A/N: Here's the new chapter. This one was mainly written by jeffgangfan.
To his surprise, Percy bought him a shirt while he was asleep.
"What's this for?" Nico asked, holding the white shirt with coconuts on it in front of him.
"It's getting cold and you're still wet," Percy simply answered as he rummaged through his blue backpack.
Nico shuddered because it was really, really cold and Percy's answer only helped to acknowledge the chilly air. Marni asked them whether the two wanted him to turn on the heater so Percy said yes and it felt much better in the small car. However, Nico really wanted to put the shirt on. He appreciated Percy buying him a white shirt and couldn't wait to get rid of the wet, black shirt which only worsened the cold.
"So I guess I should turn around?" Percy asked, already looking out at the side window. The tip of his ears went red and Nico turned his back to Percy, not pulling the shirt over his head before checking his side window to see if Percy was staring (which was ridiculous). A little annoyed at his hair for getting in his eyes, Nico blew it away from them to continue changing his shirt and heard Percy suck in a breath behind him. Nico glanced at the window again, confused because Percy didn't even turn around.
Then it hit him that if he could see Percy through the clean side window then Percy probably saw him, too. He pulled the shirt down immediately and both of them sat in embarrassment.
Only when they arrived at their next location did they actually admire the mountainous scenery of the inactive volcano together. The thin layer of fog cannot hinder the powerful image of the once destructive volcano. Although the vegetation had regained their liveliness and unstoppable force of survival, they still failed to cover up the areas that were marked destroyed for centuries.
After Marni had reconfirmed that the restaurant was exactly the one Nico requested for, they invited him to have lunch with them but the man told them he had to fetch something for his friends and told them he would be back after twenty minutes. Percy nudged slightly at Nico and they stepped inside, hand-in-hand, welcomed by the tasty and desirable smell of food.
Nico couldn't say that he had a particular liking for buffet but he got the excitement from Percy, whose almond-shaped eyes lit up as soon as he saw the food stalls. The son of Hades let his friend pick the food but accompanied him nonetheless to lend a hand with the plates. They chose the table next to the windows, wanting to enjoy the view while eating.
Realizing he was starving, the son of Hades heard rumbling noise in his stomach but before he could apologize for it, Percy took a bite of the dumpling on his plate and moaned loudly. A bright wake of red spread across their faces, from ear to ear. Nico started eating quickly and Percy gulped down his glass of water with remarkable speed.
After fifteen minutes of viciously devouring the food on their plates, the two boys wondered if Nico's mission had anything to do with another secret plan of Hades.
"I still don't get why the snake had to be killed," Nico said, after a spoonful of rice.
"Maybe your dad wants to destroy the temple."
"Then he could have just asked your father to help. I bet Poseidon has much to repay, anyway."
"True." Percy munched on his food. "It could be that your father wants to reclaim something personal like a weapon or some kind of treasure."
"Possible." Nico nodded. "But if so, he would have asked Hazel to help us."
"The treasure thingy is too much of his Roman side. Think about something death-related, then."
Nico's onyx eyes widened. "Sisyphus!"
"What?!"
"Remember the dude with the rock when we went to find my father's sword with Thalia?"
"Well, yeah. He impressed me with the ability to swear in fifty languages."
Nico rolled his eyes. "He cheated Death. And I doubt that the Ular was merely protecting the Temple. It could have been protecting-"
"A zombie," Percy deadpanned. "A zombie priest."
"I would go for 'undead', but you got the point."
They stared out of the window, watching the sunlight spread on the mountains around Bartur like honey, slowly dripping down to the ground.
"Isn't it funny how many centuries have come to pass but Life still failed to defeat Death?" Nico asked, looking at the gaps of the trees.
"I believe that…" The son of Poseidon looked straight into Nico's eyes. "There's life under layers of soil down there, waiting to sprout years later."
Nico had the feeling that there was something more behind the meaning of Percy's words.
Leaving Kuta for Ubud, Nico found that nature and humans seemed to be more harmonious on their path. There was no such thing as conquer or defeat as if Ubud was a dream city usually seen in fictional movies. In fact, it felt like the artifacts were being slowly eaten by the forest.
Wow. With that way of describing flora, no wonder Persephone hated him.
