#like Nico's mark tells him it's a child of Apollo | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pls-let-me-out · 3 years

Text

Invisible String

Epilogue

12th of February

From Will to: the Royal Asshole

landed. where r u? i’m lost

From the Royal Asshole

At the entrance. Where else would I be?

From Will to: the Royal Asshole

where I landed so you could help me find the way out

tbh it’s like u don’t care that I get lost easily

From the Royal Asshole

Turn around, idiot.

Niccolò has grown even more beautiful during the time they’ve spent apart. Will’s breath is caught in his throat for a moment that feels like forever, and they just stand there, looking at one another, a secret challenge between them, to see who will break first and look away.

Niccolò is growing out his hair, which he told Will about, because he ‘wants to see how long they can get’. (“They are hair, doofus. They can reach your waist, if you let them. Honestly, are you just trying to piss me off?”)

The air is cold, and they both wear several layers of clothing. Niccolò is in New York for ‘very important business’, which means that Will has come all the way here from Austin to spend some time together. Seeing each other only on FaceTime is hard, but Will has to admit that it’s still good. It’s not nearly enough, but it’s something.

Will doesn’t know whether he has moved or Niccolò has, but next thing he knows they are crowding each other’s space, and then hugging so hard it should hurt. The soul-mark on Will’s shoulder throbs, but not in pain. Niccolò still has a faint smell of pomegranate, and Will knows, as he takes a deep breath, that he’s going to deny doing so for the rest of his life.

They finally separate, and Nico takes both his and Will’s luggage. Niccolò is staying in some fancy hotel, while Will is going to be with his siblings, in his old room. When he told them he’d be visiting, Austin just sighed. ‘Where am I going to put my wardrobe? It’s literally all on your bed, Will.’ Will ignored him.

“How is everything going?” Niccolò asks, as they exit the airport, and cold air comes hard and unforgiving.

Will shivers. “It’s going, I guess. My grandma is happy to have me there with her for a bit, and I think we needed it.” He tucks his scarf over his nose, sniffling in the cold. A car stops in front of them, too fancy to not attract any attention.

Will gives Niccolò a side-glance. “How fancy, Your Highness.”

Niccolò blushes, but it might be the cold. “Fuck off, will you?”

Will bites back a grin. “Maybe I will. Maybe I Fitz-will.”

Niccolò shakes his head, but a fond and tender smile breaks out on his face, and they climb inside the car. Warm air is far more welcome than that outside. Niccolò rubs his hands together, with a little pout on his face that makes him look even more beautiful.

“How is your grandmother doing?” he asks.

He often does, he’s nice like that. He always sounds interested in Will’s life, even when Will himself realizes how boring it should be, to someone who lives between throne rooms and ancient gardens. Will tells him of his grandmother’s friend, Alice, but he doesn’t say that she’s trying to set him up with his daughter. People don’t recognize him as Prince Niccolò’s soulmate, and the people of his grandmother’s neighborhood know him as Naomi and Apollo’s son.

Will asks him how things are going in Elysium. Niccolò talks about his father, who stubbed his toe in a wall the other day, and has shouted so hard that the guards rang the bell, thinking they were under attack at three in the morning. As he tells the story, Niccolò leans forward to laugh, and hits his forehead against the driver’s seat.

It’s easy to forget the way they said goodbye the day after Christmas. They have been texting almost non-stop ever since, and sometimes they called each other, even if hanging up hurts.

“So, this event of yours,” Will says. He clears his throat. “What time does it end?”

“Late.” Niccolò huffs, crossing his arms on the chest. It seems like they’ll be going to be stuck in traffic for quite some time, but he’s looking out of the window as though he’ll never be here again. “I don’t even want to go there.”

“Prince business and all that,” Will encounters. “You don’t have much choice, do you?”

“Not really, no.” He clears his throat, and it’s terrible how awkward things get when they both remember he’s prince at the same time. “Unless I renounce the crown, I guess.”

Oh. Yes, that. Will snorts, amusement clear in his face as he flashes Niccolò another side-eyed glance. “As if.”

“Yah, I could live like one of you peasants,” Nico grumbles, sinking a bit in his seat.

Will snickers. “You peasants? Say that in Texas, and you’ll get shot.”

“I really hope that’s not a threat, principino,” Niccolò says, his voice low, little more than a whisper, as smooth as a caress.

Will blushes a deep red, ignoring the shiver that runs down his back, he looks out the window. Yeah, the view is very interesting. He tries to keep his eyes there for the rest of the ride, but he doesn’t have half the necessary strenght, not when Niccolò is sitting right next to him.

When he turns, Nico is already looking at him.

Kayla opens the door with a loud shriek, making Austin startle a bit. He pushes her aside, to step up and hug Will. He takes Will’s face in his hands, turning it left and right.

“What the hell? How do you have a tan?”

“I’ve been in Texas, you know, this past month or so,” Will says, words muffled by the way Austin is squishing his cheeks.

Austin hums. Kayla shrieks again, jumping back, and only then does Will realize that he hasn’t introduced Niccolò yet. He takes a step to the side, allowing everyone’s attention to shift.

“So, this is my–”

A dark aura falls upon the presents. A glittery, sparky Drew Tanaka steps in Will’s visual, wearing only a large flannel shirt he recognizes as his own, open to reveal a white, coffee stained t-shirt. Oh, yes, Kayla’s style has rubbed off on her.

“And who might that be?” She asks, managing to look intimidating. She throws her hair behind her shoulder, looking at Niccolò like he’s some kind of disease.

“As I was saying,” Will responds, grabbing Niccolò’s wrist to drag him forward, steadying him when he stumbles. “This is Niccolò, Prince of many things, and you might call him His Royal Highness on the days he’s particularly generous. On the other days, I suggest you don’t call him at all, because he can be a real bitch.”

Nico rolls his eyes, offering his siblings his hand. “Sorry about him, I’m sure you know better than me to never listen to him. It’s very nice to meet you, and just Nico is fine.”

“It’s nice to meet you too,” Kayla says, blushing to the tip of her ears as they shake hands.

“Well, are you going to offer us food or what?” Will says, interrupting Nico and Drew’s sudden staring contest. Their hands drop back to their hips. He drops his luggage in Niccolò’s hands. “Come, you can drop it by my bed.”

“I didn’t clean it!” Austin shouts after him. Will responds with a groan, louder when he realizes just how unclean Austin has left it.

“Who’s Drew to you?” Niccolò whispers when they are alone in the room.

Will blinks. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” Niccolò quickly retreats. “Was just wondering. So, is the saxophone Austin’s?”

Said saxophone is at the corner of the room, on a pile of books, shiny even if it has been used for many years. Will remembers Niccolò’s question a few moments later.

“Oh, yeah. It’s a gift from our father.” He grimaces. “I always thought I’d buy him another one when I became a doctor. I don’t like the thought of it being our father’s gift.”

“His birthday is on a week though, right?”

“Yeah. Next Wednesday, I’m going back to Texas on Thursday.”

“Oh, someone’s getting wasted then.”

Will throws him a sock, but Niccolò dodges it with a grin.

“I used to dodge bullets, you loser,” he says. “Before even having breakfast.”

Will narrows his eyes. That’s kind of a game of Nico’s, saying crazy shit about the army, and most of the time Will can’t guess whether he’s joking or serious. Even now. It sounds incredible, but he’s got that serious expression on his face.

“That’s true,” Will says.

Niccolò laughs, a sound Will misses even before it’s over. “Yeah, every day they woke up the Prince of their nation at dawn, so that they could shoot him.”

Will bites his tongue. “I knew that wasn’t true.”

“You still got it wrong. How much are we at? Fifteen for you, seventy-three for me?”

Will pulls him down on his bed, falling on Austin’s papers and schoolbooks. He hopes they aren’t too important.

“Get the stick out of your ass,” Will says, whacking him with the first textbook he finds. Niccolò has the audacity of laughing.

Someone clears their throat, and Will turns, only realizing he’s straddling Niccolò’s lap when he notices how red Kayla’s cheeks are.

“We have some coffee.” She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, looking everywhere but at Will. “I also took out the good cookies.”

“Oh, dear, this is a great occasion then,” Will says, getting off Niccolò. He stumbles, but doesn’t fall. “By the way, do we still have that stain of mold under the window?”

Kayla nods. “It actually has a child now.”

Will pouts. “It’s a manifestation. It’s because it missed me.”

“Are you comparing yourself to a stain of mold?” Niccolò asks, elongating his step to avoid a shoe abandoned in the middle of the floor. “That’s very unflattering but also very realistic of you.”

Kayla bursts out laughing, as Will grabs another pillows from the sofa and keeps on hitting Niccolò. Once again, he only laughs harder, and soon enough Will is, too.

“How’s being a prince like?” Drew asks Nico, as soon as they sit on the sofa.

“I thought you’d know with the way you put yourself on a throne,” Austin responds. She sends him a saccharine smile.

From what Will’s heard, she and Kayla haven’t changed all that much since they’ve gotten together. They just look at each other like the other has hung up the moon in the sky herself, and sometimes they hold hands.

“It’s not very exciting,” Niccolò says with a shrug. “I guess it’s like being famous, I just wear a crown sometimes.”

“And the cool, black military dress,” Will adds. He doesn’t add that Niccolò is extremely hot in that, and the thought alone makes him blush.

“It’s called a uniform, Fitzwilliam,” Niccolò says, tilting his head to the side. “You ever heard the word?”

Will blows him a kiss. Niccolò diverts his eyes, and Will counts it as a win.

“I guess you have lots of beautiful women around,” Drew adds, bringing the cup to her mouth. She grimaces at the taste. “Who wouldn’t want to be with a prince, after all?”

“Are you trying to seduce him?” Austin blurts out with a frown.

Drew pinches him in the leg, hard. “I’m making conversation, dear.”

“Don’t make conversation about his bedroom’s activity,” Austin hisses.

“Don’t be so fucking rude,” she responds.

“Alright!” Kayla exclaims, a blush deep on her cheeks, her grip on the cup a little desperate. “Why don’t you tell us more about your interests? Your hobbies?”

“By the way, talking about interests,” Drew jumps in again, this time looking at Will like a predator seeing its prey. “Remember Sherman?”

“No!” He exclaims. “Sherman who? Sherman… I don’t know any Sherman. Mh, no. You got the wrong Will, sweetheart.” He takes a long sip of coffee, only to sputter half of it back in the cup. “Who the hell didn’t put sugar in my coffee?”

“Me, because I’m not your fucking barista, you fucking rude animal,” Drew responds.

Austin sighs, leaning back in the armchair. He rubs his temples. “What even is this conversation.”

“I wouldn’t have given your number to Sherman if I’d known you’d be so rude about everything,” Drew continues, holding the cup as if it were a glass of wine.

Will spits his sip of coffee right on the table. He coughs, and Austin hits his back. Niccolò sends him a confused glance, but the rest of his face is completely blank. Will is pretty used by now to picking up his moods, by the sound of his voice and the crease of his brow. Niccolò still hides pretty much most of his emotions, but there’s an instant when he can’t, and the crease of his eyebrows betrays him. Now he’s skipped it, somehow. A pang of pain shoots through Will’s heart.

She turns to Niccolò. “He’s a friend of Will’s family’s son. Didn’t your grandma really like him, Will?”

“She didn’t,” Austin answers for him.

“Oh, I think you’re wrong,” Drew says, waving her hand in dismissal.

Kayla puts her hand on Drew’s on the cup holder. “Let’s have a word alone, mh?”

When they return from Kayla’s bedroom, Drew doesn’t add a thing about Sherman. She and Niccolò politely ignore each other, until he has to leave for the gala, or whatever he is attending.

Niccolò leaves around seven pm. Will hugs him on the doorstep, and if his breath hitches a little, no one has the heart to point it out. Afterwards, Will stays on the cramped sofa with his siblings and Drew, somehow everyone is on someone else’s lap. They watch Golden Girls, and Drew makes an Instagram Story. She’s careful not to take Will’s face in, he’s been trying not to appear too much on her social media. When he does, people remember that he’s Prince Niccolò’s soulmate, and somehow it ends up on gossip sites. He isn’t ready to be under the spotlights again.

Eventually, Austin and Kayla drift off to sleep, and Drew speaks softly to him.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have butted in.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.” He plays with Austin’s hair as he talks, avoiding Drew’s eyes, and everything he might see in them. “I never really told you what happened on our last day together, did I?”

“You haven’t told anyone, no.”

Will finally looks up, and Drew is already looking at him. “I don’t even know how to say it. We talked about… well, everything. He told me he couldn’t be with me, it wouldn’t be fair to either of us, we’d have to sneak around, hiding behind everyone’s back. He’d have to get married to a nice girl someday, anyway.”

“But he loved you.”

Tears burn in the back of Will’s eyes. “He said he knew he was already falling for me.”

“God. That’s awful.”

“Yeah.” He takes a deep breath, deep enough for his lungs to hurt. “We spent the night together.”

“You… like, sexually?”

He doesn’t respond. “And it was nice, the next day. Before we left the house. I thought that if I knew what it would be like to be with him, then eventually I’d be fine. I’d be satisfied with the night and half-day we’d had together.”

“But you aren’t.”

“I just want to go back there, to that day. Like, I wake up in the morning and I want to see him, what he’d be like with my grandma, if he’d be nice with her friends when they come over. You know the neighbor’s daughter? She has a son, now. He’s, like, four. He was learning to use his bike, and he fell, and then I saw his father going there, picking him up and everything. And I realized that I only once saw Niccolò with a kid, and it was in the middle of a packed road, but he was so nice with her, I mean he was talking in Italian, but she kept on giggling and everything.”

“You want kids with him?”

“I just realized that it has never been a possibility for us, and it hurt so fucking much I couldn’t breathe. I just–it’s so unfair. I wish he weren’t a prince and so famous, but then I realize that he is, and that’ a part of him.”

Drew looks down at her lap, playing with the hem of her shirt. “You always despised the thought of soulmates.”

“I know.”

“I was just saying. I was, I mean. I didn’t think you’d ever change your mind.”

“It was before getting to know him. He makes me all–he makes me feel like the world isn’t such a shitty place. And it shouldn’t even be possible, because he’s pessimistic and he pretty much says the world sucks. But he also wants to make it a better place.”

“Now I feel awful for how I treated him.”

Will laughs. “Yeah, the Sherman-thing was pretty shitty. By the way, I really don’t want his number.”

“I guessed.” She grimaces. “I haven’t actually given him yours.”

Will chuckles again.

15th of July

Will rubs his eyes tiredly, still in his pajama, and almost jumps out of his skin when something attacks him.

“Happy birthday, Willie!” Jonathan screams.

Will smiles, taking Jonathan off the ground and throwing him in the air. A smile blooms on his face, so strong he almost forgets the pain in the back of his heart. Kayla, Austin, Valentina and Grace are standing next to his grandmother, with matching smiles on their faces. Will opens his arms, adjusting Jonathan on his hip, and they all come crushing against him.

“Drew, Mitchell and Piper are coming in the afternoon,” Valentina says. She’s fifteen, and she’s actually thinking of becoming a pediatrician. She lives in San Francisco with her mother, and spends a couple of weeks each summer with their family in Argentina. “Lacy couldn’t make it.”

“Thanks for being here,” Will says. “Y’all are looking good.”

Kayla giggles. “I almost forgot how Texan you get when you’re here.”

Will groans. “Gimme a break.”

Jonathan laughs, throwing his fists in the air. “Gimme!”

Will kisses the top of his head. He hears a shutter going off, and when he glances up he sees his grandmother with a camera in his hands. She has a huge grin on her face, and the flowery dress she wears only on special occasions.

“We’re opening the gifts when everyone comes here!” She says. “And now y’all go off to prepare the table, Willie and I got a talk to get through.”

Austin groans, which earns him a smack on the head by grandmother. She puts her hands on her hips, until only she and Will remain in the room. She stands on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, and hooks her arm in his.

“Come see the geese. They’ve returned in the pool this morning,” she says.

Will grimaces. “Disgusting.”

“Shut up, boy.”

Outside the temperature is far too hot, the sun shines far too bright, but they walk to the garden in the back. There are no geese in the pool. Will turns to his grandmother, but she shushes him, and sits on the wooden bench, under the shadow of the apple tree. He sits beside her.

“Has something happened?” he asks.

His grandmother eyes the too long curls on his forehead. Will can feel them sticking to his damp skin. He brushes them away, but a second later they fall back.

“Your father sent you a gift,” she says. She takes a letter from her pocket, and passes it to him. “Do you want to read it alone?”

“Later. I’ll read it later.”

“Alright.”

Every year Will’s family flies to Austin for his birthday, and they stay at his grandmother’s house for the summer. They spend the morning together, then in the afternoon Drew’s family reaches them. It’s the first year since his brothers’ death that Piper comes.

Will is in the pool with her when he feels it, a tugging from his shoulder, his soul mark pulsing. He lets his empty glass fall from his grip, his fingers going limp.

Niccolò is standing next to his grandmother, shaking Jonathan’s hand with a shy smile as Valentina watches the scene unfold with her jaw gone slack.

“Fancy seeing you here, you gremlin!” Piper exclaims, shaking Will from his trance.

His grandmother has a hand on Niccolò’s shoulder, and he’s still holding Jonathan’s, but Will can see the way he turns softer around every edge when his eyes meet Will’s, comfort falling onto him.

Will doesn’t even realize he’s climbed out of the pool, until he is in Niccolò’s arms, and his clothes are getting wet.

“Ooops,” Will says when they let go, and Niccolò’s clothes stick to his body.

“Go, Will!” Drew shouts from where she’s sunbathing in the sun. “You still got your sneaky techniques to get the boys naked!”

Niccolò blushes a deep red, but Will just flips Drew off. His grandmother smacks him on the head, but it’s worth it.

“Is this how we welcome guests, children?” she asks.

Jonathan, the traitor, shakes his head, tugging her dress. “I shook his hand! You saw?”

Grandmother pats him on the head, a smile stretches on her wrinkled face. “Finally someone educated in this household.” She turns back to Niccolò. “Take everything you need. If you can’t find something, just ask Will. He’s missed you, you know?” She caresses Niccolò’s cheek, which has him blushing a deep shade of red, and leaves to go back inside.

“I really did miss you,” Will whispers softly. He intertwines his fingers to Niccolò’s, and tugs him towards the others. “You ever met Piper’s siblings?”

Niccolò shakes his head, but Will is blinded by the light in his eyes, and almost misses it.

They spend the night together, but this time they only stargaze, laying on the old deckchairs near the pool. Niccolò teaches him about constellations, and Will has lived in LA, his best friend is Drew, so he already knows. He doesn’t say, and just listens. If the smile on Niccolò’s face is anything to go by, he already knows.

19th of August

Nico spends the weekend in Livigno with Hazel. Every corner of the house is Will, and his smile, and his laughs.

“Do you miss him?” She asks, as they watch the TV in the living room.

Nico doesn’t find it in himself to answer. He looks back down, at the speech he is holding in three days in front of an audience filled with important people he doesn’t even know the names of. Taylor Swift’s Christmas Tree Farm blasts from TV, and Hazel along under her breath. Nico should have built a blanket fort with Will.

23rd of September

In New York, Will tells Nico that he wants to teach in kindergarten, and every time he talks about it his eyes shine, in a way they never did when he talked about medicine.

They sit on a bench in New York, and Nico asks Will a question he’s had on the tip of his tongue for some months now.

“Will you get your mark covered up?”

Will blinks, as though the question is a sudden thunder, and maybe it is. Nico continues eating his hotdog. It’s too spicy for him, his tongue burns, and so do his eyes. His heart is thundering in his chest, and he isn’t sure why. (That’s a lie. He knows.)

“I never thought about it. Not since I’ve known you.”

Nico’s shoulders relax. He sends Will a side smile, but there’s still a lump in his throat.

6th of November

Nico talks to his therapist. She asks him how he feels about Will, why they haven’t been talking much lately. It’s easy to trust her with the truth after all these years. When he was younger, he’s learnt that telling her half-assed truths doesn’t help him. He doesn’t go every single week to her studio anymore, but sometimes he needs help processing how he feels.

“Guilty,” he says, after thinking about it for a while. “He’s stuck with me, and he hasn’t done anything to deserve it. He deserves a soulmate that can be with him.”

His therapist, Juniper, tilts her head to the side. “If you had the possibility, would you like to be with him romantically?”

She’s one of the first people he’s told about his sexuality. Actually, she had been with him for quite some time when Cupid ‘exposed’ him for the first time. It was a moment of deep bonding for them, she told him it explained many things about his behavior. It also sucked and gave him trauma on too many levels to count, but Nico is trying to see the positive side.

