Work Text:
The weather had been abnormally hot the past few days, especially for the middle of March, and the taxonomy lab in the consultancy Percy worked was not built for it. The blinds on the skylights were broken and couldn't block out the suns rays, the air con apparently hadn't worked in half a decade, and the old brick of the converted New York townhouse it resided in just absorbed heat, trapping it in and turning the room into a veritable oven. The room stank like BO, formalin and polluted seabed, and everyone's lab coats were soaked through more with sweat than splashed water from floating the samples, which was unusual. Sample floating got soggy. So of course the tea breaks had increased from once every two hours to once every half an hour unless someone (like Newbie Joseph - still stuck with the name even though he'd been working there for years and Old Man Joseph had retired months ago now - who got really intense about cumaceans) was three guides down an identification rabbit-hole and nobody could get their attention to tell them to stop.
Percy himself wasn't too bothered by the heat, he'd survived exploding Mt. St. Helens and that was lava, but he didn't want to raise suspicion, and well, it was hard staying at his bench even when he was allowed to stand or sit or whatever and wonder to the bookshelf or sink or whoever in the room new more about the specific weird little critters he was looking at than he did as needed (which was such a relief when he first started at this job, a massive step up from school here he had to stay seated all the time. he still couldn't read the books easily, the english and the highly specific language for worm anatomy of all things didn't help, but no-one objected to his laptop being on the bench as long as it wasn't plugged in. It wasn't unusual, the bookshelf didn't hold all the answers after all, despite how much some people wished it did), so extra excuses to leave the room were always welcome. Hence why he was sitting in the break room under the only working AC unit on their floor of the building, drinking a glass of water and listening to Jocelyn ramble on about her sworn enemy, the European Common Brittlestar, Ophiothrix fragilis. She sometimes joked that she'd moved to the States to escape the species rather than the real reason of wanting to live with her long-term and formerly long-distance partner. Apparently the "spindly little bastards" (Jocelyn's words, not Percy's) would dominate some some samples she'd work through at her previous job. Samples that didn't get sent to their consultancy for sorting because there were perfectly good consultancies closer to those samples that didn't require shipping costs and boarder control. Percy was somewhat grateful, he wasn't sure if he could handle sorting through 20 buckets of near nothing but one brittlestar species. Although, he supposed that their local equivalent issue, the starfish wasting disease, wasn't any better. He'd spent so long mourning the melted starfish in the camera footage he'd been shown during his training and orientation.
But speaking of starfish, Percy couldn't sit here forever, he had booked a half-day leave for Stella's birthday and he wanted to try and sort at least one more jar of bivalves before he was leaving (old man Joseph had been right when Percy started, the taxonomy bug was a disease and Percy couldn't escape it. And he'd thought, when he was younger and starting out in marine biology as a serious potential career-path after realising that he did indeed have a life after his 16th birthday, that it would be working in aquariums or seal sanctuaries or something. But he'd wanted a job close to home, somewhere he could visit camp and his family easily, and this place had been hiring and desperate and based in new york, and apparently interested in his fluency in Greek of all things, so here he ended up). So he politely excused himself from Jocelyn's echinoderm rant and drifted back to his bench at the back of the lab, picking up a jar of pickled gastropods and a blank data sheet along the way (from the pile apparently printed especially for him on the more expensive yellow waterproof paper. Percy was amazed when that had happened, he thought he'd have to fight tooth and nail for workplace accommodations like he had in school, but it seemed this place was desperate enough to keep employees that they just. Gave him them. Incredible. It got harder and harder to consider leaving this place by the day. Loyalty fatal flaw meet hook line and sinker, apparently).
Percy hadn't noticed the time until newbie Joseph (and Percy still found that nickname hilarious) turned the light on Percy's microscope off to get his attention and tell him it was lunch. He was annoyed at first, until he remembered. Estelle, his baby sister's birthday! Percy rushed to tidy up his sample for the day and close and pack his laptop, nearly forgetting to take off his lab coat (and being infinitely grateful of the mist training hazel had forced onto him when he'd graduated NRU and started taking steps into the mortal workforce for keeping attention off his scars and such), signed out and hurried off home to help his mum finish decorating the flat and preparing the food before Stella and Paul git back from school.
