Beginning Notes

Solangelo_lover (ao3): What if Will has secret plague powers that he's guilty and ashamed of?

Okay, so for those of you who might not have read Percy Jackson and the Greek Gods (or don't know that much about mythology): Apollo isn't only the god of healing and medicine, he can also shoot deadly arrows with plagues upon the human world if we anger him. So, maybe this whole covid thing is just our good old friend Apollo being bored. Who knows?

Anyways, onto the chapter now! Characters belong to uncle Rick, hope you all enjoy.

Will

It was quite a gloomy winter day, and Will had decided to go pick Nico up from school. As he waited at the younger boy's locker, he thought about summer again. Summer at camp was always the best time of year, and the gloomy winter weather made him look forward to it even more. Sure, camp was fun in the winter too, but Will missed all his friends who weren't year-rounders like him.

The bell rang and about a minute later Nico walked over to him.

'Hey, Neeks.'

'Will?' he asked, clearly confused, but Will could hear in his voice that he was glad to see him. 'What are you doing here?'

Will shrugged. 'Missed you.'

Nico snorted, shaking his head a little. 'Is it that boring at camp?'

'Yeah, pretty much. There's barely anyone staying the whole year this year. The Stoll brothers decided to go on a road trip or something since they both got their drivers license, Leo and Piper are currently visiting Camp Jupiter, Annabeth is going to school so she and Percy can graduate and go to New Rome, you're going to school now too,' Will explained, and teasingly poked his boyfriend in the ribs. 'So a lot of the usual year-rounders aren't there right now.'

'Mm, alright. So, what, you just randomly decided to come see me after school?' Nico asked and Will nodded.

That was quite literally what had happened. He was bored out of his mind and he missed his boyfriend, so he'd decided to go see him. It made plenty of sense to him.

'Wait, does Chiron even know you're gone?'

'Nope, but it should be fine.'

Nico sighed. 'Whatever. Well, I'm sure Sally will let you stay for dinner if you want,' he said.

'Oh, right, you're staying at Percy's now, huh?' Will said, remembering that Nico had mentioned it before he left after the summer.

'Mhm, it's not that bad. I sleep in the spare room for now, but I'll probably have to take the couch once Estelle is born. Next year I'll just take Percy's room since he won't be there,' Nico explained.

'Wait, Sally's pregnant?'

'Yeah, she and Percy's step-dad are having a baby. Now, move will you, I still need to get to my locker.'

Will laughed and stepped aside as Nico grabbed his things. Then the two of them made their way back to the Jacksons' apartment. They filled each other in on what Nico had missed at camp, and how his life was now that he was going to school.

Will was enjoying the time he could spend with his boyfriend again, even if they were just walking from school to the place where Nico was staying. It felt too perfect, just the two of them like that. It almost felt like a scene out of a movie, until suddenly someone behind them said: 'Hey, boys.'

The voice was soft and sweet, mesmerising almost. When Will turned around to see who was taking to them he saw a group of five girls he didn't recognise.

'Hi,' he said with a smile.

'What do you want?' Nico snarled.

A girl at the front of the group with short brown hair shrugged. 'Nothing much. We were just strolling about wondering if anyone wanted to hang out with us, and you two looked so nice, so we thought we'd approach you.'

The girls all looked very nice too, and Will wouldn't mind hanging out with them, but when he looked over to see what Nico thought, the younger boy was frowning with a look of disgust on his face, as if offended that she even dared call him nice.

'What's wrong Neeks?' Will whispered. 'They seem nice, don't you think?'

'No. Something about them feels off.'

Now Will frowned. They sounded so kind and sweet and all looked very pretty. What about them could even seem off?

'Aw, come on, why don't we just hang out with them for a little and then we can go,' he suggested, but Nico shook his head.

'I don't trust them. Let's just go, Will.'

'Oh, you don't trust us?' one of the other girls asked. She had dyed blonde hair, some of her dark roots showing, and a pout on her perfectly rounded face. It seemed like she was really upset by Nico's words, which gave Will the strange urge to go over to her and give her a hug.

'We do! I'm sorry, Nico doesn't really like being around people much, he's kind of-'

Will was cut off by Nico grabbing his wrist and dragging him away from the girls.

'I said we were going,' he snapped.

All five of them giggled, and the girl with the short hair said: 'You don't really like us, huh?'

Nico ignored her and instead kept walking, his grip on Will's wrist still firm, but Will was done. He pulled his arm back and stood still.

'You're so cold all of a sudden! What's wrong with you, Nico?'

'What's wrong with me? You're the one being affected by their charmspeak!'

Will blinked, confused. Charmspeak? Surely, Nico was paranoid. Nothing about the girls seemed like they'd even be able to charmspeak.

The tallest of the five girls laughed. 'Oh, you're a smart one, aren't you? Didn't fall for our little trick.'

