Author's note: thank you all for the nice reviews! I intended for this to be a one-shot, but I couldn't help but imagine Nico reciprocating and.. well... here it is! I hope you like it. Let me know what you think!
Nico was half-sure he imagined the past few weeks. Some nights, as he said his goodbyes to the smiling, overly-enthusiastic son of Apollo, he felt so happy it grounded him. He felt tethered to the earth, a feeling he had never realized he was missing. It was as if his entire life, he was more shadow than flesh, and now, Will made him feel solid and real. When he would sneak a look back at the blond demigod's retreating form, he would often get a passing thought wondering if he had actually died back in Tartarus and gone on to Elysium?
The last thing he wanted to do was ruin things.
Over the past few weeks, Nico had felt guilty over his treatment of the thoughtful sun god's kid. It wasn't as if he was mean to him, but he could sense how rough he was around the edges.. how unused to human contact he was. Most of the time, he was able to joke and speak normally to him, but on more than one occasion, shadows would pass over him and he'd feel half-faded again. His mind would flash back to Tartarus, and he would be half-certain that this was simply an elaborate trick of Akhlys, the goddess of misery, granting him this delusion of happiness in some sick, twisted way to cause his fall to be twice as hard. When this happened, Nico's walls went up, his icy exterior returned, and he'd stalk off into his cabin, where he would brood for several hours.
Will, to his credit, never showed if that hurt him or not. He would give Nico his space, but show up, without fail, every morning on his doorstep, holding two fresh fruit smoothies with a green tint. One day, Nico asked him why these smoothies looked green but tasted of berries and pomegranates.
"Well, I see what you eat all day. You never get any vegetables in your system, which is probably why you can't sustain any of your underworld-ly powers for long. I'm almost certain you have iron-deficiency, which is... very difficult to have as a demigod, but it looks like you complete impossible feats every other day so this shouldn't be that surprising," Will nudged him playfully, sending an aura of glowing warmth through Nico's arm where they touched.
"Anyway, I put spinach in this smoothie. It doesn't taste like anything, so the taste of berries and pomegranate overpowers it, but you still get all the nutrients."
"You put spinach in my smoothie without my consent?" Nico interjected
"I was simply acting on your doctor's orders," Will replied defensively.
"You can't use that as an excuse when you've declared yourself my doctor!" said Nico, exasperated.
"Sure I can!" Will said. He beamed at Nico.
At first, Nico had mixed feelings about this. A part of him wanted to mistrust Will and push him away, while another part, the grounded and solid part, was beginning to trust him. These constant loving gestures of Will Solace were thawing the metaphorical ice fortress Nico had built around himself. And this is why he wanted to make up for his moods.
"I need you to teach me how to play the harp." Nico said, with a glare that fended off any ensuing jokes.
The Apollo girl looked at him in astonishment. When Nico said he had a favor to ask, this was probably the last thing she could probably have imagined. No, scratch that, this wouldn't even make the list.
Everyone had noticed the sudden interest the son of Hades took in their cabin leader, and they were thrilled about it. In fact, some of them had running bets on which one of the two demigods would make the first move. The majority of the cabin seemed to think it would be Will (they could hardly imagine de Angelo making such a gesture).
Kayla overcame her astonishment, taking care to make Nico feel like he wasn't being judged or ridiculed. It was clear why he, a son of the god of the underworld, who'd never shown any interest in music or any Camp activities before, had decided to learn how to play the harp. And Kayla wasn't about to jinx this. She had her money on Nico, after all.
Over the next few days, Will began to lose hope. Nico seemed busier and busier during the day, slinking off to gods know where. And worse still, Will was almost sure he saw him running off into the woods with different Apollo girls a few times. He felt miserable. He had definitely misjudged things.. it seemed Nico was only interested in... "infiltrating" the cabin. He would never reciprocate Will's strong feelings.
Still, every morning he woke up early to make Nico a smoothie. Regardless of the demigod's feelings towards him, he still wanted him to feel comfortable and cared for. He knew now the reason Nico left the first time was because he never felt he belonged at Camp Half-Blood. And no matter what, Will promised himself Nico would always feel like he belonged.
This was so much more than Nico bargained for. How hard could a harp be, he thought? It's just a few strings, right? Wrong.
He was terrible. He felt awful for making those poor Apollo girls have to teach him and hear the monstrosity that was coming out of the small golden harp in his hands. But they insisted he was getting better.
"There's a learning curve," Rosetta had said. She was another daughter of Apollo, whom Kayla introduced him to. She was their resident harp-player. "And you're getting better. You can't hear it yet, but your fingers are picking up on the tunes. I can tell. It'll take time and a lot of practice, but I can get you to play a couple of songs, maybe one by the end of the week."
And so Nico practiced. By the end of that week, he'd grown to despise this small, metallic object. But he carried on. He needed to show Will some sort of gesture. If Apollo's son could learn Mythomagic cards for him, the least Nico could do was learn how to play a stupid harp.
But Rosetta was a patient and talented teacher. And by the end of that week, Nico had learned the chords to one song. He thought the choice of song was fitting, and was sure would get his feelings across to Will clearly.
