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The sun was setting behind the woods. When Will noticed that, his heart leapt into his throat with the wild, irrational thought that maybe it would be the last time that ever happened—what happened if the sun god died, anyway?
“I mean, the sun’s been rising and setting this whole time even though Dad was mortal,” Kayla pointed out when he voiced this concern.
“Yeah, the sun being Dad’s domain is just a spiritual thing, right?” Austin said. Leaning against the counter, Izzy nodded.
“It’s still just a ball of burning gas in space. The gods don’t actually have anything to do with physics, Will.”
Will knew that, of course, but he figured neither his siblings nor anyone else could really blame him for worrying. Apollo had gone off to battle Python—he checked his watch—six hours ago. Will had been back at camp healing wounded kids for a solid four of those, but still no one had heard anything. Rachel didn’t know if the Pythia had been released. Austin had no insights. Chiron hadn’t heard anything from Olympus.
“He’s not dead, either.” Nico woke up around the seventh hour, looked him up and down, and exchanged grim glances with Izzy and Gabriel that made Will a little indignant even knowing they were right. Still, he let his boyfriend tug on both of his hands and drag him away from the remaining patients and out to the back porch. Now they sat on the steps, watching the daylight fade together.
“You’ll tell me, right?”
“Of course. I promise.” Nico rubbed the cold pads of his thumbs over Will’s knuckles. Will was grateful for the contact, and to see him awake and alert. Having him sleep on the closed head injury Nero had dealt by fucking throwing him across his throne room and into the wall had been kind of terrifying, to Will, but by the time they got back to camp everyone’s interest in Nico’s depleted energy not fracturing into the void had won out.
Fortunately, he seemed to be recovering just fine. At least, after special nectar and a few hours’ nap his pupils weren’t any more dilated than they would have been anyway in the dimming light, and with their hands clasped Will couldn’t sense anything that felt like internal bleeding. He would be paranoid for a couple days, he knew, after what had happened to Miranda’s little brother last summer, but for now Nico seemed okay. On the outside, the bruising all over his face was already fading too.
They sat quietly for a minute. “Is there something you’re not telling me?” Will asked. Nico’s expression was distant, the set of his mouth concerned. Now he looked at Will and sighed.
“Yeah, maybe. Sorry.”
“What is it?” Will asked, gripping his hands so tightly Nico pulled his away, flexing his fingers. “Sorry. Sorry. Just—please, I want you to tell me what’s happening. Even if it’s bad, I’d rather know.”
“That goes both ways, you know,” Nico said, arching a reproachful eyebrow. “Got any more missing lines of prophecy to share, Solace?” It was Will’s turn to sigh.
“No, I know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. Just don’t ever do that again.”
“I won’t! I promise. I’m really sorry.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard.” When Will glanced up at Nico, the corner of his mouth was quirked up. There was still something a little sharp in his eyes, but it softened as he looked at him.
“What is it, though?” Will asked. “Did you dream something?”
“Yeah.” Nico took a deep breath, shoulders slumping. “While I was resting, I saw, um—I saw Python fall into Tartarus. And he took Apollo with him. I didn’t see anything else after that, just—the fall.”
Now Will’s chest seized up so fast his head spun. He had to take a second to breathe, and remind himself fifteen was way too young to have a heart attack.
“But—you said he’s not dead,” he said. Nico nodded.
“He isn’t. Which probably means they’re still down there. And if that changes—I’ll let you know.”
“Okay.” A little tentatively, Will took Nico’s hand again and squeezed it. “Are you okay? After dreaming that?” Nico shrugged, looking down.
“I’m okay,” he said quietly. “I didn’t actually see Tartarus itself. No flashbacks or anything. I mean—I’m worried about Apollo, because I know what he could have to deal with down there, but I didn’t have any bad dreams about me.” He squeezed Will’s hand back. “I’m... no less okay than I ever am.”
“That’s not saying a lot,” Will pointed out. Nico shrugged.
“Nah. But I’m okay enough to deal with it. I’m just glad we’re both okay.” He smiled slightly, rubbing his thumb against Will’s.
“Me too.” Will met his eyes as he rubbed back. This time, a little surprising and a lot delightful, Nico’s cheeks went a little pink in the golden light before he glanced down and away, shyer suddenly.
