenly suspicious. “You’re not planning another earthquake, are you?” 

“Not currently, but who knows. There are a lot of subduction zones around Greece. Lots of places for ships to get stuck.”

But Ari just sighs, throwing his hands up in defeat, though his smile has come back. “Whatever, fine, whatever you need. Make your little earthquakes.” 

Then, from above deck, an earth-shattering scream rips through the peaceful afternoon. 

“PERCYYYYYYY!!!” 

“Whoops, that’s my cue,” says Percy. “Gotta run, send me the Nat Geo details later!” 

Swiping his hand through the image, he dashes up to the deck, expecting to find a pod of dolphins waiting in the water below.

Instead, he has to pivot, hard, and get down to work bringing his third daughter into the world. 

The dolphins return later in the evening to meet the new little sea princess, then graciously offer to escort them back to shore, where his family (and a doctor) gather at the docks, ready and eager to meet their newest relative, little Thalassa Amalia Jackson. 

“Thalassa?” Sally asks, holding the tiny thing, her voice soft with wonder. 

“Annabeth’s idea, actually,” says Percy, hovering as the doctor checks his wife over. “Born amid ships.”

“And made amid ships, I suspect.” 

Percy blushes, scratching his neck. “Guilty.” 

“I also get to name the next one,” says Annabeth, exhausted but proud and healthy

“You can name every single one of them.” A deal like that shouldn’t be made lightly, but Percy doesn’t care. He’d give her the world if she asked for it. A name is nothing. “Except Olivia.” 

But Annabeth just grins. “No take-backs!”

[randomdwellerr]

A/N: i think I’ve fallen victim to the A03 writers curse as I dropped my beautiful computer down the stairs early this week. Anyways I hope yall enjoy a nice slow burn because I was 3500 words in like “I STILL HAVEN’T ADDED THE SMUT.” I think I did dumbification justice here but lmk ofc. Anyways this will be on A03 soon enough.

Office hours

Warnings: Dumbification, DubCon, Power Imbalances, cruel Zhongli lowkey, Spanking, Degradation. Lmk if I missed anything ❤️

Make sure to study chapters 9-10, 13, and 14 in your Geography Book and come prepared to discuss your findings next class.

Yeah right, if only the reading was comprehensible! The paragraphs about climatology jumbled together before flying off the pages, toward different corners of your room.

You’d studied so hard that when you squinted your eyes, it didn’t provide you with a clearer look, but instead blurred further. Only when you blink rapidly would the fog temporarily dissipate from view. At this point, you were one eye rub away from convincing yourself that this was a visual impairment, not a school related mental breakdown.

And that wasn’t the worst of it, your hands had begun to cramp from gripping your highlighter or pen while you frantically tried to write to retain some of the knowledge. That’s when you knew things were going downhill.

And to the surprise of no one, that didn’t work.

What was once a well organized notebook was now filled with scribbles or yellow streaks— and occasionally tears— as you continued to hunch over your desk.

You were— are a good student. B average, nice scholarship, advanced placement, everything had been going nicely but a stupid geography had been your downfall.

You didn’t intend on doing anything related to the subject when you took the class, and you surely weren’t now that you had a taste of the stress, but you had signed up for the class with a bit of peer pressure from your friends.

It was easy they said, we’d see each other more they claimed. If you could go back in time, you would warn yourself that only the latter was true, and only for a while anyway.

The first day of class in the crowded auditorium, you’d secured a plush seat with your group of friends. You’d figure the class would be easy enough, you’d taken a handle full of history classes through high school and now college.It didn’t hurt that Professor Zhongli was easy on the eyes—and the ears. His deep, rumbling voice paired with sharp hazel eyes was enough to distract you. And then there was that long ponytail, somehow managing to look both professional and a little magical when it caught the light. Oh, and an empty ring finger.

Honestly, if the whole teaching thing didn’t work out for him, envisioning Zhongli as a model wasn’t hard.

Everything started out fine. The first quiz had been easy enough, based on the contents of the syllabus Mr Zhongli passed out on the first day of classes.

After that, the harder stuff started. Climatology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, every single horrific

topic, that you couldn’t comprehend. The first couple class days, you would joke around with your friends, listen to music, anything else but study in the designated time. Your teacher however, never said anything, never called on you to answer a question, read aloud, nothing. If you doubted before he knew your name, you were sure he didn’t know it now.

When the second test came around, you knew you’d made a grave mistake, not only by not taking the class seriously but actually signing up for the class in the first place. A fat F, circled in red ink, rested at the top of your paper. When your friends sports low to mid A’s and B’s, you knew something had to give. And apparently the solution was simpler than you’d thought, as written in neat handwriting below the F was a note.

Perhaps you should try sitting up front, away from potential distractions.

Maybe instead of blindly signing up for the class you should have looked his name up on ratemyprofessor, even now you wanted to leave a scathing review on his surprisingly perfect record.

The paper was promptly balled up and thrown into a small corner of your room, probably next to your syllabus.

How utterly ridiculous. If he could notice you getting distracted during his lecture, he could also realize that you had stopped talking to your friends in class a long time ago.

But that wasn’t the real problem anyways, and you knew it. His class was too hard. It was deadline after deadline after deadline, whether it be of assigned reading, essays, peer review, and God forbid you attempted the extra credit.

