Chapter Text
two weeks ago
From: Gleeson Hedge <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, February 1, 2024 4:32:00 PM
To: Nico di Angelo <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Scholars Trip Meeting
Nico,
No worries. Hope you feel better soon. Your friends have signed you up for the rooms — You’ll be sharing with Jason Grace, Will Solace, and Leo Valdez. Make sure to stop by my classroom to get the forms when you get back.
Mr. Hedge
Sent from my iPhone
Nico reads the email. Then re-reads it. He shuts off his phone and opens his Outlook on his computer to read the email again.
You’ll be sharing with Jason Grace, Will Solace, and Leo Valdez.
As if Nico isn’t already miserable from the cold he’s come down with over the past week. He had thought fine, it’s fine, it’s just a sore throat, and I’ll get out of school for a day — but then one day turned into two, and then it turned into being bed-ridden over his entire three-day weekend, and then missing another two days of school, including two exams, an absurd amount of classwork, an in-class timed essay, two physics labs, and the stupid fucking Scholars trip meeting.
He hadn’t thought it would be a problem. He’d pick up the forms another day, and then he’d just get the information from Jason or Reyna and it would all be fine. He had thought it would be pairs. He had thought he would be sharing with Jason.
It had been a very detailed conversation: Jason turning around in the middle of AP Lang from his front row seat, yelling back, “Hey, Nico, you’re in Scholars, right?”
“Yes,” Nico had responded, voice quiet as it always was, but it might have been a bit louder because he had been wearing headphones and he never does get his volume quite right.
“Wanna be roommates?”
“Okay.”
Very enthusiastic. He had thought that was the end of the conversation. So he hadn’t been worried about missing the stupid meeting, but now it turns out that he’ll be sharing a room with not only Leo Valdez, but also Will Solace—
He may just die. He’d have Hazel write it on his gravestone: Nico di Angelo, died of gay panic. Blames Jason Grace and whoever gave him a cold, causing him to be sick on his literal birthday, and on the day of the Scholars Trip Meeting. At least he got to live to see the age of seventeen.
That’s a bit too long of a message for his gravestone, but he’s sure Hazel will find a way to get the point across.
After his eyes scan over the email one last time and realize that yes, this is real, he shoots off a polite response saying thanks and when can he make up the essay he missed. Then, he picks up his phone and sends a much less polite text message to Jason.
It’s only much later as Nico is re-watching Frozen for the third time and staring sadly at the growing pile of tissues on his bed, when he gets a message that says: It was either that or leaving you with Octavian. Sorry, dude.
Three bubbles show up on the screen. Nico waits a few seconds, then:
It was actually Will who offered it, anyway.
;)))
That’s it. Jason’s going to be the one who needs a gravestone, not Nico, and he’ll ensure that he won’t get caught—all he needs is the perfect opportunity, and they’ll be going to the beach, won’t they? He’ll drown Jason, make sure there’s no chance—
His rage somehow transforms into a coughing fit, and it only takes a few minutes for Hazel to poke her head into the room, a grimace on her face. “Oatmeal?”
Nico doesn’t have the energy to say no. He’ll make it up to his sister at some point, when he’s not on his deathbed.
It’s unfortunate that Hazel, one year younger than him, won’t be going on the trip. It means that Nico will only have two sort-of friends, Reyna and Jason, one of which he will be giving the silent treatment because of betrayal.
He wonders if he can just get out of the trip all together. It’s not like it’s required; he could just go to school like normal—
“Oh, Nico, by the way,” Hazel leans her head back into the room, no oatmeal in hand, “Frank wanted me to tell you that he’s got your forms for the Scholars Trip, and he’ll give them to me tomorrow. Did you want me to stop by your teachers to get them signed?”
Shit. Nico just responds with another cough, and Hazel quickly abandons the room, leaving her brother to his misery.
By the time that he can finally go to sleep, nose raw and throat aching, he’s forgotten all about it.
day one - 7:41 AM
The Scholars Program of Olympian High School is a complete hoax. It’s a ruse. It’s not actually beneficial to their education; it’s just a bragging right, to be honest, and a completely lame one, too. Nico hasn’t done anything with the other “Scholars” all year other than share classes with some of them, and now this trip.
They’re not even looking at colleges, for fuck’s sake. He doesn’t even know why he’s here: lugging a duffel bag on one shoulder because the cross-body strap is broken, music blasting through his ears, and scrolling through his weather app as he walks in through the front door, Mr. Chiron gesturing for him to go inside and showing him to a table where all the seats are filled.
Right. He had gotten here late, because the email Mr. Chiron had sent had vaguely alluded to leaving them behind if they didn’t show up on time.
Well. Nico is eleven minutes late, after having “accidentally” slept in (aka, not setting an alarm), but then been dragged out by Persephone. So, really, the only effect of this was that he missed breakfast, having been sent out with a bag of Doritos and told to eat a good lunch and don’t you dare starve yourself just because we aren’t there. You have money, use it.
Nico isn’t stupid, thank you very much. It’s the reason he’s in this conundrum in the first place. If only he had taken a few less AP classes; he could have gotten out of it as a whole…
But no, he cares about college too much for that. Because despite having to suffer through a two day trip to Monterey, this does look good on college applications, and so do the AP classes. It will all be worth it.
He sighs, drops the duffel bag on the ground, and leans against the wall. The weather app has not changed in the past two minutes—it still says partly cloudy, a high of 62 degrees. At least it isn’t going to rain.
Jason calls out his name, but Nico ignores him, because he does not forget his grudges. It’s petty, sure, but Jason deserves it—even if Nico is grateful that he doesn’t have to room with Octavian. If that were the case, he would have just driven to a McDonalds until the bus was sure to have left, and then gone to school like normal and told Hazel it was just bad luck, I missed the bus by a few minutes.
Nope. Now, he just has to deal with his treacherous (ex-best) friend, the resident pyromaniac (okay, he actually only set the chem lab on fire once, but that’s enough to gain a reputation—and for some reason, Jason is smitten with him) and boyfriend of Jason Grace (as of literally one week—they just had to start dating right before the trip (of course, it was on Valentine’s Day, but that only makes it even worse) , meaning Nico will be third-wheeling them and ignoring Will the whole time), and his current crush (who doesn’t know it, or at least Nico doesn’t think he does, but sometimes he acts like he does, and it seriously pisses Nico off—why is someone allowed to be so hot and annoying at the same time?).
If only he were able to room with Reyna and her friends. Stupid heteronormativity.
“Okay, I think that’s everyone,” Chiron says, walking back into the meeting room and clapping his hands together. “Now, have you all read the email I sent yesterday?”
There’s a few scattered yes ’s, but most people shake their heads. Nico is not included. He does actually check his email (because the little red bubble signaling a notification annoys him), and he takes a small amount of pride in seeing Will shake his head. It’s a stupid thing to be proud of, but he’ll be proud of any edge he can take over the blond.
He can’t beat Will in AP Biology. He knows that now, after a few months of trying. He also can’t beat him in Chemistry, which is why he hadn’t signed up for it this year. Instead, he took AP Physics, so that’s the only class they don’t share together.
He doesn’t know why he’s ended up in the same class as Will for as long as he’s been going to this high school. It’s not like their school is tiny—it’s slightly smaller than an average private school, but it still has enough people going there that they have at least two or three classes for each AP class. So how does he keep ending up with Will? And even more to the point, how does he keep ending up next to him? “Random” seating charts are complete bullshit—there’s no reason for two people to always sit next to each other over three years of high school.
