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Will has a lot of problems. More than normal, for the average 11 year old. His biggest one right now, though, is that he's getting too tall to hide behind Michael.
His growth spurt in the last year betrayed him. He used to be able to tuck his forehead into the back of his brother's shoulder and disappear. Now, Lee says it looks like Michael has a halo of blonde frizz growing out of his hoodie everywhere he goes.
"Willy," Michael sighs in a gruff voice, pulling Will around to stand next to him. "You're okay. No one is going to bite you." He keeps a calm arm around Will's shoulders.
"You can't promise that," Will murmurs in response, eyeing where Sherman has Jake pinned in a snowbank.
"I guess not," Micheal huffs "But-" he cuts himself off, his head snapping towards the sky. "Is that Dad?"
Will looks up just in time to see a little school bus, ablaze in gold, shoot itself into the canoe lake. The two of them both flinch backwards as the wave of heat following it rolls over the camp.
"There go my eyebrows," Michael mutters darkly, as people exit the bus into the lake. It bobs like a bath-toy, and shoots itself into the sky again, sending another roiling burst of heat their way.
"Thanks, pops!" Michael yells after it, his voice colored in deep sarcasm, before turning to Will. "Alright, assistant medic time kiddo. We've gotta go save Grace and Jackson's merry gang of morons from hypothermia."
Will chews on his lip. "Um."
"Hey," Michael responds, his voice uncharacteristically soft. "It'll be okay. They need help, and people who need help are usually nice to the people helping them, right?"
"Right," Will murmurs.
It is not okay.
By the time the two of them get there, Thalia is almost in a physical fight with about three of the girls in silvery coats, that Will later comes to learn are hunters of Artemis. Michael sighs, and offers help anyway. The redheaded girl sneers at them so fiercely, that Will feels his eyes get hot.
"We've got real healers, thanks," she spits out.
Will watches Michael's jaw clench, his hands flex into fists. He slinks himself back behind his brother, hoping no one sees him.
"What kind of healing do you guys do?" interjects an excited voice to Will's right, and he jumps out of his own skin.
Michael looks back at the kid. "All kinds of stuff. Fevers, gashes, hypothermia…" he trails off, giving the kid a critical eye.
"Oh I'm not cold. Apollo boiled the lake!"
The two of them keep talking, the kid overexcited, Michael a mix of amused and annoyed. Will studies the newcomer. He's a riot of black hair, freckles across his round cheeks, and big, fathomless eyes, dressed like one of the kids from his memaw's old yearbooks.
"Why are you dressed like that?" Will interjects over Michael's shoulder.
Michael looks at him in surprise. The kid blinks a few times, like the question confuses him.
"I was at a military school. This was the uniform, I think?"
"Oh," Will responds.
The kid looks back to Michael. "The goat guy said there was an initiation video and it was pg-13. Can I see it now?"
Michael snorts, turning in the direction of the big house. "Sure, kid. Follow me."
The thing about being quiet, and painfully shy, Will has learned during his year at camp, is that people tend to treat you like furniture. This, he plays to his advantage.
Because, for some reason, he's found himself deeply intrigued by the newcomers. Especially the kid his age with the big eyes.
While he's flitting around the infirmary in the next few days, helping Michael by grinding poultices and cutting bandages, he's able to learn a lot of things about him by listening in to the slow but steady stream of campers that come in for help.
His name is Nico, is the first thing he learns. One of the unclaimed campers, staying in the Hermes cabin talks about him with wry affection.
"He was bouncing out of his skin last night." She says with a dry laugh. "I think he had four cups of soda. Lotta sugar for a kid that age."
Michael snorts as he wraps the sprain around her elbow. "Did no one stop him?"
"Well, Travis is the head of the cabin now with… everything. He's only 13. Hard for a kid that age to run a cabin. We all try and look out for the younger kids, but some get missed."
"I couldn't imagine leaving someone so little in charge." Michael says through gritted teeth.
"The Stolls do okay," She responds. "They've taken the kid under their wing a bit."
Michael snorts at that. "Oh, gods protect us."
The next thing he learns is that Nico has a sister. Like a real, full blood sister, not a half sister.
It's not that Will means to eavesdrop on everyone's conversations, it's just that it's really easy for him.
Percy and Thalia are talking about it on the porch of the big house, after the oracle walked out of the attic and commanded a quest. There was a whole emergency councilor meeting and everything.
The infirmary window is open, because it gets stuffy with the radiators running, and the cool winter breeze feels good on his skin, and helps invigorate some of the less injured patients. He's sitting under the window, sorting out files.
"I still don't think letting her go on this quest is a good idea," Percy grumbles.
"Why?" Thalia shoots back. "You went on a quest to the underworld when you were her age."
"I had Annabeth with me!"
It's a solid argument on Percy's part, Will mentally notes.
"Besides," Percy continues. "What about Nico? He's already so upset that she's joined the Hunters. How'll he react if something happens to his sister? What if she gets hurt? Or worse?"
"Look, I don't care for the hunters just as much as you don't," Thalia concedes. "But unfortunately, they are achingly competent. I'm pretty sure she'll be fine."
"So competent that Annabeth got thrown off a cliff," Percy huffs.
Thalia sighs, and that's all of the conversation that Will is able to hear, as their shoes clomp away, down the porch. There's something about it, though, that makes him feel weird. The conversation leaves his shoulders and back hurting for the next hour. It's an odd, crushing feeling.
