Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All thanks to good ol' Rick.

AN: Thanks for the reviews and the suggestions. I know some of you are getting impatient because of the slow build and I'm sorry! This has turned out to be a lot longer than I expected but then there was just... so much I wanted to do in the end. So hopefully you'll enjoy this a little bit more! Again, sorry it's different and I really hope it works.

Tempting the Fates

Chapter Seventeen

Night Terrors

Percy/Nico

Tears blurred his vision as he whipped his head around. Bodies were packed in tightly around him, jostling for their place, everyone traveling in their own direction. No one paid attention to someone so small; his head barely came to their chests. Locks the colour of night stuck to the side of his face, damp from his tears.

The masses kept moving and that was how he'd been separated in the first place. He'd let go of a hand and been carried away in a wave of people, the tide dragging him away from everything familiar. Then he'd lost sight of his mother and his tiny heart was hammering in his chest like a hummingbird's wings, a million beats a second. Snot dripped from his nose; he wiped both it and the tears from face with the sleeve of his coat.

Why couldn't anyone see him? He was right there.

But he had pulled shadows to him, too young to know what that even meant, and he stood alone in the middle of the crowd unobtrusive and indistinct. Sucking on his bottom lip and bunching his hands into fists to rub at his eyes, he sobbed unnoticed, because when he cried it was always muffled afraid of the sounds he might make if he allowed himself to be anything but voiceless.

A hand wrapped around his wrist and brown eyes met with kind familiar ones.

What are you so afraid of, little one?

Being alone.

Nothing made sense.

Nothing could ever make sense again. Not in this world and not in the next. Not in any world that could ever exist.

The sound of his feet slapping onto the stone floor—when had it turned to stone? It was earth just a few steps back, soft and squishy— created a cadence he could attempt to catch his breath to because for some reason his lungs didn't want to work. They were tight and spurned the air. He didn't need it. He didn't need anything. Or anyone.

So he ran.

The tunnels ahead coiled and curved and forked out before shooting up or plunging down, sometimes within feet of one the last. But he followed them, legs pumping as fast as they could but they were beginning to tire. Each foot was a lead weight and they pounded harder and harder onto the ground with his pace getting slower and slower.

But his mind was sprinting miles ahead of him and he didn't want his body to catch up because if it caught up it would have to understand. Or try to understand. And nothing made sense. It couldn't ever make sense.

Because Bianca was gone.

He couldn't see further than the hand placed on the wall in front of him, piloting around the dank corridors so he didn't run headfirst into a wall or something equally damaging. The dark had never bothered him before but it was impossible to tell if he was going in circles. Except that he had started counting steps after every turn he made and at number thirty two he tripped over a dip in the ground— just like step number thirty two of the last turn— and the turn before that.

Where was he going?

His shriek echoed down the corridor when he fell to his knees, crumpling in on himself like a napkin. He'd tugged at his hair and shouted until the earth around him shuddered.

Bianca was dead.

He was alone.

What are you so afraid of?

Being left behind.

Being lost.

Waves crashed around him but the flailing of his limbs wasn't enough to keep abreast. Now when the crests were whitecaps surging up and then crashing down on top of him. Each swell was taller than the last and with each he was dragged under just a little bit further and unable to surface just a teeny bit longer. His lungs were searing.

"Help! S-someone… H—" he'd broken the surface again but just as soon as he yelled he gaged down a lungful of salt water and despite the racking of his body and the hacks couldn't empty it. Because water was there again and his scenery was an ocean bed. Brightly coloured fish passed him, darting away from his dark presence. Below him multicoloured coral housed however many kind of sea critters dancing in out and out.

There was cold and then there was cold. Pressure pinched at his head and pushed at his eyes. The arctic undercurrent froze his limbs— before his eyes they were becoming stone, too frozen to move.

Drifting down, he closed his dark eyes and searched with everything in him. Below water was earth and earth was his element but this sovereignty was not his own and the sand below was not subservient.

He could feel himself dying. Spots swam before his eyes and his heart was succumbing to sloth, toddling blood through his veins. When had he lost feeling in his toes? Or his feet? Or his legs and fingers and hands?

Bright green blue eyes filled his vision and recognition flooded through his veins; he was adrift in them instantly.

Lips struggled to form letters as the last of the bubbles left his lungs.

Can't you see?

He laughed.

What are you so afraid of?

I'm drowning.

The halls of the boarding school stretched out before him, empty. It was after hours and he was meant to be tucked away, secure in his bed in the room that he shared with five other boys. Curfew was a few hours passed and while they were meant to be sleeping they always waited for the sisters to make their rounds before popping heads out of their blankets and unearthing a flashlight. After all, bedtime was really just a suggested time. None of them were ever tired.

