Chapter Text
Demigods weren’t human.
Sometimes it was easy to forget. When they laughed, when they joked, when they grieved. When they smiled, when they hated, when they loved. Those were the fragments of humanity in their blood. Those belonged to their mortal parents, the ones who could never truly look at their own child.
The gods were their domains. They were chaos in all its forms. Their mortal lovers had the edge of blasphemy, a strand of chaos. Strong enough to catch the attention of the gods.
Those were ones who had pushed down the instinctual sense of danger, the ones who did not allow their eyes to skip over their own child.
Those were the ones who loved their god children, even if their bodies told them to fear them.
Sometimes it was harder to remember.
There is something off about them. There is something that makes mortals instinctively avoid their eyes. They are shadows, they are light, they. They are predators.
Demigods loved to fast, too hard. They knew danger like it was an old friend. They walked in tandem with death. They were destruction and chaos and too other to belong. Their eyes were too bright. Their skin was too smooth. Their movements are too sharp. They were always watching, always knowing, because instincts from a millennium of heroes didn’t allow them to stop.
But even among the others, there was something about Percy Jackson. Something that sets your teeth on edge.
Gods fear him. Is it any wonder his own kind do as well?
He is too other, even among his own. He is the worst of the seas and the best of them. He smiles, and you see blood. He is a monster.
He is wrath and the warm embrace of a mother and the unrelenting tides of the sea. He is the wonder of the sea and the inevitability of the abyss and the silence that waits after the last star dies. They tremble when they look upon him.
And then they laugh at themselves, because he is theirs.
He belongs to all demigods. He is their protector.
He is the earth and the storm and the sea and loyalty, and he will save or avenge you, but he will be there.
The greeks have no more weak left. They were reaped, war after war. If you didn’t have something, you didn’t survive. They are all a little inhuman. They are all too bloodthirsty, too powerful, too much.
The greeks have seen Percy sacrifice again and again.
Percy sets their teeth on edge. Percy has a hum around him that they despise. Percy smiles, and the world spins.
But Percy is theirs, so they accept his horror and use it as a weapon and a shield.
His offness is their offness, and he belongs to them, and they belong to him, and that is the way of the demigods.
"We are going to hold Manhattan.
Till sunrise."
It is the motto of Camp Half-Blood. The living remembers the goosebumps rippling up their arms, the fear and the terror and the bone-deep certainty of Percy Jackson’s eyes.
He didn’t say they didn’t have a choice. He didn’t say no one was coming.
(They knew anyway)
He said to hold Manhattan, he said they were brave and true, he said they will and they did.
Till sunrise.
Before battle, when he addresses her troops, he is not a boy or a man. He is determination and loyalty and promises. He whispers to be brave. He whispers to be true. He whispers I will not abandon you. And, he looks to be a god.
He would kill and die for them, and they would do the same because what choice do they have, in the face of that loyalty?
The older campers whisper stories. The younger ones shrink in fear. Until they see his smile, until they hear his promises.
He’s ours, they realize.
They touch his flesh. It feels human, but the awe in their hearts doesn't let them notice it.
The Roman demigods are different. The most powerful among them, the ones who can withstand the blood in their mouth and the ringing of their teeth, welcome him.
Reyna, who was raised with ghosts and lived in magic and survived with pirates, looks upon him and feels relief. This is someone who understands blood. This is someone who will not shirk away from her. She is tired, she is lonely, and she wants. She knows monsters, and she wants one on her side.
Hazel had been dead for seventy years. Little by little, her humanity has slipped away. She clings to it as tightly as she can. She does not allow it to define her. She regains it. But she meets Percy and thinks he’s a god, and she doesn’t fear him. Because she has been dead, because she has lived in the realm of her father longer than she has been alive. Because he feels like danger and protection, and she welcomes it.
Frank fears him. More than that, he envies him. Juno, Neptune, Mars. The gods seem drawn to their own, even if he still wears mortal skin. But Percy is lost and scared. He pushes down his fear because, at the end of the day, Frank Zhang is the bravest man you will ever know. He makes friends with a monster, and when the day comes, the monster protects him with his life.
Jason should feel completion when he looks upon Percy. He should feel glad to finally find someone to understand the power. He wants to be friends with Percy. But Percy doesn’t hide that he’s a monster. Jason does. Jason cannot let Rome find out his true power. Jason, who was raised by Lupa. Jason, who was sculpted by Rome. He ignores the instinct to bite and tells himself Percy is a monster. He tells himself it is the Greek in Percy. He wants to be friends with a monster. He wants to be feral and fight and bleed and fly without the hope of Rome on his shoulders. (He loves Camp Half Blood best because they are untamed, they are brutal, they are savage, and he is too.)
