#can someone tell me what the bathtub line is im so curious

[demadogs]

it is so funny watching percy jackson without having read the books bc i can never predict what people will lose their minds over. i didnt think twice about “seaweed brain”. i go on twitter later to see it trending in all caps. i look at gifs on here and people are like “DAMNIT they didnt include the bathtub line” i dont have a single clue what that could be. i saw one post worried about how theyre gonna approach the scene where horses talk. imagine my surprise when i read that.

[bodytoflame-ao3]

born for this // three

new friends, and old friends

read from the beginning // AO3 Link

xvi //

“Come sit, we have to talk to you.” Annabeth sits her down at the dinner table, hating the way the panic sets into her face.

“Is this about the wall because I swear I can explain.”

“No,” she laughs, thoughts drifting to the foot-shaped hole behind the dresser in her room, “that’s okay. We just have something really important to talk to you about.”

“Are you two splitting up?” It’s the first thing that pops into her mind, even though as the words leave her lips, she knows they’re ridiculous.

“No.” Annabeth takes a deep breath. “Remember how we told you about the prophecies?”

Lyra nods. She’s heard every story they offered to tell over the years.

Annabeth sighs. Percy picks up; “There’s another we’ve known about for a while.” Almost ten years, keeping the secret from her, he feels awfully guilty.

“You’re not… leaving… right?” Lyra’s voice quivers, trying not to think too hard of what she’s heard from them about prophecies and what they entail; the quests and danger they bring.

“No… it’s—” Annabeth can’t finish her thought when all her mind wants to focus on is how much she sees herself in her daughter. It hurts to see her worry, in light of the fact she devoted herself to making sure Lyra would never experience the same things she did as a kid. And now, this .

“We think it might be about you.”

Her father’s words take a minute to sink in. “Oh.”

“And—” Annabeth adds, “—another legacy.”

Percy continues, trying to disperse some of the tension. “We don’t know what’s going to happen. All we know is that bad things happen if we interfere. So this is all you — and I know how scary that is — but we’ve got your back as much as we possibly can.”

Lyra is silent for a while. “You should’ve told me.” She doesn’t seem angry. It’s a statement of fact from her perspective.

“I know,” Annabeth sighs, taking her hand. “And I’m sorry.”

Percy rests his hand on Annabeth’s back, reassuring her. “We just wanted you to be safe.”

“I know.” She knows the stories. The prophecies, the quests, the battles. She doesn’t want to live like this — but she’ll do it if it means keeping her family intact. “Do I know them? The other demigod?”

“You were four the last time you saw her.”

“It was for your own safety,” Percy adds.

Lyra looks up at her father. “They’ve been coming a lot lately.”

“That’s why we’re telling you,” he says. “We’re taking you to Camp. You’ll be safe there.”

“What about school? There’s still two weeks left and I haven’t taken my finals.”

Annabeth has to try hard not to laugh; it’s another way she sees herself in her. “I called. You know, family emergencies happen. They were more than willing to accommodate. Whatever your grades were yesterday is where they’ll stay. You don’t have to worry about that.”

It’s only a little bit of relief among something so scary. She doesn’t sleep much that night.

xvii //

She’s been to Camp with her parents before, but it’s never felt like this. This feels more than temporary. They pack their bags too, and settle into a staff cabin, promising to be there for her if she needs them. Even if they can’t intervene directly, Annabeth is prepared to exploit every possible loophole, with Percy at her side. They won’t leave her.

Lyra settles into the Hermes cabin with relative ease, though sleep doesn’t come easily. It’s not as quiet as she would prefer, but it’s better than the deafening silence of the Poseidon cabin, or living with her mother’s side of the family — from family gatherings, she knows they’re a lot sometimes. And she doesn’t quite feel like a part of either of them. So this will have to do. In a way, she thinks, it’s almost poetic, and quite fitting: not quite human, not quite demigod, left to her own devices to forge an identity as something new. Or some bullshit like that.

When she finally feels the exhaustion drift over her, it’s overwhelming; like the entire weight of the day’s been dropped on her at once. In a way, it has. She’s here now, this is real. Not just the stories her parents told to her, or vague bursts of imagination from brief visits.

