Chapter 4
Disclaimer: I do not own the PJO or HoO series by Rick Riodan.
"Hey, Nico." I say.
I was waiting outside the mess hall, having finished my dinner already. I had wanted to eat and leave as soon as possible, considering I had to eat with Keegan. It was awkward to say the least, but thankfully, I don't think the other three noticed.
"Oh, so you're talking to me now?" he asks, coming over to me.
"Yes. I've thought about it, and I think we need to talk about what happened this afternoon." I say.
"I agree. My cabin or yours?" he asks.
"Yours. I have a feeling this chat is going to take a while, and I don't want Will and the others walking in when we're in the middle of it." I say, walking down the steps.
Nico follows and says, "Yea, that's a good idea."
"So please, explain to me what all that was about?" I ask, sitting on one end of the black leather couch inside the Hades cabin.
Nico sits on the other end, as far away from me as possible. To someone who didn't know what had happened earlier and knew we practically always sat in each others laps, this would have been quite an odd scene.
"Actually no. Give me a reason why I should even stay with you after what you did." I say, standing up and turning to glare at him.
He looks up at me, a look of utter helplessness in his eyes. He almost looked like a lost puppy with those eyes.
"I don't have one." he says, his voice quite.
"What do you mean you don't have one? Every guy ever in your situation or one similar to it always has an excuse to give their girlfriend to stay with their sorry ass." I say, crossing my arms.
"Well, I'm not like every guy. I don't have an excuse. You're better off without me, Kyra, and you know it." he says.
"Oh, don't do that." I scold.
"Do what?" he asks.
"Make me feel guilty. Don't do it." I say.
"I wasn't trying to. I'm telling the truth." he says.
I look him in the eyes and see he's telling the truth. He truly didn't have an excuse to give me. He wasn't trying to make me feel guilty.
"Fucking gods, Nico." I sigh, angrily.
"You want to know what happened?" he asks after a while.
I hesitate before replying. "Yes." I say.
He breathes heavily and then plunges into his explanation. "This morning, I was on the lava wall. Well, some lava got a bit too close for comfort and the wall started shaking really bad. So, I lost my grip and fell. Thankfully, I wasn't very high up, but I was high enough to have the impact of the fall hurt." he says.
"What does this have to do with anything?" I ask.
"Just wait. No one was around, they were all at different places training. I was getting up when Keegan came over to me. He helped me up and then he told me to come to the Apollo cabin so he could give me some ambrosia to heal the scrapes I had gotten." he continues.
"When we got there, he found the ambrosia and gave me a piece of it. I ate it and the cuts closed up and all that. Well, I was about to leave and he was right behind me. He closed the door and I was already down the steps and I was about to go down to the sword arena. He was walking down the steps and tripped and fell. He got pretty banged up. Got a bad cut on his cheek and smashed his nose." he says.
"So, I took him back into the Apollo cabin and he told me where the ambrosia was. I went and got it and a wet washcloth and gave them to him. He got cleaned up and before I knew it, he was kissing me." he says.
"Wait, so he just kissed you?" I ask.
"Yea..." he says, his voice so quiet it was nearly impossible to hear him.
"What else happened?" I ask.
"What do you mean?" he asks.
"Just by the way you said "yea" tells me there's something you're not telling me about that kiss." I say.
He's silent. "Nico, if you want me to forgive you, you're going to have to tell me what happened." I say.
He sighs and says, "I kinda liked it."
I was a bit shocked, preventing me from forming a response. "So what does this mean? Are you gay?" I finally ask. I wasn't making fun of him in any way, I just wanted to know.
"No, I don't think so." he sighs. He looked miserable.
"Well then, what?" I ask, sitting back down on the couch, in the middle this time so I was closer to him.
"Maybe bi? I don't know." he moans, plopping his head into his hands. He was obviously just as confused about this as I was.
"Well, do you find other guys attractive? Are you even remotely attracted to Keegan? Or was it just impulse to kiss him back when he kissed you?" I ask.
"I'm not attracted to Keegan. I think that was just impulse, like you said. But—" he trails off.
"But what?" I ask, leaning closer to him.
"What you said about finding other guys attractive...I do, sometimes." he says.
