Chapter Text
Only Jungkook’s flaky, mischievous, jerk of a father could have created Yeojin.
“Namjoon’s coming, Jungkook!” she hollered, loud enough that the whole of Camp Half-blood could hear as they clustered around, adjusting their armor for capture the flag. “Quick, fix your hair!”
Jungkook had been fitting the newest unclaimed campers with shields and weapons, but ducked behind the shed and buried his face in his hands, not bothering to look. His sword clanked loudly against his armored skirt. Yeojin, daughter of Hermes, dashed around the side of the building. “You are not prepared for this one,” she said. “He’s wearing the shortest shorts.” She poked her head around the shed, horsehair plume bobbing. “And his breastplate actually fits him this time.”
“Yeojin, come here. Your straps are too loose.”
She motioned him closer to fix them himself and he went tiredly. “Girl, you’re sixteen. You’ve been here six years. You should know how to do this.”
“I never actually get in the fight,” she said. “I patrol the border.”
“You’re not doing that tonight,” he said. “I’m putting you on the flag guard. You need to fight more. I don’t want you getting killed during the school year when I’m not around.”
She scowled. “Seriously, look at Namjoon.”
Jungkook couldn’t help himself. He peered out from behind the shed and caught sight of the son of Zeus wringing his hands anxiously. Those shorts were so short. Little red things riding way up his thighs with the sword belt hanging haphazardly from his skinny hips. The breastplate clung to his front. He carried a longbow that Jungkook knew, as a part-time archery instructor, that he definitely couldn’t be trusted with. “Who gave him a bow?” Yeojin giggled.
“Probably one of our siblings. No one would do that on accident.”
“Or an Ares camper. Did you know they made him a team captain tonight?”
Jungkook snorted out loud. Out in the crowd, Namjoon turned in a circle with his sword sticking out from his waist. Will Solace leapt out of the way.
“He’s the worst fighter!” Yeojin squeaked. “Son of Zeus, my ass.”
“Language, Yeojinnie. There are a bunch of little ones around. And you can’t blame him. He only got here this summer.”
“And he can’t run fast at all!”
“Well, he can call lightning bolts out of the sky like Gandalf on steroids and he’s a better strategist than most of the Athena cabin, so…”
Yeojin gave him a shit-eating grin and wiggled her eyebrows. “Well if you think he’s such an asset, you’ll be delighted to know whose team we’re on.”
Jungkook gulped. “I was hoping Nico’s team.”
“Nope,” Yeojin said, and patted Jungkook’s breastplate, though the wicked grin on her face had him immediately on his toes. “I made Yoongi sign us up with Mr. Lightning Butt over there.”
“I hate you,” Jungkook hissed.
Jungkook was one of those old campers, one of the dragged-in-at-age-seven campers, those year-round campers who spent most of his life there, whose mortal parent had been too excited about his Hermes parentage to keep it secret. Jungkook had known too much for a long time.
He’d hoped that meant he’d develop cool Hermes powers. For years he’d waited to become good at something, maybe pick-pocketing, maybe sneaking into places without being seen. Eventually he got good at everything. It wasn’t until he’d become an archery instructor, a consistent footrace winner, assistant nurse, and an expert lockpick that his father visited him, and then only for a few minutes on his tenth birthday to wish him well and give him a pat on the head.
At twelve, he found out he could run faster than the horses on their best day, and then faster than cars driving along the road. His siblings said sometimes he blurred when he moved, even when he wasn’t trying. One summer he ran across the top of the whole lake without getting his feet wet. They would have put him on the end of summer bead for that, but that was the year Percy Jackson explored the Labyrinth so that went on there instead.
Jungkook still hadn’t gone on any quests. Percy could walk into camp one day, and walk out the next with a quest. He rarely stayed a week without taking a new contingent of heroes off on some wild adventure. When Jason Grace, Percy, and Nico ran off with the most powerful demigods to save the world, Jungkook spent the summer cleaning the Pegasus stables.
