Disclaimer: All rights to Rick Riordan. I own nothing, but the plot.
Themes of self-harm, anxiety, and depression are expressed within this story. TRIGGER WARNING! Please do NOT read if these themes upset you. TRIGGER WARNING!
Criticism is appreciated, but please no hate. Please review and leave me suggestions! Enjoy!
Will's POV:
Will was staring at his boyfriend, who was refusing to look at him. About an hour prior, Nico had screamed himself awake from a nightmare but refused to talk to Will. Will had checked over Nico, noting that his injuries from Capture the Flag had already faded. He took Nico's pulse and tried, once again, to get his boyfriend to talk to him.
"Your vitals are stable. You can go if you want." At his words, Nico disconnected the IV and sprang out of the bed. "Nico, please talk to me." The son of Hades walked past Will without saying anything. "Nico, please." His voice cracked.
Nico turned around to face him. "What do you want me to say? You are just going to yell at me for summoning skeletons last night."
"I'm not going to yell at you. I'm just worried."
"Well, you don't have to be. I'm okay."
Will scoffed. "Yeah okay, is that why you woke up screaming? Is that why you are currently in the infirmary for passing out? Again?"
"You are acting like I'm weak and pathetic."
"That's not what I'm saying Nico. I'm worried that you are going to hurt yourself, not because you are weak, but because you are so powerful. Every time you get hurt or pass out from using your powers, I worry. Am I not allowed to worry about you? Or be scared that you are going to get hurt? And that I won't be able to fix you?"
"Anything I do, you can fix. So, stop worrying about-"
"But what if something happens that I can't fix?" Will said forcefully, silencing Nico. "What if you come to me bleeding, expecting me to fix you and you die in my arms? What if that happens? Because it's happened to me before. And it's why I have the same scars you do Everyone puts so much faith in me, but what if I fail? What if I can't save you? And you die? I will deal with that guilt for the rest of my life." Nico didn't say anything so Will continued. "That's why I worry. Not because I doubt you or your abilities, but because I doubt myself and my own abilities to fix you if you get hurt."
Nico was silent for another minute before breaking it. "I made a mistake. I thought I could handle it, but I guess I couldn't." He sighed. "I'm sorry for making you worry. I... I didn't realize that that is what you were worrying about. I thought that you thought I was weak and needed to be protected."
Will walked up to and grabbed Nico's hand. "I would never think you are weak. You are the most powerful demigod I know."
"I'm sorry for worrying you."
"It's okay. Just try to be more careful, okay?"
"I will. Thank you for helping me."
Will kissed Nico's forehead. "There's nothing else I'd rather be doing."
Nico smiled and started walking out of the room. He looked behind and found that Will wasn't following. "Aren't you coming with me?"
Will smirked. "Believe it or not, you were not the only injury last night. Half of the camp is in the infirmary. The Hunters play tough."
Nico looked hesitant. "I could... stay and help if you wanted."
"Nah, go on. I'll be fine." Will smiled. "I promise."
With that, Nico walked out of the room. Will sighed and started taking the sheets off the bed. They needed to be washed for whoever the next patient was. He threw them in the laundry basket. As he was going to the cabinet to get move sheets, Kayla walked into the room.
"Another day, another fight," she said as she moved over to the other side of the bed. "I'm shocked the entire infirmary didn't hear you boys going at each other."
Will pulled the sheets into his arms. "We just had to talk about what happened."
He dropped the sheets onto the barren bed. They unfolded the fitted sheet and tucked it under the mattress.
"Did you mean everything you said?" She asked, unfolding the top sheet.
"Were you eavesdropping?"
"It's not eavesdropping if your fight wakes the entire infirmary." Will didn't say anything. She rolled her eyes. "Fine, I might have camped outside the door to hear what you guys were arguing about this time."
Will pulled a new cover over the pillow. "How much did you hear of it?"
"Almost all of it," she confessed. "What scars do you have?"
