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When Percy emerges from the elevator covered in sweat, blood, monster dust and ichor with Annabeth at his side alive, he's relieved. So revealed he could cry. It's over. The nightmare that is Tartarus is over.
It doesn't take long for him to realize that it will never be over.
It starts small. Percy has learned to process things by talking about them. It's a habit he learned while on the run to Camp Jupiter. Every night before falling asleep, he recited everything he knew. It was a coping method; designed to help him keep the little memories that he already had, as well as deal with the trauma.
Days later, when Percy and Annabeth are safe on the Argo II, Percy tries to talk about Tartarus with Annabeth.
She shuts it down so fast that he flinches.
Seeing that, she softens slightly. "I'm sorry, Percy. But, I just can't talk about it yet."
She doesn't meet his eyes.
Percy accepts the response, and gives her space. He reasons that it's probably just too fresh in her mind. After all, while they're out of Tartarus, they're still on a quest. While the Argo II is relatively safe, it's not Camp Half Blood with its protective boundaries or the New Rome with actual gods guarding the citizens.
It's fine.
Later, when he goes to Piper's room, looking for Jason to tell him it's his turn for the night shift he hears Annabeth's voice. Distressed. Maybe crying. His instincts kick in and he goes to the door, about to knock with one hand with Riptide on the other.
"No, Piper, you don't get it." Annabeth's voice sounds ruined, rough. Like she was crying or screaming. "The scariest thing down there was Percy."
He misses Piper's response; Annabeth's words are ringing in his ears, blocking everything else out.
The scariest thing down there was Percy.
The scariest thing down there was Percy.
The scariest thing down there was Percy.
The walls in the Argo II seem to darken and start caving in. The hallway spins. The air seems to disappear. Percy staggers away, and somehow makes it to the top of the deck.
The scariest thing down there was Percy.
He sees someone turn to him - Jason - and reaches out. Percy flinches away, croaks something about going for a swim, and then leans overboard, falling into the sea below them.
The scariest thing down there was Percy.
Percy eventually climbs back out of the sea, and back onto the Argo II. Percy doesn't know if Annabeth is still avoiding meeting his eyes, because he can't bear to meet hers.
He thinks about it constantly. The powers he developed in Tartarus, which have somehow stuck with him. Annabeth, terrified of him. Losing himself in anger and strangling Akhlys. Annabeth begging him to stop, with tears in her eyes. Percy doesn’t know what he should’ve done. He had tried to fight Akhlys with riptide, but she had been too powerful. If he didn’t control the poison and her tears, he would’ve died. They both would’ve died. He doesn’t know what the right action was.
The next time the situation arises, Percy chooses not to use his powers, Gaea wakes up. Minutes after Percy decides not to use his powers, he regrets it. It's stupid. So frustratingly stupid because it could've been avoided, and then Leo wouldn't have had to pay the price. Percy made the wrong choice again, and now someone else is paying for it.
He wonders what the right choice was.
In hindsight, he could have dodged the blow to his nose. He could have wiped the excess blood away, or taken half a minute to put something on the bridge of his nose to pinch it, or stuffed kleenex in his nostrils.
But he didn't, and now Leo is missing, presumed dead.
Gaea taunts him in his nightmares. He could've stopped her from waking up, if only he had controlled his blood, like he controlled Ahklys's poisonous blood in Tartarus. If only he made the right choice.
Percy wakes up screaming, the water in the fountain in his cabin explodes everywhere, soaking the room.
Gaea (or maybe it's just his own consciousness) continues to taunt him with dreams of Akhlys on her knees, begging Percy for mercy. Her own poison, her own ichor under his control, to destroy her body, her essence.
The scariest thing down there was Percy.
After weeks of relentless nightmares, Percy realizes that Annabeth may have been right.
He’s too powerful. Even among other children of the big three, he’s too powerful. Percy has spent his entire life scared of his powers and doing his best not to acknowledge and use them to their full extent, but the fall into Tartarus has forced it into the open, and now Percy can’t force it back. He knows what he’s capable of. He knows the destruction he’s capable of, and the only thing stopping that from becoming a reality, is his choices, and a sufficiently powerful opponent.
Percy stops sleeping at night. It makes him feel like death, but even that is better than the nightmares. The lack of sleep makes him irritable and cranky.
After snapping one too many times, the younger campers start to avoid him. Percy barely notices it. Clarisse picks fights with him, and for the first time he starts consistently ending them. They all end with blood shed.
Percy senses the blood before he sees it, the way he can sense water, seas and oceans.
It's only a matter of time before his powers leak out, and hurt someone.
Chiron talks to him, but it doesn't help. Chiron doesn't know what happened; apparently Annabeth isn't speaking to him, and Percy sure as hell isn't about to spread the fact that he has power over poison, blood and ichor around.
