Chapter Two
Nico came out to his parents, officially. It took a while for him to work up the courage of it though. He was fourteen, and he was still scared of his dad, not to mention the fact that he was absolutely terrified of his mother's opinion.
"Alright, you're gay." Hades had said after his son's blushing, flustered confession. "The sky is blue, grass is green, and the world keeps spinning. You get an 'A' in math and then I'll be surprised." Maria had give her husband's arm a bit of a pinch, but then she turned to her son and kissed him on the cheek and told him they would love him no matter what, and then she had hugged him and that had been the end of it. He had gotten off scot free, without even a slap on his wrist.
Nico decided something after that. If he was going to be gay, something he most decidedly had no control over, he was going to be as gay as he could possibly be. He took to wearing tighter, more colorful clothing, he got piercings, coifed his hair, and it wasn't that these things made him more homosexual but it was in the sense that flamboyancy is seen as a generally more homosexual trait overall. This change, however, lasted all of a month.
Bianca had, after their parents went about their business, hugged Nico closely for a moment, then punched him in the chest. "You should have told me earlier, dweeb. Something tells me I don't have a new shopping buddy though?" She did, though, for a month at least. That was how long it took for him to realize that being gay and acting the way he was were two different things.
Being gay, he found out, was a lot like being Italian—there was nothing he could do about it. After Nico gave up on the entire "flaming" concept he had also given up on fashion, for the most part. He held on to his tight black jeans, he kept gelling his hair, but he liked those things.
He went back to being Nico, after a while. There was a place inside of him, it was a very large place, that was still broken up about the entire Percy debacle but he hid it well behind a very distant, almost apathetic veneer. That was probably the reason a great deal of the kids in his new, and what he hoped was his final, high school kept away from him.
Originally the di Angelos didn't settle in Los Angeles. Hades was a man who didn't half-ass anything, or so he claimed. So they journeyed from New York to Maryland, to Rhode Island, to New Hampshire, Virginia, to Georgia, to Florida, to Kansas, Michigan, to Washington, and then, over a course of only a year his work brought him and his family to California.
Bianca was not happy about the move, any of them. To her it seemed that they only picked up and moved again was when she was enrolled in school and had finally made new girlfriends. Maria would assure her that it wasn't that, and would continually tell her that it wasn't her brother's fault. It was the fact the Jackson's unneighbourly conduct came at the right time. Hades had been needing an excuse to research a few key points in his next couple of books.
"That doesn't mean I have to enjoy all these transitions," Bianca retorted back icily.
"Your father says this is our last one, okay, baby?" Maria answered, kissing her daughter on the forehead. "I know it's been hard on you, this has been difficult on the entire family, but this is a beautiful city, I think you'll fit right in."
"Yeah, okay." She said it in the way seventeen year old girls say things, perturbed, short tempered, as if she knew there was absolutely no way she would fit in at all. Nico had watched their little exchange while they were unaware of him, he did feel bad about everything. He hated that his family had to move to the other side of the country just because he had gotten in a fight. But, his mother was right, it wasn't just that they needed to move, but also that his father was doing research.
It was hard to find Hades during the day if he wasn't in his office. He was normally all over town, looking up streets, houses, buildings, any and everything he needed for his next novel. It was a colossal sort of fiction, the kind that dealt with travelling in such a way as his family had done. There were a lot of different venues and he had seen them all now.
Still, Nico wished his father was around more. Then again, Nico wished a lot of things. He wished things in his life were more normal, and he wished he was back in New York with his friends…well. His friend.
Just the one.
Most of all, more than anything else in the world, Nico wished that Percy didn't hate him. That's what had hurt the most out of everything else, after all they had been through, all the years they had been together, and it wasn't enough. Percy didn't love him, not the way he loved Percy.
Something warm ran down his cheek, reaching up he discovered a tear, and suddenly a great deal more followed after them. Unwillingly he had had his heartbroken, and the worst part was he had not even known about his feelings until they had made him lean forward and kiss his best and only friend.
