"The moment I met you,
I held my breath.
And you've been taking
it away ever since,
Nico di Angelo."
[ NICO DI ANGELO x MALE OC ]
[ PERCY JACKSON SERIES ]
[ HEROES OF OLYMPUS SERIES ]
cover by @humaneity !
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0010. | SO MUCH CHANGING YET SO FAMILIAR
Percy was entrapped by the scent of sea salt, so strong it made his nose feel stale but he oddly liked it. He felt encompassed by the bitter smell, like he was standing by an ocean, but he knew he wasn't. He couldn't really see where he was, but Percy knew that he should have known. He knew that this place was familiar, but that was all he could distinguish.
All around him was blurry like his vision was smeared by oil, skewing everything around him into vague outlines, but he could sense the heat of a fire close by, a hearth burning hot and tended well, and over the clouded fumes of the flames, he could make out a figure made of lavender and gold, and beside that, something more solid than anything else around him. A person.
Percy couldn't discern any details of their face, but from their lanky stature, he could tell they were a boy, tall and toned, with skin like gold just like the lavender figure next to him. His hair was ash brown, familiar, soft looking, handsome—he could imagine it falling into the face of the faceless boy. The boy's face was contorting with expressions but Percy couldn't figure out what he was saying or doing, he couldn't even distinguish a nose nor a mouth to the boy. It was all smeared and blurred, hammered like a golden vase, smudging his countenance. All he could see in the mirk of gold was a jarring scratch of black that was harsh and rigid, the only certainty in Percy's vision. It looked like rot, poison, coating the boy's golden face and Percy flinched when he saw it.
Percy's vision changed before he could discern any other detail.
Suddenly he was elsewhere, the scent of sea salt gone as if he had never smelled it, instead replaced by something metallic and nauseating—blood. He couldn't see much, but he could almost sense where he was, enshrouded in a devastating understanding of déja vu but he had no idea why. He could tell he was in a cave, or somewhere underground, and in his hand was a needle and thread, but his grip was shaking.
Percy, even with his amnesia, knew he was never one for sewing or crafts. He was doing surgery to the golden figure in front of him. It was the boy again.
Percy didn't know how he knew it was him, but he did. He knew in his gut that this was the same boy from beyond the hearth, but from a different time. This boy he knew. And he knew that the gold that disfigured his countenance was something more than beauty, it was blood. He was sewing the boy back together because he had been hurt, but Percy, for the the life of him, couldn't remember why. All he knew was that he was upset, he was upset that the boy was hurt, he wanted to help him, to fix him.
Percy frowned, focussing. He wanted to know the boy, he wanted to see the face that he was healing. He wanted to know the boy who he so badly wished to remember but couldn't. He—
