"Sh." We giggled, as we passed the younger campers crowded in the Hermes cabin. They grinned up at us with watery smiles, and I handed them a juice box from the bag of stolen things. Those ran out and then only bottles clinked together.
The Stolls helped me onto the bunk, space hidden by blankets draping down. I pulled out the chilled glass wrapped in paper bags. Condensation rolled down the sides.
"You couldn't have gotten anything weaker?" I asked.
"We can't bring wine in." Travis took the other bottle and cracked the seal. "Bottoms up."
It burned my mouth and throat, left me coughing and gasping and slamming my hand on the mattress. But we didn't stop. We knew if we did, we would never sleep. Connor hugged me. He dragged me down. Travis sprawled over us. We kept drinking but tried to keep quiet as the younger kids fell asleep.
One of them---they were starting to blur and blend together--played with my hair. I couldn't quite feel it. Just like the hands on my arms weren't really there.
"Just relax, Percy."
"Yeah, we're right here."
Yet, as much as I wanted to fall asleep, it wasn't going to happen. The door to the cabin opened. The mattress shifted as one of them checked who it was. A hand gripped my ankle.
"She's almost asleep."
"I don't care," Annabeth hissed. I whined and buried my face in a pillow. There was only one reason she'd come to get me--she'd wanted me to go back to my cabin the moment I was released from the infirmary, once I'd finally responded to something. "She needs to be in her cabin, and you need to get rid of those bottles."
"Not going to rat us out?"
"You're going to do that yourselves if they find an empty cabin when Chiron goes to call lights out."
I was pushed out of the bunk and slung over Annabeth's shoulder like I was injured. Hah. Injured. Injury would mean exploding like Luke. Why carry a half charred corpse? For burial, my mind supplied. Being half-cooked would probably only get you halfway across the river. Would suck to get in the boat and dumped into the pain, burning, agony of the Styx when you were so close to the other shore.
Her curls were frizzy and untamed. Matted with blood. My mind glazed over that detail in favor of focusing on how pale she was.
"You need to sleep, Wise Girl."
"And you need to not get drunk, dumbass."
"Hey," I protested. I stumbled over the step.
"I think I've earned a few bad words. Here we go." She opened the door and pushed me inside. "Try not to fall and die, okay?
"Mm. Stay?" The cabin swam. The ground was a trampoline.
"I have to take care of my siblings, but you can come sit with us in the morning, okay?"
"Okay."
It wasn't okay. When the door closed, and I was left in the light of the fountain, the absence of people, of voices and proof that they were alive, that I was alive, made me panic. My hands, trembling, fumbled for a drachma in the cold water of the fountain. They kept slipping away.
Finally, my fingers clenched around one, and I almost asked Iris to show me my mom. But I didn't know where she was. So I asked for the next person to come to mind.
The rainbow shifted into an image. A question--a question because I wanted someone else to talk. Not me. Not me because I'd start crying--was off my tongue.
"What's your mother the goddess of?"
Triton stared. He stared and kept staring like doing so would give him answers. I didn't stare back. It was rude, but maybe it wasn't to a god: the staring.
"She's a Nereid." Quick. To the point. Not what I wanted from him.
"Yeah, but what's she the goddess of?"
His brow pinched, and his lips pressed thin before he frowned. "Perseus, I don't see how this is relevant at all when I'm in the middle of cleaning up the aftermath of a war." He gestured to the destruction behind him.
My heart stopped. I caused that. Tears brimmed in my eyes. Calling him was a bad idea. Maybe I should've asked Annabeth to go back to her cabin. Or invited the Stolls to sneak to me.
As much as I didn't want to be alone, I didn't want to be reminded of everything. Not the smell of burning flesh. Not the force of Dad's presence in my head. Not that my existence. . .
Not that my existence caused everything that happened today.
"Unlike you, I'm our father's heir. I have responsibilities," Triton said. "And I don't see you down here helping, so you are lucky I'm not allowed to kill you."
The message evaporated.
One part of that stuck in my brain and played on a loop. Down there helping. I could do something. Something other than sitting and thinking. If my hands were busy, thoughts wouldn't exist.
I dragged out a drawer. Within five minutes, I was gone.
So. Uh. New fic?
I'm not planning on this one being very long, and this is set directly after TLO but I also threw out some of the canon events. So essentially Percy went into shock right after Luke died and helped the stolls smuggle alcohol in so they wouldn't have to think about what just happened.
See yah