"At least she fed us before she tried to kill us." He says, unable to take his eyes off Medusa's severed head.
"The food wasn't even that good." Grover murmurs, his gaze similarly lingering on the grotesque sight before them.
"That's because she didn't serve us cans." Annabeth retorts and it's enough to knock them out of the trance that their near-death experience had thrown them into as half-delirious giggles spill out of them.
"What do we do with it?" He asks, gingerly nudging the head with his foot. The snakes had gone still and were splayed on the ground in every direction. It's a sure indication that she's dead… he thinks.
"It's a Spoil of War, like your Minotaur Horn." Annabeth responds, moving behind the counter and throwing a tin can at Grover, the satyr catching it and biting in with a grateful moan. "You killed her, so you can do whatever you want with it."
He stares down at the head. Whatever he wanted? Looking at the mucus trailing down the side of every snake, he certainly didn't want to take it with him. He didn't want to just leave it here, though. I mean, he earned it. And then, like a calling from beyond, a thought broke into his mind. It's a decidedly stupid idea, one that he could be smited for, but if he survived… Well, that would be funny.
His eyes flicker across the counter and finds a cardboard box and tape that had decidedly not been there before. Eris thought it would be funny too, then. That was, he thought, the universe telling him that he should absolutely not follow through with it.
But it would be really funny.
Like a phantom possessing him, he finds himself grabbing the box and the tape. His companions stare at him in confusion as he spears Medusa's head like a kebab and drops it into the box.
"What are you doing?" Grover asks as he folds the top of the box.
"I don't know." He says, rolling tape along the top edges.
"Then should you be doing it?" Annabeth asks from beyond the counter, leaning on her elbows as she looks at him with an almost fond disapproval.
"Probably not." He admits as he places the box on the counter. "But it'll be funny." He grabs a stray notepad and pencil.
"How do you know that?" Grover asks, leaning over his shoulder as he writes.
Because Eris thinks so, he wants to say. Instead, he only shrugs, smiling lightly as his friends groan in unison. "Have a little faith." He says as he tapes the note to the top.
"I have faith that you won't be satisfied until every mythological being is trying to kill you." Annabeth calls out from the kitchen, pots and pans clanging in her wake.
"All faith is good faith." He yells back to her with a satisfied grin.
"No it's not." Grover says in horror, reading the memo of his care package.
Master Bolt inside. Finders Keepers.
With love, Your favorite mistake.
He allows himself a moment of satisfaction before the same phantom force reaches into his pocket and plucks out a single drachma. He watches himself toss it onto the box, and in the time it takes to blink, it's gone. He swears he can hear Eris' terrifyingly joyful giggling.
"How did you even know how to do that?" Grover's face has gone completely white as his eyes remain fixed on the ceiling, as if they would be smited at any second. They probably could be, he thinks, but Eris wouldn't let that happen. "You were at camp for like, barely a week! Who told you about Hermes Express?"
Was that what just happened? Did a god just come swooping in and vanish in the time it took him to blink? That was actually pretty cool. He shrugs again in response to Grover. The satyr shuts his eyes tightly and starts muttering frantic prayers in Greek.
Annabeth returns from the kitchen, bags of cold cuts stacked in her arms. She narrows her eyes at him. "What did you do?"
"I just sent a package." He says, smiling wider than he had in what felt like forever. Was this what Eris meant? Was there really something about him that liked this? That enjoyed causing chaos?
That was a rhetorical question at this point. The answer was a resounding yes.
"That's not just what you did!" Grover exclaims as he starts pacing around, narrowly avoiding face planting as his hoof caught on a frog statue.
"And a note." He amends, his smile not wavering a fraction.
"We're gonna die!" Grover shrieks, falling to his knees and bowing his head to the ground.
"Have a little faith." He repeats, absolutely grinning now as Annabeth's eyes only narrowed and narrowed.
"Stop saying that!"
He's all but forgotten about his package, finding himself on a hiking path trying to track a schnauzer to get enough money for a train ticket. It's raining and the summer heat mixed with the humidity is almost unbearable as he weaves through the underbrush and branches off the trail.
His good mood has been entirely erased, and as he watches Grover get thumped by a branch to the back of the head and Annabeth mumble curses as she pulls her shirt out of thorns, he thinks he's not the only one.
