I feel vulnerable. I can't believe I let him crash me again. The memories keep changing in front of my eyes and I just can't take it anymore. I give up. It was all my fault. I can't take it anymore. When is this going to end?
I'm not fighting anymore, I let the memories take my sanity away. Gripping at my mind a thousand voices scream at me. They all scream different things. My mistakes, the catastrophic failures of mine, and all the reasons I'm never happy anymore.

"Sooo, I've overheard your conversation with Percy the other day." I heard my brother say with amusement in his voice. "Totally by accident, to be honest."

"How exactly could that happen?" I frowned and tried to push him out of my way, on the path to my palace.

"You know I'm pretty sure I didn't hear about this awesome mega-party on Olympus tonight..." Ares continued, ignoring my question. "Are you the one organizing it? I'm convinced you fucked up the invitations or notifications or whatever they're called."

I wanted to punch him in the face for he was grinning like a mad man and still not letting me go to my palace. I stared really angry at him and finally managed to push him aside, but he didn't stop though, and grabbed my shoulders. 

"You know, I was kind enough to fix that for you. I made sure everyone knew." He winked at me and I suddenly froze in my actions. His grip on me only tightened. "I didn't invite him tho. I believe you wouldn't want him to come, right? But you should start preparing for tonight soon, or else whole Olympus will be laughing at your pity party."

"Asshole! I changed my mind about the party, so you should call it off or organize it yourself." I hurried myself to answer something, anything to save the situation, my plans for this day. I've spent so many days and nights to make sure it was perfect for him, but now Ares was about to ruin everything. And it looked like he was going to succeed in that. 

I broke out of his grip and fastened my steps towards the Palace of Sun. It towered over the smaller temples nearby, those closest ones belonged to the muses. My palace shone with golden light, almost blinding. The other bigger temples - those belonged to the other Olympians - in the distance seemed gray and dusty compared to it, and could hardly be seen from mine's glorious light. I knew it was just because we were too close to mine, and farther from theirs, but suddenly it irritated me. Reminded me of my past self, when I thought I was better than anyone and everyone, so I decided that near my palace no other could look good. No matter how huge and mighty they can be, when someone was closer to my temple, the others would seem to fade and shrink in the distance. Nice optical illusion, but really arrogant, if you ask me. I knew the other Olympians had marvellous palaces and temples too, some of them were even better than mine if I had to be honest.  

"I told our father about it too."

"Just fuck off." My heartbeat stopped for a second at that. I'm in big trouble.

"He'd be reaally curious if you didn't show up at your own party... And he also approved of you finally showing activism in the life of Olympus. He liked the idea that you finally spend time with the gods, to be specific. He thinks you've been slacking in your duties as part of the community." We reached my temple but he just followed me inside, not even bothering to stop saying the words that I've been trying to avoid for a time now. He didn't stop, but continued. "You know you have to be present and active on Olympus, and recently everybody seemed to notice, that you've been spending way more time down there with mortals and demigods, than here."

"Shut up...I don't wanna talk to you right now. I don't have time for this, and definitely won't have time for tonight." I started panicking and shivering, as his cold words hit me. I felt like the world was spinning around me. 

"You should be thanking me." He laughed and narrowed his eyes at me, as he settled down onto a bench. "I just did you a favor."

"I didn't ask for it, I'm not gonna thank you." I hissed at him as I walked along the white marble columns of my temple to the door at the end. "So you should leave."

"No" he stood up and followed me into my house, where I actually lived. (a/n: I imagined his temple to look like a traditional one, and on the inside it has a normal (huge) hall, like all temples do, but then through a door at the wall in the back, he can get to his "house" where he lives...like an actual home. And it's sort of magic, because from the outside it just looks like only a temple, and the house can't be seen but obviously from the house you can look out the windows and actually see what's going on outside. Also that house part is the place, where the nasty things happened in the beginning...)"You think he's gonna say nothing if you don't show up to this lame event?"

"I don't care. I have already made plans. And stop acting like I actually wanted to hold a party, it was all your doing." I scoffed and sat on the couch, shaking my head, and trying to figure out how I could fix this situation. Now the trembling in my body couldn't be stopped, no matter how hard I tried to hide it. Thankfully Ares was facing away from me, so he hadn't noticed that.

"Yes, to do you a favor. Everyone's been whispering. How you're never on any event, only on the obligatory ones, like council meetings. And even there you say nothing, you're always daydreaming and have that look on your face that makes me want to throw up or punch you." He said still not looking at me.

"Then don't look at me" I snapped back frustrated, knowing full well that I can't get away with tonight, and this mess. I knew he was right. How could I save this situation?  After a short silence I just gave up and sighed. "I don't know what to do."

