Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Do you think they’re going to run Lost Mines of Phandelver because it’s our first time playing D&D?” Nico asked, kicking his feet in the backseat of Jules-Albert’s car as he stared out the window in search of Bianca’s friend’s apartment building. His sneakers lit up every time the backs thumped against the underside of his seat. 

“Mmm,” Bianca hummed non-committedly from the seat next to him. 

“Or do you think they’ll run Curse of Strahd because it’s the most popular? I hope they do Strahd because it’s supposed to be scary and deadly, and I don’t want to do something easy .”

“Uh huh.”

“Oh!” Nico turned to face his sister. “Or are they going to do a homebrew campaign? That would be so cool! But then I wouldn’t know anything about the world, and I was looking forward to playing in Faerun, and…” he trailed off when he realised Bianca wasn’t listening, and was instead fixated on her phone. 

It wasn’t the first time she had tuned him out, but it hurt when things were supposed to be different now. They were actually going to play D&D together for the first time! This was information she needed to know! How could she not be excited about this?

<<Bianca! You can’t zone out anymore!>> Nico exclaimed in Italian as Bianca always listened when he spoke in Italian, and lightly shoved her shoulder as well for good measure. <<You have to pay attention when we play or you’ll be lost!>>

“Hey!” Bianca slapped his hand away, glaring at him in annoyance. <<Relax! I’ll pay attention when the game starts!>>

<<You better!>> Nico huffed, crossing his arms. <<I don’t want to be embarrassed because you did something stupid like using your non-magical attacks against a monster that was resistant because you weren’t paying attention.>>

Bianca rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you’re the one who’s going to be embarrassed…” she muttered under her breath - in English, as if that affected Nico’s ability to hear her - and turned her gaze back to her phone. 

Nico sulked and glared at the side of his sister’s head as she returned to ignoring him. However, he had never been good at sitting still, so as much as he wanted to ignore her back and see how she liked it, he quickly broke. “So do you not know what type of campaign we’re playing?”

Bianca didn’t even bother looking up from her phone this time. “I didn’t ask.”

“Why not?! That’s important information! What if our character’s backstories don’t work in their world?!”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine, Nico.”

“For you , maybe. Yours is so generic. I spent ages on mine.” 

“Mmm,” Bianca hummed non-committedly again. “Why don’t you tell Jules-Albert about your character? I’m sure he’ll love to hear about it.”

Nico’s shoulders slumped. Bianca always thought she was slick when she pawned him off on Jules-Albert like this, but Nico wasn’t dumb. He could tell when she was annoyed with him, and it never felt good. 

Whatever. Bianca finally agreed to play D&D with him, so she’ll have to listen once the game starts. Then she’ll fall in love with it as much as he did, and then she will be the one talking about it all the time, and Nico can get his revenge when he tells her to talk to Jules-Albert instead (except he won’t, because Bianca loving D&D is all he ever wanted). 

<<Jules-Albert? Do you want to hear about my character?>> Nico asked, switching back to Italian since Jules-Albert preferred it over English. 

Nico barely waited for an affirmative nod before launching into a detailed description.

Percy Jackson's apartment building didn't look like much on the outside, but it was here that Nico was going to play his first ever D&D game, and so he looked up at the brickwork with all the reverence that such holy grounds deserved. 

Bianca had stopped to talk to Jules-Albert, and was taking far too long to leave the car for his taste. 

"Can you hurry up?" Nico whined impatiently, and stomped his foot, and then stomped it again when his sneakers failed to light up the first time. 

"I'm coming! Jeez!" Bianca confirmed the time they would need to be picked up with Jules-Albert, and then finally bid him goodbye and joined Nico on the doorstep. “What did Mamma always say? La pazienza é la virtù dei forti , Nico.”

Nico ignored her. “Which one is Percy’s?” he asked, examining the series of buttons on the doorframe. 

Bianca looked over them for a second, and pressed the buzzer second from the top. “This one.”

They didn't have to wait long for someone to answer them, but it wasn't the male voice Nico was expecting, but a female one that had Bianca stand up a little straighter. "Hello?" 

"Hi Thalia," Bianca's voice was softer, shyer, "It's Bianca. We're ready to play!" 

"Cool. Come on up."

A loud buzz signified the door had been unlocked, and Bianca pushed their way in, holding it open for Nico before letting it swing shut behind them. 

"Who's Thalia?" Nico asked as he followed Bianca up the stairs. 

"My friend from archery club. She's the one who invited me- us . Invited us ." 

"Oh." Nico paused, in thought. "Then who's Percy?"

"Thalia's friend. They always play at his apartment since his Mom makes the best snacks apparently." 

"Oh." Another pause. "Is Percy the DM?"

Bianca abruptly stopped on the next landing and spun to face him. Nico was pretty sure they had a couple more floors to climb before they reached Percy's which probably meant she wanted to have A Talk. 

"Nico," Bianca began, and yep, she was definitely gearing up for A Talk, "I need you to promise me that you're not going to embarrass me in front of my friends. Thalia and Percy are really cool, and I really want them to like me, so please, don't be weird." 

Nico frowned. "Am I weird?"

"No! Of course not! You're perfect the way you are!" Bianca corrected quickly, cupping his cheeks. "It's just…" She sighed, and dropped her hands to his shoulders. "Sometimes, you ask a lot of questions, and talk a lot, and I think sometimes you forget to let other people talk, so try not to do that today, okay? Not everyone is going to be as patient as me." 

"You weren't very patient in the car," Nico bitterly pointed out. 

Bianca grimaced. "I know. I'm sorry. I'm just nervous and really want this to go well, so try to dial it back a little, okay? For me?" 

Nico still wasn't sure what the problem was. How could he be ‘perfect the way he is’, but also talk too much to the point that Bianca was worried he would annoy her friends? Whatever the case, Nico loved and trusted Bianca with his whole entire heart, so if she wanted him to cool his enthusiasm, then he would try his best. "Okay. I'll try."

"That's all I ask." Bianca smiled and pulled him in for a hug. "I love you." 

"I love you too." 

Bianca kissed him on the forehead and pulled away. "Now come on. Let's go play some D&D." 

Nico never thought he'd hear his sister say those words, and he beamed the rest of the way up the stairs. 

Seconds after Bianca knocked on the door, it swung open to reveal a girl a little older than Bianca with a leather jacket and a blue streak through her short hair - Thalia, Nico presumed. “Hey! Glad you could make it!” She stepped aside, allowing them space to enter. “Percy’s in the kitchen with his Mom and Grover, but Annabeth’s setting up in the living room if you want to join her.”

Bianca didn’t venture any further into the apartment, and Nico, overcome by a rare burst of shyness, didn’t want to go in without her and stuck to her side. “Thanks again for inviting me,” Bianca said, shyly playing with the tip of her braid. “And for letting me bring Nico. He loves this game so much, and… well…” She glanced at Nico for a second, and then leaned in closer to Thalia. “Our Dad’s been kind of weird ever since Mamma died a few years ago, and I don’t like leaving Nico home alone with him if it can be avoided.”

Thalia, who had been eyeing Nico like she wasn’t sure what to make of him, softened her gaze as she turned back to Bianca. “Remember what I told you back in archery club? We know a thing or two about shitty Dads here. You’re in good company.”

“I know. Thank you.” Bianca’s shoulders sagged in relief. “It’s not that I think he’s a bad father necessarily, it’s just that he’s been so distant and cold lately, and I worry that…”

Their conversation faded into the background as Nico took in the tiny shoebox apartment (the living room and dining room were in the same space, and that space was smaller than the kitchen in his father’s manor), but once he spotted the bright colours of a DM screen, there was little chance of him focusing on anything else. There was another girl behind it - Annabeth, according to Thalia - with dip-dyed box braids and a blue Yankees cap. She was typing away on a laptop, seemingly not paying them any attention. 

Nico’s shyness disappeared as soon as it came, and he marched up to Annabeth without a second thought. “Are you the DM?”

Annabeth’s head snapped up in surprise. She stared at him almost calculatingly for a moment, but she must have found whatever she was looking for as her expression soon softened into a warm smile. “I am. I’m Annabeth, and you must be Nico?”

“Yep!” He grinned, climbing into the seat closest to hers. He really wanted to peek behind her screen to see how she organised it, but he knew that wasn’t allowed, and he didn’t want to risk compromising the integrity of his first ever game. “What module are you running? Bianca didn’t know. Is it Lost Mines of Phandelver? That’s what I would run if I was DMing for new players.”

Annabeth raised a brow, and the corner of her lips twitched. “Is that so?” 

“Yep! It’s in the starter set, so it just makes sense.” He nodded sagely. “I didn’t read it though, because I don’t want to get spoiled. Bianca hasn’t read any of the books so she doesn’t know anything at all, but don’t worry, I made her character sheet for her because I already know all the rules, and I promised I’d help her play so she doesn’t get lost or confused, so you don’t have to go easy on us or anything. Well, you might have to go easy on Bianca, but I can handle it.” 

Annabeth blinked, taken aback, but she recovered quickly. “We’re running a homebrew campaign, so we should be fine. Can I see your character sheets?”

Nico lit up in wide eyed excitement. Nobody had ever asked him about his characters before, and he almost fell out of his seat in his haste to get their character sheets out of his backpack. "Yeah! I have them here!" He carefully took them out of his binder, and handed them to Annabeth. "Mine is the warlock, and Bianca's is the ranger. There wasn't enough space on my sheet for the entire backstory, but I wrote it down in my notebook." He flicked it open to the correct page, and handed that over to her too. "Also, Bianca didn't know what level we were starting at, so I just made them level one and used the standard array for our stats, but I have our characters planned up until level twenty so I can fix it if I have to." 

Annabeth merely hummed as she scanned Nico's neat handwriting. (He wanted their sheets to look pristine, and so he spent a lot of time copying everything over to make sure it was readable even with their dyslexia). She scanned Nico's lengthy backstory quicker than he would have expected, but she was probably just a fast reader. "This is… pretty perfect, actually." Nico preened at her impressed tone. "You've really never played before?" 

"Nope! I've just read all the books." He grinned proudly. 

"Huh," was all Annabeth had to say to that.

Before Nico had a chance to ask what she thought of his backstory, and tell her that she was welcome to incorporate all of his ideas into the campaign if she wanted, another two teenagers stepped into the room from the adjoined kitchen - Percy and Grover, Nico surmised, though he had no way of knowing which was which. One wore a beanie over his curly brown hair and had the barest wisps of facial hair on his chin, and the other had the softest dark hair and the greenest eyes Nico had ever seen. 

“Mom says she’ll order us pizza later if we want, so I’m thinking we can take a break halfway through and she’ll order it for us then,” the green-eyed boy said to Annabeth as he set two plates of homemade cookies in the centre of the dining table, and then began lifting empty glasses off the drinks tray the other boy looked terrified of dropping. “So whenever you need a break or think we’re at a good place to stop, let me know and I’ll get her to call.” 

“Thanks, Percy.” Annabeth smiled, and moved her DM screen slightly closer to make sure there was enough room for everyone else. 

Percy set a glass down in front of Nico, and immediately did a double take when he realised he was there. “There’s a child in my living room.”

Nico frowned. “I’m not a child! I’m ten! Double digits!”

Annabeth ducked her head behind her DM screen to hide her laugh, but Percy didn’t bother to hide his obvious amusement and raised his brows. “Right. My bad.”

“That’s Nico, Bianca’s little brother,” Annabeth explained and resumed typing on her laptop. 

“Did we know he was only ten?”

“ I knew he was only ten.”

“Oh great. Another thing Thalia didn’t tell me,” Percy muttered under his breath as he took the empty tray from Grover and stormed off into the kitchen. Annabeth rolled her eyes, and Grover grimaced like he’d rather be anywhere else. 

“Why’s Percy mad at Thalia?” Nico asked. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Annabeth said firmly, and that was the end of that. “How about you get all your stuff ready? We’ll be ready to start in a few minutes.” 

By the time everyone had gathered around the table, Nico was buzzing with excitement. His character sheet and notebook were neatly laid out in front of him, and his Player’s Handbook was tucked away in his bag in case he needed it (he wouldn’t, he had it memorised back to front). Bianca didn’t have any dice, so Nico was sharing his collapsible dice tray with her, and set it between them for easy access. His fancy obsidian dice were neatly lined up along one side, and the glittery green acrylic set he loaned Bianca was lined up on the other. 

Percy was idly stacking his blue d6s opposite Nico while Grover was organising his spell cards next to him. Thalia was at the other head of the table - opposite Annabeth, and between Grover and Bianca - doodling in the margins of her character sheet. 

“Okay,” Annabeth announced to grab their attention, and Nico couldn’t stop smiling even if he wanted to. “Let’s start by introducing our characters. Percy, you go first since you’ve done this before.”

“Cool.” Percy grinned. “I’m playing a triton paladin - mostly because someone wouldn’t let anyone else try a fighter this campaign-”

“You should have called dibs faster, seaweed brain,” Thalia cut in.

Percy glared at her and opened his mouth to fire something back, only to think better of it and snapped his jaw shut again. “ Anyway , he’s a sailor, and just got back from a journey across the Sea of Monsters with his best friend,” he clapped Grover on the shoulder, “and is now taking quests so he can earn more gold to send back home to his Mom. Oh! And Annabeth said she’s going to make a cool ocean based subclass for me because she’s the best.” He beamed a smile at her. 

Annabeth’s cheeks turned a little pink for some reason, but she quickly brushed past it. “Thank you, Percy. Grover?”

Grover sat up a little straighter when he was addressed. “Oh! Um… I’m playing a satyr cleric - nature domain - who is trying to find his god after he disappeared. He just got back from searching the Sea of Monsters for him with Percy’s character - that’s how they met - and uh… I think that’s it?”

“And he eats tin cans,” Percy added. 

“Yummy yummy tin cans.” Grover gave an exaggerated sigh, and Nico found himself buzzing again at the mere prospect of finally being around people who wanted to roleplay. 

Annabeth smiled in amusement before moving down the line. “Thalia?”

Thalia grinned. “I’m playing a half-orc fighter who fights with a shield and a spear. She died trying to save her little sister from a pack of hellhounds, and was recently brought back to life. She’s now adventuring around trying to find her place in the world while hunting down her missing brother too.”

“That’s the same character she played last time,” Percy muttered to himself. 

Thalia moved to say something back, but Annabeth quickly cut her off. “Bianca? Do you want to tell us about your character?”

“Oh!” Bianca jolted. “Um….” She looked down at her sheet, scanning the page as if she didn’t know the information she was supposed to give - and she probably didn’t, Nico quickly realised. He had told her to read her sheet before they came today so she was prepared, but she didn’t take him seriously, as usual. He felt a familiar burst of annoyance surge through him, but he bit his tongue. If he wanted Bianca to enjoy herself - and he desperately did - then he couldn’t get mad at her in front of her friends. 

“ Wood elf ranger ,” he whispered to her instead, and pointed to the boxes at the top where he had written her race and class. 

“I’m a wood elf ranger,” Bianca repeated, looking to Nico for help. “With a bow?”

Nico nodded encouragingly, and flipped over her sheet. “ Tell them about your backstory .” 

“Okay. Um… She… She ran away from home when she was a kid because she was under a lot of responsibility from her… family… and needed to do something for herself, so um… she became an adventurer where she could be truly free to do what she wanted for the first time, without worrying about what would be best for her-... somebody important to her, and… um… yeah. That’s it.” 

Bianca refused to look at anyone as she spoke, instead staring down at the plate of cookies on the table, so she missed the looks Percy and Annabeth shared with each other, and the way Thalia and Grover were looking at her sadly. Nico didn’t really get why they reacted like that when Bianca’s backstory was so vague, but he was happy that she at least tried to come up with something. 

“That’s really cool, Bianca,” Thalia said gently, and Bianca’s cheeks turned a light pink. 

“Thank you, Bianca. I can’t wait to meet her,” Annabeth said with a warm smile, before finally turning to Nico. “Nico? You wanna finish us off?”

Nico almost leapt out of his seat in excitement. “Okay! So, I’m playing a fallen aasimar hexblade warlock who fights with two sickles, but only until he levels up and gets his pact weapon at level three, and then he’s going to have a cool sword made from a type of iron that can only be found in the rivers in the Nine Hells. All of his spells are going to be themed around darkness and necromancy and stuff - right now, he has Eldritch Blast because all warlocks should have Eldritch Blast, but also Chill Touch, and Wrathful Smite for extra weapons damage, and Arms of Hadar which lets him kill people with shadows and dark energy. He also gets this ability from being a fallen Aasimar where he can summon skeletal wings and frighten people, and do extra necrotic damage. He’s also a folk hero in his home town, and everybody loves him and thinks he’s super cool because he killed a bunch of evil ghosts and saved the town and stuff, but all he wants is to bring his Mom back from the dead, so he made a pact with one of the evil ghosts for his powers so he can try to resurrect her.” 

When he was finished, Nico sat back in his chair and waited for the praise to roll in, but all he got was the same sad looks as Bianca. 

“Is that really what your backstory is?” Bianca asked, her voice so quiet he barely heard her.

“Yeah, I told you about it last night, remember?” Nico frowned. “Were you not listening?”

“I guess I missed that part.”

“Do you think he’s cool though?”

“I think he’s very cool, Nico,” Bianca said, but she looked like she wanted to cry. 

Was this because his character also had a dead Mom? It wasn’t supposed to be their Mamma, it was just a part of the character - Whatever. Bianca wouldn’t listen if he tried to explain, anyway. 

Annabeth cleared her throat to bring their attention back to her. “Okay, now that we’ve done our introductions….” She stretched out her arms and her back, and began reading off of her laptop screen. “Your adventure begins at Westover Penitentiary, a prison located on a snowy cliff in the frozen north. Percy, Grover, and Thalia - you three have been sent on a quest to break out Bianca and Nico who are being held captive there by the mysterious Dr. Thorn….”

“Percy, you watch as Dr. Thorn leads Bianca and Nico outside the prison. What do you do?”

“Where are Thalia and Grover?”

“On the other side of the room talking to the guards, but they failed their perception checks so they don’t see this.”

“Okay. I’m going to draw my sword and follow them outside.”

“What?!” Thalia exclaimed, slamming her hands on the table so hard the vibrations knocked over Percy’s stack of d6s. “Percy! We had a plan! Don’t split up the party!”

“They might die if I don’t help them!” Percy shot back. “Besides, you don’t see this so you can’t complain.”

Thalia grumbled, and sat back in her seat and crossed her arms. Annabeth let out a long suffering sigh as if she was used to this. “Okay. You follow Dr. Thorn outside the building into an open clearing. There’s a cliff to the north that overlooks the ocean, and a thick dense forest surrounding you on either side. Make a stealth check to see if he notices you following him.”

