thinking abt a version of hoo where nico puts almost as much effort into avoiding jason that he does with percy. idk maybe a different couple falls in hoh. or no one does or they find and save nico earlier on in the book, but either way nico flinches when jason gets close and recoils from percy and everyone is just like "hmm, maybe he doesn't like his cousins?"

but nah he recoils from percy because his crush was a flagrant nightmare for him down in tartarus and his comatose state, a constant laugh of percy coming to save everyone else but not nico because "he's not worth it". it's not percy's fault, nico isn't ashamed of who or how he loves but it's hard to see percy the same way without the torture and nightmares outlining his frame

and he flinches away from jason because he got to reexperience over and over again his mom's death, the deaths of his half-siblings at the hands of their fearful skyborn cousins. jason's soul is too similar to zeus', bright yellow and painfully loud. electrically charged around the edges. nico's skin ache as his body remembers the pain he felt, the burning, the seizure of his muscles, when his mother died. always so tapped into his family, so sensitive to the souls around him - it just ricocheted back at him.

he chokes on the ghostly taste of his own blood from nightmares when percy's around and burns from the phantom sense of electrocution when jason flits by. jason is kind and it feels like a trap. percy is concerned and it feels like a trap.

it's not. he knows it's not. but he has history and fear on his side. as soon as it's all over, he's headed for the underground. settling in deep like a corpse six feet under. they can't get him there.