Chapter Text
“You’re going where?” Jason asks.
Nico stands in front of him, arms folded across his chest. Jason closes the book he’s reading, keeping his finger in the crease to hold his place.
“Italy,” Nico repeats, all calm and reasonable.
“Okay. Any particular reason?”
“Yeah,” he says, and doesn’t elaborate.
Jason nods, because if he doesn’t wanna explain himself he’s not going to, and that’s all there is to it.
“Italy, huh? You ever been before?”
“I was born there, Jason.”
“I mean since then,” he laughs.
Nico smiles just a bit, a wisp of a thing. It still makes Jason’s heart feel warm. “Yeah, once or twice, but I’ve never—well never where I’m going now.”
He doesn’t wanna tell him, then, Jason guesses. That’s fine, no need to push.
“Thanks for telling me,” he says honestly.
Nico glances away, picking at his hands the way he does when he’s embarrassed, “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t want you to freak out like last time.”
“I didn’t freak out,” Jason says, but he kind of did freak out. It was pretty soon after defeating Gaea, and he’d come knocking on nico’s door to see if he wanted to eat lunch together and nobody had answered. And then he hadn’t been at lunch and he hadn’t been at dinner either and again, it was like right after Gaea, so pardon if his nerves were still a little wired, he’d just been worried!
Something must show on his face, though, because Nico just rolls his eyes. Smiles that little smile that has Jason heart go all warm again.
“Actually, I was um,” he starts, and stops, and starts again, “I was wondering if you wanted to come with me?”
“Come with you?” Jason repeats, blinking in surprise.
“To Italy,” Nico clarifies, just in case Jason didn’t follow. Nice of him, Jason thinks, because his brain hasn’t quite gotten the memo that Nico’s standing in his cabin, asking him to go to Italy with him.
“Uh, why?” Is what makes it out.
He sees Nico close up just a bit, shoulders hunching minutely closer together. He shrugs. “I mean, if you’re busy, of course it’s fine, I was just—I dunno, I just thought I would ask. Sorry.”
“No, no no,” Jason says quickly, shoving his book to the side and losing his page, “I’m not busy.”
Nico raises an eyebrow, “Don’t you have a big shrine building thing going on?”
“I have pretty much all the designs done, and I’ve built half of them. I can put the rest on hold for a few days.”
“I dunno how long it’ll take,” Nico admits. Jason wonders what business Nico has in Italy that’ll take more than a few days — are they already giving out quests again? — and then realizes it’s completely in his power to find out.
“That’s fine,” Jason says, without really thinking it through. The Zeus Cabin can survive a little bit without a cabin leader. He’s still technically the only member.
“Really?” Nico asks, sounding more hopeful than he probably meant to. Jason bites back something fond.
“Yeah. To be honest, I’ve been feeling kinda restless lately anyways. Plus, I’ve never been to Italy.”
Nico smiles.
“So how exactly are we planning on getting there?” He asks over his potato salad.
Nico pauses for a moment. “Well, I was probably just gonna shadow travel, but it’ll be more work with two people, and I dunno if I can go that far in one jump.”
Nico never likes admitting his weaknesses, Jason’s learned, even if they aren’t really weaknesses at all. Like, the distance that he can travel is incredible in itself, no one can blame a guy for not being able to do everything.
“I guess we could do more than one jump,” Nico adds.
Suddenly, Jason had an incredible idea, one of the best he’s had since he decided to be Nicos friend. “We could do a road trip.”
Nico blinks at him. “What’s that.”
“Y’know, it’s like a long trip in a car. You play music and see a lot of tourist shit? They’re in movies a lot.”
Nico looks at him hard for a second, “Jason, I dunno if you know this, but I’m from the thirties. I haven’t seen very many movies.”
Jason huffs an embarrassed laugh, “Yeah, neither have I. But Leo says they’re fun.”
“Leo says a lot of things are fun.”
“True,” Jason admits, “But I’ve always wanted to try it out.”
Nico pauses to consider, propping his chin on his hand. His wrists are still so small. “Do you know how to drive?”
“Uh, I think so? I don’t have like, a license, but I get the gist of it.”
“Where’re we gonna get a car?”
“Didn’t your dad give you one?” Your dad being the god of the underworld, which shouldn’t still be as weird to think about as it is, considering everything, “Like as a weird gift that one time?”
Nico makes a face at the mention, “Yeah. I think the car might come with the driver, though.”
