advid-vibe-stealer

Latest Posts by advid-vibe-stealer

This is so true.

He doesn't want to hurt people and I feel like the only time he is mean to someone is when he knows them really well and they won't take it seriously

He wouldn't be an absolute jersey to people but he also wouldn't be all cute and sensitive

I think that Will helped soften him, but he's only let's Will see that Soft Kind side of him

i know we all hate the “uwu sensitive gay boy” stereotype nico di angelo is thrust into. and believe me when i say i have a battle to fight with it. but what about the one where he’s overly mean. no he would not tell two campers to fuck off cause they looked at him. no he would not disrespect random leaders/people for no reason. no he would not be blatantly rude to everybody who approaches him. no he would not be an asshole. is he standoffish, awkward, a little creepy, and had a period in time he believed everyone hated him? yes! this does not mean he’s a smartass or enjoys hurting others. it’s perceiving him in a way that would probably make him nauseous. that boy is very polite, especially towards women, and the safety of others is dare i say one of his main priorities. he knows what it’s like to feel hated and would never inflict that upon someone else. i KNOW he holds the door open for people, helps old ladies cross the road, smiles at babies, and invites younger campers to sit with him if they feel out of place. he is an angel. ted talk concluded

Nico doesn’t seek to uncover a new scientific field, originally. It is just that he does not understand it.

"Make better choices! Dumbass!"

"Whatever you say, Apollo Junior."

"Oh, shut up!"

This -- Apollo Junior business.

There are similarities, sure. Here and there. Blond, blue-eyed, tall and strong. Many are. And of course the proclivity for drama and histrionics.

But the similarities end there, as far as Nico is concerned.

"You good?" Will calls, and Nico startles. "You're staring into space." He focuses his eyes and realizes Will is watching him out his peripherals, smiling when Nico meets his eyes.

“Do you have a photo of your mother?”

Will looks up again, eyebrows raised, glow finally fading from his hands and eyes. He holds a strip of bandage over a camper’s bicep, wrapping the roll around. “I have several," he says slowly. "Why?”

Nico squints at him.

“C’mere.”

Will hands the roll off to his patient, walking over. He stands hesitantly in front of Nico’s chair, shoulders pushed up, teeth worrying his lower lip.

Nico reaches out and tugs it free.

“You don’t look that much like your dad,” he murmurs, tilting Will’s head to the side. “You’ve got the — general blueprint, sure, but he’s all…angles.” He runs a finger over Will’s soft jaw. “You’re rounded.”

It's true. Will has more to his cheeks than his father does, baby fat he hasn't quite yet dropped. His skin is spattered with freckles on freckles, peeking through the burn scars, and his eyebrows and eyelashes are fully blond. His curls, even are nothing like so many campers claim -- yes they are sunshiney, yes they are golden. The color matches the very shimmer of the sun.

But Will's curls are a mess. Constantly.

He can no more tame the mass on his head more than Chiron can control this camp. He can run a brush through, sure -- not that he does -- but every cowlick is at odds, and every curl chooses a different pattern. Like all the frazzle that lives in his head shoots out of his skull at random, like the exclamation points in a comic.

It's cute.

It's very un-Apollo.

"Um," manages Will, voice crackling like firewood. "Um, Nico?"

When Nico looks at him again he is glowing. Not with healing, this time, but -- red. Sun-cow red, dwarf-star red.

Flustered.

Nico blinks in surprise.

"You're, um. Um! I gotta -- work."

Will twitches a little in his hold, pulling back but stopping, and Nico gets the hint and releases him. He pulls back rapidly, then, haggard breath brushing across the fine hairs on Nico's fingers.

"I'm gonna," he says, or mumbles, picking at his cut up fingertips. "Uh, see you."

He runs, practically, to the back of the infirmary, disappearing behind a supply shelf. The girl he was treated throws her one working arm up in exasperation, scowling at the horrible bandage-wrapping she has attempted on herself.

"You," she says, glaring at Nico, "are always distracting him. I might as well bleed out if you're around!"

She stalks off, tossing the ruined bandages at his head. Nico slides off the nurse's station counter, nudging them with his foot. A sound escapes his throat, unbidden: a low, contemplating hum, wrapping around his tapping fingers.

He looks back towards the supply shelves and wonders.

———

He stretches it further three days later, when the weather spells are lifted to feed the strawberries.

Will delivers on the photographs.

There are, as he promised, several of them. Several dozen, really, tucked carefully in a weathered leather album, between dozens more of his siblings with them and not. He sits next to Nico on his bed, knees tucked against his chest, flipping between tracing the curve of his family's smile against the edge of his thumbnail and watching Nico from the corner of his eye.

"She's young," Nico observes, tapping at an older photo of Naomi. She is twenty-something, in the photo, early; she holds a squirming, chunky toddler Will in her lap and laughs so hard she's blurry with it.

The shape of their faces is identical down to the atoms.

"Yes," Will agrees. "She was young when she had me. Nineteen."

Nico raises his eyebrows. His own mother was young, he knows, but not for the time; Sally Jackson was young but at least old enough to drink. Will notices the look on his face and smiles a little wry, a little bitter.

"I know. I've had lots to say about it myself."

Nico nods, turning the page. This one is mostly Will's older, gone siblings -- he knows by the heaviness of Will's breathing before he can even puzzle out what the older polaroids tell him.

It is interesting, the way Will imitates. The way Lee Fletcher stands, the way Michael Yew rolls his eyes. The gentle hold of an older girl Nico doesn't recognize, poking a giggling, eight-year-old Will in the stomach. The exaggerated cheek kiss of a woman with hair down to her knees.

Will stares, now, at the photographs, images he captured, images he has memorized again and again over the years -- the blue of his eyes is almost gray in the shadows of the rainclouds, in the darkened fairy lights of the quiet cabin seven. There is a distance to them, a sadness Nico so rarely gets to see. It is pretty, on him. Makes him look heavy, makes him look full. So often he is cheery and empty, or whatever his campers, his patients need; it is relieving to see him soft and wanting for a moment, to see the love rising and bubbling in his face, to see it crashing like waves in the gentle shake of his large hands. In the rainy softness he looks like moonlight, reflective.

"They'd be proud of you, you know."

Will smiles slightly. There is no light in his eyes, for once, and Nico cannot resist running his thumb under them. Will shivers.

"You think so?"

"How could they not be?" He tilts Will's head, slightly, until those grayed blue eyes lock squarely on his, wide and hopeful. "I am."

He says it slowly, carefully, spending time on the separation between the vowels. Like he hoped there comes the heat, seeping right through to his roughened palms. He removes them quickly, unwilling to miss it, and to his sudden wave of satisfaction there it is: the redness in his cheeks, glowing like June strawberries. His looks away quickly, biting the corner of his cheek.

"I'm -- uh."

He reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. It pops back into his eyes immediately, so Nico tugs it gently back, tucking it behind the bobby pin by his temple. He watches his lips part as he inhales more than he hears the sharpness of it.

"...Thank you, Nico."

Nico watches the quiet set to his face, the small, pleased smile. Tiny. He watches the color that clings to his cheeks even as he flips through the rest of the photos, even as he is absorbed in distant memories. He watches. He watches Will watch him, out of the corners of his eyes, through the curls of his hair. Nico exhales, low and contemplating.

"Of course."

———

Will is a deeply affectionate person.

It is in the mornings when he grabs Austin's grouchy, scowling face, pressing deafening and exaggerating smooches all over until he cracks and laughs. It is in the gentle hand on Kayla's shoulder on the range, waving wildly at the missed target until she nods, eyes bright again, face narrowed in determination along her next shot. It is in the gentle hip-check of a frantic, barking Clarisse out of the way, murmuring assurances as he patches a slash through Chris's bicep. It is in the sunshine-bright smiles pointed at everyone he sees, at the thanks, darlin'! at busy passing nymphs and tricking Chiron into giving up his paperwork. It is in both hands occupied by giggling, awestruck children and his shoulders the new hot seat, it is in the shrieking laugh bubbling out of Lou Ellen's mouth as he twirls her to music playing only in his head, it is in his holler of gravity's increasing on me!! as he crushes Cecil to the ground. It is in the arm he slings over Nico's shoulders, constantly, the parting mwah pressed to his temple, the brush of his guitar-callused fingertips across cheekbones, knuckles, shoulders and crooked elbows.

It is everywhere. It is constant. It is, almost, forgettable.

It is confounding.

Nico tests it, again. He waits for the dusk of campfire, on an evening cold enough even Will is in tight blue jeans, and he says, in front of everybody:

“You look good.”

The tips of his own ears are red, hidden by his hair, and his voice is low enough to have several onlookers wolf whistle.

But the flames don’t burst into being across Will’s nose.

Instead he grins, wide and grandiose, cocks his hip high, and says, in the worst exaggeration of his soft, subtle accent Nico has ever heard:

“Aw, don’t I?”

And Nico thinks:

Hm.

He watches, and every day is groundhog day; every day Will is grinning teeth and kiss-pursed lips and hearty palms and gentle, careful fingers. Every morning he greets Nico with his lips pressed to his fingers and blown into the air, and he is shameless, and when there is teasing he responds with knuckles dug into ribs and wide-mouthed grins and come here, brat, you're next. Every other sentence ends in darlin' or dearest or if he's talking to Nico than a million others he pulls from a hat, Zombie Boy and Death Breath and sweetcheeks and princess. He doesn't even think about them. Nico will blink at every new one and say, no, and he will laugh, low and snorting, and double down. And Drew will roll her eyes and mutter about Southern charm or rather his lack of it and can you maybe be a kicked puppy somewhere away from me, please and he will roll his eyes. And he will walk Nico to his door every night and say, bright as daylight, night, Neeks, love you! and bound away across the common, shrieking as the harpies descend on his chronically late ass.

And Nico thinks:

Hm.

But there will be moments. In corners, or in twilight: when it is someone else's turn to sing, when someone else strokes the little ones' hair as they blink themselves awake to drowsy flames, when the campfire smoke is sweet and soft and wraps around the two of them, on the blanket Will has laid out. And Will will yawn, head drooping, halfway asleep, too out of it to notice Nico's creeping hand. And Nico will touch, barely, the edge of his pinky to the bent knuckle of Will's, tucked away between them, shrouded in shadow.

And under the dancing light of flickering embers, Will's face will burn.

And Nico thinks:

Ah.

———

Nico decides to consult an expert.

"Morning," mumbles Annabeth, bumping into him as she stumbles her way to breakfast.

Nico follows quickly, sitting down next to her and staring until she sets down her book. When she does not, he puts a very careful finger on the spine, tugging down until she blinks.

"Oh, Nico! Hey. Good morning."

Nico hides a small smile. "Morning," he greets back. "I have a Question."

"Capital Q question," Annabeth observes, taking a bite of her cereal. She glances over at her half-closed book. Nico cautiously slides it away, and she glances back. "Shoot."

"How do I test a theory?"

