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Nico had to admit that, when Will dragged him out of bed at eight o'clock on a Saturday to go to the Aphrodite Cabin, he was confused. His ever-sunny boyfriend knocked on the door, still grasping a sleepy Nico's wrist, and Piper opened it with a grin that rivalled Will's. Under her eyes were what looked like flags and she had rainbow glitter running across her hairline. She wore a black t-shirt with the words 'bi' and 'pan' crossed out and 'omni' with a rainbow tick beside it. Nico frowned. Peering behind her, he saw the freshly bedazzled children of Aphrodite offering clothes and giving makeovers to other campers.
'Will." He tugged at the son of Apollo's sleeve, growing worried. "What's going on?"
Will turned to him, looking a bit guilty. "Sorry I didn't ask, Neeks. It's just that it's Pride today and I thought we could go. I've never been before but a few of my siblings have."
"Pride?" Nico repeated. "You mean like lions?"
Piper stifled a giggle and Nico could see the laughter in Will's deep blue eyes. He folded his arms.
"No," Will responded. "Pride is... It's a celebration. It's a celebration of people like us and Piper. People who aren't alloromantic and allosexual heteromantic heterosexuals. It's also for people who aren't cisgender, like how you were thinking about maybe not being one hundred percent a boy. Straight people can go as well but it's not for them. It's for us."
Nico's heart pounded "There are more of us?"
"Millions." Will nodded. "Not everyone goes to Pride though. At Pride, people dress up and carry signs and have a good time being them. Wanna go?"
Nico nodded and Piper grabbed both of them by thief shoulders and hauled them into the cabin.
-
Nico arrived at Pride holding hands with Will and looking around in awe at the hundreds of people. He was wearing, as usual, all black and his aviator jacket but had a flag that Will had informed him was the vincian (gay man) flag tied around his neck. He had let Piper draw squiggles the colour of the genderqueer flag under his eyes and over his nose bridge. Will was wearing a t-shirt with the bi flag and the names of multiple famous bisexual people on it. He carried a sign that said 'Pride is open to everyone... Except homophobes' and sported a demisexual pin. He squeezed Nico's hand and smiled reassuringly as they joined the masses.
Piper was with them alongside her girlfriend, Shel. Both carried signs and flipped off homophobes as they kissed. Percy and Annabeth were there too with Percy flaunting his enormous pansexual flag. Annabeth's pansexual cousin, Magnus, and his genderfluid girlfriend/boyfriend, Alex, had shown up too. Annabeth herself held a proud bisexual sign. Reyna had come as well with an asexual flag paired with a lesbian flag and Hazel and Frank came with her. Frank wore a straight ally shirt and Hazel wore an asexual one.
Nico smiled to himself as he watched them. They were all so happy and confident. Things had changed a lot over eight years. He only wished Jason could have been there. He would have been the biggest supporter of all.
"Hot dogs?" Will asked, eyes glinting. Nico grinned.
"Always."
They broke off from the group to wait on a queue for the hot dog stand. Will jauntily swung their clasped hands and leaned over go kiss Nico's cheek.
"Having fun?"
"Yeah, definitely. Are you?"
"Of course. I'm with you," he replied seemingly sincerely but Nico caught the spark in his eyes and snorted.
"Cheesy, Solace," he said and Will burst out laughing as they reached the front of the queue. The lady running the stand gave them a genuine smile and took their orders.
"It's lovely," she remarked before they left, "to see people unafraid to love. It's a beautiful thing."
"Thank you, ma'am," Nico responded.
-
Eventually, they had to go back to Camp Halfblood, Reyna and Frank and Hazel had to go to Camp Jupiter and Magnus and Alex has to get to Hotel Valhalla. It was getting on for midnight. They were all tired but everyone was buzzing with the events of the day. Nico couldn't deny that he'd had a good time. He sat in the backseat of the car with Will, resting his head on Will's shoulder and closing his eyes.
"I enjoyed today, tesoro," he said quietly so that only Will could hear. "Can we do this again next year?"
"Of course," Will assured him and he fell asleep.