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I
The highest rooftop of Candy Castle was their favorite place to stargaze. They were rarely interrupted, and even then it was only ever by Will’s butler - the only person aware of their relationship. They could lay on fluffy pillows and blankets that Will brought out of the castle, and they could stare up at the moon and stars until one of them, usually Will, fell asleep.
Nico pressed into Will’s side, cuddling close to him and turning his attention away from the stars. “I always forget how warm you are,” Nico mumbled. “You don’t expect candy to be warm.”
“That’s just because you’re, like, below freezing all the time,” Will replied.
Nico propped his chin on Will’s chest to look up at him. “Well then, Mr. Smart Guy, maybe you should invent something to warm me up.”
Will wrapped his arms around Nico and frowned. “Am I not good enough for you all of a sudden?”
Nico pulled himself up until he and Will were nose to nose, about to respond when the door to the rooftop opened.
Nico’s smile dropped when he saw who was in the doorway, and he floated himself out of Will’s grasp. Will sat up and spun around, about to scold his butler for interrupting them when his eyes landing on the burning figure in the doorway.
“Flame Prince!” Will exclaimed. “What are you doing here? Who let you up here? What do you want?”
“Woah, dude, calm down,” Leo replied. He glanced between the two of them, slowly saying, “Uh, what are you two doing here?”
“Leo,” Nico snapped, crossing his arms. “What do you want?”
“Oh, uh.” Leo hesitated before throwing a thumb over his shoulder and shuffling back a few steps. “You know what, it can wait. I’ll come back, uh, some other time. See you later, PB.”
“What the bomb, Leo!” Nico shouted after him, slamming the door that Leo left open when he ran back down the stairs.
He floated back over to Will, dropping into his lap and leaning against his shoulder. “Great, Leo never learned how to shut up. He’s gonna tell everyone.”
“I thought I was the only prince you called by his first name,” Will muttered.
Nico made a pfft noise, but glanced up to see that Will was serious. “I call everyone by their first name, prince or not.”
“Oh,” Will said. “I guess I just thought I was special.”
Nico twisted around until he could hold Will’s face in his hands. “Hey, stupid, you are special. You’re the only one that ever asked me to call you Will. Everyone else gets super bothered by it, which is the only reason why I continue. If you want, I can start calling you prince again. Would that make you feel special?”
Will wrapped his arms around Nico and pressed his face into Nico’s shoulder. “Don’t even think about it.”
II
Nico didn’t know what Will was working on, but he certainly didn’t understand why he wanted to focus on that instead of spending time with Nico.
In Nico’s opinion, he wasn’t being much of a distraction, either, so there was no reason for Will to kick him out of the lab. Especially when he had nowhere else to go while the sun was still high in the sky. All he could do was wander the castle until either the sun set or Will finished his research, so he decided to make his way up to Will’s room to hide - the candy people might get suspicious if they saw him hanging around too much.
He barely made it out of the entrance hall before the front double doors burst open, and Nico instantly turned invisible to avoid being spotted. He floated closer to the figure now walking through the room, and allowed himself to be seen once again once he was directly in front of her.
“Hey, Annabeth,” he said, causing Annabeth to jump back and shriek.
“Oh! Hey, Nico,” she replied after a second.
“What’re you doing here?”
“You know, hero things,” Annabeth said with a shrug. “Human things. Girl things. I dunno. I thought I’d drop by and see if PB had any dangerous quests he needed someone to go on.”
Nico crossed his arms and huffed. “He’s too distracted by all the dumb stuff in his lab, I doubt he’s got any adventures for you.”
“What are you doing here, then?” Annabeth asked suspiciously.
“Nothing!” Nico said, too fast, too loud, too defensive. “The, uh. The sun was rising, and I had to take cover, so I jumped in here. And now I can’t leave.”
“Mhm, sure,” Annabeth replied with squinty eyes. She reached over her shoulder and into her backpack, slipping out an umbrella and holding it out to him. “You can borrow this, if you really want to leave.”
Nico glared at the umbrella, and tried to glance inconspicuously over his shoulder at the door to Will’s lab. “Uh, no thanks.”
“Then what are you--”
“Nico!” Will’s voice came from behind him, followed by the slamming of a door. “Nico, I figured it out!” Will ran toward him, grabbing his arms and dragging him down once he got close enough, and pressed their lips together. “All I had to do was-- Annabeth! How long have you been standing there?”
“I knew it!” Annabeth exclaimed.
“No, wait, uh--” Will shoved Nico away suddenly. “This isn’t what it looks like?”
