TW: There are some major (graphic) depictions of child abuse and implied/referenced suicide.
Percy is five when Gabe breaks his arm; six when he breaks the next one. He's so used to the incessant, skin tearing pain that he doesn't blink when Mrs Dodds tears a chunk out of his arm.
He's ten.
Luke. Kind, helpful Luke. (Handsome Luke, is what his mind says as well, though he'll later deny it.)
He gives Percy a spot on his floor, a toothbrush and a sleeping bag, along with a shoebox for the Minotaur horn.
He hasn't cried since Gabe broke his arm. (Although this time he wants to. He wants relief from the constant torture and mental torment. He wants a break.) But his mom is dead and that night her screams echo in his head.
He wakes with sore eyes leaking tears.
It is six months later when eleven-year-old Percy is given his quest.
Since his mom died, Percy has been staying with Luke, learning to fight.
He's especially good with a sword. "You could be the next Achilles, Perce" is what Luke tells him. (Percy beams.) Luke also tells him off his plans with Kronos: he's running away.
And on that fateful night of Percy's capture the flag game, he's claimed by Poseidon. In the creek after Clarisse La Rue tried to kill him.
For the first time in months, he's alone.
He cries again that night.
Zeus has lost his master bolt and blames Poseidon.
That night, Percy is visited by his father, called a failure and hopeless.
Percy hopes he fails.
Percy is sent on the quest alone. No backup. No other demigods. Alone.
He was set up to die.
Percy remembers when Gabe used to burn holes into his skin with cigarettes when the fury tears into his arm like Mrs Dodds had a year prior.
He remembers how Gabe used to crack beer bottles over his head when Medusa and her sisters corner him at the stone festival. They hold him down whilst Medusa's snakes pry open his eyes. With a flash of metal, they are gone, but not before they caused permanent damage. The thin lacerations on his wrists will forever remind him of torture.
He remembers how Gabe first tried to drown him: in the bathtub of day-old piss and stale beer, a dog collar around his neck.
( Percy is seven when he is nearly asphyxiated by his stepfather. It's a miracle he's still breathing. )
Percy flings himself off the arch in hopes his father will save him from Echidna and the Chimera.
He doesn't.
(He's drowning...slowly...but drowning still. His clothes drag him down.
Percy can't breathe.)
Percy is dragged ashore by a girl in blue.
She's pretty, he decides, with a cute button nose dusted with freckles and wild, curly blonde hair. Her stormy grey eyes are piercing and curious. He likes her, he decides, she saved Percy's life.
"You drool in your sleep" is the last thing Percy remembers before he passes out again.
(Blue is now his favourite colour.)
The girl's name is Annabeth. She speaks like she reads the dictionary every night and carries herself like a soldier.
She's a daughter of Athena.
(She's beautiful.)
Annabeth is smart; she knows what kind of places to avoid. He nearly walks into an empousa den when she roughly pulls him back. She berates him harshly and calls him all kinds of names, but hugs him and checks him over for bruises.
(Later, she's awake at night making sure he doesn't die.)
When Percy asks why she responds with: "we're friends, seaweed brain. Any more stupid questions?"
A hellhound finds them.
Whilst Percy is frozen in fear, Annabeth brandishes her celestial bronze knife and riptide.
It takes her thirty seconds to reduce it to dust.
(Someone has tried to kill him with a hellhound before.
Percy tries so hard to forget.)
Annabeth is insistent that they stick together. She's been alone for years, she tells him and has never been to camp. Percy asks where she got her knife (the bronze weapon taunts him quietly) but she stalks off with a huff.
He doesn't ask again.
(Annabeth stabs herself with it, and Percy wakes to her horrifying screams.
He has nightmares after that.)
They are ambushed by furies- kindly ones, Annabeth had called them- but Annabeth is bleeding. Pools of crimson seep out of her side, staining the grass a deep red, and Percy thinks this is what attracted them.
Furies have great senses, good ears, good noses, and it's a miracle they didn't find him earlier.
Mrs Dodds is there- Alecto she called herself- and asks for the bolt -just like at Yancy Academy.
Percy glances back at Annabeth: her face is a pasty white from the blood loss and her usually keen eyes are misty.
He needs to kill them and get some help.
He uncaps riptide- the only thing given to help him on his quest- and slices the air. They're quick but Percy's slices and jabs are precise and land on them every time.
When Percy jabs down on Alecto's sister, she screams, she explodes into dust. Percy does the same thing to the next one- he grabs her neck and pulls- and all that's left is a claw.
Finally, Percy advances on Alecto. The crazed look in his eyes and the golden dust smeared on his face are enough to scare her. She doesn't even scream.
(Percy remembers when Gabe bought a nine tail whip to beat him properly.
His back burns.)
