chapter six: battles of temptation
Lately, Percy's life has been exhausting. He's managed to convince Lucy to let him take more shifts despite his age, which is both good and bad. It means he's able to save up a little more money, but it also means hiding his work from Gabe is getting harder and harder. It seems like he's always hungry or tired, and he somehow hasn't spoken to Annabeth for a month. This was unintentional; at first, he was just swamped with both working at the mechanic's and trying to keep up with school. Then, his stepdad got in a week-long funk, and Percy had to watch his step with renewed fervour. The effort was all in vain, though—Gabe still gave Percy a black eye on Monday.
All of these things have worked together to create a domino effect, toppling Percy's mental state from occasionally poor to gutter-level. The main reason he started avoiding Annabeth is because he feels, sickeningly, like a burden. It's not fair of him to bring down his friends, too.
On the last day of October, Percy finishes his shift and heads home. His bones are heavy with exhaustion—last night, he barely slept. There was a dog barking somewhere in the trailer park, which kept him up. He hates being a light sleeper.
When he pushes open the gate to the trailer park, someone's yelling his name. "Percy!"
He glances sideways. When he sees who it is, he smiles. "Hey, Rachel. You alright?"
She's sitting outside her family's trailer in her wheelchair, a sketchbook open on her lap. As one of the only kids Percy's age in the trailer park, the two of them became fast friends. Rachel moved here a year ago—she used to live comfortably, but her family lost everything when her rich dad was jailed for fraud. "I'm good," she calls. "Come here and take a look at this."
Percy walks over, smiling amusedly. She lifts her sketchbook to show him what she's working on. It's an illustration of the trailer park, viewed from where she's sitting. "Wow, that's great! You really captured its ugliness."
"Thanks," she grins. "You going to the harvest festival later?"
Percy frowns. "I forgot it was on, if I'm honest." He wonders if Annabeth and the others are going, then pushes the thought out of his mind. "Probably not—I'm so tired. Why, are you planning on going?"
She nods. "Yeah, I'm going as Buffy."
"What, you got a blonde wig and everything?"
Rachel grins. "'Course. Buffy's not a redhead."
"Sounds awesome." He steps back. "I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"
"Alright. Bye, Percy." Rachel gives him a wave, already returning to her drawing.
Percy fishes in his pocket for his keys as he walks up the steps to his trailer, but his hands come up empty. "Oh, god." He checks under the flowerpot, then under the steps, but it's useless. He knows the spare is inside. Bracing himself, he knocks on the door.
From inside, Gabe shouts, "What?"
Percy squeezes his eyes shut before calling back, "I left my key."
He hears Gabe huff, then the creak of footsteps. The door opens. Instantly, the stink of tobacco washes over Percy; Gabe must have been smoking with the windows shut again. He narrows his eyes. "It's seven. Doesn't your school finish at three?"
"I was with friends."
Gabe scowls. "You've got nerve, coming back so late."
Percy doesn't mention that he's usually home much, much later and Gabe never notices. "Sorry, sir."
"You're being a little prick, you know that?"
"Christ, can I just come inside?" he asks, then immediately wishes he could bite the words back.
Gabe lets out a bellowing laugh. "I don't think so. Why don't you go back to your friends?" With that, he slams the door in Percy's face. The lock turns.
Percy groans, scrubbing a hand over his face. He turns around and walks back down the trailer's steps, kicking over a bin in frustration. After a long moment of wondering what to do, he makes a decision. He yells, "Rachel?"
Every Halloween, the harvest festival's music echoes across Virginia's countryside to the trailer park, whispering ripe temptation in Percy's ears. Last year was the first time he went, making this the second. He both desperately wants to see Annabeth there and is vehemently terrified that he will.
Rachel wheels along beside him. True to her word, she's donned a blonde wig. She's also changed into a leather jacket, and on her immovable legs she's wearing a matching pair of knee-high black boots. There's a stake in her pocket that Percy is deathly aware of because she threatened him with it when he showed up.
"Do you think I could pass for eighteen to buy drinks?" Rachel asks, completely serious.
Percy grins. "You are aware that you're only twelve, right?" At that, she attempts to ram her wheelchair into Percy's ankle. "Hey!" he protests, darting away. "What was I thinking? Of course you could."
"I bet I could with some makeup on," she muses. "I'll just get one of the college kids to let me have a sip from their flask."
The two of them head into the festival. It's in full swing. Above them, the night sky is clear—due to their town's lack of light pollution, the stars are blazing. Percy grabs the handles of Rachel's wheelchair and pushes her towards the nearby stage, running. She shrieks, but quickly devolves into laughter.
