Chapter Text
Triton did not sleep often, he did not need to sleep more than once a month or two typically, but their exhaustive search combined with running a kingdom...
His sleep was not restful.
He was plagued with visions of his brother.
For months since Perseus had vanished, they’d assaulted his mind.
In some he saw Perseus tortured, beaten again and again and praying for help, begging for them to find him as the curse he’d taken on to save Olympus prolonged the assault. Triton could never reach him, never free him or provide comfort. He could never see the captor, but her haunting voice promised nobody was coming. That he’d die alone.
In others his brother slept as still as death and no matter how hard he tried; Triton could not wake him. Occasionally the same figure would stand above Perseus in these dreams, brush a hand against his cheek and whisper, “Soon, little hero.”
Again, Triton could never see the face, never recognise the voice.
He could only assume it was Gaia.
Triton tried not to sleep; he did not need his psyche to torture him with this.
He needed to find his brother.
But the visions came when he was awake too, when his mind was tired.
This dream was the worst yet. The most vivid.
A cave, deep below the surface, his feet, he was in human form, touched damp rocks, wetted by water dripping from the stones above. The very air smelt damp, there was a faint light, but it didn’t come from any source he could understand. It was not silent, there was the dripping, but worse was a faint whisper, no words he could understand, but it was constant, and eery.
The cave did not matter, not so much as the figure hanging from one of the walls. Perseus. His arms and lower body were encased in the rock, as though it had reached out of the wall to hold him in place, and only his head and torso were free, hanging limply forwards.
He bolted forwards, and unlike before, his brother reacted. To him.
His little brother’s eyes met his.
Exhausted and unfocused, but Percy was looking right at him.
“T... Triton?”
He tried to pull at the rocks that held his brother fast, but be it the vision or their strength, they didn’t budge.
“We’re coming to find you, we’re coming. I promise. We will find you.”
Percy was shaking, and in his position, there was little comfort he could offer beyond pressing their heads together and promising, promising they’d find him.
The whisper became a laugh and invisible hands yanked him backwards away from his brother. The rock wall shifted and crunched as it pulled Percy further in, too tight on his chest, on his neck, rocks creeping over his mouth.
Agony flashed across Percy’s eyes.
Agony and utter terror.
He tried to fight forwards, back to his brother, but the ground was swallowing his legs and keeping them apart.
“Oh no, little godling, you can have him back when I'm done with him, well what’s left of him. I don’t know how you brought yourself here, but it won’t be happening again. He's too important to my plans for you to interfere right now.”
The ground swallowed him whole, and he woke with a start.
Gaia!
What did she want with Perseus? What didn’t they know?
And where was she keeping him? How could they not find him anywhere?
What were these plans?
He threw his pillow across the room in utter frustration, before swimming over to pick it back up.
Once again, Triton considered visiting his uncle's realm.
The first visit had come in a moment of desperate terror a month after his brother had vanished, when the hope of appearing at the Roman camp had faded.
His uncle had not taken the insinuation that he was hiding Perseus’ death well, he had called Triton mistrustful and worse. Rightly so.
Triton had tried to explain that he did not believe his uncle had a part in it, but that if his brother were gone, he be told, so they could at least mourn.
Uncle Hades could only insist that Perseus was still alive, and more that he wasn’t being kept within the earth anywhere that fell under his domain.
He'd promised that as quiet as Perseus’ mind was, as absent as his soul felt, he had yet to enter the realms of the dead.
Triton knew he was being truthful. Even if Perseus was on the brink, he lived.
But how long could a mortal be held on the brink of death before they succumbed.
How could one even hold a mortal over that precipice.
He was going to tear whoever was keeping Percy there to shreds.
Uncle Hades had promised if he had any signs that Perseus had entered his realm, if Thanatos was called to him, he’d let them know immediately. He had rested a hand on Triton’s shoulder and offered his condolences for the anguish their family was being put through. Triton supposed he understood, his love for his demigod son rivalled Triton’s father’s, and he had lost a child in the war as well.
He knew if something had happened to Perseus, his uncle would have called, so there was no need to visit. No good would come of it.
He did not wish for bad news, he did not want to find out his brother was lost to them forever, but the lack of information was killing them.
If uncle could tell them anything, would it be better than not knowing?
No, no, he could not lose hope.
Perseus would hold on.
He was stubborn and determined, he would hold on.
And they would find him.
.
Percy dragged his eyes open. His limbs were heavier than bricks, his brain fuzzier than it had ever been. He wanted to go back to sleep.
But the voices had woken him up, they wanted something.
They needed him to wake up.
They needed him to get up.
Taking deep breaths and summoning his strength, he lifted a finger.
With a deeper breath, he hefted himself up, hunched over sideways on his hands and backside.
The woman’s voice laughed.
“My my, you brave little hero, trying to wake, trying to escape. You should be thanking me, keeping you safe until the time is right.”
He had no idea what that meant, but he didn’t like it.
The other voice, that one he did know.
“Where are you, Percy. We're trying to find you, looking everywhere, but a clue would be nice.”
It was... he knew this voice.
Latin lessons and enchiladas and a name just out of reach.
He needed to get up, to give that clue, he needed to...
A hand brushed through his hair, it was soft, gentle, calming.
“Sleep, it’s not time yet.”
Sleep, yeah, that sounded good.
He crumpled back to unconsciousness.
.
The call from the Lord of the Wild, Grover, was the best news Triton had heard in perhaps 2000 years.
Proof Perseus was alive.
For only a minute through their empathy bond, he had felt Perseus’ presence, solid and real.
Tired, Grover said, and he’d heard a voice sending Perseus back to sleep, almost like charmspeak.
A few seconds later, Perseus was gone again.
But he was alive.