At some point, Percy's eyes had closed and they must have stayed that way.
"If you keep sitting there someone or some thing might decide you look tasty enough to eat. You already smell delicious. A little on the, shall we say, fragrant side but Tartarus is hardly is known for its hygiene."
Percy's head had shot up. At some point he had been on the cusp of being aware that he was nearly blacking out (blood loss, exhaustion, trauma, you name it) but there hadn't been a whole lot he could do about it. Not with an unconscious Nico who wasn't going to move any time soon. Percy was a pretty shitty protector if he went and died on Nico. It took skill but Percy planted his feet on the ground with knees to his chest and shoved himself up without the use of his hands. One was basically a gruesome decoration for all the good it would do him and the other was occupied with the foreign stygian blade.
"Why don't you come and try a bite?" The sword was lighter than Riptide and longer but it felt good in his hand. Percy gave it a few swings around getting a feel for the way it cut through Tartarus' thick air; all the while he stared down the goddess.
"Oh, I'd love to. Believe me… you're delicious. You left a bit of you behind, of course, when you fled. It seemed a waste to leave it so you know," the bug faced goddess shrugged as a shiver of delight rippled up her spine and shook her gossamer wings. "Demigod doesn't keep very long, you see." With each word, she moved closer and around to the side where Nico lay. Percy tracked as best he could, each time he put weight on his more tender ankle he struggled and he didn't want to trip over the unconscious boy. "Unfortunately for me I'm afraid I can't harm a hair on that very pretty head of yours."
"Yeah, like I haven't heard that one before." Percy scoffed.
She looked shady and not just because she's one of Nyx's children but honestly because she looks like a mosquito and a god had babies and so far as he's aware? There's no mythology for that. Yeah, sometimes they turned into cows or bulls and apparently procreated with women and some really messed up beastiality type stuff he'd really prefer to banish from all thought but mosquitos? Bugs? That was beyond gross. Anyway… she was super demonic looking and being half naked with her chest showing through some very questionably laundered garments (or what used to be garments) left the son of the sea wondering when the last time she'd found time to bathe herself.
"And if I don't believe you?"
"You're really in no position not to."
With Percy's next step, his ankle buckled and he landed on his scraped knee but still he managed to put his body between freaky bug goddess and Nico.
"Your friend is close to death, as are you, though he is much nearer. And let's just say it's in my interest that you live, Percy Jackson."
It was the hardest tread downhill Percy had ever made and he'd scaled some seriously questionable landscapes. Even with the creepy winged goddess carrying Nico in her arms (between Percy's bum shoulder and useless arm, oh and his rolled ankle quickly swelling thrice its normal size) Percy took to using the Stygian blade more as a walking stick than as a sword. He'd have to apologize to Nico for that later but honestly, he was pretty sure the guy would give him a break. Percy was torn between keeping the goddess in front of him to keep an eye on her to trying to keep pace beside her in case that proboscis thing thought about having a little taste of Nico. In the end he settled for following because honestly if she made up her mind to take off he seriously doubted his ability to catch up at this rate, no matter how badly he wanted to save Nico.
There was a quaking behind him, rubble hitting the back of his ankles. Percy grips the sword harder and attempts to turn around.
"Friends!"
"Bob!?" Percy's knees threatened to turn to jello at the sound of the Titan's voice. The Titan's silver hair bounced as he bounded across the landscape until he was close enough to reach out and pick Percy up in a crushing hug against his coveralled chest.
"You made it! I was afraid Nyx might have made you stew! Or Lottie— she is worse."
The tiny demon kitten— Small Bob— raised its back and spat.
"I hate friendship," bug goddess agreed.
"Nyx tried," Percy wheezed as his vision began to go dark once more. Percy's stomach clawed its way back up his throat and settled at the back of his mouth. "Hey, big guy… I need air…" he sputtered.
Bob loosened his grip but did not set him down. "Oh Ker, hello! Percy, you have made more friends." The Titan sounds proud of the progress the two have made despite a very unconscious Nico still resting in the goddess' arms.
"Iapetus, imagine seeing you heard. I heard you had a, shall we say, change in occupation after a mishap around the Lethe?"
"Oh yes! Little prince helped me with it. I've been employee of the month six times. I have plaques to hang on the wall of my room!" He boasted proudly. Percy had to admit that was, actually, pretty impressive. What he knew of Hades, personally, the guy wasn't one to go around giving praise. He was generally overly serious and a bit of a downer, really.
