Will couldn't help but be awed by the display that the Athena and Hecate cabins had cooked up for their New Year's Eve fireworks. The combination of magic and technology brought the fireworks to life in a way that even a camp full of demi-gods whose lives were steeped in the unordinary were having trouble believing was real. He ooh'd and awe'd with the rest of the campers as a gigantic dragon exploded into a series of soaring pegasi coming in for a landing before dissolving into the air with a sparkling flourish. Will turned to look at Nico, whom he had dragged to the fireworks display in an attempt to get the stubborn son of Hades to try to socialize, but Will's smile fell when he saw how tense Nico was sitting on the log. His knuckles were turning white with the tightness of his fists that he held stiffly at his sides and Nico's eyes were squeezed shut instead of staring up in awe at the sparking lights.
"Nico," Will put his hand on the other boy's shoulder just as another deafening boom went off in the sky, causing the young man to jump as his eyes flew open to meet Will's. He jerked away from the healer, his face looking paler by the second. "You okay?"
Nico pursed his lips, not looking Will in the eyes, not answering.
"Seriously, is something wrong?"
Will noticed an almost imperceptible tremor wracking the son of Hade's body, he reached out his hand to try to offer some comfort to the young demi-god, but he flinched away again with more crackling and booming echoing in the sky.
"I have to go," Nico muttered before disappearing into the shadows of the night as Will's hand went straight through where Nico had been sitting just a moment ago.
Before he could stop himself, Will was on his feet and leaving the other campers, most of which shot him confused looks as he passed, for the place where he knew Nico was likely to have disappeared to. Cabin 13.
Will's knuckled were beginning to hurt slightly from the near constant rapping on the door to the Hades cabin for the last few minutes. Normally, even when Nico was grumpy and not willing to open the door, he would at least yell out some obscenities at whoever was disturbing him. This time, there was no answer at all to Will's knocking and he was starting to worry. If Nico wasn't in his cabin, then where would he have disappeared to.
"Nico!" Will yelled as more crackling and oohing and awe-ing could be heard in the distance, "Come on, open up! I know you're in there sulking or something!" With still no answer, Will decided to take a peak in the cabin to see if there might be any clues to Nico's whereabouts. He tried the doorknob, surprised to find it unlocked. After a series of pranks that led to Percy, Jason and the Stoll brothers in the infirmary for four days, Nico had gotten into the habit of locking his cabin door whenever he was out. Only he and Hazel had keys. Will poked his head inside the door.
"Nico?" he called. What he saw was not what he was expecting. Nico was in the cabin, which was a great relief as it didn't mean a bunch of frantic searching over the entire earthly and underwordly realms (not that Will had any clue of how he would search the underworld anyway, but still). What surprised the son of Apollo was seeing the confident, stubborn, powerful son of Hades curled up in the far corner of the cabin, his arms wrapped over his head as he pulled himself into a tighter ball with each new firework that went off back in the display.
Nico was afraid of fireworks.
"Nico?" Will stepped into the cabin, closing the door behind him and made his way over to the son of Hades, who hadn't seemed to have heard the healer calling to him. Will knelt before Nico and reached out to gently place his hand on the other boy's knee. Nico's head shot up at the contact, the fear still evident in his eyes.
"Will?" Nico blinked and his fear turned to more of his usual surliness, "What are you doing here Sun Boy? I thought you were enjoying the fireworks."
"I could be asking you the same thing Death Breath," Will teased in the hopes of getting Nico back to his normal self. It might have worked if a particularly deafening boom had not gone off just then, sending Nico back into his protective fetal position.
"Gods of Olympus, how is this fun to you guys?" Nico muttered into the knees of his jeans. "They sound like bomb raids!" Nico clutched his head tighter, and then it made sense to Will. He knew that Nico was from another time, but since the self-proclaimed Ghost King had adjusted so well to life in the 21st century, Will sometimes forgot that the era that Nico was from was riddled with war, and fear for a lot of people. He was from a time when bomb raids were something you actually had to worry about. The sounds of whistling and booming from the fireworks wouldn't likely be something someone from Nico's time would consider a happy and fun way to ring in the New Year. Suddenly an idea struck Will.
"Stay here, I'll be right back!" Before the son of Hades had time to protest, Will was on his feet and out the door, sprinting towards his own cabin. Once he got there, the lights from the fireworks in the distance colouring the building in bright flashes, Will burst into the empty cabin and began rummaging through the things surrounding his bunk.
Nico's POV
The sounds of the fireworks brought me back to memories of my mother and Bianca each holding one of my hands as we ran out to a bunker intended for hotel guests when we had to briefly stay in Britain before reaching our final destination of the United States. I could hear the sirens blaring and I remember being so confused as everyone ran down the stairwells of the hotel with us to the ground floor where the lobby led out to a large bunker with rows upon rows of bunkbeds.
There were other children there that Bianca and I tried to play with throughout the night as no one was really wanting to sleep, but most of them couldn't stop crying and clinging to their parents. I could remember the smell of my mother's perfume as she held the two of us close while we sat on the bottom bunk of one of the beds, waiting out the raid. She smelled like lilies.
