✔ | [1] 𝒞𝒶𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓇𝓉𝒾𝒸 | ᴘᴇʀᴄʏ ᴊᴀᴄᴋꜱᴏɴ

𝓍𝓁𝒾𝓍. Taking a dip into a hope polluted river

*PT.2 OF A DOUBLE UPDATE*

⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

If I was dying on my knees

You would be the one to rescue me

And if you were drowned at sea

I'd give you my lungs so you could breathe

⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

⚔ Ethan watched Percy pace around their cell.

Hey, at least this wouldn't go on his record. That would just suck, and make his future planned educational career a headache. God, he sounded like his sister.

The cell had no bars, no windows, not even a door. The skeletal guards shoved the two of them straight through a wall and it became solid behind them. Percy wasn't sure if the room was airtight.

Probably was. Hades' dungeon was meant for dead people, and they don't breathe. So forget fifty or sixty years. They would be dead in fifty or sixty minutes. Meanwhile, if Hades wasn't lying, some big trap was going to be sprung in New York by the end of the day, and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it.

"Jackson," Ethan said. "You're making me dizzy. Sit down."

Percy stopped and reached into his pocket, pulling out his pen. He huffs and Ethan can imagine what he was thinking.

"How can you just sit there?" Percy said, frustrated. 

"It's actually quite easy; you should try it."

"How aren't you angry?"

"That's also quite easy."

"Ethan."

"Jackson," Ethan said, his voice suddenly becoming icy. "You can't stand there and tell that if you were in Nico's shoes, you wouldn't do the same."

"I wouldn't betray -"

"Not even if it meant the possibility of finding something—anything out about your mother?"

Percy fell silent. He forgot that Nico was still a kid sometimes and he guessed he could understand wanting to know things about the family you couldn't even remember. He had gone to the underworld to get his own mother back.

He slumped against the wall and slid down it, sitting on the cold stone floor, feeling miserable.

"Still," Percy said. "Think of everything that might—is going to happen up there. We won't be able to help at all because we are going to be stuck in here."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Ethan said cryptically.

⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

Percy doesn't remember dozing off. 

Then again, it must've been about seven in the morning, mortal time, and he'd been through a lot. 

Percy dreamed he was on the porch of Rachel's beach house in St. Thomas. The sun was rising over the Caribbean. Dozens of wooded islands dotted the sea and white sails cut across the water. The smell of salt air made him wonder if he would ever see the ocean again.