So this is something I've been wanting to write for a couple weeks now, and finally I just sat down and decided to do it. Well, actually-I sat down to work on my other fanfic, Year of Nightmares, but writer's block is a bitch, so wasn't really working out. And since I was already sitting at the computer with wordpad up and running, I figured I might as well write...and this happened.
It's kinda rambly, and more like an expanded headcanon with patches of actual writing in certain places, but I wrote it, and it made me happy, so I'm posting it. Enjoy.
(side note: when I heard the news, it took all I had not to scream in excitement and jump up and down. I was in the car at the time, and you have no idea what a torturous thing it is to have to restrain yourself from being happy about something because your family is homophobic-well, your family and pretty much everyone else, where I live. But OH MY GOD, GAY MARRIAGE IS LEGAL IN ALL FIFTY STATES!)
LOVE WINS
Rainbows are fun to wear, Nico decides, unable to keep a grin from spreading across his face every time he catches a glimpse of the colors out of the corners of his eyes.
"Looking good, di Angelo!" He hears a familiar voice call, and that grin can't help but grow.
"Solace!" He greets teasingly, and Will laughs. "Copying me, are you?"
Because he's decked out in the same colors Nico chose to flaunt today. He's even got a rainbow bandana tied over his unkempt blond curls.
Will laughs again and throws his arms out wide, exhilarated. "It's a day to celebrate!" Finished with his outburst, he never loses his grin as he pulls Nico into a hug-his eyes radiate warmth and happiness when Nico, for once, doesn't pull away, and even returns the hug with enthusiasm, only ducking when Will moves to muss his hair.
"Hey, guys." Jason appears in front of them, eyeing their clothes curiously. "What's with the rainbows?"
Immediately, Nico and Will freeze, before identical ecstatic grins grow on their faces. "You haven't heard?" Will asks.
"Heard what?" Jason's forehead is crinkled in confusion, and Nico shares a glance with Will before they let go of each other and cup their hands around their mouths.
"GAY MARRIAGE IS LEGAL IN ALL FIFTY STATES!" They yell, and whoop in unison, collapsing against each other from laughter and pure euphoric excitement.
Jason's eyes grow wide, and a matching grin starts to appear on his features as well. "It is? Are you serious? When? How did you find out? It's only seven in the morning!"
But Nico just shakes his head. "Best thing I've woken up to in a long, long time." Is all he says, and next to him, Will nods agreement.
The door to the Poseidon cabin is suddenly thrown open, and Percy runs out in a rainbow cape, with more folded over his arm.
"GAY MARRIAGE IS LEGAL IN THE U.S.!" He shouts, and Nico feels almost resentful-he shouldn't be celebrating, it's not his rights that have finally been given-before he pushes it away. Today, he's only allowed to be happy.
"And here I thought you were straight as a board, Percy." Will jokes, and Percy stops, looking serious.
"I'm the son of Poseidon, Will. I've had crushes on girls and boys and pretty much everyone. Just 'cuz I'm dating Annabeth now doesn't mean I'm straight. She just fits me." His grin comes back. "Besides, have you read Greek mythology? Pretty sure you couldn't find a single person in this camp that's completely straight-unless they're lying."
"Name one guy that you've had a crush on." Nico dares him, sure he won't be able to. But Percy answers without a single hesitation.
"Ninth grade science teacher-Mr. Nowatarski, 'cept everyone called him Mr. No, on account of how hard it was to pronounce his name. He had a really nice ass."
Nico makes a strangled choking sound in his throat, and Will takes one look at his face and bursts out laughing.
"What does the Poseidon thing have to do with it?" He asks, trying desperately to change the subject.
Percy shrugs. "Dunno. But when I mentioned it to my Dad, he said that, being his son, he wasn't surprised. Something about how changeable the ocean is, and all that. Makes for flexible sexualities." His hair is messy, like he only got out of bed a few minutes ago, but he's very much awake and flushed with excitement. "And probably I'm going to marry Annabeth-we've talked about it, you know, and since we really can't live without each other, it seems logical-but it's still nice knowing that I could marry the next hot male science teacher I have."
