#oof i am. sleepy tired. but heyo! got another one. hugs and hugs everybody

[happyk44]

[A little brother-sister Fluff and anxiety, because I'm a weakling].

She didn't know why she was doing it and didn't understand.

In fact, she didn't want an understanding of her behavior.

she didn't understand why on rare cold nights she wrapped Percy with a specially stolen warm blanket for him.

And she sat for a long time before going to bed and looked at his peaceful but lively face, unlike hers.

She didn't know why she was looking for more money or giving her own when Percy didn't have enough for exactly the burger he wanted, although she needed to remove the hunger.

"good sister" said faceless sympathizers.

She didn't care.

She didn't know why when Percy's hair grew, she stole combs and hairpins and braided his braid.

a normal person could say that Percy turned out to be very cute with a thin braid falling on his shoulder and hairpins in the form of starfish — she could say that he looked like an abandoned porcelain doll.

She didn't know why when Percy had another incoherent, but terrible nightmare, instead of the usual brief look and return to sleep, she hugged him to her — people called it hugs.

she pressed him into herself and put his head on her chest, and his torso was between her legs.

Percy stared at her with wide-open eyes, salt flowed down his cheek and he sniffed and buried his face in her neck, his body pressed tightly against her.

the pose their sleep was strange — she was half-sitting, half-lying, Percy curled up half-foetus on her, laying his head on her chest and drooling.

That night Percy still shuddered and moaned fearfully in his sleep, for some reason she ran her fingers through his hair and cheeks.

He calmed down and even smiled a little in his sleep.

his skin and hair were soft and slightly damp, for some reason she wanted to touch them.

"Caring", her mother had told her, "when you love someone or at least feel sympathy for him, you do small or big and pleasant things for him".

She frowned trying to understand this concept.

"Is it like you told Aunt Monica that I would be silent and not talk to her sons because I want it?".

"yes honey".

"I only want to take care of you".

"Her mother smiled at her."I will ask your father that when I am gone, you have another person you would like to take care of."

Her mother knelt down and hugged her.

Caring is a strange and incomprehensible thing for her, but what she does for Percy is exactly what it looks like.

Percy — her little brother and he belongs to her.

most likely their meetings were not accidental and Neptune, remembering her mother's prayers, gave it to her.

she has already softened him and made him pliable in her hands — he is no longer squeamish about himself.

But she will need to let him go, let him go to Jupiter's camp because she knows that something more than her is waiting for him.

It's good that she knows how to do what she doesn't want...

This is soooooooo cute!!

I mean yeah! Just because someone has SzPD or vibes close enough to it but doesn't quite hit the criteria doesn't mean they're without affection or positive emotions. Honestly you're giving me so much inspo 😂

I'm gonna go w/ Coral as a name for my version of this character (obvi ours aren't like one-to-one same, but you can use Coral too if you'd like, I just picked it at random yesterday when I finished writing that other fic and realized I should probably give her a name lmao)

--

Despite what others said, she wasn't a psychopath. It was an insult she heard more than most people probably did until the night she grabbed her things and left the group. The kids in school, a couple of older cousins, an aunt. Even a couple of the Wolf House kids had muttered it in her direction. Others probably said it too. Behind her back when she wasn't aware.

The first time someone called her that she asked her mother what it meant. She was seven. Her cousin had hurt himself. She didn't know how, but there he was crying in the hallway as she left the bathroom with damp hands. There were no obvious signs of injury. He wasn't bleeding, no bones were broken. All that was wrong was his tears and his clinging grip to his leg.

So she carried on to the kitchen because she was hungry and wanted something to eat.

Eventually her aunt went looking for her son, and found the blubbering mess he was. Coral didn't know what was said. But whatever was, it had her aunt come barreling into the kitchen, spitting vitriol and expletives while Coral held a glass of water and cookie in either hand.

It was a confusing event. He wasn't dying. Why did she need to make him feel better? Why did she need to go get an adult from where they were all congregated outside? She didn't want to talk to anyone.