Stella wanted a more private party this year, ocean themed decorations and food, a handful of close friends (including some of Percy's friends from camp), and a trip to the aquarium and maybe some movies. Small scale, but much more special and personal than some of the ones she had been invited to by school friends over the years. And Percy, Sally and Paul were more than happy to deliver . Percy joined his mum in the kitchen, helping bake a blue cake and blue cookies (shaped, rather creatively in Percy's opinion, like Chocolate Chip Starfish, Protoreaster nodosus, only blue rather than the typical orange of the species). Annabeth arrived not long after the cake came out the oven with a punnet of strawberries from Mr. D (benefits of knowing the God of Fruits - amongst other things - was fresh strawberries all year round. Even if he did make of point of getting Percy's name wrong to his face every time Percy visited. apparently it was the principle of the matter, now, rather than any attempt to feign disinterest), which she skilfully cut into a variety of sea themed shapes and glued to the cake with frosting whilst Percy helped himself to the offcuts. She offhandedly mentioned something about some chaos going down at camp, just a general warning to be on the lookout. Percy shelved the thought for later, right now he had a little sister who's birthday he needed to celebrate.
Over the afternoon, more and more people piled into the small apartment, bringing various snack foods and gifts for the birthday girl, greeting Sally and joining in the banter. And by the time Estelle charged through the door in all her newly 7 year old glory, the room was bursting with laughter and sea themed decorations and food. And then came her school friends - all excited and bubbling children, and Percy was so happy that Stella didn't suffer in public education the way Percy had - and their guardians, who dropped off presents and greeted sally and Paul and settled themselves into the kitchen away from the excited children and selected young adult "extended family" who were entertaining them. Presents were opened, food was eaten, party games were enjoyed, and a movie - Ponyo, Stella had recently discovered the film after seeing the DVD at Walmart and was enthralled, it had been on repeat for a month apparently - was watched. Then slowly, through the evening, people drifted off, to bed or to home.
The next day was the aquarium trip. The weather was even hotter than the previous days, it was getting concerning and was being mentioned on the news. Talks on the unseasonable warm weather and debates on the causes had filtered through the radio as Percy and Annabeth had eaten their breakfast, but it all got forgotten when Stella woke up, bouncing about the aquarium trip. Thankfully the aquarium had air-con, the water had to be kept at temperatures suitable for the fish, and the large amount in the tanks also helped keep the heat down, much to everyone's relief. Percy listened to the fish gossiping and answered Estelle's countless questions about the animals in the tanks and gaining himself a small audience of curious kids (plus one or two teenagers) as he did so. He chuckled to himself when he spotted the tank of brittlestars, remembering his conversation with Jocelyn the previous day, and just generally enjoyed his time at the place.
They spent half a day, got lunch in the aquarium cafe, and the family was just about half way home when the heat skyrocketed as Percy accidentally walked straight into a frustratingly familiar and disconcertingly angry face. Hephaestus. He did not want to be dealing with this today. Percy told his cousin as such, and walked home. Someone else could deal with the gods' problems today.
Percy woke up the next day to a thankfully cool breeze blowing through his and Annabeth's open bedroom window. And he breathed. He hadn't wanted to admit it, but he was worried that whatever was causing the heatwave would end up falling on his shoulders. He would get the story from camp later, but for now, he had a bottle of bivalves to identify at his job. Which he had now, because he was an adult, a thought that still made him giddy especially when he remembered being convinced he wouldn't live past his 16th birthday. If it was important, if someone was injured or worse, he would have been told.
He made it through the day at work - the topic of conversation in the break room today, it seemed, was whether pigeons counted as sea birds, a topic that was getting surprisingly heated, enough to make up for the lack of sweltering temperature the day had. The last of the samples from the latest batch was sorted and everyone was settling into the data-entry workflow by the time the work day was over (Percy's job for this was to digitise all the paper sheets in on the clunky and unreliable old scanner in the office adjacent to the lab, then file them all away in the archive room: a tedious job, but at least he didn't have to read that much).
And then when he arrived back to his and Annabeth's shared apartment for the first time since leaving it the morning of Estelle's birthday, he was greeted by the scowling face of Clarisse La Rue. Apparently the heatwave issue wasn't over yet actually, and camp had decided to make it Percy's issue now his baby sister's birthday had passed. Joy.