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31_days2013-04-14 12:42 am
treeflamingo.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2013-04-14 12:42 am
[April 13] [Percy Jackson] You Must Be Super-Crazy-Awesome or Awesomer to Ride this Ride
Prompt: April 13/ if you're willing to be thrilled, it's a hell of a ride
Title: You Must Be Super-Crazy-Awesome or Awesomer to Ride this Ride
Series: Percy Jackson and the Heroes of Olympus
Character(s): Percy and a throw-away OC
Rating: PG
A/N: So this is AU, set way after the story arc that will hopefully end in the next book, because, seriously. Wait, does that make this future!fic? Man, I really don't know what AU encompasses. Anyway. I made up the sea monster; sometimes mythologists were lacking in imagination.
Percy and Annabeth broke up when she was a sophomore in college. It wasn’t a messy breakup exactly, but... they still both found reasons to put half the planet between them. Annabeth switched to a school in LA; Percy took his godly family members up on an offer to move to Europe and hunt up all the kids they apparently had hidden over there. And by “take up on the offer,” we of course mean, “opted not to throw Zeus’ order back in his face.”
In hindsight, he considered it a pretty wise move. Europe was gorgeous, for one. There was no possible way he was going to run into his ex, for another. Plus there were tons of new monsters to fight, lots of scared semi-relatives to rescue, and, it turned, out, European girls were totally into slightly crazy guys with permanent bed-head and potentially uncanny power over salt water.
There was a bit of a thing, though. Being a demigod, that was something Percy was intimately familiar with - everything’s coming up roses, so there’s gotta be a thing. The thing in this case wasn’t as world-shakingly catastrophic as other things had been... it was just that he was basically alone. None of his friends from Camp Halfblood or Camp Jupiter had come along for the adventure. That was sort of part of the deal: a one-man, one-way ticket to a life where you can use your talents (not exactly the easiest thing for a son of Poseidon to find), and you will never, ever get bored (which, let’s face it, was probably the single most excruciating torture Percy could think of).
So there he was, on the other side of ye olde pond, hopping from country to country as the monsters led him - for where there are monsters, there are demigod kids - never staying anywhere long enough to really make friends, never meeting a demigod who was more than half his age, and... All those cute European girls who were totally into him? Yeah. Something Percy learned over the years after he and Annabeth split: the world might be an amazing, terrifying, contradictory, confounding place, but it only had one Annabeth in it.
Basically, he had a new girlfriend about every 4 months.
The current one was looking like she might be a keeper though. She was a petite little Irish thing with dark hair, porcelain skin, a gorgeous voice, roughly one gram of fear in her whole body, and, oh yeah, she could see. Percy had met a handful of people in his life who could see through the Mist, and the more of them he met, the more he could understand why his dad had fallen for his mom. They were, one and all, courageous, noble, and just a smidge crazy. This one especially. They’d been together for six weeks, she’d seen Riptide slice through no less than five monsters, and had helped him foster a pair of Hecate’s twins for a week and a half. Which was why he had finally decided it was time to introduce her to his true powers.
Well. Not decided as such, just, not ducked down an alleyway like deranged Superman when an actual need to use them cropped up.
They were on a date, having dinner at this super cool little lighthouse-cum-restaurant on top of your standard-issue Irish rocky promontory. Percy was positive that the restaurant owner was a super-in-hiding demigod (he’d acquired this nifty ability to tell who the demigods were, but that’s a different story), which was amazing, because there were, as far as he knew, only about five adult demigods aside from himself (and the restaurant lady) in all of Europe. This was the third time he’d been to the restaurant and this time he’d managed to get the VIP treatment for Aoife and himself - the best table in the house, a bottle of wine on the house, and the restaurant lady stopped by to chat with them for a bit. So there they were, having this nice little date, Percy was making great progress earning the restaurant lady’s trust, and suddenly alarm bells started going off in his head. His senses kicked into high gear and his palms started literally itching. For a second, he let himself believe it was because he was on such a fantastic date with such a crazy-awesome girl. But only for a second.
“Aoife,” he said. She smiled at him, and for a blip his heart beat extra extra fast.
“Yeah?”
“You know how my job is basically to fight monsters and rescue demigod kids, right?”
“...yeah?”
“So you know I’m a demigod, too, right?”
“.........yeah?”
“You have any idea who’s kid I am?”
