Chapter Text
“So, Death Boy,” Will turned to Nico as they were leaving the Half-Blood a couple hours later. Nico wasn’t sure at what point in the night the blonde had picked up on that nickname, but he was sure that he and Thalia were going to have words later. “That whole shadow teleportation thing you do… is it a driver-only situation or can you take along a passenger?”
Nico raised an eyebrow, but didn't answer. He was pretty sure he knew where this was going, but he wasn't so sure that Will understood what he was actually asking for.
“I’m just saying, you and I are going to the same place and, after dancing all night, my feet are so tired.” Will made an exaggerated pouty face, and pretended to stumble sideways toward a shadowy alleyway.
Nico rolled his eyes at the blonde’s obvious antics (he knew — had learned a long time ago — that people couldn't tell when he was rolling his eyes, but sometimes he couldn't help himself from imitating the gesture anyway, if only for his own amusement) but smiled, anyway, in the way he and Bianca both tended to when they were about to cause chaos on purpose.
“You're going to regret asking me this,” he said, grabbing Will by the wrist and pulling him into the alleyway before he could respond. A second later they were in their room, standing next to Nico’s bed.
Well, Nico was standing. Will had immediately collapsed onto the bed and was holding a pale hand over his mouth like he was trying not to vomit.
“So, I can take passengers, but for some reason I’ve never had anyone ask more than once.” Nico reached through the shadows to grab a trash can that was sitting by the door and handed it to Will, giving him a deadpan look. “Don’t throw up on my bed, please.”
Will grabbed the trash can, and held it within vomiting range, but didn't end up using it. Instead he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths before looking back up at Nico.
“That was amazing.”
Nico blinked.
“Uh… what?”
“That was so cool!” Will sat up and pulled his feet up so he was cross-legged on the bed, then patted the space next to him. “I mean, I’d appreciate a little warning next time, but I definitely want to try that again.”
Will was… smiling. His smile was very pretty. Will was smiling prettily at Nico, after Nico did shadow magic on him. Will seemed… excited? About… the shadow magic?
He patted the space next to him again, and Nico cautiously sat down.
“That’s… not the usual response I get,” he said, unable to pull his eyes away from Will’s smile.
“Well, it should be, because that was awesome.”
Nico didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t. He also didn’t look away from Will’s smile, and Will didn’t look away from him either. Nico found himself smiling back.
“Hey Nico,” Will tilted his head to the side, slightly, and his eyes darted up above Nico’s head quickly before coming back to look him in the eyes. “We’re friends now, right?”
Nico let out a surprised laugh. If someone had told him this morning that he would spend his evening talking and laughing with Will Solace — that the conversation would start with a remark about Wizomagic of all things — he would never have believed them. But he had, and he’d enjoyed it. He nodded.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he replied.
“Well, then I have to tell you something.” Will looked above Nico’s head again and bit his lip, nervously. Nico raised an eyebrow, prompting the other boy to continue. “That hat… it’s kind of hideous.”
Nico laughed again, louder this time, his whole body shaking with the unexpected mirth. After a couple seconds, Will started laughing, too, which made Nico laugh harder, and they continued like that for a few minutes. Eventually, after almost stopping and then starting up again several times in a row, they both calmed down enough to breathe properly, and Nico was able to answer, while wiping laughter-induced tears from his eyes.
“You know, believe it or not, I did actually figure that out,” he said.
“I know! I know! I’m sorry!” Will ran a hand through his hair. “It was so stupid, and I shouldn’t have given it to you. I just…” he trailed off.
“Thalia said you did it because you thought I looked hot in this outfit,” Nico said, looking down at his clothes. “Well, she said that’s what Cecil said, and— hey, hey, don’t worry about it, I'm not mad!”
Nico had looked up again to see that Will’s eyes were wide and he had turned bright red.
“Look, I’m not saying I get it — why someone who looks like you do would be worried about ‘death boy’ over here stealing your spotlight, but I’m not… I'm not mad, “ Nico repeated.
“Someone who looks like— Stealing my—” Will stuttered a bit, glancing down at Nico's outfit then back up at his face. “Oh! Oh, right. Yeah, I was just… like, super jealous. Of your outfit.” Will’s face was still very red — it might have even been getting redder — but his facial expression returned to almost the same smile he’d been wearing before, though this one looked a bit more forced. “Anyway… your turn, then.”