The third thing that Will learns is that Nico needs a friend. A real one. He's desperate for it.
The little harp over the infirmary door strums gently as it's pushed open. Will doesn't look up from where he's gently plucking moly flowers from their stem until he hears Michael yell from the back -
"Willy! Will you get that? I've got guts to my elbows and I can't wash off right now!"
That's when he looks over and sees Nico.
Nico waves at him and smiles, a little weak, pale under his olive tan. Will gives him a once over, and sees the blood on his white sock, the gash across his shin.
"Oh, geez!" Will murmurs. "Okay, um - sit. On that cot. Please?" He gestures to the cot closest to where Nico is standing.
"Sure thing," Nico agrees, limping over while Will flits around, gathering up antiseptic and bandages. "Is that your name?" Nico asks, as Will sits down on a stool next to him and flashes his hands sterile. "Oh that's cool!"
Will blinks up at him. "What?"
"The light thing! That's cool!"
"Oh, thanks." Will says quietly, as he starts to gently dab antiseptic across the gash using a cotton-ball. "It's a UV light flash. Kills germs. It's faster than washing my hands, I guess."
"Is that your name? Willy?"
Will can feel his ears heating up, pink spreading up the back of his neck. "Um. No. It's - it's just Will. Only my brothers call me that."
"Can all of the Apollo kids do the light thing?" Nico asks.
"Just me, that we know of," Will answers in a soft voice, as he starts to wrap Nico's shin in a bandage gently.
"That's so cool! I hope when my parent claims me I get someone cool. Some unique powers or something too. People will think I'm awesome. I bet people think you're so cool."
"Why did no one walk you up here from the training arena?" Will asks quietly, trying to change the subject.
Nico shrugs in a way that makes it obvious he's trying to feign nonchalance. "They were all busy. That's okay though. I made it fine. Can I go back now?"
"Oh, um. Yeah. Please be really careful with your leg. Don't swim or run hard or anything for a few days."
"Okay! Bye! Thanks!" Nico answers in a rush, and he bolts out the door anyway, the harp on the ceiling playing a harsh cord at his abrupt exit.
Will wants to be Nico's friend. He wants to be Nico's friend so bad.
The problem is, since he's come to camp, since he was born, really, Will's been pretty bad at making friends.
When he was a kid, his best friend was his Mama. He could play games with her, and she'd teach him to sing songs, and they'd do his schoolwork on the bus. And he'd never have to be alone without her.
Since he'd gotten to camp, his friends have been his siblings. His best friends are his older brothers. They don't mind having a shadow, and he gets to learn from Michael and Lee and no one else bothers him because he can hide behind them and everyone knows not to mess with the Apollo cabin baby. It's a win-win.
But now, he needs to learn how to make a friend. On his own. So he comes up with a plan.
Two nights after the quest group leaves (and Percy sneaks out after them), Will piles his dinner plate high with food, much more than he could or would ever eat.
"Another growth spurt?" Lee questions, watching him add a third scoop of mac and cheese to his plate. Will doesn't answer. He just sits quietly at their table until everyone else has gone to the offering fire.
When the area around it has cleared, he gets up, with his giant plate of food, and slinks off, ignoring the questioning looks from the rest of his siblings.
"Lord Hermes," Will whispers, when he gets to the fire, "Please accept my offering and hear my prayer."
He dumps the whole plate in.
"I know you've got a lot going on right now, with everything, and I'm sorry about that." Will continues in the same whisper. "But you're the god of hospitality, and friendship, and I could really use your help. I want to be friends with Nico. I think he really needs one. A real one. But I don't know how to do it. Some advice or something would be nice. Um. Thank you."
When he sits back down at the table, plate empty, Michael's eyes practically bug out of his head. "What's happening, Willy? Did you manifest psychic abilities and not tell us? Are we all going to die?" He flicks the middle of Will's forehead playfully.
"I just need some advice about something," Will mutters, as his cheeks go red.
"Do you have a cruuush?" Lee croons in his ear. "Did you talk to the lady of the doves?"
"No," Will bites back, smacking Lee's shoulder. "Shut up. You're gross."
Both Michael and Lee laugh at him. The place where Michael flicked him hurts more than he thinks it should.
When the quest group gets back, Michael pulls Will into the Camp's little OR almost immediately. Annabeth is laying on a cot. She's awake, and smiles at him softly.
"I wanted you double check," Michael says, his usually scarcastic demeanor squashed into something serious. "Because your vitakenisis is stronger than mine. But.." He trails off.
Annabeth offers her wrist out. Will wraps his fingers around it loosely, and has to fight back a gag.
"Good gods," Will whispers, aghast. "What happened to you?"
"Spent some time holding up the sky." She smiles wryly. "Then spent the rest of it chained up weird."
"You're got some spinal compression going on," Will explains softly. "A lot of it." He turns to Michael. "A corpectomy, I think. And spinal fusion."
Michael sighs. "I thought so. You two ready to party?"
"Do I get to sleep?" Annabeth asks.
"Yup," Michael answers, popping the P.
"Let's dance," She says.
The sun is setting by the time Will is able to leave the infirmary. But Annabeth's spine is better, and she's already walking, thanks to the hymns that Michael had pushed out, so many that the skin on his hands had gone red and sore with heat. Will had told him he was probably overdoing it, but Micheal, like always, had brushed him off.
Which was fine. Michael was older. He knew better than Will.
