Percy

It was one of the most awkward things I have ever done and I never want to do that again.

But now we don't have to worry about it, so that part of it is nice. We can hold hands and shit in public, too. Affection.

After that, the night was kind of nice. I didn't feel like complete and utter shit when I went to bed, and even with Nico there, that was an improvement.

The next morning, the two of us were laying there. Bianca's girlfriend was here, so we weren't too worried. They uh... Had fun last night. Maybe a little bit too much fun. They'll sleep in.

"Hey, Nico." I said, earning his attention as he started to zone out.

"Hm?"

"I love you."

I could sense his smile, and that was a really nice feeling. To know that I made him smile, well on my own . And I didn't have to try.

"I love you, too."

Grover

Being we're almost always the first to breakfast, we're trying to figure out this whole Percy and Nico. Like it seems nice and everything. Nothing against it.

But when did Percy start liking guys? Or Nico? And when the fuck did they start liking each other? Because I completely missed that.

And better yet: Annabeth was back. And she's mostly over the break up. But she's still waiting on her Percy to come back. Now that he's alive.

Little did she know, her Percy was now Nico's Percy.

So here goes nothing. Because I could see them in the distance, and Annabeth was here. Talking with Luke and Thalia.

"I mean, I'm still confused." Clarisse remarked and I could get that. I'm still trying to figure out how that happened. Especially considering that I never Percy was bi.

"Yeah," I responded. "I think I'm going to stop assuming things about Nico. I'm still... Still trying to figure out how I was so clueless about it. And what happened in the first place to make that happen. Like..."

"Oh, with what happened last night?" Luke caught on to our conversation and we told him yeah. And he agreed that he didn't see that one coming. I mean, now that it's there, it's great and all. Then again, I mean, to see it, you have to figure out that they're not straight. And we we're well clueless there."

Annabeth was confused.

"I was..." She remarked. "It's been three weeks. I was gone for three weeks for orientation. What did I miss? Did Will finally get a boyfriend or a potential boyfriend or something?"

"Um... No." Thanks answered her question. "Closer to us than Will. And no, it's not Leo. And we're not talking about Bianca, either. She is, but that's not what we're talking about."

"B... Bianca's dead." The daughter of Athena tried to reason.

"Well she's about as dead as I am." Luke told Annabeth, taking a sip of his juice.

"Oh my gods," she remarked and thought about that. "Nico must be like... Really happy about that."

"Oh, yeah," I assured the daughter of Athena. "He's been real happy the past few weeks."

"Well with Percy dead and all," nobody told her about that. "He hated Percy."

Awkward looks were shared until Patrick walked over. And I knew it was Patrick because of the fashion sense. Patrick is the openly gay one. He always has this sweater on and it had a rainbow flag badge on it.  Whereas Percy is the badass sibling. He found this leather jacket and I don't think he takes it off. It looks really cool on him, though.

That scared the shit out of Annabeth.

"What the... You died!"

"Yeah, honey," he said as he was talking to me. Asking about something or another for today. "I died when I was like 9. Now shut up and mind your own business."

Well then.

He's got the guts Percy has. To tell Annabeth to shut up

Half way through that conversation is when Nico and Percy showed up. And Annabeth looked like she was going to go insane. Bianca was with them, too.

Annabeth was dumbfounded.

"You..." She wasn't devastated or anything, and she got Percy's attention. "You died."

They kind of look around.

"Which one of us?" Hazel responded.

And then she realized how many of them have actually died before.

"Percy," she specified who she was talking about in this situation. "Didn't you like, die? I went to your funeral."

Percy just smiled and nodded. We still don't know what actually killed him. We figured that he got into some sort of monster fight send it slashed him enough and he bleed to death. Hit an artery. That was what Will put down for the report. A slashed artery from a monster fight.

"Wait, what happened?" Thalia missed that entire week and a half or so that Percy was dead and we we're all in sort of intense grieving. Nico like... I mean he straight up left camp. He must've been terrible looking back at it. To care for somebody like that and for them to just die. "Like when did you die?"

"Like right after we broke up." Annabeth explained. "A month ago? About that?"

"Oh, okay, so I didn't miss like a year or anything." Thanks sighed, relieved that he wasn't dead for too long. "What happened? Like... How did you die?"

"Slashed artery." I answered for the daughter of Zeus. "A monster fight. It snuck into his cabin and yeah."

"Wait," Luke needed to think this through. "Okay, so I die. There's another war. The Romans show up, and apparently they're not assholes now. Apollo is mortal. And then Percy died and Percy and Annabeth broke up?"

