Nico was annoyed.
Last week, after the whole Gaea thing, Will freaking Solace practically dragged him into the infirmary after having avoided it for two weeks, claiming he needed time to 'work on his social life' while staying equally unstable and occasionally walking through trees. So Will hadn't left him alone that much. Anytime he started to get all iffy, Will would be there with that nasty dirt gum. Soon enough, the two had become quite close friends. But when Nico walked through a table one morning, Will had yelled at him for delaying the infirmary and picked him up bridal style (after two attempts passing through his shadow arms). Five minutes and a wide range of Nico's colorful languages being spewed to all as he was carried, they arrived at the infirmary. And, to make it worse, the only hospital gown (Nico was not staying in that awful shirt) they had was covered in suns. Terrible.
For the first two days, Nico was under a forced kinda-coma. After he woke up, will made him sit there for another three whole days. Nico was practically tethered to a bed while Will sat next to him the entire time (he left all of twice, claiming that the other Apollo kids would take care of the others and threatening to sing if Nico tried to get up). Nico tried about every excuse in the book, even a few accurately-named death glares, but nothing seemed to faze Will. Every attempt to do anything would result in a smirk from Will and "Get back in bed, Nico. DOCTORS ORDERS." Nico was about ready to send Will to the underworld if he said that one more time.
Anyways, like Will promised, Nico was released back to normal activities Wednesday at lunch. It was the first time since the battle he had seen his friends, since Will was being an overprotective mother to him and wouldn't let Nico have any visitors. And as it turned out, they were playing capture the flag after dinner, and Nico was dead set on playing, much to Will and literally everyone else's chargin.
Percy and Annabeth, the leaders of the team, begrudgingly set Nico off to hold the woods, off to the far side near Zeus's Fist. It wasn't much action, but it was movement, which was better than what he had gotten the past three days.
He set off, in his usual black jeans and dark gray shirt, to the rock formation. It took about twenty minutes to reach, and Nico immediately set up camp. He had his practice dagger (made of celestial bronze. He didn't want any issues with the black blade and any souls) strapped to his thigh, and a light chest plate carelessly thrown over his shirt. Knowing nothing would be happening, he climbed up onto the top of the rocks to maybe enjoy the sun for a while. Laying back atop the highest rock, not having slept in a good week because he didn't want to wake anyone with his rather violent nightmares, he felt himself dozing off against his will.
He was in that weird half dream half awake place when he was so kindly interrupted with a nightmare. He was falling into Tartarus. The ground came up so quickly, and right as he hit the floor of the pit, he jumped up onto his feet, whipped the dagger out, and was ready to fight what ungodly creature decide it would dare oppose the son of death. Well, that's what he liked to think was what happened.
What really happened, though, was Nico snapped his eyes open, screamed, flailed, tried to jump up, landed awkwardly on his ankle, and fell off the boulder, landing on his arm, onto another rock. The crunch of his arm was the last thing he heard before he blacked out when his head bounced off the rock.
mmmmmm
The first time he came to, it was darkish, and someone was shaking his shoulders frantically, his arm was killing him, and he was on something hard. He tried to talk, but it came out as a rough "mmph." before he passed out again.
Round two, he was on something soft. There was light from behind his eyelids, meaning he was probably brought into the infirmary. Great. His head still jumbled up words, but he could clearly hear three voices, one belonging to a girl, the other two were boys. He was still hurting; his ankle, head, and arm felt like they were twisting; but the pain had gone away a bit. He felt a poke on his leg, but couldn't respond because the darkness was pulling him into unconsciousness .
The third time, it was dark in the infirmary. He didn't hear anything around him, so everyone was probably asleep. He managed to crack an eye open just barely and looked around, and found that the infirmary was completely empty. That's odd considering how they were playing capture the flag a few hours ago. Normally it's full the night afterwards. His ankle was barely a dull throb, and his arm only hurt a little. It was wrapped and splinted and from the bandages, it must have been bad. Nico slowly opened his eyes fully, letting them get used to the small glow from the lanterns. It was right about then when he noticed the form next to his bed. Said figure was also clutching his good hand, and was fast asleep, head on his arm, which was right next to Nico's stomach. Nico sat up a little, and immediately regretted it. His head was pounding, like he was getting whacked on the head with one of Leo's hammers with every heartbeat. The dizziness made him fall back onto the pillow.
