[exo] chanyeol park and the child of gaea 3/4

[hyperlydian]

∆

The bow Kyungsoo gives Chanyeol for his sixteenth birthday really isn’t anything special. Just drawing up the plans had taken him months, and his father has effortlessly made things that were far more spectacular, like Artemis’ bow, which is made out of silver, or her brother Apollo’s, made of gold. It’s a gift nearly six months late, but Chanyeol’s face is worth it.

“Drumsticks?” Chanyeol looks down at the pair of bronze-colored sticks tied together with a red bow that Kyungsoo had placed in his hand. “Why are they… such a weird color?”

Kyungsoo snorts. Tact has never been Chanyeol’s forte. “Twist the tip.”

Chanyeol fumbles with the thinner end of one of the sticks and jumps when there’s a click, and the stick expands from both ends, mechanical joints locking into place until Chanyeol is holding a gracefully shaped bow, about five and a half feet long, with the bow string still vibrating lightly from being pulled taught.

Eyes as round as drachmas, Chanyeol stutters out, “This - this is…”

“It’s made out of celestial bronze,” Kyungsoo says as Chanyeol tests the string, mouth still hanging open in shock as he fingers the recurved ends of the bow. “Can’t be broken or wear out. The other drumstick is a quiver once you open it up, and there’s some celestial bronze-tipped arrows for you to use.”

“You - “ Chanyeol sounds breathlessly happy and the shine in his eyes when he looks up makes Kyungsoo’s chest feel tight. “You made this?”

“Sorry it’s so late. I don’t have a forge at home, so it had to wait for summer.” Chanyeol tests it out, plucking at the string and drawing it back, the muscles in his forearms and shoulders flexing under the thin white fabric of his shirt.

“It’s taller than the one you’ve been using, to help compensate for how much taller you’ve gotten and how long your arms are now.” Despite the way his ribs feel too small for his lungs, keeping him from drawing a full breath, Kyungsoo feels himself grinning, because Chanyeol seems so happy.

“You’re amazing!” he crows, catching Kyungsoo up in his arms and pulling him tight to his chest so that Kyungsoo’s cheek rubs on the cotton of Chanyeol’s shirt. He smells fresh, more like dishwasher detergent than fresh laundry, lemony and clean, and Kyungsoo gives himself a few seconds to breathe him in before making himself lean away.

Chanyeol is looking down at him, lip pulled between his teeth like he’s thinking about something he knows he shouldn’t. Kyungsoo can feel the fingernails of one of Chanyeol’s hands scraping at the bumps in his spine while the other rests in the small of his back, and his mouth suddenly goes dry. Chanyeol’s lip slides free, the flesh of it shiny and bitten red, catching Kyungsoo’s eye.

It’s intimate - too intimate - and one of Kyungsoo’s hands fists into the fabric of Chanyeol’s shirt as he tries to anchor himself, catch his breath.

Chanyeol seems to do the same thing, mouth pressing together tightly and ribs brushing Kyungsoo’s knuckles as he inhales, body tensing slightly. Then he grabs Kyungsoo by the arm and pulls him towards the archery range. “This is the best present ever!”

It’s almost dusk, the sunset catching orange on Chanyeol’s hair like firelight as he picks up an arrow, fingers brushing the edges of the fletching before he nocks it. Chanyeol looks so right like this, like archery is where he fits and everything that makes him so Chanyeol is welling up, bursting at the seams. Kyungsoo’s heart is caught in his throat, overfull.

Both he and Chanyeol have this in common, being good at things people don’t expect. Chanyeol is known throughout camp for the way he can hold fire in his hand without hurting himself and for being one of the few that stays at Camp Half-Blood year-round.

Kyungsoo tends to try and focus other things that Chanyeol is good at, things that don’t mark him so obviously as a fellow son of Hephaestus.

Chanyeol is amazing at archery, somehow. His lack of focus all but disappears when he’s got a bow in his hands, and while some of the other campers just chalk it up to Chanyeol’s year-round training, Kyungsoo thinks that some of it might come naturally - just as blacksmithing had come naturally to him. A gift, perhaps, from whoever Chanyeol’s father is.

Chanyeol looks wrong, too. He’s tall, like Kyungsoo’s half-brothers, but he’s thin, lean and slim-wristed, and athletic in a way that is closer to a long-distance runner than anything else. While Kyungsoo is small enough to seem out of place in his own cabin, he’s still solidly built, with thick thighs and round, solid shoulders, as though he was somehow always meant to work a hammer over metal. Being sturdy is a must if you’re going to work in a forge.

Chanyeol, Kyungsoo tells himself as he watches him try out his gift on the archery range with a huge, blinding smile on his face as he hits bull’s-eye after bull’s-eye, is nothing like a son of Hephaestus.

∆
Baekhyun’s father is… well. Kyungsoo’s not quite sure what he was expecting, but Baekhyun’s father looks a bit like an 80’s Calvin Klein Jeans model that’s gone gray at the temples and spent his day working in the farm fields instead of on the beach. He doesn’t ask too many questions about why they’re all stranded in the middle of Iowa, simply asking where they’re all from and then digging into his dinner with gusto.

“Um, Mr. Byun?” Kyungsoo asks midway through the meal. “Do you use that old truck around the other side of the barn?”

“What, the Chevy?” Kyungsoo nods and Mr. Byun chews thoughtfully on a mouthful of potatoes. “It broke down a few years ago, right after we got the new Ford and we just never got it fixed. No need.”

“Kyungsoo’s really good with cars,” Chanyeol says proudly, smiling at him from across the table. Kyungsoo feels his face go pink and ducks his head, pretending to study his plate intently. “I bet he could fix it!”

Mr. Byun fixes his impossibly clear brown eyes on Kyungsoo, interested. “Is that true?”