III
The problem with having a secret relationship was that there was no one to talk about the relationship to. Sure, Nico could talk to Will’s butler if he wanted to, but that seemed weird, and there was no way in the Nightosphere that he was going to talk to Leo of all people. Thankfully, there was suddenly a new option, and Nico made his way over to Annabeth’s treehouse on a cloudy day.
He floated through the window into the living room, where Annabeth appeared to be playing video games.
“Yo, Neeks, what’s up?” Annabeth asked when she spotted him.
“Can I get your opinion on something?” Nico asked, spinning his guitar around his back until he was holding it in his hands. “I’m working on a song. For Will. Nobody else knows about us, so you’re the only person I can ask.”
Annabeth paused her game. “Yeah, sure, let’s hear it.”
“Okay, great.” Nico took a breath, strumming his guitar a few times before he starting singing. He made it a few bars into the song, too focused on the words and that his fingers were on the right chords to hear a door opening and someone entering the room.
“Are you singing about that candy guy?” someone asked, and Nico’s fingers caught on the strings. He spun around to face the new person in the room, spotting a boy that looked like another human.
“Prince Bubblegum,” Annabeth corrected him.
“Yeah, him. Are you singing about Prince Bubblegum?” the boy asked again.
Nico’s eyes darted between the two of them in fear before Annabeth said, “Uh, Nico, you know Percy, right? From the Hyooman tribe?”
“Another human?” Nico exclaimed.
“No! No, not human--”
“You can’t tell anyone,” Nico insisted, pointing at Percy threateningly before launching himself back out the window he came through originally.
Annabeth ran to the window and shouted after him, “It’s a good song! I think he’ll like it!”
IV
Nico had been getting up before the sunrise so that he could safely get to Will each day, and the lack of sleep was really catching up to him. The sun hadn’t even fully set by the time he was going to bed one night, and just as he was falling asleep, the ground started to shake with the sound of too much bass, and he could hear cheering from somewhere above him.
He grumbled to himself as he threw on the first clothes he could find - skinny jeans and a sweatshirt, one of Will’s that he’d left behind the last time he was there - and waited until the last bit of sunlight had left the sky before he went outside. He decided that the noise must’ve been coming from the cemetery above his cave, and he groaned at the thought.
Nico floated into the cemetery - loud but dark, thankfully, so he was certain that no one would notice the bright sweatshirt he was wearing - and went straight through the crowd of ghosts gathered and dancing to the blaring music.
“Bianca,” Nico called into the crowd, and soon enough he found Ghost Princess herself.
“Nico, you finally came to one of my parties!” Bianca cheered, rushing toward him for a hug but phasing through him instead.
Nico rolled his eyes. “I came to ask you to quiet it down, I’m trying to sleep.”
“Well so-o-orry, but ghosts can’t sleep,” Bianca reminded him. “Besides, we’re having a party for Silena’s deathday. You have to hang out for a little while.”
“No, Bia, I’m tired,” Nico complained. “Just turn the music down and let me sleep.”
“I’m not turning the music down--”
“Excuse me,” Will’s voice came from somewhere through the music. Nico could see the vague shape of him through the crowd of partially transparent ghosts, as well as a few Banana Guards and assorted candy people, all carrying torches to light their way. “Excuse me, Ghost Princess!”
“Over here, Prince Bubblegum!” Bianca replied, waving a ghostly hand in the air.
The crowd of ghosts parted as Will and the candy people came closer - or maybe they all just phased through the dancers as they went. “Princess,” Will started, “a few of my candy citizens are complaining about the noise. Could you possibly--” His eyes strayed away from the ghost and toward the vampire behind her. “Nico? What are you doing here? I thought you promised to stop throwing wild parties after what happened last time.”
“Hey, I didn’t start this!” Nico argued. “I was trying to get them to be quiet, too!”
Bianca frowned, looking between them. “Neeks, he should be afraid of you. Why isn’t Prince Bubble Butt afraid of you?”
“Hey!” Will cried, as Nico shouted, “Don’t call him that!”
Will took a few steps closer, carrying his torch with him, and stopped when he got a better look at Nico. “Are you...wearing my sweatshirt? I’ve been looking for that!”
Biana spun around to face her brother and gasped. “You’re wearing pink! Pink isn’t scary, Nico! You’re supposed to be scary! Did you at least steal that from him?”
“No! He left it at my house--"
“Are you two together?”
“Alright, candy people! Time to go home!” Will cried frantically, and turned around to leave in a hurry.
