Clockwork

48

Percy didn't know what he was supposed to do, reliving a time from when Smelly Gabe was still around, but as he clutched the cold beer in his small hands to give to the man he tried to make sense of his surroundings.

This place wasn't familiar to Percy at all.

A small cramped cellar, steel walls with nothing but a couch, a coffee table, a tv, and a filthy minifridge full of beers. Gabe was leaned back on the fusty couch, his rancid feet probably making the paint on the coffee table they were propped up on peel. Percy was shooed away by the middle-aged man then, being banished to the corner of the little cellar they were in. Somehow, that corner was the most suffocating part of the cellar.

He was trapped with his abusive stepfather, and Percy saw no way to escape. There were no windows, no doors, and Percy was much too small to try to overpower the man.

Even if I could, I'm still stuck in a giant metal shoebox, Percy thought bitterly, only slightly surprised at the youthful sound of his now child inner voice.

Percy was also only slightly surprised at the condition of his body— covered in bruises but no open wounds that could scar and leave lasting evidence. The times Gabe found the nerve to hit Percy in his drunken state were few and far between, but it seemed he grew a brain when he did so to not get caught. Percy's mother had always felt the brunt of Gabriel's presence, but even then Gabe kept physical abuse to a minimum. Or at least that's what Percy grew up thinking.

After a while, he snuck a glance at the terrible excuse for a human being who started to doze off. Then nothing happened for an excruciatingly long time. Like, five minutes had already passed.

Percy didn't expect his worst inner demons to be so uneventful and with the small bit of patience he had in his childhood, his boredom was the most prominent thing on his mind. Of course, Eliot had said that they would start small before going on to Percy's worse demons, but Percy couldn't even guess what exactly this... situation's demon even was. Smelly Gabe was a terrible person, but after his death, Percy rarely ever thought of him. Gabriel wasn't someone worth thinking about.

Nothing about his former step-father instilled anything inside of him either, nothing he struggled with at least. Percy had certain criteria when it came to hygiene thanks to him but otherwise, nothing. Percy couldn't even say he hated the man, not anymore.

Percy was curled up in his corner for warmth. The metal floor was cold and dirty, but Percy laid down anyway. Much like when he was younger, his boredom made him want to sleep. It seemed no matter how much he wanted to stay awake just in case something interesting happened, his eyelids continued to grow heavier. His blinks got slower until he was almost asleep, and then—

"Hey, brat, get up and get me a beer."

Percy's body stood up, like on autopilot, to get the man his damn beer.

Once handing it to him, he was once again dismissed to his corner.

This repeated.

Percy goes to the corner, almost passes out the said corner, is told to get his stepfather a beer, and then goes back to the corner. Each time it repeated though, only one thing changed. The corner got more suffocating every time he returned. Not just the corner, the entire room. Air was being forced out of his lungs up until the point he was gasping for it.

But when Gabe called for him to bring him his beer Percy stood up, gasping for air and probably turning blue, and went to the fridge to get a beer.

"Go get me a beer, kid."
"Hey punk, get me a beer."
"Boy, hand me a beer."
"Get up and get me a beer."

The demand never got any more creative than that, but Percy got up each time. It was no longer on his own accord, now it was like someone else was controlling his body. He couldn't do anything, but he could feel everything. He had stopped gasping for air, but now his lungs felt empty. "Get up! Make yourself useful and get me a beer," Gabriel snarled.