Percy rolled one of d20s onto his character sheet - outside his dice tray which seemed counterproductive. “Uh… eleven?”

A clacking sound behind the DM screen signified Annabeth had also rolled something, but her poker face gave nothing away. “As you leave the prison, you realise it’s a lot darker outside than it was inside. The glow from your sword reflects off the stark white snow, alerting Dr. Thorn to your position, and he turns to face you.” Annabeth adjusted her posture and schooled her face into something more sinister. “Well, well, well,” she pitched her voice lower, “another little brat to send off to my employer. The general will be pleased.”

“The general? Who’s the general?” Percy asked in a more grandiose voice than his usual one. 

“Dr. Thorn doesn’t answer, and instead you watch as his clothes rip as his humanoid body grows larger and shifts into a four-legged lion-like creature with heavy paws and sharp claws. His human face stays the same, but he grows a leathery scorpion tail with thick spikes-”

“A manticore!” Nico exclaimed excitedly, sitting up on his knees. “They’re challenge rating three, and they get three attacks, and have really good strength, dexterity, and constitution!”

Annabeth was taken aback by his outburst. “Uh… I guess, but your character wouldn’t have seen one before, so pretend you don’t know any of that, okay?” 

Bianca grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back down into his seat. “ Nico! Don’t interrupt!” she whispered to him harshly. 

“Don’t embarrass you, you mean,” Nico shot back, but still nodded at Annabeth because he really didn’t want to ruin the game. 

Annabeth then turned to everyone else. “Everybody roll initiative.”

Annabeth counted aloud as she moved the black die with the blue numbering she was using to represent Thalia’s character across the map. “So using your action to dash, you can just make it outside.” She stepped back behind her DM screen. “Okay, Nico, you’re up next.”

Nico sprang up excitedly. “Okay! So, first of all, I want to use my bonus action to cast Wrathful Smite so that my next attack does extra psychic damage and I can try to frighten him if I hit, and then I’m going to hit him with my sickle, but because I’m a hex warrior, I get to use my charisma modifier instead of strength so it’s a higher roll,” he explained, shaking the die in his hand as he talked. 

“Okay. Make your attack,” Annabeth said, but picked up the Player’s Handbook as if to check what Nico said was right (He was, he planned this out last night). 

With a grin, Nico rolled the die into his dice try, only to deflate when he rolled a three. Even with his plus five modifier, it wasn’t going to be enough to hit. “Oh. That’s only an eight.” He sank back down into his chair, thoroughly disappointed. Maybe he should have done Eldritch Blast instead, especially since it does more damage, but with that roll, it wouldn’t have hit either. 

Annabeth smiled sympathetically. “That’s okay. Wrathful Smite is a concentration spell, so you can try again next time,” she reassured him, and then looked over at Bianca. “Bianca, you’re up.”

“Oh! Um…” Bianca looked over her sheet, biting her lip as she struggled to make sense of the overwhelming amount of information it held. “I guess… I’ll use my bow…?” She looked at Nico, silently begging for help. “Is that right?”

Nico perked back up. “Yeah! Or you could use your dagger if you want to move and do close range, but your bow is good because you’re far away right now,” he said, pointing to the box containing the relevant information. Maybe he should colour code everything with a highlighter so she can find things easier next time. 

“Okay.” Bianca paused. “How do I do that?” 

“Roll your d20 and add five.” When Bianca struggled to figure out which dice was the right one, Nico pointed it out to her, and then adjusted the rest so the highest number was always pointing up. 

Bianca rolled the die - a seventeen, which had Nico cheering on her behalf - and then did the math. “That’s… twenty-two? Is that good?”

“That’s great!” Annabeth smiled kindly. “Now you roll damage - the d8, I believe.”

“Plus three.” Nico added, pointing at her sheet. 

Bianca found the die on her own this time. “Six?”

“Perfect.” Annabeth scribbled something in her notes - likely subtracting it from the manticore’s hit points - and then turned back to the group. “Bianca, you take out your bow and draw it back, carefully lining it up with the manticore’s human face,” she mimed the action as she spoke, “and then let your arrow fly, striking it right between the eyes.”

The others all cheered, and Bianca smiled shyly and blushed at the attention. Nico beamed. Maybe it’s okay he rolled low, as long as Bianca was having a good time. 

Their first combat was not going well. They were all rolling terribly, Percy had gone unconscious twice, Nico had long run out of spell slots, and the only reason they were still alive was because Grover was rolling well on his healing spells. Thalia kept blaming everything on Percy for running ahead and making her and Grover waste a turn trying to catch up with him, and even Annabeth looked frustrated at how hard they were struggling. Nico was pretty sure she hadn’t balanced the encounter correctly, but when he tried to suggest that earlier, both Annabeth and Percy glared at him like they wanted to throttle him, so he didn’t dare bring it up again. 

When things were looking particularly dire, Annabeth straightened up. “The manticore rears back, raising a claw to strike Thalia again, and suddenly, an arrow shoots out of the woods and hits it in the chest - followed by another, and another. You look over, and you see a young woman in an ancient greek-style chiton wielding a longbow, and behind her are a group of all female hunters.” 

Nico blinked. “Wait. Did you deus ex machina us?” 

“I didn’t want to kill you in your first game!” Annabeth snapped back. She took a deep breath to calm herself, and then added, “Everyone still conscious, roll religion checks to see if you know who this is.”

“Grover, what’s your passive perception?”

“Uh… fifteen?”

“Okay. As you walk through the forest, you feel a sudden breeze drift through the trees. The rest of you don’t notice anything strange, but you Grover, you notice that the breeze is warmer than it should be in this climate, and it smells like wildflowers and sunshine.”

“What does sunshine smell like?” Nico asked, but the others were too focused on Grover to pay him any attention. 

Percy shook Grover’s shoulders in excitement as Grover sat up straighter. “Is that Pan?”

Annabeth shrugged with forced nonchalance. 

“Okay! Okay, okay, okay! What do I do?” He started frantically looking over his character sheet and through his spell cards, but whatever he was hoping to find wasn't there. “Okay, um… can I look around for where the smell is coming from?”

“Make an investigation check.”

“Oh no… eight?”

“You look around for the source of the smell, checking behind every tree and under every bush, but you don’t find anything, and eventually, the smell dissipates entirely. Sorry, Grover."

Grover groaned and thumped his head against the table. Percy patted his back sympathetically. “We’ll find him next time, buddy.”

“The carriage comes to a stop, and a broad-shouldered man in full plate armour steps out. He looks at you, Percy, and says ’ The lady wants to speak with you,’ ” Annabeth dropped her voice as low as she could manage, “and gestures to the inside of the carriage.”

“First of all, amazing voice,” Percy said with a grin, and then added, “Secondly… I guess I get in?”

“Inside the carriage, you see a woman in an extravagant red dress, her hair cascading down her shoulders in perfectly curled ringlets. She has immaculate makeup, dazzling eyes, and a smile that would have lit up the dark side of the moon.”

“Is she hot?” Thalia piped up. 

Annabeth sighed in exasperation. “I guess? I mean, this is the goddess of love and beauty, so yeah, she’s probably the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen. Anyway, she smiles at you Percy, and says….”

Nico unintentionally tuned the rest of what Annabeth said out as Thalia’s words played over and over in his mind. Why would she find her hot? Wasn’t Thalia’s character a girl? 

It had confused him enough that he made a mental note to ask her later. 

“Percy, you’re up next in the initiative order. What do you do?”

Percy chewed on the end of his pen as he surveyed the map, and the placement of the dice they were using to represent their characters. “How does Lady Artemis look?” He pointed his pen at the silver die. 

“Not great. She’s managing to hold up the sky, but it’s slowly crushing her, and she’s getting weaker every round.”

Percy hummed in thought, and looked over his character sheet. “Okay. I’m going to take the sky from her.”

Annabeth raised her brows in surprise. “Are you sure? She’s a goddess, and she’s barely managing. You’re only level one.”

“She can help us if she isn’t trapped. I’m gonna take it.”

Annabeth looked concerned for a moment, but she quickly schooled her expression back into her DM poker face. “All right. Make a strength check, and roll high.”

Percy picked up one of his dice, and held it out to Annabeth. “Kiss for luck?” 

“Just make the roll!” Annabeth snapped, her face bright red. 

Percy shook the die in his hands for so long that Nico thought his heart was going to burst out of his chest in anticipation, and then finally dropped it into the tray. It rolled for a second too long before landing on…

“NATURAL TWENTY!”

Everyone at the table cheered so loudly that Percy’s Mom ducked her head into the room for a moment before dipping back into the kitchen with a fond smile. 

“You take the sky from Lady Artemis, and the weight is so immense that it knocks you down onto your knees. You feel like you’re being crushed by a thousand trucks, and the strain in your muscles from trying to keep it aloft almost makes you black out from pain, but you breathe deeply, and hold steadfast, and you’re holding up the literal sky.”

Everyone cheered again, but Nico couldn't take his eyes off Percy and his bright proud grin. 

“So cool,” he whispered to himself, cheeks hurting from his own smile. 

Nico was buzzing the entire way down the stairwell and into Jules-Albert’s car, and he couldn’t stop smiling even if he wanted to. “Did you see when I killed that guy with Arms of Hadar? Annabeth said I opened a crack in the ground and sent him to the Nine Hells! I didn’t just kill him, I wiped him from existence !” 

“It was very cool, Nico,” Bianca said, looking out the window as Jules-Albert pulled away from the curb. 

“And Percy getting that nat twenty to hold up the literal sky was the coolest thing I have ever seen! It almost killed Lady Artemis, but he tanked the damage for a whole round, and it gave us the advantage we needed to win the fight. We would have lost if he didn’t do that, and Annabeth said anything less that a nat twenty probably would have knocked him unconscious. We got so lucky, it was insane !”

“Uh huh.”

Bianca didn’t look over at him once, and Nico’s sky high good mood quickly deflated. Was she seriously not excited about this? “Did you… did you have a good time?” he asked tentatively, afraid of the answer. 

Bianca looked over at him, and smiled gently. “Yeah, it was fun,” she said, but the look in her eyes told a different story. 

“Are you lying?” Nico frowned. 

“No! I did have fun!” Bianca said defensively, but when Nico crossed his arms in disbelief, she let out a sigh. “I guess I still don’t really understand it. There’s a lot of rules, and math, and… everyone else is so experienced and I just… felt kind of lost.”

“Do you want me to teach you how to play when we get home?”

“I don’t know, Nico. I just… I don’t know if this is the game for me.”

“Oh.” Nico’s heart dropped, and he glared out the window just so he wouldn’t have to look at Bianca any more. “So I guess we can’t go back then.”

“I didn’t say that!” She reached across the middle seat to take his hand in both of hers. “I’m sorry I didn’t like it, but I really really wanted to. What I can promise you though is that I had fun playing with you and the others. I… I really want to be friends with them, Nico, so if they invite us to play again, I will say yes.”

Nico tried not to get his hopes up, but he couldn’t help it. He desperately wanted to play again. “Really?”

“Really.” Bianca smiled and gave his hand a squeeze. “I haven’t seen you so excited since before Mamma died, so if it makes you happy, I’ll keep playing.” She paused. “It did make you happy, right?”

“Of course it made me happy! It’s the best game ever made!” Nico exclaimed, turning around to face his sister again out of the sheer indignation that she would even suspect otherwise. 

Bianca laughed. (When was the last time he heard Bianca laugh ?) “Then we can keep playing. Maybe I’ll like it more once I get the hang of it.”

“I can help with that! I already have ideas on how to make your character sheet easier to read so you can find things better, and I’ll make a cheat sheet for you too to help with the rules! It’ll be much more fun next time, I promise!”

“Okay. I trust you.” Bianca gave his hand one last squeeze before letting go. 

Bianca returned to looking out her window, and Nico looked out of his as well. It was disappointing to hear that Bianca didn’t like the game as much as he thought she did, but he supposed it was okay as long as she was willing to play. Maybe it was unfair to make her do something she didn’t enjoy just for his sake, but she wanted to, so it was okay, right? 

Nico replayed the events of the game over and over again in his head, but there was one moment in particular his brain kept drifting back to, and he didn’t understand why. “Bianca? Do girls find other girls hot?”

Bianca’s head whipped around so fast, it was a wonder she didn’t hurt her neck. “What do you mean?” 

Nico shrugged. “Thalia said that Lady Aphrodite was hot. I didn’t know girls could do that.”

“Some do,” Bianca said carefully. “Some girls like girls, some like boys, and some like both, or neither. It’s a personal preference.”

“Oh.”

A long pause.

“...And some boys find other boys cute too. It’s completely normal,” she added, voice gentle. 

Nico didn’t see how that was relevant, but good to know, he guessed. “Okay.”

Although, now that the thought was in his head….

“Maybe my character likes Percy’s character. He was really cool in that final fight.”

Bianca was watching him closely as if she was trying to read his mind. “Nico,” she said in that same gentle, patient tone. “Do you like Percy?”

Before Nico could answer, a pair of yellow arches caught his eye out the window. “Wait, are we stopping?” He was quickly distracted by Jules-Albert pulling into the McDonald’s drive thru. 

<<A request from your father,>> Jules-Albert explained in his french-accented Italian. <<He cannot make it to dinner tonight, and suggested we order something on the way.>>

“Of course he can’t,” Bianca muttered and sat back in her seat, turning her attention out the window, their conversation forgotten. 

It took three years of monthly sessions, but they were finally nearing the end of their first campaign. They never reached level twenty like Nico originally wanted to - they only made it as far as level thirteen - but they had reached a good stopping point for their character arcs and that was more important. 

It was bittersweet to be closing the book on what had become such an important part of his life, but Annabeth was already talking about what she was going to do for their next game, and the excitement for campaign two was carrying him through it. Even though they were still months off from starting it, Nico jumped at the chance to create new characters for himself and Bianca. 

Rain hammered against his bedroom window as he flicked through the Player’s Handbook, blank character sheets printed out and spread across his desk. He was considering playing a necromancer this time, but he didn’t like the mechanics much and felt that the other wizard subclasses were stronger. Similarly, he liked the flavour of rogues but felt they were boring mechanically, and as curious as he was about fighters, he didn’t want to get involved in Percy and Thalia’s weird argument over who got to play one next. Maybe a barbarian? Or a paladin? There were too many choices, and not enough time to play them all. 

At least making Bianca’s character sheet was going to be easy. She didn't want to learn another class, and so Nico was helping her build another ranger. She wasn't as passionate about D&D as he was, and so as much as Nico wanted her to try something else, he wouldn’t push. He was grateful that she still wanted to play at all, and if rangers made her happy, then he wasn’t going to argue. 

Nico flicked to the ranger class in his Player’s Handbook. Maybe he could play one too, if he built a character that was distinct enough from Bianca’s that Annabeth would allow it. Bianca had her heart set on playing a hunter this time, so maybe Nico could play a gloomstalker, and then multiclass into rogue or fighter. It would differentiate him from Bianca and be a stronger build overall. 

Thunder boomed outside, and Nico jumped. 

He pulled his blanket a little tighter around his shoulders and tried to shake off the sudden anxiety. He didn't like storms, not since their mother died in one. He knew the chances of someone else he loved getting struck by lightning was slim, but fears were rarely rational. 

At thirteen, he was too old to run to his sister for comfort over something as silly as a storm, so he tried to distract himself with his research and forget about the weather. 

He was halfway through the page on weapons when thunder boomed again, much closer this time, and he leaped to his feet without a second thought. 

Bianca's room was only two doors down the hall, and he let himself in without knocking. "Did you hear the thunder-... outside…" 

Nico froze in the doorway as he surveyed the scene in front of him. 

Bianca had dressed up. She was wearing makeup and had put up her hair, and Nico couldn't remember the last time he had seen her wear a dress. 

Her outfit wasn't the strangest part though. What really caught Nico off guard was that she was climbing out her second storey window, and Percy Jackson was helping her escape. 

"Nico! Hey!" Percy smiled sheepishly, very much the cat that had caught the canary. 

Percy had dressed up too, in a pair of nice jeans and a jacket. He was dripping wet from the rain, and he must have ran his hand through his hair as it was sticking up at odd angles. A drop of rain trailed down his neck and along his adam's apple. 

Something angry and vicious pooled in Nico's gut - something he didn't want to name. 

"Dad said you're not allowed to have boys in your room with the door closed," he blurted out, and tugged the blanket he was still wearing tighter around his shoulders. 

"It's not like that!" Percy exclaimed and stepped away from Bianca, hands raised as if under arrest. "We're not- I don't like her like that!" 

Bianca rolled her eyes. "Since when do you care what Dad thinks? And for god's sake, keep your voice down and close the door so he doesn't hear you!" 

Nico didn't like it, but he wasn't a narc so he did what he was told regardless. "Why's Percy here? What are you doing?" 

Bianca bit her lip as if she was debating whether or not she should tell him. “We’re going to a party.”

“Where?”

“Zoë’s.”

“Who’s Zoë?”

“From archery club. You don’t know her.”

“Bianca!” Thalia whisper-shouted from outside Bianca’s bedroom window. “Hurry the fuck up! I’m getting drenched out here!”

“Sorry! I’m coming!” Bianca whisper-shouted back before returning to Nico. “Look. Nico. We need to go, so just… don’t tell Dad, okay? Promise me you won’t tell Dad.” 

Nico frowned. “Of course I’m not gonna tell Dad,” he said defensively, anger flaring up.

This was the problem with hanging out with his older sister and all of her friends - they always treated him like a little kid. He wasn't their friend ; he was Bianca's little brother . He wasn’t confident that Percy or any of the others would talk to him at all if it weren’t for her. He thought that they had grown to respect him as an equal over the course of their D&D games, but maybe that was naive. 

“Okay, good,” Bianca let out a sigh of relief. “Then I’m going to get going. I’ll be back in time for breakfast, so I’ll see you then.” 

When she swung her other leg out of the window, Nico rushed forward. “Wait!” 

Bianca stopped, and shot him a glare. “ What , Nico?”

Nico dropped the blanket and stood up taller in an attempt to look more grown up, but it was a futile effort. Percy was an entire head taller than him now thanks to a recent growth spurt, and standing next to him made him feel so small. “I want to come too.”

Bianca looked at him as if he suggested they jump off the roof. “What?! No! You’re thirteen !” 

“You’re only fifteen,” he shot back. “What difference does two years make?”

“A big difference! You’re still a kid!”

“ I’m not a kid !”

