Heroes of Olympus Series. Annabeth Chase X Male Reader Story

The Upside of Gag Gifts

"Hazel gave me the rundown. The great (Y/N) (L/N), overtaken by an eidolon of all things, I'd have paid to have seen that. What's next, getting bullied by skeletons?" (Y/N) frowned at him, but in truth he was happy to see the old Nico returning, even if he was still in his rebellious teen phase.

"I'm glad you are okay kid." He said with a smile. Nico scoffed and looked down at himself, "You call this okay? I can barely walk." (Y/N) frowned, shaking his head, "I just moved heaven and earth for you and you're still complaining, you remind me of Annabeth." "Don't compare me to her" Nico glowered.

"There are worse things to be compared to, all I'm saying is, I could stand to hear a little more appreciation. What happened to the old Nico who used to freak out and dance about every time I did something remotely cool." "He got to know you." Nico sassed.

"Appreciation Nico. A.P.P.R.E.S.E.A.T.O.N., I saved your life." Nico grit his teeth, "No, you tried to sacrifice yourself for me, you think I'd appreciate that!" "Yes. It's very heroic." "It was stupid, and reckless and I would never want you to-"

He paused, his eyes widening as (Y/N) gave him a knowing look, Nico's ears burned crimson. "Okay, I get it. I get that me saying this is hypocritical. Given the past. But still!"

They both chuckled a little. (Y/N) squeezed the kid's hand. "I'm glad you're okay Nico, the world would suck without you in it." "Yeah, I know that feeling." Nico retorted, his eye flashing to the ring on his hand.

(Y/N) decided to change the subject, "I'm proud of you though, that trick with the seeds and the death trance, I never would have thought to it, I'd probably have wasted all my energy in the first twenty minutes and been halfway to Elysium by now."

Nico smiled muttering. "I knew you, Percy and Hazel would come, you're too noble to leave me there." "I don't know about that. After hitting my head on the jar a few times, I can't say I wasn't tempted." They laughed together once more, it was good to see Nico laugh, it lifted his spirits.

"I-" "(Y/N) I swear to the gods if you say, 'I'm glad you're okay' to me one more time, I'm going to scream." "Sorry, I just imagined this so many times in my head that now it's here I sort of don't know what to say. I imagined this all ending up a lot worse in my head, after you gave us that scare at the end."

"In fact, I was fully prepared to force ghost this whole scenario, if plan A had worked, I even had contracts written up for everyone to sign making sure nobody told Annabeth what I'd done. Lest she somehow kill me again."

Nico frowned again, "Well, plan B failed too, if you recall." "How so? You're here, aren't you?" Nico frowned at him as if the answer was obvious, mistakenly saying, "Well, excuse me for thinking it may have failed, seeing as I died."

(Y/N) paused for a second. Before realizing the confusion, "Oh, no don't worry, you didn't die. My father didn't actually make it to the underworld with your soul." "I crossed the threshold of DOA, yes he did!" (Y/N) rolled his eyes, of course Nico would make him argue about this.

"No, you didn't, you just had a soul out of body experience, I have every Friday, it's no big deal. You didn't even cross the Styx, so I wouldn't count that as a death." "I would, seeing as I saw death itself." "Again, not that big of a deal."

"But-" "But...even the fates knew it wouldn't stick, they probably had this planned out from the beginning, they didn't even cut your tether. You heading into DOA was just Charon being overzealous because he's a jerk. My dad put your soul right back the second he realized there had been a mistake."

"You see, the underworld was in so much chaos that there were a few clerical errors, with all those souls pouring into DOA and DOA alone, all at once. Sure, they all find their way there eventually, but with all those problems with the underworld, there was such a backlog that-"