A/N: Another Author's Note at the end. It's pretty important.
Percy knew his mother was watching him.
The young god would have known even if he was still a mortal. The prickling, raised hairs on the back of his neck were unmistakable. The feeling had become a constant companion - Sally hadn't taken her eyes away since her son's first step back in the manor, still marked by the voice from the depths of the crumbling remains of the Lotus Casino.
Not physically, of course. But the mortal woman's gaze had long stopped seeing only that which showed on the surface.
"Are you going to talk to her?"
Percy shuffled awkwardly on his feet. The motion earned his collar a reproachful jerk. His mother sighed audibly, before soothing out the non-existent wrinkles he had apparently just re-created. If he was wearing a tie, the younger Jackson had a feeling she would have pulled the knot up purposefully tight just to get him to sit still. At least he wasn't the only one dressed up, though for his mother's pseudo-divine lifestyle that only meant trading up to jeans and a blouse instead of leggings and a t-shirt.
"Talk to her about what?" Percy feigned, fiddling with his ring to keep his hands occupied. He purposefully avoided his mother's sharp blue eyes by resolutely staring straight at the back of her head in the mirror in front of him.
"I'm your mother, Percy." Sally tugged on his belt to center the expensive silver buckle, a bit harder than was probably necessary. "Not an idiot. I know you've been avoiding me." The woman let her son stew in his own guilt for a few awkward seconds. The next time she looked up, he couldn't avoid her gaze.
"Mom, I didn't mean to-" Percy was quickly cut off by a raised hand.
"Let me finish." The young god nodded, a remorseful frown tugging at his lips. "So you won't talk to me? Fine." She raised a hand to rub at her forehead, soothing the deep crease between her eyebrows. "That hurts a bit, son, but I get it. There are things a mortal like me just wouldn't understand. What worries me-" She fixed him with a piercing stare. "-is that you won't even talk to Aphrodite."
"I'm going to." Percy's voice came out weak. "As soon as I know what I'm supposed to even say." He hoped his eyes weren't giving away as haunted as he felt. It felt like a vain hope.
His mother sighed again, this one shorter and sharper. She eyed him for a long moment. "That bad?" Her gaze flayed him open to the core
"Worse."
Sally took in his expression, before nodding slowly. The gray, stress-born streaks in her hair had rarely looked so pronounced. When she spoke next, her voice was gentle.
"That girl loves you to the moon and back, Percy. And it's obvious you love her to pieces, too." Sally went a bit onto her tiptoes to re-adjust the fall of a couple of ashy curls over Percy's forehead. "Nothing good comes from hiding things, son. Nothing good at all." Her touch was feather-light against his skin, equally as loving as the depth of her voice. "Take it from me." Sally smiled, then, the pull of her cheeks darkly amused. "I know all about relationships and communication problems."
"Yeah." Percy chuffed a laugh, but his heart wasn't really behind it. "I guess you do."
The Jackson duo were standing in one of the various guest bedrooms, designated as his 'ready room' for the evening. This one was vaguely forest-themed, with an overhead living mural that whispered with rustling leaves. That wasn't to say things were green, oh no - the trees above were blooming with bright cherry blossoms, undeniably beautiful and equally undeniably pink. The house had a theme, after all.
Even with Percy's impressive height, both he and his mother were dwarfed by the massive standing mirror opposite the bed. The great glass circle was ringed with intricate gold carvings, the etchings so fine they almost seemed to move when you peered close enough. His mother's reflection looked practically diminutive right in the center.
Peitho had chosen the room for them, naturally. Shuttling the two Jacksons off so Percy could change was only the latest in a long string of actions the Housekeeper had taken to make this evening possible. Honestly, the minor goddess was practically the one putting on the date herself at this point.
Percy wasn't mad. Just thankful, because the young god was actually so nervous his fingers were jittering. It certainly wasn't because of what had happened at the casino only a few hours ago. That was mostly because he was refusing to think about it.
That . . . wasn't really working.
Percy shunted off the dark line of thought for perhaps the thousandth time. He took a breath, recentering his mind on the feel of the air in his lungs. On the lay of his clothes against his skin, on the sensation of Aphrodite in the air.
The whole manor seemed posed on the edge of a knife. Nervous energy thrummed through the very walls, strong enough to send the staff whirling about the halls at a frantic pace. All of it could be traced back to the lavish master bedroom on the top most floor, the beating heart of the manor pulsing with the love deity's essence.
Aphrodite had commandeered the space to prepare for their evening outing. Peitho was attending her, not that Percy fathomed what the minor goddess would be doing considering Aphy was Aphy. She could get ready in literally the blink of an eye, and the fashion world spun to her tune - not the other way around.
The sky bearer couldn't imagine the sheer number of outfits his lover must have gone through and subsequently rejected, at this point. Many might have found that idea silly, but Percy knew her better than anyone. The notion that the love deity was equally as nervous was a comforting one. For tonight, at least, the emotional playing field was even.
It was Percy's idea to get ready separately. He had communicated as such to Peitho in one of the brief windows of opportunity they had snatched the previous evening to make this happen. Fifteen minutes here, twenty there. Each conversation passed in hushed tones, blanketed underneath his aura lest Aphrodite come near. The Housekeeper had agreed, to his moderate surprise, her dark eyes twinkling with either pride or amusement. Or both.
At the time, the concept of picking his goddess up at her bedroom door like they were teens going to prom had seemed just the right touch of silly romance. A fantasy coming real, just the barest slice of the life Percy never got to live and his mother never got to prepare him for. A present for all of them, in that way.
Gods, he even had flowers! Roses! Peitho provided, of course, sitting pruned and neat on a table by the exit door. How cliched could he get?
At least they were exceptionally pretty roses. The center of the buds bloomed a gorgeous maroon that reminded him most of how Aphrodite's irises looked under starlight. When Percy had first touched the petals, his fingers had thrummed with Demeter's earthly touch. The barest hint of her unspoken approval that came with it meant more than it should have.
That was all in the past, though. Now, the whole idea was feeling a bit more 'silly' than 'romantic'. But Percy couldn't deny that there was a large part of him that was unreasonably excited. We're going on a date! It was that thought that had a slew of half-formed thoughts bubbling up and out of the young god's mouth before he could stop them.
"It's just- I've been waiting for this for what, like, a month? Less? And I can barely stand it." Percy's mother blinked owlishly at his sudden splurge of words. "Imagine how Aphy must feel, mom. She's been waiting for years! A whole war, basically."
His mother stayed rooted in place, her hand hanging in the air. Percy took it as a chance to pause, forcing himself to inhale. The nervous god ran a hand through his hair, stepping back to give himself more room to breathe.
"And the last guy she was with was Ares-" their noses both wrinkled in unison "-and I want to prove that she made the right choice and that I'm willing to do things differently," he stressed. "To be different."
Percy's gut was churning, pleasant and terrifying all at once. Restless wind plucked at the hair his mother had just finished adjusting. She didn't even seem to notice, too busy dissecting his expression with her discerning gaze.
"I just . . ." The sky bearer reached up to grab at his mother's suspended hand with shaking fingers, tightening his grip around her knuckles as much as he dared. "I want this night to be about us. You know? Not whatever went down this morning." He made pleading eye contact with his mother. "Is that too much to ask?"
