The whumph of a training sword on the stuffed fabric of the dummies in the night was no longer an unfamiliar sound in Camp Half-Blood. Resident emo kid, Nico, had taken to practicing his swordfighting under the cover of darkness. It wasn’t a secret that he was somewhat of an outcast, though the other kids hid it well. Nice to his face, but giving each other looks behind his back whenever he would walk in wearing all black, or with a new unexplained wound bandaged up which he expertly avoided answering questions about. To be entirely fair, Nico himself seemed to almost want to push this idea—not talking much, glaring and brooding at every meal. That was how he was, and how he was seemingly content with being.

You knew for a fact that he wasn’t training because of his “evil powers” (a direct quote from a boy in the Demeter cabin) being enhanced by the dark. The thing was, Nico was an insomniac. And so were you. It was really only a matter of time before you two crossed paths in your late-night shenanigans, and it became a silent agreement that you would sit on the grass nearby and watch Nico train while he enjoyed the presence of someone who wasn’t secretly judging him 24/7. A pretty fair deal for the both of you.

Tonight, he was pushing himself particularly hard. When he finished off the dummy with a flurry of slashes and jabs, he stumbled over to you and slumped down on the grass, panting and sweating. “Gods,” he breathed. “I’m about done for the night.”