p class="MsoNormal"emspan lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"As we go through life, we must admit certain things./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"That had been Percy's philosophical thought on that morning, as he foolishly reflected on the events of the past two weeks. emFoolish /em, I say, because, well, you know, Percy's whole emthinking thing /emwas a terrible mistake that would generally just lead him into that cycle of deep sadness that he's all too familiar with./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"It was three days before his twentieth birthday, and the son of Poseidon was lying on his bed, staring at the blue wallpaper with tiny white whales (he was pretty sure the target audience for that wallpaper wasn't guys over six feet tall and with facial hair, but, emplease /em, ignore that detail). He couldn't even imagine what it would be like to be twenty. Would he just be the same, but older? Or would anything change? He didn't know. This time, for some miracle, his birthday wasn't the prelude to some terrible thing that would change the course of the world, kill half of New York or bring Blockbuster back to life./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"Well… At least not that he knew, of course: Percy was usually oblivious to a lot of things, so it wouldn't be a surprise if he hadn't noticed the signs of impending disaster./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"On Saturday, when they came out of the cinema, Nico was mesmerized./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Okay, okay," he said, "now I can fully understand the appeal. These movies are pretty cool. What else do I have to watch?/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;" Percy swore to the gods he could almost see that childlike (and a little manic, if he remembered right) gleam in the boy's eyes as if the excitement for Mythomagic still existed somewhere. For a few moments, he no longer looked like the kid with the pathetic looks and terrible socialization skills, but a normal dude excited with a discovery, even if his version of emnormal /emand emhappy /emwas totally into Nico di Angelo's peculiar ways. So, if anyone questioned him, Jackson would say that was why —, emand only why /em—, he'd suggested a superhero movie session./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"They were watching in chronological order, one movie a day. So, about halfway through Iron Man two, Percy took a bite of his questionable sandwich. Nico stared at him for a good few seconds with curious eyes, to the point that Percy stopped watching the TV screen, and, with a generous piece of meat, bread, and cheap cheddar cheese in his mouth, muttered:/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""What 's up?". What sounded more like a emtsup? /em, but we're going to forget it for the sake of fluidity in the script./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"Looking a little hesitant, but still assertive, the younger one said:/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Hm, do you only eat fast food?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Uh..." He swallowed, feeling the poorly chewed pieces of his dinner/snack go down, hurting his throat a little. Nothing he couldn't handle. His hand then brushed the crumbs from his face. "Well, not exactly"./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"" emNot exactly? /em"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""I mean, sometimes I eat, like, ya know, real food."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"Silence./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""You mean… like frozen stuff?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Well…"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""No judgment." Nico lifted his hands slightly./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""So, yeah, usually." Percy scratched the back of his head, not quite sure what to do. He glanced at the screen, seeing a close-up of Robert Downey Jr., his overactive brain thinking about how he would look with a beard like that (Answer: emterrible /em)./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Okay, that surprises me. I thought you ate badly, but not emthat /embadly." Nico raised an eyebrow and gave his almost imperceptible crooked smile. "Do you know how to cook anything?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Oh yes. Pasta"./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"Percy held up a finger as if he was going to start listing all the things he could cook wonderfully. However, he did not. Nico's face twisted into a confused expression as his hand remained unnecessarily raised./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""And what else?", he encouraged./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Eggs? I also know how to fry bacon really well…", and then Percy stopped again. Three fingers raised. Okay, he was feeling a little embarrassed about his poor skills, but hey, emhe knew how to fight with fucking swords! /em/spanIsn't this good enough for you?/p
p class="MsoNormal"Di Angelo hesitated again./p
p class="MsoNormal""Do you know how to make any, uh, complete meals?"/p
p class="MsoNormal"After thinking about it for a few seconds, Percy replied:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Well, since when doesn't pasta, eggs, and bacon count as a good old complete meal?"/p
p class="MsoNormal"And then he held up the fourth finger./p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico rolled his eyes just like Jia always did, but the elder could see a spark of humor in the black orbs./p
p class="MsoNormal""Oh, sure. Makes perfect sense to me."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Percy smiled./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"…/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal" The next night, Nico showed up with a grocery bag./p
p class="MsoNormal""Hey."/p
p class="MsoNormal""W'sup."/p
p class="MsoNormal"The boy had taken ingredients to make a carbonara pasta. And (unfortunately, in Percy's opinion) for a Cesar salad./p
p class="MsoNormal""I thought it would be cool, you know, to teach you something you were already at least somewhat familiar with." Percy raised an eyebrow. Nico now looked more hesitant, his face heating up. "Is this emthat /emweird?"/p
p class="MsoNormal"The eldest shooked his head./p
p class="MsoNormal""A little. But not too bizarre by our standards, so I guess we can give it a try. There are worse things, indeed."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico shook his head too, but slowly as if thinking about it. Then he suggested:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Like facing the Furies or a bunch of giants who don't know the concept of deodorant?"/p
p class="MsoNormal"And Percy, who was remarkably a seaweed head, said without thinking about anything:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Oh, I was going to say more… like wearing neon T-shirts at 7 in the morning or drinking tomato juice. Maybe do physical exercises on full makeup, false eyelashes and all?" He waved his hands, gesturing over his eyelashes. "But, yeah, facing Furies would also fit in as weird and emworse /em, emdefinitely /emworse."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico raised an eyebrow, and, with a mocking look, walked towards the kitchen, while muttering in a teasing tone:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Only not worse than you..."/p
p class="MsoNormal"And Percy, with irony, replied:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Says the guy who comes into my house with a grocery bag and makes me learn how to cook."/p
p class="MsoNormal"" emTouchè /em."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"… /p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"One silly thing Percy had admitted a while ago: pineapple in non-sweet meals was not that bad — you just had to give it a chance./p
