Just like Percy asked, neither of his parental figures have called since. He wasn't sure if he was happy or bitter about the fact they didn't.
After a week passed, the wounds on his face had slowly started to heal and he had gotten used to sleeping at seven in the morning after his new overnight shift. Silas kindly offered to pay him almost as much as Joe had to his surprise, at least until he could find Percy another job through his associates. Although Percy didn't mind working at the bodega at all. It wasn't too busy and gave him some time to read and do problems when he wasn't busy with the customers or stacking up the goods around the store, and not a lot of people came in during his shift. Just a couple of drunk college kids from time to time to annoy him at ungodly hours or businessmen in a hurry before he leaves his shift.
Luckily, because of this job, he had the money to pay off the rent and utilities. He could probably hold down the fort until next month but he would be cutting it too close to the vest. He needed another job or he wouldn't have much to spare along with rising transportation costs. He was still grateful that Silas had offered him free food along with now what is an official employee discount. He'd have to find a way to show his gratitude and pay him back gradually.
During one of his shifts during the night of the week, Annabeth, the blonde, paid him an unexpected visit. She quietly came in through the door and the bells rang softly against the glass of the door. It was early in the morning and she was wearing a huge rug-like cardigan with slippers. Her hair was messily made up and she had bags under her eyes.
"Oh, hey," Percy got up from his squatting position of shelving products and dusted his hands. "It's good to see you."
"Oh, hello." Her hands went to fix her wild curly hair. "Good to see you, too."
"Here for more weird food combinations?"
She looked at him weirdly. He clarified, "Last time you were here, you took a bag of gingersnaps and an ungodly amount of salsa."
"Oh," she laughed softly. "No, that was for my roommate. She has cravings due to her pregnancy." She started to the isle of the marshmallows and grabbed Tabasco hot sauce. She eyed the coffee pot. "Some coffee, please. I guess you're open during these hours now?"
"Ah, explains the weird combinations. We're testing out being open twenty-four hours," he'd informed her as he poured her coffee. He took her items and scanned them, bagging them and handing everything to her. "Cream and sugar in the counter over there."
"Thankyou," she took everything from him with grace. "And that's great. I know I asked him if he'd ever consider it since it might be good business for him." She handed him her method of payment and he finalized the transaction.
"Yeah he said a few people said that," he gave her back her card after swiping it a few times with the receipt. "Lucky me, I'm testing it out. So far, it's good. He might make profit if word gets out more that it's open during those hours."
She took a spot on one of the bar seats with the squishy red stool. She gathered her bag of goods and set them nicely on her lap. "That would be great for him." She looks up at him and studies him. Her face softens in the slightest. "Glad to see you look better," she quietly says.
Percy realizes she's talking about his bruises and the cut on his eyebrow. The cut was almost healed and his bruises were now an ugly yellow. He's embarrassed and self-conscious about them particularly when she notices them, so he shakes his unruly hair to hide some of his eyebrow. "Yeah, I guess so."
There was a bit of silence that passed between them, neither party looking at the other. Percy's eyes landed on the clock hung on the wall opposite to him, then frowned.
"It's three in the morning," Percy noted to her, a bit slow on the realization but confused on why she sat down. "You're staying here?"
"Yeah I think I'll drink my coffee here. It's a bit of a walk from my place."
"There aren't any bodegas around there?" He raised an eyebrow at her and leaned over the counter on his forearms. "It's sorta dangerous to walk around alone during these hours." It was ironic he was saying this due to the fact that he was trouble, the healed cuts and bruises proving it. Not that he would hurt her.
She frowned before taking a sip of her coffee. "Yeah, it's unfair I'd have to worry about that. But I came here to sit at the park for a while but I saw that the bodega lights were on. So I thought I'd get Angel – my roommate – her stuff here."
"Couldn't sleep? Why were you going to the park at this hour?" He had to bite his tongue from stating the dangers of being out during these hours since it seemed to upset her.
"Yeah," she rubbed her temples and it made her messy hair even messier. "Some late nights I have trouble sleeping."
"Penny for your thoughts?" He wrung his fingers together, nervous and curious at the same time.
