Percy's eyes were closed, but something was wrong. He could hear Annabeth's breathing, he could feel her next to him. But it was too hot. And it was humid. And the air felt heavy and suffocating in his throat, as if it were the air in Tar - The air. In Tartarus. Schist.
His eyes snapped open, and his head went into overdrive as he took in his surroundings. It was Tartarus. Again. His breathing increased, but he forced himself to calm down.
"Percy? Percy, where are you?" He heard Annabeth call.
Percy turned to her, "Annabeth! Annabeth, I'm right here!"
"Percy?" Her voice sounded even more terrified, "Percy, where are you? I can't see you! Percy?"
His eyes widened in realisation, arai. He heard something swoop down behind him and ducked just as one swooped over his head. They cackled tauntingly as he tried to slash them with Riptide.
"Percy?" Annabeth cried again.
"Hold on! I'm coming!" He shouted back, finally managing to kill an arai. He screamed in pain as a curse fell upon him.
Percy wasn't always able to remember the people who cursed him, but the most painful ones always had a name and face to go with the pain. Not the one he just felt, however, and it was burning under his skin.
Surely, he thought, Surely, I would remember who cursed me with this one. It hurts, it hurts so much.
The pain clouded his vision, his head throbbing. He could tell he was bleeding, bleeding too much for it to be normal. He could sense it leaving his body and he shuddered. Why can't I see correctly? Where's Annabeth? Why can't I hear her?
Where is Annabeth? Annabeth?
Is ... she gone?
Is Annabeth gone?
"Percy?"
Annabeth!
"Percy!"
She sounds different.
"Percy, Wake up!
He was being shaken. The pain was fading away.
"Percy!"
"Annabeth?" He opened his eyes slowly and saw his girlfriends eyes. He looked around checking his surroundings to see where he was. He sighed in relief, Not Tartarus.
"Oh, Percy!" Annabeth cried in relief as she saw his eyes open. "Oh, thank Gods,"
He was panicking slightly, still half in Morpheus's realm and not quite awake. "Hey, it's alright Seaweed Brain, shh, calm down. I've got you, it's okay," His breathing slowed and his grip on Annabeth relaxed. She leaned back from him to look into his eyes, "Hey, Perce."
"Hey, Annie," He croaked out, throat sore. She passed him a cup of water and he took a few sips from it before speaking again. "Did I wake you up?"
"Yeah, you screamed. It wasn't too loud, thankfully, so your parents are still asleep," She pressed a kiss to his temple. "Do you want to talk about it?" She asked, softly.
"In a second," Percy replied in a whisper, "Can we go outside?"
"Yeah, of course. Lets wrap a blanket around us, it's cold outside," They stood up, Percy standing still as she wrapped them both in the blanket that was at the bottom of their bed.
They shuffled to the door, and Annabeth twisted the lock then opened the door for the two of them. It was still dark outside, and they could see a few stars, even though they were in the city.
They walked out onto the balcony and sat on the bench, Percy curling into Annabeth as they looked at the stars.
"We were back with the arai. I couldn't help you, they kept attacking us. Then I killed one, and usually I can tell who cursed me, but this time I couldn't. It hurt so, so much, Annabeth.
"Then I got cut and I could sense the blood leaving my body, and it was like gushing out. It sucked, feeling it leave like that." He shuddered, and Annabeth gripped him tighter. "It sucked. But you woke me up before it got too bad. Thanks, Wise Girl,"
"Anytime, Seaweed Brain,"
Percy rested his head against Annabeth's shoulder and sighed, heavy with things unsaid. Annabeth just pulled him closer to her and whispered, "I know, Perce, I know,"
~~~
They had fallen asleep on the balcony so got front row tickets to Apollo's one man performance. Percy was woken up by the the rising sun and quickly got up to carry Annabeth inside so she could get a few more minutes of sleep while he got ready for school.
Percy was exhausted, his head feeling as though it had just been trampled by a herd of Part Ponies. Unfortunately, he couldn't skip school as he had missed far too much last year and it was only the second day of the new year.
