The royal blue of the ribbon was a stark contrast to the painfully white hospital room. Looking at his mom Percy concluded that the nurses hadn't lied to him. She had a lot less wires and stuff hooked up to her, and she seemed to breathe on her own instead of the big machine that made last time.
According to the nurses, she'd woken up a couple of times. Not long enough to have a conversation but long enough to blink, to be aware of what was happening. For now, Percy just prayed as much as he could believe that he would get to see it for himself.
"I learned a new swim stroke. I even helped my teammates and we won the race. Coach says we might make it to states if I keep up the good work we might make it to states. Or close by, but that's kind of a big hope."
The beeping quickened, and Percy looked around for the movement that the nurses had told him too. Small finger movements, her eyelids moving. At confirmation of it, Percy got excited and kept talking.
"I finally went trick or treating. I got to be a skater 'cause I forgot to get my costume all together. But I got help so it's okay. " He'd gotten Chiron to print out a picture from Halloween night. Despite its unsettling ending he'd still had a good time, and maybe next time she woke up, she'd see the picture and look for him.
They'd all rushed home after Percy saw Gabe. Everyone had been trying to get him to speak, to say something. But once Mr. D called Mrs. Gleeson to confirm that nothing could be done about seeing Gabe. There was no restraining orders or charges that said he had to stay a certain amount of space away from Percy, so there was nothing to be done.
Annabeth snuck into his room again that night. They hadn't spoken or anything, which Percy was grateful for, he didn't have much to say. But her presence had made the weight of all the shit on his shoulders a little easier to deal with.
Like he regretted it, Argus knocked on the door and motioned with his hands that Percy's time had run up. Still dealing with the brunt of his outburst from a couple weeks ago he knew better than to react as poorly. Plus Chiron had promised him that they'd work on making sure he got to see his mom more often anyways.
"I'll be good mom. I promise." He leaned down to kiss her head and headed out of the room, begrudgingly fist bumping the nurse on his way out.
"By the next time you visit she should be awake for longer buddy" Frankly Percy thought the nurse, some dude named Sam, was annoying. But the thought of actually getting to speak to his mom soon made him keep his thoughts to himself.
Pulling up to the social services building Percy did his best to fight the urge to look around for Gabe. All of his friends had told him that he looked a lot more on edge lately, and Percy wasn't trying to get paranoid added to his list of diagnoses.
Mrs. Gleeson had gone over the processes of parent visitation multiple times with him. They'd meet up at a location with his father, and he'd get a couple of hours alone before getting dropped off at Delphi again. Percy thought it was a little weird. He'd only met the guy one other time. What if his dad turned out to be some kind of psycho and disappeared with Percy? Or he wasn't even actually Percy's father and he was some guy that wanted to sell him to a child fighting ring where he could place bets on him. Percy just really hoped that second wasn't true, he'd probably get his ass kicked and embarrass them both.
"No booster seat right?" Poseidon leaned against his expensive Maserti. Percy looked him up and down like he was insane.
"I'm 13."
"Yea…yea it was a joke."
He awkwardly clambered in the front seat, wishing he had brought his backpack just so he could have something to mess with while Poesidon listened to Mrs. Gleeson's list for the millionth time. She gave him the address to Delphi on a thick index card and sent them on their way.
The car ride was awkward. The silence made Percy's skin itch and he did his best to hide it but he was sure Poesidon noticed.
"So…where we goin?" Poseidon blew out a bubble of air like he was relieved to have something to break the awkward silence.
"Well it was supposed to be a surprise for you. Do you like surprises?" Percy briefly considered sitting through a car ride to a place he had no idea of. He decided no.
"No."
"Ah, well, it's," Poseidon took a deep breath to collect himself. "I was going to take you to my job."
"Your job?"
"At the aquarium." Percy distantly remembered hearing that, at some point between the emails, letters, and the singular conversation they'd had. Even though he wasn't sleepy at the moment, Percy was sure he'd been permanently tired since birth, and against his wishes he fell asleep.
Poseidon must have been waiting for him to wake up, because the moment Percy started stirring he could hear the movement of the car being turned off. He tried not to scramble and follow the man as he took in his bleak surroundings. The seemingly never ending white industrial building gave Percy the creeps as he realized he really didn't know where he was. This dude could have lied about everything and just brought Percy somewhere to kill him.
Poesidon turned around, just noticing Percy's hesitance in following him and smiled.
"If it's people you're worried about, we probably won't hit the public part today, just behind the scenes."
