Chapter Text
Breakups are never easy. But after having a whole quest about making it work, calling it quits was humiliating.
Nico and Will lasted six more months, after traversing Tartarus.
Will had been trying to be less judgemental of Nico’s darker interests, or at least claimed. And in the end, snide comments about dinner with death or how Nico’s preferred hobbies were definitely making his depression worse weren’t what made Nico yell that he couldn’t do this anymore. It was a joke about Mythomagic.
There was no excuse for that, in Nico’s eyes. Sure, maybe Will didn’t understand liking horror movies and all black and post-punk music about death, or about Nico’s hobby of befriending monsters or attending strangers’ funerals. But Mythomagic was normal; it was downright cheery. And that still not being good enough for Will made Nico realize that maybe they just weren’t that well suited for each other.
It had been a surprisingly amicable breakup. They yelled a little at lunch before deciding to talk later, once they had settled down.
That final conversation, standing by a small campfire, was awkward but clear. Will agreed that he might never be able to understand Nico, and that he wanted a partner he could make fun of and who wasn’t as sensitive. He said it kinder than that, couched with explanations that he understood, but Nico knew what he meant. Will couldn’t balance between how he expressed himself and who he was at work. Either he was going to be a bit of a dick to and about Nico, or he was going to end up trying to fix him again, instead. And fighting the two was making him do both instead.
Nico, similarly, admitted he wasn’t ready to be with someone he had to explain himself to so much. It was a skill, one he’d learn with time, but he didn’t want to with Will just because he liked the curve of Will’s mouth and the way his hair caught the light.
Neither could think of a reason other than “you’re cute and good company” that they wanted to date in the first place, either.
So, no harm no foul.
Except, it was a week later, and yes harm.
Nico hated sitting back at the Hades table again. Some days he ate at the dock because all of his friends were at school or always sitting with Will, because they were Will’s friends first. He also hated that. It was confirmation that maybe they weren’t his friends-- it’s not like they said hi anymore. It did feel a little good to win that fight with Will even if it was posthumously, though. He’d always known they were friends with Will’s boyfriend rather than with Nico.
Will never understood the difference.
Today was one of those sitting alone at the dock type of days. Seeing everyone staring at him when they thought he wouldn’t notice was almost as infuriating as having to figure out a safe time to stop at the infirmary. So he took his BBQ and salad to look at the water.
Getting over Percy made appreciating the ocean a lot easier. It no longer left a bitter and shameful taste in his mouth. Instead, it was just beautiful. That’s why he sat by it, because he got to see the water reflect the sunlight and the colors at the horizon line.
And also because Chiron forbade him from eating in the forest-- apparently even though the border line hadn’t been having issues anymore, it could still be dangerous. Or maybe it’s because Nico was a flight risk, always running off in the shadows to the mortal realm or to the Underworld. There were still rules, even if he flouted them. It was this or be forced to wear the Camp Half-Blood shirts like everyone else.
Nico didn’t regret his choice. The ocean was still pretty, even if it was still a little weird to think, and one good thing he got out of the relationship with Will was a discovery of modern music. He’d hate to not be able to show it off a little, via band tees, a beat up CD player in his cabin that he stole from a going out of business electronics store in Chicago, and an MP3 player.
It had been a gift from Will, for his approximation of a sixteenth birthday after their quest.
Gods, he was going to have to find someone else willing to pirate music for him. Probably someone who would leave camp, unless he could get someone in the Big House without supervision to use the computer there. Or learn to use the internet himself, given he was given a bit of free reign around camp out of a mix of pity and fear. Though, Mr. D had loose morals and liked him enough to learn his name, maybe he would be willing to use whatever a ‘torrent’ was to upload the new Green Day album for him.
Whatever, he’d figure something out. For now, Nico had to focus on making himself eat enough food without immediately throwing it back up.
Another thing Will had done for him, make him eat at least 2 meals instead of subsisting off of half a meal a day and sleep. It was annoying that he still felt like he owed Will something for all the fixing he did. It was also annoying that it wasn’t like he could hate Will for something as obviously beneficial as making him eat enough.
Nico dug his canines into the bone of the rib he had been eating as a ‘healthy expression of feeling like murder’, as Mr. D would say. Not that they had discussed chewing on bones like a rabid dog, but it was better than breaking open the earth.
Leo had expected the breakup text before he got it.
