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He’s seven when his mother dies. He’s seven when he runs away from home. He’s seven when he meets a group of runaway children, just like him, who can see the terrifying creatures that nobody else can seem to, that chase him through the nights and hound him through the days, that hide in plain sight and somehow always seem to find him.
He’s seven- almost eight? It’s hard to keep track of the dates when he hasn’t even seen a calendar in so long- when Thalia sacrifices herself to keep them safe. He’s seven when Luke has to drag him into Camp Half-Blood, Grover similarly dragging Annabeth, though with much more difficulty.
He screams and kicks and bites and claws, drawing blood without remorse. Then the lightning bolt strikes, and the world changes.
Night turned to day, then darker than black in the aftermath of the explosion of light. Silence reigns, interrupted only by the ringing of his ears. There are spots in his vision, he’s dizzy, and can barely stand on shaking legs.
He calls for her, calls for the girl who had become like family to him, who was so much more family than Gabe who only ever beat him and cursed him and made their home smell horrible. She took care of him, her and Luke, just like Mom. Now, she’s gone. Just like Mom.
It takes him time to come to terms with it. Chiron insists that she is still alive, merely in a form of suspended animation . He has no clue what it means, except that he’ll probably never see her again.
The sorrow and grief of Mom’s death returns tenfold, bearing down on him with a vengeance. The new flavor of loss mixes with the old. Bitter, sour, and rotten. A few months wasn’t long enough to get over one death, and a few days won’t be enough to get over another.
He has no choice. The world turns, on and on, around and around, and he can’t just sit around wasting time. Luke pushes him forward, strong and unyielding, but he can hear the older boy fall apart in the dead of night, when they’re huddled together. Thalia’s loss left a hole in their group, and right now, on the floor in the Hermes Cabin, Annabeth’s absence is felt acutely. She was claimed by Athena the morning after they arrived, and though she hesitated, she jumped at the chance to be with kids like her, smarter than normal and with the same intense hatred of spiders.
Luke was also claimed almost immediately, but they get to stay together because Hermes takes in the travelers, the ones who meet a crossroads at the intersection of a bunch of dead ends, who aren’t given a clue as to who they are because his Dad, his father, who’s a god , can’t be bothered to send down some sign letting everyone know, this one is mine .
That’s fine. Mom’s gone. What’s another parent-who-isn’t-there?
It hurts, so much. To be rejected like this. To be ignored, as if he doesn’t even exist. Except, he was assured that his dad knows about him, cares about him, loves him, but he just can’t claim him yet. All he hears is, he knows about you, and he doesn’t want you . Gabe acknowledged him, even if it was just to hurt him for every mistake, to point out every flaw and reason why he doesn’t deserve love. If he can’t have even that from his dad… Then what does that mean?
Luke has the answer. Luke usually does.
It means your father is just like the rest of the gods.
The Hermes cabin is full of people- children- just like him. Who have never met their godly parent. Who don’t even know who their parent is. So many of them, all so different that there’s no way they can be from the same parent, because everyone in the other cabins usually has some sort of defining trait that makes it clear who they belong to, and when he sees them sitting together at the tables in the pavilion, looking like family should, arguing like family should, loving each other like family should- it’s a sharp contrast to the kids in Cabin Eleven, who foster friendships and sometimes relationships, but know at their core that they will always be alone.
There’s a barrier between each and every one of them. Invisible, paper-thin. Unfelt, except on the darkest nights or brightest days, when everything comes crashing down on his shoulders and the only thing he can do is curl into a ball and sob his soul out.
Except, he isn’t able to do that for long, because for all that the people here understand each other, understand the loss and lack of acceptance that led them to this place, for all that they are just like him, they are also children, who were not taught kindness and instead had to learn it on their own, who had to scrounge for every scrap they could get a hold of, had to fight for every happy memory.
They are effortlessly vicious, in the way only children can be. They mock him for crying, mock him for his weakness, and there’s nothing he can do, because they’re right , he’s weak . If he was strong, he would’ve been able to help Thalia. If he was strong, he would’ve been able to fight back against Gabe. If he was strong…
Luke is strong. Luke, with a blade in his hand, beats anyone who challenges him. He beats them all. Luke, who was ashen and pale after meeting the Oracle to get a prophecy for his quest, who failed to retrieve a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides, who lost the respect of the other campers when he returned with nothing to show except two dead teammates and a claw from the dragon the guarding the tree…
Luke is strong.
Luke can help him get strong. Strong enough to-
…To what? What would he do, if he became strong? Protect… Who? Mom’s dead. Thalia’s as good as. Luke doesn’t need protection, and has the scar to prove it. Annabeth? No, she’d hate that, and she can kick his butt, anyways.