There was a concentrated sadness in the center of his chest, a hard, cold lump surrounded by a sea of grief. An island of remorse where his heart should have been, and Nico couldn't keep it bottled up inside of himself for very much longer. Clamping his hands over his mouth he silently made his way to his new room, it was barely furnished, just a bed and a desk. But at that moment any sort of clutter would have only made him all the more sorrowful.
Slowly he was falling into a deeper despair, as if life could never get better, this was the lowest moment in his young existence and he just hurt all over.
As the strangled cry left his throat, and the tears ran rampant down his face, and he lost himself to his great grief it all seemed so irrelevant. The world was still spinning, life was still happening, and it was sure to leave him behind if he didn't do something to cope.
Later they would try to cure him with pills, but for now his depression was tantamount.
In his tenth grade year Nico had taken up several bad habits. The first that had sort of started them all was his cutting. How fucking cliché, he thought with a grim smile the first time he dragged a razor blade over his wrist. He wasn't fucking stupid, he knew self-harm and mutilation were signs of deep emotional issues. Hell, he had to listen to Bianca's psychobabble all the time he could almost quote the entire Psychology textbook at you verbatim, not that he would want to. If anything it did give the two of them something to talk about, his "problems" that is. She promised not to tell their parents about the more…masochistic ones, the ones that inevitably did more bad than good in the end—which was basically all of them if he continued to be her "study subject" and he had agreed.
Still, cutting was one of many releases he had found that most people wouldn't call favorable. Then there was the smoking, the drinking, and after a little while there was the occasional cocaine usage. Nothing major, he told himself. He wasn't addicted, he told himself. It wasn't that bad, he convinced himself, and he believed it too.
Still, after a little while he knew that he had to be more resourceful about his cutting, at first it had been his wrists, but the "cat scratches" excuse had grown old fast and people weren't as gullible as they seem to be. Sometimes he came across a smart one, sometimes they asked questions he didn't like to answer. So instead he cut the inside of his thighs, a place he figured only he would see.
His friends, and yes he had made a few, didn't say anything about it to him because they were like him. They were outcasts, they were the gays, the queers, the inbetweens that society couldn't understand, that society didn't want to understand.
There was Leo, who he would call his best friend if push came to shove. Leo was gay. Leo was very gay. If queerness could be measured in how much he liked Broadway musicals, fashion, old movie starlets, then he wasn't your guy, but if how much he liked getting fucked in the ass, and sucking another man off, with a severe distaste in women sexually counted for anything then Leo was indeed very gay.
Leo was the first person Nico had ever felt comfortable talking about anything sexual with, and it was all because of a botched date—one that had started off badly, came to its middle badly, and at the end of the night they had just settled down in Leo's room, played Modern Warfarem and laughed at the whole thing. They weren't very compatible on one spectrum, and that was in a romantic sense. They didn't make sense together because when it came down to it they were too much like each other. Still, they made for good friends.
Then there was Frank, Frank was queer. He wasn't necessarily gay, but he wasn't opposed to sex with men. Then again, he didn't mind it with women either. There were several difficulties with this though. One: Frank was a virgin. Two: Frank didn't really have a gender. Biologically he was born a man, and when speaking of him he preferred for people to use male pronouns because it was easiest. But Frank had never particularly felt like a man or a woman, he had never been able to place his gender, or his sexuality, or anything really, so he lived his life as a quote/unquote "bisexual" man, when in reality he was really a gender-fluid pansexual. Problem three, and this was probably the most pressing of them all, was Frank's complete and total dislike of his appearance. "I'm a six foot-five, two hundred pound, baby faced, Chinese freak." He would say on his bad days where he was more down about it than usual. Four of those five things was true, Nico would continually tell him. He was, in fact, 6'5, he was in fact two hundred pounds, he was Chinese, and he did have a very, very young looking face—but none of these things were necessarily bad, and he most certainly was not a freak.
Nico would laugh at himself because who was he to be consoling anyone else?
