When he came to, Nico kept his eyes shut, trying to keep up the illusion of undisturbed dreams for a few extra precious moments. There was no need to get up, after all. He wasn't being asked for today, he wasn't needed to do something. There was no reason to get out of his nest of blanket and sheet and trudge beyond the isolation of his room, not when all he could expect was an awkward, stilted conversation at best, if he even could get that. No, if he went downstairs, he wouldn't even be able to expect a decent "Hello", he would be ignored in favor of Hades and Persephone arguing, or Demeter muttering complaints and telling her daughter that she should have been better off in a marriage to the god of business or manufacturing or agriculture. He would end up sitting at a table too big for only a demigod and several deities, and be ignored until Demeter turned to him and demanded that he eat more cereal. Then Persephone would go off on a tangent about her mother always advocating cereal, and then Hades would get more and more annoyed by the noise level, until he commanded that breakfast be eaten in silence, and then Demeter would turn to Persephone in grim satisfaction and tell her, with an air of triumph, that this was a prime example of why she shouldn't have eaten the pomogranate, and then the entirety of breakfast would end up ruined.

This happened at least several times a week during the time of year that Persephone would stay in the underworld, and each and every time, Nico found that it was better just to leave the room altogether and take his breakfast to eat somewhere else, usually in the Fields of Asphodel, where he could hide in the tall stalks of grain and eat without feeling left out. Sometimes a spirit or two who'd been sentenced to live out their afterlives in the Fields of Asphodel would come and stay with him for a while, keeping him company and talking about their lives before they'd died. Nico didn't usually talk when this happened, but he would listen to them; it was better conversation matter than back in the palace, after all, and he would take what he could get. It was actually rather amusing at times, as many of the spirits had already been in the Fields of Asphodel for many years, and thus had gotten more than enough time to embellish their life stories into massive, overinflated epics.

Today, he decided, would likely be one of those days of eating breakfast somewhere else. He could almost hear the arguing already... No, wait, he actually could hear it: Persephone was shouting something at his father, something too muffled to make out, but it was apparently rather undesirable, because a few seconds later, Nico found his bedroom shaking, the screams of the dead outside suddenly amplified to several times louder than their normal volume. There was a sudden high, piercing wail outside his room, grating on his sensitive eardrums like nails on a chalkboard. The Kindly Ones were voicing some annoyance, it seemed.

Great, just great. Now the Kindly Ones are upset by all the noise, the old hags are probably going to be yelling like banshees for hours...

He groaned and pulled the blanket over his head, pressing the fabric over his ears to help block out the noise. Yep, definitely not a good time to get up.

After a while, he peered out from under his blanket, straining his ears to try to sense if the cacophony of noise had ceased yet. Thankfully, the noise level had gone down enough that he could bear it. He looked down from the relative warmth of his bed, to the cold stone floor below. Did he dare risk losing whatever meager warmth he'd gotten from cocooning himself in his blanket and sheet? Should he brave the frigid floor in order to go downstairs and get breakfast?

In the end, the loud rumble of his stomach answered the question for him. Half god or not, he still needed to eat. Looks like downstairs for me. Another sad attempt at a "family meal" it is, then.

Shivering, he tried to force his body to respond to the thought of getting out of bed. C'mon, di Angelo, there's food downstairs. Even if they don't like you, you still need to go down there and get something to eat, Bianca wouldn't want you to starve yourself.

He wished he hadn't thought of her. The floor, if possible, seemed suddenly very far away, and the air outside of his stuffy cocoon seemed to drop a few degrees. But he had to get up, he had to eat, if only for Bianca. His sister had always looked out for him, made sure he was okay. She wouldn't want him to skip meals just for a bit of warmth. He could imagine her disapproving expression already, tapping one foot, with a look in her eyes that told him, quite clearly, that he would eat something, and that was that.

You always did know how to get me to do things...

Shuddering, he pulled himself free of his makeshift nest, rubbing his eyes sleepily. He would get his food, and then he would go for a walk. It wasn't as if his presence would be missed at the table.

Stumbling across the floor, dazed from sleep and the cold air, he staggered over to the mirror to get ready for the day. He didn't care much for his appearance, but he'd learned from experience that Demeter would disapprove, with many, many scoldings, if he looked untidy. She was, after all, a mother, and mothers, he thought, would probably care about if others looked "presentable".

