Dear son

Third chapter

Hiii!

So this is mostly just a little bonding chapter. Nothing spectacular happens, but I thought it was cute.

The TW of this chapter are: vegetarians, vegans (only mentioned), homeschooling experiences

(I'm sorry, that was an unfunny joke)

Anyways, have fun guys!
Thank you for reading!

Sincerely yours,
Moldy carrot

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Dear son,

Your grandpa (granny, as you like to call him) just dropped you!
Don't worry, you're fine. You landed on a pillow that was lying around on the floor. Granny is not though. He had the shock of his life, saying this was worse than all of the times he dropped me (just more proof he loves you more than me) and is now sitting with a "safety distance" of two metres to you.
Both me and your other grandpa have told him that it's okay and that nothing happened, but he won't let it go. He keeps repeating that he's a danger to you and shouldn't have been allowed to become a grandfather to such a small baby (even though you are not that small anymore -you're going to be six months old in two days).
Well now I have to deal with your whiny, thirty-six year old man-baby grandpa for the rest of the night.
Wish me luck and please never fall out of his hands again.

With all my heart,
Your Mom

"I'll do the writing, if that's okay. I have pretty decent handwriting."
"Okay, then I can do the drawings."
    Gaia was sprawled across the living room floor, all kinds of papers and pencils spread around her. I was in a similar position a bit further away. The only one sitting normally on one of the two armchairs we had was Luke. Probably because he wasn't part of our project, so he could sit there and scroll on his phone.
    Meanwhile Gaia and I had researched everything necessary for our project, so all that was left was putting it on a poster to present it to our class next week.
I got behind the drawings of various grasshoppers, some showing the differences in kind, others the anatomy. Gaia on the other hand was writing the text fitting to each drawing in very nice writing. Yeah, maybe we overdid it a little, considering that most other students in the class wrote everything on their computers and just printed out some pictures they could find on google. But as it turned out Gaia and I were both perfectionists and enjoyed doing this. It earned us a muffled "nerds" from Luke.
    I had just glued the last drawing to the crimson red poster, when my mom came in the door. She had a couple of bags on her arms, smiling at us. If she noticed that there was a new face sitting in her living room, she didn't show it.
    "Hey, kids! I'm going to start dinner. Luke, do you want to help me?"Mom didn't even stop to ask the question and kept walking to the kitchen, already knowing what the answer would be.
    As expected Luke jumped off his comfortable armchair and into the kitchen.
"He loves cooking", I explained after noticing Gaias confused look.
"Mh...", she glanced over to the kitchen again, before asking "Is that your sister? "
    I couldn't help but smile at the innocent question, because it wasn't my first time hearing it. Many people assumed she was my sister or a young aunt, because we did look very similar, she just wasn't old enough to have a sixteen year old son. And even for thirty-one she still looked very youthful. More like twenty-three.
    "What? Did I say something wrong?" Gaia asked with a worried frown.
Quickly I shook my head.
    "No, no! It's just that she's my mom and not my sister."
The crease on the girl's forehead deepened and I could basically see her brain working. Her eyes kept switching between me and my mother, who was walking around in the kitchen, until Gaia opened her mouth. Then she closed it again. And then she opened it again.
"...no."
"Yes!" I nodded.
"No!"
"Yes! I swear she's my mother."
"Was she a baby when she had you?"
    The complete seriousness in Gaia's voice was what tipped me over the edge and I burst out into laughter, which got a confused glance from Luke, who had of course heard nothing that had just been said. So I just waved my hand around and he disappeared around the corner again.
    "No... no..." I tried to get some air to stop it from sounding like I just swallowed a shit ton of helium, "She was fifteen. So not a baby."
    "Damn..." Gaia mumbled, sitting up and leaning against the couch behind her.
Also a reaction I got a lot after telling someone my mom was a teen when she had me. First the disbelief and then the realisation. While Gaia still seemed spaced out, I kept talking.
"It's okay though, we have a good life. Nothing you need to worry about."
    It was my standard sentence. People usually chose to believe me, because thinking about a teenage mother having to raise her son was usually too much for them and they would start feeling bad (and usually offer some shitty advice too).
    "Dinner is ready!" Luke called from the kitchen.
"We'll be right there."
    We sorted out our stuff, put the poster on the coffee table so it would be safe and then went to the kitchen, we're everything was done and ready. Self-made pizza and various salads, one of my moms go-to meals when she was too tired to actually cook anything.
    I sat down in my seat next to my mom, leaving an empty chair next to Luke. When Gaia didn't sit down immediately, Luke pulled it out from underneath the table and gave the girl an inviting smile.
    Once everyone was seated, my mom started passing around the salads. I grabbed myself two slices of each Pizza (one with ham and the other with salami), then took a little salad as well. Luke looked at my plate, shaking his head in disapproval.
    "Percy, you have to eat more-"
"Greens and vegetables, yeah, yeah." I rolled my eyes. It was Luke's standard speech about healthy diet and what not. "FYI I had a salad for lunch."
    Luke huffed, looking away and seeing Gaias plate. His eyes grew big and he pointed at it.
"And you have too much green on your plate! What's up with that?"
    The question seemed to make Gaia uncomfortable, because she started squirming around in her seat, pushing around a piece of tomato with her fork. She nodded towards the pizzas and mumbled:
    "I don't eat meat. I'm vegetarian. Sorry."
I wasn't really sure what she was apologising for, but she was looking at my mom with an uneasy expression in her eyes, as if she was expecting to get scolded for being a vegetarian. I didn't even have to see my moms face to know that she wasn't going to do anything like that.
    "Hey, as long as you're not a vegan."
Moms joke was enough to bring a smile to Gaia's face. Only Luke didn't seem to be satisfied yet. I watched him take another slice of pizza and carefully remove every piece of ham there was until only cheese, mushrooms and tomato sauce left.
