Uhm, hi.
A couple of days ago was the second anniversary of Being 14 is Tough *tear tear*, so I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has supported me and my writing for the past two years and hopefully will continue to stick around until Nico's little adventure is over. I love you all!
Okay, I don't really love the end but it is what it is and I couldn't come up with anything better, so sorry if it you hate it with every fiber of your being.
Disclaimer: I don't own Nico or Camp Half-Blood or anything else along those lines.
The next couple of minutes basically consisted of me hiding behind Jill as she and her dad argued about what happened.
"We didn't do anything!" she promised, though the vein bulging out in her dad's forehead made me think that he wasn't entirely convinced.
"WHERE'S HIS SHIRT!" shouted her dad, pointing at me accusingly.
Jill turned around, and as her eyes scanned over my chest, she seemed surprised that a shirt hadn't somehow appeared to cover it anytime during the last few minutes. "Nico, go put on your shirt!" she yelled at me.
My response of, "Where'd you put it after you tore it off last night?" probably wasn't the smartest thing to say, as it just led to more shouting and Jill's elbow slamming into my chest.
Taking this as my cue to get out of there before the very angry looking Mr. Mistero threw a lamp at my head, I turned around and ran back down the hallway. Ducking into Jill's room, I scavenged the floor until I found the remains of my shirt. Now it just looked like some horrible fashion statement; ripped down the middle with ragged edges and stained with blood and other mysterious substances, my comfortable black t-shirt had somehow transformed itself into a very ugly vest. Not wanting to come back out shirtless again, I sighed and slipped the dirty piece of fabric on. A glance in a mirror hanging from the door assured me that I looked just as ridiculous as I felt.
I had considered just staying in Jill's room until her dad had cooled down (or completely forgotten about me; either would do), but that would be a cowardly thing to do; and while I am many things (handsome, charming, and clever just being a few), a coward is not one of them. So, like the very manly man that I am, I walked out of the room, dodged to avoid being hit by a tissue box that had been chucked in my direction, and continued to the kitchen.
When I returned, Jill and her dad were still screaming at each other.
"I understand that you're mad," Jill said, trying to reason, "but Nico and I really, really have to be on our way!"
Her father didn't seem to care very much that she had other plans besides being yelled at until her ears bled. "You're not going anywhere, Jillian!" he screamed, "Not until you explain to me exactly what's going on. And then you'll be lucky if you're allowed out of this house before your thirtieth birthday!"
When he saw me awkwardly standing to the side, her dad turned and pointed his finger at me. "And you-" he began to say, but the phone rang and interrupted him at the perfect moment. Glaring at the machine, Mr. Mistero looked as though he was at war with himself whether to answer it or not. Finally, he grabbed the phone off the wall and put it up to his ear.
"Hello?" he muttered, "Is this important, because-" I heard a jumble of words from the other line. "Yes, I am aware that my wife is outside. Now, if that was all, then-" another fast spoken series of words interrupted him. "She's being attacked by a what?"
He glared me and Jill, and then slammed the phone back onto the wall. He pointed his finger at us as he spoke, "I'll be back in a few minutes." Turning to Jill, he said, "Don't you dare move, young lady."
It hadn't been five seconds after the apartment door slammed behind her father before Jill commanded, "Go get your stuff. We're leaving."
I glanced at the door where her dad had just exited. "Shouldn't we go help fend off whatever's attacking your stepmom..?" I asked. As much as I wanted to get out of there ASAP, I really didn't want the death of an innocent pedestrian (much less Jill's stepmother) on my conscience for the rest of my life.
"Nah." she stated calmly, like this wasn't new to her, "They'll just find some way to blame the whole thing on me. Let's go. I want to be back in camp by the end of the day."
She ushered me back down the hallway and into her room, and then grabbed some clothes from her drawer and hurriedly rushed into the bathroom across the hall to change.
