Death's Reason

Chapter 15

AN: I made an Instagram account where I'll be posting pictures related to my works. Account is pey.119

As Nico remembered and re-remembered what happened, as he thought about when he had went wrong and what happened to him, the pain...the agonizing pain he still felt in his head...the pain Hades said may last forever (emotionally, at least, PTSD-type remembrance), he hated himself for it all.

How the hell was he kidnapped so easily if he had survived Tartarus for so long? How hadn't he noticed the life energy?

He thought back over and over again. He couldn't remember ever feeling that life source. All he had felt were the dead bodies, the corpses, the scent of death that had called him.

That meant it hadn't been a demigod that had bashed his head in. It was a monster that was listening to Kronos. And Kronos knew the only way to keep him down was to keep him unconscious.

Hades had saved him... everything about it was against the Old Laws. But the Fates had granted him special permission because saving Nico was essential. But the fact that Nico needed saving made him feel useless.

He needed saving from a god that had died long before him. Was he getting weak or old? Was his body finally breaking down?

Half his hair was gray. His joints ached. Life had been hell to him.

Old for a demigod. Old for a child of Hades. Old according to his birth date.

Going insane.

He saw Poppy in the corner when she was sitting beside him, or opposite, or sometimes on the ceiling or peeking through the door. The only reason he knew what he saw wasn't real was because of the other Poppy. He wondered how many other things he saw and thought were real that actually weren't.

He was a child of Hades. This wasn't unexpected, just unwelcome.

Nico woke the night after his father freed him from constant nightmares. They weren't real nightmares like he had experienced before, but the constant feeling of fear, of complete and absolute terror.

He found himself outside his father's room, feeling like a child, feeling confused and human.

He knocked. It was silent before his father materialized in the hallway beside him.

"You saved me," Nico said. "You saved me from whatever was holding me for Kronos."

Hades frowned. "Son, you woke me up-"

"Just wait," Nico pleaded. "Listen. You saved me."

"Yes, I'm aware."

Nico leaned his head back against the wall. "You love me enough to risk everything to save me."

Silence. Not even the distant screams from the Fields of Punishment were heard.

"Why?" Nico asked. "How? How can you love me that much? You said it yourself, I'm just an offspring. Demigod. Mortal. You've only known me for a few years. How can you love me?"

Hades pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a low sigh. "Nico, Nico, this really couldn't wait until morning? Until you're fully healed?"

"No."

Hades rested a hand on his shoulder. "Son, listen to me. You are more than a random demigod, or just another of my children. You have made me proud, doing the things you've done, protecting the dead as you have. You understand death, you understand the necessity of it, but you also understand life. I've said it before, if you weren't so hellbent on jumping into Chaos, I'd make you a god. You're smart enough and strong enough. You always have been, even in your past lives."