Percy could see Sally worrying the inside of one cheek with her teeth. It was a wonder she had anything left to chew on. "But you'll talk with her after?" The mortal woman posed, carefully.
"With you both," he swore. "Peitho too. But tomorrow morning, before the meeting on Olympus." The young god put as much emotion into the words as his strained heart could manage. "Just not tonight." Percy shook his head. "I don't think Aphy would let me stall for much longer than that, anyway. She already knows something is up."
Frankly, Percy would be surprised if the entire manor didn't know. For hours his aura had remained almost visibly off-kilter, even to mortal eyes. It looked pretty close to how he felt.
To say the afternoon had gone by quickly was to understate to a criminal degree. The sky bearer had been forced to ask Aphrodite to flash him back home right around lunchtime, through a bit of a scuffed mental plea from Camp Half Blood's infirmary. That was, of course, after an equally rushed prayer from the Lotus Casino's nuclear bunker to even get back to camp in the first place. Percy had a bit of a feeling that Hades had helped with that first one, given the brief brimstone scent of the teleportation.
The whiplash was brutal. One moment Percy was watching demigod healers fretting over the comatose Nico, forcibly shooing Annabeth and Grover and a dozen other well-wishers from the room. The next, he was back in the manor.
Safe, and yet not. How do you avoid an enemy right inside your own head?
The words that had come from the son of Hades' mouth were still branded to the front of Percy's mind with burning, cold, endless fire. For hours, the son of Poseidon had struggled with the irrational fear that if one were to look hard enough you could have read the letters of the backs of his eyeballs. The first servant he had stumbled across after arriving back home had flinched so hard she had dropped her cleaning supplies all over her own skirt.
For the next several hours all Percy had been able to do was sit in an out of the way lounge in the east wing, head in his hands. The sky bearer's brain felt like it had been mushed to pulp in a constricting vice, and then exploded out all over the insides of his skull. Memories of dreams once forgotten roared back into the sky bearer's mind with perfect clarity. Each and every harrowing encounter, all playing back at the same time.
None of the staff, even Peitho, dared to stray too close.
The voice of She Who Dreams tainted every corner of Percy's thoughts. It still did. It felt like it might for the rest of his impossibly long life, just like the occasional twinges of phantom pain he still got in his left palm from holding up the Burden one-handed.
Percy wouldn't have been able to explain it to his mother even if he tried. It was a miracle Grover and Annabeth didn't seem to remember what had happened, lest Percy fear for their general sanity. There were no mortal words for it. For Her. The one so powerful that even Olympians feared to speak her real name. The mother of the Primordials, the origin of the universe itself.
The best he could come up with was a paltry analogy. Imagine you stepped out onto that private glass balcony next to the manor's master bedroom, sometime late into the night. Picture yourself tilting your head back and looking up to the stars. Imagine losing yourself inside their glow, floating up and up and up until you were surrounded on all sides. Only, once you are in their midst, you realize every spec of light in the vast infinity isn't a star at all. They are eyes.
And they can see you, too.
Fortunately, Olympians couldn't vomit. Not so fortunately, Percy had found out the hard way that they could come remarkably close. That was how Aphrodite had found him, holed up in solute, forehead ashy and slicked with sweat. It had been all the sky bearer could do to clean himself up before she walked through the door.
Percy didn't even know why he bothered. It only took one look for her to practically fly across the floor to his side, the hem of her little red sundress whirling about her thighs. The sight of her then nearly broke him, almost pulled all the words right out of his throat. Such was the depth of her visible emotion, all played out on the universe's prettiest face.
Some might have looked for evidence of Aphrodite worry in a trembling lower lip, or wide shining eyes. Percy knew better. When the love deity was honestly, truly scared, she did not bloom. She froze. Stillness, not theatrics. When his goddess reached him, then, the mask on her visage might as well have been as thick as that accursed nuclear bunker's concrete walls.
It was all Percy could do to take his love's face in shaking hands, desperately pressing a kiss to each of her locked-up cheeks. He let his lips linger far longer than usual, trying to breathe what life he could back into those motionless muscles. When he had laid his forehead against her own, the love deity had clutched his shirt in her hands.
"What happened to you, my love?" Aphrodite's whisper had come out low. Terrified, in a way Percy rarely heard. "What happened down in that gods-forsaken desert?" It was as if she was trying to hold them both together with the strength of her grip. "S'il vous plaît- please tell me, Percy."
"We found him," had been his simple answer. Percy clung to the warmth of Aphrodite's breath mingling with his own, to the memory of her smooth skin on his lips. "I wish that was all we found."
He hadn't been able to say more.
Aphrodite had doted on him endlessly after that. The sky bearer was fed a lunch of crackers and exquisite cheeses all with his head on her lap, laid out on the most comfortable couch the love deity had been able to summon. After that, she had used her skillful fingers to give him a heavenly facial massage.
Aphrodite expertly pressed into the pressure points around Percy temples, soothed the tension along the edge of his jaw. Her aura wrapped them both in a blanket of rose and chocolate, swaddling the two Olympians together in the most intimate embrace possible with all their clothes remaining on their bodies. The room was so thick with it, at points, that her presence seemed to replace every spec of the oxygen in Percy's heaving lungs.
Nothing was spoken for a long while. Nothing, save for Aphrodite's murmured curses that occasionally contained the name 'Hades' and several graphic depictions of the worst that a spurned goddess could do to a man's testicles. Percy's eventual assertion that it wasn't his uncle's fault had only made her pout and, he suspected, move her grumblings back inside her head rather than kill them outright.
It really wasn't Hades' fault, though. That was the truth. Had the Lord of the Underworld been standing in that room, the sky bearer didn't think there was a single thing even he could have done. Tartarus, even all of Olympus wouldn't have made a difference in that damned bunker.
After a time, Percy felt controlled enough to force himself to move on. He had stood and stepped away, squeezing Aphrodite's hand briefly to let her feel his silent thanks. Not particularly comforted, Percy's betrothed had subtly prodded his aura every thirty seconds or so since then.
It started out soft, but when he remained silent, she grew increasingly firm. That wasn't even counting all of the worried glances and the lingering touches to his shoulders, arms, back, and everything else whenever he and his goddess were within arms reach. When they weren't, Aphrodite's aura's ghostly hands never strayed far from his form.
She was worried - Percy had been able to see it in her eyes. He didn't blame her. He was so worried he literally didn't know what to do. It would take more than half a day to digest the haunting message She Who Dreams had delivered through the mouth of an emaciated half-blood.
Later, was Percy's mental promise to his goddess, poured through his aura straight into her own. Please. And then I'll tell you everything.
The love deity had acquiesced, but not before giving him a crushing hug in the atrium. The embrace lasted a good five minutes, long enough for them to draw a bit of a crowd. The black color at the ends of Aphrodite's hair had crawled nearly half-way up the length of the fox-tail locks by the end of it, like her stress was literally leaching away the color.
His mother received a second hug right after. Even a moderately surprised Peitho got one too. Though, the Housekeeper just patted his back a couple of times and then shooed both Jacksons away so Percy could get ready.
"It wouldn't do to be late, young master," Peitho had said, a kind smile on her otherwise worried face. "You too, My Lady." The minor goddess laid a gentle hand on Aphrodite's arm. "I'm told you have a date tonight."