“I do some work at a garage back at home.” Kyungsoo shrugs, feeling self-conscious. “If you’ve got some tools, I could see what I can do?”

Picking up his burger, Mr. Byun muses, “It’d be nice to have that thing out of the way.” He dips the edge of the burger into the sauce that Baekhyun had made up, which Kyungsoo knows for a fact tastes like barbecue heaven, looking thoughtful as he chews. “Tell you what,” he says after a moment, “if you can get it running, it’s yours.”

“W-what?”

“There’s a set of tools in the barn that I use for the tractor. You can take a look at it after dinner and see what you can do.”

Kyungsoo realizes his mouth is hanging open and closes it with a snap. “Thank you, sir. That - that would be amazing.”

They hadn’t really discussed what was going to happen after they had to leave Baekhyun’s house yet, hoping that a solution might present itself, and the very idea of having a vehicle of their very own to use is like a weight being lifted off his shoulders.

Kyungsoo hardly tastes the rest of his food, too excited to get to work to think of anything else. Once they’ve had ice cream, Baekhyun drags the other three into the kitchen by the collar to do the washing up while Mr. Byun takes Kyungsoo out to show him the tools in the barn.

“Everything I’ve got should be here,” he says, motioning to a large workbench area that’s been partitioned off from where the horses’ stalls are. “There should even be a light in there somewhere, since it’s already getting dark.”

Kyungsoo’s already doing a mental inventory of the different tools available, fingers running along rows of socket wrenches and things, so he’ll have an idea of what he can do when he really gets a good look at the Chevy’s engine and hears Mr. Byun laughing lightly behind him.

“You really know what you’re doing, don’t you? I wondered.”

Kyungsoo’s used to that reaction from people, the surprise that comes with discovering that “cute, little, delicate-looking Kyungsoo Do” has made of hobby out of fixing cars and blacksmithing, but it still stings a little.

“Thanks again, Mr. Byun.”

Mr. Byun clasps his shoulder, the type of solid, fatherly touch that Kyungsoo has never had a chance to experience before, and it leaves the tang of loneliness on the back of his tongue. “You can thank me when you get it running,” Mr. Byun says, letting go of Kyungsoo’s shoulder to press the truck keys into Kyungsoo’s hand before heading back into the house.

The humming of the cicadas reaches the top of its crescendo when Kyungsoo is arms deep in the Chevy’s engine. The feel of grease on his fingers is comforting after the stress of their journey so far, the slow, methodical rhythm of working on a car soothing the anxiety that had been piling up in his chest ever since Chanyeol had appeared in the garage yesterday - and much, much longer before that, if Kyungsoo was being honest with himself.

Kyungsoo hears the footsteps across the grass before Chanyeol speaks, and feels his back tense up before he even knows what Chanyeol wants.

It’s hard because even though Kyungsoo has spent years trying to snap himself out of it, Chanyeol still makes his stomach flip.

“Baekhyun said the mosquitoes are crazy here,” Chanyeol says, “so I brought you out some bug spray.”

Kyungsoo turns around, stopping himself from wiping his greasy hands on his jeans at the last second. “Oh, thanks.”

“Want me to get your arms?” Chanyeol holds up the spray bottle and shakes it a little as he offers. His white teeth shine in the light of the lamp, smile the small, genuine one that Chanyeol gives when he’s not around strangers and makes Kyungsoo’s chest feel all tight and bound up again.

“Sure.”

The spray is cold on the back of his arms and neck, raising goose bumps as it dries in the night air. Chanyeol’s face is concentrated when he moves around to do Kyungsoo’s front, lower lip pulled between his teeth as he tries not to get any spray on Kyungsoo’s clothes.

Having Chanyeol this close always makes Kyungsoo’s heart thump in his chest, just on the edge of a flutter, and it puts his body on high alert, taking in all of Chanyeol’s movements - even the little ones that wouldn’t matter to anyone else.

“So how’s it going?” Chanyeol’s voice is right near Kyungsoo’s ear for some reason, Kyungsoo thinks he’s brushing some of Kyungsoo’s hair out of his face. When he feels the puff of Chanyeol’s exhale on his cheeks, face tilted down so he can look Kyungsoo in the eye, Kyungsoo’s heart thumps again, painfully, and it feels like he’s got a fire trying to start in the pit of his stomach.

He takes a step back, almost tripping on a weird lump of grass. “Good. I think.”

Chanyeol’s face tightens when Kyungsoo pulls away, pin-scrape lines showing up around his eyes and Kyungsoo turns towards the engine, feeing guilty.

“It’s actually a pretty easy fix. I thought with a truck this old, maybe it would be a timing belt or the fuel injector, which would mean I would need to go get parts and stuff, but it turns out like, half the connections to the spark plugs are faulty, and it looks like maybe the wiring to the starter is loose, so it’s all electrical. And - “

Kyungsoo looks up to find Chanyeol watching him, smiling indulgently.

“Sorry,” Kyungsoo says, feeling embarrassed for some reason. “I get carried away, when I talk about cars…”

Chanyeol shakes his head. “Don’t worry, I like it. So what’s with all the tools then? If it’s just electrical stuff?”

“Oh, I thought if we’re planning to drive across the country and this thing’s been sitting here for a while, it could use a little tune up. Change the oil, check the filters, the rest of the electrical, the battery, stuff like that.”

Chanyeol’s still smiling at him from his place on the hay bale. Kyungsoo’s face feels so hot it might be steaming in the humid night air, and he turns back to the engine. At least the truck can’t judge him.

“Can I ask you something?” Kyungsoo wants to ask this while Chanyeol can’t see his face, but he’s not quite sure why that matters.

“Sure. Anything.”

