Solangelo: The Infirmary

Watch Your Tongue

"Nico! What did you do?" Jason asked. The others had the gang of kids all sitting with their backs resting on the rocks of Zeus's fist and were eyeing each one carefully. Nico dropped the boy (quite literally) next to Shane. The small amount of weapons they were carrying were in a pile far out of the little group's reach. Nico tossed the leader's sword onto the pile and stepped back from the kids to Jason.
"He wouldn't cooperate."
"You killed him!" A girl screeched. Nico flinched from the high pitch and turned to see whatever monster from hell made it. It was the girl who was previously unconscious. She was staring at the boy Nico had carried back with a wobbling lip.
"Oh, your awake" Nico didn't bother pretending like he was happy. "No, I didn't kill him. He was going to pull his sword on me, and since he wasn't being very helpful, I kicked him in the head to shut him up." Nico shrugged at Jason. He looked back at the girl who was watching him with hate. Nico rolled his eyes.
"He's not dead!" Nico snapped. "Trust me, I know when someone's dead. and the little dipshit here isn't so please stop looking like the world is crumbling down!"
"Nico." Will's warning tone came from behind Nico. He turned to see Will beside the leader and looking at Nico crossly.
"I'm just saying." Nico grumbled. Nico watched as Will touched his finger to each of the kid's temples then in the middle of his forehead. He snapped his fingers in front of the boy's face and the boy's eyes shot open as he gasped and sat up. Will sat back, satisfied.
"Drake! Your not dead!" The girl squealed happily. Nico face palmed.
"Alright, now that your all conscious, tell us your names. We know you are Shane, and you're presumably Drake. Who's next?" Annabeth asked.
"Oh, well, I'm Lindsay." The now-conscious girl said with a smile. She seemed in a much better mood now that she was 100% sure Drake wasn't dead. The group on the ground stared at Lindsay before face palming and muttering "Lindsay you idiot."
"What? Did I get my name wrong again?" Lindsay's face twisted in confusion.
Piper whispered to Annabeth, "Is she being serious?" Annabeth shook her head and cleared her throat.
"Okay, and who are you two?" They clamped their jaws and didn't say anything.
"Come on guys, don't tell me you forgot your names too! Don't worry, I remember!" Lindsay looked to Annabeth and smiled. "The boy next to me is Zach and the girl is Courtney." The four beside her groaned.
"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Percy mocked. "You guys are acting like she just told us the password to your secret clubhouse or something."
"What do you know about Gracie?" Nico cut in before Shane could snap about having a clubhouse. All five faces went tight, and even Lindsay didn't answer. "Oh come on. She was seen with you five all the time. You were her friends!"
Lindsay shook her head. "Gracie was no friend of ours." She whispered.
"What do you mean?" Will asked. "She hung out with you all the time."
"Yeah, she hung out with us. We didn't want her there." Zach said.
"What do you mean?" Percy questioned. The air changed, getting colder and tenser. The silence was getting louder. Nico knew whatever they were going to say, he wasn't going to like it.
"Look, she was a freak." Drake said.
"She wanted to hang with us because we're the kings and queens around camp. Everyone wants to be around us, including Gracie. We kept her around because she was always happy to do things for us." Courtney added.
"Things like what?" Jason questioned. All six of them were tense with concern. This was worse than they had originally thought.
"Whatever we didn't want to do. She would clean our cabins for us like a maid, get us drinks and food like a little waitress, vouch for us when we got in trouble by Chiron, saying we were with her the whole time." Shane counted off on his fingers. Something dark was boiling under Nico's skin, and each word that came out of their mouths made it more and more restless.
"She was happy to do it as well. That's why we kept her around. She was like a little doggy that would fetch us the morning paper, and whatever else we wanted." Lindsay smiled, remembering her 'little doggy.'
"So you told her you were her friends, just so she would do stuff you lazy asses didn't want to do?" Nico grit through his teeth. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides and his face was red with anger. From the tension of the others, he knew they were in similar states.
"Well, yeah. Having our own personal slave was awesome. But then she had to go and kill herself-"
"Kill herself? KILL HERSELF? The very same monster that attacked you killed her! Did you know that? The very same monster I risked my life to kill for you sorry douchbags! SHE THOUGHT YOU WERE HER FRIENDS!" Nico yelled at the five who were trying to sink into the rocks behind them. By now, Nico was shaking with anger. Before he could scream some more, he felt a warm hand on his shoulder that could only be Will's. He whipped his head to look at Will and immediately calmed down from the look on Will's face. Will's face was white with worry and his eyes were pleading Nico to calm down. Only then after he took a deep breath did he realize the shadows shrinking back into him. He looked around to see the other four had stepped back from Nico's shadows, not wanting to get caught in the mass of darkness, and that Will had fought through the icy blackness to get to him. So that's why the five on the ground were trying to get away.