The camp is in a bit of an uproar. There's a cluster of people around the dining pavilion. Will can hear the hushed tones they're using to talk, which means something must've happened on the quest. Will sneaks up behind Lee, and pulls on his arm.
"Hey, have you seen Nico? The new kid who's staying in the Hermes cabin? Did his sister get back okay?"
Lee turns and looks at him with shocked eyes. Lee's probably surprised he's is asking about someone outside cabin 7, Will thinks. Then Lee's eyes go sad. He lifts a gentle hand, and brushes Will's curly bangs from his forehead.
"Willy," Lee starts softly. "He's gone. Nico left."
The next two times Will sees Nico are from afar.
The first time, Nico spills out of the labyrinth, and raises an army of undead in the middle of battle.
It doesn't take Will's breath away, but it would have, if it weren't for the headache.
At one point, he's watching Nico, so much paler, slimmer, swinging a midnight colored sword. The next, his head hurts so bad that he loses vision in his right eye.
"Ah!" He moans, leaning over, cupping his head in his hands.
"Will!" Michael yells over the battle, rushing to his side. "Are you hurt?"
The headache goes as fast as it had come. "I'm… I'm fine. I don't know what-"
There's a sound, loud as a thudercrack, of a giant's club pounding into the earth.
By the time that Will and Michael make it to his side, Lee is gone. The right side of his head looks like steak tartare.
The second time he sees Nico is out of a hotel window.
The day before the battle, Will had felt sick. Nerves, Michael had told him.
When Will had doubled over, his knees pressed to the cold tile of the Apollo cabin bathroom though, he'd vomited. He'd heaved and heaved, throwing up until he worked up a cold sweat.
And he'd sat there, staring into the old porcelain bowl, looking at what came out of him. It was just water.
He'd eaten like normal, that whole day. As the assistant medic, he knew something must be wrong. He must be cursed, or something. It just didn't make since for him to be throwing up only liquids. Only water.
It makes sense, though, when he watches Percy and Luke crack Williamsburg bridge in half.
When he watches almost all of his siblings, and so many other campers, fall to their deaths in a watery grave.
Which his why, when Will sees Nico, in his nightmare black armor, leading the forces of the damned down the streets of New York, that ache for friendship flares back up under his ribs again. It's almost ugly, he thinks. He feels selfish with want, looking at Nico, here, in the middle of this war.
Because, Will thinks, if anyone could understand what it's like, even though Will himself just realized what was happening to him, he thinks Nico might, just might understand.
When Percy disappears, Nico starts coming around more.
He shows up every week or so, and stays for a day before leaving. Will still isn't able to make friends with him, not really.
But he's nice to look at.
He's changed a lot, since they were little. He's all cheekbones, long, wild back hair, and pale skin now. The fathomless black eyes are the same, though. What Will remembers the most from when they were little is when Nico was telling him that his UV serialization power was "so cool!"
Will still wonders, sometimes, when he's alone, when he's lonely, if Nico still thinks he's cool. If Nico still thinks about him at all.
Nico's standing at the head table, talking with Chiron and Annabeth. Probably about something important, by the way he's gesturing with his hands. Will's staring at him, he knows he is. Nico must feel the eyes on him, because he turns to look out across the pavilion, his dark eyebrows pinched together, his lips pressed into a thin line.
Will looks down at his plate, fast. He doesn't need Nico to think that he's like the other campers that treat him as a spectacle.
Annabeth gestures to the cabin green. Nico nods, and they walk off.
It takes all of 30 seconds of their leaving for two bodies to thump down at the Apollo table. Will snaps his head up when an arm is thrown around his shoulder.
"Can we help you?" Kayla asks dryly.
"Its more about how we can help you," Travis answers, in his best sleazy politician voice.
"Or, more specifically, your older brother," Connor continues, squeezing the arm around Will's shoulder.
"I can heat the surface of my body to 212 degrees rapidly," Will says, in the same tone of voice as Kayla. "Do you want to keep the skin on your arm?"
Connor removes his arm gingerly. "Still. We can help you out."
"And what, pray tell, do I need help with?"
Travis leans forward, chin in his hand, smiling conspiratorially. "Your big giant crush on our camp's pint-sized psychopomp."
Kayla snickers. Austin honks a laugh like a brass instrument. Will feels himself blush to his toes.
"Am I that obvious?" He mumbles.
"Yes," Connor says, getting to his feet, and grabbing Will's hand. "Now c'mon, young padawan. Your Dagobah awaits."
It's not the first time Will's been in the Hermes cabin, by a long shot. House calls come with his job as head healer.
The inside of the Hermes cabin is twice the size of the Apollo cabin, and three times as run down. The bunks that line the walls have dozens of names carved in the wood, along with animals, hearts, Greek symbols, and other things.
(There is one bunk, shoved in the back corner, out of the light of the ceiling torches and central hearth, with a deep gouge in the bed frame, where a name has been scraped off. It is dusty, and covered in storage boxes. Will shivers, ever so slightly, every time he catches sight of of it. Mercifully, Travis and Connor never say anything about his reaction.)
Connor sighs, dropping to the floor of the common area. Travis puts his hands on Will's shoulders, and presses down until Will sits down too, Travis following.
"So, you're in love with the death boy." Will feels himself get red. "No judgment!" Connor adds quickly. "Travis wants Katie to be the Poison Ivy to his Harley Quinn. We all make questionable decisions sometimes."