“Why not Baekhyun? Why didn’t you ask him to come with you on this quest? You know he would have come if you had. Or even Kris?”

Chanyeol sighs, almost a kind of laugh, like he’s already thought over the answer to this a lot. “Baekhyun’s says he’s doing well this year, for once. He’s gotten off the farm to school for most of the year this year, passed all his classes, even got a girlfriend. And it’s Kris’ first year at college. His finals are this month, and I don’t… I didn’t want to bother them just when they were getting a chance to feel normal.”

It’s not the answer Kyungsoo expected and he turns around again, leaning against the grill of the truck. “What, so you decided to bother me instead?”

Kyungsoo means it as a joke, but the pin-scrape lines tighten around Chanyeol’s eyes and he doesn’t answer.

“Hey.” Kyungsoo waits until Chanyeol is looking at him again and says, “I meant what I said to Jongin in the garage: I’m glad you asked me, Chanyeol. Really.”

That seems to help a little, Chanyeol’s jaw loosening as he relaxes onto the hay bale some more, like it’s an armchair.

“You had something you were supposed to do back at home instead of this,” he says after a few moments of silence, only broken by the clink of the metal tools as Kyungsoo goes back to work. “What was it?”

“Mom’s marrying husband number three.” Kyungsoo shrugs. His mother is kind and beautiful and has a bad habit of marrying men she doesn’t really like. The memories he has of his childhood can all be boiled down to a simple marry, rinse, repeat. “I was at the other two weddings, so I told her I’d rather beg off this one. She understood. Probably.”

Despite the marriage thing, Kyungsoo loves his mother. She may not always have understood what Kyungsoo was going through, but she’d given him as much love and support as she could, and with Chanyeol, whose mother had shipped him off to Camp Half-Blood before he was even in high school, right in front of him, Kyungsoo was suddenly thankful for his mom all over again.

“I’m glad, you know, that you’re here,” Chanyeol says, and Kyungsoo bites his lip, checking over the battery for the telltale signs of wear. “I think I’m just hoping that maybe… if I do well enough on this quest, my dad might… claim me. If I somehow impress him, whoever he is, he might give a shit and finally want to tell everyone I’m his son.” Kyungsoo turns around to grab a different sized wrench so he can detach the manifold and see what’s going on underneath. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Chanyeol trying to smile, but only managing one corner of his lips. “That’s stupid, right? I should probably want to do it for me, or something.”

Suddenly, his palms are sweaty and his ribs cramped and tight around his lungs. Kyungsoo grips the wrench to keep it from slipping out of his hand and onto the ground. “I don’t think it’s stupid to want to know your father.”

And he really means it. Kyungsoo remembers the feeling, a sort of misshapenness, like you’ll never fit anywhere, that you’ll always be the odd one out, no matter what. Chanyeol’s not stupid for wanting a way out from all that, but Kyungsoo still -

He still -

“‘Soo,” Chanyeol says, voice a little smaller than usual, and he’s moved to sit on the edge of the hay bale, like what he’s going to say is about to burst out of him. “I’m not sure if I should…” He licks his lips nervously. “I need to tell you something.”

The look on Chanyeol’s face is naked, everything he’s going to say shining through his eyes so plainly that Kyungsoo can’t possibly misunderstand, and the reality of it, of the whole situation, sends a cold flash of terror through his throat and lungs, through each ventricle of his heart as its beating skips, right down to the pit of Kyungsoo’s stomach.

His feet take a step back for him, running into the bumper of the truck in his haste to get away. “Um,” Kyungsoo says, the familiar lump in his throat choking the words but somehow also letting them out without his permission, “Could we talk later? I want to get this stuff finished in time to get some sleep before tomorrow.”

Chanyeol’s face falls for a moment before he has a chance to mask it. The fingers of Kyungsoo’s free hand flex uselessly in the air, like he wants to snatch the words back out of the air and swallow them instead, but it’s too late for that. The expression on Chanyeol’s face is forced now, the corners of his closed-mouthed smile hitched up.

“Sure,” he says, getting up off the hay bale and brushing the straw off his pants with tense hands. “No problem.”

Kyungsoo’s nod is jerky, and he watches as Chanyeol shoves his hands into his pockets and walks away. Once he’s gone, Kyungsoo sags against the car, wrench hitting the ground with a thump. His chest is on fire, an ache that reminds him of the pain of his shoulder injury, and he clutches at it, trying to breathe.

All the emotions in Chanyeol’s eyes are playing back in Kyungsoo’s head. He feels sick with them, choked up and nauseous and so so scared, because he thought he could handle it alone. It was never supposed to be both of them.

Kyungsoo sides down the front of the truck, curling his knees into his chest and wrapping his arms around them, like it’ll keep him from falling apart. His head drops back, thumping against the bumper as he looks up at the sky, filled with more stars than a city dweller like him has ever seen. The moon is bright and low near the horizon, and Kyungsoo can feel his lips trembling, like he’s going to cry.

It was never supposed to be either of them at all.

∆

No one has ever made Kyungsoo feel small like his father does. Hephaestus fills the space of the forge, crooked shoulders broad with muscles from his blacksmithing, and even at this more human height, the top of his misshapen head brushes the ceiling.

His hands seem restless, fiddling with the remnants of a small automaton of a cat that Kyungsoo remembers seeing Taecyeon working with earlier that day. “Not enough joints in the tail,” he mutters, turning it over. It looks so tiny in his palms and Kyungsoo can see what he means. Cats move like the smooth slide of oil and Kyungsoo thinks there needs to be at least three more jointed sections to properly emulate the swishing and curling of a cat’s tail instead of the way it’s jerking back and forth now.

He doesn’t say any of this out loud, tongue sticking in his mouth when his father shifts his eyes from the figure in his hand to Kyungsoo.

