Bandages and Salt (PJO X BSD AU)

Chapter forty-two

Dazai POV

Chuuya was purposely keeping a greater distance between the two of us as we walked back from the park to the hotel with the others. A distance that lasted all of the way through the elevator ride and the walk back to the room that we had shared only an hour or so before. What grated against my nerves the most wasn't the distance itself, but that I didn't know if he was doing it out of anger and spite or a misguided need to give me space after my reaction from earlier.

I didn't like it either way.

The door closed behind us, isolating the pair of us from everyone else in the hotel and locking us in together. The other teen had moved towards the middle of the room, looking between the couch and the bed as if he was torn between the two.

"Chuuya-" I started, but the boy held up his hand, silently cutting me off before I could say anything more than his name.

"Look Dazai," he started, walking over to the bed and sitting down on the edge of it. "I don't pry into what your problems are, but I'm your partner, so I try to help with the aftermath. When you have nightmares I'm there to help you go back to sleep, and when you can't stand other people's touch, I'm there to keep them away from you. But I can't do anything when new problems are arising and I can actually do something, but you're leaving me guessing at what they are."

I stared at the boy in mute shock before taking a small step towards the other teen. "You mean," I started, still not trusting that I was understanding everything right, "you're angry because I didn't come to you for help?"

The teen looked at me as if I had just grown a second head. "Yes, you fucking dense bastard," he answered, all loud anger with no real heat. "You've had two separate freak outs, both because of things that these shitty gods have done. Add this to the meltdown that you had at the hotel before coming to camp, and that makes three times that you've temporarily lost it." He pointed an accusatory finger at me. "I need to know what's triggering it, not why it's doing so, just what. That way if we're in a fight and it happens, I know when to step it."

I stepped closer to the other boy, slowly crossing the room and sitting down next to him on the bed. "Hestia," I started, glancing at the boy to make sure that he recognized the boy, "she put a memory into my head. Whenever I sleep, if it's not nightmares then it's visions. Whenever Prometheus reached out to touch me, he was going to force another memory into my mind. Keep the gods from messing with my mind, forcing themselves inside of it, and we'll be fine."

I looked at the older ability user and watched as his chest fell from the sigh that escaped his lips. He had a look on his face that made it seem like he wanted to ask why, but knew that he couldn't. He'd already said that he wouldn't, and even though we were both walking lies in our own right, we tried to make ourselves into truths, at least around one another.

"Okay," was all that he said.

I looked out at the slowly setting sun and did the calculations in my mind. "We can probably get a little bit of sleep before the second wave of the invasion," I suggested. Kronos is likely going to wait until it's completely dark outside to start trying to kill us once more, since some of his allies are strongest in the dark.

"What? Not worried about visions?" The other teen asked, his voice was teasing, but I could see the concern darkening the blue of his eyes.

I shrugged as if it didn't matter. "Demigods don't have a choice with visions," I explained. "Either they come or they don't."

"You are an inscrutable idiot sometimes," the teen said, kicking off his shoes to crawl into the bed.

"That's a big word for you, Chibi. Did it hurt?" I asked, letting my voice fall into false cheer.