For the OTP Games Contest over on Caesar's Palace.
All recognizable characters and events are disclaimed.
Notes/Warnings: Some elements of the Games are off, but just cringe and ignore them. And yes, I know, my writing tone changes like every section. It's annoying. I still wanted Nico to retain some characteristics as the son of Hades (as crazy as that sounds), so prepare for some unrealistic character development. Will is sometimes a sissy.
Now is your chance.
Sweat beaded across his upper lip. His shoulder strained, creaking with tension. The feathers of the arrow tickled his right ear. Its sharp, jagged point gleamed dully, aimed at his target, ready to take flight.
This is your only chance.
His fingers gripped tighter around the bow. His jaw clenched, his teeth grinding. He pulled his arm back a millimeter, stretching the bowstring even tighter. Inhale. Exhale. Shoot.
The arrow stayed where it was. So did his target.
"Goddammit, Will," he muttered to himself. "Shoot."
He couldn't.
Kill or be killed. Those are the rules.
But he couldn't. He just couldn't.
Inhale. Exhale. Shoot. So many times. Drilled into his mind. The past four days, before the bull's eyes at the Training Center. Inhale, exhale, shoot as your breath comes out. Let the arrow fly.
He hated it. He hated the sleekness of the bow, the twang of the string after each shot, sounding like a death threat, or perhaps a death wish. He hated the startling accuracy of his shots, although each time his arrow would hit a little closer to the left edge of the red circle than the center. He hated how Chiron would tell him, "You're a natural, Solace. You might just have a chance."
His hands were made to heal, not to paint with blood. On the other side of the training room he could identify every plant with healing properties, and everything that he didn't know would be either poisonous or harmless.
"You'll really have a chance if the arena's some sort of forest," Chiron had said.
It was, in a way. There were plenty of vantage points and more than plenty of little niches and crannies in which Will could hide. He checked his shaking hands frequently to make sure they weren't stained with anyone's blood but his own, from skidding them on gravel or cutting them on rock, and reminded them even more frequently that they would have to fight in the end. But when it came down to it, in the end, he was already a killer. And when it came down to it, it should be easier now. But, but -
Now you have to.
No, no, he didn't. At least, not him. Not the boy in black. Anyone else but him.
It's just the two of you. The Careers are gone. There are no more hunters. You are the hunter.
No. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. The bow twitched madly in his hands. His target was peacefully oblivious, or maybe he was waiting peacefully. Accepting death whenever Will decided to let go of his arrow. No. Inhale. Inhale. But he couldn't.
It's kill or be killed. You know that.
Well, he would rather be killed, then.
"Your eyes are blue," were the first words he had said to Will.
The tribute parade was about to start, and Will was stroking the noses of the skittish horses in an attempt to calm them when he heard the voice at his elbow.
"Excuse me?" he said, turning reluctantly away from the horses to face the speaker.
The boy in black scowled. "Nothing. You've never seen anyone die, have you."
It was a statement, not a question. Will shrugged uncomfortably. He knew this boy. He had noticed him immediately when Chiron had forced him and Kayla to watch the other districts' reapings. The boy in black was from Three. He had volunteered.
"I've seen the Games each year," he offered.
"Yes, we all have," answered the boy. "But you've never seen anyone you know die."
Will shook his head. His family was well. He had never known his father, but he and his mother and two brothers had always hung on - barely, but just so. Will would be the first to go.
"How can you tell?" he asked.
"Your eyes are blue," the boy in black stated, as if it was obvious.
Will made a face. The horse closest to him snorted. He went back to rubbing its nose.
The boy elaborated, "They're clear, they're innocent. None of us have eyes like yours. The things we've seen have tainted our vision."
"What are you saying?" Will was bewildered.
"I want to make an alliance," the boy in black blurted, "with you."
"All right…" Will said slowly. "But why?"
"Because it won't be hard to see you go."
Will swallowed dryly. "That's morbid."
"People unlike you tend to be that way. Get used to it."
The boy in black extended a hand, and Will shook it hesitatingly.
"I'm Nico di Angelo," he said, and added when Will opened his mouth, "You're Solace. I know already." His eyes averted and roamed over to the front of the chariot line. "The parade's about to start."
