"Shit Jason, how much do you weigh?" Charlie asked. His hand was wrapped tightly around my wrist.
"Oh shut up and help me," I groaned. He pulled me to safety and we both peaked over the edge where the minotaur disappeared. Nothing but the River Phaethon was beneath us.
"Ewwww," Charlie scrunched up his nose, "I'm not drinking that anymore."
I looked away and nodded in agreement. I laid my head back on a rock, suddenly feeling how exhausted I really was.
"Bob, think we can break for the night?" Charlie asked when he noticed how tired I was.
Bob frowned slightly but nodded. "I shall watch." He splatted down cross-legged on the ground in front of us. Charlie looked weary but I knew we could trust Bob. My parents trusted him and after all he'd done, I knew we could too.
It usually didn't take me long to fall asleep, but not now. I hadn't slept since we'd gotten here and I had a hard time picturing that I ever would. I knew Charlie had fallen asleep when I could hear his adorable gentle snoring.
"Bob," I said quietly as I pulled myself into a sitting position next to him.
"Yes, I am Bob."
"Thank you for helping my parents. They wouldn't be alive without you."
Bob looked up in wonder as if he were stargazing. "Percy and Annabeth are my friends," he said. We both stared at the pit above us. The sight made my stomach churn. It looked like we were at the bottom of a deep endless chasm. Well, we were.
A whimper brought my attention back to our situation. I turned to face Charlie, who's face had scrunched up in fear. He flailed violently in his sleep. His limbs hit and kicked his surroundings, which happened to be me. I shook him gently but he didn't wake. Whimpers escaped his mouth and he cried. That's when I decided I had to take action. Bob watched in confusion. I grabbed Charlie and held him tightly in my arms, yelling for him to wake up.
"They will all leave!" he shouted the moment he woke, staring at me with crazed eyes. "They're all going to go!"
I didn't know where this was coming from and I didn't know how to stop it from happening. Any demigod sleeping in Tartarus would have nightmares, it was expected. But I hadn't slept. I hadn't had to deal with it.
"They'll never leave! They'll kill you!" he continued to scream. I ignored the fact that monsters were probably at this moment trying to find the source of the demigod screaming in Tartarus. His whimpers turned to elongated yelps and pleas to whatever god he could name, which wasn't many. I thought that was his issue until I knelt onto the ground to help him. It felt like skin. Actual human skin. If I moved slowly enough I could feel it moving as if the body beneath it were breathing. The ground was sticky and warm with the feeling of human blood.
"Charlie calm down! Nobody's leaving you!"
He bolted awake but that didn't seem to help any. The look in his eyes told me that he didn't believe a word I had said.
"No, they're all going to leave. You're going to leave," his voice carried through the endless terrain like a wave.
"I'm not going to leave you Charlie!" I yelled. This seemed to silence him for a long enough moment to allow me to continue my protest. "I'm never going to leave you! Charlie, I'm not ever leaving you!" I promised.
Before he got a chance to respond, I bent my head and fiercely kissed him.
I'm not sure what came over me. Maybe it was the delirium. Maybe it was the stress. Maybe I had finally gone completely bonkers. Whatever it was, it worked. And I didn't regret it.
Charlie stared at me with a perfectly blank expression. He pulled himself upwards into my chest. I held him as he sobbed.
We rocked back and forth for hours that we didn't have to spare. Bob placed a hand on my shoulder and didn't speak. The monsters hadn't found us, but I knew our luck was running thin. They'd find us soon. We had to keep moving. I stood and tried to get Charlie to do the same but he was too weak. He shook his head, motioning for me to keep going.
"Jase, I can't walk. Not like this. In the time it's going to take me to heal it will have already been too late,"
I didn't say a word as I physically interrupted him. I lifted him up and onto my back like I did with Adora.
"Charlie Valdez, I am either getting through this with you or not at all," I said. He knew he couldn't win this fight and something told me he didn't want to. So we trekked through the canyons of Tartarus with a janitor titan, a skeleton kitten, and a piggyback ride.
I thought about Charlie as we walked. He wasn't asleep, but he might as well have been. He didn't speak or move, but I could feel him breathing against me. From what he'd told me while we were still on the Argo, he'd never been away from home for more than a night. That all changed when he was kidnapped by Dionysus and stuck with us. Now he was further away from home than he'd ever be and it was unlikely he would ever return. He was forced into this life.
I couldn't tell how much time had passed. Maybe it had been hours, maybe a day. Maybe more. When I jumped, I'd had a lifeproof watch. Apparently this didn't count. My watch wasn't deathproof. I'd also tried counting as we walked to see how much time had passed. After I'd counted a minute or so, I realized that we'd only walked a few feet. Time was different in Tartarus, so I gave up on it.
