Latest Posts by melz-367 - Page 3

if you don't mind- could you draw Jake Mason and Micheal Yew just holding hands :))

i may or may not have jsut gotten this done in one go, i will be suffering at school tomorrow

but thats okay because ykw i love them

sobs in doesnt have a good design for jake mason, it doesnt FEEL like him in this

Thinking more about Sizeshifter demigods.

And just-

Shifter Jake.

When it first activated so to speak,it was when Jake had been freaked out during one of his first nights at camp. He'd had a nightmare, woke up frantic and instinctively tried to bury under his covers to calm down. He didn't realize he'd shrunk until Charles found him.

After he became lot more careful, trying to avoid it happening again. He didn’t really tell anyone about it. When Michael found out it was when Jake had gotten hurt during during capture the flag and had shifted in a panic once he was away from view.

Charles found him, but Jake couldn't get himself to shift back, so Beck took him to Lee for help. Michael happened to be there too and Lee had him keep an eye on him why he went and got supplies.

Jake was absolutely embarrassed, but Michael didn't say a thing about it. He just pressed a finger gently at his back, trying to numb any pain as he could with his ability (also yeah- the shifting part hurts, they don't have the same body as gods do, so it's straining even if it's natural part of them.)

Jake had already kinda started crushing on him, though he wasn't sure about it until then. After that he was crushing hard. Charles thought it was absolutely adorable.

Michael doesn't tease him as much about it. He's usually pretty gentle with Jake and understanding. Only ever so often does he make a light joke about finally being taller than him.

When Jake finally got the courage to ask Michael out,he panicked when Michael took a moment to respond and accidentally shifted, which only made his embarrassment worse.

Michael however immediately got to his level and gently picked him up.

"You never gave me a chance to answer, Mason."

Poor Jake's a flustered mess hdhdg

Kayla will never tell her older brother in a million billion years. Plus one extra.

But she knows more about Lee Fletcher than he does.

It is not something she did on purpose. Nor is it information she necessarily wants, she most certainly did not ask for it. Nor is it information she will offer.

She will not tell him that she knows the crumple of Lee’s face when he tells a lie. She will not tell him she knows the stark pain in his shoulders at the end of the day. She will not tell him she knows the grooved scars on the palms of his hands from bitten-sharp nails. She will not tell him she knows the sounds of his quiet, pillow-muffled sobs as well as or better than she knows the sound of her father’s voice.

Instead she will watch him. And she will meet Lee’s tired eyes. And she will nod to him, and he will nod back, and they will both look at Will, exhaling.

———

The first time she sees him she is hallucinating.

Genuinely. Medically diagnosed and everything.

“Kayla,” Will whispers, and there is a strain in his voice, as there always is when one of them is sick. “Kayla, dolly, the cloth needs to stay on your head.”

“Cold,” she sobs, “please, Will, I’m so cold.” Dolly. Dolly. He calls her dolly when she’s crying, when the tips of her fingers are bleeding and her knees are scraped raw and she screams if he gets too close to her. “‘M so —”

Her teeth clack hard together so hard her mouth glues shut. And the ice in her finger and toenails fires up her veins and pricks through all of her capillaries, turning her solid, and it burns, and it aches, and she bawls enough that acid burns up her throat and dribbles down her chin, down her shirt, in her bed. And over the heart pounding in her ears she hears her older brother exhale a soft little broken moan and choke it back just as fast and his always-warm hands brush over her cheeks, and she groans and squirms away from it and cries harder, and he whispers “Hold on, dolly, the fever’s almost broken, I can feel it,” and she opens her eyes and he is there, hair longer, hair neater, lab coat starched and collar covered in old Star Wars stickers, bulky glasses barely clinging to his face, tears soaking his long, angular face.

And Kayla squints, and the freezing ice recedes ever so slightly, sparking just under her skin, and she tilts her head, and she stares at him, at his freckle-free face, and whispers, “…Will?”

And he squeezes his eyes tighter and begs, “One more time, kiddo, I’m so sorry. One more time. I can’t help you if I can’t touch you. Pull back the light, baby, I can’t see, you have to control it just a little more. Just enough so it doesn’t burn. Please.”

And she squints again and Will-not-Will wavers, and the infirmary lights blink off his tears, off the lens of his glasses, and the. she squints again and the lights are dimmer, and the lab coat is gone, and his hair is frizzier.

“What,” she croaks, and Will pats her hair, and his hands are rough like she’s used to, and his round face is wet, and his scrubs are barf-stained, again, and he is smiling, tears dripping into his mouth, bright blue eyes clear, and he laughs and touches his forehead to hers.

