In the years since defeating Gaea, the demigods of the prophecy had mostly managed to settle into lives that could almost be mistaken for normal. Percy and Annabeth were preparing to graduate from NRU, living together in New Rome. Jason was attending a mortal university and triple majoring, but still shared an apartment with Leo on the other side of the Caldecott Tunnel. Hazel and Frank were running the legion, navigating the unknown turf of a time without the impending end of the world. Piper was off with a girlfriend, her charmspeak, and a credit card, which is all she really needed to be having her best life.
Nico and Reyna, meanwhile, enjoyed the normalcy of their friends' lives while not claiming it as their own. The Hunters crossed paths with his missions for Hades more often than he had expected, though Nico had a sneaking suspicion that his father was inventing tasks that happened to bring him around one of the only people Nico did not use sarcastic disregard when speaking highly of. The group of immortal young women found it helpful too; the restless ghost prince was sufficiently skilled to be on patrol for the entire night while they caught their sleep between catching beasts.
On one such night, while the hunt was on for a gruesome hybrid creature that hadn't been seen since it ransacked the Plymouth Colony, Reyna had asked Nico about his sleeping habits, or lack thereof, out of the silent blue night.
"Do you not need it, or can you not find it?", she asked.
"I don't understand what you mean," responded Nico.
"That's a shame, because I'm trying to say it in a way that might be easier for you to see."
"Could you try again?"
She paused a beat, then continued.
"When you shadow travel, sometimes you don't need there to be a shadow. I've seen you press your own shadow down until it was dark enough to work. But sometimes, you look for one and you can't find it. Is sleep the same for you? You can get by without it, but it's taxing. You're working around it. But really, you shouldn't be going without it anymore than the rest of us."
"Not everything about me is about shadows, Reyna."
"Tell that to the bags under your eyes. Or the fact that this is your sixth night covering watch. I know you don't like sappy, this isn't sappy. This is strategy. If you're going to watch our backs, I need to know if I'm leaving my camp in hands that are being honest to me."
He contemplated revealing the truth. To admit to her that she is right, that he is drawing power from shadows to power him, night and day. Knowing Reyna though, this is fruitless. First, she reads lies as well as her dogs, and likely would know already from his face that this is the case. Second, he had no answer. He didn't despise sleep - it despised him. Zagreus had only taught him shadow sleeping because he feared what would happen if he didn't. So instead, Nico postponed the resolution with Reyna.
"Can we not talk about this?"
"That's fine, Nico. But if you can't find any sleep in your shadows, I'd recommend you at least try to find it somewhere else."
Nico had an entire night without sleep to ponder the daughter of Bellona's thoughts.
The group had done its best to keep to the pact they made after the war, to attempt to live as normal lives as possible. While it didn't mean "no powers", it meant trying to live the lives they had earned in their quests. It meant being there for each other in the good times and the bad, and getting together as often as any group of good old friends can. Unfortunately for Nico, this included being there for the hardest thing a friend can go through: being in a play.
Jason's natural gravitas led him too quickly to the drama department at his new school, and his everything else led him to being immediately cast in its production of Romeo & Juliet. He was already worried about his grand debut before Percy's weekly phone call with his dad.
"Percy, will your dad smite me if I ask him to NOT come?", he asked in exasperation, pacing around the floor of his and Leo's apartment.
"What?! He'll be devastated. He already bought tickets for himself, my mom, Paul, Estelle, Triton, Amphitrite, and his top twenty lieutenant gods," Percy revealed excitedly.
The lack of looming threat had done nearly as much good for the Olympians as it had for their offspring. Zeus had tentatively loosened the chains on not contacting their children. Poseidon, out of equal parts boredom and brotherly antagonism, had found a way to make this loosening an undoing. He wasn't in weekly contact with his son; he was merely in rotating contact with his son's eight close personal friends as well, and that meant his son just so happened to be there too. But Jason was not blind, and knew this meant he could expect at least double the attendance in Zeus's corner.
"I didn't even think this was a ticketed event."
"It wasn't, until Poseidon---erm, Percy Jackson Sr., gave a donation to your school to upgrade the budget. Oh, also, your school is getting an aquarium."
All of this led to Jason deploying the ultimate weapon. Not an onager, but the "NQA." To make sure everyone was being fair about being supportive, each member of the friend group got one "No Questions Asked" a year. It required absolute attendance from all eight other members to whatever the summoner asked. Percy had needlessly used his on what was already likely to be a well attended birthday party for Estelle. Annabeth brought everyone to the Guggenheim when they had a special exhibit on work she uncovered and covertly published from the Daedalus laptop. Even Artemis understood the severity of this self-forged oath, adding an extra clause to the Hunter's immortality contract to let Reyna out as needed.