Will felt his heart drop. All sound and movement in the room stopped. He had said that in the heat of the moment and didn't realize that someone could be listening. Only Nico knew about the scars that lined his wrist. He turned so he wouldn't have to look at Kayla.
He struggled for the right words as he busied himself with the empty IV bag. "I was talking about how since are both demigods, we have similar injuri-"
"No; don't lie to me. What did you mean when you said that?" She interrupted. He didn't say anything. "Look at me!" He didn't move. She strode around the bed and grabbed him by the shoulders. "Will, please tell me. I'm your sister. Please tell me."
"I cut myself," he blurted out.
Her eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open. "Oh, Will..."
"Look, it's not a big deal. I don't do it often," he took the IV bag and tried to walk away. She grabbed him by the arm.
"Not a big deal..." she muttered. She stared daggers into his eyes. "Will, why, why on earth would you do something like that? You are a healer; you know the damage it does! Just look at your boyfriend! Look at it has destroyed him."
"I know, Kayla."
"I need to see them." Alarm bells rang out in Will's head. He drew his arms into his chest.
"No."
"I need to see how bad they are," Kayla urged.
Will started backing away. "I said no."
She grabbed him, forcing the IV bag out of his hands to the floor. She overturned his wrist. Tiny scars were present on one wrist, unable to be seen unless one knew what they were looking for. She looked toward the other wrist, which had five or six bracelets over it. They gained eye contact. Kayla started to remove the bracelets as Will struggled to get away. She unclasped some of the bracelets and tore off the other ones in the process. The other wrists had the same scars as well as an inflamed red one that was still fresh.
After about a minute, Will felt uncomfortable and pulled his hands away from Kayla. He grabbed the IV bag off the floor and threw it in the trash. He then walked over to the counter, and planted his hand on it, back facing Kayla. He was ashamed of it, but he had made one of those scars that morning when Nico was passed out. He felt personally responsible for his boyfriend's injuries.
"Will, please talk to me."
He turned around slowly. "I have nothing to discuss."
She sighed. "Please tell me why. What caused you to do this?"
"What do you think, Kayla? Why do you think I did this?"
Her eyes filled with sadness. "None of those deaths were your fault, Will."
"But they were. They all died because I was not able to save them. That's on me."
Kayla came over to him. "You can't think like that. It will destroy you. You are a healer; death is, unfortunately, part of the job."
"Well, it shouldn't be! I should be good enough, so I don't have any deaths."
"You can't prevent them, Will. Sometimes, it's just their time to go to Hades, and there's nothing to be done."
"Well, there should be."
They were silent. A tear ran down Will's face. Kayla opened her mouth to continue the conversation when Brandon came into the room, speaking loudly.
"-The Demeter kid is asking for you..." he froze in his tracks. He looked from Kayla to Will. Will turned rapidly, so he wouldn't see the tears on his face. "Am I interrupting something?"
"Wait a moment please, I'll be out in a second," Kayla said.
"No, Kayla, go with him now." Will turned, having composed himself.
"Hang on, I want to finish-" Kayla started.
"Go now, Kayla," Will commanded.
"You can't tell me what to do!" She complained.
Will gave her a withering look. She looked like she wanted to shrink back. "I can and I will. I have seniority and I am Head Healer. You are not. Go. Now."
She sent him a glare before leaving the room with Brandon, closing the door. Through the door, due to his enhanced hearing from his father, he heard his name get mentioned. He padded to the door to hear the conversation.
"Will looked ready to kill you," Brandon's whisper sounded terrified. "I didn't know he could be that scary
"Me neither. But apparently there are a lot of things I don't know about him."
She had meant for him to hear that. Will's heart fell hearing Brandon say he was scary. He wasn't supposed to be scary. That's not who he was. I must be overtired and high strung because I stayed up all night Will thought. I need to sleep. He finished clearing up the room and walked out the infirmary, Kayla's eyes boring holes into his back as the doors swung shut behind him.