“I don’t have the possibility. Day-dreaming about it won’t help me.” Nico’s tone is cold, far too cold in the regards of such a question. Heat comes to his cheeks. He scratches his neck, even that feels warm. “Sorry, I–I think I would like it.”

“Maybe it would help you feel less guilty if you talked about it with him. I shouldn’t say my personal opinion, but he sounds like a very sweet guy. Someone you can have a real dialogue with.”

9th of November

Will crushes Niccolò in a hug as soon as he sees him. Then, before he can reciprocate, he throws him back and flicks him on the forehead.

“Is this the way to behave?” He turns on his heels, hands on his hips, and walks right back in the apartment. He talks again only after the door is shut behind Niccolò. “You fucking ghosted me!” He sits on the sofa, it creaks dangerously, but it holds on. “You can just tell me when I’m too much, or, I don’t know, if I…when I annoy you.”

Niccolò’s hand is on Will’s shoulder, and then he’s the one being crushed in a hug. He holds onto Niccolò’s shirt, inhaling his perfume. He ignores the tears in his eyes. Will finds himself caged on the couch by Niccolò’s knees on either side of him. Eventually, they find themselves with their foreheads against one another’s. They haven’t been so close since Christmas.

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep on doing this,” Niccolò says, his words daggers in Will’s heart.

“I know. I know, it hurts me too.” Will sniffled. Niccolò’s hair are dark and soft, and he presses a kiss on his head. Niccolò is tall, but now he feels so small in his arms. “It hurt more when I didn’t have you anymore.”

“I know. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

23rd of December

The door opens, and Will is there, in the middle of his grandmother’s house, with his siblings scattered around him. Lidia, Will’s grandmother, hugs Nico, thanking him for coming, and saying words he can’t pay attention to, because his gaze is on Will, who’s looking back at him, and his heart skips a million beats.

Nico has brought Jason, Leo and Piper with him. Drew is already here, with Kayla’s head on her lap, and Jonathan talking her ear off about the gift he’s asked. Jason deposits their gifts under the tree (Nico has asked Austin what to bring to each of them, he didn’t want to be unprepared).

24th of December

Will finds Niccolò in the garden. The moon has been high in the sky for the past few hours, but the air is still warm. Will sits with him in the grass, linking their fingers.

“Can you believe it’s already a year?”

Niccolò smiles. “Next year we could fly to Livigno, if you wanted to. Bring everyone there. Do your siblings have passports?”

A smile grows on Will’s face, and he doesn’t even try to stop it. “Would you really do that?”

“If they are okay with having me for Christmas again.” He clears his throat, as he always does before starting a rant coming from his self-deprecation. “I’d leave you the house if you wanted to, without me. It’s not a problem, of course, we could–”

Will puts a hand on his mouth, stopping him. “But next year you should bring Hazel, too.”

Nico takes the hand off, holding on to his wrist even afterwards, although he’s also trying to maintain a frown on his face. “Would you like that?”

“We’ve been calling each other since Halloween.”

“Halloween?”

“Yeah. We saw each other, she was in New York with Annabeth and the others.” Will shakes Niccolò’s fingers off his wrist, to intertwine their fingers. “Didn’t she tell you?”

“Yeah, yeah, she did.” There’s a deep blush on Niccolò’s face, and he shouldn’t like it so much. “You also sent me a selfie with her.”

“She gets along a lot with Austin. A bit less with Drew, for some reason.”

“Some reason?”

Will lets his head fall on Niccolò’s shoulder, something he wouldn’t do normally, but it’s almost Christmas. He can have this on Christmas. “Drew can be a bit hard around the edges. As sharp as her eyeliner.”

“She hates me. Hated, whatever. Now she just looks at me strangely. Suspiciously.”

“We used to date. For a couple of years, but then–it was back when we lived in LA with my parents, we were neighbors. I really did think we’d last forever.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. After my brothers died, I moved here with my grandparents. I was shitty to Drew, I dealt really badly with grief. I talked with my parents only once since. You can ask me how my brothers died, if you want to.”

Niccolò hesitates, just a second, then his hand squeezes Will’s, and he talks. “How did they die?”

“Overdose, the both of them. Lee first. He was at a party with my father, but dad left him alone, and he overdid it. Michael a couple of months later. He and Lee were really close, and he–he did die of overdose, but he did it on purpose.”

“And your mom?”

“I’m her only child. We just don’t have a relationship. I don’t even hate her. I don’t know her enough for that.”

Will tries to smile. Nico wraps his arms around him, and Will hides his head in the crook of his neck.

27th of June

They talk over the phone every day, and Will calls Nico every night before going to sleep.

“I miss you,” Will says, and his voice is husky, a bit raspy, but his tone is soft.

I miss you, too. These days, I miss you so much I forget I do, and think the longing in my chest has always been there. “I know. Drew told me you’ve been turning that friend of yours down.”

Nico can imagine the frown on Will’s face. “Drew should mind her own business.”

“Why do you turn him down?”

“I’m not interested in him.”

Hearing these words shouldn’t make Nico so happy. They’re trying to move on, the both of them. If Nico doesn’t, nothing changes. He will still marry some girl, maybe be friends with her, have a child together, and die as king. If Will doesn’t, he will be lonely for the rest of his life.

“It might help, though. I–I assume the reason you’re turning him down. Don’t wait for me, Will.”

Will sniffles, and Nico closes his eyes. He closes them so hard his head starts hurting. He almost doesn’t breathe, so Will can’t hear how broken it is. He is.

“You shouldn’t be stuck with me,” Nico says. His words are spoken quietly, so much it’s a wonder how Will hears him. “I’m sorry.”

Will’s sniffles become louder. “I’m not stuck with you. How can you say that, when you make me feel free?”

Nico shuts his eyes tighter. He opens them again. There’s a photo of him with Bianca on the wall in front of them, one of the few he keeps around. He and Bianca are sitting at their table in their house in Venice, with pencils scattered around, as they draw with passion. Nico can’t remember what he was drawing, in the photo he is covering his paper with his whole body, as he leans forward to watch Bianca’s drawing.

29th of June

Niccolò is at the front door of Will’s apartment.

“I wanted to check in on you,” is all he offers as an explanation.

17th of December

“Oh, we broke up,” is all Will offers as an explanation, when he and his family land in Milan, a car waiting for them to bring them to Livigno, and his boyfriend of a couple of months isn’t with them.

Niccolò nods with a tight smile, but worry is clear in his eyes. Does he feel like Will is some kind of burden? Is that what it is about? Will turns away, taking his grandmother’s luggage.

Reyna and Hazel are waiting for them at the house. Will has never met Reyna before, she has never been able to come with Niccolò when he visits. She warms up to him quicker than he thought she would, saying Niccolò has talked plenty about him, and it makes Will’s heart flutter in a way it shouldn’t. His soul-mark pulses every second they are in the same room, yet not touching or at least close. Will uses it as an excuse to hang off of Niccolò’s arm for the rest of the night.

“And there, Lidia,” Niccolò says as he and Will show him the house. “Is where Will punched my cousin Percy in the face, thinking he was a burglar.”

Will blushes. His grandmother’s laugh echoes through the house, and Niccolò looks smug and proud. For a moment or two, Will can’t breathe. He belongs here, and Niccolò belongs with him, too. His eyes sting, and he looks away.

30th of June

Will visits Nico in Rome, in Italy. They travel by bike, and they are on a bridge over the Tevere, whose name Will can’t pronounce, but it’s close to San Pietro. It’s filled with people, and Will is looking at a little girl braiding her friend’s hair, one has red hair, the other is a brunette. When he looks forward again, Nico is some meters away, with the sun kissing his face so well, and his hair getting longer, almost enough to be kept in a ponytail. He smiles, and laughs at something a man says in Italian. He laughs, and over every other noise, it reaches Will.

He curses loudly, falling to the ground, but falling even harder for Niccolò, and now he knows.

He’s in love. Also, he has scraped his knees and a strange bruise with the shape of an almond appears on his cheek the next day.

He’s in love, and he’s been for a very long time, maybe even years.

25th of December

“I keep thinking of our first Christmas together,” Niccolò says.

Hazel’s laugh reaches them from the living room. They are even more this year. Hazel, Reyna, Frank, Piper and her siblings, Jason, Leo, Percy and his family, Annabeth and Will’s family. Earlier, they even had a video-call with Apollo. He’s trying. They’re all trying.

Will still hasn’t decided what to reply, when Niccolò shakes his head and takes a step back.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he says. “I can’t stand it.”

Will’s eyes widen. His hands shake, the glass of water he had been filling falls in the sink, cracking. The house is filled with loud people, there are a million other sounds, but it’s as loud as a bomb in the kitchen. “What–what do you mean?”

He heard his father saying that to his mother, a long time ago, and the next day he moved out. They separated, asked for the divorce, and now they don’t talk anymore. Will can’t let that happen. He can’t.

He surges forward, and kisses Niccolò square on the mouth. They haven’t done anything like that in a very long time, since that first Christmas together three years ago, when they were barely more than children. Even now, they aren’t all that grown.

Nico relaxes against him. He kisses back. Through the years, Will has always thought that yes, maybe Nico could be interested in him that way, but that they would never be able to do something like this again. That if Will kissed him, Nico would tell him they couldn’t, and step back.

Nico doesn’t step back. They have to break apart somehow, sometime later, but they don’t look away. Nico’s eyes are so, so dark. Will is so, so in love.

“That I can’t do anymore,” he says. His voice is warm, all kinds of soft, and he leaves a trail of pecks on Will’s cheeks, probably one for every freckle. “This I want to do forever.”

27th of December

It’s all over the news when Nico travels back with Will to America. It’s all over the news, that he’s decided to step away from the crown, and Hazel is now Crown Princess. They have talked about it, and it was her who convinced Nico that she was okay with it, it was something she wanted to do. She also said that she noticed Nico wasn’t happy, hadn’t been for a long time, and that his eyes always wondered to faraway places, even when they were together.

“If being with him makes you happy, and being here and having the crown on your head doesn’t, then I want you to do it.”

During the flight, Nico’s hand stays on Will’s, his thumb stroking with such tender movements over Will’s knuckles, it hurts a bit. They go back to Will’s apartment. Nico is going to look for one of his own, not too far, even though he still has his grandfather’s money if not the Crown’s, so he could buy a whole condo in Manhattan. He wants to be close to Will, close enough to never have to miss him again.

When they are in their pajamas, Austin and Kayla in their rooms, Nico presses a kiss to Will’s forehead, their sides flush together, their feet on the coffee table. There’s a show on the TV, and Nico should thank the director. If not for the plot, since he hasn’t followed it half-enough to know what it talks about, for the way the lights from the TV kisses Will’s face.

“I missed you, too,” Nico says softly. “All those years. I never said it, but I did, too.”

Will lets his head fall on Nico’s shoulder, and takes Nico’s hand to hold it on his lap. He looks up at Nico, through a thick layer of eyelashes, and he smiles. A little smile, because it may take a while for them to be completely okay, but they have all the time in the world now.

“I know,” is all he says.

#solangelo #solangelo fic #solangelo au #soulmates au #nico di angelo #will solace #pls forgive me for the angst #though we have a happy ending #so it's all good

29 notes · View notes

sophiexwrites · 4 years

Text

Solangelo Soulmarks

Based on this prompt from @troopythedragon24! This was a lot of fun, it took a little longer than I expected because I kept changing ideas, but here we go!

AU: Soulmates

Setting: Camp Half Blood, Infirmary Days after BOO

Trigger Warning(s): Mentions of shirtless teen boys, though not heavily described. Please tell me if I should add any others.

AO3

Will Solace placed his hand next to the stethoscope on his patient's chest, steadying himself to get a better reading. Both boys fought to avert their gaze and reduce the blush staining their cheeks, but their efforts were hopeless.

"So, uh..." Nico di Angelo struggled to start a conversation now more than ever. "Is there a reason this is taking so long, doc?" He silently cursed himself for using the nickname, but supposed some good came out of it when he saw Will's crooked smile.

"Sort of." The son of Apollo bit his lip in thought as he moved away from Nico. The retreat made both their chests ahe, longing for the contact again. Will ignored it best he could, whilst Nico tried to ignore the butterflies attacking his stomach when his doctor kept biting his lip - a habit Nico was soon obsessed with. "You're heartbeat is fast but faint, I need it to be louder." That was strange, Nico thought, because he could hear his heart hammering like Hephaestus. "I hope this doesn't overstep any boundaries," The doctor rushed, careful to chose his words so that the next two days together in the infirmary wouldn't be full of tension and awkwardness, "but it might help if you took your shirt off."

All was silent for a moment before Nico let out a shaky breath. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

"Can... can you take your shirt off, please?"

Nico wasn't sure whether he wanted to or not. Sure, it would stop Will from looking at him with those bright blue eyes standing out from tanned skin, full of a strange emotion that Nico could only call nervousness, for some reason. But still. If Nico took his shirt off, he would be bare chested and Will would be able to read the words printed inches below his collarbone. He would read Nico's soul-mark, quoting the first words Will ever said to him.

Somewhere in his panic, a single brain cell spoke up: then hide it, shadow bender! Of course! Will may have banned underworld magic, but shadows were distinctly a part of the world of the living - dead folks aren't opaque enough to cast one. As long as Nico had enough energy to keep the shadows covering his chest, Will would never be any wiser of their connection. He certainly didn't seem to have any feelings for Nico now, the son of Hades thought bitterly.

"Okay. But turn around, I don't need you ogling me."

"Y-yeah, sure." Will's voice shook, and Nico didn't know they were both in the same state of panic. He pulled his dark eyes around the room, noting every shadow cast by the potted plants, drawn privacy curtain, medical equipment, and (most notably) the bed Nico and Will were sat on. Will himself cast no shadow, but Nico assumed that was down to the angle of light in the small room. The shadow weaver steeled himself with a breath before pulling his shirt over his head and dragging the shadows towards him. The sense of power was incredible.

"You can look now." He whispered, suddenly shy. The shadows covered his torso, from each far-too-visible rib to the far-too-prominent collarbone. Unless you knew where to look, the soul-ink was invisible.

But as Will turned around, bright red, Nico's other brain cells returned. Will didn't have a shadow because he was a child of the God of the Sun... as his stethoscope and hand returned to their places on Nico's chest, they both found the shadows repelled by a soft glow of golden light. No, it wasn't gold: it was a full visible spectrum of light, each shade of sunset or sunrise filtering down on him. It was gorgeous, Nico thought, suddenly with a one-track mind. Will was gorgeous.

Speaking of Will, he had a one-track mind too. Nico's soul-mark. Hi, I'm Will! The cursive was wobbly and crooked, just as 11 year old Will's writing would have been. It was much scruffier 3 years later, Will mused, before he breathed a single word to the cute Italian teen sat in front of him. "Soul-mark."

That definitely brought Nico back to reality. Eyes wide and fearful, he remembered his encounter with Eros as he scrambled to put his shirt back on, convinced the God had cursed him for all eternity because this was wrong, now Will would hate him, and think he's weird and abnormal and would tell everyone, and-

"Nico, wait, it's okay!" Soft hands took Nico's in their own, bringing him back to reality. "It's great, actually, you have mine and I have yours too!" With the bright white smile dazzling him, it took Nico a moment to realise what his crush had just said.

“You have one too?"

"Yes! of course I do." Will's gaze softened, and the attractive lip-biting returned. "If you want, I can show you?" Nico hesitated before nodding, averting his gaze as Will let go of him to remove his doctors coat and then shirt, abandoning them on the bed. "See?" He indicated the lightly inked block capitals above his heart, the same place Nico's soul-mark was. OH, HI! Will had long felt frustration over the generic words, bitter that soul-marks only showed the first sentence your soulmate says to you. But overtime he had re-evaluated each and every first-meeting he ever had, and realised that meeting 11 year old Nico near Hestia's hearth had to be the origin of his mark. And now he loved it.

"Oh." Nico said, automatically leaning towards Will to read the tiny writing. "Oh."

"Yeah." Said Will, taking Nico's hands in his and leaning towards his soulmate. They sat there, together, for what felt like hours and seconds at the same time. They kept a small gap between them, studying each other's marks in awe.

That was before the curtain rustled behind them and Kayla burst in, worried by the silence. Needless to say, she was met with two red faced, bare chested, hand holding teens, locked in a tender moment of silence. Though, it soon changed to panic, threats thrown at the giggling girl to insure complete and utter secrecy, lest Nico design a spot in the Fields of Punishment for her himself. In other words, it was Nico and Will’s first bonding exercise after accepting their bond. And it was glorious.

41 notes · View notes

pensaremyweapon · 4 years

Note

I have an idea for a prompt. It’s annabeths pov and it’s when Luke started to distance himself and talk to other campers. Annabeth kinda mopes around until she meets the new camper Will. And so eventually Annabeth, Will, and Clarisse become friends. (Idk I just like the idea of them being the “old campers” and being best friends) This is just my headcannon but: Imagine the time between btl and tlo When annabeth has a crush on percy and Will is starting to get feelings for Nico Do it ifyou want

No problem doing long prompts, and I love the idea!

Annabeth, age 8

I don’t like camp half blood, it’s not the same as being on the run with Luke and Thalia. I miss Thalia, and Luke’s not the same, I tried staying with him, we were never apart before, now he keeps talking to other campers, and says I have to do the same. Whenever I bring up Thalia he turns me away and goes to talk with somebody else, but I know that he sneaks out at night to go see her tree. There’s some nice people in the Athena cabin, but there all older than me, they think I’m not as smart as them cause I’m so small, and I can’t fight like them. Luke said he’d teach me how to use a sword, but he hasn’t yet. He just likes to practice swords with people his own age. I stay with Chiron most of the time, he’s taught me a lot about the gods and fighting monsters, so I like being around him to hear stories of hero’s. I hope my Luke comes back, I miss him.

Annabeth, Age 9

I’m liking Camp a little bit better now, my siblings have stopped treating me like a baby, and I have my own necklace now, with a new summer bead. I’ve gotten a lot better at using weapons, I can handle myself at archery and sword fighting, but is still prefer my dagger, Chiron says only the most skilled fighters can use one. I finally got to the top of the lava wall with no scorch marks, and Luke even came up to me and hugged me, telling me I did a good job, I really like when I impress him. But I don’t get why were training with so many weapons and play so many war games when there’s no monsters to fight, when I was on the run there was monsters everywhere, now we can’t even leave the borders. Luke still says I need to make more friends, I don’t know why, I know and I’m friendly with everyone, everyone knows me and knows how smart I am, they all want me on their team for capture the flag. But there is a new boy, he’s in the Apollo cabin, he looks pretty young, even younger than me. I don’t know how he’s a child of Apollo thought, he can’t do archery or fight very good, I’ve only ever seen him in the infirmary, but he looks like he’s pretty talented at healing people, so I won’t doubt him just yet. I miss Luke.

Annabeth, age 10

Luke hasn’t been the same since he came back from his quest, he seemed so happy and upbeat to get to leave, and then he can back, different. He has a big scar on his face now, and I know he didn’t complete the quest but it’s not that big of a deal, the quest didn’t mean anything, it was just a little task. But he seems really mad, and won’t talk to me. He’s still going to Thalia’s tree, but instead of just sitting with it, I think he’s talking, he looks like he’s planning something. I wish Thalia were here, she’d know what to do, what to say. I’m one of the best fighters at camp, even though I’m one of the youngest, I have three clay beads on my necklace now. I’ve gotten to know the campers and my sibling a lot better. I volunteer a lot in the infirmary with Will, he’s not the best fighter but he’s great at healing, and at listening. I’ve got to talk to someone about Luke other than Chiron. I don’t know what to think about Clarisse, I definitely don’t want to be against her at capture the flag, but she won’t talk to me, and just bullies all the newbies. I tried to talk to her about how she came to camp but she just threatened me and walked away, but I know there’s a story there. I still miss Luke.

Annabeth, Age 12

Something definitely wrong with the Gods, the weather been terrible lately, a sign that Zeus is mad. Everyone’s on edge, even Clarisse, even though she doesn’t show it. Chiron won’t tell me anything, and grovers off looking for more demigods. I’m really concerned about Luke, he hasn’t been the same since his quest, and I never see him anymore, especially since the winter solstice. Me and Will are trying to figure out why the gods would be mad, we just visited Mount Olympus not too long ago. I haven’t told Will yet but I think I have an idea, there has to be a demigod that comes to fix it, the demigod from the great prophecy maybe. When they go on their quest I’m going with them, I can’t be stuck at camp any longer, this is my chance to prove myself, prove I’m a hero. I don’t know what’s going on with Luke, but I don’t think my Luke is coming back.