Now, Jason needed his eight half-mortal friends to balance out the pantheon of beings who had literally see most every production of this play ever put on.
This NQA was Nico's least favorite so far. Whether in Italy, the Lotus Hotel, or since, there was no theatre that could keep his attention. Maybe it was an unknown weakness of children of the dead. But every time the curtain rose, his head nodded off. What would happen this time, when he hadn't been able to sleep for weeks? Would he just fade into the shadows while the entire Olympic Council was distracted by a twenty-one year old butchering the role of Nurse? So naturally, he pulled himself through the unlit pantry in Jason and Leo's apartment to personally request that Jason take it back. To his surprise, Leo was already midway through passionately arguing for the same thing.
"Please, Jace. I can't sit still for that long when I don't understand what's going on. I know Spanish AND Ancient Greek AND English, and English is like the one I know least. And that's English English, not Shakespeare English."
"First of all, Leo, most scholars would say that Shakespeare has a better claim to being called 'English English' than the modern English. Second of all, that is not even close to true but nice try. Third of all, you don't have to pay attention. You just have to be in the room long enough that my father is focused on being the better supportive parent than his brother. Maybe he'll buy you a plane."
It was at this point that Nico tumbled through the pantry door (which had regrettably been closed) and into the kitchen. The other two looked over, surprised but not overly shocked. This was not the first time Nico entered the apartment this way.
"Oh Nico, you should've texted you were coming, I would've taken out some of the soup," said Jason all too calmly as reserves of Campe's Monster Noodle Soup tumbled onto the shadow traveler.
"Neeks! Please, you've got to save me, Jason says if I don't go to this play he's going to try to re-kill me!", implored Leo.
"I never said that! Let Hephaestus and everyone know I never said that!"
Nico stood up and ruffled his clothing back to something resembling presentable. He was, truthfully, shocked to hear that Leo was not thrilled to see people his age act out a dramatic romance that ended in murder suicide. This seemed like exactly the type of drama that was happening in the telenovelas he insisted were "unironically good" every time the demigods got a bit stoned.
"Jason, here's another idea. I use my dad's obsidian credit card to hire actors that look like me and Leo, and everyone wins," Nico proposed in vain.
"If we were trying to trick anyone but your literal deity parents, that might work. But I'm sorry, the NQA has been called and I'm sticking to it. And these are starting to sound like questions, which are the only no in No Questions Asked."
"To be fair, we've kind of tricked a lot of gods over the years...", Nico mumbled as Leo just make an exaggerated groaning noise for over a minute as Jason didn't flinch. The two curly haired boys realized that Romeo had indeed won this round, and there would be no winning here.
"Fine! I give up. But when it's the end with the bowing part, I'm going to clap for everyone but you!", taunted Leo. Jason just nodded as he began resorting the pantry, knowing from living together that Leo sometimes just needed to make hollow threats into the air until he felt like he was satisfied.
Hades had made sure Nico had no mission the day of the play's opening. Somehow, his father had become the reasonable one. It was only through Hades' intercession that the madness stopped, explaining how their children might be questioned and embarrassed if Poseidon and Zeus went through their original plan of a staffed red-carpet and three wing expansion to the school's theatre building.
He joined the other demigods, less Jason, at Hazel and Frank's house a few hours prior to the show. Their shared praetor house was luckily home to a reasonably sized kitchen and living room, which made it the ideal place for the whole group to meet up. Hazel had on a tasteful dress, deep purple for both her station and for matching Frank's tie.
Nico almost panicked before he heard Leo's voice bellow out, "See! No one said we were doing fancy! Nico didn't wear fancy, I didn't wear fancy, Piper didn't wear fancy!"
"I don't ever wear fancy?", added Piper to the middle of the argument, though her mother's gifted sense of style meant that even her casual outclassed Nico's T-shirt and jeans.
The room devolved into shouting as Annabeth came over - fancy - and gave Nico a hug. "You look just fine Nico, it's a college theatre production. No one is taking our picture besides HephaestusTV and they've seen all of us coated in blood and orange t-shirts before." Her point was indeed fairly comforting.
The group flipped through music videos and other catching up before getting ready to head out. A fervent conversation of who got to drink at the function and who had to drive ensued; Percy briefly pitched having one of their parents merely poof them all back after, before a group consensus ruled that it would likely mean Olympians joining in on the after party, so the idea was disregarded.
