fifthofthecovenant | The Last Voyages: IC Contact

"I mean yeah, I am, I haven't killed anybody except the one guy who attacked me, and I keep to myself," Chase drawls irritably. "But mostly he just hasn't talked to me since the first day." He digs his palm into his forehead against the headache. "Have yet to have a warden assigned who did."

Really, the only person who's actively sought him out in a halfway positive way is... this guy right here. It's weird.

Nico frowns. "Well, that's dumb. Of the wardens, I mean."

Then he remembers something Cho Hakkai said, and frowns more: Wardens won't get their deal unless they help their officially assigned inmate to graduation. Any help you give anyone else is volunteer work.

Volunteer work. Is that how most people see temporary inmates?

Screw that.

"You need anything?" he asks, because the palm-to-the-head thing is pretty obvious. "Painkillers?" He'd have thought Hunter would be on top of that at least, though.

Or, "I have some Kit Kats. And Golden Oreos."

"You have candy?" Chase says with a squint his direction. "How did you get candy on this ship? I'm, um. Not saying I want any right now." The thought makes him feel even more ill. But he was surprised.

Painkillers, though. Those he might like.

"I brought it with me. Some, anyway." He shrugs. "For emergencies. Shadow-traveling too far or with too many people really takes it out of me." Will's always shoving Kit Kats and Oreos at him when he wakes up from napping post-teleportation. Nico had started keeping some in an emergency backpack in his cabin, and it had come with him onto the Barge.

He's got a Kit Kat in his pocket even now, but it doesn't sound like Chase is interested, so there it stays. Choking down even candy when you don't want it is no fun.

"I don't have any aspirin, but I bet I can get some from the Infirmary."

"Huh." Chase wrestles for a moment with intense jealousy that other people's magic can be refueled just by eating some chocolate. No magic on any other world represented on the Barge seems to actively make people older just to use it.

He finally says, "If you can find some painkillers, then yeah, I'll take some. If I can keep them down. I feel like I got thrown around the room and bounced off every wall a few times." The joys of death by blood loss and stab wounds.

Well, there is the part where he needs a nap (read: passes out) first, and that one time he overused his other powers so badly he apparently nearly disappeared into nothingness, but Nico's not about to mention any of that. Definitely not relevant at the moment, even if he does make a sympathetic face at Chase's description of how he feels.

Yeah, he's felt about that bad before, and it's no picnic.

"I'll go get some, then. Extra, even. If at first you can't keep it down... try, try again, right?"

With that, he turns and disappears out of the room unless Chase has any other requests to add. It'll be maybe fifteen minutes or so before he knocks again.

Chase doesn't know what else he might ask for, so he just lets him go, and takes the chance of being alone to shut his eyes and lean on his hands on the bed. He's not really at risk of falling asleep, because everything hurts too much, but closing his eyes helps with the headache at least. And a little bit with the stomach, even.

"Come on in," he says at the new knock. "Unless it's not Nico, in which case, go away."

"It's Nico," he confirms with a wry little smile, slipping back in and shutting the door behind him again. "Got some aspirin and some tea." Also some water, if tea is unacceptable, but having something hot to drink is generally nice.

Also, he doesn't know what death is like here, but most "normal" people find the Underworld cold, in more ways than one.

Chase has never really been a tea person, but right now, he'll take it. It'll be warm, which Nico is right will feel better than anything else. "Thanks." He straightens up to accept both offerings. The water he'll keep on the bedside table for later. "I knew death tolling sucked but I didn't realize it'd suck this much."

"It definitely looks like it sucks," Nico says very helpfully, but it's definitely the truth. He hands over one dose of aspirin for now, and sets several more pills on the nightstand. "At least you're all in one piece."

For what it's worth, he doesn't add, but it's definitely implied. He's not the kind of person who actually tends to look on the bright side.

"You gonna want meals in here for a few days, maybe?"

Chase pops the aspirin and swallows it dry before going for a sip of tea, shutting his eyes briefly and hoping they stay down long enough to work a little. If aspirin even works for magical death hangovers. It might not.

He looks sideways at Nico, somewhere between unsure and suspicious. "And you're going to bring them here?" He's pretty sure that's not a service the kitchen usually provides unless there's some big awful event going on.

It's not, but it could be. Especially if people are sick or death tolling. Nico wonders why it's not already offered, but maybe wardens just take care of that for their inmates?

