sky blue ● jason grace

i

Daria ran up the stairs to the deck, he was right behind her, and if she looked back for a second-

Yep. Percy's stupid grin would be peering at her like he was a damn banshee.

"Leave me alone!" she shrieked. But it was no use; Percy was several leagues taller than her and several seconds faster. He grabbed her waist, tossing her around like they were in a wrestling ring, which is what it felt like when she hit her head on the doorframe. "Ow!"

"Whoops," he muttered, though he didn't sound the least bit regretful.

She squirmed in his arms, there was only so long the Son of Poseidon could hold out against a seventeen year old girl. "Put me down!"

He laughed, speeding past Annabeth and Leo, who were discussing something that neither Jackson could even attempt to understand, at the helm. They looked on, amused, but neither of them rushed to her defence. Traitors.

She could now see the glittering crystal ocean and lucious green mountain tops in a way that she only might've been able to if she stood on her tippy-toes. Of course, the salty air and sea breeze might have been much more enjoyable if she wasn't distracted by the assault that she was currently helpless against.

"Perseus Jackson," she thumped his upper back. "I can't stand you!"

"You get used to it after a while," Annabeth called from a few feet away.

Percy spun and Daria could basically feel her brain jerking around in her head. "Hey!"

He was distracted, now was her chance. She kicked him in the ribs, hard enough to hurt, but not enough to bruise anything. Percy yelped, his grip loosening just enough for her to push off of him and land square on her feet, if not with a little jolt.

Percy clutched his side, gasping and frowning simultaneously. "This is your fault you know."

"Literally how is this my fault?" she demanded. "Literally how?"

"Oh, so my baby cousin hooks up with her boyfriend on a war boat, in the middle of a deadly quest, and I'm not allowed to make fun of her?" He crossed his arms, pouting like a child. "You're a, a fun-ruiner, that's how it's your fault."

"Announce it to the whole town, why don't you?" Leo shouted. "I'd love to know about my best friend making out or worse on my war b-"

"I'm going to launch myself into the ocean," Daria warned.

"Tell me about it, man!" Percy responded. Maybe the two of them would learn that they could close the distance between them instead of reenacting what a sonic boom would sound like. "Jason's is the cabin next to mine!"

"Tie weights to my legs," she continued, though she had to acknowledge the rising blush on her cheeks. "Good luck finding me at the bottom of the sea, Fish Boy."

"Oh come on," Annabeth said, having enough common sense to be walking over to the pair as she lectured. "You had to have told him. No way Percy figured it out on his own."

"Once again," Percy said as if he was presenting a Shakepsearean tragedy to his junior class. "I repeat, hey."

"Everyone on this ship is incorrigible."

"That's Hazel erasure."

Daria considered Percy's argument. "True," she conceded. "Hazel can't do any wrong." But she flipped off her cousin anyway, causing him to react by sticking his tongue out in the most childish way possible. Percy Jackson had wrapped snark and innocence into one body a long time ago.