p class="MsoNormal"Yeah, he'd always had a prejudice against any fruit in food. Every time he saw William eating his favorite sandwich, ham with the fucking pineapple, Percy couldn't help but express his complete disgust./p
p class="MsoNormal""In life, William, there are socially accepted unspoken emlimits /em. You know, not going out naked on the street, not scratching your ass in public, and not eating boogers are some of those limits. You're violating a good number of those rules when you put pineapple on something salty, dude"./p
p class="MsoNormal"But William insisted that Percy should take a bite, and then... emHe loved it. /emAnd the infamous ham sandwich with pineapple had become a guilty pleasure that he loved on sleepless nights when he had a little money to spare and a desire for something more interesting./p
p class="MsoNormal"Then, we went back to that moment: Nico pulled out of the first bag a package of spaghetti pasta, some eggs, a piece of Parmesan cheese, and toast in the form of mini cubes (he was pretty sure those had a very, emvery /emspecific name), bacon bites, spices and... Well, Percy got lost. There were too many things. He became just a mere spectator, watching everything with a certain apprehension. He put both arms right next to the marble space Nico was leaning against; he tried to better observe what he was doing, craning his neck and making faces. Flexing his muscles involuntarily by the pressure on his biceps and then facing the boy, Jackson said:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Are you sure this is going to work? After all, we're talking about teaching Percy Jackson here. It would take me a while to learn how to change a light bulb, and that wouldn't even be the start of a really bad joke"./p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico, who seemed to be staring at some point between Percy's muscular arms and the infinity, came to his senses and quickly looked away while stuttering with his cheeks taking on a strangely reddish hue:/p
p class="MsoNormal""No. I mean, uh, yeah. I hope so." Then he ducked behind the packet of pasta and, pointing at it, continued, "I mean… Well, do you have a bigger arm-no, empan,/em emI mean pan/em, for the pasta?"/p
p class="MsoNormal"After he put the water on to boil, Percy undid the second bag, looking with some distaste at a can of anchovies./p
p class="MsoNormal""Are you emreally /emsure?"/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico took the can out of his hand./p
p class="MsoNormal"" emAssolutamente /em. Now, let's divide to conquer. You can make the salad, I'll make the pasta. I can explain both to you. Alright?"/p
p class="MsoNormal""Uh, yeah, I guess"./p
p class="MsoNormal"How cute, the son of the all-powerful Poseidon nodding as if he had any other choice. Haha./p
p class="MsoNormal"Percy wanted to open the window and throw himself out./p
p class="MsoNormal"Yes, yes, dramatic. Perhaps unnecessary, an attitude that would be taken without the slightest reflection (very much like himself, thank you)./p
p class="MsoNormal"But, c'mon, it wasn't a constant desire (at least not normally). It was more when he forgot about his pride and focused on the emnow /em, and emnow /emwas really weird. But why? Because he seemed to be emgrowing closer to Nico di Angelo /em./p
p class="MsoNormal"If someone had said to him four months ago that he and Nico di Angelo would be cooking together in a peaceful atmosphere, Percy would have said something like emhaha, what a hilarious joke /em, but he wouldn't laugh at all. I mean, Nico, the guy who had literally tried to emkill him, bloody hell /em, and emmore than once /em? Nico, son of Hades, traitor, an outcast in the camp, the guy who could fucking ruin his new life? And the two of them, in the same room, making dinner together, as if they were longtime friends? Even jokes have their limits, so c'mon./p
p class="MsoNormal" It was in those moments of thought that the window looked so inviting. Other than that, Nico just talked and Percy dutifully followed:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Then you need to get the lettuce and wash it. Then you take a bowl in which you can make the salad, and then you tear the leaves with your hand. I'm going to chop up that piece of bacon with this... highly dubious old knife that I found in your dusty drawer"./p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico was, in some strange and unexpected way, a good teacher. He guided Percy through each of the recipes calmly and patiently, even if he sometimes seemed to stifle a laugh when the older one asked his lame questions (like, em"after I tear the lettuce, where do I put it?" /em). Finally, they both sat down at the kitchen table, while a question that had come out of nowhere was hammering into the back of Percy's head. I mean, it was a bit of an invasive question, really, and he wasn't quite sure he should ask. After all, they weren't friends, in the closest sense of the word, and he didn't know if he wanted to know more about the boy, because if he knew more, there would soon be no turning back./p
p class="MsoNormal"But after three minutes of uncomfortable silence, broken only by the clatter of cutlery, his ADHD broke down and the words were spat out of his mouth:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Where did you learn to cook?"/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico stopped./p
p class="MsoNormal""Uh…"/p
p class="MsoNormal"Wait, why would this question be invasive? I mean, it's a normal thing to ask. The answer is generally simple, maybe even fun. em"With my grandmother," /emand period, or " emWith my grandmother. Did you know that the first time I tried to bake a cake, it burned so much that we could use that to light a goddamn barbecue?"/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"Asking Nico such a personal question was crazy, simply because Nico hadn't been through the normal life that tasks like that required. His mother? Dead. Sister? Dead. Dad? Too busy trying to rule the fucking underworld (and on top of that, there was the extra fact that he was a emgood son of a bitch /em, in Percy's humble opinion). Stepmother? emPff /em. The only relative he had left was a girl who had been dead longer than has been alive. And, of course, there were the other things, such as the fact that Di Angelo spent almost 80 years in a casino, fought battles, and wars, and saw death more closely than anyone should (especially at such a young age). There were the escapes, the Tartarus, the emlosses /em. Nico hadn't had much time to become a functioning adult between all these events —, almost no demigod has it, actually./p
p class="MsoNormal"So you can understand that Percy's curiosity ran deeper than just wanting to hear jokes about burnt cakes. And you can understand Nico's hesitation, who was still standing there, seeming to consider what the appropriate response would be. No more than twelve seconds passed from the moment Percy questioned until the moment Nico opened his mouth, but it felt like something was there, freezing the two of them in time. Finally, what came out of the thin lips of the son of Hades was not information, but another question:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Do you really want to know? The story could not be what you want to hear, it has the potential to be very boring, and maybe I'll go on longer than I should." He concluded by putting salad on his plate, averting his black eyes from the green ones. Percy, who felt his curiosity now being piqued with fire, replied:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Go on, dude. Entertain me."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico sighed as he sat up. Again, Percy had the impression that this boy looked very old, and tired as if he had already seen everything and was not surprised by anything. And, again, he felt a little melancholic about it (and he shouldn't, he knew he emshouldn't /em)./p