And, like a shadow, he was gone. Will stood for a moment, feeling dazed, then gave the white horses one last pat and stepped onto the chariot beside Kayla. He studied her for a moment. Her face was stony. Her eyes were muddy brown.
He tried to shake the strange feeling away and focus ahead, but as the chariots began to move, all he could think about was the boy's eyes and that they had been as black as the night stretching over the endless forest.
"So, you think you're going to win by identifying plants?"
Will scowled. The boy called Nico had been quietly hovering beside him for nearly twenty minutes, and even though the wordless tension was awkward, Will wished that he had just stayed silent.
"No," he replied brusquely, trying his best to focus on his work.
"Well, I haven't seen you fight yet."
"I don't need to fight."
"Then how are you going to win?"
"I'm not!" Will jerked around to face the boy's obsidian eyes.
Nico shrugged. Will ducked his head down and went back to matching plants with their properties. Nico didn't move. Will could hear his shallow breaths above the tapping of his fingers.
"Why did you choose me as your ally?" he asked, nearly in a whisper.
"You're the only one I want to see live," Nico replied at once. Then he whirled away to the opposite side of the room and began inspecting the swords on the wall.
The next day Will was standing before the bull's eyes, trying to imitate the fluidness of Kayla's body as she nocked, stretched, and released.
Why don't you try a bow, Solace? Chiron had suggested the night before. I'm sure Kayla can show you the ropes. At this, Kayla had grimaced and chewed at a strand of her stringy straw hair. You can't be a healer boy in the Games.
Will tried to blink away the image of serious brown eyes and bushy eyebrows. Why can't you leave me alone? he shouted at Chiron in his mind as he curled his fingers tentatively around the shaft of an arrow, Why can't you just do your job and tell me the Careers will kill me? You know I'm going to die.
He already knew what Chiron would say in response:
That shouldn't stop you from trying.
He gripped the arrow tighter, clenching it harder and harder in his fist, frustration mounting and mettle receding when it refused to snap. He cursed through gritted teeth.
"I'm never… I will never… I can't…"
"Hello?"
Nico's voice broke him away from his thoughts. Will took a shuddering breath. He had almost forgotten the feeling of cold air rushing into his lungs. He attempted a smile. "Hello," he echoed.
"What, uh, what are you doing?" Nico gestured at the arrow almost comically.
"I'm trying to learn how to shoot." It was obvious, wasn't it?
The faintest smile crept into Nico's ashy cheeks. "You'll need a bow for that," he said quietly. He strode over to the rack and, after much finger-drumming and neck-craning, selected a polished wooden bow and brought it back to Will. "Maple and yew, looks like." He handed it over.
Will held it gingerly in the center of his palm. It teetered, as if it couldn't make up its mind whether the prospect of staying in Will's hand was worse than clattering to the ground.
"It's short," Will said, frowning and glancing over at Kayla. "She has a longer one, and… this one's curved backwards."
"It's called a recurve bow," Nico stated dryly. "Used especially by people who are too weak for a longbow."
He was really smiling now. Will could see the glint of his teeth.
"Really," Will scoffed. "And what do you know about archery?"
"More than you, evidently."
Will's retort was cut short by the sound of the District Two boy hurling One to the ground. The training room was filled suddenly with the shouts of the sparring instructor and the howls of the injured boy. The tributes weren't allowed to attack each other, but Will knew the incident would be overlooked. They were Careers.
"Aren't you from Seven?" Nico said, drawing Will's attention back away from the fight.
"Excuse me?"
"You're from District Seven. Lumber. Your people cut trees for a living. Supposed to make you strong."
Will grimaced. "Most people do." He jerked his head to indicate Kayla. "She does. I don't."
"What do you do?"
"I make paper."
There it was again: a flash of a smile, gone as quickly as it had come. Will blinked to clear his vision. He had been staring too closely at Nico. He looked down at his bow. There was a pregnant pause. He imagined that Nico was smiling.
"You want to at least be able to fight back, Solace," Nico said eventually. "No one wants to die as cornered prey."
Will swallowed. "What about you, then, di Angelo?"
