Chapter Text
heimsuchen /heim-su-chen/
german. verb.
haunting, or literally, homeseeking — the act of searching for a home you can never return to.
The thing about war is that it is deadliest when it’s silent.
When all the flashy battles have ended, when the heroes finally step off the battlefield, that’s when the true devastation reveals itself. This is a memory that has rooted inside Nico for quite some time now. Distinctly, he remembers looking around at the landscape of Camp Half-Blood, of what was left, and feeling cold to the bone.
The scene opened like this: buildings in ruins and children staggering, falling to the floor, with broken limbs and blood dripping. The grass was stained red. Remnants of a living nightmare sprouted from the soil. Dust became airborne while the wind blew harshly, unforgiving, as if it wasn’t enough to fight the giants, and now they had to withstand the forces of nature, too.
Nico himself hadn’t been in much better shape. His legs seared with pain, and he had to strike his sword into the ground, leaning against it for support. It felt like he could hardly breathe, like his lungs would collapse at any moment, along with his arms and legs and every other still-functioning limb in his body. And he’d been one of the luckier ones. There weren’t many of them who were still standing.
War is frightening because it kills people. It kills demigods. It kills the hope of those who somehow manage to survive.
Now, in the infirmary-turned-rehabilitation-center, Nico has to admit that the Apollo cabin’s physiotherapy program is by far the most impressive thing to have emerged in the aftermath. There is only so much that a person can withstand, even with the blood of gods running through their veins. Considering the sheer number of injured campers, Will Solace and his siblings had to figure out a way to get everyone back in top shape as quickly as possible.
The solution they came up with is a room with several stations, each one scattered with various equipment—Thera-Bands and goniometers, orthopedic braces and crutches of all types. Groups rotate through as they work on building up strength in different areas of their bodies. Since the war ended, the room has never once been empty; Nico, like many others, has been told to visit daily until he’s ready to be discharged.
It’s beyond frustrating. He can’t do simple things that he used to be able to do without a second thought. He tries not to show it, but his muscles burn and his legs shake with every step he takes, making laps around the perimeter of the room. Even if he wobbles from the pressure of holding up his body weight, dragging his feet across the wooden tiles in a sequence that’s more limping than walking, he’s at least determined not to reveal the pain on his face.
There are weights tied around his ankles—five pounds on each leg, nothing too extreme. It should be effortless; he should be stronger than this. But in the moment, they feel like anchors pinning him to the floor, fighting against him every time he attempts to lift his feet. It’s a testament to the physical state of his body: how sore his muscles are, how much strain they’ve had to endure, how he has to hold onto the walls just to navigate himself without breaking down completely.
Nico grits his teeth. He’s never been the most fit person at Camp, but he’s certainly not weak, either. He is a boy with half of a god in him, touched by divinity since birth, and somehow all of that is failing him in the simple task of ambulation.
It doesn’t help that, on top of everything, he currently has the fucking devil whispering in his ear.
The devil takes the shape of a near-transparent figure that floats by his side, constantly following him wherever he goes. Suspiciously, it looks a lot like Leo Valdez, child of Hephaestus, and an absolute honour to be graced by his presence. His words, not Nico’s. Though they both know that it’s simply an excuse for Leo to trail after Nico like some codependent lover who’s convinced their relationship runs deeper than it actually does.
To his own credit, Nico tries to close his eyes and block out Leo’s voice as much as he can. When that doesn’t work, he looks around in attempt to find something—anything—to distract himself.
At the moment, Camp Half-Blood is in the painstakingly slow process of picking itself back up. There is only so much that fourteen-year-olds and twelve-year-olds and kids who are even younger than that can withstand when it comes to something as devastating as war. Many of them had charged into battle not fully understanding what they were fighting for. Some watched, powerless, as their friends and siblings bled out. Others felt first-hand the threshold of their own mortality, only able to be carried so far by the blood of gods running through their veins.
