Unsupportive

Y/N got down from the vehicle and stood a little far away, away from Ares to be precise. She was still thinking about Percy's words. She wanted to believe in whatever he was saying but she couldn't hope for something more when in fact it was only one-sided all along. If anything, she wanted to avoid saying something that would give away the fact that she still has a crush on him.

Still. Expectations.

Harris made her blush and heart beat faster but there was something about Percy. She didn't know what it was, maybe the fact that whatever they went through, he never abandoned anyone. She spent more time with him than Harris. Sure, she felt something for him but...the real question was...if given a choice, would she pick Harris?

After a while, Ares opened the car door and grabbed Percy's shoulder, pulling him out of the car and back into the desert night.

The audience with the goddess of love was over.

"You're lucky, punk." Ares pushed him away from the limo. "Be grateful."

"For what?"

"That we're being so nice. If it was up to me—"

"So why haven't you killed me?" Percy shot back. It was a stupid thing to say to the god of war, but being around him always made him feel angry and reckless.

Y/N sighed and walked towards him, holding his arm, "The others are waiting. We should leave."

Ares nodded like she'd finally said something intelligent.

"I'd love to kill you, seriously," he said turning to Percy, "But see, I got a situation. Word on Olympus is that you might start the biggest war in history. I can't risk messing that up. Besides, Aphrodite thinks you're some kinda soap-opera star or something. I kill you, that makes me look bad with her. But don't worry. I haven't forgotten my promise. Some day soon, kid—real soon— you're going to raise your sword to fight, and you're going to remember the wrath of Ares."

Percy balled his fists. "Why wait? I beat you once. How's that ankle healing up?"

Uh oh. There it was. Exactly what she feared. She didn't want him to bring it up. But thankfully, Ares didn't show much anger.

Instead, he grinned crookedly. "Not bad, punk. But you got nothing on the master of taunts. I'll start the fight when I'm good and ready. Until then... Get lost."

He snapped his fingers and the world did a three-sixty, spinning in a cloud of red dust. They fell to the ground.

Percy stood up as he helped Y/N get up, holding her hand, and realized that the limousine was gone. The road, the taco restaurant, the whole town of Gila Claw was gone. All of them who were out on the quest were now standing in the middle of the junkyard, mountains of scrap metal stretched out in every direction.

Maybe it was the fact that it was just the two of them away from their friends, but they were still holding hands. Or maybe it was the small conversation they had with Aphrodite.

[ TIME SKIP ]

"What did she want with you?" Bianca asked once they'd told them about Aphrodite. Needless to say, omitting all the parts involving their own feelings and...love life.

"Oh, uh, not sure," he lied. "She said to be careful in her husband's junkyard. She said not to pick anything up."

Although Y/N stayed quiet, her curiosity wasn't leaving anytime soon. She wanted to know about the conversation that took place after she left the car.

She wanted to know if she was in any part of it.

Zoe narrowed her eyes. "The goddess of love would not make a special trip to tell thee that. Be careful, Percy. Aphrodite has led many heroes astray."

"For once I agree with Zoe," Thalia said. "You can't trust Aphrodite."

Grover was looking at both of them funny. Being empathic and all, he could usually read my emotions, and maybe he knew exactly what Aphrodite had talked to them about.

"Well, I for one know what went down in that car," Thalia chuckled looking at their hands. Y/N blushed and snatched her arm away quickly.

Percy seemed to understand the context but, strangely...he didn't mind holding her hand for once.

"So," he said, "how do we get out of here?"

"That way," Zoe said. "That is west."

"How can you tell?"

"Ursa Major is in the north," she said, "which means that must be west."

She pointed west, then at the northern constellation, which was hard to make out because there were so many other stars.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "The bear thing."

Zoe looked offended. "Show some respect. It was a fine bear. A worthy opponent."

"You act like it was real."

"Guys," Grover broke in. "Look!"

They'd reached the crest of a junk mountain. Piles of metal objects glinted in the moonlight: broken heads of bronze horses, metal legs from human statues, smashed chariots, tons of shields and swords and other weapons, along with more modern stuff, like cars that gleamed gold and silver, refrigerators, washing machines, and computer monitors.

"Whoa," Bianca said. "That stuff... some of it looks like real gold."

"It is," Thalia said grimly. "Like Percy said, don't touch anything. This is the junkyard of the gods."

"Junk?" Grover picked up a beautiful crown made of gold, silver, and jewels. It was broken on one side as if it had been split by an axe. "You call this junk?"

He bit off a point and began to chew. "It's delicious!"

Thalia swatted the crown out of his hands. "I'm serious!"

"Look!" Bianca said. She raced down the hill, tripping over bronze coils and golden plates. She picked up a bow that glowed silver in moonlight. "A Hunter's bow!"

It seemed to catch Y/N's attention too. And she wondered when exactly her special bow and arrow would start to act special. So far it had been nothing but ordinary. Although she didn't want to admit it, it was becoming hard to trust its "specialty" knowing after so many dangerous fights, it didn't work once.

Bianca yelped in surprise as the bow began to shrink, and became a hair clip shaped like a crescent moon. "It's just like Percy's sword!"

Zoe's face was grim. "Leave it, Bianca."

"But—"

"It is here for a reason. Anything thrown away in this junkyard must stay in this yard. It is defective. Or cursed."

Bianca reluctantly set the hair clip down.

"I don't like this place," Thalia said. She gripped the shaft of her spear. This made Y/N realize the pull in her stomach. Some kind of fear. Something felt wrong.

Something was about to go extremely wrong.

"You think we're going to get attacked by killer refrigerators?" Percy asked.

