Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Did I do something wrong?”

Being confronted with Will Solace on a regular day could be overwhelming as it was. Being confronted with him like this—his eyebrows furrowed together, a concerned look on his face, and his lips downturned in a rare frown—felt like the cherry on top of Nico’s remarkably shitty day so far. And despite how much he wanted to walk away, for some reason he didn’t want to risk Will taking it personally.

Fuck. What had Will said?

In the hopes Will would repeat himself, Nico said, “What?”

“Did I do something wrong? Because you asked to be switched to a different healer—which is fine, I get that people have preferences on who they want to treat them—it’s just it kind of feels like you’re avoiding me and… I don’t know. Just… did I do something?”

Ah. Nico had asked for Ellis to be his main healer at the infirmary instead of Will. But he hadn’t been avoiding Will—at least not intentionally—except on the days he avoided everyone (aside from Hazel and Jason and Reyna and Hedge, if any of them called to check in).

“No,” Nico said simply.

Will shifted uncomfortably, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Okay. Are we okay?”

“Yes.”

Will paused, then looked him in the eyes. Not many people at Camp Half-Blood did that.

“Are you okay?”

Nico could’ve said any number of things. His first instinct was to say “I’m fine”—it was a default response, at this point. His second instinct was to walk away, to dismiss it as Will trying to act as his healer even though he’d drawn that boundary already.

Instead he said, “not really.”

“Oh. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay. What do you want to do?”

Nico shrugged and looked away. “I think I just need some time alone right now.”

“Okay.”

Nico thought Will was going to say something else, but he didn’t. Instead, when he looked up, Will had started walking away.

That’s it? Nico thought to himself. Based on what Nico had seen so far, he’d thought Will would try to coddle him or try to make him confess what was wrong, but he just… hadn’t.

It was nice. It was weird. Nico didn’t know how to feel about it.

So he didn’t think about it at all.

-

It had been three weeks since the battle with Gaea. At first Nico had questioned his decision to stay at Camp Half-Blood. If he had become a full-time legionnaire at Camp Jupiter, he could have spent more time with Hazel and Reyna. Or if he’d gone through with his plan to leave both camps for good, he could’ve traveled on his own and seen more of the world, met more pantheons.

But despite all the doubts he originally had, being at camp started to grow on him. It was the end of summer, and everyone except the year-round campers had left.

Nico supposed he was one of the year-rounders, now. It was an odd thought. After so much time being alone, it was new to consider himself part of anything. But now he was going to be considered a camper at Camp Half-Blood—he’d been given a new leather necklace to put his beads on—and one of the year-round campers and… maybe something else, once he was ready.

But just because he had decided to stay at Camp Half-Blood didn’t mean that everything was suddenly different. A lot of the other demigods still seemed wary of him, and he could feel everyone’s eyes on him when he sat alone at the Hades table for meals, and he still lived in a cabin that felt incredibly empty whenever he was alone in it.

Things had changed for sure. Just not always for the better.

And Will Solace seemed like a nice guy, but when Nico asked to change his primary healer from Will to Ellis, it had been because he’d seemed at the time like another problem that Nico had to deal with. He was a good healer; there was no doubt about that. But Nico felt a little anxious around him, sometimes, and he knew if he was catching feelings then he didn’t want to be catching feelings for his medic.

Ellis was a good alternative, though. He was decent at reading and respecting when Nico wasn’t in a talking mood, and he always asked before touching Nico and made sure to respect his boundaries.

The next day, Nico was back at the infirmary to get checked up on—nobody was requiring him to, but he was kind of tired of ignoring when he felt like crap, so he figured he might as well keep the appointment.

“How are you doing today?” Ellis asked, looking at Nico’s chart. Nico didn’t know what the camp put on their medical charts and records, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to ask.

“Physically or mentally?”

Ellis met his eyes. “Whichever you want to answer.”

Nico sighed. He looked around the otherwise-empty infirmary. “Mentally, I’ve definitely been better—kind of been staying in my cabin instead of joining daily activities because of it.”

“Well, I’m here if you want to talk about it.” Nico was about to say ‘pass,’ but then Ellis continued, “But, if not, Mr. D is back and says he’s here if anyone wants to talk to him. Clarisse said he used to offer it before the Titan War, too.”

“Did anyone take him up on it?”

“No idea. Therapy is kind of a confidential thing, you know?”

“Right.”

-

“Hey.”

It was a few days later at breakfast that Will came over to him at breakfast, sitting across from him at the table.

“Hey,” Nico said. “Shouldn’t you be with your cabin?”

With your siblings? he thought to himself.

Gods knew if Nico’s sister were alive, he’d be spending all the time he could with her.

Will just shrugged. “They’ll survive without me for a few minutes.”

A vague memory appeared in his mind, back from that first week he’d spent at camp. It had been his first or second day, and someone had asked if he wanted to do something with them, and they’d asked about his sister. Nico remembered saying something along the same lines.

And then a few days later he’d found out Bianca was dead.

Nico swallowed. “You should go back to them.”

“I just wanted to say hi.”

He looked Will in the eyes, said, “hi,” and then looked back at his food. “You should go.”

There was a pause. “Okay.” Will stood back up. “I’ll see you later, Nico.”

You should hope you don’t.

After all, people around him tended to die.

-

Will was either too friendly or too stubborn. Or both, because somehow he had wound up sitting next to Nico during arts and crafts a few days later.

And, more importantly, Will wouldn’t stop talking .

It was fine, really. Nico didn’t mind the talking that much; Will was mostly recounting stories of previous experiences at camp, ones that made Nico’s heart ache—just a little bit—with longing for the experiences he wished he could have gotten.

It was that Will sometimes said things like he was expecting a response, and Nico didn’t want to be rude and let on that he hadn’t been listening that closely, but he also didn’t know how to respond even when he tried to listen. Most of the time he ended up shrugging in response, which Will seemed fine with, if a little disappointed—as if he’d been hoping Nico would say more.

Which was unexpected. Will was unexpected. He kept sticking around Nico while most other people would actively run away. Nico couldn’t figure it out.

It was only when Will started in on another story about one of his siblings—Kayla, this time—that Nico finally interrupted and said, “why are you with me instead of with them?”

“What?”

Nico waited a beat, wondering if this was one of those times Will needed a second to process what he had heard or if Nico would have to repeat himself. It seemed to be the former, because Will asked, “With who?”

“Your siblings.”

Will blinked and turned. Kayla and Austin were also doing arts and crafts, talking with one of the satyrs.

“Is there a reason I need to be with them right this second? They seem like they’re fine right now.”

“Yeah, but—” when they’re gone, you’re going to kick yourself for not spending enough time with them. And when you think back, you’re going to think about all the time you wasted—you’re going to think about all the time you wasted with me when you could’ve been with them, and you’re going to hate us both for it.

Nico took a deep breath. “They’re your family. Shouldn’t you be spending time with them?”

Will snorted. “I live in the same cabin as them, eat meals with them, and do all the same activities as them. And I’m the counselor. I think I spend more than enough time with them.”

And yet, when they’re gone, no amount of time spent with them will feel like enough .

“Besides, what’s wrong with me spending time with my friends?”

Nico nearly dropped his paintbrush, which could’ve been disastrous—they would’ve both been covered in red paint, though Nico supposed that would’ve been less of a problem for Will, as red paint wouldn’t stand out as much against his orange t-shirt as it would against Nico’s black shirt.

Will considered him a friend. How? Why? He’d done nothing to earn it.

With Jason, it had been because of understanding. With Reyna, it had been because of the experiences they’d shared while transporting the statue back to camp. But with Will… he hadn’t done anything. He’d only gawked like a fool, pushed him away like he did everyone else, and thought too much about how cute and happy Will looked when he was talking to his siblings.

And for some reason Will still wanted to be his friend. Still considered Nico a friend.

Nico couldn’t fathom it.

“Nico?” His head snapped back up to look at Will. “Sorry, you were just kinda staring off into the distance. You all good?”

Nico nodded, and after a few moments, Will launched into another story.

-

Nico wasn’t much for physical contact. Will knew this and respected this. And yet even as they became closer friends over the next month or so, Nico found himself beginning to think he’d be okay with Will hugging him. Found himself beginning to wish Will would hug him.

He couldn’t tell how much of it was because of his rapidly growing crush on Will, but he decided to count that as a separate problem.

One day, Nico, Will, Austin, and Kayla were walking back from arts and crafts. Will was talking to his siblings about the campfire songs, and Austin and Kayla split off to go back to the cabin in the hour or so before dinner.

Once his siblings were gone, Will turned to Nico.

“You all good?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure? You were pretty quiet today.”

“I’m always quiet.”

Will chuckled. “Yeah, but… I don’t know, sorry, maybe I’m just reading it wrong or something—I’m pretty much only good at reading my siblings—but you just seem a little down?”

While talking, Will moved like he was about to bump Nico’s shoulder, which Nico had seen Will do with his siblings and with some of his friends like Cecil, but then he quickly aborted the movement and tried to pass it off as a shrug.

Nico sighed. “It’s okay, you know.”

Will stopped walking and looked at Nico, wide-eyed. “What?”

“It’s okay if you want to, like, bump my shoulder.”

Will just stared at him.

“What? Did I get paint on my face again?”

He shook his head. “No, sorry. I just… thought you were going to say something totally different.”

Nico frowned. “What?”

Will shook his head, “it’s not important.” Then his usual bright smile returned to his face. “So. Shoulder-bumping is okay. Anything else, or just that?”

“Hugging is okay, just maybe ask first. Also, just… maybe be careful if it’s a day I’m using my cane? I’d rather not get knocked off balance.”

Will nodded. He looked so ridiculously pleased and Nico wanted to roll his eyes, but the smile on his face was too adorable.

If Nico di Angelo were any more of a fool, he might’ve told Will to add ‘hand-holding’ to the list of physical contact that was okay.

Instead, he bumped Will’s shoulder and kept walking. He couldn’t fight the smile that made its way onto his face and remained there for the rest of the time they were hanging out.

-

“What was it like?”

“What was what like?”

“Living in the thirties. Adjusting from that time period to this one.”

Nico paused. “I don’t actually remember a lot of it—I told you about how before getting sent to the Lotus Casino, my sister and I got submerged in the River Lethe, right?”

When he looked over at Will, there was this shocked look on his face. Oh. So maybe he’d told someone else. Maybe Jason?

“If you did then I guess I forgot?” There was a hint of disbelief in Will’s voice, and it sounded like he was only a few moments away from his voice getting loud and high-pitched and hysterical. “Definitely won’t forget that again, though.”

“Right. Well, inflation is higher. Clothes feel kind of different—maybe it’s the production value? People talk different.” He paused to think. “There’s different slang—back when Bianca and I were at that school, before we were brought here, I remember I was talking to some kid in class about the dance and I said ‘I guess we’ll see if you’re a total cement mixer after all’ and he just looked at me like I was weird.”

“Huh. What’s cement mixer mean? Where’d you pick that up?”

“It’s basically someone who’s awful at dancing. So I could say ‘Will Solace is a cement mixer’—”

“Hey!”

“—and that would be a correct use of the term.”

“It would not! I’m a good dancer.”

“Really? Kayla and Austin claim otherwise.”

Will rolled his eyes. “They’ve never even seen me dance. How would they know?”

Nico just shrugged. He felt the corners of his lips twitch into a smile as Will’s faux-indignation rose. He watched Will stand up from the grass and dust his clothes off.

“Fine. You want to see if I’m a cement mixer?” Then he offered out a hand to Nico. “Dance with me.”

Nico hesitated, then took his hand. “There’s no music.”

“I could sing something?”

Nico had heard Will sing, and while it was always cute to listen to him sing—even though he wasn’t anywhere near as talented at it as any of his siblings, he seemed to enjoy it a lot—he wasn’t very good at keeping time.

“I can do it. But you can lead, since you’re taller.”

Not that height technically mattered much—even though Nico was shorter, when Nico and Bianca had learned to dance he’d always led during the lessons. But when they practiced in their own time, Bianca always led. She was better at it anyway.

