Nico read the new chapter title with a faint smile. It was a silly descriptor, as these usually were, for a serious topic about a whole concept, a whole way of life for the satyrs up to this point being disbanded.

"Sounds like a kick-ass time," Alex laughed in delight.

A lot of things had changed about camp that day, and a not so small part of Nico regretted not staying. Working out how to keep Percy alive in the coming war with him instead of for him while the other kids adjusted to all this.

The larger, more pessimistic part of him was still more convinced it wouldn't work out. That the death kid wouldn't be allowed in anybody's cabin after what had just happened.

He'd probably have been kept with the other prisoners. Surely not every enemy had been defeated, though what Chiron would have done with them he wasn't sure he wanted to know. Taking away their dessert privilege or putting them in timeout didn't seem the appropriate response here...the best outcome had probably been offering abdication of Luke to stay or escorting them back out of Camp on the bus to...?

How many unclaimed children had died over the course of this battle? How many had the gods even noticed, let alone cared of both sides? He didn't agree with Luke's methods, but he'd have liked to have ever met him in moments like this. Luke wasn't around to care anymore, but whose to say he even would have been more kind to the returning, losing forces than Kronos would be.

Nico had been sitting around to long chewing on his thoughts, as if he could change the past no matter the outcome. He even knew what he was really arguing with himself about too, as Will's arm stayed around his shoulders now and his hand rested in place on his arm. This camp was Will's home, and while Nico had a cabin there it still never felt like someplace he could stay.

But there was a soft throat clearing, and this was a question he could still avoid for a time longer as he tried what he hadn't in the past and kept moving forward rather than sitting around in his past.

There had been no jokes, no snide comments while he'd collected himself. Nico's hesitance, Will's drawn penance, and Percy's tightly controlled anger made an obvious display of how this was going to go before it even started, which was of some comfort to Nico it wasn't entirely his fault for once.

Will's hand was already starting to shake slightly. Nico didn't want to ask how many times he had seen it before, how many of those deaths were accidental and how many were monsters. Not because he could have asked the ghosts themselves at camp if they so lingered, but because if Will wanted him to know he'd volunteer it. He had yet been the kind of person to hide a single thing.

Will didn't really think anybody would want to hear his war stories, his graphic memories, his gruesome details added into this. They dealt with the worst of their life every day hearing through Percy's memory, it hadn't really crossed his mind before now anybody would even ask.

And yet Thalia turned to him, her eyes vivid with worry as she asked, "do you need a minute?"

"No," Will promised calmly. "I've had time since then to adjust."

There must have been something in his voice though. A longing, a weighted cadence that meant it really was still going to get worse.

"You guys probably don't want to hear this," he tried to caution anyways when the silence lingered and he hadn't meant it to.

"Lee would probably want us to," Percy frowned. He hadn't known him that well. This war had long since been in progress before he showed up whether he'd lived to see this day or not. A part of him still felt responsible for every shroud that day, every person he'd known for years and still only knew where they slept and nothing more.

There was a kind of relief to Will's voice, how he didn't get the chance enough to talk about his brothers he hadn't known long enough. "I'd been tending to a boy, with Katie, we were trying to see if his leg needed to be amputated or we should try some nectar when I heard Lee, he was shouting at us to move," Will's eyes were far away.

This obviously was not the first time he'd told this story. To his own siblings later. To Chiron. To any curious new siblings of his who wondered about past campers. "I looked up and there was a, a sword, sticking out of his gut, cut right through his armor like nothing...He fell, and a Dracanea just slithered right over him towards us. I jumped up, ran towards him, but then Clarisse and one of her brothers tackled me to the ground and got rid of them. She didn't even have a weapon she just...it was really unbelivable unless you were there, but it took, time. He was, gone, by the time I," his blood soaked hands clenched over nothing now.

Some part of him had hated her for saving his life that day for far to long. He'd said some truly loathsome things to her before going off to the Battle of Manhattan he'd soon regretted. "We cried. Then we, we talked, and sang, and laughed a little more until we cried again."

Nico moved without thinking, reaching up his hand to Will's where it rested on his shoulder and gave his fingers a gentle squeeze. Just the tips, just enough slight pressure he'd feel it but could easily pull away.

