Okay so it isn't Thursday but this took me some time to work with and get right and where I wanted it to be. Got the first portion of it done yesterday where I had the time and did the rest this morning. This is what I spend my time doing at 3 a.m.

The writing here I tried to stylize a bit more for the setting and events, where things feel jumbled and distant. Shame I can only align left and center. Original had the center pieces aligned to the right hand side. I'll settle for this though. No big deal.

I'm going to try writing another piece, a small one to put with this story before tomorrow comes,(A.N.: and I completely took a curve in that chapter and it will most likely be longer than this chapter, making it late. My apologies) if I can set it up and visualize it right. It won't be much, just one last perspective on this day. I know I could compile them together in one chapter since it's all happening around each other, but that didn't feel right with the perspectives I chose to take, so I cut it like this. This chapter especially could have what I upload next on here in the middle but I felt as though the shift wouldn't have been beneficial to the perspective we have, so I'll make it later.

Thank you for enjoying this story. Sorry if the title is a bit misleading to think Magic with something brighter and cheery and then I write this. Hopefully my next chapters on this story after the next will clear things up a bit. Do enjoy. It's nice to see more people come in wanting to see it continue. Makes me feel my investment is worth it.


(Important note: Putting in an edit a bit late: This first half of the story is a bit into details of gore. Maybe it doesn't bother you. Maybe the allusion of some details is enough to get you to fill in the blanks. Maybe you hate that imagery altogether, and I assure you I sympathize. I myself am not a fan of details of blood and wounds, to put mildly. I'm currently writing the next chapter for this story, and it briefly goes over some of what's in this first half with very little detail as to what's going on. If you would rather read that, you can skip this stuff up to the next parenthesis italics and you won't miss much story. I really only wrote it this way to better illustrate what the problem is Percy mentioned of Tartarus in his story to Delta. I didn't want to skip it because I didn't think I could sell it as a problem and fear if I didn't, pardon my American, full-ass it. The whole other half of this chapter is just Percy with morning sickness if that even interests you. The other line through the page marks where that starts. Thank you to the two who have commented since I posted this chapter already. A lot of this first half is new for me to write and was a test to see how I can go about wording and expressing these things and what I would have to and should fix if/when I tackle it in a later chapter(s). Thank you for the comments to let me know this could have gone better. I'll keep that in mind as I move forward. Enjoy or skip depending on how you stomach this kind of stuff, and I'll hopefully have the next chapter in before the day ends.)

Percy didn't like owning things. Or at the very least not an abundance of things. Anything he kept was simple since he moved into the apartment. Aside from comfortable rearrangements made to his bed and the seats thanks to Hestia taking liberties unannounced, Percy bought little to furnish the place he would stay in. He was no longer on the run, but moving about with other demigods he had to direct while staying in the wild was more common than relaxation.

His bedroom was a clear example of that. Nothing on the walls other than what was given by the owner of the complex. A mini fridge beside the bed. Some single sofas set beside the window overlooking the street leading up to his place. The most he added was an electronic keyboard on the desk. Hestia bought it for him (not made, bought, and she specified her efforts to get him something of worth) since he had been wanting something to do in his pass times that wasn't training or hunting for more demigods to introduce to the camps, and he focused briefly on learning some music, and an instrument to play, which obviously enough turned out to be the piano. Only problem was he didn't play much on it, nor could he find many sheets of music and songs to play on the piano he had a dying urge or interest to learn and memorize. So it sat alone most of his days sitting around the house with no idea of what to do in between the lack of Hestia's company.

But it was where he spent his time, since the common area was too spacious for just one man, so he wished his new company of a man stuck in his iron armor a good night and hid away in his room with a click of his lock. A b-line was made for the mini fridge, pushing aside the small containers of fruits and sweets for him to store his beer bottles. The mini fridge was a nice installment of his room, mainly where he kept cut fruits for breakfast, sweets for late night deserts, and any drink he intently needed, and that included the beer.

Percy collapsed in the chair of his desk with a squeak emanating from the back. He merely hummed at the sound, sitting loose in front of his keyboard staring down the keys. His hands sat below, resting on his knees making no attempt to play the notes resting on the stand atop the keyboard. His eyes never rose once to read it. He just sat, still, frozen, listening to the soft ringing in his ears and the small creaking of his chair.

