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mediumgayitalian · 3 months

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The message comes from the constantly-running humidifier in the darkest corner of his cabin.

(It’s an eyesore. That’s why it’s there. It’s a bright, shiny pink, decorated with painted yellow suns and silver stars and random other doodles. At the bottom, there’s a messily painted signature next to a black heart. Will presented it to him proudly one random day, beaming that stupidly wide grin of his: “I made it in Arts and Crafts! It’ll help with your lungs, swearsies.”)

(It works wonders. When he breathes and feels like the air won’t settle in his chest, he stands close to it and clears up. When he’s hacking up a lung and smelling the phantom scent of acrid, monster air and the bronze staleness of his own recycled breath, it clears his throat. When he wakes up hyperventilating, eyes wide and unseeing, the soft bubbling of the steaming water and rhythmic pulsing of the glowing light gives him something to focus on.)

(If anyone asks, Nico threw it out the day he got it.)

He startles when his name is called, dropping the breastplate he was polishing with a clang. The sound makes him wince, and the Iris message flicker.

“This a good time, kiddo?”

Nico’s tongue feels like lead. Sally Jackson watches him carefully from the projection, small smile on her face, greying hair curling around her temples. Her brown eyes remind him of Bianca and how she would sometimes look at him, when he was fidgety and overwhelmed. Patient. It doesn’t help with the ache slowly spreading from his chest.

“Hi, Mrs. Jackson,” he manages, finally. His voice is more of a croak than anything.

Her smile widens, even as her face turns chastising.

“Sally, Nico.”

“…Mrs. Sally.”

She laughs, although Nico hadn’t meant it as a joke. Her laughter is twinkling and calming, like the rustling of leaves in a summer breeze. Nico’s shoulders relax without him realising, and a smile twitches at the corner of his mouth.

“I’ll take what I can get, I suppose. How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in too long.”

Nico winces. The last time he’d seen her was an Iris message similar to this, only her eyes had been red-rimmed, and she hadn’t been smiling. Nico had pushed past the lump in his throat to report that he hadn’t heard anything about her missing son, either, although he’d promised he was looking, and then a few weeks later he felt like the worst person ever when Percy showed up in the Little Tiber and he said nothing. He’d clenched a drachma in his hands for hours after, guilt eating him alive.

Sally looks fine, now. He fights the urge to apologise — it would only upset her. His guilt is something he simply gets to live with.

“I’ve been okay,” he says finally. She hums. “Uh, busy.”

“Saving the world again, I hear,” she replies, grin turning wry. “Carrying a forty-foot statue across the world.”

Nico flushes. He wonders who told her, Percy or Annabeth. Or both, or maybe someone else, even. He knows the Jacksons’ place is something of a refuge, in this day and age. He’s not sure how he feels about other people talking about him like he’s a hero or something. He had a job to do, and he barely managed still.

“That was Reyna’s quest.”

Sally hums again. Her eyes never leave him, piercing and soft as they are.

“Happy Birthday, Nico.”

For the second time in ten minutes, he jumps out of his skin. It’s been a while since he’s heard those words — he forgot that Sally is one of the few people who knows his birthday, that he told her, two years ago, when he’d crawled through Percy’s window when he was sure the boy was at school because he was bleeding and half-delirious and didn’t know where else to go, so soon after the Titan War. So soon after ditching camp, skin crawling at the stares of the other demigods, knowing how strange he was to them. Sally hadn’t asked questions. She’d cleaned the empousa scratch and wrestled him into staying for lunch, soft voice and kind, calloused hand prying answers out of him he hadn’t expected to give.

(She was aghast when she found out he was walking the streets on his own birthday, celebrations not even crossing his mind. Even more so when she noticed his cold-chapped hands and thin, ripped jeans. “Thirteen, you know, is a big deal,” she’d said, and when he’d insisted on leaving before Percy got home she sent him out with snacks and a pair of gloves.)

He clears his throat. “Thanks.”

“How’d you celebrate, today?” Her grin is wide and creases her forehead, eyes nearly shut. Her smile is identical to her son’s, only with less of the trouble attached. “First year at camp as a full timer! Annabeth has told me that Chiron usually brings you all to the city to celebrate, it must have been fun.”