He’ll get strong, and figure everything else out later.
He doesn’t know what he’s doing, or why he’s doing it. He swings terribly-balanced swords, unable to find one that fits just right in his hands. He runs laps around the perimeter of the camp. He climbs the rockwall, with its clashing boulders and waterfalls of lava. He tries archery, and promptly puts down his bow when he manages to shoot an arrow directly behind him, where it gets snagged in Chiron’s tail.
He trains and trains and trains, with Luke’s help. Luke’s the only one he really hangs out with these days; Annabeth is always busy, either with her new siblings or with some book or formulating plans for Capture the Flag. Luke, despite now being counselor of Hermes Cabin due to seniority, always has a moment for him, and it’s… It’s nice. It’s really, really nice, because not even Mom was able to set time aside to indulge him whenever he asked, because she was always busy working, working, working, making money that Gabe always took and pissed away- literally, he spent so much of it on booze that it was a miracle they weren’t homeless.
Luke might be Cabin Eleven’s counselor, but he’s basically an outcast in camp. Everyone likes him well enough, he’s very charismatic as Annabeth likes to say- usually followed by her facing turning as red as a tomato- but it’s difficult to get over the fact that he led his questmates to their deaths and returned alone. The people who were close to those two hate him to this day, even though it’s been over a year and Luke’s explained countless times what happened, that it wasn’t his fault.
Just as Luke is the only one he’s really close to now, he’s the only one that Luke is really close to. They’re around each other most of the day, spending the majority of their time in the arena, swinging blades at each other. Luke teaches him everything he knows about swordplay- which he learned in turn from Chiron, who is rapidly running out of things to teach the son of Hermes- day in and day out, commenting how if he wasn’t such a shrimp, he might even be able to be a match for Luke. Of course, this is Luke, the one who everyone calls the best swordsman camp has seen in three hundred years, so he takes that with a grain of salt (Who was alive three hundred years ago that their skills were so vividly remembered, before even their name?).
They don’t just train, though. Sometimes, every now and then, they talk. Share gossip, ask each other what they’d do in some randomly bizarre situation, reminisce about the old days when it was just them and Annabeth and Thalia. Without adult supervision, they’d gotten up to a lot of shenanigans and tomfoolery. Sometimes, though, they’d talk about things that were a little more… Real.
They talk about the things that made them who they were today. The circumstances that shaped them, before any of them had ever met. What haunts them in the depths of their sleep, turns their dreams into nightmares. What they want out of life, if they could ever escape the fate of being relentlessly hunted by monsters.
He learns a lot about Luke on those days. He learns even more about himself. Sometimes, there was a difference between knowing something, down in your core, and saying it out loud. The words on his tongue felt more solid, made him more certain of his thoughts, helped him make sense of the whirlpool of emotions that threatened to overwhelm him most days.
He’s… More hateful than he thought. He hates Gabe, who only ever hurt him. He hates his father, who isn’t even there to hurt him, but does so anyways with his absence. He… He hates the gods, who have children and abandon them, or don’t claim them because the kid hasn’t proven themselves, as if they have to prove that they deserve their parent’s attention. Chiron always says, sounding more and more weary every time he asks, that the gods have rules to follow. But who can tell a god what to do? Isn’t that their whole thing? Being all-powerful, above mortal laws?
Guess that means they’re also above the idea that parents should take care of their children. Maybe they just use those stupid rules as an excuse, so that they don’t have to feel bad when another of their children dies from a monster, which they could’ve easily prevented if they just helped the kid get to camp.
He hates the gods, and he’s not alone. Not even just Luke, either; subtle prodding- or, as subtle as he can be, with the social skills of a brick- reveals that many others in Cabin Eleven are in the same boat. Mostly the unclaimed, but a couple of Hermes’ actual kids share similar sentiments. They all feel abandoned. Unwanted. Unnecessary.
Some of these kids came from good households, with a loving mortal parent, and they’re the ones who had the hardest time settling in at camp as year-rounders. To go from living with their mother or father, who showered them with care, to basically having their existence ignored by their divine parent is not easy. They’re the ones with the sharpest edges. They’re the ones with the deepest wellsprings of anger and hatred within them.
They’re the ones who, years from now, will bear the torches of rebellion against Olympus, even if it means they’ll burn down with it.
He’s a year-rounder, been one for about five years now, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to befriending someone one summer, only to never see them again, knowing that they’re probably dead. Knowing that the gods could’ve intervened and saved them, if they cared to. He gets in a lot of fights over it, with people who say that the ones who were gone should’ve trained harder, been better, so that they wouldn’t meet their ends at the claws and teeths of a monster.
Like it’s the kid’s fault they’re being hunted down, like it’s their fault they were born as the child of a god who has enemies that would even kill children, if it meant striking a blow against the Olympians- or just because they wanted to satisfy their hunger with demigod flesh.
He grows to hate those people, too- it grows and grows and grows, and he finds himself angry almost all the time now. Laughs are hard to come by, and it’s a struggle to keep from lashing out at the younger kids.
He’s not alone in that, either. Luke’s temper has also gotten more volatile, and they begin to blow up at each other in the arena. Obviously, Luke wipes the floor with him, but he gives as good as he gets, and the older boy doesn’t walk out unscathed. Later, once they’re cleaned up and their scrapes are bandaged, they’ll find each other sitting at the base of Thalia’s tree, resting against her trunk. They don’t apologize with words- it’d be a waste of time, since they know they’ll just do it again tomorrow- but they know they’re both forgiven, because these days it feels like they’re the only ones who have each other's backs.
Thalia’s gone, and talking to a tree trunk does nothing to alleviate the feeling of loss, no matter how much Chiron assures them that she’s still alive in there. Annabeth’s acting weirder and weirder as the months pass; she can barely look Luke in the eye these days without turning red, and always finds some excuse to run off after being near him for too long. Luke just looks amused, but the point is, she doesn’t really hang out with them. Hasn’t in a long time.
They can’t afford to let go of this bond between them. To be alone, adrift, without someone to lean on- it’s the scariest thing he can think of, and he’ll do anything to keep it from becoming reality.
The Winter Solstice comes and goes, and as usual, he stays at camp. He doesn’t want to go to Olympus and see the gods, too worried that he’ll get mouthy and say something that gets him vaporized- too worried that he might meet his father. During his first year at camp, Chiron had originally been against leaving him behind, but Luke had offered to stay as well and make sure he doesn’t get up to any trouble, so the Centaur reluctantly allowed them to remain, along with some of the other Cabin Eleven residents who didn’t want anything to do with the Olympians. Luke seemed happier with the arrangement, as well; he thinks the only reason Luke would’ve gone was to keep an eye on Annabeth, but she has all her siblings with her.
This year, however, Luke plans to go with the rest of the campers. Truthfully, it stings, and they get into a fight over it. He’s old enough to not need supervision, but it feels too much like Luke’s leaving him behind. It’s only for one night, and he won’t even be alone since some of the other kids are staying behind as has become usual (before him, they apparently hadn’t even considered asking to stay at Camp, thinking they’d probably be ignored if they shared their feelings. Chiron, however, is not like the gods, for all that their stupid rules influence and limit his actions). He just needs to suck it up.
Or, he could suck it up and go with Luke. And maybe get in a fight with a deity and get turned into a stain on the floor. Yeah, probably not the best idea. He’s a little bratty and sulky on the morning of, when the other campers are filing into the rented Greyhound and Luke hangs back to give him a pat on the head like he’s a dog, which he swats away with an annoyed expression, but it just makes Luke laugh at him like he’s the most adorable thing in the world. He shoves at the older boy half-heartedly, but accepts the hug when Luke spreads his arms wide.
It’s a little tighter than when he usually hugs Luke, but maybe it’s because Luke is also feeling a bit worried. It’s the first time in almost five years where they won’t see each other every day. Anything can happen in that time, but he’s twelve, not seven, and he knows how to take care of himself. He’ll be fine.
He waves at Luke through the window of the bus, and watches until they turn off the road and are out of sight, covered by the treeline. Something sits heavy in his stomach, but he ignores it and heads off to breakfast.
When Luke returns, he’s stressed, tired, angrier than usual. It’s almost too easy to rile him up until they’re clashing in the arena, and at some points it seems like Luke is actually trying to kill him. It ends with the Son of Hermes pressing the tip of his sword against his throat.
There’s a moment of silence, after which Luke seems to come back to himself, and apologizes gruffly. He waves it off; he’s more concerned with Luke. Something happened on Olympus, but when he asks, Luke tells him he’s imagining things, and tries to change the topic without much success. Eventually, Luke gets aggravated enough to storm off.
Nobody who went on the trip has any clue what’s bothering Luke so much, not even Annabeth, and eventually he just has to chalk it up to seeing Hermes up on Olympus. Did the god try to talk to Luke? He can only imagine how badly that would’ve gone.
Over the next few weeks Luke gets… Better. For a given value of the word. He’s more in control of himself, not quite as easily goaded into vicious bouts, but he still seems stressed, face contorted into a scowl whenever he thinks someone isn’t looking. It’s concerning, but there’s nothing he can do when he has no clue what’s going on. He just hovers around Luke, tries to act normal, and hopes that eventually, Luke will be back to normal, too.