"Will." Nico whispered, voice hoarse and cracking. But will was still fast asleep. "Wiiiiill," Nico tried again. "Hey, Solace, you gonna get up?" His voice was barely a whisper, but it was rather loud in the almost empty infirmary. After two more failed attempts to wake the Apollo boy, Nico decided to just let him sleep. If the bags under his eyes said anything, it was that Will needed a bit of sleep. That's odd, though. They weren't there this morning.
Nico, having nothing better to do, started to look at his surroundings. He was in a different room than he was used to, more medical things were in this room, compared to the other room, which only really just had a bed. There was a chair pulled up to his bedside, and Will was half draped across that and his bed. In this lighting, Will's slightly tanned face, with its perfect structures and God-like features, looked gorgeous. Nico shook his head, trying to expel the thought.
Nico, you just got over Percy, don't throw yourself into another hopeless crush.
But dammit, the more he sat alone with Will holding his hand, the more and more he started to really like Will. Ugh. Rule 1: never leave Nico alone in the infirmary with his thoughts. He'd probably end up either a mess from memories, or accidentally gaining a new crush. Neither good for his health. Nico felt himself blush, and looked out the window on the other side of the room.
Will squeezing his hand drew back his attention to the boy in front of him. Will slowly picked his head up off the bed, and looked at their hands awkwardly intertwined, and Nico could swear he saw him smile. Not that Nico cared. He mumbled something about heart rate, and did a once over of Nico, and froze when he realized he was awake and staring at him.
"Hey." Nico whispered, not sure if anyone else was in the infirmary.
"Oh, uh, I uh, hi." Will mumbles, straightening himself out. Will looked adorable right then, with his curly hair a mess, a hand mark across his face from where his hand was when he was asleep.
"I feel fine. Can I go now? Nobody else is still here." Nico asked plainly. Will, on the other hand, sat straight up, furrowed his brow, and shook his head, immediately awake.
"Nice try, death boy, but you're not going anywhere." Nico let out probably the longest groan he'd ever heard.
"Will. I just got out of here a few hours ago, and-" Will let out a huff of laughter and interrupted him.
"Days."
"What?"
"Nico, you were unconscious for three days. You fell three nights ago." Will said slowly, subconsciously squeezing Nico's hand.
"Oh." That news was enough to promptly shut him up, along with the fact that he was still holding hands with Will. Not that he really minded, honestly. Perfectly fine with him. Holding hands with a his cute overly-concerned friend. Wow, Nico thought. I must be all screwed up because I do not think like that.
"What happened?" Nico asked, wondering how badly he was actually hurt.
"Well, since you decided to nosedive off the pile of rocks, you-"
"I didn't just jump off, Will, I'm not stupid." Nico interjected, pouting to try and and convince the obviously unconvinced son of Apollo to let him leave.
"Then how, exactly, did you end up a crumpled bloody mess at the bottom of Zeus's Fist?" Will asked, with an unbelieving look, but Nico could tell that he was just concerned. Cute. Nico felt himself freeze. Knowing Will, if he mentioned his nightmares and insomnia from Tartarus and the PTSD that he has from his little vacation downstairs, Will would make him tell all, claiming some type of therapy. And Nico's communication skills with things that were alive weren't exactly at its peak. After a grumbled sigh and a few mutters insulting the infirmary, Nico looked up.
"Listen, I needed to catch up on sleep. I had a nightmare, woke up, and lost my balance."
"Well, sunshine, you wound up with a bone sticking through your arm, a sprain in your ankle that almost ripped through a ligament, and to top it off, you got a concussion. So, you're pretty much healed save a sore arm, but you're not leaving this bed for about twenty four more hours." Nico choked on the air he was breathing.
"What?"
"Yup. One more whole day. You better have gotten used to my face, death boy, because it's gonna be around every minute now that you're all broken." Was that even possible? Will had spent so much time by his bed, it felt like they knew so much about each just glared as Will not-so-subtly smirked. But after an intense stare off, Will's smirk turned into that cute frown he got when he was thinking.
No. Not cute. Nico, you need to stop.
"Wait. Nico, what do you mean you needed sleep? You slept fine for three nights straight before." Crap. Yeah, totally. More like three minutes of sleep.
"I, uh, I did get three nights of sleep. I just needed to, uh, catch up on what sleep I had lost earlier." Nico wrung his fingers and looked away from Will, trying to keep the 'I'm totally lying' look off his face. But apparently, his attempts were futile.
