Chapter Text
Light rain tapped down on Lee’s shoulders, achingly gentle in the way it slid down his arms. The sea breeze that swept through his hair seemed to speak to him.
Hello hello hello, it murmured with each gust. I love you I love you I love you I love—
“Sap,” Lee muttered, sure that Percy was adjusting his aura on purpose—something he was generally horrible at as it required pushing his thoughts and emotions outward instead of keeping them locked up in his chest—specifically because he knew Lee would be reaching for it. Even his heartbeat, pulsing steadily against Lee's thumb, was a silent declaration of love—each ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum spoke of longing and love and waiting waiting waiting waiting. The pearl had been the one thing keeping Lee from losing it for the few days Percy was out of contact due to Alaska—and why it had worked when even the journal hadn't was beyond him, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe his dad would know, though.
“What?” Silena asked from next to him, already peering over the railing at the sprawling city that had shimmered into existence.
“My boyfriend’s being a sap, is all,” Lee focused on the longing in his heart, the warmth in his chest, the love love love love, and could almost feel the way it rippled out, no doubt reaching the ground below and touching the one soul who was waiting for it.
She turned to him, gripping his arms tightly. “You can feel him already?”
“He’s right below us,” Lee said, twisting her grip around to hold her hands in his own.
“Below us,” Silena whispered, like she couldn’t quite believe it. “You’re gonna let me get my hugs in, right?”
“I wouldn’t dream of depriving either of you of that,” Lee said honestly. “You’re as important to him as I am, you know.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Silena grinned, squeezing his hands before letting go and leaning back over the railing.
“You are,” Lee insisted. “In a different way, for sure, but you are.”
She smiled, nudging his shoulder lightly. “And thank the gods for that, honestly. I mean, I know we’re Greeks and all but that’s my little brother and—”
Lee shoved her away, already laughing, and she kicked at the back of his knees to try and deadleg him, which was just asking for it, honestly, and—
“We’re coming up on the Field of Mars now,” Jason reported, interrupting their impromptu wrestling match with little more than a resigned look.
“It was a good idea to suggest we set down there,” Silena said. “From what you told us, we wouldn’t have been allowed to land in the city with all the built-in weapons on this thing.”
Jason grimaced, “I’m just glad I remembered it in time. It’d hardly be a good first impression if Terminus had to pop up here and yell at us just because I didn’t remember the Pomerian Line.”
“Your memories’ll come back in time,” Piper said, joining them at the railing. There was still a slight tension between her and Jason, the remnants of their failed relationship built on fake memories stinging just slightly despite their best efforts to remain friends.
“Percy might be able to help with that,” Lee offered. “Induce a vision or something and take you with him.”
Jason turned away, an uncomfortable set to his jaw that always popped up when Percy was mentioned. It must’ve been horribly awkward to always be reminded of the guy he’d essentially been sent to camp to replace, especially since he was sure Jason had pieced together that Percy was the one to take his spot as praetor.
But Lee just couldn’t help talking about Percy at every possible opportunity, not when they were so close to reuniting that he could practically taste it.
A nudge to his side brought him out of his thoughts—or in Clarisse's words, pathetic longing—and he looked down to meet wide brown eyes.
"Hey there, bud," he murmured, scratching the almost year-old foal behind the ears. "You sense him, too?"
Arcturus snorted, stepping closer with a nervous flick of his wings and giving the others a distrustful look. Even after months, the colt was still horribly skittish around most people, not helped at all by Percy's disappearance, which was why Lee was surprised he was even emerging onto the deck at all. Last he'd checked, he'd been hiding in a mound of blankets in the storage room.
Frankly, Lee hadn't been sure he'd be up to the trip at all, but the prospect of reuniting with Percy was apparently just enough of a motivator to get him out of the stables.
A high-pitches shriek from Leo followed by the clopping of hooves told Lee that Arcturus's twin had also joined them up top, and he shook his head in amused exasperation.
He'd be amazed at how different two twins could turn out, but looking at his own dad and twin was enough proof of that. Regardless, he couldn't help wishing that Penelope had ended up with just a little less of her father in her, if only so Arcturus could have some.
"I'm ready to see him, too," he said to Arcturus, tactfully ignoring the commotion behind them—Blackjack had followed his children up and was, if Lee had to guess, trying to scold his daughter for being a menace and being rewarded with a nip to the side. He risked a glance over his shoulder to see the two pure black pegasi glaring at each other, pinned ears and fluffed wings and all, and turned back to Arcturus with an indulgent sigh.
"Thank goodness you're not like them, right?" He asked, despite wishing only a moment before that the colt had received at least a bit of his father's ferocity—or, even better, his mother's.
Speaking of—
Melody pushed herself between her unruly mate and child, knickering something that had both of them wilting—and never before had Lee wished to understand pegasi more—before stomping over to the group at the railing.
She nuzzled at her son and nudged at Lee fondly before hooking her neck over the railing. Her wings rustled impatiently, and he knew she was fighting the urge to dive over the edge.
Jason had had to talk them out of sending riders ahead on the pegasi, reminding them that New Rome was fresh out of a siege and even with the knowledge that the Greeks were approaching there was a good possibility of them shooting first and asking questions later. That hadn't gone over well with Melody and Blackjack—or Lee and Silena—but once Clarisse had agreed they'd been forced to acknowledge the risks.
"Almost," Lee whispered, and she rumbled something deep in her chest.
Clarisse and Chris emerged from below deck right as Leo started to shout out a countdown for landing, gleefully informing them to buckle up—there were no buckles—or prepare to eat dirt—there was no way they could fall off the railing unless they fucking jumped—as they were about to make a glorious landing thanks to his glorious piloting skills.
