Chapter Text
Odysseus does not know what to make of the boy, whose eyes glossed over from what Odysseus can see from the light of the candles lit in the room.
Odysseus is not ready for attack, stripped from his armour and most of his clothes, shivering and trying desperately to ignore the stains of Calypso’s lips on his mouth and neck. All he can do is stare, as the boy blinks his vision back into his eyes, twitching periodically and reaching into the darkness. Once the boy’s eyes adjust to the dim lighting, he turns to Odysseus, who squares his shoulders and stands, not bothering to hold onto the thin fabric covering his lower half.
The boy blinks at him.
Odysseus blinks back.
The boy glances down, up, down again, down towards the scar—Then his eyes snap up to Odysseus. There seems to be a sort of confusion in his eyes.
Odysseus growls in response. “How did you get here?” He asks, puffing out his chest and clenching his fists. He bares his teeth, narrows his eyes, scrunches his nose. “How? Tell me.” There is a hope brewing in his chest, a small flame barely glowing. If there is a way to get here naturally, there is a way to leave. Odysseus hopes the boy is helpful in that regard.
“Uhm,” the boy replies. “I’m not… certain.”
The flame dies out fairly quickly. “Stupid child, the least you could do—”
“Hey, don’t be mean,” the boy replies. “It’s not my fault you’re here… or that I’m here. Plus, I’m no child.”
Odysseus almost barks at him. “You are a skinny, underdeveloped thing. Either you are a child who has grown far beyond the reasonable height or you are a peasant boy starved of food.”
“I eat plenty well,” the boy snaps back. “And it’s not my fault you’re barely breaking past 5’5.”
“What in the Hades does ‘five-five’ mean?” Odysseus asks, throwing his head back in annoyance. What in the hells was he doing, arguing with this kid? He might be going insane. “You know what? Get out. Leave this stupid room. I need to fucking relax without a whiny voice in my ear.”
The boy’s face lights up with blood, embarrassment leaking from his ears. But he stays quiet as he stomps away from the bed, from Odysseus, and out of the room. He slams the door in anger as he leaves.
Odysseus lies down on the bed, thinking. He is tired, uncomfortable, and now annoyed because of that stupid interaction. What the hells. He’s not even sure that interaction was real. He’s pretty sure the boy was fake. He needs sleep.
A couple minutes later, after relative silence, the door creaks open, and Odysseus draws a breath. He assumes it is Calypso, come back for more. Instead, the boy peeks his head through the door.
“Uhm… where… Where is this?”
Odysseus turns and screams into the pillow beneath his head.
“No,” the boy says when Odysseus explains where he is. “Not again. Gods, not again.” He is pacing in front of Odysseus, hands clasped in front of him, eyes pacing the room faster than his feet are.
Odysseus lifts a brow. “You’ve been here before?” He sits on the bed and rests his elbows on his knees, legs crossed, as he stares at the boy.
The boy whimpers sadly. “Yeah, I—” There is a sort of realization in the boy’s eyes. “Oh, Gods.”
“What?”
“Is Calypso here?”
Odysseus rolls his eyes. Good gods. How was he going to survive? “Yes. This is her island.”
“Does… Uhm… how long has she been here?”
“How am I meant to know? A thousand years, two, three? Gods know. I certainly don’t.”
“Who are you?” The boy asks, carefully, as if he’s afraid of the answer.
Odysseus thinks, for a moment. The last time he gave his name to a stranger… He shakes the thought. This boy, although unnatural, was not Poseidon’s son, surely. “Odysseus of Ithaca.”
The boy moans in despair. “ The Odysseus? Boar Killer? Athena’s hero? Husband of Penelope?” He seems to be ticking off a list in his head, every achievement he knows Odysseus has accomplished. There is a strange sort of pride in Odysseus’s throat as he nods. Husband of Penelope brings him a sort of hope. He wonders what his wife has been doing whilst he has been away.
“Yes, the Odysseus. And you are?”
The boy lifts his face from his hands. “Percy Jackson.” He thinks for a moment, then corrects, “Perseus Jackson. Though I’d rather you call me Percy.”
