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Will was never... normal
Never enough
Oh, he was loved. His mother was the greatest mother to ever exist and he would hear no argument against that, but he was never... enough. Not to himself, and certainly never to others. Always just a little too slow to answer in class, just a little too feminine to considered a guy. (just a little too excited to be invited to a party by a guy he liked. Just a little too sensitive to be anything but a "fag" to his peers)
It had always been that way. He was never enough, just being him was never enough. He needed to be more. He needed to be better, to prove himself, but try as he might... he was never enough. He always needed to work just a little more. To be just a little more... than himself. He bore no noticeable scars on his body, other than ones he got in accidents, but on his heart, the scars were very much there, hidden under a thin mask of "always happy, always cheerful Apollo kid"
Scars left not by sudden, bombastic traumatic events - beatings, murders, self-harm, but by years of slow erosion of his own self-worth by the taunts and jeers of others. By the slurs thrown at him whenever he wore anything even resembling a rainbow on his person, by the constant taunting thrown at him for acting "gay", by other boys intentionally avoiding and isolating him, for fear of catching what they called "the gay disease", by the mocking jokes his teachers would make about him whenever he got something wrong, and, yes, by the encouragement given to him by those who did care for him, unintentionally motivating him to strive to be better... in a constant cycle
Never enough, always less. Never the best, always second-best
Even when he finally left that environment and came to New York, a significantly better place, the scars left still ached, a dull, throbbing pain that stayed no matter what he did. A constant desire to prove himself, even when others told him that he was doing well enough. A constant ambition, fueled by mockery and taunts. Sometimes Will wondered if he should have been born a child of Nike instead.
He still remembered, in near-perfect detail, the day he found out who he was. The sharp, stinging feathers of the Stymphalian Birds, stirred into a tornado of blade-like feathers and flapping wings. Claws raking across his skin, a scar he still bore, three long slashes over his chest. A satyr throwing himself in front of them. Maron. Being brought back to the hotel and told, in no uncertain terms, that the Greek gods were real and he was the child of one of them
Which didn't exactly do wonders for his already-present constant inferiority complex
He remembered staring at the wounds on his mother's body, not many, just a few scratches on her arms and legs (but to him, they seemed immense) and wondering if his father would be ashamed of his son, who was too weak to even protect his mother
Now that he was older, he knew that that was ridiculous, of course. He was just a child. How could he protect anyone ? But to him, back then, it seemed like the gravest sin on Earth to be unable to protect his mother.
When he got to camp, he threw himself, heart and soul, into training. He never did learn how to fight. The act of inflicting injuries, even on straw dummies, made him feel ill. Actually, the act of hurting anything made him feel ill. There was a saying his mother had once told him : "A beaten dog never bites". Maybe there was some element of truth to that
Regardless, the point was, he developed a knack for healing, being quick and skilled in his work.... and devoted to it. Soon, he was the head healer of the Apollo cabin, and respected by practically the entire camp (save the Ares kids, but they respected no one)... but it still wasn't enough !!
The whispers returned, telling him to be better, to be more, to work harder. And work, he did. Day in and day out, work, work, work, until he shook with exhaustion, and all his medical senses were telling him that he may actually die if he kept working.
Strange, wasn't it. The resident "therapist" and best healer of the camp, the kid who could help with practically any malady, mental or physical, and the one malady he couldn't treat was his own. He led others to a treasure he could not possess.
Soon enough, Percy Jackson came to camp. He was practically everything Will wasn't. Confident, brave, self-assured, and actually willing to use a blade, and Will fell. Will fell hard. He was everything Will wanted to be.... everything he wasn't, and it was so easy for Will to simply internalize that as affection and love that he instantly assumed that he had a crush on the new kid (which led to a whole new set of problems, considering he had to now confront his sexuality, which was not something he had ever really worried about before, but that's a different story).
Of course he now knew that he had likely never been in love with Percy, but had simply admired him. Thankfully for his remaining dignity, he had been too cowardly to confess to Percy, and had simply stood by as Annabeth took him (not in that way..... although maybe in that way too ?)
