Where the Shadows Meet the Sea

Chapter 4

A Few Moments That Feel Like Time Can't Touch Them

Percy

And what of him my lord?

What about him?

Without his sacrifice, the other would not have made it.

Demigods perish as often as they are born, and many times even before that. This is not new to us. What is the difference between one and another?

His oath… there are few that have ever been so pure. And in it… so much power. It is the one of the prophecy, I am sure.

You're positive?

Yes. The one fulfilling his destiny rested on the shoulders of the other. Without his sacrifice, the rest would not come to pass as it should. Your brothers' children were always meant to cross paths.

And what would you have me do?

There was a time long ago when power and promise dawned new life.

That was long ago. The perils were much greater.

Were they?

The voices float along the stream of darkness that Percy Jackson floats upon until the current draws him further away and the voices grow feint and disappear altogether. They are familiar but fleeting and he welcomes the silence as it consumes him.

When he opens his eyes he's floating in the ocean with the stars hanging high over his head. The waves lap against land somewhere in the distance and it whispers to itself with each gentle wave. Percy is lying on his back, arms and legs spread wide and he is weightless. He doesn't use any of his gifts, just floats, his body bobbing and for the first time nothing hurts and his muscles aren't tensed ready to kill or die trying at a moment's notice. Percy just floats. And he just breaths.

The sensation is strange.

Safe.

The word pops into his head and feels foreign. How long has it been since he's felt safe? He tries to cast his mind back but there is nothing to grasp onto but the sensation of the water against his skin and the soft light of the evening on his skin. He's weightless in the water and it's calming in a way that takes root deep inside of him.

The current carries him and he is an empty vessel thinking of nothing but the feel of the water under and around him until his fingers brush up against something else, soft. Familiar. There are fingers and they wrap around his own connecting their hands.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Nico's voice is soft, half heard from under the water (because depending on the waves they're above or below or somewhere in between). Percy closes his fingers around the other boy's keeping them together as they float. It settles something deep inside of him. Something he doesn't want to lose. Something that had been sleeping until that moment. Now that it is awake, he can't deny it.

"Don't let go," he insists.

"I won't."

Percy turns his head slightly to see the other boy softened by the moonlight. His dark hair floats around his head like a silver flecked halo and his cobalt eyes are like the night sky itself reflecting the stars. The dark of his clothes is lost amongst the inky water but his arms and hands and face and neck are pale, amplified by the stars. Nico doesn't turn to meet his gaze but he's sure the other can see him out of the corner of his eye. Placated by the other's answer, he settles back.

"It's peaceful," Percy finally says. "Calm."

"It is."

The silence settles between them and for a time they drift.

Neither lets go.

"Where are we?" Percy finally dares to speak, his voice soft, but it still sounds loud in the endless silence that surrounds them. They'd washed up near the shore of a white sand beach stretching as far as they could see. He had sat down with his feet just in reach of the waves so they could rush to meet him before retreating back once more and Nico sat next to him. Being wet didn't bother him and he didn't attempt to dry himself off and the other demigod hadn't asked either.

"I don't know."

"Should we be worried?"

"Probably." But Nico's tone isn't and Percy can't say that he blames him. He's not worried either. Not sat on the beach with the full moon hanging low in the sky overhead and a hundred different constellations gazing down at them. After a moment, Nico continues. "I feel like this is a gift. I don't want to question it."

"I know." Percy answers, and after a time, he speaks up again. "It's strange seeing you older. Every time I look over, I keep expecting you to look fourteen again."

"Tell me about it. It's like the world's fastest growth spurt."

Nico lifts a hand to run over his cheeks and face as if feeling the differences. They're easily visible to Percy. His cheeks are higher, more prominent. Nico had never weighed much, but he'd still had a shadow of that childish roundness left to his face but now it's gone. Instead, Nico's jaw is angular and in a few more years (or maybe just one or two) it will be strong, Percy thinks. His eyebrows have always been dark and thick but the rest of his face seems to have grown into them as well as his ears.

"At least I skipped the squeaky cracking voice stage."

"It's not that bad." Percy insisted.

"Please. Like you even heard yourself, Jackson."

"I sounded awful," Percy chuckles. "I'm glad it didn't last longer than the summer, but Clarisse was a massive pain."

The curly mop of dark hair hasn't gone but the moonlight catches a few silver strands throughout like someone had brushed Nico's hair with streaks of shooting stars. There's the scar, of course, prominent from where the lycanthrope had swiped at his face (that thought burns somewhere deep inside him but he can't quite place it) and it cuts through the demigod's left eyebrow and curves to the hollow of his cheek. It doesn't distract him from the way that Nico smiles at him, or how it curves a little more cautiously as he thinks before he finally speaks.

