AN: Hey, its your girl. I suck. University is hard and anxiety SUCKS so yeah. Its summer so I can finally breathe again.
I am not abandoning this story in the slightest, it's just that life has its own ideas.
Warnings: angst
Disclaimer: All rights reserved to Rick Riordan. I own nothing, but the plot.
This story discusses the themes of self-harm, anxiety, and depression. Trigger warning. Do not read if any of these things upset you. Trigger warning!
Criticism is appreciated, but please no hate. Please review and leave suggestions! Enjoy!
Nico's POV
He woke up and looked at his surroundings. He was in the Hypnos cabin at Camp Half-Blood.
How did I get here? He thought. He looked down at his hands. His body was semi-transparent. He was sleeping.
Well this is a better place to dream than the Labyrinth He thought.
"Unfortunately, that is why I brought you here." Nico looked up.
His father, in sharp contrast with his surroundings, sat in a leather armchair in front of a fireplace. On the mantle was a bowl which had the milky water from the River Lethe dripping into it from a tree branch.
"Father, what are you doing here?" Nico asked.
"Welcome," Hades greeted, gesturing for Nico to sit in the chair besides him. "Since you are not in the Underworld, we will talk in dreams where time is limitless."
"Okay, but why are we here father?"
"I was pondering your situation with being trapped in dreams and such, talking to my sources and the head counsellor here, Clovis..." Hades turned his head to look at the bunk bed. "Clovis!"
Buried under feather comforter, Clovis' bovine face popped up. His hair was unruly. His eyes were cloudy with sleep.
"Yes, the dead and I were communing," Clovis informed. He yawned before sitting up. He looked more alert now. "I mean, the lord of the dead and I were communicating."
"About me?" Nico asked.
Clovis nodded. He looked far more awake in the dreamscape that he had ever looked in real life. "Yes, about your dream problem."
"Have you found out what's causing it?" Nico asked anxiously.
"Er, not yet," Hades admitted. "But, Clovis and I are continuing to compare theories on it. Anyway, the reason we pulled you off your current dream course is that, unless we control it, you will continue to get trapped in your memories."
"How do we prevent that?" Nico asked.
"Well, as Will mentioned to you earlier, you sometimes have to go through more pain before you can heal." Clovis reminded.
"Your point being-"
"Although I warned this could happen before, we need it to happen now." Hades said.
"Stop drawing this out and tell me what's going on," Nico was frustrated.
"You have to relive all your memories to be able to heal from them." Hades revealed.
"How will reliving them make the coma trapping thing stop?"
Hades and Clovis shared a look. "You have repressed so many of your memories that when you get trapped in your nightmares-"
"-you don't recall if it is reality or fictional- " Hades continued Clovis' words.
"And if you can't tell if it is real or fake-" Clovis started.
"Then I can't wake myself from a nightmare." Nico finished. "But, people dream all the time and think a dream is real but it isn't. And most of what I dream is my memories so it technically is reality."
"Most people who dream like that are mortal," Hades explained. "You are a demigod so you are bound to have prophetical dreams anyway. And it might have once been a reality, but it is not your current reality."
"There is also evidence of godly interference," Clovis interjected.
"How many gods of nightmares and dreams are there?" Nico asked frustrated. "Why is this taking you so long to solve? Aren't you all-seeing?"
His father rubbed his head. "While I am usually omnipotent, someone- some force interfering."
"Is this the force you refused to tell Will and I about?" Nico asked.
"It doesn't matter. The point of this meeting was to discuss what to do about your nightmares."
"So I have to relive them." Nico said. "But, I don't choose to have the dreams. They just happen."
"That's not entirely true," Clovis explained. "If something related to your memories triggers you, then you have the nightmares."
"Like being in the Labyrinth." Nico understood. "So to relive the maze, I have to go down there." Realization ran through Nico. "And to relive Tartarus-"
"Obviously we will not be sending you back to Tartarus." His father rushed to reassure him. "Being close to the entrance triggered that- that uh-"
"It's called a panic attack," Nico felt his face flush with embarrassment. His eyes slid over to Clovis. "And I would prefer if the whole camp didn't know about it."
