Who: Percy Jackson and Angel Olympios What: Percy meets another member of his new family When: Backdated: Sunday, January 19th. Afternoon Where: Angel's House Rating: Family Friendly Status: Complete
It was strange, actually having answers to the questions he’d always had. For years he’d wondered who his biological father was and why he’d left and there he was, so after finding out from Zach that his father might be one his brothers, Percy had, had to ask his mother again during Christmas Break. Of course unlike the other times he’d asked, this time his mother actually gave him the answers he’d wanted and just as they’d suspected, his father’s last name was Jupiter. Of course now that he had his answers, Zach had moved, but Angel was still in Orange County and he was currently heading over to her place to meet and talk for a little while about the family and things. It was a little strange to suddenly have family, but he was looking forward to it more than he could actually describe.
Since deciding that they ought to get together Angel had shot off a few emails to the few family members still willing to speak to her asking for pictures and any other information she could get her hands on that related to Percy’s father. Most of it was a bust, most said they had nothing and asked why she was suddenly so interested, she hadn’t responded to those and had been about to give up when one cousin came through for her. It was the one who shared the face and personality with Athena, which totally didn’t surprise Angel at all.
She had just finished calling the stuff up on her laptop when she got the call from the gate that he was on his way up. Not since Zach had paid her a visit had she been happy at the thought of family visiting her. And it really helped that he was a dreamer too, now that her cousin had moved away she didn’t have anyone outside the people on the net to talk about her dreams with. They probably wouldn’t be interacting by the sound of it in either of their dreams but Percy wouldn’t think she was nuts and that was all she wanted.
Hearing a car door she came to meet him at the door, “Percy, hi, come on in.”
Percy had never gone any place where he’d needed to be buzzed in through a gate or to anywhere as nice as Angel’s resort in general, so it was a little surreal to have to wait till the front gate got in touch with Angel to admit him then to drive up to her house. As he parked the car, he saw her at the door and couldn’t help but smile. He hadn’t really thought about his family in the dreams being his family in real life, partly because there were far too many Greek Gods to begin with and partly because he didn’t want to think about him and Annabeth being related in any way even though he knew that they weren’t really. Greek Mythology was really crazy sometimes. “Hi.” He walked up to the door, “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too,” she smiled for him, seeing him in person really made it obvious to her that he was definitely one of Zach’s nephews. His actual father was the most obvious one but she could see hints of the features that he and his brothers shared. There was no question in her mind that he was family. Of course family were the only people she didn’t greet with hugs and kisses, aside from Zach and her brothers, so she didn’t throw her arms around him when he came in but she wouldn’t promise that she wouldn’t hug him later. “I’ve got some things about your dad on the laptop in the kitchen if you’d like to see them. Can I get you something to drink?”
While Percy knew that they would probably talk about his father at some point during the day, he hadn’t expected it right off the bat, but then again hearing about his father was still so new to him, so that could have been one reason. “Yeah, sure. Soda would be great, if you have it.”
She led him back into her kitchen, motioning to the many paces to sit when they entered. One of the chairs had a pink, of course it was pink most things Angel owned were pink, laptop sitting before it, letting him dive in if he wanted. She could understand if he was a little overwhelmed by it all, though she was likely starting him off easy. Once the rest of the family knew about him he probably wouldn’t hear the end of it, she actually felt a little sorry for him. She loved her family as much as she had to but she knew they were a pain.
Angel returned to him holding a full pair of glass coke bottles, she always prefered glass to plastic. “So, Percy. Was your mother able to tell you much?”
Percy saw the laptop, but he assumed Angel had been working on something before he’d got there so he chose the seat across from the one. He may have been a curious person, but he wasn’t nosey. “She told me his name and that he just hadn’t been ready to be a father.” It had been clear that Sally didn’t like talking about Percy’s father, but she knew that Percy deserved to know so he’d kept it short since he hadn’t wanted to upset his mother. He thanked Angel for the soda and took one of the bottles from her then took a sip.
“He must have been pretty young. You’re in college now, right?” she asked, pulling out her chair and sitting down next to him so they could talk. She and Zach were both the youngest in their families, his father was the older brother and had married first but his and her brothers were close in age. The oldest of her brothers had twins, the second had two already and was in the process of adopting a third, the third had yet to settle down and the fourth had his first a few months ago. It was hard to imagine any of them having a previously unmentioned child show up from out of the blue, but stranger things had happened. Zach’s brothers though, they were like their Greek god counterparts and likely had more than a few paternity suits each. At least here they couldn’t blame her for them.
