Be still my heart 'cause it's freakin' out(Private)

Oliver wasn't planning on going to the Winter Festival today. He had had a little bit too much cocoa the day before and his stomach ached. Instead, he chose to walk a small path into the snow that led from his cabin to Thalia's Pine and back. He wanted to just walk off some of the carbs he was gaining in the cold winter months. His hands were shoved in the pockets of his black button-up coat, which happened to be unbuttoned. Underneath he wore a grey sweater that matched the shade of the beanie pulled firmly over his semi-curly brown hair. His brown eyes stared down at the ground, watching the snow crunch beneath his brown shoes with each step he took.

Hearing something, Oliver glanced up, but he didn't really know what it was. Then, he realized that someone was yelling. He thought it was a little strange, and he looked around for whoever was yelling. He caught sight of a really young camper, maybe 12-13 years of age, waving her arms at him and telling him to move. Oliver raised an eyebrow. Who did this kind think she was, telling Oliver Hayes to move? Then, the girl pointed, and Oliver followed her finger. That's when his eyes widened.

The boy had barely enough time to jump out of the way before a sled rocketed through the snow where he had just been standing, the little boy on it laughing hysterically. Oliver, however, was not laughing. He had been minding his own business and almost got run over, and didn't find any humor in the situation. Especially since he was now covered in snow due to having to dive out of the way.

Mumbling angrily, he pushed himself up off the ground and angrily began swatting at his arms, snow flying off every-which way. He then turned onto the two kids, the little girl watching him carefully and the little boy still giggling. His face turned hot, and he imagined steam lines melting the snow all over him. Oh boy, Oliver Hayes was mad. He knew that he couldn't hurt little kids, but he sure as Hades could yell at them. He began to lift his hand in finger and pointed at the children.

"LOOK. HERE. YOU. LITTLE. SH-" Oliver asserted, the veins in his neck becoming very apparent. However he was interrupted when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he whirled around to face who's it was. The face he saw baffled Oliver, and the red color of anger was replaced by a drained color of surprise. His hand lowered to his side, and his stern expression melted away. "Xav- Xavier??" He sputtered. "What are you doing here?"

Seeing Xavier was kind of a strange thing. For one, it was the last place that he would've expected to see him. He hardly ever saw him anywhere else, even though Oliver didn't really get out that much, either. Secondly, Xavier had told Oliver that the two would be able to hang out and do something soon, and then never got back to him. It was kind of like he just drove off, leaving Oliver in the middle of a dirt road with no visible sign of life in any direction. He felt a bit abandoned by the boy, and held a grudge against him, for a while. But, eventually, he decided that Xav must've had some good excuse or another, or else he wouldn't have just bailed. Still, even after Oliver had accepted Xav's absence, he felt really weird seeing him. His stomach felt like it had a swarm of bees inside of it, poking around everywhere. His chest tightened like it did every-time he was confronted with an awkward situation.

Oliver glanced down at his toes. It probably looked really bad that he was caught yelling at some kids. As much as he wanted to explain, he shouldn't have yelled at them, and he was kind of in the fault for not watching where he was going. Not that he would admit that, though. Oliver was a spot too proud to say that he was at fault. But at the same time, he wasn't going to make excuses. So, rather than bullshitting, he just shrugged.

"It doesn't really matter, Xavier. I won't yell at them," He mumbled. He didn't mean to sound so grouchy, but something in his voice betrayed him. It was an open sign that said he was mad at Xavier. Quickly, to try to cover it up, he added, "God, my pants are wet." It was an odd thing to say, but the two boys probably would have understood. Or, at least, Oliver hoped Xavier would understand. It was an allusion to their last meeting where Oliver got Orange juice all over Xavier's pants.

Oliver's eyes wandered from Xavier's face, not really wanting to make eye contact. It still felt weird to look at him. His eyes glanced at the beautiful white snow on the ground that had a few shoe-prints in it. He swiveled his head to look at where the kids were, but they had gone. He could just see the backs of them as they retreated away.

