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jilliancares · 7 years

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All is Fair: Chapter 1

Summary: Dan Howell has made many mistakes in life, the first of which was being born to Aphrodite (or maybe just being born at all, in his uncle’s opinion). It’s never made much sense that he was son of the Goddess of love, seeing as he didn’t even believe in it. Still, maybe there’s time for his mind to be changed when he finds himself going on a quest to retrieve his mother’s “Cupid’s bow” with Phil Lester, son of Ares.

(this is a percy jackson au !! however if you haven’t read the series this should still make sense to you as i’ll explain everything like you don’t already know it. i’ll be updating every saturday!)

Word Count: 4.2k

ao3 ; wattpad

masterlist ; next chapter

CHAPTER ONE:

"You ready?" his uncle grunted, shouldering open the door to his bedroom and regarding Dan with an annoyed look. He reeked of cigarettes, the smell permeating the room. Dan nodded.

He'd been ready for the past three days, seeing as his uncle had promised to drive him to camp three days ago. Maybe it shouldn't have come as such a surprise when his uncle had made excuses as to why it had to be postponed—his paycheck had yet to come in and they had no gas money; he got called into work last minute; his favorite sports team was about to come on. He could manage to find an endless array of excuses if he so wished and Dan just sighed and left the room when he heard them. There was no point arguing—it would get him nowhere but in trouble.

"I'm ready," Dan said quickly, sliding off the bed and scooping his bag from the floor before his uncle could change his mind. He'd been getting antsy these last few days, afraid a monster would soon sense his presence and come to attack him. He had a couple weapons around, a celestial bronze dagger shoved into his bedside drawer, but nothing like the weapons he usually preferred at camp. He liked to fight with a giant, celestial bronze hammer, usually—yes it wasn't the most common of weapons, but it was what Dan was most comfortable with.

While everyone else darted around a monster, slicing at soft spots and stabbing at chinks in their armor, Dan simply waited for the right moment and smashed their head in with his warhammer—most creatures' brains tended to be a soft spot, Dan had learned.

He sighed after settling into the passenger seat of the car, hugging his bag to his chest and looking out the window. His uncle grumbled under his breath as he started the engine, the car making a horrible churning noise for a few seconds before it kicked into life, loud and wheezing.

Going to camp was always the best part of the year. Sometimes Dan wished monsters bothered him more often so he'd have an excuse to have to stay there all year long. Instead, he always returned home at the end of the summer, his high spirits effectively crushed by the presence of his uncle and all the idiots in school. Still, he was grateful nonetheless. Any amount of time spent away from his home was good and he would take whatever he could get.

He'd lived with his uncle for most of his life. A few sparse memories of his father remained: afternoons spent watching tv with him on the couch, sitting on his shoulders as they walked through the city, playing hide and seek in their small apartment. It'd always been just him and his dad, and that was the way Dan had liked it.

It all changed when his dad had had a heart attack when Dan was six. He'd been shipped off to live with his uncle, who'd been less than pleased to have to take care of him. Dan had always done his best to stay out of his uncle's way.

Whereas other kids vied for their parents’ attention, bugged them to play with them and buy them toys and let them eat ice cream, Dan learned that it was in his best interest to avoid his uncle. He would find himself his own meals most days, had packed his own lunches for school and forged his uncle’s signature on stupid forms sent home. The only reason he’d ever actively engaged his uncle was to ask about his parents.

One day when he was nine, after having worked up the courage all afternoon, he went to his uncle and asked, “Who was my mother?” It was something that had always bothered him a lot. He never had a mom around, couldn’t even imagine what she looked like, and he hadn’t ever thought to bug his dad about it. He was perfectly happy with that one person in his life, why should he need any other?

It was only after his dad had passed away that he began to wonder. He hadn’t even known who his mother was, much less whether she was even alive or not! A small, useless, hopeful part of him had briefly entertained the thought of his mom being out there somewhere and learning of Dan living with his horrible uncle. And once she did she would come save him and take him away to her mansion where he would have lots of toys and friends and stories of his father.