“One-oh-one,” he whispers, shoulders shaking. “You’re safe, dolly. Your brain is out of the oven. Gods. Holy shit. Holy shit, Holy God, Holy Hera.” And he starts to pray.

She exhales hard, exhales, and forgets about it.

———

The next time her brain is not cooking hard enough her proteins are denaturing.

The next time she is sleep deprived, which does not help her determine reality.

She is lucid enough to notice the change, though.

She should not be awake. This much she knows. Will had sent her to bed hours ago, a half-hour after Austin and a full hour after the kids — as is her right; she is a full 13 years old — and she went, not without grumbling. And she meant to sleep. She usually does. But the moon was bright, and unusually warm. And the fairy lights twinkled with twice as much laughter than usual. And the audiobook her daddy sent her was just so enticing, just so flowery and beautiful, and as she listened to the gravel-low voice of the woman narrating and stared out the window she could see it playing out, plain as day, over the silver-washed hill of Thalia’s tree and the gentle giggling of the Atlantic waves.

She’s not supposed to be up late enough to watch Will creep in.

But she is, and that’s that. She hears the creak of the rickety screen door, slow like he’s trying to keep it quiet, and holds her breath, careful to make all her muscles react to keep her from being seen. The cabin is big but not that big and she sees him quickly, out of the corner of her half-closed eyes, tiptoe careful across the wooden floorboards, hopping over the noisiest ones, resting at the side of each of their beds and waiting, watching at the ends of them, shoulders dropping, eyes blackened and eyebags heavy. After a moment at each he reaches out his burned hands, resting gently on her siblings’ foreheads, and closes his eyes, exhaling, letting the fiery warmth from his palms spread slowly through their veins, wrapping strands of sunlight neatly around them like spider silk. As it recedes he sighs, in exhaustion or relief, and holds his hand, for a second, breathing in, breathing out, and moving on.

He comes to her last.

She has relaxed her breathing by then. She is thirteen years old and remembers every day of it; knows how to twitch her muscles and murmur in gentle sleepiness, knows how to breathe til her heart goes slow and flicker her eyelids so her face shows its dreaming. Daddy checks on her too, when she’s home, and she likes to stay up for him, likes to wait, likes to savour the feel of his string-callused fingertips and soft cool palms.

“I know you’re not sleeping, you little twerp.“

He flickers again — she sees it this time — and the heat of his hands fade a bit. His face gets a little longer, chin a little pointier, and the wild curls around his head mellow into something wavier, something gentler and more tamed. The glasses balancing on his wide nose are unbelievably thick, thicker than Julia’s whose prescription is a joke, and make his blue eyes look buggy, beetle-shaped. He’s got half as many freckles but that could be the moonlight. His smile is the same.

“I know what REM feels like, you know.”

She says nothing and keeps breathing. He sighs. He strokes a thumb against her forehead and it is familiar, and she knows, immediately then, that it is her brother who strokes her, who guards the foot of her bed.

“I’m gonna go get ready for bed. If you’re not asleep by then I’m gonna smother you, ya pain in the ass.”

He pulls away and she watches, follows the thwack of his falling-apart Converse, the rise of his gentle humming. He pulls tiny bathroom’s door shut and the humming swells along with the fireflies, echoing soft and melodic in the kind-of-big cabin, and she means to stay awake, really. She wants to watch him transform again, wants to watch his shoulders grow back and his spine stretch straighter. Wants to see the familiar roundness of his cheeks.

But his voice is so beautiful, and the scrape of his toothbrush is as rhythmic as ever, and the moon is so high in the sky. Her audiobook fades to silence as she slips away, warmed, into the cradle of her bed.

———

The third time she sees him there is no excuse.

It is the dead middle of summer and he is exhausted. The camp swells with the sum of them all, with the drum of running footsteps and crashing swords and crowing laughter. Her brother lives in the infirmary, practically; no matter how many times he is dragged out he keeps sneaking back, keeps slipping out of his friends’ sight and falling right back into his scrubs, hair pulled back.

“You are not supposed to be here,” Kayla says crossly. “Your shifts are done for the week.”

He smiles guiltily and the change is immediate. The slant of his shoulders is identical, the curve of his grin is unchanged, but the glossiness of his eyes fades away, and the strange ghost of her brother takes full shape. He is different, in the clear sunlight. A familiar stranger. He grins at her widely and turns on his heel, strolling to the mortal medicine cabinet.

“And who died and made you head honcho, Sunshine?” She blinks in surprise, glancing down at her hands. That is a new one. Sunshine.“It’s the busy season. I’m only keeping up with demand.”

