Chapter Summary: Feelings and memories blur together so fast that he doesn't even have time to disambiguate them. He hears laughter and saccharine words full of threatening promises and smells the sickly sweet perfume that will forever be etched into his memory. It's so sudden, so real for a second that he jerks back with a loud, "STOP!" that sounds on the verge of a sob, and he knocks his head against the wall in his haste to get away.

Status: Chapter 3 of ?

Author's Notes: In the lull between this chapter and the previous one, I was also proofreading (multiple, multiple times.) I noticed some continuity errors (that I fixed). One important thing to point out:

In ch.2 it says "tiny apartment complex" - that is false. Nico does not live in an apartment. He lives in a house.

SUNDAY

They won't leave him alone. Hazel keeps coming into his room and asking if he's hungry even though she knows he's just going to throw it all up within an hour. Reyna doesn't touch him again, but she sits on the edge of his bed and talks to him about nonsensical things which are only half as reassuring as she thinks they are. What he needs is absolute silence and a moment to himself so he can attempt to patch what's left of him up inside.

Every time he tries to tell them what happened back at the Solace manor, his throat closes up and he can't speak. He knows what happened and he won't deny it because yes it did happen and it happened to him. But talking about it out loud makes it more real, and if he doesn't talk about it, maybe it can be less real than it really is.

It's a screwed-up philosophy, but Nico can barely even get out of bed, and he lets Saturday drift slowly by while he lies curled up in his bed under layers and layers of blankets. He's immobile for more than half of the day, mind focused only on breathing regularly because if he thinks about anything else – he doesn't know what will happen.

And he wonders if this is how Bianca di Angelo feels every single day.

He pushes the thought of her out of his mind and wraps his blankets tighter around him. He's been lying prone for so many hours that his back is hurting and his legs are aching to move. His head is pounding, and he feels wrung out from all the crying because he's just a pathetic waste of space.

This doesn't happen to boys – that's the common agreed knowledge that's shared all over the world, and Nico doesn't know what to do now that he's an exception to that silent rule. Does it make him weak? He doesn't know the answer to that, but he's almost certain most people would say 'yes'. It makes him feel even worse than he already does.

The door to his small room opens loudly, and Nico peeks out of his blankets to see that it's Hazel this time. She's carrying a bowl and a glass of water, and she sets it carefully down on Nico's messy desk full of scribbled notes in preparation for exams that felt like the end of his world less than forty-eight hours ago. She then stands there and Nico stares back at her from his layers of blankets.

"Nico," she begins quietly like he's a frightened creature. "Do you want to talk about what happened?"

It's not a matter of want, Nico thinks. He doesn't want to talk about it to anyone; in fact he would very much like to forget that it ever happened and continue moving forward in life, but he knows that he can't keep silent forever. He can either shake his head no and Hazel will leave the room, or he can sit up and stop snivelling like he's given up on living forever.

Nico doesn't think he's prepared to toss this in the background like it had been a minor setback, but he doesn't want to cry about it endlessly. Slowly, Nico pushes himself up in a sitting position so that his back is resting against the bedframe. The blankets are still wrapped protectively around him up to his neck, and he can't even look Hazel in the eyes when he begins to speak in a croaky voice.

"I… I don't know how to begin," he admits quietly. Hazel sits down on the edge of the bed and leans a little closer to hear him. If he speaks any louder he thinks he might cry again.

She offers, "Why don't you start at the beginning?"

It's easier said than done, but Nico tries. "Reyna and I went to the Prom after party that was being hosted at Solace's place. We got separated…and –" He can't say it – not here, not right now. No matter how hard he tries, the words won't come out. His exhales start to get shorter and he thinks he's about to hyperventilate.

"It's okay, Nico," his half-sister says gently. "You don't need to tell me everything right now."

Then she places her hand on his shoulder.

Feelings and memories blur together so fast that he doesn't even have time to disambiguate them. He hears laughter and saccharine words full of threatening promises and smells the sickly sweet perfume that will forever be etched into his memory. It's so sudden, so real for a second that he jerks back with a loud, "STOP!" that sounds on the verge of a desperate sob, and he knocks his head against the wall in his haste to get away.

It's only when he's curled up under all those blankets on the furthest edge of the bed that he realized what he did. Dread and disgust pool in his stomach, and he doesn't even know what he can say to Hazel. Instead, he stares at the dark shadows that the blankets provide him until he hears Hazel's retreating footsteps and then the click of the door closing.

Nico has never been opposed to touch until now. But after Friday night, the pressure of someone's hand pushing him down makes him feel nauseous. He shudders, grabbing onto the blankets and pulling them toward himself and pressing them against his eyes as he chokes on his quiet sobs.

When he pulls himself out of the small space of darkness he's made himself, his stomach betrays him by whimpering in hunger despite the fact that he doesn't want to eat anything. He sits up on his bed and stares at the bowl of cold porridge that Hazel had brought in hours ago. In the end, he drinks up the glass of water in one mouthful. Rivulets of water escape down from his lips to splash onto the bedsheets.

Nico puts the glass on the desk, but he misplaces and it shatters onto the ground with a loud sound. It makes him flinch – hand jerking back and protective blankets held closer.

The noise brings both Hazel and Reyna running to his room, wanting to see if Nico's finally broken from whatever happened to him at that after party. "What's going on?" Reyna demands the moment she enters the room, pushing past Hazel to get there first. He points at the shattered glass on the floor and their scared expression softens immediately.

"I'll go get the broom," Hazel says and leaves the room to the two of them and the gaping silence that follows.

