Rated: T, for pretty obvious reasons.

Trigger Warnings (TW): Mentions of medication, swearing, disturbing thoughts, Percy being just too adorable for words, blood (but not necessarily gore), possibly panic attacks, and the usual innuendos that come with Poseidon being a total asshat with a thing for vagina among other sexual organs.

Pairings: Canon Olympian pairings, ones that go along with the original mythology—such as Hera/Zeus. There'll be some implied stuff, of course, like past Poseidon/Sally, past Athena/Poseidon, but it's mainly focused on Poseidon and Percy's father-son relationship. We'll see where it goes from there.

Spoilers: None, as far as I know.

Beta: Daughter of Apollo 14

Disclaimer: Don't own jack, man. But Riordan definitely owns my soul.


Chapter Five: Sisyphus


Percy woke up warm and extraordinarily content. His right cheek was comfortably squished against something silky and firm; his body was heavier than he remembered it being last. He was pretty sure there was some half-dried drool on his chin and he scrubbed at it with sleep-buzzed fingers. Green eyes leaden with sleep peeped open. Two blankets, he noted blearily. Not one. Two. "Weird," he mumbled. From his blurred memories, he had fallen asleep with only the one Poseidon had given him.

Percy froze, suddenly aware, and let his sleep-addled mind catch up on the day before.

Oh, right. Poseidon, he had almost forgotten. The man had let him sleep in his room last night. That had been... nice of him. Not at all like how Percy had expected the rich son of some corporate evil to act. It honestly stunned himhe had expected his host to tell him to "man up", not agreeably allow him into his bedroom. Shaking himself, he chose to ignore the funny, bubbly feeling building in his chest and instead stood up on two shaky legs. A hand ran its fingers through his bird's nest halfheartedly, and he allowed a small frown to show on his mouth. It would be easier to continue believing Poseidon was just some mean jerk-face. Percy hated the enigma (what a funny word) Poseidon was turning out to be.

Walking out into the hallway, he paused at the vacant guest room and offered it a wary glance. The night before had left him nervous to peek inside. (Not scared, he was never scared.) Percy really didn't want to go in there quite yet, even if all of his clothes were being held hostage behind the cursed door. Monsters, ya' know?

Monsters were a funny business. They came in all shapes and sizes and varying colors, much like people did. A smelly man, the branches tapping on the bedroom window, a grainy image of a red stained carpet, the pretty girls with snake legs that Luke always told stories about, slide shows that haunted his dreams, Medusa. Himself, sometimes, when the world around him went blurry and all he could feel was a burning rage at everything. Murderers. Monsters, all of them.

Slowly, Percy felt his insides freeze. His blood felt like ice, and he rubbed at his arms, trying to warm up his icicle veins. Hopefully, no one would mind if he stayed in his PJs. His body gave a little shudder.

Gnawing on his bottom lip, he took tentative steps down the hardwood stairs. A few pictures caught his eye on the sand colored walls. With it being so dark last night, there'd been no chance for him to look over anything. The pieces of art were all of the ocean; their color schemes were calming hues and dull grays. Nothing that, from what he'd seen so far, matched Poseidon's tastes. While it was obvious the man enjoyed the sea, something so soft in appearance didn't fit Poseidon at all.

Maybe someone had decorated Poseidon's house for him? He was definitely rich enough. The exact opposite of Poor Percy.

He grinned and hopped off the stairs three steps before the end. At the moment, Poseidon's money didn't bother him too much. Good money meant good food and the heavy smell of bacon wafted from the kitchen. Oh, yes. His eyes zeroed in on a very familiar door. Percy was pretty sure he'd just snarled, if only a bit. If he didn't reach that delicious crispiness soon, Poseidon was going to have to drag Percy's rotting corpse from his home. He wouldn't survive.

One time, as punishment for ruining the china cabinet at the foster home, Chiron had forced him to read all the words under a letter of his choosing. Travis had been very insistent that T was the best option and, with his broadened vocabulary, Percy thought tantalizing was a good word to remember when bacon came to mind. Tasty worked just as well, though.

He was getting distracted. Bacon often did that to a guy.

He needed it now.

So, without any further hesitation, he slipped through the door.

Percy regretted it as soon as he hit the other side. Eyes swiveled to stare at him and he stared back. A man sat on one of the bar stools stationed at the counters, unfamiliar and completely unlike the peeved Poseidon leaning against the refrigerator. The stranger was carefully poised: long, pale fingers delicately curled around a mug of steaming coffee and a painted downward curve defining his mouth. His dark hair was trailing down to his mid-back and could really use a good wash, noticeably out of place when compared to his clearly expensive suit. Percy wouldn't be surprised if that suit could buy him a small apartment and a life-time supply of gummy worms.

This stranger made Percy feel very, very cold. Black eyes pierced through Percy and his insides curled, because nonono, don't look at him, don't look at him...

Stop. Breathe. Back on task.

Poseidon didn't look happy. While his host was lazily dressed in a pair of baggy sweats and a plain t-shirt, he appeared uncomfortable and agitated: he chewed on his lips and kept lacing and unlacing his fingers. His inky hair stuck up in all kinds of directions. His brow was furrowed, and Percy counted three wrinkles marring his forehead and one at the corner of his eye. All in all, he looked young and angry and maybe even petulant. Not at all like the greasy man looking back into Percy's (admittedly stunned) face.

He looked relaxed but his black, black eyes were tired and very, very cold.

A plate of bacon and eggs sat in between them, like some sort of twisted prize if he could manage to cut through the tension resting in between the two adults. Percy had a tough decision to make: his breakfast or his life?

He picked the obvious choice.

