Post by Bailey Allison on Dec 23, 2013 23:12:24 GMT -5
Backdated: April 6, 2013
After sleeping for hours during the day (something that was sadly not too uncharacteristic of him), Bailey was wide awake despite it being nearly midnight. He had wanted a time to himself, and the closest he could get to that at Camp was on a corner of the beach in the middle of the night. Even then, he wasn’t completely alone; naiads occasionally surfaced to peer curiously at him before diving back down without even so much of a wave.
He supposed that was for the best. After all, a wave would seem too final, even though the whole situation reeked of finality. When else would he sit on Fireworks Beach at midnight in the near future? Probably, never. And in a way, that was comforting. After months of indecision, it felt nice to finally pick a path, decide to control something in his life.
Bailey dug his toes into the sand. It was uncharacteristically cold for an April night, but at least it kept him awake. The last thing he wanted was to miss his flight (even though that was practically impossible considering that it wouldn’t be until 1:20 PM the next day). Still, he had scheduled a trip to JFK at five the next morning, much to Argus’s annoyance. Bailey would probably end up regretting it too, but he figured there was more than enough time to sleep on the plane from New York to LA.
The previous day had been spent saying goodbye. (Was a goodbye really a goodbye if only he knew of it?) Things had been fairly normal—the Hermes cabin a complete mess and Camp itself not far behind in the amount of insanity that seemed to pervade its borders. Only two people had known of the day’s significance, and he wasn’t too keen on revisiting that conversation anytime soon.
For now, he’d just focus on the waves. After all, water looked the same no matter where you were in the world— something consistent in his life, which seemed to be made up of everything but consistency.
***
“Well, I believe that’s it.” Chiron held out a large manila folder bundled in string. “Here are all of your old files as well as contact information if you ever need help.”
Bailey nodded numbly, trying to convince himself that after months of indecision, this was finally happening. “Thanks, Chiron.”
The centaur bowed. “Good luck, Mr. Allison. Argus will be waiting in Van 7 at the entrance.”
From the corner, Dionysus jerked awake and stared at Bailey, the purple fire in his eyes subdued ever so slightly. “Good riddance, Blake. Make sure you throw a party sometime to celebrate your escape from this place.”
The corners of Bailey’s lips twitched as Chiron frowned disapprovingly. “Will do, Mr. D,” the boy replied.
***
The boy was fourteen, trying not to stare at the horse-man and fat middle-aged man in leopard print in front of him. His left leg throbbed, almost as it in warning.
“I trust that Ms. Winchell showed you the orientation film?”
Unable to find his voice, Bailey settled for a sharp nod. His entire body ached—skin itching for the gentle lap of an ocean faraway, legs craving a sprint he’d never run again. But most of all, the pit of him yearned for an overrated city two thousand miles away.
“Any questions?”
Bailey shook his head.
“Good luck then, Mr. Allison. I trust you will enjoy your stay at Camp.”
***
The van doors were uncharacteristically light today, sliding open so quickly that they rebounded, and Bailey had to jerk his fingers away. He only had a couple of bags that had been packed secretly, away from the ever watchful eyes of his siblings. It had been surprising seeing just how little stuff he had. After spending nearly two years of his life at Camp, he would’ve thought he’d accumulated more items. But aside from a sword (gleaming bronze), necklace (more leather cord than bead), a couple of Camp t-shirts (all ill-fitting), and several worthless trinkets (stolen, of course) his luggage mostly consisted of items from the world he was returning to.
Bailey tossed the bags in carelessly, and half a second later, the doors seemed to slide shut on their own accord, almost as if Camp wanted him to leave. All too soon, he found himself in the front, staring at an errant leaf that clung to the windshield. The door on the driver’s side swung open, and Bailey looked up to see Argus slide in, half his eyes staring back.
“Looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning,” Bailey commented. The sky was still a washed-out blue-grey color with absolutely no sign of Apollo and his sun chariot.
Argus rolled his eyes, causing Bailey to smile for the first time that morning.
The giant grunted, probably asking something like, “You ready?”
Bailey took one last look out his window, which faced the Big House. Just beyond, he could see the tops of the Big Three cabins and the Mess Hall. Apparently, Skye had kept her promise. No one knew he was leaving; they were all still sleeping. It felt wrong, somehow, to see Camp this quiet.
