He managed to get up, that much he remembers. The next thing he knows, he's a block away from Percy's house. He's pressing his uninjured hand against his chest, trying to stop the blood flow from the large wound. Nico's hoping he hasn't lost that much blood, but he can already feel the affects of blood loss. His eyes are slowly, but steadily, losing focus and he's feeling dizzier with each step.

The night had gotten freezing a while ago. Nico hardly noticed due to the pain in his whole body. His teeth were chattering, which was starting to give him a headache. Honestly, how could the night get any worse?

Two knocks was all it took. Nico knew he looked horrible, but he couldn't find it in him to care when the door swung open. Paul Blofis stood, disheveled in the doorway, obviously fresh out of bed. Of course, he knew better than to ignore a middle-of-the-night-knock for the simple reason that it was probably Nico looking for help. Paul, like always, stood aside and yelled for Sally to bring the first-aid kit.

Nico took a step into the apartment and promptly collapsed with exhaustion. Paul grabbed him underneath his shoulders, sleepiness forgotten, and dragged him to the couch. Sally was running from the hall, a wide-eyed Percy tailing her. She clutched the first-aid kit and set it down on the coffee table. Nico heard Paul say something about getting ready for work before he walked away. He knew that Paul disagreed with this arrangement, he thought that they should call the police on Ralph. And he would have done so himself, if it wasn't for Nico always begging him not to.

"Nico, what happened?" Sally took in all of his injuries, "Ralph didn't do all of this, did he?" she stared at him with an expression that was bordering on horrified. Nico tried to take a deep breath to answer her, but the cut on his chest was making it difficult to do so. Instead, he looked past Sally to Percy and tried to convey the message with his eyes. Percy seemed to understand.

"Mom, maybe we should take care of that first," he said, pointing to the still bleeding wound. Sally nodded her agreement and pressed gauze from the kit onto it to stop the bleeding. She stuck medical tape to it to keep it in place and took Nico's uninjured hand and placed it there.

"Keep pressure on this," she instructed.

Percy was watching from a distance, but interjected once the gauze was on there, "Mom, could I talk to Nico alone for a while?"

Sally glanced at him, and seemed to understand. She nodded once and stood up to leave.

Once his mother was gone, Percy took her place next to Nico on the couch, "So, you gonna tell me what happened?"

When Nico didn't say anything, Percy continued with a question that he would rather have not asked, "You-...you didn't... do this to yourself, did you?" he asked, referring to the bleeding gash on Nico's chest.

Nico let out a tiny sigh, and Percy unfortunately took it the wrong way, " Nico, how could you do this?!" Percy's loud tone shocked Nico into movement. He reached his arm up in an attempt to calm Percy down, realizing too late that it was his injured wrist. Nico let loose a strangled cry of pain and heaved in a deep breath, which jostled the gauze on his chest. The combined pain of his wrist and chest was too much, he heard Percy yell for Sally before he succumbed to darkness.

Nico awoke in a bedroom. A quick glance around confirmed that it was Percy's. He cataloged his injuries. His wrist was wrapped and his chest bandaged. He was wearing one of Percy's T-shirts. The sun was shining through the window making the room bright and slightly orange so it was probably mid afternoon. He had missed a whole day of school. Ralph will be pissed. Nico groaned and thought it might be best to get home now instead of waiting and making it worse. He started to get out of bed, but stopped when he heard someone coming to the door. Nico knew that they wouldn't approve of him going home just yet, so he quickly lay back down just as the door opened. Percy appeared with a bottle of water and offered it to him before sitting in a chair across from the bed.

After he took a drink of water, Nico said, "Thanks,"

Percy nodded, "So... what really happened?"

Nico gave him the shortened version, "The usual at home, then on my way here I got jumped,"

Percy bristled at the mention of his home, then he was just pissed, "you got jumped? By who? Nico, you should report this!"

Nico gave a solemn laugh, "Right, but then I'd have to come up with a way to explain this," he held up his wrapped wrist.

Percy frowned then shrugged, "Or you could just tell the truth," he suggested.

Nico stared at him, doubtful.

"Or not," Percy said wistfully, "I still think you should-"

"It doesn't matter," Nico interrupted, "I'll go to school tomorrow and I'll forget all this,"

Percy scoffed, "Go to school? And then what? Go home? This will all just happen again, you know that. It'll happen if you're late, or if you're being too loud, or, hell, if you're being too quiet-"

"Perce. I get it. But I'm fine, and I'll go to school and I'll go home and I'll lay low,"

"But-"

"Percy, I'm fine,"

Percy really hated Nico's definition of 'fine'.

A/N: let me know if you want me to continue. Review!