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barbarianprncess · 3 months

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annabeth chase and her many losing dogs: an (incomplete) anthology

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chapter one: a (brief) introduction to the game and it's players

She gives Cerberus her red rubber ball.

Because he’s a monster, but she doesn’t think he means to be.

Because he’s a lonely dog and she is lonely the same way. The kind that doesn’t know how lonely it is until a person shows up and reminds them. The kind that wishes to just be left in loneliness long enough for companionship to be forgotten altogether.

The ball will make him happy. He will destroy it within minutes, it will disappear after he does nothing but be himself.

(She does that sometimes too.)

First Round: Frederick Chase

Bet Type: Blind Faith; awarded via mass tradition.

Made with no experience.

Trust given without the knowledge that trust must be earned.

Annabeth is four years old and hungry.

She hasn’t eaten since dinner last night.

Dad is playing with his planes again. The fancy small piece ones that Annabeth is not allowed to touch, ‘not now, not ever.’ She’s not supposed to bother Dad when he plays with his planes.

Plane time is Dad’s very special ‘by himself’ time. He’d explained a while ago that he has lots of very hard work to do, and then he has to take care of her which is even more lots of hard work, and sometimes he needs his special ‘by himself’ time, because Annabeth is a big girl now who can read her books and not touch the sockets.

(She wonders why he doesn’t do his special ‘by himself’ time when she’s taking her naps. That way they could have their together time when she’s awake.)

This would be fine, but she just ate the last of her super secret dad-is-in-his-study snack stash that she hides under her bed last week.

She wants to go in and ask, but the last time she’d interrupted him, even though he smiled at her, his eyebrows got all scrunched up together. He was not happy to see her.

(Sometimes, she wonders if he ever is.)

Annabeth is really very hungry.

There are bananas on top of the fridge.

Annabeth creates a plan.

The plan goes south almost immediately and she ends up dangling from the top of the white mountain with glass and bananas all over the ground.

“Christ! Annabeth!” She is being yanked from her very small cliff and carried into the living room and Dad’s voice is very loud and his face is more than scrunched eyebrows and Annabeth is ashamed.

“What were you doing?”

“I was climbing on top of the fridge. I knocked over a vase.”

That was the wrong answer because somehow his face gets even angrier. “Yes, I can see that. What were you thinking?”

“I wanted a banana. They were on top of the fridge.”

He pinches his nose. That wasn’t the right answer either. “You just had breakfast.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. You had the fruit circles.”

“That was yesterday.”

He hesitates. “Okay, well you did wake up late, you couldn’t have waited until it was time to eat lunch?”

The clock on the microwave says 4:13 pm. “It is lunch.”

He looks at the clock. Closes his eyes. When he opens them, he still looks angry but not at her. His voice is much quieter. “Why didn’t you come get me?”

“Last time you got sad. You were in a groove, you said unless it was an emergency not to come in. I thought I could reach it.”

She watches his face change. His eyebrows are still scrunched up but his eyes get gentler and sadder all at once. He sits down on the couch and lifts her up into his lap. It’s been so long, she sits on his knees like he’s a chair. He turns her around in his arms.

“You’re such a quiet kid, Annabeth. Sometimes I forget you're here.”

She doesn’t think he said it to make her sad, but it does anyway. Which is irritating because she didn’t do anything wrong and she feels bad anyway.

“I was a quiet kid too.”

She doesn’t want to be quiet. She wants to scream. She wants to cry. She wants to hit him. She wants—

“I’m gonna clean up the glass and then we’ll have mac and cheese.”

She nods and lets herself be sat back on the couch.

Second Round: Ms. Helen (from Dad’s work)

Bet Type: Good Faith; awarded via proxy.

Made with no experience.

Trust given without the knowledge that trust must be earned.

The first time her father forgets to pick her up from daycare, she is too young to remember. She was also too young to remember the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th times.

She remembers the sixth.

Ms. Helen, dad’s work friend that has come to dinner every wednesday for four weeks, shows up at school wearing black yoga pants and a messy-on-purpose bun.

(The kind that always looks strange in the bathroom mirror when she tries it on her curls in the morning before they leave.)

She smiles at her teacher, tight and pinchy. She does that laugh/talk/sigh thing adults do when the words they're saying don’t really matter. And before Annabeth knows it, she's staring at the backseat of a minivan.

“What’s that?”

Ms. Helen raises an eyebrow. “The car seat?”

Annabeth nods but looks down. She said it like it was obvious. Annabeth knows obvious things.

“Don’t you sit in one of these to come to daycare?”

“No.”

“You just sit in the seat?”

“Yes.”

“You're too little. It’s not safe to sit by yourself.”

Annabeth doesn’t know what she's supposed to say. This happens a lot. Adults do this thing where they ask you a question that they want a specific answer to. Annabeth has developed a skill in which she can always tell when the truth is not what an adult wants to hear. It has, so far, been a pretty useless skill because she has yet to master the skill of knowing what it is that they actually want to hear.