Will reached out and put his right hand under Nico’s armpit—Nico corrected it so that that hand was on Nico’s back, which unintentionally brought them much closer—and Nico put his left hand on Will’s shoulder. Then they clasped their free hands together.

Nico tried to remember a song for dancing. He could remember bits and pieces from a few tunes from before the Lethe, but the only ones he could remember well were ones that he’d heard again since then. So it was a bit of a struggle to remember any music fit for waltzing.

Eventually he thought of a tune and began to hum. Will counted off, “1…2…3…” and then they started moving. The proximity to Will made it difficult to think, but after practicing so much with Bianca, it was basically instinct. He just had to adjust to dancing with a partner who was a different height… and had to adjust to being a different height.

Once they’d fallen into a rhythm, Will asked, “What else has changed?”

Nico shrugged. “Everything, kind of. There’s like, the Internet, though that’s kind of dangerous for demigods unless you’re at one of the camps—”

“Camp Half-Blood doesn’t have wifi.”

Nico snorted. “Of course it does. It’s just that, for some reason, nobody here has a phone.”

Will paused. “Actually, I’m pretty sure the Hermes cabin and the Hephaestus cabin have a bunch of electronics in their cabins.”

“They do?”

“Of course. The Hermes cabin steals some of it and gives it to the Hephaestus cabin so that they can take it apart and put it back together or just so they can use some of the spare parts in new inventions.”

“That’s cool.”

“Yup. Symbiosis or whatever, right?”

Nico snorted. “Yeah. Symbiosis.”

“So, to summarize what’s changed: inflation, clothes, slang, internet—”

“Music, dancing—”

“Of course, yeah, music and dancing have definitely changed. Like, what do you think of…” Will clicked his tongue like he was thinking. “Oh, what do you think of My Chemical Romance?”

“Not sure I’ve heard of them. Show me later?”

“Sure. So what music have you heard?”

Nico shrugged. “I don’t know, I like that ‘pocketful of sunshine’ song.”

Will’s eyebrows shot up and he smiled. “Huh. Not what I would’ve expected. Okay.” Before Nico could ask what he had expected, Will asked, “anything I missed on the list?”

“People have changed. They’re more open to some things, less about others.”

“Like what?”

“Like…” Nico took a deep breath. With Will this close, all up in his space, it was hard to look anywhere else. “Like, back then, people definitely would’ve frowned upon seeing two guys dancing together. But now, people seem a little more open to it.”

Will just smiled. “Lucky for me, I guess.”

“Yeah, you get to dance with your friend in daylight without anyone saying anything.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s not really what I meant. I meant that…” He sighed and pulled away from Nico, crossing his arms over his chest. Usually when Will did that it was because he didn’t know what else to do with his hands, but right now it felt like he was using his arms to shield his chest and heart. “I meant that it’s a good thing for me that people have gotten more accepting of girls liking girls and guys liking guys because I’m a guy who likes guys.”

Nico did his best to control his facial expression, but it didn’t matter anyway because Will wasn’t looking at him. He was staring at his feet, scratching at the skin on his arms. It took a few seconds of staring at him to realize that Will was waiting for his reaction.

Nico wasn’t exactly sure how to react. But he could see that Will seemed worried about his reaction, so Nico decided to just say, “I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I wasn’t okay with it, Will.”

Will finally met his eyes. Nico didn’t usually like eye contact, but he tried to at least keep his eyes on Will’s face.

“So… we’re good?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

Will just shrugged, feigning indifference. “Some people have been weird since I told them. Like, I told one of my friends back in Texas and he wouldn’t really touch me after that. And even one of my friends here is kind of still adjusting to the fact that I’m…”

“Nothing has changed, Will. You’re still you. Now I just know you a little better.”

Will stared at him. “I know you don’t usually like hugs but… is it okay if I hug you?”

He nodded, and Will launched himself into Nico’s arms. Nico wrapped his arms around Will’s back. It was a bit of an awkward position, because Will was taller but he was hugging Nico like Nico was a shield that could protect him from the world, but Nico didn’t mind.

“Thank you,” Will murmured against his chest.

Nico felt his heart break. He didn’t say anything, just held Will for as long as he needed.

-

“What are you thinking about?”

Nico was sitting at the lake, feet dangling in the water. His cane and his shoes and socks were on one side, and Will sat down next to him on his other side.

“Thinking about all the places I went before I decided to stay at camp.”

“Oh.”

“Have I told you about how, between the time I ran away and the summer of all that stuff with the labyrinth, I was with Minos?”

Will blinked. “Like, King Minos of Crete? Isn’t he dead?”

“Yeah, he was a ghost. He told me he could help me bring Bianca back, but he was just using me to try to come back to life.”

“That sounds awful.”

“It was. His voice was so annoying and he was in my ear all the time.” Will gave him a look, and Nico just sighed. “This is why I don’t make jokes.”

Neither of them said anything. Will took off his shoes and socks and let his feet dangle into the water too, and less than a minute later, one of the naiads in the lake tried to pull him into the water. He managed to hold on enough that he only got soaked up to his knees, but it was still kind of funny to see the bottom of his khakis get drenched.

After that, they just sat in the sun for a bit. The wind was cool but Nico didn’t mind, as he was still wearing his jacket. Will, on the other hand, seemed to be shivering just a little bit—Nico could see goosebumps appear along his arms. But Will never asked to go inside, so they just sat at the lakeside.

“Did you used to travel a lot?”

Nico nodded. “Shadow-traveling made it pretty easy to get from place to place, once I figured it out.”

“Have you been to a lot of places?”

“Yeah, I traveled a lot with Minos. And with the Seven this summer.”

“Most memorable place you’ve been?”

Nico snorted. “Not sure. But I can definitely say I don’t want to go back to Rome anytime soon.” Then another thought came to mind. “I do remember this one place I would like to go back to someday, though.”

Will perked up a little bit. “Yeah? Where?”

“When I was traveling with Minos, we went to see a lot of different people. Asking for favors. And one of the people he took me to had this enormous personal library filled wall-to-wall with books.”

“That sounds really cool.”

“It was,” Nico smiled. “We stayed there for a few days. I managed to read the entirety of Peter Pan. Read a few other things too—like, have you heard Plato’s theory about soulmates?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I read that one while I was there. It made me sad, reading it.”

Will tilted his head. “Why?”

“Well, Plato’s theory was that in ancient times, all humans were a combination of male and female, with two arms, four arms, and four legs. And Zeus felt threatened by them—thought they were too powerful. But he couldn’t kill them, because the gods still needed them to give sacrifices to them. So instead he split them in half—man and woman. And Plato’s theory is that soulmates are people searching for their other half.

“And even as a kid, it made me sad because… if all soulmate pairings were a man and a woman, that meant I didn’t have a soulmate.”

Nico picked at his nails. He knew Will probably wouldn’t react badly to him telling him about himself, but that didn’t make him any less anxious. It was still one of his first times saying it out loud.

Will reached out, putting his hand in Nico’s line of sight to get his attention but not touching his hand. Nico looked up. Will’s eyebrows were drawn together and his eyes looked sad… and a little angry.

“That’s not how the story goes.”

Nico frowned. “What?”

Will sighed and leaned back on his hands. “Plato’s theory was that in ancient times, humans had two heads, four arms, and four legs. But there were three types of people: two men, two women, and a man and a woman.”

Nico was already floored by this, but Will continued. “These ‘first people’ were filled with pride and ego, and defied the gods, which incited their rage. These humans were so strong that Zeus needed to stop them, but he couldn’t kill them because that would mean no more sacrifices, so he cut them up like he did to Kronos.

“The humans started to die without their other halves. So Apollo took pity on them and sewed them up. He gathered all the skin that used to join them to their other half and created belly buttons, made sure that all their body parts were facing the right direction, and then helped guide each person to their other half.

“And yeah, that theory doesn’t even really hold up when you consider that there are people who don’t experience attraction, but—if you’re looking for someone, you will find your soulmate.”

Nico sat with that. He leaned into Will’s space a little bit. Will moved his arm so it was right above Nico’s shoulders, and when Nico nodded, he wrapped his arm around Nico.

Nico leaned into the embrace, breathed, and then chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” Will asked.

He looked to see if there was anyone around—even looked at the lake to see if the naiads were close enough to the surface to hear them—and then said, “All this time I thought being gay meant I was forsaken. Turns out I’m not.”

“You’re not.” Will reaffirmed.

-

There was a knock on Nico’s door past eleven o’clock at night on a random Tuesday. He was almost thinking of ignoring it, but then he heard Kayla’s voice say, “maybe we shouldn’t bug him. Will’s always saying he needs to sleep more.”

“Great, he should…” He didn’t hear the rest of Lou Ellen’s response. There was another knock at the door. Nico pulled on a sweatshirt and went to open it.

At his door were Lou Ellen, Kayla, and Cecil. “Hi. How can I help you?”

“We need you to help us get Will out of the infirmary.”

Nico paused. “Why is he in the infirmary? Is he hurt?”

“No, he’s just being stupidly stubborn and overworking himself.” Lou Ellen frowned. “It’s not even his turn to do the night shift!”

“It hasn’t been his turn to do it for the past three nights either,” Kayla pointed out.

He frowned. “Wait, he’s done three night shifts in a row? And been doing his normal day shifts?”

Cecil nodded. “He keeps saying there’s too much work to do for him to be able to leave, but it’s not even the summer! There aren’t that many people at camp, much less in the infirmary.”

Nico sighed. He pulled his shoes on, walked out of the cabin, and closed the door behind him. “So what the hell is that idiot pulling the night shift for?”

“No idea.”

“Did you ask ?”

“He wouldn’t say! And he wouldn’t let me look,” Kayla grumbled.

Nico couldn’t even tell if he was doing it out of annoyance or concern, but by the time he got to the infirmary he’d managed to convince the other three to let him talk to Will alone. He’d even managed to convince them to go back to their cabins and go to bed before the harpies tried to eat them for being out past curfew—though Kayla insisted on staying awake until Will came back to the cabin.

So when he entered the infirmary alone, the only people in the room were Will, Austin, and an injured camper who was asleep. Austin was saying something to Will about how he needed to sleep more and how it wasn’t his turn to do the night shift, but Will didn’t even really seem to be listening.

“Will,” Nico called, which startled them both. Right, everyone kept saying he was way too quiet when he walked into rooms.

“What are you doing here?”

“Keeping you company until you agree to sleep.”

Will’s eyes widened. “Nico, you can’t do that, you need to rest!”

“One; you’re not my doctor, don’t try to tell me what I can and can’t do. Two; you need to sleep too. Whatever you’re working on can wait until morning.” Austin gave Nico a look, and he added, “or the next time you’re actually scheduled to work.”

“You don’t understand, I need to…” Will trailed off and sighed. “I need to fix this .”

Nico looked over at Austin. “Any chance you could give us the room for a minute?”

“I’m actually supposed to be on night shift right now.”

“How about I come get you when we’re done talking?”

Austin sighed, said “fine,” and stomped out of the room.

Nico walked over to Will’s desk. “So what are you working on?”

“Files.”

“Okay. What types of files are they and why is it so important that you do them right now?”

“Most of them are files of dead campers, I think. We just never really threw them out—they were all just in this box, collecting dust, and…I wanted to at least add some stuff about them to their files. Their godly powers or their appearance or something other than just their name and their date of death.”

“Okay. That… actually sounds like a nice thing to do.” Nico idly wondered if Bianca was in the files. Wondered if she’d ever been in there, since she’d technically been a hunter for the short period of time she’d been at camp. “But why do you have to do that right now?”

“Because if not now then when?”

“That’s not really a good enough reason, Will. There’s always tomorrow.”

“Yeah, but what if I forget? Or what if by tomorrow I can’t remember anything about any of these people? My brain is like that—some days I can remember certain things and other days I just can’t, you know?”

Nico processed this, then said, “okay.”

“…Okay?”

“If you’re worried you won’t be able to remember stuff about those campers tomorrow, then how about we put this away until tomorrow, bring it to Chiron, and you and I can ask for his help with it?” He waited for Will’s reaction. He seemed to be contemplating it. “Chiron remembers everyone—he’ll at least be able to come up with physical descriptions, even if he can’t help with more personal details like their favorite color or favorite movie.”

