I groaned, crawling slowly out of bed. I rubbed my tired eyes, glancing at the wall clock in the corner. In big red, it read 1:07 AM. I picked up my sword in the corner, ready to kill whoever in their right mind was waking me up at 1 am. When I opened the door to the Hades cabin, I was slightly shocked to see Percy Jackson standing on the other side. His hair was swept to one side, and dried drool stained his sweatshirt. He had on that, as well as blue pajama bottoms and ratty old Converse.

I scowled, raising my sword threateningly at him. He looked extremely tired (like how I felt), but smiled shyly. "Mornin' Neeks," he said in a whispered.

"What the fuck do you want?" I asked harshly. "It's 1 am, for Hades' sake!"

"Ssh, I don't want to get eaten by harpies, kay?" Percy said. He brushed past me, stepping in and closing the door. "Can I come in?"

"Your already in, genius." I stated. I raised the tip of my sword at his neck, lifting his chin. "Now, I will repeat. What. The fuck. Do you want?"

Percy pushed the blade down, then scratched the back of his neck nervously, looking down. "I…uh…had a nightmare. So I woke up and paced my cabin for a while, contemplating going to Annabeth or something."

"Annabeth's in California," I pointed out.

"Could you put the sword down?" Percy asked. I complied with a sigh, tossing it into a dark corner.

"And yes, I realized." Percy stated. "So, I thought about something that'd been bothering me for a while."

I looked at him quizzically. "Remember that summer that I brought you to camp? And shit went down and all that, and you…well…you got all dark and what not."

"Yeah?"

"Well, Hestia gave me something. Said I'd like it, sometime, someday." Percy said. "I didn't come here to ask you to comfort me or anything. We both have people for comforting."

"There'd probably be no comfort left in your muscular body," I muttered.

"Huh?"

"Nothing." I said quickly. "Carry on."

"Would you…maybe…teach me?"

"To speak in coherent sentences perhaps?" I asked jokingly.

Percy laughed without humor. "Ha ha, Nico." Percy said. "Could you teach me to play Mythomagic?"

"What?" I asked. "No, I can't. I don't have—I can't."

"It's cool if you don't want to," Percy said, a hint of disappoint in his voice. "I had all your old stuff, if you had said yes. I just..."

I looked at him expectantly.

"I don't really want to go back to sleep," he whispered.

"I guess, we could play some Mythomagic," I said with a shrug. "But I won't Annabeth you. You need to keep up."

Percy smiled brightly, opening the door and dragging in a large cardboard box. "It was extremely difficult to get this from my cabin to here. I nearly got caught, and that would've been bad."

"Someone'd have to explain to a very scary daughter of Athena why we found bits of her boyfriend in the teeth of harpies," I joked, making Percy laugh.

I set the box in the middle of the cabin, sighing in satisfaction. I went to the corner, turning on the newly installed lights. "Show me your ways, master." Percy mock-bowed.

"Have a seat, my pupil. We'll be up all night, trying to get all this in the kelp filled head." I said, sitting myself on the ground. On the side of the box, written in Percy's chicken scratch handwriting was Nico's Mythomagic Stuff.

I opened the box, spilling the contents on the floor. Dozens of old memories flooded my mind as cards and figurines alike came on display. Percy whistled from his seat across from me. "That's a lot of stuff."

"There's more." I said. "These are just the tradable products. There's a board, for board game play. Ever watched Gravity Falls?"

"Sometimes, but only when I was with Annabeth's brothers." Percy said.

"There's this one episode in Season 2, they played this game—"

"Dungeons, Dungeons, and more Dungeons!" Percy shouted. "I remember! Oh gods, please don't tell me there's math in this."

"Don't worry stupid, not too much math."

"Okay…wait, there's math?" Percy asked.

"You need to be able to add, subtract, multiply and divide to be able to tell if your dead or not." Percy stared at me blankly, like I had just asked him to do a trigonometry problem.

"So basically, you start as a demigod—"

"I am a demigod."

"Percy, shut up! Let me finish my explanation."

"Sorry."

"Okay, so as a demigod, you pick your godly parentage. Each god or goddess has a certain amount of attack points, health, etcetera. As the demigod, you get half of their points."

"So I'd get half Athena's smarts?"

"Yes, but you'd really choose Athena?" I asked skeptically.

"Are you kidding. I've always wanted to be smart. Even in a game." Percy said. "Let's start now. You can explain as we go."

I got up, going over to my desk and opening the second draw. On the bottom of the draw was a ratty old cardboard box, seventy years old and counting. I had gotten it when I was in the Lotus Hotel, when I had first gotten there. Time was tough there, so I can't specifically tell you when it was purchased. It could've been used and old or brand new. I'd done some research about it, when I first got to camp, and it was, surely, seventy-two years old then. That was four years ago. So it was like, seventy-six by now.

