EVERYBODY LOVES PERCICO

Cry Chapty 1

oh fuckin Zeus I love that song
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well i'm child and man and child again
the toy broken boy soldier
(the boy never gets older)

Percy sinks his toes into the wet-soft sand and closes his eyes against the sea breeze caressing his face. It's easy to forget his problems here by the water; a place he has never felt more comfortable. The water hugs his ankles, kissing the skin of his calves and Percy imagines that it could climb his legs, cover him completely and still he would feel content.

There is a stutter in the breeze and Percy doesn't have to open his eyes to know that he has a visitor. The smell is almost overpowering; salt and ocean and life and something like home. At least, a home that Percy has come to appreciate more as of late.

"Father," he says, soft.

There is a noise of assent and then a presence beside Percy's left elbow. He says nothing and Percy doesn't expect him to. He's not sure what's supposed to happen, exactly. He knows he betrayed people, knows he hurt his father by not asking for help but he's still not sure what could have been done that he didn't already try.

"Did you think we wouldn't find out?"

Percy shrugs and looks down at his feet. "I didn't care. I had to try."

A soft sigh. "Percy, I would have spared you-"

"You can't," Percy snaps. He's aware he could be making his father angry but it doesn't seem to matter anymore. "It already hurts, you can't spare me any pain."

They stand in silence for a few minutes more and Percy is half afraid his father will turn and leave.

"Did it help?"

Something like lead settles in Percy's stomach and he wants to lie, wants to say that yes, yes it did. The words turn to dust on his tongue and he shakes his head, swallowing thickly. "No. I never thought it would hurt more."

"He should never-"

"Don't blame him," Percy says, quickly. He knows who his father is talking about without needing to ask. "He was only trying to help. He's hurting too, you know."

Another sigh and this time, Percy looks into his father's face. It's tired and drawn, the only time he's ever seen his father do anything other than smile. Gods can appear however they wish, and this is how his father has chosen to stand before him?

As if reading his thoughts, his father's eyes crinkle in the corners as he smiles, but its not enough. "Gods can be scared too, Percy."

It hits a second later; Percy would have been a loss, too. He'd have left people behind.

"I'm sorry. I would never have gone that far." He surprises himself to realise he means it.

"You would leave him alone?"

Percy takes a deep breath. Can he? The balance is always wrong; something he loves for many somethings he loves. He thinks of the son of Hades and his sister; the lengths his friend had gone too to see Bianca and he knows the answer. His heart is beating rapidly and he thinks he's dying a little inside as he says, "yes."

The breeze picks up.

Percy tilts his head to the right and feels his chest constrict, tight and painful. Standing a little further down the beach in a tattered t-shirt and jeans, barefoot like Percy and his father, Nico di Angelo grins and then turns on his heel with a wave.

Wanting to follow, Percy takes one step before his father's hand rests on his elbow. "Percy."

His name, sharp and hard but not angry. Percy gets the message. Stay.

He wishes that -

Wishes are of little use, now, and he stays. He feels the jerk and shudder of his body, the instinct to follow Nico to the ends of the Earth too ingrained to ignore. "I-"

"I know," his father says, voice a hairs breadth away from Percy's ear. Percy turns his face away from Nico and into the curve of his father's shoulder. It is the closest that Poseidon has ever allowed him for longer than a moment and it is this that breaks Percy.

Tears mix with salt water until Percy doesn't know which is which.

i'm asking forgiveness
i'm asking about it by myself
and i want you to know this

"Nico," Percy says, voice barely a whisper.

Nico touches Percy's face, rubbing soothing circles against the side of his face, under Percy's eyelids. "I love you."

Percy feels the ache, chest tight and he swallows back a sob. "I know."

He drops his face into the join between shoulder and neck and Nico reaches up with a hand, tangles his fingers into Percy's hair. They lie that way for a while and Percy knows he is wasting time, here, but he doesn't care. He wants this time with Nico, to feel the rise and fall of Nico's chest, to promise himself that he's alive.

...

WILL CONTINUE