He even gets on Mr. D's nerves. The alcoholic god glares at him and says: "I could smite you. Turn your blood against you, your molecules to dust."
All Percy can think, is so could I.
Percy knows that if Mr. D charged at him with murderous intent, Percy would have two options. Allow Mr. D to kill him, or unleash his powers the way he did with Akhlys. There’s no guarantee that Mr. D would flee the way Akhlys did. On top of that, Mr. D is one of the Olympians. He’s not alone the way Akhlys was. Pick a fight with one Olympian is to pick a fight with all of them, and their children.
Nearly everyone Percy knows and loves would become his enemy.
The only one who isn't scared of him or angry with him is Blackjack. Blackjack had pestered him wondering why the blonde one isn’t bringing me apples, until Percy explained in halted, painful sentences what happened. Blackjack had huffed, seemingly annoyed. You’re Little Lord, Boss. Of course you’re powerful.
And that had been that.
As a result, Percy spends most of his time with Blackjack, even going so far as to nap leaning next to the Pegasus, with his wings covering Percy's body like a blanket.
It's one of the few precious moments that Percy feels like himself.
The lack of sleep begins to affect Percy more and more, and as a result he gets crankier, and snaps at more people. He feels like he's losing himself. It's only a matter of time before he lashes out at the wrong person with the wrong powers and permanently maims or kills someone.
Blackjack is surprisingly on board, when Percy wonders if he should leave camp.
He doesn’t want to leave. Camp has been his home away from home for a significant part of his life. And for the most part, camp has been safe. Somewhere he can put his head down and sleep, without worrying that he’ll wake up with monster talons hovering over him, seconds from being embedded in his spine.
Although, that’s not quite true anymore, is it? Camp isn’t safe. Not with the way his powers are. Every moment that he’s at camp, he’s reminded of what happened in Tartarus. He’s reminded that he has powers that no demi-god should. He’s reminded that his powers are strong enough to to fight gods and torture primordials. He’s reminded that he was the scariest thing his best friend and possibly ex-girlfriend saw in Tartarus.
It doesn’t take long for Percy to prepare to leave. He writes a letter to his mom that explains why he left without actually detailing his ability to control things he shouldn’t, and plans to drop it into a mailbox on the way.
He leaves a short letter for Annabeth, apologizing for scaring her and underlines that he’s leaving on his own accord. It’s not like last time, when he was kidnapped.
Percy takes a bag with several changes of clothes, some snacks and all the drachmas he can find in the cabin. His relationship with Annabeth (and most of the camp) may be ruined and he may not be able to be around people without being terrified of what he can do if he loses control, but he still loves his mom, Paul and Grover and refuses to completely cut off his relationship with them.
He meets Blackjack by the beach an hour after curfew, and together they take off. Percy isn’t too sure where he’s going, other than south: away from camp, away from the immediate reach of the gods. He figures he’ll travel along the coast with Blackjack, until he finds somewhere sparsely populated.
It takes a few hours before someone notices his disappearance.
“Going somewhere?”
Hermes appears beside Blackjack in a flash of golden light. His shoes have little wings on them, helping him stay in the sky. Blackjack rears up in surprise, his front hooves kicking up, causing Percy to nearly fall off.
Percy holds onto the Pegasus tightly, and gently pats his side, calming him.
“What’s it to you?” Percy counters, irritated. He hasn’t gotten more than a few hours sleep in longer than he’d like to admit, and now nearly everything annoys him like nails on chalkboard. His control is already stretched thin, and it’s close to snapping.
“Mr. D sensed you leaving camp, and well, had some creative ideas about bringing you back and punishing you. Something about second time offenders.” Hermes muses thoughtfully. His entire demeanor is casual and Percy hates it. “I thought that would be ill received, and volunteered to go instead.”
Percy’s hands tighten into balls around Blackjack’s saddle, and growls out, “I’m not going back.”
He won’t. He can’t. Being at camp is unbearable. He can’t stand going about his regular sword training and lava wall climbing lessons without being intimately reminded about Tartarus. He can’t stand being around Mr. D, hearing the echoes of his words I could control your blood and smite you where you stand, and thinking, Yeah, well so can I.
It’s too much. Percy’s hand moves towards his pants pocket, where Riptide is in its pen form, not that he needs that to fight anyways. He’s not going back, not without a fight, not without being forcefully dragged back.
“Alright.” Hermes says.
It takes a full minute for Percy to realize what Hermes says. “What?”
“I said alright.” Hermes repeats, shrugging. “You’re a veteran. You’ve done more than your fair share for us. Yes, there are rules; you can’t leave camp in the middle of a season without permission, but I can give you that.”