No one is immune. Inevitably, the effects of war will touch them all in ways that aren’t always obvious until weeks or even months later. Nico may not be the best at dealing with the mental aspects, but the physical—those are manageable. At least they should be.
Over the past few days, Will Solace has been a stubborn presence by his side, refusing to let him do anything that could worsen his injuries. And Will is here now, again, holding his arms out around Nico as the two of them shuffle to the other side of the room, ready to catch him if he falls. The worst part is that he can’t even be annoyed at Will; he needs the support, even if he likes to think that he doesn’t.
“Whoa there.” Will, with quick reflexes, reaches out to stabilize Nico’s failing body not for the first time today. “Take it easy, di Angelo. I’ve got you.”
His voice is quiet and soothing, a complete juxtaposition to the other voice that’s been blabbing nonstop and driving Nico mad. Everything is hurting. The lights are too bright, and his skull is pounding with an incessant headache. For a moment, his vision blurs.
Then, he lifts his head and stares past Will at something that’s not quite there. The voice only grows louder, more insistent.
Jerking out of Will’s hold, Nico slams his hand down on the wall beside him with all of his remaining energy, truly at the end of his limits. He yells, “SHUT UP!”
Will flinches at the sudden outburst. His hands retreat hesitantly as if he’s worried that any form of contact could set Nico off again. “I… didn’t say anything.”
Nico blinks and then he’s brought back to reality. The room has gone silent, all the other campers looking at him in shock. He doesn’t even realize that he’s panting until he’s already out of breath.
Fuck. He must seem crazy.
Exhaling, Nico shakes his head to clear his thoughts. He picks up one foot after the other and resumes walking.
.
The development is a recent one and, all things considered, rather anticlimactic when Nico di Angelo comes to this particular realization: he’s being haunted.
It’s not exactly a surprise. In fact, given his parental lineage and everything he’s experienced in the past fifteen years, it could be argued that he’s been haunted his whole life.
He’s had a revolving door of ghosts come and go throughout the years, though none of them tend to stay for long. They usually leave after their initial interest wears off, parting with the understanding that Nico may be able to see them, but he can’t actually do much to help them.
This particular ghost is different—chatty and persistent to a fault and so alive in ways that other ghosts aren’t. There’s no other way to describe the animation in his voice and body language, the same way he had been when he was still living and breathing. Nico looks at messy brown hair and freckles splayed out in the shape of constellations across the bridge of his nose and sees Leo Valdez as a boy who deserved a different fate.
The reality is this: everyone knows that after making a promise on the River Styx, you either do everything in your power to fulfill it or die trying. Leo is no exception to this rule—he had tried, gods know he tried his hardest. Even among the chaos of attempting to save the world and being a hero and putting an end to the most devastating war yet, he had not forgotten, even for a moment, what he’d sworn to do. He played his part and then did all that he could to get himself back to Ogygia in order to break Calypso’s curse despite the impossibilities that faced him.
But he had also died in the process.
And somehow, his spirit, his soul, has found its way back to Camp Half-Blood. Specifically, to Nico, possibly the only person left on earth who is able to see him in his current form.
How lucky, Nico thinks to himself. As if he doesn’t have enough to deal with already.
.
Two weeks later, Nico is finally discharged, and Leo still hasn’t stopped talking his ear off.
Nico tries to pay attention to Will as he cautions him about the overuse of his demigod abilities, about refraining from shadow traveling for the time being, about doctor’s orders, but it’s hard to fully take in anything when there’s another voice overlapping in his ear.
That’s how he experiences the world now: in layered voices, trying to separate Leo’s speech with the dialogue of those around him. Eventually, he walks away from the conversation with Will feeling slightly disorientated and somewhat insane. Since Leo appeared, Nico hasn’t had a single moment of privacy. He has been, against his will, subjected to endless chattering and the knowledge that Leo is always hanging around somewhere in his periphery, even if Nico doesn’t engage most of the time.
