I've been reading the Percy Jackson books for probably half my life (or a great deal of it, anyway) but this is my first fanfic. Let me know what you think? I'm not an expert on the books and haven't read the early ones in awhile...

When Nico is seven years old, his sister Bianca tells him not to be afraid of the dark.

They are huddled together for warmth under a blanket that smells like cat pee and dirt and Bianca and home. Bianca's arm is around him, holding him close so her chin rests on his head. She's whispering into his hair, and he can feel the vibrations of her throat as she talks. Nico is not afraid. He has a flash light, a blanket, and Bianca. He knows he will be okay.

Nico loses Bianca.

In some ways, he has always known, deep in his gut that when she left on her quest she wasn't coming back. But seeing Percy Jackson, so brave and bold and beautiful, come back alive after he had promised...

It isn't fair.

Nico want Bianca. He wants her to laugh at him for loving mythomagic. He wants her to ruffle his hair like she used too. He wants her to tuck a blanket up to his chin and tell him not to be afraid of the dark.

But she won't and she can't and she never will again.

Nico isn't afraid of the dark now; he is the dark. Anger is a clenched fist in his belly, and a scream is perched under his chin, building in his chest with each shallow breath. His eyes are burning, and Percy, beautiful, brilliant, brave, alive, Percy is standing there. He looks like he is going to cry too, and he's trying to say something like sorry, but Nico doesn't want to hear it. Hearing it makes it true.

The scream stings against his tongue and the dark fist of anger punches up and out, and the darkness washes up his throat like acid.

The ground cracks open, and when the skeletons claw their way out of the earth, Nico is already running.

He stumbles into the labyrinth and finds his darkness.

As a child of the Underworld, he is learning how to speak to the shadows. When he walks now, he can taste the death, the souls of the soon-to-be-dead are restless, and scream for him. In the labyrinth, with his mentors guidance, he can be more focused on more important things.

He doesn't like to think about what Bianca would say if she knew what he was doing. He knows she'd say no.

But she doesn't understand.

He is alone. So utterly, and completely alone in the world.

He needs his big sister.

Of course, on a ranch with Percy Jackson and his stupid group of friends, Nico learns that Bianca wants to be left alone. It hurts. The fury in his throat tastes like smoke and bitter death. He wants to fall to his knees and scream like a child.

But Percy is watching, and Nico is not a kid anymore, so he doesn't.

Shadow travel is both the most exhilarating and terrifying thing he has ever done in his life.

It's exhausting and takes practice and concentration to master, but he likes it. Being embraced so fully by the dark, having it wash over him and erase him and carry him away, it is a strange and welcoming release. Sometimes he wishes he could stay in that space between being and on being, between spirit and flesh, forever. Maybe then his life wouldn't be so lonely. The dark has a voice after all. Nightmares. Whispers at deathbeds. Dreams that he can touch with the tip of his fingers as they fly by and manipulate into meaning something...

But Nico knows what happens when power consumes a person, and he does not want to be Luke.

So every time he opens his eyes, stumbles back into his body and breathes in the clean air, he is grateful.

Nico is an outsider.

In both camps-Greek and Roman.

He has no one to relate too, really, because even if Hazel is a child born out of time and a child of Hades, she doesn't quite understand him. Nico is a puzzle that only Bianca has really ever been able to solve.

When he was a kid, he was all restless energy and adventure-living in fantasy cards and books because they were kinder than his reality. Now his reality is magic and danger and quests, and he isn't thrilled. He knows the price that comes with the gods, and the fights. He knows that to be a hero means a short life.

Bianca didn't live to see him warped by the world. She didn't see the darkness creep into his bones and settle there among the marrow.

Percy has.

Nico wants to slap him sometimes. Percy, who tries so hard to act normal around him and include him and make him feel like somebody. Gorgeous Percy, who is infuriating and stupid and so noble and caring it kills him.

Now Nico is shadows and cheekbones and hollow eyes. He's dark hair that's too long (Bianca would have pulled out scissors and cut it herself by now if she was here) and the lingering scent of caffeine clings to his clothes, because he can't stand the nightmares.

