Chapter Text
Bright light shines in through the Hades Cabin window and wakes Nico up, much to his detriment. He burrows himself further into the blankets, his cheek pressing itself against the white fluffy pillow, and he grumbles out, “Just five more minutes.”
He hears a few knocks on the door which he blatantly tries to ignore by telling himself they aren't real. But it doesn’t work. The knocking continues. There’s a silence then, as if the person knocking is doing something that requires no talking; like shaking their head or mouthing a few choice words of ‘stupid’ and ‘insufferable’. And the knocking goes on, louder this time.
Nico huffs, pulls the blankets off of him and sits up from his bed, uncovering a lithe body in a Camp Half-Blood T-shirt and a pair of boxers. The teen, half-blind from sleep deprivation, starts walking towards the door while cursing at whoever it is behind it in his head. The cold feeling that is inching itself up his skin from his feet due to the bare floor does nothing to hinder those same curses.
He places one hand on the door while the other reaches for his eye. As he opens the door he begins rubbing the tiredness out of himself. Golden light seeps into the room from the open door and Nico knows at once that it’s Will Solace in front of him. Nico looks up, the appearance of a lean, surfer-looking, very attractive teen stands before him. “Will? What…?”
The son of Apollo is standing casually in the doorway of Cabin 13; his arms at his side, his shoulders relaxed, and a smile on his face. Will takes in the sight of the teen before him, gazes long and hard at him. Will laughs, despite himself, at Nico’s adorable bed head. The dark tufts of hair sticking up in odd ways is so cute that Will can’t help but chuckle. He also can't help but find the fact that he's rubbing the sleep out of his eyes like a child absolutely heartwarming. Gods, he finds it so terribly endearing he can feel himself start to blush even further as the laughter slowly continues to roll out of him. Will notices his mistake when he sees Nico glare and motion to shut the door. The door is about closed when Will figures he needs to get with the program and so he shouts out, “No, wait! I just came by to see if the Hades Cabin would like to be on Apollo and Athena’s team for capture the flag?” Will explains this with his eyes wide and his hands up in surrender as he pleads.
Nico stops for a moment and decides to not close the door but rather let it open further. He still doesn’t respond, so Will says, “It’s completely okay for you to do camp activities now. You haven’t accidentally ‘slipped into the darkness’ in 2 weeks! I personally think it’d be good for you to engage in a little friendly competition.”
Nico doesn’t say anything for a couple seconds until finally, “Okay, yes. I’ll be on your team.”
“Great! That’s fantastic!” Will says, a wide smile growing even wider on his face. He claps his hands together in an attempt to contain his excitement. He knows his demeanor is ecstatic and he’s hoping to the Gods that it’s not as embarrassing as he thinks it is. “Alright, well, I’ll see you later.” Well, there went the last of his hope. Gods, can I be any more of an idiot? The blond asks himself, beginning to rub the back of his neck out of awkwardness.
“Yeah, sure.” Nico mutters, shutting the door as Will walks away.
Nico sighs wistfully, placing his back against the door in some subconscious attempt to keep his feelings inside. He closes his eyes, still able to hear the sound of Will’s laughter ringing through the air. The demigod smiles and thinks of the blond-haired medic that had taken care of him when he was so close to disappearing into thin air. Will had even told him once during the three day hospital visit that Nico wasn't supposed to vanish like that. ‘You're not a magician,’ Will had told him. Thinking back on that brings a laugh out of him, a real and humorous one.
Still, having a crush has never been Nico’s strong suit. He’s afraid it never will be.
Opening his eyes, Nico starts walking to his dresser, aiming to shake himself out of the intrusive thoughts about the blonde boy. He hurriedly slips off his clothes in exchange for an outfit consisting of a dark gray shirt (yes, not a black one) and a pair of jeans.
He figures he'll have about another hour before he has to leave his cabin so he simply lays back down. Of course that does nothing to cease his thoughts no matter how much he wishes for sleep.
He starts to think and then he begins to overthink. His thoughts begin to race around like cars that have no brakes and no fears of crashing. Soon the room around him feels like it's revolving and his mind is hazy and he isn’t sure if his heart should be beating the way that it is. Get a grip, Nico chides, to little effect. This is when he notices it's getting harder to breathe, really hard to breathe. He takes in short choppy gusts of air that hardly do any good for his lungs.
He's lost control and he doesn't know how to get it back. Maybe by holding his breath? He tries it. No, it's futile, his mouth inevitably ends up sucking in air just as erratically as before. All the while his thoughts are running rampant, taking away his chances of calming down. Will I ever find a way to bring myself out of this? Nico asks himself, still feeling out of it, not really there.
He comes to after a while and when he does all he feels is emptiness and disappointment. He's tired of it. So tired. He doesn't ever want to feel this way again.