A/N: I WROTE ANOTHER ONE! BECAUSE I HAVE PROBLEMS! Hi guys! Here's the sequel to Stay, the fourth installment in my little series that seriously needs a name (if you have any suggestions, please give). You'll be happy to know that, unlike the other three, this one's actually a multi-chap, meaning no more confusing cliffhangers! Yay! Here's chapter one. I had a lot of fun writing it, so I hope you guys like reading it :D
By the way, the title of this fic came from Xmen: Days of Future Past because I was just reminded of it while writing and I was too lazy to think of a better title.
Please review!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter One
Hebe had warned him that it might be different than what he thought, but he didn't expect to dream.
The process itself felt like nothing once Hebe had set the whole thing up, just like falling asleep after a long day, where he was unconscious almost immediately.
And the dream was like nothing he'd ever experienced before. It wasn't a demigod dream, where he felt like he was really there, like he knew everything around him was actually happening. And it wasn't like what he'd heard human dreams were, where everything was surreal and impossible, and it felt like it was really happening, up until you woke up.
This dream wasn't like that. This dream was just memories.
Nico dreamt of monster fights, of accidental shadow travel trips to foreign countries, of his cousin, and his sister, and his friends. He dreamt of Hazel, and his fake funeral. Of all the mistakes he'd made, and of all the people he'd saved. He remembered a dream he'd had before, of a monster in a junkyard, of a stolen plan gone wrong. He saw a body, broken and bloody, lost among the wreckage, and just as his mind was closing in on Bianca's face-
He woke up in a cold sweat, in an unfamiliar bed, with a hand on his arm. Pale light filtered in from an open doorway, illuminating what looked like a standard New York apartment bedroom. Out of pure instinct, Nico jolted back and reached for a sword that wasn't there. His heart raced as he came to the realization that he was being attacked and he didn't have a weapon. However, about halfway through trying to get out of the bed and getting tangled up in the sheets in the process, Nico's brain slowed down and actually realized who it was next to him.
"Percy?" Nico gasped in surprise, breathing heavily as he tried to calm down.
His cousin, dressed in nothing but gray sweatpants and a pair of dark-rimmed Hipster glasses, knelt on the bed next to Nico, his hand still reaching out from when Nico had shoved it away. Percy's hair was cut shorter and less wild than Nico was used to, and his eyes were an even deeper green behind lenses. He frowned in concern at his younger cousin, making Nico's heart flutter annoyingly.
"Are you all right?" Percy asked softly, removing his outreached hand to run his fingers through his hair. "Sounds like you were having a pretty bad nightmare."
Nico stared at him in shock, trying to process what was happening. Percy Jackson, for whatever reason, was shirtless, in bed with him, acting like nightmares were even a thing to demigods. Nico tried to see through the Mist to see if this was a monster impersonating his cousin, but the veil refused to pull back. He could only see what was in front of him.
"Uh, y-yeah," he stammered, deciding to play along until he could figure out what the Hades was going on. "I was- I just- Bianca…"
"One of those, huh?" Percy asked sympathetically, giving Nico a small smile. "Well, don't worry. You're okay now. She's safe."
Nico wouldn't exactly call reincarnated so that he could never see her again "safe," but he understood the point Percy was trying to make. "Right," he muttered, nodding slowly. "Thanks, Perce."
Percy smirked and reached forward to ruffle Nico's hair. "No problem, kid. Now get some sleep, you've got school tomorrow."
As Percy stood up from the bed, Nico stared at him, trying to process his words. School?! Seriously, what was going on? What crazy, messed up universe could he have been sent to? Wherever he was, he went to school, he shared a bedroom with Percy Jackson, and his cousin wore glasses, for the gods' sakes! How could any of this ever make any sense?!
And that was when he realized just what was going on. Hebe had been trying to give him a childhood. Demigods didn't have childhoods.
Meaning… he wasn't a demigod anymore.
"Percy," he said quickly, praying to the gods that he was wrong.
His cousin turned around from where he'd been about to get into the other twin bed across the room. He'd taken his glasses off, making him look much more like the son of Poseidon Nico was used to, but he had to squint to see Nico from far away. "Yeah?" he asked.
"Your dad," Nico said, swallowing nervously. "What's his first name?"
Percy frowned in confusion. "Paul…" he said slowly. "Why?"
"And," Nico continued hesitantly. "And he's your… your real dad, right? He's not… I don't know, your stepdad or anything?"
"No…" Percy said, sounding worried. "No, he's my real dad. Why do you ask?"
Nico's breath turned shallow, his heart pounding, and he felt dizzy as his fears were confirmed. "N-no reason," he managed to say for Percy's sake. "Sorry. Goodnight."