With the belief that he was free from motion sickness, Nico stared at the side windows again, seeing pretty shops decorated with vintage that sold woodcrafts and jewelries. He would definitely buy Hazel and Reyna those wooden horses and his friends some bracelets and other cool stuff this place provided. The pottery here must have constantly gone under the hammer all the time since they have spectacular and metaphorical images of nature and humans. In addition, the use of colors was rather impressive. Percy would love the wind bells over there with their joyful sounds. Said boy was leaning against him now, lulled to sleep after lunch by the cool air of the mountains, which seemed evanescent as the city gave out some kind of summer heat.
No sooner had they arrived than Percy woke up and saw how terrible Nico look. Stupidly (and somewhat funny to him), the son of Hades found that he could still suffer from motion sickness and was more nauseous than ever. Not wanting to vomit, he wearily waved goodbye to Marni since the driver had to return to Kuta. Percy shook hands with the short man and gave him a packet of biscuit as a thank-you gift. The already familiar car drove off down the hilly path, leaving a feeling of uncertain reunion.
"Don't try to speak," Percy warned him, grabbing his arm. "You'll puke."
Nico frowned at the choice of words but he latched onto the other's arm as if it were his life. The green-eyed handled the two bags and they slowly climbed up the stairs, leading to where they thought the receptionist was. A big man who provided the opposite impression to that of Marni greeted them in front of the main cabin.
"Hello! Please come in and have a seat." He helped Percy with the bags and introduced himself as Wayan, which translated into 'first child' in Balinese. The son of Poseidon stepped up to the confirmation and check-in procedure in place of Nico, who felt too sick to even move fast. Their luggage was carried to their villa first and Wayan told them to decide when they would want to go downtown to visit the markets and gave them a bunch of brochures. A family waved at the middle-aged man so Wayan grabbed his car keys and said goodbye. The woman at the counter then gave them the keys to their villa and rushed outside, too, leaving the two boys alone.
"Do you want some water?" the son of the sea asked when he gave the keys to Nico.
Nico shook his head and tried to get up but his eyes must have shown how he resented moving right then so Percy crouched down in front of him. He made a sound of confusion and the son of the sea motioned him to get on his back. Nico arched an eyebrow, despite the hatred he had towards his condition because was Percy seriously going to give him a piggy back ride?
"Come on, Nico!" Percy urged, but then the guy hesitated. "I mean, if you're comfortable enough with this."
"Don't mind me then." Nico sighed and slowly held on to the firm shoulders.
The son of Hades tried to distract himself from the long-lasting motion sickness by thinking of the scenery around but there was nothing but the sounds of children shouting and laughing happily in different villas. He remembered that there were totally five villas in the area, managed by the family of Wayan as he was told in the e-mails.
"It's funny," Nico thought to himself, "Who would've thought years later, Percy Jackson would give me a piggy back ride."
It was mysterious how things worked. When he ran away from Camp Half-Blood years ago, Nico di Angelo believed he would never forgive Percy Jackson. Then many things had happened that led the Ghost King to assuming that Percy would never want to trust and befriend him again. The Underworld demigod built up a wall, thinking that he needed no one other than the dead. But then he found another sister whom he loves with all earnestness and loyalty, gained friends through the Giant War. And now, he was carried by Percy Jackson on his back. It was funny and amazing how things would turn 180 degrees, no matter how long the progress took.
Nico chuckled out loud, feeling light-headed and the sickness lessened a bit.
"You know, I really like the sound of your laughter," Percy said in all of a sudden.
"Thanks," the son of the Underworld replied, not caring enough to be embarrassed. It was time for him to stop being flustered and shy when complimented. "Am I too heavy?"
"Nope," Percy said with a grunt, which told the opposite, but they had finally found their villa, which lay humbly with pots of roses and bluebells in front of it, among the bigger ones.
"Okay, you can put me down now, Perce."
"No, not until we get to the bed," Percy said stubbornly. "And since when did you start calling me 'Perce'?"
"Uh… I don't remember?" Nico asked then handed the key to his friend.
The first thing Nico saw as they passed the small gate of the villa was the pool. A small, clean pool with a sculpture of a girl, holding a flower in her hands, enhanced the garden. There were banana and papaya trees with some strange flowers surrounding her and the walls were dominated by various vines. The kitchen could be seen and people can walk straight from it to the garden. The place looks foreign but comfy in strange a way. Percy found a door in the kitchen that led to their bedroom and carefully approached it. Nico's legs seemed to be paralyzed and the other demigod had to nudge him slightly so he would slide off of Percy's back. His motion sickness was fainter but Nico still wanted to have some sleep. The son of Hades pulled the cover up and sank into the mattress, sleep defeating him before he got the chance to thank Percy.
