Disclaimer : I don't own PJ or the characters.
Warnings = Rated M for some slight swear's and hinted sexual themes in places.
Ages = Poseidon: 38, Triton: 10, Percy: 8, Tyson: 4
"So this bitch–"
"Yes, I would like a coffee–"
"-and then he proposed!"
"-ink I'm grounded–"
The suffocating noise and chatter of people in the diner was all around him, it seemed to go on forever; like one of those endless punishments in the Fields of Punishment. When was it going to end? He was mostly a good person, he didn't deserve this!
Poseidon flirted with the idea of banging his head on the hard table but decided against it; he didn't want to pay for the useless, stupid, ugly table. (The fact that he wouldn't even be able to buy the stupid cheap piece of crap was beside the point).
The fight his two eldest children were having opposite him didn't help matters, nor the fact that his youngest was timidly poking his side.
"Daddy, did you hear?" his youngest – Tyson – questioned, warm brown eyes big and large as he gazed up adoringly at him. As if Poseidon hung the moon and stars.
"Of course he's not," grumped his eldest – Triton – as the boy tried to doge another attack from his younger half-brother while trying to land his own hit. "Ouch, watch it you bloody brat!" Triton hissed, sea green eyes bordering on black, darkening like an oncoming storm.
Poseidon wandered if this was where he was supposed to reprimand his eldest for his bad language; after all, that's what a 'good parent' would surpassingly do. But it had been a long, tiring day; his head was pounding, his mind was running marathons and his mouth felt like sandpaper. And honestly, if he were going to lecture Triton, it would be for disrespecting him right in front of his face.
Brat doesn't even have the decency to mutter behind my back anymore.
"Quit whining! And don't talk to Ty like that!" Spat his middle child; Percy, his own darkening green eyes lighting up in response.
Poseidon slightly wondered if his headache caused him to travel to an alternate universe, because normally it was Percy disrespecting him with Triton being the 'responsible adult', which really meant sucking up and being a daddy's boy. Poseidon was the same in his childhood, and it actually worked. He was daddy Kronos' favourite kid. The man almost fell over laughing until he realised where and what date it was.
Was his favourite, father won't even think about me now, he thought, Bet my big brothers are toasting to that right now, they never liked me.
But even as he thought that, Poseidon knew the part about his brothers wasn't true. There was once a time where they had been as thick as thieves, hero's driving back the evil forces and saving the world together, and when the world turned its back on them; they didn't give a crap. They stood tall and strong together, attached at the hip; it didn't matter the massive age difference between them. At least, it hadn't before mummy and daddy got divorced, with Zeus (the middle brother) leaving with their traitor mother (she always liked him best), and then Hades (the eldest boy) running of like the coward he was and eloping after getting a girl pregnant.
Hestia – their sister and the eldest of the siblings – was cut from a different cloth though, because his sweet, beautiful sister had tried to help and stay in touch after Poseidon was disowned and it was because of him that they lost touch. Deleting all your phone numbers, emails and moving to a completely different state with no more contact to any of your family or passed relations was bound to do that.
Poseidon suddenly felt so nostalgic and old thinking about the past. Gods, was there really a time he had gotten along with his brothers, with his family? Was there really a time they didn't despise him?
The handsome man was once again woken from his depressing thoughts by the fight his eldest boys were having. Triton and Percy were a mess of waving limbs, punching hands and kicking feet; nearly toppling the table over and breaking the window they sat next too. But the real show was when the kids started fighting a bit dirty; just like Poseidon had taught them. Triton was yanking and pulling his younger brother's dark hair while Percy took to biting and poking the other boy's eyes. They were acting like two wild dogs over a bitch or piece of scraps, snarling and growling, giving the other death glares.
"Both of you stop that right now." Poseidon firmly ordered when the increase of stares and snooty gossip began to circulate and focus on them.
As if struck frozen with magic, both boys immediately stopped and shut up, looking at their father with full attention, as if awaiting orders. Good, the older man thought, at least they still know who the alpha is.
When the customers in the dinky diner kept staring at his family, Poseidon sent his own death glare; stormy sea green eyes blackening to narrowed slits as he looked down everyone with an ugly sneer. Needless to say the insignificant sounds from the nosey people began straight away again.
"Daddy," Tyson squeaked, he was always scared of his father's frightening glare. "Daddy did you hear?"
"Sorry son, I did not," Poseidon answered honestly, scratching his beard, I really need a trim . . . or a shave.
"Ty has his parent evening coming up and wondered if you could make this one," Percy helpfully spoke, slight bitter resentment creeping into his voice.
