#fff340

***

“You two were like planets, orbiting around each other,” Mrs Hudson says afterwards.

“Don’t think so, Mrs H. More like parallel lines, never meant to cross, but fade away from each other after Moriarty’s scheme.”

John doesn’t say this aloud. In fact, he doesn’t say a word to anyone. He’s just trying to put one foot in front of the other, which honestly is a task he barely manages. His limp is back, more persistent than ever before. He finds his old cane in the back corner of his closet, and he hates every minute, hell, every second he has to lean on it. But needs must or he’ll stumble and fall to the ground. It doesn’t matter that it’s psychosomatic. To John, it feels utterly real. 

***

The only place anyone can hear his voice, is at Sherlock’s grave, but no one is listening. No matter the hour, the premises are vacated as if someone (probably Mycroft) has herded other mourners away to give John his privacy.

“You always said that I didn’t observe, only saw. Did you ever observe my true nature, Sherlock? That I loved you above all and everyone else? I’d say my actions at the pool should have given the game away – when I grabbed Moriarty and asked you to run. I would have died for you, then. To keep that remarkable brain of yours intact. And your beautiful self to boot.”

John’s voice is thick from the effort of holding back the tears that get more insistent for every passing minute. It’s painful to stay composed, but he deserves the pain after what he said to Sherlock the last time they were in the same room together. 

“How could I call you a machine, Sherlock? I meant it at the time, but I should’ve observedmore closely. That it was all a ruse to get me out. Don’t think I didn’t hear the devastation in your voice when you called me from the roof. You didn’t want to jump, did you? But you thought you needed to for some unfathomable reason. I wish you’d told me, asked me for advice. Or Mycroft. He would’ve gotten you out of whatever game this was. Did you really resent him that much? Were you willing to die before seeking guidance from him?”

John reaches out for the black stone, pats it, and says the same thing he says every time he’s here.

“Please, Sherlock. Stop this, whatever it is. Say it was some magic trick. Don’t. Be. Dead. For me.”

Tears are obscuring his vision and if he’d been a weaker man, he’d fallen to his knees, and hugged the imperious stone with the gilded words Sherlock Holmes carved into its polished front. 

But John is a soldier, so he straightens, barely leaning on his cane when he delivers his final words.

“I love you, Sherlock. More than life itself.”

He nods at the stone, turns, and limps away. In the taxi - on his way back to Baker Street - he wonders for the umpteenth time where his gun is.

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Leo knew that Hephaestus kids were scared of heights. Nyssa had told him that, once. She’d explained it, talked about how Hera had cast her son off a cliff, leaving him to fall, fall, fall and crash into the unforgiving arms of the Earth. It was a pivotal act, one that rippled out forever and ever into history. Hephaestus fell, and now his children found security only in the arms that caught him. 

Leo was scared of many things. He was scared of giant monsters and demigods with their sword leveled at his throat. He was scared of going to bed hungry and of waking up not knowing where his next bed would be. He was scared of failing, of being too much in all the wrong ways and never being enough to quite measure up. He was scared of people leaving him, of being alone again and again and again.

He was not scared of heights. 

Leo clung to Festus’s reins, bending forward and lowering his body as much as possible as he urged the dragon to fly higher and higher. They were going straight up, and Leo would have fallen, if not for the saddle he’d designed. He couldn’t fall, not when he was on Festus, and he knew Festus would never ever cast him off.  He was safe. The Earth couldn’t catch him all the way up here. He was free to do nothing but feel the sun warm his skin while sharp, thin air bit into it with little kitten milk teeth. 

He heard a shout of unrestrained joy and he looked over to see Jason flying up at his side. Jason had his glasses off, so Leo knew he was too close for Jason to see him properly, but it didn’t matter. Jason looked at him like he was seeing a joy he never thought he’d get the chance to have, and Leo’s heart pounded in his chest.

Once they got high enough, they leveled out. Jason was flying about thirty feet below him, but they were both soaring at breakneck speeds in the exact same direction. They were parallel lines, stories that were never meant to cross. Leo was a lowly Greek mechanic, son of the unloveable god of fire and soot and the inanimate. Jasson was the Roman son of the sky king, champion of the queen, heir apparent to the cosmos. He was so far above Leo that they shouldn’t have even been a blip on one another’s radar. But they were. They got sucked into one another’s orbit, a pair of stars with gravities so perfectly balanced that they would never crash, 

Then, Jason rolled over onto his back like he was floating in a pool, face relaxed and content. Festus did the same, and before Leo knew it, he was flying through the air, hanging upside down from the back of a dragon. He would have fallen, if not for his saddle, he could feel it straining against his skin in and effort to hold him up, to keep him from crashing down to the Earth. Saved from repeating his father’s tragic fate only by the scale of his ingenuity. 

Then Jason opened his eyes and looked at him. He knew he was far enough away now that Jason’s telescopic vision was counting each individual freckle across the bridge of his nose, gently tracing the shape of his jaw and the wind-tossel of his hair. He could feel those eyes, bluer than the sky itself on him, searing their love into his skin. He could see it in the way Jason’s face softened in adoration and he spread himself open wide in welcome. 

