capsize
chapter forty-five | interlude
Healing is easier said than done.
It is agony, waiting for your body to patch itself up. The Bellevue is known, amongst the world you find yourself living in, to be the best for half-bloods and the likes, with its staff made up almost entirely of children of the gods. After all, there is a reason it is the best-rated hospital in New York. Despite this, and regardless of the amazing care they provide you with, things just aren’t moving as quickly as you wished they would.
“It’s only been a night,” Percy twists his fresh-washed jacket in his hands, watching helplessly as you writhe uncomfortably in bed. “It’s going to hurt.” He turns to the door, where Sally Jackson disappeared only moments prior. Desperation is splashed across his paling face.
You don’t mean to be mean to him. Really, you don’t. It’s just—your stomach is rolling the pains around, not dissimilar to the motion of being stabbed, relentlessly. The waves of unending, crippling pains are enough to force you to curl up on the bed, white sheets shoved to the floor, panting into a pillow. There is something deeply humbling about a human experience which revolves wholly around being in pain. It is dehumanising, degrading, in the most human, profound sense.
So, no, you don’t mean to be mean to Percy, the boy who saved your life. You just can’t help it.
“I know that!” You snap furiously, pressing your burning cheeks further into the cool pillow. Something breaks your heart. Hurting Percy is painful. “I’m not stupid! Gods, what did I do?” The pillow dampens with your tears.
There is only so much ambrosia and nectar a demigod can consume within a certain amount of time. You’ve surpassed the safe amount hours ago. You’re solely relying on human medications, and, much to your hatred, they also have a capacity on safe consumption. The urge to end it all gets stronger by the second. You shouldn’t be curled up the way you are, tightly, taught as a metal wire, with injuries so severe as they are. You passed the point of comprehension on what you should and shouldn’t do hours ago.
Something slumps to the ground, Percy dropping the jacket, a brush of warm air and laundry powder. Soft, warm hands pry your fingers from the pillow, taking it away. Your teeth ache, clenching your jaw, your eyes burn from all the salty tears you try not to let escape. The boy before you gets to his sore and cracked knees, throws an arm over your body like he could physically keep you together this way, and holds you tight. Percy, kind, gentle Percy, presses his cool forehead to yours burning. His other hand winds between your bodies to steal your palm and call it his.
Fat teardrops slide down your cheeks and collapse into the bed, rolling over the bridge of your nose, touching Percy’s cheek. Something stabs and breaks inside, burning with a fury you’re sure nobody has ever experienced before in the history of the universe.
“You should have let me die,” your voice shakes. Terribly, “I wish you’d let me die.”
Percy squeezes your hand as if his touch alone could take your pain from your body and pull it into his. At the same time, he is incredibly useless here. “Never,” he speaks roughly, trembling. “Not gonna happen. I don’t regret a thing I did.”
Incredible fury snatches you. “You want me to hurt like this,” you snarl. For the first time, you open your eyes to glare at him through a sore and exhausted gaze.
Percy leans back to take you in his vision. His dark eyebrows draw closer together, ocean eyes pronounced by black, thick lashes. He is pale as paper, with purple moons under his eyes. It comes to you in the moment that you are not the only one who has had a hard time. Regardless of this fact, you don’t really care right now.
“If it means I get to keep you here, then yes. I’d do it again, too. Hate me all you want.” His lips are dry as he speaks. He turns sterner. Percy repeats stronger this time, “Hate me all you want. You’re not going anywhere.” It is final. He’s made the decision, and you don’t get a say in it at all.
You give him a sharp shove away with your right hand, rolling on your back. The pain intensifies with the moment, and you kick the footboard of the bed, the only outlet available right this minute. You clench your teeth. Percy slides his fingers across the sheets and takes your hand again securely. He’s not going anywhere. That’s all he wants you to know from the one movement.
“Should have just left me,” you grit through aching teeth, as the red begins to seep.
