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"Okay, you ready?" Will asked, smiling at Nico, who was sitting criss cross apple sauce on Will's bed.
Nico nodded.
"But please don't pull out a beetle like last time, it wasn't cool." He said.
They were alone in Apollo's cabin, considering they were basically the only ones left at camp half-blood.
Will laughed at Nico's remark, and went to sit near him, a Nintendo switch now in his hands.
Nico raised his brows, looking at the screen as Will turned the device on.
"That's an electronic." Nico noticed.
"I thought we weren't supposed to have those."
Will nodded.
"Yeah, but Chiron trusts me enough to let me keep it here, as long as i don't connect it to the internet... and it's not like that's even possible here." He explained.
Nico nodded, pretending to understand, even though he was still a stranger to the whole internet thing.
"Okay...and what does it do?" He asked, touching one of the buttons and tilting his head a bit when he saw the screen change.
Will smiled, he found his boyfriend being completely unaware of how certain things worked kind of adorable.
"It's a video game." He explained.
Nico remembered seeing quite a few of those while he stayed at the Lotus Hotel, but those flashing screens, at the time, had creeped him out too much to actually try one.
He preferred playing card games, the traditional way.
"Is It fun?" He asked, putting his chin on Will's shoulder.
The blonde turned to quickly kiss the tip of his nose, which Nico scrunched.
"Oh yeah, it is to me." He started.
"I thought maybe you'd like to try." He then said.
Nico thought about it for a second, before shrugging.
"Why not?" He said, and Will handed him the joystick.
Nico looked at the foreign object with confusion, trying to figure out what all those buttons did, and so Will gave him a brief explanation, before starting the Animal Crossing game.
Will hummed to the opening host, and started to set up the multiplayer mode.
"So that's where this melody you always hum comes from." Nico said, he hummed it a bit too, even if completely out of tune, having picked it up from Will.
The blonde couldn't resist kissing his cheek, finding his boyfriend terrible singing skills to be the cutest thing on earth.
He started the game, and checked that everything was working correctly, taking Nico's controller for a second as the raven stared at the little characters on the screen.
"Is that me?" Nico asked, surprised, pointing at the avatar Will had previously made of him.
Will smiled and nodded, and Nico furrowed his brows.
"My face isn't that round." He scoffed, touching his cheek.
"Well...the game has only a few options, everybody's face is round." Will explained, giving Nico the controller back.
"Now follow the little Will." He said, pointing at his own character.
"Little Will." Nico repeated, giggling, and tried out a few commands.
"Woh, why do i have a shovel now?" Nico said, jumping a bit, trying to get closer to the screen.
Will smirked lightly. he didn't actually expect for Nico to be so into it right from the start.
"Oh that happens when you click the Y key, it gives you objects." Will explained.
"If you press A, it's going to make a hole."
Nico did just that, and then nodded.
"Assurdo." He mumbled, in Italian, before starting to make holes everywhere.
"Hey no! you're going to mess up my island if you keep going like that!." Will protested.
Nico, in return, shrugged.
"Maybe i can find a way to the underworld if i make enough." Will snickered at that.
"I doubt there's going to be an underworld in a children's game."
"Why not? Children die too."
Will looked at him, stunned. He was a son of Hades, after all.
"Moving on..."
He walked Nico near the town hall, where they met a villager.
"Why is there a...a maiale? what is that in english again?" Nico asked.
"It's called a pig." Will explained and Nico nodded. As a son of apollo, Will was able to understand italian pretty well, even though he couldn't really speak it.
Nico pressed the Y key a few times, going through all his items, until he found an axe.
"Let's make bacon." He said, his tone flat, Will raised a brow and laughed.
"Stop being a creep, death boy." He gave the raven a little kiss, who smiled in return.
"What else are we supposed with it?"
"First of all, it's a she, and second of all, we can talk to her."
Will pressed A while in front of the character, who started rambling about her new house decorations.
Nico groaned, and found a bug net.
"Don't feel like reading all that." He protested, pressing a random key.
His bug net moved and hit the poor villager.
Nico's eyes lit up.
"I can hit her?" He asked, proceding to do that again, and again, and again.
"Oh, and she gets mad too? stupid pig. You're stuck behind a screen, what are you gonna do?" He mumbled to himself, continuing hitting her, clearly enjoying himself.
Will sighed as small smile formed on his lips, he just let Nico figure out the game by himself, even though he was definetely gonna end up making all his villagers want to leave, cover his island in trash and, obviously, fill it with holes in hopes of getting to the Animal Crossing underworld.
Nico seemed to be very easily entratained, and even though he looked cute, it also made Will feel kinda sad.
Not many demigods got to actually have a perfect childhoods, tormented by monsters, but Nico...Nico just had it really, really, bad.
Will was just two years older, but he did remember when Nico first arrived at camp, and he also recalled how quickly he turned from that chatty and happy kid to that resentful, dark and sad child.
He remembered one day in particular, when Nico had woken up in the middle of the night and started screaming about how he felt like his sister had died.
He was ten. only ten.
He remembered the other Apollo children, his older brothers, trying to calm him down, trying to tell him that he probably just had a bad nightmare and needed rest, as he stared at them with those angry eyes, his mind made up.
Will, at the time, thought only adults could hold so much rage, but he quickly realised he was wrong, watching young Nico slowly calm down, and then just shut off completely, becoming silent and just repeatedly asking to leave, before heading somewhere into the forest, disappearing in the shadows for the whole night.
As a kid, Will was scared to go there alone at night, but Nico went there like it was nothing.
When the blonde was a child, that made Nico very cool to his eyes.
Now he understood what was behind it, and he didn't like that anymore.
He quickly brushed those old memories off, after hearing Nico let out a small laugh.
He had made a square out of holes around one of his villagers, trapping him inside, and was now going ham on him with his trusty bug net.
Will smiled, and let his controller down, sitting behind Nico and wrapping his arms around his waist.
"Having fun, you little sadic?" He joked, and Nico nodded, adjusting in the new position.
"Video games are cool." He stated.
"Your generation is pretty cool." He then added.
Will snickered at that comment.
"Thanks, grandpa."