Travis cocks a sharp eyebrow. "And you gave Malcolm the Costco box of snickers we had for quarter price last week because…"
"Moving on!" Connor interjects. "Tell the boy why we've brought him here."
"Ah, right," Travis nods. "Yes. Besides being the god of thieves, travelers, merchants, messengers, wit, and friendship," both he and Connor eye Will when Travis says that, which makes Will squirm in place. This wasn't exactly what Will had meant, when he asked Hermes for help making a friend, three years ago. "Our dear old daddy is also the god of games. So, we're gonna teach you one."
"Huh?" Will asks eloquently.
"Your little goth kid," Connor explains, producing a deck of beat up cards from nowhere, and presenting them to Will like a house-cat with a shrew, "Was obsessed with this game when he stayed in the cabin with us. It was the only thing he talked about, besides his sister. So, we're gonna teach you to play it."
Will blinks down at the cards in his hands. They're beat up, the edges foxing, but the logo in the middle is surrounded by little skulls, wings, and swirling, gem colored omega symbols. Mythomagic, it reads, in a faux Greek lettering font.
He takes a deep breath in, and steels his spine, prepping himself for game night with the Stoll Brothers. "Okay. Where do we start?"
Will learn a few important things in very quick succession
First, Mythomagic is hard, and complicated. Second, when the Stoll brothers set their mind on teaching somebody something, they won't let up until that person has learned all they can. Third, the Stolls are incredibly, mercilessly competitive.
Will isn't allowed to leave the Hermes cabin until he's won a round by himself, with no advice. It's nearing one in the morning. They're playing by flashlight, and whispering now.
Travis is off trying to scoot under one of the younger kids bunk's, because he'd rolled the D20 to hard, and it had bounced away.
In his absence, Connor turns to Will. "So, why Nico?" He whispers. "Not that I have anything against him or anything, he was a sweet kid when he was staying here, but I mean, have you seen you, lately? You could have anyone you wanted."
Will's ears turn pink. "I just… he needs a friend. I want to be his friend. I think he needed a friend, a real one, even when he was here. You know, before. He had to come into the infirmary, alone, when he gashed his leg open. No one helped him." He's quiet for a moment. "…I also heard a rumor someone put a dead bird on his bunk, when he was staying here."
Connor's usually carefree demeanor gets stormy. He's quiet, really quiet, for a long time, watching his brother root around under their sibling's bed. "It's possible. After…" he cuts his eyes to the dusty, empty bunk in the corner. "There was a rash of pranks. Not normal ones, you know, shaving cream, glitter, whatever. But mean ones. Violent, dangerous. We think… we think it was one of his spies, trying to make the kids in the cabin think that we didn't care about them, that we couldn't protect them. Drive them to his side." He sighs, and looks back at Will. "We tried, you know? But Travis was 13. I was 12. There used to be so many unclaimed in here too. It was hard."
Will nods. "Don't I know it."
Connor laughs, softly, a little wet. "I guess you do. A lot more than me."
Travis emerges from under the bed, victorious, waving the D20 in the air silently. Will flashes him a thumbs up.
It's three in the morning, by the time that Will is able to finally win a round.
He finally creeps back into the Apollo cabin, and stands there at the cold hearth, listening to the soft, twin breaths of Kayla and Austin, snoozing away in their own bunks. He doesn't cry, he can't, because it will wake them up.
But his breath is shaking, his eyes are hot. "I guess you do. A lot more than me." Connor had said.
There used to be 14 other respiratory systems that Will could listen to, when he crept in late. 12 of them were older than his. They all made so much noise, even when they were mostly silent.
He wraps his hands around the beat up deck of cards like a lifeline, and hopes that one day, he can make a friend, who might just understand him.
It doesn't work - yet, Will keeps telling himself. Nico is aloof. He's hard to pin down. Will watches as he flits about camp, the few hours a week, a month he's there, like he's got another place to be.
New campers show up, older than usual. Butch and Annabeth accidentally rocket the chariot that Michael spent hours scheming about, the chariot that Silena died over, into the lake.
It's always that fucking lake, Will thinks to himself, as he darts to the shore to help them out. "Annabeth!" He calls out. "I said you could borrow it, not fucking break it!"
"Sorry, Will!" She calls back.
The first new kid to wash up on the shore gets claimed pretty quick. Hephaestus has always been pretty good about his brood, all things considered. Will isn't paying much attention, trying to fish some of the more important pieces of the chariot from the surf, until one of the other new kids asks-
"That's Vulcan's symbol, right?"
He looks over his shoulder at that. It's weird, the Roman name. Will locks eyes with him, frosty blond haired and electric blue-eyed.
It comes on suddenly, like it always does. This time, it's like a heart attack, and Will almost doubles over with the pain of it. Then it's gone.
The new girl blinks at him. "You okay, man?"
"Heartburn." Will explains, with a thin smile. "I'd avoid the barbecue, if I were you."
"Will, can you show Leo to Cabin 9?" Annabeth interjects. "I need to take Jason and Piper over to the big house."
He's grateful for the distraction, if nothing else. "No problem."
The new kids go off on a quest. Nico comes around once, in the time that they're gone. He comes into the infirmary, looking for Annabeth. Will's taking stitches out of her arm.
"What did you say their names were?" He asks her. Will can't help but notice how soft he speaks now, his voice so monotone, subdued. There's a river of blue melancholy under it that matches the bruises under his eyes, the way that the bones poke out at his wrists.
"Leo, Piper and… ah!"