It's when they've all split up and he's about to scream because the tracks he was following was only a rabbit's that he jolts up as he feels an almost unmistakable heat against his cheek. It feels inhuman, so incredibly scorching yet soothing at the same time. It feels magical, divine.
"I thought it was very funny, my love." He hears Eris's unmatched reverent voice whisper in his ear. There's no one around him, no one visible anyway, but such was the complexities of being stalked by a goddess.
His spine straightens on instinct again as the other cheek is assaulted by the same feathery inferno. Eris' whimsical giggles send synapses in his brain into overdrive as he stands like a statue, the laughter eventually fading into the wind.
Slowly and with no real conscious thought, the widest, dopiest smile crawls across his lips. He's not sure if what he thinks just happened actually did, but he's only too content at the moment to savor it all the same.
His smile grows impossibly wider as he turns around and finds the dog sitting obediently, tied to a tree.
"Found it!" He shouts, Grover's whoops of joy causing birds to scatter into the sky.
The smile doesn't leave his face for several hours.
"So gods have kids with mortals like, all the time, right?" He says, staring at the ceiling of the compartment as he lays on one of the empty benches.
"Yeah. Pretty much since mortals existed." Annabeth responds, nose deep in a book too thick for a twelve year old.
"Have a god and a demigod ever… gotten together?" He asks as Grover snores abruptly, absentmindedly nudging him with his foot until the noise stops.
"Once. Mr. D actually, if you can believe it. His mom was a Daughter of Harmonia, goddess of… Well, you get it. That's why he was so powerful, even as a demigod. He was only a quarter-mortal." Annabeth turns the page. "It hasn't happened since, as far as I know."
He hums in understanding, unsure of why he'd even asked. I mean, it wasn't like he was actually considering that as a possibility. He was a twelve year-old demigod and she was an immortal goddess from before fire was even discovered and that was the end of all discussion. Oil and water. It didn't matter how much she looked at him like he was the deity and she was only mortal or how her laughter had been stuck in his head ever since the audible heaven had deigned to grace his ears.
It was an absolutely ridiculous thought and it only proved how insane she really was. I mean really, marrying him? How would that even work? He'd have to be older of course, and they would have to have been going steady for a substantial amount of time. What would a wedding between a goddess and a demigod even look like?
There would be a ton of people there, he assumes. Most of them would be deities but his mom would have to be there. Maybe his dad would come. Grover would be his best man, he thinks, but he's not sure if Eris would even have a maid of honor.
Maybe it would be a traditional Greek wedding, in robes and everything. She did look really pretty in the black one she always wore, but maybe she would switch it up? A crimson one to match her eyes? What would her hair look like? Her normal braids or something unique?
So maybe, just maybe if it ever got to that point, he would worry about having kids. But he would never have to. Because they were never getting married.
…
But what would they look like? Brown hair and green eyes or black hair and crimson? Maybe one would look just like him and the other just like their mother or-
Oh gods.
Why was he even thinking about this?
He closes his eyes tightly, pressing his palms to his ears as he tries to drown out his treacherous thoughts. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It's not going to happen. It's just not. No matter how many times she calls him 'my love'. No matter how her eyes flash with shooting stars when she gives him that look. No matter how stunning she looks when the candlelight hits her face. No matter how-
Oh gods.
What was she doing to him?
"Only the same thing that you do to me, my love."
He yelps and falls off the bench in shock as his stalker once more whispers into his ear. Annabeth stares at him in confusion as he glares at the floor.
This was so not fair.
When he had been thrown headfirst into this world of gods and monsters, and then further thrown into a quest where he was expected to encounter and deal with both, he hadn't been expecting to deal with the absolute worst of the worst.
Medusa and Echidna?
And the Chimera?
So his first thought as the plump old woman and tiny chihuahua turn into horrifying monstrosities is that this was complete and utter horseshit.
The phantom force once more overwhelms him, so much more than last time that it's frightening. In the Garden Emporium it had been like a guiding hand, gentle and calm. This was like a straightjacket, control and choice being striped away like cheap varnish.
"You boorish, filthy, repugnant, miserable, wanton HARLOT!" Tears out of his throat, but it is not his voice and not his rage.
Echidna's head turns sideways as her reptilian slits blink owlishly. "...Eris?" She asks in confusion as the Chimera mirrors its mother, its own head tilting horizontally. "How are you, dear? I haven't seen you since Vietnam."
