Chapter Text
What would have been an ordinary day at Camp Half-Blood turned sour upon the subtle announcement of Percy and Annabeth’s breakup.
It had gone unmentioned by the two, unwittingly leaving it to their fellow campers to figure it out. At breakfast, Percy did not sit with the Athena cabin as per usual. Since Tyson was still at Poseidon’s underwater kingdom, Percy was the only resident of cabin three. Chiron had giving him and other loner campers—there had been quite a few ever since the gods started claiming their children more—special permission to eat with whoever they wanted. Instead of hanging around with Annabeth and her siblings, today Percy ate his blue pancakes with Grover.
Of course, this act caused silently gossiping. Prior to the fact, Percy and Annabeth had been so attached at the hip that they were practically engaged already. They had been close during the years leading up to the second Titan War, but ever since they got back from Tartarus, they were literally never separated when they didn’t have to be. It was a coping mechanism and probably less healthy than they let on.
So it was certainly an obvious sign that they were no longer together when they weren’t, well, together.
“That doesn’t look good,” Hazel whispered to Nico as she sat down at the Hades table with a plate of French toast and hashbrowns. She nodded over to where Percy and Grover were sitting. On the surface, Percy seemed to be enjoying the conversation he was having with his best friend, but the longer Nico watched, the more upset Percy seemed, and the more he seemed to be trying to hide it.
Nico could get away with things like that. No one ever noticed if he stared too long. He could have been watching Percy for the entire duration of breakfast, and only Hazel would have noticed. And that was because she was sitting right next to him.
“Are you okay?” she asked him next, looking as concerned as she could whilst chewing a large bite of French toast.
Sometimes Nico wished Hazel knew about his feelings for Percy. He knew she would know exactly what to say to make it all better. Hazel studied her older brother’s face as he broke his gaze from the son of Poseidon but couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
Also concerned with the well-being of Annabeth, she glanced over to the Athena cabin’s table. Looking amongst the many steel-eyed campers, she couldn’t find Annabeth.
Suddenly, Nico stood up. He hadn’t eaten much, which was by no means shocking: his chocolate-chip pancakes had been torn to shreds in an attempt to look at least somewhat eaten, the pile of scrambled eggs untouched.
“You should eat more first, Nico.”
Hazel heard him mumble something about lunch before he sank into the shadows.
~
Percy was absolutely miserable. As if his PTSD issues weren’t enough, things with Annabeth went south just when they needed each other the most. Maybe that had been the problem.
It had happened the night before. Annabeth had been a constant in his life for so long that it felt surreal to have that truth shattered. They had been through so much together—it didn’t feel like five years, it felt like fifty. Like a lifetime.
After their exit from Tartarus, they worked out a system. To combat the nightmares as best they could, Annabeth and Percy would sleep in the same bed. It was the only way it could work: whenever one was having a PTSD-fueled nightmare, the only person who could help was the other. They stayed together always and managed to keep the panic attacks at bay. Both of them would pick the mortal world over Tartarus any day, but that didn’t make the aftermath of their journey through the pit any easier to deal with.
Percy even insisted Nico take Annabeth’s room on the Argo II when Annabeth joined his after he returned from his successful quest with Reyna and Coach Hedge. The boy was stubborn as hell, but Percy eventually got through to him.
When they made it back to camp in one piece after the war was over and Gaea diminished to barely more than nothing, Chiron was extremely understanding. There was no better alternative, and that’s how Annabeth moved into the Poseidon cabin.
He unwillingly replayed in all his head:
Percy had been awoken by Annabeth’s quick, ragged breath as her nightmare ended and her anxiety attack started. He had held her, running his hands up and down the length of her arms, whispering affirmations into her ear. After the panicking subsided, they lay like that, Percy still holding her.
Annabeth had started crying, quietly and almost unnoticeably. “What are we going to do, Percy? How are we going to survive and build a life together if the nightmares and panic attacks never end?”
“We take it one day at a time. We do what we can, we fight, we retire to New Rome.” He said this to convince himself as well as Annabeth, and she noticed this. When she was hopeless, he didn’t know what to do; when he didn’t know what to do, she was hopeless.
“It’s not so easy, Percy. That’s what we’ve been doing and it’s not working. There has to be another way.”
He stared at the ceiling. Having nothing to say to that, he sent out a silent prayer. “Hey dad. Athena. I don’t know what to do. Annabeth doesn’t know what to do. But, um, it’s been kinda hard for us lately, and we were wondering if there’s any way to stop the nightmares and panic attacks. Like, going to a therapist isn’t going to work for demigods. And it sucks, to just lay it out there. Um. Thanks, I guess.”
Annabeth let out a breath, and Percy squeezed her harder. Nothing happened.