Nico touched his finger to the end of an arrow, raising his black eyebrows. "What about me?"
"Aren't you afraid… of dying?"
"That's not the point. I've already done all I can. You haven't." He tossed the arrow at Will, who scrambled and caught it - just barely. "Besides, I'm not the same as you - any of you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Will demanded.
"Not the point," Nico repeated. He pulled Will's shoulder back and set his hand on the bow. "You're going to take a deep breath. Inhale as you pull back. And then shoot as you exhale. Release your breath and the arrow at the same time. Now, ready?"
Will nodded. Somehow, the feeling of Nico's hands touching him, arranging his upper body into position around the bow, gave him courage he had never felt before.
People were scared of Nico di Angelo.
The thought had somehow sprung into Will's head during his sleepless, dream-riddled night, and once it was there, it didn't seem keen on disappearing. Will wasn't usually observant; he rarely found reason to look beyond what was explicitly stated and occasionally interpreted things that were right before his eyes, but the notion seemed so obvious once it had materialized in his mind that Will couldn't find a reason to dismiss it - other than the fact that he had no actual evidence to back up his claim.
Nico di Angelo terrified the other tributes. He really did.
And Will set himself on a task to prove it.
When he looked back over the last few days, he realized there existed plenty of inklings for him to jump to that conclusion. The other tributes always gave Nico a wide berth, whether it was in the training room or during lunch. The girl from his own district avoided speaking with him, and the Careers didn't poke fun or jeer at him like they did to ones from Five and below.
And then there was the incident in the lunchroom yesterday.
Perseus from Two and Thalia from One, all swagger and glares, had approached Will as he was spooning glazed carrots into his plate. Thalia folded her arms and contorted her eyebrows into a valley. Perseus thumped Will in the shoulder. The carrots made a wobbly circuit around his plate, contemplating on whether or not to abandon ship.
"So, I heard you're taking up the bow, Doctor Solace," Perseus said. His mouth sneered; his green eyes fumed.
Doctor Solace?
"Uh, yes," Will stammered. What else could he say?
"You're not going to be any threat to us, are you?" Perseus's voice dropped low. Thalia's valley grew steeper.
"Uh, no," Will said, backing up against the buffet counter.
"Are you sure?" Green eyes turned into narrow slits. Will could almost imagine them with oblong pupils. "You wouldn't want to be the first one missing a head, would you?"
"Yes - I mean, no." Will's heart was pumping out a jagged rhythm, and his breaths were coming in out of time. He raised his hands. "I'm sure I'm not a threat, and I - I don't want you to cut off…" His voice trailed away, and his tongue flopped uselessly in his mouth.
Perseus leaned closer. "You don't want what?" His breath smelled strangely like waffles.
"My head…" Will squeaked, then realized what he had said and frantically waved his hands. "That's not what I meant -"
"I think I heard very well what you meant." Perseus grinned and looked back at Thalia, who returned the grin a beat late.
"Leave him alone, Jackson," came a voice from behind Will, and even before he turned he knew it was Nico.
Perseus scowled, and suddenly his features didn't seem so snakelike. "What's this little tree rat to you, di Angelo?"
Nico's fists clenched. His face hardened into chiseled granite. "I said, leave him alone," he repeated forcibly, his voice like frost. "It's not the bloodbath yet."
Perseus rolled back his lithe shoulders. "Calm down, di Angelo," he said with a flick of his wrist. "I was just reminding our little tree rat that he didn't want to get in the way."
Nico's expression darkened, as if rainclouds had rolled over his head. "You won't remind him of anything again, Jackson, not if you don't want your own head to get in my way."
Perseus frowned, but he pulled himself up taller. "All right, whatever." He turned his gaze to Will again, who did his best not to shiver. "Kill you later, Doctor Solace. And you, too, di Angelo." he said with a grin and walked away, Thalia close behind him.
Nico stuffed his hands in his pockets and scowled after them. Will decided that he would be safer looking at his glazed carrots.
"Come on," Nico said after the Careers had been reunited. He led Will to a table, where they sat and stared silently at everything but each other.
"Thanks," Will mumbled eventually.
Nico shrugged. "They're afraid of you," he stated matter-of-factly.
