zoethianismyotp:

Hermanito is Spanish for little brother. I really hate doing stuff like that in fics, just in case the translation’s off, but I feel like after Nico helped her come to terms with her childhood she’d be a lot more relaxed with her language with him.

“How about this one?” Reyna supressed a snort as Nico caught the floral red shirt instinctively, before dropping it with a look of disgust, “Why do you even have that?”

  “Halloween’s just around the corner. Thought I’d be a hula girl,” Nico turned to the pile of clothes headed on the bed, picking up the floral monstrosity then throwing it amongst the grey and black fabrics. Pretty much everyone as camp had figured out pretty early that trying to force Nico into bright colours was a bad idea after an incident with one of the Hermes kids. The being said, Will’s blue hoodie sleeve peeked out from underneath the bed. Nico resisted the urge to bury his face in it and hope the butterflies in his stomach would go away.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Reyna smirked, “Hula girls wear coconut bras. Here.” She passed him a black button down, and a pair of skinny jeans that, by some miracle, didn’t have a hole any holes in the knees. Within the past few months Nico had definitely loosened up around his friend come surrogate sister. Still, he slipped behind the curtain into Hazel’s side of the room to get changed.

 Reyna folded her arms with a sly smile, “You know, you should probably be careful. I mean, I don’t know much about your dad but he seems pretty protective. Wouldn’t want any zombies interrupting you and Will getting to know each other…”

  Nico burst into Reyna’s side of the room, shirt half buttoned and pants halfway down his hips, curtain flapping dramatically behind him, “No! He wouldn’t. Would he? I mean that was one it… Will you stop laughing?”

  Clutching her stomach, Reyna took a deep breath to calm herself down, “So you and Will are going to… ‘get to know’ each other?” She burst into another fit of laughter at the look of shock on Nico’s face, his blush spreading to his ears.

  “No! Rey you know I’m… I’m not going to-“Reyna’s laughter grew louder as she leaned on the wall for support, “Gods. Since when did you even say that? Whoever introduced you and Piper should be shot.”

  “That would be Jason, and I think he’s a little busy threatening your boyfriend.” She composed herself quickly, flashing Nico a smug smirk. Seeing the frown on Nico’s face, she moved forward to place a hand on his shoulder. It was still gratifying to see how he leaned into her touch rather than flinching away like he did when they first met, all that time ago. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

  “We’re not… I mean he’s not said…” Reyna nodded in understanding before pulling the boy into her arms. She felt his slowly move up to wrap around her waist.

  “He asked you on a date, hermanito. He likes you. You like him. You’re going to go out and see what happens. If it goes badly, you come to me and we can shadow travel to the nearest cinema showing the new avengers film and ice cream. If it goes well, we can get ice cream and you can tell me all about it.”

  Nico laughed into her shoulder, hair tickling her neck,” I like how both of those plans involve ice cream. How come we won’t see the movie if it goes well?”

  “Because you want eat the gelato from that nice Italian place. And because, shockingly, I want to give the film my full attention, not be distracted by you gushing about Will.” Nico snickered into her shoulder again, burying his face in her neck. He had half an hour until he had to meet Will. Hopefully he’d manage to be presentable by then. His stomach was still tied in knots, the thought of Will pulling them tighter. Getting this nervous about a first date had to be weird for any teenager, even if they were like him.

  But as he paced is breathing with Reyna’s, somehow the nerves seemed to go away. Will did like him, despite everything he’d done, and he definitely liked Will.

  “You love me gushing about things,” he murmured into Reyna’s neck.

  “Yeah,” she replied,” I do.”