August 10

Will

It was Sunday, no classes or training. Some campers had gone home for the weekend, and the rest were mostly lounging around the lake in canoes or by the shore on blankets. Will was heading to meet Nico for their first day of P.T. Will still shook his head at how ridiculous it was. The Son of Hades didn't need him to say when he could or could not use his powers, but Will was glad enough to have a reason to see Nico. He hadn't quite gotten up the courage to go chat during mealtimes, not when Percy and Jason flanked the smaller boy like protective older brothers.

He arrived at the clearing near the edge of the woods to find Nico already there. He was looking so much better than he did when he first walked into the infirmary. He was still a little too thin, and Will suspected that his skin would stay pale and his eyes wouldn't ever regain their deep warm hue, but there was color in his cheeks and he didn't have an air of exhaustion hanging around him anymore.

Nico watched Will approach and smiled. "So, what's the plan?"

"Well, what was the first thing you learned to do, the first power you realized you had? It's probably easiest to start there."

"I think the skeleton thing," Nico said after a few seconds. "Pulling bones up from the dirt and stuff."

"Great," Will said, walking toward Nico. "We're in a forest, so starting small shouldn't be hard. How about you try for a mouse and we'll go from there? I want to check your vitals after each animal and make sure your fingers aren't smoking or disappearing or something. Let's get a baseline - can I, uh, take your pulse?" Will asked, looking up at Nico. It felt weird just taking Nico's hand outside of the infirmary. Nico held out his wrist, though, and Will checked him over.

Will leaned against a tree and watched as Nico looked around the clearing. His eyes stopped at a certain spot and he held out his hand. The shadows seemed to bend around Nico and suddenly a tiny mouse skeleton climbed out of the ground. Nico watched as it started sniffing a nearby leaf and he walked over to Will. His vitals were all stable, and Nico moved on to a larger animal.

45 minutes later, the clearing was full of skeletal woodland creatures. A fox was trying to catch the mouse, and an owl sat on a nearby branch and seemed to rattle instead of hoot. Nico and Will sat next to each other, watching all of them and laughing.

"So, this isn't super freaky?" Nico asked, looking over at Will.

"Honestly?" Will smiled, "It could be I guess. But no, I think it's really neat. When they're all out here like this they sort of remind me of shadow puppets or something. It's cool that they died but when you bring them back they're just the same, really. It's sort of comforting, you know?"

Will was actually enjoying himself a lot. Nico had seemed nervous at first, but after the mouse and a couple rabbits started playing, he began to laugh. His vitals had been fine the whole time, too, and he didn't seem to be in any danger of fading into nothing. It felt like their macabre petting zoo in the forest was totally normal.

"I think you should talk to a shrink if you think this is cute," Nico said, grinning. "But I sort of see what you mean. I think that raccoon over there is my favorite. I might keep him around. He'd be sort of like a pet cat, right?"

"Only if you save the lizard for me," Will said, bumping Nico's shoulder.

They fell into silence and Will let himself pretend that this was real. That Nico wasn't here because Will had pulled rank or something and told him he had to show up. Will let himself pretend that they did this all the time, just sat in the woods together, surrounded by weird-cute skeleton animals. Maybe Will would put his arm around Nico and they'd snack on terrible junk food and laugh as Nico's skeleton raccoon would try to steal it from them.

But the sun was getting low and their clearing was getting dark and Will had to hold up the pretense that this was physical therapy or whatever. He sighed and stood up.

"Well, Mr. di Angelo, you're officially cleared for resurrecting animals under 50 pounds, but nothing more. And no sustained efforts. I'll see you on Wednesday for your next appointment."

Nico smiled up at him and Will's stomach did a flip. The other boy stood up and looked around as the animals sank back into the ground. "Same bat-time, same bat-place," Nico said holding his hand out.

Will laughed and shook his hand. "Oh my gods, you've missed decades of pop culture and you decide start with Batman episodes from the 1960s?"

"Hey, Chrion isn't exactly up to speed on these things either. Those were the most recent VHS tapes he had at the Big House."

Will rolled his eyes and they started to walk back to camp. "Well I guess you have to start somewhere."

"Yeah, it's a start," Nico said, bumping shoulders with Will as they walked.