"So you're over him now?" Jason asked.
After Percy's arrival, the party had continued, barely disturbed by his arrival. A lot of people had recognized him, particularly from the Camp Half-Blood folks, but aside from Will's strange kind of respect towards Percy, and Jason's pointed looks, there hadn't been anything worth noting.
And eventually, it had to end, leaving Jason and Nico at Jupiter's apartment. Since Nico had moved in in what used to be Jason's room, they'd gotten used to sharing it whenever Jason was in New York—the bed was large enough for two, anyway. This thought made Nico wonder what Jason had planned if he'd actually brought Percy home as Jason had clearly intended.
"I'm not sure," Nico confessed. "It just feels like I don't know him anymore."
Jason groaned. "Man, that sucks. I was really rooting for you guys. Clearly I am a failure at organizing reunion-slash-birthday parties."
"Of course you'd make this all about you." Nico rolled over to glare at Jason, but he looked so upset as he stared at the ceiling that Nico's exasperation faded away. "Sorry. I'm not being fair. And the party was a success, as far as I'm concerned."
Jason glanced at him with a goofy smile. "Really?"
"Yeah. Although next time…maybe try something smaller. If you're up for a next time, I mean. I'm fine with just a handful of people."
Jason chuckled. "Noted." He returned to staring at the ceiling. "But really, it's a shame. I feel like you guys never had a proper chance at something good."
"We did have something good."
"For a month. Two if you count the time at Camp Half-Blood. Not exactly happily ever after."
"Well…what do you want me to say?"
"What exactly happened outside?"
"I told you. It felt like he was a stranger. We kissed, and…nothing."
"And he agreed?"
"He—" Nico paused, not exactly enthusiastic at the thought of conjuring the memory. "He knew it wasn't particularly great."
Jason hummed softly. "He knew it wasn't for you."
"What are you saying, that it was awesome for him? That he still wants me? Because he gave up pretty easily, then."
"Why wouldn't he? If he sees he doesn't have a chance with you anymore, I guess he'll try his best not to get in too deep." He paused. "I know what he told me for all this time. I doubt this was the kind of closure he expected."
Nico pondered Jason's words. He hadn't considered it then, but maybe there'd been a slight blush on Percy's cheeks, or signs of a short breath, that Nico hadn't seen in the dark and the buzz of the party. He couldn't be sure. "Well…it's not like we're never going to see each other again. I'm sure we'll find out sooner or later, if we start being friends again."
"Yeah. You will."
It ended up being 'sooner' rather than 'later', and perhaps a little too soon to Nico's liking. He was still deep in the complex process of college applications, and administrative shenanigans—something about lost paperwork—got him in on the Columbia campus barely a few days after his birthday.
As his luck would have it, he walked outside of the building a couple hours later, feeling drained and bored out of his brains, only to walk into a crowd of students leaving a class. Among them was Percy, who spotted him eerily quickly and called out to him with a loud, cheerful "Nico!"
"Hey," Nico said as they met halfway through the crowd.
"What're you doing here?"
"College application. Some form was lost, and apparently they needed me in person for it. Or, well, it was faster this way. You know how it is."
"I can imagine. And here I thought you'd come to see me!" Nico couldn't help but wince slightly at Percy's overly flirty tone, and he seemed to notice. "I—right. Never mind. It's good to see you again, Nico. I mean, without having to wait almost two years in-between."
Nico couldn't help but chuckle, which weirded him out a little—when had they reached the point where they could make light of their turbulent history? "Yeah. It's good to see you too." The words came much easier than Nico had expected.
There was a fleeting silence between the two of them, broken when Percy cleared his throat. "So, do you maybe have time for coffee? We didn't really—catch up—last time."
Nico was about to refuse, when his conversation with Jason came to his mind. He and Percy hadn't had any closure, had they? And postponing things wouldn't help. So he shrugged. "Sure, why not?"
Percy knew a coffee shop nearby that he promised made the best coffees in existence. In truth, Nico was fairly certain he'd been charmed by the presence of a blue coffee on the menu, because his drink was mediocre at best. But the coffee was only a pretext, in the end, wasn't it?
