Summary: That one time where Will's friends and siblings misunderstand and they try to shovel talk a confused (and maybe, slightly, terrified) Nico. Gods, why does everybody keep thinking they were dating?
Based on this post I read in tumblr: "Yeah, yeah, we know, the Seven plus Reyna is definitely going to haunt Will's ass if he hurts Nico. But dude can you imagine how many people is going to do the same for Will if Nico is the one who hurts him?
You have the Apollo cabin. They'd totally hunt Nico down with their bows and arrows and their rhyming curses. After all, Will is their brother and head counselor, it doesn't matter if Nico is a son of the Big Three, bitch you mess with their brother you mess with them." by todaymakestwohundredandfiftyfive
(hope you find this enjoyable!)
Break His Heart, We Break Your Bones
by LDJE
Nico felt the hostility the moment he stepped out of his cabin.
The hair at the back of his neck stood up and he couldn't help but look around warily, wondering if a monster somehow came in the Camp or one of Octavian's loyal followers came to kill him. To his confusion no one was even staring his way and everyone was going about their business as usual. He wondered if maybe the lack of sleep and rest was finally catching up to his brain... but then he shook his head. He went back in the cabin and came out holding his trusty Stygian Iron sword, it's always better to be safe than sorry.
He was passing by the Hermes' cabin when he was grabbed by the hood of his hoodie and dragged to the back of the said cabin. He spun around quickly and skillfully pointed his dark blade at the perpetrator's neck. He blinked in surprise when he saw who it was that grabbed and easily dragged him.
"Cecil?" (Man, maybe he should eat more if he's being dragged around so easily)
Instead of being scared that a sharp blade of darkness was being held threateningly to his neck, the son of Hermes just had his arms crossed, an unimpressed look on his face. Nico put down his blade, "Sorry, I thought you were some monster or something…"
"Look," Cecil suddenly spoke in a sharp tone that made the son of Hades look at him in confusion. "Despite being the son of Hades and being a freakin' scary demigod, I thought you were okay, especially after the fight with Gaea."
"Okay…" Nico said slowly, but then his eyebrows scrunched, "Wait, thought?"
The other demigod stepped forward, "I may not be scary as Lou or Clarisse or the whole Apollo Cabin and I may be less violent… but you hurt Will, I hurt your pride."
"You hurt my what?"
"Embarrassment will be your constant companion." The mischievous son of Hermes said as he poked Nico on the chest, "I'm warning you di Angelo, if you don't set things right…" He gave him a narrowed glare, "Watch yourself."
When Cecil walked away, Nico just stared after him in utmost confusion, wondering what he did now. He sighed and bent down to pick up his Stygian Iron sword, "Well, that just happened." He grumbled as he headed to the Mess Hall.
Maybe Nico should have expected that things would only go downhill from there. He had gone into the Mess Hall, raising a hand at Jason who was giving him a happy look as he gestured for Nico to sit at his table with Piper. The daughter of Aphrodite gave the son of Hades a smile.
The dark-haired teen went to grab some pancakes and bread before making his way to the son of Jupiter's table. Just as he was about to bite the bread, he noticed it was smooth, pink, and not edible.
"What the-" Nico began as the ball began to smoke. He did the first thing that came into his mind and threw it as far as he could. Unfortunately, it landed on Cecil who had just stood up to go to the rest room. As Cecil toppled to the floor at the sudden impact, ball exploded and the pink smoke was suddenly everywhere. Some of the campers panicked and a few let out screams. When the smoke vanished, an angry piglet was screeching at them, wearing Cecil's jacket.
Nico gaped before he looked around. He heard an "Oh, no!" And sure enough, he found Lou Ellen by the buffet table shooting Cecil an apologetic look. "Sorry!" She called out to the angry piglet who was being swarmed by the Hecate cabin, trying to turn him back into a human.
Nico stomped up to the daughter of Hecate, "What the hell was that?"