When Annabeth sat up rather abruptly, Percy knew something was wrong. “I love you, Percy. So much it hurts. But I can’t—this whole ‘one day at a time’ thing isn’t really working. I think I’m going to go up to Olympus and work on the rebuilding efforts. I’ve got a lot of work cut out for me, especially without the help of Daedalus’ laptop. I just—I really need to be working on something right now.”
Percy sat up slowly, in shock. Was Annabeth dumping him?
“I’m not sure I can do this without you,” he admitted.
“I’m not leaving your life! You can still see me whenever you want, but…” Annabeth trailed off, unsure where her statement was headed. She found her backpack and started stuffing clothes in it.
“I’ll miss you.” As Percy talked, she shoved a bottle of shampoo and a pack of hair bands into a pocket of her bag.
“You better not, Seaweed Brain.” Annabeth came to stand in front of him, much taller than him since he was still sitting. She placed a hand on his shoulder and trailed the other one across his cheek. “You deserve more than ‘one day at a time’, Percy. We deserve to have happy, magical, adventurous lives. ‘One day at a time’ isn’t happy, or magical, or adventurous.”
“I think I’ve had enough adventure for one lifetime.”
“Oh, but you haven’t. Demigod adventure, yes. I think we’ve both seen too much war and death for a thousand lifetimes. But we’re going to live. I’m going to be a successful architect, and you’re going to have a great career in...what is it you want to do?”
“Stay alive? I don’t know. I’ve been too preoccupied with being part of two prophecies and wars and all the danger in between to be worried about things like college and a career.”
“Well, whatever it is that you end up doing, you’re going to be amazing at it. There’s nothing you can’t be amazing at--”
“Archery. Geometry. Avoiding monsters outside of camp. Reading aloud in class. Getting my chores done. Not being expelled from schools. I could continue.”
Annabeth laughed despite the tears running down her cheeks. Percy wiped them away, but she shied away from the touch.
“This is not a goodbye, Percy. This is not the end.”
She gave him one last kiss before slinging her backpack on and exiting the cabin.
~
Percy forced himself out of his thoughts. He was trying not to think about the night before, but the last thing Annabeth said to him kept replaying in his mind.
“This is not a goodbye, Percy. This is not the end.”
Funny, because that’s exactly how it felt. But Percy didn’t let himself get mad at Annabeth—it wouldn’t solve anything, and besides, she did nothing wrong.
You see, the worse part was that Percy understood her reasonings. There was no fault in needing to work on something to keep from going insane. A sort of kinesthetic coping tool.
And the scariest part was that part of Percy agreed with her. Maybe a few months ago, a few years ago, Percy would have said he’d rather have no life and be with Annabeth than have a great life and no Annabeth.
Now, he didn’t think he could say that. Yes, maybe he changed in the weeks of the war after they fought their way out of Tartarus. But the part of him that wanted to save the world never died. Saving the world over and over makes you want to keep saving the world, Percy decided. He could start a new chapter in his life: He would still live with his mom and Paul. After the events of the many months before, he missed them fiercely. He could volunteer and work on marine pollution and make his father’s realm better than ever. Maybe even enroll in college. Actually, no. Percy wasn’t really a college person.
For now, he would finish up high school. There was a visible goal.
He wanted to make Annabeth proud.
~
Nico walked into the laundry room at the Big House exactly two weeks later, black laundry basket filled to the brim with black clothes. Camp was going late this year because of the war, and there were only a few days left, so Nico wanted to get a load in before the summer-only campers made a mad rush to wash their clothes before heading home. Nico had an errant thought, wondering what it was like to have a home. It had been so long since he had one himself that he forgot. He didn’t have anything better to do, so he figured he’d just stay at camp. After Tartarus, Nico didn’t really find the idea of going back to the Underworld appealing.
He shoved all the clothes into a washing machine, adding detergent, and turned the appropriate dials. Growing up in the thirties and forties, Nico wasn’t very gifted with technology, but he knew enough. Self-sufficiency was his thing, and if there was one constant about the modern world, it was that there was a laundromat everywhere. They weren’t as common as Subway restaurants and dollar stores, but they were always there, lurking.
Nico turned to leave, but his favorite/least favorite black-haired boy came up to him. Percy filled up the washing machine next to the one Nico was using.
Nico’s wardrobe was all black, sure, but Percy’s was mostly blue. The entire load was blue shirts and blue jeans, sprinkled with the occasional CHB t-shirt.
Catching Nico watching him, Percy said thoughtfully, “I need to get more camp shirts. I’ve got, like, two left. They keep getting burned and ripped to bits by monsters and giants and whatnot.”
“I guess that’s the price you pay for being savior of the world,” Nico replied wryly and just a tad bitterly.
Percy looked over at Nico as if seeing him for the first time.
