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To everybody at camp, Nico and Will were natural enemies. Nico was reclusive and aloof, but Will was a tactile social butterfly. Nico preferred a darker aesthetic, flitting between emo and goth in style, whilst Will liked to wear bright colours as much as possible. Nico was sarcastic and easily angered, whilst Will was kind and calm. Nico liked the shadows, Will liked the sunlight. Nico radiated death, Will radiated health.
That’s why Nico and Will were able to keep their relationship secret without trying to hide it. They were hidden in plain sight, with all the flirtatious banter and lingering touches being overlooked because nobody expected them to even get along as friends. But in truth, Nico and Will would wait until after dark and they’d meet up, usually playing mythomagic or video games, both tired but unable to sleep because of nightmares or insomnia. They’d hold each other close, reassure each other that it would all be okay. They’d share gentle kisses, nervous and tentative in an experimental young love, learning each others boundaries and getting to know each other. Both demigods knew more than most how it felt to have your trauma overlooked and pushed aside.
Nico was a son of Hades, not welcome, not important enough for people to care enough about, somebody who was expected to make his own way through life with no guidance, constantly trying to impress and falling short, he had to fight and he had to be strong, no time for tears, no room for weakness, and his suffering made people uncomfortable- because it forced them to confront themselves in a mirror- people had to look him in the eye and remember how they’d turned a blind eye or contributed to his pain. Will was head medic and head counsellor, he had no choice but to be okay, because he was needed and he was expected to be able to deal with other people’s trauma, despite the fact that he was still a child, not qualified or trained or supported enough to be able to carry that burden, not good enough or strong enough or powerful enough for it to matter if he was okay- only the fighters mattered because only they were of use, so only they needed to be healthy and happy.
So both boys knew how it felt to be the one who couldn’t cry, who wasn’t supposed to hurt, wasn’t expected to hurt, was expected to stay silent on their problems; the ones who’s suffering made other people uncomfortable, thus people turned a blind eye, pretended they were okay because it eased everybody’s consciousnesses, made them more comfortable to turn the other cheek. So Nico and Will understood each other, because deep down, they were both children who’d lost their childhoods to trauma, who were expected to be perfectly healthy and happy adults, okay all the time, responsible and depended on, despite still going through puberty, still dealing with trauma unsupported, and still trying to find their places in the world.
Nico and Will didn’t have the freedom to choose what they would become- Nico would be a soldier, a martyr, and Will would be a healer, a service. They were nothing more than cogs in a machine, bricks in the wall. They were resources to be exploited, no recognition for their importance, no free will to choose who they’d become or how they’d live, they were born to be used with no choice but to conform to the roles they were born to do.
And that’s why they weren’t enemies, because they were the same. They were allowed to hurt, allowed to cry, allowed to be selfish with each other. They were allowed to break the mould, to break from the heteronormative chains and love each other, to break from toxic masculinity and cry together, to break free of a functionalist and capitalist system that demanded conformity and demanded that they work themselves to the bone just to be accepted. When Nico and Will were together, they were defying a system that would pit them against each other. They were rebelling against the harshness of the world they were born in to share tender moments of resistance, harmless, to be youthful, to be childish and play games, to be grown up and date and kiss, to be themselves freely without worry- they were allowed to be traumatised, allowed to cry and break down, allowed to open up about their issues without everybody breaking them back down with their refusal to acknowledge that they hurt too, that they were important too, that they were only human, that it was impossible to fulfil the roles expected of them efficiently without it taking a serious toll on their health. Being together was healing in an otherwise detrimental lifestyle that they were condemned to by blood from birth.