#percy angst

[helpallthenamesaretaken]

as an insufferable celestial trio stan, here are all the ways grover could have been incorporated in heroes of olympus (because oh boy, i have THOUGHT about it):

a small dialogue right after the stables scene where percy and annabeth are red in the face that 'grover wouldn't have grounded us' 'i miss grover'

anytime percy has some internal conflict monologue thing? boom! just add in a dream conversation with grover where he talks about it! let grover ask why he feels a panic attack coming from percy after tartarus! let percy try to justify it and fail miserably! let grover feel horrible for not being there in person!

a reunion. i assumed that it was basic common sense to include a reunion but i guess rick just decided to forget grover at the end of blood of olympus. but yeah. crying, hugging, cheering!! we deserve it!!

"piper walked into annabeth's room. it was simply decorated, with a plant garden on the windowsill that annabeth said helped connect her to one of her friends back home, which piper didn't understand" see my vision??

for example if some monster shows up let percy and annabeth storm out of a room like "EXCUSE ME WE WERE BUSY IM-ING GROVER WHAT'S GOING ON??"

[ahmoseinarus]

Percy is our baby girl… 🥰

Thinking about Percy like the saddest thing about him isn’t necessarily his apathy about his death, but rather his fear of living. I think part of him wants to suffer, serve penance for all he’s reaped and be done with this mortal coil. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone else. He’s terrified that someone will forgive him because he can’t figure out how to forgive himself. He’s been broken from the start and he’s scared something will get in the cracks and grow where the light shines through. He loves with his whole being and doesn’t know how much is left of him. He’s scared someone won’t be driven away by. He’s scared to be loved.

[thereifling]

“I’ve known a lot of people with money, and they are definitely not worth you”

Drawn in Procreate

Trying out some new fun brushes!

[mmavverickk]

Sally names Percy for the happy ending she hopes he’ll get. she spends hours researching demigods and their ends. Heracles, poisoned and given immortality as a leash. Bellerophon, revered for his deeds and killed for his hubris. Achilles, feared by all yet slain in battle. none of those would be her boy. She names him Perseus, for his successes and his long life, and she hopes it will help protect him, this name.

Percy is thirteen, recently returned from his first week at Camp, when Sally calls him by his full name. what had caused it, she can't remember. all she can remember is her strict, "Perseus Jackson––" and her son's poorly hidden, full-bodied flinch.

Sally knew––gods, she knew––that he would face hardships. she knew he would have to learn to fight, to protect himself, to kill––but that knowledge hadn't been enough to dim her hope. it was that flinch, that fear that he'd quickly cleared from his eyes at hearing his own name, that started to eat away at her hope like rot.

[mediumgayitalian]

Hazel thinks she hates New York.

It’s not Camp Half-Blood. She likes Camp Half-Blood, actually, likes the sweet-smelling strawberry fields, the rolling waves in the distance, the way every colour, every conversation or moment, just seems more. Louder, livelier. It’s only been a couple days but she’s fond of the place, even though the people are odd and the customs odder (seriously — who came up with the curfew harpies? Hazel is no stranger to demigod structural violence, but a group of demonic bird ladies let loose at a random time of “after the sun sets, usually” to kill and devour children and teens is a new level of weird even for her. Percy assures her that the harpy murder is alleged, as he has spent several summers in camp and has not seen it happen, but he is also an amnesiac and an enabler so what does he know).

It’s the stars, she thinks.

New York doesn’t seem to have any.

It was a shock when she was first brought back. How dim the night sky had become, how devoid, bereft. Uranus’ dome now pales in comparison to the dazzling Alaskan skies decades ago, even in New Rome, huddled away from California’s worst light pollution. Even in the middle of the Pacific, in quiet midnights aboard the Argo II, the sky seemed lonelier. She’s gotten used to it, for the most part, the tar-coloured skies, but New York is like the inkwells on the desk she shared with Sammy. They spilled them, constantly, clumsy hands taking the slap of the ruler in exchange for tapping fingers and quiet giggles, and the dark-stained woodgrain is a perfect amalgamation of the skies she watches now; stifling over the screened tent roof, silent as a packed grave. Unsettling.

She should be sleeping. Gwen’s snores beside her are familiar, and the ground is solid. A welcome reprieve from the months she’s spent at sea. But despite the exhaustion twisting in her limbs and bagging under her eyes, she cannot convince herself to drift. Her eyes remain stubbornly open, locked in with the stillborn sky, waiting, waiting, waiting.

Even the moon is dull.

Finally she can take it no longer. Careful not to wake her friend, she creeps out of her sleeping bag, wiggling out over the course of several minutes to avoid the loud rip of the zipper, The tent’s door she can’t muffle, so she opens it as quickly as possible, somersaulting out and zipping it shut behind her in under ten seconds. She holds her breath, hands braced on the taut plastic, straining to hear a shift, a sniffle, a snort of disruption, but there’s nothing. Gwen remains blissfully unconscious, snores steady and even. Good.

Sword firmly in her hands, watching warily for demonic chicken ladies (who are nowhere as sweet or cool as Ella, awful cousins are universal among species it seems) or whatever other horrible ‘features’ Camp Half-Blood forgot to mention to them, she picks her way out of the Roman encampment, through the strawberry fields, and towards the main.

It’s around three in the morning, she’s pretty sure. She can’t be certain, because she cannot see the sky, but she’s always had a knack for navigating the dark. Nico can, too. Perks of being an Underworld child, she supposes.

