Archive of Our Own

Nico woke up in the dark. It took him a second, but he registered the cot under his back, the crickets chirping, the windows of the Apollo cabin. That was right. He was still there, under orders. 

Something--someone--was hovering over him, just out of his field of vision. Nico could hear breathing.

He reached for his blade, and then thought better of it. The cabin was quiet and dark. He could sense the rest of the patients and campers, rather than see or hear them. Whatever was hovering didn't feel menacing.

He gambled. "Will?"

"Hey," Will said, his voice quieter than a whisper. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Did I say something?"

"You moved." Nico could just make out Will passing his hand over his hair. "At least, I think you did. You're the only person back here."

When Will put it like that Nico hoped he'd been the one who moved. "Sorry," he said, sitting up. "If I was dreaming, I don't remember it."

"Okay," Will said. "Sorry. Can I just--I want to check."

"You can put a light on or something, if you want to." Nico was a little unsettled now, anyway.

"Thanks. After everything, I just..."

"I get it," Nico said.

A light swept into the corner, and something scrambled away from it. "Oh, crap," Will said.

"It's fine," Nico said. It was small and scared, after all. "Just a squirrel."

"We can't have a squirrel in here!"

"It's not trying to kill us," Nico said. It probably wasn't, anyway.

"Okay, but we still can't have a squirrel in here." 

"It's fine. It's probably sleepy. How hard can it be to catch a squirrel, anyway?"

In Nico's defense, he realized what a stupid thing it was to say as soon as the words had come out of his mouth. Will kept warning him not to use any shadow magic, not that he had any better ideas, and they didn't want to hurt it, or wake anyone else up. In the end, Will tossed an empty bandage box over it--"Good shot," Nico had whispered--and they worked together to slowly push the terrified animal out the door.

The moon was half-full, but pretty bright, which meant that Nico got a pretty good look at Will when they were standing just outside the cabin, catching their breath. The light caught his curls. 

More importantly, he looked like he was ready to drop.

"When was the last time you slept?" Nico asked.

Will looked like he'd been caught stealing from the medical supplies. "Wha--I've slept."

"You've napped."

"It's been--" He looked back into the depths of the cabin. "I need to take care of them."

"Which you can't do without sleep. I'm gonna be awake for a while. You were saying earlier everyone was stable. Why don't you sleep? I'll wake you up if anything happens. I promise."

Will stared at him for a second, wide-eyed, and Nico was afraid he might pass out. "Okay," he said. "But promise."

"I told you. I promise." 

Will nodded, slowly, and disappeared back into the cabin.

Nico sat down in the doorway and looked out at the night. He listened while Will settled down. He felt a little creepy about it, but if Will didn't actually go to sleep...

The camp was usually quiet overnight. Chiron and Dionysus were pretty clear about lights-out meaning lights-out. Sometimes you saw a dryad flitting around, but that was about it. It sure wasn't like the Lotus, where the party never ended unless you were tired, or the enforced silence at the school. This part of camp he'd always been okay with. 

It was better at the Apollo cabin, too, just as it had been better when he'd had Bianca or Hazel in his cabin. The Hades cabin was too silent when it was empty. But sitting here looking out at the rest of the camp, it felt a little more like home.

As much as he hated to admit it, getting some rest had helped, too. He felt more solid and stronger than he had since he'd been imprisoned. He wouldn't tell Will, though. Will was going to be smug enough already.

He'd meant it, about wanting to be Nico's friend. He'd been fussing over everyone, but Nico had caught him looking over, watching Nico as he rolled bandages or brought food over to the others helping in the infirmary or following whatever order Will had barked at him last. He'd talked about Nico to some of the other campers, like he was making a case. Look at how helpful Nico is, he said without saying it out loud. He's not scary. You want to be his friend, don't you?

Nico got the whole 'son of Apollo' thing, now. Apollo didn't always know when to stop, either. Will was like morning sunlight, bright and warm...and persistent to the point of annoying.

