I know I said there would be only one more chapter. I totally lied. This chapter did not want to cooperate, at all, and too much was happening too fast. You can thank RosaEldi for this update, my boyfriend Aiden for inspiring part of it by taking care of me while I was sick, and the doctor who put me on some knock-me-on-my-butt pain killers.
I want to write individual replies to reviews, but there's been so many... A huge, HUGE blanket thank you to everyone who reviewed! To all new readers, welcome, and to all the old readers who have been with me since the beginning... I'm so sorry.
This chapter was written almost completely to "L'Amore" (or I think the English version is titled "Love is Here") by Sonohra. You're the only reason I wake up to face every day
You're always here, love keeps you near -
Chapter Twenty Seven
It was the butterfly beating against the edges of his consciousness, a faint irritation in an otherwise perfectly still quiet. He pulled away from it, annoyed.
– co… ico… Nic-… Nico!
Then he remembered that he was Nico. That jolted him a little closer to the faint fluttering. He woke up without having to open his eyes, surprised to find himself in his own room in his father's house.
"Wh…" his voice fell empty, not even echoing off the walls of the mostly-void room with an undisturbed bed.
The flutter came again, weaker. But he felt it all the same.
Walking took more effort than he wanted to admit, like he was completely numb all over. He must have been in a crap ton of pain if he couldn't feel anything at all.
He kept spacing out, floating in and out of his own head until he found himself behind his father as the god faced another Iris message. Nico's mouth brake had apparently decided to engage, because he couldn't bring himself to speak as he saw Rachel Elizabeth Dare in what looked like a cab, sitting and talking with a girl wearing paint-covered jeans.
Nico moved around to be in front of his Father, to face him. He wanted to ask if he had been trying to summon him. But Hades wouldn't even look at him, face drawn tight and gaze settled on the Iris message.
Nico…
Then his world tilted, like in a vacuum, all drawing to one source of warmth, like sunshine on the surf, that Nico recognized instantly.
Percy Jackson was there, standing in the middle of his father's throne room. He was there, and alive.
Percy was there.
Nico still couldn't speak, frozen motionless. His memory felt foggy, like he was dreaming still. But Percy closed the gap, moving to him and grasping Nico's shoulders tightly. The green-eyed boy gave him a weak smile.
"Perc-"
Nico felt cold all over as Percy abruptly pulled him into a rough hug. He couldn't feel it over the sudden, crazy fluttering he felt tip to tip. That butterfly feeling had turned to an electric buzzing. Nico was about to cry out from the sensation when Percy suddenly let go, and kept his gaze lowered as he pushed Nico away. Percy's lips moved without saying anything, and he walked away.
"Percy?" Nico asked, confused. He glanced back at his father, who still faced towards that stupid Iris message. He hadn't even acknowledged Percy's presence in the hall, like he had been expecting it to be there. Nico took it as good a dismissal as any, and moved to follow Percy before Hades could stop him.
"Percy!" Nico called, soundlessly sweeping after him.
Percy didn't stop, he kept walking forward. Nico swore he actually picked the pace up. Percy walked right out of Hades' fortress, and past the shades of the dead. A few turned now and then, glancing at Percy like he was a battery. But then they forgot he ever passed, and otherwise paid no attention to either of the boys as they moved through the crowded fields.
"Would you slow down?" Nico asked, feeling taxed. He had just come back from Tartarus, for-
He was struck still, still as the shades around him, as he remembered that. He had gone to the deepest pit of hell – literally. And all for Percy.
His mind snapped back to the task at hand at the thought of the other boy, and continued to follow him away from the fields, and to the cliffs surround the area of Hades' fortress. Without pausing to confer with Nico, Percy started climbing. Nico felt like all his limbs were dead weight, the fluttering sensation almost sickening now.
"Percy Jackson! Look at me!"
Percy just kept working his way up the steep cliff. Nico vaguely recalled one of the hidden backdoors around here, but how did Percy know about it?
"If you want to leave, I can just shadow travel us out," Nico grumbled, but his voice fell completely hollow.
Nico was certain he was still healing as each step felt heavier and heavier. He momentarily despised his dad for deciding to not let him leave, as the Underworld dragged and tugged at him from just inside his gut.
The fluttering turned to sharp stabs of pain, like creaking joints and the throbbing of a broken heart. Whatever numbed him was wearing off. Nico tripped as he remembered with each painful current how his skin seared and flesh broke apart in the hellhole of Tartarus. He couldn't contain the groan of pain at the thought.
"Percy-!"