“I guess you wouldn’t know.” Then, “I didn’t mean it like that. You kind of are a savior of the world in your own sense. I meant it like since you don’t have any camp shirts.” His cheeks flushed red in embarrassment. “Actually, do you own any clothes that aren’t black?”
“Does my aviator jacket count?”
“No.” Percy laughed, and Nico never wanted to not hear that sound.
Nico shrugged, and Percy laughed even more. “Are you allergic to color?” he asked, waving his blue tye-dye t-shirt in Nico’s face.
“Well, if I were allergic to it, I wouldn’t wear my aviator jacket, would I?” Was Nico flirting? What was going on?
Percy just rolled his eyes and stepped even closer, continuing to flash blue fabric in the younger boy’s eyes. “You know, blue is actually a really good color on you.”
Was Percy flirting back? Time to step his game up.
“Well, then, in that case we should trade clothes. I would love to see your parents’ reactions: you wearing my ripped black skinny jeans—they’d be tight because I’m smaller than you—and a black My Chemical Romance t-shirt. I could take you shopping and tell you about all the best brands of guyliner and help you figure out which shade of black best suits your skin tone. We’ll go to Journeys and get you some black Vans, and then stop by the piercing parlor. I think an eyebrow ring would suit your face nicely. Maybe snakebites.”
Nico lost Percy at “My Chemical Romance.” Was that a clothing brand?
The confused look Percy gave him cracked Nico up. Many people could claim that Nico di Angelo was an emotionless ghost of a boy, who probably slit his wrists at the first sign of sadness. Not Percy. Percy had known the boy for four years, and he remembered when Nico was ten and obsessed with Mythomagic. Percy recognized that he was no longer that innocent little boy, and he knew that Nico had seen way too much for someone his age. Percy had as well, sure, but Percy would argue that Nico had it worse. The boy was originally from a different century, and had to deal with the death of his sister not long after entering the 21st. Nico had also been younger than Percy had been upon being thrust into this magical, dangerous world. Plus, you know, his quests consisted more of the Underworld than trekking across the mortal world, and he didn’t even have the luxury of being labelled as a hero for his risky accomplishments.
Anyway, Percy had known Nico for years, and had payed more attention than most campers. He had watched him go from happy to sad to sadder to practically suicidal, but this was the happiest Percy had ever seen him since before Bianca died. Nico was laughing, a genuine laugh that came from the stomach, and his dark eyes sparkled like black diamonds.
Maybe he was trying to not think about how adorable Nico looked when he was happy, but he found himself wanting to be around Nico more, for the other boy’s sake. If Percy could evoke these levels of joy in him, Percy couldn’t not be around him. And it wasn’t as if Percy didn’t like being around the son of Hades. Their friendship had faltered, but hopefully they could fix it.
They joked around for a little while longer, Nico telling Percy that it was good he had naturally black hair, because that way he didn’t have to dye it to achieve the perfect emo look. Percy then deadpanned that he was actually naturally blond, and had been dying it since he found out he was Poseidon's son, because he wanted to look the part. Nico went along with this, saying that in that case, maybe he should’ve dyed his hair green instead.
This ended with Nico mentioning how green hair would bring out Percy’s eyes, especially since the blue clothes made them look so blue. Naturally this tangent led to Nico inadvertently admitting how pretty he found Percy’s eyes to be.
“I can’t take all the credit.” Percy turned to face Nico as the younger boy switched his clothes from the washer to the adjacent dryer. “You can thank my dad.”
Not long after, Percy’s own washer dinged, signaling that the load was clean, and Percy stood up to take care of it. So when Nico sarcastically retorted, “Dear Poseidon, thank you, my lord, for gracing your son with beautiful eyes. They very much reflect the ocean,” Percy had to push his face into his wet jeans to smother the laughter that was bubbling up inside him.
“Are you crazy?"
“Hey, I’m the son of Hades. The gods don’t want to deal with my father, so they sort of turn a blind eye to it.”
“If I joked around with the gods I’d be worried that I would have an actual blind eye.”
Nico only rolled your eyes. “Stop being so melodramatic. You’re everybody’s favorite.” And this time, Nico didn’t say it bitterly at all, which surprised him.
“Not exactly. I can count on one hand the major gods who don’t want to kill me. Ares would happily stick a spear through my body if the opportunity presented itself, and if looks could kill, Athena would have killed me the moment she saw Annabeth and me hanging out. She’s probably rejoicing that we broke up.”
They both went dead silent after that, neither one wanting to talk about that. Percy was just starting to get over the initial depression, and, well, Nico was curious about what had happened, but he knew better than to bring it up. Nico had overcome his jealousy after he realized how much the two needed each other and concentrated his energy on actively getting over Percy. Which worked out so well.
