Nico

Something exploded.
He didn’t know what it was, but something definitely exploded, and it was somewhere in this realm.
A fiery brightness blasted through from hundreds of miles away, lighting up some of the darkness. Nico gasped, something leaving his chest. There was a hole. Something had happened. Something had just happened-
Slowly, piece by piece, a god assembled on the throne. The other two teenagers had been long gone by now. It was just Nico, and this blue face in front of him.
He knew.
Osiris.
“Lord-” Nico tried to say, but he was shushed.
“I come of news of great terror,” Osiris raged. “I’ve been put in a box and left to be ripped apart by an Abyss and a Chaos, my energy sacrificed to a new creation. A new threat rises in front of us, and we only have little time. I must leave immediately.”
“Well, you’re too late,” Nico snapped. “Your servant, Anubis, is already rallying the gods and delivering the message. However, you are needed down here. Your daughter, Sadie Kane, told me you could help me. And I must know if this is true or not.”
Osiris stood up, obviously in a terrible mood. “You have no idea-”
“You have no idea,” Nico said quietly, “Just exactly who you are dealing with.”
All around him, the spirits began to stir and spin, restlessly, in the presence of his agitation. Osiris, blue with a black, scruffy beard, raised his hands, in a furious anger. “You dare use other magic here, in my realm?”
“Things are changing, Osiris!” Nico yelled. “Maybe it’s a bad change, but there’s nothing we can do to prevent it, because it’s already happening! And you need to calm down- I get you were almost ripped apart by Chaos, or whatever-”
“Or whatever? Do you have any, any idea-”
“But you need to pull yourself together and be the best death deity that you are, you understand? I did not come here… go through so much… if this doesn’t work...”
“You are interrupting the end of the world with your puny problem?”
“A soul. Bianca di Angelo. My sister. Died 12 years old. Can you search for her Reborn
body?”
Osiris screamed, and Nico di Angelo looked away, a brightness searing his skin. It burned and burned and burned, and suddenly it was quiet. Feeling like Nico’s skin was stripped raw, he turned back.
A much, much, much calmer Osiris sat, very coolly on his throne. He stroked a crocodile in his lap, much like an evil dictator would stroke a cat.
But Osiris didn’t seem evil. He seemed… tired.
“I am sorry,” he sighed. “Chaos. If it doesn’t rip your essence apart, it at least has to rip your mentality apart. I’m sorry I couldn’t get it together before then. Normally… I’m a fairly calm god.”
“You don’t say.”
“I’ve been through much,” Osiris closed his eyes, rubbing his neck. “You are also in the wrong for judging me and dismissing this situation so lightly, even more wrong than I am for losing control of myself. However, what I need right now… is to tone down. I’ve been through so much,” he repeated again. “Much more than that other foolish god- what was his name? Ares? Mars? Bah. Whatever his name was- had to go through. I was captured first, by my own stupidity. I had assumed I was so careful…”
In a different situation, Nico would be curious about Ares. But for now, he had to know-
“Can you…?”
“Rest,” Osiris sighed, leaning his head back, his form flickering. The hand stroking the crocodile stilled. “What I really need… is rest. But, yes, Nico di Angelo. I will find your Bianca.”
The area hummed with energy, a trembling black blue. The hall room in its glory- black walls, empty seats, a pulsing silver obsidian throne- shook, and it shook for minutes on end. Osiris stayed placid, calm, tranquil, as this occurred around him- Nico fell to the floor, Osiris’ crocodile jumped off its lap and hid in the corner, and yet the god continued motionless, searching, composed.
The god’s eyes opened. Nico promptly threw up, from the Earthquake, and nerves. His heart leapt in his throat, unsure, uncertain. His nerves itched, something clawed the insides of him and his eyes were hungry, begging to know, dying to know-
“Bianca Maria di Angelo, born April 17, 1935, Venice Italy, you say?” Osiris said very carefully, searching for an expression in Nico’s face. “To Maria di Angelo and Lord Hades of the Underworld?”
Nico froze. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t speak. A lump of air expanded in his throat. His head became dizzy, and his body felt faint.
All he could manage were the barest of nods. He swayed.
Did he dare let himself feel this happiness that was to come?
“I’m afraid…” Osiris frowned. “She’s not on this Earth.”
Did he dare to let himself drown in this misery?
Nico swayed heavily to the left, his voice rasping as he tried to say, “That’s not right.”
“I’m sorry, di Angelo,” Osiris looked genuinely concerned. “I believe you’ll have to look elsewhere, I suppose. Is she in another magical realm?”
Not possible.
If she’s not on Earth..?
No. She has to be. She has to be.
Nico stumbled away from the hall, and in the very tiniest back of his mind, he recognized a worried voice calling after him, and recognized just barely that he must seem very rude, and could be disintegrated for his rudeness at any time, but the majority of his brain was too occupied, and he felt it in the air, and he knew something had been off, and now the moment had passed… he must’ve not done something correctly, he must’ve not gotten here in time….
Later, he realized there must have been something in the air sapping his strength. There was a feeling of righteousness, deja vu when he first entered the Duat, and at that moment… it was somehow… gone.
Disappeared.
Exploded.
What had happened?
His mind whirled, with this failure, this desperation, the wasted years and years of his life. And that was all he was reduced to, for some reason. The dead hope, the wanting to go on further but inability to, anger at Daniel, anger at Sadie, Anubis, Osiris, anger at himself.
And suddenly, Nico found himself on the edge of the river.
Chaotic whispers spun around in his brain, and that was all he could hear.
He remembered his promise.
Let go.
Just let go.
The river sang to him, and he closed his eyes.