Will laughs again, and the sound is so infectious that Nico can only join in.
"Gay pride cape, anyone?" Percy offers, holding out the extra he's got in his arms.
That word-gay-it used to make Nico flinch, every time he heard it. He still can't say it out loud. But now his heart soars with the rightness of it, and of the world in this moment, and he grabs one of the offered capes to tie it around his neck.
Will does the same, and Percy runs off, shouting the news through camp, offering more capes, and generally being an annoyance.
Only, with the news he's bringing, no one seems to be annoyed.
In the pavilion, where most of the campers are eating breakfast, several people scream in happiness at the news, hugging friends and others in excitement. Butch, the son of Iris that everyone thinks is aro because of his seeming aversion to relationships, drops his breakfast tray, rushes over to the Hypnos table, and kisses Clovis full on the mouth.
Maybe it's a trick of the light, but Nico could swear he's crying.
Chiron releases them all from lessons for the entire day when he hears, and suddenly they're in the middle of a full-out Greek party in celebration of 'the U.S. government finally getting their shit together,' as Clarisse words it, smiling and hugging one of her little brothers as he cries in sheer joy. The Iris cabin, at Butch's instructions, hands out seemingly endless supplies of armbands, t-shirts, bandanas, capes, etcetera with gay pride colors printed on them, or LOVE WINS written in huge letters. The flowers growing on the roof of the Demeter cabin are somehow changed to look like an American flag with rainbow stripes instead of red and white.
Those colors are spraypainted everywhere; Chiron's wearing a cape across his horse half. Nico has a skull painted in rainbow stripes on his cheek, and the Hecate and Hephaestus cabin are working together to put on a fireworks show 'that they'll never forget.'
Which, when those particular cabins are involved, probably means they're either going to get blown up or turned into some sort of animal. But no one complains, because nothing would be able to ruin this day.
...
Later, at the fireworks, Nico's happiness is retreating under a cloud of disappointment. After this morning, Will had disappeared, and though Nico'd been looking for him (which he'd never admit), he couldn't find him anywhere.
What if he's upset because I told him I wasn't ready? That was...wow, was that almost a year ago? But he agreed it'd be better to take things slow. What if he's stopped liking me because he doesn't think I like him back anymore? He thinks constantly, worrying, distracted. He sighs, and resigns himself to sitting at the edge of the beach, back behind everyone else, where he can sit in the shadows and keep out of everyone's way.
"Nico." He hears behind him, and whirls to see Will standing a few yards away, his hands in his pockets. His face is serious, and against his better judgement, hope starts to waver in Nico's chest. Nico steps towards him, but Will shifts just slightly, stopping him. The look on Will's face is upset-tortured by something he's thinking about.
"Can you say it now?"
The question takes Nico by surprise, freezing him where he stands, but he knows what Will means.
After the war with Gaea, during those three days Will insisted on him staying in the infirmary, they'd talked. A lot. Admitted that they liked each other, because Nico was tired of keeping his feelings hidden. But Nico also told Will that he wasn't very comfortable with his sexuality yet; that he could barely admit it to himself.
"You're still afraid of it." Will had said, and Nico remembers nodding.
Will understood. He'd admitted that he'd gone through the same thing, just sooner. His mom had helped him a lot, he said. But Nico didn't have parents or his older sister to help him through it, so Will agreed to give him time. Take things slow.
Can I say it? Nico wonders. He turns, looking up at the stars and absentmindedly pulling at his new bracelet. He closes his eyes, and breathes in the familiar smell of camp.
Somewhere along the way, that smell had started to become one that he associated with home.
For the first time, a sense of peace settles over Nico, and a new feeling of confidence flickers into life through all of the struggles he's put himself through because of two small words.
He opens his eyes, his expression serious, and steps over to Will. When he's maybe a foot away, he looks Will confidently in the eye-his favorite shade of blue, and one that he's memorized so thoroughly he could see it in his sleep.
