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Will had never really fit in anywhere. As a child he was shy and cried easily, making him a perfect target for bullies. After all, some of the cruelest people are little kids taught to hate people who are different. Those that didn’t bully him avoided him like a pariah, seemingly nervous around him, like he smelled bad. Teachers liked him well enough but he never gave them any reason to care about him either way. He was quiet and uninterested in reading with the other kids, words and letters floating off the page in his mind and giving him a headache and he was too young to ask for help, so he fell through the cracks. Eventually when he was five, he cried to his mother about it and she held him close and told him that he needed to show the other kids his beautiful smile more, nobody liked to be around someone who brought them down. So he listened, following his mother’s advice, Will began smiling at people more. The change was instantaneous. People wanted to be his friend, the teachers always checked in to see how he was doing, the mean kids that pushed him around started to leave him alone. Even so, at six years of age, Will thought it wasn’t right that he was only accepted and treated with kindness when he smiled. But he began to crave positive attention, from then on masking his true feelings.
The mice in his room were the only ones who he let his real feelings out to. He knew he should be scared of them, his mother once saw one and screamed before calling an exterminator. The exterminator put out traps and poisons in the hopes of eradicating all the rodents. Will had waited until the dead of night before going out and removing them all, hiding them in a bag in his cupboard to throw away. Once he had finished, a small black mouse had come out and poked its nose into his hand. He almost thought he had heard her say thank you, but he pushed it out of his mind. People couldn’t speak to animals, he was told. It was the first real secret he kept from his mother, but it wouldn’t be the last.
Naomi Solace was a fantastic mother. She raised her son right, he was polite, kind and helpful, with the sweetest smile and a beautiful laugh. She hugged him tight and made him brownies when he was sad, played nurse to his little doctor when they played pretend, went and got rainbow ice cream at the store to share on hot summer days, watched old movies on the couch under blankets with hot chocolate in winter. But she knew it wasn’t forever. She noticed things her young son hadn’t noticed about himself yet. When he was seven she cut herself while chopping carrots and when he noticed he had grabbed her hand, wiped and bandaged it and kissed her fingertip. When the bandaid had fallen off in the shower she realised that there was no trace of the cut left. When he was 8 she rolled her ankle tripping over a toy. While he was helping her put ice on it, he placed his hands on her ankle and hummed as if in a trance, and she felt the ache melt away. The ice wasn’t really needed after that. She felt her dread grow. Apollo had warned her she would have limited time with her son, at least until he was 13, before his existence would attract monsters. Apollo’s children were never overwhelmingly powerful like some of the other god’s children. Their scents weren’t as strong and their true powers didn’t tend to manifest until they were teens or told who they were. She prayed to whatever gods would listen that it was simply a blip and nothing else would happen. She needed more time with her baby, and he needed to be with his mother.
When Will first realised there was something truly different about himself, he was 9. It was a complete accident. Some boy had been bullying his friend, and Will found his smile fading as he saw his friend’s eyes well up with tears as the kid kicked her mud hut down. In a rage he had never felt before, he pushed the boy backwards, his hands tingled where they’d touched the boy's bare skin, like electricity racing through his bloodstream, and he had a sudden rush of lightheadedness. The boy had looked at him in surprise which quickly melted into anger, his face beginning to scowl as he took a step forward, before suddenly doubling over and coughing painfully. Will and his friend ended up having to help him to the office, the boy was shivering violently and retching by the time they made it and soon the ambulance had come to take him away.
The doctors had no explanation as to how a healthy child could have gotten acute pneumonia in the summer in such a short amount of time.
Will didn’t tell his mother about pushing the boy or the way he swore his shaking fingertips had been black for an hour after the incident, or how he felt a rage unlike any other at the boy. It left its mark though, the boy was lucky to survive and Will, for the first time in his short life, felt scared of himself. He promised himself he would never be angry again, would never let himself do something like that again, even though he wasn’t really sure what he had done. Part of him knew that boy’s brush with death was his fault, he was positive he had done something to the boy.
When he was 10 everything came to a head. His friend Claire had fallen off the monkey bars and broken her arm. He had rushed to her side with his eyes wide and put his hands on her bent forearm. Somehow, he knew exactly what was wrong and he also knew what to do. He found himself singing words which he had never spoken before in a language he had never heard, watching in awe as his hands glowed golden and he felt her bones knit back together.
