Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and never would.
Author's Note: I have been resisting this impulse for a long, long time, but I have finally given into it. This is what everyone would call a one-shot. But please be warned: this is not a fiction with a happy ending. So if you are not a fan of sad endings, please turn back now. If you despise character deaths with a vengeance, please also turn back now. You all have been warned.
"It does not matter, does it? No matter what I say or do, no matter how hard I try, you will never love me. Step-mommy and Mommy and Bianca are that matters to you, especially Bianca. I am just nobody, as worthless and insignificant and pathetic to you as Hephaestus once was to Hera. You regret that I was even born, I know it. You have made it as plain as can be every day, every moment."
"No…I…"
The boy shook his head, the dark brown eyes that mirrored those of his mother's dull and listless with the gloom of resigned defeat. "Mommy is dead, and she is not coming back. Ever. Step-mommy tries to be kind and considerate, but there will always be that sense of unease between us since I am illegitimate, not sprung from her womb. Bianca has made it perfectly clear that she does not want to be bothered with me – she turned down the position as the Princess of the Underworld, and joined those Hunters again after you had her resurrected. You are all that I have left. You are the one true familial member I have left. Why is it so hard for you to love me, even if it is only for an instant? Am I truly that unlovable?"
"No, Nico, I –"
Nico di Angelo shook his head again and closed his eyes. "What is it about me? Tell me, what exactly do I have to do to be loved by you?"
Before Hades could say anything, however, his son faded into the shadows.
It was the very last time he saw his son on his feet.
The next time he saw his son, his son was curled – or twisted would be a more appropriate description – into a mass of absolute agony, his skin paler than death, his face seemingly bluer than Poseidon's sea, and coughing up blood.
"Did he not tell you that he was sick?" Percy Jackson inquired of him, his otherwise blue eyes red-rimmed and still brimming with unshed tears as he held his unconscious cousin's hand. His face was very white. "He has been so sick. For a long time. The doctors said that there was nothing they could do for him, not even to ease the pain."
The funeral turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.
Percy, who had constantly been by Nico's side during those last few hours where the cousin who was like a surrogate younger brother to him had drifted in and out of consciousness, had snapped and actually attacked Bianca in both verbal and physical methods. He called her names none would have expected of the best-natured son of the sea, and when she uttered meaningless apologies and wrung her hands and her heartbreakingly unfeigned sobs intensified, he struck her again.
It took the full combined force of Annabeth, Tyson, and all the others to stop Percy from what seemed like an attempt to literally kill whom he believed to be the most irresponsible older sister ever born.
Persephone, who had grown to cherish Nico as her own and cared for him far more than her stepson had ever believed, mourned. Demeter was also bereaved, for her step-grandson had endeared himself to her, just like he had with his stepmother. Hades simply stood in a corner, lost in a darker more shadowy world than he had ever created as his own.
His son's room was empty, as if no one had ever lived there before.
His son's soul was also nowhere to be found, despite all of his most fervent, desperate efforts.
When he confronted the Fates on this, they simply stared at him, shook their heads at him, before their leader said: "You did not treasure what you have, Hades, and you even abused it in the most unforgivable way a parent could to a child, so Ananke the Almighty has taken him away forever to a paradise beyond Elysium, beyond the Isles of the Blest, utterly beyond the reach of even you and your entire divine brethren. You will never see him again…unless he chooses to see you."
His son gone forever?
Gone to where even he cannot go?
How can it be true?
"What is it about me? What exactly do I have to do to be loved by you?"
As the Lord of the Underworld started to break down as he had never done so ever before in countless ages, he choked:
"Just be alive, my little boy. Just be alive."