Nico surfaced from sleep slowly and reluctantly. He would have happily gone back to sleep once he was awake but his entire body felt hot and stretched, painfully so. Nico squinted unhappily at the sun light that was streaming in the window and then down at his body. His arms which he could see over top of the blanket, were red and raw. He groaned softly and then coughed, apparently not all the smoke had left his system.
"Are y-you awake?" a hushed voice came from beside his bed. There sitting on a chair that had been pulled up was Hoody.
"Ya I'm awake." Nico grumbled staring down at his arms which were mostly bandaged. Since he had been wearing a t-shirt he guessed that's where he had gotten the worst burns.
"How do you f-feel?" Hoody asked getting up and passing the glass of water that was on the bedside table to Nico. Nico took it and drank gratefully.
"I feel like I went sunbathing in Tartarus." Nico said grumpily. Hoody laughed. Nico couldn't be bothered smiling. "Where's Toby."
"H-he." Hoody said and his voice caught in his throat nervously. He coughed once and continued. "He went b-back for J-jay."
"To kill Jay." Nico stated blankly and Hoody nodded. Nico felt a twist in his chest. He didn't like that, he didn't care if Jay had tried to kill him, he didn't want to think of Toby that way. Well if that was the case then he had better just not think about it, because he didn't think he could ask Toby to stop, at least not yet.
"Do you feel up to g-getting up Nico?" Hoody asked. "A c-cold shower might help the b-burns feel better, I'll make you b-breakfast and we can change your b-bandages."
"I think I can get up." Nico said pushing himself up gingerly and wincing when he stretched his still very sore leg. He got up realizing he was in pj pants and he was much cleaner than he was sure he had been when he fell asleep.
"We c-cleaned you up and put c-cold packs on your worst b-burns so they would-dn't get any worse." Hoody said half apologetically. "You d-didn't even wake u-up."
"I'm not surprised." Nico said trying not to put weight on his bad leg as he rummaged in his backpack for a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. "Percy, one of the other powerful demigods I know, tried to stop the tides once and after that he passed out and slept for nearly three days. Nearly caused a tidal wave to when he finally gave up and all the water came rushing in." Hoody chuckled and shook his head.
"What would you l-like for b-breakfast?" he asked getting up and heading towards the kitchen.
"I don't really care as long as there's a lot of it, I'm starving." Nico called after Hoody. Hoody didn't answer but Nico hadn't really expected him to, and instead limped to the washroom. It seemed odd to have a cool shower, but the idea of the having a hot one was too painful to hang on to. Nico carefully turned the tap to a level of cool that he thought would be bearable.
It took him a moment to psyche himself up to get in and peal his pj pants off the bullet wound in his leg, which apparently was still bleeding just enough to have gotten his pants stuck there. Once he finally slid under the stream of cold water he nearly moaned in relief, it did help, it helped a lot. The cold water took the edge of the heat that was lingering in his skin. Carefully he turned the temperature down a little, closed his eyes and just stood under the water for a long minute.
It was the smell of food that got Nico moving again, the smell of bacon making his stomach growl and his body jerk back into action. Carefully and gingerly he washed his raw skin. He hurt to the touch but he knew the last thing he needed was for any dirt to stay in the burns and cause an infection. Ambrosia and Nectar, which helped heal almost any other kind of wound for demigods, did little for burns because it relied to heavily on warmth. In fact Nectar was one of the main ingredients in Greek fire so Nico would have to avoid it this time.