"Oh relax, Nico, I don't need to say anything; the whole camp already knows." Clovis stated.
Hades looked aghast at Clovis. "Not helpful." He turned his eyes back to Nico. "Merely focusing on the location or the memory can work as well."
"Do I have to do this now?" Nico asked. "I am kinda- preoccupied with the camp activities."
"What's happening at camp?" Clovis asked, blinking with confusion. Nico and Hades looked at Clovis in shock. Clovis turned red with embarrassment. "I was catching up on my sleep."
Nico pinched the bridge of his nose. "My question stands. Do we have to do this now? I can't afford to be asleep for days on end."
"Time does not exist in the world of dreams and nightmares," Hades reminded. "I will be joining you within your memories and Clovis will be ready to pull you out when necessary."
"When morning arrives or Will wakes you up, I will be able to enter into the mind of your sleeping body and pull you from your memories."
Nico closed his eyes, thinking. He sat down in a chair that had appeared next to him. If this was the only way to stop going into a coma, he guessed he would have to relive his worst memories.
"You have to be there?" Nico asked quietly, glancing up at his father.
His father looked into his eyes. The usual terrifying fire that burned in them had softened and looked welcoming. "I know it's not what you would have wanted, but it has to be this way. Otherwise, you will be trapped and I might not be able to enter into your nightmare to free you."
Nico felt a wave of panic. "I just- no one knows what I have experienced."
"Sharing your experiences will help you to bear them." His father reassured. "And hopefully overcome them."
"Do I have a choice in the matter?" Nico cut straight to the point.
"You always have a choice, but if you do not accept help, you will continue to be plagued by nightmares and flashbacks which may lead to your ultimate demise." His father explained.
"Meaning?"
"Either you could get trapped in your memories for the rest of your life, or the pain will become so unbearable that you will continue to self-harm until you end up taking your own life." Hades said bluntly.
"I have been self-harming for this long and haven't killed myself-" Nico informed.
"Yet, but you have tried multiple times. You don't want to be alive!" His father snapped.
"Do we really have to have this conversation right now?" Nico snapped back, waving at Clovis. "With him here? In my head?"
His father had the decency to look ashamed. "You won't talk to me anywhere else. You won't talk to anyone else. At any rate, he's asleep again-"
"And that's MY CHOICE," Nico shouted. "Not yours, not Clovis', not Will's."
"So you want to be trapped in your head?"
"What- of course not," Nico said.
"Then what do you want?" His father asked.
"I want to be better-"
His father sighed. "You can't be better unless you try to get better."
"Nothing is helping-" Nico said weakly.
"That's because you aren't trying anything!"
Something inside Nico broke. "Because I'm scared!" His father closed his mouth in surprise. "I'm scared to heal, I'm scared to go through all this pain again, I'm scared that I won't know who I am anymore."
"Know who you are?" His father asked.
Nico breathed in. "I have been in pain, emotional pain for so long. I don't remember what it is like to live without pain… I don't know if I ever have lived without it. My memories from childhood were wiped, I don't even know if those were happy. And after the hotel, I had a couple months of happiness and then… and then…"
"Your sister died." Hades said quietly.
Nico swallowed back tears. "I don't- I don't know who I am- I don't know if it is possible for me to be happy without her."
His father leaned forward, "You don't know that you can't be happy; you haven't tried."
Nico scoffed. "When should I have tried? While I was in the Labyrinth? How about when I was in Tartarus?"
"After the Second Giant War, you had time to heal, time to be happy," his father said. "But, you didn't."
"I tried to. I- I started dating Will…"
"Oh please, you did not." His father said. "Entering into a relationship while continuing to hate yourself for your sexuality is not healing."
Nico remained silent.
"You didn't face your own demons before you tried to take on another person's." His father pointed out.
"You think I shouldn't have started dating Will?" Nico asked.
"I'm not saying what you should or shouldn't have done." His father leaned back in his chair, rubbing his forehead. "It doesn't matter now; that's in the past. The only thing you can change is the here and now. Solving this coma problem is a step towards getting better."
Nico closed his eyes taking a deep breath. He understood that if he ever wanted to experience happiness, this was something that he had to do.
He opened his eyes. "Where do we start?"
