Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or Heroes of Olympus.
So, I just spent about six hours on the Solangelo Tumblr tag. There aren't as many new Solangelo stories on here lately so I searched elsewhere…yeah. It was worth it. Oh! The third part in this was a prompt from someone on that tag, too.
Warnings: pre-slash era; Oreos, flexibility (not in a dirty way :P), Nico and Piper bonding, insult war
Enjoy!
Nico looked at the Son of Jupiter like he was crazy.
Jason blinked at him innocently, and Nico huffed.
"Are you seriously psychoanalyzing the method I use to eat Oreos?" The Son of Hades finally asked, raising an eyebrow in disbelief.
"Of course!" Jason said, mock aghast. "It says a lot about a person…"
Nico face-palmed.
"Sunshine!"
"Death Boy!"
"Big fiery ball of gas!" Nico responded with a sniff, glaring at Will. The two of them had been exchanging nicknames and insults for the last ten minutes, when Nico remembered something from before he came to Camp Half-Blood the first time all those years ago.
Will paused, confused. "What?"
From behind them, Thalia and the other Hunters were laughing their heads off, some of them had even fallen to the ground, clutching their stomachs.
"Uh, that's one of Artemis' nicknames for Apollo." Nico admitting, blushing slightly. He hadn't expected the Hunters to react like that…
Will frowned. "I like to think you don't see me as your brother." He muttered before turning and walking towards the infirmary.
Nico blushed brightly, ignoring the renewed peals of laughter from the girls, shadow-traveling back to his cabin where he could freak out where no one could see him.
"Figures all would go to Ha-um, the Underworld." Will said with a grunt.
Nico slashed at a group of empousa, disintegrating them into golden dust as he ducked an attack from a harpy. "Damn things." He agreed.
"NICO! WATCH OUT!" Hazel screamed in fear.
Nico glanced around quickly, seeing the Minotaur (of all things) trying to sneak up on him from the side. He instinctively leaped backwards, going into a full back handspring and landing perfectly, right out of the Minotaur's grip. A second later, he lunged forward, plunging his Stygian Iron sword in the back of the monster's neck until it also disintegrated.
All that was left was the Minotaur's axe, which Nico assumed was his spoil of war.
He hefted it up, testing its weight as he wondered whether or not Clarisse knew how to use an axe, and if she did, if she could teach him how to fight with one.
"Strange, I got its horn when I fought it." Percy muttered, glancing at the axe curiously.
"Yeah, but you'd broken it off it his head." Annabeth said. "It was already detached. Like Medusa's head when we fought her."
Nico ignored the couple when he heard Percy ask the Daughter of Athena to clarify, turning back to where Will, Lou Ellen, Cecil, and a few others were standing.
He blinked when he saw that they were all staring at him in shock.
"What?" he asked, furrowing his eyebrows. It wasn't like he'd just raised an army of the dead.
"Where did you learn that?" Will asked, nearly choking on his words.
"Learn what?" Nico asked, still confused.
"That…flip…thing!" Lou Ellen shouted, waving her arms around her head. "That…was…so…"
"Cool!" Cecil shouted excitedly. "Can you teach me how to do that?"
"Uh…" Nico backed away, uncomfortable with the enthusiasm. Seriously, they were impressed by something like that?
He was also a bit concerned by the look on Will's face.
After about five minutes of the Daughter of Hecate and Son of Hermes bugging him and him trying to escape them, he threw his arms up and shadow-traveled away.
Unfortunately, he was a bit out of practice, and ended up in China.
Again.
At least this time he didn't pass out, though he was a bit winded. He'd wait a few hours before going back.
Will was torn: he was slightly angry with Nico for shadow-traveling so soon after Will had given him the go-ahead, but he was also drooling from that move. Gods, Nico was flexible….
"Woah!" Piper glanced at Nico, surprised. Her eyebrows furrowed as she took a closer look. "Where did you get that?"
Nico could tell that she was only curious, not judgmental, so he answered. "One of the Ares kids wants to be a tattoo artist and a piercer…I didn't quite trust her enough to let her give me a tattoo, but I figured she couldn't do too much damage with an ear piercing."
"Cool." Piper decided with a grin. "It looks good on you. If you did get a tattoo, any idea what it would be?"
Nico glanced up to the sky thoughtfully, twisting the black stud in his ear automatically, still unused to the feeling. "I don't know…good question."
"I'd probably get a tattoo in memory of my grandpa Tom." Piper decided. "He died a few years ago of lung cancer. He always used to tell me Cherokee stories, and he's the one who named me. Apparently I screamed loudly as a baby, and had quite a 'set of pipes'."
She smiled fondly, reminiscing. Nico could hear the sadness in her voice, but she had accepted his death.
"I don't have any memories of my mother." Nico said after a long moment. The Daughter of Aphrodite had shared something personal with him, and he felt obligated to do the same. Part of having friends was sharing these kinds of things with them, right? "My full sister, Bianca, was more like a mother to me. Maybe something that I can associate with my mother, Maria, as well as Bianca and Hazel. My father. Maybe Reyna, too. Something I can add to later on..."
'As my family grows.' Was left unsaid, but not unheard.
Piper reached out, squeezing his hand gently before letting go. She tended to be more aware of his issues with physical contact than the others for some reasons, and was always careful not to push his comfort levels.
Nico offered her a small smile. Maybe he'd end up adding another honorary sister to that tattoo.
And an honorary brother, for that matter. Jason would accept nothing less.
Hopefully at some point he'd have a strong enough relationship with Will (platonic or romantic, he didn't know) that the Son of Apollo would have his own place.
He shook his head, remembering that he hadn't actually been planning on ever getting a tattoo.
Please review!
