Chapter 14

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. I borrowed them from Rick actually. He can have them back once I'm done.

It's been locked inside for far too long. When you bottle everything up so determinedly, when your only outlet of communication is a nod or a shrug here and there, everything starts to mount up.

Percy feels physically sick.

He's bent over the toilet bowl, emptying the contents of his stomach for a third time, as if throwing up everything in his system will get rid of all the words and feelings desperate to be released. His throat is burning, his face is pale and sickly and his eyes are watering. He sits back on his heels, wiping his mouth with a tissue. He didn't know what it was, but he felt - to put it bluntly - like shit. His mother is at work, his stepfather hiding out in his bedroom and most likely diving into the liquor cabinet, leaving Percy to his own devices.

Being a Saturday, he's due at the therapist's early this morning. He supposes he has about half an hour left before he's due at the clinic.

Before he can stop it, Percy feels the bile rising in this throat again and he leans forward, spilling the contents of his stomach yet again.

The place feels cold as Percy steps into the familiar foyer, hating the way that he seems to spend the majority of his time here. The first thing he notices when he walks in, is that Nico isn't sitting in his usual chair.

He feels a little lost for a moment, as if something's not entirely right, but then his feet are moving him quickly down the hall to the usual room, knowing that he's already running late. Knocking a little timidly, Percy shuffles his feet, but he can't shake that feeling.

Everything's piling up again.

For a moment, he feels like he's going to be sick again, but he talks himself out of it, taking deep breaths. He keeps hearing his parents' words in his head, and it's all he can do to try and shut his mind down and ignore them.

And they wonder why he doesn't speak.

The door swings open, and his therapist greets him rather hastily. She seems far away, her mind on other things as she invites him in and he lays down on his usual couch, crossing one ankle over the other. She sits down across from him and peers down at him, as if trying to calculate something in her head.

"Percy..." she starts, as if she's not exactly sure how to get the words out. "We need - You need to listen to me, okay? We've been having these sessions every day for three weeks now, Percy, and we haven't made any progress-"

Percy is about to cut her off - he wrote his fucking name thank you very much - but she continues before he can get a word in.

"I'm so sorry, Percy, but there's not much else I can do unless you open up to me a little."

And he knows then, he knows what she's trying to make him understand. Just like all of the others, she's about to pass him off. She's done all she thinks she can, and now it's time to send him to somebody else so that they can have a go at cracking the puzzle.

He doesn't understand why it hurts so much.

He looks at her with obvious panic in her eyes, and she sees her way out. He's not going to like it, she knows, but it's the only way.

"How much do you hate your stepfather, Percy?"

Percy's eyes bulge a little before they narrow sharply, and he hunches his shoulders, turning away from her. He's furious, furious at her for bringing him up, at his stepfather for even existing.

"Why, him? Come on, Percy, tell me why you hate him so much. There's something there, I know. It's your parents, right, Percy? They put you through hell and back. I see the look you get in your eyes when I mention them. Come on, Perce, talk to me."

It's not going to happen, not physical speaking, at least, but if she can get him riled up enough...

"Do they hurt you Percy?"

He flinches, and maybe she's on the mark.

"Did he ever abuse you, Percy? Sexually?" in a lower voice this time, almost hesitant, and he looks at her with disbelief in his eyes.

A no, then.

She breathes a steady sigh of relief, and continues. "It's not the speaking you hate, is it, Percy?"

He nods his head, slowly. It's all building, so fast, so high, and he feels like he's going to explode. He wants to be sick again, just so that the words will disappear and he won't want to speak them. He wants to scream and yell and cry, but he keeps his lips in a thin line. His eyes are shining, and he's reliving it, over and over and over again.

"Words, Percy. They're not so bad, right? Unless they're being used in such a negative way. Is that it?"

He glares at her, and he's fuelling all of his anger over the past three years into her, because it's safe, there. The memories are rising behind his eyes and he tries to stop them, but they're so fast, so powerful. He wants her to stop, but at the same time, he thinks he'll die if she doesn't understand.

"Worthless!"

