Wow, would you look at that, a chapter that's on time
Annabeth began to move around a bit and breathe more quickly. I reached for her hand and whispered "don't worry, Percy's here. I'm here. It seemed to help and soon, Annabeth was back to being cute. And maybe just a bit hot. I think I spent almost half an hour just looking at Annabeth and occasionally stroking her hair. It was very calming for me. Eventually, Annabeth began to wake up again. She slowly opened her eyes and looked around. Her eyes rested on me for a fraction of a second.
"I have no idea what just happened. Like, I know I fell asleep here, but I don't understand why I suddenly was so tired." "Maybe it was the feeling of safety that I guess lowered your tolerance for tiredness. Like you were a bit sleep deprived from the beginning on, but you didn't realize until you felt truly safe. The same way you sometimes don't start feeling the pain from a wound until the battle ends and the adrenaline runs out." "Makes sense, I do feel safer now. That wasn't always the case. Would you mind me giving a little- well, you can't really call it trauma dumping because it only vaguely relates to trauma, it's more of-" "I wouldn't mind" "Ok, good. So, when I first met you, I didn't trust you. No surprises there. Then I started falling in love with you. To me, that meant a weakness because you had more power over me. As a defense mechanic of sorts, I initially trusted you less than at the very start. But then my love for you took over the rational part of my brain (which itself was making choices based on the fact that I was in love with you) which meant that I started trusting you more. Based on trust alone, I really started feeling safe with you around the time you rescued me from mount Tamalpais." "But I didn't see you letting yourself be vulnerable around me back then. Or was the trust level not high enough for that?" "That was not actually the reason. I have the feeling that if I'm being vulnerable by for example talking about my trauma or, as just now, falling asleep on your lap, I'm transferring some sort of duty to them, namely taking care of me in some capacity, which inconveniences them. And while my love for you eventually made my distrust for you go down, it also made my will to make you happy go up, so I was willing to open up to you even less than to others because I didn't want you to have to deal with it. It was only very recently that I began to understand that you didn't mind it at all and I was able to talk to you about my trauma" "But there have been a few times long before that where you've been vulnerability around me, as far back as our encounter with the sirens, perhaps even earlier" "I'm assuming these situations were very intense, such that I was so emotionally overwhelmed that I simply wasn't able to keep it all to myself, even if I wanted to. But it was only recently I've started opening up voluntarily. And I think it was about dam time, the amount of time I've just had myself to deal with trauma can't be healthy." "Well, it's great that you're making progress. You're talking to me about everything, and I help you through it. Do I actually help you enough?" "Sure. I mean, I have low standards and up until very recently, you not telling me to shut up and deal with it on my own, simply the act of listening, would have easily exceeded my expectations, but you do so much more than that. Starting with the basics, you love to show affection towards me. Like just- wait, this is an awkward position to be talking from" Annabeth got up and sat down next to me. "Like just now, when you let me sleep in your lap." "My legs fell asleep during that time and I'm just now getting the feeling back, but seeing your adorable face was worth it" "Aww, thanks. That's another thing you do: you compliment me quite often. That's not really trauma help related but it's still nice. You're just always there for me, we can just cuddle or kiss whenever I want. You're just… always there. I just cannot put into words how thankful I am for that. With the overwhelming trauma I have, I couldn't see myself any other way." "You've been doing pretty well until I met you" "You can imagine it like a dam-" "DAMMM" "Like a dam that's filling up with water. It looks fine from the outside, but eventually it's going to burst and unleash a flood that kills everyone downstream. Well, you're the outlet that allows me to decrease the water level in a controlled manner and avoid disaster. You just make me feel safe like no one else. Well, maybe not as much as Thalia did when I was seven. But still, the combination of feeling safe with you, trusting you and not not wanting to bother you with my personal issues is just the combination I need. Like, on your birthday, we were literally talking about something from Tartarus, andit wasn't that hard. If I had done that alone, I would have probably had a panic attack, but just the dopamine you give me canceled that out. Speaking of panic attacks and