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Percy looks around his room, starting to get a bit overwhelmed over how much there is to do.
“Here.” Piper starts, making a gruntled noise as she squeezes past him. She’s carrying a box of garbage bags, pulling two bags out and dropping the rest on his bed. She stuffs one of them under her arm and shakes the other one out, filling it with air. “Let’s pick up the trash first, then we’ll deal with clothes next.”
Percy nods, then nods again. One of the things about cleaning with ADHD is that it feels like you have to tackle everything at once. It’s hard to make a plan when everything is too much. Even when he does make a plan, he finds himself in a constant loophole of “If I start with the floor, then I should start with the dresser, but then there might be stuff on the dresser that’ll be put on my bed so I need to clean that first, but then I have stuff on my bed that needs to go in my closet, but I’ll need to clean my floor to even get to the closet, etc, etc.”
He had fallen into a depression for about two weeks before starting to feel a semblance of himself coming back again a few days ago. But one of the worst things about being out of that fog is having to face the chaos of what he’s been neglecting while he was in that state.
And boy, did he neglect a lot.
He had called Piper during an anxiety attack sitting in the middle of his room after a failed attempt at cleaning the personified Chaos. She couldn’t make out anything that he was saying, so he sent her a picture of his room and she came over immediately.
There was no judgment in her eyes when she stood in his doorway, and he was grateful for that. She then gave him a hug, went into the kitchen, then came back from where she walked in with the bags.
Starting with the garbage made sense. It’s a direct task that doesn’t take too much thinking. Wrappers, water bottles, paper scraps, etc, are easy to hone in on and to just throw away. He could almost smile if he wasn’t still a little bit embarrassed of another person seeing his room like this, even if they’re one of his best friends.
Percy goes on YouTube and puts on the Tik Tik Boom soundtrack and the angelic voice of Andrew Garfield fills his room as he and Piper get to work. She’s nice about everything, stopping to ask once in a while if something was trash or not, and he’d tell her and go back to what they were doing. It’s fun singing along to the soundtrack with Piper, even if she sounds like she opens the gates of heaven herself while Percy sounds like he’s trying to run away from it. When he tells Piper exactly so, she laughs and throws an empty root beer can at him.
~*~
“So, how’ve you been lately?”
It’s been a few hours and they finished picking up all the trash and stuffed all of his clothes into bags to work through later. They’re on a break now, eating some leftover baked ziti in the living room.
Percy shrugs, shoveling another forkful of pasta into his mouth “s’fine.” He mumbles out once he swallows. The question itself is fine, he knows Piper wasn’t going to avoid it forever. And it is true, he’s been feeling better than he has in a while but he isn’t at one hundred percent yet.
“That’s good.” Her hair is tied up into a bun, held up when she huffed in frustration when it kept getting in her way when she was hunched over on the floor cleaning up. It gives Percy a good look of her face from where he’s sitting next to her. He can see that she’s hiding the real question that she wants to ask, and he decides to bite the bullet.
“If there’s something that’s bothering you, you might as well say it now before you spontaneously combust.”
Piper lets out a laugh at that, eyes squinting with her smile “That’d be even more of a mess to clean up, huh.”
Percy nods, but remains silent, waiting for her to talk.
It takes her a minute, but she finally lets out a sigh, scratching her scalp “I wish you’d just let me know if it gets this bad. Or even your mom. I know Sally would’ve cleaned up that room in a heartbeat.”
Percy remembers his therapist saying that healing is also about being prepared to hear things that you don’t want to, but it doesn’t make it seem any less irritating. “Everyone else would’ve cleaned that room in a heartbeat, except for me, I guess.” He replies bitterly, stirring his food around on his plate.
“You know that’s not what I meant.” Piper leans forward and rests her food on the table, then gently takes Percy’s from his hands and places it next to hers. “I would be one giant, enormously massive hypocrite to be reprimanding you about hygiene or a clean room. Have you seen my room lately? Even Leo couldn’t walk in there and you know that tiny elf goes ham whenever there’s a task for him to do.” She scooches closer and rests her head against his shoulder, her hair tickling his jaw “It’s okay to ask for help sometime, like you did today. I’m having fun and you’re looking lighter with the more surface space we see. I’m really glad you’re here, Percy.”
He knows she means something else when she says that, and he closes his eyes, guilt choking him in a vice grip “Annabeth told you?”
Piper sticks out her hand and shakes it in a ‘so-so’ manner “Not the details, just what’s important.”
“I’m sorry.” His whisper was so soft; it didn't even feel like he said it, but Piper heard it, because she turns around and holds him, burying herself in his arms from where he wraps them around her.
“Stop apologizing, you big goof. I’m just happy you’re here, alright. Even if you force me to do child labor.”
“Hey! You came here voluntarily.”
“How could I say no to you! You’re puppy dog eyes could rival Estelle if she wasn’t so fucking cute.”
Something warms at his heart at the mention of his sister’s name “She is the cutest isn’t she?”
“And have you wrapped around her little fingers. Don’t think I didn’t notice the couple of Barbies laying around in your room.”
“She told me my room was the apocalypse and Barbie was one of the only survivors. Apparently my room is the ‘scrapyard where the zombies are’. I almost cried myself to sleep.”
Piper laughs out loud, and it’s an ugly sound which is funny cause everything else about her borders on godly. It’s refreshing, and he knows it is for her too, and the contagious snorts get to him too and he joins her, eyes flooding over in joy.
“I can’t believe you’re laughing when this was a very serious thing to me.”
“Oh I love kids!” Piper gasps out, wiping her eyes with her sleeves “I love kids so much.”
Percy pokes her sides and relishes in her squeal as he triggers her ticklish spot. He’s glad she’s here too, and he smiles knowing that he’s going to be alright.