The goddess didn't even laugh. In fact, she might have looked impressed, or as impressed as a mosquito faced she-devil could. Bob went to put Percy down but the demigod held on. "Uh, actually, can I stay up here? You know… just until I catch my breath." He was pretty certain that the Titan lifted a silver eyebrow in skepticism but he didn't bother putting him down. So what? If a guy couldn't use a friend to give him a lift then what was the actual point? Percy decided he was probably half delusional by that point.
He wasn't sure how long it took but he could feel strength beginning to return to him as they neared the water. Eventually he tapped Bob to put him down and he walked beside the two immortals. Once they were on the bank, he paused.
Percy held out his good arm. "Give him to me." The mosquito faced goddess regarded him for a moment, her proboscis quivered, before she lowered the demigod into a standing position. Percy wrapped his good arm around the pale teenager and held him close, the back of Nico's head rested against his shoulder, neck supported in the crook of his armpit as he lowered them both (a little precariously) to the ground. Without so much as a glance, he felt that familiar tug inside of him as he called to the water and it responded, pulled from the river in a winding stream through the air towards him. Dark brown curls were fanned out against his shoulder as the son of Poseidon kept Nico rested in the crook between his arm and body, freeing his only functional hand. It was awkward as he attempted to part the other boy's lips with his hand but he managed it. The blood like water passed at his command into the demigod's mouth. Percy never moved his hand back to Nico's side. Instead, his fingers found a home in his hair where they brushed softly across his forehead and crown.
"Drink, Nico," he whispered to the other and as if he had heard him or understood him, Nico's adam's apple bobbed. It was slow but color returned to his face, the sick grayish hue replaced. Even the smattering of freckles across the other boy's nose and cheeks appeared brighter (he'd never noticed those before). "I have you," he whispered as he leaned over the other. Every so often he paused, giving the other a chance to come around or breathe before trying to feed him the water once more. Nico didn't open his eyes. He didn't stir. The longer it took the tighter Percy's throat grew and his gentle murmurs became more frantic.
"Wake up, Nico… you need to wake up."
Percy didn't understand why he didn't wake up even after the color returned to his cheeks. Whatever remnants of the mist had long since disappeared and there were a few silver strands tussled in with the deep brown of the rest of his locks. His features looked sharper, more angular, the last sign of baby fat around his features gone. Hadn't they been there just the day before? Time was so different down in Tartarus. It could have been a handful of days or a year. Percy wouldn't have known either way. His fingers brushed a few strands from Nico's face and his shoulders froze when the other's chest stilled. "Nico?" The boy made no noise, no intake of breath. He was perfectly still. "Don't you fucking dare," he whispered. Nothing happened when he shook him so he tried again. "Don't you even fucking dare. Not after everything!"
The remaining water fell to the ground so how was it that the younger boy had droplets on his face? When Percy tried to inhale he choked on the lump that grew in his throat and the tears that were streaking down his face. They landed on Nico's forehead as he swallowed back a sob. Percy turned is head, nose buried in the other boy's burls, lips rested against his forehead. "I can't do this without you." He murmured against his skin. As if Nico had heard him his lungs inhaled, the deep kind of breath that came after being underwater for too long or waking up too quickly from sleep. Percy didn't pull back, he didn't move. Instead he laughed, a hysterical sound that rocked through his whole body.
"Percy?" Nico's voice was soft.
"You're going to be okay." He didn't know why but his voice cracked and he cried harder, the tears came faster. Maybe because for the first time he realized it was entirely possible that they wouldn't make it. Percy pressed a kiss and then a second against Nico's forehead until he pulled himself together enough to sit up.
Nico didn't move, his brown eyes gazed up at Percy's curiously. They searched his face but he couldn't say that the son of Hades had found there. Both of the Italian's hands lifted and he cupped either side of the sea prince's face. When his long thumbs moved, they brushed away the last few tears but he didn't say anything about them.
"Don't you fucking scare me like that again." He whispered.
"You saved me."
"If you use a very loose definition of the word 'saved.'"