"Sorry," Will mutters, running a light-warm finger along the wound ease the pain.
"It's all good, Will. You're fine. Jason. The other one's name is Jason."
Will's so focused on making sure that Annabeth's skin doesn't tear that he can't look up, but he hears Nico's breath catch funny.
"Nico? Everything okay?" Annabeth says.
"No, I… I'll be back."
Nico's heavy boots clomp off, out of the infirmary. Will is able to look up just in time to catch the swish of his overcoat, leaving though the door, his heart sinking with the flutter of the fabric.
"Is he okay?" Will asks softly.
"I never know," Annabeth answers.
The new campers come back. They figure out that Jason is from a different camp - A Roman one. Percy is probably there. Everyone pitches in to start building the ship that will sail to West Coast.
Will plays Mythomagic with the Stolls, and some of the geekier camp kids, every Thursday night.
Nico doesn't come back. Will wonders, sometimes, when he looks at the fox-eared deck of cards in his hands on Thursdays, if he's the only one who's noticed.
The first thing Will notices, when he sees Nico again, is the fact that his freckles have almost completely disappeared.
Will remembers, when they were younger, that Nico had a healthy smattering across his nose and cheeks, under his eyes, connecting his sparse beauty marks like stars. As they'd gotten older, they'd faded, getting lighter and lighter.
But as Will stares at Nico's face now, Nico's black sword pointed at the side of his throat, all he can think about is the fact that Nico's freckles are gone. Like he'd spent a considerable time somewhere hidden, away from any sunlight at all.
"Put that down!" Will hisses, knocking the sword away from his neck."What are you doing here?"
Nico scoffs. "Me? What are you doing here? Getting yourself killed?"
"We're scouting the enemy." Will says, gesturing to Cecil and Lou behind him. "We took precautions."
"You," Nico hisses, "Dressed in black, with the sun coming up. Your hair isn't covered. You might as well be waving a golden flag."
"Hey!" Lou Ellen pipes up. "I wrapped mist around us, too."
Will watches as Nico's dark eyes roll around. "Whatever. Did Coach make it back okay?"
"Hedge is fine," Will answers earnestly. "He made it just in time for the baby to be born."
Nico perks up at that. "The baby! Mellie and the kid are alright?"
Will's distracted, just for a moment, by the smile that overtakes Nico's face. It almost looks like its confusing to him, like Nico doesn't know what to do with it. "Fine," He finally answers. "A very cute little satyr boy. Have you ever delivered a baby?"
Nico's face twists into something comical, like he's bit into a lemon. A nonverbal are you fucking stupid? "Um, No."
The expression still looks like it hurts him, though. That's when Will realizes - oh- Nico is hurt, hurt for real, and he's hiding it, like a dog in a fight. He's got to see how bad Nico is hurt, and he's got to do it quickly and discreetly.
"I volunteered for this mission because I had to get some fresh air," Will gasps out, fanning his face. He knows he's laying it on thick - he can feel Cecil's side eye more than he can see it, but Nico doesn't really react. "Gods of Olympus, my hands are still shaking. See?"
The second that their skin makes contact, Will's senses go haywire. The feeling of infection slides, thick and cloistering, down his throat. He can smell the rot of old blood, and there's a devouring blackness, something he's never seen, never felt, tearing it's way into the edges of his vision.
Nico jerks his hands away, fast. "We don't have time to chit-chat. The Romans are attacking at dawn, and I've got-"
"We know," Will responds, a little distracted by the faint flush rising across Nico's cheeks. "But if you're thinking about shadow-traveling to the command tent, forget it."
Nico balks. "Excuse me?"
"Hedge told me all about your fading," Will reasons. Nico's eyes are fixed on him like he expects Will to flinch away, but he's also teetering ever so gently to the left, so he's not as intimating as he thinks he is. "You can't do that again. You'll melt yourself."
"I just did it. I'm fine."
"You're not." It doesn't escape Will how much Nico here, infected and dissolving, is still arguing with him to get back into the action like when they were ten, and Nico had a leg he could barely walk on. Will swallows the little lump in his throat that rises at that memory. "We'll sneak around to the base camp. No shadow travel. One more jump and you won't come back."
Nico sighs, long suffering and exhausted. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Whatever. But you have to follow my lead."
Will lets himself grin in victory.
The problem, when they got down to the onagers was that the mist didn't really work. And they were spotted. Almost immediately.
A group of guards yells at them. Will glances over at Nico, brows drawn, face stony.
Will remembers Nico, just over a year and a half ago, racing down the streets of Manhattan with his skeleton army. With his dad behind him.
Well, he thinks to himself. You don't have the camp 800 meter dash record for nothing.
"Got this," He breathes out, and takes off, drawing the attention of the guards. They take off behind them, leaving Nico, Cecil and Lou in the clear.
He's almost back to the underbrush of the woods when he hears the groaning start. He turns heel, and there Nico is, shoving Romans together, smacking them as they collapse into a dazed pile.
"Six at once ain't bad," Will huffs out, putting his hands on his knees to catch his breath.
"Not bad? Next time, I'll just let them run you down." Nico grunts.
The faint flush rises back onto Nico's face, Will notes. Interesting. "Ah, they'd never catch me."
Cecil waves at them then, letting them know that the job was done. They move on to the third one.
The guards, unfortunately, are expecting them. Will can hear Lou Ellen yell "fuck!" from where he and Nico are standing.
