"What else could we do?" "We could have a little practice fight outside. When even was the last time we practiced daggers only?" "Probably before you fe- before we went to Rome. Maybe even before we went on the Argo II for the first time." "Well then it's absolutely time." We got our knives and went outside where we had a little duel. When a teacher asked what we were doing, I told her we were practicing for a play. Neither of us actually had acting as a subject, but the teacher luckily didn't know that. She didn't ask us about the very real daggers though, so the mist was probably doing a really good job at concealing them. After ten rounds, (6:4 for me) someone called over to us that lunch was ready. "I've heard they've got amazing enchiladas. Hearing that word instantly made me think of Grover. That guy loved enchilada. According to Percy, they'd motivate him to run faster than any mortal despite wearing fake feet. "Great job Leo? Why?" I heard Piper say. When I looked at her, she was terrified of something. I looked behind me, but saw nothing. Was this maybe a flashback? Piper started to lose balance and I helped her sit down. Yup, definitely a flashback. But of what. She had mentioned Leo. The other student had mentioned enchiladas. Where was the connection? Oh, Enceladus. Leo always called him enchiladas, so the connection was well established in her brain. From the name Enceladus it wasn't far to the trauma of her first quest. First quests always sucked. Like all other quests. But the first is always especially bad because you don- This wasn't the time for analyzing quests, my friend was having a flashback.
I sat down next to her. "Can you hear me?" I asked. A small nod. That was good, without her hearing me, I wouldn't have been able to do much to help her. Even holding her to at least give a physical sense of comfort wasn't really an option because without speech, since she wouldn't have been able to consent to it. Luckily, she did hear me. I recalled the events and the quests. Piper, Jason and Leo had battled Enceladus on Mount Diablo. Enceladus had kept Piper's dad hostage, which only added to the trauma factor of the situation. "He's not Jason" I heard her say. "Your dad's alright" I told her. "You rescued him" "Really?" "Yes, almost a year ago. I'm going to take your hand now, okay?" Piper nodded again. "Do you feel my hand?" "Yeah. Why are you here? You should be at camp" "That is an excellent question which I will answer later. Now, I need you to listen to me" I put as much authority as possible into my voice. "Pay attention to my hand and my voice. Nothing else matters." I moved my fingers around a bit and squeezed Piper's hand every few seconds so that she'd actually have something to feel. "Whatever you're seeing, it's not true. This is a flashback. Currently, it's 2010. November 2010. We're at school. It's over now. You've made it." I kept saying similar things for a few more minutes, until Piper looked at me. When I moved my head side to side, she followed with her eyes, meaning the flashback was over. Or at least it no longer was 100% opaque. I decided to be optimistic. Piper inched closer to me. "You need a hug?" I asked. "Maybe a bit" That was a definite yes. I pulled her in. After a few minutes of me telling Piper everything was okay and stroking her hair she let go. "Great, now I have tear stains on my shirt." "That's the revenge for ruining my shirt yesterday" "That was your fault. Your shirt would have been way less ruined if your lipstick hadn't been on my face." "Didn't we agree yesterday that that was the fault of the guy with the spiked drinks?" "Could be. That was after Percy arrived, right? That part of the evening was a bit blurry. The flashback stirred up the system a bit and lots of us were close to front, which caused some dissociation, so I don't remember every single detail. And then later, I of course disappeared completely. All I remember from that time was you intending to do something about the smoke detector and Annie confusing conversation and conservation" "Come on, she's seven, so you can't really blame her" "You could be right on that one. So, where was I? Right, I don't remember every from yesterday. And the phlegeton drink guy is to blame for your ruined shirt. That means you had no right to ruin mine" "Hey, I just had a flashback and-" "correction: you have no right to enact revenge on me by ruining my shirt" "It's not even ruined, it's just a bit of salt" "I know, I was just playing with you. Maybe I shouldn't do that after a flashback, when you're emotionally unstable. Sorry" I gave her another hug. We sat together for so long that only my homeless instincts prevented us from missing lunch entirely.