By the time both their loads of laundry were clean and dry, Nico was feeling hopeful. Percy was single, and seemed to be doing just fine. Their friendship was intact. Maybe Nico had been wrong in avoiding him all those times.
When Percy said, “See you around, di Angelo,” and ruffled his hair, Nico responded by hesitantly offering, “If you want to, you can sit with me and Hazel at mealtimes. I mean, I know you only have a few days left here, but.”
Percy smiled for real. “That sounds great.” Then his grin slipped a little. “But it’s been nice eating with Grover. He’s my best friend, but between the eight months I was gone without any memories, the war, and all of Grover’s Lord of the Wild responsibilities, we never see each other anymore. And I’ve known him since before I knew I was a half-blood, you know. I’ve missed him.” Then he cleared his throat and erased the nostalgia from his voice. “Actually, I know you guys only met briefly years ago, but I think you guys would like each other. Maybe after Hazel leaves for Camp Jupiter in a few days you could sit with him. I don’t want you to be lonely.”
And man, that hurt, because Percy cared. Surely Percy couldn’t have realized how much that would mean to him. Nico wanted nothing more in that moment than to kiss him.
Instead he flashed a sad but caring smile to Percy. “See you around, Jackson.” He scooped up his laundry basket, turned his back, and left.
He also left Percy feeling confused as to what was up and what was down.
~
Later that day, Percy was folding laundry in his cabin, putting most of the items directly into his suitcase. As he was smoothing out a pair of jeans, he heard a familiar voice call out to him.
Percy glanced up to see none other than the one and only Wise Girl in front of him, grinning sweetly through the glimmery film of an Iris Message. “Annabeth! What’s up?”
“I feel like it’s been far too long since I’ve said the words ‘Seaweed Brain’, so there we go.”
For a second, Percy felt a certain familiarity of this whole exchange: the smiles, the endearing nicknames, the general effortlessness of their relationship. It was all too easy to want to slip back into the same pattern as before. Annabeth could be all over the place sometime—like when she had that jealous phase about Rachel, or when she was working on a design and could never seem to focus on one thing at a time—and that did, at times, make Percy’s head spin more than he would admit to. For the most part, though, their friendship was pleasant and free of complications. That’s why, Percy supposed, the transition from a simple friendship to a romantic relationship had been so smooth.
“I’m not going to say that I’ve missed you, because then I think you would punch me in the gut, even through the Iris Message.”
Annabeth chuckled lightly at this, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Percy wondered what was going through her mind, then realized how foolish they were being. Perhaps Annabeth was thinking the same thing, or maybe she just knew him too well, because just then she voiced exactly what he was thinking.
“This is stupid. You’re Percy and I’m Annabeth. We’re best friends, and we’re acting stupid.”
Percy nodded to show his agreement, but then said, “Do you regret it?”
“Leaving?” Percy nodded.
“I’m not sure,” Annabeth admitted, looking slightly vulnerable. “Do you know what a trigger is, Percy?”
“Like on a gun…?”
“No, like in psychology. After a traumatic event, sometimes people get triggers, these places or things that bring back memories of the event. Being in a triggering environment can be really emotionally suffocating. I think being around you was a trigger.”
Percy processed what she said, typical smart Annabeth. But if that were the case, why was Percy the only one who had been able to stop her panic attacks? He asked Annabeth this now, moving across the room as he talked to store away the jeans he’d been holding and retrieve a drachma to continue their message.
“I’ve been doing some reading on triggers, but I still don’t know, not really. And that’s scary, not knowing. However, I do know that being away has helped. I miss you like crazy, but I haven’t had any bad nightmares and only one panic attack. But have you been okay yourself?” Her suntanned face wrinkled with worry.
“It’s been hard,” Percy confessed, staring into Annabeth’s steely gray eyes. “But like you said, distractions. I’ve been hanging out with Grover a lot lately, which is nice. Reminds me of the early days, when there was the usual summer quest, but the war was sort of a distant concern. And it’s not like I’ve lost you, right? I mean, we’re still best friends. Right?”
“There will never be a day when you aren’t my best friend,” she confirmed with a nod of the head. “One day, maybe, later along the line if we both survive, we can try again. That could be in a month or a year or ten—it’s too soon for me to tell. But I will try. As I left that night, I couldn’t help but wonder if you thought I was leaving you in more than just the physical sense, but that’s not the case at all. If you ever want to talk or hang out I’m only an Iris Message away. And, well, right now I’m in California, but once school starts I’ll be right by Olympus, because with all the things that have happened in the last year, the revision plans were never finished.”
Percy looked past Annabeth and saw Roman-style buildings, whitewashed with large colonnades. Annabeth was sitting at an outdoor cafe table, right next to a fountain “Are you in New Rome?”