Hopefully Nico is asleep. (She replaced his cabin door with a solid brick of obsidian to force him to sleep, yesterday, so he better be, but he’s a slippery little brat and she does not doubt his ability to squeeze through the air vents she left for him, or something. His hair was probably greasy enough to slide him right through. He better have showered, or she is going to smack him. Hard.) If he isn’t, though, she wouldn’t mind his company. She is in the mood to complain about the modern world. And if he is, maybe she’ll go wake up Percy. Or wander around until the sun rises. Who knows.

She notices, as she wanders along the edge of the wonky cabin-omega, movement coming from the Big House. Most of the windows are dark, but the bottom floor on the left — the infirmary, she thinks — is dimly lit, conscientious of the late hour, and there is definitely someone moving around. She pauses, watching for a moment, and — yep. A blond boy, every couple of minutes, rushes past a window, stethoscope bouncing off his chest, new thing in his hands with every trip.

He seems harried.

Without much thought, Hazel pushes through the rickety screen door.

At first, he doesn’t seem to notice. Hazel is camouflaged, slightly, but the shadows, her black bonnet and dark sleep clothes blending in with the many shadows cast by shelves of equipment and gently swaying privacy curtains. The boy is busy, flitting from cot to cot, scribbling on charts and tripping over chords. He moves so quickly he is blurry, hard to focus on. It takes him almost a minute to stop, freezing in the dead centre of the overcrowded infirmary, and turn to face Hazel. He is tired, she notices. His eyes are darker than the bruises under them; glassy like black labradorite, and widen as they notice her.

“Oh my gods, you’re — you’re Hazel Levesque! Holy moly.”

“Hi,” she says, smiling slightly. “You look busy for this time of night.”

The boy waves a hand, returning to his fluttering — a little slower, this time, though. Less frantic.

“Oh, yes, well. Lots of things to do. Julia’s collarbone was totally shattered, have to keep monitoring that, and there’s a group who got drop kicked into a broken onager, their recovery concerns me, and we’re rationing nectar again, and I swear I’m always running out of bandages, and I keep getting that niggling feeling, you know, when — you’re forgetting something? Important? But of course you have no idea what, and — I’m sorry.” The boy twitches, freezing midway through changing an empty saline bag, glancing back over at her. “Oh my gods, are you injured? Fuck, of course you are, it’s the middle of the night and you’re here, obviously —”

“Wait, I'm completely —”

“Oh, no, you’re fine.” He sighs, a full bodied thing, and turns his attention back to the chart in his hands. “You’ve got an old riding injury ‘round your left patella, though. You should get that checked out.”

Hazel blinks.

She…does have an old knee injury.

It was a riding accident, when she was nine. She doesn’t remember much, only flying, warm wind kissing along her face, bubbling out of her lungs as she laughed and whooped and forgot who she was, what she was, forgot the stones popping up behind her. They couldn’t catch her anyways. And she remembers falling, wind at her back, instead, and she remembers Sammy’s face, and the panic that clouded it, and her mother’s shouting. She remembers cold marble and an oil-slick voice and cool hands on her forehead. 

She blinks, shaking her head slightly. The blond boy has moved past her, now, pacing up and down the rickety cots, trailing his long fingers over bandaged foreheads and crooked elbows. His mouth moves softly and silently, hands glowing along, shoulder sagging, slightly, with every person he visits.

“You’re exhausted,” she observes. 

The boy smiles slightly, finishing a whispered hymn before turning her way. “Who isn’t?” His fingers twitch, in absence of a task, and start picking at the bandage around his wrist, wrapping, unwrapping, wrapping, unwrapping. “Is your knee bothering you? Unhealed injuries last longer for demigods. Especially after battle. Something about unsettled scores, I don’t know. The concept pisses me off so I refuse to entertain it on principle, but I can ease the pain if you like.”

Her knee does twinge, actually. It’s a damp kind of ache, like a headache in a rainstorm, but it's old and familiar, and hardly even registers. It smarts far less than her heart, anyway. 

Gaea’s gone. 

So is Leo.

Leo is gone.

She swallows. “I’m okay. I’m used to it.”

“Three years ago, a man named Michael Moylon went to the ER for a ‘headache’ he’d been ignoring. Turns out he was shot in the head but was used to the pain, so he didn’t bother.” The boy stands starighter, scolding hands on his hips. Hazel stares at him. “So.” He pats a padded bench with a papery cover over the seat. “Let me take a look.”

…Camp Half-Blood will always be, Hazel thinks, a strange, strange place, with strange, strange people. It’s hard to believe she once thought the Apollo-descendants of Camp Jupiter oddities; it’s hard to believe she once found anyone odd. Even outside of Camp Half-Blood. 

Gods, child-eating harpies. She really can’t get over it.

The medic wastes no time. The second she forces her feet to move, settling in on the cot, he is in action, tapping her pant leg gently so she rolls it up – which she does, flushing red and pretending not to see his bit-back smile – and prodding gently at the area, humming to himself. 

“Jeez,” he murmurs, pushing the tip of her kneecap with his thumb until she winces. “You shattered the whole bone!”

“There is no way you could possibly know that,” she argues. “I broke it – gods, I broke it ninety years ago, almost. And it healed.”

“It healed ish,” the medic corrects. “By ish I mean maybe someone tied a bandage on it and you were on crutches for a week.”

Hazel has seen a grand many things, even for a demigod. She has faced Titans. She has faced Giants. She has won, in all of these fights, she has held fallen comrades, she has wept for them, she has wept for decades, cursing and loving her mother in equal measure. She has stood her ground in front of six of the most powerful demigods to ever walk the Earth and defended her brother. She has faced off her own Father, even, and the broken power behind his eyes. She has bent the Mist to her will. She has bent the Earth to her will. It is not cocky to say she is strong, it is not arrogant to claim she has seen all there is to have seen. 

