[fic] Goddamned - 1/6
Title: Goddamned
Author: garnetice
Pairing: Kendall/James, background pairings include Kendall/Jett, Carlos/Logan, and Jo/Kat/Lucy (if you squint).
Rating: T
Part: One of Six
Word Count: 7,956 (of 51,011)
Warnings: Hooboy, okay, I'm warning for language, homelessness (not at all as fun as Kendall makes it sound), incest (in terms of Olympian gods' respective children getting with each other), length (can I warn for that?), AU, magic, daddy and mommy issues, SHANE, monsters, five seconds of zombies, crack, playing very fast and loose with the world of Percy Jackson, cross country travel, and slight bashing of Pink Floyd (I've nothing against The Wall, I swear).
Summary: Demigods have burly thighs. Kendall has skinny jeans. Someone on Olympus obviously screwed up.
Art: Lookie, Lookie!
Disclaimer: BTR is not mine. Nor are any characters, ideas, or storylines nabbed from Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Rick Riordan is master and commander of my life, etc, etc.
Author's Notes: Things you should know. Uh. You do not have to have read the Percy Jackson books to read this story. I basically take the BTR characters and plop them down in the world and explain what you need to know. That said, you should read the books, because I love Percy Jackson. He is an idiot. A snarky, clever, really brave idiot (so: Kendall). Yes, the first few books are a little on the younger side, but they age well, and I will forever hold to the opinion that book five is the dramatic, badass ending that JK Rowling wishes she’d managed with Harry Potter (yes, I love HP with every ounce of my being too). No, I do not like the PJO movie at all. It was an utter abomination. On a more personal level, uh. This fic is kind of the reason I wanted to kickstart this whole bigtimebang thing to begin with, because I knew it would be gigantic (for me), and I’m not a huge fan of writing AUs unless they involve the apocalypse, apparently. I needed the impetus, and apparently 50k+ of crack was exactly right. And let me tell you, this is 50k of crack. I tried to insert a plot in here somewhere, but by the time I turned Gustavo into a Pegasus it just all went to hell. Plus, I lost a few weeks of writing due to a computer malfunction, and there are some parts in this thing that are very, very rushed. You will probably notice. For that, I apologize. I really wanted to elaborate on certain things (Jo/Annabeth's invisibility cap! Dyslexia!) but I only had time to hint at them.
What else, what else? Um. Yes, I really like writing James having an intimate relationship with a sword. No, I could not tell you why. I need to thank solarbaby614, who made mangificent, awesome, lovely art, which I will link to once she posts. breila_rose, aside from being a fabulous, excellent, wonderful beta, gets full credit for the Apple of Discord thing, because I don’t do plots, and I swear to the gods my idea of a quest is putting on real-person-clothes and going to pick up sushi. Other people who get conceptual credit: my bffle, laxgoalie16, for listening to me bitch and whine about the entirety of the internet since May, and all across America, from the ladies’ bathroom in Universal Studios to snazzy restaurants in NYC. My other bffle, who just did a PJO reread and thus patiently endured my endless questions (I meant to reread, I did, but I’ve been a little busy and to be fair, I’ve read the series on multiple occasions since I discovered it so many years ago) about what Camp Half-Blood looked like, minute details of things that no one else would remember, and why Rick Riordan is convinced he can write from the female POV (He can’t. I am simultaneously excited and dreading the Mark of Athena, RIORDAN, DON’T YOU RUIN ANNABETH). And last, but not least, jblostfan16, who is not my official beta, but still spared me her Friday night to check this thing over like a bamf, and has spent months convincing me not to drown in a pool of my own tears.
---
What happens is, Mrs. Magicowski tries to kill him.
Kendall likes Mrs. Magicowski. As far as old ladies go, she’s cool. She shelled out fifty bucks for Kendall to mow her lawn as fall came to a close when most of the geezers in town palm him a cool five dollar bill and a stale bag of Cheetos if he’s lucky. So yeah, he’s a little bummed that he ends up having to behead her with a rusty weed whacker. But Kendall figures he’d be more bummed if he was, y’know, dead.
He slides in the front door of his house and tells his mom, “I killed Mrs. Magicowski.”
To her credit, Jennifer Knight’s first question is, “Do we need to get out the wood chipper?”
Katie offers to fetch the industrial garbage bags. After spitting out her soda on Kendall’s new Vans.
Still, the familial support makes Kendall feel all warm and fuzzy inside. He says, “Nah. There’s no body. She dissolved. Like Tinkerbell.”
He expects his mom to check his temperature. Instead she heaves herself back on the couch and says, “Oh.”
Kendall sits down beside her, dread locking up the pit of his stomach. “I’m going to need more than oh.”
“We should…we should talk,” his mom says faintly, shock finally sinking in. She pats the couch cushion and Kendall steels himself, but voluntarily scoots closer. If he’s going to get Baker Acted right into an Institution, he’d like to do it with a little dignity.
Katie, who couldn’t care less if Kendall’s in the midst of a mental breakdown as long as he makes a decent footrest, flops down next to him, automatically throwing her legs over his lap. Kendall obediently begins massaging his baby sister’s calves, because this is how he’s learned to survive in a house full of estrogen; giving into the fairer sex’s every whim.
“Mom, before you ship me off to Crazy Camp-“ Kendall begins with all the grace and sensitivity of a rampaging bull, but hey, he’s still got dried monster blood on his jeans. He figures he deserves a bit of leeway.
“What? Oh, no, sweetie. I believe you.”
“You what?” He waits for Katie to echo the sentiment, but she appears to be perfectly happy picking at a loose thread on the hem of her t-shirt. His baby sis, always there with an assist. Kendall rolls his eyes and sounds out, “Soooo. You knew that Mrs. Magicowski was going to try to decapitate me? Because I would have liked that information before I offered to shovel her sidewalk this morning.”
“Of course I didn’t know that the next door neighbor was-“ his mom blusters, red creeping up the delicate line of her throat. “What kind of mother do you think I am?”
Katie opens her mouth. Kendall squeezes his fingers into her instep.
Their mom rambles on, “She seemed so nice, and she made us strudel every Christmas and what kind of monster makes you strudel and then tries to kill your firstborn?” Kendall feels that this is a very valid point his mother is making. Strudel is sacred. She continues, “And at the very least, if I’d known, I would have given you something to defend yourself with, like a kitchen knife, or don’t we have a tomahawk in the garage, and I told you ages ago to clean the garage, Kendall, I said-“
Maybe she really does actually believe him, because her brain appears to be shorting out. Kendall cuts in with his best patented soothe-the-savage-beast voice, “Okay, you didn’t know Mrs. M had homicidal impulses. Gotcha.”
Jennifer sighs huffily, reaching out to ruffle Kendall’s hair. “No. I had no idea, sweetie. I happened to spend a lot of time creating this perfect head of yours.”
“Ew,” Katie interjects, toes curling. “Leave the visuals to health class, mom.”
Their mom exhales shallowly, and this is no good at all. She looks every bit as nervous and agitated as she did before her last online date, and that ended in spilt coffee, blood, and third degree burns.
Mostly on her date’s part.
“I’ve been keeping a secret from you both.”
Kendall waits patiently for her to spill it, because he appreciates the gravity of insane neighbors who dissolve into fairy dust. Katie would not know gravity if it dropped an apple on her head. She supplies, “It’s not a secret. No one believes you cook dinner every night. Just because you stick take out on actual plates before you serve it doesn’t mean we’re stupid.”
Their mother glares. She does a really good glare. Mothers across America wish they had half the intensity she packs into a single eye. Katie cringes.
Kendall clears his throat. He doesn’t really know what to do with serious conversation time. Truth be told, he hasn’t felt this awkward around his mom since she tried to give him the birds and the bees talk after the freshman fall ball, which mostly resulted in tears on both their parts. When his mom takes hold of his hand and looks at him all solemn-like, he braces himself for the worst.
In a way, it is kind of the worst.
“The truth is, sweetheart, your dad isn’t…Kendall, your father isn’t actually your father.”
Of all the things Kendall expected to hear, this never even made the list. He struggles to find his voice, and when he does, asks, “Then who’s my real dad?”
His mom drops her eyes, a gesture so unlike her that Kendall is scared.
What must a man be like to make his mom demur like that? Not a good man. Not a man he wants to be related to. Kendall swallows, hard, trying not to feel unrendered, unmade.
It isn’t easy. His dad, the piece of his heart that pricks too often beneath his breastbone, is suddenly no longer a piece of him. He is a stranger, a man whose dimples are just like Kendall’s, but actually nothing like his in the least. How does he react to that?
Distant-eyed, their mom says, “I met him on vacation at the shore. Your grandparents had a beach house, and we’d go every summer. I was walking in the waves, and the next thing I knew, he was there.”
“Who?” he croaks out, imagining a younger version of his mother; wide eyed, rescuing sand dollars from the surf of an ocean he’s never even seen.
Instead of an answer, Mrs. Knight replies, “He had the greenest eyes, Kendall.”
Completely serious, Katie throws in, “I think mom’s trying to tell you that you’re a merman.”
Kendall squeezes her foot until she squeaks and uses her free heel to kick him in the thigh.
“Not a merman,” their mom objects, smile wan. Kendall hates that expression; he’s the one who killed someone here. He should have a monopoly on sickly-pale. “Kendall, you’re…” She takes a deep, steadying breath, steeling herself. “You’re a demigod.”
There’s this awkward moment where Kendall is torn between the innately cocky response that leaps to his lips- duh- and a hysterical tremor of incredulity. Since his mom did him the solid of not flipping her shit over Mrs. Magicowski, at least not yet, Kendall diplomatically returns the favor. “I don’t know what that means.”
“The mermaid theory’s still looking pretty feasible.” Katie is so helpful. Whatever would he do without his little sister?
“It means your father is an Olympian. A, um, Greek god.”
Half of his mom’s words are muttered through a veil of mortification and the web of her own fingers, but Kendall still catches them. He asks, “Like in those stories you used to tell me?”
“Exactly like that.” She forces another smile, thin, meek. Like she expects Kendall to yell.
He won’t. It sounds ridiculous, but Kendall’s mom has never lied to him. Not when he asked if Santa Claus was really, really real. Not when he asked where babies came from. Not even when he asked if his dad- or the man he thought was his dad- was coming back. Sure, okay, she lied about his father being his father, but…Kendall never really thought to ask if he wasn’t. So as crazy as it sounds, Kendall believes her.
It doesn’t hurt that he saw Mrs. Magicowski’s face, jowls spread, dripping toxic blue saliva and eyes gleaming with murder. Sweet old ladies just don’t try to bite your head off like that.
Katie obviously agrees. She bolts upright, eager. “Sweet, do we have powers?”
“About that.” Their mom pinches the bridge of her nose, and Kendall immediately decides he’s not going to like where this is going either, and Katie’s going to like it even less. He can’t even manage to be surprised when his mom continues, “Katie, your dad’s human.”
“What do you mean my dad? We have the same dad,” Katie protests, her voice pitching high. Kendall digs his fingertips into Katie’s calves, a comforting squeeze this time, but she completely and totally ignores his attempts at good big brotherhood.
