Nico

Three days later, in the middle of the night, I woke up to something I couldn't figure out right away.

Percy was crying.

"What..." I said as I was waking up, and I looked over at him and realized that the sound he made were muffled sobs. Trying not to wake me. "Oh my gods, Percy! What's wrong? What happened?"

Sitting up, I wiped away a few tears and that's about as close as he let me get. And he just shook his head, thinking I'd actually believe nothing's wrong.

He had amnesia. The depression was bound to come back eventually.

It took a bit, but I got him out into the living room. It's more open there, he might feel less trapped. Breathe easier.

"Now just because you had amnesia doesn't mean you've changed entirely," I insisted, giving him a glass of water to keep himself hydrated. "I'm not dumb, Percy. You did try to kill yourself, after all. You can't tell me that nothing's wrong."

He was nervously playing with my hand at this point in time. The crying was essentially over, but the thoughts weren't.

"I just... I don't get it." My boyfriend told me, sounding lost. "I'm a fucking wreck, all I've done is hurt others. Why would you care about me? Even this last summer..."

So he has his memory back.

I put my other hand over his and gave him a little squeeze.

"You know," I opened myself up to who the actual Percy Jackson was. The one that I fell for. The one I really do love. "I fucking torture myself over that for years. And you are a train wreck. But you don't just hurt other people, Percy. You went to the Underworld on a quest you never asked for to rescue your mom. When you couldn't, you made Zeus swear he would get her out. You had a dream about Grover needing help, and you snuck out to do so. Annabeth went missing, and you snuck out again. I went missing, and you did the same exact thing after I tried to almost kill you."

"I let your sister die."

"Oh, bullshit." I called him out on that. "It had nothing to do with you, Percy. You had no way to stop her, and you know that. You have helped out so many people, Percy, it's unbelievable. Just because your dad's an asshole doesn't mean that you're just like him. You've done amazing things, Percy. The gods just need to learn to fuck off and give you time to get over what happened. You could've ignored me after my sister died. Everyone else did. I was a freak, remember? I didn't belong there? But you still tried. You still believed in me after I tried to kill you and ran away. Who else does that?"

He shrugged. "Jason."

"I wish," I told him, and that had his attention. "When you were in the hospital, I got worried. Jason noticed and he knew about it. It's long story, I'll tell you later what happened. But he freaked out on me and told me that I was being dumb, and that I should just give up because you were a psycho. And yes, he called you a psycho. He said worrying was dumb and I snapped and told him why I was worried and he said that you deserved it. Leo slapped him. It was... Bottom line, Percy, you're better than you want to believe. You befriended a freak who pretended to hate you. I really don't think anyone else would do that. So I care about you, yeah. Because if you're not going to, somebody has to."

He slowly nodded his head, trying to understand everything I just told him.

"So you don't want to b..."

"It's going to take a lot more than that to get me to break up with you, Percy," I informed my boyfriend, giving him a hug, "we're going to get through this. And we're doing it together."

Percy

Life fucking sucks. But I learned that over the next few days, it's kind of tolerable when you have someone there.

He worried a lot, and I didn't want him to. But he knew that. He also knew that I tried to kill myself. That's how I ended up in the hospital. That's why he worried.

Nico eats now, though. That was a sigh of relief for me. He never ate much from what I've seen since Bianca died. This summer was tough on everyone. We all didn't eat enough. Nico especially.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around him actually liking me. I get why he told me when he did. I had amnesia. I didn't have anything to go against it with. I couldn't argue about it like I would if he just told me now. I'd insist that I either wasn't worth that much or he just pitied me.

But that's not the case. He actually cares, and it's so weird. It kind of scares me sometimes. I'm not used to it, Annabeth never cared about me this much. My mom and Paul do, but they're my parents. It's different.

This was new. It was kind of scary, and I didn't know what to do half the time. But like Nico said, we'll get through it.

Nico

"Can you have one more bite?" I politely asked him, noticing how little he ate today. It was Friday, a teacher work day. So Paul was gone, along with Sally. He barely touched his food. "Please?"

The depression eats away at him, without a doubt. But hopefully he can get himself to stop hurting himself. He throws up a lot. Bulimia. He takes a vitamin pill to make up for it, but he's still losing weight. Not getting enough protein or really anything aside vitamins.

I guess he's been doing it for years.

Now I was just hoping I could help him stop. He's worth more than that.

It was a day off, so I figured we could have a lazy day. He doesn't like to leave the apartment that often. He's not fond of humans, either. Just a few of us. But there was a family gathering tomorrow at Paul's parent place, so he has to go. I do, too. But today we're just going to relax. Hopefully he doesn't have a panic attack tomorrow.

"What movie do you want to watch?" I asked him as I looked at their variety of movies. There was a variety, that's for sure.

"Um... I don't care." He told me. "You pick."

So I picked Finding Nemo. I knew he has w Dory plush from when the movie came out and he loves that thing probably more than he loves me. Id say more than life itself, but he tried to kill himself. That's not hard to beat.

Grabbing the popcorn, I crawled into bed next to him and we started watching the movie.

And it must've been half way through the movie and to be fair, I made a pretty dumb remark. I deserved the punch to the arm.

But I'm gay. I like have the right to be over dramatic. Right?

"Oh no," I said, slowly falling onto Percy and reaching out my other arm. "I don't think I'm going to make it, babe. Take care of Hazel for me. I love you."

To finish the job off, I stuck my tongue out to the side and closed my eyes, relaxing.

"Oh no, what so ever will I do," he played along with it, may I add. "With this nearly full bowl of popcorn?"

I stuck my hand in the popcorn bowl and shoved some in my mouth.

"Oh shit," it was so fake and it was hilarious. "He lives."

"He likes popcorn," I told my boyfriend and came up with another one. "And, contrary to what many may think, he likes cuddles. With his boyfriend."

We cuddled and fell asleep.

The next day, though, was a different story. We got up considerably early for a Saturday, and dressed up semi nice to go to Paul's parents place for this gathering.

He was fine in the car ride.

It's when we actually got there that he sort of freaked. We got inside and Paul's parents said hi to all of us, and when we were faced with the mob of people that I guess Paul's related to, he held my hand like it was his life source.

Social anxiety.

He used the bathroom three times while we were there. And he only needed to go once.

It would've been four, but the next time he asked me if we could go somewhere where people weren't.

So we found a vacant room and I helped him calm down. He had been having a hard time controlling his breathing.

"Are you okay?" I asked my boyfriend, aware that he doesn't do good with people he doesn't really know. And he's never been to one of these before. He knows like three people.

"I uh... After I had my anxiety attack, it got better." Percy figured there wasn't any point in lying about it. "Breathing is just really hard. I needed air. Thanks."

Rubbing his back, we heard a voice came from down the hall.

"Boys?" It was Paul's sister, I believe. I can't remember her name. She's one of the ones that Percy knows. "What are you two doing? Dinner will be ready in a little bit."

She found us.

"There you—" she took note of the fact that Percy was trying to get his breathing under control as he sat on the bed. "Percy? Are you okay?"

He nodded his head.

"Are you sure?"

"I... Yeah. I'm sure."