“Yes, you are!” Bianca rolled her eyes and huffed in exasperation. She climbed back in through the window, ignoring Thalia’s shouts of indignation, and Percy who was staring at the floor as if he wanted it to swallow him whole. “Nico, I love you, I love you more than anything in the world, but I am so sick of being your babysitter all the time! Once, just once, I want to go out and do something for me for a change! So please just… go to your room and don’t tell Dad about any of this. Please.”

Nico clenched his jaw and gritted his teeth. "Is that what you think of me? I'm just some kid you have to babysit?" 

"That's not what I meant! I just…" She rubbed her face. "You don't know what it's like to be the older sibling. I worry about you all the time. I just want one night where I put myself first for a change. Is that so wrong?" 

"You're doing a great job of it so far," Nico muttered, glaring at the wall and ignoring the way Bianca flinched. 

"You know what? I don't have time for this." Bianca moved back to the window and began to climb out. "We'll talk about this in the morning, okay?" 

Nico didn't answer, and continued glaring at the wall. 

Bianca sighed. "Bye, Nico. I love you." 

When Nico continued to give her the silent treatment, she lowered herself down to the ground with Percy and Thalia's help, leaving him alone in her bedroom with Percy Jackson. 

Percy awkwardly hovered by the window, rubbing the back of his neck as he scrambled for something neutral to say. "Uh… well… I guess I'll see you next Saturday for the final boss fight?" He forced a smile as he began to climb through the window. 

For the first time in his life, Nico didn't want to talk about D&D. "Percy… promise me you'll help Bianca get home safe." He picked up his blanket and pulled it back around his shoulders. "The storm… I don't like it. I don't like her going out in it." 

"Oh." His expression softened. "Yeah, of course. I'm driving, so I'll get her home, don't worry." 

Nico nodded. "Okay. Thanks."

"No problem." Percy gave a curt nod. "Have a good night, Nico."

Percy bid him goodbye, and dropped out the window after Bianca. 

Nico poked his head outside and watched them run across the lawn through the pouring rain, and then pile into Percy's Mom's car. He didn't return to his bedroom until they disappeared down the street. 

Nico woke up the next morning to an empty house. 

Their father's absence was not unusual. Even at the weekend, he spent more time at work than he did at home, so Nico paid him no mind. 

Bianca's, however, was concerning. 

Nico was still mad at her for talking down to him - even if he didn't want to go to the stupid party and only invited himself along because he hated being excluded. He didn't particularly want to talk to Bianca about it either, but she promised she'd be back by morning to do just that, and she wasn't here. He'd slept in and ate two whole poptarts, and/ she still wasn't here . 

Nico tried texting her, and then when he didn't get a response within the hour, he called her. It went straight to voicemail, and so he hung up and immediately tried again, only to get the same result. 

Was she mad at him? Was that why she wasn't answering? She seemed mad last night, but Nico didn't think he had done anything wrong. 

Rain thundered against the kitchen windows in an unending onslaught. The storm had passed during the night, but the weather was not letting up. 

…Did something bad happen in the storm? 

No. No, that wasn’t possible. Just because their mother died in a storm didn't mean that something happened to Bianca. She was probably staying over at Zoë's or Percy's, and wasn't paying attention to her phone. He was being ridiculous. 

Still, it wouldn't hurt to call her again, right? Just to be sure? 

Nico was halfway through dialling her number when the front door opened. "Bianca?" he called out, hopping off the barstool and running into the entranceway.

Hades di Angelo stepped into their home with the air of a man returning from war. He was dripping wet from being out in the rain and didn't acknowledge Nico's presence, instead shaking the droplets off his umbrella on the doorstep before nudging the door closed. His expression was solemn and grave - not unusual for Hades, but there was something about it this time that set Nico on edge. 

"Where's Bianca?" Nico asked. He wasn’t sure that his father knew, considering Bianca hadn’t wanted him to, but paranoia was eating at him and he had to ask for his own sanity. 

Again, Hades didn't answer. He shrugged off his coat and hung it on the coat rack, and then hooked his hat up after it. He slipped off his shoes - with a shoehorn because they were too expensive to remove any other way - and set them off to the side. 

Sometimes, their father would ignore them until they spoke to him in Italian instead of English. Nico had the sinking feeling that wasn't why he wasn't speaking this time. 

" Where's Bianca ?" he asked again, panic rising. 

Hades finally turned to face him, and it wasn't until then that Nico noticed the red rims under his eyes. 

Nico had only seen his father cry once, and only once, and that was at their mother’s funeral. 

His heart plummeted into his stomach. He felt like he was going to be sick. 

"Did you know Bianca had sneaked out last night?" Hades asked in his low baritone voice. There was an odd rasp to it that Nico didn't like. 

"Does it matter?" he snapped. "Where is she? Why isn't she here? What happened?" 

Hades sighed and stepped further into the house. “Take a seat in the living room, Nico. We need to talk.” 

Nico’s chest felt tight, and it was getting increasingly hard to breathe. Hades reached out to touch his shoulder, but Nico flinched away from him. “No. Not until you tell me where Bianca is.” 

Ordinarily, when Nico talked back to his father like this, Hades would reprimand him. This time, all he did was look at him sadly, and it was all Nico needed to confirm his suspicions were correct. 

Something had happened to Bianca. Something really really bad. 

“ Where is she ?!” Tears pricked at his eyes. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides. 

Hades stared at him for a long moment. “There was a car accident last night.” Nico’s breath hitched. “That Jackson boy was driving her and her friends to a party. The rain was so thick that he didn’t see the other car run the red light until it was too late.” 

Hades paused, shut his eyes, and took a slow deep breath. It was only for a second, but it felt longer. 

“Perseus, Thalia, and Grover survived the crash. Bianca… Bianca did not.”

The words hit him like a bullet to the heart. 

Nico stared at his father’s face for even the slightest hint that this was a prank, that his father was messing with him (as if Hades di Angelo had ever told a joke in his life), but he looked graver and more serious than Nico had ever seen him. 

“You’re wrong.” He took a step back. “You’re lying. She… she promised she would come back. That’s not-... She wouldn’t-....” He couldn’t catch his breath long enough to get the words out. 

Hades took a step forward. “I saw her, Nico. She’s gone.”

“NO! No, no, no, no, no, no . That’s not- no! ” Nico clenched his eyes shut in a failed attempt to stop the tears from flowing and covered his ears.  

“I’m sorry,” Hades said softly, and carefully approached him like Nico was a wounded animal, “I promise you that I will not let this injustice go. Alecto will be in touch with the driver’s lawyers, and we’ll make him pay for his recklessness.”

That was such an outrageous concern to have at this moment that it momentarily snapped Nico out of his breakdown, and he looked up at his father in disbelief. “I don’t fucking care about the other driver! My sister is fucking dead !” 

Hades at least had the decency to grimace. “Nico-” He reached out towards him again, but Nico slapped his hand away. 

“Just… leave me alone .”

Nico bolted up the stairs and slammed his bedroom door shut. Hades didn’t try to stop him. 

His whole body was alight with frenetic energy, and he paced back and forth as he fruitlessly wiped the tears away from his eyes. He was hyperventilating, his hands were shaking uncontrollably, and a deep rage burned through him hotter than he’d ever felt. 

He wanted to break something. He wanted to hit someone. He wanted to-... He wanted-...

He wanted his sister back .

With a throat tearing yell, Nico violently shoved everything on his desk onto the floor. A loose sheet of paper was kicked up from the force and he grabbed it out of the air, barely registering what it was before he tore it to tiny pieces. 

Bianca’s character sheet. 

It suddenly hit him full force that Bianca was never going to play D&D again. She was never going back to archery club, she was never going to comfort him during a storm, or eat meals with him when their father wasn’t home, or help him with his homework even though she was as clueless about science as he was. 

She was gone.

She was… she was gone. 

Nico’s back hit the wall, and he slid down to the floor as all his remaining energy drained out of him. Bianca was gone, and she was never coming back. 

He buried his face in his knees and sobbed. 

Bianca’s funeral went by in a blur. 

It was held in the same chapel as their mother's funeral, and considering Hades hadn't taken them back since then, Nico was beginning to associate it with death. The priest spoke warmly of Bianca and her life, but all Nico could think about was how little they knew her, and how much she would have hated how gratuitously religious the ceremony was. She would have wanted to be turned into a tree or something - not whatever this was. 

They buried her in a grave next to their mother, and Nico tried not to look at the empty plot reserved for their father on her other side. (His entire family would be buried here one day. What would happen to him?) Nico was given a white rose to throw into the grave on top of her coffin, and then the groundskeeper shovelled dirt in after it, and it was over. 

His sister was gone, in every sense of the word. 

Bianca's friends were in attendance, but Nico couldn't bring himself to look at them for too long. It wasn't fair that they lived but Bianca didn't. 

Percy's arm was in a sling and he was sporting a fading black eye, and Grover was limping beside him on a set of crutches. Thalia's only visible injury was the stitches in her forehead, and even though she projected a tough exterior, her smeared eyeliner gave away that she had been crying. Annabeth, the only one who wasn't in the car that night, was uninjured but tearful, and every time Nico saw her, she was tucked securely under Percy's good arm - a recent development Nico really didn't want to think about. 

The few times Nico made eye contact with them, they politely waved and gave him one of those pitying smiles he had been on the receiving end of all week, and then Nico would promptly turn around and pretend they weren't there. He would have continued that trend until they all went home, if not for Percy Jackson. 

Percy cornered him by the outer wall of the graveyard when Nico had slipped away to steal a moment to himself. 

"Hey, man," he greeted with one of those pitying smiles, "mind if I join you?" 

Nico didn't want to talk to him (or anyone for that matter), but he always had a hard time saying no to Percy, and merely shrugged. 

Percy took that as an invitation and perched on the wall next to him - slowly, and he winced in pain and gripped his ribs as he moved. "I'm glad the rain stopped in time for today, though I think she would have preferred that it didn't. She always liked the rain, huh?" 

Not storms though. They both hated storms, and now Nico hated them even more. 

When Nico didn't answer, Percy continued. "I've never been to a church before - or a chapel? It sounds dumb to say, but I wasn't expecting it to be so… religious. She never really seemed like the type." 

Nico's shoulders sagged. At least someone else felt that way, though he still wished he could have persuaded his father to spread her ashes in the woods instead. 

Percy sighed when he realised Nico wasn't going to engage in small talk with him, and cut straight to whatever it was he had come over here to say. "Nico, I am so sorry about what happened to Bianca. Everybody keeps telling me it wasn't my fault, but I was the one driving, and… I feel like if I had been just a little more observant then maybe I could've saved her - saved all of us. I know an apology doesn't change anything, but I just… I needed you to know that I'm sorry. If there's anything I can do for you, please let me know." 

Percy touched his shoulder, and Nico's entire body stiffened. 

"Yeah, there's something you can do." Nico shrugged out of Percy's grip and hopped off the wall. "Learn to drive better, so next time, you don't kill my sister." 

Percy's jaw dropped open, but Nico paid him no mind as he stomped off to find Jules-Albert. He was ready to go home. 

If he ever saw Percy again, it would be too fucking soon. 

The tiny shreds of paper were on his bedroom floor where Nico left them. He collected as many as he could find, and did his best to tape them back together until he had something resembling Bianca's character sheet. He slipped it safely into his binder, and packed it away into a plastic storage container along with every other piece of D&D memorabilia he had. He pushed the tub under his bed as far back as it could go where he wouldn't have to look at it any longer. 

He was getting too old for childish games anyway. 

Chapter Text

A girl Nico had never met before was seated on the couch in his living room. 

She was around his age, maybe slightly younger, with dark skin and big curly hair. She eyed him warily as she fidgeted with the cuffs of her purple sweater. 

Nico didn’t need an introduction to know exactly who this was, but even though he was expecting her arrival, he still didn’t know how to feel about her. 

“Hazel, this is your brother, Nico.” Hades made the introductions when it became clear that neither of them were going to speak first. “Nico, this is your sister, Hazel. She will be living with us from now on, as previously discussed. I trust you will make her feel welcome.”

Your sister, Hazel.

The words cut through him like a knife. 

It wasn’t fair to get mad at Hazel, he knew that. It wasn’t her fault she was the product of an affair. It wasn’t her fault that Nico didn’t learn of her existence until after Bianca died. 

But he was still grieving, and grief wasn’t rational, and all he could think about was how much it felt like his father was replacing Bianca.  

He couldn't do this right now. 

Nico turned on his heel without a word, and stormed off to his room.

Nico was walking through the upstairs hall when he heard Hazel crying alone in her bedroom, and he didn’t know what to do. 

Bianca had always been the one taking care of him, and their roles rarely reversed (a realisation he regretted coming to so late). He was the youngest sibling, and she was the eldest. That was the dynamic he was familiar with. 

He had no idea how to be a big brother. He had no idea how to talk to Hazel at all sometimes. There was a gulf between them that never existed with Bianca, and some days, it felt impossible to overcome. His grief was a ball and chain preventing him from moving forward, and he couldn’t look at the sister he gained without being reminded of the sister he lost. 

That wasn’t Hazel’s fault though, Nico constantly reminded himself. It wouldn’t be fair to ignore her in her time of need just because he was insecure and grieving and other feelings he hadn’t put a name to yet. She needed her brother, and as ambivalent as he felt, he couldn’t in good conscience walk away. 

Steeling himself, Nico knocked on the door, and the crying stopped. When Hazel didn’t speak, Nico asked, “Hazel, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” a wobbly voice called back. 

“Are you sure?”

A pause.

“No.”

She sounded even worse that time, and Nico grimaced. “Can I come in?” He waited for permission, and then pushed the door open. 

Hazel had only been living with them for a few days, but her room felt cosy already. The previously beige walls were now a light lilac with one black chalkboard wall, and were decorated with an assortment of horse pictures and boy band posters. Hazel had the overhead lights off, and instead the room was lit by the white fairy lights that lined the ceiling. 

(The one thing Nico and Hades agreed on was that Hazel would be given a guest bedroom to reside in, and that Bianca's room would be left untouched. It felt weird to have what was essentially a museum to his dead sister in his house, but it was better than pretending she never lived there at all.)

Hazel herself was in her pyjamas, and tucked under the covers, propped up against her pillows. She had a box of tissues in her lap, and was frantically wiping the tears from her eyes. "I'm sorry I'm such a mess." She let out a weak laugh, but it did nothing to convince him she was okay. If anything, it only worried him more. 

"It's fine," he said gently as he awkwardly hovered by the door. 

How does one comfort a crying sibling? What would Bianca do in this situation? 

"Do you… want to talk about it?" 

Hazel's face fell, and for a moment, he was worried he had somehow said the wrong thing. "It's just… this has been a really rough month." She started crying again, and if Nico felt lost before, then he was a missing persons case now. 

Unsure what else to do, Nico crept further into the room. He was not the kind of person to initiate touch, but maybe standing in closer proximity would help. "Yeah, it… it must suck." 

Hazel laughed bitterly through her tears. "That's an understatement." She wiped her eyes. "I lost my Mom and my childhood home in a house fire, all of my belongings from my old life fit in a cardboard box, and I was forced to move halfway across the country to live with a family I've never met and who clearly don't want me to be here. Yes, Nico, it sucks ."

Nico winced. Was that how Hazel felt about him?

"Hazel… I'm sorry for keeping you at a distance. That wasn't fair to you." 

Hazel sniffled. "You're grieving your sister. I can see how this would be weird for you."

"That doesn't make it okay, especially since it made you upset," Nico said firmly. "But I'm here now, so… talk to me. You miss your Mom?"

Hazel watched him for a moment, but she must have found whatever she was looking for as she shuffled over and lifted the corner of her covers in a silent invitation for him to join her. "Please?"

This was beyond what Nico was comfortable with, but he pushed himself to climb in next to her anyway if only to prove that he was going to do better by her. Once he was settled in, Hazel slumped against him and rested her head on his shoulder. Nico went stock still at the touch, but didn't push her away. 

"She was the only family I had for most of my life," Hazel began, soft and quiet. "My grandparents were gone, she had no siblings, she never had anything nice to say about my Dad - our Dad - and I never knew you existed. I don't even know if she knew about you. Maybe she did and chose not to tell me. It kills me that I can't ever know for sure." 

Unsure what else to do, Nico again asked himself what Bianca would do, and hesitantly took Hazel's hand. Hazel squeezed it tightly. 

"She wasn't perfect. No parent is," Hazel continued. "She… got mad at me sometimes for things that weren't my fault, and said some things that… weren't very nice, but despite all that, she loved me and cared for me and fought for me harder than anybody else ever has, and I miss her so much." She let go of Nico's hand to wipe the tears from her eyes again. 

“What was her name?” Nico asked softly. 

“Marie. Marie Levesque."

Nico's train of thought was derailed at that revelation, and he had to laugh at the absurdity.

"What?"

Nico shook his head. "Nothing. It's just… my Mom's name is Maria ."

Hazel pulled away so she could look at him and assess if he was joking (as if he would ever joke about his Mamma). "Are you serious?" 

"Unfortunately." 

Hazel let out a disbelieving huff and fell back against her pillows. "I'm starting to understand why my mother didn't like him." 

"Stay here long enough, and you'll more than understand," Nico scoffed, and pressed his shoulder against Hazel's. Now that he was getting used to the touching, it was actually kind of nice. 

"He has been rather distant. I don’t know if he wants me here." 

“That’s just what he’s like. He has the emotional range of a brick, and he spends more time at work than at home. You get used to it.”

Hazel turned to face him. “...Does that mean you’ve been spending time here all alone since Bianca died?” 

Nico shrugged, and looked away. “Jules-Albert is here sometimes.” 

“Oh, Nico.” 

Hazel threw her arms around his shoulders, and pulled him into a hug. 

Nico did not like hugs. The only exceptions to that rule were his Mamma and Bianca, but… maybe Hazel could be an exception too.

“I’m sorry for making you feel like you didn’t belong here,” he said as he slowly and hesitantly wrapped an arm around her in return. “I promise I want you around, and I… I want to get to know you, if you’ll let me.” 

Hazel squeezed him tightly. "I want to get to know you too." She smiled gently. "You know, I always wanted a sibling growing up." 

"I can be that for you now? I mean, I can't promise I'll be good at it, I still miss… you know, but I promise I'll try. If I fuck up, then tell me and I'll fix it." 

Hazel's smile grew, and she kissed him on the cheek. "Don't worry, I will." 

Hazel rested her head on his shoulder again, and Nico lay his against hers in return. 