"Not buying it. You suck at lying, Nico. Did you actually fall off the rock from a nap?" Will said with an accusatory tone and barely there look of concern. Nio just rolled his eyes at Will's not really subtle implication.
"Yes, Solace. If I was trying to kill myself like you're so convinced that I would try and do, I'd jump off a building, not a twenty foot tall rock formation." Nico deadpanned, getting slightly miffed at Will's unspoken accusation. Will opened his mouth to say something, but Nico cut him off with an incredulous look. "And before you deny it, yes, I know that's what you were thinking." Will didn't say anything for about ten seconds, all of which Nico kept his glare.
"So you fell off the rock. But why did you need the sleep?" Nico glanced down to avoid both Will's eyes and his question. Without an answer, Will tilted his head into Nico's line of sight. "Nico, when was the last time you actually got a full night's rest without being knocked unconscious beforehand. Like, eight hours straight." Wow, that's a question Nico did not know the answer to. With a huff of realization, he pulled up his hand and started counting off on his fingers. It's been what, one, two, three,
"Four." He said out loud, looking up guiltily.
"Four days? That's fine, I guess, considering the fighting and being out of the cabin and-"
"Years."
"YEARS!" Will said, taken aback.
"Yeah. Pretty much right after I found out about all this," Pretty much right after I found out about Bianca. And the nightmares haven't stopped since. Nico said in his mind. Nico bit his lip to keep from getting all emotional around Will. The past four years had been terrible for him. It hurt thinking about it all.
Bianca's death, Midas's lies, dad's talks, fighting Kronos, bringing back Hazel, going between camps,being scared of who he was, being so exhausted he was literally fading from the world, the jar he was trapped in, and mostly, Tartarus. The things he had seen, experienced, been told down there was enough to make someone so depressed they would want nothing other than to blow their brains out. But Nico was already at that point when he fell in, so it wasn't much of a change. How he managed to get out sane was above him. His thoughts were interrupted by Will shouting at him.
"Nico!" Will's hand waved across his field of vision, forcing him to snap out of his memories. But looking back at will made him feel guilty again, so he looked back down., trying to slow his on-the-edge-of-a-panic-attack-fast breathing. Hm. When did that start? Nico could feel Will studying him. "Are you ok?"
"Yes, Solace, I'm fine." Nico says, tugging his hand free from Will's vice like grasp, scowling at the cold, and scowling even further at the fact that he missed the warmth there.
"Nico. I swear to the Gods, if you lie and say you're fine one more time I'm going to have to call Lou Ellen over and get her to cast a truth spell on you." The famous death glare makes an appearance, but Will ignores it and moves to sit next to Nico on his bed. What is it about Will Solace that makes him immune to what would usually implant fear into everyone else he knows?
"Solace, I said that I'm -"
"Nico, stop. You're gonna have to tell me what's wrong or I can't help you. Even I can tell your battle wounds go a little deeper than the skin. I want you to get better, and the first step to getting better is admitting there's a problem in the first place. And there are people here who would like nothing more to see you happy again. You have friends here, Nico. Friends who care, and friends who love you. I hope that you'll see that one day, instead of keeping it all bottled up, because one day that balloon's going to pop, and it's harder to pick up the pieces when they're scattered."
Nico wasn't sure what it was, but the way Will was looking at him, with such determination in his blue eyes, that made him want to spill his guts to the healer. But he stopped those words, trying to come up with a viable excuse. He looked back up at Will and locked stares.
That was his mistake. The way his eyes cut through the near-darkness, it made all his reasoning collapse. That's all he was anymore, excuse after excuse. He could feel all his pain from his past creeping up, burning like bile. The more it sat, the more it hurt. The more it ate away at him.
The unshed tears from everything pushed at his eyes, and he scrunched them closed, determined not to seem so weak. He felt himself start to shake, thinking about the past, and he curled his legs into his chest, squeezing them as tight as he could, trying to stop the trembling. The amount of times he's wanted to end it all. When all he wanted was to join Bianca in the underworld. When the taunts of death that rang through Tartarus seemed the only way out. When he knew he was so close to death, about to fade into the dark, part of him wanted to just do it and be out of everyone's way. He still could. He wouldn't be such a nuisance when he's dead.