Annabeth nodded. “I wanted to visit my family before school started and I got deep into the revisions again. I spent a week with them, and it was nice, if a bit strained. Did a lot of exploring around San Fran…” Percy didn’t catch what she said then, because it was some nonsensical trivia fact about the Golden Gate Bridge. He had grown accustomed to tuning out her architecture fangirlings. “I know there haven’t been too many monsters since Gaea was defeated, but I wanted to be safe, so instead of spending more time there, I decided to come here instead. I never got a good look around Camp Jupiter outside of the quests and wartime, so I never realized just how cool this place is. We could learn a lot from them.”
“Except for the fact that the Romans stole all our ideas,” Percy commented wryly.
Just then, a dark-haired girl rounded a corner with a tray of burgers and fries and came to sit at the table Annabeth was sat at. As she handed Annabeth her food, Percy saw that it was Reyna.
“Reyna has been showing me around the city more,” Annabeth continued. “And sometime you should try the food from New Rome. It’s delectable.”
“Better than Camp Half-Blood food?” Percy challenged.
“Switzerland,” she announced in lieu of an answer, declaring her neutralism.
“Well, I should go. Dinner’s gonna be soon, I think. Enjoy your inferior-to-camp food.” Percy almost said “I love you” but he was unsure if that would be inappropriate, considering. He settled for “See you soon, I hope, Owl Head.”
Annabeth grinned. “Bye, Seaweed Brain. Tell Grover I said hi.” Percy nodded his acknowledgement to her and then ran a hand through the mist, ending the demigod video call.
~
“Pssst.”
No response.
“Hey Percy.”
Nada.
“Percy!”
Percy shot up, alarmed, and uncapped Riptide. Before he was able to kill anything, he noticed that his supposed attacker was, in fact, Nico. He put away his sword and sat back down on the bed.
“What are you doing here, Nico? Maybe you’ve spent too much time in the Underworld to remember, but right now it’s the middle of the night.”
“I couldn’t sleep.” Nico looked down.
“Hazel sleeps in the same cabin as you! Why’d you have to bother me?” Percy asked tiredly, annoyed at being woken up.
“She was sleeping peacefully,” was Nico’s answer, and Percy wanted to smack him.
“So was I, for once!”
“Fine,” Nico muttered low under his breath. “I had a nightmare about Tartarus.”
Percy sighed. “You get them too?”
Nico nodded. “Not too often, though. Being the son of Hades and all, I’ve kinda managed to desensitize myself to the horrors of the Underworld. But Tartarus is a whole different monster, no pun intended.”
Percy rolled his eyes at the pun, which, knowing Nico, was definitely intended. “You can sleep here tonight, if you want. Being around someone helps.” There was only one bed in the Poseidon cabin, obviously, so Percy shifted himself to the left and pat the bed next to him.
Nico hesitated. But what else was there to do? “Okay,” he said softly, too consumed by his thoughts to realize he was less than a foot away from the boy he’d been in love with since he was ten.
“What was it like for you, down there?” Nico asked when they were settled, both having given up on sleep for the time being.
It took a minute for Percy to respond. “When I was twelve, I went on my first quest, to retrieve Zeus’ lightning bolt. I’m sure you’ve heard some story or another. Well, it was also the first time I was in the Underworld. This was a little bit before anyone knew of Luke’s betrayal; I thought he was my friend. And of course he and Annabeth had always been close, so when he gave us these magical shoes, we all trusted that his intentions were honorable. The sneakers, actually, were enchanted to pull the wearer towards Tartarus. We had been in your dad’s realm when we figured it out, and it had been a close call. I remember wondering what that would be like, finding yourself in Tartarus. And it seemed like the worst thing that could happen to me, even worse than dying. Look at me now,” Percy chuckled uneasily. “And it was horrible. But somehow Annabeth and I made it through, together. I don’t know how.”
Nico nodded, not trusting his voice. They both looked forward, out the window. Each of the cabins blended into the night. Past the original wing of cabins, Nico could make out the sea and wondered if that dark, inky color was what Percy’s eyes looked like in the dead of the night. He let Percy continue.
“I don’t think I’ll ever recover from it fully, to be honest. Do you think you will?”
“I think I’ll be lucky if I survive to see the day when I wake up without the landscape of Tartarus branded into the back of my eyelids.” Nico paused, carefully forming his words. “There was a time when I didn’t think I’d ever be able to get past Bianca’s death. There was a time when I wouldn’t go to sleep without thinking up another new idea of how to bring her back. There was a time when the only thing I cared about was my father’s approval and respect. If I’ve learned anything over the past few years, it’s that nothing is ever as it seems, not in the long run.
Percy was shocked: this was so unlike anything he expected to hear coming from Nico. “Man, you sure do take the emotional out of emo.”