    He then put it down on Gaias plate, who had continued eating her salads. First she stared at the piece of pizza like it was an UFO invading her space, then she tilted her head up, making eye contact with Luke.
    "No meat, so you can get some protein." Luke explained after a couple seconds of silence. "The meat still touched it, but you're not directly eating it. So that should count as vegetarian... I hope."
    Luke's uncertainty went away as soon as he saw Gaias whole face lighting up. She was still nodding, when she took the first bite of pizza, then another and after a couple seconds the whole slice was gone. So Luke repeated the scraping meat of the pizza thing a couple more times until Gaia was fed and his three slices were overloaded with ham and salami.
    It was... awfully nice of him. I exchanged a glance with my mom, who had an eyebrow raised as if she was asking me if I knew what was up with him, but all I could do was shrug. Luke was probably just nice like that because we were making a new friend. He would be back to his old asshole and sarcasm self in no time.
    After dinner we made my room ready for a sleepover. Luke stayed at my place about four out of seven nights a week. It was something we had done for years. When he was younger it had been for family related reasons and now... we had just gotten used to it, so stopping it wasn't really an option.
    And Gaia stayed because my mom convinced her too ("No, you can't possibly go home! It's dark outside and dangerous. We have a spare mattress you can use!"). She didn't seem too sure that it was a good decision to stay, standing in a corner of my room while I made Lukes pull-out bed ready and Luke got a mattress from the attic.
    We did our best to make it look good, getting fresh bed sheets and even two pillows for maximal comfort. There was a discussion about adding a third, but Gaia quickly shut it down, saying two were more than enough.
    Once everyone was settled and on their beds for the night, I turned on the small TV on the wall opposite of my bed and scrolled through Netflix. I decided on a random show Luke and I had started a couple weeks ago. It was one of those twenty minute episodes, comedy series and was watched as background noise while doing homework or when going to sleep.
While Luke and I had a conversation about our next training session, Gaia had her orange eyes glued to the screen, staring at it in fascination.
    "Okay, I know you were homeschooled and barely have any real life experience, but please tell me you've seen a TV before!" Luke said suddenly with a mocking smirk.
    Gaia turned her head around, rolling her eyes at the boy. I just leaned back, watching them amused. Over the past two days those two had started bickering and snapping at each other every chance they got. And I was enjoying every second of it.
    "Of course I have!" Gaia hesitated, glancing at the TV where all the characters were laughing at someone slipping on a wet floor. "Just... not like this. Ours is really old and only works with DVD's, so I have limited options on what to watch."
    "And what have you seen?"
For a split second it looked like Gaia was going to slap Luke, because she leaned forward, frowning at the cocky face expression he was making and looking down at her. But then she leaned back, propping herself up on her elbows.
    "Mostly those funny romantic movies like "Miss Congeniality", "Clueless", "10 things I hate about you"... Oh, and "Gladiator"."
    That last one was a bit of a surprise, but apart from that they all fit into one scheme: nineties and two-thousands rom-coms. Yes, I did know all of those and yes, I had watched all of them with my mom before the age of five.
    "What? Those are all like twenty years old!"
"You got a problem with that?"
Gaia asked in the same moment I said:
"They are still good!"
    Luke looked at both of us wildly confused, thrown by our strong reactions to criticism about old rom-com movies, but Gaia and I kept up our cold stares until he finally sighed.
    "Fine, I apologise. I should have known that I was hanging out with two middle school girls who just experienced romantic feelings for the first time."
    A swift but precise hit with a pillow to the face was enough to make him shut up. I earned myself a high five from Gaia who was already facing the TV again.
For a while we were all watching the show in silence. Around eleven my mom went to bed as well. First there were sounds coming from the bathroom, then from her bedroom, which was right next to mine.
    "Uhm, guys..." Gaia turned around again, looking at me rather than Luke. "Is it even okay that I'm sleeping in a room with you?"
    With a puzzled expression I checked if Luke had any idea what she meant, but he seemed just as clueless as me.
    "You know... because you are boys and I am a girl. In the movies that is always a problem!" Gaia explained.
    "Oh!" I laughed about my own stupidity. She was right of course, it was in every teenage rom-com and still I forgot about it, probably because I never had to deal with a mixed-gender sleepover. "I don't think it's an issue here... I mean we don't care."
    "Yeah, right." Luke agreed.
"And what about your mom?" Gaia still didn't seem completely okay.
Instead of trying to convince her that I didn't think my mom would care, I just called for her.
    "Mom!"
"What?", she yelled back from her bedroom, the walls and doors were thin enough to hear her perfectly clear.
"Is it okay that we all sleep in one room?"
    It was quiet for a moment, but I could have sworn that I heard a giggle. I was about to ask again, when my mom finally answered.
    "Dude... yes? One of you is gay and the other... Luke if I find out this girl is pregnant before marriage I will cut off your balls and shove them down your throat. Okay? Good night."
    With a horrified expression on his white face Luke nodded, mumbling something I couldn't understand. He was familiar with my moms humour, but never before had she threatened to castrate him. There was a first for everything.
    Now that sleeping in a room with us was established as legal, we all got ready for bed. There was still school the next day and I wanted to get up at five to go for a morning run.
    "Good night, guys." Luke yawned immediately after speaking.
"Night, night..." I patted his face, my eyes already closed but I could feel him pushing away my hand and grinned.
    No sound came from Gaia, only regular breathing.
"She's asleep?"
    Bedsheets rustled and Luke said:
"She's out cold."
"Let's do the same. It's going to be a long day tomorrow."