Nico took another deep breath shutting his eyes and allowed all the coldness back into him. Opening them, he said, "Why did Gracie go into the woods this morning?" His voice was cold, but calm. The other four came to stand next to Nico again, and they all watched the five on the ground shake in fear. Nico was mad at himself to scare them, even if they were total dipshits. It's stuff like what happened that get spread into rumours around camp. That's why some of the campers still avoid him. Because he can do stuff like this.
The silence between the two groups went on, no one breaking it.
"I suggest answering him before he actually gets mad. He can do far worse, and will, if one of you don't start talking." Piper sighed, looking at her nails as if bored. "You see, Nico here has taken gracie's death to his heart, where she is going to stay. Do you know why? Because Nico could tell Gracie was a good person, even when she was screaming out in pain. He could tell she was a good person who was badly treated, by you little fuckers. So, take my advice," Nico tried not to glare at Piper for making him sound like a monster as she paused and smirked at the group, a smirk that only meant one thing.
"Answer the question." The charmspeak rang through the clearing, so powerful Nico would have started answering the question, if only he wasn't the one without the answers.
Suddenly five voices started ratting off at the same time. "ONE OF YOU, please. Zach, go ahead." Piper demanded.
"That night we were sneaking out of our cabins so we could go to town to have a little bit of fun. This was about 1:30 in the morning and so the harpies were still out. Chiron doesn't like the younger half-bloods going into town and prefers us to stay in camp. We wanted Gracie to say we were with her if anyone asks, but she wanted to come with us. So as we were crossing camp, she came running saying that she wanted to go with us. We didn't want her to tag along so we said no. But she made a scene saying she never go to go with us anywhere." Zach rambled.
"She wasn't being very quiet either." Courtney interrupted.
"Then what happened?" Annabeth asked.
"As we were passng the forest, Drake finally snapped." Lindsay claimed as she sent Drake a pointed look. The others nodded in agreement.
"Oh come on, guys. If she kept it up, the harpies would be on us." Drake defended himself.
"Yeah, but it's still your fault." Lindsay glared at him. Her head twisted and she looked Annabeth right in the eyes. "Drake yelled at her, and told her what we told you."
"That she wasn't our friend, just our butler, that we didn't like her, didn't care how she felt and that she should go back to bed and wait for us to finish having fun like the good little puppet she is." Courtney recited without a flicker of regret or shame of the words that spilled off her tongue. She said it in a tone that would suggest she actually agreed with Drake's words.
"You forgot something, Courtney." Zach whispered loudly.
"Oh yeah. He said we've never liked her because she was such a freak. But honestly, who would?" Courtney smiled as if she had just made a joke. But the six standing were not smiling. they stared in horror at the 13 year old bullies.
"After Drake finished, Gracie went off crying into the woods. We shrugged and continued on our way. We didn't know she would end up dead." Shane finished. Nico couldn't process what they had said. They sat there as if they didn't know the damage they did to Gracie. Their little gang sat there waiting to be released, now that they've told their story. the shadows pooled around Nico, but he held them in, just a little longer. He needed to know one more thing.
"How. Was. Gracie. A. freak?" It came out through gritted teeth and sounded more like a demand than a question.
"She was," Drake's already quieted voice lowered to a whisper. "gay." His face twisted in disgust as Lindsay and Courtney shook their heads sadly, like it was some tragic disease. Nico couldn't breathe. The air wouldn't come, and the only thing that did, was hatred. Nico lunged at Drake and punched him square in the jaw. Courtney and Lindsay screamed, Shane scurried away, and Drake stared at Nico in fear. Nico hauled Drake to his feet and pinned him against the stones. "A freak, huh? Gay, huh? Well, of course you fuckers would see that as unexceptional. Obviously! Because you are all perfect! News flash, you are all stupid enough to believe anyone likes you. You are all stupid enough to think that you can do and say whatever you want, and nothing will happen. Gracie just wanted friends. And you judged her because she isn't like you. I feel sorry for anyone who is! So listen here, because I'm going to say this once, before I punch your teeth out. No one likes you, especially when you think you are better than other people and act like you have. No one. So get off your throne of bones and stop being the wretched excuses for demigods, or I will not hesitate to wonderfully, slowly, send each and every one of you to see my father, where he will then send your damned souls to a nice little spot in the Fields of Punishment I've reserved for you. Got it? I hate each of you, and I've known you for ten minutes, for Hestia's sake! Oh, I'm sorry your highnesses, did I offend you? Good." Nico swung his fist, connected, and Drake crumbled to the ground, again.
Nico didn't look at any of the others as he stormed off, back to camp.