CKBOOKISH

Chapter One: Blue fish...Why are they Sad?

We are overlapping and wound barbed wire Razer sharp and cold We are wool that is twisted and knotted Itching and useless Threads of fate destined to cross and cut And too snarled to make sense of who we are or how to be. May my hands bleed if it means I untangle you. 

Poseidon stood listening to the city, muffled in the dingy hallway.  Cars, and people, thousands of them all milling together to create this city his son was so fond of.  He’d never much cared for it.  The air was smoggy, the water rancid and the people–they didn’t call for his favor.  Yet he knew, standing in this hallway–that there was nowhere else he would rather be.  No pink sanded beaches, no mystic caverns deep in the depths where blue was black, no crimson wine wave drew him more.  Knowing that didn’t make him any more at ease. 

He eyed the apartment before him, something akin to fear in his gut.  He didn’t fear its occupants or danger.  He didn’t even fear his reception.  He feared being a disappointment.  They–the occupants–deserved anything and everything.  Palaces, honor,  feasts and displays to their glory and sacrifice–none of it would be enough or what they wanted.  He reflected on the days of old where gifts were laurels, blood spilt in another’s honor and feasts that lasted days and nights.  Poseidon knew that now was a better, gentler, and more peaceful time for the world.  But that didn’t make this easier.  He could call for all of that.  He could wave his hand and make all of that easily happen.  Now those things didn’t matter, they did nothing.  He quietly wondered if they ever really had.  All those children he’d thought he’d honored…maybe they too would have wanted something else.  He pushed the haunting thought aside.  

What they did or might want, Poseidon feared he couldn’t give.  He couldn’t change all the pain that lived in that apartment. He knew he had been standing there too long–but he didn’t want to move yet.  Instead he took it all in.  The greige walls and wear worn carpet squares were oppressive.  The line of doors on the hallway were the only splashes of color.  But it wasn’t the wreaths or wooden initials hanging intermittently that made his heart lurch.  

Their door was slightly worn around the edges, as if years upon years worth of hands had brushed over the paint leaving it rather shabby.  He wondered at those previous occupants and the ghost imprints they had left behind them. The apartment behind the door was much nicer and less depressing. The only hint of the color and comfort out here though was the hall mat that had a blue fish printed on its bristled surface.  The paint had been touched up several times and the shade of blue had been clearly incorrectly matched for those touch ups. 

Rather than knock immediately Poseidon looked down at the fish for a moment longer considering it.  He could hear muffled voices beyond the door. Lateness was not an option.   Steeling himself, he raised a hand and rapped on the door three times.  To his disappointment Percy did not answer.  

Sally looked tired, he thought as he took in her frown, eye bags and hunched shoulders.  Poseidon frowned for the smallest of seconds, then his smile broke. He doubted mortal eyes would have registered his frown at all. 

“Sally.”

She looked at him in horror and his smile became even more fixed.  He wasn’t used to seeing fear in her eyes, not directed at him.  Even when he’d finally told her what he was–she hadn’t feared him.  He felt himself cast out and around the building, no monsters would come not with his blessing and what he suspected was Athena’s too on the building.  

“He just got back.”  She hissed at him, her eyes narrowing into daggers.  “You can’t.  I just got him back.”

Poseidon stopped looking for a threat.  It was plain to see what her fear was now.  “I’m not here for a quest, Sally.”

The statement was small, and his voice soft.  He too wanted Perseus to rest.  He wanted to have the world leave him alone and let Percy live his life how he saw fit.  

Whatever Sally thought, this statement had confused her. The fear didn’t leave her eyes. 

The balloon of excitement he had felt coming slowly leaked out into his chest cavity and sadness bloomed.  Perhaps Percy had changed his mind and did not wish to see him.  He’d seemed so certain when they spoke last week, but being home and away from the horrors at last could have made him come to new conclusions.  The conclusion Poseidon would have made were he Perseus.  Had their family ever not cast away their fathers after great wrongs? 

“Mom, who was–”  The curse that Percy let loose was enough to make Poseidon’s eyebrow lift. 

“I take it you did not tell your mother I was coming.”  Poseidon smiled but didn’t feel it.  Weariness overcame him.  He would not allow his disappointment to show. Percy deserved to rage, dismiss and berate him should he choose to.  Poseidon would not allow anything that could cause Percy–too forgiving as he was–to feel guilt.  And so he would hide any hurt from him. 

Sally turned on Percy, her eyes wide.  “You–you knew he was coming?”  

The question hung unasked between them all: do you want him here?

Bruce hates every moment of it, not being the good cop but that Dick is not acting, not completely. He's that mad and he enjoys watching those who hurt others in pain, just a little more than he should. Bruce--looking at Richard John Grayson--is forced to look in the mirror and realize just how that same anger has been hurting him. All the years he trained to be Batman, all that anger and rage he held. It's taken this tiny, lethal child to get him to see how detrimental it is.

Some things I can’t whisper Some words I can’t scream They die in my throat. My eyes are haunted with the ghosts of things left unsaid. Tell me you heard them anyway. Did you?  Can you? Silence–it says volumes. 

The big house phone was a landline from what Percy thought was the 1960s.  It was discolored around the receiver handle from years of use and several of the numbers on the round dialer had faded from decades of fingers spinning it.  Someone had written in the numerals with sharpe a few times over the years leaving the round spaces often smeared with finger prints of varying colors.  The cord had been kinked and straightened, stretched and pulled leaving the plastic coating peeling and cracked in places and the wire underneath was covered with electrical tape in several places.  

Annabeth bumped his leg with her knee gently.  “It’s going to be okay, Percy.”

Percy nodded and picked up the receiver from the cradle.  The dial tone sounded harsh in the silence of the office.  

“You want me to dial?”  Annabeth asked when Percy didn’t move.

He’d remembered her number before.  But now it seemed to dissolve in his mind.  “917?”

Annabeth reached across him and spun the dial.  “That’s right.  Then?”

“241… no 421.  Er–689”  Percy closed his eyes.  He hadn’t slept in days.  He hadn’t slept well since the fall.  He had a headache and his body ached in ways that he hadn’t thought possible. He couldn’t remember his own number.  It was right there but his mind felt like a drain at the bottom of a pool–over whelmed and flooded, but unable to hold a single thing in.

“6893.” Annabeth whispered her hand still pulling the dial around and round.  

“Three.”  Percy muttered.  “I had it before.”

He had.  He’d remembered but it felt like whatever the gorgon’s blood had done to recover his memories had slowly gone fuzzy.  If it was the lack of sleep or something worse causing the effect, he didn’t know. 

“I know.”  Annabeth pushed the receiver up again to his ear.  “It’s okay.  You’ve not slept in a while and it’s not been a stress free few months.  Give yourself a break, Percy.”

Percy allowed her to guide his hand and with his other reached out and took Annabeth’s.  Her fingers wound around his.  Her hands were calloused and her nails broken and dirt and blood lined the cracks in his skin.  He ran his thumb along her knuckles.  The ringer sounded fake in his ear, like a toy from his childhood.  Most things had felt fake since coming back from Tartarus.  Food tasted different, sounds were too sharp and the pitch off, even the feel of water wasn’t the same.  

Annabeth had told him that he needed his ears checked and that his tastebuds had been burned by the phlegm river.  While she had reassured him that the way water felt was in his imagination, he knew she was just trying to reassure him.  She had no way of really knowing.  

“Hello?” 

Percy’s breath caught in his throat. It had been too long.  He’d not heard her voice since December of last year.  All worries and fears fell from his mind.  

“Mom.”  His voice broke on the word.