Modus Pecudium, Percy/Nico, Post-Labyrinth AU
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, IT'S DONE.
It's not the longest thing I've ever written (my HP Big Bang attempt coming in first at around 12.5k, and my SPN attempt a close third at 9.5k) but it's definitely the longest thing I've ever finished and posted.
It's posted in two parts only because it was too big for one entry, not because it's meant to be in two parts.
Title: Modus Pecudium
Characters/Pairing: Percy/Nico
Word Count: 11,840
Warnings/Enticements: Necrophilia, underage (Nico is eleven/twelve)
A/N: See above. AU as of Last Olympian. This picks up right after Battle of the Labyrinth. It is, however, canon compliant with The Demigod Files, which unfortunately seems to have been a waste of effort, as Riordan himself ignores it most of the time in Last Olympian.
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When Nico di Angelo suddenly appeared on my fire escape the night I turned fifteen, I nearly had a heart attack.
Firstly, he was the last person I expected to show up, having parted ways with him only two months before with the thought that his research would probably take him a lot longer than that. Secondly, I was hardly expecting anyone to show up on my fire escape to begin with. Thirdly, it was Nico freaking di Angelo.
It was lucky he spoke first, because my shock just at seeing him was enough to render me speechless. Never mind the fact that I had spent most of the last two months thinking about him (when my mind wasn't preoccupied with thoughts about Luke and Kronos, and the prophecy). Never mind that I wanted to think about him instead of the impending war. And definitely never mind the fact that it was all I could do not to jerk off thinking about him every time I wrapped my hand around my cock. And I hadn't expected to see him before I could process these new-found thoughts and desires.
And now Nico was there, in front of me, and I had to wonder if it wasn't just another one of my fantasies. Because yes, I'd been thinking about Rachel, and of course I'd thought about Annabeth. But they had nothing, nothing on how much I'd been thinking about Nico. And believe me, I sort of hated myself for it. There were so many reasons why I should've stopped myself thinking about it, stopped myself getting carried away. But I couldn't; those reasons didn't matter. My arguments became more and more feeble the more I thought about it, and I thought about it a lot.
After Nico had been introduced to my mother and eaten his full of blue birthday cake and ice cream, we went back to my room to discuss Luke and the possible ways Nico had found to defeat Kronos and his army. I tried to keep my mind on tactics, and as Nico was staying admirably on task and telling me to recall everything I could about the Princess Andromeda and the forces onboard, and everything Kronos had ever said to me, it wasn't real hard to do. Finally, we had exhausted talk of the war, and in the silence I was able to think about him for really the first time that night.
"There's one thing I don't get, Nico," I said. He looked up as I asked, "How'd you find me? I never told you where I lived, or…" I trailed off at the look on his face, which I recognized as a common one of Annabeth's: His head was cocked to one side, his brow furrowed like he couldn't believe I was asking that question. I felt slightly foolish, but only for a few seconds; I was used to asking what I only realized after were stupid questions after years of being friends with Annabeth. But Nico just regarded me silently, and I realized that he wasn't wondering how I didn't know the answer. I thought that maybe, in his protracted silence, he was wondering how best to tell me, or if he should even tell me at all.
Several minutes had passed before he looked at me again. I looked back at him, and I couldn't help but notice how his eyes still had that fire, that manic depth. He remained silent and I got a little lost in my thoughts, so I started slightly when Nico finally spoke.
"I can sense the living, Percy," he told me, "the same way that I can the dead. Well," he paused thoughtfully, "not exactly the same way, I guess. Healthy souls, those not close to death, are harder for me. But the rest…" he trailed off.
I thought about this. It made sense. And if I needed something else to convince me, Nico added, almost as an afterthought, as if he were just figuring it out himself, "They're all the same in the end, you see."
I nodded. "So you must have had a hard time finding me, huh?" It was my attempt at humor to lighten the situation, to get my mind off of death and dying souls. If Nico realized this, he chose to ignore it.
"I found you very easily, Percy," he said levelly. "Half bloods in general are easier to find since they're usually always in danger, but you…well, the closer you get to sixteen, the better I can sense you. It’s been building since last year, since the Labyrinth."
I felt any remains of my smile melt off my face. I tried not to think about the fact that I had been dying for over a year now, becoming more and more like those already in the Fields. It had probably started before that-maybe ever since I was born. I didn't want to think about the fact that Nico knew that, could sense it. I looked at him, sitting carelessly through the silence between us. He was still growing, and his hair was long, almost to his shoulders, blending into his entirely black wardrobe, the skull ring still glinting dully on his finger. He seemed so relaxed, so comfortable with himself, that it was all I could do to remind myself that he could sense-and talk to, and hear-the dead, that he was probably listening to them right now. It sent chills down my spine, and I tried harder to put it from my mind.
So instead, I thought about everything Nico had done-how fast he was forced to accept who he was, how quickly he progressed from the boy I saw at Westover Hall to the man I saw before me, who was in full control of his considerable powers and abilities; who was able to hold his own in neutral territory in the middle of the one of the biggest wars the world had ever seen.
The thing was, Nico was young. I knew this. I tried to tell that to myself more times than I could count, used his age in argument after argument with myself about why it was a bad idea-an impossible, shameful idea-and why it could never happen. Except for the eyes (and believe me, they were hard to ignore) he still looked young. But there was something about him that made me forget all of that, that forced his age out of my mind every time I thought about him.
You see, the problem was, Nico was too young, much too young for everything that'd happened to him. If I had thought that maybe twelve was a little too young for me to have my first quest, and to battle monsters, and to have my friends put in danger, than Nico was much too young to begin with, never mind the greater horrors he had faced. He had lost Bianca, had been essentially abandoned, left alone with only the whispering specters of the dead who treated him no better. And although Nico was powerful-impressively, breathtakingly so-it still seemed a miracle to me that he could even be sitting here, seemingly perfectly at ease, shouldering the burden of a much older man. No, it wasn't just that he was young. It was that he was so young his age just didn't matter anymore. He didn't act his age-was never allowed to act his age-and he wasn't held to any of the standards of someone his age. He was forced into maturity far beyond his years, knew and felt and experienced things that no one his age should ever be subjected to. Besides, I thought with a slight jolt, technically, Nico had been physically alive longer than any of us.