His last visit to Calypso’s school had gone poorly. Yeah, he got to laugh a little at one of her art friends, Willow, commenting on how it was so cool she was named for a Greek god, but then it became very clear that Willow had less than platonic feelings for Calypso and that maybe they weren’t entirely unreciprocated. Technically speaking, he was just friends with Calypso right now, too. So he wasn’t sure if it was fair that it hurt his feelings to see, even if the intention of their break was to un-break when they were done with their respective senior years.
Finally, he decided honesty was the best policy, because he was smart like that and capable of adhering to kindergarten level ethics, and told Calypso he had noticed and that he was worried. She had handled it well as they were far past their blow up fight days, but she hadn’t had a good response for him and told him she’d tell him when she had something to talk about.
To her credit, she did.
She texted the whole story, about Willow kissing her at a party and about how it felt better than when she’d kissed boys before and how she was so sorry. The line that kept Leo from being able to be mad at her was ‘I’ve never had to do the leaving before. I know how it hurts to be left.’. And it did. It was a little easier to be left by someone who understood how it hurt, though. And the fact that it was because she was probably a lesbian when not stuck on a stranded island helped too.
But he still didn’t feel awesome.
They hadn’t been the healthiest together, but that didn’t mean Leo hadn’t meant it when he said he loved her. She loved him too, just differently. It was a consolation, to know that ‘it’s not you it’s me’ was provable as true. He still felt unwanted. And he’d still miss kissing her. She had started wearing Lip Smackers, like the kind for 12 year old girls they sold at CVS, so her mouth was really soft and tasted like candy.
Who knows who would want him next, and if they’d taste like candy? The more Leo thought about it, the more it sucked.
As a result, Leo was getting some space from the Waystation’s inhabitants. He put in his two weeks at the shelter he volunteered at, to let them know, pretty much right after the break up text.
Lit hadn’t appreciated being abandoned, until he found out Leo was leaving him his pimped out computer. And he was sympathetic, when Leo explained his motivations. Leo was gonna need some space, reaffirm his own Leo-ness without defining himself around Calypso. Dying really messed him up, if he was honest, and Lit understood that more than anyone else Leo knew.
He came back to Camp Half-Blood determined to get his mojo back and get in touch with his friends who remained alive. Piper was finishing up her senior year with a tutor her dad hired, and Percy and Annabeth were starting college in New Rome, so his options were a little limited. Hazel and Frank had also found a mortal school on the west coast to finish up high school. But he would say hi to Rachel, at least; he wanted to actually befriend the cool art student all his friends raved about.
And, as a strongly worded text from Reyna and a much more softly worded text from Hazel demanded, check on Nico.
Leo wasn’t exactly looking forward to it, given one of the last time they ran into each other involved Nico having people pay to punch him in the face. Plus, he was kind of creepy.
But, he used to be almost as scared of Reyna and she was way stronger physically speaking than Nico and, as Leo loved equality of the genders, he couldn’t not give Nico a chance just because Reyna was a pretty girl. Nico was probably a pretty boy, if you were into the whole starving vampire from Hot Topic thing.
And, well, Leo needed to talk to someone else who was friends with Jason. Not to talk about Jason-- Leo’s main method of coping was avoidance-- but just know they understood what he was going through. Preferably, someone that had never kissed him, which ruled out Piper and Reyna.
So, fine, Leo was going to make himself say hi to Nico.
Nico had made a game out of betting with Coco Puff 1 and 4 about if the shadows of feet that hovered by his cabin door every so often would ever knock. 2, 3, and 5 did not humor him as much. Usually, the answer was no, but sometimes Nico could tell it was Mr. D-- who wouldn’t knock, but instead yell-- or Kayla, who knocked about half the time to bring him medicine or awkwardly ask for something of Will’s back.
He couldn’t get a read on this shadow though. They fidgetted a lot, based on the vague pacing, but also didn’t seem to back away from the door or wander off. In a camp full of people with ADHD, oftentimes once they started walking and facing away from their destination, something more engaging caught their eye and led them astray from the unpleasant task of bothering the Hades cabin. Clearly, whoever it was was determined.
“This one’s for sure gonna knock.”
Cocoa Puff 1 was staring at him very intently, which meant agreement in Nico’s book. 4 seemed skeptical, curling up next to him on his bed and eying the door warily.
“Probably Kayla. She mentioned that demigod-friendly painkiller thing she was working on, it’s probably about that.”
