A/N: what's up? So this is my first Solangelo. I'm gonna make it sad, just a fair warning. There will also be minor gore and definitely sware. This is a month or two after BoO. Disclaimer: I do not own PJO/HoO! Though that would be awesome….

I might make this a one-shot, or maybe something like part 1 of whatever. I'll see how this plays out first.

Just in case, I will number this for chapters at the beginning. This will switch between Nico's and Will's POVs every so often, though it will be Nico's majority of the time.

Chapter 1: Where Did It Go So Wrong…

Will rummaged through the stocks of medicine in the infirmary. It was a lazy summer day, the sun beating down on the camp at record temperature. Campers where either lazing about in their cabins or swimming or maybe just hanging about the training arena or the dining pavilion. But Will couldn't stand doing nothing. When his cabin mates refused to roll out of bed and do something, he decided to just take inventory. Much to his chagrin, he found very little left. Some Band-Aids, a small roll of gauze, a bottle of disinfectant, some ambrosia and nectar…

"Looks like a trip to CVS is in order. I'll have to do an overnight shipment of the ambrosia and nectar from Hermes's delivery. Hopefully he'll respond immediately this time and we can make it a one minute delivery. Hmm… and I know just the person to go with me!" He brightened on instant at the thought and, after hastily scribbling down a checklist, dashed off to find him.

Will knocked on the cabin door gently, then pushed it open. Just as he suspected. The Hades cabin was dark and quiet. The only person inside was a dark-haired boy flopped out on his bed, sifting through an old, worn out deck of Mythomagic cards. Will figured the other inhabitant of the cabin, Hazel Levesque, was off with some friends trying to cool off. But her half-brother Nico di Angelo was as stubborn and anti-outdoors as it got.

Nico glanced up at the blond figure in the doorway. Will thought he saw the boy's onyx brown eyes brighten when he saw him. He couldn't help wondering whether it was from the sunlight spilling into the room through the door or that Nico was simply glad to see Will and he silently hoped it was the latter.

"Hey, Will." Nico said, looking down at his cards and singling one out, a fond gaze fixed on the card.

"Hey, Nico. So I'm low on stock in the infirmary and need to go into town to get some things and I was wondering if maybe you'd like to come? I can't go alone in case of an attack so…" Will smiled awkwardly and Nico couldn't help but smile back. He shrugged and sat up in his bed.

"Why not?" He said, a mysterious smile on his face, hair falling in front of his eyes so Will couldn't read his expression. "Let me just get changed first." That's when Will realized he was wearing pajama pants.

"O-oh, right." He said shyly. Nico just went over to his clothes chest and took out a pair of black jeans. Then he locked himself in the bathroom and emerged a few minutes later wearing a black T-shirt and the jeans from the chest, as well as a silver skull ring on his finger.

"All set. Let's go." Nico put simply. Will blinked and recovered his common sense. He had been in an almost trance when Nico had come back out. Will would never admit it, but he thought the boy standing before him was actually kind of cute. He was a powerful young demigod and Will wanted nothing more than to be let into the brooding boy's life. He was so intrigued by Nico's sense of mystery, his shadowed past, and his powerful aura as well as his old-world charm. He knew Nico was gay (Jason can be a bit of a blabbermouth sometimes) but he wasn't sure whether he returned the feelings.

On Nico's side, he had a major crush on Will. But he had no clue whether Will was gay or straight or whatever. The fourteen-year-old was a little afraid of what would happen if he spoke his mind. So instead he practiced what he would say with his Apollo card that he kept on his nightstand. Once Hazel caught him and ever since then she'd been dropping annoying hints to Will who appeared not to catch on to them. Nico wasn't sure if he was thankful or frustrated by that.

The two boys walked off to the Big House. Will said they would have to ask Chiron for transportation. Once they were done with that, which took a while since Seymour the leopard head kept interrupting and Chiron was unconvinced, they managed to get a CHB van driven by the head of security there, Argus. Chiron told them to IM Argus if they needed him to come back or if anything went wrong. There was something strange about how he brought up the 'if something goes wrong' part that unsettled them both. And on that happy note, they headed off into town.

(A/N: Chiron's got the right idea.)

They rode in a silence that Will ached to fill, but he was worried he might not say the right thing. Nico would have loved to fill that silence, too, but he had similar worries. He didn't want to get too close only to have his heart ripped in half again. First he lost his sister, then he had to let go of Percy. He couldn't stand to lose his friendship with Will.

Finally, after an awkward ride across town, Argus pulled up at CVS. Will climbed out of the van and thanked him for the transport. Argus simply nodded and drove off once Nico was out. Will heard Nico mutter something about how unpleasant people can be and customary courtesy as they walked through the automatic doors. Their entrance was greeted with an electronic bee-doo from the doors' automated systems and Will gazed around the place. It was almost completely empty. Apparently it wasn't just a lazy day for camp. An attendant was sitting at the register reading from a magazine; two burly men stood over by the snacks. Other than them and Will and Nico, no one else was around. The attendant greeted them with a friendly smile before going back to her magazine.