Their luggage had been brought to the bedroom by the time Nico woke up and Percy's backpack was lying open as if he had rummaged through it again. The son of Hades tasted bitterness in his mouth so he scanned the room in search for some water. He found a glass of juice on the nightstand with a neatly folded piece of paper that read: "Please drink me!"
Feeling like an Alice, he hopped down from the bed to find his White Rabbit.
It was quite easy to find the water demigod since there was a pool in the villa. As Nico stepped out of the bedroom to the garden, it dawned on him that it's evening already. The sky was as dark as black ink and the only source of light came from the orange bulb in a corner of the garden. Its warm light revealed a body at the bottom of the pool, illuminated by the rippling and unstable reflection of the light. The person had his arms wrapped around himself and didn't seem to move. Definitely Percy.
Suddenly, Nico wanted to do something crazy, such as surprising Percy by shadow traveling into the pool and it was a good idea at first, to be honest. Nico had no idea since when he had such thoughts and wondered whether he would do something that impulsive in the future just to realize he had been doing such things for a long time, ever since he proposed to the sea demigod about a swim in Styx.
The raven-haired held his breath and aimed for the shadows at the bottom of the pool. He emerged from the darkness faster than expected, the cold sensation of water wrapping him up rather forcefully. The same mistake in the Ular cave was made since it was not until Nico had been in the pool that he noticed how his vision was blurred underwater. Trying to make out Percy's silhouette, Nico wanted to laugh out loud when he saw Percy wearing swimming boxers. Why bother changing into them when you have an ability to dry your clothes? Nico couldn't think of anything clever to do now, so he clapped his hand over where he assumed Percy's eyes were.
The older demigod yelped (can you even yelp underwater?) and his hands flew to grab Nico's. He stopped struggling and Nico figured that Percy must have recognized the skull ring on his finger. He was then dragged along as the green-eyed surfaced from the water. Percy's hand was on his shoulder while the other one at his waist. Nico inhaled deeply, who knew how long he had been holding his breath. Percy exclaimed with disbelief, "Di Angelo, that is one of the most ridiculous things you have done!"
Nico replied after a string of laughter. "Did I scare the schist out of you?!"
"No," Percy said, unimpressed. "How did you even get into the pool?!"
"Shadow travel," Nico answered. "Why did you put on boxers?"
"So you would rather me be naked," Percy joked. Nico had a stern expression on his face since he had learned how to hide his blush by that. Additionally, if he deadpanned, no one would think he was embarrassed.
"I don't see why not."
"Oh…" It could be that Percy didn't expect such answer. "Anyway, I wear them because I like to. I can just jump into the pool fully clothed but that would be no fun. It's like you would love to have some fries but it would be even better to have some ketchup along."
Nico nodded, not minding their rather intimate position. He understood how fun it was to indulge himself a little with his powers, given that they partly caused the discrimination every children of Hades undertook. In fact, he was proud of the Underworld powers, as if he had some kind of love-hate feeling towards them. It seemed like he and Percy shared one thing in common, although every other demigod might share that one perk, too.
Percy stared into his eyes with a dreamy expression on his angled face and before Nico knew it, the boy in front of him leaned in to kiss him. Nico's eyes widened in surprise and he didn't respond to the kiss, which led to Percy slowly backing off after some desperate attempts, his eyes still closed. Nico felt like his feelings were ineffable, a heady mixture of happiness and uncertainty washed over him.
This was what Nico had always wanted, he had dreams of such scenarios once in a while but right now voices were screaming in his head, arguing relentlessly. The loudest, most convincing of them all told the son of Hades that Percy owed him an explanation for his action. He couldn't just kiss Nico like that without telling the onyx-eyed how he truly thought of him. Because the last thing Nico would want was to have something… not serious and inappropriate with the demigod in front of him.
It felt like eternity until Percy opened his loveable green eyes with the courage to look straight into Nico's eyes again. However, no words managed to escape his kissable lips and Nico felt a pang of disappointment kicking in. He looked at Percy, hoping for a confession, an apology; so that he could explain that he had always felt the same for Percy. The green eyes were intent, but they didn't utter what Nico needed so the Underworld demigod pushed their owner away and climbed up from the pool with one swift move.
"Let's get dinner," he said, unaware of how his cold and rough voice made the green-eyed flinch.
A/N: Thanks for all the support! Please follow, favorite, and review.