Percy

Fuck. I did it. I actually did it.

I laid down in bed next to Nico, naked, and feeling fucking amazing.

We took a shower together because why the fuck not and that consisted of a lot of teasing before we actually went to bed, too lazy to get dressed.

When I woke up the next morning, he looked so peaceful, it was cute. Normally Nico wakes up before me due to camp habits so I don't get to see him asleep. He looked content, it was cute.

But he noticed that I moved, and it woke him up.

"Hm...?" He said, opening his eyes and smiling. "Hey."

"Hey," I responded, moving the hair out of his face. It was getting long again, but I liked it. His hair in a messy bun was my weakness. "How you feeling?"

"Well my ass is sore," he told me, and I was proud of that. "But the rest of me is great. I'm proud of you."

"I am, too," I was really happy that the whole Gabe thing was started to go away in my subconscious. I could do things like have sex with my boyfriend if I wanted to now and not worry about a panic attack. "But I'm also starving. We should make breakfast."

We got dressed decent enough so that if somebody barged into our apartment, they wouldn't be scarred for life and headed out to the kitchen.

Trust me, we were expecting demigod visitors. And they don't warn you when they want to come over.

Well it already like 10:30 when we woke up, so when we got out to the kitchen, people were already there.

Good thing we got dressed.

And our friends are honestly the sweetest. Or more so Thalia and my sister are because they actually brought us breakfast so we didn't have to worry about making any.

I love my older sister.

But after we got decently dressed, we all headed out and headed to the mall. Of course, we all ended up separated by store #3, and I ended up walking around with Leo. And he stopped at a jewelry outlit at one of the corners.

"You wanna know what you should do?" Leo suggested as I wandered towards the rings.

"I won't be 18 until January." I reminded him. "I'm not proposing."

"Not that serious," he remarked and motioned at the promise rings. "It's been over a year, right? It's Percy, he'd love it."

I sighed, raising my right hand, more so the ring finger.

"What are you..." Leo said as he looked at my hand and his expression just lit up right away as we continued walking. "Oh my gods! I didn't think Bianca... I thought they were for her and Thalia. Oh my gods, that's... That's actually really cute. I think I know that answer based on what you told me yesterday so it's probably dumb. But did you guys do anything special after you got home last night?"

I just rolled my eyes.

"Maybe," I hinted at him. "Nothing you can't imagine."

So of course, Leo freaked out about that for a few minutes before we wandered into a store, finding the others. Well, some of them.

"Leo,"Jason remarked in attempt to calm his best friend. "you okay?"

"Yeah,"he told him, nodding his head with too much energy. "Just excited. I like seeing Percy and Nico together, it gives me hope."

"It gives you hope?" Frank remarked, questioning Leo a bit. "Dude, you're fully capable of getting yourself a man or a lady. Go talk to one. Make a new friend. Make them love you."

And I think Frank started something. Because suddenly a guy comes up to us, our age. Looked like he was kind of socially awkward. But he got Leo's attention. And asked him if he could help him out, he didn't trust his sister's opinion.

We didn't see Leo for two hours after that. Percy and I got matching outfits. I'm not sure what for. Maybe for school. I sort of finished high school this summer and got accepted to the same school as Percy for something else. So I was excited for college.

Never did get Leo back that day. We texted him and he said to leave him behind, he was busy.

•••
Leo

"We just assumed that you were dead," Winston told me as we had lunch together. Winston and I knew each other a while back, he was actually one of my friends at my last foster home. Before I ran, got put in school, and then brought to camp. "Like, you were just gone and then they said they found you in fucking like across the country and then you went missing again. You uh... You look good, though."

"I try," I responded. "But yeah, I felt a little bad but I just couldn't handle my Foster dad. He was an asshole. But I didn't die. I almost died. A lot of times. I'm good now, though! What were you here for originally?"

"My cousin's wedding." He explained. "I need a new tux. She gets married next week and so we decided to fly out for the week. I've never been to New York before. What are you doing here?"