Will picked at the skin on his hands, which were so dry that he made little flecks of skin flake off when he scratched them. Nico reached out and, very slowly, reached over and covered Will’s hands with one of his own.

“How does that sound?”

Will looked at their hands, then back up at Nico. Then he looked back at the paperwork. “Fine. Let me clean this up?”

“Okay.”

Once Will had finished cleaning up, Nico went to find Austin.

“Did you get him to go to bed?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“No clue.”

Nico walked Will back to his cabin to make sure that he actually went to bed instead of going back to the infirmary or something.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t left?”

Nico shrugged. “I could’ve just shadow-traveled you out of there. I was thinking of doing it, especially since Kayla said she wasn’t going to sleep until you came back.”

“Yeah, she doesn’t like sleeping in the cabin alone. Can’t believe I forgot about that,” Will said, sounding guilty.

They made it to Cabin Seven and he opened the door, then stopped in the doorway. He asked, “why didn’t you? Shadow-travel me out, I mean?”

“Because yeah , all of us want you to sleep and take care of yourself and stuff, but in the end the choice is up to you.”

Will nodded in understanding. “Good night, Nico.”

“Good night, Will.” Nico stood on his tiptoes and looked past Will into the cabin. “Good night, Kayla.”

“Good night, Nico.”

-

A few weeks later, in the middle of October, Will and Nico ended up walking back from the dining pavilion together after dinner. It was dark out, but with the glow of the moonlight and the light from the cabins, they could see where they were walking well enough.

Will was telling Nico another story. He had a lot of them, it seemed. Not many were about him, though—most of them were about his siblings, or his friends, or even his country star mom or his grandparents back home in Texas, but most stories he was only ever tangentially in. It was odd.

Once Will reached the end of the story, laughing so hard while trying to talk about the ending that he had to repeat it three times for Nico to be able to tell what he was saying, Nico said, “Will?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you tell me a story about you?”

“What?”

Nico paused and waited. This time, it seemed like he wanted Nico to clarify what he’d said.

“A lot of your stories are about other people. I want to hear one about you.”

“I don’t have many stories about me. I’m not that interesting.” Will laughed, self-deprecating. It was the first time Nico found himself not enjoying hearing Will laugh.

“That’s not true.” When Will didn’t say anything back, Nico stopped walking and leaned against his cane. As a son of Hades, Nico could see pretty well in the dark. And when he turned to look at Will, he was wearing the most miserable expression he’d ever seen on Will’s normally happy face. “Will, that’s not true. You’re plenty interesting.”

“I’m really not.”

“You are to me.”

Will froze. Nico had to stop himself from freezing, too.

“You’re my friend, and I want to get to know you better. It’s just hard. You talk about everyone except yourself.”

Will huffed and looked away. “You’re one to talk. You’re even harder to get to know, you know that? You don’t talk much at all.” He blanched, then added. “Which is fine, you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, it’s just I really like you and I want to get to know you better and—”

Will cut himself off, his eyes widening. Nico didn’t understand why until a few seconds later he processed that Will had just said ‘I really like you’.

Oh. Oh shit. Okay.

Suddenly Will turned into a ball of anxious energy, wringing his hands together.

“I shouldn’t have said that. Shit, I’m so sorry, I should go.”

“Will—”

“I’m sorry, I’ll—”

With the hand that wasn’t holding his cane, Nico reached out to gently take hold of Will’s hand before he could walk away. “Will.”

Will froze again and looked down at their hands. Nico forced himself not to hesitate or look away or flinch, even though he was still a little bit terrified of—well, all of this. And then, all at once, all of Will’s energy seemed to drain from him as he began to ramble.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t want to make things weird.”

Nico tugged on his hand and, before his nerves could get away from him, quickly said, “I really like you too.”

Will paused. “You do?”

Nico nodded.

“Oh.” Will’s hand was warm. “Like, as more than a friend?”

Nico nodded. “Yeah.”

“Oh.”

It seemed, for once, that Will was out of words.

But also, Nico’s legs were beginning to hurt, even with the assistance of his cane, and he didn’t want to go back to his cabin just yet.

“Can we sit down? My legs are kinda—”

“Oh, yeah, totally.” Will said hurriedly. He dropped to the ground and nearly dragged Nico down with him, refusing to let go of Nico’s hand for even a second.

It was ridiculous. It was endearing. Nico liked him so much.

But once they were on the ground, they didn’t really do or say anything for a while. They were mostly just staring at each other or at their entwined hands.

Nico hadn’t been scared of the dark since he was young, and for years now he’d known that he could bend the shadows to his will. So sitting silently under the dark night sky with Will felt like he was as safe as he could be.

Eventually Will did break the silence, though.

“So…” He took a deep breath. “I like you. And you like me.”

“Yeah.”

“So, do you want to…” Will shook his head. “Sorry, I just don’t really know what to do right now. The last time someone said they reciprocated my feelings, they said they wanted to stay friends, so…”

After a moment’s hesitation, Nico asked, “Is that what you want? To stay friends?”

He tried not to let his grip on Will’s hand change at all while he said it. He didn’t want to hide from Will, but he also didn’t know how vulnerable he was comfortable being right now. This was the most he could remember willingly revealing about himself in a while.

Will looked like he was about to say something, but then took a deep breath in and let it back out. “What do you want?”

Nico did his best to deliberately choose his words so he wouldn’t be misinterpreted.

“I want to be with you. I’m just… is it okay if it’s just between us, for now?”

Will nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I get it. I don’t… I haven’t even told everyone at camp that I like guys, so I think I probably want to tell them about that, first.”

Nico nodded. “Same, I guess.”

But there were other things too. He didn’t mention that he also just wanted it to be just them, not worrying about what other people thought just yet. He didn’t mention that, if this didn’t work out and if they broke up, he didn’t want it to affect anything at camp; didn’t want people to suddenly act like they had to take sides. And maybe it was a little selfish to not mention things like that, to not mention that if they kept it a secret then if they broke up he wanted to be able to keep all their mutual friends, instead of worrying about them taking sides (and most likely ditching him, because all of them had known and been friends with Will longer).

Maybe it was selfish, but Nico wanted to try to embrace the possibility that good things could happen to him.

“So we’re dating?”

“Yeah.”

The grin on Will’s face was so wide and happy, Nico wondered how his cheeks didn’t ache. “Wow.”

Wow indeed. Nico thought to himself. After all, he had a boyfriend now. Holy shit.

“Is it okay if I hug you right now?” Will asked hesitantly.

Nico nodded. Will leaned forward and put his arms around Nico. The angle was a little awkward, since they were both sitting on the ground, but Will had a remarkable skill for giving hugs, so much so that Nico found himself sinking into the embrace. Normally with hugs he’d back away after a few seconds, but for once he felt comfortable and safe enough to hug Will and breathe into his shoulder for almost a full minute.

-

“Tell me a story.”

A few days later, they were walking around camp again during their free time between activities. The camp didn’t usually experience severe weather, but the October chill was cold enough that Will was already starting to wear long-sleeved shirts under his orange camp t-shirt. If he was already beginning to layer, Nico could only imagine how he’d be dressed when December rolled around.

“About what?” Will nudged Nico’s shoulder. There was always a moment of hesitation before he touched Nico, looking at Nico to check first and always moving slowly, like he wanted to give Nico time to move away if he decided he wasn’t comfortable. Nico appreciated it, but he wondered how long it would take Will to realize that he was comfortable around him.

“How did you first come to camp?”

Will shrugged. “Not much of a story there. My mom dropped me off here for the first time when I was eight, and then she picked me up at the end of that summer. Even stuck around long enough to celebrate my birthday a few weeks later.”

“When did you become a year-rounder?”

“The year after that. My mom was on tour and couldn’t pick me up, so I just stuck around camp for the first half of that year. And then when I went home for Christmas, I told my mom I wanted to stay at camp year-round.”

Nico made a ‘hmm’ noise.

“Still not really a good story, though.”

“Well, you left out a bunch of details,” Nico pointed out. “Why did you choose to stay at camp year-round?”

“I liked my siblings. I liked being able to talk about demigod stuff. I liked… just being here, I guess.”

“Is that why you still stay here year-round?”

Will shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like I haven’t considered going back to Texas for the school year. I’d get more time with my grandparents, for one thing.”

Nico felt his heart clench in his chest. More family of Will’s that he was stealing time from. And this time it wasn’t demigod friends or siblings who had monsters and gods and wars at their heels, but older family members—mortal family members who likely didn’t even know that the world of gods and monsters existed—who were slowly running out of time to spend with their grandson.

Nico wondered if they had ever seen the tiredness in Will’s eyes, if they had ever wondered where it had come from. Could they tell how many friends he had seen die just in the last few years?

He wondered what they thought their 15-year-old grandson was doing all year when he wasn’t with his mom or back home with them in Texas. He wondered if they ever wished they saw their grandson more.

Wondered what they would think if they knew he was spending it with him instead of with them.

Will tapped him on the shoulder, and Nico suddenly realized he’d missed what Will had said.

“Sorry, I kind of…”

Will smiled understandingly. “Don’t worry about it. I was just saying… Texas is always going to be a home I can go back to. But this is my home too. A lot of the people I care about are here, and this is where I feel most… myself, I guess. Like I can be me—demigod who’s a big nerd and likes boys and wants to own nine cats when he’s older—and nobody’s gonna judge me.”

Nico and Will had clearly had very different experiences of camp. But Nico couldn’t get past—

“You want nine cats?”

“What’s wrong with cats?”

“Hey, I like cats too, but… nine, really? That’s so specific.”

“Because I already know what I’m going to name them.”

“Yeah, right. Knowing you, you’ll have a whole plan and then look at the first one and be like ‘you look like a Krystal.’ Spelled with a ‘K’.”

“Take that back!”

Nico just threw his head back and laughed.

-

The Apollo cabin was supposed to lead the campfire. It kind of seemed to be one of their big things at camp. So Nico felt a little weird about Will sitting at the edge with him instead of sitting in the center with his siblings. He liked the company, of course, but he felt a little guilty about being so glad that Will was here with him instead.

“Shouldn’t you be with your siblings?”

Will shrugged. “I’m kind of tone-deaf anyway. They can lead the songs just fine without me, and I can sing just fine from over here.”

“Are you sure?” Nico asked.

He thought about suggesting they sit a little closer—Nico didn’t think he was prepared to sit at the center with them, because of the attention and because he was worried about people suspecting something going on between Will and Nico—but Will just nodded. “It’s fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

So Nico and Will sat at the edge of the circle, singing along off-tune to the songs and whispering to each other and laughing at each other’s terrible jokes, and it was good. It was fine, just like Will said it would be.

But then Sherman and Connor started singing a different song, one that was…definitely not friendly for some of the younger kids like Harley. They were louder and being intentionally obnoxious. Usually they would’ve been easy to shut down—Nico had seen Will shut them up before—but Kayla and Austin didn’t seem to know how to respond to the interruption. And then other kids joined in, and it just seemed to be turning into a total disaster, but—

A loud, high-pitched whistle pierced the air.

Nico covered his ears and shut his eyes at the noise. When he opened his eyes again, the other campers seemed to have reacted the same way. Every camper except Will, the super-sonic whistler himself, who looked furious. In the fire’s glow, the son of the sun god seemed like he was burning with rage.

“Sherman. Connor.” Both of them blanched at his icy tone. “You know better.”

“Wasn’t aware this was a dictatorship,” Sherman joked lightly.

“You want a song added to the list of campfire songs, you ask us. We have to approve the songs first because there are kids here and we want them to be able to enjoy the campfire, too.” Will stared them down. It seemed to Nico like he was daring either of them to talk back again. “Are we clear?”

Sherman and Connor both nod.

“That goes for the rest of you, too,” Will said. “Don’t let it happen again.”

He then returned to his usual seat next to Austin. Will nodded at Austin, who, after a few moments, started the next song. It took until the first chorus for most of the rest of the campers to join in.

But Nico sat silently at the edge, staring at Will’s back.

