THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU! I've gotten so many favorites and follows and reviews! Thank you to everyone who read this and liked it!
Okay, I just read that Uncle Rick considers Will to be Nico's peer. I'm not sure if that means two years isn't that big of an age difference, (which it isn't – my parents are eighteen years apart and they've been happily married for like seventeen years and have three and a half problem children) or he means that Will is fourteen too, which I like much better. In the first chapter, the age difference was kind of important, so I'm not going to take it out, but from now on they're both fourteen. 'kay?
Look at my wonderful/adorable/amazing cover! I made it myself (with a little help from my dad, who braved the hated family computer just to get them together in the picture) and I have to say, I am quite impressed with my own ingenuity. Viria did the picture of Nico (she does the best drawings EVER, even if I don't always agree with her ships) and I don't know who did Will. It looks like one of Viria's, but the name was practically unreadable, and didn't look like hers. Props to whoever did draw it! I really wanted you guys to see this picture of Will, because this is usually how I imagine him looking, and it's one of the few that have him looking fourteen and not just some ridiculously buff, blonde guy.
Okay, so my plan was that this whole story would be in three chapters. This second chapter was supposed to bee a bunch of oneshots from the three days they spent together in the infirmary. Then I finished it and saw the little pg37 at the bottom . . .
So I'm splitting this into three parts, one for each day. Each day has three oneshots. (Are you sensing a theme here?) This is the first day. And the next chapter is going to take awhile, so this will give you something to look forward to while that's going on.
I would also like to add that it is probable that my time management wasn't perfect. Please just treat each one-shot as its own thing, otherwise you might find yourself wondering how they managed to do all that in just a day.
Also, you will notice the whole sleeping, nocturnal thing I going on with Nico . . . please remember that this is my headcannon, and I just really like sleepy Nico.
They end up talking about a lot of things during these three days, but I tried not to go into detail about the heavier stuff, and I don't think I even mentioned Tartarus, because I didn't want it to be like, "Ooh, hot guy, *spills all darkest secrets and traumas and immediately trust each other*"
Just no.
My headcannon Nico is a little mean, and I try to make him as strong and independent as I think he is . . . I mentioned that before, but I thought it might be worth repeating.
And I think of him as being completely, 100% over Percy. I think the only reason that crush got so out of hand, was because for a long time, Percy was the closest thing Nico had to someone he could love. Now he has a sister, lots of friends and someone he can completely love. Eventually. Honestly, these kids . . . Anyway, Percy is now right where he belongs, with Annabeth on the top of the list of close friends/meddling cousins.
THE GODS ARE GREEK. They have been sleeping around with members of the same sex for longer than sexuality has been classified as such. You think the demigods are all that different? Nico's just being dense. (Bi is bisexual, and pan is pansexual, which means you're attracted to anyone, regardless of gender or sexuality. Just in case anyone didn't know.)
Ki ego means Me Too in Greek. Keep that in mind.
There ends up being some medical stuff in here. I watch a lot of House MD. For those of you who don't know, Capillaries are the tiny, thinner than a strand of hair blood vessels that make up most of our flesh. The temperature thing is totally true. Paddles are the shocker things doctors use to restart people's heart. The look kind of like irons, you know, like what you iron your clothed with. If anything else doesn't make sense, feel free to tell me in a revew.
I think that covers everything. Sorry for the super long AN (It's longer than the first oneshot!) I just really needed to say all that.
As usual, this was beta'd by AbbieDabbie/Deputy of Awesome in Charge of Musicals, who waited patiently every time I told her I was 'almost done,' and somehow manages to make sense of the particularly crazy bits of genius that find their way onto the page. Not to mention her valiant battle with her own computer to get the corrections to me. Happy Birthday to you and Gracie!
I don't own Percy Jackson! Or Nico. Or Will. Although . . . nope, that's in the last chapter. Never mind my spoiling tongue (and with my own story! Shameful.)
Eyes
Will kept checking his eyes. He did it with a weird little triangular flashlight from his black doctor's bag, which also contained a tiny rubber mallet, a stethoscope, a large canteen of nectar, a lunch box full of individually wrapped squares of ambrosia, a prescription pad, numerous tongue depressors and about a gallon of cough syrup.
Nico was becoming increasingly suspicious of that bag.
Will would shine that sharp little light directly into Nico's corneas, and Nico would have to clench his fists to keep from hitting him. Sometimes Will would tell him to follow the light without moving his head, and sometimes he would just flick the light over his pupils, seeing how fast they reacted.
After the fifth time he did this, Nico slapped his hand away. "What's wrong with my eyes, Solace?"
"Hm?" Will tapped the flashlight against his thigh and looked at Nico thoughtfully. "Nothing."
"What. The. Fuck."
