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The Apollo cabin was screaming.
Don’t get him wrong, this wasn’t the only time he’d walked past the strawberry fields near curfew and seen the Apollo kids screaming, but that didn’t make it any less annoying. Especially because the Apollo kids meant…
“Nico!” Will Solace spotted him despite it being nearly dark out and the fact that he was deep in the plants. He came running over and Nico only considered shadow-traveling directly to his Cabin for a brief moment.
Sure, it would get him out of whatever “normal Camp activity” Will wanted him to do with his cabin, but it would also get him another week of mandated bed rest. There was a reason he was walking to his Cabin in the first place.
Somehow, “doctor’s orders” had changed from keeping Nico on bed rest while he was struggling to make sure that Nico talked to other campers at least once a day to making Nico participate , not just in sword training or arts and crafts, but spur of the moment activities too.
It meant getting Nico involved. And not taking no for an answer when he said that he didn’t want to.
“I know you heard me,” Will continued, his voice sing-songy, but at least not in the magical way that had more than once made Nico wonder if he could silence an entire Cabin of campers all at once.
Nico took in a deep breath, shoving his hands into his pockets and turning, raising his eyebrows at Will. Not speaking. What did he want? What was the mundane activity turned nonsense that the campers were participating in today?
“Come on. We’re catching fireflies.” Will reached out to grab his arm, tugging him forward. Normally, Nico would snap at anyone who touched him like that, but Will…
Ugh. This was garbage. Nico liked Will (in a reluctant way, a way that told him he without a doubt had terrible taste if his memorable crushes were Percy Jackson and Will Solace). And that meant, just like with Percy, he was going to do everything that he wanted even if Will had no idea.
Except Will gave him this look like he’d hung the stars and sky when he agreed to whatever whim he was dragging Nico along on, which was hilarious considering which of their parents actually had a part in that.
Nico glanced to the strawberry fields. Looking closely, he could see the Apollo kids (with a few other campers mixed in) with their hands outstretched, little blinking lights flitting between them. Jars on the ground where the bugs crawled out, barely contained, lids forgotten somewhere in their cabin (or never needed, because they were always planning to release them). They ran and screamed when the beetles got too close unexpectedly.
Nico grimaced, turning back to Will.
“People don’t normally like me. They’d have more fun if I just went to my cabin.” He’d noticed it. Sure, Will wanted him around, but the rest of the Apollo cabin still looked at him like he was something to be afraid of. They still stayed away from him. They probably whispered behind his back.
Had there been cabin meetings, Nico wondered, where they told Will to stop dragging him along?
Nico didn’t get why he did, anyway.
Will’s face fell (and Nico told his stupid crush to shut up . He couldn’t be disappointed every time Will was). He looked at Nico, trying to think of something to say.
Well, at least Will never got Apollo’s “skill” of poetry. He hardly had his father’s words, and if he couldn’t think of anything to say, Nico could go back to his cabin and not go out in the strawberry fields with the screaming Apollo kids who would treat him like a plague.
Plague was one of their father’s domains (the plague doctor Apollo had been one of his favorite Mythomagic cards. How could someone have both?), but no one ever hid from Apollo's kids for anything negative. They could literally outshine that domain, while Nico was drawn to the shadows and unable to escape the darkness of his own father’s role.
It was just as fair at Camp as it was on Olympus. His father had no throne on Olympus. Nico had no place at Camp.
No one ever seemed to think either was strange.
“You know,” Will finally said, opening his hands. “Most people don’t like them either.” There were a few lightning bugs crawling between his fingers, glimmering and glowing in a way Will hardly needed. He was a lightning bug in being himself. Where his siblings got his dad’s proclivity toward poetry and dramatics, to archery and athleticism, Will got everything that made him good.
He got his skill in medicine, a touch or a few words turning a wound to nothing. He got his light when he was embarrassed or excited. He’d glitter just like the lightning bugs, shining brighter than the stars or the moon, like it was daytime again.
He got everything that should drive him further away from Nico. Will was the sun, and Nico was the night sky sent to snuff him out. In every way that a lightning bug was an abnormality amongst other beetles, so was Will to Nico.
So, once again, Will was going to get his way.
Fuck him.
Nico sighed, tilting his head back.
“I can come for a little bit.” So few words brought light to Will (literally. He was glowing). He grabbed onto Nico’s hand and pulled him toward the strawberry fields.
“Kayla is going for a record of most she can catch in a night, but I don’t think she realizes that the Demeter kids are totally bribing them with extra plants. Plus, without lids on the jar, she doesn’t stand a chance, but we didn’t want to trap them. The Demeter kids are cheating, though, ‘cause they’re covering their jars with leaves.”
