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writingoneout · 1 year

Text

Untilted Katamari Reflections

Preamble:

Content considerations for the following include:

Parental abuse

Bigotry

Worldly anxiety

You're welcome back another day if that's too much right now.

It’s fall of 2015.

You and your virgin college friends drink shitty cocktails called the “Slutty Will Rodgers.” They’re just Pepsi rawdogged with indeterminate amounts of grenadine and Captain Morgan. When you bought the mixers a Wal-Mart stocker yodeled “OOOOoOoooOH, maKIN sOMe DRINKS?!?!” and you knew it was time to leave.

We Love Katamari is on the Telly. It’s a sweet, trippy game you first bought to cope with high school. On Dark Fridays at 1am, when your inbox was barren and your balls were full, you’d drive to the empty gym downtown and sprint six miles. Then you’d come home and replay the firefly level until you fell asleep with your pug.

Your college friends are bad at the game, so they pass the controller. You’re playing the underwater stage. A spaceman falls in the pond of people gunk and stacked crabs. It’s going really well if you’re honest. You point to the screen and say “this’ll be Florida if Trump wins.” See Fig. 1.

Figure 1: Rick Desantis has big plans for Disney.

Your friends don’t reply because they soon won’t be virgins and their tongues battle each other’s. It’s a different game they play, one with fuzzier rules, but greater industry respect. You wish the campus gym was open 24/7.

. . .

Your skills as the prince are not inherent. You first meet him in 2005, when your dyspraxic hands can barely tie a shoe. Your parents catch you lose shit for the Toonami review of Me and My Katamari. They buy it for Christmas, hoping to steady your nerves while your father’s in therapy.

Dr. Flam is a Neo-Freudian hitched to your mom’s guy, Dr. Flim. She’s deep in your dad’s dream journal and makes him watch movies like Cool Hand Luke to really reign in his ego. He gets the DVDs from the Netflix site, then through the mail. As a family you watch your dad’s therapy films and reruns of Inyuasha.

In the waiting room you barely navigate the sticky ball through Namco Bandai’s Satoshi Kon parade. See Fig. 2. You’ve only seen adults express anger verbally, so when you mess up you grunt a lot and let out those Leopold Butters Stotch swears like “crap,” “shoot,” and “gosh darn.” You’re not particularly self-aware, so you probably just say “god fucking damn it” a few times and don’t remember. Years later you realize there was probably a secretary behind the glass watching you do all this.

Figure 2: Bwahbwahwabhbawahbwaaaaah.

Sometimes there’s a girl in the room with you, just around your age. She’s stuck while Dr. Flim teaches her mom about what dream snakes mean for her fear of male puberty. That's what he did for your mom, anyway.

You think the waiting-room stranger is cute, but you won’t admit you like girls yet, especially not to yourself. To cope with the cognitive dissonance, you do your weird shit louder while refusing to make eye contact with her. If you get real stressed you crank up the main menu track and yell “ahhhhh that’s so relaxing” while the “nah nah nah nahs” play through your headphones.

At one point the girl stands against a wall and stares at you with her arms crossed. You bet she thinks you’re cool, but she’s probably just annoyed and hopes you’ll notice, or maybe just ask if she’s OK. It’s probably good you don’t talk with her. You might ask something stupid, like if she's seen the roach corpse in the stairwell. It’s been there for a year straight, isn’t that crazy?

For better and worse, you power through your little game alone. Every time you lose the King of All Cosmos beats, shoots, and belittles you. See Fig. 3. It reminds you of when your own dad shattered your Harry Potter wand over the kitchen counter because you dropped a mini pizza.

Figure 3: The King of All Cosmos offers little constructive advice, all things considered.

You fail quite frequently. Eventually you drop the game because it’s getting stressful and you have the power to relieve yourself of the situation—not the Freudian lobby, just your fake dad.

II.

It’s 2012. PlayStation Network uploads The Prince’s primeval outing: Katamari Damacy. Within, Padre Cosmotic flaps his gums over too much hooch then slams his dump truck ass through the better part of our solar system. He dislodges every recognized constellation and even the moon itself.

Cosmos sends Prince to Earth—the last brick left in the shitstorm—to make slop of our planet and bodies. With the slop space itself will be made anew. The Good Son does as he's told, and every living entity experiences euphoric ego death within the bulbous heaven of the Katamari.

As a Real Gamer Teen you lose a lot less in this one. You really go in and fix Fake Dad’s mistakes, no problem at all. This is why a year ago you hailed “gaming journalism” as your calling. You write clean and play tight; should keep the lights on. It’s the most concrete idea you’ve had since 7th grade when you outlined a YA novel called Tooth Pocket. Even you didn’t think Scholastic would buy that one, though. It was just too hot for the book fair.

One day you’re cranking through FFVI and your real dad swings by, mad you're young. He grills your ass and says “I bet you can’t even tell me the biggest thing happening right now.” It’s some real “What’s a gallon of milk cost?” shit, he could mean anything.

Surprisingly, you can’t think of a good answer. You and your friends are actually pretty informed because John Stewart is still at the desk and y’all chime in every day. See Fig. 4. You also spend hours each week tearing through MSN slideshows in your Graphic Design class because the Photoshop takes five minutes. You’ve seen a staggering amount of the Syrian civil war.