Then there was Rachel. Rachel fucking Dare. Nico scoffed. Rachel Dare was a good friend, right behind Leo, but Rachel was something else. It wasn't that Nico hated that she made everything seem effortless, or that she could weasel out of anything, or that she had boys flocking to her every whim left and right. It wasn't even that Nico was pretty sure if Rachel bottled her essence and sprayed it over bullshit they would sell it for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It wasn't that Rachel had a fortune waiting for her when she turned twenty-five thanks to her grandfather who had own a multibillion dollar company before his death, but it was that she did it all and then listened to his whining with a kind, observant ear.
Nico had a sneaking, unfounded, suspicion that Rachel was actually gathering evidence against him. It was, most likely, that he didn't really trust people—not even Leo—like he should have. More of those deep rooted issues he and Bianca liked to talk about late at night by cigarette.
Currently Nico and his friends were seated at their usual lunch table at the end of yet another school day. Rachel and Frank were having a discussion about bands Nico didn't listen to, and he and Leo weren't really talking about anything.
"So have you seen him this week?" Leo asked,
"Not this week," Nico shrugged, "not even a text." By, "anything" Nico guessed he meant Octavian, otherwise known as his not-boyfriend. Octavian was twenty-two and he had a car, and Nico wasn't in love with him, per se, but he was pretty in lust with him.
Thinking about it, Octavian was probably one of his bad habits too.
They had met at an underground concert, one he had, of course, snuck out to see. Nico's parents were very liberal in their raising of him, Hades let him do what he wanted as long as it wasn't harmful, and Maria thought her son was still just upset about what had happened almost two years ago, but he suspected they wouldn't be too happy to find out what his life had become. And they would especially not be happy to learn that he was dating a man six years older than him.
Still, that night he had ended up in a bathroom stall, pressed up against the divider while a stranger nibbled on his neck and began undressing him. Octavian wasn't a stranger anymore, though. They were more or less dating, just without the labels.
Hence the "not-boyfriend" title.
"It's weird, Neeks, s'all I'm saying." Leo said disapprovingly; his eyebrows rose expressively, he had a very expressive face. Hell, Leo was just expressive in general. "I couldn't do the whole casually fucking thing, I'm a one man type of guy."
"I know, I know." Nico said, running a hand through his extremely curly hair, he blew a strand out of his eye. "I mean, he's a good fuck."
"You've only had, like, three others to measure him up to." Leo countered.
"He's got a big dick." Nico grinned. Leo laughed.
"Okay, I'll give you that, but really? Aren't you just sort of playing into the gay stereotype? I thought you hated that."
"You hate the Mexican stereotype, Frank hates the Asian one, I hate the gay one, and sometimes we just play into them through no fault of our own."
"There's nothing inherently wrong with the gay stereotype though." Leo countered.
Nico shrugged. "Whatever. I'm just trying him out for now, okay? It's not like I'm looking for a father of my children."
"Could've fooled me," Rachel threw over her shoulder, her bright green eyes shining with taunting. Frank laughed under his hand politely so as not to offend Nico, and he could never be particularly mad at Frank because the guy was so damn adorable at times, but still he cut his eyes at Rachel. She smiled at him and grabbed his cheek. "You're so cute when you scowl."
"Kindly go suck a bag of dicks, Rach."
"I'll leave the dick sucking to you three," She smirked, reaching over the table and mussing Nico's hair, something only she could get away with. "I've got to go, Dad's here." She held up her phone, indicating to a text message that must have been from her father. "Later dorks." She smiled slinging her backpack over her shoulder.
"Bye Rachel," The three remaining friends chorused, and like that she was out of the door. They were waiting on pick-ups, school was over but none of them were bus riders so on most days they awaited their parents in the cafeteria. This had been the routine for roughly a year-and-a-half now.
"So," Frank said with a small smile, which was his way—he did things in small, subtle intervals, almost as if he were afraid of his own bigness. "you guys were talking about Octavian?" Nico sneered, his not-boyfriend was always quick to become their main point of topic if nothing else was immediately seeking their attention.