There was bonus work to boost your grade so

of course you didn’t expect the work to be easy but hard was a true gross understatement.

The directions were simple enough, do this, this, this, a little more of that, and this again. As expected of a college course, but how could you manage to do all of that if you couldn’t finish— let alone understand the work you were actually required to do.

Soon enough though, you tossed your pride aside and moved to the front of the class. And true to his advice, you had been able to comprehend more, not a lot more, but something was better than nothing.

And it seemed he noticed too, his eyes began to actually find yours in class and his smile seemed genuine too. A polite, encouraging grin that never ceased to make your efforts seem worth it.

The next test, however, reminded you of your standing in the class. A cursive D+ sat like a black hole on the front of your quiz packet. Progress like that was truly no progress at all.

If you hadn’t already wasted water crying during the test itself, you would have broken down when he returned the paper to you. Face down.

With the actual exam coming up, you knew you needed to see Mr Zhongli in person. Under no circumstances could you fail this class, even if it didn’t help you further your career you still couldn’t flunk it. Lest you want to lose your scholarship.

The bag crossed over your chest, felt extra heavy as you trekked to Zhongli’s office. Maybe it was the computer, or the spiral notebook, but most likely it was the 319 page Geography book buried somewhere inside it. The physical copy was paid for by your scholarship but the online copy was not and being the broke College student you were, it definitely was not affordable.

Your knuckles brushed against the oak door, below the golden name plate that read Dr Morax. The name seriously fit him, it sounded just as professional as he was.

After a firm come in you found yourself inside his medium sized office.

He gave you time to take in your surroundings, multiple diplomas of varying degrees and schools hung on the cream walls. The wooden desk that separated you two was an organized mess, numerous stacks of papers, some graded, some not. Other nicks nacks were neatly placed on the desk, the school mascot bobblehead, newton's cradle, a small wooden globe, the things usually expected to see on a teacher's desk. This room was definitely bigger than most professors work spaces than you had seen.

“Please take a seat,” Mr Zhongli motioned to one of the plush seats in front of his desk. His own position was relaxed as he leaned back in the chair, hands folded neatly on his lap, one of his long legs sat draped over another. His slim ponytail was draped over his white button down, so long that it almost reached down to the black slacks he wore.

“Nice of you to finally stop by.”

Now that felt underhanded. Your eyes snapped up to him ready to say something back, but the words died in your throat at his look. HIs gaze was half lidded while he sported a lopsided smile that bordered on a smirk.

“Finally?” You sank into the seat, dropping your satchel onto the hardwood floor beside you with a sigh.

“Oh yes, your grade in my class is far from satisfactory.” Zhongli’s grin became tight while he spoke. The once playful glint in his eyes was taken over by a serious demeanor. Professor Zhongli.

You shifted forward, crossing your own legs to mimic his attitude.

“Yes sir, I’m sure you figured that’s why I’m here,” your voice sounded a lot more pathetic than you expected it to. It reminded you of the one time in high school when you begged your PE teacher to let you skip the FitnessGram Pacer test.

Let’s just say the second worst grade you’ve ever gotten was gym.

“I do,” Zhongli drawled, he now placed his arms on the desk, one hand remaining still while another gripped a pencil, “but truly, I’m not sure there’s much I can do for you.”

That was not what you had wanted nor expected to hear and your face reflected that. The whole wide-eyed mouth open shabang.

Zhongli released a breathy laugh at your expression, "there's nothing I can do for you but I believe you could help yourself.”

The anger you felt at his first dig was now bubbling back up, with more force. How many times could someone slyly insult you in one sitting?

¨And how could I do that sir?” Zhongli matched your attitude, pushing himself fully under the desk. His expression remained pleasant though, a nice albeit thin smile stretched across his face.

¨You could start by actually paying attention in class.”

Really? Like you hadn't just moved your seat to sit in the front of the class, mind you, BY YOURSELF. And all he had to offer is that your focus was still waning, it was though, only because you had the sexiest teacher ever though. Not from lack of effort on your part, so it’s not like it was truly your fault to start with.

Zhongli patiently waited for you to begin a retort before cutting you off with a demeaning wave of his hand, ¨Yes, yes, you moved. Like you should have from the start, you don't get a high five for doing what is expected of you. What I’d like to know is why you still struggle in my class, it’s definitely not from lack of opportunity.”

¨I assign plenty of extra credit, so I’m assuming it's not that.” Zhongli’s eyes flickered down, no not to your hidden bust, but to an open planner on his desk, before they met yours again. ¨Perhaps you should consider dropping my class.”

That finally made you bristle, visibly too, your eyes widened again as you recoiled. His words might as well have physically struck you. Being a good student meant that most teachers never had to criticize you, let alone act so sharp. His Zhongli’s blunt statements hurt in a way only a prideful student like you could feel.

You needed to act unbothered and hopefully, get under his skin too. Fixing your face into something a bit more stoic you started again.

“Doesn’t it reflect badly on a Professor if they have failing students?” You found your nails to be more interesting than meeting Zhongli’s intense gaze, his eyes seemed alight from the fierce way he stared at you.

What you didn’t expect was a throaty laugh from him, that pulled you from your nail inspection.

“Students, yes. One singular student, not so much.”

Negotiations had definitely fallen through.