"I mean, your pupils don't always contract all the way, which is probably why sunlight made you so uncomfortable, but that's not really a problem. It's just . . ." Will reached out tentatively and brushed Nico's bangs away from his face.
"Your eyes are brown," he stated quietly.
"Yes. And . . . ?" Nico said, wondering where this was going.
"Nothing." Will dropped his hand. His ears were pink. "They're nice."
Nico raised an eyebrow.
Will huffed. "Shut up. I just didn't notice before. I always thought your eyes were black."
Nico watched Will as he pretended to be busy organizing his bag. Will's eyes were pale blue/grey, the color of a clear autumn sky. Sometimes they seemed to be staring at something far away, and sometimes they were clear and determined. Sometimes they were sad.
Will's eyes were nice too.
Helping
It took Will three hours straight (no pun intended . . . okay, maybe a little) to get Nico to even set foot inside the Intensive Care Unit.
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"No!"
"Yes!"
"No way, no how, not ever!"
"Come on, di Angelo!" Will exclaimed. "What's the worst that could happen?"
"My very presence could drive those poor souls clinging to life over the edge and I would end up committing mass murder just by entering the room."
"You're awfully full of yourself," Will observed. "At the moment you couldn't kill a housefly without dissolving like dust on the wind. Poof!" He made a little exploding gesture with his hands. "You're gone."
Nico glared at him. "That's not funny."
"No, it's not," Will agreed. "I'm just trying to make a point. You won't hurt anyone, I promise. Even if you could, you have my wondrous healing capabilities and natural sunny exuberance to balance out all of your gloomy schist."
Nico growled something offensive under his breath and crossed his arms, turning away from Will to scowl stubbornly out of the window.
"It's not like I'm going to dress you up as a nurse and make you give people sponge baths," Will said, rolling his eyes. "I just want some company."
Nico turned a bit green at the notion of nurses and sponge baths. "What about your siblings?"
"They're busy," Will groaned. "And besides, I see them every day. Where's the fun in that?"
"Don't you have friends, Solace?"
"You're my friend," Will said. "And I want to hang out with you. But I can't do that and save lives unless you're willing to commute."
"Looks like you're out of luck, then."
"Come on! Pleeeeeeeease?" Will grabbed Nico's hand and tried to tug him out of bed. Nico snarled and ripped his hand away.
"No! Stop asking me!"
"Why not? What's the real reason? You don't care if random people die, you're just afraid of something. What is it?" Will tried to make a pleading puppy dog face, but Nico didn't seem particularly impressed.
"People look at me funny," he muttered. He crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders as if trying to disappear completely. "They don't want me near them. I get plenty of stares and whispering behind my back without asking for it."
"Yeah," Will rolled his eyes. "That's why they stare."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Nico glowered at him.
"Nothing," Will sighed. "Just come with me. I promise the world won't end just because you socialize a bit."
Nico sniffed and turned away pointedly.
"Ooooooohh! You are so frustrating!" Will stamped his foot like a little girl. It looked especially funny because he was wearing shiny gold flip-flops and royal blue gym shorts under his billowy surgeon's smock. "Come with me, come with me, come with me, comewithmecomewithmecomewithme-"
"Stop that! What are you, five?" Nico gave him a look that would have sent Ares running for his mommy. Will just smiled triumphantly. "Fine, I'll come. But I'm not touching anyone. Or talking to them. Or making eye contact."
"Except for me, right?"
"I can't believe I'm agreeing to this."
"Sweetness."
And that was how Nico found himself perched uneasily on the medical cabinet next to Miranda Gardiner's bed, while Will treated the fierce burns along her left arm.
Miranda eyed Nico with amusement. Will had insisted he bring a blanket from his bed, since he no longer had a jacket and was bound to get cold. Nico hadn't argued, mostly because he was still sleep deprived and he knew Will was right that he would get cold since he had such a low body temperature. He looked very odd, all wrapped in a navy blue comforter with just his head poking out of the top.
"Here." Will held up a linen sheet. "You can cut this into bandages."
Nico looked at it as if Will was trying to hand him a bouquet of fluffy headed dandelions. "How?"
"Just rip it into strips. Or use scissors if that's easier."
"So . . . like mummy bandages?"
Will raised one eyebrow. "Exactly."
Miranda hissed as he cleaned the burns. They covered the top of her arm from her shoulder to the back of her hand, and the skin bubbled unpleasantly from the antiseptic. Will rubbed a mixture of nectar and healing salve into the ruined skin as gently as he could. Then he turned to Nico, only to find a neat pile of clean, evenly sized bandages in his hands.
"Killed a lot of Egyptians?" he asked mildly, taking the bandage and wrapping one around Miranda's arm, starting at the wrist.
