When Annabeth says that it’s alright, all he can think about is how many lies he’s followed up with that word. ’No, I’m not thinking about Tartarus anymore. No, it’s not itching me every night before I go to sleep – no, I’m ‘alright’.’ And truth be told, it’s a lot like swallowing a sewing needle. Several, if he’s feeling generous.
He doesn’t necessarily have the right to ask whether it’s a lie – or to delve deep into what 'alright’ means between the two of them. But he wants to. The fact of the matter is this: Percy can’t. He doesn’t want to face that asking just might turn around on him, and result in a discussion he can’t afford to have. So be it.
'Alright’ it is. But he doesn’t know if agreeing with her next point is something he can deal with, either. They may have been struck down by death and much worse, sucked dry by misery and tortured by gods with namesakes that people use to describe their worst fears, and darkest truths. The curse follows them through and through, a waking breath stuck in their lungs like a wood chip swallowed by accident. Tartarus. Tartarus. Tartarus. A living and breathing creature that almost stole their lives - had every intent to, in fact. But couldn’t, because of outside factors.
Those factors remind him that he didn’t die before going to hell. That he walked and crawled through death’s worst with waking nightmares that don’t leave him alone – all while still alive. He wasn’t a reanimated corpse, and that capacity to harm someone who threatened Annabeth (not excluding anyone else that he holds dear)? Yeah, that was him. Just because he would’ve known when to stop, and that he was capable of doing so doesn’t make it any less true.
He doesn’t oppose her when she makes the excuse. Scaring her any more on it seems like three steps back for the one they just took forward. Negating their progress would be on his shoulders – oh, how the pressures just don’t end.
But he knows silence won’t help them, either… particularly not when she’s seeking reassurance with physical contact, forehead resting gently against his shoulder. “Yeah… Me too.” But it’s not just talking about it that he hates so much - more along the lines of, well, everything.
He hates what it turned him into. He hates what it made him realize about himself. And he hates the hectic storms that the ocean brings about when they’re inside him.
“Sometimes, it’s all we’re gonna be able to do. Bring each other back. Doesn’t mean back there… Just back to the same place, where we can figure it out from wherever.” She’s right, though; it doesn’t matter where they are so long as they have each other. There’s just a bit of a delay when he weighs in how on earth she could feel safe when he reveals parts of him that she doesn’t want to understand. Parts that he doesn’t want to, either. “So even if it doesn’t feel right, you have to be able to do that… To take me with you.”
A fraction more insightful than he intended to sound, Percy swallows hard at the break in her voice. Hearing the daughter of Athena like this – shaky, unsure… it binds him, not unlike Sisyphus, to a boundless impossibility.
What if he isn’t enough? What if his strength will come apart before her, and turn into something she finds worth more fear than security? Even if this is what breaks them – what if it’s what tears them apart, too? (But he can’t think like that. He can’t lose her. He won’t. He won’t let himself be the reason for her agony any longer. He won’t.)
“You’re not… Trust me, wise girl.” Her nickname, in turn, slides off his tongue less coldly than any of his other thoughts have so far. “You couldn’t make me get lost if you tried.” And he leans in to kiss her, all very natural – for good measure.
The dreaded question is a cinder block on his back after leaning away, and he holds up the sky for a second time. It’s a miracle Tartarus didn’t make his hair gray out entirely. “I’m just doing the best I can to work on sorting myself out. On… making sure that I understand why it can’t get to that point again. And getting a better grip on my fatal flaw. But mostly, I want to figure out why we’re here. The rest has to wait 'til we’re alone, like this… so I mean– it’s better than nothing, right?”
Annabeth stays with her forehead pressed against him for a long moment. This should be a time where she closes her eyes and presses her nose against his neck and breathe in the sea so that it can wash over her and bring her back home, but she doesn’t do that. Instead she stays pressed against him with her eyes open, still watery, but watching the darkness in the space between them.
She thinks about what he’s said. That she has to be okay talking about this, bringing him with her. And, well, can she be? Can she be alright with knowing that every time she has a moment of weakness (which is more often than she’ll ever want to admit) she’ll be bringing him with her too?
Her hands curl into tight fists and she squeezes her eyes tight when she thinks, Yes.
She thinks it yet again. They survived two great prophecies, and so many quests before that. They fell into Tartarus, faced that Night, and pulled their broken bloody selves out of the pit. Together. She can do this. Whatever this is called they can do this.
It doesn’t have to be right now. Nothing has to be right now, and it can’t be. As much as everything in her wants this to be like a math problem where all she needs to do is find the mistake and fix it to get the right answer, this is nothing like that. This will take time. She cannot think her way through this. They need time to sort though all the dark things that came out within themselves down there. They don’t have to make any make big decisions. All they have to do is help each other -- which is what they’ve been doing since they first met.
She nods then. Quick. Sharp. Decisive. Just as a daughter of Athena should be. But she stays where she is when Percy finally answers her question. She’s thankful for the honest answer and even more so for the kiss.
But theres something about that kiss he leans in to give her that finally makes the tears in her eyes spill over. One or two drop against his shoulder too quick for her wipe away and she sniffs.
“Sorry, sorry,” she says, so unlike herself. She sits up and wipes her cheeks. She’s only ever cried in front of him once, and it wasn’t her proudest moment, but this is different in a way she can’t put her finger on. Something about doing it again right now feels big and important. She hopes he understands. She think maybe he does. He’s always been more perceptive than he lets on.
Still, she shakes herself of it. “If I can’t be afraid of bringing you back with me, then neither can you.” She combs his hair to the side, off his face. It won’t lay flat, but it’s never laid flat and somehow it elicits a swell of affection in her. “Let me help you, okay? You don’t answer me sometimes, and sometimes I can see when you’re not telling me the truth. You can’t shoulder both of us.”
She smiles at him, soft and gentle. This time it does reach her eyes. It’s a strange thing to be doing right now, after such a terrible nightmare and during such a terrible topic, but it also feels like the right thing somehow. She touches his cheek and brushes his thumb over his cheekbone. Percy held up the sky for her. She can chase away the dark and lift him back up.
“We’ll figure this out -- all of it. Me and you.” Her expression moves into something even more soft, more tender, with more affection written across it than she realizes. “For once we have the time do that.”
