Chapter Text
Percy woke up slowly, warm and sleepy and tangled in a blanket that smelled like clean laundry and grass and Grover. For one scary second, he didn’t know where he was.
His eyes blinked open wide in the dim grey morning light, and his fingers tightened on the front of the T-shirt clenched in his fist.
Then the bed shifted under him. A hand, warm and careful, rubbed lightly over his back.
“Morning, Percy,” Grover whispered.
Percy stared at him for a second, hair mussed and eyes still sticky with sleep.
“Gwover,” he mumbled.
Grover smiled, tired but soft. “Yeah. It’s me.”
Percy relaxed all at once, the tight, scared feeling in his chest melting away. He scooted closer without even thinking, pressing his face into Grover’s side. Grover let him, still rubbing slow circles between his shoulders.
Outside their dorm room, Yancy Academy was waking up. Percy could hear footsteps in the hall, doors opening and closing, boys shouting to each other, somebody laughing too loudly.
The noises made him frown but Grover noticed immediately. He always noticed.
“It’s okay,” Grover said. “We’ve still got a few minutes.”
Percy nodded against his shirt, though he didn’t really want a few minutes. He wanted forever. He wanted to stay wrapped up in the warm bed with Grover and not have to go anywhere loud or bright or full of mean faces.
Grover shifted and sat up carefully. Percy made a small unhappy sound and grabbed at him.
“I know,” Grover said. “I know, buddy. But we gotta get ready.”
Percy pouted.
“No school.”
Grover snorted softly. “I wish.”
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and Percy followed after a moment, crawling across the sheets and then sliding down more than climbing. His feet hit the floor crookedly. He wobbled but Grover caught him by the elbows before he could tip over.
“Easy,” Grover murmured.
Percy leaned against him with a sleepy little hum.
Their room was small, just two beds and two dressers and a window that looked out over a stretch of lawn gone silver in the morning mist. Percy’s own bed sat untouched in the corner, neat except for one blanket that had slid halfway off. He hadn’t slept there in days, maybe longer, he didn’t know. He just knew it was too far away from Grover.
Grover reached for the clothes he’d already laid out on the chair the night before: a soft green sweatshirt, jeans, socks and underwear. Percy liked the green sweatshirt because it was soft on the inside and had a tiny rabbit stitched on the hem where his mom had fixed a tear once.
Grover held out the shirt. “Arms up.”
Percy lifted one arm. Grover waited. Percy blinked at him.
“Both arms, Perce.”
Percy lifted the other one too, and Grover tugged the shirt down over his head. Percy’s face popped out of the neck hole, hair standing up everywhere.
Grover smiled. “There he is.”
Percy smiled back for half a second, then got distracted by a dust mote floating in the beam of pale light near the window. He reached toward it.
Grover caught his hand before he could toddle off half-dressed. “Nope. Pants first.”
Percy sighed very dramatically.
By the time Grover had gotten him dressed, fixed his socks twice because Percy kept twisting them, and guided a brush through his dark hair while Percy complained, the dorm halls had gotten much louder.
Percy sat on Grover’s bed while Grover tied his shoes. He swung his feet and hugged the sleeve of his sweatshirt to his chest.
“Bunny shirt,” he said.
“Mm-hm.” Grover finished the first lace and started the second. “Your bunny shirt.”
“Soft.”
“I know.”
Percy looked down at Grover’s curly head bent over his sneakers. “Gwover nice.”
Grover’s hands paused for the smallest moment.
Then he finished tying the bow and looked up with a smile that didn’t quite hide how sad his eyes got sometimes.
“You’re nice too, Percy.”
Percy considered that and seemed pleased.
They went to breakfast together because Percy never went anywhere alone if Grover could help it. Grover held his hand in the hallway, steering him around the bigger boys thundering past them. Percy stuck close, almost stepping on Grover’s heels.
The cafeteria was noisy. Too noisy.
Plates clattered. Chairs scraped. Dozens of voices bounced off the walls and ceiling until everything turned into one big sharp sound pressing at Percy’s ears. He flinched and pressed nearer to Grover’s side.
Grover squeezed his hand once. “It’s okay. We’ll sit in the corner.”
