She said one day to leave her, sand up to her shoulders waiting for the tide
to drag her to the ocean, to another sea's shore.
This thing hurts like hell,
but what did you expect?
And all you can hear is the sound of your own heart
And all you can feel is your lungs flood and the blood course
- Los Campesinos! The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future
Three days before they're laughing. He made a joke- he's laughing because he thinks it's funny and she's laughing because she knows it's not. She touches him affectionately on the shoulder and tells him not to quit his day job.
Two days before they make love. He whispers kisses down her body and touches her in all the right spots, telling stories with his lips, decorating her collarbone with pictures and turning her into a babbling mess. He smirks at the effect he has on her until she shows him what she can do and the smirk is wiped right off his face.
One day before he leaves. Just a standard monster killing, he says. She tries to convince him to let her go but his eyes flit to her leg, to the wound underneath, the consequence of all battles, unless you were invincible. He couldn't protect her and for some reason that makes it His Fault. She tries to hide the limp in her step but she can't hide from him.
She kisses him before he leaves and he whispers that he loves her. She gives him a warning: just because you're invincible doesn't mean you're Superman. That smirk again- you worry too much.
One last kiss. Say goodbye.
She worries. Of course she worries. But he knows what he's doing and he's invincible (exceptforthatspot) and he can't get hurt (exceptforthatspot) and besides, she's the only one who knows about it (butaccidentshappen).
He's late, but that's okay. He'll be alright. He always is.
But he isn't normally this late. But that's okay.
This is really pushing it though.
The doorbell rings. She jumps up, relief spreading through her heart, ready to give him a verbal lashing that will stick with him whenever he decides to worry her this much again.
It's not him at the door.
Something is wrong.
The boy at the door is taller and skinner. His hair is long and black and hangs in his face. He may or may not be handsome- it's hard to tell. He has a spacer in one of his ears and rings on his fingers. He looks like death. Smells like death. One might think he is death, but they would be wrong.
He's just his son.
"Annabeth-"
"Stop. Just stop."
He shakes his head. "There was nothing... it happened real fast, we didn't even... it was a fluke."
She leans against the doorframe, the entire weight of the world upon her shoulders. She would give anything to trade places with Atlas now- there's no way anything could be heavier than this.
She's falling. Nico's hands grip her, try to lift her up, but she concentrates on keeping all of her weight on the ground. Maybe she'll sink through, straight down, into the Underworld. Maybe Hades will be kind to her because she's friends with his son and let her through. Maybe he'll let her take him back, lead him home with a trail of nails and structural beams, lead him up, up, up, as long as she promises never to look back.
There are no tears.
There is no water left in her body.
There are many people at the funeral. He was a hero, he saved the day, he was a brave, outstanding, talented demi-god.
Nobody mentions that he was invincible.
Thalia cries. Nico clenches his fists until blood stained crescent moons appear in his palms. Chiron reads the eulogy as the crowd stares, stunned into silence over the man who wasn't supposed to be able to die.
She doesn't say a word, just runs over a million scenarios in her head where she tips the coffin over and shakes him, hits him, pours nectar and ambrosia down his throat until he wakes up. And when that doesn't work she just crawls into the coffin with him, curls up next to him as the cool dirt is piled on top of them and no one notices she's there.
She can't do any of that. Instead she just stares at his lifeless body and thinks of the wound in the small of his back, the fluke of a sword that brought the entire world crashing down.
Nico steps closer to her and she realizes that she's unbearably cold. He doesn't provide much warmth but he's better than the frozen corpse in the coffin.
She goes and sits by the water for three days.
She sits and stares out and imagines the world underneath, imagines his world, the one she never got to see. She had always been afraid that if she stepped in the water Poseidon would drown her, a no good Daughter of Athena. She fights the urge to dive in.
As she sits there, Poseidon almost takes pity on her. A few times the tide comes up to her feet and he debates pulling her in, because she looks so sad sitting there without his son. He thinks about ending all of this with a single wave and sending her down to be with him, but he doesn't. Instead he lets her sit there, because it's not his job and he doesn't need a war with Athena.
Thalia visits her once, but when Annabeth refuses to open her mouth she leaves. So do the others. They need to grieve too.
Nico stays a lot. He sits down next to her and doesn't say a word. Sometimes he cries. One time, he screamed nonstop for a really long time. Another time he buried his bottom half in the sand.
