"Hey, Nico?"

Nico opened his eyes, and saw Piper hovering over him.

"Yeah?" Piper was frowning, which concerned Nico. "What's wrong?"

Piper hesitated, "Please don't be mad."

What was this about?

"I outed you to Lou."

Nico felt all the blood rush up to his head. How? Piper? He trusted her. He told her one of his deepest secrets, and she told Lou, "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" He was shouting and heads turned, but he didn't care.

"Wait, let me explain-"

Nico didn't wait for Piper to finish. He stormed out of the infirmary, and fled to Cabin 13. It wasn't long before he heard knocking on the door. "I don't want to talk to you."

"It's me." Nico's breath hitched. It was Will.

After a bit of thought, he decided that he should let Will in.

"I know what Piper did. Lou told me."

"What? Now Lou's telling people? Fuck. Who else knows?"

"I'm the only one Lou told, I'm sure of it. We're close friends, that's the only reason she told me. She wouldn't go telling random people."

Well, he didn't think PIper would either, but here we are. He didn't bother saying that out loud though. There was no point.

"I think you should hear Piper out."

"There's nothing to hear. She outed me. She betrayed me. I don't want to talk to her."

"Look, after Lou told me, I talked to Piper first. She seemed genuinely sorry."
Nico gave Will a sarcastic smile, "Wow, she feels bad? In that case, all is forgiven."

"It wasn't okay, I know that. But I think you should give her a chance to explain herself. Try. If you don't like what she's saying, you can storm away from her and never speak to her again." Will's look of concern was so sincere, Nico felt too guilty to say no.

"Fine. I'll talk to her."

"O-oh! Okay, I'll go bring her."

As Will left, Nico implanted himself face first onto his bed. Why did this stuff always have to happen to him? Why did the gods hate him so much. They should be grateful, not just to him but all the demigods, for the amount of times that the demigods have saved their pathetic asses.

The creaking of the door pulled him out of his thoughts.

"Before you yell at me, which I deserve, at least give me a chance to explain myself."

"That's why you came here, isn't it." Nico couldn't bring himself to look at Piper.

"I didn't have a choice," Nico refrained from making several choice remarks, he figured he could at least give Piper a few more sentences, "Aphrodite blackmailed me."
At this, Nico turned around. "Aphrodite. Your mom. Blackmailed you into outing me? To Lou Ellen?"

"I don't know why she wanted me to tell Lou, but she did."

"With what?"

"Huh?"

"What did she blackmail you with?"

"Funny story, she said she would out me." Piper let out a humorless laugh.

NIco couldn't have heard that right. Piper was dating Jason.

Seeing his confused look, she continued. "I like girls."

"But- Jason?"

Piper sighed, "I still like Jason, I think. I'm not sure how I feel anymore. I'm definitely not straight though. Bi, maybe?"
It was a lot of information for Nico to process. "Have you told Jason?"

"I haven't told anybody, I have no idea how they would react. I'm not even sure how Aphrodite found out. Or why she wanted me to tell Lou Ellen, of all people. Are you guys friends?"

"Not at all." The only reason he knew Lou at all was because she was one of Will's close friends. That had some implications, but Nico pushed the thought out of his mind. There was no fucking way. He did not need another god meddling in his love life. The fucked up stunt that Cupid pulled was more than enough. Which he was just now realizing Piper didn't know about. That and the fact that he was out to Jason. Telling her that whole story might be some kind of comfort to her hopefully? It would at least make her less worried about how Jason would react. Well, that or it would somehow make everything exponentially worse for some unfathomable reason. Feelings could be confusing sometimes. He didn't even want to try to begin understanding other people's feelings, hell, he could hardly understand his own.

"As odd as this may sound, I entirely understand what being outed by a god feels like."

Piper gave him a peculiar look, "You do?"

"Yeah, I'm not sure when you remember, but during the whole 'save the world' quest, Jason and I had to go visit Cupid, who's a complete asshole by the way, so I would avoid meeting him. And, Cupid, well, basically forced me to out myself to Jason. First person I came out to, it wasn't fun."

"Gods, how did Jason react?"

"He was pretty supportive actually, didn't tell anybody else for all that time." At that, Piper half-smiled.

"He was cool about it?"

"Yeah."

"Hopefully he'll be the same for me. I hope he won't react differently to me since we're dating. Gods, what if he thinks I don't want us to date anymore."

"Just be patient with him, don't get too frustrated." Nico was tempted to laugh at himself. 'Be patient and don't get too frustrated', yeah, right. He was such a hypocrite, if it were him, he would never tell Jason. In fact, if Cupid hadn't forced him to come out to Jason in the first place, he'd still probably be too scared to tell anyone.

Piper still looked unsure, and Nico was running out of ideas.

"Don't worry." A pathetic attempt. There was never a time in history that the words 'don't worry' actually made someone worry less.

She let out a nervous laugh, "Well, I can try. Thank's Nico. And I swear to the gods I feel awful about what I did to you. I feel so shitty, maybe I should just come out so nobody else could do it for me."

"Yeah," Nico let out a small laugh, but internally, he had a mini heart attack and hoped that she was joking, because if she came out and it went badly he didn't want that to be on her. Gods, why did he try giving advice. "I need a nap." Nico groaned.

"I'll leave you to that." Piper gave him a half smile and a wave and walked out.

It just occurred to Nico that he had never even considered the possibility of anyone in the Camp other than himself being not straight. Even after Will came out to him, it felt like they were the only ones. Gods, maybe he needed to stop being so self-absorbed. He considered his friends, they all seemed perfectly happy in their respective heterosexual relationships, but then again, so did Piper. It changed the way he viewed other people. Like, maybe he wasn't the only one in the huge world. But how would he know? There were billions of other people on the planet, and it just didn't seem possible. Sure there were stereotypes, but Nico refused to listen to them, I mean, when was the last time he fit into any stereotype? The more he thought about it though, he realized what a cliche he really was. He was literally an emo 15 year old with massive mood swings, and an urge to defy any and all authority. Gods, he was pathetic. Of course there were people out there like him, it was just a matter of finding them. For all knew, somewhere in the world there was a support group for closeted, rebellious, emo teens.

One hell of a support group that would be.