Chapter Text
December
Percy Jackson hadn’t found himself in this position for a few years, and he almost forgot the embarrassment that came with sitting in a cab with his suitcase and duffel bags, preparing himself to tell his mom he’d been kicked out of school. Again.
He’d powered through his senior year at Goode with Paul’s support, and the expectation that everything would be better once he got to college in New Rome. Except it wasn’t better—it was much, much worse. It was like everything he hated about high school, but without the automatic structure of having all his classes in the same building, during the same hours.
Seriously, a ridiculously high number of demigods had ADHD. Did New Rome University really expect a university full of them to thrive in a situation where someone’s Monday classes start at 10am, Tuesday at 8:30, Wednesday at 10 again, but Thursday at 9:15 for some weird reason. AND different days even had different breaks! And yet, somehow, all the others seemed to manage it.
In retrospect, he probably shouldn’t have let his girlfriend pick his major. His mom had said as much last summer, when he decided and picked classes ahead of his first semester. His mom wasn’t the sort to rub that in his face or say “I told you so” but it still didn’t feel great. Marine biology seemed like such a good fit and he’d fully trusted Annabeth’s judgment as long as he’d known her. In theory, majoring basically in sea animals should have been a breeze when he could sense quite a lot about what they needed or wanted. Except it turned out majoring in marine biology required a lot of classes he really did not want to take. His first semester included two different bio classes, plus a lab, a math class, and some gen ed stuff. The university normally had textbooks in Latin for the Roman demigods and their legacy descendants, but they had Greek editions made for the Camp Halfblood transplants post-war. It turns out, Percy wasn’t great at science or math even when it was presented in a way that was specifically designed for his brain.
It also turned out that he just…didn’t enjoy being a student. Annabeth, on the other hand, was thriving even more than she normally was. She took her freshman year on schedule a year ahead of him, since he had to repeat a year due to his several months of “truancy” (thanks Hera). She took a ridiculous number of courses each semester and somehow managed As in all of them. She had a study group for almost every course, and an intense schedule for when to work on which projects. She was Vice President of the school’s architecture club and was already using connections she made there to start looking at internships. She didn’t quite understand or approve of the way that Percy didn’t want to do all those things for himself.
There had been a few tense conversations about how he wasn’t really applying himself, but in the end, she’d told him she wasn’t his mother and he could make his own choices. He could tell she still disapproved, but at least they weren’t arguing about it.
He wished he could find a way to make her see how different it was for him. She loved her classes and actually enjoyed spending her time working on them and reading up on the subjects. He, on the other hand, had no interest in spending almost every waking moment of his life either in class, reading for class, doing homework for class, or writing papers for class—especially when he kind of hated his class. Classes. Pretty much all of them, really.
So, he failed two classes and his lab, and got terrible grades in the rest.
That would have been par for the course, except that he hadn’t been very diligent about reading the fine print on the terms of his scholarship to NRU. He’d very recently found out that it had some sort of note about “academic standing” that meant he had to have a GPA above a certain level. A level that was evidently out of reach. So far out of reach that his advisor had asked for a meeting before he left to visit his family for winter break, and broke the news that after finals, his GPA was now so low that he’d have to make all As and Bs in the spring semester if he wanted to continue at NRU. She was a legacy descendant of Venus and was nice about it, and let him down gently, but the message was clear: You’re not smart enough for this. It took him a few minutes to work out what she was leading up to, but he finally got there. They knew he couldn’t do it, he knew he couldn’t do it, and they were having this conversation to try to get him to leave voluntarily rather than put them all through the embarrassment of having to kick a famous, multiple-times-over war hero out of school.
So, he dropped out. Not quite “kicked out” but effectively the same in the end.
—
His mom wasn’t mad—she never was, even years and years ago when he got accused of everything from vandalism to arson when being kicked out of school—but she also didn’t look surprised.
They baked his favorite blue chocolate chip cookies while Estelle napped.
“You don’t have to beat yourself up about it, Percy,” his mom said, interrupting his struggle to get a stubborn cookie off the tray without breaking it.
He sighed, but tried for a smile, “Yeah, I guess we were overdue after Paul kept smoothing things over at Goode.”
