Work Text:
Percy reminds Chris of Luke so much it hurts. It hurts to watch, because his brother is dead and it hurts to watch because he followed his brother down a mad rabbit hole and everyone came out worse for wear.
It hurts because Percy reminds Chris of every good thing he remembers about his brother. Luke, who was there to lend a helping hand to anyone struggling in their classes. Luke, who stood up to bullies quicker than anyone else. Luke, who could be enemies with one person, cabin, team one day and then best friends the next simply because of his charm and charisma. Luke, whose smile seemed to radiate the sun. Who got kids laughing and giggling and squealing in the canoe lake in no time. Who was friends with everyone and no one and loved and hated in the same breath and they were all none the wiser until it was too late.
Chris noticed it before anyone else. He heard the whispers, saw the stares and was vividly reminded of the first few years after he had re-joined camp. The distrust in everyone’s eyes and in their actions and in the voices was something he would never, ever forget.
Chris thinks that if Percy left now, he would have half the camp following him. At least. And that’s a terrifying thought, because Luke had so many kids following him, and if they weren’t following him, then they were questioning everything they had ever believed in. And Percy is so much better than Luke ever was, and the betrayal isn’t as fresh as it once was. The worst part is this – Chris doesn’t know if he would be one of them. He doesn’t know if he wouldn’t be one of them. He just doesn’t.
Because he remembers his choice, and where that got him. He remembers how it felt like someone smashed up his mind like a child with a stick knocking down a sandcastle. He remembers Luke washing away his doubts like waves wash away writing on the beach. And he remembers Luke sending him down into that maze. He remembers going willingly, at first, because he loved his brother, and unwillingly later, because he loved his brother.
And then he stops remembering. Except shattered screaming coming from somewhere, anywhere, nowhere all at once. And a cold drip-dripping down his spine that never went away. Or the feeling of insects crawling all over his body for months on end, in his ears and out his mouth as he screamed himself hoarse. Daylight was darker than any dwelling corridor of that horrid maze, and colours stopped making sense. He doesn’t remember what was real about that, and what his mind made up.
But Percy spends a lot of time alone. He sleeps in his cabin alone, and he barely joins in with the camp activities. He trains alone, with very few exceptions – Clarisse being one of them – and he never lets anyone else touch him.
Chris doesn’t know what to think. Is Percy scared of getting hurt? Did he stop trusting those around him? Or is he afraid of being the one to do the hurting?
Every single day, Percy looks more like Luke and less like Luke at the same time. Because Luke wasn’t haunted the way Percy seems to be. And he has bags under his eyes deep enough to sheath a sword. But Percy is angry, and Chris doesn’t remember a time when Luke wasn’t angry.
And then Percy disappears. Locks himself away, more like. Chris hadn’t seen him at the dining pavilion in weeks. Only seen Annabeth bring plates of food to the Poseidon cabin. When he does see Percy, the bags under his eyes just keep getting darker.
He doesn’t speak anymore, not unless he is spoken to. His voice is hoarse. From disuse or screaming himself awake, Chris doesn’t know. But it feels so frighteningly familiar that he almost thinks he is still 18, utterly convinced that he hasn’t even left the labyrinth yet. There is no escape. No escape no escape no escape no escape no escape. Insanity.
He doesn’t know if he’s thinking about Percy of himself anymore. Then he wakes up and sits on the steps of the Hermes cabin until Clarisse meets him. She rests her head on his shoulder and grumbles about how early it is. Chris thinks I am here. I am okay. Even though he shouldn’t be.
He thinks Percy is here, but he isn’t okay. He thinks Luke isn’t here, and maybe no one’s okay.
And then he wants to scream and cry and pull his hair out. He shouldn’t miss Luke the way he does. Luke was a murderer, and he was bad, and he manipulated a lot of people – Silena, Ethan, countless others. And he frightened Chris, more often than not. With his anger and his obsession, and his unwillingness to ever take a break and then he was Kronos. And Chris misses his brother.
But others are noticing too, and Chris knows they aren’t thinking the same as him. They are thinking things like. Careful. And crazy. And leave him be. Don’t get involved. People are looking at Percy and thinking Not Safe.
~~~
It’s the same things that people used to whisper about Chris. And Clarisse used to threaten to punch anyone’s lights out if she heard anything. People would quiet down, and he stopped hearing it, but the looks hadn’t faded for a long time.
Chris understood, though, because he wouldn’t have trusted himself either. Hadnt trusted himself. Sometimes he still doesn’t.
