Summary: The reality of it is that there is only a small percentage of people in this very large, very tricky world who ever find true love. No more than one percent. — Valdangelo. Soulmate!AU.
A/N: the writer's block was too real with this one. and why are leo's dialogue lines so hard to write rip. i'm very rusty with pjo characters, pls forgive me.
Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
Hues of Love
The sky is blue. Shades of cyan and sapphire and cerulean peak out from behind the clouds and the world above them glows a soft orange during a particularly beautiful sunset. Hints of pink and purple sneak in to wave goodbye to another day and when night finally settles over the heads of people all over the globe, layers of indigo paint the sky.
Green sprinkles across forests. Leaves fall to the ground in raindrops of chartreuse and moss grows on rocks in dull hues of jade. The sunlight that filters through the gaps are warm, yellow rays.
Birds are a little more difficult to describe. Robins have a black head that fades gradually into a gentle grey and their stomachs can range from the traditional orange to tangerine to amber. Male ducks are yellow-beaked with green heads while females are tinged brown all over. Swans are the absence of colour, untainted and one of the purest things on the planet.
The sky is blue and forests are green and birds can be a multitude of colours. Nico's been told this many times by many different people.
He's not sure he entirely believes them.
.
Nico di Angelo blinks slowly. Once, twice. Three times.
He looks back and forth between the fire extinguisher that hangs on the wall of the small coffee shop and his friends on the other side of their table. "Is it really… red?" The word is unfamiliar on his tongue and he presses his lips into a frown. "Do you actually see it? In colour?"
Percy nods excitedly and Annabeth's face holds a secretive smile. They've told him that it's the same colour as the drop of blood on your finger when you accidentally prick it with a needle and the exhales of your breath when you're so angry that the world spins.
Nico finds all of it hard to believe when he can't see what they see—when all he sees is grey, grey, grey.
"Fine," he sighs and forces his tone not to sound too heavy when he speaks. "I'm happy for you. Really. Congratulations on finding each other." On finding love.
Because the reality of it is that there is only a small percentage of people in this very large, very tricky world who ever find true love. No more than one percent.
When the two of them leave, hands laced together on a high that the majority of the population will never understand, Nico sinks deeper into his seat and sips slowly at his drink. He thinks about what they told him and how strange and foreign all of it sounds. Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase, his best friends. Now soulmates.
The three of them have known each other since elementary school and the world had still been colourless back then. A month ago, Annabeth said that she could see spots of light all around her, starting with the sea-green of Percy's eyes, and that as the days passed, more and more colour filled her vision. And then, just two weeks ago, Percy stopped walking suddenly in the middle of the street and looked around in a daze. Later on, he explained it like it were an open hose, explosions of blues and purples and oranges splashing onto walls and people's shirts.
The little girl's cotton candy is pink.
The bricks on the building beside them are a mixture of red and brown.
Annabeth's hair is blonde.
And Nico—Nico doesn't know any of that. He can describe the colours after hearing his friends talk about it for the past month—yellow is the fresh air you breathe in on a sunny afternoon and the tingling vibrations on your skin when you're so excited that you can't sleep—but those are just ideas. Foreign notions. Easy to say in words but for someone who can only see the world through a grey filter, Nico can't actually experience the colours.
He sighs. One percent. It's almost—
"—a cruel concept."
Nico jolts at the sound of another person's voice. He glances up just in time to see a boy slide into the empty seat across from him that Percy and Annabeth left, the stranger smiles easily at him when he sends the boy a hard look.
"Hey, sorry, didn't mean to startle you." There are light dimples on his tanned cheeks as he leans in to ask, "I just—overheard you guys talking earlier. Can you see—?"
Nico takes in the sight of this boy with curly hair for a moment before shaking his head. "No, not me. But my friends can, though."
"Ah, same as me then. Life really is unfair." The boy leans back looking slightly disappointed, visibly deflating, before stretching out a hand in greeting. "I'm Leo Valdez, by the way, and I'm part of the unfortunate ninety-nine percent of the population that can't see colours. And you are…?"
Leo's hand is hard to the touch when Nico reaches out to clasp it in his own uncertainly, callouses staining his skin caused by something Nico doesn't know yet. For some reason, though, he can feel the corners of his lips lifting upward despite his initial hesitation.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Nico di Angelo and I can't see colours either."
.
The next time they meet, it's deliberate and Nico gets lost three times.
"How do you expect anyone to find this place?" He grumbles in annoyance when he finally arrives at the mechanics store Leo works at after following a series of small alleyways near the questionable part of town.
The curly haired boy looks up from adjusting the wheel of a bike and shrugs. "It's not that hard if you know where to look. You better memorize the route, di Angelo, because you're going to be comping back here more often from now on."
