Work Text:
Leo knocked on Nico’s door and tucked his head inside.
‘A moment’ Nico said without looking up from the skull he was cleaning, and Leo watched as he touched his finger to the forehead mending a small crack, then clicked the jawbone back and made a few notes. ‘Aaaand, I’m ready. I can bring him back to the history department at Monday, they will be absolutely delighted.’ Nico looked up at Leo and he felt the muscles of his face relaxing into a smile.
‘I was wondering if I can take you out to somewhere…’ he said, but he knew that his smile became mischievous because Nico narrowed his eyes.
‘To where, exactly?’ his boyfriend asked.
‘Arizona’ Leo answered with a gulp.
‘We are not doing again the whole “let’s go and see the Prague”, just because you wanted to take apart the astronomical clock.’
‘You have to admit it was fun!’
Nico raised his eyebrow. ‘Being chased across the Old Town of Prague by a golem is not my idea of fun.’
Leo sighed then he started to explain and beg rapidly. ‘The golem was not part of the plan, but you loved Prague. And yes, right, it’s not actually a date, I just really need something from my father’s junkyard. I even have a written permission for taking it. But I’ll compensate, okay? I’ll bake you cherry crostata and massage you and paint the hall…’
Nico’s laugh interrupted him. ‘Cherry crostata… But you are still painting the hall, you’ve been promising this for weeks.’
Leo blew a kiss at him. ‘You are the best. Let me grab my stuff and we can go.’
‘You just love me for my umbrakinetic abilities!’ Nico shouted after him. ‘Get my jacket, too!’
~~~
The October wind was cold and dry in Gila Claw, and made Leo hug himself shuddering, but, funnily, it didn’t seem to affect Nico. He let go of Leo as soon as they arrived and took a few steps towards the deserted town.
‘That taco place is definitely closed’ shouted Leo after him, but then he realized what made Nico curious.
The inhabitants of Gila Claw came out to see their king. Grey ghosts floated towards Nico from the buildings that looked like a touch could collapse them. Leo kept himself together enough to not freak completely out, and took a few steps closer, to watch Nico. He always had the most mixed feelings about Nico being the king of ghosts, because on the one hand he wanted to be as far as possible from any kind of spirits, especially since one really nasty one possessed him a few years ago, and hey, simply, ghosts, he thought, you are supposed to be afraid them. But then on the other hand, there was Nico, who stood there, and let the ghosts come to him, and he touched them, and whispered Latin chants, and the ghosts turned into dust that made the sunshine break into colors from his touch, and it was Leo’s favorite sight, the serious, but caring light in Nico’s eyes and the kind, reassuring smile that didn’t actually reach his lips but still lingered on his face as he gave the spirits their long desired peace. As the last ghost, a young girl, crumbled into spring sunshine, Nico closed his eyes and he lowered his hand, and Leo stood next to him in a moment, holding him with one hand.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, and Nico nodded.
‘There weren’t too many, I mean, maybe fifteen, it’s not that much… Just a little water, please.’ Leo gave him the bottle, and watched Nico drinking half of it, then he offered Nico some chocolate that Nico took.
‘We can stay the night, if you want, I brought sleeping bags’ Leo offered, but Nico shook his head.
‘Nah, I’m fine. I can get us back, it was just a bit shocking to shadow travel then exorcise immediately.’ He took Leo’s hand and laced their fingers. ‘Come, let’s see that junkyard. I hope you know where to find that thingy, because it looks endless.’
‘It’s a special generator that was built on a working perpetular motion machine, and it’s really awesome, but the actual generator part was broken, that’s why Divine Daddy threw it out. It will work just fine once I get it, you’ll see, it’s going to be dreamy.’ Leo assured Nico. They wandered inside the gates, and soon Leo let go of Nico’s because he found some other machine pieces. He felt like he was walking around the scrapped ideas section of Hephaestus mind, it was all genius and amazing, as he picked up different stuff, magic weapons and enchanted musical instruments. Of course there were regular stuff, like wrecked cars, some refrigerators, and bad statues, but there were also automatons, impossible machines and Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions, that completely amazed Leo. He wondered if they ever worked and if they could have been repaired. He could have stay there for years studying them, and it broke his heart that most of the stuff never meant to work, and some of them were even cursed.
