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!]

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[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."

[dontvotemeout]

"Protect you from what? How could you be safe if you didn't even know who you were?" Jason asked. "That's bullshit, there's no reason to do that to a kid." Yeah, his first ten years hadn't been great, but he couldn't imagine losing them.

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

Jason's reaction had that strange warm feeling growing in his chest again. It was strange to hear someone defend his right to know who he was.

"I don't know, I think he lost it when my mother died. He'd refused to let Zeus take us to camp and so my dear uncle threw a bolt at the bunch of us and father only managed to save me and Bianca." Don't get Nico started on wondering how things could've been different. "Maybe he thought it'd be easier on all of us to just forget. I mean, I'm no apologist for him, but he looked like a wreck when it happened."

[dontvotemeout]

"So he dumped you and your sister in a river so you'd forget all about your mother. Yeah, that's a great thing to do when someone's died, is have everyone forget about her," Jason said, possibly projecting a little at the idea of anyone trying such a thing on him. "I'm sorry. That just...it wasn't right, I don't care how much of a wreck he was. If he was so upset, he could have taken the dip himself. But to wipe out everything...you're right, that is screwed up."

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

Now that sounded like Jason was taking it personally and Nico didn't know how to deal with that, wringing his hands as he talked. "I'm sorry, I probably should have told you before. Especially with all the dreams lately and you being so great about everything else."

[dontvotemeout]

Jason sighed, because Nico wasn't the one he was angry with. "It's okay. For you to tell me stuff when you're comfortable, I mean," he said, before looking a little more confused. "Wait, what dreams?"

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

"Fine, then I'm getting comfortable," Nico said, going for a little levity as he flopped back on Jason's bed. "Lately I've been dreaming about Bianca and the time before she died," he admitted, leaving out how he'd been a dick to Percy because of it. "Thus, tattoo."

[dontvotemeout]

"How old were you when that happened?" Jason asked, lying down next to Nico, or more specifically, next to his tattoo.

[deaths-demigod.livejournal.com]

Nico couldn't help shifting so his arm would rest against Jason. The warmth was soothing, shh. "If we go with me being ten when I was stuck in the casino, then I would have been eleven when she died and seventeen now," Nico answered. "I know, it's weird how I didn't even know her for very long, but she didn't remember anything either. We kind of relied on each other to fake knowing what was going on."

[dontvotemeout]

"She was your sister," Jason said again as he took a closer look at Nico's tattoo. "It didn't matter how long you knew her, she was family. But you should have gotten to know her longer than that."