Nico woke up fully the next day not completely sure if Toby's crying had been a dream or not. Toby was on one side of him, Sally was curled on the other. Masky and Reyna were leaning against the walls on either side of the room.
"I feel loved?" Nico croaked and coughed. His throat was dry as sandpaper. Toby was up in an instant and helped Nico sit up and have a drink from a bottle sitting on the bedside table. "Looks like I got us home." Nico commented looking around them. His room was just the way he had left it, except maybe with a few more things in it. He spotted a new painting on the wall, some flowers on the bedside table, a small radio on the desk. Gifts maybe? Given to him indirectly while he was away.
"Yep you did great!" Toby exclaimed hugging Nico tightly.
"But you scared us there." Reyna said giving him a tight smile. "You were fading pretty badly."
"I was?" Nico asked blinking in confusion. His memories were just a little fuzzy. He could remember his dreams, that Seed Eater had joined him in a few of them. But he couldn't remember what had happened just before he went to sleep, it was all dark and misty.
"Ya you were. E.J. brought you back. He's had to do it for BEN and Sal a couple times too." Toby explained.
"He's awake?" E.J. said rushing into the room, did he have monitors up? Maybe, Nico noticed the IV for the first time and frowned at it. Toby got out of the way as E.J. bustled around checking on things. Nico watched him with interest, still just a little out of it. Apparently E.J. was encouraged by whatever he found. "I'm going to get you something eat." He decided and Nico groaned making Toby laugh and Sally, who was just waking up, giggle softly.
"Your hair has gotten kinda long." Sally commented stroking Nico's hair.
"Yep and probably very tangled. I haven't had time to even brush it, let alone cut it." Nico sighed trying half heartedly to tame his wild curls.
"Can I brush it?" Sally gasped excitedly.
"Sure, if you want." Nico said blinking at her in surprise. She squeaked happily and ran out of the room, everyone watching her go. "Was that a bad decision?" Nico asked Toby who chuckled softly.
"No it should be fine." Toby reassured.
"Did I miss anything? How long was I asleep?" Nico asked glancing at Reyna.
"Almost three days." Reyna answered.
"And you didn't leave without me?" Nico asked looking up at her curiously. "There are others here who could take you the rest of the way."
"I know." Reyna agreed. "But we're finishing this together. We'll find another way to get there but you're coming too."
Nico blinked in surprise. He didn't know why that meant so much to him but it did. He might have cried but then Sally came rushing back in with a hairbrush and some ponytail holders.
"I think it might be long enough to go in a ponytail." She explained happily clambering back up onto the bed.
"Sure, it'll keep it out of my face." Nico agreed with a shrug. "Thank you." He said to Reyna meeting her eyes, she gave him a tight smile. Sally started brushing his hair and E.J. came back in handing Nico a glass with a smoothie in it. He took a sip and then frowned at it. "This tastes funny." He commented.
"Hmmm? Yes it has a meal substitute in it." E.J. said typing at some electrical device for a moment. "Just because right now all you can eat is vegetable matter doesn't mean you don't still need carbs and protein."
Nico grimaced but drank the smoothie anyway because E.J. was right. Masky had stayed still, leaning against the wall and Toby was sitting next to Nico so he didn't notice for a moment when they went completely still. It was Sally's stillness that alerted him to the change and her gaze to the source of it.
"Slenderman would like to talk to the two of you." Toby and Masky said at the same time, Toby looking at Nico, and Masky at Reyna. Nico had almost forgotten that Slenderman could communicate with his proxies over distances like that. He noticed Reyna shudder slightly out of the corner of his eye and ignored it.
"Where is he?" He asked instead.
"He'll come to you whenever you're ready." Masky stated. "He understands that you shouldn't leave bed yet."
"I'm fine." Nico lied.
"No you're not." E.J., Reyna, and Toby all said at once. Sally and Masky laughed, Nico groaned. Sally was very gentle as she brushed his hair. Nico found himself relaxing, she hummed in her childish voice as she did and he smiled. Finally she brushed it back and put it into a small ponytail at the back of his head.
"Done!" She exclaimed holding up her hands.
"Thanks Sal that was nice." Nico said smiling gently at her.
"It looks good." Toby told him kissing the corner of his mouth gently. Nico turned his head so he could steal a proper kiss from Toby. Sally giggled and covered her eyes. After that Nico took a deep breath and looked at Reyna.
"Are you ready?" He asked, she nodded. "Slenderman can come any time he wants now." Nico said shrugging. Masky nodded. Not even a minute passed before there was a burst of static and Slenderman appeared, hunched over in the room so his head wouldn't hit the ceiling. Or more accurately go through the ceiling.
"We must speak about the war you are fighting." Slenderman stated without preamble Reyna seemed a little taken aback but Nico nodded. "I do not completely understand. You are trying to prevent a war but you cannot completely prevent it am I correct?"