The landing was decidedly not glorious, and had them all either stumbling or clutching the railing tighter, but they were on the ground. They were on the ground at Camp Jupiter and a crowd of people were heading up the path from the city to meet them.
Jason was the first to disembark, familiar and somewhat friendly face and all, but Lee was right behind him, practically vibrating as he searched the faces of the people approaching.
Not Percy, not Percy, not Percy, not Percy—
Percy.
Oh, gods.
Silena gasped, her hand flying out to grip Lee’s wrist with bruising force, clearly having seen him as well.
Percy was arm in arm with a girl their age with dark hair braided tightly down her back, both of them wearing armor and a matching purple cloak. The girl could’ve only been Reyna, Jason’s old friend and fellow praetor, but Lee only had eyes for Percy.
He was taller than he’d been six months ago, his hair a little more shaggy, a little more windblown, as if he’d been strolling along the beach. He was wearing a deep golden toga—which definitely didn’t make Lee bluescreen because his legs good gods—under his armor, purple cloak billowing behind him regally—was a wind god doing that on purpose? Both his and Reyna’s cloaks were doing it—and Lee could see the moment Percy saw him.
There was a stutter in his step, his aura flaring out before he reigned it back in, and Lee spotted the way his grip on Reyna tightened momentarily.
For the first time in six months, Lee and Percy locked eyes.
Lee knew that the Romans likely had a protocol for this, that they were expecting a certain level of professionalism from their former enemies turned guests, but, in that moment, there was nothing—no person, no god, no monster—that could’ve kept him from rushing forward.
Percy moved at the same time he did, first a fast walk and then a jog and then they were both running, drawn to each other like two magnets, like there was a string connecting Lee’s heart to Percy’s and it was gradually reeling them both in.
They collided, and it was like the pieces of his heart finally slid back into place, that last little click of a puzzle years in the making.
Lee wrapped his arms around Percy’s waist, keeping the momentum going to swing him up off his feet and spin him round. Percy’s arms were around his shoulders, his face pressed into his neck so Lee could feel his breathy laugh against his skin. Lee stopped spinning, still holding Percy up by his waist, and then Percy was lifting his head and their lips were slotting together with an ease that came with two years by each other’s sides.
Idly, Lee thought that the world could’ve ended right then and he wouldn’t have known, nor would he have cared.
Lee set him down gently without relinquishing his grip, and Percy broke the kiss, tilting their foreheads together with an aching sort of softness.
“Hey there, Honeybee,” Percy murmured against his lips, and Lee let out a breath, a feeling in his chest that sung home home home ringing even louder at the words.
“Hey there, Hammerhead.”
Percy’s hands curled in his hair, pulling him across the scant distance he’d put between their lips into another kiss, this one just a tad less desperate, a tad more sweet.
This time Lee’s ears picked up more than the pounding of his own heart, and he was able to hear a piercing wolf whistle that could only be Chris, the little shit. He turned his head to glare and—yep, sure enough, he was smirking that stupid grin. Clarisse, next to her boyfriend, was trying and failing to look disgusted and annoyed at their ‘gross’ display of affection—Lee, who had once caught them in the armory missing several important articles of clothing as they sucked face, thought she had no ground to stand on there because seriously they hadn’t even locked the fucking door—and Silena was, oh, yep, she was crying already. Big surprise. Melody looked like she was half a second away from bulldozing them over so she could check on her little foal, and Blackjack didn't seem too far behind. But where—
Something tugged at his shirt insistently, and he glanced down to find a very indignant Penelope staring up at him, her teeth still firmly chomped down on his shirt.
"Pen?" Percy sounded equal parts choked up and shocked. "What are you—"
"You didn't think we'd leave them behind?" Lee snorted. "You couldn't pay me to tell Melody she couldn't come see you."
Percy made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob, and then he was folding to his knees to wrap his free arm around Penelope’s neck. A reddish brown blur joined the huddle, and then Arcturus was worming his way in between Percy and his sister, his wings fluttering excitedly.
Lee glanced up at the watching crowd as Percy cooed over the foals, giving them a somewhat awkward wave. Reyna looked like she was having to try her absolute hardest not to laugh at her fellow praetor baby-talking two pegasi, pursing her lips as she met Lee's eyes and raised a single brow. He dipped his head to her, knowing just from the few interactions he'd seen between her and Percy that they both respected and trusted each other.
Off to the side, Lee spotted the young girl from Percy’s drawing back in December—Nico’s sister Hazel, who’d been brought back from the Underworld—holding the hand of the tall, buff guy next to her, who Lee assumed to be Frank, the third member of the quest to Alaska. Both of them were staring at Percy and Lee with wide smiles on their faces, not seeming uneasy around the Greeks like the rest of the legion. Hazel caught his eye and gave him a small wave and—oh, she was adorable, Lee loved her already.
Also, he knew his boyfriend well, and if Percy hadn’t adopted her he would eat his bow.
Frank coughed something into his fist that Lee couldn't make out but had Percy's head shooting up.
"I will shoot you, Frank Zhang," he threatened, and both Frank and Hazel made identical faces of disbelief, making Percy stick his tongue out.
Melody and Blackjack joined them next, and Percy stumbled to his feet, wrapping his arms around Melody's neck without letting go of Lee's hand—which he was more than okay with—as Blackjack nudged his head and softly knickered.
What followed next almost certainly made members of the crowd snicker, and even Reyna lost her battle with containing her smile.
Melody nuzzled at Percy's head and then worked her way over the rest of him, sniffing insistently even as he tried to tell her that he was really okay, Mel, don't you think Lee would know if I were injured and Lee held up his free hand in surrender when that made Melody glare at both of them.
"Don't bring me into this," he said. "Mother him as much as you want, Mel. He deserves it."