Annabeth, Age 15

Everyone is on edge as Percys birthday is getting closer, we only have a few more months, and there’s no doubt now that he’s the one of the great prophecy, he had to be. Everyone is getting ready, the Athena cabin has been laying out all of our battle plans and strategies, they best way each cabin could help in the fight. Will and the rest of the Apollo cabin have been trying their harder to get all the medical supplies they can, they know better an anyone that no matter how much they get, not everyone is going to make it. Clarisse and I are on a lot better terms since Chris has been getting better, I know she’s ready for a fight, and I’ll need her help with battle strategies. Will and Clarisse probably understand me the best other than Percy we’ve all been at camp so long, we know what it’s like, and we know we can trust each other. Will does seem concerned about Nico though, he did a lot in the battle of the labyrinth, and then disappeared, Will is concerned but I told him thats just how Nico is, he doesn’t stay for long. Everyone is getting ready for war, everyone but Percy. He’s off with his mortal friend, what’s her name. I need him here at camp, so we can talk, after he “died” I haven’t seen him as much, and I’m not losing him like I’ve lost Luke. I miss Percy. And I still miss Luke

Hope you liked it, and this was close to what you were looking for, I made it kind of like a diary entry but not totally. I did have a lot of fun writing it, and going more in depth with Annabeth at different ages. thanks for the ask!

#percy jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #annabeth chase #percabeth #will solace #clarisse la rue #solangelo #nico di angelo #luke castellan #chiron #headcanon #percy jackson headcanon #ask

18 notes · View notes

kawaii-kozume · 3 years

Text

One Day the Only Butterflies Left(Will Be in Your Chest)

Rated T+. Very heavy themes discussed. Solangelo. 3066 Words.

On the verge of no return, why'd you keep fucking it up?

Don't wanna have to bury you, but nothing seems to get through your skull.

It started after the repairs were finished. Or was it after Apollo showed up? Or maybe it started when Meg disappeared. Or when he found out about Jason. Or maybe, Will thought, it started back before he even first talked to Nico.

It was easy to wave off, especially after Nico told him what he did. What a night that was, sitting on the hard, marbled floor of the Hades cabin, holding the other boy tightly as he sobbed through story after story about his involvement in the wars. Will tried, he really, really tried. Every new realization struck him like one of his dad’s poison arrows and he eventually had to ask Nico to stop. Then they sat in silence until the sun rose.

So yes, Nico di Angelo, the love of Will’s life, was mentally fucked up and Will couldn’t do anything to fix it. He’d done as much as he could. He made Dionysus aware, he provided physical comfort, he let Nico cry on him as often as he needed, he listened to Nico’s mad ravings in the middle of the night when Tartarus’ claws were so deep in his mind. With all of that going on though, Will missed it. He missed the signs and he let the emotions fester and the toxicity bubble up around them.

That’s how he found himself staring at Nico, thinking gross thoughts about walking away from the brunette with the bleeding arms. He glances at the hand hovering around the wounds and bites back an angry huff.

“What happened?” He asks. Stupid, warm your voice.

“The-the-the- sac, the poison, Bob’s gonna burn, I gotta-” Nico brings the hovering hand to his arm again, curling his fingers to scratch the reddened skin. Will softly grabs the hand, preventing it from doing further damage.

“Shh, love, it’s okay, Bob’s going to be fine,” Will didn’t know exactly what Bob was, but it apparently mattered much to his broken lover. “It’s okay now.”

Nico’s eyes were darting around, searching for something, but his eyes were glossy as if he weren’t actually seeing his surroundings.

“No, I gotta get to the door.” He mutters, trying to wrench his arm away. A heavy lump formed in Will’s throat, blocking the little saliva he had left in his mouth. He holds Nico’s hand steady.

“Neeks, baby, if I go get Mr. D, I need to know you won’t hurt yourself.” Will knew if he walked Nico to the Big House, Nico would be upset when he came to. It was just before lunch, the majority of the camp was already at the dining pavilion and the stragglers were sure to be heading there now. Nico doesn’t respond.

“Nico, please. I don’t want to hurt you further.”

“ Percy, please be there. ” Something in Will snaps. It was like a twig in the woods under the foot of a mouse. It was fragile to begin with and even though the final bout of pressure was so small, it broke him. He can’t keep doing this. He’s only seventeen, he’s lived through two wars and lost so much already. Will stood there for what felt like hours, staring at the boy he loved with every fiber of his being, unsure how to move forward.

“ I’m so sorry, Neeks.” Will covers the claw marks, now layered with dried blood, and pushes Nico out the door of his cabin. Will was right; people stare as he pushes Nico forward to the one person who could stabilize his crumbling mind. He couldn’t find it in himself to care. Mr. D was already opening the door when he hauls Nico onto the porch.

With a quiet “I can’t stay.” Will leaves Nico in the director’s care and he walks off, away from the pavilion. He has no real location in mind, but something brings him back to the dark cabin on one of the corners of the unit. Will comes face to face with a heavy door and an even heavier feeling in his chest. He pushes the door open and shuffles inside. A year and a couple months of memory lives in this space and Will wants to forget each and every one. He can’t remember when he starts crying, but he moves through the cabin, pulling small items of his to take back to his own.

I hate to say "I told you so," but look how the bruises show

Tell me, how is it gonna feel without my arms wrapped around, wrapped around you?

The light is low and Nico is exhausted. He tilts his head to see the dying embers of a fire in a familiar fireplace. He’s in the Big House, alone. He sits up slowly, trying to remember how he got here. He vaguely remembers his cabin, blood, and Will. But Will’s memory isn’t warm like it usually is. It feels tragic and empty, almost like how Nico feels.

“Good morning.” A deep voice says and the sound of shuffling moves in. Nico looks up at Mr. D, afraid to ask his status. Luckily, he doesn’t have to.

“You had another episode. This one seemed much worse than the previous.” Mr. D gives him a sharp look now. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you avoiding me, too.”

Nico flinches at that. He knows he’d been but he didn’t think he needed to continue to check in. He’d been doing okay. Mostly nightmares, less waking blackouts. He moves his arm and hisses as bandages press against a wound.

“You clawed yourself up real nicely. It was kind of Sunless to bring you here.” Mr. D says and Nico’s stomach drops to his feet. Will was there.

“Can he come in?” Nico asks. Mr. D looks at him, curious.

“He’s not here at the moment. He didn’t answer where he was going but he dropped you off and walked away.” He speaks softly, as if Nico were a newborn deer and any sudden noise would send him skittering out into traffic.

“Oh.”

Mr. D sets a mug in front of him and stands.

“Drink. You’ll feel better.” Then he leaves. Nico’s not so sure what happens next because he forces himself to check out. It’s better not to feel than to feel bad things, after all.

You were dead to the world, now I'm dead to you

Haunting your own house, nothing to lose

It’s been three days since the last incident and things return to normal. Or so Nico thinks. Will knows he thinks so because he’s back to holding Will when they nap. Nico tries to engage Will in light bickering and Will tries his best to accommodate it. Will knows one thing though: whatever snapped in him that day hasn’t repaired itself. He finds himself not caring about what Nico has to say at breakfast in favor of asking himself Am I gonna find him broken today?

Nico notices him staring and nudges him with his shoulder.

“What?” He’s got a small smile on his lips, the same pink tinted lips Will adores, and a playful look buried in his eyes that only Will would know to look for. For a moment, Will can almost see who Nico once was.

“You’re playful today.” And apparently that was the wrong thing to say because after Nico’s responding hum, a shadow flits over his eyes and he goes quiet, staring at the bowl of oatmeal in front of him. Will’s chest tightens as he waits for an outburst. He almost cries when it doesn’t come.

“The world must have turned upside-down. I’m playful and you’re glowering.” The sadness in the smile Nico gives Will would be imperceptible to anyone watching, but Will sees it. He’ll always see it.

Past the point of rescuing, why'd I keep pushing my luck?

The hole I wore into your soul has got too big to overlook

“When I lose it completely, will you leave?” Even though it’s a question Will has asked himself many times over, he still finds himself unsure how to answer when Nico asks. They’re sitting in the basement room of the Big House on the concrete floor. Nico is sitting in between Will’s legs, pressed against his chest and clutching Will’s t-shirt like it’s the only lifeline he has. Who knows, in the next moment it could be.

Nico had another episode that morning, this time resulting in a child of Hebe getting cornered by skeletal military men. He was already in the basement after Will showed up to the Big House from the infirmary. The little girl had cried and asked Will many things he couldn’t answer. Did he mean it? Am I a pawn? Why does he hate me? Will he do it again? Will placated the girl before tending to his boyfriend’s fragile state as more ice grew around his heart.

“Do you want the honest truth?” Will sighs, bringing a hand up to push Nico’s hair behind his ear. He strokes Nico’s cheek with his thumb as Nico makes a noise of affirmation.

“I don’t know.” Will inhales. “I’d like to think so. Fuck, I’d like to think you’re never going to lose it completely. That you’ll keep up with your appointments with Mr. D. I’d like to think that you’ll overcome this.”

Something’s making a wet patch on Will’s shirt and causing Nico to shake in his arms. Will’s fighting tears himself, knowing that Nico needs to hear this.

“But I know you. And I know that you’d rather keep your problems to yourself because someone once told you that you aren’t worth the trouble. I know that you tend to sabotage yourself so you’ll never be happy, just in case it gets taken away.”

Nico’s sobs are muffled by Will’s chest but it doesn’t make each one hurt less.

“I can’t guarantee it, but damn it, Nico, I’ll be here until I can’t take it anymore. Can I ask something though?” And Will waits until Nico calms down enough to look at him.

“Can you please, no matter what, get to your meetings with Mr. D? Just because I’ll push myself through this, doesn’t mean that I want to.” Will feels the tears fall down his face and sees it on Nico’s. Nico doesn’t speak but he nods.

That night, Nico lashes out at him and tries to hurt him. Will tells himself it’ll be okay because that’s all he can do.

I thought we had a future, but we ain't got a chance in hell

It starts looking up and Will thinks more and more that Nico can do this. He sees Nico slip into the Big House regularly and sees him start to sit with Dionysus at meals. He sees Nico make real progress. He has less breakdowns and Will starts smiling again.

Will knew it was too good to last.

The sun is setting on our love, I fear

Letting our loneliness out into the atmosphere

Will startles out of sleep as he feels a weight settle on his chest. His eyes open and he’s looking into dark, glossy eyes above him. He takes in the blade pressed against his throat and bites back a whimper.

“Nico.” He whispers. Nico’s crying and he wants to reach out and wipe the tears away.

“Nico.” He says softly. The blade presses into him. He quiets down. He assesses the situation. Judging by the position of the moonlight, he guesses it’s about four in the morning. Nico’s holding his left arm down with his hand and his right arm is pinned under Nico’s knee.

“Where is he?” Nico hisses. Will looks back to his love’s crazed look.

“Who?” Will whispers. Nico scoffs.

“Damasen. I know you know where his lair is. I need to get there and I will kill anything I need to.” Nico spits out. Will thinks about how to handle this. If he answers, Nico may just kill him, no longer needing the information he thinks he needs. If he doesn’t comply, Nico could kill him anyways. There was only one plan Will could figure out.

“I can take you there. It’s really hard for a mortal to try to get to.” Will says slowly. He watches Nico process the answer and prays to any deity listening.

“Fine, but one wrong move and I swear…” Nico whispers. He climbs off Will and Will slowly sits up. He’s only in a t-shirt and boxers but damn it all if he bends over to find pants. He stands with his hands raised and walks out the Hades cabin door. Nico follows him, still in his illusion. Will glances up and sees he’s right. It’s just after four in the morning. He leads Nico to the Big House and stops at the base of the porch.

“This is him, just knock on the door.” Will says. Nico eyes him like he doesn’t trust him and continues to watch him as he walks up the stairs and knocks on the door. Will knows he should feel something seeing his love glare at him like he’s trash. But in all honesty, Will feels nothing. The door opens. Will doesn’t have the time to explain and Nico drops his sword.

“Nico.” Is all Dionysus says as Nico curls in on himself. Will doesn’t bend down next to him. He only walks up the porch and explain to Mr. D what happened. He feels Nico’s pleading eyes on him as he talks and he has nothing in his mind to say.

“I didn’t .” Nico whispers, horrified at himself. Will just looks at him blankly. “Holy shit, Will, I’m- There’s nothing I can say to make this better. I’m so sorry.”

Dionysus brings them both inside and sits them in front of the fireplace, Nico’s Stygian sword sitting in the attic for now. He’s left them to make tea. It’s silent between the two lovers and Will knows the growing ravine between them is too large.

“Have you been going?” Will asks quietly. Nico doesn’t answer. Will looks up at him, making sure he hadn’t gone into another episode, but Nico’s staring at his shaking hands.

“I tried.”

“How long?” Will’s tired. He’s so exhausted running in these circles.

“Two weeks.”

“Two weeks.” Will repeats. “Nico, I can’t do this.”

“Will, please, if it’s about tonight, we’ll stop sleeping together.”

“It’s not just tonight. It’s not even about me being in danger. It’s about how every time I see you in the mornings, I ask if today’s going to have another episode. It’s about me being in the infirmary, wondering if any of the campers that come in are going to be from you. It’s about the many times you’ve told me you’ll stop hurting yourself and making yourself fail but then you turn around and do it again. It’s about knowing that the longer I stay around, the more I’ll lose myself. It’s about looking at you and seeing you not even being on the plane of existence. It’s about not putting myself through torture because I love you, Nico. I love you so fucking much and I’m losing myself trying to save you. I’ve lost so much weight, it’s considered unhealthy. I’m jumpy when we’re together because I’m waiting for it. I’m not sleeping, I’m not even really living anymore. We’ve both become ghosts, Nico. And I’m sure you’re trying your hardest, I don’t doubt that. But it’s not enough and I’m not enough to fix it.” Will’s crying, no he’s sobbing. His breathing is ragged and he’s swallowing against the lump in his throat waiting for Nico to respond with something.

“You’re right.” Nico finally looks up at him and Will, for as long as he lives, will never forget the look on his face. “You’re absolutely right. I’m broken and I’m not doing what I should about it and we’re too young to handle this. I’m sorry it came to this. I’m sorry we’re not enough. I’m sorry that we moved too fast.”

“So, what now?”

“For one, we break up.”

Will inhales sharply. He knows that’s what needs to be done. He knows that’s what’s the most healthy and what’s most likely to salvage their friendship. But it still cuts through him like a hot knife.

“We break up.”

“And I’ll move into the Big House. I’ll work more closely to Mr. D. And if I get through it, maybe one day, we’ll be able to be friends again.”

“That sounds like a great idea.” Will says. The ice that had been wrapping its way around his heart for the last five months hadn’t gone away and with Nico’s last words, it shattered inside of him.

“The sun is setting on our love, but I will always keep you with me, Will Solace. I’ll always love you.” Nico stands up and leans down, pressing one final kiss to Will’s lips and then leaves for the basement room.

“I can keep you updated on his progress, if you’d like.” Mr. D stands in the doorway to the kitchen. Will stands up and shakes his head.

“He’ll either be better or he won’t. And he’ll tell me when he is.” With those last words, Will leaves the Big House, his chest both heavier and lighter than it had been in the last year and a half. That morning, he breaks. He sobs into his pillow, on his sister’s shoulder and all throughout breakfast that he didn’t attend. He makes a final trip to the Hades cabin and collects the last item he has there. The one item he didn’t take back because he still had hope. He picks up the tiny Apollo mythomagic statue and instead of taking it to his cabin, he takes it to the Hephaestus cabin. He asks Harley if he could make it a small, flat metal token and after it’s pressed down, he punches a hole in it and laces it on his necklace of beads. One last reminder of the boy who loved him and lost his mind.

The tide is turning on our chance to turn it 'round

I never thought I'd see my fingernails fall out

Love isn't in the air, love isn't in the air

#solangelo #pjo #sam writes #written listening to the bring me the horizon song by the same name

8 notes · View notes

anythingbutmyname00 · 4 years

Note

solangelo + "you're trembling"?

Solageno for prompt #23: “You’re trembling.” This one was asked by two different people!!

I’ve never written Solangelo before so be kind!! I also...haven’t read past the first half of the first Trials of Apollo book so I apologize if I get something or the dynamic wrong. I set this between Blood of Olympus and Trials of Apollo.

—

Despite his best efforts and most stubborn arguments, Nico was confined to resting at Camp Half-Blood for the foreseeable future. He had no issues with the camp itself, he actually rather liked it there.

He had an issue with how he felt when he was there. Some people are just outsiders, it happens. The thing is that they’re usually outsiders because they don’t like how being a part of things makes them feel.

Everyone wants to belong somewhere, right?

Despite himself, Nico actually loved Camp Half-Blood, and he wished he could stay.

Since the war ended, he thought he might actually have a reason to try harder this time, but Nico wasn’t one to get his hopes up.

Though, the son of the sun god made a pretty compelling argument. Nico had wondered if he might just consider-

“Nico!”

Nico snapped to attention towards his left side and saw Annabeth with a desperate look on her eyes.

“Gods, I called your name twice I said ‘do you understand what you have to do?’”

“Ye-yeah.” Nico said and shook his head a little, clearing it up.

“Yeah?” Annabeth said. She lowered her head a little and her gray eyes bore into him. He suppressed a shudder, the stare was oddly chilling.

“Yes,” he said, with much more confidence.

“Yeah Annie we got it don’t you even worry.” Connor Stoll jumped in. She glared at the nickname but he ignored it. He threw his hand on Nico’s shoulder and Nico promptly picked it up without looking and dropped it, letting it fall back to Connor’s side.

“See? We’re so in sync. I totally knew he would do that! Don’t worry about us!” Connor added, which, if anything, made Annabeth’s stare turn from commanding more towards distressing.

“Great.” She said and immediately turned to give out the next order.

Nico sighed and turned his head away from the intense blonde back towards the tree line again. He didn’t know why she was talking this so seriously anyway.

It was just capture the flag.

Apparently, Nico’s “doctor” was okay with—no, extremely vocally supportive of—his participation in capture the flag, but allowed no child of Hades demi-godly power drawing at all, much to Nico’s complaint.

Nico thought his “doctor” was a little too partial, but that was an opinion ruled irrelevant.

Somewhere in the distance, a horn blew signaling the beginning of the game.

Connor tapped Nico on the shoulder again and said “come on, we’re off.”

“Man, don’t touch me.” Nico said, but started a slow jog behind the son of Hermes in the direction of the tree-line closest to the beach.

Annabeth had strategized for two days leading up to this game. Nico had to sit through her run down at the beginning of the war games counsel as to every possible place the flag could be hiding and which was the most likely.

Zeus’ fist was overplayed. The field where the council of cloven elders met was too visible. It could’ve been at any random point in the woods—no landmark to draw the enemy to—but Annabeth doubted it, or so she told Nico and the other bored demi-gods waiting to here their strategy.

She had decided the other team would go for the far corner of the woods where there was only one possible path towards the flag. The Long Island Sound guarding one side of the flag left less ground for necessary defenders. It also would provide a pretty unmatched advantage for the captain of the other team—Percy Jackson.

Yeah, Nico had thought it was a bad idea for Chiron to captain the opposing capture the flag teams with Percy and Annabeth, but everyone else seemed to have a good laugh about it. Within days of the announcement, a betting ring had circulated camp, led by the Stoll brothers of course.

Nico didn’t participate in that either, he didn’t trust the Stolls not to pocket his money.

Outsider, right?

His and Connor’s job was to be the runners. They were to scout ahead and try and tell early on if the flag was in the aforementioned proposed area. If they had a chance, they should try for it, but most likely they were just ensuring the strategy would work as it was supposed to and no last minute adjustments needed making.

Connor was by far one of the fastest people at camp, which is clearly how he ended up with the job. Nico, on the other hand, was chosen because he could blend in and run by without people taking too much time to look, or notice for that matter.

He repeats: outsider.

Him and Connor had a nice pace going, they knew their path and they followed it easily enough. They didn’t pass many campers as they ran along, and if they did they were sure to keep their distance.

They arrived to the general area in which Annabeth suspected the flag would be located. Nico could hear the waves of sound. It was a nice day, the water sounded calm.

This is when Nico realized Connor had been talking to him.

“What?” Nico said.

Connor rolled his eyes “Dude, I said, ‘look, it’s almost too easy.’” and Nico followed where his finger pointed which was towards a little cluster of trees where the foliage was a more dense. the flag stood right in front of them. It followed the rule that the flag had to be in plain sight, but it was cleverly placed so that if you scanned the area quickly, you might just miss it.

