Chapter Text
The closer Percy Jackson came to death, the more alive he felt.
And this wasn’t an exaggeration.
He lay bleeding out, a spear pierced straight through his stomach. He was speared to a tree like a fish, blood trickling down and soaking the roots below. Everything was going fuzzy. Everything was ringing.
Energy fizzled in his veins.
Annabeth’s screams faded as he felt his blood hum.
His heart felt heavier in his chest, pounding, and he could feel it frantically beating - inhumanly fast. His entire being felt weightless.
When Percy was little, he would have stuffy noses. His mom would turn on the hot water and let the steam fill the small bathroom. But when he finally waddled out of that small, steamy bathroom, his bones felt like they were dunked in ice water. A breath of cool air would hit him instantaneously. Percy never realized there was heat where he was until he was faced with the cold.
That was what dying felt like.
Cold, wrapped around his bones. Numbness, that made everything seem fuzzy.
Percy had faced it all before.
But it felt different this time.
Pain faded. His limbs strengthened. Energy burst in his veins; supernovas destroying and rewriting his very being. His powers burst like supernovas; destroying and rewriting his very being. They filled the cracks in his skin, hurting, helping, making, shaping, finding—
(Whispers reached his ears. Loyalty strengthened his resolve)
Percy closed his eyes and waited.
High, high above the clouds, his string glowed gold. The fates watched, breathlessly. Even the fates couldn’t predict when Percy Jackson would finally give in to the change.
He didn’t know it, but as he lay dying, he bleed gold. Annabeth noticed. Annabeth ran to him screaming. Annabeth saw the blood.
And it clicked for her, the second she saw the gold dripping to the ground, reaching the red.
She had pulled the spear out in one quick motion.
(“What were you thinking?” Will later screamed. “You can’t pull a weapon out of a stab wound! He could have bled out!”
But he wouldn’t. She knew he wouldn’t.)
Annabeth rescued him just in time, Will claimed. Another minute and he would have died.
The thought itched on Percy’s skin. It felt like a lie.
Annabeth nursed him for three weeks and gave him more ambrosia and nectar than he could possibly handle, much to the worry of everyone else.
Annabeth blocked out their frantic pleas.
She healed him and prayed. She couldn’t lose him yet. (And yet she would. Either way, she would. She knew it, and she grieved)
“Percy,” Annabeth said softly. He was lying in the med bay, Annabeth keeping him company.
“Hmm?” Percy asked, taking a sip of necter. It didn’t taste like Sally’s cookies; not anymore. Instead, it tasted like a New York City hamburger and fries. Exactly what he had been craving.
“…Never mind.”
Percy gained a scar from this incident. Straight on the middle of his chest and back. At night, when they would curl up together, Annabeth would study it.
(“You have your thinking face,” Percy said. “What are you thinking about?”
Annabeth looked up. Her fingers, carefully tracing the edges of his scar, froze.
“College,” she lied.)
She would study that scar, and then his torso, where a few others stretched across bronze skin.
Contrary to popular belief, Percy didn’t have many scars. No more than another demigod.
Annabeth had many, stretching over her skin and older scars. Fine, small ones from her hands and fingers from handling weapons. Larger ones on her arms from accidental cuts and blocking strikes. Jagged ones on her legs, from running through forests or rocky areas and Kelly’s sharp nails. A spider silk that looped across her ankle and stretch marks on one thigh, from being dragged towards Tartarus. Claw and bite marks made her shoulders. Patches of burn wounds from explosions or monsters crisscrossed around her torso. Her knees and elbows had long been scared over from fights and training. And spider bites all over her body, from the tips of her fingers to her slightly crooked foot that never healed properly.
She even had a little scar on her face; fine enough to be mostly unnoticeable. She’d had it since she was seven when a spider finally got brave enough to bite down.
Percy once had more; much more. But the curse of Achilles had washed them away.
(Percy watched her study the scar intently and tried to joke. “At least I’m matching,” he said.