Outwitting people was something you were good at. One thing that hurts more than having your ego bruised is having it body slammed when you find out you're not as good at something as you believed yourself to be.

Reading your reaction Zhongli chuckled again, “oh dear, not the answer you wanted was it?”

Your eyes couldn’t lift from the floor now, but even that served as a constant reminder of the stage you were hoping to walk on. Before any of this happened.

Zhongli’s voice pierced the silence, “Well, I have some time to help you study now, is that fine with you?”

Really there was only one choice, but you contemplated both regardless. You needed his help to bring up your grade and hopefully pass the upcoming exam but also, you didn’t want him to belittle you any further.

Maybe you could study on your own. In high school you reviewed for biology tests using the Amoeba Sisters. Did they even have anything like that for geography though?

When you found the courage to meet Zhongli’s eyes again, now lounging in his chair with his hands braced behind his head. Your ears tinted pink when you saw his lips, still in a smirk but not as wide.

Maybe you could deal with his taunting for an hour or two. For your grade of course! Not because he was gorgeous or anything. Although it helped.

“Fine,” decided to lighten the mood a bit you added, “hopefully you’re better at this than in class.”

Zhongli let out a breathy laugh while he leaned further back in his chair to glance at the clock. “Perhaps, though you may find my teaching methods unconventional.”

“Oh?” You dug into your satchel to find your textbook, “how so?”

Zhongli crossed his arms in front of himself before releasing a thoughtful groan, one that had your pupils blow open a fraction wider. “How about I quiz you, and for each question you get wrong..”

His gaze flickered from the sky of contemplation to you, “I could use a more… tactical approach. Like consequence and reward.”

As his smirk seemed to stretch, the air in the office became heavier. You blinked, believing you were imagining his suggestive voice.

“Consequence?” It’s not like your grade could get much lower so what could he do to harm you?

The pause that followed was thick with unspoken meaning, you didn’t dare move either. You were frozen in the plush chair, pinned by Zhongli’s half lidded stare.

“For each wrong answer, I could bend you over my knee and spank you.”

You blinked, then blinked again. Did he really just say that so calmly? Like he asked you to make a batch of flashcards. Heat rose to your already rosey cheeks, and you quickly looked away, feeling your heartbeat just a bit faster.

“You can’t be serious!”

“What’s wrong with that? It’s a straightforward form of discipline, it may even work on you.” The way he said the word you sent a chill down your spine. The word felt heavier, like he was implying that even someone of your caliber could understand.

You swallowed, hard. But you didn’t stand up from the chair, nor did you threaten to report him. Instead you stayed seated and actually considered his suggestion.

“What if I get the answers right?”

You seemed to be endless entertainment to Zhongli as he laughed again before retorting, “as unlikely as that maybe, we can come up with a suitable reward if that happened.”

Your pulse pounded in your ears as you completely ignored the ruder side of this comment.

Zhongli leaned in slightly as he gestured to the study materials laid out on his desk, “shall we begin? Or are you not going to be attentive enough again?”

He was challenging you, skillfully he goaded you

into playing his game, to participate in something where you both knew you were likely to lose. Maybe it was the lack of sleep that caused you to act so desperate. If you told on him now, you could probably drop the class without it being on your record, but a deeper desire helped guide your answer.

“I can focus,” you said, a little sharper than you had intended, “what’s the first question?”

Zhongli reached for the discarded textbook on his desk, flipping to a random page towards the middle. His smirk deepened as he read over the line.

“This is something we went over in class rather recently. Describe the process of orographic precipitation.”

Before you could catch yourself, your face fell. Your mind had blanked on you. And given the cruel grin Zhongli bore, he knew you wouldn’t know the answer.

Even though you vaguely remembered the name written on the board in class, the words didn’t arrange themselves in your head for you to create a clear answer with.

“I don’t remember,” you quickly added before Zhongli could speak, “this isn’t fair, you knew I wouldn’t know this.”

“I just opened the book, I didn’t choose the page at all.” His smug tone was nothing to match the satisfacted grin proudly stretched across his face.

“I also just mentioned we went over this in class so maybe it’s not any fault of mine anyway.”

No use in arguing with him especially because you did somewhat recall him going over it.

“Next question.”

For five whole minutes, Zhongli asked you question after question. Each of which you got pitifully wrong. As time went on you itched for Zhongli to end this sadistic game, which he was no doubt dragging out. Maybe to humiliate you, or maybe to tally up each incorrect answer and actually hit you for each of them.

Your face began to blush at the possibility of him actually spanking you. He probably only said it to get under your skin and hopefully get better results. If that was the case, you’d be very disappointed but also relieved, you didn’t want to get hit that much.

“—paying attention.”

“Latitude!” You exclaimed before shrinking in on yourself. You knew for a fact that the answer to whatever question he asked that ended in paying attention was definitely not latitude and nor would an answer be so simple with him.

Suddenly Zhongli stood up, dropping the textbook closed back onto his desk. His expression was somewhat pleased but also very annoyed. Once he reached your side of the desk, he grasped your wrist, pulling you to your feet. And with a gentle yet steady hold, he guided you to his side where he once again sat down, only to look up at you expectantly.

Zhongli’s black trousers made it hard to see any depth in his pants, but from the visible bulge you could make an educated guess on how he was feeling.

“Must I spell everything out for you? Lower your pants and bend knees over my legs.”

