Death God Alliance

Chapter 5

The next time Nico awoke it was with a strange sense of contentment. He wasn't so deathly tired anymore. He felt stronger. And he felt warm for once. Very warm, in fact, and comfortable.

He grabbed two fistfuls of the covers and pulled them snugly around him then turned onto his side and buried his face in the pillow.

Then he realized that he had no idea where he was.

Both of his dark eyes snapped open and he took in his situation. Unlike the last time he awoke, the sights that greeted his eyes were less disturbing. He was in a small room with dark blue walls, instead of a cavernous room with oppressing white walls. And he was on a twin bed with a cloth pillow and a pile of different colored blankets draped over him, rather than a king sized bed that threatened to swallow him, with stupid white sheets and an even stupider headrest for dead Egyptians. There were some pictures on the wall. Posters of fish and a fantasy art print of a black pegasus.

It didn't take one of Athena's kids to figure out whose room he was in.

Nico sat up slowly, reluctant to leave the warmth of the bed. He felt a bit guilty as he realized that he'd stolen his cousin's bed from him the previous night, but that was quickly drowned out by panic as he realized that he wasn't wearing the same clothes that he'd had on last time he was conscious.

A dark green sweat shirt hung off his thin frame, the sleeves covering his hands completely and dropping past them a good six inches. Nico's hand flew to his chest to touch his heart scarab through the shirt. Then he tugged at the neck of the sweatshirt, hoping to find his black T shirt beneath it. No luck. Someone had changed his clothes while he slept. Probably Percy. And unless he had done it in the dark, then there was no way he could have missed the big stone scarab imbedded in Nico's chest.

Nico groaned and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He stood and tried to take a step, but ended up getting tangled in his oversized jeans and fell to the floor with a very loud thump.

Great, he thought miserably, that's sure to bring someone running.

Sure enough, footsteps sounded in the hallway then the door opened. Percy peered in cautiously then his eyes went to Nico on the floor. He stepped inside his room and hurried over to his cousin. "Are you okay?"

Nico jerked his head in a nod then touched his heart scarab again. "You saw." He didn't phrase it as a question.

"The stone bug that's stuck to your chest? Yeah," confessed Percy, "I saw."

Nico looked at the rest of what he was wearing. A pair of jeans that must have been Percy's too and a pair of warm black socks. Not his usual all black wardrobe, but it wasn't bad, even if it was colorful. At least they were dark colors. And they were warm.

"What? Hey!" protested Nico as Percy picked him up off the floor and set him back down on the bed. "I'm not a kid."

"You are too a kid," Percy told him. "And dressed like that you're even more obviously one."

"Chronologically, I'm older than your mom you know," said Nico irritably. "Probably older than her mom too."

Percy rolled his eyes, and then started rolling up Nico's sleeves for him, as though he was all of three years old. "Mom's washing your other clothes for you, by the way. You'll have to endure wearing these until they've finished drying."

"At least they're not white," muttered Nico. He tolerated Percy's mother-hen behavior, since he knew he'd need the practice for when Sally Jackson finally got her hands on him.

"Are you really okay, Nico?" asked Percy after he'd finished rolling up Nico's sleeves. There was unfeigned concern in his eyes that made Nico feel uncomfortable and guilty. He hadn't meant to inconvenience Percy so much.