Annabeth looked up, her brows furrowing. “What are you talking about?”
Percy showed his palm, where a small, similar-looking puncture mark graced the center. Annabeth grabbed his hand.
“Percy…” Annabeth said slowly. “Where did you get this?”
Because she remembered that scar. It was given from the pit scorpion when Percy was twelve.
Before the river Styx had washed it away.)
Percy never realized how the younger campers would whisper whenever he returned to camp. He never realized his adventures were shared as stories around the campfire.
(“ I thought he would be taller.”)
Percy shot up four inches.
(“Yeah, or more muscular.”)
Percy’s lean frame grew bigger until another camper offhandedly mentioned he looked bulkier than she imagined.
(“Percy fought the minotaur.”)
A faint mark, where a minotaur’s claw had grazed him appeared on the curve of his shoulder.
(“Percy fought a chimera! And Ares!”)
The next day, Percy woke up with a bite wound from the Chimera’s serpent tail. And then a long faded, serrated scar on his forearm from Ares’ sword. They slowly grew in strength as the stories spread.
(“He fought a Hydra…a Dracaenae, a Manticore, a Telekhines!”)
Percy walked through life, blissfully unknowing on the faint scars appearing; strengthening, every day.
(“His eyes are so pretty!”)
The campers never realized how his eyes would turn murky green when staring into the lake, or dark blue when around a body of water. Frank never mentioned Percy’s eyes turning a clear turquoise in the aquarium when running from Porky and Kate. Percy never realized how they gradually darkened the deeper he swam. Annabeth told herself that when his eyes turned as red as the Phlegethon, it was a trick of the light.
(“STOPPLEASESTOPHELPPLEASEPERCY!”)
And then one night, Percy woke up screaming. He never did that anymore. Annabeth was still haunted by nightmares, but Percy’s sleep had never been better.
“Annabeth,” he told her, deathly serious. “Someone’s in trouble.”
“How do you know?” Annabeth asked, even as she was getting out of bed and pulling on a camp half-blood shirt. “It could just be a dream.”
Percy looked over, his eyes as blue as the small fountain burbling in the corner of his room. His face looked like it was carved with marble.
“I haven’t dreamed in months.”
They ran. Percy knew where to go; somehow. Annabeth has to hunch over, trying to catch her breath. Tarturus’ poisonous air still eats at her lungs, even months later. But Percy doesn’t have that problem.
He picks Annabeth up with demigod strength. And then he runs, with godly speed.
It is faster than Annabeth has ever been. The wind howls, like Zeus himself is raging, but Percy cuts straight through.
Two miles from camp, they find a boy being attacked by an empousa. He’s screaming, holding his arms over his face as the empousa hisses, scratching at his little hands. Two feet from him, a satyr lay dead, with long claw marks marring his body and blood soaking the grass. As Annabeth watches, he… shimmers, his body warping and shrinking, his skin turning dark brown. Like bark.
Percy jumped in, his sword gleaming and his eyes as dark as the thunderous sky. Thunder booms with his anger and rain pelts down. In his fury, he looked older.
Afterward, the little boy looked up at him in awe. “My satyr told me about you,” the boy breathes. “Are you Percy Jackson?”
Percy laughs and ruffles his hair. The kid stares up at him with wide, adoring eyes. Like a worshiper looking at his god. Like the stars, gazing at the sun.
Annabeth can feel the blood in her veins freeze.
“How can I stop this?” Annabeth begs.
Dionysus looked upon her with pity. “There is no stopping this.”
Poseidon loved his son.
Truly, he did.
(It was different from a mortal’s love but did that matter?)
He loved him in a god’s way - possessive and claiming. He loved him like he loved the seas that housed him or the trident that served him.
(Dionysus couldn’t remember how to love as a mortal. It had been too long. Neither could Hercules, but he had nothing to love anyway)
So he watches carefully, waiting, hoping.
Every day, the string's golden color grows. With every scar, with every laugh, with every breath, Percy becomes a god.