(Sometimes, she figures it out and tells the truth anyway. Those times she doesn’t really mind getting in trouble after.)

“Your father must’ve put you in one of these.”

Annabeth shrugs. Her talent has deduced that Helen does not want Annabeth to say that she has never been in one of those, and figures nonverbal is the safest option because she would like to go home.

Helen crouches down and gets way up close to Annabeth's face. Her grown-up face-paint is smudged around the corner of her left eye. She smells like dish soap.

“I borrowed this from my friend when your father called, so we have to get you your own. From now on, you don’t get in a car without one of these. Understand?”

Annabeth nods.

Helen is looking at her with something strange and sad in her smudged up eye. She takes a deep breath.

Annabeth crawls into the backseat and waits to be tied in.

Fourth Round: Thalia Grace, Grover Underwood & Luke Castellan

Bet Type: Calculated Risk; awarded to an individual after carefully evaluated outcomes

Made after a great loss, in which perceived benefits outweigh potential detriment.

Trust earned after a win.

Thalia is frowning at her.

Annabeth hasn’t been with her and Luke for that long, but she knows that this is not cause for too much concern because she’s usually frowning.

Luke is the one with the smiles, and the cuddles, and the soft spot for the helpless strays—dogs and girls alike.

Thalia is the one with the frowns.

(Annabeth can tell she has a soft spot for Luke though.)

Before she can muster up the courage to ask, Luke beats her to it. “What’s up with you?”

“Her hair.” Thalia has a talent where she can frown and speak at the same time. Annabeth wants to learn how to do that.

Luke smiles at her before fixing his eyes on her puff. She gets that feeling in her stomach she used to get when her teachers asked her questions about her house, like she should be hiding behind her fathers legs.

(The last time she tried, Helen had snatched her arm and told her she was being rude.)

“Her hair.” He repeats in a way that tells both Annabeth and Thalia he has no idea what the problem is.

Thalia ignores him, and scribbles something down on his arm. “I saw a beauty supply store down the road. I need you to figure out a way to get this stuff.”

Luke frowns over her shoulder. (Uh-oh.) “That’s gonna be a bit of a stretch.”

“So stretch.”

“Thals—,”

She looks up at him and her eyes are all intense like when she’s fighting a monster. “They weren’t combing her hair. I took the hair tie off and it’s staying put. She’s only been on the run for 3 days.” Thalia looks back down at her. “Right? That’s how long you were by yourself?”

“Yes.” Annabeth nods. One of her favorite parts about being with Luke and Thalia, is that the truth is always enough.

Thalia looks back at Luke with something in her eyes that’s even softer than when Luke sleeps. “They weren’t combing her hair.”

Luke nods, a new kind of frown. The one he had when they found her. “On it.”

He winks at Annabeth and tweaks her nose which makes her laugh. Then he’s gone and it’s just the two of them.

Annabeth and Thalia have never been alone for that long before, except for bathroom trips and when Luke gets them snacks.

Annabeth knows it wasn’t Thalia’s idea for her to join the two of them. Annabeth doesn’t think she wanted to leave her there, but she knows Thalia liked it when it was just her and Luke.

She’s looking up at the sky muttering something angry in another language. “What’s Luke going to get?”

Thalia considers her for a moment and then sits down leaning against the brick alleyway. “Some hair stuff. Basics.”

“I thought we only took risks for food.”

Thalia smiles a little and it makes Annabeth's chest feel fuzzy.

“You’re a smart kid.” She pats the ground next to her and Annabeth goes to sit next to her.

“My mother…had a bad time. Things that aren’t supposed to be hard for mortals were very hard for her. And sometimes that made her not very nice to me.” She pauses and Annabeth waits patiently, doesn’t dare speak a word.

“She couldn’t really take care of herself. So, she couldn’t really take care of me either. My hair is curly like yours. And hair like ours needs special attention. When you don’t give it the care it needs, it gets stuck like this.” She takes Annabeth's hand and brings it up to her head, lets her tug on one strand gently.

“I like your hair a lot!”

“Thank you. I do too. But, it wasn’t my choice. My mother let my hair loc up so she didn’t have to comb it every day. You should get to decide whether you want your hair like this. Did you ask to have your hair up in a bun for that long?”

Annabeth could tell her how her Dad used to braid her hair on Sunday nights. How they would sit and listen to music and he would spray and comb and braid until she fell asleep on his leg. How when he and Helen got married, he suddenly had no time to do anything that Helen could do instead. How her slick, shiny, and smooth haired stepmother would wrinkle down at her curls, yank a brush through her head and tell her she was ‘impossible’.

But, she doesn’t. She looks down at her shoes and doesn’t say anything at all.

Thalia, even smaller than before, says, “Your parents weren’t very nice to you either. Were they?”

