Summary: —Everything will be okay. Bianca's influence on Nico throughout the years. (Or, seven times Nico falls asleep and the one time Bianca doesn't wake up, and Nico is twenty-four when he finally hears her voice again.) — Sibling relationship.
A/N: The age numbers listed throughout the story follows Nico's age, though they're not exactly accurate to canon. Just wanted to clarify that because I think a good portion of it is told from Bianca's perspective. Also, I am fully aware that not everything follows what happened in canon; I changed some things on purpose, so I hope you'll forgive me for that.
This turned out longer than I expected, haha; I honestly didn't expect it to pass 1k words but now we have this 3k+ abomination—and possibly a second chapter too. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
Go To Sleep, My Dear Brother
Because to Nico, Bianca isn't just another demigod; she isn't just another girl
Because to Nico, Bianca is "sister" and "mother" and "best friend" and so much more all in one
i. Age 5
"Go to sleep," five-year-old Nico hears his sister whisper as she tucks in the blankets snuggly around him. It seems to him that those are the three single most repeated words that Bianca vocalizes on a daily basis, but he definitely isn't complaining because it leaves him with a sense of ease, a feeling that the day has ended on a good note and he can look forward to tomorrow with no regrets. Bianca will be there to wake him up. Breakfast will be yummy. Then the rest of the day will be spent playing MythoMagic.
He sighs, content, and shifts his head around on the fluffy pillow before settling in a comfortable position. Already, his eyelids are growing heavy and he can feel the dreams claiming him.
Bianca ruffles his hair affectionally, kisses his forehead, and turns off the lights on her way out the room.
ii. Age 8
"Go to sleep," Bianca coos, and when she holds him against her together in the comfort of his bedroom, Nico thinks that everything will be okay again. His sobbing dies down to sniffles and the tears in his eyes are beginning to dry up, objects around him having definite features now instead of just a blurry outline. He's still trembling a little, but Bianca hugs him tight, stroking a hand reassuringly through his hair, murmuring encouraging words into his ears, like how it doesn't matter what the other kids at school say, that he shouldn't be ashamed of being a little different.
The two of them stay like that for as long as it takes for Nico to calm down; Bianca makes sure to never leave him until he is able to put on a smile again. The boy's bedroom is kept dark, the light purposely turned off because she knows it makes Nico feel safer; it may not make sense to other people—how can someone feel safer when they can't see?—but Bianca understands that everyone is diverse. She accepts Nico for who he is. Humming a soft tune, she waits until Nico's eyes closed and his breathing evens. She sets him down gently on the bend and embraces him one last time before leaving to go to sleep herself.
(It is these times that Nico recalls when he has trouble falling asleep in the future, alone in the emptiness of cabin 13 at Camp Half-Blood. He makes sure to go to bed every night with a smile on his face.)
iii. Age 10
"Go to sleep," Bianca whispers, almost anxious. This time, the setting is different; they are no longer in their house, no longer in the rooms that they've grown so accustomed to.
However, in theory, this new place isn't so bad either. It's a hotel, for one, so all the beds are perfectly aligned with more pillows on a single mattress than Nico has ever owned in his life. The sheets are clean and they smell of flowery meadows, like the name of the hotel suggests. They should be able to sleep just fine here. But all this is only in theory.
Nico and Bianca are ten and twelve years old respectively, old enough to have experienced sleeping away from home, on sleepovers and overnight camps. Everything here is nice—nicer than most of the places they've been—and the beds are comfortable, almost in an alluring way.
Everything is just so perfect that Bianca can't shake off the feeling that something isn't right, that they shouldn't be here. It's so perfect that it seems impossible and it screams trap, trap, trap!
It's much too late though, because Bianca is already having a hard time forming concrete thoughts and her mind is all foggy and she just wants to lie down—if only for a little while. Snuggling beside her brother, who is already starting to drift off, she gives up on resisting the temptation and convinces herself that they both deserve a good night's rest. Faintly, she remembers that the only reason Nico can sleep so soundly is that he trusts her not to put them in any danger, and she prays that she's making the right decision.
"Let's sleep, Nico," Bianca mumbles, more for herself than to the boy.
And they do, for a very long time.
