Chapter Text
Will was disgusted, honestly, that it worked.
A fixing spell. The answer was a fixing spell.
Because the spell that Minos had used to cause the damage wasn’t meant to break people . It had been twisted, darkened, and forcibly used on sentient individuals, but it couldn’t be healed. Not the way damaging spells meant for people could be healed. No, it had to be fixed.
Because to Minos and Luke, the animals and magical creatures of Olympus were objects.
Will had worked for men who saw some people as objects. For years.
He felt a hand laid softly on top of his, pulling him out of his thoughts, and he turned to see Nico looking at him with a concerned frown. Will realized he must have been making a face at the thought of his own complicity, so he smiled softly back at the other man, hoping to reassure him. Nico returned his smile, but the concern was still evident in the crease between his eyes.
Will tried to shrug it off, turning back to where Annabeth was debriefing Chiron on everything that had happened in the years since he had been infected.
It had taken a few tries to figure out the fixing charm. They still weren’t sure exactly what it was that Minos had done to cause the disease, but they had a general sense based on some spells Nico found in the non-human part of the Riordanerie. It had taken a blend of fixing magic, healing magic, and some sort of dark something from the book that helped combine those two things together, but they’d eventually figured it out.
Chiron had healed much faster than Will had expected, only needing a few doses of the bottled charm before he was fully coherent — and shocked to find himself staying in a small mansion with four of his former students, all several years older than when he’d last seen them, and two of them no longer human.
The timing was perfect, actually, because they probably only had another day before it was time to enact Annabeth’s plan to take down Luke. She was pretty sure that the plan could work even if they didn't find the cure in time, but having it definitely helped.
As she’d predicted, it had taken a few days for Luke to notice that Percy was no longer trekking across the country, and then another couple to figure out where he was last seen in order to narrow down when Nico had “kidnapped” him and where he might be being kept, in order to send soldiers after them.
Of course, because of Nico’s ability to teleport, Luke didn’t actually expect to find Percy or Nico. He’d explained as much to his new captain of the guard this morning, while everyone at Python had been listening in through Nico’s shadow. He was just sending a small squadron to Delphi because if he was going to publicize Percy’s disappearance in order to turn more people against Nico, he had to make it seem like he was trying to do something about the problem.
Luke was already using Will’s supposed kidnapping as anti-witch propaganda, which Will was glad of, actually, because it meant his parents kept being quoted in the newspaper saying how much they missed him, which meant he knew they were safe. Of course, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for Luke to have just made up quotes from his parents for reporters to use, but Lou Ellen had written most of the stories with his mom and dad in them, and Will knew that she would have found a way to subtly indicate his parents weren’t safe if that were the case. She and Cecil were surprisingly good at phrasing things just vaguely enough to be truthful while still adhering to the editorial requests made of them.
The squadron Luke was sending would be small enough — and ill-prepared enough for the fact they were actually going to find Nico’s current hideout, right off the path near Delphi — that Nico and Percy could probably take them out all by themselves if they wanted to. Luckily for the soldiers, though, that wasn’t part of Annabeth’s plan.
Percy didn’t have any magical abilities like Nico did, but his skill with a sword was more than enough to make up for it. While the last few days had mostly been spent trying to fine-tune and then mass produce the silencing cure, Percy and Nico had also managed to find several opportunities to practice sparring together, and Will may have been caught staring on more than one occasion.
Percy had caught Nico off-guard when they first met in the woods, as Nico hadn’t expected this stranger to be so experienced with a weapon. But when they actually got to sparring, they were almost equally matched.
Except — since they’d decided the problem of Bianca’s shoes could wait now that they needed all hands on deck to work on making more doses of the cure — Percy was doing all this sparring in heels.
At least he wasn’t doing it with an unbalanced sword anymore. Will’s parents weren’t fighters, but they were collectors, and there was a room in the basement full of pristine bronze and golden weapons that Will was pretty sure no one had ever used. Will, remembering how Percy had mentioned needing a new weapon, had shown Percy the room on the second day after he and his group had arrived at Python.