In the end, it would be Hazel and Frank in their car, with Nico, Leo, and Reyna in the back; second would be Percy and Annabeth in theirs, with Piper and her girlfriend Shelley in the back. After promising to not intervene in her daughter's life, Aphrodite did take some credit for the idea that Piper's girlfriend should both have clear sight and not go insane from it.
The Jackson-Chase vehicle proceeded with Annabeth's excellent curated, guaranteed-to-please group compromise playlist that excluded any song to every be in so much as a trailer for a Tristan McLean movie. The Praetor-mobile, as the group had come to call the 2005 sedan that was seemingly the one property not replaceable by godly power, had a somewhat more eclectic DJ. Frank's repeated attempts to play Brockhampton were vetoed as often as Hazel's repeated requests for music that was largely too old to be on streaming. The compromise was mostly pop hits selected by Leo which Nico was too annoyed to refuse and Reyna secretly enjoyed.
They arrived to the campus and had a scene which, to anyone not free from the Mist, appeared like a fairly normal (albeit over-supportive) extended family attending their adult child's far-from-Broadway debut. The ushers were blissfully unaware that until recent years, the Big Three appearing in the same place meant that imminent doom was most likely for all mortals in a five mile radius. With any luck, that would not be the case tonight.
Poseidon, as usual, greeted the group with large hugs, and a slip of some cash into Percy's pocket. Given the immortal's unawareness (or lack of care) for how mortal currency worked, this varied between being a single $10 bill or more money than his son could possibly know what to do with.
Hera and Zeus, actually without any help of the Mist, appeared perfectly normal as too aggressive parents of a darling student. If Zeus had shook the university president's hand any firmer, Jason would have been declared valedictorian by default.
Hades and Persephone were somehow the most normal, having the most interaction with people who until recently had been regular mortals in the real world. Persephone brought Jason a bundle of flowers, though Nico still wondered if there would be adverse effects about being trapped in the underworld if sniffed too thoroughly. She brought Hazel more perfume, with Hazel too afraid to tell her that humans used significantly less than a bottle a week. The world's most expensive fragrances were starting to overflow in her and Frank's attic by the crateload.
In lieu of her love, Aphrodite had her husband attend on behalf of it being his most favorite son's best friend. Hephaestus hadn't seen Romeo & Juliet before, but he was fairly certain the message didn't have inspiring qualities for guys who were thrown off mountains on account of ugliness. Ares had bribed his way into not coming by providing the booze for the after party, in an awkward text exchange him and Frank used when they needed something. Athena came, but brought some godly Advil for when the script inevitably varied from the original written word. Apollo and Hermes attended of surprisingly free will, eager to tease their half-brother after his debut. The rest of the heavenly entourage was filled out by minor deities who either owed their "not being smited" to the group of demigods, or who needed an extra reason for Zeus to like them this decade.
A few other fans of Jason Grace made appearances. The Jackson-Blowfis group made a rare godly-travel trip from the Atlantic to the Pacific, on the occasion that Estelle not be home more than an hour past her bedtime. Thalia didn't want to leave the Hunters for too long without both her and Reyna, so she dropped in quietly through the back a few moments before the doors shut.
The relatively nice university theatre held a decent sized crowd, and a little manipulation by some god or another meant that the oversized group was sat directly in the middle of the theatre, spanning three whole rows left to right. In the first of the three rows, on the right end, were the savior couples of Olympus...and Reyna, Nico, and Leo, in that order.
Nico darted his eyes around the lit theatre as they settled in. Even though the past few years had provided more normalcy than he ever thought possible, it's hard to tell a survivor of three Great Prophecies that the presence of dozens of Olympians in a mortal setting wasn't a recipe of disaster. Still, somehow having to sit through Mercutio's monologue seemed only marginally better than Ouranos popping out of the orchestra pit and yelling "Surprise, f*ckers!" before Nico unslept himself into non-existence.
Leo wasn't any more comfortable. He didn't know what it was about plays. They were a recipe of everything he didn't like. It wasn't like a movie, where he knew everything had been edited and worked out to be exactly how someone wanted. A play was live; every contraption subject to fail. There was so much that could go wrong. It was the opposite of a machine. Instead of neatly fit cogs he could rework again and again, it was messy human pieces, every single one of whom could through the whole thing off course. What could be less enjoyable than that?
If there was any relief for the boys, it was knowing they were commiserating with both their fathers and each other. Hades used one of his other godly presences to be making a list of the last ten thousand people who had near death experiences and see if they had gone mad yet, which was surely urgent. Hephaestus was inventing a new metal box which re-enacted Romeo and Juliet word for word, on loop for all of time forever. And it could turn into a watch.
