Part One of: Temple Arc

Previously, on Ghost Arc:

WHY.

WHY DID YOU KILL ME?

WHY SUBMIT TO THAT LUST INSIDE OF YOU?

WHY DID YOU BREAK YOUR PROMISE?

WHY DID YOU KILL ME—

BROTHER

.

"How'd you do that, angel?" Will wondered, cocking his head in that adorable way he had that always made Nico's stomach twist with emotions too deep to grasp.

.

"I'm sorry," Nico said, straightening his posture and trying to keep himself from trembling. "But I believe you need to go back home to Delvwin, Gwillym. I can't be with you."

~ΨΩΨ~

Will blinked down at Nico, not quite comprehending what he'd said. "What? Nico, what do you mean? You can't be with me?"

Nico kept Will from coming close to him by picking up his new sword and leveling it at the dragon's chest. The dragon halted just short of the tip, holding his hands up as though to show the knight he meant no harm.

"Angel," he said gently, as though soothing a wild animal. Nico must have looked far more unsettling than he'd first thought. "You aren't thinking straight. Is it because of that power you used? Baby, nothing's wrong with you! I know you would never hurt me. So you don't have to run me off."

Nico scowled at the dragon. "Like hell nothing's wrong with me, dragon! I can turn into a fucking ghost!"

"Nico, baby. Just because you have a strange power doesn't mean that there's something wrong! Angel, you're probably just a demigod, son of some underworld god or goddess or nymph. Calm down, angel."

"Fucking shit, Gwillym!" Nico spat. "Like fucking hell! Do you smell any demigod blood in me? Well, do you?!"

"Demigod scents are usually pretty well masked until they're claimed, angel," Will said. "Just because you don't smell like a demigod doesn't mean you aren't one!"

"I AM NOT A DEMIGOD, GWILLYM!" Nico shouted, voice cracking. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. He took an unsteady step back from the dragon. "Please," he whispered, tears blurring his vision. "Please just leave. Go back home, to your hoard. Take Blackjack and Mrs. O'Leary with you, too. Live your life happy, without me. Please."

Will looked devastated, but he still put on a determined face. "Nico, angel. You're still in shock. Let's go back to town, okay? We can collect the reward for the spitter's head, and then—"

"No."

Will blinked several times as though holding back his own tears. Strange, Nico thought absentmindedly. I've never seen him cry. Dragons cry? "Angel…"

"Go home, Gwillym." Nico spun away from the dragon, sword disappearing into the shadows. "Be safe."

The dragon trapped Nico in his arms, holding him like a lifeline. Nico struggled futilely against his embrace. "I don't want to! Nico, I don't care if you think you're dangerous or not, because you're not! There's no reason why you should think you'd be a threat to me or anyone else."

"NO REASON?!" Nico screeched, kicking Will from behind. "I FUCKING KILLED MY SISTER!"

Power rushed into him, and he managed to escape Will's arms. The dragon gapped at him in shock. "Nico?!"

Shadows swarmed around him, making him completely untouchable despite Will's desperate efforts. "Go home, Gwillym."

"No, NICO!"

He vanished into darkness, willing himself to travel as far as he could from everything he'd come to care for and love.

Warm tears tracked down his cheeks even in the shadows.

~ΨΩΨ~

Nico reappeared in the middle of the woods somewhere on Earth, blind with tears and not caring where he was. As long as he wasn't near enough to the dragon to be found, he would survive. Or he would force himself to, anyway.

Stumbling a bit as he stepped backwards, he sat down at the base of the massive tree he had shadow travelled out of. He curled up in a little ball, and held back sobs as he willed himself to calm down.

He could do this. He could survive. It wasn't like that dragon was everything to him. Like he had given that dragon his only friends and told him to take care of them without Nico's watchful eyes nearby. Like he hadn't just forked over his heart and expected Will to keep it whole for him halfway across the world. Will would be better off without him. Nico was only human, after all. He would only be able to live a piece of the dragon's life. Will would be happier without him, and safer. After all, Nico was a ticking time bomb of uncontrollable power. Why he had been so naïve as to think that he would be able to live travelling with Will for the rest of his short life boggled him now. How could he have forgotten what happened to the last person he…er…felt family connections for…?