His mom closed the oven door on another tray of cookies and turned back to him. “University isn’t for everyone, you know, and that’s okay.”
“You went – you did well, too.”
“To community college,” she countered, “for an associates degree. And I was twice the age of your average college student.”
“It made you happy, and you liked it, being there,” he said.
“I think we both know higher education is not the main thing that improved my life back then,” she replied as she led him over to the kitchen table, where a wire rack was already half full of his favorite comfort food. “You don’t need a degree or to be a perfect student for me to be proud of you, you know.”
“I know,” he said, ducking his head a little. He didn’t doubt that as the truth, not really. His mom had seen him in the battle of Manhattan – fought herself a little, even – while as far as he could tell, the people in charge over at NRU sat behind their magically protected borders while the Legion fought in San Francisco. But he also knew that to any random neighbor or former mortal classmate, he was just…a fuck-up, coming back home to live with his mom after flunking out of college.
“Is that all that’s on your mind?”
“Yeah,” he lied, forcing a smile again.
The truth was, the conversation with his advisor had brought up a lot of old self-doubt. Not to mention, realizing that he didn’t actually want to be a marine biologist brought up the utterly terrifying question of what he did want to do, other than fight monsters and become the subject of an alarming number of dire prophecies. He couldn’t mooch off his parents forever, and he knew it.
“Enjoy the holidays, Percy,” his mom said. “Worry about everything else in the New Year.”
–
If Paul was surprised when they told him Percy would be moving back home for the time being, he didn’t show it. He didn’t act judgmental or disappointed either, and for that Percy was grateful. Estelle was too young to care about much other than the fact that she had one more person to play with every day.
Percy offered himself up for unlimited free babysitting, which let his mom get more work done on her next novel without pulling Paul away from his neverending grading.
Presents were bought and wrapped, Christmas cookies were baked (if not in the usual colors), and Christmas Eve even brought an intruder in the wee hours! When you’re a demigod and you suddenly hear unexpected and unfamiliar noises in the living room, you’re going to assume monster, so no one could blame him for attacking first and asking questions later.
Thank goodness he’d grabbed a bat instead hunting through his jeans pockets for Riptide, he thought to himself as he looked at the obviously human form crumpled on his living room floor. After switching on a lamp, he hesitantly turned over the figure on the floor to reveal the (only somewhat familiar, these days) form of Nico di Angelo, albeit a bit more mature than the last time he’d seen him.
—
Nico di Angelo found himself in a situation he had not been in for quite a while: retreating to the underworld when the going got tough. He’d made a pretty good show of fitting in at camp, but in the end, he found himself back where it seemed he always ended up.
Two and a half years; that’s how long he’d made it at camp. He’d made a real, honest effort to fit in without losing himself trying. He’d gained confidence, made friends, had his first boyfriend…and now, his first ex-boyfriend.
If Will seemed off when he’d left for his mother’s home for a Christmastime visit, he’d chalked it up to the fact that Will only spent significant time with her once or twice a year at most. Sure, he and Will had been disagreeing more than usual the past few months, but it always seemed to resolve.
Nico had planned to stay at camp until Christmas day, when he’d probably surprise Hazel with a visit, at least for a few hours. While he still spent far, far more time with his godly parent than anyone else he knew, he’d had no misconceptions of coming home to Christmas trees and gifts at his dad’s place.
Their friends had also seemed a bit awkward with him as they all said their goodbyes for the holiday, but Nico dismissed it as reading too much into things (a particular talent of his). He’d been working on that lately: his anxiety and depressive tendencies. He’d had no words for those things before Will had talked him into starting regular therapy sessions with a rare adult Greek demigod – another child of Apollo – and he had to admit it was helpful to be able to identify those feelings and have strategies for when he felt them. Like, say, when he felt like all his friends were keeping something from him.
Unfortunately, it turned out that his anxiety was actually right this time.
Only about a day they all left, he’d had an IM from Will early in the morning (far, far too early. Curse those Apollo kids, really). He knew something was wrong before Will even opened his mouth, just from the look on his face.
