PJatO || Tritercy || PJatO || Tritercy || Just Like Me || Tritercy || PJatO || Tritercy || PJatO
Title: Just Like Me – Polympians Event 2024
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians / Heroes of Olympus
Disclaimer: All rights reserved to Rick Riordan. Aside from the Gods, they belong to the old Greeks. This fanfiction and its OCs on the other hand are entirely mine. No money is made with this, though reviews are more than welcomed.
Tags: m/m, alpha/beta/omega dynamics, courting
Main Pairing: Triton/Percy
Percy Jackson Character: Perseus Jackson
Godly Character: Triton
Polympians Prompt: metamorphosis/shapechange
Summary: Triton didn't like that Percy was living in Atlantis, as a merman now. Mostly because Triton was slowly and surely falling in love with the feisty omega.
Just Like Me
Polympians Event 2024
Triton stared in slack-jawed awe at the breathtaking beauty in front of him. He'd followed his nose, the alluring scent of omega in the air, more enchanting than any omega's scent he had ever smelt before. Something sweet that he was unfamiliar with, that he could not name. Delicious.
When he found the source of the scent, he found this beautiful omega. The most beautiful omega he had ever laid eyes on. His skin a soft blue like the ocean at its most shallow point where it kissed the land. Long, elegant fins white as sea-foam, slick tail moving back and forth as the young merman swam in circles, arms stretched out to caress the fishes that swam with him.
He was perfect. Beautiful, an alluring scent, clearly powerful – the way he commanded the fishes and the currents around him. Every instinct in Triton's body screamed mate.
And then the beautiful omega turned to look at him, blinking surprised. "Oh. Hey, Triton."
Percy Jackson. The face, though blue and his eyes with slitted pupils, was clearly Percy Jackson's. Triton stared at the young hero in utter mortification. Percy Jackson was a merman, an omega, and he was absolutely stunning. This was not going to end well for Triton.
/break\
Over the following months, Triton kept tabs on Percy. Claiming, to everyone and even to himself, it was because he didn't trust the former human turned merman. The longer it went on, the harder it became to tell himself that was the case, because something shifted. That attraction when he saw Percy in this form, when he smelt that as a merman, Percy was an omega – something that was exclusive to their people, only merpeople could be alpha and omega, they referred to non-merpeople as betas. But by now, attraction was, devastatingly enough, not the only thing.
Percy had come to Atlantis to get distance from everything after the second war he had to fight. A fresh start, embracing his roots as a son of Poseidon. He was living in a small apartment in Atlantis and working at the local summer camp, under Chiron's brothers.
And… he was incredibly popular and beloved by pretty much everyone at this point. The guppies adored him, Triton had heard all about that from his middle daughter Calliste, who also worked as a trainer at camp. How all the little ones loved Percy's human stories and how kind and patient he was when teaching. All his neighbors had not a bad word to say about the boy, so polite, even helping his elderly neighbor with her groceries and the harder, physical labor around the house.
This was all a side of Percy Jackson that Triton never had wanted to see, because it was easier to hate Poseidon's mortal spawns if they never became more than the result of Poseidon's infidelity toward Triton's mother. Letting them become a person, it was irritating. He'd done so in the past, allowed himself to grow attached to a half-sibling, just to be devastated when he died.
This was different. He held not an ounce of brotherly feelings for Percy. Everything positive about Percy Jackson that he had learned, he'd learned after Percy became a merman, after he'd instinctively identified Percy as a potential mate. Everything positive he now learned about Percy, it just made the omega look even more like the ideal mate. Patient, kind, helpful, good with children, a strong fighter (though he had known that one before). The perfect match for the king.
"You do know that I know you've been stalking me, right?"
Triton startled and froze. He'd visited Calliste at camp and then decided to veer some and see if he could catch a glimpse of the beautiful omega. Percy had been busy with the hippocampi and Triton thought he would not be noticed, thought he could watch, even just for a bit. Turning around, Percy raised both his eyebrows at Triton and then tipped his nose.
"I can smell you, alpha," Percy huffed amused. "Granted, at first I didn't know it was you. I just knew there was a lingering scent of the same alpha around my apartment and also around camp. I was honestly starting to freak out about having a stalker. And then Miss Betty told me 'oh, dear, yes, that's our king! He has been by a few times'. And I… still don't understand."
Percy paused and pushed away from the hippocampus he had been brushing, to instead swim up to Triton, staring at the taller merman dead on. Challenging. Triton wasn't used to being challenged by anyone, he was the king of Atlantis, the protector of merpeople. Glaring, Triton crossed his arms.
"I mean," Percy continued, motioning between them. "We've talked. Civil-ish, since I got here. I thought we were in a, you know, good place. I don't see us hanging out like me and Ty do, urgh yeah no definitely not. But I thought we're okay. So, what gives."
Triton ground his teeth together, gripping his upper arms hard to keep from reaching out for the omega he wanted so desperately. Percy just stood there, hands on his hips, judgmental eyebrow co*cked and those sea-green eyes staring at him with the intensity of a thousand storms.
