They had to walk a little bit before they found a pharmacy, and when they did, the person behind the counter did n't speak English. Arya tried to speak the little Arabic she'd tried learning before they'd begun their quest, but her attempts were lost on the old man. Eventually, Orlando had to go behind the counter and pick out the things himself. They paid with some of the cash money they had (it was extremely convenient that Lebanon accepted American currency) and they walked around a bit before finding a hotel. It was called the Phoenician, and it must have been as high-end as the Marriot, based on the disgusted looks shot their way when they entered. The lady at the reception seemed nice enough, though, and when she saw Arya her eyebrows furrowed in worry. "We could call a doctor, perhaps?" Her accent was evident, but she seemed to be trying hard to hide it. Arya shook her head.
"Ma3leh, it's just a little scratch; not as bad as it looks. Do you have any rooms with three beds?"
They lady pursed her lips, obviously unsatisfied with Arya's answer and her refusal of medical aid. She turned to her computer and typed something in. "Oui, there is one family room available, but it has four beds, and the charge of the last bed would be extra. Unfortunately, it would cost more to have it removed." She eyed us again. "Will your parents be accompanying you?"
Sasha glanced at her friends nervously and opened her mouth to speak before Nico intervened.
"No, Sasha and Orlando," he pointed at us, "are the children of politicians, and their parents will probably be too busy to stop by during the trip."
The lady seemed a lot less anxious after Nico said that and she nodded. "Are you sure they wouldn't want to know about your friend's injury? Ana, I could let you make a call from the hotel, mish mishkle."
"No, it's fine, really. Thank you. How long until the room's ready?"
The woman, after a few clicks on her keyboard, turned back to Nico. "I can have it ready in fifteen minutes. In the meantime, you go help your friend clean up, no? Someone will help."
"No!" Arya shouted quickly, making the receptionist jump. Arya blushed and chuckled nervously. "A3njad it's not a problem, we've got it. Should we pay you now?"
"No, it's not a problem. For now, just go clean up in the bathrooms, down that corridor, second door on your left." She pointed. "After, we can talk about payment, but your parents are going to pay, ma hek?"
Orlando shifted his weight, accidentally nudging Arya's arm slightly in the process. The girl gasped quietly, her face twisting in pain, before she forced her mouth back into a smile and laughed breathily.
"We'll discuss that in just a minute. Sasha, do you think you can...?"
"Yeah, no problem." Sasha moved next to her friend, starting off towards the bathroom with Arya and Orlando.
"Sasha?"
The daughter of Poseidon turned back to Nico. Arya rolled her eyes.
"It's fine, you can catch up to us. But I swear to Zeus, if you leave me alone with this horrible excuse of a healer-"
"Don't worry, she'll only be a second."
"I wasn't asking you, di Angelo. It's rude to interrupt."
"Don't you have something to be doing, like, getting that thing patched up?" Sasha joked, rolling her eyes. Arya stuck her tongue out, then another guest at the hotel bumped into her and her mouth dropped with the pain. She started trailing after the person, streaming curses in Greek, and Orlando had to haul her off. Sasha smirked and turned back to Nico.
"You wanted to talk to me?"
"That depends..." He turned to the lady at the counter. She wasn't paying them any mind any more, but she was still in hearing range. Sasha nodded and pulled him over to the couches where a couple sat. The woman, haughtily dressed and seriously overdoing it with the eye makeup, shot them a look that Sasha returned with even more malice. The lady made a face and stood, the man trailing behind her. Sasha turned to Nico, only to see he wasn't paying attention to her; the son of Hades was looking to his left, deliberately facing away from Sasha, and since the daughter of Poseidon hadn't been the one to want to speak privately in the first place, she had no idea what to say.
"...do you think the poison is fatal?"
Nico shook his head. "It's not gorgon blood. If it'd been Steno's blood, or poison, they're the same, Arya would have been dead in an instant." He closed his eyes. "Anyways, whatever it is, it isn't going to deadly so long as it's treated properly; the problem is just that it's just going to be difficult to treat."
