I got this really cool fanart from @KarlaDiAngelo , a wonderful artist if you ask me. They're a little shy but they know I'm right. 

Anyways, thank you so much! I love it. It's about the last chapter, twice to paradise. If anyone wants to draw fanart or create anything about this story and wants to share it with me, please do! I'll happily receive it :)

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WPOV

I thought I was solving the rubik's cube.

Turns out, with every move I made, I was just unhinging it even more so. 

"Aren't you going to offer me a bite?" 

I glance at Nico who is walking on the edge of the fountain, his arms out for balance, a cheeky smile plastered on his face. 

I look from him towards the green apple in my hands. I take another bite while ignoring the twinkle in his dark eyes, "You don't even like apples Di Angelo." I respond with a mouthful. He stops walking and crosses his arms.

"How would you now?" 

I keep going with my back turned to him. "Because the surviving part of my brain tells me that and besides, you told me a few weeks ago when we were all eating apple pie at the Half-Blood House and you were the only one who didn't want a piece." 

The moment of silence makes my lips curl. I hear the soft thud of two feet jumping off the fountain edge and hurry after me.

"Oh so I got a stalker now huh? Should I be worried, doctor Solace?" 

I roll my eyes into infinity at the annoying nickname he keeps throwing back at me ever since the hot coco accident.

"Oh eating another pizza I see, what will all that oil do to your body doctor Solace?"

"I don't know Leo, ask doctor Solace here."

"Blah blah doctor Solace, blah."

It's never ending.

"No worries, you're not that interesting."

He snatches the apple from my fingers right before my lips could touch it.

"Hey!"

"Maybe I just wasn't hungry, ever thought about that, smart ass?" 

He twirls the apple up in the air with a grin. 

"Give that back." 

I make an attempt to grab the flying dot of green but Nico catches it before I get a chance.

"Say please."

"Please." 

"No." 

He chuckles as I stand there with pink cheeks from frustration and an empty outstretched hand. He lifts the apple dramatically slow towards his mouth. 

"Don't." my voice a low warning. The twinkle in his eyes becomes blinding. 

"I'm sorry what did you say?" I can see his grin widening from behind the apple that is now almost against his lips. For one strangely short second the thought that I would gladly change places with that apple shoots up in my head. I quickly shake it away. 

Without wanting too, my brain pushes the memory of a drugged Nico leaning against my doorframe up before my eyes. It had been weeks ago that I brushed up the shards of that splintered mug but it also had been the last remnant of the ugly shadows we had unwillingly cast upon the two of us. Nico went home, walked into Nathan's apartment and didn't come out for a solid two weeks. I figured he needed some space from me and I couldn't blame him. 

I thought he never wanted to see me again.

But he did.

I was waiting for him to bring it up, but he never did. I figured that maybe it was better that way. Nico and I went back to whatever the hell it was that we are. We joked around, mocked each other, Nico continued being miserable with Nathan, (or that's what I like to tell myself at night.) and I continued being miserable by myself. It isn't perfect but for the moment it is enough. 

"Nico, I swear, if you eat from my apple I-"

A loud, juicy crunch makes me fall silent. I stare at him in bewilderment.

"Did you just-?" 

He keeps munching without breaking eye contact. Then with the most blank stare he could muster, he swallows his bite through. It stays quiet for a moment as the pigeons hop around on the square, ecstatic from the idea of breadcrumbs. I keep looking at him. He looks back.

"Do you see that fountain there?" I say as I point behind him, "take one more bite and I'll drown you in it." 

A smile plays at the corner of his lips. In horrifying detail, I notice the little drip of juice on his bottom lip. He must have noticed me staring because he quickly wipes it away with the back of his hand. My face prickles with warmth.

"I'm a better swimmer than you." is the only thing he says as he toys with the molested apple in his hold. 

I cross my arms in silence, knowing damn well it's true. Not that we've ever gone swimming together, (unless of course you count that one time I flung the both of us in the pool of the Half-Blood House) but Annabeth told me so herself. Apparently Percy and Nico used to terrorize the pool of their clubhouse every summer. Anna assured me that I wouldn't keep up with either of them. Then she smiled sadly. 'Until he met Nathan, after that I haven't seen him touch the poolwater once.'

"Do you really want to test that theory?" 

He lobs the apple over his shoulder before catching it behind his back. 

Show off.

The words nearly leave my mouth.

"I don't need to, I know I'm right."

A faint chuckle pulls my attention. I glance to my right to see a grandma throwing bread crusts at the waggling pigeons while watching me intently. Her eyes are enormous behind the round glasses on her nose. Her wrinkled face beams mischievously. This must be as good as television for her. My gaze lingers a few seconds longer on her and with a content smile, the grandma glances down again and starts muttering to the pigeons. 

I want to open my mouth, say something.