They were supposed to be hanging out in Nico’s bedroom doing homework, but their textbooks lay abandoned on his bed. Nico was lounging back against his pillows and idly scrolling through social media while Hazel explored his room, poking around in his closet and making fun of his taste in fashion or any old childhood toy she stumbled across. Nico had banned her from looking into certain drawers or boxes for the sake of his privacy, but otherwise gave her free reign. It wasn’t like he had anything to hide, and after how close they had gotten these past few months, Nico trusted Hazel more than anyone else he knew. (Not that there was anyone else to trust. High school was a friendless experience so far. Nobody wanted to talk to the moody kid in all black who publicly accused Percy Jackson of killing his sister in front of half the school.)

Nico had forgotten about the storage container under his bed until Hazel pulled it out. 

“What’s this?” She held up Nico’s old copy of the D&D Player’s Handbook.

He hadn’t looked at that since the night of Bianca’s funeral. It was a gut punch to see it again now. 

“Just a dumb kid’s game.” Nico turned back to his phone, and pretended he didn’t care that Hazel was holding a piece of his childhood marred by grief. 

“It doesn’t look like a kid's game.”

“Hmph.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Nico watched as Hazel settled down on the floor, cross-legged and back to the closet door, to look through the book. She was flicking through pages too fast to be properly reading it, but every now and again, she would stop to read a paragraph or two that caught her eye. 

She seemed… interested, which was weird. Bianca would have shut the book by now and moved on. 

“So how does this work?” Hazel asked after several minutes of silent reading. “You make a character, and then what happens?”

“You find at least two other people to make characters with you, and another person who’s willing to write a story for you, and then you roleplay.”

“And there’s… dice rolling?”

“It was initially developed as an alternative to wargaming because the developers wanted to add a roleplaying element to their games. Wargames are rules heavy turn-based strategy games, and elements of that are still present in D&D, so that’s what a lot of the rules and dice rolling is for. There’s a heavier emphasis on roleplaying nowadays, but some people prefer to focus on combat. I guess it depends on what your group wants-” Nico realised he was rambling, and clamped his mouth shut. The last thing he wanted was to annoy Hazel the way he used to annoy Bianca. 

Hazel, however, didn’t seem to mind. “Did you roleplay a lot as a kid? It doesn’t seem like something you would like now.”

“...I used to like it a lot. That was a long time ago though.”

Hazel hummed and turned another page in the book. "It sounds fun. I like roleplay and magic and fantasy stuff. I'd love to try it sometime." 

Nico blinked in surprise. Hazel… wanted to play D&D? 

It was a strange feeling. Nico had spent years trying to convince Bianca to give D&D a go, and now that he no longer cared for it, he had another sister who seemed genuinely interested. He didn't know how to feel about that. 

"You could," he said carefully. 

Hazel looked up at him, gaze scrutinising. She was astute. Of course she picked up on his hesitance. "Do you not want to?" 

Nico sighed. "It was something I used to do with Bianca. It never felt right playing it without her. It's not that I don't want to. I just don't know if I can." 

Hazel’s expression softened. She set the book aside, and climbed to her feet. When she approached the bed, Nico shuffled over to make room for her, and Hazel settled down next to him and rested her head on his shoulder in a now familiar position. 

“Too many memories?”

“Kind of. Bianca never liked it, but she still played every month anyway because she knew it would make me happy. I don’t know if I can bring myself to play it if she isn’t playing with me. It feels wrong.”

“That makes sense, but if Bianca went to that length to make you happy, then don’t you think she would want you to play without her if that would make you happy too?”

Nico twisted the ring on his finger. “Maybe.”

“I would, if I were her.” Hazel lightly bumped his shoulder. “This is something you used to really like, right? I don’t think she would want you to give up your passion because of her.”

“It’s a dumb kids game. It’s not my passion .”

“Right,” Hazel said, clearly unconvinced. 

“Besides, we can’t play with just the two of us anyway. We would need at least two other people, including a Dungeon Master.”

“Can’t you do that?”

Nico laughed at the mere thought. “I am not that creative.”

“Oh shut up. You’re plenty creative.” Hazel rolled her eyes and sat up so she could face him. “If I found two more people who were willing to join us, would you play again?”

Nico wanted to say no. He shut the door on that part of his life for a reason. He wasn’t sure he could get through a game without thinking about Bianca, or any of her old friends. He still couldn’t think about Percy without boiling with rage, even if he was beginning to accept that her death wasn’t actually his fault. 

But Hazel was right. Bianca wouldn’t want him to give up D&D for her sake, not when she had to sacrifice so much of what she wanted for him. He had spent many sleepless nights replaying their last conversation over and over again in his mind. There was a lot he said to her then that he would never forgive himself for. (There was a lot she said to him that he struggled to forgive her for too, and he felt immensely guilty for resenting his dead sister). Maybe he owed it to her to indulge in the hobby that she fought so hard for him to have. 

“I’ll… consider it.”

Hazel beamed as if his non-committal answer was a victory, and hopped off the bed. "Great! In that case, I'm going to read this," she picked the Player's Handbook back up, "and try to learn how to play the game, and then once we go back to school on Monday, I'm going to find some people to play with." 

Nico had to admire her enthusiasm, even if he doubted she would find people willing to spend that much time with him. "Good luck with that. People don't exactly like me." 

"They will once they get to know you," she said firmly, brokering no room for argument. "Besides, people love me." She grinned and framed her face with her hands. "They'll say yes."  

Nico couldn't argue with that. "Someone thinks highly of themselves." 

"No, I just know my worth while you insist on undervaluing yours." Hazel looked back into the storage container and pulled out another book. "You should read this to prepare."

Hazel handed him his copy of the Dungeon Master's Guide. 

It had been years since Nico had held one of his D&D books, and with it came a flood of memories. There was a time in his life when he knew everything between those purple covers. 

"I'll read it, but I'm not promising anything." 

"That's good enough for me. I'll wear you down eventually," Hazel said as she flopped down onto the foot of the bed to read, pushing their long forgotten textbooks out of the way. 

Hazel was almost certainly joking, but Nico had a sneaking suspicion she likely would. 

The basement stairwell in the east wing of their high school was always empty which made it the perfect place for Nico to eat his lunch. 

The stairwell was the one furthest from the cafeteria, and so the only people Nico ever saw during lunch were the art students heading to the art classroom in the basement, and the Stoll brothers attempting to steal something from the art supplies closet. The art students thankfully ignored him, and he had long since worked out a deal with the Stolls that he wouldn't snitch on them as long as they left him out of whatever prank they were planning. (Nico wouldn't have snitched anyway, but he wasn't above a little blackmail if it meant not finding a pound of glitter in his locker.) 

While he typically never spoke to anyone, it wasn't unusual for Hazel, his sister and an art student, to approach him on the stairwell while he was eating lunch and listening to music. 

What was unusual was for her to be trailed by Frank Zhang from the hockey team. 

“Um… hello,” he greeted Nico with a nervous smile. 

Frank was an entire head and a half taller than Hazel, and could have been intimidating if he didn’t carry himself with the air of a newborn deer. Frank had a reputation for being the nice one on the hockey team, and it wasn’t difficult to see why. He was probably the only person on the team that had ever looked Nico in the eye by choice, even if he seemed as confused about what was going on as Nico did. 

“Frank, this is my brother Nico. Nico, this is Frank from my French class,” Hazel introduced, gesturing to them each in turn. 

Frank gave him an awkward wave and a smile, and Nico nodded at him in return. “I can see that.” 

“I thought the three of us could have lunch together since Frank is a big D&D fan, aren’t you Frank?” Hazel sat down on the stairs next to Nico and took out her lunchbox before either boy could disagree. 

“Oh! Uh, yeah, I used to play all the time when I lived in Vancouver, but I haven’t played since,” Frank explained and slowly sat down next to Hazel, seemingly resigning himself to the fact that he was going to eat lunch today in a random stairwell with Hazel’s weird and off-putting brother. “Hazel tells me you also play?”

Ah, so that was what this was about. Frank Zhang from the hockey team seemed like a random choice for their (maybe) future D&D group, but when he glanced over at Hazel, she shot him a look that clearly said ‘play nice’ so he let it drop. 

“I used to. That was a while ago though.” 

“Cool.”

Awkward silence quickly fell. Neither of them had any idea what to say to the other, and Hazel was too determined for them to be friends to intervene. When she elbowed Nico in the ribs in silent encouragement to connect with someone for once , he blurted out, “So what class did you play?”

Frank shrugged as he poked at the contents of his own lunchbox. “Depends what the party needed, I guess. I usually prefer to run support, but all my friends back home played spellcasters, so I always ended up tanking. I made a druid/barbarian multiclass build so I could switch between support and tanking depending on how the encounter was going.”

Wait, he played what ?

“A druid/barbarian multiclass?”

“Yeah!” Frank smiled. “Circle of the moon druid with one level of barbarian. The barbarian’s rage and the druid’s wild shape make a powerful combination since wild shape soaks up damage anyway, and then rage halves it. They make great tanks, and they can heal too.”

Nico could understand the logic, but…. “You know you can’t cast spells when raging, right?”

Frank blinked. “Well, yeah , but I would only go into a rage if I didn’t need to cast spells. It’s not difficult to drop rage if I needed to cast, or rage again if I needed to tank. It’s worth it for the versatility, I think.” 

“At the cost of your action economy,” Nico scoffed. “Wild shape and rage are both bonus actions. They’re good tanks, sure, but it takes two turns to set up. A lot of combat encounters are half over by that point.”

“But the longer encounters are the ones that need a tank like that most anyway,” Frank fired back. The newborn deer was growing his antlers and getting heated which was very fun to see. “Besides, they’re just bonus actions. I could still cast a spell on turn one before raging, and then wildshape at the start of turn two. Druids aren’t using their bonus actions for much else, so it’s not like I was wasting them.”

“But spellcasting classes are only as powerful as their highest level spell slot, and multiclassing puts you a level behind every other spellcaster. I don’t know if delaying access to higher level spells is worth the situational versatility.”

“When you have a wizard and a cleric in your party like I did, access to the higher level spells isn't as crucial." 

"If you have a wizard and a cleric in your party, then you need to focus on doing as much damage as possible." Nico crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. "My warlock could do more damage in a single turn than our fighter could." 

"Oh," Frank laughed, "That explains it. You're a min-maxer." 

"Min-maxing gets results. It's better to play a character that's great at one thing, than average at multiple." 

"Uh huh, and I bet your warlock was really good at eldritch blast - or were you one of those people who played a hexblade warlock with pact of the blade?" 

"Oh fuck off." 

Frank laughed, and the good-natured ribbing continued from there. Frank clearly knew his stuff, and it was nice to talk about his old hobby with someone who was just as passionate and knowledgeable about it as he was. 

Nico had gotten so into the conversation, he forgot that Hazel was sitting between them until Frank explained some terminology to her so she could contribute too. He felt bad about unintentionally ignoring Hazel, but she didn't seem to mind. Hazel was content to watch their back and forth, occasionally pitching in when they veered into one of the few topics she had a vague understanding of. 

When Frank excused himself to find his coach towards the end of lunch, Hazel beamed at him with a proud grin. "Soooo, what do you think?" 

"What do I think about what?" Nico asked, tidying up his things before the bell rang. 

"Playing with Frank! Should I invite him to play with us?" 

Right. Nico forgot that was why they were talking about D&D in the first place. 

It was nice debating character builds with Frank, but…. "I don't know, Hazel. I still don't know if I want to play without Bianca." 

"Oh." Hazel visibly deflated. 

"It's nothing against Frank, it's just that D&D was the one thing Bianca and I used to do together and I don't know that it would be the same without her." 

"I understand. It's just…." Hazel sighed. "I never got to know Bianca, or grow up with either of you. I guess I was hoping if we played together, then maybe I could kind of experience what it would have been like if I had known you both when we were kids. I guess I just feel left out." 

Nico’s expression softened. He had been so caught up in his own feelings, he didn’t consider that Hazel might have had her own reasons for wanting to play beyond curiosity. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

Hazel shrugged, picking at her nail polish. “Bianca was your sister. I didn’t want to bother you with my grief over the sister I never got to have when you have the greater right to miss her. But… I wish I could have known her, so this was my way of trying to get to know her better. Maybe it’s stupid considering she didn’t even like D&D, but still.”

“It’s not stupid. She’s your sister too. You’re allowed to feel however you want about her.” Nico wrapped an arm around Hazel’s shoulders. “...Maybe one game wouldn’t hurt.”

Hazel looked up. “Oh no, I wasn’t trying to guilt trip you! It’s okay if you really don’t want to! Frank and I can find someone else to be the dungeon master.” She patted his knee. 

“You’re not guilt tripping me,” Nico quickly assured her. “And I can’t promise it won’t be weird for me, but… I think you’re onto something. Maybe it’ll be a nice way to remember Bianca, and it’s not going to be as weird as I think. Plus it would be nice to share that part of my life with you.”

Hazel smiled (a beautiful sight he never tired of), and she wrapped her arms around him in a hug that Nico easily returned. “I would love that. If it is too weird, then tell me and we can stop. I won’t make you suffer for my sake.”

“I know.”

“I love you.” 

Hazel had never said that to him before, and Nico’s grip on her tightened. “I love you too.”

They sat like that for a little while, allowing themselves to indulge in a sibling hug, and didn’t move until the first bell rang signifying the end of lunch. They quickly packed up the remainder of their things, and climbed up the stairs. 

As they made their way towards their next classes, Hazel asked, “So are we doing this?”

Nico gave her a tiny smile. “I think we’re doing this.”

Hazel beamed. “Great! I’ll let Frank know, and I’ll ask my friends from my horse riding lessons if they’d be interested in playing, and maybe we can get a group together in a couple weeks? Is that enough time to prepare something?”

“Probably.” Nico shrugged. 

“Okay, cool. Let’s do that then.” 

Hazel bid him goodbye with a kiss on the cheek, and hurried off in the direction of her history class while Nico walked to his biology class at a more leisurely pace. He usually dreaded the more science oriented classes, but he found he didn’t mind it so much today. If he got through this class, and then the next two after that, he could go home, crack open the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and do some research. 

He had a D&D campaign to plan. 

Nico was nervous. He had never DMed before, and somehow he felt too prepared and not prepared enough at the same time. He kept going over his notes as if he hadn’t memorised them already, making small changes and tweaking the wording here and there until everything was perfect . 

The original plan was to run Lost Mines of Phandelver since it was beginner friendly for both players and DMs, but Nico had abandoned it pretty quickly in favour of writing his own campaign. He didn’t think Hazel would like the senseless goblin violence in Lost Mines, and his only real goal for today’s session was to ensure that Hazel had a good time. The easiest way to do that was to write a campaign tailored just for her, and so write a campaign he did. The only problem with that is that he was now ten times as anxious about the quality of the game than he might have been otherwise

Nico had set up his DM screen in their dining room. It made the most sense to invite everyone over to their father’s manor since it was spacious, two of their five person group lived there, and Hades was off on a weekend trip with his new girlfriend (which Nico was resolutely not thinking about). Hazel was playing hostess and had put poor Frank to work, and the two of them were putting snacks together in the adjoining kitchen - a task that was apparently really funny, because the two of them had been giggling non-stop for whatever reason. 

Just when Nico’s nerves began to settle down somewhat, the doorbell rang and they spiked again. “I’ll get it!” Hazel called, dashing out of the kitchen in the direction of the front door. 

Nico busied himself with skimming his notes again, but kept an eye on the archway that led into the dining room. He heard Hazel greet her friends warmly and brightly, but then their voices fell to a hushed whisper and he got the distinct feeling something was wrong. 

He didn’t understand what until the three of them rounded the corner, and Nico’s eyes connected with all too familiar green ones. 

Percy Jackson. 

Hazel had invited Percy Jackson . 

Nico hadn’t seen Percy since he got expelled a few semesters ago, and he didn’t know Hazel even knew him considering that happened before she transferred to their school, and yet here he was. He looked good, all tall and fluffy haired and green-eyed, and Nico hated himself for ogling the man who got his sister killed. 

He couldn’t believe this was happening. It was like the universe fucking hated him. He thought he was done with Percy Jackson. What was he doing here ? 

Before either of them could say anything, Hazel darted to Nico’s side, touching his cheek to make him look at her instead of Percy fucking Jackson . “Nico, I am so sorry,” she said quietly but emphatically with the most guilt-stricken expression Nico had ever seen on her. “I had no idea he was the same Percy who-... you know. If I had known, I never would have invited him, I swear I would not have done that to you.”

“It’s fine,” Nico ground out even though it wasn’t. He didn’t want to blame Hazel for his current predicament, even if he was a little pissed at her for never mentioning her friends’ names (and more pissed at himself for never asking). 

“Do you want me to get rid of him?” Hazel asked sincerely, and the fact she was even considering it did help a little. “I… I don’t know what to do here.”

Nico glanced back at the doorway. Percy was eyeing him just as intensely as Nico was watching him, and he stood in a defensive stance as if Nico was a wild animal who would maul him if he so much as blinked wrong. 

Hazel’s other friend - a tall woman with a thick braid cascading over her shoulder - stood slightly off to the side with her arms crossed and an unreadable expression on her face. Nico didn’t recognise her (which was a relief after seeing Percy, and it said a lot about his current situation that he was glad to have a stranger in his home), but he was now acutely aware that this interaction had an audience. 

Nico’s instinctive reaction was yes, get rid of him , but that was warring with his desire not to express any emotion whatsoever in front of this literal stranger. It was bad enough that she had seen… whatever this was. He didn’t need his dirty laundry aired in front of her. 

Before he had a chance to make a decision, Percy spoke up. “Before you kick me out, can we talk first? Preferably just the two of us?”

The absolute last thing Nico wanted to do was talk to Percy alone, but he knew Percy well enough to know he was going to say his piece either way, and if Nico was going to hear it regardless, then he’d rather hear it in private. “Fine.” 

He pushed himself up off the dining chair, and followed Percy into the living room on the other side of the hall. With everyone watching them like this, it felt like he was being marched to his death, but he kept his head held high and pretended this wasn’t bothering him as much as it was. 

Nico shut the double doors into the living room behind them for privacy, but didn’t step any further into the room. He needed to know he had a quick escape route if this went sour. 

Percy was pacing back and forth by the coffee table as if his heart would stop if he wasn’t constantly moving. “I have so much I want to say to you, I don’t know where to start.” He cracked his knuckles, though whether it was out of intimidation or simply a nervous habit, Nico couldn’t tell. 

“Funny, I have nothing I want to say to you.”

