THE DATE

[shylyintrepid]

Who: Jehan and Nico
What: A DATE
When: April 27th (sorta) through April 29th (sorta). Really it mostly all happens on the 28th
Where: Venice
Why: Ahem.

[It's the morning (Venice time) of the 28th and Jehan is a nervous ball of nerves. After arriving in Venice with Nico, Nico crashed and has been out since then. Jehan, meanwhile, had trouble sleeping until he found someplace selling OTC sleeping pills and took one. Time zones plus "oh my gods is this a date" nerves will do that to you.

It's morning now, though, and Jehan is just finishing a shower in hopes of calming himself down. It's not working to well, but he's trying. The hotel Marianne got is incredible. There's only one bed, but it's incredible.]

Comments

[deathdiduspart]

[Shadow traveling is just so much better than a sleeping pill. He has no time to worry about anything, other than idly hoping he doesn't crack his skull against something.

Nico returns to consciousness while Jehan's in the shower. He's feeling much refreshed after crashing hardcore last night. He stretches and rubs the sleep out of his eyes, waiting for Jehan to get out so that he can do his own morning rituals. The son of Hades isn't strictly treating this as a date, but he still wants to look presentable for his...crrr--friend (totally crush). Though presentable is in the eye of the beholder, as Nico is going to wear what he typically wears anyway. He does, at least, have a change of more formal clothes, just in case the restaurant is one of those high-end ones.]

[shylyintrepid]

[Jehan comes out, shirtless and humming a Disney song under his breath as he towel dries his hair. (And, likely to Nico's surprise, Jehan's hair is curly. He regularly uses products to straighten it, however, as he hates his curls.) He doesn't even realize Nico is awake until he finishes toweling his hair off]

...ah. Good morning.

[deathdiduspart]

[Nope.

Nope. Nope nope not going to stare nope that is not a thing that's going to happen. Nico is going to focus on the fact that Jehan has curly hair instead of straight, and not the fact that he's shirtless.]

Morning. And here I thought you had naturally straight hair.

[shylyintrepid]

Ah, no.

[He smiles, blushing and quickly looking for a shirt]

About half of my mail from Mama and Marianne is more hair products. Not even Naomi knows I straighten it--I'm up before she is and my straightener is hidden in a hollowed out old book back at camp. It's embarrassing, my hair.

[deathdiduspart]

It looks--[Cute. No, don't say it aloud, just say it in your head, di Angelo.]--nice.

[He gets off the bed and grabs a clean set of clothes.]

I'm going to go hop in before we decide where to go first.

[shylyintrepid]

Do you mind if I fix my hair while you're in there?

[...Jehan. Jehan no.]

[deathdiduspart]

[Nico has to fight himself on giving Jehan a very knee-jerk reaction. The things he does for love.]

You can go ahead and do that before I take a shower. It's fine.

[shylyintrepid]

If you're sure. Room service should be up with breakfast soon, by the way!

[He grins and hops back into the bathroom to get his hair back to normal.

It takes a good five minutes. He needs a haircut.]

[deathdiduspart]

[Nico just nods and sits down on the bed. He gives the room a curious once-over, since he didn't really see it last night. It's a nice room, though he's ignoring the fact that there's only one bed. That's an issue to deal with later. Much later.

Once Jehan gets out, he'll go ahead inside the bathroom. It takes maybe fifteen minutes tops for him to get finished. Nico exits wearing his clean clothes and carrying out his dirty ones.]

[shylyintrepid]

[And Jehan, who is dressed in surprisingly matching colors (blues and greens, even if he's vaguely....well, hippieish today), studies Nico for a moment]

Do you only wear black?

[deathdiduspart]

As much as I can. It's my father's color, and it's mostly easy to clean.

[Also certain stains don't show up very well on black clothes.]

You seem to like colors no matter whether they match or not.

[It's cute and amusing.]

[shylyintrepid]

Well, yes! I mean I do own a sizable collection of black--and all colors match, though pink isn't good for my hair color--but colors are just so...lovely and perfect and I really think you'd look good in maybe red or blue.

[deathdiduspart]

You might convince me to wear red, but I'll probably stick with black.

[He tilts his head in some curiosity as he moves to sit in the only chair in the room.]

What did you order from room service?

[shylyintrepid]

Oh, um, fruit, crepes, I saw bacon on the menu so I ordered some of that, some hot chocolate and some coffee, I didn't know which you'd want, yoghurt, and muffins.