That morning, Will woke up miserably. Last night, he saw Nico sneak back from the forest, almost missing curfew, with Rosetta Brown in tow. They both looked ecstatic and even hugged each other. Knowing Nico's aversion to touching, this made the sun inside him feel like it was an imploding star, threatening to create a black hole at any moment.
He closed his eyes and counted to five, dispelling all feelings of negativity from his body. He would get up and make a smoothie, facing Nico with a smile. One, Nico still liked being his friend. Two, at least he was IN camp and not off getting lost in Tartarus. Three, he likes Will's singing, he'd mentioned that. At four, he heard a rapping noise on the window. The sun had been up for only about 3 minutes and 37 seconds (this was just another Apollo thing.. knowing the exact times of the sunrise and sunset). He got out bed slowly and inspected the window above his bedframe. Suddenly, Nico's head popped up, looking shiftily from side to side. He held up a green smoothie and gestured as if to say "meet me outside."
Will rubbed his eyes and put on his sandals, walking outside in his faded yellow pajama pants and white shirt. He felt self-conscious, but didn't want to wake up his fellow campers by getting changed.
"What are you doing here this early? The sun's only been up 4 minute 28 seconds."
Nico looked at him with a nervous smile. "I thought I'd make you a smoothie for a change. Besides, I wanted to show you something, sort of. It's a surprise."
Will perked up but quickly got his emotions in check. It was probably not as big a deal as he imagined, but his inner sun had begun to warm him. He couldn't help but think the nervous smile Nico was simply the surface of a deep well of affection. He grabbed his smoothie and took a sip. "Well, where's this surprise then?"
Nico rested his arm lightly on Will's back, guiding the demigod to the edge of the forest. At this point, Will noticed that Nico was wearing an unusual pack on his back. He refrained from asking, and let the dark-haired boy guide him.
In a small clearing, far off from any sign of campers, there were two rocks big enough to sit on, slightly facing each other, with another third rock slightly off to the side. Nico sat down on one of the rocks and stared seriously at the blond-haired boy's face.
"You cannot tell anyone about this. No one. Okay?" he said, seriously.
"Yeah, yeah, swear on the river Styx and everything," said Will, mimicking Nico's promise from weeks ago. The dark-haired boy relaxed visibly, and a blush began to take over his face.
"So what's the big surprise?" inquired Will with a lopsided grin.
"Well, first off, I wanted to apologize. I know I've been difficult the past few weeks. Being in Tartarus, then shadow traveling across half the globe... I've been having a difficult time. I've let that out on you more than once. And you've been nothing but kind and considerate to me. I'm trying to learn how to... accept and, I guess, reciprocate those gestures."
Will felt his heart swelling with every word. He had severely under-estimated the maturity of this younger boy. Every word seemed purposeful and exact, as if he had thought long and hard about this.
"Are you sure you're Nico, son of Hades, and not some Athena kid? You're sounding pretty wise right now." Will replied in a light-tone, but the intensity in his eyes betrayed how deeply the boy's words had affected him. He looked elated.
"Ha-ha, very funny Sun Boy. What I'm trying to say is, thanks for learning Mythomagic just to play with me. And here's me reciprocating," said Nico, as he opened his funny-shaped bag and brought out a harp which looked like it had been sloppily spray-painted black and grey.
As Will struggled to process what was happening, Nico nervously began to pluck away at the strings. It all made sense now. Rosetta and Nico's hug, Kayla leading Nico to the forest, probably to find a secluded place to practice, and Nico's frequent absences... His heart had definitely swollen to at least twice it's normal size now. He felt like he was positively glowing.
The tune sounded familiar, and he realized Nico was playing the introductory notes to Here Comes the Sun. Will smiled and got up, moving over to sit on the rock next to Nico. The boy sloppy lumbered through the song, missing a note here or there, as Will began to sing the lyrics.
Nico finished off the last few notes with a sigh of relief. He couldn't believe he got through the entire song. He looked over at the boy next to him, who was wearing a big smile and... he was actually glowing?
"Um, Sun Boy. You're glowing..." said Nico, as he looked at the blond-haired boy next to him who seemed to be surrounded by an aura of gold. Will looked at himself and the glow faded a bit, he seemed confused.
"This never happened before.." he said, inspecting his hands.
"Well... it suits you." said Nico.
Nico had debated long and hard what he would do at this moment. He'd imagined the scenario a thousand times. He wasn't sure what Will's reaction to his song would be, but he hadn't expected him to actually physically glow. He must've really liked it. Or he liked him..
As Will inspected his glowing fingers which were slowly fading back to normal, Nico made up his mind. He was done hiding his feelings for people and living in regret. He placed his hand gingerly on Will's forearm, feeling the warmth radiating from deep inside of him. Will turned up to look at Nico, the glow around his skin slowly returning. Carefully and intentionally, the dark-haired boy placed a soft kiss on Will's cheek, near the corner of his mouth.
Will quickly tilted his head, capturing the younger boy's lips in his. Nico felt more real than ever. He felt so solid, like he could never drift away into the shadows again. As he pulled back, the blond, glowing boy next to him grinned and stood up, extending his hand to him. They walked through the forest back to the cabins, hand in hand, sipping on their smoothies.
AN: So what did you think? Let me know!