Nico avoids her gaze, shrugging. He picks at a loose thread in the hem of his shirt.

“I didn’t — um, we didn’t do that.”

He can practically feel the face she makes, eyebrows furrowed and mouth downturned.

“…Something else, then? How did you spend your day?”

Nico shrugs. “Stayed in the infirmary.”

He looks up just in time to see her face crease in alarm.

“You’re hurt?”

“Oh, no, I’m — I’m not —” He stumbles over his words, rushing to assure her. “I’m not hurt. I was just cutting bandages, helping out. My friend —” his face glows, he knows it does, he pretends it doesn’t — “my friend says I have a magic touch. He’s full of it, because he actually does have a magic touch and does not need my help organizing nectar bottles, but. He’s stubborn. And annoying. And too lazy to organize it himself, probably.”

Sally’s grinning again. This time, the expression has just as much mischief as her son’s does, and despite himself Nico flushes darker.

“Sounds like your friend just wants your company.”

“Or something.”

She watches him for a moment longer. Nico fidgets. He wonders what he’s supposed to say, if there’s an etiquette to talking to ex-crushes’ mothers who kind of mother you a little bit, too. Then he wonders who the hell he’s supposed to ask about that.

“Why didn’t you tell your friends about your birthday?”

It’s an odd thing for Nico to hear. ‘Your friends’. He has those now, he supposes. Will, and Nico, and Lou Ellen. Kayla. Austin. Cecil. Percy and Annabeth, even, and of course Hazel and Reyna and Jason. Maybe even Piper and Leo and Hedge. Mellie, too, ruffles his hair when she breezes by him, and Grover grins and waves when he catches his eye. Tyson beams at him when he visits camp. Sometimes Rachel picks the lock of his cabin for no reason and sighs dramatically in a corner until Nico snaps at her, then she grins and drags him off to do something stupid. If Nico thinks about it, about the list of people who insert themselves in his life, now, his head starts to hurt. When did he become so social?

Nico shrugs. “They’re gonna — make a big deal out of it. Will’ll probably try to — sing to me, or something.” He snorts just thinking about it. “He’ll break my ear drums. He’s a horrible singer.”

“I see.”

“Or, worse, he’ll write a poem or something. And it will be bad. The worst part about it, actually, is that he’s really quite good at poetry, but he thinks it’s funnier to write bad poetry, so he does and he recites it all the time and drives everybody crazy. One time I read a good one he wrote and he got all embarrassed because he is a walking indovinello, that’s what he is, let me tell you —”

“Hm.”

“— and Cecil, gods, don’t even get me started, Cecil would do something stupid like — like — steal me a car, or something. Even though I’m not even old enough to drive! And Lou Ellen would probably help him. And who even knows what ridiculous thing Kayla and Austin would plan, and, Zeus’ beard, I know Jason would start crying about something —”

“Nico,” Sally interrupts, gently, grinning, “it sounds like your friends would be very happy to celebrate with you.”

“They would be — overbearing,” he huffs. “Well — not Reyna. Or Hazel. Maybe a little Hazel, but mostly not.”

“Have you told them?”

“…No.”

“Why not?”

“It just seems — off, I guess,” he admits softly. “I didn’t have to tell Bianca about my birthday. She knew. She —”

His voice breaks, and he looks down, embarrassed. He swipes the tear from his eye and hopes Sally doesn’t see, even though he knows she does. Sometimes he feels like the record his mother has that was so thin and played-out that it skipped on every track and always made the needle get stuck. She was too attached to throw it away and get a new one. Nico is that track, he thinks, worn out and bumpy and always making the needle stick, always coming back to the same thing. He used to complain every time his mother brought it out. He wonders how many people must roll their eyes at his own skipping, repeating track.

“Maybe you don’t tell them, then,” Sally says, hushed. Nico finally gathers the courage to look back up at her, and she doesn’t look annoyed at all — kind, only, and determined. “You mentioned your friend in the infirmary. Do they still have patient files?”

He tilts his head, confused. “Yes? I think so.”

“Do you have one?”