He couldn’t help but think it was his fault—Will had sat next to him instead of his siblings, and because of that Sherman and Connor had thought it was okay to interrupt, and—

He’d never seen Will so angry. He’d been sitting right next to Will and he had almost felt the rage radiating from him.

He knew he was spiraling, just a little bit. But that didn’t stop him from finding Will after the campfire ended so that they could talk.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out, without any of the preface he’d planned to say.

“What?”

“For the campfire. I’m so sorry, please tell Kayla and Austin I’m sorry—it’s my fault you weren’t with them, and—”

“Hey, it’s not your fault,” Will said softly. Why was he always so gentle with Nico? Nico had almost ruined the campfire and Will was still being so nice about it and Nico didn’t know what to do with that kind of relentless kindness.

“It is! If you’d been with Sherman and Connor, they wouldn’t have interrupted the song.”

Will snorted. “Look, Sherman and Connor are cool. But they’re also idiots. They interrupt a lot.”

“You don’t usually get that mad, though.”

He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah, I’m not proud about that. But they know better to sing explicit songs at the campfire—if they want to do that, they can go out to the woods and have their own singalong. The campfire is for everyone.”

“Is that the only reason you got mad?”

Will didn’t respond at first and Nico was about to take his silence as an answer for… something, but then Will said, “Nobody disrespects my siblings.” Will’s voice sounded almost as cold as it had at the campfire. “They chose today of all days to be funny and sing an explicit song because they thought if I wasn’t there then nobody was gonna stop them.”

“I’m sorry.”

Will sighed. His voice softened again, back to the way he usually talked to Nico. “It’s not your fault.” Nico was about to respond and argue that it was, but Will put a hand up. “It’s not your fault that Sherman and Connor are idiots. I’ll knock some sense into them one of these days.”

“Better not be via medical malpractice,” Nico replied drily.

“I take my job as a medic very seriously, so no.” Will’s voice turned slightly mischievous. “No promises that I won’t accidentally hit one of them with an arrow during archery practice, though.”

-

Kayla and Austin were nice kids. Nico had heard a lot about them in Will’s stories, and he’d talked to them a little bit during arts and crafts time and during some of the other activities. But he hadn’t spent a lot of time with them.

Ellis was usually on duty when Cabin Seven had arts and crafts time, but Ellis had fallen sick with the flu so Will was covering his shift at the infirmary. Which meant that it was just Kayla, Austin, Nico, and Damien and Malcolm.

Halloween was coming up, so today they were painting flat little pieces of wood shaped like jack o’ lanterns and ghosts and cats. Nico was painting pink ears onto a cat he’d painted black, Kayla was painting red fangs onto her white jack o’ lantern, and Austin was idly painting a jack o’ lantern orange while talking to Damien and Malcolm.

“I kind of thought you were gonna pick a ghost,” Kayla said, catching Nico’s attention.

“Because my dad’s the god of the Underworld?” She nodded and he just snorted. “Eh, I think I’ve had enough of ghosts for a while.”

Kayla grinned and went back to painting. She was giving her jack o’ lantern blue eyeliner, which Nico thought looked surprisingly good.

“I feel like I haven’t talked to you enough.” Nico’s head popped back up at Kayla’s words. He wondered if she often talked like this—was her train of thought this sporadic or did she just not talk a lot? Did she dislike silence? Or did she just not know what to say because it was Nico? “I mean, with all the time you spend with Will, I guess I just thought we would have talked more.”

Nico tilted his head at her. “Do you want us to talk more?”

“I wouldn’t mind it. You’re cool.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You think I’m cool?”

“If Will likes hanging out with you this much, you’ve got to be,” she said with a shrug, as if it were as simple as that.

“We don’t hang out that much,” he scoffed.

“If Will’s not at the infirmary, he’s usually with you,” Austin said. Nico wasn’t even sure when Austin had started listening in on the conversation, so he was a tad startled when he cut in.

“Yeah, you guys hang out so much that we barely see him anymore.” Kayla giggled like it was funny, but Nico felt the words weigh down on his chest like lead. He hadn’t even realized he’d been taking so much time away from them. He hadn’t meant to make them feel like that.

“Sorry,” Nico said quietly.

Kayla and Austin gave him odd looks, but he just picked up the flat wooden cat decoration he’d finished painting and stood up.

“If anyone asks, tell them I’m in the bathroom or the infirmary or—something, I don’t know.”

Kayla and Austin still looked confused, but Austin nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

Nico thanked them and left. He’d painted the cat black with pink ears and a little pink nose, and had used a pen to write Krystal on the back. He’d originally meant to give it to Will, but now… he wasn’t so sure.

He walked off toward his cabin and stayed there until the dinner conch sounded.

-

Nico had been invited to spend Thanksgiving week with Hazel, Frank, and Reyna at Camp Jupiter—Percy had also invited him to spend Thanksgiving with his family in Manhattan, and though Nico had ultimately rejected the invitation, he’d promised that he would spend Christmas with the Jacksons.

The most convenient way for him to get to California was to shadow-travel, so he offered to drop Will off in Texas on his way to California. Will had been hesitant, fretting about the possible consequences for Nico’s health, but Nico had promised that because he wasn’t on a tight deadline like he had been when delivering the Athena Parthenos to camp that summer, he’d be fine.

“And I appreciate the concern,” he added, “but you’re not my doctor.”

They were in the Hades cabin, so for once Will hadn’t needed to look around for people before he asked, “am I not allowed to care about my boyfriend?”

Nico scoffed lightly. “I can take care of myself.”

Will frowned. “You remind me to take breaks from working at the infirmary so that I don’t overwork myself. Can’t I remind you not to overwork yourself with the shadow-traveling?”

Nico grumbled. Unfortunately, that was kind of a fair point.

“...fine. Just don’t act like you can medically ban me from shadow-traveling.”

“I wouldn’t do that. I only ever give people recommendations for what they can do. Most of the time, anything outside of the actual healing part of my job is up to the person. And no, I’m not your doctor, but your own health is also ultimately up to you.”

They had planned out each of their stops in advance so that it wouldn’t be too taxing. They were going to stop in several cities on the way to Austin. Nico had a similar plan on the way from Austin to Camp Jupiter.

Their plan didn’t account for monsters, however, so they weren’t supposed to stop in any one place too long.

But when they got to Washington D.C., Will insisted on seeing some of the monuments, and like an absolute chump , Nico folded and agreed to sightseeing like a total tourist.

“You are a tourist here, Nico, that’s the fun of it!”

With his sunglasses and floppy old beige bucket hat, Will certainly looked like a tourist. If it weren’t so endearing, Nico might’ve been embarrassed. He was beginning to sense a running theme.

“What if I told you I’ve already seen the Washington Monument?” Nico asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“What if I told you I haven’t seen it?”

“You definitely told me a story about it, so, no, I don’t believe you,” he said with a smirk.

Will frowned. “Wait, I told you that story? I don’t even remember …” He waved his hand, “doesn’t matter. It’s just… what if I told you I want to see it with you?”

Nico bit his lip and Will put on the saddest, most pathetic pout and his best attempt at puppy eyes. Nico groaned. “Fine!”

“Yay!”

“That was not a fair card to play and you know it.”

“I wasn’t even sure it would work.” Will shrugged. “But I did mean it, y’know. It’s not really about the place. I want to have a memory of being here with you.”

Nico’s heart swelled. Gods, he could’ve kissed him right there.

But even the thought made him freeze. His discomfort with physical touch was a whole ordeal in itself, the constant feeling of being watched by people they knew while at camp another, and in dealing with all of that Nico had kind of just forgotten about kissing. But now he wondered if Will was at all disappointed that they hadn’t kissed yet.

And while, on impulse, he kind of wanted to kiss Will right now, he also didn’t want it to be because he was succumbing to the sudden pressure he felt. So instead, moving slowly—the same way Will always did before touching him—he reached for Will’s face and very delicately placed a kiss on his cheek.

When he pulled away, he saw that Will’s cheeks had turned pink. Will grinned sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck. “What was that for?”

“Was that okay?”

“Yeah, we just haven’t really done… that stuff before.” Will’s face somehow managed to flush a deeper pink. “I was just wondering.”

“I just… wanted to, I guess.” Nico said. “Is that okay?”

Will nodded eagerly, and Nico snickered when his hair flopped around and fell into his eyes. “More than okay.”

They were walking toward the monument when someone—or, rather, something—crashed into Nico from behind, knocking him to his knees. He heard Will call out his name. When he looked up, a sphinx was bearing its teeth at him.

He reached for his cane, but it had been knocked several feet away when he’d fallen, and now rested near the sphinx. Great. He’d have to defend himself some other way.

Nico let his hands rest on the ground. Closing his eyes, he summoned a few skeletons from beneath the earth. Most of them were fractured, missing an arm or a few ribs or even part of their skulls—with all the construction that had been done in the area of the Washington Monument, Nico wasn’t surprised. But he began to pull them above ground.

What did surprise him was that when he opened his eyes and looked up, Will had stepped in front of him. He was holding a Celestial Bronze sword, a cavalry saber that Nico knew he only used in emergencies, and he lunged at the sphinx.

Nico nearly lost his concentration. “Will, no!”

If he weren’t already tired from shadow-traveling, Nico would’ve been able to summon the skeletons faster. But he could only watch as Will slashed at the monster and did his best to dodge its sharp claws.

But Will had managed to get the sphinx to move away from Nico’s cane, and Nico grabbed it. As he got to his feet, he clicked a button on his cane. It transformed from a wooden cane and elongated into his Stygian Iron sword just as he saw it bat Will away with its paw. Blood stained Will’s shirt as its claws caught Will in the stomach.

Nico felt a surge of panic. This was no longer about beating the monster, it was just about getting Will to safety. He just had to get to him first.

The sphinx was bearing down on him. Nico sent the skeletons, which had finally come above ground, toward the sphinx, and they held it back from lunging at Will. They wouldn’t be able to hold it back for long, but they gave Nico enough time to run to Will’s side.

He put Will’s arm around his shoulder. “Hold on,” he warned, and shadow-traveled them out of there just as the monster was turning back to face them.

They shadow-traveled into the woods. Hopefully they were right outside Richmond, but Nico also didn’t care. He moved quickly, removing his arm from Will’s shoulder and slinging his bag off his back to root through it for the ambrosia. Will was saying something, but Nico didn’t even register it as he quickly took a piece of ambrosia from the plastic bag in his backpack and offered it to Will.

Will hesitated only a moment and then took it, popping it into his mouth and then returning to his reclining position on the ground.

“Tell me when it kicks in,” Nico said. He couldn’t take his eyes off Will, but the adrenaline rush meant that he was now paranoid about every sudden sound in the forest. As soon as Will was healed, they needed to move.

“Nico, I’m fine.”

“You were bleeding.”

“It wasn’t that deep. Yeah, it hurt, and it’ll probably leave a mark, but it’s fine! It could have been a lot worse.”

Nico closed his eyes and rubbed his temple. “Why did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Get in the monster’s way like that.” Will didn’t say anything. “You’re right, it could have been a lot worse. And we wouldn’t have had anything to worry about if you hadn’t been so reckless!”

“It was going after you!”

“And I would have been fine.”

Will scoffed. “What, do you think I can’t protect myself or something?”

“No, but out of the two of us I’m the more experienced fighter. And, reminder: if you get hurt, I can’t heal you!”

“The ambrosia is doing just fine.” Will gestured to his wound that was already scarring over, but Nico just shook his head.

“You could have been hurt or worse. And that would have been on me.”

“How is it on you that the monster—”

“Because you were trying to protect me!” Nico hadn’t even noticed how loud his voice had gotten until he heard it echo in the forest around them.

“You’re worth protecting, Nico.”

Nico shook his head. “But not worth dying for. I’ve had enough people die because of me, and I’m not adding you to the list.”

“Nico—”

Nico was already getting to his feet. “We should go. Are you okay to move?”

Will sighed and slowly stretched, and took Nico’s offered hand. Nico pulled him to his feet, and as soon as he was sure Will was steady on his feet, they shadow-traveled to the next stop.

The rest of the trip was a little tense. Neither of them seemed to want to bring up the fight with the monster or the fight they’d had, but Will didn’t make any objection about Nico stopping for as little time as he could at each of the remaining stops until they got to Austin.