Percy rolled his eyes at his attitude, but otherwise brushed past it. “Let me make it clear first of all that I didn’t know you were Hazel’s brother, or I wouldn’t have come. I mean, I thought it was weird she also had a brother named Nico who likes D&D, but I just assumed the name was more common than I thought. I wasn’t expecting Reyna to drive us to your house, or I would have dropped out. I wasn’t trying to blindside you.”

“You did though. You didn’t have to come in.”

“No, but I want to talk to you about Bianca.” 

Nico flinched at the sound of her name on Percy’s tongue. 

Percy stopped his pacing to face him. “Look. I know you don’t like talking about her with me. You’ve made that very clear in the past, but I have stuff I need to say to you for-... for closure or whatever, so let me talk. You don’t have to say anything, just… let me talk.”

On some level, Nico knew this was going to be a conversation about Bianca - she had been the elephant in the room between them since her death - but it still raised his hackles to hear Percy outright say it. Still, as messy as things were between them, he could never say no to Percy. 

Percy took a deep breath. “Nico… what happened to Bianca was not my fault, and it’s not fair that you keep putting the blame on me.” Nico opened his mouth to defend himself, but Percy quickly added, “ And I know you were just a kid at the time ! And you had just lost your sister and you were lashing out, and I get that. I really do. But it fucked me up for a long time.”

“You want an apology?” He crossed his arms. 

“I didn’t say that!” Percy was quick to defend. “It really pissed me off at the time, but I don’t blame you for reacting the way you did - not anymore. I was already blaming myself for the car crash before I spoke to you about it, so it wasn’t your fault that I was so messed up. I mean, it didn’t help, but I don’t blame you for it. It took me a long time to see it that way, but I see it now. I don’t blame myself for it anymore either - well, kind of. I’m still working on that part.” He shook his head. “ The point is that I guess… I guess I just wanted to make sure you understood that the accident wasn’t my fault, but I don’t blame you for viewing it that way.”

Percy stopped and looked at him, apparently expecting an answer, but what was Nico supposed to say? Bianca was his sister. Why the hell was he the one comforting Percy ?

Maybe he should apologise for blaming Percy for so long when it truly wasn’t his fault, but Nico was stubborn and annoyed and the words wouldn’t come out. “Okay,” he forced out instead. 

“Okay?” 

Nico rolled his eyes. Did he want him to spell it out for him? “I understand it wasn’t your fault, and I’ve known that for a while now. That doesn’t mean I want to talk to you about it.”

“That’s fair! That’s absolutely fair!” Percy’s shoulders sagged as if a weight had been lifted off of them. “We’ve never exactly been close.” He cracked a sheepish smile. 

No kidding. Nico was pretty sure Percy only put up with him for as long as he did because he was Bianca’s little brother. Even if Nico hadn’t shut him out after her death, he doubted Percy or any of the others would have stayed in contact anyway. They were never friends. Even Grover and Annabeth who were generally nice to him found him more annoying than not. 

“So… do you want me to leave?” Percy asked, slipping his hands into his hoodie pockets. “I kind of promised Hazel I would play with her, but that was before… all of this. I don’t want to stay if it’s going to be weird.”

It was definitely going to be weird. Nico had braced himself for today’s session to be weird without Bianca, but he was not mentally prepared to play with Percy too. 

But Hazel invited Percy for a reason, and if she wanted to play with him, then he would feel bad for kicking him out. He knew she would understand, but he still couldn’t bring himself to disappoint Hazel. 

“You can stay, but you’re not allowed to talk about Bianca in front of me. I can’t… I just can’t.” 

“Of course.” Percy nodded. “Thanks, man. I haven’t had a chance to play since Annabeth moved back home with her Dad, so… I appreciate it.”

Nico had intended to flee the room, but that caught his attention. “She left the foster home?”

“Yeah, well, Luke was long gone, and Thalia’s travelling around the country now, so it was just her left, and she also wanted to try fixing things with her Dad. She’ll be back for college.” 

Nico nodded. It was weird to think about how everyone was moving on with their lives after Bianca’s death when he still felt so… stagnant, but he was not in a place mentally to think about that right now. “Cool,” he said. “We should um… go back to the others.”

Without waiting for an answer, Nico opened the double doors and all but ran out of the room. 

The others were sitting at the table, talking amongst themselves while Nico and Percy were gone, but they promptly fell silent when they returned. Nico tried not to feel judged as he made his way back behind the DM screen, but he could at least take solace in the knowledge that the attention would be taken off of him soon (at least, for this reason).

“Are you okay?” Hazel asked quietly, leaning in towards him once he was back in his seat. 

“I’m okay,” Nico told her, even though he wasn’t entirely convinced that he was. Their conversation seemed to have some benefit for Percy, but Nico couldn’t say he felt any better. He at least didn’t feel worse , and maybe that was the best he could ask for when it came to Percy Jackson. “I’ll tell you later.”

Hazel didn’t seem reassured, but she accepted that response with a nod and sat back in her seat next to Frank. 

On his other side, Hazel’s horse-riding friend - what did Percy call her? Reyna? - was watching him. She wasn’t judging him, nor did it look like she was going to comment on what happened, but Nico still felt obligated to apologise regardless. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Family stuff. I get it,” she said with a shrug, and that was that. 

Nico took a moment to reorganise his notes if only to give himself a second to calm down. He looked up at the table to see everyone watching him patiently and kindly. Percy flashed him an encouraging smile, and Nico turned his attention to Hazel because she was much easier to look at. “Should we start?”

“If you want to,” Hazel said softly - clearly worried, but willing to follow his lead. 

Nico took a deep breath, and nodded. “Let’s just get into it.” He looked down at his notes and realised he didn’t know how to start. What did Annabeth do in their first game? “You should introduce your characters first.” 

Hazel, mercifully, took it from there. “Shall I go first?” Nico nodded, and Hazel pulled out her character sheet. “Okay. So, I am an elf wizard specialising in illusion magic,” she explained with a smile. “My character actually died prior to the campaign, and she has very hazy memories of who she was before and what her life was like, but she sometimes has flashbacks that give her little glimpses of her past. She’s adventuring to try and learn more about her past, and understand why this is happening to her.”

Nico began to properly relax as Hazel talked about her character. It warmed his heart to see her genuinely so excited to play, and it brought back memories of watching Bianca do this exact thing. It wasn’t quite the same as Hazel actually wanted to play and put in the effort to learn the game, but still, it felt nice to be playing D&D with a sister again. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as weird as he thought. 

“Thanks, Hazel. Frank?”

Frank nodded, and sat up a little straighter, towering over everyone else at the table. “Right. Um… I’m playing a human druid, who is… very conflicted, because his Mom wants him to be a druid like her, but his Dad is a soldier and wants him to follow in his footsteps, so he’s torn between both sides of his heritage. I don’t know which path he’s going to go down yet, I’ll see which way the roleplay takes me, but I am excited to multiclass into barbarian eventually.” Frank grinned at him.

“Not if I kill your character first, Zhang.”

“Good luck. Circle of the moon druids are underrated tanks.”

Nico rolled his eyes. “We’ll see about that.” He turned to the next person down the line, and whatever fun he was beginning to have was quickly dissolved. “Percy?” Nico said and pretended to take interest in his notes so he didn’t have to make eye contact. 

Percy deftly ignored the weird tension. “Okay! So, I’m playing a triton fighter who was a famous folk hero back in his hometown after he single handedly defeated a minotaur. It’s funny, Hazel, that you’re doing memory stuff with your character, because I also gave mine amnesia.”

“Oh really?” Hazel beamed.

“Really! My character is also trying to remember who he is, but instead of flashbacks, he has dreams of a woman from his past life that he thinks is his girlfriend, and he’s desperate to figure out who she is and to get back to her.”

“Fun! We’re amnesia buddies!” Hazel leaned across the table, and she and Percy wiggled their fingers together in what was apparently the amnesia buddies secret handshake. 

“Cool,” Nico agreed, and swiftly moved on. “Reyna?”

Reyna nodded curtly and turned to the group. "I'm playing a human paladin. She was the leader of a small community, but was overthrown and ousted when an old friend performed a coup on her in a bid for power. She's now figuring out who she is when not a leader, but hopes to return to her home and regain the respect of her former community. She also has two dogs named Aurum and Argentum."

In hindsight, Nico should have looked over their character sheets beforehand as he wasn't sure he would have allowed Reyna to have two pets if he had known, but the others were excited and he was emotionally exhausted after his talk with Percy, so he let it slide. 

"Thanks, Reyna. If that's all, let's get into it." As Hazel and Percy cheered excitedly, Nico looked down at his notes. "So, the four of you have signed up to compete in a war games competition against four other squads in which you have to attack and then defend a fort…."

“Frank, you look over and see Gwen lying on her side with a sword sticking out of her armour. It almost looks like she’s holding it between her arm and her side, but there’s too much blood.”

Frank bit his lip. “Is she still alive? Can I do a medicine check?”

“No need. You check her pulse, and find that she’s not breathing, and her skin is an ashen grey.”

A sombre mood descended over the table, and Nico was proud of himself for making an NPC likeable enough to instil that sort of reaction. 

“Can I investigate the body?”

“Sure. Make an investigation check.”

Frank rolled one of his bright red dice. “Sixteen?”

“You take another look at the sword, and notice that whoever did this, stabbed her in the back. You also notice that there’s an inscription on it that states it belongs to someone from the first squad, and when you look over at them, you notice that Octavian is missing his weapon.”

Nico watched in quiet amusement as the players erupted in anger and indignation. So far, they were reacting exactly as he hoped they would to each plot point, and it was validating. Maybe he was going to be a better DM than he thought. 

“As you’re all yelling, Gwen suddenly takes a gasp and opens her eyes….” 

“Can I check if Octavian is lying?”

“Make an insight check.”

Reyna rolled one of her gold and silver dice, and frowned. “That’s a four.”

“You can’t tell. He’s hard to read.”

Reyna hummed, staring at her sheet in thought. “Can my dogs make an insight check?”

Nico stared at her. “...You want your dogs to check if he’s lying?”

“They’re greyhounds. Greyhounds are smart.”

“Dogs can’t make insight checks.”

“Oh come on, Nico,” Hazel piped up. “Lie detecting dogs would be so fun!”

If anyone else had asked, he would have put his foot down. “Fine, but you’ll need to roll high, or otherwise-”

“Natural twenty.”

As the others cheered, Nico ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. He sighed. “Reyna, you watch as Aurum and Argentum arch their backs, bare their teeth, and growl at Octavian. You get the sense that they don’t trust him.”

“You’ve completed a long rest, so you can replenish all your HP, get all your spell slots back, and any other abilities you’ve used.” 

“Did I get any dreams from my girlfriend?” Percy asked. 

Nico froze. “What?”

“From my backstory. My girlfriend talks to me in my dreams sometimes. Did I get one from her?”

Every single one of Nico’s muscles tensed, and his chest felt tight. He could say ‘no’ and move on, but he would feel bad if he didn’t give the same character opportunities to Percy as he did the others…. 

“Uh… yes. When you fall asleep that night, you dream you’re running through a dense fog, and a uh… blonde woman in a ponytail is running alongside you. ‘ Thank the gods !’” Nico pitched his voice up, and ignored the deeply uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. ‘ For months and months, we couldn’t see you! Are you all right! ’” 

“Is she pretty?” 

Nico swallowed. “Very.”

“Then I’m going to look at her, gasp, and say ‘ Are you real? ’”

Yeah, Nico was not roleplaying as Percy’s girlfriend longer than what was absolutely necessary. 

“You watch as her face begins to dissolve, and she calls out to you to stay where you are so she can find you, and then disappears.”

“Shit.”

“Uh… Then the scene shifts, and you’re standing on the grassy hills you fought in earlier. The ground begins to shift and a woman’s face appears in the ground….”

“Hazel, make a dex save.”

It took Hazel a moment to find where that information was on her character sheet, but she knew what to do without explanation and Nico was so proud of how fast she was picking up the game. She rolled one of the sparkly d20s Nico had gifted her from his old collection, and winced at the result. “That’s a two.”

“Everyone, you watch as the long grass suddenly wraps around Hazel, and yanks her into the field.”

Frank sat up straight. “Wait, what? Can we follow her?”

“She was dragged away so fast and the grass is so tall that you didn’t see which direction she went. You’ll have to make a survival check to look for tracks you can follow.”

“Oh man,” Percy said with a laugh, “this makes me miss having a ranger in the party-” He realised what he said too late. 

Nico’s entire body went cold. 

They didn’t have a ranger anymore, because Bianca….

Maybe he couldn’t do this, actually. 

“Nico, are you okay?” Hazel asked and touched his hand in concern, but Nico quickly yanked himself out of her grip. 

“I need a minute. Don’t follow me.” 

His chair scraped across the wooden floor as he abruptly stood up and stormed out of the room. 

Nico slid the glass door shut, and made a beeline to the corner of the back patio. He opened the box where Hades stored the wood for the firepit, and dug around until he found his father’s not-so-secret stash of emergency cigarettes. He double checked Hazel couldn’t see him from the windows, and then tucked himself into the corner and lit one.

He coughed through the first couple of drags as he had only smoked a few times before (the first time out of curiosity, and every time after that out of stress), but once he got the hang of it, some of the lingering tension faded away. He didn’t know if it was the cigarettes or simply getting out of the house for a little bit, but he felt better out here away from everyone else (or at least, away from a certain someone in particular). 

Nico knew the moment of peace wouldn’t last, and he was proved correct when the glass doors slid open and shut. He was expecting Hazel, maybe Percy if he wanted to corner him into another “talk”, but was surprised to see it was Reyna. 

“You’re too young for that habit,” she said with less judgement than he suspected anyone else would have given him, and crossed the back patio to join him. 

“Don’t tell Hazel.” 

“It’s none of my business.” Reyna shrugged and sat on the deck next to him, back to the wall of the house. 

Nico watched her for a moment, and didn’t relax again until he was sure she wasn’t going to tell him off. He couldn’t fully relax though, not when he couldn’t tell why she had followed him outside in the first place, but Reyna didn’t look like she was going to say anything anytime soon, so he tried to enjoy the companionable silence. 

He should have known that wasn’t going to last either. 

The cigarette had burned almost to his fingertips when Reyna finally turned to him. "I'm not usually one to insert myself into other people's business, but I see some of myself in you, and there are things I wish people had said to me that I'd like to say to you now, if you'll let me." 

Nico blinked in surprise. Where was this going? "What do you mean?" 

Reyna watched him for a moment. "...I had an older sister too. She's still alive, so I won't claim to understand exactly what you're going through, but we're no longer on speaking terms. It's a different kind of loss but a kind of loss nonetheless. What I do understand is what it's like to be reminded of her at every turn, and feel like you can't enjoy certain things because she used to enjoy them too." 

Nico groaned and banged the back of his head against the wall. "What did Hazel tell you?" 

"Not much. Only that your sister died, and that Percy was there. I figured everything else out myself." 

Oh great. That was worse, because it meant he hadn't been doing as good of a job pretending to be okay as he thought. 

Sensing his discomfort, Reyna added, "I only picked up on it because I was in your position once myself. Hylla and I were on the lacrosse team together, but when she moved away and we stopped talking… I lost my passion for it. Out of the corner of my eye, everyone on the field looked like her. I stopped going to practise because I couldn’t take the reminder.” She closed her eyes, and rested the back of her head against the wall. 

Reyna was being deliberately vague with the details, and from the slow way she was talking, Nico got the impression that even saying what she did say was hard for her. 

“It took me a long time to overcome that, but I’m glad I did. I love lacrosse, I love leading the team, and I’m glad I didn’t let myself lose my passion as well as my sister.” She turned to face Nico again. “I got the impression from talking to Hazel, and watching you interact with Percy that you feel similarly about D&D?” 

Nico took a long drag from his cigarette to give himself a moment to think. He hated being read like this, and hated talking about his personal life with people he barely knew even more. 

…But if Reyna was willing to confide in him about something painful for his sake, then maybe he could confide in her too. She seemed to understand how he felt, and she didn’t judge him for smoking, so maybe she wouldn’t judge him for this either. 

“...This is the first time I’ve played it since she died for… for all the reasons you said,” he admitted, twiddling what was left of the cigarette in his fingers. “I thought it was going to be a lot weirder than it was to play without her. I was actually doing okay until Percy… until Percy brought up her old character.”

“I can see why that would be hard,” Reyna said kindly. 

“Yeah,” Nico let out a shaky breath. “The worst part is that Bianca didn’t even like D&D, so it feels stupid sometimes to associate it with her so heavily, but she played every single month for years just so I could have someone to play with, and it’s hard not to think of that when D&D comes up. It’s even worse with Percy here, because I can’t look at him at all without thinking of her.”

“Because he was there when she died?”

“That, and because it was his apartment we used to play in,” Nico explained, shutting his eyes. “Him being there is the bigger hangup though. I… I know that what happened wasn’t his fault, but… the night she died, he promised he would keep her safe, and he didn’t. I know, logically, there was nothing he could have done to save her, but I just can’t get that thought to stick. Every time I look at him, I can’t help but think that if he drove more carefully, or was a little more observant, or hell, if Bianca wasn’t friends with him or Thalia in the first place, then maybe she would still be here. I know it’s not fair, but… I don’t know. I think it’s easier to deal with if I have someone to blame.”

And that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Because if it wasn’t Percy’s fault, then it meant that Bianca died senselessly and without reason, and that was a harder reality to accept. 

Reyna patted him on the knee, but didn’t try to argue with him or change his mind, which he appreciated. He knew he was wrong. Being told so wasn’t helpful. “Have you spoken to someone about this?”

“Hazel, but I don’t know how much she gets it. Her grief for Bianca is different from mine.”

Reyna nodded. “She’s also a teenager. What I mean was do you talk to a professional, or an adult about this? Your father?”

Nico snorted. “My Dad and I don’t have that kind of relationship.”

“Fair enough. I didn’t either.” Reyna cracked a bitter smile before moving on. “I hope I’m not crossing a boundary here, but if you’re having trouble accepting it, then talking to a professional might help.” 

Nico looked away. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of a therapist. That would mean there was something wrong with him. “I don’t know.”

“Up to you,” was all Reyna said to that. She didn’t try to push him, and in a weird way, it made him more inclined to consider it. 

“I’ll think about it.”

Reyna nodded and let the topic drop. 

They sat in peaceful silence until Nico finished his cigarette, and hid the evidence underneath the firewood box. He would have to clean it up properly later, but that would have to wait until a day when Hazel wasn’t watching him like a hawk. 

“If it’s too hard… you don’t have to play with Percy,” Reyna said as Nico was cleaning up. “I think he would understand.”

Nico sighed. “I’ll finish today, but I think that’s all I can do. Maybe one day I’ll feel comfortable playing with him again, but… not yet.”

