A/N: So this is an idea from forever ago, that I worked on for awhile and then stopped, and then threw together at the last minute. The ending used to be a lot worse because I was rushed cause I wanted to post something on Percy's birthday and was too lazy to think of something better at the moment, but it has now been fixed, so I'm happy. For those who read the original, only the last two sections are different.

There will officially be a sequel (although I can't promise that it'll be any good), which I will post on Monday.

Anyway, let me know what you think in a review! And Happy Birthday, Percy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Nico probably should've seen it coming when Apollo showed up, winked at Percy, and then spent the next hour and a half improv-ing haikus about awkward conversations.

He should've seen it coming when Annabeth had all the cabin doors nailed shut, "for construction purposes".

He definitely should've seen it coming when Chiron closed off the entrance to camp, "for safety", and put Peleus by the forest to keep campers out of there too.

But he didn't sense that anything was wrong. Not until he got sick of hearing the word "awkward" transformed into one syllable, and tried to shadow travel away.

And found that it was physically impossible.

Nico would like to say he didn't freak out. He would be lying.

Eventually, he figures out that it was Apollo's sun powers destroying all the shadows, and debates whether to risk entering the forest, or try to politely ask Apollo to lower his brightness long enough for Nico to escape.

But before he can even make a decision, the conch horn is blown, signaling a counselor's meeting. Nico sighs and walks (something he's been avoiding doing much of lately) to the Big House, where he finds not all the counselors, but only four, sitting around the ping pong table.

And they are the four most conspicuous counselors the camp has to offer.

"Percy," he calmly greets his cousin, taking a seat across from him. He has neither spoken to nor thought about the son of Poseidon since the seven returned to camp. Somehow, Nico can tell this is his doing. "What's going on?"

Percy feigns innocence, but he's about the worst liar Nico's ever seen, and he lived in close proximity to politicians for a good chunk of his childhood. "Didn't you hear the conch?" Percy asks, sounding almost concerned. "It's a counselor's meeting."

Nico sighs, closes his eyes, opens them again. "Percy," he says, ignoring the other children of the Big Three, for now. "It doesn't count as a counselor's meeting when there's only five of us, and Chiron's not even here. Besides…" He glances at his sister, then takes a deep breath before pointing out the flaws in Percy's plan. "Thalia doesn't count as a counselor since her cabin is only here once every three hundred years," the daughter of Zeus is watching him, sizing him up, and Nico subconsciously realizes that he's met her maybe twice, and she probably has no idea why Percy is trying so hard to trick him.

"Last I heard," Nico continues, "Jason was in San Francisco, trying not to get killed by Reyna's magic dogs," he spares a glance at the son of Jupiter, who looks nervous; he knows why they're here. Nico just hopes for Jason's sake that he didn't say anything to Percy. "And Hazel doesn't even go to this camp!"

Percy stares at Nico, his sea-green eyes shining against Nico's black ones. The son of Hades forces himself not to look away, but it isn't easy. Percy then looks in turn at Thalia, at Jason, at Hazel. Then he sighs. "All right, fine. I admit, I asked you all here for a reason."

"The word ask implies that there was a chance to say no," Nico points out. Percy glares at him, as if Nico is being difficult on purpose. Maybe he is, he hasn't decided yet.

"The five of us need to have a talk," Percy continues. He's talking to all of them, but his eyes don't leave Nico's. "About… who we are… to each other."

"Meaning?" Jason questions.

Percy seems to think about that for a minute. "Meaning…" he finally says, looking away from Nico to address the others. Nico gratefully drops his gaze to the table, feeling a strange sense of relief, like he just won an intense staring contest. "Meaning our fathers don't have DNA, but they are brothers," Percy explains. "So… are we cousins?"

For a few minutes, there is silence. This is a topic no one expected to actually be brought up. It isn't something they were avoiding talking about, just something they didn't think was necessary to. Cousins. None of them has cousins, not real ones anyway. It is such a… familial word. Even with all the experience the five of them have had out in the world, family is something none of them are really used to.

"I think we are," Hazel finally speaks up. "I mean… Thalia, I don't really know you that well, but Jason and I have always been close, and I know, Percy, you and I have really grown together over the last few months. So, yes, I'd consider us family."

Percy nods, looking like he understands what she's saying but is disappointed by it anyway. "Let me put this a different way," he decides. "If one of us wanted to date another, would we be able to?"

This time, there is no silence.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jason asks, looking genuinely confused.

"Why would you even ask that?" Thalia demands at the same time, her voice full of disgust.

"Who, of the five of us, would date each other?" Hazel rationally points out.

Nico says nothing. He has nothing to say. Percy seems to notice this and looks like he's not sure whether to be disturbed or excited about it. Somehow, that makes Nico more angry than anything.