Still, the small pop of her gaping mouth echoes in the quiet, midnight infirmary, and the boy smiles, sideways and crooked, and shoots her a wink. 

“I could tell you how often someone two hundred thousand years ago ate shellfish by looking at a fossilized tooth. Believe me, I know what a shattered patella looks like.”

Modern medicine is a wild thing. Hazel has found that a lot of her friends in modern times have no idea how good they have it, and how wildly medicinal science has progressed in the last century. Aside from machinery and accurate devices, the pure knowledge that is widely available is mind-blowing. Hazel still remembers the looks she got when recommending calomel to a stressed out mother of a colicky baby in a cafe – it’s not like she knew mercury was poisonous. She remembers dosing out her mother’s calomel solutions for her deepest depressions. 

Still. There is a difference between modern medicine and near-divining her past with the barest touch of a bone through layers of skin and fat and muscle. 

The boy hovers wide, scarred hands over her knees, waiting for her nod. As he rests his palm on her skin she sighs, quick and startled like the quick collapse of a carnival tent; the bright, clear heat of his hands sinks into the pores of her skin and settles deep inside her brittle bones, warming a cold she hadn’t realised she’d been harboring. He begins to sing, under his breath, first, but slowly swelling with the night breeze through the open windows, swirling around the climbing plants hanging from the ceiling and weaving through the stone fountain in the room’s corner, pulling her lingering pain away with it. Hazel watches, wide-eyed, as the shadows take shape, chasing the song, of a horse, red-eyed and panicked, and a small little wisp of a thing, weak and limp. With every lilting note, the shadows get softer, and softer, and softer, until they wash away in the fountain’s stream. 

In the silence there is the warmth of the medic’s hand still on her knee. In the silence there is that same warmth, liquid, slowly pushing its way through her veins and blood, settling curled and tired in the marrow of her bones. In the silence there is, for the first time in nearly a century, a stillness, a total lack of the low, pulsating, ice-cold pain that has been quietly pushing from her knee for longer than it hasn’t. 

“Can everybody do that here?” she asks, finally, breathlessly. “Or just you?” 

Hazel makes no habit of the infirmary in Camp Jupiter, but biannual check-ups are mandatory and she is not immune to injury. Still. This is a relief unlike she has ever felt. 

The waves his hand, pulling back, and grins. “I take it you feel better?”

She answers honestly. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt better in my life.”

There is an ache, still, home in the dead centre of her chest, a lump still growing in the back of her through, and should she think too long, her eyes sting. But Leo is not…Leo is missing. And he is troublesome, like his great-grandfather, and slippery, and she has more faith in her friend than in Death. The ache is not overwhelming. The ache is tinged with something spiked and fiery, fueled by the genuine strength she feels in her body for perhaps the first time in my life. 

“Good.”

The medic twitches, slightly, as if he were about to reach out but thought better of it. He nods, instead, smiling, and walks back off to the end of the cots, where a monitor is beeping softly. This time, Hazel follows him, sliding off the bench and peeling the crinkling paper off her backside, stepping nimbly over taped-down cords and kicked-off blankets. She stands behind him, on her tiptoes, straining over his (too tall. People should stop growing after five-ten, she believes, except Frank who is an exception because he is cute) shoulders to watch what he is doing. He explains, around another muffled smile, each number and symbol, pointing to the freshly bandaged chest of the patient and muttering about reckless, thought-averse fools and internal bleeding isn’t real, nyeh nyeh nyeh and when I finally go insane and quit, they will have to beg for six business years to get me back I mean it. 

“Are the other medics this…” Hm. Unprofessional is probably not the word to use, here. “...Spirited?”

The boy raises a perfectly-shaped eyebrow. Hazel flushes. 

“The other medics are eleven and thirteen,” he says dryly. “And Kayla is currently over there –” he points to a snoring girl with dyed-green hair, who is bandaged in six different places and is sleeping upside down – “because she makes bad choices and has been demoted to assistant until I’m less mad at her, so.” He shrugs. “Spirited is what y’all get.”

“I didn’t mean to offend,” she tries. The boy just snorts. 

“Y’r’gonna havta try a whole heap harder to offend me, that’s for damn certain,” he assures. “If I was really gonna quit, I woulda done it two years ago when they slapped the head honcho badge on my shoulder and told me to get crackin’.”

Hazel stills. Demigod life is a – wild thing, she knows, and most have not lived as long as she has, ageing like amber in the depths of the Underworld while the world stretches on ahead. Percy’s face when he realized demigods could live longer than eighteen still haunts her nightmares. Camp Half-Blood is a loud, lively place, that burns brightly over its layers of ashes and yells over the sound of weeping ghosts left behind. That much she can gather. It should not be strange to her for an eleven-year-old medic, or an army of teenagers. Her own camp is guarded by an eight-year-old. 

But this boy still has stubborn baby fat clinging to his cheeks, for all his height. He cannot be more than fourteen. Fifteen, if she stretches. 

The youngest head medics at Camp Jupiter are twenty-two. Regardless of demigod life, skills take time to learn, and stomachs and hearts take years to turn to stone. 

