He's not conscious, not enough to form a complete sentence anyway, but he can feel the aching pain running along his back. He's flat on his stomach on a hard surface that is extremely uncomfortable. He breathes and feels something shift, something that had never been there before and should not be there now. It sways with every exhale, rocking ever so slightly as cool wind blows onto his legs.
Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.
He musters the strength to raise a slow, shaking hand toward his back. He trails his fingers up from his tailbone, wincing whenever he brushes against a weak point. Nothing. He raises his other hand, bending it over his shoulder. Something stops his descent. It's cold and feels impossibly dense as if no metal on earth could even scratch it.
"Why, Nike? Goddamnit, why did it have to be now?"
He twitches at the sound of his father's voice. A low groan leaves his throat as he runs his hand across the strange weight on his back. So much pain.
"Perce, I'm gonna need you to stop moving." His father says, gently placing his arms at his sides. His calloused hands grip his elbow, slowly rolling him on his side. A loud crack echoes as he lands on his hip, yelping as his back starts to spasm.
"Mary, Mother of God." His father mumbles, grunting as he feels himself being lifted off the ground. "And I thought you were heavy when you were fifteen pounds the day you were born." His chin thumps across his father's wide back as he's heaved onto his shoulder, his limp arms stretched toward the floor.
His awareness begins to fade, the pain finally taking its toll. His last thought is not his own. It's a mantra, buzzing repeatedly in the back of his mind like static.
"Victory is your birthright."
The static turns to a chorus. It no longer whispers. It chants.
"Victory is your birthright. Victory is your birthright. Victory is your birthright."
Louder. He screams as needles pierce his eardrums. It shrieks at him, a twisted melody of prophecy and pain.
"VICTORY IS YOUR BIRTHRIGHT! VICTORY IS YOUR BIRTHRIGHT! VICTORY IS YOUR BIRTHRIGHT! VICTORY IS YOUR BIRTHRIGHT!"
The void returns.
Once again, he finds himself lying face down. The pain and weight are still there but faded to a manageable degree. He cracks an eye open, immediately recognizing the dirty floor of his father's truck. He begins to sit up.
"Percy! Lay down!"
He cranes his neck to the front, his father's eyes staring back at him from the rearview mirror. He's about to ask why when he sees something out of his peripheral.
Golden wings sprout out of his shoulder blades, gleaming feathers cascading down to his feet in a mesmerizing pattern. The weight suddenly feels impossibly heavy as he starts to spasm in disbelief, the wings drooping to reflect his deteriorating mental state.
His father yelps, the car suddenly swerving to the right. "Percy for the love of God, please try to control those things. They tore through the floor like it was paper."
He nods shakily, the sudden movement of the car seeming to help the wings stay airborne. "Dad." He rasps before a hacking cough tears through. His throat had never felt so dry. "Dad. What's happening to me?" His head is permanently swiveled to his right, staring at wings as they flex and twist in horrifying beauty.
"I- I'm sorry, Perce." His father, the biggest, strongest man he'd ever known, looked utterly defeated. "You're mom- well…" A deep sigh and mumbled curses. "I knew this was gonna happen. I didn't think it would be now. I should've said something to you but I just- I thought we had more time."
He swallows, forcing himself to stay calm. "So what happens now?" He asks softly. A torrent of emotions runs through him, just waiting to burst.
"We're heading to a place your mom and I talked about." A beat passes and he mentally braces himself for what's about to be said. He can feel it coming. His father's never been so contemplative, so decisive with his words before this moment. "Listen, buddy, you're… you're gonna have to stay at this place for a little while. The wings… well, not everybody will be able to see them but it's not really a chance we can take with the ones who can."
He nods repeatedly, the dam of tears thoroughly broken. "Okay." He rasps. "Okay, Dad."
"Did I- Did I ever tell you how I met your mom?" His father's voice is thick with pain, and as he glances toward the front he can see similar tears rolling down his face. He's only seen him cry once. Not when his grandparents died. Not when their dog got run over. He shouldn't remember, he'd only been about five. But he does.
When he had said, "Daddy, an angel watched me last night."
The car is filled with a ridiculously tangible amount of pain, too much for either of them to bear. He's grateful for the distraction, grateful for the opportunity to think of something other than how his life is crashing down before him. So he shakes his head. "No."
His father takes a deep breath, trying and failing to compose himself. "Well, you know that grandma and grandpa were big Catholics, yeah? They raised me in it, had me in Catholic school from preschool to graduation." He nods to himself, recognition flashing in his brain from pieces of broken memories. "So, they were thrilled when I went to Duquesne. Between you and me though, I just wanted to get the hell out of Queens and that school was anything but Catholic."
A small laugh breaks through. His father's just that type of person. The kind that makes you smile on the worst day of your life. "I'm a junior, not even old enough to drink but I'm in a bar anyway. And when you're raised Catholic and you see the most beautiful woman you've ever seen in your life with golden wings, you think only one thing, right? An angel. And then all sorts of shit goes through your head like: Am I dead? Am I about to die? Am I being judged?" His father snorts uncharacteristically as pure nostalgia leaks from his words.
