Hearing words in the silence

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I am not Rick Riordan. Know what that means? I don't own Percy Jackson and his friends.

Chapter 1

Percy really can't explain it, and if he is being completely honest, maybe he doesn't want to. It doesn't matter how many times his parents lecture him, how many therapists they send him to, Percy just won't explain. It's not so much that he is being stubborn, or irrational; he just doesn't see the point. As far as he can see, he's not missing out on anything important. So what if Percy doesn't have any friends - they hardly seem essential. He admits that occasionally he gets lonely, but who doesn't? Percy knows he's not considered 'normal', but as far as he is concerned, that's not such a bad thing.

"Perseus Ugliano!"

Percy is fairly sure he dies a little bit inside every time someone calls him by that last name. He doesn't know why she bothers anymore, really. All the other teachers gave up on him years ago. She's the only one who continues to persist; continues to bother him every lesson when she knows he won't answer.

"Mr. Ugliano, are you even listening?"

Percy winces and nods once. No comments - They're used to his routine. As soon as she decides to leave him alone for the time being, Percy switches off again, his mind wandering to places far beyond the stone walls of his classroom. He thinks of how he can't wait until he can get home and hide up in his room, his guitar at his fingertips with the music flowing through him. Percy knows it's the only thing that can really get him through the day, really. It's all he has. Everybody has given up on him, even his parents. They stare at him with the same look of disappointment; of heartbreak on their faces each time he walks into the room, sharing secret glances that obviously ask each other why Sally couldn't have has a different son, a normalson.

Percy doesn't even hear the bell ring, but when other students begin shuffling out the door in a rush, he takes it as a cue to get up, but not before his teacher decides to hound him some more.

"Mr. Ugliano, could you stay behind please?"

Percy wonders briefly why she acts as though it is a question, because, damn, if he had a choice, he'd be out of there before she could even blink. But there is a stern look in her eyes that says this isn't a question, there is no choice. And so he walks to her desk.

"I'm worried about you, Mr. Ugliano."

Percy winces.

"You don't participate in school discussions -"

Percy looks at her pointedly. Is she serious?

"- and while I know that it's because of your... your problem -"

Percy loves how they refuse to spell it out clearly. It's always his little problem. Nobody has the cuts to come right out and say it, and he sure as hell isn't going to help them along with it. He takes a perverse pleasure in watching them struggle to try and not offend him, to edge around the words as if it would be horrible of them to test the words on their lips.

"-I really had hoped you would begin to open up more this year. I'm sure that you could do extremely well, if you just tried, Perseus. You write so well. And your poetry... I've never seen anything like it."

Percy feels like flipping her off, he really does. He hates his parents for showing her his most precious possessions - the pages and pages of paper covered in his scrawled handwriting. Percy loves to write. He loves watching his thoughts spill onto the paper, they way his hand cramps from writing so furiously after too long. Percy writes anything and everything, but mostly, he writes lyrics. Lyrics to soft songs played secretly on his guitar, lyrics he never, ever wanted his parents to see.

But as they so often did, they raided his room, discovered his precious leaflets - delighted that Sally' son showed some spark of feeling - had sent them off to his teacher. He hated them all.

"I just wish that you would get past all this... this... well, you know what I mean. Why is it, Perseus? Why do you do this?"

Percy shrugs. He doesn't need to explain himself to her, to anyone. He is how he is, and that's the end of that. Why should he have to justify it?

"Alright, you can go."

She dismisses him with an air of frustration, and Percy begins to think that maybe she'll leave him alone now, like all the rest. But he knows not to get his hopes up. She's so damn persistent.

Percy walks up the drive to the house, his feet dragging along the pavement beneath him. He doesn't like to call the place his home. He has always connected 'home' with somewhere to be loved, cared for... and this place now makes him feel anything but. As soon as he walks in the door, his mom's eyes are on him, calculating, wondering, and as always, that disappointment is etched into her features.

"Hi, Perseus."

His mom is the only one who ever tries to establish contact. His stepfather much prefers to just avoid him like the plague, and if he is ever forced to stay in the same room as his son, the most acknowledgements Percy will ever receive are half-assed grunts and maybe a nod of the head. Percy can't help it - he grimaces. He really, really hates his name. Why of all things must they call him Perseus? Percy has been going by this shortened version for years now - Only they don't know it. How could they with his... problem.

His mother, misinterpreting his disgust, shoots him a hurt look, and Percy can't help be bothered trying to make her understand, instead choosing to slip into his bedroom, unnoticed by his stepfather who's sitting in the lunge with a scotch clasped in a death-grip.

Percy hates his stepfather.

The guitar is in his hands quickly, to Percy's relief. He digs it out from the back of his closet, sitting down on his bed and merely letting his fingers relax on the strings, feeling the texture, simply losing himself in the instrument. He sets its aside for a moment, getting on his knees on the floor and scooting over to his dresser. He fishes around the bottom drawer, far in the back, where his parents always forget to check. There, he finds his most recent drabbles, his thoughts on paper, his world, his world. They took all the rest, but Percy held fast to whatever he could, treasuring the crumpled bits of paper more than his life. Back on his bed, he flattens the papers out before him, finally beginning to strum the guitar absentmindedly, losing himself in the words as he reads, finally disappearing to a place where he can be Percy, where he can be himself without having to worry about disappointing his mom and worrying teachers. Where at last, Percy can find the tiniest glimmer of hope, and remember, for a split second, what it was like to be happy.

It doesn't last long, before his mother is knocking on his door, calling him for dinner. A dinner in which no one says a word, as is common in the Ugliano household. Sometimes, Percy wishes it were different. That he was what they considered normal, just so that his mother could love him again, and end whatever torment continuously festered in all their minds.

But most of the time, Percy just wants to disappear.

Tomorrow, they will send him to another therapist. Another session of trying to drill into him, force him out of his carefully constructed shell and break him; try and make him spill the secrets to the world - the reason why he really, truly, is why he is.

But as per usual, Percy won't tell them a word. He'll just sit there and let the words fall into one ear and out the other, frustrating the therapist more and more until eventually, they give up on him, palming him off to someone else. And Percy will not say a word to them.

Because why should he justify it? He is Percy Jackson. And he is entirely happy with that.

I don't know why but I saw Percy Jackson as a guitar player. It seemed fitting in the story that it (along with writing) would be his way of getting out what he didn't say, I know Percy is a little OOC, but I thought this attitude would fit better in the story with what he has been through. In this world he didn't have Annabeth, Grover and his other friends to help him. He was all alone.

And I know that he is referred to as Percy Ugliano throughout the chapter, but at the end he called himself Percy Jackson. It will be explained.
Jesslou out!