flashbacks, you always help me through it" "Well, you started that. Remember, when I had my first flashbacks in front of you, you were there for me right away. You knew exactly what to do because you had been through that so. Many. Times." "Yeah, my life was kind of hard. Not kind of. It was super duper Zeusing hard. I've had way too much trauma." "Plus having to figure out your sexuality. That must have been difficult to accept as well." "That is a blessing. Being demisexual, or rather the ace part of it, allows me to create deep connections with people that are based on love, but not dominated by sex. And being bi allows me to do so with boys and girls and I haven't really met enough enby people to determine whether or not I'm romantically attracted to them but I guess why wouldn't I? I believe if I was hetero and allo, I would not have been able to build the connections that I did. So thanks for that to whomever was responsible for choosing my sexualities. You made dealing with my trauma a good bit easier"
"Enemy spotted" I announced. "Enemy? What enemy?" Annabeth asked, her knife drawn. "Doesn't matter for you" "Is it a spider?" "Yes, it's over there. I'll get rid of it" "Wait, there's something I'd like to show you first." Annabeth was voluntarily risking an encounter with a spider? Something was really weird here. I watched the spider get closer. From my experience, Annabeth would freak out any moment now. She reached for my hand and I took hers. When the spider was only around half a meter away, Annabeth was already breathing quickly, but then she said "Walk in a circle". I couldn't believe it when the spider actually did so. "That could have been a coincidence so I'll do another. Go to Percy's right" The spider changed its course towards me, specially the side facing away from Annabeth. "Now leave us alone" The spider did as it was told. I could feel Annabeth's hand shake a little, probably from fear or panic, so I gave her a hug for a few seconds. "Okay, what the Hades just happened?" "I discovered today that, assuming this isn't some elaborate prank by Frank, I can command spiders. It's probably because I defeated Arachne. You know, when you killed a king it used to mean that you now rule over what was previously his and I'm guessing that also applies to spider queens." "You didn't even kill Arachne. I did. And the second time it was Bob." "But I was the one who trapped her. And we don't even need to argue about whether or not it makes sense for me to inherit control over spiders because it obviously happened. Now I just need to take control of my fears so that I can actually do so without having a panic attack. You noticed how hard that was for me just now, right?" "Your hand was literally shaking. And your voice too. Probably the rest of your body as well." "That pretty much reflects how I felt. My scare tolerance is used up for today. I already had a flashback just now plus a not so nice dream like twenty minutes ago, I really don't need something like a panic attack right now." "You never need panic attacks. You didn't need to put yourself through that just to show me your new ability" "I think I don't need to tell you why I did. Desire to prove myself, wanting to be appreciated, all that schist. It's really weird if you think about it. Many people have issues with wanting to be appreciated in some form, but that usually correlates with having low self-esteem since I'm assuming both stem from receiving little to no appreciation during childhood, but for me, my hubris prevented me from developing self-esteem issues. That means I have an extraordinarily high need for appreciation due to a combination of wanting what I never got as a child and believing that I am very deserving of it." "Well, I can say I definitely appreciated you. You're smart, funny, kind of really hot-" "The Allos again." "Hey, you just went swimming and are dressed accordingly, which is generally considered attractive. You can't blame me for being attracted to you" "Yes, yes I can. But I mean, you're also just a bit attractive and I won't make fun of you for something that I do myself." So I'm allowed to be attracted to you?" "As long as you don't act too heavily upon it. Well, it depends on which attraction we're talking about. If we're talking romantic or even sensual attraction, you can definitely act on that." "If you say so" This time, I was the one leaning onto Annabeth's shoulder. My arm was wrapped around her shoulders and- "Percy, watch where your hands are going" "I was just trying to feel your heart beat, it's nice to literally feel that you're alive." "Makes sense, but there's a lot of more appropriate places to feel someone's heartbeat. My neck for example, I think that should be a trauma free area." I tried that, but my arm was too long and I would have had to inch away from her, which was absolutely out of the question. "Or we could switch places, if I go to the left I'll be right next to your heart" We settled on that.