I had a dreamless, but deeply relaxing sleep, so when the alarm woke me up the next morning, I was more than ready to go on a run. I made sure to get dressed as quickly and quietly as possible, so I wouldn't wake the others up.
    I snuck down the stairs, leaving a little note on the whiteboard that was stuck to the fridge, saying where I was. After putting on my shoes I took a short sword that we had hanging on the wall and put it in the baldric on my back. It was a safety measure, but also adding to a more realistic training. Running with heavy weapons attached to me was something I was probably going to do for the rest of my life.
    The fresh early September air washed away the last bit of sleepiness and I enjoyed it just as much as the quiet atmosphere surrounding me. No one was up this early, so even while I was still in the neighbourhood, there was no sign of human life.
    It took me about five minutes to get out to the fields and the air was filled with birds singing, cicadas chirping in the high grass and the chiming of distant bells. That was the main reason I preferred running without listening to music.
    About four miles into my run I made a stop up on a small hill. From up there I could see a part of the town, the fields with sheep and cows grazing on them. By now a couple of farmers had started working, driving around on their tractors. Some of them I had met on my runs and it was safe to say that almost all of them were children of Demeter (obviously). There was one child of Hephaestus in there too, but that was through marriage.
    I was about to turn around and continue my run, when suddenly I felt like I was being watched. There was something behind me...
    Slowly I moved my hands to my back, so I would be able to pull my sword within a second. Just in time. Loud steps and a deep growl approached me. I got my sword out of the baldric and turned around to be met by the cold, dead stare of a hellhound jumping at me.