Face falling again, you tried to ask why that was necessary before Zhongli cut in with a sigh.

“How will I know it truly hurts if I’m not hitting your skin?”

That was almost a logical explanation if it wasn’t so sadistic. Your face must have been bright red with embarrassment as you unbuttoned your slacks. His honey eyes tracked your every move, as you lowered the fabric down your legs, then stepped out of them all together.

Feeling a bit relieved at your choice of black underwear, and not your hot pink ones, you slowly draped yourself across Zhongli’s lap.

Only a few seconds ago, you were speculating on if Zhongli was actually hard or not but now you could tell he was as his erection poked your waist.

You could feel his heat from his palm warming your plush flesh as he rubbed small circles on your ass above your underwear.

Then came the first hit. A sharp pain stretched across both mounds of soft tissue, the ache rippled down your legs and to your toes. Rebelliously, you bit your lip to hide any noises of discomfort or the subtle pleasure.

“Oh? After being shown just how pathetic you are, you refuse to even take your punishment correctly?”

The hand Zhongli had used to hold you flush against his lap, slipped to your face and squeezed your nose shut. In shock, you opened your mouth to protest but before you could, a much harder slap landed against your ass. A loud cry of pain— definitely not pleasure, tumbled from your lips.

Heavy tears traveled down your face and wet Zhongli’s pants.

“Two hits and you’re already crying?” He softly kneaded the skin before slapping it again, “no matter, I assumed if you weren’t good at school you’d be good at this.”

“But I am good at school! It’s just your stupid class—.”

A slap rang out in the room as Zhongli delivered the harshest slap yet. This time he didn’t rub the skin, instead he lifted you off his lap and placed you on the cold hardwood floor of his office. The coolness soothed your burning bottom.

“You may surprise me yet with some skill.”

You took only a second to wipe your tears before you heard the sound of Zhongli removing his belt. Instinctively, self preservation won because you scrambled back, hitting your head on the edge of Zhongli’s desk in the process. But shockingly enough, he didn’t wrap it around his hand to hit you harder.

Instead he placed it on the desk as he worked on undoing his slacks button and zipper. Once he finished that, Zhongli reached into his pants to pull out his penis.

Truth be told, you weren’t a prude, you’d had sexual encounters before, none that went past giving or receiving oral sex but still. Zhongli’s dick was pretty too though, a thick underside vein ran from the scrotum to his tip. The head itself was flushed, apparently the blush he lacked on his face his cock made up for.

Still, the size itself was impressive, you couldn’t tell how long it was but at least your fist and a half.

From the angle you sat on the floor at, you couldn’t tell if he had any hair but you doubted a man as well kept as Zhongli would be anyways.

Suddenly his hands shot out and grabbed you under your arms, turning you around and placing him on his lap. In this position his thighs rested between yours.

“I had considered making you suck me off when you eventually did come to see me about your grade but to think you were such an… abysmal student, we’ll just do this for now.”

Zhongli lifted your ass before sliding your panties to the side and thumbing your clit.

“You couldn’t even take your punishment honorably, not that I expected you too anyways..”

Zhongli droned on as he rubbed same circles on your pearl. Though you hadn’t heard a single word he said, not that you had the capacity to do so anyhow, his fingers skillfully manipulated you to putty in the man’s hands. His middle finger slipped to your entrance as he began to lethargically massage your g-spot.

You had heard of that area but, you nor your previous partners had been able to stimulate it the same way Zhongli was now.

Reached a new height as he introduced another finger, further pressing into the velvety zone.

Maybe it was because you hadn’t been touched in so long that you came so quickly but it happened regardless. Your orgasm washed over you like a tidal wave as Zhongli allowed you to ride it out. The pleasure was kin to a hot shower (that you would definitely be taking once this was over with) after a long day. One of those showers that you sit in the tub and let the water trickle down from your hair to your toes.

Once the pleasure was over though, it was done completely. Zhongli removed his hands before pushing you down into the desk, half of your face buried into a stack of ungraded papers. His hand pressed down between your shoulder blades effectively pinning you to the wood.

You heard the chair roll behind you as Zhongli stood up, his penis slipping in between your folds.

“Now that you’ve had your pleasure, I will be taking mine.”

Without further warning, Zhongli began to pierce you, inch by inch he sunk deeper in your quim. He wasn’t rough, nor was he forceful as he pressed on. His hand still remained placed on your back but his other trailed down your side before grabbing your hip and pulling you back onto him. So now not only was he entering you, he was pulling you back to meet him halfway.

Your lower body ached at the intrusion, as low moans of pain and contentment left you. It felt weird to be filled up like this but also so natural. Now you hated not going further than oral sex with anyone else.

When Zhongli was completely inside you, he stopped moving to sigh, “truly made for this. If all were to fail, you could always sell yourself. I’m sure you’d make a nice sum of mora.”

Words of protest were turned into lewd moans as Zhongli began to grind into you, not not thrusting but slowly rolling his hips. Remembering your setting you bit your lip again, in hopes of not drawing unwanted attention.

“Don’t,” Zhongli began to pick up the pace, no longer rocking but instead coming all the way out before pounding back into you, hitting that special sponge inside you. “Everyone has already left for the day.”

Your gasp was turned into a high pitched moan as Zhongli rammed into you particularly hard. Him knowing that no one was there let you know just how in control of the situation Zhongli was, with that came a shocking revelation. He probably planned this all along.