"Aren't there blouses and skirts you should be pretending you don't want to wear somewhere?" He answered back testily.
Frank laughed, "You're always so testy about Octagon."
"Please don't call him that."
"It's true, you absolutely hate talking about him." Leo said. "We're your best friends, you should actually want to tell us these things."
"See, the problem is I don't think it's any of your business, in fact—" But his verbal lashing was cut short as Nico's phone rang loudly the very next moment. He pulled it from his pocket, it was a text message. Apparently they had talked up his lover. Frank and Leo mirrored each other's smiles. "Shut the hell up." Nico growled, they didn't even know who it was from, they were just pretending to. Sighing he opened the message.
'Come hang with me.' it read, and that was just like Octavian, if it benefited him he just asked directly. There was no question about Nico's day, no wondering if he was busy with school work, just "come hang with me" as if he didn't have a choice. Of course, by this time Leo and Frank were hanging over his shoulders.
"You gonna go?"
"Well of course he is: he wants to get laid." Leo nudged him in the ribs.
"I mean, I really think he's just using you Nico…"
"Neeks is the one using him, more like it. He's got this way about him that guys just can't get over. I admit I'm a little jealous."
"You just get all clingy is the problem Leo,"
"Fuck you man, you've never even had a boyfriend."
"Don't get mad because you go all level five stalker when it comes to guys," Frank shot back.
Nico listened to his friends prattle on without him, instead he was weighing the pros and cons of "hanging out" with Octavian. He did have Chemistry homework he should have been studying for, not that he was overly studious but if nothing else he took pride in the fact that he could get 'A's with the slightest bit of effort. He could probably manage not to fail his next Chem exam if he crammed tomorrow night, he figured.
"That's so very wrong!" Frank was exclaiming, or as close to it as it came with him. "Nico, please tell your friend that socks and sandals are atrocious."
"You put too much time into fashion, Frankie. Keep it up and your parent's'll realize that their son is actually not a son at all, hell, you're not even a daughter."
"You're right, I'm better: I'm both." Frank countered. "Now stop bringing my gender into this, dumbass. Just because you look like the poster boy for Homeless Monthly doesn't mean everyone has to."
"Would you two be quiet for a minute?" Nico shushed them. "I have to call my Dad and tell him not to pick me up."
"See," Leo grinned turning his attention away from the spat. "I knew you wanted to see Octogonagus." Rolling his eyes Nico quickly called his father, after a few exchanged words, a couple of "Yes, sirs," and a promise not to do anything stupid he called Octavian.
"Hey," He said when the line was answered.
"Yes?" Octavian replied; his voice deep and soothing, like that of a therapist's or a politician's. Octavian had a way of speaking, the rolling inflection, the imperative nature to his words, that made people listen. Nico thought he should run for Senator, or at the very least work a phone hotline. Instead his not-boyfriend lived off of his rich parent's money without a care in the world, which meant he had a lot of time to do a lot of unnecessary, and at times harmful, things—which is where Nico had picked it up from.
They had met at that club not even a full year ago, it was the first time Nico had ever snuck in anywhere, but thankfully his fake I.D. had passed inspection. See, Nico was a lot of things, but most of all he was depressed—and not in a general sense of the word. Nico was that searching sort of depressed, that unruly, indefatigable kind of depressed that had woven itself into his very skin, and he was looking for something from anyone who could give it to him that might temporarily relieve it. After his falling out with Percy he had been left soulfully wounded, metaphorically bleeding out from an even more metaphoric but nearly just as painful mortal gash on his emotions. Now he just wanted something, anything, to stitch up that laceration, to put him back together. Octavian proved to be just that thing, only in the sense that he was the worst sort of anesthetize.
Nico needed an overall fix and Octavian was morphine, numbing but wholly unhelpful in the long run.