“No!” someone cried- someone familiar, someone important. Thoughts blurred in front of Nico’s eyes, into confusion. It gave him another moment’s worth of time.
Which was all Daniel needed.
“Nico!” His back smacked into the ground, the wind knocked out of him. He didn’t even fight. He just heaved, his breath caught and mixed between his chest, throats, nose. “Nico- what are you doing?"
Nico spluttered. He was so confused, so dazed... What had happened? What was happening? Who was this?
“Whrho?” he mumbled. Hands helped him sit up, grabbed his face.
“Nico. Nico- what’s happened to you? Did… Did Osiris do this to you?”
Nico blubbered at the mouth, his vision still unfocused, blurry. He tried to blink back the sheen.
“Nico-” a voice, so familiar, was panicked. “What’s my name?”
Who was trying to speak to him? The pain was enormous.
“My name,” the sound stated, coming to realization. “Is Daniel. And you are Nico di Angelo. Son of Hades. And we love each other. And… you also love your sister. And her name is Bianca di Angelo.”
Nico gasped. He remembered now. He remembered that name. Bianca. The things happening with that name were terrible. It was so…
Painful.
“Bianca di Angelo,” the sound pressed. A face was coming into view- one with freckles, that normally dotted merrily across his cheeks. The number 19 came to mind. “Did something happen to her? You didn’t find her, did you?”
Nico screamed, inaudibly. That was what it was. He clawed against the person restraining him.
Bianca wasn’t on Earth.
Bianca wasn’t on Earth.
“This place is bad for you, I think,” the voiced struggled, catching in its own throat, desperation seeping through. “We have to get you out of here.”
“Help us,” he begged someone- Nico couldn’t see who. But there was a whirlwind of what felt like sand reforming him piecing him together- painful bit by painful bit- and he was getting heavier, but he was floating up, up, up…
The bed was soft, and Nico’s eyes opened, drowning in tears, strangling out of breath. He remembered everything now, he wasn’t drugged and delirious like before, but the pain was the same. He was still drowning. He was still choking.
The door flew up, and blinding light flooded in. Nico brought his hands up to cover his face.
And suddenly he was being hugged, from the waist, and being rocked back and forth, back and forth. Nico was sobbing, and clutching back. “Bianca’s gone,” he repeated, telling Daniel, over and over. “She’s gone.”
Daniel hugged Nico even closer, pressing a furious kiss to his hair. He smelled like a rainy spring breeze. “She’s been gone a long time,” Daniel said, shouting over his sobs. “It’s time to let go.”
Anger. Even though Nico knew it wasn’t Daniel’s fault- it was his, for letting this grow, letting this accumulate, letting this hopeless hope grow higher and higher and larger and larger and larger when he should’ve known it was over, should’ve known it was taking over his life-
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t- it hurts too much-”
“Let go for me, Nico.”
“Can’t stop crying, can’t stop, it hurts, Daniel, sunshine, Daniel- it hurts-”
“Don’t stop. Just let go.”
Curious magicians had come to the doorway, immediately turning away as they saw what was happening. Daniel waved his hand, and they nodded, making the door a silvery white and closing it. Maybe it was a silencing spell. It didn’t matter. Daniel didn’t care if everyone heard. That wasn’t his focus right now.
His focus was hugging, rocking, sharing Nico’s pain, diving into it, lifting some of his burden. For hours. Hours and hours pass, and all Daniel could do, with his sunshine shuddering and spasming in his arms, was force Nico to continue on. It’d gone on too long. It’s been too long.
Nico cried until his tears were no longer available, until his screams were no longer, his air just heaving out air. And when he quieted, almost into a fit of sleep, Daniel carried him out the door and to the portal and down New Rome and into their home, where they held each other until they both collapsed in exhaustion. And when he woke up again, crying out with a fresh voice, Daniel was there again, to become deaf from his screams, hold tightly onto his pain, press kisses to his tears, and force Nico to keep going, keep him eating food, keep him drinking water, sleeping. And so these became their days.
For two more days, the same thing happened. The pain seemed to be never-ending. It didn’t leave. It didn’t go away. The pain he’d been running from for sixteen years had snowballed on top of each other, and he was taking it all now. How much more did he have to take?
But finally, on the third day, Nico quieted for a couple of minutes, thinking intensely to himself in the silence. The shaking and spasm still occurred, but his screaming died, before starting up again, and he fell into a fit of exhaustion.
Hazel and Reyna came by, the others staying back until Nico was well enough to handle them, but only dropped by to give food, water, cry with Nico for a few minutes.
On the fourth, Nico had begun to speak again.
“I love you,” he told Daniel, druggedly, burying his head into his chest. Daniel laced his fingers into Nico’s hair.
For a few weeks, it continued to be bad. But each day got better. Each moment passed, allowing him to face the next with pain that was just microscopically less painful than the last moment had been. The hurt continued to rage, but it was better.
He understood: it was going to get better.
It would get better.
“Let me help save you,” Daniel had told him, on the second day, so softly Nico wasn’t sure if this sentence was just a delirious hallucination or a legit memory. But in the second week, he said it again, and Nico nodded, slightly. He could now go on for a few hours without emotionally releasing all of his energy. Huge progress. Huge.
He was broken.
But it was going to get better.

Notes

god Daniel and Will have slowly been starting to form into the same person it's nOT MY FAULT GUYS I READ BoO WHEN THIS AND DANIEL WERE ALREADY TWO-THIRDS DONE AND THEY'RE JUST SO DARN SIMILAR <3 god the amount of love for your feedback is ex⁹po²nE⁴NTIal¹ exponenTIAL I love you all so so so much three more chapters to go