They got a tray together. Grover picked out the softest things he could find: scrambled eggs, toast, sliced banana, a little cup of applesauce. Percy got interested in the applesauce immediately and nearly stuck both hands into it before Grover redirected him to the spoon.
“Sit,” Grover said gently.
Percy climbed into the chair. Grover took the seat beside him and started cutting the toast into small squares.
At another table, somebody laughed. It was the kind of laugh that made Percy’s shoulders crawl up toward his ears. He kept his head down and poked at the eggs.
Grover slid the plate a little closer. “Want help?”
Percy nodded. Grover spooned up some eggs and held them out. Percy opened his mouth, chewing sleepily.
Across the room someone said, too loudly, “Oh my god, are you serious?”
Another voice snickered. “He can’t feed himself?”
“He’s such a freak.”
Percy froze. His spoon slipped from his hand and clattered against the tray.
Grover’s face hardened. He turned in his seat and glared across the cafeteria. “Shut up.”
The table of boys went quiet for a second. Then one of them rolled his eyes.
“We’re just saying.”
Grover stood up so fast his chair scraped. “Then stop saying it.”
Percy stared at his tray. The eggs had gone blurry. His chest hurt in that bad squirmy way it always did when people used those voices. He didn’t know what he did wrong. He was eating breakfast. He was just eating breakfast.
Grover sat back down at once when he heard the first tiny hitch in Percy’s breathing.
“Hey,” he said softly, turning back. “Don’t listen to them.”
Percy’s mouth wobbled.
Grover lowered his voice even more. “They’re jerks. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Percy whispered, “Percy bad?”
Grover looked horrified. “No. No, buddy, no. You’re fine.”
He picked up the spoon and offered Percy another bite. “C’mon. Eat a little more.”
Percy did, but slowly, blinking hard. Grover fed him the rest of the eggs, then the banana slices, then let him sip from the little bottle he’d brought hidden in his backpack for when chewing got too hard. Percy held it with both hands and leaned against Grover’s shoulder while he drank.
The staring never really stopped but Grover glared down anyone who looked too long.
By the time breakfast was over, Percy was tired already. School was stupid. School was always stupid.
In the hallway outside the cafeteria, the noise got worse again as everyone shoved toward first period. Grover kept Percy tucked close to his side, one hand on his shoulder.
They almost made it to class without trouble. Almost. But then Nancy Bobofit stuck out a foot and Percy didn’t see it.
One second he was walking, the next he pitched forward with a startled yelp. His knee hit the floor first, then his hands. Pain shot through both palms and through the one knee that had smacked the tile.
Percy stared down in shock, then the pain hit properly and his face crumpled.
Before the first cry could leave his mouth, Grover was there, hauling him gently upright. “Percy? Percy, look at me.”
“It hu’ts,” Percy wailed.
The hallway laughter felt like knives.
“Aw, did the baby fall down?”
“Maybe he needs diapers too.”
“Maybe he wants attention.”
Grover’s grip tightened just enough for Percy to feel it. His voice, when he looked up at the other kids, was shaking with anger.
“Back off.”
Nancy snorted. “He’s twelve.”
Grover stepped between Percy and the others. “And you’re awful.”
Percy clung to the back of Grover’s shirt and cried into the fabric, more from humiliation and overwhelm than the fall itself. Though the fall hurt too. A lot. The scrape on his knee stung hot under his jeans.
A teacher from farther down the hall barked at everyone to move along. The crowd started breaking up, still whispering.
Grover turned around immediately.
“Let me see.” He crouched down and checked Percy’s hands first, then carefully tugged at the knee of his jeans. The fabric had torn. Underneath, his skin was pink and already beginning to bead with a little blood.
Percy whimpered.
“I know,” Grover whispered. “I know.”
He dug in his pocket and pulled out a folded tissue. He pressed it gently to the scrape. Percy hissed and tried to jerk away.
“Almost done.”
“It stings!”
“Yeah, buddy. Scrapes do that.”
Percy buried his face against Grover’s shoulder when he was lifted up. Grover wasn’t really strong enough to carry him easily for long, but he always tried. Percy wrapped his arms around Grover’s neck and curled in, shaky and miserable.
“I wanna go room,” he mumbled.