Will kept talking as he led Nico over, but Nico wasn’t doing great listening. Will was holding his hand, swinging it between them. How was he supposed to focus on anything else when that was happening?
“Animals don’t like me either. I could scare them away.” Nico couldn’t remember the last time that he’d tried to catch fireflies. Had he ever? Maybe, before the Lotus Hotel, with his mother and Bianca, when they were able to live normal lives…
Before that was stolen from him. His mother, his sister, his memories, his life.
So, yeah. Nico wasn’t sure he’d ever tried to catch fireflies. He had definitely never participated at Camp Half-Blood. Before Will, no one would have invited him to.
(He was rarely around long enough to get the invite, but the point still stood.)
“Some beetles are attracted to decomposition,” Will said, like that was just something normal for someone to say (to be fair, Nico supposed, that was hardly the strangest thing that he’d ever heard considering where they were, but it still was strange that Will was trying so hard to keep him there). “So… uh, maybe these ones will like you?”
At least he could tell that he was being strange.
Nico stared at the fireflies, and then glanced to Will.
“I guess.” Just like every other time, he gave in. Will knew what to say to keep Nico around just long enough to get him involved.
He had been planning on leaving Camp. He’d stop by Camp Jupiter to see Hazel, and then go back to what he’d done before the second war. But then Will had convinced him to stay. Another week, to make sure that he was okay after nearly fading. Another week, so the Stolls didn’t have full control over what was done to the Hades cabin. Another week, because some legionnaires from Camp Jupiter were coming by, just IM Hazel and tell her to come with them. Another week, because there wasn’t that much left of summer! Another week, because Will wasn’t sure how many year rounders there were going to be, and this was one of his first years without Annabeth.
Another, another, another, until Nico had been at Camp for months. He spent most of the time in his cabin, but he was there. He sat with the Apollo cabin at meals (“Doctor’s orders!” Will had said, dragging him from his spot at the table with Mr. D). He was dragged to campfires (the first time, Will had stood at his cabin door with one of his siblings obnoxiously singing until Nico finally came out).
And now he was catching fireflies with them, like he was part of it.
Like he was just another camper, instead of the son of Hades, displaced from time, and with no place he belonged.
Like he was fifteen, at a summer camp, with a crush on a boy.
Like he was normal.
Nico had never particularly wanted to be normal.
Then again, watching the kids try to bribe bugs to land in their jars with enchanted song and plants… This wasn’t normal. Not for anywhere but Camp.
Nico walked with Will, who didn’t let go of his hand for the rest of night. Other campers gave them a wide berth at first, but, slowly, other Apollo kids ran up. They mostly talked to Will, but they didn’t… act like Nico wasn’t there. They’d try to pull him into the conversation, then run away screaming when another firefly got too close to them.
Will laughed, finally letting go of Nico’s hand to run off and try to capture some of the bugs himself.
Nico ran after him, reaching to the sky when he saw the glimmers of light, catching a few on his hand. When he caught up, Will was covered in them, laughing along with one of his siblings as they synchronized to their glows.
Nico let the bugs crawl from his hand to Will’s, watching as the boy ended up nearly covered. He helped him lure some of them into jars, but most flew into the night sky.
Before long, the fireflies started to lessen, flying away while the Demeter and Apollo cabins desperately tried to count how many they had (the Demeter cabin won, though the Apollo cabin screamed for a recount). Will let the last of the beetles climb off of his hand and turned to look at Nico, chewing on his lip.
“Thanks for coming over. I know… you can be wary of the other campers.” He glanced at his siblings cleaning up the jars and setting the last few free. Nico shrugged. Not like he really had a choice.
Will leaned over and kissed him.
Nico stood frozen for a minute, his mind spinning. Will had just kissed him. Will Solace had just kissed Nico di Angelo. A son of Apollo, the head counselor of his cabin, had kissed the sole son of Hades, who most of Camp tried their hardest not to see.
Will pulled back, nervousness written on his face.
“Sorry, I was just—I was thinking, I mean, I might have misread, and I am seriously sorry and I’ll stop dragging you into stuff if I was wrong, it just seemed like, maybe—”
Maybe there was a reason that the stars were just far away suns in the night sky.
Ugh.
The Apollo kids’ poetry was rubbing off on him.
Nico grabbed onto Will’s bright orange shirt and kissed him back as the last of the fireflies’ flickering faded away for the night.