(EDIT: This has been tweaked a bit; some mistakes were removed, some sentences rephrased, etc.)
The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the only thoughts running through Nico's head were; "Kill me, kill me, kill me, kill me."
It was like someone had poured a bucket of magnesium filings into his lungs. Nico could hardly breathe, and, no, scratch that - his marrow was filled with magnesium filings too. He had been standing outside Cabin Three for the better part of an hour, and had succeeded in moving his (trembling) hand so that it was only six centimeters away from the doorknob.
Progress.
With a jerky movement, he drew his hand back again, clutching it with the other as if he could stop it from returning there on its own accord. For a time, he busied himself, fiddling with a loose thread that protruded from the cuff of his jacket, which was flicking back and forth in the easy breeze like the tail of an ill-tempered cat. "Wait what?! Cats, Nico? Seriously? You're telling me that you're sooo focused you're going to stand here and think about cats?!" It felt as if his brain had been stampeded by Chiron and every last one of his relatives, so he continued staring at the bronze door dumbly, an infinite number of thoughts- all equally trivial- seemingly clamoring for his attention all at once.
Maybe he was just trying to distract himself.
Maybe he'd finally gone crazy.
"I can't do this," he decided eventually, when the sun had slid high up enough into the sky that light was peeking over the top of the cabin, making him squint. He glanced down at his shaky hands unseeingly. "Some things are better left unsai-" His thoughts were interrupted when he was suddenly slammed into darkness as the door opened, making unfortunate contact with his face. The next thing he knew, he was sprawled on the ground at the bottom of the steps, blinking hard.
"Oh my Gods, Nico, are you okay? I didn't see you." A familiar voice broke through the fluctuating dizziness, and alarm bells blared in Nico's mind. Eyes flying open, he saw the silhouette he'd expected, illuminated ironically by a halo of light coming from what was presumably the sunlight, or possibly by way of some kind of moronic prank of Apollo's. Unsurprisingly, he was holding out a hand to Nico, offering to help him up. Nico ignored this and scrambled to a standing position, hurriedly brushing away a few leaves and twigs that clung to his clothing. Percy stood before him, concern evident on his face. He looked, well... heroic. Riptide was strapped to his back- he was obviously heading out to practice. Uncomfortable under his gaze, Nico gave a curt nod, dark eyes averted, somewhat startled by the sudden appearance of the guy he'd been working up the courage all day just to see. He swallowed dryly, muttered a meek greeting, searched desperately for a topic of conversation (although all he could hear inside his head were the words "SAY SOMETHING!" on a near endless loop.) Before he'd conjured up a reason for his presence, sudden vertigo hit the flustered demigod full on like a charging bronze bull, and he swayed unsteadily on his feet, light-headed. Percy darted forward and caught him before he could fall again.
The son of Hades could feel the blood rush to his cheeks. He went rigid under the physical contact, unable to squash down a rush of hysteria.
"Woah, did you hit your head or something?" The words were spoken into his ear- he could actually feel Percy's breath on his neck as he asked the question.
Without warning, Nico sprang away.
"I'm fine." he choked out, not sounding fine at all. "Damn, damn, damn, my voice shook. He must've heard that. He had to've heard that." For a dangerously long moment, it looked like the older demigod was going to persist, but he seemed to think better of it. Instead, he asked;
"What are you doing blithering about out here anyway?" In answer, Nico waved a dismissive hand, eager to discover if he could at least get something out if he rushed into it- if he didn't halt to hesitate.
"That's not important right now-" he began, and then stopped dead. (Pun not intended?) "Wait, what?" There was nothing but bafflement in Nico's question. Percy blinked at him, equally confused. "The blithering..?" Nico tried to clarify.
"The blithering?" In a gesture that was almost comical, the son of Poseidon scratched his head in a bemused way.
"Well- yeah," Nico babbled, about ninety percent of his consciousness had launched into a full-blow panic, unable to process what was coming out of his mouth. The other ten percent was screaming at him to shut up, to stop talking. Sadly, this was mostly drowned out by the incoherent frenzy of horror that outnumbered it. "It's not blithering is it? You don't say "he blithered before gong inside." At least, I don't think you do, I dunno. I though it was dithering? Like; "after dithering at the door for several moments he entered." Blithering is like, "blithering" idiot, right?"
There came a pause.
A long pause.
A very long pause.
"...Maybe?" he added, (super suave) biting his lip.
o0oΩo0o
Annabeth's hand slipped from propping her up, and she almost hit her head on the desk. She had pulled an all-nighter with the help of an obscene amount of caffeine, trying to put some finishing touches on her designs for Olympus. Alone in the Cabin, she gave a long, heavy sigh of exasperation when she heard a knock at the door so quiet it almost came off as diffident, and realized that she was the only one around the open the door. Dragging herself to her feet, she muttered a stream of Greek curses under her breath, wishing death upon whoever was bothering her, and yanked the door open violently. It banged loudly against the wall, exposing a terror-stricken Nico, frozen, his hand still out in front of him from when he had knocked, with Percy who somehow seemed even more petrified cowering behind him, which looked utterly ridiculous considering how much larger he was than the son of Hades.
"I told you we shouldn't have bothered her!" he whispered insufferably loudly. "She gets like this if she hasn't slept!"
"Shut up!" Nico hissed out of the corner of his mouth, not looking away from Annabeth, like he might conceivably disintegrate under the weight of her gaze at any second. "This was your idea anyway!"
"What. Do. You. Want?!" Annabeth ground out, and the pair jumped- actually leapt a centimeter or two off the ground.
"N-N-N-Nothing!" Nico was quick to yelp, backing away from the seething beast before him and crashing into Percy.
"No way," The daughter of Athena growled, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring daggers at her boyfriend "would you be disturbing me right now if you didn't have a great reason for it. Is Camp Half-Blood on fire?"
Percy gave an involuntary gulp. "No! It's not important. We were just being silly. Silly to come here, silly to bother you. We'll just leave you to it-"
"You're not leaving until you tell me what you came here for." Annabeth declared, very slowly and deliberately, as if on the verge of loosing it.
"W-Well," Nico was wringing his hands now, dark eyes darting round nervously. "W-W-We were just... we were just wondering..."
Percy finished for him. "You don't happen to have a dictionary anywhere, do you?"
Wordlessly, Annabeth grabbed the nearest volume she could find- which just so happened to be an extremely heavy, extended edition for those who wished to expand their vocabulary and chucked it in the general direction of his head, before slamming the door shut in their faces, and stumbling back over to her laptop.