Percy uses the last of the nectar to slow down the bleeding, but Annabeth's wound is still gaping open. His hand is pressed on the shirt covered in their blood covering Annabeth.
Percy doesn't know what to do. He entertains the idea of iris-messaging Chiron- something Luke taught him after his first sword fighting lesson- but decides against it; he'll have to use mortal supplies.
After he gets Annabeth settled behind a few dustbins, Percy sets off to find a pharmacy. He manages to convince the pharmacist that he's a young homeless boy and requires some help before he just bonks her on the head. He causes a ruckus- countless workers and customers lurching to catch him, but he slithers out of their grasp by overtopping the counter. He runs into the backroom, surprising the workers, and tips a shelf over violently. Percy shifts through the supplies until he comes to the medical thread and needle encased in the box- why do they have this in a pharmacy?- and grabs it. He jumps for the back door, knocking over another shelf, to escape the shouting crowd that has formed.
When he reaches Annabeth she is worryingly cold and pale. Percy shakes her but she is uncompliant. He's going to have to do it himself.
He remembers when his mother would stitch up his back after a particularly bad day- she would use the needle and tweezers. A sterile needle and tweezers. Percy has to decide whether Annabeth suffers from a gaping wound or an infection. She dies either way.
Percy gets to stitching.
(Percy burns his stolen twinkie for Tyche, that night, and for the luck she offered him. He knows you can't come across medical thread and needles in a measly pharmacy.)
The black lines zigzag across Annabeth's stomach, un-even and stark against her clammy skin. Her usual tan refuses to return as Percy waits for Annabeth to wake up.
"Damn kid, that's a nasty cut." There's a voice, deep and powerful, that makes Percy want to punch him in the face.
Standing behind him is a man decked in a leather biker jacket and combat pants. His shoes are your typical military boots, although polished and shiny, and his dark hair is pulled into a tight bun. He smiles at Percy tauntingly, his white teeth bared like a shark's, and casually removes the sunglasses that were concealing his eyes. He seems like your typical biker- muscular, arrogant and rude- but his eyes have no pupils, only blazing pools of lava that climb higher with every breath. Now that Percy looks harder, there's a blood-red aura encasing him in a godly flame. Yes, this man standing before him is a god.
Percy immediately rips out riptide, levelling the three-foot blade at the god, and positions himself in front of Annabeth.
The god holds in hands up in surrender and says "whoa kid, I only wanted to help" gesturing behind Percy- to Annabeth.
"What?" Percy demands and shuffles back so he's closer to Annabeth.
"I'll help her," he reassures, and Percy lowers his sword, "if you help a god out." He's placating, but that doesn't stop Percy from wanting to punch him. He comes to the sudden revelation.
"You're Clarisse's dad. Ares," Percy gasps, and his initial defence is back up. "Why are you helping us?"
"Oh yes, you made short work of my children- we were having a hoot about it on Olympus. Not to worry, I don't hold grudges, kid," Ares says, dismissing Percy's last comment, "but I do believe in an eye for an eye."
Suddenly, it gets unbearably hot, and Percy feels like he's wax melting when a flame is lit.
"So you'll help her...what do I have to do?"
So Percy is ambushed in a theme park by spiders, trapped in a celestial bronze net, and yeeted into a wall.
He is not happy, but if it gets Annabeth the help she needs, then it's worth it.
(He remembers the first time Smelly Gabe physically hurt him; he's four and Gabe needs some money.
Percy doesn't have any. The hole in the wall is still there, seven years later.)
When he gets to the diner Ares told him to rendezvous, he shoves the shield in Ares' face.
"What the fuck was that?" Percy demands, "I could have died, you piece of shit!"
He's bloody, wet, tired and angry. Very angry- and being in the same vicinity as the god of war is not helping.
"Well in case you didn't know kid, that was kind of the point," Ares answers, his machine gun switching to a double-edged sword in a matter of seconds. "But you survived so...I underestimated you," he bitterly mutters under his breath, "evidently."
Annabeth is there, Percy finally realises, and she's nibbling at salted chips like they're going to attack at any minute. Like Percy, she's surveilling the room perceptively. Her skin is back to its usual golden glow and her curly hair is washed and tied back in a neat ponytail- she looks like she hasn't been injured at all.
He sighs in relief when Annabeth stands up, a strange backpack in hand, with intent to go.
They don't so much at glance at Ares when they exit the diner.
Percy and Annabeth make their way west- like Percy's prophecy said to.
(When Percy had ascended to the attic, the old mummy had sprouted four lines in green fire:
You shall go west, and face the god who has turned,
and see what was stolen safely restored.
You shall be betrayed by one who calls you friend,
and fail to do what matters most in the end.
The prophecy tells him of a betrayal. Percy can't help but be wary of Annabeth.)
hi. this deals with some very sensitive topics. the trigger warnings will always be in the first a/n. crossposted on ao3.