Plans and Pastries

                                    

                                          
A/N Really short chapter today sorry, but you get Hazel POV!
Annabeth caught her elbow as Hazel got up to follow after Nico.
"Hey, can we talk for a second?"
Hazel looked at her quizzically, but the urgency in the daughter of Athena's gaze made her nod her agreement.
"We're just going for a coffee, the café two doors down has amazing pastries - did you guys want us to bring you back any?" Annabeth smiled at the two guys but both shook their heads. Will watched them with poorly veiled suspicion and Hazel forced a sweet smile to her lips as Annabeth led her out the door.
"What's going on?" Hazel murmured as they took the stairs two at a time.
Annabeth shook her head as if to say 'Not yet, not here'. So Hazel pursed her lips and stayed silent until they reached the coffee shop where Annabeth ordered them both drinks and pulled Hazel to a shaded table in the far corner.
They didn't speak until the waiter delivered their drinks, Annabeth receiving an alternate-milk mocha and Hazel a hot chocolate.
"We need to talk about your brother." Annabeth started.
"We could have done that at the flat."
"Not this," Annabeth sighed, and Hazel suddenly noticed the girl's weariness as if she'd spent many nights kept up by a puzzle she couldn't solve. "Will doesn't know."
"Oh," Hazel remembered the suspicion in the son of Apollo's eyes as they left, "Well, he certainly knows somethings going on, he clearly doesn't trust you."
"He knows we disapprove of Nico's...situation. Just not for the reason he thinks."
"What's the reason then?"
"Nico's dying or at least being tortured." Annabeth breathed, watching Hazel with those piercing storm-cloud eyes.
"Yeah you told me about the poison, but the curse only has five more days and Will has been patching him up daily." Hazel said matter-of-factly.
"Once the curse is removed, Nico won't...get better."
"Annabeth, I'm going to need you to be more clear." Hazel said past the rising panic that washed over her.
"Nico, has been working for Hades for the past five years. Not as the Ghost King, or on quests like a regular demigod. He has a servitude bond."
"No."
"Hazel, please. I swear on the Styx that what I say is what I think is true." Annabeth implored, "I know it's hard to believe, but Nico is indebted to Hades, and being trapped in that apartment is going to shred his soul apart."
Hazel had gone numb, a buzzing that started in her fingertips and filled each limb until they lay heavy with disbelief. Nico was Hades eternal, blood sworn servant.
"Nico wouldn't be stupid enough to take that oath."
"Well he did, he has the tattoo."
"Maybe he was forced then, Nico wouldn't have left me and sold his eternal soul and freedom to Hades. He wouldn't do it."
"Hazel, please. He would never tell you this, that's why I'm telling you. Nico took the oath, he has the servitude mark - ask him, it's on his right forearm! He has orders he is being forced to act on." Annabeth took Hazel's hand in her own, "Orders Nico can't follow because he's caged in that apartment. Orders his body is forcing him to follow, why do you think he shadow-travelled into the living room this morning?"
Hazel remembered Nico's pained wince, his body flickering to shadow, staring out the window through breakfast.
"I- I just don't understand. What if we're wrong, what if we let him go and he gets killed doing whatever orders Hades has given him?"
"He's already in pain, Hazel. His body is tearing itself apart and it's hurting him." Annabeth's breath hitched at her next words, "He- He's considering putting himself in a death trance."
"What!" Hazel whisper-shouted, "That almost killed him the last time."
"He's carried pomegranate seeds in a pouch hung at his neck since Rome, a pouch which he spent all of breakfast fiddling with. He knows he almost died, he couldn't even look at a pomegranate for a year after the jar, you must realise how much pain he is in if he is considering putting himself in a trance to make it stop."
"He's already been through so much, I don't want him to be in pain" Hazel whispered, tears stinging her eyes.
"He won't be, not if we can help it," Annabeth said firmly, "The curse needs to lift for Nico's physical body to heal, but after that he needs to be freed so he can complete Hades' orders. After that, we can hope that he might return...willingly this time."
Annabeth continued, "Nico wouldn't want you involved but you are Hecate's champion. You could rewrite the ward magic."
Oh gods. Could she do this? Her brother, indentured to their own father, had finally come back to her, it had seemed a blessing. A small miracle that she had prayed for every meal.
And his life rested on her letting him go.
"Hazel, we'll get him back." Annabeth soothed, "But right now he needs our help, he needs your help."
Hazel lifted her gaze to meet those glittering, intelligent eyes.
"I'll do it. What's your plan?"
~
Nico wore a soft, fractured smile as he listened to the shadows of the café where Annabeth was revealing her plan to his sister, to the soundtrack of clinking glasses and coffee grounds.
And he was thankful to the gods for his friends who hadn't given up on him after five long years.
And he prayed he knew what he was doing.

End Note: THANK YOUUU FOR THE VOTES AND COMMENTS! 💗