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Since learning that Sally was pregnant, Paul had been doing a course to learn how to give good massages. After Percy had asked, he’d taught Percy as much as he could. Anything to put his mom at ease.
It had been strange but nice—like the driving lessons, like helping with homework. Like a dad teaching his son something. Paul didn’t make him talk about his nightmares, didn’t ask how he was, and they could sit in a companionable silence as they worked on each other’s shoulders. Despite the fact that it involved sitting still, something that he as a card-carrying ADHD demigod had never excelled at, the fact that he was doing something with his hands and could move the other parts of his body freely meant it was easier to focus. Even when he was the one giving the massage, not getting it, it left him feeling relaxed.
And it made him feel useful.
Whenever they stayed at camp, now, Annabeth stayed with Percy in Cabin 3. There were several reasons for that. The first was that they were still struggling to be entirely separate from each other. On their return to the Argo II, they had taken full advantage of the fact that Coach Hedge had gone with Nico and Reyna to return the Parthenos to camp. There were few nights that one hadn’t snuck into the other’s room, just to listen to the rise and fall of their chest and reassure themselves that they’d made it out alive.
The second reason was that Annabeth kept waking up her siblings in Cabin 6 with her nightmares. There were only so many times she could wake screaming, especially after she’d dreamt of Arachne once, and her cry of spider had sent the whole cabin into disarray. And the third was that they both hated sleeping in darkness, now. Percy had found some bioluminescent algae and kept it in a tank where one of the unused bunks used to be, so if one of them woke in the night, the room was illuminated with a (kind of eerie) sea-green glow. It wasn’t too bright for them to sleep, and the colour was so different to the black and red of the Pit that it helped them relax. Annabeth had idly commented that it was her favourite colour; Percy assumed this was why.
Tonight, they headed to bed earlier than usual, trailing the younger campers when Chiron dismissed them after the first round of campfire songs. Percy ignored the questioning glances sent them from the other campers who were staying up to chat out of the young ones’ earshot. He ached all over, and one look at Annabeth told him she was too, no matter how much they both tried to hide it.
They’d been on the roster for duelling training, today. For the intermediate learners, who already knew the basics, and so could press harder than expected at times. Annabeth had presided over the knife fighting—always a stressful gig—and Percy had handled the swordplay. It was the longest training session either of them had taught since they’d got back, and Percy could tell his body hadn’t enjoyed the experience.
They’d pushed themselves too hard.
Before she could move toward the bathroom to brush her teeth, Percy caught Annabeth’s wrist and pulled her toward the bed. She allowed it, watching him with a curious sparkle in her eye.
He sat down on the bed and pulled her down beside him, then waggled his fingers. “Would you like a massage?”
Annabeth’s face crumpled with relief. “More than anything.”
“Turn around.”
She did, eagerly. Percy hadn’t done them on her before—he’d wanted to get them right before trying them on his girlfriend—but she seemed like she needed a bad massage more than she needed no massage, right now.
“Let me know if it hurts, or if I’m going too hard,” he said. “Or if—”
“I’ll give you a running commentary, Seaweed Brain.”
He smiled to himself. “I’m counting on it.”
Running his hands along her shoulders, feeling their tension, he started there. The groan she let out lit up his entire being. He tried to start gently, then get firmer and stronger with his movements as time went on.
“That’s it,” Annabeth said. “That’s perfect.”
He kept working, kneading the muscles around her neck with extra attention. She’d been doing more neck and back stretches lately, and they both suspected she’d found recent… events… jarring. They’d done a lot of falling. Even with rivers of misery to catch them, it was still a lot for their bones and muscles to absorb.
All of it was a lot to absorb.
Everything hurt, since they got out of the Pit. Leo had pointed out to Percy on the Argo II that his breathing had got shorter, and it had. Annabeth’s had too, though not to the same degree as Percy’s; the acidic air had apparently done a number on their lungs. It was a painfully short list of foods that they could stomach, after all that time drinking fire, though they’d been building up to their old favourites. And even aside from damage like that, which could be catalogued and diagnosed in the camp infirmary by an increasingly concerned Will, every muscle in them ached. Today was an especially bad day for the both of them, with how hard they’d pushed themselves, but… it still, always, hurt.