Chris knows he doesn’t deserve everything he has gotten. He didn’t deserve his second chance, didn’t deserve to survive. Not when so many others, good people who fought for the right reasons died. That has been in his conscience for years and would be there forever more. No matter what Clarisse says. It’s his cross to bear.
Sometimes he thinks the guilt is going to eat him alive. Grind him down until he is nothing but pain and agony and then spit him out in the fields of punishment. Sometimes he thinks he is still going mad. He thinks he hears voices in his head. Thinks he’s going to see something that’s not really there.
But he doesn’t. Because the things he knows have always been more obvious. He knows that Mr D healed him. He knows Clarisse saved him. He knows Luke is dead. He knows Percy is suffering.
Chris never deserved to be healed. He knows that. He is a demigod that turned against the gods. Helped to plot their destruction. He sat in on so many meetings, discussing the weaknesses of various gods. He knows more about some than he would ever let on. And yet Mr D healed him anyways. Clarisse loved him anyways.
And watching Percy, who reminds Chris so much of Luke, hurts. Because he is just as charismatic, just as caring, just as angry on behalf of the campers. And sometimes Chris thinks he is halfway to madness as well. Sometimes Chris thinks he needs Dionysus as well.
But Percy, who could get almost anything he wanted from the Olympians and who would receive help in the blink of an eye if he asked, doesn’t ask. He is the saviour of Olympus. He deserves everything they offer and more. He deserves so much more than Chris ever got. He flinches away if Dionysus is so much as in the same room as Percy.
Chris notices. He doesn’t know who else does, but he does. If Dionysus is at camp, he will avoid the big house like it’s a timewarped hell space. If Dionysus is at dinner, Percy won’t leave his cabin for the rest of the night. And he hasn’t been to a head councillors meeting in months.
Chris doesn’t know what it is, but Percy is almost always the exact opposite side of camp to Mr D. Mr D may or may not be avoiding Percy, too, but Chris can’t tell. All he knows is that Percy will flinch if he hears the name ‘Peter’ of ‘Perry” or ‘Pierre’ in any relation to him. Will actively leave a room, or a table or his spot at campfire if ‘Johnson’ is uttered anywhere near him.
~~~
The first time Percy eats in the dining pavilion again is a lunch time that Mr D does not attend. It was odd, because Chris had seen the god playing pinochle on the Big House deck not even half an hour before. But the god was nowhere to be seen when everyone, Percy included, arrived.
The god was nowhere to be seen at dinner, but it didn’t even seem to matter, because Percy had gone back to his cabin sometime in the afternoon, and hadn’t re-emerged since.
This time, Chris talks to Clarisse. This time, something feels final.
“Do you think Percy’s okay?”
She’s sharpening her spear, distracted. He hadn’t meant to catch her off guard, and to most other people, it wouldn’t have come across that way. But the way she tenses, slightly shifts her grip on the knife she’s using tells Chris all he needs to know.
She snorts before answering. “Percy? There’s been something wrong with the Priss since he arrived at Camp.”
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I.” Clarisse sets down the spear. “Don’t you remember how angry he was at just being claimed? Poseidon used him. He’s always been angry.”
“Well, yeah, but something just seems… more wrong.”
Chris doesn’t know how to vocalise that he sees both himself after he exited the labyrinth for the last time and Luke before he left Camp, within Percy. It’s not just anger, and it’s not just trauma. Although Chris can’t deny that both are incredibly justified.
Clarisse sighs. “You’re right. I don’t think he’s been okay for a while. I overheard a fight he had with Poseidon two days ago. Only a bit, I think. It wasn’t good.”
“What do we do?”
“Usually, I’d say to get Mr D to check him out, like he did with you. But…”
“But he hasn’t allowed himself in a room with Mr D in months.”
“Exactly.”
“So?” Chris is at a loss. He knows that its stupid, but he feels like it’s his fault. Like if one less person had died in the war, if Chris had been in their place instead, then maybe everything wouldn’t be so bad.
“So, I’ll talk to Annabeth. Tomorrow.”
“Okay,” he says, but nothing about this feels okay.
“Okay,” Clarisse says, and it feels like she understands.
~~~
The next day, Sunday, Chris freaks out.
Because it’s 9 A.M., well after breakfast, and Percy hasn’t left his cabin yet. It’s 9 A.M., and Annabeth hasn’t visited him yet.
Then it’s 10 A.M. and there’s been no sign of either of them. Chris checks the entire camp. No one’s seen them. Chris freaks out a little bit more.
