The hardwood stairs were cold beneath Nico's bare feet. His fingers trailed along the edge of the polished handrail as he slunk downstairs. His pyjama trousers were too long for him, purchased for him to grow into, and the button up shirt had slipped off centre to reveal his collarbone.
"Mama," he called from the foot of the stairs. "Mama!"
"In the parlour, tesoro."(1) Mama's voice, melodic and clear, carried down the hall.
Nico padded down the hall across the hard oak floors.
His Nonno's house in Washington D.C. was full of dark wood floors and panelled walls topped with richly coloured ornate wallpaper. Nico ran his fingers along their smooth surface as he padded down the hall after his mother's voice.
At the end of the hall, the door to the parlour was ajar and, as Nico reached it, he could hear hushed voices from inside. He peeked around the door frame.
Mama sat on one of Nonna's chaise lounges in a shiny black dress with billowing sleeves. Her short, dark hair fell in curled ringlets and little sapphires winked from her earlobes. She had been out for a dinner that evening, Nico knew because she hadn't come to kiss him goodnight after his nurse put him to bed.
Nico shrank back when, in Nonno's favourite leather chair, he saw a tall man he didn't recognize. The man looked supremely uncomfortable and pointedly did not look Nico in the face. He wore a black suit with a dark red tie, and his shoes were polished to a mirror-like shine. His face was all severe lines and his hair was oily.
Mama smiled at him reassuringly. "Good evening, tesero," she said. "I believe your nurse put you to bed some time ago." When Nico pressed himself against the door frame, she held a hand out towards him. "It's alright, Nico, I promise. Ade (2) here is a friend."
Nico looked between them for a moment, the cuff of his nightshirt in his mouth. He padded over to pop himself up on the seat next to his mother and nestled himself under her arm.
"It's cold in the nursery," he pouted.
"Mmm," Mama hummed knowingly. Her many bracelets jangled lightly against each other as she gently rubbed Nico's back. "Did you wake your sister?"
"No, Mama. Bianca gets angry if I wake her up."
The man– Ade snorted.
"Ade," Mama said in that chiding voice she used when Bianca demanded dessert first. "Come, tesero," she said, rising from the lounge, "we can search out an extra blanket easily enough, I think."
Ade cleared his throat awkwardly. "Perhaps…" He shifted in his seat. Nico blinked and in the man's hands was a fur blanket. He must have had it in a pocket… somewhere. "…this may help you sleep."
"Well," Mama laughed, "you certainly know the way to a child's heart."
Nico could hardly resist the urge to bury his little fists in the silky looking fur.
"It's zibellino,"(3) Ade explained, "sable. From Russia." He held it out for Nico, not looking inclined to rise from his chair.
Nico glanced at his mother, who gave him an encouraging nod, and slid off the lounge to his feet. Ade draped the blanket around Nico's shoulders, passing the corners into Nico's own hands.
"Nico…" Mama prompted, not unkindly.
"Grazie,"(4) Nico murmured, running his fingers over the fur.
Ade's seemingly permanently grim expression softened, just a little. "You are welcome. Consider it a belated birthday gift."
A grin spread across Nico's face. He showed off the gap of his missing front tooth proudly. "I'm six now," he said. "Five and two whole weeks."
A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of Ade's mouth. "Well, that is certainly very impressive. Now, listen to your mother and go back to bed."
Mama's hand sat gently on Nico's shoulder and he looked up at her, slipping his hand in hers. Nico looked back to Ade and waved goodnight as Mama guided him from the room.
February 1946
Snowflakes danced through the air. Hoards of people bundled up in hats, scarves, and large overcoats hurried down the sidewalks in the dimming light. It was an unusually chilly evening and it seemed everyone in the city was making their way home to a warm bed and a hot meal.
All except for Nico who weaved his way in and out of the crowd with his hands in his pockets. The wind nipped at his face stinging his nose and ears red. It had been a waste of a day. There had been a shortage of easy marks in his usual areas so he had eaten little and he hadn't scoped out a place to sleep yet.
He shivered and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. His head tucked down against the wind he continued through the crowd, jostled this way and that as he went.
