Chapter Text
Nico looked away from where Will was sitting on a chair next to the cot. The way the sunlight fell on Will’s hair, making it aflame with golden light was way too distracting.
“So you’re born in 1924?”
That question usually irritating for Nico. But this time, it became slightly less irritating than usual. Probably because Will said it without sounding annoyingly curious. Just slightly curious. Slightly.
Or probably because Will was the one asking the question.
“Yeah,” Nico said, glancing at Will for a second. The head medic was still holding a writing board, scribbling something on it. Nico looked down to the mattress, his finger absently tracing imaginary pattern on the sheet.
“Cool,” Will said.
Nico’s head snapped to look at Will, eyes widened a bit.
What did he just say?
Will looked up from the board to Nico. “You’ve got to tell me about what kind of music that was popular at that time.”
Nico blinked. He stared at Will, not sure what Will meant by that.
“Excuse me?”
Will put the board on the small nightstand next to the cot. He shrugged his shoulders.
“I mean, people always said that jazz and swings were quite popular in the 30s. So I thought it would be cool to hear how it really was.”
“You want to hear it. From me,” Nico said, as if saying it by himself would make it easier for him to believe it. It did not.
Will chuckled. “Yeah,” he said, leaning back on the chair as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Would be great to have a legit source of information about the music from that decade. And I bet Austin would have a bunch of questions to ask you.”
Nico did not know what to say to that.
He did not know how to feel about that.
But at the back of his mind, he started digging out some vague, hazy memories from his childhood. About the times when his Mama would hum along to the songs in the radio while she was sitting in the living room, flipping through the magazines. He vaguely remembered that one song about smokes on someone’s eyes. And that one song about the blue moon.
His Mama loved those songs.
“Anyway,” Will said as he stood up from the chair, cutting Nico’s train of thought. “Do you mind if I check your vitals?”
“Uh. Yeah, sure.” Nico said, shifting a bit on the cot.
“Uhm, Nico?”
Nico looked up at Will, who was looking at him expectantly. “Yeah?”
“I would need to,” he paused to clear his throat. “… Hold your wrist. And your arms. I mean, to check your pulse. Totally for medical purposes.”
“Oh,” Nico said, feeling heat creeping in slowly inside of him. “Okay,” he said, stretching out his left hand to Will.
Will took it and once their skin came in contact, strange electric sparks lit up in his vein.
Strange, but not unpleasant.
Nico managed not to flinch this time.
He strangely felt that Will’s hand on his skin was pleasantly warm.
Will’s eyes were on where his fingers were on Nico’s wrist. Nico stared at how his brows scrunched as Will was concentrating, some rebellious strands of sun-kissed blond hair falling over his forehead.
“Not so bad,” Will said as he let go of Nico’s hand. Nico blinked, feeling another rush of heat over his face when he realized that he has been staring at the healer.
“Your pulse is a bit…higher than normal, and so is your heart rate. But those are not something that I would really concern about,” he said as he reached out for the board. He sat on the chair next to the nightstand.
“How do you feel though? Feeling nauseous? Some body aches?” He asked Nico, glancing at him before scribbling something on the board.
Nico bit his lower lip as he pondered on the question.
“Not really,” he said and shrugged his shoulders. He did feel a bit exhausted, worn out. But after a war that he and the rest of the camp had gone through, wouldn’t everyone feel worn out too?
Then his conversation with Will just a few hours ago reeled back in his mind.
A conversation that he still didn’t get yet. He replayed the words in his head, over and over again, but what Will still didn’t make sense to him.
“I’ve been stuck in the infirmary for, like, two days. You don’t come by. You don’t offer to help”
Nico didn’t get why Will would want someone like him, the son of Hades around a healer like him.
“You don’t think I could stand to see a friendly face?
Nico didn’t get why Will would describe him as someone with a friendly face. It just did not make any sense.
“Actually, I do feel kind of confused.”
That seemed to get Will’s attention, as his head quickly snapped back to Nico.