"Percy, do you have to be such an idiot?" he exclaims, and Percy looks surprised that he's spoken- Nico is glad, that was kind of the point. "You and Jason both have girlfriends, Hazel has a boyfriend, and Thalia can't date. How does that question even make any sense?"

Percy stares at him, his eyes narrowed slightly, as if trying to figure out the best way to make Nico break. Nico holds his gaze with a dark glare he learned from his father. Within seconds, Percy is looking away, and talking again, explaining himself, and Nico tries not to look smug over his small victory.

"I know it's a weird question," Percy admits. "But think about it this way. If, for whatever reason, Thalia chose to leave the Hunters-"

"You can't just leave the Hunters," the daughter of Zeus interrupts, rolling her eyes. "Either you stay, or you die."

Percy glares at her until she backs off, and Nico can practically hear the son of Poseidon thinking: Shut up, Thalia, you're ruining my plan. If he weren't in such a terrifying situation, Nico would smirk.

"This is all hypothetical, remember," Percy continues. "But as I was saying, if Thalia were to leave the Hunters, and decided that she wanted to go out with, say, Nico- hypothetically," he adds before Thalia can comment (but it doesn't stop her from shooting Nico a glare he does not feel he deserves). "Would she be able to, morally speaking?" Percy concludes. "Or would the rest of us feel that that would be... You know... Incestuous."

The word makes Nico flinch, because it's gone through his head millions of times, along with other, much more disgusting words that would be considered politically incorrect nowadays, but that he grew up hearing wherever he went. He finds himself wanting Percy to stop talking, wishing his stupid cousin would've just talked to him about this instead of pulling this whole charade and embarrassing him in front of the only family he's got.

It's not too bright inside the Big House. Nico could easily shadow travel away, leave the country without a trace and put all this pain and fear behind him. He greatly considers it, even starts to gather the shadows around in the room to him.

But then Jason speaks up.

"I think we're family," he announces without looking up from the ping-pong table, and Nico immediately drops the shadows with a start as Jason puts a comforting hand on his knee, under the table where the others can't see. "I think we're family and family should trust each other. We shouldn't judge the decisions others make, and if those decisions happen to be a bit... Unconventional... Then that's none of our business. And even if it were, it shouldn't matter. We're family, and so... The only thing that should matter..." He looks up, straight at Nico, and Nico finds himself no longer looking at a blonde son of Jupiter he learned to hate in a decrepit ruins in Croatia. He finds himself looking at family. "... Is that you're happy."

Time seems to slow down, as Nico and Jason stare at each other, and with a tiny incline of his head, Jason nods. Before he even knows what he's doing, Nico stands.

"Percy," he says without looking away from Jason, who's smiling in encouragement. "Can I talk to you? Outside? Please?"

He glances over at the son of Poseidon, who has a look in his eyes that Nico can't place: surprise, suspicion, maybe even understanding. But Percy nods and stands, and follows Nico outside, ignoring the looks of confusion and concern Thalia and Hazel are giving them and Jason.

Later, when this is all over, and Percy has returned to his cabin without dismissing the meeting and Nico has assured Hazel that everything's fine but there's no way he's gonna talk about it and Jason has patted Nico on the shoulder and hitched a shadow ride back to California, Thalia will roll her eyes and brush the whole thing off with an exasperated sigh of, "Boys." Hazel will never stop wondering what Nico and Percy talked about, until a decade and a half later, when she receives her brother's wedding invitation.

As soon as they're out of earshot of the others, Nico begins, worried he'll lose his nerve before he can say everything he wants to say, afraid Percy will try to start first and Nico will get scared and escape, terrified he'll lose the closest thing he has to a best friend.

"Look Percy, I don't know how much you know," he says, wringing his hands and refusing to look his cousin in the eye. "I don't know if Jason told you, or if you figured it out yourself, although I don't know how you could've because I tried so hard to keep it hidden, I practically avoided human contact for months because I wasn't sure what it would take to give myself away, and I did research and everything, I watched all the stereotypes, and I'm nothing like them, I know I'm not, and if I wasn't like this I wouldn't think it would be possible for me to be like this, but here I am, and it's like Jason said, Percy, we're family, and I know it's weird, gods, I know it's weird as Hades, but you've dealt with me this far, and I was a brat and a jerk and I almost locked you in the Underworld, for the gods' sakes! But you didn't care! You just kept helping me, for no reason, because you're just that kind of hero, the kind of hero I'll never be, and when you lost everything, and I could've given it back to you, I lied to you for my own selfish reasons, and then I went through Tartarus and was stupid as heck and got myself kidnapped, and you came and saved me anyway, and honestly, Percy? I don't know why. I don't know why you keep saving me, why you didn't just throw me out on the street, but gods am I glad that you didn't."

