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“I’m dying.”
“Nothing is wrong with you, you’re not dying. Stop being so dramatic.”
“What do you mean nothing’s wrong with me? I’m not being dramatic, look at all the blood coming out of me.”
“All the blo- Percy! It’s barely a scratch! I can’t believe you made us take a break for this, I thought you were seriously injured for a moment!”
“I am, you cut me so deep that my arm is about to fall off.”
Nico looked like he was two seconds away from either stomping his foot in frustration or actually ensuring that Percy’s arm came off. He bit out the words, “You’re only being such a baby just because you knew you were losing.”
Percy wasn’t going to admit that the fight had started to lean more towards Nico’s favor the longer it went on – though that wasn’t why he had stopped their spar – so he said, “I’m not being a baby, Nico, you’ve clearly maimed me.” He kept going, knowing it would irritate Nico even more, “That doesn’t mean I was losing though.”
Sure enough, Nico’s expression went from frustrated to pissed. His eyes narrowed and his hand twitched forward almost like he wanted to reach forward and strangle Percy, but a moment passed and then he seemed to take a deep breath and let go of his irritation.
Good. Nico had been too irritable lately, more quick to snap than he had been in years, and Percy was the only person at camp that was willing to try and calm him down at the moment.
Just sparring hadn’t worked – Nico had only grown more and more frustrated the longer their fight had gone on, getting lost in his head and making rash but effective moves – so Percy had decided to put a stop to it and had attempted to give dramatic humor a go, hoping to get Nico to maybe crack even just the hint of a smile. But Percy had never been all that great at comforting people when he was actively trying to, so – unsurprisingly – that hadn’t worked all that well with Nico either.
Percy sighed. He was terrible at this. If sparring with and needling his cousin didn’t work then what else was he supposed to do? His mom could help – she made everyone feel better when they were upset, even Nico – but she wasn’t there and Nico had declined to go with when Percy had offered to take him with on his last visit to see her, Paul, and Estelle.
There was nothing else he could think to do except offer to talk about what actually had Nico so out of sorts the past three weeks, he supposed. Thank the gods the person who could actually make him feel better was finally coming back later today – not that Nico knew that, as Will’s early return was meant to be a much needed surprise – so he switched gears and tentatively offered, “Do you want to talk about it?”
It was a clear miscalculation on Percy’s part, all of Nico’s tension and irritation clearly flowing back into him as he bit out, “Talk about what? There’s nothing to talk about.”
Percy tried to backpedal as fast as he could. “Nothing! Nothing to talk about, you’re absolutely right. And I guess I might have been exaggerating just a bit about that wound you gave me, so why don’t we go back to sparring, maybe you’ll-”
Nico didn’t let that fly and cut him off angrily. “Of course you were exaggerating, it’s hardly bigger than a paper-cut and all it would take is a quick splash of water for it to disappear!”
Maybe he shouldn’t have brought his previous dramatics back up either. If Apollo didn’t return with Will soon, Percy was going to find a way to kill him. Well, if Nico didn’t kill him first. He certainly looked like he might try. Why had he gotten stuck on make-Nico-feel-better-duty again?
He opened his mouth to try and salvage the situation, praying he wouldn’t end up sticking his foot in his mouth again, but was cut off before he could say anything by the voice he had been waiting to hear all day. Thank the gods, or more specifically, thank one god in particular.
“What’s this about paper-cuts?” Apollo walked in the arena, his son tucked under his arm looking exhausted but glad to be back at camp. “And why do you look like you’re about to bite my boyfriend's head off? Please don’t,” he continued breezily. “I’d miss him too much.”
Percy shook his head with a grin but said nothing. He glanced over at Nico instead, wanting to see his cousin’s expression when he saw who Apollo brought back with him, knowing his bad attitude would improve immediately when he saw Will again.
Sure enough, when Nico turned around towards Apollo’s voice he caught sight of Will and his expression lightened more than it had in weeks. He darted forward toward his boyfriend and Will broke away from his father to meet him halfway, catching him in a crushing hug that quickly turned into a series of kisses as the two reunited after weeks apart.
Percy turned away from them, giving his cousin some privacy while Apollo made his way around them and towards Percy to give him a greeting of his own.
“Hey. Thanks for bringing him back early today, Nico was missing him like crazy. I was getting a bit worried, honestly. I don’t think Nico expected the time apart to suck so much, even though they still had IMs to talk through.”
Apollo smiled at him and pulled him into his arms for a hug of his own. “It’s alright, Will and I knew it wouldn’t take him a full month to tour all the colleges he was looking into anyway. He knows where he wants to go now for sure, I think. He just needed a break from camp and thought Nico would be stuck running around doing work for his father for longer so he didn’t bother coming back until he knew for sure that Nico was done.
“But he’s back now and they’re smiling again, busy over there being lovey-dovey all over each other so all’s well.”
Percy laughed. “Lovey-dovey? I’d love to see how Nico would react if you called him that to his face.”
Apollo huffed a laugh of his own in agreement. “His expression would certainly be something to see if I did. Speaking of expressions though,” he started to ask, “why was he looking at you like that when we got here? I really did think he might snap and attack you for a second there, before I cut in.”
Percy blushed and a sheepish expression came over his face. “I may have been trying to distract him from missing Will by goading him a bit while we were sparring. I was trying to get him to laugh by joking around a bit, over exaggerating when he cut me,” he gestured to the small wound on his arm. “But uh, it might not have worked like I hoped. Instead it just kinda pissed him off,” he explained.
“Only you, Percy.”
“Hey, I thought it was pretty funny at the time. He would have too, if he hadn’t been missing Will so much. I know he appreciates my humor, even if he won’t admit it. At least he does most of the time.”
Apollo shook his head at him in exasperation but was still grinning. “I’m sure he does,” he said in mock agreement before changing the subject. “Enough about them. As much as I care about my son and his boyfriend, I want to hear about mine instead now. They aren’t the only ones who have been apart for a while. Tell me, Percy, have you been missing me just as badly?”
He rolled his eyes at the subject change but he wouldn’t lie, he had been missing Apollo as well. Though he didn’t want to inflate the god’s ego too much by admitting how much, he did say, “I might have missed you, just a little.”
A pout made its way over Apollo’s features. “Only a little? Percy, you wound me,” he said, moving a hand to clutch at his chest in mock hurt.
Percy laughed. “And you berate me for my dramatics? Stones and glass houses, Apollo.”
“Alright, so maybe we’re both a bit dramatic at times,” Apollo admitted. He dropped his hand from his chest and used it to pull Percy in towards him again, closer this time. Once again, he changed the direction of their conversion, though Percy had no real objection this time either.
“Now that we’ve established our dramatics, why don’t we go and show each other how much we’ve missed each other? Even if – like you say – it was only a little.”
Percy’s smile shifted to match Apollo’s, which had turned more suggestive than joking, though no less loving. “Oh, alright,” he admitted, “it was more than a little.” He leaned up to kiss him and continued, “Take us somewhere else, and I’ll show you just how much I really missed you.”
Apollo grinned blindingly, kissed him again more soundly, and swept him away so he could do just that.