Will had to do the same, then, smiling, figuring Nico was probably thinking about the same thing he was now. Early this morning, after they finished their quest for the damned lizard—which was not actually the worst all-nighter Will had ever pulled, not even top five, objectively, but he’d had to remind himself of that hourly—once they had found (and Nico had murdered) the poor creature, they’d come back and sat on Half-Blood Hill, under the pine tree a safe distance from Peleus, leaning on each other, to watch the sun begin to rise over the wooded hills between them and Goldsmith’s and the distant Sound. They had all agreed to leave at dawn, but before Will went back to his cabin to wake his father, he figured he had a couple more minutes to steal with his boyfriend while everyone else was still asleep. After all,
“This might be the last day of our lives,” he had said. “I don’t even mean cause of the trogs,” he added, before Nico could protest. “It’s just—the kind of day where there are gonna be a lot of ways we could die.” Not the first time they’d faced the dawn of one right where they sat. Not even a year ago, the downhill slope under their sneakers had been a battlefield tugging at them. Gods, Will was exhausted, and not just because he had been up all night.
“What else is new?” said Nico, voice vibrating into Will’s shoulder a little where his cheek rested against it. Will had turned his head to the side to press his face into Nico’s messy hair and kiss the top of his head.
“Yeah,” he’d said, and squeezed his shoulders gently. Then he’d said, “Hey—listen.” He heard his own voice come out of his mouth a lot more confident than he felt. “There’s something I haven’t told you yet, that I want to say. I would’ve sooner, but—I wasn’t sure, like, when was the right time, if it would be weird—and then, after Jason died, I didn’t want to, like, make it seem like I was just saying it to try and cheer you up, or take away from your feelings about him at all. But—” he sighed. “Now—I definitely don’t want to die without telling you—”
“I love you too,” Nico had said quietly, cutting him off. Will pulled back to look at him, honestly a little hurt at first that his boyfriend had stolen his thunder—even as a happy warmth spread through his chest, instantly soothing it.
“What do you mean too?” he’d said. “I didn’t say it yet!” Nico had glanced up at him. He was smiling shyly then, too.
“You didn’t need to,” he said. “I know.”
Will had just stared at him for a moment, feeling—he didn’t know what he was feeling, exactly, he couldn’t put a name to it, but he was pretty sure the best he had ever felt. For a second there, it didn’t matter that they were facing down yet another day, another mission that could easily kill them. It was like none of that existed. He wrapped his arms around Nico’s shoulders and dropped his head to hide his face against his neck and whispered,
“I love you so much.” Nico had shifted closer into his arms, and they’d sat there like that, holding each other, until the sun itself started to actually appear, a blinding line of white light bleeding over the pink horizon, and Will had to force himself to let go. He thought they both did.
Now that they had survived the day—and it was hitting Will that he had been awake for almost forty hours—it felt even bigger than it had when they hadn’t known if they would make it. Like maybe something they should talk about. Or at least keep saying, again and again—because gods knew Will planned to. Before he could say anything now, though, Nico took his other hand so he was holding both again.
Will looked up—Nico’s face was deadly serious. Not that he wasn’t usually serious, but this seemed like something different.
“Will,” he said quietly. “You saved the world today.”
“What?” Will blinked at him. “No I didn’t.”
“Um, yes,” Nico said, “you did.”
“Not the world,” Will said. “I mean—New York, maybe. The metro area. And it wasn’t like it was just me.”
“Whatever.” Nico shrugged. “You still saved it. And it was very—uh—awesome.” He stumbled over his words a little, and red spots appeared on his cheeks as Will looked at him suspiciously, the closest to really smiling he’d been in hours.
“Were you about to say hot?”
“No,” Nico said unconvincingly. “Shut up.” Will did smile, but it faded quickly when Nico gave him a pointed look and went on, “But, do you know what you’d be telling me if I’d done everything you have since this time last night?” Suddenly it was Will’s turn to look away, abashed.
“Stop,” he admitted. “Eat. Nectar. Sleep.”
“I was just going to say sleep,” Nico said. Will shook his head.
“There’s no way I can sleep right now.”
“Take valerian,” Nico suggested.
“After you just told me my father’s fighting Python in Tartarus? I don’t think valerian could be enough to knock me out.”
“Is that it? Or is it cause you’ve been dosing yourself with nectar all day so you wouldn’t burn out?” Nico asked knowingly, calling his bluff. Will had been right on that precipice for hours, and he was getting close to his cutoff point for nectar, and he loved that Nico knew him this well, and right now he also hated it. “What about a sleeping draught?” Nico asked.
“No.” Will shook his head more firmly this time. “I need to be able to wake up fast if there’s an emergency.”