“You know why I’m here.”

Kyungsoo swallows down the lump of nervousness in his throat. “Yes, father.”

Last night at dinner, when Kyungsoo had gone to the fire to give the daily offering of food to his father, he’d muttered into the flames as they burned his barbecue into sweet-smelling smoke, "father, I have a… request. If I could just meet you &mdash "

Then Chanyeol had bumped into Kyungsoo accidentally, cutting him off with an apologetic grin, and the moment had passed. Kyungsoo had never actually expected it to actually work, for Hephaestus to actually come see him while Kyungsoo was working all alone in the forge to clear his head later that night.

“You’re brave to make a request of a god,” Hephaestus says, and his eyes are a dark brown, just like Kyungsoo’s, but their intensity makes them seem more like wood burning in the hottest part of a hearth fire.

“I want - “ Kyungsoo clears his throat and tries again, “I would like to come and work as an apprentice in your forge.”

If possible, Hephaestus seems to grow even larger, casting a shadow over Kyungsoo and blocking the firelight. Kyungsoo thinks the room might be stretching to hold him, the mortar creaking and bending above them. “What makes you think that you’re worthy to work in my forge?”

Even though he’s been in the heat of the forge for hours, Kyungsoo suddenly feels too warm, like he’s flushing with embarrassment. He pushes the feeling down. Growing up, his shorter height hadn’t won him any fights, but Kyungsoo had learned what a mistake blushing was with a face like his.

Drawing himself up as straight as he can, Kyungsoo says, “When you claimed me, I assumed it was because of my blacksmithing. I’ve been working at the garage in my neighborhood for years and they say I’m the best blacksmith Camp Half-Blood has ever had - “

“And that,” Hephaestus interrupts, like the strike of a hammer, “makes you special?” The bottom of his beard begins to smoke, as though it’s caught one of the embers from the fire.

Kyungsoo doesn’t know what to say to that. As far as blacksmithing goes, Kyungsoo does think he’s special, but all that has come from working hard and never listening when people told him he wasn’t strong enough to work in the forge or tall enough to lean over the engines of the cars in the shop or that he was too pretty to work all day covered in soot or oil.

Willpower has been something Kyungsoo has never been short of (Chanyeol saying “you always manage to do what you’ve decided to, no matter what other people say” rings in his ears and his throat feels tight), but he feels it being stretched more and more the longer he stays here, the little elastic strands of it snapping each time each time he -

“Your work is adequate, but nothing I couldn’t do myself,” says Hephaestus, uneven eyebrows drawing together and Kyungsoo still feels flushed, but now it’s from anger.

He doesn’t say the obvious, of course not, you’re a god and I’m not, curling his fist around his hammer to stop the words from bursting through his lips. It wouldn’t be a good idea to anger his father, the god in charge of fire when he’s trying to ask a favor.

“But,” Hephaestus says, “what people say can’t be trusted, only the work of your own hands. And what people chose to make with their own hands shows the truth inside them. People make mistakes. People lie.” The fire in his eyes darkens, as though he’s remembering something. “Metal cannot.”

Kyungsoo gets it, understands the feel of unshaped metal in his hands, the ring of potential each time the hammer strikes the anvil, the way the edges of the swords Kyungsoo makes when he’s angry seem to shine more brightly, almost menacing, different from the ones he makes when he’s sad.

Hephaestus is studying him, eyes smoldering embers again while his beard has stopped smoking, and Kyungsoo wonders whether he reminds Hephaestus of his mother, if the god can see the features of his former lover in the planes of Kyungsoo’s face, or if he sees what everyone else seems to. Though all his half-brothers are notoriously handsome, it’s obvious whom they get their build from. Kyungsoo hardly resembles his father at all.

“If you can make something with your own hands, something true. Something that not even I could make,” Hephaestus’ voice seem softer around the edges, like the whoosh of air through the bellows of the forge - he sounds, Kyungsoo dares to think, almost fond, “then, my son, maybe, I will grant your request.”

Kyungsoo’s breath catches in his throat. “Th-tha - “

There’s a gust of air and ash, causing Kyungsoo to drop the hammer he’d been holding to cover his eyes as he coughs at the harsh taste of soot in his lungs. When he looks up again, he’s alone in the forge.

“Thank you, father,” he whispers at the stone ceiling, and reaches down to pick up his fallen hammer. The weight of his Hephaestus’ promise makes it feel heavier in his hand than before.

∆

“Hey,” Chanyeol says, peeking around the door of the forge. “I thought we were hanging out after lunch?”

Kyungsoo is working on an automaton of a flower that’s meant to grow, bloom and then wilt over and over again. Head throbbing from the heat of the forge and the way he’s having to squint at the hinges of each little petal, he aches to take a break and get away from the hot air of the forge. It’s only a little ironic because he’d come in here to catch a break from Chanyeol in the first place.

“Kyungsoo?” Chanyeol is closer now and Kyungsoo can feel the way Chanyeol’s hand hovers over his back, as though he can’t decide if he’s allowed to touch or not. “Kris is supposed to try and beat the Camp record on the climbing wall again. Should be a pretty good show.”

Fingers slippery with sweat, Kyungsoo continues fiddling with a tiny peg for one of the hinges as he speaks without looking over his shoulder. “I’m not sure watching Kris fall off the climbing wall into a sea of lava is the best entertainment for after lunch.”

Chanyeol is so close that Kyungsoo can hear him lick his lips over the mumbling of the fire in the hearth and the peg slips from Kyungsoo’s fingers. Swearing, Kyungsoo wipes his fingertips on his work pants and moves forward, trying to shift out of Chanyeol’s reach as he grabs at the peg again.

