“I want you to have this.”
“Will —”
“Nico,” Will interrupts, voice stern, “take it.”
He fiddles with the clasp of his watch, sliding it off and holding it between them. The Celestial bronze frame has long since worn smooth, leather straps molded to the shape of Will’s wrist after years and years of use. He can even see the indent on the side of the bottom strap, where the Ace bandage Will often fidgets with has worn a groove.
“Please.”
Nico glances up to meet Will’s wide, pleading blue eyes. They’re darker, in the setting sun; almost midnight blue. Like the Raleigh reflection that colours the sky happens somehow in the tiny rings of his irises, too.
He sighs, holding out his wrist. Will’s expression melts into something almost relieved, corners of his lips turned up in a grateful smile. He wraps his warm hands around Nico’s forearm and fingertips, flipping over his arm, and presses the cool watch face the the middle of his wrist, buckling up the straps. Nico’s wrists are thinner than Will’s, and the worn-wide hole third down from the tip of the strap is skipped for the long-forgotten fifth. The watch fits comfortably and snugly, light enough that Nico almost — almost — forgets it’s there.
“It’s nothing like Percy’s,” he says quietly. His hands linger on the skin of Nico’s forearm, blunt fingernails picking at the watch’s grooves. “It can’t protect you. It doesn’t have a shield or a sword or anything like that. It’s just a watch.”
Nico hums. Gently, careful not to shrug off Will’s hands, he brings the watch closer to his face, inspecting it. There are nicks and chips, as expected for a watch Will has worn longer than Nico has known him, but there’s not a flaw in sight. It even ticks, pleasantly, a sound almost musical.
“Beckendorf?”
A tiny, punched-out sigh slumps from Will’s mouth.
“Yeah.”
“I can tell.” He taps his thumb on the face. “He did good work.”
“He gave it to me when I was eight,” Will says softly. “I used to — freak out, a lot. My anxiety was a lot worse as a kid. I’d panic if someone was late to breakfast, if I woke up late and no one was in the cabin. I didn’t like not knowing when things were supposed to happen.” Will’s lips quirk up. “Set it on the table when he walked by me one day. Didn’t say a word, just mussed my hair and smiled at me like he didn’t just fix my shit better than Xanax ever could.” His smile turned wry. “I had the hugest crush on him for years.”
It startles a laugh out of Nico, the admission, imagining Will’s motormouth trailing after Beckendorf, his bemused indulgence.
“There’s no way he didn’t know, either. I am not a subtle person.”
His shoulders shake. Gods, what a sight. He’s almost sad he missed it — he’ll have to ask Clarisse or Annabeth about it. Hell, maybe even Chiron. Will even looks like he’ll allow him, wide grin on his face, red as his ears may be.
“Not a bad choice,” Nico agrees, calming down a little. The watch feels heavier, now, knowing the significance, and he looks at it, lips pursing. “You sure you want me to take it?”
Will’s hand drags down his his arm until it rests in the palm of his hands for one, two, three seconds; glancing up at Nico, glancing down, nodding to himself. He twists their fingers together, squeezing. Nico’s breath hitches.
“You know how my energy kinda — goes everywhere?”
Nico nods. Will has more healing ability than pretty much anyone the camp has seen — and the more power, the harder it is to control. He’s got a pretty good handle on it, but if you stand near enough to him while he��s healing it’s impossible not to feel the affects; the ease to your joints, soothing of your tense muscles, pleasant warmth over your skin. Nico has been healed of scrapes and bruises just by virtue of one of Will’s beaming smiles, he’s gotten so good. Nico only wishes it didn’t drain him.
“I’ve been wearing that watch over seven years,” Will says. His fingers twitch. “The bronze is magic, of course, but that leather — that leather was living, once. Beckendorf made the whole thing with his bare hands ‘cause he saw me struggling. As far as ordinary objects go —” Will shrugs helplessly. “Might as we’ll be a sponge. It’s been absorbing my magic nonstop for nearly a decade. It’s as connected to me as my eyes, my hair.”
Almost absentmindedly, his free hand reaches out for Nico’s. He curls their fingers together, meeting them in the middle, and squeezes, hard enough to ground. Will blinks back into focus.
“I can feel you wearing it,” he whispers. “Your — heartbeat, vitals. Your life force.” He brings their clasped hands close to his chest, tapping right above his heart. “Here. I can feel you.”
Nico holds his breath. “Not just ‘cause you’re close to me?”
“No. I’ve never felt it like this before. Started the second you put on that watch. Focus for a second, can you feel it?”
Closing his eyes, he tries — imagining the click of the watch, gentle and soft, and the rise and swell of Will’s breathing. It’s in his hands, at first, every place they’re clutching Will’s, but in a second he can almost feel it pound — the ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump of Will’s heart, right next to his. The knot of anxiety in his stomach that isn’t his. The worry, golden and protective, spilling over him in waves.
“An empathy link,” Nico breathes. He stares at Will in pure awe. “You — you made an empathy link.”
That kind of life-force magic…you have to be deeply connected to the core of basically everything to access it. Satyrs have it easy, being nature spirits. Gods spend so long grappling with time that they can manage, too.
But mortals? Even half-divine ones?
Nico has spent a lot of time with the mythical, alive and dead. He’s met theoi from pantheons forgotten to every living soul, foreign to even most of the dead. He knows his history twice over and backwards.
He’s never heard of that before.
“Holy shit, Will.”
“Just — come back to me,” Will says. He tugs on Nico’s arms and faces him head-on, eyes now almost black that the sun has set down. “Promise me, Nico. Stay safe. Stay outta trouble as much as you can. Keep your head on straight. And —” He squeezes their hands together, to hide the tremble in his fingers. “I mean it, okay? Come back to me.”
Slowly, giving him time to pull away, Nico frees his hands, sliding them up to cup Will’s face. He pulls him down, standing on his tiptoes to meet him halfway, and lingers, breath mixing, warm, in the millimeters of space between them.
“I promise,” he whispers. “I swear it, Will, I’ll come back to you. I swear it on the Styx.”
Thunder rumbles above them.
“Good.”
Will closes the tiny stretch of space separating them, and their hearts beat in tapping harmony.
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