Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Rick Riordan, Greco-Roman mythology, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: This was a hard chapter to rewrite. I don't think a whole lot changed of it, per se, at least not plot-wise, but the amount of fluff I had to cut out...geez, what was I thinking?

Oh, well. As always, hope you enjoy, and until next week,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~The Finding Home Saga~

~Finding Home~

~Chapter 24: I Make Good On My Promises Pt. 1~

Now, I know what you're probably thinking.

You're probably thinking something along the lines of, "Really, Percy? You just left the last chapter at that? But I wanted to see you actually become Demeter's champion! I wanted to read about how it all works! But instead, you ended it with some silly little thing about how your life is going to change forever, which we already know!"

And yeah, I totally get why you feel that way, if it is what you are feeling. But, the thing is...I kind-of-really-can't talk about it. If you're familiar with some of the religious rituals of the ancient Hellenes, you know that there were some religious practices they couldn't share with others – this is like that. I swore an oath on the River Styx I would not divulge or talk about the ritual I had to go through to become Demeter's champion...which completely and utterly sucks for the purposes of storytelling, I know.

But, seeing as how I'll literally die and have my soul dragged into the River Styx to spend all eternity with the eponymous goddess if I tell you about it, I hope you'll forgive me for this one slight.

Besides, there's plenty of other things for me to talk about which are much more interesting than that – like my relationship with Luke, for instance! Ever since we'd gotten together, everything in my life had been great. Because while Luke was (understandably) nowhere near the point he would be fully willing to open up to me about his allegiance to Kronos or anything else, he had opened up some. And, not to brag or anything, but even with the little opening up he had done, I could already tell he was perhaps the kindest, smartest, and funniest guy I had ever met, and just the thought of it had me swooning all over him again.

That wasn't to say things were perfect between us, however. Luke didn't know I knew he had sworn his allegiance to Kronos, or that I had sworn my own to Demeter. He didn't know I knew the reason why he had been so insistent on nobody knowing our relationship was because of what he had done, aka the promise he'd made to the Titan King to lure me over to his side by sometime during August.

But, that was okay with me, because I had faith in my own ability to get him to do the vice versa. All I had to do was make him see the gods weren't as bad as he was making them out to be, or at least not bad enough to be overthrown, and then...well, we would go from there.

Which brings me to the "present" in this story.

It had been a week ever since Silena, Katie, and I had come back to camp from my quest, and the Fourth of July was just around the corner. I had learned that the holiday was something of a big deal for all of the campers, since we didn't really do the Judeo-Christian holidays much as descendants of Greek gods. Apparently, there would be an even bigger feast than usual to celebrate the event and the Hephaestus kids made their own fireworks for it too, which everyone watched on the beach of the Sound.

Some of the older campers also liked to hook up underneath those fireworks. Naturally. But while I wasn't all that interested in hooking up with anybody outside of Luke, I knew there was a certain son of Hecate and a certain daughter of Aphrodite who desperately wanted to hook up with each other, but hadn't because of a lack of communication.

And I had made a certain promise to that certain daughter of Aphrodite, back on our quest.

These were the thoughts which went through my mind as I was in the arena again, my shirt covered in sweat as I gripped Riptide tightly in my hands. I was waiting for Luke to make the first move in our third sword fight of the day. He was staring back at me, a slight smile on his face and his own sword in his right hand. He was a little cocky from how he had won the first two matches, but I was determined that this time, I was going to be the victor. I really wanted at least one win against him for the day.

He certainly wasn't making it easy, however. "Focus, Percy," he said as he saw me instinctively blink, then struck forward. "You're not paying attention!"

His smile turned into a full-blown grin as I let out a yelp and dodged his blade. There was no mercy for me: as soon as I'd dodged his blade, he finished his thrust and turned around to strike me again. I had to narrowly dodge him once more, unless I wanted to surrender or get the shirt I was wearing ruined.

"Come on," Luke said. His eyes were alight with amusement, two icy pools swirling and captivating. But it wasn't wise for me to be thinking about that right this moment. "Make your move!"

I did as I was told, but I angled my body so that I would have even more of an advantage with my short height than I had before. Luke grunted in surprise when I side-stepped him and hit him squarely in the left arm with Riptide, and again after I did the same thing to his back as well.

"Surprise move," he remarked. "Nice, but a little unfinished."

"You think?" I asked rhetorically. I dodged his thrust for a third time.

Luke smirked. "Oh, yes, definitely."

Before I could even register what he had done, he had struck me again – except this time, he'd performed the same disarming maneuver he had taught me and the other campers during our first sword training lesson together. Riptide clattered out of my hands and fell helplessly to the ground.

Luke pointed his sword at my chest and gave me a smile which made my legs feel like jelly. "Surrender?" he asked coyly.

