Hi guys!
This is the first time that I translate something into English (I'm Brazilian). Furthermore, this is also my first job here at Fanfiction net, so I'm super nervous hahaha. I hope I managed to do everything correctly.
Be cool, please ❤

Hope you enjoy it!

...

Percy Jackson was standing in front of the gray marble counter when he heard the knock on the door.

He thought it was strange.

Really.

First, because it was nearly three in the morning. Second, almost nobody visited him anymore. Third: it was almost three damn hours in the morning , for gods sake.

He was making a mug of coffee and trying not to think about his life. It was hard not to think about his own life, especially when it was like that, so messy and meaningless. And also, of course, because life was his own.

But he tried.

His movement was automatic: he reached into his pocket. The simple pen, apparently cheap and ordinary, was in hand. When Percy uncapped, however, a shining 3 feet long blade of the purest celestial bronze appeared. Anaklusmos, Riptide, whichever you prefer; honestly, the name didn't matter much at that moment. What mattered was your senses, activated like a machine in full swing, ADHD sending waves of euphoria, your heart beating fast.

Percy was ready for the fight.

He gripped the leather handle firmly and opened the door.

With his sword raised, prepared to deliver a deadly blow to any gorgon, Minotaur, or Jehovah's Witness, Jackson opened his eyes wide when he realized that the one standing there was not a potential enemy.

At least not for now.

It was Nico Di Angelo.

The visitor had moved away with the agility of a well-trained demigod, taking his slim figure across the hall before Poseidon's son's sword did much worse damage than a simple haircut.

Percy, in turn, lowered his weapon before the blow was delivered. He didn't even know how he had the strength to do it, but maybe the shock had stopped him to the point that he didn't just cut the supposed threat into slices small enough to make a fucking salad.

Even his voice came out strange, perhaps a little squeaky:

" What ?"

"H-hey."

They stared at each other for a few seconds. Nico was visibly uncomfortable, breathless from the shock, and glued to the opposite wall of the dark place. One of his hands was ready to draw the fearsome black iron-sword. Percy did not find himself in such a different way, although his version of glued to the wall was his knuckles clamped tightly to the Anaklusmos.

Di Angelo had never been good with people, and Jackson had also unlearned that completely (not that one day he had been good, you know. Except, um, let's say he was better at socializing than he was today).

"Uh ... good night", he said . Good night ? Really? It had been over a year since he had seen the face of Hades' son, almost killed him in those few seconds of interaction and the first full sentence out of his mouth was a good night? He frowned. "What you want?"

Okay, he was just making things worse and worse. Yeah Percy, just like you.

Nico murmured something he didn't understand (and, frankly, he didn't want to understand). Then the younger man cleared his throat and murmured again but in a more audible tone. The voice was a bit torn as if he wasn't used to talking so much. His hands moved away from the stygian iron sword, but they did not stop, turning the skull ring on his long finger. The eyes didn't find Percy at all.

"I, um ... need help."

Percy blinked a few times, finally noticing the world around him. Both were in the hallway of the old building at dawn, with very dangerous weapons in hand. With one movement, the sword became a simple pen again. He took a deep breath, wondering if that was a good idea. He led the way to his apartment and said:

"Come in."

...

Nico didn't seem at all at ease, and Jackson felt too uncomfortable to put it into words or just try to ease the tension. The last person in his other life who had visited him had been Grover. The satyr passed by his house at times. He brought little or no news from the camp (that goat knew Percy very well), but he talked a lot about Juniper and his work as a messenger of Pan, who charged him more and more while eating some cans of beer or Coca-Cola that Percy kept (especially for the guest, but he would never admit it). Oh, and of course: he avoided that subject as much as possible.

But that? That had been over three months ago. As far as he knew, Grover Underwood was now somewhere in California, fighting whatever was causing so many fires, far away from Harlem. When Poseidon's son wanted to see his family, he went to Sally Jackson's house. College friends were always complaining about how Percy barely let them go to his apartment. He was a bit of a recluse.

He swallowed hard.

"You can take off your coat and sit if you want. Do you ... Do you want to eat something?"

