𝐂œ𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐬é𝐬 [Percy Jackson]

103

Feeling like he was being crushed had been bad enough. Hadrian swore he could feel a phantom dog biting at his side, his flesh tearing, his ribs being crushed. He tried to hold it together. He hadn't thought of his mother in years, and now he was being bombarded with memories. 

Being isolated from Percy had been horrible.

But now that he could see Percy again, watching him die slowly from gorgon's blood poison and being unable to do anything about it—that was the worst curse of all.

Bob slung Percy over his shoulder like a bag of sports equipment while the skeleton kitten Small Bob curled up on Percy's back and purred. Bob lumbered along at a fast pace, even for a Titan, which made it almost impossible for Hadrian to keep up.

His lungs rattled. His skin had started to blister again. His probably needed another drink of firewater, but they'd left the River Phlegethon behind. His body was so sore and battered that he'd forgotten what it was like not to be in pain.

"How much longer?" he wheezed.

"Almost too long," Bob called back. "But maybe not."

Very helpful, Hadrian thought, but he was too winded to say it.

How long had they been running? Hours maybe, but in Tartarus, his perception of time was fucked. Hadrian's legs had turned to jelly.

The landscape changed again. They were still going downhill, which should have made traveling easier; but the ground sloped at just the wrong angle—too steep to jog, too treacherous to let his guard down even for a moment. The surface was sometimes loose gravel, sometimes patches of slime. Hadrian stepped around random bristles sharp enough to impale his foot, and clusters of... well, not rocks exactly. More like warts the size of watermelons. If Hadrian had to guess (and he didn't want to) he supposed Bob was leading him down the length of Tartarus's large intestine.

The air got thicker and stank of sewage. The darkness maybe wasn't quite as intense, but he could only see Bob because of the glint of his white hair and the point of his spear. He noticed Bob hadn't retracted the spearhead on his broom since their fight with the arai. That didn't reassure him.

The things he'd seen because of the arai, the things he'd felt. It was too painful to even think about it. You can't torture me with love. He'd said. As soon as he killed one of the arai, he'd felt this... this intense longing. 

He swore his heart physically clenched in his ribs when he looked at Percy, like his crush on the son of Poseidon had gotten a hundred times worse. It hurt to even look at him, to look at the boy he could never have. 

He'd blinked back the tears and taunted the arai. He knew heartache well, he knew heartbreak. They were the only constants in his life. But this? This was... gods Hadrian had admitted it already. He was in love. 

It was a jarring realization that even he didn't know until he said the words. 

Love?

Was he sure? 

He had to remember the last times he'd been in love. A broken heart was all he got from it. But Percy was different, maybe that was wishful thinking. But Hadrian really hoped he was different. Percy was like a cool ocean breeze, like being dunked in water on a hot summer day. Hadrian wanted to drown in him.

It terrified Hadrian to no end. Love? Gods he was such a fool. He wanted to push Percy away, pretend he'd never said the words. But they were still in Tartarus and they had no time for mortal feelings.

Percy flopped around on Bob's back, causing the kitten to readjust his nest in the small of Percy's back. Occasionally Percy would groan in pain, and Hadrian felt like a fist was squeezing his heart. Had Percy heard what he said? 

Hadrian would just gaslight him into thinking he was misremembering. 

Dad. Hadrian prayed. Please, if he doesn't love me back, then make me stop loving him. This shit hurts.

Hadrian didn't want to be a hero, he didn't want to have a tragic ending. Every love story he loved to hear about, was because of their tragic ending. The way they were doomed from the start and couldn't do anything about it. 

Romeo and Juliet. 

Achilles and Patroclus. 

Hadrian and Antinous. Though that one felt like a cruel joke.

Hadrian was a roman emperor, certainly not the most remarkable or the strongest. But despite being married, he was in love with a student. As creepy as the pedophelia part was, the emperor Hadrian was in love, truly. Until one day when Antinous had drowned in the river Nile. 

Hadrian wanted to curse his dad, but he'd had his fill of curses. Seriously? He wanted to scream. Why me?

He wanted to be the exception. Maybe if he charmspoke himself, he'd fall out of love. Maybe if he tried to think about Jason, Annabeth, literally anyone. It didn't work. 

There had to be exceptions to the rule of tragedies. He didn't want to end up as one of the stories he read about. 

He had to concentrate on the present, putting one foot in front of the other, taking this downhill intestinal hike one giant wart at a time.

His knees felt warm and wobbly, like wire hangers bent to the point of snapping. Percy groaned and muttered something he couldn't make out.

Bob stopped suddenly. "Look."

Ahead in the gloom, the terrain leveled out into a black swamp. Sulfur-yellow mist hung in the air. Even without sunlight, there were actual plants—clumps of reeds, scrawny leafless trees, even a few sickly-looking flowers blooming in the muck. Mossy trails wound between bubbling tar pits. Directly in front of Hadrian, sunk into the bog, were footprints the size of trash-can lids, with long, pointed toes.

Sadly, Hadrian was pretty sure he knew what had made them. "Drakon?"

"Yes." Bob grinned at him. "That is good!"

"Uh... why?"

"Because we are close."

Bob marched into the swamp.

Hadrian wanted to scream. He hated being at the mercy of a Titan—especially one who was slowly recovering his memory and bringing them to see a "good" giant. He hated forging through a swamp that was obviously the stomping ground of a drakon.

But Bob had Percy. If he hesitated, he would lose them in the dark. He hurried after him, hopping from moss patch to moss patch and praying to all the gods that he didn't fall in a sinkhole.

At least the terrain forced Bob to go slower. Once Hadrian caught up, he could walk right behind Bob and keep an eye on Percy, who was mumbling deliriously, his forehead dangerously hot. Several times he muttered "Hadrian" and he tried not to lose his mind. The kitten just purred louder and snuggled up.

Finally the yellow mist parted, revealing a muddy clearing like an island in the muck. The ground was dotted with stunted trees and wart mounds. In the center loomed a large, domed hut made of bones and greenish leather. Smoke rose from a hole in the top. The entrance was covered with curtains of scaly reptile skin, and flanking the entrance, two torches made from colossal femur bones burned bright yellow.

What really caught Hadrian attention was the drakon skull. Fifty yards into the clearing, about halfway to the hut, a massive oak tree jutted from the ground at a forty-five-degree angle. The jaws of a drakon skull encircled the trunk, as if the oak tree were the dead monster's tongue.

"Yes," Bob murmured. "This is very good."

Nothing about this place felt good to Hadrian

Before he could protest, Small Bob arched his back and hissed. Behind them, a mighty roar echoed through the swamp—a sound Hadrian had last heard in the Battle of Manhattan.

He turned and saw the drakon charging toward them.