If Only (Nico Di Angelo)

Chapter Six

Nico

I woke up to a passed out Finn and tons of messages from our friends. Wondering where I was and if I knew where Leo was.

So I just called Frank. Everyone was with him. I made sure the volume was down, so it didn't bother Percy. Sure, it was 11. But it was also Sunday.

"Dude!" Frank said as soon as he answered the call, and that mostly woke me up even more. He had energy. "Where the hell are you? Chiron is on our asses right now because you, Leo, and Percy aren't answering your phones."

"Relax, I just woke up," I explained to him as I heard him put me on speaker for the others to hear. "The gods stopped by last night, they were here pretty late. I passed out. Leo probably did the same thing, don't worry. And Percy's still asleep. He silenced his phone last night because he was getting texts from Annabeth and they woke me up. Ironically enough, the texts were about Percy and myself. I'll be back later... Eventually... I'm trapped right now so it might be a while. Just relax. It's okay."

I checked a few different things before putting my phone back and just cuddling for the next ten minutes before falling back asleep for another hour.

Yeah, Leo woke us up at noon.

"Hey!" Leo yelled from the other side of the door. "Death royalty and his shining water boy! It's noon! Get up!"

He opened the door and I just looked at him.

"Death royalty?"

He shrugged.

I woke Percy up and we joined the other for lunch. We weren't the last ones to get there. Alex was really slow to get up, apparently.

Of course, Sally and Paul we're home. It's Sunday. And they asked what we did last night.

"The gods stopped by," Percy explained. "For no real reason. But Dad got ripped on so bad. It was hilarious."

"What did they say?" Paul asked.

"Well," he told them, taking another bite of his waffle. "First it was that he didn't know what German actually sounded like. And then it was him not knowing we could speak German because he never realized that we haven't always lived in America. And then Hades dragged him out on not knowing German because if you have a kid, you should be able to talk to it. All said in Italian to just prove his point. He just... He couldn't win."

We all agreed that it was hilarious and by then, it was time to give Nico and Leo a ride home.

"So," Leo said as he poked his head to the front. We we're in a traffic jam. It wasn't ideal. "What's it like? Having a twin?"

I shrugged.

"I don't know," I was honest. "Like, I don't think it's hit me yet that I have a twin again. Not that he was ever not my twin, but I haven't seen him in 8 years. It'll probably hit me tomorrow, in school. We're bound to get mixed up. We always we're as kids, and we we a lot of the same classes. It's like me asking you what it's like to be only child."

And I was right.

Alex

"Ah, Percy, perfect." My American government teacher said as soon as I walked in, and she handed me something that looked weird on a keychain. "Can you go run me copies quick? I just need 7 of them, I printed out the wrong amount."

"I, uh..." I said as I saw my brother come into the room, and he noticed the situation. "I'm sorry. You have the uh... The wrong one."

"What are you—"

"Ms. Post!" Finn said as he came up from behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Hi! I see you've met Alex. Don't worry, you're not the first one to get us mixed up. What did you need me to do?"