InsaneJournal

Will was slowly getting used to the place. It helped that he was staying in a house that was designed like Camp Half-Blood, though it was a little lonely. He never realized how much he’d actually miss having people in his cabin until now. Even when his siblings had been missing, Will had been able to go and tend to the wounded and recovering and have never been alone. Here, it was hard to ignore the fact that there were not a lot of people around.

As he walked toward the kitchen for something to eat, he wondered if having more demigods here would be a good or bad thing. Things seemed to be a little safer here - that was definitely a plus. A lot of people didn’t have their family anymore either, so they wouldn’t miss that. Some of them would hate it - Clarrise would want to battle everyone in sight. Percy would miss his mom. The thought still vexed Will as he went about getting all the materials to make a sandwich.

He looked up when he heard a noise while he was pulling out two slices of bread. He paused. Despite seeing Anakin a few times and the initial introduction, he hadn’t yet really spoken to the guy. His chest seized just a little - it was a feeling that was slowly getting easier to handle. He had no ill-will towards Anakin, but it was still strange nonetheless. He had the relationship he had hoped to have with Nico one day.

“Hey.” He offered Anakin a smile. Will paused awkwardly, then gestured to the bread, meat, and condiments on the counter. “...sandwich?” Yes, he did just offer to make the new boyfriend of his ex-boyfriend a sandwich.

This wasn’t exactly the first time Anakin had been through this. Except that when he had been it had been from the other side. It had been Tahiri that had showed up and they’d been sort of dating at home. Or would have been. It wasn’t the same exactly, but it was close enough.

He offered Will a trademark lopsided Solo grin and he considered briefly. “Yeah? Maybe just a half though? Thanks.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and for a second lingered in the doorway then he headed on in. “How’s Tumbleweed?” He asked.

That kind of grin reminded Will of Percy and it was still a bit to wrap his head around, but it was getting easier every day. He nodded and started to make half a sandwich along with his own. Will was glad to be doing something with his hands as a distraction. If he were being honest, he missed being needed to fix wounds on the daily. He should be happy people were safer here, but he was bored.

"It's not bad. I mean… I'm still getting used to it, but it helps the camp is here. Sort of anyway. And the lady at the clinic wants me to come in on Friday to meet to discuss a part time job there." That he couldn't just do it full time still bothered him, but Will was generally a rule follower so he'd go to school.

"Yeah, my uh," Anakin waved his thumb back over the direction he'd came. "Doesn't look like it at all from the outside, but my house is basically the apartment we have on Coruscant on home on the inside, which is always a bit weird, but it's also nice. For a while my brother and sister and mom were all here, but it's just me now. Actually, I guess, they've been here a couple of different times and right now there's like an alternate timeline version of my Dad? So… it can be weird." He stepped into the room, hovering by a wall.

"Part time job is good though. You're a healer, yeah?"

Will nodded. “Yeah. That’s sort of what I’m good at. My dad, Apollo? He’s the god of a lot of things like music and archery - I’m only just average with those things, but healing is what I got blessed with. And I like it.” When he had been younger he had been a little upset he wasn’t as good at archery or music, but he accepted it now. He liked being able to help people. “Demigods are kind of weird like that…” He put the top part of the bread onto the sandwiches as he spoke. “A lot of us will get the same skill or power from our parent, but because the gods are usually gods of a few things, we vary. Unless you’re like Nico, Jason, or Percy… demigods of the big three usually have similar powers but that’s because their dads kind of all about the one thing.” Will knew about Hazel, of course, but Hazel was technically a daughter of Pluto and that was a whole other can of worms when you tried to understand how things changed from Greek to Roman.

He turned, holding two plates. One had his sandwich and the other had a half of one for Anakin. He held out the plate to the other boy. “What about you? Nico mentioned you’re a Jedi?” Somewhere in another universe Harley was jumping up and down with excitement.

At this point in his life Anakin had been around the demigods enough, and played enough mythomagic to have a good understanding of most of the basic gods and things, and while he didn't know everything he did absorb pretty quick. "That's cool, and that's a really good place to be then. My brother Jacen, he was always pretty good with like healing, and empathic sort of stuff with the Force," he smiled as he took the plate. "Thanks."