Will smiled at him like it was the kindest thing in the world he could have done. The exhaustion in his eyes was vivid, like he could have rested his head right there on Nico's shoulder and passed out without a second thought, but his smile was still as bright as ever.

"He loved this um, this weird green alien, god I can't believe I forgot his name! From those Bugs Bunny cartoons, he always swore he was going to get a tattoo of him-"

"Marvin the Martin?" Nico asked.

"That was it!"

Will looked deliriously surprised Nico knew such a thing. Causing him to blush and needlessly explain, "I, um, vaguely remember reading old comics. Bugs Bunny went on the first rocket to the moon," he still said it with a bit of awe in his voice like that was as strange a concept as a talking rabbit would still be to them.

"The greatest cartoons alive in my humble opinion, we'd steal the TV and watch them all the time, everybody in our cabin has a favorite. H-had." Will was nodding along and looked seconds away from sharing every individual detail of those days. The peanut butter snacks, yelling at whoever decided to do chores and vacuum or clean right in front of the TV and practicing their accuracy, who could beat up whose character often ending up in wrestling matches. Memories that suddenly made him feel old, as long as it had been since any of that happened.

Nico would have loved to sit and hear of nothing more, but Will wasn't the only one who had losses that day. Percy's deeply troubled expression about all those campers' funerals he'd attended, the ones that wouldn't miraculously show up at like he had his own, still needed to be heard.

"That's not your fault-"

Percy was already shaking his head, giving a sad, but grateful smile to Thalia. "Yeah, I know. I don't go around thinking everything needs a fault." He wasn't going to be like Zeus and decide someone should be blamed and punished for this...even if the main man himself and several others came to mind who really should be.

It had just felt, bad.

Castor and Pollux had never been the most popular kids at camp, Will alone could reflect. While nobody outright hated them, they were to quiet and laid back for any real malice, quite a few kids resented them for their dad being a miserable git. Half the time they sat out of capture the flag, most often they were seen sneaking into the kitchens or throwing bread at the harpies.

Now that there was only one son of Dionysus, everybody knew Pollux. There had been a distinct, suspicious smell of fermented strawberries coming from an old shed he'd sneak off to until his dad had made it vanish. It hadn't solved all of his problems. Will had since seen him befriending every satyr there, he could tell you five generations back of all of them better than anyone.

The horrible prospects of going from an unknown kid most didn't think twice of to being one of the most well-known because you were the last one standing was a nightmare Will could barely wrap his head around.

Nobody had mentioned if Dinoysus had been in attendance, and Jason sat frowning if he wanted to know. The god of wine sat in a unique position among his brethren in that he was forced to be there, had no excuses of why he wouldn't have been, but that didn't change the fact that he was a god. That his 'excuse' if one would call it that was in his nature of being able to have a dozen more kids when he could leave same as the others. This judging sense of mortality he often saw the others giving the gods for not acting like them was the opposite of what a god was...so whether the boys father had been there for not would give him a splitting headache and he didn't ask.

"Some were better patients than others I'm sure," Will grumbled with a side-eyed look at Nico. Admittedly he'd been busy up to his hair, but he didn't once recall seeing Nico in there, let alone anyone mentioning the odd death kid might need some special attention for having passed out for a chunk of the battle!

Nico looked over so innocently, even giving a charming smile like he had no clue why Will was giving him a withering glare. Will just narrowed his eyes further, he knew Nico knew what he was thinking. Yet Nico did not plan on sharing the fact he'd simply eaten enough to get by and slept in trees, his only spare thought being ahead and the occasional relief no dryad ever popped out to yell at him until he could find a convenient moment to vanish again. Will never seemed to like how hard life had been on him, and pointing out he wouldn't have been welcomed in there never seemed to do any good.

"I bet that floating apple trick really came in handy when they had to move whole trees with roots out to be replanted," Magnus shivered at the idea of such loss and hurt in that earth.

"Grover's Hilary Duff song was probably played nonstop and everyone cheered," Alex grinned. "Now if only he'd play a good rainmaking song to mix it up."

"And cause national flooding. I think the beavers would revolt," Percy chuckled.