But he can beat Will in AP Lang. As well as every other language-based class, including foreign languages (though Italian being his first language may play a part in that, not that he’ll ever let Will know). AP Compsci is a close battle, but Nico is sure that Art History and US History are his.
(He has no idea why Will signed up for AP Art history, other than the possibility of him snooping through what classes Nico would be signing up for—but Nico tries not to think about that).
And yet, Will has the audacity to look surprised at the start of every year. Maybe even happy. Nico will walk into class, just nearly late as he always is, check his name on the seating chart, and see Will sitting in the seat right next to him (or, sometimes in front or behind him, but always nearby) with a bright smile on his face.
Will Solace is not his friend. But he thinks he may, unintentionally, be Will Solace’s friend.
Which is very frustrating after two and a half years of just giving short glares and stiff answers to his questions, and always peeking over the desk to see his grade, so much so that Will has started just tilting his test papers to the side. He doesn’t want to be Will’s friend. Will is just too likable. He starts every conversation, gives Nico smiles that make his heart flutter, and then goes on to be just as kind to literally every other person he meets.
Right now, this is just a crush. But if Will keeps acting this way and involving him in everything—well, Nico may just end up falling in love with him.
Yeah, no.
So, according to Nico, they are not friends . But something Nico learned back in their freshman year is that Will Solace is very competitive. So when Nico would look to see what grade Will got on any assignment, then silently either congratulate or berate himself, Will started asking to see his as well.
That turned into whatever it is now. Bragging rights until the next test, but Nico’s holding the prize right now because of the recent Synthesis Essay. They had a one percent difference, and Will had rolled his eyes and said, “Well, that’s just ‘cause you’re a genius,” and Nico had practically sprinted out of the classroom so Will couldn’t see him blush.
Still, it helps—every conversation they’ve ever had is about grades or assignments or tests or essays, and Nico is just fine with it staying that way.
The school system is rigged, Nico knows, but it’s rigged in his favor, so he can’t really complain. But he can complain about Will fucking Solace, mainly to his wonderful sister, who will nod sympathetically and say What an asshole but then roll her eyes in the same car ride and ask So, have you asked him out yet?
He’s so caught up in his thoughts that he doesn’t realize he’s been glaring (staring?) at Will the entire time that Chiron’s been talking, and now the teacher is done talking, and Nico is at the end of the line to get on the bus.
That means he’s got no choice of seating.
It means he’s probably going to end up sitting near Will, because Will went to middle school with Annabeth, who’s dating Percy, who’s friends with Rachel and Jason, who is in student council with Reyna and in clubs with Leo and Piper; and somewhere within that whole mess is also Grover and Cecil and Frank and—
Nico.
Sure enough, as he steps onto the bus, grabbing a few Oreos from the snack box on his way up the steps, he grimaces at what’s left.
There are two empty seats, right in front of Leo and Jason, and to the left of Cecil and Will.
Unless Nico wants to sit right next to Chiron or Hedge, he’s stuck there.
He takes the seat, mourning the fact that his duffle bag is below the bus and he had been too distracted to grab his book. He’s left with his phone that has a battery of 40%, his headphones, and the one empty seat between him and Will Solace.
By the time the bus starts moving, he’s already asleep.
8:22 AM
“—Well, I’ll just ask him… no, it’s fine…but—oh, hey Nico!”
Nico wakes up to someone gently pushing his shoulder and the loud chatter of the bus. He squints as he opens his eyes, the light from through the window nearly blinding him, and then he turns around to get blinded once again—this time because of Will.
He unconsciously scowls at him, and even though it’s probably just because he was woken up, it’s also because—well, it’s Will.
“We’re starting a game of Uno,” Will says cheerfully, “Wanna join?”
“How long was I sleeping?”
Jason leans forward over the aisle seat, giving Nico a slightly apologetic look. “About twenty minutes. But it’s Uno. And you can sleep again later.”
Nico pretends that Jason hadn’t spoken and, for a second, is about to reject Will and go back to sleep.
But. Nico is undefeated when it comes to card games.
And he’ll take any chance to beat Will.
“Deal me in,” he mutters, moving the jacket he had been using as a pillow to the side and running a hand through his hair so it isn’t completely flat on one side. Will beams in response, counting out seven cards from the deck in his hands and passing them over.
“Alright, so we’ve got—wait, Piper, are you in, too?” Piper shouts out an affirmative. “Alright,” Will nods. “We’ll go counter-clockwise. I’m dealing, so Nico, you start. Then we’ll do a zig zag around—Jason, Leo, Percy, Annabeth, Grover, Piper, Reyna, Rachel, Frank, Cecil and then me. Sound good?”
The game is chaotic. Sure enough, Nico starts, but Leo plays the first +4 card, starting an intense (and overdramatic) argument between him and Percy, who reluctantly takes the four cards that Will passes back to him. Death threats are shouted, alliances and rivalries are formed—Piper officially un-friends Reyna, while Will mocks being shot in the heart when Cecil throws down a +2 on top of Frank’s +2—only to show that it was for nothing because Will had a +2.
Will just smirks at Nico, no betrayal in sight.
Nico smirks back.
+2.
A cry of outrage comes from the seat behind him as Jason stares at the deck, letting his head fall against the back of the seat. “Why would you do this to me?”
Nico just stands up, turning around to give Jason a look: You know exactly why.
Jason sighs, then nods miserably and takes the eight cards. And now, at least, Nico doesn’t have to hold on to the silent treatment any longer. It was getting a bit annoying.
The game lasts another twenty-three minutes, and Nico feels immense joy when Rachel reverses the game, and Nico has the opportunity to give Will a +4 wild card while saying “Uno,” at the same time.
The frustration and look of shock on Will’s face makes all of the social interaction well worth it.
Sure enough, it only takes two more rounds for Nico to win, and for Will to immediately call a rematch—supported by Reyna, who only had two cards left, and Annabeth, who may have temporarily broken up with her boyfriend after Percy was left with no other option but to make her draw four cards.
Nico takes out his phone, leaning against the window, and waves off the cards that Will tries to hand to him.
“Oh, really?” he asks, making Nico raise an eyebrow. “One game and you’re already calling out? Scared you won’t win again?”
Nico scowls. He knows exactly what Will’s doing. He’s being baited into another game—for what, Nico doesn’t know.
But it works.
11:02 AM
“I hated East of Eden .” Nico nearly jumps at Will’s voice behind him, sneaking up on where Nico had been reading one of the plaques of the Steinbeck museum.
“You can’t recognize quality writing,” Nico responds simply, not daring to look at him. They’re at their first stop of the day, and Nico will definitely remember to grab his book out of his duffle bag before they get back on the bus. Then, it’s lunch, and finally the hotel.
He’s ready to go back to sleep.
“Was it really quality, though?” Will asks, and Nico can just imagine him scanning the plaque, lips forming that grimace that he gets whenever a grade is below 93, his nose scrunched in a way that’s definitely not cute.
“I liked The Great Gatsby, though,” Will adds when Nico doesn’t give him a reply.
Nico scoffs. “ Everyone likes The Great Gatsby. I’d be concerned if you didn’t—even Percy said it was alright!”
“Percy just said that because it was short—”
“Percy said what?” This time, Nico actually jumps, letting out a small gasp as he turns around to glare at Percy.
Will, the asshole, just laughs in Nico’s face, while Percy pretends to be innocent, glancing between them expectantly.
