Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was like this: the rushing tides, a maelstrom of bad decisions, and a dam breached. There was background thundering; of a heart, or a million, or none at all. Telltale sheets of lightning shattered the brewing contempt. Screams of wind tearing past reddened ears, breaths short, eyes watering from the pain or the panic or the precipice promising peace.

Then Nico woke up. Moonlight spilled across his bedsheets and he could imagine the opening of a sonata. Stars danced in his periphery; the shadows licked at his ebbing disturbance. Guilty dogs cowering to their master. Dreams like that weren't normal, but they weren't uncommon. Death bled in his mouth. Bitter in the sense of a prelude. Tragic, a travesty, and those symptoms are what set this particular dream apart from the rest. It hurt.

Nico turns to stare out the window. Joshua trees greet him. In the nighttime serenity, their bristles are softened. The brush whispers. Frost melts on the windowsill; his hands are numb. It has been a while since a dream has troubled him enough to go to such lengths.

And, the aftertaste of his dream leaves him with only one thought. The gods will never empathize the acceptance for a quiet defeat. Something akin to dread drops to the bottom of his stomach.

The sun blisters out here. Sunrise bleeds along the skyline; first the tip of a sullied blade, then the temptation of a wildfire racing along dried land. The stars have dulled to pinpricks, and quickly fade. Nico doesn't flinch at a distant scream. There's no need to fear things like coyotes when a demigod faces worse things (no, it's not the monsters. But then again, define a monster? Nico bargains it's in his mirror every morning. Being alone in the desert has it's perks; nobody can argue with him.) He waters the trough.

Sweat cools between his shoulder blades. Trickles down his back, slicks the curls around his ears. It's not even fully morning yet. still, it doesn't surprise him. Nothing does anymore. This domestic living does little to soothe his natural instincts. See it, see it first, don't let it see you til you're bringing your blade down on its neck.

A sudden burst of spots mar his vision. There's the dim clatter of the water jug hitting the ground. Breath leaves him, and he's no longer in the desert. It's too loud to be the desert. It's the thudding of worn sneakers along the beaten trail, the blur of vibrant forestry and ferns tickling his ankles. The mockery of a war cry, a bronze helmet falling into his eyes, laughter, the gush of a river just in the skirt of his senses. A tattered flag just in his sights (in the back of his head, Nico remembers that he's never liked capture the flag.) He blinks, and the trance fades. He blinks, and he's alone. He blinks, and finds himself on the ground.

The water trough is half-full. Palm wet, he glances to his right; the watering jug has slipped from his grasp. Alas, there will be no refills. It's not what he can afford out here. A half-trough will have to do today.

What was that? He frowns. Nico knows what that was, he knows. Somebody died. Somebody died, and death tastes like blue shaved ice and the guilt of a god-that-could've-been. It hurts. Death has never felt so cruel. Who died? Who died who died who died – Nico watches the brittle skeleton of a lizard scamper over his boots. Nico knows who died. It wouldn't matter if he hadn't had the vision. It wouldn't have mattered. He could've continued like nothing happened. He'd remain, as all ancient things do. And he'd be forgotten.

Nico always knew Percy would go quietly.

He just never knew it'd be as soon as this.

His stare reaches for miles. But is he really seeing anything? The dream from last night makes sense, now. In hindsight, the incomprehensible emotion that had left him bereft makes sense, now. It was grief. True and raw. Grief. As ugly as a grudge, or love, and it'd felt as vile as when he tore Cupid's wings from his back. Underneath it all, there had been a second-hand relief. Let him rest. Let the god rest. Let the hero rest. Let the boy rest.

Except, that won't happen. Nico gathers himself, brushes the sand from his jeans; the lizard carcass scampers back below the earth. There's an unrest gathering in his core. It's not his own. But he is the only one to accept the death of a loved one. The unrest stems from those he still keeps tabs on; even if he hasn't kept in touch. The ground shudders under his boots; something wet drips down his nose. It's not sweat.

He cranes his neck to the sky. Thunderclouds have gathered, brewing wretchedly with what only a god in mourning can stir. “Poseidon,” He warns, “Poseidon, this isn't the way to go about it.” And, because Nico is only a mortal, because Nico is only a child, his sympathy falls short. There is no soothing a god.

But there is soothing his flowers, so that's what Nico does. He bends low, and brushes his pale fingers along the petals of his flowers. Enchanted; a belated birthday gift from his step-mother for his sixteenth birthday. A quiet interaction. With a flick of her slender wrist, they flowers shot up from the dust. “Heed their warnings, child.” And in a flourish, she was gone. Monkshod petals had been left in her wake. But today, his flowers are lilies. Plain and simple. The white of their petals stare him dead in the eyes. Sorrow drips from them. Inconsolable; Nico isn't sure why he doesn't feel the same.

He plucks a lily, twirls it in his hands. His fingers are almost as pale as the plant. He never has been one to burn or blister. Bluster, sure, but he is part god and that is all gods are good for: blustering. His eyebrows draw together. He sighs, and lowers the lily enough to watch its roots stretch back for the earth. It reroots itself and hangs low. He leaves the lily be.

“Nico,” Hazel breathes.

Turning, the image of his sister flickers in the cutting winds. He blinks at her projection, “Hazel.” Her eyes are red, cheeks blotchy. Her breath is ragged, a hand pressed to her chest. She is so small, he thinks. So small, so precious, worth so much. Her hair coils in frantic messiness.

“He's dead, Nico.”

He nods. “I know.”

Her golden eyes water up again. She spits it out like a venom, “He's dead, Nico.”

“I know.” It comes out hard this time. A lifetime of being alone makes him apathetic like that. He can't sympathize with something he's known since birth.

Hazel flinches. She stifles a whimper, and hangs her head, “Come home. Annabeth wants to talk to you.” It's a plea. One that Nico won't succumb to.

“I can't,” He tells her. As she whips up her betrayed eyes, he continues, “Annabeth is hurting, and all she'll want is for me to bring him back.”

They're both silent for a moment. Somewhere distant, somewhere close, a coyote shrieks into the morning rain. His sister stares at him; her mouth gapes, half in protest. However, her shoulders give her away - they slump, and he has already won the argument.

“You know d-death better than anybody Nico.” She takes a breath. Her eyes harden, resolve thickening. He's always loved her like this. Regal, strong, the beauteous force she is. But she will never amount to him. She will never amount to him. She can't, it's not her nature. But it is his, and that's why he doesn't flinch as she pleads, “You know grief better than anybody.”

Because he does know grief. He knows it as the numbness between the vertebrae in his spine, the heaviness of his tongue and the hours spent awake at night as the what ifs circle his thoughts. He has found a friend of grief in the weary eyes of a stranger, the shuddering breaths of the void, the loss of something so close but so untouchable. “I know grief,” He agrees. “And I know not even Annabeth can fight it.”

Hazel tries to say something, but her throat constricts. Nico keeps his tone even. He can't look her in the eyes. “Let him rest,” Is the hushed plea that leaves his mouth. “Let him rest, Hazel.”

More tears spring to her eyes. The Iris Message is fuzzy at best, and he knows he's never been in the gods' favor. But at a desperate time like this, maybe Iris could give a fuck. He bites his tongue for a moment. “What do you mean?” And then she's yelling, chest heaving, “Nico come home, please! We need you, and we need him, come home!”

He's always found it so pretty. How despair can twist a person. Her hands curl into fists. He feels the earth's trembling pick up to a dull roar. The rain comes down heavier. A coppery scent meets his nose. The red sand slicks under his boots. “Percy -” Hazel flinches at his name - “Has done more than enough. He wanted to go, so let him.” His heart froths in his chest. A bath bomb thrown into the Pacific, muted in the face of Poseidon's mourning. Nico starts to raise his voice over the storm.

“It was quiet!” Hazel freezes. Her form stiffens; her legs give out, and he watches her slump back onto her couch. “He went quietly,” Nico screams, “He went willingly!”

The earth stops shifting under his feet. As if Poseidon himself was listening, the rain trickles to a stop. Soaked to the bone, hair in his eyes, Nico snarls, “Leave Percy to his afterlife, Hazel. Let him have this.” How hypocritical. He feels vile, feels wrong, he's a liar. Everything is silent around him. Each word matters. Each word will decide his fate. He feels the ruinous eyes of the Earth Shaker peering at him from somewhere. “He was alone in this.”

Hazel throws something, and the message is cut off. Nico may know grief, but nobody said he knew how to console it. His lilies are bare of their petals, stripped clean from the godly tantrum. He tuts to himself, tugging at his wet shirt. “Thanks,” He scoffs. Nothing responds to him.

That's why he likes the desert. By himself, nobody can argue with him.

It's a day later, and Nico still hasn't fully figured out his feelings on the matter. Whenever he thinks, it's the phantom sensation of glossy wings in his hands, knotty and bloody as he tears them from flesh and from bone. Cupid scream. His heart shrivels in on itself, but he has never felt more free as he had right then. Cupid will live on, but so will Nico. Really, the loss of wings doesn't compare to losing the ability to ever love somebody else.

He flexes his fingers. They're numb, but he can still feel how soft those feathers had been. So pristine, they made Nico's hands look dark. And maybe they were, the darkness from inside him channeled into something ungodly and unholy. In the barest of moments, Nico remembers smiling.

