LiFS Chapter 41 - Not Alone (Patreon)

Took a bit longer than I meant it too, but at least its a long one!

It was late when I finally woke up, half-closed blinds drawing golden lines on the floor and windowsill. I was sprawled diagonally across my new bed, one foot hanging off the side and my sheets bundled up beneath me in a messy bundle of three-toned blue and white checkers. A cool, salty breeze trickled in through the cracked open window, wrapping around me as warmly as any blanket. 

I was alone in the apartment, Vicky having left just before midnight to try and make her mother’s deadline, and the only water I could feel nearby was confined to pipes, bottles, and toilets. My  downstairs neighbor was awake, bustling around in what was probably their kitchen, but the three apartments around mine were all empty already. 

I glanced towards the window with bleary eyes, then the closed door, then buried my face back into the mattress. I was starting to get rather hungry, all twenty inches of yesterday’s pizza reduced to a fading memory by my bottomless stomach, but as long as I was lying here that felt like a concern for later. 

I was so tired. Not physically—I’d gotten enough sleep to satisfy even the Curse of Achilles’ everpresent, drowning weight—but emotionally I felt like one of those sad, waterlogged clumps of seaweed washed up on a beach. There was a dull, persistent ache in my gut, like hunger pangs but heavier and sadder, and my head throbbed as though we’d been drinking something other than water and soda. 

With a great heave, I rolled onto my side and opened one eye. At the middle of the otherwise empty white wall hung Tyson’s shield in all its glory, four feet of lustrous, finely engraved celestial bronze. It looked just like I remembered, carved with scenes from my second summer at Camp. The memories were bittersweet, triumphs tainted with agonizing losses. I couldn’t see Half-Blood Hill without seeing it lined in shroud-wrapped bodies, I couldn’t think of the Princess Andromeda without remembering Beckendorf and Selina, and I actively avoided looking at the shield’s top left engraving. 

Tyson was much too fine an artist for me to risk catching a glimpse of her. Even the last image—Tyson fighting the hydra with his donuts—the most innocent of the lot, made my eyes sting. When was I ever going to clear out another Monster Donut and claim my delicious, sugary reward?

Despite the discomfort, I was glad I’d taken the time to hang it up after Vicky had left. It made the room feel a little bit more like Camp, a little closer to home, no matter how bittersweet. How many nights had I fallen asleep with it unfurled in my lap, my fingers endlessly tracing the grooves in the polished metal? 

Too many. 

It was a wonder how my brother could capture so much detail with such a simple medium.

I hadn’t used the shield even once since Tyson had reforged it for me for a second time, hadn’t even risked wearing it as a watch in case it got damaged. I’d gone to great pains to retrieve what was left of the original after I’d used it to slow Kampê down, and Tyson had remade it exactly as he once had, without any of the additional features and reinforcements his new status could have let him add to it. 

It wasn’t as if I really needed it anymore. My bare skin was tougher than any base metal, even celestial bronze, and Tyson’s best craftsmanship could not stack up to armor wrought by Hephaestus himself. I carried it with me not for protection, but for the memories of simpler, warmer times it represented, when it felt like all my questions had answers and my problems could be solved by a sword and my friends by my side. 

My single open eye drifted unerringly up towards the final picture and I quickly squeezed it shut. 

There was an itch on my wrist, warm sheets rubbing awkwardly against my skin. I couldn’t risk losing Tyson’s shield. I couldn’t risk letting it be damaged.

Not here, where I was so very far from home.

My bed, my room, my apartment.

My phone dinged, the sound muffled, and I gratefully let myself be distracted, searching blindly around the edges of my bed until I found it buried beneath a pillow, my fingers closing around smooth metal and glass. There were two messages from Crystal waiting for me, one from just now and another from several minutes ago that must have woken me up. 

Crystal: good morning 💪

Crystal: How were Vicky’s cookies 👀?

I rolled back onto my stomach, propping myself up on my elbows so I could answer her.

