"What do you think Chiron had delivered?" Piper asked as she, Leo, Annabeth, and Percy arrived at Cabin 13. It was weird meeting up there; the group hardly ever went to any of the cabins, preferring to hang out by the lake or dining pavilion.
"Maybe he finally found a good hardware store and shipped the supplies I need for Festus?" Leo suggested.
"He wouldn't have called all of us for that, Leo- wait," Annabeth cut herself off as she observed the cabin. The door was partially open, though not enough for her to peer inside without pushing the door forward. "Look. The door's open."
"Thank you, Captain Obvious." Leo deadpanned. He laughed as Percy sniggered silently, but their faces instantly sobered up as Annabeth glared at the two boys.
"Smart aleck. Hazel never leaves it open, so clearly someone else has been in there."
"Maybe it's a ghost," Leo said with a grin as he moved his hands close to Piper and wiggled his fingers. "Ooh ee oo!"
"Don't joke about that," Piper slapped his hands away from her. "This is the Hades cabin. Ghosts are a real possibility."
Leo visibly paled before he went to stand behind Percy, shoving the taller boy slightly. "...in that case, let's make Percy go first."
"Quit the theatrics. We're all going in at the same time," Annabeth stated firmly, grabbing her dagger. Percy whipped out Riptide while Leo set his fist on fire. Piper had Katoptris but she paused as the group went to push the door open.
"Anyone else notice the lights?" Piper whispered. It was no secret to anyone that Cabin 13 was dark. There weren't a lot of lights, yet she could see flames across the back wall. "It's Greek Fire, I think."
"I guess someone finally fixed up the place," Leo remarked. Percy nodded his head in agreement.
"About time," Annabeth muttered. From an architectural point of view, if it had been an actual pyramid then maybe she could appreciate the tomb design of the place. But both the exterior and interior looked like something a child drew instead of teen campers trying to build a functional cabin.
Annabeth shared a look with Percy before she slowly opened the door all the way. Percy walked in first, and found that the lighting wasn't the whole thing that had been replaced while the group had been training. He also noticed a dark-haired teenage boy sleeping away on a bed that seemed somewhat familiar though the son of Poseidon was certain he'd never seen the teen before.
He put away Riptide before he beckoned the others to walk in. They trailed one-by-one into the room, Piper and Leo putting away their weapons when they saw Annabeth do the same thing.
"No kidding. It's like they thought the Hades' kids were vampires or something. Even gave them coffins for beds- whoa, someone's in there!" Leo exclaimed when his eyes landed on the snoring boy.
"I thought we already established this?" Annabeth asked sarcastically. Leo rolled his eyes but before he could respond, Piper shushed him.
"Quiet! Do you want to give us away?" Piper whispered as she stared at the occupied bed. "Be quiet or you'll wake him up."
"Wake up who?" Frank asked. He, Jason, and Hazel stood in the doorway, having snuck into the cabin without the others having noticed. Piper and Leo jumped at the surprised intruders, as did Percy. Annabeth didn't but she did look mildly surprised.
"Don't scare us like that." Piper scolded Frank before she readjusted the bandage wrapped around Jason's head. The blond smiled and leaned against her for support. Hazel tried to push past Frank, who blocked her vision, though he was too busy staring at Nico to notice her.
"What's going on? Did you find the delivery?" Hazel jumped up to try and look past the guys.
"Even better. There's some kid sleeping in here who redecorated your cabin." Leo announced loudly. Nico grumbled at the noise, but remained asleep.
"I wonder who he is- ?" Jason was cut off as Hazel finally made her way to the front of the group only to scream.
"Nico!" Hazel yelled as she excitedly jumped onto the bed Nico was sleeping on, wrapping her arms around him. Nico woke up instantly, his eyes wide open and darting everywhere until they finally landed on Hazel.
"Hazel?!" Nico exclaimed as he hugged her back tightly. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," Hazel shot back, tears welling up in her eyes. "I thought you were still on Ogygia. How'd you escape?"
"Reyna helped me. But she got sent to the dungeon for it. There's almost no one left on the island," Nico stated. He looked up at the other demigods in the room, but his grip on Hazel didn't loosen. "Who are these guys?"
"Don't you recognize us, Your Majesty?" A short teen with dark hair and a large tool belt asked with a mocking bow. "We did live on the island of Ogygia- just like you."
Nico rolled his eyes and waited until Hazel pulled back and sat beside him to answer. "If you lived there, how come you didn't know neither me nor Hazel could leave the castle grounds?"
"Gods, I've missed your snarkiness," Hazel laughed. Nico smiled fondly at her, just happy to see her.
"To clarify, this is Nico di Angelo, right?" Arguably the tallest of the group with short black hair glanced over at Hazel, who nodded her head in confirmation. "Okay, just checking."
"No, he's a different Nico that Hazel's been missing since she got kicked out of Ogygia and wound up here with the rest of the people Calypso, um, banished," the teen from before with a belt stuttered slightly over the queen's name, but Nico thought nothing of it.
The taller teen's face turned bright red and he ducked his head slightly. Nico looked up at the poster and noticed the word 'Bashful' was written in a shade of red eerily similar to the guy's face.
'Guess that explains who Bashful is,' Nico thought to himself.
