POV Nico

Nico di Angelo had recently started to think that he might be able to beat his cousin Percy in the terms of bad lack. After the war with Gaia, he spent some time in the Camp Half Blood. It was fun, he even managed to make some friends, but it ended as fast as it has began. Percy and Annabeth came back to New York to finish high school, Reyna and Frank were extremely occupied with their Pretor duties, Leo traveled the world with Calypso and Jason and Piper decided to go to school in California. It wasn't that bad, he still had been meeting with Romans at least twice a month (Hazel insisted), miss Sally, Percy's mom, invited him for a dinner every month and Jason and Piper did their best to call him once a week. He was extremely thankful for the time their gave him, but it was lonely.

Nico has been alone in the Camp and it was extremely difficult for him to both keep his sanity and be a "good camper". For the first week after end of the summer holiday he was able to keep up with the routine. He ate a breakfast at the Hades table, even if it was lonely without Jason and Percy, and their constant laughs. After that he spend his time at the area, but he felt too out of place without his friends. Most of campers stared at him, wanting to observe resident son of the big three and making Nico feel awkward. He knew that they probably just wanted to learn some new tricks as his style of fighting was really unusual, but it made him feel uncomfortable. After almost full four years he spend alone, either on the streets, the Labirynt or Underworld, he was unused to other people. Attention usually meant he was in danger. Now, when he constantly felt eyes on his back, he was always tense and ready to run or fight. It was different with Jason, Percy, Piper and Annabeth here. After the time their spent together fighting, he felt more at ease with them. He could almost relax and the constant voice in his head was faint.

Now he spent most of the time in the 13 cabin, sometimes unable to get out of bed because of a depression episode, sometimes just too tired of everybody's shit and unwanted attention. Horrors of Tartarus had never left him. Every night, he would be waken up by violent scenes playing in his head. Every day, he would flinch at sudden movements and cringe back from the accidental touch. It was getting worse and worse every day. The most overwhelming was the need to run. That was what keep him alive there. Move, run, never stop, never rest. Being bound to one place made him restless. He trained at the arena every day, for hours. He tried to do it when other campers weren't around now, usually after dinner. The voice in his head slowly made him go insane, he was fully aware of this. Reyna talked with him about a mind healer from New Rome who specialized in helping the demigods who had a hard time with living in the society after the time they spent on their own or the quests. There were days when he considered that, but he was too terrified. Outside of the fear connected with being judged and his inability of talking about his feelings and time he spent down there, he was generally terrified of the shrinks. He knew that a lot of things changed and XXI century was very different from the 1930s. His friends did know about his homosexuality and they all supported him. He has seen same sex couples around the Camp and in the mortal world, not being judged nor attacted and just living their lives, but he couldn't just vanish the images and words. He still remembered what has happened to his neighbor who was caught kissing another boy.

Nico shivered, hitting the training dummy hard with his stygian iron sword. He knew that the others campers were still wary of him. He was a creepy son of Hades after all. They did hopefully know by that time that he was not a bad guy, but it didn't really ease them. No one except for the Seven, Reyna and Chiron has ever really talk to him. From the feared and unwelcome creep he became a hero, but it didn't really change that much. They were to awestruck to treat him like a normal human being now. With a little sleep and food, and a lot of training he get, he was just constantly tired. His muscles stings. He was too tired to lift his sword with his shaking arms, but he still forced himself to do a few more swings. Finally, unable to keep going, he fell on his knees and rested his forehead on the damaged dummy, breathing hard. His sword fell next to him limply. You rest, you die. Run run run. The voice in his head made him shiver but he was unable to get up. He grabbed his sword and pulled it in the sheath around his waist. He started to tear up. He was so tired he couldn't do it anymore. Three months, that much he was able to bear being on his own. He was disgusted with himself. He became weak. The voice warned him. He let others take care of him, became dependent. He had everything in camp, safety, food and bed. That made him weak. The need to run away was stronger now then ever before. He couldn't breathe and he felt as if the walls were closing on him, even though he was on the outside. The claustrophobic feeling and his inability to breathe properly was overwhelming, he didn't know what was happening but he was sure that he was dying. He pulled himself in the shadows with the rest of the strength he had had left and disappeared in the thin air.

--time skip--

He woke up at the cemetery which wasn't shocking. Shadow traveling to the graveyards was easier for him with how much death was around and the state he was in didn't really let him do anything exhausting. It was a miracle he was alive as it is. Nico recognized the cemetery immediately. It was one of his favorite. New Orleans cemeteries where really unique. Usually, American cemeteries were rather boring, nothing like ones he saw in Europe, but there were a few special ones. New Orleans cemetery with its beautiful ornament voults and monuments was one of his favorite places to hung out. The tombs were mostly Roman-style but as an Ambasador of Pluto he still felt more powerful here. He didn't know nearly as much about architecture as Annabeth, but he did admired the beauty of this place. He pulled himself to the sitting position and groaned lightly. He had to hit his head on some stone when he fainted because he immediately felt dizzy and vomited the little food he still had had in his stomach. He touched the back of his head and felt the dried blood as well as a little bit of fresh one although there wasn't as much as he feard. Still, it didn't look too good. At least some hours passed already, bleeding for that long couldn't be a good sign. He surely had a concussion, but at least he didn't bleed out yet. Concussion he can deal with. He pulled himself on the all fours, unable to get up completely and slowly crawled toward the open voult a few meters to his left. He slowly began to feel the freezing November temperature. It was a good thing he landed in New Orleans and not in some colder place. He didn't think he was lucky enough to survive low temperature, concussion and blood loss. He shivered again and rested on the cold stone wall of the cript. Tired demigod managed to eat some ambrosia he had in a pocket of his jacket and huddled, embracing his legs tightly. He rested his head on his knees, closing his eyes. He was still extremely cold, even with stone walls shielding him from the wind and ambrosia warming his body from the inside, probably because of the blood lose and his overall bad shape. At least the voice was quiet for once. He started to regret his actions very, very much. He was safe in Camp Half Blood, or at least as safe as demigod could be, and now he was dying in the voult somewhere in New Orleans, alone as ever. Quickly, the dizziness became too overwhelming and young Prince of the Underworld fell limply on the stone floor.

--

Hi!

It's my pretty much first story and I'm not a native speaker so please, point me any errors you can find. Oh, don't worry, Nico is not dead, just dying. I don't know yet which pairing I want to have in this story, I'm thinking about Thanos or Anubis, because I just love Nico with gods of Death fanfics and we have so little of them, I mean come on. But I also am a big solangelo shipper so I'm open to suggestions. Please review and DM me with any ideas