Lou jumped at Nico's tone as she looked at him. Her apologetic expression dropped to a frown, "None of your business, di Angelo. You just better be grateful that it didn't get you." She huffed as she walked away to help her friend.
Nico stayed where he was, gaping and wondering if all of his friends (ex-friends now, apparently) had gone crazy. There was a low whistle beside him and he turned to see Percy, looking impressively at the mess Lou Ellen made.
"Wow, I wonder what you did to get Lou Ellen angry." He said with a wink. Nico gave him an unimpressed look.
"Shut up, Jackson." He snapped but truthfully, he was wondering the same himself.
The son of Hades knew things weren't about to get better when a daughter of Ares marched up to him and offered to spar. Nico was embarrassed to admit it, but he looked around first, making sure that Jason and Percy were at least nearby before he agreed. It was better to be safe than sorry.
Clarisse snorted at the son of Hades, "Don't worry about it, di Angelo, Chris is right there," She motioned to her boyfriend who had his arms crossed and was looking at his girlfriend with warning. "He'll stop me if I do any real damage." Her eyes glinted and Nico did not feel safer at all.
To his surprise though, the spar went on normally. Clarisse was violent and strong but Nico was quick and steadfast. He avoided most of the blows that would have sent him to the ground and parried the daughter of Ares with his own moves. His apprehension and suspicion was starting to go down when Clarisse suddenly moved forward, grabbed him by the shirt and flipped him to the ground.
Nico let out a surprised grunt, eyes wide as Clarisse smiled down at him dangerously. "I'll make this clear and simple, di Angelo, you may be the prince of the Underworld and a son of one of the Big Three… but you hurt him and I'll hurt you."
The son of Hades blinked in surprise before asking warily, "Hurt who?"
Clarisse rolled her eyes and leaned back to Nico's relief. She grabbed him by the arm and easily stood him up. "You are seriously even more of an idiot than Jackson if you don't know who I'm talking about." She said with a shake of her head as Nico frowned at his intellect being compared to a certain Seaweed brain. "Now, go apologize to him. If you don't, his cabin won't be as forgiving as I was." She warned before turning to leave with her boyfriend.
As Nico stood there wondering what the hell just happened, Jason ran up to him patting him on the back.
"Hey, I just saw Clarisse judo flip you." Jason said, "You okay? Do you need to go to the infirmary?"
"I'm fine." Nico assured as he dusted off his clothes, "Just confused."
"Anything I can do to help?"
Nico thought for a minute, "You could cover for me with the sword lessons. I think I need to go ask somebody about what's happening." He said, "I need to go visit someone in Apollo's cabin."
When Nico finally got around to going to Apollo's cabin (he decided to go during the evening because he felt a lot more secure in the dark), the last thing he expected was to be ambushed by Apollo's children all dressed in black, bows and arrows slung over their backs as they glared at the son of Hades.
Oh crap, Nico thought as he backed up to the outside wall of Apollo's cabin. He tried to recount everything he'd done so far and he couldn't find any reason for the usually sunny children of Apollo to be mad at him. Crap, crap, crap I'm in trouble and I don't even know what for! He gulped. He had been hoping to talk to Will, wondering if he had any idea why everyone was suddenly out to get him but it seemed like his efforts would be frutiless. He was honestly contemplating shadow travelling, but he didn't need another child of Apollo angry at him.
"Uh, hey guys." Nico said weakly as he tried to blend in with the shadows. "Is something wrong?"
Austin's eyes narrowed as he notched an arrow into his bow and aimed. He let it go and the arrow sailed through the air before it embedded itself near Nico's head. The son of Hades was staring at them wide-eyed.
"You break Will's heart, we break your bones." Kayla said with crossed arms as her siblings nodded seriously behind them.
"We're children of Apollo." Justin piped up, "We can break bones as easily as we mend them."
"Are you-" Nico hesitated, "Is this… a shovel talk?"