She doesn’t answer.

She doesn’t have to.

‘You’re such a quiet kid, Annabeth.’

(When Luke gets back, he and Thalia spend three hours spraying and combing and braiding until Annabeths hair isn’t stuck anymore.)

(In a few months, a satyr named Grover will take them to camp.

Thalia will not make it across the border.)

(Annabeth will refuse to let anyone touch her hair for a year.)

Final Round: Perseus Jackson

Bet Type: Wild Card; awarded to an individual that fails to qualify through conventional procedure.

Made with gut feelings, no logic, and excruciating human defiance.

Trust is given without measure.

Annabeth's first thought when she sees him for the first time is, “He must be the one.”

She’s sure of it. She says it out loud. Chiron tells her to hush, and she doesn’t even care.

He's the one.

She's not sure how she knows. She's waited for so long, seen so many campers. Many were far more promising than he is.

That's her second thought. He's skinnier than she thought ‘the one’ would be. Skinny and pale and more gangly limb than person.

He’s blinking up towards them but his eyes are unfocused and hazy. That's her third thought. He's fading. They’ll have to carry him.

‘Percy’ Chiron calls him. It’s a hero’s name.

She wonders if whoever gave it to him knew he’d be the one too.

‘He’s the one.’, she thinks again. It feels strange and tingly in her head.

Strange, but not false.

Hello, Percy Jackson. It's nice to finally meet you.

#SHEEEEEES BAAAACCCCKKKK!#it's been a while! i evolved and got a life and the show humbled me and took over my life.#for the percabeth induced insanity gc on twitter (love you)#percabeth #percy jackson #annabeth chase #percabeth fic #grover underwood #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo series #pjotv #pjo tv show #pjo tv series #pjo tv spoilers #luke castellan #thalia grace #frederick chase

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barbarianprncess · 10 months

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the anatomy of a hurricane

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part i // part ii // part iii // part iv

part v: dissipation

Clarisse does not enjoy the sight of blood.

The irony of her aversion is not lost on her. It’s not that she’s afraid of it. She’s a daughter of Ares, violence is something she has great respect for. She doesn’t faint at the prospect of needles, or flinch at the thought of her period. She just doesn’t like it.

Contrary to popular belief, when she plays combat games at camp, she doesn’t aim to do any permanent damage. Unless you’ve royally pissed her off, she prefers the crack sound of her opponent’s broken bones, or the conch sound of knocking her opponent out. But her real enemies, monsters, don't bleed. When you’ve bested them, they become puffs of clouded dust, falling like ashes where they stood. Ashes means victory.

Blood is a demigod thing. A human thing. Her blood is what makes her who she is. It bonds her to every other kid at camp. It is their strength and their vulnerability. She’s protective of it, and the sight of it in open air means defeat. Blood means loss.

Clarisse doesn’t like blood.

And there was just so much of it.

Annabeth’s blood.

Pouring from her shoulder. Spilling through Grover’s shaking fingers. Soaking Thalia’s jeans where she crouched in the pool of it. Dyeing Percy's shirt as he cradles her to his chest. Staining her cheek where he touched her face, smearing from teardrops he couldn’t seem to help.

Clarisse kind of fucking hates blood.

Hates the way it rushes in her ears, and hates it even more because she’s grateful for it. Grateful for the fact that she can’t hear what’s going on around her. In fact, blood is all she can hear, all she has heard since Grover let out that disbelieving half-laugh, half-sob. Since Thalia threw her chair at the opposite wall.

Hates the way it’s all encompassing, even so far away from the source. She can see it, the half-dried streaks left behind in Percy’s hair from his fingers raking through it. She can smell it, potent and relentless, coming off all of their clothes. She can fucking taste it, metallic and fresh in her mouth from biting the inside of her cheek too hard.

Clarisse doesn’t know how she ended up here, shaking with rage outside the Olympian throne room. Well, she does, but it’s strange. It doesn’t feel real. None of it. But it has to be real because she can still see it and she can still hear it and she remembers.

She remembers the gods finding them on the bridge just in time to do absolutely fucking nothing. She remembers every agonizing second the gods just stood there and gaped at the tableau of misery they’d created. She can still see Luke's mangled body feet away from Clarisse, Thalia, and Grover, huddled around Percy clutching at Annabeth's body. She can still hear how hoarse the desperation made Percy's voice when he demanded the gods, “Do something!”

Apollo had knelt down to pry Annabeth out of Percy’s arms, (which tightened instinctually as the god approached) to see the wound itself, and the look on his face at the sight of her shoulder—swollen and green and still fucking bleeding—was the farthest thing from reassuring.