The second part of his name is odd, Odysseus notes distantly, though he ignores it in favour of other thoughts. “Your mother was hopeful, naming you after Medusa’s slayer. Did she think you were going to do great things?”
Percy grins, lopsided, and answers, “Nah. She named me after the one hero she knew was happy.”
“Smart woman, she is.” Odysseus laughs.
Percy’s eyes seem to bore into the distance, thinking. “She really is. The smartest woman I’ve ever known.” There is a softness, a vulnerability, that Odysseus admires. He remembered thinking the same of his mother, when he was young.
There is silence, a calmness, while they both think.
“How long have you been here?” Percy asks, finally. “Please tell me you have kept track.”
Odysseus has. He had found a piece of driftwood on his first day, and used a knife he stole from Calypso to draw lines for each day he woke up on the island. He has now used dozens of pieces of wood, and kept each one of them. Each time he has found the knife to grow dull, he has simply used a jagged rock from the beach to sharpen it, give it sharpness. It is one of the few things he has found comfort in, the one thing he has made a habit of. He is certain he will escape, eventually.
“Do you think I'm mad? Of course I have.” Odysseus kneels onto the floor, and grabs the floorboard he has hidden the wood and knife under. He doesn’t think Calypso would have done anything to take away his knife or counting, but he did not want to risk it. He pulls out the floorboard, and digs out all the wood and the knife. He shows Percy, who begins to count the tallys quietly.
“Forty-two, forty-three, forty..” he trails off, continues counting, as Odysseus stares at him. He takes in the boy’s odd looks. Barely tanned, sharp sea-green eyes, dark hair, muscles that are compact, barely visible. Bags under his eyes, red spots on his face, thin lips, scars poking out from underneath his odd bright orange top. He looks like an odd boy, not quite Greek but not-not Greek either. Odysseus wonders, and plans to ask when he can.
“Seven years,” Percy announces, the breath leaving him in a gasp. “Oh, Gods, seven. That’s–that’s good. Seven.” He begins mumbling to himself in a language Odysseus does not understand, a language that seems to roll off Percy’s tongue easier than the Greek does. “Seven. That’s–” He turns to Odysseus. “How long have you been away from Ithaca?”
Odysseys bristles at the question, uncomfortable and nervous. “I—About… Twenty years? Give or take a couple months. Enough time to forget my wife’s voice and my son’s eyes.”
“Telemachus, right?”
“Yes.”
Percy hums. “Telemachus… ‘Far from battle’...” He considers the name, rolling it off of his tongue a couple times, and Odysseus can see him tasting the difference between its meaning and its truth. “Telemachus… Athena’s child…”
Odysseus perks up at the name of his patron. Could it be…? “What? Athena?”
Percy licks his teeth, sticking his tongue into the side of his mouth. “Yes. There—There was a prophecy, a couple weeks back, and I think—”
“You think it is coming to fruition?”
Percy nods. “I am almost certain. It is too specific to not be.”
Odysseus leans closer, staring at Percy sitting on the floors, surrounded by the carved wood and the fabrics that Odysseus has strewn around the room in desperation the previous night. “Who told you this prophecy? Tiresias?”
Percy considers the question, hesitates, then shakes his head. “No. Delphi.”
Odysseus gawks “Pythia? You got your prophecy from Apollo’s mouthpiece?”
“Err... No and yes. Her name is Rachel. But she is Apollo’s… mouthpiece, I guess.”
“Rachel?” The name rolls awkwardly off his tongue, strange and foreign. He cannot seem to find its meaning, and he is suspicious. “Is that Persian? Chinese? It does not sound Greek.”
“I—” Percy worries his bottom lip between his teeth. “No, it’s… farther away.” He mutters to himself in that strange language, then stands up and walks to Odysseus. “Look, Odysseus, I need you to trust me. I am not going to hurt you, and I am here to help you get home.” Then, very quietly, “Even if I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do that.”
“Swear it.” Odysseus knows better than to trust a simple, baseless promise.
“What?” Percy looks confused.
“Swear it on the river Styx that you meant what you just said. Come on, it will not matter if you are being truthful.”
