Will was starting to get distracted.

He knew that he was getting distracted, not because he jumped every time Kayla dropped a thermometer on the floor, not because he was looking over his shoulder once a minute when he was in an empty room, and not because he lost his team the flag during their weekly game because he was busy biting his nails and not watching the blue banner. No, he knew he was becoming distracted because, while conducting a routine physical, Nico di Angelo turned to him and said, "Will. You're starting to get distracted.", and Nico di Angelo would not lie to Will.

Even when, maybe, Will would prefer to be lied to-like when he asked Nico to go to the campfire with him, and the son of Hades said that he'd rather be thrown back into Tartarus armed with a bunny and a sign that said EAT ME. Or when he'd wanted to know if his new skinny jeans were, perhaps, just a little too skinny, and Nico had commented that his legs looked like toothpicks and if Will ever faced him while wearing them, he'd file sexual harassment charges because "No one wants to see that much of you, Solace. It's painful."

At any rate, Nico was brutally honest, so if he said that Will was getting distracted, then Will must be getting distracted. Will thought about it for a moment, and concluded that Nico was right.

"It must be you," he decided, rounding the exam table and preparing to stick a stethoscope on Nico's-not hot, nope, not muscular, either, naw, Will wasn't even noticing because he'd seen a thousand of them-bare chest. He rubbed the metal end between his hands, warming it. "Your virus has entered my CPU and you are literally all that I think about."

Nico snorted. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

"I got it off a website of robot pickup lines," Will said, and then shut up because he was listening to Nico's heart.

He didn't technically need to check the boy's heartbeat-or anyone's heartbeat, for that matter, because Will was more the kind of doctor who figured that if you were upright and breathing, you were doing spectacularly well for a demigod and didn't need medical treatment. But he liked to listen to Nico's heart, if only to disprove the rapidly-growing-in-popularity theory that di Angelo was, in fact, a vampire.

"Are you having trouble finding it?" Nico asked dryly, after a minute or two had passed. "Or is this another of your ridiculous jokes about my heartlessness?"

"You are heartless," Will muttered, straightening up and looping the stethoscope back around his neck. "Otherwise you would have fallen sway to my charms and said yes to a date with me already."

Nico rolled his eyes. Nico always rolled his eyes when Will asked him out-it was like clockwork. Will didn't understand what was so eye-roll-worthy about the request; if he was in Nico's shoes, he'd say yes to a date with himself in an instant. Will was a pretty great guy, after all, and he figured he should have at least as good a chance as Percy-effing-Jackson, who wasn't even gay. Plus, Nico was into him.

He just . . . didn't know it yet.

"Well, you're healthy," Will said, reluctantly stepping aside so that Nico could drop off of the exam table and pull back the curtain that separated the "infirmary" from the rest of the magically-expanded Apollo cabin. "And look-" He reached out and pinched Nico on the arm.

Nico yelped. "What the-"

"You're solid," Will confirmed. "We won't be losing you just yet, di Angelo. But, just to be on the safe side-"

"You're paranoid," Nico said flatly, once again being truthful when Will would rather he lie. "I'm fine. Stop insisting that I come by the infirmary every three days."
"But it's the only way I'll ever see you," Will whined, extremely unprofessionally. His old cabin head, Michael, would have pitched a fit over his behavior; but Michael was gone and Will was counselor, so he could misbehave as much as he wanted. "It's like our Date Night. You can't walk out on Date Night!"

Nico shouldered his jacket back on and shook his head. "We aren't dating, moron."

"We could be," Will wheedled.

"And we could be enemies, but we aren't. Yet. Let's keep it that way, huh?" Nico zipped up his jacket and edged past Will, heading for the door and clearly not intending to be so polite as to say goodbye.

Will glowered after him.

"He hates me," Will complained to Percy Jackson who, after six and a half months of similar rants, was the only person in Camp Half-Blood who wasn't entirely sick of hearing Will complain about Nico. Will was fairly sure this was because Percy had the uncanny ability to act like he was listening when he was really, say, thinking about making himself a peanut butter sandwich, or going to see his girlfriend Annabeth, or taking his girlfriend Annabeth a peanut butter sandwich and having a picnic. That kind of thing.

Percy, at that precise moment, was obviously not listening for a different reason-he was busy swinging a sword at some terrified-looking twelve-year-old, who ducked as soon as he saw Riptide hurtling his way and hit the red gymnastic mat with the grace of a downed elephant. This was what Chiron called "training", and what most of the campers called, "learning not to die". Percy was considered an expert, and therefore conducted most of the exercises-however, Nico was hands-down the best at trying to kill people, so he often joined in the fun. He was so good that most of the junior campers-and some of the senior ones, as well-believed that he was really trying to kill them. Will made sure not to miss those sessions, even if his two ambidextrous hands turned into two bumbling, not-in-any-way-dextrous hands every time he put down a thermometer and picked up a sword. Or bow. Or spear. Or butter knife.