"Uh, hypothesis, usually," she answers. "Unless your theory is: Percy is deathly afraid of centipedes, in which case I will go ahead and confirm that theory for you."

"No, that's not the theory." Nico blinks. "Thank you, though."

"Mhm. Reparations, etc etc."

"Right. Uh, my theory is secret."

Annabeth stares at him. Nico stares back. Annabeth does not blink. Nico squirms.

"A gay theory," she surmises.

"Shut up," Nico confirms, red-faced.

Annabeth grins. "Make a list of true/false statements you can prove or disprove. Test them. After testing, form a conclusion." She waves her spoon emphatically. A drop of milk lands on Nico's eyelid, and she smiles sheepishly. "Boom. Questions gained. Will Solace's Affections: conquered."

"Shut up," he says, again. But then adds, belatedly: "Thank you."

He flees to the exit horn of her cackling, before anyone can overhear them.

———

next

I see Will being the most introverted and socially anxious person because he went to camp at such a young age and he is a year round camper and the only adults that he really talks to is Chiron and Mr. D so I feel like he's scared to talk to anyone outside of camp. When Will and Nico go out to eat, Nico always orders for Will.

Nico on the other hand once his trauma gets better he is very extraverted and loves talking to people (mostly people he knows won't make fun of him or hurt him in anyway) but he still wants to appear mysterious and scary so he represses the urge to overshare things but he still needs to recharge after doing something

I feel like Nico would yell at the manger when Will asks for no pickles

I can see Will solace doing this when his siblings or someone else tells his to do something that's good for him.

pls reblog <33

The funniest thing about the whole ordeal is that he sits by the window, mooning.

Like a Victorian maiden.

"Stop teasing," Cass scolds, visibly choking back laughter. "He's -- little."

"He's down bad facetious," Lee argues. He gestures to Will's feet, which are -- and he cannot emphasize enough -- swinging back and forth. He even --

Gods.

He is twirling his hair.

Cass lets a bubble of laughter through, clamping her hand over her mouth.

"Oh my gods," she says, shoulders shaking. "It's so cute, I'm gonna --"

Will sighs to himself. Deep, long, lovesick; it takes everything in Lee's body not to join Cass on the floor, holding himself to limit the shaking. She keeps her head carefully bowed but even then Lee can see the tears streaming down her face.

"Goober," Lee calls, tongue in his cheek, "what the hell are you doing."

Will startles. He goes, quite immediately, startlingly, pomegranate red, sliding a worn journal against his chest and out of sight. Only, he misses, because he's a klutz, and launches the journal halfway across the cabin, narrowly avoiding smacking Cass clean across the face.

For a moment, there is nothing.

Stillness.

Silence.

Lee glances over at the journal. Will holds his breath. Lee moves his hand, ever so slightly.

They bolt at the same time.

"Nothing!" Will shouts, diving for the book. He is, unfortunately, a pipsqueak, and easily lifted to the side and dropped, screeching and clawing, on Michael's top bunk. "Nothing, nothing, I'm doing nothing --"

"If you're doing nothing, then it's fine if I look," reasons Lee, knowing that if he kept a diary and any of his rat ass siblings tried looking through it he'd kill himself. "Just blank pages, right?"

Will lunges, but Lee is stronger than he is, and his arms are longer. He plants a hand on his squishy face and holds him there, struggling, arms scrabbling for the journal, Cass's wheezing echoing through the largely empty cabin.

"Cass! Tell him -- tell him to give it back --"

Cass looks up, maybe, to tell him off, but she sees Will's squished, roan face and loses her shit all over again. This time she doesn't even bother staying on her knees, she hits the full, total ground, clutching her stomach, tears streaming down her face, choking in agony.

Lee flips open the book.

Will screams.

"Dearly beloved," Lee reads, voice trembling. Will claws at him. In what is, perhaps, divine intervention, the scratch marks disappear as quickly as Will makes them, glowing a soft gold. Will screams again. "We are gathered here today --"

There is laughter, and arguing, outside, and Lee pauses. Will stops struggling. His face drops. He whips toward the window, faster than Lee can even think of stopping him, and brings his clasped hands to his face, head bowed, and begins rapidly to pray:

"Dad, please, if you love me, smite them all, please, do not let them come in, turn off their ears, please, I promise I will scrape off every brownie I get for the next fifty years if you --"

But it is for naught. Because in a great, energized gaggle, the rest of their siblings pile through the door: Michael, scrabbling at Diana's flexed arm, flailing his way out her head headlock; Kate and Pheobe, heads bent over a script; Melody, Mercury, and Leanna, harmonizing over Michael's cursing; Gabriel and Laurel, tossing a basketball back and forth; and, finally, Amir, trailing quietly behind them, bow in hand.

They spill out onto the giant carpet by the door, and pause.

Lee clears his throat.

"--to celebrate the union of --" His voice wavers. Will shrieks, lunging again, but Kate in Phoebe are faster, lunging forward and grabbing one arm each.

"Oh, no you don't," says Kate, grinning, and Phoebe, unusually bold, pokes his ribs until he stops squirming, snickering to herself.

Lee continues.

"-- Nico di Angelo and Will Solace, in the sight of -- oh for fuck's sake, capital-G God -- to join them in holy matrimony."

Will puts his pudgy little hands over his face and yells. He begins, ever so, to glow, like he does when he's healing, and it is the perfect moment to set everyone off: several of their siblings join Cass on the floor, who, at this point, looks genuinely unwell, and several more -- mostly the girls -- rush forward to hang off Michael's bunk, cooing at poor Will, who glares at Lee with all the vitriol his ten-and-three-quarters body can muster.

"I hate you," he croaks. "You are -- the worst brother ever --"

"I'm just trying to have it memorized," Lee says solemnly, "you know, so I can recite and when you and Nico get --"

There is a quick, painful flash. For a moment, Lee is genuinely blind -- his eyes are open, he can feel the air of them on his drying sclera, but he can see nothing but pure, white light -- and it takes a solid minute of blinking to get anything back in front of him, even if it's blurry.

The first thing he sees is Will, off the bunk, with the journal in his hands.

The second thing he sees is Amir, quick and quiet, poised behind him.

"I don't even like him," Will says hotly, "I'm just -- did you know that there are friendship marriages, and --"

Lee meets Amir's eyes and nods. The curve of his oft-stoic mouth incites genuinely glee in Lee's wicked heart, and in a flash their third youngest darts out his deft pianist hands and grabs the journal from Will's hands. Before Will can even shriek, he tosses it across the room, where Laurel catches it, and she sprints across the cabin, scurrying up the wooden support beams, and hangs from the highest rafter. She flips through the pages and opens a new one.

"Oh-hoo-hoo, this one is good," she says evilly, wiggling her fingers. "He even got all the letters right, ahem, Mr. Will di Angelo --"

Will is short, but he's fast and he's slippery, so he's out of Kate's attempted half-Nelson in seconds and ripping across the cabin, spider-monkeying up the beam. Laurel shrieks and tosses the journal to the waiting Gabriel, who slides himself in the spot between his bunk and the wall and flips to a new page.

"It's a drawing!" he reports, delighted. "Aw, man, he even got the shine of his hair on here --"

"All of you hate me!"

"It's cute," Leanna coos, scooping Will up from the ceiling. Laurel damn near cries in relief, dropping down and muttering about evil, punishing little brothers and pointy fingers. Will tries to squirm free but Leanna presses a million exaggerated kisses to his cheeks, to his hair, and on reflex, he leans into them. "Baby's first real crush --"

"I do not have a crush on him!" Will squirms free, eventually, standing on his own -- unmade -- bunk and hollering until his face is read. "I just think he's -- cool, okay, he can control zombies and ghosts and --"

"'Makes your heart flutter?'" Melody suggests. She holds up the journal Gabriel has passed to her and traces her hand over an older page, tapping her electric-blue nails. She clears her throat, upping up her own slight drawl to match Will's heavier one: "'Symptoms: sweaty palms, dizziness, rapid heartbeat, high fever -- potential tachycardia? Or plague. Revisit next appearance.'" She closes the book and grins. "Think you're a touch ahead of yourself, kiddo."

Will, as he always does, chafes at the nickname, snapping a reflexive you're four years older than me! Not even! and crawling under his bed. Belatedly, an arm scrabbles up on his mattress, patting blindly until it makes contact with his pillow -- crumpled into the corner under half a metric ton of stuffed toys -- and drags it down with him, screeching into it.

"All I ever do in this stupid cabin is suffer," he bemoans.

Their siblings, for the large part, ignore his wallowing. More interesting is the journal, that they circle around, flipping through the various drawings and doodles of Nico di Angelo, enigma, and the hearts around every strand of hair.

Lee starts feeling a little bad.

A little.

"Dork," he says, peeking under the bed. Will kicks him. Lee grabs his foot. "Come out."

Will pouts. "No."

"Are you embarrassed?"

"Obviously!"

Lee looks down and sighs. He is eighteen, and feeling every year; his knees, actually, have wear equivalent to that of a seventy-year-old man. Michael checked. Michael could, also, have been lying, because he's a tool, but there was a particular gleam of unbridled glee in his eyes when he reported back so Lee is inclined to believe him.

All this to say: he is too old for this nonsense.

And, yet.

"You have not been sweeping under here," he grumbles, pulling a face at the (numerous) dust bunnies. "You have, like, two chores."

"I have so!"

Will coughs.

Lee sighs and holds out his hand. Will's throat is, indeed, closing up, so he fires off a quick hymn to lower the swelling but leaves it itchy in penance.

"I don't know why you continue to lie to me. Your tell can literally, actually kill you."

Will opens his mouth to lie again. Lee pokes him, hard, in the stomach, and he closes it, choosing instead to scowl.

"Get out of here," he complains. "You smell like dookie and I hate you also."

"I do -- I do not!"

Just in case, Lee sniffs, and he -- well, he doesn't smell like roses, but dookie is an exaggeration and after a moment the little shithead snickers, dodging Lee's pinching fingers. Lee rolls his eyes and scoots closer, crushing him against the wall.

"We're not trying to embarrass you," he tries.

Will scoffs. "Lie!"

"Okay, well, we are a little." Lee turns over and stares until Will meets his eyes. He is relieved to find no genuine hurt in them, only annoyance, and maybe a touch of frustration. He searches for Will's hand and squeezes, holding tighter when someone in the peanut gallery cackles, and Will scowls. "But, like. Embarrassment of love and affection."

"That's not a thing!"

"It is. You know how Diana likes to put a curse of truth on Michael and ask him leading questions about his weird love for Orlando Bloom in public?"

"That's different," Will says after a pause. "Diana only does it to punish him for his crimes."

"Of which there are many," Lee agrees. "But it is the same concept."

"But I'm not evil like Michael!"

"No? It wasn't you and Cecil that rigged Jake Mason's birthday cake to explode last week?"

Will's mouth opens. It closes.