After lunch, we continued our fighting practice. This time, I beat Piper easily. She claimed it was because of the flashback and I believed her. While it wasn't exactly common, I also something experienced flashbacks that took me hours to completely recover from. My worst time had been almost two entire days, but that also hadn't been one flashback but a series of around five flashbacks in quick succession. To make matters worse, this had been just under three years ago, shortly after I had held up the sky. At that point, I had not really had anyone I trusted enough to let them help me. Thalia was a huntress, I hadn't been nearly as close with Percy as I was now and I wouldn't even meet Piper until around two years later, so my options for support were very limited, so processing everything had been a much slower process. By now, I had gotten quite a bit better at handling flashbacks and I had better support from my friends, so I usually was back to normal within minutes. This of course did not at all invalidate Piper's current experience. I decided to go a bit easier on her for the time being. No need to create additional stress for her. I even let her win the next round, which was also partially because my ADHD brain had suddenly decided that other things were more relevant than the fight. Speaking of more important things, I wanted to tell you about Percy telling me about Gabe. It happened on a cloudy (and by cloudy I mean proper rain clouds, like it would have been raining had it not been camp half-blood) afternoon.
Percy and I were sitting on his bed in cabin three. I inched a bit closer and he didn't pull away, which made me really happy for some reason. For context, this was after the battle of Manhattan, but before Percy had disappeared. I'm not sure when it happened exactly though. Anyways, I still felt like our relationship was fragile and Percy could turn against me at any moment. That's why Percy not pulling away was a surprise for me. A good one of course, but still a surprise. I waited a few seconds, then got a bit closer once again. Now we were almost touching. I nervously waited for Percy to pull away. All of this happened without saying anything, but it wasn't an awkward silence. Personally, I think being able to sit in silence without it being awkward is a great sign in a relationship. After a few seconds, Percy broke said silence. "You think I'll leave you, right?" he asked. Should I answer? Revealing how much you knew almost always meant a strategic disadvantage. But Percy wasn't my opponent, and him leaving (or simply inching away from) me wasn't really a strategizeable situation anyways, so revealing what I knew wouldn't make much of a difference. I nodded. It was a tiny movement, but Percy noticed it anyways. He's not always the most observant or intelligent person, but when it comes to my well-being, he just notices everything, which to this day is one of my favorite traits he has. "I thought so" he said, but not in an annoyed way, like you'd say 'told you so', but in a very kind and understanding way. "Look, I hate to break it to you…" Oh gods, what was coming now? "…but you're wrong" He closed the gap between us, now directly touching me and put his arm around me. "You scared me" I muttered. Percy pulled away. "I'm so sorry, I should have ask-" "No, the physical contact was fine, the 'I hate to break it to you' scared me. That could have led to all sorts of bad news. The other thing was fine. Please go back. If you want to. If not, it's fi-" Percy went back to where he had just been: right next to me. The feeling of him there instantly made me feel safe and protected. I quickly relaxed, which isn't a common thing for me, especially not when I'm not with Percy. Our height difference was such that my head fit perfectly in between his shoulders and his head. It wasn't the most comfortable position, but feeling closer to Percy made up for it. He then also tilted his head to be above mine. I caught myself thinking 'we could totally fall asleep like this' it was true though. My back was against the wall and my head was resting on Percy's shoulder, so no significant muscle activity was required to stay in my current position. We stayed like this for a while until it became uncomfortable, then changed into a different, equally cute and cuddly position. Somehow, Percy hand ended up on the buckle of my belt, probably by accident. Maybe he was trying to open it. Why would he do that? Sure, maybe it was uncomfortable, but without my belt I had nowhere to put my dagger. I pushed his hand away. While doing so, I touched a small, circular scar. It had been there for as long as I could remember, but I had never really paid attention to it. "What happened there?" I carefully asked. "My stepdad" Percy had told me about Gabe a few times, but had never gone into much detail. All I knew was that he had physically and verbally abused Percy and his mother and that he was now a nice statue. We sat in silence for a few more seconds. "Want to talk about it?" I quietly asked, not wanting to ruin the situation. I knew he didn't particularly like talking about Gabe, but maybe it would help. It did for me, at least sometimes, so I figured the same might be true for Percy. He seemed to think about it for a few seconds.
