Chapter Text
Percy was tired to say the least. In the last few months, he has done two quests in the name of getting college letters of recommendations. Other demigods were allowed to use past quests to encourage submissions. Other demigods did not struggle, especially not members of the seven. But, he was a child of Poseidon and how dare that age old oath be broken by a god and not taken out on the child.
Annabeth had been helping him with the quests as she could, but even she was getting fed up with the lunacy. Hell his letters were probably ridiculous as shit too, because who the hell expected Percy Jackson to have this set of fucking letters.
He collapsed at the hearth at Camp Halfblood with a huff and a grunt.
“Nephew,” Hestia called from her place at the fire.
He plastered a smile on his face to his favorite aunt. “Hello, auntie.”
Hestia stared at him for a moment. “You might as well tell me what troubles you, Perseus. There’s no need to pretend at my fire, you wouldn’t succeed in lying to me, nor keeping what ails you secret.”
“It’s just…” Percy deflated where he sat. “I’ve done amazing things.”
“Yes, you have. No one can deny you the title of hero. Many claim you as the savior of Olympus.”
Percy nodded. “And yet, my accomplishments aren’t enough to earn a break before college. I have to do quests and get letters. Just me, special little me.”
“I am sure that young Nico will go through sometime similar if he ever wishes to go to the university.”
“That makes it worse.”
Hestia nodded to him. “I know, but it seemed relevant to point out that it isn’t just you effected by the oath.”
“He’s not effected the same way though. Uncle H never broke the oath himself. The lady of the river doesn’t call upon him to pay the same price as my father or other uncle.”
“Not yet. I do not believe he will last a thousand years of this and the oath does stretch forever more until all three of them have broken it and suffered the consequences.”
Percy snorted. He imagined that Uncle H would make them wait quite a long time before they were released from the bounds of that oath. He took his word very seriously and this oath was nothing if not a problem.
“How many of your letters do you have?”
“I have two of the three.”
“I may have a quest for you, if you’re interested in it.”
Percy’s attention snapped to her. This was the first time that one of the thirteen had offered him anything of the sort. He half expected to hear the rumble in the sky that suggested that Zeus was displeased by this course of action. The sky was silent. “I would be interested, my lady.”
Hestia laughed gently in the breeze. “I had a feeling you would be. I don’t know if you recall but a part of the hearth is family.”
“I know, auntie. It’s why I always refer to you by the familiar title when I’m speaking to you casually.” He winked at her. “I figured that enough people bow to you that you might prefer someone actually speaking to your domains instead.”
“I do.” She held a hand out to the fire and let the flames dance. “My family has been fragmented for too long now. Eventually, like Pan, I will fade like this. I almost did when we came close to losing Olympus.”
“What can I do?” Percy was surprised to find himself earnest in his plea. He wouldn’t take this quest for just the college letter. He did not want his favorite aunt to be stuck and fading. He barely stood watching Pan fade, he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to watch the hearth go dead and know that she was truly gone forever.
“That’s where the quest comes in. The family is splintered and fragmented and at this point there are so many entangled webs of who is to blame and for what are they blamed for that nothing short of a miracle would untangle us.”
“How do I play into that?”
“We need therapy. We need to sit down in our chambers in Olympus and we need to talk to each other. A few outside the thirteen need to be there. Your father’s wife, their oldest son, your camp director’s wife, your Uncle H’s wife to name a few. Or rather I believe that’s all we’d need in addition to the thirteen.”
Percy nodded along. He wasn’t quite sure why these specific extra gods and goddesses were requested, but he could hazard a guess that it had to deal with one of the major issues that Hestia believed the family needed to talk through. “Are you asking me to rule Atlantis while this is happening, since you’d be summoning the king, the queen, and the crown prince?”
“No, little sea child. One of your sisters can rule quite nicely. Your father has trained most of them well for the burden just in case. No, I quite need you to run the therapy session.”
“Auntie!” His shout would have been heard from all the camp if he had not been sitting in her barrier at the hearth. Him, a demigod child, partially hated by many on the council, and he was the one that was supposed to somehow lead the sessions. No, absolutely not. Nothing good could come from that idea. Nothing good could ever come from this.
“I can’t mediate therapy with the family,” Hestia snapped. Her normal composure faltering to show the fatigue around her eyes. “Even at my best, I couldn’t do that, because despite my brothers and sisters constantly taking my love for granted, I also have feelings and opinions about their stupid actions and the pain they’ve caused me. Do you think any one of them has ever looked over at me to see that I am fading and done anything? Do you think that they ever would?”
“Why me?”
“Because you are in need of a quest,” she said softly. “And because no matter how much more divine than you we are, you have never hesitated to tell us the truth that we needed to hear. Even when it put you in danger.”
“But I don’t want to be in danger anymore. Haven’t I done enough? Have I not saved Olympus enough times? Led enough armies? Do I really need to potentially have over 13 gods willing to smite me?”
“I could guarantee that wouldn’t happen. I could ensure that none of them could or would smite you during this session. I could ensure that they were not allowed to retaliate.”
Percy rubbed at his face. There were pros and cons to this, and he needed to list them before he said another word. This wasn’t even a quest that Annabeth could help with because she would never be as rude to the gods as they’d need in therapy. Urgh.
Cons: he would have to listen to the gods bicker, he would have to be neutral in his understanding towards all of the gods motivations, including his Uncle Z who has a tendency to be unreasonable, he would have to willingly put up with quite a bit of nonsense and yelling and potential divine blindings.