Clarisse vaguely recalls some whispers and shuffling before Apollo said something to Hermes about getting the child to his infirmary, who dragged his eyes away from his son's corpse, shed a single tear, and snapped his fingers. In a flash they were sitting in uncomfortable plastic waiting room chairs, a stark contrast to the golden doors of Olympus, watching helplessly as Apollo placed Annabeth on some kind of ancient floating gurney, and called to some dryads she assumed worked for him to follow him down the walkway.

And then there was radio silence.

Hours must’ve passed since the Gods locked themselves in the throne room without giving any clue as to when they’re coming out again. Or maybe it’s been minutes. An excruciatingly slow collection of seconds. She really has no idea.

All she knows is the floating tufts of goat hair Grover had been anxiously combing—ripping—out.

All she knows is the furrow of Thalia's brow.

All she knows is in the years she’s known him, Clarisse has only ever seen Percy be this still before once.

The golden doors swish open with far too much elegance for the occasion.

All she knows is the smell and sight and feel of Annabeth's blood.

And as four of them enter the throne room, she is certain that that’s all Percy knows too.

As they stand before the grandeur of the Olympians, Clarisse is underwhelmed.

The gods had reverted to their giant form, in order to fill up their royal thrones. The twelve were seated and arranged in a wide U, like the cabins at Camp Half-Blood. Her brain couldn’t really process the whole of it; instead her ADHD bounced between details. How her father’s sunglasses seemed seconds from slipping off his nose. How the waves that, at first glance, seemed to be engraved in Poseidon’s throne, are actually moving, mini storm systems whirling up and around each of the legs. The snakes on Hermes' staff tearing into a rodent. The simplest of the seats of power being empty; she knew instinctively it was Hestia’s. A quick scan found the goddess still in human form, poking at an enormous fire that crackled in the central hearth pit. The room itself radiated power, and yet Clarisse has to fight the urge to scoff.

She thinks of the battle at Zeus’s Fist last summer. Pictures them sitting in this exact circle watching in relative boredom. Watching the children that they created, lose their lives to a war they didn’t start. And she feels nothing for her father, for any of the beings before her. Not fear, not awe, not even pity. Certainly not love. She feels nothing.

The same cannot be said for Grover or Thalia who radiate disgust at the display of ego before them.

The same cannot be said for Percy. Percy is livid. Clarisse doesn’t blame him.

“Welcome demigods,” Athena addresses them first, “I’m sure you have many questions about what just occurred and I am happy to make everything clear for you.”

“Demigods,” Zeus begins. “I will admit I was as in the dark as you were about this…plan, but I must say I am grateful it took place.” Somewhere to her left Grover coughs, as if physically repulsed by the statement, but Clarisse isn’t sure; her eyes are staring straight ahead piercing a hole through the hearth.

“We recognize your bravery and sacrifice.” Thalia laughs out loud, earning a disbelieving scowl from her father before he continues. “And we understand your desire for an explanation. Athena?”

The aforementioned clears her throat in a way that makes Clarisse want to rip her hair out. She feels a strange sense of deja vu as Athena runs down The Plan in her clipped, pragmatic, light-as-air tone. And that smug look on her face, like everything went exactly the way she envisioned, like she didn’t almost ruin several people's lives by taking someone out of it. The no remorse smirk on her face is something Clarisse knows she’ll see in nightmares for the rest of her life.

(If she ever does start sleeping again.)

Clarisse must’ve zoned out because soon that curled lip is saying, “Any questions?”, and Thalia and Grover are bursting at the seams, so clearly about to explode and Clarisse is waiting for the deadliest of pins to drop.

“How?” Percy speaks but doesn’t look at them

“I’m sorry?” Athena quite literally begs his pardon. Clarisse would laugh if she wasn’t seconds away from spontaneous combustion.

“How did this happen to her?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“The whole point of your plan was to prevent demigods from injuries. I know Annabeth better than anyone, and I’m certain one of the reasons she agreed to your dumbass plan was to keep demigods safe. But that’s not her job. It’s yours. All of yours. And you failed. You’ve been failing miserably for millennia because you’re too busy to get involved with individual children's affairs. But you did. You got involved the second you presented Annabeth with this dumbass fucking plan, and as soon as she agreed it became your responsibility to take care of her. To keep up your end of the deal. You said she was to be kept in an enchanted safe house. That it was almost impossible to detect, or to infiltrate. She was safe. I don’t know if you noticed— but the state she’s in, is not anywhere close to safe. So. How, the fuck, did this happen?”

Demeter, who’s been irritatingly disinterested at the proceedings around her, furrows a brow. “Are you implying that the injury of your little friend—,”

“Annabeth. Her name is Annabeth.”

“—is somehow Athena’s fault?”

Athena raises a regal hand. “Thank you, Demeter, but I’m afraid the demigod is right.”

Clarisse isn’t the only one taken aback by the confession but Athena barely gives any time to process it. “The safe house was scheduled to dissolve on August 19th. The only condition Annabeth gave for her participation in this plan was to receive hourly updates on Percy’s…survival status on August 18th, starting at midnight. I was so caught up in surveilling New York in preparation for the eminent battle, I did not send those updates. I would tell you what happened, but Hephaestus has put together the footage, so you can see for yourself.”