The reflection looking back at him from the mirror didn't look much like a boy, even one who'd been suspended in time in a magical casino for decades on end. No, he thought, the person looking back at him looked like a ghost, an echo of what once was. His body seemed smaller, somehow, than when he'd first arrived in the underworld some time ago, and he looked haggard, worn, with a slightly gaunt face. His skin, once a pleasant shade of olive, had become whiter than porcelain from weeks without sun. His cheekbones looked sunken, his eyes dark pools, lifeless. Hair his sister had once had to nag him daily to comb was now limp, greasy, dangling before his face in a choppy, uneven curtain of dark snarls and tangles. His hands, in contrast to the rest of his sluggish body, were twitching, tapping undefinable beats and tracing patterns across his thighs; the fingers were bone-thin, and stark white, blue veins tracing intricate tattoos of curls and jagged lines across his wrists and palms.

He couldn't remember what he looked like after Bianca had died; he'd tried to keep away from mirrors or other reflective surfaces since then, trying to keep from looking at his face, a face that looked so much like its twin that it hurt like a knife wound to even glimpse now.

He couldn't avoid his reflection now, not with a mirror hung in his room, the shiny surface mocking him with its perfect display of him, as if to say, See? Look at yourself. You are here, and she is not. You are alive, and she is dead. You are the bad one. You are the one that lives on, while she is gone and left a hole in the fabric of the world. You are here, but she isn't, and that's why your father doesn't like you. He liked her better. What could you offer, you, a puny child with nothing more than ghosts for friends, who spent all his time with Mythomagic cards? What are you, compared to a huntress of Artemis, a girl who died with honor?

He could never answer the silent, mocking questions. He had no answer, after all. He knew he wasn't as good as Bianca.

Sighing, he looked down at his clothes and thought about whether it was worth the effort of changing. He'd worn the same clothes a few days in a row before, to see if anyone would notice. No one said anything, except Demeter, who'd told him to stop being a slob. Should he get changed, then? She was the only person who ever really reacted towards his presence anymore, even if it was only to criticize and scold.

Maybe I shouldn't. I'm not going to be in there for long, anyway. A few more hours of this and I'll go stir-crazy.

When he got to the dining room, he saw they'd already started eating without him. Persephone was playing with the cutlery by her plate, the fork turning into a bouquet of tulips and back again. Hades hadn't even looked up, instead seeming to be solely focused on his food.

I haven't even come in yet, and already I feel like an intruder.

Demeter, however, gave him a look of disapproval as he stood by the doorway. Silently, she pointed to a seat next to her. He nodded. At least this way, Hades would be at the head of the table, Persephone and Demeter sitting across from each other, and he wouldn't have to look at any of them, at least not directly. That could work; he wouldn't have to try, awkwardly, to fit in.

Taking his seat, he silently wished for his breakfast, a few slices of toast with peanut butter and chocolate. Bianca had shown him how to make these, when they were little. They'd eaten this for breakfast every weekend since they'd first tried it. She'd put on the peanut butter, he'd put on the chocolate, and then they'd both smash the toast together at the same time to make a sandwich. She'd cut the sandwich in half, and she always gave him the bigger half.

Now there was no one to put on the peanut butter, no one except himself. It didn't seem to taste as good, but it was better than nothing. When he cut it in two pieces now, he'd take the bigger half and sacrifice it in her name, hoping she might be able to taste it and remember.

Demeter gave him an odd look as the food appeared before him; Nico noticed her stare out of the corner of his eye, and wished she would look away. This was something that only he and Bianca did, and now it seemed tainted, the purity of the memory poisoned.

He grabbed his food and raced out of the room, not looking back. The Fields of Asphodel hid him instantly, as he stumbled as far in as he could. He'd always find his way back. The underworld was his prison, but it was also his playground. He knew it, he felt it, he sensed it everywhere.

Sitting down in the dirt, he began to eat. He wasn't missed back there, he wasn't being called back. He'd be fine eating out here.

It was better this way. If his only company was himself and the dead, so be it. Better than being unwanted, unseen, unheard. Better than suffering in silence at the sham of "family time".

Better than knowing he was not being missed. It was better...right?