Room 507, Thursday Daytime

[dontvotemeout]

It had taken a few weeks, but Jason had finally come to terms with the fact that with Tim back in Gotham, his room was all his own. It was crazy to have so much space all to himself, and he knew he was probably tempting fate into giving him a roommate from the new kids coming in, but if everything in the room was his now, Jason was going to rearrange it all to look how he wanted. If he did end up with a new roommate, well, they'd just have to deal because he was here first. At least, that was how he was telling himself it would work as he moved things around.

[Door and post are open!]

Comments

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

"That's right," Nico nodded. "I can make myself useful sometimes. Like if you have more heavy lifting to do."

[dontvotemeout]

The temptation to make Nico move something just so Jason could watch him was way too strong to ignore. "Can you put the other desk next to that one?" he asked. It wasn't that heavy, and Nico was pretty strong.

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

"Okay," he said, hopping to his feet and going to get the desk. Jason was right that the furniture wasn't too heavy, and Nico easily lifted and moved it to sit next to the first. "And now you have the biggest studying space ever." So weird.

[dontvotemeout]

"Considering what classes Bruce might have signed me up for, I might need it," Jason said. And even if he didn't, Nico moving things had made for a nice sight. As he watched Nico more though, he finally noticed something. "Hey, you've got something on your arm," he said. Hopefully not from his doorway, or he was going to feel bad.

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

Clearly Jason should have had him disrobe before carting furniture around the room. Perhaps later.

"Hmm?" Nico glanced at his right arm and then his left before realizing what Jason meant. "Oh, right. New tattoo."

[dontvotemeout]

"A new what?" Jason asked, going over to tug at Nico's shirt sleeve. "Can I see?"

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

"Sure," Nico shrugged, pulling his sleeve up to expose the nicely healing tattoo. "What do you think?"

[dontvotemeout]

"Whoa," Jason said, full of coherency at the sight of Nico with an awesome tattoo. "That's--whoa. Uh, I mean, it looks good. When did you get that?"

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

Nico honestly hadn't thought about people reacting to his tattoo. He'd gotten it for completely personal reasons and wasn't used to anyone paying attention to him the way Jason did.

"Yesterday? I'd been wanting it and made Luke come with me. Of course, he brought Percy so it ended up kinda awkward."

[dontvotemeout]

"Oh my god did you all get tattoos?" Jason asked. "Does it still hurt, or does it feel okay now?"

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

"It's nothing," Nico told him, finding it really was nothing compared to battle wounds. "Mine's way cooler than theirs. Percy got a trident and Luke got wings on his ankles."

[dontvotemeout]

Jason laughed. "You're right, yours is much cooler." Not that he was biased or anything. He took a closer look at the tattoo and resisted the urge to touch it. "Who's Bianca?"

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was the natural question, given the tattoo. "My sister. She, uh, died on a quest."

Nico decided he would let Jason decide if he wanted more information than that on the subject. Dead family was something he'd known they had in common, so he'd never really brought it up on his own just in case.

[dontvotemeout]

"Oh," Jason said, getting quieter as he gave Nico a bit of a guilty look. He knew that he didn't like talking about his dead family, so he was going to assume Nico felt the same way. It was the safest bet, really. So, instead of asking about the quest, or how she died, he asked, "Do you think she would have liked the tattoo? It seems like a cool way of thinking about her."

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

"I hope so," Nico said, smiling a little because Jason's question spoke of his understanding. "It's all about remembering, really. She was pretty badass."

[dontvotemeout]

"Guess that runs in the family, huh?" Jason said. "I could say the same thing about you."

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

Nico's face reddened at the compliment. "Maybe. She was all I knew of life for a while there, so I give her all the credit."

[dontvotemeout]

"'Cause she was all you had?" Jason asked. He got how that worked, with his mom, but he had a feeling it wasn't the same for demigods.

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

"'Cause I didn't remember having anything else," Nico answered, leaning his hips against the desk. "And I only had her for months really, but we were in it together. That probably sounds weird, to be so attached after like, six years."

[dontvotemeout]

On one hand, Jason didn't want to probe. On the other hand, Nico asked a million questions, and Jason really wanted to know about him. "I don't think that sounds weird. I mean, she was your sister," he said. "What do you mean you don't remember?"

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

Clearly they hadn't paused for chatting much once the kissing had started and Nico felt sort of badly that Jason didn't know what a freak he'd gotten involved with. "I...have a screwed up past. We might want to sit down if I'm gonna tell you about it."

[dontvotemeout]

Jason almost said that Nico's past couldn't have been as screwed up as his, but then he realized that might not be true, so he sat down on his bed and left a space for Nico. "Okay, I'm sitting."

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

Nico sat beside him, pulling his feet up so he could watch Jason for reaction. "So, I don't remember because when I was a kid, my father had Bianca and I dunked in the River Lethe to forget everything. From what I've discovered, this happened like, minutes after my mother was blown up by Zeus. Great family, right?"

[dontvotemeout]

Jason's eyes got wide at that, but he didn't think he could be blamed for that reaction. "Wait, wait, when you say you forgot everything, do you mean...like, everything," he asked, feeling stupid for the question as soon as he asked it. "Why would he do that? How old were you?"

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

At least the wide eyes validated making Jason sit down for this bit of sharing. "I didn't forget stuff like walking and talking, but I forgot everything else," Nico explained, hoping that made sense. "I don't know for sure how old I was since there aren't records I ever existed, but Chiron guesses I was nine or ten. My father was trying to protect us, it just didn't work."