Nico grimaces, remembering his first stay in the infirmary where Will left forms out for him to fill and Nico balled them up and chucked them at him. Will had chucked them back on reflex before remembering Nico was his patient, blurting out a red-faced “Sorry! Gods, I’m so sorry!” that had Nico laughing until he cried, as Will cussed him out, practically glowing a bright tomato-red. They never did get back around to filling those out, despite the numerous times Nico has landed himself back under Will’s dorky stethoscope. The medic must be stuffing the injury reports in a random file somewhere.

“I. Will definitely get one.”

“Put your information in,” Sally suggests. “Percy’s told me about the head medic in passing — Will, I think? He mentioned he’s quite thorough, I imagine he checks the files regularly.”

Nico nods. He does. They get messy and cluttered fast, what with the sheer number of maimings and stabbings et cetera, so once a month Will sits on the floor in the middle of the room and organizes everything in some inane system that only makes sense to him. If Nico fills out a form and stuffs it in his file, Will will definitely notice.

“That’s — doable.”

Sally smiles. It’s kind of radiant and hard to look at, and Nico feels himself smiling back on reflex, if a little shyer.

“Good! Oh, Nico, I’m so glad. I’ve worried about you, kiddo. I’m sure Percy’s tired of me asking.”

Nico whips his head back up to stare at her, jaw dropping.

“You…ask about me?”

“Of course.” She raises an eyebrow. “I’d have to do it less if you visited more than once or twice a year.“

Nico opens his mouth, then closes it again. He doesn’t quite know how to say that he had no idea that he was welcome — that she wanted his visits, rather than dreaded them.

“I made cake,” she says casually, like she can sense his turmoil. “Blue, of course. The best kind.”

Nico snorts. She winks at him.

“I’d hoped I would see you today. But cake lasts, you know. It will still be good tomorrow, if you don’t have any other plans.”

He imagines asking Argus to drive him into town — Will has still banned him from shadow travel, although he has begrudgingly allowed other “less draining” magic, not that Nico has to listen to him or anything — and pulling up to the apartment in Manhattan. Climbing up the rickety fire escape; or, this time, knocking on the door. He imagines Sally’s wide smile, maybe even Paul Blofis’ charming grin, her kiss on both cheeks and strong hand guiding him into the warm kitchen.

He swallows roughly. “I’d like that.”

“Good. Consider it done,” she says lightly. “Come over when you have time, I’ll be home all day. I look forward to seeing you, Nico.”

Nico smiles at her. Some of the ever-present ache in his chest lessens. “Me, too.”

“Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

“Thank you.”

He swipes through the message, dissolving the connection. The billowing steam from the humidifier returns to its usual soft plumes, and Nico stands there for a few moments, breathing deeply, imagining it settling in his lungs, clearing out the lingering smoke he imagines has taken home in them. He breathes in, breathes out, and walks, trance-like, to his dresser, tugging on his PJs and feeling like he’s floating.

He falls asleep with a smile on his face, dreaming of sweet blue cake and sweeter laughter ringing through a small kitchen.

#i had so much fun with this truly nico i love you #pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #nico #nico do angelo #sally jackson #nico di angelo & sally jackson #happy birthday nico!!!!#fluff #i feel like i should tag will 💀 he’s not in this but nico talks about him so damn much omg #pining nico di angelo #solangelo #will/nico #idk what else to tag i’m not familiar enough with this fandom’s tagging system yet #i’ve only been lurking #anyways #my writing #fic #longpost

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jankwritten · 3 months

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Jasico Bingo Challenge: Comfort Food

Jason has just managed to slump onto the bench at table one for lunch when, seemingly from thin air, a brownie materializes before him.

He stares down at it. It is smooth along the top, ribboned with cracks like all the best brownies he’s ever had in his life.

He imagines this is how Tantalus feels. To be so close to something he wants so bad, knowing that he won’t be able to reach it, not really. That he can try all he wants, but surely wherever the brownie appeared from, it will just as fast disappear if he reaches for it.

Jason, unfortunately, has a lifetime’s worth of training in not reaching for it.

Moving over so the temptation isn’t directly before him, Jason pulls forward his empty plate and, with a pitiful sigh, summons the lunch he’s eaten every day since he turned ten.

The brownie follows him.

