Light 'Em Up ((Alaric))

[Tadhg Rowe]

Tadhg was awkwardly lingering in the shadows of the pavilion. The kid had yet to make any friends despite his best efforts. People were scared of him thanks to the news coverage. The coverage on his crimes described him as psychotic, violent, insane even. It seemed everywhere the son of Eris went his past followed him, keeping others away. He hadn't meant to kill that boy but no one seemed to care what his intentions were. All that mattered was that he had lost it and killed someone.

And so he had become accustomed to lurking around camp like some sort of dirty secret. He had ways to pass the time, though. Tadhg had taken up a certain interest in a son of Hephaestus, following around the boy named Alaric like a lost puppy. It wasn't an obsession, but had definitely become close to one. His fascination was partly caused by the fact that Alaric had control over fire. Tadhg liked fire, and therefor he liked Alaric.

He crept towards the Hephaestus boy like a nervous child, shaking slightly. For all the rage pent up inside of him he was an awfully shy boy. "H-hi..." he mumbled once he was close enough. He rocked back and forth on his heels, nervously glancing at the dark-haired boy. "I heard you became cabin counselor... I just wanted to congratulate you..."


Tag: @lucie

[Deleted]

Since the incident with his bed occured, he tried to avoid his siblings as much as possible. Which was easier said than done as they all shared a cabin and Alaric was a counselor now because of his stupid fire powers. The only good thing now was that he knew that he couldn't burn himself when he was working on something and it also explained why he'd never actually burned his hands or arms. His siblings probably thought he was a weirdo if they hadn't already thought that before and that was why he was in the Mess Hall earlier than his other cabin mates.

The boy was staring at his food as if he expected it to catch fire or something but it didn't. Instead there was a noise from behind him that startled him and made him jump. Jump off the bench, actually. Gracious as always, Alaric looked up at the boy. He didn't know his name and he wasn't sure if he should know him, but something about him was kind of scary even though he seemed to be younger than he was.

"That's... cool... Thanks?", he stuttered out as he got back up and ran a hand through his hair, checking if his goggles were still there. "How did you... know? I mean... I don't think I know you." Why had he never dealt with people back at school? That was the reason why he didn't know how to deal with people now. Machines were way better anyway. "Do you wanna... sit with me...?" What. He just wanted this boy to leave him alone so he could leave quickly before any of his siblings approached, why was he offering the boy to sit with him.

[Tadhg Rowe]

The small boy stumbled back a bit as Alaric fell from the bench, eyes wide. Oh gods, he didn't mean to scare him. Tadhg stared at the boy as he got back on his feet, eventually having to look up as Alaric stood nearly a foot taller than him. He let out a small squeak at the height difference, unconsciously standing on his tippy-toes to try and make up for it.

"Oh! I just kinda... I saw the fire and..." he mumbled, shrugging. Gods was he bad at interacting. He tried so hard, he really did. Everywhere he went he would attempt to befriend others but it seemed no matter what he did he failed. He blamed himself for being too shy, unaware of the darkness that followed him.

He nodded happily at Alaric's suggestion, trying not to seem too excited as he sat across from the boy. He could now see him eye to eye rather than looking up like a small child. This didn't help his confidence in the least, blushing as he avoided eye-contact.

"I'm Tadhg. I just got here a few months ago." He explained shakily, accent thick from his nerves. Hopefully fire boy wouldn't have heard of the incident that brought him to camp. It seemed that everyone knew all the details, but Tadhg was hopeful since Alaric didn't seem to recognize him. "You're the son of Hephaestus and you have fire... Eris is my ma but I don't know what my powers are,"

[Deleted]

Alaric blinked at the boy and watched him as he sat down across from him and tried to understand what he was saying. He had no idea where the kid was from but his accent was insane and it seemed to get worse. "You... saw the fire?", he repeated and raised his eyebrows. He knew it. The whole Camp knew about him burning his bed. As if it wasn't enough that he didn't have a freaking bed anymore, no, instead everyone could point a finger at him now and laugh because he was the idiot who'd burned down his bed. He took a deep breath and tried to focus on the boy again because he'd spaced out.

"Tadgh.. I'm Alaric", he introduced himself and tilted his head a bit as the boy rambled on. "Oh, that's not bad... I just came here like two months ago." He ran a hand through his hair and looked at Tadgh. "Yeah... I have fire, that's right..." Who the heck was Eris? As he'd just said, he hadn't been at Camp long enough to know about all the minor gods, his memory had never been the best anyway so he wasn't sure if he would ever know about all of them.

