The Plea of Apollo || COMPLETED

BENEATH THE JOKES AND SMILES

The sky was dark navy blue, practically black as the son of Hades stared up at it deep in thought. Countless stars dotted the sight above him. It was barely five in the morning, and dawn would not break for another hour or so. However, Nico di Angelo did not feel like sleeping. He actually wanted to find Will and slip into the safety of his arms, but with all of his siblings sleeping in bunks all around him it would be impossible to even shadow travel in without disturbing the Apollo campers.

Instead, he merely sat on the top of the hill overlooking the lake. His knees were pulled up to his chest, his arms crossed on top of them, and his chin rested on his arms. He was so deep in thought that he didn't notice there was someone approaching until they were almost upon him.

"Nico?" The voice asked.

"Percy?"

The son of Poseidon sat next to him, shivering slightly from the cold of the morning. Nico was not cold mostly because he was wearing a camp hoodie that had originally belonged to Will before Nico had commandeered it.

"Couldn't sleep, huh?" Percy asked after they sat in silence for a few minutes. The two boys gazed at the stars as they talked, softly and completely at ease in each other's company.

"No," Nico answered truthfully. "You?"

He shook his head. "I had a dream about... Tartarus."

"Oh." Nico wanted to say that was the same reason he was awake instead of sleeping in his nice warm bed. Despite having come influence over his dreams and generally getting peaceful nights of sleep, sometimes unpleasant memories broke through like they had that morning. He didn't really want to share this information, but Percy would understand better than anyone. "Me too, actually."

Percy glanced at him, shock showing on his features as Nico admitted the small detail. "I'm sorry. I mean, I know how you feel. Down there... we don't have to talk about this."

"It's okay," Nico said quietly. "You're one of the only people that can truly understand the nightmares. You and Annabeth."

"Yeah. She and I have talked about them every now and then, but when I wake up because of them I usually just wander camp avoiding the Harpies since I don't want to wake up the entire Athena cabin."

"Same with me wanting to get Will," Nico related.

Percy sighed, turning to his "brother" with a serious look on his face. "Did you ever meet Akhlys when you were in Tartarus?" His voice was a whisper, a volume Percy rarely spoke in. "Most of my nightmares are about her. When I was down there, she tricked us and tried killing Annabeth and me with poison. For one terrible moment I snapped."

When he didn't say anything for a while, Nico sighed. His own meeting with the goddess of misery and poison had been horrible as well. He also knew what Percy meant about losing control.

"Something similar happened to me during the quest to return the statue with Reyna and Coach Hedge," Nico found himself sharing slowly. Of course he had eventually became close enough with Will to talk about everything openly, but this was different. Percy was an all too powerful demigod just like him.

"A Roman traitor," he said wringing his hands, "follower of Octavian, came to arrest Reyna under the crazy legacy of Apollo's orders to most likely execute her. This guy was bad, Percy. He killed innocent, honorable Romans to gain power and got away with banishment when he should have been executed himself. He talked about torturing Coach, saying he'd relish his pain and screams. He took pleasure torturing and killing innocent creatures. After threatening to hurt Reyna again, my anger got the better of me."

At this point his throat had constricted painfully. He recalled what Reyna and Coach had told him happened after the fact and it still scared him. He was capable of so much destruction if he wasn't careful.