It was when he felt a pair of warm, strong arms pull him in was when the floodgates broke. Nico's body racked with sobs, shaking like a leaf and he curled into Will, and let it go. He could feel Will talking, in a soft, calm, and soothing voice that drew out the darkness that sat within him. One of the blonde boy's hands was holding Nico against him, giving him an anchor, while the other was softly going up and down his back, like his Bianca used to do. That, of course, only made him cry more. Will was like a warm light, flitting through the darkness that had swallowed him whole years ago. The steady thump-thump that sounded in Will's chest echoed in Nico's mind, pushing and drowning out the thoughts like charmspeak.
Eventually, Will's heart persuaded Nico's own to slow down from it's fast and unsteady pace. The more Will spoke in his hushed whispers, the calmer Nico felt. The longer Will held Nico to his warm torso, the more there he felt. The slower Will's breathing got, Nico's matched until he had been lulled to sleep by the rhythmic thump-thump and steady in-out of Will's chest, and the humming he felt as Will spoke. As he fell asleep, he could have sworn the warm pressure he felt on his forehead was Will's lips.
.mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Nico found himself inside the Hypnos cabin, which meant one thing; he was dreaming, and Clovis, the head of the cabin, had pulled him into his weird little dream-forum thing. Ever since he had arrived, Clovis sometimes sucked sleeping demigods into his presence, which was exactly what had just happened.
"Clovis." Nico said as he walked into the cabin. Said son of Hypnos was facing the other way, actually awake unlike his usual form.
"Oh, hey Nico." Clovis greeted, turning to face him. "It's been a while, man." Clovis had a weird presence at camp. Nobody really hated him, and he was friends with everyone.
"Yeah, it has."
"Scared of flashbacks?" Nico nodded. Clovis probably knew more about Nico than anyone else in the camp, just through glimpses of his nightmares. "So how's the arm doing? I only heard about it a million times at the meeting yesterday."
"Huh?"
"Yeah, Chiron called us in to talk about how the dryads were getting pissed about how many kids left their napkins last week. But you weren't there, and Will's second in command was there. People asked about it. Dylan grumbled something about your broken arm and Will yelling at him to leave and how he hadn't left your side or something. Heard stuff like that and about how Will flipped out about someone wanting to take over for him because he wouldn't budge." Clovis said it so nonchalantly, but Nico got all flustered.
"My, uh, my arm's fine now. Still in the splint, but I was awake for about an hour and didn't get it off."
"How's your boyfriend?" Clovis asked, and Nico choked on the dream air he was breathing in.
"What?!" He squeaked out, feeling the blush on his face.
"Wait, you're not dating anyone?" Nico sat down on the bench that materialized beneath him.
"N-No." He said, fanning his face like Hazel did when she was overwhelmed. "Who would this guy be anyway?" Clovis froze and looked away, yawning. "Clovis." Nico deadpanned, trying to look as convincing as possible while looking like a tomato.
"I, uh, can't say." He manages out. "But there is someone who really likes you in camp. I didn't even need to look in his dreams to guess. He stares at you a lot, and if I see it a lot being how often I'm awake, it's a lot." Nico was lost. Someone in camp liked him? Why him?
"A-anyway." Nico tried to sound normal, but his voice cracked horrendously and he had to clear his throat and start over. "How's Will doing?" Clovis gets that far off look when he's checking others' dreams, and grins.
"He's awake."
"Awake?"
"Yup. And by the way, you sleep like a baby." Nico blushed even worse.
"Shut up sleep boy. I had a panic attack. He decided to sit with me and I accidentally fell asleep." Nico said, glaring.
"Mmhmmn."
"Tell anyone I fell asleep on Will I'll open the underworld underneath you." Nico threatened, grabbing his shirt collar, but Clovis wasn't fazed.
"Not a single soul." Clovis said, miming zipping his mouth shut.
"Hey Clovis?"
"You wanna check up on him, don't you?"
"If I say yes are you gonna judge?" Nico asked glaring daggers. He and Clovis had gone over this before. Cross the son of Hades, and no one will find your body.
"Nope."
"Then yeah." Nico said, still blushing. Clovis smiled again, and Nico soon found his dream self looking across the infirmary at himself and Will.
