WHO: Jason Collins and Xander Christopoulos WHERE: Camp Half-Blood WHEN: Early evening, Thursday WHAT: Some demigod bonding and some angst. Y'know. The usual. WARNINGS: Probably some sad. Maybe some language. A whole lot of cluelessness.
Camp Half-Blood. It was the safe haven hailed for demigods of Greek decent, normally teaming to the brim with young heroes, satyrs, and centaurs. In the books, Half-Blood was never empty; the magical creatures that called the forest home and the children that inhabited the cabins filled the grounds with chatter and training. In this world, however, Half-Blood was more of a ghost town than anything. While more and more demigods were coming out of the works, it was nothing compared to what it was supposed to be. There was no Chiron to guide them all on the right path, no Mr. D forgetting their names, no oracle or Rachel Elizabeth Dare to hand them quests. Hell, even Annabeth was lacking from the picture, something that Percy talked about often whenever it was just him in Xander's company.
It was sad, to say the least. This was Percy's home, and now it was Xander's. In his quest to escape the thumb of the Resistance, he had moved into the Poseidon cabin rather permanently, but having a voice in your head and the Pegasi to talk to on a constant basis rather than human contact was more than just a little bit lonely. Once leadership in the Resistance had changed hands, he'd started braving a few trips outside of the Fleece's protection, and now? Now he went as often as he came. Today just happened to be a 'stay at home and do rounds' kind've day.
The first stop had been Thalia's tree to make sure the fleece still lay on the branch in all of its magical golden glory. The way Rob Strange, their very own Ares, had tried to trick Aidan into stealing it for him hadn't sat well with Xander, so now he made it a routine to check at least twice a day that it was still there. Without it, the camp's defenses would die, and they'd be overrun by monsters. Not something he eagerly persued. After that it was the Pegasi to make sure they were all fed. Blackjack, of course, tried to coax an adventure out of the deal to the point that Xander promised him some flight time later before he finally made his way back towards the ring of cabins.
It was on his trek that he noticed Jason there, sitting off by himself. Xander knew that what had happened at the Agency had hit their friend hard, what with Luke's history and all. He couldn't pretend that his initial thought hadn't gone to a repeat in history--he and Percy had worried very briefly that Kronos was on the rise once more, and Jason was repeating Luke's betrayals--but logic had won out. Jason wasn't Luke, not fully. And in the end, Luke had been a hero anyway. He highly doubted that history would play out for them again without something drastic.
"How long've you been here?" He asked, flopping on the ground next to Jason without waiting for permission to do so. Riptide was out in pen form, twirling idly between Xander's fingers. His ADHD made it hard for him to sit still, so this was his solution to twitchy nerves.