He’d been wrong, of course.

“Some city slut, I’m sure,” his uncle had snapped at him. Dan had felt his eyes go wide, his face hot. It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard his uncle cuss, it was just… he’d never really liked it, was all. And he didn’t really like it directed at his mother either, whether he even knew who she was or not. “None of us ever met her. Your dad just called Mom and Dad one day to tell them he had a kid. What a fuck up…” his voice had trailed off at the end but Dan still heard it. He always heard it.

And so, seeing as he got so little attention at home, he’d always been kind of desperate to get it elsewhere. He’d always been trying to make friends, putting himself out there again and again only to continually find himself rejected. Later people would tell him that it was because he was a half-blood, a demigod. The other kids could sense the power in his veins and naturally shrank away from it. Maybe that was part of the reason his uncle hated him too—that and the money he wasted on medicine for Dan’s ADHD. (Which, Dan hadn’t even asked for in the first place. And no one would’ve even known he had ADHD if it hadn’t been for his third grade teacher. His uncle certainly wouldn’t have noticed, and he only ended up buying the medicine to shut his teacher up. Dan hated taking it.)

It made sense, then, that the first sign of someone being genuinely nice to him made Dan latch on. He’d been eleven when he'd first met the satyr (a person with the legs of a goat). He hadn't known that Alex was a satyr at the time, he’d just known he was kind to Dan. He sat with him at lunch and joked about their teachers and listened to Dan’s stories. And then, after a couple weeks of blessed friendship, the school year had come to an end and Alex had pulled him aside.

He'd told Dan all about being a demigod—though Dan hadn’t exactly believed him at the time. His thought process had been more along the lines of, great, I finally make a friend and he’s crazy. Except that Alex really hadn’t been crazy and everything he’d told Dan was the truth. Apparently Dan’s father had managed to catch the attention of a god at some point during his life and later Dan had been delivered to him. Except his dad had died and Dan had been carted off to his uncle, losing contact with the camp and leaving Dan all alone in the world in more ways than he’d even realized. By the time the camp director had located him again he’d just been glad Dan was even alive, apparently.

And the reason Dan had finally been learning all of that was because at the ripe old age of eleven he was strong enough to garner the attention of monsters (who just liked to hunt all demigods in general, possibly for sport), which meant he would have to start spending more of his time at Camp Half-Blood—a place where demigods like him spent training: learning to combat monsters and go on quests if need be.

At the time, Dan had hated the idea of it. He didn't want to go to a camp where he'd inevitably know no one and have no friends, another place where he'd be an outcast. He'd been made fun of enough times in his life for being dyslexic, the words on any page scrambling around and becoming indecipherable. The combination of that and his ADHD left him unable to properly concentrate in class. But luckily for him, it hadn't been his choice whether he went to the camp or not. Alex explained to him that there he’d finally, finally fit in. He’d learned that both his ADHD and dyslexia were because of his godly lineage, his brain was automatically wired for reading Greek and his body for fighting—his "disorders" had never really been disorders at all.

And so Dan tried to contain his excitement as they drove to Camp Half-Blood. It was hard to force himself to sit still in the car, to not bounce in his seat or lean forward as if doing so could make the car move faster. He just wanted to be there already! He wanted to spend hot days under the sun, learning the ten best ways to dispose of a Chimera or picking strawberries from the strawberry field. He wanted to talk to Chiron, a centaur who was basically in charge at camp (Dan’s mouth had dropped right open the first time he’d seen him). He even didn't mind seeing Mr. D if it meant he was finally back at camp. Mr. D was actually Dionysus, one of the twelve major gods, but Zeus had kicked him out of Olympus (conveniently located above the Empire State Building, who knew!?) and made him work as the camp director at Camp Half-Blood as punishment for falling in love with a nymph or something. Zeus was always getting mad at this or that and punishing people for it. And really, it was more of a punishment for the campers than the god, seeing as they were forced to constantly deal with Mr. D’s attitude.