Another boom would cause debris from the ceiling to rain down on us as the bunker rattled with the impact. Everyone would be trying so hard to stay quiet and not panic, but you could always taste the fear in the air throughout the whole night. I tried to pull myself in tighter on myself, covering my ears with my arms as I protected my head from the imaginary debris. I knew logically that there was nothing to be afraid of. Especially after everything that I had already faced. Still, those memories made it very difficult to find much joy in watching a bunch of stupid coloured lights flashing and booming in the air.
I could feel someone pulling at my arms so they were no longer covering my head, before I had the chance to even shoot a glare at Solace or threaten him against telling anyone about this, I felt something being shoved onto my head, covering my ears. The whole world went silent. Will was giving me that smile that he gets whenever he thinks he has the most brilliant plan ever. Ususally, it's not, but then he holds up a white board with the words Noise cancelling headphones and a smiley face written on it. I bring my hands up to touch the headphones that had just been shoved on to me. I give him a confused look, not really knowing how to respond.
He wipes off the white board with his arm, leaving black smudges along his arm, before writing a new message and showing it to me, an apologetic smile on his face, Sorry. I didn't really think it through when I brought you out to the fireworks. I thought you'd like them.
I shrugged, "It's okay." I said, probably louder than necessary, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about…" I trailed off, pointing at the headphones. "Well, thanks." I stared at the floor, feeling heat creeping up my neck. I'd never been so great with the whole…letting people see me afraid thing.
Will's tanned hand appeared waving in front of my face and I looked up to see a new message, you're secret's safe with me Death Breath. I let out a low laugh. "Thanks Sun Boy."
We sat in akward silence for a moment, before Will perked up with what I assumed was an idea as he wrote down a new message on the white board and showed it to me.
You know, I think we can see the fireworks from here. If you still want to watch. Without the sound that is. I know the Athena and Hecate cabins worked really hard on it!
I gave a small smile and nod, "Sure, why not? Could be fun now that I don't have to worry about going deaf every few seconds." He shot me his gigawatt smile before grabbing hold of my arm and dragging me over to the front steps of the cabin.
Without all the noise, I had to admit, the fireworks display was pretty impressive. The lights danced in the sky as the magic infused into them caused them to change form and the technology used to create them made them sparkle and pop with a brightness of colour I didn't even know was possible for fireworks to achieve. I glanced over at Will from time to time out of the corner of my eye, seeing a look of child-like giddiness with each new flash of light above us. Each time a new firework flashed above, the light would cause his widened eyes to sparkle with delight and awe. I couldn't help but allow a small smile to creep up on my face at his obvious joy.
My attention was suddenly pulled back to the sky as what I assumed to be the grand finale went off, filling the sky with spark after spark fired off in quick succession. The light so bright and completely filling that the entire camp seemed to light up in a miniature day for a few seconds. My eyes widened at the attention grabbing display. Even though my eyes were watering a bit from the sheer brightness, as well as the faint, acrid smell of smoke drifting towards us, the display was beyond beautiful. I felt a tap on my shoulder just as the last of the sparkling fireworks finished going off and turned towards Will who was motioning that it was okay for me to take the headphones off.
The normal sounds of camp at night rushed into my ears as I removed the headphones and handed them back to Will, who wouldn't stop giving me that bright smile that caused those stupid skeletal butterflies to resurrect themselves in my stomach.
"Thanks." I said quietly, as Will took the headphones back. Our hands brushed briefly, sending an electric shock into my hand. I quickly withdrew my hand and clasped them awkwardly in my lap.
"Anytime." Will replied softly. We both sat there in silence for a moment before the voices of the other campers began drifting closer as they all returned to their cabins quickly before the 12:15 New Year's curfew kicked in and the harpies began hunting down any stragglers.
"You, uh…might want to get back to your cabin before curfew hits." I suggested lamely, "Wouldn't want you to end up harpy-chow or anything."
Will leaned in towards me and batted his eyes playfully, "Awww, are you actually worried about me Nico?" he teased. I shoved lightly at his shoulder.
"Shut up Solace." I couldn't come up with a better response. Will held his hands up in mock surrender and stood up.
"All right, all right, if you're that keen to get rid of me, I'll head on out." He started to walk away before stopping to turn back and flash another smile at me, "Hey diAngelo,"I looked up expectantly, "Happy New Year."
"Happy New Year Solace," I replied before getting up myself, brushing off imaginary dirt from my jeans and heading back into my cabin.
As I closed the door behind me, I couldn't help but think of Will's smile through all the crap that we'd been through as a camp this year. Just like tonight, he seemed to have a way of turning the negative into something positive. I hadn't been able to like fireworks since I was a little kid. Ever since the war, they would just remind me of what few memories I had of the war that were filled with fear and running. But watching them with Will, they were something that was actually breath-taking to watch. I could actually see the light and beauty in them again. Not to mention how he was always pulling stuff like this, popping up around camp wherever I happened to be whenever I started brooding. He would somehow figure out some way of making me actually want to smile and laugh and spend time around the other campers.
Maybe this year I could learn to block out the bad noises around me finally. Maybe it was time to look up and see the light again.