His lips smacked apart, and his tongue played off the roof of his mouth, reciting a tune he was listening too when he and Delta had walked through the store. The lower half of his jaw jutted forward and back, changing the sound the clicking of his tongue made. Until he stopped abruptly in the song, freezing up again for a brief moment before leaning forward in his chair. One of his hands rose above the desk, hovering over the keyboard and tapping down on a white key. No sound came out from it other than the solid clicking of it moving down. It sounded nothing like anything other than nothing. The hand journeyed across the keyboard, pressing down on a blue button before returning to the same key and pressing down on it again. A soft ding came from the instrument, and the hand worked again to turn the dial of volume down to soften what he would make before hitting that key again.

His tongue clicked again, replaying the same sound as his finger moved up and down the keyboard in between each click. Click, press, no. Click, press, no. Click, press, no. Click, press, n-…that's it. Percy repeated the click with his tongue, pressing down on the key in sync and nodded after several times. He repeated the sound with his tongue, adding to it a change in the sound every other time; the second key. His finger worked with his mouth, jumping from the first key to another one further down the board, but not coming across the right key. Click-press, click-press, no. Click-press, click-press, no. Click-press, click-Percy

His hand shot back, jutting with the rest of his body against his chair and leaning back into it. His right hand loosened, the index finger staying dominant and out the most, with his gaze fixated to the keyboard before him. His mouth had snapped shut and he suppressed the urge to open it again.

Percy kept still in his seat without so much as a sound of his breath reaching his ears, the soft ring from before rising steadily behind him. His lips parted as the ringing turned screeching, and the air he tried to breathe in was too hot for his throat. His body twitched, and the ring-screeching faltered, and the split second it was gone he was deaf and he shot up out of his chair and then it was back with a passion. His body curled forward and his hands fells onto the keyboard, pressing down hard onto the keys.

PERCYPERcypercyPERcypercypERCYpeRCYPerCYPERYPercyperCYPercypeRCYPERCY

The volume in his ears jumped him forward, his hand darting to the corner and all but smashing down on the power button. The ringing stopped, the sound stopped, and he with it stopped, hunched over the device and panting at the loss of air. He pushed himself up with weak arms and found himself falling back on weak legs and landing on the edge of his bed. His body was jittery, hot, heavy and uncomfortable to wear. His eyes burned, but they were literal fire and they weren't melting his face before and now he couldn't tell if they were starting to do so. His hands clutched knuckle white to the sheets of his bed. He just wanted a stop.

So he closed his eyes. He tried steadying his breathing. He tried straightening his back. He tried easing his muscles. He tried turning his mind away and away and away and away until he could focus on Hestia. His mother. Paul. Manhattan. His apartment. His room. Him. Him. Him. Him.

His breathing pattern changed, his jaw pressing shut to inhale through the nose instead, and cough out weakly in an exhale. His eyes stayed shut, even as his head leaned down. He kept his back as straight as he could with his neck ruining the line, but he could feel the heat ease. The fire cool. The tension release. Air was returning to his lungs. He could feel again, and was he felt was calm and smooth and fine. His eyes opened, heat no longer bothering his face and melting him away—

Annabeth sat on the floor, between his legs, resting against the edge of the bed, Riptide plunged in her stomach among several shorter blades prodding from her just so it could stand out so clearly. Her head tilted back, not because she was trying to, but because the skin where her upper lip and lower lip was cut through to the furthest back part of her jawbone so the upper portion of her head could fold back and look at him with grey eyes unchanged and show to him the flesh and bone and teeth and tongue and cartilage within her mouth bubbling and pouring out from every edge of her chin—

Percy's head shot up and the world froze again. His tongue of red flames dried up and his cheeks shuffled uncomfortably. Slowly his hands, released the sheets below him and easing through the air over his legs to hover in his lap. They dropped down slowly until making contact, and his breath hitched as the touched down on the bedding. His fingers dragged without coordination between his knees and his eyes stung like fire wouldn't and his chest expanded in attempt to save himself. Suddenly he missed the burning in his throat.

He could fix that.

