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

This fic would not have existed without the encouragement of Stereden, who has also done a podfic of it, which can be found in its AO3 crosspost /works/57201739 or on my tumblr tsarisfanfiction!

In the water, a large form shimmered into view. It seemed rather like a cross between a wolf and a seal, or perhaps rather too much like a telekhine for Lee's liking. It also seemed angry.

"No," it repeated, glowering at them with furious, luminous green eyes. "I just got clean thanks to that bratty son of Poseidon and the price was keeping Kronos' scum out of my waters. Stay on that bank, or drown, punks."

Lee scrambled to his feet, searching for something, anything, to say that might possibly convince the river god to let them cross, or at least him. He couldn't give up now – on the bridge downstream, he could hear the bellowing of a bull, which meant his siblings were already facing down the Minotaur.

His only slim hope was that Kronos had said he would be the second wave, and if the Minotaur was there, then maybe they were still in the first wave.

Tris pushed him back down and stepped in front of him, an arm out in a way that made him a human shield.

Lee hated it.

"Sorry about my brother's manners, Lord East," his younger brother said, staring down the water with no fear, just wariness and respect. There was a slight incline in his head, but nothing dramatic, as though Tris was used to talking to water deities.

Well, he did spend a lot of time chatting with the Nereids. Getting him off of the Sound back at camp had always been a challenge.

"He's so worried about our siblings he forgot he should always ask permission first," Tris continued, and maybe Lee had forgotten that, but if he was honest – which he clearly shouldn't be, in earshot of the god currently watching them intently – he'd forgotten that the East River, with all its pollution and gunk, still had a god to seek permission from. "If we swore to you that we're not part of Kronos' forces, would you let us cross, then?"

The god's head emerged from the water, rivers running from the slightly furred face in cascades to rejoin the estuary, and got close to Tris. Too close, to Lee's panic, but his brother didn't even flinch.

Those eerie, luminous green eyes looked over both of them, seeing things.

"Apollo spawn," the god snorted after a moment. "As impudent as Poseidon spawn. You have water in your veins, brat."

"My mother is- was a sailor," Tris confirmed, although his voice slipped and cracked on the correction. Lee caught his hand and squeezed it, wishing he could do more, but realising that this was something Tris needed to handle.

Gods, but Tris was still a child. He shouldn't have to be the one bartering with gods for passage to save the lives of their siblings. That should be Lee's job, as the eldest, as a head counsellor – he wasn't one, any more. He knew that, knew it was Michael's role now, but four years of leadership didn't just go away.

But Tris was the one with water in his veins, not Lee.

Apollo's domains were so plentiful that it was easy to forget some of them, especially the ones that were more rarely inherited. Everyone knew that Apollo was the god of healing, of music, of archery. Of prophecy, too, although that wasn't one that cabin seven tended to showcase, and it was impossible to forget the sun when that shone down on them all day every day at camp.

It was the other things, like herding and protecting youth, that got forgotten. Logic and knowledge got overlooked, the Athena cabin much more loudly focused on knowing things, and truth didn't appear much.

Sailing appeared even more rarely, possibly because Apollo was more a patron of sailors than a god of sailing. There were records of it cropping up from time to time, but Tris was the first one that Lee had ever met. He was no son of Poseidon, couldn't control the waves or breathe underwater, or any of those other powers that Percy showcased like it was nothing, but he had a few tricks of his own, too.

Sailors lived and died by their knots, on the open sea. They kept their balance no matter how much the sea roiled beneath them.

They always, always, respected the water.

The god of the East River snorted, smashing a flipper-like hand against the surface, and Tris didn't so much as flinch as the water splashed him in the face. It caught Lee, too, and the cleanness of it was strange for a waterway so renowned for being dirty. Lee wondered how Percy had managed to clean it.

"Sailor child," he growled. "If you show a single sign of being Kronos scum, I will drag the pair of you down into my depths personally and watch as your lungs give out, flooding until you drown. Neither of your bodies will ever be seen again."