Nico looked somewhat offended. "Of course not. Very few." Will choked on a stifled laugh, but he wasn't sure if Nico was joking. "I happen to very familiar with all kinds of burial rights. The Egyptians were both fascinating, and stupid."
"Weren't they like, the first civilization of all time, even before Greece?"
"Yes. They also worshiped dung beetles and thought people might need their cats in the afterlife." Nico's legs dangled two feet off the ground. He swung them childishly, looking thoughtful. "Their process of mummification, though . . . I've always wanted to try taking someone's brain out through their nose." He looked at Miranda with great interest.
"Nuh, uh. No way," Miranda said. "I'm not dead yet. Wait eighty years, then we can talk."
This made Nico smile very secretively. "I might just take you up on that offer."
"What offer?" Lou Ellen appeared, looking very festive, as she was dressed in an African kikoi of brightly dyed cloth, with a matching turban. Colorful beads and peacock feathers were woven into the multitudes of thin dark braids that spilled down her back. Bangles and bracelets clinked and jingled on her arms. Strings of coins were draped over everything.
Tucked under one of her arms was a baby pig.
"No animals in the ICU," Will said at once. Miranda frowned suspiciously.
"Is that . . . ?"
"I got you a present," Lou Ellen said cheerfully. She set the pig on Miranda's lap and grinned at the boys, revealing several tiny jewels set into each of her front teeth. "Hey, Nico."
Nico was still recovering from the blast of color. The last time he had seen Lou Ellen she had been wearing all black and had war paint on. The difference was jarring. "Um, hey?"
Miranda was frowning at the pig, who was sniffing her bandaged arm.
"Lou?"
"Hmm?"
"This pig has a SPQR tattoo."
"Ah," Lou Ellen twirled one of her braids. "Well . . . you see . . ."
"LOU!"
Lou Ellen laughed.
"Come on," Will muttered. Nico hopped down from the cabinet and followed him down the row of beds to the next patient. Connor Stoll was standing on a mangled leg, attempting to short-sheet the bed next to his own, while Travis lay next to him, moaning whenever he moved his head.
"Severe concussion and . . . Dear Apollo, Conner. Didn't anyone ever tell you not to mess with a carnivorous centaur?" Will scanned their patient files with interest.
"Yes," Travis muttered.
Will prodded Connor back into bed and set about cleaning his leg. Behind them, Nico heard Lou Ellen and Miranda arguing. Then there was a small explosion. Nico looked around. When the purple smoke settled, he saw there was now a butt naked Roman crouching awkwardly on Miranda's lap. He leapt up with a shriek and ran out of the room. Everyone laughed.
"I hope someone catches him before Chiron sees," Will snickered. Nico nodded absently. He was still watching the girls. Miranda was scolding Lou Ellen loudly. Lou Ellen collapsed on top of her, giggling madly. Nico tensed as Lou Ellen suddenly stopped laughing, reached down and tugged Miranda's face up to –
Oh Hades. Nico turned away, his face heating up like an oven. What were they doing? And in front of everyone?
"What's wrong with you?" Will looked at him curiously. "You look like you're about to pass out."
Nico pressed his hands flat against his burning cheeks. "Mm." He shook his head, unable to explain, and not wanting to get the girls in trouble if no one had noticed yet.
Unfortunately, Will noticed.
"Ah," he said, peering around Nico to eye the two girls, happily snuggling on Miranda's bed. "Well, they've been together a while. Nothing strange there."
Nico made a little choking sound and didn't respond.
"Seriously, are you all right? Your face is all red." Will actually looked concerned.
"Are you gonna puke?" Conner asked eagerly.
"My face would be pale, then, not red." Nico took a deep breath and smoothed his hands back over his head.
"Not a fan of PDA?" Will asked sympathetically.
"Not . . . exactly." Nico wondered how hot one's face had to get before it became serious. Surely it wasn't natural for someone with barely any temperature to feel like they were being slow broiled over a blue flame. "I just . . ."
"Oh yeah," Travis looked up blearily. "Aren't you like, from the forties or somethin'?"
"I was born in the nineteen thirties, yes. Before the Big Three's pact" Nico winced. "So was Hazel. We had . . . a bit of a time skip."
"Hazel's your sister on the Roman side, right?" Will asked. His face was bent over Connor's leg as he stitched it up, so Nico couldn't see his expression.
"Yes. Daughter of Pluto."
"Wow." Connor's eyes were just about falling out of his head, although that might have been from the eye watering pain of having most of his leg sewn back on. "Like, World War II time? So I guess seeing same sex couples is like, weird?"
"It's . . . different. People weren't so . . . open back then. Or at all, really." Nico wondered where the conversation was going.
Travis accepted the square of ambrosia Will handed him and nibbled on it like a little mouse. "Sounds like a crappy time to come from. No offense. But most of us here at camp would have been thrown into the loony bin," he stated.
