Not to Be
AN: Don't complain about my OCs. Nothing will make much sense until the next chapter, so keep your heads on straight.
"You are not going after her." Aiden told him, his head stuck inside the fridge as he rooted around for anything edible.
"We can't just let her go with Percy and Annabeth. They have this habit of occasionally forgetting that not everybody went to train at Camp." Nico felt his annoyance grow as Aiden just nodded along with his words, not even bothering to look at him. ""You still aren't going to let me go."
"I don't have to let you. The question is, can you outrun death?"
"Lots of old Greeks have managed to." Nico stated simply. He was still musing with walking out the door, but with each word Aiden said, it became more of a possibility.
"No wonder dad hates you." He flashed him a quick grin to let the younger demigod know that he was joking, before switching to an exasperated look.
"My dad hates you more then your dad hates me." And then they both burst out laughing. Because nobody beats Thanatos when it comes to hate, not even Hades.
The theory was that maybe Nico would come after her. Why else have her along?
"So, um, what is this quest, adventure, thing about?" Rylee spoke up. Annabeth and Percy glanced at each other. Trust was important on missions, but nobody had ever heard of Rylee. They had heard of Aiden, Thanatos was ridiculously proud of him, but they hadn't heard a word about any child from Hypnos.
"Zeus, Hades and Poseidon have claimed some more demigods." Percy started.
This demigod family stuff was messy. The pact had just screwed it up even further. The end result was that Percy, Thalia, and even Nico himself had more siblings then they had ever wanted. Even though Nico only had two siblings to speak of while Thalia had at least six with who knows how many more out there, they were all in the same boat. Their fathers couldn't keep their word worth shit. (Actually, those were Rachel's words, and she would know.) Trust was not running very high among the demigods and their children lately.
"Nico's siblings." She nodded. Of course she had met them. Why hadn't he thought of that.
"And mine," he told her defensively. He hadn't really been sure of what to say so he had blurted out the most childish thing in his head.
"And Thalia's siblings." Annabeth reminded him. Rylee assumed she was Zeus's daughter, it finished the Big Three thing that was going on here.
"What about them?" Rylee asked, bringing the conversation back to it's original point.
"Well, Thalia's brother has this weird thing against Nico's youngest sister. And I'm telling you, Conor has lost his mind. Or at least we think so." Percy knows he's doing a horrible job at explaining this. But really, he didn't want to tell her much of anything.
"So, we have to go rescue Jilli?" Rylee asked.
"Jillian." Annabeth corrected.
"No, Jilli." Rylee repeated, confident she was right. Percy and Annabeth shared an unsettled glance. Both of the older demigods were pretty convinced that if you even tried to call the second oldest child of Hades, you would be swallowed up and cast into the pits of Tartarus.
"Um, that's right." Percy agreed awkwardly. Rylee grinned.
"Let's keep moving then."
It wasn't until after they had picked up Thalia that Rylee and Percy were on the same page as Annabeth.
"How's Nico?" Annabeth asked Rylee.
"Okay, but your wedding really pissed him off."
"I told you not to invite him." Thalia said.
"I didn't," Annabeth denied. As a daughter of Athena, of course she had enough brains in her head to realize that nothing but trouble would come out of the son of Hades presence.
"Aiden is good for him. He'll be fine as long as you just don't do anything. He needs time." Rylee insisted.
"Time for what?" Percy spoke up.
"To get over it." She told him.
"Over what?"
"Over you." She said it as though it should have been obvious. "You feeling okay?" How could he not remember that one of his best friends had been in love with him?
"What do you mean over me?" Percy snapped. Rylee's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"He loves you. Well he loved you." And when she noticed that none of her words were rigging any bells she responded with an anger every teenage girl possessed.
"Shit." Annabeth muttered.
"You didn't tell him, did you?" Thalia whispered. Annabeth shook her head. Zeus's daughter whistled in response.
"We're fucked."
"Uh huh."
"That guy is going to get hit by a bus." Aiden commented.
"What?" Nico whipped around.
"In, like two minutes, that guy over there is going to get slammed by that bus. It's only moving at a couple miles per hour but his jacket gets caught up in the wheels and he's crushed like a Pepsi can." And maybe it was because he could feel people die or maybe it was because deep down he has a death wish himself or maybe it was because his boyfriend could explain every detail of that man's death and not even flinch, but Nico shadow travels over there and back in two seconds flat, taking the almost killed man with him.
"What the fuck?" The guy shouts, clearly startled.
"Oh gods, Nico!" Aiden can feel that something has shifted. A pit of dread is weighing him down.
"I agree. What the fuck?" And a man who had been sitting outside a shop with a newspaper in front of his face stands up and walks over to them. "Care to explain yourself young demigod? Remember, I have no problem offending Hades." The god of death is in their midst and, wisely, the mortal scampers out of there.
"Shit." Aiden mutters, silently sending a quick prayer to Hades. Because shortly there was going to be one less demigod in the world and one more huge problem to deal with.
When all hell broke loose on their little rescue mission, it came in the form of a daughter of Hypnos. And what damage do you think the god of sleep's offspring actually cause? After all, her father ruled over sleep. Not even dreams like Morpheus, but just gentle sleep.
You change your mind when a demigod from the god of sleep puts you in a dreamless sleep so deep that you're rendered in a coma like state of mind.
"Percy? Percy? Percy!" Annabeth was panicking. He was barley breathing. What had she done to him?
"Rylee, calm down?" Thalia approached the teenager warily.
"He's a jackass. I hope he never wakes up, Hypnos help me." She was glaring at Percy's body. Truly, she was incapable of actually injuring someone. As a peaceful person over all, Rylee could never kill somebody. It made her the perfect fit for owning the power of sleep and normally she owned it well.
