Prophesied Powder, PJO

4.1

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Chapter 33
My First Kiss Gets Interrupted
By a Pegasus

Volume 4: The Battle of
the Labyrinth

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Pat never meant for this to happen.

That made it sound like he regretted it. He didn't think he did. Well, he was still in the process of it--oh, no, okay, he definitely didn't regret it. But he didn't expect it.

Being the son of Aphrodite gave him a lot of advantages in life. He could more successfully judge people on their horrible fashion choices, for one, and he always managed to thread the string through the beads at Camp Half-Blood, despite having no eyesight to help him do so. Really, he thought he would be a lot better at the whole love part of Aphrodite like some of his half-siblings, but beauty had always been his inherited domain. Beauty and stubbornness, according to his father.

He could notice things now as he looked back on them. He didn't mean for it to happen--he didn't mean for anything to happen. He thought. It was all...a confusing realization.

See, here's the thing. Greg had always been so indescribable. There was an air of danger around him, and it didn't come from his list of expulsions or the public service he had to do to make up for stealing a motorcycle when he was thirteen. No, when you were near Greg, it felt intoxicating, and really, Pat should have noticed that. Pat should have noticed a lot.

He had never internally questioned holding Greg's hand. After all, he held everyone's hand; he was blind, for Zeus' sake. He held Pallas' hand, and Percy's hand, and Annabeth's, and it wasn't that weird if he held Greg's hands or arms or anything. It was harder to make excuses about why he never questioned sleeping on Greg's body multiple times during sleepovers, lounging across his legs or his shoulder or his chest, and laughing the whole time. Or how he never questioned how they dragged their chairs together when they ate dinner or how they sat thigh-to-thigh in restaurant booths, or how Greg always offered to carry Pat's things, but Pat always said no so they could hold onto each other--and Pat really should have noticed all of this.

There were expectations set with Pat and Greg. They were used to being clingy, and it was never anything more than two teenage boys being close friends. Greg was an orphan, after all, he hadn't had someone like Pat before, and Pat had certainly not had a friendship with a mortal like that--at least not since he was eight.

It wasn't weird. It wasn't 'gay' like the guys in Pat's health class called him when he wore Harley's silver rings to school. Until it was. And then Pat figured something out--

Oh. Oh.

He couldn't tell you how it happened. Everything with Greg had always been natural; it was something Pat loved about being around Greg, he had always felt free to just relax and be himself. It was ironic considering he hadn't yet mentioned that his birth mother was an Olympian Goddess, but honestly, Pat liked to gaslight himself into forgetting such details about himself sometimes.

It was natural to dance with Greg at the school dance this spring. They didn't slow dance or anything, it wasn't gay. Until they did slow dance in Pat's room that night and never talked about it again. Maybe Pat was a lot dumber than he gave himself credit for.