Jason was laughing as Arion came to a stop at the entrance to Camp Half Blood, his hair all knotted and messy and a bug on his cheek. He needed to make sure that he thanked Hazel again for letting him use Arion; he really was one of the fastest ways to travel between the camps.

"Well, looks like Superman is having a bad hair day," Percy laughed from off to the side. He had been expecting Jason, and he had just happened to be walking by at the right time. Jason laughed as well as he shouldered his bag and Arion was off once more, headed to who knows where.

"Oh drat, your perfect image of me is ruined. How can I go on," Jason joked dramatically as his hands subconsciously lifted to fix his hair. He gave up nearly immediately, realizing that he would need at least a mirror to fix that mess.

Percy laughed once more and threw an arm around Jason's shoulders, leading him into camp. As they walked several campers gathered and all tried to talk to Jason at once, but Percy shooed them all away.

"Come on guys, it's already 10pm here which means to Jason it's 1am. You can all mob him in the morning." There was a chorus of disappointed groans before the campers dispersed, and Jason muttered a quiet thank you to Percy. "Why are you so late anyways? I almost thought you weren't coming or something."

"What, and miss getting to kick your butt in absolutely every possible competition? Fat chance," Jason joked.

"Yeah, in your dreams," Percy scoffed before Jason continued.

"We'll see tomorrow. Starting with sword fighting," Jason challenged.

"Oh you're so on," Percy replied, giving Jason a slight nudge with his waist.

"Anyways," Jason continued, "I'm late because there was some trouble at Camp Jupiter. Nothing big, just the fauns causing trouble again, but they asked me to help out with the cleanup."

"Gotcha," Percy nodded, not bothering to delve any further into the details. Partially because he knew Jason was probably too tired to talk about it, and partially because they were already at the Zeus cabin.

Percy watched as Jason climbed the few steps up to the door, and Jason bade him an incomprehensible goodnight through his yawn before pushing open the doors. Practically moving on autopilot, Jason rummaged through his bag for his sleeping bag and moved towards the corner he had slept in all the previous times he had slept in the Zeus cabin. He was about to gather some strength to move one of the statues so that he wouldn't have his father's statue watching over him all night when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. On the opposite wall a bed had been set up in a position where Jason wouldn't be able to see the eyes of the Zeus statue. Feeling that was probably the simplest and most comfortable option, Jason walked over, flopped onto the bed, and immediately fell asleep.

When Jason awoke the next morning, his watch read 9:30. He would have loved to have slept longer, but he didn't want to miss out on the whole morning. So, he dragged himself out of bed and into a cold shower.

The shower woke him right up, and he walked up to the dining pavilion at approximately 10:30, where he caught the tail end of breakfast. He looked around as he ate, seeing which other campers had slept in as well. Most of the other tables were empty, but he did find Percy at the Poseidon table (which didn't shock him at all) and Nico at the Hades table.

Percy was the first of the three to finish, walking past Nico and giving him a small, "morning," accompanied by a smile. Jason noticed that Nico nodded back cracked the slightest bit of a smile, but that was it. Had Nico still not told Percy of his feelings? Jason racked his brain and hadn't heard of Nico saying anything in the rumour mill, and that made a part of him sad. When would Nico learn?

They finished breakfast at around the same time approximately five minutes later, and as Nico left the pavilion, Jason followed. He was about to approach him, but Annabeth came from seemingly out of nowhere and beat him to Nico. Jason stopped in his tracks, deciding to watch this play out. He turned away but kept his ears trained on their conversation, watching them out of the corner of his eye.

"Hey Nico," Annabeth said, giving the boy a small hug. Jason was surprised by the fact that he let anyone touch him, let alone Annabeth. But sure enough, he hugged back and smiled. "I forgot to say great match last night! You've really improved with a knife."

"Thanks. It was actually really fun," Nico responded. Before either of them continued, a new voice that Jason didn't recognize came from off to the side.

"Hey Annabeth! We need you to come and take a look at some of these plans! You got a minute?"

"Coming!" she called back. Turning back to Nico she gave a small wave and said, "See you later Nico."

As Nico waved to the disappearing Annabeth Jason thought he saw his next chance, but this time he was stymied by Will Solace.