Percy muttered a traitor as Melody huffed smugly and continued her mothering, but he was smiling. Despite his earlier thoughts, Lee was glad now that no one else here could understand pegasi because he got the feeling the conversation between Percy and Melody was intensely private.
Eventually, though, the family of pegasi stepped away, and then Silena was crashing into Percy so hard he let out an oof, staggering back a step before catching her. Lee stood a foot away, only a little awkwardly due to their connected hands, as brother and sister reunited. She said something in his ear, too quiet for Lee to catch even if he’d been listening, and he nodded into her shoulder.
Percy let go soon enough—sooner than either of them wanted, based on their faces—grabbing Chris in a hug before, for maybe the first time ever, finagling a quick embrace out of Clarisse. Lee wished he’d gotten a picture of it, but her face when she let Percy go told him he’d find himself on the wrong end of her spear if he so much as mentioned it—Percy, for the record, looked pleased as punch about it, despite his teary eyes.
Everything in him ached to just drag Percy on the ship and let Jason, Piper, and Leo handle the rest, but he forced himself to wait. They'd made Reyna and the rest of the Romans wait long enough, he figured.
Jason cleared his throat awkwardly, the noise cutting through the crowd’s murmurs and drawing their attention to their previously missing praetor. Lee could see his name on their lips, the way their eyes appraised him. To Lee, the guy still looked overwhelmingly Roman even after six months with the Greeks, but something told him they didn’t think the same.
“Jason Grace,” Reyna said, her voice not betraying her emotions in the slightest, and Jason straightened up under her scrutiny.
“Reyna,” he said with considerably more emotion. “It’s good to see you.”
Reyna pursed her lips, though Lee couldn’t tell if she was holding back a smile or hiding her displeasure—she was extraordinarily good at keeping herself in check, he noticed, something that he was sure had come in handy these past few months when she was the sole person in charge of an entire legion—and then turned to face the crowd at large.
“Romans!” She called, and the crowd of teens and young adults fell silent. “After six months, our beloved former praetor Jason Grace has been returned to us.”
Oh, she was good.
In one sentence, she’d affirmed that Jason no longer held the position of praetor despite not officially seceding the position himself, reminded them of how respected he was, and, by stressing been returned rather than just saying returned, she’d heavily implied that not coming back sooner hadn't been his choice.
Smart. Lee could see how she’d held onto her position of power even after losing her partner mere months after they’d risen to praetorship. She would get along well with Clarisse and Silena, he thought to himself.
Percy gave him a look, clearly thinking the same thing, and Lee couldn’t resist the urge to pull him closer, dipping down to press a soft kiss to his temple, staying there for a moment and simply breathing in the faint scent of the sea that accompanied Percy and all of his sea family.
“As I’m sure your centurions have told you by now,” Reyna continued. “Jason was chosen by Juno herself to partake in a leadership switch with the Greek camp, the other member of this switch being, of course, Percy Jackson, who came to us this last week and helped us protect our home and free Death.”
“Feels like we got the raw end of the deal,” someone in the front row of the crowd called out, and Lee’s hand twitched around Percy’s.
Percy just snorted, not seeming offended in the slightest. “Careful, Kahale, or I might just decide to go two-for-two with Cohort one’s centurions.”
The guy, Kahale, threw his head back with a bark of laughter, and the tension, which Lee hadn’t even properly noticed until then, dissolved like mist in the summer sun.
“Kindly refrain from slitting throats without good cause,” Reyna said dryly.
“I have good cause,” Percy protested before catching sight of Lee’s face and giving him a sheepish look.
“You’ll tell me?”
“I’ll tell you,” Percy sighed in resignation. “Believe me, you’ll get a rundown of everything I’ve done from Frank and Hazel, the traitors.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Lee said with a small smirk.
“I’m not,” Percy muttered to himself, prompting a quiet laugh out of Lee.
“Just promise not to give me the stare of disappointment,” he pleaded, looking so adorable that Lee almost fell for it.
Almost.
“Depends on how many reckless and life-endangering decisions you made on the quest,” Lee answered, and Percy’s eyes flicked away tellingly.
“Fine, promise not to refuse to kiss me, at least?”
Oh, well, that was an easy promise.
Lee grinned, leaning over to press a simple kiss to the corner of Percy’s lips.
“—procession through the city of New Rome to honor these new friendships,” Reyna was saying when he tuned back in, maybe a little distracted by his boyfriend’s smile and his eyes and his jawline and…well, everything about him, really.
Percy looked relaxed, his smile easy and his eyes light as he and Reyna led them down the path to the city—with the pegasi, who were steadfastly refusing to be more than five feet away from Percy, a sentiment Lee couldn't disagree with seeing as he was the exact same—as though the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders—a sensation Lee was unfortunately quite familiar with.
Gods, that just made him think of the last time he and Percy had been in San Francisco. Percy near death, Apollo trapped under the sky, that desperate fight on the mountaintop where Lee had taken his dad’s place under the crushing weight of Ouranos’s rage.
Something nudged his ribs, bringing him out of his thoughts, and Lee refocused to find Percy giving him a look.
“We passed Mount Tam on the way to Alaska, you know,” was all he said, and Lee blinked.
“How did you—”
“You always look at my hair every time you’re thinking about it,” Percy’s lips quirked, his eyes flicking up to where Lee knew he had his own strand of white peeking out of his blond hair.
“It was so…I mean, it looks so normal for being a place where I went through hell,” he continued. “Just a regular old mountain.”
Lee hummed, “I can’t tell how I feel about that. That it just…”
Both of them still regularly woke up from nightmares of holding the sky, aching shoulders and curved spines and bruised knees, and for the mountain to look so normal…he didn’t like it.