The backside of the inside of the Aquarium was one of the most mind boggling things Percy had ever seen. From the moment Poesidon scanned the door open the smell of salt water and sea life hit Percy hard. He could barely look around to see what was going on.
Poseidon talked as he walked. Pointing out the different labs, pools, meeting rooms, and tanks. He showed Percy the habitat center for the Sea turtles where he couldn't touch them but he got to laugh as exasperated scientist kept them from crawling off the table.
"Tyson loves coming to watch them hatch, he'll be upset he missed them, but I figured I'd give you a break from all of his turtle facts and questions for now."
"I did too, but sharks were more my thing." Percy offered. The statement didn't come out with much intention but it fell flat as Poseidon stiffened. Percy figured the man was still trying to figure out how to approach the awkward topic of being completely absent from his son's life for 13 years. After a couple moments of deliberation, and the turtles flopping themselves all over in the sand tank, the older man nodded his head for Percy to follow him over to one of the massive tanks that they had to climb a platform to see over.
"Listen, Percy. Everything was a lot more complicated back then." Percy felt a little bad for asking such a loaded question. He hadn't meant for it to come out how it did but unlike other adults his father didn't seem too offended. "Not that I haven't been rather, negligent, for most of your life."
Percy just watched the little dolphin chase after the bigger one in the rehabilitation tank. He'd done his best to listen during the tour but he was really interested in just watching the behavior instead.
"My family, our family, is one with very high expectations. My father was a harsh man, and when my siblings and I were a little older than you, he died. Even though none of us liked our father it was still hard to get on without him. I'm not sure if you can relate." Percy really couldn't. He'd only had two parental figures in his life. His mom was the best, and Gabe could burn for all he really cared. Poseidon cleared his throat awkwardly and continued.
"My youngest brother, Zeus, was always a piece of work. A real troublemaker, he got really wild once our father died. Uncontrollable. I wasn't the best brother, didn't know how to help, so I ran."
"Your mom and I met not too long after I'd lost my father. She'd just lost some of her last family and we were just two lonely kids trying to make each other happy. Don't tell anyone but, it was the best summer of my life." Percy side-eyed Poesidon as he realized what the man was really implying and tried to ignore his face turning bright red.
"By the end of that summer I got a call from my older sister, saying that she had gotten worried about Zues. He was getting more erratic and dangerous, too much for her to deal with. I'd kind of separated myself by spending the summer with your mother. So like any good brother would do, I rushed home to help.
"Zues had always been different from the rest of us. I think it's something with the youngest children, but he never realized that the rules applied to him too. Maybe he had watched everyone else grow up and seen our mistakes and thought he could just do better. I don't know. But he'd gotten himself hooked on pretty much everything by then. Had a daughter who should be a couple of years older than you. And he'd gathered up some power in a couple of the industries. Fame, drugs."
"I ended things with Sally. I told her that to keep her safe I needed her to stay away for a while. But a couple months turned into almost a year, and Zues just couldn't keep himself out of trouble. He ended up passing away, there isn't much you can do for someone who doesn't want the help. "
An awkward silence passed as Percy tried to process the life of his parents and the death of his uncle. He really wanted to know more about the fame, it'd be cool if he'd secretly be a millionaire or something one day. Before he could get too far in his imagination he noticed Poseidon's slightly disturbed look as his gaze focused on the animals, and Percy remembered the weight of what he'd been told.
"...Sorry for your loss, I mean." Poseidon startled, like he'd forgotten Percy was there (classic). The man chuckled.
"Anyway, by the time all of that had happened, Zeus had been buried, and we were finished putting what we could of the family back together, I set back out to find Sally. She was gone from the last address, job, it was impossible. Then one day I had a letter come to my job. From your mother. " Poseidon took a deep breath, like he couldn't exactly find the right words to relay to Percy.
"She told me that we couldn't be in contact anymore, didn't say why. But she couldn't wait around for me forever. And she included a picture of you and a promise to update me until you got old enough for us to meet."
Percy didn't know much about his mom before he existed. Not that he didn't ask, she just never seemed to have many answers. But he knew Gabe had been around as long as he had.
"My stepfather." Was all he could offer. He wasn't sure why he was trying to offer comfort to the man who had left him alone with an abusive jerk but he figured it was better than staying in silence.
"Hmm." Was all Poesidon offered, which Percy appreciated, he wasn't trying to talk about Gabe anymore than he had too. The two of them sat in silence for a little while longer, watching the Dolphin's swim while Percy tried to make sense of the mess he was told.
