Insanity, It Runs In The Family

Leo is Misery

They were waiting for me in the common room. The drapes over the Camp Halfblood screens made the room feel claustrophobic and I immediately started fidgeting. My hand scratched my wrist erratically, though I tried to keep it small.

Piper was perched on Jason's lap by the table. Hazel, sitting next to Frank, was gripping his hand so hard her knuckles were white. Leo sat at the head of the table with a new creation seemingly putting itself together in front of him as he watched me. And Annabeth...

Annabeth was standing over a bunch of maps and charts, her focus very deliberately not on me. Hesitantly I approached her, very aware of everyone watching me. I set my hand on hers and she flinched. But she didn't pull away.

My heart sank. She said she didn't hate me, but she didn't trust me anymore. I'd promised to not scare her anymore, but then I'd exploded a monster right in front of her. How could she possibly trust me now?

"Percy?" Jason asked, a little wary. "I don't want to be callus or anything, but what the Zeus just happened?"

I stiffened. "You didn't tell them?" I asked Annabeth. She shook her head, still looking at the charts.

"It's your story to tell, not mine."

I winced at that. We hadn't told our friends most of what had happened in Tartarus, but I'd hoped that when we did it would be together. But no, she was right. This one was my responsibility.

"When we were... down there, we ran across Misery "

"Wait like, the feeling?" Leo asked. "Cause I kind of just assumed it was miserable the whole time, what with me not being there and all. How can you run across misery if you're already miserable?"

Annabeth smacked her forehead, which I took as a good sign. If she was annoyed at Leo then she couldn't be too shaken up right? Unless Leo was too annoying for even the most shaken-up people to ignore.

"Misery as in the goddess of misery. We ran across the goddess of misery."

"Oh, carry on then."

Annabeth rolled her eyes and looked at me pointedly. My spirits soared for a moment- she was looking at me!- but then I realized that I still had to explain. I gulped and started again.

"So yeah, we met Misery and I annoyed her so she tried to kill me with her poison stuff-"

"Wait, poison stuff?" Leo interrupted again. "I thought this was the goddess of misery, not poison!"

Annabeth looked near ready to throttle this child. "Valdez, I swear. If you interrupt again, I will lock you in the stables."

Leo shut up. Oh how much I love my girlfriend.

"Well so, I guess I just thought, I don't know, the poison moves like water, there's got to be some water in it. So I just... controlled it? I don't know, I kind of made her own poison chase her and I was gonna kill her with it but then Annabeth asked me to stop, so I did. I let her go."

"What does this have to do with what just happened?" Jason asked, still confused.

"It's just the 'it moves like water it must have water in it' somehow carried over to... blood. So when that monster up there got too close to Annabeth, I guess I just reacted."

"Dude you literally made a ten foot tall I-don't-know-what explode," Leo commented completely deadpan. "You want to tell me that was an accident? Cause dude, that is the coolest power I have ever heard of."

"Leo!" Piper exclaimed. "That is so rude! Can't you see this isn't fun. This is serious!"

"I'm with Piper," Hazel said. "This isn't cool guys."

I cringed, wishing I could leave. What they said hurt. But they were right. It wasn't cool. I shouldn't be able to do this. It was wrong, so fundamentally wrong.

"I'll never do it again, I promise," I said, hoping to placate them. I meant it too. I hated this power. I hated how much it scared everyone.

I hated how much I loved it.

"You promised last time too," Annabeth said, glaring at me. "You promised, and now you broke that promise. Remember percy? Some things are not meant to be controlled. You promised."

It was like a gut punch. She was right. I had promised. And I broke that promise. I scared her again. I slouched away from her, feeling her accusing stare bite into my skin. She would never trust me again. If my own girlfriend couldn't trust me, who could?

I looked at Frank and Jason, the only ones who hadn't voiced an opinion on the matter. Frank responded first.

"I think it's all a mess. But Percy, just because you have a power doesn't mean you have to use it. And no power is straight up evil, either. It all depends on what you do," he explained, in his typical pragmatic fashion.

"I think that's the problem," Jason countered. "He had a choice about whether or not to use it. He already chose and he chose wrong."

My blood boiled at this. "Would you rather I'd just let that thing get annabeth? Is that what you want, Jason?"

"Piper was right there with her knife!" He retorted. "Festus could have done something. Annabeth's resourceful, she could have handled it. Heck, even you could have done something less dramatic!"

"I was under a lot of pressure! It's not like I had time to consider all the options."

"That also worries me," Jason continued. "Your first instinct was to explode that thing. Well guess what, we're always under a lot of pressure. We're always threatened. We don't usually have time to consider all the options. So you promising that you won't do it again means nothing. You will instinctually turn to this blood control thing before you even consider anything else. I'm not sure I can trust that."

"Why," I ask, now thoroughly upset. "Why is it so bad for me to be able to eliminate all enemies at once? It certainly can't hurt to have that massive advantage over the giants, wouldn't you think? Imagine how much help it will be. I can eliminate any enemy without them even having a chance to put up a fight." I looked over them, hands spread out in a 'duh' shrug. Couldn't they see the possibilities?

"But who do you define as an enemy," Annabeth said quietly. Everyone stared at her for a long moment.

"People who deliberately wrong me," I eventually said, choosing my words carefully.

"So if the Stoll brothers played a prank on you then you could blow them up?"

"Okay, non-human people who deliberately wrong me."

"If Tyson and Mrs. O'leary played a prank then you could explode them? If Grover was involved?"

I felt my blood rising in my cheeks. This was a ridiculous conversation.

"What's the point of you asking me this?" I practically yelled. "You already know there is no right answer, why bother asking?"

"That's what I'm afraid of Percy," Annabeth whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear but quiet enough to scare me. "This could be useful, but where do you draw the line?"

"Hold up," Leo interjected. "How is that any different than any other godly power? All of us are incredibly dangerous. Where do we draw the line for how dangerous it is, Annabeth?"

"The main difference between us-" she gestured around the room to all of them then thrust her hand towards me, her voice rising in volume. "-And that, is: we have to make a conscious effort to use our dangerous powers. That? It's automatic and deadly. That's what scares me. There is no point of no return because it's over before you know it's begun. There's no undoing it and there's no stopping it."

I was less flubbered now. What Annabeth said made sense. But no matter how I tried to make it fit in my head there was no solution. There's no way to change what this is.

"Okay, great," I said, trying to hold back my annoyance and failing splendidly. "So we've established that there is no solution. Great. I guess there's no reason to stay here any longer. I'll be in my room if anyone needs anything."

I turned and left, not giving them any more chance to argue. I'd rather risk listening to my own thoughts than that pack of wolves.