“I’m – sorry,” the boy says, voice crackling like burning pyres. “I’m –” he forces a smile, a quick, strained thing – “I am, uh, spirited. Unprofessional. I haven’t slept in several days and I’m – uh, I don’t like working Austin too hard. He’s still learning, and he doesn’t like healing much, anyway.” He busies himself quickly with the patient he pointed out earlier – Kayla, the thirteen-year-old medic. It is quickly apparent that there is nothing to be done for her, and he stands there, back turned to Hazel, scarred hands twitching above her forehead until they settle, finally, featherlight, like he’s scared a touch will wake her. Like he’s scared a touch will hurt her. 

His shoulders shake, slightly. It’s too dark for anyone else to see the twin droplets, splattering on the corner of her cot. 

Hazel’s chest smarts something awful. 

“Where are the other medics?” 

She knows there are none before he answers. He must know that she knows, judging the careful steadiness of her voice, the fleeting touch of her finger on his clenched fist. She pulls back when his hands begin to shake, worse than before, and his finger worms under the bandages on his wrist, pulling and twisting, twisting, twisting. He stands close to Kayla, still. Hovering, careful. His lips part, and Hazel holds her breath. 

“There were more of us,” he begins, hushed. His dark eyes track Kayla’s snoring. “I was the thirteenth. They were –” He looks up, suddenly, looks over, and the look in his eyes is like cracking ice, like a glacier that has stood for thousands of years breaking finally into the arctic sea and falling under its own weight to the sandy floor. Like the fractured flash of sky between lightning, like the azure glass shards of a Christmas ornament refracting back the twinkling candlelight. “It was so loud in here, once.”

Hazel tries to reconcile that, in her head. This boy standing at the edge of his younger sister’s hospital bed, his younger brother tucked safely away, awake for maybe the fourth or fifth day in a row. I was the thirteenth. 

Hazel knows a little something about unlucky number thirteen. 

“War?” she asks, quietly, remembering something Jason had told her, on guard on the Argo, about a Titan’s battle on two sides of the country. About an army of snake-monsters for them, and something on the other end. Something worse. 

“Slaughtered,” the medic says hoarsely. Another tear traces the path of the first, low light flashing off the sheen of it. “First the – first my sisters, the oldest, then my brother, then – all of them, at once, at the same –” He chokes, on something, on the truth of it or the pain of it or both. Something bubbles in Hazel’s chest, thick and oily, something like horror and pain and hatred; a pit of the same tar that killed her the first time bubbling through her veins and burning the back of her throat. Twelve children. Her throat dries.

“All of them?”

“Every last fucking one,” says the boy, and the pain swells from him so thickly and ardently Hazel is half-sure each ghost is standing behind her, boring into his gaze. “Every last one. I watched them.”

Hazel watched. She held her eyes open for as long as she could when the tar swallowed them, when Gaea dragged them down. Her mother’s kiss burned hotter on her forehead than the boil of the earth exploding around them, and the shine of Marie Levesque’s guilty tears glittered brighter than the diamonds popping like falling stars everywhere Hazel touched. She held her eyes open until the heat dried them blind. She watched, as long as she could, her prodigal mother sink, her beautiful, broken mother die. She had thought she would feel something worse, something like satisfaction. Vindication. Nico told her they hold grudges. She had known it about herself before then. But the pain of her body ripping from her soul was secondary to the pain of realizing, to the pain of finally understanding that her mother suffered, too. Pluto’s wanting had cost them both, and Marie had only barely been able to apologize. She had never been able to make amends. And now she walked, like all souls do, along the beaten paths of Asphodel, reduced to her guilt, to her anger, to her wanting. 

Hazel sits heavily on the one remaining cot. After a moment, the boy joins her. 

“I don’t think it’s worth it,” he admits, quietly. He meets her eyes when she faces him, blue-black in the candlelight. “All – this.”

She follows his gesturing hands. To the bandaged girl, Kayla, to the bloodied, to the sheets pulled over small faces. To the brothers and sisters slumped exhausted by bedsights, tear tracks dried on young faces. To the faded pictures rubbed worn with mourning, gentle fingers. 

They have never been thanked by the gods. 

She’s not sure it would be worth it, either.

“There’s nothing that will bring them back.”

It’s not consolation. It doesn’t sound like it, either; to her own ears it sounds defeated. Agreeing. 

“Do you think they’d even want to be back?”

“Probably not.” She swallows, thinking of Leo. Is he relieved? He’d insisted on being the sacrifice. She hadn’t fought him. She couldn’t blame him for wanting. “I wouldn’t.”

They sit in the non-silence. The medic pulls the bandages on his wrists until they are bruising; Hazel’s fingernails, unbidden, reach up to her lips, pick, pick, picking until salted iron dribbles down her chin, onto her pajama shirt. In the heavy stillness of the twilight there are people coughing, and snoring, and worse, moaning, groaning. Crying. Calling out for their mothers, for their sisters. Birds wail outside the open windows. Cicadas weep. Dryads murmur amongst themselves, sap dripping out of them in swathes.

“I know you’re a big-shot Prophecy of the Seven kid,” says the medic, smiling wryly at her. He sniffles, swiping a hand over his face; as the first rays of sunlight begin to stream in Hazel realizes he is spattered with a night sky’s worth of freckles. “But, uh. If you’re not busy, I could use a hand today. Every day, really. Whenever you’re free.” He exhales. "Sometimes it makes it a little bit worth it."

There is a veritable library’s worth of to-do lists for Hazel to work through tomorrow. Today. She’s a high enough rank that her presence and her direction will be missed. 

Regardless, she smiles back. 

“Yeah.” She reaches for his hand, and he releases his bandages, holding their palms together. “Yeah, I’ll hang out in here today.”

