Ah yes, my Thuke are hooligans. Again, this piece is very, very old. But I decided to polish it off and send it on its way.
Enjoy!
They're in a small nameless suburb middle of the night, leaping over fences through a maze of streets, thick rags tied to their feet to mute their impacts and both straining to keep from cracking up. Tonight's just about fun, a sort of celebration. They just killed all three Furies without getting a scratch on them. Great teamwork. They're rearranging the hedges around the neatly trimmed homes, filling bird baths with fresh dog poop, splashing buckets of paint on flawless sidings, and smashing garden gnomes with wicked grins.
There's something very satisfying about their childish escapade. Deep down Thalia's getting revenge on them. For being able to lead a normal life. For being happy. She's imagining their faces when they wake in the morning and find their prissy lawns torn and their garbage on their doorsteps. Serves them right.
They leap another fence into a neatly trimmed lot, and Thalia grins. They have a pool. Luke gets a mischievous grin as well but raises a brow when his partner in crime flings herself off the diving board into chlorinated waters. The water is cool and dark, and she shoots through it like a torpedo. It feels good. He gets this little crease in his brow and calls out her name, obviously worried when she takes her time surfacing. She is a daughter of Zeus after all, and Poseidon's not a fan of her father. Even less so of any children he has. He gets too close to the edge of the pool. His mistake.
Her hand catches his ankle, and she pulls him in after her. He's inhaling water the next instant alongside her, sputtering as he breaks the surface. He looks so frazzled, and his hair is stuck up in weird clumps. She laughs, and he splashes her. She splashes him back, forgetting herself and letting out a gleeful, un-Thalia-like squeal. The light to the porch flickers on, and the duo dart out of the pool and over the fence as the angry resident shouts. Thalia would point out that they could have defaced his property instead and not been caught, but she's too busy running for Hades, sopping wet and buzzing with electricity. They dart through the shadows, avoiding the gleam of headlights and street lamps by inches.
Their feet slop against the pavement as a siren blares distantly. The mortal called the cops on them. So freaking what? She's been evading monsters for her whole life practically. You really think a couple goons in uniforms can catch her, car or not?
She's just angry that her swim was interrupted. See that's one of her big secrets. Thalia loves swimming. She may be a child of the sky but she was far more at home in the water. Happier. Swimming she's good at and it isn't some divine talent gifted to her by her absent father.
Which is why she loves pools so much. Something about chlorine mutes the great sea god's power. It's controlled, without an undertow and if it's inside, no waves or wind to stir the glassy blue surface. When she was younger, just out of diapers, Thalia's mom always dumped her at the resort club she had a membership at. Thalia would spend every moment in the pool till her mother came to fetch her. Her lips turned purple and a perfume of chlorine clung to her skin, and Thalia's hands and feet would be wrinkled and pruned like she'd aged a good seventy years. Needless to say, she loved it. Especially since her mom always got this displeased frown on her face at her daughter's appearance.
They take a winding path, skirting around the cops till the sound of the sirens melts away. It's an uphill climb to the bridge overhang where they'd stashed their stuff and by the time they're changing into dry cloths. Luke grumbles about the wet cloths chaffing his legs and blaming Thalia of course.
Thalia doesn't take the bait. Not tonight. She's too busy thinking. Daydreaming about living in that house. Being able to settle down and lay down roots in one place. Go swimming whenever she wants and go to school. Make friends other than the cranky thirteen-year-old that she danced between liking and hating. Basically being normal. It's wistful and not new. And completely pointless. No matter how much she wishes otherwise, this is her reality, and she'll have to make due with it.
She takes first watch that night, shrinking into the shadows as a cop car rolls past. Unable to calm her thoughts and still remembering the cool water on her skin, she doesn't wake Luke when it is his turn for watch. Not even when night burns away into day. But she does decide something that night. She's going swimming again tonight whether or not Luke wants to...
I'll be posting more soon. Happy Thuke is fun Thuke.
~Crisi