madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-story time: it was a slowburn [told by one of the mf's that dragged it out]-

It's my birthday <3

Annabeth felt uneasy telling a giant about their plans.

Still, Damasen was a good host, even if he glared a lot and grumbled. He'd still saved Percy. He'd, well... Done something to Teqi. His drakon-meat stew was excellent [Annabeth still reckoned Piper's pumpkin soup was better though] and it soothed the cuts and boils along her gums and throat. His hut was warm and comfortable, smelling of herbs and a sort of incense.

For the first time since plunging into Tartarus, Annabeth felt like she could relax. Which was ironic, since she was having dinner with a Titan and a giant.

She told Damasen about her life and her adventures with Percy and Teqi, from the exploding toilet and Medusa's amazing burger's to the dolphin men on the Argo II. She decided not to mention the way eyeballs rolled across the bloodstained deck. She explained how Percy had met Bob, wiped his memory in the River Lethe, and left him in the care of Hades.

"Percy was trying to do something good, se didn't know Hades would be such a creep," she promised Bob. Even to her, it didn't sound convincing. Hades was always a creep. All of the gods were, in fact.

"Fuck off." Teqi muttered from the bed, and Annabeth whipped around, until the sleeping girl rolled over, nearly squashing the poor cat. "I am not being Catherine Parr again."

Annabeth sunk down again, wringing her hands out. It was obviously just well times sleep talking, thought she could never remember Teqi sleep talking before. Still, it raised some questions she'd been ignoring.

Teqi could read minds, they all knew that.

What Annabeth didn't know was how often she did it. Were all of her thoughts out in the open, like a novel for Teqi to read when she got bored? She didn't want to think of her friend like that, but...

She was different now. She didn't just kill monsters when they needed to, she killed anyone and anything, laughing at the pains of Tartarus and talking to people no one else could see. Annabeth just wanted to help her, but she didn't know how. Maybe she was finally getting a rest while she was knocked out by whatever prickly herbs had been crushed under her nose.

Damasen made a rolling gesture with his spoon, which flicked steaming soup onto the mud huts floor of chipped clay tiles. "Continue your story, Annabeth Chase."

She explained everything about their quest in the Argo II. When she got to the part about stopping Gaea from waking, she faltered and chewed the inside of her lip, which no longer hurt. "She's, um...she's your mom, right?"

Damasen scraped his bowl. His face was covered with old poison burns, gouges, and scar tissue, so it looked like the surface of an asteroid, or Hephaestus's face. "Yes. And Tartarus is my father." He gestured around the hut. "As you can see, I was a disappointment to my parents. They expected...more from me."

Annabeth couldn't quite wrap her mind around the fact that she was sharing giant snake soup with a twenty-foot-tall lizard-legged man whose parents were Earth and the Pit of Darkness.

Olympian gods were hard enough to imagine as parents, but at least they resembled humans, passing down attributes and powers. She could see the glittering ocean in Percy's eyes and then the deep sea in them at other times. Those times, she had to admit, scared her a little. Not for herself, never for herself, but for Percy.

Teqi had a crackling laugh that reminded Annabeth of poker games and diet coke. Hazel's glare could kill a man. Annabeth would follow Frank into a battle without hesitation and those scars along Jason's biceps that looked like lightning would grow with every storm her created.