Chapter 5:

Will and Romeo Share a Soliloquy

Will was surprised how easily the night passed without incident.

By incident, he meant tackling the obliviously adorable bit of Tall, Dark and di Angelo and kissing him senseless. There were a few moments Will had barely stopped himself, and he could remember them all. He vowed they would forever be burned into the mental folder of 'Almost's' in the twenty-million gigabyte file on Nico di Angelo in his brain.

It was official. Will Solace had long moved passed the 'vague but still intense crush' stage and was too deep to get out of the 'if he looks at me I faint,' faze. He hoped he wouldn't start having fanboy attacks. That could get messy.

Sneaking out of the Hades cabin in the morning was easier than he expected. The door faced the woods, so he could run out quietly and then come back saying he'd gone for an early morning jog. Nico had even lent him a baggy black sweatshirt so he could hide better. Will had pulled the warm garment on right away and grinned at Nico.

"It's perfect!" he'd exclaimed, showing Nico how the sleeves hung over his hands and how the neck drooped down to the collar of his orange Camp Half-Blood shirt. Nico had given a quiet laugh and Will had to discreetly cover his face to hide his small blush. Then he left and as he was running, he looked back just once. Will saw Nico at the door, half hidden by it, and looking out, watching him leave. At that moment, Will felt like the boyfriend who'd stayed the night without the parents knowing. He wished that he could feel that way and know it was true.

Entering the Apollo cabin after finding the door had miraculously unlocked, Will glared at the first people he saw. One boy, Michael Yew, had the decency to look embarrassed. Lee on the other hand, just raised his eyebrow and said, "Whose sweater's that?"

Will scowled at him as he moved to his bed, rubbing his hair and deciding he needed a shower.

"A friend's," he replied, gathering up clean clothes and heading for the bathroom. "And thanks' for locking me out, by the way, guys. Really nice of you."

"Will-"

"Do you know that the harpies are cannibals? I could have died!"

"Will-"

"You're all so lucky I found somewhere to hide."

"SOLACE!" Lee shouted, and Will halted halfway through the bathroom door. Lee was looking at something on his back.

"What?" Will asked, twisting to try and see himself. Michael was smirking.

"Your sweater says Cabin 13 on the back," Lee deadpanned. Will felt his breath stutter and rocks pile into his stomach.

Shit.

On one hand, Will was immediately in love with the sweater and planned on never giving it back. On the other…

"Did you hide with di Angelo?"

Will glanced over his shoulder to see Lee looking at him with an 'I know all so cut the crap and spill' expression. Michael was kind of just giggling behind his hand.

"So what if I did?" Will replied, feeling defensive. Lee sighed and there was a beat of silence before he dug around in his pocket and fished out a five dollar bill. Michael took the money gleefully before prancing off. Will stared at Lee in disbelief.

"What the Hades was that?" he shouted. Lee shrugged.

"I did some research," he said. "Found out your partner for the Romeo and Juliet thing. It doesn't take Sherlock to see you've got a bloody big thing for Nico, Will."

Will grabbed his head and leant against the door frame, groaning.

"Fuck me."

"I'm going to leave that particular duty up to di Angelo, actually," Lee replied. Will heard his footsteps leaving the cabin.

"I hate you!" Will yelled after him, throwing the first thing he decided was flight-worthy. His clean t-shirt sailed through the air and flapped gently over Lee's head. Will stormed into the bathroom, not bothering to check the fruits of his hard-won labour, and slammed the door behind him.

When Will exited his angry-but-calming shower, he realised he had a problem.

Throwing his shirt at Lee had left him minus one important article of clothing. He didn't want to walk around without the top half of his outfit this early in the morning, but he wasn't in the mood for sticking around in his cabin any longer than it took to run out and slam the door. But the only piece of clothing that could do the job was…

Will decided he'd never had anything against sweaters and since it was mid-Autumn, he would wear the damn thing.

Wanting to put it on also had absolutely nothing to do with the fact it was clearly Nico's. Will was adamant on this fact. Leaving the bathroom, Will whizzed past his bed, grabbed his copy of Romeo and Juliet, and slammed the cabin door behind him, letting the building rattle on its foundations and hopefully pissing off a couple of his siblings.

