Author's Note: Okay guys... please don't kill me? Life decided to suck for a while. And I couldn't get any inspiration to write at all, and I hate writing when it feels forced. (This isn't my job.) But now that fights and school and funerals are over, I finally felt like writing again. So to all my readers from the start - thanks for sticking around and to all the new readers who have joined us since: welcome. Thanks for not completely abandoning me while I had to take a hiatus for a really crappy few months. I'm very sorry, but I will not just drop this.

I would write responses to individual reviewers, but there's too many now. Sorry.

And here's a special announcement: as a birthday present to me (yeah, my birthday was this week) and as a Christmas present to you, I have an announcement to make:

Break Myself is being made into a webcomic.

I will be 100% in charge of the script, so don't fear any changes there. RosaEldi is going to be the main artist with some random pieces by me stuck in. The story will change a little to allow for better comic and paneling flow, and to keep it interesting for people who have already read this story. Please let me know what's your opinion and if you have any suggestions. So, Merry Christmas mates. And I apologize for those of you who will hate this chapter.

Chapter Twenty-Three

For a moment, Nico was convinced he had stepped into a madhouse and not into Camp Half-Blood's main compound. Nico thought he had shadow traveled right into another game of capture the flag that had gotten out of hand as he took an elbow to the gut and almost toppled over. Campers were packed in, a riotous mess of raised voices. Nico heard Chiron's usually stern voice booming out over the campers, but even it was lost amid the sea of frustration.

Nico whirled around, trying to grasp a visual clue as to what was going on, and nearly collided right into Rachel Elizabeth Dare.

Rachel's eyes widened as she exclaimed, "Nico!"

"H-Hey," he greeted uneasily as he gathered himself together, her grabbing his arm half-way up. "Okay hi," he quipped as she yanked him closer to her.

"What's going on?" she asked in a hushed whisper, then had to repeat herself to be heard over the din of the surrounding demigods.

"What do you mean what's going on?" Nico asked, confused. He knew of Rachel, the red-headed prophet of Delphi host. She had always been someone Percy had known – not him. But the grip she had on his arm unnerved him as he got jostled hard in the back and a camper growled at him to watch himself. "And why does it seem like everyone in camp got pissed-in cornflakes?"

"Oh, nobody slept last night," she replied airly before going on, "I saw you – you were in the darkest-"

"What?" Nico cut her off with the old standby line while his brain struggled to get in gear. "Nobody slept?" As the words came out his mouth it felt like he had swallowed a huge rock that plummeted straight through him. He wasn't going to like this.

"Not a wink." She frowned.

"Nobody in camp? At all?" Nico supposed he should be mildly grateful that was all that came out his mouth as his mind raced to grasp at possibilities. His thoughts just circled like a drain around one central hub: Hypnos. "Did everyone OD on Red Bull or something?"

"Nico," she set her eyes on him, and for a weird moment something was there – a stirring like a fish beneath the surface of water. It was… unsettling.

"Nico," Chiron's voice came from behind him. Nico turned sharply to face him, somehow expecting the disappoint look Chiron gave when a camper let him down for being involved in the whole mess with camp. "Good to see you back at camp again, although I apologize for the circumstances."

"Y-yeah." Nico tried to squash the guilty feeling in his throat. Chiron couldn't really know what had happened. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

"Well, we are attempting to contact Morpheus to help us put the camp to sleep until we can figure this out."

"He owes us one after the half-blood war," Nico replied automatically.

"Yes, we are counting on tha-" Chiron was interrupted by a series of high-pitched screams. "Excuse me," Chiron pushed past Nico and Rachel, hollering out, "Children of Hermes-!"

Nico stared after him numbly, his mind too warped to think far beyond how Hypnos was involved… and that everyone in camp did not know how Nico was involved.

"Don't worry, Percy and Annabeth are on their way back to camp. Although a speeding ticket may delay them for a bit when you need him." Rachel gave him a smile he thought was supposed to be reassuring, but just came off as… spacey. Being able to see what would happen must be as unnerving to her as it was to everyone else. "Remember, no demigod is ever really alone, ever." She squeezed his arm again.