Piper underestimates him. She will kick herself for this later. She has been underestimated her entire life. She has faced a world that saw her only for her face, or her father, or her mother. Percy is too wild for her to understand. Percy is too… ordinary to understand. (It is not ordinary. She knows that now. It is a storm, swirling underneath human skin. It is bones, shaped by an earthquake. She is a fool). He is small. His muscles are lean, shaped by scars. He looks battered. He looks like a boy ravaged by a hurricane. He does not set her teeth on edge, because she is powerful too. But when he walks out of Tarturtus, her instincts scream.
Leo thought Percy was cool. Funny. He had the edge of danger, the type that made the hair on the back of his neck prickle. He seemed like the type Aunt Rosa would have hated, and Leo liked him for that. He was dangerous, he was strong, and he was funny and goofy, and Leo could see how the world shaped them both in the wry twist of their mouths. It was after Calypso that he became angry at Percy, even though he knew it wasn’t his fault. Even though his lungs wheezed from Tartarus' poisonous air, he apologized. And then it was jealousy. A sick, twisted thing that he tried to untangle. Leo was the seventh wheel. He was the sidekick in every part of his life. And Percy—Percy who was so much like him, Percy who had a dangerous power too, Percy who told jokes because if not he would cry—Percy had succeeded. He had taken and taken all life had to offer. He was happy. He was the leader, the idol, the star. Leo was the dark abyss of space; so similar, and yet so different.
For Annabeth, Percy was very simple. He was a monster. She had seen him turn his own poison against Misery. She had seen his humanity slip. But he was hers. She didn’t fear him; she feared losing him. She feared what that shattered look in his eyes would become. She feared being left.
When she told him to stop, it was because no mortal could kill a god.
When she told him to stop, it was because he was killing a god.
When she told him to stop, it was because his skin glowed gold.
The legacies, the adults, the ones with more mortal than god, trembled when they faced him.
They bluster. They are descendants of Mars, of Apollo, of Mercury. They are more powerful than the mere son of Neptune. They have faced more than this disrespectful boy. They defeated Krios! What has he done that has earned Juno’s attention?
Why does he set their teeth on edge? Why does their blood shy away? Why are they scared?
He is greek. That explains it, and then it does not, because he is greek and he faced Kronos and their blood sings with truth, and they are scared—
He is their praetor. He is a monster, but he is theirs. He is their friend. He is their rival. They hope to one day be powerful enough to be in his presence.
In New Rome, he does the homework. He goes to the lectures. He laughs, yet retreats into himself. The world bends and breaks around him. Campers shy away while desperately trying to build up courage. He feels like an idol, not a man. They want to befriend him. They want his coveted loyalty. They want to say they have talked to Percy Jackson.
But when he scowls down at his paper, they flinch back. When he rolls his eyes, their heartbeat quickens. When he fights, they watch in awe.
Next time, they tell themselves.
Next time, all while shrinking away from Percy Jackson.
A fan club and a detractor, all at once.
He twirls his pen between his fingers. His eyes glow like the sea. His jawline is as sharp as the scars twisted up his limbs. Far away, the waves crash onto the shore.
He is beautiful and terrible.
He looks like a god.
Annabeth kisses him. She, too, is dangerous. They look at her and pretend they feel disgust, not fear.
Monsters seek him out. There are better targets, easier targets. Children, for one. Percy will always come running when he sees a child in need.
But they seek him out to place their own stain on his battered soul. They seek him out, hoping against all gods to draw some blood, harboring a secret dream to finally kill him. They seek him out because of the glory that comes with hurting the son of Poseidon. If they were to succeed, monsters would treat them like a god.
Percy is easy to find.
His scent is rich. Overpowering enough to smother the camps. It clings to everything he touches. It is protection and disguise, but it is also the greatest danger a demigod can face. It muddles monsters, making them go after the others carrying Percy’s scent.
(Percy doesn’t know. He doesn't, not until he gets a dream and sees the little girl he escorted to camp praying for his help while a monster bemoans her scent.
He brings back her body. He burns her shroud.
He slaughters the monster.
He doesn’t hug anymore).
Percy Jackson’s soul is stained with marks. Any god or monster takes one look and knows this boy is the hero of Olympus, because his soul is too marked to not be.
Poseidon’s claim stretches across his soul and skin. Invisible to mortal eyes.
(Percy looks in the mirror. Looks at the swirling green and blue, like a living storm, encircling his neck.
He tells himself he’s dreaming.
He doesn’t look at any other mirrors).
Ares’s curse and rage and Mars's gratitude. The gratitude of all the gods stamped on his soul. Apollo’s light, making it glow. Zeus’ mark, making it gold.