A clear screen that reads Hephaestus TV materializes in front of them. One second she’s looking at Aphrodites too-shiny fingernails, the next she’s looking at unnervingly clear security footage of an all too familiar house. There are Greek letters blinking in the lower right hand corner, 23:45 blinking in the upper left.

Military time, Clarisse thinks. They’re using western military time. She itches at the thought. Because she knows that’s how the gods viewed them. As soldiers to take orders from they’re higher ups at any moment. She knows that objectively, has seen it in action, but for some reason those blinking numbers hit her hard in the gut.

Roughly translated, the screen is reporting the time as 11:45 pm, August 17th.

The room is messier than she remembers. There are more papers strewn on the floor, a pile of barely eaten sandwiches ready to spill out of the trash can, ancient books with pages ripped out open on the ground. The only thing up on the wall is what appears to be a calendar open to the month of August. There are little notes on different days, and four big red circles surrounding a date she doesn’t have to see clearly to know what it signifies.

And suddenly, there she is. A curly blonde whirlwind spinning on screen. Next to her, she hears Thalia stumble back three steps. Grover lets out a bleating moan.

She glances at Percy. He doesn’t move or speak or even breathe but he’s looking at Annabeth on the screen like he’s seeing Olympus for the first time, a mortal standing before Zeus. Like watching Annabeth pace around in a safe house in New Jersey is a religious experience.

Clarisse looks away.

The video speeds up until the clock reads 12:00 am, August 18th.

On-screen Annabeth uncaps a marker and x’s out the circled day on the calendar. Drags an old fashion looking phone that Clarisse assumes is magical out of a closet and on the floor and sits cross-legged in front of it.

Her left leg is bouncing over her foot. She’s picking at her nails. Tugging fingers through her curls. Scrunching her nose. She’s waiting, it’s palpable, you can feel the anxiety through the screen.

At 1:36 am, Annabeth taps at the phone, picks it up, and says something into the speaker. Her words are muted but her mouth is frantic and her brows are furrowed.

At 2:43 am, Annabeth fills a bath with steaming water and uses one of the few emergency drachma she has to Iris-message someone who doesn’t answer.

At 3:13 am, Annabeth pulls out a bag of what looks like rocks and throws one of them on the ground. A sort-of glowing portal opens where the broken pieces should be. She takes one last look at the house, grabs a piece of paper off the nearest table, stuffing it in her pocket, and steps through.

The footage switches to grainier surveillance of a street corner. A figure is lurking behind her. Bile rises in Clarisse’s throat when she reads the street sign.

She was two blocks away.

She was right there the whole time.

Clarisse doesn’t want to think about what happened next. There’s a boy with an eyepatch that Percy seems to recognize based on the growl he lets out when he appears. There’s a fight. The part of Clarisse that has trained with Annabeth half her life knows that based on Eyepatch boy’s skill level, Annabeth could take him any other day.

But it’s August 18th.

And she’s distracted, and terrified, and alone, and unarmed.

She never stood a chance.

Annabeth fights it out for a while but the odds are more than stacked against her. She ends up on the ground, and the Eyepatch boy is standing over her. He raises his dagger to take the final blow and Annabeth rolls away at the last second and the blow aimed at her chest ends up lodged in her shoulder.

Annabeth lets out a blood curdling scream.

The video cuts off.

“I’m sure you can infer what happens next.”

Thalia scoffs, high pitched and false. Grover throws up in a gold-plated bucket.

And Percy is raising a hand.

A great sense of resignation expands in Clarisse’s chest.

Thalia notices first, choking down her laughter and calling out, “Percy, dont!”

The room begins to rumble. A crack appears on the stone floor beneath him, and snakes its way to both sides of the room. He’s drawing a line in the sand separating Clarisse, Thalia, and Grover from the gods.

He’s protecting them from himself, Clarisse realizes.

The room rumbles, cracks crawl like spider legs beneath in Olympus’s throne room. Pillars begin to crumble, symbols of power are shaken from their mantles and Percy effectively turns the proudest place in the universe into dust and rubble.

“Perseus Jackson!” Poseidon yells, but the only thing he succeeds in doing is turning Percy’s attention on him. “Stand down, son. Before we must make you.”

“Okay.” Percy smirks, with an empty look in his eye.

“Make me.”

That seems enough goading for Hermes, who steps forward and points his staff. Clarisse flinches, preparing for an explosion or an energy blast or something but nothing comes. Because as he prepared to strike, the snakes on his cattle prod slithered up close to his face and whispered something in his ear.

“He has taken on the Curse of Achilles.” Hermes exclaims. “Ancient law is clear, we cannot—,”

“But, this is a direct attack!” Ares shouts. “Can we not defend ourselves?”

