Chapter Text
About an hour ago, Will had brought Nico some new clothes to change into: just a grey T-shirt and some black sweatpants. His old clothes were taken to be washed or something; he wasn’t really listening when Will told him. Now, he was lying on his back in the infirmary bed, not even trying to fall asleep.
Nico had mixed feelings about sleep, not only considering the fact of how much resting he did shadow traveling from Greece to New York with a huge statue and two other people, but also because when he sleeps, he usually dreams, and his dreams weren’t usually all too pleasant. Just like all demigod dreams, they have meaning. And when they don’t, they’re nightmares. And most of the time, they’re both. Though the bed was comfortable and the blanket above him was warm and soft..kind of like..nevermind, so he thought that he would eventually fall asleep.
And he was right.
-
Eventually, he was met with the usual darkness, just like how all of his dreams start. He looked around the dark abyss, trying to see if there was something hiding in it. That’s when he felt the ground beneath his feet dissolve beneath him, and he felt himself falling. He felt the wind rush past his ears as the cavernous void slowly started to fill with the smell of sulfur. He’d experienced this before, he was the first to do so, actually. And he had hoped to be the last. No one should ever have to go through the mind-breaking wasteland that was Tartarus.
He swore the distance changed. The first time, he thought that he was falling for days, maybe even weeks, but this time, it felt almost instant. That didn’t mean that the impact would hurt less. He landed on his injured shoulder on the smoke-colored ground, leaving an intense feeling of electric-like agony through his whole arm and shoulder. The rest of his body wasn’t much better, slamming against the unforgiving ground like a rag doll. He pushed himself onto his knees, trying to stand up, but what he saw above him made him want to curl up and collapse. The primordial goddess of the night itself, Nyx stood above him, seeming bigger than before. She had a visible aura of darkness that radiated power and screamed danger like an ominous storm cloud. Her body looked like the humanized version of a black hole, like she would absorb you if you ever got too close. Her dress looked even more luminous than ever; the pearls around her neck seemed to be replicating the many moons of the universe. And though he could barely hear her over his own thoughts and the fact that she didn’t have a mouth, he swore she was laughing.
”Hello again, Nico di Angelo,” the ethereal goddess said, with a tone that was way too calm for where they were.
Nico barely knew how to respond. How was she here? Was she sending him a message through his dream? Was she waiting for him? What could she possibly want?
”It is evident that you still fear me, that is good, but I see that you are changing from how I designed you. I was not jesting when I said that it was pointless to keep entertaining the notion that someone such as yourself is capable of changing.” Her condescending tone made it apparent that this was a threat. Her words felt like venom, like she was mocking her prey before consuming it whole.
”You are alone, son of Hades. And that is how it should be. Remember what happened to Bianca? You don’t wish for that fate to come upon others, do you?”
The mention of his late sister made his stomach twist, but he couldn’t find the words to refute her. It felt like she was reinforcing a truth that he was already deeply aware of. It was as if he knew it was true, but he never had the strength to say it allowed, so the goddess did it for him. He heard the sound of something being risen, and he looked up to see what it possibly was, and he half wished that he didn’t look up. In the goddess’s inky black hands, there was a spear that seemed to be made of pure moonlight. She raised it above Nico’s head without an ounce of hesitation.
He scrabbled to his feet and bolted in a matter of seconds. Could he really outrun Nyx? He didn’t care; all he could do was run. He had no idea where he was going, all he knew was that he had to get away. He didn’t have even the energy to shadow travel, but he could at least run. The sulfurous air agitated his already tired lungs, the screams and cries of monsters all around him became almost overwhelming, but he kept running. He ran into a forest, weaving between the mutated trees and the remnants of dead grass. As the Ghost King twisted and tumbled through the forest, he found something on the other side.
A house. An enormous house with an archway, both made of black wood. In no ways did this house look trusting, but it was somewhere to hide, which he was grateful for. He darted over to the door and opened it. Unlocked. Strange, but it worked in his favor.
Something about the house felt strange. There was the weird, persistent buzzing noise that he swore he was imagining until it slowly got louder. And louder. Until it felt like it was right next to his ear. Nico grabbed for a sword that wasn’t there and spun around to see what that noise was.
…A bug? Wait. This house wasn’t made of wood at all.
He looked up to see the ceiling moving in various patterns, billions of tiny creatures trapped together in the morbid shape of a house. He glanced down at the ground to see the little insects crawling beneath his feet and on his legs. He tried to swat them off but more kept coming, going further each time. Soon, some started to come towards his arms, crawling all over. He felt millions of little, horrific feet dance across his skin, some felt like they were stinging him. His pants were covered in them, and his shirt looked like it was about to be. They started crawling on his neck, climbing up to his ears as he felt them, walking and stinging and walking and stinging and walking and stinging until he could barely move. They tried crawling into his mouth, he felt them in his hair. He couldn’t breathe, it felt like he was being crushed by the little things.
