wrath - percy jackson

6

caleb's scream pierces through the silence as he dips his hand into the phlegethon, fearing for his life. he retracts it immediately out of instinct, expecting his hand to be completely burned, withering in its own ashes. instead, he was met by the sight of his hand cured of all of its rashes and blisters.

"h-how-" the son of hypos stared at his hand, marveled by its recovery. percy smirked and drank some of the river's fire, hissing not because of the pain - that he couldn't feel anymore because of his curse of achilles - but because the fire tasted like rotting gasoline. he groaned because the fire felt like he had just swallowed gasoline covered shards of glass.

"the phlegethon was designed to heal the souls in the fields of punishment so they could be tortured again, we're lucky that we found it in only a few hours." percy explained as he cupped some of the fire in his hands and shoved it down caleb's throat. "drink."

reluctantly, the brunette swallowed hard, visibly cringing at the taste. he shoved percy's hand away as he bent over and coughed violently, his drool spilling out from the side of his mouth. he took a deep breath and wiped the drool with the back of his hand.

"that tasted like the rotting gasoline that my mom used to use because she was so broke." he choked out with a weak smile making percy laugh, the sound sending a shock wave through the acidic air. it was rare that someone would laugh in tartarus, out of pure, simple pleasure, he only knew that annabeth had laughed down here when they had fallen together.

"good one, man. how are you feeling?"

"slightly better, not that you can get any better than this down here." caleb mumbled hoarsely, his throat still trying to recover from drinking literal fire water. jackson smirked at stood up from the river's shore before he felt caleb grasp his wrist.

"ho-how are you, like, not affected by the pain and this place? i get you've been down here before but i doubt someone could get used to somewhere like this." the brunette asked curiously, it had baffled him ever since the two had met and he was yet to get answers.

percy scratched his neck awkwardly as he smiled down at his friend. "well, i had gotten the curse of achilles a few years back but lost it when i went into roman territory. when i fell back down here i had landed in the river styx and took the chance to get my curse back."

caleb nodded in astonishment, there was more to his friend than it seemed. he was determined to find out more about the boy he had trusted with his life.

"i'm surprised you trust me at all." percy said out of the blue, as if reading his friend's mind. "i mean, we've only just met and you decide to throw your hand into literal liquid fire because i told you to, you must be really good at deducing whether to trust someone or not or you're just plain stupid." he gave him a lop-sided grin, caleb shrugged.

"i mean you just looked like you knew what you were doing, without you i probably would've died or like had to go through a load of pain since we can't actually die now, because we're sins. so like, thank you i guess." he admitted calmly, looking into percy's sea-green swirling pools. in all honesty, he could read people just by looking into their eyes, it was a skill he was forced to pick up when his mother had given him away to a group of sadistic cultists.

percy smiled warmly as his eyes softened a fraction. "no problem, man." he said, patting caleb on the shoulder which made the younger - or older? - topple forward slightly, making the son of poseidon laugh briefly. "let's get some of this fire in a few bottles then we can go find everyone else."

the son of hypos nodded and zipped open percy's backpack which was filed to the brim with survival material, the boy was rather impressed as he rummaged through the demigod's packpack. he spotted a scrapbook that was decorated rather roughly, he saw a few pictures glued on the front with people, presumably his demigod friends, that he didn't recognise. they were all smiling goofily and had ridiculous expressions on their faces, he smiled at the sight but continued rummaging through to find the empy bottles that percy had been talking about. caleb had found two black thermos bottles and quickly filled them with the magically healing pain fire water.