He was so consumed by his healing that he didn’t notice the hellhound behind him until the school janitor had appeared and somehow turned it to dust with his broom.
The next few hours had been a blur. He had been bundled into a truck and taken back to his mother’s house and told to go pack a bag while his mother and the Janitor, Mr. Fern, talked. He heard his mother crying and her raised voice through the walls as the mice skittered around his feet, whispering to him what he should put in his bag. He listened, numb and confused, still shaking and holding back his tears.
Eventually Naomi had made her way into his room and sat him down, explaining to him that he needed to go away with Mr. Fern for a bit. Everything will become clear, you’ll be alright, she had whispered to him through her tears as he tried to understand why she was sending him away. What have I done wrong? He sobbed as he avoided her attempts to hug him. Hurt and scared and confused, just a child. She looked at her little boy and didn’t know how to tell him that it was her fault for falling for a god, that he did nothing wrong, that going away would help him and keep him safe, as she watched the satyr drive away with her boy in the front seat staring back at her with wide eyes and a pale tear streaked face, she felt something between her and her son snap, and she wasn’t sure if she could ever truly fix it.
The drive to camp had not been uneventful. Mr. Fern had given him a crash course on the gods and Will wouldn’t have believed him under any other scenario except for the fact that Mr. Fern had furry goat legs and that there were monsters hunting them down, so many monsters chasing them. They barely escaped, eventually staggering up a hill with ripped clothes and burns from a cyclops throwing a burning tyre at them. Mr. Fern and he collapsed as a few kids came running up the hill. One girl was especially fierce, she couldn’t have been more than 12 or 13, but she was a whirlwind with her spear, taking out the cyclops before making her way over to him.
“Get up kid, we don’t have a place for weaklings.” she stared down at him with cold eyes, and he remembered his mothers words from before. So as terrified and sick as he felt, as sore and as tired as he was, he pulled himself to his feet and smiled at her, as bright as he could. Thanking her for saving him. He watched as her eyes softened slightly. “You’re welcome.” She grunted before sticking out her hand to him. “Clarisse la Rue, daughter of Ares, what’s your name?”
“Will Solace, I don’t know who I am.” He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice and the smile on his face but she seemed to see through it, somehow her eyes softened even more. She grabbed his shoulder, not gently but not too painfully and turned him bodily toward the buildings he could see in the valley.
“Let’s get you to Chiron.”
Will wasn’t claimed in his first week, so he spent his time in the Hermes cabin, smiling and laughing and making anyone he could laugh. He shared a bunk with a boy called Cecil Markowitz who had only been at camp a couple weeks and didn’t have any friends either. They were completely inseparable. Will was there when Cecil was officially claimed a couple days after Will’s arrival, Cecil had talked him into pulling a prank with some sort of fireworks and in the resulting chaos, the mark of Hermes had glowed bright above his head. Will was happy for his friend but couldn’t help feeling slightly envious. Although he didn’t look like any of the Hermes campers, he wished he had been claimed by the god as well. The Hermes cabin was loud and too full but it was friendly and they never bullied him.
It wasn’t until his second week that he had his first negative experience. A couple of the campers from the Ares cabin got into a fight with the Hermes cabin and knowing they couldn’t directly retaliate for fear of a prank war, they decided to attack one of the undetermined kids that was staying in their cabin. Will had made a name for himself as the kid who was always happy, no matter what, and Sherman Yang decided to see how far they could push it. They only got to the point of shoving him around a bit before Clarisse la Rue had come barrelling in, surprising them all by immediately defending Will and knocking the boys around. When Will had asked her why she would do that she had simply answered that attacking an unarmed kid who had no training was what cowards do and she had no time for cowards in her cabin.
Will had seen Clarisse kick a random kid for just getting too close to her once but decided not to comment at that point.
They formed an unlikely friendship, Will seemed to be one of the few people who could make Clarisse laugh and also had a way of calming her down when she was at her angriest. No one truly understood it, they were very odd to see together, the smiling blonde and the surly brunette, but no one dared say anything about it in case they faced Clarisse’s wrath.