“Hey, that’s perfect! Neither of us will have to drive illegally and get arrested or anything.”
“We wouldn’t get arrested,” Nico rolls his eyes.
“And why not?”
“Cause we wouldn’t get caught, stupid.”
Jason laughs. “Still. It’s better safe than sorry. Plus, it’s less work for us, right?”
“I guess so,” Nico concedes. A moment, and then another. He takes a sip of his Dr Pepper, tilts his head like he’s weighing his options. “Alright,” he says eventually, “A — what’s it called?”
“Road trip.”
“A road trip sounds nice. I still don’t really know how they work, though.”
“Yeah, neither do I,” Jason admits.
Leo, as it turns out, is the perfect man to go to for help. He lends the two of them his contraband DVD player and password (fuckingpassword, all lowercase, he whispers conspiratorially) to the Netflix account he still mooches off of from his old foster family and a list of movies —Little Miss Sunshine, The Muppet Movie, Zombieland (what the hell? Nico asks) and more — and tells them to have at it.
By the end of the night, Jason had compiled a list of Mandatory Things To Do On A Road Trip. Nico laughs at him when he sees that he’s actually writing it down, but if they’re actually doing this they might as well go all out with it.
So it goes like this:
One: Make A Special Playlist (Jason isn’t sure how old the car will be, and if it’ll have an aux cord or CD player, so they might have to improvise)
Two: Stop At A Cafe Or Wafflehouse (if they have those in Italy)
Three: Bring Snacks To Avoid Disaster
Four: Bring A Map To Avoid Disaster
Five: Stop At Tourist Attractions And Take Pictures
Six: Have An Emotional Bonding Moment
Jason writes the sixth one afterwards, when Nico’s done looking. Partially because he doesn’t wanna scare Nico off, and partially because he doubts it’ll even happen. Not that he wants it to, doesn’t know what it would be about or how to handle it, it just. Seems inevitable, in such a small space. All the movies have one, but maybe that’s just a movie thing. It’s whatever, he thinks. Five is a good number to have. He thinks they’re good to go.
In the half a year since the war with the earth ended, both camps have been slowly settling back into some semblance of normalcy. However normalcy is defined in this situation. He was surprised when Nico decided he was going to stay, but he wasn’t about to interrogate the guy about it — he was happy enough just knowing he was gonna be here. Reyna wasn’t, everyone thought Leo was dead at the time, and Percy and Annabeth were taking some time off. He was still practically a stranger at camp, so it was a relief to have someone there who he actually, like, knew.
Plus — and call him a little too Roman here, whatever — he thought it was kinda ridiculous that you had to eat with your cabin. Like, he knew cohorts weren’t a thing here, but Nico sitting alone at his table, picking at his food and Jason sitting alone at his table and picking at his food hadn’t cut it for very long. While Chiron wasn’t looking, he took his tray and slid into the bench across from Nico, who’d looked up sharply and glanced around to check if anyone was looking — which they were, Jason knew, but didn’t care.
“You can’t sit here,” Nico had whispered.
“I’m bored by myself.”
“People are looking.”
That was always the thing, Jason thought. People were always looking, always staring at both of them. They were both tired of it.
“We just helped save the world,” he’d pointed out, speaking loud enough for anyone who was listening to hear, “Who cares where we sit?”
Nico had ducked his head under Chiron’s gaze, but he stopped playing with his food long enough to actually eat some of it. He seemed quietly grateful not to have to eat alone. He called Jason ridiculous, of course, but it was the quiet relief that had Jason coming back more and more often.
The morning before they leave, Jason grabs two breakfast rolls and tosses one to Nico. He catches it gracefully. No one glances at them anymore; the Zeus table has been empty for a while now.
“Have you told Hazel you’re leaving?” He asks.
Nico nods around his spoon, “Yeah. I IM-ed her earlier. She told us to bring lots of food and not get lost. Reyna said she didn’t help me tote a giant statue halfway across the world for me to get lost in Europe again, so we should probably listen.”
Jason grins, “Sounds serious.”
“You tell Piper?”
“Yeah,” Jason takes a bite of his roll, “She said to have fun and be careful. And that we have to stop at um, t he Club del - something that starts with a D - Restaurant .”
“Has she been to Italy?” He asks, sounding genuinely interested. That was the thing with Nico — he didn’t pretend to be anything for the sake of it. He was polite, but didn’t pretend to care when he didn’t.