It probably didn't help that their first real interaction had been sweaty, unrestrained, but thankfully protected sex in a very public stall in that very club's bathroom. Nico thought that perhaps he should have been more ashamed, that maybe he should have had a little more respect for himself than he did, but when it all boiled down to it he really just liked sex. His friend Leo knew of three men he had previously engaged in it with before Octavian, but he hadn't told them about the four others. Seven seemed too high a number of partners for someone his age.
"Don't 'yeah' me. Come pick me up from school, you said you wanted to hang." Nico answered back, earning looks from his friends that said they wished he was gentler in these situations. Octavian was quite a few years older than him though, he could take it.
"Alright, give me a minute, I have to find my keys."
"What were you doing that made you think of me?" Nico wondered idly.
"You want the truth?" There was his pretentious little laugh that followed afterward, a laugh that Nico couldn't say he was incredibly fond of, but he couldn't really ask Octavian to do a different one, it was his laughafter all—there was no changing it. "I was hand-over-fist about to jerk off when I thought better of it, why have a boy if I'm going masturbate by myself?"
"Touching." Nico deadpanned, quite clearly unamused. "Whatever, just get here quick. The natives are restless and won't stop pestering me about you."
"You love us," Leo whispered loud enough for him to hear.
"You gotta any bud?" Nico continued, ignoring the Latino young man.
"California's finest dank. We'll smoke a bowl and fuck, yeah?"
"Yeah, cool." And with that he ended the call. Nico ran a hand through his hair and sighed, he looked at his two friends. "You're really fucking annoying, you know that?"
"Duh," Frank scoffed. "It's why you keep us around."
"That and who else would hang out with his gay ass?" Leo prompted.
"Are either one of you able to talk about 'gays' and 'asses' in the same sentence without the words 'dicks in them' shoved somewhere between?"
"Fag." Leo grinned, shoving his shoulder playfully. "You gonna come over after you spend some quality time with lover boy? I need an excuse not to study too, you know."
"What you need is a boyfriend, or at least a fuck-buddy like Nico's got." Frank countered.
"Ouch. Hello Pot my name is Kettle, not Black."
"I'm just saying…" Frank laughed.
"Yeah, and I'm just saying when was the last time you got any action? Fucking virgin."
"That's an oxymoron and you know it," Frank pushed his forefinger into Leo's chest. "Anyway, my virginity is directly proportional to finding someone who can look past all of my…issues and be okay with it. Unlike you two I take pride in the fact that I'm holding out for the right boy or girl."
"And everything in-between." Nico added. They laughed at that. Nico liked these two, despite their constant bickering, and he liked Rachel even if she had the perfect sort of life he could only dream of. He supposed he couldn't ask for better friends, really. Ideally he would have still been back in New York, but ideals and reality rarely coincide.
About fifteen minutes later Nico got a text message that said simply 'here' and he stood up. "I'll see you guys later."
"Give Octoganapus our love." Leo said with a huge grin. If the boy wasn't so damn adorable Nico might have punched him in the face a long time ago for comments like that. But with his untamed mass of curly hair, his gigantic brown eyes that seemed too big for his face, his huge ears, and that damned smile he was too cute to even be mad at—even if Nico never saw him in a romantic sort of light. Same with Frank. Frank might have been baby-faced but he was cute.
"Fuck off, the both of you."
"I didn't even say anything!" Frank protested. Nico smiled and left, heading towards the entrance of his high school. At the front, parked on the sidewalk was a motorcycle that was still running. The cyclist was seated with his feet planted on either side of him and he was leaning on the handlebars in an almost bored fashion.
Octavian was tall and wisp thin, a fact that was made more prevalent by the black tank top that clung to his torso and the cargo shorts that showed his skinny legs. "There you are, kid." He smiled. He was handsome in that pampered rich boy sort of way, his smile was a little greasy, and his eyes looked at everything like they were possessions but Nico liked him for the moment and that's all that mattered. "Hey."
"Hey yourself," Nico said returning the smile, he snuck in a quick kiss.
"Here, you ready?" Octavian handed him an extra helmet, his own seated on his lap while the motorcycle was idle, revealing his midnight colored hair to the world. Nico put the helmet on and climbed behind his not-boyfriend, wrapping his arms tightly around that slim waist.
