Title: Creatures of habit

word count: 5,023

A/N: for the capture the flag competition. No prompts, pairing Chris/Clarisse and in total words! Hurray for speed writing! Also my longest one-shot! I have written multi-chapters shorter than this. Overall, I would advise you be be wary of my grammar which tends to get iffy with longer writing pieces.

Lastly, again I'm going to remind you all, this has NOT been beta-read so I apologize for any errors et. which I am almost certain, are littered all around this Fic. please take the time to review.


Chris wasn't poor by any means. His Mom, Amelia, was a theif. She was a cheat and a swindler. All these labels were publicly announced in his morning papers daily. Though life went on and Chris turned a blind all these accusations were true, Amelia Rodriguez also happened to be the CEO of Degimod Industries.

Worth more than gold, the company had started up two years before Chris was born by Amelia herself. They shipped everywhere and to anyone. For that reason Chris grew up moving around. Fourteen and young, he was restless.

Living out of a hotel, albeit an expensive one, wasn't fun anymore. Sure, there were the perks, he never had to make his bed, wash his clothes but he never had a bed really either.

He had four different beds a week. One in Chicago, one in New York, one in Madrid and another on the plane to Paris. The movement never ended.

In a way, it kept him on his feet, and later he would learn, it kept his sent vague and had to pinpoint. It also gave him the kind of worldly experiences that came from camping out in South Africa with no bug spray. He was fluent in four languages, okay in two, so according to his mother, her job was a good thing.

His mom was amazing. She was single, a millionaire, and his primary caregiver. Raising him by herself and running a multi-million international business had to have been hard.

That was why Chris relieved her of himself everyday. Wandering the streets of New York he never looked twice at the cyclops huddled on the side of the street. There were homeless people everywhere. However, the cyclops saw him.

Turning onto fourty second street filled with tourist shops she was shoved into an alley.

A mean man, buff and tall looked down on him. "Grah" it frowned and started forward. Chris wanted to look up and take a look at the man'a face but he couldn't. He didn't know why but she couldn't.

Amelia always said that faces humanized people, how right she was.

Sprinting as fast as his legs could take him, Chris ran. The man followed.

Rushing past carts and tourists, Chris could feel the city layout beneath his feet. It was hard to explain but his internal GPS said left and he listened. Making a sharp turn around a corner he allowed himself a glance back. The Man was stumbling across a couple pedestrians who screamed in rapid fire Ukrainian but he didn't seem to notice.

He just pushed them to the side and continued holding a long metal bad.

That bat, Chris thought morosely, would be what he would use to bludgeon me with.

Chris kept running- or he would have had not a beat up truck blocked his path. "Move!" Chris screamed.

He looked for a way around but there was none. A boy, no older than twelve screamed back. "Get in!" He looked behind Chris and shuddered.

That at action was the deciding factor, this kid was afraid just like Chris. What was the worst this boy could do. Chris had been in fights, everyone loved to beat on the new guy(which had almost always been him) so he could hold his own. If anything happened, Chris reasoned, he would beat the boy in a fight.

So in one fluid motion he jumped in. The truck started immediately and they were off. plowing down the street with the Man yelling gibberish behind them.

Looking around his surroundings, Chris realized just how stupid he had been. Rule number one about New York, never get into a car with a stranger. Chris, though, did t verbalized his thoughts. Instead he sat down and introduced himself.

"I'm Chris."

A girl who he hadn't noticed earlier nodded. She looked just as freaked out as he probably did. "Mary."

Chris nodded then turned to the younger boy who had instructed him into the car. "Louis." the boy said simply.

It was laughable how relaxed Louis looked compared to him and Mary, who Chris directed his next question to. "Where are we going? You can drop me off at forty first street."

Mary shook her head. "We can't drop you off, there might be more."

Chris almost rolled his eye. "Theres going to be thugs everywhere welcome to NYC, I'll be fine."

Shooting him a sour look at his sarcasm, Mary shrunk further into herself if that was even possible. "No, don't you get it. We can't stop Idiot. You can't go home."

Chris would have stood up if they weren't going at such a break neck speed. "Pull over. Pull over or-or I'll scream. I swear, I'll scream."

Louis actually did roll his eye. "You're not going home, no matter what you do. Listen to missy here. Don't worry though, you're going somewhere safe."


Phoenix, Arizona was beautiful in the summer time. That was one thing Clarisse missed.

Her mother was great and all but the slender, war scarred woman had nothing on the golden hillside.

Standing on the shores of Camp Half Blood, Clarisse could almost imagine she was home. It was this longing, urgent and compelling that led Clarisse back home.