“Yeah.” He drummed his fingers against his knee. “Let’s get out of here.”
***
”Dude, you sure about this?”
“Course I am.” Bailey turned to look at the older Apollo camper, trying to make eye contact even though it was impossible to see more than a foot away. “I’m Bailey the Amazingly Awesome after all.”
He could almost hear Isaac’s eyes roll.
The son of Hermes continued on, knowing that the other would follow. They always did. Somehow, Bailey had managed to establish himself as one of the better pranksters at Camp (or so he liked to think. Finn would definitely disagree, but since when did his opinion count? He thought flipping over chairs and benches were good pranks, for gods’ sake). He’d even managed to convince Tal Winchell a.k.a. the Queen of Pranks to be his partner-in-crime.
But tonight he was doing this alone. Well, there was Isaac, but he usually wasn’t much of a prankster.
“That the van?”
Isaac stepped forward and swiftly unlocked, confirming that it was the one they were looking for. Bailey scrambled in, as planned, and headed for the back. Immediately, what little of the moon there had been disappeared, surrounding him in suffocating darkness. Even the tiny stream of his pen light wasn’t enough to penetrate the night. The boy lasted three whole seconds before immediately exiting, gasping for air.
“Did you get it?”
The son of Hermes shook his head, almost frantically. “Not there. Let’s get out of here.” Leaving a sputtering Isaac behind, Bailey quickly strode away, trying to remind himself he was in open air once again.
Running away again? the voice in him sneered. Nothing wrong with running away, he answered himself. Nothing wrong at all.
***
Bailey nearly tripped over his carry-on as he hurried to place his board bag on the conveyer belt before the airport worker could get to it. Gritting his teeth together, he cast a furtive look around. No one seemed to have noticed except for the impatient worker.
“So, what happens if you lose any of my stuff?” It was the third time Bailey had asked a variation of the question, and the woman was getting impatient.
“Our policy is clearly listed inside this brochure.” She handed him a glossy brochure that featured a cartoon plane and people with too-wide smiles. “Of course, it is very unlikely your items will be lost.”
Bailey raised an eyebrow. “How many pieces of luggage did you guys lose last year?”
“I do not have that number on hand.”
His gaze shifted to his board, which was disappearing quickly, along with his other bags. Finally, it vanished out of sight, taking his questions with it. “It’s just that I have important stuff in there… Stuff I can’t lose.”
Bailey never heard her answer. He was too busy staring at the gaping hole at the end of the conveyer belt, where his board had disappeared into. It was his most valuable item, the one that carried the most memories, accumulating them over the years. It had been there when a sarcastic daughter of Poseidon found him.
His mother had begged him to get rid of the thing after that.
But there had been good memories too. It had been the board he used when he returned to the ocean. And when he found Bobbi again, months after the incident. And when he found other people, new people, like the red-haired girl who spent early mornings sitting in the waves and a certain golden-haired girl who was simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary, a girl he certainly wasn’t going to start thinking about now.
Shit.
***
”New kid’s a swimmer?”
“And a surfer too by the looks of it.”
Bailey drifted to a stop, glancing back out at the edge of the beach, where a boy and girl with black hair and green eyes were staring back at him, arms folded. The water seemed drawn towards them.
“That yours?” The girl pointed to his board, which lay on the sand.
“Yeah.” He wondered if he should approach. them.
The boy grinned. “Cool. I’m Aiden, and she’s Addison.” He jerked his thumb towards the girl. “Children of Poseidon. A group of us are surfing further down the beach. Wanna join us?”
It took approximately half a second to make up his mind. “Yeah, sure.”
He could get used to this place.
***
Maybe coming here seven hours before his flight had been a mistake. Security had taken a ridiculously short amount of time (especially considering the fact that he had his sword with him), leaving Bailey with seven and a half hours to kill.
At least the airport was huge, giving him the opportunity to explore the multitude of stores inside the terminal. It was like being in a mall. There were stores selling everything from inflatable mattresses to snorkeling gear and stationary. And that was only a third of it. A couple of hallways were devoted to art—paintings (he thought he spotted a familiar-looking one of two lions, but it turned out to be a false alarm), sculptures (what they were of, he wasn’t quite sure), and statues (one looked suspiciously like Zeus). And the last third consisted of restaurants, offering delicacies of every kind.
