The Start of Something New

"Could you just stop being such a 'tard?" The older twin was visibly peeved, his eyes trained on his brother who was all too preoccupied with his tinkering to listen. Stephen sighed, watching his brother wander away from him and back to the table.

"What a pain in the neck." Stephen muttered, and continued to mutter things of that nature as he turned his attention back to the food. A long table had been arranged at the far end of the wall, so that all of the demigods were able to choose their food in a sort of a buffet style arrangement. Many children of various cabins were present in the mess hall, since it was noon, which was around the time lunch was being served.

Stephen methodically moved down the table, his eyes scanning everything that was on a certain section of the table, then moved on. It was a quick and effective process. In no time, the older twin had compiled food on his plate, all of which he found visually appealing and smelled absolutely delicious.

As he neared the end of the table, he turned to make his departure, but bumps into someone, which, sadly, was enough force to knock the plate out of his hand and onto the floor.

"Are you kidding me?" His voice was calmed and composed, but the corner of his lip twitched, revealing his anger. "Watch where you're going."

Damon didn't like the mess hall. Well, he didn't like anywhere in the camp so far other than his own bunk where he could just sit and think in peace or read a book, but he especially didn't like the mess hall. For one, his table was too crowded. There were kids everywhere. Really, they should build more cabins; it felt like there were new kids claiming bunks every single day. If you could find an empty seat, you were lucky. If you could find two empty seats, the Fates must love you dearly. Finding more than two was basically unheard of, so you can just get that silly thought out of your head.

Now, the food, on the other hand, was heavenly--quite literally, for all he knew; the food just magically appeared on the buffet table from who-knows-where. He was still getting used to that particular feature. Sure, the other demigods still laughed at his facial expression--another reason why he hated the mess hall--whenever lambchops popped into existence on a previously empty platter, but he was getting used to the weirdness of it all. Damon was, after all, the son of a Greek god who, not only wasn't supposed to exist, but also wasn't supposed to exist in this century or impregnate Canadian women.

So, it was okay. Ish.

If only there weren't any people....

So Damon just stood there, his plate and glass of root beer in his hands, staring at the table, trying to find an empty seat away from the crazy demigod (a son of Triton, if he'd heard correctly) who was trying to make his lasagna into a bomb. How that could even be feasible was beyond Damon. He was pretty sure that you needed something explodable (was that even a word?) to make a bomb. But then, bombs weren't really his thing. Books and movies? Sure. He'd take a Bradbury short story on any given Sunday. But bombs....why were bombs even allowed in camp? They could literally kill a mass of teenager with only one of them. This entire camp-for-Greek-demigods thing was completely screwed up. Life on the road killing the random monster had made more sense than this.

Having completely immersed himself in his thoughts at the moment, Damon felt someone bump into him, followed by the sound of a tray crash onto the ground. "Are you kidding me?" he heard someone growl--no, not growl, the voice didn't sound angered. He looked up from the floor that had been recently decorated with now inedible food. The owner of the voice was a tall (at least a couple inches taller than him), dark-haired teenager with an irritated look on his face. "Watch where you're going," the taller boy snapped.

"Sorry," Damon mumbled, deciding not to point out the fact that the kid had bumped into him, and not the other way around; it just wasn't worth starting the trouble. He returned his gaze to the mess on the ground beside them. Gods....he really did feel bad that he had indirectly contributed to that. Someone had to clean that up. Sure, it would probably take about .0098432 seconds to do so via crazy Greek magic, but he knew how PO'd he'd be if someone bumped into him and caused him to spill his lunch. "Really am," he added lamely, hoping that he sounded sincere.

OOC: Your post makes me cry. It's so perfect. Oh! I will also discontinue the use of the color coding when Stephen speaks, since I don't think I will be using Ethan to speak. If I do, I will reinstate the color coding.

BIC:

Stephen was quite peeved indeed. It took quite a bit of time accumulating the amount of food that he did as he went down the long table. The plate contained Chicken Alfredo, which was the main focus of the dish. Accompanying the Alfredo, there was a small side of a sort of meaty substance, meatloaf as some would call it. This would be where he would get his filling of protein. (Bulking up was crucial in camp, apparently). This was on the top left corner of his plate. On the adjacent corner of the plate, there was a healthy helping of mashed potatoes. To top it all off, Stephen had placed a few brownies on the top, just to add dessert into his lunch. It wasn’t mixed into the Alfredo, just sitting lightly on top. The dish itself looked like a mess, an assortment of foods that shouldn’t go together, but was all pleasant separately.