Laura La Rue had set up security measures all over their house. Trip stones and wires scattered on their lawn. Those, Clarisse skillfully avoided. She knew what stepping on one of them would mean and she didn't like it.

Her Mother treated her nicely enough but Clarisse knew she wasn't really wanted. Especially not when Dan, Laura's other son that she had adopted with Clarisse's step father, was just comming home from the army.

As step-fathers went, Drake Killon was pretty great. He let her use his gun and everything. It was a standard glock but never the less, Clarisse treasured her time with it.

Dan wasn't was great. Older than her by five years, he was kind of the world in his own eyes. There was no one better than he, except of course himself.

So during the summer, Clarisse stayed outside and enjoyed the sun. She practiced her spear, did some conditioning, did her morning run and then she wandered.

Alone sure, but Clarisse was alright by herself. She didn't need Cronus to show everyone how tough she was, they just knew it.

Now, going on her mid-evening jog, Clarisse came across a boy. He was about as old as she but that really struck Clarisse was his hair. A chocolate brown that fell in curves to frame his face, he was bloodied. He was, admittedly cute un conscience and bloody, not that Clarisse would ever tell anyone.

Even she needed a crush.

Chris at camp was always so fair. He never chose sides yet he did have his own opinion. He was the kind of mediator that Clarisse would have teased but with Chris, she didn't.

Now he seemed to splurging Nonsense.

Sad how one could so drastically change.

He felt thinner and his chest seemed to have shrunk in size. He looked like a shell of his former self as she wordlessly led him inside of her house and inside of her room where she had never let a boy in before.

The next day she would face horrors beyond her imagination as a top secret quest from Chiron As a sayer, Louis something, came to pick Chris up.

Casting once last glance the next morning at Chris' shaking figure, Clarisse would enter the labyrinth.


"Where are you going Mary!" Chris hissed and the short girl jumped in surprise.

A knapsack was slung over her back and her sweatshirt pulled over her eyes. "Chris! What are you doing awake!"

It was mature but then again, sons of Hermes lived for immature. "I asked you first. Spill." He held up a carefully worded note that Mary had spent hours pouring over. "What' sat his?"

Mary couldn't help it. "A letter, duh" she said.

Flapping his arms in exasperation, Chris looked like he was going to explode. Opening the letter he began to read. "Dear Chris, we had a lot of great times but there's a time where our paths have to split, I can't live like this...!" Chris' voice got progressively louder as he read. "What in Hades do you mean! You planned to leave without even saying goodbye!"

"If was for the best and 'what the Hades am I talking about!' I'M TALKING ABOUT THIS FREAKING CAMP!"

Mary went red in the face. Chris' worry didn't matter anymore because fury took over. "Oh yeah, come with me, they said, we'll take care of you, YOU'LL BE LOVED!" Her voice broke on the last word and Chris wanted to pull Mary into a hug but she straightened out before he got the change.

"Chris," Her voice was quieter now. "I still don't know my parents, it's been two years, I can't do this any longer. I'm going to join Luke."

Luke.

Chris' half brother, handsome and rouge, Luke had gotten on well with Mary Though not quite as well with Chris.

He could still remember the boy's encouraging words as he helped to train The younger kids. He remembered his envy that his best friend wanted to spend time with his brother not him.

"just try a little longer." Chris continued to plead but Mary's eyes had hardened.

"What, and end up like Ethan! No, I'm not going to be helpless, I'm going to do something about it."

He didn't know where the courage came from but he placed his arms on Mary's shoulders and looked into his eyes. "Mary, don't go."

She tilted her head up and matched him, arms over lapping with his as she faintly smiled. "No."

It wasnt a complete rebuttal so Chris plowed on. "So what if I go with you?"

Mary's eyes widened and she whispered. "Really? Truly?"

Chris wanted to lie as he was selling his soul but this was Mary. It was impossible to lie or even attempt to say no. "Yes." And then noses almost touching, she kissed him.

They stayed, arms wrapped aroundeachother before they finally left. Leaving two empty bunks in the Hermes cabin which two eager campers who were anxious to get off the floor filled. No one even noticed they were gone until six months later when Chris reappeared in Arizona.


Clarisse was in pitch black.

Something howled behind her and she ran as fast as her legs could take her. She' dolts her flashlight and her spear in a scuffle earlier. With no light, she was lost in a forever going maze.

Curling up in a ball seemed like the rational thing to do. What else could she do Besides that?

Stumble around in the dark some more? fight imaginary monsters and run from imaginary sounds? Clarisse refused to do that any longer.