Alas, his silence is then disturbed. It's the late hours. The sun is a cool burst of scarlet on a mauve canvas; the stars stare down at him, and the new moon casts a shadow on his aching heart. Ruddy cypress flowers had greeted him that morning. He'd filled the water trough, and shadow traveled to the nearest town for supplies. Mainly DIY; Poseidon's sudden, against-nature storms have brought a leak to light in Nico's shack.

Returning at sundown, Nico had been prepared for some kind of interruption from his isolated lifestyle. The shadows clung to him until he left the reach of the joshua tree. His hands heavy with the day's haul, he'd reached the porch steps and put the bags down. Something had been off the second he set foot on roughened ground, but it's not until he actually glanced to the lone rocking chair that he saw him.

Poseidon.

The man – the god – said nothing. He was still, face solemn as he watched the sun sink below the dunes. Nico felt the need to say nothing, so remained silent. He hoisted his bags back up, cast a look at the flower beds, and trudged into the shack. He left the door open in invitation. It wasn't taken; he heard it, the continued rocking of the chair, how it groaned against the porch planks. The door is left wide open.

And now, Nico leaves his grocery bags on the kitchen counter, and turns to lean against the half-wall dividing the kitchen from the rest of the lounging area. His shack is two stories; though his 'bedroom' is really only a loft-space that is accessible by a ladder off to the side. A curtain dangles from the roof beams to give the idea of privacy between the bedroom and the downstairs. He lets out a sigh, and reaches for a cup from the cupboard. With the fresh orange juice he bought, Nico pours a tall glass.

He takes it with him outside. The gentle evening breeze revives the stagnancy of his lungs. Going to town always leaves him dusty and cluttered; a skeleton left in the closet.

Poseidon continues to watch the sun die. Nico strolls over. There's lacking elegance, but Reyna's always admired his light feet, and so his boots make no sound. He rests the cup of orange juice on the fruit crate by the chair. The god doesn't acknowledge him. Nico takes perch on the steps, and feels the desert card fingers through his hair. It's a pleasantry he never bothered thinking about when he was younger. It was a domesticity he couldn't afford. But now? The ruin of Cupid has warded away gods for what feels like eons. (Two years. He's nineteen now. Old for a demigod. Older still for a son of the Big Three. Young for the boy who has come to terms with his immortality.)

“You know grief, child,” Poseidon whispers. His voice, once thunderous and powerful, creaks like the deck of a capsized ship.

Nico nods, “I do.”

The god's aura is weak, but it still feels like an overwhelming cologne smothering his senses. He's always revered the gods for one thing and one thing only: their beauty. It's an ethereal thing; less objective than it sounds. Poseidon's presence brings forth the wayward rancor of tidal waves, makes Nico's bones reverberate with how much energy radiates from Poseidon's human form. It's beautiful. It's disgusting. It reminds him of himself. Of what he will one day become.

“Then you must know how the loss is ruining me,” Poseidon croaks. And there it is; the disgusting part. Me, because he is a god, he is self-centric by nature, and Nico wants to puppeteer the god and make him bow to the bowels of the earth for his narcissism.

Instead, Nico simply shrugs, “Grief is different for everybody. I never said I would understand your own personal antagonism.”

Thunder rumbles its warning; do not poke a sleeping bear.

Do not dismiss the distress of a deity.

Poseidon remains silent for a moment. His lack of answer is the weight of humid summers, the moisture thick in the air, heavy on his shoulders, the stagnant waters that offer little solution from the heat. Nico retaliates; there's a sharp inhale from the god when he forces out a spike of cold.

There is no chance that the god is intimidated by his fear-aura. But it keeps Nico cool. It nulls him to the oppressive guilt that Poseidon tries to lay thick. He takes a breath of breeze that flutters past. Copper meets his nostrils. So much iron out here, in the desert, the red sands. It makes him smile. “You can bring him back, child,” Poseidon states.

Nico nods, “I can.”

It has always amused Nico. That nickname, that querying child, because it's always been written deep in the Fates' twine and cotton wheel that he'd live among gods. If not outlive them. So child, he thinks, will one day be brother. He's already witness Apollo trip and call him by such. But for now, child will do. Nico is still young yet. And, perhaps, he always will be.

“But you wont.” The god concludes. Nico glances at him; he is wearied and hollow, the canker sores stubborn on the planks of a dock.

“But I wont,” Nico agrees. He allows his fear-aura to finally calm. Poseidon doesn't try to smother him a second time. His iron-heady breezes continue to carry joshua needles along.

He feels Poseidon stand. His bones are made of abalone, and his soul swells like the gushing tide reeled in by the moon. The god steps along the porch, until he sits on the steps with him. The step below Nico, he notices. It wont get the god anywhere. Nico is resolute and unmovable. He isn't as malleable as he used to be.

The cypress flowers sway in the evening wind. “I thought you loved him,” Poseidon murmurs, “You felled Cupid in his name.”

His eye twitches; spite builds in the back of his throat, hurt makes the blood ebb away from his knuckles. “I attacked Cupid for the sake of myself,” Nico corrects. “I tore out his wings out of selfishness.” He turns to look Poseidon in his ocean eyes, and he doesn't see Percy in this personification of the sea. “Let it be known, Poseidon,” Nico spits, “I do nothing in the name of a person. Anything I do, it's gratuitous.”

If he paints himself ugly and horrible and self-centric, then maybe he will finally be left to his solitude. But Poseidon's eyes are broken, no longer rose-tinted, and he sees straight through him. “Don't try to lie to me, child,” His words are the jaded hollowness of a shipwreck. His waves slam against Nico; he refuses to yield.

“Don't lie to me. Don't lie to yourself; you loved him. You'd do anything for him.”

Nico doesn't slump in defeat. He turns away from Poseidon, out to his stretches of dunes and saguaro cacti and joshua trees. He watches a trio of coyotes race after a hare. “Yes,” He admits, “I'd do anything for Percy.” The god flinches. “And if allowing him rest is what he wants, then I'll defend it.”

His voice comes out sharp, far from the diplomatic boy he used to be. Ambassador of Pluto, they used to chant. His sword would gleam, slick like his eyes, and he'd use that clear and collected voice to lay disputes to rest. Now, his words are cut-throat, sharp like his teeth, sharp like his blade:

“You have put Percy through so much. Named him after a hero, and a hero he has been, Poseidon. Leave Percy to rest, now. Heroes come and go, and heroes will come again. Percy has had his dues, and he has had enough.” He cackles, and it slices through the night sky. The shadows edge towards them. “You run them ragged, Poseidon. You and the other gods; you're greedy, and don't understand the fragility of demigods and mortals. You need to learn, if you ever wish for something like Percy to come around again.”

They both know nothing like Percy will come around again. But his words remain. They don't hang in the silence, but they glitter like the stars. Poseidon is silent. He is the calm before a storm. Nico has been the catalyst, once again. It's not like he cares. Smite me, he thinks. Blight me. I want my rest too.

“Nobody will ever amount to my son,” Poseidon croaks. He notices the pain in his periphery. Sorrow rolls from Poseidon in waves, threatens to drown Nico too, but he'll withstand the storm. He always does. That is what he must do.

“No,” Nico admits. His voice falls quiet. He's not sure if the thunder is the clouds, Poseidon, or his own doing. “But that's the fault of heroes. They're all special in their own way. You can't replace one thing with another.”

He looks Poseidon in the eyes, sees the infinity that he is, and the true depth his grief stems.

A combination of stardust, ocean sediment, and pure, raw power circulates before him. A being of true nature, the blusters of whirlpools, the break of Pangea, and the voracity of swallowing loneliness stares back at him. Nico doesn't tremble. He doesn't hesitate, or quiver. He has seen the beginning, and the ending, of all things. The demigod life has stripped him of his most basic fears. And his death? It has never been a fear of his.

Nico blinks, and it is a frail man who sits beside him.

“Good night, Poseidon,” He dismisses. The god doesn't even blink. He doesn't gasp, or sputter. He simply bows his head; he heaves a sigh, shoulders trembling. But he doesn't move. Nico presses a cool hand to the nape of Poseidon's neck and rests for a second.

A moment of truth. “I love him so damn much. I love him more than life, more than an oath.” A pause. “More than myself.” Nico glances away, to the horizon line, where the sun is no longer. “And I will always stand by him.”

Even in death.

Poseidon stands, and walks out into the desert. Nico watches until the god – the man – walks over a dune. He doesn't surface from the other side. A quiet exit. How ironic.

“Even in death,” Nico murmurs. The cypress flowers wilt.

It's three days in, now, and Nico is finally starting to notice his own melancholy seeping through the cracks of his facade. There was yearning, for the years he was gone, yes. But this is different. This is knowing he'll not look at those brilliant eyes again, this is knowing that not once, ever, had he made the effort to befriend Percy. To humanize his hero, to treat him good.

And, yes, he supposes it is a lacking grief. But it is grief all the same. Nico has always had a muted understanding of tackling the loss of a loved one; after Bianca, there was nothing to compare. Bianca was his everything, the only thing tethering him to something he knew. And after Bianca, he never rekindled that connection with anybody else. So grief has always been lost on him. He tried to bring back one sister, and gained two others, but if he were to lose them? Nico hates himself when he realizes: no, he would not mourn in the way he had mourned Bianca. The demigod lifestyle has ruined him of mortal emotion. Being a son of death has left him bereft, marooned on an island of longevity and desolation. It has numbed him.

It feels more like guilt, rather than grief. Nico smacks his lips; the back of his mouth tastes like ashen sulfur and the choking realization that Tartarus will never truly let go of him.