“Yeah. Okay,” Nico said, eyebrows furrowing as he looked at Will. “I do have another idea.”
“What?”
“Come here.” Nico dropped one of his hands and adjusted his grip so he was clasping the other one firmly, then pulled Will down the porch steps and around the eastern corner of the Big House, where the shadows made golden hour give way to twilight. “You ready?”
“Where are we going?”
“Your cabin.”
“Can’t we just walk?”
“This’ll be faster.”
“No, Nico, come on—you got hurt so badly today—”
“Will, you’re holding my hand,” Nico said evenly. “You know I’m fine. Can we go?”
“Fine,” Will relented, and braced himself for the freezing cold as Nico pulled them both into the shadows.
They emerged in the back corner of Cabin Seven, near the piano and Will’s more talented siblings’ other instruments. The cabin was empty—everyone who wasn’t still in the infirmary was supposed to have gone to the dining pavilion, or maybe by now some people might be holding a campfire, Will supposed. Maybe some of them would be able to summon the stomach for it. Will looked over at the bunk that had been Apollo’s for a split second before it hurt too much, and he had to look anywhere else.
“What are we doing?” he asked.
“I’m going to help you get to sleep. Come here.” Nico pulled him over to his bunk, on the other side of the room, then pointed at it. “Lie down.”
“—Wait, hold on,” Will said, pulling his hand away as it hit him that they were alone in the cabin, and butterflies tap danced in his stomach, or something. “What do you mean, you’re helping me get to sleep? How, uh—how were you planning to do that, exactly?” Nico blinked up at him, frowning. Will raised his eyebrows. Nico’s eyes widened abruptly, as it hit him, and he held out his hands, shaking his head rapidly.
“Oh, gods, wait, no, it’s not—it’s just an ability I have,” he said, face instantly going as red as Will had ever seen it and voice jumping about an octave higher than usual. “Sleep magic stuff. Not—whatever you’re thinking.” Will’s face felt like it was burning just as bright.
“Not, um, more than kissing, then,” he said. Nico winced.
“No. Nope.”
“Okay. Um—cool.” Some of those butterflies were a little disappointed, but mostly Will just felt awkward. They were still taking everything slow, still feeling a little too young and uncertain to do more than kissing, even after six months together, and then there was—gods, everything else that had been going on in those six months—and it would have been really startling, out of the blue, especially from Nico, who was still barely comfortable with the most casual of touches, sometimes. Of course he wasn’t ready for that.
But still, Will really had been confused for a second. Brushes with death and cataclysm did sometimes... have that effect on people, made them want to move faster, take things farther. He’d seen enough other young couples survive them to know, and really, telling Nico he loved him had been exactly that too. But that was about as big a step forward as Will felt ready to take just now. Even if—it wasn’t like he didn’t want to... do stuff, with Nico, and—in general—in theory—sometimes so much it was almost surprising to realize he definitely wouldn’t have wanted it to be right here, right now, like this, when he was such a mess. When everything still was.
Nico coughed conspicuously and made a weird twisted face, kind of like an aborted grin. Then he visibly swallowed, looked back up at Will, and somehow managed to deadpan,
“You saving the world wasn’t that hot.”
“Gods of Olympus, Nico!” Will collapsed on his bed, burying his own face in his hands now and laughing helplessly. The mattress dipped just a little—not nearly as much as it should have from a second teenager, but that was a bigger problem, for another day and many more to come—as Nico sat down next to him more hesitantly. When Will could look at him, he wasn’t quite laughing at his own joke, but at least he was smiling. Enough of the tension had lifted. “What about not more than kissing?” Will said. “Exactly as much as kissing?”
“Dork,” Nico said, and leaned over to kiss his cheek. When Will frowned at him—that wasn’t what he had meant—Nico just smiled a little wider and said, “lie down,” again, pushing at Will’s shoulder until he kicked off his sneakers and did. Nico shifted so Will could get under the covers, then settled on the edge of his bed closer to the headboard. “Close your eyes.”
“What are you going to do?” Will asked again. “Is this like the stuff the Hypnos kids do?” It wasn’t like they were really that helpful, since they were barely ever awake, but when Will could catch them conscious Clovis and his siblings could provide a sort of psychic sleep aid. He appreciated it, as a healer—it was somewhere between melatonin and magical sleeping draughts in terms of how hard it would put a person out.
“Sort of,” Nico said. “I can’t put you to sleep directly. But I can send you dreams that should—pull you in, sort of. Is that okay with you? I’ll try and make them nice dreams, if I can,” he added very earnestly, “I promise.”