And, okay, fine, cute. And it felt good when they touched, and Nico felt warm when Will smiled over at him.

It felt different than it had with Percy, and not just because he knew Will was noticing him. Things had changed. He'd changed.

The rest of the night was pretty quiet. One of the girls from the Nike cabin came over because her bandage kept coming off, but Nico could handle that with a little more tape. "Will okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, just sleeping. He needed rest," Nico said.

"He sure did," she said. "I thought he was gonna topple over yesterday. Thanks for looking out for him."

"Of course," he said, a little taken aback.

Will didn't wake up at sunrise, so Nico promised Kayla he'd do her cabin chores for a day if she grabbed breakfast for them. The smell of bacon and eggs finally got Will out of bed.

"Hey," he said. "Anything happen?"

"Nicole's bandage was coming off, so I gave her new tape. Kayla brought this."

"Oh, nice." He slid into the other folding chair in the ramshackle break room they'd put in the cabin while people were recovering. "I'm starving."

Will looked better too. He had more color in his face, and his eyes were brighter in the morning sun. Nico watched him take the first few bites before he realized he was staring.

Will stopped and caught his eyes. "Thanks," he said. "You were right."

"Can I get that in writing?"

"Yeah, you're funny."

They went back to eating for a while, the noise of camp around them. It was still subdued, but there was definitely more activity than there'd been in the early days after the battle.

"You're the one who made me rest," Nico said, more quietly. "I figured I owed you."

"Well, you needed it, especially if you were gonna take off. But I'm glad you're staying," Will said.

That hit Nico square in the chest. "Me too," he admitted. "I'll still go back and forth some, but we all can,  if we want to."

"What's Camp Jupiter like?" Will said.

"Orderly. But it's beautiful. More like a city." He did his best to describe it, which wasn't exactly his strength, but it seemed to give Will a pretty good idea. Somehow that led to them talking about Austin, where Will had grown up, and about Westover Hall, and even about the Lotus Hotel and Casino. Will was easy to talk to.

Will got up and stretched after he was finished eating. His t-shirt rode up, so Nico saw just a little of his stomach. "Thanks again for helping last night."

"It wasn't really any work."

"With the squirrel, too." He shook his head. "Let's hope we never have to do that again."

"Yeah. At least it wasn't trying to kill us."

Will grinned. "Not yet. You never know, around here. I guess it's past time for rounds."

'Rounds' wouldn't take long, since there were only three people still in the infirmary.

"I can clean up," Nico offered. 

"Thanks," Will said. "Don't push yourself, okay?"

"I'm cleaning up," Nico said. "I'll be fine."

Will put his hand on Nico's shoulder for half a second and went to check on his patients.

Nico went back to his cabin for a change of clothes and took a shower. Technically, Will's three days of infirmary time were over, but Nico didn't want to leave him alone to do all the work. There were other healers at Camp Half-Blood, but none of them seemed to work as hard as Will, and they all listened to him, which meant they weren't going to be the ones to tell him to stop working and get some rest. Nico had gotten pretty good at rolling bandages and he was pretty sure he wasn't creeping the campers out as much as he had, which was worth something.  

He checked his face in the mirror. He looked okay; his eyes weren't hollowed out any more. Maybe he could get Will to leave camp for a little bit, or at least walk out of the cabin. They could see how the rebuilding was going. His mind filled in other things; holding hands, finding ways to be out of sight. What kissing him might feel like.

When he was at the Lotus Hotel and Casino, he'd walked into the bathroom once and seen two men, together, one with his knee between the other's legs, breathless, still clothed but--

He'd run away, not able to understand the churning in his gut.

It had been the early nineteen-eighties, he thought, because they had a color TV in their room by then. Bianca had known something was wrong, but it had been later that he'd finally, sort of, told her, as much as he'd been able to wrap his head around it all. She'd hugged him and told him she loved him, and he'd shrugged her off for being mushy, and they hadn't really talked about it after, but he'd known that she knew, that she hadn't forgotten, that she loved him for who he was, no matter who that was.

