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Dad snored like he was performing in a one man band. Standing in the doorway of Dad’s bedroom, Percy was really glad that their rooms were on practically opposite sides of the second floor because there was no way he’d ever get any sleep if he had to be closer to that noise.
“Dad?” He kept his voice quiet, not wanting to startle him. Dad didn’t so much as twitch.
Percy stepped further into the room, stepping quietly on tip toes. What if Dad thought he was like a burglar or something and got all mad?
Well, actually, being mad was about to be a given.
Percy had only started at the middle school near his dad’s home a month ago, so he and Dad didn’t have a ton of experience yet navigating these waters. But still, he had a pretty strong gut feeling that Dad viewed his education rather importantly.
He’d thought it was important enough to actually pay real money (insane!) to send him off to some fancy private school where they wore uniforms and everything. (For the record, private school cafeteria food? Just as gross as any public school he’d been at). Percy would’ve kicked up more of a fuss about it (god knows Mom was rolling in her grave at the idea of paying to put Percy in some fancy school when there were perfectly good free ones around) but it was the school Grover and Jason attended too, so he supposed it was alright, all things considered.
Taking all that into account, Percy was almost positive that Dad wasn’t gonna be too thrilled in a moment.
Dad rolled over, his snores reaching a crescendo then tapering off.
“Dad?” Percy moved to stand right beside the bed now. He reached a hand out, gently pushing on Dad’s arm.
Dad jolted up, gasping for breath like Percy had plugged his nose closed or something. “Wha–” Dad looked wildly around the room, hand coming to clutch his chest. “What’s happening?” His eyes found Percy in the dark room. “Perseus? Are you alright?” He fumbled a hand towards his bedside table, flicking a lamp on and illuminating them both.
Percy blinked in the light. “I’m alright.” For now.
“Why are you awake, love?” Dad looked at the clock on his nightstand. 10:32pm. Not super late, but Dad was pretty old so he liked to go to bed early. (Which meant Percy had to go to bed early too).
Percy shifted around on his feet, fiddling with the comforter on the bed. “I remembered I need your help.”
Dad sat up, throwing the blankets off himself and turning to sit on the edge of the bed. “Help with what? Did you have a nightmare?”
A nightmare? Jesus, how old did Dad think he was? He hadn’t had one of those since he was in elementary school. Probably not even since kindergarten! (Not counting, of course, when he’d been left to his own devices a few weeks back and he’d watched all those horror movies. Dad had been gracious enough not to say told you so, but he’d undoubtedly been thinking it).
“No, of course not.” Percy rolled his eyes, ignoring Dad’s pointed don’t roll your eyes at me face. He’d gotten really good at making that a silent command as of late.
“Then what is it, Perseus? It’s very late, you need your sleep before school tomorrow.”
“See,” Percy rubbed the back of his neck, deciding not to comment on the fact that it was not in fact very late in favor of skipping to the point, “that’s kinda what I remembered.”
Dad stretched his arms over his head, sighing heavily. He seemed to rightly realize that this was about to take more than a couple minutes. “What have you remembered, darling?”
“I’ve maybe, possibly, got a little bit of homework I actually gotta do still. Before tomorrow.”
Silence. Percy wished Dad hadn’t turned the light on. Being able to see Dad’s eyes slowly narrow in suspicion was making his stomach drop even lower.
When Dad didn’t respond, Percy hastened to explain, “I forgot about it. But I have to do an assignment about a country for our geography unit.”
“Perseus, I asked you no less than five times this evening if you had any homework to be doing.”
Percy winced. He’d spent the evening playing a new video game and had waved Dad off every time he asked about schoolwork, insisting he’d done it all during free period on Friday already. He was glad he’d already beaten the final level of the game because something told him it was about to be a long time before he was allowed to play video games again.
“I’m sorry…” Percy nudged the rug with his sock covered toe, digging at a small hole in it. Dad had these big carpets covering just about every room in the house and he would bet money on them being hand woven. Seemed like an awful waste of money for something Percy wiped his feet on, but when he’d pointed that out once Dad had just said well why are you wiping your feet off inside anyway? So he didn’t bring it up anymore.
“We will be having a serious discussion about your time management tomorrow, young man.” Dad shoved himself off the bed, standing up fully. “Alright, let’s go finish it up. But it better not take long, Perseus. And I don’t want to hear any fussing about being tired come morning.”
“It won’t take long.” Percy promised. “I just gotta fill out the poster board and answer a few questions on the worksheet.”
Dad had grabbed a sweatshirt off the floor, the clothing halfway over his head when he froze. He slowly lowered his arms, piercing Percy with a look. “Did you just say poster board?”
“Dad, I don’t feel so–”
“You are not sick, Perseus. Do not try to tell me that you are or I swear you will find yourself in trouble for lying.”
Percy groaned, laying his head back down on the breakfast table. “But Dad, can’t you just hear me out on this?” He resisted the urge to stomp his foot, but just barely.
“I’ve heard you out, darling. Now, you hear me out: get your bookbag and get your backside to the car before you wind up having trouble sitting in class today.” Dad pointed unwaveringly at the front door. “Right now.”
