madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-facing the music-

this is kind of random but i'mm doing a pjo event on my tumblr account where you can request fanart or mood boards or mini pics or anything you like. please go check it out cause no ones requested anything and you guys are like the best friends i call to like my insta post so i don't look like a loser lol <3

my tumblr is kekaki-cupcakes

<3 <3 <3

Teqi picked up the towel that sat over Nico's pillow in the corner. She held the damp material in her shaking hands and took a slow breath. Melting into the floor.

"Hey, hey," Lee said softly, his hands on her shoulders. He grinned. His hair was back in a ponytail. "Breathe, remember?"

She smiled, despite herself, and opened her eye to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror that hung on the back of the door. She was standing in the middle of the messy room, smiling about dead people, alone. Like some poor mad thing. Her reflection stared back at her. That eyepatch stared back at her.

Something happened in her brain she had no control over.

Story of her life.

Teqi slid her fingers under her eyepatch and ripped it off her head, knots in her hair twisting about and getting caught around the strap. She fumbled through the crate in her wardrobe for one of those spare celestial bronze knives, heart in her throat and her ears. Suddenly, getting rid of the goddam eyepatch felt like the most important thing.

She hacked at the chunk of hair until it split with an awful tearing sound, like teeth from bloody gums or horns from splintered skulls. She didn't realise until it was over, that she was panting. Fuck.

She wiped her forehead and made eye contact with her horrid mirror-self again. It was off-putting to see her cut up and splintered eye staring at her when she couldn't even see out of it herself. Her eyes were a problem she couldn't fix with a knife.

Unless...

Her mirror-self was judging her.

Teqi could see it in those sickly purple iris's that would dissolve her teeth if she even tried. The girl glaring back at her looked like that awful feeling when your ankle rolls sideways and would snap if you didn't catch yourself. You know what she means.

She felt like she might be the one in a million chance that the ankle really did snap.

The knife split her mirror-self into a million pieces of that chance, when it cracked through the dirty glass. She lowered her outstretched arm and turned away like nothing had broken. Her aim was getting better.

Part of her liked the eyepatch, in a twisted way, but she wouldn't wear it anymore. It hung loosely in her grip. Her hands hadn't shaken off the tremor yet. They were still trying, though. How valiant of them.

The crate in the bottom of her wardrobe, by her yellow guitar she craved to play but was too scared to pick up in case years of muscle memory had disappeared too, sat open. She'd left it open that morning a few lifetimes ago when she'd taken the eyepatch as a peace offering for Nico di Angelo. When she was sure she would find the flighty little shit in that underground bunker. When she was sure of what she was doing. Of who she was. Of what was in her veins.

It was only now that Teqi actually knew what she was doing. She knew who she was. She knew what was in veins.

CAN YOU SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR FUCKING DRAGON FOR ONE TEQIDAMNED SECOND?