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"Are you alright?"

The clean, boyish voice of his savior soared almost clean through his ears, muted and quiet from the bubbles of water stuck inside them. His mouth opened and closed like a fish, both gasping for air and searching for words. Was he alive?

"You're being stupid, Seaweed Brain! Now, get him out of the water."

A brash, feminine voice this time. There were two of them? Two saviors? And one of them was called.. Seaweed Brain? Odd.

But now he was being hoisted out of the water by his arms, of which were being painfully twisted above him. A hiss came from between clenched teeth, and suddenly he was dropped. Back into the water, back into that hellhole. A sharp scream, one full of terror and agony and anguish and fear and-

He broke the surface again, this time held by the waist. His eyes were stinging with saltwater again, and he felt the rushed beating of his heart slamming against his heaving chest, like a parasite was trying to burst through it.

"Get him OUT! NOW!"

The woman's loud voice burst the air bubbles in his ears with an audible pop! and the arms around him shifted, pulling him towards something. "Calm down, Annabeth. He's perfectly fine." Something fiery burned in his stomach, making the area warm and cozy for the first time in what felt like forever. He was most definitely not perfectly fine. Seaweed Brain fit his savior after all.

"I-" Coughing, coughing, hacking his lungs out. Wheezing, air clutching at the roughness in his throat. The arms moved to his own and heaved him away from Seaweed Brain, onto the dry land that was hard against his skin and jabbing into his shoulder blades. He tried again, breath returned yet wavering.

"I a-am not p-p-perfectly f-ine.."

Those damned gentle fingers were around his calves now, working at the tight wire that wrapped around him like a present being prepared for Christmas. "Shh, Kid." The woman- Annabeth, Seaweed Brain had said- cooed into his ears, her own rougher hands rolling him onto his side and taking his wrists into her grasp. The bindings became loser around his legs, feeling tingling into the area and forcing a sigh out from his chapped lips.

"N-no.."

A delusional whine made his throat sear with pain, as if the high-pitched sound was running a fork up and down his neck. The wires were unwrapped from his calves, his legs quickly pulling up towards his chest. "Calm down, Kiddo." Seaweed Brain inched forward- the sand shifted underneath him- and wrapped his smooth fingers against his ankles. He jerked back, taking a deep breath through his nose. Seaweed Brain smelled like saltwater and green tea.

He kicked again, trying to get farther away from the smell of abandonment, of torture, of deception. And closer to the smell of old papyrus and wrinkled pages, of drying concrete and rusty tools. Towards Annabeth.

The hand only pressed harder. Seaweed Brain was starting to get agitated, and a pool of fear added to the ocean inside of him. "We're just trying to help you, Kid. So suck it up and-" Annabeth growled over his cry of despair. "Shut up and don't be a hypocrite, Perseus Jackson." The feeling of wire pressing against his wrists and shoulder blades was gone, replaced by the slow hands on his elbows that were slowly circling his stiff arms.

Seaweed Brain- Perseus Jackson was way too normal of a name to call him- grumbled and started to untie his ankles again, pressing the wire harder into his skin than before. He didn't complain, although he was sure that his eyes, sightless as they may be, were wild and scared. If they could even hold emotion, that is. He had never really given it any thought.

"Just relax, Ocean Boy. This might hurt a bit."

What? What was she-

Crack!

"Aiee!"

His arms were jerked forward with undeniable force, dangerously nearing his face. His eyes were uselessly clutched as tight as they could possibly be and a sharp pain spread out through his limbs. Annabeth lowered his arms to his sides, where they lay limply along with the racking of his- He was-

"Annabeth, what did you do?!"

Tears streamed down his face like a fountain, the lingering pain increasing from the shaking of his body. He barely noticed when his ankles crossed each other freely and his arms stiffly hugged his knees to his chest, head ducked into the crevice created.

It was too much.

Way too much.

"Just trying some chiropractic therapy. Why?"

Too much.

It hurt so bad.

"You just-"

So bad.

"Am I too awesome for your Seaweed Brain to comprehend, Percy?"

He sobbed quietly now, hands tangled together and eyes staring blankly ahead of him. Someone shifted behind him, drawing closer and closer until their hand were resting on his cheek. It ran against his face, before swiping something up and, he guessed, observing it so closely it was like they were using a magnifying glass. "Are you.. Crying?" Seaweed Brain. He curled in closer.

"N-no.." There it was again, the baby-soft hands that were easily forcing his knees away from himself and making him sit upright. "Look at me in the eyes and tell me that." Panic struck through him. If they knew, they would probably just shove him back into the sea again. He searched wildly through the darkness for a set of what he imagined to be eyes, round and oval-like and soft.

But all he saw was darkness.

The hands clutched the sides of his face again, forcing his face closer to Seaweed Brain's supposedly and lifting his head. "Look at me!" Seaweed Brain growled gruffly. He could hear the grinding of teeth and the angry lilt at the end of his voice. The hands stopped his quivering from reaching his neck, but he commanded his sore arms to lift and search for Seaweed Brain's face.

"Percy, stop! You're just- What are you doing, Ocean Boy?"

His fingers brushed against something soft, tracing up what he assumed to be a toned chest and hooking onto the collar of a T-shirt. His small hands traveled higher, up Seaweed Brain's neck and cupping the angular chin, and the sharp Greek nose, and finally finding the crevices where- The hands left his face and snapped onto his wrists, pushing them down and making them clutch his own weathered, soaking wet pants.

"I-I'm.. I'm s-sorry.." Quietly, meekly he apologized, sightless eyes downcast although he was sure that they already knew. His fists clenched the cold material, fingers weaving into it and pulling it away from his trembling legs. He was gone. They were going to throw him back in. He knew it all along.

"Are-" Seaweed Brain's voice was unusually quiet, salty smell drifting into his nostrils and making him fidgety. He shut his eyes tightly, ready for the rejection, the outrage, the sudden burst of anger. Seaweed Brain gulped. So did Annabeth, who had moved closer and now rested a hand on his elbow.

"Are you..?"