100 Feelings Books Gave Me • 01| The Balcony Scene
Things you need to know, first off:
→ Percy Jackson and the Olympians is My Life. I've never had an OTP before Percy and Nico took permanent residence in my brain and now I've written so much for them that my name is practically synonymous with the pairing. I cannot love them more.
→ I frequently make references to 'The Balcony Scene', and probably most PJO fans who are not crazy think that I am. (Which is very true! But I have a method behind my madness.) So let's talk about this mythical Balcony Scene.
Okay, so it's not actually a balcony. It's a fire escape, and there's two demigods on it - two boys who, in the past two books, have had a surprisingly tumultuous and complicated relationship for a kids' series.
[Spoilers for Titan's Curse and Battle of the Labyrinth that you should read anyway.]Nico and Bianca, in the category of neglected children, are very close. Nico especially clings to his older sister... and she dies in the process of saving Percy's life. Nico blames Percy. Percy refuses to take offense, believing strongly in the goodness of Nico's heart. Nico takes him to the Underworld; Hades throws Percy in jail, Percy is furious and thinks he's been betrayed, Nico breaks him out and swears he didn't know and he just wanted to help. Percy calls him 'zombie dude' and everything's okay.
So it's Percy's birthday, and he goes out onto his fire escape, and suddenly, Nico appears. They talk about plot-related things, because Nico does this thing where he basically goes behind the scenes to orchestrate saving the world while Percy is the hero in the spotlight. So he's talking about what they need to do, very serious and businesslike, when... Nico looks over and sees a piece of blue birthday cake that Percy had brought in. To his bedroom. From the party outside.
"Is that blue birthday cake?"
He literally stops mid-sentence, I believe even mid-word when he sees that cake. It's - somewhere under all these walls Nico has put up, he's still this deprived child who lost a mother and sister and kind of a father, too, since Hades basically used him to get at Percy. His childhood was ripped away from him and he'll never really grow past that, but there's this piece of cake, and the world is ending but at his heart he's this lost little boy begging for something normal.
And Percy sees that in him, and he invites him inside. Says, essentially, come into my life and let me give you the love and reassurance you need, and then we can talk about saving the world. He's putting Nico before the world, and Nico is putting Percy before the world, and it's one of the simplest expressions of kindness I've ever read.
The first time I read it, though, I didn't quite read all this into it. I think I was still sobbing my eyes out over Calypso's plant and Poseidon picking favorites and the whole happy Jackson family birthday party thing. But after. When I went back to it. When I basically converted myself to shipping Percy/Nico with a hypothetical 'what if' fic. Then I realized how important and monumental this scene was, and I also realized, with a squeak of fangirly glee, that FIRE ESCAPE IS CLOSE ENOUGH TO A BALCONY RIGHT? Because any pairing that has a balcony scene, especially with flowers? LEGIT.
I have feelings about that scene. They are totally legit analytical feelings and have nothing to do at all with the fact that this is the first physical description of Nico's sexy new appearance, including his HAIR BEING LONG, which most people seem to forget about. Collarbone, people. It's grown out to his collarbone, and I choose to believe he hasn't cut it since, so it's quite long by the time he dons his toga.
→ Percy Jackson and the Olympians is My Life. I've never had an OTP before Percy and Nico took permanent residence in my brain and now I've written so much for them that my name is practically synonymous with the pairing. I cannot love them more.
→ I frequently make references to 'The Balcony Scene', and probably most PJO fans who are not crazy think that I am. (Which is very true! But I have a method behind my madness.) So let's talk about this mythical Balcony Scene.
Okay, so it's not actually a balcony. It's a fire escape, and there's two demigods on it - two boys who, in the past two books, have had a surprisingly tumultuous and complicated relationship for a kids' series.
[Spoilers for Titan's Curse and Battle of the Labyrinth that you should read anyway.]Nico and Bianca, in the category of neglected children, are very close. Nico especially clings to his older sister... and she dies in the process of saving Percy's life. Nico blames Percy. Percy refuses to take offense, believing strongly in the goodness of Nico's heart. Nico takes him to the Underworld; Hades throws Percy in jail, Percy is furious and thinks he's been betrayed, Nico breaks him out and swears he didn't know and he just wanted to help. Percy calls him 'zombie dude' and everything's okay.
So it's Percy's birthday, and he goes out onto his fire escape, and suddenly, Nico appears. They talk about plot-related things, because Nico does this thing where he basically goes behind the scenes to orchestrate saving the world while Percy is the hero in the spotlight. So he's talking about what they need to do, very serious and businesslike, when... Nico looks over and sees a piece of blue birthday cake that Percy had brought in. To his bedroom. From the party outside.
"Is that blue birthday cake?"
He literally stops mid-sentence, I believe even mid-word when he sees that cake. It's - somewhere under all these walls Nico has put up, he's still this deprived child who lost a mother and sister and kind of a father, too, since Hades basically used him to get at Percy. His childhood was ripped away from him and he'll never really grow past that, but there's this piece of cake, and the world is ending but at his heart he's this lost little boy begging for something normal.
And Percy sees that in him, and he invites him inside. Says, essentially, come into my life and let me give you the love and reassurance you need, and then we can talk about saving the world. He's putting Nico before the world, and Nico is putting Percy before the world, and it's one of the simplest expressions of kindness I've ever read.
The first time I read it, though, I didn't quite read all this into it. I think I was still sobbing my eyes out over Calypso's plant and Poseidon picking favorites and the whole happy Jackson family birthday party thing. But after. When I went back to it. When I basically converted myself to shipping Percy/Nico with a hypothetical 'what if' fic. Then I realized how important and monumental this scene was, and I also realized, with a squeak of fangirly glee, that FIRE ESCAPE IS CLOSE ENOUGH TO A BALCONY RIGHT? Because any pairing that has a balcony scene, especially with flowers? LEGIT.
I have feelings about that scene. They are totally legit analytical feelings and have nothing to do at all with the fact that this is the first physical description of Nico's sexy new appearance, including his HAIR BEING LONG, which most people seem to forget about. Collarbone, people. It's grown out to his collarbone, and I choose to believe he hasn't cut it since, so it's quite long by the time he dons his toga.