Nico cracked a grin like a cheshire cat, it grew wider by the second and Percy couldn't help it— he joined in. "My hero." For a second they stared at one another and then at the same time, with Bob and Ker looking on, they broke into hysterics and laughed until their sides split and they were a heap laying on one another. Percy buried his face in the other boy's stomach and Nico hiccuped into his side, face in his ribs. And they laughed for far longer than they should have (or just the right amount). After all, what the hell, right? Neither had died yet.
When they had pulled themselves together enough to stand, they walked themselves to the river and waded in. As disgusting as drinking the water was, it helped and they needed it to heal and replenish them before they went any further. Percy hissed as he sunk down in the water and allowed it to cover his arm and his shoulder. He could see it now with a clarity it had lacked before. Maybe it was because he had been made of mist for a time but there was no mirage hiding what the river truly was. He'd known it was blood. He had seen it. But if he had thought it was bad before he had still been seeing it through a haze and as he sunk lower into the fiery waters and submersed himself, he saw was it truly was. When he broke the surface, he took a deep breath and found Nico's eyes and somehow the son of Poseidon knew.
Nico had always seen the river for exactly what it was and as he lifted his hands to his lips, gaze still locked with Percy's, Nico drank from them. Rivulets of blood dripped from his hands, slid down the sides of his mouth and stained his pale skin. Without any hesitation, the son of Hades drank again and again until he had his fill, not choking or struggling the way Percy did in gagging the awful liquid down. If his stomach was revolting with disgust, the ghost king hid it well and honestly? Percy was impressed.
Nico did whatever it took to survive.
At ten he had fled his home with his sister because monsters had found them. Then he had fled camp, the son of Hades. For a time he had been homeless with only ghosts for companions. He'd taught himself to shadow travel and use his other gifts and to fight. He had been one of the first to fight Kronos and had convinced his father personally to participate in the war. He had done all of this alone, without family. He convinced a Titan they were best friends and gave him a new life. Not to mention he had traversed the underworld looking for his sister and literally pinched Hazel out from under his father's nose. He had travelled to Tartarus by himself searching for the doors of death. He had survived being captured, likely tortured, and being kept in the jar. And then? Then he had quite literally fallen into Tartarus a second time so Percy didn't have to do it alone. Since then, how many times had Nico saved his butt? Percy sucked down a particularly thick (almost slightly congealed) sip and closed his eyes. The fire that blossomed in his stomach and across his skin meant he was healing. And what was pain anyway but proof they were both alive? It probably said a lot that he took comfort in the familiar burn.
"Are you okay?"
With his eyes opened once more, he nodded and stood up. "—When did you get taller than me?" The other boy blushed and looked down.
"Geras is the god of old age. He can literally suck the life out of someone."
"So wait… are you older than me now?"
"Technically I was always older than you." Nico pointed out less than helpfully. "I think he only managed a few years… We're probably closer to the same age now." Percy noticed then that the boy's voice was a little deeper and shoulders set wider. It was harder to tell when the other had been unconscious and, well, Percy had hardly been lucid. He was pretty sure that Nico would forgive him for not being super observant at the time.
"Some days I swear I'm going to wake up in an asylum and all of this is going to be my imagination."
"You and me both." Nico laughed and shook his head. When he turned his gaze back to Percy, he brushed his long fingers carefully along Percy's damaged shoulder sending a trill up his spine. Percy swallowed but his mouth felt dry. "How is it? It looks a lot better."
"I can feel it. It tingles but I can't move it very much." To demonstrate he rolled his shoulder and managed to wiggle his fingers but he couldn't make them into a proper fist. There would be no strength there, even if he could. "It's not my sword hand anyway." Percy knew he was being optimistic or flippant or putting on a braver front than he felt or whatever but they were so close to the doors that neither of them could afford to stop now (no matter how exhausted or beat up or balls-to-the-wall-fucked-up they were and Percy was pretty fucked up).
The two teenagers crawled up the banking and out of the river. Bob and Ker were sat on the edge. The Titan had taken to sweeping their surroundings to rid it of their scent while the monster faced goddess watched in fascination. When he looked at the demigods and between them it was with eyes soft at the edges.
Yeah, Percy was pretty glad Nico was okay, too.
"Do you trust me?" The question came suddenly as they shoulder to shoulder.
"Of course." Percy answered without missing a beat.
"I need you to wait here. There's something I have to do before we get any closer to the doors. It's important. Before you ask— I can't tell you."
Percy wanted to question him but the look on Nico's face told him not to.
And for once?
He didn't.