That had perked the love deity right up.
They had split up just over an hour ago. Sixty minutes, each painstakingly counted in the back of Percy's head. Thirty-six-hundred seconds of fussing over his hair and his shirt and the color of his shoes and the scent of his armpits, even though he literally couldn't smell like anything other than just the barest hint of sea spray on a breezy summer day.
Thankfully for everyone, Percy and his mother had yet to be disturbed in the ready room. He chalked that up once again to the resident Housekeeper's influence. That woman is a blessing.
"Well." Sally's hesitant voice interrupted Percy's musing. She was still biting the inside of her cheek, but some of the light had returned to her eyes. "I think you're looking about as good as you're going to get." She gave him a smile, patting the front of his shirt. Her hand landed next to the polo's breast pocket, above the embroidered cloud-containing heart that had become the unofficial symbol of Percy and Aphrodite's union.
"What a vote of confidence," the sky bearer snorted, batting her hand away. "Thanks, mom." The spark of humor reignited the butterflies in his gut, but at least this time the anticipation was mostly pleasant.
"I didn't say your best was bad, Percy," his mother smirked. She leaned in to adjust his collar one last time - Percy was sure that was a maternal nervous tick of hers - before stepping away. "You're marrying the goddess of love for a reason, hun. Between the two of us, we're two for two on seducing Olympians. You'll knock her dead." Sally chuckled a bit. "If she doesn't get you first. I don't even know what Aphrodite will wear, but I'll tell Peitho to have a mop on hand just in case your jaw falls off."
"Har har," Percy drolled, taking the friendly ribbing in stride. Plus . . . she wasn't too far off. Despite his mother's compliment, he couldn't help but nervously look himself over in the mirror one last time.
It started with his hair. Normally, his curls effortlessly fell into an attractive godly place somewhere between 'purposefully styled' and 'effortlessly casual'. Now, though, he had asked his mother to push them a bit more towards the former. That was as much to give them both the experience of the task as it was for any practical purpose.
Even still, Sally had somehow managed to half-way tame the beast. Under her deft hand his ashy-gray curls had ended up more like thick waves than a complicated tangle, sweeping up across either side of his forehead and leaving behind just enough stragglers to not seem too forced. The little bits of fringe helped showcase how much more color his skin had gained over the past few weeks, and their contrast to his glowing blue-green irises was stark. Attractive, dare he say.
His shirt was next. The young god had decided simpler was better, and had settled on a dusty rose color that his mother said complimented his eyes. It was, not so coincidentally, almost the same shade as Aphrodite's aura. Percy suspected either Peitho or his lover had influenced the thing's size, because it seemed a tad more snug than normal. The sky bearer could see the dip of his sternum where the silk struggled to contain his pecs, the circular lump of his locket right in the center.
The young god had rounded out the ensemble with some black jeans and a pair of comfortable shoes. He had gone with something that still appeared sturdy enough to walk around in, even if he didn't technically need to don footwear anymore. That would have just been in bad form.
His mother had actually assembled the various odds and ends that finished out the look. She had gone with a dark belt with a fancy silver clasp, and a slim watch (thankfully not diamond-studded, this time). Sally had offered a few extra rings as well, but Percy had declined. The lack of surrounding jewelry made the swirling engagement band on his left ring finger seem to shine, radiating from the inside out with the impossible magic that animated its gemstone clouds. He rather liked it.
"Stop worrying." Sally's voice derailed his train of thought. When Percy looked over, she had a bemused tilt to her lips. "That's what you said, right? Besides, I'm the mom whose son is going on his first date with a far older woman. Let me do the worrying."
Percy choked on his spit, and then laughed. The entire room seemed to lighten with the sound, as if a bank of clouds had fled from overhead. "Don't let her hear you say that. That's not very polite." He could feel himself smiling again. The walls hummed with teal.
"Since when have Jacksons ever worried about being polite?" His mother said, turning to face the door. "Now come on. Peitho said something about getting a fancy camera or something up here." Her eyes gleamed. "I'm not going to miss out on the chance to get some embarrassing photos of my only son."
The walk through the halls up to the fourth floor seemed to take forever, and also pass in a single blink. The manor staff scuttled out of the path of his aura, though not without shooting Percy or his mother practically giddy expressions. Not even his afternoon . . . funk had diminished their spirits much, it would seem.
The staff's energy was infectious. It was reflected in the way the paint on the walls seemed to brighten a shade every foot closer he and his mother drew to their final destination, in how the paintings swirled between images of candlelit dinners and beaches during sunset. Before the sky bearer even knew what was happening, he was standing outside the master bedroom's huge double doors.
"You forgot these." His mother pressed something into his hands. Percy looked down, and found the roses. He had to relax his grip, lest he crush the stems to pulp.
Oh, yeah.
Sally chuckled at her son's bewildered face, before practically skipping off to stand next to Peitho a few doors down. True to her word, the Housekeeper passed some sort of blocky, bronze contraption to the mortal woman. Given that one side looked like a cross between a telescope and a torpedo tube, it didn't take Sally long to figure out how the thing worked.
The woman mouthed 'good luck' to Percy before pressing her eye into what was probably a viewfinder. Just down the hallway, he spotted more than a dozen other heads peering shamelessly around the corner. They were practically stacked on top of one another.
For a long second, the young god just stood in place. Percy could feel Aphrodite on the other side of the door, salient enough they might as well have been touching skin to skin. He knew she could feel him, too. It took great willpower to not just use his aura to peer through the walls to take a quick sneak peak. That would hardly be fair.
Percy took a long inhale. Then, he raised his hand and knocked.
Each impact of his knuckles sounded like a cannon shot in the stillness. The son of Poseidon could have sworn some of the staff even flinched. After the echoes had faded away, the door whispered open and Percy instantly forgot how to breathe.
"Bonsoir, Percy."
Aphrodite stepped out, haloed in pink with that frustratingly kissable smirk tugging at her lips. The sky bearer might have said something in response. Probably, not though, considering the lack of air in his lungs.
"Are those for me?" Aphrodite stepped purposefully close. She barely even had to try to swipe the roses from Percy's limp grasp, pressing her face into the petals and inhaling deeply. When the goddess caught his eyes over the flowers, he could see her smile deepening.
"Thank you, darling. Peitho?" A flick of her wrist appeared a stunning glass vase, filled a third of the way with clear water. "Place these in the main entryway, would you?" Her eyes caught his own, each iris a smoldering neon line around pitch black pupils. "Make sure they are clearly visible."
"Of course, My Lady." Percy didn't even register when the Housekeeper swept past his shoulder. She was gone just as smoothly, click-clacking back down the hallway, roses in hand and exuding aura of deserved smugness.
The sky bearer still hadn't inhaled. Aphrodite clearly noticed. Never satisfied, she pressed her advantage.
"So?" With practiced ease, the goddess did a small pirouette in place. The motion did things to her barely-contained chest that would have had any man's knees buckling. Percy was very much included in that number. "How do I look?"
The young god couldn't even answer at first. Percy's brain was busy continuously rebooting, only to crash each time like a car engine that couldn't turn over. The breathless pause lasted a bit too long, apparently, because the first hints of remarkably human nervousness peeked out from behind Aphrodite's mask. That shocked the sky bearer back into motion.