"So, uh," I began, because I had started to get uncomfortable with the silence and with where it let my thoughts wander off to, although I had no idea what else I would say to him.
He looked up at me again, and I glanced away, anything to get away from the intensity of his gaze, the unfathomable depths of his eyes. I watched instead as he brushed a lock of hair away from his face. I noticed that there seemed to be dirt or something on his hands and under his fingernails, dark again his pale skin.
"Look Percy, I'm sorry if I freaked you out with the whole, I-can-sense-your-death thing," he said in a tone that suggested no remorse whatsoever. "It's just something that I've always been able to do, even before I knew what I was doing or what was actually happening. It's not really a conscious thing, and it's not always accurate, how I sense people." He paused before adding, "I've seen plenty of people die whose spirits were healthy."
"And vice versa?" I asked, interpreting his hesitation.
He sighed. "Not as commonly, no. But it has happened."
And now there was the slightest hint of sadness in his voice, and I wondered sardonically if it was because he was sorry for speaking again of my impending death or for some other reason. Because when Nico talked about the dead, well, it wasn't how other people talked about them. He spoke of them with sadness and respect. He spoke of them as someone who knew them only in death, who only cared to know them in death. As far as I knew, Nico had only a few living friends, and I wondered for the first time if maybe he had more non-living friends, and if he preferred their company to the living. He had told me that he was an outcast at camp, as unwelcome there as his father was on Olympus. I wondered now if he minded this as much as I'd always assumed he must have. I wasn't so sure, now.
I looked at him again. He was idly fingering the hilt of his Stygian sword, which was lying across the surface of my desk. I felt something shift between us, and the silence suddenly seemed heavy, as if filled with anticipation, or anxiety; the very air seemed to be waiting for something. Nico wasn't looking at me, or even at his sword. His eyes were trained on the ground in front of him, like he was avoiding my gaze, and I was suddenly uncomfortable in a different way, in a way I hadn't been at any time that night. I was afraid of breaking the silence, but it was starting to get under my skin, irritating me.
Nico stood up abruptly. He glanced sideways at me before picking up his sword and reattaching it to his side. When he was done adjusting the straps, he looked at me, unsmiling but not unkindly.
"I should get going."
"Yeah, right," I said clumsily, although I had no idea why he needed to go, or even where he was off to. "It's late," I added lamely.
He raised an eyebrow, as if the lateness of the hour hadn't occurred to him, didn't even matter to him; and I sort of nodded feebly in response, the color rising in my cheeks, trying to think of something to say to cover up the awkward moment.
Nico just gave me the shadow of a smirk, and said, "See you later, Percy," before climbing gracefully through my window and disappearing into the shadows of my fire escape.
I didn't see him again for another two months.
That's not to say I didn't think about him for another two months. I could barely stop thinking about him for two days. When my dreams weren't filled with a cold voice that bled out of Luke's mouth like it belonged there, they were filled with shadows that stirred and flickered like someone was moving among them. I caught flashes of headstones, heaps of dirt, dark figures at the bottom of a darker grave. These dreams should have unsettled me, frightened me.
They didn't.
Instead, more often than not I woke up hard, and would come with only a few clumsy strokes of my hand.
To say I was kind of confused by this was an understatement. Yeah, I was attracted to Nico, and I had made my peace with that. But as far as I knew, I was only watching him dig up graves and summon the dead and talk to their corpses. These dreams felt prophetic, although I wasn't sure why I was having so many of them, or why they never seemed to reveal anything. There was never much sound, but I figured if the souls in the Asphodel Fields were anything to judge by, I shouldn't be surprised that all I could hear was whispering, breathing, incoherent mumbling.
The dreams varied. Sometimes, I was simply standing in a cemetery, looking at headstones and a pile of dirt-a dark mound visible only because it was darker than the sky behind it-and listening to the murmurs of Nico and the dead, sounding more like wind than anything else. Sometimes, I was standing above the grave, looking down into it, but all I could make out at the bottom were dark shapes, the gleam of hinges on the coffin, the ever-present whispering more guttural in my ears, like the remnants of a voice.
I'd wake up soon after, but not before I could sense Nico near me, in front of me; not before I could hear the rustle of his clothes and pick out the sound of his exhales from the reanimated breath of the dead.
These dreams fuelled more fantasies until I had quite the collection of scenarios that I'd play out over and over again in my mind, whenever I was bored or whenever I was horny or really, just whenever. I'd imagine having Nico under me, tangling my fingers in his hair and kissing him, trailing my lips across his jaw, down his throat. I'd hear the sounds he'd make as I sucked bruises into his skin, marking him, claiming him. I'd feel his legs wrap around my waist, bringing my hips down to slot against his as he grinded into my body. I'd imagine the feel of my cock in his mouth, how he'd pin me down as he sucked me off. I thought about what it'd be like to fuck him (or be fucked by him-I wasn't picky) and send him over the edge, to feel his body tense up around me and know that I had done that to him.
And every time he appeared in my dreams my longing for him intensified, despite the fact that all I could see were headstones and all I could hear were the fading echoes of his voice.
So yeah, I was having dreams about him; and even though they weren't the kinds I would've liked, my body didn't seem to care.
The next time Nico di Angelo materialized at my side I was back at Camp Half-Blood for Halloween weekend. My freshman year at Goode had so far been frequently interspersed with these random visits to camp or, more unpleasantly, by unexpected quests with daughters of Ares. With the war fast approaching, I supposed this could only be expected. Nothing serious had happened yet (I happily assumed that Kronos was still trying to recover from his defeat in the Labyrinth) but Halloween was generally a busy time for supernatural forces and most demigods were on call for damage control. Since I was still in New York for school, Chiron had let me return to Half-Blood Hill.