“My turn?” Nico questioned.
“To tell me a secret,” Will flopped backwards onto Nico’s bed. “That’s what you do at sleepovers. I told you one, so now it’s your turn.”
Nico turned around to look Will in the face, feeling confused, and not just because he wasn't totally sure which part of what Will said was supposed to have been a secret. “This isn’t a sleepover, Will. We literally sleep in the same room every night.”
“Yeah, but now we’re friends. And when you sleep in the same room as your friends , that’s a sleepover.”
Nico wasn't sure that was how that worked, but then again, he'd never had a sleepover before.
“I guess so…” Nico adjusted himself on the bed, giving himself time to think of a secret while positioning himself so he could lean back against his headboard, now sitting perpendicular to the blonde. “Um… Oh! I know a secret. I was talking with Dr. Chiron the other day and he told me—”
“Eh! Wrong!” Will reached over toward Nico and grabbed a small pillow from next to him, which he threw at Nico’s face, even though Nico had already stopped talking when Will interjected. “You have to tell your own secret, not someone else’s. If we could tell other people’s secrets I would have told you that Cecil and Lou Ellen are totally in love with each other but neither of them knows it yet.”
“Just like Thalia and Bianca,” Nico said, tossing the pillow back at Will, who caught it on his chest, before looking back at Nico with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure Thalia and Bianca know it, but sure.”
Nico laughed at that, then leaned back again, thinking about what sort of secret he could share. Will waited quietly, probably sensing that Nico was sorting through his memories for something he hadn’t told anyone else.
“Ok, so a secret, that’s about just me…” he hesitated. “Um… It’s— it’s my fault Bianca uses a wheelchair.”
Will let out a small gasp and sat up, turning to face Nico head on.
“And… it’s my fault our mom is dead, too.” Nico wasn’t looking at Will, now, choosing to stare down into his own lap instead. He took a breath to continue, but Will cut him off.
“Nico, you don’t have to…” He trailed off.
“No, no, it’s okay. I’ve never told anyone this but… we’re friends now, right?” He glanced up to see the blonde watching him intently. Will stared into his eyes for a moment longer, a small frown on his face, before nodding.
Nico wasn't sure why he felt so much like he could trust Will with this, but for some reason he genuinely believed the blonde when he said he wanted to be Nico's friend. Nico hadn't ever had a friend before that wasn't his sister. He took a deep breath, and nodded back, then looked down at his lap again before continuing.
“Bianca’s been paralyzed her whole life. She was born that way, and she doesn’t mind. She’s never known any different, after all. But… Mom and Dad weren’t too happy about it. They were always looking for ways to…” Nico winced. “... fix her. I never met my mom, but, apparently she spent a lot of time after Bianca was born seeking out healers and doctors, and when she wasn’t getting the answers she wanted, she started to get desperate.
“Eventually she found her way into some… shadier circles, and someone told her to seek out a sorcerer who they heard had developed some new, experimental magic using water from the Styx River.
“She paid him a lot of money, apparently, and he made her a potion. He told her that she had to drink it, not Bianca, because it worked through the power of a mother’s love, or some nonsense explanation like that. He said if a mother drank the potion, it would make her youngest child extremely powerful.
“Mom only had one kid at the time, so she wasn’t really concerned about the ‘youngest child,’ part. She drank it, assuming that whatever power it granted Bianca would come with some sort of healing, but… nothing happened. Bianca was the same. The sorcerer disappeared, and Mom was never able to track him down again.
“Then, about eight months later, I was born.” Nico looked up, finally meeting Will’s gaze again, and was surprised to see tears welling up in the other boy’s eyes. He took a breath before continuing. “The pregnancy was… messy. Mom didn’t make it. Dad always thought that if I didn’t— if Mom hadn’t been pregnant with me when she took the potion… maybe it would have worked. Maybe everything would have been fine.”
Will was fully crying now, and Nico watched as the tears slipped down his freckled face. He wasn’t sure what to say, not wanting to belittle the other boy for his emotions, but not fully understanding what had brought them on, either. On instinct, he reached out a hand, stopping just before touching Will’s cheek, waiting for the other boy to give permission. Will was still looking into Nico’s eyes, but he leaned forward just a bit, putting his cheek in Nico’s palm. His face was warm, and Nico ran his thumb across it, wiping the tears from under one of his eyes, then lifted his other hand to do the same on the other side.