As she always had, her mother came roaring to her defense in seconds. There had been a contested yelling match - screams from her aunt, moderated but loud tone from her mother. They went home shortly after. Her mother's first thing when they arrived home was to pull out the dictionary. Aloud she had read out the definition of psychopath. Then, as always, gave a couple general examples that had Coral confused over why her aunt would call her that.

Flipping back the pages, she said, You are not a psychopath, guppy. You just don't have empathy. She read aloud the definition of empathy. Once finished, she pressed both hands against the table on either side of the book. Not everyone can easily put themselves in other people's shoes. I have trouble with it. Your father can't do it at all. People like us have to focus on sympathy and compassion.

Both words were explained to her. Compassion was the one that had stumped her. She knew her cousin was upset. He was crying. Crying usually meant someone was sad or hurt. She understood that, was sympathetic to it. But she was hungry and he wasn't bleeding, so his tears didn't matter. Why did she have to stop and give him a hug over something that didn't matter?

I wasn't feeling well last week, her mother had said. But I wasn't dying. I wasn't bleeding. I wasn't throwing up. You still made me soup.

Coral considered that. How she'd stood on a footstool in front of the stove, opening a can of soup into a pot. Then carrying the pot at a snail's pace to where her mother was resting. She'd laughed at the time, before thanking Coral and telling her not to use the stove without permission.

But she had been stuffed up with a small cold. And Coral knew that people were supposed to eat chicken noodle soup when they weren't feeling well. It was what her mother did for her. It was on the TV in shows and commercials.

I care about you, she said. Should I pretend other people are you so I can care about them?

Her mother had laughed. No, guppy. I don't think that would work for you. You've never been good at that kind of visualization. But you know how it works, yes? When a child cries, their family hugs them and reassures them that they are safe. When a person is injured, you call an ambulance and try to help until it arrives. When someone is cold, you offer warmth.

Scripts, Coral said. She understood social scripts, even if she didn't get them. Niceties. Saying hello to people as you pass them by, holding the door open when someone is following you out, sharing the toys at school or on the playground.

Listening to your little brother as he tells you about the things he went through in the weeks after your farewell.

When he'd first flagged her down, there was an obvious change in him. However, it was hidden behind a fragile mask. It had been months since they last spoke. He followed her to the closest park. Settling down on the grass felt reminiscent of their last day together months ago. Bag of food between them, sun shining above, and a sense of things to come.

He'd laughed as he told her, Oh, I'm the son of Poseidon actually.

While she had never thought about it before, it wasn't a surprise. The world was a big place. Why would the Roman pantheon be the only ones out there?

As Percy explained things, she pieced together a separate understanding.

She had wanted him to embrace the storm he so clearly kept at bay. There was nothing to fear from a hurricane. A typhoon. A tsunami. He just needed to let go of that worry. But there were signs that he couldn't. That emotion was an important part of the storm. Something she couldn't comprehend.

Now it clicked. The old adages - the sea is loving, the sea is hateful, the sea is angry, the sea is calm. For him, the ocean was an emotional entity. Where Neptune was apathetic, Poseidon was passionate. That passion carried down to Percy, as apathy carried down to her, and left him needing emotion to generate the storm.

It made sense.

The Greeks prioritized Poseidon more than the Romans did. Fisherman, casual sailors, navies, those who lived too close to the coast - they'd see the sea differently than the Romans, who really only encountered the sea for conquest purposes.

In Rome the ocean didn't care about you, because they didn't care much about it. But in Greece prayers to Poseidon were likely made often - clear seas, plentiful fish, no sea monsters. Storms and destruction meant he was angry. Gentle tides and full nets meant he was happy. There was meaning to the way his waves crashed against the rocks.

Just as there was meaning to the way Percy pulled at the skin on his wrist. As he spoke, turning tide to what had happened after she left, his gaze cut far away from her. Haggard down and tired, his voice pulled out of him with a low rasp. Every word was clipped of detail. Trimmed down to the barest bones.

