The Half-Blood Games | Percabeth

Chapter 23: Sleep

Eventually, Percy gets to his feet, brushing himself off before extending his hand towards me. Fatigue still runs through my body, but I take his offer, and he pulls me to my feet. I have to use him as a support for a few seconds to stop myself from falling over, my legs feeling like wet noodles.

"What are we going to do now?" he asks as I finally manage to stand on my own.

I take a look at the orange sky. "We should probably find shelter before nightfall."

He shoves his hands in his pockets. "Can't argue with that."

It takes us a little while to find another cave. I was sure that there must be another one near us; the gamemakers always put an abundance of caves in mountains. Watching tributes freeze to death wasn't exactly exciting, so they wanted to make sure that we had some form of shelter.

Percy finds one eventually, just as the sun dips below the horizon. This cave is smaller than our last one, but I couldn't care less. I was happy to have found one at all.

My companion dropped his backpack on the floor and stretched before sitting down. I join him on the ground. He pulls some food out of his bag; roast beef. There's only enough left for one meal, and he doesn't have anything else. This is it.

"The gamemakers won't let two out of the remaining five tributes starve to death," I say in reassurance. Neither of us pointed out the problem, but I could see the question on his face.

"We'll see about that," Percy grins joylessly, but he gives me my half of the beef anyway. We both know that we have to eat tonight if we have any chance of warding off any threats tomorrow. And seeing as we'd just spent the entire day climbing down a mountain, and no cannons were fired, the viewers must be bored. There was no way that tomorrow would be uneventful.

The two of us eat in silence. As the sun sets, a chill kicks in. Despite being at the base of a mountain, it's somehow colder than it was at the top. We have to wrap ourselves in our sleeping bags as we eat, and even then, I can feel the chill in my bones.

A fire is out of the question. Not only would it be a signal flare to the Careers, but the smoke would get trapped in the cave and suffocate us. 

By the time we're done, both of us are shivering. There's no way this is natural. The gamemakers must be making it colder. But why?

Realization hits me quickly as I remember one of Blitzen and I's conversations. Your ship name is percabeth.

"Percy?" I ask.

He looks at me. "Yeah?"

"Want to share a sleeping bag tonight?" I suggest. "I'm freezing."

"Seriously?" he tilts his head, a slight smile on his lips. "Didn't notice."

"Shut up," I replied with a huff. This must be what the gamemakers want us to do. It would certainly be entertaining. Besides, the idea of sharing a sleeping bag with Percy wasn't unappealing to me, though I tried not to think about the reason that might be.

Only one of us was going to make it out of her alive. I like Percy, more than I cared to admit, but I couldn't grow too attached. If I was ever going to survive this, he was a sacrifice I'd have to make.

"Well, if that's what you want," he pulled down the zipper and flung his sleeping bag open. "Get in."

I did. There was just enough room for both of us inside, though it was a bit tight. His entire body emitted heat, and I suddenly felt very warm.

He grabbed my sleeping bag and formed a makeshift pillow out of it, placing it under our heads. We both leaned back and stared up at the cave ceiling. It was too dark to make anything out any details, but I could see the blurry forms of stagnates hanging from the rocky surface of the ceiling.

"Annabeth?" Percy says.

"Yeah?" I respond.

"If anything happens to me tomorrow," he breathes quietly. "I just want you to know that I've enjoyed this. Spending time together, I mean. You've made this Hell a little more livable, and I thank you for that."

"What's with the sudden sappiness?" I ask jokingly.

I can almost hear the smile on his lips. "Seriously, though, Annabeth."

"You weren't too bad to hang out with either, Percy," I respond, resting my head in the nook between his neck and shoulder. He wraps an arm around my waist.

There's a certain danger to this, but at that moment, I don't care. His arms are far too comforting for me to be thinking about anything else but him.

"Don't think like that, Percy," I say. "We'll both make it through tomorrow, and however more days are needed after that."

"Yeah," he sighs, but I can tell that he doesn't believe me. Heck, I don't even believe me. Something tells me that this will be the last night I'll spend in this arena.

"Goodnight, Percy," I yawn as I nuzzle my face into the soft skin of his neck, half to please the people in the Capitol, half for myself.

"'Night, Annabeth," his voice is distant, like his mind is elsewhere. I feel the urge to ask him what he's thinking about, but I'm not too sure if I want to know. Knowing him, he's probably thinking about what would happen if it was just the two of us at the end, and that's a thought I don't want to even begin to entertain. I don't know if I'd be strong enough to.

With those words, I close my eyes, trying to use his breathing as a lullaby to rock me to sleep, seeing as there's too much on my mind to ever quiet it by myself.

It doesn't work.