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idksmtms · 2 days

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You Are Not One of Us (Poseidon x Norse Goddess!reader) - Part 7

Full Request Part

AN: I am so so sorry that this took me so long! I’m ngl, I lost a bit of inspiration for this for a while but I kinda forced myself to sit down and write it and it felt really good to finish something I felt I had given up on! I tried to make it a big one to make up for all the time I was gone!

I also went back and read all the Anon messages I got from so many people and they really helped me, so thank you to absolutely everyone and all the anons who contributed ideas. I def included some in this part (and the coming parts) so if you spot it, I hope you enjoy it!

Also, for the timing of his birthday versus when he started at Yancy Academy, IDK guys, I made it up. I don’t actually know about when he started versus when his birthday was so just… let it go ig.

ALSO, I copied the dialogue for the diner scene almost verbatim from the show so I can’t take credit for writing that, but the descriptions attached to the dialogue are still mine.

PS. I got a new divider that I love heheheh

Also, I really hope y’all notice the significance of each of his birthday presents because I worked so unnecessarily hard on those.

Summary: In one place, Percy grows up with his Aunt Sally, dealing with the struggles of being a demigod child. In another, you try to pretend you haven’t just given up your son and a life you have always wanted. Neither world is going as one would hope.

Word count: 7.3k

Trigger Warnings: she/her pronouns, AFAB reader, profanity, innuendo, age gap (even tho they are both thousands of years old), personal insecurity, insecurity about one’s parenting, absentee parents technically, light angst, Percy believing there is something wrong with him, negative view of one’s own ADHD and dyslexia, any warnings associated with Percy’s adventures, (please let me know if I missed any)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians characters. I do not claim to own any of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians characters. I do not own any pictures used nor do I claim to do so.

Always appreciate comments, likes, and reblogs :)

When you returned to Valhalla, you tried to put on a brave face. Your return was denoted by a grand feast, and the Aesir were simply so happy to see you return no one questioned the way you occasionally turned away to brush off stray tears or gazed at Yggdrasil as if you wanted to see into one of the worlds nestled in its branches. But aside from all of that, you were rather good at pretending to be happy. You drank a few sips of ale for every mug Thor drained, you danced half the night with Baldur, and you sat cosied up with Loki, ready to listen to whatever story of his latest shenanigans he wished to bestow on you. Everyone was happy. Things were as they were meant to be.

As the sun began to creep toward the horizon and the Aesir made their way out of the grand hall, you found yourself walking with Odin back to your old quarters in Valhalla. When he first came up to you as you stood from the feast table, he had wrapped you up in his arms, whispering how he was happy at your return. Even now, he occasionally turns to look at you with his remaining eye and smiles gently. The walk was peaceful, quiet, a stillness in the air at that hour just before dawn.

“Do you know what I gave up my eye for?” He asked out of the blue. You furrowed your eyebrows, tilting your head and looking at him almost incredulously.

“Of course, all the gods know, you sacrificed your eye for all the knowledge of the world.”

“Hm,” he nodded. Then he stopped in the hallway and turned to fully face you. You clasped your hands in front of you, heart suddenly beating just a little faster. “Did you know that this also means I know about Perseus?”

You could suddenly hear the blood rushing in your ears. You could see Odin in front of you, but you also couldn’t. Your hands were sweaty and your dress was suddenly tight around your ribs. You looked up at him, shallow breaths blowing from your lips. But then Odin smiled, a small sad smile that somehow broke your heart just that little bit more.

“I am the only one that knows, and it should be kept that way.” He reached out and caressed your cheek, and you closed your eyes, a tear slipping down your cheek that he wiped away. “If it were different, I would have cherished meeting him.” Then he pulled away and walked back in the direction of the feasting hall. You listened to his footsteps fade away, before entering the room you had left behind for millenia.

Every year, without fail, it rained on Percy’s birthday. When he first noticed, he thought it meant something special. That there was something magical out there, wishing him well. Whatever higher power was out there, they knew he loved to swim, to be in the water, and they sent the rain just for him. As he grew, he began simply chalking it up to weather patterns. August was just the time of year when rain happened upon the city. It wasn’t anything special, this was simply the one part of his life where he was lucky.

