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Leo woke up and found himself cuddling with someone. He opened his eyes and looked up to the familiar face of his boyfriend, Nico, sleeping like an angel. He couldn’t help but smile. Since Nico worked for his dad, he had no choice but to travel sometimes, while Leo stayed in the apartment they started to share a few years ago. He hugged the boy closer, and he started to wake up after a few minutes. He kissed Leo forehead and played with his hair, not bothering to say anything, he knew Leo wouldn’t listen a lot without his hearing aids anyway.
They stayed like that for a while, not wanting to move an inch far away from each other.
Leo got up in his elbows and kissed Nico, before getting up. He put his hearing aids on his ears, and looked back at Nico who was growling and hiding under the covers.
“C’mon, let’s have some coffee”, he said and started to push Nico out of bed. “Did you arrive late?”
“Uh, middle of the night, don’t remember time”, he murmured. “It’s Sunday, why we have to wake up?”, he complained, but got up and followed Leo to the kitchen.
While Leo made the coffee, Nico hugged him from behind and rested his head in his shoulder, which made walking a bit complicated but Leo didn’t mind. He was just glad to have Nico back. They talked about what happened while he was gone that was too long for text messages.
“Oh, and Jason and Piper came by to have dinner a few days ago. But we mostly complained about college and part-times jobs, not that Piper needs to worry about the last part.”
Nico laughed. “Remember how you used to worry that things would get weird between you three after they broke up?”
“Gods, don’t remember that!”, Leo dramatically put a hand in his chest and threw his head to the side with a painful expression. “I’m glad we sorted everything, in the end. But you, did you saw some of our old friends?”
“No”, he shrugged. “I thought about going to Camp Jupiter but I wanted to come back here soon. Maybe we should go there together sometime.”
Leo pretend to not notice the small blush popping in Nico’s cheeks. He knew his boyfriend missed him a lot too.
After breakfast, Nico went back to sleep a little more. So, Leo went to his desk to finish a project he had been thinking in the past few days. He completely lost track of time, and in the middle other two projects started to take shape too. Leo felt something cold is his cheek and looked to the side, Nico was in the other desk by his side, resting his head in one hand while the other was holding his cane so the top reached Leo. He was smiling and looked so fondly at him, and Leo couldn’t believe sometimes how lucky he was to be in love with Nico.
“Woah, how long have you been there?”, he asked, putting the pencils he was holding back in the desk.
“I don’t know, a while”, he put his cane back in the floor and got up. A beautiful cane Leo made to him years ago, when they were barely friends. The handle was Festus torso, made with bronze, and the shaft was completely black. Nico was the only one in Argo II that seemed to like the dragon almost as much as Leo did, so he wanted the other boy to remember him (the dragon of course, not Leo) when he was gone. He never expected Nico to keep using the same cane years after. “But I can’t keep sleeping the entire day, and it’s lunch time.”
Unfortunately, Leo didn’t have anything already prepared, so they had to make lunch. Leo was quite good at the kitchen, but Nico always insisted in wanting to help, despite being a terrible cooker. Leo gave him the small tasks that anyone could do, and seeing Nico happy while helping him was the best thing he could ask for.
“After we eat, we should go buy some ice cream”, Leo suddenly said.
“Why?”, Nico furrowed his eyebrows, and looked at Leo as if the other boy said they should run a marathon after lunch.
“I want to watch a movie while eating ice cream. Piper recommended a movie she liked and I was waiting for you so we could see together. And I want ice cream.”, he pouted.
In the end they bought much more than just ice cream, since Leo always liked to do buy groceries with Nico. It was something so casual and normal, and he guessed that’s why he liked it so much. When you are a demigod there isn’t much time for normal stuff, especially when you fought in a war, and Nico had even fought in two.
Leo wondered if one day he would get tired of seeing Nico’s face light up with amusement as he tried to choose between the brands of cereal.
He highly doubted it.