"I brought the shovel!" An eight-year-old blond piped from somewhere in the right.
"No, Clara, that shovel is for burying Nico's body later." Kayla said gently to one of their youngest siblings as Nico froze.
"Excuse me?" He said, surprised, "That was a joke right?"
Apollo's children's expressions were worryingly somber and grave in reply to his question.
"Where's Will?" Nico pleaded instead, hoping for at least one sane child of Apollo.
"You don't get to talk to Will." One of the youngest demigods huffed, "Not after you broke his heart."
"What?"
"Look," Austin said, "I know we should have warned you beforehand what you were getting yourself into when you started dating our brother-"
"I'm not dating Will!"
"-but really, you should have seen this coming." Austin continued as though Nico didn't say anything. "I mean, we Apollo children are really tight, you know. You make Will cry, you make us all cry."
"Especially Justin, he cried a lot." A ten-year-old auburn-haired child of Apollo said.
"Sh-Shut up!"
"Okay, look, no offense Nico but you made Will cry." Kayla said to Nico's utter bewilderment. He made Will cry? When? "And, we really don't want to do this but-"
"What… is going on here?"
Nico never thought he could be happier to hear that voice than right now. Apollo's children parted as their head counselor walked towards them. He shot his siblings a suspicious look before he turned to Nico. He blinked in surprise, "Nico?"
"Will!" The son of Hades said in relief as he tried to convey with his eyes the thought, your siblings are crazy. Get me out of here.
Will seemed to get the message as he stepped between the son of Hades and his siblings, "Guys, what the heck is happening here? Did you all drink too much Sunny D again?" He reprimanded to some of his siblings' chagrin.
"Step aside, Will." Kayla said seriously, "We're showing your boyfriend here an example of what happens to people who break the heart of a child of Apollo."
"W-What?" Will spluttered, "Nico's not my boyfriend!" He said loudly, flushing as he refused to meet the son of Hades' eyes. "And what do you mean he 'broke a child of Apollo's heart'?"
"We heard you crying in the bathroom!" A certain pair of Apollo's twins piped up. "We heard you crying yesterday and you were saying 'Nico' a lot!"
Will gaped at them for a long while before he opened his mouth and tried to explain himself.
"No need to say anything, brother." Justin said seriously, "And no need to feel ashamed, we will handle the bane of your heart soon enough."
"He break your heart we break bones!" Their youngest baby sibling cheered happily with a gurgle. He was being held up by one of his older sisters.
"Oh my gods, not you too Mikey!" Will face-palmed himself. He drew in a deep breath and looked at his siblings, "Look guys, this is all a big misunderstanding, Nico didn't break my heart."
Kayla shot him an unimpressed look, "Why are you defending him?"
"I'm not defending him!" Will yelled in exasperation before pausing, "Okay, maybe I am, but I'm telling the truth!"
"But you were crying in the bathroom! I heard-"
"Yes, Kit, thanks I get that." Will said as he tried to fight off the redness from his face. "Look, as you all know I like reading mangas-"
"You're an otaku!" Another of his siblings shouted and gods, Will is really embarrassing himself here isn't he? Especially in front of a certain son of Hades, gods, he can't show his face again after this.
"Yes, I am." He tried to inject pride into his tone but he probably sounded more scared and freaked out than brave. "And you remember how I'm 'easily moved' by the really good mangas?" Will tried to hint at them.
The younger ones nodded and his older siblings said, "Oh…"
They easily translated 'easily moved by really good mangas' to 'easily cried because of angsty and awesome mangas'.
"But that still doesn't explain why you were blubbering 'Nico' while crying!"
Will flushed, "I wasn't blubbering!" He said defensively, "And I wasn't saying 'Nico'! You probably heard me wrong! I was saying 'Kiku'! You know the protagonist of-"
"We get it Will." Kayla said with a sigh, saving him from further embarrassment. "We thought you were crying about being heartbroken when you were actually crying about a manga and we misheard what you were saying and thought it was Nico who hurt you. So as overprotective-
"And awesome!"
