Chapter Text
A year flew by as Nico spent most of his days training in the timeless pit of the Underworld. Whenever he returned to the surface for a break, he misjudged the date by anywhere from one day to ten. He’d managed to catch Will’s fifteenth birthday by pure luck, but he’d overshot Thanksgiving by about a week. The only reason he got Christmas right was because Hades had gone to Olympus for the solstice.
On the surface, time seemed to drag, which was probably for the best. It gave Will and the other campers more time to feel prepared for the upcoming battle, but it left them all dreading the future more and more. Campers had more time to age out of camp, or to seemingly disappear - likely deciding to join Charlie’s side. More campers stayed year round, which only made the place feel that much emptier when so many of them went home for the holidays around the solstice. Even those who had never had the best relationship with their mortal families seemed to be taking every chance they could get to have one last moment together, just in case.
Will had stopped trying to see his mom in person - his grandparents wouldn’t let him, anyway. He wrote her letters as often as he could, instead. He was terrified of what his mom might think if the letters ever stopped.
Nico never showed up to celebrate his fifteenth birthday, and when he finally appeared sometime after Valentine’s Day, Will lectured him for half an hour about the importance of letting everyone know you’re still alive. After that, if Nico didn’t show up at least once a month, Will Iris Messaged him, telling him it was time to come home.
He missed Will’s sixteenth birthday, and even though he’d had what he thought was a pretty decent excuse, he still felt so horrible that he’d stayed on the surface for a week longer than usual. Nico never did tell Will exactly what he’d gotten caught up doing, other than that he’d been following up on some research in Alaska.
A few days after the winter solstice, Will sat around the empty Apollo cabin, having chosen not to go home for the holidays like the rest of his siblings, instead waiting for Nico to inevitably appear. They’d made an agreement that Nico would return to camp after the solstice, and would stay to train with everyone else until the end of January - when the battle for the fate of the world would no doubt take place. Will was one of about ten campers who stayed behind that winter, though in a week he knew that Chiron would be calling an emergency camp session to make sure they were all adequately prepared for what was to come.
He found himself pacing around camp more often than not, missing his best friend and dreading the future. He’d reorganized and restocked the infirmary every day for the last week, just so that he could be in the Big House in case Nico happened to appear there when he returned.
He wasn’t expecting Nico to find him instead, knocking on the door to the Apollo cabin just as Will was about to leave for breakfast. Will was so surprised that he didn’t even move for a few moments, and then practically tackled Nico in a hug before asking, “Are you alright? You’re not hurt, are you? Are you feeling okay after shadow traveling? You’re probably hungry, right? Do you want to go to breakfast, or should we go to the infirmary first to make sure you’re really okay? Maybe we should go to the infirm--”
Nico placed a hand over Will’s mouth, and Will blinked down at him. “Huh,” Nico said, as if surprised that that had actually worked to shut Will up. “You know, that kind of thing usually only works with the ghosts.”
Will pouted, and licked Nico’s hand.
“Ew!” Nico exclaimed, yanking his hand back just to wipe his palm on the front of Will’s shirt. “I’ve been in hell for the last month! You don’t know where that hand has been!”
Will grinned, and shrugged. “My dad’s the god of plagues. I have, like, built in immunity to germs.”
“Still gross,” Nico replied, and shoved at Will’s shoulder.
“So, um, how did your research go?” Will asked, stuffing his hands into his pockets to fight off the slight chill of the air around them. Chiron always tried to let in snow around the holidays, and while Will appreciated the aesthetic, he was from Texas. “Did you find what you were looking for in Alaska?”
Nico glanced away, and Will could practically feel the wall that shot up between them. That had been happening for the last year, any time that Will tried to get Nico to share what he’d been working on for his father - or any time Will tried to get Nico to talk, period. They’d gotten pretty good at keeping each other silent company over the last few months, but Will hated it. It always made him think back to the conversation he’d had with Nico on Percy’s balcony last August - and how Nico still hadn’t given him an answer.