2 and 5 were tossing around a small rat skull like it was a cat toy between themselves, while 3 napped in the corner.
Hypothetically, Nico had about ten more of the Cacodemons, but Chiron and Mr. D had agreed that cuddling with the memories of some of his worst hits might backfire a little bit this early in his recovery. So, he got some of the lighter trauma to start with normalizing and they’d go from there. Chiron wanted to have some frame of reference for the demons anyway available for study, in case Nyx became a problem in the future.
Demigods had a lot of baggage.
Case and point, the embarrassing shriek Nico emitted when there finally was a knock on his door.
He muttered an ‘I told you so’ to 4 once he got himself together enough to get the door.
Mentally, he prepared for awkward small talk with one of him and his exes alleged mutual friends, knowing it would be worth it to get something to help with his headaches from stress, nightmares, dehydration, etc etc. Nico was not, however, prepared for Leo Valdez to be standing in front of his door, rocking back and forth on his heels nervously.
Nico frowned, flicking his eyes over the other boy in a mix of judgment and scrutiny for if he had died again and was secretly a ghost. He seemed intact. “Can I… help you?”
To Leo’s credit, he managed a normal looking smile while he fidgeted with a zipper on his toolbelt. “Last time I saw you, you were selling tickets for people to punch me!”
“Yeah, and last I saw you you were getting punched. Not answering the question.” Nico raised his eyebrows pointedly, praying to be given a reason to close the door. Not that he didn’t like Leo-- he was fine-- but Leo wasn’t good at masking emotions and Nico knew he freaked the other boy out. Leo always avoided eye contact and they had said all of two words to each other on the Argonaut.
Leo put his hands up, palms out, in a gesture of peace. “Yeesh, alright, Reyna told me to bond with you when I told her I was leaving the warehouse.”
“Right.” Nico hesitated and then started to close the door on Leo. “Well, consider us bonded, great to see you.”
Leo groaned and caught the door with his foot, “Duuuuude, c’mooon, you know she won’t take that for an answer-- plus, Hazel asked too! I’m supposed to let you sit at the Hephaestus cabin table and shit during meals or make you mope in the Bunker instead of alone.”
That caught Nico’s attention enough to give him pause, widening the opening in the door a bit. “Hazel asked?”
“Yup. Apparently she doesn’t trust either of us in handling a breakup.” Leo shrugged, glancing from Nico’s forehead to his hand on the door to the cabin behind him, still nervous around him as always.
Nico raised his eyebrows, “At least I wasn’t dumped by a goddess.”
“Cold-blooded, kicking a guy while he’s down. What, do you want to punch me again?” Leo delivered the words with a coating of irony, but it was a kind that Nico recognized.
Internally, Nico noted to avoid the subject of Calypso.
“Technically I never did punch you the first time.”
Leo nodded and stepped back a bit. “You know what? I’ll just go, Hazel will get it, and I can handle Reyna being pissed at me, sorry, dude, not worth getting punched.”
Nico felt a moment of guilt, for proving the other right that he was dangerous. He sighed, “I’m not going to actually hit you, Leo.” He attempted to smile, though it felt thin and awkward. “And we both know you can’t handle Reyna being pissed at you. Just-- come in while I get ready to follow you to your bunker or whatever.” Nico stepped back and opened the door wide enough for the other boy to go in.
“Oh! Okay, yeah, uh,” Leo hesitated at the door frame, frowning. “I don’t think I can… Well, um, is this still a bad topic?”
Nico raised his eyebrows incredulously, attempting to communicate that he had no idea what he was talking about.
Leo got the hint and elaborated, fidgeting awkwardly with his hands. “Cause, I think, it’s against the rules? Cause it’d just be us alone and Chiron isn’t homophobic?”
Snorting, Nico replied, “I technically still have a doctor’s note about that. It’s fine.”
Leo took him at his word, wandering in warily, and saying jokingly, “What, medically required to kiss?”
“We’re not going to kiss, Valdez.” Nico said, mainly to watch Leo get uncomfortable, before explaining, “I’m excused from certain camp rules that would enable my self-isolation. Will came up with the excuse, saying I have a Hades-style mood disorder. That’s why you can even let me sit at the Hephaestus table. Chiron’s scared of me wreaking havoc and Mr. D hasn’t tattled on me yet.”
Leo nodded and grinned, “That’s kinda sick. I should start setting shit on fire, see if they get me ice cream.”