“Hey, so…” Leo starts now that they’re alone, walking across the field to the west end of Camp, “what exactly am I?”
Nico pauses, sends him a look, then sidesteps around him. He answers, voice flat, “A ghost.”
“Riiight, yeah.” Leo nods sagely. “But, like, am I dead-dead or just… dead?”
That makes Nico stop again to process the question. Then, he frowns at himself for even entertaining Leo’s ridiculous ideas.
When he doesn’t respond, Leo goes on, “Do you think I could prank the Stolls back for all the times they got me in the past?” he asks like it’s something of utmost importance that he’s been considering for a long time. “There’s gotta be unlimited potential now. Think of all the paranormal shit I could get away with.”
“Sure. Go for it.” Nico shrugs, partially because he just wants Leo to shut up and partially because he’s an enabler at heart.
His answer seems to more than satisfy Leo, who tilts his head and grins sharply at him. “Always knew you had a mischievous side, di Angelo.”
Exhaling, Nico tries not to let the conflict show on his face. Because when he looks at Leo, the outline of him, the ghost of him, all Nico can think is: We mourned you. We grieved you. It’s not fair for you to come back so soon and act as if absolutely nothing has changed.
But he can’t say any of that. It wouldn’t be fair to Leo, either. So, he settles for silence, hoping that the conversation will die off on its own. And it does, for a while; the quietness is equally tense, eating away at them, until Leo is the one who speaks up again.
“You know, I thought I was supposed to end up in the Underworld or something. Why haven’t I moved on yet?” He crosses his arms behind his head in an attempt at coming across nonchalant.
Nico, who has only been half-listening to most of what Leo said, glances at him and makes a face. “How am I supposed to know?”
With a shrug, Leo waves his hand in a vague gesture. “You’re the death guy. Thought this would be your area of expertise.”
Nico frowns at being called the death guy, abruptly reminded of the way Leo always liked to come up with unflattering nicknames for people. It’s unfortunate that this character trait seems to persist even now that he’s no longer alive.
“Well… I don’t actually know everything about how the afterlife works,” Nico admits. “You’d have better luck making a prayer and asking my dad.”
At the mention of Hades, Leo visibly shrinks. In his ghost form, this manifests as the outline of his body flickering for a few seconds, disappearing and reappearing from existence. Nico has to hide an amused smile at the rather dramatic reaction. He’s come to learn that Leo is surprisingly squeamish about these things—shadows, death, the Underworld—and it seems that hasn’t changed even after dying himself.
“Do you think it could be that I left behind something unfulfilled, and I’m stuck here until I can find a way to let it go?” Leo asks once he’s gathered himself again. “Like in the movies?”
Nico looks at him, unconvinced. “That’s just something the mortals came up with to try and find a connection between paranormal activity and the possibility of ghosts. Or to make sense of whatever the Mist was showing them.” He pauses. “Do you have something holding you back?”
A flash of emotion passes through Leo’s face, though it quickly morphs into an unreadable expression. But it’s enough to make Nico wonder if Leo only brought this up because he already had something in mind. Perhaps something he’s not quite willing to share yet.
After a while, the natural, easy grin returns to his face and Leo declares, “Nope! I don’t have a single regret in my life.”
Huffing, Nico drops the subject, but not before making it obvious that he knows Leo is probably lying. It’s not his problem, anyway. He doesn’t have the time or energy to pick apart Leo’s innermost feelings; between his own body that’s still recovering and the restoration of Camp after the war, he has enough to worry about.
For now, he focuses on walking across the field, following the continuous stream of smoke being pumped out in the sky. His destination is extraordinarily easy to find. Even if Nico didn’t have the entire layout of Camp Half-Blood memorized by now, all he has to do is find the largest source of pollution being pumped out by the chimneys on the roof and it’ll lead him straight there—to the Forge. It’s no wonder that the children of Demeter tend to avoid this place.