“Yes,” Nico told him, “and no.” He glanced back at Will, and Will thought he almost looked guilty for never giving Will any straight answers, but then he said, “I have to go tell Chiron I’m back for good. But, um. I’ll probably get saddled with cabin inspections after breakfast, so...maybe you could join me?”
Will nodded, and tried for a smile. “Yeah, sure. See you then.”
He watched as Nico hopped off the porch and started toward the Big House. Will waited a few moments before he stepped back into the cabin to grab a hat to keep his ears warm at breakfast.
Will ate alone, wishing that he could invite Nico to sit with him, or that he could move to another table since there were so few of them at camp that week. Most of all, though, Will wished that Nico would just talk to him. So what if Nico didn’t like him back? They’d both promised that they would remain friends no matter what happened, and sure, Will might never recover if Nico turned him down. He just wished Nico would turn him down sooner rather than later. He wanted to spend what was potentially his last month alive with his best friend, and that wasn’t going to happen if Nico wouldn’t hold a conversation with him for more than a few minutes.
As he was finishing up his meal, Will spotted Chiron approaching the pavilion from the direction of the Big House, though Nico was nowhere to be seen. The centaur stepped in front of the head table, stomping a hoof on the floor to gather everyone’s attention - unnecessarily, since most of them were already looking in Chiron’s direction - and announced, “Counselors, there will be a meeting in the rec room in five minutes.”
Will scrambled to clear his dishes so that he could chase after Chiron, stopping him by saying, “Sir, wait!” Once Chiron paused and looked back at him, Will asked, “Can I be in the meeting?”
Chiron smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, Will, but you know the rules. You are not your cabin’s counselor.”
“But Michael isn’t here,” Will argued, “and Nico--”
“Nico has only just returned to camp,” Chiron reminded him. “He needs time to process his last month away. Crowding him by allowing the whole camp into the meeting won’t give him that time.”
“There’s only ten of us,” Will grumbled.
“Rules are rules, William,” Chiron said, and with that, he left for the Big House.
Will watched as Katie, Travis, Annabeth, and Connor followed after him at a much slower pace, and he frowned. How could Travis and Connor help Nico process the last month better than his own best friend?
Screw this, he thought.
He waited until the counselors had reached the front steps of the Big House, and made sure that the rest of the campers weren’t watching before he took off across camp. He crept into the Big House almost silently, crawling toward the door to the rec room to hopefully keep the floor from creaking under his weight. He came to a stop just outside the closed door, and pressed his ear to it. He could hear Nico talking, but couldn’t make out any of the words.
After a few minutes, straining to listen but unable to hear anything of note, Will leaned back with a huff, slouching against the wall opposite the door. He knew he probably should have moved - ducked into the infirmary or something, just so that nobody caught him snooping around if they happened to open the door - but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. If he got in trouble for this, what did it matter? They might all be dead in two months, anyway.
He had just started drumming his fingers against his leg when the door swung open in front of him. Chiron, compacted into his wheelchair, had pulled the door open to usher Nico out into the hall. When he saw Will, the centaur didn’t look surprised at all - maybe Will hadn’t been as quiet as he’d thought.
“Will,” Chiron said, and Will felt himself shrink in shame at being called out. Nico couldn’t even seem to meet Will’s eyes. “Please take Nico up to the attic and help him retrieve the prophecy. And be quick; we still have much to discuss.”
Will lifted his head, his mouth dropping open in surprise. “Uh, yes, sir.”
He started to push himself up from the ground, noticing a second too late that Nico had held out a hand to help him. Will’s hand twitched at his side as he and Nico stood frozen in the hallway for a moment, but before Will could make a decision as to whether he should reach out for Nico or not, Nico slipped his hands into the pockets of his jacket, and turned away.
Nico led the way up the stairs, though Will had to pull down the ladder to the attic since Chiron had decided to shorten the cord after children - namely, Nico and Will - had sneaked into the attic a few too many times in the past.
Once they had both surfaced in the camp’s abandoned trophy room, Will had to show Nico the way to the Oracle.
“Has she always been over here?” Nico asked, confusion clear on his face as he glanced over his shoulder at the opposite end of the room. “I swear she was over there, last time.”