Will laughed, sounding a bit crazed. "No, they're afraid of you, di Angelo. You are death personified." He lowered his voice, "They will be terrified once the Games start. Every time they look over their shoulders, they're going to expect to see you in a hooded cloak holding a great big scythe-"
"I prefer to use a sword," Nico interjected.
"Fine. Holding a sword, then. And one of their heads," Will continued, "with its face frozen in a look of ghastly horror."
"Very poetic."
Will grinned, and after a moment's hesitation, Nico did too, although his smile looked more like a crack in the face of a marble slab than an expression of human emotion.
"Thank you, Solace," he said quietly.
"For what?"
"For being so confident in my ability to kill."
Will snorted. "We make quite the team, don't we?"
"How so?"
"Well." He carefully cut a carrot into two equal halves. "You're a killer, and I'm a healer."
Nico shook his head and looked down at his hands, the corners of his lips flickering upward. Will ate a half a carrot.
"I'm serious, though," he said.
Nico's lips tightened. "About what?"
"I think you scare them. I think you're the only tribute who scares them."
"I am going to die."
"Don't be stupid, Solace."
Will craned his neck up to look at the ceiling, which seemed to be pressing down on him ever so slowly. "I am going to die," he breathed slowly. "If not now, then tomorrow."
"Goddammit, Will!" Nico exclaimed suddenly. Every head in the room turned to look at him, then swiveled swiftly away when he glared at them. The tributes were all terrified of Nico di Angelo.
"What?" said Will innocently. A part of him was stunned by Nico's outburst. Another part was shocked that Nico had called him Will. Not Solace, but Will.
The intercom crackled and called for the District One female to enter the Training Center. The only door to the room opened, waited patiently for Thalia Grace to exit, then closed behind her.
Nico lowered his voice. "Stop saying that. You don't - you don't know what you're talking about."
"And you do?" Will returned.
"Yes," Nico whispered fiercely. His eyes bore into Will's. They had never looked so black as they did now.
"You're saying that you're dead," Will stated.
"Yes," Nico said again. "I'm saying… I know what it's like."
"How can you?"
Nico sat back with a sigh. His hands went to his hair. "I can't tell you. It's too much to explain, and I'm not sure how to say it either."
"Tell me," Will pressed.
Nico took a quick breath. "You're going to die someday, Will Solace," he said in a rush. "But it's not going to be today, or tomorrow, or the day after that, or any day that you're in that arena. I'll… I will make sure of it."
Will scowled. "How are you going to do that? Protect me?"
"If I have to."
"Bullshit," Will said vehemently. "It's the Hunger Games. Why would you want anyone to win but yourself?"
Nico tore his hands away from his head and clenched them into fists. "You don't understand," he said through gritted teeth.
"Oh, is it because I have blue eyes?"
"No! It's just… it's a feeling I have. I can't explain it."
Will glared.
"I'm sorry," said Nico.
"Try," demanded Will.
Nico drew his knees up onto his seat and hugged them to his chest. The intercom summoned the male from District Two. Perseus smirked at the two of them as he walked out the room. Evidently - although Will still hoped for a contradiction - his and Nico's conversation had breached the barrier of audibility. But Will didn't care. Perseus and the Careers and what terror they may have injected into Will's thoughts once were only a blip on a foggy horizon. All that mattered now were the next words that would come out of Nico's mouth.
"Okay," Nico whispered.
Will waited. The room seemed to stir restlessly as Nico steadied his breathing.
"When I was six I was experimenting with the power socket in our house, and I accidentally electrocuted myself. They - my father and my little brother - they thought I was dead. They were sure of it. The doctor even said I wouldn't last long." Nico paused, furrowing his brow, as if he was trying to extract a long, sharp needle from the center of his head.
"Were you?" Will asked.
"Yes," Nico said. "Well, no, medically. But I had to be kept on a machine. I was in a coma. My brother said he cried every day." He looked up through Will, his eyes clouded. "They were already mourning, you see, but even when you know someone you love is dead, there's something inside you that just refuses to accept it. Marco refused for six weeks. He fought my father - he was so close to pulling the plug. Every day, he talked with the doctor, and the doctor told him it was no use… I wasn't ever coming back… he's seen so many cases like mine before. But at the end of every day Marco persuaded him again. 'Let's just wait one more day,' he would say. 'Just one more day. You never know what could happen in one day.' It went like that for six weeks… and then…"
"And then what?" Will leaned forward.