Sally knew it was a blessing. She knew it was his father, celebrating the day in the best way he knew how, sending a message to Percy in the only way he could. She always took Percy outside, regardless of if the rain became a storm. She knew Percy would be safe in the rain. They made it a habit to go onto the fire-escape when the rain was at its worst, and they would spin around and dance and laugh.

In all the time Sally had spent raising Percy, through all the challenges and the struggles, she never failed to notice how alike to his mother he was. Percy, seemingly since he was born, was obsessed with the colour blue. He only wanted to eat blue food, only wanted to wear blue clothes (it took a lot of convincing to introduce other colours to his wardrobe) and all the toys he chose were blue. He had an immense sweet tooth, and every time she watched him bite into a blue chocolate chip cookie, she fondly remembered the afternoon she had sat with his mother and watched the ravenous pregnant woman devour an entire tray of those same cookies. He smiled brightly and constantly, always happy and mischievous, just like his mother. But he was also trapped like his mother. He also cried like his mother. And most of all, both good and bad, he loved just as sincerely, as fiercely as his mother.

Every year on Percy’s birthday, this fierce love was demonstrated. A surprise present would arrive, wrapped in shiny blue wrapping paper with only ‘To Percy Jackson’ written on it in loopy, elegant handwriting. Each year the box contained something different, something odd but somehow heartwarming and special. Sometimes he didn’t know why in the world someone would send him these things, but they felt important, and he kept them lined up on the chest of drawers opposite his bed, and counted them each night before he went to bed. At least when he was still living at home. He even had presents from years he didn’t remember, going all the way from his first birthday to his latest.

On his first birthday, he had apparently received a spool of golden thread. For the life of him he couldn’t understand why someone would give a one year old thread. It’s a choking hazard! What were they thinking?! But it was beautiful and shiny, and sometimes he thought it might just be real gold, but he didn’t want to find out if it was. It somehow felt… more than just something for money. He used it only for the most important things, but however much he seemed to unravel, the thread never seemed to end.

On his second birthday, the package was smaller. Sally sat him up and unwrapped it in front of him to reveal a little toy throne. It was small, about the size of an adult hand, and made of hard resin. It was so intricate, coloured like the ocean, even white and frothy in some places, and looked as if it was made with the whorls of the ocean. It had been his favourite little toy for a long time.

His third birthday present was simply a feather. It was beautiful, and no matter how much he crushed the fibres or threw it around, it never lost its perfect shape. It came with a flat metal stand that had a little foam rectangle in the centre so he could stick the tip of the feather into it and leave it as a decoration. The metal stand was simply labelled ‘Pegasus’ and three year old Percy staunchly believed it was a feather from the wing of a Pegasus. Even at the ripe old age of thirteen he sometimes still liked to hope it was a feather from Pegasus, simply so he could believe that magic existed.

For his fourth birthday, he received a framed painting. Even at four years old he thought it was weird, and he still believed it was an absolutely insane present to get a four year old. A painting? Seriously? It was beautiful though, and he appreciated it a lot more once he was older than he did at the time. He didn’t know where it was supposed to show, there was no date and no artist’s signature. The edges showed that the viewer was looking through the mouth of a cave onto some type of secret hidden lake. Trees surrounded the lake, and it had the most beautiful clear water. The artist had even depicted the rocks at the bottom, and sometimes, in the quietest and stillest moments of the day, if he looked really hard at the painting, he could almost see the water lapping at the shore. He could almost hear the gentle chirp of birds and the soft rustle of leaves. The entire painting always made him feel so odd, as if he could feel someone’s else's memories, someone else’s feelings. Someone had been happy there once, but now they only looked at it with sadness, as if a wonderful day by the lake had been ruined by a fight in the car on the way home.

His fifth birthday present was just as odd as the rest of them. He still didn’t quite understand why someone had gifted him five oysters with pearls inside of them. He didn’t believe the pearls were real (that was the only reason he hadn’t pawned or sold them off so he could get some extra money for his Aunt Sally) simply because he had never seen an oyster like that. No one had, not even google. He thought they were pretty though, and kept them lined up on the back of his nightstand rather than on the chest of drawers.