She stared off into the distance, seeming to contemplate on if she wanted to say something or not like she had at the library. Percy, just like then, felt like he could end up sorry for asking because he related to her. Silas sometimes would ask about things and Percy, just like Annabeth in front of him, would wonder for a little on if he should confide. But he never ended up doing so, as he never wanted to be an emotional burden and have Silas feel sorry for him. That would be the last emotion that Percy would want him to feel towards him.
Not that he would do that to Annabeth. He would never feel sorry in the wrong way towards someone when he hated that feeling.
Annabeth seemed to rub her fingers along the cup of her coffee. Percy just looked at her in peace and silence. The whole bodega was filled with it. He didn't even hear a single truck go by. The world seemed impossibly still and it seemed for a minute that they were the only humans who existed on this block. The silence only broke when Annabeth sighed. "Perhaps this is something I can talk about another time," she drinks another sip. "Just... not right now."
"Okay." He says, nodding. He can respect that. Percy isn't quite sure what compels to do this, but he decides to go to the grill and make a vegetable omelet. Annabeth watches him with curiosity as she downs the last of her coffee. He's done, puts the semi-attractive looking omelet on a paper plate he finds in the back of the counter and places it in front of Annabeth.
She looks at him and the plate of food in confusion. "I didn't order this."
"I know," he says, handing her a fork. She confusingly accepts. "It's for you so you have energy for your trip back."
"Oh," She picks up the fork and looks at the omelet. "Thankyou, this is probably the nicest thing someone has done for me this week."
Percy blushed, not expecting the compliment. He waves her off nonchalantly. "It's no big deal. You were a great deal of help to me at Bobst. It's the least I can do. More coffee?"
"No thank you, I might want to sleep when I get back. If I can, that is." She took a bite off the omelet. Percy vaguely wondered if it tasted good, but she seemed to at least be okay with it as she took subsequent bites after another.
Annabeth was quiet. She was just quiet in general. She chewed with her mouth closed quietly, she walked quietly, she entered bodegas quietly, and she even spoke pretty quietly. She even existed quietly; it was like she was a ghost just drifting through spaces and occupying only what she needed. Her body was scrunched up to make her smaller than she already was like she was tense. Percy wondered what made her scrunched up like that because it looked borderline uncomfortable. He figured it must be the stress of school.
"Do you have a napkin?" She said, interrupting his thoughts. There was a dispenser in front of her.
He blinked and realized. "Oh is the dispenser empty?" He goes over to her side to check and sees that it is indeed empty. " Oh, I guess it is. My bad, I'm still not very used to this. Hold on."
He reached down from behind the counter and found the stack of napkins. He handed a couple over to Annabeth and then took the dispenser from the bar and refilled it. She watched as he did so. "So, how did you like the book you borrowed?"
"It's fine," Percy said as he set down the dispenser. "I read most of the collections. They're pretty interesting. They all sound like Silas so I read it in his voice which was funny. Silas thought it was funny."
"You already read most of the collections?" she raised an eyebrow and looked at him with surprise. "That was fast."
"I'm a fast reader." Only a skill cultivated from being extremely alone for his whole life. Only if she knew. "It's not as fun as reading texts, though. That's the book that I got overdue by accident."
"Textbooks?"
"Yeah."
"Oh," she tapped her fork thoughtfully on her bottom lip. "What subject?"
"Physics, mostly."
"That's a hard subject to just enjoy."
"Well, It's enjoyable when you're not stressing about grades or how well you're doing. I feel like you're then less focused on if you actually understand the material. And I've got an unlimited amount of time. Unbounded by semesters or deadlines." he says as he mindlessly wipes the already-clean counter with the rag next to him. "Although I am bound by the constraints of fifty an hour." He deadpanned.
She laughed, the sounds chiming his corner of the bodega. He decided he liked the sound of it. During their conversation she had finished her omelet and Percy took the empty plate along with her fork and coffee and threw it away for her. She finally got up, grabbing her bag of marshmallows and hot sauce. "Thanks for the omelet," she says as she pushes her barstool in. Percy decides pushing it in isn't the right word as she picked it up slightly, moved it forward, then placed it down for it to be less noise. She even moves chairs quietly, he observes. "I appreciate it."