“Not so much,” their mom replies, her bright red hair catching the lamplight, burning like fire. She is not ashamed, at least not of her sex life, which is cool, great, fine. Kendall doesn’t have a problem with what his mom does in the bedroom as long as he never has to think about it.
Now he just wants some answers.
“I have a question,” he announces patiently, and then impatiently, because Katie isn’t taking her lack of immortal blood very well. Over her outraged exclamations - “You lied to me, how could you lie to me? I’m going to need the premium cable package and a new bike at the very least to make up for this, mom”- and his mom’s even more outraged answers - “I did not lie to you young lady, how did I lie to you? I hid the truth a little, and that was to your brother”- he calls, “I. Have. A. Question.”
“Yes?” They snap, response simultaneous and rather creepy.
“Who, exactly, have I been visiting in prison all this time if it’s not my dad?”
Kendall thinks of the man who raised him, the quirk of his dimples, the lilt of his laugh, and the way those things look accented by a bright orange jumpsuit.
“Katie’s dad, obviously.”
His mom blinks, like this should have been obvious, and Katie groans. “Ugh, that means I have to keep him?”
Kendall isn’t at all fooled by his sister’s theatrics; she’s relieved in a way that Kendall doesn’t get to be. He remembers being thrown in the air, strong arms and callused fingers. Later, those same hands wrapped around the neck of an old guitar, creating the most beautiful melody.
Alright. His entire childhood was apparently a lie.
He drums against the skin of Katie’s calves and tries to keep all the broken and betrayed out of his voice. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Because it sounds insane? Kendall, your dad’s your dad. Except for how he’s not actually your dad. He’s still the one who raised you.”
“Raised,” Katie snorts with only a moderate degree of bitterness, laying her head back down on the sofa arm.
Kendall doesn’t blame her. Their- her- father has been in and out of jail more frequently than most people get the oil changed on their cars. It sucks when someone chooses the next big take over their kids, and for all the good memories that Kendall has, he’s got just as many punctuated by redwhiteblue and the howl of police sirens. All the charm and charisma and good times never really made up for the fact that his dad- his not-dad- is a conman, and that he’s always thought white collar crime is somehow preferable to being an actual parent.
Kendall’s got a lot of that same bitterness as Katie, more, even, but now he doesn’t know if he still has the right to it.
He doesn’t know anything at all.
Kendall’s not the kind of person who likes to poke at open wounds. He makes an executive decision, because he’s awesome at those, and changes the subject. “So, uh. Do I have powers?”
Katie glares at him with the kind of intensity that suggests if he does, he might want to never ever ever talk to her about them.
Their mom says, “I have no idea.”
Which is completely unhelpful. Isn’t that the kind of thing one asks when one is pregnant with god spawn, like do you have any inheritable genetic diseases, will this baby have a third eye, and are they going to blow up my house in the midst of their terrible twos?
“Mom.”
She frowns, “I didn’t read the handbook, okay? You’ve always been a special kid. Fast, strong, agile.”
All of that is code for unruly, obnoxious, and temperamental. As a child, Kendall got into a lot of fights at school; really, truly bizarre brawls with other kids and teachers and one time with a giant chicken that chased him around the cafeteria. He got expelled from more than one institution of higher learning, at least until he joined the hockey team and found a cathartic way to channel his anger management issues.
That’s what the school shrink called them last time he was called into the principal’s office, anyway. Kendall doesn’t think he has any anger management issues. The other kids always instigated it, and so did that one teacher, and the chicken definitely started it.
“So no on the powers, then.”
“Well. They told me strength and agility would come with the territory…”
That Kendall has to process. And process. And process, until he reaches a conclusion he really doesn’t like.
“Wait, me being fast and strong is a power?”
“I suppose,” his mom replies, staring pointedly at the chipped nail polish on Katie’s little toe.
Kendall is not pacified. “You suppose? So all this time I’ve been awesome at hockey because I’m cheating at it?”
Somehow this sucks even more than finding out his dad may or may not be the god of drunken revelry or volcanoes or, or, or a fucking fish. Suddenly he’s a cheater. His mom meets his eyes, rushes to say, “No, no, not cheating. Just. Um. You’re unnaturally adept. You have innate skillsets!”
Rephrasing doesn’t make Kendall feel any less deceived. Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he ventures, “What do I do? Is this going to keep happening? Monsters?”
Because betrayal doesn’t mean he’s forgotten Mrs. Magicowski flying at him an hour ago, teeth and claws and eyes full of hellfire. What if it happens again? What if his mom’s there to see it? Or Katie? Or his team?
“There’s a…a camp…” Kendall’s mom drops her gaze again, focusing on the place where Katie’s feet rest against his thigh. “For people like you.”
Ah, so Crazy Camp isn’t off the table. Theatrically, he groans. “No offense, but I don’t think singing kumbaya and making s’mores with other, uh, demigods, is going to keep the blood sucking beasts at bay.”
“Did Mrs. Magicowski try to suck your blood?” Katie perks up.
Kendall squeezes her right knee. “No.”
“Bummer.” Katie puffs out a breath, stirring up her bangs. She slumps even further back against the sofa arm, evidently bored with this entire conversation.
His mom says softly, “The camp is protected.”
“From monsters?” His attempt at keeping the incredulity from his voice fails, miserably.
Jennifer folds her hands carefully in her lap, fingers white as bone. She’s scared for him. For all that she’s been trying to make light of this, she’s clearly fucking scared. “Kendall, I don’t have all the answers. I didn’t ask everything I could have because I hoped nothing bad would happen. I’m sorry.”
Kendall doesn’t know what to do with his mother’s apologies. He forges on, “So, um. Where’s this camp?”
“Long Island.”
“Long Island, New York?” His eyes widen, his voice emerging on a squeak. Long Island is really, really far. He clutches Katie’s leg until she makes an indignant noise and thinks that New York might as well be the moon.
His mom doesn’t bother dignifying that with an answer, just gives him sympathetic eyes and her brave face. He resents that face. Kendall never inherited that expression, because he is not even close to brave. A virtue like that implies a willingness to sacrifice something other than his own hide, and sacrifice isn’t a word Kendall’s too familiar with. He prefers to cling to the things he loves with the strength and dedication of a koala bear.
But.
If there’s really a chance of someone- something- like Mrs. Magicowski attacking again, he thinks that he’ll need to learn how to let go. Demigod or not, that fight was a closer call than he’d let on, and he can’t lose his mom or Katie. It would drive him insane.
“I guess I’m going to Long Island,” he announces, and hopes it’s the right choice.
---
In the cool light of dawn, this whole demigod thing sounds ridiculous.
It gets even more ludicrous once he starts googling the phenomena at school, flipping through Wikipedia pages on Hercules and Perseus, Aeneas and Orpheus and Orion. There’s Hanuman and the Pandava brothers, pharaoh sons of Horus, and even Emperor Hirohito, for fuck’s sake. These people didn’t actually exist. They’re legends, or myths, or famous, and everyone knows famous people are practically fictional anyway.
Kendall also finds a whole lot of links on real-time tactical strategy games and an album by some Polish death metal band, but there’s nothing online about this camp, which according to his mom is called Camp Half-Blood and not the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane.
One thing, however, his research makes perfectly clear.
Demigods have burly thighs. Kendall has skinny jeans. Someone on Olympus obviously screwed up.
He almost changes his mind, dismissing the whole assault via tooth and fang and his mother’s subsequent revelation as a lucid daydream.
Then he goes for tacos.
A normal taco run usually involves Kendall forgetting the guacamole. This taco run involves him ducking the over eager cashier’s tongue from the takeout window, each flick emphasized with catcalls such as, Let me nibble on your nipples, Nougat, and, Mormo only wants to masticate your manly muscles, Muffin Pie!
Kendall’s pretty flattered by the invitation, but the drool and the well-aimed squirts of hot sauce lead him to believe that Mormo’s intentions are less than kosher. His mom’s leather seats are basically ruined, and Kendall has to use two burritos and a chalupa as projectile missiles to aid his escape. Driving away feels a little like running, but sometimes fleeing in utter terror is the better part of valor.
So, that happens.
Kendall walks in his front door, dripping extra picante habanero salsa, sans dinner. He asks, “How much are plane tickets?”
---
Plane tickets, it turns out, cost a lot. Too much. That night, after singing his baby sister a lullaby he bogarted from the nineties station at work, Kendall watches the rise and fall of Katie’s chest. He can’t take anything away from her. Especially not a couple thousand that the Knight family doesn’t have.
Kendall squeezes his eyes shut and thinks he’ll make it on his own.
---
Kendall takes all the money he made at the Sherwood Market with him.
It’s not a lot. He regrets each and every one of his most recent purchases; a skateboard, guitar strings, and three video games. All a hell of a lot less useful than a bus pass would be right about now.
Actually stepping out the door is the hardest part. Kendall doesn’t want to steal away like a thief in the night, but he’s also not keen on the idea of monster fangs getting anywhere near his family. He makes it twenty miles out of town on the good graces of a truck driver who spends the majority of the ride bitching about the alimony he owes his ex-wife. From there he walks along the roadside, hockey duffel slung over one shoulder, guitar case clutched in hand.
He’s only a hop, skip, and a jump from home, but he feels like he’s already states away. His mom might actually murder him for this, and unlike Mrs. Magicowski and Momo…Mortimer…Mormo…whatever, she probably won’t fail.
Really, potential serial killers aren’t half as scary as Jennifer Knight, which is why Kendall has zero qualms about hitching a ride a few miles further with a group of college kids road-tripping to nowhere. But after listening to The Wall on endless loop for hours on end, he decides that maybe there is a better way to travel. The bus doesn’t cost nearly as much as the train, and Kendall is halfway-to-camp-crazy-town before he hits a snag in the plan.
That snag being that he runs out of money, which is pretty unfortunate, because he doesn’t have any marketable skills or the time he’d need to get a real job. Prostitution is out, because Kendall’s sexual experience is largely nonexistent, and his prowess- or lack thereof- becomes evident every time he bothers trying to hit on someone his own age. He’s drumming his fingers on the case of his guitar, wondering how much he can get for a kidney, when he realizes that there actually is something he’s semi-decent at, and it won’t involve stitches or latex.
He’s not much of a showman; most of the songs he knows are courtesy of Elliott Smith or The Beatles, and well, busking his way across America isn’t exactly the quickest cash he’s ever made, but it helps. He does pretty okay, a boy and his guitar and a wad of dollar bills from accommodating good Samaritans.
He does so pretty okay that he relaxes his guard, just a tad.
Big mistake.
---
Kendall’s about one town shy of the nearest metropolis when things go horribly awry.
He’s transferring to the bus that will take him to St. Louis, waiting on a bench in the freezing cold. He smells like a hobo and probably looks like one too, but whatever. At least no one’s forcing him to listen to Pink Floyd.
A pretty girl sits down next to him. She smiles. “Where are you headed?”
She has long, glossy hair and a thick accent when she speaks. Spanish, maybe?