It wasn't for her benefit. He was sticking to the shallows for his own. Traumas slept in the depths. He wanted to stay surfaced with only the lap of it against their feet.

Silence poked its head up between them after he finished with bitten off words about his suicide attempt and how he was staying elsewhere, hiding from gods. Ah, she thought. That's why he had come to her.

His question cut the background noise. "How do you do it?" She cocked her head. "Just. Not feel." He pressed his hand to his chest. "I'm so tired of feeling everything all the time."

She opened her mouth to answer. Then paused. Her breath held frozen in her throat. Slowly she let it out and shook her head. "I don't feel. I've always been empty." She tilted her head, caught his sea-green eyes. "I thought you knew that."

He chewed on his lower lip before answering. "Yeah." He turned away to face the the rest of the park, staring with a vague and distant look. "I just. I thought..."

As his voice faded away, his gaze dipped down to his hands. One was tightly gripped to his drink. The other lied flat on his thighs. He twitched it. Trying to remember he was real.

She turned away. The grass was swaying gently in the low breeze. There were little kids running around. One tripped over their stubby legs and fell. Their friends shrieked and ran over to check on them. Internally she knew she should feel something for that kid, feel something over the events. But only empty indifference pumped through her heart.

"Not feelings things isn't all its cracked up to be," she said. "I know when one brand tastes better than another, but there's no joy to create a preference." She gestured loosely. "Even swimming - I never got excited at the idea of it. My mother knew I enjoyed going out into the ocean. But I felt nothing about it. I still don't."

Quiet curiousity passed through Percy's eyes. "You don't feel settled?"

"I don't feel anything." She turned back to the front. The kids were now chasing each other again. The child who fell was laughing, the sound of their voice carrying faintly over. "If anything is there, it's shipwrecked and buried deep."

She picked up a few french fries from the bag between them. After eating, she licked the salt from her fingers. "Not feeling won't stop you from getting hurt," she added. "But it will stop you from keeping your Annabeth." He lit up briefly at the sound of her name. "People don't like being friends with robots."

He snorted. "I know a guy who'd disagree with you on that." He pulled his drink out and peeled the leftover paper from the top of the straw. "Besides, haven't you seen any movies? Lots of people have robot friends."

"Those robots are human," she said. "They're just made of mechanics." She considered another french fry. "The ones that aren't human want to be. They don't feel but they learn what it is to feel. To dream. To care. They are not empty or devoid. That's why those characters have robot friends. And it's why I don't have any."

The paper rolled between his fingertips. "And that doesn't bother you?"

She held her hand out for the paper. It rolled off his thumb and onto her palm. "No." She stared at the little white ball. "It doesn't."

There were a few trial friendships through her life. But either the classification of "friend" didn't suit them to how she knew friends were supposed to be or they were bothersome and she told them outright, flatly, to leave her alone because they were annoying.

Her openness tended to get her sent to the principal's office. Or the counselor. Who, often, wound up sending her to the principal's office.

When the wolves took her away, she was pleased it wasn't a group of people trying to drag her along. Animals were always pleasant to be around. She liked their elderly cat, a black and white girl, who spent most of her time napping wherever she fell over. If she crawled into Coral's lap for a nap, Coral was never bothered by it. The same went for the wolves when they nipped and nudged her into warm wolf piles.

Wolves were pack animals though. With that understanding, the Wolf House was unwanted. Would she have no choice but to befriend someone? To make the bonds that slipped off her like soap before? Was she willing to try? Would it work out for her this time? Or would she just be gritting her teeth and trying to get through the training before making her escape?

There were social aspects at the Wolf House. Teamwork was emphasized. Coral was decent at teamwork. She didn't quite understand what the point of it was - protect the pack and all that. She'd asked Lupa once. The wolf goddess' answer didn't make sense, and she rebuffed her when Coral told her so.

It's been so long, I forgot, she'd said so loud in Coral's head. Children of the sea do not understand the purpose of the pack. Run along, pup.