"No problem," he says. "Get home safe. Give your roommate my regards and tell her that her cravings are extremely weird."
He earns another laugh from her and it makes him slightly smile. "I will." She starts for the door of the bodega. "I'll see you again."
And he sure hopes he does.
;;;
When Percy goes home to sleep at seven-thirty in the morning, he has a bit of trouble.
His whole room was just his living room. Unfortunately for him, his living room had huge windows so all the sunlight that could possibly shine through its way to his corner was preventing him from getting the rest he needed. He tossed and turned into his makeshift bed and shifted into tens of different positions only to fail being comfortable.
He contemplates giving up sleep to push through the day by mild suffering, but he knows that is a bad choice. He surrenders to the fact that he'll have to get sunlight-blocking curtains and makes the decision to make the trip to get them now. He'll lose a few hours of sleep to getting there, shopping, and installing them, and he knows they'll cost him a deal he cannot afford; but he acknowledges it as an investment. After all, he doesn't know when the next job or what its hours would be.
He ends up spending about an hour and a half in total including a nice shower before laying back down into his corner. He stares at the ceiling and is pleasantly surprised by how much sunlight was actually blocked by the curtains he bought. It wasn't perfect since he was on a budget, but it did the job. He wondered why he didn't do this earlier in the week when he started working overnight cause he finally could rest without the sunlight blinding his eyes.
Who was he kidding. He always had trouble sleeping. He had trouble sleeping ever since there was conflict in the family. He thought by escaping that and living on his own would solve that somewhat. He was wrong. The sunlight was only a minor factor to why he twisted and turned, eyes wide open. But the curtains did help.
He closes his eyes and lets his mind wander. It's usually boisterous and consumes his energy to listen to his mind energetically talk, but this time he let them flow and he let himself observe.
Family problems, he hears in her voice in his head. Some late nights I have trouble sleeping.
He definitely knows how that's like.
The way she took up less space, the way she existed quietly; Percy felt a little bit of his heart feel for her. He didn't know what exactly she was going through but the two encounters, one during the day and one at night, gave him somewhat of a perspective to how she drifted through life. He wondered briefly if she was as troubled as him, but again remembers she's a student at one of the most expensive schools in the country and is pursuing her dreams there. Whatever she was going through, at least she had parents that supported her enough for her to go to college.
Family problems. He wonders if it could be as bad as his.
Percy's parents could easily do that for him too. His father had enough money for him to go to college for the rest of his life. The only thing stopping him was his unwillingness to ever accept any help from him. Sally had begged him multiple times to let him pay for his college and he considered it for seconds before he determined to rid himself of his father's influence once and for all. He didn't want to live in his shadow, and he certainly didn't want to stick around before he could be convinced otherwise by his mother.
Which explains why he's here now, lying down in the middle of his living room, forearm on his forehead, looking at the ceiling with bits of light shining through his new curtains. He closes his eyes and tries not to think of his mother and the phone call he got from Poseidon. While he was... livid... that Poseidon called him not to see how his only son was doing but to demand an apology to his mother when he was the one that truly made her so upset all the time made him want to scream into his pillow.
Poseidon. Poseidon. Just thinking of the name made him mad. His body tensed, his head started to ache, and his fingers were balled up into a fist hear his forehead. He cracks open some of the curtain and window, takes a cigarette from the pack on the floor, and lights it up. He smokes laying down, careful so the ashes don't fall on himself.
All the anger made him dizzy. Allow your thoughts to come and go. Just don't serve them tea, Silas had once read to him from his phone, and it swam around in his head. But he ended up serving the lot of his thoughts tea. He had a whole goddamn tea party.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, allowing himself to relax. If being calm was anything, it let him win against his father. He knows this and he convinces himself of this. Poseidon didn't have any power over Percy anymore, nor will he ever. Not financially, not emotionally, and not by his manipulations.
He's only halfway through the cigarette, but he puts it off on the windowsill and throws it into the distance. He closes the window until there's only a little crack for the remainder smoke to get through, closes the curtains, then lays back down.
His muscles loosen up and catches up with how tired he is from this week, along with the help of nicotine, and he slowly drifts to sleep. In the distance of his dreams, he's not sure why, he hears her soft laughter.
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