Percy nodded, “Yeah, I’m a freshman. I turned 18 in August.” He took another sip of his soda, “My mom was pretty young when she had me, so that’s not too surprising.” Sally had been about nineteen when Percy had been born and since her parents had died when she was young, she’d raised him all on his own and so far he’d turned out pretty well. He’d never done drugs, despite having a stoner for a roommate now, and he’d never gotten into much trouble, unlike his dream counterpart who had gotten kicked out of quite a few schools for causing trouble, which had really been monsters trying to attack him, which he hadn’t known until he’d reached Camp Half-Blood.
“It’s so strange,” she smiled after she had a drink herself. “The whole dreams thing leading you here. Though I imagine things were different, for one your father doesn’t know he’s Poseidon here, but it’s sweet that your parents were able to find each other without your dad having his godly powers, even if it was just for a little while.” She didn’t technically have parents in the dreams, she was the product of Uranus’ castration and her father here didn’t resemble him in any way. She was honestly a little happy for that, having a normal father was hard enough. “I wish I could give you a number or an address for him but he doesn’t talk to the family much.”
"It's okay. I never really expected to ever meet my father. All I ever really wanted was to know who he was." Percy may have been a little more curious about his father now as a result of the dreams, but he still wasn't holding his breath about meeting him, "When was the last time you saw him?" He figured it was probably just as long as it had been for Percy's mother.
“Oh ages ago. I was emancipated in my teens and after that I took off for Europe, I’ve only now come back really and I didn’t stay close with the family. And even by then I hadn’t seen him in a while, I think maybe about fifteen years ago, I was about ten. My mother and I spent the night at his parent’s place and he was there for dinner.” she leaned over, grabbing the laptop and bringing it closer so she could call up the picture she wanted to show him. “I think this was taken around then,” she turned the screen toward him when she found it. “Yeah, there’s your dad, standing on the far left, the others are your aunts and uncles.”
Percy listened to her story, all the while wondering where his father had been during those years after he’d left his mother. When Angel brought up the picture, Percy couldn’t help but stare at it. After all these years it was so surreal to see him and to hear stories about him, “Wow….that’s….I never really thought about what he’d look like. I mean, everyone says that I look like my mom, so I never really thought about it before.”
Angel took another drink from her bottle, watching her new second cousin’s reaction to seeing his father for the first time. Percy seemed like a good kid, and he probably didn’t deserve anything that happened to him in his dreams, then again her children in that camp he often mentioned likely didn’t deserve anything that happened to them either. But she had to consider him lucky at least here, if anyone could get ahold of his father there was a chance they could have a real relationship and the romantic in her couldn’t help but hope for the best in that case. “There’s more if you press the arrow keys. I think in one of them he’s a pretty young kid but I’m not totally sure that’s really him.
Tentatively, Percy pressed the arrow key on the keyboard and watched as the picture changed to another one. As he moved through each picture he found himself wondering if this was what Poseidon looked like in his dreams. He wondered if Zeus looked like Zach and if Aphrodite actually looked like Angel. So far the only god he’d met was Mr. D aka Dionysus and he wasn’t sure who his real life counterpart would be or if there even was one. “So, your dreams must be really crazy, huh? Considering how messed up some of Greek Mythology is.” Percy and Annabeth had spent a Saturday a month or so earlier looking up Greek myths to try and refresh their memories of the ones they’d learned in the past.
“Ha,” it sounded sarcastic but she kept a playful smile on her face. “Really crazy doesn’t begin to cover it most of the time. Lots of incest and bickering and war and making people love each other. So far I’ve had more than a few affairs, had a few children, took part in a beauty contest for an apple, got stabbed. Never a dull moment, you know? But, weirdly enough, it’s not all that bad, aside from all the incest I mean, I don’t think I can get over that, but the rest of it isn’t awful. Not all of it anyway, I mean Aphrodite can be really terrible and vain and cruel, but she’s still got a heart in there somewhere and loves everyone until she sees a reason not to.” She shrugged, “Also, not having to fight monsters or play horrible games with swords and whatever is nice too.”
