In broad daylight, Nico is the only one who can see Octavian. To anyone else in Beijing, even those who can see through the Mist, Octavian is nothing more than a shimmery patch of light, an illusion that isn't there when you look back the second time.
But to Nico, he's just as clear and present as he was the previous night. He's translucent of course, and pale, but then Octavian was pale even in life.
He tries not to look too much at Octavian. Because even in his ghostly form, Octavian reminds him too much of Will.
If Nico thinks about it, Octavian and Will are nothing alike. Will radiates warmth; Will always has that dopey smile on his face, that gentle grin that makes first year campers flock to him like sheep. Will has eyes that crinkle when he smiles; Will has gold lashes that glint in the sunlight.
Octavian has none of Will's natural charisma. Octavian is constantly wearing a surly expression, even in death. Octavian is like an ancient watercolor version of Will; faded and barely there.
Gods, he misses Will so much.
"So how's it going?" Octavian ventures finally.
"Are you trying to make small talk?" Nico asks in disbelief. "You're not actually trying to make small talk."
"I'm bored," Octavian says defensively.
"And I'm a grown man in a dark coat stalking an elementary school," says Nico. "I'd rather not look like I'm talking to myself."
"Your fault for wearing that trench coat," Octavian retorts. "What is this, 1950?"
"I like this coat," Nico mumbles.
And where he comes from, it is 1950.
Octavian might be smiling.
"So why are you here?" he asks after a pause.
"Here?"
"Beijing," Octavian clarifies. "What are you looking for?"
"None of your business," Nico says by reflex, because it's the answer he's used to giving.
Octavian is unfazed. "If you tell me, I can help. Tit for tat. Quid pro quo. Consider it a thank you."
"Octavian, I know this is going to come as a shock to you, but you are dead."
"So it won't hurt to talk to me," says Octavian. "Beijing's a long way from New York, son of Hades. What's dragged you out here? Why aren't you back at camp?"
Nico glares fixedly at the school gates.
"I can't go back to camp," he says.
The last time he saw Will was in Percy's apartment.
Percy and Annabeth have a cramped one-bedroom in New Rome, which feels smaller than it is because of Annabeth's clutter filling up the space. Annabeth, architecture major, owns so many textbooks and measuring equipment and architectural designs that the place overflows with her stuff. Percy is almost spartan in comparison. Nico usually finds it funny that Annabeth is the messier one of the two, but just then he couldn't bear the sight of her things–a worn blue backpack in the corner, a baseball cap on top of the laundry heap.
Annabeth had disappeared for the day, but surrounded by her possessions, Nico felt worse than if she were standing right in front of him.
"It's Will," Percy said, buzzing him up even as Nico dove under his bed and yelled no, no, DON'T.
Soon enough knock sounded at the door.
"Tell him I'm out," Nico begged.
Percy just gave him a look. He turned to open it, and Nico disappeared down the hallway.
"Hey," Will said.
"Hey." Percy cleared his throat.
Right about now was when there would be a warm exchange, maybe a hug, definitely a handshake, but under the current circumstances neither of them knew quite to do.
Will looked around the apartment.
"So, uh, where's Annabeth?"
"She's out." Percy rubbed his elbow. "And he's. Um. In the bedroom."
"Figured," Will said neutrally.
Will gestured awkwardly with his hand, just as Percy made to step aside, and they maneuvered around each other until Will was standing in front of the locked bedroom door.
"What do they look like?" Nico asks, because if he's going to entertain Octavian then they might as well talk about something useful.
To Nico's amazement, Octavian shrugs. "No clue. Boy and a girl. Could be anyone."
Nico fights the urge to curse out loud in Italian. "You don't know?"
"I wasn't given a lot to go off of!" Octavian protests. "Look–I can't just walk around this world like you can, alright? I only get to visit demigods in their dreams. If they're vivid dreamers, I get more details. I get time to talk to them. But if they're really young, or if they haven't been dreaming at all, I don't have a way in."
Octavian looks rueful.
Nico realizes in retrospect that he might have been more sensitive. Ghosts, after all, are rarely happy to be reminded that they're dead. But he also thinks that Octavian might have told him this before dragging them out to this high school. "So what the hell are we doing here?"
"I'm fairly sure they go to school here."
"Oh, like you were fairly sure your plan wouldn't cause an Octavian-sized explosion in the sky?"
Ghosts shouldn't be able to flush, but Nico definitely sees two spots of red in the air where Octavian's cheeks are.
"Low blow, Di Angelo."
I know, Nico wants to say.
There's only one taboo when it comes to dealing with ghosts, and that's to never poke fun at how they died. Even if they died in an amazingly stupid self-inflicted explosion like Octavian. Even if the world is probably better off now that they're gone.
As the son of Hades, Nico knows better than most not to disrespect the dead.
And yet.
Nico realizes, in the abstract, that he has a problem. He doesn't seem to have a filter these days. He hasn't had a filter for years. Nico says the first thing that comes to mind, hurtful as that may be, and only belatedly considers the consequences.