"Ugh," Dan's uncle groaned, pulling Dan out of his thoughts. The car was rumbling ominously, which was normal, but his uncle was pulling over to the side of the road because of it, which was not.

"What's wrong?" Dan decided to ask.

"Hell if I know," his uncle bit out. He threw the car in park, looking over at Dan and chewing on the side of his cheek. "We're close enough to that camp of yours," he decided. "You can walk the rest of the way."

"What?" Dan exclaimed. "Are you serious!?"

"When am I ever not serious? Get your ass out there and walk!"

Dan muttered something under his breath that would've gotten him slapped if he stayed a moment longer, so he grabbed his pitifully small bag and slung it over his shoulder. The moment he was out of the car it whipped around, driving right over the median of the highway and swerving down the other side.

"Asshole!" Dan shouted uselessly, before turning and stomping in the direction of Camp Half-Blood. It was only a couple more miles, right?

He just wanted to be there already. More than anything, more than all he’d missed during the school year, every school year, he wanted to see Emma. She was his best friend in the whole world. He met her at camp, obviously. They spent every waking moment together, occasionally even daring to sneak into each other's cabins to have sleepovers together.

She was a daughter of Hermes, which maybe explained how mischievous she could be. It definitely explained her tendency to steal. Dan spent every school year trying not to think of how much he missed her only for it to all build up in an overwhelming crescendo by the time he was close to seeing her again.

Thankfully, thinking of Emma and how close he was to seeing her seemed to help him walk. No cars pulled over to ask him if he was alright, if he needed a ride anywhere, and Dan didn’t bother to try to flag any down. He had no doubt that no one would stop for him. And on the off chance that someone did, it would probably be a monster.

Lost in thought, Dan hardly noticed the figure out of the corner of his eye until he was almost parallel to it. He blinked. Surely it was a figment of his imagination? But... no, there really was someone standing in the edge of the woods, beckoning to him.

From nearly six years of experience as a demigod he knew this could be anything, from a monster trying to rip him open and eat his kidneys to a god in need of help. Dan huffed, wishing he'd thought to grab his knife before leaving. He hadn't thought he would need it though—he was supposed to be back at camp by now, supposed to be surrounded by weapons he could properly use.

Still, Dan shrugged and made his way down the slope anyway. He could probably use the trees around him to his advantage if he needed to. He always figured out something when he was in the thick of battle, everything slowing down around him.

"What do you want?" Dan demanded, stopping a good ways away from the monster/god/possibly-lost-mortal. The woman tsked.

"Is that any way to speak to your mother?”

It was a correct description to say Dan was floored. Everything seemed to stop, his thoughts no longer moving, his eyes not blinking, his mouth dry as could be. And then it all kicked back on again. He swallowed uncomfortably.

“Um—Mom?”

Now that he knew it really was his mom, he felt stupid for not realizing sooner. He’d only met her a couple times before, brief and kind of awkward and just weird in general (his mom was a Greek goddess for fuck’s sake), but her presence was the same. She looked different—she always looked different—but she was still recognizable. It was the fact that she looked like someone Dan should know, someone whose name danced just out of reach, forever on the tip of his tongue. She was beautiful, the kind of beautiful that had you sure she was several kinds of famous, and just what was her name again?

Her name was Aphrodite.

Dan could still remember when she’d claimed him as her son. It’d been his first night at camp—at the time Alex had still been around, though now he was always gone, always out gathering more demigods. But everyone had greeted him kindly, had introduced themselves, had chatted with him and talked about their experiences and showed him how the magic plates and goblets worked (you said what you wanted to eat and it just appeared). It’d been that night when they were all gathered around the campfire that a glowing symbol had appeared about his head, burning so bright that it lit up the ground around him—a dove.

“Aphrodite!” one person had cheered, and then people were clapping him on the back and congratulating him and telling him random facts about the goddess that was apparently his mom.

Dan had been mortified.