Poseidon chose to ignore that tone of voice; after all it wouldn't win him anything except some more silent treatment from Percy. Poseidon didn't know when this temper tantrum had started, but it had probably been when the man hadn't been able to attend Triton's and Percy's parent evenings. Honestly, Poseidon didn't see what all the fuss Percy was making about, the adult had to pull late shifts quite a lot just to be able to swim above the rent and bills. It wasn't like Poseidon was rich anymore with no cares in the world and the fact he never finished his education didn't help things in the slightest. Besides, papa Kronos and mama Rhea never came to any of his school evenings so it wasn't like Poseidon missing a few would cause the end of the world.
(Poseidon conveniently forgot about his siblings always showing up to all his parent evenings, giving massive headaches to the dull, boring teachers as they came up with new games and stories of which siblings were the parents. Of course, that had also been before the divorce).
Besides, Triton didn't mind, he understood the grave situation the family were in. The strong boy even offered to get a job delivering papers or something, a proposal Poseidon declined. Triton was a child and his only priority was to finish his homework on time and the man was determined to keep it as such.
"When is it?" Poseidon gruffly asked, eyes turning softer as he eyed his children.
"I dunno," Percy grumped, choosing still to eye the table with minimum interest.
The father sighed through his nose and said he'd email the school to check. That seemed to be good enough for now because Triton nodded understandably, Tyson's whole face lit up and even Percy raised his eyes in thanks.
"Anythin' else I can get ya folks while ya wait for ya meals?" a waitress asked.
Poseidon slightly grimaced at the annoying, improper use of dialect (thank you family for making me boring and proper) and turned to the waitress.
She was young, was the first thought through Poseidon's mind. The waitress was clothed in a short pink dress that went to her knees with a white frilly apron tied around a slim waist. The girl had shinning blonde hair that reminded him of snakes curling around a smooth heart shaped face with stunning emerald eyes, a button nose and lovely red lips. The waitress was beautiful, like a Greek goddess and one of the most beautiful women Poseidon had ever seen. The older man looked at her name tag before giving her his roguish smile that made all the ladies swoon.
"Medusa," Poseidon tested on his tongue, the name sounding foreign and exotic, telling the young lady as much, and watching with great pride and interest as she blushed beautifully, the red dusting her cheeks.
"Thank ya sir," Medusa smiled, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. Like Sally used to do, Poseidon tried to ignore the pang his heart felt.
"I only speak the truth, a beautiful name for a beautiful woman," Poseidon gave a flirty wink, thrilled that his charm still worked. (He was only thirty-eight, quite young when he had kids).
Opposite, Percy scoffed, grabbing one of the knives on the table and working on carving something into the wood. Triton raised an unimpressive eyebrow at him and went back to playing games on Poseidon's phone that Triton had stolen earlier. Tyson wasn't interested in the world at all, completely focused on colouring in the important picture paper the diner had given him.
The adult chose to ignore his family and instead continued flirting with the young Medusa; bringing the flirting slightly higher after a few moments, "You make a lovely host miss, I must say with your hospitality this has now become one of my favourite places to eat."
Medusa laughed well naturedly, a lovely bell like sound, "That's good, ma family will be glad, they own this joint."
Poseidon learned that the diner Aunty Em's, was started by Medusa's grandmother and had since always been passed to the eldest daughter. A bell and call of Medusa's name had broken them from their lovely chat.
"That would be ya meal's sir," Medusa said.
"Please, call me Don," Poseidon charmingly smiled, causing Medusa to blush some and hurry to grab their food.
"Do you really have too, dad?" Triton questioned.
"Yes son, I do." Poseidon winked, "I think I deserve some fun after all the shit that's happening to me."
Triton rolled his green eyes; all the children were quite used to his behaviour (except Tyson, who really didn't understand that conversation yet). Poseidon knew that some – a lot – of people didn't approve of him, of his parenting. But the green eyed man did try his hardest for them and he sincerely loved his kids. "Fine," his eldest sighed, "But not tonight, okay dad?"
Poseidon wandered why tonight he couldn't let loose but his son just replied back with the date – June 19th – as if that were reason enough.
"Alright," Poseidon yielded as their (his) waitress came back with their meals.
"Okay, so who has the Chicken Goujons with Onion Rings?" Medusa questioned, placing the child-size portion in front of Tyson when the boy raised his hand, "Ah, the Veggie burger with fries?"
"That's me," Triton said, helping settle the plate in front of him and digging right in.
"Ew," Percy wrinkled his nose, "mine is the Cheeseburger," he said, reaching over to grab it.
"So that just leaves the Hawaiian pizza," Medusa smiled at Poseidon.
"Great observation," the middle child mocked, "You should be a detective." This caused the young waitress to blush in humiliation.
"That's a big word Percy; sure you know what it means?" Triton mocked back.
