A/N: Aaand, I'm back. Sorry for the wait. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! On to chapter nine! A big thank you to all those who left a review on the last chapter! It's always hugely appreciated!
Warnings: None for this chapter
Percy was standing on a hill. Half-blood hill back at camp, he noted- staring out at Long Island Sound as the blazing copper sun began to set over the water. He never got tired of watching the sunsets at Camp Half-Blood. It had a way of calming him like noting else could, just listening to the sounds of his fellow campers scuttling about, in preparation for the evening festivities. Taking in the salty ocean breeze and watching the color of the water shift as the sky faded from blue, to pink, to orange.
There was something different about it though, something different about him. . . something he couldn't place. He could hear Travis Stoll shouting at his brother from across the mess hall- Percy honestly couldn't distinguish what he was saying, but it didn't sound particularly important.
"Hey, there you are. I've been looking all over for you," Percy heard a familiar voice chirp behind him. It was Nico. Percy turned toward him, a big smile on his face. "Guess I should have figured you'd be out here. As a general rule of thumb; Percy's missing, check by the water," Nico joked, sitting down in the grass beside the older demigod.
Instinctively, Percy wrapped his arm around Nico's shoulder and pulled him closer. He was surprised by how naturally Nico snuggled into him- as if the two of them had sat in this exact spot and cuddled like this a million times.
He quickly shook off his confusion- of course they had cuddled like this before- they were dating, after all. Why wouldn't they? Percy moved his arm further down, until it was firmly wrapped around his boyfriend's waist.
"How was training today?" Percy asked. Chiron had asked some of the more seasoned fighters to volunteer to train some of the newer campers. Most of them agreed, including both Percy and Nico. They gave their time to training whenever they could spare it. Nico actually enjoyed helping out the younger demigods, so he was out there most days.
"It went surprisingly well, Benny didn't accidentally bury us in sunflowers again, so that's a plus," Nico replied. Percy chuckled and rested his head against Nico's.
Even through the very potent aroma of the ocean and the strawberry fields wafting in the evening breeze, Percy could still pick out the scent of Nico's hair. It wasn't an altogether pleasant smell-that of pomegranate shampoo and the smallest hints of stale death. . . it was an interesting concoction of fragrances. But it was one that Percy had grown very fond of.
He took a deep breath, inhaling his boyfriend's essence like it was the last breath he would ever take. Then he planted a firm kiss on the top of the younger demigod's head, his boyfriend's feathery, raven hair tickling his nose as he did so.
Percy's eyes fluttered open, as he tried to focus on where he was. It took him a moment to remember that he wasn't back at Camp Half-Blood. And that the smaller demigod leaning against his shoulder, fast asleep was not his boyfriend.
'What the in the actual Hades was that dream about?' Percy thought, still in a haze. He remembered where he was now. He also remembered what he was trying to do. And even more puzzling, was that he remembered the last two nights and how amazing they had been.
He looked down at Nico, who was still sound asleep against Percy's shoulder, looking for all the world like the angel his name suggested he was. Time seemed to slow, as Percy kept his eyes locked on Nico's sleeping form. He was transfixed, remembering his strange dream.
It made him uncomfortable, thinking about how he felt in the dream- it was different from anything that he'd ever felt with Annabeth. If he had to describe it in one word, he would most likely say it felt "easy."
Nothing was ever easy with Annabeth. Nothing was ever comfortable. It was like walking on eggshells almost every single time he spoke to her. And it had only gotten worse since the prophesies ended. Now, it was almost like his very existence irked her. Like she was looking to argue about something.
But it had never been easy with her. Not even before they started seeing one another. He always said or did something wrong. Nothing was ever her fault. Everything had to be exactly as she saw it in her head and anything else was unacceptable. As much as Percy loved her- even he knew that wasn't the way relationships were supposed to work. And he really didn't appreciate being a whipping boy. Not many people would- hero or not.