“I really hadn’t planned on doing this just now, or over IM, I swear. I just realized it’s not fair to either of us to wait,” Will had said, while uncharacteristically avoiding eye contact.
Nico was silent the whole time, as he listened to Will tell him that Nico had made so much progress in the time they were together, but it felt like that had plateaued some time ago and now every time he tried to get Nico to be more social or use less of his underworld powers, they ended up arguing. He went on about how their interests overlapped less and less as they got older, that they were just so, so different, and while the relationship had been good for both of them, it had run its course and just wasn’t sustainable.
Nico started to zone out a little if he was being honest. It was clear he was being dumped; at that point he wished Will would just hurry up and get the fuck on with it. He made the mistake of actually saying so, which only served to make Will upset. More angry than he’d seen him, really. The call had ended pretty badly, leaving him with no boyfriend, little chance of remaining friends, and the sourest mood he’d been in since the giant war.
He’d tried a few friends over IM…and okay, perhaps he should have gone for Hazel, or Jason, or Reyna, or anyone who was his friend – his friend from before he was with Will. Lou Ellen was the only one who finally messaged him back. She’d had sympathy in her eyes when she told him that Will had been expressing doubts to their friend group for a little while now, that he’d told them he planned to end things with Nico in the new year.
Clearly they’d all been filled in on what had happened since they all left camp. Lou Ellen told him that they all talked and thought that at least for a while, it might be too awkward having Nico spend as much time with them. She’d at least said that for her part, she still considered him a friend and hoped he was doing okay. She hadn’t actually asked though, or volunteered any time to listen or anything, just gave him a look like she was delivering terrible news as he swiped his hand through the mist to end the call.
Hazel would support him, he knew, but she was also busy with Legion business, and while she always made time for him, he couldn’t bring himself to bother her when he felt like this. Jason was a similar story, only occupied with his work to honor his promises as Pontifex. Reyna was perpetually Too Busy. Nico couldn’t help the suspicion that they’d all consider all of this shit one giant step back for him.
So, here he was, having a pity party of one, face down on the black duvet that covered the bed in his room in the palace of the underworld, hating that this was his default move. Will had even called him on it after their conversation had turned ugly, saying that everyone knew he would just run away to the underworld like he always did when he couldn’t handle things.
Nico hated that Will had been right about that, but he wasn’t sure what else to do. Not where to go – he knew he had options in Camp Jupiter and New Rome, far from his troubles at Camp Halfblood. He had his sister, Jason, Reyna, hell, he’d even call Frank a friend these days, and not solely because he was dating Hazel. But they would all fuss over him in one way or another, and he wasn’t in the legion so he didn’t really have a lot going on there either. While he was definitely respected as the Ambassador of Pluto (or Hades, perhaps, since that secret was out now), he didn’t really have much to do other than make the lares shut up when they got out of hand about something, and perform occasional funerary rites when asked. At least his dad would put him to work when he realized Nico was back home.
He sighed and flopped over onto his back, staring at the ornate ceiling. He was well aware that his reaction was both pathetic and ridiculous. People got dumped all the time and didn’t hole themselves up in the underworld. In the movies, they ate ice cream, vented to their friends, and moved on to show their ex they were better off without them. Nico wasn’t entirely sure he would be better off without Will, but he hated the implication that Will, and possibly their friends, too, expected him to turn back into the miserable outcast he’d been before, living with the dead because he couldn’t find his place among the living.
—
It was still a little unexpected, but his dad was trying to be supportive, to varying degrees of success. He didn’t seem surprised at all, when Nico relayed the reason for his current state of melancholy.
“You are very different, and—”
“What, because he’s all sunshine and smiles, and I’m…?” Nico made a vague gesture at himself. “He’s not all like that, you know! He’s bossy and blunt to the point of being almost rude sometimes, so it’s—”
“And,” his father continued over him, effectively cutting him off, “he would never be able to understand some things about you, not really.”
Years ago, when his dad made no secret that Nico was just the second-rate consolation prize after the loss of Bianca, his father actually attempting to parent would have been inconceivable. To the vast majority of demigods, such a relationship with their godly parent still was, but here he was in the dining room of the palace, getting sympathetic shoulder pats from the lord of the underworld.
