"Have you seen the new kid around?"
"God, he looks like a middle schooler. Are you sure he's not lost?"
"Another emo kid, great. Think this one hisses at people?"
Jason turned from his locker. He remembered Annabeth mentioning something about a new boy in her home room, but he didn't think it would attract that much attention. He scanned the hallway, looking for any new faces he might not recognize, but it was too crowded. His height only worked to his advantage so much.
"Excuse me." Jason looked down to see someone who must have been the boy people were buzzing about in the hallway. "That's my locker." The boy did look young, with shaggy dark hair coming down over his eyes. Jason had to hold back a laugh when he remembered someone calling the boy "emo," as he was dressed exactly like Thalia did when she went through her "phase."
"Hey, blondie!" The boy snapped his fingers in front of Jason's face to regain his attention. "You're in front of my locker."
His eyebrows shot up in surprise at the boy's attitude. "Uh, this is my locker?" Jason was taken by surprise, only being able to respond with the first thing to cross his mind.
The brunette rolled his eyes. "No kidding. I was talking about the one below it. The one you're blocking?"
Jason jumped out of the way, apologizing. "Shit, yeah. I'm sorry, I wasn't even thinking." The new boy waved his hand absentmindedly, kneeling down to twist the combination into the lock and pulling the locker open. "I'm Jason, by the way. Jason Grace."
The boy hummed in response, throwing some contents of his backpack into the locker before setting the lock again. "Cool."
"Just figured, since we're locker neighbors, we should be introduced." The boy stood and met the blonde's smiling face with an uninterested expression.
"Nico."
"Just Nico?" Jason held out his hand to shake, a habit he had picked up from charity dinners for his father.
"Yeah." Nico ignored the hand and brushed past him. "Just Nico."
-
"Have you seen the new boy?"
Jason slid onto the lunch bench next to Percy. The dark haired boy smiled, slinging his arm around his boyfriend and planted a noisy kiss on his check. "You know I don't see other boys. You're all I know." He peppered Jason's face with loud, annoying kisses until the blonde was pushing him back.
"You're so childish." Though he tried to sound stern, the blonde had a warm smile on his face. He returned Percy's many kisses with a single one to his lips. "Now that we're even-"
"Not even close."
"Have you seen him?" Jason sat back up right, turning to his bag and pulling out work he had half finished the night before in Percy's room.
"I didn't even know we had a new kid."
"Do you not listen to Annabeth when she speaks?" Jason lovingly nudged his boyfriend's side without looking up from the English work he had in front of him.
"Not when you're around, mi amour." Percy leaned in close, but Jason didn't turn. "Hey, come on. You can finish that later." He reached over and tried to push the pen in Jason's hand down, but the blonde's grip was firm. "Jay."
"I need to finish this." Jason was strict on himself. Percy had noticed when they were still just friends, seeing the bags grow under his friend's eyes when school started to become too much. He knew it was partly because of Jason's family, his parents having incredibly high standards for their only son, but he also knew Jason pushed himself to that point. It worried the dark haired boy, especially considering Jason refused to acknowledge it to either of them.