"Stop being such a prick," Thalia snapped once, when they were all crashing at Hazel's, and Nico made a comment about Luke that made Annabeth turn pale. He doesn't remember precisely what made him say it, only that he was drunk and irritable and missing Bianca, and hearing Thalia and Annabeth reminisce about Luke like he was some hero had just set him off.
Nico lost his temper then, and Thalia grabbed her shield and asked You wanna go, son of Hades? and Nico reached for his sword, and then Jason was between them saying walk it off, guys, come on, and no one has brought it up since.
It's eerie, actually, how nobody brings it up.
Nico thinks that Jason spoke to the others that night, but he'll never know what was said, because when he woke up the next morning, everyone was all artificial cheer and overstated forgiveness. Now, whenever Nico says something acerbic, whenever he's being intentionally cruel, he's only ever met with a resigned look and mutters.
The only person who comments on it now is Will. Will never loses his temper, but Will does passive aggressiveness better than the cattiest suburban housewife, and Nico remembers acutely the pang he felt in his chest when Will commented softly that maybe, just maybe, he might consider not being such an asshole all the time.
"I'm not mad," Will said softly on the other side of the door.
And inside Percy's room, Nico was crouched like a teenage girl, greatly regretting missing the chance not to escape out the window when he had the chance.
"I just want to talk," said Will. "I'm sorry."
And he sounded so gentle, and so understanding, that Nico wanted to hit something–it's not fair, Will of all people should not be the one apologizing, Will was not the one who has just cheated on his boyfriend, Will was certainly not to blame–
And that was the problem, really.
Will was innocent. Will was so innocent and blameless that it drove Nico mad.
Because Will just wanted to heal him, and Nico didn't want to be healed; Nico didn't want naps in the sunlight and lazy kisses in strawberry fields. Nico wants blood. Nico wanted an outlet for the adrenaline coursing through his blood, that fight or flight reaction that never quite went away after Tartarus; Nico needed a visible enemy that he cacouldn fight, because the imagined enemies were so much worse.
Nico couldn't stand still, he couldn't let himself be healed, he couldn't be passive, because if he tried he would go insane.
Nico needed to hurt someone, and it couldn't be Will anymore.
"There's nothing to talk about, Will," he said flatly to the door.
"I don't understand what this is about," Will said. "Look–will you just open this? Will you talk to me? Please?"
Nico was sick of talking.
Nico wanted a sword in his hands, and an enemy to kill, and the reassurance that this is not Tartarus, he is not helpless, he is not trapped in a jar; he has a weapon and he can fight back and they can't get at him…
In hindsight, he realized that this is why he went to Percy.
Because Percy, of all people, knew what Nico was going through.
He had really only wanted to talk, when he'd shown up at the door, drenched to the bone and miserable and sobbing with fear.
He hadn't banked on the rest.
"It can't be too hard to find them," Octavian says, deftly changing the subject.
Nico snorts. "Right, because demigods who don't know they're demigods walk around with giant neon signs over their heads. I don't have a demigod radar, Octavian."
"No, but you and I are pretty good at sensing monsters," Octavian points out. "And they have demigod radars."
Nico is amazed. "Your plan was to wait for monsters to attack? Seriously? This was the plan you interrupted my seance for?"
He checks his watch. School is out in ten minutes. Soon this playground will be flooded with Chinese elementary school students wearing identical polyester uniforms, and best case scenario he isn't dragged away by campus police for staring at the children.
Worst case scenario, a monster shows up.
"I think we've established that foresight was never my strong suit," Octavian says lightly.
"I don't know how you ever became an augur," Nico mutters.
Octavian grimaces.
They watch the school in silence for a moment. Nico doesn't know what they're still doing here, because frankly he doesn't know what he's going to do when the bell is out, but he doesn't have a better plan than Octavian's.
"So why Beijing?" Octavian circles around to his original question, relentless. "What are you searching for?"
"I told you, it's none of your business."
"Did Percy send you?" Octavian persists.
"This is my own quest." Nico's face tightens. "And Percy's not at Camp Half-Blood anymore."
"Right." Octavian's expression is inscrutable. "He'll be in college by now. It's been years. I'd forgotten."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Nico is surprised. "How would you forget that it's been three years?"
"Time passes differently when you're dead," Octavian says. "You lose track of what's going on the real world. Everything else sort of blurs together. When you have all of eternity in front of you, a few years doesn't seem like such a big deal."
He sounds bitter. He sounds wistful.
And Nico realizes that maybe, just because Octavian has been given a ghostly duty doesn't make it any easier to be deceased.
He wonders what it's like to be Octavian, to be assigned with an eternal duty as a constant reminder of what he couldn't accomplish in life, and he wonders if it would have been more merciful for his father to just let Octavian suffer in the pits after all.
He opens his mouth to say something, but then the bell rings and the courtyard is suddenly flooded with children.
