WHO: Xander Christopoulos, Ariana Scott, and joined later by the FBI (James Shepherd) WHAT: Hanging out for Xander’s birthday in the city--and then he gets arrested. Oops? WHEN: Middle of the day, Wednesday, October 15. WHERE: Central Park, NY WARNINGS: Uhhh. Probably language. Unintentional violence. Angst is high, but warnings are low.
Birthdays were a weird thing for Xander. There wasn’t any consistency to them; he grew up with a family that threw him parties, then he had just his sister, then he had nobody, then he had a family again… He had a tendency to just go with the flow when it came to the passing of time these days, especially since time passing wasn’t always in the normal way. He was one of the lucky ones who, although he spent the week being the complete opposite of himself, he was a bit of a failure at it and his search for Kronos mostly just left him wandering around like an imbecile.
Today he was wandering, but it was a good kind of wandering. The weather hadn’t quite gotten cold enough to make being outside unbearable; it was sweater weather, for sure, but not the frosty weather that left your nose numb. It made it a perfect day to take a walk through Central Park--and it was made even better by the company he was keeping. It was obvious to most that saw him around Ariana that Xander didn’t view her as just a friend. He was horrible at showing it, and he was constantly busy being a big-damn-hero, but she understood that. She was one herself, and they both worked for Camelot, and she was really pretty and…
He was staring. Xander quickly looked down at the hot chocolate in his hand with a bashful expression and cleared his throat as though that would clear the awkward moment he’d created. He got lost in his thoughts a lot, sometimes because of Percy missing Annabeth and Grover, sometimes because Xander just always struggled with paying attention. Whatever the case, it often led to awkward moments like this one.
“Okay so.” He cleared his throat again, free hand mussing through his hair. "Wanna go feed the ducks? When I first got Percy and I came out here, I used to come feed them all the time to clear my head. It’s relaxing. Or there’s a petting zoo!” He paused. “I just got excited over farm animals. That’s a new low."