Hecate cannot deny the boymom allegations.

A crick is forming in Ethan's neck. He doesn't move. He could, if he wanted to, but Alabaster is settled on top of him like a particularly lanky greyhound, long limbs snuck between the narrowest spaces possible—arms looped around where Ethan's back met the couch armrest, legs stubbornly squeezed between Ethan's thighs.

He's heavier than he looks, Ethan thinks, as though he's ever forgotten the ridiculously large broadsword Alabaster wielded effortlessly, or the way he never seemed to run out of breath in combat despite twisting incantations down and around his tongue. So much power in a single, frail-looking demigod two years his junior.

"He's not ready," Nemesis had said to him acerbically, "despite what Hecate thinks."

"He's easily the strongest demigod on our side."

"It's not his power that concerns me. It's his ability to bear it, rather. He's young—" Aren't we all? Ethan tiredly thought— "and recent events haven't quite helped. Hermes' son was a hard loss on all of us, but sacrifices must be made. He does not quite understand that."

Ethan had tried his best to not flinch as his mother's voidlike presence brushed against his back.

"But you do."

"Then what would you ask of me?"

He hadn't dared look, but something like a smile curled the edges of her words. "That you... help him understand.”

The tip of Ethan's finger pushes down into something damp and soft—he looks, and it's the seam of Alabaster's mouth.

A terrible heat coils in his stomach, and his other hand balls into a fist.

Alabaster is snoring soundly—tired from his latest mission, most like. A mission that he'd argued against but ended up leading anyway because Ethan had advised as much.

An opinion Alabaster listened to and actually mused over rather than ignoring it like he always could, being a General now, because Ethan did things like letting him sleep close at night, when the silence deafened Alabaster with doubts and nightmares. Because unlike the other older demigods, Ethan didn’t try to be smart with Alabaster out of insecurity about their ranks.

Because Ethan saw how Alabaster looked at him, blazing green eyes adoring instead of haughty and scrutinizing, and said nothing, just let him step a little closer.

Alabaster’s soft breaths are barely audible against the roar of Ethan’s pulse in his ears. It pounds even against what feels like a piece of lead expanding where his neck’s positioned awkwardly.

It’s for the cause. And if it’s for the cause, it means it’s for his own good, too.

Ethan’s day clothes scratch at his skin. The muscles around Ethan’s empty eye socket twitches against the sweat gathering underneath the eyepatch he doesn’t take off.

It’s not that I’m enjoying it…

The hand that’s wrapped around Alabaster’s head remains where it is, fingers lingering near the corner of his mouth.