His favourite birthday present, from all those he had ever received, came on his sixth birthday. It was a conch shell, bigger than both the palms of his hands put together, with a dark blue colour that slowly faded to white as it twisted in on itself. Normally when he held it up to his ear, he could hear the sea, but unlike any other conch he had ever listened to. He could hear waves crashing, he could hear the ruffling and snuffling sort of sound they made as they frothed onto the shore. He could hear the swoosh as the waves pulled back. He could even hear the distant sort of gurgling a person hears when they’re underwater in the ocean, the sound of water moving about you. But then, at the darkest parts of the night, when he couldn’t sleep for whatever reason and pressed the shell to his ear, he could hear a gentle voice whispering ‘I love you’. It was soft, but calming and loving, the kind of ‘I love you’ a father whispers to his son just as he puts him to bed. He had never heard the voice before, but secretly he always wished it was somehow the voice of his own father. He tried not to think about that as much anymore. His father simply wasn’t here.

A little zombie looking figurine arrived for his seventh birthday. This one felt a little more kid-appropriate, and he had loved playing with it when he was still into action figures. For a while he hadn’t known what character it was supposed to be, because while it looked like a zombie, it didn’t really look like the zombie figurines he had seen some of the other kids play with. The little circle that connected the two feet of the figurine was engraved with the word ‘Draugr’ and Aunt Sally had had to google that for him. The stories had scared him so much that for a while he had hidden the figure in the back of his toybox.

By the time his eighth birthday had rolled around, he had begun to grow an interest in Greek mythology and the stories of Greek heroes. When he received a little storybook on Perseus and his adventures, he had asked Sally if she was the one sending him the secret presents. It had to be his Aunt Sally. She knew he liked Greek mythology, she had been the one to tell him that he was named after Perseus. Sure, the earlier gifts had been really weird, but maybe she had just become a better gift-giver over time? But Aunt Sally denied it, and when they opened the book, a little picture had been put in as a bookmark. It depicted a cabin high up on the cliffs of the fjords, small but homely looking, and it was simply marked with the word Norway in the bottom corner in that same loopy handwriting. Sally had simply replied “see, it can’t be from me because I’ve never even been to Norway. Plus, kid, have you ever seen me write that neatly?” He had sat there and read the entire book, pushing through even though the letters bounced around and sometimes he had to look completely away to be able to try and focus again. He kept the picture in the book and the book on his nightstand as well. Though he had read it countless times, thumbed each page a million times, the book still looked good as new.

On his ninth birthday he got… a jar of sand. He was pretty disappointed at first, staring at it for a whole minute after he had taken it out of the wrapping. But then he saw that a little label had been pasted onto the top of the metal lid of the jar that simply said ‘Montauk’ and he realised it must be from the beach in front of the cabins they went to every year. It was seemingly sentimental, and it had made Aunt Sally smile all sad and happy and teary that he had told her to keep it in her room, so it would stay safe.

On his tenth birthday, he only received an envelope. It was made of the same shimmery blue paper as the wrapping of all the other gifts he had ever received, and it had the same loopy handwriting, but it had been pushed under the door. Aunt Sally usually got her letters from the box downstairs, he had thought it was weird, but she had told him not to worry, that this must be special because it was his birthday. The only thing in the envelope was a picture. It was square, and about the size of a polaroid, but glossy like it had been taken by a digital camera and printed at some fancy shop. He couldn’t quite tell what it was at first. It looked like it was taken underwater, he could see little flecks of seaweed floating and sand that had been kicked up by the waves and little bubbles here and there. He could see the sandy floor as well, the way some of it was mid-movement with the waves. ‘Midnight on Montauk - where the water meets the sand’ was written on the back, and he thought it was weird that he had gotten two gifts from Montauk now. Nevertheless, he pinned the picture to the corkboard above his chest of drawers.