“You’re gonna wear yourself right out,” she hears herself say. “Right out, and then what?”

“And then the sun will keep shining,” her brother says. “Besides, you’ll be taking over in no time. You’re already better than me, squirt.”

It’s an odd thing to say — she isn’t. By virtue of her parentage she can heal, and she can sing the hymns. But her strength is in her bow and her violin; her strings, not the stretch of bandages or shine of the suture. Will knows it. This brother, though, the one who stands in his place, is not speaking to her.

“I am?”

“‘Course. You know anyone else who can drag an errant soul right back into a body?”

Yes. She’s seen Will do it on more than one occasion, on more than one justification. She’s seen how it makes Chiron’s lips tighten and the atmosphere go dark. There is healing, and then there is blasphemy and challenge. Will walks the line like no one has since Zeus struck the challenger clean off the Earth.

This brother is not talking to her.

“Am I really going to take over, Lee?”

She says it carefully, because she isn’t sure. There are no pictures and Will tells no stories. But she hears whispers, sometimes, from the scattered few who knew them both, who watch Will corral the lot of them to breakfast or take the reigns of the chariot or calm hysterics with a touch, who whisper: “Sometimes I look at him and it’s like seeing a ghost.”

Her brother smiles a wide thing at her. It is as soft as she remembers. “Course, baby. No doubt in my mind.”

———

The fourth time she sees Lee Fletcher, she makes him come.

She waits very carefully. He comes when Will’s tired, she hypothizes. When his own strength won’t stand. So she waits, for the second wave of camp flu, for his lead on the climbing wall, for the rare nights when Gracie gets cranky and homesick and stomps around the cabin, throwing things and yelling. She waits for the look in his eyes, for the glassiness to smooth into something soft and reverent, something timeless.

It does not come when she expects.

The fourth time they are sitting together. Or, Will is sitting, legs tucked under him on the side bench, and Kayla stands, breathing careful, arms pulling elastic taut.

Her third missed shot, he is behind her.

“Relax you jaw,” he suggests. “Your tension is throwing you off. Let yourself hit the edge — it’s a new challenge, kid. No need for a bullseye.”

“I always get a bullseye,” she argues.

Lee smiles. His eyes are different, she realizes. They’re — constant. Blue. Like hydrangeas.

Will’s change with the sky.

“Bullseyes are a process.” He puts a steady hand on her elbow, tilting it slightly. “You gotta aim for the bigger picture before you focus on the details. The bullseye will come. Start with hitting the target.”

She huffs, scowling, but he’s right, and on her fourth shot the arrow lodges, just on the edge of the compacted wood.

Lee cheers. That, she sees clear as day, is identical, from the strain of his arms to the crow of his whooping laughter. He even does the same clumsy, dorky dance that sends him sprawling.

Kayla smiles past the lump in her throat.

———

The fifth, sixth, and seventh times pass without her counting, as does everyone one beyond. They happen in stretches and in the blink of an eye — the shapes of his mouth when he yawns, the drawl of his fed-up sarcasm. The weight of his elbow on the top of her head, grinning as she shoves him off, the shake of his deep, bone-rooted sigh when he thinks she’s asleep and his entire body strains, curled up under his favourite quilt. The weight of his ‘v’ in I love you.

She almost stops looking.

“What did he look like?” she blurts, one evening when he takes them to the beach. The rest of them are up ahead, Austin chasing the younger ones up the muddy sand.

Will freezes, just barely, then walks on with a forced lightness, swinging his loose arms between them.

“Who?” he asks, voice light.

Kayla gnaws the inside of her cheek.

“Your older brother.”

“I had four, at one point.”

He says it quiet like he does at the campfire, when it’s only the older kids left but she’s managed to stick around, holding her breath so they won’t notice and send her away. When Will lies back on a log and matches his breathing to the flames, eyes unseeing, and Annabeth watches him carefully and whispers, “Play us something, Will.” And he picks up the guitar he keeps dusty under his bed and sings something soft like there’s no hardness left inside him. No bowstring.

“When he laughed, you could hear it across camp,” he says quietly.

Kayla had not specified which brother but he knows anyway, had been waiting for her ask, and she strains to hear, now, leans in over the turn of the waves and shifts of the sands and strives for every note, every chord of his voice. “He invented a full name for me so he could holler it when I got in trouble. William Andrew.”

“I didn’t know he made that up.”

A ghost of a smile turns Will’s lips. “Yeah, it stuck real good. Even Chiron forgets I wasn’t born with it, actually. He yells it, too.”