He slowly lay back down in the bed and turned away from Percy, shaking slightly from the enormity of the situation.
Whatever the goddess had done… he was human now. His friends were human.
His whole world had changed in the blink of an eye.
Nico didn't sleep a wink that night. His mind was too active as it ran through all the possibilities of this new universe. It was terrifying to think about, a world without gods. He didn't know how to react.
Around three a.m. (at least his internal clock hadn't stopped working), Nico gave up on trying to sleep and climbed out of bed, careful not to wake Percy (although from the way his cousin was snoring, Nico doubted anything short of a hurricane would wake him up). Almost immediately, he stumbled back in shock and horror as he realized that, though he was wearing his usual skull-decorated black t-shirt, he wasn't wearing any pants.
Nico took a deep breath to calm down, then rifled through the dresser next to the bed (which he assumed was his) until he found a pair of dark jeans that would fit him. Once he was dressed, he looked around the bedroom, trying to find what he knew was there somewhere.
He was a human teenager. There was no way in Hades he didn't have a cell phone.
It wasn't long before Nico found the black smartphone in the top drawer of his nightstand. He pulled it out and slipped it into his back pocket, then left the bedroom, determined to get some answers.
If he was going to get through this, he had to trust someone with the truth. And he knew just who to trust.
Luckily for Nico, his phone didn't have a password, so he easily unlocked the device and opened his contacts. He started to scroll through them, but quickly got bored of seeing the names of people he didn't know (Aiden, Alexander, Amelia, Andrew, etc, etc, etc), and clicked the tiny H on the right side of the screen to skip down the list. Hazel's number was the first one there.
Nico had to call three times before Hazel actually picked up the phone. It was unreal how paranoid it made him to be using a cell phone three times in a row, but- as expected- no monsters attacked. He was safe.
"Nico?" his sister murmured sleepily when she finally answered the phone. "What's wrong?"
"I need your help," he said softly, just in case sound from the hallway carried into the bedroom. "I don't know what's going on, and you're the only one I can trust, so-"
Hazel groaned. "Nico, it's three in the morning. Call Bianca."
The line went dead.
Nico stood there frozen for a minute or two, staring into space and running Hazel's words through his head. There was no way… She couldn't… Right?
Swallowing nervously, Nico lowered the phone from his ear and looked back at his contacts. Third down in the B section, in between Barbara and Brittany (seriously, who were these people?) was the name Bianca.
Nico hesitated to call the number. What if it wasn't his sister? What if she'd died even earlier in this universe, and this was his childhood best friend or something who he'd befriended solely because she had the same name as his dead sister?
Before he could change his mind, he called Bianca.
The call almost immediately went to voicemail, since it was three in the morning and Bianca's phone probably wasn't on, but the custom voicemail message that played was all Nico needed.
"Hi, you've reached Bianca di Angelo at 646-555-3112. I can't take your call at the moment, so please leave a short message with your name and number, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a nice day! Oh, and if this is Nico, go to sleep."
Nico's heart skipped a beat when she said his name (apparently he did this 'call her in the middle of the night' thing a lot) but it was the confirmation he'd wanted.
His sister was alive.
An alarm went off no more than three hours later, and Nico snapped back into consciousness. He didn't remember falling asleep- his last memory was coming back to the bedroom and turning his phone off (just in case the signal could still attract monsters), then getting into bed to do some thinking.
Apparently, no thinking had gotten done.
The alarm stopped beeping as Percy got up, tossing a pillow at Nico's head as he passed on his way to the bathroom. "Time to get up, squirt," he called, not seeing that Nico had caught the pillow and was currently staring at his cousin in indignant surprise. "Your ride's here in twenty."
Nico sighed and sat up, pulling back the bed sheets to reveal he'd slept in his jeans. Not bothering to care, he climbed out of the bed and opened his dresser drawers, changing his shirt into a different black one, advertising a band he'd never heard of. He turned his phone back on and slipped it into his back pocket, then searched the closet until (thank the nonexistent gods) he found his aviator's jacket.
Shortly after he finished getting dressed, Percy came out of the bathroom wearing his glasses, with a toothbrush stuck in his mouth. (He still wasn't wearing a shirt. Nico tried not to stare at his chest.)
"Hey," Percy started to say, his voice muffled by the toothbrush, before noticing that Nico was pulling on his combat boots. "Oh. You're up. That was fast- I thought I was gonna have to bring out the water bucket this time."
Nico frowned up at his cousin. "Huh?"
Percy shook his head. "Never mind." He leaned back into the bathroom to spit into the sink and replace his toothbrush, then stepped into the bedroom, drying his face on a towel. "Hey, did you call Hazel last night? She texted me telling me to give you sleeping pills. Which, by the way, I'm not doing ever again."
