9-24-14: OHMYGOSH, I SWEAR, GUYS, I AM SO SORRY! I made a couple edits on this a few days ago, and didn't bother looking at it when I reposted it and...and...I'M SO SORRY! Fanfiction did something weird... Please please forgive me! Thank GOODNESS I sent this to my friend a couple months ago, because I have literally zero backups...

I guess I have to rewrite the author's note now...

Inspired by a tumblr post by midnightluck and a certain quote in Titan's Curse. This is NOT SLASH.

It's also my entry for the Challenge D: Deus Angst Machina in the FanFiction ImagiNation forum. Check them out!

Enjoy! (Especially now that it's not in weird figures :P)

Percy stood on the beach, gazing out over the vast waters of Long Island Sound. It was around noon, Apollo's sun chariot casting gentle rays of light and heat over the camp, not a cloud in sight. A perfect day. But Percy couldn't bring himself to enjoy it.

He sighed softly. All Bob had wanted was to see the sun and stars again. Such a simple request, one Percy should have easily been able to fulfill. But no. The friend who Percy'd only welcomed in a time of need had sacrificed himself to let Annabeth and him escape. A debt Percy would never be able to repay.

The conch horn sounded in the distance, announcing lunch.

Percy didn't budge. He wasn't hungry.

Annabeth had left for her dad's home in San Francisco just that morning. He already missed her. He felt like she'd taken a good chunk of himself away with her as she drove away in the camp van.

He allowed himself to sink slowly to the sand, his eyes fixed on the horizon like a lifeline as blackness creeped in on the edges of his vision. His hands dug in the sand, keeping him grounded as he struggled to keep the horrible memories at bay. He'd recently discovered that his nightmares could be extended into the day as well in the form of unpleasant experiences called flashbacks. He'd managed to keep this problem hidden from the camp so far. Even Annabeth didn't know.

In public, he was always calm and in control, keeping up the facade of the leader. It seemed to work. No one was the wiser of what really swirled through Percy's mind. In fact, most of the campers would swear he'd never been to Tartarus.

But he had. And he could never forget.

With one final force of will, he pushed the invading darkness back. He took a shuddering breath, not realizing he'd been holding it in, and allowed his head to slump over his knees. He pressed the heels of his hands gently into his eyes, slightly irritated when he felt traces of moisture.

He swiped away his tears, afraid that if he let himself go once, he'd never be able to stop. The last thing he wanted was to be a cry baby for the rest of his life.

He simply couldn't look at anything in the same way anymore. Every time he entered the dining pavilion, the brazier and the burnt offerings reminded him of the Hermes altar. The arena with all it's weapons and practice dummies was the field of monsters. The rock wall was the horrible climb to the River Phlegethon. Everything about the camp reminded him in someway of Tartarus. The forest was the aurai's lair. But worst of all, Percy had redeveloped the most childish fear of all: the fear of the dark.

Whenever the sun set, he could see Nyx's glowing stars for eyes, her black whip cracking on her midnight horses, laughing as she and her children surrounded him from all sides, suffocating him in their terrible embrace. He had barely slept at all since their return from Greece, and whenever he did manage to fall sleep, nightmares found him, waking him up less than an hour later in a cold sweat. Deep circles had formed under his eyes, the only outward sign that anything was wrong with him.

He crossed his arms over his knees and buried his face into them, unable to face the world anymore.

His facade was slowly slipping. He knew that. There was only so much longer he could pretend to be okay when he most certainly was not. Annabeth was too busy with her own nightmares to notice his occasional slip. He was pretty sure some of the Titan War veterans were beginning to suspect: Clarisse, the Stoll brothers, and the rest. His strength was running like sand through an hour glass, and it was only a matter of time before the sand ran out.

He became aware of a presence behind him and tensed, instinctively grabbing Riptide.

"Hey."

He relaxed, letting his hand slip from his pocket as he recognized the voice of Nico di Angelo.

"Hey," he replied, not looking up.

"You missed lunch."

Percy shrugged. "Wasn't hungry."

He heard some shuffling, then felt Nico sit down on the sand beside him.

There was a slightly awkward silence that Percy didn't feel like breaking.

"You can't keep going on like this, you know," Nico said. "Skipping meals, blacking out during Capture the Flag. People are starting to wonder."

"Nobody saw me black out."

"I did."

Another pause. Percy heard Nico shuffling something in his hands.

"You don't have to keep acting so strong about it," Nico said softly. "You should take a break. Let someone else take the burden of running the camp for awhile."

"But that's the thing," Percy said, still stubbornly refusing to come out of his shell, "everyone expects me to be strong. They expect me to be the leader, to be the indestructible hero." His voice cracked. "They expect me to be perfect."

"Well maybe you should stop being what people expect you to be."

Percy raised his head, turning to glare at his younger cousin. "You just don't get it, do you?" he cried. "They look up to me! I can't just crumble before their eyes."

He burrowed his face back into his arms again, tears prickling behind his eyes. "I never wanted to be the hero," he whispered.

There was an awkward pause.

"You know," Nico said, pushing something between his fingers, "someone once told me that it was okay to still be a kid once in awhile."

Percy peeked his eyes over his elbows, staring at the card in his hands. A Mythomagic card of Poseidon. He looked at Nico curiously, and saw that his cousin had the Hades card and the figurine Bianca had given her life for clutched tightly in his hand.

Nico held out the Poseidon figurine, what could only be described as a smile poking at the corners of his mouth. "Care to play?"

Percy stared at the little lead figure uncomprehendingly, his tired brain slowly processing what Nico was saying. Almost against his will, a smile spread across his face. He reached out and took the figurine from Nico's hand. "You're on."

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