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The war never ended and somehow begins again.
Percy’s fever made him more and more delirious, but it was fine because it was a cold and he normally had nightmares, anyway.
He couldn’t quite tell when he was awake and when he wasn’t, because the dreams seemed to follow him to consciousness. It wasn’t quite hallucinations—not outright, not yet. Although the looming figure of his father fussing over him certainly did feel like one at times.
Rather, he’d wake in a start and scramble around for his sword, panicking when he felt calloused fingers gently tugging it away from him. Percy had seen better days, it was easy to confiscate sharp pointy sticks from him.
But those hands didn’t understand. Maybe he couldn’t see the monsters, but honestly, that didn’t mean anything in their world. They were coming for him—they always were. And Percy had to stay vigilant, to stay ready, or else he wouldn’t live to see his eighteenth birthday—and then Annabeth would be really mad.
The thing about being a son of Poseidon was that the monsters never stopped. Percy would be fighting for the rest of his life until he couldn’t fight anymore.
Sometimes, his dreams were worse. He dreamt of his friends. Going through a summer of hell was enough to bring anyone together, after all. Percy and Annabeth had spent two weeks on a quest together when they were twelve and hadn’t looked back since.
He saw Leo’s fiery death. He saw Hazel and Frank and Jason and Piper. Nico, Thalia, Reyna. Grover.
Bianca. Zoe. Ethan. Michael. Lee. Castor. Silena. Beckendorf.
Bob. Damasen.
Annabeth dying in Tartarus.
Those dreams were more or less easy to snap out of. They never lasted too long in his eyes once he woke, even if they lasted long in his mind, afterward. He never reached for his sword with them.
Sometimes, a heavy hand settled on Percy’s shoulder as he blinked images and sleep from his eyes. Percy held onto it with a burning ferocity. It kept him grounded.
“They’re getting worse,” a familiar voice said, low and pleasant. His father.
“He’s coughing less.” Tyson, with miserable hope. The truth was that Percy was too exhausted to cough. Instead, he just choked until his body burned with the ache to hack.
Poseidon seemed to realize this because there was a hesitant and worried silence. “If his fever does not break within the day, I’ll send for the doctor immediately.”
Percy tried to whine his disapproval. They were just nightmares. He always had nightmares. Now that the wars were done and he didn’t have the urgent necessity for demigod dreams anymore, they were often plagued with memories. Maybe these were a little more intense than his normal batch, but really they weren’t worse.
He woke from a dream in which his entire body was sore, exhausted, in agonizing pain. He was certain he was dying from gorgon blood. And Annabeth was defenseless.
He startled up and frantically fumbled for his sword, which always returned back to his pocket no matter how many times it was confiscated. He kicked the mound of blankets off of himself, restricting him, ready to run. He sensed the hand come for it, tried to dodge—
A figure stood at the end of his bed. It was one Percy’s seen many times before, in the worst of his nightmares. But none of them had ever felt so real.
He dropped his sword in terror.
It stumbled down, nicking the back of his forearm just barely as it fell. He felt the sharp pain as the blade dragged across skin, the cut open—not too wide or long or deep or bloody—but it did nothing to bring him back into his body. Stern hands from before snatched the abandoned sword from the bed, then gingerly but firmly held his injured arm out, the water surrounding all of them slowly starting to heal. Percy couldn’t find himself to care. Not like it would’ve done much, anyway.
He was paralyzed in place as the figure stared into him. He was smaller than he was before. Only eight feet tall instead of the mountain. But everything else was the same.
Same purple-black flesh. Same sharp, black talons. Same armour, only with the addition of two more figures in them. Bob and Damasen, Percy realized with a horrified, aching sob.
The light seemed to be leeching away, everything drawing inward to the mass gravity of the protogenos of everything evil. And his face—
The spiralling vacuum into black nothing.
Percy breathed laboriously, faster and faster, unable to calm himself, to pick up his sword, to fight. Unable to do anything but watch.
This happened the first time, too. He remembered the dark resign as he and Annabeth knew they would fight to the death in Tartarus, never seeing anyone they loved ever again. They knew it would be a painful death—and then, they would not even have peace in it. They would be trapped into his armour, just another two faces among countless, tortured for the rest of time with no end, no reprieve.
Like Bob and Damasen were being, then.
“Percy,” a voice said, the hand settling on his shoulder.
That touch, it sent him spiralling back. A terrified, strangling sound escaped from his throat as he scrambled backwards, back hitting the headboard of the bed, body tensed like a livewire. It was what he’d wanted to do when he first faced Tartarus. He’d wanted to run.