“Yeah, I know, you’ve told me. The others at camp will never truly accept me…" Nico trailed off, eyes focused somewhere near a prominent scuff on the white sole of his black converse.
“I was mistaken.” Nico’s eyes snapped up as his father continued, “I was mistaken about quite a few things regarding you, and how you and the rest of our family fit into the larger picture. You have brought us great honor and respect during the wars, done amazing things, and while I’m sure there is someone who will see and appreciate those things, and everything else about you that is admirable, it was never going to be that son of Apollo ,” he finished with a dismissive wave.
“You never said anything,” Nico started, stunned, his voice half accusing and half regretful.
“Would you have listened? Cut things off?” His dad questioned, an eyebrow raised. “I think we both know you wouldn’t have, and you would have resented me telling you how to conduct your…romantic life.” he paused and really seemed to look Nico over. “And I will admit some of this has been very good for you. But it would never have been in the long term.”
“Yeah I guess,” Nico answered lamely. “It just sucks.”
“Yes.”
“I hate that I feel like this – sad and angry and disappointed.”
“You’re allowed to.”
“And I’m here doing the thing he told me he knew I’d do. I ran right back to the underworld when things didn’t go my way!” he threw his hands up as he paced the room.
“You are always welcome here—”
“Yeah I know, but—”
“But you need not stay here if you don’t want to,” his father cut him off before he could continue his rant. “You’ll recall I had Alecto keep up with your paperwork in the living world, and your family’s – Maria’s family, that is,” he said, his voice the tiniest bit wistful, “their assets. The mortal world is vast; there is nothing saying you need to stay at Camp Halfblood.”
“Yeah, okay, but I’m seventeen…almost seventeen,” he modified. “That’s not old enough, really, these days.”
“I’m aware,” his father replied. “Alecto also took care of that.”
“What? Made me old enough to be a legal adult in the United States? I didn’t know that was within a Fury’s skill set,” Nico snarked back.
“Obviously not,” his dad shot back with a roll of his eyes, “but she did rather a lot of paperwork and posed as a lawyer again on your behalf. Some mortal way of declaring you an adult.”
—
So, that was how Nico learned that he’d actually been an emancipated minor since his 14th birthday, that he had a trust of what had been his mortal family’s not-small estate that had been collecting additional interest for decades, and that on paper at least, he was officially his own great-grandson. There had been a smallish argument about how it might have been fucking nice to know all that and have access to that money when we was younger and homeless, sleeping in doorways and eating trashed food out of restaurants’ dumpsters.
They’d left it with things being arranged so that he could have some kind of allowance from that fund – at least enough to pay for a small apartment or something – and Nico pondering what the fuck he wanted to do as he made his way topside. He wasn’t giving anyone the satisfaction of staying in the underworld just now.
He made his way through the Orpheus entrance into Central Park and shivered against the December cold. That was one thing camp had going for it: magic weather. As he walked, he tried to focus on options. He now had money, or he would have in a few days, but he still didn’t have a place to live outside of camp, know how to get one, or what he wanted to fill his time with. At least on days he wasn’t taking on jobs for his dad, which they’d also decided would happen more regularly now that he didn’t have anyone lecturing him about how unhealthy it was for him to spend time in the underworld or use any of his darker powers.
Before all of this, he’d loosely planned to go to college when Will went, probably to study history of some sort while Will was pre-med, even though Nico knew he was probably more likely to end up working for his father than any mortal job. Still, it was as good a starting point as any, even with Will removed from the equation.
He may not have attended a ton of mortal school, but Nico knew that to attend college or a university, you were supposed to have finished high school. Since the giant war, he’d attended the sort-of school they held at camp for the year-rounders, and he was pretty sure that in theory, at the end of it, they issued something the mortals would consider a high school diploma…but he wasn’t there to finish that, and he didn’t want to be there for a while either.
As he marched through the slush left after what must have been a snow storm a day or two ago, he thought about how unimpressed he’d been with that schooling, aside from the Greek mythology sections. His “tutoring” in the underworld had been more informative; he could learn maths from Newton, poetry from Shakespeare, and philosophy from any number of dead Greek guys. There was some kind of test, he thought, that people could take instead of a high school diploma, but he wasn’t sure how one went about doing that.