He recalled Will's shattered expression just before his departure, and bit his lip so hard he tasted blood.

It had only been five minutes, and Nico already missed him.

Damn dragon and his—

Nico sighed sharply, hugging his legs closer to his body. He was only wearing those trousers Pholos had been kind enough to leave on him. The trunk of the tree dug uncomfortably into his bare back.

But it showed him he was somewhere far away from Will. He wouldn't be able to trek who-knows-how-far in order to kill him when he didn't even know where he was.

He forced himself to relax a bit and breathe slowly. His breaths kept hitching up in sobs.

Will. Will, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean…

Nico realized it would be harder than he'd thought to move on from the dragon. He hadn't just spent two years practically adjoined at the hip with someone to forget them after a day, he supposed.

With a shuddering exhale, he decided to sleep. If he had a nightmare about Bianca, he wouldn't have to think about Will and the guilt already bubbling up within him. Anything, Nico thought, would be better than the guilt.

So he closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep.

"Nico…? Nico!"

"WHAT?" he exclaimed, swiveling his head to glare at whoever it was that disturbed him from his nightmare—

Oh. Oh. Of course he would have the worst luck in the universe to be stuck skipping through memory lane with the blond menace himself.

He found himself unconsciously relaxing a bit, but that wasn't really him. Strike that, it was him, but the him from a year ago.

"Dragon," he murmured with a nod of the head. He had never been able to keep his anger when the blond looked like a goddamned puppy all of the time. Stupid dragon.

Will grinned down at Nico, who was currently sharpening his blade next to the fire pit. "Do you know what today is?"

Nico frowned. "Tuesday?"

"No, silly," Will wagged his finger and set his other hand on his hip, looking much like a mother teasingly scolding her child. "Guess again!"

The knight's frown deepened. He was pretty sure it was Tuesday. "The day you finally start wearing a shirt?"

"Nooo…"

Nico sighed. "What is it?"

"It's our first year anniversary, duh!" Will pouted cutely, which Nico could only shake his head at. Only Will could be a three thousand year old dragon and still be able to pull off an expression like that.

"We're not a couple, Will!" Nico reminded him. He didn't understand why the dragon needed a constant reminder of that fact.

"Oh, hosh posh!" Will exclaimed, grinning like a madman. "It's still the day where we set off together for the first time!"

Nico rolled his eyes at him. "And what's so great about that?"

Will's grin looked about ready to split his face in half. "I get to give you presents!"

OH GOD NO.

Nico strained with all of his might to get out of that memory, but by fate or someone just outright hating him (A/N: *cough, cough*), he was stuck there.

Will came up with a box from who-knows-where, and set it down gingerly at Nico's side. "Go on!" he urged the curious knight. He gestured towards the box. "Look inside, angel!"

"Don't call me angel!"

Complaint ignored, Nico just huffed and looked into the offered box. But soon he was yelping loudly in the silent forest and jumped away from said box and nearly caught his hair on fire from the fire pit in the process.

"WILL!"

Said dragon blinked at him, feigning innocence. "Yes?"

"YOU DID NOT HAVE WHAT I THINK YOU HAD IN THAT BOX!"

"I sincerely don't know what you're talking about, angel." To show what he meant, he put his hands into the box and lifted the contents out for the smaller man to gap at. "After all, it's not wrong that for our first anniversary we play around, albeit safe. I'll assure you they're completely sanitary, too! I would know, I soaked them in alcohol and boiled them in water myself! They're perfect for anyone's first time!"

"BUT—BUT THOSE ARE…!" Nico's face was completely beet red.

"They're what, angel?"

"THOSE ARE FUCKING CHILDREN'S TOYS, YOU IDIOT!"

"Were you expecting sex toys?" Will wondered, blinking owlishly.

"WH—I WOULDN'T—"

Will raised an eyebrow, and Nico went red down to his tight-fitting long sleeved shirt. He gritted his teeth stubbornly and refused to breathe another word, lest it be something equally as embarrassing as what the dragon had just implied.