Percy was on guard to the side closest to the Sound, for obvious reasons. There was Mark, son of Ares in the middle, and Clarisse guarding the other side farthest from the water.

Nico could hear Clarisse grumbling about something and Percy giving her shit about whatever it was. Mark looked extremely uncomfortable standing between them.

Connor and Nico made eye contact, and Connor nodded his head a few times towards the way they’d come from. He was clearly saying ‘come on! the plan! We go back!’

Nico was a little shocked at Connor’s insistence to follow the plan, but he didn’t think even he would pull some shit to screw up the plan lest he would have to face Annabeth’s wrath.

Nico held up a hand to say hold on, and then looked back towards the scene in front of them.

Percy had clearly thought two of the best fighters should be guarding the flag, but he hadn’t considered how him and Clarisse in close quarters would cause obvious distraction and arguing.

They were clearly not paying as much attention as they should be. They thought no one could get behind the flag with the Sound and the vegetation, but Nico had a way. The plant life created the perfect shadows for shadow travel.

He could easily get in and out with the flag, and then all they’d have to do is cross back over the creek.

It would save everyone a lot of trouble, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to be the hero just this once.

He looked back at Connor. “I can get the flag.”

“What! are you crazy?” He jerked again in the direction back towards base. They could hear the distant sounds of a makeshift battle now as the game got more intense. “What are you gonna d-”

He looked at the flag, and then at Nico.

“Uh-oh.” he said with a smirk. “Somebody want’s to disobey doctors orders.” Nico blinked, clearly bored by the joke. “He won’t be happy.” Connor chuckled.

“Does it look like i’m concerned?” Nico asked.

It was hypothetical, but Connor responded anyway. “No,” he said “but I heard that you care a bit more than you let on am I ri-”

Nico closed his eyes and jumped into the shadow of the tree he was hiding behind before Connor could finish the sentence and “jokingly” jab him with his elbow in a “see-what-I-did-there” kind of way.

He felt the shadows mold around him, and he admits, he got a little nauseous at first—more than usual. He took his time and uprighted himself before going towards the shadows of the foliage behind the flag.

He took a step forward but his foot never connected with the ground, it kept going down as if he were, well, as if he were walking on a shadow. He “woah-ed” and pushed himself forward, unbalanced and unstable.

This was nothing like what shadow travel was supposed to be like.

Instead of gliding, Nico was dipping and spinning. He couldn’t keep his eyes trained straight towards where he wanted to jump.

Get a grip, he thought, and for a moment, he thought it worked and he’d jarred out of it. He saw the green of the trees getting clearer and thought he was almost to the flag.

Instead, what he was seeing was the ground coming quickly towards his face as he fell out the other end of the shadow he had entered. He was but maybe 6 feet closer to the flag, and unfortunately was deposited directly in front of a bickering Percy and Clarisse, whom were now standing in front of each other with Mark clearly trying to mediate a sort of peace.

Nico made to speak, but shadows swallowed him once again. He wasn’t in control of his limbs this time. In fact, he wasn’t even sure they were there. He felt like he was swimming in tar. The shadows that surrounded him were becoming ghosts now, faces bleeding out of their dark ambiguous shapes. They grabbed at Nico, and he couldn’t move or speak to stop them.

He watched them mentally grab a hold of him, and then like someone clicked the button on a TV remote, he flickered out and went black.

—

“I told him, no, I told him that this was a bad idea he doesn’t listen.”

“Give him time, he will listen now I’m sure. He will have to.”

“Gods, no that isn’t good enough, he should have understood the first time I told him.”

“Go easy on him, he is still weak.”

“Yeah, but he wouldn’t be if he just li-”

Nico groaned. He hadn’t been eavesdropping on purpose. He had gained his consciousness a moment before the ability to open his eyes.

The people who had been talking before had stopped and Nico, using so much more effort than it should have, tried to focus on who was standing at the edge of his bed.

It was Will Solace and Chiron. Nico’s mind was still really foggy, but he could make out some things. He was in the infirmary. He felt like ice cream that was left out on the counter to melt and then thrusted back into a freezer and starting to refreeze.

His eyes focused a little more. Both Will and Chiron were staring at him. Chiron didn’t look disappointed, which was a good sign. He looked more...worried. Worried for him, he guessed, but also Nico caught a slight glance at Will and then back to him. That couldn’t be good.

Nico then decided to look at Will. He still looked like walking sunshine despite the fact that he had a deep scowl on his face. Nico had never seen him look so angry. It took a lot to make Will properly angry, and Nico hadn’t found that breaking point yet, until now he guessed. His eyes blue eyes usually shone like the clear sky on a summer day. Right now, they looked like the middle of a summer heat rain. It looked unnatural. Nico looked him up and down again and noticed—

“You’re trembling.” he said. Will was shaking head to toe like someone turned a dial in him up to a level he almost couldn’t handle.

“I’ll leave you two to discuss. Glad to see you’re okay, Nico.” Chiron left the infirmary, and Nico kind of hoped he would stay seeing the way Will was looking at him.

They were alone. Nico thought maybe it’d be best if he started.

“Okay, I was stupid, I know, but I-”

“Stupid?” Will exclaimed incredulously. “You almost died, Nico. Died.” he said, his arms no longer crossed but thrown out to his sides.

“Okay,” Nico said, a little exasperated. He didn’t understand. He specialized in this sort of thing. Did he know it was stupid? Yes. But did Will reprimanding him about it help him want to follow his instructions? not at all. He opened his mouth to continue but—

“No!” Will continued “No ‘okay.’ You almost died, you don’t listen. I told you how dangerous it was. I said you needed to slow down.” He looked like he was about to start steaming. He still hadn’t stopped shaking.

“No,” Nico said. “I might have struggled a bit, but I wasn’t in any real danger I would’ve felt it.”

“Your heart stopped, Nico.” Will yelled. “For 20 seconds your heart stopped. They got you. Whatever is in the shadow realm, it got you. We did CPR and it didn’t help. We had to send Clovis in through his dream space or whatever. He had to pull you out and then we could save you.”

Nico was stunned. “My heart stopped?” He asked.

“Yes.” Will said, much more choked up and quieter this time. Nico didn’t buy that he was over being angry though.

Shouldn’t he have been able to tell his heart had stopped, even momentarily?

“How could you be so selfish?” Will said next. Nico thought the yelling was done but he almost missed it. Will being angry-sad was worse. Nico hated that he did that, but he was stubborn.

“Selfish?”

“Yes, selfish. Don’t you get it? You’re decisions don’t just affect you. Gods, if you had died...” he trailed off. “Don’t you see?”

Nico didn’t answer. He didn’t see, no. What was Will trying to say?

“Is this just a joke to you? Something to tide you over until you feel good enough to leave again, and then I’m still stuck, just, here?” The shaking had stopped. Will stood miraculously still; which was shocking for someone with both ADHD and the energy of one Will Solace.

“No.” Nico said. He wasn’t sure what else he could say. He’d been sort of seeing Will he guessed for some time. They never really talked about it though. Nico hadn’t thought this was why. He assumed that’s just how Will was. He was a go-with-the-flow sort of guy. “You’re not a joke to me.” Nico said, and then immediately cleared his throat, hoping to move a little further past that now.

“okay.” Will said, quiet as a mouse. That didn’t seem like he was pleased.

Nico sighed, “Will, look,” he said to begin with. “I know I should have listened to you. I know it was stupid. I can be a little...” He choked on the word, swallowed, and said “stubborn.’

“No kidding,” Will said, his arms once again crossed. His face set.

“I didn’t think that,” Nico thought for a second, “I didn’t think that if anything happened to me it would...matter.” It sounded like crap, he knew that, but he wasn’t kidding either.

“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said to me.” Will deadpanned.

Nico raised his eyebrows and looked away, nodding a little. Will reeled himself back in a little.

“It’d matter to me a lot.” He said. “But I can’t do you not even trying to stay safe. You’ve gotta listen, Nico, really listen. You were lucky this time, but next time...”

Nico got the gist. He wouldn’t come back next time, at least yet.

“Okay.” Nico said. This time it was enough.

Will smiled, the sky in his eyes cleared and summer returned. Nico suspected they were okay again. Like he said, Will angry was unnatural, he couldn’t hold it long.

“Now,” Will said, “your doctor recommends tons of bed rest for at least a few days. Can you handle that? Or should I strap you down now and save myself the trouble?”

Nico rolled his eyes and sighed. “Whatever you say, doc.”

“Good!” Will said and climbed onto the bed with Nico. He rolled into Nico’s side. lifted up his arm, and draped it around himself.

Nico didn’t fight it but he gasped “Now, what would my doctor say about this? I don’t know, I was told to get a lot of rest...”

“Shut up.” Will said, “Human contact is good for convalescence.”

Nico didn’t argue, he wouldn't have wanted to anyway; even if he hadn’t used up his reserve of energy for the time being fighting a losing argument. He supposed some arguments were worth losing.

—

Ran a little long, lol hope you enjoyed!! I have 4 more prompts to write but I am still accepting! just know I am still in class right now and am pretty busy, so I can really only write one a night! If you submit one please be patient :) Thanks!

#nico di angelo #will solace #solagnelo #percy jackson #annabeth chase #pjo #hoo #heroes of olympus #prompts #dialogue prompts #submit a prompt to me #submit a prompt #anythingbutmyname00fic #percabeth #connor stoll #camp half-blood #rick riordan

34 notes · View notes

karenhikari · 5 years

Text

River. Solangelo fanfiction

Summary:

It didn't matter. After all, Will knew that Nico was head-over-heels in love with the great, Greek hero impersonation, Percy Jackson. Not that Will could blame him. ―*―*― He would be gone in a few days, Nico decided. In fact, if it weren't because Will Solace had forbidden him to leave the infirmary, he wouldn't even be there at the time. He was glad that Will Solace had found someone as bright as him, someone as kind and as generous. He was genuinely glad that his not-quite-friend had someone like Monique to lean into. They deserved each other, Nico repeated to himself, despite the way that thought punched the air out of Nico's lungs. He couldn't hold it against them. He couldn't hate Monique for being perfect for Will Solace, just like he could not be bitter towards Annabeth for being perfect for Percy. ―*―*― Or the one in which they are both enamoured with each other but are both too dense to realize it.

You can also find it in AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/20569433

―*―*―

So... this is a long overdue little thing, but here goes nothing. For the last five years I have gifted my sister, Laura, a story for her birthday. I usually write it in Spanish, save for one year when I decided to write her a Jaylos fanfic called "A Vouch Sealed With Blood". However, on that particular year, when I asked how she had found the story her answer was "It's good... but it isn't Solangelo." Therefore, I decided to come back to Solangelo and write a song-fic. The song I used for this story is called "River" by Emeli Sandé, please feel free to check it out, it's a lovely song.

Also, to make this possible I had the help of two beautiful people, who were nice enough to agree to beta-read this even though I asked them to do so like two days before my sister's birthday and they had to work against the clock for me to have it on time. So, please give it up for my two wonderful beta-readers, FrostedDragonHeart and Rosycat. Please feel free to check their accounts out and send them love.

Now, without further ado... I really hope you enjoy it!

―*―*―

River

―*―*―

If you're looking for a big adventure, And gold is all that's on your mind… If all you want's someone to take your picture… Then I won't waste your time.

―*―*―

Of the number of skills that Will Solace could sincerely claim he had, the one that was perhaps the most useless was how accurately he could point out when someone was in love. That was to say, he was a demigod that had been unfortunately cursed with being a zero to the left when it came to sword-fighting or archery, yet he could identify clear as a bell the most subtle of glances a restrained lover sent in the direction of their object of desire. He had never dared to say it aloud, but he internally suspected that maybe —and it was indeed an inquisitive 'maybe'— he was better at reading the inaudible language of silent love than the children of Aphrodite.

He supposed that this was an ability he had acquired through his years as the Head Doctor of the Infirmary of Camp Half-Blood. After all, despite his —admitted— worthlessness at fighting, he was a devoted physician. At the battlefield, he was out of place, too clumsy to hold a sword properly, too easily startled to maintain his concentration and aim an arrow through the screams of pain of comrades and enemies alike, too sympathetic with his peers to carry through his planned attack, even if it were only during a Capture the Flag game.

He was not a natural-born fighter and, in all honesty, he would rather not be. He was a healer, and he was immensely proud of that title. Even as a child, he'd always been inclined to help and to alleviate the pain of others.

He was the diligent boy who kindly offered to tutor his classmates if he noticed they were falling behind. He was the kind-hearted soul who would stop to pet a stray dog on the street, leaving nearly in tears to see such gentle animals be deprived of love. He was the empathetic person who captured both spiders and bees when he found them inside his home or cabin so that he could run outside to free them. He was not a fighter, and he valued honesty far too much to allow such a statement to bother him.

It was true, however, that healers did not often receive the glory and the notoriety that their warrior counterparts did. Everyone, for example, had heard the songs about the valiant deeds of Achilles, the way his rage had been far more disastrous for Troy than any other weapon wielded by men, how his wrath penetrated more than just Troy's walls, but the hearts of the Trojans as well. Everyone remembered Heracles, with his broad shoulders and irrepressible muscles, capable of smothering massive lions with his bare hands.

The same could not be said of Asclepius or of Podalirius, who were more than just powerful demigods. These were healing gods, long forgotten in order to make room in the memory of humanity for the courageous demigod warriors.

On the other hand, Will Solace had never yearned for fame of for glory, especially not if such qualities would come at the cost of his peace of mind and sleepless nights after stabbing a fellow camper during training. He would rather work from anonymity, silently bandaging wounds and stopping hemorrhages. If nothing else, it was an honorable job, and he performed it with the most honest of dispositions.

It couldn't be any other way, for healing a person was a very intimate thing to do. Often times, the physical ailments of a person were but a symptom of an emotional one, and neither of them could be treated whilst neglecting the other. Furthermore, Will considered himself honored. Undoubtedly, a strong camaraderie was born from training together and fighting side-by-side, but there was a different, more intimate type of trust born between a physician and their patient.

He was, after all, the recipient of his patient's pain, of the raw, agonizing truth that they were —for all of their golden, divine ichor, for all of their supernatural powers—, humans at the end of the day. He was the one the skilled descendants of Achilles and Heracles allowed themselves to be the most vulnerable with, the one in front of who the steadfast warriors dissolved into bleeding, terrified children. And, behind the closed doors of the infirmary and the hurriedly pulled over curtains that divided the small cubicles that served as rooms for the hospitalized patients, he was also the one who could ease their pained cries and restore the tranquility to their eyes.

He was thankful for that, honored that his peers trusted him enough to let their guards down and be honest with him.

That was how he supposed he had learned to read the souls of his patients. How he had learned the dozens of meanings hunched over shoulders held, how he had learned to identify the rage barely concealed under indifference, how he had learned that a gritted 'It doesn't hurt' meant his patient was, in fact, in excruciating anguish but wanted his distress to be treated with extreme discretion. Will supposed that, afterwards, once he had become a fluent speaker of the subtle art of body language, he had also taken an impromptu curse of the silent dialect of love.

It was all in the longing glances, in the affectionate smiles that the smitten person attempted —rather unsuccessfully, might Will add— to pass as nonchalant grins. It was all in the way they leaned closer to their beloved one or perked up when they heard a special name being mentioned, even if it was in a passing. That's how Will Solace knew. He had been trained to identify the slightest signs a person was in pain; it was much more satisfactory to be able to tell when they were in love.

And that was how Will Solace, son of Apollo, Head Doctor of the Camp Half-Blood Infirmary knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that Nico di Angelo was in love with Percy Jackson.

It was barely there at first, concealed under the nonchalant demeanor of the son of Hades. It was in the uninterested way Nico attempted to sport when he asked what Percy had been up to during the time he hadn't been at the camp. Which, granted, was the majority of the time. It was in how Nico would noticeably bite the insides of his cheeks when Will answered.

The son of Apollo supposed that Nico perceived him as harmless. After all, his professional honor forbade him of sharing whatever his patients told him. In all fairness, Nico hadn't admitted to anything, and while that did not make his feelings any less real, it could mean that Will was seeing too much in the simplicity of a friend asking about a comrade that he hadn't seen in a long time.

On the other hand, if that were the case and Nico was in fact only inquiring about Percy as a friend, then why didn't he walk up to the son of Poseidon himself and asked him personally? Will had seen Nico whenever Percy tried to approach him at dinner or before a Capture the Flag game. Percy, being his bubbly, easy-going self as he attempted to start a conversation while Nico's frame immediately tensed, eyes averted as he came up with an excuse to leave as soon as possible.

When he listed all the little things that had guided Will to his conclusion, like right now, it seemed rather obvious. However, with how seldom Nico even appeared at the Camp and with how he only ever spoke in monosyllables, Will considered it was, in fact, a big achievement.

He supposed it didn't matter. He was but the physician that looked after Nico whenever he stayed at the Camp. That wasn't anything special—he was the Head Doctor of the Infirmary, tending to wounded demigods was, quite literally, his job. Perhaps the only thing worth noting was that he was especially worried about Nico when compared to his other patients because Nico would often disappear from the Camp for literal months. Even on his rare visits, it took Will a great deal of coaxing to get Nico to agree to a quick check-up.

The only other thing that marked these situations as special in any way was the fact that Will was always the one in charge of said check-ups. Nico most likely hadn't given it a second thought, and he probably assumed that all the other members of the Apollo cabin were too disgusted by him to want to have him as their patient and that Will, being the captain of his cabin and the Head of the Infirmary, despite not wanting to be stuck with him either, had found himself unable to wash his hands of the unwanted son of Hades, unlike the rest of his siblings.

With a begrudging pang in his chest, Will could see why Nico would think something like that. It wasn't that the camp actively rejected Nico because of his parentage. Personally, Will was inclined to think that the real, underlying reason for Nico's repulse towards his divine parent was his own feelings regarding Hades and his godly heritage.

In truth, Nico was the first one who tried to negate and ignore who his father was, and so long as Nico himself did not accept who he was, it would be hard for the people around him to do so. It would be harder still for Nico to realize that the other demigods were not rejecting him and that, instead, he was the one projecting the aversion he felt towards his own heritage and embodying it in his peers.

So no, the reason Will was always the one checking in on Nico did not mean that all of the other demigods of Apollo's cabin disliked him and Will was unfortunate enough to be stuck with him. Far from that, even if such a thing had been the case —which, again, it wasn't—, Will knew for a fact that his brothers and sisters were true professionals, who would not, under any circumstances, allow their personal opinion of a patient to come in between their performance as physicians and a person who was in need of help.

However, at the core, the reason Will was always the one at the infirmary when Nico appeared at the camp was because Will had personally requested to be responsible for Nico's health records. That was it. No secret animosity or aversion, no convoluted schemes akin to Young Adult plots. Just Will allowing himself to be incredibly unprofessional and trying to use his position as Head of the Infirmary to give him the chance to get to know Nico better.

It didn't matter. Not really. After all, Will knew that Nico was head-over-heels in love with the great, Greek hero impersonation, Percy Jackson. Not that Will could blame him. Especially not since, to Nico, he was nothing other than an annoying nurse who would not stop bickering and chastising him because he did not eat enough.

―*―*―

See, maybe I'm too quiet for you, You've probably never noticed me, But if you're too big to follow rivers, How you ever gonna find the sea?

―*―*―

At some point after the defeat of the Giants, Will Solace had started dating a freckled red-haired girl from Hephaestus' cabin. Now, that was an extremely ridiculous and uncalled for statement for Nico di Angelo to make. After all, what was it to him if Will Solace dated a pretty daughter of Hephaestus or not? In fact, if things had gone his way, he wouldn't even have been at the camp enough for him to connect the dots and realize that Monique —sweet, curly-haired Monique— spent so much time in the infirmary that she might have as well been a daughter of Apollo herself.

Again, he should have probably ignored it all together. It was none of his business, after all. Monique was a bubbly, talkative girl, and she always had a cheerful smile curled at the corners of her lips. She was, by definition, the kind of girl someone like Will Solace —kind-hearted, soft-spoken, polite Will Solace— would fall for. It made sense, to the last one of Monique's freckles.

What did not make sense, not at all, was how uneasy this whole affair made Nico feel. Will Solace and him were not even friends, they barely knew each other enough to be called acquaintances. If Will hadn't been the Head of the Infirmary, Nico doubted that the son of Apollo would have even known what his name was. And, again, if Will Solace hadn't been the Head of the Infirmary, Nico doubted that he would have spoken to the son of Apollo enough to even consider him an acquaintance at all.

Thinking about it was simply ridiculous. If Will weren't such a massive pain in the ass and had forced Nico to stay bedridden at the infirmary, then he wouldn't even know that Will Solace was dating Monique in the first place. It was none of his business. None at all.

