A/N: I was in he middle of reading the newest book "The Lost Hero" when the thought struck me, I love Nico and Thalia together! Yes, this is based off of the FIFTH book after the war :).
... enjoy...
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
"You did what!" Nico hissed into a jet black cell phone as they he approached the camp in a long black limousine. The driver, which was nothing more than an automaton he had found and had gotten it fixed up, jumped slightly as it's bronze mouth twitched.
"Why, I repeat- WHY would you do that Percy? There's no way-" He was interrupted by Annabeth who was yelling through the phone to get his butt down there. Nico grimaced and held the phone away from his ear. The phone flailed in his fingers as he listened to Percy fighting to get his phone back, protesting that his father gave it to him for Christmas.
His dark eyes rolled nonchalantly as he listened to them squabble like they always used to with names rapidly being fired back and forth. "Seaweed brain" and "Smart girl" were used in nearly ever sentence, which made Nico grow irritated.
As he continued to listen, he straightened his black dress pants and strapped his black sword over his chest. Nico was dressed formal- a full suit and a black skinny tie with skulls printed all over it. Black aviators shielded his eyes and merely reflected things like a mirror, despite the time of day- which was night time; seven o'clock to be precise.
"Not to be rude," Nico sighed. "But I'm hanging up; I'll see you two there." He heard Percy yell a muffled "wait!" just before he ended the call by shutting the phone. "Stop here." The vehicle suddenly came to a halt as Nico sat down the phone on the seat next to him. "You are free to leave; I'll be staying here for a while. Thank you for your services."
The moment Nico stepped out of the limo, it collapsed into dust and eventually faded into the ground. He stood there staring at where the limo once stood before spinning on his heels towards the camp. Every light in the camp was lit up and fireworks were set off in the sky by the Hermes kids who were snickering in the distance for setting the big house on fire, which was immediately put out by Chiron before they were scolded and forced back to their cabin.
The merry songs of the half-bloods rang out over the hills, laughter filled the air and the trails were all filled with chattering demigods. There were those few couples that decided to go on a stroll down the beach or around the strawberry fields; it could almost make him smile- almost. Nico yawned and passed through the barrier as he gave a nod off to the dragon guarding the tree. He quickly tossed a treat from his pocket, which was quickly devoured and was returned with a low growl.
As he made his way into camp; several campers attempted to greet him, which were all returned with a mere "hello" or grunt before he'd continued without another thought. Nico eventually made it to the dining pavilion. He was greeted by Percy, Annabeth, Tyson and a giggling Rachel at the door. Percy had a purple bruise under his right eye and what looked like claw marks on his cheeks as he muttered his hello. Rachel had to cover her mouth in order not to laugh as she recalled the scene that played out only moments ago.
"Shall we go sir Seaweed brain?" Annabeth smirked as she let out her arm. Percy's expression instantly became softer and he took her arm. "We're going to be late for our own party at this rate..."
"Let's just go in; we'll discuss our deal with Nico in there." Percy then pushed open the door to the dining pavilion and allowed them to walk in. Nico couldn't help but scowl as his "deal" was brought up again.
Tyson was called up to the stage a few seconds later for some help with some technical difficulties with the lights, fog, stage, dance floor, microphones and just about everything else. The place was already packed and the DJ from the Apollo cabin was cranking the tunes despite only one stereo working.
"Oh yeah, isn't Percy making you sing or something, Nico?" Rachel couldn't help but giggle as they reached the punch table Nico frowned and removed his aviators, revealing his angered dark eyes.
"He wants me to, but I don't want to," Nico muttered as he turned to get a glass of punch. "- and then he somehow got Annabeth to go along with it..." The blonde frowned and folded her arms over her chest, which was covered with a knee-high dark-blue dress with no straps what so ever.
"Come on; we defeated freaking Kronos for the Gods sake," Annabeth groaned. "Can you at least do this one small thing? It's just for our entertainment, geez."
"What a cruel way to entertain one's self..." he muttered after taking a sip of the punch.
"Just do it," Percy sighed. He too wore formal-ware, except a black tuxedo with a trident emblem on his breast pocket. Rachel just wore what she normally wore; ripped up blue jeans with writing and doodles with a tie-dye shirt and a red hoodie over that.
"Er, no, sorry."
"Why not Nico?" Rachel whined. "I'm a go Oracle on yo ass if you don't!" He raised an eyebrow, along with everyone else as they all turned to stare at her. "-er, never mind..."
Nico shook it off, and shook his head no. "Just- Just because! I'm no good at singing so I won't do it!"