“Okay,” Will agreed. “We can try that.” He closed his eyes and settled in comfortably on his pillow.
For a second, it did hit him how tired he really was, nectar or no. Then Nico’s hand settled on him, cool palm over his forehead and fingers slipping into his hair, combing through it softly. Will could feel the promised pleasant dreams rising around him, trying to engulf him, but paradoxically he found himself pushing back. He wanted to stay awake while Nico was stroking his hair. It was so nice, so comforting. It made him feel so—loved.
“It’s not going to work if you fight me,” Nico told him. “I don’t want to force it.” His fingernails scratched lightly against Will’s scalp. Will shivered and tried to relax.
“I didn’t tell my siblings I was leaving,” he said.
“That’s okay,” Nico said soothingly. “Once you’re asleep, I’ll go back and let them know.”
“But—” Will caught himself before he could say, I want you to stay. That would definitely break camp rules, and what difference would it make if he was going to be asleep? Some intuition whispered that he might sleep easier just with Nico close by. “Okay. But what if they need—”
“Shh.” The mattress shifted again as Nico leaned over him. “You already take care of them all the time,” he murmured, closer to Will’s ear. “You take care of everyone. Let the rest of us take care of you for once, okay?”
“Okay.” Will’s fingers scraped uselessly against his pillow—his limbs were getting too heavy to actually reach out and try to find Nico’s other hand, like he’d wanted to. The dreams were starting to take over. Still, Will thought it was a real sensation when Nico dropped a kiss in his hair.
“I love you,” he said. If that was real too—and Will hoped it was—it was the barest and most tentative whisper.
“Love you too,” Will mumbled back. If he had been more awake, he thought, he would still be overwhelmed with joy at getting to say it. Instead it was just a warm, sweet happiness in his chest, the best feeling he’d ever known.
Then he was too deep into dreams to know much of anything.
Will didn’t remember his dreams now any more than he usually did. When he woke up, for once he was sad about it. He would have liked to remember these dreams—not because he had any idea what they were, but because they were dreams Nico had given him.
He opened his eyes to more darkness, and had a moment of deep confusion before it dawned on him it was the middle of the night. He’d slept for at least a few hours. As his senses adjusted into consciousness, Will realized his siblings were all back too, and sound asleep. He smiled to himself. Some people talked in their sleep—in the next bunk over, Austin was softly humming.
Will wasn’t sure what time it was, but it was definitely before sunrise, so he stayed where he was for a while, trying to talk himself into going back to sleep. He shouldn’t be awake yet. After like forty hours awake, he needed to sleep at least a solid ten before he got up again. Or at least until dawn. Sure, that dawn might be the first to rise without a god of the sun, at least a Greek one—Apollo might still be battling Python in Tartarus, in mortal danger, all alone, but—
Yeah, there was no way this was going to work. Trying not to sigh too loudly, not wanting to wake anyone, Will swung his legs out of his bed and pulled his shoes back on, wondering if he could reason with the curfew harpies so they’d let him go up to the infirmary, or maybe the arts and crafts cabin, or—anywhere else, where he could be up and have things to do without disturbing his siblings. Counselors did have a certain degree of privilege with the harpies, after all, even if all it meant was they might give them a chance to explain themselves before they attacked. Will stepped across the cabin floor carefully, avoiding the spot he knew was the creakiest, and slipped out to the porch.
“Hey,” said Nico, who was sitting on the steps. Will jumped, feet landing with a heavy thump. So much for keeping quiet. He stayed very still for a couple seconds, waiting, hoping he wouldn’t hear any movement from inside the cabin.
No one else made a sound, so he sat down on the steps with Nico. His boyfriend was clearly trying not to smile—it probably would’ve been pretty funny to watch him jump about a foot in the air. “What’s going on?” Will asked, keeping his voice low. “Is there—do you have news?” Nico’s expression went back to serious really fast. Will’s heart leapt into his throat, but—
“Nothing yet, either way,” Nico told him. Will sighed. It wasn’t quite relief, because no news definitely didn’t feel like good news right now. But he was glad to see Nico.
“What are you doing here, then?” he asked. “Did you miss me that much while I was sleeping?”
“Not—exactly. I felt you wake up,” Nico said.
“What?” Will looked at him, confused. It was sort of cute when Nico did that, said things he had to know would make no sense without context he wasn’t giving. It was also sort of frustrating. That was sort of why it was cute. But that didn’t change that Will still didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. “Cause of the dream magic?”