At thirteen, Jungkook earned a permanent reputation for ignoring every child of Poseidon, Zeus, and Hades that walked through the gate. Nico and Percy still cold shouldered him years after that stopped feeling so bitter. He hadn’t bothered to fix those relationships. He had enough friends, and still couldn’t escape the occasional stroke of bitterness when Percy came back and stuck so close to his chosen friends, never really taking much responsibility inside the camp, but always trusted to lead the battles.
Namjoon appeared just inside the border earlier that summer, barely alive, gorgeous. He’d been battered by twenty-one years of living without training and protection, covered in old, barely visible scars and even more paranoid and jumpy than the Nemesis campers. He was tall and stammering, already out of college. He tended to ramble when he spoke, stood as tall as a pine tree and fell asleep so easily in the hospital bed as Jungkook bottle-fed him nectar and sang the hymn to Apollo that Will Solace had taught him.
Once he healed Jungkook spent one blissful afternoon with him, wandering around and showing off the grounds, explaining the cabins, reassuring Namjoon that he wasn’t too old (though he definitely was), that there was still a place for his as a counselor and that Chiron would never let a half-blood go before he had them trained at least enough to defend themselves, no matter their age. It wasn’t like they didn’t take in many new adults because they didn’t like to, it was because half-bloods that didn’t make it to camp as children were usually, well, dead, by his age.
Maybe Jungkook was a little too excited about Hermes and a little too unexcited about the Big Three cabins. Maybe he’d said some shit about Percy, Jason, and Nico to try to look cool. That night at the campfire, Zeus claimed Namjoon as his son, to the shock of the camp, and Namjoon hadn’t said much more than polite nothings to Jungkook since.
As two of the most populated cabins, Athena and Hermes didn’t join forces very often. Their fighting styles also tended to get in the way of each other.
“No distraction team with firecrackers to the left of the lightning tree?” Jungkook moped.
“No,” Yoongi said, Athena’s main strategist for the night. Namjoon leaned over Yoongi’s shoulder with his eyebrows tilted in sharply and his hand on his chin, looking sexy and contemplative. He hadn’t taken to weapons and fighting since arriving, too uncoordinated and awkward, but the Athena cabin had practically adopted him when they discovered what a mind for strategy he had.
“We’re feinting to the middle,” Namjoon said. “Scouts will sneak in either side and comb through, hopefully returning with no injuries and good information. That shouldn’t take too long.”
“I’m a scout, right?”
“No again,” Yoongi said. “The Nike cabin will take charge of that.” The Victor twins gave each other a high five. Jungkook narrowed his eyes. They’d tried to get him banned from footraces for cheating last summer. They hadn’t managed it and hadn’t forgiven him.
“You’re in phase two.” Yoongi continued. “We can’t risk you as a scout.”
This seemed stupid. Jungkook was their best asset. “You’re gonna keep me on defense for the whole first half of the game?”
Yoongi glared. “Would you rather be the team captain?”
“I was under the impression you weren’t the team captain.”
Namjoon let out what sounded a little like a whine that turned into a very quiet “pleasestopfighting.”
“Phase two,” Yoongi said, pushing blocks around on the map like they were planning to invade New York and not half of a tiny forest they’d all been in a million times. “Once we know where the flag is. We send a horde of campers from both our cabins. What we have right now is numbers and we’re going to use it. They’ll be disguising all the scouts going out again. But you and Namjoon are going to be the real team going after it.” Jungkook’s throat went suddenly and abruptly dry. He glanced up at Namjoon, who was also looking at Yoongi with his eyes wide like he’d had no idea this was part of the plan. Yeojin’s trademark gasp came from the group behind him.
“Of course, if the scouts bring back the flag, that’s great, but you should be arriving at about the right time to slip through and sprint off with it. We have you on flag guard until then.”
“Are you sure?” Namjoon said softly behind Yoongi. “I, um, really don’t think you should send me over the line. I’m not good at this.”
