XVII

WILL

"But Will-"

"Oh, come on!"

"I'm not used to it!"

"You don't have to be shy-"

"But-"

"It's just the two of us here, who will even see us?"

"I know but it's my first time-"

"Yeah, I have already figured that out and I'm honored that you'd do it with me."

"It's awkward. I'm awkward."

"No, it's not, and you are not."

"Still-"

"For goodness' sake Di Angelo, How hard it is to smile in front of a camera?" Will threw his hands in frustration while holding his phone in one hand.

"But this is my first time taking a picture," Nico grumbled.

They sat on the couch of Will's apartment. Half an hour had passed since Will had thought of taking a picture of them together and it had been that long since the bloody persuasion took its place.

"Look, I know selfies aren't a thing in the Underworld," Will persuaded, "but it wasn't that hard really, all you need to do is to smile like what you've been doing a lot lately."

"My smiling is an unconscious movement of my mouth. I don't even know that I am smiling most of the time." Nico reasoned. "I'll just look awkward when I forced myself to smile."

"It's just what you think. I bet you never tried it!"

"I just know it. This is my body after all! And was it really necessary to have our picture taken?"

"Nico, this is what you call having fun and as of the moment you are being a kill-joy." Will rolled his eyes. "Besides, pictures are a way of preserving the moment you cherished so. . ."

Nico was about to respond when there was a sudden familiar vibration on his chest. He fished out the pocket watch in the inside pocket of his aviator jacket.

"I have to go. I'll be back later." Nico said. He snapped shut the watch and put it back in his jacket's inside pocket.

Will sighed. "Okay, see you later."

Nico was about to stand up when Will held his arm and pulled him down to sit again. Will spoke. "Wait,"

Nico was confused. He was about to look at Will when in a flash Will's lip was on his cheek stopping Nico from turning his head at him. The screen of the phone in front of their faces.

"GOTCHA!" Will exclaimed like he had won a jackpot on a lottery. He was grinning from ear to ear.

"What in Hades, Solace?" Nico asked slowly.

"It's not that bad." Will nodded satisfied as he looked down at his cellphone. He laughed. "Aww, Neeks, you look really surprised here. It looks adorable! Look." He held up his phone to Nico so he could see the screen.

Nico stared at the screen. There, his pale face had looked completely off-guard. His dark-brown eyes had widened as he stared at the camera. His mouth had slightly parted open and he had looked completely flustered. Will's eyes had closed and his lips were on Nico's cheek.

"I'm just going to be contented with this one until you learn how to smile at the camera," Will said gazing lovingly on his phone screen. "I think I need to print this one. I have to frame it and put it somewhere. . ."

Nico stared at Will. "I am not adorable."

"What?" Will blinked up at him.

"I said I am not adorable, death angels aren't supposed to be adorable."

Will laughed. "Oh, love, yes you are, you just have to get out of your dark brooding look! Now, off you go. A soul is waiting for you and we wouldn't want him wandering around, would we?" This time, he pushed off Nico from the couch.

"I am not adorable," Nico grumbled as he stood up.

"Shoo! Do your job most adorable death angel I've ever met."

"No, I am not adorable." Nico continued to grumble. He vanished in black smoke.

Will hummed as he strolled through the hallway of JHH, some colleagues and nurses greeted him along the way. He tried to recall how many cups of coffee he had drunk before his shift because he felt like he could do a dozen surgeries without getting tired. He felt buoyant as if his feet weren't even touching the ground when he walked, as if he was floating- Oh, gods no. A sudden realization hit him. Was this what it felt like to be in love? Like you were on a cloud nine or something? Will internally flinched. He sounded like a high school student with his first love. But the thing was, he had never felt this way with the previous guys he had dated on a serious level, which amounted only to two people.

It felt like this time, everything was different, a good different. Yes, when it came to Nico di Angelo, it was always a whole new level. True, he was an awkward guy at some point but he could be sweet in his own way. And even though, Will was new to this kind of secret relationship with a death angel, he felt contented about it and it felt like everything was just in their right places.

He was pulled out from his reverie when he had heard a shout. He paused in an intersection and looked at his side. He saw not from afar a man who seemed to be arguing to a doctor. That doctor happened to be Kayla.

"Who are you to say when a man's life is going to be over?!" The man shouted at Kayla. "You are not a god."

"Sir calm down," Kayla said placidly. "I was just stating the possible outcomes of your wife's disease."

"You are a doctor and you can't even cure her?"

Will decided to approach them since the argument was becoming more heated. The man was angry. It could be dangerous when a person became blinded by anger.

"Sir, as I have said, the tissue build-up has spread all over her pancreas. It is going to be hard to remove all of them, almost impossible. Soon, her organs will fail-" She never finished her sentence when the man had pushed her to the wall. She stumbled back and her back hit the wall. She visibly flinched.