"Hey Nico! We're about to do some target practice, wanna join?" Will asked, waving a bow and arrow in his one arm.

"No thanks, but maybe next time," Nico responded, again with a smile. Jason was so happy to see Nico smiling.

Will turned and left, but before Jason could even consider approaching Nico Percy showed up in nothing but a swimsuit and a towel.

"Hey, Neeks! A bunch of us are going to the beach! Wanna join?"

"No thanks," Nico responded, looking away slightly.

"Your loss." Percy said. Just then he spotted Jason, and as he started running toward Long Island Sound he called, "Jason! Beach! Let's go!"

Nico spun around at this, spotting Jason standing about ten metres behind him. He started to walk away at a slightly brisker pace than normal, but Jason caught up easily.

"Hey, Nico. Can we talk?"

"Were you spying on me?" Nico accused.

"No, of course not!" Jason defended. "But seriously, let's talk."

"Sorry I'm in a bit of a rush."

"Then I'll be quick."

"Jason..." Nico started, but before he could get anything else out Jason had grabbed his mid-section and they were up in the air flying.

Nico screamed for a solid three seconds before he finally ran out of air. Breathing heavily he had to hold down his panic. He was a child of Hades and he was hundreds of feet off the ground; this was definitely not his element or his comfort zone.

For a split second Nico considered dropping, prying himself out of Jason's arms and shadow traveling to the ground, however he had never done anything like that before and he really didn't want to push his luck right now. He wasn't sure if he would be able to form the shadows needed to travel, or even be in a proper state of mind if he were to start free falling.

Fortunately the flight was quick, terminating at Zeus' fist. Nico wanted to slap Jason clear across the face when they got down, but seeing as Jason never released Nico's hand he didn't exactly have the chance. Of course he had his dominant hand hostage. Then, when it really hit him that Jason was holding his hand, a slight blush dusted Nico's pale cheeks, but Jason didn't seem to notice.

"Jason, could you please let go of my hand?" Nico asked, trying to be as calm as possible.

"No can do. If I let go you might just shadow travel away before we're done." Nico hadn't actually thought of that but in retrospect that would have been a smarter idea than plummeting.

"We have nothing to talk about right now so we are done," Nico argued.

"No, we do," Jason retorted, sitting down on a rock that had just enough space for two people to sit comfortable. He dragged Nico down and since Nico knew he wouldn't be going anywhere without Jason for a while, Nico remained still.

"And what exactly is that?"

"You're still acting weirdly around Percy."

"What? No I'm not."

"Have you not told him yet? You know you're not going to feel better until you get this off of your chest, even if he does reject you."

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize you had suddenly become my therapist. And actually, I have told Percy. We had an adult conversation about it, even Annabeth knows, and I've moved on. I'm sorry you didn't get the memo," Nico stated, a little more venom in his voice than he had originally intended. Fortunately Jason just brushed it off.

"Then why have you been acting so strangely around him all day?"

"I haven't been," Nico insisted once more.

"Oh really? Then why did you practically brush him off this morning at breakfast?"

"I hadn't finished my first cup of coffee yet. He was lucky he got any form of acknowledgement at all from me at that point."

"Even so, why did you avoid eye contact with him when he asked you to go to the beach?"

"Because he didn't have a shirt on!" Nico said with a slightly elevated voice. When Jason raised an eyebrow in confusion, Nico elaborated. "Are you forgetting that I was raised when people were a little more modest than that? Most men had tops as part of their swimwear when I was growing up." Before Jason could get a word in edgewise, Nico continued once more. "Jason, you've been here one day. Not even actually. Maybe you should've waited a while before jumping to conclusions, hm?"

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry," Jason conceded. "So you're really over your feelings for Percy?"

"Yup," Nico smiled. "I admit it was like you said; I just needed to get that weight off my chest."

"And you got over it that quickly? I'm impressed." Feeling that the conversation had shifted to a slightly more comfortable zone for Nico, Jason released his hand without fear that Nico would suddenly disappear.

"Well the fact that I kind of started getting feelings for someone else also kind of helped," Nico said, immediately regretting it. Why would he say that? Curse Jason and his constant successful attempts to get people to open up.