“Nah, but her dad has.”
“Her dad the actor, right?”
Jason nods, “He’s been all over to shoot his movies. He used to take Piper with him, so she’s been like everywhere.”
Nico makes a thoughtful noise, “Maybe I should ask her to come with me instead.”
“There’d probably be a lower chance of you getting lost,” Jason admits. Nico makes an amused sound around the bread in his mouth. It should be kind of nasty, but instead it’s just endearing. Jason decides not to read too much into that.
The thing is, the past six months have left Piper and Jason at a kind of impasse. It’s nothing dramatic, or malicious, it’s just. Well, Jason’s been focused on one thing and Piper’s been focused on another. It’s neither of their faults, it’s just what’s been happening. She gave him a kiss on the cheek to say goodbye, but didn’t seem all that sad to see him go. He doesn’t fault her for it — he’s not all that sad to go, either.
“When do you wanna leave?” He asks instead of dwelling on it.
“As soon as possible would be best,” Nico says, taking his last bite. “I was thinking we get everything we need, I shadow travel us across the ocean so we don’t have to like, fly or something. And then I summon Jules there, to save us the trouble.”
Jason considers it for a minute, “Sounds good to me. Meet at my cabin?”
“Sure,” Nico says. “Don’t forget your pillow.”
Jason does forget his pillow. But, he does remember the playlist Leo and Piper had helped him make the night before. Drew from the Aphrodite cabin even pitched in, pointing out how old the iPod Piper’s letting him borrow is but still offering a few song suggestions. He doesn’t know if the car will have the kinda radio to let him hook it up, but he has a list and he’s sticking to it.
Nico says that he’s been to Italy once or twice before, so when they walk to the edge of camp, backpacks strung over their shoulders and a Walmart bag full of snacks in his hands and Nico tells him to hold on and Please Don’t Drop The Fucking Snack Back, Jason, Jason takes his hand and hopes for the best. He still doesn’t love shadow travel, ‘cause it’s dark and tight and still takes the air right out of his lungs, but he has to admit it’s pretty cool. Pretty convenient, to close your eyes for like twenty seconds and then suddenly be across the ocean, no travel fees or airplanes needed.
(“We’re not flying there,” Nico had shot him down immediately, back when he brought it up, “I don’t like being that high off the ground. And your shitty dad might try to shoot me out of the sky.”)
They land hard - or at least, Jason lands hard, and he has to steady himself on Nico’s shoulder with the hand not already holding Nico’s.
“Gods, that still takes it out of me,” he breathes, and can’t feel too put out when Nico quietly laughs at him - only knows because he feels Nico’s bony shoulder move under his hand. “How often did you and Reyna do that?”
“About ten times,” Nico says, quietly smug, “She handled it better than you, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
Nico looks around while Jason dusts himself off, and when he doesn’t see anyone, put his hands on his hips and says, “Okay. I’m gonna call our ride.”
So, Jason sits on a big rock and watches Nico stand there and hold his arms out for about three minutes; it would look kinda funny if the ground didn’t start to shake underneath him. A pocket of earth splits open, and a few seconds later there’s an old 1980’s looking taxi cab parked in front of them, and the earth is solid again.
Fuck flying, Jason thinks. If he had the power to call a whole car up from the depths of the underworld whenever he felt like it, there’s no way he wouldn’t be showing that off to everyone.
Nico taps on the glass, and the driver’s seat window rolls down. “Hey, Jules,” Nico ducks down; the zombie-looking taxi driver makes a sound back at him; Jason wonders vaguely about vocal chords. “That’s Jason. We’re gonna have a road trip.”
If Jules-Albert The 80’s French Taxi Driver know what a road trip is, he doesn’t say. He also doesn’t say if he does know. He doesn’t really say much of anything, actually, but Nico pops the trunk open and tosses his stuff in anyways, so Jason does the same.
“Vocal chords?” he asks vaguely, tilting his head at the driver.
Nico shrugs. “Ghosts don’t have vocal chords, and they can still talk. I think he’s just a quiet guy.”
“Oh,” Jason says, “Cool.”
He takes a moment to look around, and decides this is probably a good time to ask the question he’s wanted to ask since Nico dropped the do you wanna come to a European country with me question.
“So, where are we headed?” Jason asks carefully, bracing a hand on the back of the car, “All I’m saying is we don’t wanna get too far off course, y’know?”
