When Nico was in the infirmary, Percy did not sleep. This was not uncommon for him, but it hadn't happened for a long time. Well, actually two weeks. But that felt like a long time ago now. He was living in the present for the first time, and the present presently sucked.
Nico was almost always asleep. Apparently he had really screwed himself up, but doesn't remember anything about what happened. The healer said that it was normal, the amount of blood he lost caused him to forget some things. Hazel hadn't been much help with determining why he had been caught off guard in the first place, but had told them who stabbed him. Said boy was almost murdered by Percy, but saved by Jason. He was lucky to only retain a few scratches and a couple of death threats. Only a couple.
Piper, whose troubles had almost been forgotten, was watching Percy bother Annabeth again. He wasn't allowed to see Nico after he managed to knock over every single bottle of rubbing alcohol in the Apollo cabin. And it was not only driving him crazy, but also Annabeth as she dealt with all of his misery. The wise woman was the one to turn to in times of tragedy and heart break, even she was partially the cause for the heart break. She wasn't his best friend for nothing.
The daughter of Athena's eyes wandered over to the beauty queen. They were wide and obviously tired. Dealing with Percy was not an easy job, she wondered how Nico could deal with it. Annabeth was the best suited for the job, knowing him for so long, but it still was tiring.
"Hey Percy, I think Jason is out training. Why don't you go and join him?" She suggested, smirking slightly at the blonde. What she didn't notice was the light blush covering the older girls cheeks. Percy however noticed this and smiled brightly. He may not be as oblivious as people thought, but he was still pretty oblivious. She blushed even brighter as he jogged away, winking with both eyes and a partial head nod. What a dork.
"So, what have you been doing lately?" Annabeth asked, scratching the back of her head.
Piper shrugged her shoulders. "Trying to find my stupid cursed dagger." Annabeth cocked her head to the side. The native American huffed and continued on with her story. "Nobody has seen it. I even pulled out the good old charmspeak and still nothing. Nobody has it. It's been what, a week since I lost it now? This is getting tiring."
Annabeth couldn't help but smile mid-rant. Which made Piper question her but not stop complaining. Finally when the blonde was on the verge of tears from containing laughter, did the brunette lash out.
"What is it? Do you think it's funny that I lost an ancient artifact? They're probably going to kill me or put me on a log and have a beaver eat my spleen every day or something!" She shouted, catching the attention of some younger campers. The older campers knew by now that the seven were very unique, and to ignore them because it was just a waste of time to try and figure out what was going on.
After taking a minute to catch her breath and control her breathing, Annabeth proudly smirked and reached into her sheath. The sheath that usually held her blade was housing a guest. Picking her jaw up off the ground, Piper grabbed her blade from her friend, cutting herself on the sharp edge, but she didn't notice.
Mouth closed but eyes demanding an answer to an unasked question, Piper stared right through Annabeth's soul.
"So, I found your blade lying on the floor outside of your cabin last week. I put it out by the basketball court so someone would find it, and to teach you a lesson. Don't leave your stuff lying around. I thought Chiron would tell me if they found your blade, so I went back to work. But he never said anything, and I forgot all about hiding it. When Percy came to ask me about it, I had no genuine idea where it could be," she said. Piper frowned at her.
"Why would you do that? I could have gotten in a lot of trouble," Piper muttered under her breathe.
"Like you care if you get in trouble," Annabeth said. Piper shrugged and the other girl continued. "Even if you did lose it, they wouldn't do anything. You might lose desert privileges for a week, but you won't be killed or anything. Do you know how many ancient artifacts Percy has broken, and he's still here. But back to the story. I had completely abandoned the idea of finding it by capture the flag. But right after, when everyone was finally calming down from Nico's injury, a little girl comes up to me. She's holding Katoptris, and claiming she saw faces in it. The girl was trembling, so I took it from her and sent her to bed. And since then I've kept it."
She smiled victoriously. Piper sighed and backed up against the wall of the Big House, slowly sliding down it. She had never been happier to see the stupid blade. Clutching it to her chest, she watched Annabeth retreat towards her library like cabin.
Glancing down at the blade, she took a deep breath. This blade had belonged to Helen of Troy. Who started a war based off of vanity and love. She wondered what it was like to be in love. What she had with Jason was forced, she had been living in a bitter sweet dream. A dream she was glad to wake up from.
