Prompt for day one: Dancer
Author's notes: Finally got around to doing this. Well, I need to work on the second one now. Unfortunately I'm working on two pairing celebration this week.
For solangelo week at solangelo-dot-tumblr-dot-com. Sorry for the extremely late posting, I was very busy.
Break an Ankle
by Live Don't Just Exist
"So," Will said, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow, "You fractured your ankle, how exactly?"
Nico grumbled something under his breath, his face set in a scowl.
Will's eyebrow rose higher, "Pardon?"
The son of Hades downright growled and crossed his arms too. He looked away and huffed, "Nothing."
The blond tried to ignore the slight twinge of hurt he felt at the words. He'd thought that ever since the war with Gaea, he and Nico might've gotten close enough for him not to shut Will out anymore. Close enough to maybe be even more than friends.
Apparently, he'd been delusional, seeing as the dark-haired teen shut him down at the first opportunity.
Will chose to ignore the hurt and focused instead on his annoyance with a non-cooperative patient. This, at least, was a more professional attitude. "Fine." He said as he picked up his clipboard and began scribbling on it furiously.
He carried the annoyance too well, writing: IDIOCY as the main reason for the fractured ankle in Nico's medical files, adding: Patient is uncooperative. Basically, don't bother asking him how he got what because he's Nico and you'll just waste your breath.
Will felt a little calmer after the angry scribbling.
He turned to the bedside table and broke an ambrosia into tiny pieces, offering Nico the size of about half an inch to chew on. The son of Hades eyed him suspiciously before accepting. Will gestured to a quarter full glass of nectar.
"They would speed up the process of healing your fracture. It'll be better in three weeks, two weeks if you don't miss any of our appointment." Will said writing down a reminder on Nico's file: Requires daily healing magic for the next two weeks. "Still, we need to put your leg in cast or a brace because even with the super speedy healing we need to make sure that the bones come together right." He looked up at Nico to see his expression.
Nico's lips were pursed, eyebrows furrowed. "Two weeks?" He asked.
"Two weeks." Will clarified. "So no straining, you're excused from the usual camp activities, rock climbing, sword fighting, anything that would put pressure on that ankle."
Nico hissed, "Merda." He cursed under his breath.
The blond's eyebrows furrowed in worry, "You okay?"
"No." Nico snapped. Will flinched back at the hostility. The son of Hades looked taken aback at his reaction before ducking his head. "It's nothing." He mumbled, "Let's hurry up so I can go."
The blond hesitated and nodded. He turned and called for Justin to handle putting Nico's leg in a cast, missing the surprised look on the son of Hades' face at his retreat.
Will knew it was cowardly, but when Justin came, he turned and fled to check on some other patient.
Nico's mood for the rest of the day didn't improve. He'd gotten carried away and sprained his ankle, got into a mood because of it, and somehow managed to chase Will Solace away.
He wanted to slam his face on the nearest cabin wall.
Percy and Jason straightened when their cousin finally came out through the infirmary door. They winced in unison when they saw the scowl on his face and cast on his ankle.
"That bad?" Percy asked with a guilty look.
Nico shot him a death glare, "This is all your fault." He hissed under his breath, because the last thing he needed was people asking what happened.
Percy backed up, hands raised. "Hey, the way I see it, you agreed to it, therefore, it is also partially your fault."
"Besides, no one asked you to twist your ankle like that." Jason said and Nico turned to glare at him. The blond gave him a sheepish shrug.
"This was your idea in the first place!"
"And you agreed!" Percy defended.
"Yeah, after you blackmailed me into doing it!" Nico said, face flushed as he tried to hobble away with dignity, but unfortunately, with his mobility limited, it allowed his cousins to flank his sides and help him. He had no choice but to let them.
"I wouldn't exactly call it blackmail-"
"You took my mythomagic figures and held them for ransom like some sort of deranged-!" Nico struggled to gesture wildly while balancing on his crutches. "Psycopaths!"
Percy snorted wile Jason answered calmly, "We prefer to be known as high-functioning sociopaths, thanks."
Nico wanted to bash their heads together but settled instead for balancing firmly on his crutches and twisting his heavy cast to hit them on their legs.
"Ow!"
"Hey!"
"Serves you right." He muttered at them as he tried to hobble away again.
"Hey, Nico, wait! You can't just-" Jason called and then Percy let out an impatient sigh, easily overtaking their cousin. He stood in front of Nico to block his path.
"Look, stop acting like an immature kid." Percy said, putting both hands on his hips.
Nico raised an eyebrow, "That's rich coming from you." He said, "And ironic, I'm sure your girlfriend would agree."
Jason tried to hide his laughter behind his cough, Percy shot the blond an irritated look. He turned back to Nico and inhaled deeply, looking as though he was trying to gather his patience. "Nico, look, we're sorry about the whole ankle thing."
