A FUTURE TOGETHER

"kiss me like this is your last night on earth"

     THE CHILL DOWN HER SPINE WAS THERE EVEN AS PIPER WAS DONE EXPLAINING. Up on the deck, Hedge sang something that sounded like 'In the Navy' while Blackjack stomped his hooves, whinnying in protest. Finally Hazel exhaled. "Piper is right."

"How can you be sure?" Annabeth asked.

"I've met eidolons," Hazel said. "In the Underworld, when I was...you know."

Dead.

"So..." Frank rubbed his hand across his buzz-cut hair as if some ghosts might have invaded his scalp. "You think these things are lurking on the ship, or—"

"Possibly lurking inside some of us," Piper said. "We don't know."

Jason clenched his fist. "If that's true—"

"We have to take steps," Piper said. "I think I can do this."

"Do what?" Percy asked.

"Just listen, okay?" Piper took a deep breath. "Everybody listen." Piper met their eyes, one person at a time.

"Eidolons," she said, using her charmspeak, "raise your hands."

There was a tense silence. The chill swept down Ariadne's back even more.

Leo laughed nervously. "Did you really think that was going to—?" His voice died. His face went slack. He raised his hand.

Jason and Percy did the same. And, to everyone's surprise, so did Ariadne. Their eyes had turned glassy and gold. Hazel caught her breath. Next to Leo, Frank scrambled out of his chair and put his back against the wall.

"Oh, gods." Annabeth looked at Piper imploringly. "Can you cure them?"

Piper focused on Leo because he was the least intimidating.

"Are there more of you on this ship?" she asked.

"No," Leo said in a hollow voice. "The Earth Mother sent four. The strongest, the best. We will love again."

"Not here, you won't," Piper growled. "All four of you, listen carefully."

Ariadne, Jason and Percy turned toward her. Those gold eyes were unnerving. "You will leave those bodies," she commanded.

"No," Percy said.

Leo let out a soft hiss. "We must live."

Frank fumbled for his bow. "Mars Almighty, that's creepy! Get out of here, spirits! Leave our friends alone!"

Leo turned to him. "You cannot command us, child of War. Your own life is fragile. Your soul could burn at any moment."

Frank staggered like he'd been punched in the gut. He drew an arrow, his hands shaking. "I—I've faced down worse things than you. If you want a fight—"

"Frank, don't." Hazel rose.

Next to her, Jason drew his sword.

"Stop!" Piper ordered, but her voice quavered. The worst thing was that an eidolon was possessing Ariadne, their best fighter. If anything were to happen, the spirits would have Ariadne, Jason, and Percy on their side, and all of their skills.

"Listen to Piper." Hazel pointed at Jason's sword. The gold blade seemed to grow heavy in his hand. It clunked to the table and Jason sank back into his chair.

Percy scowled in a very un-Percy like way. "Daughter of Pluto, you may control gems and metals. You do not control the dead."

Annabeth reached toward him as if to restrain him, but Hazel waved her off.

"Listen, eidolons," Hazel said sternly, "you do not belong here. I may not command you, but Piper does. Obey her." She turned toward Piper.

"Interesting attempt at being intimidating, Daughter of Pluto," Ariadne spoke. Her voice wasn't the normal silky way, like smooth caramel with a slight husk. No, the voice was hallow and sharp, like nails dragging down a chalkboard. "But, I am the strongest out of all the eidolons, you cannot rid me of this body that easily."

Piper glared at the spirit inside her friend. "Watch me."

Ariadne's lips spread into a sickly grin. "Believe me, Daughter of Aphrodite, I have not felt a body this powerful in many eons. I will not be leaving the living so easily."

Piper mustered all her courage. She looked straight at Jason—straight into the eyes of the thing that was controlling him. "You will leave those bodies," Piper repeated, even more forcefully.

Jason's face tightened. His forehead beaded with sweat. "We—we will leave these bodies."

"You will vow on the River Styx never to return to this ship," Piper continued, "and never to possess any member of this crew."

Leo and Percy hissed in protest. Ariadne scowled harshly.

"You will promise on the River Styx," Piper insisted.

