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Nikko is beginning to get a little blasé about near death experiences. He's been shot, drugged and asphyxiated, and now poisoned by scorpions, and it's getting old. He hangs on to that idea because it's the most sane thing in his life right now, which says a lot about how fucked up his life is. The fact that he wouldn't change this life for anything says rather more about how fucked up he is, but he's been forced to recognise that anyway.
The worst thing about nearly dying is that all you can do is lie there and think. The scorpions were pretty bad in the searing agony stakes, and Nikko knows that he wasn't entirely lucid towards the end there, but he's done a lot of chewing over what he thought he saw and too much of it makes sense for his comfort.
He's pretty sure that some of the stuff he saw was his imagination. The old Tungus slowly dripping water into his mouth can't really have happened, or his dad would have mentioned it. Likewise he's pretty sure that Cal and his mom weren't there, reading from her journal and offering supportive and sarcastic remarks as he needed them. His dad might have done that, but from what's been said he doesn't think so.
On the other hand, he does remember water trickling into his mouth, the strange mineral-saturated taste of it, and he remembers seeing it drip from the bullet holes in the cave roof. Those bullet holes exist, that he has checked, and they could have released some water. Add to that the coincidence that he began to recover at the same time as he remembers the water, plus the speed of his recovery — Nikko's no expert on scorpion venom, but he's sure he shouldn't have been walking around so quickly afterwards — and Nikko can't escape the conclusion that he swallowed some of the Waters of Life.
That's cool. Also terrifying, but he's holding on to 'cool' for the moment. He doesn't think that he swallowed much, no more than a few drops, but it was enough to revive him. Was it enough to do whatever Maggie was talking about to his genes? He doesn't know. In a lot of ways he'd rather not find out if he's going to live forever, which is why he hasn't mentioned this to anyone. Let them think he just fought off the venom because he's tough, otherwise they'll just start to treat him differently.
The only person he's remotely considering telling is Cal, and that's only because he really needs to talk to Cal about the healing thing. OK, so that's a total lie, the only reason he's not talking to Cal is that Cal confuses him. Or rather Nikko confuses himself when it comes to Cal. It hasn't escaped his attention that Cal was right there in his comforting fever dream with Nikko's parents. Juliet wasn't, and she's supposed to be real close to him. Vincent wasn't, and he is protection personified. Maggie wasn't either, and she's usually the one to bring him down to earth.
Nikko has been trying to figure out what Cal means to him for some time now. A few weeks ago he'd have said that Cal was the nearest thing he'd ever get to a big brother, so Nikko considered him part of the family. Not exactly safe, but loved in that 'happy family' way that he really wishes defined 'home.'
He's no longer quite sure that's true. The trouble is Nikko's got no experience of having siblings, and not nearly as much experience as he'd like of having a family around. In retrospect, he was a bit surprised at how much Cal being hurt affected him, and how much the thought of Cal deliberately getting himself hurt disturbed him, but he just chalked it up as one of those family things and moved on. The relief that he's feeling now, that's just wrong.
It's like the healing thing was a barrier between them, and Nikko understood that. His big bro had an advantage over him, which was bound to put his nose out of joint. Now that Nikko might have his own personal weirdness, he expected to feel smug about Cal no longer having that advantage. Instead he's relieved, as if the existence of the barrier was more important than who was ahead on points. As if it mattered more that he could get closer to Cal.
It's at this point that Nikko's thoughts usually take a sharp left and head off for a week's vacation, because he doesn't like Cal that way. Nikko likes girls, so it doesn't matter that Cal is smart, funny, kind of cute if you think like that (which Nikko doesn't), and totally in need of someone to resuscitate his social life.
He's doomed. Nikko just hopes that he can keep his big mouth shut about all this, even if he doesn't like Cal that way. It would be ironic if he accidentally became immortal only to be strangled by his dad's assistant.