When Nico arrives, Jake Mason is there to meet him. He’s dressed in blue overalls that have since turned grey from all the soot covering the surface and a thick pair of gloves on both hands which he uses to lift up the welding goggles from his eyes. They rest on his forehead, pushing down his bangs, and he shakes out the rest of his hair in the process.
He looks happy, a rare sight to witness nowadays. Entirely in his element. He’s also most likely hiding at the Forge to avoid his duties as the newly appointed—well, reappointed—Head Counselor of Cabin Nine.
From what Nico knows about Jake, he’s never been one for leadership. He took on the Head Counselor role following Beckendorf and willingly resigned as soon as Leo proved himself capable. Now that Leo’s gone too, for good this time, the position has fallen back on him.
It’s unfortunate because Jake is undoubtedly one of the best inventors at Camp. If he could focus all his energy toward working on renovations, Nico’s sure that he could drastically change the whole infrastructure here, given a few years.
For now, Jake only nods at Nico in greeting. “Hey, great timing. I was planning to go find you if you hadn’t shown up.” He looks around, peering behind Nico. “Are you alone? I thought I heard you talking to someone.”
“Me! I’m here!” Leo calls out, waving his arms wildly in the air to get Jake’s attention. It doesn’t work, of course. “Nico, please—say hi to my bro for me!”
To Jake, Nico says, “Nah, it’s just me.”
He has to fight to conceal his smile when Leo puts on an overdramatic display of falling to his knees in agony, head in his hands, screaming about injustice and betrayal and whatever nonsense that comes after. Nico simply steps past him, following Jake inside the building. But not before he takes the opportunity to flash a smirk at Leo just to rub it in when Jake has his back turned.
The first thing he notices about the Forge is that it’s burning. The change in temperature is instant once they pass the threshold from outside to inside, and all of a sudden, Nico feels severely overdressed. It’s a sticky kind of heat, too, clinging to his skin in layers. He’d compare it to something like walking into a burning oven if it weren’t for the sheer amount of noise that echoes in the room.
Heavy machinery, hammers against metal, crackling fires—Nico has no idea how the Hephaestus cabin spends so much time here without going deaf. He doesn’t need to physically be in the middle of all this to know that hot and loud is far from the best combination. But even so, taking a look around, he can’t help but sense that there’s a sort of rhythm to the way they work, a beating ecosystem at the heart of everything.
Jake walks past the different workstations where his siblings are all chipping away at their own projects and leads them to the back where a row of weapons are lined up against the wall. Each of them is handcrafted by demigods at various levels of completion. Some are still in the early stages, nothing more than unformed slabs of metal, while others are polished and refined, ready for use in combat.
Picking a sword off the shelf, Jake holds it out in front of him and Nico recognizes it immediately. It’s his, of course—Stygian iron and three-feet-long and black enough that it looks like a void. He reaches for it, fingers wrapping around the hilt, weighing it in his hands.
“What do you think?” Jake asks. “Good as new, right?”
The question is rhetorical because Jake knows he’s done a good job; it doesn’t take much for Nico to see that as well. It’s no secret that a child of Hephaestus breathes life into any object they touch and Nico’s blade shines as he gives it a swing, slicing shadows in half with ease.
Next to him, Leo unfortunately has to make himself known again. He scoffs and crosses his arms, letting out an offended sound. “How come you’ve never asked me to sharpen your sword before?”
Nico ignores him and nods at Jake. “It’s perfect. Thanks.” He straps the sword onto his belt, feeling more at ease now that he has it back. “I owe you one.”
“I could’ve done a much better job,” Leo interjects. “Just saying.”
Annoyed, Nico swats an arm at Leo. It passes through his ghost form, the edges of his body dissolving a bit before he regathers into one shape. All things considered, the action had no real effect on Leo, but his eyes turn wide anyway.
“Oh my gods,” he says in shock, arms wrapping around himself like he’s been wounded. Then he repeats, shuddering, “Oh my gods. You’ve gutted me. You’ve killed me. In broad daylight!”