Will took out his list and grabbed a basket, putting things in left and right. Nico had no idea what Will could be putting in. All he saw was a box of Band-Aids and some hydrogen peroxide. But he trusted that Will knew what he was doing. Occasionally he would sneak in a few things of his own, tossing in a bag of gummy worms and a soda. But Will didn't notice. Or if he did, he didn't care or just turned a blind eye. Nico was grateful for that. He would make sure to thank Will once it was over.

Then something flashed out of the corner of his eye and everything went south. It happened so fast, Nico barely had time to comprehend what was happening and only really understood it afterwards. The two men hanging around had disappeared, though neither boy noticed or cared until the first attacked. Nico just had time to let out a strangled yelp before a bronze chain wrapped around him and pulled him to the ground, his head hitting the floor hard. When he came to moments later, he found himself chained to one of the support poles in the store. You know, the things with the fire extinguishers on them in case of emergencies? Anyway, he blinked open his eyes and searched out Will. He spotted him fighting against the one remaining man with the fire extinguisher, spraying his face so he couldn't see and hitting him over the head.

Will turned tail and almost ran, but he wanted to find Nico first. He noticed Nico being chained to the pole and held their by the first man. But just as he took his first step forward, a horrible pain tore through him. His stomach felt like it was on fire. His mouth opened in a silent scream and his clear blue eyes clouded with pain.

Nico couldn't believe what he was seeing. The second man had taken a celestial bronze sword out while Will's back was turned and the weapon's red-stained blade was now through Will's gut, coming out just below his rib cage. Nico heard himself cry out in shock involuntarily. Will's visage was twisted with agony and he had one hand on the flat of the sword, like he was frozen in time trying to push it back out. Blood gushed from the wound and pooled on the floor, glistening dark red and staining his torn camp T-shirt and jeans. Nico had been to Tartarus and back, but nothing he had seen there even came close to the scene he was witnessing. Or at least, that's what it felt like.

"Will!" Nico cried. He struggled against his bronze chains in vain, all logic and common sense out the window. He heard the attendant shriek in terror and noticed her dialing 911-at least he assumed it was 911-on the wall phone, but his mind didn't prioritize that. It was too busy struggling to convince him that what was happening before him was just a terrible nightmare and that he would wake any second.

No such luck.

Finally his mind kicked it into high gear. He screamed in rage and the floor before him ripped open. Three skeletal soldiers clambered from the depths and raised their swords. (Being the son of Hades had its upsides.) The first cut through his chains like they were butter. The other two took on and defeated the men in moments. Nico only half acknowledged the men exploding into yellow dust at the contact of the weapons on their skin-only confirmation that they were monsters. He was too busy running to Will's side. In order to fight back, the second man-no, not man, monster-had removed his sword from Will's stomach, though he had no luck in successfully defending himself. Once he had, Will had fallen to the floor where he lay now. His face was still contorted in that silent wail of agony, his eyes open wide.

Nico didn't care that by kneeling beside him he was soaking his clothes in blood, he put Will's head in his lap anyway and stared in horror at the broken figure before him. He racked his brain for useful information Will had taught him during the time he had spent helping around the infirmary. He tried to stop the bleeding, but the gauze became soaked red in seconds.

Meanwhile, Will's mind was hardly aware of Nico's futile attempts to save him. At first the pain was unbearable. He felt himself slipping and he was light-headed from blood loss. Then the feeling slowly faded to the background, like a distant memory rapidly escaping one's consciousness. He felt his world being enveloped by a cloud of darkness and he couldn't help but feel as though he himself was fading from existence. Like fighting was idle. As he slipped, he heard the faintest sounds of sirens and thought he heard someone calling his name. And then it was gone. All signs of the outside world vanished and he was alone in a vast emptiness with only flickers of shapes to keep him company.

Outside Will's thoughts, someone was calling his name. Nico was still sitting with Will's head in his lap, crying out to what remained of his consciousness, trying to rouse him. Multiple police cars and an ambulance had pulled up outside. The first police man entered and began speaking with the woman at the counter, trying to find out what had happened. The zombies were gone and the fissure had sealed so that only a small scar in the ground remained as evidence of their being in CVS.

Then the medics ran in. A man and a woman holding medical supplies. This tore at Nico's heart even more because A) it reminded him of how Will was the camp's best healer and B) he didn't want anyone else to so much as touch Will. And he started to cry. Nico di Angelo, son Hades, prince of the Underworld, king of ghosts, master of Tartarus, hero of Olympus, began sobbing into the shoulder of his bloodied and injured friend. The medics exchanged awkward and pitiful looks as they tried to calm the boy down. But Nico shrugged them off and gripped Will's body to his chest, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Finally, after working as best they could with a crying angry boy protecting his friend, they took their supplies back to the ambulance and tried as best they could to explain that Will was gone.

