Nico had already spent two and a half long days in the infirmary. On the beginning of the third day, Will was fully prepared to murder the son of Hades for being such an impossible little brat.
On the first day, Will's biggest struggle was getting the little brat to eat something.
"Nico, you have to finish your lunch!" Will screamed.
"No!" the dark haired boy complained. "I'm not hungry!"
On the second day, matters only got worse.
"Come on," the blonde haired boy ordered. "It's time for me to take your blood pressure."
"My blood pressure is just fine, Solace," Nico chided.
Will rolled his eyes in aggravation and inched closer to the younger boy.
"How could you possibly know that?"
A thin smile tugged at Nico's lips. For a brief second, Will remembered how adorable he found Nico. And then his thin smile turned into a shit eating grin and the son of Apollo immediately changed his mind.
"I have a doctor's note," Nico stated simply.
The snarky fifteen year old held up a yellow note with messy handwriting. Will tore the note out of the pale boy's hands. His eyes scanned across the piece of paper.
"This note is from yesterday!" Will cried.
Nico smirked and snuggled under the covers.
"Whatever."
By the third and final day, Will had had enough.
"Nico!" Will shouted. "Come on, it's time for your hour in the sunlight! It'll be good for you!"
"No thanks, mom," Nico snickered.
The blonde haired son of Apollo pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed deeply.
"You have to, Nico. It's apart of the recovery process."
The son of Hades let out a blood curdling laugh and flopped over onto his side. Nico mumbled something into his pillow, but Will was unable to hear what he said. Maybe it was from sheer anger, or annoyance, or the frustration of the whole situation, but Will stormed out of Nico's private room that morning and he hadn't been back since.
Halfway into the day, Nico heard footsteps approaching his room. He was disappointed when he saw it was only Kayla. And then he was angry at himself for feeling disappointed in the first place.
"Hey," she called softly. "How are you doing?"
Awful, horrible, tragic, annoyed, I'm a major asshole.
"I'm fine," Nico replied.
Kayla flashed him a bright smile and stood beside Nico's bed. In one hand she had a tray of food, and in the other she held fresh bandages.
Instead of forcing the son of death to eat, Kayla set the tray of food onto Nico's bedside table without a word. Kayla was smart enough to realize forcing Nico to eat would lead to nothing but trouble. The son of death smiled slightly. At least someone understood his boundaries.
"I'm just here to change your bandages, is that okay?" she asked kindly.
"Where's Will?" Nico asked instantly.
Kayla tugged her lower lip into her mouth and awkwardly shuffled from side to side. Nico regretted saying anything at all.
I should have kept my mouth shut.
"He's working with another patient," she finally answered. "Paolo from the Hebe Cabin. He fell off the lava wall last night and broke an arm and a leg."
"Oh," was all Nico could manage to say.
It wasn't that Nico didn't like Paolo. He just didn't like how attractive the Brazilian demigod was.
Why do I care? Nico asked himself.
The ginger haired girl gave the boy a weak smile and started unwrapping his old bandages.
"He was really upset, you know," Kayla explained. "I've never seen him so worried before."
"Worried?" Nico questioned.
"Worried," Kayla repeated.
The daughter of Apollo went on to explain the countless hours Will spent worrying about Nico.
Every night since the end of the war, Will would pray to every god and goddess who bothered to listen for Nico's healthy recovery. During lunch hours, Will would storm to the front of the line and demand only the best for the son of Hades.
Whenever Will would change the shorter boy's bandages, he would sing a hymn to his father and enchant the bandages so they had magical healing abilities. Working magic, even something as menial as enchanted bandages, took a lot out of Will. It was his equivalent to shadow traveling.
"If he cares about me so much," Nico stated. "Then why isn't he here right now?"
Kayla chuckled and brushed a long strand of hair behind her ear.
"Honestly? He thinks you hate him."
Nico's face went paler than before, if that was even possible. His blood ran cold. His insides felt like they we rotting away… Like he was rotting away.
"He-he thinks I hate him?"
The last time Nico felt this awful, he had been face to face with Eros in Croatia. The god forced Nico to reveal his sexuality in front of his best friend, Jason Grace, son of Jupiter.