His third week of being undetermined he was finally claimed. It was during a game of capture the flag and the Hermes cabin had teamed up with Apollo and Athena. Will had not been given much to do as it had been determined he was truly terrible with a sword, but half way through the game he felt an odd tingling sensation in his leg and felt a nudge at his shoe. The mouse at his foot seemed to be telling him to follow urgently and so he did. As he ran, he heard a scream ring out from just in front of him. As he came through the thick forest he found what he was being led to. An Apollo camper was on the ground, his leg twisted at a very wrong angle, surrounded by pieces of wood from the branch he was perched on breaking under him.
Michael maybe? Will remembered meeting him briefly, his usually apathetic or annoyed face was now twisted in pain as other campers all stared in shock or made their way to the noise. Will didnt slow, just made his way forward to the camper and placed his hands on the leg, ignoring the yells from other campers for him to back off. Without thinking the words came to him. He sang, and the other campers watched in shock as the Will began to glow, the light traveling up his hands until even his hair seemed to be giving off its own source of sunlight. Michael watched in shock as his leg, which should have taken at least a week to heal, even with ambrosia, somehow twisted painlessly back into place and his bones knit back together. Eventually Will stopped singing and glowing, and everyone stared in shock as his father chose that moment to claim him, a sun shining above his head. Will however, did not have much opportunity to enjoy the fact he was claimed, as he promptly passed out from overexertion.
When he eventually woke up in the infirmary, his new older brothers, Lee Fletcher, head of the Apollo cabin, and Michael Yew, his second in command, introduced themselves properly and explained to him what had happened. Michael thanked him for fixing his leg to which Will had stared bashfully at his hands and blushed furiously. Lee told him he had never seen someone heal a broken bone so completely, and mused that he must be extremely powerful as a healer. Will had blushed again and simply told them it wasn’t really him, he hadn't even known what he was doing. Lee had grinned at him and patted his shoulder in such a brotherly way Will felt his heart fill, like he had found what he had been missing all these years.
“We’ll just have to train you up then Goldilocks.”
Will was 11 when he first saw his father. The god didn’t even bother coming to see his children, simply dropped off the Hunters and the campers he was carrying in his chariot and drove off again. Will tried not to feel too hurt by it. Michael had scoffed and mumbled something along the lines of classic Apollo, before walking off toward the archery range. He was incidentally also 11 when he first met Nico di Angelo. The boy was pretty, Will thought, full of so many words he could put Will to the test, but they got along well enough. The boy tended to stay around the Hermes campers and Will was busy in the infirmary, so they didn't interact a lot, but Nico was nice, Will liked him.
Will was 11 when he met Lou Ellen. The girl was unclaimed and she and Cecil bickered constantly. Will thought she sounded pretty hilarious if he was honest, as he listened to Cecil complain about having to share a bunk with her, he couldn't help thinking he would like to be her friend. Eventually the bickering between the two changed into a sort of tentative friendship, a bond created through pranks. Will would have thought Lou Ellen was a child of Hermes except for the fact she wasn’t claimed by him even though some of the pranks were epic. He and Lou Ellen soon became close friends as they both spent so much time with Cecil and so the duo became a trio and they told each other almost everything. Will didn’t think he could tell them everything though.
He hadn’t seen a mouse in a long time, they didn’t seem to come and talk to him very often anymore and he never mentioned them to anyone, no one else had ever mentioned talking with mice and he didn’t want to be seen as a freak. Deep down he was also afraid it would lead to them finding out about the time he somehow gave a boy pneumonia. It was on the night that Percy Jackson came back without Bianca di Angelo that a pitch black rat had appeared on the desk while he was doing some paperwork for Lee. He immediately stood up and followed it, hearing a yell in the distance and a crack he sped up but when he arrived at the spot the mouse took him to, there was nothing to find but a new crack in the ground, the mouse disappeared off somewhere. He walked back slowly, confused as to why he had been led there, only discovering the next morning that Nico di Angelo had disappeared. He was sad at the loss but he had Cecil, Lou Ellen and his brothers and sisters and the boy soon disappeared from his mind as he had from camp. There was a war coming after all.