Dad may have sounded harsh to an outside observer, but, to his credit, this was roughly the umpteenth time they’d had this back and forth. The first time Percy faked a stomach bug to get out of school, Dad was very sympathetic. Percy was allowed to stay home sick from school and watch movies all day while Dad fussed over him. When Percy claimed to be sick again a few days later, Dad was even more worried and brought him straight to the doctor’s. (For the record, Percy thought the fact that he had to go to the doctor’s may have actually been worse than going to school, but he’d be damned if he admitted that to Dad). After receiving a clean bill of health, Dad’s worry had abetted some into a mild suspicion.
By the third time Percy came to Dad with claims of vague symptoms, but no fever or anything tangible to speak of, Dad had clearly become wise to his game. He’d been sent to school anyway, albeit with a kiss to the head and a promise to come fetch him from the nurse should he take a turn for the worse.
Now, on attempt number four of being the boy who cried sick, Dad’s patience had clearly been exhausted.
Well, Percy was exhausted too.
They’d been up until midnight finishing Percy’s project. Which was partly Percy fault, sure, but if you asked him, it was mostly Dad’s fault. Dad refused to just let him half ass it.
After running to the late night convenience store for some last minute poster board, Dad had sat Percy down at the kitchen table to show him what he’d done thus far for the project.
The result had been a scathing lecture about responsibility and time management and do not give me that look, Perseus, you’re already on thin ice. That last one may not have been super related to the project, but the project did technically bring it about.
All in all, Dad had been less than thrilled to discover that Percy hadn’t been studiously researching his country for the project all week long. He’d been downright mad when Percy had to actually look at his assignment sheet (shoved deep at the bottom of his backpack among other crumpled papers–and hadn’t that resulted in another fun scolding) to remember what country he’d been assigned for the project.
Despite the clear time crunch, Dad had steadfastly vetoed Percy’s suggestion of just making facts up and slapping some glitter on the poster board. Percy was almost certain that was just because Dad had a thing about glitter and the mess it makes, though.
He’d made Percy actually do the research and design the poster all nice and pretty. So dumb. But Percy hadn’t exactly had a ton of room to bicker about it.
The next morning had come far too soon for Percy’s taste. Despite Dad’s swearing that he wouldn’t tolerate any feet dragging or complaints of being tired the night before, come morning he’d been fairly nice about it when Percy had done just that. He’d woken Percy up all gently, then let him have an extra ten minutes to sleep in. Once Percy had dragged himself downstairs, hair a tangled mess and clothes all rumpled, Dad had let him have that sugary cereal for breakfast. And Dad normally hates that stuff (I may as well give you a Mountain Dew and a bowl of whipped cream as a meal, it has the same nutrition–which, yeah, that sounds like a great breakfast too? Dad was weird sometimes).
Maybe if Percy had been feeling smart, he would’ve recognized Dad’s gestures as the olive branch they were and not pushed it further. But, he wasn’t really feeling smart this morning.
So he’d pushed a little, tried the sick route, tried the pouting and whining route. And in the end Dad had still made him go to school, but now with a hefty smack to the backside as he got in the car.
The only decent part of Goode Middle School was the group of people waiting on the sidewalk for Percy. His cousin, Jason, and his best friend, Grover.
And Annabeth Chase was there too, he supposed.
She was looking as warm and welcoming as ever, frowning at his car’s approach like he’d already managed to irritate her before 8am.
Percy self consciously ran a hand through his hair, then down his shirt, looking for whatever was clearly out of place and bringing her hawk eyes out in full force. Oh. His fly was undone. Perfect. If anyone on earth could see through a car door and notice something like that, it would be Annabeth Chase.
Whatever, Grover liked her, so he could just deal with her for him.
“Don’t forget your poster, Perseus.” Dad pulled the car over to the designated drop off curb, putting it in park. “You’ll do great in the presentation, just use the script we made.” Well, the script Dad had made. Percy had gotten cranky by that point last night, so Dad had wound up writing a majority of Percy’s short little spiel on his country. He said it wasn’t cheating, just helping. Percy didn’t even know what wound up going into the speech though, so it was an awful lot of help.
Dad reached into the backseat and pulled the rolled up poster board from the floor, handing it to Percy as he threw the passenger door open. “Thanks.” Percy tugged one of the straps of his backpack over his shoulder, carrying the poster under the other arm. He got out of the car, prepared to head over to his friends.
“Freeze.” Percy turned back to the car to see Dad quirking a finger at him, a small smile on his face.
He groaned, but dutifully stuck his head back in the car through the rolled down window. Dad leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “I love you, darling. Have a good day at school.”
Percy rubbed at his cheek, a blush forming. “Yeah, yeah.”
Dad looked over Percy’s shoulder, lifting a hand in a wave. “Good morning boys, and Miss Chase.” Percy rolled his eyes. He was always calling Annabeth Miss Chase, like it was the olden days. To be fair, Dad had been born in like the 1900s or something, so maybe that was just how they talked back then.
Percy’s friends had approached them, and Percy was positive that if he looked, Annabeth would be smirking about having witnessed Dad’s kiss goodbye.