Jason tries not to notice, because, frankly, admitting he’s being haunted by a pastry is a step too far, even for his standards. He does not notice when a brownie shows up on his nightstand after he’s had a hard time breathing in a normal pattern. (It’s not a panic attack.) He does not notice when a brownie appears beside the ambrosia one of the Apollo kids tried to give him. (He doesn’t need it, he’s fine.) He looks the other way when a brownie shows up on the napkin he’s handed for s’mores at the campfire. (He can’t eat the s’mores either.)

He can handle it. He can handle the constant, demanding temptation. He will not succumb to it, gods dammit, he’s stronger than whatever fucked up test the fates are throwing at him. If this is one of his Herculean tasks, so be it. Jason will endure.

Nico throws himself to the ground at Jason’s side. Peleus, around the other side of Thalia’s Pine, snorts.

Jason simply shuts his book and directs his attention to the dramatic lump of Hades spawn at his hip. “Yes?”

“You keep disappearing,” Nico mutters. “I’m exhausted.”

Something warm and fluttery beats into Jason’s chest. “You were looking for me?”

Nico lifts his head up just enough to give Jason a flat, dead look. Then, he flops back over.

Jason tries not to be too pleased. Nico was looking for him, which means Nico was actively seeking him out, and by his lack of urgency, it doesn’t seem like it was for anything more than hanging out. They’re friends now, or to the point where Nico will admit they’re friends, but Jason is still getting used to Nico showing up around him to just…be around him. Sure, with the others it makes sense - Percy loves getting attention from his friends, and Piper and Leo demand his attention so they can all three silently sit together in a room doing their own thing. Nico is more distant, to put a name on it. He’s fiercely loyal and everything, Jason knows Nico’s always got his back, but he’s not really the kind of guy who likes to hang out.

When he does, though, of his own volition? It feels pretty damn nice.

Which is why Jason feels so awful when he looks down to his book on his plaid picnic blanket, and spots a fucking brownie, innocent and perfect on a pristine napkin.

His stomach turns. He closes his eyes immediately and tilts his head up to breathe.

Gods. Not a fucking second goes by that he’s not being tested.

“What’s wrong?”

Jason reopens his eyes to the foliage overhead - the pine needles are lush and thick, dappling the sunlight enough to create comfortable shade. He inhales, and exhales. “You ever get the feeling the gods are screwing with you, specifically, on purpose?”

Nico scoffs. “Yes. All the time.”

Jason peeks down at him and, though he does smile, it fades fast. He sighs, tilting his head all the way back to the tree trunk.

The tone of hanging out shifts and Jason feels pathetic about it. Nico sits up.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It is not nothing, you- tell me.”

It really feels like nothing, compared to what Nico’s been put through. A stupid brownie sitting in his peripherals for the last three days has nothing on walking through Tartarus, getting kidnapped by Giants, and being held prisoner in a fucking jar.

Nico puts a hand on his shoulder. Jason feels infinitely worse.

“Whatever it is, you can trust me, Jason, seriously. I’m here for you.”

Burying himself alive sounds like a decent option. “You could just open up a crack in the ground, frankly,” Jason says.

Nico, unfortunately, only looks more concerned.

Jason supposes if there’s anyone to begrudgingly admit the brownie haunting to, it would be the boy who can summon ghosts. Who is unfortunately also the most likely to be offended that Jason sees this as a fucking trial. Gods dammit.

“Jason-”

“Brownies keep showing up everywhere I go!” Jason blurts out, before Nico can start any more well meaning, heart rending shit. Jason buries his face in his hands. “Which would be fine because I like brownies, but I can’t- it’s like they’re trying to trick me, like someone’s got a sick vendetta against me, or, like, the gods are trying to teach me to not give in to what I want!”

Nico’s stretching silence is, frankly, not reassuring in the slightest.

Jason hunches down further and waits for the retreat. For Nico to say something soft but cutting about how he has to handle real problems while Jason gets chased around by fucking dessert foods.

This is it: the most humiliating moment in his life.

“You…can’t eat brownies?”

“No,” Jason says, muffled. “I’m allergic to fucking tree nuts.”

More horrific silence. Here he is, Jason Grace, whining that his hardest trial in life is a fucking nut allergy.

Nico’s hand moves from his arm. Jason’s stomach sinks to the pits of the Underworld.

“I had no idea,” Nico says, under his breath. “Since when?”