Life went on as normally as it possibly could, considering he was in Camp Half-Blood. Will learned to hone his healing skills from Lee and he learnt how to whistle from Michael. They tried to teach him to fight but he wasn’t very good at it. Every arrow he shot somehow brought back memories of the boy he had almost killed when he was 8. Every slash of his sword put the faces of the camper’s he had seen perish when they fought a monster and didn’t win. So he put his efforts into healing and enjoyed the proud look he gained from Chiron and his older brothers when he managed to heal campers and carry out triage on his own after an unfortunate explosion in the Hephaestus forges. Percy continued to be the hero and the camp prepared to go to war. Will had no idea how to deal with any of it, he knew Luke from when he arrived, the boy wasn’t ever mean to him and he felt conflicted at the words people, specifically Clarisse, would say about him. But any conflicting feelings he had soon disappeared.
Will was 12 years old when he watched his brother die. A golden mouse appearing at his feet in the middle of a battle, he raced along behind it but he wasn’t fast enough. A scream tearing out of him as he watched a giant hit his big brother hard enough to cave in his skull. He tore toward him, knowing it was too late but unable to stop himself from trying. Of course it didn’t work.
Will was 12 when he watched his brother's body burn, and for the first time he felt a part of himself burn with him. He felt, for the first time since he was 9, a burning rage inside of him. His grief reminded him that it was his fault his brother had died. He hadn’t been fast enough, hadn’t healed well enough. He wasn’t good enough. When he looked down, his fingertips were black. He went to bed early and made sure not to touch anyone. He never told anyone about it and by the next day he was back to his smiling self, doing his best to provide emotional support to his younger siblings where Michael couldn't. No one knew the anger and grief he held close to him, all they saw was the smile, not noticing it never quite reached his eyes.
He was 13 when he saw Nico di Angelo again. 13 when he became a head counselor looking after children when he was still one himself. He, like everyone in the battle, had seen Nico arrive with the army of the underworld and saw the boy in a new light. He was too pale, not the joyful boy that Will had met two years ago, but Will still stared at him in awe. The small ADHD part of his brain thought, even in the chaos surrounding him, that the boy was still very pretty, but that was quickly forgotten as the battle continued to rage around him. He rode on a motorcycle for the first time, and felt the adrenaline rush, in any other situation he would have whooped in joy but something felt off. He healed Annabeth, the poison was difficult but nothing like a broken bone. He made his way back to the battle, and in the confusion and chaos, he missed the mouse at his feet. It wasn't until after the war he found out the only older brother he had left was gone.
In the aftermath of the war, he buried his pain and his grief, he healed the sick and helped his siblings through their pain. Never taking a break, not even when Kayla tried to force him to sleep. When he closed his eyes, he watched mice lead him to the bodies of all he loved. He watched Lee die over and over, sometimes Lee’s face was swapped with Michael’s. Sometimes he was Cecil, Lou Ellen, or any number of the other campers Will had lost over the years. He held their deaths close to him, a wound over his heart that he could never heal. Strangely enough, every so often, the dream would change to a black mouse leading him to Nico. That dream unsettled him. Eventually camp fell back into a sense of peace, and Will managed to lock up all his pain. No one noticed, not even his siblings or his closest friends. He smiled and brought joy wherever he could, laughing loudly and running his infirmary and cabin the best he could.
Percy disappeared and a new mystery seized the camp. Nico left as well but Will seemed to be the only one who noticed or cared. He wished he’d had the ability to talk to the boy before he had gone, but in the aftermath of the war he had been so overrun by his own duties he had never got the chance.
The new trio arrived and Annabeth’s rage and desperation could be felt wherever she went. A new prophecy, a new adventure, and Will only felt a selfish kind of relief that it wasn’t his family being sent away. They came back and Percy was now within their reach, the building of the Argo II began and Will helped where he could. Jason and Piper intimidated him a little, Jason especially, but Leo was funny. They got along, Will patching him up when he hit his thumb with a hammer or caught himself on a piece of celestial bronze, forming another bizarre friendship that other campers didn’t quite understand. They weren’t best friends, Leo wasn’t Cecil or Lou Ellen, but they bonded over growing up in Texas and both understood the feeling of never quite fitting in.