He turned to check. Yep. Smirking away.
“Hey Uncle Po!” Jason waved, wisely choosing not to step any closer to the car, lest he get pecked goodbye too.
Dad frowned at his nephew, eyeballing him from head to toe. “Jason Grace, does your father know you’re taking the dress code as a suggestion today?”
Jason was currently clad in a partially buttoned shirt, no blazer, and no tie. At least he had the right pants on. If Percy had to wager a guess, even getting him to acquiesce to that had been a battle on Aunt Hera and Uncle Zeus’s parts this morning.
Jason wrinkled his nose in distaste. “C’mon, it’s way too hot for a jacket and tie. They should just be glad I’m even wearing a shirt today.” He lifted his untucked shirt slightly as if to demonstrate his willingness to remove it at a moment’s notice.
Percy wasn’t feeling like he was safe enough on Dad’s good side right about now, or else he would’ve adamantly agreed with his cousin. It seemed like it was probably violation of some human rights code to be making students wear these stuffy uniforms in September in Florida. How a boy could be expected to focus on learning while wearing a buttoned up collared shirt and a always-too-tight-tie was a question no administrator had apparently thought to ask themselves.
Okay, technically the school building had air conditioning. But still.
Percy was just glad to see someone else be on the receiving end of one of Dad’s finger crooks at the moment. Jason reluctantly obliged, sighing like this was a great burden to him. He obediently handed over his tie when Dad held out a hand, allowing his uncle to tie it back around his neck.
Dad straightened Jason’s shirt collar as well, doing up the top two buttons. “There, looking sharp.” He tugged Jason a little closer, giving him a peck to his cheek as well, which Jason immediately scrubbed away. Percy would feel bad for his cousin, but it was pretty nice to not be the only one bearing the brunt of Dad’s attention.
Jason stepped back from the car, hand immediately going to loosen the tie a bit. He seemed immune to Dad’s pointed look, but stayed out of arm’s reach anyway.
“All right, have a good day today, all of you.” Dad turned his attention back to Percy, smiling at him. “I’ll pick you up after school. I love you, Guppy.”
Percy’s public humiliation sufficiently complete, Dad waved goodbye and drove off.
Percy didn’t even have to look to guess the expression on Annabeth’s face. She was never gonna let that one go. Turning to face his friends, he was proven right by the new sparkle in her eye.
“Shut up.” He said, before she could even open her mouth. This just seemed to make her more gleeful, a less than innocent look appearing on her face.
“I didn’t say anything, Guppy.”
“Shut up.” Percy groaned, trudging over to their little group. His face felt warm enough to cook on, and he hoped any passerbys just assumed he had a bad sunburn today.
Jason was watching Dad’s car slowly exit the parking lot, one hand inching towards his neck. “And three… two… one, we’re in the clear.” Percy and him both immediately yanked on their ties with Dad out of sight, eagerly undoing them, as well as the top buttons of their shirts.
Annabeth rolled her eyes at them. “We’ve got gym first period, you would’ve gotten to take them off in like a half hour anyway.”
“Every second counts when you’re in necktie prison.” Percy shoved the tie haphazardly in his backpack. “We wanna actually be able to breathe before getting to the locker room.”
Shouldering his backpack once more, he and his friends made their way into the school building. Jason and Grover were in one homeroom together, so they veered off to head to their lockers. Percy and Annabeth were together as well, because of course he would get saddled with her.
He headed for his locker, Annabeth right beside him. She gave him a sideways look when he opened his locker and a torrent of papers and other miscellaneous crap fell to the floor. Homework. Homework. Bad test grade. Note from a teacher he never gave to Dad. Homework. “It’s like week three of classes, Fish Food, how could you possibly have that big a mess?”
“It’s not hard to accumulate a mess, you just gotta dedicate yourself to never cleaning up and never throwing anything away.” Percy shoved his backpack and the poster board in the locker, not needing them for gym class. He had to give the locker door a little kick to get it to actually shut with all the stuff inside it, but he managed it. A few crumpled papers had fallen out and landed on the floor in the chaos.
Annabeth bent and picked one up, immediately clueing Percy in that this spelled danger danger warning warning when she burst into laughter. “Well did you rock it?” She looked at him, small slip of paper clutched in her hands like a prize.
“What the hell are you talking about?” He ignored the stern look their homeroom teacher shot at him for the curse as she walked by and into their classroom.
“Did you rock the test?” Annabeth made her eyes wide, looking like she genuinely wanted to know. He was so glad that she was having a blast at ass o’clock in the morning, but it was too early for him to join the giggle party.
He reached out and snatched the paper from her, reading it over slowly. Hope you have a great day, sweetheart. You’re gonna ‘rock’ that geology quiz today! Oh damn. And just when Percy’s blush had finally cooled back down.
This was one of the notes Dad had stuck in his lunch box. Dad insisted on packing Percy a lunch every evening for him to take to school the next day, even though Percy always said he could just buy lunch in the cafeteria like he always has. But no, those weren’t nutritious enough, Perseus and we have perfectly good food at home that I can send you with. Honestly, Percy was pretty sure Dad just got a kick out of adding those little notes.