"So Percy, how's your life been?" "Not much since we talked last. There's obviously too much homework. Why do I need to solve equation systems? Regular equations are difficult enough." "That's a different type of solving altogether. Actually, individual equations with more than one unknown variable can't be solved, you need multiple ones. So equation systems are easier to solve just because they are at all possible to solve" "Why did I even bring up the usefulness of math to a brain child? Like, what did I expect?" "Firstly, you calling me a brain child is technically correct, but the word's actual meaning doesn't make any direct sense in the context of the question. I'm saying direct sense because it still indirectly makes sense because while brain child is not synonymous with intelligence, the process of procreation it refers to is, as far as I know, only used by Athena, so all brain children are children of Athena and therefore highly intelligent. Therefore, using the term brain child for describing an intelligent person just so happens to be accurate in a very convoluted way." "Uh, sure. One thing I've never actually asked you, two things actually: Were you created from a handkerchief and, if you were never involved in a pregnancy, do you have a belly button?" Annabeth mumbled something not so nice about my intelligence. "For the first question, the answer is no, the handkerchief was a one-time thing that only happens when someone forced himself onto Athena. For the second question, turn on your brain for a second. I'm wearing a bikini. You can see my belly button." "That was indeed a stupid question. Anyways, any news from your alters?" "Nothing that I could think of right now. The only new thing I found out is that alcohol makes me super switchy. I'll be honest, I had no idea who I was for half the evening. No idea why people would drink this stuff. Why are you voluntarily sacrificing so much of your mental capacity?" "Exactly, and at some point you're turned to stone." "I'm pretty sure alcohol doesn't turn people to stone" "No, but my mom does" "You know, sometimes I forget how much of a badass your mom actually is." "She is. She even faced down the Minotaur. He killed her in like three seconds but still" "She deserves a best mortal award. Also for the things she did for me and other demigods. I pretty much used her home as an outpost of camp half-blood while searching for you. I would compare her to a goddess, but that would not only get her in trouble but it would also be kind of an insult. I said she was a better mom to me than Athena was and that already almost got her killed, so I'll leave it at that. No more divine comparisons."
"What else could we do?" I asked Annabeth. "There's this thing I saw once where two people close their eyes and then try to clap at the same time. The better they know each other, the better they can sync it up." "Sounds good" We tried it a few times, but failed by a few seconds. "We can do better than this" I said as I put my head back onto her shoulders. Fine, maybe it was cheating, but I wanted this to work for us. We closed our eyes once again and I got ready to clap. Through my face, I was able to feel every movement in her shoulder. I felt her muscle move and acted accordingly, making us clap at the exact same moment." "Hey, it worked" "Of course it worked, it was my plan." "First, it wasn't really a plan, more like an idea. Second, it wasn't really your idea, you saw it somewhere else and third, your hubris is showing." "When is it ever not? I kind of feel like I don't want this question answered because the answer will involve some traumatic event." "There's a few times, and yes, most of them involve trauma." "I hate my life" "Don't we all?" "Fair point. But I feel like I'm far above average trauma wise, even by demigod standards." "Is there even anyone who can compete?" "If we go by how far back the trauma goes, I'd say you, Leo and both Graces. If we go by amount, I'd say Nico gets pretty close to me." "And he doesn't even have anyone to share with like you do. I think camp half-blood needs its own therapist. But who?" "Mr. D maybe? He's the god of madness so he might know a thing or two" "That sounds like an idea I would have. Expecting the god of madness to help with our mental health issues is like asking Apollo to cure a sunburn. Well, he's also the god of medicine so bad example. It's like asking Achlys for an antidote. Except that Mr. D hates us slightly less than Achlys does." "So no Mr. D therapy?" "Exactly"