"Where was Tyson?" Jason asked in surprise, with the confidence of knowing one who would have been there if not for some grievous accident.

"He scared them to much, Annabeth and I had to lie and convince him to stay back and help the Camp with repairs because he intimated those stupid old goats," Percy sighed.

"""Aren't pain and panic Hades's thing?" Magnus asked with full knowledge he was probably talking out of his ass, only remembering vague details from old cartoons.

"The gods domains often overlap with each other," Nico shrugged. "Like Athena being the goddess of battle strategies but Ares getting the whole dominion. Animals are known for panicking, it's like their thing right? Fight or flight when confronted with something new. It occurs a lot in humans death too, hence why it can be associated with him, though his name is Phobos and he's actually a child of Ares."

As was usual with these explanations, Magnus didn't seem to grasp any of this much better. He just nodded meekly and hoped this kept going before he had to think of this much longer.

""Why you got to say it like that?" Percy sighed, not really offended, but feeling a little grain of annoyance all the same. "I can't be the only person there who had no clue what Grover just did."

"You're just special like that Perce," Thalia said, even ruffling up his hair, a rather dangerous thing to do, Alex grinned in admiration, when Percy scowled at her and could have taken her hand off without even drawing his sword down here. He could have just wielded the water like an extension of himself and done it without a thought. He just wouldn't.

""Which came first?" Jason was more than happy not to let this go as he grinned in surprise. "Phobos or Pan? Did Ares name one of his kids after a nature god? Because if so, he got a little more interesting just now."

"I wouldn't hold your breath," Percy rolled his eyes.

"We weren't exactly there to confirm, but it is pretty funny either way," Thalia snickered in agreement.

"""A distastefully hateful feeling tugged tight in Magnus's stomach at hearing that. He'd never been religious, had a quite low opinion of most random people from living on the streets, and this statement put so blatantly pretty well summed up why. Those in power always wanted somebody else to come around and clean up their mess.

And yet, a part of him envied their blind faith. To believe wholeheartedly that there was someone out there who cared about them and could think of to not feel alone. He didn't share that feeling in the slightest, but some days he wished he did.

"""Nico said what?" Percy yelped, mock cleaning out his ears to make sure.

"You were there," Thalia frowned at him.

"Yeah, and I didn't quite believe my eyes either," Percy's frown only continued.

Will had been in attendance of this. He'd had to get out of his cabin and get some air while they were packing up Lee's things to put in the attic. Seeing Mr. D show up like that had been enough of a shock to his system that going back to that empty bunk had almost, almost, been less of a hurt and more of a dull ache on his brain on how everything changes.

"Would he know if I lied?" Percy raised a brow, but it had a tinge of sadness more than mocking for once.

"I don't get the feeling he would, but you'd be the person I trust most to test that theory," Alex told him with pride.

Jason chuckled at the pair just like everybody, but he shook his head at his fleeting thought as he revised his headache. So they hadn't waited until Bacchus/ Dionysus had come back, to give him the unique qualm of whether to attend his child's pyre. He would have liked to have been a fly on the wall of the Big House when he and Chiron discussed this later though, even if he was blasted to bits for it.

"The fact that Dionysus not only knew about Janus, but also conferred his whereabouts and loyalties wasn't much of a blip on them nowadays after their mostly unspoken company of the past few days.

"Even while living the outcome of that war, Thalia still squirmed with a bit of distress of this along with everyone else. It truly had felt back then like everything was against them when Artemis had reported much similar dissatisfying news. If things hadn't gone exactly the way they had, if Percy hadn't chosen himself to be the Prophecy child, it most certainly would have all had a very different ending.

""I cannot believe such a spineless creature said that to this god," Alex said with begrudging admiration.

"He's got a lot of guts, remember," Magnus snorted.

Nico's voice was so gentle as he read that. A lot of things that happened in Percy's life were absurd and could be played off for laughs even while the worst was happening. This wasn't even close to one of those times.

""About how to sum up these Greek guys," Jason muttered. They seemed a lot more, spirited, than his impression of them kept telling him they should be. And a lot more volatile to boot.