It never stopped amusing Nico how Leo managed to pay attention to a movie, at the same time he ate ice cream and built a wrist watch. He tried to pay attention to the movie, but thinking about what Leo would do after he finishes the watch and destroys it to build something else was more interesting. He took the ice cream pot and started to fed Leo from time to time so he could use both of his hands to work.
Nico noticed that Leo’s hair was getting quite long, and he put some curls behind his ear. His hand stopped there, and after a few seconds Leo looked up with a smirk, he dropped the almost destroyed watch and cupped Nico’s cheeks and brought him closer to a kiss.
“Is the movie that boring or I’m just way more interesting?”, Leo asked with the biggest grin.
“Shut up, Valdez”, and then Nico kissed him again.
“Okay, I think I finished it!”, Leo pushed his chair back and looked satisfied at his project. “More or less, I mean, I probably got a bit out of what the teacher wanted but I like it better this way.”
“Oh, for once you did homework”, Nico laughed.
“It’s not my fault when the work is too boring to bother with”, he shrugged. “What about you? Finished your homework?”
“It’s a report to my father”, Nico threw his arms into the air, he sounded annoyed but Leo could see he was trying to hold his laugh. “Someone here needs to work to pay the bills.”
“As if he wouldn’t give you money even if you didn’t work for him. Like, you deserve it you know. It’s called reparation. I shouldn’t even need to work too, where's my reparation?”
“The thing is not only the money, it’s about making him lose his time with an unnecessary long report with way too much details and fancy words. But I’m tired, I will continue tomorrow”, Nico looked proudly at his four pages and counting report. “There’s nothing he can do about it, I’m doing my job perfectly.”
“He is still going to kill one of those days, little brat”, Leo laughed but there was a hint of worry in his voice. The god of the Underworld wasn’t very pleased since the time Nico suggested he should start using an e-mail.
“Nah, I would just come back as a ghost and haunt the throne room”, he smirked.
“Do you think I could join you? How do you even become a ghost, anyway, sir Ghost King?”, Leo tried to sound serious.
Nico hid his face in his hands. “Don’t you dare. And stop calling me that!”
“Okay, honey”, Nico growled at him. “Okay, di Angelo. I’m going to make dinner, wanna come?”
“Actually, I was thinking in laying down for a while. But I want to eat pasta.”
Leo hummed as he cooked. Sometimes it was good to pretend life was normal, even if it was just for a while. Life was far from normal when your boyfriend worked for the god of the dead people and you usually ran into monsters while going to college. But if in the end of the day they were home, able to eat and sleep together, then it was all worth it. Compared to a few years ago, life really seemed almost normal and peaceful now. Sometimes Leo couldn’t believe that things really worked out in the end.
He felt something poking his foot. It was Nico’s cane.
“Why are you crying?”, he asked as his hand wiped his tears away. He looked so cute when he was worried, it was almost unfair.
“Just thinking how I’m lucky to be in love with my roommate”, Leo answered, he grabbed Nico’s hand that was in his cheek and placed a kiss on his knuckles.
“Gods, Leo”, he dropped his gaze and the tips of his ears started to turn red, but he couldn’t stop grinning. “I think I’m very lucky to be in love with my best friend.”
“Awn, Nico. Talking like that doesn’t even sound like we would almost punch each other in the face when we first met. Good old times back then in Argo II.”
They both laughed, and Leo still felt like he should pray for the gods to help him every time Nico laughed. Every time he heard it the sound was more beautiful than last time.
Nico sat down, still laughing a bit. “Is dinner ready?”
“Oh, yeah it is, I was just setting the table. I hope you enjoy your meal, Dark Lord.”
Nico was already in the bed waiting for him.
“Turning off the world, any last words?”, Leo asked.
“I love you”, Nico smiled.
“I love you too”, and then he turned off his hearing aids and placed them in the bed stand. He turned off the lights and climbed in the bed.
Nico reached closer and kissed him, then rested his head in Leo’s chest. He could feel Nico’s heart beating, and that was also something he would never get tired of feeling.