Disclaimer: I own nothing.

TELL ME MORE ABOUT THAT BLOND ASSHOLE, WILL YOU?

When Luke was a little boy, he lived with his mother, and he thought that she had to be the most beautiful woman in the world. She gave him the bright blond hair that made every other mother coo (Oh, May, just look at those golden locks, he's going to be such a charmer some day, just you wait) and had eyes so green and clear that he could imagine the dirt just behind her grassy irises.

His father visited sometimes, but Luke's hatred began to germinate from a young age; it didn't matter how many times his mother told him that the long hours away from home weren't his father's fault. In his young mind, there was no excuse. His older mind would later understand, but not accept. He would never accept his father or his endless stream of apologies.

"We met at one of his meetings, you know," his mother would tell him whenever his father left for some business trip or another. "I was just a waitress serving him his food, dear. Imagine that, the handsome blond businessman coming back the next day to find little ol' me."

Luke could imagine it, because even then he knew that Hermes Olympia was a fickle man. His mother told the story as a romantic one, the heartwarming tale of a poor young woman swept off her feet by a handsome, successful man who left his fiance because he fell in love with her on sight. Luke took it as a warning - a cautionary story promising that his father would never stay committed.

-o0o-

The rapid decline of May Castellan's mental health began at the airport. Luke was seven, and his mother had already been brought into school numerous times to discuss her son's complete disregard for his father. Hermes' plane landed, and May clutched Luke in her arms like a lifeline. "He's home," she whispered, and he knew that the words were more for her than for him.

No sign of Hermes.

Luke felt no disappointment. The game of give and take (and take and take and take) that his father insisted on playing with them was a routine for him. But from where he stood he could hear his mother's heart crack down the center. "Just late, sweetheart, he's coming though, don't you worry."

That night, Luke slept on the floor of the airport, leaned against a carpet-covered divider with his DS pressed into his chest. He was awakened by his mother's shaking, the silent sobs of a woman who knew that her tears were useless but could do nothing to stop them. The seed of hatred that Luke had for his father sprouted.

-o0o-

"I don't wear perfume, Hermes."

Though they were clearly trying to whisper, neither of his parents were doing a very good job of it, and Luke could hardly keep from scowling. Hermes came back, as always, smile chipper and slightly too perfect on his face, hung by the hand of God himself. And Luke seethed. Wanted to tell the man to leave and never come back. But when he saw the way that his mother melted into his arms, he twisted his grimace into a smile.

Of course he cheated. Of course he did, because when did he ever do anything good? Later, Luke's door creaked open, and he felt the depression on his mattress that meant that his father was propped on the end of his bed. He took a few breaths.

"Hey sport, what's going on?" Luke didn't like being called 'sport', not after that mean gym teacher he'd had, and he hatedhatedhated the foreign, flowery scent filling his nose. His mother paused in the doorway, a tired smile on her face, and so Luke smiled too.

"Nothing much."

-o0o-

Hermes came back, as always... until one day he didn't. No warning, no message, just complete and utter abandonment. Luke didn't care much, but, true to form, his mother cared enough for both of them. Gone were the days of the lovely woman with eyes like spring and a breeze in her hair; her era had passed and in her place stood a pitiful creature weighed down by grief and anger. Swamps replaced lush meadows, and Luke began locking himself in his closet whenever she had her episodes.

You look just like Hermes, she would scream as she pounded on his door. Why did you leave me? She would ask, pleading, as he pointedly ignored her and focused all of his attention on Mario Kart.

One day he made the mistake of opening the closet early to console a sobbing May, who smashed her beer bottle on his face in a blurrier moment. Her horrified expression gave him a sort of feeling he'd never felt before, a validation so strong that he wanted to scream in victory.

His feelings did not last long, not when the horrible man came to the door.

He introduced himself as Kronos, my dear boy.

(Kronos Castellan was a hard man to pin down. He had the same blond hair as his daughter and grandson, but his eyes were something entirely new. At a glance they looked brown, maybe amber, but if you got close enough, their color was very obviously gold. His smile appeared less like an expression of happiness and more like a permanent scar that marred his face.

When he met Luke for the first time, he appraised him like an adult, painfully pulled his fingers across his stitched up face, and glared straight into his eyes like a movie villain. Some voices inspire pride, some fear, others respect. Kronos Castellan's voice instilled a feeling of wrongness so ubiquitous that it remained with those who heard it for days, even weeks.)

Luke went without a fight. His mother didn't think she was fit to take care of him anymore, so she called her father, whom she hated, and begged him to help her. Luke packed a duffle bag and loaded it into Kronos' trunk without a complaint, because what else was he supposed to do? When he tried to get in the back of the car, Kronos slammed the door, missing his fingers by a centimeter, and sent him a look. "I am not your chauffeur, boy. Get into the passenger seat."

He complied.