Grover rubbed his back as he carried him the rest of the way down the hall. “After class.”
“No class.”
“I know.”
It didn’t make Percy feel better, but the soft answer helped a little.
Mr. Brunner was already in the classroom when they arrived. He took one look at Percy in Grover’s arms and his expression softened immediately.
“Oh dear,” he said. “What happened?”
“Nancy tripped him,” Grover said, breathless from carrying.
Mr. Brunner’s mouth tightened, but his voice stayed warm. “Bring him here.”
Grover set Percy carefully in a chair near the front, one of the softer ones with the cushion Mr. Brunner had quietly started saving for him. Percy sniffled and held out his sore hands without being asked.
Mr. Brunner reached into his desk drawer and took out a little tin of ointment and a fresh bandage. “Let us fix you up, my boy.”
Percy stared up at him with wet lashes. “No sting?”
“I shall do my very best.”
He kept his promise, too. The ointment was cool instead of sharp, and the bandage went over Percy’s knee neatly. Mr. Brunner even gave him a small square of chocolate from another drawer afterward for being brave.
Grover hovered beside the desk the whole time.
Only when Percy’s breathing had calmed did Mr. Brunner say, “Would you like to sit beside Grover today?”
Percy nodded immediately. Usually he sat beside Grover anyway, but Mr. Brunner asked like it was a choice and not something everybody already knew.
“Very well.” Mr. Brunner looked toward the rest of the class, now filing in. “And if anyone has commentary to make on another student’s difficulties this morning, they may save it for detention.”
The room went very quiet.
Grover helped Percy settle into his seat. Percy climbed into the chair carefully, one hand still wrapped around the chocolate. He leaned against Grover as class started, eyes heavy.
Mr. Brunner taught Greek history in the same patient voice he always used, rolling around in his wheelchair at the front of the room and writing names on the board. He asked the class questions. Some kids answered. Some didn’t.
Percy didn’t really understand most of it. He tried, he did. But the letters on the page swam around too much and the talking kept going and going and his knee hurt and his palms still stung and the room was too warm.
At one point Mr. Brunner asked, “Percy, can you tell us what a hero is?”
A few kids snickered and Percy’s stomach dropped. He stared at his paper.
Grover whispered, “It’s okay.”
Mr. Brunner must have seen Percy’s panic because his voice turned even softer. “Someone who helps others, perhaps?”
Percy looked up and Mr. Brunner smiled encouragingly.
Percy swallowed. “Help people?”
“Exactly right,” Mr. Brunner said at once, as though Percy had delivered a perfect lecture. “A hero helps people.”
The snickering stopped.
Percy ducked his head, cheeks pink, but some of the tight fear loosened.
A little later, when the lesson moved into something more complicated, Mr. Brunner quietly slid a sheet of paper and a tin of colored pencils onto Percy’s desk.
“You may draw if that is easier today.”
Percy looked at him, startled.
“Quietly,” Mr. Brunner added.
Percy nodded and picked up the blue pencil immediately.
He drew waves first, then a fish, then a rabbit with very long ears because he liked rabbits best.
When the bell rang for the next class, Percy jumped. The sudden clang always felt too loud. He pressed his hands over his ears.
Grover stood and helped him gather his things. The drawing went carefully into Percy’s folder, though the edges got bent.
The rest of the day went much the same.
Too much walking. Too much noise. Too many stares.
Grover stayed with him whenever he could. When he couldn’t, Percy counted the minutes until he could again.
At lunch, they sat outside because the cafeteria was too much after the morning. Mr. Brunner had quietly approved it with only one look at Percy’s pinched face. Grover cut Percy’s sandwich into little squares and handed them over one by one.
Percy sat cross-legged on the grass, chewing and watching a bee wobble over the clover.
“Bee,” he said.
“Yep.”
“Bee nice?”
Grover looked at it. “As long as we leave it alone.”
Percy thought about that. “School not nice.”
Grover went still.
“No,” he said after a moment. “It’s not.”
Percy looked down at the little sandwich square in his hand. “Percy try.”
“I know.”
“Still bad?”
Grover put the lunch bag aside and turned fully toward him. “Hey. Look at me.”
Percy did.