“Away,” Kendall replies vaguely. Then he remembers his manners. “You?”
“Same. Away is a pretty popular place.”
On the one hand, Kendall is pleased as punch about the company.
On the other, he’s got wayward stubble sprouting from his chin and giant holes in his jeans and dirt so deeply ingrained beneath his fingertips that he’s going to need an ice pick to get it all out. Why, exactly, is a pretty girl deigning to talk to him?
He eyes her suspiciously. “I guess. Are you going to grow fangs?”
The girl laughs, and the sound is sweet, lilting. She hums her pleasure. “Only if you ask very nicely.”
“That’s okay. I’d rather you didn’t.” Kendall gulps down a tremor. He hadn’t realized how deeply fear’s situated itself in his bones, making him vigilant when hey, there are actually perfectly kind, non-dangerous people out and about in the world. “The bus is taking its sweet time.”
“Public transportation isn’t ever on schedule.” The pretty girl’s lips curve. She has a lot of teeth under that grin, pearly white, but not particularly pointy. She extends a hand. “Selana.”
“Kendall.” He shakes because he is a polite young gentleman, just like his mother raised him to be.
Never mind that it’s been weeks since he’s seen his mom.
Kendall misses her. Since leaving, he’s done a fair amount of research on this whole half-god thing, treading past the first few pages of google into the depths of pdf files of the Odyssey and Antigone.
By the depths, Kendall means the first and last paragraphs, because both stories were boring and also books. Reading has never really been his strong suit. The words always swim on the page with little goldfish tails, flicking and rippling under a haze of water.
Anyway. It hasn’t exactly been happy reading. Demigods are supposed to be heroes, but heroes don’t exist as individuals. They are cautionary tales.
Kendall really doesn’t want the story of his life written like that.
“It is a nice name, Kendall,” Selana sounds it out, purring over each syllable. She draws the consonants out, elongates the vowels, says it again and again until it sounds like a song. The longer Kendall listens, the sleepier he feels, sleepy and warm. It’s midwinter in Middle America, and he hasn’t felt anything like warmth in forever. His eyes drift closed, just for a second, and Selana’s lap looks like a nice, comfy place to crash.
He doesn’t lean down, can’t quite make the inappropriate leap to using a stranger’s thighs as pillows, but. Her fingers card through his hair, and when did she even start touching him?
“I heard you on the…guitar, is the word?” Kendall can’t think, can’t focus. He can hear a noise, like blades against ice, and Katie’s voice, and his mom…He snuffles and leans his head against Selana’s shoulder, unable to help himself between the soothing notes of her humming. She said something about a guitar, right, he’s sure she just spoke, so he makes a noise of acknowledgement, and she continues, “You are talented. So talented.”
A touch to his cheek, and then lower; his jaw, his neck. Her skin is soft and cool, and he is so very tired. Kendall sighs, snuggling into her side.
Two things happen at exactly the same time.
His guitar case tips over, hitting the concrete with a muted clang echoing off the interior of the leather, and there is a raw sting against his throat.
Kendall bolts upright, trying and failing to hold Selana off. “You said you didn’t have fangs!”
Selana’s arms flail in the air, razor sharp press-on nails scrabbling for purchase in his skin, and he can see her incisors; bone white and edgy as a blade. Where was she hiding those five minutes ago? Shit.
She wails, “I never said that. When did I say that?”
“You said- you said,” Kendall pauses and realizes that she really hadn’t denied having pointy teeth, and also he is an idiot. “You said you wouldn’t show them to me unless I asked nicely.”
Selana shrugs expressively, the fluid motion rippling through her body. “You smell good. Like dirt and humanity and dead fish.”
Kendall isn’t sure how to feel about that. He’s never been told he smells like dead fish before, and also she is still trying to bite him.
Unfortunately, there are no useful weed whackers lying around.
Or burritos.
Or even condiments.
He’s kind of fucked.
Selana opens her mouth again, to sing, and it is the sweetest thing Kendall’s ever heard in his entire life. He knows it’s wrong, knows better than to listen, but short of stuffing socks in Selana’s mouth to shut her up, he is fresh out of ideas, and why would he even want to make that pretty song go away?
That song, that beautiful fucking song, makes the world fall to pieces.
There are feathers against his cheek, soft and downy and -wet? But more importantly, there is laughter. Katie laughing, eyes bright, and his mom, and his dad. His dad who isn’t his dad, but still is the man who raised him, and for some reason Kendall can’t quite remember why he thinks this man isn’t his father, because they look so alike, right down to the quirk of their smiles.
There’s a checkered blanket spread against metal, a woven basket, and oh, they’re having a picnic, he thinks, right there on the bleachers next to the ice rink where Kendall’s team has won and lost and practices every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
His dad looks…proud, and kind of weird outside of his orange jumpsuit, and he turns to tell Kendall something that is lost beneath the sound of the sweet, sweet song ringing in the air. He strains to listen, hears, “One on one after we eat, son,” and there is a sandwich pressed to his lips and it’s ridiculous, because his dad has honestly never cared about hockey or sports of any kind, but Kendall doesn’t care. He’s got the familiar weight of his stick against one leg and that super charismatic smile of his father’s focused all on him, and finally, finally his dad’s taking an interest.
He says, “Yeah, yeah, of course,” eager to show off. Katie shoves him knowingly, but her grin is happy and open, and his mom has never looked more content. This is the perfect day.
There’s a thump in the distance and the feathers leave his skin, but the wetness is still there, congealing right below his throat. He brushes at his neck and comes back with nothing, his family staring at him expectantly.
“What’s wrong?” Katie asks pleasantly, picking the tomatoes out of her sandwich and not looking much like she cares. Their mom nudges her, and they both smile again.
The Knight family hasn’t seen this many smiles since their last trip to the lake, back in the summer, when Katie pushed Kendall into the water and he emerged covered in algae and pond scum, every inch the creature from the Black Lagoon.
His dad was still in lock up then, and shouldn’t he be now? Kendall tilts his head, says, “Dad…?”
His dad opens his mouth, but there isn’t any noise. Kendall listens, strains for the words, but all he hears is another thump and no more of that song. Where’d the pretty song go?
Something soft dusts his face like dew, and Kendall blinks, blinks again, because his family isn’t there anymore. Katie, and his dad, and his mom; they’re all gone. Kendall is lying on the concrete beside the bench, head aching, and that pretty girl with her strange accent and her glossy hair is nowhere to be found.
But he is being straddled.
The boy doing it, strong, golden, and possibly carved of marble, gives a beatific smile and announces, “This is awkward.”
All Kendall can reply is, “James?” Because oh, hey, what are the chances? Dumbly, he continues, “You’re…tall.”
James grins.
Both of him, mirrored images of James, one kneeling right next to the other. Their combined breath smells of cappuccino and cherry pie.
Kendall asks, “Why are there two of you?”
Then he promptly passes the fuck out.
---
Kendall comes to, rising from the depths of a dream about bus station sirens, singing in the middle of an asphalt swimming pool.
Which was real. Right. He wishes that psychopaths would stop trying to kill him.
Kendall rubs at his eyes and attempts to sit up. It doesn’t work. He nearly conks himself out on asphalt, but a hand is there, catching his head just in time. “Whoa, there.”
Twin faces loom over him, hazel eyes flecked gold in the watery sunlight, each equally concerned. The air tastes of man spray, accented by the dry, chalky scent of asphalt. He breathes deep, exhaling on a sigh.
“I’m…” Kendall glances left and right. “How did I get on the ground? And where’s Selana?”
“Don’t worry about her, you’re good. We’ve got you.” A rough-knuckled hand strokes over his hair, and for a moment all that Kendall can see is the kind, comforting smile of James Diamond.
Or not James Diamond. There are still two of him.
Kendall may be concussed.
“You don’t know that he’s good,” the other James, who is a little scrawnier and paler than the first, shoves back into Kendall’s frame of vision. “Are you alright, dude?”
“I’m, uh-“ He blinks away floating lights and the slightly wobbly silhouette of two additional James’ lurking on the edge of his vision, hoping he’s not really sporting a serious head injury. A hospital stay would basically put a real damper on this whole cross-country road trip thing. “-dandy. You’re- one of you is- James Diamond.”
“Somebody’s read the Times,” the pale one says. His lips pinch. “He’s going to turn us in.”
“I actually have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kendall tells them, spots dancing across his pupils. His throat still feels wet, but he can’t bring himself to touch it. “I’m not turning anyone in to anybody.”
The one cradling his head has got biceps made out of steel or something. Kendall resolves to poke them once his head stops spinning.
Muscles asks dubiously, “What if we killed somebody?”
“Did you?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s your business,” Kendall concedes, if only because the two baby-faced kids in front of him don’t look like they would actually even kill flies.
Speaking of flies, there are some serious dots bustling in and out of his vision, great, giant things, getting ever bigger.
Kendall slurs, “You’re pretty. You’re both really, really, pretty…”
“He’s going to pass out again,” the pale one announces, concern buzzing at the edges of his voice, and then, “Oh, look, there he goes.”
There is a warm hand stroking through his hair when Kendall’s vision fades to black.
---
The second time he wakes up, it’s to the sound of his guitar.
Which is a problem, seeing as he’s not the one playing it.
James Diamond is. Apparently, Kendall didn’t hallucinate his entire existence. Fuck. Great, cool, that’s just fine. James Diamond, or a guy who looks exactly like him, is fingering Kendall’s guitar. That’s totally not weirdly reminiscent of every high school wet dream he’s ever had.
James, or at least the muscley carbon copy of him, is sitting against a wall that’s some horrible, monstrous hybrid color between gray and taupe, strumming his fingers over the strings like he was born to do it.
He looks like sunlight and sex. Kendall wonders if his dick tastes of rainbows.
Wait, no. Off topic. He tries to collect his thoughts. It doesn’t really work.
“Where are we?” Kendall asks, because this is definitely not the gritty bus stop he blacked out at.
Muscles’ fingers pause, a smile stretching his lips.
That smile, hell. The James Diamond that Kendall remembers dated his way through the entire freshmen class and then smiled at Kendall like he was the only person in the room. This version is doing it now, brilliant, pearly teeth and lips Kendall mostly wants to nibble on, and fuck, fuck, fuck, nothing has really changed.
“Home. For now. We don’t really have a home. I mean we do, but we can’t go back.” James-or-not-James tilts his head, something dark flickering in his eyes. “Now my brother’s basically, you know…it’s where the heart is, right?”
There’s something inherently vulnerable about the way Muscles is rambling that the skinny, pale version of him was lacking, and Kendall recalls cherishing that. It’s a rare thing to find on a high school hockey team, sitting amidst the overwhelming stench of testosterone and posturing; sweetness; a compassionate heart. He decides, “You’re James.”
“Ye…ah.” James exhales. “And you’re Kendall. Knight. We, ah. We’ve been away from Minnesota for a while. I knew who you were when we- but, I wasn’t sure. It’s been so long.” He winces. “Sorry.”