Clovis wasn't here, so Nico walked to the cot across from his own. In the darkness, he could see Will working on his arm, slowly trying to undo his splint to check his injury. He could guess that his arm had been healed for a while now, and Will was being the big baby and keeping it on just in case. Looking satisfied with his arm, Will lifted it and started undoing the wrapping on Nico's left arm. Sleeping Nico sighed a little bit and nuzzled into Will's chest. The dream Nico rolled his eyes at himself. He had a reputation to uphold. He shouldn't be the cuddly one. But here he was, clinging onto Will like he was a big teddy bear. He was such a loser.
"There you go, sunshine." Will said as he took off the gauze. Dream Nico hated the fact that he always smiled at that nickname, internally or not. No matter what way he said it, it sounded like a cute nickname, completely the opposite of what he appeared as, but for some reason it stuck. Will was probably the only one who could get away with nicknaming him. Had Jason ever called him even Neeks he would have one less leg to call his own.
Will, leaned back onto the elevated back of his bed. Dream Nico watched as Will wrapped his arm around real Nico, and started toying with his hair. Wow. It was starting to get long. Nico could hear Will humming to some tune, and surprisingly, it wasn't off tune like everyone in camp had claimed his humming/singing was.
There wasn't any clocks in the room, so Nico had no clue how long Will had been running his fingers through Nico's hair, smiling at him with that damn smile, and humming songs that he only recognized about half of, and musing to himself while dream Nico sat across from him, crosslegged with a big fat goofy smile plastered on his face that was starting to hurt his cheeks. But what felt like twenty minutes later, which probably was an hour, Will reached down and pressed the recline button, yawning. Dream Nico watched as Nico shifted right along with Will, curling into him like he was molding into him. Dream Nico blushed as Will chuckled. Who knew he was such a cuddler. It was embarrassing. But Will just pulled the Italian to his chest, and Nico watched for a few minutes before felt himself dissolve from the weird dream-reality as Will fell asleep into his own dream.
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm watcha sayyyyyy
Sunlight was the first thing he noticed when he started to wake up. Nico still wasn't going to open his eyes, but the way the light looked from behind his eyelids, he was guessing it was about sunrise. The next thing he noticed was the presence he felt beside him. That, however, was enough to snap his eyes open immediately.
It was Will. Will was still in his bed-cot thing. Will was in his bed, under his blankets, facing Nico, arms around him and blonde hair a mess. Will was in his bed and Nico could feel how tangled their legs were together. Will was in Nico's bed, and Nico was cuddled up to his chest, with Will's arms curled protectively around the smaller boy.
Nico was silent for a minute, looking up at the golden haired boy in front of him, and immediately looked away. It was weird, all the physical contact, having gone so long without barely any. But now, what was even weirder, was that he didn't mind any of it. Dare he say he was enjoying it. He remembered how Will watched him sleep last night, and smiled again. Then, to hide the smile, he buried his face in Will's extremely comfortable and strong (?!) chest, and sighed, still smiling like a goofball.
"Aww, I liked seeing the smile on you." He felt Will's chest rumble with the comment, and he froze. It took all of Nico's mind to sculpt the grin into a glare, but he tried.
"I wasn't smiling. I was grimacing at you."
"Sure, sunshine. Sure you weren't smiling at my magical presence." Will said smirking. Which, of course, constituted an eye roll and burning ears that thankfully was hidden by his hair. It seemed that they had both decided to ignore the elephant in the room, not wanting to be the one to bring up the fact that they woke up cuddling and still were.
"Even if I was smiling, I was smiling at a dream, not you, don't sound flattered, sun boy." Nico said, glaring up at the other boy. Will took his hand that was draped around Nico's waist, and dramatically placed it on his chest, feigning hurt. Nico ignored the feeling that he wanted it back there and mentally smacked himself.
"I'm truly wounded."
"You'll heal yourself, you loon." Nico rolled his eyes and poked at Will's chest.
"Not sure, I don't think I'll make it."
"Shut it, sun boy, or I'll give you something to whine about." And Will, of course with some stupid reasoning, decides the best course of action would be to flick Nico on the forehead. Nico just swatted Will's hand away with a half hearted frown.
"I don't know about that one, Neeks. I just might die." He said, poking the son of Hades in the side. Which, of course, happened to be exactly where he was ticklish. So, against his will, he squirmed a bit, and growled at Will threateningly. But it went over Will's head, because Will's eyes fixed on that little crease in his side where a poke could (embarrassingly) drop him.
