More Than You Know (Oneshots)

Gray Wings

PERCY POV

I don't even remember when I had first started doing this. It was an awful habit, I knew that much. I knew the consequences. I knew that, especially for me as a demigod, having crappy lungs isn't the best place to be. Especially after Tartarus and all that acid air, my lungs were already toast.

But I wasn't ready to go cold turkey just yet.

It made my skin crawl when I first started. I felt disgusted at myself that I found myself needing it more and more, reaching for it and searching around to find it. Then I told myself this was my rebellion. My prowess. I had taken the thing that used to hurt me and have embraced it.

I was lying to myself, really, but that much didn't matter.

I was sitting on the deck of the Argo II, looking up at the sky as the gray curled up in the air around me, wafting towards Zoë and Bob and all my other friends that had found their place in the stars. I hated myself for what I was doing.

"Tell the stars I say hello," Bob had asked of me, when he gave up his life to me. I'm covering the stars with my cowardice right now.

"Bob says hello," I murmured under my breath, staring at the glistening stars, knowing that I didn't deserve to be up here. Bob should be up here. The good titan. Not me. I'm a coward. A murderer.

Someone who lets their friends die in their place.

The smoke curled up into my lungs and I let it fill me up before releasing it, watching it puff around my face. The tip of the cigarette was slightly burning. I remembered the time when I was younger, when Gabe would press it against my skin, leaving little raised bumps that puckered red, but was well hidden by my clothing.

I traced the scars of my past, the ones that contrasted the scars of my present, and thought of a future for myself.

You don't deserve a future, a nasty thought in the back of my head scolded. I lowered my head in shame.

When I was stuck in the situation with Gabe, I had never even dared to think of a future for myself. It never seemed possible. I lived one day to the next, trying to take in the blows and cover the pain so that my mom wouldn't know what that monster had been doing to me. I went to bed each day knowing that there was nothing to be excited for tomorrow. Pain was the only thing that had embraced me on a day to day basis. The cigar burns. The glass bottles. His fist and his belt.

I had just been curious one day, when I was around ten years old. Stupid Gabe and all his stupid friends found so much happiness chugging beer and smoking cigarettes. I found no appeal to the beer, and had vowed to never drink, the wretched smell of the alcohol tainted the apartment and I knew of the pain that follows after every bottle is finished. The cigarettes had just been a moment of curiosity. I had nicked one from Gabe, finding happiness in how pissed off the pig of a man had looked when he couldn't find the last box. I had gotten a beating for sure that night, but Gabe never found the box of cigs. I had hidden it well, but curiosity had gotten the best of me and I tried one.

And then I tried some more.

Moving on from Gabe, I thought of my life as a demigod. During the Titan war, I had still not given myself the privilege to dream. I was destined to die at 16 years old. So young yet so old. I had not dared to dream.

The war had ended and then I had survived.

I started to dream a bit after that, thinking of a future for Annabeth and I. That too had been taken away from me when I was kidnapped, stripped of my memories, and then forced into another war.

And now?

I'm just sitting all alone on the deck of the Argo II, smoking a cigarette.

"Give me one, would you?" a voice called out from the shadows.

Okay. So not all alone.

"Come on Neeks, Will would kill me if he knew I gave you one," I shot back as the younger boy took a seat next to me. I handed him the stick anyway and lit the end for him. We both sat together as we smoked.

"When did you start?" Nico asked me. "I started when I was nine."

"Ten," I replied. "I forgot how unsupervised kids were back then."

"Like now is any better," Nico snorted, chuckling a bit. "Look at yourself."

"Nah, I started for a different reason. Those 'smoking is injurious to health' signs are put up everywhere."

"Tell me," he demanded softly, but I just shook my head.

"Maybe later," I muttered, my voice sounding small and quiet. He just nodded.

We sat together, embracing the presence of each other, as we let the gray wings of the smoke carry us up to the sky, to the stars.

"We may not survive this," Nico whispered, swearing under his breath.

"I know."

"We're both pretty messed up, aren't we?"

"I know."

"I know you know Percy, but you have to give me more than that."

I didn't respond for a second.

"I know."

Nico just rolled his eyes.

"When it comes down to it Nico, bring my body back. Give me a nice funeral, okay? Let my mom in through the borders, but take care of her after."

Now it was Nico's turn for silence.

"Yeah."

Okay.

"Do the same for me, okay," Nico told me. "I don't have a family like you and I know the camps hate me for being an outcast. I don't even know how to describe my relationship with you. But don't let me die in vain. Let people know I died a hero. A died a hero's death."

"You were always a hero Nico. And you're my brother. I know our relationship has always been kind of rocky sin-since Bianca, but I'm your family, Nico."

"Yeah, okay."

"Okay."

Okay.

Our gray wings had finally reached us up to the stars.