Work Text:
“Are they gone?” Will whispers.
Nico offers him a chocolate-slathered crepe. Sugar tends to solve most of his problems, even if there are about a dozen of those problems staring up at the couple with beady eyes. “I think,” he says, “you should keep closing your eyes.”
He’ll admit that he’d had other things in mind when Will brought up going to Paris again – silly thoughts he’d never say aloud, daydreams he plans on keeping to himself, but thoughts nonetheless: a date spent traipsing through narrow streets with only whimsy for a fitful guide, their locked hands swinging between them like knotted ribbon. He wouldn’t have minded if they’d done nothing but drag their feet around all day, drinking up sunlight in sprawling parks or stealing kisses in clandestine city corridors – anything if it meant being with his idiot boyfriend.
This, though, is nothing close to what he’d anticipated. As Will nibbles on a crepe (he’s staining his face with chocolate, and Nico really wants to wipe it away – he does) the pigeons at their feet cock their feathered heads and peck at the ground, as though demanding Nico toss the remainder of his food at their cobblestone altar. He’s certain the only thing keeping them from coming any closer is the death aura he gives off. The few ambitious ones tread a bit too close for comfort. Audacious bastards.
Nico is no stranger to pigeons. He’s lived years in Venice, and because the Fates think themselves funny, one of the things he remembers most about home – rather than the people living there – were the birds. The seagulls were the worst, but the pigeons remained a close second because they simply invaded everything. They congregated in numbers and snatched food. They shat on any surface flat enough to be shat on. He’d wake up and they’d be sitting on the pots where his Mamma planted her herbs, just waiting for some unsuspecting fool to open the window.
Part of him admires their tenacity, but the other part wishes they’d move so his boyfriend can open his eyes. Will is as familiar with pigeons as him, but that’s mostly because his demigod initiation involved being violently attacked by Stymphalian birds – which happen to look like pigeons, albeit with bronze beaks and metallic feathers. Now Will can’t stand the things, which Nico thinks is fair and a little funny (Will doesn’t think it’s funny, and whenever Nico brings it up, gives him a glare akin to being pelted with marshmallows.)
“I’m an idiot,” Will groans, holding his crepe like a damsel holds a handkerchief.
“That you are,” Nico agrees, pressing a firm kiss to his boyfriend’s head of curls. “But I am too. I should’ve-”
“It isn’t your fault. I just completely forgot.” He runs a frustrated hand through his windswept hair. “I didn’t think I’d be so-”
“Scared?”
“I was going to go with ‘irked,’ but okay,” he mumbles. After a tepid moment, he asks, “Are they still there?”
“Watching and waiting,” Nico replies helpfully. “I think they want your crepes.”
“If I throw it, and we run, do you think they’ll chase after us?”
“We’re going to look like maniacs.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary.”
Nico glances at the Parisians milling about and shakes his head, even though his boyfriend can’t see him. “I’ve got a better idea. Where do you feel like going right now?”
“I was thinking a café, since we haven’t eaten any real meals so far-”
“I think crepes qualify as a meal. If you eat enough of them.”
Will would have rolled his eyes, had they been open. Instead he settles for an exasperated sigh, the same sort that comes with Nico’s frequent requests for fast food and his terrible driving skills. “Not even close."
Nico searches their surroundings, choosing to ignore Will's invalidation of dessert. Cafés line the street, multi-hued awning billowing in the faint breeze. From his right, he can smell freshly baked castella; a few feet away there are coffee shops where steam rises above the clinking of spoons and cups. There’s a quaint café tucked away between two patisserie joints, quiet chatter pouring from its thrown-open windows – it’s a distance to walk, but nothing they can’t manage.
The path is pockmarked with birds tearing apart their spoils of war. Nico stands up and digs around Will’s pack – he'd insisted on bringing one, and there’s just about anything imaginable in there – and retrieves an umbrella colored so obnoxiously yellow he’s certain it’ll shame the sun into cloudy submission.
He taps it against the ground and nudges Will up. His boyfriend’s eyes snap open, startled blue framed with a ring of golden eyelashes. Their hands find each other again, and with a shuddering breath, Will follows Nico down the street.
The sight must be something. He’s sure the locals have seen stranger things from tourists, but a boy beating back pigeons with an umbrella must be new.
Nico grasps the hilt like a weapon, pointing the tipped end at any bird that dare get too close. Will is still holding his unfinished crepe, making him an easy target, and they flock towards his fidgeting fingers with mischievous intent. Every time one approaches, Nico slices through the air with his umbrella, scaring them back until they gather up the breadcrumbs of courage they need to try again.