And swerved into the kitchen. For some reason, he wanted to avoid that conversation as much as possible. He wanted to avoid looking at the boy's eyes as much as possible, he wanted to avoid thinking about his life as much as possible (or at least the one he now weakly called another life). Damn it.

He opened the refrigerator.

"Look, there is ... there is frozen lasagna, yesterday's yakisoba, Coke, blue cake, beer. I made coffee, too. Uh, two slices of pizza. And... yeah, it's just it."

He looked back.

The kitchen had a very wide, dark wood door, so the room was perfectly visible. Nico was standing not far from the door through which he had entered, still spinning the skull ring. He seemed to want to run or just throw up. Percy understood it completely.

"Um, I ... I accept the lasagna, please."

Di Angelo was like a puppy dropped. His hair was tousled as usual, but longer. They went a little over their drooping shoulders. He seemed to be a few inches taller, too. He wore a new aviator jacket (the other had been torn in an unfriendly encounter with Lycaon, the first lycanthrope, but the current one was just as huge and frayed). Shyly, she took off her coat. He wore a black T-shirt with dancing skulls drawn on it and the stygian iron sword hung beside him. A chain was used as a belt.

It was the same demigod that Percy remembered.

"Okay", Poseidon's son replied, without much ceremony. He took the lasagna and put it in the microwave. He returned to the room, defeated. He didn't want to talk, didn't want to go to the camp, didn't want another crazy mission.

Percy just wanted to be at peace.

He took a few steps, stopping less than a meter from the boy. Nico seemed to cringe at himself.

"Give it to me", Percy pointed to the jacket. Hesitantly, Di Angelo offered him the garment. Jackson took it with more irritation than he intended, taking it to an iron chair that was next to the dark blue sofa. As he adjusted his jacket on the back of the seat, he felt the look of Hades' son piercing his back, so he said (again, much more irritated than he intended): "And for the love of the gods, Nico, sit down !"

First, he heard nothing. Then small afraid strides, and finally a rustle of fabric against fabric. Then Percy himself sat down, as far away from the other boy as possible.

Bluntly, he said:

"Help for what?"

Nico looked at his restless hands. For the first time since the young man's arrival, the host noticed him. He hadn't done it before, perhaps because all the light in the room was coming from the kitchen and from the corridor leading to the bedrooms, since the room itself was out.

Maybe it was just because he didn't want to notice.

But he did.

Nico looked dejected and thin, very thin. His eyes, barely hidden by his black hair, had huge dark circles as if they had been waiting for a decent sleep for well over a week. The cheeks were deeper than recommended and the arms, despite having certain muscles by the hard work of a full-time demigod, seemed thinner than they should have been. The ribs should be visible. How long a week did that kid go without eating?

"A laptop"

"What?"

"I need help ... to get a laptop"

Percy frowned again.

"Why don't you buy another one? You know, there are thousands of laptops in the world"

Nico pursed his lips as if he suddenly wanted to slap the other on the head.

"Not one of those. Definitely not one of those"

"What's so special about this one?"

"This is from my father."

Jackson swallowed hard. I didn't have very good memories of the Italian's father. No, he really hadn't.

"But… Me?" He asked after a considerable silence. "Why me? You know ... that I'm not the most suitable. You have friends who could help you."

He held himself back from saying other friends . Saying others would imply a conclusion that he was also one, and he was not one. Not even. He was probably no longer friends with anyone at the camp, not beyond Grover and perhaps Chiron. Friends did not abandon others, especially in the situation where everyone found themselves after the battle, after the loss of ... important people.

He was not the only one to have been hurt by the end of that mess, not even far. But as petty, as selfish a seaweed brain as only he could be, he acted as if he were the only one hit. Ran away. He hid there, in that old apartment that smelled like mold, attending marine biology college, pretending to be a normal person and trying not to blow up the building or set something on fire.

So no, he wasn't the right person. Really.

"It's just ... you were my best option. But if you can't help it, I'll understand", said the low voice. Best choice? Since when was Perseus Jackson the best option for something? Gods, he could barely read a normal text without muddling his whole mind.

"Hazel?", he suggested.

"Hazel is ... Busy ."

Nico said the whole sentence as if he were trying to swallow something bitter and horrible. The green-eyed guy decided not to question.

"Reyna? You are so friends. I mean, you're like a brother to her."

