Solangelo Oneshots

18

By annaaperson

Will had always thought he was a special kid. That theory was all but confirmed when he was 7. He had been walking home alone after school when he was faced with his first monster. Looking back it was probably an empousa, but all Will could focus on in the moment was its voice.

"Would you look at that?" It crowed. "A little demigod, all for myself. Too young to even have grown wings!" Will remembered it coming closer in his confusion, before he managed to gather his wits and back away. "I'm sure you'll be a nice snack for me, godsspawn."

Will had not been sure of a lot of things at 7 years old. But at that moment, he was certain he was going to die.

Somehow, that wasn't the case. A satyr by the name of Oak came to his rescue and before Will knew it he was packing a bag and setting out on a trip to New York to go to "a safe space." As if Camp Half Blood was ever safe.

~

Nico's childhood memories were sparse. Being dunked in the river Lethe will do that to a person. And most of what he does remember is either too painful for him to truly reflect on or paints a picture far too different from the world he's surrounded in, to the point where his own memories feel like scenes he watched in a movie instead of real life events that happened to him.

One of the things that remained clear in his mind was the day his wings came in.

He wasn't even aware he wasn't human. Even if he was aware, he certainly wasn't under the impression that non-humans got wings. And even if he was aware that non-humans got wings, there was no way he could've known about the difference of wings and how much it depended on who your godly parent was. So there was a lot he was unaware of at the time.

What he does remember, is the pain.

The pain was excruciating. Nico was rendered useless for at least a week even though it had barely taken 24 hours for his wings to truly form. It had been the worst pain he had ever felt, up until his trip into Tartarus.

A week later, when he finally felt like he could breathe without pain shooting everywhere, making him black out from the sheer severeness of it, he found himself with two wings that were seemingly fused into his back.

The wings were beautiful, if a little big for his young body. They were a shiny black color, with hints of gold at the tips of the feathers. The feathers themselves were long yet thick and sturdy. He found himself poking at his wings for what seemed like hours before he was interrupted. It was on that day he learned that Bianca had wings too, that he wasn't alone. It was on that same day that lightning struck their hotel. He doesn't remember the strike, nor does he remember seeing Bianca's wings for the first time. He is only aware that it happened. He remembers the time he spent studying his own, somehow. He cannot tell if that is because the fates are cruel or kind.

~

When Will got to camp, nearly two months after his first monster attack, he was surprisingly not weirded out about the mass amount of kids surrounding him with wings.

He had replayed the empousas words in his mind thousands of times on their travel up to camp. He had kinda figured out that people with wings were gonna be in the near future for him.

He was not, however, prepared in the slightest for how people would treat him as an unwinged demigod. He was still shoved into the overcrowded Hermes cabin like all the other unclaimed, but he wasn't treated like the rest of them.

People seemed to openly gawk at his unwinged back, as if they had forgotten they themselves were not born with wings. (He had to watch a whole video in the big house about how and when their wings formed. It was not 7-year-old-with-ADHD friendly and overall one of the worst things he had been forced to watch.)

He was constantly asked questions about what he wanted his wings to look like. (He constantly deflected that one. He didn't wanna make anyone feel bad by accidentally insulting their wings or their siblings wings or their frien- you get the point.) He was pretty sure there was a betting pool that he wasn't supposed to know about chiming in on what everyone else thought his wings were gonna look like.

People were constantly either over compensating for his lack of wings and acting like he was helpless or under compensating for it and looking confused when he failed at doing certain tasks that required wings. And don't even get him started on the pitying glances.

In short, he hated being the youngest one at camp, the one without even a bone popping out to show that his wings were growing. He hated even more the anticipation for when his wings finally grew in because he knew, from the videos and from the glances and from knowledge about how the body works that it was gonna be more painful than he could ever imagine.

~

Despite his best efforts, while in Tartarus Nico's wings suffered. His feathers lost their shine and began shedding more frequently. It only got worse with his time spent in the jar.

When he was finally rescued, he couldn't bring himself to look at his wings. He already knew they were fucked up. He didn't need to look at them to confirm that. Their pitying glances and how the others' wings always shrunk in his presence was enough of a reminder.

It isn't until he's on the quest with Coach Hedge, a satyr without wings, and Reyna, whose wings were damaged severely at some point in her life, that he truly felt like he could breathe.

~

Growing wings was more painful than the videos said. Extremely more painful.

Will wasn't sure how long he spent out of it. He knew he was moved into the infirmary at some point but that was as much knowledge as his pain addled brain could seem to handle.

Eventually he would wake up and feel somewhat normal. He would stretch and be surprised to feel two wings stretching behind him. He would overthink moving his wings before he got the hang of it.

He would spend a countless amount of time admiring his wings. They were truly golden, unlike anything else he had seen within camp. Yet even as golden as they appeared he couldn't help but see flashes of a sickly green in them, sometimes even bits of black, just out of the corner of his eye.

He would get claimed by Apollo on the same day and finally stop feeling like as much of an outcast. But that still didn't stop the new wave of stares at the boy with wings made of pure gold.

~

Nico had long since gotten used to the feeling that his wings would never support him again.

Tartarus and starvation had taken their toll. His body knew he could survive without the wings and so they had gone far too long to be able to truly recover. It wasn't as devastating of a loss as he had thought it would be.

Will's wings, however, are perfect. They are seemingly dipped in gold, shining with every movement he makes. They are bigger than most others wings, the kind of wings that would support him in flying to meet his father in the sky.

Their wings are opposites yet meet in the middle. Nico's feathers still hold their bit of gold. Will's still shine an impossibly black color just out of reach in the corner of their eyes. They are each their own set of wings yet together they hold a new meaning, a common meaning.

Maybe Nico spent too much time staring at Will's wings in silence. They were alone together after all, as they tended to be most days. They were in the fields, seemingly hidden from view from the rest of camp. There was something brewing under the surface of their friendship waiting to escape. Who knew when it would? Nico continued to admire Will's wings. Then--

"Can I kiss you?" Nico's gaze snapped up to Will's and for a second he could've sworn he saw blue eyes flash the same gold of his wings. He barely managed to get out a stuttered agreement and a nod before Will was leaning forward and he closed his eyes in anticipation and--

They kissed. It was far from perfect, but they kept going and, and somehow Nico knew this was it. Will was it.

And when they finally broke apart in laughter only to find that Will's wings were supporting them about 40ft in the air, well, they could only take it as proof that they were meant to be.