Nico stares at the ladder that leads downstairs. His vision wobbles uncertainly; his home is cold. Colder than anything he's ever known it to be. Sliding his knuckles against the window, he feels condensation dampen his dry skin. Cold. There is a reason he disappeared into the desert. He's cold blooded; a snake under a heat lamp. This cold makes his bones stiffen.

“Father?” He calls, making for the ladder. There is no response. So Nico takes his time; he climbs down the ladder, lingering by the front-facing window by the door. His porch obscures his view of the flowers. And whilst he'd like to hurry and do his chores, he glowers at the lack of sun on the horizon. The moon is at it's peak.

He curses under his breath. “There are better times for you to visit,” Nico calls out. His cabin is unnaturally dark. Even with his lack of windows, and the natural darkness of the desert nights, his vision is purposely slighted. Nico huffs, and grapples for the light switch.

The strings of fairy-lights flicker on, but do nothing. They are peach-colored lace strung through an abyss.

“There's no guarantee you'd be here if I were to visit any later,” His father's voice rumbles.

Nico wonders. And wonders. But his father is often enigmatic, as all gods are, so he doesn't voice his confusion. “Of course,” He acquiesces.

The weight of the darkness lessens at his complying response. “And what have you come to visit me for?” Nico steps deeper into his shack. His feet make no sound. He uses the shadows (not his; they taste like dark wine and have the consistency of crushed pomegranates. Too heavy to be his own, too swarthy and disagreeable,) to map his way through his home.

His father occupies the lonely table-for-one by the window. He sits, mighty, even in a simple trench-coat and a cigarette. He's something out of a Film Noir. However, the restless shifting of the trench-coat makes Nico's eye twitch. It warps; faces, waning, whining, begging for life once more. He looks away.

Hades twiddles with his cigarette. For a moment, neither of them look at each other. It's with unison that Nico glances into maddened, void-swallowing eyes. They are his own, but they are lifeless. And Nico knows they will never view his crimes the way he does. His father is a god, and for what he has done to Cupid, it is only slightly above child's play. The equivalent of a teenager getting into a fight while drunk. And, really, that's what it was.

“You are aware that Percy Jackson has died, yes?” Nico feels his throat tighten.

He nods, and sets his jaw, “I am.”

His father nods; even in this awful dark, his face is grim. There is no triumphant smile. None of the pride Nico had briefly imagined his father to possess, as he had once in a nightmare. His father doesn't cackle, and doesn't dangle the loss of his friend (loosely-termed, beware,) in front of him. What flashes across his father's face is remorseful; condolence in the way only a father can offer it. (Hades is no father.) Nico feels his insides churn.

“His soul has not come to the Underworld.” Wayward. Nico nods, and keeps his face schooled. He doesn't do a good job; his father's face turns contemptuously contrite. Nico feels sick. “And, we both know how these things go.” Do they? Nico's only ever had to track down the reluctant, the passives, the regular Asphodel-bound mortals that needed a little guidance.

“You're not asking me to track him down, are you?” His voice is hard as stone. He can imagine his father's arched eyebrow. “Because I wont.” Nico takes a step back, and squares his shoulders. Finding those discontented eyes is easier than finding his own hurt. “This is different, father. You know it is.”

The silence isn't so bad. But his father has always been biased, and he could very well smite Nico where he stand for this. Do it, he goads, do it and let me be free. His father sighs. The room shifts, and the shadows lessen. Nico wonders what he must look like. In his shorts, and nothing else. (His father gives him a once over; Nico feels shame well up in his mandible and the patellas. Even if the god doesn't appear to be disappointed.) “I know,” His father murmurs. “I know how it is different, Nico, but we both know death doesn't fall to bias.” Except it does, Nico wants to scream. It DOES. I'm a product of the fucking BIAS. Instead he bites his tongue. Blood reddens his lips. Before his father can react, Nico shakes his head, and strolls for the door.

He pulls the door open. The night wind howls through the hinges, tousles his hair. “If that's all you came for, then I would appreciate you taking your leave, father.” Hades sighs, and nods. At least he will give Nico this. The god stands; tall, impossibly tall, roiling with ancient power that could kill Nico if he pestered enough.

Hades walks past him, and pauses by the top of the porch steps. Nico still can't see the flowers too well. Oh well. “Please, just leave him be,” Nico murmurs. Hades stares at him for a moment. He rubs his eye, finds his tongue growing heavy, “He'll come when he's ready, father, and maybe that isn't just yet.”

To his surprise, the god nods, “I trust your judgment, son.”

Something cold and clammy blooms in his chest. “Thank you,” He breathes. His father nears him, once more, and pulls something from his inside-pocket. A flower. Nico takes it delicately, and stares at it.

“I'm proud of you, Nico.” Nico blinks and the man is gone. Moonlight catches its petals.

“Then why have you given me an asphodel?” He asks the air. My regrets follow you to the grave. Vile.

The wind picks up, howling past his ears. Nico releases the flower, and watches it get carried away. Bitterness wells up in the back of his throat. Shaking his head, he turns, and heads back inside. The fairy-lights bathe the downstairs in a soft glow. It doesn't make the place feel any more homely. The door shuts behind him. Nico leans against it, rubbing a hand down his face. A shiver runs through him.

He's never had this many visitors before. These few days have been taxing – a death, a call, a visit, and then another. Remembering the last time somebody came to visit him dates back to never. Not since he left camp. It has been strictly IM with Hazel and nothing else. His quietude hadn't been a problem before this.

He runs a hand down his face. When he removes his hand, he's drenched in cold. There's a flood in his veins, the surge of salt and the smell of brine, his hands smoothed over like scales. Bubbles burst from his mouth; the price for being alive, the cost for making it this far, the paycheck at the end of it all. His head feels like it's going to swell, the currents dragging him deeper. Except – it's a relief, this release a remission. Not once does regret come to mind. It's this rush, and he's drowning, his limbs are heavy. The broken mast of a sinking ship. The weighted coins shining dimly in the seep-through sun as they thunk to the bottom of the seabed. Eyes flutter shut. Lungs start to burn – a restless fire licking from the inside of his chest. The bubbles plume from his mouth like underwater vents. It's numbing.

When he opens his eyes, he's gasping. A hand flies to his throat, and he feels his pulse thud in his chest. If he loses concentration, there's a threat that his heart will tear free from his chest. Nico inhales deeply. He closes his eyes. The moon shines on his eyelids. It paints his sights a low purple, the veins scattering along the fragile lining of his inner-lids, snaking and sprawling like crown shyness in trees.

Fuck, he misses trees. Real trees, not the joshuas, not the god awful saguaros that branch for the skies like a pathetic rendition of sequoia and chestnut. But Nico misses a lot of things. He misses the piles of snow in Washington, or the Oregon forests. There has always been home in the deepest parts of the woods. Where the roots grow gnarly, the soil turns dark, the undergrowth clings to you and drags you further. Canopies so thick the sun can barely filter through. The smell of the earth with each step; the forests have always brought him closer to the ethereal aspects nobody takes notice of. It's all so beautiful, until it isn't.

He lets out a breath, and he doesn't smell soil. He smells sand, and rock. His eyes open, and he is face to face with the feeling of homesick homesick homesick bury yourself among the mantle itching in his fingertips. Oh gods, what he'd do for a moment under the earth again.

But he can't do that, can he?

“Until you die, you will not return to the Underworld,” Zeus had boomed; a sufficient punishment, for the mauling of Cupid. Cold hearted motherfucker. Who is he talking to? Himself, or the angel? Neither, maybe both. It's all the same. They all have golden-blue blood, the godhead mechanism and the greed the greed the greed.

Nico feels a coldness make a home in his ribs. Sighing, he stands, dusts the dirt from his shorts, and glowers at the bold coyote trying to skirt around his house. A flash of his teeth, a snarl; the coyote yips and runs the other way. Grim satisfaction nestles alongside the guilt. Traitor, a river whispers to him. You're a traitor. There's not much evidence to contradict the accusation. There is also no river. Not here. Not ever.

Come morning, the sky is peach, cottony, and arcs for miles. He greets the morning with hallowed eyes. His palms feel waxy, and his hair is limp. He grimaces at the idea of a shower, but it's needed. He goes through the motions; dragging his clothing from the floor, has a staring match with the ghost in the mirror, claws at the flesh clinging to his years-gained muscle.

It's sinewy and lean, much like himself, and doesn't make his figure any more intimidating than a stick man. But maybe he's biased. He'll always see the skeleton trying to wrestle out of his flesh, after all. He sees the worst parts of a person. He sees what they're truly made of. He never remembers there being a time where that's pretty. (That's not true; Percy was beautiful. Percy's soul shone like a beacon in the dark, a lighthouse at sea, guiding the path back home. He was beautiful; Nico can't imagine anything more wondrous. Except Bianca. But Bianca died young, and Nico could always taste the cusp of young-death in her hair.)

It is then that he sees the shameplants creeping from the flower boxes. Whispy and pale colored, their leaves curl delicately in the breeze. Nico sighs, and glares. Sensitive. Wonderful. What the fuck could that entail?

His shower left him too hot in too cold skin, the sun makes his skin glisten, and he looks too much like a god for his own good. The mirror cracks when he stared at it. He smirked; figures.

But now he is dressed and ready for a trip out to town. His fridge is empty (has been for a week or so now,) and Nico's been running low on his supplies (those of a more dark nature, of a more scorned and dated nature. Black magic, something hisses, and it has buried itself beneath his carapace.) The willowy lace of death has made a shawl over his shoulders.