A moment of tension—she could feel their wills fighting against hers. Then all four eidolons spoke in unison: "We promise on the River Styx."

"You are dead," Piper said.

"We are dead," they agreed.

"Now, leave."

All four slumped forward. Percy fell face first into his pizza. Ariadne jolted up straight in her seat.

"Ari!" Annabeth grabbed her friend and Percy.

Piper and Hazel caught Jason's arms as he slipped out of his chair.

Leo wasn't so lucky. He fell toward Frank, who made no attempt to intercept him. Leo hut the floor. "Ow!" he groaned.

"Are you all right?" Hazel asked.

Leo pulled himself up. He had a piece of spaghetti in the shape of a three stuck to his forehead. "Did it work?"

"It worked," Piper said. "I don't think they'll be back."

Jason blinked. "Does that mean I can stop getting head injuries now?"

Piper laughed. "Come on, Lightning Boy. Let's get some fresh air."

Ariadne blinked slowly, glancing over at her best friend and boyfriend. "What just happened?"

Annabeth shook her head, explaining everything, all the while Ariadne felt eyes watching her, without any sight of some.

***

ARIADNE WAS TORMENTED WITH DREAMS OF HERSELF. Her life in snippets, but only the worst parts. Losing people, dialing some of her quests and promises, arguing and fights, even what she assumed was a possible figure.

She sat on the edge of her bunk, mindlessly spinning her ring on her finger. Sadly, she had lost the amethyst rings months prior in a freak accident with the Argo II. As long as she still had her camp necklace she was okay.

Her hair was a curly mess across her shoulders. The gray streak mocked her from the corner of her eye, her scar feeling rough when she skimmed her fingers over her face. All those marks of her conquests and accomplishments, but there were too many sacrifices to get there.

The girl decided to do something she normally would at camp. She threw on random shirt over her sports bra and slowly opened her cabin door. Her feet freaked on the wooden floor of the boat, stepping quietly and across the hall toward Percy's.

His face was scrunched in discomfort. No doubt he wasn't enjoying his sleep, most demigods like them did not.

"Percy," she whispered.

His eyes opened and his vision cleared, he realized his girlfriend was there.

She was standing by his berth, smiling down at him.

Her brunette curls fell across her shoulders. Her amethyst eyes were bright with comfort. He remembered when he gained his Achilles curse, that same look on her face.

"Wh—what's going on?" he asked. "Are we there?"

"No," she said, her voice low. "It's the middle of the night."

"You mean..." Percy's heart started to race. He realized he was in his pajamas, in bed. He probably had been drooling, or making weird noises as he dreamed. His hair was unruly. "You sneaked into my cabin?"

Ariadne rolled her eyes. "Perc, we'll both be seventeen in a few months. You can't seriously be worried about Coach Hedge. I mean, we've done worse things, like sneaking out twice for quests."

"Uh, have you seen his baseball bat?"

"Besides, Kelp Head, I just thought we could spend some time together. We haven't had any real alone time. There's someplace here I want to show you—my favorite place."

Percy's pulse was still in overdrive, but it wasn't from fear of getting into trouble. "Can I, you know, brush my teeth first?"

"You'd better," Ariadne said. "Because I'm not kissing you until you do. And throw a shirt on while you're at it, no matter how much of a beach body you have."

She winked, he flushed.

Ariadne and Percy crept downstairs to the second deck, which Percy hadn't explored except for the sickbay.

She led him past the engine room, which looked like a very dangerous mechanized jungle gym, with pipes and pistons and tubes jutting from a central bronze sphere. Cables snaked across the floor and ran up the walls.

"How does that even work?" Percy asked.

"Beats me," Ariadne said. "Annabeth is the only one besides Leo who can operate it. All I did was lift the pipes and help them."

"That's reassuring."

"It should be fine. It's only threatened to blow up once."

"You're kidding, I hope."

She smiled. "Come on."

They worked their way past the supply rooms and the armory. Toward the stern of the ship, they reached a set of wooden double doors that opened into a large stable. The room smelled of fresh hay and wool blankets. Lining the left wall were three empty horse stalls like the ones they used for Pegasi back at camp. The right wall had two empty cages big enough for large zoo animals.