It's a casual sentence but it's hard for Nico to not think about the implications behind that line. It's an invitation stated like a fact. A reassurance—to whom, he doesn't exactly know.
He smiles. Leo is sly.
They make small talk while the older boy finishes up. Questions about nothing in particular are thrown out to pass the time and at one point Nico almost slips up, almost says, I hope you never find your soulmate. It's a cruel thought that passes through his mind and it's not fair to Leo so he swallows the words back down until he's sure they won't resurface again. Drowns them in shades of grey and continues on as if nothing's happened.
When they leave the mechanics shop, Leo rests an arm nonchalantly around Nico's shoulders and Nico wonders if the strangers on the street think, oh, they must be able to see colours. Something in Nico's heart flutters at the possibility.
He hopes that they do.
.
"You said that your friends can see colours, too, right?"
Leo looks up and nods, talking through a mouthful of chicken wings when he answers, "Yeah, Jason and Piper. They claim that they met two years ago by complete chance but, dude, coincidences like that don't just happen." He sighs. "It really was like their worlds changed after finding each other."
"How did it happen?" Nico grabs a piece of chicken for himself from the tray and chews. He holds up the wing and wonders what it would look like in colour. Would it make it seem more appetizing? Maybe there are textures that only reveal themselves through shades of turquoise or coffee-brown or mahogany. What colours make up a chicken, anyway?
Leo taps his piece of food against Nico's in cheers and laughs when the younger boy almost drops his at the sudden action. "Man, Jason tried to describe it to me once but I didn't really get what he was saying. Something like the colours started with Piper, then spread onto everything she came in contact with, and eventually, the rest of the world. All in the span of a few minutes, kind of like a rippling effect." He shrugs, shaking his head. "I guess I'll never truly understand until I experience it myself."
There's a pause of thoughtful chewing before Nico asks, "Do you think you'll find them? Your soulmate, I mean." Because it's so interesting how every story he hears about the discovery of colours is so different. How Jason and Piper's meeting differs from Percy's and Annabeth's. And they all have the potential to see it for themselves, to fill in the missing pieces of their lives, but there will always be people who die without ever knowing, without ever seeing. Nico thinks about it a lot.
But the older boy's smile turns sad as he stops chewing for a second. "I'd like to believe that I will but—there's too many people out there. Not likely." Leo resumes his eating, the twinkle back in his eyes. "Whoever it is though, they're missing out on someone great, if I do say so myself."
Nico raises an eyebrow. "You?"
"Who else?"
He huffs. "As if, Valdez."
And they're not soulmates, not each other's forever and always, not meant to be, but still—
"Hey," when Nico speaks up again, it's a little nervous, a little desperate, a little hopeful, "do you, um, want to go out with me?"
It comes out somewhat unintentionally, just a breath whispered to the open air. Experimentally, almost. Nico's sure his cheeks would be a dark pink if he could see colours and he's almost certain Leo's going to laugh at him because this isn't right, this isn't how their world works. But the mechanic's face is a surprised purple which soon softens into orange then yellow then red and this isn't right but maybe it isn't entirely wrong either.
Leo is smiling wide and his laughter is magenta, contagious, when he replies, "—hell yeah."
And the world is still very much grey, still dull and monochrome, but when Nico says goodbye to his boyfriend that day, he thinks he can see the hues of love peeking out from a space just beyond the line of his sight.
.
"Let's go on a date."
Although it's a cloudy afternoon, Nico can still feel the sun's rays trying to roast him alive like it's picking a fight, and he has to squint slightly to look up at Leo. "A date?"
The older boy shrugs. "Yeah, why not? We haven't gone on one yet so I was thinking that we should, you know, do something together. As a couple."
Nico looks away because he may or may not be blushing and the heat on his cheeks this time may or may not be caused by the sun. "Sure." A pause. "Um, I have something I want to show you? If that's okay?"
Leo grins. "Lead the way, di Angelo."
So Nico walks and Leo follows and they talk about the things they can't see. He tells Leo that he recently got a bruise on his arm near his elbow that Percy said was mahogany. Then he points to the watch on the mechanic's wrist, explaining that it was probably a similar shade to his bruise.
"What else is mahogany?" Leo asks out of pure curiosity and Nico pauses to think because he doesn't actually know.
"Guitars, maybe?" The younger boy replies, shrugging. "I heard wood is generally described to be that colour too, like desks and chairs or something. I bet that a lot of the stuff you work with is mahogany, actually. Who knows."
And really, who knows for sure? Only one percent and certainly not them, but it's fun to speculate sometimes.
When they arrive at their destination, they've hypothesized about a whole spectrum of different colours: from rose, the darker areas of a person's cheeks if they've been out in the cold for too long, to pastels, bright and artificial but muted at the same time like the icing on cupcakes.