They stayed like that for a bit longer than was probably necessary before Nico started to pull his hands back, but Will grabbed onto them with both of his own hands and pulled Nico forward, suddenly, wrapping his arms around the smaller boy and holding Nico’s head against his chest.
Nico felt his breath catch, not really sure what was happening. He could hear Will’s heartbeat, and could feel Will’s breath on the top of his head. Will held him there for a few moments before pulling back slightly, just far enough to look Nico in the eyes.
“Nico,” His blue eyes were bright, like staring into a cloudless sky. “None of that is your fault. I know that might be hard to believe, because you’ve been told your whole life that it is, but…” he paused, like he realized he didn’t know how he was going to finish that thought. “But… it’s not, okay? It’s not.”
Nico nodded, not really sure what to say. He knew why Will was saying that. It was the same reason Bianca always said it: because that’s what you’re supposed to say when someone seems upset about a problem they caused unintentionally. That doesn’t mean it’s true.
Bianca was never healed, because of Nico. Maria di Angelo died, because of Nico. He knew that. He’d accepted it a long time ago. The tragedy of his birth was part of who he was — a fitting prelude for the rest of his life.
Will was crying again, so Nico cautiously wrapped his arms around the boy, returning his hug, and pulled him into his chest. That seemed to be the right move, because Will immediately melted into Nico’s arms, letting the tears flow down his face and onto Nico’s chest, which Nico realized — with a silent curse against his sister — was still mostly bare. There was nothing to do about it now, though. Will had made himself comfortable, and seemed to be starting to drift into sleep, the tears drying up as his breathing slowed into a comfortable rhythm. Slowly, Nico reached behind himself to grab a couple pillows and arrange them behind his back, so he could lean backwards without disturbing the boy sleeping on his chest, and closed his eyes, subconsciously matching his breathing with Will’s.
——
“Will!” Lou Ellen’s voice was punctuated by several loud raps at the door. “Are you in there?”
“Just a minute!” Will called out, quickly finishing up whatever he was doing with the sharp thing he had pointed at Nico’s eyeball before darting across the room to open the door.
“Oh, thank goodnacious!” Lou Ellen pushed her way into the room as soon as Will opened the door, Cecil close on her heels. Her hair had already returned to black, making Nico wonder if she had used some sort of magic to dye it last night. “We haven’t seen you all morning! Cecil thought that Nico might have murderified you after creepiliciously pulling you into the shadows last night, but I thought something a bit more scandalocious might be going on.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Will, who just rolled his eyes, though he did turn a bit pink.
“More scandal, uh, scandal- ocious than… murder?” Lou Ellen and Cecil both whipped their heads in Nico’s direction when he spoke, as if just realizing that he was in the room, too. They had matching smiles again, which Nico was starting to find a little disconcerting.
“Are you wearing… green eyeliner?” Cecil asked the question like nothing in the world would bring him greater joy than for the answer to be yes .
And it was, unfortunately.
“I tried black, but it just blended right in with his eyes,” Will answered for him. “And pink didn’t seem like his color.”
Nico gave Cecil and Lou Ellen a look that he hoped said, please get me out of here by any and all means necessary, but judging by the way their smiles grew in unison, he wasn’t sure the message got across.
Will had woken Nico up as soon as the sun was up that morning — which Nico really hoped was just because they had accidentally fallen asleep in the same bed and not something that was going to become a regular thing now that they were, apparently, friends — and started talking his ear off, claiming they had to make up for all the time they didn’t spend getting to know each other earlier this semester.
Nico had found himself actually enjoying the conversation, which he hadn’t totally expected. He wasn’t usually one for icebreaker, get-to-know-you talk, but Will had a way of telling even the most mundane stories in a way that had Nico hanging on his every word. About half an hour ago he had told Nico about how he met Cecil and Lou Ellen — which was very much not a mundane story and involved actual trebuchets — and had then asked Nico who his best friends were. Nico answered, honestly, that Bianca was his only friend and that most people didn’t like him because of his weird eyes and general demeanor.
Which led to the current situation, because Will was convinced that there was no way anyone was put off by Nico’s eyes and the only reason he didn’t have friends was because he didn’t know how to properly accessorize. Sure.
