Moving On (Solangelo)

Chapter 8: Will

(A/N: just fyi, it might seem like it's leading up to smut at some point in this chapter, but it's not really, so don't worry if you don't like smut)

It'd been over a week since our first kiss, and every time we touched still felt as revolutionarily glorious as always–maybe more so, if that's even possible.  Just seeing my Death Boy, with his cow-licked, curly hair; his almost-black, coffee-colored eyes; his tiny smile that was growing larger daily; his aviator jacket, a size or two too big; one eyebrow raised in sarcastic query; eyelashes thick enough to make anyone jealous... look, I could go on pretty much forever, but I'll try not to bore you with that.  The details of his perfection are endlessly captivating to me, but I guess to someone else, they might not be.  Not that that even makes any sense, cuz how could you not be fascinated by him, but I dunno, that's what people tell me.

So anyways, I was pretty fucking happy.  I'm pretty sure he was too.  At least, happier.  I was doing everything I could to bring out the sunshine-y side of him that I knew was there, but that he'd been burying for so long.

Every morning, I snuck into his cabin (okay, I'm not sure how sneaky I really was, since me and Nico were pretty much the entirety of Camp gossip at the time, so there were plenty of eyes on us, but I tried) and woke him up with little kisses all over his face–his closed eyes, his cheeks, his forehead, his nose, or (my personal favorite) his mouth.  His eyelids would flutter open as his lips curled up in a smile.  Some mornings, he would pull me closer and we would collapse into each other, tangling each other's hair as we got as close to each other as we physically could.  Some mornings, it was harder for him to get away from his nightmares, and without even opening his eyes, he would just start muttering, or whimpering, or crying out.  On those days, I would get into bed with him (no, not like that!  jeez, get ahold of yourselves) and hold him and whisper into his ear every sweet and happy thing I could think of until he was able to snap out of it and come back down to earth.  Then he would turn around to face me and burrow into my shoulder.  He didn't make a sound as he cried, but I could feel his tears, and I could feel him shaking in my arms.  "Nico, Nico, Nico, I'm here, I'm here for you, and you're here at camp, you're okay, you're safe, I've got you, I promise, Nico.  I promise it's alright now."   I would murmur to him, and eventually, he would find his way back to me.  I knew how unbelievably strong he was, how brave and tough.  But I couldn't stop myself from worrying about him.  All I could do was make sure I was there for him whenever he needed me.  I was determined to help him get back from this bad, bad place he'd been stuck in so long.

Every night, I walked him back to his cabin just before curfew.  I would go inside with him, kiss him goodnight, maybe give him an extra-long hug if he looked especially exhausted, if the bags under his eyes were especially grim (or just, ya know, if I felt like hugging him).  Then I would run back to my cabin just before the harpies came out.  I would get into bed, pretending not to hear the giggles of my cabin-mates, who obviously all knew where I'd been.  I would fall asleep remembering the feeling of my fingers running through his hair, or his lips brushing against my neck.

One night, after maybe we'd been together for maybe a week or two, when he had had an especially difficult time emerging from his dreams that morning and hadn't quite seemed to recover all day, he asked me to stay.  We'd been standing in the middle of his room, wrapped around each other really tight, when he muttered something I couldn't quite make out.

"Hmm?"  I said, not letting go, but shifting to rest my cheek against the top of his head.

Still quietly, he mumbled, "I'm scared, Will... wi–will you stay with me?"  He looked up at me with these big puppy-dog eyes, and whispered, "Please?"

I wrapped my arms tighter around him and gave him one last squeeze before letting go and cupping his cheeks in my hands.  "Of course," I murmured, kissing his forehead.

He let go of me and moved to stand a a few feet away, glancing nervously at his bed, then back at me, then at the floor, then at the bed again–

"What?" I asked.

"Well, um," he said, not meeting my eyes, "I, uh, I usually um sleepinmyboxers..." 

I walked up close to him, waiting till he looked at me, then smirked and wiggled my eyebrows.  "Perfect,"  I said, "so do I."  He blushed a deep shade of magenta, making me snicker... although, to be fair, I think there's a very, very good chance that I was flushed too.

We both undressed, looking anywhere but at each other.  Finally, though, I couldn't help myself.  Although it's possible my hands had slid up his shirt a bit while making out at some point, I hadn't actually seen him without a shirt on yet.  He was kinda narrow and skinny (I seriously needed to figure out a way to get that boy to eat more), but at the same time, unexpectedly ripped.  Like, I am talking full-on six pack here.  I went over to sit down on his bed for, um, reasons that need not be explained, but um, yeah, I kinda needed to sit down quickly.  Let me tell you though, there was definitely plenty of adrenaline running through me, cuz I didn't feel any of the usual Apollo-nighttime-sleepiness.

He was looking me up and down, just like I was to him, and at some point we both got these stupidly big grins on our faces, and then somehow he was sitting next to me, like right next to me, very very close, and then my hands were on his hips and his were on my shoulders and I was leaning down over him and he was on his back and we were kissing like there was nothing else worth doing in the world, and then he rolled us over and our entire bodies were pressed together in just the absolutely best way, and I wanted to feel all of him at once, and his hands were all over me, and we moaned into each others mouths, and we kissed and we kissed and we kissed and we kissed and I wished with all my heart that it would never end.

But ya know, making out can be pretty tiring, so after an indefinite amount of time (I honestly have no idea if it was minutes or hours), we had to pause for a breather.  We were lying on our sides with his back against my chest, his head resting on my upper arm.  I closed my eyes for a minute, just loving being this close to him.  Gradually, our breaths slowed, and despite my extraordinarily strong desire for him, I could feel myself getting pretty sleepy.  Just as I was thinking this, I heard him yawn.

"I hate to say this, but I think maybe we need to go to sleep," I whispered.  I couldn't bring myself to raise my voice above a whisper.  I felt like it would break a spell.

He yawned again.  "Yeah, maybe."

We were quiet for a minute.

"Will?" He said in a hushed tone.

"Yeah?"

"Please don't leave."

I tightened my arms around him.  "Never."

A/N

Hiya darlings!

Sorry I took so long to update... again.  I'm challenging myself to write at least a page a day for the rest of the summer, and since I like writing this way more than I like writing anything else, I'll probably be posting more often.

Anyway, I would just like to say thank you thank you thank you for all always being so insanely nice.  Your comments honestly make my day.  So, thank you.  I've been feeling pretty shitty lately, so feeling happy about something is a very welcome change.

Also, just so you know, there won't ever be any genuine smut in this fic.  Nothing against it, I just don't write that kinda thing.  I mean, I can't promise they won't ever do it (winkwinkwinkwinkwink), but it will definitely always all just be super vague stuff like above.

Thanks for reading!

luv always,

agirlmadeofdarkness