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“If you were a god,” Jason started, laid out in a sunny patch of grass next to a shrine in shambles, “what would you want from your shrine?”
Nico barely lifted his gaze from the block of wood in his hand, his attempt at carving something decorative for the shrine. “I don’t think a goddess of childbirth would share the same opinions as a child of death.”
Jason rolled onto his side, one arm stretching out and his fingertips brushing against Nico’s skin through a tear in the knee of his jeans. “Maybe I’m not looking for ideas. Maybe I just want to know. And it could help us get ideas for the next one, maybe.”
“Us?” Nico echoed, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t remember claiming that building shrines to every half-forgotten god was my life’s calling.”
A smile crept over Jason’s face. “Yeah, but you like me too much to make me do this alone.”
Nico scoffed, ducking his head to hide behind his hair.
Jason raised himself up on his elbow, brushing Nico’s hair behind his ear and guiding him into a kiss. Nico hummed, content with the feeling.
“C’mon,” Jason whispered against his lips, “help me stand this thing up so I can hammer in the last few nails.”
Nico eyed the shrine - it was going to take a lot more than the last few nails, but he was kind enough not to say anything. Or, maybe he wanted Jason to get smote by a spiteful goddess.
It had all started out entirely friendly. Jason was still grieving the loss of his friend, and Nico was still struggling to find his place at camp. They found comfort in each other, leaning on each other for support and lending the other their skills - in Jason’s case, that meant helping Nico feel like he belonged, and for Nico, he gave Jason a way to contact gods and goddesses that may never have reached out to him otherwise.
It was hard to say when things switched from friends to more. Maybe when Jason asked Nico to help him build the first shrine. Maybe when Nico took Jason back to New Rome for a week and Nico was practically glued to his side for the entire trip. Probably when Jason kissed him for the first time, and then panicked, because he didn’t want Nico to think that Jason was only into him because he knew Nico liked guys.
Definitely when Nico kissed him back. And kissed him again, and again.
Jason’s heart had never raced the way it did when Nico kissed him. He only hoped that he could make Nico feel the same way, and if he couldn’t do that with a simple touch, he hoped it came through in his actions. In bringing Nico breakfast when he didn’t make it out of bed on time. In presenting him with little gifts - things picked up during excursions with Piper into the city, or rocks or gems or fossils found on the ground throughout camp. In Jason’s newfound carpentry skills, since making something from the heart was supposedly the most thoughtful gift a person could give.
He hoped that Nico would appreciate a bedside table. He really only knew how to make things that were table-shaped, after all.
When he wasn’t helping Jason with the shrines, and when he wasn’t goofing off in the infirmary with the Apollo campers, Nico could almost always be found at the arena. He taught some of the more advanced classes - Chiron had tried to set him up with a beginner’s class, first, until it quickly became apparent that Nico never actually learned the basics - and sometimes he went there just to spar.
Jason loved to watch him face off against the Ares campers.
Nico was a powerhouse, with or without the use of Underworld magic. He moved faster than Jason had ever seen, and his sword cut in between shadows and practically disappeared from one second to the next. Jason could almost picture Nico cutting through a full army of monsters every time he swung his sword, but watching him flatten a guy twice his size was just as good.
It was when Nico suddenly wasn’t taking control of the fight like he usually would that Jason got nervous. He had to watch from the stands as Nico was smacked in the ribs by the flat of a blade, and knocked backwards until he was stumbling more than a few steps, sword arm flailing until he fell into the dirt.
Please get up, Jason thought, unable to do anything more than watch as Nico was advanced upon. Get up. Fight Back. It’s not over yet, he pleaded, his words like a prayer with no god as their destination.
A split second before Nico was pinned by the sharp blade of a longsword, he rolled backwards, over one shoulder, and kept rolling until his feet were back on the ground beneath him. He swiped the other camper’s legs out from under him, knocking him flat on his ass and giving him a heavy kick to the chest to put him down the rest of the way.
The stands exploded behind Jason - more people than he’d thought were present for a simple spar. Nico spared a glance toward them, but there was a blankness behind his eyes - the kind of nonchalance that came with often having an audience - until his gaze flickered over Jason.
He broke out into a grin.