“Last time?” Will asked. “Oh, right, you mean with Zues’s lightning bolt. No, I think she moves around whenever she feels like it. I don’t think she’s ever left the attic, though. She was behind that hydra skull the last time I came up here - scared the shit out of me. Well, most of this stuff did,” he added as he picked up the hilt of a shattered sword, though it was too dark to read the tag attached to it.
He set down the sword as he noticed Nico approaching the Oracle, and hastily followed after him, careful not to step on any of the old treasures as he went. “Oracle,” Nico was saying, “I seek the Great Prophecy.”
The mummy didn’t budge.
Nico huffed. “This is just like last time. How am I supposed to get a prophecy out of a corpse? Unless I--”
“No, no,” Will cut in quickly, setting a hand on Nico’s shoulder briefly before pulling back like he’d been burnt. He tried to ignore the look of hurt that Nico shot him - Nico had gotten pickier about touch over the last year, and it broke Will’s heart to know that even he couldn’t reach out for Nico without permission anymore. “Raising the dead is almost never the answer, especially in this case.”
“Then how am I supposed to get the prophecy?”
Will grinned. “That’s what I’m here for!”
“Oh,” Nico said, nodding as he seemed to put the pieces together in his head. “Right, because your father is the god of prophecies. It makes sense that you would be able to communicate with the Oracle in a way that no one else could.”
“Huh?” Will tipped his head to the side. “No, not that.” He stepped forward and reached for one of the Oracle’s necklaces, separating a glass vial from one of the cords, then emptying it of the single slip of paper inside. Will held the still-rolled up paper for Nico to see, but Nico’s frown only deepened. “It’s the prophecy!”
“That’s been there this whole time?” Nico said with growing frustration. “How come you got to know that was there, but I didn’t?”
“Oh,” Will said, his smile falling away to something akin to embarrassment. “Well, I didn’t really get to know. Um. Remember how, when you first came to camp, my siblings let me hang out in the infirmary all the time, even though I hadn’t been claimed, yet? Well, right when I first started spending time there, I got...bored, and decided to go exploring. I wandered up here, and found the Oracle - I thought she was just another prize, or something, like everything else up here. I just...found the prophecy, and I took it to show Lee, because I didn’t understand it, but he took it from me and gave it back to Chiron. After that, well… I wasn’t allowed to wander around on my own in the Big House anymore. I swear, I didn’t even know that Chiron had put it back up here until he told me to help you find it just now.”
Nico took a breath, then nodded again. “Okay, I believe you.” Then, he spun on his heel and started back toward the ladder. “C’mon, we should go. They’re waiting.”
Will hurried to catch up with him, somehow managing not to stumble on the ladder while keeping a tight grip on the prophecy in his hand. Nico waited patiently while Will pushed the ladder back into place, and then turned to start down the stairs.
“Nico, wait,” Will said, reaching out for his hand to stop him. Nico flinched at the touch, and Will felt a wave of guilt wash over him. “Sorry, I just-- Don’t you want to read it? See it for yourself before you have to show it to everyone else? I mean, this is your life they’re talking about.”
Will held the prophecy out, but Nico only stared down at it - no, past it, like he almost didn’t even see the little scroll between Will’s fingers. After a moment, he shook his head, and raised his eyes back to Will’s. “No, I--” He looked away, stuffing his hands back into his pockets once again. “I’m not ready to know how I’m gonna die.”
Will’s breath caught. “Nico--”
“Just let me have these last few minutes,” Nico told him, and he started down the stairs.
Will decided to give him some space, no matter how much it hurt to do so, and only caught up with Nico somewhere on the second floor, knowing that Chiron wouldn’t be happy if Nico showed up without the prophecy. As Will started walking beside him again, he felt something brush against his hand, once or twice, until he felt Nico’s familiar fingers - stick thin, ice cold, and rough with calluses - lace through his.
Nico pulled Will straight into the rec room, though Chiron stopped them before they could reach the ping pong table that the counselors were all gathered around.
“The prophecy, please,” Chiron said, and Will passed along the piece of paper without question. “Thank you. You may go.”
“No,” Nico said before Will could even start to loosen his grip on Nico’s hand. “He’s staying.”
