Caught Red Handed ((Janelle Carrillo))

Qual è il punto di innamorarsi, Beatrice? Tutti i problemi e il dolore...perché qualcuno dovrebbe anche preoccuparsi?
Non essere sciocca, Dante. L'amore è una cosa bellissima. Non c'è motivo di avere paura di essa. Problemi e feriti sono inevitabili, ma c'è così tanto bene che viene fornito con loro!
Sei mai stato innamorato?
Una volta. Ma ero giovane, e non avrebbe mai potuto essere. Forse dovremmo andare in piazza oggi. Penso che possa piovere più tardi...non serve essere catturati in una tempesta.
A strange conversation, now that Dante thought about it.  It was no wonder Beatrice had been quick to change the subject...she knew she was talking to her son.  It would have gotten incredibly awkward to go into how she had fallen for a Roman God...his father.  Not then.  Not when the boy didn't know anything about such things.  But turning his pendant, a gift from his father, over in his hand, the son of Janus could deal with the memories...the flashback so much easier.  Something like that...a complicated conversation, would have knocked Dante off his feet before.  Now, with the pendant and his learning to control strange memories and such that resurfaced, he found himself watching this sort of "flashback" more as a distant observer than reliving the painful moments.  Since his claiming, Dante found he could settle more comfortably between the past and the present.  Things were making more sense thanks to his father.  The Two Headed God...always looking both ways.  And as much as Dante had been dwelling on the fact that Beatrice was his mother, he knew there was much more about his past that needed to be uncovered.  And that even as he uncovered it, he needed to stay grounded in the present.  That much was certain...and that much was even harder to figure out.  If Janus had a third head...

Love...amore...a topic Dante had never really approached.  He had never really had feelings like that before.  Typically, he felt it best to stay away from the idea as a whole.  But so much was changing here and Camp Jupiter 2.0.  The boy wasn't in love, persay.  That seemed way too steep a word after one meeting.  But something had changed anyway...something had clicked.  A chance meeting on an early spring night.  An ethereal kiss that had turned Dante's world upside down.  And a younger boy that the son of Janus hadn't seen since.  He had a name...Griffin Carrillo, and not much else.  He was Spanish.  He was hauntingly handsome.  And the tall boy would give anything to see him again.  Not love, but an enigmatic attraction.  Probably not reciprocated...Dante sort of felt that if it had been, he and Griffin would have met again by now.  Maybe not.  The boy truly knew nothing about this stuff.  Any of it...from romance to how the Gods and Goddesses worked.  There had to be something...what had happened in the woods that night was unexplainable and powerful.  To Dante, anyway.  He had to keep reminding himself of that part.  Just because Dante had felt it didn't mean Griffin had.  It was something of a sad thought.  And somewhere inside, the boy knew he wasn't doing himself any good by hiding out in the barracks or woods, but his proactive days were long over.  The days spent as a champion high school debater...things changed.  Everything changed.  Dante was someone different than he had been before...for better or for worse.  A deeper, more contemplative being.  Taking a shaky breath, the boy held the pendant from his father tighter.

Days spent like this.  Sitting in his corner top bunk, back to the wall, long legs bent and held tightly to his chest.  No one really noticed him anymore...most of the Fourth Cohort had figured to ignore the quiet boy who spent most of his time in that very position, staring straight across.  Or maybe it had just gotten to the point where Dante just blended into the background.  He didn't mind either way...as long as no one bothered him...started questioning him.  However long he had been at Camp Jupiter 2.0 and the boy still barely knew anyone.  He didn't dare let himself.  Dealing with people wasn't a specialty of Dante's these days, and the thought of letting anyone in sent chills down his spine.  But of course, there was always the exception.  It was strange, but the tall boy felt like it would be fine if he opened himself to Griffin.  One meeting in the woods and something so drastic had changed.  Had clicked.  Whatever.  Like some sort of key.  The boy's claiming by Janus had changed a lot, as Dante had heard claimings did, but there was still a piece missing.  Perhaps the human element?  Despite the fact he wanted nothing to do with most people, the boy knew that humans were social creatures by nature.  He had been a thriving one, once upon a time.  Change...funny how daunting it was to Dante even though his father all but presided over it.  It should have been a part of the boy.  Something to work with.  If it was, he had yet to gain any control over it.  In time, perhaps.  Though he definitely could have used it now.

The door to the Fourth Cohort barracks opened.  As usual, Dante didn't even glance at whoever had entered.  There was far too much on his mind to even really bother.  As usual.  The boy didn't have much interest in getting to know anyone in his Cohort at this point.  There had been a conversation with one of them when Dante had first arrived at camp that had gone sour...it wasn't like the boy expected everyone to be like that, more that he just didn't have it in him.  People...people confused the tall boy far too much.  Maybe it wasn't worth it.  Maybe the idea of doing anything involving people...even Griffin was just bad for Dante.  Truly, though...for a young man whose father was always looking into the past and future, how did he figure out how to live in the present?  Maybe there was really no way.  Some sort of strange realization that Dante was to be alone, living through memories.  Hiding in some strange area between the past and the future that wasn't the present.  Did that even make any sense?  Strange words...strange semantics.  Something more for the boy to sort through, he supposed.  Taking a deep breath, Dante glanced to the side, jumping slightly as he did.  A girl about his age stood there...unexpected!  The boy had seen her around the barracks, but never really noticed her.  He figured it was the same vice versa.  Staring for a moment, Dante finally ventured softly, "Hai bisogno di me per lasciare o qualcosa del genere?"  The Italian came more easily, and kept others away.  This would be over before he knew it.

