Will was silent, looking down at his lap. Nico watched as he bit his lip gently, a vaguely familiar motion.

They sat in the pavilion of the bar, overlooking the beach. According to a guidebook he had found earlier, Elysium was a peninsula composed of two overlapping circles, connected to the Fields by a single golden bridge. The body of water surrounding them swirled in light cycles, lapping at the sand. Known simply as the Pool, it was formed from the constant intake of water from the Acheron and Lethe, pouring out over a waterfall into Tartarus.

He fidgeted nervously, almost afraid to break the silence. Apparently Will had known him before, and when Nico replied with a blank stare, he saw hurt form on the blonde's face, although Will quickly ducked his head. Unlike many of the others he saw in Elysium, Will was rather quiet and nervous, always seeming to finally say something, then catch the words in his throat and just stare.

It was just them, and the quiet beat of the waves.

"So, were we friends?" Nico blurted, then coiled back as Will's eyes shifted upwards. Was that the wrong thing to say?

After a pause, Will finally spoke, his lips carefully twisting around every syllable. "Friends. Yeah, sort of. If you really lost your memories, maybe it's for the best."

He felt hot tears burn in his eyes, and fought to keep them down. Why would no one tell him anything?

"Will, please. I may have forgotten things, but I'd like to get to know you all better." Will looked up, a small smile forming on his lips. Nico grinned.

"That's better." He reached out to rest his hand on Will's, but the blonde flinched.

"Wait-"

But before Nico could say a word, Will literally disappeared. Like, with a sudden blink of sunlight and the closing notes of Mario, Nico was left, sitting alone at a table for two.

He sighed and placed his elbows on the table, watching the two cocktail umbrellas flirt across the table. He shifted them a bit closer, and watched as the blue one winked at Nico, then leaned over and kissed the pink umbrella, which had turned bright red. At least somebody was happy.

As the sun slowly began to slide above the horizon, he yawned. Since waking up in Elysium yesterday, he hadn't slept a second. As Nico noticed, the sun wasn't actually the real one. Rather, he could distinctly make out a single mile-long wire, linked to somewhere past the horizon.

The world started shrinking, eventually closing into a slit that transformed into darkness, as Nico's head hit the table.

"Fuck." The sound of a crashing piece of metal, followed by a series of angry swears, woke him up. Cracking a blurry eye open, he looked up as the guy in the kitchen kept swearing, occasionally blending in a few strings of angry Russian Nico had picked up from Will's grandmother.

He lay on a bed, with white sheets and a matching pillow. The rest of the room followed suit; aside from a small photograph of a village blanketed in snow, it was the same damn, pristine white.

The door shuffled a bit, and it opened to reveal a silver-haired guy, who stared straight at Nico.

"Hey dude, finally awake? Pollux found you passed out on the balcony, and told me to bring you here. Aeneas, by the way."

The mornings had never been his favorite, and Nico mumbled his name.

Aeneas arched an eyebrow, and scoffed lightly before closing the door. "I'll leave you to it. Clean clothing in the wardrobe."

After the door closed, Nico lifted the sheets, where he was simply dressed in a pair of gray briefs. Damn, death treated him nicely. Apart from a thin coating of black hairs that dusted his legs, his body was slim, lean and hairless; he could even see the tracing of abs that bulged out against his stomach, which he definitely never had. And although it felt a little weird, a quick glimpse underneath his underwear confirmed his suspicions- Hell came with enhancements.

Walking over to the wardrobe, he opened it and looked inside. As he guessed, a lot of the clothing didn't fit him well, but he managed to pick out a pair of jeans which fit loosely around his hips, as well as a violet Polo-rip off with a grinning centaur on the chest.

As he stepped outside the room, he noticed Aeneas sitting at the table, with a fresh plate of foot. Behind him, what looked like a hastily-covered, overturned pan on the oven. Nico stifled a giggle and sat down.

"Thanks for the breakfast, Aeneas was it?" Aeneas nodded.

"No problem. So, why were you passed out on the porch of Elysium's biggest strip club?"

Nico felt himself blushing. Since when were there strip clubs after death? "I- I didn't know it was a strip club, I actually just randomly chose a bar."

Aeneas cocked a grin and leaned in. Nico noticed that on Aeneas' forehead, there were faint scars that seemed to spell out the letters "SPQR", as if someone had branded him there.

"I'm sure you'd fit right in." The man winked suggestively at Nico, who shrugged back.

They talked for a bit, and when Nico mentioned that Luke had introduced him here, Aeneas laughed, a tone rich and deep.

"Luke probably didn't really explain anything, just left you to explore, huh?" At Nico's half-puzzled, half-nodding expression, Aeneas grinned and went on.

"Well, boy, this is Elysium. I've been here a while; after Carthage, living just didn't seem that great, so I didn't get reborn. This place, well, it gets on your nerves a bit. You should be able to feel it, right?"
Something about that statement didn't sound right. Nico looked up, eyes narrowed, at Aeneas. "How did you know I was a child of Hades?"

Aeneas laughed. "Calm down kid, if there was a conspiracy in Elysium, I wouldn't be part of it- I'm ancient, been around for longer than some of the Roman gods. As for how I knew you were a son of Hades? The shadows were literally melting from your body."

Nico felt his face burn. Of course there wouldn't be any stalkers, or elaborate conspiracies, in Paradise. "Sorry, just continue."

"It's no problem; a lot of us have trouble believing that Paradise exists when we first get here. Anyways, I'll leave it to some of the others to show you how things go around here. There's the Main Sector, or what you've been exploring this whole time. Around the outskirts of the island, there are a few natural sectors for the heroes who want to experience something a bit different; they're customized after the four seasons on Earth. I'd personally recommend you check out Spring; Persephone runs it personally, and the smoothies there are to live for."

