Shelter (Solangelo)

Chapter 2

Nico takes a startled step backward.

"What the …"

He's back in the cellar of Diocletian's palace. The rays of the sun slanting through the barred windows send a low reddish glow across the rubble-strewn floor. It's gotta be either early morning, or nearly dusk. The oppressive air of Eros's presence is thankfully absent. He stretches his arms; there's no pain at all. He's wearing an orange Camp Half-Blood shirt. It rides up as a warm breeze rushes past, dust motes flying in the stripes of light.

I've got to be dreaming. There's no way I could actually be here again – and I don't wear orange.

A red feather flutters beside his foot. "Zephyros?" His voice bounces off the immense stone walls.

"Nico di Angelo," comes the response, though the god of the West Wind is still invisible. "You were really amazing in battle. I can see why that young doctor is so taken with you." Zephyros' voice is light and airy – a musical lilt to it.

"What are you talking about? Show yourself." Nico takes a step backward, his eyes narrowing, trying to pinpoint the god's presence in the shadowed space. His hands reach for his sword, but come up empty.

There's a swishing sound, and Zephyros materializes. He's leaning against a stone column, tossing his quoit ring as if he hasn't a care in the world. He's dressed as he was when Nico last saw him: a red tank top and Bermuda shorts.

"I think you know exactly what I'm talking about. You owned your feelings, Nico – stood up for yourself – faced that old crush and laid it to rest. Doing that has made room in your heart. I think you may discover that the arrow Eros pierced you with is coming to life inside you."

"I told you already, I don't take orders from anyone. I don't acknowledge Eros's arrow. I am my own person and will make my own choices."

Zephyros gazes at him, moon-eyed, his lips parted. It's vaguely uncomfortable and, at the same time, sort of flattering. Nico scowls.

"Watch yourself, Nico. All that independence, all that fire – it makes you intensely attractive. Apollo and I saw the same fierce passion in Hyacinthos." His lips turn up in an impish smirk. Nico hates it. "I don't think you'll make it out of Camp Half-Blood before feeling the sting of my master's mark."

"Whatever." Nico shrugs off the sense of unease filling him. "It's not a big deal. I've been to Tartarus and back; I've shadow-traveled across the world, and survived the rise and fall of Gaea. I think I can handle whatever Eros throws at me." The words are like sand in his mouth.

Zephyros laughs easily; it's warm and musical – hypnotic. Nico's drowsy. "It's good to see you again. Now, rest." Diocletian's cellar fades, and Nico is buoyed back into unconsciousness.

~*~

Light shines in a rectangle at the end of a long tunnel. It's a door, Nico realizes, coming back into awareness. He's standing at one end of a dark hallway, the distant sound of somebody singing filling his ears, growing louder as he moves toward the light. It's not a melody he recognizes, but it seems to beckon him.

He pushes the door open and finds himself back in the infirmary shower room. It makes no sense. There isn't a hallway like the one he just walked down anywhere near the infirmary. The shower chair he'd been forced to use has been pushed off to the side and the shower curtain is pulled back, revealing Will Solace – naked as the day he was born – his back to Nico under the shower spray.

It's his voice Nico followed. Nico's never really cared for singing, or if he had, it was so long ago he can't recall.