Work Text:
AU - you said i'd never bleed / you said you'd never lie to me
Check TW and CW
I'll never be free." She grit out, dropping a handful of pomegranate seeds into his awaiting hands.
"I know that Ivy, I-"
"Edera? Nicolo?"
A smile slips onto her face, a mask I can't help but believe. It's sweet, innocent and every bit listening.
"We're going stargazing tonight." She informs the Goddess with a slight bite. She always loved the stars, wanted to be able to reach up and touch them. Cradle the lost heroes in her hands. Zoe and all the other hunters who'd fallen in the war.
Nico sat numbly, replaying memories that hurt inexplicably. He was warm, scalding hot. He was also very, very cold. Blood still caked half dry between his nails, mixing with the fine gold dust. He was aware of these small details. Like how the fire in front of him was a flickering deep purple. A colour she would say conflicted with Persephone’s rich pomegranate red irises. The wet dirt clumped on his prickling palms. How the campers walked in a wide berth around him. After all, he was a son of Hades. He reeked death and rotting corpses. She smelt of damp earth and spring. Fertiliser and dirt from helping that Demeter cabin head plant strawberries.
He was also acutely aware of the bigger things. Like how his sister had been taken when the ash from Leo’s explosion had started to set, Hazel’s bright gold eyes widening at him.
Frank would hate him now. He’d go back to being scared. he should be he should be why shouldn’t he be? Nico failed and Hazel was gone again.
Of course, he knew it was inevitable. She liked talking about the inevitable, pouring over myths with Lou Ellen Blackstone no they were friends and Luna Lovegood stop thinking about themit’s your fault they lost their friend. Hazel was doomed to return to the Underworld, but she would thank and curse the Fates in one breathe that it took this long. Thanatos couldn’t excuse a slow work ethic, he’d have to reach his little sister’s name.
And hers. Maybe if he’d just been paying attention and seen the manticore she wouldn’t be dead. She’d always wanted to die by saving one of us. He thought wistfully. Blankly. His clothes stuck to him, blotted in a stark dark red on his vaguely head splitting Hawaiian shirt. Her blood? Maybe if he’d actually been as quick and brave and smart as her, she’d still be here.
If he wasn’t a sap and recovered quickly, he wouldn’t be the last child of Hades-Pluto left. He’d gotten both his sisters killed. He’d brought his other sister back only for her to die again the same year. How could he mess up that bad? He felt sticky, his clothes sewed to his skin, so impossibly ugly against his pale tone compared to her rich olive.
Someone sat down beside him, throwing dirt up as they plopped down.
The campfire flickered slightly, brighter and bolder. A child of Apollo. She was friendly with one of them. Grace Knowles. It’s my fault I’m here instead of her.
“You missed dinner.” The person murmured, placing a plate down beside the fire. Not Knowles. Their voice was rough and dry, like Ivy’s when they’d rescued her. Nico swallowed, the first big movement he’d made since he’d realised he couldn’t scratch the blood off. There were still bright pink lines burning on his arms like chains. He deserved to be in chains. She got the werewolf wounds, he deserved this.
Someone huffed something under their breath, standing and walking off. The sound came from every direction, pinpricks of white noise gnawing at his ears. No one would like his company, not when Ivy’s was so much better. Half the camp feared her and the other admired her tenacity.
Nico would never be that persistent. Selfless. But he’d always known it would be her to save someone. She’d been the one to first suspect Luke, Alabaster and Silena. She’d strangled half their army in the first war. She’d been the first Ambassador to Pluto while he’d been running clueless around the Labyrinth, being manipulated by a ghost. Jason would hate him. Nico let her die.
When she’d defied father’s wishes to keep us in there. When she’d made friends by herself and faced a Chimera and lost a finger and grown too old in two years and could tell enemies apart and had been trained by Gods who wouldn’t come to care for him.
He was the least wanted. He could count on one hand the amount of people alive who wanted him around.
Percy. She loved his blue cake and cookies with a sentimental smile, amused and tiredly accepting all at once.
Jason. He probably thinks I’m disgusting for liking boys. That I’m weak and– a–and… I let the first cousin he knew and loved die.
Annabeth. She was best friends with Annabeth’s siblings. They’d blame me. She’d blame me. She’d loathe me if she knew id liked Percy.
Reyna. Probably thought he was weak without Ivy helping him. Reyna never had to give her energy. They’d been friends before she’d brought Nico there out of pity.
Gardner… Katie. Katie Gardner and the Demeter cabin would be mourning her best friend and their avid gardener. Because of her relationship with Persephone. Persephone never cursed her like she did to me.
The Ares cabin fiercely loved her, nominating her their honorary sibling, the only person closely surpassing Percy sometimes. Aphrodite’s adored dragging her out on shopping sprees. Or maybe just her disgruntled face, knowing she’d be going to their spa day to release the stress and smooth the crinkles. She was the only one who could put Drew in line after she became cabin counsellor. They might’ve just wanted to infect pink into her all-black ensemble. She’d say it was a Hades thing.
Nico laughed roughly, the back of his head hitting a log he was leaning against? The sound bubbled up from his chest, bitter and sardonic. It tasted like ash in the back of his throat, drying the saliva uprooting the stem of nausea bundled viper tight.