"A friend's birthday," I explained. "He turned 19 yesterday. But everyone sort of disbanded anyways. He's got his boyfriend, he'll be fine."

"Oh," he remarked. "He's gay?"

"Bi," I corrected Winston, unsure of what he'd think of it. He didn't know about me yet. "His boyfriend is gay. They've been together... It was a year like... last month? When he moved out for college, his boyfriend moved in this last summer. They make me jealous, but it's fine."

"Same," Winston said and I gave him an odd look. "Like, Amanda got together with a kid who was like a foreign exchange student there all year and they were so cute and he was kind of cute and oh my God."

"He was... What?" I questioned what he just said because what the fuck.

"Oh, yeah!" Apparently there was shit I didn't know anymore. "I suppose I didn't say anything about it until a while after you left. I'm gay. My parents aren't very happy about it. I've been staying with my aunt. She's cool. She's moving here to New York so I am, too. I'm actually going to NYU. Next year. Are you going to college or...?"

I shrugged.

"I might," I told him. "I don't know, I might do a trade school or whatever. I haven't applied, it's been super busy this summer and it's high stress so I'm going this year. Maybe next year. By then who knows."

"You've always been more of a hands on dude," my old friend remarked and I nodded, agreeing. "Do your foster parents care or...?"

"I don't have any,"I could see he felt bad when I said that. "And like, don't give me that look. I'm at this camp place now and I'm there all year around and I get to catch up on school if I need to and I learn cool stuff and there's a bunch of kids there our age kind of in my situation. The friends I was with um... Well like my mom is dead, Jason never knew his mom, he was like taken at birth. Piper's dad is famous and ignores her. Hazel's mom is dead, Frank's mom was stationed in the Middle East a long time ago and might be dead. Nico's mom died fucking years ago, Bianca is his sister, Thalia ran away when she was younger, and then Percy was kicked out when he turned 18. Percy and Nico moved out of camp, though, because Percy's 19 now and has his own apartment and Nico got tired of camp."

"What about the other parent though?"

F u c k .

"Well uh..." I started off. "It's a weird situation, but it's basically all deadbeats. Like mine. Nico's is like kind of involved, but he chose not to like move in with him when he was younger, I guess. Percy fucking hates his dad. So does Thalia. Jason and Piper, Frank and Hazel, they don't really know their parent that well. They know like who they are, they probably saw them once, twice. That was it."

"What about you?" Suddenly he was so interested in my life, and it was the debate of what's personal and what's too far for a mortal to know.

"Um..." I shrugged once again, not really sure how to answer that. I haven't really ever talked to him before. "I mean, someone told me his name. I've seen like photos, but he doesn't really care. He's got a number of kids, none of which I really know that we'll because I found the camp kind of late and yeah. They're kind of cool. I'd like being you there, but it's really hard to get in and I know for a fact that you don't meet the requirements. You're going to college."

Winston looked at me for a moment, as if he was trying to figure something out. Which was a look he gave me a lot when I would talk or do something dumb.

"What?" I asked.

"I just..." He started off and sighed. "I mean, you say it's a cool place, but that sounds really depressing."

"I mean it—" I cut myself short for a moment and started over. "You know when you think about it, it is depressing. But I don't know, the people there are nice and they're cool so like the reason you're there stops bugging you because now you have friends and it's like going to school. There's always a feeling that it's like dumb or worthless or whatever, but if you have friends in classes or lunch, it's kind of worth it. Plus, it's not like actually school. I get to build stuff for like a few hours every day and sometimes I'll do art or I have weapons training and we have a campfire because there's like a dome around the place so it's always pretty nice. And yeah. For me it's not depressing."

He nodded his head, understanding what I was getting at. And for a while we just sat there. Talked. I told him I was bi. He said he figured that out years ago. It just radiates off of me.

Afterwards, we were walking in and out of places and it got to be close to dinner and I accidentally invited him out on a date.