You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!

The archery range always had it's own atmosphere of emotion no matter the weather. It could be a brightly lit day and sometimes all Atlas could hear were campers whining, the frustrated clatter of arrows, or tosses of language so colorful it was impossible to illustrate. It could be a cloudy and quiet morning and the people testing their skill would be cheering themselves on loud enough to fill an entire section of seating in the arena. Right now, it was one of those days were only half those practicing had their arrows riding on the winds of luck.
"Ouch!" Atty whispered to himself, grimacing at the sight of what could have been a perfect bullseye.
He shifted his attention to another range and it's archer and skipping to another again, growing tired of the almost perfected skill and level of ease the Apollo children had at the sport. His eyes fell on someone he had witnessed at the range various times, their complaints making him fight the corners of his mouth.
Something caught his attention from the corner of his eye and he watched another archer, his cornflower blue eyes observing intently. Almost each and every one of the people down there kept still, kept focused, and some how managed to keep their hands in the right position so effortlessly it made Atlas jealous. He wished he could do that.
Playing with the ring on his finger, he sighed. Of all the weapons he could have had in that stupid ring he got stuck on his finger, it was a stupid bow and arrow. He was stuck with the one weapon and object of defense that required every skill he could never have. He swore that he was the center of some joke among some god up there. Between his ticks that would make the arrow's flight fail and his OCD that would make the take off the sharpened stick delayed, he would never be able to defend himself let alone actually make a hit on the target.
"I'd shoot my eye out," Atty mumbled to himself, unsure if his light humor turned into a sour statement of truth.

"That would be a little hard to do, the arrow is suppose to go away from your face." Galena said, walking up to the lane beside the boy. She had a standard camp stock bow and their arrows, nothing spectacular. She wasn't great with the bow, but she was dismal with a sword and was trying to find her niche.

Twelve arrows in the quiver, she pulled out three and placed them in the ground beside her. "I take it archery is not your forte?"

Atlas jumped at the sound of someone else's voice beside him. He folded his arms tighter against his chest before even daring to look to his side. The last thing he needed on his list of problems were imaginary friends.
Glancing down at the blonde next to him, he was relieved to at least recognize her from around the camp. He was sure he knew her name but it escaped him now. If his face could turn any paler than it was, it did in that very moment as she directed a question at him, even if it was rhetorical.
"N-No," He admitted softly, dropping his gaze and focusing back on the archers. "It's too comp-plica-ated. Too-Too many things to ke-eep track of. There's too many things t-to... mess up. A-And I'm too sha-...shaky."

Galena sighed softly when the boy answered, she could understand being nervous about things. Her life was filled with anxiety, half in her own mind's making. Threes, sevens, and twelves dominated her life. Religious symbolism of the Roman Catholic, and then Greek faiths, feelings and obsessions over guilt. Few things made it better, though her symptoms had eased some at camp without as much stress of being locked up like a juvenile delinquent. Let's just ignore the fact that she was indeed a juvenile delinquent.

"First thing is first. Relax, take three deep breaths. You aren't going to do perfectly on your first go 'round, and that's alright. Practice makes perfect. Even Apollo kids can't hit the bullseye every time with a bow." She said, then she stretched her bow of for a second, then carefully returned it to it's original state. She did that two more times, telling herself it was to stretch her muscles and not a compulsion.

Tugging at his ear, Atty stared at the ground. He tried to keep himself from doing it again as she spoke but he cringed almost violently as if someone decided to throw ice cubes down his back. He was glad that she was focused on her arrows and didn't get to gawk at him and his damned ticks.
"S'not just th-tha-at," He told her, tugging back at his ear.
Atty could never practice his archery without being overcome by his nerves. If there were too many people, he would strive for average success in his session but would inevitably get so nervous, he would have to run out from being practically attacked by his ticks that came onto him out of their usual pattern. When he was alone, he would constantly be looking around himself since his paranoia constantly kept him thinking someone was going to see him and he needed to control his ticks.
He slumped over and bristly fixed his posture, repeating the action five times before tugging back on his ear.

Galena noticed the tics and repeated behavior. Her lips pulled down into a concerned frown. She would bet a hundred drachma she knew part of the problem. "You alright? Need to go somewhere to relax a little bit? I, I..." She stopped, looking around three times before looking back at the other guy. "I understand compulsions. They get worse with stress, and then you get more stressed because you can't stop because it sooths you. Maybe stepping away a minute can help. It does for me." She said, her voice quieter, the upstate New York accent barely carrying over the noise of other campers.