You weren’t given anymore time to think about that possibility as Zhongli slightly lifted your chest from the desk. Now that one of his hands no longer had to hold you down, it wrapped around to toy with your nipple.

The harsh pulling on the soft nub brought out more yells from you as he didn’t relent of his intent to bully his way into your womb.

“Look at you,” Zhongli cooed, “drooling on yourself.”

Although his words were embarrassing, they didn’t register in your mind as you tried to bounce in tandem with his thrusts. At least you attempted to before his grip on your hip tightened in warning.

That hand also slipped to the front and sloppily rubbed your clit, leaving you to support your rocking weight on unsteady arms. The sound of his hips meeting your sore ass sent resounding sharp claps into different corners of the room.

It felt like hours upon hours of Zhongli’s grunting in your ear, the sudden sharp pain shooting up your spine from your butt, him pinching your sensitive nipple.

Now his movements were a bit choppy as, you assumed, Zhongli was close to reaching his orgasm. As opposed to traveling faster, his cock was going deeper, looking to bury its head in your cushiony womb. Merely seconds before him, you came. A second mind numbing euphoria, almost as rich as the last one covered you like a heated blanket. Your eyes squeezed closed as you were captured in bliss.

Just as sudden as it had started, it ended, as Zhongli emptied himself inside you. After a few seconds of his warm seed spurting inside you. The room was still hot with both of your gasps as Zhongli’s musky cologne permeated your senses from behind you.

Following your shared daze, he pulled out of you, allowing his semen to also drip onto the floor. You collapsed face first onto your geography textbook. Behind you, Zhongli’s leather seat creaked as he fell onto the chair. The sound of a draw opening made you aware enough to open your eye a little bit.

Zhongli's fingers came into view as he held a small tablet, “It’s a plan b.”

Opening your mouth to allow him to place the pill on your tongue you shut your eye again. You wanted the moment to never end, the nerve damaging pleasure you experienced tonight was truly life changing, but your momentary reprieve was ruined by the sound of Zhongli redoing his pants. In the midst of cleaning himself up, he rubbed up and down your back gently.

“You’re earned an A for the quarter by the way.”

~

Quick end note. Do you think Zhongli have a plan b implies that he’s done this before or that he prepared for you really well?

[thelazybard]

idk if you do modern AU, but it could be really cool like a modern au of the clones from Bad Batch + rex and cody in like university. what would they study, what hobbies, what would they wear! idk

or maybe like in the y/n s/o perspective how they would help them study through finals and midterms?

love ur writing 🫶🫶🫶

I love university AUs sm ughh

Modern!The Bad Batch +Rex +Cody x GN!Reader: The boys as university students

Rex:

Style: Athleisure for sure. Something presentable enough to attend class in but also hit up the gym in after. The same sneakers almost every day, and his gold chain.

Major: Philosophy

Study dates: In his dorm when Cody is out. You both fit into his twin bunk and quiz each other with flash cards.

Cody:

Style: Done up, slacks and a sweater every day for sure. I imagine him in brown loafers and gold jewelry.

Major: Engineering

Study dates: Out at a cafe with free wifi. He prefers outdoor seating so the two of you can have a bit more privacy while also enjoying nature, but he won't subject you to that in the winter. You doublecheck his math for him and quiz him on the different formulas he's got to memorize.

Hunter:

Style: Jeans, boots, and a graphic tee of some sort. A denim or leather jacket in the winter.

Major: Forestry/Environmental Science

Study date: Outdoors at campus, usually under a tree the two of you can lean back on. He brings snacks and a blanket each time, and the two of you study for your respective midterms in a comfortable silence until you fall asleep on his shoulder.

Echo:

Style: Similar to Rex's. Athleisure, but more boyish. Graphic tees of his favorite show and Nike sweatshorts.

Major: Biomedical engineering

Study dates: At your dorm because Fives always has a girl over. He tries to focus on studying but ends up getting distracted by the various doodads around your room, which results in you getting the great idea of holding him down and doing your skincare routine on him. No studying gets done.

Wrecker:

Style: He's the guy that wears shorts whether it's warm or not. A black pullover hoodie is a closet staple. (He let's girls borrow it so be ready to argue about that). Socks and sandals 100%.

Major: Sport's Medicine or Physics.

Study dates: In his dorm. He sits at his desk with you in his lap and you make him create/study quizlets. He takes breaks frequently to snuggle and kiss you.

Tech:

Style: Slacks, polo and blazer. Thinks you need to look your best to do your best. Him and Wrecker fuss over each other's styles constantly.

Major: Double majoring in Aerospace Engineering and Computer Science.

Study dates: In the STEM building in one of the many study spaces. He says what he's learned out loud to you to better adhere it in his noggin. He takes you out to ice cream after to make up for the lack of romance during the actual study part.

Crosshair:

Style: Dark academia on days he has a presentation. Rest of the time? Sweatpants and a black shirt. Something he can jump right back into bed in.

Major: I'm sorry but he's so a business major. Actually I'm not sorry.

"Study" dates: You go to his dorm and make out while a business textbook is open nearby. Studying!!