Truly, this is an exercise in patience and self-restraint because if Leo actually were alive, Nico would have strangled him yesterday. Instead, he notices the odd look Jake sends him throughout this exchange and forces himself to smile pleasantly in return. With a shrug, he says, “There was a fly buzzing around.”
“A fly?!” Leo exclaims in outrage. “Is that all I am to you? What happened to respecting the dead? I swear, di Angelo, we’re enemies from this point on. I’m going to haunt you forever—”
Nico gives his thanks again and turns to leave. It’s bad enough that he has to deal with Leo’s antics; it wouldn’t be fair to force Jake to endure it for longer than necessary, too. But Jake catches his arm, stopping Nico before he goes.
“Hey, about that favour,” Jake says. “The chariot race is coming up and since Leo is… gone, our team is short one person. We could use an extra hand, and we really want to beat the Ares kids this year. If you’re interested?”
Nico pauses and blinks at him, considering. The rivalry between the Ares and Hephaestus cabins is well known, simply because both sides are so vocal about it when the date of the chariot race approaches. Nico has seen the way they taunt each other during mealtimes, how they keep score on who wins every year. It’s not even about coming in first place for them; as long as they manage to beat each other, that’s enough to count as a victory. The intensity from both sides is honestly a little intimidating.
Glancing beside him, Nico finds that Leo has, oddly enough, gone quiet. He would’ve expected Leo to be all for it, pressuring him to accept the offer, even chanting say yes, say yes, say yes. But if anything, he seems to be shrinking back as if he doesn’t want Nico to perceive him for once.
Turning to Jake, Nico shrugs. “Alright, sure. I don’t know how much help I’ll be, though.”
“Great! Don’t worry, we’ll be in touch.” Jake pats him on the shoulder and gives him a squeeze. “The Hephaestus cabin takes this very seriously.”
Soon, Nico leaves the Forge with his refined sword by his waist and a promise to attend the next chariot race planning session. If he’s being honest, he might actually be looking forward to it. He’s never really participated in the event before, since he’s the only member of the Hades cabin, and he never bothered to join in on Camp games much. But maybe there’s always been a part of him that wants to feel included like everyone else. Maybe that’s why Leo isn’t taking this well, either.
“Okay, what’s up with you? Are you thinking that I’ll replace you or something?” Nico asks once they’ve put some distance between them and the Forge. Immediately, he can tell that he hit a nerve with the way Leo’s face flashes with hurt.
“No,” Leo replies, then pauses. “Well, maybe. I mean, you heard what Jake said. They’re already looking for someone to fill in for me.”
Stopping mid-step, Nico looks directly at Leo. “Unlike the other cabins, you and your siblings are crazy. You guys build a chariot from scratch every year for the race, all of it crafted by hand like it’s nothing. Even if I’m there in the room with them, the most I can probably do is fetch them whatever materials they need.”
“I know, but—”
Nico sighs. “My point is, you’re loud and obnoxious and fucking annoying at times,” he lists off the traits as easily as reciting a grocery list. And Leo pouts, opening his mouth like he’s about to protest, when Nico continues, “But you’re not replaceable, Valdez. Don’t ever think that.”
The words clearly surprise Leo, who blinks, taken aback. They surprise Nico too, when he realizes just how much he means them now that they’ve been spoken aloud. Heat rushes to his cheeks and he feels embarrassed suddenly, not knowing why, and turns away on instinct.
“Careful,” Leo says eventually, a slow grin spreading across his face. “If I didn’t know any better, that almost sounded like a confession.”
.
Sitting on a branch of one of the tallest trees in the area, overlooking the rest of Camp, Nico thinks about death and dying and ghosts, and what it means to be haunted.
He’s mostly accepted it now, not that he has much of a choice. Though maybe resigned is a better word for how he’s feeling. Leo is always around in some way or another, and his presence is a constant reminder of how things have changed over the past few months. They’re stuck with each other, for better or for worse.
