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The world seemed to rush them after Jason died, the time for grieving was pushed aside. You can outrun grief, but the second you need to breathe all you can find is the feeling filling your lungs, you can never escape it.
For the children of the prophecy, grief came in many forms; bargaining, avoidance, depression. Piper and Leo remained distraught together, Percy and Annabeth drove themselves dry into schoolwork, Frank would sit beside the fresh grave for hours, and Hazel? Hazel sympathised. Hazel, she knew what it was like to die, to sit waiting for decades in decay, she could only pray that he got the afterlife he deserved…
Nico, on another hand, shut down. Wallowing and dissociation consumed his very being, all the death suffocating him had him in his grasp. He sat and stared, not even a flinch of expression lacing his face. It was as if he had become only a body with no mind. It terrified his friends.
———
“—I can’t just sit here and watch as Nico wastes away,” Percy said, exasperated and tired. His friends stared at him, if anyone was to be panicked over Nico, it would be Percy. Percy had been there the longest, worrying and caring for the boy, it would be wrong to disregard him now.
“Perce, it’s not like he’s about to starve to death,” Annabeth grips his hand gently, the guilt weighing down her words. “he will get better… eventually, he just needs time.”
Leo and Piper exchanged glances across Cabin three. Grief, guilt, fear and shame clouded over the group, like a heavy blanket slung over their shoulders and they’re unable to remove it. The blue of the walls reflect the uncertainty, pressured tension hangs humid in the air.
“Shouldn’t we try to talk to Nico?” Piper objected, “he’s the youngest of our close circle, he’s only fifteen-“
“He’s like eighty, Pipes,” Leo interrupted. “Also Hazel is the youngest.”
“He’s fifteen.” She returned, firmly. “Physically and mentally, at least, but he’s still a kid—he needs someone to check in on him; after all he’s done for us.”
Percy sighed, deep and faulty, it was as if the words sat stubborn in his stomach like a kidney stone.
“He’s in the infirmary with Will,” he says at last, gaping like it was his first breath in years. “we should talk to him, while it’s empty…”
———
Blinking stars stand guard over them as they pass through the ghost-like camp. Zoë’s constellation sleeps happy on the pillowed sky, her light guiding them along their path—as she usually does. The infirmary lights are dim through the windows, the cool breeze nipping at their necks as they approach.
Walking in, Will was restocking the hollow cabinets, organising them simply. From an outside perspective, he was talking to himself, response-less. The hostile white walls bounced the words around like a chamber, Nico laid over the grumpy couch. Mr D had found it on the side of the road decades ago, placing it within the chilled building; it was patched up and beaten, the love it had been given was abusive.
‘Dr Solace’ turned from his obsessive organisation to face the rest. “Hey guys? What’re ya’ doing here so late?”
“Just wanted to talk to Nico,” Annabeth announced, glancing over to the corpse in the chair. “Has he spoken to you? Like at all?”
“He… he- he hasn’t,” he sighed, eyes sliding to his distant boyfriend. “but I feel he’s listening now, I saw him twitch earlier!”
The groups eyes wandered around themselves, at a loss for how to move along, one would have to engage with him. No one wanted to try.
Percy abruptly cleared his already-clear throat and began to wade his way over to Nico, slow, uneven steps as he passed through the room. “Nico, we’re worried about you,” he crouched down to into Nicos field of vision, the boys eye unmoving, “you’ve barely moved since your last quest and-“
Nico’s dull eyes snapped to meet Percy’s, at the mention of a quest; the daunting question arose— is that why Nico hadn’t tapped out sooner?
“-and, we need to talk about Jason.” Percy stuttered out, nervousness swelling up in his voice, “You’re distance to, uh— Everything!—can’t be a healthy way to cope, and you won’t even respond! You’re acting as if you’ve died instead—don’t you care?”
Nico’s head ever so gently leaned sideways until it rested upon his raised shoulder. “We have all lost someone dear to us—“
“You’ve lost Jason,” Nico’s unused words are raspy on his tongue, dried out and covered in dust. “I lost everyone; my family, my friends, my name—no one knows the importance I held.”
An audience is what the rest became, this moment was between Percy and Nico.
“You’re Nico Di Angelo,” Percy whispered, gentle and sweet, to his ears at least. “you are important, Neeks, you still are-“
“Niccolò.”
“What?”
“My name is Niccolò,” he sat straight in his slouching old chair, the first grand movement in weeks. “My family were basically royalty, our presence mattered and now I am the only remainder,” he could’ve sobbed, should’ve sobbed; instead rage sparking in his stomach. “And I am a fraud.”
“Nico, you’re not a fraud, you’re a kid,” Percy rose from his crouched position, offering for Nico to stand with him; face to face. “And kids need help with their grief-“
“And where was that when Bianca died?”
Silence echoed off the cold infirmary walls, Will almost rushed to Nico’s side—Leo grabbed onto his shoulder, let them talk.
“You ran off as soon as you found out!” Percy countered, “You wouldn’t cooperate then but you can now—so please let me help you-“
“Bianca practically killed herself for you and you want to help?” Nico shot from the seat, no child should look so angry… “I have lost and lost and lost; my mother, siblings—that you never asked of but I had many!—, my sister; the only person I knew in his strange place, and she died for you. I’ve outran my grief, travelling away as soon as the hurt seeping into my skin but it’s caught me and I cannot get undone from my enclosure-“
“Nico! It’s okay,” outreached arms stretched towards the cornered boy, pushing his panic further. “It’s okay, I know how it feels to loose people—we can get through this together, you don’t have to be alone again!”
“You didn’t know Jason like I did, Percy! He was the first person who saw me for a person and not just a son of hades; or- or Bianca’s annoying little brother, or for my preteen actions! Like you do, he never saw me like that, I was just Nico— not Nico Di Angelo, just Nico…”
“But I can try, we can restart again, Neeks,” Percy seemed to bargain, trying to, with a grief-stricken child. His grief-stricken child. “I know what it’s like to feel surrounded by death, my mom ‘died’ for a while, remember? We can talk and—“
“No, Percy!” Nico began to cry, hot heavy tears rolling, staining his face red—his usual anger setting fire in his lungs. “You don’t-You’ve never— ugh! Percy, I have been surrounded, cornered and killed by death since as long as I remember; it follows me like a dog-no, like a predator, it bites and it bites and it bites and it never relents or releases and I choke on it. I cannot breathe when I think of past, or the future; death is the ache in my heel, the heeding clouds in the sky, the ringing in my ear—the hands around my throat, and I cannot breathe or escape, never ending! Percy, you cannot expect to understand that, to- to offer death your very being and it still wanting more.”
Nico looked to Percy and burned, his eyes stinging shut, throat bleeding from the inside, tears and snot and harsh breath were wretched from the boy; moments like these plagued Percy for he never knew what to do, all the years he knew Nico he still couldn’t hold him in comfort. Nico, little Nico, the boy he had practically raised, hugging and curling in on himself, wailing on the floor, and all Percy could do was stand there watching—as if seeing an alien.
In this situation, death was pretty unknown to them. Alien.
And Nico was too.
Shadows intertwined themselves around Nicos feet, cowering around his shoulders and if nervous to fully engulf him in their chilling warmth. They whipped and whistled at Percy, shunning him; and before anyone could say another word, Nico was gone. Stepped back and the inky black of the old infirmary swallowed him whole, probably spitting him out by Camp Jupiter—they will receive a furious message from Hazel soon.
Hazel knew what it was like, she had been the ache for others, and Nico could always rely on death to lean on.