The two stepped into a mall in New York that Nico could not bother to remember the name of, Piper grabbed his hand dragging him through the mall. Nico constantly reminded himself that human contact would not kill him and that it was probably a good thing Piper was dragging him along considering he had no idea where he was going.
"I still don't understand why I couldn't just shadow travel us here."
"Will threatend to kill me and Chiron if we let you shadow travel."
"Of course it was Solace, I would expect nothing less from him." The son of Hades said, rolling his eyes. The two demigods walked through the stores both trying on different clothes and Piper this time failing to convince Nico to get anything that wasn't black. All while Piper teased him about a certain son of Apollo,
"Be realistic Piper, he's probably straight anyways."
"No he's not actually, he's bi. Leo was going to tell you but he couldn't find you, apparently the rest of Camp knows." Nico's face lit up for a second before looking back down.
"There's still no chance. He is literally the embodiment of sunshine, I am the child of Hades, God of the fucking Underworld. There is no sunlight there."
"Nico he clearly cares about you."
"It's his job."
"But he checks in on you so much more than anyone else."
"Because he doesn't trust me to stay alive."
"If he didn't trust you to be alive he would have kept you in the infirmary."
"There's still no chance he likes me."
"You're the only one who thinks that Nico, he gave you a nickname for Aphrodite's sake. He doesn't do that with anyone else who is 'just a patient'"
"He did that to get on my nerve."
"Gods you're so dense, wanna go to McDonald's now?"
"Oh, sure." Nico said trying to hide the shake in his voice.
"Oh and di Angelo, Will threatened to kill me if I didn't make you eat a full meal so yeah."
"Of course he did."
They finished ordering, Piper had only gotten some fries and a drink because apparently the vegetarian options 'were so bad they tasted like grass'. Nico just nodded, not pointing out the fact that not ten minutes ago she was threatening him to eat a full meal today because Will would kill her if he didn't and here she was barely eating herself.
"Number 57!" Nico walked up and grabbed the tray, he breathed in deeply. He'll be okay, if he acted calm then he could play it off. He would just walk off for a bit, Piper didn't have to know. The two started to eat, it still tasted as good as Nico remember but he could barely get anything down his throat. He already felt sick but he knew he could withstand at least another five minutes without throwing up, he tried to keep conversation to a minimum putting all his energy into seeming fine. After another few minutes passed, then Nico muttered,
"Bathroom." Before walking away, he tried to keep his pace normal but already knew he was walking away too fast and Piper would know something was up. He quickly walked inside and was extremely thankful the bathroom was empty, he went into the stall furthest away from the door. He threw up everything he had eaten like countless other times, at that point he was just hoping no one would walk in. He cleaned himself up a bit and headed back towards Piper,
"Okay tell me. What happened?"
"What?"
"I know something happened, you're biting your nails and you looked sick before. Also you practically ran and you look nervous."
"Nothing happened."
"Nico don't lie, I know something happened. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Piper desperately wanted to know what had happened to the Hades boy but she knew when to stop pushing, she didn't want to charmspeak it out of him, that's purely invasive. He'll tell her when he's ready.
"Come on, I want to do something I'll regret in a week."
"Which is...?"
"I'm getting my ears pierced."
"Oh my Gods, yes. That is an amazing idea; if they say you look too young to do it without parents concent, I'll charmspeak them."
"Thanks McLean, didn't particularly like the plan of asking the God of the Underworld to come to a mall in New York." Nico was relieved Piper had either forgotten to continue interrogating him or was leaving the topic for now, he had been meaning to do this at some point either way and this seemed like a good occasion.
Piper had to do some charmspeaking, but finally Nico had gotten them done. He decided to get doubles since he was going to regret it anyway might as well go all out, he hadn't even flinched when it happened. After that they went to a few more stores and Piper finally convinced him to get something that wasn't black, instead a very dark blue.
"I would ask if you are actually allergic to bright colours except I've seen you in a bright red shirt so that clearly isn't the case."
"I just like black, is there a problem?"
"It makes you look like the Grim Reaper."
"I was hoping for that."
"You're hopeless di Angelo."
"Finally you're giving up, took you long enough."
"Nope, simply stating facts. If I can bring a metal dragon to life I can make you look less like a ghost without the use of charmspeaking." Turns out however that she could not, maybe some tasks really were impossible.
"I'll shadow travel us back, it's not that far."
"Nico, I would get killed by your loverboy if you did that. We'll just take the-"
"That is probably more dangerous if we're being perfectly honest, also shut up."
"Never. By the way not that many people died, it was-" but the daughter of Aphrodite didn't have time to finish. A wooden club hit her over the head, Nico cursed under his breath and pulled out the only weapon he had, a small pocket knife, he knew he couldn't do much against a fully grown cyclopes. He didn't know where it had come from but that wasn't important, the monster had probably found them because of his blood, children of the big three were the easiest to be tracked by monsters. He had skeletons but there is no way he could stab it with the celestial bronze blade, Piper had passed out and was bleeding on the floor. Meanwhile Nico was struggling to not get hit by the 15 foot cyclopes, he didn't know what everyone else had seen but they didn't pay much attention. He raised a few skeletons to try and keep it in place, he felt himself getting weaker. He knew he shouldn't be doing these things but he was fine for those years he was alone, he would survive now. Piper had lost a lot of blood, he didn't know how well this would go, he had some squares of ambrosia but couldn't get it to her without dying. There was nothing else he could do, he grabbed her wrist and shadow traveled back to camp, but still got hit with the club before he was gone. His head hurt and he tasted blood in his mouth, he collapsed as he showed up somewhere in front of cabin 13.
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