"I am now, let's get out of here." Nico replied, that was all it took. The engine roared back to life fully, throttled, and then they were speeding away back to Octavian's apartment.
Nico was sitting naked on Octavian's bed, his hair was clinging to his sweaty forehead; his eyes were distant and rimmed in red. Octavian was smoking a cigarette on the balcony though the door was open and Nico could see his skinny equally naked form quite clearly. They were talking, and Nico wasn't completely sober, the conversation was not one he wanted to be having.
"You did it again," Octavian was saying.
"You're messing with my high, O." Nico replied, drifting between two dimensions—the real one and one where everything in his life was okay for just one goddamned minute.
"Oh, now you know who I am," Octavian was glaring at him, the jealousy in his eyes was livid and chilling and Nico really didn't want to lose this high but it was difficult when he was getting the first degree.
"Sorry," He gave a small, insincere little smile and shrugged. "You know I didn't mean anything by it."
"It'd be nice if you didn't scream out other dude's names."
"It'd be nice if you didn't fuck other dudes while you're with me, but I don't complain about that. Don't even make me bring up the fact that I don't even know if you're really with me, either. There's a whole bunch of shit we could get into right now, so just drop it." Nico shot back, his own glare much darker and menacing than Octavian's. Nico had the advantage of the fact that scowls were semi-permanent in his family. Not only that but his father was a connoisseur of menace, something that had passed from father to son. "Besides, you called me over. Don't be a pussy."
Octavian sighed, seeing that he was not going to win this battle. "This "Percy" guy must have fucked your brains out pretty good, since you never call out my name during." Octavian squashed out his cigarette and came back into his room, sitting on the big expensive bed and crossing his legs. His body was tan, being a mix of Italian and Palestinian descent made sure of that year round, and his dark eyes seemed to taunt. Many times he had tried to pry information of who Percy was out of Nico, but his teenaged lover wouldn't ever do much more than give a heartbreaking sort of self-degrading grin and shrug.
"If it makes you feel better," Nico said with just that grin, "we never had sex, just a kiss."
"Fuck." Octavian laughed, crawling on his hands and knees across the bed to nip at Nico's neckline. "Must have been one helluva kiss then."
"Can we not talk about it?"
"Can you call me by the right name?"
"Fuck you."
"Jesus Christ, Nico. Don't get mad at me for wanting you to call me who I am." Octavian's hand was possessively gripping Nico's hip, their chests were pressed together and Nico's legs were slowly wrapping around Octavian's backside.
"I'll fucking try, okay? I said I didn't mean to do it." He sighed heavily. "Can we just smoke some more?" This time Octavian grinned, he pressed their lips together—he tasted sweet and at the same time salty, the salt being from a mix of sweat and semen.
"Yeah, alright, I'll pack another bowl," He sat up and grabbed Nico's face, squishing the cheeks in between his fingers. "First you gotta suck me off though, as a way of apology." Nico rolled his eyes. He pushed Octavian backwards and the older of the two gladly fell back onto the bed, placing both of his arms behind his head and looking quite comfortable.
"Fucker." Nico bit out, then he ducked his head below Octavian's waist taking the flaccid but meaty penis into his mouth. It slowly swelled there as if coming to life and Nico suckled at it, not exactly hating what he was doing. He was good at it, Octavian might not have been his first, but he was his most frequent—and really his only nowadays.
Octavian's hand, which was almost always on him, gripped at Nico's hair tightly, forcing him all the way down, not that Nico had much of a gag reflex anymore. He swallowed the now fully swollen length, pulled it out of his mouth, and masturbated it a few times before repeating the process.
"You're so good at that," Octavian said with a rather self-satisfied look on his face. Nico didn't answer him, he just kept up what he was best least this way he couldn't accidently yell out someone's name at climax.
Someone who was dead to him.
Someone who he only really thought about when he was alone.
Someone he had to constantly lie to himself about.