“But you’re Zeus boy,” Yoongi said, smirking. “I’m expecting you to sacrifice yourself if it means giving Jungkook a chance to run, and they’ll be happy to fight you.”
Namjoon looked like he’d rather fight a minotaur.
“Glad you’re both so happy to spend time with each other,” Yoongi said, and Jungkook couldn’t even bear to look up and see what kind of face Namjoon was pulling.
Somewhere along the line, someone figured out Jungkook’s crush on Namjoon.
Okay, not Somewhere and Someone. It was Taehyung. Taehyung son of Aphrodite took one look at Jungkook’s face the first time Namjoon entered the sword-fighting practice grounds with armor falling off his shoulders and sword shaking in his weak arms and knew immediately.
Taehyung told the rest of the Aphrodite cabin, and then Jimin told Hoseok son of Apollo, who told the whole camp on accident less than a second later.
Nico talked to him that night for the first time in years, just appearing out of the darkness as Jungkook hid behind the arts and crafts cabin after the most harrowing meal he’d eaten at camp since his very first day there, with Seokjin from the Dionysus cabin a table or two over throwing grapes and singing love songs. Namjoon sat alone at his table with his food, looking less blissfully ignorant and more coldly detached.
“You’re okay,” Nico had said, giving him a cold and unnerving pat to the shoulder. “This is, um…Well, you’re not the first, I guess. It’ll work out. I don’t think he was around when Hoseok, um, screamed.”
But there was no way Namjoon didn’t know, what with every kid in the Hermes cabin under the age of seventeen whistling whenever Jungkook and Namjoon got within ten feet of each other and the kids from Ares catcalling Namjoon on Jungkook’s behalf. Jungkook had spent a full two months avoiding activities and walking in the other direction whenever Namjoon came near. Meanwhile, Namjoon stayed so polite during archery lessons that it perpetually felt like they were meeting for the first time. He could only hope Namjoon didn’t notice the way his voice and hands shook when he corrected Namjoon’s firing stance, but Namjoon’s jumpiness and red cheeks said otherwise.
Yeojin had seated herself on the edge of the pile of rocks that held the flag, at a good distance to stage-whisper to Jungkook and toss things at Ares campers trying to sneak along the open edge of the clearing, though she didn’t think to get up and go fight them. That always fell to Jungkook, firing arrows into the woods at random, especially the firecracker ones. That always seemed to rile the Ares campers up more, but it was Jungkook’s job as a counsellor to get all the campers bloodthirsty and primed for attack, so that was fine.
“How you feeling?” Yeojin asked.
“Sick,” Jungkook answered.
She leaned in to give him a hug and her armor clanged uncomfortably against his. He accepted the rare sweetness happily, even with buckles pinching his ribs. “You better flirt like hell, dude,” she said. “Yoongi has given you a gift.”
Jungkook glanced across the rock pile to Namjoon, who stood with his back to them, black hair swept back uneasily as he peered at the tree line, long legs nearly bare in those small red basketball shorts.
“He should keep his helmet on,” Jungkook murmured.
“I don’t care if we lose the game,” Yeojin whispered. “Shove him down a steep hill if it forces you two to hang out a little longer.”
“We’re already forcing him to stay with me longer than he wants to,” Jungkook said. “He hates me.”
“Shut up,” Yeojin said. “Stop it. Seduce that tall drink of water.”
“Where do you learn these things?”
Laurel Victor from the Nike Cabin raced into the clearing and dove at Namjoon.
“There’s your news,” Yeojin said, standing grimly. Once phase two began and most of the team laid siege to the other side, she’d have a lot more work on her hands. “Go get him, tiger.”
Namjoon and Jungkook had slowed to a walk so Namjoon would stop tripping over tree roots and kicking branches across the rustling leaves. Jungkook’s heart kicked and spluttered in his chest every time Namjoon murmured an apology.
“So how long have you been in camp?” Namjoon asked after a couple minutes of sneaking from tree to tree in what seemed to be an abandoned spot of forest.