"Ahh" Mary made a quest sound as she stepped on a trick stone. Giant swords shot out of the walls, impaling her to the ground to bleed out. Just like that, she was gone. Chris watched the life bleed out of his best friend-slash-possible girlfriend.

The whole reason that Chris was in the maze was for Mary. How could he live knowing that he had stayed behind as she journeyed to her sure death. die she did and Chris wondered what was crueler. For him to hear of her death and not be able to do anything about it or to hold her in his arms and she does with nothing he could do about it.

Either way he was helpless and Mary was doomed.

Luke had sent fifty eight of his fellow demigods into the maze to scout. Of them all, Chris was the only one to have volunteered.

he did it for her. The girl who never looked twice while he hoped. He followed her to leave the camp and then again to join Luke.

He wanted her alive, he wanted her safe, all he had ever wanted was for her to wake up and realize that what she was doing was risky.

Longing for the day where Mary would realize she was mean at times, that she was reckless and she was a fool and that Chris forgave her every time. He just wanted her to see that she hurt people. She hurt him.

Now she never would.

He wandered along after that encounter. Screaming out for the friend who would never answer. He tried to drag her body back out into the sun with him when he finally did find an exit but he wast strong enough. He dropped her somewhere in the blackness. It was pure survival instinct that led him to the light.

He could only fall out of the cursed hell hole and scream her name as he slipped into an haze.

when he awoke Louis was standing over him just like when he was fourteen but this time there was no Mary.


Clarisse took three weeks just for herself when she finally got out of that hell hole. No one was allowed in her room. She didn't report to Chiron but she had a feeling that he knew all about her quest anyway.

The world was a dark place no doubt but Clarisse had never been afraid. She had never been truly hopeless. She had always had her wits and her brawn. In the cave everything was different.

In the cave Clarisse was alone. She didn't have any light.

The basic fact of humanity is that light brings brightness and brightness bring clarity. In the tunnels there was only her and what she could feel.

She was worse than blind.

She was completely and utterly helpless.

though life moved on, going at ins amply fast paces and other times almost grinding to a halt. Now, the days seemed to drag on. They bleed into one another like the labyrinth.

She didn't know day from night but she did know her sword.

She would practice at anytime.

Her sense of time had gone out the window so really anytime was a good time.

Slicing off the heads off each of her old dolls and toys one by one. She gave them names and humanized them. She created connections before she spilled their stuffing guts all over her floor.

Clarisse's mother didn't notice nor mind.

Teenage girls are odd, her step father would shrug and move on to something more another of his attention. For example: what was for Dinner.

Clarisse spiraled down like a wounded bird and fell into a phase that she swore never to allow to happen to her again.

Later, she wouldn't even acknowledge that this period of slamming does and decapitating toys had existed.

But it did and it lasted for almost a whole trimester.


Chris was sitting at the Hermes table. No one would look at him.

He went and sacrificed to his father while noting absence.

It wasn't unusual to see the camp director off doing his own thing but it had been normal to see him at least once during the day. So far, Chris hadn't seen him.

Pout of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of hair. Immediately he turned word it. It was Mary.

She stood behind him and beckoned with her hands and pointed to the fire, except Chris didn't see the fire, he was a boat. The same boat that they always rode out on the Camp Half Blood Lake.

"Go try it out," Mary urged and Chris obliged.

Sure it was odd to see the boat in the middle of the clearing but the discomfort didn't phase him. He started toward it and hopped in.

It was hotter then Chris tempered and his legs hurt. Actually his whole lower body hurt and his torso was being urgently beat at.

He looked, only for a moment, at his legs but when he looked up Mary was gone and half the camp looked down at him as they thudded and as he fount back.

He was sitting in a fire place and his clothes were burn. His skin was in agony and then he screamed. Falling over on his hands in an attempt to get out of the fire place he wormed his way out.

Mary had reappeared and she was laughing. "Can't believe you fell for that." She snickered and Chris smiled.

Pain forgotten, he stared at he face and laughed too as he passed out for the second time that week.

The next time he woke up it was to see the grim face of Argus and an Apollo kid.

His whole lower body and forearms were bandaged and his mouth was dry from what he guessed had been ambrosia.

Instructed to drink the glass of neuter, Chris complied. Mary was back again but she was being held off by Argus.

Maybe it was painkillers but that was wrong.

Mary was his friend.

She would be able to see him.

When Chris said this Argus gave him a dissaproveing look while the Apollo camper looked at him like he had grown a second head.

"She-Shes's my friend- LET HER IN!" Chris yelled and almost screamed when the small girl was gone and Argus had moved to the side to show nothing more but air.