Refusing to break eye contact with either of the men, he did his very best to wiggle up onto the bar stool next to the icy stranger. Slowly, deliberately, the orphan grabbed a fist full of bacon and shoved (one, two, three, four...) seven of the (eight, nine, ten, eleven...) fifteen pieces into his mouth without regret. The eggs were completely ignored for the stuffy adults to eat, because he was nice like that.

"Good bacon," he gagged out around the breakfast food. "Very crispy." Percy popped his fingers into his mouth one after the other, licking them clean of salty goodness. "You got any syrup?"

It was incredibly satisfying to watch something close to laughter color Poseidon's eyes. He congratulated his kindness with another strip of pure heaven and took careful, refined bites. He still felt a tad wasteful eating all this food at once, but Poseidon hadn't seemed to mind at all last night when he'd ate a good three bowls of his god-pasta-whatever. Why not enjoy the endless supply of food while he could?

Percy kept his bright greens trained on the stranger a little more closely than he did his host, becausewell, he knew how to prioritize. It definitely wasn't about trust. Seriously, he'd only known this guy for a day.

Poseidon offered him a nod, and Percyhaving learned from years of careful observationnoticed the way the twenty-something year-old's hitched shoulders fell back down to a more relaxed slouch. Good, Percy was relieved. (Which was dumbhe shouldn't care.) "I've got some in the back of the fridge. Hold on." As Poseidon turned to the kitchen appliance, he threw his own question over a broad shoulder. "You use syrup on your bacon?"

"What, you don't?" Blasberry. Wait, no. Blasphemy.

Poseidon shrugged; overall, he seemed grateful to find a reason to ignore the cold, seriously creepy man in the room. "I've never tried it." Percy growled low in his throat, glaring. Poseidon arched a cautious brow, slowly handing the boy a bottle of maple syrup.

"You're one sad soul," he said, feeling genuine pity for the lost spirit in front of him. "Let me show you the light."

Scooting over the remaining bacon to one side of the plate, Percy eagerly popped off the cap and squirted a large blob of syrup onto the dish. It sluggishly spread itself out, the edge of the puddle barely brushing a mound of scrambled egg. Poseidon wrinkled his nose.

"Don't be a baby," Percy said. "Nobody likes a baby."

Poseidon huffed and grudgingly dipped a piece of bacon into the thick, amber liquid and managed to eat it with far more dignity than Percy's eight year-old self could ever truly produce. His host tasted it cautiously, a thoughtful gleam in his eyes that seemed out-of-place when paired with a crazy bedhead and ratty sweats. "Not bad," he finally conceded.

Percy nearly crowed with happiness, but then he realized something. The cold stranger had yet to speak a word (which, jeez, that was weird) since he'd entered the room. Dang. He felt sort of bad now. He must have interrupted something super private. Maybe even an exchanging of secrets.

Percy needed to include the guy into the conversationif only not to make the guy feel lonely. So, with frayed nerves, he turned to the suit and asked a simple enough question: "You wanna try?" Poseidon choked on his bacon.

The pale-skinned male gave him a long once over, his lips twisted down into what could be a sneer but could just as easily be how his face always appeared. Percy tried not to be intimidated, because Jacksons didn't scare away from anybody. Slowly, Percy reached for another piece of bacon and used the piece to scoop off some of the maple syrup. "Here!" He offered it to the stranger. A drop of delicious stickiness dripped down to hit the counter, but Percy paid it no mind. He had a duty to fulfill.

The stranger, however, just wrinkled his nose. He had probably just realized that an eight year-old had offered him a piece of dripping bacon with his sticky hands and spit-covered fingers. "No, thank you," the man said, and Percy noted that his voice was thin and icy but definitely not mean. "My son eats his bacon like that all the time."

"He sounds very wise," he told the elder solemnly. The stranger's facial muscles twitched, and he couldn't tell if it was involuntary or an attempt to smile. Poseidon looked to be in shock, and he appeared quite dumb to Percy with a gaping mouth and astonished eyes.

When the cooking god finally seemed to pull himself together, he managed to croak out a simple enough introduction. "Hades, this is Percy; Percy, this is Hades." Poseidon paused, flinched, and took a deep breath. "My eldest brother."

"Well, duh," Percy snorted, because really, that was supposed to be a surprise with that name? "Hades?"

"Right, of course. My bad, kid, I should've known."

"You're forgiven," he said through a mocking, gap-toothed grin. Hades didn't say anything, but his thin, dark eyebrows were beginning a steady journey to his hairline. Percy tended to have that sort of baffling effect on people.

"Sooo," Percy strung out, "why're you here?" He directed this towards to Hades, and he made sure to purse his lips and tilt his head like he was real curious. Really, though, he just wanted to know how two brothers could act so weird around each otherlike they were strangers.


Monsters of a Different Mold


Poseidon"s main thought was wow, this kid is absolutely nuts followed by a nearly unintelligible stream of what-the-fuck is Hades talking to someone like an average human being oh my god is that a smile an actual smile what is this what is that? His head spun in disbelief—it was about as easy to talk to Hades as it was to roll a boulder uphill. Not to mention, it was hard to believe Hades had actually knocked on his door. He hadn't even called ahead. His young guest sat next to his brother with his narrow shoulders and bright green eyes, tense but obviously curious. Well, that's two of us.

"Sooo," Percy strung out, "why're you here?"

Good question.


God, I suck. Like, I suck pretty hard. This is so late, and wow. Just wow. I'm sorry.

But, hey, on the bright side of things, I finished my AP exam! Next set of exams won't be for a whole three weeks. A brief freedom! (I also have an outline for the next chapter!)

Feel free to leave me any comments, questions, concerns—whatever you need to say. Oh, and question for you all: what are you looking forward to in this story? Anything you want to see? Don't want to see? I'm curious!

~Loyalty