But the more understandable coping mechanisms came from each other. Leo recognized the rapid tapping of both of Nico's legs as much as Nico saw Leo solving a Rubik's cube that didn't exist. And though it wasn't by much, Leo was older. And long before he flew a bronze dragon or died (and un-died), he never liked it when other people were uncomfortable. That's what jokes were for. That's what Leo was for. But Leo knew from the Argo II that jokes didn't work on Nico, right away. Nico needed answers first, and jokes later.
"Psst," whispered Leo into Nico's shoulder. "It's okay, Jason told me they cut a bunch of stuff out, so it'll run shorter than normal."
That was a lie, but Nico believed it enough to relax his shoulders slightly, and let his eyes stop shifting.
"And there's a break in the middle!"
Tentatively, Nico nodded and went to face the stage as the lights dimmed.
"See you on the other side, Ghost King."
Leo could've sworn he almost saw Nico smile as the lights went dark and the show began. He let a breath out himself. He didn't want Nico to be stressed. Inside, his mind flitted for a second to why he cared. Leo knew when Gaea was defeated his plan had one flaw. A cure and a note would bring him back and make sure no one grieved for too long, but Nico would feel it. Nico would have to know Leo died for real. The quiet creature he was, he never told anyone. Of all the pain Leo's sacrifice could have caused, Nico had absorbed the majority, so no friend or god would ever feel it. At first, Leo felt guilty. And maybe he still did, no matter how many times he told Nico after one too many drinks that he was sorry, and Nico forgiving him every time. Now, he just realized what it meant about how much Nico cared about other people, even if he could appear a bit caustic. He thought everyone should try to protect Nico as much as he protected them. No one was awful at it - Hazel and the others were of course always in Nico's corner. But only Leo knew how much Nico had truly given, and he was determined to pay it back someday.
While the fair houses in Verona were introduced, Nico felt the familiar tug of his theatre induced insomnia start to well up in the back of his mind. His eyelids felt heavier than his swords. At least, he thought, he didn't feel quite like he was going to fade away forever. Instead, the opposite happened.
He couldn't sleep at all. Even this perennial sedative was failing against his long-running inability to sleep. The young demigod panicked as much as his sleepy form would allow. It was torture - the absolute need to sleep, paired with the complete refusal of his body to do so. He looked out with panic on towards the stage.
He spent the next scenes lamenting his fate. Wondering if he was the new Greek myth, the boy who slept himself to death. It almost made him envy all those people the gods had turned into trees and flowers and rocks. He prayed for the sweet relief of the lights, hoping it would awaken him from this hypnagogic limbo.
As the play continued to trap Nico in a state that Morpheus must reserve for people he really, really hated, Leo might has well have been flying an aircraft. His mind whirred with the worry of a man responsible for all the inventions that didn't exist to do everything of precision required for the play. If the rope tore and the sandbag fell, who would be hurt? If the platform holding Juliet was rushed, how badly would she be hurt if he fell?
Near the end of the first Act, his eyes parted with the performance and its crew for the first time, looking around his own seat. The strangers to his right were peacefully unaware of the nuclear levels of divinity calming judging their adult children's performances. To his left was - oh, sh*t.
Leo's stare focused in like a member of an elite pit crew as he looked at the son of Hades. Nico looked downright miserable, and not in the sense of not enjoying the play. His eyelids were hunched at an uncomfortable-looking half open, and his head was stuck in a constant almost yawn. He looked so pale that it had taken on a quality of grayness. Immediately, the mechanic took notes. Breathing was slow but present, pulse appeared normal based on the millimeters of movement on the veins on Nico's hands. The demigod didn't even clock his nightvision kicking it like it usually only did in the dark of the bunker when Nico was working too late.
He reached out to touch Nico's shoulder and get his attention as the applause and lights signaled the end of the first act. Nico shuddered up and looked hurriedly in either direction before recognizing Leo's hand on his should.
"Dude, what the f*ck. Are you okay?", Leo started as a whisper. Reyna darted her head past Nico to raise an eyebrow at Leo before turning her attention to the younger man.
"What's wrong?", she asked.
"I'm just tired," Nico answered too quickly. "I'm going to go freshen up before the next act."
Leo had more questions that would go unanswered for now as Nico darted around him, into the aisle and towards the restroom. He was still concerned, but the still stage with its dropped curtain was at least a relief from his other issue at the moment. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths until Nico came back, as the lights began to flash.
"Are you sure you're fine?", he asked again.
Nico sighed. He had clearly splashed some water in his face, which was about as effective as it would have been at flooding a desert. He looked Leo in the eyes and found it hard to lie. He thought about what it would mean to tell Leo. His first thought was no, but for a moment, he heard the voice of one previous camp director instructing him, "Don't push people away, Nico. Let them care. Let them help." Was Dionysus here? It was actually more possible than normal, but his lesson was there regardless.
