Title: What We Only Dreamed about
Summary: Percy heads back to Manhattan, only to find his home inhabited by someone else, and that his family had already moved out. When he finally found the new residency, where his Mom, Paul, and the newest addition to the family had awaited him, he felt like a stranger..
A/N: My take on Percy's return.
Percy Jackson envisioned his homecoming a dozen times on his way home, as he watched the city zip by before him. It made his heart swell with anticipation he hadn't allowed himself to fully feel for the longest time. As the second hand of his watch ticked his longing only grew, building up inside him like a volcano about to erupt.
He hadn't expected a surly old man to answer the door when he rang the bell. His heartbeats drowned out the obnoxious noise of the busy city, and it escalated as he heard the footsteps approaching the door, it nearly deafened him when the door began to swing open. But all at once, the build-up died down and left his system feeling hollow. He had expected his mother to answer the door. He had expected the world to light up at the sight of her, melting all his pain and anxiety and worry away. He had expected to feel the same fuzzy feeling in his stomach he would have since he was kid, whenever he'd experience the comfort of his mother's hugs and kisses, the promise of their protection. He would remember how his mother promised to chase away the monsters under his bed, and he'd believe her, knowing that he was always safe with her.
But now things had changed, he was the one chasing monsters to protect her, and pretty much everyone else on the planet. Go figure, he thought, thinking about all the things that had changed the past few years. One of them happened to be the fact that he doesn't live in this old apartment anymore, in this narrow Manhattan street. The old man, still dressed in a black bathrobe that went over his wife beater (which exposed a generous amount of chest hair that made Percy flinch) and pajamas, was not so patient with explaining to Percy that this was his place now.
He huffed, and with a husky voice he explained, "I don't even have an idea who lived here before I did, much less have a clue where they are."
I used to live here, Percy thought, dejected, feeling as if he has been kicked on the heart. He felt his pocket for a drachma, contemplating on just Iris messaging his mother. But his original plan of surprising them held him back, and he decided to just ask the old man of the landlady's number. She'd know where Mom and Paul are, he thought.
…
It had taken Percy another long trip around the city to find the address he had hastily written on a tissue paper. Though it was pricey, he thought getting a cab would be much easier. The cab dropped him off in a part of the city that was just so alien to him. The streets were lined with houses, each almost looking like they could house the stereotypical all-American family. They weren't grand or anything, but it was still different from anything Percy had ever known all his life.
He walked along the long path that bisected their lawn, whilst thinking about how they actually have an actual lawn. The front porch seemed like the set of a lifetime movie about this family patterned to what every American family was seemingly like. Not that Percy would know what that was like, given his godly lineage.
Too anxious to be nervous, he pressed the doorbell.
Percy was shocked to hear a baby's shrill cry pierce the air. He looked around; trying to discern where it could've come from, but the best possible source was inside the house. Could he have gotten the wrong address?
When Paul Blofis answered the door, his doubts dissipated like mist. Percy would have loved to have captured the look on his face - his eyes, which were framed by shadows, were wide and bulging, his eyebrows were raised comically. His disheveled hair, his wild almost-beard stubble added to the stressed effect. Percy never remembered him being that stressed from work..
With his shaky hands on the knob, Paul shouted for Sally. And soon a woman appeared from behind him, her dark hair, now strewn with grey ones, was an even wilder set of tangles. Her eyes were also framed by shadows and lined by wrinkles, emphasizing her age. Her body looked heavy and tired underneath her long pink robe. And in her arms she carried a bean-shaped little thing, ridiculously wrapped in a blanket. Percy only realized upon closer inspection, that it was a baby, no older than a few weeks.
Their eyes were all starting to fill with tears as they just stood there, in complete shock. The baby burst into crying fits again, as if cuing that they could do it with it, too. "Mom," Percy said shakily, his voice breaking, "I'm back."
Sally nodded, the tears finally streaming in her eyes. Paul put his arm on her shoulders, and began to pick-up the baby, allowing her to wrap her hands around Percy, like she had always dreamed about the past few months. She buried her head on his shoulder, noticing for the first how much taller he had grown, how much his body had hardened with muscle. But he wrapped his strong arms around her ever so gently, the complete antithesis of what he would do to monsters. Tears streamed down his eyes, and that happiness that filled his chest – it was indescribable.