There wasn’t a specific reason, as far as they could tell. Just… old wounds. Their bodies held the memory of all the pain they’d known, and it didn’t want to let go. How many years of constant injuries, strain, and near-death experiences had it been? How much before the part of them that was mortal just… gave in?
Those were Annabeth’s theories for the constant pain. Cheerless though they were, Percy preferred them to his. Because those made sense for Annabeth, but while Percy felt the same overall strain on his body as she did, he could also feel… specific pains. Nestled in specific injuries. They glowed in his awareness.
“You’re very quiet,” Annabeth said, after her latest affirmation of how much she was enjoying this went unanswered.
“Just… thinking. I do that sometimes,” he tried to quip.
“You do that a lot,” she returned. He didn’t know when she’d decided she had to shore up his self-confidence, but he suspected it was to do with a conversation she’d had with Paul a few weeks ago that she wouldn’t talk about. “What are you thinking about?”
He didn’t want to lie, even if it worried her. “The pain. And if it will ever go away.”
Annabeth sucked in a breath.
“Hey, none of that! You’ve tensed your back again!”
She laughed, trying to breathe calmly again. Her shoulders relaxed. “Sorry. I undid all your hard work.”
“Yeah, now I’ll have to do it all over again.” As he spoke, he did, and he smirked at her cut-off groan.
“No complaints here,” she assured him. Her head was tilted back slightly in an expression of bliss. “What do you think?”
“I think that I’m really enjoying the reactions you’re giving me.”
She lightly swatted his knee. “About the pain. Do you think it’ll go away?”
“I hope so, Wise Girl.” His voice cracked. “I really hope so.”
He shouldn’t have said anything. She twisted around, giving him a concerned glance. “How much pain are you in right now?”
Please, no. He didn’t want to have this conversation. “Let me finish your massage before you interrogate me.”
“I could easily sit here being massaged until I fall asleep, and I know you would happily do it, so that’s not happening.” She furrowed her brows. “Also, dodging the question tells me the answer is a lot. It’s your turn for the massage.”
He flexed his hands. “Let me finish yours first. Round it off nicely.” He didn’t tell her that he didn’t think a massage would help with his pains. The poison was in too deep.
Her gaze roved over his face, quietly assessing, before she nodded and turned back around. He didn’t rush to finish, working slowly but steadily, and making sure to hit all of the spots that, from watching her fight today, were aching the most. By the time he was done, she was as limp as cooked spaghetti.
Undercooked spaghetti, though, because when he gently guided her to lie back against the wall, she did not stick to it. She immediately sprang back up and turned to him, flexing her own hands. “Your turn.”
Percy narrowed her eyes at her. “Has Paul secretly been giving you massage lessons too?”
“No, but I’ll do my best. Tell me if you want me to change my approach.” It was a command from a general, and he bit his lip to keep himself from smiling. Of course, it didn’t work, but when she saw him, she just smiled too, a little bashfully.
She started on his shoulders and oh—oh. That did feel good. The ache eased under her warm hands. His muscles yielded to the relief of it, and it was all Percy could do not to sag.
If this was it, this was fine. He didn’t have to talk about it. They could just give each other massages, on the assumption they had the same aches and pains, and—
“Where does it hurt most?” Annabeth asked. “I don’t want to try to guess in case I get it wrong.”
Percy hesitated. She wouldn’t notice… right? She didn’t remember all his injuries so closely that she would put the pieces together.
He flexed his left hand. “This aches a lot,” he admitted. “And here”—he pointed to his shoulder—“and a spot here, on my chest.” The pit scorpion sting. The Keres scratch. And where the chimaera had first stung him.
There were others, brighter stars in the constellations of his scars. But that was somewhere to start.
Annabeth looked surprised, but she didn’t question it. She started working on his shoulders and stretched around to his chest, watching his expression intently to gauge how she was doing it. It did help, a lot. Under her ministrations, he managed to relax, something in his shoulders giving in. But the pain didn’t fade.