“Did I… did I do something?” Chanyeol asks, voice unsure in way that makes Kyungsoo’s chest feel wobbly, like a chariot with a loose wheel.

Kyungsoo keeps his voice steady, though, just like his hands as he holds the tiny metal petals of the flower in place, trying to get the peg to fit again. This, at least, he has control over. “What makes you say that?”

“Nothing,” Chanyeol says quickly enough that Kyungsoo knows it isn’t nothing at all. He can hear Chanyeol shifting from foot to foot behind him. “It’s just that you won’t look at me, you haven’t been, and I don’t know what I did wrong.”

At last, the peg slips into place, the hinge practically invisible now that all the parts are where they should be. Kyungsoo straightens, suddenly aware of the sweat sluicing down his spine and the sides of his face, and when he turns, Chanyeol looks at him tremulously for a moment before staring down at his hands.

There’s a tiny lick of flame in one of them, brushing up against the edges of Chanyeol’s palm, as though it’s trying to calm him, and the blue bits, the hottest part of the fire, is resting against his skin and dipping into the lines there.

Kyungsoo suddenly remembers his first day at Camp Half-Blood, when Kris had looked at Chanyeol after Kyungsoo had asked if he was a son of Hephaestus, and had answered he’s always… gotten along well with fire.

Now, Kyungsoo has been around long enough to know what Kris had meant by it, in more ways than one.

“It’s not you,” Kyungsoo says. “I mean, you didn’t do anything.” Chanyeol looks up at him, and Kyungsoo hates himself, because that sounds like the beginning of a break up speech, and this isn’t - “I just need some space.”

Chanyeol must let out a breath, because the flame in his hand gutters, curling between Chanyeol’s knuckles. “Right,” he says, strangely, hand closing over the flame, putting it out. “Okay.” And then he smiles, and it hurts, digs right into where Kyungsoo’s chest was wobbling before. Kyungsoo sucks in a breath, so thick with the smoke of the forge that it hurts to swallow.

The knuckles of Chanyeol’s closed fist are turning white, but he doesn’t look angry. It’s more like he’s just figured out something, and there’s a second where Kyungsoo realizes Chanyeol probably has it all wrong and almost blurts the whole thing out.

But then Chanyeol’s fist relaxes and the moment passes.

“Okay,” Kyungsoo says. It’s better this way, if he never says anything. Talking about the possibilities would only make it worse, and Kyungsoo knows better than to play with fire like that.

Turning back to the flower on the worktable, he pretends to be busy again with its petals. Kyungsoo had hoped his father might take be impressed with it but now it seems crude, contrived, with nothing truthful about it at all.

Chanyeol leaves the forge so quietly Kyungsoo doesn’t hear it, but he can feel when Chanyeol’s gone anyway, and grips the metal tighter until the edges dig into his palms.

∆
Just like Baekhyun’s beefy F-450, the Chevy has a growly sort of purr when it gets above about sixty-five miles an hour on the highway, if a little more labored than the newer truck.

Kyungsoo isn’t worried. The truck’s tuned up pretty well for a fifteen-year-old automobile, and he’s pretty confident that if anything goes wrong, he’ll at least be able to keep the thing running until they get to Yellowstone.

They’d left Baekhyun’s house just as the sun began to rise, waving goodbye to he and his father as they drove down the farm’s dirt driveway. The rays of light are cutting through the humidity across the fields that stretch for miles in every direction, gold and purple and pink in the sunrise, and Kyungsoo’s never seen such a wide horizon.

Jongin and Sehun had piled into the back of the cab before Kyungsoo could get a word in edgewise, and he turns around to look at them. Jongin’s got his face pressed against the window, lumpy Linkin Park sweatshirt (that he’d stolen from one of his older sisters) bunched up under his chin as a makeshift pillow, and Kyungsoo smiles at him fondly. Over the past couple of years, Jongin’s become like his little brother, endearing and irritating in equal measure. Sehun’s curled up into himself next to the other window, head pillowed on his knees as his arms hold his legs into his chest. He looks much smaller like this, younger.

Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that they’re all really just kids, demigod or not.

Chanyeol’s driving because he’s had his license the longest, and he’s staring out at the road with a slight frown, making what Kyungsoo has always called his “thinking face”.

Sure enough, after they’ve been on the road for about an hour, Chanyeol says, “I’ve been thinking: the flight attendant. She had snakes for hair, so she must have been a Gorgon, don’t you think?”

Kyungsoo ponders this for a few minutes. “Yeah but I got a really good look at her eyes and definitely didn’t turn to stone.”

“Medusa was the only one of her sisters that could do that, though, and she did say something about having sisters so…” Kyungsoo makes a noise of agreement, and Chanyeol nods to himself, looking pleased that Kyungsoo likes his reasoning. “I think she was the oldest one, Stheno.”

“…Bless you.”

“No, it makes sense,” Chanyeol insists, sounding amused, and Kyungsoo can feel a little of the tension that had built up from the night before starting to crumble. “The English spelling, I mean, with “s t h” being the same in both names.”

“Well, whoever she was, she won’t be back for a long time.” Kyungsoo tries not to think about what she’d looked like once her pretty flight attendant act had been dropped, how terror had clawed at his insides from just one look at her face, or how her brass claws had been so sharp they’d torn through the flesh of his shoulder like it was paper. He’s glad she’s nothing more than dust now.

Chanyeol runs the fingers of one hand over his lips, thinking face still in place. “She also said something about my father when she attacked me… like, ‘you’ll pay for what your father brought upon me and my sisters’. What do you think she meant?”

Kyungsoo doesn’t know of any stories involving Hephaestus and the Gorgons, but not all of the god’s stories have survived the centuries, so it’s definitely possible. Instead of saying that, though, he shrugs. “Who knows? She was acting pretty crazy.”