Figure 4: Sometimes in Snapchat you draw glasses on your cat to make him look like Mitch McConnel. You wouldn't do that without this guy.

Still, you’re a little stumped. It’s the middle of a phenomenon native to moralist presidencies known as "a slow news week.” You actually ran out of war shit the other day and clicked through some slides about Pakistani wrestlers. The seniors who offered you Jack Daniels in the Whataburger lot saw it and laughed. They thought you were peeping dong in class. You really weren’t, but they didn’t believe you. They graduate certain you were bricked up in the Dell Lab over big guys in spandex.

“I don’t know,” you tell your dad.

He throws his hands behind his head, hard, like an orangutan chucking logs at a poacher.

“It’s the fucking carbon tax,” he yells. This comes as a surprise, you think, because that shit is last month’s news. It really didn’t go anywhere.

“Do you not pay attention because you don’t give a shit, or are you just a nihilist and think you can’t do anything?” You can tell in his eyes he thinks there’s a real answer. “Seriously, which is it?

You don’t remember what you said. You probably just stammered until he walked off.

A month later he picks you up from marching band. Your phone is dead, so he had to wait twenty minutes longer than anticipated while you found his car. He punches the rearview mirror until the windshield cracks then screams of how your birth kept him from New England.

III.

It’s 2016. A rockin’ MILF in the Psych department gets you really into Hamilton. See Fig. 5. Every day you wake up on the grind and blast “You Aaron Burr, sir?” through your shitty 7-11 cans. While cramming foreign language Quizlets and McGraw Hill Online you do this thing called “Hafilton.” It’s where rock up to “Nonstop” and quit listening just before Hamilton decides what he will stop is being a good husband.

Figure 5: Like Kojima, you know "MILF" is a mindset, not a factual inquiry.

It’s 2018. Your grades are notably better and you’ve snuck into the honors program. Like Hamilton himself, you really flourished at 19 and thought about running for office. You immediately abandoned this idea after remembering your allergy to recordings of your image or voice.

You cohabit with the Psych MILF, and she offers some advice: she’s really had her boots on the ground with this whole “clinical psych thing” and honestly, respectfully, she loves you, but dear God it might not be your scene. It’s taken a real toll on her and the friends, and she can’t imagine you going through that shit.

At 1am in your living room you boot up DOOM (2016) and listen through some Hamilton. Angelica is thirsty on main when you remember that you, yourself, could be a lawyer. You don’t have to run for Congress to fight the establishment. There’s just the common law, and it’s right there. You can just get your grubby little hands in that shit and work your magic.

. . .

It’s the last semester of undergrad. Your Western Thought professor says Hamilton wasn’t really a huge deal and really James Madison shat out the big parts of our faction-proof empire. Yes, there was, in fact, a civil war, but the caplock rifle worked it out. After the Federalist papers he has you read the Bill of Rights but no Supreme Court cases. There’s a lot of talk on negative liberties.

Just before finals, the learned doctor says your generation only has two things to worry about: the climate and the poverty. Yeah they’re big, he says, but they’re just two things. You’re crafty kids, smart as the framers, even.

. . .

The state decides law school is your jam and lets you come inside.

There’s the negative liberties but you actually read Supreme Court opinions when the big boys aren’t shaking fists for Valley Forge. They have you listen to Hamilton for context. You feel dirty. An LRW professor puts on the “I’m Just a Bill” video and your sectionmate with Ivy degrees gets really, really mad.

. . .

The Federalist Society has a comfy presence at your law school. Along with Big Oil they sling out free pizza to every Little Scalia with a rumbly tum tum.

On your way to class you hear what the pizza boys feel. They hate Europeans, those social democrats with the rotten armories and clumpy cash. The Euros, they think, give too much wiggle room for the mentally ill, and by that they mean they mean gay people and probably just women overall.

There are more than two things to fix, you think.

. . .

The pandemic hits. You and some pals start a Google Doc to stay afloat. It barely works. In the Zoom review for the property final your professor catches multiple people crying. "You don't have to be here," he tells them, “there are other jobs.”

. . .

A year passes. You’re in a niche public interest class you do all right with. The professor looks you and thirty-five others dead in the eye and says how sorry he is that law school is traumatic. You shed a single tear in your little window. You're pretty in the shit and haven’t worn pants to class in months.

Then public interest prof takes a big, big drag from his long, fat spliff. He spins his desk chair and baseball cap at the same time, never letting go of the joint.

“Hey,” he says. “It’s not your fault, really, but the world is fucked. It’s time to fix what your parents did.”

The next week he gives a practice exam where the best solution is to sell an old lady’s house to Nestlé.

IV.

It’s 2022. After throwing your whole gooch at it, you fail the bar exam.

You fall back hard into exercise. When you’re not slamming Barbri you’re at the gym binging curls and cranking the Chainsaw Man soundtrack. One night on the way to squats you finally hear “Black Parade.” Just like you, Mr. Gerry Wayland is stuck between global disrepair and the desire to write Funny Little Books.

You just started an FLB yourself, actually. It’s spin on a Story Break episode you love. In your version there’s a fucked up civil war horse that moves like a spider and is covered in bugs. Rich people kill the planet then the horse gets lost in space. It’s compelling, you promise. There’s body horror and pirates dressed like Gorton’s Fisherman. See Fig. 6 It’s about the horrors of the contemporary world state. It’ll be fun.