There'd been other times. Cops who came in and never left and decided that busting guys in the stalls was just what they were supposed to be doing. The world changed, but the Lotus didn't, and Westover Hall sure hadn't talked about anything like what you should do when you realized you wanted to kiss boys, not girls.

He owed Jason Grace. He owed Reyna, and Coach Hedge. They'd just accepted him, the way Bianca had. It hadn't exactly meant he was ready for Will Solace's...everything, but it hadn't hurt.

Hey, Will, he rehearsed in his head on the way back to the cabin. So I was wondering. If everybody's stable, maybe we could take a walk?

Maybe that seemed too casual. He wasn't good at this. He wasn't good with people, even people as aggressively friendly as Will Solace. His mother had talked a little about his father, but not at all how they'd met, and whatever had worked for romance in 1920s Italy was unlikely to be effective on someone as comfortable in the 21st century as Will.

Yan was sitting by the door when he got back to the cabin. "He's sleeping again," she reported. "Thanks for getting him to rest earlier."

Nico just nodded. It was pretty obvious he had no interest in seeing Nico roll more bandages, and it was going to be weird if he just hung around the cabin, so he went to see Chiron to see if there was anything he could do.

"Aren't you confined to the infirmary?" the centaur asked.

"Three days are up," Nico said. 

"Well, if you want to take inventory, I think they still need help in the kitchen. When the camp gets attacked, it always screws up our inventory control system."

Chiron was right; a daughter of Demeter shoved a clipboard into his hand and put him over in the dried goods.

It kept him busy, and for a while he thought it was going to be okay, that he didn't need an emotional support demigod, that maybe Will was right that Camp Half-Blood really was where he belonged.

Then came dinner.

Percy had eaten alone for years, except for the few months Tyson had lived at camp. Nico didn't know how he managed to stand it. (Sometimes, even now, he understood why he'd had such a crush on Percy.) Thalia had managed it. 

Nico hated every second of it. It had been a lot easier, and a lot more fun, sneaking sandwiches and chicken nuggets near the infirmary in between whatever task Will had set out for him. He didn't feel like there were a thousand eyes on him the way he used to, but it still felt lonely.

Chiron called him over after dinner, and asked him to look over the graveyard, check in for restless spirits. It was probably just busywork, but it was weirdly comforting to realize that it was something he could do, that he was good at, but that it wasn't the only thing he could do or be good at.

He sat by Cecil at the campfire that night. He didn't sing, but he didn't feel quite as much like an outsider.

He wanted to check in on Will again before he went to bed, but Will needed to sleep, and he was probably sick of Nico hovering around all the time anyway. Maybe he'd be proud of Nico for trying to make friends. 

Nico was being ridiculous.

He went to bed, and was tired enough that it didn't take long for him to get to sleep.

When he woke up, the moon was bright again, and it had cooled down overnight. He threw a sweater on before he opened his door--

"You can't leave!" Will Solace said, looking directly at him, his eyes wide and panicked.

Nico blinked at him, still sleepy enough that he didn't feel shocked. "What?"

"You said you weren't going to leave, but then you--" He stopped. "Wait."

"I'm not leaving," Nico said. His brain had started working again. "Are you okay?"

"I had a dream," Will said. "You were here, and you were angry, and your sister--" He stopped. "Oh. I think...I think that was a memory. Oh." He stepped back a little. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have come out here right now. I should have--"

"It's okay," Nico said, quickly. It should have upset him, probably--he held his memories of Bianca tight--but it hadn't been that long since he'd seen Will in his own dreams. And Will clearly hadn't meant to eavesdrop; he hadn't even realized what he'd been dreaming.

"I should have thought," Will continued. "I don't want to bring back bad memories. I shouldn't just barge in and--"

"Can you...can you wait here for me? I was going to--" He gestured in the direction of the bathrooms. 