In the center of the floor was a twenty foot square see through panel. Far below, the night landscape whisked by—miles of dark countryside crisscrossed with illuminated highways like the strands of a web.

"A glass bottomed boat?" Percy asked.

Ariadne grabbed a blanket from the nearest stable gate and spread it across part of the glass floor. "Sit with me." They relaxed on the blanket as if they were having a picnic, and watched the world go by below.

"Leo built the stables so Pegasi could come and go easily," Ariadne said. Percy's hand interlocked with hers, resting on her thigh. "Only he didn't realize that the Pegasi prefer to roam free, so the stables are always empty."

"What do you mean, come and go easily?" he asked. "Wouldn't a pegasus Have go make it down two flights of stairs?"

Ariadne rapped her knuckles on the glass. "Bay doors, like on a bomber."

Percy gulped. "You mean we're sitting on doors? What if they opened?"

"Suppose we'll fall to our deaths. Most likely, they won't open."

"Great."

Ariadne laughed. "You know why I like it here? It's not the view. What does this place remind you of?"

Percy looked around: the cages and stables, the Celestial bronze lamp hanging from the beam, the smell of hay, and of course Ariadne sitting close to him, her face ghostly and beautiful in the soft amber light. "That zoo truck," Percy decided. "The one we took to Las Vegas."

She nodded.

"That was so long ago," Percy said. "We were in bad shape, struggling to get across the country to find that stupid lightning bolt, trapped in a truck with a bunch of mistreated animals. How can you be nostalgic for that?"

"Because, Kelp Head, it's the first time I told you about my IED. You reassured me that I wasn't crazy or a bad person, that it wasn't my fault. It reminds me of how long we've known each other. We were twelve, Perc. Can you believe that?"

"No," he admitted. "So...you knew you liked me from that moment?"

She smirked. "I hated you at first. I realized you annoyed me later on. And after that, I tolerated you. Then—"

"Okay, fine."

Percy gave her a curious look. "What did Dionysus mean when he said to remember what you talked about?" His tone was soft, gentle in her ears.

She debated the question. Her eyes were dark in the dim lighting, but also due to her sour mood that the question had turned. "On the quest to save Hera, my father told me about how that although the children of the Big Three were the most powerful demigods, a daughter of Dionysus could hold the same level of power."

Ariadne focused on their hands linked together. She fiddled with Percy's fingers, forcing herself away from his inquisitive eye contact.

"He said that Zeus was scared," she murmured. "Which is funny, as he's the King of the Gods."

Percy shook his head. "I would be scared. I'm just glad you don't hate me anymore, or else I would've been hurt a long time ago."

Ariadne looked up at him. A smile crossed her pretty lips. She leaned over and kissed him: a good, proper kiss by themselves. His lips fit perfectly against hers'. His own kissed her back hungrily, as of having waited long enough.

She pulled away. "I really, really missed you, Perc."

"Aidan," he said hesitantly," in New Rome, demigods can live their whole lives in peace."

Her eyebrows raised. "Reyna explained it to me. But, Percy, Camp Half-Blood is your home. That other life—"

"I know," Percy said. "But while I was there, I saw so many demigods loving without fear: kids going to college, couples getting married and raising families. There's nothing like that at Camp Half-Blood. I kept thinking about you and me...and maybe someday when this war with the giants is over..."

It was hard to tell in the golden light, he saw her face flush. "Oh," she said.

Percy wasn't afraid he'd said too much. Maybe he'd scared her with his big dreams of the future. He cursed himself slightly.

He was too afraid to lose Ariadne, even after as long as he'd known her. And with dating for several years, maybe he was seeing too far, but he felt much for her. Something was deep inside of him that made it unbearable to imagine himself with anyone else. He just didn't know what.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I just...I had to think of that to keep going. To give me hope. Forget I mentioned—"

"No!" she said.

Percy waited for her to say anything else, but she shut her mouth just as quickly.

"Look, I know it might be stupid hope seeping into me, but just imagining us going to school in peace without a father-in-law hanging over our shoulders sounds pretty nice."

Ariadne was the only one who caught his words. He let it slip, as if dreaming of them getting married in the far off future. Her heart fluttered—no, not fluttered—exploded with a gut feeling tugging her down so deep she felt like she would drown in him.