“Eleven years. Since I was seven.”
Namjoon made a little grunt and then spent another couple minutes picking over the leaves. By the silence of the woods, it seemed like their team hadn’t started the assault. He wasn’t sure they were even across the border yet. “I hear you stay here year-round too.”
“Yeah, my home life is kind of crazy. Mom is way too aware of our world. Monsters won’t leave me alone. It’s better here.”
“My mom still doesn’t believe that Greek Gods exist,” Namjoon said. “Not really. She started to come around after I destroyed her car with a lightning bolt, but we haven’t talked much since then.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. Everyone has a breaking point, I guess, and she’s put up with a hell of a lot because of me.”
“I feel that,” Jungkook said.
They walked along quietly for a little while.
“What’s it like, spending your life here?”
Jungkook hadn’t really been feeling good about that recently, watching the friends he grew up with leave for college and come to camp less and less. Seokjin kept saying he wouldn’t be back at all next summer. Yoongi had landed a job as music producer in Los Angeles and that would be keeping him busy. Hoseok joined a professional dance troupe. Jimin was headed to college and Taehyung was starting a career in modelling. Jungkook hadn’t technically finished high school. He’d decided he liked someone for the first time in his life and dozens of children had decided they were going to circle like harpies on a scent, and ruined it.
“It’s like a giant family,” he said, and meant it sourly.
“Ah,” Namjoon said. “The kind with too many crazy aunts.”
“And too many bratty cousins and too many psychotic uncles and too many untrained dogs.”
Namjoon fell silent. Jungkook realized he was being way too negative to be likable. “But it’s not all bad. I love the kids. I love the weather. I love the…”
Big, fat raindrops clattered softly against the roof of the forest. Jungkook stood there as the clattering got louder and harder and then soaked through the leaves and started running down Jungkook’s helmet into his eyes. The shower poured above them.
“Well, no one will hear us now,” Jungkook said, turning around.
Namjoon stood there staring up at the evening sky with his helmet off, not a drop of water on his upturned face. The drops seemed to part around him like an invisible umbrella. “I didn’t know I could do this,” he murmured.
Jungkook took off his helmet too, just to be part of the moment.
Somewhere off in the forest, screaming erupted like a second rush of rain, the dim sounds of clanging metal barely audible in the quiet downpour. Namjoon’s gaze came back down and met Jungkook’s, really looking each other in the eye for the first time in a while. He had a soft smile on his face, a subtle joy, that moment of discovering a little godly skill you didn’t know you had. Jungkook love that look on his siblings and friends. It looked breathtaking on Namjoon.
The umbrella over Namjoon’s head spread over Jungkook in a warm rush of air. The rain poured around them, but stopped dripping on Jungkook’s head and into his eyes.
“Should we keep going?” Namjoon said.
They walked through the forest in their little bubble, Jungkook still sopping wet and dripping everywhere, Namjoon untouchable. Jungkook kind of missed getting soaked.
“How did you stay safe for so long?” Jungkook said. “You’re a son of Zeus so there had to be monsters, right?”
Namjoon nodded. “There were always monsters, but I was protected by a very obstinate and skeptical mother who refused to let me believe my own stories for the longest time. I made it almost all the way through high school without really believing there was something different about me. Chiron says that kept the monsters away.” He sounded a little regretful. “I just thought I was dumb.”
“Namjoon.”
“I know I’m not.”
Jungkook couldn’t imagine going through life with nothing to blame the ADHD, dyslexia, weird character quirks, and tendency towards dramatic self-preservation on.
“How did you fight them. You’re not very…fighty.”
Namjoon made an awkward, pained noise of agreement. “That’s how I know I’m smart, really. There’s always a way to escape. And I figured out pretty early on that electricity is everywhere. You can always figure out a way to electrocute something.”
He looked a little sheepish, like he felt guilty for killing all the monsters that had come after him in his life.
“I’ve never considered electrocuting them,” Jungkook said. “That works?”
