tapes | percy jackson

01

Percy Jackson just loves to torture himself, doesn't he? He just had to listen to it again — had to listen to her saying "I love you" over and over again. To watch her say it on the television with a smile he so desperately wanted to see once again. A soft look that he always manages to spot every time she has her eyes on him...

Was it to ease the pain? Or just to make him feel worse than he already is? Perhaps it was both. Perhaps it was the feeling of ease when she said her "I love you"s to him, all while remembering the helpless thought of never being able to hear those three special words from her personally.

His eyes stung, another set of tears cascading down his flushed cheeks, where he raised his shaken hands to wipe it away aggressively, desperately...

It didn't go away. And he doubts that it would ever go away.

The piercing ache in his heart that continued to dig in deeper the longer he watched her in the tapes. The longer he continued to listen her tell him that she loves him. The longer he desired for a world where it has her in it. Her that made him crave for the impossible. Her than drove him insane with selfish greed.

Percy sucked in a sharp breath, eyes swollen and glossed with salty fresh tears as he tried to pull himself together. Yet it was obvious, with the way his face contorts into one of pure, heartbroken rage and despair, the sunken, dark eyes that glared into nothing as he clasped both his hands together as a means to keep him just to himself. To keep his only sanity in check. To keep himself from trashing and destroying everything around him, like he had done when he found out that she suffered...

That Veronica Bennett died because of him.

The thought made his throat tighten, and he knew — oh he knew — the guilt would forever remain. And there is nothing in this world that will ever be able to convince him otherwise.

It was Percy who told her to fight. He who told her to win. He who told her that they will celebrate victoriously. And he who promised that they will come back — that he would come back to her. Back in each others arms as he promised her that he'll be with her forever, and her with him.

Yet it was also him that didn't notice — at least, not at first. He didn't notice that time... The fear in her eyes whenever she battles. Him that forgot that she would freeze at every fight. Him that forgot that she was never a fighter. And it was he who had let her fight in the war — her that was in the middle of a war. And Percy... The only person that truly knew that she wouldn't so much as lift a hand to hurt anyone, no matter how dire and life-threatening her situation is.

And she was in a fucking war, Percy thought, sighing heavily with his tired figure hunched over. Why her?

His eyes only growing more heavy as he ran his hands over his numb face. He heard a soft click, before the old television only repeating and her voice filled his ears once again.

After a few deafening seconds with his own thoughts, Percy finally raises his head up, eyes locking with the picture on the mahogany nightstand. His hands immediately clenching the sheets under him, managing to shake his head before he glanced around the room... her room...

The battle ended weeks ago, and nobody but her has lived inside her apartment, no maids to clean every room, no one to fix anything and clean everything. Yet it looked as if Veronica had still been living inside. Maybe it was him — Percy had been used to how Veronica acts, that he would catch himself doing the same things she had been doing before, and vice versa.

He would unconsciously fix the sheets, clean every black-and-white portrait inside the room, arrange the vhs tapes and cds. Veronica had always been the one to do so, but since she's... gone... it seems like Percy would be the person to do it from now on.

That only made his heart sink deeper in his stomach. He would much rather do it with her, than being alone.

“— Why...” Percy croaked out, falling to his knees just inches away from the television. “Why is it always you that has to suffer?”

And the process just repeats like a broken record, tearing himself apart over and over again as he asked the same words he said years before everything went downhill.