"So," Percy started. "you're trying to get into Columbia?"
Nico shrugged. "I'm trying everything. Well, not literally everything, you know, just— I thought, 'Why not?', and here I am."
"Famous last words," Percy said, chuckling. "I hope you get in. I'd hate to see you go far away."
Nico couldn't help but tense up at his words. Percy's text on his birthday, the heart-eyes, and his comment that they'd always be appropriate, came back to his mind. How could he have forgotten about them while Jason was telling him Percy still loved him? Maybe he'd been willfully blind. "Percy…" He wasn't sure what to say next.
Luckily, it seemed Percy understood. "Look, I know you don't feel that way about me anymore, but I just want to make it clear. I mean, I'm thrilled if we manage to be friends, and I promise that's all I wanted when I came to your birthday party, but then I saw you again and—I still love you, Nico."
Nico sat back, stunned—was it possible to be stunned even when you weren't really surprised? Apparently so.
"I fucked up, didn't I?" Percy sighed. "I'm sorry, I've just made this awkward. I'll just—go, I guess."
Percy's words got Nico out of his stupor. "No, no, stay." Percy froze, halfway up, and frowned at Nico, before sitting back down. "I'm glad you told me this," Nico continued. "It's just—I don't know where I am anymore."
"You don't need to spare my feelings, you know. You made it pretty clear at the party."
"I know. It's just—we've both changed, and I don't want to rush things. It's like I don't know you anymore, and I just want to figure that out before I can say something as big as 'I still love you'. I don't know where I stand." Maybe he didn't want to know.
Percy nodded. "Fair enough. Well, we should hang out, then. Let you—figure that out." His voice was hoarse as he finished, but there was a large grin on his face.
Nico squirmed on his seat. "Right." Then, on an impulse, he added, "Or we could go to your place right now." Percy stared at him, stunned, and it took a moment for Nico to realize what he'd said. "I'm serious."
"It didn't exactly work when we rushed—" Nico reached across the table to kiss Percy, interrupting him. It was brief, and maybe a little awkward. But not the disaster it had been a few days before.
"Maybe I just needed to force myself to make a decision," Nico whispered before kissing him again.
The way to Percy's apartment was more of a race than a walk, weirdly cut with more small kisses and immobile moments when Percy stared at him as if he couldn't believe what they were doing—what they were about to do. If he were honest with himself, Nico couldn't believe it either. But he wanted to follow that impulse to the end—to see if he and Percy could still have something. If he could sleep with Will on numerous occasions after their breakup and not get back together with him, surely he could do the same with Percy and still wait before deciding if he wanted more?
The apartment was close to campus—Percy's mom had chosen it for that reason, after all—and it hadn't changed a bit. Nostalgia crashed against Nico's heart like so many waves at each familiar view, each familiar scent, leaving him dizzy and helpless when Percy pushed him against a wall near the entrance to kiss him hungrily. Nico grabbed him and pressed him even closer, feeling like he was on autopilot.
This was everything their kiss on his birthday should have been: a homecoming. His heart was pumping, his nose was filled with familiar scents—the strongest being Percy's, so close as to be overpowering and yet nowhere near enough after being deprived of it for so long—and his skin was electrified, aching for Percy's touch. The differences hadn't faded, but Nico felt like he was getting used to them already: their lack of a height difference meant they were slotted together without awkward angles, and Nico's experience combined with what he knew of Percy combined to guide him on an almost instinctual level as they inched towards the bedroom.
Percy briefly pulled away, short of breath, and Nico let out, "Oh, God, I missed you."
"Did you?"
"Yeah." He hadn't realized it, but he had.
"I missed you more." Percy kissed him again as he said so, moaning against Nico's lips as he tried to lift him up—and failed. Chuckling, he let go of Nico. "Okay, change of plans."
Nico raised a questioning eyebrow at him, and Percy wordlessly pulled his shirt over his head with one hand, unbuckling his belt with the other.
"In a rush, are you?" Nico teased.
