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“All the ladies love Leo!”
Percy laughs as Leo does a funky dance, flapping his arms and hopping around like a drunk chicken.
Reyna rolls her eyes. “Leo, no one is going to like you if you dance like that.”
Leo gasps. “Excuse you, Reyna, everyone wants a piece of this!” He gestures to himself proudly. Reyna rolls her eyes again.
Percy leans back in his bed. He looks around, studying the faces of his friends, who had convened in the Poseidon cabin because they decided that they all needed to hang out as friends, not as warriors trying to save the world. Annabeth is sitting next to Percy, shaking her head at Leo’s antics with a light smile on her face. Piper and Jason are sitting next to each other on another bed, cheering Leo on while he dances in the middle of the room like there’s no tomorrow. Hazel and Frank are sitting close on the floor by Piper and Jason’s feet, laughing along with everyone else. The only one not laughing is Reyna, who’s sitting next to Will by another bed.
Percy frowns. After Will and Nico had gotten together (which actually made Percy shed a few tears, by the way), they were never really seen apart. And Will would definitely make sure Nico was hanging out with them even if he had to drag him by the ear to the cabin.
“Hey Will,” Percy calls, gaining the son of Apollo’s attention. “Where’s Nico?”
Will shakes his head, a slightly worried look on his face. “I’m not sure. I looked everywhere for him, but I couldn’t find him. I figured that he didn’t want to be found, so I left it alone. Maybe he just really hates the idea of hanging out with you, Percy,” Will says, lips turning upwards.
Percy gasps dramatically. “No way, he loves hanging out with me,” he says. Will scoffs and turns back to Leo, who had somehow found actual feathers and is throwing them around the room. Interesting.
Percy looks at the doorway, wondering where Nico is. No matter what he says, Percy isn’t actually sure if Nico hates him or not. But he can definitely admit that he’s a little worried. Will, Reyna, Jason, and Hazel are all hanging out, and usually that means that Nico would be there too, no matter how much he hates the rest of the company.
Percy shakes his head and turns back to the group. If Nico wants to hang out, then he’ll join them.
~~~
Percy relaxes more and more as the night goes by, until suddenly the door bangs open. Everyone whips their heads towards the door, hands reaching for weapons—but it’s just Nico.
Percy relaxes a bit, because Nico doesn’t look panicked, so there’s probably not a threat looming over camp (hopefully). However, he does look—angry? Upset? It’s hard to tell. Oh, and he’s also looking straight at Percy. Welp. Wonder what he did this time.
Then Grover walks up behind Nico with an apologetic look on his face, and Percy tilts his head, confused.
“Nico?” Will asks, breaking the silence. “Are you okay?”
Nico doesn’t even look his way, which is concerning. Not much can make Nico ignore his boyfriend. Nico continues to look at Percy with that mix of emotions on his face. Then he starts storming towards him.
“Whoa, wait, Nico—” Percy tries, but Nico just keeps on walking. The others try to call him, asking him what’s happening, but their questions fall on deaf ears. Nico only has eyes for Percy, and definitely not in a good way.
Nico reaches Percy’s bed, and Percy thinks he’s about to get punched in the face, so he shies away from Nico, but that doesn’t stop Nico from—
Hugging him?
The room had gone silent. Percy had gone still. He blinks, trying to comprehend the change of events, but then realizes that he hadn’t hugged back. So, mostly on instinct since his brain is still lost, he wraps his arms around Nico, one hand on his back and one hand going to his hair. He strokes his fingers through the surprisingly soft strands, and Nico melts. He becomes dead weight in Percy’s arms, and then his shoulders start shaking, and Percy realizes that Nico is crying. He stares at the mop of black hair, realizing he has never really seen Nico cry, and he’s suddenly reminded that Nico is still a kid. He should be able to cry. It should be normal for him.
He sits there silently, ignoring the shocked stares from his friends.
After a minute or two, when Nico had calmed down a bit, Percy hesitantly asks, “Nico?”
Nico gives a quiet hum, voice breaking a little and paired with a sniffle, but otherwise doesn’t answer.
