Chapter Text
Percy was bored. He already had assignments to do even though it was only the first week of classes, but it was Friday night and he would be damned if he stayed stuck inside doing schoolwork. He didn’t really know what to do with himself though. It was the start of his senior year of college at New Rome and for the first time since high school, he was dreading it.
He’d like to say he was only feeling weird because of Annabeth. She’d finished school early. Of course. Now she wanted to spend time with her family here in San Francisco, and with her family in Boston, and work on continuing her redesign of Mt. Olympus in New York. She wanted a break.
“We need time to figure out who we are without a war to fight. And who we are… without each other,” her voice echoed in his head. “I don’t want to be ‘Percy and Annabeth’ or ‘Percy’s girlfriend’ for my entire life. I want to build a life with you, I just… need to build my own first”.
Ultimately she thought they were too codependent. Percy disagreed, or at least disagreed that it was a bad thing. And as he sat in his room on the first Friday night of the school year, with no idea what to do or even what he wanted to do without her, he adamantly refused to admit that maybe she kind of had a point.
Eventually, he decided to go for a walk. The sun was just starting to set and New Rome was beautiful at this time of night. Well it was beautiful all the time, but especially now. He figured he could go see Frank or Hazel, but they were almost always together and he didn’t really want to be around a couple. He walked around the square, past the lake and some of the new temples, saying hi to people as he went. There were a lot of people he probably could have stopped to hang out with, even for a little bit, but he just didn’t want to. He didn’t really want to be alone either, but alone by himself was better than alone with any of the more-than-acquaintances-less-than-friends that he ran into.
Finally, he crossed the bridge that led to the sunflower fields. He hadn’t known that was where he was going until he got there, but it made sense. He felt peaceful there. It reminded him of the strawberry fields at Camp Half-Blood. Sometimes he missed it, but he wondered if it would even feel the same now. He wondered if anything would feel the same again. But then again, it already hadn’t for a while now.
He sat and watched the sun dip lower and lower over the hills until it finally disappeared. Hey, maybe now that Apollo’s off duty, he could come and hang out with me , Percy thought. Wow. Now this was getting desperate. He was fine by himself! He was fine. He liked it, actually. He had spent plenty of time by himself. Just… those times were usually spent fighting monsters or coming up with plans or trying not to get kicked out of school. It wasn’t spent just… existing. At least not alone. The past few years were calm, at least in comparison to the previous five, but he’d spent them with Annabeth. And in the past few months since graduation and since… well, he’d gone home. And now… He didn’t actually want another war or for monsters to break through the barrier and attack him, but at least it’d give him something to do.
Percy sat there thinking as he watched the last bit of light fading from the horizon. He finally resolved himself to just going home, maybe watching TV or getting some school work done and trying to feel better in the morning, when a voice spoke behind him.
“Percy?”
Percy whipped his head around, his hand already reaching into his pocket for Riptide. He was met with a dark figure as his eyes started to adjust. He recognized the aviator jacket first, then a flash of a silver ring.
“Nico?”
“The one and only.”
“What are you doing sneaking up on me like that? I almost sliced you in half.”
“I wasn’t sneaking up on you! I didn’t even know you were here. And I don’t think your sword would be very effective at slicing me in half when it’s still in pen form,” Nico retorted, sparing a meaningful glance towards Riptide.
“Well, I was about to uncap it,” said Percy halfheartedly. The slight rush of adrenaline from thinking he might be getting attacked had already subsided. “Anyways… what are you doing here?”
“Good to see you too,” Nico grumbled. Percy suddenly felt a little bad. He hadn’t seen Nico in, what, a year? He popped by New Rome now and again, and Percy had gone back to Camp Half-Blood a few times when he was visiting home, but he couldn’t remember when he’d last seen Nico. It had definitely been at least a year, he thought. He looked taller.
“Sorry. It’s good to see you. I just meant, like, is everything okay? Did Rachel prophesize the end of the world again?” Percy was mostly joking but, now that he thought about it, Nico didn’t usually pop by just for social visits.
“Nah, everything’s fine.” Nico said. He sat down next to Percy. “I just thought I’d spend some time at Camp Jupiter. I mean, Chiron thought it would be a good idea.”
“So, Chiron sent you here?” Percy asked.
Nico stared at his Converse, looking a little uncomfortable. Percy looked at them too. He could see a few little doodles there. A crown, a ghost, a sun. “Chiron thought it would be a good idea. To make sure we’re not neglecting communication between the camps. But I also just… camp’s kind of weird right now, and technically I’m getting too old for it anyway, and I just… wanted some time away.” Nico didn’t look up from his shoes as he talked. He kept fiddling with his skull ring.