Figure 6: An untapped horror icon. Imagine blood contrasting that yellow.

Big problem, though: you remember rich people love hiking. There’s no grass on Mars, not that good shit anyway. Would they really fuck all of it?

You edit. In the last few years, the real breathless ones, the oligarchs cash their tab. A cartel, they think, could really muscle those stragglers, the tragically common. There’s one city left with both breathable air and refugees. They level it. The few survivors are spread amongst the stars, so their loves and languages may die.

. . .

It’s the middle of Bar Prep Round 2. You and the patient MILF see Hadestown in the Big City.

There’s a juke joint on stage flanked by devil trombones. A sad little guy slinks in from the janitor’s closet. His name is Orpheus and, just like you, he’s a sad, short writer who likes a lady so much it comes out weird. He has a vision, he says, for a little ditty. It’s compelling, he promises, and shit’s gonna change. His love is functional and realized, worth the investment of a hardened woman displaced by capital’s torture. She believes him.

You cry because you know where this goes.

It’s just a single tear.

Don’t worry.

Nobody sees.

. . .

There’s this game you like, by some corporate anarchists who hate themselves. They’re Scandinavian, from the spot in Tallin where you stopped for a cruise. Every gift shop there had swastikas and gas masks leftover from the bloody years.

In the game is a liberal yacht MILF. She thinks you’re stupid but someone’s helping with your gun, so you’ve got that on her. And yet, she pins you, re your whole writing thing. See Fig. 7.

Figure 7: She sucked, but it still hurt when she left.

Your favorite Supreme Court podcast says the ocean’s last hope is other countries. But those countries’ people cry to the Disco game, and their ministers also bought The End of History. You meet them on the subreddit. You're all geeked out, waiting for the tide.

. . .

It’s the era of desert cradles. God thinks you’re disgusting, so he sends his better kids with a memo: the flood was too much work on his end, it’s time for something different.

“Just keep walking,” he says.

Your skin bares his figure. So do the corpses. You little birds among billions, gassed out and screaming, move to clean.

It’s 2023.

We Love Katamari is up on the PlayStation store. You sit with the cats and mow down some crabs. You don’t need it so much these days, but it’s nice.

There’s a Bar card in your wallet, just below your gym tag. There are two interviews in your Google Calendar. Good stuff might happen, hopefully soon. You crawl into bed and wrap an arm around your wife’s rib cage.

Everything matters and nothing is safe.

You are loved enough to sleep.

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anticomedygarden · 10 months

Text

can we give ourselves one more chance

Annabeth is having trouble adjusting after the giant war. What better way to attempt to handle her quickly deteriorating mental state than to get a dog?

title from 'under pressure' by queen

small tw: there is a semi-graphic panic attack starting at 'one hour earlier' and ending at the end of that section

also on ao3

this topic is really important to me. i hope y'all like it!

They build the shrine at the edge of the woods.

It's a simple design, just a fake stone sword stuck into the ground with the names of the demigods lost to the titan war. A similar one stands a few feet away for the giant war, but for some reason, Annabeth is inexplicably drawn to this one.

Objectively, she knows its placement is simply because it's an easily accessible spot while not being especially obvious; one can find it without searching, but they don't have to pass by it everyday. Emotionally, though, she can't help but see the symbolism. Light vs. dark, humanity vs. nature, society on the brink of unhindered chaos where the only barrier is the shrine. The only barrier is war. The barrier is Luke.

Annabeth isn't sure how she made it back here again, staring at the shrine, barely restraining herself from tracing Luke's name over and over until her fingers bleed with the weight of it. How close had they come to losing it all?

Now, it won't be long until the conch horn sounds, but she's not hungry. Just like yesterday. And the day before. And everyday since Tartarus.

She can't stomach the dining pavilion, anyway, not with Percy unable to eat anything substantial, either, despite the urgings of their friends, or to see the hole in the Hephaestus table where Leo should be. She can't bear to scrape more food into the fire and recite prayers to her mother only to be met with stony silence.

The conch horn sounds, and a warm body drops down next to hers. "Here again?"

It's become somewhat of a ritual at this point, Percy finding Annabeth here.

"I...don't know," she admits. He is the only one who gets to hear her say those words.

Sluggishly, he stretches his legs out in front of him as she leans against his side. "Me either."

They sit in silence for a bit.

Today, there are a few bouquets of flowers scattered around the shrines and some little trinkets. Someone has left a note that reads, We love you, Michael. Apollo cabin, most likely.

Percy asks her the same thing he's asked everyday since the end of the war.

"Any word from your mom?"

As usual, she shakes her head, and tries to ignore the ever present feeling of disappointment in her chest. "Your dad?"

Like the sea, Poseidon is less predictable. Some days - most days, honestly - the sea god doesn't communicate at all with his son. Some days, Percy is granted a whispered mind-to-mind conversation, tucked away in corners from Zeus' prying eyes and ears. Even fewer days, Poseidon comes directly to camp to see his son on the beach to make sure the bags under his eyes have gone down and he's still gaining back weight. More often than not, he is just as disappointed as Annabeth.

No matter what, it is still more than Annabeth has gotten from her mother.

Absolutely nothing.

"Yeah. He asked me how I was doing."

"And?" It is surely a lie.