They're walking through a row of graves when Leo cuts off their conversation and says, "—dude, your idea of a date is way off." He sounds unprepared for a spontaneous visit to the cemetery, which Nico can't exactly blame him for. "Don't you know that meeting dead family members only comes six months into the relationship and after at least our first kiss?"
"Your fault for letting me choose," Nico stuffs his hands deep into his pockets and then, quieter, he says, "I just wanted you to meet my sister."
A flicker of understanding passes through Leo's eyes as he kneels down on the floor in front of Bianca di Angelo's name. The older boy is silent with a kind of concentration that is only reserved for when he works with machines and Nico wonders if this was a bad idea, after all; if he really should have waited six months to see if Leo sticks around that long before bringing him to see Bianca. It is only their first date, after all, maybe he got caught up in the moment and maybe he's moving too fast—
—but maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe none of it matters.
What matters is that right here, even if they're not soulmates, Nico thinks that his soul is pretty happy to be next to Leo's, sitting in front of his sister's gravestone on a cloudy afternoon and talking about the colours of the world that they aren't allowed to experience.
.
("You might never meet your soulmate, you know," Nico says quietly one day, insecurities flowing out of him, "if you continue dating me." You might never see the colours.
"I know." Leo smiles and leans over to kiss the younger boy on the cheek. "I don't care."
"—then I don't care, either." And Nico kisses him back on the lips.
It's their first real kiss and there's no magic to it. No flying sparks of red or blue or green—just grey. And for once, just grey is all they need, all they're asking for. It's their first real kiss and it's enough.)
.
Leo is always, always restless. Too many ideas running through his head at once and he needs something to work on with his hands otherwise things get uncomfortable, unbearable. Even when he's just thinking, he still needs to move and tap his fingers on different surfaces absentmindedly and make noise in general.
Nico sits on the couch, trying to sleep. It's an impossible task when the mechanic is muttering to himself, this is supposed to work, why isn't it working, shit, where's my screwdriver, get it together Valdez, okayokayokayokay—
Groaning, Nico tries to shift his position in attempt to block out the sounds of anguish Leo is expressing. It works for about a minute, maybe less, until he hears his name and all sense of sleep leaves his body.
"Nico, man, I love you, but I really need you to get up for a second. You're on top of my screwdriver."
There's a second when Nico's breath hitches and all his muscles tense up at once because maybe he's delirious now and he might already be half-asleep for all he knows. This could just be a very elaborate dream. He kind of wishes it isn't. "—do you really?" Love me?
"What?" Leo blinks. "Yes, I do. I really need my screwdriver."
Nico shakes his head. Something in his heart drops. "Never mind," he mutters, shifting so that he can reach a hand into the crease of the couch to pick up Leo's tool. "Here's your screwdriver."
Their fingers brush during the exchange and of course those simple words held no deeper meaning, he should've known. In this world, the colours are the game-changer, the deciding factor; the colours will always, always come first. Love takes second place and it doesn't work the other way around. It doesn't work.
"I do mean it." There's a rare blush on the mechanic's cheeks when the younger boy looks up in surprise.
"O-oh," Nico says, the thump thump thump of his heart ringing in his ears. "But what about—" What about your soulmate? What about true love?
"Doesn't matter," Leo shushes him with a wave. "Enough questions, di Angelo. Come here and help me build this."
Nico stares at him for a second, frowning, because how can Leo dismiss the topic as if it's not a big deal? Or perhaps—perhaps Leo is right and he's making thing more complicated than they need to be. They've decided to be together and that's it. Nothing else has to be a concern because they're here and they're both still colour-blind but they chose each other regardless.
"Okay," he says, getting up to join Leo on the floor.
And it's okay.
They're okay.
.
Everyone experiences the colours differently. For Annabeth, it comes to her in drips, raindrops of colours appearing little by little, day by day, until the storm subsides and what's left is world of rainbows. Percy's is more unexpected, more impulsive and abrupt, a one-second flip from a monochrome universe to one vibrant with energy. You should've seen it, Percy exclaims when he describes the feeling to Nico and, well, that's the problem, isn't it? Not everyone can see.
Everyone experiences the colours differently. Some don't experience them at all.
And that's okay. Only one percent of the population can see in colour and Nico may not be part of that small portion, but he's still in love.
Leo is cuddled up against him as they spend a lazy Saturday night together watching movies. Outside, the sky isn't blue and the forest isn't green and the birds aren't multi-coloured. But when Leo smiles after telling one of his lame jokes, Nico thinks he can see tinges of yellow and orange on the roof of the older boy's mouth and when Leo is acutely focused on tampering with a machine of some sort, he is shaded brown with determination.
It may not be true love but it's still love in the truest form and he thinks that maybe he doesn't need to actually find his soulmate to live a colourful life.
a/n: find your own colours.