On the third day she speaks to him, voice cracking, words struggling to form on her tongue after lying motionless beside her heart.
"Am I dying?"
He swallows. "No."
"Are you dying?"
"No. Neither of us are dying."
"I'm cold."
It's summer.
"Come inside, Annabeth. I'll make you something to eat."
"It smells like him inside."
He flicks his hair out of his face. "I'll spray some perfume."
Nico doesn't know how to cook. He stands in the kitchen and stares into the fridge for three minutes as if waiting for something to materialize. Annabeth watches him struggle before she loses her patience and shoves him out of the kitchen.
"What do you want?"
He watches her bustle about. "Er, I'm not hungry."
She makes everything. She turns on the stove and shoves in chicken nuggets and lasagne and makes pasta on the stove, rice in the microwave, clears out her fridge and pantry and then collapses in a heap on the floor.
She stays there until the timer dings. Then she picks herself up and puts the food out on the table. The chicken nuggets are overcooked and the lasagne is undercooked, but the rice and the pasta looks fine.
"Eat."
He looks at her. "What would you have given me if I had said I was hungry?"
She sits down next to him and he pushes the pasta over. "When was the last time you ate something?"
"A bag of soggy chips washed up on shore."
He can't honestly tell if she's joking or not.
"Do me a favour and just eat, Annabeth, please."
She doesn't listen to him, she listens to the dull rumble in her stomach that's been screaming at her for the past few days. She chokes the pasta down her throat and throws it up right after.
Percy would have held her hair back, soothed her and rubbed her back. Nico hangs awkwardly around the doorframe, cringing as the contents of her stomach rise up.
When she's done puking she stares at him through her hair. He swallows.
"You need to go to bed, Annabeth."
She shakes her head, whispers. "I don't want to."
"You have to. You're overtired, you're not eating, you're all out of whack. You need to sleep."
She keeps on shaking her head, not stopping. He gently grabs her arm and half carries her to her bedroom.
"I'll sleep on the couch." She's adamant. He nods and lets go of her, watching as she gets a blanket and crawls onto the couch.
"Uhm... I'm gonna stay here tonight." Make sure you don't hang yourself. "Just to make sure you're alright."
She nods. Closes her eyes. Tries to convince herself there's no such thing as ghosts.
"Wake up, Annabeth."
She was hoping for a few blissful moments when she thought it was all a dream, but reality hits her immediately and she isn't surprised when she sees Nico looming over her, looking like the Grim Reaper come to take her away.
"What time is it?"
"Eleven-thirty."
She hasn't slept in till eleven-thirty in years. She sits up in a rush, head spinning. "Why did you let me sleep so late?"
"Late? I just woke up."
She rubs at her eyes, not quite sure what she's supposed to do. "Is there anymore rice?
He shakes his head. "Sorry... I got hungry last night."
"It's fine. I'm not very hungry anyway."
He doesn't believe her, but she's a grown woman and what else is he supposed to do about it?
Nico stays with her for the next few days. He makes sure she eats and sleeps and bathes and breathes. He pulls her out of the deep end and uses her as a life raft to make sure he doesn't get sucked in too.
A week later he tells her he's leaving.
"I have my own home, Annabeth. I need to grieve on my own. Will you be okay if I leave?"
"At least you asked."
He takes that as a yes.
That night when he goes home, he burrows under his blankets and cries. He misses him in a way that causes him pain, misses him so badly that he almost hates him for leaving.
The doorbell rings.
He didn't realize until he opened the door that he had been hoping it was her, until he saw her and relief spread through him.
"I can't... he's everywhere. And nowhere. He's everywhere and nowhere and I can't. Please."
"So... you want to..."
"Stay here. Please. I can't be there anymore."
He sighs as if his mind isn't already made up. "Yeah. Sure. Come in."
Annabeth is a good roommate. She cooks and cleans and pretty much leaves him alone. The only thing that bothers him is her silence. She only speaks if necessary.
She's been living with him for two and a half weeks when she comes into his bedroom at night. She climbs in next to him, underneath the blankets, pressing her cold feet in between his shins. That's what wakes him up.
"What are you doing?" He shifts away from her, to the other side of the bed.
"I was alone. Lonely, I guess. And cold. I'm always really cold."
"No, Annabeth. No. I won't... this isn't right. No. No."
"What do you think this means?"