Great, Oliver thought. I just ruined some kids' sledding day. Sighing, he became a little frustrated. For one, the kids had almost ran over him. And, although he was wearing layers, his clothes were wet and he had begun to shiver. The snow had melted and the small fibers were now collecting the icy-cold water and pressing it against his skin. And, to make matters worse, here was Xavier after all this time, acting as though nothing had happened. Acting as though he was a peaceful mediator, after all those times he had pretty much tried to murder Oliver. The son of Athena's face burned red, and he looked away, but did not say anything.

Oliver adjusted his beanie atop his head, making sure that it was positioned far enough back that a couple strands of his dark hair fell over his forehead. His eyes narrowed at a tree a couple of feet from him, but he did not look at Xavier. He couldn't really stand to. He knew what would meet him. Big, round brown eyes and just an overall look that kills. He wouldn't be able to stay mad at Xavier if he looked at him. So, he just avoided him.

Hearing what Xavier said, Oliver had to take a few moments of silence to consider the words. It seemed a ridiculous idea that Xavier Hastings was nervous to hang out with him, and, even so, it seemed like an even more ludicrous excuse not to. He got the feeling that he was just avoiding him for the sake of it. To stick it to him, like he used to. However, upon recalling Xavier's past actions, Oliver found himself dwelling on them. Xavier never used to be like this. He hated Oliver. It was just because Oliver saved Xavier's stupid dog that he was being this way. He found that really shallow, that Xavier was just now trying to be a better person, after Oliver did something good for him.

"Why do you even care?" Oliver snapped at Xavier, still not looking at him. His eyes bore holes into the tree. "Why do you care to make it up to me? What makes you think that I want you to make it up to me? What made you change and want to hang out with me, Hastings?" He growled, no longer making any attempt to thinly veil his contempt for the boy. Once he had gotten going, the rest just kind of popped out, but he didn't care. They were good questions, and he was eager to know the answer.

Oliver brought a large hand to his face, rubbing his jaw from the back of his mandible to his chin, the skin on his fingers running over the roughness of his shaved-yesterday face. He hadn't expected this to be the way he would start off his day. He just wanted to take a walk. And he would have wanted to hang out with Xavier a week ago. But since he had stood Oliver up, Oliver wasn't going to forgive him so easily. He could be stubborn that way, but he really didn't care. Xavier deserved to feel bad, after everything he'd done to Oliver in the past.

Oliver finally looked up at Xavier. He had tried hard to avoid eye-contact with him for a long time, but he finally looked at him out of pure and utter shock. A shock that stunned his entire being. His mind virtually shut down, uncomprehensive of how cold he was due to his clothes and the surrounding weather. Uncomprehensive of the events that had taken place before Xavier had even shown up. He was simply stunned into silence by what Hastings has said. Could it be true? Could he really hate Oliver? There was a small possibility that the entire thing had been an act. Oliver recalled the instance at the mess hall, in which the two boys had spilled their food all over each other, but Xavier didn't even get mad. In fact, the eyes with which he looked at Oliver were so different from the ones that typically looked on him with disgust. Were those the eyes now, that glared at Oliver with a burning hatred and evil triumph? Oliver didn't know, because Xavier was not looking at him for a while. He never met Oliver's eyes, and then he walked away.

"Hast-" Oliver began, but caught himself. Would it really be appropriate to call Xavier so formally. Oliver decided, in this case, it was. "Hastings!" Oliver called, hoping the boy would stop walking. However disappointment was instilled deep within Oliver as he watched the back of the boy recede. "Hastings, come back," Oliver called, fruitlessly. After a couple of seconds of standing alone, shivering like Hades, Oliver shook his head and quickly followed suit, trying to catch up with Xavier. However, as Xavier was walking away ignoring Oliver, the son of Athena found a different emotion stirring within. Annoyance. By the time he had caught up with Xavier, he was growing very impatient, and very very hurt. This was an emotion rather foreign to him. Nobody ever caused Oliver emotional pain, nobody.