"Mist isn't working because they're expecting an attack now, dammit," Will mumbles. "What do we do?"
"Give them what they expect." Nico shrugs, like it's obvious. He rolls out his neck then, and it cracks like embers in a dying fireplace.
Nico's hands are long, thin and elegant, like a violinist's, Will notes, when he sticks them out like he's a warlock or something. Then the ground shakes, creaking and grumbling. Five skeletons scamper up and out, down to the onager to help Lou Ellen and Cecil.
Nico swoons like medieval princess then. Will catches him. He's only unconscious for a split second, but its enough for Will to have to catch Nico in his arms. Nico snaps his eyes back open with an almost audible blink.
"Good morning," Will says pleasantly. "I thought I said no underworld magic."
"I'm fine," Nico bites, as he scrambles to get his feet beneath him. Will notes somewhere in the back of his mind that the faint flush is deepening.
"You're not," Will volleys back, as he's digging around in his pocket. He pulls out his gum with a victorious little noise. "Chew this."
Nico eyes the gum like Will is a used car salesman offering him a contract. "You want me to chew gum?
"It's medicinal. Should keep you from turning into goo for at least a few hours."
"It tastes like tar and dirt."
"Stop complaining, Clarisse."
"Hey, you guys mussed the fight!" Cecil interrupts, limping over, Lou Ellen trailing behind.
"Yeah thanks for-" She cuts herself off. "Um, guys?"
Whatever anyone else says gets lost in the roar of the First Cohort approaching. Will is sure there are threats thrown, probably even threats to his life. But he's made contact with Octavian. In that moment, his eyesight whites out.
When Will was four, he'd accidentally fallen in a fire ant mound. They'd swarmed his little knee, eaten up his leg and down his shin. He thought that was what it felt like to be on fire.
It was not.
Will had told Nico that once he let him free from his mandatory infirmary stay, he was still going to do house calls. He'd told Nico to expect that. He taps gently on the dark wood door of the Hades cabin, and swiftly shoves his hands in his pockets to hide the fact that they are, once again, shaking.
The door creaks open slow, and Nico peers a wary eye out, the Greek fire torches on each side of the frame casting his thin face in an ethereal glow. He blinks slowly. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah," Will answers softly. "I told you I would come by to check on you, didn't I?"
"Guess so," Nico mumbles.
"Can I come in?"
Nico shuffles backwards, letting the door groan open in reluctant invitation. Will makes his way into the cabin, blinking a few times, trying to adjust his eyes to the low light as he scans Nico up and down.
Nico is waring what Will assumes are pajamas. They're… something, for sure. The neon orange camp shirt, he could write off. They all have them, they're fairly comfortable - enough to sleep in, for sure.
The red maple leaf patterned sweat pants, and the horse themed socks? That's distinctly un-Nico like. At least in Will's opinion.
He squints down at the blue text above Nico's ankle "…My horse thinks I'm funny?"
Nico sighs, a tired thing, and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Frank and Hazel."
"Forcibly dressed you?"
"No I… I don't really have clothes right now. They mean well. I think. Hazel was giggling when she brought them over, so."
Will's brows furrow, ever so slightly. "What do you mean, you don't have clothes right now?" he asks softly.
The tips of Nico's ears go pink. "In case you haven't noticed, I've been kind of busy lately." He bites out. "Haven't had time to hit the mall, or whatever. That's why I showed up looking like a Jimmy Buffett groupie that's been dead for ten years."
He looks away, chastised. "Oh."
"Sorry," Nico murmurs. "It was unfair of me to snap at you like that."
"…You're fine," Will answers softly. He's quiet for a moment, as he takes in the rest of the space. There's a lot of bunks, for one of the eldest god's cabin's. It's dark. Dreary. Borderline uninhabitable, in Will's opinion. "Why are your beds shaped like coffins?"
Nico sighs, a little but long suffering thing. "Fuck if I know. I didn't have any input in making it. I just showed up one day, and instead of being able to crash on the couch in the big house, they've got me sleeping in one of Lestat's wet dreams."
Will can't stop the snorting laugh that bubbles out of his chest. "Oh my gods," he coughs into his hand.
When he looks back over, Nico is peering at him through his bangs, a ghost of a smirk curling the edges of his lips. "It's fine," Nico continues. "I can deal with it."
"You shouldn't have to 'deal with' where you're staying" Will says softly. "I'm sure cabin 9 will remodel it, if you ask them. I know they did cabin 3, when Percy showed up, because there were no beds. And they've got plans for cabin 1, so Jason doesn't have to sleep on a cot all the time."
Nico shrugs a shoulder half-heatedly. "I dunno. I don't want to take away from the search for Leo or anything."
"Hey," Will reasons. "Not everyone is looking for him. I know Nyssa well enough to know they'd be happy for the distraction. What would you want in your dream cabin?"
Nico chews on a fingernail for a moment. "Bigger windows, maybe." He mumbles around it. "Some lights. A bookcase? I dunno."
"A card table?" Will volunteers.
Nico's head shoots up. There's a glimmer of something in his eye that Will can't entirely decipher. Glee, maybe. Hope. It burns out fast, though, like Nico had purposefully poured sand all over it. "Why would I want a card table?"
Will shrugs, but something in his chest perks up, excited. "Just spit-balling."
"Well, whatever," Nico sighs. "Do I look heathy enough? I'd like to get some sleep now, if that's okay."
"Oh, um…" Will eyes him, head to toe. Slowly. He tells himself it's medical. "You seem okay. Sleep as much as possible, yeah?"
Nico bites skin off a chapped lip. "Okay."
The next day, once Will drops his youngest siblings off at their various activities, and gets Austin and Kayla settled in the Infirmary, he returns to the Apollo cabin with a plan.
The plan is threefold. And a little wobbly. But he thinks it will work. He hopes.
Step one is taking the beat up box of mythomagic cards out from under his bed, and slipping them into the front pocket of his hoodie, which is easy enough. The weight of them hangs like an old friend.
Step two is harder. A lot harder.
It's been a long time since Will has climbed into the storage loft in the Apollo cabin. The wood latter rattles concerningly with his weight as he scurries up it. The dust mites floating through the air make him sneeze in rapid succession as he starts pushing the storage totes around.
He finds what he's looking for though, eventually. Shoved into the back right corner, like he knew it would be. A blue tote, grey lid, one corner sun-bleached almost white by the cabin's skylight.
In his shaky, 13-year-old handwriting, the lid is labeled with M.Y.
Will swallows the lump in his throat, slides the tote to the latter, and makes his way back down.
Step three, he thinks, will be the hardest. But he also thinks it will have the most payoff.
It's past noon, sliding towards one, when he knocks on the Hades cabin door. He hadn't seen Nico at breakfast, or lunch.
Nico opens the door in the same manor he did yesterday, but this time, his hair is curled in a black halo around his face. He's got heat lines pressed into his cheek. He really, in Will's humble opinion, as his heart crawls into his throat, looks cherubic.
"Are you going to do this every day?" Nico groans out, his voice gravelly with sleep.
"Uh…" Will stutters. "No. Not unless you want me to?"
Nico cocks a dark eyebrow at him. His sleep-glazed eyes aren't giving much away.
"I brought you a present, though" Will continues, lifting up the tote in his hands as way of explanation for showing up at Nico's door again.
Nico's lips twist ever so slightly, into what could be considered something fond. "I guess you can come in this time, then."
He goes and immediately curls up in one of the coffin shaped beds, leaving Will in the middle of the room. His back to the wall, the heavy blanket pulled over his knees. "What'd you got?"
"You said you didn't have any clothes," Will explains. "So, clothes. Because I know that you're not Canadian, and no horse actually thinks you're funny." He puts the tote on the foot of the bed, and pops the lid off, so Nico can peer inside.
Michael's emo phase had been something of legend, when Will was a kid. He'd dyed his black hair highlighter blue. Lee had called him "a sun turned black hole." He listened to a lot of really loud, angry music in the infirmary, which Chiron called "unsettling." He'd scream hymns instead of sing them - but they'd still work, so at least their Dad approved of his artistic interpretations.
The first thing, sitting right there on top, is what was Michael's favorite hoodie. Purple and black striped. He'd made holes for his thumbs in the sleeves. Will is 95% sure the hoodie strings are earbuds, too.
Nico's face lights up, more than Will's ever seen it, and he digs through the tote with the most energy he's exhibited in days. He pulls out t-shirts with skulls, hollow stars, old band logos, a camp shirt that Michael had dyed black during a particularly raucous arts and crafts session. It makes Will quirk a smile, and sad, all at once.
"Were did you get all this?" Nico asks, as his eyes drift to Will's bittersweet expression, and then the the initialed lid on the floor. His face falls. "M.Y," He whispers, reading the lid. "These are your brother's aren't they?"
"They were," Will affirms.
"Will," Nico says his name gently, like he's testing it out in his mouth. "I can't take these."
"Hey," Will responds softly. "I wouldn't be offering it to you if I didn't want you to have it."
He's quiet, for a long moment. "He always said that it was our job as healers to help people with everything we have. I have all this. It's just going to collect dust and get moth eaten in cabin storage, otherwise."
Nico looks up at him, his eyes wide, hopeful, through his dark lashes. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. Besides, did you ever meet him?"
Nico is silent, for a long time, like he's trying to decide what to say. Finally he answers, "I did… I think."
"Then you know how pissy he was. But you also know how much he cared. He'd get so goddamn mad at me if he knew I let one of his fellow emo kids walk around in orange when I had all this just sitting around."
"I'm not emo," Nico scoffs.
Will makes a show of looking around at the interior of the Hades cabin, in all it's insane, vampiric glory. "…Okay." He can hear Nico's eyes roll.
"If you're just here to drop these off and bully me…"
"No, there's something else," Will murmurs, and he slides the card box out of his pocket, handing it to Nico. "You play, right?"
That same light is back in Nico's eyes. Hope. Glee. It's a good look on him, Will thinks to himself. His heart is pounding in his chest.
Nico holds the beat up little box like he's holding something precious. "I used to," He croaks. "What feels like a lifetime ago. Who snitched?"
"The Stolls."
"Bastards," Nico snorts. "Who's box is this?"
"Mine," Will answers simply. He flicks his head, gesturing to the open center of the cabin floor. "You wanna?"
Nico looks up at him sharply. His under eyes are smudged violet, his PJs rumpled and an aesthetic nightmare, but for the first time, he gives Will a crooked grin, full, unabashed and excited. Will feels his knees go weak. Oh, he thinks. I could get used to that.
Will learns, quickly, that he has a better chance of reattaching a patient's severed head while simultaneously fighting a lastrogonian and winning than he does at beating Nico in a round.
Nico's got an insane poker-face, an encyclopedic knowledge of the rule book, and most importantly, he realized very quickly, that Will learned to play from Travis and Connor.
Which means that Nico knows how to foil every single one of the fights, encounters, and traps that Will knows how to set.
"Is that legal?" Will murmurs, mostly to himself, when Nico stacks an attack card, a drain card, and a freeze card on top of his Clio card and it does so much damage Will has to redraw half of his hand.
"Yes," Nico pipes up with anyway. "Because according to power stacking rules, it's only not allowed when-"
"I know you know why it's allowed, nerd." Will shoots back.
Nico grins at him again, like a mad scientist. They play a few more rounds - Will gets his ass handed to him for a few more rounds, he should say - before Nico says; "You know, you're actually pretty good at this. When'd you get into it?"
Will goes quiet. He mulls over the idea of lying - never a good idea for him, or any of his siblings, they're terrible at it. He stares down at his cards.
"Will?" Nico asks.
"Um…" Will stutters out, his voice barely above a whisper. "I kind.. of asked Hermes for advice on the best way to make friends with you? Because he's the God of friendship? And this is what came up? Because he's also the god of games?"
Nico's face slams shut, any trace of a smile gone. "I'm so unapproachable that you needed divine intervention, huh?" He mutters, his voice small, flat.
Will feels his whole body go hot, panic spiking up his spine. "No!" He exclaims. "No! That's not it! No this was… this was a long time ago. A long, long, time ago."
Nico's dark eyes narrow. He cocks a brow, just minutely, in a silent invitation.
"Do you remember your first few weeks here?" Will asks, voice soft. He's wringing his hands. He knows he should've tried to lie. "You came into the infirmary. You'd cut your leg during training?"
"I…" Nico trails off. He looks around the floor of his cabin, his eyes, his thoughts, hundreds of miles away. It takes him a minute to speak. "No. I don't remember much about that month."
"You were so… you said I was cool. Because of my UV light thing." Will pulls his legs to his chest, resting his chin on his knees. "I wanted to be your friend so bad. But I was really, painfully shy. I didn't know how to make friends. So I… scarified a giant plate at dinner and asked for help."
"Your UV light thing is cool," Nico mutters, the tips of his ears going pink. "I can't imagine you being shy."
"I'm… I'm a little better about it now. I had to get over it really quick after Lee, and Michael and Victoria and everyone else…" Will looks down at his toes, his nails flecked with green paint in his sandals. "It's still hard, sometimes."
"…Is that why you fidget with that bandage sometimes?" Nico asks, his voice hesitant.
Will looks up at Nico, his eyes wide. Nico's dark, doe eyes are peering back at him curiously. "I didn't think anyone noticed that."
"You're hard not to notice," Nico admits softly. "Besides…" He bites his lip, like he's weighing whether or not to tell Will what he's thinking. "When we were bringing the Athena Parthenos back, one of my dreams pulled me into a councilor meeting - the one were you guys were talking about the best way to defend the camp from the Romans. You were wrapping and unwrapping your wrist every thirty seconds, it seemed like."
Will smiles wryly. "I hate those things. No matter what were talking about it seems like someone could end up injured. Chiron always expects me to calm the room down."
"I could pipe up with the death probabilities at the next one," Nico offers.
"I… don't know if that would help," Will replies, through a laugh that takes him by surprise.
Nico grins, just a little, and the weight evaporates off of Will's chest. "Couldn't hurt?" he offers. "Take the attention off you, for a sec."
Will laughs, shakes his head gently. "I don't want everyone else dealing with knowing if someone is going to die, too."
That gets Nico's attention in a sharp, fast way. His dark eyes peer into Will's, piercing, for a lingering moment, the depths of them swimming with something that Will doesn't understand.
"What?" Will asks, fidgeting under Nico's gaze.
"You said everyone else," Nico murmurs. "Like you know when people are going to die, too."
Will scoffs out a bitter, wet sounding little laugh. "Do people know how smart you are? Like, actually?"
"Chiron does," Nico responds flippantly. "Will, can you predict death?"
Will looks back down at his toes. "I've gotten a lot of weird one off powers from my dad. The UV light thing. The whistle. The rhyming curse. Can't shoot an arrow, but can nail a basketball. I can throw a pretty decent punch. I run fast. That kinda stuff. He's also the god of Prophecy so…" He shrugs gently. "It's never medical, though. There's never anything I can do about it. It's always people who are going to die, no matter what."
"So… on the beach, with Octavian…" Nico starts.
"I knew." Will whispers. "I tried to stop it, because Cecil and Lou were there, and they'd expect me to, but I knew."
Nico frowns, a soft little thing, that creases the skin between his eyebrows. "That's got to be hard. Not being able to talk about that with anyone."
Will's nerves jitter. "Can I talk to you about it? If I need to."
Dark hair falls to the side as Nico cocks his head. "Why me?" He asks softly.
"We're friends?"
"We are?"
"I mean, I'd hope so?" Will's throat gets tight. "You just pulled one of my deepest secrets out of me via vocab slip up, so."
"Oh," Nico murmurs. "Yeah, I can do friends." He cracks that little crooked grin at Will again. "You wanna come with me to find something to eat after I get take a shower, then? I'm starving."
"I've got to go relieve Austin at the infirmary," Will says sadly. Nico's face falls. "But… we've got a secret sandwich stash in the fridge. If you want to come by after, I can get you one?"
Nico's grin gets wider. Will's heart flutters. "Deal."