((Hey, look, a Google Translate link! It's what I use, so hopefully it'll be useful!))

For the first time since her return, Janelle was dressed down, the way she had always chosen to look for the boys in Wyoming and the first time around in Camp Jupiter. Instead of glammed up with her hair smoothed back into a more sophisticated look, the girl had left her long, brown locks a mass of teased, unbrushed mane with a simple headband that provided some necessary contrast and allowed by passers to realize her head was indeed head-shaped. Her eyes were complimented by a smearing of navy so dark it was almost black over her entire lid, accompanied by a wear-proof waterline coating and an equal smearing of the color on her lower eye. Since her untimely disappearance from the states, the look had become quite popular again, and Janelle was shamelessly glad - it was about ten minute's less work on her face in the mornings, and the only thing that was intensive about the process was lining the skin between her eye and lashes on the upper lid. That little bit of pink showing through really killed the look, and Janelle never let looks fail her, unless someone interrupted her process of getting ready for the day. The lashes themselves, per usual, were covered in three or four different coats of mascara, making the need for false lashes disappear completely - no one wanted to deal with glue that early in the morning, and Janelle regarded anyone else who said otherwise as either a compulsive liar or someone who genuinely had no training in the use of mascara.

For the first time in a long time, Janelle let her shoulders roll forward as she walked along the road, noting that she didn't turn as many heads as usual - disappointing. Maybe her constant presence had started taking a toll - people who once rubber necked were no longer surprised at her walking down the path. But it was more likely that they simply didn't recognize her. It had been a long time since she had dressed this poorly - an old Beetles t-shirt she'd stolen from an old boy friend that now had both arms removed and a large part of the sides cut open so that the amount of skin revealed was beyond risque, a pair of shamelessly pleather-y short shorts coupled with equally pleather-y 80's boots with a wide opening. It was, most definitely a distinctly American look, and now that Janelle had spent a year in Europe, the girl didn't quite seeing the old appeal of dressing like this - her new tan made the darker colors on her eyes paradoxically darker and lighter than they had before, and Jan didn't know how she felt about it. Yes, the blue hints in the powder made her eyes stand out (blue drew blue, as everyone ought to know), but Janelle most likely would have to make this a decidedly winterized look, if she ever was unfortunate enough to be back here in the snow. The shirt, at least, could be used for pajamas or working out (when she did so, which was rare), the shoes could be hidden under some flare-cut pants, but the shorts could go no other place than the trash. No charity ought to be forced to deal with so much pleather.

And so it was that Jan walked into her barrack, rubbing her eyes in a manner than turned her fingers blue, but didn't quite smear the make up in a fashion that was truly visible. With a frown, the girl rubbed her forefingers on the underside of her shirt, aware the blue stain would never fully wash out, but caring far too little. It was a PJ shirt, she was in the process of taking it off. The door behind her clanged shut and she moved off to her new bunk, selecting something that was far more blouse-like and not modified to pull over her head. After a quick look in the mirror just to the left of her bunk, Jan gathered the free bits of her hair and pulled them into a bun at the nape of her neck, pinning it in place quite quickly. The look was far more posh and made her briefly consider her stance on the shorts, but in the end, her decision was still the same, and Janelle added some white powder to the space under her brow and in the inner corner to the midlid, creating a gradient of sorts with the darker color. Mejor, she thought, pursing her lips ever-so slightly. The area closest to her lashes had been left untouched in order to create a lined appearance, and the granddaughter of beauty to admire her work - it was the first time she'd gotten both sides to be so amazingly straight and even. The mirror was just large enough that Janelle could see her black enamel necklace showing before it disappeared under the collar of her shirt, and she pulled it out, admiring the black and quite real shine it gave off, contrasting with the darkness of the shorts and boots.

All in all, the adjustments took about ten minutes, and it wasn't until she was on her way out that Janelle noticed the man sitting in his bunk in a manner than Jan considered herself to be very familiar with - knees together, feet out, head down: someone was rejecting the world. Unhealthily curious, Jan approached, her head tilted, recalling every other time she'd ignored this demigod, including the day he'd come back practically glowing with the feeling of divine intervention - Jan had assumed he'd been claimed and had stopped being interested the second she realized he wasn't a descendent of Venus. But now, the Spaniard knew he was happier, and the cause was a someone rather than a something. Her narrow window for mischief had opened and was about to close, and anything she had been preparing to say or do was suddenly blown out of the water by the boy speaking Italian. Having had the opportunity to sit in on a Vogue shoot (and work on her professional make up skills), Jan recognized the language easily, though its meaning escaped her in a way that Spanish, English and most French didn't. Instead of bursting forth with a startled "¿Qué?", Jan preserved her surprised look by raising an eyebrow and doing her best to look amused. "You're happy. Who are you thinking about?" She mused, moving close enough to the bed that he couldn't ignore her presence. If needed, Jan would climb up that ladder and sit on the bunk with him, prying one answer after another out of him.