"Dude!"

"Can we just go back to when it was all okay?"

BETTCHYALL THOUGHT YOU WERE GONNA GET FLUFF, GUESS AGAIN...

(its not super gorey i promise but there are a lot of tears so)

The last time Percy had seen his friends look like this it was in the Battle of Manhattan, save for a few faces. Each expression in the small low lit semi circle held harrowing shadowed faces shone with sweat and shining eyes. Blood dripped from a corner of Piper's mouth, her teeth digging into her lips. Percy bet she didn't even feel it.

Where had they been just a few hours prior to this? Why didn't they stay there, on that gleaming ship with high hopes and raised chins, with voices brighter than they had been in a while, only a slight shadow of doubt beneath their features. 

And earlier than that? Percy shook his head slowly, as if in a dream. The pain in his knees from kneeling on the hard surface was probably just some PTSD induced dream. Behind the questioning thoughts of reality, he remembered the sea spray on his face. On everyone's face on the ship. Even Calypso whose face was erased from all isolation stress and escaping the island, blissful shut eyes and twinkling water droplets. Percy was laying on his back, Jason using riptide to connect his freckles together, Leo desperately  trying to find a pattern that would make obscene images, and the slightest sensation of light touch across his face in patterns. 

"Jason," He groaned. "Stop playing connect the dots with my freckles." 

"Never," the other boy said breathlessly, completely immersed in his game.

"We're landing at the base soon, get out of play mode and into diplomat mode."

"Says the guy laying on the ground like a starfish."

"Ooooo, burn," Leo cut in. 

Annabeth nudged Percy with her foot. "But really we should get moving. We don't know what they'll be like."

They weren't expecting this. 

The dizziness in his head was slowing down, the only spiral he was in was into reality. He wished he was back on the boat. He looked to his right. At the end was Hazel crouched over, Frank sitting tall beside her, Piper glaring daggers at the audience. Then it was him. To his left was Annabeth, Jason, and Calypso. And in front of him, Octavian. He brandished a long sword, it looked Roman in design but Percy's dyslexia was making it hard to decipher, and the fact that he was probably shaking so hard he was rattling his brain. 

Why did a childish song sound so threatening?

Eenie.

How did they get here in the first place?

Meeny

He tried to recall where they went wrong.

Miney

It worked so well at first.

Moe

The bruises on Annabeth's arms looked foreign and benign in the situation they were in now. 

Catch a tiger

Jason's scar twitched with his lip, but his eyes remained calm, like the eye of a storm.

By the toe

Frank was so stiff

If he hollers

Hazel and Piper glanced desperately at each other.  

Let him go

Calypso jerked her chin up at Octavian.

My mother told me