There are tears on his face. Do they belong to you or him? The moment is lost on you, gone somewhere he can’t reach you. The boy rests his forehead against yours again. You let him. You want him to. You want all the comfort available.
“Hate me all you want,” says he as he holds you close. “Hate me and be alive. That’s all I care about.”
Percy does not shy away from sickness.
He holds the bowl.
He holds your hair back while you hold the bowl.
He fills your cup when you can’t.
He holds you down while they try to inject you with meds.
And there is no disgust on his face, nor an avoidance of the topic. It’s like he wants to be there, not out of obligation for you giving your life for his, but because he genuinely wants to be at your side, taking care of you. Of course, his mom helps out daily. Morning, noon and night, Sally Jackson takes care of you like a parent would. She tells you she wants to do it, that she cannot bear the thought of you being alone in this. Sally Jackson is an angel, and her son takes after her.
“It’s kind of nice,” you mumble lazily. You smile weakly, resting propped up lightly in bed. Percy looks over his shoulder, standing at the foot of the bed, television remote in hand. There’s this deer-in-the-headlights look splashed across his youthful face.
His eyes dart away and back to you. “What is?”
“Being doted on. I feel like royalty.”
Percy rolls his eyes, grinning, and throws the remote to you carefully. You raise your hands as a slightly delayed reaction, just about catching the plastic rectangle at your chest. “Have that, your majesty. It’s Criminal Minds. You psycho.”
“Touché, Mr. Let-Me-See-Your-Stitches.” You smirk.
Flabbergasted, Percy flays his hands and launches into the bedside chair, long legs outstretched. “You’re such a twister! You said they were hurting!”
“I don’t remember that, actually, so it doesn’t count.”
“Whatever, little miss princess. Are you having lunch today?”
Primly, you hold out your hand to him. “The menu, good sir?”
Percy leans over and reaches for the piece of paper on his other side, listing all of the meals for today. You’ve been at Bellevue for two days, and you’re healing up nicely with a mix of ordinary human meds and the demigod versions. The nurses on your floor, accessed only by half-bloods, are mainly children of Apollo, so they know what they’re doing, and they’re brilliant at their jobs. You’ve been resting up nicely, and now and again, so does Percy, who kicks off his shoes in the afternoon and settles at the foot of your bed for a quick nap. He drools on the sheets, just a bit, but you don’t mention it. He’s done enough for you the last few days that telling him off for drooling in his sleep feels so entirely wrong.
He presents the paper with a flourishing bow; you take it primly from his strong hand, flecked in white scars like paint.
As you scan down the menu, your thoughts scatter, and the words turn blurry, background noise. The world fades away. You’ve been here two days now, and you haven’t addressed how you told Percy you hated him. You don’t—you definitely do not. It’s bugging you, you’re just unsure how to bring it up to him. Your lips part deep in thought—you can feel a headache coming on. The paper falls slowly from your fingers to rest on your lap. Your hand comes up to touch your forehead, rubbing between your eyes.
Percy gets to his feet suddenly. The cheers screeches, thrown back. “What is it? Are you okay? Is your head?” He leans in to look at you, hand on the bedside rail. You jolt, frantically turning to face him, to tell him don’t worry, you’re just thinking a little too much.
He’s a little closer than you thought so.
You’re a little jumpier than you typically would be.
You jump, he leans, waiting, in perfect timing, eyes wide in wonder, and, as fate would have it, Percy gets his kiss.
Your lips touch his, a little firmer than you would have liked for your first kiss with Percy. He stays still, lips pressed to yours in a total accident, for a fraction of a second, shell-shocked, unmoving, cheeks blooming a beautiful cherry blossom pink. Fireworks explode in the back of your mind, arrays of royal blue and turquoise and ultraviolet, screaming, jumping for joy. Your heart follows, hammering away. In the corner, the heart monitor screen jumps by a dozen, machinery shrieking away in time with your human reaction. Unable to stop the smile from spreading wider, you move back, throw your hand up over your mouth, and laugh once, shortly, abruptly. Percy is stuck like a deer in the headlights on a very dark road, unable to focus on anything other than the light. And here you are, the light. Your stomach tells you to worry, to panic. Your brain tells you to chill. And your heart is summersaulting for joy right now. More laughter bubbles up from within, and you can’t stop it! It doesn’t take long for Percy to break out of the ice he’s been thrown into, and soon, he’s smiling, too, boyish and shy.