Chanyeol hums, still looking pensive, and Kyungsoo reaches down to turn on the radio to have something to do with his hands. It shouldn’t be uncomfortable, now that they’ve broken the silence, but Kyungsoo can feel the thread of unfinished conversation from the night before hanging over their heads as they make their way across the eastern half of Nebraska.

It’s better once Jongin and Sehun wake up, their funny, slow-paced form of chatter filling the cab, but Kyungsoo can feel every inch of space between he and Chanyeol, the thread pulled tight between them, almost ready to break.

The break doesn’t happen until their third pit stop, after they’ve crossed the boarder into Wyoming and pull off the highway at Cheyenne. They’re parked at a McDonald’s because Jongin had begged for some chicken nuggets, and Kyungsoo takes the chance to stretch his legs, walking around the parking lot with his hands shoved into his pockets.

It’s kind of chilly, a dry wind whipping across the flat terrain, but the fresh air is refreshing. He’d been driving since North Platte, and his back feels as though it’s formed to the shape of the driver’s seat.

Chanyeol’s gotten out to stretch his legs too, leaning against the side of the truck and staring up at the huge shape of the golden arches on the sign fifty feet above their heads, high enough that it can be seen from the highway. It’s a little strange that he didn’t rush inside with the other two boys in search of food, but he’s been looking a little pale all day, lips almost permanently curved downward, and Kyungsoo wonders if riding in the car so much is making him carsick.

Kyungsoo heads back over to the truck, tapping the toes of his shoes against the tires to check their air pressure. He can feel Chanyeol looking at him, arms crossed tightly across his chest.

“About last night…” Chanyeol says, and Kyungsoo’s shoulders tighten up instantly, until he feels like they’re sitting up around his ears.

“Should we really be talking about this now?” he says, glancing quickly over his shoulder at the restaurant. He can see the other two sitting at a table by the window, stretched out in the booth and sipping their drinks lazily. “Jongin and Sehun might come back out here any minute and I - “

“Why won’t you just let me say it?” Chanyeol interrupts. Kyungsoo meets his eyes accidentally, chest full of that awful shivery feeling, like his heart’s about to burst. “You already know, so why wont you just let me?”

Because putting air to it would make it real, Kyungsoo doesn’t say, instead curing his hands into fists inside his jeans to keep them from shaking. “No, I don’t know,” he lies, and his heart nearly breaks through his ribs when Chanyeol grabs him by the shoulders, thumbs pressing into his collarbones.

“But you do know! You have to know - “ Chanyeol takes a gulp of air an then the words are tumbling out, past his lips, “You have to know how much I like you, Kyungsoo. I really, really like you.”

It feels worse than Kyungsoo could have even imagined, the traitorous flip of his stomach turning to a fearful twisting, and the burst of joy threatening to bubble up inside of him being eaten up by the monstrous guilt, bleeding into his insides and pulsing through his arteries and veins until Kyungsoo’s surprised it’s not seeping out of his skin, like black ink.

“It’s not - “ Kyungsoo’s chest is aching again, heart tripping over beats until he’s short of breath. He pulls himself out of Chanyeol’s grip, struggling a little at the tightness of his hold before he can take a step back, trying to get some air. “We can’t. Our father - ”

Our.

Glittery eyes going hard, Chanyeol’s hands drop to his sides. He’s shaking, tiny little tremors that Kyungsoo can see in his shoulders and jaw, and Kyungsoo can feel himself trembling too.

Then Chanyeol laughs, but it’s not a nice sound, shaking and flat in the middle with something almost like grief. “That’s one of those things they don’t tell you when you find out you’re a half-blood. ‘Surprise! The person you’re in love with may end up being your half-brother!’”

Kyungsoo swallows, throat scraping like he’s got a mouthful of ash. He’s never said it out loud before. It sounds so much worse hanging in the air between them than it had echoing around in his head for the past two years.

“Chanyeol - “ Kyungsoo’s throat is thick with all the things he’s promised himself he’d never say. and he tries to wet his mouth to speak, licking his lips,. Chanyeol’s eyes drop involuntarily to follow the movement and Kyungsoo can feel the bile stinging his throat. “Just - don’t.”

“‘Don’t’? So we’re just never going to talk about it? Pretend like it’s not there?”

“Yes!” Kyungsoo was - well, not happy doing that, but definitely safer. The amount of danger a conversation like this would cause, the amount of temptation, is something Kyungsoo has always known would be too much to bear.

Chanyeol, on the other hand, looks incredulous. The hurt and anger on his face is all mixed together, making an expression Kyungsoo has never seen before, and Chanyeol bursts out, “You were going to avoid this forever and never say anything?”

Never before has Kyungsoo wished he was someone else so much, wished he was Jongin, so he could just teleport himself away from this. “I never said anything because there’s nothing to say!”

“But-“

“No! No more.” Kyungsoo holds his hands out in front of them, like he wants to push Chanyeol away and Chanyeol looks like he’s been slapped when Kyungsoo goes on, “I’ve had this tied up inside of me for years, I hurt you and tried to push you away, but I just couldn’t do it, and I’ve tried and tried, but there’s nothing that can make this better! You can’t just ask me to come with you on this quest and pretend that feeling this way about each other is somehow okay, because it’s not.”

The last thing Kyungsoo needs is Chanyeol’s help in breaking his own heart. “It’s enough, Chanyeol,” he says, voice hoarse. “I want to be done with this, I have to be, because it hurts too much.”

For a moment, the only noise Kyungsoo can hear is the low rumble of cars and trucks as they drive past them through the parking lot and the ringing in his ears. He wonders if this is what shooting someone with a gun feels like, the loud bang that leaves your eardrums screaming coupled with the kickback of the barrel that makes your body jerk back, followed by the knowledge that you’ve just wounded someone else, possibly beyond repair.