"Hastings look at me right now," Oliver snapped, grabbing Xavier by the shoulder and spinning the boy around hard. "What the-" we shall not mention Oliver's language at this moment, as he is a little upset, "-do you mean you don't care about me?" As soon as those words had left Oliver's lips, he had shocked himself this time. Why did he care? Truth was, he cared because he wanted Xavier to care. He tried hard to shake the truth, but it was stuck to him like glue now that it had come to light. He was done being treated like shit by Xavier, and he quite frankly needed the boy's approval in some way. "You cared about me a few days ago! You cared about me back when I saved your stupid-ass dog! Why don't you care now?!" Oliver ended. Throughout the time he was speaking, his voice was increasing steadily until the last word he spoke was just a straight-out shout.

Oliver shook his head. He sounded like god-damned Finnegan. He sounded emotionally prone and utterly useless. But by now his emotions had taken over. The brains Athena granted this demigod were useless to the force of his emotions right now. His hand still gripping Xavier's shoulder rather hard, Oliver quickly released the tension and dropped the hand to his side. He was shivering even worse now, and there was no doubt that if he was this cold for much longer he would get sick. But that was hardly important to him, not now. Now, Xavier was his top priority. He had to change the boy's mind. He was just insulted that Hastings would even say such a thing to him.

"L-look Xavier," Oliver said, his teeth chattering slightly. "I'm sorry. What I s-said was unprecedented. I shouldn't have said that. B-but..." Oliver trailed off. It was hard to look Xavier in his big brown eyes. As he looked, he did not see the rage. He saw the same expression he had seen the past couple of encounters. "But you didn't need to say you didn't care about me," he let out a breath, the fog from his warm air floating between the two boys. "Was it t-true, though? D-did you mean it?"

Oliver was surprised by Xavier's aggressiveness. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Xavier really didn't care. His eyes were just fooling Oliver into thinking he did. That, or Oliver just really wanted to believe that something in Xavier liked Oliver. Maybe he was fooling himself. And, the more Xavier's harsh words were thrown at him coupled with a harsh tone, Oliver believed it more and more. Hastings really did hate him. And something inside him broke.

"Alright, fine," Oliver assented. "F-fine just f-fine. Go, then. I'm done stopping you now, I'm sorry that I just.. that I just wasted your t-t-time." Oliver shook his head and sniffed. His nose had started running. He didn't know why, it just had. And, at the same time, he felt his face warm up a bit, even though it was still wet. It must've been from the snow when he'd fallen, but he didn't know why the water on his cheeks was warm. Nothing really seemed real, either. It was all really hazy, and nothing was clicking. All he knew was that the only friend he'd ever had just shitted all over him, and was lying about being his friend all along. Oliver rubbed at his cheeks, trying to remove the wetness, his shaking hand and chattering teeth making him feel like an old man. A broken old man.

"My turn to walk away," he whispered, not really even to Hastings. Just to the universe, he supposed. He crossed his arms across his chest, trying to bring himself a bit of warmth. He then turned away from Hastings. He had to suck the poison out, and Xave was by far the most poison he's ever felt in a long time. Then he walked away, in the opposite direction that Xavier had walked moments before.

As he walked, Oliver seemed to maybe have lost a bit of his mind. It could have been from the emotionally powerful event that had just taken place, or from the illness that was falling upon him. Either way, Oliver's mental state was crumbling. He'd never had anything like this happen to him before. He'd always been powerful and indifferent. This was proof that he shouldn't ever care about anything.

"Never," Oliver whispered, shivering as he walked. "Never care. Don't care. Not about me. Not about him. He doesn't. I don't. Never care," he continued to whisper. This is so pathetic, his brain told him. "Don't care," Oliver whispered. He played you, his brain attacked. "Never care," was Oliver's response.

Oliver paralleled Xavier's actions by refusing to turn around or stop when he heard the other boy calling him. It just fueled his rage. What did he want to say to Oliver, anyway? He'd already made it very very clear that he didn't give two shits about Oliver. He couldn't care less if he were to just drop dead into the snow and die. Which Oliver really felt like doing. It looked really soft, like just one giant pillow. Obviously nobody would miss him, if Xavier didn't care. The only person in his life that paid him any mind. Finnegan wouldn't have noticed. He was always with his stupid fat boyfriend Toby, and Oliver would be surprised if Finn thought about him at all these days.

