So, this one needs a little bit of explanation. Basically, it's set in a world where, one way or another, everyone knows about the Greek myths, so the demigods are essentially a kind of celebrity, especially the seven who here are 'The Seven', like a kind of superhero team or whatever. Probably to do with saving the world or something.

This is a one-shot set roughly fifteen years after that, when Percy and Annabeth would be going on thirty-two and the others would be in the four or five years below that, apart from Thalia, of course. And with that, on with the tale!

Be Grateful For The Attention

"So, anyway," said Leo, sculpting the cutlery into a miniature copy of Festus, "I'm sitting there, wondering why this Cyclops wants onion rings, and because being torn limb from limb and eaten isn't really motivation enough for me to do what he wants, I ask him why."

The Seven's annual reunion was going well. No-one had murdered anyone else, and for a record fifth year running, no monsters had (thus far) interrupted the meet-up. Of course, a over-long story could provoke even the most peaceful of the group to extreme lengths.

"I wish he had torn you limb from limb," said Piper.

"I resent that. Now-"

"I don't think it would've stopped you talking even if you had been ripped apart," said Percy. "He should have gone straight for the voice box. Bam. Peace."

"That's a bit excessi-"

"He'd probably have found a way to reconstruct his own vocal chords anyway, or make mechanical replacements," smiled Jason, joining in.

"Your confidence in my talents is inspiring, but-"

"No, no," interrupted Annabeth. "He'd have been dead. Now, he might have been able to build a bridge or a ladder out of Hades, or something, but that sort of thing takes time. He'd have been boiled and in the stew before his soul got anywhere near his body. Not to mention Hades' security, which is insane. Which suits Hades, now I think of it."

"Can we stop perpetuating myths about my Dad?" asked Nico, an honorary member of the group, along with Will and Calypso, as significant others, and Thalia and Reyna, for the parts they'd played in defeating Gaia.

"You've got to admit he's a little weird," said Thalia. "I mean, I don't blame him, all that time in-"

"Can we get back to the story?"

"Ugh, Leo!" exclaimed Reyna. "People are talking, okay? Have some respect!"

Leo, always having been a little afraid of the Roman, recoiled, before reacting with an indignant "Hey!" as her poker face broke into a snigger.

"Don't you want to hear about how I defeated the Bonnacon?"

"Can we call it the Bonasus, please?" asked Annabeth.

"Nobody even calls it – oh, fine! We'll call it the Bonasus. But I'm telling the damn story, okay?"

He was met with an apathetic chorus of "Um"s and "Er"s. They'd chosen this restaurant because it was reasonably out of the way. The more people there were, the more likely it was that someone would recognise the famous group, even fifteen years after the event that made them world-famous. They'd all been mobbed in the street so many times that they were careful to avoid public places when possible. The louder you regale your audience with a tale of defeating mythical monsters, though, the more likely they are to suspect that something's up.

"I guess," said Hazel.

"Do you have to?" asked Will.

"Are the onion rings important?" asked Percy.

"Why do you care about the onion rings so much?" asked Leo, exasperated.

"My food's taking ages. I'm hungry."

"Then let me say what the freakin' Cyclops' answer to my question was, okay?"

"Fine. Tell the story. This had better be good."

"Trust me, it will be. I almost died several times and I had to fight an animal that throws poisonous and highly flammable poo at you, how can it not be good?"

"Because you didn't die?"

"Be quiet, Nico. Now, I ask this Cyclops why he wants onion rings, and-"

"Honestly, I'm not convinced that the flammable bit would have been too bad for you. You can't burn, remember?" said Annabeth.

"We were around people, alright?"

"Why did the Cyclops want onion rings?" asked Frank.

"Thank you, Frank. That's just the question that I asked. And he gives me this, sort of, sideways look, totally unimpressed with my sharp mind and awareness in the face of death, and he goes-"

"Excuse me, mister, are you Percy Jackson?"

Leo whirled around in his seat, ready to (literally, possibly) explode at the person who'd dared to speak, and to make sure that they never interrupted anyone again. When he saw that it was a little girl, aged about seven, his hasty attempts to look unthreatening sent several of the others into spasms of giggles.

Percy, though, stayed calm. He saw the way that the entire room tensed, heard the conversation die down as everyone waited to hear his answer. They'd been recognised, for sure.

He leant down and tapped his nose. "Don't tell anyone. I'm trying not to attract too much attention."

"Why?"

"Well, there might be monsters about. I don't want any of them finding me at the moment, so I don't really want a lot of people to know."

"Okay," said the girl, totally serious. "It's just that Mummy said to try and get your autograph, please." She held out a napkin and a pen.

Percy smiled. "Okay," he said. He raised his eyes to scan the restaurant. Everyone was very pointedly looking away from the heroes' table, but the lack of conversation gave them away. Every single person in the room was hanging on each word from his lips.

"Which one's your Mummy?" he asked.

"That one," said the girl, pointing towards a young woman, by herself, with her back to Percy. Percy saw her back muscles tense.

"How about you go and get her to come over?" he said. "I don't really like giving autographs to people I haven't met, okay?"

"Okay," nodded the girl, and went back to 'Mummy'.

There was an awkward few moments of almost total silence in the restaurant, broken only by the girl whispering to her mother. Percy shared a crooked grin with the others around the table. Annabeth raised her eyebrows at him.

When the woman came over, the group saw that she was an attractive brunette, maybe the same age as one of the younger ones in their group. She was also blushing furiously.

