Nico di Angelo

With like 9 people holding metaphorical guns to my head, I did eat lunch and dinner.

Now we are on the way to Greece, though. It's Grover, Percy, Hazel, Frank, Jason, Piper, Leo, and myself.

It's a weird group, but it's connected enough to make sense.

There is one room for each of us.

Percy has not put anything in his room yet, though, and was currently in bed with me, so I don't think that room is getting filled for a while.

We were just cuddling, though, and I was telling him a story about a day that Rachel, Sally, and I had been at the apartment, and I felt something on his arm.

"So—" I said, cutting myself off. "Sweets?"

"Hm?" He asked in return.

"What's on your arm?" I asked, mainly because he has... A history with textured arms and thighs.

"My... Oh, yeah," he said, taking his arm out from under the pillow and it was worse in a few ways than what... I don't even know what I was hoping for.

Like, he had some more recent scars. Not super recent by the looks of it, but the last few months, and that's not good, but that wasn't what caught my eye immediately.

They branded him.

"I still had amnesia when they did it, obviously," my boyfriend insisited. "Otherwise I would've tried to get out of it and they said it was going to be a tattoo, but... That's not a tattoo. It kind of pisses me off if I think about it too much. I haven't tried to heal it, though, so I'll do that when I shower next. As for the cuts..."

He shrugged.

"I was sad," I was glad that he told me the truth, though, and didn't just try to write it off. "Not knowing who you are you anything about your life and still being depressed don't mix well. It's been like, over a week, though! The last time I did it was my first night at Camp Jupiter because I felt really shitty that going to Camp Jupiter didn't answer any questions that I cared about and yeah. I've been better like... Today's been good."

"Yeah that makes sense," I responded. "Well I'm glad today is better. It's almost like there's a reason for that."

"Hm I don't know, something to do with seeing my friends and my boyfriend again maybe?" He said and I chuckled, rolling my eyes. "Oh, yeah! What did you find out while you were in inpatient? Did you get a diagnosis?"

"Oh! I did!" I remembered that I was supposed to tell him about that. "They told me that I have like, anorexia and also anxiety, so yeah. I'm on meds but... I don't know how that's going to work this summer."

Something clicked in his brain, though.

"That's why I feel so shitty," Percy remarked. "I don't have my meds anymore! Fuck."

"It's okay, we'll get through it together," I reassured my boyfriend. "Oh! Also! We're supposed to stop in Venice to refuel eventually!"

"We are?"

I nodded my head and he read right through me.

"Do you want to do the things we were supposed to for your birthday?"

"...maybe."

He smiled and I heard somebody call for him, so he gave me a kiss on the forehead, saying he'd be back.

Popping his head out of the room, I could see over Percy's shoulder that Leo and Jason were in the hall, talking about something.

"Yes?" My boyfriend questioned and Jason looked so insanely embarrassed that Percy came from my room and not the empty one.

"Did we—" Jason covered his mouth. "I am so sorry, did we interrupt...?"

"Did? No, Jason, you didn't," Percy reassured him. "We're hanging out, not making out. What's up?"

"How long were you at Camp Jupiter?"

Because apparently that couldnt wait until the morning.

"How— it was like a week, why? I got there on the 19th."

"Oh," but I could almost hear Jason scoff, which... Weird, but also kind of ride. "Okay, thanks. That's all. Go back to like, being gross or whatever."

"Any time," my boyfriend told the son of Jupiter, closing the door and just not letting himself think into it.

I have a strange feeling that Percy and Jason are either going to be amazing friends or that they're going to despise each other, and I'm not close enough with Jason to tell yet.

"There's to many people on this boat,"my boyfriend insisted as he joined me in bed once again, nearly crushing my under him. "8 people is too many."

The tiredness was starting to set in. The adrenaline and dopamine rush from seeing his friends all today dying off as he buried his head into my shoulder.

"I miss my mom," Percy told me and I frowned in response because it's going to be a while before we can go home and we both know that. Trying to provide some sort of comfort, I ran my fingers up and down his back because I could sense a small wave of emotions coming as he crashed. "This is stupid."

Tears were on the way.

"What's stupid, Sweets?" I asked in return.

"This entire situation," he explained, but that's still vague. "Hera kidnapping me and wiping my memory and trading me out with Jason as if it couldn't have just been a meeting in Olympus or something easier like that and now we're going to Greece and as pretty as I'm sure Greece is, we're not gonna get to be there for fun, touristy, sightseeing stuff because we'll be lucky if nobody dies and I'm tired and it's stupid and I don't want to go but we have to and..."

