Author's Note:

Awkward awkwardness is about to ensue.

Please Read This: Also, I'm very very aroace, so this chapter took literal days to write, several trips to the wall to smack my head against it, and annoying one of my friends who's actually in a relationship by bombarding her with questions to make sure the scene wasn't as clinical as my brain would actually write it. Please be kind to this attempt.

Cheers!
justapercyjacksonfan

Chapter 15

Dolese Youth Park was, unfortunately, rather large. And the note didn't specify where in the park they were supposed to meet. They split into groups of two to try and cover more ground. It had first been suggested that they keep their groups from the morning, but Jo had insisted that Jess and Caleb be grouped, while she and Ian searched together. They had asked her why, but she hadn't actually answered, instead just repeating that it was important they separated that way. No one else could give any reasons that would deter her, so that was how it was.

Jo and Ian were exploring the west side, while Caleb and Jess took the east, which was the more forested half with lots of trails running through the trees. It was essentially a safe haven for squirrels.

They didn't see many people. Until the incident. The one that just made things...awkward. They had been making their way through the network of trails for about an hour when they saw two women. Or rather, two weird flame-haired women, each with a goat-leg and metal leg. Jess had slowed Caleb down, grabbing his hand so that he'd keep pace with her.

"You see them, right?"

"What, those two cheerleaders? Yeah. What about them?"

"What? No, those two monster things! With the flame hair and the goat legs?"

"I'm not sure what you mean?" He gave them a hard look. "Well...kind of. I couldn't at all before you said anything but now they sometimes flicker to look like that."

"So there's some sort of illusion going on." Jess said.

"Do you think we'll be able to just sneak past them? I'm really not in the mood." Caleb said.

"...maybe. Neither of our parents are even Olympians. We can try, but if they notice, we'll have to take care of them." Caleb gave her a look of disappointment. "Hey, I don't want to either!"

A group of old ladies passed them going the opposite direction. "Aw, young love!" one said, in an uncomfortably loud voice that she clearly thought was discreet. Her fellows agreed with her.

Jess was confused...until she realized she was still holding Caleb's hand, and that they were whispering to each other in a way that, yeah, probably did look romantic. She was about to set them straight, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw the monsters looking behind them to find the sudden noise. Instead, she smiled at them and kissed Caleb on the cheek, which only caused the group to giggle to themselves.

They put their plan into action, still playing the couple because the stupid monsters thought they were one now. Both were furiously trying not to acknowledge to themselves that each one was blushing a perfect scarlet. They passed the monsters in front of them, managing not to be noticed as demigods. Jess wanted to drop hands. She was way too nervous for this right now. But they had to wait until they were no longer within sight of the monsters. That time couldn't come soon enough.

Jess was hyper aware of the fact that she and Caleb were alone. Like, alone, alone. Like, not only were the rest of the demigods not with them, but the path they were on was deserted. And as much as she ignored it, and pretended it wasn't at all true, she liked Caleb. To be perfectly honest, she didn't need to be with anyone to have value. But...wow, Caleb made her feel some type of way. He seemed so stoic and calm, and yeah, he was also easy on the eyes. That helped. But whenever it was just the two of them, he was sweet, awkward and uncertain. Or how protective he was of his sister. But then he was also really sarcastic sometimes like...it was like the gods had built someone to attract her. Someone who valued her self-reliance and her own strength, but also made her feel special, warm, and fuzzy? Yes please.

And it was really getting on her nerves. I mean, she had assured Corina at least a thousand times that she wasn't going to go all dopey over a guy, even when her best friend was swooning over some new boy. This wasn't fair. Especially because they were in the middle of a quest!

So she walked an uncomfortable foot behind him, making absolutely certain there could be no way they might brush hands or something. Because she wasn't dealing with the distraction right now.

She was so caught up in her thoughts, she didn't realize Caleb had stopped until he put out a hand to keep her from running into him.

"What is it?"

"Right there. See how disheveled the plants and trees are? Something big entered the forest right there. Worth checking out."

They made their way over to the trees. There didn't appear to be any gashes like they had been clawed, but Caleb was right. They had been trampled by something, or more than one very large thing. They were inspecting the damage when they heard voices approaching.

"Are you sure?"

