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

Character ages this chapter:
Michael – 13
Joy – 14
Clarisse – 13
Lee – 14

Small disclaimer here that I am not American, and I do not know ASL (I know some BSL but those are not, apparently, the same). I've tried to make the signing accurate here, but there may be mistakes. And for clarification: Joy is not D/deaf or hard of hearing, but she is selectively mute, hence her use of ASL to communicate.

3) Joy

A hand tapped Michael on the shoulder and he turned around to see Joy standing behind him.

"What's up?" he asked her; his sister didn't often bother him despite being the closest Apollo kid to his age, not when she could go to Lee or any of their other older siblings instead, and being singled out was unusual.

She raised a hand to her head, pointer finger making contact with her thumb against her hair, before wiggling her hands together, and ending with her hand flat in front of her chest, making a couple of small circles. Michael frowned, trying to remember what it all meant. Please, he knew, and the first sign seemed to have something to do with her head, but he was completely lost on the middle sign.

"I don't know those signs," he admitted, and Joy immediately switched to finger-spelling. H-A-I-R she spelt out, before making the first sign again. Michael supposed he probably should have worked out that she wanted something to do with her hair, given that it was currently loose over her shoulders and much like him, Joy tended to not wear her hair loose, although her preference was for bunches. B-R-A-I-D was the second sign, and with the added context, Michael could see how the gesture looked a bit like a braid.

Then he put the question together in his head, and did a double-take.

"You want me to braid your hair?" he asked incredulously. She didn't sign a response, just gave him a smile and a nod. "You want me to braid your hair?" he repeated, and got another vigorous nod, accompanied by a finger flicking in his direction. "Why me?"

There were several others who would be happy to do it – Michael was sure half the girls in the Apollo cabin alone would be delighted to help Joy with her hairstyle change, and some of the boys, too, to say nothing of even breathing something of the sort in the vicinity of cabins six or ten. Why the fuck had Joy come to him?

His answer came in the simple gesture of her thumb and finger making an L shape which shook twice, and Michael groaned. Of fucking course it was Lee.

"I can't do anything fancy," he warned her, and she shrugged. "Fine, okay. One or two?"

He got two fingers in response, before Joy stuck her hand in her pocket to bring out a comb and hair ties. Not that different to her usual style, then.

"Find somewhere to sit," he instructed, taking the offered comb and hair ties out of her hands. She dropped where she stood, folding her legs into a pretzel and looking up at him expectantly.

They were right in the fucking middle of camp. Michael wondered if Lee had put her up to more than just getting her hair braided, but sighed and knelt behind her, snapping the hair ties around his wrist to keep them out of his way.

Joy had clearly already brushed her hair, because the comb ran through it with no resistance. Still, Michael gave it a few passes to be sure before carefully splitting her hair in two. Her hair fell into place easily; even if her natural parting hadn't been central once upon a time, near-continuous bunches had trained it into a perfect central parting. Once the two sections were completely and cleanly separated, he gave Joy the comb to hold briefly – it was that or put it on the fucking grass and then Joy would have a dew-damp comb the same was she was going to have a dew-damp butt and Michael was steadily getting dew-dampened knees – while he gave one half a couple of twists and looped a hair tie around it to keep it out of his way.

It looked normal, like that, and Michael wondered again why she suddenly wanted braids.

He finger-combed the still-loose half of her hair a few times before splitting it into three sections, twisting his wrist as he made sure they were all separated enough to not get in a tangle by the time he reached the end.

"Hold still," he instructed her, adding his other hand to the equation as well and started the process of twisting the outside strand into the middle over and over again, feeling the ends of her hair flick his arms every time he pulled it all the way through. Her hair was quite thin and smooth, and Michael had to fight with it a bit to keep enough tension that it didn't slip apart, whilst also being careful not to pull too hard on his sister's scalp.

Over, and through. Over, and through. Joy's hair fell a little way below the shoulders, an inch or two longer than his own, and by the time he reached the thinning end of the braid he was leaning back a little to still keep the tension.

The hair ties she'd given him were for ponytails or bunches – not a scrunchy, but a thick elastic that made an ungainly lump by the time he'd looped it around enough to times to be secure. It occurred to Michael that if she swung her head around, she could probably use it like a makeshift club. It would certainly sting if the small metal section caught someone's face.

Given that he was the one in the nearest vicinity, he neglected to point that out to her – not that Joy was the sort to do it just because, but, well, she was a teenage demigod. Instead, he slipped the unbraided half of her hair free of the hair tie holding it out of the way and started finger-combing that out, too.

Then the consequences of braiding his sister's hair in full fucking view of camp barged in.

"Braiding?" Clarisse snorted, stomping towards them with a sneer on her ugly mug. "I shouldn't be surprised; playing with hair is for sissies, after all." She made an ear-grating, barking noise that Michael knew was her idea of laughter.

