Chapter Text
From the moment he got back at camp, nothing had ever been the same.
He had, of course, decided to come back based on his feelings for Will. But, also, for convenience.
Being alone for most of four years surely had caused some troubles for himself and even more for people like Hazel who actually worried about him once in a while. After the striking realization that not everyone in the world was out to get him, jumping into every closest shadow was simply not worth it anymore.
Will was working hard to be the boyfriend that he thought Nico needed, and he was grateful for that. Issues arose occasionally, like in every relationship, Nico thought, but they never seemed too heavy on his shoulders, Will being the first to not take them that seriously. Sometimes, Will seemed to be overly cautious when talking to him, as if he was afraid every word could somehow break him. Which was funny since, between the two of them, the one on the battle frontline had always been Nico.
Nico had been the one to survive Tartarus. Sort of survived, let’s say. Thinking about it, indulging in the memory of that experience was probably another way for him to have control over the everyday dose of emotional pain and loneliness he felt. He had many distractions in the Underworld, and the majority of them always meant bad consequences for his body, mind, and soul. If he still had one, that is.
Nico acknowledged the idiocy of doing what he usually did to indulge in his own negative emotions, but he hadn’t been able to stop. It was pretty difficult to keep on feeling nothing when the air that you’re breathing tries to suffocate you and you feel your skin almost melting from the infernal heat. Some nightmares still lingered in his mind at night but, at least, Will seemed to have this healing aura that kept him relatively calm when flashbacks bothered him during the day.
But anyway, the point was, his strength was acknowledged by approximately everyone that knew him. Not that it was flattering scaring half of the people he randomly met at camp, but everyone – including him – was now used to him looking creepy, for whatever reason.
But, it was in those moments, laying down on his bed at night in the darkness of the Hades cabin, that Nico would find himself thinking about the fact that, after he had come back, everything felt… boring. Or, better, it became dull. Empty.
He didn’t know if some kind of psychological effect was to blame for blocking out emotions from traumas he had experienced, like Will mentioned once (and what is trauma when you’re a demigod, really?). But even if that were to be the case, it didn’t change the fact that it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to describe his feelings at any point during the day.
He still remembered the first time he had started to really talk to Will. The sweet feeling in his chest had been enough to make him understand that he liked spending time with him but, when the moment came to state what exactly was the nature of their relationship, he had hesitated. Yes, they definitely had kissed more than once and yes, that specific son of Apollo was still one of his favorite persons at camp and Nico thought he had made that clear. But, what about it? Was that the love that every song and every novel always talked about?
He had never expressed this to Will, but his boyfriend was used to his silences and to read between the lines. It was clear that Nico didn’t want to talk about it, mostly because he himself didn’t understand even half of the situation.
And, from there, his brain always came up with one name: Percy Jackson.
His first crush and first human being Nico thought about day and night, for one reason or another. He still remembered how he couldn’t even name what he felt for Percy, at the start. He had labeled it “hate”, like being obsessed with someone to the extent of dreaming about them approximately every night for whole years could be defined "hate". With that reasoning, though, he could always blame it on his fatal flaw.
Still, waking up from those kinds of dreams always left him feeling frustrated and pretty upset. It’s not a great thing to be attracted to the boy that presumably, in his pre-teen mind, had killed your sister.
Thinking about that now weighed heavily on his chest and made the loneliness start pushing even harder on his shoulders.
Despite that, he couldn’t do anything about the wave of that something Percy made him feel. And he had tried. He still called him “Jackson” to detach himself from that name since, in his head, Percy managed to never come down of that pedestal Nico had created as soon as they had met, when he was still a kid. The person on that pedestal was simply called “Percy”, a name to which he attached a sweet feeling of affection that he didn’t even believe he could experience. Jackson, on the other hand, was what he saw with his eyes. The seventeen-year-old boy who, despite everything he went through, still managed to keep that stupid grin on his face and look at him with those stupid green eyes and talk with that stupid out-of-place humor.
Every time Nico had tried to ignore him, during whatever occasion, he had found himself staring at Percy from a distance without seeming to stop. Then, he would come back to his senses by himself, but there were sometimes where people like Jason or Hazel had to drag him out of it.
Nico had never told his sister despite thinking that, her being all but stupid, she would have figured that out on her own. Jason knew, on the other hand, and found that behavior of his funny. He seemed to especially find amusing what Nico had decided to tell Percy after the last War. “Did you seriously have the nerve to lie in his face?” The son of Jupiter had asked him after founding out what had happened directly from Percy.
Nico would have liked to tell him that, honestly, he had been clueless about what to do when he had decided to close that being-in-love-with-Percy chapter of his life once and for all. He simply went up to Percy one day, uttering out those sentences without even consciously thinking about them. After that, and after the internal panic that had followed, he had felt the need rephrase; so, he told Percy that he was “not his type”. Like it was all in the past. Like it didn’t matter anymore.
It was not a blatant lie, in the end. Those loving feelings he had felt in the beginning really did, though slowly, turn into an insatiable physical attraction with age and the knowledge of what his body was drawn to.
Nobody knew anything about it, except himself.
Between one dream and another at night – or during the day, when Nico was too tired to even just get out of bed and take part in some camp activities, Percy’s face would appear in his mind, along with Percy’s body. And oh, what did Percy Jackson’s body do to Nico’s mind. Every single element of his looks acted like some button, turning on every instinct Nico could hope to suppress during the day. Will was definitely attractive, but the effect was just not the same.
It wasn’t even Nico who initiated physical contact with his boyfriend, most of the time, and when he did, it was probably because Percy fucking Jackson was filling up his mind and his pants like a fully open faucet does to a clogged sink.
For this reason, he dreaded those monthly reunion parties a bit more every time.
But, still, even hating the sight of the son of Poseidon with all his heart, it was for him apparently the only thing to look forward to during the weeks. And, since the day after was going to be one of the days in which Nico wouldn't have had the chance to avoid Percy anymore, he was feeling extremely restless. And, for once, not because of his nightmares. The more time passed, the more difficult it was becoming to hide the reactions Percy caused to his insides.
And this was starting to scare him.