On this particular night, I was sitting on the beach, staring out over Long Island Sound, when the next thing I knew, a dark shape sat down beside me. I realized it was Nico and even after my initial shock has subsided, my heart kept beating wildly. I sat perfectly still, my blood singing with sudden recollections and pent up desires that burst forth against my volition. Embarrassed in spite of myself and irrationally worried that he'd somehow sense my thoughts, that he'd somehow know, I tried to gather them up, shove them back into my subconscious where they belonged.
If he noticed my frenzied inner panic, he didn't show it. He simply sat next to me, watching the waves crash on the shore. He didn't tell me why he was there or where he'd been. I didn't know how he got into camp undetected; I'd assumed that the boundary line would have prevented anyone from entering by stealth (umbrakinetic or otherwise), but then again, Nico was a demigod, so maybe it didn't matter. Either way, I found I didn't really care; despite the images (almost all inappropriate) still flashing through my mind, his presence relaxed me-I knew where he was, I knew he was safe-and there was something to be said for just being near him.
Finally, he looked at me. "Percy," he said, by way of a late greeting.
"Nico," I responded. My heart was still hammering frantically in my chest, my pulse pounding against my throat.
More silence.
I figured he'd tell me what he needed to when he was ready, so I used the time to look him over. I wasn't positive, but I was pretty sure he was still growing. His black hair was still shoulder-length, but much more snarled and matted than it was the last time I had seen him. He was wearing black jeans and tee shirt, and, despite the chill in the air, was covered only with a black leather jacket that hung off of his thin frame. I thought at first that he must've been freezing: the tips of his fingers looked blue and his skin was paler than I had ever seen. But I looked closer and realized that the shadows were deceiving me. It was the same as when he'd showed up at my apartment in the city: his fingers seemed to have a dark base layer of grime, and his skin only looked pale against dark patches of dirt elsewhere on his body-against his jaw line, his collarbone where it disappeared under his shirt, the backs of his hands.
This time, though, I knew what it was from. I didn't point it out and I didn't bring it up, although I probably should have; I was sure Nico had learned his lesson from Minos, but I couldn't help thinking that he might still get hurt, or even that he'd somehow get caught, shadow traveling or not. A part of me still worried about Bianca. But the truth was I didn't ask him about it because I was pretty sure he didn't know I was dreaming about him, and I afraid that if he found out he'd somehow block them from me. And let's be honest, I wasn't really keen to explain why I wanted to have them.
I felt more than saw Nico looking at me. I expected him to tell me something-some piece of information, something we could use against Kronos-that he'd gotten from his many nights spent talking to the dead. Needless to say, I didn't expect his silence. I looked over at him again, and immediately recoiled.
There was something in his face I had never seen there before, and it shocked me. There was hunger, and longing, and yet an acute sadness that I couldn't quite put my finger on: hopelessness, confusion, the knowledge of something he'd rather not have known. Plastered over Nico's face like that, it was almost indecent to witness. But just as fast as it had come, it was gone. Nico quickly regained control over his features and settled them into something less telling, something more like his usual impassive stoicism, and I wondered if I hadn't imagined it. But there was still something there, lingering: Some light in his eyes that otherwise usually seemed so dead.
I didn't realize what it meant until after he'd left. It wasn't until he had said a hasty goodbye and disappeared into the shadows without another word, and I had made my way back to camp and was tucked happily into my bed in the Poseidon cabin, that the pieces suddenly clicked into place-the dreams, the whispering, the dirt, Nico's looks-and it was suddenly like I had known it all along.
I kept thinking that I must've been stupid not to notice it before. It seemed so obvious now. I knew, of course, that Nico was summoning the dead to train, and that he must've learned how to use his power somewhere, from someone, but now I knew that Nico was digging up graves for another reason altogether.
Because I knew that he wasn't raising the dead he slept with. For one thing, they wouldn't have had bodies-I'd seen Nico with Bianca enough times already to know that. Secondly, in my dreams, Nico was always in modern cemeteries, with new headstones and freshly disinterred earth, where there would be bodies still in good condition and coffins not that difficult to get to, rather than the forgotten graveyards of the ancient heroes.
Despite this new knowledge, what really surprised me about the whole thing was how much it didn't actually bother me. Nico had always been distant, different, closer to the dead than to the living. I'd been thinking of him as a sexual being for a while ago now, so (in my head, at least) it made sense that if he was having sex, it'd be with the dead. I knew what it meant-what other people would name it and likewise dismiss it as. But with Nico, it simply wasn't the same; you couldn't just wrap it up and call it necrophilia and be done with it. You couldn't compare it with other people, other situations. It just seemed natural, somehow, and I wasn't about to start thinking too much into it.
I tried to disregard the fact that part of me-the part that guiltily flashed images of Nico through my mind at all hours of the day and stubbornly maintained that he was older than his age, already mature enough to want and get and handle sex-was validated, and breathing a definite sigh of relief. More than that, though, I flat-out ignored how much better it made me feel.
That is to say, I was doing a pretty good job pretending to ignore it until I went to bed a couple of days later.
This time, the dream was vivid. I was still merely standing on the edge of an open grave, looking down into it, but now I could see everything at the bottom. I could see Nico lying flush against the body beneath him, his black jeans pooled around his knees. I could see the exposed skin at the back of his neck, where his head was nestled into the crook of the body's shoulder.
He was fucking the corpse of a girl, about fourteen or fifteen by the looks of her, although it was hard to tell as she was still wearing a good deal of makeup, presumably from her wake. Nico had pushed the hem of her dress up past her waist, her underwear pulled down around her knees. The hinges on the lid of the coffin creaked with each of Nico's thrusts, gentle as they were. He was taking his time, moving languorously, exultantly, and with near reverent grace.