Will had called his grandparents while at camp and agreed to meet them at some restaurant, so after Nico shadow-traveled them right outside the city, he and Will walked to the restaurant.

They ended up being a bit early to meet Will’s grandparents, since they’d spent less time at each resting place than they’d planned. So they stood outside the restaurant awkwardly, neither of them starting a conversation.

Then Will said, “the Amtrak is that way,” gesturing down the street.

Nico raised an eyebrow. Was Will about to start giving him a tour or something?

Will sighed. “I told my grandparents that you and I were taking the Amtrak to get here. And that you were also taking the Amtrak from here to California.”

“So…they think I left the Amtrak station to walk you here and that I’m gonna walk back later?”

“Yeah. There’s a three hour window between the arrival of the train they think we took and the departure time of the train to California. I told them you wanted to stretch your legs and see the city a little.”

“There’s actually a train from here to California in a few hours?”

Will stared at him like he should have expected this. “Yeah, I made sure my alibi for how we got here was solid enough that they wouldn’t question it.”

Nico blinked. “I…did not know you planned it like that.”

“Well, what’s my anxiety good for if not for worrying about something like this?” he joked. 

They went back to not talking after that. About ten minutes later, Will pointed out an old blue car. “That’s my grandparents’ car.”

“I guess that’s my cue, then.”

Will opened up his arms. Nico sighed and accepted the hug. It was shorter than their usual hugs and Will seemed awkward when they pulled away.

“I’ll see you after break.”

“After break,” Nico repeated.

Then he turned around and walked off in the direction of the Amtrak. Once Will’s grandparents’ car passed by and left his line of sight, Nico found the nearest shadow and melted into it, shadow-traveling to his next planned stop.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. He didn’t run into any more monsters, since he didn’t have any intention of sightseeing at any of the other stops, and managed to reach Camp Jupiter within a few hours. He shadow-traveled right in front of the principia, like Reyna had asked him to, and found Hazel leaning against the principia’s doors, waiting for him. She was wearing a purple SPQR sweatshirt that was a few sizes too big for her (meaning it was probably Frank’s) and black leggings, and her curls were tied back into a high ponytail. When she saw him, she grinned.

“Hey, Nico.” Her arms were loose around his shoulders when she hugged him. He hugged her back a little more tightly—it had only been a few months since he’d last seen her, but Iris Messaging didn’t always work anymore and he’d missed her.

“It’s good to see you.” He pulled away and kissed her on the forehead. “How have you been?”

“I’ve been great. Frank and Reyna were supposed to be here to meet you too, but their meeting ran over. They’ll come as soon as they’re done.”

“No worries. Want to take a walk and tell me what I’ve missed since the last time I was here?”

“Yeah, totally.” She looped her arm through his and started him on a walk along the Via Praetoria.

Not much had really changed since he’d last been here in June. All the buildings that had been destroyed when the eidolons forced Leo to fire on the camp had been fixed by the end of August, and in the last few months Frank had adjusted to his new role as praetor.

By the time they made it to the senate house—after crossing the Pomerian Line, where Terminus only asked for Hazel to hand over her weapon, but didn’t ask for Nico’s sword on account of it being in cane form—Reyna and Frank still hadn’t finished with their meeting, so Hazel took Nico to a row of shops in New Rome.

They ordered three hot chocolates and an iced tea from one of the shops, and as they were picking them up, Hazel asked, “so, how have things been at Camp Half-Blood? Still thinking about joining the legion instead?”

The last time they’d spoken over Iris Message back at the beginning of October, Nico had still been unsure of his place at Camp Half-Blood and whether he wanted to stay. But it was the end of November now, and things had changed a lot since then.

“No,” Nico said. They started heading back toward the senate house to wait there until Frank and Reyna got out. “I think I want to stay, actually.”

“So you’re having a better time with the people there?” Nico nodded and Hazel smiled. “That’s great! That’s… really great to hear, Nico. I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks.”

“So who have you been hanging out with?” she asked. Nico frowned and tilted his head, not sure where the question had come from. Hazel seemed to realize this and clarified, “well, if you like it better than you used to, then I figured you’d be hanging around different people than before.”

“Oh.” Nico nodded and took a sip from his hot chocolate. “Yeah, I’ve been making friends. Mostly Will Solace and the other Apollo kids, but also some other people like Cecil and Ellis and Lou Ellen and—”

“Ellis is a son of… Ares, right?” When he nodded, she grinned and said, “right. I think I remember you mentioning you wanted to make him your primary healer. How did that end up going?”

“It’s been good. He may not have healing powers like the Apollo kids, but he can do the regular physical check ups just as well as any of them.”

Hazel nodded. “Makes sense.”

There was a brief, comfortable silence as they walked through the streets. Hazel had already said she’d show him Tyson and Ella’s new bookshop another time, so Nico didn't feel too much urgency to go right now. But he did gaze at the storefront windows as they passed. He’d walked these roads before but he’d never paid much attention to any of it, but now it was like he was suddenly seeing the streets of New Rome through new eyes.

“So… Will Solace?”

He was broken out of his thoughts by Will—or, rather, by Hazel’s mention of him—and Nico felt his good mood sour slightly.

“What about him?” he said gruffly.

When he turned to Hazel, she was frowning. “Nothing, you just said you were friends with him.”

“I am.”

“So why do you sound so annoyed right now?” He looked away from her and she sighed. “I thought you said things were better.”

“They are! It’s just the last time I saw him he did something stupid.”

“And you’re still annoyed about it?”

“Yup.”

Hazel took a sip from her hot chocolate and looked at the other two cups in the disposable cup holder. “How stupid was it?”

“Reckless and stupid.”

Hazel snorted. He turned to her, furrowing his eyebrows, and she said, “sorry, it’s just—it’s not like you’ve never done something reckless and a little stupid.”

“I resent that statement. I’ve done stupid things, but I do not operate on this level of stupid.”

“Yeah? What’d he do, anyway?”

“What’d who do?”

Nico jumped as Frank came up from behind them, Reyna a few paces behind him. Nico didn’t know how he’d missed them, but he put it aside in favor of running to Reyna and hugging her tightly. She chuckled and hugged him back just tightly.

“Hey there,” Reyna said. When they pulled away, she put her hands lightly on his shoulders—so light he could barely feel it through his jacket—and just looked at him for a moment. He took the opportunity to get a better look at her. She wasn’t wearing the formal praetor regalia, just a purple SPQR t-shirt and jeans, and her hair was down, rather than the braid she usually wore it in while doing praetor duties or the ponytail she wore in battle. The dark bags had faded from under her eyes. She looked happy and less stressed than he’d ever seen her. “Have you grown since I last saw you?”

Nico scoffed. “If I did then it probably wasn’t much.”

She shrugged. “Anything is better than five feet even.”

Nico rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. Reyna threw an arm around his shoulders as they turned to face Hazel and Frank. The two of them fake-gagged in unison when Frank kissed Hazel on the cheek as he accepted his tea from her.

Frank and Hazel looked over at them, unimpressed. “Oh, shut up,” Hazel rolled her eyes.

“You’re gonna tell your praetor to shut up?” Reyna asked, grinning ear to ear with amusement.

Hazel just shrugged and passed Reyna the hot chocolate they’d gotten for her. “I tell Frank to shut up when he’s being annoying. What makes you think I wouldn’t do the same to you?”

Reyna rolled her eyes and took the hot chocolate. “Are we going to dinner or not?”

To his embarrassment, Nico’s stomach growled as soon as she said the word ‘dinner’.

“I think that means we should go to dinner,” Frank said. “Food for the weary traveler.”

Nico finally took a good look at him. He was wearing a purple SPQR t-shirt and slacks, and his hair had been shaved down to a buzzcut once again. He was dressed much the same he had been when Nico had first seen him at Camp Jupiter, but he looked more… settled than he had been in summer. His posture was certainly better. He wondered if becoming praetor had made that much of a difference or if Reyna had been reminding him to stand up straight.

“Sounds good to me,” Nico said.

Nico had assumed they’d be going to the Mess, but instead they started walking to something else in the city. It turned out they had made plans to go to a restaurant with him, but hadn’t made a reservation because they didn’t know when he’d arrive.

However, since they hadn’t made a reservation they were told they’d need to wait twenty minutes. Hazel and Frank decided to go for a walk in the city in the meantime, while Nico and Reyna sat down in the waiting area.

They caught up about how they were both doing—Reyna was indeed doing well, but because of past experiences she was worried that her peace wouldn’t last—and then moved on to talking about some of their friends.

“Have you heard from Jason?” Nico asked. “I haven’t been able to talk to him since Iris Messaging went down.”

“He’s doing well. You already know about how he and Piper looked for Leo for about a month and then decided that they should try to get back to doing other stuff, right?”

Nico nodded. “Last time I talked to Jason he said he was gonna be going to some school.”

“Yeah. I’ve been writing to him. I can’t tell from his letters whether or not he’s happy there, but I guess we’ll see when he comes back to camp for New Year’s.” She turned to him. “I know you’re spending Christmas in New York instead of spending Saturnalia here, but are you coming here for New Year’s?”

“I was planning on that, yeah. But my plans might change.”

“Well, it’s about a month away. Tell me when you figure it out?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Then Reyna frowned. “Remind me, how did you and Jason get so close?”

Nico’s nose scrunched up. “Do you remember when I told you we had to get something from Cupid while we were on the quest?”

“Right. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Cupid sounds like a god that is… less kind to demigods.” Nico snorted. That was an understatement if he’d ever heard one. Cupid was an asshole, but trust a Roman not to dare badmouth one of the gods. “Have you told anyone else since this summer? On your own terms?”

“I told Percy and Annabeth. And a few other people—Hazel, Sally Jackson and Paul Blofis, and Will Solace, and Ellis Wakefield.”

“What did they say?”

“They all reacted pretty well. For Hazel I know it was a bit of an adjustment, but she came around. And the rest of them were pretty chill about it.”

She smiled. “That’s good.”

He nodded. He thought of telling her that he was dating Will Solace, but… Will hadn’t even told his siblings yet out of respect for Nico’s privacy. Nico owed him the same privacy.

But he also kept quiet about it because he had an odd sense that whatever he had with Will might be ending soon—that he might be ending things with Will soon—and there wasn’t much of a point telling Reyna about it if they were going to break up anyway.

Dinner was nice, though, as was the rest of the week spent at Camp Jupiter. It felt good to be with his family. Maybe it could act as a balm against the heartbreak that he was about to cause himself.

-

Nico couldn’t bring himself to break up with Will immediately, though. It felt unfair to drag it out, but he didn’t want to, even if he knew it would probably be better for them both. Especially for Will.

“So…have I told you about my mom?”

Nico nodded. “She’s a country star, right?”

“Yeah, she’s on tour a lot. She’s touring right now, actually. And, uh, she’s gonna be doing some shows in New York next week.”

“Cool.”

“And then we’re spending the weekend together. Or, like, a long weekend, I guess? I’m seeing her show on Wednesday night and she’s gonna drop me off back here again on Sunday night.”

Nico didn’t know where Will was going with this. Sure, it was nice to let him know that he wasn’t going to be at camp, but he wasn’t sure this level of detail was necessary.

“Anyway, I was wondering… do you want to come with me?”

Nico’s head turned to Will so fast that he was surprised he didn’t get whiplash. “What?”

“To the concert. Whenever my mom comes to town, she usually gives me two tickets—one for me and one for anyone else I want to bring. I’ve brought Kayla and Austin before and I brought Cecil a while ago. So I was wondering if you wanted to come with me this time.”

“Uh…” He tried to process that. “You want me to meet your mom?”

“Yeah.“ Will’s smile faded into a more hesitant expression. “You don’t have to, it’s just an offer.”

Nico shook his head. “No, you should be with your mom. I don’t want you to feel like you have to split your attention.”

Will frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Maybe next time,” Nico said. He really hoped Will didn’t take that as a promise, because he wasn’t sure if he could keep that.

“Okay.”

Then, because Will seemed a little sad, Nico reached for his hand and suggested, “maybe ask Lou Ellen? I feel like I’ve heard her listening to country music once or twice.”