Telling Percy meant the ocean - a bombardment of support to try to push through with a solution, and raise all tides. His optimism was a relentless tide, and it didn't work well with Nico's preference for caution. Telling Jason meant telling the sky. Looking down through every solution, not contented until it could shine light on exactly the right solution. He had none of his father's worst flaws, but Nico would be lying if he didn't see Zeus's same....persistence for perfection in his friend.
Telling Frank or Reyna was telling Hazel, and telling Hazel meant stressing out his sister, which he sworn on his mother's reincarnated soul to do his best not to do. Telling Piper or Annabeth meant telling Chiron, and that meant getting grounded to Camp Half Blood again. Whether it was being college-age or the empty cabin, or the way all his friends had grown up and moved away, he didn't think there was any more sleep to find in Cabin 13 then there was elsewhere.
So that left Leo. Technically, Shelley also. Nico did briefly consider venting to her about his insomniatic hellscape of a current situation and then just swaddling her up in the Mist but he didn't want to melt her brain.
Telling Leo meant. Telling Leo meant. He paused as he realized he didn't know why he hadn't told Leo. He may have made a lot of jokes, but he knew how to listen. He had compassion. Nico had felt that compassion once before, reaching out to see where exactly the late Esparazana Valdez had ended up; he never told Leo about that, though. Telling Leo meant. Telling Leo meant what? His mind drew a blank.
A brief chuckle escaped his lips as he realized maybe the solution to his depression was just to become so exhausted he can't picture as many negative outcomes anymore. So he moved slightly closer to Leo and explained his situation far too quickly.
"Ihaven'treallybeenabletosleepforafewmonthsandialwaysfallasleepatplaysandnowicantevenhere."
Leo looked directly at him. He was baffled, but only for a second. Like reading a gauge, he replayed Nico's notes in his head and nodded, understanding the problem.
"Okay, that's not good. And you don't know why you haven't been able to sleep?"
Nico was stunned, briefly. "You got all that? But yes. I mean no. I mean-- no, I don't know why."
Gears clicked silently in the brown-haired boy's head. There had to be at least a few sleep gods who owed Hephaestus a favor. Hypnos, Morpheus, a few minor Romans. But using machinery to fix god magic was an iffy solution at best. His father was here though, which at least meant a competent set of hands to help. Not during the play though, he realized.
"Okay, okay. I get the problem. I don't know how to fix it yet, but we will. I promise. There's no way my dad and I can't crack this."
"Do you really think that?"
"My dad built the chariot that pulls the sun, I'm sure he can figure out the demigod version of a white noise machine. But we have to make it through Jason's show. I promise, I won't let anything happen to you during the play."
"What do you mean? What would happen?", asked Nico, not even having considered that worry after a whole act-long anxiety attack about what waking giant decided to get their revenge like this.
"Nothing! Absolutely nothing. But I'm just saying don't worry. I've got you, I'll protect you. You can rest as best you can, I got you.", offered Leo reassuringly.
Nico nodded slowly, already becoming tired as the lights set finally for the start of Act II.
"Don't worry," Leo said. Nico believed him.
He believed him so much that when the nods dragged his head down this time, a tiny instinct in the back of Nico's head made Aphrodite's favorite color flash on one of the Fates' threads.
(Lean to the right. Sleep on Leo.)
'Huh?', thought Nico's barely conscious mind. Sleep on Leo? But the thought planted had already begun to be followed by his listless body.
He felt Leo's soft hoodie come up to his cheek. It smelled like black coffee and motor grease, and just hints of lavender from the preferred detergent of the Grace-Valdez apartment alliance. The shoulder beneath it emanated a comforting warmth. He remembered vaguely from group hugs and various life or death situations that Leo was basically a walking furnace.
Leo moved his attention from "75% on monitoring Nico, 25% on play" to entirely focused on his exhausted friend. Nico's face still looked as tired as the previous time, but with a different element. It was relaxing, slowly. It seemed like Nico was actually falling asleep, and Leo mentally began blueprints in his mind. Helpful features: heat applied to right side of face, soft surface, dark surrounding environment, chair with minimal recline.
"Goodnight Nico," he whispered before the Italian knocked out properly for the first time in months. Leo silently whispered a thank you to several Olympians, having the Misted effect of several gods-as-parents' cell phones vibrating in the crowd.
