PERCY DIDN'T NEED A BABYSITTER or that was what he told Elle when she insisted they go to the mall for a while. He knew she just wanted to get him away from the BAU while they tried to get his father back to him but they didn't need to protect him, he knew how bad things could get.
"Ah, yes, the answer to all my problems; waffle fries." Percy sat in the food court with her as she pushed his can of soda over to him, "Can you just live in the moment?"
"I am living in the moment, it's a very shitty moment." Percy took his drink, took a sip and sat across from her and stared at her. That was his interrogation technique, just staring at her until she gave in but no one could break Elle Greenaway and he knew he was an idiot for trying.
"Oh god, you curse like a sailor, how are you Reid's kid again?" Elle joked in a poor attempt to raise his spirits. "I was practically raised by Emily Prentiss, my first word was cuntface. My dad nearly lost his shit." Percy didn't remember it because he was a child but Emily told that story so many times that he created his own memory of him at seven months in a little baby swing when Emily called Derek a cuntface and Percy repeated it just based on the amount of times he had heard it.
Derek and Emily nearly died of laughter, they showed him around to everyone, made him repeat it to the entire BAU. Hotch just stared at him, a hint of a smile on his face, JJ didn't find it funny at all and Spencer had a very adult conversation with him about why that language was never necessary. Percy told Elle the entire story, she laughed but he just stared at her.
"Okay, that's getting weird now." She noted and Percy didn't look away. "All I'm saying is that, I'm not a kid. I can handle this." Elle didn't believe him, she knew he had a hard life but this wasn't what Spencer wanted for him. He wanted his son to keep his faith in humanity, he didn't want Percy to see the world in an awful way yet but it was too late for that. Elle got up and Percy thought for a moment that's she considered taking him back to the BAU.
"I know a park where we can play chess or whatever you kids like to do these days." She told him to grab his food and he packed everything away but he wouldn't be quiet about it. "You know, I could scream out loud that you're abducting me." Elle stopped in her tracks and turned to him, a hint of amusement on her face.
"I dare you." She stared him down and he did it, he did it and she was beyond surprised when the thirteen year old boy started screaming that he was being kidnapped.
They got a few concerned stares and an mall cop came over but Elle flashed him her badge and Percy stopped screaming. "FBI agents kidnap kids too." He folded his hands over his chest, the bag with his lunch now in Elle's hands. "Miss, is this your son?" The man looked from Elle to Percy and he scoffed. "No, he's my best friend's son."
"Best friend?" Percy scoffed again and Elle sighed as she pulled out her purse. She flipped it open, pulling out a picture as she handed it over to the man. "He's just a bit of a brat." Elle explained, looking over at the boy before the officer leaned over to talk to Percy.
"You really shouldn't be making jokes like that, you could have gotten this lovely woman into a lot of trouble, buddy." He then handed the picture to Percy who took it from him, it was a picture of a twelve year old Percy and Elle at the amusement park. He looked from the picture to the officer who told Elle to have a great day, then he called her beautiful and she walked away, her face caught in a grimace.
"Sube al auto antes de que te haga una lobotomía en casa." Elle pointed to the doors and Percy saluted her, the threat of a lobotomy hanging over his head as they reached the car.
Percy had no idea why he had pulled the stunt in the mall, maybe he thought the cops would take him away from Elle and find his father.
Ten minutes later, they were at the park and Elle was throwing a ball through the park. She tells him to fetch and for some reason, he does it. They do that for a while, every time he brings her the ball, she just throws it away further and further. He was getting sick of it but he couldn't stop himself from running after the ball.
When he comes back at the tenth time, he collapses on the grass, Elle poking his shoulder with the toe of her boot as he plays dead. "I can't believe I'm saying this but I wish I was at school right now." Percy rolled over to his back, running his fingers through his hair as he stared up at Elle. She laughed and laid down beside him, staring up at the blue sky. "God am I that awful?" Elle spoke but it felt like he wasn't talking to her, she was talking to herself or maybe some higher power.
Percy never really got behind the idea of a God watching over him, it felt more like that one time Derek was babysitting him and he went to the bathroom and Percy set a towel on fire in his absence. It felt like God had abandoned him before he was even born, once Derek told him a story of a man who felt like God abandoned him and then he fed everyone a girl named Tracy Lambert. He was five and for the week after that he would sneak into his dad's bed every night because he was scared the man would find him.