"Why don't ya just mind your own beeswax," Percy retorted around his mouthful of fries, "And go back to your disgusting food."
"I'm just respecting my health, you should too! Its way healthier than meat," Triton turned his nose up at his half-brothers plate, trying not to let the mouth-watering burger distract his cause.
"Maybe healthier, but much less tasty." the middle boy purposely bit into his awesome burger slowly and moaned obnoxiously.
"You're such a child!" Triton growled, angrily champing his own meal.
"Ignore my son's, their naturally bratty," Poseidon reassured, trying to fix his son's mess.
"They're ya kid's?" Medusa seemed honestly surprised, "I thought they were ya nephews or somethin'." The young girl was looking at the three children, mind running with scenarios on whether or not she was willing to date a guy with kids.
Poseidon didn't care about dating, he just wanted a quick fun fling or something, but he wasn't going to tell the woman that.
"This one's a keeper dad," Percy opened his mouth again before wolfing down some more chips and deeming the situation too boring to ruin anymore.
"Yes they are, my wife died a while back and their all I have left." Medusa shyly glanced at him, smiling slightly as his words. Poseidon inwardly smiled, he could practically taste sweet victory and he wasn't talking about the pizza. Saying that was always a winner, women loved that kind of stuff; thought he was sweet and lovable and that they could mend and fix him as though he were broken. Sometimes he really wanted to scoff at that.
Although the sentence was technically true, what he 'forgot' to mention was that his wife – Amphitrite – was only the mother of his eldest son and had been dead for five years after catching a deadly disease after visiting a country for her work. His other two children (that he knew of) had both been born from affaires and flings.
Perseus (Percy for short) who had been born to Sally Jackson; a beautiful, kind and lovely woman with wild curly brown hair and adventure in her ever-changing coloured eyes, she had been so young and their love had lasted a whole year before she found out he was married and broke it off. Poseidon hadn't known about Percy until the kid was four, when Poseidon had gone to visit her again, with a marriage proposal (his former wife had died the previous year). Only he had found Sally to have also greeted death, leaving behind a small, young boy who looked exactly like him (apart from the high cheek bones and slight blue in his eyes) with a monstrous pig of a man. Needless to say, Poseidon had had the gutter trash arrested for a long list of charges and had gotten custardy of Percy. It had been easy back then, for the man had been Poseidon Olympia, one of the richest, powerful and influential men back in New York. But after the huge disaster and being disowned, Poseidon had moving as far as possible, to a small town/village that weren't interested in celebrities at all; in fact they hadn't even known who he was. So he had taken the last name Jackson in honour of Sally.
Tyson . . . well, he actually didn't know whom Tyson's mother was. The kid was left on his doorstop (he had also still been an Olympia back then) and Poseidon freaked. He took at least a dozen paternity tests just to be sure, and on every single one of them was the same result; Tyson was his son. All the black haired man knew for sure was that the conversation of 'who is my mum?' was going to hella awkward. What was also kind of weird was the fact that Tyson didn't really look like him, at least not yet. Where both his older brothers had black and dark hair, Tyson had light brown, where both his brothers had sea green-blue eyes, Tyson had soft brown. The differences didn't just end there, where Triton and Percy were snarky, childishly arrogant, street smart and had a slight temper (all inherited from their father), Tyson was quiet, calm, naïve and slightly dense. But then again the kid was four so Poseidon supposed that was normal for other children.
"Well is there anything else I can do?" Medusa gave him a suggestive look, telling him without words what she was really implying.
"Boy's, you want anything else?" Poseidon questioned, trying to play the slightly I'm-kinda-modest-in-front-of-my-children behaviour.
"Coke," Percy burped, at least having the decency to blush in embarrassment with a shy smile.
"No thanks dad," Triton motioned to his half full glass of Fanta.
"Coke, please!" Tyson jumped in, always wanting to be like Percy.
"No more for me thanks," The male smiled, ruffling his youngster's wild hair.
When Medusa came back with his two kid's drinks, she discreetly handed her phone number over with the bill. Poseidon smirked at the lipstick kiss under the waitress's note; you're a great guy, call me.
"Medusa, get ya arse back ta work!" A woman around Medusa's age shouted.
"Yeah yeah, I'm coming! Why don't ya calm down before ya turn as red as ya hair!" Medusa shouted back before turning to Poseidon, "Sorry 'bout ma sister, Stheno can be a right pain in ma–"
"MEDUSA!" Stheno shouted even louder causing some customers to have a headache.
"I said I was coming!" Medusa went to her sister and after a few angry spats went back to serving other customers.
It really didn't take that long to wolf down their meals, and when they left it was the beautiful Medusa that saw them off.
