Oh gods. What did he do? Nico was going to get himself killed. He shouldn't have said anything. As selfish as it was, he would rather they didn't defeat the king, if it meant Nico would be safe. But, judging by the look of steely determination in Nico's face, running away from the problem wasn't an option.
Seriously, how could someone look so determined, and cute, while on the verge of fainting? It shouldn't be possible, he decided. But it was, and Nico was living proof.
"I think they care. Maybe, if things were different, they might be able to show it."
"Yeah, because it would kill all powerful celestial beings to visit their fucking children every once in a while."
"Maybe it would," Will wasn't entirely sure why he was defending the gods. Personally, he felt the same way as Nico, however, he couldn't stand the thought of Nico losing all hope on his dad, especially since he was the only parent Nico had left. Will couldn't imagine what life would be like for him if he lost his mom and, quite frankly, he didn't want to.
"Well, it doesn't. My dad's visited me a few times, and he's still here. Not that his visits did me any good. And then there was that time when I practically lived with him for a bit." Nico shuddered, "Yeah, that wasn't very fun. Hades almost ended up permanently imprisoning Percy, y'know, before I saved him. Although, in all fairness, I did lead him there."
Will was confused beyond belief. "When the hell did all of this happen?"
"I dunno, I think I was like12 at the time." Nico's cheeks had a faintly red tinge, after recalling the memories.
"Oh. My. Gods. You do realize how crazy impressive all that is, right?" Nico's cheeks turned a deeper shade of red.
Nico looked like he was about to brush it off, but he paused, and his composure changed. Will saw the ghost of a smile at his lips. "Exactly, and I did all this when I was twelve. So I think I can raise a few of the undead to take down some random evil king. Against us? He doesn't stand a chance."
He rolled his eyes at Nico's attempt at an argument. He was about to make a retort back, when he had a realization. Us. Nico had said us. Like they were a pair. It filled Will with an absurd amount of happiness, so much so that he entirely forgot what he wanted to say, and could do nothing but nod dumbly.
"Really? You agree?" Nico said, surprised.
"Yes. No. I don't know. I guess we don't have a choice. But, seeing as I don't want you to die, and neither does Hazel, we're going to wait for at least another 5 more days before we go back there. I want you to have the most recovery time possible." Will was still a bit flustered from Nico's us comment, but he managed to pull himself together to start forming coherent sentences again.
"Fine. We go in 5 days, no more, no less. Shake on it. I don't want you to back out and stop me because you get too worried for my safety or some other overprotective healer bullshit."
The comment stung a bit. "You know I don't just care about you because I'm your doctor, right?"
"Why else?"
"Gods, how dense are you? I care about you because we're friends. I know, it's so crazy. But see, friends do this thing where they don't want the other to die."
"Ok."
"No, this is the part where you say. 'Oh, I get it now. And since we're friends, I don't want you to die either Will.'" he said in a high pitched Nico impression.
Nico gave him an exasperated look, "Oh, I get it now. And since we're friends, I don't want you to die either Will. Unless I were the one who was going to murder you, you do make me want to do that sometimes."
He chose to believe that Nico was joking and let out a nervous laugh. He had gotten so used to Nico, he had entirely forgotten how scary Nico could get sometimes. But seeing Nico smirk at his response, he relaxed.
Will wanted to keep talking to Nico but he caught a glimpse of...Lou? She was standing outside the infirmary glaring at him. "Erm… hold on Nico. I need to go do something."
Nico followed Will's gaze, and saw Lou. He nodded mumbling something Will couldn't hear under his breath.
Will walked outside and glared at Lou, "What do you want?"
"As much as I'd hate to interrupt your conversation with your boyfriend, I needed to talk to you. Sorry for the glare, I'm not mad at you. I just figured it would get you out here faster."
"Stop calling him that!" Will hissed, "So, what do you want?"
"Just had a piece of information you might want to know."
"Well? Out with it." Will fidgeted nervously. He didn't think he could handle any more bad news in a day.
"Nico's gay."
Will exhaled. Thank gods it wasn't something worse. "I know."
"What?" Lou whacked him on the arm, looking infuriated, "Why didn't you tell me?"
"It wasn't my place to. He's not openly out yet, so I had no right. How did you find out? You aren't exactly close with Nico."
"Piper told me."
"Really, her? Why would she do that? She doesn't seem like the kind of the person to backstab someone like that, especially being Aphrodite's daughter."
"I'm… not sure actually. She didn't look too happy about it though. I heard her mutter something about not doing Aphrodite's bidding."
Will didn't know what to do with the information. Should he tell Nico? He felt like he would be lying if he didn't, or withholding information which Nico deserved to have. Still, it seemed like an issue between Piper and Nico. He should probably stay out of it. I mean, it's not like Lou was going to tell anybody. But he should know. But Piper should be the one to tell Nico what she did, not him. He decided he would go talk to Piper. "Do you know where I can find her?"
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's in her cab-" Will started walking off before Lou could finish her sentence, "Wait!"
Will stopped, turning around.
"Nico came out to you."
"Yeah, and?"
"What did you say?"
"There wasn't much to say. I kind of came out to him first. And then I asked him if he was gay. And, well, he said yes."
"You're kidding." Lou looked at him, incredulous, "and then what?"
Will looked at her sheepishly, "We talked about having a crush on Percy." In retrospect, Will realized how stupid that sounded.
Lou face-palmed. "You should've asked him out!"
"I know." Will groaned. He was about to get a full on lecture if he didn't escape. Now wasn't the time for subtlety or manners. "I'm going to go talk to Piper!" He ran.
"Wh- WILL! Get back here!" He ignored Lou's shouts, and made a beeline for Aphrodite Cabin.
The run was short, but he was panting by the time he got there. Fitness wasn't exactly his strong suit. He knocked on the door, and Drew answered. She was glaring at someone inside the cabin, but her face brightened when she saw Will, "Oh, it's you!" She distractingly twirled a strand of her hair, and it was all Will could do to keep his focus on what she was saying, "So, what is it? Why did you come here?"
"I was hoping to speak to Piper."
Drew frowned, "Really? And why would you want to do that."
Before Will could respond, Piper came to the door and gave Drew a distasteful look. "Sorry about her," Piper said, still pointedly glaring at Drew. "You wanted to talk to me?"
"Yeah." Piper raised an eyebrow at him, beckoning for him to come into the Cabin.
"Can we do this outside? The Cabin's a bit… crowded." It took all of Will's self restraint to not yell at Piper. Yet.
Piper gave him a curious look but nodded. Once they were outside of the Cabin, Piper spoke, "So what did you want?"
"Why did you do that? It was horrible, cruel, and selfish."
"Do what?" Piper looked both confused and offended, and it only made Will more angry. It was like outing Nico wasn't a big deal to her, just part of a day's work.
"You told Lou that Nico liked boys! You had no right!"
Piper's eyes widened, and a series of emotions flashed on her face. Fear. Remorse. Anger.
"Shit. It's not what it looks like. I know what I did was wrong, and a really shitty thing to do. Look, it's a lot to explain and I really don't want to talk about it. I'm going to talk to Nico, I promise. I owe him an apology."
She sounded sincere, which subdued his anger a bit. "You'd better. Or I will. I figured I should talk to you first though."
"Thanks for that, by the way." Piper gave him a grateful look and made to go back into the Aphrodite Cabin.
"I mean, now," Will didn't really know where this aggressiveness was coming from, since he was usually pretty calm, but he just thought about how he would feel if, like, Lou, one of the people he trusted most, went behind his back and outed him.
Piper, glanced at Will and nodded. She walked over to the infirmary and Will, despite his better judgement, did not follow.
