I might not have able to tell to tell my family about my parentage, but there was something else that I could tell them, and I'd do it as soon as possible. That was frustratingly vague, but with DID, planning can be hard, especially when the thing you're planning so directly concerns your DID. The opportunity presented itself just a few hours later, when we all happened to be in the living room at the same time. I gave Percy a look that said "I'm going to tell them now" "he looked back a "You got this"
"Guys, there is something I need to tell you" My stepmom gave me a don't-you-dare-look and I tucked my camp necklace even deeper into my shirt, conveying a simple message:" I'll keep my parentage secret" Then, I continued talking "As some of you know, I have experienced a lot of bad stuff. Starting with spiders attacking me in my bed and all the dangers I faced while running away. There's much more, but you two aren't old enough for that yet." My brothers seemed disappointed but didn't protest. "Because of that…" Gods, this was harder than expected. I reached for Percy's hand and he took it. Then I took a deep breath before continuing "… I have developed dissociative identity disorder, at least that's what we assume. It means that there are different people inside my head. Some are children, others are older. There are even some boys." "Wow, that's so cool." Bobby declared. "It's also weird, but a good weird. When can we meet them?" "I don't know, I can't control it very well." I was then hit with a wave of questions from the two boys and Thalia rescued me in the last moment by asking if they wanted to see a cool magic trick. I watched the three walk into the kitchen where Thalia started bending the water from the sink using electric charges. Now it was time for the adults to question me. "So, you have people in your head" my stepmom said in the same way that you'd talk to a very imaginative child. Why couldn't she just accept me? "When did you find that out?" Percy took matters into his own hands. "Mrs. Chase, may I inform you that 1) Annabeth's experience is very real, 2) I am her boyfriend and as such will defend her and 3)" He lowered his voice so that my brothers wouldn't hear him "That I have done things to literal goddesses that I won't name for Annabeth's mental safety. So consider twice before being unkind to her and invalidating her experience, or you might end up having a bad time" "Thank you. For defending me and for not triggering me" I turned to my mortal family again. "I don't know what he did to that goddess, but if it's a trauma hazard for me, it must have been something truly terrible." My stepmom looked a bit scared. "I'm sorry." Then, she repeated what she had just said, just this time without making the DID look like a figment of my imagination." "I guess I started having symptoms, or at least became aware of them, on the first of August. Piper, one of my friends, diagnosed me four days later. She is by no means a psychologist, just someone who knows a bit about the disorder from a TV series she watched once."
"That doesn't sound like a professional diagnosis. Have you ever considered seeing an actual therapist." "I suggested it to Annabeth once, three to four weeks ago, and I then had to explain to her that calling my mom was not therapy." "I've never met her in person, but the few times we talked via Iris message, she seemed really nice and empathetic, so she definitely has the qualifications. But of course you also need knowledge in the field" "You could be onto something there" Percy said. "My mom might not know a whole lot about trauma, but the potential for therapy in general is definitely there. We really should have tried to convince Luke to talk to her and maybe she would have changed his mind about the gods being little pieces of schist. Well, they are, but that doesn't mean you have to try and kill them. That's something strategists like Annabeth would call a 'really bad idea'. Seriously though, don't kill any good unless they actively try to kill you. Or humanity in general. Then, by all means, try to kill them." "What kind of god would try to kill humanity? Hades?" My stepmom asked. "1st Hades is the god of the dead, not death, or, in the words of a meme I saw once 'He does not control the die' 2nd He doesn't want people to die, he already has issues making space for all the dead people. Technically, early deaths lead to fewer births and therefore fewer deaths down the line, but that's irrelevant right now. 3rd People need to stop villainizing him, he did nothing wrong, and 4th, no, it was Gaia who tried to wipe out humanity. Like, the literal earth. She tried to kill us all" "And why exactly is the earth trying to kill us?" "I don't know, maybe she doesn't like being polluted. Whatever the case, she's dead now. I have no idea how this will affect life on earth, but we killed time, as in the titan of time, last summer and that didn't cause us any trouble either, so we'll be fine. Probably" "So, you killed the king of the titans?" "Well, technically Luke, whose body he was possessing, killed himself with my knife and thereby also killed Kronos. This makes my Knife one of the only weapon to appear in a prophecy; 'The heroes soul cursed blade shall reap'. So I guess when Luke was playing the Knife game to 'kill time' and I told him that was impossible, I was wrong" "Would be the first time" "Now you're over exaggerating, seaweed brain. I've been wrong before. It doesn't happen very often, but it definitely does happen. Also, thinking too highly of me is my job, not yours" "Did you just refer to your fatal flaw as your job?" "I guess so. Hey, how about a deal? You are allowed to overestimate me and in return, I am allowed to make stupid analogies" "Deal" Percy agreed and I shook his hand.