“I get that,” Percy said slowly. “Though… I think technically you’ve been too old for camp for, what, like 70 years?”
Nico snorted, but Percy could see him smiling a little too. “Yeah, I guess it’s kind of awkward for a 95 year old to be hanging around a bunch of teenagers.”
Percy laughed. “Well, you look great for your age.”
“Thanks.”
“Yeah. You don’t look a day over 50.”
“Hey!” Nico shoved his shoulder.
They sat there for a few minutes, relaxing into the silence.
“Anyways, what are you doing here?” Nico finally asked.
“I live here,” Percy said, knowing full well that’s not what his friend meant.
“I know,” Nico scoffed. “I meant what are you doing here , in the sunflower fields at 9 o’clock on a Friday night. I thought you’d be at a party or something. Isn’t it the first week of school?”
“Yeah well, I just didn’t feel like going out,” Percy lied. He waited, but Nico didn’t change the subject like Percy obviously wanted him to. Not one to shy away from the uncomfortable, that guy. Well, at least if it was someone else who was uncomfortable. “Plus it’s a nice night out. And it’s peaceful here. I wanted to… I dunno, reflect. Or think. Or whatever.”
Nico made a noise somewhere between a choke and a laugh. “No offense Percy, but… reflecting on life by yourself on a Friday night doesn’t really seem like your style.”
“Hey, I reflect!” Percy said indignantly.
“Yeah, sure, whatever. I’m not saying you don’t, just… I’m surprised that was your first choice, I guess.”
Percy sighed. He might as well tell him. It was strange, because he still wasn’t sure if they were actually friends or just acquaintance s who had spent a decent amount of time trying not to die together, but Nico was the first person Percy had encountered in a while who he felt he could actually be honest with. At least about this. He doubted Nico’s opinion of him would change one way or the other. Plus, the guy could definitely keep a secret.
“It wasn’t really my first choice,” Percy admitted. “I just didn’t have anything else to do.”
Nico looked at him with a curious expression. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“But… you’re popular. Not like… I don’t mean you’re like, in the popular clique or whatever. I mean… everyone knows you. Everyone knows who you are. You could probably just walk into any party you wanted and get like, a volunteer catering staff to get you beers all night."
Percy cracked a smile, but he didn’t respond. It was his turn to look at his shoes.
“Did you piss everyone off since the last time I visited?” Nico asked jokingly.
“No,” Percy half laughed. “At least I don’t think so. I just… A lot of my closer friends were older. They’re not here anymore. Plus I would… I just…” He let out a loud sigh and let himself fall back, to lie down upon the earth. “I pretty much spent all of my time with Annabeth, and now she’s not here anymore either, and I guess I just don’t really know what to do with myself. Without her here.”
Nico stopped smiling at that. “Oh,” he said softly. “Are you guys… did you break up?”
“Yeah,” Percy said. It came out harsher than he meant it to. He sat up again. “At least for now. I get why she wanted it, and she said that she wants to get back together. You know, at some point. She says it’s just a break, and I believe her, but right now… I dunno. Everything’s weird.”
Nico nodded in agreement. “That’s… I’m sorry,” he said finally. He sounded like he had to force the words out, but it didn’t seem insincere. “I get it. Will and I broke up too.”
“Oh. I… I’m sorry,” Percy echoed. He didn’t really know what else to say. He realized again how odd it was that he and Nico were being so open with each other. They weren’t close. At least not close when it came to stuff like this. They fought beside each other. They made plans. They killed together. They didn’t talk about their feelings.
“Yeah.” Nico looked at his shoes again. “That’s mostly why I left. He’s not there anymore. I didn’t want to be either.”
Percy nodded. They sat together for a while, not saying anything. This wasn’t cutting down monsters, but Percy figured this was a more intimate type of bonding experience. He felt very suddenly connected to Nico in a way that he never had before. Maybe it was just that they were going through the same thing. The loves of their lives had left them, and they didn’t know if they were coming back. But that wasn’t all. This type of talk, here in a place that both of them loved but neither of them really called home, made Percy feel… human. These weren’t godly problems and no divine powers would offer a solution. Maybe there were no solutions at all. That made him feel… sad, he supposed, but not like most sadness he had experienced. There was a comfort to it that made him warmer, and calmer. In fact, this was perhaps the most peaceful he had felt in a long time. Sitting here in the darkness with Nico di Angelo.