An hour passes, during which the knowledge that he's been kicked out is tossed to the back of his mind. He and Rachel end up by the bonfire with some other kids from Mileview, listening to the horror stories they have to tell. For some reason, the tales they whisper about hardly scare him. Bloodthirsty ghosts and spirits that drive you insane seem childish to Percy; he can think of crueler monsters.
After a while, he leaves Rachel by the bonfire talking to one of the private school girls. He walks deeper into the festival, breathing in the sweet smells of toffee and chocolate. It's an effort to stop thinking about the writhing knot of hunger in his stomach and avoid peering into the stalls. He knows he hasn't got any money.
Percy ends up by the pumpkin carving tent. For a moment, he's caught up in the memory of last year, of finding Annabeth here after not talking to her for a while. Of course he managed to screw up again. It's probably in his nature, ingrained deep in his sprawling veins.
"Percy?"
He whirls around, startled. "Annabeth?" She's standing behind him, a virgin cocktail in hand. Her hair's tinted blue and she's wearing a torn-up wedding dress, which confuses Percy for a moment before he realises it must be her Halloween costume. "I didn't think I'd see you here," he says dumbly.
"I come every year," she says. Her words are cold, but she's betrayed by her eyes, which brim with relief. Almost subconsciously, Percy steps forward. Annabeth steps back. "What?" she shoots at him.
There's a thousand things he wants to say. I missed you. I'm sorry. Can we be friends again? Instead, he comes up with, "I like your blue hair."
"It's temporary," she says, looking faintly stunned. "I'm Emily—the Corpse Bride."
"I can tell."
She crosses her arms. "You didn't dress up. Just like last year."
Percy's throat is turning dry. "I didn't know I was even coming. It was last minute."
"Oh." Silence hangs between them for a few long moments, damp and suffocating. Percy steps forward again, but this time Annabeth doesn't step back. "Why was it last minute?"
Chest feeling sticky, Percy manages, "Got kicked out for the night." That's the first he's ever said about any of it to anyone.
"Oh," she says again. "Do you…do you want to stay at mine?"
And God, that's so ridiculous that Percy almost laughs. "Why, though?"
Annabeth's brow goes all furrowed. "What?"
"Why would you want me there? I've been a rubbish friend."
Her expression softens. "Because you can't exactly sleep in a field."
"I probably could."
"Well, I don't want you to. And my parents won't mind." Annabeth reaches out and takes Percy's sleeve. Tentatively, she folds him into a hug.
Without even intending to, Percy releases a slow breath. Annabeth is warm, all glowy and soft around the edges. All of a sudden, he realises who he's been constantly, chaotically orbiting around this whole damn time. "Thanks," he mumbles.
"You're welcome, idiot." She pulls away, planting her hands on her hips. Oh, there she is. "Care to explain why you haven't spoken to me, Leo or Piper for nearly a month?"
Percy grimaces, pulling his sleeves down over his knuckles. "It was an accident."
"I bet."
"Work's been hard. So's school. I was sick for a while…" He trails off. He doesn't want to talk about his stepdad. "I thought you hated me."
Annabeth glares at him. "Well, I don't," she insists. "None of us do. You promised you wouldn't do this, remember? Last year, you promised you wouldn't be a stranger."
Suddenly, Percy finds the ground between his feet very interesting. "I don't want to be."
"So, don't."
He jerks his head up. Annabeth's gaze is storm-like, a sentient hurricane. "It's not that easy," he protests. "I don't know how…I don't know how to—"
"It's not rocket science!" she bursts out. "Just—be there. Don't shut us out." She pauses. When she speaks again, her tone is resigned. "Don't shut me out."
"Okay," he breathes. "I won't."
"You can mess up, you know. I'm not gonna mind."
Percy nods, though he isn't sure he believes it. He asks, "Are the others here?"
"Only Leo. I should probably go find him."
He hesitates. "Can I come? I just need to let my friend know where I'll be."
"Of course." Annabeth smiles, and it's like everything is okay with the world again.
Later, Helen picks the three of them up. She doesn't raise an eyebrow when Percy gets in the car, just gives him a warm smile and asks, "Is Percy staying over, then?"
When they get out of the car, he thanks Helen quietly. He doesn't realise how stressed he is until Helen takes his arm, lowering her voice for privacy. Leo and Annabeth have already gone inside. "Percy, darling," she says. "Is everything alright? You don't need to lie."
He can barely form a sentence. "Yeah."
"Percy," Helen says firmly. "I need you to know that even though you're not my child, I care about you. You're important to Annabeth—anyone can see that—so you're important to me. If you ever need somewhere to go or someone to talk to, just remember that I'm here." She pauses, and in that sudden silence lies so many unspoken things. "I can always see when a kid is lonely, or sad, or needing help. Even though I don't know your situation, I believe I might understand more than you think."