“He is not a counselor,” Chiron reminded Nico gently.
“I don’t care,” Nico argued. “Either he stays, or I go.”
Will noticed the other counselors shifting uncomfortably, though Annabeth was watching them with a calculating gaze. She’d approached Will sometime after Percy’s fourteenth birthday party, having already figured out what was going on between Nico and Will, and had become the only person that Will could talk to about his relationship with Nico - or lack thereof. Her eyes flickered down to their joined hands, then she met Will’s eyes and quirked an eyebrow. He blushed, and turned his attention back to Chiron.
The centaur sighed deeply, resigned, and nodded. Before Nico could pull Will towards a chair, though, Chiron stopped him and held out the prophecy. “This is your future,” Chiron reminded him, “you should read it for yourself.”
Will didn’t notice how bad Nico was shaking until he reached out to accept the prophecy.
They took their seats, and Nico kept a firm grip on Will’s hand as he uncurled the prophecy with the other. Will glanced up, noting that the other counselors were all watching them with bated breath - except for Connor, who, for some reason, had his gaze locked on the table in front of him.
Nico took a deep breath, and began to read. Will already knew the prophecy - he’d read it over and over to himself so many times when he tried to understand it as a child that he’d managed to memorize it - so he knew even without reading over Nico’s shoulder that he was reading it perfectly. It was an impressive feat for any demigod, considering they all had reading struggles due to their dyslexia, but even then, Will knew that it wasn’t anything other than nerves that caused Nico to hesitate on the second to last line.
“A single choice shall--” Nico paused, and only started again after Will gave a reassuring squeeze of his hand. “Shall end his days. Olympus to preserve or raze.”
No one spoke, no one moved. Will almost thought he could feel Nico trembling beside him, though that may have just been his shaky breathing. Maybe Will was the one trembling, and he hadn’t even realized.
Chiron cleared his throat. “Let’s start dissecting it from the beginning.”
Nico was the first one out of the rec room when the meeting was dismissed, and he dragged Will out with him. Will wanted to comfort him in some way, but he didn’t know how - how could he say, hey, I know it sounds like you’re going to die, but you might not! with any sort of confidence? Part of him wished he’d been granted gifts of prophecy by his father rather than healing, but if Nico was going to come close to death, Will would rather have the ability to keep him alive, not know when it was coming.
As soon as they were out of the Big House, Nico glanced back at Will and said, “I think it’s time for cabin inspections.”
“Aren’t you supposed to give everyone a warning before you come by?” Will asked, thinking back to his own cabin, which he hadn’t bothered to clean as thoroughly as usual, since he was its only current occupant.
“There’s only ten people here,” Nico reminded him. “How messy could it get?”
They both learned very quickly that, like a discussion involving teenagers and war strategies, things could get very messy. After swinging by the Apollo cabin - where Nico graciously gave Will sixty seconds to tidy up before coming through with his red pen - Will said, “You know, you’re actually lucky that you don’t have a cabin here, because you don’t have to clean up like the rest of us.”
Nico shoved at his arm. “Excuse you, I am so clean.”
Will raised an eyebrow and reached over to pluck the inspection clipboard from Nico’s hands. “Then you won’t mind if I add Nico’s room to the bottom of this list?”
“Go ahead,” Nico said calmly, and accepted the clipboard back after Will had added the words in his messy scrawl.
They finished with the rest of the cabins quickly, seeing as most of them had been left empty for the last few weeks anyway, and then Will was dragging Nico back to the Big House. The other counselors had cleared out shortly after the end of the meeting, so there was minimal risk of running into any unwanted, deep conversation, so Nico didn’t seem uncomfortable about returning to the building.
Will led the march up to Nico’s bedroom, though he allowed Nico to be the one to invite him inside. Will took only one or two steps in before he crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Okay, so I guess this is pretty clean.”
Nico scoffed. “Cleaner than your cabin.”
“You could have at least unpacked.”
