Chapter 4
Perseus POV
As I waited outside, I could hear the wind whistling around the building. But within a few more seconds, the door opened and out stepped Piper, along with another cheerleader that I had recognized from English class.
"Perseus, this is a good friend of mine, Annabeth." Piper introduced us.
I turned towards her, taking her outstretched hand in my own and kissing the backside of her hand like I was raised to. As I looked up, I saw a bright red blush at my action, but offered a warm smile at the facial expression. "It's nice to meet you, Annabeth." I greeted her.
"I just wanted to ask about your abilities on the field. How long have you been playing football?" Annabeth asked, seeming to be interested.
"I've been playing since I was able to carry one. I played pee-wee, before going into youth leagues and then joining my middle school team to get here now." I explained, noticing that Piper also seemed to be interested as well.
"Did you do any other sports?"
"I loved to play soccer when I was younger, until my passion for football made me pick between the two. I also played golf for a couple of years before quitting. But I still do some gymnastics now, even if I am no longer part of a team. I do it here or out in the park, to keep up my abilities." I explained.
"You do gymnastics?" Annabeth asked me, eagerly.
I smiled back at her. "I've been flipping since I was eight." I replied.
"Would you be interested in stopping by the dance class before school on Monday? Just to see what all you can do." Annabeth asked, leaning a little closer to me.
I tilted my head to the side as well. "Answer my question first, and then I'll tell you my answer."
"Okay, shoot." She relented playfully.
At this time, Piper made a hand motion saying that she was leaving, but neither of us even gave her a glance, both entirely fixed on each other. And once the door closed, I leaned in closer to the cute blond in front of me. "What was your first impression of me?"
She scoffed lightly as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Honestly, I thought you were this huge tool who was going to be a player with the other girls. Then I realized why your name sounded so familiar. I was working in the hospital that day when your family was killed by the road raged drunk. And after seeing you defend Nico after only knowing him a day, I realized that I was wrong about you." She explained, placing a hand on my wrist lightly.
I sighed with a nod, looking away from her for a brief second. But when I looked back at her, I nodded to her and placed my other hand on top of hers. "Thank you."
"But back to my question." She drawled, changed subjects.
"I'll be there at 8:05." I promised.
"Good. I can't wait to see your skills." She flirted, giving me a shy, but cute wink.
I let out a deep chuckle as I looked into here twinkling eyes. "How are you this adorable?"
"I-I…what?" Annabeth responded, a dark red blush enveloping her face as she tried to look away from me. She turned around to grab at the door, but I caught her wrist lightly, making her turn around to face me. But when I saw that she flinched at my contact, I made her look at me.
"Annabeth, are you afraid of me?" I asked softly.
"N-no." She stuttered, looking firmly at me, but her eyes clued me in.
"Someone else then." I concluded.
At her shaky nod, I brushed her curls out of her face and looked at her gently. "You don't have to tell me. But if you do, I can help."
"Why?" She breathed out. "You don't even know me."
"That doesn't mean that I wouldn't do something about it. No one deserves to be abused."
"I-I c-can't." She breathed out, turning away from me. "He'll k-know."
"Annabeth, look at me." I prompted. When she turned back to face me, I clasped her hands with my own and looked into her eyes. "If someone is hurting you, I want to do something about it. And if you ever need something, I will be there for you." I promised, keeping my voice calm, but soft.
"How?"
"Let me see your phone." I said, taking her phone as soon as it was revealed. I opened up her contacts and added myself, and showed her. As I handed it back to her, I placed a finger under her chin, making her actually look at me. "I mean it. If you need anything, call me. I'll be there."
Seeing her chin tremble, I quickly pulled her into a tight hug and rested my chin on top of her head, as she laid her head down on my right shoulder gap. "Thank you Percy."
Line Break
At around 1am, most of the party guests had decided to leave, which suited me just fine because I was getting ready to start kicking people out. Everyone thanked me for hosting the party and congratulated me for a job well done tonight, but I brushed off the tired/drunk remarks. Frank came up to me at one point, asking me if Hazel was dating anyone. I only gave him a knowing smile in return and introduced them to each other, before leaving seconds later.
As the rest were leaving, I noticed that Annabeth was looking around nervously. I made my way over to her, calling her name softly as I stepped in front of her. "I can't find Piper." She complained, it dawned on me that she was Annabeth's ride home.
"They left almost ten minutes ago." I informed, looking around to make sure. But when the door closed, we were alone in my apartment, cementing the fact that Annabeth's ride was really gone.