Besides that, everyone is starting to feel the long-term impacts of war. It leaves behind an undercurrent of grief at Camp Half-Blood that no one knows how to address, and so it goes unacknowledged, shoved to the back of everyone’s minds for as long as people are able to avoid it.
Of course, it’s not all bad. There’s victory, too—they had won, after all, whatever that means in the grand scheme of things—and triumph and pride and the bone-rattling sense of relief that comes with all of that.
Nico himself is doing better than most. He’s already had experience with grief, already lost one of the things he held dearest to his heart a few years ago: his sister. So maybe that’s why he can see it clearer than other people—how, despite desperately wanting to be, no one is really over it. Not yet. It’s still too soon for this kind of wound to mend itself.
And Leo may be the only real ghost among them, but there are other unseen ghosts to be found everywhere. People are carrying an extra weight they didn’t used to, dragging their feet along with whatever that haunts them. Personal nightmares linger on the edges of people’s consciousness. The kind that’s hard to share, and ever harder to live with.
The truth is that they’re all being haunted in one way or another—by the gods, their own parents, the responsibilities forced upon them since birth. And isn’t that something, Nico thinks bitterly, turning to the one person who might actually be free from it all.
On a branch next to his, Leo is hanging upside down, defying gravity without even trying. No longer bound by the rules of the living. There’s an expression on his face that Nico can’t quite decipher, but it’s not unfamiliar; he’s seen it before, recognizes it after spending so much time together, even if he doesn’t fully understand the nuances behind it.
Leo gets like this sometimes: eyes unfocused, expression carefully neutral, contemplative and wistful like he’s not really there. The stark contrast to his usual demeanor throws Nico off, but it also makes him curious enough to keep looking.
It makes him wonder: How much of himself does Leo keep hidden from the rest of the world? How many people have seen him, the real him, and how many people have even bothered to try? What does it mean, then, for him to lower his guard and allow Nico a glimpse inside, either subconsciously or otherwise?
Catching his gaze, Leo snaps out of it and swings back upright on the branch. His previous expression is gone, replaced by an easy smile, head tilted to the side in question. And Nico blinks, pressing his own lips together in an attempt to smile back, though he’s not quite sure how successful he is.
He closes his eyes. Recenters himself. Opens them again.
Leo is still looking at him.
This time, when Nico turns to look out at the world around them, at the bodies of their fellow campers moving about below, at the collective effort to build a new sense of normalcy after the war, he sees everything through Leo’s eyes. The change in perspective is startling.
Because it’s one thing to die and leave everything you’ve ever known and loved behind. It’s another thing entirely to watch as the rest of the world moves on without you.
.
In the evening hours, Nico walks across Camp with the onset of a migraine starting to set in.
He’s come to learn the hard way that, as a ghost, Leo has lost all sense of personal space. He constantly hovers by Nico’s shoulder, leaning in too close for comfort, all touchy and completely oblivious to the way chills pass over Nico’s body whenever he makes contact. It’s like getting hit with a sudden gust of cold wind, except the wind is originating from somewhere inside you. Not exactly the most pleasant feeling.
Of course, he’s told Leo to stop plenty of times now. His dialogue frequently consists of some variation of don’t do that or knock it off or simply a menacing glare that he hopes gets the message across in situations where he can’t openly speak to someone who’s not actually there without looking completely out of his mind. And Nico knows that Leo’s actions aren’t intended to be malicious in any way; he just can’t seem to remember that he’s no longer alive, and what that means to the way he interacts with his surroundings. Which is a whole separate issue on its own.
Sparring helps, though. It takes Nico’s mind off his other thoughts, demanding him to be present in the moment instead. There’s always someone in the Arena willing to engage in a quick duel, usually an Ares kid, and it’s one of the only times Leo chooses to stay on the sidelines instead of actively getting up in Nico space.
