"You should get laid," suggests Jason when they're grocery shopping at Bargain Mart.
"Excuse me?" An old lady of about seventy looks completely appalled at Jason.
"I'm sorry— I didn't mean you—" He tries to explain, but the scandalized woman just walks away hurriedly with a scowl on her face.
Nico shows up behind him with a creepy little mocking grin on his face. "Were you just hitting on a grandma?"
"No!" Jason's face is red with embarrassment, "I thought you were next to me."
"Were you trying to hit on me then?" Nico asks as a joke but when Jason only derps out and runs to go pick up more cereal does Nico regret asking.
Jason buys five boxes of Froot Loops and hides three of them incase Leo decides he's going to ransack their cabinets again. He doesn't mind the random blue food that pops up (it's usually just food dye anyways, plus Percy stopped randomly showing up lately too) but he can't stand lemon flavored anything.
Nico once showed him a picture of a bag of Starbursts which only contained a single red Starburst while the other nineteen were all yellow to torment him after Jason accidentally broke his favorite mug. Such a horrible memory.
The last few months may or may not have been pleasant for Jason, that is getting to spend more time with Nico than they usually would have when they first became roommates to split the rent on an apartment too luxurious for them both to stay in alone. Which is actually saying quite a bit about the two bedroom, one bathroom apartment because in reality it wasn't anywhere near as luxurious as they claim it to be, they really were just that broke.
Jason got a monthly allowance though, his parents still babying their already old enough to get a job son and on occasion if he asked, even his older sister Thalia would contribute to his poor living standards by offering to take him out to eat something other than cereal.
But Nico had a sister too, a half-sister, Hazel. Jason liked Hazel, she was sweet and caring and sometimes he felt like she was older than both he and Nico with the way she seemed to have her life figured out.
"You'd make a pretty flower boy," Jason had complimented Nico once when they had made it their sole purpose in life to tease Frank (Hazel's boyfriend of five years) about proposing to her. The words left his mouth with a blush grazing his cheeks but Nico didn't seem to notice it when he snorted and returned to tormenting Frank.
The new comfortable friendship budding between the two was nice though, Jason was enjoying it at least. But Nico, he's always full of different quirks.
"Froot Loops? Seriously?" Nico judges and goes for the box anyways, making himself a bowl.
"Better than your chocolate addiction," Jason counters and then laughs, "Or the McDonald's one."
"Both of which are substantial for a growing youth with no set income," Nico says flatly, spooning some of the cereal and shoving it in his mouth.
Jason watches from his spot on the floor (when did he become so attached to the dirty brown carpet?) and his eyes stay glued to Nico's lips longer than necessary.
The younger male doesn't seem to take an interest in Jason's gaze as he saunters over and kicks him playfully before sitting beside him and shoveling more food into his mouth, gesturing to the television remote. "Put something on," he says and goes back to eating.
Jason makes sure to make a hurtful sound but when Nico ignores him, he reaches over to snatch the remote and after a few channel flips, settles on a documentary on Greek mythology. He knows Nico likes these sorts of things when he's not being a nerd holed up in his room watching anime on his laptop.
When Nico's done eating, his bowl is left by his side on the floor and when the documentary is over, both males just remain seated on the ground, staring at the commercials that follow it up.
"Do you ever think about Piper anymore?" Nico asks when seconds of nothing happen in between and Jason almost misses the question from how quietly the other is speaking.
He doesn't show that he's too caught off by the question (someone was going to ask it at some point, Jason just didn't expect it to be Nico), but he does miss Piper. He does think of her from time to time still, it's only been a few months but it isn't enough time to completely eradicate his mind of the girl he'd always picture to be marrying. They haven't kept in contact and some nights Jason finds himself pulling up her e-mail address or hesitantly hovering a finger over the call button on his cell phone. The Break Up wasn't a messy or even particularity bad one, but regrettably it took it's toll on Jason and so he answers as honestly as he can with Nico.
"Yeah." He wants to say something more, but he doesn't know if that's what Nico wants to hear.