"You guys didn't..." Clarisse showed up like not that long ago. She came for the funeral and stuck around. Wasn't at campfire when we found out about Nico and Percy, so she didn't know Percy and Annabeth had even broken up. "You... You guys didn't break up?"

"Clarisse." Annabeth stated.

"What?" She asked, and we all motioned over to Percy and Nico. And Percy put their hands up. They were holding hands the entire time. Annabeth hadn't noticed that, but she knew that she's not with Percy.

Percy points at their hands with his free hand.

"Exhibit A," he told Clarisse, because how often do you come out like this. "Holding hands with my boyfriend."

Annabeth thought about that for a solid like 5 seconds before shrugging it off and figuring okay.

"That was an intense day." Piper remarked. "I was ready to kill you, Percy. You know, until you actually did die."

And Percy went with that story. That it was a monster. But at the same time, I'm not dumb.

Percy and I have a mental link. I know how he feels, I can sense his emotions. And sure, Nico helps.

But Percy has been in this constant state of dispair and grief for as long as I've known him. And every day it just managed to get worse. Until he had a reason. Reason being that he broke up with Annabeth so he could kill himself.

I still need to talk to him about it. He hasn't been very fond of me ever since he got back. Mainly because he knows that I know. And he doesn't want to talk about it with the one person that does know.

But either way, breakfast went by and both Percy and I had some free time before training. So I told him to follow me.

In silence for the most part, we headed back by the stream. Percy and I made a treehouse here our first summer. I think he forgot about it, it's well hidden. For capture the flag. You can see everything from here. But I like it. I like to come up here.

"I uh... Forgot about this." Percy admitted as he forced a smile that just pained me as his beer friend.

"Yeah," like I said, I figured he would've. "I sort of figured that. Life for busy and all and uh.... It got to be too much, I guess. Right?"

Percy shrugged. "I mean, I guess..."

"Percy," I wanted to get down to business now that we we're somewhere comfy. A relaxed place. "Can I uh... Ask you something?"

And there's the fear. That I was going to maybe hate him or replace him or something. Because now I know he's into guys and people take that weirdly sometimes.

"Uh...  Sure?"

"Why would you lie about it?"

Because it's one thing to say it was an accident, he went to cut something and the knife slipped.

But a monster attack?

He froze, because I could mean a million and four different things. He wasn't sure what I was talking about.

"What are you talking about?" My best friend asked me. "I didn't think I..."

"Your death." I clarified for him as a blanket of uneasy settled over the two of us. "you lie about what happened when you died."

He was willing to bring it to him grave, apparently. Because he didn't want to budge for me.

"What are you talking about?" He insisted I was crazy. "that's not right. I would never lie about something—"

"Percy, I'm not dumb!" I snapped at him about something I've kind of always wanted to talk to him about, because it's been sitting there for years. "You killed yourself! Monsters don't claw like that and they don't know to cut over an artery. I'm not an idiot, I can still sense how you're feeling. And you've felt like shit for as long as I can remember. You were just looking for an excuse instead of actually getting help and—"

It was his turn to yell. To get upset with what I was telling him.

"What else was I supposed to do, Grover!?" I have never been depressed. I've never wanted to kill myself. So Percy's mindset was a stranger to me. But it still pissed me off that he didn't get help. "I tried getting help, Grover. Annabeth told me that sometimes after the wars people get locked in grief and she didn't believe me. Chiron can't really do much in terms of mental health. I go home and life is okay until I have to go to school and I want to do it all over again because we can't afford help at home. I'd get a job and pay it myself, but my doctor says that I'm too mentally unfit to work independently. Hell, I'm not supposed to even be here. Chiron sent a letter to my parents saying that because I kind of killed myself, I can't go to camp."

Percy sniffled. I never really thought about them having money problems, being I met Percy at a school where a lot of well off kids go. But they're short on money a lot. It's... It's another thing he doesn't like to talk about.

"But no," he was just frustrated in general. "We got called in for a dumb group of kids that just don't like camp. And I have to watch the other three go through the same shit I was put through and... And yeah, I killed myself. I had no way of getting help, Grover. Pills didn't work. Therapy is expensive. Friends that stay after you tell them you have depression are here to find, even here."

Sitting curled up, Percy rested his head on his knees. He just looked so hopeless, almost like he was lost. A hollow body trying to manage the world.

"Look," I broke it to him. "I'm not asking you to spend a grand on a therapist. But reach out befor it gets they bad again. There's Nico, Luke, and me for sure..."

I thought about it on minute want realized that I should probably make sure that I wasn't just assuming something.

"Nico knows about it, right?"