"How many siblings do you have?"
"Alive? Four. But you know, lots of cousins, aunts, uncles in and out of the house. More than you could ever really remember unless you met em." Percy couldn't imagine trying to live with that many other people his entire life. Delphi was already overstimulating as is.
"Oh." He'd probably relish in how smart he spoke later when he retold all of this to Annabeth.
"You have two brothers, I think I've told you. Triton I had with my wife when we were both very young. And Tyson, he's 8. They're both excited to meet you, whenever you're ready." Despite Poseidon's positive tone, Percy really doubted the truth behind the statement. He couldn't imagine anyone being too excited to meet evidence of their fathers other relationships.
"Cool."
Dinner was really good that night. Percy wasn't sure if it was the reveal of all his family history, or the fact that he just really loved salmon, but he wasn't paying anything else any attention.
"How much Orbeeze do you think it'd take to fill the first floor?" Leo had been bugging Annabeth with hyper specific questions all evening. He knew exactly how to put her curious mind to work and loved to work it. Annabeth grumbled, unable to let a question go unanswered.
"Like an estimate or exact? Because then we'd have to make measurements." Leo snickered as he watched his friend frustrate herself. Percy continued tearing up his food.
To the side of him, Jason sat going from whispering jokes in his and Piper's ears. None of them were particularly funny, but remembering…(GIRL CAN YOU FINISH THIS LMAO)
"Can everyone listen up? I have an announcement to make." From the head of the table Percy finally noticed his roommate who had on nicer than needed clothes for their dinner. The two of them had still barely spoken since the big argument. Something Percy was fully okay with. There wasn't much he had to say to the older boy.
"It's something I've been trying to get off my chest for a while." Luke's ratty t-shirts had been replaced with a crisp ironed button up and his curls slicked back out his face. He looked around to confirm Mr.D wasn't coming back to nag at them to eat their vegetables before continuing.
"Thalia, you and I have known each other for almost 5 years now. You know we've run away together, fought together, hell we even basically raised those two goofballs over there." Luke was the only one laughing as he motioned to Annabeth and Jason who were watching the interaction with horror.
Unfortunately, Luke wasn't deterred, and Percy had to watch as the boy continued.
"You know, I'll be turning 18 soon. And I know Chiron isn't rushing me out of here but I was thinking you, me, and anyone else who wants to come, we get the hell out of here and make it out there ourselves."
"Luke what are you saying?" Percy was surprised to see Jason cutting Luke's speech off. The younger boy's eyes flashed behind his glasses with anger. "What are you on-"
"Jason, bud, let me finish." Again, Luke laughed by himself. "What I'm trying to say, Thalia, is that you and I, we already go so well together. Why not make it official, and we can go back to how things used to be."
Percy's jaw dropped open and his shock was mirrored around the table. Out of all the things he'd even slightly expected Luke to say, asking Thalia out hadn't even been a fathomable concept.
"Luke, I already told you-" At first Thalia just looked disturbed. Hurt even. Until it was replaced by an anger so strong Percy felt the slight need to back himself up. Thalia sighed loudly, enough that was sure to have one of the adults checking on them soon.
"Well, I have an announcement for you guys." Thalia looked everywhere but Luke, who still had that weird smile on his face. "Me and Reyna just made it official."
Everyone around the table entered an uncomfortable wave of silence as Thala finally looked over at Luke. The boy was turning bright red, whether from embarrassment or rage Percy didn't know.
Energy thrummed beneath Percy's skin and he looked around to make sure he wasn't the only one unsettled. Across from him Annabeth looked as if her whole world was falling apart and next to him Jason's eyes tracked Thalia, ready to move however she did. Percy didn't even have to turn his head to confirm Leo's snickering and Piper's familiar silence.
"I already told you about me Luke," Thalia added. "What the hell is your problem?"
Luke's neck followed the red color of his face as he realized that no one was agreeing with him and importantly, that he looked like a douchebag. Given confidence by the stifled laughter in the background Percy allowed a nervous giggle to escape.
"You'll all see I'm right. Sooner or later you will." Luke made eye contact with Percy directly, immediately sobering him up. Instead of looking away this time Percy held it, refusing to let Luke scare him off again.
"What is going on in here?" The arrival of Mr. D, backed by Chiron, made everyone go back to acting innocent and clueless. All of the younger kids went back to their food, as if nothing had ever happened and whatever was on their plates was the best thing in the world. Percy took a big bite of his last chunk of salmon, disappointed that he finished it so fast. He even made a special effort to ignore Luke's angry huffing as he made to leave the table.