"Is it bad?" Nico asks of the scar and Percy knows he's been caught staring so he meets the other teen's gaze and shakes his head, honestly.

"No."

"Do I look how you thought?" The son of Hades asks and from the look on his face he's hoping for complete honesty, even if his dark eyes are gazing out from under a mess of sea swept ringlets.

"No." Percy's answer is quick and he can see the second that Nico's shoulders slouch just a little. He reaches forward and brushes a few strands of the other's hair behind his ear and grins. "I definitely didn't think you'd be taller than me."

Nico falls backwards, his hands holding his stomach. His laughter is like the rusty hinges on a door to a forgotten room, creaky and out of use, but the longer he laughs the more familiar it sounds (like he's finding it all over again). Percys turns to face him, resting his chin on one knee with the other leg folded around. Part of him wants to ask why Nico finds it so funny — and part of him is well aware that he's not exactly the tallest of male demigods his age — but a bigger part of him wants to keep listening to Nico's laugh for as long as it lasts.

"You're ridiculous." When he finally catches his breath, Nico rubs the tears from his face with the backs of his hands because the palms are littered with damp sand.

"It's one of my more charming qualities." Percy flashes him a smile and they both laugh again.

The stars overhead shine and there is a gentle breezing carrying the scent of the sea and Percy inhales deeply taking in the fresh scent. It's the small things, he thinks. The things we forget to enjoy. The ones he forgets to notice. Like the scent of the sea or the feel of a cool breeze against his skin. Like the feel of damp sand between his toes and fingers. Like a clear night with the sky expanding forever above them with the stars and the moon watching over them. Like the sound of Nico's laughter or the way he plays with the sand, picking up handful after handful only to drop it once more. Each time is closer to where Percy's hand rests in the sand until finally their fingers brush.

Percy slips his fingers between Nico's and closes them.

It's the small things, like the way he is not alone.

The way the damp sand feels between his skin and Nico's.

Or the way Nico doesn't hesitate nearly as much when he smiles back at Percy.

"Percy—"

The voice is close enough to his ear that he can feel breath and it tickles the hairs on his neck. Whatever time it is, there's not light playing across the backs of his eyelids so he's certain it's too early for them to wake up. They have hours still if the dusky color of his closed eyes is anything to go by.

"It's early," he insists, reluctant to wake.

Percy's face rests on one arm but he reaches out with the other attempting to find the other. When he does, it's the crook of an elbow behind him and he attempts to pull the other closer. Where there was warmth pressed to his back there is now a chill running up his spine.

"Percy—"

"We don't have to wake up yet, Nico," he whined. "The tide's out and when it comes back I'll keep us dry. When was the last time we just slept? I'm so tired…"

"Percy, you need to get up." There's an urgency to Nico's voice that crawls under his skin and has Percy pushing himself up at the sound (he's using both hands — that doesn't seem right but the thought is slippery and falls from his grasp as he focuses on Nico and finally prying open his eyes). It takes a moment to orient himself, the blood rushing to his head, and he turns to face the other. They're less than a hand's width apart and Nico's eyes are wide, dark and staring off in the distance over Percy's shoulder.

It takes a moment for his bleary eyes to focus as he turns his head to follow Nico's gaze but when it does his stomach drops. The soft silver sands and stars above are gone, replaced with the banks of a riverbed spanning in either direction. Needles, shards of broken glass, rusted metal pieces stab into his palm and when he lifts it up he's bleeding and many of the pieces have embedded themselves there. He uses the other hand to pluck them out, dropping them to the ground. The soft moonlight and stars are a world away because they're sitting on the banks of a river of blood in Tartarus and with each inhale of the acrid air, his lungs feel a little heavier. Every breath is an effort as his body works against him.

Hope dies at the sight of the other boy's expression.

"How did we get here?" He asks but Nico's look is still far away.

"You're not really here."

"What do you mean?" But try as he may, he can't get Nico to look directly at him.

"This isn't real. You're not here."

"Of course I am. I'm stood right here!" Percy growls as he pushes himself to his feet and reaches down to yank Nico up with him. The other demigod feels like air and once he's stood, Nico's dark eyes finally meet his own. Dark curls fall across them and he badly needs a haircut, but it mostly hides the welt of a wound caused by the lycanthrope down the side of his face.

It will scar.

Just like Percy's back and his sides and his neck and his shoulder.

My shoulder? The thought is heavy. It feels like slow moving poison in his gut.

There's a sadness in Nico's eyes as he reaches up and touches Percy's cheek but other than a chill to his cheek he can't feel it. Percy lifts his own hand to cover Nico's but his fingers find his own cheek.

"You're safe now," Nico whispers. "You aren't here."

Percy isn't sure if Nico is trying to reassure him or himself.