"You-" He stepped forward, nearly right into his goddess' chest, unable to resist her gravity. Percy raised his hands before hesitating, unsure if touching the vision of beauty in front of him would shatter the moment. "You look divine, Aphy." He was unable to tear his gaze away. "More than divine. I don't even have the words."
"Flatterer," Aphrodite purred. Her hand snapped up, grabbing his hovering fingers and pulling them to her mouth. The delicate kiss she placed on the back of his knuckles lit fire all the way down Percy's spine. "You're looking dashing yourself, my love." Her swirling rainbow eyes raked him up and down. It was hard not to feel good about himself when he saw the naked hunger burning within.
"Maybe we will actually need that mop," someone whispered deeper down the hallway. It might have been his mother, it might not have been. The sky bearer couldn't have cared less. His jaw was right to hang loose, this time.
Aphrodite was simply a vision. A vision of femininity and beauty and sex all wrapped in a slim, delicious dress. Where Percy had gone for 'simplicity is best', the love deity had gone for 'less is more'. Just the hint of a smokey eye shadow, a touch of wine-red lipstick that Percy wanted to just lean forward and taste right off her lips. A bare dusting of blush across her high, tanned cheeks. Perhaps a single stroke of dark, striking mascara to shape the edges of the goddess' eyelashes.
On anyone else, it might have looked casual. On Aphrodite, that was all that was needed. You couldn't adjust perfection too much without diminishing it, after all.
Her dress was a sinful contradiction. The fabric was a slimming black that somehow managed to accentuate all of the right curves. A long skirt terminated just over her ankles, with slits on either side that bared leg all the way up to almost the bottom curve of her asscheek. The thing's high collar was undercut by a plunging heart-shaped boob window, the point of which dipped low to the center of her abdomen. The hints of her abs that peaked through looked absolutely delicious.
The dress had no sleeves. That, in and of itself, was vindication to every uptight mortal who had ever called a woman's shoulders distracting. Percy certainly was distracted. She was wearing high heels, as if anything else could have matched, the shining black leather offset by vibrant red undersoles.
That wasn't the last of it, though. Because every good outfit needed a bit of contrast, Aphrodite had decided to really go all out with her hair. Percy didn't even have a name for what the goddess had done with her fox-tail locks.
Pretty. That was all he could call it.
The sky bearer was pretty sure mortal hands would struggle to replicate the tight, impossibly intricate looping weave that sat high on the back of the love deity's head. Two perfectly curved bangs broke from the sides to frame her regal features, the darker black tips the same color as her eyeshadow. From the bottom of the structure flowed sheets of dark silk waterfalling down her back - the red within glowed like hot coals under the manor's magical lights. The tight pull on the sides of her head made the longer cascades behind more dramatic, all while accentuating the sparkling diamond studs high on her ear's helixes.
"Olympus help me," Percy breathed, his eyes still fluttering over Aphrodite's features. His next swallow was thick. "We might have to cancel."
"Oh?" Aphrodite leaned in, walking two pointed fingernails up the center of his chest. "Why is that?" She tapped at the covered face of his locket, rainbow eyes gleaming. "It would be such a shame, non?"
"Because-" Percy's hands automatically settled on his lover's wide hips. The fabric of her dress was sheer under his palms, though his pinkies dipped just enough to brush across the bare section of hip exposed by the slits on either side. "-I'm not sure how long I can guarantee you'll stay in that outfit." His voice came out a deep, primal rumble.
Aphrodite's aura flared, pressing against Percy's skin. "I see." Her smile was sharp as knives. The goddess effortlessly pushed right through his thick teal to press the bare tops of her breasts right into the young god's torso. "Perhaps, mon cher, that was entirely the point." The words dripped out of her mouth, vibrating like static through his entire body.
Percy's nostrils flared. He saw in the reflection of her eyes the way his pupils expanded to gobble up the blue-green on either side. The urge to slide his hands just a bit lower, just enough to slip right into those tantalizing gaps and up inside her dress, was sudden and nearly overpowering. The heat between her thighs was apparent even though the layers between them, just as he was sure the bulge beneath his jeans was equally as obvious.
Percy knew she was affecting him. He could rationalize that perhaps their combined nervousness had led to this, to the outpouring of pure sensuality the likes of which not even the eldest Olympian would have been able to withstand. She probably knew it too.
Neither of them decided to care.
"Alright, lovebirds." Sally was tasked with the unenviable task of breaking them up. The mortal woman stepped up so with a hand clutched around her fancy camera, the top of which was already spitting out a connected string of square images. "You can undress each other later. This time with your hands instead of your eyes, and preferably long after I've gone to sleep." Despite her teasing words, there was an infectious joy hiding behind her expression.
"Duly noted, Sally." Aphrodite hadn't looked away from Percy's gaze. The tips of her ears were dark with her blush. It was stunning on her.
The mortal woman rolled her eyes, reaching up to tap at her son's jaw. It closed with an audible clack of teeth. "Didn't you have plans, Percy?" She reminded, forcefully.
"Yeah." He really wished he didn't right about now. The acknowledgement wasn't enough to make him pull away, just pry one hand off Aphrodite's hip to reach down into his pocket. "Can you take us here, Aphy?" His fingers emerged clutched to a small strip of paper.
Aphrodite raised an eyebrow, moving back just enough to take it from his grip. Her other hand remained glued to his bicep as she looked over the list of coordinates scribbled in his messy handwriting. Percy unashamedly stared down the front of her dress as she did. He knew she was jutting out her torso for that exact reason, anyway.
"Don't try to guess where we're going," the sky bearer said, half because that was important and half because keeping his lips moving meant he probably wasn't drooling over her.
The love deity hummed, but acquiesced. The little slip vanished between her fingers like a mortal magic trick. "How mysterious, Percy." When Aphrodite turned back to look at him, there was something dark and enticing behind her eyes.
"I like being surprising," Percy shrugged, nonchalant as he could manage with the way his blood was rushing in his veins. "It's worked so far." He ignored his mother subtly raising her strange contraption to take another close-up photo.
Aphrodite's smile widened, this time in both the sensual godly way and also the equally stunning, almost human way. "J'aime ça- I like it. It would be my pleasure." The last word purred from the love deity's painted lips. She turned to give Sally's camera a last, breathtaking smile, all while pulling his tricep directly in between her breasts. "With your leave, Sally."
The older woman waved a hand, lowering the bronze box. "Get out of here," she snarked. "Just bring him back mostly in one piece." Sally paused, and looked them over. Her lips pursed. "Three, max."
Aphrodite threw her head back to laugh. The throaty sound rang through the air, rebounding off the walls to slither down Percy's spine. The last thing he heard was the cheering of the staff down the hallway before the world around him pinched, and then they were gone.
Before that moment, Percy had found barely any time to think about where his first ever date would even take place. All he had was the barest bones of an idea, more a general theme and setting than anything concrete. Even communicating that much had been more difficult than it should have been.
Peitho had, as usual, worked miracles. The moment Percy and Aphrodite stepped out of thin air, the sight of miles of blooming flowers took his breath away.
