Under the Water(Fem. Percy)

Chapter 29

Insistent knocking at my door forces me out of my bedroom, wrapped in only a towel. It's one of those hints of normalcy I give myself, and apparently a bad timed one. Another knock: louder and faster. I rip open the door, glaring at the person--

"Cyreus!"

Without saying hello, he pushes into the room and kisses the tip of my nose, hands settling onto my waist. I push against him. His chest is solid. A sigh of relief slips through my lips. He's safe.

"A bit too happy to see your guard, don't you think?"

"Bit too handsy with your charge, don't you think?"

"Would you prefer me to be mouthy?" he says lowly. My face heats, but I give a little nod. "Well good, I have quite a number of stories I can bore you with. What one do you want to start with? The murder one or the story about fish overthrowing a shark?"

"I take it back." I move away from him. Cyreus catches my arm and looks me up and down.

"What...are you wearing?" His eyes linger where the tightly-wrapped fabric covers my chest. It's a small towel, and I'm all too aware of the way it makes my flesh spill over the top; I pull my arm away to cover myself.

"I haven't gotten dressed yet," I say. "And I didn't-- Eep!"

Cyreus pulls me against him. His warm eyes rove over my face, and there's a hint of something else there, something hungry, but it's buried under the weight of his soft smile and the hold of his arms.

"How have things been?"

"Not...good." My head rests in that nice spot between his shoulder and neck. I know he's staring at the door, ready to shove me away at the first hint of it opening. "Dad keeps insisting he's different from every other god, but everything keeps going against that."

He won't listen. He says he knows best, and that I just need to do what he asks; like that's anything different than Hermes or Apollo running into me and wanting me to do things for them.

Weeks and weeks kept passing with the same thing. At this point I'm sure it's willful ignorance. Triton's avoidance of me certainly is: making excuses and fleeing whenever I have a chance to corner him. Even the days like today, when he's supposed to be watching me--Orthello and Tulia still have other duties-- he's not here.

Sighing, Cyreus slips his fingers over my skin. "The ocean does not change its nature. You can't make it do anything it doesn't want to. I suppose I should consider myself lucky you didn't inherit that in full force."

"If I had, I'd be dead by now."

"Then I am very, very lucky indeed." A gentle tug on my freshly washed hair. "How do you feel about sneaking out for a bit?"

"Why?"

"Don't you want to see what an undersea festival is like?"

I stare up with wide eyes, unbelieving. "Won't this get you in trouble?"

"Percy, there are things that will get me in far more trouble than this will," he says. "Being out of uniform for one."

"You look better in this," I say. There's something about how the sleeves flow around his arms that makes him look cute. He looks softer. I can almost picture him curled in one of my chairs reading. He grins. "Less like you're a hardass."

The smile falls and I laugh, lacing my fingers with his.

"I know why you have to be harsh. But you look cuddlier like this." It'd be more than worth it just to sit here and kiss and touch each other with him not in his uniform. "I wish you could get away with dressing like this more."