"I said fine." Bingo. "What am I supposed to say, you know?"

She does know. Nobody wants to hear that the two most powerful demigods of their time are struggling, and the gods don't want to face their failures.

It isn't long before they change the subject.

"Mom thinks she found a school that will take me for senior year," Percy says, tone cautiously optimistic.

She beams. "That's great!" One step closer to NRU together. Now, Annabeth just has to broach the subject of boarding school in New York with her dad, not that she thinks he'd say no. No one really wants her in California.

He smiles sheepishly. "Yeah. It's called 'Alternate High School.' Apparently they specialize in kids with no other options." She almost starts talking about mortals and how stupid they are to not see how amazing he is, but he doesn't seem to care. "Whatever. I'm just happy they'll take me."

She throws an arm around her boyfriend's shoulders and kisses his jaw. "I can't wait."

They sit there for a bit longer, talking about nothing important, before it's time for campfire and then bed where they will both lay silently until morning without sleeping.

It starts like this.

Annabeth is dragging herself back to her dorm from Percy's apartment one day when she hears the unmistakable whine of a hellhound. Her fingers go straight for the drakon bone sword at her hip, and, before she knows it, she's turned around and slashed the great beast in half.

Just like that, it's gone. No fanfare; just a small shower of dust that coats the sidewalk, shimmering gold like cornflakes.

The mortals keep going as if nothing happened, and she supposes to them, nothing did happen. She knows she should keep going, too, or she'll miss curfew, but she can't get herself to move.

Instead, her sword tips our of her grasp, falling to the ground with a clatter. She didn't even give the dog a chance to do anything to her, just mercilessly cut it down, sent it down below to ruminate in that monster's body for the gods know how long. The sword may as well be her dagger, her hands Luke's as he kills himself, Percy's hands as he chokes Akhlys.

Annabeth falls to the ground with a sob, one thought circling in her mind.

I don't want to be a killer anymore.

Three days later, Annabeth throws her bag down on the Jackson's kitchen table and says, "I want a dog."

Percy pauses, a soapy bowl in his hands. "Okay...?" His eyebrows are furrowed in confusion.

"I already checked, and New York housing requires buildings to accept service animals. If they get picky about it, we can get the dog registered to you, but since I've been listing your apartment as my permanent address, it shouldn't be a problem. There's a Humane Society nearby. They spay and neuter and give all the shots for free-"

"Okay, okay, hold on," Percy interrupts, holding up a wet hand. "Not that I don't think this isn't a great idea, but is there a reason you've suddenly decided we need a dog?"

Annabeth shakes her head, because if she has to think about why, she'll have to think about everything else, and she doesn't want to think about everything else.

Of course, Percy sees right through her, and a second later, dry hands are cupping her face, a thumb tracing a tear she didn't know was there. "'Beth," he starts, "what's going on?"

She suddenly realizes that she's barely been holding it together the last three days, throwing herself into pet research and school work to distract from her fracturing mind, and gods, if one look from Percy doesn't unravel her completely.

"I just-" A sob breaks free from her throat, and several more follow. Tears cascade from her eyes like blood.

Like always, Percy is right there to press her face into his chest, picking up the pieces, staunching the flow, and all the other metaphors that had ever been used to describe a protector, and she could almost believe that neither of their bodies had ever been used to hurt, to kill, or to maim.

When the sobs finally taper off and the tears slow to a trickle, she manages to choke out, "We're supposed to be protectors."

He makes to pull back, but she digs her fingers into his shirt so she doesn't have to see the ever present bags under his eyes, mirrors of her own. With Sally practically force feeding them now that they're back in New York for the school year, she can't feel his ribs through his shirt anymore, but she knows that doesn't mean anything. They may not be living with constant reminders of what they've been through, but all that really means is they've found better distractions.

"What do you mean?"

She sniffles and burrows deeper into his chest. "We're supposed to protect people, but lately it just feels like all we're doing is killing things. I want to feel like I'm doing something good again."

One of Percy's hands comes up to stroke her hair. "You are so good. You do good things all the time, baby."

"I know," she says, though she becomes less sure everyday. "I still want a dog."

"Our dogs are in this room on both sides," the shelter worker, a young woman with coiled black hair, says, gesturing to the large open space to the left. "Their information packets should indicate everything you need to know about the dog. If you find one you want to have a one on one with, feel free to come up to the desk and ask."

Annabeth nods, attention already taken over by what can only be described as a warehouse floor of dog enclosures, each containing an adorable dog. She walks right in.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Percy asks as he allows her to pull him from cage to cage.

Annabeth isn't ashamed to admit that she researched dog breeds and took several personality tests to find which breed would best suit their lifestyle: highly trainable, active, protective, apartment friendly, good with young kids and, as they had just found out a few weeks ago, babies. However, she also knows that it's very difficult to predict the temperament of a rescue dog and even more difficult to find a purebred, not that pedigree is particularly important to her. "Ideally, a terrier or shepherd, but the most important things are trainability, activity level, and friendly with kids and babies." They stop in front of the first cage to see a little black and brown dog, not quite Yorkie looking but not really anything else looking either. Must be a mutt.

Percy holds his phone up to the information card to scan it through the translator app into Greek. "Bella. I am a spayed female Yorkshire terrier mix. Staff shelter think I am about 11 months old. I have been here for two weeks." Underneath that is a checklist of compatibility traits, color coded. Thank the gods. Annabeth looks at it while Percy attempts to pet Bella through the bars.