“Yeah, because of—dream magic,” Nico agreed, and again didn’t elaborate. Definitely omitting something.
“Nico,” Will said sternly. Nico started laughing. “Gods’ sake, what?”
“It’s even harder to take your—your counselor voice seriously when it’s all scratchy cause you, uh, just woke up,” Nico explained between giggles. Will just shook his head. Nico set his hand over Will’s on the step, nudging his fingers between his. “I, um, may have been kind of… keeping an eye on your dreams.”
“Keeping an eye on them?” Will looked at him curiously now. “Is that—do you mean like that time when you gave Clovis a message in a dream?”
“Sort of. It is another thing I can do the same way as the Hypnos kids, kind of… moving through dreamland.”
“Oh, yeah,” Will said. “They taught Austin to do that last year. You never said you could do it too!”
“Well, I can.” Nico was looking at him curiously now. “You really don’t remember at all, huh?”
“No,” Will said regretfully. “Now I wish I did. What was I dreaming about?”
“They were nice dreams,” Nico told him. “Kind of weird, but fun. I was in your dream—not me me, I was just watching parts of it, but you were dreaming about me too. We went to some place in Texas, I think, cause you kept saying it was a ‘travesty’,” he said, sketching air quotes with the hand that wasn’t holding Will’s, “that I’d never had ‘good tacos.’ But then the place wasn’t a restaurant, it was like… a department store? But also high school. We had to take a math test, but we hadn’t learned any of the material. And there was this girl in the math class, I think she was an old friend of yours? Except she was also a mermaid, and as far as I know you don’t have any friends who are mermaids—I mean, if you do,” he added, “you’ve been holding out on me. And you know, we never actually got tacos—”
“Can I kiss you right now?” Will asked. Nico was quiet for a long couple of seconds after he cut him off. Will was about to say, never mind—it was dark out and no one else was awake (besides the harpies), but they were technically in public, out in the open, and even though he’d gotten a lot more okay with milder public displays of affection in the last six months, he knew Nico wasn’t comfortable kissing unless they were in private. Will usually felt the same way—this just felt private enough to him, right now, but maybe it didn’t to Nico. He got that. But before he could backtrack,
“—Yeah,” Nico decided, and slung his arms around Will’s shoulders to pull him in as Will leaned down and kissed him. “Please,” Nico said softly, not letting go even when Will did.
“Okay.” Will smiled against his lips. Gods, but it felt good to be awake and not dead and kissing his boyfriend. This time when Will tried to pull back, Nico actually pushed forward to keep their mouths pressed together with a soft sound, hanging onto Will’s neck to keep him close. Will shivered a little at the press of his cool palm.
“Why right now?” Nico asked when he finally did pull back. He was smiling now, just visible in the moonlight, fingers toying with a lock of Will’s hair. Will sighed happily. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt this content.
“Cause… I’ve never really gotten to know what I dreamed about before,” he said. “So it’s—amazing, that you can just tell me. And,” he added, “I think it’s sweet you were watching my dreams. Do you do that a lot?”
“Maybe, um, sometimes,” Nico admitted. “How else am I going to make sure it’s me you’re dreaming of?” He was so obviously teasing him, dark eyes gleaming, smile sliding into a smirk, that Will couldn’t really help but kiss him again.
“I was wrong, though,” he realized.
“What?” Nico said, pulling back, eyebrows furrowing.
“In my dream,” Will explained, “I was wrong. Surely you’ve had good tacos. Your dad lives in LA.” Nico rolled his eyes, but he was smiling again.
“I guess if you define ‘lives’ and ‘LA’ really broadly.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Will sighed. “Shit. Now I want tacos.”
“I was wondering if you’d be hungry,” Nico said, drawing back fully now, though he took Will’s hand and laced their fingers together again. “You healed all afternoon and then slept through dinner.” He squeezed his hand gently.
“Yeah,” Will agreed, “my stomach’s starting to remember that.” He glanced at Nico. “Did you eat?”
“I had some grapes before I went to sleep. I wasn’t very hungry. I know,” Nico said before Will could say anything. “I know.”
“I’m glad you ate something,” Will said. In the months since Jason’s death, he’d watched Nico’s face grow gaunt again as the grief and all the resurgent trauma had left him too miserable to eat most of the time. He was almost as thin as he had been last summer. Gods damn it, Caligula. “Could you eat right now?”