Today, he ends his session earlier than usual because despite how he may otherwise act, he is trying to follow Will’s recommendation to take it easy. And Nico can tell that his body isn’t fully back to peak performance yet, still recovering from the recent battles. That doesn’t mean he isn’t exhausted, though. He has no doubt that he’s going to be sore all over tomorrow.
As soon as he steps out of the Arena, Leo is right back at his side. Nico doesn’t even have the energy to look at him now, solely focused on crossing the distance to get to his cabin so that he can lie down and rest.
“Hey, so… I was thinking,” Leo starts, and Nico can’t help but sigh because that’s never a good sign. He doesn’t respond, only walking faster, hoping that Leo will figure out that he’s not in the mood. No such luck.
“I was thinking,” Leo emphasizes louder this time, “that you should take me to Camp Jupiter. I might get some answers there if I can see Jason and Piper again.”
“Can’t,” Nico shuts him down, hardly even listening. Speed-walking the rest of the way, he unlocks the door as soon as he makes it to his cabin and heads straight for his bed. He lets his body fall onto the mattress with relief. All of his muscles give out on him at once and his head hits the pillow face-down. Nico makes no attempt to move, even when his words come out muffled. “I’m not supposed to shadow travel anymore. Doctor’s orders.”
Leo makes a noise that somehow manages to sound both frustrated and personally offended at the same time. “Oh, come on! You’ve never cared for doctor’s orders before. You’re just being mean to me.”
Turning his head to the side so that he can see Leo from the corner of his eye, Nico is blunt when he says, “Maybe I am.”
Defeated, Leo huffs and lies down next to him, uninvited. There’s no added weight when he gets comfortable on the bed and part of him slips through the mattress like he’s not there at all. Which, Nico supposes, he isn’t.
Leo is… ghostly. It’s a redundant observation, but some ghosts are able to hold onto the shape of their physical forms better than others, though it seems that Leo isn’t one of them. He’s faint around the edges, almost like he’s made of condensed air rather than a soul. If Nico doesn’t keep proper track of him, it feels as though he could dissipate into the atmosphere at any moment and vanish for good.
And now that Nico’s looking, he really looks. The bed is small and so they’re close—close enough that their shoulders and arms brush against each other, faces only a few centimeters apart. Leo’s expression is softer than usual, hair falling in front of his eyes, freckles near-transparent. Nico has a strange desire to reach out and touch, despite knowing that he wouldn’t actually feel anything.
“You’re not chained to me,” he says eventually, pushing himself up on his elbows. He tucks his hands under the covers to anchor himself before he does something stupid. “If you want to go so badly, just go. You don’t need my permission or for me to accompany you.”
“Yeah, but…” Leo hesitates. Maybe it’s because Nico is looking straight at him for once that he catches it, but for a second, Leo seems uncharacteristically vulnerable. “I can’t talk to anyone without you. I can’t interact with them on my own.”
Those words hang in the air, Nico considering them for a long time. He thinks about what it would mean if he agrees to become a ghost-to-human translator. Thinks about constantly being tied to Leo for the duration that he’s here until he finally manages to move on to the next life, however long that may be.
It’s asking for a lot. It’s too much. They’re friends, maybe, if he stretches the definition of the word. But they’re definitely not so close that Nico feels like he owes Leo any of that.
Turning away, Nico settles back down on the bed, this time with his back facing toward Leo. He’s looking at the cabin walls when he says, “Not my problem.”
Even as the words leave his mouth, he’s not sure if it’s the right answer. It’s cold of him, a way for him to detach himself from the situation. A luxury that he has but Leo doesn’t. His heart feels heavy, almost like it knows that he’s going to regret this decision in the future, ready to bleed out around his ribcage at any moment.
But for now, there’s no reply from Leo, so he lets his eyes fall shut and allows the warmth of the blanket to lull him to sleep. It takes a while for him to fully relax; he lies there, unmoving, extra conscious of the fact that Leo is still nearby, watching him.
It’s only when he’s almost fully drifted off that he hears Leo sigh and say, quietly, “Sleep well, di Angelo.”