Well, now it looked unpleasant. The Chicken Alfredo had flown over to a nearby table, the cabin’s children that were currently occupying that space was, unfortunately, in the splash zone. Now, the children of Aphrodite looked attractive, if the ones looking were a pack of starving wolves. But, to the general population of the mess hall, they just looked completely hilarious. A high-pitched scream could be heard in that section of the table immediately after, screams of bloody murder and complaints of “like, totally messed up hair” filled the air. The victims of the mashed potatoes wasn’t so lucky either, since the victim was a young, unclaimed boy, who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The little one was walking past when the incident occurred, and the mashed potatoes found its new home on the boy’s face. Strangely enough, there was no reaction from him. He simply stopped for a few moments, wiped a bit off of his eyes, and continued to walk. It was probably a normal occurrence. The meatloaf had no victims in this accident, since it stuck onto the tray as it crashed to the floor. The mess hall was silent, the only sound was the short echo of the tray clanging on the floor.

As all eyes fell on the pair of males, Stephen decided that it wasn’t worth the energy, or the time, to start an argument. Not only was everyone watching every moment of this, whatever he did would be seen by everyone, and would quickly spread to others who weren’t present.

“Whatever. Just watch it next time.” He had wasted enough of his life speaking to this person, and he wasn’t prepared to waste any more of it. A quick glance around the room and he noticed that a few people had lost interest, while the many others had gone back to their food, but continued to side-glance at the two.

Wonderful. I’m either known as the jerk who bumped into this guy, or Sir Clutz.

After a few moments of weighing his options, he found that the best course of action was to clean the mess, even if he was greatly annoyed and he no longer wanted to be in the limelight of this incident.

OOC: Fine with me. I only care if the color is legible (like, I hope no one ever writes in yellow. That would not work). Also, I'm having way too much fun writing this.

BIC:

Damon was far from a Good Samaritan. For one, bad things always happened to those sorts of people. Take Prometheus, for example: all he wanted was to help out poor humankind by giving them fire--and how was he rewarded? Painful punishment, of course! After all, this was Greek mythology!

He'd tried to be a good person, once--back during the "Second Titan War," as the demigods at camp called it. He'd been told that he was training so that he could help protect the demigods on the side of the Titans, who had accepted him as one of their own. He'd helped out around their hideout, reported the occasional satyr sightings, and generally had just tried to fit in and be as helpful as possible. Well, then he'd discovered he was helping out the Bad Guys. Nice. Great job, Damon.

That had pretty much ended trying to help others for him.

But he had indirectly caused several people to have food covering them from head to toe (or horn to hoof, in the case of an irritated satyr shooting the two teenagers a dagger-like glare).

It wasn't really his fault, but he felt responsible anyway. Wow. Just wow. He was a living, breathing contradiction. Mommy and Daddy must be so proud of him.

So, he made a totally not-Damon decision:

He quickly placed his plate of food (consisting of mostly meat, such as lambchops, which caused many satyrs to give him even more disapproving looks--yup, he would definitely never have a non-human friend, or a friend in general) and his glass of root beer (A&W, because that's the way to go) on the edge of a nearby table and grabbed a couple of napkins. "Here, lemme help out," he managed to breathe out--barely. It would surprise him if anyone actually heard him. He knelt down on the ground, started piling stray solid articles of food on the messy plate, and began wiping up the pitiful remains of the guy's mashed potatoes.

This whole situation was completely freaking Damon out.

Stephen gave a quiet sigh as the other demigod knelt down to assist him in this messy situation. Was it not enough to have him knock his tray to the floor? Now he has to put up with his presence more. He decided to clean another section of the floor, to make their cleaning a bit more effective… and to put some more distance between the two. Again, this boy was peeved. He didn’t want to be cleaning the floor that was now hosting the remainder of his perfectly assorted food. It’s a good thing that he decided against having something to drink, or else it would’ve been helluva lot more messy.

All he was looking forward to was sitting down at his assigned table and being away from him. The longer that he was in his presence, the more irritated he was becoming.

“I’ve always got to have the shit happening to me.” He began to mutter, one of the few ways he was able to cope with stressful and irritable situations. “Just a little longer. Just have to clean a little longer.”

As soon as Stephen had finished cleaning his section of the floor, he stood, picking the tray up as he did.

“Well, this was certainly nice.” Stephen regarded the other demigod sarcastically.

The tray clattered against the other trays as he set it down, then turned to him once more.

“Try not to mess anyone else’s lunch, yeah?” With that, he left, heading toward his table, where Ethan was still occupied with making his lasagna a delicious explosive.

This guy, Damon decided, was even more of a jerk than himself.

And that was saying something.