“Yeah,” Nico said hesitantly, “I think—I could eat. No promises I’ll eat much, but a little.” He tapped his fingertips against Will’s knuckles. Out here under the moonlight, Will could see his mouth quirk up in a half smile. “I don’t know about good tacos, but I do know where there’s a pretty good 24-hour diner in Maine. Or, I mean, it’s daytime in Europe, Africa, and most of Asia—”
“Yeah, I don't think I’m up for shadow-traveling to another continent right now,” Will said. “But it’s sweet that you’d offer to take me there.”
“I’d take you anywhere.” Nico squeezed his hand. “Only fair, since you say you’d go anywhere with me.” Will grinned.
“Course I would,” he said. “I love you, remember?”
“—Yeah.” When Will glanced at Nico, he was pretty sure he was grinning now too. “Only took you six months to admit it.”
“Hey!” Will protested. “I told you, I—I’ve thought it, I mean, I’ve felt it basically forever, the whole time we’ve been together—” Nico was nodding, face softening— “I just didn’t want to—like—freak you out.”
“Oh, gods.” Now Nico leaned forward, hiding his face in his free hand. “You wouldn’t have freaked me out,” he said, a little muffled. “I was—I was scared you’d think it was too… dramatic or something, if I said I was in love with you. I would’ve said it ages ago too.”
“—Wait, really?” Will grinned. “So we’ve both been holding out on each other—?”
“Yeah, I—” Nico winced, then said it all in a nervous rush: “I’ve always thought of it as being in love with you, even before I knew you liked me back.”
“Oh my gods.” Will wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to stop smiling again. Instead of butterflies, this time it was like his stomach was full of balloons. Screw glowing—he felt like he could fly.
“Sorry. I know that’s weird—”
“No, don’t be sorry—” Will leaned over to kiss him again. Nico pressed a hand to his face this time, cupping his cheek and angling his head for better purchase. When they finally let go Will was still feeling kind of giddy, taking his own turn to chase Nico’s mouth. “Gods, I love you,” he said, breathless.
“Yeah. I, you know. You too. I love you too.” Nico sounded equally flustered. He kept a hand on Will’s shoulder for a lingering moment before he trailed it down his arm to grab his hand more properly this time, gripping tight.
By now, Will recognized it as his shadow travel grip just by instinct. It always felt very serious, and now it sobered them both instantly.
“So, how about the diner?” Nico asked. Will nodded.
“Yeah. The diner sounds great.”
“So what other dreams have I had lately?” Will asked as they crossed the small parking lot this side of the country road from the shadowy gas station where they’d emerged. It was dead silent, except for the soft hum of cicadas in the dark. Will probably should have felt nervous, being out in the mortal world—in pretty much the middle of nowhere, as far as he could tell—at two in the morning, but it was hard to worry too much about monsters when he was holding onto Nico’s hand.
Realistically, he knew that was the opposite of rational, since Big Three kids smelled even better to monsters than regular Olympian kids. Being with Nico probably made it more likely he’d run into monsters. But Will figured Nico more than made up the difference by being the one of them who could reliably use a sword, and right now he felt strong and stable and solid enough that if he had to, Will imagined he actually could. And hey, even if not—there were worse ways to die than holding hands with his boyfriend.
“I don’t know,” Nico admitted now. “I don’t actually spend much time watching your dreams—or anyone else’s, really. No one I’m close to. You all can’t control your dreams the way the Hypnos kids and I can—and Austin, I guess—so it feels like prying into something really personal. I was only in there tonight because I wanted to see what kind of dreams you got from what I did.”
“Oh.” That made a lot of sense, but Will felt weirdly disappointed. “You could hang out in my dreams if you wanted to,” he said. “It’s not like I usually remember them.”
“I know,” Nico said. “I think that would make it even weirder, though.”
“Maybe. But you could tell me about them in the morning, and then I’d actually get to know.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Nico squeezed his hand. “We all have so many nightmares—I don’t want to run the risk of seeing any painful memories you’d rather keep private.”
Will didn’t think there was anything in his past he’d mind sharing with Nico—losing so many of his siblings and friends in the last few years had been traumatic, and the memories were painful, but Nico had been there for all of those same battles. And none of it was half as bad, Will thought, as some of the other things Nico had experienced. But—
“I wouldn’t want you to feel like you have to be responsible for whatever your subconscious mind comes up with, either,” Nico added. “And there’s—stuff I’m not sure I would want to see. Demigod dreams are one thing, but regular dreams—like your dream about tacos and the math test—sometimes they’re just funny, like tonight, but other times they can get really weird, and people don’t always act like themselves, and sometimes there are like, personal… fantasies…” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “That are—really awkward to stumble into. You don’t want to know some of the stuff people dream about at camp.” Will grimaced.