Jason cleared his throat and nodded, serious, finally. "Yeah, we are." Nico rolled his eyes.
"But you should know that we only wanted your best interest at heart." Percy continued as Jason nodded. "We just want you to be happy and to finally find the courage to tell Will you- ow! Hey! What in Hades!?"
A skeleton had formed behind Percy and kicked him right in the shin before dissolving into bones and sinking back into the shadows. Nico's face was flushed red.
"Percy Jackson." He hissed in dangerous warning and the son of Poseidon immediately took three steps back.
"Bad move, bro." Jason muttered and Percy wanted to roll his eyes at the obvious comment. Instead, the green-eyed teen swallowed and stood his ground.
"Well, yeah, sorry. What I meant was… we want you to have the courage to finally go after who- what you want. So, yeah, we may have been a bit too enthusiastic about your 'dance' lessons," He actually did air quotes, green eyes alight with glee, "But hey, we did it out of support for you, because- you know, family and all that, friends and brothers and stuff." Percy finished awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck.
Nico glared at him suspiciously before huffing and looking away, "Whatever, it's not like all those lessons were useful in the end anyway." He said bitterly, "I mean, clearly, I won't be able to go through with the plan since…" He trailed off and glared down at his ankle. He breathed in and then let it out in a defeated sigh, "Will's birthday is only a few days away, my ankle won't be healed by then. Guess, I'll stay in the background for his birthday." His shoulders slumped.
Percy and Jason exchanged looks.
Nico had been so against his role in the camp's surprise birthday bash plan for Will, that it was surprising to see how dejected he was when he realized he wouldn't be able to do it because of his injury. Everyone had decided to do Will's birthday surprise as a mob, everyone dancing and singing.
Nico had vehemently went against the singing part and reluctantly accepted the dancing part when he realized that everyone had prepared small presents for the blond healer and Nico had nothing to give.
He still felt a little guilty that some people were dancing and going to give gifts to Will, so Hazel convinced him to ask Will out on his birthday. (Everyone knew that Will had a crush on Nico after all and that the blond didn't want to pressure him into going out with him, so it fell to the son of Hades to take their relationship to the next step)
It was a testament to how much Nico had grown up that he listened to Hazel's advice and planned to pull Will away for a few minutes, after his birthday bash, to ask him out.
Well, at least he was planning to, before he broke his ankle.
"Maybe this is Aphrodite telling me to give it up." Nico grumbled under his breath, looking sullenly at his cast. "I mean, I don't even have a gift for him so I decided to do some stupid dancing and ask him out after, but now I can't even do that for him."
Jason frowned, "Don't think that." He said, crossing his arms, "Sure, I mean, maybe Venus is behind this but you know how she is, she likes a bit of challenge in every love story. I mean, look at Percy and Annabeth's love story so far."
Percy rolled his eyes but his shoulders were tense. "After years of love triangles and love squares, only to be thrown in Tartarus together- well, Nico, you should be thankful that it's only a broken ankle she has you working with."
"Piper had fake memories about our fake relationship and I had amnesia." Jason shrugged. "Percy's right, your love story is less complicated than ours."
Nico shot them a look that said Excuse you? Oh, that's right, Nico had a crush on Percy and faced Cupid himself. The two demigods winced in apology.
"Sorry."
"But hey, you know, it's not complicated now." Jason said, "There's no Great Prophecy hanging over our heads-"
"Don't jinx it." Percy muttered, looking around in suspicion, like Rachel would hear and suddenly begin spouting some weird Oracle crap.
"And sure, yeah, you sprained an ankle, and can't dance now but no big deal!" Jason said gesturing, "You can still ask the guy out! That's what's important, right?"
Nico looked at them warily, "I don't know." He said, "I mean, everyone's been working hard for his birthday and it doesn't feel right just doing nothing, watching everyone work hard for his birthday and I just get him away and ask him out just like that. I feel…" He chewed on his bottom lip, "I just wish I could do something more you know?"
Jason and Percy exchanged thoughtful looks, trying to think of a way to make Nico feel better.
"Actually," Percy said slowly, "I have a plan and yeah, it involves dancing." He said before Jason could ask.
Nico grimaced, though he was annoyed for breaking his ankle and not being able to dance on the bash, he still had some reservations about it.
Percy patted him on the shoulder, "Hey, hear me out, it's better than the first arrangement." He winked, "And on the plus side, only one person will be seeing you dance and it won't be the ankle-break type dancing either."
The son of Hades gave the son of Poseidon a suspicious look while Jason looked interested. "Well? Spit it out, Jackson."
The grin on Percy's face could rival the Cheshire cat's.