"You have no idea," Percy said as he struggled to take off his shoes. He dropped his clothes on the floor, and stood there, in his underwear—blue briefs that were far too tight against his erection. "I know I'm hot, but are you just going to watch me?"
Nico chuckled. "Don't flatter yourself."
He took out the packet he'd kept in his back pocket since his birthday—Jason's present—and his clothes joined Percy's on the floor, and he nearly tackled the boy in his hurry to get rid of the last offending piece of clothing on Percy's body. They landed on his couch, and Nico briefly interrupted himself.
"This is where we kissed for the first time. Well, after we reunited."
"Is it really time for this? Because there's a boner here that disagrees." He slid his fingers under the waistband of Nico's boxers, and slowly pulled them down. "Sorry: two boners."
"Point taken." Still, Nico's hands moved more because of his memories than because Nico wanted them to, finding the sensitive spots along Percy's sides. The other boy's sharp intake of breath rewarded him, and he arced his back in a way that brought their erections against each other, the sudden contact making the furnace in Nico's body rage with renewed strength.
He slid a hand down, wrapping it around both of their dicks, and stroked slowly, while with the other, he recovered the small packet, using his teeth to tear it open.
"Not wasting any time, are you?" Percy teased.
Nico scoffed, but didn't answer him. "Got lube?"
"I kind of never bothered to resupply."
Nico groaned—but he guessed it'd have to do. He rolled the condom down his own length, then grabbed Percy's left leg and pulled it above his right shoulder, presenting his ass for the taking. Giving his own dick one stroke to get some of the condom's lube on his fingers, he then pushed a finger in Percy's ass, slowly, but with an assurance he hadn't had the last time.
He wrapped his other arm around Percy's leg to keep it secure, and found the boy's cock with his hand, teasing the head of it with the tip of his fingers. In response, Percy jerked his head back, letting out a low moan—one that made Nico wish he'd had Percy suck on him before he made such sounds.
The fantasy was promptly dismissed—but kept for a later time—as he kept working to stretch Percy without lube. It wasn't like he lacked experience of that—he and Will had run out a few times before—but it was always delicate.
In the end, it proved pointless: as Nico barely entered a second finger, Percy's breathing grew short, and he cried out wordlessly as he came between Nico's fingers. Reflexively, one of Percy's hands wrapped around his cock to stroke himself through the orgasm, linking itself with Nico's hands in the process.
When Percy came down, Nico pulled his fingers out and let go of him. "Sorry," Percy said. "I—it's been a while."
"And here I thought I just had that big an effect on you." Percy stared at him, a dumbfounded expression on his face as his post-orgasm brain was probably unable to process the sarcasm. Chuckling, Nico reached up, slotting their bodies together as he kissed Percy. "I'll get over it. But you owe me an orgasm."
"I do," Percy said, sounding almost thoughtful. "Let me get to that. Sit up."
Intrigued, Nico obeyed, and Percy came down from the couch, kneeling on the floor in front of him as he grabbed Nico's cock with a hand. He winked at Nico, then suddenly, his mouth joined his hand, working together over Nico's dick. Nico let out a soft gasp, overwhelmed by the sensations as Percy's other hand started teasing Nico's nipples—which Percy knew fully well how sensitive they were.
Percy had given him blowjobs in the past, but Nico was fairly certain they'd always been on a bed—or at least lying down. In this position, Percy was below him, and it gave Nico an odd, but exhilarating rush of power and dominance—one that grew even stronger when Percy looked up at him, looking strangely innocent through his eyelashes as he took more and more of Nico in his mouth.
Maybe Percy had noticed how much Nico had appreciated his moans earlier, because Percy let one out, running vibrations all over Nico's cock and sending him over the edge. He cried out Percy's name as the boy stroked and sucked him through his orgasm and beyond that.
Nico remained stunned, his head thrown back against the couch's cushion, even after his orgasm had passed through him. Percy climbed on his lap, straddling him and pressing their bodies together and crashing his lips against Nico's. He tasted his own come there along with all the other tastes of Percy, and suddenly realized both their chests were filthy with Percy's come from earlier. He didn't care, though. If it was possible to literally drown in sensations, Nico would have thought these were worth dying in.