I took out the box, going back to Percy, and sitting on the ground. "Now I shall warn you, this is pretty old. I can try to make you understand this old gibberish, but–" I shrugged, the continued, "I'm not necessarily from this century. Don't even go to school."

"No one says 'gibberish'," Percy said with a light laugh.

I laughed as well, saying, "Don't talk back to your elders, mister. Gosh, youngsters these days with the smart things and i-looks."

Percy's head fell back as he laughed, clapping his hands together. "Your funny," Percy pointed out.

"Shut up," I muttered, feeling my face heat up as I looked away. I opened the box, pulling out and unfolding the large board.

"Why does it look so familiar?" Percy wondered aloud.

I rolled my eyes. He had to be joking. There was no way he was that confused. Just in case, I said, "Percy, this is a map of the United States."

He snapped his fingers, pointing at me. "That's what it looks like. Why is it a map, of the US?"

"It's like Risk." I said.

"How could you possibly know the name of so many board games?"

"I don't have to explain what Risk is, do I?"

"Nah, I've seen it in the Athena cabin." Percy said nonchalantly. Then, he added quickly, "When I go in for cabin checks, I mean. I don't usually just spend my free time in there. I'm pretty sure that's not allowed."

I picked up a mountain, holding it up for Percy to see. "This is Mt. Olympus. Me, the game owner, is allowed to place it where I want. Olympus and it's surrounding area is your goal." Nico explained, placing the mountain in the northeastern corner of the map. "Now we've got our neutral gods, Zeus and Hera. They stay on Olympus. Poseidon and Hades are split in their realms, the sea and the underworld."

I pointed to a darker part of the board on the west, placing a Hades figurine in the center. Then, I placed the other three in their designated places. I could feel Percy watching as I carefully lined up more figurines and separated cards, muttering things in Italian. It was as if I was possessed, placing figurines on the board, gods and monsters alike, along with little places like a group of tree or another mountain.

Glancing up, I saw Percy watching intently, and instantly blushed. "Uh…sorry," I stammered.

"No no, I love watching people nerd out," Percy said. "It makes me think of Annabeth."

"No offense, but I don't want to be compared to your girlfriend," I stated. "So, demigod, choose your parentage."

"I get to choose?" Percy asked.

"Yeah. You can pick any Olympian except Artemis, Hera, Hestia, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus."

"But I am a son of Poseidon," Percy pointed out.

"It's in the rules," I persisted. "No arguing. You'd think they'd let you pick Zeus since he was always fucking mortals."

Percy laughed, his head falling back. "Zeus is gonna try to kill you, man. He's already on my ass, don't want you on his list too."

"He's been after me since I was born," I muttered.

"C'mon, teach me," Percy said, his energy similar to a toddler. "I can't pick a minor god?"

"This game is from before people actually cared about the minors, no offense to them. Before Percy Jackson and Jason Grace decided to honor all the gods, they made this game."

"I wanna be an Athena child," he stated. I stared at him like he was stupid, my mouth gaping open.

"I don't think Athena wants you," I finally stated.

"I don't care. This is the one chance I get to be a old of Athena," Percy stated.

"I choose Hephaestus," I stated. "As their demigod child, we get half the points they have. So if Athena gets 3,000 attack points, you'd get—?"

Percy looked at me, his eyes blank. "Do you expect me to do the math?"

I groaned, dropping my head down. "Percy, you cannot be a senior in high school and be that stupid," I stated.

"Well Nico, I didn't miss the entire second semester of when I was supposed to be doing algebra 2, so," he shrugged.

Watching Percy talk about stuff like this was always fascinating. It was like he could joke and laugh about the most horrible experiences like it was nothing. It was something I'd only even seen Leo Valdez do.

"You don't—never mind," I said, figuring it wasn't worth the fight. "Half of 3,000 is 1500. You just split all of Athena cool moves and power points in half and you've got yours."

I handed him Athena's card that listed all of that mentioned above. "So your starting territory is that part of the country right above New York."

"The northeast," he stated.

"Correct. More specifically, Massachusetts." I said. "To move, you have to roll this 13-sided die. The number it lands on his the amount you move. So if your in Massachusetts and you roll a two, you can students go through Connecticut then New York, New York to New Jersey, or New York to Pennsylvania. Depending on where you stop, you can either try to conquer that area or just pass through. Every time you conquer a territory, you get to add whatever god/monster was residing there's points to yours. Then when we meet up, we have to battle it out. If no one wins then the winner is decided on who has the most territory."

