A/N:I honestly cannot decide if this is mi favorite chapter or if it is complete crap. I'll let you guys decide. But I had fun writing it, and that's kinda what counts, supposedly. As long as you guys enjoy it too I'm not gonna complain.

Nico gripped his sword tightly and swung at the man in front of him.

His blade sliced through the air, encountering no resistance and throwing off Nico's balance.

He looked around and spotted Damen ten feet away to his right. Nico debated trying again, but he knew a lost cause when he saw one and he was till tired from training with the others.

Instead of swinging again, he lowered his blade and tried a more verbal approach.

"What the hell did you do to me you crazy bastard?!" He shouted at the man.

Damen forehead scrunched in confusion.

"Did something go wrong? I warned you that you might dream about Percy, but you seemed fine with that. What happened?"

"You know exactly what happened! You were there! You made me dream about you and I… Ugh, you freak!"

Nico would've continued had he not seen Damen's almost imperceptible flinch at the word "freak". That was enough to make him pause.

"Wait, you dreamt about me?"

Damen looked genuinely confused, which confused Nico even more. But before he could question it, he recognized the sound of Percy and Annabeth running towards them, probably responding to Nico's shouts and the sound of him drawing his sword.

"Nico! Is everything alright?" Percy shouted as they neared.

Nico waited until the others had made it to them.

"Yeah I'm fine. Just a little misunderstanding I think."

"You think?" Percy blurted.

He sighed when Nico merely nodded at him. They all turned to Damen.

The man still had a troubled look on his face. Upon closer inspection, Nico realized that the man's hair, which previously had been shoulder-length and raven-colored, was slowly shortening like it was receding back into his head and was turning a bright orange-red starting at the roots. His clothes seemed to be morphing as well, barely noticeable unless you really looked, and when Nico realized that was exactly what he was doing, he berated himself and looked away.

"Look, I still need to talk to you, but it would probably be easier to talk alone. I'll meet you in your cabin when you're done here. Is that okay?"

After getting over his shock at actually being asked for his consent, Nico nodded. Then, in a blink, the man was gone.

He slowly turned back to his friends, wondering how to explain.

"Son of Eris… that does not sound good at all. What's going on Nico?" Annabeth asked, perceptive as usual.

"He says he wants to help me," Nico tried."

"Help you with what?"

"He says he wants to help me get Eris to leave me alone. I guess my life really must suck if he pities me like that."

Annabeth opened her mouth to say something but shut it quickly. Well that's never a good sign.

"How exactly is he planning to do this? And why? It doesn't really make sense for him to go against his godly parent, especially since they are supposed to be working on treating their kids more fairly."

"Well, I doubt Eris is in on that. It's not like it's common for her to have offspring. She doesn't have a cabin here. And it really doesn't make sense for him to lie about it. As for how, well, he helped me sleep last night."

Percy and Annabeth both looked scandalized.

Nico's draw dropped and his face turned bright as a tomato as he realized how his words sounded.

"No! Zeus, no! No, I mean he gave me a potion to help me sleep."

"Nico! That's even worse! How could you take a potion from a complete stranger! A son of Eris at that!" Annabeth shouted at him.

"Hey, remember how people judge me for being a son of Hades? And then I helped beat the titans in the war? And made it through Tartarus alone in order to find the doors of Death? Well maybe we shouldn't judge him based on who is parent is!" Nico shouted back.

"And anyway, it's not like I cared what would happen. So what if it was actually poison? I probably would've welcomed that just as much!"

Silence descended again as Nico's words sunk in.

"Nico…" Percy started.

"Save it. Nothing happened. I just had some weird dreams. He told me I would have really good dreams of things I desired," he looked nervously at Percy. "But then he appeared, so I thought maybe he had screwed with the potion to freak me out."

"But he didn't?" Annabeth asked.

"He seemed really confused when I yelled at him. So I guess he just messed up the potion on accident or something."

"It was a potion to help you sleep well, right?"

Nico nodded.

"And did you?"

"Yeah, I guess. Missed breakfast, I don't remember waking up once in the middle of the night. And I felt pretty good when I woke up. No nightmares or anything."

Annabeth looked at him sympathetically, opening her mouth several times to speak before sucking in a deep breath and finally starting.

"Then he didn't mess it up," she said quietly, not looking at the dark-haired boy.

Nico ran the words through his head several times in his head before it dawned on him. Damen didn't mess up the potion. His dreams weren't messed up. He dreamt of what he desired.

"Shit," Nico mumbled, smacking his forehead into his hands and bending over, hoping he wouldn't start to hyperventilate.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Percy's sad green eyes gazing down at him.

None of them spoke while Nico was hit with the realization. It didn't make sense. He didn't really desire Damen did he? It made no sense at all.

"I gotta go, guys. I'll see you later." Nico stood and started walking back to his cabin.

"Nico!" Percy shouted.

Nico sighed and turned back to the son of Poseidon.

"You need to talk to him about it. Maybe it's not what you think it is. Or… maybe it is. And if so, then you should tell him. I should know, he deserves it. Plus, ya know, maybe… maybe he feels the same way. You'll never know unless you talk to him."

Nico stared at him, feeling his eyes water. Unable to express how he felt toward Percy, Nico merely nodded to him before turning again and heading back.

A/N: So in unrelated news, I'm starting a new story right now. It's a Supernatural fic, a How To Train Your Dragon AU called "The Battle of Evermore". It will be a Dean/Cas fic, starting with friendship and probably progressing to a relationship by the end of the story. But it will be different from mi previous stuff. I'm going to try to focus more on the plot of the angels and hunters and the battles fought and whatever else I convince miself to write about. I have a loose outline forming and rough drafts of the first three and a half chapters. If any of you would be interested in that, you should totally follow me. I'll start posting it a week or two after I finish this fic (This is 15 chapters and an epilogue in case you're curious) and I am super excited about it. I'll be posting it on mi AO3 account as well, and possibly mi tumblr if I really fall in love with the story.

Thanks guys! I hope you enjoyed!