"Aww, babe, look," her boyfriend says, drawing her attention to the floor. Percy had somehow managed to reach the tiny dog who was splayed out on her back enjoying the treatment. "Do you wanna see her one-on-one?"

It absolutely breaks her but- "I don't think she'd be a good fit for us. She wouldn't be able to keep up, and under 'good with kids,' it says 'unsure.'"

Percy pouts a little but nods, and they move onto the next enclosure.

This one is a 2 year old medium sized black mutt, and again, it breaks her heart, but he's listed as bad with kids. Between Camp and Sally being pregnant, they just can't have that in the house.

They pass a few more enclosures, all amazing and adorable but just not right, before they get to a cage in the back corner with a white and brown dog sleeping on a cot. It's hard to tell how big the animal is because they're laying down, but a good estimate is medium to large.

As soon as they get to the cage, the dog stands up and trots over to the bars revealing a triangle shaped face, sickle ears, and a gorgeous off-white coat speckled with light brown that absolutely takes her breath away. Her original size estimate had been correct; the dog comes up to about her lower thigh. The fur is deep but not long; just imagining sinking her fingers into it makes her feel like she's getting a hug from Sally.

She crouches in front of the cage and jams her fingers through the bars, and the dog leans forward to sniff them. She holds her breath, and, a second later, the dog shoves they're face under her hand for pets, and her heart completely melts.

This dog better be good with kids because leaving them behind will break her.

Percy tugs on her shoulder, jarring her from the moment, and says, "Babe, look."

Following his index finger, the dog's bio reads, Luke. I am a neutered male Australian shepherd mix. Shelter staff think I am about 3 years old. I have been here for two months.

Luke.

Percy presses a kiss to her head before she even realizes she's crying.

She really needs to get a handle on that.

Gods, how did her life come to this? She's having some sort of mental breakdown/religious experience in a fucking animal shelter of all places because a dog has the same name as her dead friend.

Still holding on to her, Percy flags down a shelter worker. "What can you tell us about this dog?"

This shelter worker is another young woman, this time with straight green hair clutching a clipboard. She smiles sadly. "Luke's been with us for a while now. He's very active and is doing wonderfully with his training and is already potty trained." She stops there, fidgeting nervously.

"How did he get here?" Annabeth asks. It all sounds great, but the woman is clearly hiding something. She braces herself.

"Well, Luke is a second chance animal which means he was abandoned by his previous owner. That tends to make potential adopters nervous, but I can assure you that Luke is an amazing dog with a great temperament." She says the last part with conviction as if she's used to people doubting the temperament of second chance animals which, of course, she probably is.

Great. Now Annabeth is self identifying with a dog.

Percy pulls away from her then and reaches down to pet the dog who is staring up at Annabeth with wide brown eyes and a pink tongue lolling out of his mouth, somehow looking even cuter than before. He takes to Percy as fast as he took to Annabeth. "Do you know anything about the previous family?"

Do you know why anyone would do such a heartless thing as leaving their dog alone?

The woman shrugs, but Annabeth can see in her eyes the same anger she's feeling. "Unfortunately, we never actually met the previous owners, but there are a number of reasons people surrender their pets to shelters. Sometimes it's money problems, sometimes divorce, sometimes health issues, sometimes the previous owners die and the family can't take them in. Sometimes when people have kids, the pets don't get along with children or the children develop allergies. Occasionally, puppy mills and illegal breeders are busted, and the animals are sent here. You just never know with rescues what you're getting." It is clear from her words that the woman really cares about what she does, and Annabeth can't help but respect her. She knows from her research that shelter work is challenging and often depressing and discouraging, things Annabeth relates to hard.

A glance at Luke's chart tells her that he meets all their criteria down to activity level and protectiveness.

Percy looks up at her, and she nods. "We'd like to see him one on one if that's alright."

The woman looks absolutely incensed. "That's great!"

The one on one session only confirms what they already know, that Luke is the one they want. He runs right to them and climbs into their laps, alternating between licking them all over and demanding pets. His fur is exactly as heavenly as Annabeth imagined, maybe even more so. At some point, Percy steps out to call his mom because they can't adopt a dog when they're under 18.

It is around then that Annabeth learns the feeling of a dog licking peanut butter directly out of her hands is the best feeling in the world. She never wants the moment to end.

An hour later, they're back home at the Jackson's apartment following Luke around as he explores every inch of the place. He's hesitant at first, careful to not leave the general proximity of people but eager to get into places even Annabeth can't. (And won't. No human should have to walk through Percy's maze of dirty clothes.)

Eventually, they make it back into the living room, Paul relaxing on the couch and Sally doing something in the kitchen. He must have come in while they were following Luke around.

"Hey, boy." Paul puts his hand out, and the dog runs over to sniff him. "So this is the new family member?"

Annabeth nods, and she and Percy sit on the floor to get out dog toys. "His name's Luke. He's a 3 year old Australian shepherd mix."

Paul smiles as he scratches Luke's ears. "Well, he's very sweet. I think you two picked a good one."

Annabeth beams, and it is then she realizes that she hasn't thought about Tartarus or her parents or the wars or even school since she first saw Luke. "Me, too."

