Reading is Fundamental

VI - Percy - Adamantine

This is where it starts to get good *cackles*

Warnings: Mild gore. Discussion of child abuse, physical and sexual. Brief mention of underage drug use, drug sale and use, illegal firearms. Crass language

Once they had reached a room and the door was shut, Apollo's smile faded. He gestured for them to both sit in the chairs and it began to feel much too similar to a real doctor's appointment.

"I'm not sure how it is in 2016..." Apollo started.

"2010," Percy corrected.

"...but in 2002, we have a little thing called doctor-patient confidentiality." Percy nodded. "Which means that, unless you say so, everything you say in this room, stays in this room," Apollo stabbed his finger at the ground to emphasize his words.

"Yeah," Percy smiled goodnaturedly, "that's still a thing in my time."

Apollo waited patiently for Percy to continue, but he made no move to do so.

The Olympian awkwardly cleared his throat.

Percy started bouncing his leg.

They were silent for a long minute.

"The best way to deal with trauma is to talk about it," said Apollo, but Percy still didn't want to talk much. "Expressing how you feel can often make things easier to process."

"It's not trauma," Percy corrected, voice sharp with discomfort. "Yeah, I had a sucky childhood, but I'm not traumatized." Deep inside, even he didn't believe the claim.

Apollo looked like he was about to argue, but suddenly stopped. He frowned and reached into his pocket.

"What?" Percy asked.

"I don't know." He dug around a minute, and pulled out what looked to be some kind of remote. The god looked it over like it was a bomb.

Then something caught Percy's eye. "Hey, look at the back."

Frowning, Apollo flipped it over. It had a symbol pressed into the back in bronze; the same symbol that was on the book. "Huh."

"Maybe that's why the book disappeared," Percy said.

Apollo nodded. "Yeah."

He stared at it. "What do we do with it?"

Apollo shrugged, looking curious but unconcerned. "Hit play?" he proposed.

Considering, the demigod shrugged, and nodded.

As soon as he pressed the button, a large cloud of mist appeared. Just a second later, an image showed up in the fog, like an Iris Message.

A young, raven-haired boy stood in front of a large mirror. It was an old dressing room glass, but had more than enough room to reflect the child. He wore a faded t-shirt, and a pair of gym shorts clearly two sizes too big.

Something about the image felt... familiar.

"Hello?" Apollo called.

The child showed no sign of hearing him.

He moved around a few steps, showing a bit more of the background.

"Woah," Percy said, holding out a hand.

Yeah, he definitely recognized this.

Apollo paused the show.

"I think that's me," he explained. "That's my room, my childhood bedroom."

"What?" Apollo made a confused face.

"Yeah, look," he said, pointing to things in the room. "That's a picture of Montauk, and that's my Nemo pillow."