“Okay, that’s fair.” They stepped up onto the sidewalk, and Nico dropped his hand.
“Um,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck and not quite looking at Will, “so, some of the people who work here kind of know me, but I’m not, like—out to them. Is it okay if we don’t—?”
“Yeah, of course.” Will shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to straighten his shoulders and stance, figuratively and literally. “Let’s go get some diner food, dude,” he said, dropping his voice into a bad imitation of Sherman. Nico cracked up, shaking his head.
“You don’t have to do that—”
“It’s me, your totally straight friend Will—”
“Oh my gods.” Nico laughed helplessly. “Shut the fuck up, Solace.”
“I love you,” Will said in his normal voice, since he could do that now. The way Nico looked at him then, with such sheer adoration in his eyes, literally made him go weak in the knees.
“I love you too,” Nico said. “Let’s go get some diner food, dude.”
As it turned out, though, Will and Nico had somewhat different ideas about the definition of diner food.
“You’re always supposed to get breakfast food at diners,” Will protested once the late-twenties waitress he’d been introduced to as Nico’s friend from school—worth it to hear her call the almighty ghost king kiddo—had brought him his two-egg breakfast and waffle, and for Nico… a burger, fries, and a chocolate malt. Will swallowed his bite of waffle and added, “It’s, like, the law!”
“Are you gonna narc on me to the diner police?” Nico asked, dipping a fry in his malt. “They put the burger on the menu. It’s diner entrapment.”
“Ha, ha.” Will shook his head. “Can I have a french fry, diner criminal?”
“Sure, diner hypocrite.” Nico smiled. “You have to dip it, though.”
“Fine.” Will did—“Oh, man, that’s really good.”
“You see!” Nico jabbed a victorious finger at him across the table. Will tried to grab it, but Nico was too fast. “Can I have some of your bacon in exchange?”
“Fine.” Will broke off a crispy bit with his fork and dropped it on Nico’s plate, only to watch in horror as Nico picked it up with his fingers and dipped that in his milkshake too. “Ew, Nico! That’s disgusting.” He supposed it was a good thing he was eating protein, but gods, at what cost?
“It’s actually… not bad,” Nico assessed thoughtfully. “Not as good as fries, but better than I thought it was going to be.”
“You shouldn’t be allowed in polite company,” Will said through a mouthful of eggs.
“Good thing I’m not in polite company.” Nico grinned. Will glared, for all of the two seconds he could manage it before he broke and had to smile back.
“I’m very polite.” Nico snorted in disbelief.
“You haven’t been polite for a single second I’ve known you, Solace.”
“Well, that’s special just for you.” That got him to blush, under the fluorescent diner lights. Success.
“You’re a jerk,” Nico muttered, kicking gently at Will’s shin under the table.
“Takes one to know one.” Will kicked back. Then he prodded at Nico’s ankle with the toe of his sneaker, even gentler, and grinned when he saw him jump a little in his seat. Glaring playfully, Nico did the same thing right back—
“Can I get you boys a refill on your waters?” the waitress asked, and Will quickly pulled his foot back and sat upright. He was pretty sure he was blushing now too.
“Yes, please,” Nico said politely. If the waitress saw anything off or thought anything of any of it, she didn’t say anything, just poured them more water from her pitcher while they sat quietly. Before she walked away, though, Nico added, “um—thank you, and could we please have the check, and a box for my burger?”
“Sure thing, kiddo,” said the waitress. Will waited until she left to say,
“But you haven’t even touched it.” Nico shrugged, looking down.
“I told you. No promises.” He picked up his last three fries and shoved them in his mouth all at once, though, so at least there was that.
“Yeah, okay.” Will nodded. Between the fries and the malt and the piece of bacon, this was still probably more calories, overall, than Nico had had at any given meal in the last—Will couldn’t remember how long. Still, when Nico swallowed the fries and glanced up at him again, whatever Will’s face looked like made him sigh and roll his eyes.
“Quit it with the puppy eyes, Will. Seriously, I’m fine.”
“I know!” Will said quickly. “I know. And I wasn’t doing puppy eyes.” Nico scoffed and shook his head, but it was affectionate.
“Were so.”
