Sometimes, for those we love to be happy, we must give everything.
Who had said that? The words floated into his head, as he stared down at Percy, sprawled over Annabeth's body.
He didn't need to ask Percy what happened; thanks to one of his particularly gruesome powers, he was able to recognize the cause of any death instantly- the withering grasp of Cancer, one of the ancient poisons, that slowly suffocated her.
Now, Annabeth was dead, and Nico didn't know whether to feel excited or ashamed.
Percy sobbed again, his body shuddering from the force, and Nico moved to cradle him before he hit the ground.
"We'd known for months, but why now, when I left her side just for a minute?"
He reared his head back, letting a shriek towards the sky. Around Nico, the house seemed to shake, as if the plumbing was coming apart, all together at once.
"Curse the gods; why me? Our life, our relationship just an ill-fated journey towards Hell? Oh-"
He fell down again, and Nico held him closer to his chest, feeling the heat course over his body. How ironic, he thought, that his dreams were coming true while Percy's withered.
He felt the tears drip into his jeans, and immediately felt guilty again. Looking at his prince, desolate and collapsed, with those eyes that had the joy shredded out of them until they were pits of nothingness, Nico felt a sudden urge to throw up come through him. Percy wasn't that, that pile lying shattered in his arms. No, he was the sun of Nico's life.
And what if that sun should sputter?
Percy was sobbing again, and this time Nico clutched him even tighter, afraid that if he let Percy slip away from him, he would be gone forever.
"Love is so fucking broken, Nico. Throughout your life, you are taught and learn to yearn and hunger for it, that one person so perfect, that you love more than yourself. That you would count the stars with, soar through the night with, live and die with. And the gods, or Fates, or whatever shit the world decides to make- they sustain that illusion for just long enough that you begin to believe it's real, that they will be safe in your arms if you just clutch them tight enough.
And then they crush you."
He was never Nico's to lose. And yet, somehow, Nico had lost him.
The funeral was the next day.
He looked in the mirror- unshaved stubble, hair that's too oily and ragged, bloodshot eyes.
He watches as his friends flood into the funeral, and they sit in silence underneath a rainstorm. He lets it soak through his clothing, over his skin until he is so cold he feels he could just close his eyes and let go. But he doesn't, and lets the rain fall.
They all speak, with even Athena making an appearance, about Annabeth, and her corpse lies behind shrouded in silver. There is no shortage of tears.
He still feels numb. Frank, the last speaker, is finishing up a story about how Annabeth saved his fingers from a trap, and they are all laughing and crying together. He never knew how many lives she had touched. All his friends are there around him and her, just as she would've wanted- Piper, Jason, Malcolm, Leo, Frank, Hazel.
His head is bowed as he finds that repulsive feeling stir up again, of wanting to cry but feeling nothing come out. And then he hears it, a stir, a murmur, some shrieks.
He must be going insane, he thinks, and looks down again at the soggy ground.
Then he hears it, a voice that he never thought he'd hear again, and he jumps up and holds
Her.
"Percy, I'm back, it's okay it's okay" she whispers over and over and over into his ear, but he still holds her tighter, feels the rain and dust from within the shroud mix on her back, but his hand grips wet skin and fabric not air, and he smiles again.
And he frowns as she wriggles out of his arms, and stares at him, and frowns.
Is this a trick?
"Percy, don't worry, I'm real." She says.
All around them, their friends are excitedly chatting and crying. Too loud.
"How?"
"Nico."
His mind blanks. Nico. Where is Nico?
"I thought death was permanent, even for a child of Death."
"Not if they love someone enough."
Nico loved Annabeth? He had heard the rumors of course, but had never thought he still had that for his girlfriend. Well, it was okay, he'd have to treat Nico to some ice cream later-
"Not me." She says, as if reading his thoughts, and his heart stops. His head hurts.
"He said to hurry, something about empathy links."
Percy recognizes that feeling in his chest now, of being unable to breathe and a gasping heart.
His head still spins, though.
"How?"
Annabeth smiles again, and he will love that smile every other time he sees it- on their wedding, when she cradles their son, and when she kisses him on his deathbed.
But not now. For it is a sad smile.
"He said you'd understand, to remember Bianca."
He blacks out.
He finds Nico in his mind, lying down on the ground somewhere. As the scenery slowly fades into view, he recognizes the place- that jagged obsidian cliff, seeing the sunrise and the Gothic spires of the academy behind the forest.
It's where he lost Annabeth the first time, to that manticore.
It's where he first met Nico.
The boy is lying on the ground, in a puddle of blood, and Percy leaps forward and cradles him in his arms. He feels the blood soak into the fabric of his jacket, and he briefly wonders what it looks like in real life.
He doesn't care.
Nico coughs, and his breath comes out ragged, but his eyes are brighter than Percy's ever seen them, no longer like the souls of midnight, but more like stars. Stars, the ones that shot through the sky occasionally, burning too fast.
"Percy."
He coughs up some more blood, and Percy clutches him tighter. Being this close to Nico, feeling his frail body shudder and shake within his arms, he now knows what Annabeth meant. He squeezes him as close as he can, trying to share his energy somehow, any way he can, but he can feel it in every drop of blood that Nico spills onto him.
He is just hugging a corpse.
"Nico, I'm here, it'll be okay." He moves to cushion Nico with his jacket, but Nico clings on tighter to his chest with his arms, and Percy grips him, rubbing circles into his back.
"I'll miss you, so much, and I know you won't, but that's okay."
Nico says those words, and it almost stabs through Percy's heart, because he knows it's true. That Nico never had more than an inch of his world, and that he would later count the dead demigod as one of his many fallen friends.
He holds him even tighter. Because for that instant, Nico would be his world. He would grant Nico that one dream, even after he'd failed him in so many.
"Just, please, be happy. That's all I want."
He hears the earnest twang in Nico's voice, and shudders with tears, that he tries to blink away. He has to be strong, if only for a moment, because that's all Nico wants.
He fails. Tears careen over his eyelashes, spilling onto Nico's body and mixing with his blood.
"Nico, I'm so sorry for everything. I was such a bad-"
"You were perfect to me."
He watches as Nico smiles and leans up, leaving him one chaste kiss. The taste of his cold, neglected lips languishes on Percy's tongue, and he doesn't think it'll ever leave him.
"Thank you."
And for the first time, as Nico shuts his eyes again, he doesn't need to imagine Percy smiling, those beautiful glittering eyes, that faint smell of sea salt- he doesn't need to imagine Percy cradling him to sleep.
And for the first time he is happy. Because sometimes, for those he loves to be happy, he must give everything.
And so, for the last time, he smiles, his first real smile.
A/N: RIP.
Stay tuned for the epilogue.