Chiron could almost certainly answer his questions about modern-day mortal schooling, but Nico didn’t particularly want to go back to camp and risk running into…anyone he wasn’t ready to see, since he wasn’t sure when anyone was going back. Thinking of Chiron and school reminded him how he’d once heard that Chiron spent an entire school year posing as a human teacher just to keep an eye on Percy Jackson, before he’d learned he was a demigod. Then that thought made him remember that he did know someone else, someone not at camp, who could advise him on his school situation: Percy’s stepfather, Mr. Blofis, was a high school teacher.
Nico wandered slowly out of the park, wondering how long, exactly, he’d been down below. He’d never quite had a great sense of time when he was feeling depressed, and being in the underworld muddled it even more. Knowing himself, he’d probably moped for a few days, so it was probably that odd, liminal time between Christmas and New Year’s. Looking around at how busy the streets were, he figured it couldn’t be too late, so before he could second-guess himself, he shadow traveled himself to a dimly lit corner of the Jackson-Blofis living room, directly across from an enthusiastically decorated Christmas tree with a small sea of presents underneath.
Wait, was it Christmas Eve?
He figured it must be, with the unopened gifts, and on top of that, the apartment was completely dark, so it was probably later than he thought. He made his way toward the kitchen, where he knew there was a clock, knocking slightly into an end table that had been moved since he was last here. 1:11 AM. He should definitely go. He could come back in a few days, or weeks even. This family had always been kind to him and he didn’t want to disrupt their holiday.
He turned and took a step back into the main room of the apartment before something smashed into his right temple and he went down for the count.
—
Percy woke to a rendition of Jingle Bells being played close enough to his ear to make him jump. A little disoriented, he peeked out from his blankets as his mom put her cell phone away.
“I made us cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa, but you can only have some if you get out of bed,” she said. “Rise and shine – some of us have been up and around for hours, waiting on you.” Her tone was light, but he could hear a touch of exasperation there, too.
He nodded as he wiped the sleep from his eyes and attempted to push himself in a vaguely upright position. His eyes followed his mom as she puttered around his bedroom, not quite able to resist the urge to pick his hoodie off the floor and scoop it into the hamper along with a few pairs of socks. She gave him a pointed look as she deliberately ignored a pair of boxers discarded near his chest of drawers.
“Your friend is here – Nico. I guess you know?” She asked as she headed back toward the hall. “We found him on the sofa this morning and I insisted he stay with us a while. Turns out he makes better coffee than I do, so you should definitely invite him over more often.” She laughed a little before she turned to leave. “Hurry a little, if you don’t mind. Estelle may not be quite old enough to get really excited about Santa, but with all the shiny wrapping paper and bows, it’s all we can do to keep her out of the presents.”
Right. Nico.
Percy remembered as he forced himself out of bed and stretched until his back made a satisfying crack. He’d half dragged, half carried his unconscious friend to the sofa last night, thrown a blanket over him, and figured he’d make his apologies in the morning. Which it now was.
Percy hadn’t seen Nico since the summer; they’d both been senior campers along with a few of their friends – a role that had once been rare, but was happily more common these days. Percy had been in charge of basically everything to do with the beach or the canoe lake, as well as teaching the advanced sword lessons. Nico had surprised Percy (and probably a lot of others) by being weirdly good at teaching the younger sword groups. He also “assisted in the infirmary,” which Percy was pretty sure was a blatant excuse to spend time with his boyfriend.
He and Nico had hung out a pretty decent amount, as they had the summer before, and it was cool, being real friends with him. Nico seemed much more at ease. Oh he still had the dark aura – it was a part of who he is – but he was also funny and sarcastic and really, very kind under all his attitude. It was really nice to be able to see more than his moody side. He also seemed to have been adopted fully into Will’s friend group, and Percy was happy to see it, even if there had never been any attempt to include Percy, or Jason when he was there, and integrate his friends, so to speak.