But Annabeth wasn’t there, holding him steady, keeping him alive. He didn’t have to fight for Annabeth, now. For once in his life, he didn’t have to give everything he had.
He could accept his fate.
“Perseus.” His father sounded more urgent, maybe even scared. “Wake up. It’s not real.”
Percy shook his head. He didn’t understand. Nothing else was real. Nothing else had ever been real since he escaped that damned pit, and now, Percy was going to die. They’d escaped Tartarus by luck last time, and through the sacrifices of Bob and Damasen. Neither were there anymore. They’d run out of people to die for them.
“What are you seeing?” Poseidon murmured. “What’s wrong?”
Percy didn’t answer. He kept his eyes trained on Tartarus, steeling himself for whatever was about to come.
A cool hand pressed on his forehead, and he felt something prick at the edges of his brain. He’d felt it a few times before, mostly with Hera or Juno. He didn’t have the energy to push back against it, not that it would’ve done much anyway, if the god really wanted to get in.
But this god was gentle. It wasn’t the staggered push that he half-remembered with Hera. There wasn’t an odd displacement within his mind the way there was when gods took him for an out-of-body experience. It was warm, soothing. Like a gentle current, lapping at the ends of his brain.
He let him in easily.
He could feel the short pause of terror as his dad saw what he did. But then just as suddenly, it was gone—replaced by a terrible sadness.
“Oh, Percy.” Poseidon leaned over to him, and Percy clutched on, and it was like a dam broke. Vaguely, somewhere in his mind, he recognized that they didn’t exactly have a hugging relationship. Other than him carrying Percy here, they hadn’t had a hug since his sixteenth birthday.
But he was about to die from Tartarus, and nobody else was here. All things considered, there were worse ways to go out than hugging your forcibly distanced father.
Percy let out choked sobs as he desperately clung to his dad, the cut on his arm stinging. Poseidon made no moves to get out. He simply held back, tightly, made soothing noises he couldn’t hear. The pit kept watching him, the vacuum following him where he went, staring him down, promising him.
Percy hugged his dad and hysterically cried into his arms with his eyes trained on Tartarus the entire time.
-
“Is that truly what he looked like?” Poseidon murmured in uncertain, low tones to Percy, trying to soothe him and urge him to talk, yet dreading the answer.
Pale-faced after another nightmare that he refused to explain or even admit, Percy fell silent at the question. He knew what his father was asking—the incident was only a week ago and still fresh on his mind, and this was the first nightmare Percy’s had since, after being weaned off the drugs that lulled him into heavy, dreamless sleep.
Percy eventually shrugged helplessly. “Bigger,” he admitted, voice hoarse. It’s the first words he’d spoken since he woke up thrashing, Poseidon’s heartbroken look filling him with a deep shame. “He was… bigger.”
Poseidon was quiet as hesitant fingers reached out to stroke Percy’s hair, soft in the seawater.
“When he spoke, the sound was being drawn inwards to him instead of projecting out.” Percy breathed. “Everything pulled into him, vanished into him. He was everything, and nothing.”
Percy had never spoken to anyone about Tartarus before. Annabeth knew, of course, but they didn’t speak it aloud. If words had power, they would never give it to him. They just basked in their silent comfort drawn from each other.
It was a bit of a downer to bring up to anyone, really—and even the ones who’d offered, like his friends, or his mom and Paul—they’d never understand. And he wouldn’t want to plague them with nightmares no one could stomach. No, it was easier to just be silent with Annabeth.
But Poseidon was a god. Gods were flawed. There were some things they could never understand, about being mortal, about life and death. About Tartarus, when that was a land very few had ever ventured. But something about that made it better—a place that even his father could never understand the true horror of.
Percy curled into himself under the blankets. Poseidon’s hands still played gently with his hair, grounding him and lulling him into utter exhaustion.
“I dropped my sword then, too,” he whispered like a confession. “We saw him, and we knew that it was the end. We’d go down fighting, and we’d hopefully take the doors of death with us, but in the end, we’d go down. Sometimes,” his breath hitched, “I don’t think we made it out after all.”
“You did,” his father rumbled resolutely. “You both made it out. You’re alive.”
His voice broke at the end, and Percy curled deeper into the sheets. He counted his breaths, the seconds as they passed by. Didn’t know how to tell him that a part of him would always be trapped in the pit.
“It took us nine days to fall,” Percy muffled into his knees. “And twelve minutes to come back up. We had to hold the doors together ourselves, or we’d dissipate. I did some messed up things, Dad.”
Poseidon paused, concern etched into his face. “What do you mean?”
Percy grimaced. “I hurt people,” he professed into the darkness of the sea. “Bad people, but I hurt them. And I liked it. I hurt some good people, too. I didn’t mean to, but I did. And I’m the one who made it out alive.”
