A/N: Sirens work differently in this than they do in the PJO books.
WPOV
I didn't know what to say to Nico to make it better. He'd spoken with little doubt when he told me of his fears for the upcoming weeks. While we'd danced, he had hoped that we would be able to hide among the islands in the middle of the Bay of Silver. Now it was clear that he had only said that to calm my nerves. I was never making it back home.
The weather was bad, too, for the first time since I'd first been brought aboard. It rained a lot, which made it difficult to tell exactly how far away the other boat was. Every once in a while, though, it would peak through the curtain of rain. We didn't need the eyeglass to see it anymore.
Nico didn't let us stop for supplies in the Bay of Silver. When he called us in to plan out our next moves, there were deep bags under his eyes and a tension in his shoulders that hadn't been there when I arrived. He kept his hands folded in front of his closed eyes, like he was praying.
"If we turn back in this bay, they're going to catch up," he began. We were silent. He continued, "We're going to need to make our supplies stretch. Halve our portions. Share. Because I might have an idea to get us away from Gabe, but we're going to go a long time without stops. Is it worth it, to you all?"
Percy tilted Nico's chin up so he would look at us. "We're in a desperate situation, Nico, that's not your fault. We understand that. What's your idea?"
He leaned back in his chair. "There's a small inlet of water that then connects to a channel, which would connect to the ocean again."
"You're not saying—"
"I'm saying we could probably survive Gabe if we go through the Channel of Song, yes."
Annabeth took a step back. "The Channel of Song? Are you serious? We'd be killed!"
"What's in the Channel of Song?" I asked.
Piper narrowed her eyes at the captain. "A Channel that leads into the Southern Hemisphere—which is dealing with tropical storms right now—through Siren territory. I don't think there have been any survivors before, except..."
"Except?" Nico encouraged, intrigued.
"Well, except this one ship led by a family boat. Apparently two men were good friends, (A/N: Just pals. Just pals who sail the seas together on a boat where they share a bedroom and adopt kids together and do pal-things. What good friends.) and they adopted some children together. Neither ever married, because they said they were only loyal to the boat or whatever. Anyway, they made it out of it without any fatalities."
Nico raised his eyebrows. "Hm. I vote we risk it. I'll stay above deck. The rest of you will be detained."
"Nico, we don't know how those two men resisted the siren's singing. How do you know you'd be unfazed?" Piper blinked. "Wait. Oh. Ohhhhh. I see."
Nico gave her a weak smile. "The rest of you stay below deck. I might have to secure you all somehow. That's only once we get close enough, of course." He stood up. "Is everybody okay with this plan?"
We mumbled our affirmations, but Piper seemed to be the only confident one. We filed out of his office with scrunched brows. Sometimes I thought that Nico thought he was invincible. Refusing treatment for his stab wound. Sailing straight into siren territory as if he won't be attracted to the sirens like every other person on this planet.
Wait.
Oh.
Ohhhhh.
There's no way those two men were just friends. Nico thinks they were romantically involved, and possibly not attracted to women at all. But then...did that mean that Nico experienced attraction in the same way I did? I'd never met someone like me before. Whispers of perverted men like me, or bawdy jokes about it at bars, but I'd never met someone like me. And I had definitely never heard of using it to your advantage, like through siren territory.
I stopped in my tracks, nearly causing Hazel to run into me. I apologized and practically fell back inside Nico's cabin. He startled, but I pulled the door shut and began speaking immediately. "How do you know you won't be pulled in by the siren's song?"
His cheeks turned slightly pink. "I'm afraid...my choice in partners is unconventional. I wouldn't be attracted to them, I don't think."
I swallowed, heart thundering in my ears. I splayed my hands on his desk. "Me too."
He squinted at me. "I don't think you know what you're saying."
"Are you...are you drawn towards men, perhaps?"
His knuckles turned white in his fists. "Are you implying that you also..."