To say Will was surprised was an understatement. It felt more like he was going to have a heart failure the moment he stepped out of his cabin at ten in the morning, wearing his blue pajamas and yellow shirt, disoriented and confused (and maybe even a bit scared) when fireworks suddenly erupted and everyone started dancing and singing in front of him.
Will looked on, eyes wide as everyone executed really complicated dance moves. They sang along to some hip music. Even during the mob, everyone was trying to out dance each other, especially his siblings, who were the children of the god of music and all that. The blond couldn't help but laugh in amusement.
Finally the crowd parted in a well-choreographed move and Kayla and Justin stepped forward with smirks.
"Really?" Will said with a laugh, running a hand through his rumpled hair.
Kayla shrugged, "Everyone needs to have a birthday mob at least once."
"Right…" Will drawled, "This obviously had nothing to do with proving to everyone what great dancers the Apollo cabin are."
His sister gave him a sheepish smile, "Maybe a little bit."
Justin huffed, "We just wanted to do something nice for you, can't we leave it at that? We already celebrated the birthday bash of the other head counselors and it's your turn."
Will grinned and ruffled his hair, "Thanks." He said sincerely as he looked around, the mob crowd was chattering now while the Demeter, Dionysus, and the Hecate cabin began conjuring up some food on impressively long tables done by the Hephaestus cabin. "So, we gonna eat or what?"
"No, we have one last surprise for you." Kayla said excitedly, exchanging looks with a smug Justin. Will just raised an eyebrow in their direction.
"Okay…" He allowed his two siblings to lead him towards the forest. Jason and Percy were nearby with their respective girlfriends. They gave him a thumbs up and mouthed 'good luck'. Will looked around them, searching for a familiar head of dark hair.
"Where's Nico?" He mouthed at the two demigod ex-praetors. Jason and Percy just gave him innocent confused looks while Kayla pushed him into the forest.
Will's heart plummeted at the fact that the son of Hades wasn't even there to celebrate his birthday. He sighed and ran a hand through his shaggy blond hair again. He wasn't expecting Nico to participate in the dancing but it would have been nice if he'd just been there at least. That would have made his day.
"We're here." Justin said smugly as he gave one final push to the blond. Will stumbled right into the open clearing-
-and into the scene of a table covered in a black table cloth with two chairs and a small vase of a red rose on top, along with assortments of pancakes, waffles, hotdogs, eggs, hash browns, jalapeῆos, and a pitcher of juice.
Standing on the side, fiddling nervously on the bottom of his well pressed-collared shirt, was Nico in his cast and crutch.
Will was very much aware that he was gaping and dressed in well-worn blue pajama buttons and a fading yellow shirt.
Gods, couldn't his siblings allowed him to change first?
"Ni-Nico?" Oh no, Will did not just squeak. He could feel the smug looks Kayla and Justin were giving him before they retreated.
The blond looked back and watched leave before he looked at the other teen and cleared his throat, "Uh, so, I see you were roped into this." He said instead, rubbing the back of his neck, "Sorry about this… and them." He referred to his siblings who probably forced the son of Hades into this.
Nico raised an eyebrow, "They didn't force me to do anything."
Will blinked, pale blue eyes wide, "I- what?"
Nico huffed and crossed his arms, "No on forced me to do anything." He repeated louder, "I mean, sure this wasn't my original plan, but I agreed to it too. I think it's even better than my idea of dancing in that mob of yours. I prefer it like this."
Will's eyes were wide and he was looking at Nico, whose face was pink. The blond couldn't help but smile.
Schist, Will looked adorable in his pajamas and looking rumpled like he just got out of his bed (yeah, he probably just got out of his bed, now that Nico thought about it). He looked confused but happy and the warm smile on the blond's face was doing nothing to assuage the barrage of skeleton butterflies fluttering in his stomach.
Nico wanted to run his hand down his face in mortification. He knew his skin was pale enough to make every blush visible. Gods, he should stop acting like a girl and man up already. It was horrible enough that this idea was Percy's, he had to see this through and get the guy!
Nico cleared his throat, "Let's eat?"
Will nodded eagerly and stepped up to help Nico into a chair. Urgh, the guy was too nice sometimes.
When Nico was finally sitting down, his crutch to the side, Will sat in front of him and it was clear that he was self-conscious in his pajamas (which Nico did not get at all, because Will looked great and adorable in it). "So, you uh- you look nice." The blond offered with a timid smile.
Nico felt his face warm and he croaked out, "Thanks." And then added sullenly, "Piper made me wear this." By this, he meant his current outfit of a collared, black, checkered, button-up shirt. His pants were one of those weird, popular styles that was half pants, half shorts, which was convenient for his cast.
Will let out a laugh and Nico felt something in him relax as he smiled back nervously. The two of them looked at each other for a few seconds before finally reaching out to start on the waffles.