He tilts his heart to the sky and stares at the clouds, exhaling, hands still by his sides.

“I was his favourite,” he says finally. “He wasn’t supposed to have anybody, but he loved me. He watched me real careful. He was —” he swallows — “I loved my brother, you know. To the sun and beyond it.”

He stops, turning to the waves. She lets him and watches his back, watches the shape of his scapulae under his camp shirt.

“I wish I still had him.”

The air shifts beside him, then. She sees Lee next to him, this time, not in place of him, with a broad hand on his shaking shoulder, a tanned forehead pressed to his temple. He turns to her, when Will breathes normally again, and winks, blinking back away as the clouds move from the sun.

“I think he’d be real proud of you.”

“Yeah?”

Kayla hesitates. “I mean — yeah. You’re like him, you know? You stand like he does.”

Will is smiling, softly, eyes red.

“I’ll have to show you a picture of him, sometime.”

“Yeah.” Kayla smiles, exhaling deeply. “Yeah, I’d like to see him.”

Canon 7: Apollo ☀️🎶

I love the hair braiding trope, but there is some serious debate about whether it's dwarves who have the hair-braiding customs or elves, so I'm here to settle that once and for all.

Legolas, hoping they just seem friendly and doesn't know dwarves have the same hair customs: Hey Gimli, could I help with your hair?

Gimli, hoping he just seems friendly and doesn't know elves have the same hair customs: Uh, sure!

Aragorn, who knows that hair braiding is romantic for both elves and dwarves: ......... WHat

Ty is the most relatable character Cassie has ever written, not because he hates himself or struggles socially or anything, but because he spent several months avoiding his psychotic great-aunt by hiding in a barn and referred to it as a "strategic retreat"

What I really need is for Ty to be completely unhinged about his crush on Kit

My man deserves to go full mad scientist for this one

Like, here he is being presented with this little blond specimen of a traumatized twink - every autistic's dream btw - and you expect him NOT to observe, analyze, and dissect Kit's intracellular structure and skeletal organization, NOT to pick apart his insecurities and inner-most desires as if they aren't being held beneath an election microscope? Absolutely the fuck not

This bitch is making a character of remaining unknown, running away, and keeping secrets for fear of hurting what's close to him

That means logically, of course, Ty deserves to know him. Entirely, positively, intimately

Represent us neurodivergents and be completely disturbed with your love. You already slept outside his door like a fucking creep anyway Be who you are Ty Blackthorn. Live your truth

Which Lord of the Rings characters say fuck:

Aragorn: definitely says fuck, and has to catch himself and tone it down when he becomes king

Boromir: yes. "They have a fucking cave troll."

None of the hobbits do; at least, not at first. Pippin picks up swears from Boromir, and Sam will swear under duress

Gimli: swears all the time, but mainly in Khuzdul. He definitely tries to teach Khuzdul swears to Legolas

Legolas: swears very rarely, and usually in Sindarin, which sounds so pretty that it goes unnoticed. Gimli often tries to goad him into swearing

Gandalf: knows all the swears, but doesn't say them

Galadriel: used to swear when she was younger, but that was thousands of years ago, and she no longer does.

Eowyn: swears constantly. every other word.

Faramir: swore once, and still regrets it.

Gollum: doesn't know any swears, but would say them if he did.

@fadedkat

Re-blog this if:

- you’re gay - can read - support gay people - want to hold a match between your fingers as you wander the halls of an ancient castle because it’s your only source of light amidst the ghosts of people long past - are an antelope - or want a chocolate bar.

No one will know which applies.

Feel free to use, or message me for more banners

yes, I'm self-aware thank you

With the ides of march fast approaching we must be prepared

Please reblog to make sure everyone is equipped!

starting my mocks tomorrow and I am halfway through a CARDIAC ARREST so we're reblogging this shit and hoping for the best 🤞🏻

this week's word is...

Find the word in any WIP and share the sentence containing it. Reply, reblog, stick it in the tags, tag us in a new post, or keep it private. All fandoms, all ships, all writers welcome.

<333

penguin Micheal

idea from @melz-367 fanfic :3

the great piercing battle of 200X. michael fought well, he fought hard, and he won. but with what concequence...

Thank you to @ottpop for the inspiration and @mediumgayitalian for the lovely story!

REBLOG IF ITS OKAY IF I PUT SOMETHING FUCKING WEIRD AS FUCK IN YOUR INBOX

meeting the in-laws i chose violence for my warm up today

Lee does not immediately suspect something when he hears screaming.

That's his bad.

