Jasico Week Day One: Confession
The pen on the table remains untouched.
(This shouldn’t be an issue. This isn’t an issue. The fact that Nico noticed it is a fluke all on its own and it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t.)
Jason’s hands are perfectly still in his lap beneath the table, conversation flowing freely as ever. They’d been chatting about their days - Nico just got back from a long job for his father, and happened to bump into Jason outside the Principia. They’d gone out to lunch. Nico made Jason laugh three times.
The pen is still untouched.
(The thing is, Jason is a fiddler. He fiddles, but only when he’s calm. He lets his hands move freely because he doesn’t feel the anxious pressure to keep himself in line. When he’s anxious, he’s still as the dead, the perfect picture of a well-mannered leader. Nico shouldn’t know this. He can’t help but know things about people.)
Jason’s office looks the same as it did the day Nico first found himself in it, across from a stranger who stared at him like Nico was prey, was something to be hunted down, killed.
Then, the office felt like a jail cell. He was their prisoner until Reyna could confirm his bullshit ambassador story, technically, not that either of them will admit it.
Some of the pictures on the walls have Nico in them, now. He avoids looking at them if he can. It’s too weird.
Nico stares at the pen, instead.
“Annabeth should be getting out of her afternoon class pretty soon, if you’re bored,” Jason says, a little tone in his voice that sounds like he’s picked up on Nico’s wandering mind.
“I’m not bored.” He does not move that damned pen. “Are you okay?”
Jason stops, as much as an unmoving man can. Nico glances up to his eyes briefly, then over to a framed photo of Hazel and Reyna post-battle, the two of them in their full gladiator armor clasping hands respectfully.
In Nico’s peripherals, Jason slumps in slightly, his chin dipping. “You always do that,” he sighs.
“Do what?”
Finally, Jason’s hand twitches across the desk, his fingers brushing the gold-capped pen. It’s Camp Jupiter branded, engraved with Jason’s name and rank and everything. A gift from the praetors who came before him and Reyna.
Jason flicks the pen expertly across his knuckles.
Nico exhales. He hadn’t realized how tense he was.
“Nothing,” Jason says. “You reminded me that there was something I needed to ask you, though.”
(Nico’s always noticed more things about Jason than he does other people. Jason’s just that kind of guy, the kind who deserves to be noticed. Of course Nico always watches him; Jason is a leader, everyone looks up to him, everybody sees him.
Nico observes, though, he doesn’t just see. He takes note, remembers things, always trying to figure out the puzzle pieces that make Praetor Grace the way he is.
Sometimes, it feels like Nico gives Jason more answers about himself than Jason even knows. It’s a good feeling, to show somebody a part of themself they hadn’t yet found, or appreciated. Nico loves the look on Jason’s face every time Nico points something out to him. Jason has a kind smile.)
“That doesn’t sound good,” Nico says, though he’s not nervous. Jason has always been upfront with him - if there were an issue, they would’ve spoken about it over their meal. He leans back in his chair and folds his fingers across his stomach, able to relax now that Jason is behaving normally again.
“It’s not bad, I promise.” Jason flicks the pen again and leans back in his own chair, the old parts squeaking under his weight. “I wanted to ask if…if you’d like to get dinner, sometime.”
Nico frowns, skipping his gaze once again to Jason’s face. “But we just got lunch.”
“I’m asking if you’d like to go on a date, Nico,” Jason says, his voice suddenly softened and amused and, a date. A date?
Jason wants to go on a date?
Nico stares at the pen, now, each revolution around Jason’s finger twisting his brain in a new knot. Jason- a date. Jason wants to go on a date. A dinner date. A romantic date.
With Nico?
“You don’t have to say yes.” Jason leans forward again, a fluid motion, and he stops spinning the pen but maybe not because he’s stressed. He presses his hand down onto the desk, close to Nico. He says, “don’t feel pressured or anything. I just…wanted to ask. Because I-I really like you, I like how you make me feel, about myself, and- and I love spending time with you. And, of course, if you don’t- feel that same way, I’m fine staying friends. I love being friends with you, too. But, if there’s a chance, y’know. I didn’t want to- miss it.”
Miss his chance. Miss his chance, as if there would ever be a time Nico was unavailable, for- dating purposes? As if there are any other people anywhere who would consider Nico worthy of romance, as if Jason Grace hasn’t just presented Nico with the biggest anomaly since he brought his sister back to life.
Miss his chance. Gods above.
(The first time Nico saw Jason fidget, they were hanging out at Camp Half-Blood, waiting for Will to get out of a meeting with Chiron and his cabinmates. Jason started picking at the threads on the sofa, then moved on to twisting the beads of his necklace, and the small bronze ring Leo forged for him which wound up being too small to fit.
It was also the first time Nico noticed that Jason had nice hands. It was the first time Nico looked at Jason and thought, he’s really pretty.
It was the first time Nico thought, no. Not again.)
“You’re serious?” Nico asks. He has to be sure. Jason would never joke about something like that, not knowing what he knows, and Nico knows all that, but none of this quite makes sense, either.
Jason smiles, his face rosy pink like he’s flustered. “I am one hundred percent serious.”
“You want to go on a date.”
“Yes.”
“With me?”
“No. I want to go on many dates with you.”
Nico blinks, draws a blank on responding to that one. He opens his mouth, then shuts it. He watches Jason weave the pen between his fingers expertly, unbothered by the weight of it. It’s a practiced movement, one Nico’s seen hundreds of times.
“Well, uhm.” Nico shifts back and forth in his seat. “I don’t have to leave for another week, at least. So we could…get dinner while I'm here?”
“The date way?” Jason asks, sitting up straighter, his face doing that thing it does when he’s trying hard not to smile. Not to get his hopes up. Jason has hopes to get up about dating.
Nico feels some giddy little thing light off in his own chest, fluttering enough that he presses a hand to it to try and calm it down. “Yeah,” he says, and, dammit, now he’s smiling, because Jason’s grin breaks loose and it’s like sunlight on a clear blue day, warm and dazzling. “The date way.”
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Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Nico di Angelo/Jason Grace
Characters: Nico di Angelo, Jason Grace, Hazel Levesque, Apollo (Percy Jackson), Hades (Percy Jackson), Persephone (Percy Jackson), Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano
Additional Tags: Mutual Pining, royal au, Idiots in Love, First Kiss, i focused way too much on the worldbuilding
Summary:
That night, Jason knelt at Nico’s feet and swore he would protect him, counsel him and give his life for him if need be, and Nico accepted the oath with little more than a whisper.
Jason’s blue, kind eyes burned into him.
Where Nico is a prince, Jason is his personal guard and they read to each other.
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