I. When Jason Grace realized that the naked man next to him in bed was Nico di Angelo, he almost had a heart attack. In a short while he managed to forget about said heart attack via round three of seven. It had been a good night and it was a good morning.

II. All Nico di Angelo was looking for was a quiet night out in a bar to sulk on his own after his father disowned him. He wasn't supposed to be swept off his feet by a stern blonde guy with a chip on his lip and a compulsory habit to kiss him on the chin. The guy (Jason, he'd told Nico) turned out to be a Grace, which Nico would have cared a lot more about if he hadn't just been disowned. He would've felt guilty about this if he wasn't a notorious grudge holder. His father can go and eat shit.

III. Never in Jason's life had he ever had a booty call. He had one now, listed on his phone as simply "Nick." At first he'd been hesitant, only responding to texts and calls from Nico, but then those trickled down and it became obvious to Jason that Nico wasn't the sort of person who liked to initiate things and that maybe Jason was acting too disinterested.

IV. How could he be so desperate and stupid? Jason obviously didn't want him in his life, he was just a random one nighter. It's just that Jason made waffles the morning after, and the only other person to do that had been Will. And Will had been the best experience and person that Nico had known in his life.

V. He called Nico to a diner that night, when he made the revelation.

"Hey, I'm sorry for the radio silence, you didn't deserve it."

"No, no, I'm the one who took it too far and thought stupid things."

"No, you're not! I was just thinking, that maybe we can take this slow. Maybe start with dinner?"

"Oh. I mean. Let me think about it." A beat. "Actually there's this convention that I'm planning on going to, uh, maybe if you want to-"

"Yes!"

VI. It was amazing, the convention was amazing, the new video games were amazing, Jason was amazing. It felt weird heading from the atmosphere of the convention to the more elegant restaurant that Jason had put in a reservation for. Nico hadn't had haute cuisine since Bianca's birthday last year, and it tasted as bland as he remembered it. On their way to his apartment they saw a news segment in the taxi about the competing companies. They ordered pizza afterwards. Both of them tiptoed away from the subject of their families.

VII. "What is the meaning of this?"

"You were spying on me?" He flung the photographs of him and Jason meeting together at his father. "How could you?"

"I was keeping an eye on you to make sure that you don't do anything stupid for your own good!"

"Since I'm such a huge fuck up how can anything I do be any good?" He asked, standing up.

"You can start doing something well by breaking off contact with the Grace kid."

"I'm not part of the family anymore, remember?" Nico snarled out, then stalked out of the room. He bumped into Bianca, who was entering, and ignored her worried calls.

VIII. He just returned from a business meeting in Stockholm when he received the text.

meet me at ur place. please.

There was a large consumption of hot chocolate and marshmallows that night.

IX. "Can't you see he's using you?"

"For what? For human comfort and a sense of intimacy with another person? I'm his boyfriend." It felt so good to use that word. Boyfriend.

"For information. He's nothing but a spy sent to sabotage our company! The Underworld Corp. is out for our blood and there's nothing that Hades would not do to see your mother and I fall."

"Father, please, Nico's not like that. Look, we've got a lot more serious things to talk about, let's not bring this up, okay?"

X. This was it, this was the deal that he'd been preparing for for years. Jupiter Enterprise was finally entering Asia, and he'd be at the forefront. There were so many deals that he had to cut, under the table agreements that needed to be had (none of them illegal or immoral, he made sure of that), and so much work put into.

"Good luck, Jace," Nico kissed him softly. "Go and get that shit wrecked." He'd been instrumental for managing Jason's stress levels as the date grew closer and closer. Jason could kiss him. He did.

XI. It was a disaster, this wasn't supposed to happen. They weren't supposed to pull out, something had happened, something had gone wrong, something hadleaked. And Jason didn't like to think about who leaked it. The Underworld Corp. representative looked much too smug.

XII. why aren't you responding

jace where are you

is everything okay

jace im worried here you haven't picked up

im coming over

XIII. "You think what? How could you?" Nico shook his head in amazement. "I would never sell you out to my dad, I barely even-"

"This doesn't look good for you, Nico. I need some time along."

"Jace, I didn't do it."

"Jace, please listen to me."

"Jace, don't- I can make you believe me, just let me explain how-"

The door slammed shut.

XIV. This wouldn't have happened if Nico had just been upfront about his disownment in the beginning. A relationship was built on trust, it was his fault. It was his fault. It was his fault that he's an untrustworthy person. That didn't mean that Jason Grace wasn't on his list of people he had grudges against.

XV. "Jason! I've got a lead on how they pulled the rug under you, I think you can really charge the living shit out of them!"

"What? I thought I told you not to bother."

"The business in China approached Underworld Corp. a year before you tried to seal the deal about a more advantageous contract for them. Apparently they didn't like your conditions but were forced to accept them because there's no one else on the same level they can sign with except for Underworld. I think you can really smack them with this and force something here!"

"Jason? Are you okay?"

"…Yeah, yeah I'm fine, Pipes. Let's get some work done."