Annabeth never thought a dog could change her life so much, but laying on the ground in Central Park under the stars, a hand trailing through Luke's fur, she knows she could never go back to before.

See, she's laying like this, tracing constellations, technically illegally, because of a goddamn peacock.

One hour earlier

They are just taking a walk. Annabeth is just trying to take her dog on his nighttime walk. Why does she have to ruin everything? Why does she have to insert herself into every moment of their lives? It isn't enough that her actual mother refuses to acknowledge her existence, but Hera has to monitor her like fucking Big Brother?

Annabeth buries her free hand in her hair and tugs, near tears. Of course, senior year has just been too easy, apparently. Nevermind the all nighters and scholarship essays, the bullies and the nights she almost quits because it's too damn much.

Luke whines and pulls on his leash in an attempt to move Annabeth forward, but her eyes refuse to leave the blue and green bird in front of her. Then, the dog gives a particularly hard tug, and she stumbles forward, forced to either keep moving or get trampled in the throngs of people somehow still out at 9:30 at night in New York City.

Her eyes dart around to the people around her, sure that one of them is the marriage goddess in disguise. Why else would there be a peacock here?

Too distracted to notice where Luke is leading her, they somehow end up in Central Park which Annabeth only realizes when there is no one else to pick apart with her eyes. That still doesn't let her off the hook, though. Hera could be hiding as a bug or a bird or a fucking gust of wind for all she knows.

“Where are you?" she screams. "What do you want from me?"

She doesn't care that anyone could find her here, that she could get arrested. If Hera is around, Annabeth might as well be fucking dead. She should've known better than to try and escape the brutality of her world; did she really think a dog could save her?

"I don't want you here!" she yells. Then, falling to the ground, ass smarting in a way she'll certainly feel tomorrow, hands hitting the dirt with a thud, she whispers, "I don't want you here."

I don't want you here I don't want you here I don't want you hereidontwantyouhereidontwantyouhereIDONTWANT-

Something cold and wet presses into her palm, and she draws back involuntarily. It then pushes into her neck, her face, then over and over again it hits her cheeks. Something incredibly soft hits her right hand, and she feels something else wap her in the thigh.

Luke, she thinks, and for once, the name doesn't give her more anxiety. The dog.

Luke continues to lick her face as his tail thumps against her leg. Slowly, very slowly, she comes back to herself. The anxiety is still there, the fear that Hera is spying on her even as there's no one around, but other possibilities trickle in. Maybe it’s someone’s pet, or it’s one of the ones from the zoo that they let wander around.

And she is cold. Always freezing after a panic attack.

But Luke helps with that, too. He stays in her lap, warming her with his fur and body heat until she gains the strength to pull her phone out of her pocket and text Percy to come get her. She would send an Iris message, but there's no rainbows here at this time.

Suddenly, it hits her. Luke can sense gods. They'd found out after an accidental run in with Demeter. If Hera, or any other mythical being for that matter, were around, Luke would have alerted her.

She snorts, then giggles, and it turns into a full on laughing fit, the kind that makes her stomach hurt and tears fall freely down her face. Maybe the tears are from before. Maybe they never stopped. Maybe she's been crying the whole damn time. It's all so fucking pointless.

She falls backward into the grass, Luke curling next to her, and stares up at the stars as they wait for her boyfriend to come get them because if she moves she'll surely disintegrate like a freshly-slain monster.

The next time she's especially thankful to have a dog in her life is during the summer between senior year and the start of college when she and Percy are staying at Camp.

Some time in the night, Percy startles awake with a shout, pulling Annabeth from her own fitfull slumber. Before she can even sit up, Luke is on top of him and licking his face, whining as he paws at his neck. She watches as the terror on hier boyfriend's face drains into confusion and finally weary anxiety, and he doesn't even have time to reach panic.

When his breathing slows and Luke settles on his chest, Percy turns his head to her and says, "I'm so glad we got a dog."

She smiles. "Me, too."

Annabeth winds through the streets of New Rome, black dog leash clutched in one hand. Luke cuts a handsome figure in front of her in his little service dog vest, drawing stares and mournful looks as people realize they can't pet him.

They'd started training him as a psychiatric service animal pretty soon after adopting him, so she is pretty used to it at this point, but it never fails to amuse her.

Finally, they make it to the restaurant, some Italian place Thalia picked out. The dark haired girl spots her quickly and waves her over.

"Hey," Thalia greets. She's seated at one of the outdoor tables with a big green umbrella over it, tipping their whole area into pleasant shade.

"Hey, it's so great to see you," she says, partially unbelieving that those words just came out of her mouth in a truthful manner and not as an overly polite greeting to someone she hopes she'd never have to see again. Like her stepmom, for instance.

"You, too."

Annabeth picks the menu up off the wiry black table, pointedly not wondering how much longer she'll be able to look at her oldest friend without Thalia looking like her youngest friend. "How have you been?"

Thalia swirls her straw in her water. "Pretty good," she answers, and seems to mean it. "We followed a monster all the way up into northern Canada last month and didn't even kill it."

Annabeth laughs. "Really?"

Thalia rolls her eyes. "You know how Lady Artemis is. If it's not hurting anyone or damaging the ecosystem, she says leave it."

