Chapter Text
It’s no secret. Percy Jackson is powerful.
They can deny it all they want, but that doesn’t change the fact that P ercy Ja ckson has enough power to choke out minor gods without so much as a thought. He could destroy whole countries in a m atter of days ( if not hours ) with natural disasters so catastrophic that the world would never truly recover. He is good looking and smart enough to know he doesn’t have to follow the gods and knows h ow to make entire armies follow him with a few well-chosen words and a charming grin
.
His scars speak volumes for every battle he has fought , and Apollo knows, if you are still alive; you have never lost.
He has a lot of scars.
Too many to even count.
Apollo remembers when those eyes were filled to the brim with a curiosity for the unknown, a fear for all the things he would undoubtedly find , excitement about what they may be .
But Percy is older now.
H is eyes are cold .
Calculating.
Not in a good way.
He isn’t wondering about what Apollo is thinking about , no.
No, that boy is envisioning every different way he could snuff the god out if need be.
Because he has had to , too many times before.
Apollo guesses that you can only threaten and hurt a child so many times before he wizens up and no longer trusts your kind. Before his first instinct is to protect and defend against those he is supposed to worship . You can only throw a child into danger so many times before he stops fearing death and begins to accept that it is all he will ever know.
But the dead look in his eyes.
It's horrifying .
There is no fear.
No young curiosity .
Not even a glimpse of the ironic humour Percy used to find in even the worst situations.
Just steely dislike .
He knows. Apollo thinks. We both know.
That if it came down to it...
H e would win.
Coming to visit had been a mistake Apollo realizes.
He gets it now. He understands why so many of the other gods had voted in favour of their newest decision.
(It doesn’t mean that they’re right to do it.)
(It doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea.)
(But ... the f e a r . )
Apollo can feel a buzz at the b ase of his spine and a nauseating dread that’s growing in the pit of his stomach. His body doesn’t want to move, too afraid to antagonize the predator that stands in front of him.
Heroes aren’t supposed to be like this.
Apollo has not felt fear like this in such a long time.
Surely before even the old heroes .
Because Hercules had been strong, that was for sure. But never this strong and never this free. Hercules had cared about heroism, about being loved and adored by all. He wanted to be remembered for all of forever. Hercules had accepted immortality . He had accepted immortality and in doing so had a greed that the gods would forever rule over him.
Percy had refused immortality.
Percy didn’t want to be the hero for all to see, he knew he would be remembered for as long as the fates deemed enough, and he had decided that mortality was more important to him than eternal glory.
Living forever didn’t matter if you couldn’t do it with those that you loved.
So here they s tand , A god who ha s lived too much and a boy, who ha sn ’t lived nearly enough.
Only one of them is afraid of death.
…
Ru b ble falling from the sky, screaming from somewhere just out of sight. Blood splatter on cement, being washed down drains and streams by rain that hits the ground with too much force. Cracked skulls and spilled inside s sprawled over little broken bodies- burst ed -bruised -bloody . Scream . Cry. Beg. Wail. Weep. Gasp.
...
Apollo blinks.
Percy is still standing before him.
“H-hey Percy,” It’s a weak start to a conversation, but Apollo thinks that it’s pretty good seeing as how his throat feels like it has been sandpap ered .
“Hey, Apollo. Everything alright? You’re looking kind of shaky.”
Ah . Y es , n ow that Percy mentions it, his hands are shaking.
But that’s not what Percy’s really asking about .
Wh y do you look so anxious ?
What problem do I have to go fix now?
A scream echoes distantly. Apollo whips his head around to find the source of the sound .
Percy does n o t.
Oh.
“You... you good?”
“Hmm? Oh! Yes, yes, just a little too busy, I guess. Ya know how it is, being a god and all.”
Apollo plasters on a fake smile and Percy squints his eyes, a rather tired but all the while suspicious look.
“ Rrright ... Well, any reason you felt the need to visit me then?”
“Oh! Well... I'm just ...just,” just what? What h a d he come to do? Tell Percy of his family's awful plan? Surely not! Zeus would punish him harshly if he did that! Give him some crypti c tips for the future? No, that wouldn’t work either. Come to think of it, this had been a decision made in the moment. He didn’t agree with how the other gods had voted, so he had simply stormed down to the demigod in question to show just how mad he was about it.
How childish .
“I’m just checking in on you, you know... the way I do sometimes.”
“No , I don’t? ” It came across more as a question than a statement , blunt and accusatory, but a little bit of hurt managed to slip through as well.
That’s right . T he gods didn’t “check-in” with demigods, they rarely even checked in with a few of their own children, let alone someone else's child. And what a mistake that had been, abandoning the very creatures who were supposed to believe in and protect them. The children who were supposed to run errands and die for them . Without them, even the mighty Z eus would be little more than stardust and ashes left to be scattered across galaxies and soil. These demigods were their sole believers and without them, they would be nothing.
And yet-
And yet, they were willing to belittle and throw them away like trash. Use them as entertainment and a means to an end.
How fool ish they had been.
Bones. Creaking, shattered. Shards, splinters. Piercing through-further - further - FURTHER. - Soft supple skin , squishy . B roken . Vomit- shit - blood -bile - piss , splatter, p l o p , flow ing - flow ing - F loW - dripping, down , down, down -swelling . B ursting. Skull , open - cracked - spilling . Spilling over cobblestone- guts-guts-guts-guts-guts-
gagging.
…
…
…
Apollo blinks.
…
How foolish indeed.