As he walked out the bathroom he saw Annabeth getting up, studying the new surroundings that she knew she did not fall asleep in. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and opened her mouth to ask but Percy beat her to it.
"I carried you inside, like, half an hour ago cause we feel asleep out there. I didn't want to wake you up, and it was earlier than usual so I just let you sleep,"
"Thanks," She got up and wrapped her arms around his waist. "How are you feeling?"
"Better than yesterday, but I'm tired," Percy replied, hugging her back.
"Well, you can nap at lunch, I guess,"
"Mmph," He grunted into her shoulder. They stayed there for another minute or two before Percy pulled away and let Annabeth get ready, waiting on the bed.
When she was finished, they both walked downstairs and joined Paul at the table. He had made toast for them, so they sat down and started buttering it, each munching on a bowl of cereal.
Paul seemed to realise one of them had a bad night, and didn't want to talk, so he let them eat in silence, only saying that he was going to leave in twenty minutes if they wanted a lift to school.
They accepted his offer and they were both pulling on their shoes when Sally came down. The three of them quickly said their goodbyes to her and jumped into Paul's car, heading off to school.
~~~
They got out of the car and looked around realising they were some of the only people around the school. They debated going inside or waiting until some of their friends came, but they didn't have to make that decision when they saw some of their friends run up to them. It was Aliyah and Karl, arriving at school together after learning they lived only a few streets away.
"Oi! Percy, Annabeth!" Karl shouted to them, halting them in their movement towards the school. The couple slowed down and waited for Aliyah and Karl to catch up to them, waiting in a group on the stairs, deciding to wait for the rest of their friends.
"Hey guys! Do you usually come to school together?" Percy asked, waving hello to his friends.
"No, uh, we actually just realised we live so close to each other. We messaged the others, they should be here soon," Karl explained.
"Nice," Percy yawned.
As they waited for their friends that talked a bit about how they found lessons yesterday. Annabeth was telling them Mr Andrews point of view about what happened in yesterday's Greek lesson, and Karl and Aliyah were enjoying it immensely, laughing their heads off.
Charlie arrived next, alone because she lived further away from Aaron and Ash, and eagerly started listening to Annabeth's story. They were only waiting for a few more minutes when Ash ran up to them, but Aaron was nowhere in sight.
"Hey Ash! Where's Aaron?" Charlie asked when they came up to the group.
Now, Ash and Aaron had arrived together, but they wanted to scare Percy, so they separated when they were in sight of the school gates. Aaron was running up behind Percy to try and scare him.
This was something the two of them always did to people whenever they met up but people always seemed to forget.
"Um, I'm not sure. He didn't respond when I messaged him this morning to ask if he wanted to walk to school," Ash lied.
"Maybe he's sick?" Aliyah guessed.
While the group was speculating on where he was, Aaron was sneaking up behind Percy. Some people caught sight of him, but he motioned for them to not say anything.
They were confused but complied, and didn't mention it to Percy who was oblivious. Aaron got close enough to Percy and decided to grab his shoulders and shout "BOO!"
Unfortunately for Aaron, he didn't get that far.
He managed to shout "B-!" into Percy's ear, and then Aaron was in a headlock so quickly his friends were unsure about how it happened.
Percy could explain it simply - he spun around as he heard Aaron's intake of breath so close behind him and grabbed his outstretched hand, the one that was meant to land on his shoulder.
Percy yanked the arm forward, unbalancing Aaron, then stepped behind him, keeping a hold on Aaron's wrist and twisting his arm back. Pushing his arm between his shoulder blades so he couldn't use it Percy then pulled Aaron back against him and wrapped his other arm around Aarons neck, placing Aaron in a chokehold.
His friends who had been preparing to laugh as Aaron scared Percy had their expressions frozen on their faces, slowly morphing into shock as they took in the situation. It took Percy a second to recognise who he was holding hostage.
Aaron, who at first was too shocked to move was scrambling to get free, his fight or flight kicking in. Percy let him go as soon as he realised, and Aaron stepped away quickly rubbing his neck and coughing, trying to get air back into his lungs.
Percy's eyes widened in alarm at what he had just done, and he stammered out an apology, "Holy Hera! Shit, man, I'm so sorry. Are you okay? Did I hurt you? Styx - are you alright?"
