Percy Jackson

It was Paul that said it.

My parents came back a little bit after we actually woke up, so we were just eating breakfast and we weren't cuddling or anything.

But they must've stopped in last night after we fell asleep because while Mom seemed content with the amount of knowledge she currently has, Paul asked for more the second Nico excused himself for the bathroom.

"I thought you and that Blondie from camp were dating," Paul started, which was just the best way to make me panic about him being homophobic. "What happened to her?"

"What... I mean she lives in California with her dad," I reminded Paul of something he already knew. "But we also aren't dating. We've always just been friends."

"Hm," he responded, which didn't help me at all. "Thought she had a crush on you at the very least."

I shrugged.

"I mean yeah, she told me about it on my birthday," I confirmed his theory. "But I don't like her in that sense so I told her that I just want to be friends and yeah."

"Because you're a queer?"

"Paul!" My mom wouldn't stand for that language, though, and she used the mom lecture on him. "You know better than to talk about other people like that, especially when directing it to your kid. Whether or not Percy is a part of the LGBT spectrum doesn't matter so long as he's happy. If you can't agree to that, you can pack your things and move out and I'll call the court house to cancel our certificate. Say it again and I'll have to wash your mouth out."

"I didn't mean— i was just trying to ask," Paul insisited, but now I didn't want to tell him or be around him. "I am sorry it didn't come out the best, I was just curious."

The upstate New York rich kid was starting to shine through in Paul.

Because although he said sorry, he didn't sound sincere.

Thank the gods, though, because he got a call from his mom so he could leave the room.

"I'm sorry, sweetie," mom's apology was more sincere. "I know I didn't say it, but I'm still sorry. I'll talk to him about it when we go home before we come back to pick you up to make sure it really was wording and not ill intentions, okay?"

I nodded my head, pulling my legs in.

"Are you feeling alright?" She asked because I think she could tell. At least somewhat, that is. A general bad.

So I shook my head.

"Did what Paul said get under your skin?"

I nodded my head once again.

"I'll talk to him about it," Mom promised me, rubbing my arm a little for comfort.

And she never asked about Nico or about me being gay. Paul didn't risk bringing it back up, especially since Nico returned while Paul was talking to his mom.

They left after grabbing some papers from the doctor then and promised they'd be back a little before my dismissal time before leaving me, once again, with Nico.

I immediately laid back against him and he wrapped his arms around me, having sensed that somethung happened earlier..

"Hey," the son of Hades said. "are you feeling okay? I'm assuming your parents didn't find out based on the sudden change in affection?"

"I think they might have like, a suspicion, but I didn't tell them," I confirmed for my boyfriend, sighing and turning my head to bury it in his shoulder because I'm dramatic. "it just— i was going to, but qhen you left the room Paul asked me what happened to the Blondie from camp that he thought I was dating and I told him Anna erh and I weren't together and then he asked if it was because I was, I quote, a queer."

I could sense Nico's hostility towards Paul that grew at that exact moment.

"He didn't."

"He did," I insisted. "And Mom like, immediately called him on it and told me that she was going to talk to him about it because she told him that if he truly felt like that he could like pack his bags and she'd call the courthouse to stop filing their marriage license because she noticed that it like, bothered me, and he said tbag it was just bad wording and he said sorry, but it didn't seem that sincere so... I guess we'll find out tonight when at least Mom shows up to bring me home."

"Well hey," Nico pointed out, wrapping his arms around me. "Your mom is supportive, regardless of Paul. That's good to know! That's more than my mom."

"Nico your mom is dead."

And I got him there.

"Okay, but like..." He began. "She was still homophobic because it was like, the 1930s and 1920s, which meant that Bianca was homophobic and that stuck with me for like... a while. She definitely noticed my crush on you last summer when we were in Labyrinth."

Intrigued, I asked my date mate how he knew that Bianca knew about his crush on me.

(It's still wild to think that he had a crush on me even though we've been on like, a couple dates now).

"Oh, she made a very suddenly shift after you walked away from making sure that I was like, okay to talk to her because I probably looked for a second too long or something, I don't know," he explained."but she told me that you were a bad influence for me and that I shouldn't be hanging around you because it affects me in sinful ways, and that she didn't want to see me to to hell or the Fields of Punishment because of you and so I insisted that I didn't know what she was talking about because we barely talked or hung out, especially at that point in time, and that I don't think befriending somebody that has done a favor for our dad was going to put me in the fields of Punishment."

And it's been so long and so much happened this year that I couldn't even recall what he was talking about.

"Wh... What did I do for your dad before the labyrinth?" I asked. "Like, you, Thalia and I did that one job but that was after, I thought, because we left from Goode."

"What— didn't you find something he lost or had stolen from him before I was recruited, sweets?"

This just in: local dumbass forgets the whole reason Hades kidnapped his mom at the age of 12.

"Oh," I recalled and he chuckled a little. "Yeah, his Helm! That wasn't the uh, main quest so I kind of forget sometimes. It was also just a weird time because it was my first summer and I knew little to nothing about anything but Zeus and your dad, although I didn't know the part about your dad, thought I stole from both of them for my dad and so I had to return the items I never stole and then Kronos started to stir and yeah. Ares had the helm, fun fact. I had to battle him for it."

"Wh—"

But it's not everyday that anyone, much less a barely trained demigod battles the god of war, so it's a fair question.

"What... What kind of battle was it?"

"Just..." I shrugged, sitting up again, now feeling less bad. "Regular battle fight, I don't know. Called him a coward a lot until he would actually fight me and we were at Santa Monica Pier so there was like, a lot of water, but I stabbed him in the heel and he swore himself as my enemy, but I won and got the Helm and sent it to your dad with one of the Kindly Ones before being obtained by police because I was s missing child and then flying back to New York."

"Sounds... Eventful?"

"Going from the Lotus Casino to the Underworld to fighting Ares to meeting my dad and Zeus on Olympus for the first time ever?" I agreed with his statement. "I still can't believe it all happened within like, 24 hours."

"24 hours?"

"24 hours."

Nico let out a breath.

"Have I ever told you about this guy that I'm dating?" And Nico only scared the shit out of me for like two seconds as he paused before following the statement up. "because he's the coolest person that I know."

If his goal was to get me to smile, it worked.

"Do you think you and this cool dude would want to get some dinner to bring back to his apartment and eat together after he gets released from the hospital and maybe even have one more night of a sleepover just in case?"

Because it'll hurt less if he says no if I ask in the third person.

He didn't say no. He said he would love to because we're both gross and like to physically be with each other, especially since letters have been getting lost more often and IMs aren't always going through, either.

(I'm choosing not to think to hard about that for my own mental health right now).

So did I have to phrase it like that?

No. But I'm anxious, so I did.

I don't know what I'd do if I woke up one day and he was gone.