Several dramatic scenes and two dead lovers later, the crowd was applauding as the cast took their final bows. Leading man and twice Hero of Olympus, Jason Grace received a standing ovation that was historically unrivaled, filled with literal thunderous applause from the King of the Gods. By either fear or equal respect of Jason's seemingly natural talent, there were only two individuals in the whole theatre not standing.
Zeus glared briefly at Leo and Nico. The former mouthed "I'm so sorry" while pointing at the sleeping Nico before rolling his fist to silently cheer for Jason. He was spared from Potential Smiting only by the fortunate timing of the cast leaving the stage, meaning it was time for Hera to get pictures of her Champion and his Juliet. She was the Goddess of Marriage, she was going to get a picture of his champion with his (fictitious, theatre production) wife.
Just as Leo began to prepare for the possibility that Nico would not awake for some foreseeable time (use morse code to ask Hephaestus to fly them away, mechanically covert the theatre chair into a gurney, or see if Nico had some sort of shadow travel control panel on his wrist), the friend on his shoulder began to flutter his eyelids. 'Damnit', thought Leo, having hoped he would have enough time to find a more permanent solution before Nico woke up.
"Is it ov......I slept! I was asleep!", murmured Nico before jolting up and turning to face Leo.
"You did!", said Valdez, beaming with pride for an action that most people accomplish for several hours a night and a third of their entire lives.
"How did you do that?", asked Nico, "lightly" punching Leo in the shoulder in disbelief.
"Ow! I didn't do anything, I swear!", Leo answered, defending himself from exactly no wrongdoing. "Maybe your body was just finally at the point of giving out."
"That doesn't make sense, it's been way longer than it should have if I just hadn't given out yet. The body isn't supposed to be able to go more than a few days with sleep, I just...have other ways."
"What other ways?"
"Can we not talk about this now?", asked Nico, hoping this phrase would once again save him from others becoming too invested in his problems.
"Hell no! This is exactly the time to talk about it, when there's a baker's dozen of gods who all owe us favors and are all in good moods!", Leo exclaimed. Nico through the idea around his mind before realizing this was fairly sound logic.
"Alright, fine. Who do we ask?", Nico gave in.
"I know exactly the three.", said Leo in a smirking tone that a more rested Nico would have known meant trouble.
"How many weeks did you go without beauty sleep? That's a crime against my domain.", a shocked goddess of love scolded at the son of darkness.
"I swear, it wasn't my sun. I don't do any sleep stuff. Even Arty doesn't really 'do' the moon. She says she does the moon, but not the sleeping stuff. You sleep how your body decides based on the sun and the moon. She doesn't do the sleep part of the moon!", ranted an Apollo eager to avoid any further punishments, stressing repeatedly that his sister did not have anymore power than he did.
"Have you tried an adjustable mattress?", asked Leo's own father.
Nico looked at Leo in disbelief. They had a pantheon to choose from in the quad outside the theatre as everyone said their congratulations before making their ways home, and Leo had chosen Aollo, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus. Last Nico checked, they were trying to cure his insomnia, not build the Love Boat.
"They're the Godly Bronze Dragon Parent Alliance!", said Leo excitedly as though that should have meaning. Apollo smiled proudly, Aphrodite rolled her eyes, and Hephaestus just shrugged. "Piper's mom, my dad, and Jason's....brother. Let's be honest, Big Z can be a little scary. But they're like the godly version of our quest! All the awesome, a million times the power!"
Nico once again questioned if this logic was truly sound or if he had lost the ability to judge so well.
"Explain it again," growled the mechanic god. On earth, Zeus didn't care if his form matched his brutal injuries from an Olympic fall. Everyone had been used to Poseidon looking like Percy plus twenty years, but it had once been a surprise to learn that the old tinkerer usually chose a fairly dashing form for his trysts with mortals.
"For the last few months, I can't sleep. Every time I get really tired, I just get panicked. It's kind of like really weak adrenaline. No matter where I go or how tired I am, it just gets worse and more overwhelming. So Zagreus taught me how to shadow sleep. I sap the power from the shadows around me. It takes some energy, but it replenishes me enough to not die. I told this to Leo before Act II and then I fell asleep on his shoulder."
The three gods glanced at each other in combination. "You didn't say that last part, son." Hephaestus looked to a confused Leo.
"About the shadow sleep?"
"No, about the--", stopped Hephaestus. He had never been one of the more eloquent gods about anything, but especially not about what the three elder beings suspected was going on. Especially not when that conversation would be with his son present.