Percy doesn't know when he went still, or how long it's been since he last moved. Something in Helen's words is kind, but her tone is alien to him. He wants to ask why she cares so much about a trailer park kid, but he can't summon the words. He's afraid. "I don't know what you're talking about," he murmurs, voice a thousand miles away.
At that, Helen looks upset. She pulls Percy into a hug and without meaning to, Percy leans into it. When had he become so desperate for human contact? Almost inaudibly, she tells him, "Please believe me when I say you deserve so much more than you know." Percy has no idea what to say, how to process her sympathy. His thoughts are a mess of jumbled, sizzling wires.
Helen lets go, offering him a kind smile. "God, it's freezing out here, isn't it? Let's go in—I'll make us all some hot chocolate."
That night, Percy stares up at the luminous plastic stars on Annabeth's ceiling. He's on a mat on the floor beside Annabeth's bed. Leo's snoring away next to him. For the first time in a while, he doesn't feel cold and hungry. Everything about it is impossible, a pipe dream. He keeps expecting to wake up, to be wrenched out of this paradise. His desire to stop overthinking is lesser only than his desire to make sense of reality. Eventually, exhaustion wins out and an empty sort of sleep envelops Percy like lukewarm water.
His dreams are as gentle as they come.
After that, everything in Percy's life seems to brighten marginally. He tries to keep his promise and not be a stranger. It's hard, sometimes—but it's worth it. He starts hanging out with the others again, seeing Annabeth and Piper and Leo as much as he can. It's a shock, realising how much he missed them.
Of course, the bad things are there, too. But they fade into the background.
By the time the Christmas holidays roll around, Percy has become more intimately acquainted with the cold than ever before. The trailer's heating is shut off due to Gabe's stony dismissal of the latent bills in the kitchen drawer, but Virginian winters hardly care about that. He can't admit it to himself, but the cold is part of the reason he's around Annabeth's place so often lately. Whenever the pain in his stiff joints grows too much to bear, her house is a safe, warm haven.
On Christmas Eve, Gabe always disappears off to go get drunk with his work friends. And as Gabe never cares what Percy does when he's out drinking, Percy decides to accept Annabeth's invitation to spend the evening with her family.
Helen looks delighted when he stumbles inside, freezing from cycling all the way in the bleak weather. "Percy! How are you, dear?"
"I'm good, ma'am," Percy replies, smiling. He rubs his blue-tinged hands together, trying to get the blood flow going. Holding onto his bike's ice-cold handlebars for so long is never pleasant. "Thanks for letting me come."
"Jesus, you look cold," she fusses. "I'll grab you a warm blanket from the airing cupboard." She disappears into another room, calling back, "Wait there, sweetheart!"
"Percy? Is that you?" Annabeth yells from upstairs.
"Yeah," he shouts. There's a crash, and then Annabeth's face appears from around the banister. She's wearing a fluffy Christmas jumper with snowflakes on it, and she looks endlessly blushy and warm. "Hi," he says, hesitant.
Annabeth bursts into an elated grin and he kind of wants to die a little. She runs down the stairs and tackles him in a hug, practically crushing his ribs. "Merry Christmas!"
"It's not Christmas yet," he protests.
"Shut it. Christmas Eve is still Christmas." She looks him up and down, brows furrowed in thought. "Hey, you know what you need?"
"What?"
"A Christmas jumper. A hideous one, at that."
Percy laughs, already shaking his head. "Uh, no. I'm alright, thanks."
"She's right—there's no avoiding it," Helen tells him, returning with a soft grey blanket. She hands it to Percy, who takes it with a kind of reverence. He doesn't think he's ever touched anything so nice before. "Christmas jumpers are compulsory. Annabeth, go fetch him one."
Throwing a smile in Percy's direction, Annabeth runs back upstairs. Percy takes his shoes off, leaving them on the rack. He gingerly wraps the blanket Helen gave him around his shoulders.
Once Percy's suitably dressed in a bright reindeer jumper that's about six sizes too big for him, they sit down to eat. Percy sits opposite Bobby, who has a lot of questions for him. "How come you're here instead of at home?" Bobby asks, leaning on his elbows. His curly brown hair is as riotous as ever, a halo around his baby-face.
Percy picks up a fork, shrugging. "My dad's busy," he says carefully. It might've been the first time he's voluntarily mentioned anything to do with his family.
"Well, we're glad to have you here," Frederick tells him. "Thank you for this dinner, Helen. It looks amazing," he adds, kissing his wife on the cheek. "Who'd like to say grace?" Frederick is loose and relaxed, a result of the champagne he and Helen have been drinking since Percy arrived. It made Percy nervous at first, seeing Annabeth's parents drinking—in Percy's experience, alcohol never failed to bring irritation and moodiness and rage. Seeing that the loss of their inhibitions only makes Helen and Frederick more affectionate is a cruel shock to him and he can't curb his anxiety that the flip could switch any second.
