A/N:
I actually wrote this fic like two years ago, in my first language, which is Chinese. I only translated it lately. It's not that hard for me, but well, you know how the linguistic system can really differ between two languages that were developed in two very very distanced areas. So if there are phrases that sound weird or if you find a bunch of grammatic mistakes in this, hey, I have the excuse that I'm not a native speaker. But at least I'm not bad (or so I think), so why not give it a try.
Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or any of the characters.
Sometimes Nico just can't help to resent Annabeth.
He resents her hair, blonde, shinning under the sunshine. He resents her eyes, gray as the clouds and gray as the storms and gray as the stones but so bright at the same time, holding such an amount of confidence and liveliness. He resents her grins, that are so brilliant it hurts to look at. Gods, he even resents her dagger, petite and light and glowing; yet she is as tough as her mother when she is holding that blade.
What he resents the most, is that she treats him so damn well. Why does she smile at him, and save him, and help him and say comforting words to him and treat him like a friend? After all, it's him who is falling head over heels for her boyfriend. So why doesn't she hate him? Why isn't she mean to him, like she used to be to Rachel?
Why doesn't she just give him the excuse to resent her, resent her, resent her to the deepest hell?
Sometimes he can't help to pity her. During the few months Percy is missing, everyone has seen the shifting emotions in her eyes: they hold anxiety, longing, and sorrowness at the beginning, and gradually they become colder, harder, emptier. Like she has lost all the sunshine and all the air in the world.
Nobody has seen her cry, but they all know that she has had her tears shed. Maybe it's at the moment she turns to walk away from a sibling, maybe it's when the sea wind blows on her face, or maybe it's on the night of Valentine's day when she walks back home all by herself on the street. It is times like these when she would let a tear or two fall from her eyes. Then she holds her head high, biting her bottom lip to force the rest back. Athena's blood has given her so much pride. So much that she would not allow herself to release her feelings freely, even when she is alone—especially when she is alone; there's only one person in the world who can break her walls.
And that person has been taken away from her.
Nico starts to resent this, too. Why does she love him so much? Why is she a girl? Why is she a girl who loves him so much?
At Camp Jupiter, Nico runs into Percy, who has his memories wiped—but completely. His green eyes are lost, yet still show waves and waves of yearning and grief. He recalls some of his old memories at certain times, eyes shinning, corners of the mouth lifting.
Nico longs for those memories to be about him. He longs to be the one and only person who Percy remembers. He longs to be the one who saves Percy, who gives him glimpses of hope for him to keep going. There is one time when he thinks that, why didn't Hera go further, and make Percy forget everything about Annaneth, too?
Then he realizes this might be Aphrodite's fault. And he starts to resent the Goddess of Love, along with her troublemaker nature. How come she never realizes what kind of pain and suffering she is putting people through, while she gossips about it? Love is like some reality TV show she watches and rambles about on weekends. How ironic.
He soon hears about the kiss between Percy and Annabeth when they finally meet each other at Camp Jupiter.
Even if no one has described it to him, he would be able to imagine—them rushing to each other, gazing at each other, and kissing and embracing and touching and heart beating againt each other, like they are the only two people left in this world. Nine months of love and misery and gaping memories and buried tears and sleepless long nights get crushed in that kiss, bit by bit. How would he not be able to imagine? He longs for that kiss to belong to him.
And he isn't shocked by the fact that Annabeth has judo flipped her boyfriend right after the kiss. He realizes that he knows them too well. He knows about their jokes, bickering, quarrels and flirting. He can picture Annabeth with her eyes red and puffy, one knee on Percy's chest, blade threateningly pressing on his throat. He can even imagine Percy's grin, full of love and relief.
He only grins like this in front of her. A long time ago when they were still best friends, he already started to grin to her like this. Neither of them had understood what that grin meant, though.
Nico had. He said nothing but he had known. He had always known what was going to happen.
So what's there for him to feel so bitter about?
Nico later learns that seeing a loved one falling into Tartarus is one of the most unbearble things in the world, the other is knowing about a loved one's death.
For one second, he has the urge to jump into the pit with them. But he knows that Percy is right—Argo II needs him and camps need him. He has to find the Door of Death.
And going though Tartarus is a tough journey that is meant to be Percy and Annabeth's. Annabeth's constant good plans always match with Percy's fortuitous light bulbs, getting them out of every trouble along the way. The bronze dagger and Riptide block all the attacks side by side. After all, they have each other.
The thought makes Nico flinch. They have each other. They have each other. They have each other. How come Nico never has someone like this. How come the boy who would go to hell for his loved one doesn't belong to him.
The most painful thing is that he knows Percy would save any of his friend on any price. Yet there is only Annabeth who can make him jump into the darkest place of torture without a second thought. Not any other person, not him. Annabeth.
Cupid forces him to admit his feelings. He is panicking like hell.
Of course he would be afraid of all the scorns and humiliations. By the time he was born, loving someone of the same gender was too unusual and too unaccepted. Percy, Jason, and Hazel might be okay with it though. So would Bianca if she was by his side. The same doesn't necessarily apply on other campers, but he never cares about their opinions anyway.
So what is he being afraid of?
Then he remembers that pair of gray eyes. And that voice, sober and firm, saying, "I know you're giving up. I don't care. As long as I haven't seen his body, I would not believe he's dead, and I would keep looking. Six weeks or six years doesn't mean much difference to me."
The daughter of Athena had once grabbed his shoulder, and said, come back with us, you need camp and camp needs you.
He realizes how scared he is to lose Annabeth Chase.
No matter how his jealousy toward her had almost eaten him alive, she is still his friend, his family, his companion through life and death. If she really started to hate him, if he no longer had her wisdom, her toughness, her plans and her leadership—then what would he do?
Even he has wished so many times that it's him who is by Percy's side and in his arms, Nico has never really wanted Percy and Annabeth separated forever.
It's like the least possible thing that could happen. Same as everyone else, he always assumes that the names of Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase are meant to be put together. Even when they get divided by death, even when the world is over, even when they are in hell, they would still be together and still love each other in a way they would never use to love someone else.
It's not only about love anymore. After so many years, they are not just boyfriend and girlfriend, but also best friends, families, confidants, lovers, soul mates. Seriously, Poseidon and Athena would never have known that their children match each other so perfectly.
And if they were no longer together.
If her long architecture lectures no longer came along with his casual humming, If the first name she yells when seeing a spider was no longer his, If the sea green was no longer on the stormy gray.
Nico di Angelo realizes that he would never be able to, and would never want to break this relationship.
Will Solace is a special existence. Nico learns it gradually.
Not many people have ever offered their hands to him. People who are willing to stay by his side are even fewer. Nico is sometimes surprised at how much attention the son of Apollo pays to him. It actually makes him uncomfortable.
What is more uncomfortable is that he is very comfortable with Will touching him. Nico hates being touched, like, really hate it. But somehow, Will is like a skilled trainer who can easily domesticate Nico the beast.
He seems to come along with light, always warm and always bright. The son of death who has been drowning in darkness for so long can't help but get attracted to him, like a lost moth to the blazing flame. The dark-haired son of Poseidon who protected him and his sister like a true hero has been fading in his mind, replaced by Will's image, and his bow, arrows, instruments, music.
Sometimes he gets kissed on the cheek or on the lips. He raises his head only to see a smile that melts everything. And he thinks:
Now that's a smile truly belongs to me.
Annnnd that's it! Thanks for reading. Bye.