Working with Jason Grace was harder than Nico thought. The demigod was always on the move and his oath to design and build temples for the gods (no matter how many celestials it may satisfy) was no walk in the park. Nico volunteered to help Jason and is happy to summon a handful of undead construction workers to work for him. Though it was exhausting, and he was certain it wouldn't stop being exhausting anytime soon.
Another thing Nico was certain of is that Jason and Reyna are, well, something. After his breakup with Piper, he spent as much time in Camp Jupiter as he does in Camp Half Blood. As a result, Jason redeveloped his tight friendship with his former co-praetor. Nico had to admit, they seemed closer than they had been before. He's seen the longing looks, the lingering gazes, the inside jokes. He's even seen this thing they do where they part ways in front of everyone after a long day of hard work, only to see them not 30 minutes later together once again in the praetor's villa, watching a horror movie Nico's sure Reyna dragged Jason into watching. It's somewhat entertaining, and Nico's happy to sit back and watch the whole thing unfold. What Nico doesn't want is to walk in on them.
He honestly should've seen it coming. It's been a slow day, which was unusual for the hardworking and determined son of Jupiter. That and the fact that Nico couldn't find Jason really should've indicated him that something was going on. But, being a demigod, he was used to overlooking the weirdness in his life and continues his search for him. They really needed to finish at least one temple that week or they'll fall behind schedule.
Nico runs into Dakota first, and the son of Bacchus swore that he hadn't seen their Pontifus Maximus in hours - he was busy taking archery lessons all day. Hazel just laughs a little and asks him if he wants her to put up missing child posters. Gwen asks why she would be Jason's babysitter which, good point. Frank was too busy trying to stop a squabble that started between two nine year olds to give a coherent answer, but he does say something about Reyna and the principia before he rushed to stop one of the boys from tackling the other.
So, Reyna is his best lead on Jason. Nico doesn't even think they could be doing anything gross because it's the middle of the weekday and those two are the most serious about their work, except maybe Annabeth who almost made Leo eat dirt when he said engineering was just like architecture.
Nico finally reached the principia and knocks on the door. He hardly waits for the startled 'come in' before he's entering.
"Hey, have you seen Jason? I need to talk to him about that temple if we wanna meet the deadline."
Reyna looks - distracted. She shifts in her chair before shaking her head causing her braid to swing slightly on her shoulder. "No, I haven't seen him."
She's very flushed, Nico observes. Reyna's not exactly making eye contact, and it all finally makes sense when Reyna's knee hits the underside of her desk hard and Jason Grace's voice can be heard hissing "ow!" under his breath. There's a moment of silence where Reyna's eyes roll up to the ceiling as if praying to every Greek and Roman god she knew to get her out of this situation.
Nico does a similar motion and thinks 'why me?' before saying "Hello Jason," as he takes a step in the room. His head pops up from under the table just as he's licking his lips and grinning sheepishly. "We need to talk."
"Now?" He looks a little bewildered, and he's got the same flushed look on his face as Reyna.
"Do you have something better to be doing?"
He has the balls to grin cheekily as he turns to Reyna. "Yes."
"Jason!" The other two in the room groan. Reyna elbows his arm.
"You know what," Nico says, running his hands through his long hair. "One day off schedule doesn't sound so bad, so I'll just leave and you can get back to whatever - whatever it was you were doing."
He must look really tired, because Jason's expression quickly turns regretful. "Are you sure?" He says apologetically.
"Yup." Nico reaches behind him for the doorknob as he tries not to think about the fact that they both seemed to be very much unclothed from the waist down. "I'm gonna have a drink and forget everything I saw."
He practically throws the door open and slams it shut behind him. Outside waiting is a surprised and very confused Frank, so Nico steers him away from the room.
"Maybe come back later," he suggests just as there's a bang from inside the room and the telltale sound of Jason moaning a curse.
Frank's eyes slide from Nico, to the door, and then back again. "Is that-"
"Trust me, you don't want to know," Nico assures him before his eyes widen and he turns red.
"Oh."
Nico sighs. He really shouldn't be doing this for free.