Kayla nodded to one of their siblings, "-And awesome siblings, we tried to attack him based on a total misunderstanding."
Well, that's as good as I'm gonna get, Will thought. "And?" He prompted.
"And we, possibly, may have embarrassed you in front of him and reduced any chance of him saying 'yes' when you do ask him out." Justin piped in as Will spluttered.
The cabin counselor was tomato red as Nico gaped, face even a darker shade of scarlet. "What? No! Why would you-"
"And we're sorry." Austin finished for all of them. His other siblings nodded, "We should have asked you why you were crying first."
"I wasn't crying," Will said defensively as he crossed his arms, "I was just emotionally moved. And you guys should be saying sorry to Nico not me."
The Apollo cabin grumbled but they turned sincere and sorry looks towards the son of Hades who had been watching the exchange with wary and disbelieving eyes.
"We're sorry, man."
"Yeah, we were just looking out for, Will."
"And if it means anything, we weren't really going to bury your body somewhere in the forest." Another one piped out, "We were just gonna scare you in apologizing to him."
"Thanks." Nico said in a flat tone while Will let out an exasperated breath.
"Okay, back to the cabin now you guys." Will said sternly, He glared at the few campers who let out a disappointed breath before going in. One child remained, blue eyes wide and staring at Will. "You too, Liam, back to the cabin." The head counselor said.
"But…" Liam said as he looked at Will and then Nico, "Will, does that mean the two of you aren't dating? Is that why we can't shoot him with our arrows anymore?"
Nico flushed as Will winced slightly, "Yes, Liam, Nico and I aren't dating, but the main reason why you can't shoot arrows at him is because Nico didn't do anything wrong, okay?" He leaned down and ruffled his little brother's hair.
"But if he does do something wrong and breaks your heart, can we shoot him?"
"No, you can't shoot him especially if he breaks my heart." The Apollo cabin counselor said trying to lessen the volume of his voice, which was fruitless since Nico was leaning towards them curiously.
"Huh, why not?"
"Let's put it this way," Will said in a matter-of-fact tone, well aware that the son of Hades was just behind them. He swallowed back his fear, blue eyes soft. "If Kayla broke your favorite toy would you want to hurt Kayla?"
"No," Liam pouted, "I can always have the Hephaestus cabin fix my toys and I don't want Kayla to get hurt too. I love Kayla."
"Exactly." Will said with a soft smile, "So even if Nico breaks my heart, I wouldn't want him to get hurt because- because… I like Nico a lot." There was a sharp intake of breath behind him. So much for being quiet about it.
"Okay." Liam said slowly, "I think I get it." He rushed forward and hugged Will around the middle. "Thanks Will and make sure Nico doesn't hurt you because I don't think everyone else will get what you told me and will shoot him down with arrows anyway."
Will let out a nervous laugh, "Okay." His brother pulled back and ran into their cabin.
"So…"
The son of Apollo turned abruptly, expression sheepish and apologetic. "Sorry about that, my cabin can be uh, a little intense."
Nico raised an eyebrow at his direction. "Intense is a poor word to describe what just happened." The red on the other's face was finally fading. "And it's not only them, I got dragged aside by your best friend Cecil earlier, nearly turned into a pig, courtesy of your other best friend Lou Ellen, and I'm pretty sure Clarisse gave me a shovel talk during our spar."
With every name, Will turned even redder than before, "Gods, I'm so sorry about that. I'll talk to them tomorrow about it, I don't know where they keep getting the notion that we're dating but-"
"Hey." Will jumped at the soft nudge against his shoulder. Nico looked him in the eye and said, "I didn't say I minded."
The blonde stared back down into dark eyes, cheeks flaming and eyes wide, "Huh?"