"Just do it, Nico," a voice sighed from behind. His face instantly turned a dark shade of crimson as a warm breath was felt on his neck. Nico stiffened and quickly turned around, only to come face to face with the daughter of Zeus-Thalia Grace. "You okay there, Nico? You look a bit like a tomato..." She removed her leather jacket and revealed a sparkling black dress that went just above her knees. Her dress had two spaghetti-straps that had kept it up.
"A-Ah, yes!" Nico stuttered as he backed into Annabeth. "I'm fine, just a- just a little chilly!" The blonde half-blood stopped Nico from backing up any farther and probably running into her by setting her hands on his shoulders.
"Is something the matter, Nico?" Annabeth whispered with a concerned look.
"Maybe he should get himself checked out at the big house," Rachel suggested as she walked over to him.
"Why would you do that? He looks-" Percy winced as he was elbowed in the ribs, even if he couldn't feel it... "Annabeth..." he growled, only to have a finger put to his lips, which were replaced with her own lips. She winked at Rachel as if to say "how to get a guy to shut up 101"; she received a mixture of a giggle and a cheeky smile in return.
By the time they pulled away, Percy's face was beat red and Annabeth just smiled. But Rachel didn't have the same expression as she awkwardly pointed at Nico storming away. "Nico!" Annabeth and Percy yelled in unison. "Get back here!" They both were about to start running after them when they both turned to each other and yelled, "Stop that! Seaweed brain- Smart girl! I said STOP!"
"Wow, did you guys practice or something?" Thalia wondered as she sipped a glass of punch a little too casually.
"We did NOT! Stop that!" they both screamed, and soon had the attention of the whole camp. Tyson was loudly rooting for Percy in the corner of the room.
"Look," Annabeth sighed as she turned toward Thalia. "Nico's leaving before he sings- which is not very nice; can you...? Percy, apparently, needs a talk and Rachel was called to the big house a moment ago." Rachel then nodded and made her way out in the opposite direction.
"Yeah, I'm on it," Thalia huffed before setting down her class and taking off into the crowd of demigods. She slithered through as quickly as she could, but the Hypnos kids gave her a drowsy feeling when she passed by. Thalia shook it off and continued to run.
"Hey!" Thalia yelled once she caught up with Nico. By that time, he was just a footstep out the door. She grabbed his shoulder and yanked him until he looked at her. He folded his arms and frowned with the word "what?" written all over his face. "Come on, Nico; I bet you're really good at singing, just go up there, okay?" His eyebrow raised and he attempted to turn back around and continue, but Thalia's steel clamp of a hand kept him in place. "Do it for me?" she sighed.
Nico stayed silent for a few moments before just brushing off Thalia and walking inside, his face beat red; but luckily Thalia didn't notice. "That kid is strange..." she muttered, frowning. Thalia shook it off and followed him up to the large stage where the Hephaestus kids were connecting the last few chords. The two were greeted by Tyson who hugged them both until it felt like they were crushed by a rock five times over.
"Uh, hey," Thalia greeted. Nico greeted in a similar fashion, but instead made his way onto the stage.
"Thalia! Nico!" Tyson chuckled with glee before he turned back to fixing a few stray wires. "Tyson miss you guys!" Thalia smiled the best she could while she was being suffocated before she was released. She smiled and paid her respects to Tyson before she began to head back to the others.
By the time she had returned to the punch table, the place was a whole lot crowded and Percy and Annabeth had seemed to have expected. "So, what happened?" Annabeth asked almost immediately. Thalia returned her question with a smile and a thumbs up.
"He's on the stage right now," she informed happily. The young Hunter then turned towards Percy who was glaring at the wall about forty yards in front of him as if he were trying to burn a whole through it. He look... troubled, Thalia had told herself. "Something wrong, Percy?" Annabeth blinked and too turned towards her suddenly "ticked off" boyfriend.
"It's something with Nico..." he muttered after what seemed to be an eternity of silence between the three. "I can't place my finger on it, but something's up with him..." Annabeth's lip twitched into a nervous smile, which neither of her other two friends noticed.
'I can't believe neither of them figured it out yet,' the blonde murmured to herself as if it were obvious. "No, he's fine; he, uh, phoned me before you called him and told me he had a bit of a cold, you see?" Percy's eyes widened in realization and Annabeth winced at the thought of him exposing her.
"I get it now!" Percy said loud enough for the Hypnos kids to blink awake from their naps, only to fall back asleep moments later. Annabeth frowned and began to think up a cover-up story. "No wonder the line was busy!"