I was suddenly aware that the sounds I was hearing weren't that different than in my previous dreams: They had actually been pretty accurate. The whispering I'd heard before wasn't the incoherent speech of the dead. It was Nico, just Nico, speaking softly into the girl's ear, panting against her cheek; it was his ragged breathing and his suppressed moans into her neck as he came.
I watched all of it, transfixed, from my perch six feet above. I watched as Nico slowly came down from his climax, disentangling his limbs from hers. I watched him as he fumbled with his jeans, pulling them back up and buttoning his fly. When he was dressed again, he kneeled in her coffin, straddling her thighs, and carefully replaced her clothes. He reached up and tucked a lose strand of her hair behind her ear; the gesture was tender, and I unexpectedly felt my heart squeeze a little at the clear hint of affection in it. He glanced over her again, making sure everything was in order, before he climbed out of her coffin and shut the lid. He scrambled up out of the hole on the side opposite me.
Nico reached the top and stood. He was about to take a step when I saw him stiffen. His shoulders visibly tensed, and his whole body was suddenly taut like a loaded spring. After several prolonged seconds, he turned and stared at exactly where I was standing, his brow creased in bewilderment.
Needless to say, I panicked. I was pretty sure he couldn't see me, exactly, as he looked only slightly suspicious, his head tilted to the side like he was trying to work out what was there. But I was also pretty damn sure that he could sense my presence, and probably for the first time. Just as he narrowed his eyes and really looked, I jerked awake, breathing heavily into the dark of my empty cabin. Adrenaline was coursing through my body and settling in my already hard cock, and I rolled over and ground my hips into the mattress, the clumsy, warm friction enough to make me come five thrusts later.
To say I was preoccupied by this new state of affairs was quite another understatement. I wasn't just preoccupied: I was obsessed. I couldn't stop thinking about it no matter how hard I tried. Even when I didn't want the images, when I didn't want to think about Nico (out there, alone) sleeping with the dead, they flew through my mind non-stop, practically haunting me.
Before Nico had showed up, when I jerked off I usually just imagined him with me, and got off thinking about everything I wanted to do to him. But now I couldn't help thinking about him fucking corpses, corpses!, for the gods' sake, and my body-my horrible, morally unaware, betraying body-still didn't seem to care.
I passed the time until Thanksgiving break in a blur of confused lust and anxiety. I was happy to get back to camp and have the Poseidon cabin to myself. It was getting harder and harder to hide my problems from my mom and Paul, and the last thing I wanted was to answer their questions about why I couldn't sleep and why I looked so miserable.
Annabeth, who was staying at Camp Half-Blood year-round again after it had become too dangerous for her to stay in San Francisco with the magnitude of monsters that were attacking her, spent a good deal of time alone with me whenever I was there, talking about the war and possible courses of action and battle strategy. She was the only one I had yet told about Nico's offer, so she was the only one who knew the full potential of our plans. But it was hard talking about Nico, as at the mere mention of his name my body went into overdrive, my heart beating frantically and my mind working double-time like it was completely out of my control.
I must've hid it well enough, though, because after I had told her everything Nico had said to me on my birthday for what seemed like the gazillionth time, she kept talking about him, completely unaware of what the topic did to me, and how I had to fight to contain my thoughts.
"I wonder where he is," she asked rhetorically, making it sound casual enough, but I could hear the trace of worry in her voice, and I knew just how concerned she really was. Without thinking, I answered her.
"Spokane," I said, matter-of-factly.
She was caught off guard and looked at me in surprise. "How do you know that?"
I hesitated, immediately wishing I hadn't responded. The truth was that sometimes, in my dreams, I could sense where Nico was, almost like how I instinctively knew my bearings at sea. And I knew that last night, he was in Washington.
"I, uh…" I said compellingly.
"Have you seen him? Recently, I mean?" she asked sharply, ignoring my feeble attempts at an explanation.
"No," I said quickly. "Uh, not really. I just-"
"What do you mean, 'Not really'?" she asked skeptically. "Have you seen him or not, Percy?"
I hesitated again, looking for a way out of this. I couldn't find one. "Annabeth," I pleaded, finally, "can you just drop this?"
"No! What if he-"
"He's fine," I assured her. "Everything's fine, okay? Please, Annabeth, just let it go." I tried to keep the desperation I felt clawing under my skin out of my voice. I don't know if it worked or not, but her expression softened, although she still looked suspicious.
"Okay," she conceded, after a few moments. "Okay."
I felt relief flood through me. "Thanks," I mumbled. I did feel guilty about hiding it, but there was just no way I could tell her. I didn't fully understand it myself, so I knew I wouldn't be able to explain it.
Besides, I didn't think there were adequate words to explain how or why I was slowing but surely losing my shit due to my desire for a boy who wasn't an enemy but who also wasn't exactly an ally, the son of Hades whose habit of sleeping with the dead I found to be just about the most erotic thing ever, and who I also just so happened to have prophetic dreams about almost every night and imagined fucking on a more-than-regular basis. I didn't know if I could put into words how I really felt about Nico, how his absence was like the weight of the sky on my shoulders all over again, how my need for him was like an open wound that bled out my energy and love and concern until there was nothing left, only shriveled veins drier than those of the corpses he fucked.
All I knew was that I needed to see him again, and badly, although I hadn't the faintest idea what I'd do if he ever actually turned up. I tried to focus on just getting through the days, avoiding monsters and attempting to write essays on books I hadn't read, making it until my next respite at camp. I tried not to think about Nico, about where he was or what he was doing; but I was still having dreams about him all of the time, and although I was pretty sure that what I seeing wasn't always actually happening-sometimes they had a different feel to them, a different quality altogether-I knew that they were prophetic in that they came from Nico himself; and I always woke up thinking about him. I always felt indeterminably connected to him, and his name was always on my lips when I came.
