The Dark Flower (Azriel x OC)

26. Relief (Persephone)

Dinner had been a nightmare that night. The twenty minutes of initial silence had been painfully awkward, but the fight that took place afterwards was even worse. Father on on end of the long table and Feyre on the other, while Lucien and Percy were trapped in the middle. 

Feyre, it would seem, took the matter of the water-wraiths into her own hands and offered them the jewelry that she wore so that they could pay their tithe. Percy had nearly laughed out loud when that wraith had returned with those jewels. Her father, however, had not found it anywhere near as amusing. 

"It's past midnight," Father murmured from where he sat at his desk. 

Percy was curled in the far corner of the room in a plush chair working on a complicated piece of embroidery. She had taken to staying up as late as possible, usually in this chair while her father worked. 

It felt safer than the deafening silence of her bedroom. The sound of him writing and the shuffling of papers was almost soothing. 

"I'll only stay up a bit longer," she said quietly. 

Percy had taken to sleeping less and less. It helped with the nightmares. If she only slept when she was so exhausted that she was nearing collapse, then she was less likely to wake up to the sound of her own screams. 

His chair creaked ever so slightly as he leaned back in it, "Persephone..."

"I'm not tired." The instant the words came out of her mouth, she felt like a little girl again, pleading with him to stay up past her bedtime. 

"Moira says that you've been refusing the sleep aid," he said, words practiced and calm as if he'd been going over how to bring this up with her in his head. 

"I don't like the way it tastes." Or the way that it pulled her into sleep so completely that she had no option but to succumb. Or that it did absolutely nothing for her nightmares except trap her within them unable to wake. Or that when she did finally wake from it, she felt groggy and weak for hours afterwards. 

He sighed, but didn't push the point. "Just a bit longer," he agreed quietly. 

Percy's fingers traced the threading of the embroidery. Ianthe had taken to joining in on her lessons in the rare moments that Feyre was occupied with something else. It was awful whenever Ianthe joined in. Percy was still struggling to at least pretend to be the female that she was before and when it was just her and Moira... it was okay. It was like pretend lessons where they were just going through the motions, but when Ianthe was there... 

Ianthe had to question everything that Percy did, which meant that she questioned everything that Moira did. Everything from the way Percy read poetry to the way that she sat at the piano. She was stricter than Moira had ever been and her very presence rubbed at Percy the wrong way. 

Her stitches were far from perfect right now. Ianthe would have words about that, but Percy didn't bother going back to fix them. She was doing the bare minimum of existing right now. Moira saw that as progress - better than laying in bed catatonic, at least. Ianthe, however, saw it as weakness.