(Her father, she remembers. That thing in the leather and the sunglasses is her father.)

“He is at the mercy of the fates, and only the fates.” Hestia answers, strangely calm in the middle of an active earthquake. “We can do nothing.”

A crack in the ground crawls its way from the center of the room to the center of all godly thrones. Clarisse follows its path all the way to Zues’ feet, who looks up and locks stormy eyes with his nephew.

Percy is still looking in Zues’s eyes when he breaks his throne in two.

His symbol of power.

The greatest, most powerful seat in the known universe.

In pieces.

The room stills and no one breathes, nothing moves, and all eyes are on Percy.

Percy is surveying the ashes he made out of Olympus.

“I’m not going to hurt you. This is me demonstrating. Showing you that I could, so you understand what I’m about to say.”

“You may not die. But, you feel pain. You can hurt. You bleed. And you will. If she doesn’t wake up, you will never stop hurting. You will never stop bleeding. I will spend every second, of every day, of the rest of my life, teaching you what pain is. And you will spend every second of your eternal life, wondering if killing her was worth it.”

He looks at Apollo, deadon. “Fix her. Swear on the River Styx that you’ll do everything in your power to fix her.”

“My child…I can't just…there are vows I took—,”

“Fuck your vows. Swear on the Styx that you’ll fix her. Because if you don’t, I will hold you personally responsible. And when I prove that cracking a throne is a kindness, I will make you watch. Do you understand?”

Apollo nods.

“Swear it.”

(He does.)

Percy slams the doors on his way out.

The first week of Annabeth’s coma, Clarisse is at a standstill.

Chiron calls an emergency meeting the second they get back. Well, he calls an emergency meeting the second he looks up from his book and sees Percy covered in blood.

It’s her third time hearing this plan and being completely honest, it makes even less sense the more she hears it. She grips Percy’s bicep the whole time Chiron. Percy’s frame is stiff and brittle and gone is the easygoing sea-breeze he used to carry with him everywhere, and Clarisse feels the pit of her stomach burn.

He doesn’t look at her the entire time, but she doesn’t let go of his arm, either.

The apology is faltered and shaky and it might be the most sincere she’s ever seen Chiron, and it’s not nearly enough.

He doesn’t mention her involvement.

She’s grateful and hates herself for it.

“There was no other choice,” he says, “and for that I am deeply, truly sorry.”

He’s looking at Percy, but Percy is looking at the floor again, and Clarisse is the one who has to watch Micheals’s strangled laughter, Katies’s wild teary eyes and the way Silena’s shoulders sag and face melts into something bitter she doesn't recognize on her features.

She hates it. She hates the thick, suffocating feeling of being in this room full of hearts broken for nothing, like someone came in and hacked them to pieces with a blunt machete and left the remains in a pile on the ping-pong table.

She lets go of Percy’s arm, then, and tries not to let it bother her too much when he doesn’t speak to her. Or look at her. Or otherwise acknowledge her existence.

After spending three days in the Olympus equivalent of an ICU, Annabeth is put in a medically induced coma to give her body time to heal from her injuries. Hermes then transported her directly into the infirmary at camp with a note on her chest with directions from Apollo to Will on keeping her alive.

The first thing Will does when he gets over his shock is get Percy.

And as Clarisse stands with Beckendorph outside their wooden excuse of a hospital, and watch Percy clutch Annabeth's hand and glare at the machines keeping her alive, she wonders aloud, “The fuck do we do now?”

Beckendorph sighs, bone deep.

“We wait.”

The second week of Annbeth’s coma, Clarisse is getting restless.

Other than the breathing tube being removed from her throat — something you couldn't pay Clarisse to witness again — Annabeth has made very little progress.

Camp's routine adjusts accordingly to her presence.

Will gives the same update every day at morning meetings, (She hasn’t gotten any worse. No, she hasn’t gotten any better, but the lack of crises makes me hopeful we will make progress soon. Yes, I know I said was hopeful yesterday. You know Annabeth, she’s a fighter. She’s strong.) effectively setting the tone for the day.

Everyone seems to isolate themselves, reeling and grieving and agonizing in their own special way. Beckendorph locks himself in his workshop, Micheal breaks more bows. Katie has taken up baking and Travis pretends they’re delicious. Connor lets Malcolm tutor him in English.

For the entirety of the first week, Percy stayed firmly by Annabeth's bedside. Will set up a cot for him to sleep in, and Percy refused to sleep in it until they pushed it close enough to her bed for him to hold her hand.

Clarisse is sitting at the far end of the room, watching Percy watch Annabeth's chest go up and down, when he speaks to her for the first time.

Once he starts, he doesn’t ever really stop. It becomes constant background noise. He makes it clear he’s not speaking to anyone else, his words soft, his eyes trained on her face.

She picks up bits and pieces.