Thalia didn't look so sure and stared awkwardly at Annabeth before turning her gaze back towards the stage. Annabeth took a moment to sigh in relief and thank the gods that she had such an oblivious boyfriend at times; but she figured Thalia was clueless as well.
The three grew silent as they watched the stage intently. Nico stood in front of the microphone with his suit jacket gone. His white dress- shirt underneath was unbuttoned all the way and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows with a black shirt underneath- skulls printed all over it along with the word "death" but his tie remained.
Nico inhaled deeply and covered the mic with his hand before turning to the guy he knew as Will Solace, who was helping out the Apollo cabin drummer. "So, uh, what exactly am I supposed to sing? Any certain genre?"
"Huh?" Will said as he turned towards the death child. "Oh, just anything that, you know, represents or represented the Titan war, or our lives in general; just name the song and I'll bet you five bucks we'd know it." Nico knew just the song- it was the only song that he could really connect with.
He smiled half-heartedly and his voice grew into a murmur as he whispered the song title into Will's ear. The blonde boy nodded with a bright smile printed onto his bright face. "Sounds good." Will then turned to the rest of the Apollo campers to inform them of the plan.
As he did that, Nico had removed his hand from the microphone and began to prompt the chattering campers on the situation. "As you all should know, this is the celebration of the Titan's defeat-" Nico paused as the crowd of campers roared with applause and cheers. "Well, to open such an honorable occasion, I've been asked to sing the first song by an anonymous camper." He couldn't help but glare at a smirking Percy. "Hit it..." he whispered so only the band could possibly hear him. The lights dimmed suddenly and a video was projected onto the screen several feet above their heads.
The song began with a metso-piano guitar solo as a well-crafted video of the half-blood's many heroic deeds played on the screen; it looked professional with all of the effects. The screen flickered with scenes of abandoned battlefields as the mini-guitar solo ensued.
Nico took in a deep breath and began to breathe out the lyrics. "We are young, we have heart- born in this world as it all falls apart. We are strong, we don't belong- born in this world as it all falls apart..." As Nico sang surprisingly good into the microphone, the instruments picked up speed onto forté and the videos flickering across the screen transformed into massive fighting scenes; the ones that were highlighted was Percy's battle against Kronos, the battle against Atlas, a few between Luke, and Percy and major fighting scenes during the Titan war.
Once it stopped, the guitar solo ensued yet again. Jaws dropped throughout the audience, despite the small sample of his musical talents. Thalia and Annabeth even looked slightly impressed.
"Who knew he could sing..." Percy commented as his mouth slowly formed into a smile. "The little jerk has been holding out on us, huh?" Thalia smiled at his comment and continued to watch in silence.
As the song progressed, campers began pointing out each other as they noticed the videos of them on their quests or winning a game of capture the flag.
"I wonder how we obtained this footage..." Thalia pondered aloud. Annabeth seemed to immediately have an answer.
"The gods document every moment of every demigod's life without even being aware of it; it's like stored in their sub-conscious brain and they are able to remove those memories at will and shape them into a memory-storing device," Annabeth tried to explain. She giggled once she had gotten a weird look from Thalia. "No, they're not stalking us or anything." Thalia laughed loudly, who was joined by Annabeth and Percy.
Nico ended a few minutes later with the last scene on the screen; it was of demigods working to rebuild Olympus after the Titan war. It gave Thalia a warm feeling in the pit of her stomach. The crowd was roaring with applause a few minutes later, but Nico exited off of the stage anyways; he couldn't wait to get out of there from the looks of it.
"Let's give it up for the son of Hades, Nico Di Angelo, who sung "Young" by Hollywood Undead!" Will yelled into the microphone before the crowd would start to get slightly confused at the sudden silence. "Next we have Connor and Travis Stoll singing "What do You want from Me?" by Forever the Sickest Kids!" The crowd seemed excited and a few dozen entered the dancing floor; apparently this was a nice song to dance to.
The Stoll brothers entered the stage in scorched pink pants, blue pin- striped shirts and black ties. Travis held a red Fender guitar, he probably stole, as they stood on stage. "Let's do this!" the brothers both cued the band in unison.
"I don't wanna waste my time again by getting wasted with so called friends," Travis sung with a smirk.
"'Cause they don't know me," they both sang at the same time.
"-but they pretend to be part of my social scenery." Connor added.
The crowd of demigods were nearly all on their feet and on the dance floor, jamming out to the up-beat song; even Annabeth pulled Percy onto the dance floor who claimed to have had two left feet. Thalia laughed as she waved at them.
