You know, this was supposed to be... well, shorter than it is. XD; Ah well. That's what seems to happen: give me Nico and Percy, and I'll write forever. (Thankfully in this case, it was not really forever.) Anyway, this is probably the last fic I'll be writing for this battle, because I've written way too many already. ::fails so hardcore::

I feel this may be squishier than I really intended, since it's supposed to be a gen/friendship fic, but teaching someone to swim is totally a contact sport and I can't help that. XD; Besides, Nico is just adorable no matter what I try to do.

Written for The Battle of Mount Olympus at pjo_fic_battle.

Title: Sink or Swim (so original, I know -_-;)
Prompt: Percy & Nico, swimming lessons
Rating: PG (language only, though I don't think it's that bad)
Genre: Humor
Wordcount: 2,703
Spoilers: A few generic things from The Last Olympian



Sink or Swim

Someone was shaking him. Percy started awake, groping for Riptide and staring into the darkness in mild panic for a moment before he realized that the dark eyes peering down at him were familiar. "Uh... N-Nico?"

The younger boy grinned a bit sheepishly and nodded. "Hey. I need a favor."

Percy blinked, trying to remember where he was and what was going on. Because he was pretty sure he was asleep in his cabin at Camp Half-Blood (or at least he had been), and if he wasn't wrong then it must be the middle of the night. It didn't feel like he'd been asleep for more than an hour or two.

He squinted up at Nico's pale face. "What... what time is it?"

"About three."

"... AM?"

"Yeah."

Percy wasn't sure if he wanted to strangle the boy or just roll over and pretend he wasn't really awake. But strangulation would lead to a body that would lead to an inquiry, and rolling over wasn't likely to work since they'd already exchanged what could be construed as at least a few coherent words. So he sighed and struggled into a sitting position, wishing his head didn't feel quite so much like it was filled with cotton. Sleep was important, after all. Didn't Nico understand that?

"Couldn't this favor wait until morning?"

"Not... really," Nico said, his eyes sliding off to study the gray stone wall rather than Percy's face. "I kinda... well... it's kind of embarrassing."

"Uh," Percy said; after all, talking with other guys about things that were embarrassing were not high on the list of Things Percy Liked To Do. But Nico was here, and he was awake, and maybe if he got this overwith quickly he could go back to sleep that much sooner. "What is it?"

Nico stared at his feet and mumbled something that sounded like, "Idunnohowtrswm."

Percy blinked. "Uh... can you say that again? In English?"

Nico took a breath, glancing up from behind shaggy dark bangs. "I said, 'I don't know how to swim', okay?"

Percy just stared, for a moment unable to comprehend exactly what this meant. Finally he managed to say, "And you decided to change that right now because...?"

"You know that water polo tournament tomorrow - well, today?"

"Oh. Yeah." Water polo was a recent addition to the Camp Half-Blood activities list but hey, when you could knock a couple hours of weapons training off the list due to a recently-won war against the Titans, there were slots needing to be filled. Chiron had decided that a few friendly (or as friendly as anything ever got at Camp Half-Blood) games of water polo in the lake would be the perfect end-of-summer activity.

"I'm supposed to be on the Ares team."

"... Ah."

"Yeah."

So Nico couldn't swim, Percy reasoned, and letting Clarisse (or any of her siblings) find out would probably be a fate worse than death (Nico's parentage notwithstanding, of course). But really, they'd know about the tournament for days - almost a week. "You ever think you might have asked a little sooner?" Percy had to ask, cocking one eyebrow.

Nico just scowled. "I thought I could teach myself."

"And how'd that go?"

Nico just scowled more. "If it went so well, would I be standing here asking you now? Are you gonna help me or not?" He made it sound like it was something Percy could easily have said no to, but they both knew the truth - he wouldn't. Percy was too loyal to his friends, and Nico knew it as well as he did.

"Fine, fine," Percy grumbled, finally swinging his legs out of the bed and running a hand through his hair. He looked Nico up and down as he stood. The boy was in his usual clothes: black t-shirt and jeans, heavy steel-toed boots, and a silver skull ring. His old beat-up bomber jacket was slung over one arm. Right. "Uh... you're not planning on wearing that, are you?"

"I don't have a swimsuit," was all Nico said.

Percy rolled his eyes. He might have the handy ability to not get wet, but Nico did not. And while Percy seriously hoped that Nico hadn't tried swimming on his own before in that getup, he also didn't really want to think about the alternatives, either. "Hang on," he said, padding over to the pile of clothes in the corner of the cabin (hey, why bother cleaning up when there was no one else to keep tidy for?). Digging through it, he finally came up with a pair of blue drawstring shorts that had been his gym shorts last year. They were a bit on the small side now.