Nico’s frown softens, “I know,” he sighs. “It’s just. Well, it’s not a quest or a monster or anything like that. It’s kinda like a personal thing?”
“That’s fine,” Jason says, not too quickly, “I kinda figured when you only brought one weapon with you.”
Nico flushes just a bit, the way he does when he’s been caught in the act of petting a puppy or something, like it’s something to be embarrassed about.
“You don’t have to tell me what it is right now,” Jason adds, “But I’m gonna find out eventually, unless you get tired of me and kick me to the curb halfway through.”
Nico huffs something like a laugh, where even months ago he would’ve bristled at the unintended jab. “I won’t get tired of you,” he says. Seems to consider for a moment, “I wanna try to find my old house. The one we lived in before we moved to America.”
“The one from back in the forties?” He asks.
“Yeah,” Nico nods, “I know it’s a long shot, but my dad told me where it used to be. I never — I could never work up the nerve to go look for it.”
“Nico,” he starts; pauses, hesitant to continue, but does anyways, “You know it might—I mean, it might not, like…”
“Be there anymore? I know. I just. Feel like I need to make sure.”
Jason nods; he gets that. “Not that I'm not glad to be here, but why invite me? Why not Hazel or something?”
Nico picks at his fingers; a nervous tick, Jason’s noticed, a step down from twisting his ring. “Hazel’s pretty busy. And I dunno, you’re just. Well, you’re my friend, right? And I don’t—I just don’t really wanna do it alone?”
Jason tries to tamp down the rush of affection he feels. It doesn’t like, work very much, so he decides that he’s allowed to feel affectionate about Nico saying stuff like that. Even after all these months they’ve been friends, Nico still says the word like it’s something fragile, like it’ll break if he says it too loudly.
“Well,” he says, “luckily for you, I wasn’t gonna say no to a vacation to Italy.” he smiles at the way Nico rolls his eyes to shoo off the embarrassment, “Plus, I brought music.”
“Do you even know half the songs on the playlist?” Nico asks pointedly.
“Alright, so I had very little part in actually making it,” he admits. “But! That just means it’ll be exciting.”
Nico makes a skeptical noise. “If Leo helped, I don’t expect very much.”
“Piper helped, too!”
“That’s better. I trust her music taste.”
Jason is suddenly curious, “What’s your music taste like?”
Nico blinks at him, like no one’s ever asked him this question before. Which-- when would they? Jason thinks. And anyways, are there radios in the Underworld?
“I guess you’ll just have to wait and find out,” Nico says cryptically, which Jason thinks might mean I don’t know, but he graciously doesn’t call him out. “And no, there aren’t any radios in the Underworld.”
“Did I say that out loud?” Jason asks, bemused.
“No,” Nico shrugs, “But it’d be my first question.”
Jason smiles, “Same wavelength.”
Nico just rolls his eyes. “Okay,” he says, shutting the trunk with a solid thunk. “Let’s see how good your playlist is.”
“I hope Jules likes it,” Jason says, just to make Nico roll his eyes again.
If Jules likes his playlist, he doesn’t say. He also doesn’t say he doesn’t like it, and doesn’t unplug the aux cord that Jason is surprised he can even use in this old thing (“I think my dad updated the radio, when he decided he was gonna give to me, like, as a present.”
“Why not just get a newer car?”
Nico shrugs, “He’s a weirdo, I dunno why he does things.”
Jason just accepts that, instead of agreeing, because he doesn’t want the ground to split open and drag him down when he steps outside because he agreed with calling the god of the underworld a weirdo. He doesn’t know how serious Hades takes shit like that, but Jason’s met some pretty serious deities, and the underworld seems like a pretty serious place; he doesn’t wanna take chances.)
Jason likes his playlist, though, which is nice, considering he barely helped make it. Nico seems to like it, too, or at least doesn’t dislike it. The Italian countryside flies by as he watches, and it’s nice.
He learns along the way, that day, that Nico likes the softer stuff, R&B and floaty kind of music, some gentle guitar, foresty kind of folk. And eighties pop, surprisingly. Like, he knows enough Queen to hum along.
Jason likes nineties love songs. He likes the soft flow, the dramatic lyrics. He like classical, sometimes, when he’s trying to focus. He likes softer pop. Or at least, what he’s heard of all of those. He doesn’t think he knows enough about music to have a grounded opinion, but Nico says listening to people talk about it makes him feel old.