As hard as she tries, she can’t shake the feeling of anger in the pit of her stomach — exactly for what, she’s not sure. And she still can’t sleep.

xviii //

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

There’s not much Lyra can make out in the pale blue glow of the moon, other than the girl’s vague shade of olive skin, and light-colored wavy hair. “It’s okay,” she shrugs, ”Plenty of room aboard the pity train. Or, tree, I guess.”

“I didn’t think anyone else was here.”

“No, I mean, I’d be surprised too if I climbed a tree at—” she glances at her watch, “—two AM and actually saw another person. Let alone… in the same tree.” The other girl doesn’t respond. “Can’t sleep?” Lyra offers.

“Jet-lag,” she answers, simple enough. “Got in from California earlier. You?”

”Thinking about how I just ditched the last month of freshman year and all my new friends, pretty much cementing my status as a loner for the next few years, all for something that might not even be true,” she sighs, finally putting it into words (She could hope that it might not be true; even if she knows the prophecies never lie). “Spilling my guts to a girl whose name I don’t even know. The usual, I guess.”

That gets a chuckle out of the girl, extending her hand. “Calliope — Callie. My name,” she clarifies. “I’m missing graduation, if it makes you feel any better.”

Lyra shakes her hand. “Lyra.”

And two AM turns into three, then four.

xix //

Lyra spots her sitting on a bench after finally dragging herself out of bed at half past noon. Callie’s watching two girls practicing sparring with swords in the clearing; with many of the same techniques Lyra recognizes from her own training. “Did they teach you how to fight?” she asks, curious, sitting down next to her.

“Yeah. I trained with my brother, Homer. You?”

She nods. “I don’t have any siblings. Just Mom and Dad.”

Callie chuckles, “Yeah, but your parents are, like, legendary! Like... superheroes !” Her eyes widen. “What can you do ?”

“Um…” She takes a second to think. “I’m really good with patterns. Like, memory and stuff. Not words though.”

“None of us are. Dyslexia, right?”

“Right,” she laughs. It’s good to be around someone else who understands. “I’m pretty good with a sword, and I inherited my Dad’s water powers too, I guess.”

“Really? You leave the coolest one as an afterthought ?”

“It’s… I’m not that good at it!” She’s nowhere near as good as her father, and it isn’t like she’s ever known any different. It’s been a part of her life as far back as she can remember, splashing water out of the bathtub as a mischievous little kid.

“Still cool!”

“Alright, what can you do?” she asks, curious to know what kinds of powers she inherited, if her own are any signal.

“I can do a little bit with the weather — my dad taught me that — and electricity, like my brother… and I’ve always had my mom’s charmspeak.”

“What else can your brother do?”

“Well, I mean… he’s really good at fixing things, but not much. He knows how to work with electronics, but his actual powers aren’t like mine.”

“Oh. That sucks.”

“Nah, I don’t think it really bothers him. He thinks turning on lightbulbs is a cool enough party trick, and honestly? I don’t blame him. It sure would be easier.” She notices something behind Lyra, and points. “That’s him over there. Curly hair.”

Lyra’s mind sticks on her earlier revelation. “Charmspeak?”

“You’re not ready for this,” she grins, “It’s like, hypnotism. I’ve always been able to do it, even before I knew about it. I used to get my dad to give me extra dessert. Until my mom found out. She was pretty mad, but she told me how to control it. And like, she told me not to use it unless it was completely necessary, but I see her tell the landlord every once in a while that they’ve already paid, so I don’t think it hurts to ‘borrow’ a candy bar or two.”

Lyra laughs, “You’re kind of a badass.”

“ Someone has to be in this family, and it sure isn’t my brother.” She folds her arms, “Look at him. He’s like a puppy.”

He’s pretty short, relatively speaking, just a little bit taller than Lyra, even though he looks older. He reminds her a little bit of herself with his curly brown hair — although his is much neater, carefully sculpted and shaved at the sides, while her curls frame the side of her face around her ears without any real shape or definition. His skin is a light brown, slightly darker than his sister’s olive complexion, but she immediately sees the resemblance, next to Callie’s dirty blonde waves, and her eyes, the same warm amber color as his, but also speckled with flecks of hazel and green. He doesn’t look intimidating, as many of the other campers have; with a tennis racket in hand, he bounces a ball up and down without much ceremony, sitting peacefully on a bench.