“...........no?”
“Poseidon’s.”
“Oh.”
“Which means I can do some pretty sick stuff with water.”
“Oh.”
“And I’m about to have to do some stuff right now.”
“What?”
And that’s when the monster exploded out of the sea. It was Celtic-style, long and gangly, with this creepy black mass of hair/seaweed/tentacles protruding from its head, an incessant wail that sounded like a hurricane plus a tornado plus a dying horse, and a mouth to end all mouths. (Seriously, it was a friggin’ maw, and Percy had some choice comments to make about its dental hygiene.) It had launched itself halfway up the promontory and was spouting high-pressure saltwater from some orifice or other straight at the base of the lighthouse. Which wasn’t having much of an effect on the building, but it sounded scary. Pretty much everyone starting screaming, and Aoife looked a touch paler than usual. Percy grinned at her.
“Go time,” he said, grabbed her hand, and ran to the railing.
Which, in retrospect, may not have been the cleverest thing he’d ever done. The monster was hissing and slithering its way up the rock face, and it was not a pretty sight. In addition to the aforementioned complement of creepy writhing hair, creepy gangly body, and creepy hideous jaws, it also had - and even Percy had to admit this was a bit unsettling - a pair of enormous human-looking eyes, complete with bushy brows and long lashes, set right above and behind that I-will-eat-your-soul mouth. Aoife’s grip on his hand tightened and she inched away from the railing ever so slightly. The monster’s wail pitched up an octave and the spray of water started travelling up the side of the lighthouse.
Percy summoned a gargantuan wave. The wave receded to reveal that the monster had slid down the cliff a bit, but it was spitting fire (metaphorically) and scrabbling back up. So he summoned a second one. In preparation for the third he cut the ropes holding this battered - but still structurally sound! - little rowboat to the ceiling and poised it against the railing.
He turned to Aoife, grinning like a madman. “You ready for this?”
“Percy, you’re not...! That’s insane!” So she said, but she was still holding onto his hand, and he had a foot in the stern of the boat.
“That’s what makes it fun,” he said, and then the third wave came.
He got Aoife home safe and sound at the end of the night - the monster defeated, the restaurant safe, all that usual heroic jazz - but it was still the last date she let him take her on.
That was the thing about the world, and after a while Percy just had to accept it. The world was huge, but there was only one Annabeth in it.
Title: You Must Be Super-Crazy-Awesome or Awesomer to Ride this Ride
Series: Percy Jackson and the Heroes of Olympus
Character(s): Percy and a throw-away OC
Rating: PG
A/N: So this is AU, set way after the story arc that will hopefully end in the next book, because, seriously. Wait, does that make this future!fic? Man, I really don't know what AU encompasses. Anyway. I made up the sea monster; sometimes mythologists were lacking in imagination.
Percy and Annabeth broke up when she was a sophomore in college. It wasn’t a messy breakup exactly, but... they still both found reasons to put half the planet between them. Annabeth switched to a school in LA; Percy took his godly family members up on an offer to move to Europe and hunt up all the kids they apparently had hidden over there. And by “take up on the offer,” we of course mean, “opted not to throw Zeus’ order back in his face.”
In hindsight, he considered it a pretty wise move. Europe was gorgeous, for one. There was no possible way he was going to run into his ex, for another. Plus there were tons of new monsters to fight, lots of scared semi-relatives to rescue, and, it turned, out, European girls were totally into slightly crazy guys with permanent bed-head and potentially uncanny power over salt water.
There was a bit of a thing, though. Being a demigod, that was something Percy was intimately familiar with - everything’s coming up roses, so there’s gotta be a thing. The thing in this case wasn’t as world-shakingly catastrophic as other things had been... it was just that he was basically alone. None of his friends from Camp Halfblood or Camp Jupiter had come along for the adventure. That was sort of part of the deal: a one-man, one-way ticket to a life where you can use your talents (not exactly the easiest thing for a son of Poseidon to find), and you will never, ever get bored (which, let’s face it, was probably the single most excruciating torture Percy could think of).
So there he was, on the other side of ye olde pond, hopping from country to country as the monsters led him - for where there are monsters, there are demigod kids - never staying anywhere long enough to really make friends, never meeting a demigod who was more than half his age, and... All those cute European girls who were totally into him? Yeah. Something Percy learned over the years after he and Annabeth split: the world might be an amazing, terrifying, contradictory, confounding place, but it only had one Annabeth in it.