Percy eyes the god, distrustfully. It's incredibly suspicious that Hermes is just going to let him leave, after chasing Percy so far and confronting him. There has to be something.
He’s made deals with Hermes before.
“In exchange for what?”
“Conversation.” Hermes says. “Answers. You’re clearly on edge so I don’t want to push, but I want to know why you’re fleeing camp like this. You don’t have to tell me right now.”
Percy tries not to panic. His options aren’t good. He doesn’t want any of the Olympian gods to find out what he’s capable of. In the past, they’ve voted on killing him because they thought he was too powerful. Percy doubts he’d get away as easily now. If he chooses to reject Hermes’s offer, the god would bring him back to camp and Percy will refuse to go. It’ll come down to a fight, and considering Percy’s thin control on his powers, he’s almost sure that it’ll snap.
On the other hand, if he accepts Hermes’s offer, he’ll have to talk about how being at camp reminds him of Tartarus; of the things he had to do there, of what he turned into there. Hermes will still find out what Percy’s capable of.
But maybe, if he can stall long enough, he can get away from the gods' center of power. One thing that Percy had learned on the last quest, was that the further the gods got from their domains and partenons, the weaker they got. If Percy can get far enough away from the US, maybe he can get away before he’s forced to talk.
“Alright.” Percy reluctantly agrees.
“Great!” Hermes smiles, and snaps his fingers. A small plane appears in front of them, and as they watch, the back opens up large enough for a pegasus to fit in. “Come on.”
Percy barely resists the urge to snarl. He didn’t agree to getting ride, in a place where Hermes clearly has control over. He’s about to share a piece of his mind with the god, when he feels Blackjack’s growing exhaustion. The pegasus is tired, and the lure of a break, somewhere to rest calls to him.
Percy immediately feels bad. Blackjack is doing his best, and he isn’t even asking Percy to consider it.
Reluctantly, Percy directs Blackjack to the plane. In his mind, Blackjack sends him a steam of thank you and I’m sorry, Boss, which just makes him feel guilty.
The plane closes behind him, and Hermes disappears further into the plane. Percy pours some water into a bowl and pulls out some apples for Blackjack, and then stiffly settles on the couch beside him.
A moment later, Hermes appears holding two glasses filled with nectar. He hands one to Percy. “Refreshments? If you don’t mind me saying, you look like you could use it.”
Percy scowls, but doesn’t argue. After not sleeping, having nightmares the few times he actually manages to close his eyes and struggling to keep a lid on his powers, he knows he’s a mess. Percy takes the glass, leans back on the couch and takes a sip.
The effect is instant. The pain around his eyes and in his limbs instantly eases. The tension in his body fades. On pure reflex, Percy takes another sip, and then another. He sinks back into the couch. It’s comfortable, way more comfortable than it should be.
After being tense and in a low level state of constant pain for so long, relaxing even just a little is euphoric. Percy tilts his head back and sighs.
“It’s good, isn’t it.” Hermes says. Percy can feel the weight of the god’s stare on him, but it feels… secondary. Unimportant. He closes his eyes, and enjoys the heat of the nectar flowing through his body, easing all his aches and pains.
He feels light. Comfortable. At peace.
Before he knows it, he’s asleep.
~~~
Percy wakes up slowly.
He’s lying down on something that feels smaller than the mattress in his cabin, but is much more comfortable. He’s warm; covered in a soft blanket and his head rests on a small, solid pillow. There’s something lying on his legs, but it’s not overly heavy. His instincts tell him it’s safe, it’s a friend.
Percy eventually opens his eyes, to see Blackjack’s sleeping head on his legs. He smiles for the first time in weeks, and gently pats him.
“You’re finally awake.” A voice says, and Percy flinches, caught off guard.
Hermes stands faintly smiling in the entrance to the pale coloured room, arms crossed and leaning in the doorway.
Percy's memories instantly come back to him. Deciding to leave camp, getting caught by Hermes, and agreeing to talk.
If not for the sleeping pegasus head in his lap, Percy would’ve jumped to his feet.
“What did you do to me?” Percy says, defensively. The last thing he remembers is taking a drink from the god, and sitting on the couch. Not lying down with a blanket, pillow and sleeping.
Doing his best not to dislodge Blackjack, Percy pushes himself up until he's sitting.
Hermes raises his hands defensively. “I gave you nectar. I admit, it did have a spell to prevent you from having any demi-god dreams if you fell asleep, but that’s it. You fell asleep on your own volition. I imagine you needed it. You’ve been asleep for nearly twenty hours now.”
Twenty hours.
Percy thinks he should be mad, but his body feels better than it has in weeks. Now that he's fully rested, his control over his powers is stronger, and not a hair strand away from snapping.
"Thanks." Percy says, at last.