"We're preventing a civil war amongst the Demigods by delivering the Athena Parthenon, a symbol of Greek power stolen by the Romans, to the Greeks. With luck that will stop the demigods fighting each other because the greater war is against Gaia, the earth mother. She's been kept asleep by the gods for all of living memory but she and her children, the Giants, are waking up and breaking free now. If they win and Gaia fully wakes up she will destroy all mortal life." Nico explained concisely as he could
"Ahhh." Slenderman said gravely. "And what if you cannot convince the demigods to fight under one banner? Who will prevent the rise of this earth mother then?"
Nico exchanged a helpless glance with Reyna. "We're just hoping that doesn't happen." Reyna admitted. "The only way a demigod can kill a giant is in consort with a true god. Right now our gods are incapacitated by the war, Roman and Greek aspects of all the gods warring within them. If we can't bring peace between the Roman's and Greeks the gods won't be able to help us, and we won't be able to kill the giants."
Toby bit his lip. He had heard all this before but it seemed like every time they recounted it their plan became more and more desperate and less and less likely. Masky looked grim and Slenderman nodded.
"I believe in any case I should try to assemble as many of the creeps as I can to fight incase your demigods refuse to see reason." Slenderman said both Nico and Reyna who nodded. "That may take some time. I know that Ghost cannot take you the rest of the way to your camp but do you have another way you can get to your camp."
"We do have another way." Reyna cut in before Nico could speak. "Hedge's girlfriend Mellie managed to contact someone who can help us. It'll just take a little arranging to get them here."
"Very well. Masky will help you with your arrangements. Toby must go with you so that I can find the location of your camp with the creeps who agree to help."
"What can I do?" Nico asked curiously.
"For now you rest." Reyna said smiling at him. "You've done plenty. We'll come get you when it's time to leave." Nico didn't argue. Just sitting up this long had started tiring him out again, he leaned against Toby for support.
"Okay." He agreed and sighed he closed his eyes. There was a burst of static and he knew Slenderman was gone. There were footsteps and he knew Reyna and Masky had left too. Sally and Toby remained.
"Are you going to leave when the war is over?" Sally asked suddenly.
"What?" Nico asked opening his eyes and blinking at her.
"You left us for them." She said with her childish bluntness. "Are you going to leave us to stay with them?" Nico was startled, he glanced at Toby but Toby wouldn't meet his eyes. It seemed Toby was a little worried too. "Do you love them more than us?" Sally asked, Nico was speechless.
"He has a sister with them Sally. Family is important." Toby told her instead. Sally's eyes filled with tears and she hugged Nico tightly.
"I'll be you're sister if you want. I don't want you to leave again." She sniffled. Nico wrapped his arms around her gathering his thought for a moment before he managed to speak.
"I'm not going to leave again. I'm going to visit my sister of course but this is my home now. Don't worry about that. But I'd be happy to have you as my sister anyway."
"Yay!" Sally exclaimed and hugged Nico tightly. "I'm going to go tell Hoody!" She jumped off the bed and Nico watched her run out of the room leaving him and Toby alone.
"You were worried?" Nico asked laying back against his pillows and rubbing Toby's back gently.
"A little." Toby admitted. Looking down at Nico.
"Don't be." Nico hummed tiredly. "I'm staying."
"You'll be a hero to them after this won't you?" Toby asked. "Won't that make you want to stay."
"I've been a hero to them before." Nico sighed closing his eyes. "It's not all it's cracked up to be and they forget me quickly. Children of Hades are not nearly as desirable to them as children of Zeus and Poseidon. Percy and Jason will get all of the credit as usually. At least this time Reyna will get some as well and they'll make sure that Hazel gets the credit she deserves. I don't care if I fade back into the background."
"We won't forget you." Toby assured leaning down to kiss Nico gently.
"I know." Nico agreed smiling slightly. "This is the only place I've ever felt truly wanted. Why would I ever want to leave?"
"If you wanted to get away from me?" Toby asked, Nico's eyes shot open and he looked up at Toby. "I finally pieced together what you said in that bone cathedral. You're scared for me aren't you? You're scared about when I die; loving me is hurting you because you feel like you need to save me?"
"That's just all the more reason for us to enjoy the time we have." Nico said sitting up and wrapping his arms around Toby comfortingly from behind. He rested his head against the middle of Toby's back.
"I don't want you to feel like you need to save me but I don't think there's anything I can do now is there?" Toby asked a small hitch in his voice. "I've gone too far."
"I don't think there's anything you can do." Nico said softly. "But there might be something I can do. You don't need to worry about it. Just let me try and do this for you."
"When am I going to get to do something for you?" Toby grumbled, twisting so he could wrap his arms around Nico.
"You do plenty for me, don't worry." Nico laughed and then yawned.
