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The first thing people have to understand about Nico di Angelo is that he isn’t the least bit conventional.
He pushes those who want to get close to him away and more so, shies away from those who he himself wants to get to know. No wonder he’s labeled as antisocial.
But he cares, he really does. From a distance he protects those he can and makes little sacrifices for those who mean plenty to him. These small acts will catch you off guard, but undoubtedly will make warmth uncontrollably spread through you.
Nico doesn’t appreciate the prospect of celebrating birthdays and spends his in the underworld tending to the dead. Each and every one of them are charity cases, in his opinion, and he figures that in a way, this was how he wanted to celebrate his day of birth – by helping those who cannot be reached by the world above. He lives by the philosophy of “If there’s something you can do about it then you best do something about it”.
The son of Hades isn’t big on holidays and doesn’t understand their purpose. And although Percy respects this and often times has to pretend that he isn’t bothered by the fact that he can’t convince his boyfriend to go Easter Egg Hunting with him and the gang, he at least wanted Nico to brave Valentine’s day with him.
Nico knows this, of course. And makes the smallest of effort to let this one holiday go noticed and spends each one shadow traveling to Percy’s apartment, a tub of ice cream and Disney DVD’s in hand, and demands to be cuddled. Percy often does more than oblige.
The notorious Ghost King only welcomes skinship from a select few people, i.e. Percy, the lover; Jason, the best friend; Hazel, the sister; Persephone, the surprisingly fussy stepmom; Piper, the relationship guru; Frank, the Mythomagic buddy; Annabeth, the fellow book club member; and Leo, the personal furnace. Anyone else can go and impale themselves on his Stygian iron sword.
He doesn’t like being alone, contrary to popular belief. He might have an inclination to seclude himself and do things alone, but he doesn’t fancy being lonely. Truthfully he’s starved for the love he never really got as a young child. Percy found this out the hard way the first time they fell into bed together and he awoke to the morning’s hush before his lover with all intents of making them breakfast – blue pancakes and eggs.
He stopped mid-flip when he heard the unmistakable sound of a barely-restrained sob and the clattering of items and ran back to his bedroom, pancake on the floor and all.
Nico still had the sheets twisted around his torso and had a wild-eyed expression as he tried to put his exceptionally rumpled clothes back on with thoroughly shaking hands. A thin sheen of sweat covered his chest and his breathing was ragged, and then Percy finally realized that he was having a panic attack.
He rushed to his side and took Nico’s face in his hands, tracing tear stains that ran down his gaunt face. A pang rang through his chest and the ache was substantial, if not a little crushing. Percy asked him what was wrong and tried to shush him, whispering comforting nothings in his ear and held the younger boy until he ceased trembling and could breathe again.
“It’s fine, it’s okay, you’re with me. You’re with me,” he promised. “You’re okay, I’ve got you.” For a moment the earth stopped spinning, the winds ceased to blow, and the sounds that filled the perpetually bustling environment of Manhattan suddenly turned mute, and it was as if someone turned a huge ‘off’ switch in world. All that existed was them. The raven-haired boy with sea-green eyes who bundled the boy with broken one’s in his arms. For a moment, they let all trivial things pass by in a blink and let the sound of either one’s heart beats fill the void.
“I- I woke up a-and you were gone, and I th-thought –“
“I never left, Neeks. I’m right here, I just prepared us food, is all.” Nico looked up at him fearfully and grasped at the hem of Percy’s shirt, looking like he was making sure that this was real and if Percy was real, and it knocked the breath out of son of Poseidon how broken the younger boy looked right now. He sifted through his brain for the right diagnosis – separation anxiety, or anxiety in general. Which kind of made sense, what with his unfortunate history with family members dying on him. Or not. He could be wrong, in fact he doesn’t really have any warrant to diagnose anyone.
“Percy?”
“Yeah?”
“D-do you, uh… do you regret anything that happened, uh, last night?”