Irritation swells Kendall’s veins, but he has enough sense to tamp it down. It’s not James’s fault that he was such a huge part of Kendall’s life- bigger than he’ll ever know- while Kendall was basically one more face in the crowd. They started on the hockey team together at the very beginning of their freshman year, but they didn’t really click until the season was half over, and then James just up and disappeared.
Kendall had heard the entire Diamond family moved, but now he wonders.
“I like your guitar,” James says. “Where’d you get it?”
“My dad.” Kendall pauses. “Or, I guess, the guy I thought was my dad. It’s complicated.”
“Trust me, I know all about complicated fathers.” James’s fingers start up again, plucking out chords too swift and jaunty for the conversation. He sings, “Lovin’ is what I got. I said remember that. Lovin’…”
“You really play.”
“Sure,” James agrees.
Kendall flicks his thumbs against each other and tries to decide on the least stupid thing to say next. He’s saved by the bell, or in this case, James’s brother, clutching a cup of coffee to his chest like a precious treasure. The kid doesn’t really walk into the room so much as storm, and when he slumps back against the wall near real-James, he demands, “Did you ask him yet?”
Kendall glances back and forth between James and his twin. “Ask me what?”
Calmly, James says, “Kendall, this is Shane. Shane, go away, I was getting to it.”
“Great, fine, super, it’s not like we’re in a rush or anything.” Shane crosses his arms and fails to be imposing. He’s skinny as a rail, all soft in the places where James is hard, except for his eyes.
His eyes are flat, dark as flint, where James’s are dappled with sunshine.
James glares at him.
Shane glares right back.
“You had a question?” Kendall decides to ask neutrally. It doesn’t break the tension. “No? Okay. Hey, by the way. The, uh. The girl. Selana. What happened to her?”
“Well.” Shane ticks off fingers. “First James tried to get her number-“
“I did not,” James protests, shifting the guitar in his lap. Then he reconsiders. “She was hot. I should have.”
“She was a mon-“ Kendall bites off his words, unsure of what they know and unsure of what he saw. Retelling the story in his own brain, it sounds like he fell asleep in a pretty girl’s lap and had the best dream in the whole world, the memory an ache in his chest.
“A monster?” James prompts, not unkindly.
Kendall blinks. “You know?”
“If we didn’t, it would have been awfully shocking when she dissolved into gold dust,” Shane drawls, still glaring a little.
Kendall isn’t sure if his irritation is meant for him or James, so he pointedly ignores it.
“She sang,” he says instead, voice soft. He hums a little bit of her lullaby at the end of the sentence.
James’s lips twitch, part approval, part simple acknowledgement. “Sirens do that.”
Sirens. Right. Yes. That makes perfect sense.
Except for how it really doesn’t. “Don’t sirens live in the, I don’t know, ocean?”
“The Sea of Monsters, usually.” Shane shrugs, and what, there is not an entire sea of fucking monsters. That cannot actually be a thing. “Someone probably sent her after you. Just feel lucky you blacked out before she brought out her beak.”
Kendall can’t keep up with this conversation. “She didn’t have a beak.”
He sounds plaintive, uncertain, and he does not get the reassurance he’s looking for. James wrinkles his nose. “Oh yeah, man. Girl was glamoured, but sirens look like big, nasty vultures. And they really do live in the ocean. I bet she tasted like sea bass.”
Chidingly, Shane informs him, “Sea bass is good for you.”
“It doesn’t taste good for me.” James turns his attention back to Kendall and inquires, “So, did you know you were a demigod or is this going to get awkward really fast?”
Kendall hesitates. Agh, whatever, they obviously already know. “I found out a few weeks ago. Are you guys-“
“Yes,” James admits right around the same time as Shane says, “None of your bus…i…ness. James!”
“Dude,” James frowns at him. “The truth will set you free.”
“I hate it when you pick up strays,” Shane grits out, and Kendall occupies himself by touching his fingers to his own neck. It’s not wet anymore, but when he pulls back he’s got flakes of dried blood against his skin, and it feels like he’s got a semi-massive cut there. He guesses he doesn’t need stitches, because it’s not like, gushing, or anything.
James says, “Kendall’s not a stray. He’s Kendall.”
Kendall would let that make him feel all warm and fuzzy if Shane didn’t rebut, “He’s dangerous, James.”
“I’m really not,” Kendall says helpfully.
“Shut up,” Shane snaps, and James crosses his arms.
“Rude. Why do you always have to be so rude?”
“I’m trying to protect you, okay, I’m your-“
“Big brother of like, three minutes, and in the space of those three fucking minutes you gained the wisdom of the universe, I got it, I know.”
Kendall sighs. “I’m really not comfortable with you guys arguing over me-“
“Shut the hell up, Kendall, I’m defending your virtue,” James growls.
Screw warm and fuzzy. Now Kendall is just annoyed. He sulks at the nearest wall, “I’m perfectly capable of defending my own virtue. I think.”
Shane and James are full on bickering now, absolutely forgetting Kendall’s existence, and when it looks like punches are really close to being thrown, Kendall decides it’s time to intervene for realsies. “So, um. I’m headed to Camp Half-Blood. Wanna come?”
“Pass,” Shane says immediately, finally distracted from James, and under his breath he adds something that sounds suspiciously like I have not had enough coffee for this.
James keeps his mouth shut, considering.
“Pass,” Shane insists, elbowing his brother in the stomach. James swats at his coffee cup in retaliation and Shane hugs it to his chest defensively, inhaling the fumes. “C’mon, James. We’re not going to demigod summer camp.”
“But. We could make lanyards.” James is undeterred by the full on volcanic glower that Shane directs his way. “You really want to leave Kendall all alone out here? We could at least help him get to Long Island, dude.”
“I don’t actually even know where here is,” Kendall volunteers. “You’ve kind of kidnapped me.”
“Ungrateful,” Shane buries his nose in his coffee cup and mutters, “We were making sure you didn’t die.”
“Whelp, not dead.” Kendall smacks his lips together obnoxiously. He decides to try his hand at pestering. It’s something Kendall is really good at. It’s like a real, actual talent of his. “But I could use a lift. Please. Pretty please. Please with sugar and um, cappuccino foam on top.”
“I’m in,” James says.
Shane spares his coffee a wistful glance and mouths cappuccino. “James-“
“Please?” Kendall bats his eyelashes. “With chocolate sprinkles?”
“I don’t-“ Shane objects.
“Please in a super-sized venti coffee cup? Just a little tiny lift.”
Or maybe a massive cross-country lift, you know, depending on how far they’ve absconded with him.
Shane rolls his eyes, and Kendall notices he’s poked holes in the sleeves of his shirt, perfect for his thumbs to peek through. In fact, his whole ensemble is a little threadbare, and Kendall can’t tell if it’s for hipster appeal or because, uh…
Maybe he’s not going to get that ride.
“Do you guys even have a car?”
“Ah,” James says.
He echoes, “Ah?”
“No car. And…we’re a little. Um. Broke. I’ve got, uh. Two dollars to my name,” Shane says sheepishly, cheeks coloring.
Well. That’s not a huge deal. It’s not like Kendall’s rolling in cash. He shrugs. “I’ve got five. I had some coin, but it disappeared with Selana.”
“Sirens like shiny things. It must have dissolved with her.” James plucks out a listless tune on the guitar. “Hard luck.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re not going to go with you-“
James makes an indignant noise.
Shane hugs his coffee tighter. It’s obviously his only friend in this world. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes. I’m bigger than you,” James warns, and it sounds like an argument they’ve had a million times before. Kendall suddenly, fervently misses Katie. “Let’s skip the part where I fart on your face ‘til you cave.”
Shane’s eyes get really ridiculously big, caught somewhere between disgust and you-wouldn’t-dare. “But I don’t want to go to summer camp. It’s not even summer!”
James’s lips purse together, pretty as a picture. His pout has the ease of practice, pink lips and soft eyes. “Can we at least take Kendall there, then?”
“How? Do you have any money?”
James grins wide and bright. “Let’s empty my pockets and see what I find.”
They wait expectantly. Shane drinks long, heady gulps of coffee while Kendall picks at a hole in his jeans. James squirms and wiggles like a fish on dry land until finally he slaps down the goods.
In this case, the goods being a sample vial of women’s perfume, a ratty comb, and a penny.
“James,” Shane laments, digging through the loot. “This isn’t even- it’s a Canadian penny!”
James does not look even a little bit ashamed. “I guess we’re stuck in town for the night.”
Kendall frowns. He was sort of hoping to have made more progress in this whole escapade by now. But James mistakes his expression entirely. “We’ve got an extra sleeping bag.”
“No we don’t,” Shane objects.
“Valid, okay, fine, but ours is all big, we can all use it as a blanket and share,” James gives him this look that’s all, dude, seriously? “It’s not like it’s the first time.” To Kendall he hisses, “Watch it, Shane’s a cuddler.”
Wait. Share? No. Absolutely not.
“That’s not at all necessary, guys, I can, uh, sleep on the ground, or something, it’ll be fine,” Kendall glances around and notices that yeah, his duffel bag is gone. Did that dissolve with Selana too?
At least his guitar is safe.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” James says, “I promise we don’t have gnarly BO-“
“-and I am not a cuddler,” Shane protests, flapping his hands a little, sloshing coffee everywhere.
“You totally are, you cling like a baby monkey.”
“James!” Shane makes a face. “Can we just go already?”
Wait, what? “Uh, where are we going?” Kendall inquires mildly.
“Starbucks is giving away half priced mochacchinos, okay, and I need one.” Shane’s eyes go sort of distant and dreamy. His lips purse a bit, as if he’s already sucking down all that deliciousness.
Kendall hates to ruin it. “But we don’t have any cash.”
Shane gives him this sharp, pointy look. “We’ve got seven bucks.”
“Uh. But. You’ve got coffee right there, and-“
“It’s not a mocchachino.”
“Just go with it, man.” James flashes that gorgeous, unfair smile of his, strumming his fingers discordantly across the strings of Kendall’s guitar. “And about the bed thing, don’t worry. It’s all copasetic.”
“Yeah, sure. No big deal,” Kendall relents. James begins humming Local H, appeased.
Except, um, it totally is a big deal. He doesn’t want to spend the night spooning with the guy who made him realize he was bisexual and his cuddly carbon copy of a brother.
Not that they give him much of a choice. By the time Shane’s been re-caffeinated and evening falls, Kendall’s bunching the edge of his sleeping bag in one hand and wondering if he can pull off his best imitation of a rock for the better part of the night. When he does finally drift off to sleep, don’t move, don’t move, don’t move a mantra in his head, he hopes maybe one of his godly relatives is actually listening.
---
They’re so not.
He wakes up with James’s face buried in his chest and Shane’s head cradled rather uncomfortably against his spine, their hands both weighted across his middle. His cock jerks violently, and yeah, Kendall is not even close to equipped for this. He tries to extricate himself from the handsy twins’ grasps, but that works for about as long as it takes for him to accidentally brush his erection against the front of James’s own growing morning wood.
Kendall glares up at the ceiling, trying to see through to the clouds and mutters, “Why do you hate me?”
James nuzzles into his neck.
