𝐂œ𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐬é𝐬 [Percy Jackson]

65

Percy was in Hadrian's room. It felt too empty, even with the record player, the random doodles stuck on the wall, the pictures, the clothes scattered everywhere. Hadrian hadn't been there since last night, since their argument. He toyed with the rainbow stuffed fish.

Percy couldn't help but wonder if he'd gone to sleep in Jason's cabin. Why should he care? Coach Hedge would be livid though, he'd threatened to tie bells around all their necks if he found out something like that was happening.

Those thoughts, he pushed to the back of his mind. He stared at the bronze lantern swaying from the ceiling and thought about how easily Chrysaor had beaten him at swordplay. The golden warrior could've killed him without breaking a sweat. He'd only kept Percy alive because someone else wanted to pay for the privilege of killing him later.

Percy felt like an arrow had slipped through a chink in his armor—as if he still had the blessing of Achilles, and someone had found his weak spot. The older he got, the longer he survived as a half-blood, the more his friends looked up to him. They depended on him and relied on his powers. Even the Romans had raised him on a shield and made him praetor, and he'd only known them for a couple of weeks.

But Percy didn't feel powerful. The more heroic stuff he did, the more he realized how limited he was. He felt like a fraud. I'm not as great as you think, he wanted to warn his friends. His failures, like tonight, seemed to prove it. Maybe that's why he had started to fear suffocation. It wasn't so much drowning in the earth or the sea, but the feeling that he was sinking into too many expectations, literally getting in over his head.

Hadrian would probably say something profound.

His mind reeled over like a rewinding movie, going over the argument.

Athena had once told Percy his fatal flaw: he was supposedly too loyal to his friends. He couldn't see the big picture. He would save a friend even if it meant destroying the world.

At the time, Percy had shrugged this off. How could loyalty be a bad thing? Besides, things worked out okay against the Titans. He'd saved his friends and beaten Kronos.

Now, though, he started to wonder. He would gladly throw himself at any monster, god, or giant to keep his friends from being hurt. But what if he wasn't up to the task? What if someone else had to do it? That was very hard for him to admit. He even had trouble with simple things like letting Jason take a turn at watch. He didn't want to rely on someone else to protect him, someone who could get hurt on his account.

Percy's mom had done that for him. She'd stayed in a bad relationship with a gross mortal guy because she thought it would save Percy from monsters. Grover, his best friend, had protected Percy for almost a year before Percy even realized he was a demigod, and Grover had almost gotten killed by the Minotaur.

Percy wasn't a kid anymore. He didn't want anybody he loved taking a risk for him. Hadrian was like that too. Maybe not with loyalty, but he would do anything for the ones he loved. Percy figured that was almost the same thing.

Hadrian had practically screamed the words at him, his fatal flaw. And the one person he loved had been snatched away from him. Percy had never met Kira, but he wished she knew how lucky they were to be loved by Hadrian before she died.

The door creaked a little as it opened. Hadrian froze in the door frame.

"So are you two....." Percy was well aware he was repeating the exact same question he had asked when he first met Hadrian, after the fight with the Romans, when Jason had gotten hit in the head with a brick, when he lay in his bed unconscious as Hadrian stitched him up.

Had Hadrian slept in that same bed? Why the ever-loving fuck was Percy thinking about that? He tried to hide the heat rising to his face.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Hadrian spat out, fury contorting his features. Percy wasn't sure if he was mirroring what he said the time with Jason's stitches, or if he genuinely meant it.