Nico's POV:
Hazel and Nico were sparring the arena. They hadn't interacted very much since she had arrived at Camp, so Nico made an effort to spend some time with his sister. They hadn't discussed the topic of his self-harm yet, but Nico knew that that conversation was coming soon.
They were watched by the Ares cabin, who had just entered the arena. Nico couldn't help but sense a feeling of foreboding, like something bad was going to happen. One of the members of the cabin was the kid who had beat him up at the beginning of December. He was glaring a hole into Nico's back and he had a feeling that their business together wasn't over. He didn't know much about the kid except for the fact that he was dating Drew. Ugh. Nico pushed it from his mind as he focused back on his sister.
Nico, a more experienced swordsman, was showing Hazel the basics of sword fighting. She could do some damage with a cavalry knife, but she wanted to become more skilled with different kinds of weapons. Even after merely two or three hours of training, Hazel's skills had improved dramatically, and she had almost mastered disarming Nico. But he still had the upper hand as he disarmed her once again.
"You can't let your opponent get under your sword, because then they will be able to disarm you easily. Focus. It's not always about strength. Sometimes it's just about technique." Nico instructed. Hazel closed her eyes, letting his words flow over her. When she opened them, she attached Nico with a vengeance and eventually, his sword clattered to the ground. He grinned. "Nice job, Hazel! Excellent!"
"You're a good teacher, Nico." She said excitedly. She looked around to see the Ares cabin watching. "We should probably let them have the arena."
Nico nodded as the siblings walked over to the weapons rack, storing their borrowed swords. Nico made a point not to look at the Ares camper, but he could feel his hate directed at him. He quickened his pace, exiting the arena, with Hazel trailing behind.
"Why are you running out of there?" Hazel asked when she had caught up.
"I just walk fast, you know this," he lied.
The siblings were quiet as they made their way back to their cabin. After a couple of minutes, they ascended the stairs to Cabin 13. Before Nico could get the door open, Hazel spoke.
"Stop," Hazel demanded.
Nico heeded her order, turning to face her. Her eyes were filled with concern. Here we go he thought.
"What is going on with you, Nico?" She asked. "I can tell you are hiding something from me."
"What would I be hiding from you, Hazel?" He asked.
"Well, you hid your self-harm from me for Pluto knows how long," she pointed out.
"Hazel…"
"Just like you hid the fact that you were gay from me," hurt flashed in her golden eyes. "Do you not trust me or something?"
"I do trust you," Nico defended. "I just didn't know how you would react. I thought- I thought you'd be disgusted with me." He looked up into Hazel's eyes. "You were born in a time where being gay was seen as an illness."
Hazel looked him over critically. "Well, I am disappointed…"
Nico felt his heart fall as his eyes dropped. "-I understand-"
"…that you thought I would love you any less for either of those things!" She finished. He regained eye contact with her as she put her hands on his shoulders. "I am sorry if I ever made you feel like you couldn't come to me with this. I understand why you kept those things secret, but you don't have to do that with me. I am your sister. I love you no matter what."
Nico felt tears prick at his eyes. He moved forward and wrapped his sister in a hug. "I love you, Hazel."
He could feel her smile against him. "And I love you too, Nico."
After a minute, they broke off the hug. They smiled at each other. Before they could get in the cabin, there were interrupted by Percy, Annabeth, Grover, and Thalia.
"Nico!" Percy said. "We've been looking for you."
"What's going on?" Nico asked.
"During the Battle of Manhattan, Thalia, Percy, Grover, and I wanted to all get cheeseburgers at the hotel on West 57th. We never got around to it, since Percy got kidnapped by Hera. But, since we are all together, we thought we would finally go. We wondered if you wanted to come." Annabeth explained.
"Would you even want me there?" Nico asked.