Reyna nodded. “That’s fine. The four of us can play just fine on our own.” She climbed to her feet, and then offered Nico a hand to help him up too. 

“That sounds much better.” Nico dusted off his jeans, and watched as Reyna did the same. As she stepped towards the glass doors, he stopped her. “Reyna… thanks for… all of that.” 

Reyna’s expression softened. “Of course.”

“If you ever need someone to talk to about your sister, or to commiserate on shitty fathers… you can talk to me, if you want.” He shrugged, awkwardly putting his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t good at this sort of thing, but he wanted to repay the favour if he could. 

“...I might take you up on that. Thank you,” Reyna smiled gently. “Not right now though. I think I’ve hit my quota for meaningful conversations.”

Nico let out a light laugh. “I think I’ve surpassed mine.”

“Then let’s go inside and pretend to hit things, and not think about feelings anymore, shall we?”

That was the best gift she could have offered him, and Nico gladly followed her inside. 

Chapter Text

The college dorms were a sensory nightmare. 

The corridors were packed with new students and parents carrying boxes and pulling suitcases towards whatever bedroom they had been assigned. A cacophony of voices carried through the open doors, and someone was blasting Taylor Swift down the hall. There were a lot of new sights and sounds and smells that Nico was not prepared to deal with today. He had never liked the cold silent manor he had grown up in, but he was already missing it if this was what he was going to be subjected to for the next academic year. 

"It'll calm down once everyone has settled in," Reyna reassured him as she followed him through the people, carrying one of the two boxes containing the few possessions he deigned to bring with him to college. "It's only this busy because it's moving day." 

"And if you find you don't like it, then you can come back home to me," Hazel sang, carrying the other box behind Reyna. 

"I can do that," Nico mumbled, glancing through an open door only to catch two people already making out, and quickly looked away again. 

He was already feeling bad about abandoning Hazel to deal with their father and future stepmother by herself, and now that he saw the dorms for the first time, it would take only one word from her and he would be back in his childhood bedroom in a flash. 

She didn't though, because she was evil and hated him and wanted him to do things like talk to people and make friends . He already had her, Reyna, and Frank. What more did he need?

"No, no! You're already here! You should try it first! At least see your room before you make any rash decisions." 

He nodded. Hazel was right as she usually was, but that didn't make him any less anxious by this drastic life change. He only hoped that Reyna was right, and things would chill out once everyone had settled in. 

Nico kept an eye on the numbers on the doors until he found the one the perky volunteer had assigned him towards the end of the corridor. 

Room 137, his new home. 

It also happened to be the room blasting Taylor Swift. 

Was it too early to drop out? 

His new roommate had claimed the twin XL on the left side of the room, and was currently standing on the mattress as he pinned Star Wars posters above the bed, apparently so tall he had to duck his blonde head to avoid banging it on the ceiling. He was wearing a bright orange t-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts - two items of clothing Nico couldn’t imagine wearing separately, nevermind together - and a couple of those beaded friendship bracelets he vaguely remembered making the one year his father had shipped him to summer camp before his mother died. 

When Nico awkwardly shuffled into the room, New Roommate perked up like a dog at the sound of the doorbell, and bashed his head into the roof. “ Shit ,” he muttered as he hopped off the bed, but his little accident did nothing to wipe the bright smile off his face, so excited at the mere prospect of meeting a new person. 

Nico knew instantly that he and New Roommate were not going to get along. 

(At least his face was nice to look at, all soft and freckled. Nico didn’t know eyes could be that blue.)

New Roommate mercifully turned off the music on his phone, and then crossed the room. "Hi! I'm Will!" He greeted him with a hand outstretched as if Nico was about to interview him for a job, but Nico shook it anyway to be polite. Now that they were next to each other, Nico absently noted that Will was half a head taller than him. 

"Nico," he returned, and then gestured to the girls behind them, "and this is my friend, Reyna, and my sister, Hazel."

"It's nice to meet y'all," Will nodded at them each in turn before focusing back on Nico. “It looks like we're going to be roommates this year!” 

“Looks like it.”

“So what are you majoring in? I’m pre-med.” Will grinned, clearly very proud of that choice. 

Nico shifted uncomfortably. “Uh… nothing yet. I’m undeclared.” 

He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to go to college at all . He was only here because he didn’t know what else to do after high school, and his father pressured him into it. He promised Hazel, and his therapist Mr. D, and quite frankly himself that he would try, but he had his doubts he would still be enrolled by the end of freshman year. 

He wasn’t going to tell perfect pre-med probably-has-his-whole-life-figured-out Will that though. 

“That’s cool. Any ideas what you might want to do?” 

Nico shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe history or classics, or maybe literature or creative writing. Something like that.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Will said, kind and supportive. “Well, I’ll leave you to get settled in. If you need me, I’ll be… over there.” He pointed a thumb at his bed. He then grabbed his phone, popped his earbuds in, and climbed back up on his mattress to resume pinning up his posters, careful not to bang his head on the ceiling this time. 

Nico relaxed now that he didn’t have those unsettlingly blue eyes on him anymore, and he wheeled his suitcase over to his dresser to unpack later. Hazel set her box on top of it, and then leaned in towards him. “None of that sounded like a business major,” she whispered, brow raised. 

“Dad can fuck himself if he thinks I’m studying business,” Nico scoffed, keeping his voice low. “Don’t tell him. I don’t want him to know until it’s too late for either of us to do anything about it.”

“Please, he’ll have to acknowledge I exist first.” Hazel rolled her eyes. 

Reyna set her box next to Hazel’s, and sidled into their hushed conversation. “At least your roommate seems nice.” 

Nico looked over at Will as he lined up another Star Wars poster next to the one already on the wall, humming along to whatever song he was listening to. If that was something he did often, then they were definitely going to have a problem. 

“I guess we’ll see.”

Will Solace was driving Nico up the fucking wall. Whoever was in charge of room allocations could not have assigned him a worse roommate. 

Not only did he hum incessantly, but Will was the kind of person who was incapable of sitting still and always had to be doing something. If he wasn't in class or at work, then he was studying, or tidying their room, or exercising, or trying to engage Nico in conversation to varying degrees of success. It was impossible to have a quiet moment when Will was in their room because he was always making noise. He thankfully wore earbuds when he was listening to something, but it defeated the purpose when he sang along with his music or muttered along with his movies. The only reprieve Nico got was when Will fell asleep. 

It didn't help that Will was a morning person either. He woke up every morning at six am to go for a run, and even though he tried to be quiet, Nico had never shared a room with someone before and Will's alarm jostled him awake every time. He then woke him up again an hour later when Will came back to get ready for class. Will did sleep in until eight on the weekends, but it was still a whole two hours earlier than what Nico would consider waking up by choice, and he was desperately missing the peace of his father's manor. 

And then there was the sock on the door handle incident. Will had insisted early on that if either of them brought someone back to their dorm room for a - ahem - private moment , they should put a sock on the door handle to warn the other not to come in. At the first (and so far only) opportunity to follow that rule, Will forgot about it and Nico walked in on him making out with some random girl he had never seen before. 

(The Incident bothered him slightly less when he found out Will was bi and not straight, and Will was certain that said girl was probably not going to come around again. Still, Nico didn't like the reminder of how inexperienced he was in the relationship department compared to the other freshmen. He wasn't looking for a boyfriend - that historically had never ended well for him - but he knew he would never be the one putting the sock on the door handle, and that reality was easier to ignore if Will wasn't either.) 

Maybe Will wasn't actually that annoying and Nico simply wasn't used to being around another person this often (even Hazel would give him his personal space), but even so, he wasn't sure how much longer he could tolerate this before he snapped. 

It all came to a head over a pack of cigarettes. 

Nico rifled through his bedside drawer looking for the pack he was sure he had thrown in there the night before, but now he could only find his lighter. He double checked his jacket pockets, and then his backpack in case he misremembered where he put them, but he didn’t understand why he would have put his lighter in the drawer but not the things he needed the lighter for . 

“Looking for these?”

Nico turned around to see Will standing behind him, shaking the familiar pack of cigarettes in his hand with a smug grin on his face.

What the fuck.

“Give me those!” Nico moved to snatch them back, but Will used his taller height to his advantage and held them high above Nico’s head - much higher than Nico could reach on even ground. 

What was happening? Was he getting bullied? Will seemed far too nice for that, but now he was having doubts. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” He levelled his best death glare at him, but Will was annoyingly unphased. 

“Helping you. These are bad for you, you know.”

If Nico had rolled his eyes any harder, he would have hurt himself. “Really? Cigarettes are bad for me? I never would have known.” He (embarrassingly) jumped up to try to grab them out of Will’s hand, but Will deftly moved them out of the way. “For fuck’s sake Solace, give those back . I’m having a bad day. I need them.”

“You don’t need them. Nobody needs cigarettes,” Will said matter-of-factly, proving to Nico that he actually could get more annoying. “Besides, studies show that cigarettes actually cause stress and anxiety in the long term, so if stress is an ongoing problem, it would be more beneficial to quit.” 

Nico could only stare in disbelief that Will was lecturing him right now. He knew perfect pre-med Will was something of a health nut, but this was crossing a line. “What I do to my body is none of your business.”

That at least made the smile disappear, but Will didn’t move. “Maybe,” he conceded with no small amount of reluctance, “but what is my business is how often you and our room smells of smoke because of this. I can’t stand the smell of cigarettes, and I need it to stop.”

This was the first time that Nico realised that maybe Will found him to be an annoying roommate too, but he was too pissed to care at that moment. “So that’s what this is about? The smell? Not my health?” 

“It can be about two things,” Will shot back defensively, and Nico rolled his eyes again. 

“It doesn’t matter. Just give them back before I take them from you.”

Will had the gall to laugh. “Oh yeah? And how are you going to do that?” 

Without thinking twice about it, Nico grabbed Will’s shoulders for leverage and jumped, wrapping his legs around Will’s midsection for support as he stretched up to reach for the cigarettes. 

What Nico didn’t account for was Will having the sturdiness of a giraffe, and with a surprised squeak, Will lost his footing, backed up into the bed frame, and they both tumbled down onto Will’s bed. 

Nico landed on Will hard enough to wind him, and he might have felt bad about it if the circumstances were different. Instead, he took advantage of Will’s stunned demeanour to make a grab for the cigarettes, only for Will to hold them off the edge of the bed with his freakishly long arms. 

Will wrestled a leg free and hooked it around Nico’s waist, and flipped them over so Nico was on his back underneath him. Nico thrashed in an attempt to wriggle free, but Will was bigger and heavier, and knew how to use that to his advantage. Will lay a forearm across Nico’s chest and used his weight to pin him down, and held the cigarettes aloft with his other. 

“I used to have two older brothers and I’m half a foot taller than you, this is not a fight you can win!” Will grinned triumphantly. 

Nico glared and bared his teeth at him, but he doubted he looked particularly intimidating from this angle. “I will bite you if you don’t get off .”

Will’s smile dropped, his eyes widened, and his face flushed a cherry red. It suddenly dawned on Nico that threatening to bite his roommate while he was straddling him had… implications he did not think about. 

Unintentional or not, it worked and Will climbed off of him. “Fine. Here.” He dropped the pack unceremoniously onto Nico’s chest. “Sorry for not wanting you to slowly kill yourself, I guess.”

Nico didn’t dignify that with a response. He scrambled off the bed - Will’s bed - and shoved his cigarettes, lighter, and keys into his jacket pockets before storming out of the room and slamming the door behind him.

It was an entire day before Nico could bring himself to talk to Will again. He made a point to avoid going to their room at times he knew Will would be home, instead choosing to study at the library and hang out with Reyna until after Will would have likely gone to bed. 

This level of avoidance was not tenable, and he knew that. They would have to speak again eventually, but Nico was stubborn and held onto grudges like heirlooms, and he refused to apologise when he was certain Will was the one in the wrong. 

Nico was considering requesting a room change (Reyna thought he was being ridiculous, but what did she know, she lived off-campus with three other girls) when he returned home late at night only to find that it smelled like watermelon and an ocean breeze. 

Will was still awake, and was reclined back against his pillows with a textbook in his lap and yellow highlighter in hand, though Nico was sure he was only pretending to study. Next to him on the bedside table was a scented candle. 

They weren’t allowed candles in the dorm - not that Nico cared about following rules, but it did surprise him that Will had broken one. Maybe he wasn’t as perfect as he thought. 

“What’s that?” Nico asked, his curiosity overwhelming his need to be petty. 

“A peace offering.” 

Nico frowned as he stepped closer to examine the candle - summertime scented, just like Will himself. “A peace offering?”

Will sighed and set down his textbook. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I realise I was being a dick to you yesterday,” he said, voice softer than Nico had ever heard it. “I mean, cigarettes are bad for you, and I do hate the smell of them - hence the candle - but it wasn't right of me to take them from you, and I'm sorry. I was out of line."

Nico blinked. He wasn’t expecting an apology, and wasn’t prepared to receive one. "I am trying to quit, you know. It was just… a moment of weakness, and the judgement didn't help." 

Will grimaced. "I'm sorry. I promise I won't bring it up again." 

"Thanks." Nico awkwardly stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Sorry I attacked you.”

“I’d hardly call that ‘attacking’ me. It was ‘wrestling’ at worst.” Will cracked the tiniest of smiles. It shouldn’t have been as relieving as it was. “It wasn’t like you were trying to hurt me.” He paused. “...Were you?”

Nico shrugged. “You gave me my cigarettes back, so I guess you’ll never know.”

Will rolled his eyes, but there was no heat behind it. “Dick.” He shot Nico another tiny smile, but it soon faded as he looked back down at his textbook, fiddling with his highlighter almost nervously. “I guess I should explain that I was having a bad day yesterday too. My brothers died five years ago, and it was the anniversary of their deaths.”

Wait, what?

“Both Lee and Michael used to smoke, so the smell always reminded me of them. I was having a rough day, and I took it out on you, and that wasn’t fair and I’m sorry.”

Nico barely registered the additional apology, too hung up on the details. 

Will had dead siblings too? 

Nico had never met anyone else with a deceased sibling before. Mr. D had suggested group grief counselling early on in their sessions together, but Nico hadn’t been willing to do that sort of thing at the time. It was hard enough opening up to one stranger, nevermind a whole circle of them. This was new territory for him, and it was oddly… thrilling. 

“I get it.”

Nico’s tone was more emphatic than he intended, and Will looked up at him in surprise. “...You do?”

Nico nodded, and sat down on the edge of Will’s bed. “My sister died when I was thirteen. The anniversary is always really hard. Being around things that remind me of her is always really hard. I would have done the same thing.”

Will’s eyes widened, and Nico couldn’t be sure, but it looked like he was having the same revelation that Nico had a moment ago. Will set his textbook on his bedside table and shuffled down the bed to sit cross-legged closer to Nico. “How did it happen?”

“Car accident. There was a storm, and the other driver ran a red light. They didn’t see each other through the rain until it was too late.”

“That sucks,” Will said with understanding, and not the pity Nico usually got which was refreshing. “Lee and Michael went in a car accident too. There was a car pileup on a bridge back in Austin, but they weren’t able to brake in time. They hit the other cars so hard they flipped off the bridge into the river. The coroner ruled that Lee died in the impact, but Michael drowned.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. Fuck.”

They stared at each other, blue eyes on brown. Nico wondered if Will was thinking the same thing he was. 

This was someone who understood him, who experienced the same devastating loss he did. Will knew what it was like to walk around with a hole in his heart because he had one too. 

Nico never had someone in his life who got it like that before. Hazel understood the loss of a parent, but she mourned a sibling she never knew. Reyna was in the slow process of reconnecting with her sister (and he was so proud of her for taking that step, even if he was jealous that it was a step she could take in the first place). Mr. D understood of course, but in a clinical textbook way. If he felt that kind of grief, he never shared it with Nico. 

But Will felt it. Will knew. Will could relate. 

It wasn’t a question of if Will understood that grief, but to what depth, and Nico was desperate to find out. 

Opening up was scary, but maybe it would be worth it. After all, he had allowed himself to open up to Reyna all those years ago, and now she was his best friend. Maybe Will could be a friend too, if he let him, and if it went badly, then at least he still had Hazel, Reyna, and Frank. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Will asked gently, gaze soft but unwavering. 

For the first time possibly ever, Nico found that he did. 

They stayed up talking until the early hours of the morning, and Nico told Will… everything. 

How it felt to first find out. 

How much he struggled to enjoy doing the things he used to do with Bianca. 

How he regretted that he never got the chance to come out to her, and how he suspected that she already knew. 

Blaming Percy for her death just to have something to blame. 

He even told him about the darker thoughts, the ones he had only ever shared with Mr. D. 

"Do you ever… resent them?" Nico asked quietly. 

They had laid down at some point facing each other, Will with his back flush to the wall, and Nico balancing on the edge of the mattress. There wasn't a lot of space between them, but he strangely didn't mind. 

"Sometimes," Will admitted. "I have younger siblings too, and it was hard suddenly becoming the oldest. There were times I felt like I couldn't grieve them because Austin and Kayla needed me to be strong. I feel really bad about it, but sometimes I resented Lee and Michael for dumping all this responsibility onto my shoulders that I wasn't prepared to deal with. It felt like they abandoned me, you know?" 

"Yeah. Bianca was the only person I had in my life at the time that I felt unconditionally loved me. When she died, I had no one and I felt abandoned," Nico explained in turn. "That's not what I meant though. Did you ever resent them when they were alive?" 

Will's expression softened. "Did you resent Bianca?" 

Nico nodded. "She wasn't very nice to me sometimes. I used to be a lot more… excitable back then. She would tune me out a lot, and get annoyed if I talked for too long. She used to pawn me off on the driver just so she wouldn't have to listen to me anymore." He laughed bitterly. "The last conversation we ever had was an argument where she implied I was a burden on her. I understand now that she felt suffocated over how much she had to parent me because our Mom was gone and Dad was never around, but… it messed me up. I can’t talk for too long without worrying I’m being annoying. It’s hard not to resent her for that, but I feel like a bad person for thinking ill of her when she's dead." 

“You’re not a bad person,” Will reassured him.

“That’s easier said than believed. Bianca sacrificed so much for me. She played D&D every month just because she knew I liked it. She helped me with my homework, and made sure I had dinner every night because our mother was dead and our father was never around to do any of that stuff. She had every right to be sick of me sometimes considering she never got to do anything for herself, but… it still hurt that the person I cared about most didn’t care about what I had to say. I feel like an asshole for thinking of her as anything other than a saint.”