"Yeah," Connor agreed. "But I bet camp was way loose even back then. I can't imagine Chiron being strict about that, not when he's older then sexuality itself."
"Um . . ." Nico tried to find a way to phrase it delicately. "Are there . . . a lot of people like . . . that here?"
Travis blinked. "Uh, yeah. I mean, we're Greek, right? Don't know about the Romans, but here I bet more than three fourths are at least bi. Let's see . . . Lou and Miranda, obviously. Malcolm and Mitchell are together. Drew flirts with the girls as much as the guys. Actually, I bet all the Aphrodite kids are pan."
"Benjamin from Hecate, Tony from Demeter and Jessie from Ares," Travis added.
"Those Nike kids Vic and Tory, Gerald from Nemesis, Shane and Christopher from Hephaestus," Connor rattled off. "I mean, that's just to give you an idea. It would be easier to give you a list of people who are totally straight."
"I'm gay," Will said suddenly. He glanced up a Nico through his eyelashes. "Just wanted to mention it before someone else did." Here he shot the Hermes boys a nasty look. They smiled innocently.
Nico drew the blanket over his head self consciously. "Ki ego," he mumbled in Greek. He peeked at Will, who was already looking at him with an unfathomable expression. They stared at each other. Neither of them had changed, and yet they were seeing each other in the wholly new light of possibility.
"Well I'm single as a Pringle, ready to mingle, and have no preference," Connor announced, and then gave a girlish shriek as Will 'accidentally' upended the entire bottle of alcohol antiseptic on his leg.
"You idiot," Travis muttered, holding his head as his brothers screams pounded into his brain. "You totally butted in and ruined the moment."
Will apologized with sickly sweet sincerity and then dragged Nico away.
"Sorry about them," he sighed, as the sounds of the brothers arguing over the glass of nectar Will had left them, faded.
"I'm used to them," Nico said. "When I first got to camp, they tried to get me into their poker game. Imagine their disappointment when they discovered I didn't have a penny to my name."
"I assume that was before you found out you were the son of the god of riches," Will said dryly.
"Well, yes."
"So did you really not know there were other gay demigods?" Will asked as he set down his little black doctor's bag on the bed of the next patient. The poor fellow was unconscious, with a cracked skull from some monster's club.
"I never noticed before," Nico muttered. "I just assumed there weren't."
"You should come around more often," Will told him. "I mean, you've been coming to camp for what, three years, and you didn't notice?"
"Four years since I first came here. And I don't . . . look at people." Nico frowned at the guy in the bed. Half his head was swollen and purple.
"Because you don't like the way they look back." Will didn't say it like a question. Nico nodded stiffly.
"Then you've been hanging around the wrong people." Will grinned at him. It made Nico's heart jump, and he remedied it with a scowl.
"Do you hate the way I look at you?" Will asked curiously.
"Yes."
"Sheesh. You didn't even have to think about it." Will sighed.
"Look. I've been here for five years." He pulled his camp necklace from under his shirt. "See? Five beads. First day here, I found Lee making out with some unclaimed guy who was staying in the Hermes cabin. The looks on their faces." Will shook his head, smiling as he remembered.
Nico eyed the leather cord with its five beads. "What is that?"
Will gaped at him. "Are you kidding me?"
"I do not kid, Solace."
"Jeez, di Angelo. You didn't even stick around long enough to get a necklace? That's sad." Will shook his head and tucked his own necklace back under his shirt. "First thing we do after we're sprung from here is get you one. No arguments."
"But-"
"No."
Nico glared at the wall. People.
"Here, hold this." Will held out a canteen of nectar. Nico took it unwillingly and watched as Will ran his fingers over the guy's bruised head.
"Ten small fractures," he muttered. "Unfortunately there's no medical way of fixing those except keeping him still and letting nature take its course. Lucky for us, we have something a little more reliable. Nectar?"
Nico handed it to him. Will folded a strip of gauze into a large square and dipped it in the nectar, wrung it out and placed it on the purpling skin. He kept it in place by wrapping clean bandages around and around the guy's skull.
"All done," Will said proudly. Nico watched him pack up his bag.
"Can I go, now?" he asked.
"What? No!" Will exclaimed, frowning. "Why would you want to go?"
"I've been here for over an hour," Nico muttered, not meeting his eyes. "Isn't that enough?"
"No! I mean, yes, but- No!" Will ran a hand through his hair. "You still want to leave?"
"Of course I do. You do realize I will literally be just down the hall?"
"I know, but . . ." Will looked disappointed. "I was just hoping . . ."
"Hoping what?"
"Oh come on." Will ignored his question. "You aren't still hung up on the staring thing, are you?"
"Yes," said Nico through gritted teeth.