…
The bliss Percy had felt died down the moment he stepped inside the house, which was now apparently his, along with his Mom, Paul and his brand new mortal sibling. In his mother's arms, it had been home. But the house? Nice and picturesque as it was, his memories weren't here. This wasn't where he'd grown up. The pieces that lined the walls were unfamiliar to him, the staircase that immediately met him was to grand to fit that of a Manhattan apartment complex. They had to walk further to reach the living room, which looked like it came from a dream, or another one of those lifetime movies. It was too perfect.
It was bigger than their old living room, and the windows were so big they wouldn't need to turn on any lights. At the center of the wall were insanely elegant glass-double doors which lead to a lawn with a swing set only lucky, privileged kids would ever grow up with, kids with lives Percy had never known. There was even a legitimate fireplace with the homiest, comfiest looking chairs nearby. The top of the fireplace was adorned with pictures, which made Percy feel more of a stranger in the place.
It was filled with pictures of the baby in little frames. He was alone in a few shots, sometimes with Paul, sometimes with Sally, sometimes all three of them were in. A dark feeling brewed in Percy gut – it was as if they had formed a new little family while he was gone, a perfect one in a perfect house, without the threat of monsters or gods. He noticed the pictures of him through different stages of his life, but he looked almost like a stranger now that they weren't framed shabbily like they used to be in the old apartment. Somehow, the new elegant little frames that matched the entire house's motif had all the effect to make him feel alienated. And somehow, his pictures could never be as picture perfect as the ones with his new brother. It was as if his pictures ruined the whole image.
It was always just him and his mother, haunted by the stigma of single-parenthood. There were still traces of their poverty in some pictures. He didn't exactly have that backyard and those toys growing up. They were poor, living by whatever Sally could make with her odd jobs.
Now, that definitely wasn't the case anymore. Paul had a stable job; Sally had sold books that made her a great sum. And his brother, he would live that dream, privileged American kid life. One that was so much more picturesque than his.
But Percy tried to swallow this sudden jolt of sadness. I'm home now, he thought, and there's nothing better at the moment. He hid his feelings with his usual smile.
…
By dinner, he had a hard time hiding. His tiredness and weariness would seep through, and he'd hoped his parents would just interpret it as post-war stress. After all, it wasn't just any war he had gone through. But Sally, watching intently as Percy just played with his peas with his fork, new better.
"Percy," she said, pushing aside her empty plate, "come with me."
She led him up the carpeted set of stairs, and into a room nearby. It wasn't anything special, but compared to Percy's old room, it was definitely a lot more spacious. The closet was empty and so were the shelves and the desk, and the bed was covered so plainly. The room was filled with boxes piled so dangerously high. Percy came to realize that this would be his room.
"I never did want to sort this room myself," Sally said almost wearily as she sat on the bed, "I wanted to do it with you, so you'd know where things actually went." She chuckled, and beckoned Percy to sit by her. "I also didn't want to touch your stuff," she brought the nearest box to her lap, "I'm afraid I would just break down crying every time I looked at them."
Percy's heart sank as he watched his mother opening the box filled with his clothes. She brought out his favorite hoodie, then his shirts. It was cue that they would be unpacking his stuff, and Sally had a look on her face that seemed to say finally. Percy's heart constricted. He thought about the long times she had waited for him, afraid to touch his things and the memories they brought. He thought about the long months she was constantly haunted by worry and fear, the uncertainty of whether he was still alive. He knew it wasn't exactly his fault, but he blamed himself all the same for what he made his mother go through.
He held her hand, stopping her from folding his clothes. "Mom," he said hoarsely, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry I made you worry."
Sally smiled, though tears threatened her eyes again. "What matters is you came back at all. You came back home."
Percy frowned. He knew he shouldn't be complaining after all his ordeals. But it seemed too small a favor for him to be returned back home, where he imagined it would be. Where he doesn't seem like stranger, where there were actual traces of him everywhere – dirty clothes, rock records, band posters.
Sally, sensing his tension, put an arm around him. His gut cried out, sensing that he would be made to talk, as the look his mother was giving him would always make him feel. Fess up, she would say with her eyes.
"All new to you, isn't it?" she said.
Percy nodded, "this stuff only existed in those cheesy family dramas when I was a kid."
Sally gave a faint smile. "Growing up, we would always fuss about the rent and the bills, and never really had much left after we've paid for them. Our living room and kitchen was the size of the living room here," Percy said, "and there was a time it even used to smell like alcohol and moldy pizza. Cracks lined the walls, and when we'd open the windows, smoke from taxis would get in."
"Oh," Sally feigned exasperation, "not to mention the plumbing! The bathroom was already pretty ba-"
"Don't blame me for that!" Percy raised his hands adamantly, and Sally laughed.
