Work Text:
Reyna thought shadows would slip over her fingertips like an oil spill.
Sometimes they still do, slick and slimy on her skin as they creep over the ground and shift under the spinning sun — but with Nico’s hand tucked in hers, the darkness settles over her like a crown, a cloak, a comfort.
She can’t help but edge closer to him as he sleeps, collapsed on the graveled ground uncaring of the way dust settles over him. It almost looks like a blanket, she muses, if rest were made of loss and listlessness.
There’s so little she knows about him: he appeared at camp months ago, skulking around like the shadows he so favors; he… acquired Hazel then pressed her into Reyna’s care and disappeared as suddenly as Hazel had appeared; he walked into Tartarus with his head held high and survived.
If it had been anyone else, Reyna would’ve stayed in Greece. She fought her way there with little more than her wits and a horse that carried her on the wings of an unbreakable bond, when the Prophecied Seven had a team of power and might and a flying fucking ship — and she still caught up.
Reyna was worth seven of them, or she could be if anyone stopped long enough to give her a gods-damned chance.
But Percy backflipped into hell for his girlfriend — and Reyna didn’t have anyone so much as a fraction as devoted to her, no need to rub it in, thanks — and then there were five-and-two.
And then Nico, in a whisper that carried the weight of a thousand gods, promised to carry the statue home.
Nico, whose fingers were clammy and cold and tiny around her wrist when he begged her to watch over Hazel, he couldn’t lose another sister, please. Nico, whose skin was still ghostly pale from a death trance he was prepared to die in if it meant saving the friends he wasn’t sure would save him.
Nico, who looked at her like she was someone who mattered.
Reyna stood with him before she realized she’d moved. “I’ll keep him safe, then. I’ll go with him.”
Maybe being part of the Prophesied Seven came with a team that loved each other, supported each other and saw each other through the worst losses and the best successes. Maybe it came with prestige and acknowledgement for the grind Reyna’d been pushing through for years.
Going home with Nico, though, came with a kid who looked at her like she hung the stars and the comical sight of seven of the most competent demigods gaping at her like a gaggle of hippocampi — so, worth it.
He doesn’t move much when he sleeps. Maybe it’s creepy to know this about him (this, when she knows so little else), but what else should she be doing? Her job is to watch over him, protect him. She can’t keep him safe and look away.
When Nico shadow travels, he moves like he’s cutting through water — graceful and ruthless all at once, a warrior with confidence in his bones and blood. He moves like the shadows themselves: with a careful calm, a steadfast relentlessness.
Three or four jumps later — five if Reyna doesn’t manage to stop him quick enough — he’ll collapse and curl up and not so much as twitch.
The more she thinks about it and the further they inch towards home, Reyna wonders if this isn’t the other side of the same drachma.
He’s always, always in perfect control of his body.
When he borrows her strength to jump away from Mount Vesuvius… for a second, he’s in control of her body, too. Then darkness envelops her, and she’s out of time to be afraid. She’s too busy trusting him, instead.
It takes hours in Portugal before Nico can drag himself upright to eat. Reyna spends the time pacing, worrying a bite mark into her lip.
“Was it Tartarus that taught you to sleep like that?”
Still tired, Nico startles. He’s on his feet, sword already half flickering out of the shadows into his hand, before she can protest.
She doesn’t have to; sheepish, Nico settles back down, looking so shameful that Reyna can’t bring herself to glare, even teasingly.
“Sleep like what?”
Reyna coughs, unsure if he’s being serious. “You never…” She trails off, gesturing vaguely. “Move,” she finishes lamely.
Nico snorts. “Do Romans train as they sleep, too?”
“No!” Her skin is flushed, and she regrets sitting squarely under the shade. “I just meant… you’re so still, and I’ve never seen you relax, even when you sleep. You’re still so tense. ”
She pauses, awkward, unsure if she should continue. Nico blinks at her owlishly.
“Was it Tartarus? Where you learned to never…” Reyna can’t finish the thought.
“Hm? Nah. I was never a great sleeper, and the Lotus Casino was dangerous enough, and then Bianca died and—” Nico cuts himself off, sounding strangled. Reyna stays quiet, trying to be respectful, and when he picks back up his voice is soft, broken.
“And no one wanted to stick around to protect the scrawny 10 year old death kid exuding ‘come eat me’ aura at the monsters, so I learned to protect myself.”
“Oh.”
“But it was damn useful in Tartarus!” Nico’s cheerful tone shatters Reyna’s heartbreak, and she laughs because what else can she do?
Reyna lands in South Carolina reeling from the ghosts of her past. San Juan had been a cruel reminder that she didn’t belong and never would. She could train all she wanted, become praetor and slash her way to Greece alone. She would always be a traitor — a criminal.
Nico pushes at her now, used to their companionship and eager to get back to their conversations, and does it so gently she can hardly bear his kindness. She doesn’t deserve it.
Nico fought through Tartarus alone to save the friends that abandoned him, rescued himself from Minos’ insidious manipulation and spent the next two years atoning for a mistake that was never his to make.
Reyna killed her own father. She was the monster, not him. Never him.
When she doesn’t respond, Nico stops pushing. She wishes he was disgusted, irritated. No, she knows. He is kind.
Then Bryce shows up, and Nico is more than kind. He is frighteningly loyal, destroying Bryce to protect her secret at the cost of all of his own. Reyna crumbles to the floor and tries not to sob.