And unfortunately, things just got worse.
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Part Two
It's not the longest thing I've ever written (my HP Big Bang attempt coming in first at around 12.5k, and my SPN attempt a close third at 9.5k) but it's definitely the longest thing I've ever finished and posted.
It's posted in two parts only because it was too big for one entry, not because it's meant to be in two parts.
Title: Modus Pecudium
Characters/Pairing: Percy/Nico
Word Count: 11,840
Warnings/Enticements: Necrophilia, underage (Nico is eleven/twelve)
A/N: See above. AU as of Last Olympian. This picks up right after Battle of the Labyrinth. It is, however, canon compliant with The Demigod Files, which unfortunately seems to have been a waste of effort, as Riordan himself ignores it most of the time in Last Olympian.
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When Nico di Angelo suddenly appeared on my fire escape the night I turned fifteen, I nearly had a heart attack.
Firstly, he was the last person I expected to show up, having parted ways with him only two months before with the thought that his research would probably take him a lot longer than that. Secondly, I was hardly expecting anyone to show up on my fire escape to begin with. Thirdly, it was Nico freaking di Angelo.
It was lucky he spoke first, because my shock just at seeing him was enough to render me speechless. Never mind the fact that I had spent most of the last two months thinking about him (when my mind wasn't preoccupied with thoughts about Luke and Kronos, and the prophecy). Never mind that I wanted to think about him instead of the impending war. And definitely never mind the fact that it was all I could do not to jerk off thinking about him every time I wrapped my hand around my cock. And I hadn't expected to see him before I could process these new-found thoughts and desires.
And now Nico was there, in front of me, and I had to wonder if it wasn't just another one of my fantasies. Because yes, I'd been thinking about Rachel, and of course I'd thought about Annabeth. But they had nothing, nothing on how much I'd been thinking about Nico. And believe me, I sort of hated myself for it. There were so many reasons why I should've stopped myself thinking about it, stopped myself getting carried away. But I couldn't; those reasons didn't matter. My arguments became more and more feeble the more I thought about it, and I thought about it a lot.
After Nico had been introduced to my mother and eaten his full of blue birthday cake and ice cream, we went back to my room to discuss Luke and the possible ways Nico had found to defeat Kronos and his army. I tried to keep my mind on tactics, and as Nico was staying admirably on task and telling me to recall everything I could about the Princess Andromeda and the forces onboard, and everything Kronos had ever said to me, it wasn't real hard to do. Finally, we had exhausted talk of the war, and in the silence I was able to think about him for really the first time that night.
"There's one thing I don't get, Nico," I said. He looked up as I asked, "How'd you find me? I never told you where I lived, or…" I trailed off at the look on his face, which I recognized as a common one of Annabeth's: His head was cocked to one side, his brow furrowed like he couldn't believe I was asking that question. I felt slightly foolish, but only for a few seconds; I was used to asking what I only realized after were stupid questions after years of being friends with Annabeth. But Nico just regarded me silently, and I realized that he wasn't wondering how I didn't know the answer. I thought that maybe, in his protracted silence, he was wondering how best to tell me, or if he should even tell me at all.
Several minutes had passed before he looked at me again. I looked back at him, and I couldn't help but notice how his eyes still had that fire, that manic depth. He remained silent and I got a little lost in my thoughts, so I started slightly when Nico finally spoke.
"I can sense the living, Percy," he told me, "the same way that I can the dead. Well," he paused thoughtfully, "not exactly the same way, I guess. Healthy souls, those not close to death, are harder for me. But the rest…" he trailed off.
I thought about this. It made sense. And if I needed something else to convince me, Nico added, almost as an afterthought, as if he were just figuring it out himself, "They're all the same in the end, you see."
I nodded. "So you must have had a hard time finding me, huh?" It was my attempt at humor to lighten the situation, to get my mind off of death and dying souls. If Nico realized this, he chose to ignore it.
"I found you very easily, Percy," he said levelly. "Half bloods in general are easier to find since they're usually always in danger, but you…well, the closer you get to sixteen, the better I can sense you. It’s been building since last year, since the Labyrinth."
I felt any remains of my smile melt off my face. I tried not to think about the fact that I had been dying for over a year now, becoming more and more like those already in the Fields. It had probably started before that-maybe ever since I was born. I didn't want to think about the fact that Nico knew that, could sense it. I looked at him, sitting carelessly through the silence between us. He was still growing, and his hair was long, almost to his shoulders, blending into his entirely black wardrobe, the skull ring still glinting dully on his finger. He seemed so relaxed, so comfortable with himself, that it was all I could do to remind myself that he could sense-and talk to, and hear-the dead, that he was probably listening to them right now. It sent chills down my spine, and I tried harder to put it from my mind.
So instead, I thought about everything Nico had done-how fast he was forced to accept who he was, how quickly he progressed from the boy I saw at Westover Hall to the man I saw before me, who was in full control of his considerable powers and abilities; who was able to hold his own in neutral territory in the middle of the one of the biggest wars the world had ever seen.
The thing was, Nico was young. I knew this. I tried to tell that to myself more times than I could count, used his age in argument after argument with myself about why it was a bad idea-an impossible, shameful idea-and why it could never happen. Except for the eyes (and believe me, they were hard to ignore) he still looked young. But there was something about him that made me forget all of that, that forced his age out of my mind every time I thought about him.
You see, the problem was, Nico was too young, much too young for everything that'd happened to him. If I had thought that maybe twelve was a little too young for me to have my first quest, and to battle monsters, and to have my friends put in danger, than Nico was much too young to begin with, never mind the greater horrors he had faced. He had lost Bianca, had been essentially abandoned, left alone with only the whispering specters of the dead who treated him no better. And although Nico was powerful-impressively, breathtakingly so-it still seemed a miracle to me that he could even be sitting here, seemingly perfectly at ease, shouldering the burden of a much older man. No, it wasn't just that he was young. It was that he was so young his age just didn't matter anymore. He didn't act his age-was never allowed to act his age-and he wasn't held to any of the standards of someone his age. He was forced into maturity far beyond his years, knew and felt and experienced things that no one his age should ever be subjected to. Besides, I thought with a slight jolt, technically, Nico had been physically alive longer than any of us.