In all honesty, Nico was never in love with Percy Jackson. The son of Poseidon was merely the embodiment of Nico's lifelong secret. In a sense, Percy was a means of relief for his true attractions. Besides, what actual eleven year old falls in love? Eros took advantage of Nico's crush to hurt him more, convincing the fourteen year old it was love, and ripping his heart out.
All is fair in love and war, and in this case, Eros wanted to destroy Nico di Angelo. Why, you may ask? Well, he did it to cause the boy's father, Hades, unbearable guilt and pain. During the early years of the gods, Hades had abducted Persephone and forced the maiden to be his bride. The demigod daughter of Demeter was meant to marry her soulmate, a prince who reigned in the Greek city-state of Troy, who was one of Eros' sons.
The marriage between the two soulmates never happened, and ever since ancient times, Eros has held a grudge against all sons and daughters of Hades. That is why children of death hardly ever have a happy ending. Throughout their lives they live loveless and alone, only to end their miserable existences without ever feeling true happiness.
Since Nico was born sometime during the 1930's when homosexuality was unacceptable and punishable by death, Eros hoped the fourteen year old would committee suicide after being forced to tell his secret. The outcome was better than Eros had expected. Instead of being dead, the son of Hades lived with the shame and humiliation of who he really is. If only he knew how the world worked now.
The sound of Kayla's laugh ripped Nico away from his thoughts. Kayla chuckled once more, her pretty blue eyes never leaving Nico's arms.
"It's ridiculous, isn't it?" she asked him. "As if anyone could ever hate him. He's just too nice and a little too trusting for his own good."
"All I ever do is push him away!" Nico shouted. "How can he still care about me so deeply?"
The daughter of Apollo tapped her chin thoughtfully.
"Even I don't have an answer for that one," she said. "He just does. All I know for certain is Will's desperate to be your friend."
At that moment, Kayla's smile fell. Her dark blue eyes flickered with unshed tears. She sniffled softly and stumbled away from Nico.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm really sorry. That was incredibly unprofessional."
Now Nico felt even worse than before. Will thought he hated him and he made Kayla cry!
The son of Hades didn't know how to react in a situation like this. He wasn't used to seeing others cry. He wasn't used to expressing any emotion at all.
What would Bianca do? he asked himself.
"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked in the most sincere voice he could muster.
Apparently, it had been effective, because Kayla looked up from her curtain of light hair with wide eyes. She made her way back to the edge of Nico's bed.
"Do you mind if I sit down?" she questioned quietly.
"Sure," Nico replied while nodding his head.
The light skinned girl sat across from the son of death.
"It's just really, really sad to care about someone who doesn't care about you," Kayla murmured. "In the past, we've had sons and daughters of Aphrodite come into the infirmary half dead from a broken heart. It may sound crazy, but it's true."
A few tears trailed down Kayla's cheeks, breaking the barrier she had tried so hard to keep up.
"Children of Aphrodite feel emotions a lot more than we do. When someone's heart is broken, it can inflict actual physical pain. They feel pain more than you and I could ever understand."
"That's awful," Nico choked out.
Nico was taken back to the day he found out Bianca had been killed on her quest to rescue Artemis. For months, Nico had been convinced he was dying. If he couldn't have his sister back by his side, then he wanted nothing more than to fall asleep and never wake up.
"I never thought somebody could die of a broken heart. If only I had met-"
"Kayla!" Austin's voice rang out. "Come here! An Ares kid just came in with an arrow lodged in his upper thigh and I need some help pulling it out!"
She wrapped the rest of Nico's arm in silence, unable to meet his dark eyes.
The daughter of Apollo pulled her light hair back and pained a radiant smile on her face.
"It's better to keep up appearances," she said and then left the room, leaving Nico alone with nothing but his thoughts.
In the back of his mind, he had always known Will cared about him more than any normal person should. That was why Nico tried so hard to keep him away. After all, everyone he cares about leaves eventually. No one is destined to stay forever.
Nico's mother had died sometime during the 1940's, when Italy was no longer a neutral nation during World War II, and the country became apart of the Axis Powers under Hitler and Mussolini's control. They fled to America, where the Italian woman was murdered by Zeus in front of her own children. Nico couldn't even remember the date of Maria's death! All he had was the vague memory of a woman with eyes so much like his own, a loving smile, and caring warm arms. Nothing more. Nothing less. Only a memory which has slowly been forgotten over the decades.