Pros: he would keep Aunt H alive, he would get his third college letter, he would possibly reconstruct the family in a way that wouldn’t be broken again, he would be able to understand where most of the adults were coming from, he would gain a better understanding of the pantheon in general, and perhaps most importantly, he might be able to find a loophole to the prophecy hijinks by making all of the family care about him.
The pros clearly outweighed the cons by a wide margin. The only issue was that he still didn’t want to do it. No more quests wasn’t an unreasonable desire at this point in his life. He sucked in a breath. “If I agree to do this, what would I be doing?”
"You would be leading the therapy session. You would say what topics were being discussed, when they are being discussed, and you would keep everyone from being entirely unhelpful.”
Hestia paused. “I would give you the ability to spray water at any of them from the rivers in Olympus if they talk out of turn when they aren’t supposed to. And I suppose I need something greater if any of them decide to get physical with each other, which knowing them, they will do inevitably.”
“Get me a crossbow. I won’t shoot at any major body parts, but if they use violence instead of words during therapy, they’re getting shot. It’ll be up to the numerous healers there if they get healed and when they get healed. They won’t be so bad that they have to reform and they can count their lucky stars that they get even that,” Percy muttered.
Hestia beamed at him. “Yes, that would work.”
Shit, he had already told her that he would. That’s why her face was lit up. She knew that if he was thinking about what he’d need that he was on board. He shouldn’t have let her know. He shouldn’t have because now she was going to know and that was going to be worse for him. He groaned.
“There’s a list of topics that I believe have to be covered to have a hope and a prayer of this working on the family enough that I’ll be okay in the end.”
Percy nodded this time. “Fine. Get me the list.” He tapped his foot. “I will have the right to add on more as needed because there’s a chance things you didn’t think of will come up during the therapy and I reserve the right to say that’s big enough for it’s own segment.”
“That seems fair.”
“Each segment will be followed with a minimum four hour break so that I can still eat and sleep like the good little mortal demigod that I am.”
“Agreed.”
Percy sighed. “You will ensure that the amount of time that I am gone for this will not effect anything majorly in my life by means of doing this.”
“Of course.”
“And you will write me the best letter of recommendation ever because no one on this Earth should ever have to do family therapy with this family because it is likely to end in all of us being extremely pissed off and unhappy.”
Hestia frowned. “Not the very end, I would hope.”
Percy cast a glance towards her. “Auntie, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here. I really, really do. And I’m going to do my best to get everyone to the same realm of understanding, but humans at the very least call it quits after a certain point. They go no contact and admit that staying around each other is toxic and harmful.”
“You’re afraid our family has already gotten to that point.”
“Auntie, we have gotten to that point. They’re actively trying to hurt each other worse than the hurt they’ve suffered at this point, and they’re using children to do it.” Percy rubbed at his arms. “My hope for this therapy session is that all of you can see the harm you’ve done to each other and come to terms with it and apologize for the harm you’ve done, no matter your reasoning, because at this point, none of the rest matters.”
Hestia smiled at him. She leaned forward to kiss his forehead. “This is why I wanted you, Perseus Jackson.”
His full name, said by her, tugged at his gut. He ignored the sensation. It had gotten more pronounced lately, and he didn’t want to dwell on it. He wanted his college application to go through and a nice normal life with Annabeth. Everything else was nothing to him.
Hestia handed him over a scroll. “I’d prefer if you looked this over in your cabin and not with me. Also, please prepare yourself to be escorted to Olympus by me in two days time. I will have gathered all of the family by that point.”
Percy bowed to her as he stood from the hearth. “Until you come and get me, auntie.”
He jogged back to his cabin. He was slightly apprehensive to look at the list, but he wouldn’t get a wink of sleep or peace until he knew what was going to be on the list. He had to know. He just had to understand what this was going to be. He opened the scroll and written in ancient greek where he could easily understand and read were the topics that Hestia believed needed to be brought up. And she was not pulling her punches based on the length that unrolled from that little scroll.
Zeus and Hera’s infidelity
Aphrodite and Hephaestus infidelity
Zeus’ murder of previous wife
Zeus’ punishments to the kids: Apollo and Dionysus
Hera’s punishment to the kids: Hephaestus
Hades and Demeter’s fight over Persephone
Zeus’ actions towards you and Poseidon during the lightning bolt fiasco
Hades’ actions towards Thalia and Zeus
Hades’ curse on the oracle of Delphi
Zeus’ restrictions on interference
The oath and the subsequent breaking of said oath
Athena’s murder of Triton’s daughter
Poseidon’s response to his monstrous children and subsequent wrathful waters
Percy had to take several minutes just thinking over that list and how the hell he would even manage to bring them up without getting smote. Before he recalled that Hestia promised him no harm, which honestly a solid goal for a quest. At least this time, he never had to fear for his life. He might suffer in several new and ingenious ways, but at least this will be perhaps the least danger he’s ever been in during a quest.
He fished into his pocket and added a few of his own additions to things that absolutely had to be brought up if they were ever going to get through everything that had gone wrong in this stupid family.
Athena’s constant sending of her children to die
Ares stealing the lightning bolt
Two days was not a lot of time, but tomorrow he’d do his best to reach out to his mother and Annabeth to let them know that he was going on a quest and that he’d be home as soon as he could.