With a struggle he could pick himself up and drop to his knees without collapsing in front of his mini fridge. The door of it swung open, knocking him in the knee and with a seething of his teeth he took out of it a bottle and two, placing the other atop it in wait, and from that atop he took the opener he had for that kind of night. The topless top of the bottle met his lips as the cap dropped to the carpeted floor and his held flew back to accept the burning cold fluid. His body coughed in retaliation as it was pouring, forcing his head back straight and throwing him in a coughing fit with alcohol dripping around the arm over his mouth.

It burnt and that was a good sign.

Percy blinked around the foggy sight he had gathered, from tears and pain and heat and alcohol mixing and mingling better than he did at a young age. He coughed out what drops were left that didn't turn into steam atop his red star choppers as he fumbled back to stand. The bottle still had some left to go, so he kept it held against his chest as he baby stepped it to the window. His body could barely support itself, so he found himself coming in contact with the wall sooner than whoa. His arms pressed against himself, shivering slightly as the heat and hotness he felt fluxed about his body unnaturally. He sniffled, using his clean arm to brush against his nose and the edge of his eyes were it was wet and that was unwelcomed.

His eyes fell onto the city stories below, the small stars of headlights dragging along at a pace with those still awake and about, shining off other people out and about and walking along the buildings together and alone. Peaceful. It was peaceful. Percy like peaceful. He liked serene and calm and pretty. He liked the real world, away from the past. He liked his room where he could hide away to rest. He liked his bed, void of any other life aside from—

Thalia lied atop his bed, her front facing down to his covers and her arms and legs pretzeled and bent and twisted apart and together on her back in her favorite colors of black and silver and red, hands sticking out and fingertips resting on the cheeks of her face twisted to face the ceiling and tilted to face him. Her mouth was left open, teeth plucked between every other, her black mascara smeared up-down her forehead, arrow heads taking up the space where her eyes and lids had been—

Percy turned back to the window and to the wall and pressed himself against it. It broke, he broke, tear ducts broke breath broke, body broke, broke, broke, broke. The only sound out his lips was a gasp for air and an exhale for a cry. It's not real it's not not at all she's fine she's alive she's not dead none of them are dead stop stop stop stop please stop please. His knees knocked together and he fell, down, straight down, clutching his shirt and his heart and his bottle and his mind to keep anything from slipping.

"How strange. After everything the pit has showed you, your fears have stayed."

Percy chocked a bubble in his throat while his head dragged down the wall till chin met chest. His fingers flexed against the bottle as he stuttered to turn.

"And here I thought you were a man of action. Slumping against the wall isn't what I expected of a soldier."

Percy looked back behind him, across the room, around his room, and nothing. No one. No body or person or device or speaker. Just the voice.

His legs dragged across the carpet and a hand fell to keep himself propped up from falling and he burned. The bottle stayed in his grip, even as it got in the way as he struggled to peel his shirt off just to breathe. The cloth found home under his palm, a place for him to put pressure as he tried to stand again, looking to his bed empty and cold and alone just to turn back to the window—

To see Jason dropped in, hanging by threads and hooks and needles like a puppet of the gods and watching him bounce and from the whiplash of his drop watch the hooks peel up his skin and shirt and hairs and head just so his two eyes of blue and tears and blood could meet Percy's of blue and tears and fire—

The demigod jumped back, toppling onto his bed and dropping the bottle beside him, spilling most left into the sheets. His arms circled in on him, fingers and nails gripping at his shoulders and his eyes shut in force and pain and his mouth contorted every which way to cry and scream and plead and yell all to make no sound at all. His blood was building and his throat felt clogged and he wanted to throw up and bite down on his own skin and—

"I must say I'm surprised, even if my sister takes offense to stealing her name."

Percy's eyes snapped open again turning down his face to look to the glass of his window, seeing the nightline and himself and…

Him.

(Important note is back: done with trying to detail gore and fear, what's left is dialogue and a struggle to talk between two characters. Dialogue has only small allusions to bigger pictures, but it shouldn't be enough to trigger a details visualization if you keep reading. Thank you for your time.)