"I had a few in me at that point so I walked up to her. And the closer I get the more I'm totally convinced that it's an honest-to-God angel. I'm, uh, sure you can relate. I'm standing right in front of her, and I'm looking up at her. The only time I've had to look up at someone in my life. And I say to her with this buzzed, twenty-year-old confidence, "Must've been a long flight." with this stupid grin on my face."
Another laugh leaves him, imagining the scene in his head. His father joins him, his deep rumble harmonizing for a moment. "And your mom, she's a lot of things- mostly good things. But I don't think she ever got past taking words at face value. So she just nods at me, and at that point, I'm one thousand percent sure she's an angel and I'm about to bite it or something. So I ask if I can buy her a drink and she nods again. And before you know it we're going shot for shot and I've forgotten all about my buddies who I came with. And I- I actually outdrank her. The rest is… well, history I guess."
He shakes his head in disbelief. "You guys had me because you could outdrink her?" He asks exasperatedly, suddenly feeling ambiguous about his birth.
"No, no, no. That's what got her interested in me. Winning." His father corrected. "The next time I saw her I beat her at Monopoly. The look on her face…" His father laughs again. The drive becomes a bit more manageable for him with every memory his father can weave into words. "She'd come around and find something to challenge me at, and more often than not I'd win. I beat her at Mario Kart, I beat her at bowling, I beat her at pinball. I beat her at trivia night at the bar. It pissed her off every time but she kept coming back. I think it kinda fascinated her- losing. Even if it was at the most useless, pointless things."
"You still love her." He says quietly. The way he was talking, the emotion in his voice; it couldn't be anything but love.
His father is quiet for a moment. "I didn't love a woman before her." He says. "I thought I did, but- sometimes you don't realize what love really is to you. You think it's the shit you see in movies, the romantic, in-your-face type of deal. And it is for some people." A pause, a well of emotion suddenly knocking his father for a loop as his face scrunches up. "But for me? For me, I just liked existing with her. I liked doing the little stuff, the things you don't really think of as romantic. I liked actions, not words."
Another pause, filled with the same heavy emotion as before. "I'll love your mom 'till the day I die. Then I'll love her some more from Heaven or Elysium or wherever the hell I'll end up. And- And you'll realize this when you're older but, that first love? The one who shows you what love is? You don't ever stop loving them, and they take a piece of you with them when they leave. A piece of you that you didn't even know was missing until they showed you in the first place."
More silence, longer this time. The gentle hum of the accelerator buzzes in his ears as he tries to process his father's words. "Did you- Did you ever tell her?" He asks quietly, wondering if he should be speaking at all. "How you felt?'
"Yeah. Yeah, I think I told her almost every time I saw her." The clouded look in his father's eyes returns as he's transported to another place and time.
"Did she ever say it back?"
"No. I can remember a couple of times where she looked like she was about to; like she wanted to. But no, she never said it back. But that didn't bother me." A small smile breaks across his father's face. "You know why?"
He shakes his head. "No." It had certainly bothered him a lot; drove him half insane trying to think of ways to win her favor.
"Because she always came back. It didn't matter that she never said it with words because she said so much more with her actions. And she did the same for you. Always watching."
"Until she wasn't." He says bitterly.
His father laughs. "Perce, the first time I said it she didn't come back for a year. She looked horrified and I thought I'd never see her again. Then she came back- this random Tuesday in October. We played Battleship." He burst into laughter at the image of that, imagining his proud, stoic mother hunched over a tiny case filled with plastic ships and pins. "I'm serious. She was awful at it, we played like fifteen times. Before she left, I said it again. She didn't say a word, only nodded and disappeared. But she kept coming back and I kept saying it. I didn't bullshit you for all your life. Your mom loves you, even if she can't say it."
"Yeah." He murmurs, thinking of what she had said to him.
A more permanent silence. It's agonizing. Noise is distracting, a barrier to the mind. The silence lets him contemplate his thoughts more and he'd rather be doing anything but. He stretches his hand out to the compartment on the back of the driver's seat, pulling out the CD holder. He flips the pages for a minute before pulling out a stark white disk. He places it on the armrest.
"Track 7." He says, laying his chin down on his folded hand; trying and failing to ignore the gentle sway of his wings.
He relaxes as the music begins to play, the ringing of the piano and the thump of the bass cleansing his thoughts.
"I don't why nobody told you, how to unfold your love."
"Hey." He says before voicing an itch in the back of his head. "Do you ever think that she let you win?"
His father begins to chuckle slowly before erupting into a full-out belly laugh, drowning out the music. "Don't- Don't say that Perce." He gasps out.
He scrunches his face in confusion. "Why?"
"Because you might be right and I'll fall in love with her all over again."
They sit in silence for the rest of the drive, letting the music do their thinking for them. Neither are completely able to empty their minds though. Paul, John, George and Ringo play while they contemplate the woman they adore; who they have to believe loves them but will never say it.
"With every mistake, we must surely be learning, Still, my guitar gently weeps."
this is essentially my attempt at another overdone trope. this time it's your classic 'what if percy was any other deity's kid?'
longer chapters are coming. trying to characterize two OCs is difficult though so i'd like to get this out to you all before i continue. let me know what you think and if this is worth continuing.
thanks for the support as always. i read every comment and am blown away by the positivity. check out my other works for my take on a time traveling percy and a god percy.