“Some teen at a bookstore asked if I knew who— what was it, some kinda disco? — was, like I was supposed to. I said I didn’t and he looked at me like I just insulted his mom.”
“When I told Piper I didn’t know who Rihanna was, she said I really didn’t know a damn thing about the world.”
“It’s like, if I went up to someone and asked if they knew who Norma Bruni was, they’d probably say no. That’s some real talent right there.”
Jason gives him a guilty look.
Nico shrugs, like he doesn’t hold it against him. “She was a singer from back when I was little. She performed with my mom once. It was incredible.”
“Your mom was a singer?”
“Yeah,” He says, voice soft and reminiscing, “She was amazing. She was almost on her own record. Bianca was a good singer, too.”
Jason suddenly knows to tread carefully; his sister is a subject he doesn’t bring up very often. When he does, it can go sour easily. “Not you, though?”
“Nah,” Nico shakes his head, “the singer gene skipped me.”
“I’m sure you’re not that bad.”
“I’m not singing for you, Grace,” he grips, shoving him with his elbow. But it’s light, and a little teasing, so Jason knows it’s okay to tease back.
“C’mon, serenade me!”
“I changed my mind: I am kicking you out early.”
Jason laughs, putting his hands up in lock surrender, “Sorry, sorry. Please don’t kick me out.”
Nico frowns at him, and for a moment Jason is afraid he seriously is contemplating kicking him to the curb. But then he sees the edge of his mouth curling up into the smallest smile. He’s teasing again, in his odd little way. It shouldn’t be as endearing as it is.
“Fine,” he sighs, like it’s a struggle to say, “but mention singing one more time and you’re gone.”
Jason makes a cross over his heart with his finger. “Noted.”
“Good.”
An unfamiliar song plays in the background, something soft and smooth like they both enjoy — I know you been in a hurry, don’t forget this is a journey, close them eyes and don’t you worry -
Jason looks out the window, the scenery passing by. Life’s been going nonstop since as long as he can remember. Just being here, relaxing and talking and taking their time, feels nice.
“I think I like this one,” he says.
“Yeah,” Nico says, voice soft, “Me too.”
Step One on the list: down.
It’s when the sun starts to set that it really sink in how little they’ve actually, like, planned.
“Hey, Nico,” Jason says.
Nico glances over at him, halfway through a granola bar, “Yeah?”
“Are we gonna stop for the night?” when Nico just blinks at him, Jason flounders for a second, “I mean like, what’s the sleeping situation?”
Nico stops eating his granola bar long enough to think about it. “I guess I didn’t think about that. If I was by myself I’d probably just sleep in the car or like, under a tree or something.”
“Under a tree.”
“I used to sleep on park benches in New York,” Nico says, “Trees are a step up.”
Sometimes Jason is forcibly reminded that Nico lived an essentially homeless - bar his Bedroom In Hade’s Castle - life from the age of ten to - in theory - the end of the war against Gaea. Like, he’ll mention sewing stitches into his own arm and that it’s not that bad once you get started, or which motels don’t ask for ID, learned at the tender age of Too Young To Rent A Room.
Nico leans forwards to ask talk to Jules before he has to come up with a way to answer that doesn’t sound judgy or patronizing, which he’s grateful for. He asks how close they are to any cities, since they landed kind of in the middle of nowhere so nobody would catch them raising a car from the earth. Jules either speaks very quietly, or Nico is interpreting silence, so Jason listens to whatever song is playing for a moment instead.
“We’re going around Rome,” he says, which Jason has zero disagreements about - he’s fine with no bullshit Greek-Roman and/or monster drama, and Rome will be teeming with it, “But we can stop in Siena and find somewhere to stay for the night.”
“I don’t have very much money,” Jason admits - can’t blame bad planning this time; Jason just doesn’t have very much money, period. He doesn’t have an off-camp job, since he so busy with everything else, and lucky for every single one of them, Camp Half-Blood is free.
Nico digs into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out what looks like a gray debit card. “My dad’s the god of wealth,” he says, “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
Jason laughs, “Why were you sleeping on park benches if your dad’s the god of wealth?”
Nico tucks the debit card away and sinks back into the seat, “He’s better to me than most gods are to their kids,” he pointedly doesn’t look at Jason, and Jason pointedly doesn’t think about Jupiter, “But he was right up there for a while. He didn’t - well, he liked my sister more, and then she died, and I didn’t. It was a while before he even like, talked to me at all. He’s better now - tries more, for whatever reason.”