He held out a hand to lift his opponent back to his feet, but didn’t so much as offer a kind word before marching across the arena to Jason, swinging his sword loosely as he moved before sheathing it at his belt. “Beat that,” Nico told him with a cocky grin that was unfamiliar but certainly not unwelcome. He shuffled as close as he could get, standing between Jason’s knees and tipping his boyfriend’s head up with a finger under his chin.
“I couldn’t if I tried,” Jason replied, feeling at home under Nico’s gaze. His hands found their place on Nico’s hips, wanting nothing more than to tug him closer but resisting due to their all-ages audience. “Not a scratch on you, even.”
“I’m just that good,” Nico teased. He pushed Jason’s glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “It was weird, though. I really thought I was down and out, and then I got this… boost.”
“Huh.” Jason tried not to lean in too much when Nico started scratching just behind his ear. He wasn’t actually part wolf, despite some of the rumors he'd heard circling the camp. “You must’ve heard me cheering you on.”
Nico leaned forward, brushing his lips over Jason’s only briefly. “That must be it. I’m gonna hit the shower, but I’ll see you after, right?”
Jason couldn’t stop himself from leaning forward even as Nico started pulling away. “I’ll be counting the seconds.”
Nico snorted, an ugly sound that Jason had never loved more. “Dork.”
Jason’s goodnight kiss had gone on longer than either of them had intended - not that they minded, of course. Except for the fact that--
“You’re going to get eaten alive,” Nico reminded him, the words mumbled against his boyfriend’s lips.
Jason grinned. “Promise?”
Nico snorted, shoving at Jason’s chest, though that only had him locking on to Nico’s throat rather than his mouth. “By the harpies, dumbass.”
“I’d like to see them try.” He traced the shell of Nico’s ear with his nose, and trailed kisses down his neck.
“I wouldn’t,” Nico shot back, just barely holding back a high-pitched whine when Jason’s hands slipped underneath his shirt. “Jay.”
“Nico,” Jason countered, pressing the name into his skin. “Nico, Nico, Nico.”
He placed his hands on either side of Jason’s head and dragged him back up, back to his lips, away from the bruise that Jason was sucking into his collarbone. “I love you,” Nico told him, “but you have to get back to your cabin before we get caught.”
Jason hummed, and propped himself up over Nico - thankfully removing his hands from Nico’s skin in order to do so. “All I heard was I love you.”
And he dove in again.
Jason sneaked the table into Nico’s cabin while he was at the infirmary one afternoon. He placed it carefully beside Nico’s bed, close enough to reach whatever sat atop it, but not so close that it could catch a stray elbow if Nico rolled over too forcefully in his sleep.
Once it was in place, he started decorating. All of the little trinkets and gems and fossils that Jason had gathered for him over the course of their relationship had been tucked away in a box under Nico’s bed - the only place he could really store things in such a sparse cabin. Delicately, Jason laid everything out on the table, providing each item with a symmetrical pair and leaving enough space in the center of the table for Nico to set aside anything he might need to keep handy. A book he might read before falling asleep, or a spare water bottle, or Jason’s glasses if he happened to find himself there for a nap.
He was putting the finishing touches on everything when the cabin door swung open and Nico stepped inside, stopping in his tracks at the unexpected figure at his bedside. “Jason?”
Jason jumped to his feet, trying to hide the table behind himself before he realized that it was a lost cause, and shuffled aside awkwardly. “Um. Surprise?”
As Nico approached, he dropped his coat at the foot of his bed, then sat down on the edge of the mattress, just close enough to run a hand along the smooth finish on the table. “Did you make this? Is this what you’ve been doing instead of working on Mnemosyne's shrine?”
“I, uh--” Jason started clumsily. “I wanted you to have…” He reached out suddenly, pulling open a drawer that spanned the front of the table, and gestured for Nico to look inside. Carved into the wood of the inside of the drawer was a heart, filled by the initials JG NdA. “Me. Whether I can be here with you, or not. You’ll always have me.”
Nico traced the carving with featherlight fingers, his mouth having fallen open with unspoken words. When he lifted his gaze, Jason was brought to his knees by the love, the adoration, the tears in Nico’s eyes. “I love you,” Nico whispered, and Jason never needed to hear another word in his life.
