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When Will was ten, his mom told him about the markings on his bad. She called them a tattoo and a soulmark, and told him that only one other person in the entire world had a tattoo that matched his. That person was his soulmate and they were meant to be together for the rest of their lives.
Will had demanded that Naomi take a picture of his soulmark right away so that he could memorize it and make sure that he knew what he was looking for in other people’s soulmarks.
His tattoo had appeared over his spine, in between his shoulder blades. The main focus of the tattoo was a simple black and white human skull with a yellow-orange sun behind it. A strange image for a ten-year-old, but Will couldn’t wait to see the image in person across someone else’s back.
Five years later, Will still hadn’t found his soulmate. People say that if you haven’t seen your soulmark on somebody else by the time you’re thirteen that you’ve met your soulmate but haven’t been looking in the right places. Will knew that, after seeing so many people at camp who had met their soulmates, his had to be there somewhere, but his soulmark was just in too inconvenient of a place. It was easier to ask someone to roll up their sleeves than to ask them to take their shirt off completely - that was just uncomfortable. And rude, sometimes.
He had his suspicions of who might be his soulmate, of course, but either he’d been proven wrong by seeing the lack of a soulmark on that person’s back, or they were hardly ever at camp for Will to find out.
That is, until the end of the battle against the Romans. Nico was back at camp with a reason to stay, and Will hoped that he could be a reason for Nico to stay.
The first time that Nico had been in the infirmary after returning from his trip around the world, Will had been too stuck in doctor mode to pay too close attention to any marks that might or might not be on his back. What he did see were gashes, inflammation, and the worst stitches he’d ever seen.
He’d spent so many hours with Nico fixing his stitches and wrapping him in bandages that he didn’t even think to look for a soulmark, and by the end it was too late. Nico had practically passed out by the time Will had finished cleaning up all of his supplies and so he’d left Nico to rest.
In the morning, Will brought a tray of food specifically for Nico. He offered it to him while the injured demigod sat up on his bed, and once Will had handed off the tray, he started to leave the room.
“Oh, wait!” he said, spinning back around and plucking the apple off the tray. “Sorry, that’s not for you.”
Nico raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t I be eating plenty of fruits and vegetables or whatever?”
“Well, sure,” Will started, “but an apple a day keeps the doctor away. We don’t want that, now do we?” He winked as he took a bite out of the apple. “Enjoy your breakfast. I’ll be back in a little while to change your bandages.”
Nico frowned. “You’re not even a doctor, though!”
It was about half an hour later that Will came back with a roll of fresh bandages and a few other supplies. He paused in the doorway and smiled at Nico.
“You make me have premature ventricular contractions,” he said, and his smile brightened when Nico frowned.
“What are you talking about?” Nico asked.
Will shrugged. “Not important. How are you feeling?”
“My shoulders are a little sore, but other than that I’m fine,” Nico answered.
“Alright,” Will said, and sat down on a chair next to Nico’s bed. “Take off your shirt so I can change your bandages.”
Nico nodded and complied, tugging off his shirt carefully and turning so that his back faced Will. He carefully took a pair of scissors and started cutting away Nico’s bandages carefully. The swelling across Nico’s shoulders had gone down overnight with the help of the nectar and ambrosia he’d been given, so his back was mostly a web of stitches now.
“Well?” Nico asked. “How’s it look?”
“I’d check your blood sugar normally, but you look sweet enough to me,” Will told him. “You know what? I’d like to take your temperature, you look pretty hot right now.”
“You...what? What are you talking about?” Nico asked, glancing over his shoulder at Will.
“You’re making good progress,” Will said. “I might even be able to take the stitches out soon, if the swelling keeps going down.”
“Oh. Well, that’s...good, right?”
“Yeah, really good,” Will replied, though he sounded a little disappointed. “You’ll be out of here in no time.”
“Oh, cool!”
Will sighed, starting to gather bandages to rewrap Nico’s wound.
“Are you alright?” Nico asked, seeming to notice his sudden attitude change.
“Yeah,” Will said, suddenly cheerful again. “Just catching my breath. I hope you know CPR, since you’re taking my breath away.”
Will had used just about every single one of his pickup lines on Nico, but he hadn’t gotten a single positive reaction. That had to mean that there was no real connection between them, right? So he should probably stop trying. It just wasn’t fair - why did everyone else at camp get to be with their soulmates when Will couldn’t ever seem to find his own?
When Will went to check on Nico’s healing progress that day, he decided to stop prolonging Nico’s stay and take his stitches out. He probably could have done so the day before, but he hadn’t yet given up on the fact that Nico might be his soulmate.
He’d been staring at Nico’s back for a week, how could he still think there was a chance for a soulmark to suddenly appear?
Nico had started telling Will about a dream he’d had the night before as Will started the long process of taking out the many stitches. He was going to miss being able to talk to like this every day, miss the adorable look of confusion he always had whenever Will said one of his pickup lines to him.
Will had removed about half of the stitches by the time Nico had finished describing his dream, and pointed out how quiet Will had been that day. “Are you alright?” Nico asked.
“I’m good, I’m--” Will froze when his eyes focused on the mark on Nico’s back. It was marred by scratches and red from lingering inflammation, but there was no mistaking it to Will’s eyes. He’d know the mark on his own skin anywhere, and he’d studied the five year old picture so many times that he could never forget it.
“Will?” Nico asked.
“I think you’re suffering from a lack of Vitamin Me,” Will said suddenly.
Nico almost laughed as he looked over his shoulder. “What?”
“You must be my coronary artery, because you’re wrapped around my heart.”
“Will, what are you saying?” Nico twisted around to face Will, and Will set down the tweezers and tiny scissors he’d had in his hands.
“Are you COPD?” Will asked, leaning forward. “Because you take my breath away.”
“I feel like you’ve said that one before,” Nico told him. “Or something similar, maybe.”
“You’d better be a cardiologist, because something about you makes me want to give you my heart.”
“You-- What?” Nico asked. His eyes widened and his cheeks grew faintly pink, which was the best reaction Will had ever gotten out of him.
“Do you know about soulmates?” Will asked, and it took a long pause for Nico to realize that Will wasn’t about to finish some line, but he was genuinely asking him a question. “Do you know about that tattoo on your back?”
Nico frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Will stood up and turned his back to NIco, tugging his shirt up by the back of the neck until the tattoo between his shoulder blades was visible.
“Do you see this?” Will asked. “It’s a sun and a skull, and you have the same thing on your back! Don’t you know what this means?”
Nico shook his head, so Will dropped his shirt and sat back down, moving closer until he and Nico were knee to knee, and he grasped Nico’s hands. “You’re my soulmate.”
“Soulmate?” Nico repeated, and Will beamed.
“Are you my appendix? Because I have no idea how you work, but this funny feeling in my stomach makes me want to take you out.”