Nico smiled then, a rare gesture that Percy felt almost honored to witness. “I do have a reputation to uphold.”
“Yeah, I can tell from all the My Chemical Romance clothing you wear.”
Percy watched as Nico processed this, a confusion flashing across his olive face. “I only have two MCR t-shirts. You do know that they were a band, right? Music and all that?”
“Oh, yeah, totally, sure, mm-hmm.” Percy coughed awkwardly.
“Should’ve guessed. You hang around the wrong type of people in school, then.”
“My own reputation in schools is already bad enough, Goode being the only exception. I don’t need everyone thinking I do drugs and slit my wrists.”
“Nah, that’s not what being into that kind of music is about. But I am curious—what is this infamous reputation that precedes you?”
“Did you know that before I went to Goode, the high school that Paul works at, I was kicked out of all of my schools within a year? By the time sixth grade rolled around, I’d been to six schools in six years.”
“Was it because of the unexplainable monster attacks or your rebel attitude?”
“The first one,” Percy answered tiredly. They were both starting to drift off. In his half-asleep state, Percy didn’t realize what he was asking until it was out of his mouth. “Goode would be good for you. Get it? But seriously, you should enroll.”
This got Nico’s attention. “What, live here at camp and go to school in Manhattan?”
“No, live with me.”
“Okay, besides the complete stupidity of that idea, I’ve been in your apartment. You don’t have room for an extra person.”
“We fit a giant hellhound in there that one time. Besides, we have a blow-up mattress.”
“I haven’t been to 21st century schooling in over three years. Wouldn’t it seem suspicious that I know, like, nothing that everyone’s expected to know from middle school?” Nico countered, not wanting to find a logical reason that this could work.
“Okay, first of all,” Percy began, and then yawned. “First of all, you’d be a freshman. You’re underestimating the stupidity of most freshmen, no offense. Second, you are smart—you do know a lot, just not necessarily the kinds of things you would find on an algebra test, you know? I think you’d be good at history.”
Nico searched for another excuse. He knew Sally Jackson would host Nico with open arms. If he stayed in their apartment, she’d probably make Percy give up his bed and then make Nico a large, homemade dinner to ‘get some meat on his bones.’
Nico tried to imagine it: going to school with Percy, living with Percy and his family. They could stay up until midnight studying for finals and stay up til one the next day watching Disney movies or horror films. He pictured waking up and beating Percy out for the first shower, because the gods knew how bad Percy’s always been at getting up.
It sounded nice, but it also sounded like a novel. (Read: not Nico’s life.) He was so used to living on the run and in the Underworld, with maybe a pit stop at either of the camps, that the prospect of having an actual home again seemed surreal.
Nico glanced Percy’s way again to see if he was awaiting a definite answer, but Percy had fallen asleep, his head slumped against the headboard of his bed in a position that looked anything but comfortable. Sighing, Nico gathered the remainder of Percy’s plush cerulean comforter around his body and closed his tired eyes.
~
Nico awoke at once. This time, however, it wasn’t a demigod dream or Tartarus nightmare interrupting his sleep; the light shining through the windows of the Poseidon cabin lifted the sleepiness from his body.
Rubbing his eyes, he peered at the clock on the wall, noting that it was a couple hours until breakfast. Although Nico was naturally an early riser, he usually didn’t wake quite so early. Then again, he was used to sleeping in the Underworld or in the Hades cabin, a building equipped with as many windows as the Aphrodite cabin had skull motifs.
Nico blearily located a pad of sticky notes from Percy’s bedside table and began to scribble a note. He cringed when he realized his action was the equivalent of leaving a goodbye message after a one night stand. Nevertheless, he forged on, writing “Last night helped” which was the closest he was going to get to thanking the other boy.
As a secondary thought, he added a postscript: “I guess I’m lucky that you aren’t invulnerable anymore, because we have combat together today.”
Nico peeled the post-it off the pad and stuck it to the pillow on his side of the bed. He returned the sticky notes to their rightful place and bolted to the bathrooms for a long shower, not wanting to wake Percy up.
Percy himself awoke some time later, and he rolled over, trying to see how long he could make the peaceful sleep last. When he heard something crumple underneath him, he frowned, because surely bedsheets were not supposed to crinkle like they were paper.
Maybe that was because he was laying on a small piece of paper, a wrinkled yellow sticky note. Percy smoothed it out and read the rushed scrawl, a little memo from Nico. Even in his half-asleep state, Percy observed that it was written in pen. More to the point, metallic bronze ink. He instinctively stuck his hand in the pocket of his navy plaid pajama bottoms but Riptide was, of course, there. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously but moved on to get dressed for the day.