So, when Percy had gone off to his freshman year of college, he was embarrassed to admit he’d not even thought of IMing or visiting Nico. Percy heard plenty about him from Hazel and Reyna – Jason, too, when he was around – but the closest he’d come to seeing Nico since summer was in late October, when he’d remarked that the Halloween decorations at the 5th Cohort barracks looked really realistic. Hazel had fanned her face, given a nervous little laugh and told him that Nico was visiting and there’d been some kind of dare involved, and let Percy fill in the rest.
He’d just sort of lost track of things with Nico after starting college. Not an excuse for whacking him in the head with a baseball bat, but it’s also not like Nico had knocked and been let in like any other guest.
Percy pulled on a sweatshirt and made his way out to cocoa and presents. He picked Estelle up and twirled her around, hugged his mom and Paul, and tried not to be awkward about the sort of bro-hug he gave Nico upon seeing him conscious for the first time in months.
They ate an alarming amount of cinnamon rolls and Christmas cookies. Percy got a mug of cocoa with a mountain of whipped cream on top while his parents and Nico drank coffee that Nico had either made or covertly procured for them elsewhere. Percy had a sneaking suspicion that Nico had shadow traveled somewhere ridiculous for it.
The family ooohed and ahhhed appropriately over each of Estelle’s new toys, with Nico joining in far more than Percy would have expected. Percy got quite a few gifts, too; his mom went kind of overboard on stuff like this now that they had a comfortable amount of money, and he got the feeling she was trying to make up for all the years when she couldn’t.
After the present opening extravaganza, while his parents were putting Estelle’s new things away and Nico was IMing Hazel, Percy volunteered to wash the dishes left over from baking so the kitchen could be clean enough to get messed up again in a few hours. Nico surprised him a few minutes later by picking up a dish towel to dry as Percy washed, the two of them standing shoulder to shoulder at the sink, nearly the same height now.
“I’m really sorry for intruding,” Nico said quietly, eyes focused intently on the wire rack he was currently drying.
“Well, I’m really sorry for knocking you out with a bat, so maybe let’s call it even?” Percy tried for a lighter tone before looking over at Nico’s serious expression. “Actually, no. You don’t need to apologize at all, since I’m pretty sure I remember Mom telling you that you were always welcome here, anytime.”
“Right, but it’s Christmas—”
“Which, last I checked, was part of ‘anytime’,” Percy challenged.
Nico stopped drying for a moment to actually look Percy’s way. “Still, I’m sure an unplanned guest on a really big holiday is an annoyance. I’d have gone when I woke up, but your mom had already seen me, and she insisted…”
“She be like that sometimes.”
“...and I didn’t want to, I don’t know, insult her or anything,” Nico continued, “but I’m sure it’s not—”
“Not at all an imposition for a longtime friend to spend a few days with us rather than spend the holidays alone, which I bet was your original plan?” Percy cut in.
“Actually, I’d lost track of what day it was,” Nico shook his head as he spoke, “otherwise….wait, a few days? Not just Christmas?”
“Dude, you’re delusional if you think that my mom isn’t going to keep ‘insisting’ you stay for at least that long,’ Percy said with a laugh. “And then give me crap about it if you don’t.”
Nico sighed, and was quiet for a second before replying, “then how about I agree to appease your mom and take her up on however much hospitality she wants, and in return, you agree to never mention that you managed to catch me by surprise and knock me out with a bat. To anyone. Ever.”
“Deal.”
They went back to the dishes.
—
Nico didn’t remember being young and innocent enough to really give a shit about Christmas. He still bought Hazel a gift every year…and Will, but he wasn’t going to think about that (or wonder what Will had done with the messily wrapped present Nico had sent with him). In any case, it wasn’t his favorite time of year. Though, that might have something to do with the first Christmas he could remember in any detail being spent alone and on the run, fighting off monsters with rocks and sticks and opening rifts in the group to swallow them up if he got really panicked. Not to mention, that had been just days after Bianca had died. He’d felt it when it happened – could see her spirit in the line to be judged as clearly as if she were alive and in front of him…and that made him realize who his godly parent must be. Which was a whole other set of complicated feelings back then.
The next time he’d so much as thought about the holiday was the first after he’d brought Hazel back.