He flinches again, and she presses on. "Hateful words, Percy... Words that bury right in the pit of your soul until you want to tear yourself to pieces. You had no one else, huh? Just them. Just them and they never got it, did they, Percy?"

"As bad as your father - Not going to amount to anything, ever -"

He's crying and he can't stop it, the moisture dripping from his eyes no matter how hard he tries to stop it. He can hear them, see them yelling, and he's back to that night.

He's sitting cross-legged on his bed, hearing their screams from down the hall, even through the closed door. A finger finds its way to his lips and he chews on the nail nervously. He knows what his stepfather's temper is like when he's been drinking this much, and he knows how easily it ruins his mother.

"- Selfish bastard! You're ruining my life! And Perseus', too!"

"Perseus?!" the name is bellowed, disbelief running through the core of the sound. "All he ever does is sit around with that fucking guitar of his. He's never going to become anything, you know it."

There's a crash, the sound of flesh slapping flesh, and then there's footsteps storming towards his bedroom. At fourteen, he's not prepared for the anger - they've always hidden it so well before - but soon enough, the door practically flies off the hinges, and there's his stepfather.

He's never seen him so angry, so drunk.

He can smell the alcohol from where he's sitting, and it only takes seconds before his father is striding towards him, tearing apart his stepson's bedroom before he descends on the boy.

"Worthless piece of scum you are. Your mother, too."

There's the sound of something smashing, and that's when he sees the shattered beer bottle in his stepfather's hand. No, no.

It comes down, hard and fast, hateful words and curses following in its wake, and then, god, the pain.

He's crying steadily now, soft choking sobs and he wants to claw his own hair right out of his scalp.

"Percy? Percy, look at me. I'm so sorry," she whispers, and when he looks up, he can see that she is. This was never about making him relive horrible memories out of spite. She's trying to help, he can see that, but he's also starting to realize that the only way they can help, is at his own expense. They'll burrow into him until he speaks again, but none of them ever seem to notice or care about the damage they're going to leave in their wake. They'll tear him open, and when the puzzle is solved, they'll sit back triumphant, and it doesn't matter if he's a wreck - he's fixed, so they suppose.

He stands up on shaking legs, and all he wants to do is find Nico. Nico that isn't going to judge him, Nico that isn't going to force him to reveal secrets that he tried to hide even from himself.

"Percy, sit down, please. We have to talk about this."

He shakes his head, begging her silently to just let him go. He'd prefer to be broken forever so long as he doesn't ever have to think of anything again. As soon as he turns eighteen, he's going to be out of that house and away from his parents anyway, all he needs to do until then is ignore them. He's sure he can manage it, easy.

"You're scared to hurt people, aren't you Percy? Hurt them, like everybody else always hurts you?"

It's such a simple question, but it leaves Percy staggering. His knees give out just a bit, and he clutches onto the arm of the lounge to steady himself, his face white. He doesn't understand how she's done it, how she's finally cracked the puzzle that none of them seemed to be able to solve, in just one session.

He stares at her, and he can see it in her eyes that she knows she's gotten it right.

"It's okay, Percy. You're not him. You're not your stepfather."

Percy shakes his head, because everything's catching up so fast again, everything he's tried so hard to shut out. He's not his stepfather. He never was. He knows that. But there's the fear, and the fear is more powerful than any knowledge he might have.

"You're not your stepfather," she repeats, firmer this time, as if she's desperate to make him believe it.

Percy closes his eyes briefly, remembers the sting and the rush of blood, the agonizing pain and the alcohol on his stepfather's breath. He remembers the way he left his own stepfather lying on the floor mere nights ago, and he wonders whether he really is any better.

The thoughts are overloading him, and he doesn't know how much longer he can manage to stand up. Instead, he directs whatever energy he has in to getting out of there, away from her words because even though they're not spoken in an attempt to hurt him... Maybe they hurt just as much.

Words are mightier than the sword.

He knows, he knows.

Quicker than he would've thought he could manage, he's out of the room, crashing through doors and stumbling back into the foyer, his mind alight.

He needs Nico.

Well the last chapter was difficult to write, but his one was easy. I hope you like it. It kind of explains some things.