(It's seventy years later when they finally wake up.)
iv. Age 11
"Go to sleep," Bianca tries to hide the anger from her words but it comes out as a hiss more than anything. It's still daytime outside, but she knows that her brother needs a well-earned nap; when he wakes up, he will feel refreshed and—Bianca notices the tears silently flowing down the sides of his face, staining the bed sheets—she hopes that she'll never have to see Nico cry himself to sleep again.
Their first few nights at Camp Half-Blood are not what one would call comfortable.
They went too far this time. The teasing, the insults based on nothing but accusations and mere speculations, the name-calling, the bullying, the hostile gestures—she's had enough. A child of Hades is nothing but darkness? Sure. A child of Hades brings misfortune and death everywhere they go? Alright. If that's what they want, if that's what they'll mindlessly believe, then she'll give it all to them.
Bianca may be quiet and shy, but she isn't afraid to stick up for herself, especially if her little brother is involved too. There's this new technique she's been practicing for a while now and what better way to test it out than on the pesky Aphrodite kids gossiping as they walk past their cabin? She hears their names come up frequently from the other side of the wall ("Nico and Bianca are so pale!" and "They're creepy, always dressed in black" and "It's fitting; they're descendants of Hades, after all!").
Anger coursing through her, Bianca closes her eyes and concentrates her energy on the darkness around her. She envelops herself with the shadows feeling its tendrils reaching out to her, and she embraces it. They can't hurt her, she knows. Acceptance is the key. Take in the darkness and own it. And soon, she has shadow-traveled to the other side of the wall.
At first, there is only astonishment.
It is only a small distance and the toll on Bianca's body is great, but none of that changes the fact that she passed through the wall between their cabin and the main hall by just willing it to happen. And because of this, she stands tall with her head up, despite wanting nothing more than to collapse on the floor.
To the Aphrodite girls, it seemed as if a pale ghost just appeared in front of them. For a second, they are too shocked to cry out. When they recognize the newcomer to be the very person they had been talking about earlier, they scream for an entirely different reason.
Bianca sends them a stern look that says don't ever talk shit about my brother and I again and it doesn't take very much for the two demigods to scram out of there. Exhausted with the excitement of her first successful shadow-travel and the physical effect it is having on her body, she makes her way back inside cabin 13, feeling accomplished and fairly positive that no one will mess with them anymore after that.
When Nico wakes up an hour later, he finds his sister passed out on her bed. Feeling groggy and more than a little confused, he goes to the bathroom to splash water on his tear-stained cheeks. It is only when he returns to his room that realization dawns on him: no one teased him when he passed them, no one even sneered at him.
It leaves Nico baffled.
v. Age 12
"Go to sleep," Nico hears; he doesn't see his sister's lips move because his eyes are squeezed shut, too scared to face anything in the world at the moment.
It's the first time he's said those words out loud and already, he is regretting it. He shouldn't feel ashamed for sharing his secret with Bianca, he knows—she is his sister after all, the only one who understands him; the only one who has ever understood him—but he can't help dreading her response.
Seconds tick by into minutes and the world is a deadly shade of silence. He lies curled on the bed, wrapped up in layers of blankets, trembling despite the warmth he would normally be feeling.
I'm gay, he says.
It is no louder than a mere whisper but in the quietness of cabin 13, it is an explosion. The effect ripples out, Bianca's face surprised, and that is when he shuts himself out from it all. He had been mistaken. He shouldn't have said the two words that suddenly seem to have more power on his life than anything before. The word, along with its synonyms—gay, homophobic, bisexual—had controlled his life for the past year. On top of that, the other campers have called Nico "gay" as a childish insult—but unbeknownst to them, they were right.
Whenever he hears the word, his blood runs cold and he would look around to see if people were talking about him. Had they perhaps figured out his secret somehow? What, exactly, were they saying? After a long year of the anxiety eating him alive, he felt that he needed to get it out of him.
And so, right before bed tonight, he asks Bianca to stay by his side for a little while longer, just like she did when they were younger. She waits patiently for him to tell her about whatever is worrying him; after this long, it doesn't take much for the daughter of Hades to know that something is bothering her brother. And that's when he had blurts out the words.
But now, he is too scared to see Bianca's reaction.
Out of everyone, Bianca is the only person he doesn't want to dishearten. What would be in her eyes now that she knows his biggest secret? Shame? Disappointment? Disgust?