"Seriously?" Will was looking annoyed now. "Would you please enlighten me as to why? You've been in here for an hour, like you said, and no one has bothered you, or been rude or anything. And you still think people are freaked out by you?"
"They have been staring at me and whispering since I got here," Nico hissed, jerking his head in the direction of a couple of Aphrodite girls sat around their sister Lacy who had several deep tissue contusions on her arms, back and one of her legs. When they saw Will and Nico looking at them, they started giggling and put their heads together to whisper.
Nico glowered and seemed to shrink in on himself.
Will turned red.
"Oh that," he mumbled, turning quickly away and busying himself with his bag. "That's not . . . because they're freaked out."
Nico looked at him suspiciously. "Why, then?"
"Oh for-" Will huffed. "They think that you're . . . you know. Cool."
Nico gave him a blank look. "What?"
Will winced. "Cool. As in, interesting. As in . . . you."
"No," Nico said flatly.
"Yeah, well." Will felt like he was pulling out his own teeth. He ran his hand through his hair again distractedly. The Aphrodite girls giggled again and he grimaced.
"But . . . why?" Nico was looking at him with deep distrust and confusion.
Will groaned. He wanted to slam his head into the wall. He settled for pressing his face into the fractured-skull-guy's mattress. "Can we please stop talking about this?"
"You brought it up!" Nico cried.
"Yeah, that was stupid of me," Will muttered. "You should never let people who have power, know that they have power."
"What was that?" Nico growled.
"Nothing." Will lifted his head and stared at Nico, hard. "Okay, here's the deal. You, Nico di Angelo, are a conundrum. You come and go from camp without anybody noticing, and yet you don't seem to notice anybody either. You can go completely unseen, and yet your aura is so powerful I can pick you out of a crowd a mile away. You claim to want to be alone and not care about anyone, but you've always done everything you can to save us from whatever baddy pops up. You're dark and broody and not very nice, but you're really charismatic and are almost always right about everything, (which gets annoying, by the way) and you're totally in with the Seven, and the Romans."
At this point Nico opened his mouth to say something, but Will beat him to it. "Nope! Not done. Not even close."
He took a deep breath.
"Half the time you aren't even here and no one knows what might be you're up to, which makes you seem really mysterious, and when you are here, you act more like Chiron or some other grownup than a camper, even though you look really young. Then when you're doing all that kickass fighting, you go a little crazy, kind of like Percy, which is really intimidating. But you also happen to be one of the most socially and/or emotionally crippled people I've ever met, which makes you think or do ridiculous things. Like leaving camp. Or gets you into situations like this one. On the other, other hand you have a certain old world charm that . . . some individuals may find attractive. But you're so frickin' powerful and enigmatic that people end up being in awe of you."
Nico looked decidedly embarrassed. "Anything else?"
Will considered. "You're also a bit of a snob."
"Solace!"
"Just a bit. But seriously, you don't exactly help your case. You misread everything as people being scared, and respond to them with even more negativity than you usually do, and then you're just stuck in a cycle. I'm not saying everyone's secretly in love with you . . ." Cough, cough, ". . . but I think you'd be surprised by how many people don't hate you.
"Besides," Will sighed, "honestly, if you're waiting for universal popularity, you're gonna be stuck in the Underworld for long time. I hate to admit it, but there are even some people who don't like me. And I'm me!"
"Yes, who could hate you?" Nico asked with a perfectly straight (this time it was totally unintentional . . . mostly) face.
"Ha, ha. My point is that when you get your head out of that doomy-gloomy-brooding rain cloud of yours, people like you just fine! Which you would have noticed, if you bothered to actually look at people as themselves and not potential enemies. You're too stuck in your own miserable head to realize that not everyone feels the same way about you!"
"I don't believe you," Nico said flatly.
"Of course you don't!" Will threw his hands up in frustration. "Why trust me when you can wallow in your own stupidity!?"
"At least I can claim to be more intelligent than you!" Nico replied angrily. "Now try to wrap your blonde bimbo head around this, Solace. I'm not supposed to be here. I don't even belong in this time, much less in the upper world!"
"Well, I don't think I should be Head Counselor," Will snapped. "I have no talent for anything but healing, I can't fight, I'm not the oldest, and quite frankly I'm a crappy leader. And yet here I am, because everyone who was here before me is currently busy being dead. Belonging is overrated."
"Oh please!" Nico snarled, his eyes flashing with dangerous fire. "You have no idea what it's like to be shunned everywhere you go, to know that nobody but the dead will ever accept you! Do you think I don't see the way people look at me, as if they're wondering what the hell I'm doing here? I assure you, I'm perfectly aware when people don't want me around!"
"I want you around!" Will cried. "Doesn't that tell you something? I want you here even though you're an arrogant git who's denser than schist, and you can yell at me, ignore me, insult me, or attack me with zombies and skeletons; heck, you can throw my soul in Tartarus if you want, and while I might get pissed as hell, none of that will ever make me stop wanting you!"