"Have fun!" Thalia called as she waved. The Hunters even dashed past her, all in the same dresses, mind you, all wanting to just get on the dance floor. She giggled, but kept it quiet. Once they were lost in the crowd, Thalia quickly walked towards the door; she had to find Nico and find out what's up.
She searched the whole dining pavilion with no luck. Thalia sighed and made her way outside; that's the only other place he could possibly be. Sure as heck, he was standing outside, but near the Zeus cabin, which Thalia found slightly strange. He was just standing there silently. Thalia thought about what was running through his head as she approached quietly in the shadows.
Once she was close enough, she noticed he wasn't just staring into space- but directly at the night sky and the stars that littered it. He seemed to be staring at a constellation. Thalia paused and thought about leaving him alone, but she went through with continuing towards him anyways.
"Hey," Thalia said sheepishly as she walked up from behind him. He didn't look surprised by the least bit and merely turned his dark eyes to look at the hunter. Once she didn't get a response, she took it as her cue to continue.
"So what are you doing out here? It's getting kind of cold and the party's inside," Thalia asked as she set her hands on her hips firmly. Her slightly pale skin glimmered in the moonlight and her black hair was even more stunning as it reflected the illuminosity of the moon.
Nico returned his gaze to the sky and sat down on the ground quietly. Apparently, he had also put back on his suit jacket and buttoned up his dress-shirt. Thalia frowned after getting no answer and nearly asked him again, but he interrupted her. "I was never really found of being around large groups of people..." he sighed. "It makes me feel... I don't know, uncomfortable I guess."
"But you shouldn't! We're all you're friends in there, right skeleton boy?" Thalia tried to convince with an eager smile. Nico blinked confusingly at the mention of a new nickname, but it didn't really surprise him- his appearance made him sometimes look like a skeleton.
"Skeleton boy, huh?" he muttered mainly to himself before shifting his gaze back towards Thalia with a blank look. "You don't get it, you never will. I'm the son of Hades, the son of the guy who was thrown out and banished from Olympus; do you really think anyone would like me as a friend? Especially you of all people."
"I didn't know you felt that way, but why me?" Thalia added as she took a seat next to him and hugged her knees to her chest. "We really don't talk to each other all that much, do we?"
"No one knew I felt that way; I guess I'm just holding a grudge for my father, which is said to be my fatal flaw. You see, your father- Zeus- was the one that ordered my father out of Olympus and they have had this rivalry thing for millennia; I wouldn't think you'd like me of all people since you are, you know, the daughter of Zeus..." Nico explained before taking a deep breath. "But no, we do not speak very often..."
Thalia didn't speak afterwards as she studied his facial features. His eyes looked dark and murky and also empty, lifeless... blank. He too had pale skin and black hair, but he looked pretty thin for someone who has had a brush with death more than one time. His mouth was shaped into a half-smile, which slightly surprised Thalia; she didn't think a son of Hades could smile with watching someone die a painful death or something.
"Well..." Thalia murmured as she too turned her gaze towards the sky. "Is something wrong with you? You were acting a bit strange back there." She didn't feel like beating around the bush anymore and just came out and said it.
"I really don't know," Nico sighed nearly immediately. "I mean, I felt fine, why? Was I acting weird to you?" He knew he was lying, but it's not like he could tell her the truth, or else himself and her most of all would be in deep doo-doo.
"Uh, no, not at all; it was Percy, hehehe..." Thalia tried to save herself as she rubbed her neck. "I should be heading back, and you should too. But for your problem with finding it difficult to work with the other demigods, just answer this riddle, "What four letter word is the cause of most of the discord in the world, as well as most of the cooperation?" If you can answer that, the rest is easy." She gave him a quick pat on the back and got up to walk back to the dining pavilion, but stopped after her first couple of steps.
"And I told you that you'd have a nice voice," Thalia complimented with an added warm smile. "You sang great; you should really stop underestimating yourself." Nico could feel his cheeks burn and he instantly hid his face from her. She smiled one last time and continued back to the dining pavilion.
Nico frowned once he knew she was gone, but his cheeks remained red in a blush. What was she talking about? A four letter word that caused the most discord and most cooperation in the world? It was absurd. Or so he thought... He scratched his neck as he pulled out the grass around him; it just didn't make any sense.
But it was kind of hard to concentrate with the ground vibrating due to all of the music and fireworks that lit up the sky. "What did she mean?" Nico muttered as he laid back and folded his arms behind his neck.
A/N: There you have it ladies and gentlemen! Feel free to review :)
I like reviews, they inspire me to write more o.o… But thanks for reading, you deserve a cookie =D! Too bad I have none right now .… Ah well, should get back to updating my others =P.