so this takes place after gaea and the war and yeahhhh. thalia is a hunter, but she never truly gave up on boys i guess. i also wanted to make thalia the way i thought she'd be after both wars and stuff. she had to be kind of lonely and bitter, right? despite the hunters and everything okay read now
We hadn't been gone that long, not really. Only a few hours. I had been visiting camp a lot lately. Peleus the dragon had gone missing, and once we found him we decided to practice our sword fighting while we had some free time.
"Percy, what time is it?" I asked, laughing over the fact that I'd just thrust him back into a ditch.
He dusted himself off dramatically and looked around. "Um, I'm not sure. But it's getting dark. We should get back."
I nodded in agreement. We must have been out for 3 hours at most, yet as soon as we got back, Annabeth had to run right up to Percy like she hadn't seen him in days. Nico di Angelo was following her with a small grin that morphed into a frown when he saw the couple together. A smile spread across Percy's face as he saw Annabeth, and I couldn't help feeling a little envious. Not because I liked Percy, obviously, but we were only gone for a handful of hours and he had somebody to come back to, somebody who cared for him.
Despite the fact that I was a Hunter of Artemis now, little occurrences like this made me miss Luke.
Nobody looked at me anymore the way they looked at each other. And one side of me understood that, seeing as Hunters are off limits. But the other side of me knew nobody wanted to protect me or care about me. Annabeth had Percy, who did I have? Luke was dead. I've accepted that now. That didn't stop me from missing him, from missing... What? We weren't together. Maybe I liked him, but that didn't matter. He was dead.
Percy gave Annabeth a little hug and kissed her swiftly on the cheek.
"Where have you guys been? I was worried," Annabeth asked, looking only at Percy while she spoke, taking his hand and heading towards the pavilion for dinner. I guess it wasn't me she was worried about.
No, I knew that wasn't true. I knew she and Percy needed time together every once in a while. After all they've been through, I understood. I just found it obnoxious that they had to be constantly near one another. Wouldn't they get sick of each other? I was surprised Percy went out in the woods with me when I asked. He barely ever left her side anymore.
Luke, Annabeth and I had all been a family at one point. I longed for that feeling again, the feeling of security and constant human companionship. I missed having people to talk to all the time. Being lonely got boring real quick. Maybe the Hunters provided a little family, but it seemed a little forced. It didn't seem like we all truly wanted to be with each other.
Walking to the pavilion, I'd been so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I suddenly became aware of Nico walking beside me. I didn't even question why he was at camp; he'd been popping up out of nowhere lately. When I looked up at him, he was staring straight forward.
"Talk about awkward," he said with an embarrassed smile.
I laughed at his expression. "They ditched us."
He nodded, chuckling. "They did."
"That bothers me," I said before I could stop myself. "Why'd they leave without even saying anything to either one of us?" I took a deep breath to calm myself before I could get too worked up and looked back up at Nico. He'd gotten a lot taller than me, and we were about the same age now. "Couples," I snorted.
"Nothing I'm not used to. Everybody leaves, eventually." We walked in silence for a while after that, which was indeed, very awkward. Maybe we'd known each other for a while and maybe we spoke when we visited camp at the same time, but for him to just blurt out something like that made the silence ring in my ears.
"Look, I'm not really hungry. Do you want to head back into the forest, sit down for a little?" I asked quickly. He looked up, sighed, and said sure. I scowled when butterflies rose in my stomach.
I turned back to the forest and walked back into the thick of it. The sun was on its way down and most of the nymphs were gone, creating a very awkward setting for the both of us.
I wanted to know why he felt everyone leaves. I could relate, obviously, what with my mother and my brother and Luke, but I wasn't leaving. Neither was Annabeth, or Percy. Where else did we have to go? I wanted to know more about him. And beyond that, I wanted to tell him about me so maybe we could have something in common. I could finally confide in someone. Maybe I wouldn't have to keep my emotions constantly bottled up inside. I wasn't as independent as I let on, you know. Annabeth knew that, but sometimes I think she forgot.
I strolled casually to a patch of grass and sat down, crossing my legs. I patted the ground beside me. "Come come, sit."
I was glad when he laughed. "You're weird."
"I know you are but what am I."
He stared at me blankly. "I just said you were weird."
"Oh, never mind. Anyways, what was that about? I mean earlier. You said something about how everybody leaves. You were in a good mood before. How come out of nowhere you just…" I looked down, hoping he'd get the gist of what I was asking because I had no idea how to continue.
"Is that why you wanted to 'talk?'" He put air quotes around the word. "I could say the same to you. How come out of nowhere you started talking about couples and how Percy and Annabeth left without noticing either of us?" Nico was getting irritated. Maybe this was a bit of a touchy subject.