“He did give you a car for your birthday,” Jason agrees to lighten the mood, “Driver included.”
Jules makes a noise in the front seat, and Nico turns to the side to hide a grin that Jason can still see reflected in the window. “Yeah, ‘cause he’s a weirdo. Coulda just let me get my license, but I don’t think he knows how that works.”
“Don’t you technically like, not exist in the U.S?”
Nico tilts his head, “Why’s that?”
“Do you have your birth certificate? Or citizenship?”
“Well, I must’ve gotten something like that - we moved to America, back when I was a kid. Does citizenship expire?”
“I don’t know,” Jason admits, “Some kids at Camp Jupiter get licenses or bank accounts and stuff, but we have a system for that, since most kids join young and are pretty, like, cut off from everything.”
“You should get your license,” Nico says, “Then we won’t have to bother Jules whenever we wanna go somewhere.”
“You’re saying you’d bother me instead,” Jason accuses, even though the thought puts something fond in his chest - the way Nico says we , like if he goes somewhere important obviously Jason will be there, too.
“Yeah, exactly,” Nico agrees, and Jason supposes they’re both ignoring how hesitant and non-pressuring Nico had been when he asked Jason to come in the first place. “You’d be my new chauffeur.”
“I’d get a new car,” Jason says, “No offense to Jules, but I don’t think I could rock the taxi cab look.”
“Thought you were broke.”
“Thought your dad was the god of wealth.”
“You’re saying I’d buy you a new fuckin’ car,” Nico mimicks his tone from earlier.
“If you’d be the one telling me where to go, it’d basically be our car. You buy, I drive, it’s a mutual investment.”
Nico smiles at him, laughs into the back of his hand, the way he does when he actually thinks something is funny - once, Hazel had made him laugh so much he had to use both hands, always pushing everything back into himself before he has the chance to let it out. Jason wants to see him laugh for real, no hiding behind his hands or pushing the smile up to his eyes instead.
“Deal,” Nico says, and if Jason didn’t know any better he’d think he was serious. “What kinda car would you want?”
“I don’t really know shit about cars, to be honest,” Jason is very good about not swearing in front of campers or authority figures or his old cohort, because he was a good role model and a good leader, etc etc, but Nico’s relatively bad mouth is contagious, sometimes.
“I think rich people have, what, Mercedes? Or BMWs, or something.”
“You’d buy me a rich people car, huh?”
“Sure - then at least you wouldn’t look broke, too.”
Jason gasps - like, genuinely, “You think I look broke ?”
Nico laughs again, and this time he can only catch the last of it in his hands - it lights up his whole face, when he laughs, and Jason just wants to make him laugh for the rest of the night. He’s not like, funny, really - doesn’t think most people would use that word, if they had to list off Who Jason Grace Is - but Nico makes him feel like the funniest, most charming guy on Earth. It might be a little bad for his ego, in the long run, but he decides not to worry about it.
“I didn’t say that,” Nico says, utterly unconvincing.
“You think I look broke - that is genuinely so rude. I wear glasses .”
Nico can’t bury his smile in one hand, so Jason catches half the light. The car is bright as hell when he smiles like that. (Tone it down, some tucked away, terrifyingly self-aware part of him thinks, and for a moment it sounds remarkably like Reyna. There’s nothing to tone down, he tells Reyna, and then tucks it away again.)
“Jason, I don’t think you look broke,” he says, genuine and exasperated, “I promise. If you wore a button up, you ‘d look like a CEO or something.”
“I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or not.”
“CEOs are rich? That means you look rich.”
Jason can’t even pretend to be offended anymore - has to drop the joke to laugh instead.
“Thank you,” he says, “If you wore a button up, I think you might look like a kid at prom in one of those teen movies Piper likes.”
“I’ve never seen one,” Nico says “But I went to the prom at Westover, and I know that’s not a compliment.”
“If you combed your hair, you could look like you’re on your way to a job interview.”
“Asshole,” Nico says, soft and fond and without bite, and it makes that tucked away part of Jason fucking sing.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Just don’t wear a button up and you’ll be fine.”