"Stay on Olympus. He'll be watching you. You know the rules, you can't spend time with mortals, especially not demigods. You have to prove him that you're the same as before and nothing happened. You have to drink a lot and make out with every second moving thing, and you have to have fun. You must act like yourself!"He finally turned around and looked me up and down. But the shivering of my body stopped as soon as he started smugly grinning. Now my blood started boiling and I couldn't hold myself back.

"MYSELF?! But that's not who I am anymore." The things he was saying made me see red. I grabbed a pretty vase I painted some thousands of years ago and threw it at him. "I CHANGED! Wasn't that the whole point of my trials?? I'm done with this I can't do this..." 

He managed to lean out of the vase's way, and it crashed on the wall behind him, breaking a painting's frame during it. I collapsed back on the couch and started sobbing. How humiliating the situation is.

I expected him to laugh at me, record it on his phone then ask Hephaestus to put it in the news tonight, but he just stared at me blankly. 

"You did change, didn't you?" He started, his voice filled with misbelief and almost sounding apologetic. Almost. He opened his eyes so wide I feared that they were gonna pop out of their place. "You're really in love, aren't you?"

"I am." I said after a few seconds of just staring at each other. "But it's not just that. The time I spent as Lester...it did change me too."

"You're weird."

"Fuck off!"

He sighed then pulled his phone out of his pocket and typed something on it while I did nothing, just started crying even more. A minute later Hermes popped in, looking at our surroundings curiously. 

"Yeah, you were right, he's really a wreck." He said jokingly punching Ares' shoulder but one glance from me filled with all my misery was enough and he immediately got serious.  

"Okay we can fix it." He shifted nervously and looked around the room. " If we all work together we can still save the situation. But we'll need Dio for that."

"And Dite." Ares added nodding and exchanged a few words on the phone with possibly her, while I did nothing but weep from my heart. How bitter I was feeling.

I knew it all along, that my actions would catch our father's eyes, and that he would not appreciate it, especially when I was neglecting the gods in addition. On Olympus it was required of us - the Olympians, aka the members of the Council including Hestia and now Hades too - to participate in the social evenings of the gods. We frequently had to hold and most importantly attend different events let it be of any kind. But as Percy and I started dating, and basically since I became a god again, I wasn't really endulging myself in these requirements. 

I looked at the small box on the table, that I tried to wrap during the night in bright blue wrapping paper, but failed miserably, and I couldn't stop a second wave of terrible sobs pour out of me. 

"What is even going on here??" Came Aphrodite's voice as she materialized in my living room too. "I thought you wanted to have sex with me!" she turned to Ares who suddenly seemed to forget his initial plan, and started smirking like a teenage boy in love, when his crush was around. Well, basically me around Percy...

"In my living room??!" I stopped crying for a second, to think that through, when really I shouldn't have. "Eww."

"Yeah, ewww." Hermes added, but I knew he was more concerned about thinking what could they've done before in others' palaces including his too.

"We've wanted to spice things up before, I just thought this would be it..." she shrugged, but I lost my sudden curiosity in the topic and went back to crying. "What is wrong with you? Why are you acting like such a soft baby?"

"It might have to do something with me." Ares volunteered. "I ruined his plans with his boyfriend you know..."

"You did WHAT??!" 

"Guys, listen, I'm a busy god, I don't have time for this. We just need to work together and organize a party on Olympus tonight and then-"

"Oooh, I've heard of that! Sounded super exciting! I was just wondering about what to wear when Ares texted me..." trailed off Aphrodite after cutting Hermes' speech. 

"Yeah, but that's not important!!" Hermes argued, but Ares punched him in the face for cutting in. "Ouch!"

"Don't say a word when she's speaking!" he roared, and soon enough everybody around me was shouting, and that made me stop crying again, so I just stared at the mess unfolding in front of my eyes. Now I surely needed saving.

I let myself pity me for another few seconds, then I pulled myself together, focusing on Percy. I tried to think through, why Ares called them here, and what Hermes was gonna say, when I realized it. They wanted to help me organize the party, so that Zeus could see that I was indeed mingling with the gods. And if I invited demigods too, then that could be an excuse for me to spend the night with Percy. Even if I'd already made reservations on O'ahu, I could still call them off and just plan it on Olympus instead. I knew it wasn't going to be as perfect as I expected it to be, but it was still more than nothing.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't notice Ares and Hermes starting to actually wrestle, only when Aphy started screaming, did I realize that they broke my glass coffee table, by Ares throwing Hermes on top of it. The splinters covered now everything, even bruising and cutting all of us.

"Now, that's enough! We're leaving!" I felt anger rush through me but I kept it under control, which surprised me too. "Let's go to camp. You were right Hermes, we do need Dionysus."

Word Count:2028
Wow, that was relatively long, and also uneventful, aaand repetitive, but I kinda liked this mess.Anyways I love all af you, and thank you for your kind messages!
Lianna