The Nico di Angelo experiment

Interior Comfort vs. Exterior Glam

Jason was bored.

Percy and Annabeth were a date, and Reyna and Frank were at their respective sport practices. Leo and Piper said they were busy, which probably meant they were just blowing stuff up. Nico was staying after school to work on a test.

He was laying on his bed, head dangling off the edge, and it came to him that he didn't really have that many people he was close to. Look at him now, for god's sake. Bored and lonely, because seven out of the about (maybe) ten people he trusted were busy. Thalia was gone, and he rarely saw her anymore. His dad was away on "business" (read: finding new women to sleep with) This meant his stepmom, Juno, had already stormed out in a jealous rage and wouldn't be back for several more weeks. When she was, she would pretend nothing was wrong, and they were a perfect family. She'd ask him about football, knowing good and well that he didn't play anymore. Jason didn't know if he could take that.

Okay, wallowing in those thoughts was a bit destructive.

He knew one person who wasn't busy, so he picked up his phone, punched in a few numbers, and held it up to his ear to listen to the ringing.

"Hello?"

"Hazel!" He cried, relieved to hear a friendly voice. "How've you been?"

"Nothing's changed since school ended two hours ago, so I'm fine." She chuckled, and Jason smiled.

"Listen, I'm bored out of my mind. Need a model?"

"Actually, no." She said regretfully, and he sighed.

"But you can come over and help me cook dinner."

"Deal!"
______

"So Jason, what made you call me? No offense or anything, but we never really hang out without the others." Hazel asked, apron around her waist and hair pulled back into a fast but efficient twist.

"I was.....alone. And thinking too much." He said sincerely from his spot a few feet away by the sink.

She smiled, a bit too sadly in Jason's opinion, and snapped her fingers to tell him that she wanted the raw chicken breasts.

"I can do that part." Jason offered, but she shook her head and dropped them in the oil.

"Sorry, Jason, but you're on cookie duty."

He huffed and moved to brush his hair back, and the empty bowl he was holding dropped out of his hands and sent up a mist of flour, covering his face and making him sneeze.

She laughed, her point proven.

"That's a lot of giggling for someone who doesn't notice when the water she's standing next to is boiling, Levesque." He teased, and she yelped and turned the dial on the oven all the way to the right.

"Don't be mean." She said as she swatted his arm with a rag, making him drop a ball of dough into the flour and oil mixture below him, splashing him yet again with a healthy dose of flour.

"How was I being mean? I warned you!"

"You didn't have to use that tone, Jason."

"What tone?"

"That one!" She exclaimed, gesturing so wildly that some of the chicken juice (did chickens even have juices? He'd have to find out) flew across the room and landed on his cheek.

He looked up, and Hazel laughed as he stood stoically while chicken juice ran down his cheek, hopefully looking more like a vicious warrior so manly he couldn't wipe the blood off his face, and not like, say, a boy standing in a kitchen with mysterious juices running down his face.