Just when Oliver had lost himself in his thoughts and figured that Xavier had buzzed off, he felt a strong hand on his shoulder. He had tried to take another stride, but the hand held him firm, and he was jerked backwards by the opposing force. Slowly, Xavier came around into his view, standing in front of him. Oliver's gaze immediately fell downward to look at his shoes. There was no way that he was going to look this... this asshole in the face. He couldn't stand to, it was just really hard. But, when he heard Xavier speak, he was somewhat pleasantly surprised. The tone wasn't the same go-to-hell one that he had heard moments ago. It wasn't full of bitterness and resentment. It was soft, and almost sweet. Oliver was surprised enough to look up at the boy's face.

Oliver tried hard to listen to the words that came out of Xavier's mouth. His brown eyes looked straight into Xave's eyes as if he was receptive. But it was actually really hard to hear what he was saying now. His tone was too soft to be heard over the echoes of Xave's voice in his head saying over and over I never cared about you and I never will. I never cared about you and I never will. It was enough to make Oliver start crying again, hearing this voice and seeing this face. However one thing seemed to slip through. Xavier thought Oliver would be relieved to hear that he didn't care. Why would Oliver be relieved? Was Xavier really that stupid?

"Xavier, what the hell?" Oliver asked. He swallowed, the feeling of a golf ball lodged in his throat becoming overpowering. His breathing was very shallow. The bottom of lungs didn't seem to get any air, his chest heaving pretty fast. "How.. How could you think I would be relieved? You are the only person in this god damned camp who knows I exist. The only person!" He shouted. He knew Xavier had heard him the first time, but needed the message to get through.

The next thing that happened was, like everything else that day, surprising. Xavier pulled Oliver into a hug. Xavier's arms were actually wrapped around Oliver, the boy's ear next to his. He could feel Xavier's hair tickling the side of his face. A lot of it seemed unreal. Oliver's mind tried hard to believe it was unreal. There was no way that Xavier had been lying about the fact that he didn't care about him, no way. And yet, here he was, with his chest against Xave's. Oliver wasn't quite sure what to do with his own arms.

The sincerity with which Xavier's next statement washed away everything. It washed away bitterness, stun, resentment. There was no way that those words Xavier spoke could be false. He did. He cared.

Oliver's arms instinctively put themselves around Xavier, and Oliver leaned into the hug. He felt himself squeeze Xavier as if to say sorry. Not just sorry about what had happened recently, but about everything. He wanted Xavier to forgive him for everything. He wanted a clean slate with this boy, and... he wanted perhaps just a little bit more. Oliver closed his eyes in order to keep the water from building up in them. He felt the same lump in his throat and knew his attempts not to cry were fruitless, then. He didn't want to let go of Xavier. He finally had someone that cared about him, after years and years of nobody doing just that. And he wasn't about to let that someone go.

Eventually, Oliver loosened his grip, and he felt Xavier pull back a little. Oliver let his arms return to his side and free the boy. He looked at Xavier and sniffed. He could tell he was crying, and he quickly brought the back of his hands to his face, wiping the tears away. He felt like he looked so foolish that he let out the smallest of laughs at his dramatic display. He tried to think of something to say, but he was unable to. It seemed that his actions had pretty much said everything he needed to, and he felt like Xavier did the same.

"Thanks."

Oliver didn't realize how cold he was until Xavier mentioned it. Those thoughts had kind of drifted from him, but when they were brought back to the forefront of his mind, he realized that he was shivering still. When Xavier took off Oliver's jacket, he almost tried to stop him, grabbing at it in an attempt to pull it closer around him to become warmer. But, he saw that Xavier was stripping off his own jacket, and it was soon around Oliver's shoulders. He accepted it graciously, pulling it tight around him. It was a ton better. The wetness from his jacket fibers were no longer present, and the shirts under it weren't yet touched by the snow, so that fixed that problem. Unfortunately, Oliver's pants were still wet and he could feel the wet cloth sticking to his skin. What he really craved was a hot shower, some pj's, and a fire.