"I will speak no further without an attorney," he decides on, and Lee laughs out loud. Will grins, forgetting his anger, and leans in when Lee curls into him, snorting. Lee presses a kiss to his hair and tugs him even closer.

"We are teasing you because we love you and you are being a massive goofball," he says quietly. He squeezes when he feels Will scowl. "You tease me for crushes and foolishness too, brat. You're just suffering because it's your first time."

"I don't have a crush on him," Will insists, muffled. "...I just think he's cool."

"Right. And all the drawings --"

"Anatomy practice!"

"--and the poems--"

"I can't control those! They just come out!"

"--and the marriage vows --"

"I -- okay. That one -- gimme a second." Will screws up is face, considering. He brightens when the idea comes to him. Lee snorts. "Connor and Travis were telling us about levying the marriage system to benefit you and I think Nico would be a willing participant."

Will beams, proud at his quick thinking, and Lee cannot help but try to crush him a little. Will, used to it, sighs and grumbles and tucks himself smaller so he can fit into the shape of Lee's arms, tights against his chest.

"You -- are -- so goddamn cute, you know that?" Lee says, punctuating every word with a loving poke. "Gods."

Will squirms. "Everyone keeps telling me that. That's why I'm studying Nico. So I can get cooler."

"You're studying Death Boy because you have a big fat embarrassing crush on him."

"No."

"Yes, and it's ridiculous, because you've met him, maybe, twice."

"I have met him three and a half times."

"I don't know what a half is and I'm afraid to ask. Kid, you're whipped."

Will tips his head to rest on Lee's shoulder, groaning. He stays there long enough for the wheezing, riff-raff, and general mischief to quiet, for some of the most hyperactive kids in camp to get bored and move on, poking at another available sibling. Will stays there long enough, breathing heavy, eyes squeezed shut that Lee hears Cass humming as she makes her rounds, tucking in the younger kids, who insist that they are too old for such nonsense but allow it anyway, and brushing her gentle hands on the foreheads of the older kids. She comes to Will's bunk last, kneeling outside of it, matching her breathing to theirs.

"All good?" she whispers, hand coming out to squeeze Lee's shoulder.

Lee nods. "Yeah. Tired out."

He can hear the smile in his sister's voice. "Okay. Don't fall asleep down there, Lee. You'll ache in the morning."

"Won't," Lee promises, knowing full well it's a possibility. Cass snorts, squeezing again, and Lee hears he pad away, pulling back her unreasonable number of comforters -- for a child of the sun god she is always freezing -- and floating off a final night, fireflies.

Lee smiles as all thirteen of them -- including Will, who mouths it silently against Lee's shoulder -- wish her goodnight back.

"I don't." Will makes a quiet, keening noise. "I don't understand why my chest feels so big."

Lee buries his face in coily, tangled hair, breathing deeply.

"You got a big, giant heart," he murmurs. "And Nico needs a friend. I think you, uh, I think you might also have a thing for brown eyes and basket cases, but that's none of my business."

Will giggles tiredly. Lee smiles, holding them close and scooching them gently out from the dusty underbed. His knees, as he correctly assumed, scream when he stands, but Will's little hand is warm in his, and his eyes are cloudy and soft. He is ten years old and too big for it but he reaches his hands up and Lee lifts him, anyway, exhaling at the wrap of his legs and arms around him, at the shift of his head in the crook of his neck. He takes a minute to hold the weight of him, memorizing, before leaning down and easing him onto the softened mattress, tucking the creased, messy sheets around him the way he likes.

"Sweet dreams," he says softly, pressing a kiss to his freckled forehead. He grins. "Of wedding bells, and death-breath smooches."

"Go away."

Will pushes him, scowling sleepily, and Lee lets him, smoothing out his pillow and yawning his way over to his own bunk. He flicks Michael awake in passing just to be a jackass and dives into the bottom mattress, before he realizes, wrapping himself in his blanket and pretending to snore. When Michael has re-settled, muttering mutinously to himself, Lee opens his eyes, squinting over to where Will is curled up, across the cabin, blankets pulled up to his forehead and feet sticking out the other end. He smiles.

He can't wait to bring this up at their wedding, one day.

Sleep tight

I love this with all of my heart and I need the next part aghhh it's so good

“You ready, Lou?”

“Duh.”

“Cecil? You’ve got full faith in your cabin?”

“Yep.”

“What about you, Will? Were your threats successful?”

“My bribes went wonderfully, thank you.”

“Then I think we’re a go.”

“Gods, this is going to be great.”

———

Knockknockknock.

Nico locks in on his game. He is so, so close to finally making it through this stupid quest, he can feel it, and if he doesn’t beat The Imprisoned before Percy he’s going to set the camp on fire.

Knockknockknock.

“Just — hold on a second!” He spams B, cursing loudly to himself, ignoring the twinge in his lower back from holding this position for so long. “Fuck, fuck, come on.” He clenches his teeth, knuckles white against the Wii remote, until finally — the boss falls. He cheers.

Fuck yes. Take that, Percy.

Tossing the remote on his bed, he jogs over to the door, sliding open the three bolts and unlocking the chains. On his porch is a blur of movement, hair frizzy and pulled-on, shirt rumbled.

“Oh, hey, Annabeth.”

She barely acknowledges him, focusing intently on pacing back and forth on the stone porch at the speed of light. He settles against the door frame, stretching out his spine, watching her mutter to herself.

“Chiron is leaving,” she says.

Nico raises an amused eyebrow. “I am aware.”

“With Mr. D. To some conference.”

“I heard.”

“He’s gone until early tomorrow evening.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He left me in charge.”

“Probably wise.”

“I need an allegiance, Nico.”

“Slow down and tell me what you mean, first.”

She sighs, coming to a stop in front of him. Her fingers still drum across her biceps, and her eyes dart around, evaluating. Her teeth dig into her bottom lip.

“Camp’s a lot of work,” she says finally. “I’ve never been in charge of so many people at once before, and like hell am I gonna let Chiron think I can’t handle it. I have a Plan, and you’re a part of it.”

Nico resists the urge to groan. Chiron leaving is supposed to mean he gets the next day or so off — no classes, no socializing, nothing. Just him in his cabin and the genuinely disgusting amount of junk food he has amassed.

(…And Will. Maybe.)

“It’s nothing crazy,” she promises. “I just need you to lurk.”

“…Lurk?”

“Yeah, you know. Chill in the shadows and scare people into complacency. You don’t even need to do much, just that thing where you stare at people like you know the exact day they’re going to die.”

“I do love lurking,” Nico admits. And to basically have a free pass to scare the shit out of whoever he wants… “I’ll do it.”

She smiles brightly. “Thanks, Nico! I knew I could count on you. I’ll meet up with you right after Chiron heads out, okay? To give you a list of people to keep your eye on.”

“Sure. Bye, Annabeth.”

“See ya!”

He closes the door and pads back to his setup, shaking the remote to get it going again. He can’t quite shake the smirk off his face.

The next twenty four hours are going to rock.

———

“Swiper No Swiping, initiate phase one.”

“Roger that, Sunny Dick.”

“…I’m revoking your code name priveledges.”

“No no no, I’m sorry, I’ll change it.”

———

Before Chiron leaves, he gathers them all in the amphitheatre.

“Children,” he calls, adjusting the bow slung across his back. “I am leaving now for my conference. I will be back before the sun sets tomorrow.” He gestures towards Annabeth, standing stiffly beside him. “Annabeth is in charge. Consider all my authority transferred to her before I return, am I understood?”

“Yes, Chiron,” courses the camp, some with significantly more attitude than others. Across the gathered crowd, Will catches his eye and winks. (Well, tries to. He has yet to catch on to the fact that he cannot, actually, wink, and instead just blinks really intentionally. Kayla and Austin have sworn him to secrecy.) Nico rolls his eyes, ears burning, and looks away.

“Good. Regular rules; no maiming, killing, or injuries above level seven. Any arson will result in a revoking of dessert privileges. Yes, Julia, even if you help in putting out the arson. It is the fire that is the issue, you understand. Excellent.” He claps his hands together. “I am looking forward to one day of peace. Try to avoid ruining it for me too quickly. Goodbye, children.”

With a wave and a fond squeeze of Annabeth’s shoulder, he trots over to Half-Blood Hill, ignoring Mr. D’s loud complaining about how long he took. With a snap of Mr. D’s fingers, they disappear. For a brief, uncanny moment, everything is still.

“Alright,” Annabeth shouts, clapping her hands together. Nico jumps. “Dinner is in an hour. Whoever is the first to fuck something up will be doing dishes. I will be watching. Dismissed.”

Wading through the swathes of ambling teenagers, she walks by where Nico is leaning against a pillar, half-hidden in the shadows.

“Lurk,” she orders, passing him.

Nico shoots her a mocking salute, fading into the shadow behind him. He barely catches her grin before he dissolves into the darkness.

———

“Phase two in effect. Ready to go, Sabrina Spellman?”

“Prepped to go, Teletubbies Sun Baby.”

“I hate both of you.”

———

“Halt!”

Across the common, three suspicious figures freeze, glance behind them, and then resume walking as casually as they can.

“I said halt! Do not move! Cease all function!”

Milling nervously towards each other, Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest pause, shifting the three massive cardboard boxes they hold each.

“Hi, Annabeth,” Will says, smiling innocently. Cecil and Lou Ellen match him, eyes wide, expressions angelic.

Annabeth stomps over to them, fists clenched at her sides, entirely unmoved by the cherubic display in front of her. Nico stays right where he is, hidden by the shade of Cabin Eight.

“Explain yourselves,” Annabeth orders.

The three stooges exchange a look.

“Whatever do you mean,” Lou Ellen asks, shifting the boxes to free up her hand only to place it delicately over her chest. “Why, we are only helping our dear friend William —”

“Our dear, dear friend,” Cecil adds.

“— carry these many boxes of medical supplies, so as to lower his great burden —”

“Massive burden,” Will says sagely.

“— and free up his evening in order for him to spend his limited time with us, his most cherished friends.”

“Especially cherished,” Will and Cecil chorus together.

Unable to bite back a smile, Nico rolls his eyes so hard his skull hurts. They’re not even trying to not get caught, at this point. Idiots.

Clearly agreeing, Annabeth scoffs. “Yeah, right. Boxes down, all three of you. You’re being detained for suspected illicit substances.”

“Annabeth!” Will cries, hand to his chest, “after all I do for this camp, you would accuse me of being — illicit?! Me?! The outrage! The insult! The impugn, the —”

“Can it, Solace. Open the boxes.”

Huffing in perfect unison, the three of them carefully lower their boxes to the ground.

“Tape off.”

Intentionally slowly, they run a nail along the edge of the packing tape.

“Flaps open, guys, c’mon.”

With flourish, the trio fling open the thin cardboard panels. Inside each box is rows of bandages, packaged syringes, sterile bands, tongue compresses, and more that Nico can’t name. Annabeth glares at the boxes with perhaps more disdain than the situation calls for.