Will was 14 when he truly realised he didn’t like girls. It wasn’t a huge surprise to him, he had always been able to note when people were pretty, but he had never felt anything stirring inside of himself for them. When he was asked out by an Aphrodite girl, he turned her away, under the guise of not wanting to be part of their sick initiation even though it had supposedly been shut down by Piper. But in reality, he felt nothing for her, none of her Aphrodite charm worked on him. He soon learnt that Drew’s charmspeak wasn’t as strong on him either. It was Drew who asked him if he was gay, a few weeks later, after she had tried to convince him to go on a date with the girl, who was apparently heartbroken over his lack of affection. Will had felt his smile drop as the girl looked at him calculatingly as he stated yet again, no, and had bluntly asked him. His panic at being found out was short lived as Drew put her hand on his shoulder.
“I won’t tell anyone, not until you’re ready.” Her voice was softer than he realised she could be, and his surprise must have shown on his face. She scoffed slightly, stepping away from him. “I’m not that much of a monster, Solace.”
Will made sure to say hello and be kind to her after that. She didn't show it in the most obvious way, but he knew she appreciated it.
Will was 14 when he came out to his siblings and his best friends. They teased in the way one must but the response was overwhelmingly positive. He thought about coming out to his mother in one of his weekly letters, but decided against it. Maybe if he ever saw her in person again he would. His life was looking good, everything seemed okay. He was starting to feel truly happy again, though the grief and anger remained, his smiles became more real and his laughs brighter.
But like all good things for demigods. The feeling was fleeting.
Will was 15 and he was thrown yet again into a war he was too young to be part of. He sat at the council meetings, calming Clarisse when her anger was too much and stayed long nights in the infirmary, preparing and panicking. He kept his fear to himself but tried to think of any way to keep his siblings on the sidelines with him. He couldn’t lose anyone else, he promised himself he wouldn’t lose another friend. He worried about the seven of course he did, and every so often he wondered whether Nico was still alive, but he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted by those he couldn’t immediately help. The Romans were on their way, afterall.
Will was 15 when he delivered a baby satyr in a room while others prepared for battle. Even as a healer who had seen horrific injuries and death, it was disgusting and he never wanted to lay eyes on another baby in his entire life. As soon as he knew the baby was healthy he fled the room as fast as his long legs could carry him. He walked into a war meeting to hear about the onagers and without really thinking straight, jumped at the opportunity to go into the battle, anything to stop it from being anyone he loved. This backfired when Cecil and Lou Ellen immediately volunteered to help him. The plan was simple, scout and disarm the onagers if possible but don’t get too close to the action.
The plan fell apart almost immediately as they stole their way through the trees in the early dusk light. They stopped briefly and Will felt a tap on his shoe. A mouse, almost impossible to see on the dark ground stared up at him with its glittering eyes and twitched its nose at him. Follow me. He followed, his friends stumbling behind him hissing at him in confusion as they tried to keep up with his steadily growing pace before they stopped at the treeline, he didn't stop however, and he saw him.
Nico was not the boy he had known briefly anymore, that much was obvious,, even from behind him, Will could see he was close to death. His bones stuck out of his hands where they were clenched on his sword handle but that was the least of his problems. His skin was grey, flickering dangerously and Will knew he was going to die.
Not Again .
So he called out to him, and nearly lost his head for it. He grabbed his hand, he felt the coldness and the death within him and he did something no sane man would ever do. He told the son of Hades not to be an idiot and ordered him not to use his powers. In the back of his mind he knew the boy could send him to the fields if he felt like it, but he wasn’t afraid. Instead they snarked back and forth a little, they went to war, they watched a man kill himself, and kill one of Will’s friends. As Will watched the fireball explode in the sky he felt the rage in himself grow once again. Everyone was stopped, even the monsters, to watch, and then war continued to rage. Will shook as he tried to control his anger, almost missing the empousa up walking behind him. It wasn’t on purpose it really truly wasn’t, but when she started to flirt with him after he had watched his friend die, and then started to goad him after realising it wasn’t working his rage overwhelmed him for the first time.
He reached out and grasped her hand as he had done with Nico.