Nico stared at him in something akin to horror, the heat rising in his face.
Will went pink as he realized what he had said. "Here," he added belatedly. He scratched his neck. "I mean, I want you here. With me. At camp. Specifically the infirmary. Whatever. You know what I mean."
Now that they had both quieted down, they realized they had a bit of an audience. Almost everyone in the ICU was staring at them with varying levels of amusement. Will hoped fervently that they had just heard the shouting, and not the actual conversation behind it. He would have dearly loved to crown the moment by face-palming, but he settled for dragging a protesting Nico out of the infirmary by the wrist. Behind them, the Aphrodite girls erupted into chattering giggles.
"What is their problem?" Nico hissed. "Why are they still staring?"
Because they think you're cute. Or they know I think you're cute, and they think that's cute.
"They're Aphrodite kids," Will said out loud. "It's their nature to make trouble. They can be worse than the Stoll's."
He stopped and leaned against the corridor wall, sighing.
"Did you just walk me to my room?" Will looked up to see Nico looking at him with one dark eyebrow raised.
Looking around, Will realized they were right outside the 'Long Term Stay' wing. "Um . . . no?"
The hallway seemed unusually quiet and peaceful compared to the harsh ICU lights and sounds. The dark wood walls shone dully in the light of a low wattage bulb, and the carpet softened their footsteps.
"I'm sorry," Will said tiredly, rubbing his eyes. "I didn't even know I could get angry like that."
Nico shifted from foot to foot, not looking at him. "It's all right. It was kind of fun."
Will lifted his head, surprised. To his continued amazement, Nico was smiling. It was just a little one, but it was real. He seemed tired, but happy.
Nico saw his expression and shrugged. "It's been a while since I had a real argument with someone. Usually, I have to hold myself back so I don't accidentally kill them. I guess that isn't a problem right now," he added ruefully, looking down at his white hands. They were faded and shimmering like water vapor in the half light, and the dark circles under his eyes were even more pronounced than usual. He appeared fuzzy around the edges, like a watercolor painting about to melt away.
"Are you cold?" Will asked quietly. The blue comforter had been left somewhere in the ICU while they were yelling at each other.
"'M fine." Nico rubbed his hands together and blew on them lightly. "My fingers are just numb."
"Here." Will held out his own hands, palms facing up. Nico hesitated.
"I promise, I haven't delivered anymore satyr babies."
"That is not reassuring." Nico placed his hands on Will's. Will held them very carefully, pressing the icy fingers between his own warm palms. He thought Nico might dissolve under his touch of he pressed too hard.
"I've never gotten in a fight before," he admitted with a little laugh. "Not even with my siblings."
"Seriously?"
"A few disagreements, sure, but a real fight . . . The only shouting I did was to be heard over everyone else's bickering."
"Mr. Pacifist," Nico snickered.
Will grinned. "Until you came along."
Nico didn't smile again, but his eyes glowed with the same fire they had when fighting off hordes of monsters. Will thought he would happily battle Nico on any point he wished just to see that look on his face. It brought him sharper into focus, like Will had adjusted an invisible camera lens. Nico's fingers grew warm and alive against his own.
"Well for your first fight, you did very well," Nico said.
"I'm glad you think so," Will said lightly. "It would be poor sport for you if I didn't have some small talent."
Nico's lip twitched. He retracted his hands to his sides. Will let him go reluctantly.
"You did well too," he said into the sudden silence. "In the ICU, I mean."
Nico looked at him suspiciously. "I didn't do anything."
"You didn't kill anyone." Will gave a half smile. "By your standards that's pretty good, right?"
Nico didn't answer. He looked off to the side, suddenly cold. Will deflated a bit.
Every time I think I can touch you . . .
"I still don't believe you," Nico said briskly. "Good night." It was the middle of the day.
Nico brushed past Will and slipped into the 'Long Term Stay' wing, quickly shutting the door behind him.
Will let his head fall back against the dark wood wall with a thump, and then slid to the floor.
You slip away from me.
Nightmares
Nico di Angelo woke up to find himself straddling Will Solace on the ratty old infirmary bed, one hand pinning his wrists above his head, the other holding his sword to his throat.
Will wasn't moving, frozen as he was with the sharp Stygian iron pressing against his jugular vein, but Nico could see the flutter of his colorless lashes as he looked up at him with wide eyes; could feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he struggled to breathe.
Will's body suddenly went limp under Nico's hold. He licked his lips dryly and swallowed.
"Nico?" His voice was softer than a whisper, fainter than a breath. A bead of blood oozed from the place where the sword was cutting into his skin.