“Yeah, it works. Really? Never?”
Jungkook shrugged. “I haven’t actually fought a lot of monsters. Only when they attack camp, usually.”
Namjoon raised his eyebrows. “You seem so experienced though.”
Jungkook shrugged. They continued on in silence. The screaming and clanging trailed away through the forest to their right. The flag was lodged in a small cliff somewhere up the hill they were walking. They’d run into it any minute.
“Did you ever consider that the electricity you were shocking monsters with was coming from you?” Jungkook asked.
“I figured that out fairly late, actually,” Namjoon said. He’d stopped walking, staring uphill to where they could both barely see a person walking back and forth between the trees against a cliff face. “And I don’t think it always was me, actually. I think it was Zeus sometimes. Dad, I mean.”
“Probably,” Jungkook said. “Hermes helped get me to camp. Hasn’t done much since, but you know. Parents.”
Namjoon stood there in his magic umbrella, no longer watching the guards pacing away in the distance at the top of the hill, guards that seemed to be pointing in the other direction. He stared at Jungkook and Jungkook stared back, neither of them much interested in the flag, or the scout from Nike suddenly cresting the hill, snatching the flag, and sprinting out of sight. A horde of Ares and Demeter campers followed behind, then Yoongi and some other Hermes and Athena campers fighting furiously along beside them.
“I’m sorry,” Namjoon said suddenly.
“About what?”
Namjoon’s cheeks turned slowly pink. “The…teasing. Um. Everyone saying you have a crush on me.” He stared off through the trees, eyes not following the red streak of the flag as it passed through the trees away to their left. “You just…always look so uncomfortable about it I thought…since you don’t like kids of the Big Three I figured they were making fun of you, and…” Jungkook felt suddenly dizzy with horror. “I’m sorry they harass you about it.”
“I do,” Jungkook gasped.
Namjoon glanced cautiously at him with his beautiful, noble, godly face, closed off and uncertain. “You don’t like…?”
“I do have a crush on you.”
Namjoon’s cautious expression froze on his face like he didn’t understand.
“It’s not because I don’t like…Namjoon I haven’t not liked…that was a thing when I was thirteen and super jealous of Percy Jackson. He’s like…about my age and always does cool shit and I was jealous.” Namjoon’s eyebrows raised. “I don’t actually not like you guys,” Jungkook rushed out. “I don’t know why that’s still going around. I didn’t like Nico for a little while because he was creepy, and I didn’t like Jason Grace because…I don’t know. He’s just too perfect. I like you.”
Namjoon’s eyebrows had been travelling further and further up under his bangs. Jungkook’s throat closed up suddenly and he, for some stupid reason, ducked his head and put his helmet back on. Namjoon made another small, confused noise, this one almost like a snort and almost like he thought Jungkook was cute. Campers thundered through the woods in the near distance, shrieking and clanging their weapons.
“So they’re making fun of you…for liking me?”
Jungkook shrugged. “They’re kids. They do this to people when they like each other. It’s some dumb matchmaking thing. Like nosey aunts, I guess.”
“Okay,” Namjoon said weakly, “Because I thought they were making fun of me for liking you.”
Jungkook stood there, the nose piece on his helmet making things a little harder to see, and blinked blankly at him. “For liking me?”
“Yeah, Yoongi at least knows,” Namjoon said, mumbling into his collar a little. “and so does the entire Aphrodite cabin because I kept…asking about you, I guess. And then everyone started teasing you about liking me when I thought you really didn’t so I thought it was targeted and—” He slapped a hand over his forehead. “God, it’s been keeping me up nights for weeks wondering why the camp hates me so much.”
“Oh my god, no,” Jungkook squeaked. “They just want me to make a move on you, that’s all. I’m so sorry.”
In the distance, a horn sounding and both cheering and swearing erupted through the forest, including a giant F-bomb from a camper skidding down the hill nearby.
“Language,” Jungkook and Namjoon said at once.
