Nico di Angelo pushed his shopping cart along in front of him, walking through the empty aisle until he stopped at the shelf that held the item he wanted. He looked up at the item sitting at the top of the shelf and sighed, for he was way too short to reach it.
Oh, well. Might as well try.
Nico jumped up, fingers fumbling wildly in the air for the object. His fingers nearly touched the bottom of the top shelf before gravity sent him crashing back down to the ground, the bottom of his shoes slapping loudly against the floor.
He tried again a couple times, before giving up and trying to climb the shelf. His feet were on the lowest shelf and his hands were grabbing at the next one when a pack of playing cards fell and bonked onto his head. Nico flinched and dropped to the floor. He began climbing up the shelf again, now prepared for incoming falling objects.
"Oh my gods, stop!" someone laughed behind him, their footsteps coming closer to him. "Nico, you can't just climb the shelf."
Nico jumped back down onto the ground, embarrassed, and turned around. "Hey, Hazel..."
"Need some help?" Hazel asked, eyeing the item at the top of the shelf.
"Um... you're shorter than me." Nico pointed out.
"Okay, but if you lift me up maybe I can reach." Hazel told him. "C'mon, let's try it."
"Fine," Nico grumbled, lacing his fingers together and crouching down slightly. Hazel put her foot in his hands and he hoisted her up.
"Aah!" Hazel squealed, losing her balance and tumbling to the floor. "Um..."
"Maybe you should hold on to the shelf." Nico suggested.
"Uh, okay," Hazel nodded, and Nico hoisted her up once again. Hazel gripped onto the shelf for balance, then reached up with one hand. She shifted her foot slightly, causing it to slip from Nicos grasp.
Nico sighed. "You know... Whatever. I don't really need the stupid thing anyways."
"Oh, come on," said a familiar voice from the end of the aisle. "It's not that hard. I got this." Will Solace pushed himself off the shelf he was leaning against and strode towards them, reaching up and swiftly grabbing the smiley-face stress ball Nico had been trying to get his hands on.
Nico watched him, mortified and quite a bit jealous. "How come you get to be tall?"
"You're welcome." was Will's only response as he placed the stress ball in Nico's hand. "You can pay me back somehow another time. And... a smiley face stress ball?"
"Shut up, you have a Chewbacca onesie." Nico mumbled.
Will gasped. "You promised to keep that between us!"
"Well, I don't see anyone else here," Nico replied, quickly shoving Hazel away.
"Nico's just jealous because he ended up with the ewok onesie!" Hazel called as she walked away.
"How do you know about that?!" Nico demanded, but Hazel was already gone.
*Two weeks later*
"Nico?" Percy asked, poking his head through the door of the Hades cabin. "Will needs you. He's in the big house."
Nico hurried towards the door. "Is everything okay?"
"No," Percy nodded. "He needs your help right now. It's an emergency. Hurry up!"
About a minute later, Nico had entered the big house and rushed towards the couch, where Will was standing with a half-finished smoothie.
"Nico!" Will exclaimed. "Good. I need your help."
"What's going on?" Nico asked, worried.
"Well, I dropped a straw under the couch... And I need you to get it."
"Are you kidding?" Nico turned to glare at Percy, who smiled at him innocently.
"No..." Will said.
Nico turned back to Will. "Why can't you get it?" he asked, though he was already crouching to the ground. Percy laughed.
"The space under the couch isn't exactly very roomy." Will explained. "We need someone small."
"Seriously?" Nico groaned. "How did you even get the straw under the--you know what, nevermind." Nico crawled under the couch, quickly snatched Will's metal straw, and crawled back out, trying to swipe the dust from his black shirt. He placed the straw in Will's free hand. "You're welcome."
"Well, looks like you finally paid me back for that smiley stress ball." Will said as he tried to wipe the straw clean on his shirt.
"Wait, what smiley stress ball?" Percy asked. "There's a smiley stress ball? Please, enlighten me."
Heavily inspired and edited by @pirmusic_246