""""How brave, and or stupid, is it to vote against a god?" Will asked. He'd been personally surprised they hadn't been smited.

"Probably a minor annoyance that causes hurricanes if a god votes against a god," Percy offered from personal experience. He'd seen a lot of side eyeing going on in that throne room.

"Depends on the god otherwise," Thalia murmured gently. She was a bit surprised as well Dionysus didn't turn him into a bag of grain, but as bad a mood as he was in, it was grief, not anger. Even he seemed to have decided there had been enough violence for one day to go through with it.

""""What a hill to die on," Alex said. They were a bunch of idiots hanging onto a ledge by their hooves, but goats were the best at that and likely would not get down until they decided to. It was a stubborn trait she could understand, even if that meant she didn't have to like it in this case.

"They need leadership," Jason said gently, but with clear concern. "Those old billy-wigs might have been stubborn and too resistant, but the rest of the satyr's are going to need someone else now for guidance, something everybody could use."

"I have a feeling they'll find it easily enough," Percy said with a surprisingly confident smile.

"""He had to finish puberty eventually, it was about time!" Alex said with lamented pain for him.

"I figured that back when he basically got married and divorced in one day," but Percy's old joke only held light laughter in here.

Will had stood on the edge of that clearing smiling for the first time all day to have seen it. Percy and Annabeth talking and smiling, the satyrs planning for their future with absolute resilience in the face of everything that had gone wrong. It had been a calming feeling, the kindling of hope as Mr. D vanished with a hint of grape. He liked to think it was off to find Pollux, but most likely it was back to the Big House. The fact that he hadn't stuck around, but in fact Chiron had wheeled himself off alone had said enough of what company was wanted.

"Has anybody ever tried to build a life sized model of a sand castle to live in?" Alex asked with immediate interest. "Is that what Poseidon was going to offer Sally? Because I think we could get Briares on this stat!"

"I think that's to much power for one person to wield, they'd rule the world from that spot," Percy said with the tone of regret of one who had already considered this idea and been forced to dismiss it.

""No diss on Tyson, but that sounds like the worst scavenger hunt of my life," Magnus shivered. All three of those landmarks should be avoided by anyone with a grain of intelligence, let alone what was waiting at the end!

"You clearly haven't spent enough time listening to my life then," Percy scoffed. "All of that sounds like the best dream come true!"

"To be fair, I think we could drop Percy into anywhere in the ocean and he'd just think it was the coolest thing. Not entirely the same," Thalia was on Magnus's side, she sure hoped she'd never have to be on the look out for a graveyard full of mermaids.

"Alex applauded Percy figuring that out so quickly and Percy showed her the bird.

""They hadn't needed Nico to read that out loud to get the idea, it was in plain view now as he glanced at the decimated space. Somehow, even being trapped down here, he felt purposely barred from his father's realm and shoved off into the closet or something.

"Percy cheered considerably along with the others though upon confirming the news Tyson was sticking around for a while longer. There was just something about him that made the feeling keep going they could get through another miserable page of this if there was Percy's little brother at the end waiting to hug them all at once.

"I've seen Aliens are Real blogs by citing octopi as the source," Alex said in her usual out of nowhere style. "Their blood is blue, they're weirdly super smart. I have this feeling they accidentally saw pictures of this guy and just went wild with it."

"It would not be the strangest theory that has some kind of confirmation," Nico nodded.

"""I have found the secret weapon to become Tyson's favorite person," Jason grinned, rubbing his hands together in a diabolical gesture.

"Bet I'll still win first by giving him a peanut butter sandwich," Alex sniffed.

"Amateurs," Percy rolled his eyes at the two.

Will struggled for a moment to swallow at that. He hadn't given an offering that night, something he could count on one hand. He hadn't resented his dad so much as not appearing during the actual battle, but afterwords while pushing food around on his plate, it had been more of a lingering feeling of loneliness. Surrounded by his siblings, his thoughts had been racing ahead. None of the gods had shown, it wasn't fair to just be mad at Apollo, and yet, all he'd been able to think about that night was what it would take to make him appear? If a whole cabin had been decimated, would that have finally earned a godly intervention?