The fact that he had noticed Monique's singsong voice and radiant smile boiled down to how often the daughter of Hephaestus was at the infirmary. And that didn't make her special, either. The infirmary was packed with demigods that were not descendants of Apollo but who urged to help and to aide in this difficult time. There were still dozens of wounded demigods, both Greek and Roman, laying in the beds, stretchers and inflatable mattresses at the infirmary.

When even that had been insufficient, the children of Apollo had evacuated their own cabin and started to spend the nights at spare beds in their friends' cabins. They had even used Hera's and Artemis' cabins. After all, these were goddesses consecrated to family and protection. Surely, they would not become furious at the prospect of their empty cabins serving as shelter for the exhausted healers of the camp.

It didn't make much of a difference, either. Said healers had so many things to do, so much work slowly piling around them, that they barely slept at all. The older ones had to keep watch, both at the infirmary and at their own cabin, now that injured demigods were staying there too. Often times, they fell asleep on their chairs, if they did not do so standing. They also needed to be available for emergencies, and despite the well-meaning volunteers ready to cut bandages and make the inventory, there was only so much the children of Apollo could allow untrained volunteers to do when it came to taking care of their patients.

Monique was one of those volunteers, although it was obvious from her comfortable demeanor and calm stance that, despite not being a daughter of Apollo, she knew her way around the infirmary. She would come during the day and help as much as she could, changing bandages and handing out trays of food. And she tried, she tried so hard and so genuinely to make the injured demigods smile or at least forget for a moment the suffering that engulfed both camps with her funny stories and cheeky jokes.

When night rolled around, Nico saw Will Solace walk her to the porch of the infirmary, where she would insist that he needed to rest and that she could stay the night in his place. Without fail, Will Solace declined the offer, too responsible and too selfless to care or even acknowledge his strained smile and exhausted gaze. And Monique, sweet, loving Monique, knew him far too well to argue. She knew it would be useless. Instead, she smiled tiredly at her boyfriend and kissed his lips for just a moment before she pulled back and whispered a soft 'Try to get some rest, babe'. And, managing to look ashamed for making a promise that he knew he wouldn't even try to keep, Will answered with a murmured 'Sure, darlin''.

Personally, Nico thought it was stupid. Not Will Solace and Monique, with their tender gazes and soft-spoked promises. No, that was sweet, even he could see that. That was genuine, and it showed that they shared a level of trust that he could only ever dream he'd share with someone one day. No, Monique and Will Solace, despite the uneasy feeling that seeing them together gave Nico, were nothing if not sweetly and happily in love. They were perfect for each other, all aureus smiles and warm welcomes. He was happy for Will Solace, his not-quite-friend-just-barely-an-acquaintance, he was.

No, what was stupid was overworking their medical staff, pushing them to a point where even Will Solace's laugh was barely above a whisper. Forcing them to go without proper food or much-needed sleep for weeks. What was outrageous was putting the responsibility of the life and death of their comrades in the hands of literal children, the very children that had just watched their friends and siblings perish only days prior.

Nico knew that was simply the way their world worked. He had risked his own life to end the war, too. He had spent months searching for Percy, barely sleeping when exhaustion took over and eating just enough to keep himself going. He had no moral quality to question the sacrifices the other campers were making to get through the outcome of the war. He knew.

He wasn't questioning the Apollo cabin, or even Will's generosity, but he was willing to question the world they lived in. Heavens above, he was going to question the taunting gods that forced people like Will Solace and Monique to undergo weeks of sleepless, fretful nights and lives of gut-wrenching anxiety, waiting to hear the news, praying to those very gods that their loved ones returned home safely. He was going to question the divine laws that made them live like this —barely living at all, and instead simply surviving— until the day he died.

He was not special, Nico knew. He'd only held a sword fast in his hands and he'd teleported a big-ass statue across the world. That was all. He was no hero. He was but a pawn in the gods' immortal hands. The real heroes worked behind the scenes, bandaging wounds and summoning tired smiles from dried lips. The real heroes were selfless, kind, brave people like Will Solace and Monique.

And these heroes, these warriors that were worth so much more outside of the battlefield deserved happiness. They deserved each other. They deserved their cheesy songs at the campfire and their gentle touches at the infirmary porch. They deserved each other.

He would be gone in a few days, Nico decided. In fact, if it weren't because Will Solace had forbidden him to leave the infirmary, he wouldn't even be there at the time, using a bed that so many others needed —and deserved— more than he did. He was glad that Will Solace had found someone as bright as him, someone as kind and as generous. He was genuinely glad that his not-quite-friend had someone like Monique to lean into.

They deserved each other, Nico repeated to himself, despite the way that thought punched the air out of Nico's lungs. He couldn't hold it against them. He couldn't hate Monique for being perfect for Will Solace, just like he could not be bitter towards Annabeth for being perfect for Percy.

They deserved each other. They deserved to be happy, Nico told himself over and over again, until the words stopped being units and instead became an unrecognizable mush. They deserved each other and he would be gone as soon as Will Solace discharged him. If he had any luck, this time no war would arise and he would not come back to the camp in a very, very long time.

―*―*―

So follow me, I'll be your river, river, I'll do the running for you. Follow me, I'll be your river, river, I'll move the mountains for you. Follow me, I'll be your river, river, I'm here to keep you floating. Follow me, I'll be your river, river… River, river…

―*―*―

Of course, the gods had yet to leave a contact number for Nico to ask how he wanted his life to go. He had not left the camp to not come back in a very, very long time. In fact, he hadn't even left the camp in the first place until several months after the war, and it wasn't even Will Solace's fault. Oh no—it had been Jason's, and Piper's, and Annabeth's, and Percy's. War was over at last, they said, and he finally had a chance to feel at home at the camp.

It was… strange, if he did say so himself. It wasn't that he felt out of place at camp, not in the way that he had before, at least. It was… different. For instance, he didn't feel as if he had to constantly bite his tongue in order to not say something that would incriminate him in some way, he didn't feel the need to keep everyone at arm's length because otherwise they would find out who he really was and they would hate him for it.

To say that it was freeing was and understatement. Ever since Cupid had forced Nico make that loathed confession in front of Jason, things regarding his sexuality had become a little easier to accept. It might have been slightly masochistic on his part, but he was thankful to Cupid, even if just a silent, tiny, little bit.

It wasn't that before Cupid he'd clung on to the hope that one day he would wake up and be normal and not be gay. No, he knew there was no changing what he was at the core. He couldn't stop being gay the same way he couldn't stop being a demigod. If he hadn't become straight in the sixty years he'd spent in the Lotus Hotel, he wouldn't become one in the months since Percy and Annabeth had started dating.

What had changed, however, was the way people perceived his homosexuality as a whole. Sometimes, when nightmares plagued his sleep and when closing his eyes in the solitude of his cabin was more torture than relief, Nico remembered the way he'd heard people talk about homosexuality back when he was a child, back in Venice, when his mother and his own ignorance had still been there to shield him from the cruel comments. Granted, he had been too young to fully comprehend what the spiteful glances towards a not-masculine-enough young man meant, too young to understand what the shushed whispers about this or what fag meant. But he knew it was bad, and that was enough.

He hadn't made sense of any of that until much later, when Bianca wasn't there to hold his hand anymore, when he could feel the callous breath of Death tickling down his spine. And he'd been ashamed. He'd been terrified. He'd tortured himself, day and night and day again incessantly. He'd martyrized himself with Bianca's death, with his parentage, with guilt, with the knowledge —or the perceived knowledge, at least— that there was no one left in the world who cared about him. His sexuality had only been a bullet-point in a very, very long list of his disappointments and regrets.

Truthfully, the reason being gay had made him so unbearably anxious wasn't his sexuality per se—rather, it was the reaction he received to that statement from the people around him. What made him so utterly terrified of admitting, even to himself in the silence of his empty cabin, that he was not what society expected him to be was the possibility that he would be treated with the same scorn with which he'd heard the adults speak of men who only seemed gay and twisted and perverted.

What he feared was not the biting end of the truth, no. What he was, to this very day, absolutely petrified of was the dead threats he'd receive from simply being who he was, the hateful glares, the disgust in the eyes of people who claimed bullshit along the lines of I am not a homophobe, but…

Yes, Jason could insist that things had changed all he wanted. He could point the fact that homosexuality was not considered a crime anymore—at least in the United States and in Italy, Nico had quietly pointed out. Jason could scream at the top of his lungs that same-sex marriage had been legalized, that homoparental adoption was allowed. Yes, Nico knew that they were Greek and Roman, and that homosexuality had been perceived differently by the ancient cultures that served as the foundations of the demigod world. Yes, Jason could apologize —genuinely, from the bottom of his heart— of the unfairness of the fact that they had to celebrate these simple statements as won battles when these were things that straight people took for granted.

Yes, Nico knew Jason meant well, and he was thankful for having the son of Jupiter on his corner. However, Jason's unwavering support and positive outlook on life were not enough to cancel out the fact that there were still people who had the closed-up, downright hostile mentalities that Nico remembered from when he as a child. And it wasn't that the hateful words and cruel sneers had stopped burning, but at some point, Nico had decided that it was simply not worth it.

After all, he had been granted a second shot at life, he had survived World War II, he had fought and won alongside his fellow demigods during both the Titan and the Giant War. He was thankful he was even alive to start with, what did it matter what an ignorant, stuck-up bigot thought of who he had a relationship with? Not that he was even in a relationship at the moment, but still.

So he'd stopped hiding. At least that was how Jason had decided to word it. Personally, Nico wanted to say that he had never been hiding at all, but the lie tasted bitter on his lips. The truth was that he had decided to stop fear to rule his every move. He'd decided he wanted to live a full life, not just the scraps of breathing and having a pulse and only being alive. No, he wanted to live, to really live, down to the last intake of breath from his alveolus.

To an extent, he supposed Jason was right. Not that he would give the son of Jupiter the satisfaction of hearing that confession from his lips. Hell no. However, at one-forty-seven in the morning, alone in his cabin, who was there to hear his thoughts and tell Jason? No one, that was who, and therefore, Nico allowed himself to be honest.

That was why he'd decided to stay at the camp, after all. The camp, that was so full of life and so hectic and so rambunctious and so everything. The camp, that had ever-so slowly started to resemble a home, a safe haven for him to land.

It was slow at first, how he began to feel more at ease around the campers, how they welcomed him, not only as a fellow demigod, but as a hero. Nico knew that he was no such thing; however, who was he to take the much-needed sense of security that came from knowing you had someone watching over you from the other demigods? The gods knew —though they could never admit it— that the campers had suffered enough already. If the idea —deceiving, exaggerated, hardly true at all— that Nico was a hero, dutifully staying at the camp to protect them, gave the weary demigods any sense of comfort, Nico would not be the one to snatch it away from their hands.

It might have also helped that he smiled more. He laughed more. Hell, he was there more, out of his cabin, sitting at Percy's table with Annabeth and Jason during dinner. He was out in the volleyball courts, helping the children of Aphrodite defeat Hypnos' cabin during an amicable match.

He was there, teaching Italian and Latin, serving as a bridge that connected Camp Half-Blood with Camp Jupiter. He was there, training the younger demigods at sword-fighting and making it a point to tell them that no matter how out of place they felt, no matter how weird and utterly terrifying it was to find out that one of your parents was a god, it would eventually start making sense. Eventually, it would start feeling right again.

So, Nico di Angelo never got around to leave the camp for a very, very long time. Instead, Nico di Angelo stayed —wholeheartedly, contently, willingly— at the camp. And for the first time in literal years, Nico di Angelo felt alive—utterly, breathtakingly, impossibly alive.

―*―*―

If all you want are answers to your questions, and you can't seem to find no love for free… If you're looking for the right direction… Then, darling, look for me.

―*―*―

Against anything and everything that Will Solace would have anticipated, Nico di Angelo did not flee from the camp, not even after Will had officially discharged him. That was a first. In fact, there were a lot of 'firsts' going on after the war against the Giants. Will suspected it had something —everything— to do with Nico's newfound life purpose.

Will had always known that Nico was, at heart, a good person. Perhaps he had a dark sense of humor, perhaps he was sarcastic and blunt, but that did not —could not— negate the courage he had shown as he fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the very same people who he thought hated him. If Nico had been spiteful or vindictive, if he had been cruel and heartless, if he had been the monster Nico claimed the other demigods accused him of being due to his parentage, he would have spared himself the trouble and not lifted a finger to help them during the war. Will wasn't even talking about the Giant War anymore, but about the Titan one.

Will had seen Nico enter the battlefield then. He had doubted Nico had noticed him, or that he even cared enough to remember his name. After all, Will was just another blond, blue-eyed demigod, not unlike a couple dozen of Apollo or Hermes' children. On the other hand, there was only one demigod who had the ability to make the earth under their feet crack and disintegrate, only one demigod who could open the very soil they were standing on and summon the bony specters of the underground to crawl out of the depths of the Underworld, and Will remembered him fairy well.

Sometimes, Will still had nightmares of the Battle of Manhattan. Sometimes he could still hear the roaring clash of swords, the swift whistle of arrows as they flew across the sky—close, so close, that he feared he might get hit by one despite not having been the original target. Sometimes, he wished they would hit him, if only it would make the noise and the hurt and the guilt stop.

Sometimes he woke up still caught up in dreams that were not dreams as much as they were memories, praying to unhearing gods that they blessed him with some kind of fighting skill. Even if just for this one battle, even if just to fight alongside his brothers and sisters this one time instead of being so unbelievingly clumsy with a sword and so completely useless at the battlefield.

The one thing he knew how to do was healing, but he could not heal the injured campers fast enough. He could not stop the hemorrhages at the rate at which Kronos' army stabbed the young demigods. He could not keep the promise he inevitably made to each of his patients, that It's alright, it's alright, you're gonna be okay, that left his lips in a soothing hurry but that dissolved into nothing as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

On those nights, he clung to Nico, even if the son of Hades was certainly unaware of it. He clung to the memory of Nico, emerging from the depths of the earth, of his unwavering determination as he marched towards Kronos' army. He clung to the certainty with which Nico had faced battle, to the lifeline his zombie warriors had offered to the weary demigods. Kronos' monsters could try all they wanted to defeat the zombies, but they could not kill what was already dead.

There was no telling how many lives Nico had saved that day just by being there. Will was certain that Nico had saved his. Michael had disappeared a few hours prior, and although Will still held on to the withering hope that his brother was alive, chances were that he would, at the very least, be injured when they found him. The Apollo Cabin needed a leader then, then. They had no time to waste waiting for Michael to return. Will was next in line, and although he'd always known he would eventually become the leader of his cabin, he'd always thought that they'd have more time to prepare themselves. After all, Michael was only seventeen, it would still be a while before he had to leave for college.

Will had not expected to become the Head of the Apollo Cabin like this. Not with a war thundering around him, not with Michael missing, possibly dead, not with his hands covered in blood that he could not even tell anymore whether if it was his patients' or his own. Never, never had he thought, even for the fraction of a second, that he would become Head of the Apollo Cabin without the chance to say goodbye to his brother, without the possibility of calling him if he had a question. No one had prepared him for the dozens of lost, terrified eyes of his siblings that looked up at him with a glimpse of hope under their desperate expectancy, as if Will weren't just as lost and terrified himself.

That was when Nico had appeared in the battlefield. And he'd brought a wave of new-found faith to Will. He couldn't give up, he couldn't let his sorrow gnaw at this chest, not yet. The other demigods were still fighting, Nico di Angelo still thought they were worth saving, his brothers and sisters trusted him. Will simply couldn't curl into himself and let his own sobs drown the thundering crash of war around him, no matter how much he wanted to. The battle was not yet over, they hadn't lost yet.

Unbeknownst to Nico, he was the strongest, definite reason that made Will pull himself together, even if it was only for the sake of his siblings. Nico had lost his older sister fairly recently as well, Nico was only twelve-year-old, he was even younger than Will himself. Yet he was still fighting —desperately, wholeheartedly, fiercely— for a camp that he didn't even consider his home. As long as Nico was on his feet, fighting, Will would not give up, he refused to give up.

The thing with Nico was that he was stubborn. He never took a 'no' for an answer and he had decidedly been born to prove the people around him wrong when they said that he couldn't or that he shouldn't do something. And that meant that Will had to be stubborn too and ignore the exhaustion and the pain washing over him in order to keep going. So that's what Will Solace did through the Battle of Manhattan, and through many days and years after that—he kept going.

He took a deep breath and did his best to be the leader his brothers and sisters deserved, and he carried on. He clung to the memory of Nico di Angelo, to the determination glimmering in his eyes, and he drew inspiration from it. He kept going.

In all honesty, Will had always known Nico di Angelo was a good person, but it was still a wonderful surprise to see more people recognizing it. It was absolutely wonderful to see Nico accepting and growing more comfortable with the notion that he was a hero. It was utterly relieving to see Nico stay at the camp instead of fleeing right after Will's discharge, so breathtakingly relieving to see him happy and at ease during the campfire songs.

Everything that came afterwards —Nico signing up as a Latin and Italian teacher, him realizing that he was exceptionally good at training the young demigods at sword-fighting, him volunteering at the infirmary, him offering to help out in the rescue missions to bring new demigods to the camp— was simply a welcomed surprise. Will had heard a few demigods comment, in a passing, and without the faintest trace of ill-intentions, that they had never thought Nico would enjoy being a teacher or helping out with the younger campers.

In all honesty, Will could understand where they were coming from, and he had to admit that he hadn't exactly imagined Nico reassuring a young demigod who found a certain fighting technique hard to learn. Not until he'd seen the gentle way in which Nico squatted down and spoke to Will's younger siblings while training them. However, it seemed fitting. It was so perfect and so right that Will had to stop and ask himself how come he had never thought of it. Nico took to teaching and coaching the same way he took to fighting—it was instinctive, natural. It was in his very essence.

So no, Will was not at all surprised to see Nico fall into the missing pieces of the camp. He wasn't surprised to see Nico growing more comfortable at the volleyball courts and the dining pavilion. He wasn't puzzled to find Nico cutting bandages or folding the clean sheets of the infirmary's beds. No, this felt right. This felt like what Nico had been meant to be doing all along.

If anything, Will was proud that he got to see Nico unabashedly being himself. If anything, he was thankful that the gods allowed him to be there to see it happening.

―*―*―

See, I can make the load much lighter, I just need you to confide in me, But if you're too proud to follow rivers, How you ever gonna find the sea?

―*―*―

It was during one of the rescue missions Nico so eagerly volunteered to that it happened. It was a couple of months after the one year mark of Gaea's defeat, and though the festivities were officially over, the lingering feeling in the air was still surreal. It felt like an eternity had passed, yet Nico —and he was sure the same could be said for the rest of the demigods that had fought in the war— could remember the battle as if it were only a few days that separated him from the actual event and not a complete year. It was surreal and unbelievable and it had him feeling all sorts of mixed emotions, but, above it all, he was relieved.

Life had been good during that year. Life was good. He had his friends and the young demigods he trained, who genuinely looked up to him. He had his sisters, Hazel and Reyna, who he had adopted as such. Or she had adopted him as a younger brother, it was not very clear, but it wasn't as if it mattered, either. He had a job that he was passionate about, he had the camps and Hades and Persephone, who lovingly awaited for him and Hazel in the Underworld for when they managed to run away from their responsibilities and visit their parents.

Definitely, life was good. Better than he could have imagined it would ever be.

It was with that in mind that Nico volunteered to an impromptu rescue mission. Elijah, a satyr that was currently in Pennsylvania had called, saying he'd found a girl who he was certain was a demigod and that he requested help to bring her to the camp. This was a common occurrence, nothing out of the ordinary. It was autumn and the camp was emptier than usual, but that was normal too.

Usually, the contingency plan for these situations included the satyr contacting with either Chiron or one of the praetors of New Rome, whichever camp director was closer to where the newfound demigod was at the moment, to inform them of their findings. Afterwards, Chiron or the praetor would call for a meeting with the heads of the cabins or the centurions of the cohorts, whatever the case may be, and share the need for a rescue mission, explaining the particularities of each situation.

Then they ran a quick check to determine if there was already a demigod party in a mission near the area were the help was needed, available to aid the satyr and the new demigod. If that was the case, they discussed the possibilities of morphing both missions into one; if that wasn't possible or if there weren't any demigods already in the general direction, they opened the case for a completely new mission and called someone else in.

There was a pre-established list of demigods who genuinely enjoyed this kind of rescue missions and would happily leave the camp for a few days for the sake of bringing a new demigod home. This was because, although assisting in a rescue was part of the moral code and most demigods had participated in at least one of those missions, not everyone would willingly chose to do so.