Oliver felt Xavier put his arm around his shoulders, and the physical sensation of having Xavier so close was kind of thrilling. It was kind of like being close to a fascinating but dangerous animal. He had hardly touched the boy before that day, and yet in a minute he had both hugged him and had his arm around his shoulders. It kind of made up for the falling in the snow part. At this point, Oliver could smell Xavier well, and was a little shocked to find out that he smelled really good. For some reason, Oliver always figured such a repulsive person would smell that way, but he could smell some sort of cologne, or at least some strongly-scented soap of some kind, giving him a kind of manly smell. There wasn't really a better way to describe it, but Oliver found it comforting.

"Thank you," Oliver repeated. The two boys began to walk away from the sledding hill and towards the cabins, Oliver shivering under Xavier's arm. He began to think about what would happen when they reached his cabin. He would strip off his wet clothes, first and foremost, and take a nice hot shower. Then he would get in his pj's, make some gross tea probably, and drink it by the fire. All he wanted right now was warm things. What would Xavier do? Would he leave Oliver to himself at the step of the Athena cabin?

The snow crunched with every step under Oliver's shoes, and it felt like a thousand steps before they even reached the cabin. As usual, campers were mostly flocked at the Winter Festival, leaving the cabin courtyard and the cabins themselves somewhat barren. Oliver walked up the steps to the cabin, a couple of them creaking as he did so. When he reached the door, he turned to look at Xavier, effectively pushing off the boy's arm as he did so, though he didn't mean to.

"Well, uh, I'm cold as frickin' hell," Oliver muttered, letting out a small, dry laugh. "So I'm going to take a shower, but... Like, if you want to stay and hang out in there afterwards, then you can. You could wait for me in my room. But if you don't want to I understand," Oliver said. He was still clutching Xavier's jacket, and was very conscious that he was. He didn't really want to give it up, and if Xavier was going to leave Oliver hoped he wouldn't notice that he would be leaving his jacket behind.

Oliver nodded quickly when Xavier assented to stay. Tossing a quick prayer up to Athena that Finnegan wasn't here, he led his friend through the cabin. Not many people remained in the cabin, but those who did didn't may them much mind. The most they got was probably a small glance up from a book. Upon reaching Xavier's room, he was relieved to find it empty. Not many campers stayed in their rooms during the day. They all flocked outside, or the main rooms of the cabins, but hardly ever remained at their bunk. When Xave sat down on Oliver's bed, he felt satisfied. It was nice that he had someone that would actually wait on him, just to hang out. He'd never had anyone spend time waiting on him just to spend time with him afterwards.

Oliver grabbed some clothes and rushed down to the showers without another word. He turned the water on boiling, felt it with a quivering hand, and decided to turn it up to lava. Felt it again. Perfect. He quickly took off all wet articles of clothing and threw them at a wall angrily. Those stupid clothes had gotten him sick. But, he was careful to drape Xavier's jacket over an empty towel hanger. He then quickly showered himself and changed into his new, warm and dry clothes. He had chosen some dark grey sweat pants that had two long strings at the front, along with a black long-sleeved shirt. And he even pulled on some fuzzy socks because his feet tended to feet like ice cubes.

Oliver made his way back to his room, wet clothes in one hand and Xavier's jacket in another. He tossed the wet clothes in the hamper when he arrived, and looked over at his bed where Xavier was sitting... reading? Oliver was almost tempted to say 'I didn't know you could read', but he didn't. Instead, he watched him for a few silent moments, before speaking up. It was kind of a cool picture, Xavier with a book.

"Which book is that?" Oliver asked, gesturing to the novel in the boy's hands. He walked over and sat on the bed next to the boy, the bed giving the slightest of creaks. Oliver seemed to be making an effort to be casual around Xavier, but found it unsurprisingly more difficult than his initial envision. Nervously folding the jacket in his lap, Oliver looked down at it. He shouldn't keep it, and it should be easy to give back. But Xavier had given this to him, and that meant that it was special. Xavier had never given Oliver anything before except for electrical burns and bruises. And a bloody nose, once. Oliver lifted the jacket off of his lap and set it on Xave's. "There's your jacket."