He is furious at the whole world, but he still cries when he senses a death.

Even after all this time, he still finds that he cares.

Nico starves and cries and dies a thousand times.

That is what torture is. It is a beast that tears his flesh from his bones and buries itself in the very core of his being until he is reduced to a whimpering child, terrified of shadows.

Eventually he remembers who he is. He is a child of the Underworld. He thrives in the dark. He's alone with no one but himself, and he can be strong.

I am a son of Hades. I control the shadows. They do not control me. The darkness is my birthright.

So Nico lifts his chin and embraces the pain. He opens his eyes wide and sees the world as it truly is: beautiful and broken and worth saving.

Nico is ashamed of who he is.

He is bitter and alone and friendless.

He is in love with someone he can never, ever have.

His closest companions are a french zombie and a hell hound.

At night, he still whispers for his older sister when the blankets aren't quite tucked around him right and the nightmares are so strong he wakes up screaming.

Nico is a child of darkness.

He claims it, stamps the title across his forehead, and embraces it with every fiber of his being. He rules the shadows, he stalks the lands of the dead, he speaks with ghosts, he rarely smiles.

Hades tells him that he wants him to be happy, but kind words from the Lord of the Dead aren't exactly comforting or expected. Nico doesn't know what to do with them. They rattle around in his chest like hollow bones, pounding in time with his heart and compressing his lungs. Most days he's so exhausted it's hard to breathe anyway, but it has never been like this.

Reyna takes his pain and shoulders it.

He doesn't want her too, is horrified that she knows his guilt and his agony, but it is also something of a relief. There is a weight lifted from his shoulders he had forgotten he had been carrying, something that is like peace. He shares her pain too, holds her in all her perfect imperfection, and is proud of her.

Maybe he is proud of himself too.

He fights for his friends.

Yes, Nico feels like he can call them friends now. Annabeth. Piper. Leo. Jason. Reyna. Chiron. Frank. Percy. Will.

They've been there for him, all these long years when he'd walked in the shadows alone. They'd been on the outside, waiting, watching, trying to help. He sees that now. Understands.

So he fights and he bleeds and he feels so many deaths he thinks that he might die too. The screams of departing souls rip through his chest and leave bloody, gaping holes that no one can see. Hazel feels the deaths as well, but not as acutely. She is still full of light. She is happy. She does not quite understand him. She barely even knows him.

But they are still children of Hades, and they share a common burden.

He finds comfort in sleeping in the same cabin as her. Hearing her soft breaths late at night. Finding her sitting on the edge of his bed in tears. Holding her and feeling like he is helping in some way. Feeling wanted.

Will Solace is the sun.

Nico is the night and the darkness and the shadows, but Will pulls him into the light. More than Percy ever did, because Will can be stubborn and aggravating and firm. Because Will looks at him, not as that scrawny, scared kid he used to be, but as the person he is today.

Will knows about scars and healing. He knows about the marks war leave on a persons body and soul. He can sense the shadows in Nico from just the slightest brush of a finger. And he doesn't care.

Will holds Nico, and Nico feels like he is safe. Will is strong, and his fingers twine through Nico's hair as he presses their foreheads together. His heart beats in a fast rhythm against Nico's chest, in time with Nico's own. The two boys stare at each other. They are so close that Nico can see every fine hair of Will's eyelashes. They do not kiss, not then. They hold each other with their gazes and it is so accepting and steady and everything that Nico has been lacking these past few months.

When Nico is older than seven-not a boy, but not quite a man either-he comes home.

He has two homes, actually, but Camp Half Blood will always be the place that sings the word in his bones, in his chest, deep and guttural and real: home, home, home.

It is the last place he lived with Bianca. It is where he fell in love-twice. It is where he was pushed away and unwanted, and where he found acceptance. It is everything terrible and wonderful about being a hero. It is rolling green hills and cabins and shadows and forest and laughter deep in his belly. It is Will's hand in his, the quiet of his cabin, the sound of Percy teasing Annabeth, Chiron's gentle words...

It is home.

Nico has a family. He has sunlight and shadows and he is learning to find a balance between the two.

And he knows he is going to be okay.