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"Ethan watch out!"
Alabaster jerked forward, catching Ethan by the wrist before he fell off from Princess Andromeda's roof, all the way to the bottom of the ocean. His breath hitched. He was hanging straight above the open air, the only thing tethering him to the roof being the tight grip of Alabaster's. If he went overboard now, no one but Alabaster, the drowsy demigod below on the night shift and the old retro radio the son of Hecate had carried all the way up to the top would bear witness.
He felt himself being pulled, then the steady hands of Alabaster on his back. The son of Nemesis patted him on the shoulder as the other demigod nuzzled in the crook of his neck in relief. His arms wrapped around him were soft and despite Alabaster usually running cold, they currently provided warmth in the chill mid winter night air.
Ethan took a step away from the edge, pushing them slightly apart in the process, and held Alabaster's forearms. "Remind me again why we are dancing on the Princess's rooftop at midnight?"
Alabaster gave him a sheepish smile. "It's nice, isn't it? The night is quiet, you can see the stars..." He paused, pondering his words. "You're with me."
Ethan could swear his heart stopped beating for a millisecond.
"Yeah." And if he moved closer so their shoulders would brush, that was no one's business but theirs.
"Come on!" Alabaster tugged while beaming. His fingers crept towards the radio's buttons, ready to turn it on again.
"I'm sure Lord Kronos would be pleased to see his general and lieutenant prancing on a roof instead of, I don't know, doing paperwork or something." He dryly chuckled.
"What he doesn't know won't hurt him. Besides what's the worst thing that could happen?"
The naivety in Alabaster's laughter took him like a whiplash. Sometimes he forgot they had different views on the war even though they were in the same side. Then he kept going saying things like... this.
He would kill me, Ethan wanted to scream.
He would kill you.
Was it because Kronos hadn't physically harmed him; was it because he never spent hours stiff like a statue, slowly dying from his blood flow being frozen? How was he not seeing, no, denying that the Titan wasn't the person he thought he was?
How did he not see that they were as much as a pawn as the demigods of Olympus were?
"Ethan..." Alabaster's confused voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "Is there something wrong?"
"No. Nothing." Ethan lolled his tongue once. Twice. He shook his head. "Just no ballroom dancing again, Radium Eyes."
Alabaster bumped against him as he laughed. "Message received."
Ethan let himself be guided, the son of Hecate's hands firm on his shoulder as they swayed to the beat. A funky pop song that had been probably taken out of Luke's playlist started to play.
Alabaster looked beautiful under the soft light of Artemis, glowing. His brown hair that always smelled like cedar, resembled liquid gold with the way it shined.
If Ethan closed his eyes he could almost picture them as regular teenagers, dancing together on a prom night, awkwardly spinning eachother. Perhaps they would've snuck out later, finding themselves on a similar rooftop, staying up all night enjoy stargazing and the company. He could almost pretend they were kids again.
He leaned in for a kiss. With the upcoming invasion tender moments between them had become scarce. Ethan would savour every last one of them while he still could.
Even if it was just for the night.
Ethan would want to say he thought something meaningful or that his whole life flashed before his eyes in his last moments.
Reality, as he had learnt when he was just a child, was often disappointing.
The only thing that was coherent was pure, unadulterated pain.
His armour, the one Alabaster had spent countless hours engraving protective runes, had crumbled like cardboard against the shards of his shattered sword. With the way it stuck inside him, he couldn’t feel anything below the gruesome stab wound at all.
Wind whipped like his mother's as he fell. He couldn't hear anything, not with the white static filling his ears. The wind gods protecting Olympus didn't hold back; tugging at his hair, ripping off pieces of armour, slamming into him and giggling.
The word below was a blurry mess of bronze, bland grays and the red of the fallen soldiers. Ethan would join them soon, he knew it from the moment he took the elevator.
An eye would never be enough, and if all went well Percy Jackson would honour his dying wish. He just hoped he'd fulfilled the fate his mother had for him in her head. It would be awkward if he died and still managed to fuck things up and stay as a disappointment.
"Funny", Ethan thought as all the air in his lungs left, "and he'd promised Alabaster they would see eachother on the other side too."
This was not the other side in mind. Nevertheless Alabaster would have his siblings and friends beside him, they would mourn the fallen together. He would help with the making of a Hecate cabin, perhaps even reconnect with his old friend Annabeth Chase.
Ethan could rest.