Basically, he had a new girlfriend about every 4 months.
The current one was looking like she might be a keeper though. She was a petite little Irish thing with dark hair, porcelain skin, a gorgeous voice, roughly one gram of fear in her whole body, and, oh yeah, she could see. Percy had met a handful of people in his life who could see through the Mist, and the more of them he met, the more he could understand why his dad had fallen for his mom. They were, one and all, courageous, noble, and just a smidge crazy. This one especially. They’d been together for six weeks, she’d seen Riptide slice through no less than five monsters, and had helped him foster a pair of Hecate’s twins for a week and a half. Which was why he had finally decided it was time to introduce her to his true powers.
Well. Not decided as such, just, not ducked down an alleyway like deranged Superman when an actual need to use them cropped up.
They were on a date, having dinner at this super cool little lighthouse-cum-restaurant on top of your standard-issue Irish rocky promontory. Percy was positive that the restaurant owner was a super-in-hiding demigod (he’d acquired this nifty ability to tell who the demigods were, but that’s a different story), which was amazing, because there were, as far as he knew, only about five adult demigods aside from himself (and the restaurant lady) in all of Europe. This was the third time he’d been to the restaurant and this time he’d managed to get the VIP treatment for Aoife and himself - the best table in the house, a bottle of wine on the house, and the restaurant lady stopped by to chat with them for a bit. So there they were, having this nice little date, Percy was making great progress earning the restaurant lady’s trust, and suddenly alarm bells started going off in his head. His senses kicked into high gear and his palms started literally itching. For a second, he let himself believe it was because he was on such a fantastic date with such a crazy-awesome girl. But only for a second.
“Aoife,” he said. She smiled at him, and for a blip his heart beat extra extra fast.
“Yeah?”
“You know how my job is basically to fight monsters and rescue demigod kids, right?”
“...yeah?”
“So you know I’m a demigod, too, right?”
“.........yeah?”
“You have any idea who’s kid I am?”
“...........no?”
“Poseidon’s.”
“Oh.”
“Which means I can do some pretty sick stuff with water.”
“Oh.”
“And I’m about to have to do some stuff right now.”
“What?”
And that’s when the monster exploded out of the sea. It was Celtic-style, long and gangly, with this creepy black mass of hair/seaweed/tentacles protruding from its head, an incessant wail that sounded like a hurricane plus a tornado plus a dying horse, and a mouth to end all mouths. (Seriously, it was a friggin’ maw, and Percy had some choice comments to make about its dental hygiene.) It had launched itself halfway up the promontory and was spouting high-pressure saltwater from some orifice or other straight at the base of the lighthouse. Which wasn’t having much of an effect on the building, but it sounded scary. Pretty much everyone starting screaming, and Aoife looked a touch paler than usual. Percy grinned at her.
“Go time,” he said, grabbed her hand, and ran to the railing.
Which, in retrospect, may not have been the cleverest thing he’d ever done. The monster was hissing and slithering its way up the rock face, and it was not a pretty sight. In addition to the aforementioned complement of creepy writhing hair, creepy gangly body, and creepy hideous jaws, it also had - and even Percy had to admit this was a bit unsettling - a pair of enormous human-looking eyes, complete with bushy brows and long lashes, set right above and behind that I-will-eat-your-soul mouth. Aoife’s grip on his hand tightened and she inched away from the railing ever so slightly. The monster’s wail pitched up an octave and the spray of water started travelling up the side of the lighthouse.
Percy summoned a gargantuan wave. The wave receded to reveal that the monster had slid down the cliff a bit, but it was spitting fire (metaphorically) and scrabbling back up. So he summoned a second one. In preparation for the third he cut the ropes holding this battered - but still structurally sound! - little rowboat to the ceiling and poised it against the railing.
He turned to Aoife, grinning like a madman. “You ready for this?”
“Percy, you’re not...! That’s insane!” So she said, but she was still holding onto his hand, and he had a foot in the stern of the boat.
“That’s what makes it fun,” he said, and then the third wave came.
He got Aoife home safe and sound at the end of the night - the monster defeated, the restaurant safe, all that usual heroic jazz - but it was still the last date she let him take her on.
That was the thing about the world, and after a while Percy just had to accept it. The world was huge, but there was only one Annabeth in it.