[thatoldbooksmellsstuff]

Rick really went there but then BACKED OUT 😭

its funny because Percy has been spiraling ever since pjo and whenever he has a particularly bad episode you have other characters actively worried about it and you think to yourself surely they're going to intervene, surely someone is going to talk to him about it, and then like no one ever does lol

[winter-rossie]

Meanwhile In Camp Jupiter,

Any Random Roman: Tell Me what you remember about yourself! Percy: I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND.

[storywriter007]

You'll Remember Me - Percy Jackson x Fem!Reader

summary: in which y/n suffers the consequences of her and percy's tragic tale

warnings: cursing, heartbreak, character death, betrayal

genre: angst

word count: 869

-> heroes of olympus masterlist

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send me requests here! (these are my guidelines)

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as y/n killed the monster, she felt herself get cut on the gut. she fell backwards and placed her hand on her stomach. she stood up shakily, lifting her sword. they were in the middle of a battle, she couldn't die now. she tried to swing, but her attempts were weak. she tried to walk, but her feet dragged. she fell to her knees, clutching her stomach. she looked at the cut that had grazed her abdomen, and realized it wasn't from any blade, it was from a poisonous spike on the monster. she'd been poisoned. she desperately searched the perimeter for someone who could help.

she saw her best friend, swinging rapidly and summoning hurricanes.

"percy!" she yelled.

he looked over, concern washing over his face, but he made no attempt to come her way. annabeth ran up and grabbed his arm.

"percy, this place is falling apart! we need to leave, now!" she yelled.

pieces of the ceiling began to fall as flames erupted. percy stayed in his spot. annabeth said something to him. y/n couldn't figure out what it was, but his gaze softened as he nodded his head. the two of them ran towards the exit. y/n laid on her side as the temperature rose. exhaustion took her over.

he had left her. her best friend, for six years, had left her to die. where was his loyalty now, when she needed it?

but y/n understood he had shown his loyalty. just not to her, to his girlfriend. to annabeth. and now she'd die, because his loyalty was her betrayal.

y/n felt blood spew out of her mouth. she was going out the way she had always wanted to, guns blazing in the middle of a fight that made a difference. it wasn't an unsatisfactory death. suddenly, y/n heard a voice.

"y/n!" the familiar voice called out. "don't give up on me!"

somebody desperately tried to drag her out of the burning building. she felt the concrete graze against her skin as the weak force tried to save her. he pulled her out and laid her in front of the broken building. she was barely alive.

"she doesn't have much time left!" he panicked. "c'mon y/n, just give me five minutes, we're going to get you to the ship and everthing's going to be okay!"

she knew the voice. she knew who it was. it was the boy she'd befriended when he was young. she'd practically been his sister. she knew it was nico di'angelo. he had come back for her. she felt another person kneel down by her. she could she his raven black hair and his sea green eyes.

"what the fuck percy!" nico yelled. "how could you do this! it was just the three of you!"

"i had no choice nico!" he defended.

"liar!" he screamed. "you told me the same thing when my sister died! and, now, now, i'm going to lose the only person who has ever cared about me because of you!"

y/n could tell nico was on the verge of tears.

"please, y/n, don't leave me now." percy pleaded.

"i've loved you a long time, percy. ever since you and i went on our first quest when we were eleven." she said, using her remaining energy to give a confession she should've given a long time ago. "it broke me to see you with annabeth. it still does."

"y/n.."

"you'll live a long time, percy. years without me." she continued. "you'll find camp half-blood strangely void, because when you come to find me, i won't be there."

he looked at her with tears in his sea green eyes. oh, those beautiful eyes.

"you'll remember me. when you see the stars, when you look at our photos, when you see friendship bracelets, when you talk to your mother and she'll ask, 'why don't we go visit y/n? she's only a block away.' always, your heart will be yearning for me." she paused. "and your mind will give you the unconvincing comfort that you had no choice." she spat, bitterly.

he kneeled besides her, speechless.

"nico." she said, lifting her hand up to hold his. she felt weak. "i'm sorry you have to see me like this."

tears fell from his eyes.

"but, i want you to know that i believe in you. i have faith in you. i always have, and i always will." she paused, knowing these were her last words. "you are a hero."

she felt her eyes shut.

"y/n!" nico shook her. "y/n!"

she didn't awake, she felt herself drifting.

"you destroy everything that matters to me!" nico screamed at percy. "you're a fucking monster!"

she felt at peace. she felt as if she was above the cruel world of unfair gods and tortured children.

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percy sat next to annabeth in his home. the war was over. the demi-gods had won. but at what cost?

"percy." sally called.

"yeah?" he responded.

"why don't we go visit y/n? she's only a block away." sally asked, placing cookies in a box for the first real friend her son had ever made.

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hope you guys liked it :) just had to remind you guys that i am an angst writer

yes i did reference dangerously yours

[g0thnico]

Things that if I were Rick Riordan I would make more dramatic:

Percy and Gabe's relationship. I understand that it's a children's series so it's normal not to be explored as much, but if PJO was written by me, I would be turning this into one of the main points of Percy's traumas

Percy's mortal life. The only times this is introduced in PJO is to show something divine next, usually monsters or new problems. I would have shown more of what Percy was like at school and his relationship with mortals (or lack thereof)

Percy's powers. Okay, Percy is super powerful and doesn't have any conditions for this?? Nico has nothing more fair. For me, Percy's healing should 2hurt, a burning sensation for cuts and the feeling of bones going back into place when he needs to fix them. In addition, his ability to control water will cause hunger that varies according to how much he used his powers

Ares. Okay Ares is the god of war, but also the protector of women, don't you think he would have at least conflicted feelings about Percy because he was abused along with his mother? I think he would have at least a little empathy for him because of Sally

Percy's romantic life. Okay Rick, we already understand that you definitely don't know how to write romance novels, so leave it to me. Your development of Percabeth was crap and Perachel manages to make it worse, don't even talk to me about Percalypso, he accidentally ended up making Percy's romantic development with two of Hades' sons better than the canon couples. Yes, I'm talking about Bianca di Angelo because it seems like no one noticed the way he talked about Bianca (she was different from the other girls and easy to talk to), Nico (he felt a great sense of protection towards him and couldn't stop thinking about the boy who ran away) and HADES (he was amazed by Hades' dark form and would like to sleep at his feet????)