He closed his eyes and screamed. He screamed so loud he would be shocked if his cries didn’t reach Olympus. And slowly, the agonizing tingling and stinging went away and he opened his eyes. Was it over? Was Nyx gone? Was that horrid house finally gone? He opened his eyes, and he was back in the same dark abyss. Only this time, there was an oak door in front of him. Nico hesitated, whatever could be behind that door couldn’t also be terrible. But he thought about it, whatever was behind this door couldn’t possibly be worse than what he had just seen, so he opened it.
His eyes went wide. There was no way.
Behind the door was a small apartment, the same apartment he had grown up in when he lived in Italy so many years ago. He walked into the tiny, dimly lit living room and looked around in awe. The rug was still there, the same one his mom had made with her own hands. His Mythomagic cards were still strewn across the floor, he hadn’t seen them in years. He looked at the old coffee table, and his mom’s Catholic bible was still there, the red bookmark it held still there. The faint smell of coffee was still present, a comforting one, it felt like home. Truly home. There was one more thing he had to check, but he couldn’t get his hope up, not until he saw it for himself. He glanced to the side, looking at the rocking chair in the corner.
Nico swore he felt his heart stop. “..Mom?”
The middle-aged woman in the chair looked up at him, her dark black hair showing streaks of grey, which somehow made her look more beautiful and mystic. Hazel eyes looked back at him, they seemed so peaceful, not a worry in the world. She almost looked too perfect, with no wrinkles in her caramel-colored dress and her hair neatly and elegantly fell against her shoulders, a small gold pin placed in it.
“Ciao figliolo, benvenuto a casa,” greeted Maria di Angelo with a smile, opening her arms for a hug.
He felt his tears leave his eyes. He walked over to her in complete disbelief, nearly falling into his mom’s arms as he silently cried. He could feel her, actually feel her. She was there, she was okay. It all felt so real.
Though it wasn’t. And his mind reminded him of that really quickly.
Slowly, he felt his mother’s skin grow colder, not the kind of a living person. She felt lighter, less tangible somehow. With his arms still around her, Nico began to raise his head.
“Mamma, stai bene? Hai freddo,” Nico asked, looking at the face of his mother. Or at least, that’s what he was supposed to see.
Her face was gone, distorted to one he didn’t recognize. One of a nameless spirit, it could have been any ghost in the world. Her body kept getting colder, until it was borderline painful to touch. Nico leaped away from who he thought was his mother, watching in abject horror as the spirit looked less and less like her. Then it began to talk.
”Why did you kill me, Nico? Why did you kill Bianca?” The voice sounded hollow and echoey like thousands of dead souls were speaking at once, trying to make their point abundantly clear. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
It was like he had just been punched. His words were stuck in his throat. It hurt, it hurt so badly. “Mama…I-“
”You have no right to call me that. It should have been you, and you know it. You left my only daughter to die. You are no son of mine,” the ghost interrupted.
His throat burned with tears. His real mother would never say that, it wasn’t real and he knew it. But that didn’t make the words hurt any less. “You aren’t her. She would never say that to me.”
The faceless specter got up from the chair and stomped its feet on the floor, splitting the floor of the apartment down the middle with a mighty crack, allowing Nico to slip through it all the way up to his neck. “I’m sorry, but your opinion no longer matters here. You are unimportant. Nameless. Nothing.”
Sharp panic shot through him. He knew exactly what was going on and knew exactly how it ended. He gritted his teeth, his body being crushed by whatever was below the floor, which felt like rough rocks, and his neck being splintered with the broken floorboards. He shot rage and sorrow-filled eyes at the specter. “You don’t know that. You’re nameless yourself. I’m alive.” He spoke those words, but could barely believe them himself.
The phantom leaned down to face him, and when it did, its face distorted again. Back to the face of his mother. She looked at him with love-filled eyes, but nothing lovely left her lips. “Who are you?”
All of the rage in his body was replaced with regret and misery. He opened his mouth to say something, what he would say, he didn’t know, but he had to say something. But when he opened his mouth to speak, all he heard were the chatters of voices that weren’t his, using his mouth as a collective medium. He felt his body grow cold as he was cast down into whatever lay below.