Oliver glanced around, avoiding Xavier's eyes and examining the posters on his walls as if it were deeply interesting. And then, he realized; they were superhero posters. A hobby that was slightly embarrassing for someone his age. Especially with his- oh no. Oliver's head snapped over to his comic books. One of them was out of place. Oliver resisted the urge to shriek, and he quickly sprung up and gingerly picked up the comic book, slipping it back into it's plastic wrapping and replacing it atop the pile. Realizing how completely insane he probably looked right now, a crimson blush crawled across his cheeks. Slowly, he turned to look at Xavier.

"Sorry... Oh god, this probably looks bad. This is probably not what you expected to see on our first-" Oliver caught himself. First what? His mind yelled at him to think of something. "-hangout." What an idiot. Oliver sighed. "Yeah, I know, it's kind of childish, isn't it?" Oliver muttered, running a hand through his wet brown hair.

Oliver bit his lip. Xavier told him that it was nothing to be embarrassed about, but somehow he didn't find comfort in that statement. Oliver, besides Finnegan, was probably the nerdiest person he knew, and therefore was constantly paranoid about people calling him out on his interests. He really liked history, especially greek, and even greek literature such as the Iliad, Odyssey, and Oedipus. Those books were in a small box beneath his bed, stashed away where nobody would touch them. They weren't any regular copies, they were very expensive leather-bounds, and Oliver would rather have nobody touch them at all, other than himself. So, it was a little understandable that Oliver was protective of his comic books and other books. They were the core of his interests, the only thing he would really consider spending a decent amount of time with. Any other activities he would probably give up after a half hour.

"Eh, deadpool is pretty good too. Both he and Stark have a lot of comical aspects to them, as does Spiderman," he said, before stopping himself. A conversation about comics, although very compelling for him, didn't really seem like it was how he wanted to spend time with Xavier. Which brought up a good question; what did he want to spend time doing with Xavier? He had never thought about this before. Even when they had planned to meet up the other day, Oliver never dwelt much over what they would do. He just figured they'd think of something. But now that he was actually presented with the problem, he found no solutions.

When Xavier burst out laughing at Oliver's lame line 'first hangout,' the son of Athena wore a small frown. He had been about to say first date, but he realized that they really weren't on a date. They were just spending time together to mend a very broken relationship. Not a romantic relationship, of course. It was a much more complicated relationship than that. Seeing how hard Xavier was laughing, though, just made Oliver blush, and he couldn't keep frowning for long. At the same pace that the pink entered his cheeks, a grin appeared on his face. He'd never in his life seen this boy laugh so hard, and he could have started laughing too, were he not so focused on the other boy's laugh. It was a strange laugh, he had to admit. It was probably an exotic strange, not a repulsive strange. Xavier's laugh was more like an experience that Oliver hadn't even gotten before, and it filled him with a sense of awe. It was kind of, somehow, beautiful.

Xavier's loud laughing woke up someone who Oliver had forgotten about until he came bounding out from under the bed. Fenrir, Oliver's direwolf pup, excitedly bounced around the two boy's feet in odd figure-eights. The pup could hardly be considered a pup anymore, by any normal dog's standards. It was only a pup in reference to the dead wolf that Oliver had seen in the forest. But, compared to other dogs, this wolf was about as big as maybe an adolescent Labrador. He hardly even fit under the bed anymore. His grey fur was coming in longer to protect him from the winter, and the brilliant coat bounced and shined in the light with each bound. Oliver was looking down to watch Fenrir, until the dog stopped in front of Oliver, and then sat down on his feet.

"To tell you the truth, I kind of just want to sit by a fire," Oliver replied lamely, looking up from his pet. It sounded probably really cliche, as if out of the chapters of some romance novel, but Oliver could still remember the cold he had suffered from outside. And, although he was no longer shivering, he was still sniffling and his head was hurting a bit. "There's a fire place and some chairs in the main sitting room of the cabin," Oliver elaborated. It was true, there were. Though the fireplace likely lacked logs, and the chairs were probably covered in books and scrolls that they would have to move to get to them. "Is that okay with you?" Oliver asked. Fenrir let out a yap. "Not you," Oliver hushed, in return, before looking back up at Xavier expectantly.