p class="MsoNormal""Hm, well..." the youngest murmured as if he didn't know where to start. Perhaps to buy more time, perhaps because he was in the mood, he stuffed a generous amount of pasta into his mouth. Percy took a sip of his soda while he waited. Then Nico began for real, lazily twirling his fork, his mouth still a little full of pasta: "First, with my mother. She wasn't teaching me, or at least she wasn't trying. Maria was just there, cooking, and I was beside her, looking over the counter and trying to see why she was stirring the glass bowls." He raised both eyebrows, his gaze still fixed on his own plate, as if trying to envision the scene./p
p class="MsoNormal"Percy gave a tiny smile. It felt like a good memory. He could imagine a four-foot-tall Di Angelo stretching his feet inside his little 40's clothes, trying at all costs to observe the contents of the pots and pans his mother used to prepare dinners, lunches, and so many other meals. Maybe she'd smuggle in a few slices of carrot or apple, a smile on her face, or maybe she'd set him on a bench so her boy could satisfy his curiosity like Sally did to him when she managed to cook her blue biscuits with some peace./p
p class="MsoNormal""I was what?" Seven?" He continued while skewering the pasta with the fork absently. "I knew how to make, uh, bruschetta I think. Maria said they were emil migliore del mondo intero, /emyou know, the best in the whole world. It was just regular bruschetta; bread, garlic, tomatoes, that sort of thing (and even then, I made a mess of it), but she managed to make them look very special. Then comes the War: Italy joins the Axis and the gods are at odds, and then... Well, let's not pretend you don't know this part of my story: my father's lawyer takes us to the Casino. My mother died in an explosion. No more bruschetta. The thing is... let's just say there's not much to learn in a casino where time stands still and nothing changes."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico jabbed a piece of bacon with some force while trying to make a sneer as if none of it bothered him anymore. For the slightest consideration of the other demigod, Percy didn't point out how miserably the boy had failed, managing only to look sad and small and ridiculous. They were silent for a few seconds, where only the occasional muffled noise of New York life could be heard outside that kitchen. Jackson broke the silence with another question:/p
p class="MsoNormal""How long has it been? I mean, in your head. The casino."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico pondered a bit./p
p class="MsoNormal""I'd say, hn, four or five months?"/p
p class="MsoNormal""Is that so?"/p
p class="MsoNormal""Well, yeah. I have this theory that the more time passes in the real world, the less it passes in the lotus casino. You, who stayed there less than a week, maybe you thought like, emhey, that's just an entire day. /emBut me, who spent decades, saw months as hours."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Percy felt a little bad, and he didn't even know emwhy /em. So it was his turn to shove a generous amount of pasta into his mouth. Nico continued, cautiously this time:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Then there was the military school. It was a short time. Bianca, she…" Nico looked at Percy, then at the floor. It was a very quick move, perhaps thoughtless, so it took the other a while to process what was happening at that moment. Then, suddenly, awareness came —, and it was like being punched right on the nose. Stopping to think about it, maybe the punch would hurt him less than those words. The guilt, also sudden, gnawed at him from head to toe. The bad part was, he shouldn't have felt it, because Nico's look wasn't accusatory; it was more like the boy didn't want emPercy /emto feel bad. And because of that, the son of Poseidon felt emeven worse /em. Nico, as quickly as he interrupted his own words, returned to his line: "She tried to teach me a thing or two, but most of it was just talking. She liked to recite Mom's recipes as if it was going to help us with something or remind us of something. To be honest, I was more interested in Mythmagic. I didn't pay much attention. And then…"/p
p class="MsoNormal"Silence again. The food was great, of course, perhaps the best Percy had eaten in months. Something fresh, for a change, and not just something is taken out of a package. Nico wasn't done yet, by the look on his face, but he also looked uneasy about it, as if Percy was going to judge him for some reason (in fact, ridiculous assumption. He's the one who should be judged, and probably receive that punch on his nose)./p
p class="MsoNormal""After that, I lived the life of any demigod: death, war, fighting." Nico blinked. He stopped his story as if thinking very carefully about his next words. "This all hit me… in a way, like... how should I put it? On different layers, and in emmany ways /em. I barely ate, slept, or went out in the sun. Or rather, in the real world. I was always accompanied by some dead, always roaming the underworld. That particular part you kind of already knew. But then came emWill /em." Nico rolled his eyes and sighed, the exact way someone does when finding someone annoying. That seemed like a natural reaction, but not exactly hostile: it was like when you remember something stupid, but still happy to some extent. "Will is one of those people who doesn't take a emno /emfor an answer. So he would say emdoctor's order /em, and there I was, being forced to take some minutes under the morning sun, talk to people, sleep for at least 8 hours, no shadow trips and the list goes on./p
p class="MsoNormal"He shook his head, then added:/p
p class="MsoNormal""His biggest problem with me was the food. Always. We've argued about this a dozen times at least, but he wouldn't stop. I forget to eat with some frequency, cause I don't have any sense of time. So he told me that, if I wanted to remember to have the correct meals, I had to value the food. Then he basically made an intensive cooking training with me." Nico gave one of those disguised smiles. "Will… he's pretty cool, actually."/p
p class="MsoNormal"And that ending... Well, Percy didn't understand. He didn't understand. If Will was so, so amazing, why had they broken up? I mean, he didn't know much about the guy beyond the final battle against Kronos and a few other times.../p
p class="MsoNormal"[ emOh shit, no, no, no... There was the battle with the Titan, and in the battle, there was Hestia, Grover, Will, Chiron, and the party ponies, and everyone in New York was sleeping, and there was… /em]/p
p class="MsoNormal"Percy took a deep breath, trying to calm down./p
p class="MsoNormal"The point. What was the point? Will, of course. Will taught Nico how to cook, at least effectively. And Nico spoke of him with emkindness /em. And then, they broke up. How had Will and Nico broken up, if Nico was so apparently in love with that son of Apollo? That. That... that's the point. Oh, of course, Will could be the one that wanted to break up. But why? Okay, Nico didn't seem like a dream partner, but he wasn't that bad. He was pretty cool if Percy could say so. A disagreement, maybe? Besides, why was Percy so interested? It didn't have anything to do with the subject. Then why.../p
p class="MsoNormal""And how about you?" Nico raised an eyebrow. "I bet Sally taught you how to cook pasta and eggs so well."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Percy almost didn't process the question. He wanted to believe that his curiosity about Nico's relationship with Will was why he was so distracted but in reality.../p
p class="MsoNormal"[ emWho else was in that battle, uh? Who mattered the most? Come on, Percy, your brain is already here, thinking about it! Is /emthat hard emto admit at once that the reality is that you killed... /em]/p
p class="MsoNormal"Forget it./p