“He seems nice,” Lyra determines, shrugging.

“Exactly! I’ve heard so many stories about how like, cool our parents were, and I… I wanna do that. Be someone important.”

“It’s going to be dangerous.”

“That’s exciting!”

“You don’t get it!” Lyra bites back the harsher words that threaten to come tumbling from her lips. You’re immature, and arrogant, and self-centered, and— They’re fleeting thoughts, and she’s not in the business of ruining the first new friendship she’s had since age 11. But the outrage still comes. “Our parents watched their friends die and couldn’t do anything about it!” Because it’s true — and she doesn’t want it to happen to her. 

That shuts Callie up pretty quickly.

xx //

“It’s been… almost a year,” Piper says.

“I know.” It was hard for either of them to get away too often, let alone find a time where their schedules lined up. That, combined with the fact that they lived on opposite sides of the country, meant she frequently went long periods of time without seeing her best friend. They talked, often enough, via IM, but it wasn’t the same.

“I missed you, babes,” she sighs, hugging Annabeth for all the times she’s wanted to in the past year. “How’s she doing?”

She knows Lyra isn’t okay. Not in the slightest. Annabeth can read that kid like a book, no matter how much she tries to cover it up. “Angry. But hiding it well — nothing I can’t see through. Yours?”

“Homer’s fine. Actually, I think he’s glad to be skipping school. Callie is… okay, I think.”

“That’s good.” It almost feels like they’re kids again, gossiping cross-legged in their bunk beds. Even so, it’s different, and they both know it.

“They’re talking like friends already.”

The tension returns — in the form of silence — until Annabeth breaks it: “They were.” And she regrets saying it the second the words tumble out of her mouth. They were, as much as toddlers could be, but that’s a sore subject, for both of them.

Piper glares at her, whether it’s anger or sadness is anyone’s guess.

“I know. I just wonder what… if they’d grown up together?”

“Me too.” It’s far behind them now, but she does — wonders what their lives might look like today if they grew up that close. She wonders if it would’ve made a difference; would’ve mattered.

xxi //

Lyra would recognize his shaggy hair anywhere. “Zeph?”

“Lyra. Hi.” He wraps her in a hug, so tight that she’s surprised she can still breathe.

But that doesn’t explain why he’s here, of all places, instead of on a farm in the middle of nowhere, Mississippi like he should be. “What are you—”

He smiles, shaking his head like it’s obvious, “Son of Demeter. You didn’t think I just really liked plants, did you?”

Guilty as charged. “I… I guess so,” she chuckles, head tilting as the gears turn in her mind. He immediately makes ten times more sense, not the enigma she always took him for. But also, nothing makes sense — because this is Zeph, her best friend since the sixth grade, and shouldn’t she have known? Better yet: “Wait— did you know?” It’s hard to imagine him like this, so connected to a life she thought was only hers through stories.

He raises an eyebrow, “Jackson-Chase? Yeah, I knew.” He sounds a little amused, but more than anything, relieved.

Lyra, not so much. It’s the second time today she’s been reminded of her parents’ legacies, and it’s starting to weigh on her. “Why did you never tell me?”

Zeph shrugs. “I didn’t know how much they wanted you to know. Wasn’t too keen on angering the literal heroes of Olympus.” He pauses, letting the words settle. “I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head. “I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.” And I don’t want to hear it any more.

xxii //

“There is no way I’m letting you do this alone,” Homer says, entirely firm in his decision.

“I won’t be alone. She’s coming too.” Callie points to Lyra, who looks like a giant compared to the boy she’s talking to.

“ She ’s a kid.” He’s not fooled, despite her height — There’s no way he’s letting his little sister and some lanky teenage girl off into the world, let alone in such dangerous circumstances, alone. She can’t be more than a year older than her, and certainly no more mature. And she looks so innocent, with her mousy brown curls and folded arms — not strong enough to protect the both of them. Not alone .

Callie crosses her arms. “So are you. What’s the difference?”

He has to admit, she’s kind of right. But he’s older, damnit, and he’s not being a good big brother if he isn’t protecting her. “I’m coming with you, Callie. I can’t just sit here and do nothing!”