The sound of his boots hitting the weathered wood is a lonely echo, and nothing more. It's as if the sound was whispered, from somewhere outside. It's a shame that nobody will appreciate this place as he does. It's a shame that he doesn't appreciate this place, either. A breath fills his mouth with drought. A blink crusts sand around his eyes. Just this once, he wonders if maybe he can become dead. Just like the sand. Fall fossilized and reborn in bone shards. He knows it will never happen. He will be here to watch an epoch pass, and then two. Three, four, five. Thirteen, maybe. Too many.

This current anthropocene will hopefully be the last.

This world needs a chance to start again. A rebirth.

Humans are disgusting, he thinks. Disgusting. He starts for the shadow of a joshua, and feels himself melt into the dark. Humans are only mortal. Mortals are only human. And they're killing the world they want to live in.

The town Nico frequents is small. Small, and nowhere-cursed. The sun beats down unforgivingly; the people around here are small, with reddened skin and squinting eyes. And they fear him. It satisfied a sickening little part of him. Sends a shiver down his spine.

Each step into the skirts of the town make the air turn timid and hesitant. Nico knows there must be great care taken with these isolated people. They remind him of shy nymphs along a brook, except there is no brook, and these people aren't afraid to try and shoot him. Try, that is. They're all stubborn. Nico can relate to that aspect.

However, there is one person that will always shake him to the core. Her name is Bia, and she scares him deeply. He looks at her, and she is temperate like a day in fall; her soul is a low kindred fire, and a loose match will burst her into flame. She is Bianca, but with creosote eyes and a godly strength lacing her skeleton. Not to say that Bianca was never strong; gods knew she was, gods knew she was worthy, gods knew... He shakes his head. He knew she should be where he is. But she isn't.

No, Bia is a goddess, a spirit; his sister was named as a tribute, as he was to Nike. Ironic, like that. Bia sits by a jacaranda tree and whittles branches into sharp stakes. Bia has marked the lavender tree as her own. Nico can respect that. It doesn't stop him from using said tree as his focus point, though.

Nico materializes from the shadow. His limbs retain their physical form. Each muscle regains consciousness, the sparks of chthonic antagonism shed from his frame like an old skin. And there, in the shade of the jacaranda, is Bia. The air is cool around the tree. The shade is enough to make him feel like he's not in the middle of a desert. The goddess doesn't look at him. Doesn't speak, doesn't even acknowledge him. And that is fine. Nico is done with gods. They stopped being his guide the second the wars were finished. NO MORE, Percy Jackson screamed, and Nico couldn't have said it better. His throat feels raw with choked mourning.

So Nico leaves the shelter of the tree. He stalks the cracked roads of this nowhere-cursed town. Elders cross the road from him; the crows shriek and fly away. Nico catches the eye of a cactus wren and it falls limp onto the road. A smirk curls his lip. He simmers, and continues to stroll.

A bookstore beckons to him. The widow inside squints at him through her rounded glasses. A sweet thing, really; she remembers he likes hard lemon candy and his taste for the romantic writers. He doesn't know her name; she's never asked for his. Nico's not sure he'd give it, if asked. Names have power. The woman reminds him of a fae. Whimsical, with her silvery hair. Her knuckles are raw and she smiles when the bell jingles.

“Back again, ghost?”

He smiles to himself.

“Indeed I am, miss.”

“So polite,” She chuckles. Her frame trembles as she stands from behind the counter. The smile on her mouth is earnest. The blood that seeps from her cracked lips makes his soul quiver. The widow smells like death. It is thick on the back of his tongue. The scent of metallic woe hits him like a train. But she is still alive. Not for much longer, but the widow will live one more day. (Her soul whispers a long life lived. He feels whole, just this once.) “We have a new shipment of books,” The woman tells him, “That, uh...” The way she snaps her fingers makes him chuckle - “That book you wanted arrived. What was it called...” She trails off.

The silence is pleasant, as she turns to bustle through her stack of boxes. The dust layering everything wasn't here last month. But this modern era doesn't allow for books. It has no room for small towns like this. She will die, and this bookstore along with it. A low note hums in the silence. It seems he is the only one that hears it.

Nico never asked for a new book.

But she reveals a thick tomb that weighs down her arms. From behind her round glasses, she smiles at him sweetly. “Here you go, ghost.” He takes a glance at the tome. Reluctantly, he takes it from her. When his eyes meet the author, he wants to die.

A grimoire.

Written by himself.

But Nico has never written a grimoire, has never needed one. He is no witch, and he casts no spells. “Nico di Angelo, huh?” He drawls.

The widow nods once, and wrings her fragile hands, “Yes, ghost. That's what you asked for, is it not?”

Nico nods too. A lump grows in his throat. “Yes, miss. It is.” Carelessly, he shoves it into the inside of his jacket. The shadows cast grab the book and swallow it whole.

Nico has no intention of grabbing the book back from those shadows. They can keep it, for all he cares. Dark magic, the words ring in his head. βιβλίο σκιών. A vile sensation pools in his gut.

“It was no problem,” The widow chuckles. She flaps her hand distractedly, “A being like you must get bored, no?”

Nico blinks. The plant pot on the desk; it's soil shifts. A prompt hissing fills the room, before a snake starts to slither from the plant pot. By reflex, he slams his blade down and decapitates it. A cerastes. No, he corrects himself; a horned viper. Or a cerastes? He doesn't know. He doesn't care. It's dead.

He stares down at his blade. It has been a while since he's seen it. His sword is as dark as it has always been. It swallows the warmth from the surrounding area. The metal is a void. Nico watches the woman scamper away, as if feeling her soul get tugged. “Oh, ghost, do put that away,” She requests. He does. Nico drops the blade and watches it get eaten by his shadow.

“My apologies,” He tries, “The snake startled me.”

Creeping back to the counter, the widow plucks the limp body of the creature. She stares, unseeingly, with her old eyes. Then bites into it. Nico feels dread curl in his stomach. “That's alright, ghost. Would you like some lemon candies?” She smiles at him. Gold scales shimmer in her teeth. Routine is routine, however, and Nico nods quietly. A handful of hard candies are placed into his hand. Gold dust flakes and crusts the woman's dry knuckles.

He stares a second too long, and sighs. “Thank you, miss.” Nico takes his leave.

The woman laughs; it lingers in the air, “You're welcome, ghost.” That is that.

His next stop is the grocers nearing the center of town. It is modest, the fruit is often overripe, the meat collects flies, and the crows aren't hassled by defeated merchants. Still, Nico strolls along the sun-lit path. It feels like eyes are always watching him. Maybe it's because they are. Children are constantly mystified by his monthly appearance. They whisper, “Look! Look, mommy, it's that witch again!” And their parents shield the children's eyes, “No, dear, that's not a witch. That's a corpse. Now leave it be.”

Nico feels like a corpse.

His favorite one will always be what a young boy called him. Or rather, what Bia has told the townsfolk. “You are a spartae!” The boy declared, and stared into his head with sky-blue eyes, “The Lady Strength calls you a spartae!”

Nico, wicked and cruel and as awful as they come, had cackled, “Is that right, kid?”

Defiant and innocent, the boy had nodded vehemently. “You are a cruel spartae and you must stop trespassing over Lady Strength's land!” To which Nico had crouched down. The air had grown cold. His bones had ignited like a match to a gasoline spill.

He stared into that little boy's eyes, and he'd lowered his voice: “How can I be trespassing when I am a son of the under-earth?” The cracked concrete under their feet began to crumble, and tremor. The boy has not sought for him since. Nico never claimed to be a good person.

Emerging from his reverie, he finds himself observing the pitiful collection of fruit at a stand. Moldy bananas, rotten apples. The pears have gone soft. The usual assortment of fruit. None of it is anything new. A bowl of cloves catches his attention, however, and waxy basil sits in a bushel. Neither of these are common at the little grocers. Nico meets eyes with the vendor; a stout man with skin deep from the sun. Nico thinks Apollo would be a patron around here, if patrons were such a thing anymore. “What do you want, sprite?” A new one. He feels himself quirk an eyebrow at the name. He doesn't linger too long on it.

“How much?” He jabs a stark finger at the herbs. The man, hair cropped short and face lined deep from age, wrinkles his nose, “...Depends.”

“On what.” Is Nico's immediate answer.

“On you,” The man says. Brittle eyes.

Nico stares at him for a moment. The sun scorches anything not under the stall's tarp. The shadows churn listlessly. It's not lost on Nico; how the vendor's eyes catch the movement. “I want your herbs,” He states, "How much for them.”

The vendor shrugs again. He scratches his cheek; flakes of dead skin fall off.

“How. Much.” The dried earth by their feet shifts, and a dog unearths himself from the tomb. The dog's tail wags, and his maw hangs open. If he had a tongue, it'd loll, and he'd be smiling. Good dog, Nico thinks. The vendor flinches.

“The hell is that?” The vendor gasps.

Nico says evenly: “I want the herbs.”

More things begin to dig themselves into the living realm. Lizards, cats, dogs, coyotes, things that shouldn't be discovered by mortal eyes. The vendor shakes in his boots. Shadows claw from the safety of surrounding shapes; they hiss, and snarl, and whisper, bend to thy divinity and the vendor breaks. “Fine!” He snaps, hiding behind his shelf of goods, “Fine! Take your damn herbs, I don't care. Get away from me, daemon!”

Nico flashes a smile, “How much?” He's already dropping the basil and cloves into the nearest shadow.

