"Oh not you again," Nico muttered. Couldn't he go anywhere in Europe without the West Wind stalking him?
It was one of the few peaceful moments of the 'return the Athena Parthenos' mission. In fact, a few days in, this was the first. Reyna and Coach Hedge were asleep and Nico was on watch for once, sitting at the mouth of the cave they were hiding in. They were somewhere in Northern Europe, a few shadow-travels from the big one back to the States.
Nico was watching the lights in the nearest city blink, far away across the expanse of tiny towns and rolling hills. The air was warm and for about five minutes he almost felt comfortable, just sitting in the shadows. Then he heard a tiny cough somewhere to the left and almost put his sword through Favonius' nose.
"Oh, don't try that," Favonius said, twirling that bleeping hoop. "I'm here to guide, remember." Yeah. Not summon his evil master who had forced Nico to face up to the…. thing.
"Still struggling with everything?" Favonius seemed genuinely sympathetic. Nico edged forward as to not wake the others, keeping his sword up. He didn't want this dude any closer than absolutely necessary. "Have you even talked about it?"
Jason had tried.
Part of Nico thought that maybe, if they hadn't got back, if they were far, far away, he might have opened up to Jason.
Maybe.
No he wouldn't. At the thought of actually admitting it, he thought he might vomit. His stomach twisted, and when he remembered Salona, it dropped.
"Well, at least you're not in denial anymore," Favonius said comfortably and sat down cross-legged - just sat, like they were mortals watching TV or something -
on the gravel. "Acceptance is the first step to understanding, as they say."
"Isn't it 'acceptance is the first step to recovery'?" Nico asked in spite of himself.
"'Recovery' implies an illness, don't you think?"
"It is an illness."
"Oh?" That basket of fruit had materialised, and Favonius tapped it absent-mindedly. "Do you mean your sexuality or the fact that you are in love with someone who can never love you back?"
Nico flinched.
He hadn't admitted that to anyone, least of all himself. Not in those words… not really. Salona had been the closest he'd come, ever, to vocalising his feelings – and even then he had spat out the words, disgusted with himself and using the past tense because if he pretended it wasn't a big deal, maybe it wouldn't be. He knew he couldn't lie to Cupid, so he gave him the least-painful version of the truth.
Nico thought that if he tried to reply, even to be flippant – which was really Percy's style rather than his, part of his brain noted – he might summon more of the undead. Everyone else had learned to control their powers, even Leo with his flammable fingers and Hazel with her gemstones, and Nico didn't want to be the odd one out in that area too. He was the son of one of the Big Three; he was supposed to own his abilities, not the other way round. If Bianca were here, maybe they could have learned together. She had always been the more composed of the two siblings, even when they were younger. He wouldn't have had to explain his feelings to her either, she would have just got it. Even if she were off with those Hunter girls, she maybe would have ruffled his hair and suggested that he turn his back on the company of men too. But she would have smiled in a way that made it okay.
Oh gods, it hurt. He wasn't sure which was worse – watching him plunge into Tartarus knowing what was in there, or watching him plunge in for her. Because he loved her so much he couldn't let her go. Or was it being around them that was worst? Watching them be so happy and natural and right… or was it the years that he had spent in the shadows, with every cell in his body wanting to go wherever he was… and then on the few occasions he did see him and they weren't trying to kill each other, he thought his heart might explode. How was he supposed to act? Was it obvious? No, he could not sit any closer. He shouldn't. It was wrong in every sense of the word.
Sometimes he thought he hated himself even more than he hated his feelings. On the rare days he actually tried to get to sleep, instead of staying awake as long as possible so he passed out, he wanted to crawl out of his own skin. Underneath all the love and anguish and unfairness of Percy was the knot in his gut that was his… his… abnormality. He was wrong. If it hadn't been Percy it might have been someone else and sometimes when his head was clear he didn't blame Percy or even Annabeth – he blamed whatever part of him the gods had cursed so that he could never fall in love in the right way.
Nico realised he was sitting down too, his back to the cave and his sword at his side. He wasn't sure if five seconds had passed or five minutes, if the thoughts and feelings had crashed into him or washed over him; but Favonius was watching him through his curls, waiting for him to speak first.
"The arrow Cupid shot at me. Does that mean I'll fall for somebody else, or…?"
It was the only thing Nico could think to say – the only thing that didn't involve feelings – and it had been in the back of his mind since Salona. Favonius considered Nico the same way a teacher might a student who's just asked a completely new question.
"I don't know," he admitted. "Cupid's arrows work however he wills them, although traditionally they make the recipient fall in love with someone new. He could be amplifying your current feelings… only time will tell, I'm afraid." He seemed genuinely sympathetic.