Then again.

It is camp.

“See?” says Cecil, gesturing grandly. “The shipment just came in from my dad.”

Like a hound dog locking in on a bleeding squirrel, Annabeth’s eyes narrow. Her lips spread into wide, frankly maniacal smirk.

“Your dad is in a conference with the rest of the Olympians right now, Markowitz.”

Caught.

“Well,” Cecil says, and then nothing else.

“He meant it in the royal sense,” Lou Ellen pipes up in his silence. Cecil nods frantically. “You know, ‘just’ as in, like, recently, as in this morning —”

“Do you three think I’m stupid.”

“It’s just medical supplies! You can look through them if you want —”

Even if they weren’t acting like criminals, Nico knows his friends. He knows his boyfriend, especially, and recognises that damn look on his face. He can also physically see Annabeth’s stress ulcer coming back.

Closing his eyes, Nico fades into Cabin Six’s shadow. It’s a quick jump, so the stretch is easy, and the darkness bows easily to his hold. He reappears silently behind the group, taking advantage of the setting sun, and darts out to grip Lou Ellen’s arm.

“Boo,” he whispers.

She shrieks at the top of her lungs, jumping three clean feet in the air. Coincidently, the boxes of medical supplies flicker, turning into a truly baffling amount of instant mashed potato boxes.

“I knew it!” Annabeth shouts.

On cue, all three doofuses turn to Nico, jeering and complaining about ‘ruining the fun’. Nico’s glare is ineffective on Doofus #1, but the other two can be cowed. He focuses on channelling the flames of hell to reflect in his eyes like his father showed him until they look away, muttering at the ground.

“We still don’t have any illicit substances,” Will insists, glaring right back. Nico sticks out his tongue. He crosses his eyes like a four year old. How immature, honestly. “So we’re just gonna take our stuff and —”

“Absolutely not, Golden Boy. Put that hand away.”

Wisely, Will draws slowly back from the boxes, tucking his hands in his pocket.

Annabeth stares, hard, at the three of them, flicking her dark eyes from the potatoes and back. The tips of her worn-out converse tap slowly on the packed grass, tip-tap-tip-tap, as they all squirm.

Understanding dawns on her quickly.

“It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, for the strawberry plants.”

They squirm harder.

“Oh, you godsdamn bitches.”

“It would’ve been really funny,” Cecil mumbles, staring at the ground. “Rain making the ground turn into a sea of mashed potatoes. Like Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.”

“The only meatballs around here are the ones clogging up your skull!” Annabeth shouts, which doesn’t quite make sense but sounds clever coming from her anyway. “Who was gonna clean that up, huh? Magic?”

“I mean, probably,” Lou Ellen says, promptly shutting up at Annabeth’s glare.

“And you, Will! I cannot believe! Where is that responsibility you’re known for, huh?”

Will pouts. “I can be responsible and do fun things.”

“Fun, he says. I’m going to fucking kill you, how’s that for fun. The one day I’m left in charge, I cannot believe —”

“If it helps, it’s less about you and more about April Fools being tomorrow,” Cecil interjects tentatively. “Like, we were going to do this whether or not Chiron left.”

Annabeth glares darkly. “Of fucking course you were. It’s always you three, I swear to the gods. I should have known.”

“It’s honestly kind of embarrassing for you guys,” Nico adds. He smiles smugly at them, relishing in their rolled eyes and mocking hands. “Like, everyone expected this. You did this to yourselves, honestly.”

“Boo, you jag,” Lou Ellen protests. The other two knuckleheads joint in the booing, Will taking it an extra stop forward and blowing a raspberry, both thumbs pointing down. Nico responds with a wide grin and two middle fingers.

“Enough,” Annabeth says, rubbing her temples. “Extra chores, all three of you. Go help the cleaning harpies until sundown. And not another peep of complaint or I’ll have you on chores tomorrow, too.”

Without another glance at them, she turns around and walks away, muttering at least you caught it early at least you caught it early at least you caught it early over and over to herself.

“Pretty sure you guys have physical labour to do,” Nico says brightly when she disappears into the Big House. “I’d get started on that, if I were you.”

“Butthead,” Cecil mutters.

“Kiss-ass,” Lou Ellen agrees, making a face.

“Traitor,” Will whispers, pressing a kiss to his cheek as he walks past.

Nico watches them go, standing guard over the boxes in case they try to come back for them.

He can’t help but think that they all look a little too jovial for having their plans ruined before they even started.

———

“Is he still looking?”

“No.”

“Okay, Phase Three, let’s go let’s go let’s go —”

———

Every time Nico wakes with the sun, he sets aside twenty minutes of his morning routine to curse Apollo, his father, Apollo again, Phanes, and Prometheus. In that order.

He does like the bonus of getting breakfast. Usually he sleeps through it and has to hope Will saved him coffee cake, which he does, every time, because he wants to bribe his way into Nico’s affections. But there is something to be said about camp coffee cake when it is still warm, crumbly on the top and soft on the inside. It is a rare and occasionally worth-it treat, and on his bleary walk to the dining pavilion, Nico tries to keep this in the forefront of his mind. Fresh coffee cake. Fresh coffee. Fresh fruit. And Will, probably, not that seeing him is worth getting up early or anything. (So what that he gets all excited and energetic when he sees Nico up in the morning. If anything it’s embarrassing for him.)

For once, he’s actually early enough that there are very few people already at breakfast. He sees most of the Athena kids, still half-asleep over their mugs, and pretty much every camper under the age of eleven. A few head counsellors, too, watching out for the little ones or catching up on a rare moment of quiet. Nico makes a beeline for the breakfast spread, cutting a slice of coffee cake to leave on the platter and putting the rest of it on his plate. He puts a single strawberry in the middle of it so no one can accuse him of being unhealthy, then ambles over to the Apollo table.

“Neeks? Where’re you going?”

Nico pauses. He shifts his plate to one hand, rubbing at his bleary eyes. He looks at the Apollo table. He counts one, two, three heads — Kayla, Austin, and…Cecil?

“Nico? You good, babes?”

He turns, slowly, to face the voice. Picking at a plate full of pineapple, next to Reika Onason, Lou Ellen's sister, is Will.

“I know mornings are hard for you, but you’re meant to eat at your table,” he teases. “Come sit, doofus. Unless you’re taking advantage of Chiron’s absence to make friends elsewhere, I guess, but it seems unlike you.”

“You’re — what’re you — what?“ Nico says dumbly, struggling to reconcile the imagine in front of him.

For some reason, Will is eating his breakfast at the Hecate table.

And that is not all.

For some reason, his camp shirt does not say head medic. For some reason, he is wearing black jeans. For some reason, dozens of Celestial bronze rings adorn his fingers, carved with sigils. For some reason, his hair is clipped back, and there is black eyeliner around his bright blue eyes, and his nails are painted darker than Nico’s, and he is sitting at the Hecate table.

“What are you doing?”

“Having…breakfast,” Will says slowly. His lips turn down in concern. “Nico, are you okay?”

“I’m fine! It’s — you’re the one acting weird!”

Will and Reika exchange a look.

“Maybe you should go see Cecil,” Will suggests carefully. “Did you sleep okay last night? Maybe you hit your head —”

Nico looks desperately back at the Apollo table. They watch him strangely now, too, and after a second Cecil gets up from his — Will’s — seat, and walks over.

“Everything okay?” he asks, impish expression almost serious. “You look pale, Nico.”

“I’m worried,” Will says. “He’s acting — confused, Cece, maybe there’s a —”

“I’m not confused,” Nico scowls. “You two are — doing something.” He gestures vaguely between them. “As revenge for yesterday.”

Will snorts. “What, the potatoes? Don’t let Lou hear you discredit her like that. If you think she’d plan some revenge prank on you this early, you don’t know her at all.”

Nico’s head starts to hurt. He sets down his plate, rubbing his temples. Why would Lou Ellen be so bothered by that? Why isn’t she here, with her sister? What the hell is going on?

“Both of you — cut it out. Whatever dumbass prank you’re pulling is just stupid.”

“Did I hear something about a prank?” Bounding over from the camp store, arms laden with contraband junk food, is Lou Ellen, smiling brightly. “Whatever it is, I want in!”

“Oh, thank the gods, you’re back.” Will makes grabby hands at the pile. She tosses him a pack of twizzlers off the top, rolling her eyes as he tears into like he didn’t just polish off two and a half entire pineapples and three bowls of oatmeal. “I was going through withdrawal.”

“I’m not helping you when your stomach cramps up,” Cecil promises, snorting. His eyes follow the candy ropes in their harried journey towards Will's gaping maw. “You can sit in your misery.”

“Bleh bleh bleh.”

Nico narrows his eyes at them. Clearly, they’re all in on this — bit, or whatever it is. It’s a little too coordinated to be a quickly-planned revenge prank. They must have had a backup to the potatoes, although a pretty weak one. Unless they somehow managed to bribe the entire camp into agreeing to act along with their dumbassery, and Nico knows none of them can come even close to affording that, then all it takes is one person on Nico’s side before their little ruse is broken.

“It’s too early for this,” Nico says, interrupting their bickering. He picks up his breakfast and trudges off to his actual table, ignoring Will’s pouting. He has to brush the dust off the bench, but it’s worth it to avoid whatever headache the three of them will inevitably give him.

Coffee cake, save him.

———

“It’s not looking good, Katara —”

“I actually like that one.”

“— he’s totally onto us.”

“Just stick to the plan. Power onto Phase Four.”

———

To Nico's great satisfaction, many other people do double takes as they walk into breakfast.

As the Athena table, minus Annabeth, who is likely putting out a literal or metaphorical fire somewhere, wakes up, they start to notice the strange seating situation. It starts with Malcolm, who stares at Cecil in a lab coat with the same expression Nico has seen him wear when attempting to solve the Hodge conjecture. He leans over to murmur something in his brother’s ear, and then all seven of them are looking between the Hecate, Apollo, and mostly-empty Hermes tables with suspicious frowns and furrowed brows.

Nico catches Will’s eye, smirking.

Game’s up, he mouths. Will only shrugs innocently at him.

It’s Annabeth who finally puts a stop to the nonsense, striding in at the tail end of the rest of the slowly-waking crowd. She has grass in her hair and murder in her eyes.

Excellent.

“I swear to the gods, I just dealt with you three,” she snaps, raising her voice so they all can hear her. Coincidentally, it attracts the attention of every other nosy person at camp, which is everybody. “Just ‘cause Chiron’s not here doesn’t mean the rules go out the window. Back to your tables, let’s move.”

“We’re at our tables,” Cecil protests. “Why do people keep saying that?”

Annabeth takes a very deep, very long breath. She has a whole day of this, too. How unfortunate for her.

“Maybe because you are full of shit, Markowitz. Go sit with the rest of you troublemakers.”

Kayla clears her throat. “Annabeth, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” Her thin eyebrows are drawn tightly together, lips turned down into a frown. “Cecil is exactly where he’s supposed to be.”