They included a pun more often than not. He was really coming into his own with the dad jokes.
Percy would never admit it under pain of death, but he really liked those corny little dad joke notes.
But now Annabeth had seen them and gasoline had just been poured on her insult flame.
“Just shut up.” He said lamely, shoving the note in his pocket.
Annabeth’s grin widened. “Hey, if you’re still looking for a birthday present to give me, a scrapbook filled with those would be perfect.”
Percy turned on his heels and stalked into their homeroom classroom.
He parked himself at his desk in the back, Annabeth sitting beside him. He didn’t have his backpack or anything to distract himself with, so he just focussed on staring out the window rather than acknowledging her. He would’ve called her a mean name if he didn’t think it would get Grover mad at him and wind up with Dad washing his mouth out. And if he wasn’t a little worried it would actually hurt her feelings. She was annoying sometimes, like when they got paired up for assignments and she was bossing him around, but the idea of making her sad made his stomach hurt.
“Hey.” A pencil poked his arm. He ignored it.
Another poke, this time with the sharp pencil tip, not the eraser. He moved his arm out of reach, but kept staring out the window.
“Hey, Seaweed Brain.”
Percy almost snorted a laugh at that one. Stupid Annabeth coming up with stupid funny nicknames when he was busy being mad at her.
He finally turned to look at her. She was smiling at him in a not-so-mean way now. He maybe kinda liked that version of her smile sometimes. A little bit.
“Sorry.” She didn’t sound too sorry, but then she added, “it’s kinda sweet. My dad never does stuff like that,” and he found it hard to be mad anymore. Besides, looking out the window was already getting boring.
Gym class kinda sucked. It was going alright until this jerk Nancy threw a ball hard at Grover during dodgeball.
Then, of course, Percy had to throw one right back at her. Except his aim was better than hers. While she’d only whacked Grover in the arm (and hard too!) he’d nailed her right back in the chest.
She’d literally fallen over with the force. It was pretty awesome.
He didn’t get to celebrate for too long though because their gym teacher blew the whistle and made him sit out the rest of the game. Said she’d be sending a message to his father about his unsportsmanlike conduct. Which was so stupid because Nancy didn’t even get in trouble at all, even though she started it and Grover had a bruise on his arm too. Maybe not as big as the one she’d have, but was it his fault that she had shitty aim? It was the thought that counted in situations like this.
But even though all that was true, Percy was still the one that had to sit out the rest of the class while Nancy got to keep playing. She totally over-dramaticized how hurt she got too, wincing whenever the teacher looked at her, then smirking at Percy when she would look away. He wanted to throw another dodgeball at her dumb smug face, but he was almost positive that would mean his Dad actually being called down to come get him early from school. And that wasn’t an interaction he was itching to have.
(Although Dad was pretty reasonable usually. He’d probably understand that Nancy had deserved it. But Percy still didn’t wanna risk it).
His second period, math class, hadn’t been much better.
He’d fallen asleep on his desk almost immediately and been woken up by his teacher none-too-quietly clearing her throat. Sue him, he’d had a late night.
After he’d finished wiping drool off his chin, he’d been made to go do the next problem on the board. It seemed like cruel and unusual punishment, but hey, since when do schools abide by the Geneva Convention? Or was it the Constitution? He could never remember which. That probably didn’t bode well for his grade in history this year.
Anyway, he’d butchered the problem on the board, getting all tangled up trying to divide the fractions. He’d fumbled for a minute, starting to sweat, before Mrs. Dodds had finally decided to put him out of his misery. He was allowed to return to his seat, face red, while another student completed the problem.
Of course it was Nancy. Of cooouuurse she solved it easily. Her smug face when she finished made him desperately ache for a nearby dodgeball.
Stupid Mrs. Dodds. She did that on purpose, knowing Percy wouldn’t be able to do the problem. Who even knows how to divide fractions? What was the point of that? Was Percy gonna be sitting around a pizza shop one of these days trying to figure out how to divide the sliced up pizza by some other sliced up pizza? That didn’t even seem like the right scenario for this type of math, which showed how dumb and useless it was. He couldn’t even think of a pointless scenario for it.
Percy was the first out of the classroom when second period ended, not bothering to wait for Grover before stomping off to his locker.
When he opened it to grab the posterboard for his presentation, a wave of trash fell out once more.
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Percy banged his palm loudly on the locker beside his.
“Mr. Jackson.” Percy almost jumped out of his skin at the voice. He spun around to see Mr. Brunner, his history teacher, coming out of the classroom across from him.
Shit.
Mr. Brunner was the only teacher Percy really liked in this school. He always seemed to genuinely believe that Percy could actually do well if he just put some effort in. Percy currently had a B in his class, which was like an A+ in his book and just about the best he’d ever done. He liked the way Mr. Brunner taught, telling history like it was a bunch of cool stories and not just boring dates. Most of all he liked that Mr. Brunner liked him.
And now, here he was, looking at Percy all stern and disappointed.