This blade worked wonders, right? It had showed her some pretty horrible things, maybe it owed her one good one. She took it in both hands and closed her eyes, focusing her heart and soul on the dagger and her question. Or questions. Who will I love? Will I ever fall in love? Do I know him? Is it a demigod? When do I meet him?
Opening her eyes was one of the hardest things she had done in a long time. She wanted to know but at the same time she didn't. It felt like cheating. But if you can't win, cheat. That sounded like a Hermes saying.
Stormy grey eyes flashed across. Blonde hair blew across the petite yet strong face. Just as she began to understand what she saw, the vision vanished.
Okay, so maybe not a he.
Nico was tired of sleeping.
Impossible, right?
Everyone was surrounding him all the time, asking stupid questions. Yes, I feel fine. No, I don't remember what happened. No Jason, you shouldn't murder whoever tried to kill me. And don't let Percy either.
He was only a little glad when Percy got kicked out. More time to himself basically meant another season of Doctor Who on Netflix. The gods had enough sense to let the demigods have wifi. That would have been way too much culture shock for some campers.
Hazel had been in much worse condition than he had. She would start crying randomly, and Nico was not very good at handling tears. Leo would come and try and help and it usually worked. But sometimes it made it worse. It wasn't just her that had problems; they all had some form of PTSD to deal with. Nico would sometimes shut people out randomly, but not just ignoring. He could not physically hear them. He noticed that Annabeth and Percy did it too. Maybe it was from Tartarus.
Frank and Jason seemed to get violent. Piper would mess with people all the time for no reason besides to enjoy herself. Leo was in a depressed coma for hours on end. Hopefully over time the symptoms would lessen and they could go back to being semi-normal. As normal as demigods could be. It didn't help being from a different time period either.
A creaking sound came from the window. Nico's head turned so fast it hurt his neck. Yup, too much Netflix. He grabbed his sword from his nightstand (the only bonus of having a half blood healer, weapons at the ready all the time) and swung his legs over the bed. Percy had given him some of his clothes that reeked of sea salt and fish. But it was Percy's smell, so it was good. Beside the excessive use of the color blue all throughout the outfit.
Then the window swung open. That would have been perfectly normal had the window been a window that opened like a door, but this window did not. Or rather, it wasn't supposed to. On the other side of it was none other than Percy Jackson, checking out the damage he caused, and obviously swearing under his breath.
Nico had to stop himself from shouting. That would let the other campers know that he had a visitor, which was prohibited. Well, visitors were fine. Percy wasn't allowed. He stepped through the window like the door it appeared to be. A wide smile crossed his face as he caught sight of Nico in his clothes. They were too big on him, but it made it even cuter.
He took two long strides and engulfed his boyfriend in a hug. He had decided to call him that from now on. It sounded good. Nico groaned in pain, and Percy dropped him like a hot potato, which made him hurt more. Even with the magic, Nico was in bad shape before the game. He constantly used too much energy and didn't eat enough. Needless to say he was not allowed to skip any meals or do any kind of physical activity for a long time.
He didn't mind for once. Being lazy was fine, as long as he got to talk to people. Contrary to popular belief, he did not hate everyone. There were plenty of people at camp that he talked to regularly. Mostly children of minor gods that didn't hate him as much. Or at least judge him because of his father.
Percy smiled apologetically, and sat down on the bed across from Nico's. With a grunt, the dark eyed boy sat across from him. They just sat there in each other's presence.
Looking back to when he hated Percy Jackson, he couldn't understand the source of that anger. Bianca was gone, yes, and he had been there. He had promised to protect her, but she was supposed to try and protect herself too. It was her fault really, but he couldn't accept that. And Percy Jackson had been the closest one, so he blamed him. He hated with his entire heart.
When that emotion turned into love was still a mystery to him. He just remembered looking into those sea green eyes and not seeing Bianca for once, but seeing himself reflecting out of them. Seeing himself happy.
Suddenly, he dived on the other boy, knocking him onto his back with Nico straddling his waist. Percy looked so shocked that Nico laughed.
"Doesn't that hurt?" Percy asked, being the overprotective boyfriend that he always was. Nico shook his head and leaned down, only an inch between the two.
"I've felt worse." He closed the gap.
That's the end! Hope you liked it, I think it got worse as it went on, but I wrote it so I don't really know. Hope you enjoyed it at least. Reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!