"Your plate, Castallen?" Mr. D didn't seem perturbed at all by Luke's attitude. Maybe he didn't see the potential for how dangerous Luke could be. Percy didn't, in the way Luke could barely conceal his anger at the rejection, and the lengths he went to planning something without asking anyone else's opinion.
Luke dumped his plate with calculated movements, but was unable to really hide what he was feeling. Swallowing the last bit of the pasta on his plate, Percy figured that he would try his hand in sneaking into a different room that night. Anything to avoid Luke while he was this pissed off.
The next morning Luke had only come back when the sun came up. He didn't acknowledge Percy, or anyone else in the house for that matter. The abscess of his banter with Thalia was the most prominently gone.
Thalia had shut herself in her room after dinner, only allowing Jason and Annabeth in for a short while. Even that night when Percy and Annabeth went for their usual talks, his friend hadn't had much to say.
"I don't know why Luke would do something like that." She had said. "It doesn't make any sense."
Percy just forced himself to listen, because frankly all of this seemed right up Luke's alley. But most of the other kids had known Luke for way longer, so he tried to take it into account.
"We always hated being on the run. At least I thought we did. It was cold. Hungry. Wet. And even when we ended up staying with that one guy Luke was friends with it was still…bad."
"How did you guys all end up running away anyways?" Annabeth shifted a bit. Percy had learned she didn't like talking about much before Delphi. She'd usually just gloss over things instead. Annabeth sighed as she tried to figure out the best words to use.
"Thalia and Jason don't like being separated. They aren't supposed to be either. But whatever happened at the last house they stayed in was enough that the system ignored it entirely. I guess." It wasn't lost on Percy that none of Annabeth's explanations had anything to do with herself. "I didn't meet any of them until after I'd run away from my dads the second time."
"So how'd you all end up at Delphi?" Annabeth gave a very forced laugh.
"Jason's asthma kicked his ass."
As usual, after mentioning anything about her past, Annabeth became mostly quiet for the night, leaving Percy to fill the silence for a change. He did his best, sharing his favorite memories with his mom, hoping to distract his friend from at least some of her pain.
To the staff's distress and most of the kids' relief, Luke disappeared for the entirety of that Sunday. The adults had spammed his cell with calls and texts before eventually Luke had responded with a simple, "I'll be back."
"I told you we shouldn't have let him keep that phone." Percy had overheard Coach Hedge grumbling as he gave up trying to find Luke's location.
"The boy is 17, we can't keep babying him. If he wants to do dumb things let him. See if I care."
Percy wasn't sure if it was surprise at the adults knowing about Luke's secret phone or Mr. D's obnoxious apathy that compelled him to get up and leave the living room, but somehow he found himself outside watching Jason and surprisingly Piper half-heartedly passing around a basketball.
"2 v 1?" Percy asked, hoping to find something to do. He wasn't set to see either of his parents for the weekend and Annabeth and Leo had claimed the kitchen and surrounding areas for their project.
Piper just smiled and shook her head, going to find a spot on the ground to watch the scrimmage instead. Jason pushed up his glasses and checked the ball.
The first round Percy was just trying to size up how good Jason was at the game. It didn't take him long to realize he was outskilled. The younger boy's skills went beyond Percy's basic knowledge of the game as he consistently stole the ball or evaded Percy's attempts to charge past Jason. The first round ended with a confident shot from Jason at the three point line, which Percy was amazed at. He wasn't that good at basketball anyway.
"How'd- how do you do the thing, the thing between your legs? Passing the ball like that?" Percy watched Jason as he panted with his hands on his head. He couldn't help but look fr any signs of his asthma that Annabeth had mentioned.
"Man, I don't know. It's like a rhythm thing? I think?" Jason did his best to demonstrate a couple of times, then passed the ball to Percy to try.
They met up at the imaginary three point line again and checked up. Percy did his best to try out the technique he'd learned and failed miserably. Again, Jason stole the runaway ball and easily scored with a layup.
"You aren't too bad at this." Jason wheezed. "Leo won't play anymore, and I was trying to teach Piper but-" The boys looked over to where she watched them, completely uninterested.
"I'll play basketball when you learn to throw a good pitch." Percy was honestly surprised to hear the snark coming from the girl. He'd figured she didn't speak much, if at all, but Jason just waved his hand like he was used to it.