I'm a guppy, Coral said aloud. I would be called a fry, not a pup.

Lupa growled. The warning was obvious, though Coral didn't know why it was being given. The growl faded out slow. All the while Coral stared deep into black eyes, unbothered and unafraid. In the back of her mind, she had the sense that she was supposed to be. That Lupa was a creature to fear. The other kids trembled when she stalked by. The wolves bowed their heads to her.

Coral never did. She found no reason to.

The final social aspect of the Wolf House was the journey to Camp Jupiter. It was awful.

From hour one of their venture, she'd become exhausted by the people she was with. The only exception was the Mors' girl. She was chattier than expected out of a child of death itself, but she was not intrusive. Where the others moaned about every little problem that came their way, she was more anecdotal. The few times she vented Coral didn't find herself winded by any of the words.

"Friendship isn't something I've ever needed," she said. "But you like your Annabeth. You need feelings to like her. And to like the other people I'm sure you have who are important to you.."

"Yeah," Percy said. His straw bounced against his lower lip. "Grover." A gentle smile tugged at the edge of his lips. "And my mom. She's great."

Coral nodded. "My mother's good too. I think she's the only person who loves me. And I didn't mind being around her before I left home." She glanced over at a dog jogging alongside their owner, then cut her eyes to Percy. "But I don't miss her."

He went stiff, eyes widening just a smidge. His grip on his drink tightened.

She leaned back on her hands. "I don't even know if I love her. I don't know what love is." She shrugged. "It's an intensity I don't have the capacity to experience."

Rumination slipped across his face. He sipped from his drink. She turned away The kids were now chasing each other again. The child who fell was laughing, the sound of their voice carrying faintly over.

When his sips turned into trying to drink the leftover ice through his straw, he said, "I can't imagine not loving my mom." There was a quiet grain in his voice. Not quite pity. An internal stress at the thought. A fearful possiblity. He popped the lid off his drink and shook the ice inside. "Or not being sure that I did."

She reached over and pressed the side of his cup with the tip of her forefinger. The sensation of rapid melting tickled against her palm. Once all that was left in his cup was cold water mixing with the soda he picked, she pulled away.

"No," she said. "It doesn't."

The phrase itself was spoken infrequently in their house, and only by her mother. She wasn't required to echo it back. Once, and only once, she asked what love was - what defined it, how people knew they felt it. The dictionary definition was vague at best. Intense feeling of deep affection for people. The definition for love of a thing made more sense to her - great interest and enjoyment. But even there she was stumped.

Coral, herself, was hollowed out and empty most of the time. When she wasn't, it was only the barest sense of emotion. Annoyance or confusion featured the most. It was vague haziness. Like a question mark of an emotion, versus a concrete feeling.

The emptiness made people difficult. Their problems, their needs. It all crafted a straightjacket she wanted to avoid. Lonely kids would try to befriend her at school only to realize she was not equipped to or interested in dealing with their sadness. She could play games with them. She could visit their house. She could sleep beside them in a sleeping bag.

But once they attached themselves to her side at all times, once they piled on or prodded at her empty center, the simplicity of what once was would immediately fall apart. Annoyance was usually what she felt. A vague creeping sense of wrongness.

The lack of space, physical or otherwise, was a cage. She wasn't an animal. Their endless emotional needs were burials, every word a shovelful of dirt trying to crush and suffocate her. Sticking their hands through her hollowed core and demanding something that wasn't there was just purely bothersome.

However, with her mother, with the girl before, with Percy? It was easier. Her mother gave her space at an early age. The Mors' girl never asked her to carry her problems like others did. Percy believed her when she said she felt nothing emotionally. They didn't require her to adapt herself to fix the world's silly molds.

With that in mind, she took a slow breath and reached over to pull Percy into her side. He stiffened up in surprise, but went easy.