"What is this?" Wil says, as if he just found a bar of gold instead of a simple ticklish spot. "Is the mighty prince of the underworld, the holy ghost king, ticklish?" Nico frowned and rolled his eyes at the overdramatization. Although, he shifted to try and block the spot and sat up, leaving the really freaking comfortable arms of Will and ignoring the weird feeling that he wanted to lay right back into his arms.
"Really, Solace? I'm not ticklish. I am, however hungry, so if you could just get- AHP!" Nico didn't get to finish his sentence, because Will pulled him back down and sat on Nico's thighs in one fluid motion. Nico felt himself go as red as a tomato again immediately, and he could feel his heart rate skyrocket. He did not need a heart attack at the moment, honestly.
"They say laughter is the best medicine," Will says, crossing his arms and smirking. "So, since you don't ever smile or laugh, looks like I'm going to have to get it out of you the hard way, di Angelo. Doctor's orders."
Nico gulped. Then shook himself out of it, realizing what Will was about to do.
"Solace, don't you dare."
"Solace is about to dare to, and there's nothing you can do about it." Will beams, knowing Nico can't do anything about it.
"Will..." Nico leaves the threat open, but Will elects to ignore it, as usual. Nico starts to squirm under him, but Will wasn't budging, and his hands were getting closer to his sides. And then, his hands attacked his sides, and Will was laughing as Nico yelped and squealed, unable to control his wiggling and giggles as Will kept tickling him. This was a terrible and embarrassing way to die. He would make sure to haunt Will post-mortem. But now, he was being tickled to death with a cute boy on top of him. And it was annoying him that he couldn't manage to get the biggest smile he's had in a while to go away.
"Wi- Will!" Nico managed between laughs and trying to shove away Will's hands. "St-stoAAHP!"
"Never!" Nico could hear Will laughing, thoroughly enjoying the torture he was putting Nico through.
"NO, Will don't you dAARE!" he squealed as Will started tickling his neck too. Will went back to poking his sides, and Nico managed to catch both his hands with his own. "WILLIAM JAMES SOLACE!" Nico shouted once he caught his breath, getting the stupid smile off his features.
"How do you know my middle name?" Will asked innocently confused, stopping the tickle attack for a second and getting a puzzled look on his face.
"You ramble." Nico remembered a few days ago when Will had talked about how his mom would always yell it when he knew he was going to get in big trouble. "And right now, if you weren't on top of me, I'd be chasing you and spewing death threats. But here we are, and you're sitting on me." Will tensed for a second, like he forgot, and rolled his eyes, plopping down right onto Nico's chest, still very much on top of him.
"Yeah, but you're comfy." Will said, snuggling into Nico's chest, eliciting a whole new wave of blushing to grace his already red face. It felt like both a blessing from the gods and a curse when Will stopped crushing the Italian, settling next to him, but not holding back on the whole 'cuddling' aspect.
"Really, Solace?" All Nico got in response was a mumble and a nod.
"You're a really good pillow. You sure you're not a Hypnos kid?" Nico couldn't help having the image of himself conked out in some unnatural sleeping position for 19 hours of the day. A light laugh escaped his lips. Will looked back up to Nico, and the Italian could swear his heart stopped for a second. The pinks and gold from the just-finishing sunrise lit up Will's hair to look as if it was made of pure gold. His sky blue eyes were opened wide in amusement and surprise. And to place the metaphorical cherry on top, Will had that stupid smile to match his laugh that Nico wasn't sure if he wanted to smack off or kiss it off.
"What's this? Mr. Broody himself just laughed? The mighty, brave, heroic, Ghost King is capable of laughter? Gods, I've hit the jackpot for blackmail this morning! A smile, tickles, and now a snort from the amazing Nico di Angelo himself." Nico ignored the lighthearted quip on his lack of laughing ever, but focused on the words Will used instead. Nico couldn't think of the last time he did anything along the lines of heroic. Or brave. Hell, he'd suffice for even something decently mighty. Sure, he brought a statue home, but that was because nobody else could, and he almost turned himself into a ghost doing so. He had almost killed Reyna and Coach Hegde. If he had been any more off, they'd have to shadow travel again. And then Nico really would have killed them with himself, along with obliterating the Athena Parthenos. Not to mention the fact that the two camps would be at war, simultaneously against each other and the primordial goddess of literally anything they stood on.