His head curved slowly from his chest, dragging along the sheets and looking to the other side of his bed and finding there not him. He wore red. He was red. His suit was red, his shirt under a darker red and his tie between an even darker. His face was red and fire and magma, his cheeks and lips burning stone and his eyes…his eyes were blue. Soft blue. Dark blue. His blue.

"I had known your state was questionable," the red man spoke to him, lips of molten rock flapping like lips. It was hard to hear. "I had no idea you could break down so easily."

"Hhh-hhhhhhhhh-hh—wh-wh…"

"Ah." The red stepped closer to Percy and from the molten he could feel the heat and the demigod could only try to wither away. "Still struggling I see."

"Y-yyyy—yyo—yyyy-yyyouuurrr…rrrrnnn—rrrnnooo—"

"I'm not him." The lava shook his head. "You've met Tartarus. I'm not him. I have no relation."

Percy released his skin and latched his fingers onto the sheets, turning his body and pushing himself away and up by the second. "Wwwwhoooo—whooorrr—y-y-y-yyyyo…"

"Phobos' greater," the man told the arched demigod. "He's…less efficient at my job. I can do so much more, but if you're looking for a name, I never got one." The blue eyes dropped from the young man, eyeing the bottle lying alone. "All I do is breathe fear, and so I am."

SHNK.

The red rose his head again, finding Percy standing and struggling to hold his sword by his side, wavering atop and above the bed sheets when he could and couldn't lift it.

"G-g-g-g-gggeeetttt….ooa—oooaaa—oouuuu…"

"You've been plagued with distrust and issues of the sort for years, haven't you, Perseus?" The man kept himself still when facing the other in the room, his voice so monotone. "It's ruined the company you've bounced to and from growing up."

Percy growled, dragging his other hand along the bed and pulling off it the bottle he had left behind, dragging it back too. "F-ffff—fffuuuuucc—o-o-o-ooooooooooffffffffff…."

"That's why you continuously lashed out after Gaea had gone back into her slumber, isn't it?"

"Ffff-ffffffuuuuu—"

"That's why you went to bludgeon in Jason's head with his own shield and slit Maximus' throat with his precious knife, isn't it?"

"O-o-ooooooffffffffffff…"

"That's why you decorated your glorious blade with the guts of the girl who forgot how to love you, isn't it?"

"Fffffuuccccck…gggggcccckoofffffffffff!"

"That's why you slit your mother's throat, isn't it?"

Blue burst out his eyes, arm reeling back and shooting forward for the bottle to fly. "FUCK OFF!" The bottle hit the wall, smashing upon contact and sending glass and words and alcohol about the impact. But no red nor man where it hit.

"You lost the trust in the people around you and it got you here." Heat and fire breathed down the back of his neck, blowing into his ear and pumping his body like an engine. "And yet at the flick of a switch put your trust and your story into a piece of metal walking around claiming to be a man. A man who refuses to show his face to you and has given you a name not worth your trust. And you trust that?" The heat brushed across his neck and hovered over the other shoulder. "I am not your enemy Perseus, but first you should sort out who truly are your friends."

And the heat was gone. And he was alone in his room, hot, heaving, shaking, and burning. His sight flickered up, catching a look at the door of his room, and fire in his froze and raged altogether. He stomped around his bed, hand free again taking hold of the bottle atop his fridge and swinging his door open to meet with his guest.


The first thing Percy saw was the ceiling.

His body was outspread on his bed. His head could turn just enough to see his arms and legs out like a starfish with his position. He blinked to his hand, curling his toes and fingers to check his feeling sense. Cold was his skin, barely warm at all was his head.

Oh, his shirt was gone.

Percy's face turned softer, frowning as it turned up to the ceiling lit softly from light to his left. Some bluish or white light.

It's…morning.

Yeah. Morning.

His head stayed still as his eyes rolled to the side, to the window, to the sunrise in the distance. Bit well into the morning, sun inching over the further houses and buildings down the street.

Morning.

So soon?

Percy looked away, not to anywhere really, trying to think of the night. He was…he was…in his room, he knew that much with the purple bedsheets below him. Oh, had he not spent the night under the covers?

Huh.

Percy looked back up to the ceiling above and using his shoulders and elbows pushed himself up to sit up but he must has pushed up to fast because now everything was spinning(?) and his body felt really light all of a sudden(huh) and his stomach was crawling up his throat and aw fuck.