I gently tapped her shoulder, making her look me in the eye. "It's no safe to go back home at this hour. So just call your parents and tell them that you're staying with a friend. If they want to talk to me, I'll be fine with that. You can use my bed, and I'll sleep on the couch." I offered.
"Okay." She replied, pulling out her phone as she sat down on the couch. "Hi, dad. It's me, Annabeth…no Piper already left so I'm just going to stay with a friend…sure." She said before handing me her phone so I could talk to her father.
"Hello, who is this?" The gruff, but worried voice asked.
"My name is Percy Jackson, sir." I introduced myself.
"Where do you live, I'm coming to get her?" He hurriedly asked.
"Sir, with all due respect, it's close to 2am. And the only people who are bound to be out at this time on the road are drunk. Annabeth is fine here, and will be back in a couple of hours, I give you my word." I tried to calm him down, keeping my voice even.
"Fine. I guess I'll have to trust my daughter's judgement until you drop her off." He scoffed.
I ended the call with a sigh as I handed the phone back to her. "Your dad's a real charmer."
"I'm sorry, he's just really worried…" Annabeth trailed off as she looked away from me. It sounded like there was more she wanted to say, but stopped herself.
"You don't have to tell me. I won't try to pry into your life unless you want me to." I promised.
"No, it's okay. You'll probably hear it when you meet my dad. But my mother was killed in the line of duty three years ago." Annabeth revealed, sniffling slightly.
Without even thinking it through, I pulled her into a hug, leaving her to rest her head on my chest as I patted her back. I didn't even say anything and neither did she as she let it go. But her position over me made some blood rush down to my groin as I had quite the view of a flustered girl hovering over me.
I don't know how much time had passed before I woke up on the couch. But our legs were tangled with each other, but she was laying on top of me. Our crotches were right up against one another, as she was essentially straddling me. Her arms were gripping the back of my shirt, her chest was pressed up against my own. And her blonde curls were strewn across her face as she was face-down in my shirt.
I guess it had to be a little while later, but a soft snore answered my suspicions, making my grin to myself. She had fallen asleep. I let my head fall back onto the arm of the couch, shaking my head at the situation I was faced with.
I didn't want to wake her up. But I also needed to a blanket or something else for her to curl up with. I also needed to get her to my bed, so she wouldn't even have to worry about me trying anything with her. Maneuvering myself carefully, I was able to gently pick her up and slowly take her over to my bedroom. I placed her on the covers and grabbed an extra blanket from my closet as I draped it over her.
Leaving my bedroom door slightly ajar, I stepped back out to the kitchen. I grabbed a soda can from the door pocket of the appliance and opened it silently. "Man, I'm in some trouble."
Annabeth POV
The smell of scrambled eggs drifted into my head as I opened my eyes. Taking a quick glance around, I noticed that I wasn't in my room. For one thing, the room had been painted a sea-green shade that really accented the stream of sunlight that showed through the curtained window to the right of the room.
"This must be Percy's room." I muttered, noticing a picture frame on his bedside table. I smiled at the happy grin on his face in the picture as he held a younger boy in his arms. That must've been his younger brother, the one that was killed along with his parents.
I still couldn't believe that he had already lost his family, he was only…actually I don't even know how old he is. He had to have been 17 to be able to live on his own, but to own a place, he had to be 18 at least.
Letting my thoughts get the better of me, I gingerly threw off the blanket and folded it on the end, near the foot of the bed. I looked down at myself to see that I was still fully clothed and sighed in relief. I quietly walked to the doorframe and pushed the door open as a stronger smell of bacon hit my nose.
"Hey." Percy greeted, noticing me as I walked over to the kitchen area where he was setting a plate down on the table. It was stocked with bacon, which made my mouth water.
"What kind of eggs do you want?" He politely asked, but I couldn't really focus.
Percy was shirtless. And he looked so good. I felt a blush rise to my face as I let myself be lost in his defined eight pack, as it stared back, tempting. I felt him shake my shoulder and pulled myself out of his muscular abdomen to look up into his eyes. They were twinkling in amusement, knowing what I was looking at, but not taunting me.
"I'll have scrambled." I decided quickly.
"Okay." He smiled, turning around and cracking some eggs on the stove over a pan.
I looked back over at him, only to widen my eyes at the sight before me. There was a plethora of deep scars carving the entirety of his back. Some were small, only a couple of inches long, but the rest were at least a foot long.
"What happened to your back?" I asked Percy, lightly touching the biggest scar on his back.
I felt him tense at my touch and question. He muttered a "fuck" underneath his breath before turning back around to face me. "I keep forgetting that it's still there." He seemed to murmur to himself before finally looking me in the eyes. "Not now."