His dream only made him remember the last two days with Nico. They had been easy- even though the two of them had been thrust into an endlessly frustrating situation and they had a very muddy past together. . . it was still easy. Percy could be himself around Nico. He could say what he was thinking, no matter how stupid it was, and Nico would just accept it. No arguing. No belittling. It was something Percy wasn't used to, but he liked it. He liked it a whole lot.
'But that's just how most relationships are,' Percy thought, 'sometimes guys just need some guy time. Of course Nico gets it, he's a guy.' Even Percy knew that was a ridiculous conclusion, but he forced himself to believe it. This whole thing with Cupid was an act- Percy couldn't let any of it go to his head. That would only make things worse for everyone.
He gently slid Nico over, so he was lying on the other side of the sofa, his head cradled by the arm rest. Percy took the throw blanket and covered him up, even though he wasn't sure if the guy ever even got cold. After he was sure Nico was comfortable, he made his way to the kitchen and got started on breakfast.
About a half an hour later, Nico awoke to the smell of something sweet. He uncovered himself and glanced around the room. The TV was still on, and still playing old black and white movies. He noticed that Percy was gone, but assumed that the sweet smell in the air was his doing.
Before he could even get off of the sofa, Percy came into the living room, whistling a very cheerful tune, with a tray of food in his hands.
"Ah, you're awake. Good," the son of Poseidon announced, setting the tray down on Nico's lap. "Breakfast in bed, for the unseen hero of Olympus." Nico looked down at the tray, on which sat a plate with a mountain of waffles, a stick of butter, a bottle of maple syrup, and a tall glass of orange juice. It smelled delicious and Nico was insanely hungry. But the way Percy was behaving didn't feel right to him. He had to wonder just what his crazy, aquatic friend was up to.
Percy retreated back into the kitchen with a grin, presumably to get his own food. Leaving Nico to ponder what Percy's plan might be. Honestly, he hadn't really thought about it too much yesterday. A big part of him didn't even really care what the plan was, as long as it actually worked. But now he found himself overcome with curiosity.
It was obvious Percy was trying to bond with him. . . to what end, Nico wasn't sure. Maybe he was trying to convince Cupid they were friends. No, that didn't make any sense, why would Cupid care about something as trivial as that?
The sobering reality hit Nico like a ton of bricks; Percy was trying to convince Cupid that they were in love. Or at least convince him that they were falling in love. Either way, this plan filled Nico with dread. It wasn't a bad plan- if this was Cupid he probably did want to complicate things for everyone. But pretending to be in love. . . that was going a little too far.
Besides, it would be pretty hard to convince a love god that there's love where there isn't any. . .which there isn't. For either of them. . .
"I'm not in love with Percy, Will," Nico heard himself say in his head.
"You really are. Your heart hasn't been in this relationship since the moment we started it. It took me a while to understand why. But I do now. And I'm honestly sick of competing with the untouchable son of Poseidon," Will's words echoed in Nico's mind. Will had been so sure Nico's heart was closed to him. And maybe, looking back on it, Nico could see he may have been right.
After the defeat of Gaea, Nico had been sure he was ready to move on. He'd convinced himself of it. He decided it was time to let Percy go and move on- that his whole life wasn't going to be dominated by an unrequited love.
So he did what he had to do and he let Percy go. Or at least he thought he had. . . but maybe he was lying to himself. It certainly wouldn't have been the first time. Nico made a habit of lying to himself. It was the only way he knew to keep himself alive. He'd lied to himself for years about how he felt for Percy. He told himself he hated him- that he didn't matter to him. Now he understood that Percy meant the world to him- literally. Nico would have been willing to sacrifice his entire world for Percy. And he never would have thought twice about doing it.
As he sat there, trying to choke down his soggy waffles, he internally kicked himself. 'I'm such an idiot. Feelings like that don't just go away because you want them to. . . You can't force yourself to stop loving someone,' he thought, almost laughing at how ridiculous it was that he ever believed he had stopped loving Percy.
But if Percy was going to do this, Nico knew he had to meet him halfway. They would have to find a way out of this place somehow. This plan, as reckless as it might have been, was certainly worth a try. The only real problem with it was that Nico knew if he had the chance to feel what it was like to be loved by Percy and then he had to lose it, something in his heart would break forever. But he never really cared that much about his own feelings. At least not when Percy needed him- that was the one thing he could never resist.