“You are not bad,” Grover said firmly. “You’re not weird. You’re not doing anything wrong. Okay?”
Percy’s eyes searched his face like he was trying to fit all the words somewhere inside himself.
“Kay,” he said finally, very small.
Grover smiled a little. “Good.”
Percy held out the last piece of sandwich.
“For Gwover.”
Grover laughed under his breath and took it. “Thanks.”
In the afternoon they had Latin with Mr. Brunner again, and then a study period where Percy got too tired and put his head down on his folded arms. The teacher on duty started to say something sharp, but Mr. Brunner, passing in the hall, paused in the doorway and said, “Let him rest.”
So Percy rested.
When the final bell rang, relief washed through him so hard his whole body sagged.
Back in the dorm room, Grover took off Percy’s shoes and checked his knee again.
“It looks okay,” Grover said.
Percy lay on his stomach across Grover’s bed, kicking one foot slowly in the air while he colored over yesterday’s half-finished page in a battered coloring book. His hair fell into his eyes and he huffed at it until Grover tucked it back.
“Pretty,” Percy said, holding up a page full of purple scribbles that might once have been a horse.
“It’s great,” Grover said.
Percy narrowed his eyes. “Dat a real say?”
Grover grinned. “That’s a real say.”
Outside, late sunlight turned the window gold.
For a little while, with the door shut and the world far away, things felt safe.
Then there was a knock.
Percy startled so hard the crayon slipped out of his fingers. Grover stood up and opened the door. It was Mr. Brunner.
“Good evening, boys,” he said.
“Hi, Mr. Brunner,” Grover replied.
Mr. Brunner looked past him to Percy and smiled. “And how is our young scholar?”
Percy hid half behind his coloring book, then peeked out. “Hi.”
Mr. Brunner held up something small. “I believe this was left in the classroom.”
It was Percy’s drawing from history class. The fish and the rabbit and the blue waves.
Percy gasped and scrambled upright on the bed. “Mine!”
“Yes,” Mr. Brunner said, wheeling in just enough to hand it over. “I thought you might want it back.”
Percy took it carefully with both hands, like it was something precious.
“Thank you,” Grover said quietly, and there was something in his voice that made Mr. Brunner’s eyes go gentle.
“You’re welcome.” He looked at Percy. “You did very well today, Percy.”
Percy blinked. “Did?”
“You did.”
Percy held the drawing to his chest. “Percy good?”
Mr. Brunner answered without hesitation. “Yes. Very good.”
Percy smiled then, small and shy and bright enough to make Grover look away for a second.
After Mr. Brunner left, the room stayed quiet.
The sun slid lower. Dinner came and went. Homework happened in the loosest possible sense, which mostly meant Grover doing his own while Percy stacked pencils and then knocked them over and then got sleepy halfway through a page of letters.
By bedtime Percy was drooping.
Grover let him brush his teeth first because otherwise Percy got grumpy about waiting. Then he guided him back to the bed, helped him into pajamas, and pulled the blanket up around both of them once the lights were out.
The room glowed softly blue with moonlight.
Percy lay curled against Grover’s side, holding his rabbit shirt from that morning bunched in his fist because he liked the feel of it.
For a while he was quiet, Grover thought he’d fallen asleep.
Then Percy whispered into the dark, “Gwover?”
“Yeah?”
A pause.
“Percy good boy?”
Grover’s heart felt like it got squeezed.
He turned a little and pressed a kiss into Percy’s messy hair, because Percy liked that and because nobody else in this stupid place kissed his forehead when he needed it.
“Yeah, Percy,” Grover murmured. “You’re a good boy.”
Percy let out a soft breath.
“Kay,” he whispered.
A minute later he was asleep.
Grover stayed awake longer, listening to the dorm settle and creak around them. He watched the moonlight on the floor and thought about the boys in the cafeteria, Nancy in the hall, the way Percy had asked that question like he really didn’t know the answer.
You’re a good boy.
Grover wished that was enough to keep the world from hurting him.
It wasn’t.
But as Percy shifted closer in his sleep, making a tiny happy noise, Grover wrapped an arm around him anyway and promised the dark room in a voice too low for anyone else to hear:
“I’ve got you, buddy.”
And for that night, at least, he did.