That gives her pause.

That gives a lot of people pause. Nico sets down his coffee cake.

“Cecil’s at the Apollo table,” Annabeth says slowly.

Kayla meets her gaze, face creased in concern. “...Yeah, I know.”

“Cecil is a Hermes kid, Kayla.”

She snorts. “Yeah, sometimes I think so, too. But as much as I would absolutely love to trade my brother —”

“Hey!”

“He’s a healer, Annabeth. He got claimed and everything.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Annabeth says, dragging her hand down her face. “Kayla, I don’t know what they paid you —”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” With a clatter of plates, Will clambers on the table, clapping his hands. “Your attention please, everyone!”

Without so much as a pause, Will claps his hands together. Immediately, a ball of green light expands from them, flashing almost too bright to look at. Nico watches, slack jawed, as he tosses it into the air, making it explode into a thousand little sparkles, descending gently over everyone’s heads. The little kids laugh in delight, reaching for them like they’re bubbles.

“Does that settle things?” he demands.

Silence rings for one, two, three seconds.

The camp erupts.

Dozens of voices overlap, all shouting over each other at once. Hands gesture wildly at Will, at Cecil, at Lou — trying to piece things together. Will is their head medic — isn’t he? Then why is Cecil wearing scrubs? And why is Lou chilling at the Hermes’ table, chatting with Julia over a bowl of cereal? Something isn’t right.

“Just — everybody quiet!”

It takes a minute, but everyone settles down, sitting back in their seats and fidgeting, looking around with half-confused, half-amused smiles. Like they’re laughing at a joke they’re half convinced is real.

“Who thinks this —” Annabeth makes some vaguely indicative movement at Will, Lou, and Cecil — “is weird? Raise your hand.”

Almost all hands go up. Only a handful stay down — Will, Lou Ellen, and Cecil, of course, but the entirety of the Hermes cabin stays oddly silent, as do Kayla, Austin, Reika, and, shockingly, Clovis.

“Stoll,” Nico demands before Annabeth gets the chance, “you’re buying this?”

“Buying what?” Connor says after a moment. He shrugs, eyes twinkling in amusement. “I’m just chillin’ with my sister, Nico. Cecil is great, but he hasn’t been in our cabin since he got claimed.”

The rest of the Hermes kids nod in agreement. Whispers filter through the tables — first Kayla, now all the Hermes kids?

“If I may,” interjects Clovis, yawning. “There’s an…energy, around.”

“Gods, yeah, I was feeling it too,” Will agrees frantically. “Almost a…blanket, of some kind. Something heavy and stifling.”

Malcolm looks over with interest. “You think we got cursed, or something? The whole camp?”

Will shrugs. “Maybe? Can’t think of any other reason you guys are remembering things weird.”

“It could be a god’s interference,” Nyssa suggests, raising her voice to be heard from the Hephaestus table. “I mean, that’s what happened to Jason and Leo and Piper, right? Their memories got fudged.”

“Yeah, but camp-wide…”

“Could still be possible.”

“There’s no way! They’re fucking with us, come on —”

It doesn’t take long for the arguing to start up again. This time, though, more people looked spooked — more people look to the dumbass trio themselves, eyes wide like they’re looking at ghosts.

Like they’re believing this shit.

Nico scowls, shoving away from his table and stomping over to his boyfriend.

“You are so full of shit I can smell you from across the room,” he says, raising his voice to be heard over the noise.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” He wiggles his fingers in Nico’s direction. They spark with the same green light. “Want me to switch your eyes and ears again?”

That sounds horrifying. “Try it and die.”

“Alright, grouchy.” He holds his hands up, stepping back from Nico’s glare. “I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

Alarm bells go off in Nico’s head. This is more than just strange, it’s wrong. And not just ‘cause he looks different — so what if he looks different. Will could shave his head bald and tattoo himself purple, Nico wouldn’t care.

But his aura.

The essence of Will, that Nico has grown so used to be stopped noticing. The quiet, warmth strength, the feeling of a soft breeze in the summer, of walking past a window in the late afternoon, of smokey August campfires and scratchy guitar, is gone. Is different, rather; almost blocked. It feels like a cloud blowing over the sun, making everything warped and off and shadowy.

Something is afoot. Something is wrong, and not just some vague, made-up spell like the Trickster Trio would have the camp believe. Something like smoke and mirrors, something shadier.

He watches Will fall into step next to Cecil, ducking away from his ruffling hand. He frowns.

If there’s one thing Nico can do, it’s wade through the shadows.

———

next

I love things about Cecil and Lou ellen they are so underrated.

They need more love

Some Will, Lou Ellen, Cecil, and Nico hcs because their friendship is underrated:

Will's favorite movie specifically is The Empire Strikes Back. Cecil's is Turbo, Lou Ellen's is A Nightmare Before Christmas, and Nico's is The Wizard of Oz

Adding onto that, Cecil's top song of 2024 was The Snail is Fast and absolutely no one at camp was surprised at all.

Nico usually claims his favorite movie is something else (probably some slasher film, which he does like) but the real reason is because one of his only memories he got back pre-Lethe is going to see The Wizard of Oz in theaters with his moter and Bianca a bit after moving to the U.S.

I read a fic once where Lou Ellen was from Albany and it stuck in my mind.

In that vein, I hc that Cecil was the son of Hermes from Wisconsin that Hermes mentions in TLO.

Naomi took all of them to get piercings once when she was visiting. It was Nico's first piercing, so he just got his lobes pierced, but Will, Lou Ellen, and Cecil got matching industrial piercings on their left ears.

Will and Lou Ellen have matching stick and poke tattoos (a heart) on their ankles from when they were 14. Cecil was going to get it as well but he's afraid of needles and couldn't do it.

Lou Ellen tried to teach Nico simple mist manipulation when she found out his sister could, but Nico turned out to be pretty hopeless.

Cecil invited Will and Lou Ellen to his bar mitzvah even though he's only known them for like 5 weeks when he had it. His mother wasn't the happiest about having to find 2 additional plates with little time, but it happened.

All four of them listen to Naomi's music together, and even though Lou Ellen is goth and traditionally goth music she makes an exception for Naomi and will (and has) fought someone in her mortal school over them saying all country music sucks.

Lou Ellen does goth makeup on the Nico and Cecil, usually Nico though. She did it once on Will and everyone agreed he looked so weird they vowed to never do it again.

This is one hundred percent Canon they do this so much

Cecil and Will have that friendship where they run up behind the other and slap the other's ass. No matter what time, who they're with, where they are they WILL slap each other as hard as they can.

Nico Is so lucky to have him

Tried to fix the proportions of an older Will sketch cause they looked terrible🤔 hopefully this is better

I love this so much Deaf Will solace is one of my favorite headcanons

you don't have to know what to say or what to think on ao3

The first time it happens, it's an honest mistake.

(The times after that are also honest mistakes, but Nico feels like he should've known better.)

He's been working really, really hard to learn American Sign Language. After his three days in the infirmary, after working night after night, talking to Mr. D, struggling to learn how to open up to other people and how to finally be a 15-year-old teenager who tries his best to not let his lifelong trauma get to him too much, Nico di Angelo had become close friends with one Will Solace.

He'd never thought he'd be able to have a friendship with someone like Will. Someone who didn't take shit from anyone—he made sure to make that clear—, but was doting and cared for everyone else, sometimes a little too much. Someone who was as bright as the sun itself, who could light stars in the sky just by smiling, who could coax Nico's fears out of him and make him feel equal, not judged.

Someone who Nico could see himself loving.

Okay, and, woah, that might be a little too far, but was he wrong? He was finally allowing himself to feel hope after The Incident (mental trademark), letting himself have friends and a crush that didn't feel like ripping his insides apart and stir-frying them for dinner. So what if Nico's eyes lingered a little too long on the way Will's hair glowed against the infirmary's emergency lights?

(“Nico, when the siren rings and lights up, you stop everything and you go help!”, Kayla had yelled at him the first time it happened. He only felt death in the air after Will finally started running after the patient.

It was that bad.)

Who could blame him, then, for wanting to learn the language the boy he liked felt more comfortable with? Will had assured him that he did just fine with English, that his Cabin Nine hearing aids worked more than perfectly, but Nico had seen the way he got excited whenever he got to sign with someone. There were a few Deaf demigods around camp and Will knew every single one of them. Sometimes, he would sign while speaking, and it made Nico's Italian self happy because hand gestures! Then it made Nico's gay self happy because Will's hands, oh my gods, and then Nico wanted to learn how to make Will's face light up like that.

So, he learned. He got familiar with the computer in the Big House, watching YouTube videos on the matter, practicing in the mirror, going up to other campers who were signers and fighting social anxiety like his life depended on it. He had nailed most stuff by week three. The power of hyperfixations.

He did it all hiding from Will, of course. It was meant to be a surprise. He would walk up to Will, sign something, and Will would be like, “Nico, I didn't know you signed!”, so Nico would reply, “I learned just for you!”, and they'd hold hands and kiss and skip into the sunset.

A guy can dream, right?

“Hey, Nico!” Will yells out from the infirmary steps. “I'm done with my shift. Wasn't expectin' to see you here.”

Gods, his accent is so cute.

“I just thought I'd stop by, see how you were doing,” says Nico, preparing himself mentally for what comes next. “I have a surprise for you, actually.”

“Oh, you do?” Will gives his side-tooth smile, the one he does when he's excited for something he doesn't want to show excitement over.

Nico takes a deep breath.

“Food-you-want?” He signs, slowly but surely. “Me-hungry.”

Will blinks.

“Do that again.”

A warm feeling bubbles up in Nico's chest. Embarrassment, adoration, nervousness, teenage crush? He doesn't really know. He only knows that Will's cheeks look flushed and his voice is barely above a whisper, a tone Nico doesn't get to hear often, so of course he signs his sentence again. He'd do anything Will asks for.

“Do the last sign again.”

“Hum,” Nico starts, feeling a little off. He signs it again, anyway, placing his hand shaped like a C in front of his torso, following a line from the center of his collarbones down to the middle of his chest, then vice-versa. “It means 'hungry'... Right?”

Will takes a deep breath, face redder than Nico's ever seen.

“It means 'hungry' when you do the movement once,” he explains, carefully, doing the sign. The same handshape and movement Nico did, but just once, from the collarbone to the middle of his chest. “When you do the movement twice… It means something else.”

“What does it mean?”

They stare at each other. Nico's eyes are wide. Will's eyes are so blue. Nico would pay more attention to the blue if he weren't so preoccupied with—

“It means 'horny'. You signed, I'm horny.”

—With running away.

☀️🤟🏻⭐️

The second time it happens, Nico is still embarrassed by the first one.

Maybe it had been his fault to not pay a lot of attention when the online video he was watching went over the five parameters of ASL. But it wasn't entirely his fault the two signs were so similar, right? Will assured him afterwards—after he found Nico and after a few awkward laughs—that it was a very, very common mistake. The signs were really similar, after all. Nothing wrong with admitting that.

