I'll be here forever

chapter 25

Percy went ballistic.

There was no other way to describe it; he killed every Arai in his reach, without mercy. Even as hundreds of curses were placed on him, he kept going, killing them, all to protect her. To protect me.

I didn't want to watch this. I didn't want to watch him get torn apart by curse after curse, because of me. I didn't want to watch him die slower and more painfully than anything imaginable, as I wandered along blindly. I did anyways.

I turned back to my Percy, the one trapped in an invisible box. He wasn't even looking at himself; I didn't think he cared that his dream self was about to be killed very painfully. And if he could feel his own dream's pain like I could feel mine, then he must have been in complete agony right now.

But he was looking at me, me in the dream, throwing himself as hard as he could against the invisible walls determinedly, screaming my name. Dream me couldn't hear him.

It physically hurt me, seeing him like this. I wanted to tell him that I was okay, I was right here, I was fine, but I couldn't.

It hurt the most when he gave up.

I watched as he sunk down to his knees, sobbing, head pressed against the invisible wall. He couldn't do anything, and it killed him. And still he weakly pounded against the walls, all his energy spent, but unable to let go.

I'd wanted to know why he was scared to go to sleep. Now I did.

I think we both woke up at the same time, lunging forward, gasping for air. Soft light filtered through the top of the tent.

Percy held his head in his hands, breathing hard. I moved toward him. He didn't acknowledge me until I put a hand on his shoulder, and he startled, head whipping upward to meet my gaze. He looked terrified, and now I knew why. I wish I didn't. The wondering was much more bearable than what he'd been forced to endure. And if all his nightmares were as terrible as that one...

He broke eye contact and looked down, still panting.

"Sorry, uh. Did I wake you up?" he smiled weakly but he wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Percy."

"What's up?" he did his best to sound casual and lighthearted, but I heard the strain in his voice.

"I saw," I choked out, unable to say anything else.

He cringed, looking up and meeting my gaze, his eyes bright with tears much like my own.

"You were there?" his voice broke, and I nodded, not trusting my own voice.

He hesitated a second, debating with himself.

Apparently he came to a decision, because he reached forward and gently pulled me in close. He wrapped his arms around me, and my tears spilled over, despite my best protests.

I sobbed into his shoulder, my body shaking, clinging to him as he held me.

"It's okay, you're okay. It's not real. You're okay. You're safe," Percy whispered, trying to soothe me, but I could hear the crack in his voice. He was crying too.

I think he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince me.

We stayed that way for a long time. Me in his lap, my head buried into his shoulder, him holding me close. After a while, he started absently braiding my hair. His hands were so gentle, braiding and unbraiding, and doing it over again. My hair was short, so he didn't have much to work with, but it was comforting nonetheless.

When I had finally collected myself, I couldn't bring myself to move. Percy was humming a song that I recognized but couldn't quite remember the words to. I gathered up all my courage to ask him something I'd been wondering the whole time.

"How do you do that every night?" I mumbled into his shirt, and he paused in his braiding. At first, I wasn't sure if he'd heard me, because he sighed and started again.

"You," he told me, his voice quiet.

He was silent for a minute more, still braiding and unbraiding my hair. At this point, I didn't know if it was in an attempt to calm me or trying to keep himself distracted. Probably both.

"Every time I wake up, you're there. You help remind me that they're not real, that it's just a dream, even if you don't know you're doing it," he laughed softly.

I felt my eyes welling up with tears again, so I tucked my head into the crook of his neck and we stayed there, our breathing being the only sound. I felt so safe with him.

Even though I was fucking terrified to go back to sleep, there was something about his warm arms wrapped around me, the beating of his heart against mine, and the steady sound of his breathing that made my eyelids to start to close, and before I knew it, I couldn't keep them open any longer.