Percy came back into the room, a plate of waffles in one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other, grinning from ear to ear. Nico pushed the dark thoughts from his mind and tried for a smile, even though he knew that his crooked smiles never really looked that genuine. No matter what he did, he always looked guilty or nervous when he smiled. Percy sat down beside him and began pouring a gallon of syrup on his toasted treat.
As usual, they ate in comfortable silence. After which, Nico offered to clean up. Percy decided to help him, even though there wasn't much to clean. He was anxious to finish breakfast- there were things he wanted to do. Honestly, he was really excited.
After they had cleaned and dried the dishes, Percy ran over to the door and grabbed two jackets- one of which he put on himself and the other he handed to Nico.
"What's this for?" the younger demigod asked, taking the jacket.
"You'll see. C'mon, get your shoes on. I wanna show you something," Percy replied, eagerly. Nico complied, a little thrilled by his companion's enthusiasm.
They walked down the street, side by side. Nico noted they were heading to the part of the loop Percy had been searching- he'd never even seen it, but he'd assumed it was all more or less the same.
"I didn't get much of a chance to enjoy this place- I was a little too busy searching," Percy announced. They only walked a couple more blocks before coming to something Nico hadn't been expecting to see in the middle of a suburb; a park. Not a little playground- but a big green field, decorated with red brick sidewalks, lined with lush gardens and hedges. Smack dab in the center was a beautiful pond- a huge one, maybe about 4,000 square feet or so. It was shimmering in the early afternoon sun, beams of light reflecting off the big spewing fountain in the middle. Ducks were splashing around on the shore, dipping their iridescent green heads into the water.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" the son of Poseidon asked, admiring the view.
"Yeah, it is," Nico replied. All the plush green grass reminded him of Tuscany, a region of his birth Country he only vaguely remembered from his childhood. He knew he'd been there before. He recalled the green and golden rolling hills and the rows of grapevines and olive trees.
"This is the best part though," Percy said, taking Nico by the hand and leading him to the other side of the pond. It had been hidden behind from his field of view by the fountain, but he could now see what Percy was so excited about; a rowboat. It was just nestled into the dirt along the shore of the pond, the oars resting inside.
Percy began to push the boat into the water- with his hands, Nico noted. He had to take a moment to admire the fact that he could have used his powers to pull the boat into the water, but he didn't. Sometimes, Percy preferred to do things by hand, and that was incredibly attractive, Nico thought.
A couple minutes later, the two of them were floating in a rowboat on a little pond, trying to avoid pissing off the ducks. Despite that, it was oddly romantic; how the summer sun bounced off of Percy's tanned skin and the way the water seemed to make Nico's deep brown eyes sparkle.
Percy's A.D.D. got the better of him when his mind just started thinking of that scene with the rowboat in The Little Mermaid. And just like that, he had "Kiss the Girl" stuck in his head. He tried not to laugh, that would definitely ruin the mood. So would a bunch of singing fish, spewing water at them. He never understood how that scene was meant to be romantic.
"This is nice," he finally said, trying to push the animated feature from his mind. Nico nodded, a little distracted by the way Percy's shoulders tightened each time he rowed the oars.
"Yeah, I guess so. I'm not used to being out in the sun that much," Nico said.
"You should get out more. It's good for you, a lot better than spending all your time in the stuffy Underworld, that's for sure," Percy replied, just letting the rowboat drift on its own.
"Maybe. I haven't been back to the Underworld since. . . in a long time," Nico stammered. The subject of Tartarus hung in the air between them- neither of them wanting to bring it up. Percy had a pretty good idea that Nico was about to say he hadn't gone back since he returned from Tartarus. . . and Percy definitely wouldn't blame him. That place was far worse than any nightmare Percy could dream up. He certainly didn't want to go anywhere near it ever again.