Will had to grit his teeth against snapping at Percy for that. He'd suffered no major losses. From his point of view, that was true, and it's not like he'd stood up at the front and tried to make them all smile about this fact.

Will certainly hadn't noticed that, to busy with his own misery, and he felt a fresh wave of guilt for his old ignorance. Nico didn't sound resentful or upset while reading that though. Just calm, as casual as ever, this was his normal.

Which only made Will feel worse. That shouldn't be normal to anyone! Even if Nico wanted to remain a wall flower his whole life and never chose to sit with another person, he should still sound slightly tired at having stood through a meal, maybe a little uncomfortable at not fitting in at that moment. He didn't know how to wrap his head around Nico sometimes. Will was trying his best to accept Nico's differences, but a part of him was also hoping Nico wouldn't accept them so readily himself. The Son of Hades should still want to be able to be among his peers, even in the back, just like every Greek kid.

Nico was shifting his weight around, his hands fidgeting around the spine of the book. Classic signs by now something was either bothering him or about to bother him no matter how modulated his tone was. Will squeezed his shoulder without a second thought, then left his hand hovering there, as clear an invitation as he could he would back off and give him some space. Nico made a little noise in the back of his throat, like a scoff but to gentle, and settled back into a comfortable position to keep going so Will put his arm back across his shoulders as gently as ever.

Percy knew he wasn't the best friend Nico could have. He'd failed him one to many times already and was kind of creeped out by him and had kept making really stupid mistakes with no idea how to fix them.

And yet he still leaned forward in his seat. He still wanted to help with no clue how. He'd been that kid in every other group of peers except this one place and he wished he knew how to make this better as Nico paused and cleared his throat and didn't look up at Percy before continuing. Percy had probably disappointed him again, or made him angry and he wasn't acting on it or something else. Percy wished he could say something to make it right, he just couldn't think what.

She'd said she was proud of him, a moment Nico intended to take to his grave. Since he'd finally stopped pestering her to appear she'd made one last chance to come see him herself and promised he was now on the right path, and she was proud of him.

He wondered if she still would be, knowing he'd been slipping backwards and looking for her again. If she knew he was now thinking about going into Tartarus alone. If she'd wanted him to stay at Camp but couldn't hold onto her ghostly form long enough to share more than a few words with him. None of it ever felt like enough.

" Nico deserved that so much, for not getting something so precious and often rare enough in the mundane world. Not even the first time when her ghost had appeared to him on that ranch with only advice and a warning.

Nico should have been able to say everything he wanted to her before she departed again, but there was something in his haunted face that not a one of them could speak to when they'd all suffered their own loss. There was just something about the hitch in Nico's voice that promised this was still an ongoing problem for him he wanted nobody's input on.

"""What an interesting dynamic you two have," Thalia said with a faint smile. "You'll kill for each other but can't stand to share a meal."

Percy nodded like this made absolute sense while Nico looked at her with a strange, almost offended expression because he couldn't deny it but didn't exactly want it to be true.

""Not for lack of trying," Will muttered under his breath. Nico gracefully ignored that.

"Percy had somehow known this the moment he'd seen him standing off in those shadows. He didn't even know where he'd been all day or what he was doing after the battle. That was kind of the problem. He couldn't begin to guess where Nico could fit in there. He just wanted to try and make it work.

"""You haven't always felt welcomed there either Percy," Alex said.

He winced at how true that was and couldn't argue, but she pressed in anyways.

She sounded just as Nico did, and nobody found it hard to believe she skirted the world of what everybody thought normal was. "You should trust him when he says that and find some other way, not yours."

Percy didn't like that answer any better than Nico's. The problem ran deeper than just where he slept though. It started with the gods, what Nico said was true. The kids would never fully accept him, they followed their parent's will, and in a way it's why there were still Campers left who hadn't all defected to Luke. Nico, as always, was left somewhere in the middle.

Percy had spent so long looking for this kid, it still felt like a failure to admit this. He didn't have a problem with Nico being gay, with him finding more comfort with the dead than the living, for his strange nerdy tendencies. He just struggled to grasp it all at once, that Nico Di Angelo was truly someone he seemed to have nothing in common with and didn't know how to help in the slightest.