Annabeth beams. "I'll say it!" Helen's lips quirk as she nods, extending her hands. Percy takes her hand, holding his other out flat for Annabeth to take. Once the circle is linked, Annabeth bows her head and shuts her eyes. "Bless us, oh Lord, for these thy gifts that we're about to receive from thy bounty. We're grateful for your kindness," she adds, "and recognise our privilege. Amen."
"Amen," everyone repeats, though Percy is off by a beat.
Helen beams. "That was lovely, Annabeth." Tucking a lock of dark hair behind her ear, she says, "Now, let's eat."
Dinner is, in Percy's opinion, pretty much heaven. He and Annabeth chat about stuff like school and their excitement for Tristan's movie premiere, and Percy lets himself stop thinking for a while. The atmosphere is warm and golden and perfect—everything that Percy knows he should associate with Christmas Eve, but doesn't.
Once they've almost finished eating, Annabeth offers Percy a small parcel. "Here," she says. "It's your present."
Percy gapes and stutters, "But…but I didn't get you anything!"
She laughs. "Don't worry. It was a last-minute thing, anyway. C'mon, open it."
Percy hesitates, then gives her a half-smile as he starts prising off the wrapping paper. It's a box. He opens it. Inside is a bracelet made of black leather. A tiny, silver letter P hangs on it. "Like the necklace I gave you," he murmurs.
"Is it alright?" Annabeth asks. She sounds nervous. "I don't know… I just thought—"
Percy throws his arms around her, squeezing his eyes shut. "This is the nicest thing anyone's ever given me," he says. "Thank you. You're amazing."
When he pulls away, Annabeth's cheeks are rosy. "I'm glad you like it."
"Of course I like it," he says quietly. They look at each other for a moment, smiling.
Across the kitchen, Frederick switches on the radio. When The Night We Met comes on, he whoops. "God, this song!" He takes Helen's hand, spinning her around to face him. "May I have this dance, my love?" he asks, a sloppy grin on his face.
Helen giggles. "Oh, what a handsome suitor!" There isn't an ounce of sobriety in the way the pair of them melt into each other, swaying to the smooth vocals and slow beat. Their steps are messy and they're constantly stumbling over each others' feet, but neither of them seem to care. Frederick kisses Helen, bumping his glasses on her nose. They start laughing, caught up in a joke only the two of them seem to understand.
Watching them, Percy doesn't understand how their drunkenness is so gentle. So innocent. He turns his gaze back to Annabeth, who's smiling at him. "Wanna dance?" she asks. "It's Christmas Eve, after all." Standing up, she offers Percy her hand.
Percy hesitates. Still, after a moment of deliberation, he takes her hand. What does he have to lose?
He dances with Annabeth, jumping around and swaying to whatever music the radio empties out. Bobby and Matthew join them, and soon it's a party. Percy feels warm and malleable all over, like the evening has melted him down and remoulded him. Surrounded by Annabeth's family, he feels irrevocably and insurmountably safe.
Soon enough, midnight arrives. Helen's mostly sobered up, so she goes to grab her coat. "Put your shoes on, love. I'll drive you home."
He doesn't want to leave, but he knows he has to. Annabeth gets up from where she's lying on the sofa. "I'm coming too," she announces.
The car journey home is nice. Annabeth leans against him, closing her eyes. "I'm tired," she mumbles. Percy can't tear his eyes away from where Annabeth's pale eyelashes skim her freckled cheeks. He lets her sleep on his shoulder, staring out into the night. It's so cold outside that his trepid breaths turn into condensation on the window's single-paned glass.
They pull up outside the trailer park. Helen turns around, smiling softly. "Bye, Percy. Have a lovely Christmas."
Percy wakes Annabeth with a touch. At her confused expression, he says, "We've arrived."
"Oh," she says, rubbing her knuckles into her eyes. She hugs Percy, holding on for a second too long. "Goodbye. Merry Christmas."
"Thanks—you too. I'll see you on New Year's?" She nods. Percy opens the car door, stepping out. At once, an ocean of cold, bracing air rushes into the car. Percy shivers. "Thanks for having me, Helen. Dinner was really nice."
"It's no problem, sweetheart. We loved having you."
"Bye, Annabeth," he adds, giving her a wave. Even though she's practically already asleep again, she waves back. Percy shuts the door, and the slam echoes with cruel finality. As he walks the vacant burnt-grass path through the trailer park, Percy stares at the bracelet on his wrist. The silver P on it glitters in the moonlight. He thinks it's the most beautiful thing he owns.
He opens the door to the trailer. With a shuddering breath, he goes inside.
thanks for reading! percy spending christmas eve with annabeth is the softest thing haha. let me know what you thought! the next update will be on sunday as usual :)