Chapter Text
Nico wasn’t dead. He was asleep. He didn’t want to be, but he couldn’t bear to face Will and Hazel. His sister and his Sunshine would hate him for trying to abandon them. So instead, he dreamed.
He dreamed of a time when he was happy. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy now, but that the underlying hopelessness hadn’t consumed him the second he was alone.
The little voice in the back of his head told him things sometimes. He had always tried to ignore it, but it had started to become more… insistent lately. The thoughts told him he as worthless as a piece of trash. Less than garbage, actually. Even trash had its uses.
The first dream was more of a forgotten memory. A mini Nico di Angelo was huddled under his bed as he heard people yelling in the street below. Nico didn’t know why they were yelling, but their bellowing scared nine-year-old him. Then suddenly, older Nico and younger Nico were one. He was whimpering. He really didn’t like this.
“Nico? Nico, where are you?” He knew that voice: Bianca, his older sister. Adult him knew what happened to her, but child him believed that she would never ever ever leave. Adult Nico was saddened by this. A child’s pure conviction and hope had never been enough to make anything ok.
Bianca smiled at him. “Come on now, Nico. Mother is ready to leave the hotel.” This time, he could he see the strain behind her smile, but little him payed no mind. Nico knew this day. He hadn’t relived it since he had hunted down his memories in his father’s garden.
Nico saw it all play out again. His mother dying at Zeus’s hand. Hades screaming her name. His father sending for the Furies to wipe their memories. Nico didn’t cry. He wanted to, he truly did, but he seemed to have lost the ability along with his mother and sister.
He was so lost in thought that he didn’t even realize that the memory had started again.
“No. No, please, no. STOP!” But Nico’s words were not enough to change this torture. He could usually control his dreams, but not today.
He saw it again.
And again.
By the fifth repetition he was nearly unresponsive.
By the tenth, Nico had finally found the tears that had been hiding.