“Mr. Jackson,” Mr. Brunner wheeled out of the classroom, “I think we would all appreciate it if you could refrain from using any four letter words, at least within school grounds. You’re a bright boy, I’m sure you can think of a better way to express any frustrations you may be having.”
Percy swallowed thickly. “Yes sir, sorry.”
Mr. Brunner came closer, stopping his wheelchair by some of the garbage that had fallen out of Percy’s locker and into the hallway. “And let’s perhaps keep in mind that order for our belongings may mean order for our minds as well. After all, Fredrich Nietzche told us that what separates two people most profoundly is their sense and degree of cleanliness. Let’s try to be on the right side of that separation.”
Percy didn’t know who that Nietzsche guy was, but he sounded like a real stick in the mud.
But still, Percy nodded and bent to gather up some of the loose papers and oh gross apple cores that had fallen out.
Mr. Brunner left him to wallow in his mess and chastisement. Great. Now he had to go do a presentation in front of him. A presentation on a country he could barely remember the name of (Argentina? No, Austria? Something with an A) and hadn’t even written the speech for. He was gonna just make him even more disappointed because that was just how this crummy day was going.
Percy sighed, attempting to shove the garbage back into his locker, but it seemed like the cubby was rejecting it. More crap kept falling out, spilling onto the feets of other students trying to walk by. He muttered a couple apologies, using his feet to kick stuff out of the way.
Deciding it would just be easier to toss everything besides his book and backpack, he grabbed a handful of junk and walked it over to the nearby trash can. He repeated this process a few more times, slowly dwindling the pile around him. Annabeth was right, there was no way he should’ve been able to make this big a mess in the short time he’d been at Goode.
It took half a dozen trips to the trash can, but eventually Percy was able to see the bottom of his locker once more.
Oh. He’d forgotten about that.
Underneath the mounds of old assignments and long forgotten lunch boxes (Dad swore he was gonna start buying lunch boxes in bulk at Costco at the rate that Percy “lost” them at school), there was a skateboard. It had a shark painted on the bottom of it, jaws opening to swallow a beach ball. It was one of the few things he’d brought with him when he’d moved in with Dad, a gift Mom had bought him a couple years ago. His throat felt a little tight remembering how she’d held his hands while he figured out how to balance on it.
He’d convinced Dad to let him walk to school alone one day a couple weeks ago. He’d shoved the skateboard in his backpack and once out of sight of the house, he’d ridden it the rest of the way to school. He’d had to leave it in his locker though because Dad picked him up after school that day and he didn’t wanna have to explain why he had it.
It wasn’t that Dad had a problem with the skateboard.
Well, maybe he didn’t love it. He always watched Percy from the kitchen like a creepy stalker when Percy would ride up and down the driveway on it. Percy swore he could hear Dad’s teeth audibly clench whenever he stumbled.
But still, Dad let him ride it.
The problem was that Dad had this dumb condition that Percy had to wear a helmet while on it. Which was, and he wasn’t being dramatic when he said this, the most ridiculous rule anyone had ever had.
Sure, Mom had made him wear one too. But that was back when he was like ten, which was super little. Just look at his cousin Nico: he’d just turned ten but he was still practically a baby. Now he was twelve, and that meant he didn’t need babyish protections. He didn’t need a bib or one of those baby gates or a helmet.
But Dad was as insistent as ever, so as a courtesy, Percy only forgoed it when he was out of sight of him.
Like right now.
Percy glances around the hallway. There were only a couple students milling about still, most had gone into the classrooms since the bell was about to ring. No teachers in sight, classroom doors all shut nice and tight.
Making a quick decision, Percy shoved the poster board for his presentation back in his locker, trading it for the skateboard. He would’ve flopped the presentation anyway. So really there was no harm in just skipping it altogether.
Percy shouldered his backpack, tucking the skateboard under his arm, and walked down the hall towards the front doors. In his experience, if you just looked like you were doing exactly what you were supposed to be doing, people didn’t tend to get in your way or ask too many questions. So with his head held high, he strolled right out the school doors and started walking away from campus.
Not to toot his own horn or anything, but Percy wasn’t half bad on a skateboard.
He could do little jumps off ramps and skate around pretty well in the bowl. And he only fell a little once or twice, so it didn’t even matter if he didn’t have a helmet on. Or elbow and knee pads, Dad was weird about those too. (He was weird about a lot of things to be honest).
The first few weeks after Percy had first moved in with him, Dad hadn’t been overly concerned about where Percy went or how long he was gone. He certainly hadn’t been fussing about elbow pads and helmets. Percy had just walked out of the house when he wanted to and returned when he felt like it, doing whatever he wanted in the meantime. He’d spent most of his days either at the beach or down at the skatepark by himself.
Then, out of the blue, Dad had started getting all uptight about stuff like that. It was all where are you going, Perseus? and please be home by dark or the dreaded no you cannot go there alone, darling. It was like Dad had decided that Percy being left to his own devices and wandering around a strange city alone all the time wasn’t actually a good idea. It made no sense.