"Soo, circling back to my original question about therapy…" "Oh, right, after almost calling his mom, I never considered it again. I probably should though. But what would I even tell them? So, uh, I was attacked by spiders and ran away and then the gods went to war and I had to-' ah, I hate amnesia. Percy, what happened next?" "Then you watched me fall to my almost death, were attacked by more spiders, had to face the biggest of the cyclopes, collaborate with one despite hating their kind, fall of a cliff, hold the sky, then the next year you-" "STOP. Stop shooting so much trauma stuff at me. I'm this close to a flashback right now" "Your fingers are literally touching." "No they're not, because of the Pauli exclusion principle." "What's that? Tell me more." "The Pauli exclusion principle was discovered by Wolfgang Pauli and states that no two…" I spent the next ten minutes explaining a principle of quantum mechanics that a kindergartener without any knowledge of quantum mechanics could have figured out. At least partially because while the PEP states that two quantum objects can't be identical in regards to four quantum numbers, macro objects only have one number that must not be identical, namely the position. Okay, time as well. Percy seemed to listen carefully, but I had a sneaking suspicion that he only did that to make sure I'd keep talking and thereby keep moving straight out of flashback territory. I pretended not to notice it, but I was still thankful for it. He'd pick a boring lecture over seeing me suffer any day. Well technically, he'd pick that over me suffering. If I was already suffering and he had the choice to either listen to a lecture or accompany me during whatever I was going through, he'd undoubtedly choose the latter, so he would choose watching me suffer over a lecture. But for demigods, undoubted is not safe enough, so I asked him and he confirmed my suspicion. "That's what Boyfriends are for, though Aphrodite might disagree. For her, the purpose of a boyfriend is probably still to support you, just sexually rather than emotionally. But who needs that?" "Well, it's certainly not me" I said. That was kind of a lie but who cares? Two months ago it would have been true.
In that moment, my half-brothers came back and the conversation shifted back to 100% mortal stuff. "by the way, how's the school you're going to? Have you already been there?" "It's the same school that I've been going to last year and it was great. But this year Piper's there as well, and I'm not sure whether she actually knows that it's the same school as last year and that my choice of going there has nothing to do with her" "What about Percy, is he at the same school?" "He's missed like half of tenth grade and he's already not too good at school" "My grades are usually below c level" "Very funny Percy. Anyways, his grades weren't good enough for that school, but the one he goes to isn't too far away" "And they said if I improve a lot I might be able to transfer to her school. And since Annabeth is like the best motivating ever, apart from not dying or suffering, (on, the other hand, I did choose suffering and potential death over not being with her a few times) I think my chances aren't too bad. people have already separated us for long enough, and my learning gap won't separate us much longer." In that moment, he jerked toward and clung to me like we were made of magnets. "Couples are weird" Bobby announced. He was right; sometimes other couples do weird things like having sex right after getting together. Like how? How can you meet someone for the first time and instantly want to screw them. There were so many things I understand, but allosexuality wasn't one of them (I might have mentioned that already). People sometimes say that sexuality is genetic, but I, a grandchild of Zeus, suggest otherwise. But then again, my mom is also ace like me, so it matches up again. She however doesn't match up with Zeus, same goes for Artemis. And Hestia is also aro/ace and a child of the guy who was so horny that he kept banging his wife despite knowing that the children this resulted in would eventually dethrone him. But who cares about that, you can just eat them.
Interestingly, asexuality appears multiple times within the family tree/ladder but never disappears. This could indicate that the ace genes are stronger (that's not really how genetics work, but who cares and also god genetics are probably different anyways) or it could be due to the fact that the ace gods have way fewer children. Logically speaking, the second interpretation is far more likely, but I kind of want the first one to be correct. Even though the most relevant part of my asexuality- my lack of attraction towards Percy, the one person with whom it wasn't completely out of the question regardless of attraction- was now gone, I still took pride (not the deadly kind) in it and I, as a younger camper had once put it, 'radiated major ace vibes'. This also made it a lot easier to not disclose my demisexuality to anyone who had the power to ban me from sharing a bed with Percy. In fact, I've told almost no one because information always somehow leaks through.
Thalia
About an hour later, Annabeth's stepmom( who wasn't exactly the kindest person on the planet, but still a lot better than what Annabeth had told me three -no, it's been nine- years ago) called us for dinner. From the kitchen, she brought fish and a pot of tartar sauce. When I saw it I instantly knew that we had a problem. If I could make out the linguistic similarity to Tartarus in seconds, someone whose mind was partially shaped by it would do it in practically no time. I knew that I had to act fast. Annabeth's brothers weren't looking, so I sent out a tiny lightning bolt that burned away the word Tartar. Flashback hazard removed. Annabeth's stepmom glared at me. Unfortunately for her, I was a lot better at that. Having tiny bits of lightning flashing over your eyes can be quite intimidating. "Don't say Tartar sauce. It's traumatic for them" I whispered, using the air to channel the sound waves to her ear. She just nodded. "Ok, I won't say it" "Thalia, what are you doing?" Annabeth called from the table. "Just preventing trauma." After that, we finally (well, finally might not be the right word, the delay had been like 30 seconds) got to eat.
Everything went well for the first ten minutes or so, but then one of Annabeth's brothers (I can never tell them apart) said "Hey Annabeth, can you give me the Tartar sauce?" It appeared that all my efforts to hide the word from them had been pointless. But who knew, maybe they wouldn't get triggered. I quickly gave the sauce to him before glancing at Percy and Annabeth. I saw the look in Annabeth's eyes and knew it was too late. "Percy ?" she asked with fear and panic in her voice. "I'm here" he answered, sounding just as scared and unstable as her. He reached for her hand and she grabbed it right before the flashback hit.
You know what professional writers call this kind of scene? That's right, it's called a 'perfect point to end the chapter' See you next time, hopefully with less delay this time