Percy thought of how Nico looked that night in the Opera house, smiling and singing along to All I Ask Of You thinking ‘And the little shit had the gall to tell me that he couldn’t sing that one time’ because screw Christine, Raoul, or that Phantom guy because Percy could listen to Nico’s singing all day long and still wouldn’t get tired of it first thousand times. He’d willingly exchange his need for oxygen for that Voice. Like legit seriously.
He thought of how adorable he was when they were in Tres Bellini and he had marinara sauce on the corner of his mouth and darted his pink tongue around when Percy pointed this out (and still he failed to lick it off so Percy did something really cheesy, as in straight-out-of-a-chick-flick cheesy and wiped it off for him).
And then his mind wandered off somewhere in the steamier parts of their date when he pictured Nico laying beneath him, skin pale white that seemed to give off an ethereal glow about him. His face was flushed, features contorted into something that tottered between bliss and pain, and gods the sounds he made; the low groans and dulcet moans that escaped from his red swollen lips (Percy’s fault) and how he shivered under the touch of the older boy as he brushed all the love bites (again, his fault) that dotted his neck and lined his collar bone. How the Ghost King cried out his lover’s name at the peak of their pleasure; how they rose and fell and the vicious cycle that followed after that.
“Never.”
He doesn’t say ‘I love you’, not as often as Percy does. Or Hazel; or Persephone. Hell, sometimes even Jason, when he’s feeling especially affectionate. Nico only smiles at them and does whatever he does. And while some people find this a little unsettling, Percy knows that wasn’t the case. He notices, he always notices.
Nico says ‘I love you’ not in words, but in actions. He says it when he tells Percy to fasten his seatbelt before starting the car and gets royally irritated and would refuse to talk to him if he tells Nico that it wasn’t necessary. He says it when he brings Percy’s coat down for him every day because the guy consistently fails to acknowledge the winter seasons and the excessive chill it brings. He says it when the door in their flat creaks open and in comes Percy fresh from work, with Nico asking him if he’s had dinner yet (and proceeds to make him one even when he says he already has). He says it when he kisses his boyfriend on the forehead, nose, cheeks, lips, neck, and every other patch of skin that belonged to the city of Percy’s body. He says it with every brush of his fingertips against the son of Poseidon’s face when it’s 4 am and neither one can seem to stand the plague of nightmares they have nightly, and so they opt to stare at each other’s face and just in the state of being. Breathing in and out and appreciating the thereness of the other.
He says it when he throws his head back and laughs as he places a brotherly peck on Hazel’s smooth cheeks; when he smiles crookedly up at Persephone in appreciation whenever she does her best to prepare him her own, unique version of a home-cooked meal (Garden Flower salad and other wheat products with butter slathered on; Nico makes a joke out of calling it a ‘hell-cooked meal’); and when he nudges Jason on the shoulders or gives him a good-natured flick on the forehead.
He says it a lot and in so many occasions, yet people do not take enough time to take note of what his actions really mean.
So when it happened one night, Percy almost completely burned the whole flat down.
He was preparing chicken turbo when Nico walked out of their room dressed in a fancy suit, reminding him that tonight was Hazel and Frank’s rehearsal dinner and that he had to attend. Percy vaguely remembers bidding him a quick goodbye and a habitual off-hand “loveyou” when –
“I love you, too.”
Time froze. The sautéed vegetables were left to burn to a crisp. In a flash, he’s crossed the room and towards Nico, whose eyes widened at his boyfriend’s abrupt approach.
Percy grabbed him by his silver-and-black striped tie and pulled him in for a rough kiss, teeth clanking together and mouths so desperately trying to meld into one it almost hurt. “Say it again,” the son of Poseidon breathed out in a low, gravelly voice when he pulled away. Nico looked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes and his lashes fluttered as he enunciated, “ I – love – you.”
And it drove Percy completely insane.
Suddenly their lips were latched together again and Nico’s suit was getting a little bit wrinkled, and while that was the son of Hades’ main concern, the older boy was calculating in his mind (quite unsuccessfully) how fast it would take to tear it off of him without breaking the kiss.
“Gods,” Nico whispered against his mouth. “If I had known that was all it took for this to happen, I would have said it earlier.”
“Yeah,” Percy laughed and nipped at his bottom lip. “You really should have.”