On his eleventh birthday he got a gold coin. He was so excited at first. This was the first time he had ever gotten money as a present, let alone a frickin’ gold coin! He had even promised Aunt Sally he would take her out for ice cream with the money from the coin. But then he had looked at it again and realised that it was stamped with a trident on both sides. He had suddenly deflated, thinking it was some kind of gimmick coin they sold at souvenir shops (this gift-giver seemed to be way too sentimental) but Aunt Sally had quickly pressed it into his palm and told him to keep it very very safe. He kept it on him at all times now. At least some of his jeans had that little seemingly useless pocket, making it easy for him to carry it around.

His last birthday, the one right before everything went wrong for the millionth time and got him sent to Yancy Academy, had brought a flat box filled with shredded paper. Nestled inside it was a framed weather report from the day he had been born. At the top was the cut out of a headline ‘Largest Storm to Ever Hit Montauk and all of New York’. Below it, there were a bunch of different images, from graphs about the intensity of the rainfall to satellite images of the eye of the storm and the area it covered. He thought it was kind of funny, and he put it up proudly on the chest of drawers. That day was the first time in a long time he had thought the rain on his birthday really meant something again. Maybe it wasn’t something special for him, maybe it was just the weather remembering the storm it had put on that day, and sending some rain in its memory. But it meant something.

Grover heard whispers in his dreams. He never quite remembered what they were, never quite remembered what they said, but he knew that something whispered to him in his sleep. A woman, a soft, lilting voice that sounded just out of reach, was all that he had gleaned thus far. He didn’t know if the forces were good or bad, where the voice came from, but whenever he awoke there was a small niggling feeling inside him that he should be doing something. Deep in the pit of his stomach he felt like he had to be outside Camp Half-Blood, had to be chasing something or maybe finding something. It was an itch that no other satyr duty seemed to satiate. No amount of berries collected, animal cages cleaned, campfires attended made him forget the voice, forget the desire to follow its orders, whatever they may be.

When he got his next mission to escort a demigod back to the camp, everything seemed to click into place inside him. When he was told that he would be responsible for bringing Percy Jackson safely back to the camp, it was like the gods themselves had come in and soothed whatever had been writhing inside him. This was what he had been waiting for. This was what the whispers had commanded for him. And somehow, he knew that this was the most important journey in his entire life…

Three days before Percy’s twelfth birthday, a blue butterfly landed on his hand as he sat outside his latest school. It was the end of his first official week at Yancy Academy, and the school was rather… daunting. All the kids looked at him like he was dirt beneath their shoes and nothing seemed to be clicking with him. He was trying his best. When the kids whispered about him, he ignored it. When they started messing with his things, he just asked his teachers for new notebooks and moved on. Whatever they did, he chose to try peace and quiet. He didn’t want to make life even more difficult for his Aunt Sally, she was already doing everything she could to make sure he had a decent school to go to; this was their last chance and he wasn’t going to be the one that screwed it up.

He sighed and rested his elbows on his crossed legs, staring out at the yard. If nothing else, at least Yancy had a nice garden to look at. He hadn’t noticed the fluttering little creature until it was directly in his line of sight. It took a few turns around in front of his face before landing directly on the tip of his nose. The little legs were slightly ticklish and he breathed out of his mouth to resist the urge to sneeze.

It was beautiful. It almost glowed in the light, like a haze was surrounding its edges, and he reached up to gently touch the tip of its wing. It shattered right in front of his eyes, like a glass breaking against the floor. The little pieces floated all around and landed on his clothes, sticking to his jeans. He stared at his lap, wide eyed. What the- He closed his eyes and took three deep breaths in, a technique one of the many councillors had taught him to try and re-centre himself in the world. When he opened his eyes again, the pieces were still there, like glitter all over his clothes, but they were beginning to fade.

Percy stared at his clothes, at the fading pieces of a butterfly that had somehow flown directly to him then shattered like glass, and stood up with a determination to forget this ever happened. He shook his head, as if to shake his brain into action. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. No one would believe him anyway. This was just another pegasus in the window. He wouldn’t speak of it until the next time he was at home. Aunt Sally could calm him down, Aunt Sally would make him feel better and they would solve this. There was just something fundamentally wrong with him, they needed to fix it soon. With a clench of his fist, he walked back inside, only to bump directly into someone who quickly introduced themselves as Grover Underwood….

