gt oneshots

sbh pt. 6

Her eyes never strayed from his face.

You trust him. You told him you trusted him.

She'd forgotten the sheer size of him—admittedly, he'd always looked like a small, scrawny thing while she was idly watching him mill about the house from the crack in the kitchen ceiling—but he wasn't small to her now. She was afraid to look at him, to let her eyes wander the vastness of his chest as it rose and fell, to gaze at his lips as soft, hesitant breaths curled around her. He had big, twitchy hands, thin fingers and knobby knuckles and veins like the winding, intricate patterns on a rose petal.

She thought about tracing those patterns with her fingertips, letting them lead her across his hand, past his wrist, clambering up his arm so she could settle against the crook of his shoulder.

Why the fuck did I think that?

She ducked her face into her collar, feeling warmth crawl up her neck like hot, sticky honey.

"Are you still scared of me?" His voice was a whisper, and she thought about all the sickening things her mother had told her, about letting humans get too close.

"No. Yes." She raked her fingers through her hair and tugged at the roots. She could feel his eyes on her. She knew the look of concern on his face because he'd looked at her that way so many times she was staring to lose count. But she knew the first time he'd given her that look was the first time they'd met, and she was worried he'd never stopped giving her that look since then. And she felt like a strange, misplaced, broken thing.

"Yes. But I don't want to be," she finally said.

"That's okay," he said quietly, because he was Percy, and he would've acted as if everything was okay even if the house was burning down around them, just to save her from her own gnawing anxiety. She could picture it now, him waiting patiently for her to clamber into his hands, never pushing her, even as the smoke choked the air around them.

He was an angel, smiling down at her, like he would've waited an eternity just to make her comfortable around him. Lydia felt the knot in her stomach pull tighter.

"Just, let me," he paused. Lydia was completely still as his hand curled around her back. He wasn't holding her. His hand rested behind her, his thumb brushing against her shoulder. She felt so, so small. But not in the way her mother's words made her feel. Small in a way that made her safe. Protected. Hidden. Only seen by him.

Without meaning to, she settled back against his palm slightly. She watched as a sheepish smile touched his lips. His fingers brushed her back, softly, like he was afraid to startle her. Or break her. But even that was a ridiculous thought. She couldn't imagine him breaking anything.

"Is this okay?"

"Mm. But be careful. Borrowers bite."

"Christ. Don't bite me, Lyd. You know I have a fear of blood."

She grinned, flashing her tiny teeth. Then his hands were folding around her. She held her breath, eyes fluttering shut as gravity worked its magic on the bundle of nerves in her stomach. His movements were slow and deliberate, and when he lifted her to press softly against his chest, she tilted her face into his shirt.

No one has hugged me like this. Not ever. Not once.

She felt the steady rise and fall of his broad chest against her little body, and she thought of warm gentle tides cradling delicate little shells, even though she'd never seen the ocean. She buried her face deeper in his shirt. Fingers that could crush every bone in her body traced slow circles across her back with the softest touch she'd ever felt.

And then she was crying. No. Crying wasn't the right word for it, because her chest was heaving, and her breaths felt tight and packed and painful. She was sobbing. The tears were long overdue. She cried for the bruise painted on her cheek, and the tightness that gathered in her chest whenever her mother spoke to her as if she was nothing but a gross, unwanted extension of herself. She cried for the boy holding her now, who was the only reason she even pulled herself out of bed in the mornings, even if she couldn't admit that to herself yet.

He was still holding her. Of course he was. When she tilted her head back, his face was above hers, and his eyes, softened by adoration or worry or love or a strange mix of all three—weren't they all the same?—hit her at full force, and she wanted him to hold her like this forever.

She might've loved him.

"I'm okay," she choked, but she wasn't, and she wanted him to know that she wasn't, because maybe he would keep her at his side and patch her up slowly with those nervous, gentle fingers, until she was a worn, cracked but whole thing again.

"I've got you." The way he said it, it sounded like a promise. Lydia sniffed, dragging her nose against her sleeve, and she laughed weakly, because maybe laughing would distract them both from the fact she was sobbing like a lost child.

He was holding her in front of his face now, hands unfurled in front of his chin, and she felt cared for, as his worried eyes scanned her tear-stained face. It was more attention than she'd ever received in a lifetime. She almost didn't know what to do with it.

"You don't have to do this," She said quietly.

"Do what?"

"This," she motioned at herself. "You don't have to take care of me, Perce. Go take Comet on a walk, or finish your homework, or—"

He shushed her gently, still cradling her, still pressing impossibly gentle kisses to her hair each time she looked down at her hands clutched white-knuckled in her lap.

"No one else is taking care of you," He whispered.

"Fuck. I can do it."

"But you won't."

She stopped, then nodded, begrudgingly. He was smiling, and when she looked up at him again, his lips pressed to her cheek, and by extension, the upper half of her face. She let herself be kissed and cradled, coddled and cared for.

She let him hold her, because it was all she could do.