Leo’s breath hitched. Hephaestus kids were scared of heights. They found their comfort, their solace in the Earth that always caught them, the Earth that had caught their father. Jason was the sky, blue and brilliant and full of light and so very dangerous for someone like Leo. Leo, who never had to fear heights because he could count on the scale of his ingenuity. 

They were parallel lines, meant to never, never cross. 

And yet, Leo knew he’d let go, just like he had every time before. He’d release his ingenuity. He’d follow his father’s path. He unlatched his harness, he cast himself from the safety he had built with his own two hands. He fell, he fell, he fell, right into the arms that awaited him. 

The skies above Montauk were mottled gray, as if Zeus himself could not decide what his mood was. Summery blue peeked out behind clouds, yet they were also shaded with darkness. Waiting, watching.

Hermes tilted his head. His hand gripped tighter around his cellphone. His snakes, George and Martha, twisted around the antenna, whispering to be fed a new juicy rat as a snack. He drowned out their voices that echoed inside his head with concentration alone.

“What kind of message and to whom?” Hermes asked after a beat of silence.

Poseidon gazed at him for longer than was comfortable. The two of them had never been close exactly, but they never hated each other. Beneath the somewhat distant bond they shared, there was mutual respect.

But Hermes knew Poseidon well enough to see that there was something different about him this time, something that flickered across the irises of his eyes and begged on the side of fizzling out. There were storms in his eyes, a hurricane brewing. Then a light drizzle of rain, soaking into the earth and seeking roots in the sand. Sifting through the porous holes in limestone, creating caverns and caves, until all that water returned to where it belonged: the ocean.

“Perseus Jackson,” Poseidon said at last.

Hermes startled at the name. “Your demigod son?” he asked, furrowing his brows. George and Martha paused in their incessant rotation to listen in. “You want me to send a message…to a demigod?”

His uncle glared at him, a piercing stare that cut through him like the cold, relentless pull of the ocean’s depths. “You will send a message to him.” He breathed just long enough to calm the raging current that cast a shadow in his eyes. “He stands now on the beach of Long Island Sound…at Camp Half-Blood. Give him a message that states my approval of the quest he has prayed for. He will go to the Sea of Monsters to retrieve the Golden Fleece. He will go with his friends to save that satyr, Grover. And you…”

Hermes, suddenly unsure of the kind of power that simmered in the air, the scent of salt and brine permeating the winds, stiffened in anticipation.

“…you will give him the tools and the assistance he needs to set out onto the sea.”

“Why won’t you give him help directly? The sea is your domain,” Hermes replied. The power that churned around him felt suffocating, but he tamped it down with his own will.

“I will help him when the time is right,” Poseidon said. He glanced now out into the waves, watching them crest upon some distant shore that only he could see. “But the Sea of Monsters is outside of my purview. You know this.” He let out a breath. “Yet I will do…” His voice trailed off, and he stopped talking, his words caught in the salty air.

Something unknown had stretched between them, something Hermes did not want to touch. The water rose just enough to settle like a shallow pool around their feet. Poseidon had called the sea toward him. The temperature was warm and comforting.

He thought of the storms that he saw brewing in his uncle’s eyes. He had seen them before, for centuries of knowing someone made you privy of the little things, even the things they did not want you to notice.

These storms, though, were not anger.

“You’re desperate,” Hermes finally spoke.

Poseidon turned to him immediately. Now, he looked wary. The water rose to their calves.

“I know that look in your eyes because I’ve had it,” Hermes continued, unfazed. “You’re desperate to help your child. You want to help him, but your hands are tied. So, you look for other avenues in which you can.”

The waters receded, just barely.

Hermes lightened his hold on his cellphone. A shiver of energy tickled his shoes. He was ready to do his duty.

“I’ll help you,” he added, and his voice was almost a rasp. “But you must also help me.”

“So, this is transactional?” Poseidon snapped. “Will you use this against me, then? Am I to be your pawn?”

That look in his eyes was back again. This time, speckled with the swirling colors of the deep. But Hermes knew better. This was desperation unleashed.

“You will help me because I am also desperate,” Hermes answered. “You will direct Luke’s ship close enough to the shores of Camp Half-Blood so that your son can go to him. So that maybe, Percy can have a chance to save him, too.”

The ocean breeze was gentle on his cheeks, enveloping him in a kind of billowing calm.

Poseidon faced him fully. “How can you be sure that Luke will not harm what is mine?”

“I can’t be sure.”

“Then why should I allow this?”

“Because you know why I am so desperate. I will do anything, and so will you.”

His uncle’s gaze did not leave him, not for a second. And then, after a time, Poseidon raised his arm toward the sea, and the currents shifted into place.

“His ship is where it should be,” Poseidon said. “Now do what I have asked.”