"No. They may just have spent time with one. Or perhaps only one is. But at some point they have been near a demigod, or they simply are. Either way, I'm hungry."

"And did you see the boy? Regardless if he's a demigod or not, I wouldn't mind eating him."

Jess and Caleb froze and gave each other panicked looks. The monsters from before. Caleb took the initiative, grabbing her hand and dragging her further into the woods so that they wouldn't be seen.

The two half-bloods tried to keep an eye out, to see if the monsters would pass by. When they were within sight, they had forgone acting like regular mortals, openly sniffing the air to try and find where Jess and Caleb might have gone. One of them approached the tree line where they had entered the woods.

This time, Jess took the initiative.

"You're going to have to trust me on this. We want the element of surprise if we can." she hissed, not wanting anyone else to hear. "It's going to be weird. When you see them come into the clearing, give me some sort of signal." Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, they would think they were just some mortal couple, looking for somewhere private.

"What are you planning?"

"Nothing. Just some blind hope that they might decide to ignore us."

"You always have a plan."

Jess hesitated, stealing her nerves. Gods, what was she doing? "This time it's just instinct"

She positioned herself so that her back was to the monsters. It left her exposed to attack, but she trusted Caleb. Then before she could talk herself out of it, she pulled his face onto hers and kissed him.

It was awkward, to say the least. Jess didn't really have a lot of experience or a deep basin of knowledge, and neither did Caleb. Worse, Caleb didn't even know it was coming, so they both fumbled through the first few seconds.

After a few seconds, Caleb's brain finally caught up with what was going on. He moved his hands to wrap around her waist. Jess's original plan was to keep her hands on her daggers, so when the monster thought she was distracted she could catch them off guard by throwing her daggers straight into their chest. But her mind happily forgot about that. Her hands drifted down to his neck, pulling him closer.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered if the monsters had snuck up behind her or not. Caleb was supposed to signal her. But it was electrifying. There was something freeing about just kissing him. He was cold, obviously, his mother was the snow goddess. But the air between them was warm. Jess's senses felt like a weird combination of hypersensitive and noticing everything, and completely blind to anything else.

They separated for breath. "What - Jess, what are we doing - they're behind us."

Part of her wanted to ignore it. Fortunately, the other part of her responded to his words. Her left hand dropped to her belt, whipping out the dagger and whirling around. In a split second, she took in the situation. Both were off balance from her sudden turn around. She hurled her first knife and not waiting to see if it hit, took the second one and threw it at the second. It left her defenseless, but she trusted Caleb.

The first one hit its mark, but the second monster was smarter and realized what had happened, sidestepping at the last moment.

Jess ran towards where the pile of monster dust to retrieve one of her weapons, trusting Caleb to cover her. Just as the monster was about to reach her, a blast of winter hit it, freezing it in place. She scooped up the knife and jabbed it into the creature, turning it into dust.

Jess stood up and brushed herself off. Now that she was no longer in danger, her mind went straight back to...oh gods, she had kissed her secret crush. What in the name of Olympus and the Underworld had possessed her to do that? Like, she had enjoyed it, but...maybe not her best idea, because they were in the middle of saving the world. Her having a boyfriend was not a high priority right now. Gods, why did feelings have to be so complicated?

She picked up her other dagger. "Right. So."

He was looking anywhere but at her. "We can...we can talk about it later if you want. We need...um, we need to find the monster camp right now. Saving Bri and all that."

"Yeah. Yeah, of course. Lead the way." she said.

And they began exploring the forest, once again an uncomfortable few feet away from each other.

Author's Note:

Yeah. So this was literal hell for me to write. I hope you enjoyed it anyway!

In case you were worried, Caleb is fifteen, and Jess is fourteen. There's like a four month age gap, so there's no weird Luke/Annabeth age gap stuff going on. (Bri is sixteen, Ian is fifteen, almost sixteen, and Jo is thirteen, if you were wondering, I don't think I ever definitively specified)

If you're craving even more information, then Bri is non-binary, asexual, and aromantic. Ian is cis and bi with a strong female lean, Caleb is cishet, Jess is also cishet, and Jo is cis and pan.

That's all from me!

Have a lovely day!

justapercyjacksonfan