Well, maybe the guy just didn't realize he was coming off across as a punk. Damon could relate to that; he was one of the worst people-persons he knew. Sighing, he tossed his now-filthy napkins into a trashcan, picked up his food and drink, and started back towards the table.

And then he heard a loud "ETHAN NO!" followed by a large pop!

And then something hit him in the face.

What the--

Lasagna?!?!

Damon was confused again. He seemed to always be confused about what was going on and worrying about whether or not he was going to be in the middle of an explosion all the time now.

Why was this guy apologizing to him? It was obviously the other boy's fault--the boy who was no doubt the jerk's brother, twin perhaps.

Then they started arguing. Yup, definitely twins; he'd been around Anita and Gregory enough to know that much. Maybe the guy was trying to be nice....nah, "nice" wasn't this guy's thing, Damon could tell.  More like the guy sincerely felt apologetic, even though his tone didn't betray this. This "jerk" was probably a lot like Damon in that sense.

"It's....it's fine," Damon said quietly. Strangely, both boys stopped their incomprehensible argument and looked over at him with identical surprised expressions on their faces. "It's not like lasagna's lethal or anything," he added, allowing the left side of his mouth to curl up into a smirk.

After all, it wasn't everyday you got hit with a lasagna bomb.

Damon couldn't help but snort at that last statement. "Cabin #23, right?" he asked, though he already knew the answer. Ethan nodded enthusiastically anyway whereas Stephen visibly cringed, already knowing the outcome of this.

He couldn't help but already like this Ethan kid; sure, he could possibly be the most immature person Damon had ever met, but he seemed nice enough. This Stephen guy, however--the son of the god of fear could tell that he possibly had anxiety about meeting a so-called new friend....or having someone other than his brother sit near him. "Damon, son of Phobus," he said awkwardly, and, after balancing his glass on his plate, offered his lasagna-covered hand.

These guys were....well, they were something. Damon, unfortunately, wasn't exactly a child of Apollo or some Muse when it came to metaphors and descriptive language, so something was all he could define them as. The crazy one--Ethan, apparently--seemed like an OK guy (besides the whole making lasagna bombs part), even if he might be a possible jihadist in the making. The other one, Stephen, the one who'd bumped into him, seemed like his brother's total opposite: blunt, callous, mature, etc. Weird, how that always worked out with twins.

Well, except in the case of his own old man and uncle, fear and terror: they were pretty much the same.

And Apollo and Artemis were just different genders with a sun instead of a moon and vice versa.

And let's not forget dear Jaime and Cersei Lannister from good ol' Game of Thrones.

OK. Weird thought--terrible imagery. Wow. Moving on now(!)....

Seeing as he had nothing better to do other than eat before going to his bunk, taking a shower, and washing his clothes (he hoped to no god in particular that this sauce would come out of his favorite Led Zeppelin zip-up hoodie), Damon decided to accept this offer and joined the brothers as they sat down at the end of Cabin #23's table (Stephen looking like he just might kill the next person who had the gall to cause food to end up anywhere other than a plate or a mouth). He and Stephen, in unison, both scooted away from each other enough so that there would be plenty of personal space for each teenager. It wasn't that Damon already disliked the guy--you'd have to do more than get irritated and have a twin who lasagna-bombed you to get Damon to dislike you--but things had gotten off awkwardly, and he was already an awkward guy and Stephen didn't strike him as any better with this sort of thing. He quickly turned his attention to his plate (which was completely covered with lasagna remains).

"So," he began, flicking off a large noodle off of one of his lambchops, "Triton, eh?"

Ya, he had no idea who Triton was. He hoped that his ignorance wasn't evident in his voice--of course, knowing him, it probably was.

"Hm....I don't know my dad, either--I mean, I've never met him. I've always just thought of him as the prick who slept with my mom and then bolted when she said she was pregnant--and who later turned out to be a Greek god," Damon replied in all seriousness. That was truly how he felt about his dad; sure, Phobus was a god, after all, and no doubt had some form of godly duties to fulfill, but....never even bothering to visit? Never helping out Mara who was just trying to raise a kid on her own while juggling work? Never even sending something--anything--some sort of sign to his "troubled" kid that just couldn't get along with anyone?

He had never asked for much. He'd never even asked for a dad, really; he'd been perfectly satisfied with just his mom and himself--though his stepfather and stepsiblings were a welcome change--and had never really desired anything more. But just a little....a little something was all he wanted. He'd been the guy who scared all the other kids, not because he was a bully or creepy but simply because he naturally put people on-edge. He'd been that kid who hadn't had any friends (and stepbrothers didn't count). He'd been that kid the teachers would refer to as a prime example of a "delinquent" even though he'd scored good marks and rarely got into trouble.