"You're not," Will reassured him again. "Her death doesn't erase the fact she made you feel bad about yourself sometimes. Good people are still capable of hurting others, and it doesn't make you a bad person to acknowledge that." 

"I understand that in theory, but it's hard to wrap my head around in practice." He sighed. "Sometimes I wonder if she was right to ignore me. Maybe I deserved it." 

"You didn't." Will grabbed his hand and squeezed it, and Nico looked into those blue blue eyes. "Nico. You didn't ." 

Nico squeezed his hand back. 

Looking at Will now, it was hard for him to believe he ever saw him as anything other than a kindred spirit. 

Something shifted between them after that. 

They hashed out their problems and made compromises so they didn’t get on each other’s nerves quite as often. Will stopped humming and mumbling along to songs and movies, and true to his word, he never pestered Nico about the smoking again. Nico would light a scented candle any time he did smoke, and complained less about Will’s early mornings. 

However, Nico found that now that he actually liked Will, all of his annoying habits weren’t so annoying anymore. When Will’s alarm went off at six on the dot, Nico would simply roll over and fall back to sleep. Will constantly tidying and reorganising their room was a comforting presence, a reminder that someone enjoyed his company enough to exist in the same space as him for long periods of time. Even the humming became more endearing than anything else. 

Nico and Will were actually friends , and he felt light and giddy just thinking about it. 

He had a friend that he made all on his own. 

Hazel and Reyna were going to be so proud of him when they found out. He wondered if Bianca would have been proud too. 

Nico was lounging on his bed doing DM prep for that weekend’s session when Will returned from class. 

“I don’t know how you speak Italian, it’s so confusing,” Will announced in lieu of a greeting, tossing his backpack onto his bed. It amused Nico endlessly that Will excelled at complicated STEM subjects, but struggled with the things that came easy to Nico like languages and essay writing.

<<It’s because I grew up in Italy, dumbass,>> Nico fired back in Italian just to be petty. 

“Stop showing off, and budge over.” Will poked him in the side, and without waiting for Nico to move, flopped dramatically onto the bed with him. 

There was barely enough room for them both in the bed when Nico was leaving him space, so in his current position, Will ended up half on top of him with an arm thrown across Nico’s waist. 

Will was very… handsy, Nico was learning. He liked touching and being touched, and now that they were friends, Nico was on the receiving end of those touches more often than not. 

A squeeze of the shoulder when Will walked behind Nico while he was at his desk. 

A grab of the hand when they were walking together, and Will wanted to pull him off in another direction. 

A touch on the lower back when they were passing by each other in a tight space. 

That thing where Will covered his eyes from behind and made him guess who it was, as if there was a single other person on campus who would ever dare to cover Nico’s eyes without warning. 

Nico wasn’t a fan of touching usually, but with Will… well, he didn’t know how he felt about it. He knew Will would stop if he asked - he was good about that sort of thing - but Nico didn’t ask. He didn’t have a reason not to, he just… didn’t. He let it happen. 

And that was the most confusing part of all. 

“Let me move first.” Nico shuffled out from underneath Will closer to the wall. Their sides were still pressed together and Will’s arm was still on him, but Nico was less trapped than before and that made it easier to breathe. 

(Marginally. His heart was still racing, probably because there was a boy in his bed, and even though it was just Will, no amount of reminders that it was just Will would slow his heart rate down.)

"What are you doing?" Will was squinting at the back cover of the Monster Manual as if trying to figure out what it was. 

"D&D prep. We're supposed to play again this weekend so I'm planning out the session."

"Oh." Will sat up next to him, apparently done draping himself across Nico's bed like damsel on a chaise-lounge. "What does that entail?" 

Nico shrugged. “Depends on the session. They’re about to have a big confrontation with giants, so I’m looking for stat blocks to use for that encounter.”

Will leaned in closer to look at the book over Nico’s shoulder, and Nico was all too aware of every point of contact between them, and how much taller Will was than him. (His lips were exactly at Nico’s eye level.) “Sounds like a lot of work.”

“It is, but it’s worth it.” Nico looked down at the page just so we wouldn’t have to look at Will. “As long as Hazel and the others have a good time, I don’t mind putting in the work.”

Will hummed, staying in Nico’s personal space for a moment too long before sitting back against the pillows. “I haven’t thought about D&D in so long. Lee and Michael used to play it all the time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. They never let me play with them though. They said I was too young, but I think they didn’t want me annoying their high school friends.”

Nico had always been grateful that Bianca had fought to include him in their games with her friends, but he was suddenly extra grateful. Now that he thought about it, a lot of teenagers would not have put up with a ten year old the way Percy, Annabeth, and the others did. He may have felt left out at times, but they were saints for including him at all. 

“Have you ever played?”

Will shook his head. “Nah, but I have thought about it. I miss Lee and Michael all the time, and it might be nice to do something like that to remember them.”

“It could be. Hazel and I started playing for a similar reason,” Nico said softly. “You could come play with us if you want. I don’t think anybody would mind.”

“I could, but Kayla is super into all of those D&D shows on YouTube, so I’d feel bad playing without her. Maybe I’ll talk to her about getting a group together. That way we could include Austin too if he’s interested.” Will turned to Nico, almost shy. “...If I did put a group together, would you want to play with us? You don’t have to, but… I’d like to play with you.”

How could he say no to that?

“Sure, but I’m not DMing. One campaign is all I can handle running at a time.”

Will lit up with a blinding smile that rivalled the sun. “Great! And that’s fine, I’ll find someone else. I think Rachel plays so I’ll ask her if she’s interested.” Will climbed off the bed, taking his body heat with him, and Nico suddenly felt cold and lonely without another person sitting against him. “Actually, I’m going to call Kayla right now and see if we can get something set up.” He took out his phone and sat down on his own bed, grinning at Nico as he held it up to his ear. "This is going to be so fun. We're going to have such a good time."

As long as Will kept looking at him like that, Nico couldn't imagine it being anything else. 

Nico was of the opinion that if Will was going to create his own character, then he should do it with his DM, and yet, here he was on the floor of their dorm with the Player’s Handbook in his lap and a blank character sheet in Will’s. 

“So does race… matter?” Will asked, confused. 

Yes , the min-maxer in him wanted to scream, but Will was new to the game, so Nico was trying to restrain himself. He would save the optimisation for his own character. “You get a boost to a couple of your stats and a few extra proficiencies depending on what you pick, so you can pick something that complements your class, but it won’t ruin your game not to,” he explained. “Humans are a good choice for beginners, if you want, since they’re well-rounded.”

Will made a face. “That sounds boring though. I’m already a human in real life. Why would I want to be a human in a game?”

Nico barely suppressed an amused smile. “It’s the backstory that makes a character interesting, not the race, but you should pick something you’re actually excited about playing.”

“...What are the other choices again?” 

Nico handed him the Player’s Handbook and let him flick through the race options again at his own pace, answering his questions here and there until Will settled on something. 

“...You want to be a gnome ?”

Will grinned. “I think it’ll be funny! Plus they’re small, so I’ll get a little glimpse of what it’s like to be you.”

“ Shut up .” He playfully shoved Will’s shoulder, and ignored the way Will’s laughter rang in his chest. “You’re committing to gnome?”

“I’m committing to gnome.” Will scribbled that information into to his character sheet to immortalise it. “What’s next?”

“Your class. That’s what determines what your character can do in and out of combat. There’s a lot of options, so it’ll probably be easier if we narrow it down a bit.” Nico took the Player’s Handbook back, and flicked through the pages. “Do you want to cast spells? Or hit things with a weapon? Use a bow and arrow? Hell, you want to be a doctor in real life. Do you want to play a healer?”

Will (adorably) furrowed his brows. “Isn’t the point of these games to roleplay as someone who isn’t like you? Wouldn’t playing a healer defeat the purpose?”

“Not necessarily. Lots of people play self-inserts or aspirational characters. You can play whatever you want.”

Will hummed in thought. “...What are you playing?”

Nico shrugged. “I don’t know yet. I’m going to wait to see what you and your siblings are playing, and then I’ll figure it out from there.”

“Okay, let me rephrase that. What did you play in your other games?”

“Hexblade warlock.”

The corner of Will’s lips quirked up. “Wow. Sounds edgy.”

“I was ten. I built the edgiest character I could. He had a dead Mom, and a sword forged from iron only found in the rivers of Hell and everything.” Nico rolled his eyes at his past self. He still couldn’t believe he integrated his trauma over his mother’s death into his D&D character’s backstory and thought nobody would notice. He cringed just thinking about it. 

Will laughed. “Aw, I wish I could have seen that. I bet you were the cutest little edgelord there was.” He lightly bumped their shoulders together. 

It was barely a compliment, but Nico still felt his cheeks burn regardless and he quickly turned his attention back to the book in an effort to hide it from Will. He wasn’t sure when praise from Will started having that effect on him, but he wished his body would stop. 

“It is cute you found a class that suits you so well though,” Will continued, “What class do you think suits me the best?”

“I’m not a personality test, Solace.”

Will elbowed him. “Humour me.”

Nico didn’t even have to think about it. “Cleric. Light domain.”

Will's eyes widened. "Wow. Uh… that was fast. Why am I a cleric… light domain? Is that what you said?" 

"You want to be a doctor, and clerics are the best healers in the game. They're primarily a support class, and you're… you know, supportive." Nico was already getting flustered, and he had barely begun to explain it. "You like helping people, and always put other people first, and… I don't know, it just makes sense to me." 

Will was watching him with an odd look in his eye Nico couldn't place. "I guess I can see that, but why the light domain part though? I get the doctor-healer connection, but why light?" He grabbed the Player's Handbook and flicked to the page on clerics as if that would explain Nico's thought process. 

Nico wished it did. Then he wouldn't have had to say this next part out loud. 

"Well… you're just…. Light clerics worship the sun, and you're…. You remind me of the sun, okay?" 

Nico glared down at his lap and his cheeks burned. He couldn't bring himself to look at Will to see how he reacted, and the ensuing silent seconds were agonising. 

"...Really?" Will's voice was soft and quiet. "Why?" 

"Because you're…." He gestured vaguely at Will, too embarrassed to get the words out. 

"Blonde? Blue-eyed?" 

"Yeah, that's part of it, but you're also… bright." 

"Bright?" 

Was Will really going to make him explain every single little detail? 

"You're always smiling, and- god I can't believe you're making me say this…. You light up whatever room you're in, and you have a very… warm personality. I don't know. It just fits." 

"...Huh," was all Will said to that. 

Nico twisted his skull ring, his face aflame. It had been a long time since he felt this embarrassed about something. He didn't even know he felt that way about Will until the words were spilling out of his mouth on their own accord, and he wished he had kept those thoughts to himself. There was this weird tension between them now, and Will wasn't saying anything, and he hated it. He wished they could go back to making fun of each other's height. 

"You also remind me of paladins." 

"Yeah?" 

"You're stubborn, opinionated, and prone to righteous crusades." 

Will rolled his eyes, and lightly pushed at his shoulder, and just like that, the weird tension dissipated. "Dick." He handed the Player's Handbook back to Nico, and returned to his character sheet. "I think I have to be a light cleric now after that." 

"You don't have to," Nico said quickly, "You should pick something that's going to be fun for you." 

"I think that'll be fun for me. I like the way you explained it anyway." Will smiled. "But if I'm going to be a light cleric, then you need to be that edgy class that suits you so well too." 

“A hexblade warlock?”

“Yeah, that.”

Nico had been avoiding that specific class and subclass combination because it was what he used to play with Bianca, but the thought of playing one again now didn’t bother him as much as he expected it would. Maybe Mr. D was onto something when he said grief would be easier to deal with in time. 

“Yeah, sure. If it doesn’t wreck the party composition, I’ll play a hexblade warlock again.”

“Great! I can’t wait to see you play an edgelord.” Will grinned. 

“I’m going to play a happy-go-lucky ball of sunshine now out of spite.”

“I’d love to see that too.”

Nico rolled his eyes, and held the Player’s Handbook between them, pointing at a particular block of text. “Shut up and copy your abilities onto your sheet.” 

“Wait. If we’re going to do this, then I need to play a character taller than yours or it’ll feel wrong.”

“...Are you being serious right now?”

“What’s the tallest race in the game?”

“Dwarves.”

“I’ve seen Lord of the Rings, asshole. I know they’re short.”

“Halflings, then.”

“...Aren’t they like hobbits? And therefore, also short?”

“Fine. Goliaths. They’re half-giants.”

“Perfect.”

Their D&D session was held at Will’s Dad’s house since their dorm room was too small, Austin and Kayla were currently living there, and Rachel liked it better than the house she grew up in. Will let himself in with his house key, and they followed the sound of voices to the dining room where the entire family had gathered. 

Nico had yet to meet any of Will’s family (outside of the D&D group chat anyway, which barely counted considering Nico didn’t talk in it unless he needed to clarify a ruling with Rachel), but Will had given him a breakdown of who everyone was on the drive over.

Austin, Will’s half-brother with the cornrows, and Kayla, his half-sister with the dip-dyed hair, were sitting side-by-side at the table, huddled together over the Player’s Handbook as they tried to make sense of the spell slot rules. Rachel, his father’s goddaughter with the curly red hair, was behind the DM screen typing something on her laptop. Rachel technically wasn’t Will’s sister, but they grew up together so he considered her family anyway. 

There was a twelve year old girl at the table, with a black bob and cat’s eye glasses, drawing something in a notebook - Meg, the child Will’s Dad was currently fostering. Will hadn’t gone into much detail, but to Nico’s understanding, Meg had bad experiences with a previous foster home and now rejected traditional family roles, so even though she was technically Will’s foster sister, he wasn’t allowed to call her that. (“So she’s just a child that lives in my Dad’s house, I guess.”) 

Will’s Dad himself was leaning against the archway that separated the kitchen from the dining room with a mug of coffee in hand. He looked like he was fifteen years younger than he actually was and dressed like it too, but Nico supposed it made sense considering Apollo was a (former) celebrity. Nico had vague memories of Thalia playing his music from the 80s in the background of their D&D games, and while Nico had accepted Will’s Dad was that Apollo, it was still weird to meet him now. 

“Will! You made it!” Apollo greeted him brightly (the perfect smile was hereditary, it seemed), and pulled his son into a hug. The others all greeted them politely before returning to what they were doing - except Meg who was apparently too busy colouring sunflowers to acknowledge them at all. 

“Hi Dad,” Will greeted, and then gestured to Nico when he pulled away, “This is my roommate, Nico di Angelo.”

“Di Angelo?” Apollo’s brows raised with recognition. “Any relation to Hades di Angelo? DOA Records di Angelo?”

Nico blinked in surprise. He wasn’t expecting Apollo to know his father. Then again, every musician in the city knew his father, for better or for worse. “Uh… Yeah, that’s my Dad.”

“Is that so?” Apollo said with interest. “You know, your father tried to sign me onto his label once. It was one of the worst contracts I had ever been presented with. I would have got a better deal selling my soul to the devil - not that there’s much of a difference between devils and record labels, I suppose.”

“Um. Okay,” Nico said, because what else was he supposed to say to that?

“Small world.”

“...I guess.”

Will cleared his throat. “Come on, let’s go join the others.” He took Nico by the hand and led him over to the dining table. 

Kayla shot him a look, which was weird. Did Will not hold hands with other people?

Suddenly self-conscious, Nico tugged himself out of Will’s grip. Will shot him a look as if he was the weird one, and then turned his attention to Meg. “Do you want to play with us?” he asked her, gentle and patient. “We can help you make a character if you want?”

Meg slammed her notebook shut. “I’m not a nerd.” She packed up her pencil case, grabbed her book, and promptly left the room without another word. 

Will sighed. “I’ll win her over one of these days.”

“Good luck with that,” Kayla scoffed, as they sat around the table. 

After a quick round of “hello!”s and “nice to meet you in person!”s, they were finally ready to start. 

“Will,” Rachel said to get his attention, and then surreptitiously glanced and nodded her head at Apollo in a silent request to get rid of him. 

“Dad, would you mind giving us some privacy?” 

Apollo heaved a dramatic sigh, but stepped away from the wall he was leaning against. “Kicked out of my own dining room by my own son. How far I’ve fallen.” He left the room in the same direction Meg had gone, mumbling something about how ‘he used to be on MTV’ as he went. 

Once he was gone, Rachel rolled her shoulders and cracked her knuckles, and then turned to their group with a smile. “Let’s introduce our characters, and then we’ll get into it. Will, you start us off.”

“Sure.” Will rearranged his character sheets so he could see the important information. “I’m playing a goliath cleric - light domain.” He sent Nico a smile before continuing. “My character is a follower of the sun god who has recently stopped talking to him and gone missing, and now he’s going on an adventure to figure out what happened to him.”

“Lovely.” Rachel moved down the line. “Nico, you next.”

Nico nodded. “I’m playing an aasimar hexblade warlock. He used to be a lot more powerful, but both he and his patron lost a lot of strength after a couple of giants trapped him in a cramped dark prison for a few years, so he’s now trying to regain his power back to his former glory so he can get revenge on the giants that kidnapped him.”

“ And you have a cool sword,” Will added. 

“And he has a sword forged from iron from a river that runs through the Nine Hells.” 

Will grinned. “So edgy.”

“You asked me to play something edgy.”

“I know, and I’m so happy right now.”

Nico flushed, and glanced at Kayla out of the corner of his eye only to catch that she was raising her brows at them again, like he suspected. He didn’t understand why she kept looking at them like that. It wasn’t like there was anything going on between him and Will. 

…Was there?

“Cool,” Rachel said before the banter went on for much longer, “Austin?”

Austin - who had an actual flute with him for some reason - sat up straighter. “Cool. So, I’m playing a human bard who casts spells through his flute,” he played a couple of quick notes on his flute before continuing, “He was kidnapped by a cult as a child, and was raised in a forest grove where he was almost sacrificed to a wannabe god before he managed to escape. He’s now trying to figure out where he came from so he can be reunited with his birth family.”

“Love it,” Rachel smiled. “Kayla, finish us off.”

Kayla rubbed her palms together. “Okay. So I’m playing a half-elf ranger,” Nico’s breath hitched, “and her backstory is that her brother ran off to the Nine Hells with his tiefling boyfriend, but he never came back and she never heard from his again, so she’s trying to get stronger and find a group to travel to the Nine Hells with her so she can figure out what happened to him.”

Even though Nico knew from the group texts that Kayla was playing a ranger and had time to brace himself, it still knocked him back a bit. She was a very different person from Bianca - that much was clear already - so he knew it would be okay once they got started, but it was a little disorienting to be hit by that wave of grief out of nowhere. 