"Come back soon!" She waved cheerily.
Oh I will . . . Poseidon thought. The man was also thankful that his kids didn't ask any more questions concerning the young waitress on their way home.
Home, Poseidon thought bitterly, I miss my real home; a large mansion with a fountain and amazing pool, my flat screen TV's, my awesome sports car, my aquarium, my super big fridge and my soft-as-clouds bed.
Where he lived now however, was a rundown apartment that barely fitted the lot of them, and Poseidon still had trouble paying the rent. Poseidon ignored the chipped paint, the broken front door and squeaky stairs as the family made their way up to their flat.
"Why don't 'ou sit down, daddy?" Tyson led his dad to the couch.
"Yeah," Percy agreed, practically tackling his father down, "And why don't ya just stay right there."
His two youngest kids giggled on their way to the kitchen which was only a few paces away. Poseidon shook his head fondly; his boys were really weird sometimes.
After a minute the children all came back with their hands behind their backs. Poseidon instantly thought about the surprise water fight they'd all had a few weeks ago, and almost bolted for cover. However, the genuine looks on their usually mischievous faces calmed his racing heart but he still looked at them with slight suspicion.
"This is for you daddy," Tyson said after Percy nudged him, "Hope you like it."
"He better," grumbled Triton.
Poseidon took the offered object with raised eyebrows; it was a handmade card, made from an A4 piece of paper that was folded in half. On the front there was glitter and drawings of . . . really, the father didn't know what those blobs were but there were three small blobs next to a big blob so Poseidon assumed the picture was their family. As he opened the card, more glitter and wobbly lines and blobs appeared, along with smudged, hard-to-read handwriting, but from what he could make out, it read:
Dear daddy,
Thanks fo alwas being ther for us. We love yo no mater what!
Your the bestest and most awesome dad everr! Dont worry that mot people hate you, cause we don't! HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! JJJ
Love ya lots
Tronny, Percy and Ty XXXOOO
(Ps – the glitter was my idea – Ty!)
Poseidon couldn't help the gigantic smile to split across his face at the heart-warming gesture. It was far from neat and tidy but to the father it was the most beautiful and perfect piece of art. Especially since he'd been so busy with work and his kids, gosh how did he forget it was father's day?
Because you never really celebrated; your father didn't care and it wasn't like you thought you'd ever receive something as special as this.
Not true again; you always gave your father a card and every year Kronos would take you finishing with him today, just the two of you, actually having a good time and decent conversation. That's probably where the hate your brothers have for you stemmed from.
"I don't know what to say, thank you all," Poseidon smiled at each son, ruffling their hair before trying to bring them into a bear-hug.
"That's not all," Triton stopped their father from pulling them together. "This is for you too!" Triton revealed his present to be a bottle of wine. A bottle of wine that was just below half full and that Poseidon knew was actually already his. He stashed that away in one of the cupboards; a cupboard Poseidon always said was full of fruit, vegetables and Brussel-sprouts to keep the kids away from it. This didn't make him angry, if anything it made him a little sad because his kids had wanted to get him something special but had to settle with finding something around the house.
The older man smiled lovingly at his sons, "Thanks," he said again, actually meaning it.
"And here's mine!" Percy happily showed the parent the family's TV remote.
Poseidon laughed joyfully, slight crinkles appearing around his laughing green eyes like crow's feet, "Thanks again."
"We specially made sure to be back here before six," the middle child playfully rolled his eyes, "The football match is coming on in about ten minutes and you said your favourite team were playing!"
"I did say that, didn't I?" the father wondered aloud and cuddled with his sons around the small TV screen, the family all snuggled up in a blue fluffy blanket.
Maybe he wasn't Poseidon Olympia anymore; maybe his father and brother's despised him, maybe he wasn't rich anymore, but the man realised that didn't mean he wasn't still just as strong, powerful and important; because he was a parent, a father, and to his children he was the most important person in their lives. Poseidon vowed to do right by them unlike how he treated their mothers, the tall man vowed to be worthy of this blessed miracle family he was given.
Even though we're small, I love our family, I'm proud of us, he thought, arms tightening around his sons slightly, we will get by, just like we always do. I'll show my family what a mistake they did, throwing me out, disowning and dishonouring me.
I'll prove to them I'm not a weak pup who will roll over and be leashed, Poseidon thought, gazing at the screen and finding his older brother Zeus standing next to the team he supported. The blue eyed man looked so carefree and arrogant, like nothing could or would dare touch him.
The youngest Olympia smiled; I'll prove how wrong you all were.
So, this was suppose to be a cute dinner for (early) Father's Day but it didn't turn out that way. I'm actually not really sure what I wrote here. But I hope you liked it.