It gave the same feeling as walking the streets of Manhattan after all the rebuilding had finished, seeing the places where he’d lost siblings and friends that had been wiped of all reminder, that almost stinging feeling of not quite fear but close that screamed if there’s no signs did it even happen if I don’t have that reminder will I forget—
Percy squeezed his hand, his eyes narrowing at Lee’s clear distraction. “How much sleep have you been getting?”
Lee’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “You, Perseus Jackson, who regularly stays up for twenty four hours at a time, are asking me how much sleep I’ve gotten?”
Percy’s cheeks pinked, but he didn’t back down. “I’m literally a diagnosed insomniac though, that’s different.”
“It is n—”
“It’s a medi—I have a medical condition, Lee, and you’re making fun—”
“Oh, pfft, get over it,” Lee scoffed, but he was smiling. Percy played up his pout, and Lee couldn’t resist the urge to kiss it off his face.
“I’ll sleep better tonight,” he murmured against his lips, feeling the subtle hitch in Percy’s breath.
They were just coming up on the city boundaries where Lee and the others were forced to divest themselves of their weapons. He tried not to feel uncomfortable, reminding himself that the Romans were their allies now, that they’d accepted Percy and taken him in—and also that they weren’t allowed to have weapons within the Pomerian line either.
There was also, Lee told himself, a bonus in the appearance of Tani, who slid between the legs of startled legionnaires to brush up against his side.
“Oh, hello,” Lee said, giving her a good scratch behind the ears. “You been looking out for our boy?” She gave him a look, like duh, dude, and he snorted lightly as she moved on to greet the others.
New Rome was…incredible. There was no other word for it. Even with the piles of rubble swept to the side, the occasional cracked window or collapsed roof, the city was beautiful. Colorful villas and terraced gardens and intricate fountains and an entire hill in the far distance full of dozens upon dozens of temples for the gods.
There was nothing like this at Camp Half-Blood, for sure.
And then the people.
It hadn’t hit Lee until then that there were actual generations of families here. Great-grandparents and grandparents and parents with kids. The concept of having kids, having grandkids…that wasn’t something Lee had ever thought of as a real possibility. Not because he didn’t think he’d make it to an age where he could have kids—demigods surviving into their twenties wasn’t exactly uncommon, after all, provided they made it to camp and lived past sixteen—but because any kids of his would be legacies, and he couldn’t doom them to a life of being hunted like he was.
But if they could have a place like this back in New York—if they could make Camp Half-Blood into a place like this…
“It’s amazing,” Silena breathed from Lee’s other side, her eyes wide. Even Clarisse, who’d been scowling ever since she’d had to relinquish her spear and other assorted hidden weapons—of which there were an almost ridiculous amount—had a look of quiet wonder on her face.
“It really makes you think,” Chris said, a tinge of bitterness in his tone. “Could we have had something like this the whole time? Surely Chiron knew about New Rome and just…kept us as a summer camp anyways?”
In moments like this, Lee remembered that Chris had once turned away from the gods entirely, his disenchantment with Olympus worsened by the less than savory conditions at camp. He’d made his way back eventually, but not before almost killing Percy—which Lee knew he regretted horribly—and being driven insane in the Labyrinth.
But he’d never quite lost that bitterness, and it was all the more prominent now.
“That’s something only he and the gods can answer,” Silena said, ever the peacemaker. “But from what it seems like they’re pretty isolated here. Not a lot of people leave and go back to the real world. I’m not sure—I mean, I’d like to have something similar back home but…I don’t want to be completely cut off from the rest of the world like this place is.”
“Something in between what we have now and this,” Lee agreed. “And from what my dad’s said, camp wasn’t originally made to be so long-term. It was intended to be a temporary training facility where we learned how to fight and use our abilities and understand our culture before being sent back out to our families. But the last couple centuries monsters have started targeting us more and more frequently, making the real world more dangerous for us, and I guess Chiron just hasn’t had the means to adapt camp accordingly.”
Dad had a lot of opinions on that, considering he was the one who’d created the camp before handing it off to Chiron. Lee’d lost count of the number of journals Apollo had dropped off at the cabin over the years full of potential changes to camp for his children to bring up to Chiron, to no avail.
“And don’t forget,” Percy said darkly. “This city is protected solely by child soldiers who are forced to serve for years in order to get to live here.”
“Ah, yeah, definitely won’t be keeping that aspect when we recreate this place,” Silena said, wrinkling her nose.
“You’ll have to take a bunch of notes for the counselors to go over,” Lee said, noticing a group of kids watching them pass with wide eyes and giving them a wave and smile. The kids hopped and down excitedly as they waved back, and Lee felt himself soften.
The city had its issues—a lot of them, he was sure—but it was still a remarkable place.
Percy’s fingers twitched in his, and Lee looked over to find him waving at what looked like a family off to the side. One of the parents made a questioning face, pointing at Lee, and he watched as a devious grin flitted across Percy’s face. He had no time to ask before he was pulled into a rough kiss that was maybe just a tad too heated for public, Percy’s free hand curled in his hair while Lee’s automatically moved to wrap around his waist. Lee was actually gasping for breath by the time Percy let him go, and his face felt like it was on fire, but Percy looked incredibly satisfied with himself.
The guy, when Lee looked over, was giving the two of them a thumbs up while his wife was actively laughing.
“Not that I’m complaining,” Lee started when they left that crowd behind and headed down another street that would, according to Reyna, who was acting as tour guide while the rest of the legion marched in time behind them—which was just a little weird—lead them to the Senate House.
“I didn’t think you were,” Percy said in that smug way of his, and Lee poked him in the side right where he knew he was ticklish in retaliation.
“Is there a reason you just kissed me within an inch of my life?”
“Do I need one?” Percy countered playfully before growing a little more serious. “That was Tyler and Madeleine and their kids. He’s a legacy of Salacia.”