Percy glanced at Angel as she spoke about her dreams and smirked, “The gods did a lot of questionable things, huh?” He just hoped that the incest part stayed out of his dreams, but then again how much were any of the demi gods really related? Anyone who had the same godly parent, yeah, they were definitely related, but what about cousins? Was it like first cousins or distant cousins? Percy didn’t think he’d ever encountered anything quite so confusing as these dreams and that was saying a lot considering he had ADD and he was dyslexic. “So far I’ve only fought the minotaur and a hell hound. I wouldn’t recommend doing either.”
She wouldn’t blame him for being concerned about just who he was related to and who he wasn’t. She knew about his feelings for Annabeth, she actually found it sweet and maybe a little surprising that something could come from Athena and not be incredibly boring and pretentious. At least here the one that resembled Athena had no children so Percy was free to pursue her as far as Angel was concerned. She wished them both the best really. “Questionable doesn’t begin to cover it, but Zach told me that we didn’t have to be like that here and that person wasn’t really us. I have to hope he was right, you know. And I do have to hope that all that monster fighting is confined to your dreams.”
Percy knew that in the waking world, Annabeth’s mother had died when she was little, so it was unlikely that they were related in real life so he didn’t have anything to worry about there. “So, if Zach is Zeus and my father is Poseidon then who do you think is the real life equivalent of Hades?” Zeus, Poseidon and Hades were the Big Three and in his dreams all of their cabins at camp were empty for some reason. Well, Poseidon’s wouldn’t be any longer, considering Percy had just been claimed by him in the last dream he’d had.
“Hades?” she had to think for a moment. In her dreams he wasn’t a member of what she referred to as ‘the big twelve’, but that had more to do with the fact that he didn’t live on Olympus and she rarely ever saw him. She had dealings enough with Persephone, but that was always unpleasant. The Adonis dreams were going to be brutal. “Um, yeah I think Zach has the same brothers as Zeus did so your other uncle should be him. But again, he’s not that big a player in my dreams yet, so they might just look a little similar. He should be in there too.”
Percy hadn’t actually met Hades yet either so he wouldn’t recognize him even if he was in the pictures, “Did you tell anyone else about me?” He wouldn’t have blamed her if she had, but at the same time, he wanted to meet the rest of his family on his terms, if they wanted to meet him. He didn’t want to be bombarded with a bunch of people he didn’t know.
“Oh good god, no.” she shook her head. “My asking for pictures may have raised a few eyebrows but no one needed to know about you yet. And they certainly don’t need to learn about you through me because they would be al ‘how did you find him’ and a lot of other questions I’d have to answer that I’m not in the mood to, like ever. That might be selfish on my part but you know, I’ve known them longer and had to put up with them longer. You’ll know what I mean soon enough. The only trouble is your father has gone and made himself hard to find so you may end up needing their help if you want to meet him.”
Percy nodded, glad that Angel hadn’t told anyone about him yet, “Thanks. I’m definitely not ready to meet a whole ton of people. Meeting you and Zach is one thing, but a whole new family, I think I want to do that on my own terms. When I’m ready.” It was nice to know he had a family, but it’d take a little getting used to.
“Exactly.” she offered him a smile then had another drink. “I can’t blame you. So anyway, how is school and all that? Everything going okay? Do you need anything at all? See, one of the very few virtues of this family is that most of us moneyed. Moneyed enough that we tend to throw it at everything and anything. I’d be more than happy to give you something if you needed it.” Angel was being completely serious and if he asked for anything she would make sure he got it. Even if the rest of the family could be unkind she was going to welcome him with open arms.
Percy hadn’t expected the offer of money and he simply shook his head, “No, I don’t need anything right now. Thanks though. My mom just got me the car and I’ve got all my books and stuff, so there isn’t really anything I need right now.” He also didn’t want Angel to think he’d just use her for money just because she offered it once, “I really appreciate that offer.”
“What’s family for, after all.” Percy really was a good kid. He must have gotten it from his mother as Angel was usually pretty quick to point out how her family pretty much sucked at everything, especially being a family. She was going to do better for him though, he deserved it, and would probably need it if he was going to meet the others. “That offer has no expiration date too, just keep that in mind. We’ll have to see how much more I’m able to offer once the godly powers kick in.”