Does the sun shine in Tartarus?

4 - Grover is Percy's real best friend confirmed

His talk with Apollo had left Percy feeling... strange, to say the least. He was triggered. Apollo had kept bringing up his friends, and when Apollo acted as if he had a part in the Titan war, Percy had kind of snapped. But he was also feeling like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Like all these emotions he had pushed aside had disappeared. Also, despite how annoying the sun god was... he had felt comfortable with him? It wasn't a feeling Percy had properly experienced before. It was like a mixture of happiness, comfort, safety and warmth. It made him want to get out of bed in the mornings again.

Percy rushed back to Camp Half-Blood. Grover had met him at the gate with a quick hug (gods, Percy loved his best friend) and a nervous blaah-ha-ha. "Perce, you just disappeared! We were all so worried, we thought Hera had-"

"It's ok, Grover. They just wanted to talk about the prophecy." Percy assured him. When Grover stayed silent, Percy realised that the satyr was waiting for a futhur explanation. "Um... it's in Tartarus."

Grover groaned. "You gotta be kidding me. You... you are kidding me, right? You're not actually going back... back there, right?"

Percy stayed silent.

"Percy, answer me!" Grover's voice filled with panic and pain, and the son of Poseidon winced. Grover was another person (well, satyr actually, but same same but different) who Percy had hurt by getting close to.

"Fine. I've got to go back to Tartarus. The Olympian's suspect Kronos is trying to form himself again, and the prophecy says I need to go down and stop that. And since it takes a mortal and a God to defeat a Titan, they all decided that they'd send Apollo down with me." Percy's voice lost all emotion, and once again, he found himself wanting to sleep.

He was still so tired.

~~~

Apollo told himself again and again that he would not watch over Percy every second of the day. But, sometimes temptations are so strong, you'd need a mind of steel to resist them. A mind that the sun god did not have. And so, Apollo found himself keeping a close eye on the son of the sea god, and when Percy seemingly gave up on emotion and physically broke, he literally had to tie himself  to the table to stop himself going down there and pulling Percy close, acting as a kind of shield from the world that had hurt Percy, that still hurt Percy every day. 

What was this? This feeling... it reminded Apollo of Daphne and Hyancinthus. A stab of pain shot through his heart. Those people he couldn't save. The people that were cursed just by loving him. Those wonderful, beautiful people...

"F*ck..." Apollo murmured to himself, feeling tears flow freely down his cheeks. He felt himself sinking back down into the dark space he had worked so hard to get out of, and with that feeling came panic. He needed his sister. 

Apollo ran throughout Olympus, tears still steadily streaming down his cheeks. He had thought he was over this, he had accepted that he couldn't love anyone without getting them killed, he had resigned himself to one night stands so the Camps still had enough demigods to fill the infirmary and teach archery, he had followed all. The godsdam. Steps. And yet Apollo found himself here, a millenia later, crying and searching desperately for his sister, the only one who could be counted on to stand by him for all time. Artemis had single-handedly gotten Apollo out of his depression, and now whenever he felt himself sinking she was always the first he went to. But today, Artemis as nowhere to be found.

~~~

Percy didn't wait for Grover's response to his blunt statement about the prophecy. He just took off back towards his cabin, his main purpose now to curl up in his bed and not leave until it was time to save the world... again. But Grover, being his best mate, could sense through the empathy link what Percy was feeling, and grabbed his arm.