"You miss it, don't you?" Sally said gently, as she rubbed Percy's back.
"I guess I should be thankful for this new house," Percy sighed, "I just didn't think this is where I'd go home to, whenever I allowed myself to think about coming back."
Sally stood up and took the smallest box in the room, which was on top of the night stand. Something about it stirred Percy's earliest memories. Sally opened it and said, "Remember this?" It contained stacks of paper which were filled with Percy's drawings as a toddler. Some of them were pictures and certificates, movie tickets and coupons. Percy could hardly believe that it made it all through these years. He thought they were gone forever that one night Smelly Gabe had a drunken fit of rage.
Sally replied, sensing how Percy was impressed, "I have my ways. With Gabe, I learned to be sneaky."
"But if you hid it all along, why didn't you show it to me sooner, when we were finally Gabe-free?"
Sally shrugged guiltily. "I may have thought I lost it until we started moving out," she smiled, "Can you blame me after all the mess you made?"
They started looking through all the drawings, without any attempts to stifle their laughter at Percy's most otherworldly ones. "Is that a walrus?" Percy laughed as he pointed to one, which only made Sally reply, "I don't know, it's your drawing!"
They found a drawing which made Sally's eyes light up. "Ooh, remember this one Perce?" she held it up for both of them to see. "It's your assignment in a class when you were six." Percy hunched to get a closer look. "Oh yeah," he chuckled, "the one where we had to draw what we wanted most in the entire world."
"That's right," Sally smiled. "Remember what your classmates would draw?"
"Weird stuff, like cars and mansions and castles. One kid drew this red circle, and when the teacher asked him what it was, he said, that it was Mars! He actually dreamt of owning Mars!"
Sally burst into laughter. "Your classmates were quite the dreamers."
"Yeah, some of them wanted to be famous pop stars or scientists or doctors, or just plain old filthy rich."
"But you drew this," Sally said. Percy's drawing was that of a woman and a man holding a kid's hand between them. There was a house in the background, and a dog. It seemed like the simplest dream among all the toddlers.
"A family," Percy said wistfully, "I guess I wasn't the big dreamer like my classmates." Sure enough, in his toddler head, the woman had been Sally, the kid himself, and the man his father, whom he didn't even know of yet.
Sally pulled Percy closer to her, and they both held the drawing in their hands. "I guess, back then, having a family was the biggest thing I could ever dream of. I mean, everybody had them. So I guess it was no big deal for everyone else. But for me, I always thought that having one would make me happy all the time."
Then it struck him. The picture he drew back then.. is the life he has right now. An image of a family. Plus a noisy, incredibly adorable bundle of joy. After all these years, six-year-old Percy's dream had come true. And for all the time he's been in this house, he was inwardly complaining, feeling alienated.
Sally moved on to the best drawing of a woman a six-year-old could ever make. Sally knew it was her, despite the hair that looked like two stiff snakes down her stick-figure body. Toddler Percy had given it her blue eyes, and a megawatt smile. "What's with this one?"
"Oh, that," Percy chuckled, "I wanted to see you happy. I mean, genuinely happy. Not just smiling to make me feel better. But happy because you don't have to work all day to pay the bills to come home to a messy apartment and a troublesome kid."
"You're making that up!" Sally teased, but she was touched.
Percy feigned being appalled. "Who, me? But wasn't I always the most thoughtful kid?"
Sally laughed, remembering the times Percy had caused her trouble, giving her seemingly extra shifts of work home after all the mess he would make and all the trouble he would cause. He remembered how many times she got fired because of her employers' agitation towards this mother who kept getting called in the middle of work because of the new kid his son would punch at school. But she always knew that Percy was a kind-hearted kid, and most of the time, those ordeals were never really his fault. It's hard to be a demigod amongst mortals, specially at that age, having Percy's spunk.
"And now, I'm happy," she said, ruffling his hair, finding he had to bend down for her to do so, and kissed the top of his head. "Genuinely happy." Percy smiled.
They moved on to the next picture, which was an architectural feat for a six year old. It was a drawing of a house Percy copied from a picture of a magazine, which was attached with a paperclip. It wasn't exactly close to the picture, but you could still recognize it as the house from his funny looking, off-proportioned details.