“You liked The Great Gatsby, ” Will explains, and Percy lights up and nods.
“Yes! You know, I think all our assigned readings should be that short—there was no need for East of Eden to be, like, ten thousand pages—”
“That’s what I’m saying!”
Nico looks between Will and Percy exasperatedly. This is what he gets for talking to a science nerd and—well, to be honest, Nico actually doesn’t know how Percy made it into the Scholars program. Nico used to share a class with him in elementary school, and he had never been the most grade-driven…it must have something to do with Annabeth’s influence, Nico had decided.
Then again, that was also elementary school, and he can’t really judge anyone on that just because he was a grade freak. He doesn’t care too much about Percy anymore—everyone knows middle school crushes don’t count. He’s just curious as to how the guy made it into AP Lang when Nico remembers seeing him hastily write all of his essays in the minutes before the bell rang.
“First of all, it was only six hundred pages—”
“ Only,” Will mutters to Percy.
“—And The Great Gatsby is a classic because of its prose and depiction of the American Dream, not just because it was short —”
“Oh God, we made him go on a tangent,” Percy whispers to Will.
“—It managed to reflect society so well despite how short it was, and East of Eden just went into more detail—while also covering, like, two entirely separate timelines as well. And honestly, we’re literally in the Steinbeck museum. I mean, personally, I don’t think that East of Eden was his best book, but it has such a huge significance in literature as a whole—”
“Hey, I liked The Pearl, too,” Percy cuts in, a grin on his face. “That was only, what? A hundred pages or something?”
Nico doesn’t bother to give Percy a response. Duh, because it’s a novella, he would say. But instead, he’s caught by the look on Will’s face, a soft smile, freckles covered by a faint blush across his cheeks and a glimmer in his eye. Nico’s rant comes to a halt.
Nico inhales sharply, turning around and making a point to look annoyed as he goes off to the next section, staring intently at another plaque but not reading a single word.
The group slowly makes their way through the museum, and Nico pretends like he doesn’t notice Will lingering in each room until Nico makes his way out. Honestly— maybe, at some point last year, he would have thought about asking the blond out. Really! He had been thinking about it.
But last year, he had been pretty sure that he had made Will hate him with a few jabs that might have been a bit too blunt directed at his grades. And he knows—he knows how much Will works. So does Nico. Not just in their core classes, but also—Nico has stalked their yearbook. He knows just how many clubs Will is in, how many sports he’s taken part in, and how much time that takes up on a weekly basis.
And Nico gets it! He spends an absurd amount of time on homework and studying as well, to the detriment of his social life—not that he’s really disappointed by that. So he knows first-hand how frustrating it is to have a good grade be brushed off as insignificant just because someone else did better. But when he’s around Will, all that logic flies away, and he just jumps toward the quickest excuse to get out of the interaction.
Most of the time, that’s also the one that’s hurtful enough to get Will distracted for a moment.
Every time Nico thinks he might be able to change, to give them an actual shot—moments like earlier, when his brain almost tricks him into thinking that Will might see him similarly, despite Nico having only ever been hostile toward him—he backs out. Usually rather forcefully—rather rudely. It’s either an abrupt exit, without another word being spoken (the real life equivalent of ghosting, honestly), or an insult that will keep Will bothered while giving Nico time to escape.
At this point, Nico thinks that Will is just messing with him. He must know. No sane person would get so flustered over someone they “hated”.
This must be revenge. Nico’s comments had gone too far one too many times, and Will was going to make this trip hell.
As if it wasn’t already.
12:19 PM
“You’ve got about an hour,” Coach Hedge shouts at the kids who have split up into groups outside the bus. “Everyone’s back here at 1:30 sharp, alright?”
The students nod, Nico included, and then they’re left to their own devices. Nico turns his music’s volume up, already looking at Google Maps to see what food they have, remembering Persephone’s words to eat something.
He’s distracted by someone tapping his shoulder, and his face instinctively forms a scowl when seeing Will there. Unfortunately, this only makes Will smile.
“Are you coming?” he asks, gesturing to where the group is walking across the street, except for Percy and Jason, who are seemingly racing each other. “I think we’re finding something to eat first, then going to Target.”
Nico really doesn’t want to. He’s already going to have to spend the entire night in the same room as Will, and has had to spend the entire drive sitting basically next to him. He should take every moment he can to himself, because walking around with Will, seeing his face light up if Nico says yes, and having to deal with his general chatter sounds…
Wonderful, actually.
“Sure,” Nico says without thinking, and then he blinks, shaking his head, because no, he was going to say no, and he absolutely refuses to go walking around with a huge group of people including his crush—
Will is already smiling.
Nico hates this.
(He really doesn’t.)
“So, have you finished the collegeboard review? For Calc?” Will asks, waiting until Nico takes a few steps forward so that they’re next to each other as they follow the rest of the group to wherever they’re going. Nico wonders if he’s ever going to take a step to the side, or if Will is just going to continue keeping barely any space between them, his arm brushing against Nico’s every few steps.
Then again, Nico could step away, too.
(He doesn’t.)
“The test’s next week,” Nico responds, eyes focused on the ground in front of him. He hears Piper laugh loudly about something up ahead. He doesn’t speed up to catch up with them—neither does Will.
“No, the make up is next week. The review is still due tomorrow.”
“Fuck.”
Will, the asshole, laughs. Nico scrambles to pull out his phone, checking the due date one more time, and—
Sure enough, Will is right.
Double fuck.
Will is right.
“You can copy my answers if you want,” Will offers, his tone casual, but Nico can see right through it. There’s some sort of caution there—did Will put in the wrong answers? Is this a trap? Nico knows the content well enough; he’s sure that he can finish it himself, but he certainly won’t enjoy it. “It’s not like you won’t study anyway.”
“It’s fine,” Nico shakes his head. “I’ve got, like, most of it done already. Just haven’t checked my answers yet.” He’ll ask Annabeth—he’s pretty sure that she’s in Calc AB, or maybe Reyna? One of them will have it finished, at the least. Maybe Frank.
“You can check them with mine!” Will responds cheerfully, “I already turned it in. Got a twenty-eight out of thirty.”
Nico narrows his eyes, finally looking back at Will, which is a mistake. He looks—well, he always looks good. He’s just wearing a tee-shirt, even though it isn’t warm at all, and some jeans. It’s strange not to see him in his uniform. Instead of the Olympian High School logo, there’s a woman with blonde hair and bangs sitting on the beach—
“Is that a Taylor Swift shirt?”
Will’s head whips around, and he’s positively beaming now. “Yes! Glad you noticed, Neeks—”
“—Don’t call me that—”
“But really, if you want to just copy the answers for once, it’ll be fine. We’re going to the beach, and you wouldn’t want to miss that. I’m pretty sure Leo brought board games, too.”
“It’s fine,” Nico mutters, “I just won’t go to the beach. Too cold, anyway.”
Will gasps dramatically. “ What? No way in hell. You’re definitely going to the beach.”
Nico glances at him, skeptical at the serious look on Will’s face. He scrunches his nose. “Like you can stop me. I’ll do the Calc stuff during that time. Maybe take a nap, too.”
“But—”
“Seriously, Solace, mind your business, alright? I didn’t even want to be here in the first place.”
He takes a few long strides forward, now completely out of reach from Will, and doesn’t look back. His music is still playing, just on a lower volume, so he can’t actually tell whether Will is following him—at least, until Will is back to standing next to him, but a few extra feet to the right.
