"Nico!"
He groaned as his eyes fluttered open - they were wide and disorientated. Shaky hands fumbled over the space where the projectile just landed and disappeared? Nico frowned. Confused he blinked through his heavy lashes. Someone was calling his name. Ah, he remembered. He wasn't alone.
Nico looked up and a smile stretched over his face. "Percy."
The son of Poseidon gulped. If he thought his students were good at pulling off the puppy-dog-act, well, he had found their master.
"Hey, are you okay?" He'd caught him before the boy could have bashed in his skull, guiding him into a sitting position.
Nico giggled in response, light and carefree and leaving Percy totally dumbstruck. He hadn't heard this kind of sound from Nico in a very long time. Only now realized just how much he'd missed it.
"Why are there bananas?"
"Huh?"
"And why are they all blue?" Nico asked fascinated. He appeared to be a million light-years away.
"What the-"
Behind him, two familiar voices snickered.
"Nice shot!" Connor high-fived his partner in crime.
"Thanks, brother dear."
Travis took a dramatic bow and Nico laughed at his antics.
"What did you do?" Percy demanded.
"Relax mama-bear, it's just a Mist-Bomb," the Hermes-kid waved him off.
"In plus-minus an hour you get your grumpy teen back," Travis chimed. "But till then he's in for a treat."
"Little pipsqueak deserves a break," Connor nodded. Without a warning, he leaned down tousling through Nico's raven hair. It was incredibly soft. Nico didn't seem to mind. Didn't even notice.
"After all, he won us almost the whole pool."
"You were betting? On us? On Nico?" Percy glared.
"Who wasn't?"
Fair enough.
"If it helps, we had our money on you, Perce," the tricksters replied without remorse.
"No. It really doesn't."
"You both put on a great show," the older brother smirked, ignoring Percy and watching over Nico, who babbled happily to himself. "He's going to trip balls."
"It's not funny." Well admittedly it was a teensy-weensy bit funny seeing the son of Hades marvel at his own fingers as if they belonged to the Seven Wonders of the World, but that wasn't the point.
"Do you know the feeling when you're like an octopus-cactus?" Nico asked no one in particular and Percy resisted the urge to strangle the Stolls.
"You should be ashamed of yourselves. You drugged a minor!" Percy wasn't amused.
"Chill."
"Jokes on you! We gave up our dignity ages ago," Travis grinned. "Also, pretty sure Nico is no minor."
"How old is he?"
"Pff, at least over 85 years," Connor shrugged.
"You know what I mean!" Those two were unbelievable.
"Oh come on, get the stick out of your ass."
"Don't be such a wet blanket," Travis agreed and put an arm around Percy's shoulder. "It's harmless," he promised.
"How is this harmless?" Percy motioned toward Nico. The boy's eyes were dilated, and he was swaying dangerously from side to side. His nose crinkled in frustration when he repeatedly failed to convince his legs to move.
A small part of Percy's lizard brain cooed. He looked cute as a button.
"Don't make a scene," Travis crossed his arms. Though he tried to keep the atmosphere calm, he was growing annoyed with the son of Poseidon.
"I am not making a scene," Percy argued.
The gradually increasing cluster of people attracted by their bickering proved otherwise. Heads turned and the hero of Olympus didn't appreciate them staring.
His voice got more agitated as they lost themselves in the trivial squabble until a crack filled the air, sharp and vicious like a whip.
Between them the ground trembled, and a rupture split the earth. The boundless abyss opened was so deep he couldn't see its end, sucking in the light, stretching it thin, till it was completely claimed.
"Ni-Nico?"
The boy wasn't smiling anymore. The grass around him was wilted and brown. He'd given up the struggle to get back onto his feet. His pale fingers buried into the dirt beneath, clinging to something that wasn't there.
"What's happening?" Connor panicked as black fire emerged from the son of Hades.
It took Percy a moment before it clicked. Those weren't actual flames but shadows - tendrils of darkness and death expanding and contracting, illuminating him in the glow of the underworld.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
"Nico?" Percy called.
Sluggishly the teen lifted his head and Percy relaxed, only to flinch violently backward. He'd seen the expression Nico wore before. Deep down in the depth of Tartarus Annabeth had looked the same.