AUGUST BLUES AND FEVER DREAMS
pairing: percy jackson x apollo!reader
A/N: this is very short so if any of u want a part two i will write that, but only if u guys actually enjoy this. Also i will start decorating my fics since they don’t seem interesting or cute enough to read when i have time, rn i’m just publishing things that i had left unfinished in my drafts<3
august always felt wrong, too warm, too bright, too heavy with endings pretending to be beginnings. the kind of month that made everything ache in a quiet way, like a bruise you forgot about until someone pressed on it.
you stood on the deck of the argo II with your bow slung across your back, fingers stained faintly with ambrosia dust and dried nectar. the sea stretched ahead of you. rome waited for you and the rest of the eight somewhere beyond the horizon, and with it, a war you didn’t feel ready for (not that anyone ever was).
you’d known percy jackson for years, not well enough to call him a best friend, not distantly enough to pretend he was a stranger. you’d trained in the same arenas, fought the same monsters, patched him up more times than you could count. still, you’d always existed on opposite edges of the same circle. him loud, magnetic and surrounded. you were quiet and observant.
he had never ignored you, he just hadn’t noticed you the way people noticed things that mattered.
you filled the gaps of the eight that no one else thought about.
you were in the infirmary when percy showed up, saltwater still clinging to his clothes, a shallow cut along his ribs.
“got a minute?” he asked, already sitting down like he knew the answer.
you gestured for him to stay still. this wasn’t new. percy trusted you with his injuries, and you trusted him not to ask questions while you worked. healing came easily to you, warm light pooling beneath your palms, pain easing like a tide pulling back.
“you’re quieter than usual,” he said, smiling up at you.
you huffed softly. “you talk enough for the both of us.”
he grinned. “fair enough.”
silence settled again, heavily.
things shifted slowly after that.
percy started lingering when he didn’t have to. bringing you food when you forgot to eat. standing nearby during training, watching your arrows split targets clean in half. he asked your opinion more often, about plans, about routes, about whether the ship felt off to you too.
one night, when the dreams got bad, like demigod dream level of bad, you found him awake on deck, staring out at the sea like it might answer him.
“you always end up here when you can’t sleep,” you said quietly.
he shrugged. “the water listens.”
you nodded, like that made sense.
“rome feels like a mistake,” he said after a while. “like something we’re not supposed to survive.”
you thought of all the people you’d healed who hadn’t made it. “august blues,” you murmured.
“there’s something about august, you know?” he looked at you then, really looked at you, the nonsense you just said made complete sense to him... “yeah,” he said. “and fever dreams.”