“ If your twelve year old self could see you now...”

“…Your dad is pissed. I think you might be grounded for eternity...”

“…Everyone misses you…”

“…Someone punched a hole in the wall in the Big House. I promise you, it wasn’t me…”

“…I miss you…”

“…My mom might be more pissed than your dad…”

“…I missed you when you were awake, I missed you all the time…”

“…I’m mad at you…”

“…I wish I could say I didn’t know what you were thinking when you did it, but I do. I know you. I know what you were thinking. It kinda makes me sick...”

“…I’m honestly, really fucking angry with you…”

“…I miss you, and I'm furious with you, and I need you to wake up so I can forgive you…”

“…I just really need you to come back to me, okay? Please, come back to me…”

“…Annabeth, I need you to wake up.”

(She doesn’t)

Then he’s putting his head down next to the hand he’s holding, and he's crying those terrible, horrible broken sobs that seem to cut open Clarisse’s chest and squeeze at all her vital organs. And Clarisse thinks that she is going to kill Annabeth Chase when she wakes up.

Except she won’t. At this point, Clarisse has decided that death, quite frankly, is an activity that Annabeth Chase is simply not allowed to partake in. It’s non-negotiable. If Annabeth ever tries to die again, for fake or for real, Clarisse is going to lose her shit. Annabeth and death are no longer allowed in the same goddamn sentence, because Clarisse’s life never needs to be this fucking complicated ever again, and, also, Clarisse isn’t completely sure that the boy curled up in the too small hospital bed would survive it a third time.

The third week of Annabeth’s coma, Clarisse is at a crossroads.

Thalia is visiting, so Percy is for the first time leaving Annabeth’s side for a period of time not filled by showering or debriefing. Chris had suggested they take a boat out on the lake and they both agreed, if only to get away from the stares and whispers. And when they were done they sat on the beach until the day’s heat morphed into the night's breeze.

Clarisse is picking helplessly at the sand beneath her when Percy says, “I told him it was okay.”

Clarisse’s entire body goes rigid. She doesn’t ask who or what or why even though her head is swirling with curiosity. Instead, she stays silent and just as she is, like if she moves he’ll change his mind.

“Chiron, I mean. I told him it was okay.” She hears four waves crash before he speaks again. “I didn’t forgive him. I don’t know if I’ll ever really forgive him. I think I might kind of hate him for a long time. But, I understand. Why he did what he did, I understand now. I didn’t before.”

“I was so angry, Clarisse. When I thought that she…I was really fucking angry all the time.”

You deserved to be.

“Luke was angry all the time too. I don’t want to be like him. I don’t ever want to hurt her, not for anything. Especially not for revenge against the gods. They don’t deserve it.”

“I’m just really tired of all of it, Clarisse.”

“I’m sorry, Percy,”

“S’not your fault.”

“But—,”

“I know.” Something about the way he says it, stops her from trying to speak. Because somehow, he knows she knew the truth. And she doesn’t know how or why and she doesn’t particularly care because all she can feel is guilt and dread and a selfish bit of fear. But, Percy does what he has continued to do since that day on the docks to her left.

He surprises her.

“I know, and it’s not your fault.”

“It’s okay, Clarisse. It’s okay.”

They sit like that for a long time. Clarisse reeling, Percy contemplating. She stands up when the bell for curfew rings, but he doesn’t. Her back is turned to him when he asks,

“She made you promise, didn’t she? She made you promise to take care of me?”

Clarisse sighs, “Yeah. Yeah, she did.”

“Well, when she wakes up, I’m telling her you did a shit job.”

She smiles in the darkness, and heads back to her cabin.

It ends where it began—the Big House. Everyone is assembled for their morning debrief, and Will is standing to give his update.

The door creaks open and without looking she knows.

Maybe she knows from Chris's hand on her thigh tightening. Maybe from the way Will drops back into his chair. Maybe from the sound of Conner choking on his sandwich. Maybe from the high-pitched half-sob Malcolm lets out. Maybe from the way Beckendorf sighs like the weight of the world has lifted. Maybe from the way Katie rubs at her eyes. Maybe from Silena’s smile. Maybe from Percy.

Percy, who for the first time since that day on the docks, looks truly alive.

Clarisse turns and there she is. Annabeth. Hovering in the doorway like a ghost, looking as if she’s just as surprised by the fact that she’s here as the rest of them. Her eyes are sunken and wild and darting around the room in a desperate search. They pass over Travis and Katie, Beck and Silena, and Micheal and Chris and—

Percy.

They land on Percy.

Percy, who’s looking at her like she’s the sun coming out.

Annabeths eyes freeze, fill with tears, and positively fracture.

She looks bad—sickly and gray and skinny as one of Nico’s skeletons, and everything about her malnourished frame swaying on her feet suggested a breeze could blow by, and she’d just float away. Her face is ashen and her hands are shaking and her shoulders are drawn up in a preemptive flinch.