Percy: Good morning, Crystal. It was getting late so we took a rain check and 

just ordered pizza instead. 

A flurry of messages arrived practically as soon as I hit send, the phone’s dinging unable to keep up.

Crystal: have u had brkfast?

Crystal: oh, ok

Crystal: rain check lmao

Crystal: what r u doing today?

Percy: I haven’t, I was just about to go make something.

Percy: I don’t know yet. Probably need more stuff than what we got at the grocery store. Vicky offered to drive us to the mall.

Once again, a response arrived almost before I hit send.

Crystal: French toast?

Percy: Didn’t buy bread.

I considered what we had bought, mentally reviewing the heap of ingredients we’d…mostly put away the night before. I had tried to get some essentials on top of the ingredients we’d gone for.

Percy: pancakes and scrambled eggs probably?

Crystal: I’ll be there in 10

There was a short pause, then: 

Crystal: what’s your new address?

I sent it to her.

Crystal: *8

I clambered out of bed and headed towards the bathroom, laughing all the way.

It was a good thing that it took some time to find and unpack all the pans, bowls, and ingredients I needed, because I’d totally forgotten that Crystal wouldn’t be able to get into the building on her own, much less find her way up to my room. As it was, I hadn’t even started mixing the batter yet.

Crystal arrived looking amazing in skinny jeans and a fluffy red sweater, carrying a fine offering of bacon and freshly squeezed orange juice courtesy of her mother. Leading her up to my room, I regurgitated as much of Carol’s explanation about how things worked in this building as I could remember off the top or my head, Crystal giggling at my attempts to copy her aunt’s clipped, meticulous tone.

When we reached the apartment, I left Crystal to look around (glad I’d taken the time to make my bed and wishing I had somewhere better to put my dirty clothes from the night before) and headed back to the kitchen. Before long the air was filled with delicious smells as I reheated the bacon in one pan, scrambled eggs in a second, and monitored the chocolate chip pancake slowly browning in the third. 

I was just about to transfer the eggs onto two plates when I heard an exclamation of surprise from down the short hallway. I’d been monitoring Crystal’s slow amble through the apartment in the back of my mind so I was unsurprised to see that she was standing in the now-open doorway to my bedroom, staring at the far wall.

“Holy shit, Percy,” Crystal called without turning around, “Since when have you had something like this lying around? I’d have noticed if you’d brought it out back home.”

“It transforms just like my sword and armor,” I called back. “And I don’t use it most of the time. My armor is good enough without it.”

“Oh right. Handy!” 

Crystal vanished through the doorway and I hurriedly flipped the current pancake out of the pan, added a bit more butter, and then directed a stream of batter out of the mixing bowl and into the frying pan. 

Another pancake later and the bacon was just about done, still golden crisp and as delicious as when Crystal’s mother had first cooked it. Reheating it in the microwave would have been faster, but some things were worth doing the right way. 

Crystal’s muffled voice echoed through the apartment. “So what does it turn into?”

“A watch,” I answered absently. There were nine pieces of bacon, but I’d eaten one while I cooked to check if it was ready (it had been) so I put four on my plate and five on Crystal’s. 

“I can see how that would be convenient.” There was a pause and Crystal sounded puzzled. “I didn’t think you wore a watch.”

My voice was flatter than I meant it to be, “I don’t.”

Crystal didn’t press, smoothly changing the subject. “How does it work?”

I shrugged. “No idea. My brother Tyson’s the,” I paused, the terminology still feeling vaguely foreign on my tongue. He could do more than just make things, but demigod (and god and monster) abilities didn’t fit neatly in the boxes that parahumans here used. In this case however, there was no need to overcomplicate things. “…Tinker. He made it for me. I can show you if you’d like?”

“Yeah!” There was a pause, and then Crystal exclaimed, “Wait, you have a brother?”