“And then Grover beat me, Aunt Sally!” Percy told her excitedly as they sat at the dining table ravenously devouring stacks of blue pancakes. Sally smiled down at the boy, reaching forward and ruffling his curly hair as he shoved another forkful into his mouth.

“Grover sounds awesome, I’m glad you guys found each other,” she told him happily, pretending like the satyr hadn’t already introduced himself as Percy’s guardian. “If you want, you can invite him up here today, we can have a little birthday party.”

“Nah, todays about you and me Aunt Sally,” he smiled brightly up at her, syrup painting the corners of his mouth, and she stood up to press a kiss to the top of his head.

“Alright then mister, have I got plans for you this weekend! I was gonna get us passes for the waterpark today but I knew it was gonna rain so it’s been postponed for tomorrow. Today will start with a swim at the indoor pool in a country club in Manhattan! Someone I know gave me her pass for the weekend,” Sally giggled, reaching out to high five Percy as he exclaimed ‘no way!’.

“Is it Denise? I love Denise,” Percy asked excitedly, momentarily forgetting his plate.

“No, I mentioned to one of my regular customers that it’s your birthday this weekend and that you love to swim so she got us signed up as her guests for the weekend!” Sally explained, smiling triumphantly.

Though she always tried her hardest, sometimes she felt like Percy missed out on a better life because she didn’t make enough money. But Percy simply jumped up and hugged her tightly, whispering a ‘thank you’ against her ear.

“Hold on, you haven’t even heard the entire plan!” She exclaimed, laughing as he pulled away and raised his hands as if in surrender. “Ok, so, then we’re gonna go get ice cream, I found this cool place near the country club that has a bunch of blue ice creams and I thought we could get a scoop of each so we have those cones piled with like ten scoops. Then we’ll come back here for a mov-”

There was a knock at the door. Sally frowned for a second, turning to the door, but there was no other sound and she looked back to Percy as something dawned on her. She smiled gently, a rather wistful look in her eyes all of a sudden, and got up from where she was sitting adjacent to him.

“That must be your special present.” Percy swallowed his latest too-big mouthful and got up from the table to meet Aunt Sally in the hallway.

It was cube shaped this time, about the size of both his palms put together, and it had simply been left in front of their door. Sally brought the box inside and they stood by the window to look at it in the dim grey light from outside. It was covered in that same shiny blue wrapping paper as every other year, and his name was written in that same loopy style with a fresh black pen. His face was contorted in confusion and he took it from Sallys hands, ripping through the wrapping paper to the baby blue cardboard box beneath. He opened that too and Sally watched on curiously as he pulled out something wrapped in bubble wrap. Percy pulled the little pieces of tape holding it together and unfolded the sheet of wrapping to find a snowglobe nestled inside.

The little stand that the orb was perched on was a blue so dark it was almost black, and smooth, without any engraving or description of the scene inside the ball. The globe itself showed a little scene of what looked like a campground, with lots of cabins and a big bonfire in the middle. It even had a little sign pointing in different directions, and had an open-air pavilion near the edge. It was cute, a little fancy, but he had no idea why in the world someone would send this to him. He had never been to camp before, but especially not this camp, whatever it was. He held it up to Sally and frowned at it.

“I have no idea where this is,” he told her, but she was staring at it so intensely that he paused. Percy raised an eyebrow and pushed it toward her. “You know where this is? Have you been here before?” At first Sally didn’t answer, because yes, she knew where it was, she knew exactly what the snow globe was showing her, and she knew that it was a message. It meant that soon, she would have to say goodbye to Percy, and soon Percy would know everything she had been hiding from him his entire life.

“It’s a campground, right?” She asked nonchalantly, “it’s cute though, I like it. Keep it on your dresser, I’m sure one day you’ll know more about it.” And she shrugged as if that day wasn’t coming very soon.