And then...he appeared. Like the red-tipped fingers of dawn bringing light to the cool, placid night, or a brilliant star showering all beneath with it's light. Nico di Angelo. Initially, he wasn't much. A fourteen-year-old kid, pale-skinned, and clearly traumatized, not by physical injury (or at least not any injury that the camp's initial medical checks could detect), but by mental scarring. A desire for acceptance, so similar to Will's own. Clay of my clay. My kind. Mine
He was curious, initially, about the new kid in camp. The rumored "son of Hades", who had lost his sister, who was oh so powerful, and so he did what he always did. He stood in the sidelines, and watched, because all experience told him that curiosity would only lead to sorrow. But as he watched, that curiosity began to mutate and transform. Suddenly he began noticing things, things he'd never noticed before. The way Nico had a small scar right over his lip (from the looks of it, it was from a knife. Probably an accident. It must have hurt though. Suddenly he felt an intense desire to kiss it better ), the way his skin folded when he smiled (and the way seeing his smile felt like eating ambrosia to Will), the way his eyes had just a slight hint of purple in them, like amethysts glittering in the cool, placid, shimmering blue pools of his irises.
Basically, Will was infatuated, to say the least.
Nico was the only one to have ever made him feel this way, to have ever made him fall his hard for someone. What he felt for Nico was the type of love that would make the Aphrodite campers swoon with approval.... if he wasn't such a coward when it came to actually confessing.
And so he stayed silent again, unable to actually say anything, or confess, simply admiring the son of Hades from afar. The way the sunlight glinted off his clear blue eyes, the way his throat bobbed whenever he swallowed. The way he always made Will feel better, just by being there
Will was in love
He didn't know what to do. He had never been in love before. It was a foreign feeling to him, and so he did what he always did when he didn't know something
He worked. He threw himself harder than ever back into his work, doing the work of "five campers" according to Kayla, to the point that even his fellow Apollo campers started to worry about him, as the mask of constant cheerfulness he projected started to slip, revealing just how exhausted he was.
One day, as he was in the infirmary, working on a cure to a certain variant of Myrmeke venom, his vision started to get blurry, and a pounding headache ripped through his skull. His legs began shaking, and he collapsed, groaning slightly as he did. He'd be fine. He always was. Just a little sit-down, and he'd be fine to continue his work
That's when he heard his voice, smooth and quiet as wind rustling through the leaves of a tree and, to Will, as warm and filling as a glass of nectar, "You okay ?". Nico. It was Nico. Almost instantly, Will scrambled back, feeling his face grow red-hot as his eyes snapped open.
"I-I'll be fine !!", he insisted, his voice high and slightly squeaky, "I just need to sit down for a little bit"
Nico shrugged, "Yeah, sure.", and turned to Will's desk, which was piled high with things he'd been working on, "Treatment for Hydra venom, Treatment for Katobleps poison. Cure for manticore venom.... Woah, that's alot of work", Nico said, sounding slightly awed. Will felt a tinge of pride at that.
"Yeah, uh... I've been working on it for a while"
Nico looked awed for a little while, before turning to Will, a slight frown on his face, "Is that why you collapsed ?"
"No !!", Will cried, "That's not... not why I collapsed. I wouldn't collapse from doing just a little bit of work.", and the unsaid "I'm not weak", hung in the air between them, as clear as day, though Will never said it out loud
Nico scoffed, looking astonished, "A little bit ? Will, this is a ton of work !! Even if you collapsed because of it, you're not weak"
That caught Will off-guard. He wasn't ? But... but, "But.. I am weak. I'm not enough. I'll never be enough. I'm...", and that was enough for the dam gates to open. Will began talking about... everything, really. His insecurities. His feelings of inadequacies. His inferiority complex. Everything, and Nico simply stood there, listening, until he strode over to Will, and sat down beside him, and just listened.
As the confessions ended, Will realized that he could feel something warm and wet on his face. Tears. They were tears. He was crying. Suddenly, he felt arms encircling him. Nico had pulled him into a hug
"You're perfect just the way you are, Will", he said, slightly choked, "And you always will be. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The truth is..."
Nico broke the hug, and Will noticed a reddish sheen across his face as he looked seriously into Will's eyes, "... the truth is that.. I've always been in love with you. Will you... will you be...". Nico didn't complete his sentence. He didn't need to. The question hung in the air between them, like a bright, burning star, much to Will's disbelief
"But... but why me ? You could have chosen anyone. You could have..... why me ? I'm a terrible choice"
"And yet I chose you"
"You chose wrong"
"I know what I chose, Will. And I want you to know this. I will always, always choose you. No matter how you are. No matter who you are. Because you are and will always be perfect to me. So please... will you ?"
Will was struck silent, and after a few seconds of thought, he nodded. Nico leant in close, his earthy scent filling Will's nose, and pressed his lips against Will's, and suddenly everything felt right again. The world, once tilted, was back on it's proper axis. Everything was okay again. No, everything was perfect.