Road Trip
By 4:15 AM, Reyna was ready to just throw herself under the car and end it all.
She and the seven other people that had been assigned to her SUV were well into the drive from Camp Jupiter to Camp Half-Blood (since fitting several hundred heavily armed demigods onto a plane would be tough to do without getting noticed), and they had made remarkable time so far, but that had come at the cost of most of Reyna's remaining sanity. Even now, her left eye was twitching irritably—which was ordinarily a sign to most people to shut up and give her some space—but apparently the idiots in the car with her were either too oblivious or too battle-frenzied to care about the fact that their praetor was about to blow up.
That, however, was nothing compared to the blonde-haired imbecile (read: Octavian) riding shotgun.
"It's so boring in this car!" he complained, reaching over to flip the radio on as he propped his feet up on the dashboard. Instantly, a screechy wailing that only the most generous soul would describe as "music" filled the car, clawing down the inside of Reyna's skull like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Cassia—a centurion from the Second Cohort and the only other competent person in the car—met Reyna's eyes in the rearview mirror and sighed exasperatedly as the other five idiots began screeching right along with the music. Apparently, they knew every word (if this song even had words, of course, which Reyna wasn't exactly sure about). Octavian, for his part, was headbanging so hard that his forehead kept smashing into his knees—Reyna could only assume that was what he was doing, because to her it looked more like he was having a seizure.
She composed herself as well as she could, turned her attention back to the highway, and kept driving.
By 4:30, the Stupid Six were tired of the whole screamo business and decided—through quite a great deal of arguing and more than one black eye—on good old seventies rock. Reyna settled back into the seat, ready for some actual music, and was met with the voice on the radio saying, "And now, folks, it's time for an old favorite—BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY!"
She could almost hear Cassia's mental scream of agony.
The next two minutes were pure torture as Octavian butchered the solo in a wailing falsetto voice, but the third part of the song—the chorus call-and-response—was when the real fun (read: painful, fiery, imminent death) began.
"I SEE A LITTLE SILHOUETTO OF A MAN! SCARAMOUCHE, SCARAMOUCHE, WILL YOU DO THE FANDANGO?"
"THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTNING, VERY VERY FRIGHTENING ME—"
"GALILEOOO!" screamed Jonathan Summers from the back.
"GALILEO!" yelled Liz Garcia in response.
"GALILEO!"
"GALILEO!"
"GALILEO FIGARO—"
"—MAGNIFICOOOOOOOOO!"
"I'M JUST A POOR BOY, NOBODY LOVES ME!" Octavian screeched.
The rest of the car responded with "HE'S JUST A POOR BOY FROM A POOR FAMILY! SPARE HIM HIS LIFE FROM THIS MONSTROSITY!"
"EASY COME, EASY GO, WILL YOU LET ME GO—"
"—BISMILLAH! WE WILL NOT LET YOU GO—"
"—LET ME GO!"
"—BISMILLAH! WE WILL NOT LET YOU GO—"
"—LET ME GO!"
"—BISMILLAH! WE WILL NOT LET YOU GO—"
"—LET ME GO!"
"WILL NOT LET YOU GO!"
"LET ME GO!"
"WILL NOT LET YOU GO!"
"LET ME GO!"
How much longer is this going to go on? Reyna wondered desperately. She had a terrible urge to hit her head on the steering wheel just to get away from it all.
"BEELZEBUB HAS A DEVIL PUT ASIDE FOR MEEE! FOR MEEEEE! FOR—"
Octavian shrieked the last note at the top of his lungs: "—MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Reyna, practically on the verge of tears, mumbled, "Sweet Jupiter, somebody shoot me."
A/N: Hehehe. :) Rick mentioned that Piper saw the Romans driving to Camp Half-Blood, but he didn't say what went on in the cars...
That just sounded vaguely sexual, didn't it.
Schist.
EPC