Gentle hands touched his face, lifting his chin from where he’d buried it in the mattress, thumb resting along his jaw, forcing him to meet mirrored green eyes.
“Gods have many natures,” Poseidon began. “The sea more than most. You are not of my darker one, Percy.”
He wasn’t too convinced. He doubted some of the powers he’d inherited from his father could be from the gentle ocean. They were turbulent and strong. Violent. Blood and poison, treacherous lakes. Not seawater.
He could probably sense Percy’s doubt, but continued anyway, speaking in achingly tender tones. “I loved your mother very much. She brought out the best in me. She was kind, and that made me kind. That was what you were born from. The pit might have tried to—to change that—but they can’t. You will always be born from my gentlest.”
Percy subtly shook his head in Poseidon’s hand. “I tortured someone.”
“You survived,” his father corrected.
“It made me feel powerful,” he stressed back.
“No, it didn’t.” His father sighed, pain written in the soft lines on his face. “You have never been one to needlessly seek out power, Perseus. You refused godhood—something that will cause me great heartache, one day. You turned down praetorship—something my roman form was quite irritated with you for, by the way,” he added with a ghost of a smile. “Your flaw has always been loyalty. Not vengeance. Not hunger.”
Poseidon retreats his soft touch, but Percy follows him—reaching out with a hand and catching one of his, giving it a soft squeeze before letting his arm drop once again. Normally, he would never dare to initiate contact with his dad. But he was still drowsy, and mind sleep-addled. He figured it would be okay, just this once.
“I’m tired, Dad.” He mumbled like a secret, and it kind of was.
Poseidon exhaled, and the sound felt mournful. “We ask too much of you,” he smiled, but there was no warmth in it. It was fractured, somber.
“Not right now,” Percy was surprised at the bitterness laced in his own words. “Not anymore.”
“No,” he agreed. “Not ever again.”
Percy pushed himself up just a bit, taking most of his effort into keeping his head from flopping. He was mostly healed by now, but his head still swam sometimes, and a drowsy haze surrounded him.
“Dad,” he says, voice catching with sudden desperation for him to understand. “You know that it never really stops for me, right? Being your son—the monsters are always going to come, and I’m going to keep standing back up, and then one day I won’t. That’s just the way it is.”
His father jerked like he’d punched him in the face. “No,” he furiously denied. “No—of all of my children, you deserve—rest. Time.”
“That’s just the way it is,” Percy repeated again. He wasn’t bothered by it—all demigods knew they’d die some horrible, painful death someday. Demigods died and the world turned, and the day melted into night. “I thought I’d be lucky to make it to twenty. With New Rome, I could maybe push it to thirty.”
“Demigods can live to an old age—”
“Not me,” Percy shut down. “Not the big three. It always comes down to us in the end.” First, Thalia. Bianca and Nico. Him. Jason and Hazel, after—and two were already in the ground. But Percy remembered when the weight of the world fell on just three—Thalia, him, Nico. Zeus, Poseidon and Hades.
There was a sudden, strong grip, fiercely holding on to his forearm. “Not you,” his father swore. “I won’t let it happen.”
Percy frowned slightly, a wrinkle between his brows. He raised his eyes to meet his father’s and blanched at the unexpected deep hurt in them. “I don’t mind,” he blurted in a panic. He hadn’t expected this reaction from his dad—had just wanted him to understand. Were gods really living in that much denial about their children? “I accepted it when I was twelve. I’ve already lost friends. I’ll outlive some and the rest will outlive me.” He shrugged. “I’ve cheated my way out of two prophecies. I don’t know if I can survive a third.”
There’s a brush on his cheek, and Percy leans into his touch. They’ve touched more in the past week than ever in their entire lives—not that he’d complain. If he didn’t know better, he’d say the hand was trembling.
“I wouldn’t change it,” Percy reassured his dad, who looked as if he was going to fall apart. “I like being your son. I’ve had a good time. Good family. I don’t mind how it ends.”
“Percy,” his father said shakily. “You’re talking as if you’re already dying.”
Percy blinked. “I’m mortal,” he huffed. “I’m always dying. A bad sneeze almost took me out last week.”
Poseidon winced. Percy pretended he didn’t notice.
“I wouldn’t change it, is all,” he continued. “I mean, yeah, it sucks. But I’m okay with it. And I’m not dying right now, per se,” he gave a dry smile, “but when it happens, don’t feel too bad about it. I knew it was coming, and I’m okay with it.”
“Is it so selfish of me,” his father rumbled in a sad, pained voice, “to wish you’d accepted immortality, two years ago?”