"You're very welcome." Hermes says, approaching him. He sits on the couch in front of Percy. "I take it you're feeling better?"
Percy nods.
"Good. I was hoping we could have that conversation now. Why are you running away from camp?”
The messenger god is doing his best to appear casual; he’s sitting on the couch with his phone-slash-staff face down on the seat, casual clothes and lounging comfortably. However, there’s an intensity that either he can’t hide, or isn’t trying to hide that makes Percy comfortable.
Percy looks away, down at the sleeping pegasus. He rests a hand on Blackjack’s head, and scratches his head lightly. He fishes for an answer that isn’t, ‘I’m scared of using the full extent of my powers and being feared or smited for it.’
“Camp reminds me of being in Tartarus.” Percy says at last. “Kind of.”
Hermes frowns. “In what way?”
“I mean the constant training and fighting.” Percy says. “I wake up and I have sword fighting lessons. I have lunch, and then I have lava wall climbing. I have dinner, and then it’s wrestling with the Ares cabin. I’m tired of fighting all the time. It feels like I’m still stuck down there, looking over my back or on a quest.”
“You’re safe at camp though.” Hermes points out. “The only monsters in camp are in the forest, and they don’t venture out. Either way, I doubt anything there would pose a real challenge for you.”
Hermes gets a bit too close to the actual issue, and Percy flinches. It doesn’t go unnoticed.
“But that’s not it, is it?” Hermes murmurs. “There’s something else.”
“Of course there’s something else!” Percy snarls, suddenly angry. Screw beating around the bush. Blackjack wakes up at his shout and lifts his head off Percy’s lap. “I feel into fucking Tartarus, you know what that’s like!”
“I don’t know actually.” Hermes says, pointedly staying calm. When Percy looks confused, He explains. “Our fathers, Hades, Hera, Demeter and Hestia have been there. The rest of us haven’t. It’s one of the lands beyond the gods. We don’t dare.”
“Great. Well, it was horrible.” Percy says bitterly. “There were monsters and gods and primordials everywhere, and all of them wanted us dead. The ground was made of regenerating monsters. The only drinkable water there was on fire. Even the air was toxic.”
So how did you survive? Percy can practically see the question and answer forming in Hermes’s eyes. Angry and overwhelmed, Percy stands up and faces away from Hermes. He’s already said too much.
He looks out the small window, and sees that they’re parked in an airport. There are palm trees outside. Percy’s internal GPS tells him his exact coordinates, that he’s in Florida and that the ocean is about 15 miles to the east. Not far enough.
“Camp Half Blood doesn’t remind you of Tartarus because of all the fighting, it reminds you of how you fought, doesn’t it? What you’re capable of. Your sword and hand to hand combat skills didn’t quite cut it.” Hermes says, and Percy goes very still. Shit, shit, shit.
He hears Hermes stand up and walk closer to him. “It’s been quite some time since one of Poseidon’s children reached maturity, but not so long that I don’t remember what they were capable of. Earthquakes, class five hurricanes, liquid manipulation.”
He knows.
A hand touches his shoulder and Percy flinches, hard. Still, Hermes persists and nudges his shoulder until Percy turns around. Outside, the sky begins to darken as clouds form.
Pulse going a mile a minute, Percy asks, “What’s going to happen to me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Before, Athena and Zeus, they said I was too powerful. You guys-”
“Voted on killing you.” Hermes says, and then winces. “Definitely not our finest moment. Is that why you left camp? Because I can assure you, it won’t happen again. Probably. For one, your father wouldn’t allow it. Also, most of us are rather fond of you.”
It’s been less than a month since Mr. D threatened to smite him, so Percy decides not to take that at face value. But still, he’s able to read in between the lines. Poseidon still claims him. Hermes is still fond of him.
It’s a huge relief for other people to know how powerful he is and still accept him, instead of being scared and thinking that he’s monstrous.
“It’s not that, not entirely.” Percy says, and then explains what happened with Ahklys, and how the others reacted to him. He sits down on the couch, with Blackjack nibbling on his hair and sweater, and Hermes sitting on his other side listening and making the odd comment.
“I don’t know if you made the right choice.” Hermes says, at last. “You came out alive against opponents much older and powerful than you so I would wager that it is. But Percy, know that hindsight is twenty-twenty. In the moment, all you can do is make the choice you think is the best.”
“Thank you.” Percy says. He feels better, like a load has been lifted off his chest. Tartarus and all the trauma that accompanies it is there, but for the first time Percy feels like he isn’t drowning underneath the weight of it.
“Of course.” Hermes says, and claps his back before standing up. “Now brighten up. And I do mean that literally; stormy skies are no good for planes. Where do you want to go? Paris, the Caribbean islands, New Zealand…”
“Manhattan.” Percy decides. “Home.”
The End.