"Oh, hi, Mister Jackson, I'm sorry about that, I just saw you sitting there, and, oh, I thought, well, Marissa's a big fan, and, ah, maybe you could give us an autograph? Oh, please?" She spoke in an irritating, high-pitched voice, so insubstantial that it might have been carried off on a steady breeze.

"Sure," said Percy. "Pass the napkin over then."

He took the pen and scribbled his name down on the white tissue paper, before handing it back to her.

"Gee, thanks," she gushed. "Come on Marissa. Your Auntie isn't gonna believe this."

"Hold up a moment," said Percy and then to the girl: "It's Marissa, right?"

Marissa nodded.

"Right." He pulled out Riptide, and uncapped it. Marissa gaped in awe at the legendary blade. Noticing, Percy said "Don't worry, I only use it to chop up monsters. You're not a monster, are you?"

The child, mute in amazement, shook her head.

"Well, you should be okay then."

He placed the cap on the bottom, turning it back into pen form but with an exposed nib, before taking his own napkin and hunching over it to write:

To Marissa

Go save the world!

From Percy Jackson

It took a moment, because of his dyslexia, but when done, he capped the pen again, and handed the paper, replete with gleaming bronze ink, to the awestruck child.

"Here you go kiddo."

'Kiddo' stared at him, still as a statue. Her mother wasn't much better.

"Marissa," her voice quavered, "what do you… what do you… er… say… say thank you..."

"Thank you," came the tremulous reply, so quiet that in any environment other than the completely silent restaurant, it would almost certainly have been missed.

"Anytime," said Percy, smiling. "Have a really good day, both of you."

The room more or less went back to normal after that, apart from a couple of other autograph hunters, one of whom got the entire group's names in a meticulously ordered book. Those who weren't officially part of The Seven had to write in a different section from the others, and it turned out that Jason had already signed it.

As they were leaving, Annabeth said "You're in trouble, Perseus Jackson."

"Why?"

"You were flirting with that woman, and how nice you were to that child doesn't even make up for it, considering how it made her like you even more."

"I wasn't flirting with her!"

"Yes you were. You saw the way that she was looking at you, all the flirty little gestures, those put on 'ooh's and 'oh's and 'ah's. 'Oh, Percy, take me already'" said Annabeth, imitating the woman's voice.

"So she was flirting with me!"

"You didn't exactly push her away, did you?"

"I did what I could, didn't I?"

"You gave her the autograph."

"You could barely see it was my name!"

"You explicitly told her to have a nice day."

"Isn't that just, like, manners?"

"Why did you ask her over in the first place?"

"I just wanted her to see me give Marissa the better autograph, 'cause sending your kid to do it is a really dumb thing to do!"

The others left the pair of them making out on a street corner somewhere.

Gradually, Frank, the only one sober and responsible enough to drive, dropped each demigod off at their homes, at subway stations, and by taxi services in the case of those who had particularly long journeys to make. Finally, it was just him, Hazel, Leo and Calypso, and he dropped the latter two on the street corner outside their apartment.

As Leo was walking up to his door, he was stopped by a shout of "Wait!" from the car.

"What?" he asked, leaving Calypso to go inside as he stepped back down to the kerb.

Frank leaned out of the car window. "I just remembered – why did the Cyclops want onion rings?"

Leo laughed, and shrugged. "He wanted food and couldn't get it." He shook his head in bemusement. "I just went on a quest where I had to help a Cyclops who'd been reduced to eating people because he couldn't understand self-service checkouts and his social skills were too awkward for him to go to one of the cashiers."

"Well. One of the weirder ones, then," said Frank.

"Yeah. I took the money from all the other demigods he'd eaten, bought him basically a lifetime's supply of food. Showed him how the checkout machines work in case he does run out some day. We shouldn't have to worry about him again, at least."

"Nice job. And did you get the Bonamassa?"

"Bonnacon. Uh, Bonasus. Whatever. Yeah. Sort of. I dunno. Burned down half a city block by accident. Had to call the fire brigade to put it out. Got the monster though, so that's sorted too."

"Hey, are you Leo Valdez?"

Smiling now, Leo turned around. "Yeah, I am! Super-sized McShizzle, at your service! What can I do for ya?"

"You burned down my home last month," said the man. "You are a terrible person."

And with that, he walked off, shaking his head.

Leo waved his hands at Frank. "Why does Percy get all the adorable little kids, and I get the middle-aged grumps with a grudge?"

"He's Percy," said Frank. "Of course he gets the nice ones."

"It's just not fair, is it though? If I-"

"Careful, Leo," said Hazel, poking her head through the car window. "You might be turning into a middle-aged grump."

"You're getting a pot-belly and everything," said Frank.

"Just – argh! Go home already!"

"Will do," said Frank, grinning. See you around, man."

"See you both later, goodnight!"

"Bye Leo!"

And with that, they drove off to their home, and Leo turned to his.

Well, hope that was worth the virtual paper it was written on!

I realise that tonally, that was a bit all over the place - a mix of comedy and really eye-wateringly sugary fluff with the little kid. But oh well, I wanna get this out and I can't fix that without some major revision work. I guess it also kind of works with the way I see the characters - you can do pretty much anything with Percy, but (and I'm sorry here, Valdez fans) I kinda struggle to see Leo as a whole lot more than a comedic sidekick. That's not to say he's not a great character - he absolutely is - but I think he's at his best when he's being funny and playing off someone else, or several someones else.

Anyway, if you have a moment, please leave a review, and hopefully I'll see you next time!