“Yes,” he responded immediately. “I’m happy being mortal. I’m happy to steal time with everyone I love.” Sort of like they were doing now.
It was funny. Percy had never seen a god slump like that before. His dad’s defeated expression wasn’t, though. “I blame myself,” he confessed to Percy. “For all the pain in your life.”
Percy narrowed his eyes at him. “I don’t,” he said decidedly. “I don’t blame you at all.”
“You’re a child,” his father grieved. “And the prophecy—”
Percy snorted, the sound cutting through the somber silence surrounding father and son. “Please,” he laughed. “I had every chance to escape the first prophecy. I had easy way-outs. I chose to claim it, to take it for myself. I could’ve just died, stopped fighting, let you guys kill me—” Poseidon recoiled at that thought, but Percy pushed on. “I could’ve gone to the Lotus Hotel, stayed on Ogygia, begged Thalia to take my place with everything I had, let Nico take the fall. Hell, I could’ve joined the Titans’ side, even.”
Percy sat up completely this time, swinging his legs over the bed to face his father’s chair.
“You don’t get to take that from me,” he stated firmly. “I chose this. I chose you as my family, too. You don’t get to say I didn’t.”
“I won’t,” Poseidon assured, sorrowful. “I am also selfish in that. I could not imagine a world in which you are not my son.”
“That makes two of us,” Percy agreed, eyes glazing over. “I don’t think there’s a world where I can look at the ocean and not feel it calling me home.” He slid his gaze over to his father, cracking a small grin. “Besides, Mom’s a total catch. Can’t blame you for shooting your shot with the best woman alive.”
Poseidon didn’t smile back at him, only studied his face with a thoughtful sadness. “You look like her,” he murmured. “Your face—so much is mine, but you have the same smile. Her softness.”
Percy leaned closer to him. “Mom always said I looked like you, growing up.” He ran a finger through his black hair for emphasis. “Whenever I asked about you, and she would say you were lost at sea. I’d ask what you looked like and she’d tell me to look in the mirror.” There was a soft smile playing on his lips.
Not many demigods could have this—knowing their parents like Percy did. Demigods as a whole were still abandoned by the gods. The only family they really had were each other.
But Poseidon had always been different.
“This is enough,” Percy repeated, putting all the warmth he could into his voice. “I know you love me, and want to be there for me, and will be if I need and when you can. That’s a lot. That’s more than most of us get. I’m happy with this.”
Poseidon’s eyes were the same as Percy’s—an almost unearthly green. In them was a wealth of millennia of pain and sadness and joy and numbness. At that moment, they held bitterness.
“It’s not enough for me,” he confessed, bone-tired and weary. “I don’t think it will ever be. Being a god—I have children, and they die, and I’ll live forever. I’ll never see them again. I’ve lived through it countless times before, and yet I still don’t know how I’ll ever survive it again. Especially with you.”
Percy blinked at him, and then bowed his body down, resting his head on his father’s knee. It was a somewhat uncomfortable position, but that was the last thing on his mind, as fingers immediately came up to brush lightly, hesitantly, through his hair.
“I’m not dead yet,” Percy mumbled. “And you’ll live through it because you have to. All the gods do. But I’m here now, and I can be happy with this, so you can be, too.”
The feather-light touches in his hair were so achingly tender, it almost hurt.
One day, Percy would bite off more than he could chew. He’d go down and never get back up. He would join his friends in death, and wait for others to come. Almost everyone he’d ever loved would come in a century at most. His father would never arrive.
“Go back to sleep, Perseus,” Poseidon murmured, adjusting Percy’s position so that he’s back on the bed, gently laying him out. “I’ll wake you if you have another nightmare.”
Percy leaned into the last of the gentle touches before his father’s hands left him entirely.
Not yet.
At the moment, Percy wasn’t a kid who didn’t know how scary the world was or how big he would grow up to be. He wasn’t a scared kid on his first quest, desperate for the approval of a father he’d just found out existed, desperate to want nothing to do with the life that being his father’s son brings. He wasn't facing Tartarus itself, dropping his sword in a resignation to his fate. He wasn't mourning the death of friend after friend.
And he wasn't painfully young, bleeding out alone, dying horribly at the hands of an average monster. Percy would survive two wars and one small mistake would cause him to be torn apart by a hellhound, or an empousa, or some other garden-variety nightmare fuel he’d been dealing with all his life. People would cry, and then live on, and then join him, or not.
That night, Percy was sick, and his father was taking care of him.
It was enough.
It had to be.
The rain will eventually come, or not.
Until then, we touch our bodies like wounds—
the belled bruises fingers ring
against the skin are another way to bloom.
The war never ended and somehow begins again.