Out of all the awesome gods that could’ve been his parent, he had to get Aphrodite? Goddess of love? The thought made Dan want to scoff. Love, the one thing he didn’t bother to care about. It wasn’t real, for one thing. Just a delusion people allowed themselves to have, which was idiotic on all their parts. “Love” made people weaker, it tore down their defenses and set them up for failure. Maybe a certain kind of love existed, the kind between father and son, between brothers or best friends, but Dan’s father was dead, along with any hope of Dan believing in the fairytale called love.

He’d met Emma on his second day of camp shortly after breakfast. “Son of Aphrodite, huh? It fits you,” she’d said. Dan had to stop himself from punching her. He had absolutely no idea what she could possibly have meant by it. Still, instead of starting his second day at camp by punching someone in the face, he just shrugged.

“I don’t see it,” he snorted. Their friendship had somehow progressed from there.

“Do you want something from me?” Dan finally asked, done gaping at his mother. He knew to other people she appeared as their greatest desire, or something, but to her children she was just beautiful. Unfairly so. It was said that all her children were beautiful too—sometimes Dan wondered if that gene had skipped him.

Aphrodite cocked her head. “I can’t just visit my son?”

“You planned to meet like this?” Dan questioned. “On the side of a highway?”

“Life can be strange,” Aphrodite said simply, before walking towards him. She hooked her arm through his and led him back towards the side of the road where she began walking, still towards Camp Half-Blood. “Just as love can be.”

Dan groaned.

“You don’t like love,” Aphrodite said. It wasn’t a question. Sometimes Dan wondered if the gods were secretly spying on their children all the time or if they could just be omniscient when they wanted to be. Or maybe they were just good guessers.

“I don’t believe in it,” Dan corrected.

“Strange,” Aphrodite said. “You’d think I’m proof that love is real.”

“You’re proof that beauty is real. And lust. And infatuation.”

“But not love.”

Dan shrugged.

“You’re young,” Aphrodite pointed out, heading along the same argument that Emma always did. He just hadn’t found the right person yet, hadn’t even been in a relationship, how could he think love wasn’t real?

“You think I’ll find the right girl and magically realize love is real,” Dan said flatly. Aphrodite pursed her lips.

“Something like that,” she murmured.

“Well, you’re wrong,” Dan said. And fed up with all the games, all the dancing around what was really happening here, he said, “So why are you really here? What do you need?”

Aphrodite sighed. “I was hoping you could help me. Go on a quest, maybe.”

Dan wanted to refuse. He wanted to tell his mother nah, no thanks, I’m good. Except it was what every demigod wanted most, to go on a quest. Dan had been on one once before, but it’d been short, and rather boring, and it hadn’t even been his quest anyway. And so, even though a part of him rebelled at the very idea, Dan found himself turning to her, wide-eyed with excitement. “What do you need me to do?”

“It’s my bow,” she said simply. “Cupid’s bow, really, but… it’s been stolen.”

“And you need to shoot people with love arrows or something?” Dan scoffed.

“Will you obtain it for me or not?” Aphrodite said abruptly, stopping their progression to turn and look at Dan, her hands on his shoulders.

“I will,” Dan found himself saying. He couldn’t have said no. Not a single part of him would’ve allowed it.

Aphrodite smiled, relieved and excited. “You’ll have to talk to the Oracle."

Dan felt giddy with excitement. He’d never talked to the Oracle before, never been inside the attic where it was stored. It was the spirit of Delphi trapped in its mummified body, which was honestly pretty terrifying when you thought about it, though Dan was still more than ready to hear a prophecy from it.

“Okay,” Dan said, trying and failing to keep how eager he sounded under wraps. “I’ll get your bow back for you, I promise.”

“Thank you,” she said, and then she surprised him. She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead, making Dan’s eyes go wide and his cheeks red with embarrassment. He wasn’t used to such displays of affection. He didn’t even like hugs, really, though Emma always insisted on giving him one when she saw him again (and another one before they separated at the end of the summer). It was really all he could stomach, usually.

“You’re welcome,” Dan stuttered, stumbling a quick step back and looking towards his feet, feeling supremely awkward. Parents were supposed to show affection. They were supposed to love and hug and kiss their kids, it should feel normal. Maybe the only reason it didn’t was because Dan hadn’t felt any semblance of it in ten years.

