In which Francesca tries to reconcile the events of Blood of Olympus with a previously-written fan fiction.

Will

Will had always been intrigued by the Hades kid. Maybe it was the weird aura of death that surrounded him, maybe it was his tendency to melt in and out of the shadows, maybe it was his liquid chocolate eyes. So when Chiron had decreed a quest and announced that as many Apollo kids as possible were to go to Delphi with Nico and his Titan-spawn boyfriend, Will said okay. He would have gone anyway, partly because he was head counsellor for Apollo and his dad's shrine was being used as a squatting base for a massive dragon, and partly because he was the camp's best healer.

Only one of the Apollo kids from Camp Jupiter had volunteered, possibly because very few of his children or legacies were willing to admit they were related to Octavian. But Georgina Fernandez had arrived at Camp Half-Blood toting a rucksack and wicked archery skills, her mahogany hair pulled up in a bandana and a sharp tongue reserved for anyone who asked if she and Octavian shared a room growing up.

"I'm Apollo's daughter, not his legacy," Georgina explained when an arrow was protruding from the hole in Connor Stoll's left ear, which he usually reserved for jewellery. "I met the little bastard once and he nearly wet himself when I shredded his teddy bears faster than he could."

"Remind me not to get on the wrong side of her," Morris grinned as he watched Connor run around wearing the world's stupidest earring. "I don't know if my piercings could survive getting accessorised with arrows."

His lip stud glinted in the sunlight, almost as bright as the mess of red hair he kept tied back. He was going on the quest because Nico was going, and Nico was going because someone needed to talk to the spirits around Delphi… and perform burial rites if one of the demigods died.

Will knew it was wrong, but he always struggled a little with Morris. It wasn't so much his soft Irish accent or his freaky ability to shape shift as it was the fact that his dad was a Titan. Will had personally healed injuries caused by Titans in the Battle of Manhattan, and he couldn't just forget how much damage they had wrecked. If Oceanus could nearly defeat Poseidon, how powerful was Morris? Will had heard rumours that he had godly blood on both sides of his family and wondered more than once if Camp Jupiter might have been a better training ground. But he was joined at the hip (sometimes literally) with Nico, so for now they were staying in New York.

Except when they made super-duper dangerous journeys across the Atlantic to the Mediterranean to kill a giant snake.

Amazingly, the little group had made it to Greece with minimal damage. Nico had been twitchy the whole way there, no doubt reliving his experiences from the Giant War. Morris kept him sane, talking to him quietly and never leaving his side. Very few monsters attacked, possibly because they had chosen to travel in a commercial jet, not a demigod war machine. When the crew made it to Delphi with zero casualties, every one of them—Will, Georgina, Nico, Morris and Will's other sister from Camp Half-Blood, Rose—had said a prayer to the gods. Clearly, Jason's shrine-making had Zeus on his best behaviour.

Or maybe he was waiting for the chips to fall.

Half a mile from the shrine of Delphi, way up a steep mountain, the demigods set up camp and scouted the area, checking and re-checking their supplies. Trying to avoid the thought of being so close to 'the centre of Gaia'.

Nico was gone hours, and eventually everyone retreated into their own work while they waited for him to do his "Underworld stuff." Will had almost no idea what that actually entailed. He preferred not to ask. Morris was asleep, in a rare moment of being apart from his boyfriend—so when Nico fell out of the shadows, Will was the one to catch him.

"Holy Hera, di Angelo, what were you thinking?" As soon as he touched Nico, Will realised that shadow-travel was far more dangerous than Nico had ever let on. He was literally dissolving into darkness as he stood there, and Will had no idea what to do as a remedy.

"Anchor me to the light," Nico mumbled. He was almost translucent, but his eyes were focused. This has happened before, Will realised.

"Okay, Nico, how do I do that?" Always keep a patient talking. If they could talk, they could come back to you.

"You're molten sunlight," Nico murmured, hanging on to Wills arms to keep upright. "It's kind of easy with you." Okay. It wasn't every day Will got called "molten sunlight" by a very attractive person.

"Okay, thanks, Nico, but I'm going to need more solid information. How do I anchor you to… to light?"

But Nico was fading into the night and Will wouldn't even be able to touch him much longer.

Ah.

"Morris, I'm really, really sorry about this."

Taking a deep breath, Will said a quick prayer to the gods then kissed Nico on the mouth. He made sure he had one hand round Nico's shoulders and another in his hair, and kept his eyes closed for a good minute, just in case he had guessed wrong and was actually kissing thin air.

When he was brave enough to open them, he nearly fell over in shock. Nico was himself again, those chocolate eyes wide open in surprise, but best—or worst—of all, he was kissing Will back.

Oops.

Will broke contact, keeping his hands on Nico just in case he started to dissolve again. But although he was swaying on his feet, it didn't seem to be from shadow-travel.

Oops oops.

Before either of them had a chance to say anything, there was a sound from the doorway of Phoebe the Huntress's magic tent. Morris was standing there, frozen in shock.

Oops oops oops.