"Okay." I reluctantly replied, taking my hand off of his back.
He sighed to himself before gently taking one of my hands in his own. "It's not something that I like to talk about, because it brings back really bad memories." I nodded in response, not holding it against him. The scarring marks look pretty bad, but its his choice to tell me or not.
"Does anyone else know?"
"No." He replied, confirming my suspicions.
"What does your tattoo say? I don't recognize the language." I brought up, changing the subject.
He smiled gratefully at me for the subject change. "Είμαστε οι μόνοι που γεννούν τους άνδρες."
"What was that?" I asked, completely bewildered at the foreign language he just spoke.
"It's Greek. It says 'we are the only ones who give birth to men'. It's a direct reference to the women of Sparta." He explained, smiling at my shocked face. "In memory of my mother."
"Do you like Greek mythology?" I asked, hoping that he would.
"Of course, I wouldn't get this tattoo for kicks." He replied with a laugh.
"Who's your favorite Olympian?" I asked, curiously.
"Poseidon. How about you?" He asked curiously.
"Athena." I answered, letting a tense silence settle between us.
"How about second favorite?" Percy asked, looking at me with a glint in his eyes. "We say it on three." He offered. I nodded my head, watching him hold up three, two…one. And then we both spoke at the same time.
"Hestia."
We both broke into an easy grin as we let out a laugh. "Well at least we can agree on something." Percy deadpanned with a playful tone.
"I still can't believe you like that sea god." I scoffed, hitting his arm lightly.
"And you would rather choose a prideful wisdom goddess?" He retorted playfully.
"So I take it that your name is based off of the demigod?" I replied, not wanting this to become an argument.
"Yeah, my mom wanted me to get the ending that he got. The only demigod who died happy, and not in war, executed or anything like that." Percy replied, taking the eggs off the stove and onto another plate.
He set it down on the table, getting out two forks as well. I sat down across from him at the table, taking one of the forks and a strip of bacon. We both got into a comfortable silence as we ate off the same serving plate, occasionally smiling at each other in between bites.
"I guess I should take you back home." Percy brought up as we finished eating.
"Yeah, I told my dad that I would be back by 11. And since its 9:30, we should go." I replied with a sigh as he smiled gently at me.
"You know I kind of wish that you and I were in the same history group. We could have done this project, and gotten an easy A." Percy wondered out loud.
"Do you know what you three are going to do?" I asked, already knowing who he was paired up with. Piper had already told me, not long after that class had ended.
"Not yet. Actually in a little bit, we're supposed to meet up at Piper's place to come up with an idea for our project. I would like to do something about the upbringing of Sparta. I know Piper wanted to do something about Theseus, but I feel that no one else would choose Sparta, because it wasn't one of the examples we could choose from." Percy informed me, making me cock my head to the side at his cleverness.
He grabbed a tight-fitting shirt from his room before slipping on a pair of running shoes and grabbing two helmets from the table next to the couch. He held out one of the helmets to me, and I took it, smiling at the design on the front.
I made sure that I had everything before walking out of the apartment with Percy not far behind me. I could hear him lock the door to his home before he strode over to where his bike was parked from where he left it last night.
He slid his own helmet over his face, keeping the eye slit open. I giggled as he easily got onto the vehicle and patted the seat behind him for me to get on. I carefully slung my left leg over the body of the bike and grabbed onto his chest as he revved the engine. "Don't do that." I hissed at him, hitting his side.
"Sorry, I couldn't pass it up." He playfully replied, tilting his head to look at me.
I rolled my eyes at his eyebrow wiggle and placed my arms back around his stomach, occasionally grabbing onto his muscular chest as we took off down the street. I had already told him my address, so he knew where he was going. The feeling of wind through my hair was exhilarating to say the least. I had never been on a motorcycle before, but I was loving it.
When we pulled up to my street, I saw some of my friends from school on the sidewalk point and stare at me on the back of Percy's motorcycle. He seemed to see them as well, because he revved the engine playfully as we came to a stop in front of my house.
I got off the bike in a rush, my foot caught the edge of the bike and I almost fell to the ground. I would have if Percy didn't catch me by my waist. Then he pulled me back up to my feet and brushed the hair out of in front of the helmet view, playfully. "You good?"
"Yeah." I tried to say, thankful that the helmet was covering my face as I was blushing madly.
He effortlessly took off his own helmet, setting it down on the seat of the bike as he stepped forward to take off mine. I let him take it off, enjoying his unique cologne. He smelled like an ocean breeze, and it was intoxicating.
