Solangelo One Shots

And Then He Died

15 | Omniscient

    She'd dragged him up to the Hades cabin roof to tell him. Honestly, she'd been more surprised than anything when he showed up at her doorstop, but then she supposed who else would he come to. He had wanted to surprise Will after being away so long, and enlisted her help... instead, she ended up being the bearer of bad news.

    "You... you can't be serious. He said he was done with... with... "

    "Being a demigod?" Piper picks sarcasm instead of honesty, feeling the bitter way her tongue tastes these days. Of course, Nico knows she's right. No demigod is safe. No matter what battles they pick, if they pick all or none of then, an unnatural death is more likely than anything else. A death hand-picked by a monster.

    It seems like the darkness never really fades. Nico's been fighting it for years, inside and outaide of his head. But it's always there. Times like these it seems like it always wins.

    Nico isn't surprised by the tear that trails down his cheek, but Piper is. She tries to hide it, too, but it's clear that his display has her on the verge of tears, as well. As if she hasn't cried enough already.

    "Why didn't anybody tell me?" Nico begs to know the answer. The talcum palor he'd achieved with the news was slowly reddening, his cheeks and his ears and the rims of his eyes all matching the anger, remorse, and the sadness that Nico was starting to feel. He couldn't breathe - dammit, he couldn't breathe.

     "We all tried. We tried so hard, Nico, believe me," Piper's words ache with hurt, but ring with truth. She only wants to soothe him.

     "How long has he been gone?" he asks. It feels as if his heart is made of lead, and his head hurts, tatarus' pits, it hurts so bad, and his fingers, they itch and buzz, feeling how static sounds. Nothing is right. Nico is distracted by all of it. What would he even call it? Upset? Hell? Grief.

    "Two months."

    Nico stares at his dangling feet. They hang over the edge of his roof, and he can't help wishing the rest of him could be as weightless as they are. Two months. He, of all people, understands the truth of human mortality. He knows that endings must occur from every beginning, that nobody is immortal or fire proof. But if anyone was to be, it should have been him. It should have been Jason. Nico swallows a pained gasp. The ache in his head grows to sharp spikes piercing his skull. Another tear slips over his cheek. He wishes he could believe none of this was real.

    And then he falls.

    "Nico!" Piper cries, lurching forwards to catch him. She'd seen his eyes fade, recognized the cloud of panic around him but had been too late. He keeps falling. Right into Will's arms.

    Piper gasps. "Oh thank gods, Will, you-"

    "What happened?" Will's heart beats too fast as his eyes search for signs of injury or sickness, but there isn't anything obvious for him to notice.

    "He feinted!" Piper is leaning over the same edge that he had fallen from, fingers clenched like she might try to pierce the roofing with her nails. All of her is panicked, not left with time to recover from the brief moment she thought there was no hope for Nico. "I was trying to tell him about Jason, I didn't realise he was panicking, I'm so sorry-"

    "It's okay," Will shook his head, amazed he'd heard about Nico's return just in time to be here. My night in shining armor. He could imagine Nico calling him that now, and it was almost terrible enough timing for that thought to be funny. "I'm just going to take him inside," he sighed, scarcely relieved. If Jason's death had affected Nico enough for him to lose control like that...

    The doorknob hitched in Will's barely useful hand, all of his arm strength focused on keeping Nico safe. Cursing, Will shifted the brunette's weight and tried again, more violently then as Nico's head lolled against Will's shoulder. Maybe it scared Will a little too much, the lifelessness. Maybe Will was kicking the door bitterly as he shook the doorknob like an unruly lock.

    Maybe he has good reason to look embarrassed as Piper opened the door from the inside. "Thanks," he mutters, moving past her quickly. He's familiar with the cabin, has no issues finding Nico's bed. Or, what served as his bed when he was here almost three months ago. Silently, worriedly, Will checks Nico's pulse.

    Normal.

    Will sighs again, this time not sure how to feel (Relieved? Sympathetic?). "He's okay." A pause, and then something more. "Listen, Pipes-" he catches her wincing at the nickname. "Sorry," Will quickly feels sheepish. "Just uhm, Piper, if it went as well as it uh- seems to have gone I uh...
Nico should... maybe it would be best if I could talk to him alone, when he woke up. If that's... okay." It was weird sometimes how insecurities came out in Will. Disappointing somebody... a common fear but a stupid one. (i.e., gods that was awkward, and the whole thing wasn't even over yet.

    Piper swallowed - nodded, even, as she agreed to Will's proposition, instead of just speaking - and poof, she was gone. It was sort of a nightmare, but then to Will it became a nightmare within a nightmare because how could he forget to be all-consumed by worry for Nico.

     Nico, who had got wind of Jason's death and feinted. Nico, who hadn't had a panic attack for a year and a half now, Nico, who never told Will when something made him cry.

    He would be okay. Nico would be okay.

            ***

     Healing comes in bouts. So does crying. Nico switched between normal activities and sobbing into Will's shirt for hours. Will could only hold him and cry with him sometimes and whisper assurements that meant almost nothing because really, there's nothing to teach a child of Hades about death.

    "He was a hero," Will had said.

    "Yeah, and then he died," Nico breathed sadly, in a tone that said he wished he was spitting.
   
    Then after Those Hours, too fast maybe, Nico's tears stopped being hot and started being cold and his eyes hardened and Will saw, not for the first time, a part of Nico that only existed in between his mind and the rest of the outside goddamn world. A decision had been made and it would not be stopped.

    "Caligula is going to die."