He doesn't answer, doesn't look at her.
"This isn't anything. I'm tired. I'm alone. I'm cold. My husband is dead. This isn't anything."
This means nothing.
He lies back down, she follows, tucks her feet in curls up next to him hair everywhere. It's been a long time since another body has slept next to him and he doesn't know what to do with himself.
He tucks his face in her hair and pretends that she's right.
This means nothing.
She sleeps with him every night, now. After that first night she goes to his room whenever she's tired and eventually, after a lot of arguing with himself and tons of self-loathing, he'll climb in next to her. She shivers next to him, wrapped up in his limbs, and he'll try each night to convince himself this isn't the worst type of betrayal.
She still hasn't cried. Her eyes remain dry but her body droops in defeat, like she doesn't give a shit anymore. Like the thing that was holding her up, that made her walk with her head held high, has taken a vacation.
One time she pushes her nose into his chest and inhales. "You smell differently than him."
"I am different." He feels the need to clarify this to her because a lot of times he has the dreadful feeling that she doesn't realize it.
She ignores him. He thinks she might have gone to sleep.
She teaches him how to cook. It's a long and tiring process because he had been living on macaroni from a box and takeout and his incompetence in the kitchen is enough to make her head explode but she grits her teeth and bears it. She teaches him how to use his oven and the stove and how to dice and how not to cut his thumb open. He offers to make her dinner. He sends her out so he can surprise her.
He makes her macaroni from a box.
She almost smiles.
One day, a month after his death, she walks into the apartment with two paper bags filled with alcohol.
"Are we throwing a party?"
She shakes her head no. "I am getting drunk. Do you know I've only gotten drunk once before? He used to drink all the time. He always looked like he was having a good time but I never did it because I had to keep an eye on him. The only time I've ever gotten drunk was on my twenty-first birthday and the next morning I swore I'd never do it again."
He's stunned at the words flowing from her mouth. He had forgotten what it was like for her to really talk, to form words and sentences and paragraphs.
"But I wasn't really sure what to get so I just got things that sounded good. And vodka. I got a lot of that."
She sets it down on the table and nods at him. He takes this as an invitation and sits down to drink with her.
Annabeth is a lightweight. Nico is not. He throws back shots and she has the hiccups.
"This tastes- hic- awful."
"Then stop drinking."
She takes a shot and grimaces. Then she takes another one.
She reaches for a third and he stops her. "This shit will destroy you. Take it easy, Annabeth."
Pretty soon he's wasted, too. Annabeth has stopped drinking but she's still too drunk. She pushes her forehead against his shoulder and closes her eyes.
"Why did he die? Why do people have to die?"
Nico takes a drink, grimaces, closes his eyes. "People always 'spect me to know thanswer to that. 'Cause o' my dad n' all. I dunno. They just... do."
"But why?"
"'Cause if they didn't... the earth would overflow."
"That's a stupid reason for people to die."
"I'm sorry." He turns around to face her, leans his forehead onto hers. Her eyes stay closed. "I would bring him back if I could."
"Would you really?"
"Yeah."
She opens her eyes now, filled with grey tears. "Thank you."
"Anything for you."
She's too drunk to understand.
Annabeth passes out on the couch. Nico tucks her in and then collapses into bed with his clothes still on.
She wakes him up.
He isn't sure what time it is but everything is dark and his head is spinning, or maybe that's just the world. Annabeth's cold hands cup him around the neck and at first he thinks she's trying to strangle him. But then cold lips crash down onto his and he realizes it's much worse.
Her lips are wet and her breath smells like booze and her hands slip into his shirt. They freeze his skin, leave icicles. He understands that he should stop kissing her but he can't seem to convey the message to the rest of his body. Later, he'll blame it on the alcohol. For now he just grips her tightly to him, wraps his legs around hers and smothers her with his lips.
Somewhere in Elysium, a hero is cursing him.
"Stop."
"Why?"
"Because..." her hair in his face is extremely disconcerting. The smell drives him off topic. "I don't want you thinking of him. I don't want... you to use me."
She sits up, brings him with her. She has a grip on his collar and could drag him anywhere she wanted to go. "I'm not thinking about him."
"You're always thinking about him."
Her lips attack him again. "Not now. I know who you are. You're Nico."
He pushes her down. "Who am I?"
"Nico."
"Who?"
"Nico. Nico. Nico."