After the year Annabeth's had, it's incredibly refreshing to hear, though she can't help but feel a little bitter that Artemis can talk to the hunters but Athena can't say one word to her daughter (the daughter that saved her ass). "So you went up there for nothing?"

Thalia slings a leather clad arm over the back of her chair, metal bracelets clinking. "I wouldn't say nothing. We saw trees older than the gods and thicker than Ares." Annabeth's nose scrunches at the comparison, and Thalia laughs. "We saw millions of stars every night. Do you know what the Milky Way looks like?"

Annabeth shakes her head, knowing only what she's seen in books. Light pollution truly is a bitch.

"Gods, it's so beautiful, you can't even breathe. There's so many colors. It's like staring into the face of - well, not a god, because that kinda sucks, but something amazing." Thalia gestures vaguely, and Annabeth is briefly blinded by the idea. Seeing something greater than the things she has already seen. Standing under a sky unburdened by human defacement and finding something so beautiful the Ancient Greeks made an entire myth for the creation of it. Her heart seizes, and she yearns. "Seriously, I'll show you sometime."

Suddenly, Annabeth isn't in New Rome anymore but a town square somewhere along the Eastern seaboard. 12 year old Thalia is telling her about her cross country travels, little Annabeth hanging onto every word, and Thalia laughs and says, "I'll show you sometime."

Back in the present, Luke the dog rests his head on her thigh and barks, sensing her increased uneasiness. She pets his fuzzy head. "It's alright, bud."

A waiter comes by and takes their orders, Thalia ordering a pizza because her and Percy really are exactly alike, and Annabeth ordering spaghetti because seeing Thalia makes her miss being seven.

Thalia leans in. "So what prompted you to get a dog?"

Annabeth gulps and figures there's really no reason to lie to Thalia. "PTSD. Guilt. Nightmares. Pick a reason, honestly."

Thalia nods in understanding. "Some of the girls have service animals, especially the newer ones. They really do help."

Annabeth assumes by 'have service animals', Thalia doesn't mean legally. "Yeah, it's amazing." Looking down at Luke, she can't believe how much he's helped her, and Percy, too. They rarely wake up screaming anymore, and when they do, he is right there to take care of them. "He can sense when we're panicking now, or even just when anxiety spikes."

She rubs his ears and leans down. "Can't you, boy? Yeah!" His tail thumps against the ground in excitement.

She sits back to see Thalia with a wide grin on her face. "What?"

Thalia points at the dog. "You know, it's kinda like you two adopted a kid together."

Annabeth rolls her eyes. "I highly doubt a kid would be able to help me through a PTSD induced flashback."

"Whatever. You and Jackson have a kid."

Annabeth's retort is lost as the waiter comes by to deposit their food.

As they chew, Thalia looks at Luke again.."What breed did you say he is?"

"The Humane Society said he's an Australian shepherd mix," Annabeth says, twirling a noodle onto her fork.

Thalia snorts. "There is no way in hell there's no pitbull in there."

Annabeth brightens. She'd actually come across this in her research. "Sometimes, shelters don't list traditionally aggressive breeds because they're harder to adopt out, and because if they become banned - which has happened before - the dogs can't be taken away. It's the same principle as big dogs being cheaper than small dogs."

Thalia stares for a moment, then looks furious. "I really hate mortals."

"Yeah, but at least some of them are fighting." It's as good a reason as any to hold onto hope.

They lapse into silence a bit as they eat their food.

"Luke." His head snaps up, and Annabeth feeds him a piece of bread.

Thalia makes some odd kind of aborted snort noise. "You named him Luke?"

Annabeth's eyes widen. She thought for sure she told her friend her dog's name before. "That was his name at the shelter."

"Good." Thalia visibly relaxes. "Wow, that's practically meant to be."

Annabeth isn't ready to brush off her reaction just yet. "Why would it be so bad if I named him Luke?" Obviously, she never would've done it herself, but she wants to know why Thalia is so horrified.

Thalia heaves a sign and sets down her pizza. "During the Titan war, I was constantly worried you were building him up in your head, remembering those two weeks as bigger than they actually were." Annabeth opens her mouth, but Thalia holds up a hand. "You were seven; I wouldn't have blamed you. I was just always afraid you would think of him as this great, amazing guy when in reality, he was...just a guy."

Annabeth's mouth gapes slightly. "Were you afraid I would join his side?"

Thalia's eyes widen. "No, I just didn't want you to start to think of him as a martyr. He was just a guy who fell to the wrong side."

Annabeth doesn't entirely understand what she's getting at, but she nods anyway, and they continue to eat and chat.

When it's time to leave, though, Thalia puts her hands on Annabeth's shoulders and says, "We only spent two weeks together on the run. They were two very important weeks, and you were very young, but please don't make us out to be more than we were." When she sees the dawning pain in Annabeth's eyes, she says, "I love you, and I will always love you, and so would Luke if he were still here. But we made mistakes. We let you down. Don't forget that, okay?"

Annabeth nods, still not entirely what the point is. She doesn't think she's been building them up in her head. Every Greek demigod in the US knows who Luke is and what he did; it would be impossible for her to forget.

But maybe she sometimes forgets what he did to her.

"I love you," Thalia says one last time. "See you soon."

"I love you, too."

Two months later, over a year after the giant war, Athena finally decides to speak to her daughter.