“Actually, I’m glad you showed up,” Will said, pulling Lou Ellen and Cecil’s attention away from Nico for a blessed moment. “Nico’s convinced no one likes him because of his eyes, so I’m trying to show him that he can totally be popular if he just, like, learns how to curate his image.”
“I would like to clarify that I did not ask him to do this and I do not want it,” Nico deadpanned, unfortunately getting no reaction from the others.
“Obviously, the makeup and accessories are still in the experimental phase,” Will continued as if Nico hadn’t spoken, gesturing at the paint on Nico's face and the pointed hat that he had stubbornly put back on when Will tried to style his hair earlier. “But maybe we could take a break from that and work on practicing socializing. He sucks at small talk.”
Nico blinked. He thought he’d been doing a pretty good job small-talking with Will all morning.
“How’s his flirtationing?” Lou Ellen asked, turning a mischievous smile on Nico. “We could practicify that.”
Cecil, for once, did not match Lou Ellen’s expression. He matched Will’s, who had narrowed his eyes and glanced between Lou Ellen and Nico suspiciously. Nico remembered what Will told him yesterday about his two friends not knowing they were in love with each other and figured he should put a stop to Lou Ellen’s line of questioning as quickly as possible.
“No thanks, Lou Ellen. I’m gay.” That should do it.
It didn't. Lou Ellen’s smile just grew, for some reason.
“Oh, I didn’t say you had to flirt with me, ” Lou Ellen replied. She turned to Will, who had turned bright red, again. Was he really that upset that Lou Ellen didn’t want to practice small talk with Nico?
Cecil’s smile had returned as well, and he grabbed Will by the arm, pulling him over to the bed where Nico was sitting and pushing him down so that he was sitting in the same spot he’d been occupying in front of Nico before the other two showed up.
“Nico, why don’t you practice flirting with Will?” Cecil said. “Tell him something you like about his appearance.”
Nico felt heat rush to his face, a thousand answers flying through his head — eyes that shine like the sky outside, freckles that Nico could spend hours looking for constellations in, gold hair that curled gently around his ears — but none that he was willing to say out loud considering he and Will had only just decided to stop hating each other. He wondered if he was as red as Will, whose face seemed to have frozen in the shocked expression he’d been wearing since Nico said he was gay.
Oh. Of course. Nico had finally made one friend that wasn’t his sister and now he’d ruined it by letting his sexuality slip and making Will think he might have a crush on him.
Which, now that he thought about it, he might, actually.
Well, Schist.
Nico stood up, backing up until he felt himself step into the shadow of a dresser.
“I— I need to go.” And then he disappeared.
——
To Nico's surprise, Will came and found him later that day at lunch. He had thought about sitting with Bianca and her friends, but he really didn't want to face questions about where he'd been at breakfast that morning or why he was wearing green eyeliner — he couldn't figure out how to wipe it off, ok? — so he took his tray to his regular sulking corner, prepared to eat by himself once again.
He didn't get to. Just a few minutes after he sat down, Will was sliding into the seat across from him, closely followed by Cecil and Lou Ellen.
“Sorry if we freaked you out earlier, Death Boy,” Cecil said in lieu of a greeting. Nico made another mental tick on the count of how many people were using that nickname now, so he could keep track of exactly how annoyed he was with Thalia.
“Yeah, we didn’t mean to make you uncomfortablocious, with the whole flirtationing thing,” Lou Ellen added.
“Oh, no worries,” he lied. “I wasn’t bothered by it.”
And that was it. They didn’t say anything about Nico being gay. Will didn’t say anything about Nico being gay. He actually didn’t say anything at all about that morning — other than telling Nico he was glad to see he hadn’t wiped off the eyeliner, and that it looked really good on him. The compliment made Nico blush, slightly, but he figured Will was just glad to see his own work still being displayed on Nico’s face.
He didn’t get much of a chance to think about it, though, because the table was soon overrun with the crowd of students that usually followed Will around. More than one person asked, as they approached the table, why Will wasn’t sitting in his usual place, and each time Will just smiled and replied that he wanted to mix things up, but feel free to join us. No one had asked about the obvious newcomer at the table, but Nico caught plenty of confused glances thrown his way during the meal.