If she starts to shun him too, like the other demigods, he doesn't think he would be able to take it anymore. And yet, he can't bring himself to blame her for any of this. It is all his fault, and his fault alone. His hormones had gone out of whack and somehow, unwillingly, he finds him attracted to people of his gender. He can't push down the feelings that surface out from him and he knows that it is wrong—because that's what he hears everyone saying—but he can't help it.
Inhale. Cracking open an eye and taking the risk of peering out at his sister from under his eyelashes, he finds something completely unexpected: Bianca is smiling.
Nico's eyes snap open involuntarily, gaping at her, so obviously surprised. Seeing that her brother is unable to respond, Bianca takes this chance to voice her thoughts.
"I know."
She is still smiling, sitting at the edge of Nico's bed.
She knows, Nico blinks.
She has always known.
And yet, she hadn't said anything. She had waited for Nico himself to tell her, when he was ready, already acknowledged his homosexuality long before he probably even faced the truth himself. Nico finds himself trembling, vision going blurry, and he can only hold onto his sister because he thinks that he doesn't deserve someone as accepting as her in his life.
"It took you a year," Bianca murmurs softly into the boy's hair, stroking his back comfortingly, "but I'm glad you told me."
Clenching onto her tighter, Nico whispers back, "How long would you have waited?"
"As long as I needed to."
vi. Age 13
"Just go to sleep already!" Bianca slams the door behind her, then spins around to confront her brother. In all honesty, she has already forgotten what, exactly, they had been arguing about, but the result is that she is undeniably angry. It's always involuntary and it usually takes a lot to get Bianca this angry, but sometimes, her brother just really pisses her off.
These disputes are never pleasant. Bianca would yell and Nico would yell back and it ends with both of them almost in tears because neither of them want to be angry at each other, but they just can't help it; because even the best of siblings don't get along all the time.
They were never the kind of people who separated things and labelled them as "mine" or "yours" and they don't split the cabin in half because they get along—most of the time. As close as they may be, they are still very much different people, still individuals, and that means they can't always see on par with everything all the time.
But the important thing is that they always make up in the end; they drift back toward each other, as siblings should, like how a flock of birds need each other to fly long distances. Neither Bianca nor Nico can stay mad at each other for long.
vii. Age 14
"Go to sleep, Nico; it'll be fine," Bianca smoothes out tangled strands of hair on the boy's head. It's a bittersweet moment for her: she finally made a decision for herself, that she's going to start a new life with the Hunters and devote herself to Artemis, but it means leaving Nico behind at Camp Half-Blood.
And it won't be fine. Nico needs Bianca there with him almost as much as he needs to breathe the air around him—maybe even more. She is all he has left, all he's ever had, and he can't bear to lose her too. He wraps his blanket around him tightly, hands clenching onto the corners with only his eyes exposed, and he has to force himself not to hold on to Bianca's hand because otherwise, he might never let go.
"Do you have to leave?" his voice is only a muffled sound from under the covers, barely audible, and suddenly, he is a kid again, five years old and scared of the nightmares that haunt him when he is alone. He wants very badly to cry, the familiar prickling, burning sensation attacking the corners of his eyes, but he tells himself to be strong (because that is what Bianca has always told him).
His sister nods—and really, what was he expecting? She has been thinking about this for a long time; she deserves to be happy for herself and Nico should be supporting her, not making her feel guilty or regretful. He shouldn't be acting so… so selfish.
"I know you'll be just fine without me," Bianca smiles a smile that reminds Nico all too much of how a mother would act. "You don't need me to take care of you anymore."
(But he still wants her to take care of him.)
Bianca shuffles around and leans over to her side of the cabin to retrieve something before placing it in Nico's palm and curling his fingers around it. The item, small is size, feels cold to his touch and oddly pokes out at his skin. He adverts his gaze down at the object and holds it out in front of him to get a better look at it.
"I thought you might like it," Bianca says, and she is right; Nico identifies the present as a ring—girly, perhaps, but he is instantly drawn to the skull image embodied onto it. The ring is so much more than just a piece of jewelry, Nico understands immediately; it is his sister's one last message to him, her one last piece of advice: be proud that you're a child of Hades.