---
Part Two
Author: garnetice
Pairing: Kendall/James, background pairings include Kendall/Jett, Carlos/Logan, and Jo/Kat/Lucy (if you squint).
Rating: T
Part: One of Six
Word Count: 7,956 (of 51,011)
Warnings: Hooboy, okay, I'm warning for language, homelessness (not at all as fun as Kendall makes it sound), incest (in terms of Olympian gods' respective children getting with each other), length (can I warn for that?), AU, magic, daddy and mommy issues, SHANE, monsters, five seconds of zombies, crack, playing very fast and loose with the world of Percy Jackson, cross country travel, and slight bashing of Pink Floyd (I've nothing against The Wall, I swear).
Summary: Demigods have burly thighs. Kendall has skinny jeans. Someone on Olympus obviously screwed up.
Art: Lookie, Lookie!
Disclaimer: BTR is not mine. Nor are any characters, ideas, or storylines nabbed from Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Rick Riordan is master and commander of my life, etc, etc.
Author's Notes: Things you should know. Uh. You do not have to have read the Percy Jackson books to read this story. I basically take the BTR characters and plop them down in the world and explain what you need to know. That said, you should read the books, because I love Percy Jackson. He is an idiot. A snarky, clever, really brave idiot (so: Kendall). Yes, the first few books are a little on the younger side, but they age well, and I will forever hold to the opinion that book five is the dramatic, badass ending that JK Rowling wishes she’d managed with Harry Potter (yes, I love HP with every ounce of my being too). No, I do not like the PJO movie at all. It was an utter abomination. On a more personal level, uh. This fic is kind of the reason I wanted to kickstart this whole bigtimebang thing to begin with, because I knew it would be gigantic (for me), and I’m not a huge fan of writing AUs unless they involve the apocalypse, apparently. I needed the impetus, and apparently 50k+ of crack was exactly right. And let me tell you, this is 50k of crack. I tried to insert a plot in here somewhere, but by the time I turned Gustavo into a Pegasus it just all went to hell. Plus, I lost a few weeks of writing due to a computer malfunction, and there are some parts in this thing that are very, very rushed. You will probably notice. For that, I apologize. I really wanted to elaborate on certain things (Jo/Annabeth's invisibility cap! Dyslexia!) but I only had time to hint at them.
What else, what else? Um. Yes, I really like writing James having an intimate relationship with a sword. No, I could not tell you why. I need to thank solarbaby614, who made mangificent, awesome, lovely art, which I will link to once she posts. breila_rose, aside from being a fabulous, excellent, wonderful beta, gets full credit for the Apple of Discord thing, because I don’t do plots, and I swear to the gods my idea of a quest is putting on real-person-clothes and going to pick up sushi. Other people who get conceptual credit: my bffle, laxgoalie16, for listening to me bitch and whine about the entirety of the internet since May, and all across America, from the ladies’ bathroom in Universal Studios to snazzy restaurants in NYC. My other bffle, who just did a PJO reread and thus patiently endured my endless questions (I meant to reread, I did, but I’ve been a little busy and to be fair, I’ve read the series on multiple occasions since I discovered it so many years ago) about what Camp Half-Blood looked like, minute details of things that no one else would remember, and why Rick Riordan is convinced he can write from the female POV (He can’t. I am simultaneously excited and dreading the Mark of Athena, RIORDAN, DON’T YOU RUIN ANNABETH). And last, but not least, jblostfan16, who is not my official beta, but still spared me her Friday night to check this thing over like a bamf, and has spent months convincing me not to drown in a pool of my own tears.
---
What happens is, Mrs. Magicowski tries to kill him.
Kendall likes Mrs. Magicowski. As far as old ladies go, she’s cool. She shelled out fifty bucks for Kendall to mow her lawn as fall came to a close when most of the geezers in town palm him a cool five dollar bill and a stale bag of Cheetos if he’s lucky. So yeah, he’s a little bummed that he ends up having to behead her with a rusty weed whacker. But Kendall figures he’d be more bummed if he was, y’know, dead.
He slides in the front door of his house and tells his mom, “I killed Mrs. Magicowski.”
To her credit, Jennifer Knight’s first question is, “Do we need to get out the wood chipper?”
Katie offers to fetch the industrial garbage bags. After spitting out her soda on Kendall’s new Vans.
Still, the familial support makes Kendall feel all warm and fuzzy inside. He says, “Nah. There’s no body. She dissolved. Like Tinkerbell.”
He expects his mom to check his temperature. Instead she heaves herself back on the couch and says, “Oh.”
Kendall sits down beside her, dread locking up the pit of his stomach. “I’m going to need more than oh.”
“We should…we should talk,” his mom says faintly, shock finally sinking in. She pats the couch cushion and Kendall steels himself, but voluntarily scoots closer. If he’s going to get Baker Acted right into an Institution, he’d like to do it with a little dignity.
Katie, who couldn’t care less if Kendall’s in the midst of a mental breakdown as long as he makes a decent footrest, flops down next to him, automatically throwing her legs over his lap. Kendall obediently begins massaging his baby sister’s calves, because this is how he’s learned to survive in a house full of estrogen; giving into the fairer sex’s every whim.
“Mom, before you ship me off to Crazy Camp-“ Kendall begins with all the grace and sensitivity of a rampaging bull, but hey, he’s still got dried monster blood on his jeans. He figures he deserves a bit of leeway.
“What? Oh, no, sweetie. I believe you.”
“You what?” He waits for Katie to echo the sentiment, but she appears to be perfectly happy picking at a loose thread on the hem of her t-shirt. His baby sis, always there with an assist. Kendall rolls his eyes and sounds out, “Soooo. You knew that Mrs. Magicowski was going to try to decapitate me? Because I would have liked that information before I offered to shovel her sidewalk this morning.”
“Of course I didn’t know that the next door neighbor was-“ his mom blusters, red creeping up the delicate line of her throat. “What kind of mother do you think I am?”
Katie opens her mouth. Kendall squeezes his fingers into her instep.
Their mom rambles on, “She seemed so nice, and she made us strudel every Christmas and what kind of monster makes you strudel and then tries to kill your firstborn?” Kendall feels that this is a very valid point his mother is making. Strudel is sacred. She continues, “And at the very least, if I’d known, I would have given you something to defend yourself with, like a kitchen knife, or don’t we have a tomahawk in the garage, and I told you ages ago to clean the garage, Kendall, I said-“
Maybe she really does actually believe him, because her brain appears to be shorting out. Kendall cuts in with his best patented soothe-the-savage-beast voice, “Okay, you didn’t know Mrs. M had homicidal impulses. Gotcha.”
Jennifer sighs huffily, reaching out to ruffle Kendall’s hair. “No. I had no idea, sweetie. I happened to spend a lot of time creating this perfect head of yours.”
“Ew,” Katie interjects, toes curling. “Leave the visuals to health class, mom.”
Their mom exhales shallowly, and this is no good at all. She looks every bit as nervous and agitated as she did before her last online date, and that ended in spilt coffee, blood, and third degree burns.
Mostly on her date’s part.
“I’ve been keeping a secret from you both.”
Kendall waits patiently for her to spill it, because he appreciates the gravity of insane neighbors who dissolve into fairy dust. Katie would not know gravity if it dropped an apple on her head. She supplies, “It’s not a secret. No one believes you cook dinner every night. Just because you stick take out on actual plates before you serve it doesn’t mean we’re stupid.”
Their mother glares. She does a really good glare. Mothers across America wish they had half the intensity she packs into a single eye. Katie cringes.
Kendall clears his throat. He doesn’t really know what to do with serious conversation time. Truth be told, he hasn’t felt this awkward around his mom since she tried to give him the birds and the bees talk after the freshman fall ball, which mostly resulted in tears on both their parts. When his mom takes hold of his hand and looks at him all solemn-like, he braces himself for the worst.
In a way, it is kind of the worst.
“The truth is, sweetheart, your dad isn’t…Kendall, your father isn’t actually your father.”
Of all the things Kendall expected to hear, this never even made the list. He struggles to find his voice, and when he does, asks, “Then who’s my real dad?”
His mom drops her eyes, a gesture so unlike her that Kendall is scared.
What must a man be like to make his mom demur like that? Not a good man. Not a man he wants to be related to. Kendall swallows, hard, trying not to feel unrendered, unmade.
It isn’t easy. His dad, the piece of his heart that pricks too often beneath his breastbone, is suddenly no longer a piece of him. He is a stranger, a man whose dimples are just like Kendall’s, but actually nothing like his in the least. How does he react to that?
Distant-eyed, their mom says, “I met him on vacation at the shore. Your grandparents had a beach house, and we’d go every summer. I was walking in the waves, and the next thing I knew, he was there.”
“Who?” he croaks out, imagining a younger version of his mother; wide eyed, rescuing sand dollars from the surf of an ocean he’s never even seen.
Instead of an answer, Mrs. Knight replies, “He had the greenest eyes, Kendall.”
Completely serious, Katie throws in, “I think mom’s trying to tell you that you’re a merman.”
Kendall squeezes her foot until she squeaks and uses her free heel to kick him in the thigh.
“Not a merman,” their mom objects, smile wan. Kendall hates that expression; he’s the one who killed someone here. He should have a monopoly on sickly-pale. “Kendall, you’re…” She takes a deep, steadying breath, steeling herself. “You’re a demigod.”
There’s this awkward moment where Kendall is torn between the innately cocky response that leaps to his lips- duh- and a hysterical tremor of incredulity. Since his mom did him the solid of not flipping her shit over Mrs. Magicowski, at least not yet, Kendall diplomatically returns the favor. “I don’t know what that means.”
“The mermaid theory’s still looking pretty feasible.” Katie is so helpful. Whatever would he do without his little sister?
“It means your father is an Olympian. A, um, Greek god.”
Half of his mom’s words are muttered through a veil of mortification and the web of her own fingers, but Kendall still catches them. He asks, “Like in those stories you used to tell me?”
“Exactly like that.” She forces another smile, thin, meek. Like she expects Kendall to yell.
He won’t. It sounds ridiculous, but Kendall’s mom has never lied to him. Not when he asked if Santa Claus was really, really real. Not when he asked where babies came from. Not even when he asked if his dad- or the man he thought was his dad- was coming back. Sure, okay, she lied about his father being his father, but…Kendall never really thought to ask if he wasn’t. So as crazy as it sounds, Kendall believes her.
It doesn’t hurt that he saw Mrs. Magicowski’s face, jowls spread, dripping toxic blue saliva and eyes gleaming with murder. Sweet old ladies just don’t try to bite your head off like that.
Katie obviously agrees. She bolts upright, eager. “Sweet, do we have powers?”
“About that.” Their mom pinches the bridge of her nose, and Kendall immediately decides he’s not going to like where this is going either, and Katie’s going to like it even less. He can’t even manage to be surprised when his mom continues, “Katie, your dad’s human.”
“What do you mean my dad? We have the same dad,” Katie protests, her voice pitching high. Kendall digs his fingertips into Katie’s calves, a comforting squeeze this time, but she completely and totally ignores his attempts at good big brotherhood.
