Bandages and Salt (PJO X BSD AU)

Chapter forty-five

Chuuya POV

I watched in silence as the angered demigod stalked over to the four of us with a stormy gaze that seemed to be asking for bloodshed, something that she could get limitless amounts of if she were to walk the other direction to the clashing armies.

"What in Hades were you thinking?" The daughter of Ares asked her friend as the girl shrank away from her, a guilty look on her face that I hoped she knew to erase before someone else identified just what the emotion was and why she was truly wearing it.

"You were being stubborn," the girl said, pulling herself up to her full height as she did so. "The Ares cabin would only listen to you, so-"

"So you stole my armor," Clarisse finished, her voice drenched in disbelief as she did, but maybe even a little bit of pride as well. "You... you waited until Chris and I were on patrol and then stole my armor so that you could pretend to be me." During the course of the conversation, the other children of Ares had drawn closer to commotion and were now standing only a few feet in front of us all. "None of you noticed?!" She screamed, looking at each of what was left of her siblings. All of their faces were defiant, but held a sliver of the same spine that she was showing.

"Oh, lay off them all, La Rue," a new voice interrupted, one that I sometimes thought that I knew better than my own. Dazai was still standing at my side, but at some point in the confrontation he had thrown his hands into his jacket pockets, the stance making him look a glimmer of the delinquent that he was. He definitely looked like someone that you would not want to meet in a back alley, even without the status that the Port Mafia held being attached to the younger boy. Seeing him like this sent a small thrill through my chest that I chose to ignore as I do with most things that have to do with the other teen. "It was my plan anyways," though they were words that should have been spoken in a mean tone, his only held a note of mischief.

"How?" Two voices rang out in a small chorus, neither the daughter of Ares nor the daughter of Aphrodite understanding just how he managed to pull something like this off.

Not their fault that they're not used to this level of bullshit that he tends to have.

"He sent Silena back to camp knowing that she would never be able to convince you, but could get the others to come if she tricked them," I explained, watching as the bandage waste started to smirk as I spoke. "Hell, he even gave her the idea on how to trick them."

The daughter of the war goddess looked between Dazai and I with the gaze of someone that was waiting for one or both of us to say that I had just been lying moments before. She cursed when she realized that everything that I had just said had been true.

"Gods," Clarisse spat. "Here I thought that you were insufferable before."

The daughter of Ares looked ready to pound the pair of us into the ground, though she would only end up hurting herself in the end by doing so, but turned towards her siblings instead and ordered them to go and help the centaurs before picking up a sword of her own and following them.

The mackerel glanced at the fighting demigods before turning to me with something of a boyish expression on his face. Ever since we came to the States, I couldn't help but notice that the other teen had been acting more and more... alive in nature than I had ever seen him before. I didn't understand what the change was, I couldn't since I don't know all of the information, but I couldn't help but wonder if he was meant to stay. If I was being selfish in wanting him to come back with me, in making him do so.

"Fancy a bit of exercise?" The younger boy asked, twirling his sword as if to become reacquainted with its weight once more.

I shrugged and fought down the feelings that bottled up inside me at seeing him acting so human even as he would swear that he wasn't. "Why not? We're already here."