"Yeah, we are trying to get the original squad back together. Rachel is spending Christmas in New York with her family, so we all wanted to meet up, like the good old days." Percy stated. "Also, my mom wants me home for Christmas now, so Annabeth and I will be staying in the city after lunch."
"Are you going to come or not?" Thalia demanded. Nico barely stopped himself from flinching at her words. He didn't forget her biting words from the previous day or how she electrocuted him at Capture the Flag. "'Cause we need to head out soon. The place gets packed."
"Hazel and I were supposed to spend the day together-" Nico said before Hazel interjected.
"Nico, it's fine. Go have fun. I'll go hang out with Piper." She smiled.
Nico nodded and followed the three demigods over to the border. He asked them how they were getting downtown.
"We were hoping you could shadow-jump us?" Percy asked. "If Will would be okay with that-"
"Will might kill me if I try to shadow-jump," Nico said.
"Hm, what about the Gray Sister's taxi service?" Annabeth suggested.
"Do you remember how awful that was the first time?" Percy reminded.
She shrugged. "It's fast and will get us through all the traffic."
"I think we are going to regret this," Percy said but conceded to Annabeth's suggestion.
They definitely regretted it. The five demigods stumbled out of the cab and the taxi screeched away.
"The world is spinning," Nico lamented.
Grover was hunched over, trying to stop himself from vomiting. "We need another way home," he bleated.
"Agreed," Thalia gasped.
They paused for a moment to gain their bearings. Although they had given the sisters the exact location of the hotel, they had been dropped off a couple of blocks away. Percy looked around, before starting to walk, leading the way. Their group began winding their way through the busy streets of New York. It was Christmas so the city was especially crowded. Nico didn't know how they were going to get a table at the hotel restaurant.
A commotion ahead interrupted Nico's thought. Rachel had appeared and was crushing Annabeth in a hug. She then moved to embrace Percy.
"Percy, I foresaw that we would meet again."
"Shut up, Dare. I called you."
She laughed. "You caught me." She turned. "Thalia!"
"Rachel, I've missed you!" Thalia cordially remarked.
Rachel then hugged Grover before seeing Nico. "Hey, Nico! It's been a while."
"Yeah," Nico said awkwardly. He felt terribly out of place. Rachel, Annabeth, Percy, Grover, and Thalia were a tight-knit group that Nico was on the outside of. He didn't know why he had agreed to come.
"Here we are," Thalia broke the silence as they arrived at the hotel. "Now, let me talk to the hostess so we can get seated quickly."
Thalia went to the counter and the hostess said that there would be an hour wait. Thalia merely snapped her fingers and Nico recognized that she was manipulating the Mist. The hostess's eyes were blank before she brightened up and led them to a table. They all sat down as the hostess passed out menus.
As she walked away, Percy looked towards Thalia. "You still never told me how you do that!"
"A demigod never reveals her secrets," Thalia asserted. She briefly looked over the menu before announcing "I know what I'm getting."
Everyone ordered cheeseburgers all around (with a veggie burger for Rachel and Grover). They begin breaking off into their own conversations. Percy was begging Thalia to tell him while Grover was goading her on. Rachel started a conversation with Nico and Annabeth.
"How has everything at camp been?" She asked, suspicion in her voice.
"Everything's been good. Why?" Annabeth asked realizing her tone change.
"I haven't been having dreams..." she started. Rachel's dreams were usually pretty significant; she was the Oracle of Delphi. "Which is weird. I usually get little traces of dreams and prophecies during the night. But everything has stopped."
"One of the nymphs on Olympus told us that Apollo had been exiled when we went for the Solstice." Annabeth offered. "Maybe his absence has halted the dreams."
"The Council blames Apollo for the war. Council, I should say Zeus." Nico glanced up at the heavens, expecting Zeus to smite him. "Even though it really wasn't his fault."
"I figured something had happened to Apollo." Rachel sighed. "He usually keeps in close contact with me."
The noise in the restaurant had lessened. Percy had stopped antagonizing Thalia and the three others at the table had started listening to Rachel's concerns.