The point is, Percy didn't pray. Spencer never forced him to go to church, no one ever did so he wasn't big on religion. He went with JJ and Will once but he didn't want to go again and they were fine with it. Percy just wasn't hardwired that way, that's what they said but all he knew was if there was a God looking down at Percy, he didn't want to know him because where was God when his mother died, where was God when he went to school for the first time and all the other kids had their moms pick them up and he just had to wait for his dad to get back from a case. When Percy asked his father why he didn't have a mom, why he wasn't like any of the other kids? Where was God then?
Percy always knew about Delaney, Spencer would tell her stories and show her pictures but he never understood where she was. Once Spencer told him that his mother loved him more than anything else in the world, Percy didn't believe him. If she loved her son, why did she leave?
"Elle Enchanted," He turned to her, blonde hair clouding his vision as she turned to him. They had been quiet for so long that he had forgotten that she existed. It scared him. "Yes, Percy Jackson." She yawned slightly and he laughed at the old childhood nicknames, "Be honest with me, were you and my dad ever together?"
"Never." Elle answered, Percy believed her. She didn't lie to him often or ever, "You know for a while when I was a kid and you would pick me up from school, I would tell all the kids you were my mom." Percy remembered that when he was a kid, everyone always asked him about his mom so he lied but he secretly wished it was true and for a while even he believed his own lie. He wanted a mother so badly that he made Elle his mother without even asking.
"Yeah, I know. The principal told your dad that you had a good mother once, he was confused and the principal said, 'That scary lady that always picks him up.'." Elle chuckled lowly, it was an awkward day between her and Spencer. "People always call you that a lot, scary." Percy emphasised the word as he stared back at the sky.
"I like it that way."
"I don't think you're scary." He shut his eyes, he knew he wouldn't fall asleep but he was exhausted to say the least. He couldn't rest though, not until he father came back to him. He couldn't sleep until he knew that Spencer was alright.
"You don't?"
"I think you've been through a lot, I think you're scared." His words gutted her, the thought that he could see through her like it was nothing. He was just a kid, she wondered when he got that good at reading people.
"Can we go wanna go home already?" He got up before she could speak, looking down at her as she followed his lead. "Where's that?" She asked, not sure where she could take him. He had a key to his apartment but they couldn't be there without Spencer, she could drop him off at Emily's but she didn't want to leave him alone, so where would she take him?
"Your place," He answered nonchalantly as he made his way to the car with her picking grass out of his hair. "We should stop at a grocery store first, I want oreos, and gummy bears, and chips, and soda, and popcorn and we can get—," He stopped in the middle of his sentence, "Everything, I'll settle for everything. I'm also craving cereal and I wanna watch Scooby-Doo."
"Aren't you too old for Scooby-Doo?"
"No one is too old for Scooby-Doo." The drive to her place was loud, Percy blasting the radio and sticking his head out the window. It was the closest he could come to happiness, right there with one of his favourite people in the world. They stopped at the store before they went to her place, she didn't stop him from putting whatever he wanted in the cart, she was even fine with him climbing into it for a while. He spent the entire time there laughing, she always made him laugh.
When the car stopped, Percy rolled up his window while Elle turned the car off. She was about to get out when he stopped her, "Hey Elle." He turned to her, turning the radio off as the silence swarmed the car along with the heat that had been pushed aside by the open windows. "Yes, Percy. What do you want now, my soul?" She asked teasingly, unbuckling her seatbelt, turning her head to look at him as he spoke. "I wish you were my mom." It was a thought he had been chewing on since he was a kid, since he met her, well he had always known her so most likely since the time he gained consciousness.
"I know." She placed a hand on his shoulder and for a while he felt like he was going to cry, like a dam was about to burst and he would drown them in his tears. "I love you, kid." And then he did, Percy broke, sobbing as she wrapped her arms around him. He couldn't stop the tears from coming, even as she promised him everything would be fine, that she would make it better.
All he knew was that he was never going to be the same after this, nothing could make this feel better. The world had robbed him of his joy, of being a carefree teen before he even turned fourteen. All Percy could hope for, was not to spend the rest of his life thinking that he had lost the best parts of himself. He hoped it would get better, but what if he didn't?