Four weeks later when Chris had been moved to the big House for his sudden 'outbursts' he had come to a rational solution to his Mary Dilemma. The answer was simple really.

Mary was a ghost.

When he had finally whinnied enough, Louis was forced to visits him just to sit home up. that was when Chris shared his hypothesis.

The sayer looked melancholy when he walked in to the small bedroom that had never in the time that Chris had inhabited had a visitor. The room had been his prison and it seemed to suffocate him. All white and pure, so different from the grimy walls he endured in the labyrinth.

But five minuets into their conversation, his hazel eyes began to harden.

"You're being ridiculous." he scoffed and backed away.

He would have left had Chris not kept a steel grip on his had. "I'm not and you know it, I'm right! Mary's still alive! Shes just in that middle world and she needs out help!"

Frantic eyes searched in the cool sayers' but they only found small traces of remorse.

With a pang, Chris realized that this sayer had already accepted Mary's so-called fate. In a last ditch attempt he pleaded further. "We both know she's alive, you're her protector!"

With a defeated sigh, the sayer placed his hand on Chris' shoulder. "Listen boy, I'm a protector to a lot of demigods." Louis' voice was soft but it didn't make the content any easier to take. "Mary is dead and it's been six weeks, if she wasn't dead then then she certainly is now. If she really is a ghost she belongs to Hades and that means we don't interfere."

With those last words Louis tore his wrist away, taking advantage to Chris' stunned state. Then Chris was left alone and suddenly cold. Louis had no idea of the kind of state he left the teenage boy in. All Louis knew was that that boy, so happy and sarcastic, was gone and now Louis didn't even faintly recognize the pleading figure That called after him.

"All demigods die." He repeated to himself as he exited the Big House Trying to forget the wide-eyes boy.

Chris, still in the house, wished Mary would appear but for once, she stayed away Leaving him to himself. Alone.


Clarisse was forced back to camp by Silena Beuragaurd of all people. That wimp was nice enough but Clarisse wasn't in the friend market despite some-what thankful to the younger girl for getting her back on her feet.

In a way, during the trip to camp, Silena saw a side of Clarisse that no one ever saw. The vulnerable teenage girl side.

When they arrived at camp Clarisse didn't talk to anyone. She didn't even thank Silena but the pretty girl seemed to have expected nothing less as she flounced back to her cabin.

Returning to normalcy was harder than a she thought.

Going to spear drills no longer had the same appeal. After all, her spear hadn't helped her on her quest. In fact, Clarisse had lost her spear on her quest.

The orld was too bright.

Clarisse's eyes had adjusted, they had done so a while ago but the sun light still burned like it had when she had first exited the labyrinth.

The light was blinding and harsh. Clarisse had craved the light and the sun and all they represented for weeks when she was in the cursed place. Now, in the sunlight, able to bask in the rays, Clarisse shied away.

The sun was unnatural. It was such a stark difference to the cold, dark, damp maze and Clarisse couldn't adjust.

Holing herself up in her own cabin would be a disgrace to her father. Clarisse was not being brave. She was fearful of the dark, she was scared of the light. There was no middle ground. The only way through was to get over it but so far, Clarisse wasn't ready for such a bold move.

"suck it up"

That had been her motto as a child and teen and suddenly now, under different circumstances she had a bitter taste in her mouthMatter saying it to herself.

Circumstances had changes and the thing was, Clarisse couldn't 'suck it up'.

So like any warrior slash tactician Clarisse retreated to fight another day.

She couldn't hide in her cabin so the Big house was her best bet For privacy. She still had a 'rep' to keep up. No sissy fear was gonna turn her into a public cry-baby.

Slinging open one of the many bedroom doors she collapsed on the bed. It was dark, the shades drawn and the lights off, perfectly blind she heard a muffled scream. s he scrambled off the bed, pulling out a concealed dagger.

Her defensive stance was perfect and so would have been her performance as she plummeting her opponent had he not been crying.

Huddled off to the side was Chris, the boy she had rescued and he looked terrified.

Pretending her own problems didn't exist was so much easier when she helping some other victim with their own messed up life.


"Mary's dead." Clarisse kept her voice flat and devoid of all emotion.

"I know that." He matched her tone.

"She's not coming back" Clarisse continued.

"...she will." Chis promised.

Chris was a dreamer, she was a fighter-together they matched fact to fiction. Polar opposits but now, they were undergoing what Clarosse liked to call 'Chris Rehab'. For four hours every day(usually longer) she would deny his

"She won't." Clarisse retorted.