Instead he decided to pick up the fire topic. Alaric took the lighter from his pocket and light it. With his other hand he picked up the flame and put the lighter away again, the small flame still burning in his palm. "See, fire. It's pretty cool, but I've heard that all demigods have powers so yours are probably somehing equally cool", he rambled himself and closed his hand to extinguish the flame again.

[Tadhg Rowe]

He already knew the boy's name was Alaric, but decided to keep that fact to himself. Best to not completely weird him out within the first 5 minutes of talking to him. Tadhg desperately wanted to be his friend and admitting to listening in on his conversations probably wouldn't help.

His eyes darted from the boy's face to his hand as Alaric retrieved a lighter. The young boy's heart sped up and his breath seemed to catch in his throat. Tadhg personally liked matches but lighters did the same thing. They started fire. His eyes widened as he leaned closer, watching with great intensity as Alaric sparked the lighter. A small gasp escaped his lips as Alaric put the flame in his hand like it was nothing. Didn't it hurt?!

It dawned on him that the son of Hephaestus couldn't get burnt. He wished the same was true for him. The boy had more burns than he could keep track of, some inflicted by plain recklessness and others by his father's will. He had been to the infirmary more than enough times for quite literally playing with matches. It was a damn miracle he hadn't yet burned down the Eris cabin, the key word being yet. No doubt Ri would beat his arse if he did.

The flame was extinguished and it seemed Tadhg could breathe normally again, though his heart was still racing. "That was amazing..." he murmured in awe, completely captivated. "I wish I could do that... Doubt it, though. Don't think the chaos goddess has any reign over fire," In fact, he wasn't entirely sure what his powers would be at all. His elder siblings didn't seem to have any, at least none that he could see. It seemed all that Tadhg was good at was crying and breaking things.

[Deleted]

Alaric eyed the boy suspiciously because he seemed to be very, very excited about the fire. He tilted his head a bit and frowned because he wasn't so sure what to do next, so he played with his lighter. How old was this kid? What could he say in front of him without corrupting him? When he was his age, he hadn't been in Camp, he was sitting in a basement with his best friend and he was pretty certain that he'd been an odd kid. "Amazing, huh?" His mind was racing, but the hint of a smile appeared on his face. Seemed like he had a little fanboy and in a way that seemed pretty cool.

Then he shook his head. So that was Eris, the Goddess of Chaos. Gods, when he looked at his desk, he could somehow be related to her but his fire powers seemed like a solid proof that he wasn't. "Nah, it's not that amatzing though, if you think about it. I mean, I still need a spark to make a fire, so if I don't have a lighter or something it's pretty useless", he noted and shrugged lightly.

"And my siblings probably hate me because I almost burned down the cabin", he added more to himself than to the boy, as he was slowly becoming at least a little comfortable with this situation. It was definetly better than the presence of a certain Hermes camper - at least he liked to think that - and he'd finally come to the realisation that Tadhg was just a little boy with a heavy accent and a little boy that seemed to like him, so it was all okay.

[Tadhg Rowe]

He tilted his head, pondering Alaric's words. "I always got matches with me. You should like, have an emergency supply of 'em in a pack or something, yeah?" he suggested. His expression seemed to darken at the burning comment. It was kind of scary how quickly the boy's demeanor could change, giggling one moment and completely serious the next.

Fleeting images flashed before him. Screaming muffled by the crackling of flames soon, followed by the wailing sirens. He closed his eyes, breathing rapidly as the memories cascaded over him like a hellish waterfall. He was terrified by the past which often haunted him. Certain words would set him off, and Alaric had certainly hit those buttons.

He reopened his eyes, smiling nervously as he avoided eye contact. He didn't want fire boy to think he was a freak or a psycho or any of those other things people called him. Tadhg desperately wanted to befriend the boy and having flashbacks in the middle of their conversation wasn't helping. "Fire eats everything," he agreed softly, his once excited voice having become quiet and somewhat timid.

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Alaric narrowed his eyes, when the kid suddenly went quiet. Did he say something wrong? He tilted his head a bit and looked at Tadhg. The younger boy closed his eyes and seemed to grow pale. For a moment he was worried that maybe he'd really done something wrong, that he'd broken the boy without notice but then he looked back up at him again and said something.