Grover and Percy soul connection. The fact that Grover and Percy are bonded and feel each other's feelings and the fact that if one dies, the other dies with them, has only been explored 2 or 3 times and that is absurd!!!! I would do at least 5 dramatic scenes where Percy feels an indescribable sadness and can't show anything but Grover cries and breaks down in helplessness just by feeling his friend's emotions. Maybe another one where Grover almost dies and Percy spits blood and faints and everyone has to find a way to save both of them or simply undo the bond before one dies, or even take care of one through the other's body (if that's possible) ok I have a lot of ideas

finally, the older brother complex coming from Sally (feeling like the experiment that went wrong and watching what went right grow). Long title, I know, but it's necessary and self-explanatory. Sally had Percy and went through a lot of hardships because he was a demigod and she was practically a single mother (having Gabe as a husband is the same as nothing) so Percy grew up with a lot of trauma and somewhat neglected by his parents and society (don't be fooled, Sally is an excellent mother, but they were a poor family and she had to work, leaving the boy to fend for himself and become somewhat independent too soon). He did everything possible to avoid causing trouble and in Sally's eyes, he really didn't! She sees all the problems they went through as the fault of the gods or monsters, not her son (the victim). So Sally gets rid of Gabe, moves out, marries a good man who understands her and accepts her "we have to deal with half-blood stuff" lifestyle, and has a normal, mortal daughter who has a perfect family. Percy never had that, and when he does, he feels like he's second best in this butter-business family. So he wants his sister to have the best life possible but realizes it's too late for him to live that

and the younger brother complex from Poseidon (feels like he must exceed his expectations, become the hero everyone expects, become as good as all the other sons of Poseidon). Percy is a demigod, accidentally a son of Poseidon and that shouldn't be a big deal. But suddenly there is a prophecy and he is the chosen one, so he is Poseidon's favorite son, strongest demigod, hero of Olympus and he needs to be strong, more than ever Percy needs to be not only good, but the best. Never in his life was he expected to do anything, not even get past the 6th grade so dad God Almighty puts all this weight on his back and he almost dies more times than he can count

[queenofthegays15]

Not a ship

I feel like I’ve been posting so much angst today

[demigods-posts]

Nico should get to know that 13-14 year old Percy purposefully took responsibilty of a prophecy that was belived to end in death, just so it would not fall on Nico.

He should be told that. Perhaps it may make him lose some of his resentment.

nico knowing this about percy would have changed things for them in, hopefully, the best way. would love to read a fanfic or something bc i've needed this for years

[helpallthenamesaretaken]

(tw: mild violence)

"[Ganymede] looked like a classmate of mine in freshman year who’d gotten mugged on his way to school: eyes like empty windows, a face that had forgotten how to make expressions." - Chalice of the Gods.

"Liam!" I heard a hopeful voice bounce off the walls of the cheap one-bedroom flat. "I finally got enough to pay for that robotics workshop you've wanted to go to!" And with a sigh, her knees buckled.

"Mom!" I cried out, running to help her up. "I told you to not to go for work today."

She cupped my face gently. "I know how much you wanted to go to that workshop. You said it yourself, the head of MIT will be there. The college of your dreams! They deserve to know your genius, and see that robot you've been designing."

"I'm not having that at the cost of you out cold each night." I supported her as she stumbled to the bed, and lay down tiredly. She looked at me with weary eyes.

"When you finally prove to the world what a smart, wonderful boy you are and become successful," she mumbled, dozing off. "Then you can buy me a break."

Her words echoed in my mind as I was slammed to the cement floor of the dark alley. My glasses were broken in the corner. I clung to my school bag tightly.

A voice growled, "Hey, redhead! What do you have there in that bag?" I looked up at their ugly faces, with remorseless eyes and an evil smirk on their faces. "Hey, Joe. Check his bag."

I clutched on to it tightly, as I desperately cried out, "PLEASE! NO!" Suddenly, I felt Joe's sneaker slam into my side, and I gasped in pain. I held on to my bag tighter, refusing to let go, and then one of his other goons kicked me in the head. My head reeled as I screamed and they took away my bag.

"DUDE! There's money in here." Joe cackled to his boss. His boss had an evil grin plastered on his face.

My eyes widened. "N-No, NO!" I yelled, sobbing with desperation. "My mom worked hard for that, please, we're poor and I need the money for school, PLEASE--" I was knocked to the ground by Joe's fist. I screamed for help.

Out of panic that someone would hear me, the group of boys started kicking me with even more force. I started tasting blood in my mouth.

Suddenly, a shadow loomed in the corner. I was already dizzy from the pain but as I looked at the figure closer, I realised I recognised him: the black hair, the scary green eyes.

Moms whispered about the bad influence that he was. Students were scared to go near him, unless they wanted to start a fight. Teachers warned us about him. He was a rumoured terrorist, a gangster, a criminal.