“What in Hades are you two doing over here?” he said. Ellis from the Ares cabin, by the sound of him.
“Failing to steal the flag,” Jungkook sighed. “Language.”
“Oh my god,” Ellis said, stumbling towards them. “Is that Namjoon and Jungkook?”
“Yup.”
“GUYS, JUNGKOOK AND NAMJOON ARE ALONE IN THE FOREST OVER HERE! I THINK THEY’RE GONNA KISS. GUYS, COME SEE! HEY GUYS!”
Jungkook threw Namjoon over his shoulder and ran.
(“We’ve been waiting for weeks,” Yeojin would say later. “You’re both dumbasses so we knew it would take a lot of pushing.”
“You didn’t have to be mean about it,” Jungkook said.
“Were we mean?”
“Well…”
She pulled the curtain back from Jungkook’s bunk to reveal their chat to the rest of the Hermes cabin, small as they were now with so few sleeping bags of unclaimed campers on the floor. “Were we too mean to Jungkook and Namjoon.”
The whole cabin unanimously chorused “No.” She snapped the curtain shut.
“See? You guys were just being dumb. It’s fine. Not our fault you both thought you hated each other. We didn’t know about that part.”
He reached out and tugged her ponytail out of place. She fussed with it for a minute, kicking him as she fixed it. “We got too excited about the prospect of you being happy with someone,” she said. “Sorry.”
A voice from above that he recognized as Julia yelled, “I think it’s gross!”
“He can’t stay single forever,” Yeojin yelled back.
“It’s like my mom dating someone. It’s gross,” Julia yelled back.
“You’re right, Julia,” Jungkook said. “Dating is gross. Don’t do it.”
Yeojin kicked him really hard in the shin. The sweet conversation came permanently to an end and cabin-wide combat began.)
Jungkook dropped Namjoon back on his feet right by the property border, a good half a mile from their spot in the woods, but didn’t let go quite yet, clinging to Namjoon’s chest and wheezing for breath. “Holy shit,” Namjoon gasped, looking around them. He patted Jungkook’s back soothingly. “Oh my god we’re all the way over here.”
“Never…run that far…carrying someone…with superspeed.” Jungkook sank to the ground and Namjoon followed.
“You’ve run that far carrying someone without superspeed?”
“Huh. Usually the…little ones.”
“Can I ask why?”
“Tired of…children…fucking things up for me…”
Namjoon laughed weakly. His hands had traveled to Jungkook’s helmet, patting tentatively. Jungkook pulled it off and leaned forward so Namjoon could keep petting his wet hair. The rain was heavier out here near the edge of the forest, but Namjoon’s umbrella covered them. Jungkook’s breath came back slowly, the spins retreating from his eyes. He could look up and see Namjoon’s concerned face so close to his, one armor strap sliding off his shoulder, big, beautiful eyes gazing at him in the late evening light with such a precious look. “Are you okay?”
“I mean, this tires me out even without carrying anyone.”
“Oh.” Namjoon was touching his cheek.
Jungkook went for it.
Namjoon’s lips were every bit as soft as they looked. But his hands felt better cradling his head than Jungkook could have possibly imagined. He’d never even dared to dream about the way Namjoon pulled Jungkook into his lap and wrapped his arms around his waist.
And even if the rest of the night was a little hard to bear, with the screaming and Yeojin punching him right in the chest, and Chiron asking them to be better role models, and Jimin graffitiing his armor with bright pink hearts, and Yoongi giving him a near tearful hug like he’d just been engaged to be married, they had the rest of the summer.
They had the rest of the summer and every summer after that. They had training and meals and walks in the woods. Maybe they had college. Maybe they had quests. Maybe they would fight monsters side by side and raise their younger siblings like their own children.
“Ready to go face Seokjin and Yoongi and everyone else?” Jungkook asked.
“Not at all.”
“Just a couple more minutes then,” Jungkook said, and crawled into Namjoon’s arms for as many rainy kisses as he could manage.