"I'll do it. I just… need a moment" "If you don't want to, that's fine. Absolutely no pressure." "No, it's fine. Just let me…" he put his arm around my shoulder and I leaned against him. When I put my hand on his shoulder, he gently pushed it down, it almost seemed like an unconscious movement. "Your Achilles spot?" I asked. Percy nodded and I moved my hand to that position. "Sorry, it just-" "Hey, don't be sorry. If it makes you feel safe, and if you need that right now, then I'm more than willing to do that for you." "Thanks" And after a few seconds: "I think I'm ready now. Okay, so it began when I was around three years old…" He began telling me about the things Gabe had done. Fairly quickly, his voice began to break a little bit, and he made pauses between his sentences, as if he had to build up the courage to say every single one. I knew that feeling all too well. "If you want to stop, it's okay. Just remember, you're safe here. Gabe is long gone, you've got your curse of Achilles (Which of course wouldn't protect him from dangers related to trauma, but it made him feel safer) and I've got your heel." "Okay, when I was seven…" He kept talking for another minute or so. "I can't keep going. It's just too much to handle" "That's fine. That's absolutely fine and valid." During most of the conversation, Percy had looked off into the room instead of towards me. It wasn't because he didn't want to look at me though, (which would have been perfectly fine) but because sitting next to me on the bed meant it was just more comfortable to look into the room. Now Percy turned toward me. I could see that he had tears in his eyes (and on the rest of his face). His free hand was shaking a bit and his arm was wrapped around him. What had I done to him? "I'm so sorry" I said. "It's okay. It was my choice to talk about it. Don't blame yourself" "Do you need, like, a hug or something?" He nodded once again. I wanted to give him a hug, but the fact that we were sitting on the edge of his bed made that really difficult, so I opted for gently pushing him down onto the bed where I had better access. There was only one problem: having this much physical contact with Percy made the entire situation way too hot. Perhaps even in more than one way for Percy, but for me it was strictly a physical effect, similar to why an elephant sized mouse would explode. As I already said, this was long before Tartarus, so my sexuality had not yet made itself known and the only heat I was experiencing came from the fact that the fact that it was still warm outside. Therefore, it must have been in late August, maybe early September. "Do the mist thing" I whispered to Percy. He created a fine mist (The natural kind, not the magical one) around us, causing the temperature to drop a few degrees. This way that works has to do with the electronegativity of oxygen and hydrogen. Since they are so far apart (about 1.4), the hydrogen is strongly positive (Well, it's just delta positive, but within the realm of delta, it was very strong) while the oxygen is negative, almost being ionized. This allows for the creation of hydrogen bonds, which are the strongest type of intermolecular force. When water is dispersed, many water molecules will separate from the water droplets. In order to do so, they must first break the hydrogen bonds. Since these are so strong, doing so takes a lot of energy from the environment, usually in the form of thermal energy, aka heat. This leads to an overall decrease in temperature. Tl;dr: The air was sweating. That was science hour with Annabeth, now back to the cooling room.
Maybe Percy was too traumatized to properly control his powers, maybe it was intentional. Whatever the case, the room cooled down quite a bit. So much in fact that cuddling alone wasn't enough to keep us warm. Luckily, Percy hadn't made his bed properly that morning (as always) and the blanket was tossed to one side, so I could easily pull it over us. Below the blanket, it was still warm and comfortable, so I stayed by Percy's side for as long as he needed it. I'll be honest, that was longer than I expected. The whole process from sitting to getting under the blanket only took like forty five seconds and only after that was I able to properly hug him. I put my face right next to his and looked him in the eyes, with the most comforting and least threatened look I could pull off. Next to his face was a small wet spot which, contrary to the usual, came from tears rather than drool. "Hey, it's okay. He's not here anymore" I whispered to him. We stayed in this hug for a solid fifteen minutes before Percy let me go. "Thank you" he said. "I was just fixing what I had messed up" "No, you gave me an opportunity to heal, and then you helped me through the aftermath of healing. You did two good things, not one bad and a good one to cancel the bad one out." "Aww, thanks" "Hey, I'm just telling you the truth." What happened after that is no longer relevant to my little tangent, so back to the just ended fight with Piper.
So, I felt like writing a bit of Percabeth fluff and I think I succeeded. Personally, I think the aspect of a new and fragile relationship and the resulting extreme carefulness made it even better, but that's just my opinion.