Was pain even the right word for it? It was more just… awareness. Something that needled at him, reminding him that the wounds were there, that they had healed but had left something behind. Something that he could find, now that he knew what to look for.
“Is that good?” Annabeth finally asked, breaking the silence.
Percy nodded. “That’s great. I—oh.” Something gave way under her stubborn thumb. “That was really good.”
He glanced over his shoulder, not totally faking his dopey smile, but paused when he saw the calculating look on her face. When she saw him notice, she sighed.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” she said. He made to shake his head, but she cut him off. “Is it the pain? If this isn’t helping…”
“It is. It’s helping a lot.”
Still, she frowned. When she reached for his left hand, he gave it to her and let her squeeze it briefly before she took it in both her own and started massaging the muscles there. She was staring at it so hard that he thought maybe someone had written a maths puzzle on his skin.
That was until she paused. With one hand still holding his, she used the index finger of her other hand to trace the lifeline on his palm. She stopped right in the middle of his palm, her finger hovering over a white scar he knew very well.
The scar wasn’t as prominent as it used to be. There was no sunlight in Tartarus, and they had both lost their tans, so it wasn’t a white starburst against gold, anymore. But Annabeth knew what to look for—she’d spent long enough by his side in the infirmary after Luke had fled—and she found it soon enough.
“Is it this that causes you pain?” Her voice was pregnant with… something. Concern? Dread?
“It doesn’t usually,” Percy protested. That wasn’t a lie, either. For years, it hadn’t hurt him. Sometimes it twinged when he thought about Luke, or most notably during that truce meeting with Prometheus and Ethan during the Battle of Manhattan, when it had burned as white-hot as his rage. But those moments had been few and far between. Until recently.
When had it started to hurt—if he was gonna use that word—constantly? It was hard to pin down. Since losing the Curse of Achilles, his body had taken such a battering that this sort of needling pain hadn’t registered until long after Gaia was defeated. And even then he’d noticed it slowly, distracted by greater issues, greater strains.
The same went for his shoulder. His chest. And, if he was honest with himself, every blood vessel in his body rang with that needling sensation, a stinging heat, like someone had mixed his blood with capsaicin. The more he thought about it, the more he could feel it, with every beat of his heart. There was that feeling in specific parts inside him, as well. A specific organ? He didn’t know enough about biology to be sure, and since Tartarus, staring at any diagram of a body just made him think about how he’d gone stomping across a primordial being’s heart.
“When does it cause you pain?”
He swallowed. “Now,” he said.
Unfortunately, Annabeth could read everything into that that he didn’t want her to. Still holding his hand like it was something precious, some artefact that needed a careful touch, she reached out her other hand to trace her finger around the curve of his shoulder.
“I wasn’t there,” she said, “when it happened. But I know this is the scar that Keres gave you, after you, Nico, and Thalia had that little trip to the Underworld.”
Yeah. Percy was glad they were doing this before they’d had the chance to undress for the night, so she couldn’t look at the scar even as she said it. It didn’t matter, though. She knew where it was intimately, just as he could map all the scars on her body from memory.
Her fingers moved across his chest to push gently at his scar there. “And I remember the chimaera incident well. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.” She dropped her hand. “These are all poison wounds, Percy.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he said something snarky. “I think if I’m poisoned by an attack or a bite, it’s technically a venom wound.”
Thank the gods, she cracked a smile. But it disappeared soon enough. “Is it just them? Or are all your old wounds hurting again?”
She was giving him an easy out, if he didn’t want to talk about it. And he didn’t want to talk about it. But he wanted to lie about it even less.
“No,” he admitted. “Just the venomous wounds. And… I think I can still feel the gorgon blood inside me.” His veins shimmered with it. “Whatever Damasen did… whatever Bob did, healing my Keres wound… something was left behind. Traces of poison, maybe? I can feel it.”
“You can feel it?”
“I can feel it.”
She let out a breath and clasped his hand in both of hers again, going right back to massaging it. “Since… her?”
“I dunno. I didn’t really notice, with everything else going on. But yeah.” His mouth felt dry. “I think so.”
He watched her reaction closely, ready for her to shut down, pull away. The sight of her horrified face in the Pit, how she’d flinched away from him, haunted her nightmares just as much as what he had done must haunt hers.