“Salacia…” Lee thought for a moment. “She’s Amphitrite’s Roman form, right?”
“Yeah,” Percy’s smile turned fond. “He and the other sea legacies have this whole—whole family and they…”
“Took you in?” Lee finished, inwardly marveling at Percy’s ability to make people love him in five seconds flat.
“They’re really nice,” Percy said, almost shyly. “They invited me—or, Gwen and Michael dragged me—to lunch earlier and I may have rambled on a bunch about you, so…”
“Sap,” Lee snorted, but he was smiling.
“For the record,” Hazel piped up, appearing on Percy’s other side from where she'd been cooing over Penelope and Arcturus. “He couldn’t go more than five minutes without talking about you on the quest, either.”
“Hazel!”
“Oh, really,” Lee drawled teasingly while Hazel giggled at Percy’s look of utter betrayal.
“Wh—I missed you!” Percy protested, pouting at Lee’s grin.
“Pathetic,” Clarisse said, rolling her eyes.
“Oh, I think it’s cute,” Silena said, elbowing Clarisse in the side when she huffed. “He talked about you every chance he got, too, Perce.”
“Ha!”
“Fine fine, we’re both a pair of saps who’re minorly obsessed with each other,” Lee relented, and the others didn’t even try to hide their amusement.
“I wouldn’t call you two’s obsession with each other minor,” Chris snorted, and Lee exchanged a commiserating glance with Percy when that set off another round of giggles.
They stopped at the Senate House before Lee could think up an appropriate revenge for the teasing, and Percy let go of his hand—more than a little reluctantly, from the look on his face—to join Reyna at the top of the steps.
“Legion dismissed!” Reyna called out simply. “You’re released until dinner at the mess hall, for which our cooks have prepared a feast worthy of the occasion that you won’t want to miss!”
The legionnaires cheered, pounding their pilums on the ground before dispersing. A few of them stayed—Hazel and Frank, the guy who’d joked with Percy before—Kahale?—and a number of others, all of whom were dressed in togas under their armor.
“The Senators from the legion,” Percy explained in a whisper to them. “There are some other Senators appointed by the city, veterans and the like, that are probably already inside. It’s stupid, but we have to have an official meeting to sanction the quest or they’ll get all in a tizzy.”
“Fun.”
“Oh, it will be,” Kahale grinned, coming up to them and slinging an arm over Percy’s shoulder. “After the dressing down Percy gave them earlier? They’ll agree to anything just to make sure he doesn’t yell at them again.”
Percy’s cheeks pinked, but Lee could see an echo of pride in his eyes that had him fighting the urge to kiss him again simply because Percy so rarely felt truly proud of himself for any of his accomplishments. It was a wonderful look on him, Lee thought, and a rather attractive one, too.
“They gave my father a literal tool shed for a temple and didn’t even bother with that much for the other sea deities,” Percy said, just a shade of anger in his tone. “I mean, you guys have to see it—it’s just plain disrespectful. Especially when you go further up and see Jupiter’s. Ughh.”
“Don’t forget the dinghy that was the mighty Roman navy,” Frank said scathingly, and Percy groaned.
“Don’t even get me started on that,” he muttered before rolling his shoulders back and dislodging Kahale’s arm. “So I may have potentially maybe yelled at them and threatened them an eentsy bit to get them to build a better temple for my dad and actually build temples for the others.”
“It was amazing,” Hazel said in an admiring tone, and Frank nodded emphatically.
“Literally one of the best things I’ve ever seen,” he said.
“And it was pretty hot,” Kahale said nonchalantly before catching sight of Lee’s face and straightening up. Lee didn’t know if the guy expected him to be mad or jealous or whatever, but right now all he could really think about was the image Kahale had put into his brain.
“I think you broke my boyfriend, Michael,” Percy commented casually after watching Lee implode for a moment, and he blinked, chasing away flashes—Percy in his current getup just absolutely reading all of those veterans to filth, that golden toga swishing around his thighs, accentuated by the shimmering laurel crown resting above his brow and the snakes crawling up his arms and curled around his lobes, purple cloak billowing as he paced, his smile sharp and cutting, his eyes dark and dangerous—
“Oh, for—”
There was a resounding smack! and Lee rubbed his head, drawn out of his very nice daydreaming to find Clarisse staring at him in utter disappointment.
“Quit thinking with your dick. It’s disgusting,” was all she said before turning to head inside the Senate House with Chris next to her, also shaking his head. Off to the side, Percy and Silena were actually wheezing from the force of their laughter, and, despite his embarrassment, Lee accepted their amusement with grace, listening to them cackle with a smile. It was the first true laugh he’d heard from either of them in months, and he was happy to hear it even at his expense.
“Ah,” Percy straightened up, reaching out to grasp Lee’s hand again. “I needed that, Honeybee.”
“Glad to be of service,” Lee said, only half jokingly, and Percy started leading their assorted group inside—Silena having attached herself to Michael who, Lee gathered from her ramblings, was a son of Venus and thus her brother, and Hazel and Frank, who both looked torn between mortification and amusement.
“Are you sure you don’t want to yell at people again?” Lee asked, more than a little plaintively, as they made their way down to the front rows of the room. “Just for me?”
“You,” Percy said fondly. “Are ridiculous. I’m not threatening people just so you can drool over me.”
Lee tried very hard not to pout, but he was quite sure he failed miserably. “You’re a mean boyfriend. A mean mean boyfriend.”
“There there,” Percy patted his head teasingly. “You can drool over me in private, promise.”
“I fucking better,” Lee grumbled, and then Percy was leaving him in the front row with the others, stepping up to take his place in one of the praetor chairs next to Reyna.
