Percy Jackson One Shots and Short Stories

#53 - Stuck With U (Part I)

Jason sighed. "Fair enough. I do miss them." He used to live with the three other guys in this apartment, but they had since moved out. Looking around sometimes made him nostalgic. "I miss Frank's cooking. I was joking earlier; I'm a terrible cook—"

Piper gasped suddenly, hand grasping his arm. "Jason!"

"What? What?" Jason panicked, frantically turning to her.

"I-I think I just had my first contraction," Piper stammered.

Jason's eyes widened. "Oh my God! Okay-okay, I-I'll get Will on the phone, I'll get your pillow—"

"No, stupid," Piper interrupted. "The baby won't come for hours. I have to wait till the contractions are consistent and five minutes apart."

Jason blinked. He had fallen asleep reading one of those parenting books, basically skipping over everything related to the birth. In hindsight, that probably hadn't been the best idea.

"So we just...wait?" Jason voiced uncertainly. When she nodded, Jason leaned back into the couch. "That's anticlimactic."

<<< >>>

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Calypso followed her mantra as she felt the magic course through her, every fibre of her body singing with it as she twirled her hands with the over-practised movements and familiarity it always brought.

The breeze she manipulated brushed past her cheeks, making her laugh at its playfulness. Magic always brought her comfort. She hummed under her breath, the song only strengthening her powers.

Her music was interrupted by Calypso's foot hitting a metallic object, an ungraceful "oof!" escaping her before she fell head over heels to the ground.

"Leo!" Calypso growled, recognising it as one of his bots. A demigod with ADHD being cooped at home was one thing. Then there was Leo.

He'd made up for his boredom and daily monotony by tinkering, constructing about a dozen things a day, then taking them apart.

This was one of his prototypes for a cleaning robot — leave it to Leo to find a way around doing his chores. Calypso opened her mouth to shout for him, but she paused short when she realised that her breeze was gone.

Magic didn't just disappear. Sometimes it dissipated. Sometimes it returned to her. This was just...gone.

"What..." Calypso's voice trailed off as she heard a low creaking noise. In horror, her gaze drifted down slowly to the cleaning not, the limbs starting to shift.

Uh oh.

Her magic animating the breeze must've entered the bot when she lost control. Which meant that the robot was now...

"Leo!" Calypso yelled again when the robot burst into action, spraying soap everywhere and the vacuum function revving up.

Racing out of the room, Calypso slammed the door behind her, chest heaving with pants. Oh no, oh no, oh no...

Her boyfriend sauntered past the door, grinning goofily to himself.

"Calypso?" Leo asked in confusion. "Are you okay?"