I almost cried. "You're like me. I think...I think whichever part of me is supposed to discern which gender I should be attracted to romantically is broken. It's like it can't discern which are men and which are women. Is it the same for you?"
He laughed bitterly. "No. I can tell which are men and which are women." I shrank back. I'd made assumptions too fast. I shouldn't have said anything. But then he continued, "I'm afraid that I have the wrong heart. I appear to only fall in love with men. I suppose we do have a rather similar problem."
I laughed, too. "I've never met anyone like me before. How have you been putting up with it? I don't—I don't know how to fix it. God, I went to medical school and I still don't know what's wrong with me."
"I don't know either. Sometimes—and please forgive me for saying this—sometimes I wonder if it is not so wrong. Everybody treats this differently, you know. Once, my ship was caught in a storm and we ended up at an island above Honnet, and the natives—well, they didn't seem to find an issue with it at all. While I was there, I met these two women, and they were bonded together in the native's equivalent of marriage. I've always wanted to go back to that island just to ask them for advice, but I haven't known how to add them to our route without making my crew suspicious. Besides, I was having troubles learning their language, so that was a barrier as well."
"You think perhaps we aren't wrong, then? If that society was positively receptive towards people like us, why can't ours be?"
Nico pushed hair out of his face. "I think it's too much to ask everybody to change their view of us, Will."
"Why?" I took a step forward. "It takes no effort on their part to act kindly."
A tear streaked down his cheek and he quickly wiped it away. "They'll never change, Will. I think people like us are going to be in hiding forever."
I took his hand. "Why? What do we gain from hiding?"
He looked at our intertwined fingers with wide eyes. A slight blush spread through his cheeks. "...suddenly, I can't remember."
I laughed and turned to leave, even though that meant letting go of his calloused hand. His blush hadn't gone away. "I'm glad I could make you forget. I should be going. Thank you for talking with me, Nico. I hope we can talk more in the future, yes?"
"Y-yes," he agreed heartily. "Yes, of course. I'll talk to you later."
Word count: 1229
A/N: Quick note on some of the background of the crew's relationship with queerness in this story because some people had questions:
I had some people question why the straight women have to be secured for the Channel of Song. Well, one possibility is that they're all queer lmao, and although I do appreciate that theory, I had originally written it this way for a different reason.
Pirates were, in general, pretty accepting of queer people. However, none of these people chose to be pirates, and the topic of queerness rarely comes up; Gabe obviously wasn't queer, and as their new captain, Nico can't know without a doubt that his ship in particular will maintain the same acceptance that some other ships did. You have to keep in mind that just because some pirates were open-minded does not mean that all were. There is still a significant chance that he would face negative consequences from identifying himself as queer. Think about your own coming out--you might live in an accepting family, town, state, or country. Does that mean everyone in your family, town, state, or country is accepting?
I wrote it this way knowing that the straight women probably could stay on board, but in order for that to happen, Nico would have to admit the reason that he is able to make it through, and he's just not ready for that yet. Over the course of the story, we see him test the waters a little bit sometimes but conceal his identity other times. This is one of the times that he decides to conceal his identity from the crew. He's already under immense pressure right now; deciding to come out right now would make little sense when he's already so stressed.
At the same time, the crew is subtly--and sometimes not so subtly--trying to show Nico that they are one of the many crews that is fine with queer people. Leo makes lighthearted jokes about Will's crush on Nico, the crew very purposefully does not comment on the dance that Nico and Will share, and Piper makes it pretty clear that she understands why Nico is able to make it through the sirens in this chapter. Plus, Percy was doing Seduction Duty on a man earlier in the story, so he's both queer and making an attempt to be open about it, both for his own wellbeing and for Nico's. They are trying their best to help him feel supported without pressuring him to come out earlier than he's ready. And Nico is getting much closer to being ready thanks to their efforts--it just takes some courage and the right moment :)
So yeah! That's just an explanation of what's going on behind the scenes here. If you would rather stick to the idea that Nico just suspects all the women are queer, I'm chill with that. Thanks for reading!