Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Character ages this chapter:
Michael - 11
Laura - 17

2) Laura

Michael was bored. Most of the cabin were in the woods for Capture the Flag, which was a game Michael was determined to take part in one day, but so far had been banned for being "too small", which was bullshit, in his opinion. He could still fight!

Emily had been firm, though. "It's for your own safety," she'd told him. "I'm sure you'll be able to join in next summer."

She'd said the same fucking thing last year. If she said it again next year, Michael was going to shoot her. Sometimes Emily was fine, but then sometimes she could be a real bitch. He'd tried to sneak in anyway, but his bow had disappeared and Emily had caught him and directed him away.

Chiron had offered to let him watch with him, but if Michael couldn't join then he wasn't going to fucking watch everyone else having a good time without him, so he had stormed into the cabin to sulk.

Sulking didn't stop boredom, though. Michael had clambered up to his bunk, because that was his space and no-one ever came up there, but there was nothing to do. His fingers itched to at least fletch an arrow if he couldn't shoot, but that was yet another fucking thing he wasn't allowed to do without godsdamned supervision.

They ended up in his hair instead, tugging it out of its ponytail. It was finally long enough to tie up without looking stupid and even when he was mad at his cabin mates, the feel of his hair on the back of his neck and brushing his shoulders made him relax, a little. This felt right.

He'd braided Ceri's hair a few times, now, but they still looked awful and Michael didn't like that. Ceri had made it very clear that she didn't mind – she never took the braids out until bedtime, no matter how much it unravelled – but Michael did because braids weren't supposed to be difficult but he hadn't really got the hang of them yet.

His fingers ran through his hair again, and he realised that with everyone else not there, he could practice without anyone judging him.

He knew his attempts at Ceri's hair were judged, even though no-one ever said anything bad about them.

Immediately, Michael realised one problem: braiding his own hair was completely different to braiding someone else's. He had to hold his wrists in weird positions to reach the back of his head, and he couldn't keep the three sections apart. Whichever strands he had hanging loose kept getting tangled up with other sections, and he'd start picking up the wrong hair and turning his hair into a total knot rather than a braid.

"Fucking piece of shit," he snarled at it as his fingers got caught up and his first attempt to retrieve them ended with his fingers completely snarled up in hair. "Fuck."

He was so busy swearing at the wannabe braid that he missed the cabin door opening.

"Michael? Are you in here?"

"Fuck off!" he retorted instantly, not even registering who it was. "Go play your stupid game."

His half-sister – he wasn't sure which one without looking, but it was one of the summer campers, because he knew the year-rounders' voices immediately now – didn't do as she was told. Without anyone else in the cabin, her footsteps were loud against the floor and Michael tensed as the sound came to a stop by his bunk.

"What if I'd rather keep you company?" she asked, and he reluctantly looked over the edge of his bunk to see who was bothering him. Dark brown hair and pointy cheek bones belonged to Laura, one of the older girls in the cabin.

"I don't want company," he snapped back, which was only a lie because he wanted to be with the rest of the cabin in the forest. He didn't want a babysitter.

The top of her head ducked down, and Michael lost track of her. "Okay," she said from below him – fuck, was she on the empty bunk underneath his? "I'll be here if you change your mind." There was the sound of a page turning and Michael realised she had picked up a book from who-fucking-know-where.

Whatever.

Michael tugged at his hands again, extracting his fingers from the snare he'd made of his own hair, and he swore again because now his hair was a fucking mess and his brush was on top of his dresser, which meant he had to leave his bunk to get at it.

Fucking damn it.

Grumpily, he threw himself down the ladder far enough to lean across to grab the brush, sticking the handle in his mouth as he clambered back up again.

"You might find it easier to do a smaller braid," Laura said suddenly and he jumped, almost losing his grip on the latter. "Ceri has a lot of hair and it's quite a handful, but you don't have to do it all at once."

Michael glared through the rungs of his ladder at where she was laying on the bottom bunk, not even looking away from her book.

"So fucking what?" he demanded, and then she moved, putting a bookmark between the pages and sitting up.

"Let me show you what I mean?" she asked, but her hand was headed for his hair and fuck no, Michael hadn't let anyone touch his fucking hair in a year and that wasn't changing now. He scurried out of reach.

"Fuck off."

She backed off straight away, her hand changing target and going for her own hair instead. "Okay," she said, "how about I show you using my hair?"

As she spoke, she took a small part of her hair near her face and started twisting it into a skinny braid. Michael couldn't follow what her fingers were doing, or why they she wasn't dropping one of the sections constantly. She finished the whole braid without saying anything else, and it was fucking neat.

"How the fuck did you do that?" he demanded. She patted the bunk next to her.

"I'll show you," she said. "We'll use my hair, don't worry."

Wary, but curious, Michael slunk back down his ladder and swung himself onto the bunk. She unravelled the braid she'd just done, then held out the same section of hair to him. He took it silently.

"Split it into three, the same way you do with Ceri's hair," Laura told him. Michael did, finding how thin each section was weird. Laura's hair was a lot sleeker than Ceri's, too. He held them the same way, with one section in each hand and the middle one hanging loose.

He flinched when Laura's hands came up and hovered near his, not quite touching but fucking close. "Let me show you how to hold it?" she asked. "You might struggle with how much hair Ceri has, but for braids like these, there's a way to do it that means you don't keep dropping any hair."

Michael hesitated, but he wanted to know. "Fine," he said shortly, and watched Laura's hands closely as they came in contact with his. Gently, she shifted his fingers until one of the sections of hair was held between his pointer and middle finger, while another was held between his thumb and finger on the same hand.

It felt fucking weird.

She made his other hand also hold the third section between his fingers. "This way, you have your thumb and finger free to grab the hair," she explained, placing her hands over his and demonstrating. He copied her, and found himself taking one of the strands from his other hand. "Now you can cross them over like this."

It was an awkward twist, but Michael was stubborn and determined. Laura guided him into shifting his grip on the one section left in that hand, and then they did the same thing in the reverse.

Slowly, they made their way down the braid. It still didn't look that neat, bulky and messy at the top where he'd started, but by the time they reached the end of her hair, it was starting to look a bit like an actual braid.

Laura let him look at it for a moment, before running her fingers through it and getting rid of it. Michael's chest ached a little, but then he blinked when she handed the section back to him again.

"Practice makes perfect," she told him. "Do you want me to guide you through this one again, or try by yourself?"

Michael split it back into sections and tried to remember how to hold them all at once. It took him a couple of attempts, but he managed to get them awkwardly positioned between his fingers again. He didn't answer Laura, instead launching straight into his second attempt at the braid.

Within a couple of twists, it was a mass of knots. "Fuck."

Laura swooped in and rescued her hair, undoing Michael's awful braiding attempt. She gave it back to him again, though. "I'll guide you again," she suggested, and he grumbled but agreed.

She stopped guiding him halfway through their third attempt, and Michael focused hard on making sure he got it right.

It went a bit messier, but it was some of the best braiding he'd ever done.

Laura didn't destroy that one. Instead, she grabbed another section of hair, a bit further back on her head, and offered that to him again. "Try this one by yourself," she suggested.

Michael fumbled the first few twists, but found the rhythm after that. He was slow, but the braid was looking like an actual fucking braid, and he was proud of that.

By the time Capture the Flag was over and their siblings came back, Laura's hair was full of small, occasionally wonky, braids, and Michael had almost forgotten that he was upset at being forced to sit the game out.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari