Mortal! AU

PROLOGUE

YOU SUPPOSED it was fate to start working at Mount Olympus's Ice Cream Parlor. It was definitely fate for your shift to land square on the food fight of the century. You were sure, however, that if it you'd landed here by coincidences and fate, then you should've thrown caution to the winds a long time ago.

Mount Olympus's Ice Cream Parlor was a quiet little ice cream shop in Long Island. It got steady business, though, and oftentimes tourists stopped to gawk and take pictures of the outside of it. Chiron Brunner, the owner, had consented to let Annabeth Chase, a senior and arguably one of Chiron's favorite employees, design the building. In tribute to the name, she'd designed it after the Grecian temples of old. She'd even suggested renovations to the menu items - the ice cream was called 'ambrosia' and the milkshakes and sodas were 'nectar.'

It was a homey, happy place, despite the grand exterior, which was why you counted yourself quite lucky to have landed a job here. Chiron had taken one look at you and given you a job as a waitress for the (G/P) section. Customers were divided into sections based on what type of ice cream they ordered, and as such, some sections had more workers (like the Apollo and Hermes cabins) and some had fewer (like the Zeus section.)

There were quite a few workers, and the place was a little beehive of bustling activity. One place where the activities died down, however, was a little shrine at the end of the room. In it were framed pictures of the people who'd died at the Mt. Olympus shooting. Charles Beckendorf, called Beckendorf by his friends, had given his life to protect Percy Jackson (who was also a senior and was dating Annabeth Chase), and his girlfriend, Silena Beauregard, had died soon after. Castor had jumped in front of his twin, Pollux, and had been shot in the head. Michael Yew, Ethan Nakamura, Luke Castellan - so many had died in was New York newscasters called, 'A gross and saddening waste of human life'.

It was before your time here, of course, but a certain melancholy filled you every time you looked at the little pictures, a certain wistfulness.

Mt. Olympus's Ice Cream Parlor was somewhere you knew innately, knew every nook and cranny of it. You loved it.

And perhaps that was why the best thing that ever happened to you happened there.

PART I

•∞•∞•∞•

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.

~Anonymous

•∞•∞•∞•

"Y/N! GET YOUR BUTT OVER HERE!"

You sighed, trudging over, rubbing your eyes sleepily. You'd been up all last night to finish a paper, to turn in online. Most teachers would simply let you turn your paper in on Monday, but no, your English teacher, Ms. Dodds, had to have it Friday.

Some days you really hated school.

Oh, who am I kidding, I hate school almost every day.

"This," B/F introduced, "is Leo Valdez."

"Hey." You smiled at waved at Leo, then mentally slapped yourself for being such a dork. You're literally two feet in front of him, why would you wave?! "I'm Y/N."

"Hi." He waved back, which made you feel significantly less awkward. "I'm Leo - wait, you knew that. Never mind."

You stifled a chuckle and instead turned your attention to B/F. "Is he in the G/P section?"

"Nope, he's in the Hephaestus section. But Jake Mason broke approximately half of the bones in his body trying to skateboard, and you've been working here for the longest. Well, except for Percy and Annabeth, and they're probably trying to snog each other's face off."

You rolled your eyes. "Yeah, okay. I'm going to just let you continue with your British tendencies, and I'll show Leo around. Okay? Okay! C'mon Leo." You grabbed his hand to pull him along, but a blush colored your cheeks when he caught up to you and didn't let go.

"Who are Percy and Annabeth?"

"They're like the power couple of Mount Olympus. Lacy - you don't know her, she's really nice - calls them 'Percabeth,' whatever that means."

He raised his eyebrows. "Okay..." he said slowly, drawing it out. "This job seems crazy, which means it's probably the job for me! Great!"

You couldn't help but giggle at him, and the tips of his ears colored pink.

"Watch it, punk!" Clarisse La Rue, the head of the Ares section, steamrolled by, holding some poor unfortunate who's head was probably destined for the toilet.

"Clarisse, let him go please." you sighed. "What did he do this time?"

She glowered at you, obviously frustrated. "The little punk got ice cream all over my clothes! After this, I was gonna go out with Ch-" she broke off.

"With Chris?" You raised your eyebrows.

"It doesn't matter." She grumbled. "What matters is this little twerp here got it all over my clothes, and it's gonna cost money to dry-clean it!"

Clarisse accosted the boy, who honestly looked truly frightened. "Do you know what this shirt is made of, you little idiot? Well? Do you?"

"Clarisse. Please set him down."

"I want justice!"

"What if he pays for the dry cleaning costs?" When it looked like she was starting to waver, you added, "And he'll promise to never do it again." You cast a meaningful glance at the boy, who nodded hastily. "I won't! I swear!"

"Fine." she grunted. She turned her glare onto the boy. "But if you ever do this again, your head's going down the toilet, and the rest of you might follow." With ill grace, she released the kid's collar and stomped off.

You bent down to the boy's height (seriously? How old was he?) "Where do you work?"

He looked confused, so Leo chimed in. "What section do you work for?"

"I don't even work here!" His voice was thin and reedy. "She bumped into me, and when I got some ice cream on her, she grabbed me by the collar and told me she was gonna stuff me into the toilet!"

You winced. "Sorry 'bout that. Clarisse has got a bit of a temper."

"A bit?!"

"Okay, look. You can pick out some new ice cream, and it'll be on the house. Meet me in front of the cash register, okay? I have to get someone else to help Leo first."

"Awesome!" He pumped his fist in the air, then disappeared, presumably to pick out his ice cream.

You looked at Leo. "Sorry I couldn't show you around."

"Nah, it's good. I got to see you face down an angry Clarisse, and that makes it totally worth it."

You snort. "If you're sure." You walk over to one of the smaller sections. "Hey, Butch!"

Butch Walker, in the Iris section, had a shaved head, military-style, and was unbelievably buff. He also had a tattoo of a rainbow on his bicep, which no one gave him crap about - at least once they witnessed him knock out a guy's two front teeth in one punch. "Leo, this is Butch. He's the head waiter of the Iris section. Butch, this is Leo, a new guy, but he's in Hephaestus."

The two boys sized each other up, while you stayed behind Butch's shoulder, just in case Leo did or said anything stupid and you had to restrain Butch.

Leo snorted. "You're in the rainbow section?" Well, it didn't take that long for him to say something stupid.

You could visibly see the veins in Butch's neck clench, along with his fists. "You got a problem with that?"

You frantically shook your head and sliced your hand across your throat. No more, no more, if you know what's good for you, you'll back off and shut up.

Luckily for him, Leo seemed to get the message. "Oh, no, no, not at all. Rainbows... very macho."

Butch nodded. "Good." He seemed to ignore the sarcasm.

You cleared your throat. "Well, since the two of you seem to be getting along nicely-" Butch is literally an inch away from strangling Leo, and I'm fairly certain he'd only need one hand. "Well, erm, since you're getting along nicely, I've gotta go deal with a traumatized customer, courtesy of Clarisse. See ya!" You start to walk off, but not before you saw Leo mouth Help me!

•∞•∞•∞•

PART II

"LEO. VALDEZ. What the hell did you just do?!" you shrieked, realizing belatedly that you had cursed - but the situation definitely warranted it.

Leo had whipped cream all over his hair, giving him a wig worthy of the Colonial Era. There was a cherry, but it was sinking down through the whipped cream, and all you could see was a little stem sticking out near his ear.

If that weren't enough, chocolate milkshake was dripping down his shoulders, staining his skin, and running in rivulets down the creases of his shirt. Sprinkles were there, too, giving him rainbows dotted all over his skin, starting to melt from his body heat.

"I'm going to give you one chance to explain. What - did - you - do?" You slowly asked, trying not to explode - though if you did explode, you weren't sure if you would laugh or cry.

He looked embarrassed, the his ears (well, the parts that you could see that weren't covered in whipped cream slowly dripping down) flaming a bright red. "Well, Katie was trying to help me work the ice cream maker, when it exploded, and ice cream went everywhere - well, mostly on me. Then, she ran off screaming something about Connor and Travis Stoll, and she left me behind. I was trying to clean up, when this girl ran in, took one look at me, and decided to make me into a human sundae."

You face palmed. "That story would sound ridiculous anywhere else, but here..." You took one more look at the shattered ice cream machine. "But here, it makes perfect sense. Who was this girl, anyway?"

"I don't know her name, but she had black hair and green eyes, and she was wearing a black-and-blue checkered hoodie."

You groaned. "Midnight. Midnight Tides. She's Percy's half-sister - they're related on their father's side. She's got a mischievous streak kilometers long and I honestly wouldn't put it past her to do this."

"Here." you handed Leo a towel. "You get yourself cleaned up, and I'll start cleaning this mess up. When you're done, get your butt out here and help."

Leo gave an audible sigh of relief. "Thanks, Y/N. You're the best." He gave you a kiss on the cheek before leaving, hopefully to the bathroom.

You heaved a sigh and grabbed a mop, trying your hardest to quell the blush rising to your cheeks.

(although you did make sure to wipe the chocolate off your cheek first - how did that boy get ice cream everywhere?)

•∞•∞•∞•

HE GOT plenty of strange looks once he'd exited. To be fair, he still had the cherry by his ear, and remnants of whipped cream were still in his hair.

You'd just finished serving the boy Clarisse had threatened, and was standing near the ice cream selection bar when Leo arrived, wearing a sheepish smile.

Customers stopped and stared, no doubt wondering what on earth he was doing.

The Stolls hooted and laughed at him, putting you in mind of monkeys. Overly hyper, slightly insane monkeys.

Midnight ran up and snapped a picture, with Leo trying - futilely - to keep her from taking it.

He face palmed and sighed.

You walked up to him, unable to keep a smirk from crossing your lips.

"You got a little something right - well, everywhere."

He smirked. "Is that so, Miss Y/N L/N?" At your slightly apprehensive nod, he continued. "Well, you do too."

"What? I don't - LEO I-DON'T-KNOW-YOUR-MIDDLE-NAME VALDEZ! "

Leo had grabbed an ice cream scooper that was spilling over with chocolate ice cream, and had promptly pressed the lever, releasing the ice cream all over your head.

"Oh, it is on." You grabbed an entire tub of vanilla ice cream, and pushed the bottom in so that the contents landed on Leo. He retaliated by grabbing a tub of partially melted mint chocolate chip ice cream, and flung the soupy contents right at you. You ducked away - and the majority of the ice cream hit Clarisse. The entire parlor went silent - including the customers, although seeing it was nearly closing time, there weren't many there.

Crap.

Surprisingly, the big girl had the slightest hint of a smile on her face as she, too, scooped a blob of ice cream out of a strawberry tub - with her bare hands, nonetheless - and hurled it at Percy, who was standing near the entryway.

Pandemonium exploded.

A free-for-all began, with each and every person hurling ice cream at everyone they could see, some with bloodcurdling war crimes and whoops and some simply aiming and taking fire. Through all the chaos, you could see Annabeth and her half-brother, Malcolm, building a trebuchet, and they used it to attack her cousin Magnus Chase, who was visiting her family from Boston.

The frenzy of the food fight only stopped once Chiron Brunner walked in and nearly got nailed in the face.

He sighed with exasperation as everyone froze - quiet enough so that you could hear the ice cream dripping in rivulets down some people's necks and shoulders. "Who started it?"

Hands started pointing in numerous directions, although you noticed more than a fair few were pointed at the Stolls. When in doubt, blame the Stolls.

The kindly man shook his head. "You're all going to have to help clean up, then." He disappeared back through the doorway, presumably because he couldn't look at the mess you'd made.

Eventually, Annabeth started passing around some mops, and clean-up started. Leo sidled up next to you and smirked mischievously. "You got a little something there." He motioned towards your face.

"Where?" You pulled out a napkin from one of the table dispensers.

"Oh, don't worry, I got it."

What? Lips parted, you started to ask Leo what he meant -

As he pressed his lips to yours.

This is bad. This is really, really bad. I know. I'm sorry.

But I had to make a comeback somewhere, right? This is my (crappy) reentrance to the writing world. Love you guys, thanks for the support - and for making me realize that I do have to move on with my life and that's what Aimee would want. It's been half a year, and it's time to move on - but I will always look back.

Again, sorry for the really really really bad story. I know, it's bad. Criticism accepted.