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After the Second Titan War, Percy feels empty for a long time.
(Don't cry. Don't you dare.)
He's not sure why at first; they won, after all, they managed to defeat Kronos and went home. He finally realized how serious his feelings for Annabeth were, and they are together now. It doesn't change much, though. They were already pretty close before.
They won.
But still, something about himself is off. He wanders around Camp absently a lot, and after a while, he catches himself going to the forest, looking for a fight but not really.
When he tries to stop himself from doing that, he starts walking along the beach where he and Silena studied the stars together every now and then when she'd been fed up with her siblings and he wanted to show her a constellation he thought was pretty. He catches himself staring at the crack in the ground in the dining pavillon, he starts counting to twenty and back every now and then because he knows that's how Beckendorf cleared his mind whenever it got too convoluted to handle.
FEEL AS WELL-RESTED AND ENERGIZED AS YOUR FATHER’S MOTHER DOES: SHE DOESN’T REMEMBER THAT EITHER
SHE’S NOT WORRIED ABOUT A GODDAMN THING WE HERE AT LYDD CAN TELL YOU THAT MUCH
SHE’S GOT A PLAN AND SHE HAS NEVER SECOND-GUESSED ANYTHING THAT YOUR FATHER HAS DONE
HE’S WHAT MADE HER A MOTHER
YOU’RE JUST SOME PUNK KID
YOU’RE JUST SOME FUCKING NOBODY. WHO THE HELL ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY SON’S GRAVE?
They won.
Percy is dense sometimes, but the sheer amount of time he needs before he gets what's going on with him is just completely ridiculous.
He's grieving.
Silena. Beckendorf. Luke. Ethan. Zoë. Bianca.
They won.
He thinks he's lost too much and now he can't stop. He loses droplets of time and loses his own mind and loses every bit of his sense of self some days, and sometimes he just has to kneel on the ground for a couple of minutes and try to breathe the heavy weight on his chest away. He tries to stop himself from going down a spiral he refuses to think about, but he doesn't really know why in the end.
They won.
STOP TELLING YOUR DAD YOU LOVE HIM MORE THAN SALT. START ALLOWING YOUR AVARICIOUS SISTERS GONERIL AND REGAN TO DETHRONE HIM.
LEAR KNEW WHAT CORDELIA MEANT THE WHOLE TIME AND SO DOES YOURS
Percy is brittle. He doesn't know when the cracks in his mind started getting so much bigger and deeper, shattering his thoughts into a million pieces all trying to cope with everything he's losing; he tries so hard to keep himself happy, and he is angry enough at himself for not being able to smile anymore. He wants to be happy, he's got Annabeth, and Grover and Tyson and weirdly Clarisse too.
They won.
The realization dawning on him is the last straw.
Because suddenly he understands why this is hitting him so hard right now. Because he spent years fighting a war, he lost so much, too much, and now that the battles are over, it hits him with a vengeance; how fucked up he truly is, how fucked up he's been for so long, and it damn near breaks him.
HE PROBABLY SOLVED HIS OWN PROBLEMS BEFORE YOU WERE BORN SO WHY NOT TAKE A NAP
WITH “LET YOUR DAD DIE” ENERGY DRINK YOU’LL FINALLY HAVE THE ENERGY YOU NEED TO FALL ASLEEP INSTEAD OF WAITING TO PASS OUT
When Percy was eight, he got kicked out of his third school in three years. He got into a fight, and they expelled him over it. It was as simple as that, and four years later, he maybe wouldn't have given a single fuck, but at the time, he did.
His stepfather picked him up.
His memories are a little blurry and fuzzy from the parking lot on, but he knows that Gabe hit him. He remembers his temple hitting the cold window, and he remembers the warm blood spilling out of his nose. He remembers that he started to cry.
Don't cry. Don't you dare.
LET YOUR DAD DIE ENERGY DRINK: ALL THE ENERGY OF NOT TRYING TO STAND BETWEEN YOUR FATHER AND THE GRAVE
IF HE WANTED TO TAKE YOUR SUGGESTIONS HE WOULD HAVE TAKEN THEM ALREADY
IT’S TOO LATE FOR THE BENEFITS OF BRAIN PLASTICITY
Heroes don't cry, right? They're somehow always choosing the right thing, they’re always happy and collected and perfectly fine. Percy has that etched into his mind like nothing else.
Don't-
Cry.
They won.
They won, they won, they won they won they won they won and he can't fucking let himself think about anything else besides that, he can't think about Silena or Ethan or Beckendorf or Luke, or Bianca or Zoë or any of the people he's loved and lost because he's going to cry, and he can't cry, he's not sure how anymore because deep in his heart he's still afraid of the pain exploding in his nose, and the words hissed into his ears, the same words that burn in his mind every time he looks into a mirror.
He's worthless.
Worthless and grieving and stupid and brittle and insufferable and irritating and annoying and dense and horrible and emotional and angry and undeserving of anything, everything he has.