“I don't care.”

He deposits a handful of bills into the man's stiff, quivering hand. “Thanks.” And then Nico is gone. From a distant shadow, he watches the townsfolk murmur and shake among themselves. The dead things dig themselves new graves under the scorched sand. It's as if they'd never been upturned in the first place.

Now, all he needs is an offering.

Bia gives him a look of contempt when he returns to the staked claim of her jacaranda tree. There are children gathered. They laze in the red soil, and watch creosote shrubs collect the stray butterflies. Souls, Nico thinks. Butterflies are souls, in a different faith.

A small girl – the one closest to him – gasps when he steps near. Her hair is flame of a dying sunset. “Are you a strix?”

Nico shrugs, before murmuring, “Maybe.” It feels like it, whenever he comes here. Bia watches him from her place under the tree.

“Child -” She tries, but the name strikes a chord and he barks, “Elder.” And really, it is childish of him. Bia pauses. Her eyes sear into him; oil over water, and he can't get under her skin. She is too strong. She is...she is Bianca, through and through.

“You always come here.”

“Not always,” Nico drawls.

The children give each other dubious looks. A pair of boys giggle to each other, and he hears the word witch murmured. “Don't lie to me,” Bia warns.

Nico shrugs, “Who says I'm lying?” The goddess, regal, even in a straw hat and overalls, arches an eyebrow.

“Me,” She finally decides. “I say you are lying.” The tension rises; the children gravitate towards the goddess for protection.

“Then I'll have to disagree,” Nico decides.

“If that is what you wish, child,” Bia concedes.

Nico stands for a moment. There is a silent 'but' in that. He waits for it. Eventually the goddess opens her mouth once more, “You are too alone, all the way out there.”

Nico shrugs again, “I favor solitude.”

She shakes her head – the fragile hand of a toddler clutches at her denim. Bia lets out a deep breath, “Then why do you insist on coming back to my gathering?”

An itch starts in his neck. It worms itself down between his shoulder blades. “Convenience,” Is his answer.

Bia doesn't believe him. Nico didn't ask her to believe him. Only that they come to a mutual disagreement. “Let me rephrase that,” She punctuates. The jacaranda tree sheds some of its blossoms. They get caught in his hair and a ten year old awes at his visage. Nico doesn't feel pretty. The flower wilts, once he plucks it from his hair. “Why do you insist on coming back to me?”

At that, Nico snorts. He rolls his eyes, “Don't flatter yourself, goddess.” More seriously, he states, “Why would I come back for a deity?” He spits the word like it's venomous. It might as well be. Bia scoffs at him, and Nico rolls his eyes.

She shifts the conversation, nodding to his laden shadow, “If not for me, then what are the herbs for this time?” He can hear the haughty an offering would be nice every once in a while. With all the things he collects, all the offerings he's made, not one of them have been for her. Nico doesn't care. He stopped caring when Bianca decided he wasn't strong enough to bother about. Leave the weak while they're young; they'll die.

Ha. Look how that turned out. “Your scorn will come to bite you,” Bia states bluntly.

He shrugs again, and pulls on his hood, “Let's hope so.” Maybe it'll wake him from this stupor.

Her oil slick eyes bore into him. “You are weak, child,” She tells him. The children gasp, and whip their heads to look at him. A heat fights to rush to his face, but he keeps it down. No matter how much he already knows this, it is still awful to be told so.

Nico smiles. “I am aware.”

The baleful deity moves to say something else - “I d-do not think he is,” A little boy whispers. Both he and the goddess turn to the boy. He is small, with a crutch, and his eyes are too big in his head. A deformity. Nico's bones itch to correct it. He could, if he tried, if he learned. He must know the boy's name. He must taste the boy's name on his tongue, sing that name in his incantations, and fix this boy. But he won't. He can't.

“I -” The boy stammers, shying from Bia's stern gaze, “I think he must be...very strong, t-to be by himself as he is.” Nico is ready to lash; silver tongue, bullet words, we'll see what happens. But the frail boy meets his eyes. And Nico feels the breath leave his lungs. “My papa used...t-to say that they've been...seen to much, if they are al-alone now.”

DEMIGOD they boy's soul screams. Nico forces himself to tap out from the soul stream. He cannot focus on that. This boy is doomed. “...Who was your father?” The words are out before he can stop them.

Bia gives him a warning look, but Nico no long abides by gods. The boy continues, “He – he was a smith. Mama says he is...isn't here anymore.” Nico takes a step back.

“I will tell your father you said hello, next time I see him.” He has a feeling it may be soon.

The boy gives him a desperate look, one of disbelief and delusion. “You w-will?” Nico nods.

Bia hisses, “Do not make promises you can't keep, child.” Nico feels his hand twitch for his blade. He forces his blade to stay in the shadow. There will be no conflict here. He is trespassing, after all.

“I don't make promises if I know I can't keep them, goddess.”

The boy starts crying. Nico feels the weight of a thousand wishes fall onto his shoulders. What has he done? He has chosen what he thinks is right. Nico tries not to fall victim to his heart anymore. He tries.

Bia sets her jaw and looks the other way. “Weak,” She repeats.

His day doesn't end yet; his shack is occupied when he emerges from the shadows. The feeling is shallow and deathly, akin to old haunts filled with new ghosts. He narrows his eyes.

The shameplants curl in on themselves in his presence. He glowers at them, and they begin to wilt. It's nothing more than the whisper of a feeling, but it eats at him like a corrosive truth. He swallows thickly. Nico drags his blade from the clutches of darkness. The hilt is cold in his hand. The metal sings wretched harmonies; he is home. At least, he can pretend to be.

Confident steps lead him up the porch. The waning under his boots matches the waning of his ribcage. He's had enough of visitors. He's had enough of his privacy being invaded – enough is enough and maybe we want some FUCKING REST, Percy Jackson screamed, and the camp fell silent. The image is vivid on the back of his eyelids. MAYBE I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF BEING YOUR TOKEN HERO. Nico's fingers twitch. His throat tightens, a lump there; breathing becomes hard.

He opens the door and regrets it immediately.

There, in a wheel chair, is Chiron. Fuck. The bearded man spins on his wheels, and remains by the only window in his shack.

“Nico,” He greets. As if he hasn't broken into Nico's abode. As if he isn't a step away from ruining Nico's peace. As if he is just a man, as if Nico is just a boy – as if a hero, a beloved friend, hasn't died. But that's how Nico is acting, isn't it? This is how Nico is acting. As if he is just a boy, as if everything is fine. As if Percy isn't dead. “It's been a while,” Chiron notes.

“Fuck you.” Nico spits.

The man smiles ruefully, and heaves a sigh, “How about you come sit down, Nico, there's much to discuss.” His warm eyes set Nico's shack on fire. The heat Nico is used to has racked up into the two hundreds, the two thousands. It has been Nico's own chill that has been keeping his shack from bursting aflame.

“There's nothing to discuss,” He denies. His heart is beating too fast. This man – this centaur – this ancient tutor, is interrupting what would be a regular...Wednesday? A regular...July? What time is it. What is the year, what is the era, the epoch, the eon – the day?

Chiron waits patiently. He sits by the lonely table-for-one, and nods to the empty chair. His father sat in that chair.

Nico remains by the open door. “Nothing,” He echoes. Desperate. “Nothing.”

“You know that Percy died,” Chiron says softly. Low blow. Low fucking blow. Nico feels the hate churn in his gut. It's a white-hot kind of scald in the back of hands, on the tip of his tongue. It makes him overwhelmingly hot and fuck, what he'd do for another go at Cupid. “Perhaps even one of the first to know,” Chiron correctly presumes. Nico remains silent. His tongue is heavy in his mouth. Death lingers in the back of his mouth. It tastes like woodfire, the musk of old books. The flaring urge to cry his heart out. But he doesn't.

“Many are upset with him gone, but we need help to resolve this...grief, in camp.” Nico opens his mouth – the man cuts him off, “Before you say no, hear me out.” Nico's teeth clack shut with a snap. Chiron strokes his beard, collecting himself or waiting for Nico to do so, he's not sure.

A sigh: “Sally has requested you help organize a funeral.”

For long moments, Nico's thoughts run blank. “She what.”

The man simply watches him. Nico is a butterfly under a magnifying glass. The clump of cells under a microscope. That distant stare scrutinized through a telescope. The spotlight threatens to kill him. Targeted heat and bright lights, all in a pair of firelight eyes and a swarthy face. Animals have never liked Nico; Chiron is no different, he supposes. The man wears a frown, and his patience is endless. That doesn't hide the wariness.

“Sally -” His voice dies on her name - “...asked for my help.”

Chiron nods, “With a funeral.”

Nico sighs, “Percy's funeral.”

Nico wipes a hand down his face. The cold night wind rushes past him. It does nothing to quell the heat. His peach lights flicker for a second; thunder rumbles overhead. Nico feels his eye twitch. He's done with Poseidon's threats. Or Zeus'. Whoever is upset with him this time. “There is a reason I left.” It's a dangerous growl past his teeth. They feel sharp in his mouth.

Chiron's eyes widen for a second, but he is calm. Of course he is calm. Nico is a pathetic, rabid dog at his feet, and that man has pulled more heroes to heel than Nico can say for himself and wayward souls. “I know,” The man sounds genuinely apologetic, “I know, Nico.”

“Gods know we don't want you going the way Percy has gone.” Suicide.

Nico smirks grimly, “Who knows, maybe that'd be better than being pestered all the gods-damn time.” The foundation of his shack shakes uncertainly.