p class="MsoNormal"Stay in denial. Stay at all stages of grief emexcept /emacceptance, cause that's who you are now: a repetition of emtry not to think, try not to think /em. His foot tapped the floor quickly. He tightened his fingers around his fork. Was he sweating? Percy did not know, but he just didn't want Nico to notice that, so he tried to speak:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Oh, gods..." Nervous laugh. He swallowed hard, struggling to concentrate. Come on, Percy, drop something coherent! "My mother would never let me be such as idiot as I am. At least in that sense, I guess. She just didn't get many opportunities: I was always stuck at whatever boarding school would accept me, and in the summer... Well, I wasn't at home. My mom and I love each other, of course, and we always have the holidays, but we prefer to do other things. So I kind of", he spread his arms out, as if pointing at everything around them ", ended up like this."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico shook his head./p
p class="MsoNormal""It's not that bad."/p
p class="MsoNormal"" emHmyeh /em, could be worse."/p
p class="MsoNormal""You could wear neon shirts and false eyelashes."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Percy raised his eyebrow, trying to use his best ironic tone to pretend that everything was fine./p
p class="MsoNormal"[ emIt was not /em]/p
p class="MsoNormal""I guess so."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"…/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"One other stupid thing Percy had already admitted: pink fabric softener doesn't smell bad./p
p class="MsoNormal"Yeah, Percy loved blue things, you know that. Blue was familiar, comforting, and fun. So it's obvious that his first purchase at the market had led him to some blue products, like mouthwash, cleaning cloths, toothpaste, and... the blessed fabric softener. He smelled it, he liked it, and yeah: it's chosen. And about the pink one, the explanation it's completely ridiculous: for some reason, the color reminded him of empoison /em. Maybe because it was vibrant? Perhaps because it looks like the wardrobe of Aphrodite's daughters? He didn't know. All he knew was that he hadn't even joined enough courage to smell the slimy liquid. So Percy started using only the blue fabric softener for a long time./p
p class="MsoNormal"That is, of course, until he complimented the smell of Jia's clothes. He received a curse, a butt kick, and also the name and type of fabric softener: and, to his surprise, that was exactly the pink one. So yeah, he took a chance. He admitted that it smelled good. Nothing poisonous, nothing from Aphrodite's daughters' wardrobes: the pink fabric softener, despite his stubbornness and distaste, had become one of his favorites./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"…/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"So we go back to the beginning: bed, wallpaper, and the things you have to admit with time./p
p class="MsoNormal"A week passed after Nico taught him the pasta with a name he couldn't remember (but he swore the recipe was there in his head, intact). The youngest, now, felt obliged to make Percy understand enough recipes for him to eat something decent at least once a week, which was kinda scary. So, quite often, they had dinner and then watched a movie —, maybe both at the same time. Sometimes Nico bought the ingredients, sometimes Percy. It was a fair exchange./p
p class="MsoNormal"On the august 3rd, Percy looked at Nico and said:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Hey, wanna come to my birthday party? Will be on Friday"/p
p class="MsoNormal"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Was Percy inviting Nico to his birthday party, with no complaints, no thoughts of rejection and despair? Well, he was. That's because there are certain things we must admit. The first of these things was that.../p
p class="MsoNormal"Oh shit. Come on: Nico was pretty cool. Really. Percy saw that much clearer now. And from that, he had to admit that he wanted the boy around. Because with the days, the damn emcoexistence /em, he realized that Nico was a good company. Of course, in that skinny, pathetic, weird, maybe dark son-of-Hades-way. But still a good company. And he didn't even want to think too hard about what he was getting into, because he knew it wouldn't lead to anything good. Let's face it, most things don't actually end well for Percy Jackson./p
p class="MsoNormal"Of course, Nico could end it all, fuck up his life with just one word. But to be honest, he had a feeling Nico wouldn't do that to him. They were friends, even if their friendship had started in some very strange way. And now, the existence of this friendship, even being small, was (happily or unfortunately) undeniable. The boy wouldn't bring out his worst. He wouldn't make him revisit a past he didn't want to touch. He wouldn't make him regret the opening he'd given him. Right?/p
p class="MsoNormal"And, well, the question had already been asked, and there was no chance that Percy would give up on the way. At that question, Nico didn't make much of an expression, but the older one could see in his eyes something that looked like astonishment. Yeah, okay. Maybe inviting the boy to his party was more unexpected than he'd thought. Had he broken Nico? Like a toy that you wind too much at once, causing it to simply brake. Yeah, maybe that was it, because the smaller one was taking a long time to answer. He then blinked, once, twice, and finally opened his mouth to say:/p
p class="MsoNormal"" emSerious /em?" And the tone was the same as someone would ask if you're going to wear a white dress to a wedding. Percy almost laughed./p
p class="MsoNormal""Will be fine. There won't be many people. Almost no one will be there, to be fair. And it's not even a party. My mother wants to do something, and she said that I and the guys should go to her apartment, you know, me, Jia, William, and Mahi./p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico remained silent, so Percy added:/p
p class="MsoNormal""You know, there's going to be blue cake. There's always blue cake."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico blinked a few more times. He still looked astonished, as if not only was the dress white, but it was also made of sequins, ruffles, and glitter. Seeming to snap out of his trance, he muttered:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Blue cake, uh? You know how to convince a person..."/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Obvious. I'm very convincing, maybe a master of it."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"Nico chuckled through his nose, still looking surprised./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"And even with the things we must admit, Percy, deep down, had his doubts. Or rather, his instincts. Because nothing in his life could be right for too long. Because the wary part of him sensed something was going to go wrong./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"And not in the distant future./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"emspan lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""What's my motivation?/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"emspan lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"You see so much more than you could see before/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"emspan lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"It's a permanent vacation/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"emspan lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"I'm willing to learn but I won't wait my turn/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"emspan lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"What's my motivation?