He continued his fellatio, but it was no longer Octavian his not-boyfriend he was giving it to, but someone who he shouldn't have even still cared about. He grazed his teeth over the tight flesh of the erect manhood, licked the underside and shoved it back in his mouth before he said something stupid.
It wasn't like he even remembered what Percy looked like, he told himself.
It was convincing, he almost believed it.
Almost.
"Where have you been?" Hades asked as Nico passed the living room; it was twelve-thirty at night.
"Boyfriend." Nico said over his shoulders. "Tired. Sorry it's past curfew. Ground me in the morning."
"Son." Nico sighed and stopped, he turned around to face his father. In the past few years Hades hadn't aged, not really. His eyes were a little deeper, his face was a little more weathered, but he looked relatively the same. There was a huge book in his lap and a pair of reading glasses in his hands as he looked at Nico. The problem, Nico thought just like every time his father looked at him, was that Hades really saw him, unlike everyone else. When Hades wanted to he could read every damn thought in Nico's head before Nico even had a chance to think them, and that really pissed him off some days.
Today though he was just tired.
"You carry a lot of weight around on your shoulders, Nico." Hades said, the living room was dark all except for a small lamp on the table beside the recliner Hades was seated in, and it didn't give off much light. His father was wreathed in the black of night but his eyes were glowing brightly, analytical and onyx as always. "You know if you want to talk your mother and I are here."
You're never here, Nico wanted to say. If Hades was home it was during times like this, late at night when no one else even existed, otherwise he was off touring and on his book signing adventures. Nico's mother, Maria, refused to go with him most of the time. She said someone needed to be home, to take care of the house, of the children. Nico had never heard them fight about it but he was sure they did.
"I know." He said in a quiet, tired voice.
"I love you, son." Hades said, sitting up straight. "I don't say that enough."
"I love you too, Dad." Nico felt his eyes prickle but he wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because he really loved his father a lot, he thought, or maybe it was because he had a lot of things on his mind, or maybe he had just had a really long fucking day. Either way he was almost in tears and he didn't like that; he blinked hard and willed himself not to cry, something he was quite good at now. He straightened his shoulders, blinked again and on the outside he appeared fine. "I'm really tired, Dad. I'm going to bed, alright?"
Hades nodded, "Goodnight then, son. Sleep well."
"Thanks." Turning away he bolted up the stairs, upon entry into his room he ignored the dressers, and the clothing on the floor, and the posters on the wall, he ran straight to his bedside drawer, yanked it open.
There were two things staring at him immediately as he put aside the clothing that covered the small items at the very bottom of the drawer. He had almost cut his finger on the razor blade trying to pull out the small bottle right beside it. He grabbed the bottle and opened it. Digging out two pills he popped them into his mouth and screwed the cap back on the bottle. He laid down on the bed, it had been almost a year and a half since he'd taken his anti-depressants, and he wasn't even sure if they were still good, but he didn't want to feel anymore today. Pathetic as it may have sounded he really just didn't.
Sighing Nico closed his eyes, he contemplated skipping school tomorrow. He could fake sick like an Emmy nominated actor, his mother wouldn't force him to go and his father would probably already be gone somewhere, off writing.
Sighing again Nico realized he was still fully clothed in bed, he kicked his shoes off and didn't bother getting beneath the blankets.
Nico knew this was futile. He knew feeling depressed and sad about things made him a useless jackass, he knew there were people in the world, real people with real problems who were starving and without homes, and he knew that there were others still with much worse conditions out there.
He knew all of this and he felt all the worse for it, who was he, some speck of shit in the greater scheme of the universe, someone who perennially wished he were dead, someone who fucked around with a guy he knew would never actually feel anything for him, someone who took year old anti-depressant meds he told his parents he threw out, some little fuck-up with no real purpose who didn't have the right to feel like this, and yet he did.
With his eyes closed and his thoughts slowly turning quiet he fell asleep on the bed much the same way he did every night, belittling himself and his emotions.
It was never supposed to be like this, he finally thought, drifting off.