Nico figured the positive response meant Leo would just come in already, and turned around to rummage through his drawers. “I don’t set shit on fire.”
Nico’s assumption proved correct and he heard the door click behind Leo after another moment. Leo said, voice lighter and conversational, “Nah, but they show where you totally cracked the ground open on tours.”
That bothered Nico a little, making him wrinkle his nose. He picked up a Nirvana shirt that Percy had given him for his guesstimate of a birthday and tossed it over onto his bed before turning around to face Leo. “Really?”
Leo wasn’t facing Nico, wandering around to look at his walls-- a mishmash of posters, framed photos, and some shelves of collectables. He answered easily, glancing over his shoulder. “Well, my tour guide did.”
Nico raised his eyebrows, “I’ll have to yell at your tour guide. Who was it?”
Leo turned around, face scrunched up in discomfort and rocking back on his heels with nervous energy, and shook his head a little. “Oh, man, I so don’t want to tell you now. Tell me about these little fucked up cats instead.” He nodded loosely towards where 2, 5, and 3 were sitting together in the corner.
Nico did not entertain the question, repeating. “Who was it?”
Hesitating, Leo pointed at the foot of Nico’s bed, “If I tell you, will you tell me this little guy’s name?”
“That’s 4.”
For some reason, Leo didn’t immediately answer and instead sounded confused. “Like from Divergent?”
Nico folded his arms and tried his best to look intimidating in his pajamas. People tended to be scared of him, so it would probably work. “Answer.”
“Ah, right, uh,” Leo avoided eye contact, and answered, “It was definitely not your ex-boyfriend and it was a good and believable name that I have thought of in the last 30 seconds.”
Right. Of course. It sucked to hear, but Will was the only person who would do that without it being a malicious act. So, Nico forced down the lump in his throat and continued.
“You’re really bad at this. What’s Divergent?”
That question seemed to surprise Leo who snorted and raised his eyebrows. He said, “What, you came up with Four on your own?”
Nico rolled his eyes as he grabbed a pair of jeans crumpled on the floor, shaking them out to make sure they were still wearable. “It’s a number, Leo, I can count.” After a moment, during which he decided that they were good enough and placed them on the bed next to the shirt he picked out, Nico explained, “They’re cacodemons, I haven’t felt like naming them.”
Leo looked down to stare at 4 studiously, examining it for something, before asking, “They’re chocolate?”
That had been his reaction. Or Will’s. Or both. Nico didn’t like to think about Tartarus, for a lot of reasons. He decided to fold his clothes before taking them to change. “Cacodemons are monsters made by the goddess Nyx out of traumatic memories. These are mine.”
Leo’s eyes widened and flicked back up to try to meet Nico’s.“Oh, shit, you’re like an antidepressant commercial.”
“Sure.” Nico picked up the small stack of clothes he’d made out of his outfit and took the opportunity to leave the conversation. “I’m gonna change, make yourself comfortable or whatever I’m supposed to say.”
Admittedly, Leo wasn’t psyched about being left alone in the main part of the Hades cabin, but Nico didn’t give him time to argue before he disappeared. It was dimly lit and a little sad, decorated with peeling posters and blackout curtains and little trauma monsters running around.
The hot chocolate babies were kind of cute, though, even if their origin was such a bummer. Their legs were freaky, with knobby knees and a bit too long, but the rest of them puffed out like a small dog or evil cat made of shadows. They didn’t seem personable, though, scurrying away when Leo got too close in an attempt to say hi.
Leo decided to leave them alone.
He wandered, deciding to do a loop in the hopes of finding something to hold his attention or start up some less than combative conversation when Nico was back. The floating shelves decorated with action figures caught Leo’s attention, but he didn’t recognize any of the characters except for Batman. In his exploration, though, he sensed something warm, some fire in a corner, but small. Probably a candle, and following his sense to the other side of the room confirmed his theory.
Stepping around haphazard stacks of CDs and books that littered the corners of the cabin-- along with one questionable pile of what looked like animal bones-- Leo made his way over to the candle. He planned to put it out, figuring the fire hazard was an accident. Upon approaching, though, Leo hesitated. The candle was next to a few trinkets, a small silver necklace, a stack of cards, a cup with dead flowers, and a dusty framed photograph.
Leo wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he knew a shrine when he saw one. Gingerly, he picked up the photograph, holding it by the frame and trying to avoid touching the class and leaving any smudges.