"Cool," Percy said.

"Your going down, Jackson," I said, my competitive nature rising.

~7 Hours Later…~

"Minus fifty knowledge, your next move is completely useless, Stupid!" Percy exclaimed.

"You can't do that!" I shouted back.

"Yes I can, I'm getting creative," he stated matter-of-factly. "My turn again." He rolled the die, seeing it land with the 9 up. I snatched up the die, rolling it on the map as it landed on the 11.

"Ha!" I shouted. "I set fire to you and your weapons! Minus one hundred attack points and ten health."

"No! Stop doing that! I must win!" Percy shouted. "I'm at fifty health points man."

"You shouldn't have went in that cave a while ago," I stated.

He rolled his eyes, then said, "Just role."

I picked up the die, rolling it on the board. Peering over, I saw that the 3 was face up. My winning streak (of one) was crushed, because there was no way Percy could get a number lower then me. Of course, the probability of that happening was 2 out of 13. He picked up the die, tossing it onto the board. It skirted around, landing with the 12 face up on the edge of the board.

"Yes!" he exclaimed.

"No! It's outside of the board!" I shouted.

"Nuh uh."

"Uh, yah huh."

"Nuh uh."

"Yah huh."

"Nun huh."

"Yes it did!" I shouted.

"No it didn't!" he yelled back.

The ground rumbled slightly, knocking the die off the board. "See! Now it's off the board!" I stated, smirking proudly.

"You cheated! You're a cheating chump."

I gasped. "You take that back."

It was his turn to smirk. "Make me."

Mythomagic brings out the worst in people. When I was with Frank once, we were discussing some old stories. He'd mentioned how a child of Mars had killed his own sister because he claimed she cheated at Mythomagic.

After Percy's snarky comment, it was a blood bath. Not literally, our course. Of course I did grab my sword, and we did try to kill each other. We were both pretty sleep deprived though, so it was more of a sugar/caffeinated-fueled battle. Within minutes, I had Percy pinned underneath me, my sword pressed against his neck as we both were breathing hard. With quick realization, I flushed red at our close proximity.

"I'll roll again," he decided.

I nodded, rolling off of him and going back to my seat. Percy sat up, picking up the die and rolling again. 5 "Brutal stabbing, minus 50 health."

I glared at him, snatching up the die. Before I could let it roll, Percy spoke. "Don't get all awkward on me dude." he groaned. "We were having fun."

"Mhm," I said, nodding slightly.

"I mean, I know I've got this undying beauty that's super irresistible, but still, no need to feel weird about being so close. I get it, I'm awesome."

"Your also cocky," I pointed out. He smiled, a dazzling smile that would've convinced anyone that he was very arrogant. Seeing that we'd been hanging out all night, plus I'd seen many people try to show fake happiness. I could tell something was off. The only question now was whether or not I was going to act on it.

Subtly, or as much as I could manage, I asked, "You good bro?" like I'd heard Jason and Percy do.

Percy's lip twitched ever so slightly. "Bro?"

Feeling as if I'd said the wrong thing, I began stuttering out excuses. After a minute, Percy laughed, silencing me. "No bro, were good. I never thought…I didn't think you considered us bros." Percy explained.

"Bro," I said slowly.

"Bro," Percy said with a nod.

"Oh gods," I muttered, putting my head in my hands. "We're not gonna be like how you and Jason are, are we?"

"Bro," Percy said with knowing smile.

"No." I stated. The conch-horn sounded, signaling breakfast. "We'll finish this game later. I know your fat-ass wants food."

"You know me so well, Nic-bro."

"Stop it!" I exclaimed, but couldn't help but smile as we made our way to the dining pavilion.

A/N: Yay! So, as you can see, it's marked as incomplete. That's because there's gonna be a second part, probably longer. I just really love the bromance of Percy and Nico, which isn't really shown in some stories. I think it's because of the inclusion of Will as Nico's partner and now most people focus on Solangelo instead of personal friendships. But yes, wait for part two, coming soon!

**UPDATE** So, I've been getting a lot (like two) comments about how Percy isn't so stupid that he can't even recognize a map of his own country. Let me explain. I don't know if you guys know this, but I am exceptionally smart. Not super duper smart, but pretty smart. But sometimes, I like to play stupid for the fun of it. So in the part, up above, that's how Percy was. Letting on that he didn't know what it was, even though he did. Sorry that I didn't make that clear. But I can assure you that I don't think of Percy as that dumb. I actually consider him pretty smart. Like most guys I've encountered, he's smart but does stupid things, probably.

Inconclusion, I do not think of Percy as dumb, sorry for the miss interpretation.

Read and review!

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