The difference in his touch was immense, where he had touched Nico to heal. This was to kill. He knew it without even meaning to. The empousa ripped her hand back, staring in shock as boils started to grow on her. Her face crumpled in pain and she screamed, the sound lost in the shrieks of other monsters. The plague consumed her from the inside out and she turned to dust before his eyes. Will stared in horror at her, stuck in complete stillness as his fingers turned as black as ink. Eventually he snapped out of it and the rest of the world came back into focus. No one had noticed, no one had seen what he did, in the thick of the battle. He sprinted to the nearest bush and retched, eyes watering and hands shaking. He stared at his fingers, now their normal colour and wanted to scream. A mouse appeared at his knee, but didn’t say anything, simply nuzzled against him before making its way back into the undergrowth. The touch helped ground him and he took a deep breath. Standing shakily he made his way back to his infirmary and his siblings.
Will was 15, he had killed his first monster but he couldn’t dwell on it. He had a job to do after all.
The aftermath of the war was devastating. Romans and Greeks alike lost many, the shrouds were burnt, the burials were once again held by Nico and Will felt a strange sense of deja vu. To his selfish relief, there were no golden shrouds. He worked himself to death in the infirmary and he saved every camper he could. He slept very little, terrified of the nightmares that would plague him and he kept his smile on him like a shield at all times. He ate when he could and on his way back to the infirmary he saw Nico hugging Jason. Cursing himself for his own stupidity he called the boy over, ordering him to the infirmary. He was a healer and this boy needed it more than anyone, he could feel it from a mile away.
He watched as Nico spoke to Percy and Annabeth, leaving Percy shocked at something and led him to the infirmary and he treated him the best he could. Chatting with the surly boy where he could, good naturedly forcing him to eat small amounts of food to help him heal and kindly bullied him into sleeping, as hypocritical as it was. It wasn’t until after Nico left his infirmary that he realised he had simultaneously treated a patient and made a friend. Unbidden in the back of his mind as Nico smiled tentatively at him before heading to his own cabin an old thought came back.
He’s still pretty.
Will was 15 and he had a crush. The irony of the son of the sun having a crush on the son of the underworld was not lost on him but there was something about Nico that gave him butterflies when they talked. Nico had taken to spending a lot of time in the infirmary and Will loved it, Cecil complained that Nico was stealing Will from him but Will just told him to stop being dramatic. He enjoyed spending time with the surly teen and lived for the moments he could draw a laugh out of him. Nico was starting to get his color back, although he would never be as tanned as he was when he was 10, a side effect of his powers possibly, or maybe the years of abuse and malnourishment, he was growing into himself and Will couldn’t help the thoughts he had. Nico was pretty, he was actually extremely funny, he was smart, his wit was biting and quick and he was surprisingly passionate about things when you could get him talking about the right subject. Will had once called Hades Death just to listen to him rant for 20 minutes about the difference between Thanatos and Hades before Will had been unable to control his laughter and Nico had thrown a pillow at him. The truth was, WIll had a crush and he had no idea what to do about it.
Will was 15 and for the first time in his life, he told someone his darkest secret. He wouldn’t have, if he was perfectly honest. It was completely Dionysus’ fault, if he wasn’t a god Will would have happily wrung his neck, hippocratic oath be damned. But alas, he had no control over the god, who had decided for the first time in decades to come to a campfire. Will sat next to his siblings and Nico as the god raised his hand, quieting the campfire songs as everyone went silent and stared at him. The god had a story to tell:
Thousands of years ago, long before you were even thought about, we gods controlled the world. Although humans existed and lived lives, we helped them in their battles. We had priests and we were prayed to, we had many names. Whilst I would love to tell you about myself there is not enough time for that at this moment, instead I have a story about my brother. A tale some may know, but many do not.
The tale begins with a Priest of Apollo Smintheus named Chryses after the abduction of his daughter by greeks. When confronting Agamemnon, the man who had his daughter, the priest was laughed at and turned away. The man, who was violated as a father and as a priest, fled with fear, grief and rage in his heart. He prayed to Apollo Smintheus “Let the Greeks pay for my tears with your arrows.” Apollo, hearing his prayers, and feeling for the man who had followed him so devoutely, reacted swiftly and with anger in his heart. He left Olympus with his bow and arrows and in the dark of the night, began to shoot arrows at the Greeks that had ravaged his priest's heart and daughter.