OUR ETHICALLY SOURCED PASSIONFRUIT FLAVOR INCLUDES GUARANINE, GINKGO, AND ZERO CHANCE OF TAKING A BULLET FOR YOUR FATHER
IT’S AN ACQUIRED TASTE
BUT YOU PROBABLY ALREADY HAVE IT
YOU’VE ALREADY INHERITED A LOT OF THINGS.
NO GODS, NO MASTERS, JUST A REFRESHING BURST OF FRESH CITRUS FLAVOR. LET YOUR DAD DIE ENERGY DRINK
No one deserves anything. He's been repeating that for a while now. He doesn't deserve anything good, and no one deserves his tears. No one deserves anything. No one.
His mind is broken. He wishes someone could repair it for him, or show him how to ask for help; Percy has only been good for fighting and battling and leading for so long, and he doesn't know how to tell anyone about the storm raging in his thoughts. He doesn't know how to tell anyone that he feels like he needs help some days, when his mind is clearer and not as shattered. He doesn't know if he's capable of picking up the pieces.
He feels empty.
Empty.
Horribly, terribly empty.
And some days, he doesn't even care.
LET SOMEONE ELSE PUT YOUR PARANOIA TO GOOD USE
Sometimes, Percy feels like he's floating.
Not flying. Flying gives him hives. Sometimes he feels like he's floating, in a space where all of his life disappears and dissolves into nothing. He isn't sure if he should enjoy it or not, because he feels so empty some days, and so hollow it hurts, but for some time he can forget who he is and what he feels and how he's killing himself today, just for a while.
His mind is messed up. He's not sure why he's stuck on step one, forever, just repeating himself. Just thinking he needs help, but not asking for any. He's not sure if he can handle anything else. Anything else, and he'd cry.
(I'm not going to cry.)
(I'm not.)
(I'm not going to.)
YOUR FATHER KNOWS A LOT OF PEOPLE
YOUR FATHER HAS A LOT OF FRIENDS
YOUR FATHER HAS AN ENTIRE TEAM OF ALLIES, CRONIES, AND UNDERBUTLERS TO SOLVE HIS PROBLEMS FOR HIM
Something's wrong, wrong, wrong with him, and he just closes his eyes and pretends he never thought that thought. He's floating, upside down in a moment where he doesn't need to grieve anyone or anything he's lost.
He's shaking, he thinks. On the verge of something beneath his pretending. On the verge of something that could kill him as well as save him.
Percy wants to drown himself some days.
Problem is, he can't drown. So he just keeps going and keeps building up walls that hurt him more than they protect him. He tries to keep going the same way he's been doing for years now, but he can't focus anymore; he's got nothing to fight, no battles, no war, nothing that he can keep thinking about.
His mind is too loud when he's got nothing to think about. Repeating, halling, echoing things he said, things he did, people he hurt.
Silena. Beckendorf. Luke. Ethan. Bianca. Zoë.
He keeps repeating their names like a mantra, like they can somehow render the pain he's in as meaningless as he wants it to be. He keeps repeating them to himself, and he loses sleep and he loses time and he lost so much he's lost count of his own deaths. The dead can't come back, no matter how much he wants them to, but his heart aches in his chest a little more every time he repeats their names and maybe that is why he keeps repeating them.
He needs help.
LET YOUR DAD DIE: IT’S FINE
IT’S FINE
IT’S WHAT HE DID TO HIS DAD
IT’S WHAT HE WOULD DO FOR YOU
He hits a point where he doesn't care enough to consider asking for it. He's fine, he really is, he's in a relationship and he's going steady but really he keeps going down, down that path he can't think about, until there's no towers and no nothing anymore, and his mind is so all-consumingly full of shit he doesn't want to think.
But he's fine.
He really is.
Everything is going to be okay if he just keeps building his walls.
He's going to be just fine, even if his throat is tight with tears he can't cry.
Everything's okay.
He doesn't know who he's trying to soothe anymore. He only knows that he'll keep lying until his final breath, and he hates himself over it, over how he just keeps repeating himself.
What is he even still doing here?
LET YOUR DAD DIE ENERGY DRINK: YOU NEVER REALLY HAD A CHOICE, BUT WE WILL LET YOU CHOOSE BETWEEN ORANGINA, ACAI BURST, AND FRUTTA DI BOSCO IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER
BUT DON’T GET ANY BRIGHT IDEAS ABOUT TRYING TO DO IT YOURSELF. HE’LL SEE IT COMING. YOU’RE ONLY ALIVE AND IN THIS WORLD BECAUSE HE ANTICIPATED YOU. YOUR DAD’S DEATH BELONGS TO SOMEONE HIS OWN SIZE AND YOU’RE NEVER GOING TO MAKE WEIGHT
After some time, it gets easier, the blood and the battles and the ghosts of all these things he has lost ever since he was too young (he's still too young, he's still so fucking young and he just keeps getting younger). It gets easier to breathe through the tears in his throat if he just keeps pretending.
Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe his lies just start to become the truth over time.
Clarisse helps.
Or maybe he helps her?
He tells her a lot of fucked up things, and she tells him a lot in return. They don't pretend with each other anymore, not that they’re rivals anymore, not that they hate each other, because they don't.
They do not.
JUST LET HIM GO INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT WHENEVER THE TIME COMES
WE HEAR IT’S ACTUALLY PRETTY GENTLE
He picks up smoking, but then he doesn't. He just thinks every time he kills a little part of himself that he's vowed to never break he can make everything easier for himself and everyone around him. Clarisse never says anything about the ways he tries to get better, and she never says no when he asks her if she's got a cigarette.
What does it matter, anyways?
He keeps going until he can stop trying. He keeps going until he's fooled everyone, everyone and sometimes he almost thinks himself too; but then he remembers the curses he bears, and the walls that keep getting higher, and the tears that he fights down, down because fighting is still all he's good for.
He's happy.
As happy as he can be when he can't feel anything.
He thinks he's killed all of his feelings. He's so numb some days still, so hollow and empty. But he's got himself in check, and he has family, and not all of them are dead.
Clarisse isn't.
LET SOMEONE ELSE PUT YOUR PARANOIA TO GOOD USE
Clarisse knows too many of his secrets, and he doesn't even know how they became what they are; it was probably somewhere between watching Silena die and fighting a horrible war and then going home. She gets how hard it is to stop grieving.
They’re pretty similar sometimes. Maybe that's why they hated each other for so long.
The thought is kind of funny.
They’ve both got no idea how to talk about anything, to anyone but each other because they're too deep in each other's heads to stop being close now. Asking for help has never been an option to Clarisse, and it hasn't been to him for a long time.
She's one of the only people that have seen him cry.
That one time when it had been too much, and he'd been so exhausted, and he'd looked at a picture of Luke and him – back when he was twelve and his eyes were still so bright and Luke's own were still blue like the sky and not golden.
And he'd started to bawl his eyes out.
JUST LET HIM GO INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT WHENEVER THE TIME COMES
WE HEAR IT’S ACTUALLY PRETTY GENTLE
And Clarisse – in retrospect, he doesn't even know why she had been there, but she had been and she hadn't hit him and hadn't said a thing, never said a thing.
They never talked about it. They probably never will. But they both know that Percy maybe trusts her with his tears, and they both know that she's maybe the single only person who he trusts with them.
LET SOMEONE ELSE PUT YOUR PARANOIA TO GOOD USE
It's all good for a while.
And then Hera kidnaps him, sends him into a magic coma, literally throws him to the wolves and then sets him up to crackle, pop and snap.
Still. It takes a while for him to actually do it. It's a tale as old as time. He gets too angry, too desperate, too afraid of death and too tired of gods, and he tries to drown Akhlys in her own poison – he's done it before, pushed his limits like this, and it scares him so much it leaves him seething.
Don't cry.
Don't you dare.
He realizes after a while that it probably only hit him so hard because he thinks he lost a part of himself again.
One that he can't get back.
His walls only come back up slowly. He's left vulnerable, but he manages to keep going, and Leo dies and he yells a lot at people who don't deserve it and apparently love and hate really aren't that much apart because he was absolutely sure that Nico hated him, and he's just so lost when he comes back home.
Maybe he wants to go back to how things were before. Before he went to Tartarus. Maybe he's scared to keep moving forward, because what if he does it again-
He will not.
He won't.
He won't.
He promised.
He never breaks his promises.
Luke knows that.
LET YOUR DAD DIE ENERGY DRINK: BECAUSE YOU DON’T WANT TO SING ALONE LIKE BIRDS ‘I TH’ CAGE, ASKING ONE ANOTHER BLESSING AND KNEELING DOWN, LIVING AND PRAYING AND LAUGHING AT BUTTERFLIES WITH HIM
LET YOUR DAD DIE ENERGY DRINK: BECAUSE YOUR BLOODLINE ENDS WITH YOU!!
He comes back home and looks Clarisse in the eye, and he knows they both know how fake his smile is, how desperately he's trying to keep his walls from crumbling. He knows she hates how much he's hiding from other people, and he knows she has the best reasons to, but he just can't- he can't cry and he can't stop smiling or else he's going to start sobbing.
He needs everything-
To stop.
Just... to stop.
For a while.
For a long while.
So he leaves Camp after a while, and he says goodbye to her because she's the only person who's seen him cry, and she looks so sad about him leaving that he promises to come back-
And they both know that it's probably a lie.
LET YOUR DAD DIE: IT’S FINE
IT’S FINE
IT’S WHAT HE DID TO HIS DAD
IT’S WHAT HE WOULD DO FOR YOU
He can't stand looking at Half-Blood Hill knowing what has happened there, the Romans and the Greeks slaughtering each other for no reason. Leo is dead. Leo is gone.
And again, Percy has lost something.
Again.
He just keeps getting younger.