Atty bit his lip. He was loosing it more than usual now, he had to be- no one was ever capable of pin-pointing the reason behind his strange behavior. He had to be loosing it. But, she had practically analyzed him in less than a second and was already using the correct terms.
"Y-You know ab-... ab-b-" Atty stopped himself, his stutter handicapping him from continuing his sentence as simple as it was. "A-Ab-b..."
He took a deep breath, licking his lips nervously. He couldn't even think straight at this point and he hardly noticed his own twitch and tugging of ear, as violent as it was this time. He shook his head to himself.

Galena bit her lip for a second. She hasn't really talked about her OCD to anyone before. Aside from barely coherent ramblings about threes, sevens and twelves being holy numbers. She remembered the time she had scared off that Hephaestus kid, Malcolm. "I know about obsessions, and compulsions. And the overwhelming feelings. Numbers and symbolism in random, arbitrary things, superstitions that I know don't make sense, but they are real. Real to me."

Atty would have cocked his head to the side out of confusion from her vocabulary but his nerves beat him to it with an involuntary jerk of his head to the right. He bunched up the hem of his sleeves in his hands nervously, the collar and it's faint rips growing the tiniest bit with his anxious tugging.
"I-If only it was-was just that," He mumbled under his breath, trying to control the speed of his arm as he reached up to tug his ear once more.

Galena cringed slightly when she saw him go for his ear again. The poor guy seemed so miserable and anxious. She had spent half her life pretending to be tough to avoid being preyed upon in foster homes, group homes and the detention facilities, most of her compulsions and obsessions weren't as obvious. In fact, the one person who had diagnosed her said her case was fairly mild. It didn't feel mild at times. Compared to this guy, though, it was definitely mild.

"Come on, let's take a walk. Get away from the noise for a little bit. Oh, and I'm Galena, daughter of Athena. I think OCD runs in the Athena crowd. Brainiacs and nerds. Engineer type people."

Atlas bit his lip, careful to avoid the healing cut on his lip from one of his more serious ticks. He tugged on his ear again before using his left hand to restrain his arm from repeating the action.
"Atlas," He said, surprised he didn't stutter his name. "Or Atty. S-Son of-of Epiph-ph-phron."
As much as the girl tried to put him at ease, she was making his nerves sky rocket. Socializing was the complete opposite of Atty's forte but he was glad she was so calm and seemingly understanding, especially since they both had just learned each other's names.
He turned on his heel to return to the seats behind them, bouncing his knee. This wasn't normal anxiety at all. He was in the midst of an anxiety attack and transitions only made it worse. He wasn't sure he could will himself to walk over some place else. Hopefully, though, he could let himself calm down and listen to Galena and talk. She didn't seem to mind talking to him considering she spoke more than a few sentences every time he managed to finish his few words.

Instead of going for a walk, the other guy, Atty, headed for some seats and sat down while bouncing his leg hard enough that Galena couldn't help but mentally associate it with a jack rabbit. The daughter of Athena sighed and cleared her throat, then twice more for good measure and walked over, setting her bow against another chair. "Epipheron, god of shrewdness and carefulness. Seems like you and I have brainiac parents in common." She said absently, her brain working overtime. She had trouble seeing how a shrewd and prudent god could have an extremely anxious and OCD child. Then again, Athena had unwise children, she was proof of that.

Galena was silent for a few seconds. "Have you ever considered medication for your OCD? I tried it once... Didn't stay on it long enough to see if it actually worked. Left the facility that was giving it to me. The xannies were kinda nice though."

"I do," Atlas admitted. "But it doesn't work."
He traced the cartoon flowers tattooed on his knuckles. He remember his hospitalization very well and unlike a lot of those who were hospitalized, Atty cherished his memories in the psychiatric unit. It was the only place he felt safe in a long time and to this day, it was the only place. He found some of his sanity there and made friends. Everyone there was just as unstable, insane, and messed up as he was and everyone accepted everyone, disorders and all.
He ran his finger over the last yellow flower, a tiny dotted outline of the letter "A" on it's petal. No one ever noticed it and if they did they assumed it stood for Atlas but it was from one of the girls at the hospital who stole a needle and branded him. She never got to finish it since it was suppose to be A-O-K and O-A-K on her hand, symbolizing that Atty and her were gonna be A-O-K and were as strong as oak.
"So, you ha-a-ave O-OCD?"

"I was diagnosed about three years ago." Galena admitted, though she found it hard to do. "I..." She sighed, shaking her head. "Three years ago, I was in a bad way, in a detention facility. They had a psychiatrist on staff, though, and that helped. Numbers, religious symbolism and feelings of guilt."