Jill, who was a surprisingly quick changer (for a girl, that is), came back into the room after only about a minute. "Rea-" she began to say, but her voice faded away as she observed my shirt for the first time. I prepared myself for her teasing and laughter, but she just turned around and opened the door. She walked back out of the room as quickly as she had come in, returning seconds later with a bundle of cloth. "Put this on," she said as she threw it to me. I caught it midair, and let it hang so the bundle turned into a big cotton t-shirt. It had the name of a band from like, a billion years ago written on it in large faded letters. "It's my dad's." she explained. I gratefully pulled off my shirt/vest/thingy and slipped the other t-shirt over my head. It smelt like cigar smoke and bad cologne, but it was better than the bloody thing I was wearing. I eyed myself in the mirror; I still looked ridiculous in the prehistoric t-shirt that was pretty noticeably a size too big, but at least I didn't look like a kid who got beat up for wearing a stupid vest.
"Now, if you're done ogling over your reflection, I think it's time to go." Jill said with a sarcastic smirk and slipped out the door.
"I wasn't-" I tried to explain, but she was already down the hallway. Embarrassed, I followed quickly behind her.
Before her dad could come back up and continue his rant on how our behavior is inappropriate and unacceptable, we slipped out the apartment door and traveled back down to the lobby, and then out to the city streets.
Immediately after we stepped out of the building's doors, we were greeted by a large crowd filling the sidewalk. A couple dozen people were surrounding a lady who seemed to be either having a seizure or attempting to dance (key word: attempting). Nearly everyone had a cell phone out, taking pictures and recording whatever she was doing with looks of either entertainment or shock on their faces. In the background, I could barely hear Jill's dad screaming pointless words and suggestions that the lady probably couldn't even hear over her own screams. Grabbing my hand, Jill pushed through the crowd, dragging me along with her. We got past the horde of pedestrians (with lots of "Hey!"s, "Watch it!"s, and other less friendly interjections shouted at us along the way) just in time to see a bird swoop down and grab onto some crazy lady's hair. Dressed in an expensive looking black business suit, I'm sure she looked very orderly and neat before the bird decided to take a liking to her hair. I quickly came to the assumption that she was Jill's stepmother. She flailed her arms uselessly as the bird continued to grab hold of her curls.
"Honey, just stand still!" yelled Jill's father as he tried to grab the bird out of the air. As he tried to snatch it, the bird bit his hand, and he withdrew and let out a few curses as he inspected his new scrape and momentarily forgot about his wife.
"GET THIS THING AWAY FROM ME!" screeched the woman. Her cry made no difference, as the bird just continued to swoop down and clutch her hair. She crossed her arms protectively over her head.
I glanced over at Jill, wondering if we should step in and help or something, but she was too busy laughing to even notice my stare. She was probably enjoying the whole thing a little bit more than she should have. When she did see me looking at her she quickly tried to regain her composure, but the amused smile stayed on her face as we slipped out of the crowd and continued walking down the sidewalk. After we had traveled a couple of blocks and all signs of the crazy bird attack were gone, I asked Jill why she thought the whole situation was so hysterical.
"Did you see what kind of bird it was?" she asked me.
"Uh, the kind with feathers?" She rolled her eyes at my answer and slapped my chest playfully.
Her smile seemed to be permanently etched onto her face. "It was an owl, you moron."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I have the best immortal mom ever."
And with that, we continued on our journey back to Camp Half-Blood.
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
We got the message as we were waiting for our train to arrive.
One minute I was watching an unofficial hot dog eating contest between two very large men at the Nathans restaurant conveniently located in Penn Station, and the next I was watching Hailey slurp ramen noodles while a younger demigod braided Chiron's tail in the background.
When she saw me, Hailey dropped her bowl of Japanese noodles and jumped up. "Nico!" she yelled. It looked like she was about to try to hug me, but Chiron held her back and prevented her from breaking the connection.
Before I could even reply, Jill pushed me out of the way (and off of my seat, for that matter) and stood in front of the Iris Message. "Where are you!" she screamed. I had told her about my dream as we waited for the train, and since then she had been anxiously pacing and muttering to herself for twenty minutes. She had missed perfectly good entertainment of grown men shoving multiple hot dogs down their throats at a time, but she didn't seem to care very much.