Two twenty-somethings weren't familiar with the concept of true restlessness like immortals had. They fought wars from the prophecies. They had never seen old Greek war, which waged for months on end. Their sieges had been short; noble, of course, but nothing compared to the conditions in which Troy fell, or the Romans claimed their legion of land. They had never seen soldiers pushed to their limits of energy, and how long sleep could truly evade. The warrior's sleep, ironically named for the insomnia it described, hadn't been seen since the Old War.
Apollo and Hephaestus both quickly surmised that Hades realizing his son was the first person in a thousand years to suffer the warrior's sleep was likely to disturb the Modern Family style peace they had forged in the last few years. Their sister realized this as well, but luckily, the oldest Olympian was one of the few who knew the cure.
"That's enough boys!", said Aphrodite, imbuing some of her divine charm speak into the interruption to have all four individuals in front of her silent. And as Piper had often saved Jason and Leo, she spared her fellow Olympians from interfering where they should not, for the sake of their children and their own embarrassment.
"Divine intuition's telling me, your solution is closer than you realize, Nico di Angelo! As they said, love always knows what happens next!", she practically sang.
"Is that something people say?", retorted a confused and frustrated Nico, who still knew better than despite their mortal dressings, asking one of the most powerful gods 'Are you f*cking serious?' would likely not help solve his current situation.
Aphrodite nodded enthusiastically before ushering her brothers away. The thousand year olds wished their offspring well and disappeared one by one. The demigods chose to believe they all merely returned to Olympus, but the ever-filling cabins at Camp Half Blood and New Rome told them it was likely that a kindergarten teacher in town was likely to have a very eventful school year in a few years' time.
They piled into cars on the way back to 1 Praetor Place, seating Nico in the back of the sedan once again with Reyna and Leo.
Since the unhelpful but optimistic advice from the goddess, Leo had relaxed only slightly in his diligent watch of Nico. Gait appears normal, no lack of balance. Coloration of skin has returned to base level, no visible physical alterations to movement. His brain took notes for him, marking down Nico's functions on mental blueprints to refer to later.
The music was on low as they exchanged their opinions on the show. Jason was great, they all naturally agreed. Leo conversationally filled in opinions for himself and Nico. 'That's what we were saying', he adlibbed after a compliment from Frank about a scene Leo couldn't even believe was in the play he had claimed to see involving a horse and a giant.
The group followed Percy, who drove with an exceptionally New York attitude on the Californian streets. Hazel, the less confidant of the drivers, was struggling to keep up. She knew her own way home, but the last time the group beat her and Frank, they had grown impatient waiting for the house to be unlocked and nearly gotten impounded by the legion's New Rome squad.
Percy pushed his way through a yellow light that the praetor realized, annoyed but in time, that she couldn't make. An abrupt stop rocked the car, with her apology ringing out before it even registered.
"My bad guys! Percy's an asshole when it comes to running lights but I can't do it.", she said to reassure everyone that she had not just randomly decided to scare the car's passengers.
Everyone nodded and reassured her back quickly, with Frank insisting the light was already red. Nico agreed implicitly. It was a moment before he glanced down and realized their was an arm against his chest.
"Uh, Leo.", he said, causing an instant head turn in the other boy. Leo looked at Nico's face before quickly scanning him up and down. He tentatively pulled his arm back, apologizing, "Oh, my bad."
"No, no, thank you.", Nico replied earnestly. Their eye contact lingered for a few seconds. Suddenly, Nico was more urgently reminded of something he'd been aware of the whole ride. The left side of his body, pushed up against Leo. The same warmth that drew him in at the theatre had him leaning his weigh completely to the Valdez side of the vehicle. He hadn't even realized there were entire inches of space between him and Reyna on the other side.
Leo just smiled and nodded, going back to the conversation and pointing his calm and friendly words right into Nico, keeping him distracted and calm. In the dark of the car, listening to Leo, he didn't feel so tired.
The after party was the best part of any NQA, hands down. Free of obligation, the demigods could drink, play games, and have a mostly regular night for a group of college students.
There was plenty of friendly bullying of Jason, including a drunken encore rendition of the monologue that earned him the most rapturous applause. Hazel and Frank used a rare indulgence into their authorities as praetor to have the kitchen send over a buffet of pizzas.
Percy and Jason played pong with Annabeth and Reyna, starting with best two out of three before ultimately settling on best seven out of thirteen. Piper kept score while both teams used the chance to fill Shelley in on select embarrassing stories from Piper's past. Who needed brothers in Aphrodite's cabin when you had them on the Argo II?
Nico had settled for splitting his attention between the conversation at the table and the movie version of Romeo & Juliet that had made its way onto the TV. "I mean he was good, but he was no son of Zeus," quoted Jason about the actor to a chorus of groans from the group. Leo sat next to him on the other side of the sofa, never too far out of few to make sure Nico didn't fall into another terrifying exhaustion.