Nico wanted nothing more than to wait for Percy to arrive. He tried to convince himself it was only because Percy would known for dead certain what to do. That was just who he was, and one of the things Nico desperately admired him for. There was a twinge of jealously as well, but he honestly didn't care so much for the center of attention. Percy was the hero while Nico felt more like the awkward kid come-in sidekick. His ADHD prattled off that usually the sidekick was killed when he stayed behind to hold off the baddies so the hero could run off to a happy ending with the girl.

Thanks brain. No, really.

He tried to ignore the mental image of Percy in a brown fedora and leather jacket, mostly because he was certain he had a thing for leather, while the rest of his semi-functioning brain tried to process around the whole ordeal.

The whole afternoon passed in a confusing fog for Nico – and he apparently was the only one to have gotten any decent amount of sleep recently. People were coming up short with one another, walking around in exhausted blurs, some of the younger campers were in near tears, and the Ares cabin had all but declared open war on the rest of the camp in their sheer grumpiness.

Nico wouldn't be surprised if Chiron ordered camp-wide mandatory nap-time once this whole mess was sorted out.

He couldn't help but feel incredibly guilty. Hypnos was somehow behind this to get back at him. After the second failed Iris message to Percy and a hesitant attempt to Annabeth that also didn't connect, Nico stopped by his cabin for a shower and to change Percy's gym shorts for black jeans. As he finally replaced his briefs, he could feel Hypnos' fingers raking his skin as he ripped them off. Nico briefly debated taking another shower to wash the feeling away, but knew it wouldn't do any good to get the god out of his head and his touch off his skin.

He slipped Percy's shirt back on, not even trying to come up with a reason why. He felt better wearing it – like Hypnos' remembered touch dimmed a bit with the cotton armor. When he inspected himself, he saw that the bruises were all faded to the angry yellowed brown and the wounds had healed over thanks to the ambrosia. His lower arm bore a complete scar-shiny section like an arm band. The strap may as well be holding him chained to those horrible nightmare worthy memories. He pulled on a hoodie to cover it, and went back outside to wait for Percy.

Camp activities had completely ceased in the dazed chaos. Everyone was just too pissy with one another to be manageable. The sun seemed to be mocking them as it slid towards the horizon for rest – Apollo was going to get himself lynched by a mob of exhausted campers. In the soon to be failing light, found the spot where he and Percy had sat together the morning he and Annabeth broke up.

Gods, it seemed forever ago.

Without campers in it all day, the lake was eerily still and the edge of the water barely moved. Nico scooted closer until he could put his hand in and gently swirled it as he thought.

Hypnos, god of sleep, had to be somehow behind this. That rock he had swallowed earlier only felt heavier as he dimly heard the whines and complaints of the poor campers somewhere back in the main compound. There would probably have been more fights if people had the energy for it.

He watched a few nymphs dart through the trees, carrying a few precious saplings and fearfully glancing back towards the cabins. Pissy, sleep-deprived campers scared everyone apparently. The trees reminded Nico of Persephone, and that reminded him that summer was ending, and Percy would be going back to school, and it'd be forever before Nico saw him aga-

Nico could hear the click right in his own head as the gears engaged. Persephone's words came back to him in a dark creep of foreboding.

What happened to Hypnos?

Suddenly, the whole situation at camp took a dark and ugly twist in Nico's brain. This whole sleepless mess wasn't Hypnos somehow playing a trick or childishly trying to get back at him personally.

Nico got to his feet unsteadily. His father had done something to Hypnos – had punished him. More than just the 'berating' Thanatos had thought he would get. Something big enough to stop everyone from sleeping.

This was his fault.

Nico had to go speak to his father. He had to figure out what he did and set this all straight so the camp wouldn't end up in open mutiny and bloodshed. Di immortales, this could be affecting more than the camp.

Some sort of guilt-monster latched on to Nico's leg and wouldn't let go.

As he slipped into the shadows, Nico really hoped Persephone wasn't…'taking care' of his father at the moment. He really, really hoped. And he needed another tub-full of brain bleach.

The image would have been permanently burned into his brain…if he didn't suddenly get clotheslined.