Lee didn't like that, didn't know what the god would consider being a sign that they belonged to Kronos, but Tris just nodded in agreement, giving another incline of his head as the god faded back into the water. There was the uncomfortable feeling that they were still being watched, judged.

Tris' outstretched hand snagged Lee's arm and pulled him forwards, towards the river. "I've got you," he promised, one of the strongest swimmers in camp, and Lee wasn't happy about entering the water after the warning but he hadn't come this far to give up now.

The water did not feel welcoming. Clean, yes – somehow, he didn't encounter any floating debris ready to nick his bare skin and infect his bloodstream with something unpleasant – but solidly unwelcoming. Even though the river god had faded from view, he was still clearly there, watching and waiting for them to put a single toe wrong in their crossing.

Tris seemed to know where to go, because they didn't head straight for the bridge, but a little way further up the bank, kicking his way through with ease despite the clothes and shoes weighing him down. Lee didn't have the shoe problem, but he certainly didn't have the physical fitness he used to, and if it wasn't for Tris, he wasn't sure he'd have made the swim across. His shoulders ached fiercely, his abdomen felt an inch away from a cramp, and water kept splashing into his mouth as he tried to gasp breaths of air in the swim.

It felt like an eternity before they all but crashed into the bank on the other side, crawling out of the water and flopping for a moment, shaking and wet.

Well, Lee flopped. Tris pulled himself to his feet and turned to face the river again, thanking the god for his benevolence, in the vocabulary of a twelve year old used to the water. Thankfully not in the vocabulary of a sailor, because Lee didn't think the god would've appreciated that.

There was no response from the water but that was fine by Lee. They'd made it across, and that was the important thing.

He'd blocked out the shouts and screams and other horrifying noises from the bridge as he'd swam, deafened instead by the water in his ears and his thudding heartbeat, but now they were across he could hear it washing over him again.

There was a lot of screaming, human terror, and somehow Lee found the energy to haul himself to his feet and start running, towards the sound. Footsteps told him that Tris was right on his heels, and Lee still didn't want his little brother running towards war, but at least he knew where he was. Being separated would be worse.

Lee skidded around some idling cars and straight into a waking nightmare. Two hellhounds, fighting with each other, bloodstained muzzles snarling and biting at the other – and also at the body between them, a mop of blond hair with an orange t-shirt and gods no.

Lee didn't have a weapon. He didn't have anything at all, but that was one of his siblings and he didn't need anything else to throw himself forwards with a disarticulated scream, body-checking the nearest monster and making it stagger. Instantly, two sets of bloodied teeth gnashed at his head and he ducked down, putting himself between them and the unmoving body on the ground.

There was too much blood. There was so much blood, oh gods.

There was also a glint of bronze, a knife dropped, and Lee hadn't wielded a weapon in a year, had barely moved in a year, but adrenaline surged through him, lighting up his muscles, and he swooped down and snatched it up, stabbing the first hellhound in the eye as it lunged for him.

How its teeth missed him, Lee didn't know. Monster dust rained down on top of him, proof of the kill, but there was still another one and Lee couldn't stop, couldn't let it hurt either of his siblings any more than it already had.

He hadn't trained in a year, but he had a decade's worth of training from before that, and muscle memory wasn't quite so easily defeated. Lee's weapon of choice wasn't a knife – that was a bow, like most children of Apollo – but none of them went anywhere near monsters without a backup melee knife hidden in their quiver as a last resort and Lee knew how to use his, too.

It also made for another ranged weapon in a pinch. The second hellhound charged him and Lee let fly, because it wasn't a bow and he wasn't as good as Michael, or Nathan, but he was still a son of Apollo and his marksmanship was still far, far better than most mortals could ever expect to be.

The blade buried itself up to the hilt in the second beast's eye, the only place Lee was going to get an instant kill from, and with a snarl-turned-whimper, the other hellhound also exploded into dust.

Lee didn't bother retrieving the knife, scrambling to the side of his fallen sibling.

Tris was already there, streaks of water on his face that could be from their swim but were more likely to be tears. Lee felt like crying, too, because it was bad.