The conversation dulled as the group switched to sitting around and talking over the movie with drinks. Leo scooted closer to Nico to free up another seat, casually putting his arm on the back of the cushion in a way that may have just been part of an instinct to the protect the other.
"Thank you again," said Nico quietly a few minutes into the eighth YouTube video that had so far followed the movie.
"I haven't done anything yet! But I do have ideas.", responded Leo with firm commitment.
"No, I mean, just for being there for me, if anything had happened."
"Of course, Nico. I wouldn't let anything happen to you. You're important Nico, and you're a really good person. And I will always protect you."
On some level, Nico rationalized that Leo was saying this of any friend. He wouldn't let anything happen to Piper or Reyna or Percy either. But he couldn't shake how he felt the emphasis on every 'you' in Leo's statement.
"I--. Thank you, Leo. I know you mean it. And I appreciate it."
"Of course, Sleepyhead. We're gonna figure it out."
Nico smiled a little at the teasing nickname. Realizing it only a little as a newly familiar sensation creeped in, he turned slightly into Leo and felt his head slowly lowering onto the heart of a man who understood death better than anyone else in the room. The gears started to move in Nico's head, but he wasn't worried about that right now. More than anyone, he had realized the truth in getting sleep when you can.
He fell asleep to the new, soft touch of Leo's hands running through his hair, in a lovingly possessive way that equally welcomed Nico in while warning anyone else who wished him harm to stay away. It wasn't long before Leo's own head dropped a little, and he fell asleep as a still but warm guard around Nico.
"See, I told you in the car! This is exactly what happened, he fell asleep on Leo's shoulder.", Piper whisper-yelled as the rest of the group watched. They were fairly certain they were in the clear. Leo snored lightly, and Nico quite literally looked weeks behind on sleep.
"What do you mean, he fell asleep?"
"Nico di Angelo, asleep. Like a rock. Nearly snoring. I saw it when the lights came up at the end," Piper explained to a shocked group.
"I've known Nico since he was literally a child, and I have never seen him fall sleep anywhere. I don't even think he sleeps at night, I think he's just permanently awake.", added an astonished Percy.
Jason and Annabeth stood in front of the pair and looked them over studiously, as though their friends might have been swapped out for wax statues of a cuddling couple right before their very eyes.
"They're asleep--", said Annabeth
"It is them--", said Jason, at the same time, before shutting up as Annabeth considered the superior point.
"--alright. It's almost cute."
"I think it is cute!", Hazel whispered as an interjection. The group paused as if to consider this.
"I told you so.", Frank said to her smugly. "There's no giants in Romeo & Juliet. Leo didn't see a damn thing that wasn't Nico."
"How'd you call that?"
"Leo talks in his sleep about Nico. And Jason told Percy, who told me."
"That was supposed to be a secret, Frank!", said an exasperated Jason.
"Well, until they figure this out for themselves, they can keep thinking it's a secret. We shouldn't rush them in figuring out they have feelings for each other.", Piper argued.
"That is the most Aphrodite thing you've ever said.", Annabeth pointed out. Shelley looked on in confusion before Percy politely nodded to let her know that Annabeth's observation was accurate.
"Trust me, everyone. The last thing mom said to me before she left the show was to leave the two of them be. Which we'll do now, goodnight everyone. Let the lovebirds have the room to themselves until they figure out what to do about it."
They all said their quiet goodbyes and exited to their various bedrooms and guest accommodations, lowering the lights in the living room and leaving the two demigods to put together for themselves that was happening in the morning when they woke up under a well-knit blanket together.
"So Leo's going to be my half brother and my nephew-in-law?", Apollo nagged excitedly as the three walked away from the crowd to return to Olympus.
"Oh God, I'm going to have to start going to Demeter's awful dinners so she doesn't smite Leo for calling her Demi Moore.", lamented Hephaestus.
"Please, try not to treat love as the end of the world for once, dear brothers. Two more of the Great Heroes lovingly together. Remember in the old days when half the heroes killed their wives then died? This is much better! Plus, in a few generations, we can say the whole Gaea thing was really a great match making experience." The Goddess of Love did always have a way of making her justifications.
"I can't wait to see what the great poets write about this. Maybe they'll call them...Valdangelo! Or Lico?", waxed the god of the sun as his brother groaned and disappeared, smiling slightly at the way Leo's heart resembled the woman who had fallen for so many years ago to bring him into being.
Safety in the arms of love. Aphrodite glowed at one of the oldest powers in her domain. The cure for warrior's sleep.