Nico unsheathed his sword. 'That's it. I knew something was off about you five. Don't let them get in your head, Will, it's just some silly charmspeak. Tune it out, I know you can.'

The girls snarled at him and all five of them suddenly grew sharp, pointy fangs.

'Empousai,' Nico muttered. 'Fucking knew it.'

Empousai... Will had heard of them, they were kind of like vampires who used their charmspeak to seduce men into getting close to them so they could drink their blood. No wonder Nico hadn't been affected.

'Come here, pretty boy,' the girl with the dyed hair singsonged, and Will tried his best to not give in to the charmspeak. He took off his bracelet which turned into a bow and a sheath of arrows and tried thinking lots of gay thoughts to limit the effect the charmspeak had on him.

Rainbows, rainbows, me very gay, Nico's smile, more rainbows.

The two of them fought off the Empousai as best as they could, but they were clearly outnumbered. Even when Nico managed to kill one of them, there were still four left.

They were able to kill two more, and one of them was severely injured, but the last Empousa was just impossible to beat. It was the girl with the dyed hair who had seemed so vulnerable and sad only a few minutes ago.

While Will was distracted trying to finish off the injured Empousa, he heard the clattering of a sword falling to the ground, and Nico screaming 'GET OFF ME YOU STUPID BITCH!'

He turned around to see the Empousa holding a struggling Nico against the ground.

'Hmm, would the blood of a man who cannot appreciate us will taste better or worse than that of one who falls to our charms?' she wondered out loud, and bared her fangs.

Filled with anger, Will took out his last arrow and fired it at the Empousa without a second thought. The arrow embedded itself in her shoulder and she screeched out in pain. As she was distracted, Nico scrambled out of her grip and got back to his feet. He then picked up his sword and quickly ran over to Will.

'You okay?' Will asked him, checking for any major injuries, but Nico nodded.

'I'm fine. Not so sure about her though,' he added, nudging his head towards the Empousa who was still still screaming in agony.

They watched in horror as rashes started forming on her face and arms, which then turned to blisters.

'What have you done to her?' a voice croaked from behind and they turned around to see the other injured Empousa crawling over to them.

'S-something terrible,' Will stammered. Never in his life had he wanted to use this power, yet here he was. His lips started trembling and he felt like he might start crying as he watched the first Empousa, who was now completely covered in blisters, double over and start vomiting.

Nico must've had noticed, for he grabbed Will by the wrist again and dragged him away from the Empousai, all the way to the Jacksons' apartment. By the time they got there, Will was completely shaking, the shock of what he'd done still not gone in the slightest.

As soon as the door to the apartment opened, Nico led Will to the couch and Sally offered him a glass of water. He slowly took a few sips and felt himself calm down a little.

'That's it, deep breaths,' Sally told him, as Nico rubbed comforting circles on his back.

Once he'd finally calmed down, Nico asked him what had happened.

'Well,' he said, but his voice hitched before he could continue.

'Will, you don't have to tell us if you're not comfortable with it,' Nico said, and Sally nodded.

'Or if you'd feel more comfortable telling just Nico, I can leave you two here,' she added.

Will took a deep breath and sighed. 'No, it's fine. I- What just happened was not something I'd normally do,' he said, to which Nico snorted.

'Yeah, no shit, I think you scared yourself more than you scared that Empousa.'

'Yeah, well, I'd sworn to myself never to use that power. I... I shot a disease at her, smallpox to be specific, an extremely sped up version of it. Everything you saw happening to her usually happens over the course of at least a few days,' he explained quietly. 'I don't even know how I did it, all I remember was being filled with fear and rage of seeing her strangle you like that.'

'Will... how come you never even told me you had this power?'

Will could feel the tears starting to form in his eyes again. 'I'm a healer, Nico, I don't want anything to do with this stupid plague-power! Even if it can be useful during battle against monsters, I wish for them to die as quickly as possible, so they don't have to go through unnecessary amounts of agonizing pain.'

'Oh, Will,' Nico said and wrapped his arms around Will's neck. 'It's okay. I know you don't want this power, and I know you never intended to use it. But your actions came from emotions, you can't do much about that, okay? That fucking Empousa must have done something terribly wrong for you to feel that way, and in that case she deserves to die a painful death. No one messes with my boyfriend like that.'

Will sniffled a little, but he could feel his lips tug up a little, and the stress slowly start to ebb away.

'Thanks, Neeks.'

Sally hummed softly. 'Hmm, how about you stay with us for dinner, yeah? Does that sound good?'

Will nodded. 'That sounds great, thank you.'

And Nico winked at him as he whispered: 'Told you she'd let you stay for dinner.'

End Notes

Wow, my last few chapters have almost all been quite long damn. I mean, good for you guys I suppose, since that's more content lol. Anyways this turned out a little angstier than I thought, but I hope you still enjoyed it. If you want, leave a review and tell me what you thought, or leave any prompts there if you have them! Alright, that was all, have a fabulous day! Byeee :)