"Spectaculaire," Aphrodite gasped. Her eyes greedily drank in the scene, before swinging back up to Percy's face. "You picked this place?"
"Peitho did," Percy smiled, honest to a fault. "I wanted it to not be on Olympus and she said she knew just the place." He inclined his head. "Seems she was right."
Aphrodite laughed again, and the whole world brightened around her form. "Only a foolish man ignores his paramour's Housekeeper, darling." She nuzzled into his shoulder, her wide smile giving her cheeks the most attractive little dimples Percy had ever seen. The position left the back of his hand pressed right into the center of her plunging boob window. "And the fact that you admitted it makes you both smart and humble. An attractive combination, I would say."
Percy looked down at her, flipping his pinned wrist to press all five fingers against Aphrodite's warm skin. "Glad you think so, Aphy." He was sure his face looked absolutely foolish and love-struck, but he was honestly so thankful she liked the spot that his knees felt a bit weak.
Peitho is so getting a thank you gift basket for this.
As far as first introductions to a new continent went, Percy had to admit that France did not disappoint. He and his goddess had arrived just at the crest of the tallest of a long train of small, rolling hills. Each earthy mound was lush with greenery planted in neat, orderly rows. They were sunflowers, almost too many for the eye could count - a hundred thousand or more pointed towards the point where Apollo's star was just falling over the western horizon.
The fields went uninterrupted for miles around, flowing up and over the drips in the geography in streaks of popping yellow. The vast tracts of blooming flowers were only barely hemmed in by distant lines of low-set trees, their trunks covered in creeping vines and clinging moss. Percy's breeze flitted across the land, sending in motion an endless wave of weaving grass and swaying petals. The flowing ripples were hypnotizing, stretching from horizon to horizon.
There were only a few nearby hints of civilization. A couple of hills over, a barely visible dirt road led to a small stone house that looked like it had stood there for a hundred years or more. The ancient-looking glass windows were dark. Percy had full confidence that, if anyone did truly live in the area, Peitho had shooed them away somehow for the evening.
In truth, the minor goddess had given him just the barest hint of a rundown of her chosen location. The sky bearer knew they were a couple dozen miles northwest of Paris, but not much more than that. The most important thing was that it was in Aphrodite's favored country, near enough to the city of love that Peitho had assured him it would put his goddess in an even better mood than usual.
Honestly, Percy didn't know if it really mattered what country they had ended up in. He knew that the mortal realm held its own measure of beauty, of course, but the difference between experiencing such views in one of Aphrodite's memories and seeing it with his own two eyes still caught him off guard. For a few seconds, both Olympians stood equally in rapture.
"Ironic, isn't it?" Aphrodite smoothly detached from Percy's arm to practically float to the nearest row of flowers, naturally unbothered by her heels on the uneven terrain. "That the mortal world can be so ugly, and yet also like this at the same time." Her tone was an ancient sort of wistful as she reached out to touch the nearest plant.
Percy watched the petals bent towards his goddess fingers as her hand drew near, gravitating naturally to the brightest object around. He empathized. When the love deity turned back towards him, the sky bearer delighted in the way her eyes lit up when she found him holding a picnic basket in hand.
"I, uh-" Percy shuffled a bit. "Peitho stashed this nearby." It had been just out of sight a couple dozen feet to the right, but he liked the grand reveal of floating it over silently rather than tromping over to get it. Percy couldn't quite help the smile that stretched across his face. "Are you hungry?"
"I don't know. A picnic?" Aphrodite finished trailing her fingers over the flowers to dance back in his direction. The sway of her hips was extra noticeable in her sheer, black dress. "I'm not sure I'm dressed for a picnic, mon cher." The love deity's teasing was undercut by the sheer affection in her eyes.
"You're dressed for anything," Percy countered. "You can't fool me."
The sky bearer habitually raised his free arm so Aphrodite could slot right in at his side. Not before drawing her in for a one handed kiss, though, which turned decidedly heated after the goddess started raking her nails down his chest. Percy was forced to nip her bottom lip just to get her to back off.
"I suppose." Her pleased hum washed warm across his flushed lips. "I would prefer to be wearing nothing, if you must know." Her half-lidded expression just made Percy want to kiss her again, but the basket in his hand was enough of a reminder to stave off the urge. Her joy was so infectious that the entire surrounding space was tinted pink.
"Minx," Percy grumbled, not unhappily.
"I prefer the word irrésistible." The love deity flipped her hair, completely unrepentant.
That made him laugh. "Come on." The son of Poseidon pulled on the goddess' arm, leading them down the hill and in between the rows of flowers. It was like stepping into another world, one hemmed in on all sides by the plant life. The tallest of the flowers went nearly over his head.
Aphrodite came readily, with pink cheeks and magically un-smeared lipstick that he could still taste on his lips. Less than six hours ago, the young Olympian didn't feel like he would ever smile again. Now, Percy's cheeks were already pinched from doing it so much.
"Such a rush," The love deity huffed at his quick pace, but she couldn't hide the way one of her hands wound up around his elbow, nor the way the ends of her hair drifted over to wrap around his wrist.
Percy didn't dignify the fangless complaint with anything more than another amused tug on her arm. The young god purposefully angled them towards a small clearing near the bottom of the hill, one he had spotted earlier. It wasn't much more than a cleared circle of grass underneath a solitary tree, but as far as picnic spots could go that was pretty ideal in Percy's mind.
The following short walk was filled with some of the most enjoyable minutes the young god could remember. He could literally feel the stress leaching out of his body with every step. The ground was soft beneath his shoes, the faint wind invigorating where it tugged at the ends of his hair. The field smelled of earth and wind and life, each breath surprisingly invigorating. For the first time in the mortal world, the air in Percy's lungs felt clean.
The sky above was a deep, inky-blue color just starting to burn orange with Apollo's sunset. Shafts of red and yellow and even a light pink broke through the branches of the distant trees and fell across the rows of flowers. The colors turned Aphrodite's features into something otherworldly, a stained glass painting with regal cheekbones and a stunning smile.
The love deity was content to simply trail her free hand along the tops of the sunflowers as they passed, bending the stems of each plant just a touch and watching them bounce back into place with a sparkling gaze. Percy always found it so hard not to stare when she got like this, so enthralled by just the smallest of details. It reminded him of the way she had observed the yard games Annabeth had set up a few days ago, like such mortal pleasantries were endlessly fascinating.
The son of Poseidon tried it too, shifting the basket to his elbow so his other hand was free. The flowers didn't turn to face his direction like they did for his lover, but they were smooth and pleasant to the touch so he wasn't particularly upset. Aphrodite giggled when he bent one a bit too far and the rebounding petals nearly hit him in the face, which just sent him off laughing right along with her.
Honestly, maybe France would become his favorite too.
They made it about halfway to the designated eating spot before the silence was broken. "Why a picnic, love?" Aphrodite couldn't hide the curiosity in her tone. She was almost skipping at his side, though, so she definitely wasn't upset about it. That was good.
"I wanted to. It felt right, I guess." Percy adjusted the lay of the handle in the crook of his arm, trying to keep the thing from swinging too much. He could feel a blush creeping up his neck. "I don't know."
He couldn't avoid the disbelieving face Aphrodite shot him at that last part. Aphrodite went all out for it, even jutting out her bottom lip just a hair. She instantly had the sky bearer folding like a house of cards.
