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Nico stared at the pamphlet in his hands, sitting at the hard marble floor of the Zeus cabin and trying not to look to intently at the boy in front of him, who was currently packing his bag. He did not like Jason leaving camp so early again. To be fair, he never really liked Jason leaving camp, but after his break up with Piper, Nico had secretly hoped that Jason would stay at Camp Halfblood for a while. Alas, it had not been more than three months before he decided to leave again.
He knew it was not fair, hogging Jason’s attention so completely over the past weeks, but he felt like Jason was the only person he could really talk to. After the break up with Will, their relationship was friendly, but they had way too much baggage to talk freely about everything. Nico had at last made friends in Camp that he regularly talked to, but none of them filled the void of someone who he trusted so completely as he trusts Jason. Nearest came those who had been with him on the Argo II, and Hazel and Reyna even surpassed them, but the Crew itself was scattered around the US most of the time and Hazel and Reyna still stayed at New Rome. Sure, Nico had thought about moving there, maybe living in New Rome, but if he was honest to himself he knew that he did not want to leave the Camp again. It took so many years for him to feel at home somewhere, and now that he decided to call the Camp his home he was not eager to give up on it so easily.
With Jason being at Camp again, it had been ten times better. They had spent long evenings just sitting somewhere, Jason sometimes reading to him, sometimes just dozing off while Nico continues to work on the maps he was creating. Making maps of various places, especially both Camps, had kind of become his new hobby. He liked the precise work and the still creative element, an interesting mixture that fitted his own person, as Jason once pointed out. Other nights they had talked. Talked about the war, talked about love and the shitty feeling of breaking up, talked about how things could have turned out if minor details in their past changed. Jason was surprisingly a very good story teller and Nico suggested that he should put some of his ideas to paper.
“Nah”, said Jason, waving his hand in a rejecting manner, “I am not good at writing. No, I am seriously not, I am far to impatient” He had grinned at Nico. “Maybe you should do it”
Maybe he would, Nico had thought and made a mental note to try, once his map of Camp Halfblood was finished.
These quiet nights would be gone now, with Jason leaving, and Nico felt so sorry for himself that he was almost disgusted at his own self-pity.
Suddenly Jason let out an almost tired sounding sigh. “Now come on, Nico, you are sitting there for half hour now, looking like you are slowly sucking on a lemon” Nico felt his face twitching at this description. “I am not leaving forever, you know?”
Nico finally looked up to him. “I know, but…”
Jason closed the zipper on his first bag and walked around to the second, throwing the book he read to Nico just two days ago and hadn’t finished yet into it. The sight made Nico’s stomach flip in an uncomfortable way. He did not know why he started speaking, but the words seem to leave his mouth without his mind fully in control.
“What am I suppose to do while you’re gone?”
“…what do you usually do when I am gone?”
“Wait for you to come back.” As soon as the words left him, Nico winced. They sounded really melodramatic. They were not completely false, however. Especially after the last months, whenever the Son of Jupiter had left camp for a few days, Nico’s only real past time had been waiting. Sure, he stuck to his routine of camp activities and teaching, but the in-between times and even the ones he spends with friends had been strangely empty. Like a picture that was missing a certain colour.
Jason stopped packing his bags and walked over to him, carefully sitting down next to Nico on the cold floor. He searched for Nico’s eyes and the younger demigod decided it would be very unkind to try to avoid his gaze any longer. “You know you have friends here”, said Jason, now with a slow and soft voice and Nico had to fight the urge to drown in it, to shut out any bad thoughts. Jason could always calm him. He stared into the sky-blue eyes and his stomach flipped once again, this time out of a very different feeling.
His feelings for the Son of Jupiter were not new to him. The lingering attraction had been building for over a year now and had developed in a full-blown crush in the past few weeks. “I know”, Nico managed to mumble while still trying to calm his intestines, who seemed to think it was the perfect moment to simulate a heavy roller coaster drop.
“See. And just because I am gone, life will not stop. You have people who like you here, friends to talk to, places to be” Jason’s voice sounded reassuring and he suddenly leaned forward and pulled Nico in a tight hug.
Nico’s internal organs went for full free fall tower. Jason had always been a hugger and a long time ago they had established, that Jason could just hug him, if he limited his weird outburst to like, two times a week. Nico actually did not mind close contact with him, quite the contrary. Now, it made him feel almost more hopeless. He breathed in Jason scent, the smell of freshly washed clothes that Jason seemed to always smell of and hyacinths, which he liked and probably kept some sort of aftershave of, Nico suspected. His crush on Jason was not a good thing, crushes never were.
Then again, Jason was a good guy.
Nico remembered the day he talked to Percy about his crush, remembered the feeling of a mountain sized boulder being lifted from his shoulders. He knew there would be rejection but, contrary to what he believed at that time, it had been only relieve that lingered in his memory when looking back. And Jason, Jason would never make Nico feel bad. Sure, he would also not return Nico’s feelings for him, but it would be a relieve if he knew. The thought made Nico feel warm inside.
Jason pulled back and grinned at him. “See, better?”
“You are such a dork”
Nico watched as Jason laughed, eyes closed and head tilted slightly back while patting Nico’s back with his big hand. “I am a dork? You are the one sitting on my floor moping because I am leaving. Besides...” he lifted his hand and brushed through Nico’s hair, who drew back a bit. Hugging was okay, hair touching was out of bounds. He felt himself blushing as Jason continued “… you could just come visit, you know?”
“You are not even allowed to leave your prison school without permission, if I read the pamphlet correct!”
“It is boarding school for boys, Nico, not a prison school” Jason answered, picking up the ‘Edgarton Day and Boarding School’ pamphlet next to Nico and letting it fly over to his bags, a gust of wind carrying the paper. “And since when does this bother you? As if you could not sneak in.” That was true, Nico could probably even get in and out of an actual prison without anyone noticing.
“I will have my own room, you know?”
Nico met Jason’s eyes again. “Will it smell like hyacinths?”
For a moment, Nico thinks he imagined a slight blush in Jason’s face and the smile that follows it sparks an unknown feeling of warmth in him, that slowly pools from his stomach area to his chest and his cheeks. As Jason got up on his feet again, Nico tried desperately to bring it under control again.
“Maybe it will” Jason said, “you will have to find out for yourself I guess. Now”, he held out a hand for Nico “come and help me with the last bag, will you?”
Nico looked up to him and gave up on his inner battle, allowing himself a rare smile as he grabbed Jason’s hand and let himself be pulled upwards. Yes, Jason Grace was a good person. A safe person. The best Nico knew. And next time, he would work up the courage to tell him what exactly he thought about him.
Next time.