“Not so much,” their mom replies, her bright red hair catching the lamplight, burning like fire. She is not ashamed, at least not of her sex life, which is cool, great, fine. Kendall doesn’t have a problem with what his mom does in the bedroom as long as he never has to think about it.
Now he just wants some answers.
“I have a question,” he announces patiently, and then impatiently, because Katie isn’t taking her lack of immortal blood very well. Over her outraged exclamations - “You lied to me, how could you lie to me? I’m going to need the premium cable package and a new bike at the very least to make up for this, mom”- and his mom’s even more outraged answers - “I did not lie to you young lady, how did I lie to you? I hid the truth a little, and that was to your brother”- he calls, “I. Have. A. Question.”
“Yes?” They snap, response simultaneous and rather creepy.
“Who, exactly, have I been visiting in prison all this time if it’s not my dad?”
Kendall thinks of the man who raised him, the quirk of his dimples, the lilt of his laugh, and the way those things look accented by a bright orange jumpsuit.
“Katie’s dad, obviously.”
His mom blinks, like this should have been obvious, and Katie groans. “Ugh, that means I have to keep him?”
Kendall isn’t at all fooled by his sister’s theatrics; she’s relieved in a way that Kendall doesn’t get to be. He remembers being thrown in the air, strong arms and callused fingers. Later, those same hands wrapped around the neck of an old guitar, creating the most beautiful melody.
Alright. His entire childhood was apparently a lie.
He drums against the skin of Katie’s calves and tries to keep all the broken and betrayed out of his voice. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Because it sounds insane? Kendall, your dad’s your dad. Except for how he’s not actually your dad. He’s still the one who raised you.”
“Raised,” Katie snorts with only a moderate degree of bitterness, laying her head back down on the sofa arm.
Kendall doesn’t blame her. Their- her- father has been in and out of jail more frequently than most people get the oil changed on their cars. It sucks when someone chooses the next big take over their kids, and for all the good memories that Kendall has, he’s got just as many punctuated by redwhiteblue and the howl of police sirens. All the charm and charisma and good times never really made up for the fact that his dad- his not-dad- is a conman, and that he’s always thought white collar crime is somehow preferable to being an actual parent.
Kendall’s got a lot of that same bitterness as Katie, more, even, but now he doesn’t know if he still has the right to it.
He doesn’t know anything at all.
Kendall’s not the kind of person who likes to poke at open wounds. He makes an executive decision, because he’s awesome at those, and changes the subject. “So, uh. Do I have powers?”
Katie glares at him with the kind of intensity that suggests if he does, he might want to never ever ever talk to her about them.
Their mom says, “I have no idea.”
Which is completely unhelpful. Isn’t that the kind of thing one asks when one is pregnant with god spawn, like do you have any inheritable genetic diseases, will this baby have a third eye, and are they going to blow up my house in the midst of their terrible twos?
“Mom.”
She frowns, “I didn’t read the handbook, okay? You’ve always been a special kid. Fast, strong, agile.”
All of that is code for unruly, obnoxious, and temperamental. As a child, Kendall got into a lot of fights at school; really, truly bizarre brawls with other kids and teachers and one time with a giant chicken that chased him around the cafeteria. He got expelled from more than one institution of higher learning, at least until he joined the hockey team and found a cathartic way to channel his anger management issues.
That’s what the school shrink called them last time he was called into the principal’s office, anyway. Kendall doesn’t think he has any anger management issues. The other kids always instigated it, and so did that one teacher, and the chicken definitely started it.
“So no on the powers, then.”
“Well. They told me strength and agility would come with the territory…”
That Kendall has to process. And process. And process, until he reaches a conclusion he really doesn’t like.
“Wait, me being fast and strong is a power?”
“I suppose,” his mom replies, staring pointedly at the chipped nail polish on Katie’s little toe.
Kendall is not pacified. “You suppose? So all this time I’ve been awesome at hockey because I’m cheating at it?”
Somehow this sucks even more than finding out his dad may or may not be the god of drunken revelry or volcanoes or, or, or a fucking fish. Suddenly he’s a cheater. His mom meets his eyes, rushes to say, “No, no, not cheating. Just. Um. You’re unnaturally adept. You have innate skillsets!”
Rephrasing doesn’t make Kendall feel any less deceived. Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he ventures, “What do I do? Is this going to keep happening? Monsters?”
Because betrayal doesn’t mean he’s forgotten Mrs. Magicowski flying at him an hour ago, teeth and claws and eyes full of hellfire. What if it happens again? What if his mom’s there to see it? Or Katie? Or his team?
“There’s a…a camp…” Kendall’s mom drops her gaze again, focusing on the place where Katie’s feet rest against his thigh. “For people like you.”
Ah, so Crazy Camp isn’t off the table. Theatrically, he groans. “No offense, but I don’t think singing kumbaya and making s’mores with other, uh, demigods, is going to keep the blood sucking beasts at bay.”
“Did Mrs. Magicowski try to suck your blood?” Katie perks up.
Kendall squeezes her right knee. “No.”
“Bummer.” Katie puffs out a breath, stirring up her bangs. She slumps even further back against the sofa arm, evidently bored with this entire conversation.
His mom says softly, “The camp is protected.”
“From monsters?” His attempt at keeping the incredulity from his voice fails, miserably.
Jennifer folds her hands carefully in her lap, fingers white as bone. She’s scared for him. For all that she’s been trying to make light of this, she’s clearly fucking scared. “Kendall, I don’t have all the answers. I didn’t ask everything I could have because I hoped nothing bad would happen. I’m sorry.”
Kendall doesn’t know what to do with his mother’s apologies. He forges on, “So, um. Where’s this camp?”
“Long Island.”
“Long Island, New York?” His eyes widen, his voice emerging on a squeak. Long Island is really, really far. He clutches Katie’s leg until she makes an indignant noise and thinks that New York might as well be the moon.
His mom doesn’t bother dignifying that with an answer, just gives him sympathetic eyes and her brave face. He resents that face. Kendall never inherited that expression, because he is not even close to brave. A virtue like that implies a willingness to sacrifice something other than his own hide, and sacrifice isn’t a word Kendall’s too familiar with. He prefers to cling to the things he loves with the strength and dedication of a koala bear.
But.
If there’s really a chance of someone- something- like Mrs. Magicowski attacking again, he thinks that he’ll need to learn how to let go. Demigod or not, that fight was a closer call than he’d let on, and he can’t lose his mom or Katie. It would drive him insane.
“I guess I’m going to Long Island,” he announces, and hopes it’s the right choice.
---
In the cool light of dawn, this whole demigod thing sounds ridiculous.
It gets even more ludicrous once he starts googling the phenomena at school, flipping through Wikipedia pages on Hercules and Perseus, Aeneas and Orpheus and Orion. There’s Hanuman and the Pandava brothers, pharaoh sons of Horus, and even Emperor Hirohito, for fuck’s sake. These people didn’t actually exist. They’re legends, or myths, or famous, and everyone knows famous people are practically fictional anyway.
Kendall also finds a whole lot of links on real-time tactical strategy games and an album by some Polish death metal band, but there’s nothing online about this camp, which according to his mom is called Camp Half-Blood and not the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane.
One thing, however, his research makes perfectly clear.
Demigods have burly thighs. Kendall has skinny jeans. Someone on Olympus obviously screwed up.
He almost changes his mind, dismissing the whole assault via tooth and fang and his mother’s subsequent revelation as a lucid daydream.
Then he goes for tacos.
A normal taco run usually involves Kendall forgetting the guacamole. This taco run involves him ducking the over eager cashier’s tongue from the takeout window, each flick emphasized with catcalls such as, Let me nibble on your nipples, Nougat, and, Mormo only wants to masticate your manly muscles, Muffin Pie!
Kendall’s pretty flattered by the invitation, but the drool and the well-aimed squirts of hot sauce lead him to believe that Mormo’s intentions are less than kosher. His mom’s leather seats are basically ruined, and Kendall has to use two burritos and a chalupa as projectile missiles to aid his escape. Driving away feels a little like running, but sometimes fleeing in utter terror is the better part of valor.
So, that happens.
Kendall walks in his front door, dripping extra picante habanero salsa, sans dinner. He asks, “How much are plane tickets?”
---
Plane tickets, it turns out, cost a lot. Too much. That night, after singing his baby sister a lullaby he bogarted from the nineties station at work, Kendall watches the rise and fall of Katie’s chest. He can’t take anything away from her. Especially not a couple thousand that the Knight family doesn’t have.
Kendall squeezes his eyes shut and thinks he’ll make it on his own.
---
Kendall takes all the money he made at the Sherwood Market with him.
It’s not a lot. He regrets each and every one of his most recent purchases; a skateboard, guitar strings, and three video games. All a hell of a lot less useful than a bus pass would be right about now.
Actually stepping out the door is the hardest part. Kendall doesn’t want to steal away like a thief in the night, but he’s also not keen on the idea of monster fangs getting anywhere near his family. He makes it twenty miles out of town on the good graces of a truck driver who spends the majority of the ride bitching about the alimony he owes his ex-wife. From there he walks along the roadside, hockey duffel slung over one shoulder, guitar case clutched in hand.
He’s only a hop, skip, and a jump from home, but he feels like he’s already states away. His mom might actually murder him for this, and unlike Mrs. Magicowski and Momo…Mortimer…Mormo…whatever, she probably won’t fail.
Really, potential serial killers aren’t half as scary as Jennifer Knight, which is why Kendall has zero qualms about hitching a ride a few miles further with a group of college kids road-tripping to nowhere. But after listening to The Wall on endless loop for hours on end, he decides that maybe there is a better way to travel. The bus doesn’t cost nearly as much as the train, and Kendall is halfway-to-camp-crazy-town before he hits a snag in the plan.
That snag being that he runs out of money, which is pretty unfortunate, because he doesn’t have any marketable skills or the time he’d need to get a real job. Prostitution is out, because Kendall’s sexual experience is largely nonexistent, and his prowess- or lack thereof- becomes evident every time he bothers trying to hit on someone his own age. He’s drumming his fingers on the case of his guitar, wondering how much he can get for a kidney, when he realizes that there actually is something he’s semi-decent at, and it won’t involve stitches or latex.
He’s not much of a showman; most of the songs he knows are courtesy of Elliott Smith or The Beatles, and well, busking his way across America isn’t exactly the quickest cash he’s ever made, but it helps. He does pretty okay, a boy and his guitar and a wad of dollar bills from accommodating good Samaritans.
He does so pretty okay that he relaxes his guard, just a tad.
Big mistake.
---
Kendall’s about one town shy of the nearest metropolis when things go horribly awry.
He’s transferring to the bus that will take him to St. Louis, waiting on a bench in the freezing cold. He smells like a hobo and probably looks like one too, but whatever. At least no one’s forcing him to listen to Pink Floyd.
A pretty girl sits down next to him. She smiles. “Where are you headed?”
She has long, glossy hair and a thick accent when she speaks. Spanish, maybe?
