(Nico di) Angelo angst-(one)shots

Bringing back the dead (paying the price)

Being the son of Hades was weird.

Well, it was hard to explain.

He had the power to bring back the dead, but only if they hadn't chosen to reincarnate.

(He would never be able to forget it, how he'd been too late, how his sister had begged him to let her be. He could've sworn something far too deep in him had broken at those words.)

Though even then it was...not the best idea to do so, as he had always said; "No one can come back from death." A lie of course, as his (half) sister had quite literally proven but that wasn't the point. The point was, bringing someone back from death was and never would be free.

A price to pay, a sacrifice he supposed you could call it, for defying the laws of destiny.

Some would disagree but he knew, destiny was not a kind dealer. To break her rules was a great deal and as they say, you can not take without giving first so, be careful what you are willing to sacrifice.

You see, if anyone else were to bring another back from the dead they'd lose their life in the process, a life for a life. But he, well let's just say, he was never allowed such a nice price.

A Demigod's life force was far greater than a normal humans but still not anywhere close to an actual God's life force. Of course that meant that instead of dying he simply...lost part of his soul -or well, life .

The first time It'd happened was with Hazel, as the first he had lost little, just feeling in one of his pinky toes and a couple months were taken from his timeline. Definitely not the worst in any way whatsoever, but the thing is, it had made him cocky.

The second time he traveled through his fathers domain to retrieve a soul was ironically, to save his crush . Percy Jackson, someone who everyone thought was immortal, invincible , unable to die , yet that was so far from the truth.

Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon and strongest demigod, had died seven times in total. The only catch, ghosts do not remember their death and above all, do not remember dying when (if) they come back. So he had no idea he'd died that many times, he'd thought he was simply blessed by luck. What a joke.

Anyways, the second time he'd lost feeling in the tips of his fingers for an entire month and had five years taken from his timeline, his life string cut even shorter as the black string (his was no longer golden, though he wasn't sure if that was because of his father or the choices he'd made.) was pulled taught once more.

He would never admit it but, that month had been one of the hardests, failing to feel anything he touched was hard but training and fighting was even worse. Imagine trying to summon skeletons from the ground but in order to do that you need to feel them, now try doing that without being able to feel them. Ya, let's just say...he was happy he wasn't around much.

The few times he'd been forced to do something in front of others had been worse than Tartarus, too many eyes in him as they waited for him to do something he physically couldn't. He had missed the previous feeling of darkness surrounding him when he couldn't summon it at will (it was too much like before, when everything had been fine, when he was normal . When he'd been weak and ignorant to what lied ahead).

He remembers coming back in the middle of the war, a tight grip on the brunette soul as he pushed them both back through the shadows and practically slammed his soul back into his body before anyone could notice. But he had continued fighting as his fingers turned numb and had felt his life string cut shorter, he'd summoned more skeletons, woke more souls and harnessed the dead even as he felt the energy and life leave his body.