It has only been a few minutes since he's been in possession of it, but the ring already contains so much value in his heart. When the inevitable finally comes and Bianca walks out the door of cabin 13, out the door of Nico's life, the boy holds on to her farewell present, relishing in the only piece of his sister he has left.
Sleep comes to him that night a lot easier than he had initially expected; Nico settles down in bed, slides the ring onto his hand, skull facing up, and twirls it until it rests along the curve of his finger in a comfortable position.
He never takes it off again.
viii. Age 15
"Wake up!" Nico screams, shaking the body of his sister. He screams until has voice breaks, until he thinks he's going to lose his voice—but even then, he doesn't stop. Suddenly, everything feels claustrophobic, closing in on him, confining him in an eternal darkness. His voice shakes with anguish and despair and loss, because no one will ever tuck him in bed at night anymore and on one will whisper reassuring nothings into his ear when the world seems to be against him.
The world has to be against him, he realizes now, because Bianca has been taken away from him, too.
It's too much. It's all too much. Nico needs Bianca here with him; he doesn't think he will ever truly be able to feel alive without her.
His sister is dead and a part of Nico has died along with her.
And then: a light.
An idea. His one last hope.
Moving quickly through the blurry lens of his tear-filled eyes, he grabs Bianca's body—corpse—and lays her down gently on the ground. With shaking fingers and ringing ears, the boy closes his eyes and feels the power surging throughout his body, coming from the very depths inside him. Nico draws on his demigod abilities from every decaying thing around them, thinking back to when his sister smiled and laughed and still had a beating heart.
He draws in energy from the Underworld; searching for Bianca's soul is easy because there is nothing else in the world that feels like her, and when he finds it, he tugs it forward, willing it to come up from below the surface. There is little resistance.
A shimmer of light, a soft gust of wind, a setting sun indicating the end of another day—and Nico can see the faintest outline of his sister floating just above him.
"Bianca!" the boy cries out, a newfound hope burning inside him. "D-don't worry, Bianca! I'll find a way to get you back; I'll do whatever it takes—"
"No, Nico," the girl, now a ghost, frowns slightly in disapproval. "I'm dead now. You have to let me go, okay? And don't blame Percy for any of this; it wasn't his fault." Bianca looks her brother in the eyes. "And it's not your fault either."
She floats down to him, gently holding him against her just like old times, and although it's not quite the same anymore and Nico can't really feel her touch, the tears that had been flowing freely down his cheeks earlier are already drying up. It must be magic, he thinks, because somehow, dead or alive, Bianca always seems to know what to say to make him feel better. Which is why he needs her all the more.
"Please… please don't go."
Bianca ruffles his hair. "You know it's not my choice." She kisses his forehead, a soft brush of lips against skin. "I love you, Nico," she murmurs. Pulling away, she brushes a tear away from the boy's eye. "Now—any last words for your big sister?"
The son of Hades sniffles.
"Sleep well, sis," Nico breathes. The skull ring on his finger seems to flash.
The ghostly image that is Bianca di Angelo crumples away with the wind.
ix.
Nico is twenty-four when he hears his sister's voice again.
Bianca's words are the breeze that caresses Nico's cheeks as he lies fallen on the ground, unmoving. She whispers to him, for one final time, "Go to sleep, my dear brother."
Nico di Angelo closes his eyes.
A/N: I realized that I've written a lot of stories centered around Nico but only mentioned Bianca once, in my Three Questions fanfic—and even then, she was still just a side character. So this is my tribute to Bianca, who is without a doubt an amazing sister.
I admit that I don't remember much of what happened in the earlier books, so I had to search up some of the information, and I purposely kept some things inaccurate, so if you see anything that differs from canon, that's why. I also added a bunch of my own ideas—headcanons, I guess you could call them—and I hope they're acceptable too. XD
I thought about adding in the fact that living on their own is hard, that it's not easy being a sister and a mother figure at the same time, that sometimes, when Bianca thinks Nico is asleep, she will cry silently, muffling her screams with her head buried in her pillow because she was only around twelve or fourteen when she had to start taking care of her brother without any guidance and she was forced to mature far too quickly—
—but I figured that was a story for another time.
(THERE WILL BE A SECOND CHAPTER. Sometime in the future. I'd like to say soon, but then I wouldn't be able to guarantee the accuracy of that statement.)
~Madin456.