He turns to stare out into the dark night. The brightness through his doorway casts a long pool of peach-colored rectangles of light. And inside, is him. His null form. His sword's shadow is much darker than the rest of him. He lets the blade slip from his grip. Shink. And then it's gone.

A soft sigh catches his ears: relief. He smirks, and doesn't look back at the man, “Did I put you on edge, Chiron?” There is no response. The terse silence is answer enough. That shrill satisfaction curls between his shoulder blades.

But the fun doesn't last long. The oppressing patience settles one more. His abode – infiltrated by a man he wished to never see again. Low on the list of many, but still on the list. Nico hates it. He hates it – that's all he is, isn't he? (Full of hate, fueled by spite, fueled by love – but the thing he loved is dead, now all he has is his own hand to blame for his death. If he dies at all.) “I will...” He swallows thickly, “...I will think about it.”

“You don't have long,” Chiron murmurs.

“You think I don't know that?” He huffs.

That's when Nico lets out a sigh, and closes his eyes. For a moment, everything is gone. The ground from under his feet, the weight of affable eyes on his neck. It's all gone. He is weightless. His fingers and toes start tingling...numb, the chill of ocean depths so damn cold that his fingers have turned blue. The bubbles are gone. Light can't reach down here, but he can still feel the gush of water hitting the base of the cliff. It's a peripheral awareness. One that quickly fades back into the obtund. His lungs are heavy with water. The salt was burning, a while ago. Now it doesn't matter. He has forced the water to breach his protection, and now it has claimed him. Slowly, steadily, he is going under. There's a disconnect between his mind and his body. He couldn't move a damn thing, even if he wanted to. It's the dregs in the bottom of a wine glass. The last gasp of air. The last...

He flinches; a broad, warm hand is on his shoulder. “DON'T TOUCH ME!” He screams. There's the distant sound of glass shattering. The heat is searing. He glances at his shoulder; all there is to see is his jacket. The leather gleams in the dark. There's a heartbeat thundering in his ears. The air tastes like sickening contrition. There are words being spoken; a soft baritone, honeyed, remorseful. Nico feels his stomach curl in on itself. His lungs burn. They burn like an eon-old curse, the heart nestled between them torn open. His aorta spews shame. His pulmonary vein bubbles with guilt. “Don't. Touch. Me.”

Chiron backs away. It's something Nico barely registers, because he's staring out into the night and all he sees is a wall of void. He takes a breath. Two, three, four, five -

He's never had anybody around to bring him from a vision. There has never been anybody here. The sensation has forced himself from his body, and all he can think is dear gods Percy, there were better ways to cope. (He's a hypocrite. A fucking hypocrite. Nico would've done the same fucking thing, if he were in that position. Kill it before it gets worse. Kill it kill it kill it kill it.) “Never do that again.” He snarls.

The lights flicker. The shadows slink back to their corners, and the peach-glow casts a look of unburied pity in Chiron's face. His figure has grown, has bloomed a glossy chestnut coat, and his legs stand strong on Nico's bowing floorboards. The centaur has to bend low to stop from hitting the ceiling. And still, this broad beast of a man, he cowers at the icy look Nico shoots him. “My...apologies, Nico,” Chiron mutters.

He stands from his collapsed spot on the floor, and shakes off his jacket. From inside, his today-bought items clutter on the floor. His cloves, his clump of basil, the grimoire – a pentacle. He blinks at the small, twig-woven thing. A pentacle. Strength. Protection. He sneers, and overlooks his fallen items, “Get out.”

Chiron nods, and starts for the door. It's almost comical, how the centaur struggles to squeeze himself through the doorway. It's less funny when the wood splinters, bowing to his girth. “Do you need assistance getting back to camp?” He asks; curt. Chiron gives a small huff, “No thank you. Good night.” Nico nods, and listens to his hooves beat along until they're out of range. Then he shuts his door, leans against it, and stares emptily into his shack. There is a shoebox laid carefully on his little table-for-one, and a note attached. Nico wrinkles his nose. Does he really want to read it? Compulsion forces him to the lonely chair. He slumps into it; his hands shake, as he plucks the note.

The handwriting is in blue. From simply blinking at the shakily delicate Nico, written on the page, he knows this is from Sally. Fuck. There had been no intention to deny Sally her request in the first place, now it is something he can't say no to. There is now no longer an option to back out of this.

Nico, a tear drop on the paper. 

Percy died. You already know this, but it's easier for me to ground myself if I write it out. Though you already know that too, I suppose. Your sister – Hazel, sweet girl – has told me that I should reach out to you. I'm sorry to bother you, and I know you must be busy but...

Well you already know what I'm going to ask. Please come by and visit tomorrow (that's March 13 ^th by the way. Have you dissociated yourself that much?) We miss you, but if you'd rather not come, I understand. I could really use your help with this.

It feels too formal for something Percy's mother would write. It feels too detached, too evasive, but he understands. Grief can do that. Grief is ugly, and it can make people ugly, or pretty in a desperate way. He takes a deep breath, and folds the note back over. There is more writing. A simple note: he wanted this shoebox for you. That's when Nico dreads to turn and glance at the shoebox. It suddenly holds a foreboding air. There is suddenly seasalt in his nose, in his eyes, and that underlying warmth of fresh cookies and melting blueberry ice cream. Nico feels pins prick the corners of his eyes; tears? It must be. What else?

He leaves it for another day. For now, Nico needs to collect himself for a visit with a much admired mother. He takes a deep breath. With shaking hands, Nico rests the note back on top of the shoebox. The feel of the box screams Percy from the simplicity of the outside to whatever rests inside. Old things that Percy owned. Whatever Percy left behind for him, specifically. Bia must be cackling from her jacaranda right now.

“Sorry,” He whispers.

Nobody gives a reply.

Waking up the next morning, it's as if he's a corpse rolling out of the grave. The analogy, perhaps, doesn't apply too well considering his fate, but alas, fuck it.

The sun's barely up at this point. A simple strip of red on the horizon. Not that it matters much. His bare feet stick to the wooden floors, his jeans are rumpled and his hair is too much of a mess to drag a comb through. A weight has settled in the bottom of his heart. Who would've thought longing would have such a bitter aftertaste.

A shower comes to mind. It'd be the best – it would be unfair of him to show up on Sally's doorstep smelling like gritty sweat and sun-faded boot polish. He's brief about the ordeal. He escapes the shower feeling heavier, too hot in too cold skin, and he agonizes briefly about the scars that look silvery in the overhead light. Then, after brushing his teeth hard enough to spit out foamy blood, he leaves the bathroom. The door shuts firmly behind him. After, he stared at his wardrobe.

There isn't anything 'presentable' for him to wear. When has he ever cared about that? Perturbed, he robotically pulled on jeans, a shirt, and wriggles his toes in a pair of socks.

A distilled feeling has his head feeling oxygen deprived. His sleep had been restless. The dreams were foggy and made his skin itch. He woke up with death in the back of his throat. Bitter, like misdemeanor from the depths and the forlorn ache in his bones, the desire to be below the earth once more, to make a home in the ashen ruins of the Underworld. Homesick. His heart feels swollen; exigent. (It's like when he'd come to terms with the loss of Bianca. After the mind-numbing fear, there was only loss and doubt left in her wake. It feels like that. It feels like grief.) Nico makes his way down the ladder.

He's stalling, he knows. That doesn't stop him from boredly browsing through his mini fridge, or perusing through the cupboards. The scattered items from yesterday remain on the floor, where he left them. And there they will remain, until he can bring himself to force his emotions back below the surface again. For now, he needs what little compassion he can muster to expose.

The inevitable arrives. His stomach empty, hands clammy, there is only one place for him to go now. His breath stutters in his throat. A wetness pricks at his eyes, until he blinks it away. Whatever. Shaking his head, he starts for the corner of his shack.

He doesn't think about the smattering of rue flowers in his flower beds. They sway gentle in the breeze. Dulled yellow, wielding waxy leaves. A coyote nears, sniffing suspiciously. It turns its tail and races away as Nico steps through to New York.

All he had to think was the only woman he's ever loved and he was there. The shadows race past him. It feels like something trying to flay his skin to reveal the soul trapped inside. In a good way, if possible. His heart is jammed, still, between his lungs. It's a whooshing sensation. If that makes sense. Everything is so cold around him. A balm to his desert-rawed skin; his eyes flutter shut. The image of her kind, wearied blue eyes and the soft curve of her smile makes his hands burn. But it's enough. A ghosted whisper of Percy, and his eyes snap open.

The noise hits him first. Manhattan pulses with an ugly rhythm that reminds him of Tartarus. The heartbeats blot his eyes, every breath and shout and voice heard makes his ears ring. A pressure behind his eyes builds, and suddenly he can't see, he's tripping, stumbling, somebody shoves him and sneers, “Tourist” and it couldn't be any more true.

He doesn't remember Sally's home feeling like this.

But, to be honest, Percy had been alive back then.

Percy had always managed to influence anywhere.

The sidewalk cracks under his boots. He blinks once, and watches his vision swim. Fuck. Fuck. When was the last time he was anywhere more populated than that little town (nowhere-cursed, every heartbeat totaling in a rough estimate of seventy people.) Nico rubs his eye, tries to breathe. It's hard. The saying of a New York heartbeat feels too real.