“Sorry, next time I come back from the Underworld after a month, I’ll be sure to put my clothes in the wash before coming to find you,” Nico retorted, and then seemed to deflate instantly. Will didn’t have to ask why - they both knew that the chances of Nico ever returning from his next trip to the Underworld were slim to none.
Will hurried to find some way to change the subject. He scanned the room quickly, intending to be nitpicky about Nico’s cleanliness, but instead he found the moonlace he’d given to Nico over a year ago, sitting on the windowsill. “You still have this?” he asked, crossing the room to pick the pot up off the sill. The flower was closed for the day, but Will could still smell its fragrance.
“Of course,” Nico replied, sitting down on the edge of the bed, and a second later, Will joined him. “You gave it to me.”
Will grinned, feeling his heart thump more forcefully in his chest. “No offense, but I’m kind of surprised you didn’t kill it. You know, mostly because it probably needs more water than you’ve been around to give it.”
Nico blushed, glancing off to the side. “Well, obviously I’ve picked up a thing or two from Persephone. And I definitely don’t water it with nectar whenever it looks like it’s about to die.”
Will laughed, his head tipping back with the force of it. Suddenly, he couldn’t stop thinking about how good it felt to be around Nico again - it was like the wall between them had just disappeared. Sure, they weren’t talking about anything serious, but at least Nico was talking to him.
He leaned over to set the moonlace back on the windowsill, and then pushed himself to his feet. “Alright, I think you’ve earned the best inspection score for the week. C’mon, let’s turn this in, and then we can--”
“Will,” Nico cut in, and just like that, the tension was back. Still, he reached out for Will’s hand to pull him back down. “Hang on a second, I--”
Will dropped back down onto the edge of the mattress in a second. “What’s up?”
Nico turned his gaze to his lap, retracting his hand so that he could start picking at his nails nervously. “I know there’s a lot I haven’t told you over the last year, and it’s not that I didn’t want to tell you-- I mean, some of it, I really can’t, but some of it… There was a lot to think about, okay? And, so, I’ve been thinking about it all, and… Well, and I’ve learned some things…”
Will tried not to get his hopes up. With the way Nico had been acting recently, Will was almost certain that Nico wasn’t going to be returning his feelings anytime soon - and Will was okay with that! - but at least he’d be getting some closure. “Some things, like...how you feel about a certain person?”
Nico’s jaw snapped shut, and he glanced off to the side as his face turned red. He cleared his throat before answering, “More like, I figured out how Charlie was able to host Kronos without tearing apart at the seams, and also why my sword couldn’t hurt him the last time we fought against him.”
Will’s heart sank, but he tried not to let it show. “Oh,” he said, sounding more dejected than he’d intended, “cool. I mean, what’d you find out?”
“Will, it’s not--” Nico made an aborted motion to reach out for Will, and then huffed in frustration and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m still thinking about you - us - and it’s not that this is unrelated, because-- This thing with Charlie has everything to do with you, okay? Because I could never forgive myself if something happened to you, and-- I’m trying to give you a choice about this, but it’s dangerous. Like, really dangerous, but if Charlie could do it, then so can you, so--”
Will reached out and placed a hand on Nico’s knee. “I’m going to need you to take a breath, and start over.”
Nico nodded, and did exactly as Will asked of him. “Charlie made himself invulnerable in order to survive hosting Kronos, and I found out how he did it. I…” Nico lowered his arms and took both of Will’s hands in his own. “I want you to bathe in the River Styx. That way, you’ll become invulnerable, too, just like Charlie.” He squeezed Will’s hands, his words picking up speed as his nerves grew again. “Like Achilles, too! I know how much you’ve always looked up to Achilles, and if you do this for me - for you, really - then you’ll be just like him! Except, I mean, you’re not a prince, and the whole point of doing this is so that you won’t die in the battle, and--”
“Nico,” Will said calmly, tugging on Nico’s hands until Nico finally lifted his gaze, and Will smiled shyly. “I looked up to Achilles because he was this amazing warrior who fell in love with his best friend, the nobody healer.”
Nico’s eyes widened. “You’re not nobody,” he whispered after a pause.
And you’re not in love with me, Will thought to himself, smiling sadly. What he said instead was, “Tell me about your plan.”