She didn’t. In fact, she held him tighter. Her massaging got a little more intense. It got to the point that her grip was almost bruising, but the last thing he wanted her to do was let go.
“Do you think you could pull it out?”
He hadn’t expected that. “What?”
Her gaze was fixed on his hand, on the star-shaped scar on his palm, and her fingers as they worked. She refused to meet his gaze. “I don’t know how it would work—if we’d have to reopen the wounds or something. Carefully. But if we could, do you think you could pull out the last traces of the poison? Filter the gorgon blood out of your veins?”
Percy was the first one to pull away. He yanked his hand out of hers, shuddering all over. “Why?”
They hadn’t talked about Akhlys. They hadn’t talked about any of this since they got out.
Annabeth didn’t answer, but she did meet his gaze. She was visibly conflicted. Her lips pursed; her eyes flittered from spot to spot, as if observing a battle map no one else could see; and her jaw was clenched. But she took a deep breath and reached for his hand again. He let her take it.
“You’re in pain,” she explained. “I don’t know what we can do about our normal aches and pains. But if there’s lingering poison in your wounds that no one noticed before, and it’s hurting you now… Can you take it out? You should take it out, not just deal with it.”
He shook his head. “Some things shouldn’t be controlled.”
Her fingers flexed around his. “I’m sorry,” she said, and he was surprised by how thick her voice was, suddenly. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“What? No—” He cut himself off when he heard his voice rise in panic. Took several calming breaths. “No, you were right. I’m sorry for scaring you.”
“You surprised me,” she corrected. “I had been scared for weeks by then. I had been terrified for my life during the whole fight. And you looked dead already—and you did something no one should do. Could do,” she corrected herself. “You did something I thought no one could do.”
“I scared you,” Percy reiterated.
But Annabeth shook her head. “There were no rules in the Pit. It was confusing, and it made no sense, no matter how much I tried to think my way out. Nothing made sense. Nothing except you. And then suddenly you didn’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop it!” she snapped—then caught her tone and lowered her voice before he had the chance to flinch. “Please, stop apologising. How about this? We don’t need to apologise to each other. Just… let me speak.”
He nodded.
“I was frightened of what you did,” she admitted. “It was like I didn’t know you. And I still don’t understand how you did it. Was there water in her poison? Or did you just… overpower her somehow? If so, how? She was a primordial. How did you beat Misery?”
I didn’t, Percy wanted to say. I just outdid her. But he let Annabeth speak.
“People say you’re unpredictable, Percy. I never understood what they meant. I know how you think. And I know that you can bring destruction on our enemies, and that you will if I’m in danger, or Grover, or Tyson, or any of our friends. In hindsight, I’m surprised something like that didn’t happen sooner while we were down there.” She shook her head. “But I didn’t expect that. Because it was impossible! And I’m glad it happened. I am glad it happened. You saved both our lives.”
“That’s how I did it,” he admitted. At her questioning look, he added, “I had the insane thought that the poison was falling in pools. Rivers. And sure, it wasn’t water, but the rest of the Pit didn’t play by the rules. Why should I?” He took a ragged breath. “I think I let too much of that place into me.”
“You saved us,” Annabeth said again.
Percy thought about what Hera—Juno—had said to him, months earlier. When he only had an inkling of what would be required of him in the months to come. In many ways, you are impulsive, but when it comes to your friends, you are as constant as a compass needle. You are unswervingly loyal, and you inspire loyalty. You are the glue that will unite the seven.
“I worry about what I’ll do to save you,” Percy said. “To save all of you, if it’s necessary.”
“I don’t.”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe that.”
“Believe it.” Her voice was hard. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it before, Percy. Especially during the Titan War. We all worried about it then. We all thought about the possibility, and I’m sure you did too. But I remember this awkward twelve-year-old who only agreed to go on the quest to retrieve the lightning bolt because he wanted to save his mom. And I remember how he left her behind so he could save the world instead.”