“Whatever. You love puppy eyes.” Gods knew Will did too, on the rare occasions Nico went all plaintive-big-brown-eyes—
“Yeah, usually,” Nico said, “when it’s like—” He stopped talking and shut his mouth firmly as the waitress swung by—
“Here’s that box for you,” she said, “and the check.” She set it on the table closer to Will.
“Thanks,” they said in unison, then Will added, “Jinx. You owe me…” As she left, he pushed the metal tray with the bill on it towards Nico’s side. Now he did his best to summon the puppy eyes again, on purpose this time.
“You’re so spoiled,” Nico said dryly as he pulled out the black token of Pluto that functioned as his personal debit card, portable ATM, and coin jar alike. Will laughed.
“Yeah. What were you gonna say? When it’s like what?” Nico’s cheeks went pink.
“No, never mind.”
“Come on, now I really want to know!”
“Get used to disappointment,” Nico deadpanned. Will snorted.
“As you wish.” Nico kicked him under the table again.
“Nerd.”
“Hey, you started it.”
“Whatever,” Nico said, shaking his head fondly. While he carefully packed his burger in the styrofoam box, Will finished off his waffle and chased the last bits of his scrambled eggs around the plate with his fork. Then, once Nico had murmured a prayer to summon cash with the token and left a fifty-dollar bill sitting on the tray—Will was pretty sure that meant he was tipping well over 100%, but he’d long since learned that if he tried to argue about how excessively Nico tipped at restaurants his boyfriend would get legitimately annoyed with him, call him an asshole and actually mean it, so he didn’t—they got up and Nico waved goodbye to the tired-looking host before they shouldered their way back out the diner door.
It was still fully dark out—when Will glanced at his watch in the parking lot, it read a little after three. Even though the cicadas were still humming, the world felt very quiet and still. Will didn’t get a sense of any monsters around, any more than there were other humans up and about at this hour. Maybe the universe was just giving them a reprieve. Standing out here in the night, in the middle of nowhere, far from camp or Manhattan or Tartarus or anywhere gods and demigods might be, for a moment none of it felt quite real.
The fact that Nico was standing right next to him meant it still was, of course, cause if it wasn’t he never would have known Nico in the first place—but right now it felt like Nico was much more part of Will’s quiet little world than the big loud demigod world. Or—like they were their own world, just the two of them, and that was where they were. Not in the middle of the chaos that always surrounded them everywhere else. Once they were beyond the glow of the diner’s neon sign, Nico stepped closer into Will’s space and took his hand with the one that wasn’t carrying the takeout box.
“What should we do now?” he asked. Will shrugged.
“I don’t know. You’re basically my ride home, so it’s kind of up to you.”
“Hmm.” Nico leaned his head against Will’s shoulder where they’d stopped moving to just stand in the stillness. “Wanna go see the Colloseum?”
“—That would be cool,” Will said, “but I think I’ve had enough of Ancient Rome to last me a while, thanks.” Nico winced.
“Fair. How about the Parthenon? You can see the fake version of the statue the mortals came up with.” His voice was playful, but Will could feel how heavily he was leaning on him. Now that there was food in his stomach, he was getting tired again too. As much as he didn’t really want to go anywhere else right now—wanted to just stay in this corner of the world where it was only them—
“How about we go back to camp and try to get some more sleep before morning?” he suggested.
“You’re no fun.” Nico squeezed his hand. “But you’re probably right.” He sighed and adjusted his grip, tightening his hold on Will’s hand.
“Hey,” Will said, squeezing back, “you still haven’t—felt anything, right?” More than twelve hours now. Surely that had to be enough time for someone to win that fight, immortal monster or mortal god, one way or another, but—
“What?—Oh—no,” said Nico. “Not yet. Sorry.”
“Okay. It’s okay, it’s not your fault.”
“I’ll tell you. The second I know anything. If I know anything.”
“I know.” To Will’s surprise, Nico turned and pressed up against him, wrapping his arms around his waist to sort of pull himself into a hug more than Will. Will wrapped his own arms around Nico’s shoulders and pressed his face into his hair. “Thanks,” he said softly. Nico squeezed him gently.
“I love you,” he murmured against Will’s shoulder. Will kissed the side of his head.
“I love you too.” They just stood there like that for another moment, in the quiet.
“Okay,” Nico said when Will let go and he stepped back again. “You ready to go?”
“With you, always,” said Will, and as Nico took his hand again and stepped forward into the night, headed for camp—or wherever else they might end up, if things went sideways as they sometimes did; it didn’t really matter, as long as they were together—Will went with him.