"Hey!" In an instant, Will was on Kayla's side supporting her. He put himself between Kayla and the man. "Sir, with all due respect, you can't just go hitting someone! We will call security if you don't stop."

"And who are you? Get out of the way." The man barked. "I'm not yet done talking to this quack doctor who can't even cure her patients."

"Sir," Will said calmly, "this doctor is trying her best to help your wife and as you have said she isn't a god who can perform some miracle. Some things are beyond our control."

The man tried to punch Will, but he had seen it coming and immediately deflected it. He pushed Kayla out of the way.

"Sir-" this time Will wasn't lucky enough and received the second punch from the man. The man was bigger than Will as if the man was a bouncer in a bar. So the force of punch on his face had almost made Will passed out. His brain rattled inside his head and he could have sworn he had seen stars. Will staggered backward.

The man turned and his attention was back on Kayla. Will was going to go after the man despite his blurring vision when someone beat him to it.

It was Nico. Nico pushed the man against the wall holding the man's collar. The size and height difference didn't seem to bother Nico. He seemed to be more intimidating than the man. Will managed to come towards Kayla.

"Hey, you okay?" Will asked.

"I was not the one who got punched. I should be the one who's asking you that!" Kayla exclaimed.

"I'm fine-"

They heard a grunt. When they turned around, the man was lying on the floor groaning. Nico was standing over him.

"Nico!" Will shouted

Thankfully, Dr. Lee Fletcher came with security in tow. The security carried the man away who was still groaning.

"Is anyone else here who has gotten hurt?" Dr. Fletcher asked.

"Will got sucker punch-"

"I'm fine, I just need an ice bag." Will interrupted Kayla. Though, he couldn't help but wince as he gingerly touched his cheekbone. It was surely going to bruise and probably swell if he didn't get an ice bag soon enough. But on the brighter note, he didn't have a fractured jaw.

"Are you sure? We could do an MRI scan?" Fletcher raised an eyebrow.

"You're overreacting. I've got a hard skull so I'm good. Just check the man instead." Will shooed him away.

"All right, Doc Knowles, I'm leaving everything to you."

"Yep, got it covered," Kayla answered and Fletcher jogged away.

"Ow.." Will grimaced. The ice bag was cold on his cheek and the coldness of it stung. They were in the on-call room since Will had refused to be treated in the emergency room. Nico was holding the ice bag. Will noticed that Nico had been eerily quiet since the fight with the man earlier.

"Here's the pain killer." Kayla put down a bottle of tablet medicine on the table. She frowned worriedly at Will. "Are you sure, you're all right? You might have a concussion. Is your head still aching?"

"For a hundredth time, Kayla, I'm all right. My head throbbed a little bit but I think it will pass, once I drink some painkiller –ow! Not too hard, di Angelo."

Nico did not comment.

"As I was saying, don't worry, I'll notify you right away when I started to feel extreme dizziness or headache."

"Okay." Kayla exhaled. "I apologize for what happened earlier, on behalf of Fred, the man who hit you. He's distressed when he had found out that his beloved wife has few weeks to live."

"What was his wife's illness?" Will asked wincing again at the ice bag on his cheekbone.

"Acute pancreatitis with a pseudocyst," Kayla answered. "We did the endoscopic ultrasound and the tissue and fluid build-up is so severe, her spleen might have been dissolved because of it. Anyway, thanks for being my knight and shining armor earlier, Willie. To be honest, I was also kind of terrified of that man. He looked like the incredible hulk."

"Wow, here I was thinking that nothing scares you." Will joked

"Shut up. And Nico thanks also for coming to our rescue." Kayla said earnestly to Nico.

Nico just nodded.

"I'll leave you two here, just going to check Fred and his wife," Kayla said and left.

When the door closed behind Kayla, Nico put down the ice bag. He stood up and went to the water dispenser. He filled a plastic cup with water. He put down the cup on the table, in front of Will.

"You are strangely quiet." Will tilted his head back and popped the tablet into his mouth. He swallowed it down with water.

"He hurt you," Nico said quietly.

"Well, yeah." Will put down the cup on the table, "and I was sure that the side of my face is going to look like an eggplant hopefully it won't swell-" Will noticed that Nico's fist shook over the table.

"I'm so angry at him that I could have killed him." Nico closed his eyes trying and failing to calm himself down.

"No, you won't," Will said softly, prying Nico's fist to open, then he held Nico's hand.

"Take a deep breath, Nico," Will said.

Nico obliged.

"Then look at me."

It took a moment before Nico reluctantly opened his eyes to look at Will. There was still blaze in Nico's eyes that would surely terrify anyone who would dare him.

"You'll leave him alone, okay?" Will said sternly. "I'm fine, all of us are and that's all that matters."