One of the older veterans inside tried to protest when the pegasi clopped their way inside—though Lee noticed he said nothing about Tani's presence—only to reel back with a stifled screech when Penelope promptly pranced up to him and gave him a sound bite on the arm.
"Penelope," Percy admonished, but he was clearly trying not to laugh. "You must forgive her, I'm afraid," he said to the shocked Senator. "She's still quite young and very…attached to me. Pegasi are sacred to my father, you know, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to risk slighting him again so soon…"
Nobody had anymore objections to the pegasi after that, and Lee stifled a laugh into his fist when they settled on the praetor's dais like they belonged up there.
Blackjack sniffed at Reyna suspiciously, but seemed to like her well enough when she reached out to pet his flank softly.
Percy looked so regal up there, Tani sprawled by his feet and Arcturus and Penelope curled up on either side of the chair with their heads draped in his lap, subtle gold gleaming in his ears and around his fingers and wrists, that Lee had trouble actually paying attention to what they were saying.
In his defense, it had been a long six months. Even though Percy’d elected to go back to Manhattan for the school year, they’d still taken advantage of Mrs. O’Leary’s ability to shadow travel and Blackjack’s need for weekly donuts to see each other at least a few times a week and every weekend. To go from that to nothing for six months…
Connor had likened it to withdrawal a few months back.
We’re all going through a bit of Percy withdrawal, he’d sighed, and Travis had laughed.
Some of us more than others, that had been accompanied with a wink in Lee’s direction.
He’d laughed then, but it felt a little more real now. Just being back in Percy’s presence was enough to have his skin buzzing, Lee’s heart gradually changing to beat in time with his. Percy wasn’t a drug, wasn’t an addiction. He was…
It was impossible to describe even to himself. Percy and Lee were two whole people on their own, but together they were just better.
An old myth sprung to mind. One where humans had originally been formed with four legs and four arms and one heart, and Zeus had, fearing their power, split all of them in half, leaving humankind forever searching for their missing half. It was one of the few myths from their pantheon that Lee knew wasn’t true—he’d asked both his dad and Chiron, at one point—but if it were true, he knew Percy would be his other half.
They could survive, could be happy, could thrive even, without each other, but there was a sense of belonging that came from being at each other’s sides, a sense of just…contentment.
Percy caught his eye, raising a curious brow, and Lee just smiled back at him before finally forcing himself to listen to the discussion.
“—disagree with the quest members chosen,” an older man was saying. “Surely, we should’ve been granted a vote for the legionnaires chosen. Nobody would’ve argued about praetor Jackson’s place on the quest, but the others—”
Percy’s eyebrows furrowed, his face only barely masking his annoyance. “You disagree with the gods, then?” He asked calmly, and the man stuttered. “Would you make your complaints to the queen of the gods herself? To the Moirai? Hazel and Frank are the other members of this quest. To contest this is to contest Fate itself.”
The man quailed under the force of Percy’s stare, sitting back down and trying—and failing—not to look like a scolded child.
There was a moment of silence, and then a woman braved Percy’s displeasure.
“Yes, but what of the numbers?”
“What about them?” Percy asked flippantly.
“Three Romans, four Greeks,” she said as though that explained everything. Lee spotted Reyna shaking her head almost imperceptibly, her lips twitching up before she schooled her face again.
“You forget I am one of those four Greeks,” Percy said sharply. “I have sworn to protect the people of Rome, yes, but I am Greek. They are my people, too, and I’ll not tolerate your disrespect to them any more than I did your spurning of the sea.”
The woman shrunk back, but she must’ve been made of sterner stuff than the guy from before because she stayed standing.
“We still should’ve been consulted about the seventh member,” she said. “By former praetor Grace’s account, his two quest companions were chosen by the gods, but the other one—”
Percy understood it before Lee, standing from his chair in an instant, his face heralding a storm. The sky darkened near instantly. Thunder boomed in the distance. A harsh gust of wind swept into the building through the hole in the dome. Tani was up on her feet as well, prowling to the edge of the platform with her lips pulled back in a snarl.
Percy opened his mouth to speak, but Lee beat him to it, her meaning finally clicking.
“And who are you to decide whether or not I’m worthy of this quest?”
The woman had frozen at Percy’s initial response, those next to her shifting away like they feared she was in danger of being smote, but her eyes were full of disdain when she turned to him.
“I am a respected veteran of the legion,” she said self-importantly. “Sara Rakin, daughter of Mars Ultor, former centurion to the First cohort. Fifteen years in the legion, ten of which as centurion, and ten years as a Senator elected by the city.”
“And how many quests have you taken part in? How many wars have you fought?” Lee demanded, and she paused, opening and closing her mouth uncertainly.
“I have taken part in two quests, I have fought Titans and held the sky and traversed the Labyrinth, I have fought a war. And what have you done? You’ve sat in your Senate for the past decade and let children do the fighting for you, you’ve sat here and debated which child soldier should be sent to die for you, depending solely on your father’s power, on your family’s reputation, to gain any sort of status.”
The woman laughed, the sound slightly strained in the tense air of the Senate Building. “Is that not what you’ve done? Don’t take us for fools, boy. You were chosen for this quest because of your relationship with him.”
The ground rumbled faintly under their feet, a sure sign that Percy was rapidly losing patience with her.
If Lee wasn’t quick, the Senate would see blood today. And while he was sure it would be attractive as fuck, it wouldn’t do anything other than convince the others that he was only here as Percy’s sidepiece.
And Lee was no sidepiece.
“So pick someone,” he said, tilting his chin up. “Pick a legionnaire whose deeds outnumber mine. One who’s faced down Atlas and Kampê and the Nemean lion and the Titan lord himself, who’s held a siege for three days against an army of endless monsters with less than a hundred other demigods, who’s carried the sky on his shoulders and walked the tunnels of the Labyrinth.”
