Alternatively

Father Son Bonding Time

There was a fishing hook dangling inches above his eye.

Percy blinked, staring at it as his brain struggled to come up with an explanation.

"Oh, good," a man's voice cheerfully intoned. "You're awake."

He winced; it was too loud to see clearly. "What are you-"

"Get dressed, the bluefin are biting!"

"Whu- what are you talking about?"

Poseidon leaned back and they both cringed as the fishing rod knocked some stuff off his desk. Percy's mouth screwed as the god fumbled to collect everything; it was too early for this.

"Too much clutter, you should really clean this place up-"

"Dad," he sat up. "What are you doing here?"

"We are going fishing, just you and me and the open sea."

He shook his head, catching the window out of the corner of his eye. It was pitch black, his eyes droopy in the reflection staring back at him. Bluefin, at six in the morning? Bluefin, the offshore catch?

"Let's get going, bud."

"Bud?"

His father raised an eyebrow and gestured to another fishing pole leaning against the door frame. "We're doing this the mortal way, it's gonna take awhile."

"What, I can't-" Percy rubbed his eyes, confusion clearing to agitation. "Not that it's not totally chill of you to drop in before the sun rises, but I can't spend a whole day deep sea fishing."

"Won't be a whole day, probably end early afternoon."

"Chiron wants us all at the Big House before lunch for the summer photo!"

"He can push it back to after lunch."

"We need to be in our camp shirts, and I don't want to run back to change."

He rolled his eyes and scanned the lump of clothes on the desk chair before pulling an orange shirt from the depths and tossing it over. "Wear it on the boat."

Percy caught it and whined, "I'm going to smell like fish and B.O!"

"What's wrong with fish?"

Gritting his teeth, he decided this was not going to go away and roughly yanked the shirt over his hoodie.

"Oh, are you going to wear it like that, okay."

"You want me to go," he stood up, searching for his shoes. "This is what I'm going to look like."

Poseidon shrugged, pointing under the bed for the left shoe. "Well, if you insist."

He grumbled as he hurried to dress and he would have switched out of his ratty basketball shorts, but he was not about to be shamed into changing when his father wore one of the worst tropical print shirts ever made. By the time Percy had finished sloppily tying his shoe, the god was already half way out the door.

And when he hurried after him, said door swung back to smack him in the face.

"Don't forget your pole," his dad called.

Rubbing his nose, Percy snatched the fishing pole from the wall and stalked into the morning.

It was already humid, but the wind was just chilly enough to send goosebumps down his spine. His shoes squeaked on the dewy grass and he looked around; usually, the harpies would be out and ready to rat him out to Mr. D. Or eat him, whichever. But he supposed being escorted by a god gave him something like immunity. That, or they figured it was too early for anyone to be up and sneaking around.