Seeking Happiness

Day by day I could feel the pressure lifting, spending time with him was like breathing clean air, for the first time in years. I hadn't always been this grumpy. I can remember back to the days when I was obsessed with Myths and card games, and excited about the world. Then Bianca died, and I just let the darkness consume me. Being the son of Hades, darkness came to me naturally. I thought I was doomed to the life in the shadows. Then I met Hazel and I saw how kind she was, how soft and loving she could be. Then I decided to give it another try. But by then I had realized my uh... sexuality. Being around Percy was just too difficult. Did I love him, did I hate him for letting my sister die. It was a never ending battle inside me, and sometimes it was just too much.

Now that I'm with Glen, I can feel that tension slipping away. I find myself smiling at random times, socializing more. The other day I actually went and spent some time with Percy and the twins, without any problem. Percy may have been my first crush, but now I realized Glen was my first love. And once I admitted that to myself, I realized I no longer resented him for what happened to Bianca. I know that it was in no way actually his fault. I know him, and I know he feels awful. If there was any way for him to save her he would have. We were young he, wasn't as wise or as skilled as he is now. It was naive of me to think he could have.

Today Glen and I had celebrated our six month anniversary, I told him I would be okay with officially coming out soon. It was a huge step, coming out to all of my friends, but a necessary step. We had celebrated with a nice dinner, well as nice as can be expected at a summer camp. We had spent the whole night eating, and talking. He told me all of the camp gossip and I in turn would tell him the stories of the gangs many adventures. Apparently we had some type of celebrity status around here. Sometimes he would get so excited listening to a story he would bounce his leg up and down in anticipation. It was nice to have someone's love and respect.

After a while we decided to head back to cabin two. It had become our permanent housing, and it was nice. We decided to get an apartment when the new Elysium was complete, which was a little scary. But I have slain monsters, I have been through Tartarus. In comparison I think moving in with my boyfriend is nothing to be worried about, yet it felt so much bigger than the rest.

We had been asleep for a couple hours when we heard an extremely loud hit pitched alarm sounding from Hephaestus' cabin. It was no surprise that when we got there a few minutes later there was already about twenty demigods dressed for battle trying to find the source of the noise. Then there was Percy, dressed in his Pjs, hair all messy, and looking very annoyed. It was creepy how much he looked like an adult right now. He looked more like an angry old neighbor coming to tell the kids to keep the party noise level down, than an eighteen year old demigod leader coming to investigate an alarm.

He walked into the cabin door. He was only in there for about fifteen minutes and the noise stopped, when he came out he looked pale. I could tell he was trying to keep his tough guy armor on right now, but it was crumbling and fast. He was trying to slip through all the people but I caught his arm, "What's going on?" He picked his eyes up to meet mine and they looked sad, "It's uhm... It's Leos navigation thing. It locked onto Calypso's Island. We have to go get her, we have to go get her, without him. She already hates me. I left her all alone on that damn island. That was real heroic of me. And now I'm going to go save her, and I'm going to have to let her know that he died trying to save me." He pushed his hands through his hair. "I have a family now. Gracie and Noah are only six months old, I don't want to go out on a quest now. I don't want to leave my family!" He had begun pacing.

I put my hands on his shoulders to try and calm him down, "Percy, man, calm down, it's okay. I'll go with you, we'll figure it out together. We'll take the Argo II and we'll fly out there, we'll pick her up and we'll come home. It's not exactly mission impossible." He smirked a bit, "Look at me, turning into a worry wart." He shook his head, I don't really know how to tell Annabeth, we kind of have this deal that we wont be separated, like ever again. She can't come with me without bringing the kids and there's no way they are coming, too dangerous."

Luke walked up to us, "Is that what I think it is? Is that the navigation alarm?" I looked at him with a puzzled look, "And how would you know anything about that?" He stared at his feet, "I'm the one who killed Leo, so I've kind of made it a habit of learning about him. I've been waiting for it to go off, because I feel like I owe him, I need to go save Calypso." Percy and I shared a sideways glance before Percy turned back to him. "Calypso is the daughter of a Titan, she is extremely powerful. And you plan to just walk up to her and tell her you killed the guy she loved...?" Then he just shrugged, "Oh what the hell, you can come. We leave in three days. Just me, you, and Nico, just like a regular quest." And with that he walked away.

As soon as the door of cabin three was closed Luke turned to me, "Nico, I need to talk to you." As a general rule I tried to avoid Luke, it wasn't that I didn't like him, I just didn't exactly meet him on the best of circumstances and its hard to shake that kind of thing off. "Uh sure, whats up?" He looked around to make sure no one was within earshot before continuing, "Your dad is Hades, so I thought maybe you would know how the balance works?"

Had this guy gone nuts? I no idea what he was talking about, "I have no idea what you're talking about. What balance?" He rolled his eyes, "You know the balance between life and death, most people believe there's a balance." At that point I knew exactly what he was talking about. I had read about it from a book I found in my dads house. Like if one person is brought back to life, another person close to them has to die. Or if someone dies that was not predetermined by the fates, they can bring someone back. And some people even believe that a murderer can give up their life for one that they have killed. I knew exactly what he was asking. "I know a little, mostly legend though, why?" He seemed to deflate a little, "No special reason, just curious. I guess I'll see you tomorrow, Annabeth will want to obsesses over departure plans and all that."

After that he turned and jogged back to cabin one where he would more than likely slip back into bed with Thalia and tell her everything was okay. Everything obviously was not okay, but that wasn't my relationship, it wasn't my place to intrude, 'Like hey Thalia your boyfriend wants to kill himself, but everything's okay though.'

Notes