"I'm not any of that." Nico said, in an embarrassingly small voice, staring at the ceiling. "Well, broody maybe, but the other stuff? Not at all." This was awkward. Nico was so used to looking at his feet and crossing his arms over his chest, grumbling in Italian, whenever someone said anything that he didn't agree with. Now, if he looked down, he'd be greeted with the face of the stupid cheeky healer, who currently was laying on his arm, immobilizing it, and close enough to hear his mutterings. Dammit.
"What was that?" Will asked, and Nico could imagine the insulted look on his face. "I'm sorry, I must still be asleep, because you didn't just say that." Nico just rolled his eyes and scoffed. Will should have known Nico long enough to know that's what his reaction would be. "Not at all heroic? Excuse you, who was the one who volunteered to bring back a giant statue that would prevent the ending of the world? Not to mention the fact that you moved halfway across Europe and crossed an ocean with it? Or how you survived Tartarus, alone? Beat all those monsters, stayed alive in literally the pits of hell. You have amazing abilities, underworld-y or not. You're one of the best people I've ever known with a sword. You convinced your father to set aside a grudge, and help kill Kronos himself. You survived for years on your own as a child of the big three out in the Labyrinth. You traveled between camps before any of us knew the other existed. You gave Hazel a second chance at life and Elysium. You, sir, are literally the bravest person I'll ever know." Will finished his rant a bit breathless, and Nico was too confused to breathe at the moment.
At some point in the lecture, they both had sat up, and while Nico was left swinging his legs over the edge of the cot, Will had begun to pace the generically tiled floor. And right now, the hard set determined look that his best friend was giving him, with Will's blue eyes lit with a new type of shine, and how his stern look had cracked into a grin, Nico wasn't sure if he was going to start breathing again. Will walked right up to Nico, plopped his hands on either side of Nico's hips, and stared him straight in the eyes, his face inches away from Nico's own, making him forget about how the hell had he figured out so much about him.
"And I can continue going on, so I think it's time you opened up those gods-damned eyes of yours for half a second and recognize how fucking amazing you actually are." Yup. That's official. Nico was not going to be breathing normally ever again. But what really shocked Nico was the fact that Will, William actual 5 year old Solace, would actually use a cuss word, which meant he was really a) passionate about it or b) annoyed by it. Neither was making much of any sense.
And since Nico wasn't in much of a state of response, he just looked to his lap, tangling his fingers together. The next time Will spoke, it was in such a hushed tone, Nico wouldn't have caught it if Will wasn't still 3 inches away from him.
"Hey," Nico's chin was suddenly lifted up by a warm hand, leaving him nowhere to look but the two sky blue orbs in front of him. "You ok?" Nico swallowed whatever response that was trying to make its way out, and nodded. He didn't exactly trust his brain right now, he could either say something snarky like planned, or mention how much he wanted to kiss Will at the moment.
"Uh, y-yeah." The son of Apollo looked like he was scrutinizing every inch of Nico's face, and Nico felt his face heat up.
"You're a bit red. Are you sick?" Damn his blushing. Actually, anyone in their right mind would blush if the hottest guy they knew was inches from your face and talking in that tone of voice. Damn solace.
"Solace. I'm fine." Nico hoped his voice sounded stronger than it did to him. He just rolled his eyes for extra emphasis. That should make up for it, right?
"Do I really have to stick you in the infirmary for even longer? You need to start caring about your health, death boy." If Will wanted to have a decent conversation, he was going to need to get his freaking gorgeous face at least two feet away from Nico's.
"Alright then, sunshine, make me." A smirk played on Nico's face.
"Alright then." Nico tried his best to ignore the smirk to match his own, but for some reason it looked so much better on Will. Nico looked into Will's eyes, daring him to do something. Apparently it worked, because moments later, Will was leaning in and...
Oh.
Oh.
Will Solace was kissing him. Will. Fucking. Solace. Good gods.
Nico couldn't help it when his eyes fluttered shut, and he wrapped his arms around Solace's waist, tugging him ever closer.
It was a short kiss, but it was definitely enough.
"You know what, Solace, the infirmary might not be that bad."
"You're such an idiot." Will laughed, ruffling Nico's hair. "A cute idiot."
...
Woop woop Kuhlare12 here I return with more trash because I am so far down in Solangleo hell it isn't even funny anymore