"Well, when we get back home, we're gonna do stuff like this more often. You're going to finally get some much needed sunlight, Mr. Cullen," Percy joked. Nico scowled.
"Please tell me you didn't just make a Twilight reference. . ." the ghoulish demigod said.
"I blanked. What are you gonna do about it?" Percy teased, not paying much attention to the orientation of the rowboat.
"I'm going to silently judge you and pray to the gods to have mercy on you and your future children," Nico replied, arching one thick eyebrow at the captain.
"Harsh. . . but fair," Percy managed to say- before the two of them were doused with water from the fountain. They had been drifting right toward it, but neither of them had noticed until it was too late. They both shrieked in surprise as the frigid pond water washed over them.
Percy desperately rowed the boat forward, until it was no longer under the fountain. Much like they had in the pool after their water fight, the two of them busted out laughing- this time, mostly out of shock. Percy used his powers to push the boat back to the shore, where they got back on dry land, still laughing and trying to shake themselves dry.
"Here, let me take care of this," Percy insisted, stretching out his arm toward Nico and pulling the water off of him. The son of Hades had never actually experienced Percy's quick drying powers firsthand- it was an odd sensation. But no more odd than shadow travel, so he could deal with it.
"Sorry about that," Percy said, drying himself as well, then directing all the water he had collected back to the pond. It was a little disgraceful that he, of all people, would make such a mistake. He always knew where he was in the water- even when he wasn't paying attention. He was surprised by how unaware of the fountain he had been- all he had been doing was goofing off.
"It's fine," Nico replied, still fighting off his laughter. He figured Percy probably felt like a doofus, having messed up like that- the guy could help guide a giant Greek trireme across the Atlantic but he couldn't handle a rowboat in a pond- it was a little sad.
Suddenly, a thought popped into Nico's head. A memory that he thought he'd lost a long time ago. He wanted to change the subject, if only to make Percy feel a little better. So, he decided to take a chance.
"Well, the afternoon is still young. Maybe we could cloud-watch," the younger man suggested, his eyebrows furrowed. Percy stared at him, bewildered. "You know, stare at the clouds, figure out what they look like, maybe make up stories about them? You've never done that?"
"I'm from New York, Nico. We don't look up at the clouds much, too many skyscrapers in the way," Percy explained. Maybe other kids tried games like that in New York, but he never had the time to. He wasn't even sure if he had the attention span for a game like that, it sounded a little boring.
"Oh. Well, I used to do it all the time when I was a kid. We traveled a lot, so I didn't always have much to do. Come on, give it a try," Nico confessed, lying down in the soft green grass. Percy shrugged and laid down beside him, turning his attention toward the big open sky.
"Okay, how do we play? You start," Percy said. Nico sighed and sat there, saying nothing for a minute or so. Just watching the clouds scroll across the sky. Finally, he spoke.
"Okay, see that one, right there?" he began, pointing to a particularly puffy cumulus cloud. He's a sugar glider. His name is Pierre." Percy kind of saw the sugar glider qualities of the cloud in question, but he remained silent and listened as Nico continued. "Pierre used to be human. He worked as a lumberjack. He kept to himself most of the time, because he had a pretty nasty upbringing and people just made him uncomfortable. He was happiest among the trees. But one day, he was foraging for food and he found some mushrooms growing in a glade. He recognized them and knew they were edible, so he pick a few and ate them," Nico explained, pointing at another cloud beside the sugar glider, which did actually look like a mushroom.
"As it so happened, those were magic mushrooms, that an enchantress had been growing for a spell. Pierre got very sick. Then, a few days later, the enchantress came to his hut in the woods. She told him that the mushrooms would suck the life right out of him by the weeks end. He cried and begged the enchantress to help him. She pitied the poor man, but she also thought he deserved punishment for eating the last of her magic mushrooms. So, she asked him once more if he wanted to live and if he would be willing to accept the price. He said he he would. She raised her magic staff and POOF, Pierre turned into a little furry rodent. Now, Pierre, the sugar glider scurries around the forest, cursed to eat mushrooms for the rest of his days," Nico concluded. Percy turned his head to stare at him with bemusement.
