Believe it or not, Jason and Octavian used to be the best of friends. But now they were sat outside the praetor's office waiting for their punishments.
Of course Octavian denied all knowledge of what had happened and his involvement in said event was tenuous at best, but he was here.
An awkward silence hung in the air between the two.
Jason cleared his throat.
"Good move, Octavian, now we're both in trouble." Octavian scoffed.
"This isn't my fault. I would never have such disgusting behaviour."
"Pretty sure you were the one who poured soup down Gwen's shirt." Jason retorted, leaning back on his chair.
"There is no way you can prove it was me."
"Please, you know people would listen to me over you."
One by one, they were called into the praetor's office to give their statements. Octavian of course rolled his eyes the moment Jason left the office, a smile on his face. The golden child strikes again. He thought to himself as he stood to walk into the office. He's the most loved person at this camp…
Octavian estimated that it was probably about a year since the two had been civil with one another. Growing up, they had been almost inseparable. They came to each other for everything and weren't seen without the other. After a few years of course they grew out of this dependency, but Octavian mused that it had been because Jason had no family. Of course he had been sent to the family who lived next door to his to be brought up. As soon as Jason was able to hold a dagger he was placed into training, the eagle branded onto his skin the moment he entered the camp. Jason always had been the special snowflake…
He couldn't help but feel betrayed when his best friend decided to completely blank him. Over some girl no less.
It had been around a year and two weeks since Reyna had arrived at Camp Jupiter and her arrival had completely changed his best friend's behaviour.
It's not that he wasn't attracted to girls, believe him, he was, but he didn't understand the particular interest this girl held for Jason. She was a nobody. She barely spoke to anybody, her dark eyes glaring at any boy who strayed too close to her… Almost like she didn't trust them.
He had nightmares about her. For days leading up to her arrival, he was tormented with almost indecipherable visions and prophecies about impending doom and destruction. Not much out of the ordinary, but he'd never had so many at once before. He'd tried to talk to his best friend, but Jason had stupidly gotten on the wrong side of the child of Vulcan who made the automaton lions for the war games. Needless to say, the results had not been pretty.
So Octavian had kept his visions to himself. He wasn't proud of it, and he knew he would be scolded by his father for doing so, but he didn't know what to do. He was almost finished his augur training. He was so close to taking over the position he had so longed for his whole life, and he wasn't about to jeopardise that on some dreams.
The day Jason was released from the care of the medics was the day that Reyna had arrived. To say he was smitten with her was an understatement. Octavian had watched as his once stoic friend had very suddenly changed demeanour to something Octavian had never seen before.
It had all gone downhill from there.
And now Jason was missing and Reyna was out of her mind with grief and there was no time to mourn the loss of his friend… He had to carry on. He couldn't get caught up thinking about what he lost and what he once had. He wouldn't.