Jason made it a habit to wake Nico up with breakfast from then on. Something light, in case Nico decided to crawl out of bed and drag Jason back to the pavilion, so usually not much more than a small bowl of fruit. He was never sure if it was the gentle tap of the bowl being set down on Nico’s new table, or the shift on the mattress when Jason sat down on the edge that woke Nico each morning, but it didn’t matter as long as Jason got to be the first thing that Nico saw whenever he woke.
He would do anything to see those sleep-heavy eyes first thing every day.
“Pretty sure you’re supposed to burn offerings,” Nico murmured, his eyes barely open and his mouth hardly moving, “not just set them on the altar.”
Jason grinned, and swooped down for a kiss. “Calling it an offering implies I might want something from you in return. Protection, or good graces, or--”
“Is my eternal love and affection not enough for you?” Nico grumbled, smushing his hand against Jason’s face to push him away.
He couldn’t fight back a laugh, swatting at Nico’s hand until he could lean over him once more. “O, Nico, King of Ghosts, please accept my offering of only the sweetest cantaloupe the camp could offer.”
Nico perked up at his words. “I do like cantaloupe.”
“I know,” Jason told him, “so are you going to sit up and eat it, or do you need me to feed it to you, too?”
He seemed to consider for a second, but smacked Jason’s hand away when he reached for the bowl. “Mine,” Nico told him, and snatched up the bowl, cradling it to his chest. He plucked up a piece of melon, but before he could raise it to his mouth, Jason caught his wrist and ate the fruit out of his hand, lips brushing against fingers.
Nico’s jaw dropped. “I’ll have you smote for that.”
Jason darted forward for a kiss. “You love me too much.”
There was always something… more about Nico. Jason couldn’t quite put his finger on it. There was more confidence in the very way he breathed since he’d gotten comfortable at camp. There was more power behind his every move, his every word, like he was coming into his own as a leader of the camp. Somehow, he always seemed to lean more god than human, but it only made Nico more and more attractive to Jason.
He never thought he would want to be with someone who was more powerful than him, but it was just another more that Jason added to his list of favorite things about his boyfriend.
He’d gotten more muscular with a healthy diet and exercise. He’d gotten more in-tune with his godly powers, growing stronger by the day. And maybe even best of all, he’d gotten more cocky, swinging his sword around like the arena was his and his alone and taking down Ares campers left and right because it was true. Nico ruled the camp, he laughed in the face of his opponents, and he was fucking glowing as he did it.
It had become something of a challenge for the Ares campers to take Nico on - sometimes solo, sometimes in pairs - just to see what they could manage against the King of Ghosts. Jason never missed watching a spar, his eyes glued to Nico every second of every fight. Even after so many years training in the legion, Jason learned so much just from watching Nico fight.
He slashed and stabbed when Jason would’ve parried or feinted. He ducked, rolled, kicked, fought dirtier than Jason had ever seen, but if anyone knew how to fight dirty, it was an Ares camper. He gave as good as he got, nearly overpowering Nico once or twice until Nico managed to catch the upper hand once again.
For the first time in what seemed like forever, Nico actually got hit - a slice from Celestial bronze across his bicep that had him flinching in pain for barely more than a half a second - but just enough to have him throwing his whole self back into the fray. There was so much power coursing through him, even from a distance, that Jason could practically feel it radiating off of him, could see Nico puffing out cold breaths as the temperature around him dropped drastically.
He beat his opponent into the ground, stopping only once his knee was pressed into his opponent’s chestplate and his sword was held against the other’s throat. Even then, Jason wasn’t totally convinced that Nico was going to call it quits before his opponent was cold and dead beneath him - only when blood began to trickle down Nico’s arm from his injury did he finally drop his sword and flinch away from the fight.
One shaky hand reached out, gathering shimmering blood on his fingers, like the bronze from his opponent’s sword had liquified and melted into the wound, and Nico’s eyes were glued to his own hand.
Even from a distance, Jason could see the way his entire being trembled, but he wasn’t fast enough to catch Nico before he took off, leaving nothing but a few drops as a trail behind him: rich red swirled with shimmering gold, blood and ichor mixing together as one.