Stopping himself, Percy took a breath.

There was a crash above on deck, and it made his entire body tense up and freeze momentarily before it started to spill out of him.

It started with a quiet whine and quickly turned into him losing control over his breathing and then panicking he couldn't control his breathing.

"Hey," I tried to comfort Percy, sitting us up so his body could breathe a little easier, but he was already breathing very hard very fast, clenching and unclenching his fists as he moved his arms around a little due to the anxious energy and the panic. "hey, Sweets, it's going to be okay. I know it doesn't feel like it, but it's going to be okay."

His brain had surpassed that kind of reasoning, though, and he started to shake his head, his leg almost starting to bounce.

"No, it's no—" my boyfriend started as his anxiety and the panic took over. "It's not it's not it's not it n—not it isn't—won't.... It.... Can't... I can't I cant I can't—can't do, I..."

As his chest seemed to cave in, Percy moved his arms from there they had been for a few moments, almost like they were crossed, and he grabbed at his hair and squeezed his eyes shut, tears continuing to stream as he moved into hyperventilating territory.

And seeing red marks on his arms where his hands were only moments ago wasn't very reassuring.

"Percy, sweets, hey," but I knew that touch would make this a million times worse for him, so I didn't initiate it at all. "Can you open your eyes for me? Even just one of them, can do you that for me?"

He was gone, though. Mentally, he hit straight panic and couldn't hear me anymore.

I tried a few things. Opening his eyes, counting to breathe, so on and so forth, but he wasn't responding to anything I would say or do.

He was scratching, and because he's stronger than I am and also extremely vulnerable right now, it took longer than I wouldn't liked to him to stop, but I think I sat there for at least 25 minutes before the glossy look in his eyes started to go away.

"Percy?" I asked a minute or so after I noticed the fog lifting, careful to keep my voice quiet to not alarm him to much.

It pulled him away from wherever he was, though, which is good because he's never in a good place when his eyes are glossed over like they just over.

"Hi," I continued, keeping my voice soft. Gentle. "It's just, Nico, okay? I'm the only other person in the room with you. Are you okay?"

His lips quivered into a frown and he shook his head, looking like he might cry again.

"Wh— hey, it's okay," I tried to remind my boyfriend as he leaned in towards me and I slowly gave him a hug. "it's okay to not be okay, you just got through with dealing with something that's really traumatic, it okay to not be okay."

The breakdown and attack he just had were closer to scale to ones I had hoped to only have in memory for a while now, though, so I figured I'd ask because it's always good to know.

"Are you—" I paused, a little scared for whatever answer he would give me. "were you thinking about it? Just now?"

I think it took him a second to recall what we usually just refer to as 'it,' but once it came back to him, Percy nodded his head.

"I'm sorry." He apologized.

For being suicidal.

My boyfriend just apologized to my because he's having suicidal thoughts.

"Hey," but that's not allowed and he knows it. "Don't apologize for how you feel or for things you can't control. You can't control your thoughts all the time, just as long as you know not to listen to all of them, right?"

Slowly, he nodded his head.

"We're going to get through it," I promised him, running my fingers along his back again. "Okay? We're going to get through it and then we can go home and never go on another quest ever again."

He sniffled a little and moved back to look me in the eyes.

"Promise?" Percy asked, as if he might try to kill himself tonight if I didn't.

Which, with the state of mind he seems to be in now and what he's seemed to be in recently, I wouldn't put it past him.

"I pinky promise that we'll get through it," I insisted, holding out my pinky for him to shake. "Together. We're going to get through this quest and we'll go home and relax and go on so many dates to make up for all of the ones we missed and we can go to Venice and Sao Paulo and anywhere else we want to go because we won't have to worry about quests, just normal summer training."

Processing what I said, Percy wrapped his pinky around mine and the pinky promise was made.

It's as much of a promise to him as it is to me, and he knows that.

It's a promise that we'll figure out a way to manage this quest and make it out alive, as long as he doesn't try to kill himself in the process.

After all, he's smart. He'd figure out how if he really wanted to.

Which, he does. The thoughts are trying to swallow him whole, and I'm sure they will continue to try.

But he made a promise.

And my boyfriend doesn't break promises.