"I came back." Nico's face darkened. He looked away, nodding and chewing on the inside of his cheeks.
"But?"
The girl from District Two was called.
"I'm next," said Nico.
"You're not finished." In his urgency, Will gripped his wrist. Nico wrenched away, as if Will's hand was coated in molten iron.
"I was standing on a cliff," Nico said flatly. "It was so dark that I couldn't see it was a cliff, but it had to be, because I could feel an empty space all around me and below me. And there were sounds in the darkness, sounds that were so familiar I couldn't identify them. And I knew, somehow I knew, that if I jumped I would land in the world, not the world I came from, but all the worlds that came before, all the eras that used to be, all of them so uncomprehendingly larger than what we see today." He raised his eyes to meet Will's. Every part of him was shaking. "That's what death is like, Will."
Will was silent. "Why didn't you jump?" he asked finally.
Nico frowned. "It's strange… when I think back on it. I think - I must have heard Marco. It's one of the things doctors tell you will help coma patients. Talk to them. They'll hear you." He stopped to grimace. "I think - I guess it worked. Marco saved my life. He was the only person who was ever capable of saving my life." His voice dropped low, and Will had to strain to hear his last words. "And so I had to save his."
"What do you mean by that?"
Nico took in the sight of Will's puzzled face slowly, as if he was surprised Will was still there. "I volunteered," he stated, as if it couldn't be more obvious. "For him."
Will laid a hand on his shoulder, and this time Nico didn't pull away. "That was very noble of you Nico," he said as warmly as he could.
Nico shrugged. "Had to be done. Marco is too young. He's only thirteen. Besides, there's a part of me that's never really come back. I belong in that darkness. Dying will be like falling asleep after a long day." He laughed suddenly. "And I've been awake far too long."
"Nico…" Will started, but he trailed off. There was nothing he could say.
"Then I thought: I might as well save someone else - someone who actually deserves to live - before I go away for good. And so I chose you." Nico smiled tentatively. "Because you weren't like the others. And because you had the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. Tell me, do all people from Seven have eyes like yours?"
"No - not many," Will said. "My brothers do. My mom says we got them from our dad."
Nico sniffed. "It must be nice to have a mother."
"It must be nice to have a father," Will replied.
"We must have both had them once." Nico straightened in his seat. "Tell you what: I'll try to find them when I go back."
Will looked at him - really looked at him, and tried to see through him. "How can be so sure… so resolute?" He couldn't help it; he asked the question he had asked before. "Aren't you afraid… of actually dying?"
The boy in black scoffed. "I was dead before I turned seven." He turned his head inquiringly at Will. "What about you, Solace? Are you still going to give in? Or are you going to fight it?"
Will only had to think about it for a second. "I'll fight."
Nico's eyes blazed with something other than blackness. "Good."
The intercom crackled, and he was up before his district number was called.
"Good luck," Will said to him as he stepped out the door.
Nico didn't look back.
Time stretched by like molasses. The number of people in the room dwindled. When Will was finally called, he stood too quickly, and his shaking legs nearly buckled underneath him.
The Gamemakers were only a haze of blurry faces and beards to the side of his head, and he forgot about them soon after he nodded to acknowledge them. His throat was dry; his tongue rasped against his teeth. He picked up a bow and a quiver of arrows with scarcely a glance at them and moved down the line of targets, each time landing an arrow in the red circle. His arms and fingers were trembling by the time he was through, and he clenched them tight to still them. He turned to the blur of Gamemakers and saw another red circle in their midst. It was an apple, poised in the snout of a golden honey-roasted pig.
Shoot.
But -
You're not going to be a threat, are you?
Kill you later, Doctor Solace.
Leave him alone.
And you, too, di Angelo.
He bowed, sliding the arrow in his hand back into the quiver, heard a man utter a syllable of dismissal, and walked briskly out of the room.