He doesn’t try to start another conversation.
They end up walking through several stores as everyone stops to get their own food—sandwiches, pizza, Chipotle. Nico gets a bag of chips and calls it a day. He’s not that hungry anyway, and he knows there are more snacks on the bus.
They crowd around a few tables in the empty seating area outside a Starbucks and push two of the tables together to fit everyone. Nico snaps a picture of all the other food, reminding himself to text Hazel later and use this as proof that he’s doing just fine (even though, really, it’s partly her fault that he’s here in the first place, but he doesn’t want to make his sister worry about him. Petty revenge is reserved for his friends).
“So,” Leo starts once they’ve all got chairs, “Who else is signing up for Stats in pre-reg?”
“Me,” Annabeth responds, “But I’ll be taking Calc BC too, so that’ll be… fun.”
Nico grimaces as Jason looks over, a question on his face. “You were planning on that, too, right?”
“I chose my will to live, thanks,” Nico mutters, unintentionally making Frank laugh next to him. “Nah. I wanna sleep next year, so no A set. I asked Ms. Eudora, and she said it shouldn’t be a problem since I’ll be taking Calc anyway. Not like I’ll be applying for a STEM major.”
There’s simultaneous groans from Annabeth, Leo, and Will, and Nico has to stifle a chuckle.
“That sounds wonderful,” Will sighs, “It’d be a waste to not take a first period, though, ‘cause I’ve got a zero period…”
Annabeth nods in agreement, apparently having come to the same conclusion. Nico had been in a zero period—Model UN—since Freshman year, but, as previously stated: He’s chosen to have a will to live his senior year. He’s not a morning person. He’s not going to try to be anymore. His senior year will not make him want to die.
“That means you don’t have any excuses for being late this year, though,” Percy points out to Nico, “You literally live, like, five minutes away from the school. I don’t know how you do it.”
Nico scoffs. “Well, some of us don’t want to go to the pool at the ass crack of dawn.”
Percy raises his hands in mock-surrender, letting out a laugh that the others join in on. From there, it’s divided into several different conversations: Nico overhears some stuff about a History assignment, something from the kids taking French complaining about their teacher, and the ones closest to him—Jason, Frank, and Will—talking about colleges, which is way too common a topic for Nico’s liking.
As he looks around, Nico has to admit that he feels… alright around these people, which is saying a lot. He doesn’t warm up to people easily, doesn’t find conversation relaxing. So the ability to sit back and eat his chips while listening to the idle chatter around him is something entirely new.
He’s never had a proper friend group—never even considered himself a part of this one until… now, actually. He’s known Percy and Grover since elementary, then moved to a different middle school from the rest of them all when he moved in with his father, Persephone, and Hazel.
Middle school sucked, but Nico thinks that that’s the general consensus from everyone. In fact, he’d be surprised if anyone actually said they enjoyed their time there. It was only made worse by Nico having to move away from everything he’d known, losing Bianca and his mom, and having to figure out how he fit into the new family dynamic.
Then, he came back for high school, and… well, when he examines the people at the table, he realizes that he’s at least proper acquaintances with all of them. He shared several classes with Cecil and Rachel his freshman year (and, of course, Will), and was in Model UN with Annabeth and Reyna.
He also was placed in PE with Percy, which was awkward for the first semester as Nico had clearly changed… a lot since he was eleven. Then, second semester started, and Percy, for some reason, sat next to him on the bleachers, complaining about the start of school as if they had been best friends all year.
Nico thought it was weird, but he didn’t hate it. Then again, that seems to be the general description of his feelings toward Percy.
He suffered through the torture that was Sophomore Lit with Piper, who was seated next to him. That year, Percy had also convinced him to join the Quiz Bowl club which was apparently run by his girlfriend, and Nico said yes— only for the sole purpose that he was worried he didn’t have enough extracurriculars on his transcript.
From there on, he learned that Percy’s girlfriend was Annabeth and it turned out that Annabeth had also been best friends with Will since middle school. Just Nico’s luck.
Somewhere along the way, the rest also brought up memories. Frank sits at his table in Calc, along with the obvious—dating Nico’s sister and therefore always being in the corner of his eye as he watches them carefully.
Jason, similar to Percy, had randomly decided that Nico was his friend. Throughout freshman year, they sat together at lunch, until Jason became friends with more of the others and Nico decided that lunches were his time to be a social recluse—it’s a necessary part of his day, and he despises that some people (cough, Persephone) think he needs to make friends just to sit somewhere at lunch. He actually met Leo through Quiz Bowl, though Nico’s sure he would have known him through Jason if it weren’t for that.
“Where are you planning on going, Neeks?” Jason nudges his shoulder, and Nico looks up from his musings.
“Anywhere but here,” is his response. Same as it always has been. For the amount of pressure he puts on himself to get good grades and prepare a good college application, he has no idea what the fuck he wants to do with his life.
He guesses that’s one of those things he just hopes will work itself out in the end—like an essay with just twenty minutes left on the clock.
Somehow, he ends up getting an A. This will fix itself, too.
12:46 PM
“Hey, Will!” Percy comes running around the side of a clothing rack. “They’ve got your favorite person here!”
Nico narrows his eyes, wandering to the side—he isn’t really sure why he followed everyone else to Target, but it likely had something to do with Reyna dragging him along.
Just possibly.
“Oh my god, Taylor Swift?”
Without hesitation, Will runs off to follow Percy, who lets out a loud laugh as Will speed-walks to what Nico is guessing is the vinyl section of the store. He glances at Reyna, who’s examining a jacket until she apparently feels Nico’s eyes on her and gives him a knowing smile.
Nico rolls his eyes. “You think they have any good books here?”
“At Target?” Reyna asks. “No way. Wanna go scan them anyway to see how many we’ve read?”
“Duh.”
Sure enough, when they turn the corner, they see Will Solace holding a Lover album and saying something to Annabeth and Piper, who’s rearranging the vinyls so that a Taylor Swift one is covering all of the others.
He’s not sure where the others disappeared to, but he takes the time to look through the shelves—they’re filled with a bunch of best-sellers, some celebrity memoirs, and four whole shelves of various Harry Potter merch.
“These,” Nico grabs a book, turning to face Reyna with a serious look, “are my favorite people ever.”
Reyna nods in agreement, grabbing another copy of the same book—a children’s adventure story about two gay demigods—and looking at the back cover critically.
“Are you buying a book?” a voice asks from behind them, and Nico turns around to see Jason leaning over his shoulder, eyes narrowed through his glasses.
“I already have a copy of this,” Nico shrugs. “I’ve told you to read it twenty times already.”
“...Oops. Well, I think we’ve got to head back in about—”
“Oh my god, they have Candy Land!” A shout comes from another aisle. All three of their heads whip up, and Jason immediately starts walking over—ah, yes, Nico recognizes the voice as Leo’s. Nico places the book back on the shelf, and he and Reyna walk over to find a portion of the group looking at the rows of games from Nerf guns to Legos. From what Nico can tell, they’ve lost Frank, Cecil, Rachel, and Grover, but they’re probably just in a different part of the store.
Now, everyone is crowded around the board game section, Will holding up the Candy Land box and scanning it with wide eyes.
“We have to play that,” Percy says, grabbing the box and tilting it to the side to see the price tag. “Are we getting it?”
“On it.” Will takes the box, holding it under his arm and checking his phone. “We should be getting back anyway—anyone remember where the checkout is?”