When they both settled in, Luke buckled his seat belt, and Kronos did not. "I have high expectations of you," he said vaguely, pulling his car out of the driveway without so much as a glance behind him. "I have no doubt that you will meet them, but keep that in mind as I teach you how to be a real Castellan."

NOW BACK TO YOUR SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING...

Percy took a sip of his coffee and struggled to think of what to say before the comfortable silence between Nico and himself ran out. He'd hoped that Nico would start, but seeing as he had done the inviting, it only seemed fair that he dove first.

"So, you're interested in astronomy?" That seemed safe, he supposed, and Nico seemed happy enough to finally be talking.

He shrugged, and Percy let his eyes fall from his face to his shoulders. Nico was unarguably a handsome guy, but Percy had seen handsome before to no effect. "Not really," Nico admitted with a sheepish smile. Brown eyes, deep and clean. His chest constricted. "To be honest, my friends and I only signed up for it to try to get more classes together."

"We've all done it," Percy fake-confided, leaning his face on his hand and blinking twice in quick succession. There was nothing wrong with testing the waters a little. After all, why keep trying if Nico wasn't interested at all?

Nico blushed, and shrugged. "Y-yeah, I guess we have. It's just... not the kind of thing I would think of on my own. Lou's the one who thought of the plan. I thought my guidance counselor was gonna call me to the office and make me confess that I don't actually care about stars or something," he rambled. Percy frowned inwardly, chastising himself for being a dumbass.

The problem with never seriously flirting was that he had no idea what requited interest looked like. What was Nico's response supposed to mean? Was he flustered because he liked what Percy was doing? Or was it the other way around? Or was he just not used to getting flirted with? Another cursory glance crossed the last one off the list, and Percy faked a yawn to see if Nico would initiate some conversation.

"Tired?" He asked. Oh, geez. He was caring, too, and genuinely at that. You really know how to fish outside your league, don't ya, Jackson? Couldn't you just be happy and keep to those assholes your brother falls for?

"Just a little," he admitted, and he didn't even have to lie. At Nico's look, he elaborated. "I'm used to sleeping with all the noise of the city, so the quiet is a... new concept. But I'll get used to it pretty quickly."

"If only I snored," Nico joked, and Percy laughed, careful not to let it last too long, making the situation uncomfortable. He didn't want Thalia to be right, and the more time he spent with Nico, the more he realized that she wasn't.

Percy very much liked Nico, but he was sure that saying he 'loved' him was jumping the gun. If somebody offered him a large pepperoni pizza against a chance to marry Nico, there was an 80-20 chance between the two, and the odds were in the pizza's favor. Still, Nico was fun to be around, and even though the thought made him throw up in his mouth a little, maybe he had caught some feelings.

Some more sips of coffee, another bite of muffin.

"What are your friends like?" Nico asked with wide eyes, and Percy smiled despite himself.

"Well," he began, "Luke's a total douche, and there's nothing that can be done about that, but we care about him anyway," he explained. "You gotta love people for who are. And Thalia, she's a genius, you know. She's ranked fourth in her class, and I've never seen her study once. A lot of my friends don't go to our school; Zoe is a dream, Rachel likes to paint us all dying horrifically... I couldn't be happier."

Nico seemed to agree. "Me too. Before I found Jason and Lou Ellen and all the others I didn't think I was ever going to be able to have an enjoyable high school career, but everything seems easier when you have people who won't make fun of you no matter how dumb you act."

"Agreed," Percy nodded, faking a toast before chugging back the rest of his coffee. And finally, he couldn't help himself anymore. "You really are something, Nico di Angelo."

His cafe partner flushed.

"So?" Lou inquired as soon as Nico sat down the next day at lunch. He and Percy had spent the previous school day ignoring each other, then met up at the local cafe for coffee and a snack, then talked mildly in his room, and when they passed each other in the hallway that morning Percy waved hello. That was progress.

"So what?" Nico asked coyly. If Lou was going to turn his love life into a spectacle, the least he could do was make her work for her entertainment.

Lou seemed to find his act far less amusing than he did. "So, what happened?"

Nico made a face. "Percy invited me on a friendly get-together, and we talked a little bit, and I think that living in the same room probably made him think about me like a brother. On an unrelated note, I hear the apocalypse is coming soon and I can't wait." He took a bite of sandwich and waited for Lou to comment.

She seemed confused. "Hm," she murmured.

"Hm?" Nico prompted.

"It just seems odd," she trailed along slowly, "that Percy would invite you out after school with no ulterior motives. None at all."

"My life isn't some nineties sitcom, even though you seem to think it is," Nico said. Jason plopped down in the shitty cafeteria chair next to him with his bought lunch in hand (a pile of dry yet molten chicken nuggets soaking in a pool of warm water sprinkled with corn), and Octavian sat next to Lou.