Percy shrugged in return and went to his room to put the snowglobe on the dresser. A beam of sunlight had broken through the clouds and sparkled in the rain right onto his dresser. The water in the painting looked like it was moving again, and a phantom wind ruffled the fibres on the feather. He put the snowglobe between them carefully, directly in the light of the sun, and a little bit of glitter in the globe shined directly onto his eye. He squinted and bent down to look at it again. There, hidden behind one of the cabins because of the way he had been holding it earlier, was a tiny blue butterfly. It was so small it was easy to miss, but it looked exactly like the butterfly that had come to him. Percy felt his heart begin to race. Surely this was a coincidence. He blinked and rubbed his eyes roughly, then looked down at the snowglobe again. It was still there. The butterfly almost looked like it flapped its wings in the sunlight. No, surely not, this was just another sign that he was going crazy, that there was something really wrong with him.

Percy shoved the snowglobe behind the painting and walked right back out to find Aunt Sally. She was sitting on the sofa waiting for him, smiling when he came over to her, but quickly her lips drooped into a frown at the look on his face.

“Hey buddy, what’s wrong?” She asked, pulling him down to sit beside her.

“Aunt Sally, I seriously think there’s something wrong with me. It’s happening again, it’s exactly like the horse on the rooftop and I-I don’t kno-”

“Hey. Ok, let’s take a deep breath. Ok, good, one, two, three, four, ok now big release. Alright, good, now, start from the beginning.” She gently cupped his cheek for a moment before folding her hands in her lap and watching his face.

“I was sitting in the garden at Yancy, I don’t know, I’d had kind of a crummy day, I guess, but then suddenly this butterfly came fluttering to me. Aunt Sally, I have never seen a butterfly like that. It’s like it wasn’t real. It was all shiny and like-like it was glowing? I don’t know, it just didn’t seem like it actually existed. But it came right up to me and landed on my nose. And I thought that was so cool, so I kinda just reached up and touched it. I mean, I didn’t even really touch it, the tip of my finger kinda just brushed it, but then it burst. I don’t even know, it shattered like it was made of glass. And that’s crazy because that’s not possible. Animals don’t shatter like that, nothing real shatters like that and just disappears. It broke into glitter and was all over me! I was trying to brush it off but it-it just wouldn’t come off, and then slowly, it just started to… fade away. Just like that. Ugh, I don’t know Aunt Sally, I seriously think there’s something wrong with me. I mean, it’s not normal to be seeing visions, even I know that.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you. I believe you,” she added simply, staring at him as if everything he had just said was the most important words to ever have come out of someone’s mouth.

“What?” Percy tilted his head and looked at her with a frown, as if suddenly she was the crazy one, not him.

“I believe you. I believe that that happened to you, but we’ll talk about that some other time.” She smiled sadly at him, reaching out to gently brush the hair away from his forehead. Percy scoffed, pulling back from her slightly.

“What does that even mean? You just said you believed me, we need to talk about it now.”

“Percy, when the time is right, we’ll talk about it,” Sally sighed, knowing she couldn’t delay this conversation for much longer. She just wanted him to be a kid as long as possible… “But today is your birthday, and we’re supposed to be having fun before you go back to school. So come on,” she clapped her hands and stood up, “there is a bag of blue jelly beans sitting in the kitchen with your name on it!” She sing-songed.

“But Aunt Sally-”

“Percy. Some other time.” Her lips were set in a line and her tone left no more room for argument. Sally left him to go to her room to start packing a backpack with stuff they would need for the pool, while Percy made his way to the kitchen and began slowly chewing on blue jelly beans, his mind stuck on the butterfly.

That night, after a long day of swimming, and a little too much sugar, Sally sat in the middle of little garden they had made on their floor of the fire escape and let the rain douse her. She had already shoved a hungover Gabe into bed and locked the door on him in case he wanted to come back out and make any noise that disturbed Percy, and now, under the rain, she let her thoughts wander to the past thirteen years.

Life with Percy had been as beautiful and loving as it had been difficult. She had known, from the beginning, that Percy would not be a normal kid. As much as his parents wanted him to be, as much as she wanted it for him, it simply wouldn’t happen. He was too special, the product of two worlds too incomprehensible.

