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Percy lagged behind the others, breaths coming in gasps. “Hey, wait up.”
Hazel turned around, running towards Percy and checking him all over once she noticed his state. “Are you okay? Need water, ambrosia, or nectar?”
”No, nope. I’m fine, just… a bit tired. Y’know, the fight.”
Frank furrowed his eyebrows, his hands a bit more clutched now. “Are you sure? I mean, we could go to your cabin if you need a nap-“
”Nah, I’ll be fine, don’t worry. Hey, have some water?”
Frank tossed him a bottle from his backpack. Percy snatched it rather rushed, “Thanks.”
He crushed the plastic in his hands, in which Frank grabbed from him and threw it to the trash can around the corner(it landed, by some weird chance). Percy looked up at Hazel and Frank still around him, waiting. He smirked, “Go ahead. I’ll meet with you later tonight.”
”At the party?”
”At the party.”
Frank and Hazel shared a worried glance at Percy, before nodding and turning around.
…Finally.
Not to sound rude, but Percy felt like he really needed some alone time. The headache and dizziness was already tiring enough, he was sure he couldn’t deal with talking.
Oh, won’t you look at that. He was now sitting by the hill, out of the border.
He felt the corners of his lips twitch upwards, as the breeze was blowing in his face and it blowing through his wet hair. He sniffed brushed his hand against his nose, where it left little drops of blood on his knuckles. Which, resulted in seeing the sight of his bloody shirt, specifically the side of his stomach.
Percy slowly lifted up the left side of his shirt, ignoring the shaky breath he accidentally blew out. Yep, a stab wound.
He…
”Hey, hey!”
No one answered. He tried again, “Hey, anybody? Annabeth, Hazel, Frank, Will? I’m bleeding out! I need a healer!”
He exhaled and slumped back down. He held his side firmly, ignoring his breaths becoming more rapid.
Well, he’s really gonna die like this. Bleeding out. How cool.
Percy tried more yelling afterwards, yelling “fire”, in Ancient Greek, Latin... Failed, even in trying to walk back to camp(which caused him to just fall flat face down on the grass. What a great idea, would’ve definitely worked).
He turned over, blinking back tears that he wasn’t sure because of the wound or the sunlight. Both? Could be.
He gripped his shirt with his other hand, trying to calm down his fleeting breathing. The blood’s overwhelming, flowing through his shirt to the ground; the dizziness and headache was worse now, his hands looked too pale and felt too cold when he glanced at them, he’s feeling lightheaded, he was dying, everything felt confusingly too light and bright, he was dying, he’s dying, why is he dying-
He doesn’t want to die.
He really doesn’t.
That was a sentence his 12 old-self would find hilariously offensive.
Percy was indifferent to death. He knew all about it; whether it was the god, the manager of that said-god, the near death experiences, or just his own wishes and hope for it in the last years’ Christmas wishlists.
He didn’t want to live. During that time, when he was twelve at least. That son of a bitch Smelly Gabe existed, his mom was dead, his best friend lied to him about the fact he killed his own Pre-Algebra teacher who turned out to be a Fury later on and almost caused him to turn mad, Annabeth was childishly obnoxious and cold with him which annoyed him at an extant, Chiron wouldn’t tell anything(at least anything useful), Luke betrayed him at the end, Luke betrayed him and camp-
But he was fine.
Abnormally. Normally, he shouldn’t have been able to. But he was.
Everything turned out fine, as fine as it could be for a demigod. Especially a forbidden demigod. He got his mom back, who got rid of Gabe, got a lot of cash enough to move out and tuition for creative writing; his friends were good, trusting him more by time; he got used to Camp and started adjusting time by time like others…
Then Grover got kidnapped(goat-napped? Satyr-napped?). The camp borders were fading, Chiron got framed and went away and Tantalus got in his place which was the worst, and-
He got a brother. A cyclops for sure, but a younger brother nonetheless. He was fire resistant, could build awesome weapons, and helped him out during the quest.
Then boom. He exploded in that damn ship.