As he set the helmet on the bike, next to his own, I heard a bunch of gasps and squeals of the others who I forgot were still watching this. I turned to yell at them to go away, but Percy laid a hand on my shoulder and I found myself lost in his eyes. "We should probably get you inside before they get any louder." He quipped, taking my hand from its place at my side.
I didn't answer as I let myself be escorted to my front door. But as we got to the porch, the door opened and my dad stepped out. I could see that his eyes zoomed towards the motorcycle first, and then to Percy before settling on our intertwined hands.
Percy let go of my hand as he extended it towards my father, speaking in a clear but respectful tone. "Hello sir, my name is Perseus Jackson. I talked to you on the phone earlier this morning."
"Frederick Chase. It's nice to meet you as well." My father greeted back, before smiling warmly at me, as he gestured for the both of us to come inside the house.
As we all sat down at the kitchen table, my father gave Percy a glass of water as he settled in the seat across from my friend. "How long have you been riding?" My father asked, and I instantly knew that the interrogation had started.
"I've been riding since I was six years old. I would dirt bike with my father on the weekends and then get yelled at by mom for coming home so dirty." Percy replied, getting a chuckle out of my dad.
"I don't recognize your name, did you just transfer here this year?"
I shot my dad a look, saying 'don't.' But Percy gave me a shake of his head and leaned forward in his seat. "Yes sir." He didn't elaborate any more than that.
"What do your parents do for a living?" My father asked, instantly sending the room into silence.
Percy was biting his lip, his eyes flickering over to me once before he looked back at my father. "My father was a drill sergeant for the Marines and my mother was a nurse." He replied.
"What do you mean by 'was'?"
"Dad." I said, getting the attention of my father, but he ignored the wild look in my eyes.
"They passed away last spring." Percy informed softly.
"Do you live with relatives?" My father asked, curiously.
"No sir. I live by myself." Percy answered.
At this, my father leaned forward in his seat, a gleam in his eyes that I didn't like. "So you live alone, with no guardian around to stop you from doing stupid shit with potentially putting my daughter in danger? How are you even old enough to live alone?" He accused, his voice rising.
Percy's eyes narrowed greatly at the accusation. "For the record, I'm 18. And the reason why I am able to live alone is because my parents asked for me to stay in the apartment I was born in. That way even though they were gone, I could always live in the place I grew up in." He defended, somehow keeping his voice level.
"Dad that's enough!" I yelled, causing both of them to look at me because of my outburst.
But when my father sharply stood up from his seat, I flinched. His attention was firmly on me and he was furious that I had spoken out of turn. He must've forgotten that Percy was in the room because he backhanded me across the face hard in a flash. The impact spun me out of my seat and I hit the floor with a thud.
I landed on my face, cringing in pain as my vision was now blocked by the floor. But I could hear a couple of slapping sounds before another thud hit the ground. I rolled onto my back only to see my father lying on the ground next to me. And Percy was standing over him with a furious expression on his face, his knuckles starting to swell up and bruise.
"Percy." I gasped out, yanking him from his daze. He quickly kneeled next to me, cupping my face as he looked at the reddening bruise starting to form on my cheek.
"I'm going to call the cops." Percy said, pulling out his phone, but before he dialed, he pulled me into a sitting position and pulled me into a tight hug. "It was him, wasn't it?"
"Y-yes." I replied.
"Hey, look at me." Percy whispered, making me look at him. "I'm going to be right beside you through all of this." He assured me, pressing a kiss to my forehead before starting to dial the number for the authorities.
"Hello…my name is Perseus Jackson and I'm calling for a squad car to be sent to 1453 Athens Grove." He informed after I reminded him of my street address. "I'm calling to report a case of child abuse…how soon can you get here?" He asked looking out of the window. "Okay thank you…bye."
He ended the call and gently pulled me up to my feet, leading me to the guest bathroom. He flipped on the lights and started to wet a washcloth in the sink. He brushed some blonde curls out of my face, gently pressing the damp washcloth against the blue-black bruise on my cheek.
As he was whispering encouraging words in my ear, it started to sink in. My father was going to prison and I would be sent away, possibly to another state because of this. I let out a choked gasp as I started to cry. Percy quickly pressed my un-injured cheek to his chest as he rubbed my back comfortingly. "Everything is going to be okay. If I have to, I'll adopt you."
I managed to let out a choked giggle at the image of me being adopted by this dork. And it made me feel a whole lot better, because I stopped sniffling and looked directly at him. "Promise?"
"Promise." He replied, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
Surprised that I got this updated on time? I know I am
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