There was a ringing silence following his words, and Lee kept his gaze on the Senator who’d spoken up, letting her know he was waiting.
A minute passed and still nothing.
“Are we done here?” Lee asked, and she swallowed, giving a faint nod and sitting down. Lee sat down when nobody else spoke up, making eye contact with Percy, who'd retaken his seat and was watching him with an undeniably proud look on his face.
He raised a single eyebrow, an unspoken question in the gesture, and Lee rolled his eyes but dipped his head in acquiescence.
Percy smiled, a baring of his teeth that screamed danger danger danger, a shark lurking in the deep, a riptide waiting just below the surface, a hurricane forming on the horizon.
“Senator Rakin, I believe your term is up.”
Sara startled, blinking up at Percy in shock while the rest of the Senate broke out into mutters. Even the centurions looked uncertain, Hazel and Frank exchanging a cautious glance.
Reyna remained silent, her face a stony mask, though her fingers gripped the armrests of her chair tightly enough to turn her knuckles white.
“Praetor Jackson,” someone spoke up, a younger woman who looked only a few years out of college. “You do not have the ability to remove a duly elected Senator of the city. We respect your position as praetor, but we are outside your power.”
Percy tilted his head, his entire body still poised like a predator waiting to strike, a hunter assured in his victory. A single hand worked its way through Arcturus’s mane, wordlessly soothing the skittish colt.
The image he struck there was so incredibly powerful it took Lee's breath away. Two of his father’s sacred animals draped in his lap and a sacred animal of his grandmother and patron at his feet—and now Lee was wondering if Apollo was jealous of that, if maybe he should be expecting a raven or a snake or some other animal sacred to his father to make its way to Percy's side at some point in the near future—as he honest to gods lounged on his chair, golden jewelry sparkling in the light, a perfect match to the sigil stamped on his armor and the color of his toga—which exposed just enough of his legs for everyone to see clearly the muscle that told of years of careful training—and deep purple cloak thrown over the armrest to drape across the floor—all of it only served to accentuate the undeniable power beneath his skin.
This was a person that over half the Olympian council would go to war for, that the sea would rally to with only a spoken word, that the archer twins would wrest the sun and moon from the sky for.
Gods, how Lee wished there were no one else in the room with them, wished it was just the two of them because what he wouldn't give to absolutely—
"You're drooling," Clarisse muttered, sounding utterly disgusted, and Lee kicked her in the shin before very discreetly swiping at his mouth—and he was not drooling, the fucking liar.
“As praetor maybe,” Percy allowed after a moment of letting the room take him in. “But as an Oracle, I believe you’ll find removing those who conspire treason against the gods is well within my abilities, regardless of their own status.”
The word treason swept across the room like wildfire.
He turned his gaze to the cowering Senator—former Senator—Sara Rakin. “You were warned,” he said softly, an undercurrent of steel in his tone. “I will tolerate no disrespect to the chosen members of this quest, and neither will the gods, of whom I am the voice. Not when the fate of the world depends on the Seven and our ability to work together.”
Rakin trembled in her seat, those next to her moving away like they were worried they would catch treason like a cold.
“Please, I—it was a mistake, praetor. It won’t happen again, I beg of you to show mercy—”
“I think you’ll find that this is mercy,” Percy interrupted evenly. “Unless you wish to suffer the augur’s fate…”
The woman, if possible, paled even further, and shook her head fervently. Percy cocked his head to the side, clearly waiting for something, and Rakin curled in on herself even more, looking nothing like the proud daughter of Mars she’d been five minutes previous. Her footsteps echoed loudly through the silent room as she headed for the door, disgraced and ashamed, her reputation in tatters.
Percy watched her leave, his face carved from marble while his eyes gleamed with satisfaction, waiting until the door swung shut behind her before speaking.
“Is there anything else the Senate wishes to address?”
A flurry of shaken heads greeted him, each of the Senators from the city stunned into silence.
“I believe that will be all, then,” Reyna said with an air of finality, and the veterans couldn’t escape the room fast enough. Even some of the legion Senators disappeared, glancing over their shoulders worriedly.
Silena was the first to break, a strangled wheeze escaping her lips before she dissolved fully into peels of laughter. The rest of them followed her, Percy’s mask cracking as his shoulders shook. Hazel was leaning into Frank’s chest from the force of her nearly hysterical giggles, the big guy himself chuckling. Jason seemed torn, unsure whether he should laugh or not, while Leo was grinning like a loon and Piper was covering her face to hide her smile. Even Clarisse was smiling, shaking her head in amusement.
“You two don’t do anything by halves, do you?” She asked, and Lee shrugged unrepentantly.
“You two wholeheartedly deserve each other,” Reyna said dryly. “Truly, nobody else could hope to match your levels of insanity.”
Percy opened his mouth, clearly gearing up for an insanity joke, but Lee spoke up before he could.
“Thank you,” he said, only half jokingly. Percy sighed at having the opportunity stolen, but let it go.
“We try,” Percy added on, sweeping down the steps to join them at their seats. He dragged Lee up, kissing him soundly on the lips.
“You,” Percy said when they parted. “Were magnificent. Brilliant. One of the hottest things I’ve ever seen you do, really.”
Lee ignored Clarisse’s gag in the background, smiling sweetly at the love of his life.
“Likewise,” he murmured.
“Get a room,” Clarisse groused, and Lee turned to glare at her.
“You’re one to talk with all you and Chris get into—I mean, forgetting to lock the door when you—”
“I will murder you if you finish that sentence, Fletcher.”
Chris sighed, and Lee could see him exchange a commiserating look with Percy before taking Clarisse’s hand.
“They haven’t seen each other for six months,” he reminded his girlfriend. “We can allow them a little PDA without complaining, yeah?”