Still, Nico couldn't help but feel his face heat up every time he remembered that day. He'd told his crush he was horny. Unwillingly, sure, but it was sort of true! Nico was still accepting what being horny meant, but he knew that, even in the mildest sense of the word, he was horny for Will. Embarrassing, but honest.

So now, they were hanging out in the Hades' cabin, just the two of us and a bunch of DVDs they'd stolen from the Apollo cabin and Chiron's stash in the Big House. A mix of old rom-coms, sci-fi, noir, and historical dramas, limitless options, but they still argued over what to watch.

Nico suggested, finally, Back to the Future. Will adjourned his case.

As Will walks back from the DVD player, having put the disk in there, Nico takes a deep breath.

“You-eat-want-what?” he signs, going over each sign in his head like a mantra. He does not need a repeat of last time. Then, he raises his eyebrows, signing, “Pizza?”

Will goes as red as a tomato in the face.

“N-No, I'm good,” Will stutters, fanning himself like Hazel does when she's shocked. “Not hungry.” 

“You just came back from a 12-hour shift,” Nico deadpans.

“Let's just watch the movie.”

So Nico is taken back to nights at the Lotus Hotel, when they would have movie nights and play Back to the Future in a loop. Marty McFly might have been his first boy crush. Briefly, he imagined Will in a costume like that for Halloween. But, for now, they're doing just fine, thighs close enough to touch, Will's hand nearly making its way to Nico's scalp for some good head scratches, and life is good.

Sooner than Nico would've liked, it's curfew time. The DeLorean is long gone, and Will is rising up to his feet, stretching, his shirt riding up, and Nico sees the sliver of skin, with a little of hair on his navel, and, oh, gods, he shouldn't be seeing this, but Will is really handsome, and—

“Walk me out?” he says, sweet as ever, and Nico can't say no.

“I had a good time,” says Nico, leaning on the door panel. The moonlight makes Will's hearing aids glimmer.

“Me too,” Will replies, smiling. “The infirmary today was as excitin' as a mashed-potato san'which, good Lord.”

His accent got thicker the more tired he got, just like Nico's.

“Good-night,” Nico signs. “Sleep-good, you.”

Will's eyes linger on Nico's hands, then on his face. His expression is unreadable. It seems… fond? Happy? Nico doesn't know. He just knows he wants that big smile.

“By the way, Nico,” Will starts, voice a little serious, “this is how you sign 'pizza'.”

He goes through the motions. It's just fingerspelling, Nico notices. P-i-z-z-a.

Nico furrows his brows. “What did I sign?”

“You signed…” Will takes a deep breath. “You asked me if I wanted to eat, uh, the… The female genitalia.”

Nico slams the door so hard he doesn't know how Will keeps all of his teeth and nose intact.

☀️🤟🏻⭐️

The third time it happens, Nico is just plain tired.

He had been on a week-long trip for his father, working on some old business in Louisiana, fighting the occasional monster that came his way and shadow-traveling out of danger—no longer to an inch of his life because he didn't want to make Will worry about him. His clothes are a mess, his hair is greasy, there's soil built up under his fingernails, he hasn't had an actual meal in days, and he's exhausted to say the least.

After showering, eating, and bed-rotting any leftover worries away, he sleeps for fifteen hours straight. He wakes up still exhausted, though a little less, so he walks up to the infirmary since he has nothing better to do. Might as well get a check-up while he's there.

“Good morning, Sunshine,” he says to the head of blond hair when he sees it.

“Good afternoon, di Angelo,” Will replies, looking ready to tackle any challenge, bloody or non-human, that comes his way in his combination of scrubs, cargo shorts, and Jesus sandals. “You look like you're near 'bout past goin'.”

Nico doesn't know what he's saying, but shrugs anyway. “I'm tired.” Then, he signs, “Me-tired. Coffee, me-need.”

Will smirks.

“All you had to do was ask, Death Boy,” he replies, amused, and Nico lights up.

“You have coffee?” He doesn't know why Will looks so smug about coffee, in a way he's never looked before, but he lets himself be led to the infirmary kitchen, watches Will drape over the Nespresso machine, churning out a nice cup of pure, slightly-processed espresso.

The smell is enough to make Nico's eyes open a little more.

“Also,” Will says, putting his doughnut down by the table, still smirking for reasons unknown, “the sign for 'coffee' goes like this.”

He demonstrates. Nico barely follows, focused on taking a sip from his coffee.

“You signed, I need to make-out. You've gotta pay more attention, di Angelo, or— oh, my gods, Nico, breathe! You're gonna burn your throat! Nico!”

☀️🤟🏻⭐️ 

Nico is tired of failing.

It's not like he's failed-failed. Will has been more than helpful, willing to show him the ropes and correct his signs, and they've actually spent more time with the other Deaf campers, practicing and practicing. Nico is still fighting the flush that decorates his cheeks whenever he signs with someone else, but he's getting there. Anything for that megawatt Will Solace smile.

So, on the Fourth of July, as they're watching the fireworks, Will takes his hearing aids off, saying the noise makes it hurt. Nico gets a little antsy, but shakes it off, and would rather focus on the way the red, white, and blue from the sky makes Will's freckles change colors, too.

And he looks so good tonight. He ditched his usual medic attire for something still Will, a white tank top, denim shorts, an American flag bandana to keep his curls out of his eyes and flip-flops. Nico dressed similarly, but in a black t-shirt and black shorts, black socks and black sneakers. No bandana; only Will can pull it off.

The tank-top is low cut enough that Nico can see his tattoo peeking out. Gods, he's so beautiful, he thinks to himself, lost in thought he almost misses the way Will is waving his hand in front of Nico's face.

“Hi,” Will signs. “Here, fun.”

Nico nods.

“Confess-me,” Will signs. It's a closed fist by his sternum, opening outwards, like he's pulling something out of his chest. Nico translates it to, I need to tell you something, then nods again. Will takes a deep breath. “Me-like-you. Me-like-like-you.”

Nico's breath is stolen. He doesn't know where it went. He doesn't know what's going on. Off in the distance, someone whoops loudly and a group of campers cheer, but he can only focus on the opaque thump of the fireworks and his own heartbeat increasing pace against his chest. Will is staring at him, blue eyes like the sky, like the bandana, like the prettiest gemstone one could conjure.

“Sign-you-learn. Why? Me. Special-you. Me-like-you, why? You.” When he points at Nico, the final 'you', he does a flourish, like he's honoring Nico. You learned sign for me. You're special. I like you because you're you.

Nico feels words bubbling up in his throat, but doesn't let himself say anything. Instead, he moves his hands like he's practiced so many times in front of the mirror before.

“Me-like-you. Long-how? Long. Favorite-person, you-mine. Date-you, I want.”

I've liked you for a long time. You're my favorite person. I'd like to date you.

With that, he finally gets a megawatt Will Solace smile.

so nico di angelo canonically has nightmares of his loved ones killing or hurting him but he most certainly also has dreams of them dying too. i know he’s woken up in a cold sweat, blinking away vibrant crimson red behind his eyes, the only way able to return back to sleep is pressed against will’s chest to hear his heartbeat. or if will wasn’t sleeping bedside him he’s jogging in the dead of night to the apollo cabin or infirmary, shoulders shaking. desperately aching to iris message hazel, he had to see her face alive and her chest rising. he knows he would know if someone was dead or dying, but he doesn’t trust himself enough as it is. he’s lived biancas death a thousand times over, ran into her room and crawled under her covers just to convince himself he hasn’t lost anyone else

The Percy Jackson or any other characters that are living I my head rent free need to actually start paying rent now I can't handle this. I'm thinking about them all the time and they don't leave me alone so something needs to be done

If they are going to make me miss out on school work because I was making dumb scenarios in my head they have to do something because I don't want to work at McDonald's

They can't be in my head forever and be freeloaders

Will wakes up a little bit stuck and a lot bit hot. It’s just past sunrise, from what he can see out of the mostly-shuttered window, which means he’s just pat late. Fuck.

“Nico,” he whispers, trying and failing to delicately free himself, “Nico, un-octopus. I gotta pee.”

He does have to pee. Moreso, he needs to wake up and leave, but if Nico hears so much of a syllable pertaining to his abandonment he will never let go. Ergo. Will has learned some creativity.

“Mmfggh,” groans Nico, maturely. He tightens his arms around Will’s waist and buries his face deeper into the (boiling, suffering, sweating, etc) crook of his neck. “No. Suffer.”

“Nico.”

“Sh.”

“Nico.”

“Sh. I’m sleeping.” Will feels more than sees one eye opening, eyelashes tickling his skin. He can guess at the glare. “Don’t you want me to be well-rested and healthy.”

“Right now I kind of want to flick you, honestly.”

Nico hides a smile along Will’s spine.

“That’s because you’re sick and twisted.”

“Mhm. Get off, di Angelo.”

Nico pouts but, finally, relents: he loosens his hold not enough for Will to roll out but enough that he can actually fill his lungs with enough oxygen to wiggle his way to the edge of the bed. Nico, as soon as Will is not glued to him, huffs and rolls over, smothering himself in Will’s pillow.

“I see how it is,” he complains, muffled. “You don’t want me. Fine. See if I hold you next time you come in here all needy and affectionate.” He shifts just enough to glare, once he’s sure Will is looking. “I’ll close the door in your face.”

Will rolls his eyes, smiling. He’s late, but he lingers a moment, tracing his fingers across Nico’s spine, his ribs; trailing along the reddened scratches over his shoulders and ignoring Nico’s nooooo leave them leave them as he heals them.

“You’re such a drama queen.”

“I mean it!”

“Right. You meant it yesterday, too, and yet…”

“You seduced me,” Nico says, emphatically. He sits up quickly and catches Will’s hand, staring at him hard and serious — enough so that Will almost believes him, except the corner of his mouth twitches. “You — did some kind of spell fuckery on me, no doubt purchased from your various witchy sources, and all restraint — gone. Poof. And I have restraint in abundance, so obviously it was not my weakness.”

“Obviously,” Will agrees. “Not like you say my name in your sleep and wake up pouting if I so much as breathe near the door. ‘Course not.”

Nico goes pink. “I — do not.”

Will grins. “You do. Sometimes you try and kiss the air where you imagine I am.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“Whatever you need to believe, darlin’. It’s not like I’m allergic to lying.”

He leaves Nico sputtering, cackling on his way to the ensuite. It is half the reason he’s dating Nico, honestly. How come Will’s cabin doesn’t get an ensuite? They’ve got like a billion people in there. They need it more than he does.

But, well. Will needs an ensuite to get ready most mornings, because he’s up before the harpies are cleared for the night, so he supposes he will just have to sleep at Nico’s more often than not. Shame. Tragedy, really, because he is just so attached to his twin bed that is not long enough for his legs. Too bad.