"I'm sure he hates me," Will went on, ignoring the twelve-year-old, who was now crying in an extremely unmanly way. "He turns me down every time that I ask him out. And he always looks at me like I'm something he picked up in the Underworld and carried around on the bottom of his shoe for a while before he finally found a stick to scrape it-me-off with. I don't get it. I'm pretty, I'm charming-what's not to like?"

Percy hauled the kid he was training to his feet, and send the boy off with instructions to "come back when you found your balls". Then he turned to Will, looking somewhat annoyed.

Will did his best to not cower, but it was hard when his crush's cousin was looking at him like he was lunch meat, and holding a bigass sword to boot.

"Nico doesn't like anyone," Percy said, exasperated. "He doesn't like Annabeth, he doesn't like Jason, he doesn't like me. He loves Hazel, and he hates you marginally less than the rest of the world, but he doesn't like." He waved the sword in what Will hoped was just a vague gesture and not a death threat and said, "Quit worrying about it. Nico's just being himself."

Then he shrugged, sheathed Riptide, and headed past Will to the water fountain in the corner.

Clearly, he wasn't as worried about this as Will.

"Call me if you need anything," Will said. "Well, IM me, but still. I mean anything. Someone to talk to, someone to bail you out of juvie, a pizza from Domino's . . . maybe not a pizza from Pizza Hut, though, that stuff is nasty."

Nico rolled his eyes. Will was getting sick of that. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just get out of here, Solace. I'm looking forwards to all of the quiet time I'll get once you're not at camp."

"Oh, wonderful. More time for you to brood about how much everyone hates you," Will said sarcastically. "I got in touch with Jason-he's coming in just a few weeks, and he'll expect you to be here, so don't you even think of taking off."

Nico's grimace was possibly worse than the one on Lou Ellen's face when Will told her that she'd contracted mono. Possibly. He didn't like Jason much, mainly because Jason-like Will-imbued all of the qualities that Nico hated in a guy; namely, the doglike tendency to obsessively follow him around and cling to his every word. Will called it being affectionate. Nico called it suffocation.

"And I still want you to check in at the Apollo cabin every now and again," Will instructed, shouldering his duffel bag reluctantly. "There's really no telling-"

"Will."

It might have been the first time that Nico used his name; Will shut up immediately.

"I'm going to be fine. Just leave, already." Nico propelled him out the cabin door, down the welcoming front stoop(perfect for guitar sing-alongs)and up the hill, towards the border, where Will could already see his mom parked, leaning against their rust-red Corola and yelling at his half-siblings to "-get the hell away from the strawberries! Those aren't edible!". Will still wasn't sure how much she knew about the camp; but the irritated looks she kept sending his way made it clear she was tired of waiting for him to come out.

Will spun around, catching Nico by the shoulders. "I think you should kiss me."

"What?" Nico's voice wasn't angry-it was far too cold, distant, and scary for that. Will swore the air temperature dropped by at least ten degrees.

"Kiss . . . me?" Will tried again, the words coming out a little too weak to sound anything like a scene from a romantic movie which, if he was honest, he'd been aiming for. "I mean, like, we aren't going to see each other for eight months, and now would be the last time to act on any . . . unresolved . . . feelings . . ." He couldn't continue.

He'd always thought that Nico's eyes were brown, but they sure looked black as the son of Hades glared at him with the force of every glare ever given. No one could hand out dirty looks as well as Nico. No. One.

"I," Nico said, possibly through gritted teeth, "will see you next week. For a . . . check-up . . . like always. So you can drop that ridiculous, hair-brained, ill-gotten idea right this second, Will Solace, or I swear to Olympus I'll kick you down the hill. Got it?"

Will nodded at once. "Um. Yeah. G-got it." He wasn't sure if he was seeing this properly, but he thought that di Angelo might be blushing. He swallowed, regained his composure, and added, "Will we kiss then?"

"JUST LEAVE," Nico snarled. "I'm not kissing you. Stop asking or I'll regret going out with you."

"So . . . we are going out?" Will grinned triumphantly. "That's awesome. I know this great Chinese place by my house-"

"I take it back."

"You can't take it back! There are no backsies in dating!"

"WE AREN'T DATING."

"But you said-"

"Go, just go!" Nico nearly shrieked.

"Okay, okay," Will said defensively. He turned towards the camp border, paused, and then took his life into his hands as he pecked Nico on the cheek. "Bye, honey!"

He felt the lovely warmth of Nico's furious glare all the way to the car.