Confessions in the Sand

by Kairelite

Oneshot! Takes place a bit after HOH. Nico, in a strange fit of insomnia, decides to walk on the beach to clear his head. Unfortunately, exactly the opposite happens. If you don't like shounen-ai of any sort, don't read.

A/N: Just a oneshot I wrote out of feels after I read The House of Hades.

Disclaimer: If I was Rick Riordan, would I be putting this on FanFiction? I think not.

Warning: Spoilers for HOH!

Why couldn't he say it?

Nico sighed in frustration, staring at the sand. Small waves lapped at his toes, a constant reminder of why he was sitting on the beach in the first place, looking at the stars and the moon every now and then. The sand stirred a few feet away from him, and the shell of a small crab surfaced and scuttled away. The dead were getting restless, the way they usually did when he was agitated.

His Stygian iron sword lay on the sediment beside him, glowing eerily. Nico picked up the sword, careful not to touch the blade, and wrote five letters in the sand beside him.

Ti Amo.

I love you.

No matter how much he tried, he just couldn't eliminate those small shards of longing. Longing, for something that could never be obtained.

Jason knew about those shards, and Nico'd been paranoid for a brief time that he'd tell the rest of the seven, but his worries were for naught. The roman demigod could be trusted with this secret.

The Italian words were swiftly washed away by the tide, just as Nico wished the feelings behind those words could be. He hated those feelings.

Nico shivered slightly as a light breeze brushed against his cheek, pulling his bomber jacket tighter around himself.

Why are you so on edge? Everyone else would ask.

Nico'd just walk away.

The Athena Parthenos was safely stowed away in Bunker Nine after Reyna'd delivered it, which Octavian was certainly not happy about. The son of Hades suspected the scrawny Legacy of Apollo was secretly a spy for Gaea, but who was he to judge? The two camps were finally at peace, at least for a little while.

So why did he feel so restless?

Easy answer.

The prophecy.

Even as he thought, Nico knew The Seven were on their way to Athens to hopefully defeat Mother Earth. And among them, the one person Nico cared for the most. The one person he couldn't get out of his head. The one person that Nico wrote those words in Italian for, just to make sure that nobody could read them if they happened to look over his shoulder. The one reason there were tear stains on the sleeve of his jacket.

Percy Jackson.