"You're still tired." Toby said relenting quickly. "I'm sorry now's not the time to talk about this." He kissed Nico gently. Nico didn't argue, he was tired again, but mostly he was just happy to cut off any more conversation on this topic. He kissed Toby back gently letting Toby push him back against the pillows. "You get some more sleep."
"Okay." Nico agreed closing his eyes and falling asleep immediately. He was woken a few hours later by Toby.
"Reyna says that our ride will be here in about an hour." Toby said softly. "You can spend that time sleeping of course, but I thought you might want to have a shower while we're here if you're not too tired."
"You're right." Nico agreed groggily and slipped out of bed squinting down at the bandages around his arms. He lifted his shirt a little and saw that they were around his torso too. He ignored the redness on him because he knew from the distinct lack of pain that the blood was not his own. He looked around the room and spotted a mobile monitoring system.
"Is E.J. watching?" Nico asked without looking away from the camera. Before Toby could answer the thing flicked on.
"Nope but I've been keeping an eye on you for him. Why? You need something?" Ben asked from the speaker.
"Ask him if I can take these bandages off if I want to have a shower." Nico said.
"He says yes." Ben confirmed. "You should be fine now."
"Thanks." Nico said and got up fully stretching and groaning. Toby caught Nico when his legs gave out briefly.
"Are you going to be okay?" Toby asked worriedly.
"Yah I'm going to be fine." Nico said testing his legs again and finding them more stable on the second try. "I just haven't used my leg in a few days." Nico said and stood up more carefully this time. Toby watched him closely as Nico wobbled and then reaffirmed his footing. Once he was sure of his legs, he grabbed some clean clothes from the dresser, left his bedroom, and headed to the washroom to shower.
He had a quick shower and washed his hair twice because it felt greasy. He scrubbed dirt, sweat and probably a small amount of dried blood from his skin. When he got out he looked at himself in the mirror. He hated his appearance now. All his ribs stuck out, he could see the hollow rings around his eyes, and his cheeks were sunken too. His skin was sickly pale under its darker tone, practically green.
His eyes looked empty and dark, like portals to hell. He had left Tartarus but his soul had not, and if eyes were the windows to the soul he supposed maybe they really were portals to hell. How could Toby stand to look into them? He certainly couldn't so he looked away from himself, dried off and got dressed. He sighed in relief when his baggy shirt and pants he had chosen hid his protruding bones. He put his hair back up in the ponytail Sally had done because it did keep his hair out of his face and Toby said it looked good.
He felt more awake after the shower which was a bonus, and he felt better for being clean. When he left the bathroom he found a note stuck to the outside of the door.
Come to the kitchen. E.J. says you have to eat something before we leave. TT. Nico didn't doubt that TT stood for Ticci-Toby after he deciphered the complete note. Being dyslexic sucked. Being a dyslexic with minimal schooling was even worse. Nico had been pulled out of school when he was eight and hadn't had a chance to go back yet.
He headed down to the kitchen and found E.J. already there. He waved for Nico to sit down and Nico did. Within minutes E.J. set a bowl of soup down, a glass of juice and a smaller glass half full of something else. It looked a little like blood and Nico looked up at E.J questioningly.
"Don't worry it's not blood." E.J. reassured. "It's a mix of a whole bunch of vegetable juices distilled to be high in iron. Vegetarians use it as a supplement but at the moment you should be able to handle that much of it. It doesn't taste good but just drink it quickly. I assumed it would be easier than a pill at the moment."
"You're right." Nico sighed, his throat still hurt, he thought pill would feel like sandpaper on a open wound. So instead he drank the red stuff like he had seen adults drink shots. He grimaced, that wasn't blood, it tasted much, much, worse. "Yuck." He said and quickly downed half the fruit juice to wash down the taste, then made himself eat the soup. E.J. watched him closely as he ate, well to the extent that E.J could be said to watch anything without eyes.
When he finished E.J. nodded approving. "Well done I didn't expect you to finish all of it." E.J. said. It made Nico a little uncomfortable. There hadn't been really that much but his stomach was feeling a little over stuffed and he had had to make himself eat the last bit so he supposed it was a fair thing to say.
"Thanks." He grumbled as E.J. whisked away the dishes. Nico was about to object that he could do them himself but E.J. intercepted him.
"No, no I'll do them. Your friends are outside waiting for you. Go join them, it's been nearly an hour, your lift should be here any minute." E.J. said waving him away.
"Oh. Okay." Nico said hesitantly and started to head outside. He nearly ran into Toby.
"Oh good there you are, there are things coming! Good things, come on Reyna says they're friends!" Toby said grabbing Nico's wrist and dragging him outside. He pointed up into the sky to where Nico could see a flock of… birds coming closer very quickly.
"Oh Pegasi." Nico realized. "Good that will work."