Will headed for the edge of the forest and sat down in the shade of a really tall tree. It would be good to climb, he decided. So, putting the play between his teeth, Will reached up for the first branch. Swinging his legs onto it as well, he balanced long enough to scramble to the trunk and shimmy his way further.

Five minutes later, Will was seven meters off the ground and very happy with himself. He was seated on a thick limb of the tree, his legs dangling down on either side, and his back against the main bark. Sunlight dappled the leaves around him and Will closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the smell of early morning, plantation, living things and of course, the addictive scent of Nico di Angelo's sweater. It was like pomegranates, and something else. Will wasn't sure how it was possible for someone to smell like the shadows, but Nico did it. Eau du Darkness, maybe. Bottled Night. Whatever it was, Will liked it.

Opening his play to the second marker that signified a Romeo/Juliet interaction, Will started reading to himself in a whisper.

"He jests at scars that never felt a wound." Will couldn't help but compare his opening line to what just happened with Lee.

"But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!"

Nico was the night, actually. Will decided to skip the whole moon-hating thing.

"It is my lady; O, it is my love! O, that she knew she were!"

If only Nico knew Will liked him more than friends.

Suddenly there was movement below him, and Will looked down. He bit his tongue to stop a call of surprise when he saw Nico sliding down to sit on the ground at the foot of the same tree Will himself was in. The Hades kid seemed to have headphones in and was opening his copy of Romeo and Juliet to what Will thought he could see was the same scene he was looking at. He watched Nico's eyes skim over what he had just said and Will had a ridiculous feeling that this scene was a prophecy written hundreds of years ago just for this moment.

"She speaks, yet she says nothing: what of that?"

Will continued with his spiel of Juliet-love, looking at Nico the whole time.

"Her eyes discourses; I will answer it."

Nico looked up from his book and glanced around. Will really did want to slide down and talk to him.

"I am to bold," he sighed. "Tis not to me she speaks."

Nico went back to his play. Will skipped a few lines and continued from there.

"The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, as daylight doth a lamp.

"See how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!"

There was a moment of silence from both parties until Nico, who couldn't have known Will was in the tree and obviously had wicked timing skills, suddenly sighed and said, "Ay me!"

Will almost laughed at the perfection of the entire moment.

"She speaks: O, speak again, bright angel!"

Didn't di Angelo mean 'angel' in Italian?

Down at the bottom of the tree, Nico looked away from his book and out to the horizon, where the sun was still rising.

"O, Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?"

In the tree, Will wanted to say. It was legitimately the entire scene reversed: Romeo was up high and Juliet was on the ground. Will was the sun and Nico was the night. Need he go on?

"Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet."

Will checked his play and found yet another irony.

"Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?"

Will decided to completely screw the entire thing, and carefully put his play in his back pocket before jumping off the branch where he'd been sitting. His hands caught one a meter down and he swung dangerously for a moment before his feet found purchase and he stepped down onto another trunk. He repeated this until there was only a two-meter drop left. He leapt off, grinning like a fool, and just before he hit the ground he tucked into a roll and came up undamaged. Swivelling around, Will gave Nico a delighted grin.

"Hiya!" he greeted. Nico jumped so hard his shirt grated against the bark and scratched the back of his neck. His eyes shot to Will and widened. He hastily pulled one of the earbuds out.

"Di immortals, Solace!" he gasped. "Where the Hades did you come from?"

Will hesitantly pointed up.

"About seven meters above you," he replied sheepishly. "I, uh, was going over the next scene."

Nico glanced at his book.

"Me too," he replied, his face a tiny bit pink. Will decided it was probably the shock of having someone jump out of a tree almost on top of you. Will pulled his play back out and started thumbing back to the page he was at.

"So…" he started, but Nico unexpectedly looked up at him, a wicked gleam in his eye.

"What man art thou, that thus bescreen'd in night so stumblest on my council?"

It took a minute for Will to understand what he meant and a second more to swallow his laughter. Di Angelo, that little shit. Instead he followed up with Romeo.