“When the fuck would I wear a button up to begin with? I went to that stupid middle school prom, but I played by stupid game on the bleachers the whole time. Bianca - ” everything stops, for a moment, and then Nico breathes the tension out, and continues, “Bianca was so annoyed - she must’ve wanted to go dance, but she didn’t wanna leave me alone. She stayed with me the whole time.”
“She sounds like a good sister,” Jason says softly.
“Yeah. Yeah, she was.”
They settle into a natural silence for a moment - not bad, or awkward, or uncomfortable. Reflective, maybe. The first time The Bianca Topic came up with he and Jason, Nico had gotten immediately defensive - closed up, cut off, and suddenly Jason was looking at the Nico from Croatia, the Nico who told him to fuck off and mind his business when Jason tried to talk about it afterwards. Jason still hadn’t minded his business, afterwards, and then he drank a mouthful of poison without thinking twice, and things had fallen into place from there. But they stumbled onto Bianca and Nico hadn’t known what to do, and Jason hadn’t known what to say or how to take it back, and it had ended with Nico straight up walking away and not showing his face anywhere for two days, until he had finally dropped his tray next to Jason halfway through dinner, and then they hadn’t talked about it again.
This is a long, long way from that time, and Jason finds that he hadn’t noticed how much things had changed up until now, how much progress they’ve made - Nico’s made. He’s proud of Nico, Jason thinks. He’s so proud of how far Nico has come.
Now that it’s quiet, the soft, smooth sound of the song playing floats through the car - you’re gonna fly away, glad you're goin’ my way; I love it when we’re cruisin’ together.
It makes Jason feel… soft? Sinks into his skin and settles somewhere in his bones. That tucked away part of him aches. He wonders what exactly Piper or Leo or whoever added this song to Jason and Nico’s Italian Road Trip was thinking. The music is played for love, cruisin' is made for love - it’s a little heavy handed, to have added it, and maybe a little bit cruel.
He likes the song, though. He hears Nico hum along to it, and almost asks if he’s heard it somewhere before. He decides to let him be instead. Shakes his shoes off and curls one of his knees to his chest. Wonders what hotel they’re gonna find will be like. Hopes they won’t have to get different rooms - hopefully there’ll be a room with two beds, and doesn’t think about what will happen if there’s only one.
He listens to Nico hum along to the song - inch by inch we get closer and closer, to every little part of each other. Thinks about holding Nico’s hand, comfortable on the old upholstery.
Ignores the thought, because it feels like he should. Because he dated Piper and liked Reyna and Nico is not Piper or Reyna and he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to want both.
He watches the world get dark outside, and watches the blinking lights of a city get shrink behind them, and a new one get brighter ahead.
It’s nice. It really is.
They find a little hole in the wall kind of hotel, on a side street off a bigger street, because it’s Europe and there’s so much packed into a single square mile that it has to be stacked on top of each other. The room they grab has two bed, and both the blankets on the beds and every single wall is dark, pure, solid red.
“Hazel says the color red makes her angry,” Nico says, setting his backpack on the bed near the window - they had both looked around the little room, finding every window and each door and marking every way out, because they’ve both fought through two wars and fight monsters every other week and, unfortunately, survival instincts are bone-deep. They both pretend they didn’t plan an escape route, and Jason lets Nico have the bed by the window because Nico has literally been through actual Hell, and that outweighs two wars by just a bit.
“Good thing you asked me to come, instead; Hazel’s scary when she’s mad.”
Nico hums in agreement, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand.
“Alright,” Jason says, fighting down a sudden burst of fondness, “Time for bed.”
Nico for once, doesn’t disagree.
“I think I forgot to bring pajamas,” he says.
“I forgot my pillow,” Jason admits.
“Guess you're lucky that hotels don’t make you bring your own.”
Jason smiles, the fatigue of sitting still for hours and being in a new country hitting him like a giant.
“You can borrow some sweatpants,” he offers, “I brought two.”
“They’re gonna be too big.”
“They’re just for sleeping. Don’t sleep in your jeans.”
“Fine,” Nico says, and he really must be tired.
Jason tosses him some sweatpants, and tugs on the other pair while Nico goes to the bathroom to change. They brush their teeth, fighting over who gets to spit first, and then Nico is dead asleep as soon as he hits the bed, leaving Jason to turn off the lights and hop to the bed without tripping.
He listens to Nico’s soft breathing, thinks, quietly, that it’s nice not being alone in the room, and doesn’t notice he’s falling asleep until he wakes up the next morning.