"Baseball sucks dude." Jason narrowly avoided a pebbly Piper threw their way, and looked to Percy for an agreement.
"If nobody plays how'd you get so good?" Jason grimaced and went back to concentratedly dribbling the ball.
"Luke." He spat, like he didn't want to admit it. "We used to play back when we first got here, at least."
Percy was only a little surprised at the disdain in Jason's voice. Thalia's attitude from last night's dinner had carried on well into the day. She'd even snapped at Annabeth and Jason when they had come knocking on her door. It was followed by an apology, but the effects of it were still visible because now even Annabeth's mood had greatly soured.
"That's cool." Percy offered, because he didn't know how Jason would feel about him talking badly about Luke. The four of them were supposed to be closer than Percy could imagine, and he wasn't trying to hurt anyone's feelings.
Jason dribbled the ball over to their three point line, Percy following assuming they were going for another around. After a couple awkward seconds in a stiff defense squat with Jason still dribbling, he realized the other boy must have still had more to say.
"He always does this, y'know?" Jason said angrily, passing the ball. Enough energy pumped through Percy that he really wanted to run for a layup, but he could tell that wasn't the vibe Jason was going for. "Every time things get good, it's never good enough for Luke."
Percy looked over to where Piper sat. She'd angled herself to listen more inconspicuously, but even she seemed to agree with Jason's trash talking. The girl caught Percy's eye and shrugged.
"Annabeth says it's because he's talking to K again. Which doesn't make anysense. I don't know why he wants to end up doing that illegal stuff again. Especially when he doesn't have to. That's the whole point of us being here. Him and Thalia even had a deal about it." Jason looked at Percy like he wasn't learning all of this information for the first time and as if he should have been getting angry too.
"Right." It was really all he could think to say, but he punctuated it by passing the ball back with more force than needed, so Jason knew he wasn't alone in his feelings. This time Jason held the ball on his hip instead.
"If I was like you Percy, I bet I could kick his ass. Stop him from messing things up." He looked Percy up and down like he was making sure he was right, before going back to loudly dribbling the ball. Percy shifted, a little uncomfortable with Jason's words.
"I think you could handle yourself." He knew it was kind of a dumb thing, to encourage Jason to try and take on Luke. But Luke also needed to get knocked down a peg, something Percy desperately wanted to see.
Jason just fixed his lips to a straight line, stepped around Percy, and made his shot.
By 8:30 that night, Luke strolled back through the front door of Delphi like he hadn't done anything at all. He grinned at all of the occupants in the living room, his presence followed by an odd smell. One Percy couldn't exactly palace but he knew it was usually around the people slumped out on the corners. It was strong enough that Piper stiffened up and left the room, followed by a glaring Jason.
Luke didn't get too far, a pissed off Coach hedge was immediately on him, ushering him off toward Chiron's office and waving at the rest of the kids to go upstairs.
Had it been for any of Delphi's other occupants, Percy would have been worried about how angry the adults were and what exactly the punishment would be. But he had also learned that if anything, nobody at Delphi would use their hands or withhold food. So whatever happened to Luke would really only be Luke's business.
Only Luke's raised voice could be heard from downstairs, and Percy couldn't exactly make out what was being said. Nobody else seemed to share his interest in what was happening, everyone's mood tanked so bad by Luke's intentions that for once everyone was in their own rooms.
Sitting still had never been his strong suit, and after a couple of minutes of radio silence he figured he should get ready for bed. At least so he didn't have to be asked why he was laying with his head halfway through the railing bars.
He followed the routine he'd set up (via advice from his school counselor), and found himself nodding by the time his roommate came in the room and flipped the lights on obnoxiously.
"Percy. Hey Percy. Wake up. Dude." Luke slapped Percy awake with more force than needed. Percy pushed the other boy away aggressively and sat up.
"What's your problem-"
"This is your last chance, Percy. Everything's gonna change soon man. The others don't understand it but you could. You aren't trying to still trust them. Percy, listen."
The only thing Percy was genuinely listening to was his moms voice in his head as he did his best to not deck Luke in his mouth right there.
"Percy, listen to me. We don't have to stay here under these rules. With these people. They don't even care about us-"
Percy didn't say anything, too focused on not saying anything wrong. Luke's eyes scanned over his face multiple times, like he was trying to see if Percy was actually listening, or had a change of mind.
Luke's grip in Percy's shirt loosened as he realized that Percy's mind wasn't changing. The sheets stuck to Percy's back as she fell back watching his erratic roommate scamper around the room before climbing back out his open window.