He will make it abundantly clear in his defense that the core value of this camp is violence. That is It. Not safety, not training, not worship or hard work or discipline or anything. It's violence. Didn't get the last croissant at breakfast? Violence. Someone used up all the hot water? Violence. Someone got in close to your face and insulted your dead mother? Violence. Can't decide whose nail polish colour is more well suited to their outfit?

You guessed it.

Violence.

His cabin is not immune. In fact, the Apollo cabin may be technically from some perspectives worse than every other. It is a little known fact that the solid gold walls of hubris are, in fact, sound proofed, and yet the midnight trombone continues to echo gently and unkindly over the midnight breeze. So when he hears, one beautiful and sunny July afternoon, intense, bloodcurdling screaming echoing from his very place of residence, he thinks: ah. Someone has once again used Leanna's sheet music practice and she is responding with brute force. Good for her.

But then, of course, the screaming pitches up high enough that four windows shatter and his hearing starts to go, and he thinks, again, ah. And then immediately begins to sprint.

"Whatever you're doing, cut it the fuck out," he barks, sprinting up the porch, and then very quickly turns to the side to wheeze silently. "Leave him -- oh, for the love of the gods."

Fortunately, his youngest brother is not being teased or tortured or in any other such way bothered. Technically. Unfortunately, the brother who he should have been more concerned about is pinning said baby brother to the floor, needles shining in hand, shrieking, "Sit still! Sit still! I swear to the muses, asswipe, sit still or I am going to end up impaling your brain!"

"It hurts, it hurts, it hurts --"

"I have not fucking done it yet!"

"Michael," Lee says, dragging a hand down his face, "watch your fucking language."

Michael bares his teeth. "He pestered me for twelve fucking days, Lee. He is getting his ears pierced or I am going to pierce him between the eyes from a hundred fucking feet."

"He's torturing me!" Will hollers, straining away. "He's -- sticking me like a pin cushion --"

"That is how piercing works you little shit --"

"I'm reporting you to child services!"

"Good! Call 'em now! It'll take them half a fuckin' hour to get here, I'll have lots of time to kick your ass!"

On one hand, Lee is Practically and Adult. He is seventeen whole years old. He can vote, if he chooses to break the law. Hell, in some countries he's legally allowed to kill people with no consequences.

"None of that is true," says Diana from her bunk, flipping a page in her magazine.

On the other hand, it is a truly beautiful day. He could just...leave. He could take a walk along the beautiful shoreline and reflect upon the days when he was an only child of a neglectful mother, blissfully lonely and unbothered. Oh, those were the days.

"Hold still!"

On the mysterious third hand, it is really kind of funny to watch Michael wrestle with a nine-year-old and lose.

"Move over," Lee says, walking over to his sister's bunk. She does, giving him approximately one square millimeter of space. Wow. She's feeling generous today. "Wager?"

"Twenty-six minutes at minimum," Diana says. She pats around until her hand hits maybe the massivest bag of sour gummi worms Lee has ever seen, shoving at least nine in her mouth at once. "And its uneven."

Lee reaches for a gummi worm. She kicks him in the spleen. He pulls his hand away.

"I'll take that. He's getting some leverage, I think he'll get them pierced in twenty-four."

"You're on."

They shake, then settle into observe. Diana passes him a set of rubber ear plugs, which he gratefully accepts just before Will screeches so loudly Michael's ear drums genuinely begin to bleed. At least he got closer, this time.

(It takes Michael thirty-two minutes and he somehow manages to pierce one ear twice. Lee accepts his gummi-worm winnings with grace and integrity and anything Diana claims otherwise is because she is a bitter sore loser who likes to start rumours and discredit his good name.)

(Obviously.)

-- -- --

based on this and this drawing by @cometjuice

more cabin 7

Brothers

Lee, Michael, and Will. I always thought Michael was heavily into the emo scene as a teen, due to his anger issues and height. He pierced his own ear and lip, and tried to do his tongue but Lee stopped him. Will thinks his older bother is the coolest ever and wants him to pierce his ears.

real patriots kill nazis -the graffiti on the side of my apartment building and also, what I think Michael would say.

he is a sleeping with sirens fan and sounds like vic fuentes. and i stand by that.

will solace server or smth

made a will solace server..................... join at ur own risk................. i yap a lot...................

this might become a weekly thing, just warning you

(and let's be honest, it's probably all gonna be masonyew <3 )

this week's word is...

Find the word in any WIP and share the sentence containing it. Reply, reblog, stick it in the tags, tag us in a new post, or keep it private. All fandoms, all ships, all writers welcome.