There was a moment of tense silence. The old fashioned candle Nico had set on the bedside table flickered dangerously; casting warm light over Will's face and making it look unusually open and vulnerable.
Nico became aware he wasn't breathing, his whole body coiled and locked into kill-mode. He dropped his head and let out a slow breath, forcing himself to relax. It was just Will.
Eventually he lowered his sword and let it fall to the floor. His grip on Will's wrists slackened and he removed his hand. The tips of his fingers tingled as blood rushed back into the capillaries; Will would have bruises.
He sat back and looked down at Will, trapped under him and completely at his mercy, unable to fight back. Comprehension was trickling slowly into his sleep addled brain, and gradually he realized what he had almost done. Will was still not moving, whether from shock or fear Nico didn't know. He felt something cold sink into his stomach.
Carefully, Nico rolled off Will's prone body and lay in his back next to him. He passed his hands over his face and took several deep breaths, trying to pull himself together. No light came in through the big bay windows; outside was pitch black. It was the middle of the night.
"Sorry," he said finally, his voice muffled by his hands. "Nightmare."
Will's fingers twitched and then curled above his head. He hummed quietly. Nico felt the bed shift as he turned over onto his stomach.
"You were fading."
Nico glanced over at him cautiously. Half of Will's face was pressed into the pillow, and a single blue eye peered up at him. "I came in to check on you, and it was like all the shadows in the room were soaking into your skin and dissolving you into nothing. You were so still I thought you might already be dead."
Nico glared at him half-heartedly. "And what made you think it was a good idea to try and wake me up?"
"I didn't want you to die."
Nico raised his eyes to the ceiling and didn't say anything.
"What was your nightmare about?"
Nico closed his eyes. "Nothing important. Just a normal nightmare. Bad memories."
Will was still looking at him, he could feel it. He sighed.
"During the war I got captured by giants." The words left a bitter taste in his mouth. "I was held in this bronze jar, not even big enough to stand up in. There was no light, no air, no warmth. The only way I stayed alive was by going so deep into a death trace I don't think I've ever recovered completely. I was in there for days, but it felt endless. Sometimes I think I'm still in there."
Will was quiet for a second, and then - "Were you scared no one would come for you?"
"No." The infirmary ceiling was made of the same sleek brown wood as the walls. Nico's eyes traced the age lines and then their gaze drifted inward. "I didn't expect anyone to come."
"What?" Will lifted his head and stared at Nico in disbelief. His left cheek had red marks from the creases in the pillow case. "Why not?"
Nico shrugged.
"But that's-! Nico! That's insane!" Will exclaimed.
"Maybe," Nico murmured.
Will huffed and shoved his face back into the pillow. "Why were you so afraid, then?" he asked in a muffled voice.
"What do you mean?"
"I felt it." Will peeked up at Nico to gauge his reaction. "Your fear. When I tried to wake you up, I grabbed your arm. It was just a flash, but I think I saw your nightmare before you flipped out."
"I nearly killed you."
"Yeah, you had that look in your eyes. If you tried, could you show someone your nightmares? I'm asking for purely medical reasons."
"Yes," Nico said, raising his hands in front of his eyes. They flickered from transparent to solid and back again in the dim candlelight. "If I wanted to, I could weave my nightmare into your soul and watch you drown in it."
Will clutched the pillow tightly. "Why were you afraid, Nico?"
Nico didn't answer for the longest time. "There are so many reasons to be afraid in this world, Will. I don't think I remembered how to not be scared, not for a very long time."
"Are you still afraid?"
Nico looked over at him thoughtfully. "I know nothing can hurt me anymore unless I let it. It's just harder to control dreams in the dark. It was careless of me to fall asleep at night."
"Hmm." Will gritted his teeth, and Nico could tell he was trying not to start lecturing. "What . . . exactly do you plan to do about that? Just become completely nocturnal? Because, as your doctor, I have a few objections."
"I haven't had a normal sleep pattern in months," Nico said. "When I was carrying the Athena Parthenos I would sleep for a couple days at a time, jump a hundred thousand miles and then sleep again. I don't usually need a lot of sleep. As long as I'm not hauling a giant statue all over the country, I'll be fine."
"No you won't!" Will exclaimed loudly. "You-mmph!" Nico slapped his hand over Will's mouth.
"Shut up," he hissed, his dark eyes flashing dangerously. "Do you want to wake the whole camp? Keep your voice down."
Will met his stare head on, as annoyingly resilient as ever.
"You can't just not sleep!" he said in a heated whisper once Nico had removed his hand. "It isn't healthy! Immunocompromised people can't go around without sleep! Especially if they have a bad habit of constantly dissolving into shadows and avoiding sunlight and real food!"
"I am not . . . Immunocompromised." Nico made a face at the word. "I don't even know what that means."