He traveled with Annabeth alone for the next few hours. Went to Circe’s Spa, got his self-esteem crumbled by a stupid, stupid mirror, went to the Sirens’ island and Annabeth almost blew them up due to being in a trance, almost died in the Cyclops’ island, got Tyson and Grover back.
That was the first two quests.
Percy blinked back tears but it didn’t really matter, since the blurry and dark vision stayed and there aren’t any tears left to cry.
Shit got bad after that, as if it wasn’t any worse.
Annabeth got kidnapped. Hooray. Then he wasn’t allowed to go on the quest that winter, had to go to it secretly, almost got killed by spartoi, Bianca died a few hours later, then he met Rachel in the Hoover Dam(he laughed there. Dam.), lifted up the sky. Then Zoë died at the end of the quest, the gods questioned if he and Thalia should die, Thalia became immortal and gave up the prophecy to either Percy or Nico, Percy had to tell Nico the truth, Nico went missing, Percy got the prophecy handed to him on purpose.
Then there’s the labyrinth next year. Clarisse came back them boom! A camper that was a former member of Kronos’ Army apparently was found driven insane in the said-labyrinth; his relationship with Annabeth was severed, Daedalus died at the end; Lee, Castor and more campers died during the attack, they were closer to the prophecy happening, the war-
The war.
A sensitive subject, enough for him to still flinch.
He was over it. Just like how he was over Bianca, Zoë, Beckendorf, Silena, Lee, Michael-
Yep. Definitely. Because that’s how his life supposed to be. Just a weird demigod who is considered powerful to everyone and is the prophecy kid and has to watch everyone around him betray him or die.
But not Luke. Definitely not Luke.
He trusted him the first time he was at Camp. He accompanied him with necessities, trained and taught him sword fighting; then betrayed him for Kronos(for the rights and freedoms of demigods), sold his body to Kronos, betrayed everyone including Annabeth who he considered a friend, then fucking died-
They died for a lost cause.
This all happened because the gods couldn’t help. Because they were arrogant, cruel, greedy, selfish-
Thats what Luke thought, right? As he just said, this all happened because of the gods. Yet Percy made them promise at the end.
And if it was little, it made some differences.
New cabins being made for other children, a cabin for the unclaimed ones instead of shoving them to Cabin 11, finding more demigods, no more war, no more titans-
And then boom. Yes, another boom. And what is this “boom”? A Hera boom.
She just took his memories, with no heads up! Even a “hey man you gotta save the world again so like I’m gonna steal your memories and then drop you off to the enemy camp hope that’s alright” would’ve been great, honestly.
But at least that turned out fine.
Mostly.
People still died. Roman campers, Greek campers, but that is considered normal when it comes to war.
But at least now, Percy was sure of having a future. There was a university at Camp Jupiter, where demigods can just study, grow up old, and die at old age instead of getting slashed by a titan or a monster. He could study with Annabeth, she would learn architecture while he learns marine biology or something else he wants like languages, Hazel and Frank would be praetors, Chiron and the others would be back at Camp Half-Blood, everyone would be great.
“If I wasn’t bleeding out here, at least.” He mumbled. He was feeling so cold now, almost like he’s in an iceberg; his breathing was slow, he couldn’t feel the pain in his stomach anymore and neither his hands which he wasn’t sure whether he was still holding his stomach or just laying with his limps numb, everything was too bright, voices too loud shouting near him, someone picking him up(Frank?), and nothing else.
Percy laid in stillness, the ground(or the bed, he wasn’t sure) wasn’t the most comfortable but death isn’t really his thing.
The fates just don’t let him be happy, do they?
Maybe he could ask Nico to come by sometimes, if he goes to Elysium at least. Maybe he’d give updates about the others, how Annabeth was handling things, his mom, his dad, if his sister grew up to be cool and awesome.
Maybe. Maybe in an another life he would be there, with them. In a group photo, at Estelle’s birthday party, at dinner with the others in a restaurant, grow old with Annabeth and Grover.
But not in this one.