"The moment I met you,
I held my breath.
And you've been taking
it away ever since,
Nico di Angelo."
[ NICO DI ANGELO x MALE OC ]
[ PERCY JACKSON SERIES ]
[ HEROES OF OLYMPUS SERIES ]
cover by @humaneity !
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
0019. | PROMISES, PROMISES, WHAT MORE COULD HE SAY?
Vela felt out of place. He missed the old days when he was running through the Labyrinth hand in hand with Nico, following after Annabeth and Percy and Rachel... sure, they had been chased by Kronos, but not everything's perfect! And this—sitting in a Hunter's tent with a sister he didn't know—a blond kid who glared at him—a girl who once electrocuted him—her immortal adoptive sister—the blushing son of Hephaestus—the second most attractive boy to ever lived—and a satyr who had a penchant for blood? Not what he had in mind when Rachel gave a prophecy that he'd be baby sitting for the foreseeable future...
Still, Vela did his best to hang in there. With a combination of hot chocolate, only half-listening to his tent buddies, and re-reading Nico's text to him, Vela managed to make the experience not an entirely awful one.
He noticed out of his peripheral that Leo and Jason had changed clothes too, now all of them in the company wore silver jacket (how adorable) and Vela quickly decided he didn't like the colour if everyone else was going to wear it too. Much like the orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt, Vela wasn't a fan of group clothing which was why he had spent the majority of his summer in sport shirts, mostly tight muscle-fit ones, but he didn't hear any complaints from anyone so he figured it was fine.
"Cheers!" Coach Hedge cried, lifting Vela's attention to him chomping on his thermos mug.
"That cannot be good for your intestines." Leo remarked, managing to give himself a hot chocolate froth moustache which Jason subtly let him know about. Leo blushed, sparing a glance to Thalia who hadn't noticed, and wiped it off with the back of his hand.
Thalia, instead, was regarding Piper. She patted her on the shoulder gently. "You up for moving?" Thalia asked.
Piper nodded. "Thanks to Phoebe, yeah." Piper smiled. "You guys are really good at this wilderness survival thing. I feel I could run ten miles."
Vela frowned. "Or maybe don't." He offered. "You broke your ankle, got hypothermia and turned into gold. Maybe you should rest a little longer." He advised, sending a pointed look to Thalia.
"She's fine." Thalia insisted.
At the same time, Piper too said, "I'm fine!"
Vela ignored Thalia. He knew the Hunters' effects, he knew Piper's likelihood to pretend she was fine to impress Thalia. Lacy did the same in the war when she had a broken arm. "Piper..." he said steadily, imploring her to see reason, silently telling her it was okay to ask for help or a little patience.
