Chapter Text
Percy Jackson walked this route often. A subway hop to the park and a wander to the place Blackjack could pick him up without risking any odd looks from passersby.
New York was pretty good at ignoring the weird, but tourists weren’t as practiced at it.
He bit back a yawn as he passed under an oak and resolved to get some rest at camp as a second yawn escaped under a beech.
By the next lamppost he had to stop, the colours were starting to drain from the world around him, leaking out of things like watercolour.
The birds were silent, there was no wind in the trees, no nymphs giggling, no car horns or distant yelling...
The hairs stood up on the back of his neck.
He reached for Riptide, feeling safer with it in his hand, but his arms felt like lead.
He wasn’t sure he’d be able to take a swing.
The world was spinning and swaying, the earth shifting under his feet.
His hands went limp, but he didn’t hear Riptide hit the floor.
The colours had faded leaving everything a grey haze as far as the eye could see in every direction.
Percy's legs turned to jelly, his head cracked against something that wasn’t footpath anymore.
Footsteps, as someone walked towards him right out of the void. He could see legs from the knees down, but the energy to look further up escaped him.
Until she knelt next to him.
“Sleep, little hero, until the time is right.”
Soft brown eyes pierced his, a hand was cupping his face and lifting it to look at her, and he could not get away. Around him the world shifted, there was no water he could reach. Everything felt so far away.
He was not sure if he was bound, but he couldn’t move.
He couldn’t even name who it was who’d brought him here. He knew her face but try as he might her name was as distant to him as the city.
He didn’t know where here was, everything was foggy and blurry, he couldn’t lift his arms or move his legs, it was energy to blink. His body was so heavy, without the person holding his jaw, his head would surely drop limp.
“Thats right, demigod. Give in to it. Sleep. Sleep, Perseus Jackson, until the time is right, and you are needed once again.”
He shouldn’t sleep, he needed to see Annabeth, Grover, the camp. Father and Amphitrite and Triton and Rhode and Kym and Tyson, he needed to stay awake, he needed to get out of here.
“Let me keep you safe in slumber until the time is right.”
He didn’t know how long that could be, he couldn’t agree to it. He needed to fight this, he needed to...
“Sleep, little hero. Sleep!”
Against his will, darkness closed in.