The wisdom goddess finds her on the beach of Camp Halfblood snuggled up next to Percy with Luke at their feet. It's winter break, and she couldn't be happier.

'Couldn't' being the key word. She could definitely be more happy now.

"Annabeth," she says. There is no tone, nothing to give a clue as to the reason of her visit. Luke starts barking, warning her that this isn't a nice visit.

"Mother?" she asks. "What are you doing here?"

"Can I not have a nice conversation with my daughter?" She raises a brown eyebrow, and Annabeth, frankly, has had it.

"A year ago, maybe. What do you want?" Next to her, Percy sucks in a breath, and Luke continues to bark.

"I'll let that slide because it's been so long, but you will not speak to me like that again," Athena says, dark brown hair lifting in the sea breeze.

A year ago, Annabeth might have considered listening, but a year ago, she still had hope that one of her parents might love her. "I'll speak to you however I damn please."

Percy grips her arm tighter as if he wouldn't say the exact same thing. "Annabeth, maybe you should-"

"I don't remember asking for your input, sea spawn," Athena hisses. "I came here to have a mature conversation with my daughter, but it seems I came in vain."

The sand tickles Annabeth's bare feet when she stands. "I'm the immature one? You're the one who ignored her daughter for a year after she saved your ass from insanity." Behind her, Percy stands as well, shushing Luke.

"As soon as you're ready to speak with me like an adult, you can have your time with me."

Words surge behind her shut mouth, something about how she was and is still a child despite what Olympus seems to believe, or that her "time with Athena" is about a year too late and she doesn't really care anymore. "Fine."

Athena clasps her hands in front of her. "You must stop this outlandish behaviour."

"What behaviour?"

"Concerning the Castellan boy."

"What-you mean my dog?"

Athena sighs. "I mean your insistence on honoring him in everything you do. I could tolerate it when the war was still recent in mortal terms, but this is getting a bit ridiculous, don't you think?"

Stupidly, Annabeth can still only think of the dog, though she's sure Athena is referencing other instances. "I didn't name him."

The goddess sighs again. "I am not talking about the dog, though that is an unfortunate coincidence. I am talking about the shrine, and the statue you plan to build, and your continued prayers for his swift and easy path through the underworld even two years after the fact."

Annabeth waits for more, but apparently that's it. "The shrine honors all of the demigods who died in the wars, and the statue is a reminder. I'm not sure how you think my prayers are a negative, but it's nice to know you've been getting them all this time."

Athena's eyes flash. "You say the shrine is for everyone, yet you only seem to pay attention to the one name, and I for one, don't need a reminder, not with this one's-" she points to Percy "-demands."

This argument is clearly going nowhere. "Aren't you the goddess of wisdom? Don't you know 'those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'?"

"Yes, but you are not remembering the past. You are turning your traitor friend into a martyr."

Again, Annabeth might have fallen for her words had it not been for her conversation with Thalia. "You only think that because he pointed out the gods' flaws, flaws you are doing a pretty fucking good job of showing off right now. I know Luke wasn't a martyr, but the more you act like this, the more you make him into one."

Athena steps closer to Annabeth, close enough she can see the goddess' individual eyelashes. "Listen, girl-"

Abruptly, a wave crashes to shore, loud and disruptive, throwing them into ankle deep water. Athena jumps backward. "Stop this! You cannot scare me with water."

Annabeth turns to Percy whose eyes are wide. "That wasn't me!"

Another wave, bigger than the first, hits the sand, and realization dawns on Athena's face alongside horror. She turns to the sea. "Poseidon, you dare put my own daughter under your protection?"

This time, a slower wave climbs up the beach and leaves, revealing a bunch of seashells arranged to spell the word 'YES'. In a flash, the dark haired goddess is replaced by an owl and flaps away, up and up and up until Annabeth can't see her anymore.

She turns to Percy who looks just as bewildered as her.

He clears his throat. "Uh, what the fuck?"

Amnabeth shrugs. " I have no idea."

They sit back down as they had been before Athena dropped in, snuggled together with Luke at their feet.

She should probably be sad and maybe even offended that Athena doesn't believe in her anymore, but she just can't bring herself to care. She had made peace with the fact that she would never have the picture perfect parents that love her, or even really like her, a long time ago. She was building up to the life she deserved, and carving out little pieces of that life in the people she loves was good enough for now. She was only 19; she had a lot of life left, and she still had a lot of healing. This wasn't the end of anything.

Good riddance. She has her family.

And, as night turns into day, they watch the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean, clutched in each other's arms, ready for whatever comes next.

everything in here is extensively researched or i know from my own experiences. adoption and dogs are really close to my heart. i'd link the sources but there's so many that i've gathered for essays, presentations, etc., throughout so many years that it would take me hours. if you spot something i got wrong, please let me know!

edit 11-19-23: I changed all the mentions of Luke being an ESA to a service animal or service animal in training because being an ESA basically just means someone paid for the certification and has a doctor's note, and they are not actually trained for anything. In this case, Luke is a psychiatric service dog trained for things like deep pressure therapy, buffering, room searching, etc., because he helps his owners with PTSD. Check abetternameneeded 's comments on ao3 for more info, and/or these two articles: https://www.ada.gov/topics/service-animals/ https://www.servicedogcertifications.org/psychiatric-service-dog/#psd-tasks

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