A sigh of pure tiredness came over the boy's lips. The voice that reached his ears seemed to be old, worn out. It sounded like the voice of a person who had seen everything in the world, and not the voice of a mere seventeen-year-old boy. Not that Di Angelo was a mere boy, of course, but that voice ... did not even vaguely resemble the childish voice of the annoying player of mythomagic cards.

"Reyna is a very busy person, Percy. And I haven't talked to her in a while. I haven't actually spoken to the other camp in a while. Communication has been ... um, never mind."

He ran a hand over his face.

Percy raised an eyebrow but did not question.

"And Jason? Since that day ... I mean, it was the strangest friendship I've ever seen, but you were so close and..."

"He's studying, Percy. Like, far away from here. He started college not long ago, after Piper and he broke up."

Percy opened his eyes wide but said nothing. Piper and Jason separated? Perhaps that surprised him even more than the unexpected visit.

He tried to think. A boyfriend. Didn't Nico have a boyfriend? That healer, son of Apollo.

"Will?", He finally asked.

Nico frowned and shook hands. Jackson feared that the other would stick his sword in the ground and bring a random skeleton warrior from the underworld, even though they were far from the mainland, on the fourth floor.

Fortunately, he didn't.

"Will and me ... it's not the same anymore.", He replied carefully.

"Oh."

Silence.

The microwave chose that exact moment to beep.

"Shall we go to the kitchen?", Muttered Poseidon's son, eager to drink his damn coffee.

Di Angelo shook his head slowly.

…

Nico ate as if he didn't see food so often, which Percy wouldn't be surprised if it were true. He tried to be polite while swallowing the frozen lasagna as if it were a filet mignon made by some renowned French chef. Percy sympathized, but he still wanted to be alone.

Some part of him was screaming, saying that it was good to finally be close to a camp buddy, even if that buddy was Nico and they both didn't have such a good track record (and that applying a beautiful understatement, of course). However, he tried to suppress that feeling.

I wanted to be alone and period . Stop thinking that kind of shit!

When he was alone, people didn't look at him with that burial face. With that face that goes like Hey, Percy, I know you've been through a lot, I'm sorry . No. He didn't want anyone to be sorry. He just wanted to drink some damn coffee.

But Di Angelo, at that moment, was not a bad company. He seemed very interested in his frozen lasagna, and in no time since he arrived, he had given him a pitying look. No. Nico was used to death. Maybe that's why Jackson didn't slam the door in the boy's face as soon as he appeared in the hall. For this reason and because he knew that, if Di Angelo was in the mood, he could appear in the shadows beside his bed, like a ghost.

Looks of irritation, tiredness, hesitation, discomfort? This he could reveal. No problem.

Percy scratched his stubble.

"And... why does this laptop matter?"

He waited for Nico to swallow the lasagna.

"Because it's not an ordinary device, I think. My father did not give me many details. He just said that it contains important things, things that can make the course of the world stay or be changed ... Look, I don't know what he meant by that, but the course of the world? It seemed ... Important, maybe."

He didn't want any more explanations of what that shit was. That was enough. Honestly, why didn't the gods deal with their own problems? It was always like this: demigods, fight in this impossible mission for something that is my fault, blah blah. Your reward? I don't know, I don't turn you into a hamster, what do you think?

In the end, he always accepted. He had already been turned into a hamster, and the experience had been no fun at all.

"And how did it disappear? By the way, do you have any idea where this laptop is?"

"Uh... I think I know where it is. There is ... there is a restaurant. It is not far from here. They serve Ethiopian food, they have been closed for a few days. But it smells like a monster, you know." A little break. "Well, I was, um ... around. So my dad called me. Someone stole it, some very clever monster or an over-ambitious demigod. I do not know."

"Who would have the power to steal something from your father? Maybe another god?"

Nico hesitated.

"I do not know. Really. But I've been walking around, as I said, and ... I think our best option is this restaurant." Di Angelo diverted the conversation.

Percy looked at the boy and, for the first time, Nico looked back at him.

"Is that another trap?"

"What? No, Percy. Gods, no. I just ... I really need your help."

Jackson was not convinced.

"Why? I mean, you are very strong. You can summon an army alone, Nico. You are the ghost king."

