Favorite : Change for the both of us

Chapter 25

Poseidon's POV

There are now words to describe how hard it is.

Just thinking about it brings a bad taste to my mouth - seeing it makes me wants to curl up in a corner somewhere and just...stay there. Sometimes, it makes me wish I was a shell. Yes, a shell. Shells don't feel things, and feeling nothing would be better than the pain of seeing in Percy in such a horrific state brings to me.

I remember everything of what happened when I found out Percy had been 'saved'. Receiving that phone call off Annabeth was like the best moment of my life. I remember her voice, frantic and tired and in pain, "Poseidon, i-it's me! Annabeth! Hades has me and Percy, we're-,"

I didn't really hear the rest of what she said because her previous words were running through my mind. Hades has me and Percy. Hades has me and Percy. Percy. "I'll be right there," I managed to stutter in response, before dropping my phone and sprinting to my car. All I could think of was seeing my son again. Seeing him safe. Hugging him and quite possibly locking him in a room for the rest of his life with 24 hour CCTV.

But, of course, that didn't happen. I pulled up on the road I vaguely remembered Annabeth describing to me and threw myself out of it before I even killed the engine, rushing towards the trio sat on the side of it. My brother was paler than usual, looking at me with his creepy dark eyes. They held none of their usual sourness, and his face was lacking the sneer he always had without Nico around. Instead, he looked sympathetic.

My eyes landed on the girl next to him. Annabeth? She didn't look like Annabeth. Her skin was grey and bruised and her blonde hair matted with blood. All sorts of injuries littered her body, explaining the pained look on her haunted face. Her eyes were streaming with tears as she held on to the hand of the other unrecognisable person at the scene.

Black hair which was slick with sweat and blood. A deathly pale face beneath more blood and big, purple bruises. Tattered clothes. Some sort of stab wound in his leg. He looked close to death.

And then I realised.

"Percy!" I fell to my knees unwillingly besides Hades.

My son looked up at me, his usually bright-green eyes glassy and...not quite there. "D-Dad," his voice cracked and sounded hoarse, as though he'd been screaming. He probably had been. He looked terrified, but relieved. Relieved to see me. I felt myself breaking down, but I put on a brave face. Percy was in a worse state than I was - I couldn't act like more of the victim than him.

"I'm here," I choke, reaching out to wipe the tears from his cheeks - trying to ignore the blood it left on my hand. My eyes glance up and down his broken body unwillingly, and a part of me dies. I want nothing more than to hug him and promise that everything is over. But I can't. I might break him further. I stroke his hair instead, gently combing out the knots. "I-I'm not leaving you..." Not again. Not ever.

"P-please don't..." He was getting weaker. I wanted to tell him to suck it up or something. He couldn't give up. I wanted to tell him how much it would hurt if he left - how hard it had been for me when he was gone, and how unbearable it would be if I never got him back. But he was slipping away. All he could manage was a quiet, "You too," in Annabeth's direction.

Annabeth managed a smile, gripping Percy's hand as though he was her lifeline. "Always," she whispered.

If I wasn't so overwhelmed with my son's state, I might have thought about what the pair of them had been through together. How close they must be after being...being tortured together.

Percy's eyes slid close. He fell limp, letting out a breath. I waited for him to inhale another, but he didn't. His chest went still.

"Percy?! Percy, wake up," I demand, brushing the hair on his forehead back to get a look at him. My panic level went up a ten-fold. "Damn it, open your eyes! Breathe! Do something!"