"We need him." Thalia told.
"The wold is much better off without him." Rylee shot back.
"He's a hero. It will anger a lot of people if you don't wake him up." Thalia pressed forward.
"So?" And she was such a teenager. Even though they were only a couple years older then here and even though Thalia still appeared fifteen, they had matured a lot faster because of everything they had been through and accomplished.
"Please?" And with a wave of her hand, Percy's eyes fluttered open.
"Thank you," Thalia told here. She nodded stiffly, but that was the last time she spoke to any of them.
"Ow, my head hurts." Percy mumbled sleepily.
"Well, maybe you should have handled that more tactfully, Seaweed Brain." Annabeth told him, sighing with relief.
"Yeah, well note to self: even the invincible are not immune to sleep." He sat up and stretched.
"So don't piss of Hypnos and/or Morpheus or we have no hero." Thalia said offering a hand up.
"I don't plan to." Percy swore.
"Oh gods, we are going to lose him to the gods of dreams and sleep." Annabeth mocked horror. Rylee kept her head down and shuffled after them quietly. She hated him. She really hated fucking Percy Jackson.
Lightening struck the ground and the solid rock cracked from the sheer force of the blow.
"Bring her back!" A voice shouted. And she whipped around to face the voice's owner.
"I don't have her!" She shouted back.
"Yes you do! You filthy spawn of the underworld, give me my mother back!" And suddenly Conor and Jillian were face to face.
"Lighting Rod, I don't have your whore of a mother and I never did!" She shouted. She regretted her choice of word a second later as another bolt of lightening hit the ground not even an inch away from her. She could feel the crackle of electricity as it danced along her skin.
"Missed." She threw her arm up and a column of rock sent the son of Zeus flying. Quickly, Jillian resumed her search. There was an entrance to the underworld somewhere around here and she had to find it before Conor came back.
"Um, sorry?" It didn't sound like an apology. Aiden winced
"Nico," he warned.
"No, let the boy speak." Thanatos raised a hand to silence his son.
"Dad." And Nico found something off kilter about this argument. How did you argue with death anyway? It seemed almost silly to try.
"Dad, don't you have some souls to be giving to Charon?"
"Hermes can take over for a little bit."
"Hermes is a busy god."
"Don't I know it." Thanatos snorted. His hair was was brown surprisingly and his eyes were an unsettling red. He was tall and thin. And he looked rather harmless in a black t-shirt and black jeans. However power radiated around him and if you looked close enough, you could see his black wings. Nico, in some burst of ridiculousness, looked Aiden over closely. Still no wings, he breathed a small sigh of relief.
"Oh, you have nothing to be relived about. You took my soul!"
"I won't willingly let someone die, not while I'm here." He shrugged.
"I won't let you meddle in my affairs boy! If you have any will to live, you will keep your nose out of the business of dying." The god thundered.
"Hades wouldn't be pleased if you killed me."
"Hades is a fool. He may rule the dead but he forgets who does the actual killing." Thanatos spit and Nico bristled. He opened his mouth to say something along the lines of Hades being a major god that people actually remember when Hermes rushed in.
"Will you do your job?" He said.
"I'm dealing with unruly demigods." The god of death waved an arm in their direction.
"Oh, hello Nico, Aiden. I'm going to have to steal the fearsome god before you so he can actually continue killing people!" The last part was aimed at Thanatos. Both boys got the feeling that the two gods had come to blows on more then one occasion.
"I'm going!" He spread his wings.
"Wait! We need a favor." Aiden broke in. Both gods stopped their bickering to stare at him.
"What is it?" Hermes asked.
"We need to find Rylee." Nico admitted. Thanatos softened at the mention of his brother's daughter.
"I can take you to her." He said grudgingly.
"No, I'll take them. You have an appointment with an elderly couple in Virginia." Hermes shooed the god out of their mist. When he was gone, he took the young demigods to a small hill.
"Where is she?" Aiden asked.
"Oh she'll get here. Well I got to go. Say hi to Percy and Annabeth for me." And the messenger god was gone.
"There's an entrance to the underworld here." Nico muttered.
"Yeah, and some crazy lightening." Aiden pointed towards the sky a couple miles away.
"Probably some kid of Zeus on a quest." Nico shrugged.
"So I guess we wait here then."
"Yeah. I'm going to go find that passage." Nice started away.
A couple hours later, once Aiden had been out of sight for a couple minutes, he caught sight of a girl. She was tall and skinny, an obvious runner. Nico wondered why she was out here.
"Ah, young son of Hades. It's about time you got here." Nico looked around stupidly.
"Me?" He asked. She huffed.
"What is it about demigods acting like they're not the only one's out here? Yes you." She beckoned him closer.
"What is your name goddess?" He asked.
"Atë, goddess of fools and stupid decisions. I've been banished from Olympus for a long time. Zeus has been very irritated with me."
"I know the feeling." He snorted.
"Yes, well I've come to tell you that I'm tired of hanging around you." She frowned at him.
"Thanks?" Nico could feel his guard rising up.
"Your welcome. The Litae have almost caught me three times now. It would be a huge an embarrassment for a runner like me if I was caught. Now, you need to talk about Percy so you can stop making the same foolish decisions about what to do. So, talk." She folded her arms in a disgruntled manner. Nico looked at her, at a loss.
"Where do I start?" He asked.
"The beginning is a wonderful place."
"I hadn't realized I loved him until he had pushed me up against the wall and there was a sword at my throat," he took a deep breath and dove the rest of the way in, with Atë by his side.