[chiara-hotel]

Helping teen!Reader with their homework Characters: Dazai, Silver Wolf & Arlecchino

Dazai can only help in subjects hes good in-otherwise he looks at the paper and states "yeah nope, can't do this-ask Kunikida"

Some Subjects he will teach include:

English/literature + Writing

Japanese

Geography

History

Whenever he helps you, he puts full effort into it though

Even more effort than work and if anyone says anything he just stares at them and goes like "do you really want one of our youngest members to fail the most important exam of their life? No? Thats what I thought so let me keep helping them"

Silver wolf is your main caretaker in the Stellaron hunters-I mean would you trust Blade to watch a kid every day? Or Kafka? So Silver Wolf has been there through everything with you

If she's not gaming then she's free to help you with any questions you need, she might not have the answer but she can always take your notes and quiz you

Even so-she's a fast learner and can memorize it even faster than you

Some Subjects shes good at include:

Computer Science

Anything related to games

English/Chinese/Japanese

Math

Subjects she doesn't like teaching you:

Science

History

- Silver finds those both boring-but if needed she will teach them

As he is one of the oldest members of the house of the hearth, he is used to helping the younger kids out

Even with their homework!

Lyney was definitely a A+ student in school so he could easily teach you some of the concepts you need help on

Whatever way you learn best, he tries to take that into consideration when deciding how to tutor you

If he needs extra help then sometimes Lynette helps you out aswell

Lyney also manages to use magic to aid in his teaching abilities (for example addition or such)

Some subjects hes good at:

English/Chinese/Japanese

Math

Drama/Dance

Art

Music

Some subjects he doesn't like:

Science

History

Aside from her harbinger duties, when she finally has the time to visit the house of the hearth she often helps the kids with their homework

If some of the kids need assistance, she is happy to help them

She is very direct with her teaching skills, but loves to use examples with learning

For example if you're studying for an important biology test on the human system she could get you a real life system to dissect

If you don't like those kind of things then she's also fine with sticking with diagrams

Some subjects she likes:

English/Japanese/Chinese/French

Art

Music

Science

Subjects she doesn't like:

Geography

History

- Now Arlecchino is amazing at teaching Geography and History-but they aren't her favorite subjects since she doesn't like talking about the past

[aroace-wizard]

Tzeentch

God of change, intrigue, magic and trickery. You're the smartest in some aspect. Socially, academically it doesn't matter. In that subject people come to you for answers and you often give them more than what they asked for. Oh and you also have a million hobbies.

Picrew chain and a quiz. Sorry im bad at this and my computer won't let me take a screenshot

@ashen-the-tiefling

@the-door-wizards

[professor-james-buchanan-barnes]

She sits in the back of your class. Head down, taking notes.

He sees you there, working hard to copy down every word he says about the rise of Constantine I. The Byzantine emperor is not exactly his favorite subject to teach because after this, everything becomes repetitive. He usually gets tired of 'same shit, different century' right around the Crusades and starts cutting lectures short. But there you are.

"Anyway, Constantine was both the high priest and the head of the Christan Church. How is that possible? Because everyone needed a thing to give them purpose." He says with a hint of sarcasm. "So, quiz six is due on the student portal by Sunday night and your essay's are due Friday in class. You should all know the drill by now. Anyway, get the hell outta here." Bucky says dismissing everyone for the day, but you hang back as he starts shutting down the projector and computer.

[mod-kyoko]

school au headcanons!! pt. 3

fandom: danganronpa: killing harmony

type: hcs, non-ultimate au

a/n: just how the characters would be if ultimates didn't exist

♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧

shuichi saihara

fucking mock trial kid if not debate

the shy but smart one

the one that the popular girls mess with like he's a little social experiment

his teachers love him because he always behaves in class and has amazing grades

kaede akamatsu

piano accompanist for the choir and theatre

in all honors classes and the honors society

perfect life?? does not struggle ever?? (seemingly)

the one girl as school who always looks held together and you've never seen her look anything less than happy and healthy and you're like please how

orchestra kid also (plays violin)

keebo

in robotics

kind of unnoticed

incredibly socially inept-

has the stereotypical small set of "nerd" friends that all sit on their computers at lunch and talk about video games and coding

kokichi oma

fucking theatre kid

class clown

some people hate him some people love him

some girl always humbles him when he gets too roudy in class

kind of the teacher's nightmare

ran cross country

rantaro amami

sk8er boy

every girl ever has a crush on him??? (but he's gay-)

secretly dating a soccer player

effortlessly popular somehow

honors classes

plays dungeons and dragons

kaito momota

the kid who carries a bluetooth speaker through the hallways-

p.e. is his favorite subject

runs cross country

the one who befriends the teachers that everyone else takes advantage of/teases

tsumugi shirogane

literally goes to school then goes home???

spends all her time in the library as an aid

self-sabotages her own social life

never ever goes to big school events but sometimes enjoys watching the play and musical

in the anime club

himiko yumeno

dnd player

people think she's weird but no one has beef with her

in quiz bowl 💀 (competitive trivia basically)

always participates in the school's talent show

band kid (trumpet)

maki harukawa

the girl that fucking hates everyone

always shows up to school just looking absolutely done

super quiet in class and does really well

her counselor tried to get her to join some extracurriculars so she decided to join cross country

takes her anger out in p.e.

