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Percy’s eye was twitching. He glared darkly at the screen in front of him, fingers fidgeting with the keys, and his eye was twitching. Nico watched with fascination.
There was an escalating scale of things to watch out for to know if Percy was on his way to losing his temper. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, when he’s biting his lip; he’s gotten good at hiding the habit, unless he chews through the skin and starts to bleed. Easier to notice is his penchant for cracking his knuckles. The more annoyed Percy gets, the more often he tries, until eventually he’s just soundlessly massaging his fists. When cracking his knuckles fails him, Percy upgrades to flipping Riptide between his fingers. Nico’s often wondered if it’s meant to be a threat; the light glancing off the pen as it glides through his fingers a subtle reminder that it’s not always a pen. Next, Percy begins glaring, and that’s usually obvious enough to get anyone in the area to take a few large steps back. If whatever’s irritating Percy isn’t scared off by a glare, he starts mouthing off, and that almost always leads to a physical fight.
But the eye twitch? That’s interesting; that’s involuntary. Nico wanted to know more. “You alright over there, Perce?”
“I just want to buy a laptop,” he said, squishing his cheeks before smacking the computer screen, “that’s all I want. I want to give my mom a great birthday gift. A nice new laptop for her to write on. It sounds so easy. It should be easy.” Percy’s hands found themselves digging into his scalp and tugging. “And yet.”
He didn’t continue. “And yet?” Nico prompted.
“And yet.” Without warning, Percy slammed his hands onto the desk. “And yet, my bank seems incapable of letting the purchase go through.” Percy shot up out of his seat and began pacing. “The first time—yeah, okay, I get it. Send the fraud alert email, make sure everything’s good. But I replied to that email, Nico.” There was a crazed look in Percy’s eye as he ranted, and Nico wasn’t sure if he should be scared or entertained. “I replied to that email. I told them that yeah, it’s me, the account holder, and yeah, I want to buy that laptop. They even replied, Nico! They said, “Cool, have fun buying your laptop, buddy!” And do you think the purchase went through, Nico? Do you think I was able to buy the laptop?”
Nico could hazard a guess. “No?”
Percy threw his hands in the air. “No!” He laughed, and it was jagged and angry and manic. “So I wait. I wait until business hours. And I pull up the online chat, and I get greeted by an AI help-bot. I do not need an AI help-bot, Nico. I need a human person, Nico.” Nico nodded. It seemed like a good place to do so. “So I say, “Please let me talk to a representative,” and the AI help-bot passes me on easily enough, and I spend the next ten minutes waiting. Ten minutes isn’t that long a wait, though, if it’ll fix my issue. And the lady on the line said, “Oh, you have a purchase limit of $1,000 on your card. Increase that, and you’ll be good to go!” So I increased the purchase limit. Do you think I was good to go, Nico?”
Nico blinked. He almost regretted asking. “No?”
“No!” Percy kicked the desk chair and then threw himself into it. “I’m not getting any more emails from fraud alert. My card’s spending limit is more than enough to cover the cost of the laptop. And my card keeps getting declined.” The eye twitch returned as Percy twirled around to face the screen. “And I have to wait another three hours until I can talk to a human person again. This is what I get for trying to buy my mom’s birthday gift before she fucking wakes up. I’m gonna rip my face off. I’m gonna rip your face off. I’m gonna rip the bank’s face off.”
Nico would rather keep his face. Luckily, a noise chimed from the computer on the desk, and Percy strode over to it, distracted. He stared at the screen for a moment, then let out another crazed laugh. “You good, man?” Nico asked.
Percy didn’t answer. He sat, and tapped away at the keys on the computer. He pressed one last key extra hard, and watched the screen intently. The computer let out a pleasant ‘ding’. “I fucking—” Percy threw his head back and groaned. “The fraud alert took twenty-four hours to lift. They replied to my email. They said I was good to try again, a whole day ago!” Percy’s fingers clenched over nothing, like he was trying to force-choke the people in his bank’s fraud department. “But no! They only just now lifted it.”
“You got the laptop.”
“I got the laptop.” Percy flopped back in his chair, seemingly boneless. “But at what cost, Nico? Did I lose my soul? Did I sell my soul to the Big Bank gods? I feel so worn, and ragged. Buying a laptop should not be harder than navigating the Labyrinth.”
“There, there.” Nico mimed patting Percy on the shoulder, because gods know he wasn’t about to actually get up to do it. “It’s over now. Life can move on.”
“I’ll never be the same, though. I’ll always be the guy who can save the world but not buy a fucking laptop, apparently.” Percy stood and sighed. “I’m gonna just…go. Lay in bed, maybe, stare at a wall. Think some thoughts. Cry, probably. Thanks for listening, Nico.”
“Happy to help, Perce.”