Fire eats everything. He slowly nodded, frowning a bit. "Are you okay..?", he asked hesistantly because he suddenly was very aware of the fact that there was a younger kid sitting across from him. Alaric could so understand his father right now. According to what he'd heard, Hephaestus had a 'machines are better than people' attitude... Machines were easily understood and you could just fix them and people were.. weird.

He chewed on his bottom lip and ran a hand through his hair. "But I guess you're right... As a very wise man once said, with great power comes great responsibility", he rambled lamely and looked at Tadhg. That was the reason why he shouldn't interact with other campers, he made out with them or broke them, there was no in between.

[Tadhg Rowe]

He nodded quickly, flashing a weak smile. "Yeah, I'm fine," he mumbled unconvincingly. He really hoped he hadn't screwed things up. He hoped a happy facade would be enough for Alaric to brush it off, not really wanting to explain that he had accidentally burned 9 people alive. Okay, so one of the 9 was on purpose. The other 8 had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He quickly snapped back like a rubber-band upon hearing Alaric's words. He was practically the definition of mood swings, although I guess that would fit his heritage of chaos. "Spider-man!" he exclaimed excitedly, a huge grin on his face. Tadhg was a sucker for all things comic related and could quote most Marvel movies from memory. Spider-man was one of his favorites, being one of the first comics he had stumbled upon.

[Deleted]

Maybe this boy wasn't a threat or something but Alaric still found him a little creepy. People with mood swings were scary as heck because they were so unpredictable especially when you had next to no people skills like he did. At least he didn't look like he was going to cry anymore because that was something he was pretty certainly unable to deal with. Tadhg's enthusiasm however made him a grin to himself a bit and he tilted his head. "Yup", he said with one of those wide, goofy grins.

"Hey, d'you only like Spider-Man or other comics too??", he asked as his own interest suddenly sparked. "Like.. The Avengers? Because I'll have to show you something I've been building if you do. You don't even have to like the comics, the movie's enough." Finally, maybe he'd finally found a fellow nerd to show the armour he'd been building. It was far from perfect at least in it's functionality, but the idea alone was already perfect.

[Tadhg Rowe]

Alaric seemed to share his enthusiasm, exciting the boy further. He had finally found someone he could relate to. Perhaps not on a personal level, but a friendship built on comic books wasn't really a bad thing. This could be the start of something great if he doesn't screw it up.

"All comics, really." he said, returning Alaric's goofy grin. "Dude, I love the Avengers! I had all the comics but the movie was good too," he exclaimed, practically jumping out of his seat with excitement. "I mean personally I liked the comics more but-" he continued, stopping mid-sentence as he realized he was rambling. "Sorry," he mumbled, blushing slightly. "I just got really excited,"

"But yeah, I'd love to see what you're building," he finished. His mind was racing with possibilities of what the Hephaestus boy could be building. Maybe Captain America's shield or the Antman's suit or Iron Man's suit or Thor's hammer or one of Stark's sentinel... Gods the list went on and the young boy was practically bursting with excitement.

[Deleted]

No matter how scary mood swings were, Alaric was relieved when the boy smiled again. It was kind of cute, honestly, in the same way a puppy would be cute. Maybe Tadhg wasn't really scary, he was just a puppy. He just hoped that he wouldn't ever say that thought out loud because he might die of embarrasement when he did. "It's okay!", he quickly waved off the apology and kept up the smile.

"Good to know I'm not the only nerd around Camp. I mean, I came here a few weeks ago and by now there's only one other person who likes comics I know and he gave them to me and-" He didn't even know how he wanted to continue this sentence so he just went quiet for a couple seconds. "You should come to the forges later, if you find the time. Then I can show you", he grinned and looked at the boy across from him.

[Tadhg Rowe]

"Sweet! It's a date," he said happily, though his excitement didn't last long. His eyes widened as his face turned several shades of pink before settling on tomato red. "I mean, like a man date, n-no homo or anything." he stuttered awkwardly. Cue the internal face-palm. Nailed it, Tadhg. He wasn't gay or anything. Totally not crushing on the boy. Nope. At least, not that he'd admit.

"Sorry," he mumbled, biting his bottom lip as he stared at the table. No way was he going to look back up at Alaric. In fact he should probably just leave with what little dignity he still had. No doubt he would only embarrass himself further if he stayed. And yet the young boy couldn't seem to pull himself away. It was like watching a car crash, but instead of a car it was a confused pubescent boy.