gonta gokuhara

the kid with the kindest heart but suffering grades that the bullies love to target for some reason

does track and field

volunteers for so many organizations

he eats lunch in his favorite teacher's classroom

spends a lot of time studying but often cuts it short because he's so frustrated

angie yonaga

art club, art classes, lives and breathes art

always drawing during class and there are always people asking her to draw them

her art is always earning those rewards and being displayed throughout the school

friends with all the other art kids

kind of weird and accepts all the other weirdos of the school

the one kid that gifts drawings to their teacher that they hang up around the classroom

miu iruma

slacks off during group projects and in p.e.

just as unfunny as "the boys" of the class but no one cares because she's a girl

no one has ever told her to shut up

is in robotics competitively

makes fun of theatre and band kids

ryoma hoshi

everyone calls him emo (even though he is literally not) because he keeps to himself and wears dark colors

on the tennis team but doesn't really participate in any other school activities

wears his tennis jacket to school 24/7

gets lowkey bullied but always gets cold, quiet revenge rather than fighting back

kirumi tojo

always making conversation with the teachers and hanging out with them even though she has plenty of student friends

cleans up after everyone

is in student government

never ever dresses comfortably, always shows up to school dressed up

korekiyo shinguuji

the weird kid

everyone makes fun of him because he still wears a mask years after the covid pandemic ended

is on the quiz bowl team (100%)

model student and in the honors society

teachers dread him because he raises his hand just to add info to the teachers lecture either to correct them or because he thinks people want to know

tenko chabashira

fucking tryhard in p.e.

track and field

biggest school spirit at every rally

always yelling at the boys who mess around in class

is part of the GSA and acts aggressively gay whenever homophobes are around

[perhaps-in-anotherdream]

[CN] Victor’s Carbon Pen and Glass Bead Event (Day 6)

⌚ This post contains detailed spoilers for content yet to be released on the global server! ⌚

✦ thursday || friday || saturday || sunday || monday || tuesday || wednesday

【High School Affiliated to Loveland University Second Year (Section 1) Semester Schedule - Tuesday】

✄┈┈┈┈┈┈

[MATH]:

Beginning with the morning self-study session, Old Gao naturally walks into the classroom, naturally hands out an impromptu quiz, and naturally starts grading the papers.

“Where’s Empress Dowager Hu? Has Old Gao ‘usurped the throne’?”

Victor remains as immovable as a mountain. After coming up with a tentative answer to the questions in his heart, he immediately takes out the exercise books for the other subjects–– realizing that if he doesn’t start now, he won’t have any opportunity to write throughout the day.

“Our Vic seems to be working hard. He’s even expanding into other subjects in the morning math study session.”

Old Gao unfolds the exam papers with a bright smile, “Children, your homeroom teacher is on leave today, so you’re all mine.”

“And of course, the evening self-study session also belongs to me.”

—

[MATH]:

Observing Old Gao’s extraordinarily casual explanation of the complex question and his naturally upturned lips, Victor very cautiously and deliberately marks this question— 

There’s an 80% chance it will appear in the end-of-month exam.

—

[SPORTS]:

Strange Tales of Loveland High School Five (V):

Upon the completion of the weekly one-kilometer fitness test, the running track would give rise to peculiar species contorted in various poses.

Pale and gasping for air, they would be in desperate need of water. Yet, among them would be rare individuals with handsome and exquisite appearances who would continue to carry themselves with grace.

“Whew, still alive.”

The next second, Victor’s face turns slightly pale. He notices the PE teacher bringing out the sit-and-reach apparatus.

—

[PHYSICS]:

After enduring an exceptionally dreadful “knowledge oppression,” Victor decides to broadcast some relaxing content during today’s lunchtime radio session.

In harmony with the melodious Symphony No. 41 in C Major, he begins reading excerpts from the Homeric epics.

—

[CHEMISTRY]:

“A and B might have an innate tendency to react when brought together, although the time for their reaction differs. C and D will never yield any results no matter how long they’re together, and E needs to be catalyzed to have any connection with F. 

Many things in the world are like this, and in reality, human connections follow the same principle. You require a significant amount of destiny to have that serendipity with someone.”

Hearing the teacher say this, Victor’s mind is filled with a distant silhouette.

—

[CHINESE]:

“Sir Vic, do you really think the world will end in 2012?”

“What do you think the apocalypse would look like?”

Victor doesn’t say anything. He simply reaches into his desk and takes out a math book in a very natural manner.

Amidst a chorus of agonized groans, that man walks in once again.

If the apocalypse were to happen, it would probably be a day filled with eight consecutive math classes.

—

[ENGLISH]:

A comforting listening test.

Brother Ying, in a rare feat, has managed to secure the computer lab,  so he assigns something practical for everyone to do.

—

[BIOLOGY]:

The power that erupts from silence should not be underestimated. 

— After the teacher’s first burst of anger, the biology class has a 100% attendance rate.

—

──────

✧ next stop: Wednesday

─────────

[noctomania]

I just realized that Bette Davis is my longest standing fascination. I was perhaps about 8 years old when I first read about her. We were all part of a program, I believe it was called "accelerated readers" intended to increase literacy rates. I guess it is still in practice, but I'm unsure. In any case, I was among the earlier cohorts to be partaking in it. And I was terrible.