"Oh, yes, definitely," I sighed in reply.

Guess it was three for three for him today.

Luke frowned and lowered his sword. He stepped closer and asked, "Hey, what's wrong?"

I shrugged. "Just wanted to get a win in today, that's all."

The corners of his mouth and his scar twitched mischievously. "Really?" He stepped even closer. "Even though I've already told you, multiple times now, that you're doing great?"

He was all up in my personal space now. Nervously, I gulped. "Y – yeah, I – I just wanted to have a personal win for today, I guess."

"Well, we could go for a round four. You might win there," he hummed thoughtfully. He tilted his head down, towards me. I leaned up, desperately wanting to get what he was teasing me with. His breath was hot against my face. "Or, you know, we could – "

"Oh my gods, that was so cool!" a very familiar shouted from behind us.

With a grimace, I backed away from Luke and turned around to look the entrance of the arena where Nico, Ethan, and Alabaster were standing. After my dad, their father, and our uncle must've worked something out between them about what to do with their kids, Nico and Bianca had been claimed two days ago. Like with me, almost everyone at camp had begun to ostracize them, save for a few.

This time, though, the son of Nemesis and son of Hecate had basically taken the son of Hades under their wing. It was good for him, because the only campers his age who interacted with him were Lou Ellen, Cecil Rogers, and a son of Apollo named Will Solace.

But, it was also bad for me.

Because, of course, with Ethan and Alabaster being among the select few who knew about Luke and my's relationship, they just loved cockblocking (was it cockblocking if you weren't having sex? I'm going to go with yes) us to no end.

"Hi, Nico," Luke said humorously as he carefully stepped away from me, although I didn't know why. The son of Hades was absolutely oblivious to gay romance, it seemed. I didn't know if it was because of his age or him being straight out of the 1930's.

Regardless, as long as his obliviousness remained, I couldn't care less.

"Hi, Luke!" Nico exclaimed, grinning widely. He bounded over to us and waved a hand my way. "Hey, Percy!"

"Err...hi, Nico," I replied, while I tried to give Ethan and Alabaster the best "I'll-kill-you-later" stare I possibly could. They both only grinned in response. Dammit. It seemed like the glare only worked on mortals. "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing much," the kid answered. "I was just wondering when I could start my sword training, too! I know that Bianca said she didn't really want you to teach me yet, but Ethan and Alabaster said that it's practically the first real lesson everybody gets here, and I don't want to fall behind!"

"Oh, really now? They told you that?" Luke asked. He gave both of the children of the minor goddesses a very unamused look.

Their grins faltered.

Nico, not noticing this, nodded enthusiastically to the point where I was a little bit concerned his head would suddenly pop off.

"Well," Luke said, running a hand through his hair. "I don't want to get between you and your sister..." He trailed off, watching how Nico immediately drooped. "...But, that being said, I guess I could give you a few pointers if you'd like, no pun intended."

Immediately, Nico perked back up as if he was a flower. "Really?" he asked.

"Really," my boyfriend (μὰ θεούς, did I love calling him that) confirmed with a tentative beam.

I couldn't blame him: I wouldn't want to piss off Bianca, either. Like Katie, she'd quickly grown to be terrifying with her wit and the way shadows had flickered around her when the Stolls had pissed her off yesterday.

Since I knew my time was almost up with Luke anyways due to a canoe race with the naiads at the lake being my next lesson for the day, I faced him with a grin of my own. "Guess I'll leave the two of you to it, then."

After I spoke, as non-discretely as I could, I put two fingers on my neck in a tap, just where my pulse was. It was a simple gesture Luke and I had figured out to do a few days ago, in order to display our affection so no one else except Silena, Katie, Ethan, Alabaster, and Chris caught on to our relationship due to how much of a secret he wanted it to be. However, since it was still so new, Luke only looked blankly at me momentarily, before he blinked. His cheeks flushing something awful, he made the same gesture back.

My grin widened in return. It might not have been a kiss (which I vastly preferred) or an "I love you" (we were way too early in the stages of our relationship to say those words, I knew, no matter how much I desperately wanted to say them), it was still something between us which displayed affection. Something special.

Honestly, I was out to take as much as I could get when it came to him.

"See you later, Nico," I told the son of Hades as I walked past him.

When I got to the entrance of the arena, where Ethan and Alabaster were still standing, I not-so-subtly grabbed each of them by their wrists.

"Hey!" they both protested.

Just as he was oblivious to the closeness between Luke and me, Nico was also oblivious to their shouts of disapproval. "See you later, Percy!" he exclaimed.

I waited until we were on the path leading down to the lake before I hit both of my guy friends in the arms.

"Hey!" Ethan repeated in protest. He rubbed his arm. "What was that for?"

