Gods, he hates the rain.
Actually, he's never really been fond of any weather. Rain, snow, sleet, hail, overcast, scattered thunderstorms, partly cloudy, clear skies, it doesn't matter. Back when he was a little kid, four or five, he was scared shitless of thunderstorms. At least, that's what Bianca used to tell him.
He doesn't know how Bianca remembered that, though, since he can't recall anything before he was ten. Before he got out of that damned casino in Vegas, in other words, his mind is a blank. Sometimes he thinks that he can capture some shred of memory, but then it leaves as quickly as it came, and even if he does manage to grasp it momentarily, it's always blurry and fuzzy and unclear. It's more than frustrating, having ten years of your life just wiped away.
Of course, that was years ago. Things have changed since then.
Everything has changed since then.
There might be a Hades cabin at Camp Half Blood now, but he knows that he's still not entirely welcome there. Show up with an army of the dead and save the day and suddenly you're everyone's best friend, right? Not exactly. Maybe for a few hours, maybe for a couple days, he felt like he belonged somewhere for the first time since Percy came back from that damned quest and told him that his sister was dead.
But that was years ago, too.
He glances up towards the thick, heavy purple-black clouds and frowns, as if the force of his bad mood alone can stop the storm in its tracks. He knows it's useless, though; as the son of Hades, weather has never really been his forte. Sure, summon an army of skeletons, no problem. Travel to China in the blink of an eye, piece of cake. Weather, though? Well, maybe what's-her-name, that Hunter girl Thalia, maybe she can, but Nico definitely can't.
Just thinking of the Hunters sends the familiar pain through his chest, and he flinches a little, trying to banish the thoughts from his mind. It's been almost six years now, though it feels like much longer, since Bianca died, and he still can't let go of the pain.
She was his sister, after all. Of course he fucking misses her.
A few people begin to duck inside of the buildings lining the streets to get away from the rain, while others walk steadily on, as if this is a light sprinkle instead of a heavy downpour. Within seconds, his shirt is soaked, clinging to his skin, and he just stands there, staring up at the sky in a half-assed act of defiance that even he realizes is stupid. It's not going to stop raining just because he's pissed off. The storm isn't going to go away just because he's in a shitty mood.
It occurred to him a long, long time ago that there's no such thing as a happy ending. Eventually, everyone is going to die, and most of them are going to go to the Underworld and probably just stand around in that dead grass dotted by those twisted black trees for all of eternity. And maybe if they're really lucky, they get to hang around a bunch of other really lucky people for the rest of forever. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?
Or maybe there's just no such thing as a happy ending for him, because even the thought of going to the place Christians call heaven, surrounded by all those other people, is enough to make his skin crawl.
You see, being the son of Death and all, Nico isn't exactly a people person. In fact, his social skills are the equivalent to those of a dead slug, or maybe cement block. He just doesn't interact well with the living. He always says the wrong thing, does the wrong thing, freaks someone out, and either way, he gets pissed off way too easily to hang around them for too long.
He knows that, if he wanted to go back to Camp Half Blood, they'd welcome him. Or, at least, they'd make an effort to, because gods know he doesn't make it easy for them. He's always in a bad mood, always short-tempered, always pissed off about something, and he keeps to himself most of the time, hidden in the shadows and waiting for his chance to escape again, back into the real world that is oh so welcoming at the moment.
Yeah, that's a good idea.
If he actually tries, he can be a pretty decent person. He does have a sense of humor, actually, and contrary to popular belief, he can smile. He might even laugh if you catch him in the right mood. The problem, of course, is that he's hardly ever in the right mood.
No, the problem is that he keeps himself so far away, so removed from everyone else. He builds up wall after wall, protecting himself, barricaded himself, hiding himself. Truth be told, no one knows the real Nico di Angelo, least of all Nico himself.
So he stays away. He keeps to the shadows and the darkness and the world of the dead, always making sure that he doesn't stay too long among the living, because he knows that if he does, he'll start to let his guard down. He might begin to think that maybe it's not all that bad, that maybe he isn't completely hopeless after all, and maybe he'll start to trust again. Maybe he'll talk to someone and laugh with someone and smile with someone and let himself pretend to be normal, pretend to be human.
And then he'll just get hurt again, because that's the way the world is.
No one ever says that life is fair.
He doesn't know why he came back to New York City. He doesn't know why he's standing there on the streets, getting soaked to the bone by icy cold rain and about three seconds away from shivering himself to death, because truth be told, he's freezing.
He sighs and closes his eyes, letting the rain pour down on him. He wants to see if he can outlast the storm.