Then, at 10:30, Clarisse finds him.
“They’re fine,” she tells him. The very first words out of her mouth. Chris can finally relax.
“I ran into Annabeth at half past six this morning. They’re away going with Grover for a week. Some kind of retreat. He’ll be fine.
And Chris has to believe that, because Percy’s girlfriend and best friend – who know him far better than Chris does – can help him so much more than Chris could. At least he thinks. Maybe.
So, Chris nods, because that’s all he can do. He just has to wait a week until Percy comes back to see if he’s okay.
Clarisse squeezes his shoulder, and Chris cherishes it. Because it’s the closest she will get to initiating a hug in public. But she’s trying, because she knows Chris is worrying and overthinking everything and stressing, and probably not doing his anxiety any favours. And Chris loves her for it.
~~~
Chris waits for a week, and it feels like he’s just twiddling his thumbs doing nothing. He feels useless and unmotivated at the same time. He wants to just lie in bed all day, and build a psychiatric ward for the camp with his bare hands, at the same time. He gets nothing done, except one bout of sword fighting against some dummies.
When Percy gets back, Chris almost collapses with relief. He doesn’t look great. His skin is pale like he spent winter in Sweden, or maybe the underworld is a better description, and the bags under is eyes are still dark. But the tense line to his shoulders has dropped.
They, Annabeth and Percy, but no Grover in sight, arrive back at lunch. He doesn’t eat much. Seems to just push the food about his plate more than he actually puts it in his mouth. He doesn’t sacrifice anything either, Chris notices. But then, Annabeth stays with him too. She just keeps smiling at him, rubbing circles into his hand with her thumb. She whispers something every now and then with a small smile. The miracle is that each time, for a small fleeting moment, he smiles back.
Then Percy looks up from his plate, and their eyes meet. Chris tenses. He’s been caught. But he hasn’t seen Percy make direct eye contact with anyone in weeks. Percy looks at him long and hard, and then looks down as he scoops up one last mouthful of mashed potatoes. As he gets up to leave, he sends another meaningful look at Chris that he can’t decipher.
Chris gets up to follow him.
~~~
Chris finds Percy sitting at the docks of the canoe lake. He doesn’t turn as Chris approach, but shuffles over a touch when Chris goes to sit down.
“You okay?” Chris asks.
The scoffed “No,” that comes out isn’t surprising.
What Percy says next, is. “Sometimes I miss him.”
Chris tenses. He thinks he knows who Percy’s talking about, but he doesn’t know if he wants to be right.
“Who?”
Percy chuckles, like he knows Chris already knows. “Luke.”
“Shit.”
Shit. He says, because he knew it was coming but it still sent a jolt of fearadrenalinereget coursing through Chris’ bloodstream. Shit, he says, because Luke may have died sacrificing himself, may be considered a hero some way, somehow, but no one has ever said that. In all the years Luke’s been dead, no one has missed him. Chris has never said any different either.
“Yeah. Shit.”
“Do you think, if the situations were reversed, and he had won, he would have missed us?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to hope so.”
“I don’t know how much of him was left. When he left camp, when he started the war, when he let Kronos in.”
“He managed to come back. He’s the only reason Kronos was killed.”
Chris stays silent, but Percy ploughs on. “I keep thinking about it all. About him. He told me he wanted better for the demigods.”
“I think he did, in a twisted way.” Chris pauses. “He got a lot of us killed.”
“It didn’t work.”
“No.”
“It can’t work.”
“No, I don’t think so. Not like that.”
Chris doesn’t pretend he doesn’t see the way Percy clenches his fist. But he doesn’t say anything outright either. He is a coward.
“Percy,” he says. Because he thinks he might be the only one that understands Percy’s torment. “There’s a reason why I left. Why I turned. Do you want to know why I went to a titan who commanded a monster army that was just as likely to kill me as they were to kill the gods? He was my brother. Luke was my brother, and he was the only one there for me. And he asked, and I followed.”
Of course, other factors played into it. His anger at the gods, his father, a major one. Feeling trapped at camp, suffocated. Ignored. Sometimes, it felt like Luke was the only one that knew how to listen. That knew to listen.
And so, he escaped into the night, like so many other demigods. Like some kind of criminal. At the time he had thought himself unjustly jailed. Now he just feels chained by his own guilt.
“That’s not a terrible reason for leaving,” Percy whispers.
Chris smirks, because he knows it is. But he knows Percy genuinely believes it. “Maybe not.”