Prompt #024 - Family

Prompt # 024 - Family

Tales From Another Broken Home
Time Frame: Pre-Lightning Thief
Pairing: None
POV: Percy

**

“According to you
I’m stupid, I’m useless,
I can’t do anything right.”

-According to You by: Orianthi

**

It’s just another day in the life of little nobody, Percy Jackson. Percy clenches his fists. His mom hangs up the phone, her face looking more tired than usual—which is saying something.

“They reject you again, kid? Surprise, surprise.” Gabe’s sarcastic drawl from the living room makes Percy’s blood boil. That’s all he is to this idiot. Stupid, retarded, mentally-disabled Percy. He hears the slob take a drink of beer and switch the channel. Percy wishes he’d turn down the damn volume. “God, can’t even make it into sixth grade,” he hears Gabe chuckle sadistically and Percy can also make out the sound of a chip bag crinkling. “I vote we kick him out Sally. Looks like he’s not amount to anything anyway. Might as well cut your loses while you’re ahead.” Percy’s pretty sure the guys not really kidding.

His arms are trembling with rage, wanting to hit and kick and break and shatter anything he can get his hands on. Who does this guy think he is? Percy takes an unconscious step towards the living room but a thin hand on his shoulder stops him.

“Its okay, Percy,” the calm manner of his mother’s voice is not only a reassurance, but a warning. Don’t, it implies. “We’ll just have to find another school to apply for this year.”

“If you can find one that hasn’t kicked him out yet,” Gabe’s raspy tones interject from the other room.

“Percy…” the whisper in his ear is the only thing that stops him from sprinting to the living room and shoving Gabe’s face through the TV.

“Why do you do it, Mom? What could you possibly see in that creep?” He is still roiling and writing inside—rage and injustice and hate fighting to the death inside him.

Sally doesn’t look at him. Only lets her long, unkempt hair slide forward to cover her face as she mutters:

“He’s part of the family now.”

“He’s not my family,” Percy spits. “It’s bad enough I have to live with him. If I was related to him I might just go jump off the roof.”

“Then why don’t you, kid? Might save your mother some trouble!”

This time Sally literally has to hold him around the waist to keep Percy in the hallway and away from Gabe.

“Percy! Percy, stop!”

“All right, Mom, all right!” Percy exclaims and twists out of her grasp, stomping loudly towards his room. As he passes the living room he calls without turning his head, “Stay the hell away from me!”

He slams his door, shutting out whatever Gabe’s stupid comeback would have been. Half-blind with rage, Percy’s fist slams into the drywall. Over and over until it there is a decent sized hole in the middle of his wall.

Finally, left with only an aching hand and a hole in both his wall and heart, he sits down on his bed and simply stares.

“He’s part of the family now.”

Yah, right. This dismal little apartment with that awful, pathetic excuse for a father-figure, and his sweet amazing mother run down to a fraction of what she used to be…this is not a family.

A family is people who are there for you, who you love and miss when you’re apart. They feel like part of you, even if you don’t like them all that much. They support you and love you no matter what.

What Percy Jackson has isn’t a family.

It’s a broken, shattered home.

~fin~