Gameboys were contraband but the five boys he roomed with each had one. They were tucked away and out they came for additional levels at night. Pokemon was the game of choice and Nico wasn't even sure what Pokemon were, never mind who Pikachu was.

That and he didn't have a gameboy.

That made it pretty difficult to socialise but he tried anyway. In fact, tonight he'd even made the alternative offer of Mythomagic because honestly it was the best game in the entire world. And once they learned how to play it, he was sure the other boys would love it.

The one boy, the older (by just a few months) and the tallest had looked at the cards and smiled in that mean way he had. For a moment, he actually thought the other was considering it. He'd stood before them wide eyed and hopeful sure that this night they would finally welcome him.

It had been a few months and the smaller boy had persisted through being ignored as all new kids are; being taunted because he was the scrawniest, shortest, had a tiny bit of a lisp (what with a front tooth missing), a heavy Italian accent, didn't understand any of their jokes, hadn't seen any of their movies, or listened to any of their music; being excluded when the teasing got tired; and then just then maybe he would finally be accepted for stomaching all of it without tattling.

But the cards fell at his feet in a heap, half of them crumpled or tagged. The older boy stomped on the cards, crushing them under his bare heel and locked eyes. "As if."

So he ran through the hallways looking for the girl's dormitory. He was going to get into so much trouble but he had to find Bianca. Had to speak with her. Clutching the crumpled cards to his chest.

His footsteps echoed down the hall.

What are you so afraid of, Nico?

Being different.

A cabin has been erected for his father's child(ren) but he still doesn't tend to visit. Maybe he could make a little bit more of an effort but seasons are slower below and Nico can pass whole months without seeing the world above without being any the wiser. If there was something, or someone, expecting his appearance it might be different. But nothing is and no one does.

After the Battle of Manhattan, campers were more inclined to speak with him and, for the first time in his life, he felt welcomed. An army of ghosts built a beautiful cabin so he could have his place amongst the other children of the gods when he visited. Being the only living heir he had certain responsibilities and so he spent time below training to be commander his father required.

Seasons passed and he returned.

Memories quickly slip and while there were still soft smiles, campers returned to their wider berth and in return a rift raised between them. Deeper and deeper day by day until he forgot they had once thought him a hero for his army of undead in the fight against Kronos.

There was one who still impersonated inclination.

The boy with the sea green eyes loped up beside him and they shared a smile. He said something and the boy said another and then he was touching his arm. Onyx eyes glanced down at the contact, wide and wondering. But the boy with the sea green eyes only smiled and something inside of him fluttered to life. Maybe that was his heart.

The boy was life, counterbalancing his dark. Polar opposites. When the boy leaned forward, he was a magnet and draw closer in. But the boy stopped moving and tugged away.

He wilted as the gaze grew cold and the boy's eyes raged into storms, the graze then a grapple and the smile a sneer. There was no more kindness left only laughter and the other campers huddled around laughing, all laughing, and it grew louder and louder.

Shameful.

What are you so afraid of?

Being found out.

Manhattan's skyline stretched before him just as it had on that day. The buildings stood damaged against a bleak horizon. Whatever light might have shone overhead was swallowed by the churning of clouds as they were summoned to the centre of the battlefield.

The earth quaked beneath their feet and the stress fractures formed in the pavement and as the undulations increased it shattered like glass and crumbled to dust. From the earth, hundreds of undead soldiers rose and fought against monsters and Titans alike, bony fingers tearing, especially at traitor demigod flesh. But that wasn't worth another thought.

The pressure dropped and then increased. Demigods of Camp Half Blood, those who were fighting on the side of the gods, were severely outnumbered but with a child each from the Big Three, the atmosphere was electric. The battled against impossible odds, pushing the forces of Kronos back.

Nico fought, Stygian sword in hand. He was the first to arrive in battle— though his relationship with camp was tenuous at best— others rallied soon after.

The city was divided, each legion protecting and advancing as they could though they were pushed back only able to guard the entrance to Olympus. And in the final moments, Percy called a hurricane. The winds picked up and the water swarmed and the ground shook— he was the son of the earth shaker.

And the son of the Underworld, leant his elemental skills and the ground convulsed. But in the final moments, Luke had no choice. There was no knife in the Achilles heel and there was no choice to make. The war waged and there was no conceding defeat between either of them though they tired, they crashed through buildings and flew through the air, an action movie in the works.

In the end it wasn't Kronos who defeated Percy Jackson but an ill fated fall. A fall onto the end of a ghost legionnaires sword right to the sweet spot at the small of Percy's back.

Blood bubbled from his lips and he gasped for breath.

Nico was by his side in a matter of seconds, hands shaking like the ground as the light went out of Percy Jackson's eyes.