“You feel what? Confused?” He asked as he quickly stood up. With one wide step, he closed the distance between him and Nico. “Confused as in dizzy? Are you having a fever?”
This time, without a warning, he pressed his hand over Nico’s forehead, checking for his temperature.
Nico thought fleetingly that he did not really mind with Will touching him. Even without warning.
“No, Solace. Relax,” Nico said. He pulled Will’s hand away from his forehead. “It’s not like that.”
“Oh,” Will said, pulling his hand back to his side. He was probably blushing. It was a bit hard to tell with his tanned skin. Besides, there were some stupid butterflies that just decide to do some stupid dancing in his stomach now for Nico to really think about whether Will was blushing or no.
“What do you mean by confused, then?”
Nico steeled himself to hold his eyes right at Will’s blue eyes.
“What do you mean when you said a friendly face? Are you really talking about me?”
“Whom else I should be talking about?”
“Me? A friendly face, Solace? Me?”
“What? Now you would even deny the fact that I’ve known you since you were just that 10-year old boy, walking around with your pack of Mythomagic cards and talk about how many attack points that Apollo had was nothing compared to the protection level that Hades had?”
Nico blinked. It took him a full two second before he could reply.
“You… You remember me back then?”
Because really, with the kind of history that he had about the first time he came to the Camp, and how he never stayed for longer than a day or two in the camp, to have someone remember him was something that was just…unexpected, to say the least.
Will snorted. “Don’t tell me that you did not remember me, di Angelo.”
He said that with a slightly bickering tone. But Nico could see something fragile in his eyes. Like he hoped that Nico remembered him.
The thing was, Nico did remember him.
It was a hazy memory, of a blond tall kid, standing behind Michael Yew when Michael was checking for Nico’s vitals the first time Nico came to the camp.
It was a blurry memory, but Nico remembered the blond kid who sat next to him on the grass, by the strawberry field, nodding and asking him questions as Nico was showing him his Mythomagic card.
And of course, Nico remembered how Will running around, being one of the most needed ones to heal the demigods who were wounded during the Manhattan Battle.
He did.
Nico did remember him.
“Well, yeah. I do remember you.”
Nico might just have imagined it, but Will’s eyes looked twinkled just a bit brighter.
“So?” Will crossed his arms over his chest, arching an eyebrow at Nico. “What is wrong with saying that your face is one of the familiar faces that I have in mind?”
To be honest, this conversation did not make the whole thing become less confusing for Nico. In fact, it raised even more questions.
“I’m just…” Nico paused, but could not make himself look away from Will. “I just did not expect that anyone would…remember me. For so long.”
Will’s expression got softer. He looked down as he mumbled.
“I got my first pack that day.”
Nico furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “You got what?”
Will looked up again. “My first pack of Mythomagic card. I bought it from the camp store that day because… I want to play with you.”
He paused and looked away. For a second or two, there was a heavy silence.
“But then you’re… You’re just…gone.”
A cold pain from an old wound stabbed Nico. He remembered that day. The day when he got so mad at Percy, whom he thought he could trust. The day when he found out that he has lost the only one person that he had left with him.
Nico’s heart was in his throat.
“I… I am sorry,” he said, voice barely a whisper.
“Don’t be,” Will looked back at him. There was a small smile ghosting over his lips. “I mean… I… I can’t blame you. You lost your sister.”
Nico looked down at his lap, and gave a single nod.
Silence again.
Then Nico felt a hand over his shoulder. Warm and comforting. He looked up, finding Will staring at him with a gentle look in his eyes.
“It must be painful for you. Losing a sister.”
Nico bit his lip and nodded again.
“But you lost your brothers too.”
Something flashed in Will’s eyes. Something so akin to pain. It lasted for just a second, but Nico saw it, and it made his heart ache.
Nico wondered what he could do to soothe the pain. What he could do to show Will that he cared.