Will was scandalized. “Okay, first of all, Lou Ellen’s music taste does not count as country music. It’s, like, pop with some country-sounding guitar. Second of all—“

“Then you should bring her along to show her what real country music is,” Nico joked.

He looked away thoughtfully. “You know what? I should!” He gave Nico a smile for giving him the suggestion, then continued, “but seriously, the stuff Lou Ellen usually listens to is not country music. I’ve heard her listen to maybe one song that I’d actually count as country and it was a George Jones song…”

Nico smiled as Will went on a rant about country music and why Lou Ellen's taste didn’t count as country music and, while he could understand people not liking country music because it wasn’t their thing, he hated when people turned their noses up at the whole genre.

Nico couldn’t help but zone out a little bit, though. It was fun to listen to Will talk about things he was interested in, but ever since Thanksgiving break he’d become less certain of whether being around him was good for Will. He still couldn’t stop thinking about the monster attack and how Will had thrown himself in front of the monster for Nico.

Monster attacks were typical for demigods, and with all the time he had spent at Camp Half-Blood, Nico knew that Will was more than capable of protecting himself. But despite that, he couldn’t stop thinking about how if the monster had come even a little bit closer then it might’ve slit Will’s throat instead of his stomach, couldn’t stop imagining what could have happened if they hadn’t gotten lucky . Will was dangerously close to dying, and Nico might have had to watch him bleed out—ambrosia could heal, yes, but that would’ve depended on how fast Nico could pull it out of the bag and how fast it start healing the wounds and—

Nico couldn’t get it out of his head. He didn’t want to put Will in danger again. Which meant there was only one thing he could do.

-

“I think we should break up.”

“What?”

Even with his eyes locked on his hands, he could feel Will’s gaze on him. He felt his throat closing up like he was about to cry, and swallowed. He couldn’t let himself speak until it passed.

“Nico, why? Did something…” Will stopped himself. Nico heard clothes ruffling, like Will had shifted. “Can I ask why?”

“I just can’t.”

“Why not?” Nico didn’t say anything, didn’t even dare look at him. He heard Will take a deep breath. “Nico, I know you don’t always like eye contact, but can you please at least look at my face and tell me why you want to break up?”

When Nico shook his head silently, Will sighed.

“Okay. Did something happen?”

Nico shook his head.

“Did I do something wrong?”

He repeated the motion, then sighed. The urge to cry was still there, his throat closing up and his eyes beginning to well up. He looked up at the sky, hoping it would hide his tears.

“It wasn’t you. You’ve been… amazing.” He closed his eyes. “It was me. I did something.”

Will’s voice was quiet when he next spoke. “What did you do?”

“I should have stayed away from you.”

“What?”

“I shouldn’t have—” He felt his voice crack and a tear fell from his eye. He quickly wiped it away. “I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

He got up and tried to walk away, but Will reached for his hand. Even now, he was so gentle with Nico—he didn’t try to hold on tightly, just reached out with his fingers enough to get Nico’s attention.

“Wait, what—” Will cleared his throat. “What do you mean ‘wasting my time’? You were never—Nico, if you want to break up with me I’ll respect that, but no time I’ve spent with you has been wasted. I like spending time with you. I thought you knew that.”

Nico looked away.

“You didn’t know that?” Will’s voice cracked and Nico felt his heart crack with it. He knew this was for the best, but he hated seeing Will in distress.

“No. I thought—”

That I didn’t deserve it, Nico’s thoughts supplied. He didn’t deserve Will’s time or effort or his secrecy or his respect for privacy—he didn’t deserve any of it. No amount of love he could give would ever be enough. Nothing would ever surmount to how much Will was loved by those around him. And Nico would never be able to give back all the time with Will he’d stolen from all of them.

“I don’t know what I thought,” he lied.

Will stood up. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you. I just thought you knew how much I liked you. I thought you’d known for a while.”

“How would I have known?”

“Because it’s so obvious to everyone else?” Will snorted and looked at Nico like they were talking about an inside joke, but within moments he straightened up, seeming to realize that Nico had no idea what he was talking about. “Or I guess not everyone else.”

“Doesn’t matter now, I guess,” Nico said with a dismissive shrug.

“Of course it matters. Nico, I—” He ran a hand through his hair. “I care about you. And even if we break up, I’m still going to care about you. And I’m not just going to suddenly think that all the time we spent together was worthless. And I hope you don’t think so either.”

“No, of course not.” Nico regretted the words immediately. He needed to stop himself and get this over with. “I’ve loved spending time with you.”

“Me too. You’re one of my favorite people to be around.” Will smiled hesitantly. He looked like he was about to take a step forward, then stopped himself. “So why are we breaking up?”

“Because—” Nico swallowed and tried again. “Because you have all these people in your life who care about you so much—your siblings, your friends, your mom, your grandparents—and it feels like I’m taking your time from them.”

“What? Nico, that’s not—”

He couldn’t tell what Will was thinking. He had the same look on his face like when he was struggling to nock his arrows during archery practice, like he did when he was struggling to find a solution to a problem, and Nico felt his heart drop at the thought that Will might see him as a problem to solve. The last thing Nico wanted was to be a burden for someone to carry.

“Why do they deserve my time more than you do?” Will asked finally.

“Because they know you so much better. And they’ve cared about you for so much longer than I have—”

“So what?” he interrupted. “Nico, I choose how I spend my time. I choose to spend it with you because I care about you and because I like hanging out with you and… if I wasn’t spending enough time with all the other people in my life, they would tell me themselves. They have no issue with it.”

“Yeah, but… Kayla and Austin said that you spend so much time with me that they barely see you anymore.” 

“What? Nico, they were probably joking. They see me all the time.”

“I know. But if it’s even the slightest bit true, then—”

“Then it’s not on you. If I’m not spending enough time with Kayla and Austin, then that’s on me. I’ll talk to them about it, and I’ll work on balancing my time better.”

Are you sure?

Will stared at him with sad eyes. “Is it okay if I hug you?”

Nico wasn’t sure. He couldn’t remember the last time he cried, couldn’t tell if he would be okay with being held like that right now.

Just to be safe, he said, “no.” Then, after another moment’s consideration, he added, “but you can hold my hand.”

Will reached for his hands, lacing their fingers and squeezing softly. His hands were dry and cracked from all the sanitizing chemicals and soaps they used in the infirmary, so much so that there was dried blood near one of his knuckles. And yet, holding Will’s hands was one of the most comforting feelings.

“You,” Will began, “are one of my favorite people in the whole world. And I like hanging out with you. And you like hanging out with me. And I care about you so much.”

“I care about you too.” Nico squeezed his hands back. “But I don’t…I can’t…”

“Nico. My time is yours if you want it.”

Nico looked down at their hands. He brushed his thumb over the inside of Will’s wrist and listened to Will’s sharp intake of breath.

“Maybe. But I don’t deserve it.”

“You do. Nico,” he looked up at Will. “You don’t have to do anything to earn my time or my love. It’s yours. This is a relationship, not a transaction. And if you want to break up, we can break up. I’ll respect that, and I’ll never breathe a word about you or the fact that we dated unless you tell me it’s okay. But please don’t break up with me just because you don’t think you deserve to be with me.”

“But I don’t.”

“You do. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to enjoy the time you spend with people. You deserve to be loved.” Nico looked up at Will’s face. “You are loved. You are so loved, and I wish you could see that.”

“So are you. You have your siblings and your friends and your mom and your grandparents and—what if you die, Will? You could have died when the sphinx attacked us in D.C.”

“Nico, I told you, it wasn’t even—”

“What if your demigod friends or siblings die? That happens to demigods a lot.” Will’s mouth dropped open and Nico immediately felt bad for mentioning it—it was bad enough that most people were already uncomfortable around him because of whatever aura of death he had, but now he was making Will uncomfortable by mentioning the idea of his friends and family dying. “Or what about your grandparents? No matter how much time you’ve spent with them, when you’re gone nothing will feel like enough. To them, I’ll be the person who stood in between them and you. And to you… what if something happens to someone you love and you wish you’d spent more time with them instead of with me?”

Will paused. Nico felt a wave of relief and dread wash over him—relief because it seemed like Will might finally understand where he was coming from, and dread because he couldn’t bear what came next if he did agree.

“Nico, do you know why Kayla and Austin and I are the only campers in Cabin Seven year-round, even though Apollo is the biggest cabin besides the Hermes cabin?”

Nico thought for a moment but couldn’t think of a specific reason. The only thought that came to mind was, “the Battle of Manhattan?”

Will nodded. “Well, the first sibling I had who died was Lee—Lee Fletcher. He was counselor of Cabin Seven the year of the labyrinth and he, uh, got his face bashed in by a monster when the camp got invaded at the end of that summer. After he died I tried to heal his face enough that he’d look like himself for the funeral rites.

“We lost a lot of my cabin—my sisters Lyra and Sinclair and Dani, my brothers Grey and Eric, the twins Charlie and Riley—while defending the Williamsburg Bridge at the Battle of Manhattan last summer. My brother Michael Yew was on the bridge when Percy destroyed the bridge so Kronos’ army couldn’t get through, and they never found his body. And later, I found out that one of my sisters, Rowan, who went over to the Titans’ side, died in the battle too.”

“I’m sorry,” Nico said, though he knew that condolences couldn’t really do much. “I’m sure they’re all in Elysium now.”

“I know. And all my friends who have died in the past few years are probably there too, I guess.” Will smiled awkwardly. “My point is that I know death. I know what it’s like to grieve, and to wish that I’d spent more time with people or wish I’d told them I loved them more. So I do. I always try my best to make sure the people I care about know how much I care about them every day, because I know that our time can be cut short.

“And even knowing all of that, I know that in the future I would not regret a single moment I’ve spent with you.”

“How do you know? You can’t see the future. People change. Feelings change.”

“Maybe. But I’ve done my best to stop regretting things, so…” Will just shrugged. “Okay, look: I just went back to Texas to spend Thanksgiving week with my grandparents. And I just saw my mom last weekend.”

“Okay…?”

“And then I’m also going back to Texas for Christmas, too. All the way from, like, December 22 to the end of the first week of January. And sometimes I even spend Easter with my grandparents!” Will seemed to realize that Nico didn’t understand why he was saying all this, and he clarified, “I get to have plenty of time with my mortal family.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Honestly, I couldn’t really spend much more time with my mom if I tried. That’s up to her at this point—she’s a country star, so she’s on the road all the time. I already see her whenever I can.”

Nico sighed. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize. Just… know that you’re important to me. You’re important to me, and so are Kayla and Austin and all my other siblings, and so are Cecil and Lou Ellen… and so are Sherman and Connor! Because this is my home, and y’all are just as much my family as my mom and grandparents are.”

Nico swallowed, trying to digest that. Finally he said, “okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll—I’ll try to trust you to know how you want to spend your time.”

Will smiled. “That’s all I ask.”

He took a deep breath and looked around them. It was early on a Sunday morning, so no one was really awake except Will’s siblings—but they were still in the cabin.

“Nobody’s here,” Nico said with a shrug.

Will nodded. “Is it okay if we…” He trailed off and Nico just raised his eyebrows. “Can I hug you?”

Instead of replying, Nico stepped forward and pulled Will into a hug. Will hugged back almost immediately. With every passing day, hugs—at least, those from Will—were coming to feel less like a prison of limbs and more like a fort of comfort.

-

“Did you really come here without any idea of what you wanted to get?”

“I brought you because I needed help, not criticism!”

“Well, when you said you wanted help I assumed you had at least thought of a few things that you were, like, deciding between.”

“Well, I didn’t,” Nico sighed.

Austin looked more flabbergasted than annoyed. “So there’s nothing you can think of to get for Will? Nothing that he likes, nothing that he might need?” Nico shrugged and Austin sighed. “Okay, while you think about it, can we go to another store so I can get something?”

Nico nodded and let Austin lead him to the GameStop in the mall.

“Who are you shopping for?”

“Kayla. She’s been wanting to play Pokemon Black and White since it came out a few months ago.”