“Oh my glob, Bianca! Would you shut up before every ghost and candy person in Ooo finds out?” Nico shouted, and froze when he realized what he’d said. He’d flat-out admitted it. To his sister!
In a moment of panic, Nico summoned the skeletal remains buried below them in the cemetery and used them as a distraction to rush back into his cave.
V
When Nico didn’t wake Will up the next morning, Will didn’t think much of it. Until he went to Nico’s house in the cave and couldn’t find him there, either. He climbed up the hill to the cemetery they’d been in the night before, and he searched for Ghost Princess’s grave - Bianca di Angelo...the same name as Nico?
Will summoned the princess while holding an umbrella over her grave so that she could manifest in the middle of the day, and asked if she knew how to find Nico. She offered him an incantation to reach the Nightosphere, though he should only use it if he was truly desperate to find him.
Will performed the spell inside Nico’s living room, not wanting to waste time in going all the way back to the castle. It felt like it was hours after that that he finally managed to get an audience with the ruler of the Nightosphere, Hades himself.
“Excuse me, Your, um, Scariness,” Will started, “I’m looking for your son. Nico. Do you know where he is?”
“Of course I do, I know where all of my children are, at all times,” Hades responded. “He spends a great deal of time with you, it seems. Who are you, and why are you looking for him?”
Will hesitated, unsure of how Hades would respond to what he was about to say. “I’m his...boyfriend. I just want to make sure he’s okay.”
Hades nodded. “He seems happy with you, you know. He’s never happy here, but I assume you’ll be taking him back with you, yes? He’s been moping in his room all night, through that door and down the hall. You’ll know it when you see it.” He pointed to one of the many doors that led out of the room.
“Thank you, sir,” Will said, and got out of there as fast as he could. He hurried down the hall, checking each door he passed until he spotted one lined with skulls and other bones. Very Nico. Definitely the right door.
Will knocked once, not waiting for a response before he walked inside.
Nico was slouched in the corner on the floor, guitar in his hands and strumming a mellow tune, singing along softly. He didn’t seem to notice that Will had entered the room.
“I hope that’s not the love song you promised me,” Will said, and Nico startled at the sound of his voice.
“How did you get here?” Nico asked.
“Ghost Princess gave me an incantation,” Will told him. “Also, why didn’t you tell me that she’s your sister?”
“I didn’t think it was important,” Nico responded, dropping his gaze back to his guitar and resuming his strumming.
Will crossed the room and sat down in front of him, leaving a fair amount of space between them. “Why would you think that?”
Nico shrugged. “It’s not like we’re ever gonna have a relationship that people will know about, so what’s the point?”
“Well, what if we did?”
Nico frowned and glanced up again. “What?”
“What if we told people? Or at least stopped hiding our relationship? We can stop acting like it’s a big deal whenever somebody new finds out about us, and we can just be...happy together.”
Nico’s eyes widened at the thought, but Will knew him well enough by now to know that he would think this was too good to be true. “But you’re a prince. You can’t date just anybody, you have to be with royalty.”
“Hey, babe?” Will said, scooting closer until he and Nico were side-by-side. “Technically, you’re a prince, too. Some people even call you the Vampire King. I don’t think it will be as big of a problem as you seem to think.”
“You don’t think people will be weird about it?” Nico asked, leaning into Will’s side.
“Your dad didn’t seem to care, so I think we’ll be fine.”
Nico jumped away from Will’s side like he’d been shocked. “My dad knows?”
+I
Just because Nico couldn’t eat didn’t mean that he couldn’t cook. Will loved his cooking, and Nico loved to cook for him.
Nico was making breakfast in his kitchen, wearing sweatpants and one of Will’s shirts, drinking the red from a strawberry every so often while he cooked the bacon and eggs in a pan. He was standing flat on the ground, something he rarely did, especially around Will, but he hadn’t heard the other moving around upstairs yet, so he figured he had a few more moments to stand around.
A pair of arms slipped around his waist from behind as he was plating Will’s breakfast, and Nico immediately lifted himself off the ground.
“Hey, don’t do that,” Will said, voice deep and rough from sleep, tugging Nico back onto the ground until he was once again shorter than the prince. “You’re cute when you’re short.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Nico demanded, twisting in Will’s arms until they were chest to chest.
“I don’t know, I’m basically still asleep,” Will replied, smiling down at him. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Sweetheart,” Nico said back, and rose up on his tiptoes to kiss his boyfriend. He hummed when he pulled away and licked the sugar from his lips.