Now these were no ordinary arrows, no he did not simply shoot down a few. Many of you do not know this, but Apollo is not only the god of the sun, truth and medicine. He is also the god of plagues and mice. His arrows of plague hit their marks as they always do. First the dogs and the mules died, then the soldiers in the encampment. For nine days, the encampment was ravaged by illness and death, the plague did not stop until the girl was returned to her father and Apollo was given the correct sacrifice and was worshipped to the full.
Why? You may ask, do I tell you this story? One that some of you may have read in Homer, in truth I cannot tell you, but it is a warning. Remember, you are demigods. You have parts of your parents' powers, some of you far more powerful than others, and for every power you have, there must be something to equal it. Unlike gods, you have human in you, fatal flaws that will one day make or break you, your powers, like Apollo Smintheus can be devastating, to some whilst bringing joy to others. You must know what you are doing, take care not to make stupid mistakes because of your emotions, or you may very well make a mistake you can’t take back, and while gods never face consequences, demigods always do.
His eyes had never left Will’s as he told his tale, glowing purple as the fire grew dimmer with the campers mood as they listened. Will felt his heart pounding in his ears as he heard the story, whilst the story was just that to many, he knew there was a deeper meaning. Once Dionysus said his part, he simply stood and left, leaving the campers muttering to each other, some laughing slightly at the ridiculousness, no camper had powers that could devastate like that, except maybe Percy or Nico, and certainly no child of Apollo. The mood quickly lifted as the story was thrown off as just that, a tale. But Will knew better. He kept his smile on his face and laughed with his siblings after Austin pointed out that their father was extremely petty. No one noticed his discomfort.
Well almost no one.
Nico had felt Will tense up, he could see that Will’s laughs were forced and his smile didn’t reach his eyes. And once the songs started up again he quickly grabbed his hand and dragged him away. Taking him to the lake before stopping and turning to face him to ask what that was about. Will shifted awkwardly, trying to play it off as nothing. Nico just stood and stared, waiting for the truth. It took about two minutes of nervous rambling before Will broke.
Haltingly and slowly he told Nico about the first time he saw the mice in his room, how he had saved them and they had thanked him. He told him about the first time he gave a boy he barely knew an illness. About the rage he felt at him and how it had eaten him alive, he told his story, a tale of loss and pain, tears leaking slowly as he tried to push down the guilt and fear he felt in himself. The disgust he had felt when he killed his first monster, the fear he had of going too far and killing without meaning to. Nico listened in silence until Will ran out of words before tentatively reaching out and wrapping his arms around him.
The final straw.
Will cried, he sobbed. He broke for the first time since he was six years old, he allowed someone else to see him in pain. He sobbed until Nico’s shoulder was soaked and he ran out of energy, he cried for the boy he had been, the innocence he had lost, the fear and the guilt he couldn’t get rid of and the child that had been forced to grow up far too early. For the first time ever, he let it all out, he let someone else take it and when he eventually looked up, Nico didn’t look afraid, or disgusted. He simply stared at him, his dark eyes holding nothing but affection.
Will was 15 when he first kissed Nico di Angelo. His nose was stuffy and it tasted like salty tears but it was perfect because Nico kissed him back. He had bared his soul, the last part of him that he had, that no one else knew about and he hadn’t been shunned. He felt a laugh bubbling up inside of him - a smile appearing on his face unable to be removed. Nico grumbled at him as he kissed his teeth awkwardly before the both of them began to giggle. To Will, Nico looked gorgeous in the moonlight, a blush on his pale cheeks as he struggled to keep his joy a secret. And to Nico, Will, with his bloodshot eyes, stuffy nose and tear tracks running down his face had never looked prettier. They laughed until they were breathless and held each other longer than absolutely necessary. They stayed until the screech of a harpy pulled them from their bubble. They held hands as they walked back to their cabins.
Will was 15. He wasn’t okay, and neither was his boyfriend. They’d lived through too much, lost more than many people who had lived far longer. But they would forge their own paths together and they would find ways to heal themselves. Plague and death, Healing and afterlife, light and shadows. They found what they had each been missing. For the first time, Will felt like he truly fit.