One of these days, Nico swore to himself in his first coherent thought, he would land on his feet twice in a row after shadow-traveling. At the moment, he would be happy if he could get his nose to stop bleeding and his throat to relax so he could breathe again.

"You just can't catch a break, can you?" the voice was semi-familiar, and if he could breathe Nico would place it. His hands seized at his throat as he coughed and his breath came out in ragged wheezes. "Come on." Nico was pulled into a sitting position up from what felt like sand and his back whacked hard. His vision blurred and hurt his head while blood dripped down his face and he gagged.

"Here, drink this." A bottle pressed to his mouth, and Nico felt the burn of ambrosia. The heat seared his throat, burning it clear. He shoved it away to gasp for air.

"Mortals are just too easily injured," came as a sigh, and Nico heard someone shuffling about in sand and sitting next to him.

Nico risked cracking his eyes open, but they watered as he coughed. He could only see a blurred mass of blinding lights ahead of him. He hoped he hadn't hit his head again – another concussion was the last thing he needed. His mind finally connected the dots.

"Thana-" he broke off coughing.

"Yep. You might want to lay off shadow travel until you're a little stronger, kid. You're not to Los Angeles yet."

Nico wiped at his nose with his sleeve and tried to steady his breathing. Gods, he felt pathetic. He probably shouldn't have attempted a second shadow travel so closely together.

"Here, drink some more."

Nico had the sense of mind to push it away. Any more would probably cause him to burn alive. "Too much already," he made out in a weak voice.

"Then try eating this." Something pressed into his hand.

Nico wearily obeyed. "How far am I?" he asked around the first bite, his throat still raw.

"Las Vegas."

"What are you doing here?" The food tasted good on his tongue, and Nico wondered how long it had been since he had eaten. Since Percy's?

"It's lonely without my brother in our cave."

Back to Hypnos again. Why did Nico's life currently have to revolve around that piece of dirt?

"Look, nobody at camp is sleeping and it's causing a riot. Morpheus is going to help for now, but Hypnos needs to take over his job again." Nico still felt weak. Shadow-travel was draining on its own, and falling out of it painful. "What is your brother doing?"

"That taste alright?"

"Yeah, actually it's kind of famil-" The words dried in his rasped throat when he looked and stared in horror at the half-eaten piece of hell in his hand. "This is…"

"A lotus blossom. From the Lotus Hotel and Casino. You probably know them well."

Nico spat, desperately trying to get the taste from his mouth. "What the hell, Thanatos!"

Thanatos' voice suddenly became dark as he yanked on Nico's shirt and pulled him in close. Nico felt his own knife pressed against his gut as Thanatos hissed, "Do you know what your father did to my brother?" The darkness radiating in Thanatos' voice made Nico's mind flashed to when he first met Hypnos and Thanatos, and the threatening Thanatos he had first known. Why did Nico ever think of him as an ally? "He threw him in Tartarus."

"I didn't-" Shit. His mind was slurring together – the lotus blossom was taking effect. "Just get him back-"

"I'm the god of death, you pathetic demigod. But only one with power of the Underworld can move through the depths of it." The knife pressed harder. "So killing you wouldn't be a punishment at all."

"Why-" Nico gasped out as he tried grasping at the memories moving like liquid together into a colored, bright mess of lights.

"Your father put my brother in hell." Thanatos' mouth twisted into a wicked smile. "So I'm putting you in yours."

The memory was already blurring, but the brightly lit sign behind him became painfully clear. "No," he whispered. The vacant days passing in a mindless haze – when nothing mattered, no memories at all and he didn't care – the constant empty feeling and being okay with it – "No!"

Thanatos pulled on his arm, easily lifting the dark haired boy as if he were a newborn kitten and slung Nico across his shoulders. "No! Put me down!" Thanatos carrying him through the bright sign confused him more, his memory already swirling and slipping away from him – camp, Bianca, his father - "No! Percy!" He couldn't forget again – he wouldn't lose his memory again - "Percy!"

The last thought he had was Percy, cursing at red and blue lights, before they swallowed Percy's face.

Then the lights drowned out everything.

To Be Continued