Aaron took in a few rattling breaths before he replied, "Yeh, I'm fine, just surprised. Are you okay?"
"Yeh, I'm not the one who was put in a chokehold! Why?" Percy asked, confused as to why his friends would ask that.
His other friends saw what Aaron was getting at and Karl responded for Aaron, who was still trying to get normal amounts of air into his lungs. "Well, why is your immediate reaction to put someone sneaking up behind you in a chokehold? How did you even do it so quickly?"
Percy looked taken back as though he didn't realise that not everyone's instant reaction was to put someone into a painful position. "Um, instinct?" He guessed, turning to Annabeth for help.
"Why?" Ash interrogated, now rather worried for their friend - both the one choking and the one choked.
Percy was struggling to find a response and so Annabeth jumped in with an explanation she was making up on the spot. "Um, we take self-defense classes, so he was just putting into action what he learnt, right Perce?"
He nodded along to what she was saying, thankful that she jumped in to help him. "We should probably go inside school now that everyone is here! Don't want to be late on our second day right?" Annabeth carried on in a weak attempt to divert the conversation.
She cringed at how suspicious that sounded, but Percy was on edge from the nightmare and from what had just happened, and wanted to move past the topic.
Thankfully all their friends went along with it, and so she grabbed Percy's hand and walked into the building, their friends trailing behind, out of ear shot.
"That was weird. Are you okay, Aaron?" Charlie asked Aaron who just got his breathing under control.
"Yeah, I'm fine now." He raised a hand to his throat. "He is crazy strong - did you see how hard I was trying to get out of that before he let me go? He wasn't even struggling to keep me down,"
"I noticed that too," Ash observed. "Did you also notice he looked almost surprised when he let Aaron go? It was like he hadn't even realised he had attacked Aaron, and it was muscle memory and he wasn't even thinking about it,"
The rest of the group made sounds of agreement, and they slowly followed the couple into the school building, talking quietly enough that they couldn't be heard.
"Also that excuse Annabeth came up with? And how quickly they changed the topic!" Charlie pointed out.
"No, uh, the excuse wasn't an excuse. He really does take self-defense and I've seen him use it before. He's super good at it, took my cousin who has been fighting for a few years down in a few seconds," Karl recalled, "But it was weird how quickly they changed the topic and how he didn't realise,"
"You've seen him use self-defense?!" Everyone questioned.
Karl looked at them incredulously, "Yeah, I told Ash and Aaron last year! I went into a gym this one time cause I wanted to try some martial arts with my cousin and Percy and this girl who looked like Charlie was also there. They were using the same space as us and doing some crazy moves - even our instructor was impressed.
"He asked them how long they had been doing this for and Percy said five years and the girls said like nine. Then they had this massive argument because apparently a few years didn't count and then they had this whole fight and Percy beat the girl. I -"
"Wait, Percy beat a girl who had been doing martial arts for nearly a decade?" Aliyah marvelled, surprised and impressed.
"I guess, but she said a few years didn't count and I was all confused. He said hi to me though, and the teacher asked them if they wanted to help out for the lesson and I think offered them a job. They stuck around for the lesson, but didn't take the job offer," Karl finished.
"Wait, let me get this straight - You went to try a martial arts lesson because your cousin did it," Aaron stopped and Karl nodded, "Okay, so then you see Percy and this girl fighting and they talk to your teacher," Karl nodded again. "They fight again, then your teacher goes 'Let's give them a job!' and they stick around for the lesson, beat up a few people - like your cousin - then leave?"
Karl nodded again, "Yep, exactly like that,"
Everyone was trying to process it as the bell rang.
"Okay well, we can talk this through later at lunch, we have to get to class. See you guys later!" Charlie announced, grabbing Aliyah's hand and dragging her off to their classroom. Percy's friends waved goodbye and went to their own classes, to think about this new knowledge later.
A/N - I think the maths for their ages was correct, I have no clue and didn't have time to properly think about it, so sorry if its wrong
Also I'm kind of shit at writing nightmares, so sorry if that was really cring or smtg