A howl tore from his lips and the world exploded as the earth swallowed all of Manhattan.

What are you so afraid of?

Losing him.

Nico sat with his back pressed to a graphite wall. Bob stood before him busy with his broom as he swept a hall lit only by Greek fire. The Stygian sword was back in the young man's hands and he was turning his wrist over and over, a half hearted exercise of swordsmanship. Well, if one could consider it practice given he was sitting down.

"Tell me the story again. The one that I like about Styx."

There was a smirk playing at his lips but Nico's head dipped in a nod and he started telling it all over again. About Styx and how she loved so loyally and freely to one man that she was completely consumed. In the end she had known she was tempting the fates, playing with her own lifeline but when you promise yourself to someone it means forever not just right now. So she had kept her covenant and she was so consumed by the heat of her love— he was literally too bright— that she burned into nothing.

The river that was hers did not dry up but disappeared as few divine things can really be truly diminished. So she spent her years ethereal, always there, but without true form. And when the war came she vowed herself to fight on the side of the gods.

"But how could she make the pact?" Bob wondered out loud.

"Because she swore she would serve him with everything she had. And even though she couldn't do much in the way of fighting she persuaded her children Nike, Zelos, Bia and Kratos to fight as well. You know what they mean in English? Rivalry, Force, Strength and victory."

Then the gods were victorious and for her loyalty, Zeus restored her to her former power. Her river ran alongside her lover's and from that day everyone swore on her river the binding agreement because she was the definition of loyalty.

"Percy is that loyal. He'd sacrifice everything for one of his friends."

Bob smiled and closing the broom away in a closet, traded it for a mop bucket. Why he needed to mop in the underworld was beyond him but Nico didn't like to argue with the big guy. If it made him happy then so be it. Skeletons were always going to drag some grave soil in around the place so really it should just be left but— whatever.

"I used to be angry with him. I thought he was a liar but then I realised… you can't be resentful if they can't keep a promise that wasn't theirs in the first place. H-he… he couldn't keep Bianca safe because that was up to her. It wasn't his promise to make."

The silver haired Titan nodded like it was a conversation that they had had before. Telling tales and speaking about Bianca or life.

"Will he come to visit us? At home, I mean."

Dark eyes ringed with violet bags met with quicksilver ones and the child of Hades just laughed. Dropping the dark blade, he gave a quirk of the lips that might have been a smile but was more likely a frown in disguise. The clatter echoed through the otherwise empty hallway.

"He's a very good friend, Bob. He always asks about you, he really does. But he's a hero. A real hero, the kind they write about in books. And a hero like that, well, he doesn't have a lot of time, you know? He wishes he does but he doesn't. I-I… I don't think he'll be visiting us down here. I'm very sorry."

Bob nodded, not for the first time.

"Why do you sound sad? Always with sadness when speaking about friend Percy. I'm sure he would like for you to visit!" The Titan clapped his hands together like the idea was genius. Nico smiled and gave a bob of his head in silent agreement again.

"Yeah… yeah, I'm sure I'll do that. But for now, I'll just stay down here with you. You'd get bored without me." Picking up a piece of the grave soil from where he'd hid it behind his back, he chucked it at Bob's freshly cleaned floor. The Titan's eyes glowed briefly but then he laughed and kicked the tiny clod back at the young demigod.

"You're as loyal as he is, Bob. I hope I can be like you both some day."

His eyes were dark and sad. Bob turned away and his shoulders sank.

What are you so afraid of?

That I'm just as worthless as they all think.

I won't grow up to be a hero like him.

That loyalty won't matter because no one will see mine in the end.

Green eyes flew open. Nico was laying in front of him. At some point while he was sleeping, the younger boy had inched forward or the son of the sea had scooted further away from the green fire in the hearth. Either way his hand was laid across Nico's and the son of Hades had clung onto the limb for life.

His breathing was coming slowly and the years had melted from his face while he slept. The violet bags under his eyes looked less heavy. Somewhere outside Bob paroled the perimeter; Percy could hear his footsteps as he circled around letting the two boys rest.

Demigod dreams were never normal but that… his body was shaking. Percy was covered in a film of sweat and his heart was pumping in his chest but it felt strained. Like something was constricting inside of him but he wasn't too certain what.

What the hell was that?

The boy in front of him slept fitfully, his breath hitching in his throat and little grumbles escaping past his lips. He looked younger and that… whatever that was… it was like seeing Nico for the first time.

There was more to the child of Hades than he'd given credit for.

With his free hand, he reached across the distance between them and brushed his fingers through his hair.

Instead of pulling his hand away, Percy weaved their fingers together and let him hold on tight.

If anyone deserved a break, it was him.