My cabin was almost cleared of all of me and my sibling's belongings, we had to redecorate after the Iris cabin "accidentally" set off a rainbow bomb in my stuff. I blamed Jason Grace for telling any of them that Nico and I were dating, they sometimes went a little overboard with rainbows.
Nico had been helping me get rid of some of my junk, and clean off any of the things that were more colorful than they used to be. I had just finished putting a box of trash outside of the cabin when Nico called me inside.
"Will! I need you to decide what to do with this, it looks like you sealed something in an envelope!"
I ran back inside to see my boyfriend on the ground holding up a small envelope "thanks captain obvious," I sighed "just open it, I don't know what's inside but we might as well check."
Nico nodded and ripped the paper, revealing a small memo recorder that I had bought a long time ago.
"Wanna play it? Or do you have some dirty secrets on it?" Nico asked.
"Oh come on! Just play it."
He pushed the button, at first all there was was silence but eventually a much younger me started to talk.
"Um, hi. I bought this thing so I could kinda just talk and stuff. Camp has been nice, all of the other campers seem to love me but I'm really out of place in the Hermes Cabin, I hope my dad claims me soon."
There was a small click and I started talking again, I was laughing and crying at the same time, I suddenly remembered that that was the night I was claimed.
"Welcome to the family Brotha!" Michael yelled.
I could hear Lee laughing along with everyone in the background, everything hurt. Tears formed in my eyes as I heard all of us being happy and cheering, I missed all of my siblings who had died so much.
"Hey, Will, it's okay. Michael and Lee are happy now, don't worry," Nico whispered.
I nodded and we continued listening.
"The Titans are waging war, I don't know what's going to happen. Oh gods, I've gotta go!"
There was a loud crash, I presumed it was me shoving the recorder into my pocket. For a few minutes there was the sound of fighting, then a horse neighing.
"Woah Blackjack, okay guys lets get her off safely! Okay, lets get some bandages and gauze!"
There was more commotion and then a huge crash, which I now knew was the bridge collapsing, killing Michael. Percy's voice entered, we talked for a moment and I had started to heal Annabeth.
It clicked off again and started with me sighing "We lost Michael." and then again.
I bit my lip and squeezed Nico's hand, which was warmer than usual.
"I don't know what to do, everyone expects me to lead my cabin, but I can't, I just can't! I don't understand how Michael did it, or how everyone has moved on from what happened in the war, I still have nightmares."
Click!
"Apparently the son of Hades, Nico is his name, he doesn't come to camp, which is weird because he helped a ton in the war. I kind of wish he at least visited, I'd like to get to know him a little."
I paused the tape and sighed a little "Wow, that's totally not embarrassing at all."
Nico smiled at me and hugged me "I didn't know you were curious about me so long ago Will."
I rolled my eyes and pressed play again and it was just me humming along to 'Here Comes the Sun'. There was another click and I coughed a little.
"Apparently Nico is bringing the Athena Parthenos to camp, I really hope he doesn't get hurt in the process."
Nico laughed a little "William! You hadn't even officially met me yet!"
"Oh shut up Neeks, you know it's flattering for me to have been interested in you for this long."
There was another click just as Nico started to speak.
"Now, Nico di Angelo is far from perfect, and I'm saying this from a 100% biased point of view. He is kind of a jerk, and a shut in, and a-okay you get it. All I'm trying to say is that Nico isn't perfect but to me he is as close as anyone can get.
His eyes are the most fixating color, I can never decide if they're brown or black or like some crazy type of hybrid. His voice sounds like that of an angel's, haha di Angelo, angel, get it? Ahh never mind. He has the softest touch that just holding his hand is like hugging a really chill cat, but I've only held his hands when he needed to be checked up on. Wow I'm bad at this. But really, I can not resist that guy, he's just so amazing. He's also the world's biggest dork, once I walked in on him wrapping himself in a blanket burrito because the Hades Cabin's heater broke. He was so adorable."
Nico hid his face, but I could tell he was blushing. I playfully tickled him as me from almost a year ago rambled on about him. Nico laughed loudly and I continued to tickle him. He removed his hands from his face and threw his head back trying to stifle another laugh. His mouth was drawn out in a smile, it was such a beautiful smile, I was glad that the tapes didn't hurt him, because some were pretty heavy. I wanted to erase all of the bad feelings from him, so naturally, I wrapped my hands around him and tilted my head, closed my eyes, and kissed him.
Nico was a good kisser, something that I almost immediately figured out, though I could tell he was surprised he still kissed me back, gently moving our lips together.
Yeah, Nico was definitely not perfect, with his clammy hands and his snarky remarks every five seconds, but he sure as hell was as close as anyone could get.
