Chapter Text
Look, Percy just wanted to be a normal kid.
He didn't ask for ADHD and dyslexia, didn't ask for a missing dad and an even-worse stepfather, and he definitely didn't ask for the strange memories that plagued his dreams every night.
At first, life was... well, not normal, per se, but definitely better.
He had lived with his mom, and her blue cookies, and Smelly Gabe, and his asshole-ness. The dreams were a... more recent problem.
Percy had never know why his mom, a literal angel on this earth, had decided to marry Smelly Gabe, who might as well be the devil, but ever since his life had sucked. He'd been stuck in a routine: Wake up, eat breakfast, avoid Gabe. Go to school, struggle to understand what was being taught, go home, do homework. Get yelled at for something or another, eat dinner, go to bed. And every year, without fail, get expelled from school.
He'd started to lose track of how many schools he'd been kicked out of, but it had to be five or six by now.
The only thing good about his schedule was sleeping. And spending time with his mom, but that was a given. Sleeping, however, had been an escape, in a way. To be able to lie down, and relax, and dream about some far-away land where everything was different, where he had a dad who cared, where he could go to the beach with his mom everyday, and eat blue candy.
Recently though, even sleeping had become a chore.
His dreams had become nightmares, and constantly showed the same few kids, even as they got older and older. Weren't dreams supposed to show memories from a few days, two weeks, and a month ago? He certainly didn't remember these kids, especially not enough to see them over what had to be years.
"Percy! You need to go, sweetie, the start of term is tomorrow, and the train leaves in half an hour!"
Sally Jackson, Percy's mom, called out from the kitchen, and startled him out of his thoughts.
Another school term. Ten bucks says I'll be expelled by the end of the semester.
"Thanks, mom. See you soon!"