The dragon burst out laughing, cuddling one of the fluffy doggies to his bare chest. "You seriously have no idea how hard it was to clean these, though! Whoever their last owner was left a lot of dust on them! And I was seriously lucky these weren't made out of cotton, either! They would have shrunk while washing!"

Nico curled his lips away from his teeth and sneered at the dragon. "You're not suggesting I actually touch one of those ungodly abominations?"

Will put on his best puppy-dog face, which with the toy puppy in his arms was almost irresistible. Will-puppy x100

The knight glared at the dragon stubbornly.

"Please?" Will actually whimpered, making things even worse for Nico's resolve. "Play with me? For our anniversary?"

Will-puppy x110.4, plus tax

With a sharp exhale, Nico (reluctantly) relented. He kneeled down next to Will—with respectable distance between them, of course—and picked up one of the dolls, which just happened to be that of a dragon, and snorted.

Will's eyes widened until they resembled dinner plates at the sound. "Did you just snort?"

Nico blinked at Will before tensing self-consciously. "Um…no?"

"Yes, you did!" Will's smile grew even more, if that was even humanly possible. Well, then again, he was a dragon. "That's so adorable, angel!"

"It is not, stupid dragon!" Nico snapped, throwing the dragon plush at the dragon. "Shut up before I make you!"

Will chuckled warmly and winked at the man. "Oh? And how do you expect to do that, angel?"

Nico's face flushed even brighter, and he grabbed another toy to lob at the idiot next to him. He muttered curses under his breath as the blond laughed merrily, taking each offered toy into his arms until his head was surrounded with cute fluffy animals, almost resembling a toy himself.

"Idiot dragon," Nico muttered.

Will smiled crookedly at the knight, a genuine smile that reached his eyes.

With much displeasure, or so the dragon made it seem with his overdramatic theatrics, Will put the toys back into the box after promising Nico all-too-sullenly to take them to some children in the next town they stumbled upon.

With the moon and stars awake some time later, Nico stoked the fire and settled in to take the first watch of the night. He jolted slightly when something cold touched his neck.

"Happy first anniversary," Will whispered into the knight's ear, letting the leather-cord necklace settle onto his collarbone.

Nico took the pendant strung at the end in his fingers and stared at it, seeing it in sharp contrast with thanks to the fire. It was small; a touch larger than the size of his thumbnail, but it was made of pure gold and silver, with a touch of obsidian where the figure was holding something in its arms. It was an angel, with it robes flowing gold and silver wings tucked in at its back.

Something in Nico's stomach fluttered like a handful of butterflies had decided to have a field day in there. His breath caught in his throat as he continued to examine the stone, noticing some sort of tiny inscription along the edges and symbols that were most certainly words in dragontongue on the back.

In short, it…it was beautiful.

"Wh…" Nico swallowed thickly, wanting to address the dragon before he got bored of Nico staring at the gift like an idiot and settled down for bed. "What does it s-say?"

He could almost feel Will's smile against the back of his neck. "Around the edges is a charm in a long-dead language, securing that the wearer will always find it back in their possession no matter how far apart they become. On the back, it simply says 'Angel' in dragonscript."

Despite the cheesiness of it all, Nico was honestly touched. "Did you make this yourself?"

Will touched Nico's cheek tenderly, making him look at the blond. "Do you like it?" he wondered tentatively, blue eyes soft.

Knowing he wouldn't be able to function enough to form words while the dragon looked at him like that, he nodded.

Laughing softly, Will tapped the knight's cheek. "I made it with you in mind, angel. I'm glad you like it. I hope you'll keep wearing it after today."

And Nico did, up until the point he was forced to sell it for money so they could eat. He could still picture the look of sadness on the dragon's face that day and the month after telling Will that he'd sold it. The blond had been utterly crushed to the point of tears, but held himself up reasoning that the charm would someday bring it back to them. To Nico, his "angel".

And, even after a year had passed, Nico himself wondered about the so-called charm on the first-year anniversary pendant. Would it really end up with him again, no matter how far away they got?

He found himself longing for it as he edged towards wakefulness. It would end up being the last piece of something that had been theirs.

Fresh tears trailing down his face, Nico blinked his eyes open blearily and prepared his body and soul for the torture of living without Gwillym, son of Apollus.