week six; friday, post-investigation w/ nico.

[wearys]

FRIDAY, post-investigation.

[ sometime after the body announcement and whatnot, magnus will track down his favorite fellow demigod cat.

while holding a. cat. a tiger. a baby tiger, who is pawing at magnus' hair or something. somehow magnus manages to look somber despite this. ]

Hey. How'd your investigation go? I found a leg.

Comments

[resumed]

[What a cute tiger? Nico, however, is definitely a drowned cat when Magnus finds him and he gives him a lopsided, uncertain grin. Why the hell do you have a tiger?]

We found an arm, so I assume they both belong to Waver, considering.

[wearys]

[ better question is why the hell don't you, nico? ]

I should hope so. But geeze, who decided to make a human jigsaw?

[ a moment. ] Do you need a towel? You look soaked.

[resumed]

Someone who really wanted to make us work, I guess. [He shivers a little but suppresses it almost immediately.] It's water, it'll dry on its own. Besides we need to discuss strategy.

...starting with how long you plan to keep the tiger cub.

[wearys]

So, a sadist. Probably doesn't narrow things down. [ squints at nico. get a towel!! ] Yeah, all right. Just don't catch a cold, man.

Until tomorrow morning... then I'll go get the baby dragon, bring her to the trial, I guess. Then get Alex the tiger again on Sunday? [ he's blushing a bit, and sets the tiger down to let it play. ] Listen, they were begging to leave their enclosure? They deserve to get some time outside it, they're just babies.

[ don't judge him, nico. ]

[resumed]

I'll be fine, Magnus. I've built up a decent immune system recently. [He's also squinting though because:] ...why did you name the tiger Alex?

[He's gonna judge because he's kind of a jerk sometimes. But also Magnus that's...cute. Nico's even going to crouch a little to see if the tiger comes to him. (He's getting used to animals not freaking out on him when he doesn't smell like death.)]

[wearys]

Alright, alright. [ oh. yikes. hm. should he admit it, or... ] It was either that or Tony the Tiger, like from Frosted Flakes. Definitely isn't the name of one of my friends back home, that'd be... really dorky, obviously.

[ wow nico.

alex the tiger does come to him and gently smacks at his pant leg. is this an edible leg? ]

[resumed]

[He just...kind of raises an eyebrow. But there's also a faint smile.]

So definitely not someone important to you or anything. That would be incredibly dorky. [He gets it. He also gently smacks the tiger's paw back? Please don't eat his leg, he needs it.]

[wearys]

So dorky. So would the name Sam, for Sam the dragon, if Sam was a person. I'm clearly too cool for that.

[ well now the tiger thinks nico is playing and Attacks nico's smacking hand. probably sans claws. hopefully sans claws. ]

[resumed]

[Alex plz!! But he's letting his hand dangling for the tiger to play with.]

Clearly. [A beat.] So who are these imaginary people?

[wearys]

[ he walked into that. but also, he likes talking about his friends. ]

Sam was my Valkyrie. She's a real badass. Alex is her sibling, she came to Valhalla after me. They're both the kids of Loki, who sucks, but they're good. First time I saw her, she was shapeshifted into a tiger. Then she killed me with a garrote? But yeah.

What imaginary people would you name pets after?

[resumed]

Your taste in friends suddenly makes some sense. [A light smile. ] The dragon would be Hazel. She's my half-sister, child of Pluto. She's amazing. But also a badass.

And...the tiger would be Will. Child of Apollo. [A pause.] And my boyfriend.

They're always my first thoughts. Besides Reyna.

[wearys]

[ magnus raises an eyebrow at "boyfriend". he had? no idea? he probably eventually figured out he didn't have a crush on reyna, maybe. ]

We'll get home to our friends, imaginary or otherwise. I'm sure of that.

[resumed]

I hope you're right or I'm going to have a couple of people really mad at me. [A half-smile.] ...and when we get back, you should come visit Camp if you can. I don't know if Annabeth's told you that before. But Reyna's stayed before. You probably could, too.

[wearys]

Same here, bud. [ "bud" ok magnus you 40-year-old. ] I'd like to. It sounds pretty great. If I can get permission to for a trip, I can. We're not technically supposed to just leave whenever, though that doesn't necessarily stop us.

[resumed]

[I'm laughing isn't Magnus also like only a few years older than Nico. Anyway, he actually finds that he...likes that idea? Gross, is this friendship?]

Don't you just live in a hotel? I didn't know you guys had to have permission to take off.

[wearys]

[ literally like two years. welcome to friendship, nico. ]

Yeah, a magic hotel on the edge of all Nine Worlds. Well, if we didn't, do you know how many dead people from every era would be wandering around? I think the regular people might actually catch on if there were too many. We're only really supposed to leave for quests and stuff. But I think Odin likes me well enough I can get away with more?

[resumed]

Sounds like Chiron. We're technically only supposed to leave for camp-sanctioned stuff or quests but a lot of us head in and out more often than that. But you don't look dead. Maybe they wouldn't either out in the mortal world?

[wearys]

Maybe not look it, but talk like it. My friend TJ who died in the Civil War kept thanking people in England for not supporting the Confederacy or something.

[resumed]

[A pause.]

...you get used to it after a while. Being part of a different time period than the one you were born in. But I see your point.

[wearys]

Have personal experience in that?

[ head tilt. he assumed nico was, uh. just a regular millennial? ]

[resumed]

[A thin smile.] I was born in 1932.

[wearys]

Oh. That's. Wow?

[resumed]

[Yeah.] My sister and I were locked in a hotel in Las Vegas for seventy years before we were pulled back out. Percy and Annabeth were on a mission to bring us to Camp not long after that.

[wearys]

Okay, Annabeth may have glossed over that a bit. Or at least the whole, seventy years thing? Geeze, man, that makes you, what, 84 years old? I thought I was the near-adult between us two.

[resumed]

In terms of years alive, yeah. But Bianca and I didn't age in the hotel at all. We didn't even know time was moving outside.

[wearys]

So like Valhalla, but shitty. I'll take it off my travel list.

[resumed]

Yeah, it's called the Lotus Hotel and Casino. Apparently Annabeth and Percy spent some time there, too. Same with Grover. They weren't there as long as we were though.