~
Percy and Nico were unfortunate enough to get combat training during the middle of the afternoon, when the sun was the highest and the temperature the hottest. And unless Percy wanted to start junior year with some uncomfortable chafing going on, he was not going to wear armor without a shirt.
So they were standing in the armory shed, plucking different pieces of armor in the appropriate sizes from racks and hooks. Just seeing how much smaller Nico’s breastplate was than his, Percy wondered to himself how such a scrawny boy could pack such a punch. Maybe it was all for naught, because even though he wasn’t arrogant or anything, he did consider himself a better swordfighter than Nico. But sword combat was his thing; Nico excelled at using his zombie soldiers to win battles, a fighting technique that was unique to the son of Hades.
They weren’t alone in the shed, but there weren’t many campers in there. Most of them had already lugged their protective gear over to the combat area. The doors to the shed were wide open, and campers assisted each other in putting on the heavy metal armor. It was really a two-person job, see. Only Elastagirl could do her own back straps.
They had the shift with some of the loner cabins as well as the Aphrodite kids, which explained why all the “pretty” armor was gone. First come first serve, Percy thought as he caught the unexpectedly sour, sweaty smell of a last-choice armguard.
Nico did Percy up, since it made more sense for the shorter one to go first, not having all that bulky metal hindering him even more. As Nico threaded the buckle for one of the backstraps, Percy started, “So that note you left me earlier…”
Percy could feel Nico tense from behind him. What was this kid so afraid of?
Concerned Percy was going to start asking him personal questions about the nightmares or something, Nico let out a relieved breath when Percy didn’t take that route. “Did you use Riptide to write that?”
Nico shrugged. “It was easier than going all the way across the cabin to retrieve a pencil.”
“Taking Riptide out of my pocket was easier than getting off your butt to grab a pencil?”
Nico peered at Percy curiously. “I can raise armies of the dead, and you’re surprised that I’m a gifted pickpocketer?”
Now it was Nico’s turn. He held the breastplate to his chest as Percy attached the straps in the back. “I guess I’m learning more and more about you every day. Though don’t let the Hermes campers find out that you can pickpocket—they’d never stop trying to include you in devious pranks.”
“Not going to be a problem,” Nico muttered. “And what do you mean about getting to know me? You’ve known me longer than most of the other campers I have to deal with on a regular basis; you’ve known me longer than Hazel has.”
“What I said on the Argo II? Completely true. You’ve done a lot of growing up over the past couple years, and I haven’t always been there for you. And it’s nice to see that through all the death and gore and hardships, I can still see the happy-go-lucky boy you used to be underneath it all.” Percy paused. “I’ve never known you on such a personal level, like I do with Annabeth and Grover and Rachel. It was all ‘I can protect your sister’ and ‘Oh hey, we’re probably dying, so let’s fight.’”
“You don’t have to be so nice for my sake.”
“You won’t think I’m so nice when I’m kicking your ass out there.”
“You think. Which one of us has lived in the Underworld?” Nico smirked at Percy, a challenge.
Percy rolled his eyes at this. “What do people do when it’s hot out? They pour water on themselves. Helps a lot, for me. Learned that my first week of camp.”
He held Nico’s steely gaze, neither giving in. After a minute, a young camper came in the shed to exchange equipment, and Nico broke off. “On that arena floor we will see who’s the better fighter.”
With that, he sauntered out like a total badass, leaving Percy shell shocked in his wake for the second time in two days.
~
It was a purple bead this year. Purple, with a mossy brown silhouette of a Greek warship. Just like last year’s, it had been etched with the names of all the fallen campers. The colors were intended to be symbolic of Camp Jupiter and the war against Gaea.
Percy and Nico sat beside each other at the campfire, the flames casting shadows on Chiron in the twilight as he spoke.
“You have been brave, children,” concluded Chiron. His gaze swept around the large fire ring, and as campers started to filter out to their cabins, it stopped slightly at them. Percy couldn’t tell if Chiron was supposed to be looking at him or Nico.
“There were less this year,” Percy noted, desperate to fill the empty silence. He toyed with the bead, unwilling to accept it. Most of his friends were safe, sure, but not everyone could say the same. Anyone he interacted with here could have lost a sibling or a best friend or a lover. He thought of Silena and Beckendorf.
“Do you ever wonder if there’s anything you can do about it?” Nico asked abruptly.
“What, the deaths?”
Nico nodded. “That must seem weird. I’m half death, really. Is that strange?”
“I think you’ve seen way too much death and suffering for a fourteen-year-old, no matter who your father is. Maybe that makes it worse, since you’re so tethered to it.”