/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"emspan lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"To leave this permanent vacation"/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"— Permanent vacation – The Academic/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"That had been Percy's philosophical thought on that morning, as he foolishly reflected on the events of the past two weeks. emFoolish /em, I say, because, well, you know, Percy's whole emthinking thing /emwas a terrible mistake that would generally just lead him into that cycle of deep sadness that he's all too familiar with./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"It was three days before his twentieth birthday, and the son of Poseidon was lying on his bed, staring at the blue wallpaper with tiny white whales (he was pretty sure the target audience for that wallpaper wasn't guys over six feet tall and with facial hair, but, emplease /em, ignore that detail). He couldn't even imagine what it would be like to be twenty. Would he just be the same, but older? Or would anything change? He didn't know. This time, for some miracle, his birthday wasn't the prelude to some terrible thing that would change the course of the world, kill half of New York or bring Blockbuster back to life./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"Well… At least not that he knew, of course: Percy was usually oblivious to a lot of things, so it wouldn't be a surprise if he hadn't noticed the signs of impending disaster./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"On Saturday, when they came out of the cinema, Nico was mesmerized./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Okay, okay," he said, "now I can fully understand the appeal. These movies are pretty cool. What else do I have to watch?/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;" Percy swore to the gods he could almost see that childlike (and a little manic, if he remembered right) gleam in the boy's eyes as if the excitement for Mythomagic still existed somewhere. For a few moments, he no longer looked like the kid with the pathetic looks and terrible socialization skills, but a normal dude excited with a discovery, even if his version of emnormal /emand emhappy /emwas totally into Nico di Angelo's peculiar ways. So, if anyone questioned him, Jackson would say that was why —, emand only why /em—, he'd suggested a superhero movie session./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"They were watching in chronological order, one movie a day. So, about halfway through Iron Man two, Percy took a bite of his questionable sandwich. Nico stared at him for a good few seconds with curious eyes, to the point that Percy stopped watching the TV screen, and, with a generous piece of meat, bread, and cheap cheddar cheese in his mouth, muttered:/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""What 's up?". What sounded more like a emtsup? /em, but we're going to forget it for the sake of fluidity in the script./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"Looking a little hesitant, but still assertive, the younger one said:/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Hm, do you only eat fast food?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Uh..." He swallowed, feeling the poorly chewed pieces of his dinner/snack go down, hurting his throat a little. Nothing he couldn't handle. His hand then brushed the crumbs from his face. "Well, not exactly"./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"" emNot exactly? /em"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""I mean, sometimes I eat, like, ya know, real food."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"Silence./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""You mean… like frozen stuff?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Well…"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""No judgment." Nico lifted his hands slightly./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""So, yeah, usually." Percy scratched the back of his head, not quite sure what to do. He glanced at the screen, seeing a close-up of Robert Downey Jr., his overactive brain thinking about how he would look with a beard like that (Answer: emterrible /em)./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Okay, that surprises me. I thought you ate badly, but not emthat /embadly." Nico raised an eyebrow and gave his almost imperceptible crooked smile. "Do you know how to cook anything?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Oh yes. Pasta"./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"Percy held up a finger as if he was going to start listing all the things he could cook wonderfully. However, he did not. Nico's face twisted into a confused expression as his hand remained unnecessarily raised./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""And what else?", he encouraged./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Eggs? I also know how to fry bacon really well…", and then Percy stopped again. Three fingers raised. Okay, he was feeling a little embarrassed about his poor skills, but hey, emhe knew how to fight with fucking swords! /em/spanIsn't this good enough for you?/p
p class="MsoNormal"Di Angelo hesitated again./p
p class="MsoNormal""Do you know how to make any, uh, complete meals?"/p
p class="MsoNormal"After thinking about it for a few seconds, Percy replied:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Well, since when doesn't pasta, eggs, and bacon count as a good old complete meal?"/p
p class="MsoNormal"And then he held up the fourth finger./p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico rolled his eyes just like Jia always did, but the elder could see a spark of humor in the black orbs./p
p class="MsoNormal""Oh, sure. Makes perfect sense to me."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Percy smiled./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"…/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal" The next night, Nico showed up with a grocery bag./p
p class="MsoNormal""Hey."/p
p class="MsoNormal""W'sup."/p
p class="MsoNormal"The boy had taken ingredients to make a carbonara pasta. And (unfortunately, in Percy's opinion) for a Cesar salad./p
p class="MsoNormal""I thought it would be cool, you know, to teach you something you were already at least somewhat familiar with." Percy raised an eyebrow. Nico now looked more hesitant, his face heating up. "Is this emthat /emweird?"/p
p class="MsoNormal"The eldest shooked his head./p
p class="MsoNormal""A little. But not too bizarre by our standards, so I guess we can give it a try. There are worse things, indeed."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico shook his head too, but slowly as if thinking about it. Then he suggested:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Like facing the Furies or a bunch of giants who don't know the concept of deodorant?"/p
p class="MsoNormal"And Percy, who was remarkably a seaweed head, said without thinking about anything:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Oh, I was going to say more… like wearing neon T-shirts at 7 in the morning or drinking tomato juice. Maybe do physical exercises on full makeup, false eyelashes and all?" He waved his hands, gesturing over his eyelashes. "But, yeah, facing Furies would also fit in as weird and emworse /em, emdefinitely /emworse."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico raised an eyebrow, and, with a mocking look, walked towards the kitchen, while muttering in a teasing tone:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Only not worse than you..."/p
p class="MsoNormal"And Percy, with irony, replied:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Says the guy who comes into my house with a grocery bag and makes me learn how to cook."/p
p class="MsoNormal"" emTouchè /em."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"… /p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"One silly thing Percy had admitted a while ago: pineapple in non-sweet meals was not that bad — you just had to give it a chance./p