But Damon tried not to dwell on that kind of thing anymore. He was certain that every demigod felt this way about their godly patron.

At least, he hoped it was normal. "Kinda always imagined that I'd punch him--well, sometimes stab him or shoot him or burn him alive or slice his throat. If I ever met him, I mean. Don't really know what I'd do now, though," he added half-heartedly. Small-talk wasn't quite his thing.

What was up with Damon and getting these twins worked up?

OK, it wasn't really his fault that Ethan just got up and left, but....Jesus Christ--why did he feel responsible then?

He exchanged look with Stephen, who still looked pretty PO'd and annoyed. Well, this was just wonderful. "It's....hard for some. Some of us can't get over it: the neglect, the absence...." Great, what was he going off about now? Stephen was staring at him with an unreadable expression. "Others....well, I still want to shoot my dad, but I'm done with hoping that he'll actually show up. The time for that passed years ago." He felt himself shrug as he turned his attention back to his food. "Some of us won't ever get over it. Some of us don't care. Some of us do care and we'd still like to see it happen, but we've pretty much accepted the fact that our parents are off doing ancient pagan god-work somewhere."

He managed to wiped most of the tomato sauce off of a lambchop and bit into it, very aware of the older twin's analytical stare.

Damon listened to Stephen's explanation of Ethan's behavior. It really was understandable. He didn't think it was weird of Ethan at all--very normal behavior, really. Part of him wondered why Stephen was telling him this; he didn't seem like a very social person (which he could relate to). Well, what would you do if Greg just acted up in front of strangers? he asked himself. Try to justify his actions, probably. Protective older sibling stuff.

Oh....

"From what I've gathered, that's normal," Damon offered. "You probably don't need to worry about him, he'll fit right in--besides the bombs, of course. I'd worry about the bombs."

OOC: Short, but Stephen's kind of driving the plot right now.

OOC: Don't mind at all. It's not that short.

BIC:

Damon felt a bit of respect towards Stephen; to think that guy would put his own happiness at risk for the sake of his brother....that's the stuff of heroes. He wondered if he would've done that if he were in the other boy's shoes. Eh, probably not. He wasn't sure if he was cut out for those sorts of things.

He could sort of understand where Ethan was coming from. Back when he'd first learned of his heritage, Damon had wanted to believe that Phobus really did care about him and his mom--after all, he was a freakin' god! But after he was attacked by the werewolf....things changed for Damon. He began to realize that the gods had little time for the petty affairs of their mortal children. Sometimes, like right now, he wondered if that had been what really drove him to the point of running away from his family--and what was keeping him from even letting them know he was OK.

Damon wasn't sure whether or not it was suitable to compliment Stephen--after all, he didn't know the guy very well (or even well, come to think of it) and wasn't sure how he would take it. As far as he knew, he didn't have any immediate blood relations, so he wasn't experienced in handling situations with siblings. Eric and the others didn't really count; they hadn't lived together that long, anyways.

"I'm sure he'll understand eventually," he finally settled on saying. He tensed for a minute, then forced himself to relax. "We all do. There's a point in every one of our lives when we learn: some of us as soon as we discover our parentage, others longer--years, even. It took me a little while. I'm not one to judge."

He had a feeling that the son of Triton was losing interest in whatever they were talking about, and so was Damon, to be honest. He tried to think of something else to say....

Well, what're you interested in? Comics. Damon love comics with a passion. Did this guy like comics? Eh, probably not. Movies? Maybe....he seemed rather intelligent. Books? Damon wasn't very good at reading people's lives just by looking at their face; he wasn't Sherlock Holmes, after all.

His mind wandered back to the striking difference between the twins. It seemed odd, how people who seemed exactly the same could be so different. It kind of reminded him of this one movie he had seen when he was younger called Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who had played a married couple that both seemed to do nothing other than drink and scream at each other but later turned out to be two complex characters that cared for each other in their own unique way. Like how the twins argued with each other and seemed to get annoyed with each other a lot but really did care about each other, at least from they had exhibited in front of Damon.

"Ever seen Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It's an old movie--I think it was a play first, though," Damon asked out of the blue.

What kind of kid our age watches old plays? Damon wondered, though not condescendingly but simply out of pure curiosity. "Hmm....you like plays? I was always more of a comic book and movie kind of guy, but my mom loved broadway stuff. She was always singing along to Disney movies and Hairspray and all the other stuff. Every time we all went to Disney World when I was a kid she made us watch the Lion King there. It was pretty cool--though my stepdad hated it," he said.