“Hey guys,” Jongin calls as he and Sehun walk towards the truck. He holds out a paper bag to Kyungsoo. “I got you an apple turnover.”

Kyungsoo nods, not trusting his voice, and doesn’t look at Chanyeol. He doesn’t think Chanyeol is looking at him either, instead wordlessly opening the driver’s side door and climbing inside. He might never look at Kyungsoo again, and Kyungsoo has to remind himself that that’s what he wanted.

“Jongin,” he says quietly, when he opens the passenger door and remembers how close the seats had felt that morning, the thread of tension between he and Chanyeol tugging at his heart until it was painful, “you sit in the front for a while.”

Jongin pushes his lip out in a pout. “But I don’t - “

“Just - “ Kyungsoo snaps and then forces himself to take a breath and lower his voice, “sit in the front.”

Looking cowed, Jongin nods, stepping back to let Kyungsoo climb into the back of the cab.

“Here’s your backpack,” Jongin says, picking up the bag at his feet when they’re on the highway again. It’s open and Jongin obviously can’t stop himself from taking a look inside as he passes it back.

“What’s that big leather glo - “

Kyungsoo snatches the bag out of Jongin’s hand. “It’s nothing,” he says hastily, like he hasn’t had the hand-stitched leather glove riding around in his backpack for months, waiting for the right time. Of course, after what just happened, Kyungsoo’s starting to think that maybe there’ll never be a right time, that there never was going to be one in the first place.

When he looks up, Kyungsoo sees Sehun staring at him, eyes narrowed, as though he knows what just happened. He knows that can’t possibly be true, but the air of hurt and tension in the car is unmistakable, so Kyungsoo can’t really blame him for being curious.

He chooses to look out the window instead. Wyoming seems as flat as Iowa, but in the distance he can see some rocky hills, along the curve of the horizon. Jongin is trying to bicker with Chanyeol over the radio like they usually do, almost playfully, but Chanyeol is quiet, his hands tight around the steering wheel. Jongin shrugs, putting on the trashiest station he can find (which also happens to be the only one not blasting country music or Christian radio), but even the noise of Ke$ha’s latest chart-topping hit isn’t nearly loud enough to drown out he and Chanyeol’s argument as it loops endlessly in Kyungsoo’s head.

He tries the apple turnover, but it’s like ash in his mouth.

∆
“So when you said python,” Jongin says slowly, “I thought you meant like, the ones they keep in zoos. Like in Harry Potter.”

The rest of the drive had passed quietly, with Jongin taking a turn at driving through the severely under populated stretch of middle-Wyoming before they’d stopped to rest for a few hours in the parking lot of a Wendy’s in the middle of the night. After that, they’d stopped for breakfast at a diner and the serious lack of conversation, Kyungsoo and Chanyeol focused determinedly on their plates, had been so blindingly obvious that Kyungsoo was surprised that Jongin hadn’t said anything.

They’re finally at the park now, though, the strange landscape of forest, green meadows, rainbow-colored pools and the hard rock surface of the geysers before them. There aren’t many other tourists about, especially for April, which is colder in Wyoming, but has sunny, cloudless skies, perfect for coming to see the hot springs and geysers. The forest is randomly broken up with long swathes of broken, splintered trees that look almost like they’ve been run over with a bulldozer. The bottom of these strange passageways has been packed down hard, as though by something heavy, who trunks of trees sunken down into the dirt until they’re almost flush with the surface.

Kyungsoo decides that word must have gotten around about something lucking at the park, and kind of wishes that he’d stayed away too when they crest one of the small hills and break through the edge of the forest to see the serpent coiled up around Old Faithful.

Chanyeol’s face is white as a sheet, even in the spring sunlight, and he fumbles for Kyungsoo’s hand. Kyungsoo flinches at the touch and Chanyeol freezes as though he’d forgotten. The ghost of Chanyeol’s fingers is there, though, on the back of Kyungsoo’s hand, and Kyungsoo is able to convince himself it’s a phantom touch, even when he sees Chanyeol relax minutely out of the corner of his eye

The Python (Kyungsoo thinks it probably deserves a capital letter now because of its sheer size), seems even less pleased than they are and lets out a roaring hiss so loud the ground shakes and Kyungsoo’s stomach twists painfully. He’d thought he was all out of emotions after what happened yesterday and all the days before, but the fear is still comes, creeping in like cold air around the edges of a window.

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo says, thinking about what a grim picture the whole thing makes, four teenage boys against a giant serpent the size of the MARC train, “no.”

Even Sehun looks put out. “Definitely not.”

∆

By the end of his third summer at Camp Half-Blood, the second after he obtained his father’s promise, Kyungsoo has made more creations and inventions than he can count, the huge old bunker and armory filled with them, and some of the others are used around the Camp and on quests by the other campers - but none of them are it.

Make something true, Hephaestus had said, and at the time, Kyungsoo had thought it would be, if not simple, then at least doable. Now, Kyungsoo is sure that he’s never made something truthful in his life.

His last attempt is a huge undertaking, an enormous automaton meant to protect the boundaries of Camp. Kyungsoo enlists his brother’s help in carrying out the plans he’s drawn up, and for the last three weeks of the summer, almost every waking moment in the bunker, forging, tempering, welding, and polishing, until the automaton is complete.

It’s a dragon, large and fierce, and Nichkhun jokingly names him Tony, after John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever, saying his metal scales reflect light like a disco ball. Tony’s gears click away as the sons of Hephaestus gather around him to offer the automaton up as an offering to their father.

When he appears, Hephaestus’ head barely fits under the high ceiling of the bunker, mismatched shoulders stooped and brown eyes piercing even in the dim light.