He finds himself slamming against a wall. His palm against the brickwork feels raw. His throat is dry. Tight, the air doesn't get through, his lungs burn. He's too hot inside. It's not meant to be like this. He's cool by nature, not this furtive kind of heat. His breaths leave his throat feeling seared – flames licking up his esophagus but he's not a dragon, he's not built to expel fire, and so his lungs burn up into ash. Nico blinks; all he sees is one amalgamate pulse. The people intermingle too fast, separate faster, a new pattern each time. He can't focus. It's impossible. He is Sisyphus, his focus is the boulder, and everything just keeps falling down again.

(“With all due respect, Zeus,” Nico had leered, “Fuck you.” That's when the sentence was decided: the temperamental flicker in the god's eyes, the bias hatred. The only thing standing in the way of Nico being eradicated right then had been the ever-present threat of war among brothers if Zeus dared punish him too harshly for such a fickle, mortal deed. The world fell to shambles around him all the same. What seemed like a light tap on the wrist to a god...the King of kings might as well have torn Nico's sense of humanity from him. What is humanity without death? Without closure? Without a home?)

It takes him a second to realize the ground is trembling beneath his boots. A piercing ring liquidizes his thoughts. Nothing makes sense. Too much information at once – he remembers now. This is why he never came back. Immortality has shed away the control he had. Immortality had reconnected the organized wires he kept bundled, has brought on a power surge, has filled his guts with battery acid and demanded he function like a god. But he's not there yet. He doesn't ever want to reach that point.

“Nico?” He startles at the voice. Where is it? Where does it come from? “Nico, can you hear me?” Yes. Yes, he wants to croak, yes, oh gods, please help me – nothing comes out of his mouth. A steadying pair of hands come into contact with his upper arms. Blue eyes mellow the sharp blurs around him. Kind eyes. Those pretty eyes, caring, wearied, and so overwhelmingly sad. “C'mon,” She murmurs, “Let's get you inside.”

How pathetic. He's meeting Sally Jackson for the first time in a millennium, and he's just as fragile and useless as he had been the first time.

Still, he's grateful. She feels like balm. There's a continuous trail of whispers from her lips. Soothing things, sweet nothings, endeared and encouraging, “That's it, just breathe, in...out...” Nico wonders how many times the woman had to do this for her own son. Maybe it's second nature. Maybe she's projecting her maternal care onto his frigid form. Or maybe she's just doing this because she knows what he needs right now. Maybe Sally is just doing it because she's a good person. Gods, he's pitiful.

There's a shuddering halt as he registers the doors of an elevator sealing shut before them. Ohgodsohgodsohgods not again not again not again please he's had enough he can't do this again – the gentle sound of the floors passing by resounds with a soft 'ding'.

Ding.

Ding.

Ding.

(Three. Three brothers, three cabins, three sons, but only one of them ever mattered to Nico, and it certainly wasn't himself or Jason. Three times Nico lost somebody he loved. Three times he lost Percy. Three times Nico betrayed him. Three...the number three has as many connotations to Nico's life as thirteen does.)

How convenient. A coincidence, maybe. Most likely. Sally's words have trickled to nothing. A faucet cut at the pipe. He follows her, lost, as they step out into a hallway. The carpet is plush under his feet. The walls are soft magnolia. He refuses to imagine those walls closing in on him. He refuses. Refuses. So they walk to her door in silence. There's an underlying florid perfume underneath it all. It makes his fingers itch.

“Thanks,” Ejects from his mouth. It feels like the whirring tape, the film all jumbled and spewing unruly-like.

The woman gives him a tender look, before readjusting her grocery bag. The paper crinkles loudly in the silence. Instead of waving it off, the woman meets his eyes, “Where have you been?”

Nico has no words for that. Banished is a word, and so is abandoned but neither of them will feel truthful on his tongue. So he shrugs, and gently takes the keys from her when she struggles to get them in the door. The door is solid, wooden. Good make, with golden numbers secured to the front. The building Sally lives in now is much different from the other one. Here, Nico breathes, and it doesn't leave the taste of cigarettes in his mouth. It's quaint. Humble. Something Sally would love. “Around,” He whispers.

“Around, and around...just never around here.” Sally trots into the apartment. Her movements are stiff. A woe weighs down her slim frame. He watches her and feels an ugly guilt well up in his lungs. “You feel...different,” Sally informs him. She looks at him, with her sad eyes, and Nico wonders what she sees.

He nods all the same, “I am...different, I suppose.” I can't die naturally, now. I have enough power to maul a god. I have enough apathy to tide me through this. This moment will pass. He's matured enough to understand that last one.

“There's an air to you,” Sally murmurs. She potters around into the kitchen; it's bigger than his own, which says something. The tiled floor is appreciable; white, clicking softly under her shoes. The bag crinkles again. “You look...” The woman frowns. She cocks her head, then smiles weakly, “You look just like him.”

The words make him want to go spiraling into an abyss. Instead, he snorts, “What? Overtired but overslept? Angry but passive?”

Sally's eyebrows pull together a little. Her smile lessens. “Exactly like him,” A whisper.

Nico nods, scratching his cheek, “Makes sense.” It doesn't. Not really. But he's not good at consolation. Never has been. And Sally strips him back to the form of a sad fourteen year old boy who doesn't know what celebrating a birthday feels like.

As he nears the table, Sally drops his gaze. Again, she quirks a smile. Overly fond. It feels misplaced. “You've grown since I last saw you.” Her head barely reaches his chest now.

He feels a familiar fluster rise to his cheeks. He ducks his head, “I guess...” It's weird. This atmosphere is strange. It feels fond but sad, two conflicting emotions that Nico just can't empathize with.

Sally tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, casting a glance off to the side. “You'd be taller than him, I think.” A wet chuckle. Nico doesn't know what to do with this information.

There's an empty feeling in this apartment. The open-plan setting struggles to make it feel homely. A gentle wash of blue on the walls, family photos framed and hung, and Sally has somehow captured a loneliness. A missing piece. Something that should be here but isn't. Percy isn't here. Nico wonders if Percy actually lived long enough to help his parents move into their new apartment. Maybe, maybe not. It feels like he would've, though. It would be unlike the hero to not aid his mother. Nico frowns slightly. Surely, just the thought of Sally would've had Percy sticking around. But, it's plausible that even she wasn't enough to keep him to this plane. Sometimes...sometimes things just don't work like that.

“I-I don't think we can avoid it forever,” The woman stammers.

Nico finally pushes away from the wall, “No, not really.” His tone softens, but. That's it. There's no...he can't offer those kinder words. The he's in a better place. The it's better this way. He doesn't know for certain if those things are true. And Nico may be a liar, a traitor, a thief, but he has principals. Especially with death. And mostly, those principals are: let it rest.

He wanders over to the kitchen table. He takes a seat perpendicular to Sally. Her hands are wrought; she steeples her fingers. Blue eyes stare into him, so deep into him. He feels an icy balm lather over his soul. “What was it you wanted to see me for?” He knows. He knows he knows he knows but she's looking desperate for some kind of salvation that he just can't give so maybe this is the best alternative. Sally clears her throat a little. From one of the paper bags, she brandishes a handful of pamphlets. Funeral pamphlets.

They look elegant, glossy, enamoring. Dark colored backgrounds, with pale flowers. Cursive font that he struggles to read. False, marketed sympathy oozes from them. Nico wrinkles his nose. “His funeral,” Sally murmurs; her voice quivers.

Nodding, he feels the lump build up in his throat. “His funeral,” Nico echoes; his voice falls flat.

A silence hangs heavy in the proximity.

“I don't want it to be a huge thing,” She finally admits. Nico nods. He doesn't think Percy would've wanted a big funeral, either. But Nico also thinks Percy didn't think that far. He never did.

“So what do you want it to be, then?” Sally lifts her gaze from the table.

Her eyebrows furrow a little, her frown looking thoughtful, “...Chiron mentioned...burial shrouds.” Shrouds. The word cuts through him.

“Burial shrouds,” Nico muses, “you want to burn something for him?” It's easier than staring at his prettied body in a box. He'd give her that. Fuck, he'd go back to camp and collect a shroud if that's what she wanted.

The woman nods slowly, and obscures a sniffle behind her hand. “I think that'd be...a reminder of the hero he was, if we did that.” Nico finds himself smiling. A tiny, bitter smile, but a smile. Nico remembers the story of the shroud the Ares Cabin made for him. Ex'd out smileys. Ha, he remembers Percy admitting he'd been glad to see it go. An insult, really, but it was funny in reminiscence.

Nico keeps a darker thought to himself. The thought that, maybe, Percy wouldn't have cared about a burial shroud. The thought that, perhaps, Percy would've hated the idea of being related to a hero, a demigod. Percy got so tired. So laden, worn down, his sword stopped looking like a proud fixture and more like a burden. The triumph had never been prominent in the first place, but it had grayed in the years since the war. Percy hated being a hero. It's why he jarred it to a stop. And over the cliff he went.

He blinks, and the visage of Annabeth makes his mind screech to a halt. She's young, but toughened, and her hair flows like some kind of fairytale princess. It makes his stomach burst into butterflies. She's so...pretty. That's the only way to describe it. Annabeth laughs in the summer sun, her bronzed shoulder scrunched to her ear when she turns. Beautiful eyes. Moonshine, dove feathers, all the things that make her whole. The wholesome feeling bitters. Annabeth ages, from twelve to traumatized and screaming, “This isn't working out anymore! We can't just pretend nothing has changed!” But that's all he wants to do. He wants to keep this relationship working. She's all that's right with this world they've made. Annabeth slips through his fingers. Her frown is scornful, the tears in her eyes cut through him. “It's time to let go, Percy.” But gods, he's never wanted to do anything less than that moment. He blinks, and he meets an abyss. It comforts him, somehow. There's an indecision running through him. But maybe this is how it'll work. He said goodbye to Annabeth eons ago, now, an epoch and a millennium, a decade, or a month...