‘Hey, Leo!’ he heard Nico shouting for him, but he couldn’t see the boy, Nico was most probably a few junk-hills away.
‘Yeah?’ he shouted back, trying to concentrate on the goal of their trip, the generator, as he dropped an automaton and put back his screwdriver into his tool belt.
‘Does it ever rain here?’ Nico’s voice echoed to him, and it made Leo realize that they are probably further from each other than he thought. Also, what kind of question was it?
‘Where are you?’ Leo shouted back. His face was hot with embarrassment because he practically left Nico wander alone for… yes, for two hours and he didn’t even get the generator yet.
‘Northwest from the entrance, there’s… a big wooden cow next to me. I think it was, you know, it belonged to Parsiphaë.’
Leo took a glance on the setting sun and started to run towards the direction where he suspected Nico. After passing five hills he stopped, because he felt like he lost the sense of Nico’s direction.
‘I hope you stayed still! Who was this Parsipha?’ he shouted.
‘Still at Parsiphaë’s cow.’ Nico yelled back. His voice was closer now. ‘You know, she was the mother of the Minotaur. I think this was her… negligee for the big night with its father.’
Leo’s face was burning, and he had to put out a flaming lock of his hair before he started to run again. He turned right after the third hill, and there was Nico leaning to a wooden cow, just as he said, waiting for him.
‘Kinky’ marked Leo after he got his breath back from the running, looking in the eye of the cow. ‘I think our life would be much easier if we didn’t know almost every detail of our godly parents’ sexual life.’
He looked at Nico, expecting a half-smile but Nico’s face was stern.
‘Does it ever rain here?’ Nico asked him in a low voice. Leo shook his head.
‘First, we are at the middle of the desert. Second, the whole junkyard is enchanted. It prevents stuff from rusting, god knows why.’
Nico’s face didn’t change much from hearing this, but Leo saw that little change in his eyes, that made him ask: ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I know where we are’ Nico cleared his throat. ‘I can feel her.’
‘Who?’ Leo asked, but Nico was already running. Leo murmured a curse and summoned his hammer expecting a fight, and run after his boyfriend.
He caught up soon, because Nico stopped before a gigantic metal arm.
‘She must be here.’ he murmured then pointed at the arm. ‘What’s that?’
Leo looked it up and down. ‘I guess part of a prototype of Talos. Why?’ but Nico was already climbing across it and sliding down on its thumb. When Leo landed next to him, he was kneeling, and he had clearly found something.
There was a head in his lap, with long, brown hair, and its broken body, dressed in silvery clothes was on the ground, and Nico was hugging the corpse with clenched fists. Leo knelt next to him, just to see how unusually shiny his eyes were. He placed a hand on Nico’s face and kissed down the silent tears from his eyes.
‘Let the body go, Nico’ Leo asked softly as he was unclenching Nico’s fingers. They lowered her to the ground; her lightless dark eyes stared at the empty sky. Now, that Leo saw her face he knew who she was even if he never saw the little girl before. She looked just like Nico but with a somewhat softer, kinder face.
‘They said Bianca was lost in a land without rain’ Nico whispered. ‘The junkyard preserved her body.’
Nico touched her face, Bianca’s eyelashes fluttered like she was alive, then the eyelids closed on the lifeless eye. Nico arranged her contorted arms and limbs, and it was only a minute, and Bianca’s body was laying there like she was only sleeping.
‘She was really nice’ said Leo.
‘She was even kinder.’ Nico looked up at him. ‘I’m taking her back to Long Island, to the camp. I want her to have a proper burial.’
‘I pick up the generator and we can go.’ Leo stood up, and Nico rolled his eye.
‘You’ve got five minutes.’
‘I’ll be fast as lightning.’
When he left Nico there, he was stroking Bianca’s hair, like he must have done while she was alive, and whispered her all the things he never had a chance to tell her. Leo raised his hand and knocked a message on Talos’ hand as he walked away, just to let his mother know that he loved Nico.