"Fuck off, bitch," he snapped. "You're just jealous I can do it better than you." Clarisse was stood in front of Joy, and Michael wasn't happy about that; if she took a swing – which was likely – his sister was between them and if Clarisse hit Joy then Olympus help the bitch. He eyed her long, loose and stringy hair in disgust. "It's not like you even know what a fucking brush is with those rattails you call hair."

It was difficult not to rise to Clarisse's provocations, though, damn it.

"You-" Sure enough, it never took more than a sentence or two to wind up the daughter of Ares, and she took another step forwards, crushing the innocent grass beneath her combat boot with absolutely no hesitation. Michael tensed, pausing mid-braid although not yet willing to drop the hair. He would, though, if he had to get Joy out of the way fast. "Maybe if you spent less time pretending to be an Aphrodite kid and screwing around with appearance you'd actually be able to fight!" she retorted after a moment.

"Do you need more arrows in your fucking thigh?" he snarled, because he could fucking fight, Clarisse just had no respect for the skill of archery rather than flailing around with a fucking spear. "I'd be happy to-"

He was cut off by a hand raising between the two of them, palm facing him as Joy inserted herself into the argument firmly. It hung in the air between Michael and Clarisse for a moment, doing nothing, before it started to sign.

C-L-A-R-I-S-S-E, the fingers spelt out, because Clarisse didn't mean enough to Joy to get a name sign from her. It caught the attention of the daughter of Ares, though, because she was a bitch but she did know ASL. Cabin five tended to have more hard of hearing kids than the rest of camp, rivalled only by cabin nine, because they kept deafening themselves with landmines and other things that went boom or bang.

Joy's next sign didn't need any knowledge of ASL to understand as she deliberately curled all fingers bar the middle into a fist.

Fuck off.

Clarisse's face went red, and Michael raised an eyebrow, impressed. She'd got so used to him telling her to fuck off that she didn't even acknowledge when it said it any more. Apparently, she wasn't immune to everyone telling her, though, and most people made the mistake of thinking that Joy was quiet and shy just because she was almost always mute.

"You bitch!" Clarisse snarled, and Michael dropped the hair in his hands and scrambled to his feet, because Clarisse was angry and if she lashed out at Joy he was gonna kill her-

"What's going on over there?"

Lee's voice carried across the green. Michael hadn't even realised his older brother was there, and from the way Clarisse's eyes suddenly darted over to where the voice had come from, nor had she.

The taller boy walked over to them, hands in his pockets and completely laid-back. "You're not picking a fight with my siblings, right, Clarisse?" he asked, and she scowled.

"They're not worth my time," she said, turning on her heel and marching off.

"The fuck is that supposed-"

"Michael," Lee said lightly, and Michael's mouth snapped shut, because yes, fuck, he knew his temper was rising. Clarisse always managed to push his buttons. "Joy's hair looks great so far; you going to finish it?"

From her position on the grass, because even when she'd interrupted them Joy hadn't shifted from where she'd sat, their sister looked up at him expectantly, and Michael huffed.

"Fine," he scowled, throwing himself back down onto the grass behind her. Without prompting, Joy offered him the comb again, and one look at the mess the second braid had devolved into when he'd been provoked by Clarisse had him accepting it to detangle her hair again.

Lee sat down next to them, starting to chatter with Joy. He was much better at ASL than Michael, and most of their conversation was silent as both of them spoke with their bodies instead of their voices. It also made it easy to ignore, as Michael focused his attention on the brown hair in his hands, twisting it into a braid to match the first.

When he was finally finished with it, he tied it off with another bulky hair tie, giving Joy a second potential club to add to her arsenal.

"Done," he said, interrupting their conversation. "Good enough, Joy?" She tugged one of the braids to fall in front of her shoulder and inspected it for several long seconds.

Michael was not at all nervous about the verdict and anyone that suggested otherwise would meet the sharp end of an arrow.

Finally, she turned her head and smiled at him, flicking the braid back over her shoulder. The clumpy hair tie narrowly missed Michael in the process, and he leaned out of the way in case there were any more assaults on the horizon.

She raised a fist and tipped it forwards and back a couple of times, before bringing her hand up to her mouth and pulling it down, open-palmed. Yes. Thank you.

Michael smiled slightly. "You're welcome," he said, pushing himself off the ground. "And if you're going to hit someone with them, hit Clarisse."

Joy laughed, and Lee sighed, but he was also smiling slightly even when he said, "at least try not to pick a fight, Michael."

"No promises," Michael retorted, and made himself scarce before Lee could scramble to his feet and collar him. Sure, his brother's much longer legs meant he'd catch him quickly if he tried anyway, but also Lee didn't usually bother if he was out of immediate grabbing range.

Anyway, who cared about Clarisse when there was an archery range with his name on it.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari