Work Text:
Will:
Will Solace is 15 and he can't breathe.
Will Solace is nearly 14 and Michael is falling backwards off the bridge, arms clawing uselessly at the snapped bridge cables, eyes stuck on where Will and his two remaining siblings stand petrified. Kayla and Austin curl into his arms and he has to be strong for them but they're voicing all his fears and he’s so, so scared, ‘Will what if he's dead? I'm scared Will, I don't want to die. Will, where'd Haruto and Allie go? Is it just us now? Will, Mike is gonna be fine right?’.They never found his body. He died. Will’s fault.
Will Solace is 13 and Clara is bleeding out, breaths coming fast and pained, the golden light of Will’s healing lighting up her torn apart insides. She's crying, and Will tries to comfort her but he doesn't know if she can hear him, ‘I’m sorry, I know it hurts but you'll be okay, it'll stop hurting soon I promise’. Michael said he wasn't to blame, but Will saw his expression when Michael's gaze landed on their sister's empty bed. She died. Will's fault.
Will Solace is 12 and Lee is dead, eyes glassy and lifeless, nauseatingly red blood saturating his curls where his head is smashed in. Will won't leave his body when Michael pulls at his arm, ‘I CAN HEAL HIM, PLEASE PLEASE, I CAN SAVE HIM!’. The golden shroud was too bright on the funeral pyre. He died. Will's fault.
Will Solace is 11 and August comes back to camp from his quest with a poisoned stab wound, chest heaving with bloody coughs, words slurring when he tries to tell Michael what happened. Lee shepherds Will away from the infirmary, ‘Lets go to the lake, Kid. Mike can take care of old Augie by himself, ‘sides, your fancy healing powers could use a rest. C'mon, I'll race you!’. Michael’s face was pale and drawn when Will asked after August. Lee told him that their brother was in Elysium now. He died. Will's fault.
Will Solace is 10 and his Mom is trying to shield him from the birds, claws raking at her curls, sharp beaks nipping at any exposed skin. Will wraps his arms around her - sobbing and scared - as soon as the Satyr has shooed the birds off, and she presses kisses to his hair, ‘Will, baby, are you hurt? I know that was scary, hun, but you're okay now and the nice man, Maron, is gonna take you somewhere safe. Oh, sweetie I'm fine it's not bad, just a few scratches’. Will had stayed stuck to her until Maron told him they had to go, healing every little cut and scrape he could find with his untrained vitakinesis. She got hurt. Will's fault.
Will Solace is 15 and last year he saw ten of his siblings die at The Battle of Manhattan.
Will Solace is 15 and he is running an infirmary and a cabin all by himself.
Will Solace is 15 and Lee’s hoodie is still hung on a hook on the inside of the storage closet door and he doesn't know why this triggered him, why he can't breathe, why he can feel cracks forming in the taped together fuck up that he is.
Will Solace is 15 and he thinks he might be having a panic attack.
—--------
Nico:
Nico doesn't know why he agreed to come help out at the infirmary in the first place. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that whenever Will looks at him with those stupidly pretty blue eyes he feels this swooping feeling in his stomach, as if a hundred skeletal butterflies had suddenly resurrected and decided to flutter around inside his organs. Or maybe it's the fact that a month or so ago he was practically dead (haha) on his feet after transporting a really fucking big statue halfway across the world, fuelled solely on spite and… well, spite. Will has healed him, befriended him, saved him if you want to get all sappy (which he doesn't), and Nico wants to repay him. Just a little bit. To settle his score. Will had tried his best to tell him that relationships weren't transactional - he has worth outside his usefulness to other people apparently.
Will left maybe twenty minutes ago, to fetch some blank files for Nico (for what purpose he has no idea), leaving him to sit awkwardly on the chair in the infirmary office, and wait for Will’s return. He scuffs his shoes against the floor. Adjusts a pin on his jacket. Taps his fingers on the desk. Surely Will should be back by now? And it's not as if he gave Nico explicit instructions not to leave the small, private office space at the back of the infirmary.
Nico stands, wobbling slightly as the world shifts and he nearly falls over. Cazzo, he must be more tired than he thought. He grits his teeth and steadies himself on the back of the chair for a second, looking on apathetically as the room stops spinning. Oh the curtains are really that garish a shade of yellow. Pity.
He finds Will tucked inside the supply closet down the hall from the infirmary office, sitting against the wall with his knees tucked to his chest. His shoulders rise and fall rapidly with his breaths, and he is gripping his arms tightly as if to keep himself together.
Will looks up when he hears Nico, and smiles blithely “Hiya Neeks. I think I'm having a panic attack.” Then he goes back to hyperventilating.
Well fuck. Nico has no idea what to do. Maybe one of Will's siblings? Kayla? No, she's busy setting someone's ankle, and Austin is off doing whatever teenage music prodigies do in their spare time. Cazzo. Will is the one who would know, who he would ask if this was anyone else. He's so useless. Will is having a panic attack and he's, what, just standing there? No. Breathe Nico. Just try.
He kneels down in front of Will, close but far enough away to not be claustrophobic “Hey, Will. Um… I know that you're going through a lot, and you're a little preoccupied right now but could you… maybe try naming five things you can see for me? Please?” He thinks it's maybe something Jason told him about (or did to him) and it's worth a shot at least. Will’s breath hitches, but he glances up at Nico through his lashes, eyes filled with unshed tears.
“The- you. Um… the floor? Shelves,” he stops to take a shuddering breath “My-my hand. That box… is that five?” He's still taking too fast gulps of air, but his death grip on his arms has loosened. There are angry red crescents left behind where his fingernails have dug in.
“Yeah, five. Okay, that was good, you’re doing great, Sunshine. Uhh, now can you tell me four things that you can touch?” Will reaches out to grab Nico’s hand with one of his. The action is unexpected but Nico does his best not to flinch away from the contact.
“Your hand, the, um.. floor again. My t-shirt? And the… umm. The wall?” He squeezes his eyes shut, taking a deep breath in, and tightening his grip on Nico’s hand.
“Three things you can hear? Just breathe, Will: in and out.”
—-------
Will:
Nico’s voice. Rustling fabric as he shifts his position on the floor. The muffled sound of Kayla’s glam rock playing in the main infirmary.
Sadie telling him to wait back, away from the bridge, with Austin, Kayla, and Allie to keep them safe and out of the main fight. Her screams shrill and piercing as she is dragged away by a hellhound.
Toby and Milo giving him matching grins from where they stand on the bridge supports, voices raised in friendly jabs. Their surprised shouts as arrows fire from the enemy lines and strike through their chests, one after the other.
Diya cursing at Carmen as she tries to notch another arrow in her bow, the Afrikaans words unfamiliar to Will but the meaning clear enough. Her wordless cry of fear as the bridge collapses from under her; sure, steady feet slipping for the first time.
“Will, hey. Just breathe. Three things, remember?” Nico’s voice is grounding, pulling Will away from the horrible flashes of memory. He chokes on a sob, dipping his head down to rest on his knees.
“K-Kayla’s music,” When Kayla works a shift in the infirmary she always plays glam rock: usually a mixture of David Bowie, Queen, and Elton John “Your breathing, um… someone's shouting outside.” Austin likes classical music, but it is rare to hear it here unless he manages to wrest control of the CD player from Kayla. Will almost never plays music. All his CDs have been given to him by his siblings. They wouldn't want him to live in silence, he knows, but he can't hear the start of Fearless by Taylor Swift without thinking of Maisie, and Felix gave him ABBA’s album three Christmases ago.
“Deep breaths, Sunshine. In and out. I'm here,” his friend's expression is worried, a little scrunch between Nico’s eyebrows and a lost, scared look in his eyes that Will wishes he wasn't the reason for “Two things you can smell? A little bit weird I know.” Will laughs wetly at that, wiping tears from his eyes with the back of the hand that's not holding Nico’s. He takes a moment to breathe in deeply, and then exhale slowly. He knows what Nico's doing now that he's calmed down enough, Will’s used this technique on far too many campers struggling with anxiety and panic attacks.
“Disinfectant, uh… lavender oil.” Nico nods slightly, and gives Will a small smile. Will takes another deep breath, focusing on the feeling of Nico’s hand in his, rather than the phantom touch of all his dead siblings.
“Last one, okay? Something you can taste.” If Will wasn't almost entirely preoccupied with blocking traumatic memories from his mind he would notice how Nico’s gaze drops down to his lips and then quickly flicks off to the side.
“Blood,” a pause, where Nico's grip on Will's hand tightens slightly “I think I bit my tongue.” The taste is bearable, he’s had more than enough experience with blood, but it's one thing to have it coating his hands and clothes and another to have the tang of iron tainting the back of his throat.
“Would you like some water?” Nico's voice is quiet, hesitant - as if he's not quite sure what he's meant to do now that it's ‘over’.
Will wants to say ‘No, please stay I can't be alone’ but he doesn't want to be more of a burden than he already is. “Yeah…thanks.” Nico squeezes his hand one more time, before releasing him and pushing himself up to stand by grabbing one of the shelves.
———————
Nico:
Will looks different when he’s not standing up, his perfect posture making 6ft seem much taller. He’s hunched in on himself now, seeming small and lost in the near darkness of the supply closet. His hand, the one that held Nico’s in a death grip, unconsciously finds his forearm again. Will doesn’t seem to notice as his fingernails dig into the skin there.
“Actually, maybe you should come with me.” He leans down and catches Will’s hand in his again, smoothing out the clawed up fingers. Will looks up at him, slightly confused but smirking.
“Still don’t know where the taps are, di Angelo? After, what, over a month of being in the infirmary every single day?" Will’s slanted smile is catlike, but his eyes are still shattered glass, spilling exhaustion and fear into his expression. Nico lets him deflect (because deflection it is, that damn self sacrificing idiota not wanting to burden others with his very viable emotions), and simply shrugs and pulls him to his feet.
“Sure, Solace, let’s go with that.”
—————
Nico ends up leading Will into the big house kitchen rather than using the infirmary sink after Will mentions he hasn’t eaten lunch, and Nico exclaims about hypocrisy before asking if Will likes pasta (he does).
He sits Will down with a glass of water, wishing he could keep holding his hand but deciding that he probably can’t dice tomatoes at the same time (that usually wouldn’t stop him from trying - Piper explained the concept of YOLO to him a while back and he has accepted that as his personal mantra despite the fact that reincarnation is actually a thing - but he wouldn’t want to risk Will’s fingers). Will smiles as he watches Nico cook, this time seeming more genuine and less desperately trying to cover up his feelings, and offers compliments on the state of Nico’s sauce. It is good sauce, how could it not be? The recipe is his Mama’s and she was nearly as good a cook as his Nonna from what he remembers (which is not much, though that’s usually what comes from taking a nice leisurely dip in the Lethe).
When Nico’s done cooking he plates up, first spaghetti (regrettably he could not make proper pasta from scratch with his time constraints, but oh well he shall just have to educate Will another time), then sauce, and finishes with Parmesan and a sprig of basil.
Will has set the island with forks and another glass of water for Nico. He claps when Nico places the plate in front of him with a flourish, an excited grin lighting up his whole face. Dork.
“This looks um… delizioso, Neeks!” He looks ridiculously proud of his Italian usage, despite the horrendous way the word is pronounced.
“Grazie, Will. Ora mangia, o farà freddo,” He laughs at the confusion on Will’s face “I thought you spoke Italian, Il mio raggio di sole? What’s the matter?”
“Shut up, I only know like two or three words. We can’t all be bilinguals like you, show off,” Will looks away, a light blush reddening his cheeks “What’d you say anyway?” Nico laughs again, contemplating withholding the knowledge but deciding against it (he probably would have told Will to hurry up and eat anyway).
“I told you to eat your food before it gets cold. Come on, I already did offerings and you’re basically starving.”
—————
Will:
Will had discovered maybe three weeks ago that Nico was an excellent cook, and that everything he made turned out absolutely delicious. Especially his pasta. Oh gods, his pasta. Despite not being particularly partial to poetry, he would write fucking sonnets about Nico’s pasta. Maybe even a full on musical if he was feeling particularly hungry. Right now, though, it is the perfect recovering-from-a-panic-attack comfort food: hot and cheesy and flavourful. And Nico is eating his full portion alongside Will so he doesn’t even have to worry about other people for a little bit (that’s a bald faced lie, he always worries about other people. Usually Nico. Mostly Nico).
“So…how is it?” Nico’s voice is hesitant, almost shy, despite the 100% success rate of his food in the past.
“How is it? Holy Hades, Nico, I could marry you.” He almost gets down on one knee right there and then but maybe that would be taking the bit too far. Nico beams, and quickly hides it by taking a sip of water and frowning slightly.
“Please try to refrain from invoking my Dad in the same sentence as a marriage proposal to me, Sunshine.” Nico’s tone is dry, but his onyx eyes betray the happiness he finds in the compliment.
“Why? I feel like he should know my intentions with his son.”
“And what intentions are those?”
“You cook me pasta and in return I marry you. We could get some great tax benefits, death boy.” Nico’s laugh is as wonderful and surprising as it is every single time, nearly making him choke on his water.
“You do realise my dad is the god of riches right? I don’t need tax benefits.”
“Pish posh, everyone needs tax benefits, darlin’, and besides you’d be gaining much more than that. Namely me and three or four siblings in law. So whaddya say, Death boy?” Nico blushes and twirls some spaghetti around his fork, avoiding Will’s gaze.
“I don’t think I’m legally allowed to get married yet, Will. And I’ve also been dead for like sixty years according to the legal system.” It’s a joke. A joke on both their parts. Will doesn’t even know if Nico likes him back, and he sure as hell is not going to put himself out there until Nico is more secure in himself and mentally stable. Until Will is more mentally stable as well. And yet they’re talking about a marriage between them as if it was a possibility, as if this was a serious discussion.
“C’mon, Neeks, that’s not a proper answer,” Will takes the opportunity to finish off the last couple mouthfuls of his pasta and stack their plates to wash, while Nico blushes and ducks his head down til it’s almost touching the table “I’ll take that as a ‘maybe’. ‘Kay, I’ll wash, you dry.”
—————
Nico:
They need to talk about it. What happened in the supply closet. Will himself told Nico about the importance of not closing off, that his friends cared about him enough to want him safe, that talking about his problems wasn’t burdening anyone. Will was unfortunately also a big fat hypocrite.
They are almost done with the dishes - Nico drying glasses absentmindedly, and Will scrubbing a pan with the meticulous attention he gives everything he does - and Nico has been trying to build up the courage to broach the topic of Will’s panic attack for maybe the last fifteen minutes.
When the last dish is washed and put away, Nico lightly touches Will’s arm to get his attention “Come sit on the back porch with me for a bit?” Will’s smile falters slightly, but he reaches up to gently squeeze the hand Nico has on his bicep.
“Yeah, okay. Lead the way, death boy.”
—————
Will:
Nico is divinely beautiful in the late afternoon sun, eyes warm and almost caramel coloured. He looks a little like his sister Hazel in these moments. Especially when a rare smile graces his face. He isn’t smiling now, his expression somewhere between desperately worried, and cautious.
“Will, can we maybe talk about what happened earlier? I’m… worried about you, and you said that my friends are allowed to care about me and show concern when something happens. And I care about you, and you’re my friend so I think I should be allowed to show concern when something happens to you. And you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, of course, but you can if you want to… um I really care about you, Will, and you’ve always been there for me so let me be there for you… please?” The words all tumble from Nico’s mouth in a rush, tangling in each other as he tries to communicate what he wants to say. They’re heartfelt, achingly so, and almost pleading. Part of Will wants to tell Nico he doesn’t mean it, he can’t possibly want to see the stack of death and pain and suffering and Will’s fault that makes up a majority of his complicated mind. But Nico might understand. And Will is so tired of pretending everything is fine, of putting up the sunshiney-happy-perfect son of Apollo facade, of bottling up his feelings just to explode in panic anytime he notices the barest hint of a trigger.
“Lee’s hoodie was hanging on the back of the door, in the storage room,” Nico arches an eyebrow in confusion but doesn’t comment, gesturing slightly for Will to continue “It was my fault he died. It was my fault Mike died too. And Clara, and August, and every single one of my siblings who were killed in Manhattan. I just- it reminded me of that and I kinda spiralled into a full panic attack. I’m sorry you had to see that.” Nico, who has been listening with a contemplative expression on his face until the apology, shushes him with a frown.
“You don’t need to apologise to me, Sunshine. I’m glad I was able to be there for you when that was happening, okay?” Will chuckles, despite himself.
“You’re starting to sound like me, Neeks.” The corner of Nico’s mouth turns up in a small smile.
“Yeah, well, you talk sense sometimes,” he purses his lips and takes Will’s hand, tracing lines over the palm soothingly “About your siblings… why do you feel that way? That it’s your fault?”
“Because it is.” He doesn’t want to meet Nico’s gaze, instead focusing on his own tan fingers intertwined with Nico’s pale, olive ones. His silver skull ring is cold against Will’s skin.
He sees Nico shake his head slightly out of the corner of his eye, dark hair blurring around a pale, pointed face “It isn’t. It wasn’t your fault.”
“You weren’t there, Neeks. I could have saved them, if I’d just been faster, or tried harder, or stopped them from leaving, or-or fuck if I’d just gone instead, then maybe they’d be alive instead of me. They’d all be so much better at this, Nico, at being head counselor and head medic and looking after Kayla and Austin and Gracie and Yan and Jerry. I’m just so fucking tired and it’s all my fault.” He’s crying by the time he’s finished, heaving sobs that steal all the air from his lungs and then Nico is holding him, stroking his hair and whispering assurances.
After a moment Nico starts quietly singing some kind of lullaby, his voice smooth and beautiful around the lilting Italian. Will understands next to nothing, but it soothes him nonetheless. It’s cathartic to have a good cry for once. And gods he might actually be in love with Nico who, despite being notoriously prickly and bad with people, is singing to him, and running a hand through his hair, and cradling Will in his arms like he’s something precious and not just a useless healer who can’t even heal when it matters most.
When Will has stopped crying, he sits back up and wipes a hand across his face, trying to force a smile back onto his lips. Nico is still holding his hand, and seems to be thinking about what to say.
“Will. You are not, um… come faccio a dirlo, useless, a burden. You are my friend, and you are one of the most important people at this camp, if not the most important. And yes, people have died, people will die. But that is the way of things. It is not your fault. If it is their time, it is their time. You cannot save everyone. And you have saved so, so many. And, tesoro, if you were not in my life, if you were dead , I don’t think I could bear it. So please don’t say you wish you were. You are needed here, I need you here.” Nico’s eyes are almost disconcerting in their intensity, so sure and steadfast of the words he is saying.
Will doesn’t quite believe what he is saying yet, but maybe one day. For Nico he is willing to try. This boy that he cares so deeply about. Nico smiles gently, and strokes his thumb across the back of Will’s hand. He feels lighter than he has in months.