Nico sighed again. Percy took another sip of coffee, his brow furrowed to the limit.

"There are many monsters in that place. I wouldn't be able to handle it, and I'm ... very tired. Please."

Percy ran a hand over his face and ruffled his hair. He would help Di Angelo, of course. But he would have class on Monday, and, gods, he couldn't die and miss the fucking class. He would have evidence in a week. Yeah, that thing about dying or getting seriously hurt was out of the question. Mr. Hudson would not give him extra points even if he arrived at college without a leg and get a shot in the shoulder.

"I will help you."

Nico made a sound of satisfaction.

"Thanks."

And then he went back to eating. Percy didn't know if the boy's satisfaction was due to the fact that he agreed to help him or just to end the conversation, giving him a free pass to go back to eating his lasagna.

Jackson finished his coffee. It was cold, watery, and full of sugar. Horrible. At least he drank the damn coffee.

"Nico?"

"Hm?"

"How did you find out where I live?"

Nico tensed. Then he did something unexpected: he chuckled. Little. Almost unnoticed, maybe even a little forced.

"Sally?"

Percy snorted and ran his hands over his face. It made so much sense that he almost got angry.

"Man, there's no way. Mom, please, if someone comes to me, don't tell them where I'm living! She says my dear son, of course! and five minutes later she gives my address to the first one who appears!"

Di Angelo laughed more. More than the short giggle, just, nothing exaggerated. He was still the Ghost King: he had a reputation to uphold.

While Nico drank Coca-Cola, looking a little less tense than before, Percy made one of the many gaffes of the night, and perhaps the worst. He said these five little words:

"Are you still in the camp?"

Silence. Nico stared at the end of his lasagna as if she were reciting one of those horrible Apollo's haiku.

"Hm ... You know ... More or less", He murmured hesitantly. No more short laughs this time."

No, Percy didn't know. What kind of answer was that?

"You ..." he started to say, even though he didn't know what he was going to say, in the first place. Luckily, Nico interrupted him:

"Please don't ask."

"Okay."

Silence again. By this time, Nico had already finished his lasagna, so he was poking a piece of ground meat with his fork. Jackson knew he didn't want to get into that.

For the first time in the morning, Poseidon's son realized that since Di Angelo had arrived in such an abrupt and unexpected way, he had cultivated far more questions than answers.

"Want to sleep here?"

Shit. He had to stop not-thinking before saying things. He shouldn't have asked that. I mean, didn't he just want to kick Di Angelo from the start (and, gods, anyone who might show up)?

Offering that was complicated. Percy would have to find a towel for Nico to take a shower, look for a clean blanket in the closet, borrow clothes that would certainly be huge on the skinny boy ( too thin ), give him one of his pillows ... Jackson did not know how to do that anymore. Did not know.

But he knew it was cruel to kick Nico out the door at three o'clock in the morning, aware that outside it was doing something around 59°F and that any monster, even a fucking Chimera, could be in an alley in town, ready to devour Hades son's messy head.

Di Angelo hesitated.

"And a laptop?"

Percy looked at him.

"Nico, do you know what time it is?"

The other seemed to think a little.

"Um, well, it's night. Maybe it's, uh ... I don't know ... about eight o'clock now?"

Jackson looked away, staring at a spot above Nico's head, on the teal wall behind him. He looked at the white clock for a few seconds before answering:

"Dude, at that moment it's, um ... 3:48 am."

Nico blushed as if only then realized that he had appeared there so late. He tried to hide his reaction. Percy, again, would not be surprised if the other had not even noticed the time.

"Oh ... I'm ... I'm sorry."

"It's all right."

And again, that uncomfortable silence. Di Angelo turned the skull ring again. Percy started to watch his nails as if they suddenly attracted his interest. Slowly, the low voice sounded:

"I accept ... Of course if it won't get in the way."

Percy Jackson took a breath, quickly considering if that wasn't a bad idea. Before he could stop himself, he heard his voice:

"No problems. It won't be a bother."

Oh, gods. He just wanted to drink his coffee in peace.

I know there's someone at the door

They called for help, of this I'm sure

But do I want to say goodbye

to all the glowing eyes

Glowing Eyes – Twenty One Pilots