He stumbled as one particularly large passerby knocked into him. He lurched to the side slipping on a patch of ice and skidding to the edge of the pavement. He yelped, arms whipping out to stop his fall.
A hand steadied him, gripping him by the upper arm as he lurched into the traffic. A car rushed by him, only a hair's breadth from his nose.
Nico blinked. He was alive? That was good, he supposed, and altogether rather surprising given his recent track record. He looked back over his shoulder and caught his breath.
James.
He recognized that face, the mole just below his left ear, the elfin features, his neatly arched eyebrows. How many times had he seen that face watching him cautiously from across the dining pavilion, or tipped downwards as he polished a blade?
"James?"
"Nico?"
Nico feared for a moment that people would stare but then he remembered, he wasn't in Genoa or Camp Half-Blood anymore. This was New York City, and this interaction was hardly the strangest thing the locals had seen.
James pulled Nico away from the curb to stand under the overhang of a department store window. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, folding his arms. He still wore the aviator's jacket from when Nico had first met him at Camp Half-Blood but the bandages Nico remembered were gone from his right hand.
"I could ask you the same thing."
James gave Nico a stern look.
"Hunting," he said shortly, adjusting his shirt collar. "Mortals have been going missing in this area for a couple of days now, there's a monster nest nearby." Goosebumps raised on Nico's arms as a cold wind blew down the street. He shivered.
"Here," said James. He shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it snugly around Nico's shoulders. "You aren't going to fight anything if you freeze to death."
Nico scowled at him and wriggled out of the jacket, shoving it back into James' hands. "You sound like Chiron. I can take care of myself, thanks."
"Oh yeah, looks that way." James gave Nico's stomach a pointed look. "When was the last time you ate, kid?"
Nico glared. "None of your business."
"Hey, I just saved your skin, 'least you can give me is a decent explanation. Why aren't you at camp? What are you doing out here all on your own?"
"Just practice," Nico lied. "Chiron thought I should try–"
"Bull. Chiron would never send anyone away from camp alone. Tell me the truth, Nico."
Nico glared at him. Who did he think he was? He wished James would shove him away with that Hermes cabin sneer and leave him in the crowd alone. It would save him the explanation.
"I left, all right?" Nico snapped. "The other campers, they drove me out of Camp Half-Blood. Happy?" Gods, Nico hated the pity on James' face. "Stop looking at me like that. I'm not some kid anymore, I'm fine."
"You don't look fine," said James. He slung the jacket over his left shoulder with one finger hooked in the collar. "There's no shame in getting a little help. Just come back to my place and take a rest."
"I'm not a stray dog, James. Not something for you to take care of to make you feel like a good person."
"That's not what this is." James sighed, glancing around at the people passing them on the street. "Look, I know that the others at camp didn't get along with you–" Nico snorted. Understatement of the century. "–and I didn't do anything to stop it. Let me make it up to you. Take your revenge by eating all the food in my pantry."
Nico chewed on the inside of his cheek. He didn't want anyone's pity but he couldn't deny that a change of clothes and some food that wasn't actually stolen was more than appealing.
"Fine," he said, finally. "But just for a couple hours, then I'm out again."
"Deal."
It was more than a few hours.
After a week passed, Nico began to accept that he might just like spending time with James.
After a month, he moved from the couch to a folding cot.
After two, he and James had claimed their own sides of the single bedroom.
Every morning Nico would leave the apartment looking for a new monster to fight, and every time he would swear to himself that he wasn't coming back. But every night he would return to the tiny apartment and James cooking in the galley kitchen. James always made two servings, no matter how many times Nico insisted he wouldn't be coming back. They would sit on the edge of the bathtub as James washed out cuts and applied cream to bruises and reprimanded him for being so careless.
And it felt… good.
Small and rundown as it was, their little apartment felt like home to Nico. He knew every creaking floorboard and scratched bathroom tile and squeaky kitchen cupboard. The worn out carpet that itched bare feet and his old cot that James had borrowed from a friend of a friend of a friend. All of it was better than anything he had had at Camp Half-Blood.
April 1947
Until she arrived.
Linda Martin. Five feet and six inches of giggling, cheerful, obnoxiousness. She was always just there. With her hands on James' shoulders while he cooked, laughing into his brown curls, or reading some stupid book in Nico's favourite chair.