"Don't laugh with me, he's always like that!"

or

"You don't know what he's like, he'll drive you insane!" 

But the moment I think I've found the words, a hard, wet object thuds against the side of my head.

"Ohw!"

I turn around to the source of the attack while rubbing the sore spot. At my feet lays the half-eaten apple, still rolling over the pavement from it's fall. My hand falls beside me as I look up with the most so-done-with-this-shit expression I have in me. 

"Why," I stop for a moment to find any words at all, "why are you like this?" 

Nico shrugs innocently, "you wanted it back, didn't you?" 

He combs his raven black hair out of his sight with his fingers. The winter sun casts a golden glow on his pale face and make his eyes melt and in that moment I could have sworn that I had never seen anything more beautiful than him. 

"Pick it up." 

He doesn't budge.

"Pick it up, please." I draw out the last word like it's vinegar on my mouth. He walks towards me with raised hands, "That's all you had to say jeez, relax." he mocks. He crouches down to pick up the now covered in sand and pebbles apple between two fingers before walking over to the trash bin. 

"Are you sure you don't want another bite?" he grins while waving the dirty apple in the air. 

"No, I'm good. Thanks." 

He throws it in with a thud, wipes his one hand clean on his dark blue jeans and walks back to me. He stops only a step away from me. I glance down at him.

"So, did you enjoy torturing me?" 

He leans one elbow on my shoulder but it just looks ridiculous since I'm taller than him. He frowns as if mulling it over. "I always enjoy torturing you, it's one of my specialties." 

I roll my eyes but at the same time can't help but smile. He takes his elbow off my shoulder and I immediately wish I could pull him back. 

"Besides, you enjoy it just as much as I do."

I give him a look that says otherwise. He laughs while giving me a soft shove, "Oh come on, don't lie! You love it when all of Nico Di Angelo's special attention goes to you."

I ignore the warmth spreading over my chest and the tip of my ears. I raise one eyebrow at him, "Nico Di Angelo's special attention, you mean, roasting me until I'm mentally broken. Until my brain is mush."

he smiles. "Oh I got to stop then because I think you already passed that point." 

"Ha. Ha." 

He just laughs and for a moment I think of nothing else but that sound. He can taunt me all he wants, if it ends with a smile like the one he's carrying right now, I realize it's worth it.

"I think, I have to thank you," he says.

"Not that I disagree but for what exactly?"

He rolls his dark eyes at the sky. 

"For giving your apple to me."

"I didn't give it, you snatched it with your cold dead hands out of my hold." 

He ignores my dramatics with a scoff. I cross my arms while studying his face. His... immorally gorgeous face. "Did you even like it?" I ask with humor in my voice, already knowing the answer that will follow. He shrugs, "Not really, I don't really like apples." 

I shake my head and he laughs. 

"You're unbelievable." 

The sound of our voices bounce all around the square. I can't tell if it are butterflies fluttering in my stomach or muscles aching from laughter. 

"Close your eyes." 

I give him a funny look. "What?"

"Close your eyes William Solace, I'm not asking twice."

I swallow thickly before slowly closing my eyelids. My heart is beating so wildly in my chest I think it's going to jump out. I try to quieten my breathing as I listen to the sounds around me. Besides the cooing of birds and the steady clattering of the fountain, I hear nothing. 

"You're not going to run away and leave me here standing like an idiot are you?" 

It stays quiet.

"Nico?"

The silence drags on for another eternity and right at the moment that I want to open my eyes again and make sure he isn't sprinting over the pavement, a frail hand softly pushes against my chest. The gesture is so heartbreakingly gentle that for a moment, I forget that I'm supposed to breath out again. 

"Nico what are you-?"

My babbling mellows out as the familiar smell of daisies and honey attacks my senses. 

"Just saying thank you." Nico breaths out. His voice is so close that it makes shivers go down my spine. I don't get to dwell too long over it. I hear the faint squeak of Nico's sneakers as he goes onto his tippy toes and all brain activity in my head seems to short-cut as he places a soft kiss on my freckled cheek. My heart spikes violently, my whole gut seems to fling up against my chest. the softness of his lips is so overwhelming but at the same time so brief. My eyes flutter open as he pulls back again. Before he gets the chance to however, my hands clasp desperately around his neck, my thumb traces the edge of his jaw in fascination. His eyes are small coffee brown rings almost gone under the solar eclipse of his black pupils. My heart hammers into my throat before I swallow it back down again. 

"You can't do that," I whisper while holding him close to me. There's a deep blush on his cheeks and for the first time since I met Nico, he is out of words. I feel his chest rising and falling rapidly. My eyes dart back from his cheek to the corner of his mouth, to...

Now or never.

I close my eyes again and without thought pull him back into me, this time when I breath out, it's against the chapped lips of Nico Di Angelo. 

All the while the grandma on the bench laughs hysterically.

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