Then there's his beloved sister, Bianca di Angelo. As a child she was lively and beautiful and full of life. After their mother died, Bianca acted incredibly motherly and protective, but she was still fun and outgoing. Nico may not have grown up with his mother, but his older sister made up for it ten times over. And then she died…
After being forgotten and left behind so many times, the son of Hades was used to being alone. It was the only thing he knew how to do. It was the only way he knew how to survive.
Until the end of the war, Nico planned to disappear from both camps and never return. And then he met Will Solace, the boy who convinced him to stop running and step out of the shadows. The boy who messed up all of Nico's plans for the future.
All Will wanted was to be Nico's friend, and he was too stubborn to even give him that.
"He's going to kill me," Nico said aloud.
With all his remaining strength, the Italian demigod rose from his hospital bed and started looking for a certain blonde haired camper.
"Nico!" Austin hollered. The son of Apollo was covered in blood and he looked exhausted. "What are you doing out of bed?"
"Where's your brother?" Nico asked, ignoring Austin's question.
"He just stepped outside. But I really think you should get back in bed-"
"Thanks," Nico murmured and turned to walk outside.
Nico pushed the heavy doors to the infirmary open, nearly passing out from all the sudden movements he was doing.
Just a little bit longer, Nico told himself.
For the first time in nearly three days, Nico stepped into the piercing sunlight. He flinched from the pain the sun's rays were inflicting on his eyes. The gentle breeze ruffled his already messy hair to the left side. He looked like one of Apollo's sacred cows just gave him a big fat kiss.
Nico scanned the clearing around him until his eyes landed on a teenage boy wearing blue scrubs and bright yellow sneakers. As quiet as a ghost, Nico glided towards Will until he was standing right behind the older boy.
"Hi," the son of death said.
Will jumped and fell back onto his knees.
"Holy Hera!" Will screamed. "Nico, you nearly gave me a heart attack!"
Nico laughed and extended his hand to the taller boy. He was surprised when Will actually accepted his assistance. Both boys felt an electric spark when their hands touched, but they were both too embarrassed to comment on it.
"Sorry," Nico said. "The opportunity was too perfect to pass up."
"Why was that an opportunity?" Will asked.
"In the ancient times," Nico began. "Whenever Apollo was about to launch an arrow of death, my father would shadow travel behind him and scream HI directly into his ear so he would mess up his shot."
"Is that true?" Will laughed.
Will ran his right hand through his wavy blonde hair and cracked a bright smile.
"Yeah, it is," Nico responded, a light pink blush coating his cheeks.
An awkward silence fell between them.
Will looked Nico up and down. The younger boy was an absolute mess. Nico's hair was in a state of dismay, his clothes were extremely wrinkled, the dark circles under his eyes were more noticeable than ever, and his chocolate brown eyes were broken and glassy.
"Nico, maybe we should get you back in bed?" Will asked kindly.
"Nah," Nico smiled. "I can be outside for a whole hour. I have a doctor's note."
Will grinned from ear to ear and locked his arm around Nico's. The son of Hades' instincts told him to push Will off and run, but he resisted the urge and leaned on the taller boy.
"Take me to the lake?" Nico asked sweetly.
The son of Apollo nodded his head in agreement and guided the younger boy towards the lake in a comfortable silence. When they arrived, Will helped Nico lie down on the warm sand.
"It's really nice out today," Will noted.
Little did the two demigods know, both Persephone and Demeter blessed the nature surrounding the two fifteen year olds. Aphrodite also may or may not have put a little bit of her infamous love magic in the air.
"I want to be your friend," Nico said offhandedly.
Will's gaze broke away from the clear blue water. He gazed at Nico, half expecting the son of Hades to laugh in his face and pass it off as one big joke.
"What?" Will asked stupidly.
Nico giggled and wrung his hands together. The strange thing was, Nico never giggled. Aphrodite's magic was certainly living up to its reputation.
"I said," Nico stated softly, "I want to be your friend. I'm sorry for being such a little brat over the last few days. Do you think, I don't know... Do you think we could start over again?"
"I'd like that," Will smiled.
End of the first chapter!
Since I'm Solangelo trash, I obviously had to make a fic that fills in the six months we missed between The Blood of Olympus and The Trials of Apollo.
Reviews, favorites, and follows are welcomed like Nico at the end of The Blood of Olympus (:
~The OG Judicorn