Persephone. For once, a name Nico recognized. Images of his step-mom filtered into his head, along with some annoying jingles for Raisin Bran. He giggled a little bit, earning a strange look from Aeneas.

"Anyways, you're pretty lucky to make it to Elysium. Sure, we aren't the Isles, where they have blowout parties and literal pizza bushes, but Elysium's a nice place to spend eternity in, or at least until the next time the Doors of Death open." He made a face, muttering something about Titans underneath his breath, before continuing.

"We've basically got all the perks of life, without a lot of the constraints of healthcare and time. I know the place seems huge; the architect they hired to design the place, that lady was way too optimistic about the number of heroes. Even after all these millennia, we don't even have enough to fill a football stadium, of which we have four. Many of the more modern ones choose to get a job and pretend like they're alive; ancient guys like me, we just hang around and relax."

As Aeneas was talking, Nico noticed something strange about the silver-haired guy. Apart from that one jab about the strip club, Aeneas was hardly flirting, and yet everything out of his mouth sounded oddly seductive; if he had asked Nico for a tissue, he would easily offer up his clothing.

"And that's it."

Nico blinked. Outside, the sun/light had already come fully out of the horizon, and Nico smiled brightly at Aeneas.

"Thank you so much for helping me out," Nico said.

The guy grinned. "Good luck, kid."

His first week passed by, almost in the blink of an eye, although in eternity you could never really tell. Between long sunbathing sessions with Aeneas, parties with Luke, and his job as a waiter, his days were filled to the brim. At night, he'd frequent the Sun Palace, hoping that he'd see Will again. It wasn't like there weren't other hot guys in Elysium; Percy clamored every other day at how cute Nico looked, while there were models walking around practically everywhere. In fact, the only remotely ugly person he saw was Achilles, although that might just be his personal bias speaking.

And yet, he just felt something a bit weird with Will. The way the blonde had stared at him; it didn't only feel familiar, but right. The blonde never was at the Palace, though, at least not when Nico was there. He'd sit there for hours, chatting with Pollux, hoping for his ray of sunshine to peek into that dark club.

But Will never came, and Nico found himself spending more and more time by himself, alone in the darkness, cocooned in a shroud of shadows.

"Yo, I thought I'd find you here."

Nico looked up from his position on the bench, currently trying to digest Shakespeare's Macbeth. He had never really had a great interest in literature, but with eternity to spend, he decided to give it another shot.

"What art thou doing here?" The words left his lips, before he realized.

Percy looked over with a sly grin. "I see you've been reading Shakespeare. If you'd like, I can teach you some swordplay."

The way he said that last word, Nico blushed. "You didn't answer the question."

The hero shrugged and sat down on the bench. "Nothing much, just came by to check on you. What's up with you anyways? Elysium's got all these parties, and cool stuff to do, and yet the past three times we've asked you to come hang, you've declined them all."

Nico sighed. Although Percy was a bit pushy and testosterone-fueled at times, he felt the guy was one of the only genuinely nice people here. Everyone else seemed to view him as an outsider, and even his own sister, Hazel, awkwardly skirted the topic of his memories whenever he talked about it.

"Percy, can I ask you something?"

Percy cocked an eyebrow, then grinned. "Sure. In case you were wondering, I'm single, I live on 25 Poseidon, and I'm six-three tall, nine long."

Nico palmed his face. After so many suggestive comments by Percy, he had finally learned to hold his blush. "Bruh. But seriously, have you heard of a guy, Will? He's blond, blue innocent eyes, about your height, surfer?"

Percy pouted. "Babe, and I thought I was the one for you."

"It's not like that!" And just like that, his face was bright red once again.

"Oh, it's much more. But I'll let Will tell you, alright? He actually lives a few houses down from me," Percy said.

"Come on in, it's unlocked." Nico heard Will's voice ring from further inside the house.

He stepped inside, and looked around. The inside was elegant, with a lot of white and gold splashed around the furniture and walls. On a corner of the entrance hall hung a picture, of Will and some dark-haired guy. Was that him?

Nico turned his head as Will walked out into the entrance way, and immediately froze. The blonde had a towel around his waist, and nothing else on. His other hand was busy wiping his hair, luckily shielding Will's sight for a few seconds.

"Yeah, sorry about that. I just got up from a nap and was showering-" His voice cut off as he saw Nico, staring awkwardly at him.

Immediately, his tone sharpened. "How'd you get here?"

"Um- Percy told me. He also wanted me to tell you to follow your dreams and grow some- some balls."

Will snorted. "Percy. Well, so, why are you here?"

"I just wanted to talk to you," Nico said, unsure at the harsh tone the blonde had taken. This wasn't the same guy he remembered from the bar.

His breath caught in his throat, as Will leaned closer. And closer, until their foreheads were almost touching. Nico gulped.

"What. Did. I say about staying away? Do not come looking for me again, don't ask around about me, don't even get close. I don't want to see you again. And tell Percy to eat shit."

Nico's jaw dropped, as tears formed at the corners of his eyes. He didn't know why, but those words stung at his heart. The door opened behind him, and Nico stared pleadingly at Will, but the blonde refused to look at him. As the door closed, Nico caught a glimpse of Will's face- a look of terror- before the door slammed shut, leaving a single boy standing on the steps of Paradise.

AN: Hi! Here's chapter two. The first few chapters are just setting up the world, and then I can start rolling out the plot. If I broke/break some cardinal rule of the PJO fandom, I'm terribly sorry; I've never worked with characters that already have personalities and elaborate characterization, and I'm trying to stay mostly faithful to them.