“Away,” Kendall replies vaguely. Then he remembers his manners. “You?”
“Same. Away is a pretty popular place.”
On the one hand, Kendall is pleased as punch about the company.
On the other, he’s got wayward stubble sprouting from his chin and giant holes in his jeans and dirt so deeply ingrained beneath his fingertips that he’s going to need an ice pick to get it all out. Why, exactly, is a pretty girl deigning to talk to him?
He eyes her suspiciously. “I guess. Are you going to grow fangs?”
The girl laughs, and the sound is sweet, lilting. She hums her pleasure. “Only if you ask very nicely.”
“That’s okay. I’d rather you didn’t.” Kendall gulps down a tremor. He hadn’t realized how deeply fear’s situated itself in his bones, making him vigilant when hey, there are actually perfectly kind, non-dangerous people out and about in the world. “The bus is taking its sweet time.”
“Public transportation isn’t ever on schedule.” The pretty girl’s lips curve. She has a lot of teeth under that grin, pearly white, but not particularly pointy. She extends a hand. “Selana.”
“Kendall.” He shakes because he is a polite young gentleman, just like his mother raised him to be.
Never mind that it’s been weeks since he’s seen his mom.
Kendall misses her. Since leaving, he’s done a fair amount of research on this whole half-god thing, treading past the first few pages of google into the depths of pdf files of the Odyssey and Antigone.
By the depths, Kendall means the first and last paragraphs, because both stories were boring and also books. Reading has never really been his strong suit. The words always swim on the page with little goldfish tails, flicking and rippling under a haze of water.
Anyway. It hasn’t exactly been happy reading. Demigods are supposed to be heroes, but heroes don’t exist as individuals. They are cautionary tales.
Kendall really doesn’t want the story of his life written like that.
“It is a nice name, Kendall,” Selana sounds it out, purring over each syllable. She draws the consonants out, elongates the vowels, says it again and again until it sounds like a song. The longer Kendall listens, the sleepier he feels, sleepy and warm. It’s midwinter in Middle America, and he hasn’t felt anything like warmth in forever. His eyes drift closed, just for a second, and Selana’s lap looks like a nice, comfy place to crash.
He doesn’t lean down, can’t quite make the inappropriate leap to using a stranger’s thighs as pillows, but. Her fingers card through his hair, and when did she even start touching him?
“I heard you on the…guitar, is the word?” Kendall can’t think, can’t focus. He can hear a noise, like blades against ice, and Katie’s voice, and his mom…He snuffles and leans his head against Selana’s shoulder, unable to help himself between the soothing notes of her humming. She said something about a guitar, right, he’s sure she just spoke, so he makes a noise of acknowledgement, and she continues, “You are talented. So talented.”
A touch to his cheek, and then lower; his jaw, his neck. Her skin is soft and cool, and he is so very tired. Kendall sighs, snuggling into her side.
Two things happen at exactly the same time.
His guitar case tips over, hitting the concrete with a muted clang echoing off the interior of the leather, and there is a raw sting against his throat.
Kendall bolts upright, trying and failing to hold Selana off. “You said you didn’t have fangs!”
Selana’s arms flail in the air, razor sharp press-on nails scrabbling for purchase in his skin, and he can see her incisors; bone white and edgy as a blade. Where was she hiding those five minutes ago? Shit.
She wails, “I never said that. When did I say that?”
“You said- you said,” Kendall pauses and realizes that she really hadn’t denied having pointy teeth, and also he is an idiot. “You said you wouldn’t show them to me unless I asked nicely.”
Selana shrugs expressively, the fluid motion rippling through her body. “You smell good. Like dirt and humanity and dead fish.”
Kendall isn’t sure how to feel about that. He’s never been told he smells like dead fish before, and also she is still trying to bite him.
Unfortunately, there are no useful weed whackers lying around.
Or burritos.
Or even condiments.
He’s kind of fucked.
Selana opens her mouth again, to sing, and it is the sweetest thing Kendall’s ever heard in his entire life. He knows it’s wrong, knows better than to listen, but short of stuffing socks in Selana’s mouth to shut her up, he is fresh out of ideas, and why would he even want to make that pretty song go away?
That song, that beautiful fucking song, makes the world fall to pieces.
There are feathers against his cheek, soft and downy and -wet? But more importantly, there is laughter. Katie laughing, eyes bright, and his mom, and his dad. His dad who isn’t his dad, but still is the man who raised him, and for some reason Kendall can’t quite remember why he thinks this man isn’t his father, because they look so alike, right down to the quirk of their smiles.
There’s a checkered blanket spread against metal, a woven basket, and oh, they’re having a picnic, he thinks, right there on the bleachers next to the ice rink where Kendall’s team has won and lost and practices every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
His dad looks…proud, and kind of weird outside of his orange jumpsuit, and he turns to tell Kendall something that is lost beneath the sound of the sweet, sweet song ringing in the air. He strains to listen, hears, “One on one after we eat, son,” and there is a sandwich pressed to his lips and it’s ridiculous, because his dad has honestly never cared about hockey or sports of any kind, but Kendall doesn’t care. He’s got the familiar weight of his stick against one leg and that super charismatic smile of his father’s focused all on him, and finally, finally his dad’s taking an interest.
He says, “Yeah, yeah, of course,” eager to show off. Katie shoves him knowingly, but her grin is happy and open, and his mom has never looked more content. This is the perfect day.
There’s a thump in the distance and the feathers leave his skin, but the wetness is still there, congealing right below his throat. He brushes at his neck and comes back with nothing, his family staring at him expectantly.
“What’s wrong?” Katie asks pleasantly, picking the tomatoes out of her sandwich and not looking much like she cares. Their mom nudges her, and they both smile again.
The Knight family hasn’t seen this many smiles since their last trip to the lake, back in the summer, when Katie pushed Kendall into the water and he emerged covered in algae and pond scum, every inch the creature from the Black Lagoon.
His dad was still in lock up then, and shouldn’t he be now? Kendall tilts his head, says, “Dad…?”
His dad opens his mouth, but there isn’t any noise. Kendall listens, strains for the words, but all he hears is another thump and no more of that song. Where’d the pretty song go?
Something soft dusts his face like dew, and Kendall blinks, blinks again, because his family isn’t there anymore. Katie, and his dad, and his mom; they’re all gone. Kendall is lying on the concrete beside the bench, head aching, and that pretty girl with her strange accent and her glossy hair is nowhere to be found.
But he is being straddled.
The boy doing it, strong, golden, and possibly carved of marble, gives a beatific smile and announces, “This is awkward.”
All Kendall can reply is, “James?” Because oh, hey, what are the chances? Dumbly, he continues, “You’re…tall.”
James grins.
Both of him, mirrored images of James, one kneeling right next to the other. Their combined breath smells of cappuccino and cherry pie.
Kendall asks, “Why are there two of you?”
Then he promptly passes the fuck out.
---
Kendall comes to, rising from the depths of a dream about bus station sirens, singing in the middle of an asphalt swimming pool.
Which was real. Right. He wishes that psychopaths would stop trying to kill him.
Kendall rubs at his eyes and attempts to sit up. It doesn’t work. He nearly conks himself out on asphalt, but a hand is there, catching his head just in time. “Whoa, there.”
Twin faces loom over him, hazel eyes flecked gold in the watery sunlight, each equally concerned. The air tastes of man spray, accented by the dry, chalky scent of asphalt. He breathes deep, exhaling on a sigh.
“I’m…” Kendall glances left and right. “How did I get on the ground? And where’s Selana?”
“Don’t worry about her, you’re good. We’ve got you.” A rough-knuckled hand strokes over his hair, and for a moment all that Kendall can see is the kind, comforting smile of James Diamond.
Or not James Diamond. There are still two of him.
Kendall may be concussed.
“You don’t know that he’s good,” the other James, who is a little scrawnier and paler than the first, shoves back into Kendall’s frame of vision. “Are you alright, dude?”
“I’m, uh-“ He blinks away floating lights and the slightly wobbly silhouette of two additional James’ lurking on the edge of his vision, hoping he’s not really sporting a serious head injury. A hospital stay would basically put a real damper on this whole cross-country road trip thing. “-dandy. You’re- one of you is- James Diamond.”
“Somebody’s read the Times,” the pale one says. His lips pinch. “He’s going to turn us in.”
“I actually have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kendall tells them, spots dancing across his pupils. His throat still feels wet, but he can’t bring himself to touch it. “I’m not turning anyone in to anybody.”
The one cradling his head has got biceps made out of steel or something. Kendall resolves to poke them once his head stops spinning.
Muscles asks dubiously, “What if we killed somebody?”
“Did you?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s your business,” Kendall concedes, if only because the two baby-faced kids in front of him don’t look like they would actually even kill flies.
Speaking of flies, there are some serious dots bustling in and out of his vision, great, giant things, getting ever bigger.
Kendall slurs, “You’re pretty. You’re both really, really, pretty…”
“He’s going to pass out again,” the pale one announces, concern buzzing at the edges of his voice, and then, “Oh, look, there he goes.”
There is a warm hand stroking through his hair when Kendall’s vision fades to black.
---
The second time he wakes up, it’s to the sound of his guitar.
Which is a problem, seeing as he’s not the one playing it.
James Diamond is. Apparently, Kendall didn’t hallucinate his entire existence. Fuck. Great, cool, that’s just fine. James Diamond, or a guy who looks exactly like him, is fingering Kendall’s guitar. That’s totally not weirdly reminiscent of every high school wet dream he’s ever had.
James, or at least the muscley carbon copy of him, is sitting against a wall that’s some horrible, monstrous hybrid color between gray and taupe, strumming his fingers over the strings like he was born to do it.
He looks like sunlight and sex. Kendall wonders if his dick tastes of rainbows.
Wait, no. Off topic. He tries to collect his thoughts. It doesn’t really work.
“Where are we?” Kendall asks, because this is definitely not the gritty bus stop he blacked out at.
Muscles’ fingers pause, a smile stretching his lips.
That smile, hell. The James Diamond that Kendall remembers dated his way through the entire freshmen class and then smiled at Kendall like he was the only person in the room. This version is doing it now, brilliant, pearly teeth and lips Kendall mostly wants to nibble on, and fuck, fuck, fuck, nothing has really changed.
“Home. For now. We don’t really have a home. I mean we do, but we can’t go back.” James-or-not-James tilts his head, something dark flickering in his eyes. “Now my brother’s basically, you know…it’s where the heart is, right?”
There’s something inherently vulnerable about the way Muscles is rambling that the skinny, pale version of him was lacking, and Kendall recalls cherishing that. It’s a rare thing to find on a high school hockey team, sitting amidst the overwhelming stench of testosterone and posturing; sweetness; a compassionate heart. He decides, “You’re James.”
“Ye…ah.” James exhales. “And you’re Kendall. Knight. We, ah. We’ve been away from Minnesota for a while. I knew who you were when we- but, I wasn’t sure. It’s been so long.” He winces. “Sorry.”