The dreams start a month after the yearly camp field trip. An eagle and a horse, fighting on a beach. He doesn’t know where; he’s only ever been to Montauk, and the white sands there are a stark contrast to the orange-yellow in his dreams, darkened by the roaring tide and pouring rain.
Sometimes, instead of two regal animals, it’s two men, grappling in the sea foam. One of them is yelling loud enough to be heard over the rain- give it back! Give it back! It reminds him of children arguing when one of them steals the other’s toy.
And then he sees the eyes of the man with shorter hair, sees the same sea-green that stare back at him in the mirror every morning.
That’s his father. He knows it, with everything in him, that this is his father. A god, fighting with presumably another god, like they’re both younger than him.
This is why he’s never been claimed? This is why there’s an entire part of him that feels foreign? Because his Dad is too busy doing… This?
Maybe he should be happy he hasn’t- and probably never will be- claimed.
Two months after the camp field trip, the weather takes a turn for the worse. Rain so heavy it even pierces through the camp’s protective barrier, soaking the campers who run for the safety of their cabins, bewildered. The radio in Cabin Eleven that someone got from the Hephaestus kids reports freakish weather on the Eastern Seaboard, monsoons and typhoons the likes of which haven’t been seen in decades. Every night, they go to bed with the cabin’s windows rattling against their latches, like something is out there trying to break in. It freaks out the younger kids, and makes the older ones uneasy.
The mood at camp sours, and Luke gets it the worst. There are days where he’ll wander off into the forest without telling anyone, and come back only at dinner time. He asks what the older boy was doing out there, as indirectly as he can, but even then, Luke gets stone-faced and tells him to mind his business.
That hurts. Sometimes, when he isn’t feeling charitable and understanding, he wonders if Luke is trying to cut him out of his life. Has the Son of Hermes finally gotten sick of always having some dumb, no-name, unclaimed kid following after him like a puppy? Those feelings pass eventually, but it takes longer and longer each time.
Summer comes, and with it the part-timers. As he’s come to expect, some don’t show up. It still breaks his heart, but nobody talks about it- they know better now. He’s tense for the first few days after the summer campers arrive, ready to fly off the handle at the drop of a hat, side-eying people who had to learn the hard way to keep quiet when he’s in earshot.
Usually, whenever it happened, Luke would come to back him up, no matter how many people he threw himself at. Now, he isn’t so sure if he’ll have someone in his corner. Annabeth always scolds him for his impulsiveness after he gets into a fight, so no help there, and while he’s made friends, they’re not close enough to follow him if he attacks the entirety of the Ares cabin.
Luckily, he doesn’t get into any fights. He can feel Chiron’s eyes boring into the back of his head for nearly the whole week. It’s a close thing, though; with the way the weather has been for a while now, he’s been moodier than ever. Sometimes, he feels like punching someone out just to release the anger in his gut, but his rational mind (feeble as Annabeth might say it is) holds him back. For now.
It comes to a head in Capture the Flag. Hermes is allied with Athena, and he’s put on border patrol. Basically, stand in one place and fight any red team that tries to cross the creek. Simple enough, but leaving him alone in Capture the Flag is like asking for disaster. Still, it was Annabeth’s plan, and those usually work out, so he sucks it up and tries not to fall asleep when absolutely nothing happens for the first half of the game. He can hear yelling, and weapons clashing, but it’s far away.
Then, like a herd of buffalo, half the Ares cabin charges out of the treeline, screaming ugly war cries, Clarisse at the forefront of the charge. It was a surprise he didn’t hear them earlier; the way they were trampling through the foliage wasn’t exactly subtle. It doesn’t really matter, though, since it’s six against one, all of them older, stronger, and much meaner than him.
He sighs. This is gonna hurt.
Doesn’t mean he’s going down without a fight.
He gets steamrolled. Then he’s in the river, and he’s awake , as if he’s been asleep his entire life. It’s like somebody injected caffeine into his veins. It’s reminiscent of that time he drank some of Mom’s coffee, and was bouncing off the walls for hours, but dialed up to eleven. The tides turn. Six against one rapidly becomes five against one, then four, and three, until Clarisse is the last one standing, pointing the broken end of her stupid electric spear at him.
She’s wary, obviously not understanding what just happened. Which, fair. He doesn’t understand it either, just like he doesn’t understand why the sword in his hand no longer pulls so awkwardly, even though it was definitely unbalanced- just like every other sword he’s tried- when he picked it up after dinner.