Introducing ✨ the men of TWP ✨

Kit Herondale:

- Eats processed sugar as a form of rebellion

- Spent his first appearance wishing he had more clothes then proceeded to wear the same jacket for the next three years

Ty Blackthorn:

- Asked someone what they were doing in their own fucking house after breaking in

- Gave a microscope as a gift to someone they hadn't seen in like half a decade

Ash Morgenstern:

- Responded to "You're mine" with a smile and "Who else's?"

- Met someone in a dream, kept a drawing of them in his pocket for years, and got upset when they didn't remember him

Anush Joshi:

- Does anyone remember he exists? Does CASSIE remember he exists?? Anyway, MVP of the whole gang

- Just Does Not Question the shit his best friend does. What a king

Jaime Rosales:

- His best friend was engaged to his brother and instead of talking to her about it he hid in the room of a thirteen-year-old

- Convenient plot device. What a life he lives

Guys. Tag your anti post please.

If you don't like an character or ship,fine,but at least make it easy for people who do to be able to filter your anti post from the tags 😭

Come on please I beg of y'all-

Cause no one wants to go looking through tag of their fav character and sees post about how much y'all are wishing said character dies.

A whisp of hair tickles his cheek, following the elbow resting on his shoulder. Lee glances over as Cass swipes the strands back behind her ear.

“So,” she says, very nearly dropping her plate. Lee reaches over and gently tilts it back upright. His sister Does Not notice.

He lets it fall. She doesn’t notice that, either. Rest in peace, Stale Piece of Olive Bread, Single Grape, and Sprig of Parsley (?). You will be missed.

“So,” Lee repeats. He follows her eyes, gaze landing on a frizzy mess of blond curls and vacant blue eyes. “…Ah. So.”

Cass’s fork twirls in the general direction of their new baby brother. Several other people in line at the braziers also look over to where she’s pointing, glance obviously back towards the two of them, leaning close, and then pretend to look away while very clearly straining to hear. What a place, Camp Half-Blood.

“We gotta fix that.”

Lee grunts. She’s right — rarely does he ever see a kid Will’s age so blasé and sad about camp for so long.

But.

The circumstances.

“We already talked to Luke, Cass.”

She waves a hand. Her fork very nearly misses his eye. Lee would like, for once, if she could maybe use perhaps one ounce of her prophetic abilities to be less of a klutz. “Eh, Luke doesn’t know everything. There’s gotta be something he didn’t try, something Will likes. I mean, I think I saw the barest little hint of a smile when Diana was cussing Michael out yesterday.”

“Achlys would smile at that,” Lee argues. “I mean, come on. He got flamed. It was embarrassing.”

“Fair, fair.”

Lee looks back at Will. He still sits at the edge of the Apollo picnic table, chin on the worn-smooth wood, poking vaguely at the food Diana got for him. There’s a decent spread — some of the roast chicken, some of the lemon potatoes, probably more vegetables than any eight year old would be willing to eat, but it’s not like they would know. Will barely eats anything. If it weren’t for the Twizzlers that keep disappearing from Lee’s stash under the floorboards, he would’ve stuck the kid on an IV already. It’s been weeks.

“We could maybe try the weapons rounds again,” Cass murmurs. “I know Luke did it on intake, but maybe —”

She glances over, peeking through the edge of her hair, and cuts herself off, mouth furrowing as she bites the inside of her cheek. The son of Hermes in question leans on one of his younger siblings, grinning as they shriek and complain, laughing as another kid empties out what looks like the entire camp stash of cutlery from her pockets. Lee’s not dumb — he saw the difference, too. There’s no demigod more kind and welcoming and determined than Luke Castellan, Lee knows it, Lee’s experienced it, but —

When Will came up Half-Blood Hill, he was sobbing. He scratched four other demigods trying to squirm his way back to where his mother was running back to her car, shoulders heaving with her own cries, face-tear streaked and laden with guilt as she watched him go. When Will was dragged to the Big House, he was there ‘til nightfall. When Will was placed, as all are, in Hermes, he didn’t leave the cabin for days.

Camp doesn’t usually see that. Luke doesn’t usually see that. And as much as the guy has seen everything, there’s nothing he can handle less than a demigod who desperately wants to go home.

It’s not something anyone brings up.

“We’ll give it a go after dinner,” Lee agrees.

It’s not a lot, but it’s better than nothing. It might help to get a tour of what Camp offers by someone a little more…qualified. Or enthusiastic, rather. Will’s eight, after all. What kind of eight-year-old doesn’t want to swing a real sword at a training dummy? Or, hell, at another eight-year-old? Not that there are many other eight-year-olds at camp this lovely April, but Annabeth is like…ten. Lee thinks. Eleven? Something like that. Maybe she’ll swing a sword around with the kid. She only tends to be lethal when someone is doubting her. She’ll probably be very lenient on someone who is just learning.