Will pulled his hand away from Nico and slid it into his pocket. He looked away, gazing to the window. But it was like his eyes were looking at something far away instead of just the green grass that they could see from the window.
Nico thought that it was the same longing look that he had himself whenever something reminded him of Bianca.
Nico watched Will’s chest raised up and down slowly, like he was trying to regain a normal breathing to calm himself.
“Anyway,” Will said a second later, turning his head back to Nico. A small smile curled up on his lips but his blue eyes were not as bright as they were a few minutes ago. “I still have it. The Mythomagic starter pack.”
Nico raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Will said, running his fingers through his messy curls of blond hair. “I don’t know why I still keep it.”
He sighed as he looked down for a second. When he looked back at Nico, there was a thin, stiff smile on his lips. “I don’t even know whether you still have yours.”
Nico shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t.”
He kept his eyes at Will’s when he added. “But I still remember how to play it, though.”
Will’s eyebrows shot up and the smile got just a bit, slightly wider. And this time, there was a spark of hope in his eyes.
“Really?”
Nico didn’t know why he smiled when he nodded at Will. “I can teach you how to play.”
“You can?”
“Of course.”
It was funny how a simple, almost childlike reason like a game of Mythomagic can make Will’s face lit up. And it was ridiculous how the way Will’s face lit up made Nico’s heart did a backflip.
“So it means…you’re really staying, right?”
Nico’s eyes widened, and he was too confused with the question to ponder why Will’s cheeks seemed to be in a shade of crimson.
“I am. I’ve told you. I am staying.”
“Oh,” Will said. Will looked away again, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just want to make sure. That this time you’re really staying.”
“Well,” Nico looked down because he could feel that his cheeks were also heating up. “I… Yeah. I am staying this time. For real.”
“Good to hear that.”
“Besides,” Nico looked up again at Will, slightly smiling. “I still have to tell you about what kind of music that we listened to in the 30’s, right?”
“Exactly,” Will said, beaming a smile that could light up the whole room.
The sound of the conch shell, signaling the time for lunch made the two of them looked to the window.
For a while, they said nothing, just watching the campers that were making their way to the dining pavilion.
For a while, it was just silence between them. But Nico realized that this was the kind of peaceful silence, the kind of silence where neither of them felt the need to say something, just for the sake of breaking an awkward silence.
It was Will who broke the silence first, though.
“Some of the nymphs will bring your lunch here.”
“Okay,” Nico nodded, trying to ignore the slight disappointment of having to eat lunch without Will alone.
“But you know what?” Will grinned at him.
Nico arched an eyebrow at Will. “What?”
“What about I go get something from the dining pavilion, then I’ll come back here so you can start telling me about that 30’s music?”
Nico could feel his heart did that stupid backflip again.
He could feel that he was smiling again.
To be honest? He found he didn’t really mind.
“Sounds good, Solace.”
“Cool!”
***
Like what he has promised, Will came back and they had lunch together. Nico told Will about how his Mamma listened and sang along to Blue Moon and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Will told Nico that Somewhere Over the Rainbow remained to be a popular song. They shared a plate of fruit together.
***
At dinner time, Will showed up again. This time he brought not only his dinner, but also his pack of Mythomagic card. Nico taught Will the basic rules. Will kept on asking questions. They shared a piece of cookies that Will brought with him as a dessert.
***
It was dark. Nico was about to fall asleep on his cot when he realized something. It has been so long, so very long, since the last time he had a light conversation like what he had with Will today. A conversation that flew easily. A conversation where Nico actually smiled and even laughed at some things that Will said.
And it was confusing.
Why, though?
Why Will? Why did he feel this way?
There were other questions that Nico had. But this time, the confusion did not freak him out, or make him anxious.
Maybe, not all things need an explanation anyway.
Maybe, there were things that Nico did not need to be confused about.
Maybe.
Nico fell asleep that night. A peaceful sleep, this time.
He did not know that when Will peeked at him from the light curtain that was drawn around his cot, the small soft smile on Will’s lips matched his own small smile.
***