Sunfam - Blog Posts
just wanna put it out there:
FIFTY FUCKING WORKS Y'ALL
this truly is a milestone ✨
I'm so proud
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.
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.
Side charaters>>>>
are fucking awesome
better than the main ones in almost every scenario
(particularly Apollo cabin ones)
(no I'm totally not biased)