“Half brother, if you want to get technical,” I corrected idly. I eyed the growing stack of pancakes, judging how many the two of us would need. There was still some batter left in the bowl, but I could cook those a little later. Pancake batter got worse if you let it stand, but the allure of fresh, hot pancakes outweighed that minor downside easily.“Breakfast is almost ready. Bring it over here?”

“Okay, coming!” There was some scrabbling as Crystal worked to get the big shield off the wall, but I wasn’t too worried about her damaging it accidentally. Maybe her lasers could warp the divine metal—that was a big maybe—but dropping it or banging it against the wall wouldn’t so much as scuff the polish. “Oh right, you mentioned that you weren’t the only second generation cape running around. I guess I never realized that meant you had siblings too.” 

She finally managed to get the shield off the wall, “Ooo, it’s lighter than I expected!”

“That means it likes you!” 

Crystal laughed as I set out the food, arranging plates, cutlery, and condiments (just peanut butter and hazelnut spread, I hadn’t thought to buy syrup) on the counter separating the living room and kitchen. I still found it somewhat strange that the celestial bronze was allowing itself to be handled by mortal hands, but Crystal and Vicky had both already proven themselves capable of touching both Riptide and my armor, so it wasn’t surprising that Crystal could touch the shield too.

I suspected it had something to do with the way the Mist behaved around them and all the other parahumans I’d met, or possibly with how thin the Mist here was in general. Either that, or the divine metal had adapted in some way to the new world and circumstances. I didn’t know nearly enough about it to say for certain, one way or the other. Tyson might have, or someone from cabin nine…or cabin six. Or maybe even cabin twenty, once it had more than a handful of demigods living in it. Hecate was supposed to be in charge of that sort of thing, right? 

Crystal came in right as I was finishing up, two streams of juice flowing from the pitcher into a pair of glasses that I’d found in one of the cupboards. She was carrying the shield in both hands, floating an inch off the ground so she could maneuver more easily through the doorway and down the hallway, and her eyes lit up when she saw the tall pile of pancakes slowly cooling on the serving platter between our plates. She flew over to the dining room table, carefully set the shield down, then shot towards the counter.

“Tinkertech later, food now!” she declared cheerfully, pulling out one of the  bar stools and plopping down on top of it. I raised an eyebrow and she grinned at me. “Fancy shields don’t get cold, pancakes do!”

There wasn’t much I could say to that. She had a point. 

The pancakes were fine—it had been a little while since I’d made them, but there was only so wrong you could go when you fill something with chocolate chips and slather it with peanut butter—the eggs a little over cooked, and the bacon delicious. Crystal loudly bemoaned the lack of coffee, but the orange juice was more than good enough for me. 

We were just about finishing up, Crystal slowly picking away at the last quarter of her third pancake while I eyed the last one on the platter (my fifth), when there was a sharp knock on the door. Crystal and I exchanged glances, only for the doorknob to turn and the unlocked door swing open, revealing a grinning Vicky. 

“Good morning, Percy!” she called, bustling into the entryway. “Oh, hi Crystal! I was wondering if you’d be here.” She dug around in her purse—a big leather one that looked suspiciously like what Carol had been carrying the day before—and pulled out a manila folder filled to bursting with documents, waving it in my direction. “Look, I have presents!”

The look of horror on my face must have been something else because Vicky laughed uproariously. “Don’t worry, mom says it’s not nearly as bad as it looks. Most of these she’s already filled out and just wants to go over with you later.” That didn’t really make me feel better, but it was something. “She said she’d try to come by Monday after work. You don’t need to worry about them until then. Other than––”

If Carol Dallon had any more news for me, I didn’t hear it because that was about when Vicky finally noticed the giant gleaming disk lying on the dining room table.

“Ooooo, what’s that!” Before I had a chance to answer, she was already flying over towards it. She set her purse and the folder down on the corner of the table and hovered up, her hair falling down around her face in a curtain as she leaned in to study the carvings. “Is this a shield? I didn’t know you had a shield! Crystal, did you know Percy had a shield? Oh these are gorgeous, there’s so much detail! Is that a box of donuts? And a freaking sea monster?”

