Bandages and Salt (PJO X BSD AU)

Chapter thirty-eight

A/N: I know that I said last week I was changing the time, I still am, but today is Percy's birthday so... here you go.

Chuuya POV

We went back down the elevator to the city below. I could almost feel the apergension in the air as we did, as all of the demigods around the bandage waste and I feared what was to come. I didn't mind the pressing threat of war at all, finding it to be more comforting than the idea of just waiting for it to come. While I was sure Dazai shared my sentiments on the battle ahead, his frame was stiff the entire ride.

The younger boy's hands came together as he absentmindedly scratched and scraping at the skin beneath his bandages. It was something that the other teen seemed to do when faced with a situation like this that he has thrown himself into and has no way of automatically getting out of. I did as I had done on the ride up here when his hands had started to shake, and guided the two hands apart from each other while continuing to hold the one closest to me, rubbing small circles over the other teen's knuckles.

Some of the campers noticed the motion out of the corner of their eyes and nudged their friends to point it out. I thought about just dropping the other boy's hand, but didn't when I noticed that he was out of it enough to not notice the other demigods' actions. The other teen's shoulders were tense and his skin a silky pale that the bandage waste hadn't yet naturally achieved. I knew that being pressed in like this was bringing up something in the other boy that he didn't want to remember. The same something that I saw when the other wakes up from nightmares that he can never seem to escape.

In the few moments after the other boy has woken up, I know better than to touch the mafioso. At that point even the slightest shift can be seen as some type of lethal threat by the other boy and is met with the violence to match it. Dazai seems to come back to himself after a minute or two and then his gaze seeks me out and we lay back down with a small space between us and our connected hands, but I know that that kind of reaction doesn't just come from nowhere. So I let the little demigods whisper and stare as much as they like, so long as they keep their attention focused on our intertwined hands and not the boy slowly falling apart as I try to hold him together.

The tension slowly seeped away as we left the elevator and went back into the street where the vans were still parked as if waiting for us. I dropped the other's hand as we stepped through the doors and took in the new scene:

Two creatures, harpies, were still inside of one of the vans as the third driver stood outside of his with a look of quite impatience painted across his face. Though it could have just been his normal look as it was covered in eyes.

I stuck to Dazai's side as he walked over to the man covered with eyes that had driven us and half of the other demigods here. I've never heard the man speak, and I figured that this was it going to change even as the suicidal manic told the creature to go back to camp and attempt to gaurd it. I was right of course as all he did was look at the blonde demigod and drew a circle on his wrist with his finger.

"Yes," Chase agreed. "I think it's time."

"For what?" I asked, but didn't get an answer as the many eyed creature just rummaged through the back of the van and the daughter of Athena pretended that I hadn't spoken at all.

My answer came in the form of a large bronze shield that the many passed to the daughter of Athena as he closed the van back. The girl held it as if considering just what she wanted to do with it, but in the end she just sat it down on the ground.

Glancing down at the shield, I wasn't really expecting to see much, but when I looked at the shield's reflection, I didn't see the Empire State Building or even any of the demigods that had gathered around to watch the scene unfold as Dazai and I had, but the Statue of Liberty.