It should have been enough to take his mind off of Camp.
It should have.
***
”So what’s it been? Ten days now?”
Bailey shrugged and continued to push around the brisket on his plate. “Something like that.”
Joe whistled. “Was the break really that bad?”
He set down his fork and leaned forward onto his elbows, ignoring the bite of the rough wood and the inkling of guilt that twisted his insides. “Her ankle practically snapped in two. But she’ll be fine. She can’t stay away from pranking. Everyone knows that.”
Joe looked as sure as Bailey felt, which was not at all. “Yeah, I guess so. But she should’ve started again by now.”
“Yeah, I guess she should have.”
***
It was just his luck that he got stuck in a row with a man who insisted on playing Beyoncé at full volume and a woman surrounded by the choking smell of rust and something he couldn’t quite identify. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the asshole in front of him insisted on reclining his seat so far back that he was practically in Bailey’s lap. Bailey didn’t even know airplane seats could go back that far. Of course, when Bailey tried to lean back, his seat stuck after half an inch.
Sighing, Bailey resigned himself to staring out the window, praying everyone around him would somehow miraculously discover they were in the wrong seats. Of course, Hermes wasn’t answering, and the plane took off, the three offenders stayed put. However, it wasn’t long before the hours spent up last night were starting to take their toll, dragging the teen’s eyelids further and further down.
***
The clanging of swords rang bitter sharp against the muggy summer air as two children sparred unrelentingly, thrusting and feinting and stopping when skin broke even though both knew others would not be so kind.
And
A group of campers flung leftover strawberries, leaving explosions of sticky red that never quite came out—a distraction from the danger outside.
And
A crimson shroud, no different from the hundreds that had come before it, evaporated into flames.
And
A boy cautiously entered his cabin, trying to ignore the gloom and the metallic smell of a ghastly practical joke—at least that’s what he told himself. It wasn’t, of course.
***
He woke with a start, just as the plane began its final descent. Bailey pressed his face up against the window, ignoring the annoyed mutters of the man next to him.
Below, Los Angeles’ infamous traffic snaked around, a sight Bailey never thought would make him so happy. His gaze followed the concrete ribbons, winding themselves further and further away until they hit—
He gulped.
There, stretched into infinity, was the ocean he had loved so much. He had been wrong; the water did not look the same no matter where he was in the world. This ocean, his ocean was lighter, yet more dramatic, a practically living force that could swallow the Atlantic ten times over. If he squinted, he thought he could see pinpricks near the shore—surfers.
Bailey chewed on the inside of his lip. It almost felt wrong, being here alive and so far away from Camp. He knew there were tons of campers—some of them Californians—who wanted to leave Camp but had to wait instead. And he knew that some of them would never be able to.
Yet here he was.
***
He could hear the burning of the shrouds from here. Hell, he could almost smell the smoke, the salty sea breeze overpowered by the acrid fumes.
Technically, Bailey was supposed to be at the funeral. Everyone was. And honestly, he’d meant to go. But when he had started walking towards the cabin commons, something had kept him going right past the shrouds, and somehow, he’d ended up on the beach.
The water was much too calm. Shouldn’t Poseidon be whipping up monstrous storms? Why hadn’t a typhoon hit Camp? Did the sea god even know his daughter was dead? And why was the world so fucking cheerful? Yes, it was cloudy, but it was the calm kind, the one where the sun threatened to peek through in just a couple of minutes. Why wasn’t the world mourning for gods’ sake? Two campers had just died.
Why wasn’t he mourning?
Bailey hugged his knees to his chest, trying to will the tears to fall. It didn’t even have to be dramatic. Anything that would show he wasn’t completely hollow inside, that he was grieving. Maybe something was wrong with him. He’d lost a friend, and he couldn’t even summon a tear.
The whole thing was just so fucked up. A year ago, Bobbi had saved him from a hellhound in the middle of the ocean by herself. And just four days ago, she’d been with a more than capable Ares camper, yet she still couldn’t save herself.
It all felt so wrong.
***
The memories started as he soon as he got up.
A hesitant young boy crossed the threshold, always staring back at his dad, the one who wouldn’t leave until he was ready.