Artemis’ Hunters and Thalia.
Athena’s cabin who she struck up afternoon long debates of defensive strategies and manoeuvres.
Dionysus, who she suggested winning pinochle moves and talked therapy and slowly healing with Pollux over breakfast every day after the war, slipping away to find Alice Lockwood to join him at his empty table.
She helped the Hecate cabin build and played both sides of the Hecate and Hermes cabin prank war to smooth the allegations after the few Hecate kids alive gave themselves in and joined camp. Always the ambassador. Annabeth and Malcom would say it was unrequired chaos.
She’d been the one to shadow travel him out of Tartarus when the Nyx had given them in to the giant twins. She’d sustained on the pomegranate seeds while he’d let the seven vote on her life. Like she wasn’t the most beloved child of the big three.
He’d gotten distrusting stares and she’d gotten disbelief, disgust and sorrowful looks.
She’d saved him by side shadow travelling the Athena Parthenon, no matter what Annabeth had insisted about three people. Shadows were always her thing. They clung to her like the dead favoured Nico and jewels sprung up for Hazel.
Cursed. Like him. To the Fates, he was always going to end up the last di Angelo. The third; middle child or youngest if you counted before or after the Lotus Hotel. The third, last to die and smallest, weakestwhen Ivy had finally gotten him and Bianca out.
It was his fault and his fault and why was he so incredibly stupid? He should’ve known better than to let his guard down. Ivy would never.
“Nico? Nico!”
Leo. Ivy talked to him a lot while he was building the Argo II. He was dead, even if it felt weird. She would know if she was here.
Draco and Luna. She’d never go to their graduation. How would they even get back to school without her to ferry them across the ocean?
Nico couldn’t go that far and back without dissolving. Summoning skeletons wouldn’t help, what could an undead pilot or navigator do when he’s a child of the big three?
His throat felt tight, heavy with the unbelievable weight he had to carry. No one of laugh over paperwork with. To cry and be held by about not fitting in and death. IcebleedinglyIceCold hands wrapping around him. She was always ice compared to his chill.
“For gods sake, Nico.”
Nico. di Angelo. Neeks.
Edera di Angelo. ‘Dera. Ivy.
She knew he hated that nickname. She’d hated hers after their older sister’s death. She and Bianca were the strongest ones. He was the awkward middle one with no self-control. She’d grinned reassuringly at him even as he blinked hazily up at her, confused why he’d never noticed the grey streak in her hair. She was always a good at pretending and lying. Sometime in the long gap between being dropped off at the military school and her saving him from a dracaena in the fight at Zeus’ fist.
Slightly greyish like Percy’s and Annabeth’s. But Annabeth’s rippled and shimmered slightly, strengthening when Lou Ellen, Jamal or another Hecate kid was around.
Percy never noticed, and neither Annabeth nor anyone else had the heart to tell him and break the questionably strong Mist glamour. Ivy knew why though. So did her her friends and Hecate’s knew.
Had it started turning white when they’d got to Tartarus? Was it the green-red smoke and lighting that hid the change, or was it when she’d been in the bronze jar, and he’d been safe safe safe in the middle of the ocean, trying to bargain between lives.
His fault Annabeth and Percy had fallen in. Ivy would’ve rather her own death. He should’ve known to choose right.
He was weak and selfish to not want to choose it even now.
She was gone anyways; he should be dead too instead of the last one standing. The least deserving of life.
Was the white when she got out? Or maybe the close proximity to hell again when they’d gone to the House of Hades. He shouldn’t have let her come with us.
When had the single grey white streak spread out in salt and pepper speckles, grey hairs blending it into her neat black braid.
She should have been healing instead of wearing herself thin in the House and with the Athena Parthenos and werewolves and warning the camp.
She wouldn’t have been tired. She could have been safe at camp, rested and ready to fight.
She would be alive.
Nico couldn’t close his eyes.
Not when all he saw was Hazel’s bright gold eyes shining with tears. Ivy’s snapped body curled around a bleeding redredred wound and he was untouched. Milky eyes and a black sword lost in the attacking flurry of thickpressingdowndowndown gold dust. Why had the returning runes in her daggers failed? It wasn’t Lou Ellen’s fault. Ivy would blame herself; the runes were experimental, un–trustable and re–carved in a rush after being there.
The hundred eery purple-white eyes watching him as Nyx leered over him. When she’d found Ivy, pulling her out and lacerating her chest with her own darkness. Her eyes rolling up and her head falling back as Nico was pulled by coldandblackandwhisperingshadows. When he fell and she wasn’t okay and it had been his idea for them to go there. He should’ve listened to her. She knew what was too much and too far. She knew limits she wasn’t ambitious she played safe. She knew they didn’t have to prove anything to anyone. They were children of the Big Three still alive.
She was dead.
And all he could see was the hole in his chest she had broken and left empty.
He’d have to do the burial rites alone. He knew that wasn’t the important thing, but it distracted him from the thought that he’d be alone in the vampire cabin.