Will reached for his hand under the table and gave it a gentle squeeze as if to silently ask ‘ are you okay?’ It was a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. 

Nico squeezed it back. 

‘I’m fine. I’ll be okay.’

And for once, he meant it. 

“Okay, so with that, you sail the canoe into the middle of the lake… for some reason… so what do you do now?”

“This is kind of romantic though, isn’t it?” Will smiled at him with a soft look in his eye Nico didn’t know what to make of. 

“I guess?” 

“Kind of like a date.”

“...Are you suggesting our characters are on a date right now?” Nico asked in disbelief. 

Since he was the only experienced player in the party, he was largely letting the others take the lead on what they wanted to do, only steering them towards what sounded important when necessary. He followed Will’s lead when he suggested they sail out to the middle of the lake under the assumption Will had a plan, but now he was starting to have doubts. 

Will shrugged, doodling little skulls in his notebook. “Maybe my character finds the whole brooding mysterious stranger vibe your character has going on attractive.”

What.

“What?”

Kayla groaned and buried her face in her hands. “I can’t believe you two are roleplaying a date while Austin and I are getting attacked by giant ants.”

“That’s a good point actually,” Rachel said, sitting up straight. “While you two are in the canoe, you feel the ground shake, and notice ripples forming on the surface of the water. Suddenly, a large bronze statue slowly begins to erupt from the lake, sending a large wave towards your boat. Make a dexterity check to see if you capsize.”

“The colossus does…” Rachel rolled an upsetting number of dice behind her DM screen, “another eleven points of damage.”

Nico hissed as he erased his current hit points and replaced the previous number with a big fat zero. He was starting to regret committing to warlock instead of a tankier class just because Will asked him to. “I’m down.” 

Austin blinked. “Like… dead?”

“Not dead. Unconscious. I’m going to start making death saves next turn, and depending how those go, I might die.”

Will’s head shot up. “Wait, can I do something about that?”

“It’s your turn next, so you can if you’d like,” Rachel confirmed. 

“Okay. I’m going to catch him before he hits the ground so he doesn’t bang his head.” Nico rolled his eyes at the gesture - he was hardly going to take fall damage from a five foot drop - but it was adorable this was something Will had thought to do in the first place. “And then I’m going to throw him over my shoulder and carry him somewhere safe.”

“I’m not a sack of potatoes, Solace.”

“Fine, then I’ll cradle you in my arms. Gently. Lovingly. Romantically. Is that better?” 

“Hmph.” Nico crossed his arms, and hoped the burn in his face didn’t look as obvious as it felt. 

Rachel ignored them, and moved their handmade cardboard figures across her beautifully painted map. “You only move at half speed when carrying someone, but you can both get to about there.”

“Great! And then I’ll cast cure wounds.” Will hummed a song that was too out of tune for Nico to identify, and patted Nico on the arms, on the chest, on the shoulders, on the face. “Good as new!”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this in front of me and Austin,” Kayla muttered, though what ‘this’ was, Nico wasn’t sure. 

“Shut up,” Will said, and rolled his orange d8. 

Nico was inexperienced when it came to romantic relationships, but he was pretty certain Will was flirting with him. 

At least, he was 90% certain. 

75% certain?

Whatever. It was hard to tell because Will was doing it through their characters, but Nico suspected that it wasn’t just roleplay. 

There were a lot of little touches. Every time Will cast a spell on him (which was surprisingly often), he slapped Nico on the back, or tapped his arm, or grabbed his hand - even when the spell didn’t require touch. 

Will had been handsy with him ever since they had that talk about their siblings, so usually Nico wouldn’t think much of it, but the more time he spent around Will’s family, the more he began to realise Will wasn’t like that with other people. He kicked Kayla under the table at one point because she called Nico his boyfriend, but that was as far as it went. He hadn’t noticed it before, but Will touched him more than anyone else. 

And then there were the little compliments. Many of them were innocuous enough, easily written off as jokes or roleplay, but some of them were suspiciously close to Nico in real life. Soft hair. Big brown eyes. Tiny little freckles that were only noticeable if you leaned in close enough. Nico had been called attractive more times in this one game than he had in his entire life so far (which was slightly depressing, but he wasn’t going to dwell on it). It was also hard to ignore that they both chose these characters specifically because they reminded each other of their real life selves. 

If Will’s character thought Nico’s character was attractive, then what did that say about how Will felt about Nico?

All that said, it was Kayla who really cemented his suspicions. 

Everytime Will so much as looked at Nico, she would roll her eyes, or groan, or cover her face in secondhand embarrassment. Whatever Will was trying to do, she clearly interpreted it as flirting - terrible, godawful flirting, but flirting nonetheless. 

Nico had enough doubts about Will’s feelings that he could have easily written it off, but Kayla was his sister . She knew him better than anyone. If she saw Will’s actions that way, then she was probably right. 

Will was flirting with him.

And Nico didn’t know what to do about it. 

It was all Nico could think about on the car ride home. 

The drive back to campus was an hour long, even so late at night when there was less traffic on the road. The initial post-session excitement had died down, and Nico and Will were soaking in companionable silence, broken only by the sound of Will tapping against the steering wheel in time to the club music that always played on the radio at this time of night. They didn’t talk much which Nico was grateful for as it gave him plenty of time to think. 

Nico had always found Will pretty - it was one of the first things he had noticed about him when they met - but he hadn’t allowed himself to think about him much more than that. Why would he? Every other guy he had ever liked had either been straight or unavailable. He had one boyfriend in high school, and he publicly outed Nico to the entire school the second they broke up. Love wasn’t in the cards for him, and he made his peace with that. 

Now though…. Now he had a cute boy that liked him, that was funny and sweet (even if he was a pain in the ass), and who understood Nico in a way nobody else ever had. Will had seen the worst parts of him and didn’t baulk because they were the worst parts of Will too. If Nico wanted a relationship with him, he could have one, and that terrified him. 

Unrequited crushes were easy. Comfortable. He could admire them quietly from afar, and the only person who got hurt was him (and the hurt was part of the appeal in the dark days following Bianca’s death. He was glad Mr. D helped him kick that particular habit). They would never know if he never said anything, and Nico was great at keeping secrets. 

Nico didn’t have to tell Will. He could pretend he didn’t notice the attempts at flirting, and nothing would have to change. They could carry on being roommates, being friends, and Nico could learn to be satisfied with that. Maybe Will would say something someday, or maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, Nico didn’t have to do anything about it, and he could let whatever happened, happen. 

…Or he could take a chance, and get everything he had ever wanted but never let himself have. 

If he was wrong, if he fucked this up, the fallout would be immense. He would have to switch dorm rooms, and he would lose the one and only friend he had managed to make at college. 

But this wouldn’t be like losing Bianca, he reminded himself. He had Hazel now, and Frank and Reyna. He wouldn’t be stuck in a big empty house with a distant father who couldn’t look him in the eye because he looked too much like his mother. He had friends now, and a family. He was in therapy. He would be okay. He just had to roll the dice. 

Will pulled into his usual parking spot outside of their dorm building, and stopped the car. He took off his seatbelt, but just as he was about to get out, Nico stopped him. “Will?”

“Yeah?”

Here goes nothing. 

“Were you flirting with me in D&D earlier?”

Whatever Will had been expecting him to say, it clearly wasn’t that as those blue eyes widened and his face turned a glorious shade of scarlet. “Uh….” He laughed nervously. “What makes you say that?”

“You called me attractive several times.”

“I was roleplaying,” Will said defensively, looking at everything but Nico. “My character thought your character was attractive. Nothing weird about that.” 

“The characters we designed to be fantasy versions of ourselves?”

Will smiled shyly, and his face reddened even further, if that was possible. “Yes?” 

Nico could only laugh. “You dumbass.”

Nico unbuckled his seatbelt, shuffled as close to Will as he could get without climbing over the centre console, and cupped his cheek. 

Will went stock still. “Um.”

And Nico kissed him. 

It was a little awkward, considering Nico was out of practice and the centre console was in their way, and he wondered if maybe he should have waited until they got out of the car to do this, but then Will was kissing him back and he stopped thinking altogether. 

“What are you doing?” Will asked against his lips. 

“Kissing you.”

“Oh. Okay.” 

Will kissed him again. 

“I can’t believe you flirted with me in a D&D game,” Nico said when they finally made it back to their dorm room. 

They were both too wired to sleep, and so they laid on the covers of Will’s bed, listening to music. They were playing one of Will’s playlists, and so Nico was being subjected to everything from Dolly Parton to Nirvana, from Taylor Swift to Weird Al. (Will was lucky Nico was in such a good mood. Not even Hazel could have convinced him to listen to polka.)

Will was draped across Nico’s chest, face in his neck. When he laughed, Nico could feel the rumble in his chest, and his breath across his skin. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Nico flicked him in the forehead. 

“Ow.”

“You’ll live.”

The Weird Al song ticked over to Blink-182. The watermelon and ocean breeze scent from the lit candle wafted through the room. Nico ran a hand through Will’s hair, and it smelled like sunshine. 

“What do we do now?” Will asked softly. 

“I don’t know. I didn’t think this far ahead.”

“And I didn’t think I’d ever get this far.”

What a pair, they were. 

Nico hummed. “Go on a real date I guess.”

“One my siblings aren’t here for this time.”

“What? You don’t want Kayla pretending to gag in the background the whole time?”

Will snorted. “No, it was bad enough she was doing that earlier.”

“Flirting front of her was a choice, though.”

“Again: it worked, didn’t it?” 

Nico kissed him on the forehead. “Don’t remind me.”

Blink-182 ticked over to Queen. Nico played with the curls on the back of Will’s neck, and closed his eyes. He had almost drifted off to sleep when Will spoke again. 

“Nico?”

“Yeah?”

“I think you’re attractive in real life as well as in the game.”

Nico opened his eyes to see Will’s unnaturally blue ones looking down at him. “Yeah, I figured that out, Solace.”

“And I’m glad I met you.”

Nico softened. “I’m glad I met you too.” 

Will smiled one of those sunshine smiles, and leaned down to kiss him, and Nico felt more content than he’d felt in a very long time. 

EPILOGUE

Puddles lined the pathways from the freshly fallen rain. The weather broke an hour ago, and now the sun filtered through the fading clouds and cast a gentle warmth onto his cold skin. The cemetery’s grounds were well maintained - manicured lawns, big oak trees, the smell of fresh cut grass - and it made for a pleasant walk towards Bianca’s grave. 

It was a nice day, all things considered, but all Nico could think about was the nicotine patch on his arm. 

“Stop scratching it,” Will chastised him, and grabbed his hand so Nico wouldn’t claw at it anymore. 

“It’s itchy.”

“Yeah, but you’ll peel it off if you keep that up, so leave it alone.”

Nico huffed, but did as he was told. The patch still itched a distracting amount, but there wasn’t much he could do about it while Will was holding onto him like a vice. 

Unless… his other hand was free, so maybe, if he bent his wrist and elbow back at just the right angle….

“I told you the gum would annoy you less,” Hazel said and grabbed his other hand. 

Nico huffed again. “What happened to being proud of me for trying to quit smoking?”

“Of course we’re proud of you!” Hazel exclaimed, indignant that Nico would even imply otherwise. “You asked us to help you so we’re helping you.”

“You’re annoying me.”

“Annoying you is helping.” 

On second thought, maybe this whole ‘having more than one friend thing’ was overrated. Hazel wasn’t able to gang up on him back when he was single and didn’t talk to people. 

Nico did his best to ignore the patch as they made their way through the cemetery in a three person chain. It was a little awkward, considering Nico was the only one who knew where Bianca was buried so he had to lead them from the middle, but they got there with minimal difficulty. (He was glad Hazel was a few inches shorter than him. It was the only detail keeping him from feeling like a toddler.)

Bianca’s gravestone was a smooth black granite with gold lettering. It was simple, but it matched his mother’s gravestone next to it, and that felt more important.  

“Dad and Persephone must have been here earlier,” Nico noted, eyeing the fresh arrangement of white roses that was gently placed on her grave. (They hadn’t left anything on his mother’s, Nico noticed, but perhaps that was to be expected. Persephone liked to pretend Maria di Angelo never existed.) 

Hazel tutted. “Why did they cover up the text? You can’t read it.” 

She edged her way around the grave, careful not to step where Bianca was buried, and gently tugged the flower arrangement forward so the complete inscription was visible. 

Bianca di Angelo

2003 - 2018

Loving daughter, sister, & friend

In hindsight, Nico wished they had come up with something more poetic, but despite working in the music industry, his father was not one for purple prose, and Nico dreaded to think what his thirteen year old self would have come up with if he had been allowed even a modicum of input. 

“Much better,” Hazel said softly, and returned to stand by Nico’s other side. 

“Here.” Will handed him both of the flower arrangements he had offered to carry for him. 

Nico didn’t know anything about flowers, but Persephone gave him these arrangements of yellow and pink ones for free and assured him it was meaningful. He carefully set one just below the white roses on Bianca’s grave, and then set the other on his mother’s. 

When Nico stood back on the path, Will took his hand again. “Do you want to talk to them?” he asked gently. 

“Not with you two watching.” 

“We can give you space, if you want. Hazel and I can go talk to,” Will looked over his shoulder at the graves behind them, “Halcyon Green.”

Nico shook his head. “No, this is enough for today.”

Will gave his hand a squeeze, and turned back to Bianca’s grave. “Can I talk to them?”

“Oh. Uh… If you want?”

“Hi Bianca,” Will began gently, “I’m Will, Nico’s boyfriend. It’s nice to meet you.” He looked over at Maria’s grave next to it. “You too, Mrs. Di Angelo. I like your son a lot, even if he is a pain in the ass.”

Nico rolled his eyes, and knocked against his shoulder with his own. “You’re a dork.”

Hazel sighed dramatically. “Bianca, do you see what they’re making me watch? They’ve been flirting in front of me all afternoon.”

“Like I haven’t had to watch you flirt with Frank for years.”

Hazel turned to retort something back, but stopped when she spotted something behind Nico and Will, and her face fell. “Oh.” 

Nico looked back over his shoulder to see what could have garnered that reaction from her, only to startle at the couple awkwardly standing at a distance. 

Nico had warned Will that they might run into his father and step-mother today. Never in a million years did he think they would run into Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase. 

Percy smiled nervously when Nico finally noticed him, clutching a flower arrangement to his chest. Annabeth, on his arm, looked between them warily as if she was expecting a fight to break out at any moment.

And maybe, a few years ago, Nico would have picked one. Now he was just tired of being angry at Percy. 

“Uh… we’ll come back,” Percy said, and turned to leave. 

“Percy, wait.” Nico stopped him, surprising everyone including himself. “Can we… talk? In private?” 

“Oh…. Sure.” 

Nico looked to Will and Hazel, and they stepped aside without needing to be asked. Will gave his hand a supportive squeeze before letting go, and the pair walked off with Annabeth to give them some privacy. Nico could hear Hazel introduce Will to Annabeth, and he watched them go until their voices faded to a distant murmur. 

Percy shuffled forward until he was standing by Nico in front of Bianca’s grave, but he left ample distance between them. He didn’t speak, clearly waiting for Nico to say whatever he wanted to say, on edge. 

Nico was a little hurt that this was how Percy was reacting to him, but he knew it wasn’t unwarranted. Their relationship had never been smooth, but… maybe that could change. 

“Percy, I’m sorry… for everything.” Percy’s eyes widened in surprise. “It wasn’t fair to blame you for Bianca’s death, and I held onto that anger for a lot longer than I should have, and I’m sorry.”

Percy’s expression softened. “It’s okay, dude. You were a teenager, and your sister died. I forgave you a long time ago.”

“I know, but… I still needed to say it - for closure, or whatever.”

Percy grinned. “Consider the door closed.”

Nico tentatively smiled back, and he felt a years-long tension slowly drain from his body. Making amends was not as difficult as he thought. It helped that Percy was a good guy.

A really, really good guy. 

“If you want…” Nico began hesitantly. “Hazel and I are still playing D&D together, if you wanted to play with us again. Sorry for kicking you out the first time, but… well… you understand.”

“I do,” Percy nodded. “And that sounds fun, but I’d hate to crash your game when you’ve been going on for so long.”

“Oh.” Nico deflated.

“ But … Annabeth is planning on starting a new campaign soon, if you want to join us? Thalia’s moving back to town with her brother, and it’ll be nice to have a fourth person in the party.”

“...Thalia has a brother?”

“Yeah, that was a surprise to me too.” Percy smiled. “His name’s Jason. Apparently, they got separated when CPS took them away from their Mom and dumped them in the foster system, and she never saw him again. She’s been looking for him the past few years and found him in Colorado of all places. He’s ex-military apparently.”

Nico made a face. “Ew.”

Percy barked a laugh. “I know, but he’s ex -military, so maybe he’s still cool. Want to play D&D with us and find out?”

“...Yeah, I’d like that.” 

“Cool. I’ll let Annabeth know.”

They looked down at Bianca’s grave in comfortable silence - something Nico never thought he would be able to do with Percy Jackson. 

“Do you mind if I…?” Percy gestured with the flower arrangement he was still holding towards Bianca’s grave. 

“Go for it.”

Percy carefully crept forward, and gently set the flowers at the bottom of the grave, just below where Nico had set the ones he brought. There were three arrangements now, and it was a nice visual reminder that Bianca was still loved and cared for all these years later. 

“She used to talk about you all the time, you know.” 

Nico’s head snapped up to look at Percy, breath caught in his throat. “...Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Percy nodded with a soft smile. “She worried about you all the time - how your Dad was treating you, if you were making friends at school, if you were eating right. I know you two had a fight before she died, so I just wanted to make sure you knew that she loved you more than anything else in the world. We could all see it, clear as day. You can ask Annabeth if you don’t believe me.”

Nico’s eyes burned with the threat of tears, but he rapidly blinked them away. He may have made strides in his relationship with Percy over the past few minutes, but that did not mean he wanted to cry in front of him. “I… I believe you.”

“Good. We haven’t been on speaking terms for a long time so I haven’t been able to say anything earlier, but I’ve been worried you doubted that.”

“I haven’t, but thank you.”

It was only now occurring to Nico that Percy had a friendship with Bianca outside of their D&D games. He had stories about her that Nico wouldn’t have heard before, knew things about her that maybe Nico didn’t know. 

“Percy… will you tell me about her? What she was like when I wasn’t around?”

Percy smiled, and moved to pat him on the shoulder until he thought better of it and pulled his hand back. “Of course, man. Whatever you want to know.”

Everything. 

He wanted to know everything, and maybe now that he and Percy were on good terms… maybe now he finally could.