Bailey slipped his backpack from the overhead bin before awkwardly sticking his sword into it. Thank gods the Mist concealed it. He wasn’t sure what the mortals saw, but at least they weren’t staring at him. Much.
He took in the storage shed, wide-eyed. Ignoring the older camper’s pleas to hurry the fuck up, Bailey inspected each weapon before settling on an unassuming sword, one that felt more natural in his hand than a pencil. It scared him.
“Thank you for flying with us! Have a nice day!” chirped the flight attendant next to the door.
He smiled back. “Thanks, you too.”
”Good luck, Mr. Allison”
Bailey frowned as he stared up at the signs. Did they really have to put the letters so close together? Sighing, he mouthed the words to himself before he found the right ones: “Baggage Clam, no, Baggage Claim.”
A birthday banner with so much glitter, it threatened to tear.
He started forward, trying to keep from running.
One of Max’s wicked smirks. A suffocating van. A terrifying Ares camper lumbering towards him.
Dammit, why were the escalators so slow? Why weren’t the people moving? Didn’t they know they were supposed to walk while using the escalator? If they wanted to stand completely still, they should’ve taken the elevator.
A canister of laughing gas from gods-knows-where. Lazy naps in the boiling sun. Impromptu surfing competitions.
He ground his teeth.
The snap of an ankle. Twin shrouds. A flash of wings.
Bailey picked up his pace when he saw the final sign for the baggage claim.
Twenty foot violet bonfires. Late-night confessions. A kiss in a canoe.
That when he saw them. Well, he saw the balloon first—ridiculously flashy and neon orange. A shiny ribbon ran from it to his mother’s clenched fist. She was standing on her tiptoes, staring out, determined. Had she always been that small? And since when did she have grey in her hair? Guilt gnawed at him. He should’ve messaged his parents more often.
And next to her, his dad. Leaning against a crutch, his leg covered in a cast, hair slightly askew, but he was still there, grinning broadly for his eyes had found Bailey.
”Dude, you’re slower than the nine-year-olds. Are you sure you’re a Hermes kid?”
Bailey was halfway across the room before he realized he was sprinting— flying, really—trying to close the gap between the mortal and immortal worlds and gain back a few precious seconds of lost time. Just before he reached them, he skidded to a stop.
What was he supposed to say?
It didn’t matter. He only made it to “Hi, Mom. Dad,” before he found himself enclosed in their embrace, safely home.
And that was when the memories stopped. They spun away until they were far from reach, left to drift among the dust motes in the golden afternoon sunlight forevermore.
***
It was an uncharacteristically cold April night, and he had a flight to catch the next day (really, the same day considering that it was nearly three in the morning). Of course, that didn’t stop Bailey from spending the night on the beach, absentmindedly drawing circles in the sand while he stared out at the waves.
There was something about ungodly hours that elicited the memories and thoughts that were supposed to be kept far, far away in the recesses of his mind. He knew there was a reason he went to bed so early.
Unwillingly, he found himself thinking about the people he would be leaving behind. For the moment, that meant Bobbi. It was strange to think that he would be returning to California the next day, while she would never be to again.
Then again, would she really have wanted to?
The amnesia had stripped her of all desire to go to California. To surf. She’d never really been Bobbi after becoming amnesiac. She had lost all interest in surfing, for gods’ sake. As Bailey searched the waves, he realized that he’d already lost her long before the hellhound that had sent the Camp into hysterics.
The thought was strangely comforting. That meant tomorrow—or today if he was being technical about it—he wouldn’t actually lose everyone at Camp. After all, how many of them were the same people he had first encountered, months, years ago? That was why he was leaving in the first place, wasn’t it? They were truly, completely gone, and they would never come back. It was a matter of letting go.
Bailey got up and walked to the water’s edge, kicking off his shoes as he did so. As the water washed over him, calming him, he decided that he could let go of Bobbi. Maybe not completely (was that even possible?), but well enough.
The others would come in time.
Notes: I’m still not completely sure how I feel about the last italicized bit. If you hate it, feel free to tell me. I think the post works well enough without it, so just pretend it ends at “…sunlight forevermore.” I tried to put in a reference to every single one of Bailey’s old threads, so have fun looking for them. Some are really subtle though. Anyway, this is Bailey’s last canon post, and I hope it did him justice. I think he finally got the ending he needed.
Goodbye, Bailey. It’s been a good run.