He had Will and Alex now though, Percy tried to relax into his seat with a smile. At least Percy didn't have to try and look out for this kid on his own anymore.

Will startled like a long tailed cat in a rocking chair factory. His eyes darted to Nico's, who were suddenly averted and studying his ring deeply. Had that been what Nico was so afraid of him hearing?

"Hope you're not to upset Nico," Will offered giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze again, "we all want the gods to single us out, and then they do, and well," he used his other hand to wave at Percy to emphasize his point.

"I'm tired of being the exception," Nico murmured, watching Will for a reaction he couldn't guess. "I don't want to just be the death kid."

"Pan will be sorry he's missing that," Will grinned, "but death is a part of nature. He connected with you the only way he knew how, just like the others." He'd spoken to Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson about the future and the prophecy, familiar and vague enough territory for any god. He'd spoken to Rachel of her rich dad that had no care of the environment, which she'd clearly hated as much as Nico had.

Will was right, Nico nodded to himself in answer. The gods rarely left their domain or bothered with much outside it, and he wasn't going to stick to one bubble even if they couldn't grasp that.

Nico was the one reading, so it's not like it was subtle they were over here having their own whispered conversation. Nobody was sure what it was about, but as Nico kept reading with a slight smile that made a rare dimple appear, and Will left his arm in place on his shoulders, it wasn't exactly a huge mystery either.

""Will wished he could ask how that worked out for him, but there were more reasons why he shouldn't. If Nico would tell him if he wanted, if Percy somehow helped Nico sometime over the course of their battle as he was apt to do, if it was private and perhaps he'd like to keep it that way. He'd like to know though, or offer to help if it was even hinted he could.

""Brat is a strong word reserved for some people," Jason said with a significant look at Percy who gave him a very obvious confused stare. "You were upset and younger back then. If you don't look back on yourself a few years ago and cringe at how awkward you were, you haven't grown enough since then." Not that he'd know anything about that, he had all of those same questions about himself and more, but he was confident enough about the sentiment.

"Thanks," Nico managed with a mild laugh. He felt like he was still wobbling between that line of looking back and moving forward with the confidence of having taken advice from Dionysus, but it was getting easier with practice.

"""It was the kind of info Nico felt was ingrained into his brain. He probably had dreams about Mythomagic when he couldn't remember but woke up feeling happy and confident about the day. The sort of easy topic he could strike up a conversation with anybody about.

And Percy, of all people, had just encouraged that. The same guy who still thought of him as a pesky child, had been actively convincing him that was okay to be. He liked to think that wasn't the sole reason he'd kept it all these years, it was a combination of him and Bianca he was also still working on separating, but it had been the nicest feeling he'd had in a long while. Months probably. It was a memory, for once, he found himself happy looking back on.

Will had noticed that repeatedly, that Nico ran colder than most. Yet, after they'd eaten a meal, or he got into one of his excited phases, his skin radiated warmth. There was an icy cold feeling in Will's gut Nico only got cold as a corpse when he'd been using his powers to much, when he was anxious, when he felt that internal need to push away.

He felt perfectly warm under Will's arm now.

"Percy wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. It sounded ominous, and his skin twitched like he felt threatened again, though his mind told his gut to shut up and this was a good parting. As good as could be expected after all that.

Because he'd shadow traveled away, Nico recalled with interest. He'd spent maybe an hour in those woods, tops, before he finally managed his disastrous first attempt and ended up in China, only waking up a week later in a field of dead bamboo.

Nico had to pause and compose himself before he could make himself read who had said that about him. The worst person by far would be Annabeth, he would have been much happier in ignorance one of his few good memories so far hadn't been watched by her. Chiron would just feel like a blow to his face, that the protector of that camp hadn't felt the need to tell him to stay either because he really did know better. He couldn't imagine any camper there besides Will knowing enough about him to speak up, let alone bother to wait until he left to say that behind his back.

It was the cool wine dude god though, Nico smiled in surprise to see. Possibly the most real thing any god had said about him.

Thalia's heart gripped her tight and raced into her throat as the unprompted image of Zeus came to mind. If he'd mourned Jason's death, if he'd cared at all. The idea of Mr. D giving a rats ass about any kid in that camp dying was common knowledge among them all, so for him to still be in mourning more than twenty minutes after the news of his son's death must have been as much a shock to all them as much as her.