Well.

Like, one would hope.

Whatever. It’ll sort itself out.

He repeats it to himself as he sits down, plastering a wide smile on his face and meeting Will’s eyes. Will stares back, eyes big and dead, but Lee refuses to look away first, to look down. Eventually Will return his gaze to the brown mush he’s made out of his plate.

“Hi,” he hedges.

“Hey, kiddo.”

Will hums. From beside him, Diana sighs — that is the extent of what they usually get. A little more, actually. The hi was slightly more animated than usual. More like a single two-by-four than a rotting corpse, in terms of spirited greetings.

If Lee is anything, though, it’s annoying and persistent. It’s actually what led to his getting claimed last winter.

“You get something to drink?”

Will shrugs. Lee glances into his cup to see that he has not, in fact, gotten anything to drink.

“They’re enchanted, you know.” He taps his own cup. “Anything you ask for, you get. I get Green Apple Kool-Aid.”

“‘Cus you’re a freak,” Michael mutters. Lee shoves him off the table.

Will scrunches his nose. “…Enchanted cups?”

The look he levels in Lee’s direction is equivalent, he imagines, to the look the jury gave OJ Simpson on his first foray of the witness stand, but the allure of discontinued novelty drinks must be stronger than his suspicion, because he tilts his cup closer to him, thinks for a minute, and then says, “Coke.”

All three of them hold their breath. Even Michael, who is recovering from his recent trip to the ground. The cup slowly fills with sparkling amber liquid.

Will frowns.

“Hey,” he says, something akin to a pout taking over his face, “I asked for coke.”

The drink stops fizzing. It, too, seems to regard the young boy in confusion.

“That would indeed be Coke,” Diana says eventually.

Will scowls. (It is, probably unfortunately for him, a little bit adorable, because his cheeks are very pudgy and he has quite a lot of freckles and his whole face seems to scrunch with the movement. Like a baby hippo. Lee tries really very hard not to smile but it’s something of a losing battle, he thinks.)

“It gave me cola!”

Lee looks at Cass. Cass looks at Lee. Cass looks at Michael, then, and Lee looks at Diana, and they all kind of look at each other and envision the words what the fuck floating between them in wavy comic sans.

“That would be the case,” tries Michael. Lee can see that he tries very hard not to tack ‘you dumbass’ on the end there. Lee pats him on the shoulder in recognition for his efforts.

“I asked for coke!”

“Okay, let’s maybe back up a bit,” Cass thankfully says, before Lee can utter his very eloquent ‘huh’. “What are you asking for, hun?”

“Coke!”

“No, I — I, uh, I got that part.” She purses her lips very thoughtfully. “Are you thinking of, maybe, Diet Coke?”

“No! Regular orange coke!”

“Okay,” mutters Diana. “Okay, awesome, I love it when everything makes sense.”

“Orange coke!” insists Will again. And, like, yeah, they brought this on themselves. When Lee scraped off a portion of his food and prayed for more emotion from Will, he did not specify. He was under the unfortunate misconception that his father loved him and was not a sociopathic genie. That’s on him. But still. “The fruity one! With the orange lid an’ the F on the bottle an’ not the one with no bubbles! The coke one!”

“Are you thinking maybe of Fanta?” Cass says, finally. She makes a weird shape with her fingers. “Odd bottle shape? Neon?”

“Yes!” exclaims Will, visibly relieved. “The orange coke! The good one!”

The cup quickly ripples and changes into a liquid the approximate colour of their shirts, only harder to look at. Will narrows his eyes, drags it over, dips his tongue into it, and then lights up, chugging it down with the zeal and zest Aphrodite kids do cranberry juice.

“One thing they got right up here,” he says happily, wiping the sticky moustache off his top lip. He, for the first time, looks a little less like there is a giant aching hole in the centre of him.

All at once, Lee remembers the one time his mother took him with her to one of her conferences, deep down in Arkansas. They stopped for Wendy’s on the drive. Lee requested Coke. The cashier asked ‘what kind’. Lee stared blankly at her for a total of at least seventeen solid seconds before replying ‘uh, the…Coke…kind?’ and received a large disappointing cup of Sprite.

“Oh my gods,” he says. He now knows, he feels, at least an approximation of the shock Phaethon felt that one time. “You’re Texan.”