I tried to wait for a pause in Vicky’s deluge of questions, but it didn’t seem like she was going to stop anytime soon, not bothering to wait for answers in her excitement. Crystal and I exchanged glances and she flicked her eyes up towards the ceiling, then dropped her head until her chin rested against her chest in feigned exhaustion. 

I got the message. Vicky was just like that sometimes. 

I’d certainly noticed. She lived life like a bonfire, bright and glorious and fierce. It was one of the things I was starting to love about her. 

That admission, even in the privacy of my head, sent a pang of…something shooting through my chest, and I shook my head to clear it. 

I interrupted another question to answer some of the earlier ones. “Yup, it's a shield. Like I told Crystal earlier, I haven’t really used it much since I got my armor, and it transforms just like my sword so you wouldn’t have seen it yet. We were––”

“What does it turn into? Let me guess, a necklace? A belt? No, wait, your sword turns into a pen, so maybe a notebook? Wait no, that’s stupid. Something more practical, maybe a wallet?  I remember you had a wallet. Or maybe it's that hat?”

“A watch.”

Vicky came up short. “Oh. Yeah that makes a lot more sense than any of my ideas.” She tilted her head to the side. “I didn’t think you wore a watch?”

This time my tone was more amused than anything else, but no less firm. “I don’t.”

Vicky was quiet for several long seconds, and though I couldn’t see her face, I could imagine it shifting into that same sharp, considerate, understanding expression she’d worn when she’d returned with the pizza the night before. Amusingly, her next question was the same as Crystal’s had been. “How does it work?”

I laughed. “No idea how the tinker-y bits work, that was all Tyson, but I promised to show Crystal after we finished breakfast.”

That last word was enough to instantly pivot Vicky’s attention away from the shield. She spun around, her hair fanning out behind her from her speed, and her gaze landed on the final pancake on the platter. 

Her eyes lit up. “Dibs!” she cried out, shooting across the room like a bullet. 

Crystal had also followed Vicky’s gaze, and reacted with admirable speed. “Oh no you don’t!” In a flash, a bright red forcefield appeared between Vicky and her target, and Crystal’s fork rose, but it was too little too late. Vicky barreled straight through the shield without slowing, her elbow shattering it into red shards like a pane of glass before a train. She snatched up the platter and the peanut butter from between us and then flew around to put me between her and her cousin, whose hand was now wreathed in a bubble crimson light. 

“Percy, save me!” 

I glanced mournfully between my empty plate, the pancake Vicky had stolen, and the piece still lying on Crystal’s plate. Then I sighed heavily and let my head thunk down onto the countertop. “Crystal, finish your current pancake before going for the next one. Vicky, if you wanted breakfast, you only needed to ask. There’s still some batter left in the bowl.”

Vicky slid her prize to the edge of the platter and took a bite, not bothering with cutlery, and getting a bit of peanut butter on her nose and upper lip. She chewed, making sounds of appreciation as she did, then swallowed and washed it down with my orange juice. “Percy, make me some more pancakes,” she whined. Crystal made a noise and Vicky quickly added in a single breath, “Pretty please with a whole pile of cherries and a trip to the mall on top?” Crystal made another noise and Vicky amended her statement. “But only after you show us how the shield works!”

I sighed again, which apparently Vicky (correctly) interpreted as agreement. She wrapped an arm around my shoulders and kissed my cheek, smearing peanut butter onto my face from her nose. “You’re the best!”

Vicky swiftly polished off her lone pancake, as well as the single bite that Crystal ultimately left on her plate, and then we moved over to stand around the big table in the middle of the room. Crystal and Vicky leaned over on either side of me, looking down at the carvings covering the surface of the shield. Vicky extended a hand, then froze and glanced over towards me. “Go ahead,” I told her. “Gently.” 