"How dare you! I knew you were promiscuous but you have crossed a line! He is mine! PERSEUS JACKSON IS MINE!" Full body possession? This is what he had to deal with now?
'Eris.' He tries to say but the words don't come out. 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING!'
'Hush, my love.' Reverberates in his mind, her jubilant tone in utter contrast to the seething rage that was radiating out of the body that was no longer his. 'You're too young to recognize this hussy's advancements. I won't take but a moment to deal with her.'
Oh no.
Echidna frowns deeply, taking a shaky step back."I- I was only going to kill him, Eris. I wasn't going to-"
"Silence, scarlet woman!" This was going very badly very quickly. "You have tried to take what is mine! My retribution will be swift and painful!" Riptide is uncapped in a flash as his feet start to move with a speed that is not his own.
'Eris!' He tries to shout. 'Can we just talk about this first please?'
Echidna presses her body flush across the glass as the Chimera whines in horror. "Let's just talk about this, Eris! This is a misunderst-"
"BEGONE WENCH!"
The window shatters as he skewers Echidna and the Chimera in one go, and his body is sent careening into the air.
"Okay…" He says as he wades to the bank of the Mississippi river, his body once more under his control. What had that Nereid said? He had to go to the ocean before entering the Underworld? He files the information in his mind as he returns his attention back to his stalker. "So, we're going to have a talk on boundaries," He looks at the arch in the distance and then back at the river. "On this long walk back to Grover and Annabeth." He turns to his right and is completely unsurprised to find Eris standing right next to him. "How did I even land all the way out here?"
Eris shrugs, taking him by the hand as they begin the trek back to the arch. "I was very angry and might have expended more energy than I had intended." The casual way that she explains how she'd pushed him a mile into the river when he should've fallen only a couple feet is a terrifying reminder that the lovesick girl next to him is actually a goddess.
"Eris," He says slowly, pausing momentarily as she flashes a blinding smile toward him. "You cannot just take over my body."
"Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry about that, my love." And he does think he can hear a small glimmer of regret in her otherwise unrepentant tone. "Don't be surprised when all manner of women are throwing themselves at your feet when you're older. Your beauty… it's almost frightening."
There's so many things to unpack in that sentence that he doesn't even know where to begin. He hasn't looked in the mirror for a couple days and with the things that have been happening to him recently, he wouldn't be surprised if his appearance has drastically changed. Then again, Eris was completely insane and in love with him.
Her words, no matter how wrong and insane they might be, do inspire the same warm, confusing words that they usually do.
"Thank you." He says quietly, his frustration at her all but forgotten. "Maybe just… ask next time? Please?" Why was he saying this? He was practically inviting her to take over his body again. Mom was gonna be so mad when she found out about all this.
"Of course, darling." Eris says. The arch is getting closer and he thinks they're only a few minutes away. "The audacious way that she… came onto you, I could not stop myself."
Did she… genuinely believe that Echidna was flirting with him?
Well, it wasn't the craziest thing that had ever come out of her mouth.
"How much do you know about Eris?" He asks Annabeth as they sit side by side in the train dining cart.
Annabeth scrunches her eyes in confusion, drops of french onion soup speckled across her face. "...Why?"
"Echidna said something about her." He says, biting into a stale piece of bread. It's not technically a lie.
"Nobody really knows a lot about her, to be honest. You know about the Trojan war, right?" Annabeth asks, lifting the bowl to her mouth.
"Very well versed." He affirms. He'd gotten an hour and a half dissertation on it, after all.
"That's really the only well documented account of her. She's been seen during almost every war but not long enough for anyone to actually interact with her." Annabeth's eyes flash the way they do when she's gone into 'lecture-mode' as he's named it. "She's as close to a war goddess as you can get without actually being one. Never had any demigods, no husband or anything like that. She's got kids, but no father." She shrugs and folds her arms. "She's a mystery. Totally and completely."
"A mystery." He repeats, thinking of the way she was such an open book around him. She wore her heart on her sleeve, every emotion shining brightly through her eyes. And she had kids?
She had kids?
"Are you okay?" Annabeth asks, his face having turned paper-white.
"Great!" He says with forced enthusiasm. "I love learning new things!"
"And I love you." Eris whispers in his ear, invisible arms draping across his shoulders as her breath tickles his neck. "And so will our children."
Our children?
He grits his teeth in terror as his glass of water shatters in his hand.
"I just love it!"