Percy jerked and stilled, staring ahead with his fists clenched tightly at his sides. He was saying something, Nico could see his jaw working and his throat straining, but the thrumming in Nico's head drowned it out.
"You… contemptuous… git!" Nico ground out as he forced his feet to move again. "Turn and look at someone when you talk to them-!"
Percy kept moving, infuriatingly just out of Nico's reach, leading him on until the sunshine of the Upper World broke across Nico's skin.
Nico's eyes were suddenly watering as his legs gave out completely, Percy catching him before he hit the ground. "Nico! Nico Nico Nico…" His name came as a shaky prayer from Percy's lips as Percy wrapped his jacket around Nico's very cold and bare body.
Only when his heart pulsed did he remember how it felt when it stopped.
After that was…blurry. Nico slipped in and out of consciousness. His thoughts were broken by chunks of dreamless sleep. He half wondered if he would ever dream again. He roused long enough to find himself in Percy's arms, each time. He would try to speak, and Percy would clutch him closer. Then he'd be gone again into the endless abyss.
When Nico finally cracked open his dusty eyes, he saw orange. Camp Half Blood orange. …on him. He blearily blinked, and was about to get upset over wearing the thrice-damned shirt if he didn't rapidly notice the arm stretched across his chest, blocking the camp's full name – or the leg he just noticed was entangled with his. And the dark head of hair the arm was attached to.
Nico jerked, suddenly very aware of where Percy's thigh was pressing. Percy barely stirred as he sleepily mumbled, "S'okay… I've got you… you're safe… S'okay baby…"
"Baby?" Nico choked out, his voice little more than a hoarse release of air. But it was enough to make Percy's eyes snap open. For an eerie moment, Percy's face and those beautiful, sea-green eyes took up the entire expanse of Nico's vision.
"Nico, you're awake!"
Then Percy was sitting up, and Nico thought he had imagined the jumbled limbs since they vanished so fast.
"Thank the gods, I was worried – I thought I hadn't done it right – Like you weren't all there-"
"Hadn't done what right?" Nico asked, but it came out in dry wheezes before he started coughing.
Percy helped prop Nico up against his side, reaching for the water left on every stand in the medical tent next to the ambrosia. Nico couldn't even lift his arms to hold the glass. He had nothing left – scraped completely hollow and taken for everything. Percy pressed the rim to his mouth, and had to remind Nico to drink slowly.
Three full glasses later, Nico finally turned away from the offer of another. Percy helped him lie back down in the cot and covered him with the blankets. Nico hadn't even realized he was shaking from exerting the energy to stay upright. Newborn kittens had more muscle strength than him at the moment.
"What do you remember?" Percy asked cautiously.
"I…" Nico started, and stopped. "I…" His brain was jumbled. Old memories, new memories, empty spots jammed next to recently filled ones. It was like he had four jigsaw puzzles and was trying to put them all together into one picture. "I had a stuffed rabbit," he suddenly blurted.
Percy had the gall to look… confused. "A stuffed rabbit?"
"I took it with me. Everywhere. Oswald." Nico felt enthralled by the sudden 'new' memory that was probably his oldest. "He was rare by then. I lost him in a park." Another memory cropped up. "There was a colored sign on the drinking fountain. Bianca switched the signs once. Mom laughed. She didn't believe in spanking and everyone thought she was crazy."
Nico's mouth brake had given up completely. He babbled, nearly incoherently, until his throat was dry. Percy helped him drink again, and he kept gibbering. It was like diarrhea of the mouth.
But each word brought the puzzle pieces together. The fuzzy feeling that had plagued Nico forever faded solidified slowly, and memories that had escaped him even recently were coming back into alignment.
Then he was exhausted. He couldn't even turn his head the next time Percy offered water. During all of it, Percy just leaned against the wall at the head of the cot and listened. He even clutched at Nico's hand during some of the painful memories.
"Nico," Percy started cautiously, "Are you okay?"
Nico couldn't help but twitch his mouth in a pathetic attempt at a smile in response to Percy's worried tone. "I feel raw," he whispered, shutting his really heavy eyes.
"Are you in pain at all?" Percy asked.
Nico paused to take inventory. For the first time in weeks, nothing hurt, not even the low-lying level pain of something healing. He was just exhausted, but it wasn't painful.
"Am I dead?" Nico attempted at a joke, his voice starting to drag and slur.
"No." Percy's reply was a little too quick, and too harsh. Nico wanted to ask what was wrong, but his mouth didn't want to move again. "Nico…"
Nico hummed lightly to show he was listening.
"Nico, we really need to talk. I…I have to tell you something."
"…kay…" he mumbled, but didn't hear anything after that.
To Be Continued