"Coral-"

"Shush," she said. "It's called compassion." His laugh cut short with a quiet cry that he stifled. She stroked his hair. It had grown out some, still short, but shaggier now. "I'm not good at emotion. But I know they're important to have." She let him go and stood up. Gathering up their things, she held her hand out. "Come on."

--

There were worse things than a motel room. Despite popular theory, she found a good number of them to be clean and comfortable. Maybe the decor was strange, the carpet dull with time, but they were livable. That's what mattered.

Her current motel had a bathtub that she bullied Percy into. Turning on the tap, she sat on the dry side. The only sound between them was the sloshing of the water. Once it filled to just below the edge of the tub, she turned the tap off.

"I don't feel," she said. "But sometimes when I was younger, I would know that I was a certain way, even if the feeling wasn't there." She tapped the water. It rippled out across Percy's clothed torso. "Sitting in the tub would make those thoughts fade away."

Percy splashed the water over his exposed knees. "You think it'll make my feelings fade."

"No." She crossed her arms over the edge of the tub. "Those feelings are a wound that needs to heal. The tub isn't a therapist." She drew up a little spout of water that splashed against his cheek. "But it'll help."

He splashed the water over his knee again. Then again. Then again. Then turned his face just enough to catch her eyes. "Why are you trying to help me?"

"My mother told me that sympathy and compassion were important to focus on when you're not born with empathy," she said. She rested her chin on her wrists. "And I care about you." His brows furrowed. Her cheek squished into the back of her hand. "I don't need to feel things to know who's important, Percy."

She pulled back, planted her palms against the edge of the tub, and pushed up enough to lean over and kiss the top of his head. She counted to five in her head, then pulled back and relaxed back into the soft gray bathmat.

"I'm still a person," she added. "Even numb limbs feel something. The wires just get crossed so nothing processes. Or they don't know what it is, and that vagueness gets written off as absence. But even if people think I am, I'm not a robot."

He tilted his face away. Then leaned against the back of the tub. "Sometimes I don't know what I'm feeling. It's just a fog. But I know it's a lot." He closed his eyes. "And it's hurts." A ragged exhale shattered from his lungs. His hands drew up to the side of his head, gripping at his hair. "I just wanna stop. Feeling. Anything."

The water beneath him stirred. It cycled in a slow circle around him, before increasing in speed. The mini bathwater waves slashed against the rim of the tub.

"You can't," she said. "Even our father feels." She reached over and began detaching his hands from his head one finger at a time. "Your version is too emotional. Mine isn't. But he still feels, as small as it might be." Lowering both his hands into the water, she held onto them. He shook in her grip. "It's why he has his wife. It's why I'm here. Why the others before me were born. Even the uncaring sea knows that emotion is necessary to live."

Grief and distress covered his wet face. The water slowed down but thrashed around him, as though a writhing creature.

Or a drowning man.

She squeezed his hands. "You're lucky. Feeling the hurt means you know what the cause is. You can work it out, Percy. Not feeling anything means it takes you two months to realize the strangeness in your head every time you answer the phone is actually annoyance, or discomfort, because your classmate won't leave you alone."

His laugh was watery. His chest heaved in thick weary breaths. The water drew cold and colder, as though it was gearing up for a winter freeze.

Releasing one of his hands under the water, she cupped his cheek. "I can't be upset that I don't feel, because I can't feel enough to be upset. But I know it's something worthwhile because if it wasn't, the lack of it in myself wouldn't be so noticeable."

Their foreheads bumped together. Her eyes drew down to their entwined hands. She stroked his cheek until his breathing relaxed. His breath was warm against her skin. Sunlight slipped through her mind. Reflective waves. Boiling geysers.

"I'm dying." The words cut out of him in a whisper, a rasped confession. Even under the growing heat, he shivered. "It's like I'm trapped in a hurricane. No matter how hard I fight, I can't get out it." His voice went hoarse. "It wants to kill me."

"It's not going to kill you. Stop fighting it," she said. "Embrace the storm, remember?" She squeezed his hand again. "It's the only way you can get back to the calm."