This was the first time he could remember that he’d spent the holiday with a family that included actual parents, or little kids. They were a lovely family, really. It was obvious that Sally and Paul were a great couple and good parents. It was easy to see how this woman raised a son who turned down immortality and immense power to make sure all the demigod kids got claimed and had a safe place, whether or not their parent had a giant fucking throne on Olympus. He had heard all about the oh-so-romantic other reason for turning that down, but he’d spent so long avoiding thinking about Percy’s girlfriend that it was just habit by now.
Nico hadn’t met Estelle before, so his first interaction with her was being climbed on while he lay on the sofa, as if he were a part of the furniture himself. He knew he gave off an off-putting aura that his friends all had to push through at first, so he worried he would make Estelle uncomfortable, since she was a little young to be told to just ignore the creepy feeling for a while and it would get better. But she seemed happy to climb into his lap and stick bows in his hair, giggling the whole time.
—
While Nico didn’t really expect it to be awkward after years of genuinely being friends, it was still a relief that things weren’t weird with Percy, since he basically broke in and invited himself to Christmas after months of not talking. He felt a little bad for not trying harder to keep in touch once Percy had gone off to college in New Rome, but then, Percy hadn’t really reached out to him either. If he was being honest, his inclination was to leave it up to Percy to set the bar for how often they spent time together or talked. The two of them were definitely, solidly friends now, but he still had to work at convincing himself that he wasn’t annoying Percy sometimes. Plus, well, the past couple summers when Percy was at camp and the two of them started spending a lot of time together, Will got kind of insecure about it…which really wasn’t a consideration any more.
So here he was, after four months of not speaking, playing video games in borrowed pajamas, cross-legged at the foot of Percy’s bed. The pajamas very nearly fit; it had thrown him for a moment, when he pulled them on and didn’t have to roll the pants up. Even after his feelings for Percy had simmered down, even just as a friend, Percy seemed larger than life in his mind. But he wasn’t, not really. He was just a guy, a couple years older than Nico, who he happened to help save the world. Twice.
“So why aren’t you at camp?” Percy blurted out as he paused the game. “Or with Hazel—not that I mind you being here! It’s nice to have the company and I haven’t seen you in way too long,” he rushed, clearly worried about chasing Nico off.
“I didn’t want to bother her,” Nico replied, purposefully ignoring the first part of Percy’s question. “She gets so little time completely off from the legion, and Frank even less, as praetor. And I know she’ll call in favors for a day off to come see me in January. At Percy’s look of confusion, he added, “For my birthday?”
Percy’s guilty look at getting caught forgetting shouldn’t amuse him, but it did.
“And camp?” Percy asked.
Nico sighed, hopefully not too dramatically, before answering, “I didn’t want to be there, so I went home. Then I didn’t want to be there either.” He hoped his somewhat chillier tone cut off that line of questioning. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about the breakup at all right now, let alone with the first guy he ever had feelings for.
“How’s…how’s Annabeth?” Nico asked, trying to redirect the conversation to a topic Percy could generally talk about at length. Nico never quite managed to become friends, exactly, with Annabeth, but they were friendly when they were around each other, and he knew she meant the world to Percy.
“Oh, you know, she’s visiting her dad in San Francisco,” Percy answered with a shrug. He looked deep in thought for a moment, “It’s still so weird to me…Camp Jupiter and New Rome aren’t really all that far from her family, but she only ever visits them on holidays, and only for a few days.”
Nico set aside his controller, not really sure what to say to that, but it seemed Percy wasn’t done.
“Like, if I lived that close to Mom, I’d have been home every weekend.” He sounded uncharacteristically negative, almost judgemental about it.
“Not everyone is as close with their parents as you are,” Nico said diplomatically, trying for a gentle tone.
“Yeah, I get that, but she was getting better with them for a while,” Percy replied, “but now she’s just so laser focused on her classes and architecture club, it’s like college has just taken over everything.”
Nico was starting to get the feeling this wasn’t actually about Annabeth’s relationship with her mortal family.
“And yeah, I know she was there a whole year without me since I had to retake my junior year – thanks Hera,” he said, rolling his eyes, “but still. There’s more to life than school.”