Reyna takes a step forward inside his room and then pauses. Her brows are furrowed and her mouth downturned into a frown. "Nico," she says in the vocative way that tells him she's running low on tolerance, "Could you tell us – either of us – what exactly is going on?" It is not unfriendly, but he gets the feeling that withholding the information would not be productive.

He takes a deep breath and searches for the words to continue where he left off with Hazel, but said sister walks back into the room the moment he finds them. The tension in the room dissipates, and Hazel sweep ups the shattered glass on the floor. After she disposes it in the trash can, she turns to look between Reyna on her right near the door and Nico on her left on the bed. He can't help remembering when her touch had brought back the memories.

Hazel lets out a huff of breath, pushing her hand up her forehead to tug at her curls. "What happened at the party?" she says, turning to look at Nico.

He swallows but the unspoken words worm their way up again. "I was drugged," he says and he can see the worry and concern appear on their faces immediately but that is not the worse part. "And… A gang of girls wanted to play a sick game." He looks down in shame and bunches the blanket in his fists. The whole scenario – him – they all sound pathetic now that he's saying it out loud, but he has to finish it. "They touched me, and I didn't want to be touched."

There it is. The whole thing has been summarized in a few sentences, and here Nico was having some sort of breakdown. He feels absolutely pathetic, and he also wants to curl up in a ball and pretend that the world doesn't exist, that he doesn't exist.

He doesn't know what Hazel and Reyna's expressions are because he has closed his eyes. Nevertheless, the droplets escape under his eyelids and streak slowly down his face. He can't bear it, so he brings his hands up to wipe them away. When he opens his eyes again, his sight is blurry from the tears.

"I'm sorry Nico, we didn't know," Hazel is saying in a tone that makes him sad and angry at the same time. His heart feels torn into two and he wants to go back in time – wants to adamantly tell Reyna that he is never going to that after party – wants to stress about regular things like schools and exams.

Reyna is all business when she hears this news, just like Nico would expect her to be. "Who is it?" she demands, both infuriated and frustrated at the same time. "Do you remember who did it? A name? Description?"

He remembers the ringleader. "Beatrice," he says, because the rest of them had faded into the background of her copies. "Bryce." The vicious boy's mocking laughter and forceful attack still leaves him shaky. "There was a Japanese girl." Also William Solace, his mind supplements additionally. The boy claimed that he had not touched him, but Nico couldn't be sure of anything at this point. He can still see the boy's expression of hurt when Nico told him to stay away and the genuine sound of his words, and the glimpse Nico had that Saturday morning when he overheard the way Will was so righteously furious sounding when he was talking about what happened that night to someone. His mouth clamps shut at his mind's request. He will not leak William Solace's name.

Reyna nods slowly, but Nico can tell that she's gritting her teeth beneath the tight line of her closed lips. Hazel is wringing her hands and biting her lower lip while she looks down at the ground, deep in thought. Nico tries not to scream.

His sister speaks before he can break into tiny pieces in front of them. "Okay," she says in that soothing voice of hers, and he knows that she's trying to change the topic to make him more comfortable. "I know a lot has come up…but are you still going to visit Bianca tomorrow?"

The quiet that follows is palpable, and he lets Hazel sweat a bit until he says, "Yes, I am." Before the party, it had been something he somewhat looked forward to going to but didn't want to at the same time. Now it felt like a chore but an obligation nonetheless. "I am also going to school," he adds in afterthought even though the idea of going back to a place where the people who touched him were roaming freely makes him nauseous.

"Nico," Reyna and Hazel both say together before cutting off. He takes this opportunity to place himself in the conversation.

"I'm going," he says more firmly this time with confidence that he does not feel. "I have exams. I can't let this…" He trails off, his faux confidence wavering and then altogether dying like a snuffed flame. He looks at the two of them helplessly and wishes that he weren't so weak or small. "I need to go," he finishes feebly.

Hazel and Reyna do not look convinced, but Hazel allows him permission much to Reyna's chagrin. Nico sighs – in relief or impending fear, he doesn't know.

"I'll stay close by tomorrow," Reyna says, narrowing her eyes at Nico even though they both know they share virtually no classes this final semester. He nods and looks down again, and the two girls leave his room to talk in quiet tones about subjects that he can probably guess correctly about.

He doesn't like this – being treated like a delicate porcelain doll, but that is how he's acting right now and that is how they're choosing to deal with it. He covers his face with his blankets again and his mind jumps to Will Solace. He's not entirely sure himself why he decided to omit the boy from the few names he has given when he is the easiest to locate out of all of them.

An image of the disarrayed boy appears in his head, and he can see him biting his lips and running his hand through his perfectly styled hair so many times that it can no longer be called perfect anymore. Those too-blue eyes looking up to meet his and then growing soft and attentive and caring at the same time. Maybe he's just altering his own memories so he can feel slightly safer, but this is how he remembers the other boy. Frightening at first, but…warm, somehow.

He closes his eyes and eventually drifts off to sleep with thoughts of Solace still prominent in his grasp.

Author's Notes: Remember when I said University was taking huge chunks of my time? Yeahhh. yeahh about that (more like all my waking hours)

Updates will come slower, unfortunately - probably around the same amount of time as this chapter. However, comments and suggestions may help me boost my creative juices. :) (Thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far!)

As an afterthought, my introduction of Bianca is seemingly just there as a placeholder and kind of throws off the universe of Hazel & Nico Levesque instead of Bianca & Nico di Angelo. I don't want to fill up the A/N, so I'll talk more about it next chapter A/N, but Bianca definitely will play a part when I begin talking about the whole picture of Nico Levesque and his family.