Nico could understand why, to an extent. Not everyone wanted to deal with the pain and confusion of a child who was seeing their world shatter to tiny pieces in front of their eyes. Not everyone wanted to try to explain to a new member of their dysfunctional family how this whole demigod business worked, especially not when most of the older and supposedly more experienced demigods were still trying to make sense of it all.

Nico understood that, and he honestly could not blame the ones who openly admitted that rescue missions were not their thing. It was better to stay out of it rather than have someone be forced to participate in them and then screw a child's first impression of the demigod world. Nico could understand why someone would prefer to stay out of these situations; however, that was not what he did.

Rescue missions always hit too close home for him. They always made him remember Bianca and the attack of the manticore and the sinking feeling of utter loss. Perhaps it was the fact that he was masochistic in nature, perhaps it was his way of giving back to the camp, but he had long ago decided that he could handle rescue missions. Yes, they were painful, but they were also a way of dealing with that pain. It gave that heartache a purpose, it made the grief make sense, be worth something.

Nico could vividly remember what being lost and confused and seeing your world shatter right in front of your eyes felt like. And he didn't want that for the new demigods. He didn't want that for anyone. His pain was enough, therefore, if through it he could spare the new campers of the unbearable confusion and agony, he would. Time and time again.

That was how Nico had ended up in the emergency contact list for when a satyr called asking for back-up. It helped that shadowtraveling came incredibly in handy when the satyr and the new demigod were in a different state and needed quick assistance. It also helped that Nico was good with children. Not that he personally thought that, but the Heads of the Cabins had decided that he was, and so he had proudly taken the title and worked with it accordingly. Furthermore, Nico was a year-round camper and thus he was almost always available when the request for a surprise mission came in. That was an especially important detail to take into account then, when the camp was nearly empty due to the season.

This time, Chiron had contacted Nico immediately and he had soon accepted the mission. Now, although the lucky number of missions was three, there were not enough campers available for a mission at the moment. Chiron assured that it didn't matter because, once they caught up with Elijah in Pennsylvania, they would have a three-person party. Nico didn't particularly care. All that symbolism seemed stilted to him.

Besides, the fewer people he shadowtraveled, the better. It wasn't that he couldn't shadowtravel a group of three fighters, a satyr and a new, confused demigod a couple of states over, he could. In fact, he had done it, more than once. However, he was not beyond admitting that the more people he teleported, the bigger the toll it took on him. Also, considering that Will, his medical practitioner, still arched an inquisitive eyebrow in his direction whenever Nico wielded the shadows, he wasn't looking forward to it either.

On the other hand, they did not have many options, so Chiron immediately appointed Nico. And, again, due to their personnel shortage, he assigned Will as the second demigod for the mission. It was ironic, and so Nico told Will as they prepared to leave the camp, that they were put together in a mission that included shadowtraveling in the job description. Unfortunately, Will did not find it as comical or amusing as Nico did, which only made Nico laugh harder.

Either way, there was no time to waste, and the two demigods quickly collected their pre-packed emergency mission backpacks. It was a fairly easy premise—travel to Pennsylvania, meet up with Elijah and the girl, Leticia, in a rapid but comforting manner, explain to her what was going on, and then go straight back to camp. Easy peasy.

Of course, that was not what happened, because as soon as Nico and Will arrived at Pennsylvania, they both felt a dreary realization settle in their stomachs. Firstly, they couldn't contact Elijah, not via the monster-safe phones Leo had designed after miraculously coming back from the dead, not via Iris message, not even via asking the teachers of the high school Elijah had been assigned to keep an eye on. Nico was about to consider panicking as a viable course of action when he suddenly felt a strong concentration of Underworld-y powers pull at him.

"Fuck," he managed, mind racing as he started making sense of everything. "It's a hellhound."

He did not have to add anything else before Will also put two and two together and they exited the high school in a blur of demigod anxiety. Nico took the lead because, much like monsters could smell demigods, Nico could feel the presence of hellhounds. Well, not exactly. He could feel the way hellhounds manipulated the shadows, he could feel the way a mass of shadows stopped following his orders and slowly retreated to serve the will of a hellhound.

He had discovered he could do that a few months after Gaea's defeat, while he was playing fetch with Mrs. O'Leary, who accidentally shadowtraveled herself from the volleyball courts to the forest in an excited attempt to catch the ball faster. Nico suspected that hellhounds could also feel him wield the shadows, because ever since then Nico had started shadowtraveling the ball into another place of the camp and Mrs. O'Leary was always ecstatic to shadowtravel herself away to find it. However, this was not friendly, lovable Mrs. O'Leary, and that was clear as hell when Nico turned a street corner and found a dog the size of a school-bus growling furiously at a trembling satyr.

It took Nico exactly a second to take in the scene—the way Elijah was trying not to apply weight on his left leg, the way his hands shook as he held a small dagger —absolutely useless against a hellhound—, the way he was still screaming at the top of his lungs that everything would be okay and that he would get them out of there safely to the cowering girl behind him. It took Nico only a quarter of a second more to come up with a plan to get Elijah and the girl to camp.

Of course, it took Will only half a second to come up with his own plan, which absolutely screwed over Nico's. Before Nico could so much as inhale to tell Will how they would handle the situation, Will was racing straight forwards to the hellhound, screaming bloody murder and wielding no weapon. Freaking idiot.

"For fuck's sake," was all Nico managed to think before he, too, was following the dumbest battle strategy he had ever witnessed and began running towards the adversary. Fortunately for him, he had his Stygian Iron sword unsheathed before he stupidly entered battle.

The one thing Will's plan succeeded in was distracting the hellhound's attention from Elijah and Leticia. Which was hardly a success, because the beast then proceeded to focus his attention on the newly appeared demigods, who were making its job so much easier by idiotically approaching him. The monster growled, feral and guttural, flexing its legs in preparation to leap forward.

Will was a moron, and though they had already established that, the thought came back to Nico's head, useless, but true nonetheless. Hell, if they survived, Nico would personally embroider a gigantic banner, complete with sequins and glitter —he knew Will loathed them— and hang it at the infirmary's door—Beware, Will Solace is a moron.

The problem was that Will had not spent enough time around dogs to accurately read their body language. Specifically, he hadn't spent enough time around hellhounds to calculate the strength of their legs. Nico had, and he knew for a fact that a dog the size of their current enemy would only need one leap and a growl to catch up with Will. And then it would be game over.

In an unthinking panic, Nico did the one thing he could come up with—he teleported himself right in front of Will just as the hound jumped into the air. He appeared so suddenly in front of the son of Apollo that he almost tripped on him and, despite everything, Nico still had the audacity to feel smug about it. At least he did for the fraction of a second, before an intense pain shot from his left shoulder, where the hound had managed to bite him.

Truthfully, Nico had already been expecting the attack, and as soon as he felt the monster's fangs digging to his skin, he wielded the shadows to gather around the hellhound and teleported it all the way straight to China. As soon as he saw the beast disappear in a dark blur, he let go of the grasp he had around the handle of his sword. The weapon fell to the ground with a metallic creak.

Had this been any other monster, shadowtraveling it out of the battlefield wouldn't have worked, as Nico would have to teleport himself away along with the beast. However, hellhounds could shadowtravel on their own accord. Therefore, all Nico had had to do was mess up a bit with the shadows under the hellhound's command and instruct them to send the monster back to Tartarus.

It was also because of the beast's ability to shadowtravel that Nico was not dead—had he tried to teleport anything as big as that hound with nothing more than his own powers, Nico was positive that, at the very least, he would have passed out. As things were, he was only dizzy and he could feel a headache throbbing in the back of his head.

Will leaned down to pick Nico's sword and gently put it back in the sheath at the son of Hades' waist. Only then did Nico realize that Will was talking to him. With a groan, he made an effort to focus.

"… and you just appeared out of nowhere! What do you think you're doing, young man!" Will fussed, his words not a question as much as they were a reprimand.

"First of all, I am way older than you. Second of all, I was saving your fucking life!" Nico muttered through gritted teeth as he tried to raise his arms to massage his temples. It was when he tried to move his left arm that he remembered the hellhound's bite. Bloody perfect.

Truthfully, the wound in his shoulder wasn't all that terrible. He should be thankful he still had an arm to start with. It was, of course, no coincidence, because a hellhound could have swallowed him whole, but he had had the sense to make the shadows engulf both Will and him, making it hard for the beast to know where to aim his attack.

"By getting yourself killed?" Will inquired, although he was already kneeling on the floor, his first-aid kit out of his backpack as he sent nervous glances to Nico's bleeding injury.

"Well, did you have a better idea? Running towards a hellhound with no weapon?" Nico shot back, although he numbly let Will start tapping at his shoulder with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. Nico hissed in pain but did not pull away. Certainly, he did not trust the son of Apollo to work out a strategy or to follow a plan, but outside of the battlefield, he trusted him with his life. The son of Apollo had the decency to look ashamed.

"I panicked!" he muttered. "But even then, this was too dangerous!"

"Perks of the job!" Nico hissed, feeling the alcohol biting into the abused skin. "All we do is dangerous."

It was in that moment that Elijah caught up with them, firmly holding Leticia's hand in his.

"You made it just in time!" he breathed heavily, still not completely believing his luck. "Guys, this is Leticia. Letty, these are Nico and Will, they will get us to the camp I was telling you about."

Usually, at this point of the mission, Will would suggest that they took a bus back to New York rather than shadowtraveling back, arguing that Nico had already used his powers too much. Personally, the son of Hades suspected it had more to do with how much Will loathed shadowtraveling than with Will's medical concern. Using the shadows as a teletransportation method was probably harder on Will due to him being a son of the sun god.

However, on this particular occasion, Nico had to hand it to Will—he was exhausted and nearly out of Underworld powers. On the other hand, though, sitting in a bus station with a bleeding shoulder, a wounded satyr, a mouthy physician and a girl that looked about to start crying was even less appealing.

"A pleasure to meet you," Nico offered, gently offering his right hand to Leticia.

"Don't you dare!" Will threatened in a hiss when he saw realization and mischievousness climb into Nico's features. "Nico, I am warning you not to do this!" It was terribly unfortunate for him that Nico was terrible at following instructions—soon, he was gripping Will with his left hand, his right one still around Leticia's.

"Too late, sunshine," he announced tiredly. And then, it all went black. Literally. Both because of the shadows he had summoned and because the shot of pain that coursed from his left shoulder and through the rest of his body made him see dark spots that immediately consumed his vision.

―*―*―

The first thing Nico noticed when he came back to his senses was the numbing sensation that engulfed him. He groaned and tried to raise his hand to massage his temples. When a new pang of pain seared through his left side, Nico's eyes blinked open.

"Oh fuck," he muttered, taking in the bright infirmary light as his blurry mind tried to remember what had happened.

"Yeah, something like that," said a stern voice next to him. Slowly, Nico turned to his right side to find none other than Will Solace sitting in a white plastic chair next to the bed Nico was laying in. "What have I told you about burning yourself out like that?"

"What have I told you about not following a battle strategy?" Nico shot back, although there was no malice in his voice.

Slowly, the son of Hades felt his muscles relax at the knowledge that they had made it back to camp relatively safely, he squirmed in the mattress, trying to get himself into a comfortable sitting position. That was when he noticed the tight bandages on his left arm and the sling that immobilized his injured limb. He let out an annoyed huff and Will rose to his feet, gently pulling the pillow Nico had been laying in upright so that it was leaning on the bed's headboard and Nico could use it as support. Will also decided to take a seat on the mattress too in order to reprimand Nico from a closer distance.

"How long was I out?" the son of Hades asked.

"Little over twelve hours?" Will shrugged, pointing to the clock Kayla had insisted on hanging right next to the medicine cabinets. It proudly announced it was twelve-past-two in the morning. "I had to coax Leticia out of the infirmary a few hours ago because she wanted to be here when you woke up."

"Did she now?" Nico inquired, unable to fully hide the grin that started creeping to his face. It didn't matter, Will knew him well enough to see it regardless.

"She did," Will confirmed. "In fact, if I didn't know you better I would have thought that the whole letting-a-hellhound-bite-me business was just you playing hero to win over Leticia's admiration."

"Oh yeah? And how do you know that's not the case?" the son of Hades teased.

"Just a hunch," Will smiled gently before his expression clouded over. "Nico, you could have died today."

"Isn't that how every day in a demigod life goes like?" Nico sighed, attempting to shrug before a new flash of pain made him stay put. "Besides, it's not like you leave me with a lot of options here, sunshine."

"I was just—"

"Trying to help, I know," Nico cut him off. "But that thing could have swallowed you whole and you decided to run straight to it without so much as a dagger to defend yourself with!"

"I mean, yes, but…"

"Oh no, don't you dare! I'll do the scolding this time," he continued. "You got me all patched up and everything, thank you, but still no. You shouldn't be running into the battlefield with no weapons, Will!"

"I… I know," the son of Apollo sighed heavily, turning to look at his hands. Suddenly, the infirmary seemed considerably less bright and much less warm. "I shouldn't even be in the battlefield to start with, I know I'm useless with a—"

"Will Solace, if you know what is good for you, you will stop that bullshit right this second," Nico immediately interrupted, his right arm moving on its own accord to take the son of Apollo's fidgety hands into his.

"Nico, you know it's true, I—"

"Yes, you shouldn't be in the battlefield," Nico conceded, ignoring the hitch in Will's breath at his words. "You shouldn't be there because you are worth so much more outside of it. And you cannot save anyone's life if you get yourself eaten by a hellhound."

"I know," Will swallowed hard. "It's just that… sometimes I wish I could actually fight instead of being a burden to my teammates."

"First of all, you're not a burden," Nico said firmly. "And second, this is all bullshit. Anyone can learn how to wield a sword and land a few blows. Anyone, Will. But you cannot teach commitment to a person, you cannot teach selflessness or generosity. Only a few fools would have charged a hellhound while weaponless, yes. And even fewer would have done it because they knew that was the right thing to do."

"We were sent to a rescue mission, Nico, that was the whole point!" Will uttered softly. Slowly, ever-so slowly, he raised his eyes to meet the son of Hades' gaze.

"Yeah, it was. It's still not less worth noticing," Nico insisted. "I may have been playing hero, Will, but you weren't. You were being a hero," he smiled gently. "An idiotic, completely clueless one, but a brave, courageous hero nonetheless."

"Do you… do you really believe that?" Will managed in an undertone.

"When have I ever lied to you, sunshine?" Nico whispered, his eyes locked to Will's and close, oh-so close that he could feel the warmth Will's body radiated.

Nico was so lost in the coy smile Will offered him as an answer that he didn't even realize he had started leaning closer to the son of Apollo. Before he could fully comprehend what was going on his lips were on Will's, a butterfly-like caress in case Will decided that he didn't want to continue. Instead, Will tilted his head slightly, turning to give Nico better access before he gently returned the kiss.

For a wonderful, blissful amount of thirty seconds, it was perfect. Nico's right hand moved to caress Will's cheek, and the son of Apollo leaned into him, allowing his twitchy hands to come to rest on Nico's thighs. Then the magic spell broke and Nico hurriedly pulled back. He tried to ignore the way Will trailed after him, his eyes still closed in naïve felicity.

"Oh fuck. Oh fuck," Nico managed hoarsely.

"Fuck? That's the one word you know how to say today?" Will inquired, breathing heavily. His cheeks were tainted a soft pink in a betraying blush, and he was nearly glowing. Not just beaming in the metaphorical sense of the word, no. He was positively, literally glowing.

"Oh, Will, I'm so sorry…" the son of Hades whispered. "This isn't… I shouldn't have… Oh, gods, I am so sorry…"

"Sorry? Nico, what…? Oh… I see…" Will managed, having had apparently connected the dots. His face fell and the brightness in his demeanor evaporated. "Oh… I see. This is about Percy, isn't it?"

"What does Percy have to do with any of this?" Nico gestured around wildly.

"Well, you tell me. What about Percy?" the son of Apollo insisted.

"He's madly in love with Annabeth and he's not here, so I don't see your point, sunshine!"

"Yes, that's the problem, isn't it, Nico? He's madly in love with Annabeth and you're in love with him and—"

"What are you even talking about?" Nico cut him off.

"You are in love with Percy," Will insisted, a firm, yet faltering accusation.

"Yes," Nico admitted, suddenly deciding that he was tired of beating around the bush. In a rush, he added. "I was in love with Percy over two years ago."

"Nico, what—"

"Two years, Will! Two years he's only been my friend, so, honestly, I don't see why you're bringing him up now!"

"Then why… why did you pull back?" Will inquired, scowling as he tried to make sense of the son of Hades' actions.

Nico groaned. "I pulled back because of you and Monique!" he nearly bellowed.

"Because of me and…? Nico, she broke up with me a little after the war."

"I know," Nico sighed, making a long emphasis on his second word. "But you are still trying to win her back!"

"What's that even supposed to mean?" Will accused.

"It means that she's always in the infirmary, volunteering to help—"

"She was a volunteer here long before we even started dating!" Will argued, although Nico continued speaking through the interruption.

"And you're always by her side, talking and smiling and you make such a lovely couple it's nauseating, some Young Adult novel couple you are and—"

"You're an idiot," Will said in an undertone, half annoyed and half surprised.

"Oh, I'm an idiot now?" Nico counterattacked. "Well, excuse me for falling in love with you while you are clearly enamored by Monique and the way she plays the flute and her bouncy curls. It's not like I chose who to fall in love with, you know? Next time I talk to Cupid, that bloody bastard, I will tell him—"

"I'm not in love with her!" Will finally hollered, successfully stopping Nico's rant.

"You… what?"

"You bloody idiot, I am in love with you!" Wil insisted impatiently.

"But… but she spends all of her free time in here!" Nico muttered out.

"As do you!" Will accused before deciding that one of them should better have an ounce of prudence and taking in a deep breath. "She comes here because she likes volunteering. She also comes because she's trying to get Austin to notice her. He's absolutely clueless and she's forbidden me to even give him a hint."

"So… does that… Does that mean that Monique and you…?" Nico managed, hating himself for how hopeful he sounded.

"No chance of us getting back together, no," Will replied softly, taking Nico's uninjured hand into his. "We are good friends, but when we were in a relationship, we were both kind of… looking for someone else."

"Oh gods…" Nico whispered in disbelief. He couldn't help it—he started laughing. At first it was only soft giggles that he could try to swallow down, but soon enough his tittering fit evolved into an unashamed laughter. Still trying to regain his composure, he leaned into Will's shoulder. "We are both idiots."

"Both?" the son of Apollo had the audacity to question. As all answer, Nico raised a questioning eyebrow, his head still supported on Will, although he tilted his face so the other demigod could appreciate his unamused gesture. "Alright then, alright." And just like that, Will was laughing too, unrestricted and ridiculous and perfect. Only when the laughter in their chests had finally died down did Nico sit uptight once again, his dark eyes nervously scanning Will's features.

"Then, does this mean… Does it mean that you and I can…?" he made a silly movement with his right hand, gesturing to him and to Will and to the whole infirmary. "Does it mean that we can?"

"Oh gods, yes. Yes, we can," Will let out a shaky breath, positively beaming again as he smiled back at Nico.

"Good. Oh, good, because I've been waiting for so long that I don't know if—"

And just like that Will's lips were on his again, soft and gentle and impatient. His hands came up to cup Nico's face, a soothing caress. They would worry about the semantics later, they would figure out what they were and where they were standing in the morning. Right then, it didn't matter. All that mattered were Nico's fingers slowly combing through Will's hair and the way Nico leaned into his touch and the way Will's heart was threatening to jump out of his chest.

―*―*―

Wherever you are standing, I will be by your side. Through the good, through the bad, I'll never be hard to find.

―*―*―

So, here we are. I really hope you enjoyed it. It is always lovely to write with these two dorks and I had really missed doing so. Also, it is very refreshing to have a Nico who is openly gay and sure of himself. And, on the other hand, I have the headcanon that Will is bisexual and that is something that I rarely get to see reflected in fanfiction.

Well, I think that would be all for now. Please, please, pelease, if you liked this be sure to let me know in the comments. Also, check the song out, it's a beautiful thing and drop by FrostedDragonHeart and Rosycat's accounts to thank them because they are honestly life-savers.

Thank you all and read you soon!

#Percy Jackson Fanfiction #Heroes of Olympus Fanfiction #Solagelo Fanfiction #Nico di Angelo #Will Solace #Percy Jackson #Annabeth Chase #OC #Will SolacexOC #Will Solace x Nico di Angelo #Romance #Drama #Idiots in love

13 notes · View notes

firesofdainix · 5 years

Text

all my wolves begin to howl, oh wake me up the time is now

Fragments of Jason's life before The Lost Hero.