Kronos’ gold, a tear in his very soul. Where he was cut by the scythe of the Titan King. Luke’s handprint, black and blue, pressed over his pit scorpion scar. Ethan’s last words were a promise embedded in his heart. Selina’s last breath, imprinted on his skin. Zoe’s stars, painted on his soul. Bianca’s gratitude, holding back the river Lethe.
He is stained. He is marked. To the gods, his skin is not mortal. It is a living, breathing tapestry of the deads he has done.
It has the mark of every monster he has ever faced. The stone quality of Medusa. The magic of Circe. The strength of Atlas. The curse of Gorgon's blood, mingled with Gaea’s wrath. Even the stamped interest of Typhon himself, from where Percy unleashed his rage to save his life and woke the greatest threat the world had ever known.
The most noticeable is the dark abyss of Tartarus. It is blood, searing his very soul. It is endless and infinite. It will always stain his skin, his fingers, his limbs.
(Percy looks at the black of his limbs. It looks burnt. It looks like someone poured acid over his skin. It looks like pockets of his limbs have become a black hole.
He tells himself he is dreaming.
But he looks anyway, because Bob’s silver kiss is stamped to his forehead, and Damasen’s raw hope is splattered to his skin.
a thousand ghostly curses are trying to push deeper into his soul.
He pays them no mind, because his wrist holds the paw print of small Bob.
He hates his body and his scars. He hates that he can't see his skin.
But he tells no one, because his friends have stained him, and there is no force in the universe that will let Chiron remove it).
When he drinks nectar, it tastes no longer like cookies or home. It simply tastes like the meal he was craving. Like pancakes, or a steak.
Geras, god of old age, hates Percy. Percy doesn’t understand it. He loves him, wants him more than anything. He welcomes old age. He wants morality.
(“I love you, bro,” Percy says. He hugs old age tight. He sees a vision of himself, Annabeth, and Grover, wrinkled and grey, sitting around a campfire laughing. In the background, he sees an adult woman with black hair and gray eyes.
Geras hugs him back. When he pulls away, the god’s face is folded in grief.
“I’m sorry,” the god of Old Age says.
Percy cups the chalice close to his heart. The heat is so great that he should have been burned. He isn’t.
Percy isn’t an idiot. There is a difference between not noticing and turning a blind eye.
“Can you stop this?” He asked.
Geras shook his head.
Percy is helpless against fate. He prefers death to this creeping divinity).
He spends time with Annabeth. He goes home to his mortal family. He holds Estelle close to his skin and hopes to all gods she’ll be imprinted there, too.
Sally looks at him like she knows.
Annabeth is frantic, looking through books at all hours of the day.
Percy hugs the newly returned Leo. He trains with his family. He feels like screaming.
(“Perwy!” Estelle giggles.
He holds her close. Then his mom, then Paul, because he was family too.
When he looks in the mirror, he does not see their marks.
He starts cutting his skin).
He hides razors and knives from his mom. He pressed Riptide to what was once his mortal spot.
He is not suicidal, not really. But he’s trapped, and he wants a way out.
He presses deeper. Tears build, pressing against his eyelids. The pain is nothing compared to what he’s been through.
But he can smell his own blood, and it makes him dizzy.
He doesn’t want to die. He wants to grow old with Annabeth. He wants to start a family. He wants to visit camp on weekends. He wants to see Estelle grow up. He wants to see if he gets any other siblings. He wants to go back to when he was twelve, an unclaimed camper with nothing to his name.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers in the air.
He is in his New Rome apartment. The one he bought with Annabeth. It is their home, his home. He does not want her to hate it. But he doesn’t want to die anywhere else.
He has a suicide note written. It took two weeks to write. He made sure to write it in English, so his mortal family could read it too.
He doesn’t want to leave Annabeth. It’s her greatest fear. He doesn’t want this at all.
But he is running out of time.
He can eat ambrosia so pure it could incinerate even a demigod. He can see past the glamours of gods, feel their power on his skin. He can hear the endless prayers in his ears. He can feel his skin glowing.
He is out of time.
He forgets one thing. Riptide is of the sea. And Percy is Poseidon’s favorite child.
Percy Jackson pushes Riptide through his spine.
The oceans freeze.
A god cradles a mortal’s body.
My son. There is so much I long to tell you. There is so much I hope you see.
You will know.
You will forgive me.
You will be immortalized throughout history. You will see the world grow at your guide.
You will see me. And you will finally understand.
You may not be happy.
But you are my favorite.
I could tell you the truth. I could tell you many things.
“That I am the current beneath the calm, dragging unseen.”
“That I am the weight of the deep, pressing though you never see it.”
“That I am the moon’s pull upon the tide, an invisible leash on oceans.”
“That I am the quake hidden in the stone, waiting to split the earth.”
I am your father, and you, Perseus, are mine.
Percy Jackson’s skin glows a brilliant gold.
In his death, he ascends.