"Why do they always give you more chicken nuggets than me?" Jason asked around a mouthful of corn-water, and Octavian smirked.

"You need to build respect and camaraderie with the lunch ladies. Thank them, be courteous, ask about their days. They like me, so I get more chicken, and mashed potatoes instead of corn," he bragged.

Lou scrunched up her nose. "Tavy, the mashed potatoes are made out of lint and rehydrated skin cells, you know that. And you two need to help me here!"

Jason raised an eyebrow. "Help you with what?" He asked around a mouthful of nugget (it sounded more like elp oo with hat?) and water.

"Convincing me that my pathetic love life is something worth attempting to salvage," Nico said plainly, taking a bite of sandwich. Jason sent his mouth a jealous look, as if his tongue wished the food in his mouth would switch with Nico's.

"It is," Lou groaned. "Look, all I'm saying is that you need to see where this can go, my dude. Let's not forget that he invited you! You didn't even need to initiate first contact, and you're still falling behind? Your chance is gonna be gone if you don't pick it up."

Nico locked eyes with her and sighed. "Lou, I get the concept of making a move, but you don't get it. Making a move on a guy is different if you aren't a pretty girl. There's a level of risk that I don't know if I wanna take yet," he argued, and Octavian nodded approvingly.

"I agree," he piped in. "We shouldn't be pressuring Nico to do anything he doesn't want to. He can move at his own pace, and if Jackson thinks he's going too slow and moves on, then he never deserved him in the first place," he said. Lou glared at him.

Taking a vicious bite of pasta, Lou responded, "Simmons, I wouldn't have asked for your help if I knew you were going to be such a waste of time."

"I hardly think providing Nico with more than one option is a waste, Lou."

"It's a waste if it's working against everything I'm trying to do here!"

"You're being ridiculous, darling."

Lou took a deep breath and raised her right pointer finger, a sign that she was about to go in on Octavian with some truth, but Jason chose then to speak up. And when Jason Grace speaks up, people tend to listen.

(Jason grew up with a single mother who instilled feelings of responsibility and morality so strong in her boy that he became a leader and voice of reason in every group he belonged to. When things got crazy, Jason could sort them out with ease.)

"You both need to stop pushing your ideas onto Nico," he said simply. "He's not an idiot, and he can figure out what to do without you guys pressuring him to be one thing or another. However, I do have something to say, if you want to hear it, Nico." Nico looked at his friend.

"From you? Sure."

Jason ignored Lou's indignant sounds and plowed forward. "Life is all about decisions. With every option you either do or don't, but you can't go back if you regret something. So, if Jackson ends up being a dick and it turns out that you shouldn't have made a move, well, that blows," he began. Nico shot him a look. "But," Jason quickly continued, "if you miss out on asking this guy who you clearly really like on a date, you will be forced to watch him date Phoebe or Silena or hell, maybe even Luke or Travis or anyone who isn't you.

"So before you choose not to do... whatever it is that you want to do because you're afraid of the cons, you need to weigh the pros. What if your window to happiness is with him? What if it isn't, but you figure out what you want through him? Just consider all that before moving on, okay?"

Nico let the advice wash over him before sighing. "And what should I do if things do go horribly wrong?"

All eyes turned to Jason.

He shrugged and popped some corn in his mouth. "I don't know. I'm fresh out of insightful wisdom for today. You can try tomorrow, maybe I'll have something by then."

"Jason!" Lou exclaimed. "You can't just Batista Bomb us with knowledge then close up shop! Why don't you ever help me with my problems with advice like that?" She complained, crossing her arms.

Jason scoffed. "Your problems don't deserve my advice."

"Now you listen here mister-"

Lou's words faded into white noise as Nico watched Percy eat from a few tables away. Weight the pros. He could do that.

THE PROS

- Percy Jackson is, by all standards, a bona fide hottie.

- Coming out of the closet to date another boy who is also popular at school will lessen any kickback that may occur, not that Nico cares much about what those not in his group of esteemed friends think.

- His feelings will finally be resolved and he can stop agonizing over them.

- He reallyreallyreally wants to ask Percy Jackson to be his boyfriend.

THE CONS

- If Percy Jackson ends up not being gay, they will still need to live together for months.

- If Percy Jackson ends up being homophobic, he will certainly tell the rest of his family and Nico will no longer feel happy in his own home.

- If Percy Jackson ends up being gay or bi or anything that would include Nico and isn't interested based on personality or looks, Nico is likely to explode into a million pieces.

Well, shit. Nico looked up and met Lou's eyes, cutting her off halfway through her rant. A smile spread across her face and she leaned in towards the center of the table. Octavian looked as though he was struggling not to do the same, too prideful for the motion but not so much that he could pretend not to care at all. "And the verdict is...?"

Nico released a deep breath. "Who knows a good way to ask somebody on a date?"