"So, uh," I began, because I had started to get uncomfortable with the silence and with where it let my thoughts wander off to, although I had no idea what else I would say to him.
He looked up at me again, and I glanced away, anything to get away from the intensity of his gaze, the unfathomable depths of his eyes. I watched instead as he brushed a lock of hair away from his face. I noticed that there seemed to be dirt or something on his hands and under his fingernails, dark again his pale skin.
"Look Percy, I'm sorry if I freaked you out with the whole, I-can-sense-your-death thing," he said in a tone that suggested no remorse whatsoever. "It's just something that I've always been able to do, even before I knew what I was doing or what was actually happening. It's not really a conscious thing, and it's not always accurate, how I sense people." He paused before adding, "I've seen plenty of people die whose spirits were healthy."
"And vice versa?" I asked, interpreting his hesitation.
He sighed. "Not as commonly, no. But it has happened."
And now there was the slightest hint of sadness in his voice, and I wondered sardonically if it was because he was sorry for speaking again of my impending death or for some other reason. Because when Nico talked about the dead, well, it wasn't how other people talked about them. He spoke of them with sadness and respect. He spoke of them as someone who knew them only in death, who only cared to know them in death. As far as I knew, Nico had only a few living friends, and I wondered for the first time if maybe he had more non-living friends, and if he preferred their company to the living. He had told me that he was an outcast at camp, as unwelcome there as his father was on Olympus. I wondered now if he minded this as much as I'd always assumed he must have. I wasn't so sure, now.
I looked at him again. He was idly fingering the hilt of his Stygian sword, which was lying across the surface of my desk. I felt something shift between us, and the silence suddenly seemed heavy, as if filled with anticipation, or anxiety; the very air seemed to be waiting for something. Nico wasn't looking at me, or even at his sword. His eyes were trained on the ground in front of him, like he was avoiding my gaze, and I was suddenly uncomfortable in a different way, in a way I hadn't been at any time that night. I was afraid of breaking the silence, but it was starting to get under my skin, irritating me.
Nico stood up abruptly. He glanced sideways at me before picking up his sword and reattaching it to his side. When he was done adjusting the straps, he looked at me, unsmiling but not unkindly.
"I should get going."
"Yeah, right," I said clumsily, although I had no idea why he needed to go, or even where he was off to. "It's late," I added lamely.
He raised an eyebrow, as if the lateness of the hour hadn't occurred to him, didn't even matter to him; and I sort of nodded feebly in response, the color rising in my cheeks, trying to think of something to say to cover up the awkward moment.
Nico just gave me the shadow of a smirk, and said, "See you later, Percy," before climbing gracefully through my window and disappearing into the shadows of my fire escape.
I didn't see him again for another two months.
That's not to say I didn't think about him for another two months. I could barely stop thinking about him for two days. When my dreams weren't filled with a cold voice that bled out of Luke's mouth like it belonged there, they were filled with shadows that stirred and flickered like someone was moving among them. I caught flashes of headstones, heaps of dirt, dark figures at the bottom of a darker grave. These dreams should have unsettled me, frightened me.
They didn't.
Instead, more often than not I woke up hard, and would come with only a few clumsy strokes of my hand.
To say I was kind of confused by this was an understatement. Yeah, I was attracted to Nico, and I had made my peace with that. But as far as I knew, I was only watching him dig up graves and summon the dead and talk to their corpses. These dreams felt prophetic, although I wasn't sure why I was having so many of them, or why they never seemed to reveal anything. There was never much sound, but I figured if the souls in the Asphodel Fields were anything to judge by, I shouldn't be surprised that all I could hear was whispering, breathing, incoherent mumbling.
The dreams varied. Sometimes, I was simply standing in a cemetery, looking at headstones and a pile of dirt-a dark mound visible only because it was darker than the sky behind it-and listening to the murmurs of Nico and the dead, sounding more like wind than anything else. Sometimes, I was standing above the grave, looking down into it, but all I could make out at the bottom were dark shapes, the gleam of hinges on the coffin, the ever-present whispering more guttural in my ears, like the remnants of a voice.
I'd wake up soon after, but not before I could sense Nico near me, in front of me; not before I could hear the rustle of his clothes and pick out the sound of his exhales from the reanimated breath of the dead.
These dreams fuelled more fantasies until I had quite the collection of scenarios that I'd play out over and over again in my mind, whenever I was bored or whenever I was horny or really, just whenever. I'd imagine having Nico under me, tangling my fingers in his hair and kissing him, trailing my lips across his jaw, down his throat. I'd hear the sounds he'd make as I sucked bruises into his skin, marking him, claiming him. I'd feel his legs wrap around my waist, bringing my hips down to slot against his as he grinded into my body. I'd imagine the feel of my cock in his mouth, how he'd pin me down as he sucked me off. I thought about what it'd be like to fuck him (or be fucked by him-I wasn't picky) and send him over the edge, to feel his body tense up around me and know that I had done that to him.
And every time he appeared in my dreams my longing for him intensified, despite the fact that all I could see were headstones and all I could hear were the fading echoes of his voice.
So yeah, I was having dreams about him; and even though they weren't the kinds I would've liked, my body didn't seem to care.
The next time Nico di Angelo materialized at my side I was back at Camp Half-Blood for Halloween weekend. My freshman year at Goode had so far been frequently interspersed with these random visits to camp or, more unpleasantly, by unexpected quests with daughters of Ares. With the war fast approaching, I supposed this could only be expected. Nothing serious had happened yet (I happily assumed that Kronos was still trying to recover from his defeat in the Labyrinth) but Halloween was generally a busy time for supernatural forces and most demigods were on call for damage control. Since I was still in New York for school, Chiron had let me return to Half-Blood Hill.