I closed my eyes immediately, waiting for the infamous Percy Jackson to deliver the final blow. Instead...

"HEY!" he barked. "LEAVE. HIM. ALONE" The boss of the boys smirked. "What are you going to do? Joe, take care of him."

Joe launched forward, only to get punched in the face. He fell backward, his nose bleeding. Percy growled. "Anyone else wants to take care of me?"

The boys gasped and their eyes widened. The boss narrowed his eyes and started to run away with the money, dropping my school bag. Joe jumped to his feet and ran away too, with the money in hand. I was too numb, and I just flailed my finger at his direction, pointing desperately.

Percy sprinted behind them, leaving me shell shocked. The money was gone. My mom would have to work again for a whole month to make up for the lost money that we could've used to at least buy us a month of groceries. But then it'd be too late. I would probably never get to go to the robotics workshop.

I stared at the wall for what seemed like forever, and heard Percy walk back to where I was on the ground.

"Liam from school, right? Dude, I am so so sorry," he said, speaking to me for the first time. "I couldn't find them. Are...are you okay.."

The dam broke. I felt my heart beating fast, as tears rolled out of my eyes as I sobbed loudly. A pit formed in my stomach, filled with shame and anger at myself. The evil faces of the boys carved itself into my brain, haunting me. My fists pounded the side of my forehead, frustrated. I couldn't face myself for letting my mother's hard work go to waste like that. I couldn't face her again.

Suddenly, I felt a hand grasp my wrists tightly. A gentle voice calmly whispered, "Breathe, Liam. You're safe now. It's going to be all right. Just focus on my voice, yeah? Breathe." My sobs got slower and slower, and my vision cleared for the next fifteen minutes as Percy kept whispering in the dark. Suddenly the black of the alleyway didn't seem to close in on me, rather it seemed comforting.

"Have some water. Are you able to walk?" He took his water bottle and raised it gently to my lips.

I coughed as water washed down my dry throat. "I have to be," my scratchy voice groaned. "I can't miss school today. Math test." I got to my feet, only for my knees to buckle. Like mother, like son.

I was a complete stranger to Percy, yet he frowned at me, annoyed, as if he knew my shenanigans all too well. "Yeah, no you're not." he declared. "I'm not letting you go to school."

"No, please." I begged. Percy rolled his eyes. "I know all about nerds like you. I know you're not able to see either. Your glasses are broken in that corner there. I'm not blind, you are." He took the glasses and carefully slipped them back on my face.

I felt empty on the inside. I locked my eyes with him, my face blank, unable to form any expressions. I couldn't feel anything.

Percy's eyes immediately softened and for a moment. His guard was down. "I-I'll walk you to the clinic. It's just a few minutes away. Come on, I'm sorry." He held out his hand.

Moms whispered about the bad influence that he was. Students were scared to go near him, unless they wanted to start a fight. Teachers warned us about him. And yet here he was, gently supporting me as I shuffled weakly down the street.

In a daze, I told him everything--how my mom was the most hardworking person I knew, how close she had gotten to death by exhaustion many times from her night shifts at the hospital, about my robot, how excited I was to go to the workshop, how happy she was last night when she could finally let me go.

And he listened. He watched intensely, quiet and understanding, as I stammered slow and steady, and tried to not to cry again.

"...And I've heard the head of MIT is going to be there, and I wanted to show him the plans of the--"

"The robot." Percy gave a small smile. "That sounds really amazing. You're like a genius." It felt genuine. As I blushed, I realised that I never had someone who cared about me, even if caring meant just finding me the slightest bit interesting.

When we reached the staircase of the small clinic, I gently removed myself from his support.

"Thanks, man." I said, weak. "I think I can handle myself from here on out. Is there still time for you to get to school or...?"

"If I was Usain Bolt, then there'd be time." he snorted. "It's fine though. I wasn't feeling like coming to school today. But I'm glad I tried. I stopped anything really bad happening to you."

He awkwardly smiled at me. I was still feeling extremely numb, but I felt my lips twitching upwards. "Take care, Liam." After giving me some money from his pocket to pay for the treatment, he walked away casually. I stared after him until his figure disappeared down the turn of the street.

I got patched up and headed to my tiny flat. I remembered my Mom telling me that she had to work a night shift today, and that she would only come back the next evening. Just as well, there was still a void in my stomach dreading telling her about the money. Oh, gosh, the money.

Trying to take my mind off of things, I fixed up a cup of instant ramen, and opened up my half-broken computer and searched up, Percy Jackson.

I expected to find an Instagram page, instead my screen was filled with articles.

Missing at twelve years old, seen at a gun fight with a grown man, blew up the St. Louis arch, accused of murdering his mother. Expelled from more than eight schools in eight years. The cup of ramen fell out of my hand.

Look, I knew Percy was a troublemaker to an extent. I knew he made a mess and ran away from school on the first day. I knew that bullies would get into fights with him and get beaten up. But then again, I couldn't forget his smile and his gentle voice, telling me it would be all right.

Something inside me wanted to know who the real Percy Jackson was. Yet I felt unsettled. Me and my Mom were already a poverty-stricken family of two. I didn't know who he was, apart from that one interaction.

Could I afford to take a risk to get closer to a person like him? What if I got into trouble too? What if I got expelled from school too? What if he was just leading me on today?

As I buried myself under the covers that night, my mind started eating away at me. I closed my eyes, and dreamed of those evil guys, the taste of blood in my mouth, and kind green eyes.