"Oh. Yeah. Sure," Will said. "Don't rush. I can wait."

Nico rushed anyway.

Will was sitting on the end of Nico's bed when he got back, looking down at his hands. "I'm sorry I freaked out on you. That's never happened to me before. I mean, I've had prophecy dreams, but nothing like that. I just got scared that you were going to leave, and not even say goodbye."

Like I have every other time. "I wouldn't," Nico said.

"We just lost so many people," Will said. "And I didn't want to lose you."

Nico took Will's hand. That electric spark hit him again. "I wouldn't leave without telling you. I won't."

"Thank you," Will said after a second, and squeezed his hand. 

"Do you want to go for a walk?"

"Now?"

"We don't have to," Nico said, too fast. "I know we're way past lights-out, and--"

Will grinned. "What're they gonna do? We helped save the camp, right? The least we deserve is a break. Besides, I bet everyone else is out cold. I don't think anyone noticed me when I came here, and I was running."

"...you were?"

Will got up and pulled at his hand. "Come on, let's go. You've been walking around, right? Show me what they rebuilt."

Nico let Will lead him around the camp for a while. He wasn't wrong about how quiet it was. Not much had changed, really, but it was interesting to see where they'd rebuilt stronger. And the new boat house was nice. They'd stolen some ideas from the Roman camp; it looked more formal, but more spacious, too. 

"I might be able to see it all in the daylight tomorrow," Will said. "Everyone in the infirmary is finally stable. If we're not both too tired to do it. I feel like my whole internal clock is screwed up."

"I was in Greece a few days before all this. I don't even know what time zone it is any more."

"Eastern," Will said, teasing, squeezing his hand again. 

"What about Texas?"

"Central," Will said. He was standing so close their arms were almost touching. "Just an hour earlier."

"So it's the middle of the night there, too?"

Will nodded. "But Mom's on tour right now. I think she's in Portland tomorrow--Oregon. Out on the West Close. Closer to Camp Jupiter."

"She ever talk about your dad?"

"Not really," Will said. "Once I found out I was a child of Apollo, some of the things she'd said made sense. She didn't know, but I think she...kind of guessed that Apollo wasn't just an ordinary folk artist. She had a couple of songs she'd written that she told me reminded her of him. And she always sang 'Here Comes the Sun' to me. Like a lullaby."

Nico tried to remember if he'd heard the song. "Sounds right for Apollo, I guess."

"Yeah. Whenever I hear it...I guess I feel loved. Because it's like I'm back with my mom again."

"I don't remember a lot of songs from when I was a kid. I heard a lot of...casino music, I guess? Lot of loud stuff. Big bands, and then disco. There weren't many lullabies." Especially not after Mom died. "It sounds nice."

"Oh, hey, the sun's starting to come up," Will said. He hummed a little. Nico wasn't any musical expert, and it sounded a little off-key, but not really grating. Not at all like Will's whistling. It was warm and comforting. 

Nico leaned into him, and Will leaned back. Nico's heart started pounding.

"We should get back to our rooms," Nico said. Chiron would be doing rounds soon enough. He didn't think they'd get yelled at, but the odds of them being the hot topic of camp gossip were pretty high. Nico was pretty sure neither of them wanted that.

"Probably," Will said, and didn't move. "Sit with me at breakfast?"

Nico nodded.

He tried to sneak back to the Hades cabin without getting noticed, but Chiron caught him just as he walked through the door. "I was up early," Nico said, "I was just--"

"It's fine," Chiron said. "Just don't make a habit of it, all right?"

"Okay." He felt his whole face getting hot. Was he too pale to blush? He hoped he was. He'd never had to worry about it before.

"And don't let Dionysus catch you. You know how he can get."

Nico nodded. He listened as Chiron clopped away.

Will had saved a seat for him in the dining pavilion. "Hi," he said. "How's it feel to be free of the infirmary?"