None of his siblings share in the euphoria of this realization. This eureka moment, really. Least of all Will, who seems to be wondering if he can, perhaps, put in a request to be claimed by another god with smarter children.

“Lee,” says Cass gently, “have you gotten dumber?”

“No, no, he’s Texan,” Lee repeats. “They’re like. They say weird shit down there.” He gestures at Will, who is rapidly shifting from bewildered to offended. Lee would feel bad if it wasn’t a little bit funny. “Coke means pop. Fixin’ means intending. Might could — actually, I’m not sure what might could means, and at this point I’m too afraid to ask.”

“It means might could!” Will cries. He throws his hands up in exasperation which would be better conveyed where his hands not still pudgy enough to have the little indents on the knuckles. Lee melts to the actual floor. “That’s like askin’ — askin’ what ‘the’ means! It means ‘the’!”

“Oh my gods,” breathes Diana, hand pressed to her mouth. “Oh my gods, he’s adorable.”

“What does ‘might could’ mean, he says! Nex’ thing I’mma hear’s gonna be some stupid Yank quest’n ‘bout y’all, I bet —”

There is a thump as Michael slides right off the bench. This time, Lee doesn’t even need to push him.

“Yank,” he wheezes, from the floor. There are real tears in his eyes. “You’re my favourite, kid, holy fuck —”

Will stomps his little foot. It’s so — tiny. Bite sized. The lights in the sole twinkle like crazy. He’s got Princess Leia on the heels.

Lee is going to melt into goo.

“Who authorized him to be this goddamn cute,” Lee whisper-yells. “Like, genuinely. Look at him.

“Believe me, I’m looking,” Cass says, smiling softly. She knocks their shoulders together, snorting as Will chokes on his own indignity, hollering something about and there’s no such thing as healthy brisket! how about that! til’ his freckly face glows.

“Oh, wait, shit, that’s real,” Lee says. “That’s — yo, he’s actually bioluminescing. Are you seeing this? I am seeing this.”

“Didn’t know that was something we could do,” Diana comments. She grabs her cup, empties it into Michael’s (making a truly — truly — rank concoction of milk and Mountain Dew, Lee physically recoils) and stares at it until it refills.

“Hey, Glowstick.”

Will freezes. The most affronted look Lee has ever seen on a child scrunches his squishy face. Cass coos. Michael starts cackling again.

“Who are you talking to,” Will demands, scowling.

Diana looks at him. She raises her eyebrows.

“You tell me, Johnny Storm.”

“That’s a — that’s a bad reference!”

“Just — here.” Diana slides over the cup before Will can get started again. “Here’s your coke, kid.”

Will squints at the cup for several seconds. Diana holds it out dutifully. Well, for a dutiful seven seconds before her arm gets tired, then she sets it down and moves her hand away.

“Mama says I’m not allowed two cokes in a row,” he says finally.

Lee glances over at Cass. She grimaces back.

Here we go.

Diana just blinks.

“What does your Mama say about throwing stones at people named Clarisse from the roof of the Big House?”

“She never mentioned.”

“Well, we’re allowed to do that here. The rules say you can have two cokes, too, if you want.”

Will screws up his face. He gnaws on his bottom lip. Lee holds his breath.

Finally, he takes the tiniest of little sips.

“I guess two cokes is kind of nice,” he says.

Lee smiles. He reaches over, paying close attention in case Will’s a biter — you never know at Camp Half-Blood — and ruffles the kid’s frizzy curls.

“Some good things about camp, huh?”

Will huffs. “It’s still not great.” He sets his cup down. His soda moustache sits at a firm handlebar. Cass muffles a snort in her hands. “But not bad for a bunch of Yanks.”

Lee decides that he will take that. A stubborn, sarcastic Will is better than a miserable one. They got time. They’ll get there.

Plus, when Michael takes a mindless sip of his Surprise Concoction and sprays it all over Diana’s face, hacking and cussing up a storm, Will even smiles.

Yeah. They might even get there soon.

ash and kit distracting the seelie queen while dru, thais, and ty go to find jaime:

credit: @/jadenbarba on tiktok

Person A: "Well pleasure to see you too."

Person B: "Don't mind me."

Person A: "Mighty difficult to do when you are scaling my walls."

Faramir: Father says I’m too soft to be a leader.

Boromir: You literally threw a goblin off a cliff last week.

Faramir: With compassion.

Boromir: What compassion?

Faramir: I yelled 'sorry' on the way down.

i respect those people who have sideblogs for all their different interests, if you follow me, you’ll just have to accept you’ll be submitted to whatever nonsense i’m into at the moment