Percy decides to keep going. “Are you…okay? What happened?”
Nico stays quiet for a few moments before he says, very softly, “I’m sorry.” His voice is hoarse.
Percy just stares at his head, completely caught off guard. “For what?”
Nico burrows deeper into Percy’s chest. “For blaming you for Bianca’s death.”
Percy’s breath hitches, and he thinks he hears a sharp inhale from Hazel’s direction, but he doesn’t dwell on it. “It’s okay, Nico, you had every right to.”
From his other side, Annabeth goes, “Percy—” in a chiding tone, but Percy just gives her a look. She makes a face but stays quiet.
Nico keeps going. “No, I shouldn’t have,” he states, still sniffling.
Percy stays quiet for a second, choosing his words carefully. He chooses to change the direction of the conversation. “What brought this on?”
“I was talking to Grover—” Percy looks over at Grover, who shrugs helplessly, “—and he told me about how you were planning to go under the giant automaton, and then Bianca said she would go because it was her fault that it was attacking in the first place, and then she went and afterwards you guys looked for her for hours instead of continuing on your very important quest to save a goddess, and when the sun came up, you were still like ‘no, we’ll find her now that it’s daylight,’ and the only reason you stopped looking was because Grover mentioned the prophecy,” Nico rambles, barely stopping for breath. Percy just sits there, stunned, as Nico keeps talking.
“And then he said that after I ran off, you dragged Annabeth and him to look for me for hours, even though you barely had any chance of finding me, and after you finally stopped looking, you claimed the prophecy, took the weight of Olympus, the weight of the world on your shoulders, even after I said I hated you and wanted you dead, just so that I didn’t have to—”
“You didn’t deserve that burden, Nico—” Percy cuts in, but Nico interrupts him.
“Neither did you! You were fourteen, Percy. Fourteen!” And Percy doesn’t have an answer to that, so he stays quiet. He can feel the gazes of everyone else in the room on him and Nico, and he looks up. Pretty much everyone in the room is shocked stupid, but Hazel catches Percy’s eye. Her eyes are glazed over, and Percy remembers that Hazel didn’t know anything about the history between Percy and Nico, especially how deep and far back it went, so this was probably a huge shock for her. He gives her a tentative smile, to which she tries to return, although it doesn’t really work.
Nico starts quietly crying again, and Percy really doesn’t want to let go of him. “Go to sleep, Nico,” he says softly, pulling Nico to rest by his side. Nico buries himself in Percy side, while Percy tightens his grip around him. Not five minutes later, Percy hears Nico softly snoring, fast asleep.
He looks back at his friends. “Guys, maybe we should finish this a different day?” he says. They all nod and quietly make their way out of the cabin, save Grover and Annabeth.
After the rest leave, Annabeth looks at Nico with a soft smile on her face. “You guys are going to have a pretty heavy conversation when he wakes up, but I think it’ll really help your relationship.”
Percy smiles down at Nico. “I know. I hope it does.” He looks over at Grover. “Honestly, thanks, G-man. We probably never would’ve talked if you hadn’t said…all that,” Percy says. Grover smiles sheepishly.
“I kept trying to backtrack, but I just dug myself into a bigger hole. You’re welcome anyway, though,” he says. “We’ll leave you two. Goodnight, Percy.” Annbeth gets up and heads to the door, saying her goodbyes.
“Night, guys,” Percy says, and they leave, closing the door behind them.
Percy looks back down at Nico. He looks so peaceful when he’s asleep, nothing like the fierce person he is when awake. Percy can’t even remember the last time Nico wasn’t scowling at him while conscious.
He runs his fingers through Nico’s hair, and Nico smiles in his sleep, burrowing closer to Percy. He smiles at the sight. Nico really is adorable.
Percy turns to his bedside table. 11:38 P.M. He really should sleep.
He gets under the covers, trying very hard not to jostle Nico too much. He situates them both under the blankets and pulls Nico close. Maybe he couldn’t protect Bianca, but he sure as hell can protect her brother.