Again? Nico dared to wonder. "Uh, yeah, I must've been sleepwalking," he lied.
Percy shrugged. "Okay. Anyway, since you're up, you want some breakfast? I got PopTarts."
Nico crinkled his nose. "Uh, no, I think I'm good."
"You sure?" Percy asked. "They're s'mores flavored."
"Really," Nico insisted. "I'm good."
His cousin shrugged. "Whatever. More for me." He winked at Nico, then left the room, heading towards the kitchen Nico had seen last night.
Nico finished zipping up his boots, then pulled out his phone, planning to figure out all he could about this new universe.
First, he checked his contacts. Among all the people he didn't know, he found the numbers of each of the Seven, plus Thalia, Grover, Reyna, and even Rachel Elizabeth Dare. It was reassuring to know that all the people he cared about in real life had carried over into this world, so he wouldn't have to go searching for them later on.
Next, he checked his calendar, just in case his human self had been nice enough to write out his entire schedule for Nico to memorize.
Turns out Human Nico was extremely OCD, because not only was his schedule there, but it was color coded.
According to his phone, it was a Tuesday, which meant he not only had school (with double math- who invented this torture?) but apparently had to work at "Seis's Garage" from 4-6. Then he was supposed to have dinner with Percy's parents (apparently that happened every night, though, so Nico wasn't sure why he even bothered to put it on the schedule every day, but it was helpful, so he didn't complain).
A few minutes later, the doorbell rang, so Nico put his phone away and joined Percy in the front hallway to see who it was.
"If you're a robber, I'm unarmed!" Percy called as he opened the door.
"You do know you'd totally be robbed right now if I were actually a robber, right?"
Nico's heart stopped at the sound of Bianca's voice. She was standing just outside the apartment door, wearing skinny jeans, a purple top under a brown leather jacket, and red Converses. She wasn't wearing the floppy green cap Nico was used to, but she'd cut her bangs so that they hung over one eye. She had a colorful messenger bag over her shoulder, and was wearing a diamond-stud nose ring and matching earrings. She looked nothing like the Bianca Nico remembered (not to mention she was four years older) but all in all, she was still his sister.
"I know, that's why I say it," Percy joked, grinning as Bianca rolled her eyes and stepped inside the apartment.
"Percy Jackson, I don't know how you got into college," she said as he closed the door.
"Well that depends on what you mean by 'got in'," Percy returned.
Bianca laughed (Nico's heart beat erratically), then turned to her brother and ruffled his hair with a smirk. "Morning, squirt!"
Nico leaped forward and wrapped his arms around his sister, hugging her tightly as he fought back tears.
"Hey," Bianca laughed, stepping back so she could look at Nico's face. "What's this? Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Nico managed. "I just… I love you."
Bianca frowned at him in concern, then glanced at Percy, who was eating a PopTart. He shrugged. "He's been acting weird all day," he told Bianca. "Nightmares."
She nodded and turned back to Nico, smoothing back his hair as he buried his face in her shoulder. "Is that why you called me last night? You couldn't sleep?"
Nico looked up at her. "Yeah. I mean, no, I was fine, I just… I wanted to tell you that I love you."
Bianca raised an eyebrow. "And that couldn't wait till morning?"
Nico shook his head, then continued hugging her.
His sister laughed and forcibly pushed him off of her. "Okay, well, I love you too, but we gotta go. Zoë'll kill me if I don't meet her on time today."
Zoë Nightshade was alive too? Did anyone die in this universe?
Nico nodded and grabbed the black backpack sitting by the door (he assumed it was his, and no one told him otherwise).
"Hey, I'll pick you up after work," Percy told him as he licked chocolate off his fingers. "Mom's making meatloaf, so eat at the garage."
Nico nodded. "Okay. See ya."
Bianca led the way into the hallway, and Nico followed.
"Are you sure you're okay?" she asked him as they descended the stairs. "I don't think you've told me you loved me since Mom died."
Nico's heart sank slightly (he should've assumed he was still motherless, but he hadn't wanted to), but he shrugged. "Well, I realized I should tell you more often. Besides, I really missed you. S-since yesterday, I mean," he hastily added when Bianca gave him an odd look.
His sister rolled her eyes and reached over to ruffle his hair again. "All right, squirt. Whatever makes you happy."
They exited the building and made their way to Bianca's car, a blue Volkswagen Beetle.
Bianca drove with one hand, and didn't object when Nico held her other one.
He could get used to this.
A/N: Yay sibling feels! I hope you liked the chapter. Please review and tell me what you think, and I'll try to update soon! :D