Nico looked around the store while Austin was looking for the game Kayla wanted. He wondered if there was anyone else he should be shopping for. There were plenty of people he could buy or make something for—Will, Hazel, Reyna, Jason, Percy, Annabeth, Sally Jackson, Thalia—if only he could think of something to get them.

His eyes landed on a Mythomagic figurine. He hadn’t played the game in ages, couldn’t even remember what he had done with his old card collection. He almost turned away from it, but then he remembered that Jason had actually mentioned he’d be interested in playing if Nico ever got back into it.

Huh.

Just as Austin finished paying, Nico got into line with a standard Mythomagic card deck. As the cash register was ringing him up, he noticed a Star Wars t-shirt behind the counter. Wasn’t Will always talking about that movie series?

He didn’t end up buying that, though, because it wasn’t a fun t-shirt, just the Star Wars logo.

When he walked out of the store, Austin was tilting his head at him.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Austin said with a grin. “Maybe I should just drag you into more stores and see if you can think of anything to buy.”

Nico rolled his eyes. “Anywhere else you want to go?”

“Yeah, actually. Come on.”

Next they ended up at Claire’s, where Austin bought a necklace for his stepsister. At the register, Austin told Nico, “my sister got her ears pierced at a Claire’s.”

Nico blinked. “They do ear piercings here?”

“Yeah, they do it all the time. Not always great—one of her friends is allergic to nickel so it didn’t go well for her, and not everyone wants to do it because they can’t really sterilize the piercing gun they use—but it worked out for my sister.”

Hmm.

Nico turned to the girl, who looked maybe seventeen or eighteen, who was manning the cash register. “How much is it to get a piercing?”

“For you?”

“Yup.” Nico turned to Austin. “Do you mind waiting for… however long this takes?”

“Isn’t this gonna make your whole ‘get Kayla to cover for us so Will doesn’t know we left camp’ plan kinda useless? If you get a piercing he’s going to know we went somewhere.”

Nico snorted. “Please. We can just say we did it at camp.”

“How?”

“Didn’t one of the girls in the Parent Trap pierce her ears with an apple slice and a hot needle or something?”

“Yeah, but—” Austin paused. “Wait, you’ve seen the Parent Trap?”

“Yeah. I watched it with Will and Lou Ellen.”

So Nico ended up with his ears pierced and slightly pink looking, wearing silver stud earrings because he didn’t like any of the black ones, and he also bought a pair of pink studs for Reyna—she’d mentioned that she liked wearing earrings but that she couldn’t wear the dangly ones, only the studs, because she’d once worn dangly earrings but she’d forgotten to take them out during War Games and she’d ended up with a rip in her ear for years because of it.

Nico couldn’t tell if Austin was becoming more or less agitated with every store they went to. They went to a Hallmark, where Austin got an ornament for his mom and Nico got an ornament for Sally and Paul and a notepad and cool pen for Annabeth. Then they went to Build-A-Bear, where Nico made Hazel a pink teddy bear named Frank (he planned to pair it with a note that said ‘for when Frank isn’t around’) with a built-in ‘I love you’ voice message.

They stopped in the food court to get McDonalds because Austin seemed tired and they both needed food. When they sat down, Austin turned to Nico and said, “so you really haven’t thought of a present for Will yet?”

Nico shook his head. He’d gotten gifts for everyone he’d wanted to get stuff for, except Thalia, Percy, and Will. He hadn’t been able to think of anything for Thalia—he didn’t think he was even going to get to see her for a while, given that Iris Messaging was down and they hadn’t had any plans to get together—and Percy was just kind of hard to shop for. At this point, he was considering making him a shirt that said ‘I saved Olympus twice and all I got was this t-shirt.’ He’d have to make one for Annabeth too, though, so he had to think of something else for just Percy.

But Will… for some reason he couldn’t think of anything that he’d want or need. Aside from maybe some more self-confidence, but that wasn’t really something anyone else could give him.

“Have you?” Austin also shook his head. It looked like they were in the same boat.

He tried to think of things that Will might want. Buying an ornament was always an option, but Nico kind of wanted to leave that as a last resort if he really couldn’t think of anything else. What else had Will mentioned? He loved Star Wars, but even though Austin said it was a popular series, he hadn’t seen many Star Wars things in the stores they’d gone to. Will liked the movie Elf, but Nico didn’t really know how much he’d like an Elf on the Shelf. He’d probably find it funny, at least.

Will was awful at archery. He loved his siblings. He liked singing with his siblings even though he was bad at it. He liked… 

He liked telling stories but he didn’t like talking about himself. He wanted to learn more about Nico but he never pushed. He was a very physical person but he always hesitated before putting his hands on Nico. He—

Wait. His hands.

His hands were always dry and cracking and sometimes even bleeding.

“Wait. Is there a store here that sells hand lotion?”

“Yeah, there’s a Bath and Body Works over there.” Austin gestured over to the opposite side of the food court they’d come from.

“Awesome. We’re going there after.”

When they both finished their food and went into the store, Austin sniffed the air and immediately blanched, scrunching up his nose. Nico had to admit, it was more perfumey than the department store they’d walked through on the way in. If they stayed too long he had a feeling he’d get overwhelmed.

“So…what are we doing here?” Austin asked.

“Your brother’s hands are always dry. He says it’s because he works in the infirmary, because of all the sanitizing chemicals y’all use to keep it clean.” Nico picked up one of the bottles of lotion, then turned to Austin and asked, “do you know if he has skin problems?”

“Uh… I have no idea.” Austin blinked. “Did you just say y’all? You’ve clearly been spending too much time with my brother.”

Nico felt a twinge of guilt pass through him. He was reminded of how Kayla had said Nico and Will spent so much time together that she and Austin barely saw him anymore. He tried to put it aside, though. Will had asked him to trust him, right?

He shrugged. “Do you think it matters what type you get?”

“I think they’re all just different scents.”

“Oh. Uh…” He frowned. “What smells does Will like?”

“I don’t know. Like, anything except the smell of the infirmary?”

“So… not like lemon-scented chemicals or blood.”

“Pretty much.”

Well, that was pretty broad. Nico ended up going up to the register with a bottle of lotion with the scent ‘Forever Sunshine’, because… well, Will was a son of Apollo. And because Austin said it smelled nice. And because why not. But at the last second he ended up changing his mind and going with another called ‘Butterfly Flower’ because… honestly it was still just a question of ‘why not? ’

“You could just get both,” Austin pointed out. “I mean, you said you’re using Hades’ credit card, right? If you want to get him both then I say just get him both, honestly.”

Eh, why not?

“Alright. You got anything else you want to get?”

Austin just shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t really have any idea what to get for Will either, but I don’t want to steal your idea.”

“Star Wars merch?”

Austin shook his head. “This mall has the least Star Wars merch of any mall I’ve ever been to. I’ve barely seen any fun Star Wars stuff.”

“Then maybe just get him something you think would make him laugh?”

“Like what?”

Nico raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know. Don’t you live with him? Aren’t you brothers? Shouldn’t you know what his sense of humor is?”

“You do too. You spend a lot of time with him too.”

Nico rolled his eyes and ignored the way he felt his heart hammer in his chest. He really hoped Kayla and Austin wouldn’t realize why he and Will spent so much time together. Not yet.

“Yeah, but I’ve only known him for a few months. You’ve known him for years. You don’t have any inside jokes with him or anything?”

Austin thought about it for a minute, then said, “okay, I’ve got an idea. Meet me at the entrance we came through?”

He didn’t even wait for Nico’s response before running out of the store. Well, alright then.

When Nico met him outside, near the department store they’d entered the mall through, he asked, “did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yup.”

“Do I get to know what it is?”

“No.”

Nico grunted. “Fine. Hold onto me. Let’s get out of here.”

Austin checked his watch as he took Nico’s hand. “That took a while. Let’s hope Will didn’t check in on either of us… and if he did, let’s just hope Kayla had a good excuse prepared.”

“Leaving now. Hold on.” He clutched Nico’s hand tightly as they blended into the shadows and then melted out of them again until they were in the Hades cabin. “She can say you were here, helping me pierce my ears.”

“True.” Austin made to leave, then turned back. “Don’t forget, you still have to take Kayla to the mall tomorrow.”

“I know.”

And, of course, when they went to the mall the next day, Kayla’s first stop was the Bath and Body Works. Oh well. He ended up thinking of another gift to get for Will anyway.

-

Grief was not an unfamiliar emotion to Nico, whether it was his own or other people’s. As the son of the god of the dead, he had once hoped that he could be an exception to the rules—that the people he loved couldn’t be touched by death—but that wasn’t the case. He was forced to live with it and grieve like everyone else.

His mother was dead, and the only things he knew about her were things that Hades had told him. Bianca was dead. Countless others had died in all the wars and battles of the last few years, many of whom Nico didn’t even know the names of, and yet it was Bianca’s death that weighed the heaviest on his heart. After all, she had died because of Nico. Because she’d wanted to do something thoughtful for him.

She was always thinking of him, and now he was always thinking of her.

It was December 22, and it had been three years since the day Percy had told him Bianca had died on the quest. But it was also the day Will was leaving to go back to Texas. Argus wasn’t going to be driving him and Austin and Kayla until the evening, though, so Cabin Seven was doing a little holiday celebration that afternoon before they had to go.

It was mostly just the three Apollo kids, Cecil, Lou Ellen, Billie, and Nico. Not many others were left at camp anyway.

When Nico walked into Cabin Seven, he looked around at the bright lights and silver tinsel strung around the cabin and smiled. Will had probably done that himself.

“Hey, Nico!” Lou Ellen noticed him first.

Will immediately turned around from where he’d been talking to Cecil. “Nico! You made it.”

“Of course I did.” Although he’d originally been anxious about coming to the get-together, Nico found himself put at ease by Will’s smile. “Is it okay if I give you your gift now?”

“Sure! Just, uh—” Will held up a finger, gesturing for Nico to give him a minute, then went and rummaged under his bed until he found a messily wrapped gift. Nico leaned on his cane while he waited. “Uh, do you want to go somewhere else?”

Nico nodded. Will led them both back outside and kept walking until they reached the arts and crafts tent. They sat down on the same side of one of the benches, Nico resting his cane against the table.

“Do you want to go first, or should I?” Will asked.

“Same time?”

Will nodded and they traded gifts. Nico slowly unwrapped his, making it look like he was just trying to unwrap it carefully so that he wouldn’t rip the wrapping paper, as he watched Will’s reaction to the gifts. He took the green and white gift bag and pulled the two bottles out of the bundles of red tissue paper.

His eyebrows furrowed together, and though he seemed confused, he looked up at Nico with a big grin. “Lotion?”

Nico tried for casualness and joking, continuing to unwrap the gift Will had gotten for him. “Your hands are always dry. Figured you could use it.”

Will laughed. “Thank you.”

Nico finally finished taking off the wrapping paper for his gift, revealing a small mason jar filled with little trinkets. He lifted it up to look at it. Among the things inside, he could see a seashell, an enamel pin with a skull and crossbones, a soda bottle wrapper, and a small black lego.

“They’re all things I collected that made me think of you.”

He looked at Will. “All of them?”

“Yeah.”

Nico smiled. “Well, I’m probably not going to keep them in this—jars have made me kind of uncomfortable since everything that went down with the giants this summer—but—”

“Shit, sorry. I didn’t consider that at all. I can move it to a different container, or—”

He waved off Will’s concern. “It’s okay. I’ll probably just take all the stuff out of the jar and move it to one of the shelves in my cabin so I can look at them all more easily.”

“Oh. That sounds like a cool idea.”

“Yeah. And then when you get back after winter break, maybe you can come over to tell me the story behind each of these things.”

Will reached for Nico’s hand and twined their fingers together. “And I’ll tell you how all of them made me think of you.”

“I’d like that.”

Will grinned. Then he asked, “so you like it?”

He nodded. “I really do. Thank you.”

“Oh, thank the gods.” Will sighed in relief. “I’m usually awful at giving gifts. I couldn’t think of anything and I thought I might just have to give you socks.”

Nico laughed at Will’s dramatics. Then he pointed at the gift bag. “Did you find everything in there?”