Annabeth looks up from where she had been reading the back of a complex-looking Lego set and gestures for the others to follow her, while Nico stays next to Jason. “I’ve never played Candy Land,” Jason mutters, “Is it complicated?”
Nico snorts. “Dude, it’s for three year olds. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
If anything, Jason only looks more confused than before. “I’ll read the instructions before we play.”
3:24 PM
Nico taps his foot on the ground, his shoulder getting sore from holding the duffel bag that doesn’t have a cross-body strap. He’s pretending to look at his phone, but really, he’s been avoiding texting back his family about the trip.
He’s worried that they’ll be disappointed if he says he isn’t having a great time. It hasn’t been terrible —in fact, now that Nico gets to thinking about it, he actually didn’t mind the Uno on the drive. He got a good nap on the rest of the way to the museum—and honestly, he did enjoy the Steinbeck museum.
He just feels like he’s constantly on edge. At least while everyone else goes to the beach, he’ll get a few hours of peace and quiet. He’ll get some homework done, and he’ll try and see if there’s a pullout bed so that he can ensure he won’t have to share a bed with Will—now that sounds like a nightmare.
Nico looks around, eyes unconsciously landing on Will. He’s talking to Annabeth about something, his headphones sitting around his neck and a backpack hanging off one of his shoulders. Annabeth nods sincerely and then looks like she’s giving Will advice on something when she catches Nico’s gaze and smiles.
Her mouth moves, and Will turns around just as Nico’s head whips back, trying to find something else to watch.
There are three distinct groups that have formed:
Drew Tanaka and her friends. Nico doesn’t actually know their names, aside from a girl he’s pretty sure is called Lacy, because they don’t really interact with Nico and his… acquaintances. Them, and two other groups of girls—one of four and one of three—are all standing close to each other, talking about something that Nico doesn’t know or care about. He’s seen them hang out around each other at school, though, so he’s pretty sure that they’re legitimate friends—though pretty much everyone here has some friends, because they’re all sorted into the same classes.
Then there’s Octavian and his… group. Nico doesn’t actually know if they’re his friends, because quite honestly, Nico can’t imagine anyone being friends with Octavian. He’s annoying, pretentious, and acts like he’s the smartest out of them all even if everyone in the entire grade knows that Valedictorian is going to Annabeth Chase. Nico doubts that Octavian will even be in the running for Salutatorian. They’re all aware he didn’t make it into Honors Pre-Calc.
And maybe it’s wrong to judge someone on that—Nico wouldn’t do it to anyone else—but it’s Octavian. Nico had to suffer through a group project with him in Freshman Lit, so he reserves the right to judge him about anything and everything.
And lastly, there’s the group that Nico is reluctantly a part of. Nico doesn’t know how they’re identified. There’s the girls, then the guys, then… them. Percy and Jason have, for some reason, brought a football with them and are now throwing it back and forth through the parking lot, which makes Nico cringe, and everyone else is in their own little discussions.
Aside from Nico, of course. He’s busy. Looking at his phone. Staring at the message from Hazel, saying:
How’s it going???
Frank says you crushed everyone at Uno. Couldn’t you have given them a chance??
God, I hate chem sm
Missing everyone lunch is so boringgg
I KNOW your phone is still alive, respond to me nico
I’ll make Frank steal your phone
Nico sighs. He feels a bit bad—Hazel shares the same friend group as him, even if she’s much more open than him about it, but with all of them out on the trip right now, she’s probably left alone for lunch. He wonders how it’ll be in two years, when all of them graduate and go on to college, while she’s still a Senior. Nico should convince her to make some friends with the other Sophomores—even if he knows it’s very hypocritical for him to tell his extroverted sister to be more social.
He ends up finally responding, mainly out of boredom, and because he’s sure that if Hazel goes home without any response, Persephone will be on his back as well. It’s the bare minimum: i’m fine, no i’m compteitive u know this, imagnie taking chem lmao, and pls stop spamming!!! my phone’s abt to die
That last one is a lie. He has a portable charger. But Hazel doesn’t know that, because he’s infamous for never having a charger on him.
“Good news and bad news!” Hedge says as he walks out of the hotel front door, making everyone look at him. “Good news is that some of your rooms are ready!”
Fucking hell.
“Unfortunately,” Hedge shouts, “Some aren’t. So—the ones who do have rooms are: Drew!” He looks up, Drew sighing in relief and exchanging smiles with her friends before stepping forward to grab the key card. Hedge moves on to the others as Nico sucks in a breath, praying that their room will be ready. “Gwendolyn! Octavian! Laurel! And… Grover!”
Five rooms. Only five rooms are ready. Out of the girls, three rooms out of their four are ready; there’s only one room of other boys anyway, because of course fucking Octavian’s room is ready; and out of their friend group of twelve , only one room is.
“Everyone to Grover’s, then,” Reyna sighs next to him. “That’s just shitty luck.”
They don’t all fit into the elevator, so they take two trips to the third floor, with Nico in the second ride up. As he looks down the hall, he spots Will peeking out of a door and then shutting it behind him, making Nico scowl.
He quickly walks the rest of the way down the hall, then bangs on the door that he saw Will go through, asking, “Did you seriously just shut the door on us?”
“Nico!” A hand pulls Nico’s arm away, and he turns around to see the rest of the group that had been in the elevator with him laughing. Leo, who had pulled his arm away, throws his head back as his laughter rings through the hall. “Dude, that’s not the right room!”
Alright, well. Nico’s just going to die now.
His jaw drops, and he looks back at the door, then takes a step to the side to see that the other door is, sure enough, just a crack open, and he can hear Grover and Percy on the other side of it.
“What the fuck,” Nico mutters, “Are the rooms connected? I could’ve sworn —”
“That was hilarious ,” Leo cackles, opening the right door properly and dragging his duffel bag inside, “Guys, you won’t believe what— Fuck!”
Nico uses the full weight of his duffle bag to shove Leo the rest of the way into the room, hissing a quiet, “Don’t you fucking dare.”
When he looks up, Will’s brows are furrowed, an awkward smile on his lips as he looks down on both of them. It makes Nico freeze, as Will always does.
“Right, well—everyone else in! Raise of hands, who wants to go to the beach?”
At that, everyone raises their hands. Nico, decisively, does not, throwing his duffle bag on the ground with his cheeks still flushed from embarrassment. He sincerely hopes that no one is in the room next door, or he may just bury himself alive.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Percy says from behind him, and then Nico’s arm is grabbed and raised up with the rest of them. “Alright, great! We’re all going!”
“Wh—”
“So, we’ve got a bathroom and the other room,” Grover announces, “We’ll just take turns changing in them, and everyone can leave their stuff here. Hopefully the rooms will be ready when we get back—we can have game night here, too.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Percy declares over Nico’s curses, “I brought cookies, by the way.”
With that, the room is once again set into motion, with Piper and Cecil choosing to change first and Percy taking out a bag of blue cookies.
Nico sits down on the couch, huffing and crossing his arms. “I don’t have a swimsuit.”
“Oh, you do,” Frank speaks up, “Hazel said she packed swim trunks for you this morning because you “forgot” them.”
Nico glares. “You know, I really don’t like you and my sister talking about m—”
“Here are your swim trunks,” Jason says, throwing them directly in Nico’s face. “And you’ve got a change of clothes, too, so even if your hoodie gets wet, or something, you should be good. Hey, did anyone bring a volleyball?”