Jason lifts his head back up, though he refuses to open his eyes. His face is hot like a sunburn. “I think since I was a kid? I-I forgot, y’know, with the amnesia, but I would get these awful stomach aches after eating stuff, and I’d feel like I couldn’t breathe right and- I talked to Frank about it a few months ago and he told me I was probably allergic to something. Reyna confirmed it.”

“Oh,” Nico says.

Jason, hating himself deep in his lungs, looks at his friend. One of his best friends. Likely about to be ex-friend.

Nico looks…constipated.

“I know, it’s stupid,” Jason says in a rush. “I made it sound really serious and it wasn’t, it’s nothing like, you know, bad, it’s only annoying. I mean- it really sucks, y’know, this thing I love keeps appearing but I don’t know if I can trust it to not make me sick, and it’s like- like some god out there knows all that. It just sucks.” He’s such a loser, isn’t he.

“Jason,” Nico says, again in that soft, almost pitying tone. “It’s- It’s not a god.”

“What?”

Nico swallows, and shuffles around on the blanket. He folds up his legs, and then tangles his hands together and looks down at them.

If Jason didn’t know better, he’d say Nico almost looked…

“I’ve been the one sending you brownies. I know you like them, uhm, and I wanted to help you feel better. Cheer you up, I guess.”

…guilty.

Nico looks back up at him, through his eyelashes, then immediately back down. “I didn’t know you were allergic,” he says. “I-I’m really- I’m so sorry.”

“You’re the brownie ghost?”

This time, Nico looks up with fluttering eyelids, a confused wrinkle to his brow.

Jason stares back at him as his stomach launches back up from underground, as his chest squeezes and his shoulders lift, “you’re the brownie ghost!”

“I, uhm, sorry?”

There was no god taunting him! No awful portent of an oncoming apocalypse! Just a misguided friend trying to do something nice, oh, gods, Jason could touch the clouds right now.

Nico was being sweet! To him!

“Are you mad at me?” Nico asks.

Jason only barely refrains from bear hugging him. “No! Nico, gods, no, I-I thought- I mean, you heard what I thought, but- you were trying to cheer me up?”

“I really didn’t know.”

“No, I know you didn’t. I know you wouldn’t do that. Oh my gods, that is such a relief, you don’t even know. I was so freaked out-” Jason stops himself, catches the pinched up look on Nico’s face. “It was a really, really nice thing, with context.

Nico doesn’t look totally convinced, but he drops his shoulders, relaxes his fingers. “I’m still sorry.”

“Already forgiven.” Jason looks down at the brownie again, and laughs. “You’re incredible, you know that?”

He doesn’t have to look to know Nico’s ears are red, to know he’s shaking his head to himself either in disbelief, or an attempt to shake off the compliment. But it’s true, no matter what Nico tells himself. He’s incredible.

“Whatever,” Nico mutters. Then, after a moment, he slumps all the way back to the ground, and sprawls.

Jason tosses the brownie to Peleus and dusts the crumbs off on Nico’s shirt.

When Nico cracks an eye open to glare at him, Jason grins, with one last petty swipe of his hand.

(Later that night, after the campfire, Jason settles into his cabin, still smiling about how silly he’d been. When he rolls onto his side, there is a brownie on his nightstand, lit by the yellow glow of the only lamp.

Written on the napkin, in shaky, unpracticed handwriting, it says, “no nuts. I triple checked.”

Jason has never eaten anything faster in his life.)

#jasicobingochallenge2024 #comfort food #fanficiton #tw food aversion #but it's due to allergy so does it really count #LISTEN!!! I just thought it would be silly and cute. nico noticed when Jason is feeling down and tries to do a small thing to cheer him up #something that he doesn't have to take credit for and can make Jason happy in peace #which backfires HORRIBLY because Jason doesn't talk about himself and Nico doesn't like long conversations at all #so allergies never came up #and Jason thinks he's just. cursed.#when in fact. his best friend is just learning how to love him #frankly i'm just taking these prompts and doing my best to subvert them I guess LMFAO #like this is supposed to be about comfort foods. which for Jason would be brownies.#but instead i made him unable to eat them. so they are discomfort food. >:)#angst food #anyway #jasico #jason grace #nico di angelo #pjo #hoo

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