"Pretty good," Nico said. "How's it feel to not have any patients needing critical care?"

"Really good," Will said. They smiled at each other, and it should have felt dorky, like something out of a bad movie, but it didn't. Will's hand came over and covered Nico's, just for a second, before they went back to eating. 

I should have kissed him this morning, Nico thought. Or at least tried to.

"So," Will said. "You up for the three-legged race?"

"The what?"

Harley came up with a three-legged race," Kayla, Will's half-sister, said. "It sounds fun."

Nico was pretty sure it didn't sound fun, but Will had already heard how upset Harley was about Leo. 

"We can be partners," Will said, his thigh pressing against Nico's. Nico felt heat rushing over his body. 

"Okay," Nico said.

That was early in the days of the three-legged race, when it was just a death trap, not a death trap set in the Labyrinth. "This is awkward," Nico said, fiddling with the brace.

"Yep," Will agreed, watching him with some amusement. He'd gotten his on in less than ten seconds. "It's good, though. Gets us all focused on a goal, and active again. We don't have to do as much...thinking about things."

That was true. Nico had done enough thinking for a lifetime. 

Their legs were pressed together when they were both in the brace. Nico tried not to think about that too much.

The whistle blew, and they ran. The path was clear for the first hundred yards or so, but then it passed behind a tree and branched out.

The campers scattered. Nico and Will, who had been doing reasonably well, almost wiped out on a tree root, but Will caught Nico's arm and they kept going. "This way," Will said. "I think I see an apple."

"Okay," Nico said, and they ran together. Will had been right; the apple was carefully balanced on a branch of one of the apple trees by the archery range. He had to reach up on his tiptoes, but grabbed it. "One of three," Will said. He looked good when he stretched, lean but muscular. Nico became suddenly, deeply aware of how their legs were pressed together.

There was no one else around. "Hey," Nico said. "Do you want to--"

"I think we're stuck in the leg braces until we're done," Will said, which made Nico think that Will had been thinking along the same lines.

That was disappointing. "Okay, let's find two more."

"When we're out of this," Will said, "do you want go out on the lake? Maybe take a kayak?"

Nico paused. "Like a date?"

"Yeah," Will said. "Like a date. I would...really like that. If you want."

"I would too," Nico said.

Will's face broke into a smile. "Okay," he said. "Good."

Then, of course, the ground shattered beneath them.

That was always the way it went, wasn't it? 

Nico cursed.

"Was that Italian?" Will asked, as the dust cleared.

"Um...yeah."

"Cool," Will said. "You hurt?"

He took stock. "No."

"Even better. Where do you think we are?"

"A pit?" He looked up. He wondered where Hazel was. She would've handled this without breaking a sweat. It wasn't as easy for Nico. "I think we just fell down, not...into another plane of reality or anything. Do you think the Hephaestus kids dug this, as a trap?"

"I don't know," Will said. He reached out and touched the side of the pit. "It feels more natural than that, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. Maybe an old cellarhole that got covered over? But if there were any out here, I think we would have figured it out before now. Hazel might have noticed, or even one of the Demeter campers."

Will thumped a little on the side of the pit. "Yeah, that's true. Ideas for getting us out of here?"

"I could--"

"Without shadow-traveling," Will said. "You just got out of the infirmary."

"You're no fun," Nico said. "And you don't seem to have any better ideas."

"Look, worst case scenario they find us when they sweep for the missing runners, right?" Will squinted. "Come closer, there might be some handholds."

"Yeah, hold on," Nico said, hobbling over. They bumped into each other a little, but Nico didn't mind that. "You think we can climb up with three legs?"

"We can try," Will said. "I don't love being underground, honestly."

"You can hang on to me if you get scared," Nico teased.

"Ha, ha--" His fingers dug into the earth. "Oh, hey, soft spot." He considered. "I could have you boost me up, but--"

"Three legs," Nico said. "Look." He held up his hand. "I'm completely solid. I'll just take us up to the surface. I know where it is, so it won't take much out of me."