"That's it? That's how the story of Pierre the sugar glider ends?" he asked, holding back laughter. Nico turned to him and nodded.
"That's it. Pretty messed up, huh? Even lumberjacks can't catch a break from magic," the son of Hades said, completely deadpan. Percy lost it. He busted out laughing, not sure whether or not Nico was actually being serious or if he was just messing with him. He finally understood it was a joke when he opened his eyes and saw Nico smiling.
Nico decided he loved making Percy laugh. All he was ever able to do before was make him angry. This was a nice change of pace.
"Your turn," the dark demigod insisted, looking back up at the sky. Percy did the same, his laughter dying down. He had no idea where to begin. He'd never been the most creative person. In fact, one time, his English teacher asked him to write a short story about one of the side characters from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and he totally flunked it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he'd chosen Mr. Tumnas, the faun, mostly because he'd only read the first couple chapters and that was the only side character he knew. He'd gotten most of the details about him and his home wrong- not to mention his spelling was atrocious. Dyslexia will do that.
Still, he stared at the sky, trying to find inspiration somewhere. He knew he wouldn't come up with anything as elaborate as the story Nico told, but he was willing to give it a shot.
"Okay. That one right there," he began, leaning closer to Nico so the younger demigod could see exactly where he was pointing. "That one is Stella the snail. She's just a snail, but she's a cool snail. . .like, all the other snail ladies look up to her and stuff," Percy stammered, not sure where he was going with this.
"So, is she a nice snail?" Nico asked, trying to help him out a little.
"For sure. That's why she's so popular, 'cause in the snail world respect and a positive attitude is what wins you the popularity points," the son of Poseidon confirmed.
"Sound like the snail world is a pretty nice place to be," Nico replied, realizing that his face was so close to Percy's now, that if he turned his head, their noses would be touching. His heart began to pound in his ears. He could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks. But he was having too much fun to pull away.
"It is. But it's not reserved for the snails. See that, next to her? That's Harriet, the butterfly. They're best friends, even though they aren't even part of the same species," Percy concluded. It wasn't a story, as much as it was just a personal profile of a snail and a butterfly. Still, he was proud of himself for even getting that far. And even more surprisingly, he had fun. He had fun looking at clouds. That was something he never thought he'd be able to say.
Now that he wasn't so focused on the clouds and their stories, he finally took note of how close he was to his friend. He could almost hear his shallow intakes of breath.
Despite his better judgment, Percy moved his hand over Nico's. Disturbingly, he hadn't even been thinking about the plan. . . at least not until after he'd already interlaced his fingers with the smaller demigod's.
Nico jolted a little, unused to being touched so freely. In truth, he hadn't expected Percy to go so far with this ruse. If he was willing to hold Nico's hand, what else was he planning to do just to sell this charade. It was almost too much for the pallid boy to think about.
He looked into Percy's eyes, fighting back the pain, and managed a smile. This all felt far too good. . . so good, that Nico knew he'd never be able to forget it. No matter what, he was doomed to be heartbroken. 'Story of my life,' he thought, bitterly, remembering the last time he and Percy were lying in the grass, holding hands.
Percy didn't exactly want to let go, which was a little unsettling to him on its own. But he decided he should pull back, fearing he was crossing a line that shouldn't be crossed. He retracted his hand, feeling a little awkward.
"Sorry," he muttered, as he sat up. Nico followed.
"I. . . it's okay. . . why did you. . . never mind. We should head back to the house," Nico stammered, getting to his feet. He offered his hand to help Percy up, which the aquatic demigod took.
"Sure," Percy agreed, dusting the grass and dirt from his jeans. The walk home was quiet, save for the birds chirping happily above them. The moment they walked in the door, Nico announced that he would make dinner.
Once they'd eaten, Percy flipped on the TV and they watched terrible game shows for the rest of the night, a questionable feeling lingering on both of their minds.
A/N: Well, that's all for this chapter. Thanks so much for reading! Please review & favourite if you enjoyed it!