"So," Will said, halfway through his pancakes and eggs, "Did you meant it?" He asked. Nico blinked up at the blond who ducked his head, face flushed. The son of Hades thought it endearing and then promptly squashed the thought back. "The uh- were you really planning to dance in the mob?"
Nico closed his eyes, resigned. "Yes."
"Oh." Will said, and Nico opened one eye to see him blinking in surprise. "Is that why you…" He gestured at the cast. Nico frowned unhappily.
"Yeah."
Will gulped, "Why?" He asked, "I mean, not that I don't appreciate the effort or anything." He added hurriedly, "I'm just- I didn't take you for the type to dance."
Nico frowned. Wasn't it obvious why he was willing to dance on front of a bunch of people? Gods, was Will really that oblivious to his feelings? "I thought the answer was obvious." The son of Hades said slowly, dark eyes meeting wide, pale blue ones. "You know I won't do this," He gestured to the table and then the dance practices, "Just for anyone."
Will swallowed again and his voice was on the rough side when he cleared his throat and said, "You must really like me." He said, half-joking.
Nico couldn't help his nervous smile as he said, "A bit, yeah."
Will blinked, surprised. "Oh." There was silence, wherein NIco fidgeted nervously, wondering if it was too soon to say.
Will looked at him a bit longer and then relaxed. He smiled radiantly, "I like you quite a bit too."
Nico's breath caught in his throat, "I'd hope so." He finally managed to choke out.
The two of them looked at each other for awhile when suddenly, a slow song started playing. Will blinked in confusion, looking around, while Nico looked vaguely mortified and embarrassed.
"Merda…" The son of Hades cursed under his breath in defeat. Will's face was flushed as he laughed.
"Let me guess, not your doing?"
Nico sighed, "Percy and Jason's idea. They probably got some poor Hecate kid doing a musical spell or something." He grumbled. He got up slowly and ignored his crutch, to Will's confusion. The son of Hades reached out a hand to the blond, "Well, let's go."
Will looked up at him in confusion, both eyebrows raised in confusion, "Go where?"
Nico tried not to roll his eyes, "We're gonna dance." He said as though it was obvious.
Will gaped, blue eyes going down to Nico's cast, "Uh, no can do."
"What? Why?"
"If you hadn't noticed, you're in a cast." Will pointed out sternly, "You know, fractured ankle and all."
"I'll be fine." Nico insisted, his hand falling to his side. Will gave him an unimpressed look, "We can, I don't know, put it over your foot or something, you can even lead and everything."
Will sighed, "This isn't Twilight, Nico." He huffed in amusement, "And I'm not a century old vampire with superhuman strength that can carry you throughout the whole dance."
The son of Hades raised his hands defensively, "I have no idea what Twilight is," Will snorted disbelievingly, "And it's just a slow dance, I won't get hurt. Promise on the Styx and everything."
Will looked at him in surprise, "You're serious."
Nico flushed, "I've been practicing." He crossed his arms, "It would be a shame to let it all go to waste."
Will looked at him for a few seconds before shrugging and getting up. "Fine." He extended his hand to Nico this time. "Let's dance."
The dark-haired teen flushed but accepted the hand. With a bit of hobbling they managed to get several feet away from the table and right in the middle of the clearing. The two of them stayed in place and swayed a bit to the music like an old couple. It made Nico blush but the warm smile on Will's face was worth it.
"You are such a sap." The son of Hades grumbled, burying his face in Will's shoulder. The blond laughed.
"Says the guy who wanted to slow dance." The son of Apollo absentmindedly kissed the shorter teen on the head. Nico looked up, dark eyes meeting pale blue ones.
Will smiled, "Can I?"
Nico swallowed but nodded, closing his eyes and tilting his face up. Just as he felt warm breath over his lips, he was suddenly swung to the side and dipped lower in an impressive move.
Nico's eyes snapped open, "Wha-" But he wasn't able to finish his sentence because suddenly, Will was kissing him.
The blond leaned back and smiled, before leaning back in to give the other a final chaste, kiss on the mouth. "And that," Will said a bit breathlessly, "Is how you end a dance."
Nico blinked and then snorted despite his flushed state, "I hope you don't end all your dances this way, Solace, or we need to have words."
Will laughed and gently pulled them back up. He rested his hands on Nico's waist, leaning down to rest his forehead on the other's shoulder. "Nah, I only do this with you, di Angelo."
Nico smiled and ran a hand through the messy blond hair, "I hope so." He said.
Will looked up and laughed. He gave him one more kiss. "Definitely."
FIN
Author's notes: I bet you guys thought Nico would strip tease *raised eyebrows* Well, to the second day (whew I can do this). Good? Bad? Tell me more about it!