"I am just… keeping an eye on you."
Now, Percy also raised his other eyebrow, looking overall very nonplussed. "Ri—ight. Well, stop being a creep about it. If you wanna check in with me, just… knock on my door like a normal person and ask 'Percy, how are you doing?' and maybe you could come in and we talk."
/break\
Talking wasn't good. Ever since Triton had started doing as Percy insisted (because there was no point in quietly watching if Percy could now tell it was his scent that lingered in the water), his attraction and the following infatuation turned into something much more dangerous.
Triton was in love with Percy Jackson. With every snarky comment and silly joke from Percy, he felt himself fall a little more in love with Percy. Every time Percy spoke about his mom and friends with so much love and warmth, Triton fell harder. Every time Percy talked about how much he loved Atlantis and which parts he loved the most, Triton wanted to kiss him.
No longer did he consider Percy a potential mate. He'd started considering Percy his mate. And that was not good. Because they weren't even dating, Triton still didn't quite think Percy even liked him. Well, Percy might actually still think that Triton didn't like him.
No. That wasn't true. That was some deeply seated fear of rejection rearing its ugly head. Everything he had learned about Percy Jackson, the boy was the last person to willingly spend as much time with someone he didn't like or thought didn't like him as the two of them had been spending with each other lately. Too blunt, too honest, to play nice that way. But then why…?
/break\
When Percy felt very anxious and desperate and confused about his own feelings, he liked to look at their family tree, telling himself that among the godly world, this was super not weird. That was just his raised-in-the-mortal-world brain. And they excused the incest at Camp Half-Blood too, pretending that cousins weren't 'really' cousins and it was fine to kiss because the gods 'didn't count' when it came to these things and Percy knew that was bullsh*t, of course it was. It was just how they made themselves find peace with it. Now, as an adult, he knew that.
Still, falling in love with his stupidly handsome godly half-brother was… different, right? Right?
At first, he'd blamed these new, weird instincts that he had to get used to first. Being a merman was cool, but it came with a much more… feral side. Being an omega, as they called it. Merpeople acted much more instinctual than humans. Scents and tastes and just everything was much sharper and woke different instincts in him. For the first like three weeks, he had torn into his dinner like a ravenous animal. The fangs helped. It was a struggle, to find a balance. Somewhere between the social norms and instincts he had been raised with as a human and the ones he now faced as a merman. But he had to find something that worked for him.
He'd done so with every other aspect. Found a job that was actually cool, earning his own money, having his own place to live at. Make new friends, but stay in contact with his old friends. Visit his mom in New York at least every two weeks, but also visit Poseidon at his palace every other week.
And then there was Triton. Infuriating, arrogant, annoying Triton, who like stalked him for the first few weeks of Percy being here. And okay so maybe that was kind of fair, since he had… fully foregone going to the king first before moving to Atlantis, an oversight that Triton's daughter Calliste had pointed out to him. Merpeople who migrated to Atlantis first go to the king and show their respect and ask for the king's sanctuary in his kingdom. So, on a political level, he'd kind of messed that up and Triton's skeptical and wary behavior was justified. Maybe.
The longer Percy stayed in Atlantis though, the more he doubted it. The more it felt – different. Mostly, Percy guessed, because he was settling more in his own body and new instincts and recognized them. And recognized what Triton was doing. It was less 'stalking', in the traditional sense he'd think of as a human, and more… an alpha scouting out a potential mate. By now, flat out courting him. It took a while for Percy to really put it together, but now there was no denying.
"So—o, Tri," Percy tilted his head to look at Triton. "Let's talk about the elephant in the room." Percy paused. "...Are there underwater elephants? Like, hippocampi but elephants?"
"Percy," Triton's fingers were carding through Percy's hair in a soothing manner. "Focus."
It was cute, that Triton recognized when Percy was about to be distracted, and knew how to redirect his focus, without making Percy feel like he was being annoying with his distracted mind. His head was resting on Triton's lap – or, well, equivalent of a lap, with the mer-tail. Another indicator to how Triton felt about him, because the unmated alpha king would absolutely not let some random unmated omega cozy up to him like that. But he gladly did with Percy.
"What elephant?" Triton asked when Percy didn't continue due to getting distracted in his mind.
"Right," Percy grinned sheepishly. "You. Courting me. And not putting words to your actions. Oh, don't look at me so surprised, Tri. I've been a merman for a couple months now… I know. So…?"
Triton actually blushed. Flat out, fully, properly blushed. Percy grinned broadly. That was cute.
"I… do… like you. I didn't…" Triton turned away. "I thought I would have to explain to you…"
"Well," Percy sat up, still on Triton's lap, and wrapped one arm around the alpha's neck. "You don't. But you do have to kiss me, like, right now."
Much to Percy's delight, Triton actually did kiss him, and pull him even closer. Good.
~*~ The End ~*