-
Nico shot up from the bed in a cold sweat, dry tear streaks running down his face. Someone was calling his name, but he couldn’t even hear who. He still felt abnormally cold, his skin still crawling with the feeling of angry bugs. Was he even breathing? His chest felt so tight but he was hyperventilating. Was he even alive? And who was calling his name?
”-co! Nico, you’re okay, it was a dream, you’re okay.” The voice sounded comforting, but it didn’t make him feel so. Nico’s heart almost beat out of his chest, like it might explode at any moment. The voice steadily rested their hands on his shoulders, not squeezing them, just holding him. It was grounding, he didn’t feel as cold anymore, and it helped him identify who was speaking to him.
”Can you hear me? I’m here, you’re okay,” Will said, smiling at him again. Nico didn’t exactly feel okay, but he nodded his head. His vision cleared, and he could clearly see the boy’s face. His curly blonde hair nearly hid his eyes, but he still had the same smile as before. His scrubs were off, replaced with a sun graphic tee and shorts.
He was still shaking, his hands grabbing the infirmary blanket like it was the only thing holding him down to Earth. The images of what he saw, what he felt even, were still fresh in his memory, replaying over and over again. But Will didn't seem to be judging at all, not even overly panicked at all. Just calm, which was more than he could ask for.
”It was a nightmare, right? I get those too, but they aren’t real. You’re at the infirmary at camp, nothing can get you here, you’re safe. It was a dream,” he whispered, slowly wrapping his arms around his patient.
‘Too close, way too close,’ Nico thought. He wasn’t exactly used to being hugged, especially not by someone he wasn’t too familiar with. Will seemed to see that and took his hands away, which helped. He still felt like he was drowning, but still better. Of course it wasn’t real, he knew it wasn’t real. He had had nightmares before, but it still stuck with him regardless of what he told himself.
“Okay, let’s try this. What are five things you can see?” Will said, still slightly keeping his distance.
Was he really trying to play a game right now? But fine, might as well. “The window, nightstand, door, the stool, and um…you, I guess,” he said, still trying to breathe.
”Good. Now, four things you can feel.”
He still didn’t understand what Will was trying to do, but he went along with it. “The bed, my hair, my clothes, and this blanket.” He felt slightly better, and he wasn’t holding onto the bed as tightly anymore.
“You’re doing great, now three things you can hear,” Will said, slowly getting more happy as this little game went on.
Nico stopped questioning things now, seeing as they were working and just went along with it. “Birds outside, you, and snoring?” It was distant, but someone was snoring somewhere in the infirmary.
Will chuckled. “Yeah, that’s probably just one of the Ares kids, don’t worry about it. Now, what are two things you can smell.”
That was easy. “Linen and strawberries.”
”Alright, last, what’s one thing that ya taste?”
He actually tried to think about it. “Nothing, really.”
”Figured. Do you feel any better now?”
He’d stopped trembling and he could finally feel himself breathe comfortably again. The nightmare still terrified him, but he wasn’t actively shaking or freaked out anymore. Guess that game wasn’t stupid.
Will didn’t look at him with pity, which was something he wasn't expecting. He looked a lot more understanding; though he had absolutely no idea what he was dreaming about, he still seemed like he knew exactly what he was going through. He didn’t force Nico to talk, just looking at him, making sure he was okay.
”Now, I ain’t gonna force you to say what it was about, but if you want to, we can always talk about it.”
Nico shook his head almost immediately. The last things he wanted to do right now was think about that dream ever again.
”I get nightmares too, a lot more than I’d like to admit, but being around someone always helped. If you want me to leave, then I will, but I can always stay.”
Nico was used to handling these types of things alone, but something in him wanted Will to stay. He didn’t know what it was, he usually never wanted anyone to see him like this, ever. But for some reason, the thought of being alone with Will didn’t make him uncomfortable. “It’s fine. You don’t have to move.”
Will smiled, happy to hear the son of Hades say that, he leaned back on the bed again, resting his arm on Nico’s pillow. “I’ll stay, just as long as you don’t tell Kayla and Austin when I was here.”
That actually made Nico laugh a bit, making him forget about his night for a moment. “I won’t tell a soul,” he said, pun fully intended.
Will started laughing as well. “Thanks, they’d probably kill me if they figured out I was here this late again.”
Nico tilted his head to Will, a confused look on his face. “Now that you say that, why are you here this late?”
”No reason, just wanted to check on everyone.”
He still thought it was strange, but didn’t push it. If Will wasn’t going to make him talk, then the least he could do was do the same for him. The comfortable silence felt nice, maybe even right. His dream was still clinging to his memory, but for whatever reason, it didn’t seem as terrifying at the moment.