He glares at them to get the message across: keep away. And with most animals, this works – some pedestrians even shy away - but pigeons are far from meek. They’ve toed the line of death so often that it’s become only mingling for them. It sort of reminds him of his waning ability to garner fear at camp, as everyone’s become far too familiar with him to be scared, especially since he’s taken to wandering the grounds in a black bathrobe and slippers during early morning.
He’s quite ready to whack a few birds down (and gets close), but they arrive at the café without issue. The pigeons titter from outside, and Nico doesn’t put his umbrella away, even when the waitress arrives with their orders.
They leave just as dusk is arriving to find one of Paris’s parks, where Nico waves his umbrella around menacingly to scare the few trekking pigeons. They eat strawberries brought from home and lean back into the grass. It’s cooler now, and away from the streets, the breeze finds them with a tentative caress to the skin.
They’re only watching clouds, something they do at camp all the time. “Maybe the clouds in Paris are different,” Will suggests jokingly, and Nico smacks him with a limp hand. Together they stroll under tree boughs and take about a dozen poorly aimed photos with Will’s polaroid – and Nico chases off a few more birds with his weapon of choice, scaring the hell out of a few playing children each time his umbrella smacks the sidewalk.
“You know,” Will says after a while, “you don’t have to do this.”
“If my boyfriend gets carried off by pigeons again, I only have myself to blame.”
Will’s lips twist petulantly. “Low blow, Nico.”
Nico leans up – he has to stand on his tip-toes, and he’s so unfairly short – to briefly kiss the frown off Will’s face. “Sorry,” he says, not very apologetic. They’ve been out of Tartarus a whole month now, and the jokes are about as common as being smothered by a Cocoa Puff in the morning. “But I don’t mind. It’s kind of fun.”
A single arched eyebrow. “You look like a rabid Mary Poppins with that thing.”
Nico does a jaunty pose and Will snorts with laughter. “Quite so,” he quips, his British accent terrible in every way. “I’d beat up birds for you, tesoro.”
“It's good to know you would go toe-to-toe with a chicken.”
“Farm birds can be devious,” Nico says, completely serious.
“I’m sure you’d know.”
“That’s enough sarcasm out of you.” Nico stuffs a strawberry in Will’s mouth to keep him from talking. Soon enough they get hungry again and find a vendor who hasn’t yet closed shop. They get themselves falafel, possibly the most delicious Nico’s ever had. The pigeons must agree, because they hound the couple – the minute Nico sees Will’s shoulders hitch up, he begins swinging the umbrella like a bayonet, scattering birds and earning himself a look of respect from the vendor.
Eventually night falls completely and Nico shadow-travels them to a rooftop where they can see the stars. They’ve gotten themselves ice cream, because neither of them have gone without eating something within the past hour, and because the air’s simmering like oil. They’re all cooking herring in the heat, which is slightly less romantic, but it’s cold enough on the rooftop that Nico can offer Will his jacket – romantic enough.
The silence is comfortable. It always is with Will, until the quiet is tentatively broken when he blurts out, “What?” at Will’s odd expression. It’s the same face he wore back in the café, staring over tall glasses of tea while Nico ate like he’d dropped his manners on the ground back at the Seine.
“I’m lucky,” Will says, leaning back on his hands. Their cones melt and drip onto their fingers, sticky chocolate and cream staining their shirts.
“To be alive? Aren’t we all?”
“I mean to have you,” his boyfriend clarifies. Declarations of affection have become easy, like kisses on the cheek or hugs from behind, but sometimes they leave Nico a little speechless, as they do now.
“Oh,” he replies.
“Not everyone would chase around birds all day.”
Nico tilts his head, a gentle smirk touching his lips. “And you find that romantic?”
"It’s the little things. Like saving me food, or offering to take care of my patients when I’m tired. Or, you know, chasing pigeons with an umbrella instead of just leaving Paris.”
“You’ve been wanting to go forever.” Nico tucks his legs in, thigh-high boots dangling off the rooftop’s stone rim. “We’d only just gotten there. And you looked so happy, too. I couldn’t say no. You needed that break.”
A head came to rest on his shoulders. “You did, too, and you spent it whacking down birds.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Will’s dry laugh makes him dizzy, so he reaches for his boyfriend’s hand, squeezes it, and together they watch the Parisian sunset.
There isn’t a bird in sight.