“All throughout the campfire, I couldn’t stop thinking about Bianca,” Nico began. “Perhaps that was selfish: thinking about a girl who’s been dead for two and a half years, when there’s a fresh new batch of people who need to be mourned. But fuck that, because she was my sister. And I couldn’t get that day out of my head—when I found out, it was absolute misery. You saw how that affected me for the years to come. And now.” He laughed bitterly. Right now, Nico was acting more and more like the angry, broken bird he’d presented himself as earlier that summer. “Now, it’s not just me. It’s everyone. Everyone is feeling this. Does it ever stop?”
It was probably the wrong thing to say entirely, but— “Nico, more people were killed in the Titan War last summer. What changed?” And therein lay his mistake: as soon as the words escaped his mouth, he knew.
Percy shook his head, a silent negation of his inquiry. It went unsaid between them. He realized that maybe that was the reason he and Nico got along so well lately—hey simply understood each other without having to try.
The pit made an insane asylum seem like a joke. Every other hardship in the mortal world paled in comparison, and sometimes Percy did feel like he belonged in an institution.
After a while, the silence became maddening. “You should probably go to bed. Tomorrow Hazel’s probably gonna make you clean you guy’s cabin so she can leave camp.”
Nico stared at Percy, not quite understanding. Percy, of course, felt uncomfortable—whenever Nico looked at him like that, he couldn’t help but worry that he was actually staring into Percy’s soul.
“I’m not staying. I’m going home with you, remember? I’ve already contacted Paul and gotten him to enroll me at your school. One of the Hermes guys even forged my credits and background for me. You know that saying: ‘When nothing’s right, go left.’ Well, nothing’s right, and a scenery change will help, so I’m choosing left. And no, I’m not trying to allude to Doctor Who.”
“Who?”
“Exactly,” Nico smirked. “Back when Bianca and I were at Westover Hall, I had this friend who was really into science fiction. I guess my Mythomagic obsession attracted other geeks. But he figured that since you couldn’t get any nerdier than mythology games, I might like Doctor Who. It’s this really popular British sci fi show. Been on for like fifty years. I don’t remember much, but I do remember some controversy over turning left or something.”
“You are such a dork.”
At this, Nico stuck his tongue out at Percy. “I know you are, but what am I?”
~
“Percy, your parents are here.”
“Thanks, Argus.” Percy turned to Grover, who he was talking to by the strawberry fields. “You better not be too busy being a badass to visit me.”
“I don’t know, Percy. I can only get time off to visit the most important people in my life, and—” Grover teased.
“Whatever.” Percy rolled his eyes.
“You got that from Annabeth, didn’t you? The eye rolling?”
Percy tensed up, as one does upon the mention of their ex. He nodded. “The only part of my life, I think, she hasn’t influenced is my ability to make shitty grades in school.”
Grover laughed. “Well, if you went to the same school as her, she would have. There were a couple years when both of us attended camp year round, and so we had some classes. And she pretty much blew everyone out of the water.” He took a pause to relive the nostalgia, and then asked, “Are you two gonna be okay?”
“Annabeth is smart enough to know when something is off. You know, years ago she told me that her fatal flaw was hubris. She wanted to change the world, and she has. But that ambition—it’s not going anywhere, from what I can see, and I know her better than almost anyone. I don’t think she knows what she’s doing, only that it feels right. It hurts, but I have to trust her.”
“You are smarter than you give yourself credit for,” Grover told him, patting his shoulder. “You should go. Don’t want to keep your mom and Paul waiting.” As if to enforce this, Grover pulled out his reed pipes and played a tune that made the strawberry plants go crazy but that made Percy want to claw his ears off. The sad part was that Grover had improved quite a bit since joining the Council the year before.
Percy said goodbye to Grover and left the strawberry fields, careful to avoid stepping on juicy fruits. The last thing he needed was an earful from Mr. D. He walked up to the new wing of cabins and entered the Hades cabin. Without knocking. (Which was probably a suicide mission.)
The first thing he saw were images of death and the color black. The second thing he saw was Nico and Hazel hugging. Hazel’s back was to him, and he could see a couple tears flowing down Nico’s cheeks. Percy froze in shock, cringing internally at his bad timing.
When Nico noticed Percy just standing there in the doorway, his eyes widened. He stepped out of Hazel’s embrace and wiped his eyes, his sickly pale cheeks tinged with the slightest hint of pink.
“Um, my parents are here, so unless you want to shadow-travel to our apartment…” Percy coughed nervously.
Nico nodded. “Right. I’m ready.” He pulled his black (what else?) suitcase to the front of the cabin.
“Stay safe, Hazel,” Percy told the daughter of Pluto as he walked over to give her a hug. “Tell everyone at Camp Jupiter I said hi.”
“Will do. Be careful, Percy.”
“Yeah, yeah, like that’s gonna happen. But I’ll try.”
Hazel laughed and shooed the two out of the cabin and down Half-Blood Hill.