"I was having a nightmare when you woke me up," Percy admitted. He told Ariadne what he'd seen.

Even the most troubling parts didn't phase her. She sighed safely when he described Nico's imprisonments in the bronze jar. She got angry when he told her about the giants planning some sort of Rome-destroying extravaganza that would include their painful deaths as the opening event.

"Nico is the bait," she murmured. "Gaea's forces must have captured him somehow. But we don't know exactly where they're holding him."

"Somewhere in Rome," Percy said. "Somewhere underground. They made it sound like Nico still had a few days to live, but I don't see how he could hold out so long with no oxygen."

"Five more days, according to Nemesis," Ariadne said. "The Kalends of July. The deadline makes sense now."

"What's a Kalends?"

Ariadne smiled. "Annabeth made me memorize a bunch of Roman terms. It's their word for the first of the month. That's where we get the word calendar. But how has Nico survived that long? We should ask Hazel."

"Now?"

She hesitated. "No. It can wait until morning. This news won't let her sleep. Gods knows we all need some."

Ariadne slid onto her back. She stared up at the oil lantern swinging back and forth, as if in a hypnotizing trance. Percy watched his girlfriend with a soft look, his heart melting while she played with their fingers.

Words were on the tip of his tongue. Something he'd been meaning to tell her at Christmas, but he choked up finding the courage to say it.

Percy slid a hand over her cheek. He leaned down and kissed her. She hummed slightly, breaking her concentration away while his fingers brushed across her skin, sparking electricity through her veins. He tasted like blue raspberry and salt. An odd combination only he could pull off.

His kiss turned rough. All of his pent up emotions built into one kiss. Percy wanted to taste her lips again. He wanted to hold her so tightly he was permanently bathed in a sharp vanilla scent which always wafted off of her. His fingers wanted to curl into her hair, grounding himself to her. The boy's fingers brushed across her throat, pulling his head back while she tilted her chin up, in a slight daze.

Ariadne's lips were swollen from their feet minutes of kissing. Her lips still plump and pink, he gazed at them hungrily. Despite the danger looming over their heads, she made him feel normal—she made him feel alive.

"I missed you," he whispered, his lips brushing across her neck, tickling her slightly. "You kept me going."

"Good." She ran a hand through his hair. "You kept me going, too."

Light pecks were placed along her neck, and she sighed. Percy's hands traced circles beneath her shirt, sending chills down her spine.

She tasted sweet in his mouth. Her fingers dug into his neck, forcing his mouth to hers while trying to control the animalistic urges to kiss him until they were both blue in the face, air refusing to enter their lungs while their lips molded together. His hands lifted her slightly, she pulled him closed, flush against her body.

The kiss turned sloppy. She meant to be gentle with him, but he was met with a mouthful of teeth and the taste of cherry chapstick on his tongue. His senses were overloaded while she accidentally bit his bottom lip in her own haste. The boy hissed against her lips.

Ariadne pulled back in worry. "Sorry. I didn't mean—"

Percy didn't let her finish. He slammed his lips against hers while she gasped, allowing him to pull her in closer. Ariadne gained the upper hand, in the end, ending up with Percy holding her close while she kissed him roughly on the neck and lips, leaving her taste on his collarbone, below the collar of his shirt.

The Celestial bronze lantern swayed as the Argo II carried on. Ariadne and Percy laid there, wrapped in each other's arms and enjoying the warmth. The drone of the ship's engine, the dim light, and the comfortable feeling of familiarity made their eyes heavy, and they drifted to sleep.

Neither one were plagued with any other nightmares, a relief for them both.

authors note:

Got a little frisky there🥵

I'm basically putting all my dreams and hopes with Percy into this. So I reread that scene and imagined myself and I'm so fluffy like PLEASE

Hope you guys enjoyed this!

Q: A place you've always wanted to visit?
A: Greece. Because like Mama Mia, but also because of my unhealthy obsession with Greek Mythology and the fact it looks so beautiful

Please let me know how you guys liked it!

Tell me if you want me to keep making more scenes like the stable one😉

Love you guys!