“I can hear you rearranging products in there,” Nico calls, still grouchy. “Cut it out.”

Will turns the last tube of hair gel so it is just slightly off-centred from the rest of the products. He smiles around his toothbrush.

“Wouldn’t be such an issue if you didn’t have so much hair shit,” he responds, spitting into the sink.

“You should have more hair products! Look at yourself!”

Will does not. He does not have a sister who continues to look judgementally upon his mess of a head and passive aggressively but lovingly gift him hair supplies for all birthdays. He also does not have time to do his hair. Less people should maim themselves for Will to handle all day, and then maybe he’ll do something with his hair.

“You think my hair is sexy,” Will says, walking back into the main cabin. Nico harrumphs from under the covers, notably not denying it, and states unabashedly — not that there is much to see, since it’s still pretty dark out — at Will while he changes. Will slips on a scrub top and then walks over and pinches him.

“Ow,” Nico whines, rubbing the spot as if he did not try to hide the stab wound he got sparring from him yesterday. “You hurt me.”

“Mhm. You objectified me.”

“…Only a little!”

Will shakes his head, smiling, and leans down — holding Nico’s wandering hands away from the hem of his shirt, he has places to be and has been distracted enough already — to kiss him. It’s a challenge, pressing his smile to Nico’s pout, but very quickly Nico sighs, eyes fluttering shut, and Will can kiss him properly.

“I’ll come wake you up again around noon if you’re not already up,” he murmurs. “I have to open the infirmary, but then I’m practicing for the rest of the day. You’re coming to my game, right?”

Nico tries to slide his hands up Will’s chest. Will bats his hands away.

“Yes,” he says, mournfully. “I will come watch you hit a ball around with other such interested jocks.”

“Bring your pom-poms,” Will says, cheeky, “and I wouldn’t remiss a matching skirt.”

He pulls away to Nico’s snorting laugh, wiggling his fingers in a wave as he heads to the door. He hears Nico’s quick have fun, goober as he pushes the solid obsidian shut behind him and blows a kiss at the window. He stands on the veranda, stretching, and relaxes with a sigh, staring across the common.

Gods, it is early.

And cold.

He trudges his way to the infirmary, anyway, already anticipating tonight’s koala cuddling.

———

next

an umbrella for those april showers 🌧🌂☔

[Headcanon]

Headcanon that while Nico can dissapear in the shadows if he abuse so much his powers,Will can disappear in the light once he used too much his powers.

Image a Will,that worked all day in the infirmary and abused his healing abilities to the point his hands start to glow,and he start little by little to become transparent untill he is literally incorporeal. And the only way to stop this process is having enough darkness to make sure that Will can find a support to hang on and not become light,since the dark stop the process. So Nico use the shadows to wrap them around him (and control them so they don't try to eat Will like they do to him) and make sure that,little by little,he come back to being corporal again.

Viceversa,if Nico is slowly dissapearing in the shadows,Will can just keep them away from him with his presence (son of the sun god after all),and make sure Nico is safe from them.

They are soulmate your honor.

No because I think that Will believes he has to be perfect every moment of his life so when he's not perfect or does something wrong he takes it out on his body so the amount of scars on his body is so sad

I love will so much

funniest thing about percy jackson and will solace is that they’re actively suicidal but they’re so chill it’s easy to forget. so you get gems like:

will: worst part about trying to kill yourself is that if you fail you just have to go to work the next morning.

percy: oh gods. real. like heaven forbid you get time to try again or anything it’s all nooooo you gotta go save the world or some shit. fucksake.

will: RIGHT

literally anyone else: Hey What The Fuck

hi um can you draw lou ellen? like in any way or pose or with whoever i just really like your lou ellen design :)

YEAHHHHH LOU BABY

i’m getting through art reqs at the speed of molasses but i’m getting there.

i’m currently in japan so the going is slow.

I really want to redraw this✨️☠️

You should reblog this no matter what it could save someone's life one day

LISTEN UP AGAIN KIDS STOP REBLOGGING THIS FUCKING GARBAGE POST. IT IS 100% FUCKING BULLSHIT AND CAN AND MOST DEFINITELY WILL LITERALLY KILL. DO YOU NOT SEE WARNING LABELS THAT SAY “DO NOT INDUCE VOMITING”? THEY AREN’T FUCKING AROUND. YOU CAN FUCKING BURN THEIR ESOPHAGUS BY CAUSING VOMITING, CAUSE CHOKING, DROWNING, OR MAKE IT WORSE! AGAIN DO NOT FORCE ANYTHING DOWN ANYONE’S THROAT. THEY. CAN. DROWN. IF SOMEONE IS LOSING CONCIOUSNESS ALL THE CHIT CHAT IN THE WORLD WILL NOT PREVENT IT AT THAT POINT THEY ARE IN SERIOUS DANGER. “Buuut i don’t wanna take them to the hospital!!!” WELL SUNSHINE GLAD YOU’D RATHER HAVE A DEAD FRIEND THAN A LIVING ONE BUT YOU’RE IN LUCK CALL FUCKING POISON CONTROL. THEY ARE NOT THE COPS. THEY WILL HELP YOU. AND IF THEY SAY GO TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL YOU GO TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL. NO EXCUSES. 0. NONE. I have seen this shit cross my dash SO MANY TIMES so PLEASE fucking reblog this and prevent some well meaning idiot from accidentally killing someone they love!

prev

-- -- --

The last thing Will destroys is --

The last thing Will destroys, is.

-- -- --

He picks, flowers, once. Fidgeting. 

He watches Anthracnose bloom from the cratered burns in the centres of his palms and devour the things up to the tips of their petals, leaves curling in blackened rot.

He burns them.

-- -- --

"You get quiet, sometimes."

Will faces him. Nico watches carefully, eyes blank. Will wonders if he learned that from his cautious father, from the undead that kept him company. He stares back, and prays his own eyes are ice. 

"Many do."

Nico smiles. Small, quick, fleeting. Amused. 

"Indeed."

He burns with questions. This, he cannot have learned from his father -- Will remembers a boy, dark-eyed and mischievous, wide-mouthed and non-stopping. He remembers the winter afternoon and Lee muttering to himself, scowling, about a motormouth worse than Will's. He remembers crouching by the entrance of the ampitheater, breath caught in his lungs. He remembers wild, cackling laughter, and cheering sons of thieves. 

That boy resurfaces, sometimes. 

"Are you thinking?" Nico grimaces as he says it, shrinking back; but it is too late, and Will has acknowledged him. "Of -- something, I mean. Working something out."

Will places his head on his knee. "I'm thinking," he agrees softly. "I wish I wasn't."

"How anti-intellectualist of you."

Will cracks a smile. "Yes. You've cracked my master plans -- once the rest of this foolhardy camp has succumbed to my brainwashing, I will easy control the complacent masses."

"I think I have to kill you," Nico says sagely. His eyes sparkle, like granite. "Your threat is too great."

Will tries to hide the panic in his face. He does not succeed, because Nico frowns. 

"Hey," Nico says, hand outstretched. "You --"

Will scoots back, pressing his back to his bunk. His heart thunders, his pupils shrink.

"Ha," he says, weakly. "You got me."

He turns so his forehead touches his patellae, and breathes carefully through his mouth. He stays there until Nico stops staring. 

He hides his fevered palms in between his thighs.

-- -- --

Sometimes Will thinks he was destined to die at four, in penance. He should have choked on his own disease, his own plague; but he did not, and the only thing that died in him was the sparking flame Prometheus gifted them all, blown to matted ember in the stalk of his chest. 

Instead his brothers watched his shame bubble out of his mouth, circle him in clouds of spores, and they lied for him. They clung to his bloody hands and pushed him behind them. And then they were slaughtered, as were the punished firstborns, for the crime of their knowing existence: Will, marked, stood on their shrouds and ashes. 

He smells of guilt, he thinks. Of guilt and germ and rot. He hides it, in all the antiseptic he can bathe in, in all the ethanol he can consume. But his breath still stinks of it and his lying tongue burns. He is tall, removed from those around him; they cannot see the sores in his mouth or the inflammation of his throat from years and years of choking hands. Bandages hide the bright red spots up and down his arms. Burn scars cover his blackened fingernails. 

But the tallest obelisks are swallowed by the length of their shadows. And nothing can hide from Fate, from the servants she sends to collect for her. 

Nico gets closer, and closer. His hands are cool compresses on the hidden sores on Will's skin. It is relief, as he is never felt it.

Will is afraid.

-- -- --

"Connor is cute," Will blurts, one day, catching Nico looking. He swallows, hard, and the wail of his failures -- his victims -- echo louder than the crack of his heart. "He's, uh. He's into boys, you know."

Nico snorts. "Connor is into money," he says, turning away. He meets Will's eyes with a grin. "He found out I have an infinite credit card and proposed on the spot. He wept when I turned him away."

Will fights the urge to sigh. He is unsurprised that Connor is a gold digger -- if anything he kind of respects the commitment to the bit -- but he just wishes --

He's not blind, Will. Or maybe he is and it's just that Nico is so obvious. He is always -- looking, always, when Will is standing, when he is slouching, when his hands twitch and when they are shoved into the hollow of his chest, hunched over at the campfire. Will can feel the pinprick of his gaze when he is startled into laughter and when he climbs out of the cabin in the middle of the night, gasping, and crawls onto the sun-warmed roof to face the stars. He watches and he touches, featherlight: Will's elbow, the shell of his ear, the sensitive small of his back. 

He guards, too. This one Will has noticed the most. When Will cannot find the breath to fill his lungs, or when his hands shake too badly to thread the suture needle, Nico stands like a shadow two paces ahead of him. And the whispering voices that follow Will's every stumble are glared into mute, mum terror. And the aching tired muscles of his back go lax. 

Connor is cute. 

Will wishes, with all the audacious hoping he has left, that Nico cared about that kind of thing.

-- -- --

"Will. Hey."

Will realizes, abruptly, that he has automatically leaned into Nico's gentle touch. He wrenches forward, bile rising in his throat -- if Nico is offended, he does not show it. 

But he does not move his arm. His big, sky-black eyes watch him, round and steady, until Will forces his breathing to even. 

"I have something to tell you."

The souls on Will's shoulder screech so loud he flinches.  Death! they cheer. Death! Death! D --

Nico watches him critically. "You know, I think."

"I can't," Will blurts, and hunches in on himself. "I can't, I'm not --"

"Into boys?" Nico finishes. He does a good job of hiding it. The hurt. He keeps his hand light and careful on Will's wrist, thumb brushing over the edge of his bandages, and a safe distance between them. Friendly. He has more strength than he realizes. It is only in the smallest twitch of his mouth, that it is obvious, in the watery gleam of his dark, dark eyes. 

Now, Will has -- 

He inhales, quick and short. No exhale comes after.

There is an easy escape, here. 