It was a family photo of a wealthy family from the 30s or 40s, at least Leo assumed they were rich from the way they were dressed. The dad was tall and pale and kind of freaky, but seemed to be smiling with a hand on the wife’s shoulder. The mom was beautiful, smiling brightly with well kept hair and brightly colored lips like a silent film star. She had her hands on the shoulders of a young boy, 8 or 9, who was smiling in that awkward unpracticed way that children do sometimes and holding hands with a girl a few years older than him. The girl, his sister, had her head tilted in a way that reminded Leo of how girls had practiced yearbook photos back in grade school.
It was weird to see that in the past, to see that even then, kids were just kids. That Nico had been a kid, didn’t emerge as an angsty teenager, was just as jarring. The oddest part for Leo, though, was the casual presence of who was, clearly, Hades.
“What are you doing?”
Ostensibly, it was a question, but coming out of Nico’s mouth it felt like an accusation. His voice was flat and seemed to be a practiced monotone that made Leo regret his decision.
Leo cleared his throat, a little awkwardly, and set down the picture where he found it. “It’s a nice ofrenda for a white boy. The candle’s a fire hazard though. If I can…?” Leo trailed off and gestured to put out the candle.
Nico was silent for a long enough time that Leo chanced a look over at him. He was staring at the altar, but otherwise didn’t seem to have any outward reaction. Finally, he said, barely audible, “Fine.”
Leo was a little relieved, having been worried that Nico would forbid him from changing the shrine and he’d have to live with worrying about a fire starting. He put it out quickly, before Nico could change his mind, pinching the flame out. For a second, it transferred to his hand like he had stolen the spark from the wick, but it was easy to snuff out then.
He stepped back and risked a glance back at Nico. Nico was busying himself with lacing on his boots, pretending to be unbothered, but Leo had played that gambit enough times to catch the slight tremble of his pale hands.
“It’s a nice photo. Didn’t know you were rich-rich.” It was a dumb thing to say. Comedy was decidedly not Nico’s coping mechanism of choice. But, it didn’t land too poorly-- Nico rolled his eyes but there was a twitch at the corner of his mouth and Leo took it as a victory.
He couldn’t leave the open air though, and kept going, to fill the silence. “I always forget you and Hazel are total Boomers. It is pretty cool, though. Not everyone’s got pics with the Lord of the Dead.”
Nico stood up, having finished putting his shoes on. Leo expected to be ignored, based on the unamused expression on Nico’s features.
“He likes selfies.”
That was not what Leo expected, and it was the funniest thing he had ever heard in his life. It took him a second to catch his breath from imagining Hades trying to take selfies with his emo son. “Oh my gods, seriously? That’s amazing, you have to show me.”
Nico tilted his head slightly, seeming vaguely amused which, based on what little Leo knew, must mean this was going well. He raised his eyebrows slightly, “And why would I do that?”
Leo hesitated a moment, before offering, “I got ramen and energy drinks in the bunker. I can give you some?”
After a second, of seemingly mulling it over, Nico nodded. “Alright. We’ll do that to appease Reyna."
Nico didn’t hate Leo’s bunker.
He had assumed it would stink and be messy, and that was true, but it wasn’t so bad. It was nice being partially within the earth, and the gasoline smell wasn’t wholly unpleasant.
Leo spun excitedly to face Nico when they entered the bunker, waving his arms around loosely to present the space to him. “Welcome to my mojo dojo casa house, or whatever.”
Nico glanced around the bunker, looking to see if Leo was referencing a sign somewhere or something. After deciding that there wasn’t a visual reference point, he asked, “Should I know what you just said?”
Leo had moved over towards the small kitchenette he had set up in the corner, keeping himself busy with a coffee maker. He asked, not looking directly at Nico, “No one made you see Barbie?”
Nico frowned slightly, tracking Leo’s fluttering hands. “Like the doll?”
That made Leo look at Nico, more directly than he usually did, though it was out of surprise and lasted only a moment. It was a little jarring and made Nico flicker his own gaze away from Leo’s. The other boy said, “I mean, kinda the doll. It was only the biggest movie of the year, did no one make you see it?”
Nico shrugged, feeling a bit of a sting at the implications of what Leo said. He didn’t know why it made him feel lonely, but it did-- why didn’t anyone take him? Most of his friends, the actual people that speak to him, spent time in the mortal realm and liked modern media. He didn’t realize he had zoned out, until he registered Leo was snapping in front of his face.