[Someone eats a lot, what can he say?]

Marianne is paying, and she said to go crazy so...I went crazy.

[deathdiduspart]

I'm more of a hot chocolate fan, but I can drink coffee.

[Nico looks amused.]

If you don't go crazy, then the cooks certainly will.

[That'll be about when room service shows up at the door. Nico goes to get it, and has a little chat in rapid Italian with the woman bringing up their food. She'll come in with Nico trailing behind her, set the table with what Jehan ordered, and leave with a cheery wave and equally cheerful Italian farewell. He shakes his head.]

Nobody should be that cheerful this early in the morning.

[shylyintrepid]

Nine in the morning isn't that early. I was up at seven.

[The sleeping pill didn't work too well and he's used to early mornings for gardening. He sits down at the table and promptly pulls about half of the breakfast towards him]

You're quite cute when you're asleep, you know.

[Blushing just a little, yep. Everyone said he should go for it so...he will. Slowly.]

[deathdiduspart]

It's still not right to hear someone cheerful until at least ten.

[He pours them the drinks, and the comment definitely causes a bit of pink to dust his cheeks.]

Ah...really?

[Is this flirting he's pretty sure this is Jehan flirting with him but he could be wrong]

[shylyintrepid]

Yes, a bit like a sleepy puppy.

[Jehan giggles a little, blushing more]

It's really cute.

[deathdiduspart]

[Nico has the strangest urge to do what ostriches do and bury his head in the ground. His excuse is that it'll save him from the blush that's only getting stronger. What's he even supposed to respond with? It's not like he can say the same; Jehan woke up way earlier than he did.]

Th-thank you.

[Super lame, that is Nico's middle name. C'mon, there has to be something--]

Ah...you picked good colors today. They bring out your eyes.

[There are times in which Nico hates it when he blurts out the first thing he can think of.]

[shylyintrepid]

[Jehan's blush just deepens and he stirs his coffee a little too quickly]

Did I really? Everyone always says I'm colorblind but....

[deathdiduspart]

It, uh, really shows when you hit on a really good combination.

[Okay just going to. Take a totally casual spoonful of yogurt and eat it. Yep. Nico is pretty sure he needs to shut up now.]

So...where do we want to stop first? There are four places I know are haunted...but we could do more touristy things first.

[shylyintrepid]

Why don't you decide? I just want to see Venice!

[deathdiduspart]

[He'll take another spoonful of yogurt as he mulls it over.]

Then let's start with the ghosts. Shadow traveling to those places won't wipe me out nearly as much. I'll just need to sit for a few minutes after each one. One of them is technically forbidden to tourists without special permission, so we might not be able to stay there for long.

[It...also has over 160000 spirits there, supposedly, and he's not sure how many of them are still there.]

[shylyintrepid]

I can't wait.

[Jehan just grins.

He's still grinning come dinner time, when he and Nico are seated at a balcony table at a nice but not overly fancy café that overlooks the canal. All the view without most of the smell. Win win! They had stopped by the hotel to clean up a bit and Jehan thinks Nico looks amazing. He's a little too shy to say that, though]

That was amazing, mon lapin. I loved the tour.

[deathdiduspart]

[Nico is almost embarrassed by the fact that only one of the haunted places actually forced him to exert his son of Hades influence more than the others, and it isn't even the one he expected. Cà Dario, the house of no return, has a reputation for ruining or ending the lives of many who either buy the house to live in or even anyone having anything to do with it. He expected Poveglia, an island where over 160000 people died, to give him trouble just by sheer volume of concentrated souls.

Nope. Cà Dario was the one, and Nico can say for certain that the place's reputation is very much true. Through the tour of that place, he had to keep himself from ushering Jehan out the door at sonic speed. If there hadn't been a group touring the place, too, he would've done it. Instead, he stayed and kept the tourists protected from the ghost that really would have liked nothing better than to ruin everyone's lives.

At least everything afterwards more than makes up for it. Nico is a little more relaxed, and he can definitely say he's enjoyed the trip to Venice. He doesn't enjoy it enough to live here again, though. Visits every now and then are more than plenty for him.

He smiles shyly at the compliment.]

I'm glad you liked it. I'll do some research for Paris. Maybe there are some haunted places there we can take a look at, if you haven't already.