He blinks, and he shoves away from the kitchen table.

Sally's standing, hovering, her hand stretched for him.

Nico takes a breath. The air whooshes through him; he feels his lungs expanding heavily in his chest. “Visions,” He blurts out. In lieu of an explanation. He's not sure Sally would want to understand, anyway.

Sally watches him, concerned. She's frozen; her hand still outstretched. She nods shakily, “Visions.” As if it makes sense.

He feels one of his wry smiles try to crack loose. The unhinged ones, where his eyes are manic. He tries to tamper it down. Clearing his throat, he rubs his eyes. As if it'd make the darkness ebb away. “Sorry,” Nico mutters, “Wh-Where were we?”

Sally is a smart woman. She picks up the finality in his tone and slumps back into her chair. He ignores the way his heart races. He nods to himself, “I can run by camp, see if they have any ideas for a shroud.” They would have already burned the one they made for Percy. If they made one at all.

Sally clears her throat a little, “I was actually wondering if, if you had any ideas?” Nico blinks. His mind thinks green and blue and golden sands but he forces the train of thought to crash. “A few,” He allows. He doesn't share them. He doesn't think Sally will like them.

Because when the idea of Percy roams into Nico's mind, it's the boy's ferocity that slams through him. The darker parts left unappreciated. Nico thinks of treacherous tides, grim gales, the mistakes of a million carried on slumped shoulders. The deep, resounding echo of something infernal from an ocean trench. Nico's spine chills at the thought of the godless wishes Percy was never granted. When Percy roams his hellscape of a subconscious, Nico is reminded of his bleeding, ungodly heart. Nico wants to put Percy's scream on the shroud and watch it burn. Except, he can't do that. And it's not about what he wants.

“His sword,” Nico says instead. Fuck a trident. Sally nods; she stares past him. She frowns to herself, a shuddering breath filling the silence. The hair on the back of Nico's neck stands on end. An energy trickles through the room. It makes his knuckles ache. He ignores it. Dangerous, for a demigod. Even more dangerous for somebody so interlaced with death.

The hours blur past him. Suddenly the sun's setting, and Paul is stepping through the door. Nico takes that as his cue to leave. Paul's eyes feel cold on his back. Sally still thanks him, thanks for his time, thanks for his understanding. Nico wonders where she draws those things from. His time is endless, now. His understanding will always be limited to what he sees. Instead of brushing her off, he smiles softly. She makes him mellow. A warmth seeps through him when he receives a hug. She cradles his cheek, and she sniffles wetly as she murmurs, “He would've been proud of you.”

It's enough to knock the wind out of him.

When he returns to his shack that night, a heaviness weighs him down. His boots start sinking into the floor, the whispers start rushing through his ears, the pressure builds up behind. The death in his mouth tastes unfathomable. Too many, too much. Ghosts and figures rush through his vision. It's been a while since he's let himself tap into this world. The ghosts that clutch at him, that scream for his notice. Nico falls to his knees and wakes up the next morning alone.

All by himself now.

He deserves this.

Time becomes a warped illusion. It'd always been something weak in his perception. But for once in his life, he cares. Percy's funeral comes and goes. He dreams about it for nights afterward. The generic chrysanthemums had been something he hadn't complained about. In fact, everything had been vague in his vision then, and vague even now. He remembers the ground underneath his boots. He was there. He had been there. He had been invited. It's still hard to wrap his head around.

Annabeth. Hazel. Jason. Piper. Leo. Frank. Reyna. Of course, Sally and Paul. Mrs O'Leary made an appearance. But she was gone as soon as she came, a longing whine left in her absence. It'd been raining. None of them had seen him. Sally only new he'd be around because he said he'd be. He'd strayed to the shadow of a tree. The event was held in some greener area of the world, though somewhere still in New York. He didn't recognize it, though. But the soil felt foreign, the petrichor smelled off, the sky looked too purple.

He wonders if any of them had seen him.

At the same time, he hopes they hadn't.

They had cried. They had cried from a deep place inside them. Nico found it awing. How such strong figures collapse, fall, break apart, at such an inevitability. The coldness in his bones had intensified. His bones had frozen blue. His fingertips had turned chalk-white, death in pallor, his tongue tasted ashen.

And it'd rained, rained, rained.

And still, Nico has yet to cry.

No music had played. It'd been an eerie silence. It felt stilted. He remembers taking a breath and smelling the charming cologne Percy started using when he got old enough.

Nico knows he stared resolutely at the burning shroud. It was a simplistic thing. Percy's Riptide embroidered into the golden silk. Bordered in oceanic swirls of blue and green, a smattering of stars in the corners. It made Nico soul ache to stare it. But it's all he could do. A presence had joined the party, unnoticed by anybody but himself. And even Nico made an effort to ignore it. A spearing pain had shot through his shoulder blade. An arrow of sorts. Phantom pain. His heart had swollen heavy. The smoke billowing into the sky smelled like a shipwreck.

It'd made him think of capsizing Olympus.

That's an impossibility; a damned dream.

(Nico left behind a branch of delicate arbutus. You are the only one I love. If anybody found the flower, he has no doubt they'd know who it was from. And, in that respect, it's most likely Annabeth who really understood.)

The world falls back into place after that.

His joshua trees bristle in the desert brusque. Coyotes yip and yowl, but never near. He sneers whenever a dead jackrabbit appears on his porch. His showers are still too hot for his too cold body. The nowhere-cursed town is still peculiar. He doesn't see the crippled child again, though. The fruit is still rotten, the widow calls him ghost and the rest call him daemon, and that is that. He feels hollow. So. Fucking. Hollow.

It's like bitterness has made a home inside. It eats him alive, from the inside out. He feels ill all the time. His shoulder blades ache (the wings, he thinks, the wings he tore apart in the name of Cupid.) Nico's never been one for dreamless nights, but he wakes up more than he used to. Either in cold sweat, or with the feeling of being watched. It makes him wonder if those cryptids are true. California's dark watchers, impossibly imposing and silent. And still, there was that slight wash of energy that sloshed against him every now and again. But other than that, everything retained it's glaze of normalcy.

Then what he had ached over appeared.

Nico felt a part of himself shrivel and die.

It had been some stupid time in the morning. Sun breaching the horizon line. That burst of scarlet that blistered his skin. He'd been in the midst of tugging on his jeans. The ones that are so worn down they look gray instead of black. They're the only pair he owns, actually. No wonder.

With summer rearing its head, he slept shirtless. There was a clamminess between his shoulders, down his spine. An unnerving apprehension nestled in the bow of his ribs. Nothing had made sense for a while. Static crackled in his peripheral. All he thought had calmed was thrown into the air again. Nico had tried to ignore it. He watered the flowers, didn't focus enough to figure out what they were, and went about his day. He visited town. They all stared through him. Bia mentioned his weighty shadow; he thought nothing of it. His shadow was always heavy, storing what he mustn't keep in the open.

His feet had padded gently down the ladder. The cotton-colored sky had seeped in through the lone window. Warmth. He had strolled to his cabinets, stared at the emptiness, and then to his belongings. He had moved them since they had last scattered. His items sat prim on the coffee table. He still has yet to actually use them. And, of course, Percy's box has joined the collection.

About twenty minutes passed. Where he traced dust on his windowsill, the cobwebs in the kitchenette. Sometimes it makes him wonder what life had been like before he took to the shack. Consternation came with the thought, so he dropped it.

For a while, that'd been it. He went about his day like nothing happened. But as he walked, filled water jug in hand, to the door...he had known something was amiss. Or rather, something was there. (It made him think of all the tears he hadn't shed, all the wreckage he managed to sweep under the rug, how okay he was with everything. Only for it all to get torn apart by one...single...boy.)

His door opened before he reached for it. There, in the morning sun, was Percy. Nico felt his heart stop. He stared down at the apparition for countless moments. They piled on top of each other, three, four, five, and for a second he believed that it was Percy in the flesh. But he was too blue, too transparent in the light, but it was unmistakable. The breath he had was gone. His water jug fell to the ground. Nico's still not sure what face he made; it felt like nothing. Like he no longer had a face, no way to express the...the shock? The fright?

And that's how we get to this moment.

But Percy, gods, Percy. He just chuckles. He looks younger. His smile makes his eyes crinkle, the sound of his laughter is like a refreshing smattering of rain on a hot day.

“You look like you've seen a ghost,” Percy jokes.

Because of course that's the first thing he'd say.

Nico doesn't manage to get any words out. He just stares. He's no stranger to ghosts, or shades, or anything like that. He practically is one, sometimes. But he feels his heart start to burn. Percy is as beautiful as ever. There's a light in him that Nico hasn't seen for years. The weariness is still there, but faded, and the bitterness that started to eat him alive is nowhere to be seen. Percy looks...rested. Sad, but rested.

A weak, dry chuckle drips from his mouth.

“Well, you could say the ghosts haven't found me yet. It's been a while.” Percy's smile is indescribable. Melancholic, but in a good way.

Percy steps towards him, “Well, watch out. I have a feeling you're gonna be haunted for a while.”

Nico steps aside: “Make yourself at home.”