"Oh, you know what that was for," I replied, scowling. "I mean, seriously, guys? Again? It was funny the first time, and maybe the second time, but it isn't funny anymore. You know that Luke," here, I dropped my voice down to a whisper, "doesn't want anyone to know about my and his relationship, so there's only so many times a day we can get together. Sword training's one of them. And I thought that it would be the one time of day that's off limits, too."

Ethan, at least, had the decency to be ashamed. He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Yeah...you're right," he said. "Sorry, Percy."

I eyed Alabaster expectantly, waiting for him to do the same.

He didn't, not even when Ethan elbowed him in the side. Just scowled and then kneaded at his ribs. "Ow, what was that for?"

Ethan gaped at him. "Dude."

Abruptly, I felt the tug behind my navel start up. However, before it could go too far and I wound up dumping water on them, I remembered what I had been thinking about during my sparring session with Luke, and what I had told Silena. What had I said to her specifically, word for word?"

"...Tell you what. Once we get back to camp after this quest, because we will survive this quest, I'll help you out with Alabaster like you helped me out with Luke. It'll be my thanks for both coming on this quest with me and and helping me realize that Luke has feelings for me, too."

The memory made me smirk viciously.

"Uh...Percy?" Ethan asked, stirring me out of my train of thought. His one grey eye was full of nervousness. "You alright?"

I tried my best to make myself look as innocent as possible before saying with deceptive sweetness, "Oh, I'm just fine now. Especially because I know just how to extract my payback on one of you..."

Purposefully trailing off for the dramatic effect, I watched as both Ethan's and Alabaster's faces paled.

"But I don't like Silena like that!" Alabaster protested vehemently a few minutes later.

It was just the two of us now, with us having instinctively went somewhat deeper into the woods than we had before so nobody would overhear us. As soon as Ethan had realized he was not the one that I wanted to get revenge on, as well as what my revenge entailed, he had left, all but running away from his life. It would have been funny, too, had I not been so focused on what I was doing.

"Oh, really, Alabaster?" I asked, giving him by best disbelieving look. "Then why do you always blush when she calls you Ally? And why are you blushing now?"

"I'm not blushing!" he retorted. "I'm just...it's hot out here, okay? Of course my face is going to be red, 'cause I'm hot!"

"Mmhmm, sure," I said.

For several long, tenuous moments, the two of us remained like that, him glaring at me and me holding my ground. I knewI was right about him liking Silena romantically and I wasn't about to let him convince me otherwise, come hell or high water.

Finally, my friend let out a sigh. His shoulders slumped in defeat. "How did you even figure out I like her like that?"

I snorted. "Please, Al, you're not that subtle. Besides, it's not like me knowing really matters...at least, not when I'm going to get you two together, whether either of you like it or not."

Wildly, he shook his head. "Wait, what? You are? No, you can't do that!"

I raised an eyebrow. "And why the hell not?"

"Because Silena doesn't like me like that," he replied.

If he hadn't sounded as dead as serious as he did, I would've thought for sure he was joking. In fact, even though he did, I still almost straight-up asked him if he was. Almost.

Quelling down a near-hysterical laughter from my chest, I groaned and ran a hand through my hair. "Μὰ πατέρα, I can't believe how dense you two are! Holy shit, it's like Silena was a pot calling the kettle black when she yelled at me and Luke for not realizing we liked each other sooner! Seriously, how can she not see that you like her as a daughter of Aphrodite, and how can you not see that she likes you?"

Alabaster blinked. "Silena doesn't like me," he repeated.

I snorted again. "Really? Then why did she ask you out at the beginning of the summer?"

He gave a shrug. "I thought it was a dare."

"A dare?"

"...Yeah? The only friends I really have here at camp besides you and Luke are Ethan, Chris, and I guess Nico now – Lou doesn't count. And my dad's always moving us for his archaeology job so I don't really have any other friends, either. What do you expect?"

...Okay, I silently admitted. That does explain a lot.

Still, "Then why does she call you Ally? Nobody else does that, do they?"

He shifted uncomfortably, before saying, "Well...no. But I always basically thought that it was her way of teasing me."

"And why would she tease you?" I asked, and I very ashamedly admit that my voice might or might not have risen a few octaves as I spoke.

But, fuck it: he was so close and so far away at the same time, it was downright infuriating.

When Alabaster didn't immediately answer me, then indeed didn't answer me at all, I sighed. "Okay, okay, look: I know it might seem kind of hard to believe," I said, "but Silena really does like you, and I know for a fact that you like her. And since you can't stop cockblocking me, I'm gonna get you two together so that I can repay the favor."

...That, and plus my promise, of course. But Alabaster didn't need to know about that.

Not yet, anyways.

Word Count: 3,025

Next Chapter Title: I Make Good On My Promises Pt. 2