Percy had walked right up to a shining bronze sword hanging on the wall, with anaklusmos engraved along the hilt, and said, “Oh, this one’s mine.”
And that was that. The sword was perfectly balanced.
Will was pulled out of his thoughts again when Nico’s hand, still resting on top of Will’s, gave a tight squeeze. Will turned back to Nico who smiled at him again, more teasing this time, as if he knew Will’s mind had been elsewhere.
Will had been seeing that smile more and more lately — beautiful dimple and all — as Nico adjusted to the feeling of being surrounded by friends who were willing to support him through his grief and help distract him from it while they planned their next moves.
Nico gestured with his chin toward where Chiron was making his way around the circle, saying goodbye to each member of the group.
Annabeth had evidently finished updating Chiron on his part in the plan — which would be beginning before this meeting was even over, since Nico needed to conserve his strength and Chiron was the only other person who could travel fast enough to get to all of Nico’s other hideouts by the end of the day to deliver the cure and to let the other rebels know to meet them in Othrys City tomorrow.
It occurred to Will that, even though he hadn’t been listening, Annabeth had likely just listed, out loud, all of Nico’s other hideouts. And no one had asked Will to leave first. In fact, Will was privy to every single part of the plan that was about to go down. He didn’t know if he had ever been trusted this much by anyone.
He didn’t have time to dwell on it, though, because suddenly Chiron was standing in front of him and Nico, smiling kindly as he looked between them.
Will stood and threw his arms around the centaur. It was a good thing Will was tall, but even so, he had to rise up to his tiptoes to reach his old professor, and the hug was still a little uneven. Chiron pulled back after a moment, his smile still soft, and turned to hug Nico as well, despite the even more awkward height difference.
“Thank you,” Chiron said, looking between his two former students. “I’m proud of the men that you’ve become.”
Will looked down at that. He hadn’t really been listening, but he was pretty sure that Annabeth had skated pretty quickly over Will’s role in everything before he left the palace with Nico a couple weeks ago. He wondered how proud the old centaur would really be of Will if they’d had the time to give him a detailed rundown of the political scene these last several years.
“Thank you, Dr. Chiron,” Will said, instead of voicing his concerns. “Nico has done a lot of good while you’ve been… gone, I guess.”
He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up at the centaur, who was looking down at him with a soft, understanding smile.
“As have you, Will.”
Will just smiled and nodded, not believing it, but needing Chiron to believe that he did. It seemed to be enough for the centaur, and Will kept the mask on as he watched Chiron finish saying his goodbyes and sling several bags of medicine over his back. Will stepped out of the ongoing planning meeting to follow Chiron to the front door, in order to give him a quick medical once over before he left and to perform one last pain relief charm on the centaur’s bad knee. Hopefully it would be enough to get him through the next couple days.
He didn’t let the smile fall until he had finished waving the centaur off and closed the door, slowly turning around to lean against it.
Then he saw who was standing behind him, and immediately picked the fake smile back up again.
Nico had apparently followed them out of the planning meeting, and he was watching Will with that small, concerned frown he’d had on earlier. Will hoped he had fastened his smile back in place quickly enough to avoid being noticed.
“That’s why he’s proud of you, you know,” Nico said, after a long moment where they just stared at each other.
“Huh?” Will tilted his head, hoping the cracks in his facade weren’t as visible as they felt.
“He didn’t ask you to do that. Check on his health, offer to help with his knee before he left. But you did.” Nico was still frowning, his voice soft against the chatter Will could still hear coming from the living room. “You may not have always known how best to go about it, Will, but you’ve always wanted to help people. That’s what Chiron is proud of.”
Will looked down, not trusting himself to speak for fear of breaking the already tenuous hold he had on his own image.