"We can wait," Will said, looking unsettled.

"Let's see if we can get out of the brace," Nico said. "We'll just forfeit, it's fine. No one will even notice anyway. Or we can put it back on when we're back up."

Will considered it. "Okay."

Nico kneeled down. "Just hold still." He'd had more trouble putting it on than Will had, but maybe it'd be easier to open. And Will wasn't loving being this deep in the dirt. Nico didn't want him to have to crawl around or anything.

The brace had two buckles, and some kind of lock connecting them. "You have a file or anything?" That was ridiculous, of course Will wouldn't have a file.

"Like a nail file?"

"Yeah," Nico said.

"Hold on," Will said. "I've got a metal one here, somewhere." He dug around in his pockets. "You want clippers, too?"

"I don't think so--what do you have?"

"Usual stuff. Nail clippers, file, band-aids, burn cream. Floss. Nectar, of course."

"Floss?"

He could feel Will shrug above him. "Sometimes you get stuff stuck in your teeth. I don't like toothpicks."

Nico pried open the lock with the file. Yes. "Got it," he said, standing back up with the leg brace in his hands. "Let's see if I can boost you up now--"

Will kissed him.

Nico almost jumped, but Will was close, warm. He felt like the sun. Will took Nico by the arms and pulled him closer.

Nico dropped the brace onto Will's foot.

Will yelped and jumped back, but Nico caught his arm before he went slamming into the dirt. "I'm sorry," he said.

"I--I'm sorry," Will said. "I didn't mean to freak you out."

"You just surprised me," Nico said. "I didn't mean to drop it. Is your foot okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it's fine." Will looked at the ground. "Um. We should figure out how to get back up."

"Can I kiss you again first?"

Will looked up, smiled. "Yeah," he said.

He didn't mean to kiss Will for very long, and maybe he didn't, because the Hephaestus kids were the type to set a sensor on the lock, weren't they? At any rate, it didn't take long for the giggling to start. Nico glared up at the ring of kids around the pit.

Will scratched the back of his head. "Um, could someone throw down a ladder? Some rope?" He still had his hand on Nico's back.

"You took your brace off to make out!?"

"We did not--" Nico sighed. "Just get us out of here. Please?"

There was plenty of teasing, but one of the kids in the Nike cabin had been working on a rope ladder--the reasons weren't clear, and Nico was pretty sure that he didn't want to know--and they climbed up. Austin and Sherman had found three apples, anyway, so Chiron called the race and sent a couple of kids from Athena and Hephaestus to inspect the pit.

"You know," Drew Tanaka said, mock-casually, when they were in line for dinner. "If you want to make out, the boat house is pretty quiet."

"Um. Thanks?" Nico said.

For once, it wasn't that bad to eat dinner alone. The whispers got annoying, but at least no one was doing it right to his face, and they weren't doing it because they thought he was creepy or weird. Will kept catching his eye from across the pavilion, and it looked like every single Apollo camper was teasing him. Sorry, Nico mouthed at him. Will just shook his head.

They caught up with each other after dinner. "Jaipreet told me the best place in camp to make out is in the woods by the big rock," Will said.

"Boat house, I heard," Nico said.

Will laughed. "I'll keep taking suggestions."

"Did you want to go kayaking?"

"I'd love that."

Drew hadn't been wrong about the boat house. Not that Nico was about to tell her that.

There were ducks in the lake, diving for fish and chasing each other in the reeds. "It's nice out here tonight," Will said. His hair caught the light like he was some kind of movie star. It should have been annoying. Nico didn't feel annoyed.

By tomorrow the camp would probably be back to its usual level of chaos, with combat and screaming and Capture the Flag, but things were pretty subdued. Nico could hear the hammering from the campers working in the pit, so it wasn't like any of it was completely silent. "Hey," he said.

"Yeah?" Will had stopped paddling, not wanting to disturb the ducks and kind of shifting his weight a little in hopes of drifting closer.

