Nope, still don't own anything but the plot. I'll tell you guys if Rick Riordan ever lets me write his next saga, okay?
It's all his fault.
It's all his fault.
It's all his fault.
Jason flipped over in bed that night, unable to go asleep. The world is dark dark dark and he just woke up from the worst sort of nightmare - the one that you end up living. It's the one where you can't seem to find the light anymore because the world is closing in and the ground is swallowing you up because you just weren't enough. You try and you try and you try and you couldn't save your best friend. You can't help but wonder what would have happened if it was you, because if you could take it all back, you would in an instant just to have the chance to switch places.
It's in moments like these that you briefly wonder if you really won the war. Was it all worth of if the one person you knew you could count on, the one with a heart of fire and oily fingers and a never-ending twitch, never gets to come back?
It's in moments like these, when the panic catches up and he can't stop it and Piper isn't there to assure him that the world will be okay again, that he has to remind himself that it's over. They won - or at least, they think they did. It seems that all the living are dead and the dead are all living and the whole thing is so topsy-turvy he just wants to go back to the days he didn't have to think. Jason wishes so desperately that life was easy again. Slaying monsters, leading his barrack, managing friendships - it was all so simple, back when they were playing at fighting and nothing really frightened them except the occasional battle. Now he his eyes were pried open and the real world - harsh, unyielding, odd yet beautiful - was staring back at him. He was so out of his depth at times it's pathetic.
Leo would have managed this all so well, he can't help but think at times. Leo was the one that adapted, that helped everyone out by providing a shoulder to lean on, a chance to laugh, a breath of fresh air. He would have fit in the best he could, and his best was so much better than Jason's. In a way, he had already lost so much more - his mom, his home, his life, over and over and over again. It must have been so cruel to have happiness ripped out of his hands so many times, to have to snatch it back every single time all by yourself before the loneliness and regret catches up again. In a way, that lost, broken little boy had to have been the survivor.
As Jason tried to snap out of that daydream once more, as he had done countless times since Leo Valdez dissapeared, he laughs darkly at the thought that he could still never be half the survivor as someone who's probably dead.
Thalia knows it'll pass eventually. It always does, with a little more time. But now she has to snap out of it because Phoebe and the others are all going to be waiting for her come morning and she can't afford to leave her hunters without a strong leader.
It's funny, really, how different things have become after the war. She's got the same spirit as the old Thalia, the same style, the same attitude and powers, but on nights like these she feels like a fraud. Just a shell of a girl, just a hollow soldier against an enemy she has yet to identify. All she knows is that whenever it metaphorically grabs her by the throat and shoves her against the wall, forcing her to choke on her past mistakes and years lost yet again, it feels a hell of a lot like loneliness, and she thought she was past that. Thalia Grace is so sick of being alone, it kills her, but the only one who was ever able to make her feel less alone is gone now, dead and departed and blown to the wind.
It's in moments like these when she wonders why he did it. She wonders at the ways she would scream at his younger self, how she would fight with all her might to ensure she won. Thalia would kick and scream and remind him of all of his humanity because "FAMILY LUKE, YOU PROMISED" but apparently some promises can be broken with enough time. If she had more of it with him, she would have ensured it never happened, because then he would never have to die. He would have never had to leave her like this.
Most days she's alright. She likes immortality well enough, she likes the empowerment and sisterhood she finds in her loyal hunters. But Thalia can't deny that she loves him, that she misses him, more than life itself.
How long would it take for her to tire of existence all on her own on the inside? Of life as a scooped out and reborn girl? A year, 10, 100, 1000 - they would all blur together, given enough of what he never had enough of. Time.
The truth is, she misses being taken care of. Thalia yearns for the days when everything was simple because he was her family (and that was that, no questions asked). She was the reckless one, headstrong and feather light in battle and in trade and in everything, even love. Luke was always the reliable one, the one who would always take on the burden of her and Annabeth and the world if need be. He was the careful, protective, responsible one, and somehow it all got flushed down the drain. It was funny, the way things changed after the war, but now they are downright hilarious. Because suddenly she's the reliable, caring, protective, responsible one and he's the headstrong, reckless, stupid idiot who made the wrong choice and ended up paying for it. Their places have been switched, their moves have been made, and she gets the sickening feeling that she's beaten him at a game of chess she didn't know the rules to and it destroyed him.