It was Nathan, his cocky, brave younger brother who kept challenging Michael to competitions, determined to out-shoot him eventually.

His bow was shattered.

Nathan was still alive, just, but there was so much blood, from everywhere but especially his ruined shoulder which no longer had an arm attached, and his heart rate was falling rapidly.

Lee felt like crying, but he didn't, because he was a healer and if he didn't heal, Nathan was still going to die.

He also wasn't going to manage it alone.

"Tris, see if he's got any usable healing supplies on him," he ordered – please, please, Lee didn't have the strength to stop the bleeding by himself, or stop Nathan going into shock, or any of the other myriad of things that could turn fatal at any moment. His brother was unconscious and that was a blessing because it meant he wasn't suffering, but it also meant that he couldn't cooperate, couldn't tell them what he had on him so they had to waste valuable time searching.

He couldn't look up to check that Tris was obeying, but he saw movement in his periphery and that had to be good enough as he pressed his hands – thank the gods Percy had cleansed the East River, it still wouldn't be sterile but at least it wasn't toxic waste – to the site of Nathan's shoulder and sang.

After a year trapped away from the sun, and his periodic healing of himself, he was running on empty before he even started. He knew that. But he also knew the sun was coming, that Apollo wouldn't let him fail Nathan if there was anything he could do, so he threw everything he had into the hymn anyway, pleading and desperate.

"Nectar!" Tris shouted, in sheer relief, and Lee interrupted his song long enough to order him to give it to Nathan. They'd worry about overdosing and the rest of it later, if Nathan didn't get it, he'd die, so it couldn't make things worse.

Tris obeyed, and Lee could feel the godly drink working through his brother. Slowly, yes, but working.

He almost jumped when Tris' hands joined his, fingers overlapping, and his little brother's voice joined his.

Tris wasn't as powerful or skilled a healer as he was – not that either of them had much compared to what Will could do, but Will wasn't here and Lee would hate to put that responsibility on his shoulders, hated enough that Tris had to be here and see it – but he'd been trapped for far less time, and what he lacked in skill he made up for in desperation. Lee guided the healing, but he could tell a lot of the power was coming from his younger brother, and he could only hope that it would be enough.

That Nathan would live.

It was a close run thing. Next to him, he could feel Tris starting to flag, his little brother so strong to get them so far, to get Lee out, then across the river, and now this but still so young and full of freshly administered trauma. Lee nudged him away when he started to feel too faint, not daring to risk losing one brother to save another, and even though Tris resisted, he caved in the end.

But Lee knew it wasn't because of him. It was because Nathan was still breathing, because the bleeding had stopped from the worst injuries, because the threat of shock had faded away, chased off by the nectar.

It was because Nathan had shifted out of danger, at least for the moment. He still needed more treatment, so much more healing, before he could actually heal, but somehow they'd stabilised him, and that thought alone had Lee pulling back as well, breathing hard and finally crying, too.

They'd been so, so close to being too late.

But the sounds of battle were still going on, he still had many siblings still shouting and fighting and screaming on the bridge, and Lee's job wasn't done.

He picked up the bronze knife and handed it to Tris.

"Stay here with Nathan," he ordered. "Bandage him up if he's got any useable supplies, stay with him. Don't die."

Tris took the knife with a shaking hand. "You're worse than me," he said, but there was a waver of something in his voice, a reminder that he was young, barely twelve years old, and he'd just had to fight to save the life of his brother.

That Lee was now leaving him in charge of the welfare of said brother.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all. But it was leave Tris with Nathan, armed and out of the main fight, or take Tris with him into the fight and leave Nathan alone and vulnerable. Between the two options, the choice wasn't a choice at all.

"I've got more in me yet," Lee promised him, even if he wasn't sure what the more he had was. "Stay here. Stay safe. Both of you."

Tris nodded, fresh tears on his face, and Lee gave him one last, quick hug, before he pulled himself away and started running for the bridge.

Two siblings accounted for. Several more to go.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari