Note: None of the characters are mine, they belong to Rick Riordan's wild imagination. I simply am a puppet master to help them get into the others pants.
Water resistant. Writes on back of Nico's new watch. He wasn't kind of a person who wears fancy stuff like watches but he had a problem, a big one at that. Since the end of the battle with Kronos ended Nico was having a hard time to track the time. He often sat on a chair couple of hours thinking only minutes had passed.
It was only when he started hanging out with a certain golden couple of the camp. Hours passed as months, if not years with them. It was a torture, seeing them together not understanding why he felt jealous and unhappy and still trying to smile as if he was the biggest fan of their relationship.
Confusing times, the times he thought he was in love with Annabeth and the guilt that doesn't seem to come into an end. He was feeling guilty over the fact he would rather them being apart or at least stayed as friends. He was feeling like he was much worse than Kronos because he did knew that two of them deserved each other after everything they've accomplished. They deserved happiness and peace, love and being loved, Nico didn't. End of the story. He didn't deserved being loved when it's dangerous for them to love. The ones who truly loved Nico were all dead and in terrible way too. He didn't want to see the ones he loved in the realm of his father. He didn't want them to be in pain. They should live their youth while Nico tried his hardest to stay away from them to do so.
So while he was staying at the Underground Palace he never wandered along, instead he worked. He worked hard to be able to protect those who he loved next time, dreaming there might be a day when he could be with them carelessly and happy. He worked hard to forget the pain, the war , him. Worked hard to remember and honor the ones who died during that bloody war and the ones he caused pain and death. He should have gotten used to the burning sensation, the caged feeling in where he though his heart were by now, after all he saw many of them and it was impossible not to feel the burden on his shoulders and stuck between dead wasn't helping at all.
The curse of heroes. Percy had that too. They shared the same feelings, same thoughts and that irremovable guilt of the ones they had to let go and not being able to save. But how they dealt with this was completely different from the other. While Nico closed himself between the dead, Percy tried to cheer people by reminding them they are still alive and gave hope of better days. Percy had friends something Nico didn't had and that changed how they cooperated with pain. That was what Nico thought anyway. He knew Percy could considered as a friend -sadly- and maybe few others too but he wasn't going to risk it.
None of the others meant Nico a much as Percy. He couldn't help himself amazed by him, feeling light and very much alive the times he's with him. Not that he could ever dream of being together, close to his hero like he wanted to, that thought alone made his heart weight a billion pounds and his stomach flying in places it shouldn't have. No, he didn't deserve Percy and never will he. He tried to get those thoughts by imagining him as the reason beneath Bianca's death, trying hard to see him as his enemy. Nothing worked. Because he knew it was Bianca's choice to save Percy and to do so she had sacrificed herself. Not like Percy wanted her to do, and if there was a choice Nico knew Percy would rather hug death than Bianca. And he also knew that Bianca died trying to get away the person she babysit all her life, she joined the hunters because of him and died also because of him.
'These thoughts had gone too wild.' he decided feeling himself getting weaker. He took a deep breath and locked Percy Jackson in a cage that must not be opened by anyone. But the lock wasn't safe as Nico wasn't water resistant like the skeleton watch on his left arm.
Writer's Note: This was something I wrote in the free time after I finished my math exam and the examiners disgusted face encouraged me to publish it. Any interest shown and i will continue to publish new chapters. Thanks for reading...