3:55 PM
The sand is fucking freezing. The beach is located in such a way that they can’t get to it without crossing a large expanse of sand, and Nico has to decide whether he wants to risk getting his only shoes—his favorite shoes—all sandy, or if he should brave it and walk barefoot like everyone else.
Yeah, no. He’s not risking getting sand in his boots. That sounds like torture. So he learns rather suddenly that the sand is freezing. His feet are starting to turn red and numb, and he sincerely wishes that he had just stayed home. Who the hell wants to go to the beach in sixty degrees?
Everyone, apparently, because Percy starts running across the sand, causing Jason to start chasing after him, and then Leo, and then Frank. Annabeth, the smart one, decides on a spot to leave all their stuff, and then looks critically at the crashing waves. “That idiot,” she mutters, and Nico assumes that she must be talking about Percy and the fact that he’s already soaking wet in freezing Monterey beach water.
The groups have already split apart, and Nico is left standing next to Reyna, who has her purple hoodie draped across her like a cape. Nico himself decided not to wear his swim trunks in the first place, because it’s cold and he refuses to wear shorts. Meanwhile, the others—
Nico’s mouth goes dry. Pretty much everyone is making their way closer to the ocean now, and his eyes widen as Will takes his shirt off, throwing it to the side before running forward to catch the volleyball that Cecil had thrown towards him.
“I… am going to go stand over there,” Nico announces to Reyna, pointing toward the far end of the beach. “And stand in the water in hopes of drowning.”
Reyna simply gives him a two-finger salute, a knowing smirk on her lips.
The wet sand feels like concrete under his feet, but he still focuses on every step, fearful of stepping on something. Beaches are terrifying to him ever since he stepped on a sharp rock as a kid and made his foot bleed.
Eventually, he does make his way to where he pointed. If he ignores his annoyance, he can admit that the beach is actually really beautiful. He closes his eyes for just a moment, still shaking slightly from the cold, but feeling more at peace about it. The sky is filled with clouds and it’s windy, but not enough to make Nico run away from the water—in fact, he stays just long enough for a new wave to reach just over his toes.
He jumps and takes a few steps back, scowling at it. A seagull cries next to him, landing on the sand and pecking at the beach, making Nico narrow his eyes.
The seagull tilts its head, but then abruptly shoots into the air, just in time for a volleyball to fly directly at where it had been.
Nico’s head whips around to glare at a shirtless Will Solace.
“Hey,” Will says breathlessly—from running, of course. And because he’s probably cold. Or maybe he isn’t. Nico doesn’t know how the fuck he isn’t wearing at least a tee-shirt right now. Nico’s still wearing the faux-leather jacket that he’s been wearing this entire trip.
“The volleyball?” Will prompts, making Nico blink quickly and glance backward to where, sure enough, the volleyball is. It’s about to be swallowed by the next wave.
Without warning, Will rushes past Nico, grabbing the ball just before the water reaches it, but Nico is more caught up by the fact that Will’s arm just brushed against Nico’s and the way that Will’s curls are now a hot mess— just a mess, falling into his face, and his eyes look more blue next to the water.
Nico purses his lips and waits for Will to walk away.
He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t.
“God, you’re shivering,” Will comments, not a trace of discomfort found in his tone. Nico turns around, raising an eyebrow as if to say, Yeah, duh.
“You’re insane,” Nico grits his teeth, keeping his eyes firmly on the ground next to Will rather than his blue eyes or his freckles or his body—another seagull lands, and Nico swears that it’s mocking him.
Will seems closer, and Nico can’t help but look at him as he smiles that smile of his and says, “Just that hot.”
Huh. That’s flirting. And yet, it’s the most stupid thing ever, and manages to make Nico laugh. “That was stupid.”
Will doesn’t look put out at all, instead seeming to light up—as if the clouds have parted just to point a ray of sunlight in his direction—as Nico’s cheeks ache (from the cold, of course. His ears hurt, too).
“Yeah, it was,” Will sighs, “But—”
“Will, stop flirting and get over here!”
Nico turns around, ready to yell at whoever it is—Piper; Nico’s not surprised at all. But Will just throws the ball with surprisingly good aim—it looks like it’s right about to hit Piper in the face, but lands just a few feet short.
“Look,” Will says, directing Nico’s attention toward him again, “My hands are shaking, see?”
His hands dart forward and grab Nico’s. Nico nearly jumps back from how cold they are—looking at Will, he wouldn’t assume it at all. Sure enough, they’re shaking.
Nico’s so surprised that he doesn’t pull back immediately. It’s only after a few seconds that he realizes he’s just holding hands with Will Solace, and so he shoves his hands into his pockets and turns to walk down the beach, away from the blond.
“Well, that’s what you get for deciding to go to the beach in February. Hope you’re happy with your idiotic life choices!”
Will’s laughter is like music, and Nico focuses so intently at not smiling in response to it that he shrieks as the tide pulls in, and a wave of ice cold water crashes into him up to his knees, promptly drenching his black jeans and feet.
Idiotic life choices. Nico is such a hypocrite.
5:16 PM
Nico is limping as he drags his duffel bag from Grover’s room up to their own room, which is finally ready, and he feels like his feet have honestly frozen solid. He double-checks the room number to make sure that it’s the right one, and then lets out a long sigh as he steps into the room and looks around.
It’s the exact same layout as the other room, so Nico goes past the couch and drops his duffle bag right next to one of the beds. Then, he tosses his jacket on it to claim it—Leo and Jason and Will can figure out the pull-out and the other bed themselves.
He hears the door open when he’s in the shower and assumes that the others must have come back from the pool—where the others had all gone after they left the beach (which they spent way too long at, in his opinion, though that opinion may have been swayed after having to stand around in the sand in soaking wet jeans for an hour).
When he finally steps out, dressed in his pajamas (though, really, he thinks they can pass off as any of his outfits—he usually just goes to bed in whatever he wore that day, but he’s thankful that Hazel made him pack something extra—in this case, some sweatpants, an old band tee-shirt, and a soft black sweater), he frowns at Will, sitting on the edge of what he had decided was his bed.
“Oh,” Will looks up from his phone, a quick grin thrown on, “Done with the shower?”
Nico simply nods, waiting for Will to get off the bed and grab his stuff before sitting down, immediately pulling out the covers and crawling under the blanket to warm up. The shower helped, yes, but the ocean was freezing.
“By the way,” Will peeks his head around the corner. “Leo and Jason decided to go to the pool. They’ll be back soon, though, and Hedge said we’re going to dinner at six.”
“Sounds good,” Nico mutters, pretending to look intently at his phone despite there being nothing open. When Will leaves again, he glances at his duffle bag.
He should get his homework done. But… the blanket is heavy, and the bed is comfortable. He’s exhausted.
He can take a short nap, he decides, already drifting off.
6:32 PM
“We’re eating the food of your people, Nico,” Jason says, rolling his eyes. “You could be a little more excited.”
Nico grimaces, looking down at the pizza in front of him. It’s so greasy he needs to use a napkin to not have it drip down onto his lap. “ This is not the food of my people. I refuse to be associated with this.”
“Are you actually Italian?” Will asks, because he’s for some reason sitting next to him. They had all been walking in a line, and Nico, once realizing that he was going to have to sit next to Will, didn’t want to cause a commotion. “Like, from Italy? Is Hazel, too?”
Nico frowns at him. “Yes. Where do you think the name di Angelo came from? The blond hair dye must be seeping into your skull.”
“My hair color is natural!”