“Earth to Nico? Hello?” Leo sounded somewhat genuine in concern, even if he had that patented smirk. “You good?”
Blinking, Nico focused into reality and nodded quickly. He shrugged off the concern quickly and gestured back towards the kitchenette to change the subject. “Tired, take me to the energy drinks.”
Leo appeared to accept the diversion, bounding back over to the mini fridge. “I was making coffee, ‘cause it’s kind of early, but no judgment here. You got a preference? Monster? Redbull? A 5 Hour Energy shot?”
“Uh, Monster, I think. That’s the black one, right?” Nico trailed along, skimming his eyes over his surroundings.
There was almost a full wall of work desks, scattered with blueprints and tools and models of various projects. Old blueprints were plasters on the walls, next to some movie posters for comedies Nico hadn’t heard of before. There was what looked like a half-mecha with wheels in one corner, surrounded with scrap metal. In what seemed to be the center of the space was a pile of bronze and silver scrap metal and a few heads of some sort of animal.
Leo had the grace to get Nico’s attention before tossing him the drink, saying, “Heads up,” and tossing it underhand towards the other boy.
Nico jumped, managing to catch the drink only barely, and letting out an undignified sound. “Styx, why’d you do that?”
Grinning, Leo shrugged, “Nice reflexes though. You want a tour?”
It was off-putting that Leo had started to look directly at him. Granted, the opposite bothered him just as much, but at least he knew how to handle the straightforward discomfort rather than whatever this was. Nico avoided meeting his eyes, focusing instead on getting his nail under the tab of the energy drink to open it, grateful for the excuse. “I can see most of it.”
Something in Leo’s voice sounded different, like maybe Leo had dropped the overexcited host act. “Yeah, guess you can, huh?” When Nico didn’t immediately reply, instead taking a tentative sip of the drink and relishing the acidic sting, Leo barreled on as he walked in the vague direction of where his projects were. “Well, I can just work on this stuff, leave you alone, not bother you-- I think that’ll appease the girls enough.”
Nico nodded and sat down on a stool by one of the work desks.
It took all of five minutes before Leo was bored.
Usually, he played music or a television show while he worked, but he didn't want to bother Nico any more than he already was. Obviously, he knew Nico wasn’t his biggest fan, for whatever reason-- had a thing for his little sister, faked his death, generally annoying; basically, there were a lot of possibilities. But it still made the whole bonding thing difficult when Nico wasn’t engaging! And now he couldn’t even work on Harriet’s battle wheel-chair right because he couldn’t focus without something stimulating his brain.
Maybe he could try to make conversation and find something to put on for background noise that wouldn’t make Nico want to go home, find his emergency cell phone, and text Hazel or Reyna how much Leo sucked.
“Usually when I work, I listen to music or something-- what music do you like? I mean, obviously you like emo shit, I’m not dumb. Nirvana, clearly, which is cool. Pretend I didn’t say anything.”
A beat of silence passed, during which time Leo thought about the pros and cons of running away to live somewhere remote, like in Frank’s old house in Canada.
Nico responded, as though this was a perfectly normal interaction, “I have my MP3 player, if you want to look for something.”
When Leo looked over at him, he saw Nico was fidgeting with a small black MP3, wired headphones wrapped around it. Leo felt himself brighten in excitement as he stood up and walked over. “Oh man, an MP3 player? I haven’t had one of these since my second foster home, these were the coolest. I used to rip a bunch of CDs from the library onto mine.”
Nico offered it out to him, looking up slightly to momentarily meet Leo’s eyeline. He wasn’t completely deadfaced, but Leo couldn’t place the look in his eyes either when the other asked, “You know how to put music on them?”
Leo nodded, taking the MP3 out of his hand and unplugging the headphones. “Yeah, man, not hard at all. You don’t?”
“Will did it for me,” Nico admitted. “He did a lot of shit for me.” It was a little embarrassing to admit, but Nico wasn’t in the habit of lying. Well, he was, but not in this context.
“I’ll totally teach you, man. Self-empowerment.” Leo punctuated his sentence by flexing and added in a joking tone, “You don’t need no man,” and dropped his arms back down to turn on the MP3 player.
Nico frowned and asked, “Are you making fun of me?”
Leo walked towards his desk, where his laptop sat, and said over his shoulder. “Nah, I’m just an idiot.”
“Right.” Nico trailed after Leo and made an internal note to never be embarrassed by something he did in front of him ever again. Clearly, it was no big deal. “Well, thanks.”
Leo pulled over a stool from the desk by his, setting it by his proper office chair he had set up at his desk, and waved for Nico to sit down. “Pop a squat, I’ll teach you the ways of mid-2000s Internet, old man.”
Nico took the seat, though he made sure to roll his eyes first.
Not a lot of Leo’s tutorial made sense to Nico.
The basics were simple-- drag and drop was simple, and the basic computer mechanics were similar enough to how video games worked. That analogy landed and everything, because Nico was as much of a nerd as Leo had pegged him for. But once Nico mentioned that Will used to pirate stuff, things got more complicated.
Leo was excited to do crimes. That wasn’t the problem. But teaching a grandpa in the body of an emo teenager how to do said crimes was much harder. He started simple, explaining the concept of what a torrent file was, but when he looked up from his computer screen he saw a glazed over look in Nico’s eyes and a complete lack of comprehension.
Pretty much every step took that much effort, but by the end of it, Nico could get a torrent and get the uncompressed files onto his MP3. He didn’t know what seeding was or what peer-to-peer connections were or why he had to worry about ISP data requests (or what those were), but he was able to click everything in the right order to download new music to his MP3 player. Once Leo was sure that Nico wasn’t going to break his computer and give him a virus, he gave him free reign to download whatever he wanted. It was partially to keep him busy, so Leo could get some work done, but also because he seemed to need a win.
Nico had taken to playing snippets of songs while flipping through the site Leo had pointed at him, which solved the need for stimulation.
It took about an hour before Leo started to get hungry and realize he should check time, unless they wanted to be accompanied by the whole Hephaestus cabin that wasn’t away at school. Which, yeah, was about eight people, but still! Not exactly Nico’s vibe.
He stood up and stretched, hoping to loosen the cramp in his arm that had formed when adding fire-blasters to Harriet’s chair. The semi-obscure rock song Nico was playing paused-- look at that, Grandpa found the pause button-- and Leo took that to mean Nico had noticed he was done.
“Alright, muchacho , we’re heading out unless you want to be mobbed by my siblings.” Leo said easily as he turned around, settling his hands to hook around his suspenders on his work pants to fidget with. “I gotta munch or I’ll get angry and you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
Nico had little reaction to Leo’s joke, though the lack of a scowl probably indicated positivity. Instead he pocketed his MP3 again and said, avoiding looking directly at Leo, “Thanks. For the-- borrowing your laptop. I guess.”
It was odd how nervous Nico seemed. Leo didn’t get it.
“Hey, man, no biggie. Mi casa es tu casa .” Leo ignored the feeling in his stomach that drove him away from the other boy out of fear to pat Nico on the shoulder. He seemed to need it and it was harder to be afraid of him after watching him struggle to download a Breaking Benjamin song like they were middle schoolers.
Nico pursed his lips but didn’t shy away from the momentary touch, saying firmly, “Still. I owe you.”
Leo snorted and, after shutting his laptop on the desk, replied, “Alright, King of Ghosts, you owe the repairman.” He headed towards the door and gestured for Nico to follow him. “C’mon, let’s catch some lunch before Nyssa shows up.”
That night, Nico dug his quote-on-quote ‘emergency’ phone out from under his mattress. He pulled up his text thread with Reyna and typed out valdez followed your command, don’t kill him.
It only took a moment for Reyna to reply: You make me sound unreasonable. Tell me if he was mean to you.
Nico let himself smile a bit, both annoyed and touched by Reyna’s protective nature. you? unreasonable? never. he wasn’t mean to me, he’s still scared of me lol.
Reyna answered after a few minutes. Cowardly. Good night, Nico.
He double tapped the message to like it-- something Will taught him-- and switched over in his contacts to open up his thread with Hazel. Nico typed out and sent hey, i’m doing okay, promise. don’t be too pushy with leo about spending time with me, alright? also don’t have your phone out, i know you’re not in new rome this week. don’t make yourself bait, i’ll iris you tomorrow.
She reacted with a rolling eyes emoji but either took his advice and put her phone away or was pretending to. Either way, Nico was appeased.
As he fell asleep, phone tucked back under his mattress, Nico felt a twinge of regret that tomorrow he’d likely be alone again.