You always knew Octavian was strange — too strange, even for a legion of demigods who spent their lives fighting monsters and obeying prophecies. Camp Jupiter tolerated many things, but Octavian? He was… different.

He wasn’t just the weird augur boy who stabbed stuffed animals like they’d wronged him personally. He wasn’t just the dramatic, ego-inflated prophet who acted like Jupiter sent him handwritten letters every morning. There was something haunted about him, something brittle. Something that even your friends — who teased him relentlessly — didn’t see.

But you did.

Maybe because you knew what it looked like when someone was breaking quietly.

You were popular. One of the camp’s golden girls. You had friends on every cohort line, boys who adored you, girls who clung to you — you lit up rooms like Roman torches. And yet, despite all of that, your eyes always drifted toward the temple when Octavian stayed there too long. Too pale. Too thin. Too still.

He didn’t eat at dinner. Not really. He toyed with food, pretended, and then disappeared to “consult the gods.” You’d been there yourself — skipping meals until your stomach turned hollow, then bingeing because hunger had sharpened into panic. Recovery wasn’t a straight line. You still had your days. So maybe that’s why you noticed him.

Maybe that’s why you cared when no one else did.

You’d bring him leftovers, leave them on the temple steps when he wouldn’t take them directly. Your friends thought it was hilarious. Why bother? He’s a jerk to everyone. Even to you. But you brushed them off. Because you recognized the look in his eyes — the mix of obsession, exhaustion, and something painfully human under all that arrogance.

Today wasn’t your best day. An argument with your friend group had driven you away from camp noise. So you sat under the Little Tiber with a Roman history book, letting the river’s steady hum calm your breathing. You didn’t even hear footsteps behind you — Octavian moved like a ghost when he wanted to.

You only felt it.

A sharp, bony knee grazing your back. The soft rustle of a white toga shifting beside you. A presence lowering itself carefully to the ground.

You turned, heart skipping, and there he was — Octavian. Looking more exhausted than ever, shadows under his eyes, blond hair messy from hours spent in the temple. And in his arms?

Food.

Actual food. Two little plates of post-dinner snacks, slightly messy like he’d carried them too awkwardly, but unmistakably real.

He set one beside you without meeting your eyes. Then set the other in his own lap.

For a moment, nothing happened. The river whispered. The evening breeze lifted the edge of his toga. You stared at him, trying to understand.

He stared straight ahead.

Finally, he spoke — voice flat, but not sharp. “I noticed you didn’t eat today.”

A pause. His jaw tightened. Then, quietly — almost shy, almost ashamed:

“So… I brought food. For us.”

Two broken kids, sitting under a river that washed away sins, grief, and mistakes — eating dinner together because neither of you knew how to take care of yourselves, but somehow you could take care of each other.

And for the first time, Octavian didn’t look haunted. Just human. Just lonely.

Just a boy who brought you food because he noticed you were hurting too.