“That explains the lack of common sense, then.” Nico gives him a dry smile. “I’m from Italy. Hazel’s from New Orleans. We share a dad who’s Greek. As you can probably tell, we don’t have the same genes.”
Nico isn’t looking at Will, but he thinks he hears him stifle a laugh. Or maybe he’s choking. He hopes it’s the latter.
“Well yeah, but did you actually live there?”
“Yes. Until I was seven. Lived in DC for about a year. Briefly moved to Las Vegas. And now I’m here. Happy?”
When he turns around to glare at Will, he finds it hard to do so. Will’s watching him with a soft smile before abruptly turning the other direction and taking his own napkin for the pizza.
“I think we’re watching a slow burn in live action,” Percy whispers loudly to Annabeth, who chuckles through a mouthful of pizza.
That, at least, allows Nico to swivel his glare towards Percy, who wiggles his eyebrows.
Nico starts on his pizza. It isn’t bad, but he still refuses to associate with it. Will, however, doesn’t stop talking. “That’s sick. I mean, I’ve never been out of the country.”
Nico doesn’t respond, but Leo does, and somehow the conversation starts to include everyone else in their section of the table, spiraling from vacations to families to—homophobia? Nico has no idea how it’s gotten there.
“I mean, both of my parents are all good with it,” Will is saying, “Obviously. But my mom’s side of the family? God, it’s horrible. Especially when they dig into my dad and the whole co-parenting thing. They’re really traditional, and it was bad enough that my mom decided she wanted to be a singer and move out to California, and then… well. The fact that the guy she had a kid with is now married to a guy? They’re not fans.”
Leo cackles. “I mean, does anyone in this friend group have a traditional family? Your dad’s iconic.”
“Don’t tell him that,” Will says seriously, “He’s got too big of an ego already.”
“Well, you guys can speak for yourself,” Percy says, inserting himself into the conversation, “But my mom and stepdad are great. No problems here.”
“You’re an exception, then,” Piper sighs. “Wait, Nico, don’t you have a cool stepmom?”
Nico shrugs, inwardly wincing at being involved in the conversation. “She’s nice -ish . Most of the time. She didn’t like me at first, but she got used to it. But I wouldn’t call my family traditional in any way—my dad had two kids, divorced my mom, then my mom and sister died, and I found out he had a kid with another woman, who also died, and then he married Seph in Vegas on a whim, and now Hazel and I are somehow living with him. He’s also allergic to emotion, so it’s…odd. And you haven’t met Seph’s family. Her mom is very…”
Nico realizes he’s been rambling, and his cheeks turn pink as his mouth clamps shut.
“I think that’s the most you’ve ever told us about yourself,” Percy comments. “But damn. That’s rough, buddy.”
Nico has to resist throwing pizza in his face.
8:13 PM
“Cookies!” Percy announces as he drops his containers of blue cookies on the table. Nico is just following Jason, knowing full well that he should be doing his work, but…
He’s just really fucking competitive, okay? And he’s not ashamed of it. If he wants to beat all of the others at some Candy Land, then he’ll do it.
Chiron had told them that they weren’t allowed to all be in the same room, so they’re all crowded in a booth on the ground floor, with Nico eyeing the couch carefully, unsure of whether they’d all actually fit. Honestly, Nico thinks the whole ‘having to stay in the lobby’ thing is stupid in the first place, because what kind of inappropriate shit would twelve people be doing unsupervised?
Actually, someone may end up injured. Maybe this is for the best.
He sits down on the bench, Jason taking the seat to his left, and he regrets it immediately, because he realizes he has to continue to scoot to the other side—to whoever sits on the other side.
He considers asking Jason to switch seats, but everyone is talking over each other so it’s hard to get a word out, and then he’s already in the middle of the couch-bench, squished between Jason and—of course, Will.
He lets out a loud sigh, but he doesn’t think it’s heard. The table is cleared after everyone has finished grabbing one of Sally Jackson’s famous cookies, and Jason is now intently reading the Candy Land instructions while Will, Annabeth, and Leo set it up.
Nico doesn’t actually win the first round. He kind of wants to sink underneath the table and stay there forever. He had nearly made it, getting all the way up to the castle, when Percy spewed his bullshit rule about having to go up each of the individual steps as if they were places, and then he had gotten the worst luck in the history of board games, and been sent back all the way to the ice cream land.
Will, a smug grin on his face, had then pulled the last card that he needed to win—a double orange.
His delight makes Nico want to simultaneously flip him off and also kiss him. Being so close, their shoulders and thighs pressed together, only makes it worse—Nico is unintentionally very aware of his hand being able to move just the slightest bit to possibly touch Will’s.
But he doesn’t.
They clear up the Candy Land, and with only a limited amount of time left—having to return to their individual rooms at nine—they decide to deal out the Uno one more time, because it’s a tried and true classic.
Nico feels confident to win in this, at least. And he does.
9:33 PM
“So, are you logged on?” Will asks, jumping suddenly onto the bed next to Nico, which makes him flush red despite himself.
Nico nods, joining the Discord call with Rachel, Leo, and Annabeth. They’re doing a makeshift virtual sort of version of Quiz Bowl—Annabeth would be in the other part of the suite, the door closed, as she asks the questions, and there would be three teams: Rachel, Piper, and Reyna (who are at a significant disadvantage, seeing as only one of them is actually a part of Quiz Bowl); Percy, Cecil, Frank, and Grover (who, in Nico’s opinion, probably have the best odds, because together their interests and specialties cover a variety of subjects; they’re only lacking in math); and Will, Jason, Leo, and Nico.
Nico feels pretty confident in himself. Jason knows his history, and Leo knows his math. He’s like a human calculator. And Nico’s got the literature category locked down.
He wants Will to carry his own weight in the science subjects, even though there are less biology questions and more chemistry or math—both of which Nico’s pretty sure he’s good at too, though. It kind of hurts his soul to be on the same team as Will, because for once, he’s also hoping for Will to win, and that’s… different.
Nico pulls his gaze away from Will and looks at the phone. “Right, hey, we’re here.”
“Okay, perfect—so, here are the rules for the people who aren’t a part of the club, which, by the way, what the hell are you guys doing, join us? Okay, so we start with a toss up. When you want to answer, type anything into the, uh… who titled the channel? Okay, the quiz bowl shit channel. Anything you want. Then you’ll get a chance to answer; if it’s right, you get three bonus questions. If it’s wrong, we give the next person a shot.”
She pauses, and there’s silence on the other end of the call—all of them having muted their mics—so she continues. “I’ll be keeping track of scores and sending them out after every round. So… alright, let’s get started with round one?”
Nico waits, and then quickly types a random emoji, the first one in his recents—a skull—into the text bar so that he doesn’t have to type anything when they have an answer. A message pops up on the screen, Annabeth texting Toss-up 1.
And so the game begins.
It starts pretty miserably. Reyna manages to get the first one, beating Jason to a question about the erasure of public figures in Ancient Rome—Jason had been shouting the answer, with Will shushing him, but Reyna had sent in a message first.
And so they get three more questions. They answer two of them correctly.
The next round, Nico places the phone in the middle of the bed, with the rest of them all huddled around it as if it’s a radio sharing the news. Will looks much more serious than Nico would expect, biting his lip and furrowing his brows at the phone, one hand picking the skin on his finger. Honestly, Nico has always thought that he looks kind of cute when he’s so concentrated like this, part of the reason why Nico won’t allow himself to ever stare at Will for longer than half a second in class because it’ll distr—
“—In this book’s final “progress report,” the protagonist—”
Shit . Nico’s head snaps up, knowing that he’s probably already missed half of the question, and it’s a literature one, so he hadn’t meant to tune out. He only does that when they start mentioning chemicals or Pen and paper ready , meaning it’s about to be a math question.