Hermes did not smile when he left. He did not smile when he conjured the bag that held all the supplies Percy would need. Instead, he kept all his desperation inside, hoping that one day all of this would be worth it.

It happened after a year I was born.

“Thanks to you, he begins to live again,” said my aunt and godmother Masuho no Susuki, the Princess of the West, as she combed my long hair. “It was your father’s insistence that Yukiya must visit you. After you smiled at Yukiya for the first time, everyone in the room saw him cry upon seeing you.”

I couldn’t recall the details but I knew in my heart that aside from my parents, I was drawn to him. And yet, darkness still followed him. Darkness and melancholy. My father, the Emperor, noticed it. They were always together but he couldn’t get to him.

One day he invited him to have a supper with us.

“Why don’t you stay the night, Yukiya? I’ll need to see you in the morning too.”

Yukiya agreed. He would always do whatever my father said.

“If that’s what you desire, Your Majesty. Then I’ll spend the night here.”

It was not unusual to see Yuki-san dine with us every night at the palace anymore.

Yukiya’s former quarters at the Sunrise Palace used to be empty. As a child it was my favourite hiding place whenever I played with my cousins.

Staying up late, my feet brought me there. I heard murmurs coming from the chamber that I tiptoed carefully aiming to hide behind a huge column.

There were two figures on the futon.

Yukiya was bound in red ropes, like the ones he wore around his body as a Yamauchi soldier to keep his katana. I hadn’t seen him naked, but he was on that night lying on his stomach, crying.

“Don’t hold back. I want to hear you scream like the courtesans at the Hanamachi.” The Emperor, whose face was hidden if not for his kimono, commanded his assistant.

Yukiya’s full voice roared in the four corners of the chamber.

Hearing Yuki-san’s raw, guttural voice made me afraid. Silent as a ghost, I crawled until I reached the shoji, got up and began to run back to my room.

//

Years passed after the deaths and the change of leadership, a new ruler succeeded my father. He was a mere boy, only 16 years old, and Yukiya’s puppet. I am now confined to be one of His Majesty’s concubines despite my rebellion that was not successful.

I was forced into this situation after the general whose former name was Yukiya ordered me or I could die and my family dishonoured if I didn’t say yes. Using an alias he abandoned his family name and became the prime minister.

On the night I had to share with the young emperor, he fell into a stupor. The incense, a specialty of the Southern Family, had rendered him unconscious to the point of death.

Compared to him, I trained myself to different types and levels of poisons as part of my education when I was still a young princess who was poised to inherit the kingdom. The new emperor lacked those skills.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” I said.

A man in his early 40s, grey streaks on his otherwise long auburn hair, entered. The length of that hair was a symbol of aristocracy.

“I am here, Princess,” his tone was annoyed but I knew in my heart that he was happy to see me.

“You came.”

I sat up wearing only a white-lilac kimono with butterflies strewn on it, which I hoped he could recognise.

“Your letter seemed urgent. What is it that you want, Princess?”

“Come here. Share my bed. Don’t worry His Majesty is only sleeping.” I assured him. The prime minister sniffed the air. He smiled, then shook his head. He, too, was trained to withstand the poisons as part of his training as a soldier.

“This is not proper, Princess.” He turned his back, wanting to leave.

“I could kill the emperor.”

My kimono was open. I had long abandoned my undergarments. My visitor was as tall as my father.

“Make love to me. Give me the child who will inherit Yamauchi.” I slowly undressed him. He didn’t resist my hands as I removed his pieces of clothing.

When he was naked, memories long buried resurfaced.

Our parallel lines began to intersect again.

“These are fresh welts…” I touched the angry red lines decorating his chest and flat stomach, his strong arms and shoulders. As a young girl, I used to admire him. “Let Yuki-san be my husband, Your Majesty,” I said not thinking of the consequences. My father, surprised, only laughed. “Sit down on the bed.” I let my hand travel through his body and every time I put pressure on the elongated wounds his face scrunched.

“Of course, Haruma, your adjutant, does this to you. Is he much better than my father?”

I untied my hair black as a night. Next to the young sovereign was a bundle of red ropes. I started to tie Yukiya. Slowly but steadily.

“As a child, I saw you and my father in your former chamber. At first I didn’t understand it. Scared of your screams. Red ropes all around you. Then before you left Yamauchi to study abroad I went back and watched the two of you,” I said, tying the last piece around his groin. Tight enough for him to feel the pressure. “Then my father kissed you on the lips, everywhere his hand had been. He never showed that kind of affection toward my mother. Well, not when I was there. But you, Yuki-san, he worshipped you. And you betrayed him!”

With my hair loose around Yukiya, like a cage surrounding him, he covered his mouth as I let him take me.

I removed his hand replacing it with my mouth and tongue. “No, I want to hear you scream like the whores from Hanamachi.”

I resembled my father in many ways.

//

A year after our coupling, I bore a child. The young emperor abdicated his throne. Together with his empress they moved into a monastery.

Yuki-san became the lone authority in the government. He doted on my son, who looked exactly like my father.