It was clear that Nico had stumbled into something he was unprepared for. If things between Percy and his girlfriend were strained, that wasn’t really any of Nico’s business. He tried to redirect the conversation again, hoping to move things in a direction that neither of them would get moody about.
“Yeah, there is, but it’s still important to a lot of people. How are you liking it? College, I mean?” Nico asked. He looked up at exactly the right moment to watch Percy’s face fall.
Well, fuck.
He hadn’t meant to put his foot in it again, but he was just full of absolute crap conversation starters tonight, it seemed.
“Not well. I umm…” Percy seemed to founder a bit and Nico was about to tell him to forget it, suggest they go back to their game, but Percy spoke again before he got the chance. “I’m failing.” He looked and sounded completely dejected, but he kept going. “Failed, I guess. My grades were so bad in my first semester that there was no way to stay. I lost my scholarship, and they basically wanted me to drop out so they wouldn’t have to kick me out,” he finished, still not looking up from the floor.
Nico fumbled for the right thing to say or do in this situation. He wanted to be supportive, but he wasn’t sure how to help when there was no monster to fight or plot to stop. “That’s…That really sucks.” He put a tentative hand on Percy’s shoulder, which got him to finally meet Nico’s eyes again. “I can’t say that I’ve been there, but that sounds stressful as fuck, and I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, it really, really sucks,” Percy mumbled, studying his comforter intently. “Mom was telling me it’s okay, and that it’s not for everyone. And yeah, okay, that’s true, and I get that she’s just trying to be supportive and not judgey about it, but that’s also more or less what my advisor said while basically implying I’m too stupid for higher education.”
“You’re not stupid at all, Percy,” Nico said, giving Percy’s shoulder a squeeze he hoped was some sort of comforting, “I mean, how many life or death situations have you had to figure a way out of? How many incredibly well-prepared plans have fallen apart and you had to come up with a new one that actually works right there in the moment? Plenty of book-smart people can’t do that. So what if you don’t finish college just to get a fancy piece of paper saying you're not an idiot?”
The room was quiet for a moment, and Nico started to worry that he’d somehow made things worse instead of better.
“Okay, that’s what I’m calling any kind of diploma from now on,” Percy chuckled, finally smiling again. “Hey, wanna see my high school fancy-not-an-idiot paper?”
“Ugh, no. Just don’t,” Nico groaned.
“Oh and I think my mom and Paul also—”
“I take all of that back. You are an idiot.”
“Nope, no take-backsies,” Percy laughed as Nico rolled his eyes.
Nico was about to start their game back up, now that his friend sounded like himself again, but Percy stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Seriously, thanks. I don’t know why hearing that from you helped when Mom’s pep talk didn’t, but I’m not questioning it.”
“I’ve got no clue. I’m not exactly known for my bright, uplifting positivity about much of anything really,” Nico said, shaking his head. “But I’m glad it helped.”
“Oh hey! Speaking of bright, uplifting positivity,” Percy said, “how’s Will?”
“Single,” Nico answered softly, after a brief pause. If Percy could be that candid and open about his troubles, so could he.
“Oh, shit . I’m sorry, I didn’t hear!” Percy exclaimed, looking genuinely concerned he’d missed something important. “When did that happen?”
“He IMed me, maybe a few days ago, from his mom’s place, and…” Nico made a vague motion and hoped Percy could fill in the rest without him having to go over all the finer details.
“Wait, over IM?” Percy asked, clearly horrified.
Percy seemed at a loss for a few seconds. Meanwhile, Nico scrambled for something to push this conversation in literally any other direction in the whole entire world that was not talking about being pathetically dumped by his boyfriend – ex-boyfriend – with his first crush. He studied his own hands as he twisted his skull ring around. But, Percy interrupted his thoughts before he could come up with anything.
“What a dick .”
Nico laughed. Really, truly laughed like he hadn’t in months. When he managed to collect himself again, he held up his controller, looking at Percy with a raised brow.
“Oh, you’re on,” Percy said, unpausing the game before Nico was quite ready. Nico lost, but he had more fun than he thought himself capable of right then, so he couldn’t care less.