It’s not often that he yells; Callie knows that. “Mom and Dad won’t let you,” she says, quiet.

Homer sighs. “They already did.”

xxiii //

“Not gonna lie, I’m shit at archery.” Zeph shuffles, hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts, “But Astrid’s the best.”

“You say that like it’s surprising ,” Lyra laughs, “I know you have the hand-eye coordination of a toddler.”

“Okay. Unfair,” he points at her, looking immeasurably amused. “So who’s the girl you were talking to earlier?”

“That’s Callie. Her brother’s over there in the striped shirt.”

“The Grace kids?” he asks, almost a whisper.

“Yeah.” He raises an eyebrow, and Lyra rolls her eyes. “Oh, don’t look at me like that!”

“Sorry, sorry ,” he sighs, “They’re just… they’re big too.”

It’s not that Lyra didn’t know her parents, and even Callie and Homer’s, were a big deal — but to see her best friend lose his mind over them just seemed so wrong. (And hell, even Callie had seemed shocked.) At this point, she’s surprised he didn’t short circuit the first time her Dad picked her up at his apartment. How did he survive that, anyways?

A tall blonde, hair pulled into a sleeked-back bun approaches them, pulling her out of her thoughts. “Ready to get started?”

xxiv //

“Hey.” Percy can feel Annabeth shaking. “She’s okay. She’s gonna be just fine.” He reassures her, though there’s still a thread of worry running through his mind that asks, What if I’m wrong?

“I know she’ll be okay. She’s your daughter,” Annabeth says, pulling herself close to him, and wrapping her legs around his; entwined.

“She’s yours too.”

“I know that.” She’s ours. And she’s got the same natural survival instincts. “But I’m worried about how this is going to affect her. You know how bad it got.” They still don’t talk about it all that often, and the memories rarely haunt them anymore. When they do, it’s the same as it’s always been, holding each other close until the dread and fear dissipates. But this, this is an entirely different can’t-sleep feeling.

Percy holds her hand loosely, running his thumb over her fingers, twisting the wedding band on her ring finger. “We turned out okay, didn’t we?”

She remembers the day he proposed to her in vivid color. It was the most normal of days, spent in her dorm room, sitting between his legs, furiously wrapping up her last final paper with minutes until the deadline. Percy watched silently, as he had been for hours, as she submitted it, relaxing into his arms, knowing she could finally breathe; that she’d made it through her first semester of college. 

“You didn’t have to stay, you know.”

Percy shrugged. “I like watching you work.”

For all the stress, for all the nights she wondered if she really was cut out for this, she had something to show for it. If she’s honest, those kinds of nights were the ones she lived for, because for once she wasn’t worrying about if she’d be alive tomorrow. So she sighed, relieved, the mess of emotions settling into her bones, only for him to stir them right back up.

“You know,” he echoed, laughing, hands wrapping around her body, “This might be really stupid, but I want to marry you.”

“Percy,” she sighed, turning her head to face him, and fully expecting it to be an off-handed comment, “I don’t think that’s stupid, but you better have something to show for it.” She expected him to laugh, a ‘maybe someday’ sitting on his lips.

But Percy had instead reached into the pocket of his jeans, fumbling with the silver moonstone ring he’d been carrying around with him for six weeks, and held it out to her. He’d never looked more serious. “I mean it.”

Annabeth shook her head, blinking her eyes to stop the tears from coming, and kissed him without a word. For all the “normal” things she craved, this was something better done their own way. She kissed him until she couldn’t breathe, until he was laughing, scooping her into his lap, hands tangled in her curls. “That’s a yes, by the way.”

If someone had told Annabeth a few years ago that she’d be engaged, let alone alive and happy at eighteen, she would’ve laughed in their face. Even if she managed to live that long, the possibility of someone loving her enough to want to spend the rest of their lives together seemed foreign.

The ceremony was small; they could count the number of guests on their hands. Their parents, friends, and Chiron, on the lake of Camp Half Blood, which just felt right to both of them. After she kissed Percy for the first time as a married couple, Annabeth looked towards Piper, seven months pregnant and bawling her eyes out in happiness, and started to wonder if her life might turn out as good as hers did. And she supposes, it did. They did.