The young man near toppled out his bed and collided with the floor, and the only part of him that did come crashing down dripped out his mouth but he wasn't losing it yet. He moved fast, just not too fast to ruin himself and stumbled out his door and into the one beside, leading him into the bathroom and past the sink and to the toilet where he could wretch out his insides.

His vision was foggy but his cheeks never watered as his throat released. His hands clutched loosely to the porcelain keeping his head hovering above the sickness, one hand shaking as it rose to flush the stench and color away just so more could take its place.

And there he stayed, just moving his body, not letting his mind think and wander and instead had it focus and remind on what he was doing in the now. His hand slapped the sink counter beside him, dragging across and slipping down two a handle to draws down as it fell. The drawer shot open, the sound of metal and wood hitting wood and metal and the clacking of its contents rattling in his ear but really felt like it was banging in his head.

His hand struggled to stay up and on the handle, even trying to raise so it could dive inside, but his mouth was a distraction telling him to hurgk and he could only follow its orders. The hand fell, slapping against the tile floor and dragging itself back with weak effort by his side and resting against his leg. Percy just coughed again, flushed again, kept his eyes closed, shivered at the cold air brushing his spine and skin and hair and he couldn't help but remember that his face was now part fire and wondered if his vomit was even effected by the red teeth—

A knock or four came from the door. "Perseus?" Said demigod turned his head slightly to it, finding it only slightly open for a voice to pass through unmuted. "Are you alright?"

Someone was in his home—someone got in his home—they broke in—came in—he invited them…

Oh. Right.

Delta.

"…mmsick," Percy spat through his lips, sending with it more illness into the bowl he curled against.

"Right. Dumb question. Can…Is there anything I can get you?"

"Imm…" Percy blinked at his hazy vision to get it to part. No success. "Wa-water…"

"I can get that," was the soldier's hasty reply. "Anything else?"

"N-no—" Percy coughed with violence and spat and drooled out more of his stomach. His hand reached over, pulling some of the paper squares apart to wipe his lips. He spat another small bit before flushing. "Jus…just water…"

"Alright." Hesitation. "I'll be right back." Steps. Away. Soft noises.

Percy turned his attention down and across, to the open drawer beside him and blinked.

When was that opened?

Percy went at a snail's pace, dropping a hand inside and pulling out a small box of what he needed. It opened easily, though he was rough with it, and the pack inside was much harder and annoying and wouldn't open.

Another knock and another. "Water's here," came Delta's voice again. "Can…I come in?"

Percy nodded, fingers fumbling to fucking open the packet. "C-come in…"

The door creaked open but Percy didn't look up to his guest because the packet still wouldn't open god dammit. A cup of water was set down by his knees, and with ease and care his hands were forced to let go of the pack as another pair of hands took it away. He wanted to raise his head, but the less than stellar health of his throat bothered him again and turned his attention back to the toilet.

When Percy could throw up no more, he turned back to the door to find the room empty with only himself and a cup of water and dissolving pills. Gingerly he picked it up, watching the water tear his medicine apart until it was there no more and water remained. He could have sped that up. His father was god of the seas and bodies of water and he'd learn how to control pure water before but his stomach advised otherwise.

He eased the drink down his throat, flowing it down his throat sip by sip, and every few times spitting out into the bowl beside when it caught the disgusting taste of his stomach with it. And there he stayed, drinking his water slowly, back pulling him away from the bowl and leaning him against the shower door to straighten his neck and let his throat ease. One hand kept cupped on his drink and the other rested beside him on the tile floor.

His body shivered again, and a crinkle caught his ears. He paused, letting his head drop by the seconds, and finding paper taped to his stomach. Huh. The free hand took to the air and peeled it off his skin, fumbling it around his fingers until the ink he saw on it was eligible and in a position to read.

Hestia…

Percy breathed through his nose, dropping the tense of his body, his hold his shoulders, and the note into his lap. His mouth was watering again, but his eyes never felt like they could anymore. He didn't get that. It felt weird for his eyes to burn when his teeth felt so cold and fire made his features.

He was warm last night. He could remember that.

He couldn't feel it.

He wanted to.

Again.