2. Fire, Fire, Baby

In which a campfire is nice, but the world which doesn't end is nicer.


It's been a couple of days since the world nearly ended, again. Nico's had his fair share of those. In fact, they're starting to get positively mundane compared to hell and other stuff.

Technically, the world is still ending as the Argo sails smoothly through the air, all its inhabitants stressed but safe. Nico corrects himself on that, but feels strangely unconcerned. The eight of them were nothing but incapable, they could probably do something about the Doors of Death. He is probably disassociating: he'll be feeling the brunt of his emotional instability in his dreams later tonight.

Or maybe he's just disassociating in the face of possible death because it's not even that scary. To be honest, fear and pain has done and probably will do a lot worse to him than death ever will.

The temporary fire in front of him flickers, and the warmth lights something inside him that makes Nico feel okay with things. Everything is fine because they are fine, at this very moment.

("The gay doesn't have to stay away!" His inner gay crows triumphantly. It sounds sugarhigh. Nico hates it, but feels himself loosen a bit anyway.)

Around the fire which looks mostly unstable but relatively strong ("Like me!" The Leo Valdez in his mind gleefully flips his oil-greased hair in time to the finger he receives) reside the rest of the seven. Chaos is being sewn, and marshmallows stolen.

Piper and Annabeth are in the middle of a fight over who can stuff the most marshmallows in their mouths, and around them Jason and Leo sit, sometimes chanting, "fight, fight, fight!" when things get particularly intense. Percy is telling a story about "this time, Frank shapeshifted into a fish, and then he couldn't breathe, so he turned into a toad-I'm not kidding, a green toad, this big, the kind at zoos-and he fucking jumps out of there before they could see him…" Frank and Hazel sit around him, red-cheeked and stuffing occasional marshmallows into each other's mouths.

There's something calming about daily catastrophes, Nico thinks, feeling philosophical as the embers fly up the wooden walls and disappear.

With that, he goes and plops himself in front of Jason and Leo, silently promising murder if they mention anything about the state of his psych.

"Hey, Gloom and Doom!" Leo's right hand fiddles with some paper clips while he smiles up at Nico, "not so gloomy today, huh? Enjoy the fire?"

"Don't burn everything down, Valdez." He says in answer, and is surprised when Leo laughs, putting on a show of fake modesty.

"Me? Just an average repair boy. Nothing average about burning things down, that's probably not me."

Before he could answer, Grace chimes in, "Right, nothing about your firefly powers could possibly start an accidental fire." And then, wonders of all wonders, he smiles at Nico, as if they're sharing a joke of fond exasperation over Leo Valdez, amateur fire starter.

Nico guesses that they are. So he expels his grimace and tries for something not so "doom and gloomy."

It isn't a smile, but it's a lot closer than he has managed the last couple of days. He offers it limply to the two of them, whose eyes widen. But they still stay and sit, flames dancing in twisting shadows, and Grace, for some horrible reason, gives Nico a nod.

And perhaps the nights will bring monsters and nightmares, perhaps they will bring ghosts, families, and confrontations of the self, but Nico really can't bring himself to care.

The fire is warm around them. Jason and Leo are laughing. Nothing is burning. Everything is fine.

(Another half hour later, holding all their valuables, the same could not be said for Nico's burnt hair or Percy's smoldering…diary? But that's something for the Argo Half an Hour Later to deal with.)