"No one had heard from him since August and the end of the war when he disappeared from Olympus," Percy informed.
"What do you think they did to him?" Grover asked, nervously chewing on his shirt before Annabeth slapped his hand away.
"No idea," Percy leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. "He's immortal so he's probably fine. They'll just exile him for a few centuries and then he'll be back."
"But what if the prophecies aren't able to come back until he is restored to Olympus?" Rachel questioned. "I sense something dark is coming. I just don't know what. My vision is clouded."
"Artemis is also worried about her brother." Thalia advocated. "She left us at Camp Half-Blood so she could search for him. We will rejoin her in the next day or two to help her with her search."
"Hopefully you will have luck in finding him," Grover said. "Locating a god is extremely difficult; we all know how hard it was to find Pan."
"Just drink a lot of coffee," Percy smirked. "That's how Grover found him. Remember when you first had the sign after drinking that espresso?"
"Of course I do. Remember that rubber rat you bought that ran away? And Bianca..." Grover cut himself off, looking at Nico.
Everyone got really quiet as Nico turned red.
"You can talk about her. I'm not fragile. I'm not going to break if you tell me." Nico muttered.
"No one said you were fragile," Annabeth placated.
"The fact that you all went silent said as much. You didn't want to upset me, so you stopped talking about her." Nico reasoned.
"We just know how you get, Nico," Thalia said bluntly, missing the warning glances from Percy and Annabeth.
"You know how I got when I was ten, Thalia. Don't you dare act like you know how I am now," Nico said defensively.
"I think I can guess," Thalia asserted. "Your arms are lined with scars and cuts."
Nico pulled his jacket sleeves over his hands, while everyone at the table went silent.
"You don't know what you are talking about," Nico finally broke the silence.
"I made an educated guess. And the way you shriveled up and got defensive proved my theory that you self-harm." Thalia looked proud of herself.
"Thalia-" Annabeth warned.
"What in Hades is your problem with me, Grace?" Nico spat. "What have I ever done to you? If anyone should be mad at anyone, it should be me mad at you. You are the one who convinced my sister to join you and go on that suicide mission! You are the one who attacked me last night!"
"Sorry if I'm interrupting," the waitress had returned with a tray of food. "Who ordered the veggie burgers?"
Rachel and Grover raised their hands. The waitress put the plate on the table and began passing out the rest of their meals. Nico pushed his fries around on the plate, too on edge to eat. He glanced around and watched as everyone at the table inhaled their food. Nico knew he should eat, but his conversation with Thalia had shaken him up. His thoughts were interrupted by Thalia interjecting.
"I think you forget that I wasn't a part of the Hunters when your sister joined. I actually was against the idea of her joining. But she made up her own decision. Completely independent of my opinions. Your sister sacrificed herself to save us, so it wasn't my or Percy's fault that she died. Her and Zoë's sacrifice is what influenced me to join the Hunters," Thalia explained.
Nico felt a wave of rage build-up, but it slowly dissipated into a feeling of emptiness. He had been blaming Bianca's death on Thalia and Percy for years. Having someone to blame for her death made it easier to handle. He had no one to blame anymore; he didn't know where to direct his anger and feelings of revenge.
"Nico?" Percy asked, putting his hand on his shoulder. Nico pulled his shoulder out of Percy's grasp.
"I'm fine," Nico said shortly. He gained eye contact with Thalia. "I'm sorry for blaming you all these years. Same to you Percy. I didn't have all the facts and exacted my anger on the wrong people. I apologize for that."
"Apology accepted," Thalia muttered. "I apologize for riling you up yesterday and frying you. My competitive spirit went a little far and I guess I had some unresolved feelings about your sister too."
"Maybe we can start fresh?" Nico inquired. "No more hate, no more loathing glances?"
"Deal." Thalia reached her hand across the table, shaking it with Nico's. "Now let's see what we can do about dessert!"