"I mean-" Percy puffed out a breath. He knew his next words were risky the moment they came out. "I just didn't want to take you somewhere someone already has before."
Aphrodite was quiet for a long moment. Percy didn't rush her. The young god distracted himself by doing his best to keep the air calm, pushing the breeze along as smooth as he could manage. He could practically feel her thinking.
Percy's goddess was still silent when their destination began to loom overhead. The gnarled tree was taller and more ancient looking up close than it had seemed from the top of the hill. The twisted trunk warped in almost illogical directions, with a couple knots so big Percy could have perched on them. The canopy was a shade of green that almost tricked the eyes, never settling on one specific hue.
If there wasn't some divine significance to this area, the young god would have eaten his hat. Well, if he had one. That was still one fashion bridge he hadn't quite mustered up the bravery to cross.
"It would not matter where you took me, Percy." When Aphrodite finally spoke, her voice came out soft, but surprisingly firm. "Even if I had been there a thousand times before, I would gladly go a thousand more." She gripped Percy's arm especially tight, the press of her aura against his skin flaring. "Because, mon amour-" When she looked up at him, her mask had opened up to show the impossibly beautiful vulnerable face beneath.
"-I would be there with you."
And damn it if Percy wasn't going to kiss her after saying that.
So, he did, the moment he got into the shade of the tree's canopy and he could set the basket down without worrying about its contents. Having two hands free made it much easier to lift her up by the waist, where the love deity automatically wound her legs around his hips. Aphrodite then proceeded to use her increased height to absolutely plunder the breath right from his mouth with her tongue.
Percy wasn't sure how long the kiss lasted. He didn't really care. It was impossible to, when the most beautiful woman in existence was moaning his name into his lips and gripping the back of his hair with her hands as if she might die if they separated. Perhaps Sally had been right - Percy wasn't sure he was actually going to make it back to home in one piece after all.
Aphrodite was every bit as ferocious as he knew she could be. Each time she separated their lips with wet smacks, only to dip her head to nip at the edge of his jawline or run her tongue up to the junction of his throat. The motion trailed goosebumps along his skin. The goddess swept her aura across Percy's nerves like a violinist pulling a bow across her instrument's strings. Aphrodite's phantom hands were never idle, wrapping around his shoulders and pressing down the arch of the sky bearer's lower back.
Percy tried to give as good as he got, but in the end, he was the one left dazed when Aphrodite shimmied her way back down to the ground. As if ending the kiss wasn't punishment enough, the love deity shamelessly adjusted the front of her dress in a way that she knew would attract his attention. She somehow managed to look even better ruffled than she did completely put together.
"Well, dearest?" The fact that the goddess was half breathless after kissing him sent a zing of ego right down Percy's spine. She was smirking again, her lips flushed and half-bruised. "How about that picnic, hm?"
"Right, sure." The son of Poseidon blinked a couple of times, turning back to the almost forgotten basket. He opened the lid with a finger of air. "Not sure if I love you or hate you more, right now," he snarked.
Aphrodite's smile didn't abate. They both knew the answer to that. Percy's red cheeks probably ruined the joke, anyway.
The first thing to come out of the basket was a large patterned quilt. It took only a single thought to carry the thing on a cushion of air and spread it evenly across the grass. For a second, Percy just stared at it. The sky bearer couldn't have found a more stereotypical white and red patterned picnic blanket if he tried.
Really, mom? It had Sally's name written all over it. Peitho would have known they didn't need such things to stay clean.
Aphrodite must have had a similar thought, because she huffed out an amused breath when they next caught gazes. "Seems picnics haven't changed much since my last," She mused, running a hand through her hair to smooth out the tangles Percy's fingers had caused. The sky bearer definitely didn't pause to peak at her legs as the goddess lifted the hem of her skirt to slip off her high heels. "That was . . . oh, sixty or seventy years ago?" She dipped elegantly onto one hip, her feet tucked beneath her seat in a refined yet relaxed lounging pose. She waved a hand. "J'oublie- I forget."
"Who was it with?" Percy hadn't heard this particular story. "Auntie Demeter, maybe? That seems up her alley." He couldn't hide his interest from his tone, even as his hands emerged from the basket once again holding a pair of wax-paper wrapped sandwiches that were far too fancy to have come out of anywhere but an Olympian's kitchen.
"It was." Aphrodite confirmed. Their fingers brushed when he passed one to his goddess, static jumping between their skin. "In her backyard garden. It is actually larger than mine." She laughed, her tone warm. "You should see it sometime, mon coeur. Auntie plants and weeds it all by hand. It's magnificent."
"Really?" Percy was a bit surprised. The sky bearer dropped next to her, crossing his legs so that their knees were touching. "Couldn't she just, you know-" he snapped his fingers. "Do it all like that?"
"She could." Aphrodite hummed, her tone taking on a bit of a lecturing tilt. "But that would defeat the purpose, don't you think?" Her eyes were a bit challenging, warning off his knee-jerk response.
Instead, Percy thought quietly for a bit while fiddling with his own sandwich. He thought of the archery contest back at camp, of how Aphrodite had taken the time to braid her daughter's hair the previous morning instead of magicking it all in place. Would Eloise have looked so happy if the task had just been done without any time or effort at all? Didn't the fact that her mother could have and decided not to make it all the more special?
"Yeah." He eventually said. "I guess it would."
The pleased smile that grew on Aphrodite's face told him he had reached the right conclusion. Percy couldn't help but lean in and steal the expression right off her mouth with his own.
"Auntie would love this place, I think," Percy added, after he found the strength to draw away. "Both of them." He hadn't seen Hestia at all since their one short meeting back at the manor. As his gaze roved over the picturesque plain, he realized he had missed her presence more than he expected.
"Hmm." Aphrodite softly hummed her agreement. "And Apollo, too, what with his chosen flower everywhere."
Percy's nose wrinkled. He didn't have much against the sun god, certainly not in comparison to his twin. He sorta owed him one, anyway.
"It's nice," the sky bearer finally admitted, if begrudgingly. The sun seemed to shine extra bright for a second.
Aphrodite chuckled. The goddess' eyes gleamed knowingly at him as her painted fingernails unwrapped her meal, each a dark red the same color as her lipstick. Percy followed her lead. The young god knew he didn't technically need food to live anymore, but when he spotted the thick cuts of bacon in the center of his own sandwich he could have sworn his stomach growled.
Make that two gift baskets for Peitho. And one for the rest of the staff for good measure.
For a few minutes, the two Olympian's sat in silence and picked at their food. Or, in Percy's case, devoured it. The soft swish-swish of the wind through the endless rows of sunflowers made for a most pleasant background white-noise. The sun was almost halfway hidden by the horizon, now. Every time Percy moved, his knee knocked gently against his lover's.
It was nice, even with nothing being said. Really nice. The sort of nice that Percy didn't even think this could have been, with how nervous he was just a few minutes ago. Being with Aphrodite was just so . . . so easy, he reflected, a warmth unspooling in his gut. If that wasn't proof that what they had could last, he didn't know what would be.