She traced a line in the celestial bronze, one of the ones forming the bow of the CSS Birmingham. “This is gorgeous,” she whispered. “You said, uh– Tyler made this?”

“Tyson,” I corrected. “One of my half-brothers. He did all of it, the shield, the carvings, the mechanisms.”

On my left, Crystal leaned in as well, examining another one of the carvings. She squinted down at the picture, then glanced over towards the couch, then back at the picture. After a moment she looked up at me. “Hey Percy, is that the same hat?” she asked, gesturing down at the shield. 

My whole body went stiff as a board, but my traitorous eyes followed Crystal’s hand all the way down till they reached the image. 

Even captured in bronze, Annabeth looked so lifelike it was as if she could have stepped out from the shield at any moment. She stood casually, her knife in one hand and her cap raised just a few inches above her head in the other. In front of her, a laestrygonian giant clutching an explosive dodge ball dissolved into powder. There was a small, satisfied smirk on her lips, and she looked so young. So confident. So alive.”

“Yeah.” I choked out. I tried to say more, but the words lodged in my throat like a bone, sharp and hard.

Our exchange had drawn Vicky’s attention as well. She glanced at the carving, then at the cap still lying on the couch where I’d left it, then back at the carving. Her voice was quiet and oh so gentle when she spoke. “Is that her, Annabeth?”

I managed a nod. Warped memories played through my mind like the world’s grimmest highlights reel, moments of our time together except in each her eyes were wrong, dull and clouded with death. 

Crystal’s breath caught, and her hand came to rest lightly on my forearm. “Oh Percy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring back bad memories.”

I finally managed to squeeze my eyes shut. It did nothing about the memories, nor the nightmares, but seeing her so alive when she was dead was worse. Sometimes, Elpis truly was mankind’s greatest curse.

“Not…bad memories. Good times.” And that was so much worse, because there would never be any more good times with her. Not even when I was dead and burnt. “...Nightmares.”

I didn’t think that either of them truly understood, but I still appreciated it when Vicky mimicked her cousin, her hand wrapping gently around my arm. 

Moving purely off muscle memory, I grabbed the shield off the table and spun it around, then slid my arm through the straps. I found the button––a barely perceptible ridge on the inside surface of the shield––and pressed it. There was a soft hiss of metal on metal as the shield collapsed in on itself like a camera shutter. A moment later, I was left wearing a simple watch with a leather strap and a shiny bronze case. 

I did not protest when Crystal led me to the couch, collapsing onto the plush cushions like a sack of bricks. Vicky and Crystal cuddled up on either side of me, the short couch barely big enough to seat all three of us. 

Neither said anything, but I remembered what Crystal had told me before. Sometimes, talking helped. Nothing else had, so it was worth a try. 

Slowly, haltingly, I spoke of the Sea of Monsters. Not everything, not even most of it, but some of the stories. I brought out the shield again, Vicky oohing as it unfolded from the watchface, and my fingers traced the carvings as I spoke of Tyson, of Clarisse, of Grover, and even of Annabeth. 

I knew I was in no state to translate into parahuman-speak, so I avoided too many details. Mostly. Sometimes it was easier to explain nothing at all. After some time, they began to ask questions. Some I answered, some I didn’t, some I couldn’t. In truth, I really didn’t care if either of them knew the truth. Perhaps it would be better if they did. But I didn’t have the energy to try and convince them of anything. 

I felt bad about lying to them. Even just by omission. At some point, some might say much too quickly, they’d gone from potential allies to friends with no real space in between. Maybe more than friends. 

I didn’t know. I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Something had brought me here, I knew it in my bones, and demigod dreams like the ones I’d been having were never meaningless. But there was no Prophecy to follow, no one telling me where to go or what to do. 

I was so lost. 

But, as I sat there, on the couch with a warm, comforting body cuddled against each arm, I knew one thing.

At least I wasn’t alone.