“Did you mean to do that?” You clasp your hands against your stomach, giggling. “Oh, gods, stop it, my stomach hurts.”
Percy frantically shakes his shaggy hair. “N-no! I swear! I’m sorry! I didn’t—I just moved and you moved and then—well, then—”
Shuffling up the bed, you lean behind with a shaky hand to move the pillow. “It’s—Percy, it’s okay, don’t—don’t make it so—don’t make it awkward. It’s okay. It’s fine. It’s. Yeah. You said yourself I owed you one for luck.”
He steps backward blindly, lost in what just happened, feeling behind him for the chair like you’ve told him the world’s about to reset. “That was an accident. You don’t hate me, right? Because—well—I didn’t mean to do that. Not that I hated it! I kind of liked it. Wait—!”
Slowly, your aching cheeks begin to fall again, sobered up quickly because of Percy’s question. “Oh, Percy.” Shaking your head, you lean back into the cushions, turned to him. “I don’t hate you. I never have. I don’t think it’s possible,” you say softly, like a quiet confession you don’t want the world to truly hear.
The weight of his words slowly sink into your brain, slowly processing on the conveyor belt. “If it makes you feel better,” a cheeky grin sneaks up on you. “I kind of liked it too. Same time next week?”
He laughs just the once, deep, staring at you with stars in his gorgeous eyes, hands held between his outstretched legs.
Suddenly, a cough from the doorway breaks you from your stupid smile stupor. Sally waits in the doorway, leaning against the frame, a cup holder full of hot chocolates to go held in both hands. The lines around her eyes are stressed while she squints between yourself and her son.
“Am I interrupting something?” She suggests. Sally heads to your side, sliding the cups down on the table. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m good,” you giggle breathily. You press your lips together, ruminating on the heavenly moment. Percy is shaking his head violently in such a manner that makes Sally send him the mom look. “I feel…I feel amazing.” The teenage boy in your sights faints back into the chair, nearly breaking the legs. Sally slaps his arm playfully.
Yeah.
You’re living a fairytale.
This fairytale will have a happy ending. It may not be all sunshine and rainbows, but with the right support, you know you’ll make it through. All thanks to the small family in front of you. Sally makes her son stand and find your hairbrush in her bag as she sorts out your cup of hot chocolate, warning you to blow it as it’s hot. Percy sets her bag on your bed and side-eyes you with his cheeks a violent shade of raspberry, throwing his mother’s belongings this way and that until you can’t stop laughing.
Happiness comes unexpectedly.
You know right there that you’re going to be just fine.
In fact…
You’re sure of it.
I KNOW ITS SHORT, I HAD TO FIT IT IN THE STORY BEFORE I FORGOT. also didn’t want too much pain and misery to make everybody depressed.
taglist: @bl6o6dy @embersparklz @rottenstyx @rory-cakes @i-am-scared-and-useless-bisexual @marshmallow12354 @lantsovheiress @distinguishedmakerpandapatrol @twlsssmlaa @gayandfairycore @padsfirewhisky @emu281 @charlesswife @jessiegerl @tojismassivemantiddies @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx @nothankyou138 @obxstiles @mxltifxndom @cxcilla @itzjustj-1000 @sp00kcanwrite @randomesthings @fratbrochrisgf @prongsflower @bugszi @tired-jaz @mitsuriscannongf @i-love-books-and-the-bible @miyakoa @prongsflower @crackerphobic20 @obxstiles @shorttstackk @luckydragontriumph @hawkeye12 @dusk-reaper @anonymouse-is-here