Percy seems to want to scream into the ocean. “I swear on the river Styx that I will try my hardest to get you home, and that I will not harm you on purpose.”
Odysseus lifts a brow.
Percy rolls his eyes. “I would never intentionally harm you but I can’t promise to keep you safe at all times. You are a soldier, you can take care of yourself.”
Odysseus nods.
“Hermes?”
“Yes,” Percy says, rubbing his temples. “Hermes will be here… soon? I think. He will tell Calypso to free you, and you will have to sail home on a raft.”
“And you?”
Percy seems to startle, as if he’d completely forgotten he’s meant to be helping Odysseus. “Yes. Me. Uhm, I guess I’ll be on the raft with you. Even though I don’t—Never mind.”
Odysseus is sitting down on the floor, Percy in front of him, flipping the knife Odysseus gave him with his hands. He seems to be distracted, muttering to himself and trying to find some piece he’s missing.
Odysseus wishes he could help him. “Is there something bothering you?”
“The prophecy—I—there parts of it I still do not understand. It is bothering me.”
Odysseus shrugs. “Most prophecies are like that. Achilles was told the best of the Greeks—himself—will die before the end of the year. It turned out to be not him, but Patroclus. The prophecy was vague, but true. Maybe that is how yours will play out.”
Percy continues to worry his bottom lip between his teeth. “Yes, maybe.”
“Where is Calypso?” Percy asks, suddenly, stopping his etching into the floorboards with the knife. He had been sitting in silence with Odysseus, each absorbed in their own thoughts, Percy muttering words Odysseus only half understood. “She—It has been several hours, and she has not seen you?”
Odysseus swallows heavily, biting down on the inside of his cheek. “She was here this morning, before you appeared. She—took what she wanted, then left me. I assume she will call me for dinner soon.” Odysseus has been trying to not leave his room, the past few weeks. He has spent them in his bed, dreaming of Penelope and Telemachus and Ithaca, itching to get out and climb the cliffs of his small kingdom.
“What she wanted?”
Odysseus averts his eyes. “Her pleasure. She has—She has made peace with the fact that that is all she will have from me.”
“Her pleasu—Oh.” Percy looks away, and Odysseus sees the way his eyes sharpen and narrow, the way his lips purse and he swallows. “I—She did not do the same to me. I did not realise she did it to anyone.”
“Gods will have what they want. I could not stop her.” Odysseus pauses, takes a shaky breath. He feels his eyes gloss with moisture, ready to spill. “She tried to get me to say yes, the first few months. After a while, she took what she could get. I do not move, I do not enjoy it. I simply let her have it. It is easier.”
“You are a brave man, for living. I know I would collapse under the guilt,” Percy says, distantly. “My love—If I were forced to be with anyone but her, I would go mad. I applaud you for your courage.”
“I believe I am strange, not brave. Any man would have begged to bed a Goddess, and here I am, hiding from it.”
“Forcing anyone—man or not—to sleep with another is assault. I hope you will understand your bravery when you see your wife.”
Odysseus nods, and breathes in. He hopes Percy is right.
Calypso knocks on his door. It is earlier than she usually comes in, the sun not quite below the sea, and he worries. Percy stares at him, brows lifting in question. They are standing in the middle of the room, they were discussing Ithaca, Percy trying to help Odysseus to remember it, to remember the layout of his palace and the voice of his wife and sister and mother.
“Odysseus?”
“Yes?” His voice shakes, unlike himself, and he steels himself for the worst. He worries that she will want more. Usually it is only once a day, but—
Percy grabs his hand, rubs circles on the back of it. “Bravery, King of Ithaca,” he whispers, barely audible. “You are brave.”
“Yes, Calypso?”
She seems to be leaning against the door, and her voice shakes. “I have been ordered to let you leave. We need to talk.”
Odysseus almost cheers as Percy jumps into his arms, hugging him.
“You will be home, soon,” Percy whispers again. “Only a bit more, King of Ithaca.”
Odysseus nods, and reaches for the door handle as Percy hides in the corner of the room.
Calypso stares at him with tearful eyes. “Zeus has decreed it. You must be returned.”
Odysseus does not suppress his smile.