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There were no stars on his ceiling.
Back home, back in New York, when they had moved into their apartment, after Gabe, after his first quest, after his first summer at Camp Half Blood, he’d had trouble getting to sleep. Well, not the getting to sleep part, but staying asleep was difficult.
Through the night, the sounds of that storm, the one between his father and Zeus, and the crashing sound of Grover trying to bash down the door to save him from the Minotaur, interrupted his dreams, and stopped him sleeping, and his mom had surprised him, with what she could afford on her paycheque. Shitty little glow in the dark stars to stick to his ceiling.
He hadn’t matched them to any constellation at the time, but he hadn’t known enough to care. The summer after, he might have done Heracles. The winter after that, and always thereafter, he would have done the Huntress.
It gave him something to look at when the dreams woke him up, when the sounds of metal on metal, or the roar of a monster left him sweating and gasping and crying and confused. It grounded him in where he was, and that he was with his mom, at home.
But his new ceiling, in his new apartment, in his college apartment, there were no stars. He hadn’t checked the lease agreement over what he could put up, and what would lose him his security deposit, although he doubted he was going to get that back anyway. It was eggshell in the low light coming from his bedside lamp, and he didn’t like it. It wasn’t Cabin Three, and it wasn’t his bedroom. It wasn’t camping out in the woods, or an underground tunnel, or in a junkyard with his friends, where it didn’t matter so much if he couldn’t sleep because he would just take the next watch until he could calm down. It wasn’t even the Agro II, where he could knock on Annabeth’s door, or she on his, and they could talk.
Not that they had ever done that more than once before Coach Hedge had headed off back to America with Reyna and Nico, but it was the thought that counted.
Tonight’s dream had been about sulphur and darkness. The darkness seeping in. Not just looking into it, but it coming into him, taking him over. Eating him from the inside. He’d once read about a Roman Emperor, for the DSTOMP, who’d died of a disease that had rotted his body from the inside. Necrotising fasciitis. Or maybe a form of gangrene. They weren’t sure, except that it had been nasty. It felt a little like that, he thought.
There had been screaming in the background, maybe. He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t be sure. It faded in and out, like the sound of a street outside, or people talking to him when he couldn’t quite focus in on what was happening.
But he was awake now, and it wasn’t real. It hadn’t been real then, and it wasn’t real now.
His hands gripped the top of his headboard, wishing for something else that could make him feel safe. Wishing for anaklusmos, but Terminus had it. Her, if Annabeth’s cousin’s talking sword was to be believed. His pockets felt strange without the consistent comfort of the ballpoint leaning against his leg, and not being able to grab it, even though he knew he was safe here, behind the Pomerium, with the protection of the legion.
He wasn’t the hero Perseus Jackson here, not the saviour of Olympus. He wasn’t supposed to be. He was just a normal kid, going to a normal college. A little abnormal, perhaps, but he wasn’t even the ex-praetor here, just one of many demigods and legacies going to class, trying to make friends, grab a coffee, try out new things. The normal college experience. As regular as he could make it.
He didn’t have to check over his shoulder to see who was following him, or think too deeply about the appearance of a substitute or a new TA. He didn’t need to, for basically the first time in his life. The new barista at his favourite coffee spot wasn’t a monster, and if any of his classmates wanted to kill him, they kept it to themselves.
It didn’t mean he didn’t check, or he didn’t ask Terminus about the new people, and find out from Frank or Hazel how they’d been vetted, or make sure to see the stripe marks down their forearms, marking them out as former legionnaires.
He knew he didn’t need to, but it was a comfort. It stopped the shaky, unsteady feeling in his stomach for a little while.
The clock on his wall said that it was a little after four in the morning, but he’d sweated his way through his pyjamas, covers, and sheets. He couldn’t go back to bed with it in that state. But the laundromat was only two streets away, and it was open twenty-four/seven. He had nothing better to do, and it got it out of the way.
It turned out, years of training with a sword, and scaling the lava wall at camp, and trying not to die constantly from the age of twelve onwards, was pretty good for being able to drag a big bag of laundry around. Even though the stuff was technically quite light, the shape was awkward, but he made it there without too much trouble.
“Can’t sleep?” the person walking into the place asked, just after he finished loading up the sheets. He knew who it was before she even spoke. He could tell who she was just from the intake of breath, or the way she stepped onto the floor.
“No,” he said, turning around and grimacing. “You?”
She smiled, not quite reaching her eyes, “A little better than you, I think, but not good.”
“If I don’t do it now,” he said, gesturing at the machine. “I’ll forget it exists until it’s too big to ignore.” Which, in this case, meant climbing into a sticky, badly dried bed, and wondering why it smelled weird.
“Same,” she said, kneeling next to him, and loading up her own machine. “And it gets it done anyway.” Her hand brushed against his and he both wished he’d bothered to take a shower before shoving on sweats and a t-shirt to come out here, and that she could stay next to him forever.
“Do you want to get breakfast after this?” he asked, suddenly not wanting to be alone, but not with anyone else except Annabeth. “My treat. I found a new pastry place. Terminus told me about it, they do this really great placenta cake, nothing to do with the organ, I think.”
She pecked him on the cheek, and pushed his hair out of his face, “I’ll buy the coffees if you buy the food.”
“It’s a deal.” He tuned back into reality and jumped a little, “I think I forgot we were doing laundry.”
Annabeth snorted.