SolAngelo short story (post-war)

Chapter 4- Patience

A/N- There's not really much of a development in the SolAngelo area of the story in this but it's still kind of important (there's also a bit of PercAbeth at the end)

Nico wasn’t particularly happy about the clothing he was presented with, but of course Will left no room to argue. The shorts- which reached to his knees- were fine. Despite his distinct lack of nutrition over the last month or so, his legs had remained muscled- if a little skinny- from all the fighting and running he’d done. But his arms were ashen gray in complexion and despite the fact he could still swing a sword pretty well his arms and hands were skeletal much like his torso; the uncovered remains of his fight with Lycaon were also visible.

It was safe to say that breakfast was more or less one of the most awkward situations Nico had been in for a while. Will gave him no say in where he sat and the skinny son of Hades found him-self seated with all the other Apollo kids presented with a bowl of cereal and some fruit. The fruit was bad enough but the stares of practically everyone in the dinning pavilion (including Chiron and Mr D) made it all the worse. Will however, remaining composed and cheery, was skilfully ignoring the stares of both the other campers and his siblings questioning looks- he also did a pretty good job of avoiding Nico’s deadly annoyed glare as Will had steered him over to the Apollo table in the first place.

This was why Nico stayed away from camp...

“I’d advise you sacrifice some of that to my dad if you want to get out of the infirmary any time soon,” Will gestured to Nico’s food with a smug look in his face.

“You’re enjoying this way too much,” The pale boy mumbled back. However Nico couldn’t deny that he did like the company of the blonde boy... most of the time. It was pleasantly foreign for Nico to be treated like a normal person by somebody.

Will had the morning off his medic duties to teach his archery class, even though he insisted that most of his siblings were much better at it than him. Supposedly he only inherited the medical skill of his father and was mediocre at everything else; Nico was pretty sceptical about that.

Before heading off to the archery range however, Will dragged Nico over to wait outside the Apollo cabin. The blonde son of Apollo ducked out a minute later only to throw a bottle of sun cream at Nico’s head.

“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to attack your patients with SPF 15,” Nico grumbled.

“You’re right,” Will smiled, “For you it should be about SPF 50, but unless you want me to take you over to the Aphrodite cabin to get some I suggest you don’t complain.”

There it was again. Nobody ever joked around with Nico di Angelo and if they did they soon discovered that Nico’s sense of humour was not one to be entertained with light joking around. But Will was a complete odd-ball to Nico. He acted as if the two of them had been friends for years and Nico couldn’t decide how he felt about that. Not entirely negative at least.

During archery practice Will demonstrated and corrected the members of class as he would usually and Nico was sat at the edge leaning on the fence with his knees bought up to his chest. There was very little shade in the archery range- which Will insisted was fine as it was not yet midday and the sun was not at its strongest, but the heat beat down on the top of Nico’s head and shortly before the end of the session a small headache had started to niggle at the front of his head.