“—makes him a genius?”
It’s silent for a few seconds, and Nico realizes that all of the others are staring at him, wondering whether he’s going to answer. Will’s gaze feels heaviest, but Nico isn’t about to embarrass himself—he just shrugs, whispering, “Never heard of this one.”
Percy’s team sends a blue heart and then their mic unmutes, and Frank answers, “Flowers for Algernon?”
“Point for Frank’s team!” Annabeth says, sending out the updated score. “Huh, I would’ve thought that you’d get that one, Nico. I remember seeing it on your Goodreads.”
Nico freezes. Leo snorts. Nico quickly unmutes himself and stumbles through an excuse. “Oh, really? I, uh—don’t remember it. I read Flowers for the Dead ? Maybe you saw that.”
Annabeth hums. “Maybe. Anyway, onto the bonuses—”
More questions go by. There’s the classic pen and paper ready , except no one actually gets out paper—well, usually, but this time Will runs to the nightstand taking the little notepad that hotels sometimes give and the complimentary pen, too. He returns to his seat, squinting at the phone with focused eyes.
Oh, what the hell. Nico doesn’t need to answer the math questions anyway.
It’s to no use, really, because Leo’s able to answer the question before Annabeth’s finished, and all Will has done is write down the numbers, but he still pumps his fist into the air and grins, despite this being the fifth set of points they’ve gotten. Nico hates how he finds his excitement endearing. Nico doesn’t think his conversations—well, more like bragging competitions or insults—have ever made him as happy as a simple question answered correctly.
They get the rest of the bonuses right, and this time it’s actually thanks to Will, because they’re biology questions and Nico has no idea what the fuck is going on in AP biology. He’ll figure out a way to cram for the test when it gets there.
Nico regains his pride when he’s able to snap forward, quickly sending off a rainbow emoji—Will’s choice, not his—and answering, “Hestia.”
“Fifteen points to Nico’s team,” Annabeth announces, sending the updated score. With that power, they’ve pushed past Reyna’s team—an unlikely first place at the time being, and Nico isn’t entirely sure that Annabeth isn’t just feeding them the answers. No, Annabeth wouldn’t do that—or would she?
It doesn’t really matter, though, because they’re in the lead. And then, when Annabeth says the next three questions are about opera, and all of the others groan, Nico grins wider.
He pulls them ahead to a score of 185—thirty-five points ahead of Reyna’s team.
12:22 AM
They end the game when it reaches the early hours of the morning because they need to wake up early, and Nico knows that he still needs to finish that Calculus homework. He won’t let a slight error in planning ruin his GPA (he’s scarily close to a B right now), even though he thinks that if he explains the mistake to his teacher, she’ll let him by—it’s just a review, anyway.
Still, Nico doesn’t want to waste any favors of teachers on unnecessary things. So he watches as Leo and Jason prepare for bed, and Will heads to the other room where he’ll be staying on the pull-out couch, and takes out his iPad.
He starts working on it quietly, using his phone as a calculator and the little notepad that Will had been using earlier for his work. It’s hard to really focus, especially with him only using the light from his iPad (on dark mode, and at the lowest brightness), seeing as Leo and Jason are already asleep. They had pretty much passed out as soon as they hit the bed; Nico thinks it’s because Leo will literally sleep anywhere and Jason has such a strict sleep schedule that his body was probably already begging him to go to sleep at ten.
Either way, it’s not that late. Nico has stayed up later to finish homework, and even longer for studying. He just needs to get a twenty-five out of thirty, and he’ll be in the right range for a 100 because his teacher curves the homework assignments.
He doesn’t quite know how long he’s been working on it—doesn’t know when he started, but it’s one-thirty now, and he’s still got a long way to go. There were also a few that he guessed on, and he needed to check his notes so many times, and the existential dread is kicking in, oh God , he’s going to fail—
“Hey, Neeks.” Nico jumps from the whisper, quickly whipping his head around and narrowing his gaze at Will.
He’s in his pajamas now, thankfully wearing a shirt—a Star Wars one, of course, the dork—and some plaid pants. Nico doesn’t understand how someone wearing a Star Wars shirt can be attractive. He thinks it’s the sleep deprivation talking.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Nico whispers back, glancing at the others. Nope, Jason and Leo will not wake up. According to Jason, Leo has slept through a fire alarm before, and Nico knows full well that it’ll take a hurricane for Jason to wake up before six. Which is, you know, still absurdly early, and Nico won’t be out of bed until eleven, but it is how it is.
Will just shrugs. “Did you want to copy my answers?”
Nico’s about to say no , annoyedly, and tell Will to leave—but then he bites the inside of his cheek, glances at the stupid College Board screen that says he still has fourteen questions to go, and the time that keeps getting closer to when he has to wake up—
“Yes,” he mutters.
Will sends him a smug grin, and Nico doesn’t know whether he wants to punch his face or kiss him, especially when he holds up a finger to say one second , and then rushes off into the other room, practically running to get his iPad. God, he’s such an idiot.
A cute idiot.
Nico hates him.
Will arrives just a few seconds later, and Nico expects him to just log into his College Board, give him the iPad, and then go back to sleep.
Nope. Instead, he climbs onto the bed, crawling over to the right side in between Nico and the wall and fluffs the pillow a bit before sitting down. Then, he opens his iPad and logs into his College Board account.
Nico wants to ask, What the hell are you doing? But before he does, his instinct kicks in—Bianca’s lessons on manners, or whatever—and he realizes that it may not be a good thing to be rude to the person who’s letting him copy answers.
Then again, Will is still letting him copy, and Nico’s been pretty rude to him all day.
“Okay, wanna check answers first?” Will whispers, and Nico nods, moving back to the first question and huffing in frustration as it takes forever to load.
“I swear to God,” Nico mutters, glaring at the loading screen, and Will stifles a snort. “Okay. C?”
Will nods, and they go along through three questions until they get to the first wrong one. Nico’s eyelids droop, and he’s, honest to God, so tired. But it’s fine, because Will shows him the right answer, and Nico quickly fixes it, moving on to the next one.
They get to number sixteen when Nico scrunches his nose. He had left that one completely blank. And he feels guilty—just slightly so—about simply copying the answers.
“I don’t get that one at all,” he says under his breath, checking Will’s answer and narrowing his eyes.
“Want me to explain?” Will asks, and he shouldn’t do that, no, because Nico doesn’t want that; he wants Will to leave to his own bed and for Nico to go to sleep.
“If you remember it, yeah,” he answers. Goddamnit .
Will shifts over a bit, so his shoulder is now touching Nico’s, and then he leans over Nico to grab the notepad.
Nico doesn’t breathe.
He quickly gets back to his original spot, except Nico can’t help but notice that maybe, just maybe , he’s now an inch closer.
He’s clearly hallucinating.
Will speaks quietly, as if he could still be at risk of waking up Jason and Leo, and Nico listens, he swears he does—he even tilts his head to the left just to hear it closer, except then his head is on Will’s shoulder, and that’s honestly really comfortable—so maybe he’ll listen better if he just closes his eyes for a moment.
He falls asleep to Will explaining definite integral notation.