A/N: I'm just gonna let you figure this one out. It's based on a scene from the pilot of Victorious but I named it after the second episode cause it sounds cool. Hope you like it, please review!
They're sitting in a circle around the campfire, all of them together for the first time since The Day of the Dead- all eleven of them, if you can imagine. They're quiet, because no one dares talk, because no one dares start this inevitable insanity. Reyna's entertained by how the circle is arranged, each demigod with their significant other, leaving her alone at the back to stare in wonder at her friends.
She then has to look away from them to avoid feeling guilty about how fast those thoughts spiraled.
She focuses on the son of Hades, who is technically the leader of this quest. He's sitting in between his sister and his boyfriend, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket so the others won't see them shaking, but unable to keep his legs from moving, jittering up and down as he frowns thoughtfully at the fire.
Reyna's known Nico for quite a few years now, and she's still not use to how adorable his thinking face is.
Finally, Nico stands and walks around the circle, studying each of his friends intensely. Reyna watches him, as he pulls an old-fashioned pocket watch out of his pocket and presses a button on it, starting the timer. He swallows nervously, then looks over at Reyna and when their eyes meet, he nods. She releases a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.
Because no one wanted to start this madness. But they all knew someone had to.
Reyna stands, the fire burning higher to match her mood. She takes a deep breath to steady herself, turns to Frank sitting next to her, and raises a hand.
"Ave, Praetor Zhang!"
And the game begins.
"By the gods, Reyna," Frank continues, standing to meet her gaze. "I didn't know you'd be here tonight."
"Camp Half-Blood is my second home," Reyna returns. "I spend as much time here as I can."
Out of the corner of her eye, Reyna sees Nico give his sister an imperceptible nod. Hazel stands.
"Don't act like you love it here," she chides. "We all know Camp Jupiter will always be your true home."
Reyna forces herself to laugh. "Evil lies you spread!"
"Forget it, then," Hazel says. "Pretend to be Greek as long as you can get away with it."
"Greeks are supposed to be welcoming," Reyna returns. "Aren't they?"
"How about we all calm down?" Frank suggests. "And ask someone who's actually Greek."
Nico takes the cue and nods at Percy, who gets to his feet to join their little crowd. "I hope we're all getting along over here."
"Just having a little argument," Reyna explains. "We were hoping you could help us."
"Kids, all of you," Percy scoffs, shaking his head. "What were you arguing about?"
There's a half a second of hesitation, during which Nico's eyes widen in fear. Then Frank hastily says, "Love of culture! We were arguing about Reyna's multi-cultural love of... Culture..."
"Multi-cultural love of culture..." Percy repeats slowly, which is hilarious simply because it's pretty obvious he didn't mean for that to work.
"Never mind what we were arguing about," Hazel insists. "It doesn't matter now. We're all a family."
"Of course we are," Reyna agrees.
"PERSEUS JACKSON!" Leo suddenly shouts, making them all jump, and Reyna can see Nico trying not to smirk because it's obvious he was waiting to bring Leo in just for that.
"QUIT SHOUTING, OH MY GODS," Percy exclaims in exasperation, sending Leo a totally not fake glare.
Leo smirks back. "Red hot temper today, huh, Perce?"
The son of Poseidon sighs. "Shut up."
Before any of them can continue, Nico signals for Jason to join them. They're running out of time, so the team knows they can only speak once. "Terrible weather we're having today, right, guys?" The son of Jupiter asks lamely. "Sorry about that, it might be my fault."
"Unbelievable," Piper scoffs, getting to her feet. "Jason, what have we told you about messing with the weather?"
"Very rude, you know," Calypso pipes up.
"Well, let's forget about the weather," Will suggests. "We can still have fun when the sun's not out."
They're all scared for a moment, wondering how anyone could continue, but of course Annabeth Chase is a genius and wastes no time taking her turn.
"Xeroseres can form if we have too much sunlight anyway, so we have to be careful."
They all grin appreciatively at her.
"You're all idiots, you know that?" Reyna laughs. "Caring about the weather."
They're all settling down by now, certain that their leader can finish them off, so they return to their seats on logs around the fire, and Nico stands in the center of them, his thumb poised above the button on the stopwatch.
"Zombies will kill you all," he threatens darkly, then presses the button, and suddenly they can all breathe again.
For a few moments, there's silence, and then Reyna- carefully choosing her words, just in case- asks, "Are we done? Is it over?"
Nico studies the stopwatch in his hand for a moment, then nods. "Yeah. We're done."
"Thank the gods," Annabeth mutters. "There was so much incorrect grammar in there."
"Yeah, we kinda started talking like Yoda," Leo realizes.
"What was with that last sentence?" Piper asks Nico. "It was totally out of context."
Nico shrugs. "It's life-threatening ABC Improv. Who said it had to make sense?"
A/N: so there's that. I hope you liked it. Please review!