On this particular night, I was sitting on the beach, staring out over Long Island Sound, when the next thing I knew, a dark shape sat down beside me. I realized it was Nico and even after my initial shock has subsided, my heart kept beating wildly. I sat perfectly still, my blood singing with sudden recollections and pent up desires that burst forth against my volition. Embarrassed in spite of myself and irrationally worried that he'd somehow sense my thoughts, that he'd somehow know, I tried to gather them up, shove them back into my subconscious where they belonged.
If he noticed my frenzied inner panic, he didn't show it. He simply sat next to me, watching the waves crash on the shore. He didn't tell me why he was there or where he'd been. I didn't know how he got into camp undetected; I'd assumed that the boundary line would have prevented anyone from entering by stealth (umbrakinetic or otherwise), but then again, Nico was a demigod, so maybe it didn't matter. Either way, I found I didn't really care; despite the images (almost all inappropriate) still flashing through my mind, his presence relaxed me-I knew where he was, I knew he was safe-and there was something to be said for just being near him.
Finally, he looked at me. "Percy," he said, by way of a late greeting.
"Nico," I responded. My heart was still hammering frantically in my chest, my pulse pounding against my throat.
More silence.
I figured he'd tell me what he needed to when he was ready, so I used the time to look him over. I wasn't positive, but I was pretty sure he was still growing. His black hair was still shoulder-length, but much more snarled and matted than it was the last time I had seen him. He was wearing black jeans and tee shirt, and, despite the chill in the air, was covered only with a black leather jacket that hung off of his thin frame. I thought at first that he must've been freezing: the tips of his fingers looked blue and his skin was paler than I had ever seen. But I looked closer and realized that the shadows were deceiving me. It was the same as when he'd showed up at my apartment in the city: his fingers seemed to have a dark base layer of grime, and his skin only looked pale against dark patches of dirt elsewhere on his body-against his jaw line, his collarbone where it disappeared under his shirt, the backs of his hands.
This time, though, I knew what it was from. I didn't point it out and I didn't bring it up, although I probably should have; I was sure Nico had learned his lesson from Minos, but I couldn't help thinking that he might still get hurt, or even that he'd somehow get caught, shadow traveling or not. A part of me still worried about Bianca. But the truth was I didn't ask him about it because I was pretty sure he didn't know I was dreaming about him, and I afraid that if he found out he'd somehow block them from me. And let's be honest, I wasn't really keen to explain why I wanted to have them.
I felt more than saw Nico looking at me. I expected him to tell me something-some piece of information, something we could use against Kronos-that he'd gotten from his many nights spent talking to the dead. Needless to say, I didn't expect his silence. I looked over at him again, and immediately recoiled.
There was something in his face I had never seen there before, and it shocked me. There was hunger, and longing, and yet an acute sadness that I couldn't quite put my finger on: hopelessness, confusion, the knowledge of something he'd rather not have known. Plastered over Nico's face like that, it was almost indecent to witness. But just as fast as it had come, it was gone. Nico quickly regained control over his features and settled them into something less telling, something more like his usual impassive stoicism, and I wondered if I hadn't imagined it. But there was still something there, lingering: Some light in his eyes that otherwise usually seemed so dead.
I didn't realize what it meant until after he'd left. It wasn't until he had said a hasty goodbye and disappeared into the shadows without another word, and I had made my way back to camp and was tucked happily into my bed in the Poseidon cabin, that the pieces suddenly clicked into place-the dreams, the whispering, the dirt, Nico's looks-and it was suddenly like I had known it all along.
I kept thinking that I must've been stupid not to notice it before. It seemed so obvious now. I knew, of course, that Nico was summoning the dead to train, and that he must've learned how to use his power somewhere, from someone, but now I knew that Nico was digging up graves for another reason altogether.
Because I knew that he wasn't raising the dead he slept with. For one thing, they wouldn't have had bodies-I'd seen Nico with Bianca enough times already to know that. Secondly, in my dreams, Nico was always in modern cemeteries, with new headstones and freshly disinterred earth, where there would be bodies still in good condition and coffins not that difficult to get to, rather than the forgotten graveyards of the ancient heroes.
Despite this new knowledge, what really surprised me about the whole thing was how much it didn't actually bother me. Nico had always been distant, different, closer to the dead than to the living. I'd been thinking of him as a sexual being for a while ago now, so (in my head, at least) it made sense that if he was having sex, it'd be with the dead. I knew what it meant-what other people would name it and likewise dismiss it as. But with Nico, it simply wasn't the same; you couldn't just wrap it up and call it necrophilia and be done with it. You couldn't compare it with other people, other situations. It just seemed natural, somehow, and I wasn't about to start thinking too much into it.
I tried to disregard the fact that part of me-the part that guiltily flashed images of Nico through my mind at all hours of the day and stubbornly maintained that he was older than his age, already mature enough to want and get and handle sex-was validated, and breathing a definite sigh of relief. More than that, though, I flat-out ignored how much better it made me feel.
That is to say, I was doing a pretty good job pretending to ignore it until I went to bed a couple of days later.
This time, the dream was vivid. I was still merely standing on the edge of an open grave, looking down into it, but now I could see everything at the bottom. I could see Nico lying flush against the body beneath him, his black jeans pooled around his knees. I could see the exposed skin at the back of his neck, where his head was nestled into the crook of the body's shoulder.
He was fucking the corpse of a girl, about fourteen or fifteen by the looks of her, although it was hard to tell as she was still wearing a good deal of makeup, presumably from her wake. Nico had pushed the hem of her dress up past her waist, her underwear pulled down around her knees. The hinges on the lid of the coffin creaked with each of Nico's thrusts, gentle as they were. He was taking his time, moving languorously, exultantly, and with near reverent grace.