Finally, he pauses to take a breath, but Percy doesn't even try to interrupt. "Percy, you're my best friend. Most people would say my only friend. But you're more than that. Okay? You're more than just my friend, because I-... I love you. There's only two people I've ever loved in my entire life, and one of them is dead. And I... I used to blame you for that death, but I stopped a long time ago because I realized that I wasn't mad that I couldn't love Bianca anymore... I was just upset that the only person I could love... Well, I couldn't love you... Openly..."

This time, the silence stretches out, and Percy says nothing. Nico looks down at the floor, his cheeks red in embarrassment. "I understand if you don't want to be friends anymore-"

"Oh my gods, are you kidding?!" Percy cuts him off, and Nico looks up, surprised by the urgency in his cousin's tone. Percy looks scared. "Gods, Nico, no, don't- don't even say that, okay? Just... Gimme a minute to adjust here." He waits until Nico nods before continuing. "Look, I had my suspicions, okay? You'd been acting weird since Annabeth and I got out of Tartarus, and from what I learned from Hazel, even before that. I thought something was seriously wrong, some kind of side effect of Tartarus or something, but you kept avoiding me, and if it weren't for Hazel, you would've left altogether. I... I couldn't let you escape without making sure you were okay, so..."

Nico's almost afraid to listen, but without hesitation, Percy tells him the story.

The Hades Cabin, along with airplanes, the Underworld, and Radio City Music Hall, had always been one of those places Percy tended to avoid, just out of principle.

But when he thought Nico might leave forever, he had not a single moment of hesitation before he burst into Cabin 13.

"Nico, I-"

The cabin was empty. Stripped clean. No sign that anyone had ever lived there.

All that was left was a note.

Dearest Hazel, it read. I'm leaving for good. I just can't stand it anymore, being around people who will never accept me. Good luck at either camp. Be happy with Frank. Take care of Percy for me. Tell him I'll always love him.

See you on the other side,

Nico di Angelo

Percy stared at the letter, trying to decipher his cousin's words. As things started getting clear in his mind, he realized what he had to do.

"I… don't understand," Nico says once Percy has finished. "I never wrote Hazel a letter… And I wouldn't be stupid enough to leave it in my cabin, where anyone could walk in and see it!"

Percy frowns. "You- you didn't write that?"

Nico slowly shakes his head. "I was originally planning on leaving… and never coming back… but Jason and Reyna convinced me not to. I was just gonna get out of here for a couple days, but then you convinced everyone to close down camp."

Percy smiles sheepishly. "Sorry, I… I didn't want you to leave."

Nico nods and averts his gaze. "Yeah, I understand. But, you know… Not all of this was necessary… You didn't need to bring the others into this…"

"You're right," Percy agrees. "And I'm sorry. But I… I just didn't know how to confront you about it… I figured, with friends around, you might be more comfortable."

"Friends," Nico scoffs. "Right."

Percy frowns and reaches out to put a hand on his cousin's shoulder (Nico just barely manages not to flinch). "Hey, we are your friends," he insists. "Okay, maybe not Thalia, since she doesn't exactly make friends." That gets a smile out of Nico, but only a tiny one. "But Hazel, and Jason, and I are your friends. And we want you to trust us, so that we can help you when you need it. Okay?"

For a few minutes, Nico is silent. But finally, he nods. "Yeah. Okay."

Percy smiles proudly and starts the walk back to his cabin.

"Hey, Percy," Nico calls to stop him. Percy turns around. "Just so you know," Nico says, fiddling nervously with his hands. "I… I know it'd be totally weird if we dated. It was just a stupid crush."

Percy smirks. "Sure, Nico. Of course it was."

Nico's fairly sure Percy doesn't believe him, but the son of Poseidon is gone before Nico can think of anything else to say.

"Nico?" Hazel asks as soon as he comes back into the Big House. "Is… everything okay?"

Nico smirks at his sister, the closest thing to a smile he can muster. "Of course! Meeting's over, by the way. Do you need a ride back to camp?"

"Uh, no, I'm okay," Hazel says, sounding unconvinced. "I think I'm gonna stay a while."

"Can I get a lift?" Jason asks, standing from the ping pong table."

"Yeah, sure," Nico says. He holds open the front door and Jason leads the way outside.

"You alright?" Jason asks as they walk towards Half-Blood Hill.

Nico nods. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm good."

Jason studies him for a moment, then looks down at his feet, trying to hide a smile. "You know… Now that Percy knows, he's totally gonna start setting you up with people, right?"

Nico glares at him, but his sigh is accepting as he says, "Yeah. I know."

Jason grins and slings an arm around the son of Hades as they cross the borders. "Good. Just wanted to make sure."

Nico rolls his eyes and shoves him off, but his grip on Jason's hand is tight as they shadow travel away.

A/N: YAY I FIXED IT NOW THE ENDING DOESN'T SUCK. Hope you liked it, please review! :D