"...oh."
Nico turned to Sasha, an apathetic look painted on his face. "You apologized to me, earlier. What for, it's kind of hard to keep up with everything going on and all."
Sasha moaned. "You weren't supposed to have been paying attention."
"Well, I was."
She sighed. "I dunno. I mean, I guess it's for everything, but mostly for being such an obnoxious dumbass. Like, I already feel like at the end of this, I'm screwed either way, and I just...I want to hurt as little people as possible. It makes sense, or it should. Or it does for me, anyways. I can't really explain myself in any other way."
"Well then why were you deliberately trying so hard to piss me off? And don't even bother denying it, I'm not stupid."
Sasha hid her face in her hands to hide the blush spreading across her cheeks because she really would have been much better off not having this conversation, thank you very much.
"It's not so much that I was trying to piss you off as I was trying to get you to...I don't know, move on? I felt like you don't deserve to be trailing behind me, because you seriously don't. And I guess at some point I decided that maybe if I pissed you off enough it would get to the point where you-hated me? And then it wouldn't hurt you at all once this was all over. Look, it was stupid, okay? And I realized that, and that's why I apologized." She spoke into her hands all at once, not giving the son of Hades any time to intervene. If she didn't just say it now, she wouldn't muster up the courage to say it later. She waited carefully for his response, only to be greeted with silence. Not full silence; the lobby's instrumental music played quietly, and there was the chatter of guests around the room speaking in different languages, but the boy seated next to her was mute. Sasha felt the couch move next to her, felt him stand up, and she barely had time to think 'Oh shit, now I really pissed him off.' Before she felt him sit much closer to her than he had been seated before and wrap his arms around her. He rested his chin on the back of her head, which was still buried in her hands, her elbows resting on her thighs.
"You're an idiot, you know." He kissed the back of her head, and Sasha froze. She sat up, forcing him to release her.
"Wait, Nico. This doesn't change anything, just because I decided to tell you. I still feel the same."
"You don't need to. What's the point?"
"I just told you the point! Nico, this doesn't change anything!"
"Sasha, this is ridiculous. You just said so: 'it was stupid'. Why go through the struggle? I mean, hear me out for a second. I don't think you understand how furious I was last night. I didn't sleep at all, I just paced the room all night. All night! It's not as if you're the only one being affected by this, because whether you like it or not, I do care about you, and I doubt I'm going to stop any time soon."
Sasha pulled at her hair, desperate. She'd already stood up, she was pacing in front of Nico. "No, I don't like it, and I don't have to either! Don't you think I care about you too, or are you stupid? Or blind? Of course I care about you too, more than I ever wanted to care about any guy! But that's why I'm even doing this, you genius." She fell back down on the couch next to Nico, her head in her hands.
"Gods, it hurts so much. How do you think I felt, seeing you with Drew? Imagine how I felt, for just a minute."
"-Yea, and you didn't just stop caring about me because I was being an idiot. Do you really think I can do that to you?"
"Except I'm not being an idiot!" She yelled, bolting back up. People turned their way, and Sasha lowered her voice. "I've thought this through, over and over and over I've thought this through. I freaking can't stop thinking about it, but if I go through Tartarus, that's my problem. I'm not going to stop acting the way I'm acting, and if you want to make this harder on yourself by pointlessly resisting, I can't stop you!" With that, Sasha stormed off into the direction of the bathrooms to help her friend.
-
"Hey, sorry I took so long. How are you guys holding up?"
"GODS DAMMIT SASHA IT'S KILLING ME MAKE THESE IDIOTS-SHIT!"
Sasha chuckled and waved at Jonathan through the IM Orlando had set up by running the sink faucet and putting a spoon at the bottom of the sink, creating the mist for the demigod version of Skype. Orlando sent Sasha a pleading look.
"Please, for the love of Hades, calm her down somehow. I can't get anything done with the amount of struggling she's doing."