"Enough, Leo. We should introduce ourselves," The blond with piercing gray eyes announced. "I'm Annabeth."
"I'm Frank," The 'bashful' boy stated with a shy smile. Then he pointed at the blond with a bandage wrapped around his head. "This is Jason."
Jason yawned slightly, and Nico determined that was 'sleepy'. As Annabeth said the names, he connected the names from the poster to the demigods who stood in front of him. Piper, the one with a frown that seemed to be directed at Leo, was 'grumpy'. Leo was 'happy', if the size of his smile was anything to base it on. And he called Annabeth 'doc' before he introduced the last demigod.
"This here is Percy. But he doesn't talk. Like, at all," Leo nudged Percy, who had a dopey grin on his face.
Based on said smile Nico determined that Percy was 'dopey', which meant Hazel was 'sneezy'. Nico didn't think that made any sense, but he wasn't about to question it.
"Is it because he can't, or won't?" Nico questioned. No one seemed like they wanted to answer, so he chose to drop the subject, though he planned on asking Hazel about it in private. "Doesn't matter. So is everyone in this place from Ogygia?"
"This is a place for refugees, but Ogygia isn't the only kingdom that banishes people for no reason," Annabeth explained. "I have to say, I'm surprised that Calypso exiled you too. I would've thought you weren't a threat."
"I wasn't banished," Nico's face went dark as he recounted everything that Reyna had told him, as well as everything that had happened since his walk in the gardens to cleaning up the cabin. "This place looked horrible, and I figured if I made the cabin more appealing, I might be able to get supplies or something."
"You just couldn't stand staying in this place looking the way it did, could you?" Hazel giggled. Nico scowled at her, but knew she was right. The place was a disgrace to Hades and needed to be redone.
"Guess we're going to have to finally do something about Calypso," Jason sighed at the thought of having to fight people. He knew that odds were he'd end up unconscious, probably by being hit with a brick, and that stuff hurt.
"No kidding. For all we know, she could have one of her invisible servants in the room with us right now," Piper glanced around the room, as did everyone else.
"She's not that bad!" Leo huffed. Nico cocked an eyebrow, wondering why anyone would defend the queen, but Annabeth started talking before Nico could question it.
"We can discuss what to do about Calypso with Chiron later," Annabeth glanced over at the siblings, allowing herself to smile slightly at the siblings, who still clutched each other as if they thought the other was going to disappear. Given their history, that was a strong possibility. "For now, we should go eat dinner."
"Finally," Piper grumbled. "I'm starving."
"You're always hungry, Beauty Queen," Leo quipped as he pulled an apple out of his belt. Nico didn't even question how it had fit as Hazel stood up and grabbed him by the hand.
"You're going to love the pavilion. It gives you whatever food you want!" Hazel pushed past the other demigods as she pulled her brother outside, followed by the rest. "Apple dumplings, plum pudding, gooseberry pie."
"You like the weirdest foods," Leo bit into his apple as they walked, talking with his mouth full.
"And you're disgusting," Piper pretended to gag. "Eat or talk, you can't do both."
"Yes I can," Leo mumbled as he began to walk backwards, right in front of Piper. "I can even do this. Blud-dle-ud-dle-ud-dle ud-dle-um-dum!"
Leo sang while eating, pieces of apple flying out his mouth. A piece wound up on Piper's face, and Jason had to pull her away before the brunette went off on Leo.
"Why do you always have to start stuff?" Frank grumbled. Leo shrugged, looking completely unapologetic.
"Are your friends always like this?" Nico asked. Hazel glanced at her group. Jason was in-between Piper and Leo while Annabeth had a silent argument with Percy, with Frank watching the whole thing with a disapproving frown on his face.
"Unfortunately, yes. But you'll learn to love them."
The group made their way to the Dining Pavilion, where they were greeted by Juniper as well as a couple of campers he'd seen earlier. Such as Ella the harpy and her boyfriend, Percy's half-brother, Tyson.
They were friendly enough to Nico, though the way Ella spoke in rhymes was a bit unsettling. Not that he would ever say that aloud.
As he gave some offerings to his father, Nico had to wonder where on earth Chiron had gotten plates and goblets that gave people whatever they wanted to eat and drink. It made Nico curious to see what all the plates would provide, but he was too busy catching up with Hazel to actually experiment.
His sister was always more social than Nico, so it didn't surprise him that she included her demigod friends into their conversation. He got to know all of them a bit more (even Percy, who was fairly good at charades).
Juniper even came by, along with a satyr that was introduced to Nico as her boyfriend, Grover. He was fairly quiet and seemed distracted, not saying much the entire night.
Nico noticed the concerned looks Percy kept shooting at his friend, but the son of Hades wasn't sure what to make of it. So he chose to ignore it, deciding that the satyr was just feeling a little shy that night.
Oh, but little did he know what was actually going on.
AN: So I couldn't figure out a good way to incorporate the Washing Song aka Bluddle-Uddle-Um-Dum so unfortunately, most of it (everything but one line, really) had to be cut. I'm truly sorry if this was your favorite song and you were looking forward to it in this story. I have a (somewhat) edited version that I didn't love, but if anyone actually wants to read it, I might be persuaded to post a one-shot.
- Kitkat Out!