NICO’S POV
There’s a knock on the door. Kelly had fallen asleep on my chest afterwards. I made her dress, just in case something happened, or jade showed up. Which she did. Her eyes begin to go wide when she sees me shirtless and Kelly laying on the bed, but she shakes her head, clears her throat, and charges through just as she always does, even if she’s uncomfortable or not.
“I just talked to percy, he told me to tell you to iris message him” she says, not meeting my eyes. I take a step toward her, pushing her out of the doorway, then step into the corridor myself and close the door to keep from waking Kelly.
“Jade-“ I start, trying to think of what to say.
“Save it nico, it’s fine, I get it” she syas, crossing her amrs.
“but it wasn’t true, I lied. I was upset, and I wanted to make you upset too, so I lied because I knew it would make you mad. It’s a fault of mine, when I feel angry, I need others to feel angry as well”
“well that’s nice to know, go call percy please” she answers, still not meeting my eyes.
“Jade I really am-“
“I don’t care, all right. It’s fine, I’m not mad. We have better things to worry about, like the fact that there’s a wild vampire on the loose in this train and we can’t catch him, or the fact that you though the best solution to that problem was to sleep with Kelly” I sigh. “What!”
“I knew you were going to be upset about that” I answer.
“well of course I would be upset about that! I’m part of this quest too! Im actually a main part of this quest! She isn’t!”
“so your upset she’s here?”
“She’s not adding to the quest! She’s not helping in any way shape or form!”
“She has a lot more to offer than just sex for me!”
“Good to know Nico but I really don’t care! You know what, forget it. I’ll see you later” she says, and storms down the hall. I watch her leave for a second, her fists clenched in anger, and her shoulders tight with tension.
I sigh, run a hand through my hair, and grab a drachma from my pocket. “please accept my offering lady iris” I say flipping it through the air, before it could land, it disappeared into moistness, and a picture formed in front of me. Percy was sitting in a chair next to a bed in the big house. It took a while for me to figure out it was annabeth, she looked completely different. Her hair was unkept and wild, and her skin was gray, her veins turned blue and red, about ready to erupt from her skin, and her eyes were dashing back and forth as if she were in a nightmare.
Percy was clearly agonized, he was sitting in the chair, tapping his foot rapidly, scratching his nails into his palms.
“Percy?” I ask quietly, not wanting to startle him, he looks up, and seems surprised to see me. “Jade told me to contact you” I say.
“No yeah I know, I jut didn’t know it would be so soon” he says, and clears his throat, looking down at annabeth.
“I can call back later-”
“No it’s fine” he answers, and moves a little so she was out of the screen.
“How is she?” I say awkwardly.
“Are you not wearing a shirt” he comments, as if he just noticed, I look down and half-surprised to see I wasn’t.
“Guess not” I shrug, but turn back to Percy so he knew this was a serious question.
“Not very good. Actually, she said something, I don’t know whether to take it seriously or not, but knowing Annabeth, she knows what she’s saying even when she’s half delirous”
“What did she say?”
“Well she was talking about Jade mostly, she told me to tell Jade to be careful, that she needed to save Kelly, is Kelly ok?” He asks. I stiffen, my hand on the doorknob behind me. I could feel her presence in the room, happy and beautiful, so opposite of mine.
“Yea she’s fine. So’s jade”
“That’s why I wanted to talk to you”
“Really I thought you just wanted to kindly call me, check on how I was doing” I reply sarcastically. Percy ignored my comment.
“I know that jade may seem like she’s tough, and she is, I’m not saying she’s not, but she’s tough when it comes to fighting and keeping her mind straight and doing what she needs to do and that sort of stuff. She’s not good at ignoring peoples’ judgement or actions regarding her. She’s been judged and betted on and against her whole life, and that’s come to influence her. She’s afraid of being on the losing side, and in your little quest, she’s on the losing side.”
“There’s no losing side here Percy” I answer frankly.
“I know there’s not, but still. It wouldn’t hurt if she thought someone else was on her side, you know, someone else didn’t think she was inheretly evil”
“She told you about that.”
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that she was alone and sad and confused, and I thought maybe, I don’t know what I thought ok, I just knew I wanted to help her, so I tried ok! I’m not the best at that, I’ve never tried to help anyone before, ok. The first time didn’t go so well, but trust me Percy, Jade is different. She deserves everything, and I will defend her with my life. She’s worth more than me, or you, or the whole world combined, and I would rathe die than to see her hurt” I say, the whole speech running out of my mouth before I could think about it. Out in the open it felt weird, exposed, I had never confessed something like that before. Percy doesn’t say anything for a long time.
“I suggest you do something about it then” he answers, and waves his hand in the mist to disconnect the call.
I throw my head back into the door, mad at myself, and at the world, and at everyone, but knowing what I needed to do. Or at least wanting to do something.
The smell of perfume made me slit open my eye, I was about to tell Kelly off when I see an older, much more attractive exact look alike standing in front of me. If you asked me now what she looked like, I couldn’t tell you. Think of your favorite hair color, she had it, your favorite eye color, it was there as well, think of the most attractive movie star there is, she was a thousand times more beautiful.
“Lady Aphrodite” I say, slowly getting to my feet and nodding my head slightly in greeting. Just because she was hot doesn’t mean I was losing my snarkiness.
“Nico di Angelo, my handsome boy, tell me, why have you called me?” she asks, grabbing a mirror and fixing her perfect make up.
“I’m not sure what you mean, lady, I did not ask for you”
“Maybe not verbally, but your heart did, and that’s what I listen to the most” she says, snapping the mirror shut and looking at me with her big color changing eyes. “I only want to help sweetheart, what is it you want?”
“I don’t want to hurt her” I say finally, but snap my mouth shut as soon as the words come out, I hadn’t even thought about them, it was like she pulled them out.
“Hurt who?” she asks, but raises her eyebrows like she knew the answer.
“Either of them” I say gritting my teeth. She giggles lightly, the sound beautiful, like music.
“Well then, I’ll make you a deal” she says, leaning forward, one side of her lips twerking up in a smile.
“No offense my lady, but I prefer not to make deals with the gods”
“Well that’s because the other gods don’t have much to offer. But me? What more could you possibly want than to love and be loved in return without hurting anyone you care about?”
“I don’t love her” I say through gritted teeth again.
“Oh don’t kid yourself boy of course you love her. You just don’t know what love is, so you can’t distinguish it. Let me tell you boy, those weird feelings you have around her, that’s more love than I have seen in a good long time. You two could be very important one day, seperately you will do wonders, but together. I’m afraid to even think about it. Now, will you make the deal?”

Notes

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