"That'd be because you're doing everything wrong, stupid! There's NO WAY this should-SHIT-hurt this-shiiit-MUCH!"
"That's probably because you're struggling so much, you annoying brat!" Orlando spat back, and Sasha rolled her eyes, gripping Arya's face in her hands.
"Hey, look at me, keep looking at me. Yea, just, ugh, Arya, don't think about it. Dude, stop yelling! People are going to think you're being tortured or something, jeez! Just think. Think! Think about how much we still don't have planned, dammit, we are such irresponsible, good for nothing imbeciles, am I right?" She continued saying things to Arya to try and distract her, and for the most part she succeeded until Orlando finished. treating her arm. Once they were done, the trio took a breather before Sasha talked with Jonathan a bit, recapping everything that had happened.
"And what about you and Nico?"
Sasha shot him a look, but it was an empty threat. She groaned. "Is that even your business?"
"Ooh, touchy."
"Shut up." She chuckled. She ended the IM and saw that Orlando had already left the bathroom, leaving Sasha and Arya alone. Sasha smiled at the daughter of Athena, and Arya rolled her eyes.
"You're a complete moron. I mean, I love you, but come on."
"What?"
"Dude, I can already assume what you guys were talking about, and maybe I'm not spot-on, but I have a pretty good idea."
"I don't really see how this-"
"Ugh, you are so much like your brother it's not even funny. I mean, I understand that you guys are like identical in appearance, but you don't have to share his seaweed-filled kelp brain, too."
"Gee, thanks."
"Look, just...you're holding onto the prophecies meaning to literally. Prophecies are not usually literal, alright? Loosen up a bit, and realize that hey, if these really are your last few days, Sasha, make the best of them! We'll kick monster ass, find this stupid hourglass of sorts, and do what we want."
Sasha smiled, but Arya could read right through it.
"I'm serious, I'm so sick of you and Nico moping and arguing like kids. You both need to get over it, it's not only him. We won't get anything done with the two of you acting like whiny brats." Arya stood up and left, and Sasha yelled into her fist before smoothing out her hair, washing her face, and following her out of the bathroom.
Arabic references (done by me, with my little to non existent knowledge of this language, they are roughly translated, not the exact translations):
-Ma3leh: (Mah/AA/leh) it's like 'whatever' or, uhm, 'it's unimportant', I guess.
-Ana: (AH/na) Me; I
-Mish Mishkle: (Mish/mish/kleh) this can be used in multiple different context, and in each context it's used differently, so the definition is different, but in a way, it's like, also the same. Basically, it means 'it's not a problem, it's not a bother at all' something like that.
-A3njad: (Ah/AAA/n/JAD) I dunno if that's an accurate way to describe the way this word should be spoken, i rolled it around on my tongue for a while trying t figure it out and I just decided with this. Anyways, this is the easiest to explain. It just means like 'seriously' or 'honestly'.
-Ma hek: (Ma/hehk) Ok this is like, erm, 'am I right?' or 'is this correct?' But bleh it's more like...uhm...it's like if you were to say "You like bacon, ma hek?" Like, you're assuming you're right, you're just looking for confirmation. Heehee ^.^ now for my totally irrelevant excuse to the delay of this chapter.
Totally irrelevant excuse for the delay of this chapter :
THIS TOTALLY DOES NOT EXCUSE IT AND I KNOW HOLY CRAP I'M SO LATE.
So, to be honest, I started writing this chapter before HoH came out, then after HoH i completely lost all desire to continue this story for a while. And i really did sit down and try to write, but without the desire, I was becoming frustrated and I didn't like anything I wrote. I decided I wouldn't abandon this story, I actually really enjoy writing it and I decided I'd be forever disappointed in myself if I quit writing it, but I would just wait until I could work with it again. And, alas, that time has come!
AND I AM SO HAPPY O3O SOOOO HAPPY ASDFGHJKL!
read, review, enjoy! 3