"When you--when we were talking to Octavian. You were really," Nico tried to find the right word, and gave up. "Angry."

"Yeah."

"At me."

Will looked away. "Yeah."

"Did you have a crush on me?"

"I don't know," Will said. "Maybe. I wanted to be your friend. And...you always seemed so cool."

"Cool?"

"Yeah. I mean, you came to camp on my dad's chariot. You'd been on quests."

"Yeah, but--"

"You saved the camp."

"Helped save it."

"Still. It was cool."

He'd never thought of himself as cool. "Really?"

"Yeah," Will said. "Really."

"I'm not really that cool."

"You don't have to be," Will said. "It wan't about that. I just...wanted to be your friend. And it felt like--it felt like you just wanted to push people away, and then you complained--" He shook his head. "I shouldn't have yelled, probably."

"You know, you're cool, too," Nico said. "Not everybody can heal. And what you did with Octavian's dogs was amazing."

Will smiled at the water. "I'm good at annoying people."

"I don't think you're annoying. Well. Not all the time."

Will nudged Nico's foot with his own. "I like you," he said. "I still think you're cool. You're way cuter now, too."

"Way cuter?"

Will grinned at him, sidewise. "Don't get too far ahead of yourself."

"You already kissed me," Nico said, bumping Will's foot back. "Twice."

"Yeah, I did. And you liked it."

"Okay, I did. And I like you, okay?"

"Okay."

One of the ducks started hassling another. Will and Nico watched them fight for a while. Will took his hand. 

"I can't believe you had a crush on me."

"It wasn't really a crush."

"Sounded like a crush," Nico said. He couldn't stop himself from smiling. 

Will leaned over and kissed him again, which almost tipped over the kayak, and definitely scared the ducks.

"Is this a date?" Will asked.

"It was supposed to be," Nico said. The atmosphere was a little wobbly, but he was standing. His hand was definitely completely solid. His knees were a little weak, but he didn't have to tell Will that.

Will pressed a Kit-Kat into his palm. "Eat."

Nico nodded and unwrapped the candy. "Thanks."

"Where...are we?"

"We should be in Manhattan," Nico said. "Are we...somewhere that's not Manhattan?" It wasn't that far a move. It should have been pretty accurate.

"We're in Manhattan," Will sighed. "What are we doing here?"

"Date," Nico said, and shoved half the bar into his mouth. Will was right; the candy did help. "I wanted you to see something."

"Okay." Will was eating his own Kit-Kat. "You're better?"

"I'm better." He swallowed. "Sorry."

"We're getting better at this," Will said. "I'm right about the Kit-Kats, right?"

Nico nodded. "Come on," he said, and took Will's hand. "You haven't been to the city much, right?"

"Not this city, no."

"Me either. Come on, we should be right next to Central Park."

"Oh," Will said, maybe because the park didn't seem that interesting when you spent most of your time at camp.

After the Kit-Kat, Nico was pretty steady on his feet, and he was only a few streets away from his target. "We can go through the park, or there's the Natural History Museum. We're not that far from the Metropolitan Museum, too."

"You had something in mind, right?" 

"Um. The Natural History Museum's got a special exhibit on patent medicine in the early 20th century, and I thought--"

"Seriously?" Will threw his arms around Nico and kissed his cheek. "That's so sweet of you!"

Nico hugged him back, though it still felt weird doing it out in public. "So you want to?"

"Let's go," Will said. "Um...which way is it?"

Nico stepped back. "Come on," he said. "There's dinosaurs, too."

"Pirates?"

How had Will already figured him out that much? "Maybe."

Will laughed. "I can't wait." He was still holding Nico's hand. "Lead the way, di Angelo."

Nico leaned over and kissed Will's cheek, his heart pounding. No one was staring. They were just two ordinary teenagers in the middle of the busiest city in the world, out on a date together. The kind of thing that happened every day. "Okay," he said, and headed for the museum.