“Good luck, Dan, not that you’ll need it,” Aphrodite said pleasantly. But then she stepped forward again, putting her hand on his shoulder once more. She waited for him to look up at her before she spoke again. “You know that no form of love is wrong, don’t you?”

Dan snorted. “Don’t try to defend your weird Cupid’s bow shit to me—I don’t even care,” he said, rolling his eyes. It didn’t matter to him who she forced to fall in love. Aphrodite frowned, looking as if she wanted to say something more, but Dan shrugged her hand off his shoulder, feeling uncomfortable.

“You’re father was a wonderful man,” she said, and Dan almost choked on his tongue.

“Um. Yeah,” Dan said intelligently, before looking past her, avoiding her eyes. “Can I go to camp now?”

“You’re already there,” Aphrodite said. Dan spun around, mouth gaping as he saw Camp Half-Blood across the street from him, having shown up much sooner than it probably should have.

“Er—thank you,” Dan managed, but when he turned back around it was to find that his mother was already gone.

—

It was only after he’d had the life crushed out of him by Emma (never again) and a delicious meal in his stomach that he thought to bring up the fact that his mother had visited and imparted upon him a mission. The very second he brought it up Emma was bouncing up and down, was dragging Dan from the dining hall and to the Big House, where Chiron, the activities director, could always be found. And it turned out that even Mr. D couldn’t turn down their demand to go on a quest when it came explicitly from another god. And so, without further ado, Chiron was shooing Dan up the stairs, telling him to go to the attic and not come back until he had a prophecy.

It was creepy, first of all. Dan had never been higher than the main floor of the Big House and the further up he went the more he felt like he was distinctly out of bounds. To get into the attic he had to pull the lever of a trapdoor and climb a set of rickety stairs that descended. And the attic itself was a disaster—there was junk everywhere: abandoned furniture and random trophies from battles and quests, all covered in layer upon layer of dust. And in the back of the room seated in a chair was the Oracle.

Strips of cloth were hanging off its arms and torso, making Dan afraid it might start to unravel and he’d be left in here with a rotting body. Maybe its arm would fall off. He ignored his unease and crept closer. The Oracle was wearing a bunch of beaded necklaces, looking kind of like a long-dead hippie. He paused in front of it.

“Um,” he said, not really sure what he was supposed to do now that he was here. Perhaps he should’ve asked. “My mom wants me to go on a quest. Someone stole her Cupid’s bow.”

For a moment, nothing happened. But then, terrifyingly, the Oracle rose to its feet. Dan stumbled backwards, managing not to trip over any of the randomly left out junk, as green smoke poured from the Oracle’s mouth and circled around him. Its voice was unearthly, both in his mind and echoing around the room at the same time. Dan found himself clutching a nearby chair as his heart raced, listening with all his might, determined not to forget the prophecy.

“Three shall travel from sun to set,

While one will suffer for the cost of a bet,

But in one’s hour of greatest need,

A God’s assistance will help to succeed,

Burning passion and justice’s demands,

Will find the bow in another’s hands,

In the final hour let truth be told,

As one’s last wish takes its hold.”

The words were ringing around his head, spinning in circles, but he was determined to remember them. He repeated them under his breath, over and over again, barely even able to comprehend what they meant when he was so determined to not forget them.

The very second Dan was back with Emma, Chiron standing a little ways across from her, he repeated the prophecy.

“I wonder who’ll go with us,” Emma muttered.

“I wonder what it means,” Dan said.

“It’s little use trying to make sense of it,” Chiron said wisely. “Usually they have many meanings anyway.”

And so Dan waited to see who the third member of his quest was going to be. Many people had already volunteered but none of them seemed quite right—Dan was sure he’d know for certain when the right person came forward. With that on his mind he turned to go back to his cabin to pack. Who knew how long his quest was going to take?

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#phan #phanfiction #jilliancares #aif #all is fair #alright here it is!!!!#lemme know what you think #!!!#wonder who that third person on the quest'll be hmmmm

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