He likes Hunter all right, but it doesn't really sound like he will.

Also, "You literally live next door." As in, it's really not out of his way.

He really should say no, he's fine, he'll manage. He doesn't know how much he's going to be eating over the next few days, anyway. It's easier when nobody even notices him.

But the thought of trekking all the way out of the kitchen even twice a day is way too much. He's never been great at being sick. And if Nico is offering....

"Yeah, sure, if you really want to," he says with a little shrug. "I'm not going to be going anywhere for a few days, anyway. Maybe the showers." Which makes him wrinkle his nose at the idea, but he definitely doesn't want to spend the next however long dirty. Especially when the feeling of all that sticky blood is still right there, in his memory. Yuck.

"Showers're good," Nico agrees, deciding the meals thing is settled, then. He'll bring something easy on the stomach and not-too-perishable for Chase every meal for the next few days.

"It makes sense, that coming back to life isn't just easy."

At least, it makes sense to him.

Chase gives him an aggrieved look. "It was really easy, the first time," he says sarcastically, since he'd just been dead, then he'd had the Admiral asking him if he wanted a second chance, and then he'd been in his bedroom again. Simple.

Nico's eyes narrow, largely in thought. "I don't know how the Admiral does it," he admits. "My father doesn't like to let people go. So maybe he gets you before you get too far, relatively speaking."

Before they make it through the gate - before they get to the Underworld, entirely.

That could explain the first time. And maybe it's just harder, subsequent times, to prevent that from happening. Or maybe the Admiral is trying to teach them some kind of lesson. Or maybe it's none of the above.

That's a bit of a surprise. "Your father," he repeats. Because he didn't realize this was the kid of... what, Hades? If he's talking about the Greek underworld.

Nico's smile is more a tightness of the lips than an actual smile. "Yeah. My father. Hades."

He doesn't know how much Chase remembers from when he was younger that one week, but he suspects it's not nothing.

Oh, he remembers it. But never in that conversation did he ever actually say his father was a Greek god. It does make everything from that conversation make a lot more sense, though. "Wow," he says after a pause, fitting a lot of that neatly into place. "And I thought my dad was bad. At least he wasn't a god of the dead."

Nico has to laugh a little at that, almost like it's startled out of him.

"Yeah, it makes things complicated." To say the least. "But I guess we get along okay these days."

If you count okay him possibly planning to sneak into Tartarus without telling his dad, but - hey. If he gets his deal? He won't have to. So why worry about it right now.

"Doesn't mean your dad wasn't bad, though," he adds, not explicitly asking, but not shutting that door if Chase wants to explain.

Chase very clearly, visibly debates how much to say, eying Nico a little warily. Then, deciding it might win him pity points with a warden, he says, "He killed my mom when I was about two. Probably was trying to kill me at the same time, but he missed."

It's not like he has to say anything that happened after that. That's not the really important part.

It does kind of work, though it's maybe less pity he gets, and more understanding, of a sort.

"That sucks," is the simple reply. Nico knows what it's like to have your mother killed, to have someone want to kill you, but - it wasn't his father. It was his father's brother, and that means it's certainly not as bad as what happened to Chase. "I'm sorry."

He says it in a way that manages - hopefully - not to be empty or condescending. It's just simple. He is sorry. Everyone dies, but it's hard to lose your family, all the same.

"Is he still alive?"

"Nope," Chase says blandly, and has a sip of his tea, hoping Nico doesn't ask for details. He's been very good about keeping the reasons he's here under wraps. Nico hasn't earned the trust it'd take for real honesty. He might be closer than anyone else except maybe Sweeney, but that's not saying much.

"And it's not like I remember my mom," he adds. "There's nothing to really be sorry about. My adoptive parents were fine."

Nico does not ask for details, so that's something, at least.

"I guess not." He remembers his mom, some. But he was older. At two... no, he supposes Chase wouldn't remember very much.

He glances around, assuming this must be Chase's room in their house, then. With his adoptive family. It seems like a pretty nice house, at least.

But Chase said were, and it could mean something, or it could mean nothing. "Were, like they were fine while you were growing up, or are they gone, too?" He doesn't sound accusing. Just curious.

... Well, shit. Chase isn't really feeling well enough to put up a good act, so the question makes him flinch a little. "Gone, too," he confirms.

And now Nico officially knows something not a single other person on the Barge knows. Something important. He hates that a little.

The Last Voyages: IC Contact

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