Nico traced a finger in the dirt, wondering what that meant. Would – could – he ever not feel how he did about Percy? Would he have to go through the same thing with someone else beautiful and unobservant and unattainable?
"How did you get over Hyacinthus?" he asked Favonius. The god looked like a twenty-first century twenty-something usually but for a moment his eyes darkened and he looked every bit his two-thousand-plus years.
"Time," he replied quietly. "I think of him every day, but it is no longer so painful. Now he is part of my soul – he made me who I am and I try to honour that. Maybe if I hadn't killed him I'd have found someone else anyway... we immortals do get bored." He sounded almost apologetic. "Besides," he added, "you can love more than one person at once. There are many types of love, as I'm sure you'll find."
Nico wasn't sure about any of that, but they sat quietly anyway. The ADHD part of Nico's brain noted that this was the first person he had ever known who knew what he was before they met and hadn't run away screaming, attempted an exorcism or pointed and laughed, which was what most of his not-monster-related nightmares were about.
"You know, I've been around for a long time," Favonius said after a while, "and I must say that this is the best time to be a queer demigod since Ancient Greece – ah, sorry," he added hastily when Nico's sword twitched in his hand. "I suppose that's still an insult where you come from."
It was. Nico had only heard it used once, when he and Bianca were very small and living in Washington, DC with their grandfather. Francesco di Angelo had been walking them through a park one day and two men had been sitting on a bench. One had a hand on the other's shoulder. "Goddamn queers," Francesco had sniffed, pulling the children away. It was the first and only time Nico ever heard him take the Lord's name in vain.
Gods, they could have been anyone. Brothers, friends, casual acquaintances. Jason did the whole manly-clap-on-the-shoulder thing to Leo all the time, and Piper forever had an arm round Hazel, guiding her below deck to throw up.
"Times have changed," he said, hopefully lightly. He didn't mention that he had absolutely no idea what 'queer' meant in modern terms. He searched for another question as a distraction. "Why… why did you come here tonight anyway?"
"I thought you might want someone to talk to. It can't have been easy, keeping these things to yourself all these years. You're Greek-Italian, after all… I know how natural it is to, ah, express yourselves."
Nico snorted through his nose. He had once been given detention at Westover Hall for knocking over a glass of water while trying to answer a teacher's question. He had been, what, nine? Not long afterwards, Percy, Annabeth and the other girl – Thalia – had arrived and everything had, well, changed.
He had tried to be brave. He had grown up on his own, lived in the Underworld, fought in the war, found Camp Jupiter, discovered the Doors of Death and stumbled through Tartarus. At first it might have been because he wanted Percy to notice him or for Hades to stop looking at him like his whole existence was a mistake. But maybe he did it because if he was busy then he couldn't feel things.
Learning to fight skeletons (and never quite winning because for them the game was never over), he had so envied the dead. They were shadows of the living, and even the worst of their troubles were ghosts in the afterlife. If he stabbed them, they pulled the broken bone from their frame and kept going as long as he wanted them to. If they stabbed him, he curled up in a ball for a week and hoped they hadn't hit anything vital.
Usually he pulled himself up, found another part of the Underworld or another mortal graveyard and did the whole thing again. Sometimes he fought monsters for real, or snuck into libraries to read up on the Greek myth he had just killed. But he never stayed anywhere for long if he could help it, especially where demigods were – where he was - involved.
Somewhere along the line, he had stopped talking with his hands so much.
Back in the cave, Reyna and Coach Hedge stirred and Nico stood up. The Athena Parthanos was such a powerful object that it was rare for them to go more than an hour without attracting monsters, but Nico supposed that Favonius' presence was enough to keep them at bay. Still, they had to get to New York soon. Gaia was waking and the Romans were about to destroy Camp Half-Blood – and as much as Nico hated the place, it did have the cooler of the two Hades monuments.
"You'd better go," Nico said quietly. Favonius stood too and dusted off his Bermudas. He did not want to explain what the West Wind was doing there if Reyna and Hedge found them.
"Well, Nico di Angelo," Favonius said. "I think I've talked more than you have." He sounded as though he had a pretty good idea of what those silences had meant, but he picked up his fruit basket like they had just been chatting about the weather. "Good luck on your quest."
"Thanks," Nico replied. "Good luck dealing with your crappy boss." Favonius smirked and dissolved into the air, leaving behind the scent of springtime.
The dead had it easy, but maybe the immortals had it worse. They could only watch mortals repeat their mistakes.
Maybe… maybe he wouldn't learn to play quoits any time soon.
The story I did the other day, Cutting the Line, was out of character, so I wrote this. Hate the ending and am done with being done with it! But reviews would be great...