Nico had even liked her at first. She made James give him second servings of desert and stay up as long as he liked, what more could he want?
Things started going downhill the third time Nico met her. She had come for dinner, James had cooked, as always, and Nico had even put in the extra effort and moved his pile of dirty clothes from the couch to the bedroom. It had been just fine until James walked Linda to the door.
Nico was sitting on the moth-eaten sofa. He sat backwards, leaning over the back of the couch to watch the pair at the door. James helped Linda into her coat, like the damned gentleman he was, and then kissed her on the lips. It was so casual, like Nico wasn't even there, as if kissing people was just something that they did now. Nico sputtered and glared at them, wishing his eyes could bore burning craters in their skulls.
James closed the door behind her, grinning like an idiot.
Nico huffed his impatience and James glanced over at the sound.
"What's wrong?"
"Is that new?" Nico questioned, eyes narrowed.
"Is what new?"
"That," Nico gestured vaguely at the doorway. "Linda. You and Linda."
"What?" James shook his head. "No, I've been with Linda for over three years now."
"And you're just telling me this now?" Nico asked, shifting over as James flopped down on the couch beside him.
"I thought you knew!"
"How could I know? This is the third time I've seen her. Why did she only turn up now?"
"She was living with her parents. In Michigan." Nico scoffed. "That's where we met," James insisted.
Nico faltered. "When did you live in Michigan?"
"Oh, only for sixteen years. I grew up– why are we even talking about this? I didn't think this was that important to tell you."
"Not important? That you have a girl and we're kissing people–"
"Whoah, stop right there." James held up a hand. "You're not kissing anyone, you're only fourteen."
"That isn't the point," Nico insisted. "You should have told me."
"Gods, Nico, what is the issue here?"
Nico leapt to his feet. "Because no one has ever trusted me with anything and I thought you were different!"
James ran a hand through his hair and turned away from him. Nico felt his stomach sinking. This was it, James was finally sick of him. He would lose yet another home.
When James turned back to look at him, it was with a look of deep disappointment. "I don't understand why you're doing this. Linda and I being together is– it as nothing to do with you."
"Nothing to do with me? When you're all over her like that?"
"What do you mean all over her? Nico–" James sighed. "We were trying to keep things subtle. Ease you into the idea of our engagement."
Nico sucked in a deep breath through his teeth. "Engaged. You're engaged? And you didn't even tell me. Why didn't you tell me? That's a pretty big detail to leave out, James."
"Because I knew you'd react like this," James snapped. "You've always had a short temper and I knew you'd think I was abandoning you for her."
Nico laughed hollowly. "If you know me so well, you'd have known that I don't like secrets. You don't trust me. I get it. I'll get out of your way then."
"That isn't what this is, Nico! I'm not turning you out, you're always welcome here." Nico snorted. "But Linda is a part of my life– the most important part of my life. You've got to respect that."
Nico shook his head, turning to the door. "I'm done with this."
"You always do this! You're running away again. You ran away from Camp, now you're running away from me. I'm trying to help you, Nico, and you're throwing it in my face just like you did to Chiron."
Nico bit his lip. This was not what he wanted. He was making everything worse but he didn't know how to undo what he'd said. It was too late. James would never look at him the same way.
"Wait."
Nico stopped and turned. James stood behind him at the end of the hall, his jacket in hand.
"Take my coat," he said quietly. "It's cold out."
Nico caught the jacket with both hands. It was the same aviator jacket James had wrapped around him that day on the street when they had first found each other. It was heavy, entirely dark brown leather with a fleece collar. Linda had added the fleece herself and the navy blue patch over the breast pocket was from James' mother. James loved this coat, he hardly left the house without it and Nico could barely believe that it was being given to him so freely. Surely James realized that Nico was not coming back.
"Take it," James said again.
Nico looked up from the jacket and took in the look on James' face. Was that regret? No, disappointment. But at himself, or with Nico?
He put his hand on the doorknob. So this was it, striking out on his own again. He could handle it. Probably. He had before. He turned the handle, slipped out into the hall, and closed the door behind him with a soft click.