"You think I don't know that!?" He roared. The boy's visage was wet and red from crying, an onyx fire burning in his near-black eyes. "I knew before you got here you inferior piles of bull shit!" Nico screamed. And it was true. As the son of Hades, he could reach out his senses and tell if someone was dead or not. He knew Will was gone before the medics had arrived, though he had tenaciously kept up trying to save Will until the last second when all his hope escaped him and he knew for certain there was no turning back. No fixing his broken friend.

Friend.

A heart-wrenching thought came to mind. They could have been more than friends. He had always hoped they would be. But now…

Nico completely lost it. He grabbed the broken form of Will in his arms and ran to the back of the store where some of the fluorescent lights had gone out. He leaped into the shadows, thinking of the commons of the original twelve cabins, and vanished into the dark…

A split second later, he emerged from the shadows of a tree, forcing himself a few steps before collapsing on the ground ten feet from Hestia's fire pit. At first no one noticed the sobbing boy soaked in his friend's blood sitting in the commons, the body of the Apollo cabin's head counselor in his arms. But as Nico's silent crying gained subtly din, small little whimpers and squeaks, people began wandering over or looking out the cabin windows. The first to rush over was Austin, one of Will's siblings, who looked like he might choke on his own tongue at the sight.

Then little by little other campers came over, either grieving over Will, consoling Nico (to no prevail I might add), or doing both. After Austin came Percy and Annabeth. Annabeth started crying quietly, her face becoming ashen at the bloody sight, and Percy struggled to console her. For the son of Poseidon, he looked pretty seasick himself, despite the fact they were on solid ground. Then Hazel came over and started gingerly hugging her brother, clearly uncomfortable being around the torn body of the demigod. She herself had died once and if not for her brother she would still be in Asphodel, so seeing a dead half-blood made her nervous, but she powered through for her brother's sake.

Finally some of the campers had retrieved Chiron from the Big House. As the centaur trotted over, he himself had an anemic expression to his face similar to that of Annabeth's, except more foreboding, as if he had just visited the oracle's mummy. But since they had acquired a new, much more living oracle, they had had fewer people go insane as well as less creepy prophetic interactions.

Nico ripped his gaze away from Will's body and stared up at his human half, past the white stallion's body he sported from the waist down even though it hurt his neck, baring a watery gaze. When he spoke, his voice shook. "Y-you… you said to… to iris message Argus if something went wrong… T-the way you s-said that… You knew… you knew this was going to happen, didn't you…?" Chiron didn't respond. His sad gaze said everything. This was destined to happen, one way or another. Nico moved his gaze back to Will, even though it hurt to see him this way. "I-it's all my fault…" His voice was little more than a whisper.

"No, Nico! Whatever happened, this isn't your fault." Hazel insisted. She scanned the crowd, her sharp golden gaze challenging anyone to say otherwise.

"No… It is my fault… He might have escaped if he hadn't tried to save me… If I hadn't been there, he would still be alive." Nico sounded so broken, it was hard not to feel pity for him; hard to put any accusation on someone who so willingly blamed himself.

Percy walked up and placed a hand on his shoulder, followed by Jason who stood on his other side. "Come on, man. Let's get you cleaned up." Percy murmured. His sea green gaze was so kind and reassuring, it was hard not to listen. But Nico didn't want to leave Will's body. Instead the boy hugged the battered blond figure to his chest tighter, like it might bring him back and make everything okay again. He silently wished they had never freed Death so Will could come back, but then they would probably all be dead instead. If only he could overlook a soul just this once…

Finally, after an hour of persisting, Nico was forced to abandon his lost crush's body to be taken care of by the Apollo cabin and was led by Percy and Jason to his own cabin. After showering and changing his clothes, he sat on the windowsill and stared out the window in silence. At first his friends didn't want to leave, but Hazel came to check on him and ushered the boys out to leave her brother in peace.

Nico stayed there in the windowsill, every so often getting a visit from someone asking how he was doing or giving condolences. But Nico never moved from his spot on the sill. He never spoke to the visitors. He didn't eat when dinner came. He only got down for the burial service. And he never spoke at all during that time either.

Nico was broken. And very little could fix that…

A/N: okay, so I can't very well leave you there. I'll update with a new chapter soon, though this took me longer than expected so don't hope for an instant update.

Ghosts and a sad, broken boy.

Ironically, I wrote this while eating chocolate, with a torrential storm going on outside. That setting describes this perfectly!

Ugh, I'm so optimistic that even this depressing piece of writing before me that leaves me shaking can't dampen my mood. There is something seriously wrong with me. Haha!

Good luck and good exploring

~Curious Pines