She remembered all the calls to schools. He couldn’t sit still, he couldn’t learn, he was too ‘disruptive’, too ‘distracted’. Each time it boiled her blood, broke her heart, because he wasn’t even made for this world, but these people had the audacity to reduce this child to what they considered bad things. She remembered all the times he would cry, clinging to her with his little hands wondering why he couldn’t be like the other kids, why he couldn’t focus like other kids or why he couldn’t study like the other kids, why he didn’t have parents like the other kids…

She remembered the first time she had told little Percy about his dad. How excited he had been to learn that somewhere out there, he did have parents, parents who loved him and wanted to be with him but for some inexplicable reason, couldn’t. She had seen the way he had slowly dismissed that childish hope as he grew up, how he stopped asking about his mom, how he stopped wondering if he looked like his dad. He never asked anymore.

The day she had used the coin suddenly floated to the front of her mind as she wiped the water from her eyes. She remembered it vividly. It had been a bad day. The baddest of days at that point. Percy was struggling, and she was on edge. There was a storm. It was still the years when she had been scared of storms, when they reminded her of the day Percy was born, the fear in Y/n’s eyes, the pain in Poseidon’s. She had driven them away from yet another school and decided to stop at a diner for lunch. Maybe ice cream would improve Percy’s mood.

They had eaten in silence, neither of them ready to talk to the other. She had tried to make a few jokes before the food came, hoping to lift Percy’s mood, but he had simply pushed the salt and pepper shakers around the table and mumbled answers to her. After that she had given up on her attempts and sat in silence, staring out of the window and stewing in her own struggles. Maybe this was her breaking point, she thought. Maybe this was the moment when she couldn’t raise Percy anymore. She was struggling, and the last thing she wanted to do was to ruin his life because she couldn’t cope with raising a godly child. What could she do? No one could understand her situation, she couldn’t even talk to anyone about it. Was this the time to send him to camp? Was it the time to let him go, for his sake? Tears had begun to prick at her eyes but she wiped them away as the server had come by.

They had finished their mains, and she had ordered a sundae for Percy in as excited a voice as she could manage, glad to see a little smile begin to curl at his lips. The server had engaged with him as well, asking him what toppings he wanted and how many ‘extras’ to add before telling the chef he wanted chocolate sauce. She had smiled at the server in thanks before telling Percy to stay put as she got up from the stall and went to the bar to settle the bill.

At the bar, she asked for a glass of tap water and the bill, and when the bartender had deposited both, she pulled a coin out of her pocket. It was gold, and had tridents embossed on both sides. Even though she’d had it for years now, it hadn’t lost its shine. She brought the cup of water closer to her and flipped the coin over it, watching it twist in the air before falling into the water with a little ‘plonk’. She closed her eyes and whispered two names to herself, over and over and over. A crack of thunder shook through the diner, as if the storm was right overhead. She opened her eyes and stared into the glass of water as the door to the diner opened and someone walked in. The stool beside her was pulled out, and someone settled onto it with a slight creak. The sleeve of their shirt brushed against hers and the smell of salty sea air suddenly seemed to waft around her. She closed her eyes and whispered one of the names again, but nothing changed. Tears pricked at her eyes again, and she stared ahead of her, unable, unwilling, to look at the man that had settled down beside her.

“This isn’t fair,” she whispered, a tear escaping down her cheek.

“No, it isn’t,” he replied quietly, his gruff voice comforting and painful at the same time.

“And I am failing.” She clenched her hands around the cup of water at the uncomfortable truth of it all. More tears slipped out of her eyes now, easier than the first.

“No, you’re not,” he answered instantly, and still neither of them looked at each other. For all anyone knew, they were strangers sitting beside each other at a bar. Sally closed her eyes and gulped, her eyes fluttering open as breathing became just that little more painful as she tried to keep a handle on herself.

“I’m going to take him to camp,” she told him, releasing her grip around the glass of water and pushing it forward slightly.

“Are you sure?” He asked simply, as if it was a casual decision, but she could still hear the gravity in the statement.

“What choice do I have?” She whispered, “he and I living together in the city…” she paused, taking in a deep breath, “it’s starting to attract attention from your world.” He didn’t say anything, just pressed his lips together and stared at the floor behind the bar with an intensity that would make it crack if he truly wanted it to. “A winged horse followed him to school.” She let the statement settle into the air. “It saw him, he saw it. Sooner or later it’s not gonna be just pretty things that are following him,” she breathed out, shaking her head slightly and looking up to the ceiling as the tears pushed from her eyes again.

