Oneshot Collection

In Another Life: Percabeth

Guess who wrote a Percabeth death oneshot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TW: death, blood, wounds, grief, fire/smoke

Percy was well accustomed to loss.

He was used to the numbness that accompanied death, the frozen world around him, the blisters on his hands that bloomed from digging the endless graves.

He was versed in the tears that would slip down his face as the burial shroud burned, in the thick smoke and flames that rose to the sky. Sometimes, there was a rumbling in the skies, and rain. Perhaps a random animal watched from the shadows or wove around a demigod's body one last time.

Yes, Percy knew exactly what would happen when someone he knew drew their last breath, when those he loved, those he couldn't shield collapsed in a heap.

He comforted others. He cried his tears. He went on with his life, because what else was there to do? He thought he was prepared for death, resigned to it, for the last whispering breath exiting a friend's lungs and the screams and sobs, the rising flames.

Turned out he wasn't completely ready for death. Not hers. Never hers.

And yet it seemed he didn't have a choice in the matter. He never had a choice in anything.

And no matter how much he screamed to the gods to save her, he still had to be satisfied with the owl that swooped from the sky to land on his arm and allowed him to stroke its head.

It wasn't enough. It could never be enough. He could never be enough.

...

Annabeth could hardly walk, but she gritted her teeth as she forced her legs to keep moving. Her arm wrapped around her stomach, putting pressure on her wound, and the other one held her knife in a weakening grip.

Her ankle collapsed under her as she tried to take another step, and she fell to one knee. Her knee hardly burned with the bruise that would be forming if she survived, as if her nerves were already overworked.

An arm wrapped around her waist, hoisting her up, and Annabeth's breath escaped her in a gasp as she managed to stay upright. A tear leaked out of her eye, but she couldn't wipe it away.

"Come on," his voice urged desperately, and she swallowed hard as a sob escaped her throat. "Come on, Wise Girl, don't give up on me now."

His voice cracked on the last word.

She was going to tease him mercilessly for that when she was healed. If she was healed.

By the way her legs were collapsing under her with each step, that possibility was growing slimmer with each moment.

"Just a little longer," Percy pleaded, but she knew he wasn't talking to her anymore. This was for the gods.

But they wouldn't intervene. They never did. 

Not for Thalia, not for Silena, not for Luke, not for Jason or Michael or the countless others she'd lost. The best they would ever do was sending a sign down to the funeral pyre.

Perhaps Athena would send an owl for her.

"Stop it," Percy ordered, as if he could sense her giving up. "Please."

His words dissolved into the blood puddling beneath their shuffling steps. She took a deep breath to tell him what she needed to, but a cough racked her instead.