He tossed them over at Nico. "Put those on."

He turned around, searching for his flip-flops until Nico said, "Okay," and Percy turned around. Nico had shucked his clothes and shoes onto the floor and now he was just standing there, pale and short and skinny in Percy's old gym shorts with Jackson still inked in fading black sharpie across the yellow strip on one leg. Nico had rolled up the waistband a couple of times, but still the shorts came down to his knees. Well, that was about right for swim trunks, anyway.

It was still hot out, the dog days of summer, but Nico shrugged the heavy bomber jacket on over his bare chest as he fidgeted in bare feet in the middle of the Poseidon cabin. Percy had to admit, learning to swim looked like just about the last thing Nico wanted to do. Nico caught the bemused look Percy was giving him and wrinkled his nose. "Aren't you gonna get changed?"

Percy was still wearing his t-shirt and shorts from the day before, which would be fine since he wasn't actually planning on getting wet. "Nah," he said, glancing down at himself and then back up again. "This is fine. Let's go. " Percy turned to head out the door, but Nico stopped him two steps later with a hand on his arm.

"I've got a faster way," he said, cocking his head towards the corner of the cabin where the shadows were longest. "How do you think I got here?"

Percy bit his lip - but mostly to hide the grin. Shadow traveling had been pretty kickass the few times he'd been privy to that mode of transportation, and it was definitely a better alternative than risking getting caught by the harpies. He nodded and obligingly and let Nico drag him over toward the corner, bracing himself as the shadows closed around them.

*

Percy discovered Nico's problem fairly quickly. After all, most people could, you know, float. They might sink a little, but they'd invariably come up to the surface if they laid on their backs or stomachs. But Nico? Nico just sank. Like a rock.

"This could be a problem," Percy muttered, staring at the somewhat-sodden son of Hades in the moonlight reflecting off the surface of the Long Island Sound. (They'd been practicing in the Sound because there were fewer giggling Naiads likely to rat them out - or flirt with them.) He was standing in the water up to his waist, watching Nico struggle to stay afloat a few feet away where the bottom started sloping downward a little more steeply.

"I know, right?" Nico muttered back, staring forlornly down at the shifting water that came up to his chest as he found a spot where he could stand on his toes.

Percy just shrugged. There must be a way around it... after all, there must be other people the world who sank like rocks and no one heard them complaining. (No one heard of them playing water polo either, come to think of it.) "Well, let's skip the floating and go right to the swimming. Maybe that'll work better."

Only it didn't, really. Watching Nico tread water was like watching a thrashing racoon drown (or at least what Percy imagined that might look like), and a three-toed sloth could probably have dogpaddled its way to shore and had time for a nap and a cup of tea before Nico got there.

Percy tried to hold in the snicker that wanted to break past his lips as he was forced to shake his head and admit, "Nico, you really suck at this."

Nico, who had finally dragged himself out of the water and onto the shore where Percy had retreated, stood there shivering and wet even in the humid night air. "Well, look! We can't all be the freaking son of Poseidon, okay?"

"Hey," Percy said, holding out his hands to show he meant no real harm, "don't take it so personally."

"Well how else am I supposed to take it? I suck at swimming and Clarisse is gonna laugh her head off and I'm cold," Nico sniffed miserably. "If you can't teach me to swim, no one can."

Percy rolled his eyes, sighing. "That's a sunny outlook." He paused. "Look, let's get back in the water. It'll be warmer."

"Yeah, right," Nico muttered, but he nonetheless reluctantly headed back towards the gently-lapping waves. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to drag you out of bed for this."

"You didn't?" Percy asked conversationally, as he trailed Nico into the water, feeling it close like a comforting blanket around him. "But you did."

Nico turned and scowled as he slipped down into the water up to his shoulders, teeth chattering just a bit. "Well, I thought it'd go better then, okay?"

Percy just shrugged, but he then turned his attention to trying something different - namely, getting the water to warm up a little. It might be late summer, but the Sound wasn't as warm as it had been a month ago, and Nico was naturally predisposed to being cold. Percy tried to nudge the temperature in the water around the boy up just a few degrees; by the look on Nico's face a moment later, it must have worked.

Grinning now, Percy took the few steps required to close the distance between them. "Okay, let's try this again. Maybe a little differently this time." If the hands-off approach hadn't worked... well, maybe it was time to try a more interactive method.

And without warning he grabbed Nico's waist and tilted it, pulling the boy's legs up toward the surface so he had to flail his arms madly just to keep his head above the water.

"What the hell!" Nico sputtered, arms working so fast they were almost a blur. "What are you doing?"

