Chapter Text
There's always been something obsessive, in Percy.
Something craving to chase.
In his teen years, he'd gotten it out of his system in battles, in his relationship with Annabeth – in Nico di Angelo, mostly, with his ability to disappear at any given moment.
Far removed from that time, he's able to manage it better, won the battles and got the girl and built a semi-stable life. But Nico was like a bird, always in motion. Always running, running, jumping from one place to the next – never staying still long enough to be kept.
And so, is it such a crime for Percy to want to sink his teeth in, now?
With his hand buried in Nico's soft hair and his mouth tasting the skin just above his sharp collarbones, Percy cannot bring himself to think of it as such.
Nico has never let himself be kept.
Percy is holding him tonight, though, hearing him whine and beg and keeping him close enough that it's almost suffocating – and still wanting more.
He doesn't think, doesn't question anything. What he should and shouldn't do. And that makes him a bad person, maybe, makes them both rotten and wicked and Percy doesn't care.
(Liberating. More than it should be. The guilt will push and pull at his insides and still won't manage to make him forget how it felt.
I was made for this and this alone, from the beginning.)
He thrusts into him, once, twice, feeling Nico tighten around him and run his nails down his back hard enough to sting. And only wants more.
Nico never let himself be kept.
Except by Percy, except like this.
The worst part about this entire thing, he thinks in the aftermath, sweat and come drying on his skin, is that the guilt won't stop either of them.
The worst part is that he's never felt more at home in his own skin than he does now – after betraying everyone's trust, after sacrificing the rest of his life on the shrine that is Nico.
Percy is a bad person, maybe, definitely.
(The golden hero, fading. Covered in grime and rust and coming alive for all the wrong reasons. It is a darkly satisfying thought.
Nico lets himself be kept, by him.
That is enough to keep going, keep ruining everything that he was and wanted himself to be.
Maybe he just wanted to be someone's, to chase after and be chased in turn and taste blood on his teeth.
Addicting.)
He swears that he's going to stop and betrays himself, too, when he turns to kiss Nico goodnight just a moment after.
Really, he sacrificed himself first, a long time ago.
He wonders if that makes it better, the notion of having been Nico's far before any of this happened. Of having betrayed them before he ever did anyone else.
Somehow, Percy doesn't think so.
These days, the shame always threatens to drown him.
It's funny, just a bit, because it's never when he's with Percy but always after. When the damage has already been done.
Nico hadn't meant for this, when he came back from Italy – truly, he swears to every god in every pantheon, he hadn't.
(Despite what anyone may think when this comes to light, what they might convince themselves of to save their opinion of the Hero, it wasn't Nico that made the first move.
It won't matter to anyone else but it matters to him.)
But he's always run after the feeling of being wanted, always craved to be someone's. It's wrecked many, many things in the past – starting with Will Solace, who loved in such a simple, uncomplicated way, and couldn't understand that Nico would run, sometimes, purely to be chased.
Prove that you want me.
Constantly.
His teenage years may have done some irreparable damage there, so strong it is, the need to test and push. Prove it. As if they could cure him of all his insecurities by following him when he storms off in a huff.
It's made him selfish, maybe. This wanting to be someone's world, their entire life revolving around him.
It's unhealthy, definitely. Even Nico knows that. He can't be someone's life. But he's spent so long knowing he mattered so little to the rest of the world – was important to no one in particular – that he can't seem to help it.
That's just how it is. As ugly as it is, Nico needs to be put above everything.
And, for some reason, Percy Jackson has decided to be the one to do it.
(There's something to be said here, about a boy chasing another through a labyrinth. Wasting his summer looking in every shadow, maybe.)
So, no, it wasn't Nico's plan or anything like that and he knows, very well, that it's not right. Knows that it will come crashing down around both of them.
What makes it so much worse is that he doesn't care, not until it's done. He doesn't care about the outside world and the people in it when he's in Percy's arms, filled to the brim with the strength of what Percy feels for him.
Doesn't care, not when Percy Jackson is in the process of burning his world down just to have him.
Nico is a bad person. He knows that.
Being aware doesn't make anything better, doesn't make him better.
It's rather the opposite, the knowledge of what they're ruining and the willingness with which they do it.
There's a bite on his neck, bleeding ever so slightly where Percy's teeth broke the skin – and they always do, at least once.
Physical proof, violent proof.
Percy is never afraid to harm him, seems to hear Nico's need before he can voice it. A perfect feedback of pleasure and pain, all at once.
He wonders idly, as he cleans the slight wound the morning after, how long it'll take for them to crash and burn.
“They'll find us out, you know.”
“Of course I do.”
“And am I worth that?”
“No one else is.”
Mistake after mistake.