Misery Loves Company

Interlude I

*Disclaimer: A few direct quotes from the House of Hades were used in this chapter. I do not own these quotes, nor the Characters or setting, those rights go to Rick Riordan.

Also I'm not American, its especially noticeable this chapter...so I spell 'colour' among other words with a 'u', sorry not sorry lol.

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Percy had forgotten how the glass beaches had scraped his palms and pierced his knees, forcing him to bleed crimson upon the crystalline sand. Percy had forgotten the exact shade of red those weightless clouds were; forgotten that they matched the scarlet of his blood from where they hung above.

His dream had started with the fall. Wind whistling and Annabeth held tightly to his chest. He wouldn't let her go.

His fall ended with a river. It was biting cold. It seeped into his bones and burned away his skin with its ice. It whispered to him and this time he couldn't hear Annabeth, he doesn't tell her his plans for New Rome. They both sink beneath the surface. He doesn't let her go.

And perhaps in his dream he died in that river; died and was reborn on its riverbed because that's where he appears with Riptide deep in the spider's-hide of Arachne. Her shrill scream escaped past needle-like teeth. But she doesn't disintegrate in his dream, she bleeds crimson like Percy had, like those damned clouds hung over their heads. His sword is no longer buried in her furred abdomen but in the torso of a human woman. A young weaver with no parents and the gall to challenge a Goddess in her own domain. Her monstrous scream turned to an all too human gasp as she bled out upon his blade. Percy yanked back, hand pressed to the wound, a continuous stream of 'No no no no no no' spilling out of his mouth.

She flickered, her form becoming that of the first spider once more. Her gleaming teeth sunk deep into Annabeth's neck. When Arachne withdrew, Annabeth fell and Percy fell with her. He'd failed, he'd failed her again and again. He held her lifeless body as Arachne laughed down at his desperation. He'd never let her go.

Percy had forgotten how the air was not truly air. How it burned his lungs and drove blisters to form on his skin. He was breathing but it felt like suffocating. He was breathing but he wished he weren't. And Annabeth said there was a river, but Percy doesn't much like rivers anymore. She told him it's a river of fire, but hadn't Percy been burned enough? Burned by the air and burned by the Gods that had let them fall. He doesn't drink from the river, in his dream they never made it. Because the empousi found them earlier, and Bob didn't come.

Bob didn't come because Percy didn't give him a second thought.

Bob didn't come because Percy had failed Nico one too many times.

His dream shifted and Annabeth was drinking from a river of fire. The Phlegethon painted everything in its surroundings a glowing red. Percy hated the colour red. Red was the colour of the clouds. Red was the colour of blood.

Perhaps they were reborn like monsters upon the skin of Tartarus. Yeah, that made sense - Percy was a monster after all. When he drank fire, it didn't burn like molten lava but like frostbite. So hot it was cold, and Percy was gasping, pleading for Annabeth to stop, but she kept pouring it down his throat and so Percy was drowning again.

The son of Poseidon was sick of drowning.

There is no shrine to Hermes in his dream, nor was there someone to heal the curses they encountered. They died of hunger. He died from gorgon's blood. He died with Annabeth thinking he'd left her. He was reaching out for her but she couldn't see him, those stunning grey eyes were stained milky white. He was reaching out but she walked away; she thought he'd let her go. He would never let her go.