Rattling Bones (Nico Di Angelo Love Story)

Chapter 22

An indistinct conversation about Drew and Chiron and the Aphrodite Cabin's reputation continued in murmurs between Piper and Rian as Ruby turned him to face her. She grinned suddenly, an expression surprisingly bright on her pale face.

"Didn't want to disturb my entertainment; the interesting development between you and Rian, and Piper, and his passionate spiel on the injustices done to our cabin. How are you doing now?"
Then this thing happened that he didn't think ever did outside of movies; her eyes twinkled, and those little boxes of white reflecting the outside world and maybe the inside soul twisted and pulled his heart along with it, up his throat, out of his body, he couldn't speak. A catlike blink, and he was dropped back into himself. The chair was sturdy under his hands as he tightened his grip on the seat's edge.

"Uh. Fine. Yeah. Thanks."

There was a brief silence and the shadow of floppy hair turned on the floor to face his.

"How's my hair going?"
"It's actually really cool- you're lucky Ruby got her way with the mullet thing. I would have chopped it up into some pile on your head, and Rian gets his hair cut by ruby so I honestly don't know why he was arguing with her about it,"

Piper chimed in, sounding more excited than she had since the beginning of their first encounter of the day- it must've been tense for her to know what to say and do when he confided in her like that. He made up his mind; after all of this he had to thank her so she'd know how she'd done more for him than anybody else had in his life- in the span of a couple hours.

Rian had huffed directly after her statement about his unqualified opinion, and he grabbed the arm of his chair to assist his rise from the floor.

"Okay, you're done Ruby. You've gotta be."
"Is that your way of telling me my skill is out of this world and his mullet is fluffy and sexy as planned?"

Their exchanges were so quick that he had to let out a puff of laughter and catch Piper's eye smile with his own.

As the grand reveal was being.. revealed.. He had to wave his hand in front of his face a couple of times to try and comprehend his reflection.

(Here are some photos of what i envision the hair lookin like)

"What do you think?"
Her voice was confident and her smirk self assured but her eyes retained that spooky pull from earlier and he gently threw himself onto her shoulders for a hug.

"This means the world to me," a beat, and after pulling away to inspect himself, he continued. "I think I need a day or two to get used to it and then I'll feel amazing."
Rian nudged his shoulder, and Piper commented with a sly laugh,

"You'll feel hot, that's how you'll feel."

"Thank you guys, all of you. I'll find clothes for myself later- you should do your own stuff now."
Ruby patted him on the back, then nodded at Rian and they both retreated further back into the cabin.

"Let's get you back to your cabin. Where are you staying, actually? Since you've got that whole child of an Oread and not a god thing going on."
There was no animosity or judgement in her voice, and so he masked his tension with a shrug. He finally got to the place in which he's supposed to belong; and he doesn't know where to go.

"I think I'll have to talk to Chiron about it."

He avoided her eyes. Her words found him instead, heavy and funneled towards his unwilling ears.

"Where are you planning on sleeping tonight?"

Well. A good question if he'd ever heard one. And one he felt compelled to answer in the same way Leo and Nico listened to her the first time they all met.

"I don't really know but I found this place in the forest earlier and figured since I'm a child of an Oread I'll be safe there and can chill there until something else-"

"While that is possible because we don't know what your powers are yet- absolutely not. I'm going to speak to Chiron tomorrow morning, and until then, you're staying with me."

He'd been avoiding Chiron ever since that conversation about Maria. He had gone to Nico and told him everything he knew, and he wasn't sure Chirno would be happy about it. There wasn't much that made him want to stay here tonight and be forced to face the centaur the next day.

"I mean, i could stay with Nico I'm pretty sure I can sleep on the floor.. There's gotta be space if he's the only kid in the cabin."

"Funny. No, you're staying here where I can supervise you because the gods know if I let you go to Nico's you'll wander off into the woods and sleep in a bush because you feel at one with nature."

A beat. A slackening of the shoulders, and resistance slipping from his fingers. Grasping to meet the wood planks of her bunk bed, he relented.
"Alright."