Since he had it, he decided sitting probably would make sense so he pulled out a chair and sat down, and nodded to Will. "Yeah, I'm a Jedi. It's weird because I've been here for like three years, so I haven't had the training I would have had at home, although I did get some memory updates to learn more, but I don't know if I'm in training still, or an actual Jedi. It's not like there's anyone really to tell me. There are people who might know, but they aren't really… currently Jedi, I guess, so…" He shrugged. "But I suppose the simple answer is 'yes'."

“That has to be hard.” He didn’t understand all of it. While Will was aware of some of the movies, he was never really into them like some of the other people were. He knew enough to know Anakin could probably hold his own in a battle, though.

Will took a seat opposite of Anakin. “At camp we used to train every day, so not doing that it kind of weird. Plus I’m being registered for high school which I’ve never been in my life.” While he was going to do it and have a positive attitude, it was a little nerve wracking. He remembered the grief his half-siblings had given him about not being great at archery or music when he first got to the camp. It had changed over time, but it still sucked at the beginning.

“Sorry you can’t get any answers, though. If I knew more about Jedis I’d help you out, but I have like, next to zero clue.”

"Yeah, that's…" Anakin grinned sympathetically. "So, like, I was fine with trying out the high school thing, cause why not, but also it's a little strange. Cause I went to school with the other Jedi when I was younger, but I'd been out sort of apprenticed, I guess you could say? To my Uncle or my Aunt since I was 15. And when we first were dumped here, it was … not like Tumbleweed. It was like a future version of this world at a place called Mount Weather. So school wasn't mandatory at all, then we came here, and then it was. And it's way weird, when you're considered adult enough at home to lead a team into a battle situation, but forced to attend classes here."

He reached for the sandwich and took a bite and as he finished chewing, he smiled. "This is good, thanks."

Will smiled at the compliment from the sandwich. He might not be a future chef, but he thought he wasn’t terrible - food was a good way to help heal people, after all.

“Yeah. I might not have been on any quests or in any prophecies, but I’ve been in a couple of just battles now and fought alongside gods, so sitting in class learning about the speed of two trains is going to be… weird. Plus, reading English has always been hard for me.” Will figured Anakin probably already knew that, though. Having Dyslexia and ADHD meant traditional schooling usually sucked. He hoped he’d do better than Percy, though. The stories Grover would tell about Percy’s exploits in school were pretty epic.

“I heard, uh -” Will stopped himself from saying ‘your’ in any meaningful way, “- Tahiri is also going to school, though, so at least I’ll vaguely know someone there.” He smiled at that, as he if he was the one trying to reassure Anakin - Will’s smiles often looked like that.

"The people who teach at the school for the displaced are likely going to be pretty understanding of stuff like that, which is nice. It doesn't make up for having to do it, but at least, you know, you don't have to feel weird about explaining it? They'll already know it from other demigods having been there too. And yeah," he perked up slightly. "Tahiri's definitely there. Have you guys met yet?"

“Oh, uh… not yet?” He looked a little sheepish and tried to hide it through taking another bite of his sandwich. He chewed, then swallowed. “I’ve been sort of keeping myself busy inside the camp.” Which was true in a sense. Will had gone over supplies and cleaned some of the rooms that were neglected from misused. However, he didn’t need to do that sort of thing and he could have been done that stuff by now. A part of hm was stalling about really admitting he was in a different dimension, but another reason was he was hesitant about meeting Tahiri. It was a stupid sort of hesitation. He was sure she was great considering she was the former girlfriend of Anakin who was now dating Nico and Will thought Nico had good taste in people. It was that meeting her would be the last sort of realism to the fact things were different here.

He was being childish and he knew it.

Will silently sighed and smiled to Anakin. “I should before I end up at school. It’d be nice to know someone there. Nico told me a little bit about her, so hopefully we get along.”

