Collapsing As It Sees The Pain (Percy Jackson)

Our Story

Luke:

He really shouldn't be allowed to break my heart like this. Or to have to go through stuff like this. It's just heartbreaking and kills me.

I really care for Percy and I want him to be happy and to enjoy his life. But he doesn't seem to be doing that. At all.

If anything, it's the exact opposite.

But I went on.

"And..." I took a breath. "Is this the first instance like this where you have threatened such matters?"

"Would you be able to explain what you mean by 'such matters', sir?" 

I looked at what I've written down for this stupid ass case. This won't prove anything his medical files won't. I still don't understand why Camp makes us do this, but they do. So we keep our mouths shut and go with it. We used to try to say what we thought. 

Last time I did that, I ended up dead. 

"As in threatening to do things such as self-harm," I tried to elaborate. "That or suicide. Either or would be applicable." 

He hesitated. 

"Ye- yes, sir." 

"You hesitated." 

"Yes, sir." 

"Why?" 

"Because, sir," the son of Poseidon reasoned with me, actually looking at me. "As an active member of camp and of the Council, I'm aware of the consequences of me admitting to that." 

Looking around at the other members, I didn't connect what he said to what he meant. He was referring to something that just went over my head. I'm not depressed, I have never been. Nothing clinical, at least. I always shoved away that kind of stuff. If anyone ever had a problem with me, I shoved it off and dealt with it however it needed to be taken care of. 

So whatever he was referring to wouldn't click in my head. Which annoyed me. It's not like it could be that far out. 

"There shouldn't be any consequences to such matters." I addressed that issue right away, as he didn't seem to believe me. "Not if you have somebody staying with you in your cabin, that is. Which, you do. If Peter is ever gone, you would have somebody else such as Grover or myself there. You should know that protocol, as a member of the Council." 

"I wasn't referring to an executive punishment or consequence." 

I looked next to me, where Grover was sitting. He borrowed a pen of mine and wrote something down and slid it across to me. It had five simple words on it.

He's talking about being bullied.

I looked at that for a moment and looked at Grover, unsure if that could even happen. 

"Are you sure?" I asked him. 

"It wouldn't be the first time." 

Got it. 

Having that information, I dismissed the rest of the council; taking Percy on for myself. Hopefully, it'd make this entire situation go faster. If it doesn't, somebody shoot me. 

"Wow..." Percy remarked after everyone was gone. "You haven't called a private session. Ever." 

I rolled my eyes. 

"This is pointless," I explained, now finally letting down my whole professional vibe that I'm supposed to have for these things. "It's not like you walked out of camp. You were gone longer than planned for reasons that Chiron knew about. Mr. D insisted we have a meeting about it, though. He probably didn't know about it." 

Percy shrugged and sat down in what is normally his spot. The opposite end of the tennis table. I was where Chiron normally would be sitting. 

"Probably not." Percy agreed, looking like he stopped caring. Almost like he suddenly put up this wall and the last 30 minutes never happened. "Then again, I'm surprised he cares enough to even insist there is one. What are they going to do? Have me see Will about it and have him give me, even more, shit to take? No thank you." 

"How many times have your medications been upped?" 

"My ADHD and all of that stuff were upped twice," Percy told me. "My anxiety was only upped this week. The shit I take for depression, though..." he paused, letting out a breather. "This is the third time. This year. Before that, it was twice a year they'd up it. They took the hint this time, though; that it doesn't work." 

"That's... good that they got that." I tried to suddenly not make it awkward. "Since when do you have a brother, though?" 

"Since birth," Percy told me, looking down for a moment. "We're identical twins. If you didn't notice we look alike. But um, Mom had to adopt him out. Could only manage to afford one kid. He was adopted somewhere out in like Minnesota, I think. Got in some trouble. Was sent here about a week ago. Mom brought him here. I have a sister, too. She's only two, though. Not a demigod. Thankfully. I'm trying to get Peter out of here. I don't want him to have to go through the PTSD and the nightmares and the bullshit more than he has to. Only one of us needed to do that. And it's been done." 

Nodding, it fell silent between the two of us. It's been a while since I've seen Percy. I wanted to know how he's been, aside suicidal. What he's done, how he's improved. I really haven't had a conversation with him since I left. One on one, that is. I tried to stop by here or there. But he was never home. Swim practice. Detention. An appointment. He was never home when I'd try to stop by. To apologize for everything and all of the hell I gave him. I put him through so much and he deserved so much better. 

Finding out about this just made me feel worse about that. I would've never guessed that Percy was depressed. That he wanted to kill himself. It was something that maybe I could see happening with Thalia or Annabeth or maybe even Clarisse. But never Percy. He loved his mom to death, they got along great. He came here with a best friend. I was sort of jealous of him when he first arrived. 

He just always seemed happy, you know? To find out that it was an act... that the entire thing was faked. Or, at least most of it was, is tragic. 

"Don't do it," Percy ordered, dragging me out of my trance. 

"Don't do what?" 

"Pity me," the younger demigod explained, looking at me as if he knew what was going on in my mind. And he did. "I hate pity. Can't stand it. That's all I get when people find out that my life is shittier than they thought. I was admitted to the hospital because I was threatening to kill myself. I'm not the first person it's happened to. I'm not the first demigod it's happened to. I have talked a lot of demigods out of suicide. It's just a thing." 

I let a breath and tried to relax. Because that pissed me off. That he could say that it was just a thing. 

"No, it's not," I insisted, disagreeing with his statement. "It's not just a thing, Percy. It's people intentionally hurting themselves and seriously wanting to die. It's not that simple." 

"How would you know?" Percy took offense to that, suddenly getting meaner than I'm used to him being. "Luke, when were you ever depressed to such a scale? The closest Annabeth has gotten to depression is grieving. Thalia's depression is so minute that she doesn't ever mention it because half of the time she forgets about it. I've talked two demigods out of killing themselves here at camp. One of them has now talked me out of suicide twice. So you're right, no, it's not that simple. But it's also not worth going into because all you get is bullshit at the end of it." 

You could tell he was starting to not feel the best again and he wasn't saying anything after that, so I got worried. He's my friend and I don't want him going through this. It's hard enough that I thought he was dead. I put him through hell, come back to find out he's dead. But he's actually not dead, he just wants to kill himself. 

Before I could anything, he dismissed himself.