#xallum

He was almost there. He could practically see the tip of the Big House, if he squinted hard enough.

Silently, Cal clambered across Half-Blood Hill and past the dragon that lazed on it (he hadn’t believed that there was one until he had seen it) and made his feet move despite his limp.

Left, drag, right, left, drag, right, left, drag, right.

Those fucking Empousa. Then again, Cal should’ve known better than to let himself be ensnared like that. Mortal or not, beautiful women with silver tongues and impossibly curvy figures were always up to no good. Luckily, he had had a dagger on him, and after one hell of a fight, he managed to send the pair of monsters down to Tartarus.

Too bad he didn’t have his dagger anymore. The only thing he had left that resembled self defence was his sass. 

The flaring pain that had been in his leg had dulled to a faint throb after hours on the road. Gritting his teeth, the demigod kept limping forwards towards camp.

Towards Xander.

The past week had given Cal the opportunity and time to think, and in the midst of the hurricane of thoughts in his head, he realized that it had been Xander, and not Marina, whom he had loved all along. It was Xander’s kisses, hands and voice that he missed most; it was the son of Apollo’s smile that Cal would do anything to see and it was his love that he craved. Cal did wish Rina the best, though. Hopefully, she wasn’t doing to badly… Was she at camp? Or did she leave with the Huntresses?

In a skip in his thought train, Cal abrutly turned his thoughts back to the curly-haired boy with a voice like nectar and an accent to match. Cal tried to imagine what would happen once he and Xander were face to face again. Would he kiss him right away? Or would he yell at him for being so stupid for getting himself killed? The latter seemed more likely, though Cal would’ve really preferred the former to happen. He missed Xan and his hot, gentle kisses. He missed hearing his voice recite poetry which, while not exactly was like hearing him sing, was magical all the same. 

Hold on, Sunboy. I’m coming home. 

Home. Home used to mean the hidden streets and beautiful buildings of New Orleans. But what was one supposed to do when one’s home had wanted posters of his face plastered in every street corner? Nothing said more than a home that wanted to put him on death row.

And so Cal’s center of home had shifted. It had to, if he had wanted to leave New Orleans and its shit behind. So the demigod drifted for a while, unable to attach himself to anywhere because in the end, it wasn’t the ‘where’ he were looking for; it was the ‘who.’