p class="MsoNormal"Yeah, he'd always had a prejudice against any fruit in food. Every time he saw William eating his favorite sandwich, ham with the fucking pineapple, Percy couldn't help but express his complete disgust./p
p class="MsoNormal""In life, William, there are socially accepted unspoken emlimits /em. You know, not going out naked on the street, not scratching your ass in public, and not eating boogers are some of those limits. You're violating a good number of those rules when you put pineapple on something salty, dude"./p
p class="MsoNormal"But William insisted that Percy should take a bite, and then... emHe loved it. /emAnd the infamous ham sandwich with pineapple had become a guilty pleasure that he loved on sleepless nights when he had a little money to spare and a desire for something more interesting./p
p class="MsoNormal"Then, we went back to that moment: Nico pulled out of the first bag a package of spaghetti pasta, some eggs, a piece of Parmesan cheese, and toast in the form of mini cubes (he was pretty sure those had a very, emvery /emspecific name), bacon bites, spices and... Well, Percy got lost. There were too many things. He became just a mere spectator, watching everything with a certain apprehension. He put both arms right next to the marble space Nico was leaning against; he tried to better observe what he was doing, craning his neck and making faces. Flexing his muscles involuntarily by the pressure on his biceps and then facing the boy, Jackson said:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Are you sure this is going to work? After all, we're talking about teaching Percy Jackson here. It would take me a while to learn how to change a light bulb, and that wouldn't even be the start of a really bad joke"./p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico, who seemed to be staring at some point between Percy's muscular arms and the infinity, came to his senses and quickly looked away while stuttering with his cheeks taking on a strangely reddish hue:/p
p class="MsoNormal""No. I mean, uh, yeah. I hope so." Then he ducked behind the packet of pasta and, pointing at it, continued, "I mean… Well, do you have a bigger arm-no, empan,/em emI mean pan/em, for the pasta?"/p
p class="MsoNormal"After he put the water on to boil, Percy undid the second bag, looking with some distaste at a can of anchovies./p
p class="MsoNormal""Are you emreally /emsure?"/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico took the can out of his hand./p
p class="MsoNormal"" emAssolutamente /em. Now, let's divide to conquer. You can make the salad, I'll make the pasta. I can explain both to you. Alright?"/p
p class="MsoNormal""Uh, yeah, I guess"./p
p class="MsoNormal"How cute, the son of the all-powerful Poseidon nodding as if he had any other choice. Haha./p
p class="MsoNormal"Percy wanted to open the window and throw himself out./p
p class="MsoNormal"Yes, yes, dramatic. Perhaps unnecessary, an attitude that would be taken without the slightest reflection (very much like himself, thank you)./p
p class="MsoNormal"But, c'mon, it wasn't a constant desire (at least not normally). It was more when he forgot about his pride and focused on the emnow /em, and emnow /emwas really weird. But why? Because he seemed to be emgrowing closer to Nico di Angelo /em./p
p class="MsoNormal"If someone had said to him four months ago that he and Nico di Angelo would be cooking together in a peaceful atmosphere, Percy would have said something like emhaha, what a hilarious joke /em, but he wouldn't laugh at all. I mean, Nico, the guy who had literally tried to emkill him, bloody hell /em, and emmore than once /em? Nico, son of Hades, traitor, an outcast in the camp, the guy who could fucking ruin his new life? And the two of them, in the same room, making dinner together, as if they were longtime friends? Even jokes have their limits, so c'mon./p
p class="MsoNormal" It was in those moments of thought that the window looked so inviting. Other than that, Nico just talked and Percy dutifully followed:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Then you need to get the lettuce and wash it. Then you take a bowl in which you can make the salad, and then you tear the leaves with your hand. I'm going to chop up that piece of bacon with this... highly dubious old knife that I found in your dusty drawer"./p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico was, in some strange and unexpected way, a good teacher. He guided Percy through each of the recipes calmly and patiently, even if he sometimes seemed to stifle a laugh when the older one asked his lame questions (like, em"after I tear the lettuce, where do I put it?" /em). Finally, they both sat down at the kitchen table, while a question that had come out of nowhere was hammering into the back of Percy's head. I mean, it was a bit of an invasive question, really, and he wasn't quite sure he should ask. After all, they weren't friends, in the closest sense of the word, and he didn't know if he wanted to know more about the boy, because if he knew more, there would soon be no turning back./p
p class="MsoNormal"But after three minutes of uncomfortable silence, broken only by the clatter of cutlery, his ADHD broke down and the words were spat out of his mouth:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Where did you learn to cook?"/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico stopped./p
p class="MsoNormal""Uh…"/p
p class="MsoNormal"Wait, why would this question be invasive? I mean, it's a normal thing to ask. The answer is generally simple, maybe even fun. em"With my grandmother," /emand period, or " emWith my grandmother. Did you know that the first time I tried to bake a cake, it burned so much that we could use that to light a goddamn barbecue?"/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"Asking Nico such a personal question was crazy, simply because Nico hadn't been through the normal life that tasks like that required. His mother? Dead. Sister? Dead. Dad? Too busy trying to rule the fucking underworld (and on top of that, there was the extra fact that he was a emgood son of a bitch /em, in Percy's humble opinion). Stepmother? emPff /em. The only relative he had left was a girl who had been dead longer than has been alive. And, of course, there were the other things, such as the fact that Di Angelo spent almost 80 years in a casino, fought battles, and wars, and saw death more closely than anyone should (especially at such a young age). There were the escapes, the Tartarus, the emlosses /em. Nico hadn't had much time to become a functioning adult between all these events —, almost no demigod has it, actually./p
p class="MsoNormal"So you can understand that Percy's curiosity ran deeper than just wanting to hear jokes about burnt cakes. And you can understand Nico's hesitation, who was still standing there, seeming to consider what the appropriate response would be. No more than twelve seconds passed from the moment Percy questioned until the moment Nico opened his mouth, but it felt like something was there, freezing the two of them in time. Finally, what came out of the thin lips of the son of Hades was not information, but another question:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Do you really want to know? The story could not be what you want to hear, it has the potential to be very boring, and maybe I'll go on longer than I should." He concluded by putting salad on his plate, averting his black eyes from the green ones. Percy, who felt his curiosity now being piqued with fire, replied:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Go on, dude. Entertain me."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico sighed as he sat up. Again, Percy had the impression that this boy looked very old, and tired as if he had already seen everything and was not surprised by anything. And, again, he felt a little melancholic about it (and he shouldn't, he knew he emshouldn't /em)./p