Percy is looking at her like she’s divine.

“Hi.” Her voice is high and fragile and afraid. The room is so silent her voice practically echoes through the space. Everyone is frozen stuck in place, gaping at this girl who stopped a war before it began.

Percy’s gaze is darting over her too small figure like he can’t pick between any of the parts of her. Her kneecaps, her collarbones, her ankle, her fingertips, her mouth, her hair, her eyes—he keeps coming back to her eyes—he looks at all of it, all of her. He’s looking at her like he never wants to look at anything else.

“I didn’t mean to barge in on your meeting, I was just….” Percy snapped his gaze to her eyes when she started talking and Jesus, it’s so intense, Clarisse wants to look away on Annabeth’s behalf, but she can’t, she doesn’t seem to be able to. If Annabeth is the sun then she’s somehow managed to pull the entire room into her orbit and Percy is close enough to burn.

“I’m sorry, Percy.” Everything about her is shaking. Her voice, her hands, her legs, they vibrate compared to Percy’s stillness. “You don’t have to accept it, you don’t have to forgive it, you don’t even really have to hear it, I just need you to know it. Selfishly, I need you to know it. That I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, Percy, sorry I did this to you, sorry I couldn’t be there for you, sorry I agreed to it in the first place, I-I just…I was trying to protect you. To keep you safe—alive, just trying to keep you alive. I wanted for you to have more time than the fates gave you. That’s all I’ve wanted for five fucking years, for you to have more time. Because I…you have to know that I—,”

“Annabeth.” She freezes, looks at him, and there’s that orbit again, only this time Percy and Annabeth are the only planets that exist. Together, they are their own personal solar system.

“You died.” His voice is hoarse, low.

“I know.”

“Don’t do it again.”

She hesitates, “I’ll try.”

“You love me?”

She exhales. Nods.

“Okay.”

Clarisse blinks and there’s a supernova.

Somehow, through the haze and blinding lights and pure unadulterated love of it all, the rest of the council finds the sense to clear out of the room, and give them their privacy.

(Not that it mattered. Percy was kissing her before any of them could think, let alone avert their eyes. They all fumbled out of their chairs and rushed out the door in such haste, there was no way they were quiet, but Chiron's hooves and Silena’s giggles didn’t seem to penetrate their little universe.)

After what Clarisse considered to be an absurd amount of time considering the fact that they knew the entirety of camp was waiting for them, they emerged with swollen lips and matching smiles. Percy had one arm in a vice grip around her waist, as Annabeth seemed pretty shaky on her feet, but made it down the steps without mishap.

Everyone stood frozen and staring, the spell she cast still unbroken. Annabeth seemed to pick up on this, her smile softening as she held up her arms.

Katie and Silena dive in first, squeezing her way too tight and laughing in her ear. Travis and Connor were right behind them, choked up and unblinking, until Annabeth reached up and ruffled their hair. They let out wet laughs and Connor tripped over his own feet backing up. Thalia holds her face in shaking hands. Grover held her hands gingerly and sob into her collarbone. She took Malcolm’s hand, whose fists had been curled up and kissed him on the cheek, melting the stony emotions on his face. Beckendorph holds out his hand for a complicated handshake, and Micheal bumps her arm with his shoulder. Chiron tucks some of her hair behind her ear.

Then it’s her turn.

Annabeth is looking up at her with wide, and grateful eyes, similar to the look she gave her in the factory but somehow older.

Clarisse is fuming and elated and hates her and never wants her to go away again.

Honestly, Clarisse kind of wants to hit her.

While she’s deciding, Annabeth throws her arms around her neck.

She smells sterile.

Clarisse begins to cry.

Annabeth takes it in stride, kneeling to the ground when Clarisse starts to collapse in on herself, and holds her. Percy crouches in a way that can’t be very comfortable, and holds the both of them. And then there are more arms and more tears and somehow Clarisse is smack in the middle of a group hug and she doesn’t even care.

They’re far from okay. She thinks they might be someday.

When a storm is over, it leaves wreckage behind.

Annabeth’s not-death left behind obvious debris. Foundations of trust were cracked, people were wounded, and some things would never be the same as they were.

But, they rebuild. They fill the cracks, and mend the bones, and make something shiny and new out of broken rusted parts.

It's hard, painful work.

(It’s worth it.)

They are camped out in sleeping bags around Annabeth’s infirmary bed, and for now, the storm has passed.

Annabeth is half asleep on Percy’s shoulder, and the ocean before them is calm.

Percy’s smile is in Annabeth’s hair and the earth is steady beneath them.

They are holding each other and despite it all, there is nothing but love around them.

For now the storm has passed. And that, Clarisse thinks, is enough.

#percabeth #annabeth chase #percy jackson #percabeth fic #my writing #anatomy of a hurricane

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