She keeps on repeating it, a steady rhythm, pounding against his heart again and again. Nico Nico Nico.
When he wakes up in the morning he has a massive hangover but everything else could pass for the same.
Except she's naked.
He looks at her for a few minutes, admiring the scars decorating her body. She's a brilliant fighter. Maybe if she had have been there that day things would have ended better.
She wakes up and sees him staring. He thinks she might yell but instead she runs into the bathroom and pukes. He follows after her, partly to make sure she's all right, and partly (mostly) because he wants to touch her again.
As she vomits he sweeps her hair back and holds it in one hand, rubbing his hand over her back in steady circles. He leans his head against her shoulder blade. She's sweating.
"I guess this was the reason you don't drink, huh?"
She turns to look at him. There's vomit at the side of her mouth that he wipes away with toilet paper. He throws it in the toilet and flushes.
The noise almost blocks out the sobbing that suddenly comes from her.
She hasn't cried in a month and it all comes forth now, breaking her down piece by piece, a little part of her leaving with each tear drop. They come too fast for him to wipe away, so he just grabs her and buries her into his naked chest. She digs her nails into him until she draws blood but he doesn't say a word, just rocks her silently as she shakes.
She cries and he bleeds out, crescent moons that remind him that he'll never be enough for her.
She doesn't touch him for a week. Then one day she moves out. Rachel appears at his door with a sympathetic look on her face and informs him that Annabeth will be living with her for the next little while.
He mopes around for a bit but she was never his to lose.
That doesn't make much of a difference to him. Still hurts the same.
Thalia comes to visit.
"How is she?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen her in a month." His voice is filled with so much bitterness Thalia flinches.
"She's messed up, kid." Thalia has the annoying habit of calling him kid even though she still looks sixteen. "Give her time."
"I don't have all the time in the world, you know."
Thalia looks at him with pursed lips and he knows she knows he's lying.
He'll take all the time he needs.
He almost goes to see her.
Almost.
It's ridiculous to think of pride right now but Nico di Angelo will hold his head up high until it kills him.
Three months and twelve days (he's not counting) after his death, there's a knock on the door and he knows it's her. It must be a premonition or something. He rushes over and opens the door.
"Hello sir, we're doing a survey and would like to ask you a few questions-"
He shuts the door in the woman's face.
Three months, three weeks and three days after his death, there's another knock on his door.
He's not getting his hope's up.
It always hits when you're least expecting it.
She's standing there in his doorway and he knows it's absolutely terrible but looking at her he can't help but think that if he had been Percy, he would never have left. He wouldn't have risked losing the woman in front of him, hair pulled back and a ratty old t-shirt and-
Bags?
And bags.
She has bags.
"I know you have every right to throw me onto the street and I pretty much expect you to, but please don't. Please, please Nico. I... I didn't hate it at Rachel's. It was nice, even though it was small and dark and there was paint everywhere and Apollo showed up randomly a lot. But it wasn't right. And nothing is really right anymore but here it's less wrong. And I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."
She drops her bag and steps over the threshold, wrapping her arms around his waist and tucking her head in his chest. He stands perfectly still, not quite sure what to do. He wants to hold her and push her out at the same time. He wants to never let her go and not touch her at the same time. He's terrified she'll leave again.
He's terrified she'll stay.
What does it mean?
What does he mean?
He holds her.
It's the only option, really.
"It's okay." He's not sure if that's true but it feels okay, with her in his arms and her bags in the hall and she was right, this isn't right but it's less wrong than everything else.
"So can I stay?"
He holds her at arm's length, stares at her and then crashes his lips onto hers before he can second guess himself. It isn't romantic or graceful and they bash their teeth because he tries to consume her. He's trying to claim something that's not his.
Water just slips through your fingers.
"Nico."
He pushes her up against the wall. He isn't drunk this time and everything is much more real. Her body beneath his hands is real and that heartbeat is real, pumping against his chest, Nico Nico Nico.
There's something else too, something underneath her heartbeat, always there. Lurking. It's in his chest too, but not as prominent. It gives him promises- I will never leave. I will always be here. I was here first and I won't leave.
It mocks him, this heartbeat.
Percy. Percy. Percy.
one day I will write a Nico/Annabeth fic where Percy doesn't die.
probably.
ten points if you picked up the tiny itty bitty Apollo/Rachel!