*minor rewrite posted 02-28-16*

So for about the third time, this story has gone through some revisions. What was once going to be an in-depth study of all the Seven has turned into something that focuses more on Percy and Nico. I spent nearly 2 months trying to iron out a Piper chapter, and just couldn't get it to a resolved place. It was always too short and too...boring?

I promise I'll go into more detail with other characters that I've neglected in the past though. All my ideas are still going to stand, I just realized I won't be able to focus entire chapters onto certain characters.

Hazel is still homophobic, Solangelo still sucks, et cetera, et cetera.

Hope you still enjoy, and leave a review if you have any questions, comments, or concerns.

PERCY

Everything's an Illusion- Mayday Parade

I've never been one for rules. My track record certainly speaks to that fact.

I've been expelled from more schools than I can count, for starting fights, for mouthing off to teachers. I usually never stayed in one place for more than a year, and it showed in my dittoingt lack of mortal friends (especially seeing as Rachel no longer counts).

I've even been expelled from Goode. Apparently I'd missed too much school between all those months spent in Hera's sleep or as a Roman or on the Argo II or in Tartarus or fighting another fucking war. Not even Paul had been enough to keep me there. My expulsion was completely out of his hands.

It made me sad that I couldn't go back there. I'd made a promise to myself (and to my mom and Paul, for that matter) that Goode would be my last school, that I'd spend my junior and senior year there with the few mortal friends I'd been able to make and keep. But now that was fucked up. I hate letting my mom down…again…

All I ever do is let people down. All I ever do is get in trouble. All I ever do is fuck up.

And this…this was my latest fuck up, my latest edition to a long list of bad decisions. It could get me in trouble on a lot of different levels.

Not that I really care anymore, I think to myself as I eye the three-quarters empty bottle of clear liquid in front of me. Not empty enough though. I still have a ways to go.

I take another swig and grimace as it burns the back of my throat. I've gotten used to the pain though, and the unpleasant taste. After all, the end result is always worth it: a beautiful numbness and possibly a dreamless sleep.

All this, just to take the pain away for a night. All this, just for a little sleep.

I know that it's wrong, that it'll only hurt me. Living with a raging alcoholic should've taught me that. I'd lived for years in that tiny apartment with Gabe. I still remember the smell of stale beer and smoke that permeated my childhood home. And then there were the really bad nights, the nights when that asshole lost his paycheck in a poker game, the nights when my mom was stuck working extra shifts to make up for the check he'd lost the week before. On those nights, I was left alone with him. I remember them too well. His hot, alcohol scented breath, the crash of beer bottles hitting the tile floor, the harsh sting of a slap across the face. Those nights were the worst, and they still invade my nightmares from time to time.

You'd think all that would've made me hate alcohol. And for the longest time, I thought it would. It had never interested me before, as it had never seemed like a viable option for my problems. Talking to people was usually good enough to help me figure out the things I couldn't work through on my own. I tried not to bother or worry my mother too much, so I would mostly talk to Grover…or…or Annie…

But now…now I need this. I need it so much because I have no other way to deal with these emotions. I have nobody to talk to, nobody to help me understand how to move on and stop hurting. Deep down, I know it's not a solution. I know it won't bring her back, but it's all I have to make things better.

Without it, the dreams invade what little sleep I manage to get. Each night spent without a drink or two or three are torturous. I relive her final moments over and over in my nightmares.

All I see are her lifeless gray eyes, staring unfixed at some point in the distance. I see her pink lips bloodstained and parted, breaths rattling in her chest.

All I hear are my own raw throated screams, begging for her to hold on as I frantically searched for ambrosia. The sounds of the battle fade into the background, muffled by the dull ringing in my ears, the sound of my own pulse beating rapidly. I barely hear he desperate, whispered final words.

"I love you." My own broken, cracking whisper returns the sentiment to deaf ears.

All I taste are the metallic drops of blood on her lips as I kiss her a final goodbye before the earth begins to shake under me.

All I feel are Jason's strong, calloused hands pulling me away from her, my own slick with crimson blood. I feel the sting of the hot water on my cuts as the shower washes our mingled blood down the drain.

All I smell are the tendrils of acrid smoke wavering off her burning body, her shroud an unembroidered gray, just like the smoke. Just like her eyes.

The contents of this bottle…it gives me a respite from those memories. It stops them from repeating in an endless cycle in front of my eyes. Maybe it doesn't make things perfect, but it helps. It makes it just a little more bearable.