Dad had gone and instilled some household rules, which was just a BS way of saying Percy’s rules because Dad himself didn’t seem to have to follow them too. Percy had to “ask before he went anywhere” and “be home by curfew” (yeah, you heard that right, he’d actually been bogged down with a curfew like this was some 90s after school special).
Just last week Dad and him had had a little spat about whether or not Percy hollering “going out!” over his shoulder qualified as asking before going anywhere. Percy maintained that it did, but Dad had made his own point rather thoroughly with a dozen solid swats to his backside and a two day grounding.
All this to say, if Dad didn’t think yelling “going out” was sufficient asking, skipping school to go out alone was probably not gonna cut it either.
The sight of Dad’s car pulling into the parking lot of the skatepark was an unwelcome, but unsurprising sight. After the incident at Uncle Hades’s party, when Percy and Nico had left on their own, Dad had stuck some dumb tracking app on his phone.
Percy made another loop of the bowl on his skateboard while he waited for the SUV to pull to a stop, not making any moves to go over to it. It usually cracked him up at least a bit to see his Dad driving what was so clearly a soccer mom car. It felt both fitting and deeply out of character. On the one hand, of course his fussy, practical Dad would drive what every other suburban parent drives. On the other, his Dad was, at his core, pretty much a beach bum. He wore linen shirts and cargo shorts and sandals as often as one physically could. He fixed up old boats in his spare time and had a seashell coffee table that Percy was like 70% sure he’d made himself. Percy wasn’t positive what kind of car all that equated to (some sort of dune buggy?) but it definitely wasn’t the four door tank idling near him now.
Dad got out of the car, the sound of the car door shutting firmly spurring Percy to do another faster loop. He came to stand near the edge of the bowl, just hovering there, watching Percy skate back and forth.
When Percy ventured too close to him, Dad suddenly reached out, snagging Percy around the waist as quick as a scorpion stinging. The skateboard clattered to the ground as Percy was hoisted right off of it mid-lap.
Dad planted Percy on his feet, keeping both hands locked securely around his waist anyway.
Percy chanced a glance at Dad’s face, not loving the expression he saw there. Dad was all red faced, lips pressed together in a tight line. His eyes raked over Percy, looking for anything out of place.
It was quiet for long enough, just the sound of hard breathing between them (Percy from the exertion of skating and Dad from being capital P Pissed), that Percy actually started to wish Dad would just launch into his lecture already.
But then Dad did speak, and Percy wanted him to hush again real quick. “Where is your helmet, Perseus James Jackson?”
Oh damn. First, middle, and last name? Dad was real mad.
“At the house, probably.” Percy felt Dad’s fingers tighten briefly on him.
“Then why are you on that damned thing without it?” Dad cut a heated look towards Percy’s fallen board. Percy was almost certain that it was gonna wind up kindling at the next bonfire if he didn’t do something quick.
“I was being safe, Dad, honest. I didn’t fall at all. And I didn’t even really do any jumps.”
Dad looked less than appeased by this, but thankfully he released Percy and took a step back. “Gather your things, we are going home at once.”
Percy quickly threw on his backpack and grabbed his board, shoving it under the arm furthest from Dad. No need to have him staring at it as a reminder.
The ride home was quieter than usual. Normally Dad would run through his usual spiel of questions, how was your day?, how was that quiz?, can you please take your feet off the dashboard? But he must’ve already figured out how Percy’s day had gone based on some good old fashioned deductive reasoning, and Percy wasn’t feeling bold enough to prop his feet up on the dash right now.
At home, Percy hurried upstairs to his room immediately. His typical after school routine included kicking his shoes off wherever, then flopping back on the couch to play video games until Dad inevitably made him turn them off in favor of doing homework.
But right now, being a studious kid and getting a jump start on that homework (at least from the one class he did attend today) seemed the wisest choice.
Math was certainly far from his favorite subject, but he sat right down at the desk in his room and got to cracking on the mountain of problems his teacher seemed to think was necessary.
That was how Dad found him an hour later, knee deep in multiplying and dividing fractions over and over. And he wasn’t just half-assing it too, like he would’ve preferred! Because sometimes Dad liked to check his work when he was done and he got all disappointed and frowny if he seemed to think Percy wasn’t putting in his best effort.
But Dad didn’t ask to see his homework this time. He sat down on Percy’s bed, looking, to Percy’s relief, a lot less grumpy than earlier.
“Darling, come sit with me, please.” Dad patted the spot beside him. Percy’s desk chair seemed a fair bit safer right about now, but at least Dad was having him sit beside him rather than simply upending him over his lap.
Percy slowly stood and went to sit beside him, leaving a couple inches of bed between them.
Dad rested a hand on Percy’s back. “How about you tell me what happened today?”
Percy looked up at him, surprised. He’d figured Dad already would know everything he needed to in order to decide his fate. But Dad looked like he was being genuine, giving Percy an encouraging smile.
“Today sucked.” Percy shrugged.
“What sucked about it?”
“Everything.” He took a deep breath. “Everyone. Nancy was the worst, as always.” He’d complained about her on more than one occasion, so Dad nodded in understanding.
“How was she the worst?” Dad’s hand had started rubbing Percy’s back slightly.