Nico did not respond.

"Nico."

Nico exhaled. "Yeah, I will, I've got no choice and even if I want to, I can't. We are bound by our sacred rules-" Nico paused.

"Sacred rules?" Will tilted his head at him curiously. He noticed how Nico had stiffened. He was always aware of how Nico would be uncomfortable and stiffen when the rules of the Underworld had been mentioned. Though, Will had remained silent about that certain observation about him.

Nico seemed to contemplate what to say. Then he explained the rules quietly as if someone would eavesdrop on their conversation. "We've got a lot of rules in the underworld but the Sacred Rules are the supreme rules that the death angels should obey. Usually, when we disobey some rules we got second chances and the High Council will decide what punishment to give to us. But if we break the Sacred Rules there are no chances and judgment. We'll go straight to the field of punishment and experience eternal damnation."

"Oh. . ." Will frowned, still processing the idea of their Sacred Rules. "So what are those Sacred Rules?"

"We. . ." Nico began. It looked like he was having a hard time getting the words out of his mouth. "The Sacred Rules are composed of only. . . two rules. First is: Do not interfere with the Fates. Meaning, we cannot change what's about to happen because things should happen the way they are. And secondly: Do not take the soul of the Living, only the dead. I cannot kill people. I can't even inflict too much damage to a human that they will be on the brink of death or suffer permanent damage. So yeah, as much as I want to kill or cripple that bastard who hit you, I can't. "

"Hell yeah, you won't!" Will said. "Or else, I am the one who will personally send you to the Underworld for punishment."

Nico smiled a little bit.

"There, you are smiling again. I like that." Will smiled too, then his phone vibrated on his lab coat's pocket. He fished it out and answered it "Hello?" A pause. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'll be there." Will hang up and turned at Nico. "I was paged to the Emergency. I need to go."

"How do you feel, you sure you're okay now?" Nico frowned.

"Yep. The painkillers worked faster than anesthesia." Will answered truthfully. He no longer felt dizzy and his head stopped throbbing.

"Okay," Nico said. "Go."

Will reached the entrance of the Emergency room and was greeted by two police officers he knew too well.

"Percy? Jason? What are you doing here?" Will asked surprised.

"Whoa, doc," Percy said. "It looked like you've been punched by Muhammad Ali."

"Yeah, I got punched but not by Muhammad Ali. What are you doing here?"

"We brought you some patient," Jason said pointing to the corner of the emergency where doctors were gathered. Will immediately went there.

There, he saw an unconscious boy lying in the cot covered in blood and knife sticking out of his chest. The doctors were doing their best to control the bleeding. The boy seemed to be young appearing to be 18 years old or younger. His skin was burnished bronze and his hair was in cornrows.

"Let me see, the chest x-ray," Will said. Lou, the nurse handed the film to him and he raised it to the x-ray illuminator nearby. Another doctor namely, Dr. Tim Alistair was checking the patient's pupil with his small flashlight.

"The knife narrowly missed the heart but it still punctured the right lung," Will concluded from observing the film.

"According to the police officers, he got into a fight with criminals they were chasing," Lou said who was standing behind him. "He got stabbed and he got hit by a baseball bat in the head."

"Yeah, a pretty big hit in the head because I believed he got a cerebral hemorrhage." Dr. Alistair chimed in.

"Arrange the OR, and get a supply from the blood bank," Will ordered. "This is going to be a blood bath."

Will exited the emergency to prepare for the surgery. Percy and Jason were still there, waiting in the hallway.

"How is he?" Percy asked.

"He lost a lot of blood and he's going into surgery. Let's just hope that he survive that." Will answered.

"Please do everything you need to save him. We need him alive." Jason said.

Will had questions but those could wait later, saving the boy was the priority first.

"We'll do everything we can," Will said and left the two officers.

After an extensive surgery with the boy, fortunately, the boy survived it. Will walked out of the operating room pulling out his scrub cap. As he had expected, Jason and Percy were there waiting for him.

"Does he have any parents?" Will asked.

"Nope, not even relatives we can contact," Jason answered.

"How is he?" Percy asked.

"He's fine now. We moved him to the ICU for the time being. Now, who is this boy?" Will said.

"His name is Austin Lake, 18 years old. As of the moment, He is our primary witness to the whereabouts of the syndicate we have been chasing. And we believe that the one who stabbed him was the leader of that syndicate." Percy explained.

"But how on earth did he get involved in that syndicate?" Will asked.

"His girlfriend was working for them. We believed that they were trying to run away from them but that happened. As for her girlfriend, the syndicate has taken her. Unfortunately, we failed to catch them. We got ambushed. But we won't stop until they're all behind the bars." Jason was determined.

"We are going to assign some cops around to protect him, just in case," Jason added.

"All right." Will nodded. "Do what you must do."