It was so painful to sit here, mere steps from Percy, with the father he couldn’t meet. It was so painful, knowing that soon she would have to let him go, to let him fight his own battles. It was so painful knowing that there were forces much bigger than her little self, controlling everything, and making life so difficult for the beautiful little boy sitting just over there.

“At camp, he will be safe,” she nodded to herself, taking a sharp breath in and staring at the ceiling, trying to convince herself that this was the best idea.

“You don’t want him at camp,” he answered simply, as if he could look into her mind and see everything that she was thinking, as if he could look directly at her heart and see the immense amount of love she felt for that child.

“No,” she breathed out painfully, “no, I don’t,” and she almost began crying with the words, clenching her eyes shut and shaking her head.

“Tell me why,” he stated as he stared down at the wood of the bar but his attention was fully on her.

“You don’t wanna know why,” she scoffed lightly, shaking her head and looking to the ceiling again. Then she smiled, a rueful, exasperated little smile as he let out a huff of a chuckle.

“Probably not. But you have no one to say it to, and maybe that’s the most unfair part of it.” He paused, just for a moment, but her heart began to feel a little lighter somehow. “You say it, and I will listen.” They were silent, sitting together and listening to the quiet sounds of the bar, the clinking of spoons and glasses and plates, the rush of water inside the dishwasher.

“I want him to know who he is, before your worlds try to tell him who they want him to be,” her voice was forceful, verging on spiteful. “He is better than that, he has better things in him than that.” She was full of conviction, this was a truth she knew better than anything else in the world. Poseidon continued staring at the bar as he spoke.

“Then you have your answer. He’s going to go to school, and he’s going to learn things you can’t teach him there, and it’s going to be hard for the both of you. And it’s going to be torture for the both of you. But he will be stronger for it on the other side. His aunt raised him well.” And her tears flowed again, as if something in her chest released but brought with it a stabbing pain of everything that could not be.

“Do you wanna talk to him?” She asked through tears, hoping against all hope that he would say yes. “I know you shouldn’t,” she began, trying to convince him somehow. “Maybe just hear his voice,” she whispered, but there was another crack of thunder in the sky, and Poseidon turned away, listening as if he could hear things she could not.

“One day,” he simply whispered, and when she looked up to finally meet his eyes, to finally look at him again after so many years, no one was sitting there.

She sat at the bar for another few minutes, staring into the glass of water as if it had all the answers, but not one reason floated up for the absence of the boy’s mother.

For thirteen years, you watched your son’s life in snippets. It was like a faulty connection on a tv, darkness one moment, then a flash of Percy smiling as he opened the new mystery present that had been left at his door. A moment of beauty and excitement as you watched him uncover pieces of the world that you and his father had created, the world that led to his being. Then darkness once more, a year of knowing nothing about his life no matter how hard you tried, then Percy crying in Sally’s arms, sobbing about his latest struggles at school, and a pain so sharp in your heart that you almost abandoned secrecy to go to him, then darkness again. You didn’t know why it was like this. Why you didn’t get to watch over him as you so hoped before he was born, why even a distant relationship was stolen from you. You spent days climbing over the roots of Yggdrasil, peering into different worlds and hoping to see Percy living his life. Even if you found a branch that looked into Midgard, you saw only the mountains, with little dots of people climbing up them that left you amused for a moment, or boats on the ocean that made your heart ache desperately for your husband.

But you didn’t question it much either. Maybe it was his position between the two worlds of gods, the magic of the Fates and the Norns interfering with your powers, the mist cloaking him better than you had hoped.

You continued with your life as it had been long before you knew of the existence of the Greek Pantheon. You filled your position as a good goddess should, protecting the people from threats bigger than them, refusing to interfere with the machinations of demigods and their quests. You had no way of knowing that this obstruction of your view was unnatural. How would you know that someone else’s designs were at play here? How could you possibly know that your own father was stopping you from hearing the desperate prayers meant for you, the pleas of your dear friend when she felt she could not cope?

As you sat there beside Odin at the feast table, looking up to your father with reverence as he smiled cheerfully down at you, how were you to know he was actively hiding your son from you?

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