"Are you like, physically attracted to them, or is it just that you think some guys are good looking? 'Cause guys can think that other guys are good looking, but not be physically attracted to them." I say. I wondered when I had become an expert on this subject, but the words coming out of my mouth sounded true, so I just kept talking.
"It's just sometimes I'm physically attracted to guys. Like, most of the time it's girls. You, really. No one else. But when I first came to Camp, there were a couple of guys who were year-rounders and I thought they were pretty damn attractive...And someone else too." he says, looking down, as if ashamed.
"Who?" I ask.
He looks up at me and I could see a battle going on in his head. He wanted to tell me, but he was terrified to at the same time. "Percy; I had a huge crush on him the moment I met him." he says.
"I was so young at the time, so confused about everything. And then Bianca died like a week after that, and I really just didn't know what to do with myself. I practically hated Percy then because he had told me he would try and keep Bianca safe. I didn't really find anyone attractive at all for a long time. Until I met you, that is." he says, chancing a glance at me.
I was a bit shocked. Surprisingly not by the fact that Nico was obviously bi, but that he hadn't even found anyone attractive until he met me.
"Really?" I ask, looking at him.
He nods and for some unknown reason, my eyes decided to fill with tears, yet again today.
"Ky, what's wrong?" he asks, scooting closer to me and hesitantly placing his arm around my shoulders.
I lean into him and bury my face into his chest. He takes that as an invitation to wrap his arms around me.
"Gods, I'm just so frustrated." I sniffle, pulling away from him.
"With what?" he asks.
"With myself." I say.
"Why?" he asks.
"Because I want to be frustrated and angry with you, but I just can't bring myself to be." I say.
"I know it probably won't clear anything up at all, but I want you to know that I've only ever loved you. Only you." he says, taking my hands in his bigger, rougher ones.
I let out a sob and then take my hands out of his and place them behind his neck. I lean forward and kiss him, still crying but trying to stop.
He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me into his lap, deepening the kiss. I run my fingers though his hair, tugging on a few strands here and there.
He runs his hand up and down my spine, giving me chill bumps. I press myself against him, closing the small gap between us.
I tug at his shirt and pull it off of him. He does the same to me and throws mine to the floor with his. We lay down on the couch, he on top of me.
We break apart and he starts kissing my collarbone, working his way up my neck. I open my eyes and look at his back. What I see shocks me. There seemed to be lashes on his back, like someone went whip-happy on him and just went to town.
They almost looked like they were glowing red and radiating heat. I lightly run my fingers over the closest one and Nico arches his back, letting out a gasp of pain, and sits up.
"Who did that to you?" I ask.
"One of the Furies." he mumbles.
"Why?" I ask.
"Hades ordered them to 'cause when I went down there a few days ago, and he ah, found out about this thing. It also didn't help that I yelled at Persephone. So he thought I deserved a punishment." he says, his tone bitter.
"Why didn't they go away already? I mean, you've eaten some ambrosia since then." I say.
"When they whip you with one of their Punishment whips, nothing can heal the lash. It just has to heal on it's own time." he says.
"There's another reason why you shouldn't stay with me. I can't seem to do anything right and I'm broken. I always have been and I always will be, nothing can change that." he says.
"That's not a reason why I shouldn't stay with you. That's a reason why I should stay with you." I say, taking his hands.
"What? Why? How is that a reason?" he asks, surprised.
"'Cause I can help put yourself back together, like you've been helping me since the fire." I say, wrapping my arms around him and resting my chin on his shoulder.
"Ky," he says.
"No. I don't care what you say. We're going to make this work, because no matter what you've done in the past or what you did today, I'm still convinced that you're the one for me." I say, holding onto him like my life depended on it.
"Gods, I love you." he breathes, resting his head in the crook of my neck.
I gently kiss his temple. "It'll be alright, Nico." I whisper.
"I just—I don't want to be alone anymore. I was alone for so long, and I don't want to be anymore." he says.
"You won't be. I promise." I say.
A/N:
And the finale! After I read that certain scene in HoH, I decided to use that to my own advantage, make Nico bi, not gay.
I hope you enjoyed the story! Oh, by the way, this was set just a bit after my story Broken from my series The Shadows of Revolution. So, if you were wondering what Kyra was talking about when she was talking about the fire, you should read the series.