"Camp Half-Blood," answered Hailey, motioning to Chiron, the strawberry fields, and the numerous teenagers wearing unfortunate orange shirts in the background, "Duh."
Jill looked like she wanted to strangle somebody (which I've noticed is a fairly common expression for her). "You had me and Nico worried sick about you, you little-"
"I'm sorry, Jill; that was my fault." Chiron spoke up from the background, interrupting Jill and stopping her from saying whatever foul word was about to slip out of her mouth. The centaur ducked his head so that we would be able to see his face as he spoke, "I Iris Messaged you all last night to tell you that it was necessary for you to hurry back here, but since Nico and you still weren't out of the Underworld I told them you two would be able to handle yourselves. We didn't have much time to spare, and I just figured that as two of our best trained demigods,-"
"Oh, no, it was no problem at all." interrupted Jill, clearly not wanting him to think she was incapable of fending for herself for a night, "We're both fine, right Nico?"
"Yeah, perfectly fine." I answered from where she had pushed me on the floor. Standing up, I addressed Hailey, "What about the gorgons? In my dream-"
"Oh, those silly old hags?" Hailey asked, "We showed them who was boss! Right, Riley?" she didn't wait for his response before continuing, "We used some kung-fu, a little martial arts action, and some pretty commendable swordsmanship, if I say so myself. I was like, 'hoooo-ha!' and then Riley was like "heeee-yah!' and we whipped their sorry butts!" To go along with her strange kung-fu noises, she added in random kicks and chopped the air with her bare hands, attracting the stares of a couple of campers passing by.
Riley popped his head in from the side. "What she means to say is we outran them for two blocks and then took a bus back to camp from there."
"Hey!" complained Hailey. Her boyfriend shrugged, and then hid out of the IM's picture again.
"So you healed all the campers? Everything's fine?" asked Jill hopefully.
"Well…" Hailey began, "No. Not yet, at least. Kinda. Sorta. A little bit. Right, Chiron?" The centaur didn't reply from the background, as he was too busy trying to explain to the young demigod behind him that he didn't want his tail braided. "Riley and I did this special prayer thing for the plant that Persephone gave us earlier, and then we fed the berries from the plant to each of the campers, but nothing has happened yet."
"Well when is something supposed to happen?" asked Jill.
"Uh…" began Hailey, inspecting her spilled ramen noodles on the ground and probably wondering if she could still eat them, "we're not really sure."
"So what should we do?"
"There's nothing else you can do," said Chiron, who had finally convinced the demigod to quit playing with his tail and had trotted over to stand next to Hailey, "Just come back to camp, and pray that everything goes well."
With a swipe of his hand, the message dissolved, and we were left sitting by ourselves in the train station.
"Train 9071 is now boarding at platform 6." announced a voice over the intercom. "Train 9071 is now boarding at platform 6."
Glancing at each other once, Jill and I picked up our bags and followed the steady line of people onto the train.
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
Four hours later, we were back at camp and sitting in the Big House along with all of the cabin leaders.
When we had first arrived at Half-Blood Hill (right after Peleus tried to incinerate us for coming too close to the Golden Fleece), a son of Hephaestus led us through the camp and into the Big House. When I had returned from the quest the year before, it had been a day of celebration, but nobody seemed to be in the mood for celebrating this time. The entire camp felt anxious as we waited to see if the remedy had actually worked.
A few campers smiled and waved at us (thinking back on it, I'm assuming their gestures were mostly for Jill, considering I didn't actually know any of them) on our way to talk to Chiron, but nobody was particularly excited about our arrival. The Big House was packed with all of the cabin leaders, and pretty much everyone else who knew someone in the infirmary. Chiron had explained to us when we arrived that besides having their levels returned to normal, none of the sleeping campers had made any progress since being given the berries earlier that morning.
And so we waited.
And waited, and waited, and waited until I was so sick of just sitting around that I had to excuse myself from the Big House and take a walk throughout camp.