He didn’t have any friends. Everyone looked at him and saw the ten-year-old turned fourteen who’d appeared a storm ridden afternoon and befriended half the alive campers. Someone who’d refused to spar with Luke Castellan with a knowing smile but single handed put down all the older Ares campers at once. Someone who’d convinced her father to save Sally Jackson, chaperoned long term quests when she was eleven, held the sky, fought in the Battle of the Labyrinth and become the Ambassador of Pluto. Who convinced Persephone to follow her to the Titan War, swaying Hades and Demeter in lieu.
Who’d searched for Percy before he’d turned up at Camp Jupiter and tipped off nature spirits about demigods she found. Who’d fallen into Tartarus unwillingly but unable to let Nico go alone. Who defied the laws and gotten him out. Killed the whole pack of werewolves and brought the trio back.
Who dieddieddieddeaddeaddeadandgone.
And Nico was at step one again. In the leading up to the Labyrinth, when he was alone. Alone at camp during Bianca’s quest. Alone when he’d run away.
And it hurt.
But Ivy was always there.
He couldn’t bare going to the Underworld to see. Elysian. Rebirth.
Maybe Hades had made her a permanent fixture in the palace. Maybe she had a job as important as she should have. Important. Like he wasn’t.
Nico was tired. No, he was emptily tired. Absolutely drained. A thought rose in his head and he snorted dryly. It scratched werewolf claws on the sides of his lungs, causing him to double over coughing. He wasn’t sure how it happened, when it happened, but he started laughing. Manic, he was sure. Certain. Unstable.
When the exhaustion quietened him, and the throbbing in his chest drowned out the noise, his head hung to the side. Where was his sword? He blinked slowly, as if he’d had melanie– melatones? Something like that. He looked around, sitting up and letting his legs kick at the stones around the fire. It flickered, embers smouldering low and deathly dark. Where was it? Panic started to pierce at him through the reassurance. No no, no no no.
“Neeks?” Someone stopped beside him. Why were they here? They cast a sharply monster like shadow across his firelit slumped body. Shadows. No, don’t think about that. “Nico, hey Nico come on.” Annoyance cut into their voice as they kneeled beside him. Annoyance. Of course they’d be annoyed with him. Someone reached out and grasped his shoulder. He squirmed away, growling as darkness reached for them and ice cold hit him square in the chest.
They let go, jumping back. He looked down, staring down at the ten ghostly pale fingers that were supposed to go with nine olive fingers and ten beautifully alive perfect bronze-brown skin. Right. He was broken, no control on his powers.
As a disappointment– she’d never be disappointed with him he deserved to not be able to close his eyes. His hands weren’t scarred or callused to prove his determination. All his scars were pale white from mortal means than proper demigod dangers that made shimmering gold scars that didn’t look pretty but ugly and unfitting on his skin. He shouldn’t be able to close his eyes or sleep. Even at the exhaustion wearing on his composure, the sleep gnawing at him, he rightfully was trapped in his own body.
He wasn’t the di Angelo to stubbornly extend her powers towards Hazel’s. She hadn’t given up until she’d almost fainted. If she had, he would’ve been in that jar too. Trapped. Like he was now. He should’ve been there. He was due to carry the pain. She’d been the one to converse casually but respectfully with not one but four gods. To receive blessings. To be the Ambassador and right hand to the king and queen of the Underworld. To do favours for Thanatos in her spare time. She was good.
He… He was broken.
Inside him, was a twisted, gruelling laughable caricature of a hole that had rotted around the edges and grown spiky thorns around it. But the vines couldn’t patch it up. No, there were no roses, no matter how dead or decaying as the edges of his wounds were. There was cursed gold blood leaking down his dark blood-red heart. The surface was shattered glass, discarded and lost in his mind.
Inside him, he’d lost hope. Properly. Not the half belief he’d had after Bianca had died, or when he’d been breathingbreathing and they wouldn’t listen and they had to save her. Now, the splintered pieces were truly shattered and fallen to hell.
When he opened his mouth, his words were calculated, messy and automated in the only way he knew.
“I– I’m never going t–…” He cut himself off a strangled sound, the thought slicing through his hazy state.
They were never going to travel to every country. He’d be taking over all the Ambassador duties. They’d be no real tie to either camp to keep him there. She’d never turn eighteen and survive and join the Hunters. She wouldn’t be there at his next birthday, or Bianca’s anniversary or his own funeral. Wouldn't wear her laurels of shifting black, silver and deep hunter greens. She wouldn’t be the one doing his burial rites and sewing his shroud with neat impeccable stitches.
Thin black mesh with Hades’ symbol of a cornucopia and a smattering of ink stars.
They hadn’t found her body.
She was lost to all but the shadows, her corpse packed six feet under earth and wet soil after an overnight rain and The Hunter, glittering miles above. Crisp, biting cold and coated in the smell of pomegranates and ash, her golden scars joined by an asterix at her centre, finality tied down with one last shimmering marking of her labour to the Gods, of their failure to the heroes who fall. Past. Present. Of future.
She'd never reach the stars. The Hunter looked down, a mockery. A memory set in stone of how the Gods could feel.
But she wasn't there. Because they'd choose ignorance a thousand years over.