After that, Nico found himself hanging out with Will and his friends surprisingly often. They sat together at most meals — sometimes in Nico’s usual corner, sometimes at Will’s regular table, and sometimes they hijacked Bianca, Thalia, and Annabeth’s table — they studied together in the library and in their dorm room, and Will even sought Nico out in classes that weren't weapons training.
Nico… liked it.
It was weird at first, because hanging out with Will often meant hanging out with all of his friends and admirers — unless they were in their dorm room, which was definitely Nico’s favorite place to hang out — but it turned out a lot of those people were really nice, too, after they realized Will no longer saw Nico as public enemy number one. Cecil and Lou Ellen, especially, treated Nico like he had just always been part of the group. It was… nice.
Of course, the group of admirers did start to dwindle a bit as Will spent more and more time with Nico, but whenever Nico brought this up — because he really didn’t want Will giving up friends for him — Will just shushed him and said it was their loss.
Nico tried to ignore the part of his brain that kept trying to remind him of the realization he had on that first day after the Half-Blood — that he may or may not be starting to develop a tiny crush on his roommate. He wasn’t naive enough to think he was the only person to recognize that Will was charming and handsome. In fact, he was probably the last person in the school to acknowledge the fact; the boy had a whole gaggle of admirers hanging around him at almost all times, after all. Nico didn’t know if any of those people had noticed the parts of Will that Nico had noticed, though. The things he tended to hide behind the charming facade and only let slip out when he thought no one else was watching him, like when he stayed after class at the end of their history final to check in on Dr. Chiron’s leg, or when he left a fresh tube of green eyeliner on Nico’s pillow after Nico had asked to borrow his a couple times (so he liked it, sue him. And Will had said it looked good).
But the others didn’t need to know all that to know that they wanted Will’s attention. And Nico wasn’t foolish enough to believe that Will would see him as anything other than a friend when he had the pick of the entire school for romantic options. So, he locked that part of himself up in a jar in the back of his brain and focused on enjoying the fact he had friends for the first time in his life.
On the last day of the two-week finals period, Nico found himself sitting between Annabeth and Will at a lunch table while everyone compared their class schedules for the next semester. The two blondes were talking over his head, having just realized Will was going to be in the weapons training class that Annabeth would be helping lead as a teacher’s assistant. She would be graduating at the end of next semester, and was hoping to become a member of the Wizard’s Guard, just like her mother. She had apparently been training with guard members for most of her life and was already well-renowned for her skill with a blade.
“Maybe with your help I’ll finally be able to beat Death Boy, over here,” Will said, nudging Nico with his arm. “He and I sparred a lot this semester, but I never managed to get a win without playing dirty.”
Playing dirty?
Nico thought about the few times that Will had bested him this semester.
Oh. That’s what the smiles were about. He’d been doing it on purpose. Huh.
“Death Boy? Really? We’re all really sticking with that nickname?” Annabeth responded, placing an arm on Nico’s head like he was an armrest. Nico groaned and pushed her off, shoving her into Thalia — who was sitting on her other side — and causing the black-haired girl to fall off her seat with a yelp.
Ha. Two birds, one stone.
Will laughed and it took all of Nico’s willpower to keep glaring at Thalia and Annabeth rather than turn around and look at the bright smile he knew was lighting up Will’s face.
“Yes!” Thalia said, her head popping up from the ground. “Death Boy is some of my finest work! Almost as good as Wise Girl.” She lightly punched Annabeth on the arm as she pulled herself back into her seat with her other hand.
Annabeth just rolled her eyes, but Will made a confused noise behind Nico.
“Wise Girl?” Will questioned. “But, that’s a compliment isn’t it?”
“Thank you!” Annabeth said. “That’s what I’ve been saying! And I’d say the one she’s been using for you is a compliment, too, Dr. Sunshine .”
Will laughed again, and this time Nico did allow himself to turn his head slightly. The blonde was aiming that beautifully distracting smile over Nico’s head at Annabeth, and Nico felt a pang of jealousy before he managed to shove his feelings back into their place in the jar.
“If you say so,” Will leaned closer to Nico and wrapped an arm around him so he could reach Annabeth and push her lightly on the shoulder, which Nico tried not to think of as a flirty move between the two blondes.
And if Will’s hand lingered on Annabeth’s arm for longer than it probably needed to before he pulled it back, lightly brushing Nico’s shoulders as he went, Nico could probably convince himself he’d imagined it.