Percy opened his mouth to ask if the other boy had hit his head but he blinked. All he did was blink and when he opened them again Nico was gone (though he wasn't sure how he knew it because it was darker than night). Everything was dark. So black. He couldn't see a thing but he could still hear the whisper of a voice in his head telling him that he was safe. Percy's mind spun in confusion — how could he be safe if Nico wasn't there? And where was he? Something was wrong. Something had happened, and it gnawed at his insides, an insatiable black hole determined to consume him. And Percy couldn't move and when he tried to remember he couldn't. His arms and his fingers and his toes wouldn't obey his commands to shift, to reach out, to find Nico (because if he could, the panic would quiet, and his heart would stop hammering).

Percy was frozen in place, paralyzed, and each noise in the darkness was magnified a thousandfold to his sensitive ears as he tried to decipher what danger waited him. What— or who— he would have to fight or kill next.

Something's here.

But where was Nico? Where was the other boy and why couldn't Percy move? He was alone and he couldn't move and his tongue felt thick in his mouth and his limbs wouldn't work. They might as well have been encased in cement for how responsive they were to his pleading. No matter how many times Percy blinked, his eyes didn't adjust to the darkness of his surroundings. His stomach crawled up the back of his throat.

Every second was one more that he was in danger and unable to defend himself, or another second that Nico might need him and he wasn't there.

Percy could feel them then, some moving, some closer than others. Six of them. Whatever they were, he could feel the blood pumping through their veins. None of them felt like Nico, and he tried pressing further but found nothing of the other boy. Nothing that felt like that time on the cliff overlooking Chaos. Icy claws of panic sank deeper into his chest and punctured his heart.

The House of Night.

The thought was as rapid as his heartbeat.

Nyx. Friendship.

A board creaks and then another. There's an indistinct sound, a whispering or a buzzing, but he can't make any sense of it. It set the hairs on the back of his neck on end.

They found us.

Except that it wasn't an 'us' only a 'him'. It was just Percy, because he might not be alone, but he was on his own. His lungs screamed for air but he couldn't make them inhale— either because the muscles were frozen or because he was terrified of letting on whatever was in the room with him know that he was awake. He managed to force a few shallow breaths, hardly an intake at all, shallow and uneven. They did little to help his racing mind and the panic grew, festering in his chest like poison and each quick fire heartbeat forced it to spread throughout his body.

The whispering grew louder to a dull unintelligible hum and the end of the bed shifted, pressing under the weight of something and Percy Jackson was sure that in that moment, unable to move more than to blink, that his heart stopped beating. The weight on his chest grew, pressing harder and harder, like something was on top of him attempting to crush the little breathe he had from his lungs. A choked noise escaped him and a finger twitched, just barely, as he attempted to fight back against whatever it was that was so desperate to kill him while he couldn't fight back. Another finger twitched on one arm but the other was heavy against his chest, unmoving to any of his commands.

The temperature in the room dropped, the panic growing.

Can't breathe… can't breathe…

A tear slipped from the corner of his eye with the struggle for breath as his windpipe felt like it was being crushed under the weight of something formless and his chest was being caved in. The tiny inhale he managed was barely a taste but it kept him from passing out as the dizziness grew.

Help.

Percy silently cried out for Nico. He wasn't conscious of doing it, but in his teetering between consciousness and oblivious, the temperature in the air dropped. The humidity in the air pooled together until it materialized in frost that spread from his room across the floor and outwards. All at once sensation returned to his muscles and as if all the commands to move had bottlenecked somewhere around the base of his skull only to course through his body all at once, his body shot upright and his lungs finally dragged breath after breath from the air. And the second that they had air the screaming began, clawing its way up from somewhere deep inside.

At the end of the bed Small Bob meowed at the other but Percy was clawing with his one hand at his neck and his chest as he tried to find the thing that had prevented him from breathing (they found nothing because there was nothing to find). His neck instinct was the find his sword and arm himself against whatever it was that lurked in the room with him, that made the whispering and humming noises. That had sat on the end off his bed. Whatever had captured him and held him down and taken Nico away from him. Hands smacked at the quilt and the bed attempting to find the cool metal that must rest at his side but Percy was blind and it was nowhere to be found.

He was unarmed.

Vulnerable.

The dark gave way to light and for a moment he was blinded.

Percy's arm came up to try to shield his eyes as they watered, the light blinding even against the backs of his eyelids. When he opened them he was met with faceless shadows lurking against the wall of an overly lit room with walls that threatened to close in on him. He might not have had his sword but each of their exhales were a fog of frost as the temperature dropped further, humidity turning to ice across the floor.

Percy didn't wait for them to move.

He threw himself at the shadows because he'd rather die fighting than lay cowering.