“She threw a dodgeball at Grover during gym class.” At Dad’s confusion he added, “Really hard! Not like how you’re supposed to throw them. She really whipped it at him.”
Dad frowned. “Was Grover alright?”
“Yeah, she has shit aim,” he ignored Dad’s pointed look at the curse, “so she only got his arm.”
Percy already knew what Dad was going to say before he opened his mouth, but it still annoyed him, “Perseus, I know you’ve said you don’t want me to discuss this with the school. But if this girl is interfering with your education and being cruel to you and your friends, then I think I need to speak with your principal.”
“No, I already said you can’t.” Percy quickly fixed his tone at Dad’s raised eyebrows, “I mean, I really don’t want you to. That’s babyish, having my daddy fix stuff for me. Besides, it was Grover she hit, not me.”
Dad considered him for a long few seconds. This had been an ongoing debate since the first time Percy had brought up Nancy’s name his very first week of school. If Dad had his way, nobody would be allowed to so much as look at Percy a little funny in school. But he didn’t seem to get that having his dad come in just because someone was a little crappy sometimes was gonna get everyone looking at him funny.
Thankfully Dad dropped it for now. “What happened after that?”
“After that I had to sit out for the rest of class.” Percy huffed. “But stupid Nancy didn’t.”
“Why would you have to sit out of class?”
Percy shifted in his seat. “I maybe threw a dodgeball back at her. A little hard. And I have better aim than she does.”
Dad gave him a disapproving look, but didn’t press it. But god knows Percy’ll hear more about it once that letter from his gym teacher gets mailed home. “Did anything else happen?”
“Yeah, I’m shit at math still.”
“Language, Persues.” Dad tapped his upper thigh in warning. “And you are not shit at anything, least of all math.”
Percy turned to fully face him, feeling like Dad really needed to see his whole disbelieving face right now. “Yeah I am. I don’t understand any of it and I never will. And even though Mrs. Dodds knows that, and knows I’m dumb, she still made me go up and do a problem on the board.”
Dad sighed, reaching up to comb a hand through Percy’s curls. “Sweetheart, you are not dumb. I don’t want to hear you talking like that.” He tapped a finger to Percy’s nose. “I know it’s very stressful to have to do problems on the board. I’ll speak to Mrs. Dodds about that at parent teacher conferences.” He shook his head, staving off Percy’s immediate argument. “No, no. I’m going to insist on that, love. You don’t need to be given such anxieties over schoolwork. It doesn’t benefit you or your learning.”
Percy wanted to push back on that, because once again, he didn’t need Dad fighting his battles. But honestly, it would be pretty nice to not have to stand there sweating and blushing while having to do problems on the board.
“Was that all the worst of it?” Dad cupped his cheek.
Percy sniffled, eyes feeling a little stingy out of the blue. “My locker’s a mess.”
Dad looked like he was fighting back a smile. “I do not find that hard to believe in the slightest.” He sent a pointed glance around Percy’s fairly messy bedroom.
“Mr. Brunner said it was messy. That Nietzche wouldn’t like it.”
“Nietzche?”
“Yeah,” Percy nodded, lower lip protruding, “I guess he’s like this neat freak or something. And then I didn’t wanna give my presentation because he was already disappointed and it was gonna be bad and make him even more disappointed.”
Dad hmm’d, putting the final pieces together. “So then you left school?”
“I found my skateboard in my locker. It seemed like more fun than flunking a project.” Percy looked down at his feet, swinging them idly.
“Why didn’t you call me, darling? I would have come to get you if you were having such a bad day.”
Percy shrugged.
Dad was quiet a minute, probably waiting for a better explanation. But Percy didn’t have one to give.
Finally, he shifted on the bed, moving to sit further forward. Oh god. He was rolling up his sleeves. A terrible, terrible sign.
“While I understand you had a rotten day, and I’m sorry about that, you know it doesn’t excuse just wandering off from school alone. You can’t skip your classes like that. And you can’t go somewhere without me knowing where you are. Do you have any idea how worried I was when the school called to say you were gone?” Percy hadn’t considered how Dad had known to look for him, but he supposed he should’ve assumed the school would call him. They tend to do that when kids go AWOL, the snitches.
Dad’s voice took on an even sterner edge as he said, “And none of this excuses you going to ride on that skateboard without your helmet. You and I have discussed that before, so I know you are aware of how dangerous that is. Honestly, Perseus, you could have cracked your head or broken your neck doing that.”
Percy’s shoulder hunched in with each sentence. Dad was working himself into what Mom would’ve called a tizzy and that never ended well for his ass.
“I’m sorry.” Percy offered, mostly meaning it.
Dad merely pursed his lips and patted his lap uninvitingly. When Percy opened his mouth to complain, he shook his head and cut Percy off. “Nuh uh. You know good and well that skipping school and not using a helmet are both things that will get your bottom spanked. You should be glad I’m not spanking you separately for each of those things.”
He looked like he was genuinely considering doing just that, so Percy made probably his first smart decision of the day and hopped up, tossing himself over Dad’s lap. He landed hard enough to release a gust of breath out of his mouth and a surprised sound from Dad’s.