The next day, I managed to attend school. After lunch was my science class, which I knew was the time where my teacher would collect the money to attend the workshop. I tried to not think about his reaction to his favourite student not being able to come.

At lunch, I sat at a lonely table in the corner, blinking back tears. My mind was plagued with my Mom and my teacher's face, disappointed and shocked. Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me. "Liam? You okay?"

I turned back, and gasped. It was Percy, but his cheek and nose had bandages on them, as if he had gotten hurt. "Yeah, why?" I stammered.

He sheepishly dug into his pocket and brought out a familiar stack of cash. He started rambling, "I-was-still-thinking-about-what-happened-so-after-dropping-you-at-the-clinic-I might have--"

"Sorry, what?"

"I tracked down those boys and threatened them to give back your money," he blurted out. "I...know how it feels like to have a single and struggling Mom. I just wanted to help in some way."

I felt stunned. No one had ever done such a thing for me. "How...did you...?"

"Umm..." he stuttered. "My dog, uh, she's a good tracker." He sat next to me. He took my hand in his and placed the stack of cash in my palm. "Anyways. You deserve to get the attention of the MIT head and impress him. He'd be missing out if you didn't. The world would be missing out on an inventor like you." My heart skipped a beat.

I sat there in silence. The unsettling feeling started growing again in my gut. "I know this sounds weird but," I whispered, "There are articles about you online, saying that you're a criminal. But you're here helping me. Why?"

Percy fell silent for a minute. He shuffled in his seat next to me. "I...can't tell you anything about the articles or the rumours or the accusations or whatever." His eyes were averted, and his voice was stiff.

"Is there....anything I can do to help?" I asked, softly. "You're just in freshman year. You don't deserve to be involved in dangerous things like this. You don't seem like that type of a person." Percy suddenly looked up and locked eyes with me, and his eyes were filled with a deep misery.

"Not if you want to get in trouble too," he warned. His eyes morphed from misery to something deeper; the air turned cold and there was something about his gaze that seemed almost powerful, primordial even. I felt freaked out and asked, "Who are you, Percy Jackson?"

He got up to leave. "What do you think?"

Before I could react, the bell rang and it was time to go to class. I turned back to Percy, and said, "I don't know who you are. But no one's ever done anything like this for me. I don't know how to thank you. I don't know about what's going on, but you deserve to have a normal life."

His eyes turned sad. He didn't reply.

After that day, things didn't get better for Percy. He started skipping school more often, his grades were slipping. His eyes were always red as if they'd either been crying or not sleeping. His only friend, a girl named Rachel, was bullied on the daily. At lunchtime, I heard him quietly chatting with her, and I regularly overheard words like 'war' and 'death'. He was regularly yelled at, and was constantly on the edge of being expelled.

I kept away from him, but a part of my heart still ached everytime I remembered how he saved my life and how I could never return the favour. "Not if you want to get into trouble too" he had said.

The next year, he went missing. His picture was all over the news. Theories exploded in our school, ranging from him being kidnapped by a mafia boss to being a mafia boss himself, and running away from the police. Teachers used him as an example for what would happen if we didn't listen to our parents. Parents who waited to pick their kids up would sneer about his mother and stepfather.

The commotion died after a while, and if Percy ever was found again, there was no official news about it except a few gossiping mouths in the streets of New York.

Me? The head of MIT was so impressed by my robotics skills the day of the workshop that he made sure I got a scholarship. I graduated school with the highest honours. I got admission into this incredible institution, and learned so much. And here I am today, in front of all of you, batch of 20XX, with this degree I have worked hard for by your side for the past few academic years.

So who was Percy Jackson? Was he a terrorist? A juvenile misfit beyond all hope? Was he a mafia boss, a gangster, a criminal? Or was he the gentle-hearted fourteen year old boy who saw me, bruised and bloody on the cement ground all those years ago, and decided to help a poor boy achieve his dreams?

I could never tell you. That's how humans are. We aren't open two dimensional displays of artworks. Within our colours hide layers of character and woven stories of the past. Neither the moms who whispered about him, the teachers who used him as an example, the bullies who were beaten up by him could never see Percy for who he was. But I got a glimpse that day all those years ago.

So as I stand here today at this prestigious graduation ceremony, with the highest honours of my class, I'd like to thank my Mom for supporting me throughout this journey. I love you so much. I'd like to thank all my professors and fellow students.

And, I'd like to thank Percy Jackson. And I'd like to use his example to beg all of you to be kind and do kind. His simple act of kindness helped me achieve my dreams, and I will forever carry that on and help other underprivileged kids like me.

Percy, I hope you're somewhere out there, happy. And single. Because I am. Just for the record.

*********************************************

this is probably my longest fic i've written, and if you've finished reading, thank you so much. thank you for the few people who were excited for this fic, and kept me from deleting it (I swear, I had to rewrite this so many times ugh) as always, constructive criticism is appreciated <3

[1800-lemon-boy]

Friendly reminder that Percy regaining his memories means he learnt about smelly Gabe all over again.

<33

[the-overanalyst]

it's always so fascinating and heartbreaking when a character in a story is simultaneously idolized and abused. a chosen prophet destined for martyrdom. a child prodigy forced to grow up too fast. a powerful warrior raised as nothing but a weapon. there's just something so uniquely messed up about singing someone's praises whilst destroying them.

[c1nnam00n]

me seeing that my fav character barely/doesn’t have any fanfics OR imagines

[winter-rossie]

Percy: I heard you Scream

Luke: Oh, how nice of you to Care. Mario has Arrived to Save Princess Peach.

Luke: But, Plot Twist, I'm Bowser.