Hercules didn’t know what to make of the barrier being down and the gods being gone. Since he couldn’t figure it out and puzzles weren’t his strong point anyway, he’d decided just to enjoy it while it was happening. The barrier alone opened up, literally, a whole world of possibilities for them. He didn’t really want to leave Fableton permanently, although he suspected he could settle just about anywhere with Tia and be happy about it. Their friends were there, along with her beloved restaurant, and it was more home than Ancient Greece had ever been to him. (Okay, maybe not a whole world, since there was no way he wanted to return there. He’d heard enough horror stories from Percy.) He’d lamented the fact that they couldn’t take a vacation together though, the idea of Tiana on a tropical beach with no work to distract them more than tempting, and now they could.
He’d have probably hopped a plane the next day and figured it out as he went, so it was lucky Tiana was there to help him plan ahead. It turned out that planning and looking forward to it was half the fun. He liked shopping with her, and packing with her, and looking at touristy photos and deciding what they wanted to do when they got there. They had a loose schedule for visiting each island, but they’d left open days here and there for relaxing and spontaneous adventures. They’d arranged to leave Beast and Basie with Lottie, who surprised him by being fond of animals. (It was rude of him to judge her by how she looked, but she didn’t look like someone who adored animals or anything else that could rumple her. He was wrong. He admitted it.)
The plane was a whole adventure by itself. He couldn’t control wind like his half-brother, but he was still a son of Zeus. The sky was his father’s domain, so he didn’t have any reservations about getting on a plane. Other than the takeoff and landing, it didn’t feel very fast. He could almost forget where he was if not for the breathtaking views outside the window. He’d never seen anything like it outside of television, and movies just didn’t do it justice. He was grinning ear to ear when they landed, the warm air and sunshine greeting them as they stepped off because even the airport was mostly outside. “Aloha!” he laughed, catching her easily and helping to slide her legs around his waist. He turned his head, finding it hard to stop grinning even through a kiss. “Gorgeous, ain’t it?” It was warm and beautiful like his home, but the color scheme was different. Brighter somehow, all the colors saturated. He didn’t know where to look first, and this was only the airport.
There was so much about this trip that Tia was looking forward to, but most of it was the time she was getting with Hercules. At home, she was always responsible for her restaurant, there was always the potential for Hercules to be called into work. They got to relax, sure, but she wondered if they ever entirely got to disconnect. Their ‘schedule’ such as it was, was more of general locations for them to spend their time so they could visit the different islands because of the differences between them: some touristy, some still rather wild.
Wrapped around him, she laughed and propped her chin on his shoulder after a kiss. Her eyes darted around the space, relaxing against him as it fully kicked in that they were there and had all the time in the world. “It’s amazing,” she murmured in awed delight, knowing she would feel that a lot over the course of their vacation if this was anything to go by. She looked around at all of the signs for the baggage claim and pointed it out to him.
“Let’s get our stuff and then we can get to the hotel,” she decided. As they got to the claim, she slid down off of his back but curled into his side while they waited for their suitcases to come around. From there, it was an easy thing to catch their ride to where they were staying. She hadn’t wanted to do the big hotel thing, and instead had rented them bungalows in all of the various places as they island hopped. It allowed privacy and was easier to relax without the consideration of next door neighbors in hotel rooms. Best of all, they could still could food delivered, so she wouldn’t even have to cook. Stepping into the bungalow, she blinked at the wide open windows that looked out over the bluest water she had ever seen.