I was suddenly aware that the sounds I was hearing weren't that different than in my previous dreams: They had actually been pretty accurate. The whispering I'd heard before wasn't the incoherent speech of the dead. It was Nico, just Nico, speaking softly into the girl's ear, panting against her cheek; it was his ragged breathing and his suppressed moans into her neck as he came.
I watched all of it, transfixed, from my perch six feet above. I watched as Nico slowly came down from his climax, disentangling his limbs from hers. I watched him as he fumbled with his jeans, pulling them back up and buttoning his fly. When he was dressed again, he kneeled in her coffin, straddling her thighs, and carefully replaced her clothes. He reached up and tucked a lose strand of her hair behind her ear; the gesture was tender, and I unexpectedly felt my heart squeeze a little at the clear hint of affection in it. He glanced over her again, making sure everything was in order, before he climbed out of her coffin and shut the lid. He scrambled up out of the hole on the side opposite me.
Nico reached the top and stood. He was about to take a step when I saw him stiffen. His shoulders visibly tensed, and his whole body was suddenly taut like a loaded spring. After several prolonged seconds, he turned and stared at exactly where I was standing, his brow creased in bewilderment.
Needless to say, I panicked. I was pretty sure he couldn't see me, exactly, as he looked only slightly suspicious, his head tilted to the side like he was trying to work out what was there. But I was also pretty damn sure that he could sense my presence, and probably for the first time. Just as he narrowed his eyes and really looked, I jerked awake, breathing heavily into the dark of my empty cabin. Adrenaline was coursing through my body and settling in my already hard cock, and I rolled over and ground my hips into the mattress, the clumsy, warm friction enough to make me come five thrusts later.
To say I was preoccupied by this new state of affairs was quite another understatement. I wasn't just preoccupied: I was obsessed. I couldn't stop thinking about it no matter how hard I tried. Even when I didn't want the images, when I didn't want to think about Nico (out there, alone) sleeping with the dead, they flew through my mind non-stop, practically haunting me.
Before Nico had showed up, when I jerked off I usually just imagined him with me, and got off thinking about everything I wanted to do to him. But now I couldn't help thinking about him fucking corpses, corpses!, for the gods' sake, and my body-my horrible, morally unaware, betraying body-still didn't seem to care.
I passed the time until Thanksgiving break in a blur of confused lust and anxiety. I was happy to get back to camp and have the Poseidon cabin to myself. It was getting harder and harder to hide my problems from my mom and Paul, and the last thing I wanted was to answer their questions about why I couldn't sleep and why I looked so miserable.
Annabeth, who was staying at Camp Half-Blood year-round again after it had become too dangerous for her to stay in San Francisco with the magnitude of monsters that were attacking her, spent a good deal of time alone with me whenever I was there, talking about the war and possible courses of action and battle strategy. She was the only one I had yet told about Nico's offer, so she was the only one who knew the full potential of our plans. But it was hard talking about Nico, as at the mere mention of his name my body went into overdrive, my heart beating frantically and my mind working double-time like it was completely out of my control.
I must've hid it well enough, though, because after I had told her everything Nico had said to me on my birthday for what seemed like the gazillionth time, she kept talking about him, completely unaware of what the topic did to me, and how I had to fight to contain my thoughts.
"I wonder where he is," she asked rhetorically, making it sound casual enough, but I could hear the trace of worry in her voice, and I knew just how concerned she really was. Without thinking, I answered her.
"Spokane," I said, matter-of-factly.
She was caught off guard and looked at me in surprise. "How do you know that?"
I hesitated, immediately wishing I hadn't responded. The truth was that sometimes, in my dreams, I could sense where Nico was, almost like how I instinctively knew my bearings at sea. And I knew that last night, he was in Washington.
"I, uh…" I said compellingly.
"Have you seen him? Recently, I mean?" she asked sharply, ignoring my feeble attempts at an explanation.
"No," I said quickly. "Uh, not really. I just-"
"What do you mean, 'Not really'?" she asked skeptically. "Have you seen him or not, Percy?"
I hesitated again, looking for a way out of this. I couldn't find one. "Annabeth," I pleaded, finally, "can you just drop this?"
"No! What if he-"
"He's fine," I assured her. "Everything's fine, okay? Please, Annabeth, just let it go." I tried to keep the desperation I felt clawing under my skin out of my voice. I don't know if it worked or not, but her expression softened, although she still looked suspicious.
"Okay," she conceded, after a few moments. "Okay."
I felt relief flood through me. "Thanks," I mumbled. I did feel guilty about hiding it, but there was just no way I could tell her. I didn't fully understand it myself, so I knew I wouldn't be able to explain it.
Besides, I didn't think there were adequate words to explain how or why I was slowing but surely losing my shit due to my desire for a boy who wasn't an enemy but who also wasn't exactly an ally, the son of Hades whose habit of sleeping with the dead I found to be just about the most erotic thing ever, and who I also just so happened to have prophetic dreams about almost every night and imagined fucking on a more-than-regular basis. I didn't know if I could put into words how I really felt about Nico, how his absence was like the weight of the sky on my shoulders all over again, how my need for him was like an open wound that bled out my energy and love and concern until there was nothing left, only shriveled veins drier than those of the corpses he fucked.
All I knew was that I needed to see him again, and badly, although I hadn't the faintest idea what I'd do if he ever actually turned up. I tried to focus on just getting through the days, avoiding monsters and attempting to write essays on books I hadn't read, making it until my next respite at camp. I tried not to think about Nico, about where he was or what he was doing; but I was still having dreams about him all of the time, and although I was pretty sure that what I seeing wasn't always actually happening-sometimes they had a different feel to them, a different quality altogether-I knew that they were prophetic in that they came from Nico himself; and I always woke up thinking about him. I always felt indeterminably connected to him, and his name was always on my lips when I came.
And unfortunately, things just got worse.
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Part Two