p class="MsoNormal""Hm, well..." the youngest murmured as if he didn't know where to start. Perhaps to buy more time, perhaps because he was in the mood, he stuffed a generous amount of pasta into his mouth. Percy took a sip of his soda while he waited. Then Nico began for real, lazily twirling his fork, his mouth still a little full of pasta: "First, with my mother. She wasn't teaching me, or at least she wasn't trying. Maria was just there, cooking, and I was beside her, looking over the counter and trying to see why she was stirring the glass bowls." He raised both eyebrows, his gaze still fixed on his own plate, as if trying to envision the scene./p
p class="MsoNormal"Percy gave a tiny smile. It felt like a good memory. He could imagine a four-foot-tall Di Angelo stretching his feet inside his little 40's clothes, trying at all costs to observe the contents of the pots and pans his mother used to prepare dinners, lunches, and so many other meals. Maybe she'd smuggle in a few slices of carrot or apple, a smile on her face, or maybe she'd set him on a bench so her boy could satisfy his curiosity like Sally did to him when she managed to cook her blue biscuits with some peace./p
p class="MsoNormal""I was what?" Seven?" He continued while skewering the pasta with the fork absently. "I knew how to make, uh, bruschetta I think. Maria said they were emil migliore del mondo intero, /emyou know, the best in the whole world. It was just regular bruschetta; bread, garlic, tomatoes, that sort of thing (and even then, I made a mess of it), but she managed to make them look very special. Then comes the War: Italy joins the Axis and the gods are at odds, and then... Well, let's not pretend you don't know this part of my story: my father's lawyer takes us to the Casino. My mother died in an explosion. No more bruschetta. The thing is... let's just say there's not much to learn in a casino where time stands still and nothing changes."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico jabbed a piece of bacon with some force while trying to make a sneer as if none of it bothered him anymore. For the slightest consideration of the other demigod, Percy didn't point out how miserably the boy had failed, managing only to look sad and small and ridiculous. They were silent for a few seconds, where only the occasional muffled noise of New York life could be heard outside that kitchen. Jackson broke the silence with another question:/p
p class="MsoNormal""How long has it been? I mean, in your head. The casino."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico pondered a bit./p
p class="MsoNormal""I'd say, hn, four or five months?"/p
p class="MsoNormal""Is that so?"/p
p class="MsoNormal""Well, yeah. I have this theory that the more time passes in the real world, the less it passes in the lotus casino. You, who stayed there less than a week, maybe you thought like, emhey, that's just an entire day. /emBut me, who spent decades, saw months as hours."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Percy felt a little bad, and he didn't even know emwhy /em. So it was his turn to shove a generous amount of pasta into his mouth. Nico continued, cautiously this time:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Then there was the military school. It was a short time. Bianca, she…" Nico looked at Percy, then at the floor. It was a very quick move, perhaps thoughtless, so it took the other a while to process what was happening at that moment. Then, suddenly, awareness came —, and it was like being punched right on the nose. Stopping to think about it, maybe the punch would hurt him less than those words. The guilt, also sudden, gnawed at him from head to toe. The bad part was, he shouldn't have felt it, because Nico's look wasn't accusatory; it was more like the boy didn't want emPercy /emto feel bad. And because of that, the son of Poseidon felt emeven worse /em. Nico, as quickly as he interrupted his own words, returned to his line: "She tried to teach me a thing or two, but most of it was just talking. She liked to recite Mom's recipes as if it was going to help us with something or remind us of something. To be honest, I was more interested in Mythmagic. I didn't pay much attention. And then…"/p
p class="MsoNormal"Silence again. The food was great, of course, perhaps the best Percy had eaten in months. Something fresh, for a change, and not just something is taken out of a package. Nico wasn't done yet, by the look on his face, but he also looked uneasy about it, as if Percy was going to judge him for some reason (in fact, ridiculous assumption. He's the one who should be judged, and probably receive that punch on his nose)./p
p class="MsoNormal""After that, I lived the life of any demigod: death, war, fighting." Nico blinked. He stopped his story as if thinking very carefully about his next words. "This all hit me… in a way, like... how should I put it? On different layers, and in emmany ways /em. I barely ate, slept, or went out in the sun. Or rather, in the real world. I was always accompanied by some dead, always roaming the underworld. That particular part you kind of already knew. But then came emWill /em." Nico rolled his eyes and sighed, the exact way someone does when finding someone annoying. That seemed like a natural reaction, but not exactly hostile: it was like when you remember something stupid, but still happy to some extent. "Will is one of those people who doesn't take a emno /emfor an answer. So he would say emdoctor's order /em, and there I was, being forced to take some minutes under the morning sun, talk to people, sleep for at least 8 hours, no shadow trips and the list goes on./p
p class="MsoNormal"He shook his head, then added:/p
p class="MsoNormal""His biggest problem with me was the food. Always. We've argued about this a dozen times at least, but he wouldn't stop. I forget to eat with some frequency, cause I don't have any sense of time. So he told me that, if I wanted to remember to have the correct meals, I had to value the food. Then he basically made an intensive cooking training with me." Nico gave one of those disguised smiles. "Will… he's pretty cool, actually."/p
p class="MsoNormal"And that ending... Well, Percy didn't understand. He didn't understand. If Will was so, so amazing, why had they broken up? I mean, he didn't know much about the guy beyond the final battle against Kronos and a few other times.../p
p class="MsoNormal"[ emOh shit, no, no, no... There was the battle with the Titan, and in the battle, there was Hestia, Grover, Will, Chiron, and the party ponies, and everyone in New York was sleeping, and there was… /em]/p
p class="MsoNormal"Percy took a deep breath, trying to calm down./p
p class="MsoNormal"The point. What was the point? Will, of course. Will taught Nico how to cook, at least effectively. And Nico spoke of him with emkindness /em. And then, they broke up. How had Will and Nico broken up, if Nico was so apparently in love with that son of Apollo? That. That... that's the point. Oh, of course, Will could be the one that wanted to break up. But why? Okay, Nico didn't seem like a dream partner, but he wasn't that bad. He was pretty cool if Percy could say so. A disagreement, maybe? Besides, why was Percy so interested? It didn't have anything to do with the subject. Then why.../p
p class="MsoNormal""And how about you?" Nico raised an eyebrow. "I bet Sally taught you how to cook pasta and eggs so well."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Percy almost didn't process the question. He wanted to believe that his curiosity about Nico's relationship with Will was why he was so distracted but in reality.../p
p class="MsoNormal"[ emWho else was in that battle, uh? Who mattered the most? Come on, Percy, your brain is already here, thinking about it! Is /emthat hard emto admit at once that the reality is that you killed... /em]/p
p class="MsoNormal"Forget it./p