“You know,” Nico continued, when he realized Will wasn’t going to respond. “Chiron wasn’t our first attempt at rescuing somebody from the palace dungeon.” Will glanced up at the change of topic, but he couldn’t bring himself to look into Nico’s dark eyes for long, especially now that he was talking about the place where most of Will’s complicity had happened.
He looked back down.
Nico kept talking anyway.
“It was actually one of the easier places to get people out of, most of the time.”
Will heard soft footsteps, and then Nico’s socked feet appeared on the floor in front of him. He didn’t raise his eyes.
But then, there was Nico. He had ducked to put his face in Will’s line of sight, and now Will was caught, once again, staring at his own reflection in those dark eyes. He looked softer, gentler, and he wondered if that was how the other man saw him.
“You know why?” Nico continued. Will shook his head, barely moving, but it was enough for Nico to understand. “The people kept in the palace could always walk . Unlike most of the other prisoners, they were healthy.”
Nico straightened up, slowly, and Will followed him, their eyes locked together like magnets. There was a pull there that Will couldn’t break now that he’d been sucked into it.
“They told us it was you.” Nico reached out a hand, laying it gently on Will’s cheek and using his thumb to wipe away a tear that Will hadn’t realized he’d let escape. “That was part of why I always knew you’d come back to m— to us, eventually.”
Will had no words, and even if he had had them, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to force them past the suspiciously heart-shaped lump in his throat. He blinked, trying to make sure there weren’t any more tears in his eyes, and licked his lips, his mouth suddenly feeling uncomfortably dry.
Nico’s hand dropped from his cheek after a moment, but he didn’t pull away, still watching Will with his reflective gaze, and that slight frown.
“There’s something I need to do tonight, before everything goes down tomorrow,” Nico said, changing the topic again, as Will had yet to give him a response. “Will you come with me?”
Will nodded without thinking. Of course he would go with him. Anywhere.
Nico smiled, slightly, the dimple just ghosting over his cheek. He promised to be right back before slipping away down the hallway.
By the time he returned — holding the Riordanerie tightly under one arm — Will had managed to find his voice again. And he’d remembered that they were technically supposed to be in a meeting, still.
“They’ll forgive us,” Nico said, barely pausing in pulling on his shoes when Will voiced his concern. “It’s just a review of the plan, anyway.”
“But, won’t they wonder where we are?”
“Probably, but they’ll know we’ll be back in time for everything. They trust us.” Nico tilted his head, watching Will closely as Will felt his casual facial expression grow a little more strained. He was sure Nico could see right through him. “Both of us, Will.”
And it was the strangest thing, but Will believed him.
“Thank you, Nico,” he whispered.
——
Will could hear rushing water as they popped out of the shadows, but he couldn’t see the river through the darkness of an overcast night sky.
Having had a little bit of actual warning this time, he had done an anti-nausea charm on himself before shadow-jumping across the county, but his stomach still churned, and he found himself leaning heavily on Nico as he tried to get his bearings.
The other man just chuckled, rubbing Will’s back softly with one hand until Will was able to shake off the nausea and stand up fully on his own. He squinted into the darkness around him, but couldn’t even see his own hand in front of his face. He thought about casting a light spell, but he didn’t want to alert anyone nearby to their presence. He still wasn’t sure why they were here. Or where here was.
“Where are we?” he asked, turning to Nico, who he could sense more than see beside him.
“Styx,” Nico answered. His hand disappeared from Will’s back, and Will worried for a split second the other man would walk away without him. But then the hand slipped into Will’s and Nico started pulling him toward the sound of rushing water. “How bad is your vision right now?”
“Pretty much nonexistent,” Will replied. “I can’t even see you.”
Nico hummed in acknowledgement, his hand tightening in Will’s. They seemed to be on some kind of stone trail, which gave way after a few minutes to something soft, like sand.