She gave him a hard look. "Zoe is right, Percy. Things get thrown away here for a reason. Now come on, let's get across the yard."

"That's the second time you've agreed with Zoe," he muttered, but Thalia ignored him.

"No," she tugged his sleeves and said, "they're right." Percy noticed how her demeanor visibly became cautious. He wouldn't believe anyone in this case, but if it is Y/N, he knew how her words of caution that often they disregarded back in the earlier missions, were all right. It wasn't something that they should've ignored. It would be careless of them if they didn't look out for trouble.

They started picking their way through the hills and valleys of junk. The stuff seemed to go on forever, and if it hadn't been for Ursa Major, they would've gotten lost. All the hills pretty much looked the same.

Finally, they saw the edge of the junkyard about half a mile ahead, the lights of a highway stretching through the desert. But between them and the road...

"What is that?" Bianca gasped.

Ahead of them was a hill much bigger and longer than the others. It was like a metal mesa, the length of a football field and as tall as goalposts. At one end of the mesa was a row of ten thick metal columns, wedged tightly together.

Bianca frowned. "They look like—"

"Toes," Grover said.

Y/N's heartbeat fastened. This wasn't a good sign. Her feeling of something 'troubling' was gradually becoming stronger.

Bianca nodded. "Really, really large toes."

Zoe and Thalia exchanged nervous looks.

"Let's go around," Thalia said. "Far around."

"But the road is right over there," he protested. "Quicker to climb over."

"Just listen to her Percy," Y/N sighed in annoyance. He was making it harder. She couldn't understand why he still continued to be stubborn in every step when all of them were not feeling good about the whole situation. At the very least, he should trust her. Right?

After several minutes of walking, they finally stepped onto the highway, an abandoned but well-lit stretch of black asphalt.

"We made it out," Zoe said. "Thank the gods."

But apparently, the gods didn't want to be thanked. At that moment, they heard a sound like a thousand trash compactors crushing metal.

Behind, the scrap mountain was boiling, rising up. The ten toes tilted over, and they realized why they looked like toes. They were toes.

"Talos!" Zoe gasped.

"Who—who's Talos?" Percy stuttered.

"One of Hephaestus's creations," Thalia said. "But that can't be the original. It's too small. A prototype, maybe. A defective model."

The metal giant didn't like the word defective. He moved one hand to his sword belt and drew his weapon. The sound of it coming out of its sheath was horrible, metal screeching against metal. The blade was a hundred feet long, easy. It looked rusty and dull. Getting hit with that thing would be like getting hit with a battleship.

"Someone took something," Zoe said. "Who took something?"

She stared accusingly at Percy.

He shook his head. "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a thief."

"Honestly, we are in a life-threatening situation, just drop it!" Y/N said, "Greed is a part of being human. It's natural, no one cares. We would care though if it ends up being the cause of someone's death!"

The giant defective Talos took one step toward them, closing half the distance and making the ground shake.

"Run!" Grover yelped.

[ TIME SKIP ]

The giant crumbled from the top down: his head, his chest, and finally, his legs collapsed. When they reached the wreckage we searched frantically, yelling Bianca's name. They crawled around in the vast hollow pieces and the legs and the head, searched until the sun started to rise, but no luck.

Zoe sat down and wept.

"I should've...should've seen this coming," Y/N's eyes started glistening, "I shouldn't have said those things. What..what did I do."

Bianca took a figurine from the junkyard and later went inside the machine in an attempt to put an end to the fight. In the end, blue flickers of electricity shot up his body due to the power lines. It was hopeless to find her. She stood in her place and knelt down. "This is what I meant," she said, "I felt something was about to go wrong."

Thalia yelled in rage taking her sword and pointing it at her neck. "Why didn't you tell us!"

"I couldn't! I didn't know for sure!" Y/N shouted, "You think I kept away the information on purpose?"

"Well, I don't know! How would I know if Percy doesn't believe in your warning either?!" Thalia withdrew her sword and walked towards the giant's body again.

It hurt.

She knew Percy for quite some time now. Y/N knew he didn't trust her words or take them seriously. He never did. She couldn't understand how after spending all this time, this was still a problem between them. What was it about her so untrustworthy? Why?

Why?

Why?

The question bothered her for as long as she remembered. The only people who were supposed to understand and trust her didn't care about her. It felt awful. She only came to the quest for Annabeth. Just for her.

But who really knows.

Did Annabeth even expect her to be there? Would it disappoint her to see her with Percy knowing how she feels about him?

No one took her words of warning seriously. And now it was her fault that Bianca was gone?

"We can keep searching," Percy said, "It's light now. We'll find her."

"No we won't," Grover said miserably. "It happened just as it was supposed to."

"What are you talking about?" he demanded.

He looked up at him with big watery eyes, "The prophecy. One shall be lost in the land without rain."

The group stood, trying to wrap the situation around their heads. The silence would've been deafening if it wasn't for Y/N.

The only thing keeping them from breaking down completely was the sound of Y/N's voice as she tried her best to sing a hymn in a shaky voice. A beautiful hymn for healing their bruised bodies.

She can't heal their minds, but the least she can do is heal their body. Percy slowly put his hand on her shoulder as an assurance. For support.

Support? Now?

Y/N shook his hand off her shoulder and started singing properly, trying her best to block him out. He never stood in her support whenever anyone spoke ill of her. She knew it was selfish of her to even think about herself when someone is dead. But she couldn't help it. He surely knew how much it hurt her every time. But he always stayed out of it whenever such quarrels took place.

She didn't need him. They were originally just someone belonging to the same camp of half-bloods.

And that's how she's going to treat him from now on.