Clarisse narrowed her eyes but let out a huff and turned away, muttering about needing food if she was going to be subjected to their sickening displays. Lee knew she wasn’t really bothered—they just liked to rile each other up, truthfully—but he couldn’t resist flipping her off as she stomped away.
“Come on,” Percy said with a laugh, pulling him along by their entwined hands. “I’m starving and these guys know how to throw a feast.”
They did, in fact, know how to throw a feast. There was so much food that Lee almost didn’t know what to pick, ending up with a plate piled so high he knew he wouldn’t be able to make a dent.
The Seven sat together with Reyna and the Greek envoy, but the seats around them seemed to rotate every few minutes. So many people introduced themselves to Lee that he actually lost count—and the centurions must’ve already spread what happened at the Senate meeting because there was a certain look in their eyes when they shook his hand, when they spoke to Percy—and he didn’t even try to remember their names. There were a few people he made more of an effort with, if only because they seemed familiar and comfortable with Percy—a guy named Dakota, Lavinia and Bobby and Marshall and—
Curse Percy Jackson and his inherent ability to make friends everywhere he went, this was far too many people. Seriously, the guy didn’t even seem aware of doing it half the time, just drawing people in with the ease of a current sweeping unsuspecting swimmers out to sea.
Eventually the flood of people died down, though they may have had to do with Reyna’s narrowed eyes when the last few people sat down, and the group was left somewhat to themselves.
“When will you leave?” She asked them, and Percy and Lee exchanged a glance.
“The sooner the better,” Percy said after a moment, and Jason nodded in agreement from across the table.
“We need as much time as we can get,” the son of Jupiter said. “The longer we take the longer she has to raise more and more monsters from Tartarus.”
“She’ll try and slow us down,” Piper said unhappily. “There’s no telling what she’ll send to stop us.”
“As soon as the feast is over,” Percy decided, and even Lee paused in surprise.
“Not the morning?”
He shook his head, fingers tapping on the tabletop. His eyes were faraway, a look Lee recognized instantly.
“He only has six days,” Percy murmured, and Hazel let out a strangled gasp.
“Who?” Jason asked, his eyebrows furrowing.
“My brother, Nico,” Hazel answered, her hand coming up to cover her mouth, and Lee and the others from camp straightened up.
“What’s happened to Nico?”
“He went looking for the Doors of Death in the Underworld and she captured him,” Hazel said, her eyes darkening. “Percy saw…”
Percy tilted his head, still not all the way present. “The twin giants waiting, a bronze jar, they’re waiting, waiting—how’s that for a revelry—all roads lead to Rome, all paths end in—”
Percy sucked in a sharp breath, coming back to himself with a near imperceptible shudder, and Lee reached for his hand, grimacing slightly at the chill of his fingers.
“Are you always that…uh, cryptic?” Piper asked, looking more than a little uncertain.
“Pretty much,” Clarisse snorted. “Might wanna get used to it.”
Leo looked mildly horrified, muttering creepy under his breath. Percy heard it, given the way his muscles tensed, but he must’ve elected to ignore it because he very deliberately relaxed his grip on Lee’s fingers.
“The future is…indistinct,” he said slowly. “Everything will end in Greece, but the choices we make in Rome will decide how difficult the journeys are.”
Lee knew he wasn’t the only one to catch that last part, based on the way Piper leaned forward.
“Journeys?” She asked, stressing the end, and Percy twitched, his eyes going foggy again.
“We won’t all make it to Greece the same way,” he said, in that detached way that told Lee he was still parsing through visions. “If we even make it there at all.”
Leo leaned back like he was scared he could be infected by prophecy through sheer proximity. “What do you mean if we even make it there at all?!”
Percy let out a strangled noise, his gaze growing even more vacant, and his hand grew positively frigid in Lee’s grip.
“Okay,” he said. “That’s eno—”
“In some only five make it, others none, others all,” Percy murmured. “It all depends on Rome.”
“What do you mean?” Jason asked, and Lee leveled him with a sharp glare.
“Enough,” he hissed.
Percy’s jaw was clenched, the muscles in his neck straining from the effort of not speaking after being asked such a direct question. Fuck, Lee never should’ve let it go so long, should’ve stopped it before he got so gone.
“We need to know what he’s seen,” Jason insisted. “Percy, what have you—”
“Enough!” Lee snapped, slamming his free hand into the table as he stood. In the same moment, Tani, who'd been resting peacefully with her head in Hazel's lap begging for scraps, jumped to her feet and let out a bone-chilling growl. Percy jolted at the noise, snapping back into himself with a gasp. A quick glance around the table showed more than a few murderous faces, letting Lee know that the situation would be handled.
“We’ll see you on the ship,” he said, pulling a numb Percy to his feet.
“Telling us what he’s seen could ensure we all make it to Greece,” Piper protested, ignoring Silena’s warning. “It could save our lives.”
“It could also doom them,” Lee snarled, and she flinched back at the vitriol in his tone—he liked Piper, he really did, just not right now—looking at him like she was seeing him in a new light. “Knowing the future isn’t always a good thing. If Percy doesn’t think it's a good idea to share his visions, that means it’s not something we need to know.”
He drew a still silent Percy into his side, making sure those he was none too pleased with got a good look at the anger in his eyes. Tani brushed up against his legs, winding around him and Percy with her ears pinned back and her teeth bared. Those three should just be happy they'd convinced the pegasi to go back to the ship instead of coming with them to dinner, or they'd already be bleeding from Penelope's teeth.
“We’ll see you on the ship. You guys make sure to say goodbye,” he said, nodding to the trio that would be staying behind and then dipping his chin to Reyna, who gave him a tight nod back, her dark eyes filled with worry for Percy.
Then he turned and led his shivering boyfriend in the direction of the Argo II.