Still, it’s working in his favor, so he won’t question it for right now. What he will question is what happened next, when Clarisse stepped back a bit, as if she was considering retreat. Her, Clarisse, counselor of Cabin Five, belligerent daughter of the War God Ares… Running away? He was consumed by an unholy rage.
She led five of her siblings to ambush him, clearly intending to do more than leave a few scratches, and now that things were going according to plan, she wanted to run? No, he wouldn’t let her. She was too far for him to actually do anything, though, and if she actually ran with her longer strides, he’d never catch her. He needed some way to make her stay put , so he could finish what she started.
There was a tug in his gut. The creek flowing past their ankles leaped up, washing over Clarisse like a wave, knocking her down. Except, that was no wave. Even if they had been standing on the beach in the midst of a monsoon, nobody would’ve mistaken the column of water that rose up- with intent, with purpose - for a wave. That was something unnatural. Something divine . Something that happened because of him.
Nobody had ever accused him of being particularly smart, or intelligent, or wise, or whatever you wanted to call it. Some of the other campers were probably surprised he could dress himself in the morning. But this, the water, the sudden surge of strength… It all just clicked.
Two men fighting on a beach, exchanging blows in tandem with the ebb and flow of the tide, with the howling wind and flashing lightning that illuminated a sky blackened by oversaturated clouds. As if the weather was following their actions, influenced by their rage. Two gods . One, with the same bright, electric blue eyes as the girl in the living grave, and the other, with the same eyes as him, who had just controlled the water.
Zeus, and…
And…
The sigil that appeared over his forehead, a shimmering, aquamarine trident, kept him from denying everything, from burying his unwanted conclusion.
“Hail, Perseus Jackson, son of the Earthshaker, the Stormbringer, the Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson. Son of the Sea God.”
This has been sitting unfinished in my drafts for like 2 years. The only thing new is the last 3 paragraphs. I cranked out 99% of this in one sitting while listening to an extended version of Can You Hear The Music from Oppenheimer on loop, and it felt like my consciousness had expanded, like I’d ascended. It’s a level of laser-sharp focus I only remember feeling while working on So Far East I’m Westbound, which I wrote while listening to Wake Up by Eden (or The Eden Project, which is what he was called back when that song came out).
I’m listening to the song again, and I’m about 40% there. Anything less, and I probably wouldn’t have even been able to do that last bit. I don’t know when or where I lost my drive to write.
I’m not healthy anymore. I feel like I’m destroying myself. I hate sleeping. I get between 4 and 6 hours a night, just enough to operate somewhat normally at work. I don’t exercise, I just sit at my computer all day. I eat like shit, to the point where I sometimes feel like I’m poisoning myself.
That’s probably why I lost my spark. I don’t have much energy these days, and all of it goes to just making it through the day. I don’t really get excited about life in general, I don't have much to look forward to. I got a motorcycle in the summer, and I enjoy riding, but I haven’t even gotten my permit yet because I just can’t work up the motivation to leave my house most days. It’s just sitting at a friend’s house, where it’ll probably remain for the winter.
Maybe if I moved out, stopped living with my parents. God knows that’s not helping my mental wellbeing. It’d force a level of initiative on me, and it feels like I need something to upheave my current way of life, because I can’t keep going like this.
Anyways, hope you guys enjoy this. Doubt I’ll continue it. The original idea for this was what if Percy joined Luke in his campaign against the gods, but then it turns out Percy is even more spiteful and hate-filled than Luke to the point where Luke tries to surrender, but Percy keeps moving, ever-forward. It ends with him either actually succeeding, or being killed, but without any self-sacrifice or intention of redemption like when Luke turned away from Kronos.
Btw, the title is the scientific name for the Bruno’s Casque-Headed Frog, also known as Nyctimantis brunoi . They’re found in Brazil, and are apparently one of only 2 species of frogs (the other being Greening's frog, or Corythomantis greeningi, also found in Brazil) that are venomous. Frogs are generally poisonous because they secrete neurotoxins or whatever from their skin, which acts as a deterrent for predators. However, the 2 species I mentioned also secrete their neurotoxins from spines/spikes on their head, which they use to headbutt stuff. The active injection of the neurotoxin via headbutt is what makes them venomous.
I went with Bruno’s over Greening’s because the venom from a Greening’s frog is apparently twice as potent as a Brazilian pit viper’s, while Bruno’s is 25x, with a single gram of venom being enough to kill 80 people. Which is wild. I’m very lucky that any venomous frogs existed, because I really wanted to do a mashup of that frog in the well metaphor and that story about the frog and the scorpion. Luke, obviously, is the scorpion in this case.