"Well… I guess it pisses me off a little bit that Annabeth and Percy get all romantic around me." My eyes dropped to the ground in front of me and I plucked a blade of grass. Picking it apart, I avoided eye contact with the boy next to me. I was starting to feel like this was a bad idea.
His voice turned soft for some reason. "Why would that bother you? I thought you and Annabeth were friends."
"Oh no no, we are, we are. I just…" The energy kind of drained out of me at this point. My shoulders sagged and I folded my hands in my lap. When I tried to think of some way to explain, and failed, I sighed heavily and leaned back until my head landed on the grass.
"I miss Luke." I heard myself say, voice tight, eyes locked on the sky. And before I knew it, words poured out of my mouth that I didn't even know were inside my head. A river of bitter words about my past flooded out of me like water breaking through a dam. I'd never talked so much in my life. I felt abandoned, I felt alone and maybe I had sisters that were Hunters but they got along without me just fine. Everybody's got somebody, but I had no one. The Hunters didn't need me, they've got Artemis, my brother was back at his camp, my mom was dead, Luke was dead, and Annabeth and Percy had better things to do than comfort my sorry ass. After all that I'd been through in all my years, I felt like I got the short end of the stick. And it sucked. Luke used to be the only one who made me feel better back then.
Nico was a very good listener. He just sat there without saying a word and let me drag on and on about my life. I'm sure I sounded pretty pathetic and whiny, but I really didn't want to bottle anything up anymore. With every word I felt like a part of me that I'd been trying to let go of for so long finally flew away.
When I finished, my words bouncing off the trees and the sun well past set, I blinked a few times. I wasn't being myself. I looked around, taking in my surroundings. The normal setting of the darkened forest brought me back to Earth and I woke up. I'd said what I needed to regardless of who heard, and I felt so much better.
Nico's voice startled me; I'd forgotten he was there again. "Thalia?"
"Yeah?" I sighed, plucking more grass from the ground.
"I get it." His voice was gentle and when I looked over to him, his eyes reflected the tone of his voice.
"You do?" I breathed, genuinely surprised he didn't run away during my huge speech.
"Yeah. My sister left me. My mom, Hazel, my dad was never here in the first place, Percy and Annabeth are never around. I've got no one. Why do you think I never stick around any place too long? I've got no roots anywhere. I can go any place I want," Nico told me. He stared at the ground. "In a lot of ways, Thalia, you and I are a lot alike."
He said it and I knew it was true. We both had no one, and we both knew it. Nico's eyes were so full of anger and sadness whenever I looked at him. I wanted to make him feel better, but I didn't know what to say anymore.
"Look," he stared me right in the eyes. "I'm not Luke. In fact, I'm probably his exact opposite. But we both have no one, except each other."
I realized what he was saying. His sister had died, his mother, everyone in his life had come and gone. Everyone in my life had done the same. The few people left treated me as someone without feelings, someone who didn't matter. We could both cling on to one another and finally have something to hold on to. We could put roots down somewhere. We could have a place to come home.
"Okay," my voice sounded shaky. "Thanks for listening to me today."
"Hey, no problem." Nico grinned down at me.
In the distance, we could see the smoke from the campfire and hear muffled voices singing. "Wanna get back?" I asked in a small voice, pointing my thumb in the general direction of the campers.
"Yeah, they might be wondering where you went," he said respectfully. Nico peeked at me out of the corner of his eye and got to his feet. Then he held out his hand for me. I took it gratefully, smiling to myself.
I didn't stop to contemplate what I did next. I stretched up on my toes and kissed Nico on the cheek. I hoped it was thanks enough for all he did for me today. I had a new friend, or whatever you want to call what we had now, and he'd listened about everything I'd kept hidden. It may not have sounded like much, but to me, it was the nicest thing anyone's ever done.
When I backed away, I kept holding Nico's hand and watched his face flush deeper. "Why'd you do that?" He asked shyly.
"What, I'm not allowed to be cute?" I let the joking and the sarcasm leak through my voice now that the seriousness of the conversation was done.
"Aren't Hunters of Artemis not even allowed to look at boys? Isn't it against the rules or whatever?"
"Everyone knows I'm not known for following the rules, Death Boy." He smiled a smile that reached all the way up to his eyes after that. I'd never seen Nico di Angelo smile that big before.
And with that, we both sped off to the campfire to join the others, hand in hand.
hope that was worth the wait, tori, and i'm sorry if it wasn't! also sorry for typos. R&R please and thank you