It must be the correct answer because Nico only nods, hums a little in response and then gets up to put his bowl in the sink before flopping back down next to Jason and then the two start to argue over what to watch next and some weight Jason's never been aware of seems to lift off of Nico's way too thin shoulders. He didn't even know Nico's shoulders were capable of holding anything.
Winter isn't Jason's favorite, but Nico seems to like it as he tugs on Jason's sleeve, urging the other to follow him down the dimly lit streets. Nico's always a little more perky whenever he gets to go out during snowfall, reminds Jason of when he was a kid and would pester Thalia to take him sledding or to build a snowman on their front lawn.
It's already past sundown, but Nico's always preferred going out at night and Jason doesn't have any complaints if it means he gets to spend undisturbed quality time with Nico. The snow is still new, soft and easily broken through by their footsteps on the pavement, cold but so so melt-able and Nico catches a few with his tongue. Again, Jason's caught watching intently with eyes that burn quicker than the snow does on his cheeks.
"Stop that," says Nico when he catches him (but maybe he's always caught Jason in the act and he's just now giving Jason the attention of getting caught).
And Jason looks away, obviously embarrassed but shakes his head still. "I'm not doing anything."
"Right," Nico draws out, a smile ghosting his lips and he continues walking down the sidewalk, Jason quickly in tow.
"Where are we going?" asks Jason and Nico doesn't offer much of an explanation aside from a shrug. Jason knows they must be headed somewhere important or else Nico wouldn't have pulled the other out of the safety and warmth of their apartment just for a walk in the cold. Then again, it is Nico so maybe that is the case.
They walk in comfortable silence for a while, Nico occasionally stopping to look up at the snow still falling in soft, small flakes and then finally he stops completely and Jason realizes they've reached their destination.
"Here?" He asks a little hesitantly, looking at the steel gate that's opened just a fraction and Nico nods.
A cemetery.
Jason's' always figured Nico to be some goth, emo child what with the constant wearing of black and slightly shaggy hair, not to mention the love of the dark and the silly skull ring he always wore and fiddled with whenever he was nervous. But a cemetery? Even that's a little much for Nico.
Still, he follows him through the gates with their chipped black paint and they pass graves and tombstones and the trees are barren with snow piling up on the sad looking branches. He almost wants to drape his scarf over them because they have nothing to protect them against the cold, but it's a childish thought and he walks behind Nico in silence because he isn't sure what else to do right now.
Nico leads them to a small grave, Jason almost bumps into him and then more silence before Nico explains that his sister is buried here.
"Not a half-sister," he says, "I actually grew up with Bianca."
Jason looks at the etched writing in the marble stone and discovers it's only been four years to date since Bianca's passing, her name written in clean cursive. He suddenly wonders why Nico's brought him here.
He isn't sure what else to say or do so when that comfortable silence that's always held Nico and Jason so close suddenly wafts away, so he finds his hands knotting up in his pockets as he watches Nico stare mindlessly at the grave, a different kind of sadness fills Jason and he's never more than ever wanted to pull Nico into a hug.
But the gesture wouldn't be appreciated by Nico, he doesn't like intimacy and doesn't like unnecessary touching so Jason squats down without Nico paying him any attention and starts to pick at the snow, rolling them into tiny balls and then places his newly formed little snowman at the base of Bianca's grave.
"What are—"
"Thalia and I use to make snowmen whenever it snowed. It's just something you do with your older siblings, I guess, I don't know. But, I think Bianca would have liked making them too, did you ever make some with her?"
Nico just looks at him, looks at the back of Jason's head as he admires the snowman he's just made and so Nico squats down next to him and makes a tiny little snowman to compliment Jason's before he says, "Yeah, we did."
They end up going to Hazel's afterwards and Nico makes a snowman ( a huge, badly proportioned one with Oreos for eyes) with her and they end up having a snowball fight which results in Frank forfeiting and pleading with them to go inside and have hot chocolate instead.
Jason never gets a reason for Nico taking him to visit Bianca, but he figures that if the situation was reversed, he'd probably drag Nico along with him too.
The walk home is filled with playful shoving and bantering and Jason staring and staring and he realizes that he never needed that comfortable silence in the first place. There's so much more he can be doing with Nico than just being quiet.