"Teaching you to swim," Percy told him, and began nudging the boy forward just a little, drifting out into deeper water. "Now swim."

Nico valiantly tried to do as he was told. Of course, in the process of doing so he kicked Percy in the gut twice and almost gave him a black eye when the flat of his hand smacked the sea god's son upside the head, but after a good fifteen minutes of ushering Nico around Percy finally felt like the boy might be getting it. At least a little. He hoped.

Carefully he began to inch away, until his fingertips were barely touching Nico's waist and then, finally, pulled away. The boy was so intent on keeping his arms and legs moving that it took him a good ten seconds to realize that he was slowly pulling away from Percy and moving out into open water on his own.

Nico executed a horribly splashy, inefficient turn, but the look in his eyes when his face turned toward Percy was unmistakable. "Hey!" Nico cried, and his voice echoed the excitement Percy could see on his face. "Hey, I think I got it!"

Percy gave him a short round of applause, finally cocking his head back to shore - at least twenty yards away. "Awesome. Now, you think you can get yourself back to shore?"

Nico's eyes widened as he realized just how far they'd gone. And then he forgot to keep kicking and moving his arms. And then he sank.

"Shit - Nico!" Without thinking Percy dove beneath the surface, easily catching up with the once-more flailing boy and bringing him back to the surface with hands hooked under his armpits. "You're not supposed to stop!" Percy berated him, as the boy in his arms coughed and sputtered.

Still half-hacking up water, Nico managed to disentangle one arm and smack Percy upside the head again, completely intentionally this time. Reeling in surprise, Percy let them slip below the water for just a second before shooting back up to the surface.

"Don't do that!" Nico cried, this time hanging on to Percy for dear life.

"Well don't hit me!" Percy shot back, as best he could with a short, pale boy clinging to his neck.

"Well then bring me back to shore!" Nico demanded.

"Why don't you swim there?" Percy asked, and began to slide out of Nico's grasp.

But Nico was having none of that. "No!" he insisted, clinging tighter so that Percy couldn't get away. "I'm done for the night. I got it, and thanks a whole lot and all, but I'm tired so can you just please take me back to shore and we'll call it even?"

Percy rolled his eyes, but found himself chuckling nonetheless. "I'm not sure what, exactly, we're calling even," he murmured, even as he began moving them back towards the shore and shallower water.

"I won't kill you for almost making me drown, and you can not tell anybody that I didn't know how to swim."

Percy did snicker this time. "Well, you're still not exactly a grand master," he put in. "A whole lot better than sinking, sure. But great? Not exactly."

"It'll be fine," Nico insisted, as they finally drifted close enough to shore that he could put his feet down and touch bottom.

"If you're good, I'm good," Percy said, and together the two of them trudged out of the water and up the beach to Nico's waiting jacket and Percy's sandy flip-flops.

"Oh great, I forgot a towel," Nico said, making a face and trying to hold his jacket as far from him as possible. "Look, can you take this? I don't want to get it all salty."

Percy grinned, but took the proferred jacket in his perfectly dry hands. "It's not so salty here, you know," he put in, just because he happened to, well, know.

"Well, still," Nico grumbled. He glanced around. "You wanna ride back to your cabin?"

"That'd be nice, yeah," Percy grinned, because after all, Nico was offering. He took the younger boy's wet hand and took a breath as they slipped into the shadows of a stand of trees just off the beach, rematerializing an infinitesimal amount of time later in the shadowy corner of the Poseidon cabin. Nico shuffled in place a bit, dripping a little onto the floor as he glanced up between sodden bangs and generally did a good job of looking pitiful.

"Oh geez," Percy huffed, but he didn't feel exactly put out as he hunted down a clean towel and tossed it at Nico's head.

"Thanks," the younger boy said, rubbing furiously at his hair before wrapping the towel around his shoulders. Then he glanced at Percy again. "You know, for everything."

Percy just shrugged. "Well, as long as I was awake." He grinned. "Keep the shorts. You'll need something to wear tomorrow, anyway."

Nico glanced down. "Right... Except they're obviously labeled as yours."

Percy just shrugged again, before launching himself into his bed and pulling the covers up. "Not my problem. I'm going back to sleep now."

Nico was probably making a face, Percy thought, as he closed his eyes and pulled the blanket up once more. He didn't need to see it; he could feel the other boy's glare. His grin only widened, safely hidden beneath the covers.

"Yeah. Okay. 'Night," Nico mumbled, and Percy heard him picking up the rest of his clothes and creaking his way across the floorboards to the corner.

"'Night," Percy murmured, soon after falling right back into sleep.