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(Nico’s p.o.v- again)
Darkness. He had started to fear it when he was fading into shadows. Now, it was all he could see. Why? He didn’t know.
He thought back. Summoning the ghost of Leo had failed.
Miserably.
He then realised that he could hear. Faintly, because there was ringing in his ears, but he could hear.
He only knew this because of the sobbing.
Wait.
Sobbing?
He started to panic. Was he blind?
Wait…
Wait.
He wasn’t blind. His eyes were closed. Idiot, he thought.
Nico’s eyes fluttered open. Brightness flooded his eyesight. He grimaced and groaned unhappily.
The sobbing ceased, and was replaced with a choked cry.
“N-Nico?” came the strangled response to the groan. “Y-you’re a-a-alive?”
Nico’s eyes were still out of focus. The ringing was still in his ears.
That meant that he didn’t know who the Hades was talking to him.
Before he knew it, there was a heavy blanket placed on him. The top was yellow, almost gold, and the Middle was orange… wait.
“W-Will?” Nico coughed. The older boy was hanging on to him, it seemed, for dear life. The sobbing appeared again.
“Hey… don’t cry…” Nico was confused as to why Will was crying… he had only passed out.
“You almost died, Nico!” Will hissed.
Oh.
“You’ve been out for a week and a half! Everybody thought you were going to die!” Will spat. He was getting louder every second. “You almost did! You were fading into shadows!” Tears were now freely rolling down his face. “It’s almost as if you don’t care about if you died or not!”
Nico stared at Will. The older boy pulled Nico closer. Sobbing was heard again.
“I-I’m… sorry…” Nico began. Then he suddenly tensed up. “Why in Hades are you hugging me?!”
Will briskly stopped hugging the younger boy, and coughed out a strangled ‘sorry’.
“I-I just got-got used to it…” Will said meekly.
“You’ve been crying… over me?” Nico said.
“Yes. I care about you, Nico.” Will whispered. The statement had an air of finality.
Nico felt heat rise up his cheeks. No, Will does not think of you in that way! One part of his mind said. But he just said it! Cried another voice.
Nico was getting a headache by listening to the voices.
A sudden rap at the door caught the boys’ attention. Will managed a weak ‘come in’.
The door creaked open.
Jason, Percy, Annabeth and Piper were all fighting to get to the bed first. All of their eyes were puffy and red from crying, though they still looked remarkably better than Will’s.
“Nico!” Jason practically shouted. Nico recoiled from the noise.
Percy, however, ran straight up to Nico and hugged him. “We thought you were a goner, man,” he said. His eyes weren’t their usual upbeat selves, and Nico suspected that it was because he had been asleep for… wait. How long?
A week and a half. The impact hit him hard. Before, he had slept for three days, but that was the longest. He started to sob.
He felt like he was broken and could never be fixed. He was quickly re-wrapped in the strong arms of none other than William Solace.
Nico couldn’t remember the last time he had cried so much.
Probably… when… Bianca had died.
This, if anything, made him sob ten times harder. He remembered everything. His blissful ignorance, getting mad at Percy… Bianca trying to tell him that he shouldn’t be angry…
But he then thought:
Does death scare me? Is that why I’m crying?
The hideous irony made him want to curl up in a ball by himself, but all of his friends were around him.
Well, most.
Wait.
Friends?
This word sent ice down his veins. Why did these people care?
He stopped crying.
Well, tried, anyway. He was still hiccuping.
“C-can you go?” He said to the others. Jason looked crestfallen, Percy looked disappointed and Annabeth and Piper looked like they understood.
Apparently, Will was going nowhere. “I still need to look after you,” he croaked. Nico almost pitied him. Being friends with someone who would hardly return your kindness?
The others left the room.
“Please leave, Will.”
“No.”
“Get some sleep, you really need it.”
“I’ll sleep here then.”
“I meant in your cabin.”
“I know.”
“Will.”
“Nico.”
“William.”
“Umm… death boy.”
“Solace.”
“Death breath.”
“Ambrosia face.”
“Nicooooo.”
“No. Come on, target head. Go find your cabin-mates. One of them can look after me.”
“Most of them don’t like you…”
“That’s good for them.”
“One of them does, though. She’s cool.”
“You say all of your siblings are cool.”
“No. She’s fine. But… she’s a singer.”
“Yeah, and?”
“Fine. I’ll just tell her to get help if she needs it.”
And with that, Will untangled himself from Nico’s arms, and left.
This gave the younger boy time to think.
Who is a singer in the Apollo cabin who doesn’t mind my presence? Wait… oh. Okay.
The door opened.
“That was fast,” Nico noted.
“She was coming here anyway,” Will said.
“Hello,” Rachel R said quietly. Her voice was gravelly, and… wait. Did she have a British accent? She looked tired and fed up.
“Are you sure…” Nico didn’t need to finish his question.
Will nodded. “Rachel knows a bit of first aid, and always carries around nectar and ambrosia. You’ll be fine. Well, I’ll have that nap that I was forced into.” He walked off uneasily, then shut the door softly.
Rachel sighed and sat down.
“You can go to sleep or whatever, I don’t mind,” she said. “Just tell me if you’re hungry. Then I can get out of this miserable place.”
Nico stared at her. She was usually so upbeat, positive. Or sarcastic and negative, but that didn’t matter. He then saw the bandage on her arm.
“What happened?” He asked, nodding to her arm.
“Oh, this? Well, I was playing the guitar and singing by sword-fighting, and it just so happened that we were training with the Ares cabin. Since none of us were winning, I decided to cheat.” She saw the look on Nico’s face. “Only a little bit! All I had to do was sing passionately and the rest of my cabin would be energised. Simple as that.” She sighed. “But apparently it wasn’t so simple. The Ares cabin saw, and this girl named Phoebe attacked me. She left scars almost everywhere, excluding my face.”
Nico then noticed a bandage on her ankle, that was disguised like a sock, another under her shirt…
Rachel shrugged. “Winning doesn’t come easily.”
“Bet you didn’t think that when you were being shredded to pieces.”
She scowled, but agreed. “You’re right,” she sighed. “It really hurts. Will only put me on duty because loads of people in our cabin didn’t like you. Apparently, only Will and I do.”
Nico nodded. Rachel yawned.
“Want me to get you some food?”
“No thank you. I’m fine, for the moment.”
Rachel nodded and sat back in her chair. Nico furrowed his head under the blankets. He thought back to when he woke up.
He knew one thing for certain, and was furious to admit it to himself.
His crush on Will Solace was bigger than Leo’s ego.
———————–
(A/N)
Hey guys! How did you like the new chapter? I certainly liked it!
So sorry I haven’t updated in AGES. I’ve been really busy at my grandparents’ house, and I’ve had so much writers block it’s unreal.
Well, hope you enjoyed the chapter!
~Rachel, daughter of Apollo, Hufflepuff house.
Oh yeah, and mini- shoutout to AwesomeDemigod18 for always giving me support with my writing!
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