"I need to tell you something."

Percy nodded, "Okay. I'm listening."

Nico tried to sit up, but didn't have much energy to. He just positioned his head so that he was facing Percy, trying to avoid his intimate eye contact.

"When I was..." He hesitated, then started again. "Before we started dating. Something happened. And I... didn't know what to think of it until a couple months ago."

Percy kept his eyebrows furrowed, nodding. "What was it?"

Nico opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Suddenly, he felt tears well up. He wasn't sure if he could do this, if he could tell Percy (or anyone, for that matter, ever).

He felt the hands, all over his body. He felt it like it never stopped, never went away.

He took a sharp, deep breath, and Percy squeezed Nico's hand tighter.

"I'm here," Percy repeated again, and Nico nodded, letting a single tear roll down his face but none more.

"There was this guy," Nico started, his voice shaking and cracking with raw emotion. Percy tried not to scare him with eye contact, but kept his eyes on Nico, whether it be his face or his hand. 

Unfiltered, Nico continued, "I don't know who he was. But he... I was at a party. And I wasn't drunk or anything, but I was there alone and.."

Percy got the sense that whoever this guy was to Nico, he was no one good. That maybe he hurt Nico somehow, but he pushed that thought aside, it already angering him.

Nico swallowed, whispering the next part, "And he touched me, Perce. And I couldn't make him stop."