Will, confused, put his hand back in the bag. When he pulled it back out, he was holding something small and something larger, more rectangular and with more volume, both of which were wrapped in red and gold wrapping paper.

Once he unwrapped the first one, Will asked, “did you make this?” It was the little wooden cat decoration that Nico had painted for him.

Nico nodded. “Made it back in October. During arts and crafts, actually.”

Will turned it over, saw ‘Krystal’ on the back, and snickered. Then he turned to Nico and, completely earnestly, he said, “I love it. I wish I could—”

He paused and looked around the room. Nico wondered if he was looking for other people, but then he got up and grabbed one of the hot glue guns from the corner of the room and plugged it in, letting it rest on the table. Then he went back to rummaging around the supply cabinet.

“What are you doing?”

“You’ll see, just give me a minute,” he promised. “Do you remember where the string is?”

Nico tried to remember. “Second drawer, left side?”

Will checked there and pulled out a string. “You’re a genius, thank you.” Then he grabbed a pair of scissors from another drawer, measured out and cut a length of string, put back everything besides the cut piece of string, and returned to sitting next to Nico on the bench.

Nico raised his eyebrows as Will applied some hot glue to the back of the wooden cat decoration. The glue gun wasn’t quite heated up enough for the glue to come out, so Will paused and put it back down.

When he turned back to Nico, he smiled. “What’s that look for?”

“What are you doing, Will?”

“I told you, you’ll see.”

He rolled his eyes. “Well, how long is this gonna take? I don’t want to keep you from your own party too long.”

“They’ll be okay.”

Nico decided to try to trust Will’s judgment on that. So while they waited for the glue gun to heat up, he leaned his head on Will’s shoulder. Will picked up the other, slightly larger gift.

“You didn’t need to get me so many gifts.”

Nico just shrugged. “I wanted to. You’re always doing nice things for me.”

Will finished unwrapping the gift and was left holding a small journal with flowers on the cover. He turned to Nico with a questioning look.

“It’s for all your stories,” he told Will. “You can practice writing about yourself, or you can write down all the stories about your friends and family so you don’t forget, or…well, anything you want, really.”

Will smiled. “Thank you. That’s really thoughtful of you.”

Nico smiled back.

“What was the other thing you were going to say?”

“What?”

“The third thing you were gonna say when you were talking about things I could write about in here.”

“Oh. Uh…” Maybe it was just because of what today was for Nico, but: “I was going to say that you could write about your friends and siblings who have passed. Just… anything you remember about them.”

“So I don’t forget,” Will nodded.

“Yeah. Sometimes…” He took a deep breath. “Sometimes I worry I’m going to forget Bianca—the way she talked, the way she laughed. The way I see it, when people die, they may not physically exist in the mortal world anymore, but they live on in our memories. But I worry that if I forget her then that’ll be the day she’s really, truly gone from this world.

“So,” he continued. “I was going to suggest that you write it down.”

“I will.” Will flipped through the journal, then turned back to Nico. “Thank you again.” 

Nico nodded, and then, feeling awkward, desperately tried to think of a way to change the subject. “Do you have a lot of plans during break?”

“I know a lot of family friends are going to be coming over for dinner. Not much besides that.” He wrapped his arm around Nico. “I’m going to miss y’all.”

Nico snorted. “It’s only a few weeks.”

“Yeah, well, I’m going to miss you anyway,” he replied, kissing Nico on the forehead. Nico felt his cheeks turn pink, but he smiled at Will to show that he didn’t mind.

“I’m going to miss you too,” Nico admitted quietly. “Camp’s going to be weird without you.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Will paused. “You’re… still going to be here when I get back, right?”

Nico frowned. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Just, uh… when you first arrived at camp a few years ago, I met you and we talked a little bit. And then I left camp for Christmas for a week or two, and when I got back I heard you disappeared like, the day after I left.”

“Oh. You never told me about that.”

Will shook his head. “Didn’t want to make it weird. Wasn’t sure if you remembered.”

There was an awkward pause, and then, because of the date and because he wanted to say it aloud to someone , he said, “I left the day I found out about Bianca’s death.”

Will’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“Yeah. It’s actually been exactly three years since that day.”

Will nodded but didn’t say anything for a while. Like he was giving a moment of silence for Bianca, even though Nico wasn’t sure if Will had ever even met her.

“Do you know when she died?”

He frowned and shook his head. “I actually never thought to ask. But, uh, maybe I should.”

Will gave a sad smile. “If you think it’ll help, you should. And maybe you should also write it down. Or maybe talk to someone else who knew her.”

“Keep her memory alive.”

Will nodded. Then he tested the hot glue gun again. The glue came out more easily now, and he added a big glob of it to the back of the wooden cat, then put the ends of the string in the glue.

“I still don’t get what you’re doing,” he told Will, who just raised an eyebrow.

“I’m turning it into an ornament.”

Nico stared at him. “What?”

“I want to hang it up on the tree at my grandparents’ house,” Will explained.

Nico looked at his face for any hint that he was joking, but… “You’re being serious?”

He nodded. Nico felt his heart swell for his lovable idiot boyfriend.

“Can I kiss you?”

His heart stopped as soon as he heard the words come out of his own mouth.

But then Will nodded eagerly, so he put a hand on either side of Will’s face and leaned in to kiss him. It was awkward, since he’d never kissed anyone before, but… with Will, it was kind of nice.

When he pulled away, he didn’t move his hands, so he was still holding Will’s face in his hands. Unlike Will’s hands, the skin on his face was smooth and soft under Nico’s hands as he brushed his thumb over Will’s cheek.

He realized suddenly that he was kind of just caressing Will’s face, and subsequently noticed that Will’s face was flushed bright red. Nico went to pull away and apologize, but Will’s hands covered his own.

Okay. So this was okay.

Nico let his gaze drop from Will’s eyes to his lips, and as his thumb brushed over Will’s face again, he let it just barely graze the edge of Will’s lips. He took a breath and looked in Will’s eyes again. Will reached out and brushed some of Nico’s hair away from his face—it was starting to grow out—and paused.

“How long have you had your ears pierced?” Will was staring. He brushed the hair away from the other side of Nico’s face to check the other ear.

“Not long,” Nico replied. “Why?”

“Nothing, just…” He looked Nico in the eyes. “You look really nice with earrings. I like the silver.”

“Thanks.” Was it weird that he wanted to kiss Will again?

“Can we—” Will’s voice cracked and he made a face, embarrassed, while Nico just smiled. Will cleared his throat. “Can I kiss you again? Because I’d really like to—”

Nico cut Will off by leaning in and kissing him again. Yeah, it wasn’t like he was going to get the hang of this by the end of the day, but he didn’t think he minded kissing too much. Gods, he was so happy. Even when he leaned back, he left kisses all over Will’s face—his forehead, between his eyebrows, the tip of his nose, and then his lips again.

Will was giggling by the time Nico pulled away to look him in the eyes again. “What was that for?”

“Because you’re sweet, and you are a total dork, and I like you so much, and I’m so glad to be dating you.” He kissed him on the forehead again, then paused to look Will in the eyes. “And I want people to know that.”

Will paused and took a breath. “What do you mean?”

“I’m ready to tell people about us.” Nico let his thumb brush over Will’s cheekbone, and Will leaned into it. “But only if you are, too.”

Will smiled, nodding. “I’m ready to tell people, too.”

“Cool.”

“Cool.”

They looked at each other and started laughing like idiots. Nico pulled Will into a hug, and there was less hesitation before Will hugged back this time.

“Can I tell my siblings like, right now, or would that be too soon?” Will asked when they pulled away.

Nico nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

They walked back into the party at Cabin Seven holding hands.

-

Christmas with the Jacksons turned out to be fun. Although he’d been invited for the first time last year, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to come, since Percy was missing and it had been Hazel’s first Christmas at Camp Jupiter. But now that everything seemed back in order he didn’t mind joining in.

As soon as he walked through the door on Christmas Eve, Percy greeted him with a tentative hug. Nico hugged him right back, and Annabeth was there to hug him as soon as they pulled away. As they were talking, Sally called from the kitchen, “is that Nico?”

“Yeah, Mom, Nico finally showed up!” Percy yelled back. The three of them started walking to the kitchen.

Nico elbowed him in the side. “What do you mean ‘finally’? You told me to come at four!”

Percy didn’t have time to respond as they reached the kitchen and Sally said, “oh, it’s good to see you, Nico,” and pulled him into a tight hug.

Nico didn’t always like hugs, but coming from Sally Jackson it felt more like being bundled up in a blanket than being trapped. They’d only met a few times—Percy’s fifteenth birthday, during the Battle of Manhattan, and a few other times in the year and a half since—but Sally was always kind to him and treated him like family.

They pulled away and she looked him up and down. “How have you been? I’ve been hoping you’d come by, especially since Percy and Annabeth told me all about the quest this summer and how much you helped.”

Nico’s eyes narrowed at Percy and Annabeth. Percy scratched the back of his head, looking slightly guilty, while Annabeth just shrugged.

“I’m doing good. I’m definitely doing much better than I was this summer.”

She smiled. “That’s so good to hear.”

“And how have you been? Percy told me he had a sibling on the way.”

“I’m doing great! The baby’s doing great. Paul’s actually out right now, getting something from Trader Joe’s since I have a craving for it and we ran out.”

“If I had come a little earlier, I could have just shadow-traveled there.”

Sally shook her head, going back to chopping some vegetables. “Paul doesn’t mind. It’s walking distance from here.”

“For reference, anything under forty minutes is walking distance in NYC,” Percy added helpfully.

Sally gave Percy a look. “He said it wasn’t too far.”

“If he says so,” Nico said. “So do you know when the baby is supposed to come?”

“March, probably.” She looked at Percy. “Can you drain the potatoes?”

Percy nodded and moved to do that. Annabeth stayed where she was, leaning by the island bar.

“It’ll be about an hour or so till dinner is done,” Sally told them. “The two of you can just hang out until then.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Sally shook her head. “I might ask you to set the table later, but until then just make yourself at home.”

So Nico put his gifts under the tree, and then he sat down on the couch with Annabeth and played card games for a while—war, trash, memory, and another weird game that Annabeth had made up with some of the other kids at camp when she was younger. Paul came back at some point and greeted Nico, asked how he was doing, then went to help in the kitchen. It still ended up being another half hour or so after that until Sally asked them to set the table.

Dinner was great. It was a lot of fun to hang out with the Jacksons and Annabeth (who, within a few years, would probably also become a Jackson more officially), who had plenty to talk about and always did their best to incorporate Nico into the conversations. It didn’t always quite work, because sometimes Percy’s timing wasn’t great and he’d ask Nico a question while he was chewing, but it was an enjoyable experience overall. Nico had the sense that he wouldn’t mind doing this again, if he was invited.

When they were done eating, Sally and Paul picked out a Christmas movie while Annabeth and Nico washed the dishes—they had insisted , after not helping with dinner, and, with some encouragement from Percy, Sally had given in. Percy had wanted to help too, but Annabeth and Nico refused his help, so instead he just sat at the counter to talk with them and to give advice on how to cram things into the dishwasher.

“So, how’s camp going?” Annabeth asked.

“Camp’s fine.” Then, casually, Nico asked, “has Percy proposed yet?”

Percy spat out the water he was drinking. Annabeth just laughed and said, “maybe in a few years. We’re only 17.”

“Given it’s you two, I figured you’d already have promise rings or something.”

She shrugged. “I mean, Christmas is tomorrow. I guess we’ll see then.” She turned to Percy and raised an eyebrow. He just blushed. Nico passed her a plate and she turned back to him. “What about you, Nico? Exchanged promise rings with anyone yet?”

“Not yet, no,” Nico said, scrubbing bits of food off another plate. “I am dating someone, though.”

“Aw, congrats, Nico! Do I know him?”

“Maybe?” He handed her the plate. “It’s Will Solace.”

She hummed. “He’s a good kid.”

“He’s an Apollo kid, right?” Percy asked.

“Yup.”

“Are you happy?”

Nico knew Percy was probably asking if he was happy with Will—and he was, but for once he found that he was just pretty happy overall.

“Yeah, I think I really am.”