With a jolt or realization, the house in the magazine picture, the house in his drawing, is the very house they're in at the very moment. "Mom, I-"
"Paul and I have only been here for four months," Sally began, "we've been planning it for a long time. We've started to save up. When I finally got this deal for my book's sequel, we finally had the money. I was pretty sad back then, and pregnant," she laughed. "My hormones were of the charts. I made these irrational demands and had these untimely mood-swings. You should've seen the look on Paul's face!"
Percy smiled fleetingly. "But then one day I realized, when Paul urged me to start packing, and I found this box, I thought of how great it would be that when you came back, you'd come back to this home. The one we have always dreamed of."
Guilt washed over Percy. He realized, his drawings, his early childhood desires, had all come true. They were all tangible and seemingly permanent – he would come home to this house, to these people every day from now on. This house was his to explore and his to use and his to mark with his dirty clothes and My Chemical Romance posters and stinky socks and even ancient Greek relics and weapons. The food in the fridge was his to splurge on, the flat screen T.V. for his eyes to get glued on. Somehow, he could imagine his friends from both camps coming over, with sandwiches served at the garden table at their lawn, and they could just joke around like regular teenagers as friends. Percy could imagine Annabeth having dinner with them here, watching a movie with him by the fireplace, snuggled up close to him.
How Annabeth would love this place, he thought.
His reverie was cut through by a piercing cry. Without hesitation Sally stood up and walked toward the hall outside, where Paul was carrying the crying baby. Percy tailed after her. When he got there, the baby was in Sally's arms, happily cooing. Percy smiled at the sight of his mother, with her husband's arms wrapped around her. She made these ridiculous faces and the baby made a high-pitched sound like a laugh. "Maybe he wants his big brother to hold him," Sally said in a ridiculous, child-like voice.
Percy stopped dead in his tracks. Paul and Sally only smiled at him encouragingly. "Uhmm, no, no way!" Percy stuttered, obviously flustered. "He's so tiny!" He didn't exactly trust his monster-fighting trained hand to carry someone so small that he barely resembled a human yet. But Sally was already handing him over anyway, while instructing Percy of the proper hand position – where to put the baby's head and body and all.
The baby was so light and fragile, Percy could hardly believe he was a living, breathing being that could soon grow to be as tall as he was. The baby made high-pitched little laughs, to which Paul teased, "He thinks you look funny!"
"A lot of people think I look funny," Percy said in a fake surly voice, to which the baby laughed again. "A lot of people think I look funny!" Percy said again, in an even more ridiculous voice, even throwing in a face. The baby laughed on, and Percy found that he could only smile. It was as if he couldn't control his lip muscles.
"Benjamin Ansel, huh?" he said, while he rocked the baby, the way he would see his parents do. "From your favorite authors?" he addressed Paul and Sally, and they nodded. "Not a name as cool as Perseus," he chuckled, "but I'm afraid that would do."
Sally began to try to take Benjamin back, but Percy held him back. "He's like a little bean!"
Paul laughed. "Don't be overly fond now, kid. He's got to be fed."
Percy handed him back to Paul while Sally prepared the milk formula. "Beans," Percy said, "that's what we should call him. Since he looks like one, and it's the first two letters of his first name and the first three letters of his second name."
"He might not like that nickname," Paul said doubtfully.
"Beans? I think it's adorable!" Sally chuckled while she began to bottle feed the baby.
"I'm going to teach him how to bike one day," Percy said, beaming with genuine happiness, "and give him girl advice, since I'd be an expert by then."
"Oh, trust me, you'll never become an expert when it comes to women," Paul teased, and Sally playfully elbowed him.
Percy can't help but be overjoyed at the scene before him. He had never felt anything like it for the past few months. This was his life now. All of a sudden, the place didn't seem so bad. He wouldn't mind coming back here every day after school. He didn't mind the perfect pictures of Beans seemingly reluctant amidst his shabby ones. They'd soon be filled with new ones one day, one with them together. The two brothers, his parents – all of them.
He would fill this house with new memories, happier ones. Ones that don't involve a drunkard wailing at them, yelling obscenities, threatening to hit them with the furniture. Ones that don't involve a furious land ladies, tired of their excuses and the little money they'd scrape up.
A lot of things changed in Percy's life over the course of the years, mainly since he found out he was a demigod. In fact, a lot of change happened in the final moments of the war alone. Nothing was the same anymore. And this new home.. it was part of that overwhelming series of change. But it was a good change. It was change that made him feel warm and comfortable and accepted and safe. It was change that left a seemingly permanent smile etched on his lips.
Finally, he felt like he was back home.
Thank you so much for reading! Hope you enjoyed it! How are the litte surivivors of BoO? :3