"The moment I met you,
I held my breath.
And you've been taking
it away ever since,
Nico di Angelo."
[ NICO DI ANGELO x MALE OC ]
[ PERCY JACKSON SERIES ]
[ HEROES OF OLYMPUS SERIES ]
cover by @humaneity !
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0012. | AND SUDDENLY IT ALL MADE SENSE
Vela was in agony and everybody knew it. Grover proposed they should rest for a while because he had a 'sore hoof' but they all knew he wanted Vela to have a break with his wounded face. They were all on board with stopping for a moment, but Vela had other ideas.
"Maybe we should take a break," Annabeth mumbled, "y'know, if Grover's foot is hurting..." she trailed off, eyeing Vela's face with extreme guilt.
Vela looked at her and rolled his eyes with great pain. "I'm fine," he promised. "You don't have to baby me." He huffed as he began walking down the tunnel, the other five struggling to keep up with his sudden fast pace.
"Hey, Vela!" Percy ran to catch his shoulder. "Maybe you should stop for a bit." He advised but Vela shrugged him off with his head bowed.
"No it's fine, I'm fine." He straightened his shoulders. "It'll probably heal in a few hours anyway, we might as well keep walking." Percy frowned but nodded anyway, letting Vela walk on as he picked up his backpack.
Behind the boys, the other four didn't move a muscle after the interaction. "You heard the kid," Percy raised his eyebrows at Annabeth. "Let's keep moving."
It was silent on their walk down the tunnel, Vela at the head of the group making sure he didn't turn around so they would see his tears. He kept blinking them away but they kept coming. Boys don't cry. He forced a pull in his stomach and the stars that had lit the way before reappeared to lead them ahead. He needed to distract himself.
Annabeth stayed at the back, keeping her eyes on the back of Vela's head with worry. She had never felt guiltier. She was the one Kampê should've hit, not Vela. She should've been the one with the bleeding eye, not the little boy with already too many scars. She felt awful and didn't know how to fix the feeling.
Vela stopped up ahead when his stars reached a giant waterfall, leading down into a dark abyss. Home. Vela heard a voice over his shoulder, whipping round to see nothing. Come home, Son of Stars. The voice was unrecognisable. It wasn't his mom, it wasn't Artemis, it was something new. Something with a gravelling voice, something that sounded deeper than Tartarus.
The others had caught up to him by that point and Vela felt relieved that he wasn't alone with the voice anymore. "Did you hear that?"