"I should've been there. With you, I mean," Reyna kicks idly at ground and gravel, then coughs when dust clouds the air. It's fine — it's easier to pretend the tears in her eyes are from irritation, this way.
"Where?" Nico's voice is hoarse when he finally responds. Whether from exhaustion or the still-settling dust, Reyna can't tell.
She only marginally stops herself from swearing. "In Tartarus." In hell, she doesn't add. Nico doesn't move, still curled up like a shadow himself, and she worries he fell asleep again. Reyna can't blame him after that explosion of inky darkness, but the anxiety still squeezes around her heart. Vice-like, father-like.
"Nah. You don't deserve that." Nico flips over, and under the bright sun his muscles tremble with the effort. "You're good, Reyna — too good for Tartarus. For any kind of Underworld. Stay outta there, okay?"
Reyna's heart shatters.
"You're good, too, Nico — you deserve better. Hasn't anyone ever told you?"
Nico doesn't respond. His chest rises, smooth and steady and sleeping. Reyna settles down, ignoring the dust that stains her palms and clothes.
She'll protect him when no one else will.
The next three days constitute the hardest battle that Reyna has ever fought. Nico doesn’t wake up, hardly even breathes in his shadow coma. Next to him, neither can she.
Queer. He was queer.
Aren’t we all, she can’t help but think wryly in the moments when dread and panic isn’t consuming her every heartbeat.
Still, though, it’s a lot to process. Reyna can only imagine it would be absolutely petrifying for someone who grew up in the 30s, is still barely 13 himself. He likes other boys — sometimes, like shift work; he likes holding hands but can’t bring himself to ask — hugs, too, if he’s being honest; he’s never, ever wanted sex.
He thinks he might be ace. He thinks he might like Percy.
He thinks he might be broken.
Is this what puberty in hell looks like? Isn’t puberty hell enough? Nico is a child, a friend. Reyna would kill her father seven times over if it would make his hurt go away.
When he finally gasps awake, Reyna sobs. She worries over him, pushing his hair back — matted down with sweat and dust — and bringing water to his lips.
He doesn’t drink for a long moment, staring at her awestruck, maybe sunstruck. She’d kept him in the shade but his cheeks are so flushed, eyes glassy. Reyna’s not sure he’s well.
“You’ll still touch me,” he rasps as if it could be a question.
“Of course,” she promises. Her whisper comes out like a prayer, more reverent than the Gods deserve in this accursed war.
Pegasus carries them home, and Reyna wonders if she has any more strength left to give. There’s one last secret she can’t bring herself to ask about, but the wind swallows her words and then—
Orion, damn him, is sending arrows at her friends; and Nico is calling her the strongest demigod he’s ever met — as if the title doesn’t belong squarely to him, what the hell — before he lets shadows swallow him whole; and she’s evading arrest and shattering daggers with celestial cloaks and drowning whole men and—
She speaks in front of her legionne and the campers alike, stronger with Nico behind her lending her his authority. Murmurs ripple through the crowd before soil erupts into Gaea’s honeyed cruelty.
The Argo II lands.
Then, then, the battle begins.
There’s no shortage of work to be done, once the dust finally settles. Reyna does none of it.
She’s done, she’s done enough. She’s got questions left to ask.
Nico is curled up under what Reyna has learned is Thalia’s ex-pine tree. He’s nearly invisible in the golden light of the fading sun, but she saw the shadows shift when she walked by.
He’d made himself known to her, only her.
Once she settles down next to him, Nico pulls the shadows around her too, bringing her into his comfortable warmth. His smile is lopsided, and when she shoves her shoulder into his, it breaks into a laugh.
“You’ve got something you wanted to say.”
He’s quiet about it, won’t look at her except sideways like it might make the statement less intimidating to answer. “Yeah.”
Neither of them speak.
Percy passes by, grin wide but green eyes rimmed in red. He waves, and Reyna knows Nico’s made his peace with that, too, at least enough to pull back the shadows for him too. They’re friends, or on their way there.
She’s suddenly, absurdly jealous.
“I saw another secret of yours — in South Carolina, after... Bryce.”
Nico just hums.
“You called me your friend.” Then, she hurries to add: “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… keep it a secret from you, that I saw.”
He hums again, and Reyna pushes at him. “Okay, ouch! I’m sorry,” he laughs. “It’s not a secret. I thought you knew.”
She gapes at him. He shrugs.
“It’s not a secret. You’re my best friend, Reyna. I love you, to Greece and back. I just thought you knew by now.” When she doesn’t respond, he scoots into her side, tips his head onto her shoulder, and sticks his tongue out at her. It looks upside down to her, and she laughs.
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t explode a man for just anyone, would you?”
He cracks up.
They stay that way until the sun dips low and campfires burn brighter than Apollo’s chariot can glow. He doesn’t lift his head from her shoulder, and she doesn’t ask him to, just brings an arm around to pull him closer.
Sometimes they talk, and mostly they watch the camp scurry back and forth, watch campers make new friends in the vacuum of enmity.
He falls asleep that way, head tucked under her chin and arms snuggled around her waist. The bark of the tree is sticky with sap and rough, but his hair smells like shampoo and the shadows slip away one breath at a time.
Nico’s finally relaxed.
Why shouldn’t he be? Reyna will keep him safe, after all.