Does that make me an alcoholic? I guess, maybe. But I don't care. I need it.

Without it, everything is too much to handle. My heart hurts, but this dulls the ache. My new scars flare with phantom pains, but this takes those away. My eyes burn with stubbornly unshed tears, but this allows them to flow freely down my cheeks.

I feel nothing but grief and sadness, every moment spent fully conscious is almost impossible. I don't remember the last time I smiled, the last time I laughed or was truly happy.

Everything I see reminds me of her, from the campfire we used to laugh around, to the lake where we shared our second kiss, to the trails we wandered on fall afternoons, holding hands. It keeps me from leaving my cabin because I just know that the second I step out I'll be overwhelmed.

And then there's the campers. They're always staring at me and whispering amongst themselves. They wonder how I'm holding up, probably. But rarely does anyone try to talk to me. Most people keep their distance.

To make all of that worse, the days I leave my cabin are days I have to spend sober. It could dull the pain, sure, but I can't risk someone finding out about the drinking. At least I'm able to pass off the irritability and anxiety and tremors I experience when I'm not drinking as grief. Nobody questions me because their assumptions still stand.

So the days that I go outside…they'e getting fewer and fewer. I'm finder it harder to get up in the morning because most of the time I'm still hungover from the night before. And I was too scared to go home because I knew I wouldn't be able to continue this pattern there.

I feel like I can't move. If I go outside, I'll be flooded with memories and stares. If I go home, I can kiss my only vice goodbye. So instead I sit on my rumpled bed in clothes I've been wearing for at least two days, maybe (probably) more. I don't quite remember the last time I stepped outside or got something to eat.

Tonight, I find myself wondering what my so-called friends would do if they found me like this, a complete mess with a bottle in my hands. They didn't know how bad it was, they had absolutely no clue that I did this every night.

Jason and Nico would probably regard me with disappointed pity after seeing the supposed great hero fallen so low. Piper, Hazel, and Grover would be sent into a worried frenzy. Everyone else would be angry at me for doing something so stupid.

I wonder how long I'll be able to hide this from them, how long it'll take before someone barges in late at night, needing something, only to find me red-eyed and shaking in bed.

Surely someone will find out soon. It's been days since I last left my cabin and two weeks since the final battle with Gaia. You'd think people would have showed more concern. You'd think Piper or Jason would've stopped by to shake me out of my stupor.

In hindsight, I'm sure people have noticed…and I'd hope that they're concerned. They probably don't know what to do to help me or what to say to me. So they just do nothing. Sure, they offered their condolences in the beginning, and shed tears for their own fallen friend. But none of them quite understood what I was going through, so it was easier to stay away.

I don't pretend that they're not hurting. They lost a friend too, and they're probably dealing with their own lot of nightmares and PTSD symptoms.

But they have someone to help them deal with the grief and pain this war has brought.

Piper and Jason…Hazel and Frank…they're all still together. I've even heard rumors that Nico was fooling around with some son of Apollo…Will, I think.

They all have a rock to help them through this hard time. They all have someone to find comfort in.

But I don't have that anymore. And part of me thinks that maybe…maybe I never will.

She was my everything. My past, present, and future.

We were going to move to New Rome and go to college. We were going to live long, happy lives free of the gods' bullshit. We were going to get married and have kids: Luke and Thalia.

I was going to make good on all those promises I'd made in the Cocytus. I was going to spend the rest of my life with the girl I loved.

But all that was gone. My dreams of a beautiful future with my best friend were destroyed by one stray blade I'd been too slow, too carless, to deflect.

Her body was burned up with all the rest of the casualties. Her ghost wanders Elysium, or perhaps she'd been reincarnated already.

She's gone. She's really, really gone.

All because of the gods couldn't give me a break. All because the fates were cruel.

No. No, all because of me.

I was too slow, too stupid, too weak to save her. Just like I was to weak to save everyone else.

I was never good enough before and certainly not good enough now.

Broken. Pained. Haunted. Blind. Dull. Useless. Drunk. Gone.

Without her, I can't find the courage to fight, to face the endless amount of days ahead of me. I'm stuck in a confusing world without my constant advisor, my much smarter other half. My confidant, the one I go to in a crisis. My rock, my soulmate.

Without her, I am nothing. I have nothing. I will never have anything.

So I raise the bottle, now mostly empty, in some sort of twisted salute. A whisper tumbles past my lips before the shadows rush me and my head hits the pillow, fingers still wrapped around the bottle.

"I miss you Annie."