His mother told him that she would be back, but it has been hours since he had last seen her and Thalia. He calls for them as he crawls through the Wolf House with his hands and feet. Then he starts to cry, and he feels his ordinary life, from his sister, his mother, tearing itself apart inside of him. As if his childhood is finally done, and a new life is ahead of him.

But still, Jason wishes to hold on, to hope that his mother and sister would come back for him. That fades when a lone howl pierces through his baby ears, and a figure steps out from the shadows.

Sadly, Jason wasn't afraid.

Sadly, Jason Grace was taken away from his old home to a new one with the wolves.

And the cycle continues.

Life with the wolves had been fun. Frolicking in the house where his mother and sister left him, spending the day in the woods trying to catch prey.

Lupa is quite a mother wolf, a strict one, but still a mother whom he barely remembers.

Finally, after months of training, Jason Grace at age three is now ready to face on the cruel world to find Camp Jupiter.

To say he didn't look back was not true. He did look back, to see another kid older than him being taught by the same wolves he considered as a family.

His family of wolves seem to have moved on like the family he barely remembered as a child.

They all look up at him, Jason Grace.

Jason Grace.

Son of Jupiter.

Jason Grace.

The King of the God's son, everyone says.

The son of a no good Dad, he wishes to say, but those words were stuck in his throat, refusing to come out.

He wonders if he'll just become like his father, which is his worst nightmare.

Instead of joining the First Cohort like everyone expected him to be, he joins the Fifth Cohort, filled with what they say, the sea of nobodies.

It's good to be a nobody.

The first time he got his mark, it hurts like Hades. There was a brilliant flash of light... and it's there now.

The eagle, symbolizing his father, the SPQR, and a line representing his first year.

The others say he'll get used to the pain.

He already did.

He just chooses to feel numb.

Being marked was supposed to be the most special time. It means that he is fully accepted into the legion, into the arms of the cohorts. He isn't a probatio anymore; he never is treated as one.

They try to make him join their cohorts.

Anything other than the Fifth Cohort.

And he just glares, because he knows they're not being any fair to the members of the Fifth Cohort.

Bigots.

Bullies. He hates them. He hates them all.

They think they're so high and mighty, picking on the younger probatios, but just one glare from Jason Grace and they'll be running another way.

Jason's just a kid.

A six year old.

Ten year olds run away from him.

Jason Grace tries to become a blank slate one time, resulting in him hearing most of the conversation of the bullies he had driven away.

"The Fifth Cohort thinks they're so powerful, just because Jason Grace is with them", one says.

"Just wait until Jason Grace realizes what he's done wrong and leave the Fifth Cohort", another one says.

Fury engulfs Jason. He didn't know what he was doing, unaware.

He didn't know he summoned lightning and killed three people on the spot.

He isn't a blank slate anymore.

Therapists are common in New Rome, of course. Some descendants of the gods had been involved in wars or had been put through many traumatizing moments throughout their life.

Jason thinks he doesn't count as any of those people.

He doesn't even know what war is supposed to be like.

No one here knows how much damage a war will cost.

"All right Jason", the therapist says in a warm voice, just like all the other therapists before her. "I want you to tell me what you have learned the past year in Camp Jupiter."

It was such a simple question. Jason didn't know where every thing went wrong.

"That the Fifth Cohort is the best cohort anyone has ever seen", Jason says nonchalantly.

The therapist nods slowly. Sooner or later she'll give up on him, like all the others. "Anything else."

"Everyone who tries to say other wise are bigots."

"Mister Grace, your language."

"What is even the point of this? To see if you think I regret killing those assholes a year ago."

The therapist nods. "Yes. You should be ashamed of yourself. We would've sentenced you to death-"

"But you don't want to, since I'm a son of Jupiter, is that right?"

The therapist doesn't reply.

It was his eighth birthday today, and everyone from all cohorts gave him a simple phrase of Happy Birthday.

No one asked him if he was fine.

No one dared ask him what happened in the ward.

He just wants to talk to someone, anyone.

He was elevated to a centurion of the Fifth Cohort, along with Dakota.

Together they kill bassilisks in the temples, and lead the war games with their comrades.

Jason is the reason why sometimes, the Fifth Cohort always win in the war games.

Twelfth Legion doesn't bring pride to Jason at all.

He has no idea to why everyone would be okay to be called 'the twelfth best legion'.

Now that he's a centurion, maybe he can change the minds of the campers of Camp Jupiter.

Rename it to First Legion, he says.

They're hesitant.

He knows why.

Only Octavian stands in the way.

He has no Roman pride.

He only has pride within himself.

Octavian was handpicked as the augur and it made Jason's blood boil.

How could he become an augur? Why had their praetors done this? Do they know how much political power and blackmail Octavian has?

Maybe that's why.

The praetors were also scared by his absolute power.

Jason cannot let him be a praetor given a time.

Then a marvelous and life threatening idea looms over his head.

Yes.

That's how it's going to be.

Jason is standing over Octavian's lying body, blankets covering most of it.

Jason was holding his ILVIS sword, tightly too.

He's going to kill Octavian.

He's going to do it.

He trudges over the legacy of Apollo's bed, but something stops him.

Jason regrets stopping because after that Octavian yells something about murder.

He jumps off the window and into the night.

Fuck you hesitation.

Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano.

That's her name.

A daughter of the war goddess Bellona.

That's nice.

She loves Diocletian as much as he does, and they'd stare at portraits everyday while getting lost at the subject of history.

That's good.

She's also his first friend.

That's the best news.

Reyna's been acting strange lately.

After that little quest, their relationship was never the same.

What did that woman do to Reyna?

Sure, they were still talking, but Reyna seems to be distant, as if thinking of something.

Being wary around Jason Grace.

But Jason tries not to give up, trying to still rebuild their friendship.

"So, you're Bryce Lawrence." Jason looks at the boy with the mix of disgust and indignance.

This-this no good son of Orcus really thinks that a little murder is entertainment.

He should've been dead, but his family is one of the most influential families in all of New Rome.

They can't just execute him and face his angry relatives.

But he was a goddamn psychopath.

Gods, Jason already hates him.

A lot of Roman campers have been missing lately.

The praetors said that they were rewarded a quest by the augur.

But they don't come back after a week.

Jason sighs as he flips his coin, transforming it to a sword.

He's going to find those campers and bring them back here.

Jason didn't know what got into him.

One moment, he was fighting a dracaena and another moment he was fighting one of his own kin, a demigod.

But the demigod isn't Roman.

He said he was a son of Hermes.

And he looks a lot like him.

Who is he?

And how could he do this to his Roman kind?

"Join me, Jason", he says.

Luke.

His name is Luke.

"Together we can tear Olympus apart stone by stone!"

Jason shoots lightning at him, but he seems unharmed.

At the end of the day, he fed the traitor Romans to the sharks.

Nico.

Nico di Angelo.

That was the Ambassador of Pluto's name.

People were wary of him.

Jason? He wasn't wary of Nico.

Finally, a cousin.

He seems secretive, but that's alright.

Jason has a lot of secrets.

And one day Nico brings Hazel, also a child of Pluto.

He cherishes them both.

There's a battle.

And he's in it.

Everyone is in it.

Against the Titan Kronos who has escaped from Tartarus.

He didn't tell anyone about that Greek demigod.

But before they go to New York, they have to face Krios first in Mount Othyrs.

It's going to be a long battle.

Their praetors are dead, and many are wounded.

Everyone is panicking, and Jason and Reyna tries to stop them from that.

Reyna comes up with battle tactics, and Jason is quite proud of her.

They march into Krios' domain, where they're faced with a dragon and the Hesperides.

Reyna kills them singlehandedly as the legion descends into battle.

Jason reaches Krios, and that is where it gets messy.

Hand-to-hand combat.

Why is Jason so impulsive?

His face burns.

His legs are tiring.

His right arm is broken.

And the entire legion is watching them, weapons ready.

They want to see if he lives or dies.

He looks up at the sky as he finally kneels for what felt like years, exhaling.

His lungs are burning.

His heart is beating too fast for his own good.

He feels blood on his face, and his eyes hurt.

He finally prays to his dad for the first time in his life.

And he's overcome with strength he had when he and the Romans scaled Mount Othyrs.

Krios is disintegrating, slowly but surely. He growls, but Jason just kicks him in the face.

"Who even are you?", Krios spits out.

Jason smirks. "I'm Jason fucking Grace bitch. And you'll remember me for centuries."

He watches Krios fully disintegrate with a self satisfied smirk.

And he faces his comrades, all full of amazement or intimidation.

Reyna starts to clap.

Sooner or later everyone starts clapping.

They made him and Reyna praetors of the first legion.

He dreams.

He dreams of his achievements, of his mother and sister, of his family.

But something is still missing.

In all his life, he never called anything a 'home', or a 'family'.

Even in Camp Jupiter, where it was supposed to feel at home, he never feels like it.

He finds Juno staring at him with a smile.

No.

He cannot be used as a pawn ever again.

Juno chuckles.

"It is your time now, little hero. Your destiny awaits."

No.

NEVER AGAIN.

Who is he again?

Where is he?

What is he doing here in a bus, in the middle of wilderness?

He feels something warm on his hand, and he looks over to see-

The most beautiful girl he's ever met.

And, suddenly, he feels a pang of hope, that maybe, just maybe, he will find a home and family.

Maybe is a strong word.

"Jason? Are you alright?"

#mine #fanfic #Heroes of Olympus #jason grace #I LOVE JASON GRACE #dark! jason #like i love that concept #some grimdark stuff here

16 notes · View notes

solangelover · 6 years

Note

um id write this myself but im not a great writer... i NEED a fanfic where the nico bean is crying in his cabin because he got hurt during training and its a lot worse than he let on and then the will bean walks in and sees him crying and immediately goes into concerned doctor mode tm and could you please write this for me i cant survive without it

A/N: SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. It took sometime to figure out because Nico is tough and doesn’t cry over small injuries.But here it is :)

Read on AO3 or FF.Net or Wattpad

Nico was learning to live at CampHalf-Blood. He was still getting used to waking up for breakfast, though hewould usually skip it if he really didn’t want to care that day. He was stilltrying to figure out why people enjoyed singing obnoxiously at the camp fireevery night.

The one thing he knew he’d always likewas training. Any kind of training made Nico feel good. He felt useful andactive, and he didn’t have to talk to anyone unnecessarily. Nico’s favoritesparring opponents, besides Jason and Percy, were the Ares kids. They had themost fire and trained just as much as he did. Those who were all talk and hadlittle skill Nico enjoyed putting down quickly, the only way to tell a child ofAres that tact and training was actually important.

Any of the older Ares campers usuallyliked to spar with Nico. They were mature enough to appreciate all that Nicodid in the wars and were only slightly afraid of him. Today, Nico was sparringwith Chase, a son of Ares that was bigger and stronger than Nico. Not that thatever stopped him before.

“Pretty good, Di Angelo,”Chase said while wiping sweat off his forehead. They had been going at it for abit, both enjoying the burn in their muscles.

“Same to you.” Nico wasprobably a bit more tired than Chase, seeing as he had to use his speed to movearound quickly. He couldn’t overpower Chase even if he tried, so dodging andjabbing had been his strategy. Unfortunately, that left him tired, and hissword arm had already been hurting before training, probably from avoidingtreatment in the infirmary. It was only to spite Will, who had beenparticularly overbearing that week. Or maybe Nico had just had a bad week andcouldn’t take the nagging. Hard to tell.

As Nico and Chase did their dance fora bit longer, Nico’s weariness began to slow him down and caused more and moreclose calls. At one point, Chase slashed down at Nico, an easy enough move toparry. Unfortunately, Nico couldn’t move fast enough to counter or dodge, sothe sword ended up making contact. He more saw the sword slice his arm thanfelt it as it cut into his skin. Dammit,was really all Nico could think in the moment.

Nico fell back onto the ground asblood gushed out of his wound. Chase almost seemed surprised that Nico fell,standing above him for a moment in shock.

“Oh shit,” is how Chasecleverly reacted. Then he noticed the wound. “Oh shit.”

“Nice battle, Chase.” Nicocringed at the tightness in his voice. He didn’t usually outwardly show hispain, and he had a high pain tolerance anyway, but his arm currently felt likeit was on fire. The moment he hit the ground, the wound began stinging andthrobbing and burning all at once. He’d had his fair share of sword training-relatedinjuries, but this one hurt the most by far for some reason. It had a lot ofblood coming out, but generally it looked pretty typical. Nothing out of theordinary in the training arena.

“Dude, are you okay? That’s a lotof blood there.” Chase looked slightly concerned, probably because hewasn’t used to winning against Nico di Angelo, let alone landing a hit.

“Uh, yeah, no, it’s fine. It’sjust a surface wound. Looks worse than it is.” Nico could barely pick uphis sword from where he dropped it and put it back in its sheath, but whatever.He struggled to stand for a second before Chase offered his hand, which Nicogratefully accepted. Once on his feet, a few black spots danced in his visionwith the amount of pain in his arm, but he managed to stay upright.

“You need help going to theinfirmary?” Funny how Chase assumed he’d be going there. Nico guessed anysensible person would. He probably should.

“Nah, I’m good. Thanks for thespar.” Nico stumbled over to a shadow and disappeared before anyone coulddo anything.

—

Nico landed with a thud on the floorof his cabin.

“Ugh,” Nico mumbled into hisfloor, “This isn’t the infirmary, Nico.”

In hindsight, he probably shouldn’thave shadow travelled. Now his head hurt and he felt even dizzier than he had atthe arena. He momentarily forgot about the injury and moved his arm to sit up.Unfortunately, he was painfully reminded as a new wave of blood began to flowfrom his wound, accompanied by a sharp sting shooting up his arm. It was sobad, Nico actually felt tears prick the back of his eyes.

He attempted to stand, but he was intoo much pain and his muscles were still tired from sparring.

After lying on the ground for minute,Nico readied himself to move. He carefully pushed himself up with his good armand crawled over to his bed. Using his bed frame, he pulled himself to his feetand stood there for another minute. His head was still spinning and his musclesstill burned, but he somehow made it to his bathroom. He was vaguely aware ofblood dripping down his arm onto the floor, but he didn’t have the mind to careat the moment.

When he looked up at himself in themirror, it wasn’t a pretty sight. He looked paler than usual, making the darkcircles under his eyes stand out. His black hair was sticking to his face fromsweat. And his arm. It looked horrible now. It had fresh red blood all over andsome yellowish liquid as well, which didn’t make Nico feel better. He couldn’tactually see the wound due to the blood, so he knew he had to wash it off.

Nico carefully moved his arm under hissink faucet, wincing as he did so. He slowly turned the water on, letting itrun over the part of his arm without the wound. He lightly rubbed off the bloodaround the cut, finally putting it under the water. He hissed, pain shooting uphis arm. Tears sprung from his eyes as he attempted to clean away the blood. Hewas surprised at how much it hurt since it really shouldn’t be this bad. He wasonly sparring after all.

When most of the blood was gone, Nicofinally saw the cut - it did not look good. It was an angry red color andswollen. Along with the redness, it looked yellowish white inside the wound.Really it just looked gross and Nico had no idea why.

Then he noticed the other marks aroundhis wound. His scars and stitches Will gave him for the scratches from Lycaonwere red and reopened. Which probably explained why it hurt so much.

Well. Will was going to kill him.

As if on cue, Nico’s cabin door burstopen and the son of Apollo marched right in. When he got to the bathroom, Nicolooked up and made eye contact with him. Will saw the tears spilling fromNico’s eyes right away and knew that this was more than a typical sparringinjury. Will’s expression change immediately from anger to concern. His eyeslanded on the wound and Doctor Mode™ activated.

“That wound is infected. It needs tobe treated right now.” Will’s stern doctor voice told Nico that the injury wasworse than he thought.

“I know, that’s what I’m doing,Solace.” Nico’s voice was shaky and not as strong as he had hoped it would be.He didn’t even know why he tried to pretend he was fine. His arm felt like itwas on fire and he was sweating profusely, not to mention his dizziness.

Will took two strides to reach Nico,his eyes never leaving the wound. “You need more than water, idiot. You needmedicine. You need to come to the infirmary. Now.” Then he looked up intoNico’s eyes. Nico could see that, behind the doctor concern, there was realconcern for Nico’s well-being. He suddenly regretted getting himself into thissituation and upsetting Will.

“I—“ Nico began to say something,though he wasn’t sure what, but got cut off.

“The infection is in your bloodstream. Your immune system can’t handle it without help.” Will reached forwardto put a hand on Nico’s forehead before Nico could even react. He didn’t seemto mind that it was wet with sweat. “You’re already running a fever. And I canfeel some darkness in you. You shadow-traveled here didn’t you?” Nico openedhis mouth to reply, but Will didn’t let him get a word in. “You’re gettingweaker every second. We need to go, now. Can you walk?”

Nico nodded, which made him dizzier,and took one step before swaying and almost falling over if not for Will’ssteady hand on his good arm.

“Never mind.” And with that, Willscooped Nico up in his arms, told Nico to hold his injured arm steady, andwalked quickly to the infirmary. Nico didn’t dare complain, one because Willwas in Doctor Mode™ and nothing would sway him, and two because he was weak andtired and this was nice.

When they got to the infirmary, Nicowould’ve immediately passed out on the bed, but Will said, “Nico, please stayawake for a bit longer. I know you want to sleep, but I need to make sureyou’re good before you rest.”

Will gently rubbed a salve on Nico’sarm that made it go numb. Then he set to work, doing things Nico didn’t care tokeep track of. He felt a dull pain, but he was so sleepy and feverish that hedidn’t care anymore. Nico vaguely remembered Will saying that he could sleepbefore his eyes were finally too heavy to keep open.

—

When Nico came to, he felt gross. Withhis eyes still closed, he could tell that his bed was a bit damp from all hissweat. He felt cold now, so the fever must’ve broke while he slept. That wasgood.

He reflexively moved his arms to shiftin bed and found that his injured arm felt okay. It wasn’t perfect, there wasstill dull pain, but nothing like what it was. He did feel something weird onhis arm though, so he finally cracked his eyes open.

It was probably afternoon time,meaning he slept for a while. That happened pretty often when he was sent tothe infirmary for legitimate reasons (Nico doesn’t consider Will’s littlecheck-ups legitimate). Nico looked down at his arm and found it had thisplastic thing on it, almost like a dog cone.

“What the…” Nico mumbled as he satmore upright. That’s when he noticed Will slumped in the chair by his bed. Hemust’ve stayed to make sure Nico woke up. It was both endearing and annoying toNico that Will put himself through these things for him.

At that moment, Will stirred, his eyesslowly opening. When he registered that Nico was up, he bolted up out of hisseat. “Nico! Oh gods, are you okay???” He looked Nico up and down, assessinghis health quickly. He put a hand on Nico’s forehead. “Oh good, your fever isgone. How do you feel? You’ve slept for like a day. Are you hungry? Does yourarm still sting? Does your head hurt?”

Nico was used to this little freak outthing Will did. As a doctor, he’s usually calm, but for some reason Nico alwaysgot frantic doctor-Will. Probably because he always had bad injuries. “Will,I’m fine. Thanks to you. But why do I have this thing on my arm?” He lifted hisarm slightly, glad that it didn’t hurt to move it.

“Oh, that. You were scratching yourarm in your sleep, so I had to cover it so you didn’t reopen the wound. Orshould I say, wounds.” As if Willsuddenly remembered why Nico was this injured in the first place, his demeanorchanged into the upset but caring friend that he was to Nico. Not Nico’sfavorite side.

Nico only smiled sheepishly, awaitingthe lecture he’d known was coming.

“Nicodi Angelo. First of all, you didn’t come to the infirmary yesterdaymorning, or the mornings before that, for your check up on your summerinjuries. I told you that they’re almost, butnot completely, done healing. This thing might not have been so infected ifyou had come in.” Will put his hands on his hips, his anger rising a bit as hereached the next part of the lecture. “Second, why in Hades didn’t you come straight here after the match?? I know thatyou know that you should have. A wound this bad must have hurt a lot prettyquickly.” Nico hated it when Will was right. “You wouldn’t have felt like shitif you’d come quickly. Or accepted Chase’s help in getting you here. Yeah,shadow-traveling when you’re not totally healed was a way better idea.” Will rarely swore, even mildly, and used sarcasmwith patients, so Nico knew he was in trouble. Will just looked at Nico,waiting for him to say something. Probably the wrong thing.

“In my defense,” Will quirked aneyebrow at him, “I had kinda meant to shadow-travel here. I just… missed.” Nicowasn’t trying to justify his actions. That was the only thing that came tomind.

