Death and Madness 2

Nico knows Spider-man???

Nico looked good pinned to the wall. Now was really not the time to notice things like that. 

We found Percy in the dungeon. Sure, it took a few trips to find him, but when we did, he was asleep on the floor. Turned out, I wasn't the only one who talked in my sleep. He mumbled something that sounded like, "Rachel"

"Oof, Annabeth's going to be mad" I grinned at Nico, who only rolled his eyes. 

The room seemed like it was airtight. Hades' dungeon was meant for dead people, and they don't breathe. So forget eternity, any alive person would probably die in a few hours in here. It also smelled super gross. 

"Percy!" I tried to rouse him. I didn't dare touch him, he looked absolutely furious when I had last seen him, and I knew how good he was with his sword.

"Percy!" Nico tried. 

That seemed to do the trick. Percy moved lightning fast. I couldn't even react before he lunged and pinned Nico to the edge of the cell with his sword to his throat. Percy's eyes blazed with anger, Nico's widened so much his eyes looked like they might pop out. 

Gods, the gay panic the little, Italian, emo must be having. 

I wasted little to no time. In seconds, I had my stygian iron dagger pressed to the back of Percy's neck. He was a good friend of mine and we had gone through a lot. But would he just relax and let us explain things?

"Want . . . to . . . rescue," Nico choked.

"Percy, let him go" I insisted. 

"Oh, yeah? And why should I trust you?"

"No choice?" I shrugged. 

I could feel the conflict addle his mind. 

Percy let him go.

Nico curled into a ball and made retching sounds while his throat recovered. Finally he got to his feet, eyeing Percy's sword warily.

I stepped back too, planting myself between the two boys. 

"I'm sorry" I blurted immediately. "We didn't know about Hades. We made him promise he wouldn't hurt you, but I guess he found a loophole"

"I swear on the river Styx, we didn't know what he was planning" Nico coughed. 

"You know what your dad is like!"

I winced. Well, yeah, true enough.

"He tricked me! He promised-" Nico shook his head, "It doesn't matter. We need to get out of here, Vi managed to distract the guards and uh... flirted with them for some reason. But it won't last for long."

"First of all" I held up a finger, "All the skeletons here are weird, and secondly they love me"

"Yes, because my father wants us to end up together" Nico said, staring at his feet. 

"WHAT?"

I hate gods who ship me with their sons whom I have no chances with. 

Percy looked like he wanted to strangle Nico again, but his features softened. 

Nico and I exchanged glances. He pointed at the wall. A whole section vanished, revealing a corridor. I wish he didn't look as hot as he did right then. 

"Come on." Nico led the way.

I wished I had Annabeth's invisibility hat, but as it turned out, we didn't need it. Every time we came to a skeleton guard, I just started talking to them, holding Nico's hand and grinned. If they had human features, I had a feeling they would smile about how cute we were together. 

Fake dating trope, huh?

"Young love" One of the skeleton guards dropped his rifle and held his bony hands to his chest. "I remember my first love, he looked just like you, child of Dionysus. Beautiful blond hair and god that di-"

"Okay let's keep it PG in here" Percy raised his hands. 

The skeleton did a double take. "Hey, aren't you supposed to be in the dungeon?"

Nico snapped his fingers. Okay, so sometimes the fake dating thing didn't work. The skeleton's glowing eyes dimmed. Unfortunately, the more Nico did it, the more tired he seemed. 

We walked through a maze of corridors filled with guards. 

As long as Nico and I didn't stop to talk, just held hands and drew the guards attention to us instead of Percy walking next to us, they mostly left us alone. But that meant I had to not only hold hands with Nico, but also stare at him lovingly. 

Anyone else, and it would have been fine. But Nico? Everytime I looked at him, he was staring back with a soft look in his eyes. I hated that I knew it was fake. I hated that it would never be a reality. Nico would never like me back. Why would he?

Nico put some more skeletons to sleep when they noticed Percy.

By the time we reached a kitchen staffed by skeletal cooks and servants, Percy and I were practically carrying Nico. He managed to put all the dead to sleep but nearly passed out himself. We dragged him out of the servants' entrance and into the Fields of Asphodel.

I almost felt relieved until I heard the sound of bronze gongs high in the castle.

"Alarms," Nico murmured sleepily.

"What do we do?"

He yawned then frowned like he was trying to remember. "How about . . . run?"

Running with a drowsy child of Hades and a son of Poseidon who kind of hates you was more like doing a five-legged race with a life-size rag doll. Sometimes Percy took most of his weight, sometimes I did. We lugged him along, holding our weapons in front of us. The spirits of the dead made way like the Celestial bronze was a blazing fire.

I didn't like seeing Nico like this, weak and half asleep. 

The sound of gongs rolled across the fields. Ahead loomed the walls of Erebos, but the longer we walked, the farther away they seemed. I was about to collapse from exhaustion when I heard a familiar "WOOOOOF!"

Mrs. O'Leary bounded out of nowhere and ran circles around us, ready to play.

"Good girl." Percy said. "Can you give us a ride to the Styx?"

The word Styx got her excited. She probably thought I meant sticks. She jumped a few times, chased her tail just to teach it who was boss, and then calmed down enough for us to push Nico onto her back. I climb aboard, helping Percy up and she raced toward the gates. She leaped straight over the EZ-DEATH line, sending guards sprawling and causing more alarms to blare. Cerberus barked, but he sounded more excited than angry, like: Can I play too?

Fortunately, he didn't follow us, and Mrs. O'Leary kept running. She didn't stop until we were far upriver and the fires of Erebos had disappeared in the murk.

Nico slid off Mrs. O'Leary's back and crumpled in a heap on the black sand.

"Shit, shit-"

I took out a square of ambrosia—part of the emergency god-food I always kept with me. It was a little bashed up, but Nico chewed it.

"Uh," he mumbled. "Better."

"Your powers drain you, why the hades do you keep using them so much?"

He nodded sleepily. "With great power . . . comes great need to take a nap. Wake me up later."