"Ah - it means your body . . . well, technically it means the immune system is unable to fight back because of low white blood cell count, but the word itself mostly just means that put really simply, your body just doesn't always work right," Will said, scratching his neck.
"My body works fine!"
"Right; aside from the whole 'almost-dying-all-the-time' thing, you're the picture of health!"
They glared at each other fiercely, neither willing to back down. Nico suddenly became aware how close they were lying next to each other on the cramped infirmary bed, their arms almost touching. He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed so his back was facing Will.
Will made a huffy noise of displeasure and shoved his face back into the pillow.
Nico watched the candle flicker, casting shadows in between his finger tips and into the corners of Will's mouth.
"Are all your dreams like that one?" Will asked quietly.
Nico bristled.
"No," he said shortly. Most of them were far worse.
"Are any of them good?"
Nico turned his head to look at him, the candlelight throwing his face into familiar shadows. There was still a trace of blood on Will's neck that had probably smeared on the pillow.
"They aren't always bad," he said finally.
Will propped himself up on his forearms and looked at Nico with an unusually somber expression. "Will you show me?"
Nico's eyes widened in disbelief. "You can't be serious."
Will's mouth set into a familiar stubborn line. "I am. You already said you can do it. Show me you nightmares, Nico."
"No." Nico shook his head. "You have no idea what you're asking."
"I want to know," Will said. He thrust out his hands to Nico. "Show me!"
"No!" Nico ran a hand agitatedly through his hair. It needed a wash. "You don't understand. You're the son of the sun god. All that darkness . . . it might kill you. And even if you did survive, in what mental state? You could go mad, or worse."
"No I won't," Will said stubbornly. "I can handle it."
"No one can handle it, Will!" Nico spat. He clenched his fists and looked away.
"Please?" Will's voice was soft. Nico was afraid if he turned around and saw his expression, he'd do something stupid. "I want to know. I want to . . . to understand."
"No, you don't," Nico thought. "You just think you do. You have no idea what you want."
"Not . . . tonight," Nico said out loud. "Maybe when I'm feeling better." The lie felt heavy on his tongue; he knew he would never go through with it. 'Ghostifying' Bryce Lawrence was one thing - Will was another entirely. Nico did not want anybody to have to feel the weight of Tartarus, the giants, all his secrets . . . someone so close to the light should never have to touch the darkness.
When Nico glanced back at him, Will looked like he knew exactly what he was thinking. "Really? Do you promise?"
Nico swallowed thickly. "Yes."
"Do you swear on the river Styx?"
Nico froze. He considered every promise a sacred thing, a binding contract. He did not make promises he was not willing to keep, which was why he made so very few of them. And an oath on the Styx was as binding as you could get. The gods would hold him to it.
Was it worth their punishment just to keep Will in the light?
"Yes." His voice sounded far away, as if his ears were filled with water. Will didn't look completely convinced, but he lay back down.
"Okay then."
Nico was done talking. "Go away, Solace."
"Aww, but we're having so much fun!"
"It's the middle of the night. You are supposed to be asleep."
Will yawned. "But then you'd be up all alone."
Nico sighed. "Go to sleep, Solace."
"Nooooo. Don't call me that. I like it when you call me Will."
"You really are tired, aren't you?" Nico said, raising an eyebrow. "I'm not taking anything you've said tonight seriously."
"I am perfectly lucid, Nico di Angelo," Will insisted. "And you better be taking me seriously, or else – what are you doing?"
Nico reached over and touched his fingertips to Will's forehead.
"Sleep," he whispered. He searched for a moment and then found the cool darkness of Will's dreams, pulling them up over his mind like a blanket. Will's eyelids fluttered shut and his head fell back onto the pillow.
Nico removed his hand and tried to rub his wrist. His fingers went right through it. He felt dizzy.
"Told youuuu," Will slurred disapprovingly. Nico looked around, and was amazed to see him glaring at him sleepily, stubbornly holding onto the last dregs of wakefulness.
"I'd come an' get you, ya know," he said. He reached up and tugged on the hem of Nico's black shirt. "I wish I'd gone an' got you before . . . I woulda' saved you."
Nico felt his face soften against his will. "Would you now?"
"Mm hm. 'Cause when you were gone . . . I missed you." Will's hand fell limply onto the bed and he stopped talking, his breathing evening out. He was asleep.
Nico felt hot all over. His blood boiled. Damn you, Solace.
When he was sure Will was really and truly out of it, he lay back down and frowned up at the ceiling. Next to him, Will mumbled something inaudible into the pillow and shifted around a bit.
Nico glanced down at him. Then he sighed. "Sweet dreams, Will."
He lay awake all night, and only when the sun peeked out from the horizon and filled the windows with light did he find his way to sleep.
Will woke up just in time to see Nico close his eyes.
Thank you, and good night! Or morning. Whatever. Review please!