“You’re an absolute idiot. Want toknow why it hurt so much?” Nico nodded. He was wondering about that. “It’sbecause you reopened the Lycaon scratches. Let me remind you that Lycaon is avery dangerous and powerful being, and fighting him could have easily killedyou. So, having reopened those with a dirty sword was not very good for yourhealth. The infection spread quickly, which is why you had a fever and weredizzy. And that’s adding on to the dizziness you already feel from shadow-traveling.”Will sat down after all that, sighing as he said, “I’m just glad you’re betternow. Chase had come to me and told me what happened right when you disappeared.He probably knew you weren’t coming here.”

When they made eye contact, Nico couldsee that Will’s sharp gaze had softened. He felt bad for causing such a fuss.He really had no good reason to, it was just his natural tendency to deal withhis own problems. Now, people actually cared and wanted to actively help him.It was still relatively new to Nico.

Nico looked away from Will. “Sorry. Ididn’t mean to worry you. I swear I wasn’t avoiding you or anything, I reallydon’t know why I didn’t come here… I just… I don’t know.” Nico was looking downat his hands in his lap. Will reached out and gently placed his hands overNico’s, causing Nico to look up at him. Will understood that Nico was stilllearning to trust others. Will gave him a small, understanding smile. Nicoreturned the gesture and continued. “But thanks for healing me. So, I’m goodnow?”

Will stretched and stood up. “Uh, no.You’re stuck here for three days, Death Boy. This is to take care of thatwound, which you will NOT be reopening ever again, and to punish you for youridiotic actions. I swear, I’m gonna have to start monitoring you at all timessoon enough.” Nico didn’t really think that last part sounded too bad, but hekept that too himself.

As Will walked away to get food, Nicosighed, settling back into his pillows. He was going to be here awhile. But, aslong as Will was there, he guessed it wouldn’t be too bad.

A/N: HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICO!!! Also I don’t knowhow infections work *shrugs*

#my post #my answer #my writing #i'm so sorry #this ask was forever ago #but I've been thinking about it the whole time #introvertedannika #please still love me #solangelo #solangelo fanfiction #fanfic #will solace #nico di angelo #pjo #hoo #toa #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #Heroes of Olympus #Trials of Apollo

193 notes · View notes

problematiquecritique · 7 years

Text

@sweets-books-and-anime replied to your post “Solangelo is just so bad??? And not healthy?? I absolutely love Rick Riordan but...”

Would you mind explaining why you think so? I've always thought they were really cute and I just wanted to know why you think that

So I truthfully think that Solangelo has potential and could have been a lot better had Rick paired them the way he did. I've read some better explanations that I really liked and they go really in depth to certain aspects too and I'll link them because I recommend reading them.

My problem with Solangelo is what I think is a lot of anti-Solangelo's problem. The relationship is so rushed and it's not portrayed as the most healthy relationship in the world. Now, when I mean unhealthy, I don't mean that Will is out there actively mentally, physically, and/or emotionally abusing Nico or vice versa. By unhealthy I really mean it in the context in which their relationship happens.

Nico is a kid born in the 1940's where homosexuality was condemned and is not only struggling with his sexuality and his romantic feelings for his friend, he's also having to deal with his sister's death, his father's neglect and deceitful nature, isolation for being a child of the Big Three, and feeling put out for literally being from a different century. The boy is troubled and tortured and that's just from the events of Percy Jackson & the Olympians. That's not mentioning having to hide himself and become a social outcast for going back and forth between the Roman and Greek camps without tipping one off of the other, handling the revival of another sister, helping accomplish a prophecy, surviving Tartarus, and being forcibly outed. The poor boy has gone through so much trauma and he just needs a warm blanket and years to rest himself emotionally and mentally.

That being said, I don't think Rick handled Nico's sexuality well. The Heroes of Olympus was a mess beginning with The Mark of Athena. There was so much focus on romance and the plot was unnecessarily complex due to all of the subplots and there were way too many characters to keep track of. I think I would have been much happier with five kids for the prophecy if not three. It would have been much simpler. But anyway, Rick didn't handle a lot well in the books, one of them being Nico's sexuality. Rick has Nico forcibly outed which while does absolutely happen to tons of closeted LGBT+ people, it was very painful to read. I kind of apologized it, though, as Rick trying to amplify the pain in Nico's life and trying to portray a realistic route that some coming out's have taken. What really made me uncomfortable, though, was the way Nico just so seamlessly accepted his sexuality after being forcibly outed within a few weeks? days? (it's been a while since I read the last two books so my timeline is off but so is Rick's and he wrote the books) by coming up to Percy and admitting his crush on him, saying that he's over the childish crush, and then quickly moving on from Percy to Will after a few moments of interaction. I think I reread the parts involving Nico and Will several times because I did not believe what I was reading. How the hell does someone who's been so tortured in life by everyone including himself, just suddenly accept something as big as sexuality within a few moments because he met a cute boy that told him (rather rudely) that he needs to get over it because he's being delusional?

What I really don't like about the relationship is just, Nico is suddenly accepting of his sexuality because Will told him to get over himself. Not only was Will's comment very rude and unnecessary, it's just so improbable that Nico would fully believe that he's accepted for being a son of Hades and that his sexuality is very much ok because Will told him to get over it and that he's just being an angsty teen. If someone told me something like that, I wouldn't even consider dating them and would probably isolate myself further from people as it would feel pretty obvious that nobody is fully accepting as they're not trying to understand what I've gone through.

Honestly, Will Solace used to be one of my favorite characters. After The Last Olympian, I basically devoured The Lost Hero in hopes of getting to read more about him and I was happy to have those small snippets of him in that book. And I actually still like Will, only the pre-Blood of Olympus Will as he might as well be a different character in Blood of Olympus and forward as his personality is entirely different. And I'll admit, I did, and still do, ship Will with another character (Nyssa Barrera, thanks toff.net) but I could get behind Solangelo if it weren't for how Rick treated the characters.

I don't like how Nico was just paired with someone for the sake of pairing him with someone. Just about every main character ends up with someone by the end of Blood of Olympus, except Reyna and Leo doesn't explicitly end up with Calypso but it's pretty much implied (upset about that because I very much ship Leyna and would have loved to see I believe two of four of Rick's only explicitly Latinx characters get together, plus I feel like they're pretty compatible for each other). And sure, fine, I'm a sucker for romance but Nico didn't need to jump straight into a relationship right after being forcibly outed. He needed what Jason gave him: friendship and support (and I am not a Jasico shipper btw, I know a lot of Solangelo shippers claim that anti Solangelo shippers are all Jasico or Perico shippers which isn't always the case as some of us are neither). I feel like it would have not only made more sense, but also been healthier for Nico to focus less on romance and instead try to find solace in friends, not in Will (no pun intended). Nico needed time to heal and accept who he is and then slowly get into a relationship. Nico has had so many people use and manipulate him, I highly doubt he would immediately jump into a relationship with someone he just met. I think I would have felt slightly more comfortable had Nico and Will known each other personally for a while but none of the books give us any indication that they had a real conversation before the Blood of Olympus. I would have been happier with Solangelo being hinted at in the end of the series and then several months later, with the appearance of Lester/Apollo, Nico and Will having finally gotten together in a relationship that started out as a friendship and slowly developed into romance.

I think that fanon Solangelo is so much better than canon Solangelo. I still don't ship it, just an a preference, but fanon Solangelo I have to admit is cute. It's very sweet and adorable and that typical light and dark trope that a lot of people love. However, it's just fanon. And I feel like people forget that fact. A lot of Solangelo shippers get caught up in all of the cute headcanons they make up and stuff but they forget what's actually canon and I think that's kind of bad. Will doesn't treat Nico well. He bosses and pushes Nico around and it's treated as a joke and you know what, it could definitely have been funny and cute had Nico not gone through all of the traumatic experiences he had gone through. He needs to be treated with kid gloves because if Rick hadn't botched his character, it would have been obvious that Nico could have a huge mental break at any moment, if he hasn't already. And I don't like Nico's compliance to Will. Sure, I love Nico's rather dry and dark humor in The Trials of Apollo, it feels nature and like his sense of humor considering everything he's gone through, but he's so accepting of Will's rudeness and pushiness and it doesn't feel right. I've had some people that had been in abusive relationships say that Nico's compliance reminds them of themselves whenever they would get pushed around by their abusers. Now, I'm not a psychologist and really know abuse from what Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has taught me, but it's telling when an abuse survivor tells you that a fictional relationship reminds them of their abusive relationship(s).

I really think Solangelo could have been such a great ship had Rick not handled it the way he did. It's just a lot of layers to why I don't ship it and if Rick had done things differently, Solangelo could have been such a great relationship for LGBT+ readers to admire. As I tend to say about a lot of things: great idea, terrible execution.I highly recommend asking @artem-ace, @billyxkaplan, and @nikthan as they can give you some really good anti Solangelo explanations that isn't just "I don't like them because I like x ship/they're toxic/I just don't like it" and really dig deep into the story, although I fee like some of them come off as slightly anti-Will, they’re very thorough and well-spoken. I'll link you at the bottom to a few of my favorite posts of theirs but definitely check out their blogs.

x x x x

#sorry this got so long!#and that it took so long to answer!#anti solangelo #rr #text

74 notes · View notes

rippedjeansandloudmusic · 7 years

Text

capitolo quattro

Chapter Three ---> [x]

sorry this took so long.

Nico almost had a fucking panic attack.

“That was fucking Bianca,” he said, his forehead laid on the cold tile of the table. He lifted his head only to bang it on the table again. “And Hazel oh my god. She looked like a motherfucking goddess. How is that even possible? It’s just a goddamned tattoo but nooo it just had to be fucking stained glass the same fucking stained glass that Hazel used to make with her mother - ”

“Okay, lover boy,” Percy said, hitting the space between Nico’s shoulder blades with his free hand. “If you think he’s that hot, why don’t you go up and tell him you’re soulmates?”

“Well, I don’t know, do I look like the kind of person someone that hot would like? Because I sure as hell wouldn’t date me if I was him.”

Nico went to bang his head again, but Percy’s hand protected his fall. He just groaned louder. Now his plan of killing himself by blunt force trauma wasn’t going to work. Fuck.

“Fuck my life.” He groaned out, trying to both express his discomfort and embarrass Percy enough to let them leave. But he didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of fucking Apollo. Fuck.

“Why does he have to be so fucking attractive? Like, why couldn’t he be you, Percy? Why did he have to be a goddamned reincarnation of Apollo!?”

“I’m going to try not to be offended by that, Nico.”

Jason just snorted, joining Nico on banging his head on the table.

“Now you understand my pain!” He moaned out, banging his head on the table again. Percy groaned, throwing his hand under Jason’s head as well.

“When did I become the parent of two angsty teens?”

“When you decided to let me pick this place of any place in the fucking large city that is New York. And when you got Annabeth.”

And they stayed like that for about two minutes.

“Okay, my hands are going numb, so I suggest you grow a pair and go talk to him.”

Nico scowled, finally sitting up and beginning to fidget with the napkins in front of him. He laughed bitterly, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, Percy, let’s just start a fucking musical number as we’re at it why don’t we?”

Percy rolled his eyes, picking Jason up from his baby fit and smacking them both upside the head. Nico didn’t react, not really unused to Percy’s hitting-upside-the-head tricks, though instead just glared at him again.

“You said when you met Annabeth you felt like you were walking on water. Why the hell do I feel like I just became reanimated after being dead for fifty years?”

Percy bit his bottom lip, giving Nico a knowing look. “You know,” he started, “sometimes you scare me with your violent way of comparing things.”

Nico glared at him again. Percy wasn’t affected, though got the message.

“You do realize that as soon as I met Annabeth, even though I was in pajamas still, I walked over and talked to her, right?”

Nico found a new way to hit his head; the back of his chair.

“Jesus Christ di Angelo, just go talk to the guy. I don’t understand what the big deal is here.”

Nico went to snap at Percy though stopped, knowing he wouldn’t understand. This guy - goddamn it Nico didn’t read his nametag - looked amazing. As though the god Apollo himself just waltzed down from Olympus and blessed this kid with his looks. He had freckles across his face, covering the bridge of his nose and his collarbone and shoulders. He looked fucking gorgeous without even trying. No offense to Annabeth, but he couldn’t see anyone looking better than him. And he would keep that opinion until the day he died.

He realized he was staring and shook his head, looking down at his napkin. He realized it was now in shreds in front of his seat and groaned, throwing the napkin down and crossing his arms across his chest.

“Aw,” Percy said, giving Nico a look that made him want to deck Percy immediately. “You look like your true form: an angsty gay teen.”

Nico went to punch Percy though Jason held him back, grabbing his bicep.

“Now can you tell me where the girls are?”

Nico thought about it for a minute.

“Call Hazel, tell her - ”

Nico stopped himself mid-sentence.

“Call Hazel.”

Jason didn’t hesitate, grabbing Nico’s phone from the table and unlocking it

“Passcode?” Jason asked, not removing his eyes from the screen.

“Naomi. N - A - O - M - I, Naomi.”

“Who’s Naomi?” Percy asked, spinning in his chair like a small child. Nico rolled his eyes.

“Don’t know. It’s on my arm, though, so I thought it was a good password idea.”

“So what you’re telling me is,” Percy rubbed his forehead. “You have someone's name - someone who you don’t even know - as your phone password because it was convenient?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“My god,” Percy facepalmed, and Nico just stared at the boy behind the counter.

He was talking to the girl beside him, smiling happily at something she said. His eyes sparkled with glee, his head thrown back for a moment.

As the atmosphere calmed down his eyes looked over at Nico’s table and he froze, making eye contact with Nico. Nico quickly looked away, face burning, and chewed (not bit, chewed) on his bottom lip.

Percy was texting Annabeth, Jason was on the phone with Hazel and Nico was spaced out, staring at the napkin in his hand like it was from a different planet.

“She’s at the Macy’s Mall,” Jason said, hurrying to stand up from his chair and almost knocking it down in the process. Percy jumped up as well, grabbing Jason before he could run off.

“Nico,” he said, raising a brow at Nico. “Do you want us to fly by on our way back?”

You mean do you want to come by? I doubt you’re going to be near Jason for long.

“No,” he replied instead, eyeing his shreds of the napkin on the table. “No - just, don’t die, alright?”

Percy nodded appreciatively, finally letting Jason pull him away. They were out of the shop in minutes.

That just left Nico, the hipster passed out in the corner, three homeless men and about five other people left in the cafe.

Great.

He continued staring at the napkin shreds, trying to boost his self-esteem to go and talk to the guy.

What if I just, didn’t talk to him? I mean, we’re soulmates, we’ll find each other again eventually.

Nico dismissed that thought. He wanted to meet the guy, yeah, but he wasn’t sure if he would get the opportunity to make himself known. They could be roommates next year, or maybe get paired for a project or share cubicles in the same office in ten years. He wanted to meet this soulmate under his own terms; not by fate, or destiny, by Nico di Angelo.

So, he picked up a pen.

He doesn’t remember where he got it exactly - probably from the floor underneath his chair - or how he started writing on a new napkin, but before he knew it he was walking out of the shop, hands in his pockets, fear in his heart and hands shaking.

God, I hope I didn’t fuck up.

Will was having a fun time, he guesses.

Lou and he were mostly talking after the three guys walked in; almost no one coming in after that time. His gaze kept on wandering to the other guys, though. In particular, the one that looked like an emo kid straight out of MySpace. Nico. Though, every time they would share a glance the boy would look away, clearly flustered, and proceeded to rip something in front of him to shreds.

Will knew it wasn’t okay to find that attractive.

The guy looked to be maybe eighteen, but no older. His hair was pulled back by a bright pink hair tie (Will soon realized that that was the only color the guy had on that day) showing off his sharp cheekbones and pale complexion. He seemed to be perpetually squinting at things, as though he lost his glasses and couldn’t find them, and had a permanent scowl etched into his face. Will found himself comparing Nico to a god, and Will wasn’t sure why, but he was appalled by the idea. More… more accepting if anything.

It was odd.

Will thought that maybe, just maybe, they could be soulmates. Though he quickly brushed that off. They said that when you met your soulmate you immediately wanted to get to know them, he reasoned, but I just want to be with him. I don’t care what his favorite color is, or if he has a best friend. I just want to be near him. Be with him.

But, wait…

His jacket covered his mark.

Will blinked a few times at his register, trying to come back to reality, though that thought stuck with him.

Why would anyone want their mark covered?

Will wasn’t sure why.

Maybe that was why he didn’t want to get to know Nico, too. Maybe he had to have evidence that they were soulmates before he could feel those things. The things people talked about in books or movies.

Wow, he thought to himself, I’m getting meta here.

It wasn’t that long after his revelation that the door to the restaurant slammed shut.

Will looked up, his hair in his face a bit, and barely saw the flash of purple move past the outside window.

He’s gone.

Will’s stomach filled with an unexpected pool of sadness.

I don’t know if he’s my soulmate or not.

Then he looked back over at their table, expecting it to be vacant, but saw Nico still sitting there; hand in the process of taking back his hair (he had taken it down, Will now

realized, in the last five minutes or so) and was tapping his fingers in quick succession on the table.

He looks agitated, Will thought, his eyes trailing back to the door. Why is he upset?

“Solace!” Lou yelled at him, snapping her fingers under his nose. Will flinched, almost hitting her hand away, but stopped himself short.

“Shit, Lou,” he settled for instead, placing a hand on his chest. “I didn’t see you.”

“Really?” She asked in a clearly sarcastic tone. “I was calling for you for ten minutes, dude, what the hell?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Will quickly apologized, spinning around to look at her. “What did you need?”

Lou rolled her eyes, waving into the back room with her hand. “Mom needs you to take the trash out. All, of the trash.”

Will scoffed, walking backward into the room.

“What? It’s just trash,”

It wasn’t just trash.

There were bags of the stuff, so much so that Will was surprised the shop hadn’t been shut down on just basic health precaution. There were ten bags, easy, and he was expected to carry it all out by himself?

Needless to say, it took him about twenty minutes.

When he finally came out of the back room almost everyone was gone. Lou was waving away some homeless guy in the far back corner, but besides that, it was mostly vacant. When Lou came back Will was sitting on the counter, throwing his legs back and forth and thinking of Nico. He found it odd, thinking of a stranger, but he couldn’t get the boy’s face out of his head; his fragile face and stone cold glares. Will could tell that he wasn’t very open, even if his clothing didn’t say it enough, his body language did. How he crossed his arms and legs, rarely opening up, it said enough. At least to Will it did.

“Grab the trays,” Lou said, running around the counter and expecting Will to follow. Will did, grabbing the tray beside Lou’s and following her out the room again.

“You do know how to clean tables, right?” She asked.

“You do realize I worked at your dad’s restaurant for years, right?”

Lou snorted, making a beeline towards the tables in the back of the restaurant. Will totally doesn’t make a mental note that it’s directly towards Nico’s table. Most certainly not. Nu uh. Nope.

Will trailed the outer edge of the establishment, cleaning up tables and throwing away leftover plastic cups and bagels people were too lazy to throw away.

About an hour later he was finished, throwing away the leftover cup in his hand and sighing, collapsing into a chair beside him.

“Yo, Solace,” Lou yelled from the front of the store.

Will got up, walking across the tiles to the front counter. The tray was at his hip, held by his right hand. His left was rubbing the back of his neck, wanting to relax his muscles a bit. This was frequent after cleaning the tables; his neck and legs were almost always sore and he wanted to pass out. Today was no exception.

She was leaning against the counter, a napkin from a table in her hands unfolded, and she seemed to be reading it.

“I think you’re going to want to read this.” She handed the paper over, smiling brightly and failing at trying to hide it.

“It’s addressed to the quote, ‘cute boy behind the counter’.”

Will raised a brow, turning the napkin over, careful not to tear it, and read the front. Sure enough, it was, in fact, addressed to the ‘cute blonde boy behind the counter’.

He pursed his lips, giving Lou a look through his eyelashes.

And promptly put the letter in his back pocket.

Lou’s eyes bulged at his moves, staring at him like he was crazy.

“Read it, dumbass!”

“Why?” Will asked, shrugging. Truth be told he was shaking, though tried to be nonchalant. “It’s just a letter.”

Lou began sputtering, throwing her hands in the air at random.

“Just a letter, Solace! Seriously! Read the damn thing!”

Will just shrugged again. “I’ll read it when I get home.”

Lou glared at Will, facepalming before stalking to the front door. Will ran to catch up with her, tucking the letter even further into his pocket to make sure it didn’t fall out.

Fucking Solace, Lou thought to herself.

That letter was from your soulmate. But, you’re just too stubborn, aren’t you?

150 notes · View notes