It's in nights like these when the strong, fierce Thalia Grace is completely unsewn and unmade and nobody hears the heart-wrenching sobs but herself. She tries so desperately to imagine that he's there at her side now, the boy from a romance that took place a lifetime ago and never really got the opportunity to bloom, and that he's comforting her just like he used to. Luke's there, holding her and whispering that it's going to be okay, that she's alive, and she's going to move on, and she'll be okay.
Until that moment, it's a nice daydream, but deep down she knows it won't last until morning.
Percy Jackson was never one for leaving behind a friend in need. He's known for his incredible kindness and loyalty, his determination and guts, his deeply rooted and fiery love for his elected family. He was known as the one who would watch the world burn, himself included, if it meant sparring the life of someone he cared about.
But Bob the titan was so far from his range of help, it was pathetic. The man was their natural enemy. Percy had threw away the titan's life, ripping it out of his grasp like it was nothing, and left him to a lonely life sweeping floors and cleaning windows. Yet despite the way the demigod had inadvertently made his existence a living hell, he saved his life over and over and over again in Tartarus. He freely gave his immortal life away in a quest that wasn't his own to save the girl that wasn't his problem and the boy that was responsible for his suffering.
Percy wants to believe that he's going to be okay, Bob is going to be okay, the world is going to stop turning faster and faster and is going to wind up okay, but he can't make that promise. Nothing might ever be okay again, not when the innocent soul that shown so brightly in the face of his own brethren, the one that abandoned and had forsaken his own family in order to make sure they left alive, ended up like this. Dead, and possibly never the same again. The universe may have lost Bob forever, and he can't help but feel like it was all his fault that someone didn't make it back. A member of his fiercely protected elected family is gone, possibly forever, and he can't go back and save him. Percy can't be the friend or protector that Bob deserved, in the end.
And if that's true for Bob, he shudders to think about who else it may be true for. Annabeth, surprisingly, is the first person that comes to mind. He couldn't live without the blonde. She's the strong one, the smart one, his center of gravity when the sky is falling and he's spinning out of orbit. If he looses her like he did with Bob . . . well, there are things worse than death. Going through all of it again wouldn't be worth it if he couldn't protect the ones he loved.
There it is again. You failed you failed you failed you failed, accompanied strongly by you couldn't save them all one had to go it could have been you why wasn't it you you didn't get him back little hero why wasn't it you why wasn't it you why wasn't it you. Because Bob did what Percy would watch the world, himself included, burn for. He got everybody out. He went through hell, even if he couldn't find a way to swim back. And it sucks that there are nights like this one when all Percy can do is think about the terrible things he put his friends through. These nights are few and far between, but the darkness lurking at the edges of his worried mind cannot help but lure him into this smothering guilt again, trapping and confining and binding him with every step.
With shaky legs, the son of Poseidon, the hero, the legend, the human, finds his way to the porch and stares at the sky.
Percy tells the stars hello, but it doesn't seem like enough. He wonders if Bob knows that he's greeted those stars, those fellow pinpricks of light in an indifferent space, for him. Percy would like to believe that the lonely, lonely titan can see these stars through his green eyes, and that they are as awing to him in this moment as they are to himself.
But then again, that's just a daydream, and reality is now.
Daydream: (noun)
- a series of pleasant thoughts that distract one's attention from the present.
Even though it's wrong, the three godly cousins cannot help but indulge themselves. They'd rather reenact a burdening daydream once in a while that live with the promising future.
We all have something we would rather forget, after all. Maybe losing yourself is the best way to forget you're already half gone.
So, this was an angst fest. Kudos to anyone who actually took the time to read through all of this heavy stuff (there's really no other way to describe it) that I just wrote. I just felt the need to write this and, lo and behold, here we are. Depressing, I know, but let's be honest, the fandom is lacking some sadness. We have a surprising shortage of baggage in our archives, anyhow. I'm just contributing, I guess.
. . . yeah, sorry to mess with you all. But seriously, despite its melancholy nature, I really hope everyone enjoyed this. Be sure to review and tell me if my attempt at angst went well.
Thanks for reading this, if you've gotten this far! I'll post more stories soon.