"Oh ho ho," Jason smiled. It was so wide that Nico thought Jason's face might split like a rock under too much stress. "And who is this lucky object of your affections?"

"Oh, you don't know them," Nico immediately tried to cover, but Jason always had his logical excuse ready.

"Then show them to me when we go back to camp."

"They don't go to camp here," Nico tried once more.

"You're a terrible liar."

'Crap,' Nico thought to himself.

"Oh come on, at this rate I'm going to think it's me," Jason cracked with a laugh. His laugh ceased, however, as he watched all the colour he hadn't even realized was there instantly drain from the Ghost King's face, plus some. "It's me, isn't it?" He asked softly after a moment. Jason grabbed Nico's hand once more to prevent him from just disappearing, and some of the colour returned to his face.

Nico didn't know what to say in this situation, but Jason was spot on. He couldn't just disappear or Jason would be dragged with him anyways, and he definitely did not need to drag the son of Zeus to the underworld. He could only imagine how that would look to the gods.

"Nico," came Jason's voice once more, this time as a soft push for details. It was in no way demanding, but it was said in a way that clearly indicated that he just wanted to understand Nico's feelings towards him.

"Ok yes, it's you. Happy?" Nico asked, gently this time instead of venomous.

"When did this happen?"

Nico sighed. He wasn't going to get out of this, so he might as well just get it over with as quickly as possible so Jason could turn him down too and they could both move on.

"It was a little after the battle with Gaea. You were always so supportive of me, and even if at the time I wasn't very accepting of it, afterwards I was glad you were. Your words throughout our time together on the Argo II really helped me a lot, and I guess at some point I realized that those feelings turned into something more." Nico's eyes had been downcast the entire time he spoke this. He couldn't bring himself to look at Jason in the eyes. Jason, however, had other ideas as he gently grabbed Nico's chin and forced the son of Hades to look at him when he spoke.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Well, because you have Piper. And you two go so well together. It was just like Percy and Annabeth, except with you and her. I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere so I never said anything."

Jason tisked as he shook his head and asked, "Didn't all that advice I gave you about Percy stick? It applies to everyone, not just him you know."

"I know," Nico sighed.

"And by the way, I had Piper."

"What?" Nico asked, confused. Now he looked directly at Jason rather than trying to constantly avert his gaze.

"We broke up months ago Nico. Things just weren't working out. She saw it coming first, being the daughter of Aphrodite and all, but she was right. Why do you think I haven't bothered to go see her yet? Not that we're on bad terms or anything, I just haven't bothered to make the trip yet."

"Oh, well, I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Jason smiled.

"Why not?"

"Because that means I get to do this," Jason said before slowly leaning his face in closer to Nico's. Nico panicked for just a split second before their lips touched, but when they did he let himself go.

The first thing Nico noticed was how soft Jason's lips were against his own. He couldn't explain it, but the son of Zeus tasted like the wind, cool and refreshing. Nico let himself enjoy the moment, almost in disbelief that it was actually happening. Nico was snapped back to attention, however, when Jason attempted to deepen this kiss.

Nico started to panic a little. He had never taken a kiss this far before; what if he messed up? What if he did something stupid? But before he could ponder those thoughts any longer Jason wrapped his arms around Nico, and Nico lost himself in the embrace.

Goosebumps formed on Nico's skin when he felt Jason's tongue brush against his own, and Nico inadvertently made a small moaning noise. He could feel Jason smiling against his lips at that, and that made some heat return to his face.

Then, just as soon as it had started, it was over. Jason didn't want to push his luck with Nico; at least not yet. The two pulled away from each other slowly, taking deep breaths and staring into each other's eyes for a moment.

Jason was the first of the two who found the ability to speak in full sentences again, saying, "Now come on, I promised Percy I'd kick his butt in a sword fight."

"Well come on then," Nico said as he jumped up. "I face winner!"

Jason got up as well and wrapped Nico in his arms. But as he prepared to take off Nico did something Jason didn't expect. He planted a quick kiss on his lips, grasped him back, and pulled them into the shadows.

Is it just me or do other people believe that as Nico grows and realizes that he is not a freak because of his feelings that he would open up once more and get some of his personality back from when he was younger?