Nico shrugged, "I said, I don't mind that they think we're dating." He looked to the side, eyes drawn to the ground.
"You don't mean-" Will swallowed thickly as he asked in a hopeful and hesitant tone, "Are you- Do you want everyone to think we're dating?"
The son of Hades cleared his throat, "It doesn't sound so bad, having my own personal sun."
Normally, the healer would playfully tease back about Nico being his own person prince of darkness too, but he was too busy trying to comprehend what the other was saying. "So- uh, you want them to think we're dating even though we're not? Or- or do you want to actually date me? Or-"
"Oh gods," Nico groaned as he stepped forward and leveled the Apollo cabin counselor with an impressive glare. Will shut his mouth, trying not to squeak, "You're annoying and bossy and full of yourself and I like you." He sighed "Even if you're a gigantic nerd that cries about cartoons in the bathroom."
"Hey!" Will protested weakly but a grin was making it up to his face, blue eyes twinkling, "You don't see me teasing you about those mythomagic cards you have hidden in a box under your bed."
The son of Hades scowled as his cheeks flushed, "I told you, those were Frank's! He was teaching Hazel how to play and left them in my cabin."
Will rolled his eyes, "Sure, he did."
"Why you-"
But then Nico closed his mouth when the sun god's son suddenly grabbed both of his hands. He couldn't help but flinch at the warm touch.
Will knew that Nico hated touching but he was going to pretend not to notice it for now. If Nico was really willing to date him then the dark-haired boy better get used to hand-holding and stuff because Will was definitely a hand-holder, and what better way to have him get used to touches than now?
"Not the point, Death Boy." Will said with a soft smile, "We're dating." He pointed out instead.
The shorter teen raised an eyebrow in his direction, although his pale cheeks were still flushed. "Yes." He sighed, "I just told you I like you and your siblings said you like me-"
"I do!" Will blurted out before giving Nico a sheepish grin. The Italian couldn't help but give him a fond smile.
"Then, we're definitely dating."
"Good," Will said leaning close with a bright smile, "We're already doing the hand-holding stuff, we should go on actual dates too, and watch cheesy movies and cuddle."
"Are you trying to scare me away?" Nico said in exasperation but with a small smile. "I might run away."
"Then I'll chase after you." The son of Apollo said, hands tightening momentarily as though Nico really would.
"We might not work out."
"We will." A grin broke through Will's face, "Heh, will."
Nico shook his head. "What if I'm not good with all this date stuff?"
"It's not like anything will change you know? I just get to hold your hand now and I don't have to hide the way I stupidly smile at you when you do something great." He said with a half shrug, "And besides I think we've already skipped some stages, which definitely means you and I are good at this dating stuff."
"Oh? Like what stages?"
"Hanging out a lot, walking you to your cabin after dinner, being comfortable enough to be ourselves," Will said, "Oh, and my best friends and my family threatened to bury you alive or make your life miserable if you break my heart." He grinned. "Which means they approve."
Nico gave him a deadpanned look.
"I'm serious!" Will said defensively, his grin softening into a warm smile, "But I'm glad, that they didn't scare you off."
Nico blinked at the gentle expression, a small smile lifted his lips as he gripped Will's hands even tighter, "It'll take more than that to get rid of me, Solace."
The next day, Cecil, Lou Ellen, and Clarisse all came up to the Hades' table to apologize to him for their wrong assumptions and for the threats. Despite their sincere tones, all three had smirks on their faces. Normally, Nico would sulk or glare or raise an army of the undead to carry out his revenge…
…But he found out that it was hard to stay angry when a certain blond was smiling happily beside him, their hands intertwined between them.
Author's notes: Classes started on January 5, I had to take five or six exams and I still have three more to go. Two for this week and one for the next, so I'm sorry if my update is running a little slow. This little fic cheer was something I just finished up and decided to post. Thanks for everything guys and your reviews and favorites give me strength :D