He cannot tell a lie. They burn him, coming up his throat, and are always shroud in smoke and warning. His father has many domains and it is the job of his heirs to reflect them: Lee had healing, and charm. Michael had the gift of the shot. Cass had prophecy, Diana poetry, Kayla her bow, Austin his music. Dozens more that Will met and loved and who died before him carried on dance, light, education. Will's father is a warm, bright man: he shines upon his children and endeavors to make them beacons among their peers, laughing, trustworthy fortune-tellers and music-makers. 

But there is more to the Sun than warmth and light. The Sun brings dry desert, and heady drought; the Sun cooks and it burns and drains a man's sanity out of his ears and onto the sizzling sands. The Sun is all-loving, and it is unforgiving. For every one hundred children there must be one to represent his father's shame, his rage, his fear; for every one hundred children one must coil the snake in which the Sun will meet His end, devoured and digesting. For every one hundred children there must be one who is marked, who is covered in rotting, rancid scales. Will has been shadding as long as he has been alive. For every hubric act of divine grace he forces he must match in decay from the bottom of his own soul. When he opens his mouth, his truth is obvious, it is evident: when he speaks, lies burn him, as they bolster the devil. Will cannot tell a lie. 

But he can nod, if someone guesses. If someone presumes his silence for contempt or his neglect for dismissal, he is not beholden to their correction. He cannot lie, but obstruction is outside of his father's domain, and he has no responsibility for it. 

Nico watches him, heartbroken. Hand still stubbornly extended, beating muscle bleeding with every pump. 

He could nod. He could say: sorry, and squeeze Nico's hand. He could take one step backwards and let his hand fall.

It would be so, so easy.

"Ton angélon," Will chokes out. His hand twitches, in Nico's hold; Nico frowns and brings up his other hand to match, squeezing until the spasms stop. "You are celestial, Nico, you are breathtaking, you're --"

Nico inhales sharply. He blinks once and his eyes open wide, brown in the gold of the sun; amber, cassiterite, quartz. The bow of his perfect lips drops, slightly, mouth in a perfect, shocked little O. Will blinks and a crown of thorns digs into his marble temples; he shakes his head and necrosis climbs up his sharp jaw.

"I ruin everything I touch," Will says, hoarse. "I destroy -- all that is innocent, all that angels breathe life into." His heated hands glow, under bands of cotton; green pulses through his eyes and his pores, and he flinches wrenching them away. "There is nothing of me worth holding, Nico."

Will is expecting nothing because he has forbidden himself from imagining it. Or, he is expecting rejection. He is expecting disgust.

He cannot say in good conscience that he is expecting offense.

"I'm going to smack the shit out of you."

He opens his squeezed shut eyes. He sees Nico's hands, first. Still gentle. And then his narrowed eyes, his sideset jaws. 

The failures resting on his shoulders are silent. 

Will stares, breathing heavy. His hands twitch. 

"You think," Nico begins, and stops himself, breathing out through pursed lips. "You think I -- care? That you've lost people?"

"It's more than that," Will says, desperately. Nico takes a step forward and all the thousands of souls on Will's head scream, at once; he flinches, shoulders aching, hollow stomach scraping against the shake of his spine. "Nico, you guide people, you shepherd them --"

"And you save them from me!"

Nico takes another stubborn step forward and Will can't turn away fast enough, he cannot duck out of his strong fingers on either side of his chin and can't pull away from his magmatic, furious eyes.

"Death is inevitable," Nico says calmly, firmly. "Some deaths cannot be prevented. I'm -- making my peace with that, Solace. I am not the plague I think I am." Will makes a low, groaning noise. Nico smiles sadly. "You are not to blame for your mistakes, either."

Will realizes, abruptly, that he will never be able to say it.

He is not sure who has designed this. It could be the shame, balling solidly in the back of his throat; it could be his many victims, coiling tightly around his neck. It could be his father's warning hand: grow out your hair, child. Keep your marked forehead to yourself.

He swallows, and pulls back. Nico lets him, dark eyes narrowed and curious, head tilted. In the Hades cabin there is nothing for him to destroy -- there are bones, and stones, and raging fires -- but the only lively thing is Nico, and he is doing a fine enough job on his own trying to wiggle under Will's stained palms, drying to swim close enough to the blood he is drowning in to choke to death on it.

Instead, he picks at the yellowed bandages. It takes time, to unroll the layers, but the cotton piles at his feet, and his forearms are bare: layered, upon unflinching burn scars, are varicella spots, EB blisters. Open, weeping sores, cracked skin and inflamed blisters. A spot, where the first drop of Lee's blood hit his skin, that is black and rotted. A patch of reddened rashing that wraps around his elbows.

Nico lurches. Will tucks his arms quickly away.

"I'm contagious," he says, softly. He ducks down and scoops up the bandages, stumbling fingers pressing them back against his skin. "I'm okay, in small doses. But loving me is -- poisonous." He always struggles to tie the last strand. He is not, for all his trying, ambidextrous, and his right hand is clumsy along the cut of his wrist. He blinks aware the moisture in his eyes and yanks on it, frustrated -- he has to leave, quickly, before he can endure the humiliation of Nico's horror, of his disgust. But if he leaves his arms uncovered than someone will -- see.

They'll see, and they'll know.

Deathdeathdeathdeath, murmur his spirits.

Will swallows. I know.

"Stop," says Nico, voice cracking and hoarse. Will squeezes his eyes shut, as his voice gets clearer. "Will, stop it."

"Please," Will begs. "Don't tell. I'm careful, I promise, I can -- I can keep it under wraps, I can control myself --"

He is surprised, again, by Nico's sob. By the balm of his cool fingers on the heel of his hands and the contained unit of his weeping.

"Those look like they hurt," Nico whispers, lump in his throat. He traces his fingers, slowly, over the criss-crossing bandages, removing them carefully. Will, stunned, lets him. He peels them all off and stands, on hand on either wrist, turned so he can inspect the scarred and infected insides. "Gods, Will, this -- you must be in agony --"

He is, he supposes. Or: he always has been. But it is quiet most mornings, and the ache is dull by evenings. The pressure of elasticized cotton is as familiar as the weight of a t-shirt.

"I can handle it," Will insists. He tugs, but Nico holds firm. "It is penance, anyway. There was none of this -- before."

Before he watched his cousin burn into the air. Before he heard his brother's back crack clean across Manhattan. Before he poisoned dozens of demigods, as hurting as any other, for the crime of pain and anger. Before he pieced together the fractured pieces of Lee's skull. Before the shriveled crow cawed three times, beady eyes reading the black rot of his soul.

They came one by one by one.

Slowly, Nico walks him back, until his tailbone hits his bed. He presses, gently, on his aching shoulders; Will sits, bewildered, and watches him flit away, watches him sink into the shadows and appear halfway across the room, with an armful of new bandages, first, then a tube of cream, a jar of nectar.

"Nico," he says, quietly.

"Shut up," says Nico hotly. There are still tears in his eyes, and every fifth breath shudders. "Just -- sit down and be quiet."

Will sits. The roar, even, of the dead, is only simmering; curious as he is.

Nico is gentle, when he heals.

"Drink this," he orders.

Will takes the nectar. "It won't work." He drums his fingers against the glass. "These are -- marks, Nico." He exhales. "Punishments."

Nico stares, jaw set.

Will drinks.

It tastes like cloying sweet. It always does. Like a strawberry on the wrong side of soft, like the underbrush of autumn. It does not fix the viruses who have made home in his systems -- he knows the sound of them dying -- but it does, for a moment, ease the ache.

"You're dumb," Nico says, when he has finished. His voice is short, eyes hard. "For -- the best medic in centuries, you're fucking stupid."

"Comes with the self-destructive tendencies," Will says drily. "Takes one to know one."

"That -- okay, fair. Fair. But." He tilts Will's face to meet his eyes, softening. "That means you have to listen to me, okay. I know what I am talking about." He pulls down the collar of his shirt, stretching down to his sternum. Will inhales, sharp -- where there should be skin, and muscle, there is nothing but dry, gnarled ribcage, right in the patch of space around his beating heart. Nico breathes slowly, heart slowing. He releases the shirt and Will stares through it, eyes wide.

He kneels by the edge of the bed. "I'm marked, too."

Will takes his hands when he offers. The shouts of his victims scream: death! Death! Look what you have done to him!

But the ice cool of Nico's hands reminds him: not everything is yours.

"We can be outcasts together," Nico suggests. He quirks a smile. "Something very Greek about that, I think."

A bubble of hysteric laughter escapes Will's chest. "Like -- Patroclus."

"And Achilles long after."

Nico's breath is warm against the scarred skin of his knees. He stays there, eyes soft, hands gentle around the ring of Will's wrists. He doesn't seem to mind Will's twitching, or the awful, palliative smell of him. He seems drawn to it, actually, breathing deeply.

"I'm scared," Will admits, voice small. "I don't want to hurt you."

Nico inclines his head. "I'm half-dead anyway." He squeezes gently. "You'd have to try pretty hard."

The last thing Will destroys is --

Will is going to be destroying things for a long time.

There will be other wars. Battles. There will be moments, when there is screaming, when Will's lungs coil in his chest, and smoke pours from his mouth. There will be moments when the herbs he picks wither and die in his hands.

Deathdeathdeathdeath, wail the voices.

Will inhales. The clean air settles deep in his ruined lungs, sweet and cooling.

"Try," Nico says, jaw set. "Me. Us. You -- loving, I mean."

Will nods. The pressure lifts from his throat.

"I will."

So here's the thing I feel like Nico (when his trauma gets better and he starts to feel safer at camp) will sleep for like 10 hours with naps But Will on the other hand he is running on like 2 hours of sleep, Black Coffee and Monster mixed together and a prayer

feel free to explain your answer, and follow for daily pjo polls + fandom creator works! 🌊🌩️☠️💎

Will soap

He looks zesty in my opinion

ranking the best things I have heard surgeons say mid-surgery:

1. "Five second rule!" while scrubbed, after dropping a sterile scalpel on the floor (no they did NOT pick it up again but I swear everyone's buttholes puckered)

2. (spoken during the closing of a particularly long and difficult case) "Nurse - my tunes." :heavy metal starts blasting:

3. Gently to a fretful patient, pre-anaesthesia: "It's going to be okay. I promise, I've dealt with worse." As soon as the patient is unconscious: "This is literally the worst thing I've ever seen."

4. [okay this one was a med student] "Wowwww, that's so gross!!" Reg: "Please remember that [patient] is awake for this procedure." Student to patient: "Oh my god. I am so sorry, that was really unprofessional - " Patient, cheerfully, also engrossed with what's happening inside them on the screen: "Nah - it's, like, super gross, right?"

5. [another procedure where the patient couldn't be put under GA] Patient: *starts singing country roads midway through the procedure* Surgeon: *shrugs and joins in with surprisingly good harmony*

Twin Where have you been

Headcanon

Will introduced Nico to Dress to Impress and now Nico is super obsessed and cannot stop playing it