Perianca Stories

With bones made of shatterglass

https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177060

Percy rolls his shoulder before rising out of his chair with a sigh. In front of him, the bright, white page of a Word document glows on his monitor -- he has a few lines of the introduction to his essay written. The knocking comes again at the door, quick raps of knuckles on wood, and he pads quietly along the floor towards the sound.

On the other side of the door, a brunette smiles at him, Percy blinking eighteen times; too many for a human, so he covers his right eye with the back of his left hand, hopes his wrist covers his left eye and inhales a breath through his mouth.

Her smile gets wider. "I'm really sorry if I woke you," she apologises. Dropping his hand from his face, Percy notes the way the collar of her shirt falls away from her neck, revealing the lightly freckled skin of her shoulder between her loose, dark hair. "I'm from across the courtyard and I saw my cat climbing in your window and I felt I should come over and just, uh, see if everything was ok." Her tone lifts at the end, like she's asking a question. Percy just nods.

Then turns and looks over his shoulder. Larry -- that's what he's named the cat but he's positive that isn't the grey tom's name -- is sprawled across his couch, casually washing his paw.

Percy grumbles, "Uh, no, he's fine. No bother at all."

"Right, ok," she nods in time with each syllable, causing her hair to move back over shoulder and cover up her skin. Percy thinks it's weird that he misses it but there are other freckles across her nose for him to look at. "Well, I'm Bianca from 6C, if you ever want to bring him back."

"Percy," is all he can come up with in reply.

II

Her window is directly across the courtyard from his. After finishing seven pages of his essay , Percy takes a well-earned -- in his opinion -- break with a cup of coffee, watching Larry the cat contort himself out of the barely-open window and make his way across the courtyard.

He thinks about her face. She's paler than he remembers, although it has been ten years, more. And she died last time he saw her. But that's definitely Bianca di Angelo, exactly the face she would have grown into -- the face Percy would have imagined for her, her grown up self, if he had ever bothered to think about her since then. Percy justifies it by reminding himself that Nico has thought about her enough for everyone. It only makes him feel worse.

Bianca appears at her window, her arm reaching around the tap to the handle, letting Larry inside. She picks him up, the grey cat pawing at the heathered cotton of her shirt and rubbing his head off her chin, and they disappear into the apartment.

After the count of eighteen, Percy loses interest waiting for her to come back and returns to his essay.

He ends up asleep on the keyboard, managing to type out three pages of 'n' with his forehead.

*

When he wakes up, Percy brushes off the events of last night as a dream. That is, until Larry, his tail bolt upright and a small triangle shape clump of fur sticking up on his back, hisses at a bird, the sound sort of like static on a television -- and what Percy wouldn't do to watch some mindless television these days -- and it all comes back to him.

He lets Larry in, the bird long gone despite the cat's best efforts and keen hunting abilities, while he waits for the coffee to brew. He rubs himself against Percy's legs, the beige cotton of his sweatpants brushing off his legs, before wandering off to take over Percy's couch.

Percy half-smiles at the sight of him. Until Larry raises his back leg in the air and starts to wash himself.

Huffing out a breath through his nose, Percy goes back to his essay. Two more pages in, he begins to consider going for a jog, maybe having a shower and changing out of the pants he has been wearing for the best part of the last week. But that require a lot more effort than Percy can manage right now.