They took a few more steps forward, Will’s feet slipping into the soft ground, before Nico stopped. Will could just make out the other man’s outline now, his eyes having adjusted a bit to the lack of light, and he watched as Nico turned toward him.
Will smiled awkwardly, not knowing what expression the other man was wearing, but knowing that Nico could see his face clearly.
The sound of water was louder now, and Will was almost certain that the Styx River was right next to them. He wondered how far they were from where Nico grew up.
Nico didn’t say anything. They stood there for a few moments, facing each other, one of each of their hands still intertwined. Will listened to the sound of the rushing water, and his mind flashed back to a moment by a different river, eight years ago.
Will, are you… are we…
We’re good friends, right?
Will should have said something then. He should have told Nico the truth about how he felt. Everything had been so much simpler then. Before.
Before Will had lost Nico’s trust. Before Nico was grieving the only family member who ever truly cared for him. Before they’d both agreed to a plan that might separate them forever.
But even then, Will had been a coward.
“Nico?” Will asked in a whisper.
“Yes, Will?”
I’m in love with you.
Will had always been a coward.
“What are we doing here?”
Nico took a step back, his hand pulling out of Will’s. Will almost reached out to stop him, but caught himself at the last moment, letting Nico go.
“Bianca and I used to play near here, when we were kids.” Nico’s voice caught in his throat. “I— I thought it would be a good place.”
“A good place for what?”
There was the sound of movement, and fluttering pages, as Nico let out a soft grunt. Will remembered suddenly that before they’d shadow-jumped, Nico had been holding the Riordanerie in his other hand. A moment later there was a loud splash somewhere in the direction of the river.
Everything was silent for a long moment, before Will spoke again.
“Nico?”
“Yes?”
“Did you just—”
“Yes.”
Will sat down in the sand with a soft thump. A moment later, he heard another thump next to him.
“I thought you were going to wait,” Will admitted. “Until after everything was over.”
“We found the cure,” Nico said, his voice coming from closer than Will had expected. “That’s all I needed it for.” He paused, before adding, much softer: “Bianca had been telling me to get rid of it for years. I should have listened to her sooner.”
Will rolled that around in his mind for a moment, turning his head to face the place where he could just make out Nico’s outline. He felt the other man’s shoulder brush against his, and wondered if Nico was facing him as well.
“Will you lose the spells you learned from it? Like the shadow eavesdropping thing, that seemed pretty—”
“I don’t know.” Warm air brushed past Will’s cheek. “I don’t care.”
Will’s breath hitched. It felt like Nico was right in front of him. He couldn’t see, but he felt like he was looking deeply into the other man’s eyes. Falling into them, perhaps. Like every bit of darkness all around him was just Nico Nico Nico.
“So much power. Gone,” he whispered.
“I don’t want power,” came the easy reply.
“What do you want?”
A soft hand found Will's in the dark, intertwining their fingers. There was a layer of sand between them, scratching against Will's palm. Will’s breath hitched as he searched the darkness in front of him for any sign of Nico's face.
“This,” Nico muttered, his voice softer now, like he was no longer facing Will directly. “This is all I want.”
And Will wanted to know, should have asked, what exactly that meant.
He leaned his head over, finding Nico's shoulder next to him. Nico's other hand moved to Will's head and he started absently combing his hand through Will's hair.
What about this do you want?
Will could have said.
I want this, too.
He should have said.
“Hey, Nico?”
Nico hummed in response.
“That shadow eavesdropping spell…” Will paused. This was not what he meant to ask, but it was somewhere in the right direction. He sat up slightly, dislodging Nico's hand from his hair and turning his face in Nico's direction “Did you ever use it on me?”
Did you miss me? Did you want to see me? Do you love me?
Nico didn't answer, but a moment later Will felt a soft press of lips on his cheek.
“We should go back,” Nico said, and Will wasn't sure if he was imagining the sound of tears in the other man's voice. “It's late.”
Too late.