"Will?" He starts. "I'm hella gay."
Okay, so maybe three words. He thinks to himself, allowing a faint smile. And maybe it's the completely serious way in which he says it, or the unexpectedness of his certainty, but Will laughs out loud.
Nico sees his white teeth flashing in the dark behind his laugh, and the way the corners of his eyes crinkle when his entire face lights up with happiness-how his curls are starting to get frizzy and tangled, falling into his eyes, in the humidity of a Long Island night, and somehow he finds himself kissing him, closer to him than he's ever been.
He tastes like sunshine. Sunshine, and warmth, and honey-summer days picking strawberries.
When he pulls away, suddenly nervous, Will's face is stunned.
"Um-sorry-" Nico starts to apologize, maybe attempt an explanation for his unexplainable actions, but Will just shakes his head and grins and pulls him in for another kiss.
"About damn time!" A voice says, interrupting them and causing them to pull away, blushes apparent on both their faces. When they look towards the source of the interruption, they find Piper standing with her hands on her hips. Jason is standing slightly behind her, his glasses crooked on his face, matching an equally crooked grin. Percy and Annabeth are with them, Percy with his arm thrown happily over Annabeth's shoulders.
"There was so much sexual tension in the air when you two were within a twenty meter radius of each other, Piper was threatening to lock you in a room together to work things out." Percy says, with his trademark troublemaker grin on his face, as always. Annabeth elbows him in the ribs.
"Rude!" She scolds him. "You're gonna make them uncomfortable!"
"Is that a camera?" Nico asks weakly, still blushing.
Piper nods, smirking. "I was gonna take pictures of the fireworks, but I found a much better view."
Will's blush is starting to fade, an exasperated smile taking its place. "Did you have to interrupt?"
"'Course we did." Jason replies. "That's what friends do."
Friends. Nico thinks, and a warm feeling grows in his chest as he realizes that he's managed to build a family here-or rather, they've built themselves around him, taken him in and made him a part of their family while he was too distracted to realize he'd already been given the very thing he'd been lacking when he hesitated to stay.
"Besides," Percy adds, with a wicked grin, "It's tradition, isn't it?"
"What is?" Nico asks, but his question goes unheard as Percy yells to the rest of the camp.
"Oi! Clarisse! We've got a new couple of lovebirds that need to cool off!" He shouts, and all the campers turn around to look at them.
"Oh, no." Nico says, trying to back away, his face bright red.
Will just looks resigned to their fate, but his face is the same shade of red as Nico's.
"Hey, it's Solace and di Angelo!" Clarisse exclaims. Then her face suddenly twists up in an expression of distaste. "Damnit, I owe Percy twenty bucks."
"Just twenty?" Piper asks, raising an eyebrow. "Geez, Percy, your betting game is weak. I'm gonna rake in almost two hundred over this, just from my cabin."
Percy raises an eyebrow in return. "Who says Clarisse is the only person in on the bet?"
But he doesn't get to finish his conversation with Piper, because they all join in on the flood of people rushing over and lifting up Nico and Will, cheering and wolf-whistling at the two of them.
Nico wants to crawl into a hole from embarassment, but Will finds his hand in the chaos and suddenly it's not so bad.
They get dumped off the end of the dock, into the ocean, keeping hold of each other's hand the entire time, and when they surface, Will shaking water out of his hair and Nico wiping it out of his eyes, they meet each other's eyes over the water and start laughing.
Once everyone clears off, back to their respective places on the beach to watch the fireworks with the ones they love, Nico and Will sit at the end of the dock to watch them from there, leaning against each other, fingers still intertwined.
And even though they're soaking wet, when the fireworks start to go off, filling the sky with rainbows and the shapes of hearts spelling out LOVE WINS...neither of them can come down from their elation enough to care about a little water.
They both agree it's the best night they've ever had, and they stay there long after the end of the fireworks and everyone's left, too drunk on bliss and utterly euphoric to care about the harpies catching them out past curfew.