All at Sea

20: Coffee Talks

Content warning➙ implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced rape/non-con, implied/referenced anxiety and dissociation

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Percy couldn't seem to stay asleep for long. Every couple of minutes she was waking up for one thing or another, shadows crept behind her closed eyes and voices faintly rang out in the silence. At some point in the night (it was one of those moonless nights, where thick clouds and sheets of rain block out the starlight), she gave up on the thought of sleep despite the deep stinging of her eyes and the exhaustion that weighed on her limbs. She switched on the ornate lamp on her bedside and buried her head in her hands, a defeated sigh leaving her lips before she moved the thick comforter off of her and moved to get up.

Percy was going to have to go back to school. Back to the endless days and the strain on her back from the stupid Jansport (whose strap had now fallen off, so she had to walk leaning to one side to distribute the weight), back to keeping up appearances.

Percy was going to have to face Dick soon. She was going to have to face Jason (the terror in his eyes was burned into her mind, and every time she tried to sleep, or eat, or breathe, it was all she could see).  Percy was going to have to do many things, most of which she wanted to pretend didn't exist. So Percy did what Percy does best: she threw caution to the wind and got out of bed. 

The second her feet touched the cold floor she wanted to shrink back into her blankets, let herself be furrowed by warmth, and try and go to sleep one last time. She didn't. She grabbed a zip-up she had left hanging over the footboard of her bed and she walked out of her room.

Percy was still hopelessly lost when it came to the Wayne manor. She could barely find her room, let alone the rooms of the half dozen children that lived in the house. She walked up and down the hallway a couple of times before she decided on what to do. She had checked the time earlier, it had been nearing four in the morning last she checked, and she had heard at least three of the boys (she never heard Cass, no matter the circumstance) stumble back to their rooms by three, so she figured the one she was looking for was probably home by now.

The lights were on in his room. She only knew it was his by the dents on the baseboards that could only have been made by his steel-toed boots. She walked up to the door and hesitated before knocking, a knot forming at her throat as she waited for any sort of reply.

He opened the door. His shirt was on backward and inside out and riding up at the hip, she looked away and pointed vaguely at it. He fixed it quickly before he spoke.

"I could have been asleep," he reasoned gruffly.

"You weren't," she replied, shuffling her feet awkwardly on the oriental-looking rug that ran down the hallway.

"But I could have been. And you would have embarrassed yourself, sitting here knocking on my door at--" he looked back to the alarm clock on his bed "--4:15 in the morning."

"Your light was on."

"What do you want? It's late." He ran a hand through his hair, barely hiding a yawn.

"I just wanted to talk to you. I couldn't sleep and I figured I ought to talk to you eventually, Jason." Percy let herself slump into herself, sighing and looking up at Jason, ready to walk off if she ended up getting kicked out.

Jason didn't say anything. He shut the door.

Percy tossed her head back, a long inhale following. She was about to leave when the door opened up again.

Jason's shirt was on right this time. He let the door swing open and offered a half-assed smile, stepping away from the doorframe to let Percy in. He led Percy to a space by his bed; there were two worn leather seats, a warm brown that was much lighter than the darker wood tones in his room. There was a small table between them with an open book face down on it and a mug next to it, coffee rings littering the glass tabletop.