Free Angel
Nico di Angelo had nothing left to lose.
Will was dead. And all because of him. If he hadn't run off, Will wouldn't have followed. And the monsters wouldn't have come. And Will wouldn't have died.
Hades, his father, refused to let him see Will's spirit before the hero moved onto the rebirth. He only had one more life before he achieved the Isles. Seeing Will would be detrimental to his health. To his improving grief.
Bullshit.
He didn't even have the chance to say goodbye.
His friends had their own lives. Their own worlds. And he wasn't part of them, no matter how much they insisted he was.
He was alone again.
It was funny how that it all came back down to this.
Him, a blade and a hollow heart.
He was crying. He wasn't sure why. Was it relief? Fear? Depression? It didn't make any sense. He wanted to die, right? He was fine with someone finding his body in a pool of blood. He didn't care that his friends would be upset. Possibly cry over his coffin. His shrine. He scoffed bitterly. And who would make that?
No-one loved a kid of Hades.
Too creepy.
Too powerful.
Outcast.
Always an outcast. Never part of the crowd.
Not once the heritage is discovered.
He tasted salt. The lingering taste dripped across his lips, rolled down his face as his vision became slowly blurry. Soon he wouldn't be able to see where he was aiming.
He couldn't survive it again.
It was a dagger. An easy enough weapon to come by in a camp full of demigods. Weapons were handed out like candy to children; never once did Chiron think of the consequences of so readily providing a way out.
He laughed bitterly. No.
They couldn't be suicidal. Self-harmers. Anorexic. Depressed.
Because they were half-god. And the half-god protected them from this right?
Wrong. Percy was self-harming.
Annabeth had PTSD.
Jason had been anorexic for a time.
Connor and Travis Stoll had both tried to take their own lives after the first war.
And he was suicidal.
He had met Thanatos, and it was an odd thing to think for him as he was so readily about to fall into Death's arms. The god did not wait beside you, for you to fall. You fell and he came to collect you as just another soul to send to the afterlife.
He closed his burning eyes for a few moments.
Stop dawdling.
Do it now. Whilst you still could.
His hands were shaking as he positioned the blade over his abdominal aorta, ready to sink into the skin and tear into the blood vessel.
One last breath.
He raised the dagger…
"Nico!"
He let out a small, gasping shriek of pain as the cold metal plunged deep. His vision narrowed slightly and he fell into arms.
They weren't Thanatos's. He knew that.
These were warmer. Desperate.
Alive.
"Nico what have you done?"
Percy. He could've laughed. How ironic was it that his first love was the one to hush him away to the Underworld? The thought amused him more than it should of.
"Nico! No- stay with me," Percy begged, "Don't close your eyes." He was shouting, "HELP! Somebody help! Come on Nico, don't give up on me- don't do this again…"
But Nico could barely hear. The world was spinning and merging and becoming so unreal.
It was Thanatos's cold whisper in his suddenly numb body that assured him of his death. He looked up at the god, who was giving him the saddest smile he had seen.
Percy was still screaming; clinging to his limp corpse.
"Are you ready Nico?"
Nico waited a few moments; searing the memory of his cabin, of Percy, into his mind forever. "Yes.
Nico di Angelo became exactly what his name implied.
A free angel.