p class="MsoNormal"Stay in denial. Stay at all stages of grief emexcept /emacceptance, cause that's who you are now: a repetition of emtry not to think, try not to think /em. His foot tapped the floor quickly. He tightened his fingers around his fork. Was he sweating? Percy did not know, but he just didn't want Nico to notice that, so he tried to speak:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Oh, gods..." Nervous laugh. He swallowed hard, struggling to concentrate. Come on, Percy, drop something coherent! "My mother would never let me be such as idiot as I am. At least in that sense, I guess. She just didn't get many opportunities: I was always stuck at whatever boarding school would accept me, and in the summer... Well, I wasn't at home. My mom and I love each other, of course, and we always have the holidays, but we prefer to do other things. So I kind of", he spread his arms out, as if pointing at everything around them ", ended up like this."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico shook his head./p
p class="MsoNormal""It's not that bad."/p
p class="MsoNormal"" emHmyeh /em, could be worse."/p
p class="MsoNormal""You could wear neon shirts and false eyelashes."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Percy raised his eyebrow, trying to use his best ironic tone to pretend that everything was fine./p
p class="MsoNormal"[ emIt was not /em]/p
p class="MsoNormal""I guess so."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"…/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"One other stupid thing Percy had already admitted: pink fabric softener doesn't smell bad./p
p class="MsoNormal"Yeah, Percy loved blue things, you know that. Blue was familiar, comforting, and fun. So it's obvious that his first purchase at the market had led him to some blue products, like mouthwash, cleaning cloths, toothpaste, and... the blessed fabric softener. He smelled it, he liked it, and yeah: it's chosen. And about the pink one, the explanation it's completely ridiculous: for some reason, the color reminded him of empoison /em. Maybe because it was vibrant? Perhaps because it looks like the wardrobe of Aphrodite's daughters? He didn't know. All he knew was that he hadn't even joined enough courage to smell the slimy liquid. So Percy started using only the blue fabric softener for a long time./p
p class="MsoNormal"That is, of course, until he complimented the smell of Jia's clothes. He received a curse, a butt kick, and also the name and type of fabric softener: and, to his surprise, that was exactly the pink one. So yeah, he took a chance. He admitted that it smelled good. Nothing poisonous, nothing from Aphrodite's daughters' wardrobes: the pink fabric softener, despite his stubbornness and distaste, had become one of his favorites./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"…/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"So we go back to the beginning: bed, wallpaper, and the things you have to admit with time./p
p class="MsoNormal"A week passed after Nico taught him the pasta with a name he couldn't remember (but he swore the recipe was there in his head, intact). The youngest, now, felt obliged to make Percy understand enough recipes for him to eat something decent at least once a week, which was kinda scary. So, quite often, they had dinner and then watched a movie —, maybe both at the same time. Sometimes Nico bought the ingredients, sometimes Percy. It was a fair exchange./p
p class="MsoNormal"On the august 3rd, Percy looked at Nico and said:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Hey, wanna come to my birthday party? Will be on Friday"/p
p class="MsoNormal"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Was Percy inviting Nico to his birthday party, with no complaints, no thoughts of rejection and despair? Well, he was. That's because there are certain things we must admit. The first of these things was that.../p
p class="MsoNormal"Oh shit. Come on: Nico was pretty cool. Really. Percy saw that much clearer now. And from that, he had to admit that he wanted the boy around. Because with the days, the damn emcoexistence /em, he realized that Nico was a good company. Of course, in that skinny, pathetic, weird, maybe dark son-of-Hades-way. But still a good company. And he didn't even want to think too hard about what he was getting into, because he knew it wouldn't lead to anything good. Let's face it, most things don't actually end well for Percy Jackson./p
p class="MsoNormal"Of course, Nico could end it all, fuck up his life with just one word. But to be honest, he had a feeling Nico wouldn't do that to him. They were friends, even if their friendship had started in some very strange way. And now, the existence of this friendship, even being small, was (happily or unfortunately) undeniable. The boy wouldn't bring out his worst. He wouldn't make him revisit a past he didn't want to touch. He wouldn't make him regret the opening he'd given him. Right?/p
p class="MsoNormal"And, well, the question had already been asked, and there was no chance that Percy would give up on the way. At that question, Nico didn't make much of an expression, but the older one could see in his eyes something that looked like astonishment. Yeah, okay. Maybe inviting the boy to his party was more unexpected than he'd thought. Had he broken Nico? Like a toy that you wind too much at once, causing it to simply brake. Yeah, maybe that was it, because the smaller one was taking a long time to answer. He then blinked, once, twice, and finally opened his mouth to say:/p
p class="MsoNormal"" emSerious /em?" And the tone was the same as someone would ask if you're going to wear a white dress to a wedding. Percy almost laughed./p
p class="MsoNormal""Will be fine. There won't be many people. Almost no one will be there, to be fair. And it's not even a party. My mother wants to do something, and she said that I and the guys should go to her apartment, you know, me, Jia, William, and Mahi./p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico remained silent, so Percy added:/p
p class="MsoNormal""You know, there's going to be blue cake. There's always blue cake."/p
p class="MsoNormal"Nico blinked a few more times. He still looked astonished, as if not only was the dress white, but it was also made of sequins, ruffles, and glitter. Seeming to snap out of his trance, he muttered:/p
p class="MsoNormal""Blue cake, uh? You know how to convince a person..."/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""Obvious. I'm very convincing, maybe a master of it."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"Nico chuckled through his nose, still looking surprised./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"And even with the things we must admit, Percy, deep down, had his doubts. Or rather, his instincts. Because nothing in his life could be right for too long. Because the wary part of him sensed something was going to go wrong./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"And not in the distant future./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"emspan lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;""What's my motivation?/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"emspan lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"You see so much more than you could see before/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"emspan lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"It's a permanent vacation/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"emspan lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"I'm willing to learn but I won't wait my turn/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"emspan lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"What's my motivation?/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"emspan lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"To leave this permanent vacation"/span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"— Permanent vacation – The Academic/p
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;" /span/p