Anakin nodded. He got it. Like, or as much as it was possible he figured he did. If situations were reversed and Tahiri had been the one here with a different boyfriend or girlfriend really for that matter, and he had to make sense of that, it'd be hard. "I don't know you very well, obviously, but based on what Nico's told me, I think you two will get along? If not no harm, obviously, but we've been friends for a really long time, her and I, and she's pretty cool."

He took another bite of his sandwich and glanced over. "Have you been out and about around Tumbleweed much?"

“Is it lame if I said no?” He paused. “Not because I don’t want to, but I guess I’m kind of in denial.” He shrugged, hoping that wasn’t too lame of him. “But, uh, I’m actually from Texas? I mean, originally. I grew up in Austin before it wasn’t safe to be there all the time and a Satyr came to bring me to camp.” He kind of missed home. Maybe that was another reason he sort of avoided outside since he got here - it would feel like he should see his mom, but he wouldn’t and couldn’t.

“Are there places you’d recommend? I know I need to start getting out more.”

"It's not lame," Anakin assured him. "I mean, I think everyone kind of does everything in their own way and in their own time. It's totally reasonable to not be sure if you want to wander around much for a bit. And it'd probably be weirder if it's close to home sort of. One of the cruises we went on, we stopped at Coruscant - it's this planet where I'm from, huge planet that's entirely a city, like the whole planet is - but it wasn't my Coruscant, and that was super strange, you know?"

Another sandwich bite and he nodded. "My sort of brother owns a coffee shop now. There's some kind of ridiculous shops where they sell alien stuff. Oh, and the diner has amazing waffles. What do you like to do?"

He took silent note of some of the things to do in town, nodding. He did really enjoy waffles and, truth be told, he was interested in the idea of aliens. Aliens weren’t even a thought in his mind back home. There was too much weird stuff with gods back home to make room for aliens.

“Me? I mean…Well, I usually like spending time in the infirmary which I know sounds lame, but -” He shrugged. “At camp we’d play capture the flag. It was one of my favourite games. It usually didn’t involve lava or fireballs.” Usually. Sometimes it did. “I liked taking care of the Pegasi too.”

As Will spoke, he realized he didn’t really have a lot of hobbies that probably constituted as normal teenage hobbies. He suddenly blushed and glanced down at his half-eaten sandwich. “And reading.. I like to read.” There, something normal.

"My brother's really good at healing in the Force," Anakin said, before he realized he'd said that - oh well. "I'm pretty certain he'd have spent quite a bit of time there too if it was a similar situation. We play Capture the Flag here sometimes too. We'll maybe have to get another game together, cause it's been a little while."

Anakin leaned forward. "How do you feel Legos?"

The question through him off a little and he blinked. "Um. They're okay?" He hadn't really thought of Lego in a long time. "I used to play with them as a kid and they're kinda cool, the way people can make those big sculptures out of them now." Why Anakin was asking, though, was beyond Will.

"I have a lot of Legos, for a while it was the closest thing I had to space ships from home was if I bought Lego spaceships here, and I kept asking for an actual X-wing and getting Legos instead, so sometimes we do Lego nights and it's been a while and I was thinking of doing one, so if you like them - you should come - build something elaborate with us."

“Oh, uh, yeah! I mean, that sounds like fun!” He figured it might be frustrating to only get a toy instead of the actual thing you wanted. It seemed like something a Greek god would do if you didn’t phrase your prayer just right. Then the thought struck him. “Does that mean eventually you got an actual X-wing?”

The grin was instant, lopsided and broad. "So like we nearly all died a while back on one of the portal's … things. And we all got ships after. Plus, I asked for a Yacht this past Christmas and I got one, so if you ever want to go to the moon," Anakin offered with a shrug.


He flushed just a little, his cheeks dusting in rose. “I can’t believe a sentence like ‘if you ever want to go to the moon’ is normal to say.” But he smiled because it was cool. Maybe he should, considering the moon was Artemis’ domain and Artemis was Apollo’s sister. He’s still have to wrap his head around it, though. “But yeah, I’d like that… thanks.”