"By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am: my name, dear saint, is hateful to myself, because it is an enemy to thee. Had I it written, I would tear the word," he replied, grinning at Nico as the other boy pasted on a confused expression.

"My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound: art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?" He looked at Will in a way that made the Apollo kid forget his own name, screw Romeo's.

"Probably," he said instead, completely breaking the act into a thousand tiny little pieces of Romeo and Juliet.

Under the tree, Nico rolled his eyes, a tiny flicker of a smile on his face.

"Very literate, Solace," he said, glancing at Will through his eyelashes. Will's chest constricted.

"Aren't I just?" he asked rhetorically, moving towards Nico and making a gesture like, 'Mind if I invade your space?' Surprisingly Nico just nodded and Will sat down beside him.

"So what's that you're listening to?" Will asked. Nico hesitated, before taking an iPod out of his hoodie pocket and showing Will the screen, blushing slightly in embarrassment.

"Breaking Benjamin," Will noted, nodding in agreement. "I see that. Which song?"

Nico wordlessly handed Will the earbud he'd taken out before, and Will put it in. He was greeted with a sudden slow break in the song before words started drifting through.

"I Will Not Bow," the blond said, looking at Nico with a small grin. Nico didn't meet his eye. "Suits you."

Will was met with a sceptical look, and he sat up a little. He enjoyed explaining to Nico why he was amazing. It made him feel like he was justifying his crush to his crush. Which he sort of was.

"I mean it, Nico. The whole, I take crap from no one, I don't give up, I'm a stubborn little shit and it'll get me killed one day but I'll love every second theme has Nico di Angelo written all over it. 'I will not bow, I will not break, I will shut the world away.' I see it." Will stared at Nico intently, basically forcing the black haired boy's reflex's to look at him. "'I will not fall, I will not fade.' You're as strong as they come, Nico."

Will took the earbud out, sensing a bit of emotional turmoil in the boy beside him. He shifted to face Nico. The Hades kid wouldn't look up to meet his gaze.

"I'm not great," Nico whispered, staring off to the side. Will – yes, maybe his hand would be bitten off but he did it anyway – touched his fingers to the underside of Nico's chin and gently moved the other boy's face to look at him.

"Well, whatever you think, know that there are so many people who admire you. And I am proud to be taking you out to McDonalds next weekend when we go on leave."

At this, Nico raised an eyebrow. Will mentally slapped himself. Way to kill the mood, Solace.

"I like McDonalds."

Well, that was unexpected.

"I knew that," Will reassured himself, earning an odd look from his company. He quickly took his hand away and waved it around in the air, as though it might catch an excuse for him to use.

"I mean, you know, its common knowledge!" he exclaimed, gesturing wildly. "Nico di Angelo – McDonalds. They're practically synonyms."

Nico snorted, thankfully, and Will decided he could breathe a little easier now.

"You're as bad as Percy," he told Will. Generally, that was an insult. But since Will had a raging theory Nico had a thing for Percy Jackson, the Apollo kid considered it a gigantic victory. He shot to his feet and pumped the air in some semblance of a victory dance and before Nico could ask him what that was about, Will took off running, grinning like a madman.

"I'll see your ass at sword training, di Angelo!" he called over his shoulder.

"My ass will be there, don't worry, Solace!" was the reply. Will did a little unmanly squeal that he later denied to any ear-witnesses.

"Hang on, Solace!"

Will skidded to a halt and whipped around to see Nico, standing up and staring at him.

"Is that my sweater?"

Will proceeded to bullshit his answer, explaining how Lee viciously stole his only shirt in an extreme fight to the death earlier that day.

Ignore me, I don't know what I'm doing with this. It's just filling all my guilty pleasures like Breaking Benjamin, Solangelo and Clueless Fluff. By the way, I would go listen to that song. Don't you agree it has NICO DI ANGELO written all over it?

See ya'll next time!

Jasmine Out!

P.S. I might post the mermaid story later in the week, when I don't have exams. Thank you everyone who supported it – because you all did, regardless of actually wanting to read it or not. Really, it was sweet.

Bye!