I never liked reading, and worse, my sister loved reading, which only made me hate it more. I tried to make it easier on myself when I had to read a book by picking something short. So one time I found this nice thin book that happened to be a small biography on Bette Davis. It also happened to be a grade above mine, whereas my reading skills were closer to the grade below. I failed the computer quiz terribly, but Bette has stuck with me ever since.

I remember the book talked about how she had been rejected in Hollywood due to her supposed lack of beauty. More specifically, I recall it talking about someone saying she looked like her face had been melted by acid. Well, as a child who was also enamored by and sympathized with the character of Grizabella in the musical Cats because of how she was rejected by the other cats as a hasbeen beauty, I immediately was on Bette's side. Even at that age, I understood that such a subjective matter shouldn't be the metric for what makes an artist profound or worthy of a role, or the basis on which you determine your respect for someone. I may not have fully understood the complexities of misogyny at the time, but being raised by a single mother of two children, I'm sure I had some foundational understanding of how to respect women properly.

Bette is responsible for drawing my interest into old hollywood films and stars. I started watching TCM at my dad's house when I was in my preteens, seeking out old black and white movies. This introduced me to Ginger Rogers and Katherine Hepburn. I learned about Mary Pickford this way as well in the wee hours of the morning when they would put on less popular silent films. Entirely fascinated me, and I could never understand people who felt they were boring to watch. While Bette was in the world of talkies, her style was from theater, which was what informed silent film actors to begin with. With a lack of thorough dialogue, they had to impress upon the audience through physicality alone. Some of the most well renowned silent actors were absolute professionals at physical comedy - like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

I credit Bette Davis entirely for being a guide to helping me understand and respect the artists in front of the camera. She didn't act dramatically for the sake of being dramatic. She understood the undulations of a moment, taking the scene and ramping it because what else are you doing if not entertaining as an actor?

Though the rejection of Bette drew me to her, it was her no-nonsense attitude and her assertiveness that kept me around. To be so bold as to push back against the system she was trying to break into. Not without sense, though, always moderating herself but never leaving her spine behind. She made herself a queen by doing what those who were too timid to do refused. Even if she lost battles here or there, she won the war in my eyes. She wasn't one to back down because she picked her fights deliberately. She didn't assimilate. She overcame.

There will never be another of her caliber. No, not Streep nor Surrandon. Everything about her is individually iconic on its own, from her style to her acting, her voice, mannerisms. All of it. I could never imagine my life without Bette Davis in the background. I thank her for being the woman she was so I could be the woman I was and the man I am now. What is even funnier is that I'm not sure I even saw any of her movies until I was well into my teen years! I didn't even need to. Her legacy is that powerful.

God, i love Bette Davis. Thank you for existing. I wish you had been given the respect you deserved.

[rnzrjay]

JOURNAL DAY 8

When I woke up this morning, I found that it was raining heavily outside, and the wind was strong. I was expecting that classes in the city of Bacoor would be canceled, but they weren't, so I still had to attend class. Despite this, I was happy because I made it to school safely and even received some allowance.

In our first subject today, which was Purposive Communication, we held a meeting to prepare for our roleplay scheduled on Friday. After that, our next subject was Understanding the Self, where we took a quiz. Following that was our major subject, Computer Programming. In this class, we each reported on the topics assigned to us by Sir Palugod. After the reports, we had a break since we had a 3-hour vacant period because Sir Palugod finished early.

After our vacant hours, we went to the computer lab to work on an activity, and while we were working, we were called one by one to have our ID pictures taken. Afterward, we were dismissed and finally headed home to rest.

[cyrllngst]

JOURNAL

Cyrille Joy B. Angosta BSCS101A Understanding the Self

Aug 19, 2024 During Sir. Rouie time, reviewed the handouts about philosopher and gave us 15 minutes to reviewed the handouts. After I reviewed the handouts, he quizzed us. Sir Rouie we checked our answer, and he told us we need to study the handouts because it will appear in the exam. After that he told us that our quiz is just a additional points

Aug 21, 2024 Sir Rouie discussed about the philosopher of socrates, st.augustine, etc.. short discussion only. In another another subjects they just discussion about the lesson. We made a powerpoint about philosopher of computing technology and answered the three (3) questions about them.

[mchlpdmnt]

Chapter 1 | Week 1 - Day 2

Today I was in a rush at school because I forgot that we are having our quiz in Introduction to Computing, due to that some of my fellow classmates didn't know about the quiz. Some of us decided to go by a group review during lunch break. During our class at the first period which was Purposive Communication, it was a pretty fast discussion to the point that we completed 4 lessons already. During our understanding of the Self period, we had a short activity where our professor wants us to know where our names originated and what was the story behind them. After that, we had a recall discussion regarding the philosophers that explains what was self to them. As for our first ever class in Computer Programming, we did a small orientation and discussion regarding the basic fundamentals when it comes to programming and we did introduce ourselves as well also. While there are remaining time my classmates asked our professor how we survive our course since it has a low passing rate and some of the students might wanna course shift. During our lunch break, my classmates and I were studying at SM Bacoor. However, some of the guards asked us to not study at the food court so we went back to the school and asked some of the room where we could sit in for a while waiting for our last subject. On our last subject, we had a laboratory exercise about the Notable Figures in Computing where my circle of friends and I did pass before the due time of the submission. Also, this was my first time ever to feel exhausted today just like those times when I was at the Senior High School.

#clutch #soeepie #groupstudyatitsfinest