Dad patted his back a couple times. “Alright. Good boy, thank you.”
And then they were off to the races.
In Percy’s time living with Dad, he hated to admit it, but Dad had gotten a fair amount of practice in the spanking department. There’d been a learning curve, sure, but by this point, Dad was pretty much an expert butt-smacker.
He held Percy firmly around the waist with one arm, and with his other free hand he whacked away at Percy’s poor backside. It never ceased to take Percy’s breath away just how quickly that sting builds up, but sting and build it certainly did.
It felt like Dad was making up for him being punished just the once for multiple offenses by making it feel like ten times worse than usual.
Or maybe this was just how it normally felt.
It was hard to say, he always swore each spanking he got was the worst one ever. If he was ever asked to rank them, whichever was the most recent would always take top spot. Mr. Brunner probably could’ve told him some psycho-mumbo-jumbo about warped perceptions that would explain it. But getting that answer would mean having to explain to his favorite teacher that Dad spanked him for being naughty and he’d literally rather drop out of school or drop dead before he did that. Whichever offered the quickest escape.
“You do not skip classes, Perseus.” Dad decided now was a good time to start his lecture up again. Great. Not like Percy had anything else to focus on right about now. “If you have a problem like you did today, you can call me or have the school office call me. But you don’t just leave. Clear?”
“Yes sir.” Percy gave an experimental kick of his leg, trying to see how easily he could wiggle away to freedom.
Not so easily.
Dad just trapped Percy’s leg under his own, effectively immobilizing him. “You are going to apologize to the teachers whose classes you missed today. And you’ll ask Mr. Brunner to let you make up that presentation.”
“No!” God was there anything more embarrassing than having to apologize to a teacher? And he absolutely did not wanna do that presentation at all, let alone doing it in front of the class when nobody else had to present that day.
But then Dad smacked his thighs hard a few times and Percy reconsidered his position.
“Fine! Fine I’ll say sorry!”
“And?” Dad kept at it with the thighs.
“And I’ll ask Mr. Brunner to let me do the presentation.” Maybe the gods would have mercy on him for once and Mr. Brunner wouldn’t let him do it.
Dad was finally satisfied and moved back to smacking the rest of his backside.
Percy groaned, pressing his face into his bedspread. He felt the blanket getting damp beneath his face, the tears starting to fall. Dad’s hand kept falling rhythmically, though. Percy was sure his bottom would be bright red by the end. Sometimes, after Dad had spanked him, he’d check in the bathroom mirror to see the damage. The sight was usually an unpretty collage of reds and pinks, with a few noticeable handprints from whenever Percy had gotten a little too sassy during his punishment. Dad liked his sass normally, or, well, he tolerated it normally, but not so much while he was already ass up over his lap.
Dad paused, and Percy hoped for a second that it was done. But nope. No luck.
“If you ever, and I mean ever ride anything–skateboard, bicycle, motorcycle, pogo stick–without a helmet on, I will paddle your bare bottom with your hairbrush so thoroughly that you won’t be able to even look at anything with wheels without wincing.”
Percy had very little doubt that he spoke the truth, but Dad still felt the need to hammer it home with a series of hard smacks to the lower part of his bottom where he’d be feeling it every time he sat down.
But then it was done. And Dad was lifting him up to sit on his lap, sore backside pressing against Dad’s legs. Even though that wasn’t the most comfortable position to be in at the moment, Percy didn’t voice any complaints. He just wrapped his arms around Dad’s middle, letting Dad squeeze him as tight as you could without cutting off blood flow.
“Oh my boy, my love.” Dad was clutching him like a child would their teddy bear, rocking side to side with him. He rubbed Percy’s back and pressed a kiss to his temple, resting his cheek against Percy’s hair.
It always made Percy wanna laugh (if he wasn’t too busy, y’know, crying) when Dad would fuss like this afterwards. Dad never liked seeing Percy upset, always quick to try and soothe it away. He wanted to point out that he wouldn’t be crying if Dad hadn’t just whacked his ass to hell and back, but that felt kinda vindictive which Mom used to say wasn’t a nice trait.
Fingers raked through the back of Percy’s hair. “Promise me something, Guppy?”
Percy hummed, focusing on getting his breathing back under control.
“Promise you won’t do something that could crack this darling head open? It would be an awful shame, what with you getting my good looks and all.” Dad tugged teasingly on a strand of his hair.
Percy snorted, pulling back enough to let Dad see his eye roll. “I got Mom’s good looks, old man.”
Dad chuckled, flicking his forehead lightly. “Cheeky boy.”
They settled back against each other, Percy’s ear pressed against Dad’s chest to hear his breathing. He matched his own to it, slowly calming down.
“So,” Dad said softly after a little while, “this locker of yours–how messy are we talking?”
Percy gave a watery laugh. “Annabeth says it’s like a cesspit and an abandoned junkyard had a baby.”
He felt Dad’s grin pressed against the top of his head. “Well, Miss Chase does usually know what she’s talking about. Maybe you’ll be getting a locker housekeeping service for Christmas this year. That and a dozen new helmets.”