“Father,” says Taecyeon respectfully, “we made this as an offering to you, and to help protect the Camp from the enemies of Olympus and the gods, and their children.”

Hephaestus looks at each of them in turn, Kyungsoo more aware than ever at how he doesn’t seem to fit in physically, even though the other boys had taken them into their brotherhood without question, and then he turns his attention to the metal dragon. He runs his fingers along the crest of its back, over the sharpened ends of its claws, and the watches the smooth motion of the tail as it swishes gently behind.

“You have accomplished much,” he says finally, voice rumbling and windy like the forge bellows.

“It was made using Kyungsoo’s plans,” Chansung says, and Kyungsoo flushes when Hephaestus’ eyes flash to him again, before looking away

Laying his hand on Tony’s forehead, Hephaestus stoops a little so he can stare the automaton right in its glowing, mechanical eyes. Suddenly, there’s a whooshing, hissing sound, like when water steams as it cools hot metal, and their father steps back. Kyungsoo realizes with a start that the sound is actually coming from inside the automaton.

They all watch, mouths dropping open, as Tony, the mechanical dragon, opens his jaws and lets out a jet of real, searing fire.

“My gift to you, my sons. He will protect the boundaries of this Camp for many years,” Hephastus says, and he’s actually smiling. His face looks different with a smile on it, almost handsome, and Kyungsoo can kind of understand what his mother had seen in the god, once upon a time.

“Thank you, father,” they all chorus back. Kyungsoo’s brother’s faces are flushed with excitement, but there’s still a ball of nerves tied up in Kyungsoo’s stomach.

“Kyungsoo.” Hephaestus turns towards him, back to the dragon, and the ball of nervousness pulses in Kyungsoo’s belly. “This is a work of pride, not of truth,” he says, and Kyungsoo’s stomach drops out in disappointment. “There is nothing of you here.”

He’s gone before Kyungsoo can unglue his mouth to speak, a breeze of ash and the smell of hot steel all that’s left behind.

Kyungsoo can tell his half-brother’s all want to ask what that was about, but his eyes are stinging, and he walks out of the bunker, away from Tony the dragon, what he’d thought was his greatest creation, without looking back.

It’s nearly dinnertime, and Kyungsoo’s feet carry him to the stables, where he knows Chanyeol is probably feeding the winged horses.

“Hey,” Chanyeol says, looking surprised to see him. The painful conversation at the beginning of the summer, when Kyungsoo had asked for more space, has kept Chanyeol away, just like Kyungsoo had wanted, and truthfully, Kyungsoo hasn’t seen anyone outside of the bunker for at least a week. Chanyeol’s face is like a balm for his eyes, still stinging with tears. “What’s up?”

They’re standing further apart than they might have before, a whole stall between them, but Chanyeol can still tell something’s wrong with just one look.

“We showed father the automaton this afternoon.” Kyungsoo swallows, dropping his eyes to study the way the hay has been trampled down into such a level layer of floor by the horses’ hooves. “He blessed it and made it breathe fire.”

“Whoa! That’s cool!”

“Yeah, then he told me it was a work of pride.” The words have a ring of truth to them now that he’s saying them out loud and Kyungsoo’s heart sinks. “And he’s right and now I’m starting to think - “

Chanyeol leans forward, eyes wide with concern, and wow, Kyungsoo has missed his face so much his throat hurts with longing. “Starting to think what?”

“That everything I make is ordinary.” Kyungsoo’s greatest fear, because even if he doesn’t look the part, Kyungsoo has always held his talent for blacksmithing and design close to his heart, a little piece of self-worth that no one could take from him.

Until now.

In his periphery, Kyungsoo can see Chanyeol reach out a hand like he wants to run his fingers through Kyungsoo’s hair before stopping himself, pulling back. Kyungsoo wouldn’t have minded, but he gets it, and hates that he gets it, and really, in that moment hates everything.

“It’s not true,” Chanyeol says after awhile, the silence between them filled with the soft clop of hooves on hay and the swish of horse tails. “You know that, right? Everything that you make is amazing.”

Kyungsoo’s head jerks up in surprise. “You don’t have to - “

“I know.” Chanyeol’s studying his face, drinking him in, and Kyungsoo feels himself doing the same, and just misses him and aches, for a hundred different reasons. “I didn’t say it because I thought I had to.”

Chanyeol looks sad. It was unfair of Kyungsoo to come here expecting comfort when he’s the one that pushed Chanyeol away.

“I’m sorry,” he stutters, feet propelling him backwards, “I didn’t - “

Chanyeol doesn’t say anything as Kyungsoo leaves, just watches as he bolts out the door, but that doesn’t stop the truth of Chanyeol’s words from ringing in his ears.

Make something true, his father had said.

Kyungsoo stops dead in his tracks, suddenly struck with an idea. Some of the truest things he knows are about Chanyeol.

The arts and crafts area is across the creek, but Kyungsoo makes it in record time, hoping that the person he needs is still there. Kwon looks up when Kyungsoo opens the door to his special room in the cabin. He’s surrounded by bolts and bolts of fabric, with a rack holding every color of thread and trim Kyungsoo could imagine (and probably some he couldn’t) behind him.

“Never thought I’d see a son of Hephaestus here, and especially not the blacksmithing prodigy, ” Kwon says, laying aside whatever he was working on (something with both leather and frills?) to stare at Kyungsoo with interest. “What can I do for you? Do you want an outfit made? Because with your thighs, I could - ”

Kyungsoo interrupts, not wanting to have to picture himself in leather and frills. “I need your help making something.”

If possible, Kwon looks even more intrigued. He leans forward. “What sort of something?”

“How much do you know about hand-stitching baseball gloves?”

part four