The son of Poseidon finished his sandwich before Aphrodite was even halfway through her own. That could have been due to the fact that his mouthfuls were twice as big, or perhaps because the love deity refused to do anything without a godly level of grace and that apparently included picnicking. Her bites were positively dainty. Looking for something to occupy his hands, Percy eventually dove back into the basket and returned with a fancy bottle of champagne and two elegant stemmed glasses.
"Careful, love," Aphrodite chirped, flicking her wrist to summon a lacy napkin to dap away some non-existent crumbs from her lips. "That bottle is from Dionysus' stock." She said that as if the literal wrap of gold-leaf laurels around the neck of the bottle didn't give that away. "Peitho would settle for nothing but the best, it would seem."
"I'll be careful," Percy grouched, good naturedly. "Learned my lesson the hard way, as usual."
"And what about what happened the next morning, hmm?" Aphrodite leaned in, brushing a wandering set of fingers up the inside of his closer leg. Her rainbow irises gleamed.
"Later," Percy promised, patting her knuckles with a chuckle. "I'm surprised you're so . . . forward," he admitted, setting the glasses down on a solid platform of wind just in front of his chest. "Especially with how today has gone." To the mortal eye, it would have seemed they were floating on nothing. The young god casually flicked the cork off the top with a single finger of air, the loud pop! fizz echoing across the grass.
"We all deal with stress differently." Aphrodite shrugged a bit, taking her hand back after playfully pinching his thigh. "In my experience, there's always one sure way of relaxing un homme." The way she purposefully ran her tongue along her bottom lip gave no illusions to why her fingers had been targeting the fly of his jeans.
Percy snorted. "Got me there." He wasn't about to disagree.
Aphrodite's grin turned sharp, and she eagerly reached out as he handed her a glass about a third full of sparkling, gold-tinted alcohol. "I may not like his usual fare, but my brother knows his spirits," She purred, pinching the stem in a practiced grip. The champagne caught the rays of the setting sun unnaturally prettily as it bubbled away, glowing flecks spiraling in the center of the drink.
"I'd hope so." Percy's own drink was about half as deep. Say what you will, he had learned his lesson. The young god eyed his glass a bit warily, his own grip much less refined. "Didn't seem he was doing much else at Camp Half Blood, not if even his own son was happy he left." Percy personally thought he was doing pretty good with that whole idea - he hadn't had a single panic-attack about taking over as bastion of demigods since the first one.
Aphrodite made a little sound of agreement in the back of her throat. "His station there was a punishment first, and then a necessity once the war began in earnest." The love deity leaned back to take a sip of champagne, the delicate curve of her throat chaining Percy's eyes for half a second when she swallowed. "I fear his own wounded pride made bonding with the little ones more difficult than it would have been already. Besides," She shot him a glance, eyes amused as she caught him peeping. "I wouldn't say he's the most affectueux- affectionate. Even amongst my siblings."
"A shame." Percy didn't dare take a sip of his own drink yet, leaning back to rest his weight on one hand. He didn't even attempt to move his gaze away from his goddess' eyes, their gazes pulled together by magnetic attraction. "I wish all the demigods had relationships with their parents like your kids do with you."
"Our kids, my love." Aphrodite gently corrected.
"Right." Percy couldn't stop the completely nervous, yet positively beaming grin that took over his cheeks. "Our kids."
Aphrodite reached her drink out towards him, all while smiling that small, genuine smile. Sparks leapt between their forms. Teal and green combined thickly in the air as he leaned in. When Percy tapped the rim of Aphrodite's glass with his own, the chime rang clear in the evening air.
From there, things went . . . well, almost as good as Percy could have possibly hoped. Better, even. The words of She Who Dreams lingered in the back of the sky bearer's mind, but that's all of the space they were allowed to occupy. Aphrodite dominated the rest of Percy's head-space. Her bright laugh and breathtaking smile and those little dimples on her cheeks took up every available inch of his being.
The sun continued to set overhead. Before long the sky overhead was a stunning blue-lavender, though the entire western horizon remained a burning, fiery red color almost the same as the roots of the love deity's hair. The barest chill of the evening began to creep over the sunflower fields, and the chirps of distant crickets drifted over the sound of Percy's breeze. Between him and his goddess, though, there was nothing but warmth.
For the better part of an hour, the two Olympians just talked. Well, at least Aphrodite did. Percy was more than content to sit and listen, to bask in her presence, just like he had back when the live deity was no more than a nameless voice against the backdrop of an endless void. For that slice of time, everything felt right in Percy's world.
Aphrodite spoke of somehow everything and nothing all at once - silly little stories about how she heard about Mitchell's first kiss with a boy from Lacy because the teen was a hopeless gossip, or how his mother had been seized by a knitting kick a few years ago and forced Peitho to display her creations in the front hall even though they both knew they looked terrible. They didn't talk of politics, or the war, or anything like that, and yet even still every story had the young Olympian firmly enraptured.
Percy laughed so much his cheeks felt stiff, his skin erupting with pleasant tingles whenever Aphrodite's hands drifted over to accentuate her points. Her fingers found his shoulders, his forearm, her knee pressed into his hip when she leaned close. The touch was never quite enough, and by the end of it Aphrodite had settled herself right in the gap between his legs, close enough Percy could follow the gentle swirl of the endless colors of her irises in between breaths.
When Aphrodite's champagne glass drew low Percy refilled it, levitating the bottle over with a wave of his hand even as his own remained mostly untouched. The last thing he wanted was for her lips to stop moving due to a dry throat. After a second serving turned into a third, Percy caught just the barest hint of a tipsy pink creeping over Aphrodite's tan cheeks.
Guess it's time, then.
The love deity didn't notice when the sky bearer reached over to dip his hand into the basket. When his fist emerged, closed around a small black box, Percy visibly watched her next words catch in her throat.
"Percy!" The lack of the love deity's normal mask let the young god see the hundred emotions that flickered then across Aphrodite's expression. Surprise, affection, disbelief, joy. "I- you did not-" For the first time the entire night, she seemed completely at a loss as to what to say. The goddess set her glass aside with shaking fingers.
"It's not a ring," Percy interrupted that specific train of thought as fast as he could. Maybe a bit too fast, if Aphrodite's face was anything to go by. "It was a bit too short notice for that. Not even Hermes could get a ring good enough for you in a single day." He knew his own smile was tenuous, shaky at the corners of his mouth. "You'll have one before the wedding, I promise. Consider this an 'I owe you', I guess."
"Hermes?" Aphrodite blinked. Her face was still slack.
"Yeah." Percy chuckled, mussing up his hair with a nervous hand. "He owed me a favor. This-" he shook the little box with the other. "-was me caching in."
"A favor, Percy?" Aphrodite's eyes only widened. "You would use such a thing for this?"
"You would have." Percy had no doubt of that. He reached out, and gently placed one of his goddess' limp palms on the top of the box. "Don't worry about it and just open it."
Honestly, the sky bearer was still surprised that he had managed to pull this off. That went for the entire date, really, but most specifically for this little surprise right at the end. Thankfully, Hermes was nothing if not fast.
A single Iris call, because having the god of messengers come personally would have ruined the entire point, had really been all Percy had needed. It had taken less than ten minutes before his sleepless night the previous evening, and most of that was spent describing what exactly he wanted Hermes to deliver. Of course that was mostly because Peitho had taken over the nitty gritty details afterwards, while the sky bearer was busy the next morning in the depths of the Lotus Casino getting the piss scared out of him by the progenitor of the universe.