"How do you know.

He was getting defensive and honestly he was a loyal guy. She respected that but not enough to let him go crazy, mourning and apparently, according to the Stoll brothers, jumping into fires.

"Because she's dead."

They were in a never ending dance and at times Clarisse wondered if she was doing him more harm then good.

"I don't see a body." He was so stubborn. Why couldn't he just see the evidence and think rationally?

"but she's dead!"But then again, here she was creaming at a cute mentally disturbed boy. Who was being rational in this situation? Not her.

"NO SHES NOT!" He defended again.

"Yes she is and you have to stop pretending otherwise."

"I'm not pretending, she's just-just a ghost right now."

With those last words, Chris retreated back into the corner while Clarisse leaned agonist the opposite wall watching him. She gauged his reactions and knew it was only a little more until the truth would hit home. His defenses were already crumbling. She would penetrate his fantasy citadels soon It only required more baiting.


Chris could have said a lot of things to calm the daughter of Ares down. She was a force to be reckoned with but he dared(And just prayed he wouldn't have to pay the price).

Battles had gone on and been lost and won. The Titan War was upon them and Clarisse was refusing to help.

She had banned the entire Ares Cabin from aiding their Other fellow campers because of apparently, a stupid chariot. Though Chris knew better, Clarisse had a strong sense of duty, she wouldn't just not leave because of a stupid chariot.

"Tell me what this is about." Chris tried to corner his girl friend but she was too smart for that and just slipped under his armed.

"What's there to say?" she said. She kept walking To the beach.

"I mean, why aren't we fighting?" Chris demanded.

He would follow Clarisse to the ends of the earth but he had friends besides Clarisse and they were currently relying g on him to bring the reinforcements. "Tell me." he urged again and this time she stopped.

Turning around with a tear in her eye(which she immediately brushed off and in the future, would always deny) she said something that shocked Chris into momentary silence.

"Because if we go, twelve people are going to die."

This was not the time for Clarisse to get all noble. "How do you know that?" he asked and she seemed all to ready to answer.

"My dad told me. He said if Ares goes then twelve will meet their end. it was a prophecy."

With those lest words she kept a faster pace then him, not looking back.

Eventually the two had to circle back to the Ares cabin and when they got there the whole place was deserted. Clarisse's armor was missing and she growled in frustration.

Chris knew where they had all gone. Personally she would have joined them and it hurt that they hadn't told him they were ditching.

"We have to go after them. Stop them!" Clarisse was almost hysterical as she led him out of the camp and summoning a taxi.

Together they rushed down to Manhattan in a matter of minuets but it was too late. He could see the smoke rising from the high rise buildings. People were falling off mopeds and drooling on their steering wheels. This was not good.

The sun was bright and shining, it was too good a day for murder but it wasn't up to Chris about that. It wasn't even up to the gods about who would die. It was all about the three fates and they were cruel.

Clarisse's prophecy, legitimate of not, would most diffidently come true.

Silena Beaurgaurd's crumpled form lay on the ground as the neared.

She was wearing Clarisse's armor And that could only mean one thing. As Clarisse cried for the second time, Chris looked away. He and Silena weren't close. He knew nothing more about her then how she was Clarisse's best friend and her name.

He hoped that she wouldn't die in vain like Mary. Just to fade away, forgotten.


There was a fantastic rush as Clarisse picked up a weapon, any weapon, and charged. Her vision was red and she just knew one thing.

That Drakon was going down.


In the end, Chris cried and Clarisse stood tall.

Suck it up, she told herself but despite it all, tears did arrive as they burnt the fallen's funeral pyre.

She and Chris walked away seven hours after the ceremony had ended and everyone had been long gone.

She he only made to leave when their friends and comrades had burnt away. Flames no longer licking at their mortal corpses. only ashes remained. And there, Chris kissed Clarisse. It was light and sudden but it was still a kiss. She returned it as they walked away.


A/N: If anyone noticed, Degimod (The company that Chris' mom works for) is an anagram. (demigod) switch the 'm' and the 'g'.

(the rest of this a/n is just my nonsense rumblings.)

There's actually a funny story to go with this. The actual due date of the of the challenge was two days ago but I at that time hadn't proof read(and I still haven't) and also my word count had only been 1.6k. in the instance of being late the penalty is to loose five points so I just wanted to reach 2k to get more points and eventually I raised my goals when I reached 3k and I wanted a nice odd number.

if it's any consolation to all my fuming grammar and spelling readers, I do plan to revise this one-shot and replace it some time in the next month.

Always writing,

-Rrit