Tears pricked at Percy’s eyes. “I’m not that kid anymore.” He didn’t wish he could go back—life sucked then, just as it did now—but the distance between him and that boy was farther than the distance between Camp Half-Blood and the Pit. “I wanted to torture a goddess, Annabeth. I wanted her to choke on her own poison.”
Annabeth snorted. “You should hear some of the thoughts I had about Arachne.”
“It’s not the same. I did it.”
“You stopped.”
“I still did it.” He shook his head. “I only left my mom in the Underworld because I knew that was what she would want me to do. And I only stopped because you asked me to.”
“I guarantee you that nothing else in the Pit would have stopped. I don’t even think Damasen would have stopped.”
He caught his breath. Damasen was sacred ground, for him and Annabeth. No one was allowed to doubt or criticise Damasen. “I scare myself. You were right, Annabeth. Some things aren’t meant to be controlled.”
“They aren’t,” she agreed. “But someone controls them. If anyone can, I’m glad it’s you. Don’t get me wrong. I understand why you’re scared, Percy.” She leaned in, pushing against his chest with her hand. “But I’m not. Not of you. And not of anything you can do.” She hesitated. “Not anymore.”
“I—”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “for pushing you away.”
He shook his head. “You were right to do it.”
“I’m still sorry.” She poked him in his Keres wound—lightly enough that it didn’t aggravate it further. “But you haven’t answered my question. Do you think you could pull it out?”
“No!” he insisted. “Annabeth, even if we ignore what happened with Akhlys, do you remember what Polybotes could do? His favourite party trick?” Annabeth had never met him, so he barrelled on before she could answer. “He turned water into poison. He’s the anti-Poseidon, and he… I…” He cut himself off.
“If I go to Will right now and tell him you can manipulate poison,” Annabeth asked, “do you think he’ll think about Polybotes?”
Percy took a deep breath. “No.”
“What do you think he’d ask you to do with it?”
“Exactly what you’re asking,” he said sullenly. “Learn how to pull it out of wounds or neutralise it or something.”
“I don’t think poison has any given morality to it. Not that the gods do anyway,” she added. “I think we know that by now. But you, Mister Hurricane, know more than anyone that it’s not about power. It’s what you do with it.”
He understood what she was saying. But—“It’s something I got from the Pit,” he spat. “I don’t want it. I don’t want to carry it.”
Her fingers came up to tap his palm again. He hadn’t realised he’d clenched his fist until his fingers opened like a flower at her touch, revealing the scar at the heart of them again. “You already do.”
His throat burned. “I didn’t want this,” he whispered. He flexed his hand, trying to encompass the scar, the poison—everything that had happened to him in between. He’d never wanted any of it.
“I know.” In the dim light, Annabeth’s grey eyes were just shadows in her face. “You wouldn’t have worried about this so much if I hadn’t reacted that badly to it, would you?”
She was going to blame herself, and Percy couldn’t let that happen. “No! It… I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”
Was it really a lie? He thought about his irrational fear of drowning. He thought about how terrified he was of letting everyone down—of making the wrong choice, one day. So much power; so much pressure.
Preserve or raze. Those words would haunt him until he died.
Constant as a compass needle, Juno had called him. That didn’t mean he pointed north.
Annabeth was studying him. “You’re not going to budge, are you?” she whispered. “You won’t learn to use these powers, even if it would stop you from feeling pain.” She sounded so sad.
Percy shook his head. “I’ll… think about it,” he said. That was all he could offer.
She took it. “Alright. Back to the massage.” She lifted her hands, but Percy caught her before she could start.
“Your turn again,” he insisted. “You made yourself all tense with that conversation.”
“And you didn’t?”
“Your turn,” he insisted. He didn’t want to feel her eyes on him just now.
After a moment, she acquiesced and turned away, showing him her back. He worked her gently, his long fingers nearly trembling with the care he took, but he put all his strength into it, the way she’d want him to.
“I love you,” she whispered as he did. “And I trust you. More than anybody else in the world.”
Even in the dim, bioluminescent light of his cabin’s algae, he could see the scars that flecked the backs of his hands in white ridges. Even if he never used any of his powers again, those hands would give him away. They were a warrior’s hands.
He could use them to soothe, or he could use them to slaughter. That was his choice to make.