"""Never change Percy," Alex told him proudly.

"I get suspicious of a cookie that's been in one place to long, trust me, I won't," Percy nodded seriously.

""Everyone has their own natural talents?" Will tried to say like that was a good thing.

"Now we just have to decide how this ranks among his other skills, like saving the world and eating three meals in one," Thalia nodded.

Percy couldn't help but notice nobody in here had jumped to deny it.

"Magnus clutched his coat a little tighter to him and averted his eyes to the ground. Perhaps Percy had never felt the stain in one's own feet of being somewhere you were forced into with no other choice. He wasn't sure about Dionysus, if he'd had a choice if he would be there for once, the place where his loan son was. Or if he, like the other gods, would be avoiding this place if only his punishment would allow him that grace. Like a park with grass and leaves you had no other choice but to sleep in because everywhere else had turned you away. The very concrete of suburbia under his boots had felt unwelcome some days.

"A surge of affection Percy had never quite felt for Mr. D before washed over him. Not when he'd saved his and Thalia's life, not even when he got his own name right, but now. When he finally said Annabeth's name right so much later.

""The only group project in history where all participants strived to be equal," Will said with a lackluster kind of charm, because there had still been those who were let down by their best efforts.

"Woah!" Alex yipped with the determination of stopping a horse dead in its tracks.

Nico had needed no such instructions. He was just as surprised as them. He'd really never known anything about Chris, he'd never been around camp long enough to even pick him out of a crowd before this.

"What kind of life altering quest did Clarisse go on to get him to do that?" Jason asked, squinting like the sun was in his eyes.

"Nothing at all I'm sure," Will reminded, his sad blue eyes on Thalia and Percy. Just because he didn't go around advertising it didn't mean this was the first time Mr. D had done something so kind out of the blue. Will probably would have hugged him if he didn't think he'd get turned into a grapevine for it.

"""That one was barely recognizable," Magnus was trying his best not to laugh and failing.

"He once called me Walker Scobell," Will shrugged. "He gets real creative with it sometimes, we just kind of roll with it."

"""Do we have bets on how long that lasts?" Percy asked, his lips tugging up in a smile.

"Nah, we just hope it lasts," Thalia said with a grateful heart somebody out there got their happy ending even for one brief moment.

""Because you're the prophecy child and everything has to happen to you," Magnus told him in sympathy.

"Because it would just be awkward if he pulled Grover aside and told him to tell you, and he's nothing if not direct," Alex snickered.

Percy rolled his eyes at the pair, but he didn't think Dionysus was going to give him a better answer either.

Or, no answer at all. Yeah, that seemed on par.

"This guy apparently is just oozing niceness," Magnus scratched at the back of his neck with a happy smile. He was like a grumpy old man who kept scowling while feeding the homeless his would-be-throw-away food knowing he could get a ticket for it. If all the gods went out of their way to show some lackluster decency, just giving one person every day some small miracle, who knew how much better the world would be.

"Oh," Alex said with a surprised, and yet delighted tone for her. Clarisse's sudden bedside manner from before suddenly brought in a whole new light. Her stomach quivered as she all to easily pictured how Clarisse's situation would have progressed- and yet smiled with relief it was just a horrible sense of deja vu she'd lived on the streets instead of something one person had avoided.

Nico's voice held a wayward gentleness to it not usually present. He'd been passed out in countries unknown right now, alone and sucking up life from every living thing around him. If he'd asked Percy to come, he never would have said yes...right? But it would never have changed anything, of that he knew.

Now as he found himself handing the book to Will, he was absently studying Will's hand that took the book. His deep tan skin, his long fingers, his sun-withered grip always so confident and steady. He remembered his time in the Casino like a hazy dream, but he'd been so sure he held a boy's hand in there, an innocent childlike gesture of not getting lost in the crowd of Mythomagic players as they ran around laughing with their fingers intertwined. It most likely hadn't even been real. Will's palm had been hovering in his presence for days now without flinching away. It sounded like a nice feeling he might have without the Mist one day soon.