Irritation swells Kendall’s veins, but he has enough sense to tamp it down. It’s not James’s fault that he was such a huge part of Kendall’s life- bigger than he’ll ever know- while Kendall was basically one more face in the crowd. They started on the hockey team together at the very beginning of their freshman year, but they didn’t really click until the season was half over, and then James just up and disappeared.
Kendall had heard the entire Diamond family moved, but now he wonders.
“I like your guitar,” James says. “Where’d you get it?”
“My dad.” Kendall pauses. “Or, I guess, the guy I thought was my dad. It’s complicated.”
“Trust me, I know all about complicated fathers.” James’s fingers start up again, plucking out chords too swift and jaunty for the conversation. He sings, “Lovin’ is what I got. I said remember that. Lovin’…”
“You really play.”
“Sure,” James agrees.
Kendall flicks his thumbs against each other and tries to decide on the least stupid thing to say next. He’s saved by the bell, or in this case, James’s brother, clutching a cup of coffee to his chest like a precious treasure. The kid doesn’t really walk into the room so much as storm, and when he slumps back against the wall near real-James, he demands, “Did you ask him yet?”
Kendall glances back and forth between James and his twin. “Ask me what?”
Calmly, James says, “Kendall, this is Shane. Shane, go away, I was getting to it.”
“Great, fine, super, it’s not like we’re in a rush or anything.” Shane crosses his arms and fails to be imposing. He’s skinny as a rail, all soft in the places where James is hard, except for his eyes.
His eyes are flat, dark as flint, where James’s are dappled with sunshine.
James glares at him.
Shane glares right back.
“You had a question?” Kendall decides to ask neutrally. It doesn’t break the tension. “No? Okay. Hey, by the way. The, uh. The girl. Selana. What happened to her?”
“Well.” Shane ticks off fingers. “First James tried to get her number-“
“I did not,” James protests, shifting the guitar in his lap. Then he reconsiders. “She was hot. I should have.”
“She was a mon-“ Kendall bites off his words, unsure of what they know and unsure of what he saw. Retelling the story in his own brain, it sounds like he fell asleep in a pretty girl’s lap and had the best dream in the whole world, the memory an ache in his chest.
“A monster?” James prompts, not unkindly.
Kendall blinks. “You know?”
“If we didn’t, it would have been awfully shocking when she dissolved into gold dust,” Shane drawls, still glaring a little.
Kendall isn’t sure if his irritation is meant for him or James, so he pointedly ignores it.
“She sang,” he says instead, voice soft. He hums a little bit of her lullaby at the end of the sentence.
James’s lips twitch, part approval, part simple acknowledgement. “Sirens do that.”
Sirens. Right. Yes. That makes perfect sense.
Except for how it really doesn’t. “Don’t sirens live in the, I don’t know, ocean?”
“The Sea of Monsters, usually.” Shane shrugs, and what, there is not an entire sea of fucking monsters. That cannot actually be a thing. “Someone probably sent her after you. Just feel lucky you blacked out before she brought out her beak.”
Kendall can’t keep up with this conversation. “She didn’t have a beak.”
He sounds plaintive, uncertain, and he does not get the reassurance he’s looking for. James wrinkles his nose. “Oh yeah, man. Girl was glamoured, but sirens look like big, nasty vultures. And they really do live in the ocean. I bet she tasted like sea bass.”
Chidingly, Shane informs him, “Sea bass is good for you.”
“It doesn’t taste good for me.” James turns his attention back to Kendall and inquires, “So, did you know you were a demigod or is this going to get awkward really fast?”
Kendall hesitates. Agh, whatever, they obviously already know. “I found out a few weeks ago. Are you guys-“
“Yes,” James admits right around the same time as Shane says, “None of your bus…i…ness. James!”
“Dude,” James frowns at him. “The truth will set you free.”
“I hate it when you pick up strays,” Shane grits out, and Kendall occupies himself by touching his fingers to his own neck. It’s not wet anymore, but when he pulls back he’s got flakes of dried blood against his skin, and it feels like he’s got a semi-massive cut there. He guesses he doesn’t need stitches, because it’s not like, gushing, or anything.
James says, “Kendall’s not a stray. He’s Kendall.”
Kendall would let that make him feel all warm and fuzzy if Shane didn’t rebut, “He’s dangerous, James.”
“I’m really not,” Kendall says helpfully.
“Shut up,” Shane snaps, and James crosses his arms.
“Rude. Why do you always have to be so rude?”
“I’m trying to protect you, okay, I’m your-“
“Big brother of like, three minutes, and in the space of those three fucking minutes you gained the wisdom of the universe, I got it, I know.”
Kendall sighs. “I’m really not comfortable with you guys arguing over me-“
“Shut the hell up, Kendall, I’m defending your virtue,” James growls.
Screw warm and fuzzy. Now Kendall is just annoyed. He sulks at the nearest wall, “I’m perfectly capable of defending my own virtue. I think.”
Shane and James are full on bickering now, absolutely forgetting Kendall’s existence, and when it looks like punches are really close to being thrown, Kendall decides it’s time to intervene for realsies. “So, um. I’m headed to Camp Half-Blood. Wanna come?”
“Pass,” Shane says immediately, finally distracted from James, and under his breath he adds something that sounds suspiciously like I have not had enough coffee for this.
James keeps his mouth shut, considering.
“Pass,” Shane insists, elbowing his brother in the stomach. James swats at his coffee cup in retaliation and Shane hugs it to his chest defensively, inhaling the fumes. “C’mon, James. We’re not going to demigod summer camp.”
“But. We could make lanyards.” James is undeterred by the full on volcanic glower that Shane directs his way. “You really want to leave Kendall all alone out here? We could at least help him get to Long Island, dude.”
“I don’t actually even know where here is,” Kendall volunteers. “You’ve kind of kidnapped me.”
“Ungrateful,” Shane buries his nose in his coffee cup and mutters, “We were making sure you didn’t die.”
“Whelp, not dead.” Kendall smacks his lips together obnoxiously. He decides to try his hand at pestering. It’s something Kendall is really good at. It’s like a real, actual talent of his. “But I could use a lift. Please. Pretty please. Please with sugar and um, cappuccino foam on top.”
“I’m in,” James says.
Shane spares his coffee a wistful glance and mouths cappuccino. “James-“
“Please?” Kendall bats his eyelashes. “With chocolate sprinkles?”
“I don’t-“ Shane objects.
“Please in a super-sized venti coffee cup? Just a little tiny lift.”
Or maybe a massive cross-country lift, you know, depending on how far they’ve absconded with him.
Shane rolls his eyes, and Kendall notices he’s poked holes in the sleeves of his shirt, perfect for his thumbs to peek through. In fact, his whole ensemble is a little threadbare, and Kendall can’t tell if it’s for hipster appeal or because, uh…
Maybe he’s not going to get that ride.
“Do you guys even have a car?”
“Ah,” James says.
He echoes, “Ah?”
“No car. And…we’re a little. Um. Broke. I’ve got, uh. Two dollars to my name,” Shane says sheepishly, cheeks coloring.
Well. That’s not a huge deal. It’s not like Kendall’s rolling in cash. He shrugs. “I’ve got five. I had some coin, but it disappeared with Selana.”
“Sirens like shiny things. It must have dissolved with her.” James plucks out a listless tune on the guitar. “Hard luck.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re not going to go with you-“
James makes an indignant noise.
Shane hugs his coffee tighter. It’s obviously his only friend in this world. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes. I’m bigger than you,” James warns, and it sounds like an argument they’ve had a million times before. Kendall suddenly, fervently misses Katie. “Let’s skip the part where I fart on your face ‘til you cave.”
Shane’s eyes get really ridiculously big, caught somewhere between disgust and you-wouldn’t-dare. “But I don’t want to go to summer camp. It’s not even summer!”
James’s lips purse together, pretty as a picture. His pout has the ease of practice, pink lips and soft eyes. “Can we at least take Kendall there, then?”
“How? Do you have any money?”
James grins wide and bright. “Let’s empty my pockets and see what I find.”
They wait expectantly. Shane drinks long, heady gulps of coffee while Kendall picks at a hole in his jeans. James squirms and wiggles like a fish on dry land until finally he slaps down the goods.
In this case, the goods being a sample vial of women’s perfume, a ratty comb, and a penny.
“James,” Shane laments, digging through the loot. “This isn’t even- it’s a Canadian penny!”
James does not look even a little bit ashamed. “I guess we’re stuck in town for the night.”
Kendall frowns. He was sort of hoping to have made more progress in this whole escapade by now. But James mistakes his expression entirely. “We’ve got an extra sleeping bag.”
“No we don’t,” Shane objects.
“Valid, okay, fine, but ours is all big, we can all use it as a blanket and share,” James gives him this look that’s all, dude, seriously? “It’s not like it’s the first time.” To Kendall he hisses, “Watch it, Shane’s a cuddler.”
Wait. Share? No. Absolutely not.
“That’s not at all necessary, guys, I can, uh, sleep on the ground, or something, it’ll be fine,” Kendall glances around and notices that yeah, his duffel bag is gone. Did that dissolve with Selana too?
At least his guitar is safe.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” James says, “I promise we don’t have gnarly BO-“
“-and I am not a cuddler,” Shane protests, flapping his hands a little, sloshing coffee everywhere.
“You totally are, you cling like a baby monkey.”
“James!” Shane makes a face. “Can we just go already?”
Wait, what? “Uh, where are we going?” Kendall inquires mildly.
“Starbucks is giving away half priced mochacchinos, okay, and I need one.” Shane’s eyes go sort of distant and dreamy. His lips purse a bit, as if he’s already sucking down all that deliciousness.
Kendall hates to ruin it. “But we don’t have any cash.”
Shane gives him this sharp, pointy look. “We’ve got seven bucks.”
“Uh. But. You’ve got coffee right there, and-“
“It’s not a mocchachino.”
“Just go with it, man.” James flashes that gorgeous, unfair smile of his, strumming his fingers discordantly across the strings of Kendall’s guitar. “And about the bed thing, don’t worry. It’s all copasetic.”
“Yeah, sure. No big deal,” Kendall relents. James begins humming Local H, appeased.
Except, um, it totally is a big deal. He doesn’t want to spend the night spooning with the guy who made him realize he was bisexual and his cuddly carbon copy of a brother.
Not that they give him much of a choice. By the time Shane’s been re-caffeinated and evening falls, Kendall’s bunching the edge of his sleeping bag in one hand and wondering if he can pull off his best imitation of a rock for the better part of the night. When he does finally drift off to sleep, don’t move, don’t move, don’t move a mantra in his head, he hopes maybe one of his godly relatives is actually listening.
---
They’re so not.
He wakes up with James’s face buried in his chest and Shane’s head cradled rather uncomfortably against his spine, their hands both weighted across his middle. His cock jerks violently, and yeah, Kendall is not even close to equipped for this. He tries to extricate himself from the handsy twins’ grasps, but that works for about as long as it takes for him to accidentally brush his erection against the front of James’s own growing morning wood.
Kendall glares up at the ceiling, trying to see through to the clouds and mutters, “Why do you hate me?”
James nuzzles into his neck.
---
Part Two