Clinging Onto Memories

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear-" Damon sang as he entered cabin 3 with some blue pancakes on a plate, but he was cut off by a very cranky father of his.

"Damon there was one thing that I asked you for my birthday, what was that?"

"Unwavering love and support. I love you dad." He said, though it was a complete lie that that was his gift.

"Damon," His father said sharply, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, "what was the only thing that I asked you for my birthday? And I love you too." He mumbled the last part.

"To act like it was any normal day." He muttered really soft, but his father still nodded content and was about to lay back down when Damon spoke up again, "But dad, I want to celebrate your birthday. You're only turning 44 once in your life. And come on, we thought about it and you deserve to celebrate your birthday and have a happy day in your life."

"We?" He asked, completely ignoring his speech.

"Well yeah, me and some other people."

"You've got to be kidding me." His father muttered, "You know you're really mean for sending you. They know I can't really refuse you. But it's my birthday and I don't want to celebrate it. We also aren't going to celebrate that your mother got hit by a car today, are we?"

Ouch.

The elephant in the room. They didn't really ever avoid the topic and even used it as leverage often. His father to make sure that he went to college and Damon to get a lift somewhere for example. One had nobler goals than the other, you could say.

But normally they tiptoed around the topic of his mother dying on his father's birthday. But apparently his father wasn't doing that this year.

"Dad, we're celebrating your birthday and nothing else. And I know that you don't like it for multiple reasons, but do it for me please." He now begged, wanting his father to have a good birthday too.

"Okay, this is what we're gonna do; you're going to give me the pancakes so that I don't have to have breakfast with anyone and then I'm going to sleep some more. Then sword fight training and then we can have dinner together at the pavilion. And then I'm going to sleep so that this day is over. And you need to fix for me that no one is going to sing for me or congratulate me. Take it or leave it."

"Okay," Damon nodded, knowing that this was by far the best he was gonna get, "Take it."

———————————

The day went by in a blur to be honest, he didn't see his father until lunch where he only ate an apple and avoided everyone.

But he was apparently intercepted by Grover, because they left the pavilion talking together.

After some lessons and talking with some friends he went to visit his father in the arena. He had always loved to watch his father teach sword fighting and especially when he showed something and did a move himself.

He was now teaching the younger campers who were all looking at his father with wide eyes full of adoration. His father crouched down next to a little girl and talked to her about something. He smiled at the memory of his father doing the same thing to him.

He always looked happy when he was teaching sword fighting, much happier than he was in the morning.

He only hoped that they wouldn't start talking about his birthday and ask questions, he had told the children firmly not to do so, but you never can be sure with small children.

He watched the whole lesson, some campers messing around and others training seriously and watching his father carefully.

When the lesson was finished he walked up to his father, grabbing a sword for himself and grinning as he asked if he wanted to duel.

"Thinking that you can finally beat your old man?" His father retorded, grinning and his eyes sparkling, Riptide already in his hand.

"Probably not. But I can try, right?"

They laughed and started the duel. Though his father won, he held up pretty well. It had cost his father more effort than he used to so he was already proud of himself for that.

"Good game." His father said as he offered him his hand and Damon shook it. His father wrapped his arm around him as they started to walk out, on their way to dinner.

And dinner was... nice. They talked and joked and he had even sung to him. In his head, but it still counted to him. After that they went to the campfire, which was a memorial for everyone who died in the second Titan War.

Though most campers didn't know who these people were, they still honoured them, grateful to them for making it possible to be here. There were the older campers, like his father and other old campers who came back for this, who told stories about the fallen campers.

"Beckendorf sacrificed himself to save me. He had the bomb activator on his watch and tapped on the watch to let me know that he was going to blow the ship up. He didn't want the mission to fail and wanted at least one of us to escape. So I jumped off of the ship into the ocean as he exploded the ship, destroying a huge part of Kronos' army. Because of him, I'm sitting here today and I will always be grateful for that. He was a true hero, who everyone can learn a lot from."

Then a woman, Clarisse, he had seen her a couple of times but his parents weren't that close, started telling about Selena, who was also a hero and got the Ares cabin to fight in the war.

At camp there had been a lot of gossip about this daughter of Aphrodite, who was rumoured to be a spy for Kronos. Everytime he asked his father about it he was cut off and told that she was a hero and that was that.

He heard so many stories, not knowing one of these people and yet his father knew every single one of them, some were controversial, like Ethan Nakamura and Luke Castellan who his father had told him a bit about. Some stories were full of tears and of noble acts.

When the memorial was over and everybody started singing, his father quickly left. Damon stared after him, but didn't follow him. Well not yet. Of course he was going to. But he realized that his dad needed some time alone after the memorial.

After about an hour he finally went after his father who was sitting on a bench near the lake.

Damon smiled sadly and walked up to him, eventually sitting down next to him for silence. He looked at the sunset and the lake, some campers walking around, though most were at the campfire, laughing loudly.

"You can go back to your friends if you want to. I don't mind being alone." His father said after a long time, breaking the silence.

"Nah, I'd rather stay here with you. And I got you something. And before you can say something uncle Tyson insisted on it; he said that you would love it."

His father grumbled a "Fine" and shifted a bit so that Damon could give him the present. He handed him the plate on which a brownie with blue frosting lay, though it looked more like brick with thick blue cement.

"Uncle Tyson and I baked it together. It's the best we could do. I hope that you like it, we really- dad? Why are you crying?"

His father shook his head, a sob breaking out, and wiping the tears away while setting the plate down on the table that came with the bench.

"It's nothing. Uncle Tyson was right; I love it. Thank you so much Damon."

"Of course, dad. But it isn't nothing if you're crying over it. What is it?" He urged on, desperate to know but also scared to push his father too far.

His father ran a hand through his hair, smiling through his tears, "I don't know why I wanted to come to camp. It was stupid, I could've just better spent the day alone and eat with grandma or something. She's just everywhere here. In the strawberry fields, the arena, my cabin, here, the lake, just the whole camp. It's just a little bit too much. And the brownie. Uhm, your mother made the exact same one with uncle Tyson for my sixteenth birthday and after that we got together." He explained and Damon suddenly felt guilty for making his father go through all of this. Which his father apparently noticed as he rushed to reassure him.

"I love the brownie, Damon. I truly do. It's only a good reminder. I like to cling onto the good memories. It isn't only your mother, just the whole war thing too. I never really liked my birthday because it was only a reminder that I was going to die sooner and sooner. But then it also happened to be a day that so many people died. I only celebrated it for your mother, but when you were born she paid less attention to my birthday, knowing that I didn't really want to celebrate anyways so she only got me a cake and we ate that when you were asleep."

"You ate a cake without me? Like every year?" He exclaimed with fake hurt.

His father chuckled and ruffled his hair affectionately. "Of course. Couldn't have you eat everything." His father turned serious after that again, an ability that sometimes scared the crap out of him, "But I will get through it. It's just extra hard sometimes. I don't even know why I came here."

"Of course you do. You like to think of her. That's why you came here. To this exact spot and camp."

"Yeah, I guess that you're right." His father muttered, grabbing a piece of the brownie and stuffing it in his mouth. "Smartass."

Damon rolled his eyes and grabbed a piece too, eating contently.

"Talking about clinging onto good memories, is this one?" Damon asked quietly, the both of them facing the sunset falling down on the lake.

"Definitely. And I will cling onto it until the day I die." He teased, though he knew that his father had meant every word of it.

"Good." 

A/N

Happy birthday to Percy! 

About the one shot though... not my best lol. But it's okay I guess. Hope someone likes it. 

Well, enjoy Percy's birthday and the day in general!