I hadn't realized how many hours we had spent in the Big House, so it came as a surprise when I walked outside and was greeted by only the darkness. The lingering harpies that scared most of the campers to venture out during the night didn't bother me at all, and their calls and screeches were almost comfortably familiar to me.
While my mind wandered, my feet led me to the end of the dock. This was usually Percy's territory and no place for a child of Hades, but I had already come all the way there and a quiet place seemed pretty inviting after all the nervous whispering I had heard during the past few hours. The lake was still, and in the darkness it looked strangely mysterious. The normally clear waters had turned black in the night. Sitting down on the edge of the dock, I shooed away the naiads swimming just below the surface and rested my eyes.
I don't know how long I sat there before I heard someone else join me. Annoyed that some chatty idiot was about to ruin my alone time, I vowed that if they so much as breathed loudly I would push them into the water. Completely ignoring them, I waited for them to make some small talk or a lame comment about the weather, but they stayed quiet.
After moments passed and no words were spoken, I curiously open my eyes to see who had taken the place beside me. Considering there was a very small group of people that I would actually consider my friends, it wasn't very surprising to open my eyes and see Jill lounged beside me.
As soon as we had arrived back at camp and entered the Big House, Jill had been pulled away by friends and siblings of hers, so this was really the first I had seen her since our return.
I would have gone back to how I was and been perfectly content, but she had noticed me open my eyes and turned to face me.
Feeling obliged to say something, I mumbled, "Uh, hi."
She offered a small smile. "Hi." Her feet were dangling off of the dock so that her toes were just touching the water; they swung forwards and backwards, creating small waves in the water. Staring off in the distance, she seemed completely lost in thought.
I wondered why she had left the Big House, and she seemed to read my thoughts; seconds later she explained, "It was too crowded in there." I agreed with her, and we sat in silence again.
After a couple of minutes, she spoke again. "Sorry about the whole thing with my dad earlier." she apologized. "That was so awful."
I chuckled. "It was pretty terrible." I agreed. "But you have to admit, the whole situation was kind of funny."
Her laugh showed me that she agreed. "I know," she said, and a second later she added in, "Like I would ever do anythingwith you."
The comment was completely innocent, but for some reason the way she phrased it bothered me. "That's exactly how I feel." I said, "I can't believe your dad thought I would do something with you."
Her smile dimmed, and one of her eyebrows shot up almost comically. "What do you mean?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"All I was saying was that moody, arrogant sons of Hades aren't really my type." Her voice was bitter.
"Good," I said, "Because I don't care much for bossy, know-it-all daughters of Athena."
"I am not bossy!" she argued, "Now shut up and go away!"
"I was here first!" I said, "You go away!"
She crossed her arms stubbornly. "I'm not going anywhere!"
"Yeah? Well neither am I!" I shouted.
A scowl appeared on her face. "You are the most obnoxious, idiotic, moron that has ever walked the earth!"
To my uttermost horror, the best comeback that I could think of was: "Yeah? Well so are you!"
Her eyes flashed with fury. "Ugh!" she yelled, and angrily jumped up. "Fine!" she yelled angrily.
I followed her example and sprung to my feet. "Fine!"
She poked her finger in my chest. "Well you can kiss my-"
Interrupting her, a loud cheer erupted through the camp. Both forgetting our argument and what I was apparently supposed to kiss (I was pretty sure it wasn't pleasant), we ran up the dock and across the camp until we found the large crowd gathered around the infirmary. The anger that had filled my mind seconds before had evaporated and was replaced with curiosity and anxiety. Hundreds of campers were trying to push through each other, climbing over each other to get a glimpse through the window, and whispering excitedly.
"What is it? What's happened?" I asked, mostly to myself since nobody could hear me over their own whispers and shouts.
I asked again, and still nobody bothered to answer me. Impatient, I grabbed a random kid in front of me and turned him around. "What's going on?" I asked.
"The campers!" he said ecstatically, "It worked! They're awake!"