(req!! Kinda lowk holy mischaracterisation but yk)

The quest had gone long. Too long. You and Percy had wandered from camp — bruised, exhausted, half-laughing about how you always ended up being the ones left to keep watch.

He was relaxed for once, sitting by the fire, water canteen in hand, talking about something dumb — a memory, maybe, of his mom, of a mortal movie he loved. It was easy, until it wasn’t.

He said something — some offhand comment about girls being “impossible to understand,” and “way too much low dancing, asking for men”. tone playful, teasing, thoughtless.

You froze mid-laugh. The kind of pause too small for him to catch, but too sharp for you to ignore. Because suddenly it hit you: he wasn’t just Percy, the boy who’d saved the world. He was another boy who didn’t get it.

And when he turned to you, grin still lopsided, eyes warm with that same guileless kindness, it didn’t make it better. It made it worse.

You forced a smile. “Right,” you said. “Impossible.”

The fire popped between you. Percy didn’t notice the shift — the tiny, tired exhale you gave, or the way your hand trembled slightly as you turned away.

He just kept talking, soft and oblivious, the hero of Olympus — still a boy. Still, somehow, just like any other man.