"I'm a bit disappointed, Percy," the blond god had chuckled on the other side of the call. "Making a discreet package drop off? I was hoping for something a bit harder." Percy had only given him a deadpan glare, but apparently Hermes hadn't been joking. Not once did the sky bearer detect him anywhere nearby all day, and yet there the box had sat in the basket anyway.
"Oh . . ." The goddess' bottom lip caught between her sharp incisors. Her eyes bounced between his own, and then down to their joined hands. "Alright. If you insist, dearest."
Despite her words, there was no hiding the anticipatory excitement on Aphrodite's face when she slowly took the small weight from his fingers. For his part, Percy hadn't breathed in well over a minute. The love deity opened the lid of the box so, so slowly, as if it were something fragile. Something sacred.
"Oh, Percy." Aphrodite's aura pulsed with her soft exclamation, pink energy threatening through the sky bearer's hair and across his face. The love deity traced the gift with the gentlest of touches, no more than the skim of the pad of her index finger. "You must put this on me. Immédiatement." When she looked up and met her eyes, they were quite literally glowing from the inside.
"Are you sure?" Percy stuttered.
"Oui." A beaming smile that grew on Aphrodite's face in no time at all. "Of course I am sure." She sounded mockingly offended at even the insinuation that she felt otherwise.
She likes it. Percy almost collapsed at the thought. Thank the gods, she likes it. He only realized he had said that last part out loud when Aphrodite reached out to place a finger over his lips.
"I love it, darling." The words purred from her mouth in such a way that Percy had no doubt they were true. "As I love you." That had the young god smiling like a loon, and Aphrodite huffed in amusement. "Quit stalling, dearest." A flick of her wrist had the piercing in her left earlobe bare. "And adorn me with your gift, oui?"
"Alright." There was a giddy ball of sunshine burning deep in Percy's gut. The surrounding air swirled in a joyful spiral, rustling the leaves overhead yet leaving the two Olympian's untouched. "Sorry if I prick you."
"You won't." Aphrodite rolled her eyes, her grin undiminished.
Rather than say anything else, Percy reached out and took the box from Aphrodite's grip. His hands looked so much larger than hers had against the thing when he plucked out the gift. The small accessory felt so light the young god worried he might crush it, but there was no way he was using anything less than his real fingers for this.
Thankfully, Percy's preemptive apology was unneeded. He leaned in, and then a second later, leaned away. It was done.
"So?" Aphrodite asked for the second time that night. She flipped her hair, turning her head in his direction and peering out the side of her eyes. "How do I look?"
When he first decided on getting Aphrodite a piece of jewelry, the son of Poseidon had spent a good deal of mental energy flip-flopping between any and all potential options. A bracelet? A necklace? Gods forbid, a ring? He didn't really know what sort of signals he even wanted to send, let alone what specific types of settings and stones he should go for.
Settling on an earring had felt like a stroke of genius. It was intimate enough for everyday use, to be seen and admired and shown, which Percy was self aware enough to admit was part of the whole point. Everyone else saw Aphrodite's claim to him, and therefore, he wanted the reverse to be true. The real kicker was that an earring could do all of that, while still remaining just casual enough to make his real intentions clear.
This is the first of many, is what he wanted his gift to say. And, of course, I love you most of all. By Aphrodite's stunning expression, the young god felt pretty good about having pulled that off.
"Better than I imagined," Percy breathed out in answer. And it was the truth.
The thing was gorgeous as the woman upon whose ear it lay. The dangling piece of jewelry had two main segments - the elegant, looping post that actually threaded through Aphrodite's earlobe and the duo of hanging stones beneath. The whole piece was no longer than a half inch from top to bottom. Contrasted against the gaudy jewelry of the socialites Percy had been forced to meet at the party, and the earring was rather . . . simple. Simple, and yet all the more beautiful for it.
The actual jewels hanging beneath the post were where the real craftsmanship came into play. Percy couldn't imagine that the earring had been made with mortal hands, not with the sheer intricacy of the construction. It wasn't quite to the level of the engagement band on his finger, but it was far closer than he had hoped it would be.
Somehow, whoever Hermes had contacted had flawlessly replicated the same design that sat on Percy's breast pocket. The outside of the stone was a flawless, shimmering blue-green gemstone in the shape of a stylized heart. Only the exterior outline, however, rather than filled in. The thing couldn't have been a normal sapphire or emerald. The color was too vibrant, too complex and deep.
The second stone was suspended in the direct center of the open heart. A simple, puffy cloud, somehow fashioned to seem as soft to the touch as the real thing. He would have called it a more classic diamond, if not for its impossible, flawless clarity. The color of the sunset behind Aphrodite's head shone through the hundreds of meticulously faceted sides, like a rainbow was being born before his very eyes.
"I'm glad you think so, dearest." Aphrodite turned her head back around, interrupting her lover's inspection of his gift. The color inside that sparkling earring was nothing compared to that of her burning, neon pink gaze. "I could settle for saying my thanks out loud, but . . ." The love deity creeped forward, until her face was less than an inch away. "I think I could show you instead, non?"
Her breath was hot against his lips. Percy swallowed thickly, and then a second time as one of Aphrodite's hands cupped him through the front of his jeans. He was suddenly very, acutely aware that they were in the middle of a field of flowers with no one else around for miles, even hidden from both Apollo and Artemis by the hanging boughs of the tree behind his back.
"What do you say, my silver fox?" Aphrodite murmured, her voice caressing every inch of his being. Her irises flared. "A couple of hours is plenty of time, I would think. Why, we might even-"
Percy kissed her so hard they both fell onto the blanket.
Hello all!
Thank you so much for your patience for this chapter. I hope the 10,000 words of shameless fluff was worth the wait :)
As promised, here is the surprise I was hinting about in my message. The next chapter, chapter 34, will be the final chapter of Bearer of the Sky. BEFORE YOU PANIC - this is NOT because this story is over, or because Percy and Aphrodite are being abandoned. This is because I've decided to split my story up into a series of 'books', rather than one huge one. So, chapter 34 will be the end of Book 1, and the story would pick up again in Book 2. There are a couple of reasons for this structure change, which I'll probably detail in a longer Author's Note at the end of next chapter or maybe in an AMA chapter after that or something.
The important thing you need to know is this - it's going to take me a while to write a chapter worthy of an ending to what has been more than an entire year of my life. Bearer of the Sky has been amazing, truly, and I want to make sure to give you all something to be excited about. I have a pretty major life event happening in October (Percy isn't the only one looking forward to a wedding, if you catch my meaning), and planning for that has taken up basically all of the time that I would normally dedicate to writing. The last thing I want to do is put out something half-assed.
I'm going to set a tentative deadline of November 16. If that changes, I'll post an update as needed. The fact that all of you have stuck around for so long to support my story means more than I can express, so I hope to see each and every one of you there for the grand finale. I look forward to your comments in the meantime (reading them one of my favorite things to do) so please don't hesitate to post. If you want to make your way over to A03, odds are I'll even respond!
Until next time, and happy Halloween!
-Blazing47s