pjo | 30 days of h/c

04. joe the giraffe

tw: blood/injury of a child

It starts, inexplicably, when Annabeth climbs the tree they've been sleeping under for the last two days. 

Luke had been insistent that they stop and rest, despite the fact they just rested a few days ago. Thalia and him had talked about that night and Luke had pointed out that it's not like they had a deadline to go anywhere and Thalia had called him bitchy, and Luke had given her a look that said Annabeth's right there. Annabeth had quietly added the word to her mental list. (Annabeth thinks she's learned a lot of things from Thalia that Luke would rather her not know. She's got a fully expanded vocabulary now, and even knows when to use them.)

They'd set up camp because as much as Thalia and Annabeth pretended to team up against Luke and jabbed at him for being stupid, he was older and actually knew what he was talking about. Most of the time.

Anyway: new camp, under a very large oak tree with lots of climbable limbs, and as much as Helen used to say be more grown up and as much Luke grins and high fives her with a you're practically an adult, she was still only seven. And she loves climbing. And she loves proving to people how high she can go. 

So she swings her leg around the truck, pulls herself up and grabs the first branch. She uses all her body weight to flip herself onto each limb and gets lost in the movement - find, grab, pull, repeat. It's not long until she's almost at the top.

She looks down and grins at the view. From here she can see everything - the people on the streets, the buildings, the sun that's starting to set - it's kind of peaceful.

She stays up there for a little while, swinging her legs, and testing how strong some of the baby branches are. She picks leaves and rips them into pieces and watches them fall to the ground. Eventually, though, she gets bored and starts to head back down.

Doing so is significantly less rewarding, but much more fun because she gets to swing more. She's about halfway to the ground when she hears Thalia shouting at her.

"Stay there!" She yells and Annabeth frowns, rotating to watch her running toward her, cheeks flushed and eyes panicked. "Don't move!"

Luke follows behind her, pulling out his knife and Annabeth straightens, looking around for the monster she knows is inevitably around.

She spots it about five feet from the tree trunk, snarling up at her. It pounces and Annabeth has the belated thought of it's going to run up the trunk and eat me whole like Little Red Riding Hood when it slams its nose and whimpers back. It snarls again, growing and chomping its teeth and Annabeth grips the tree branch harder.

There's only one of them, weirdly, but Annabeth thanks the Gods there is because that means Thalia and Luke will have no problem killing it. 

Annabeth hears another growl behind her and she turns to see she spoke too soon. There's two more hellhounds, surrounding Luke and Thalia, and while they seem to be holding their own pretty well, she should probably help instead of uh. Sitting in a tree.

She carefully makes her way down the rest of the way, focusing on the hellhounds and the way Thalia left her weapon on the bench nearby and about bow if she doesn't get down there quick they might get eaten and -

There's a resounding crack and she only has time to freeze at the sound of a breaking branch before she's falling. 

There's enough time for Luke to shout her name, the hellhound to snarl and pounce again, and for her to internally wince as she falls. 

She lands the ground with a thud that forces all of the air out of her lungs and causes her spine to ache. She gasps, thinks ow, and groans when she can't very well move without pain shooting up her back. 

"Annabeth!" Thalia shouts and she lets out a breathy noise she hopes they hear to signal she's alive. 

Ow.

She hears the hellhound snarl and sniffles a scream as she sees it wandering over to her. Fuck, she thinks and then immediately blames Thalia.

The monster, unfortunately, doesn't hesitate. It jumps and Annabeth's hands splay out and grasp at anything around her, desperately grabbing for anything she can. Her fingers find purchase against a very big stick, but just as she raises it, the hellhound bites down on her leg. She lets out a strangled noise as Luke and Thalia let out shouts of alarm and she swings the branch forward. There's a sickening crunch and the dog only has time to let out a pained whimper before it disappears into dust. 

Annabeth gasps as it happens, the pain making itself known. It burns and it feels like her leg is on fire. She shifts, but another wave of pain pulses through her stomach; it's all she can do not to throw up. She looks back at her leg and sees where the wound sits - it's on the back of her calf, bloody and she can see where the skin is marred and - 

She twists and gasps down the acid reflux.

"Annabeth!" Thalia shouts, running over to her. Annabeth frowns, disorientated, and then realizes they must've killed their respective hellhounds because there are two piles of dust in front of the tree. Luke's running in the opposite direction (wait - where is he going?) and Thalia slides onto her knees next to her, grabbing her hand.

"Annabeth, hey, it's okay. Luke's going to get the first aid kit, okay? He should be back any minute."

Annabeth groans and leans her head back, suddenly very overheated. She thinks she's going into shock. She also thinks they're gonna freak out over this more than she is. She also thinks that waking up and walking anywhere for the next several weeks is gonna be hell.

She also thinks they're a very funny shaped giraffe cloud in the sky. She names it Joe because use it rhymes with toe and he's got a really big one.

"You're gonna have one helluva battle scar, Annie." Thalia murmurs as Luke finally comes back into view.

He sets the kit down and opens it, not wasting time to rifle through their extreme emergency nectar supply. They had an extreme one that they used and a super extreme one that they used, and based off the amount left of the extreme extreme one, they're about to use the rest of it.

Where's a miracle when you need one?

"Okay, I'm gonna do this on the count of three." Luke says, and Thalia squeezes her hand as Luke holds the nectar above her wound. "One… two -,"

Annabeth screams and that's really clever Luke, she would be saying, I taught you that, didn't I? Which is a little ironic, considering I'm several years younger than you, if she could think anything other than AHHHHH, Gods, Gods, Gods.

A moment later, all the pain stops. It eats away at the future infections and cleans it enough that Luke can carefully bandage it. 

Annabeth thinks she's gonna pass out. She's just tired now. 

"You did a good job." Luke mutters and Annabeth groans, closing her eyes.

"You're the one that saved my life, but whatever. Thanks, I guess."

She opens her eyes again. Joe the Giraffe has changed. He kind of looks like a rat, now. She's gonna name it Hercules.