Found Light in the Shadow (Solangelo)

Chapter Five

Will

I woke up the next morning shortly before seven.  My alarm was going off, so I reached over and hit the snooze button.  We still had a while before we had to get ready for class and Nico looked too peaceful to wake up yet. We must have shifted around during the night, now I was laying on my back and Nico was snuggled up beside me with his head on my shoulder. I could fell his one arm down my side while the other was wrapped around my chest.  I had one hand holding his shoulder, the other arm was stretched out under his head.  He normally didn't sleep like this, but I did kind of like it.  I could feel his breath hitting my neck as he slept.  I was actually surprised that the alarm didn't wake Nico up, however, we did have a pretty long day yesterday and Nico liked his sleep.

I laid there watching my baby sleep until the alarm went off again.  This time when I reached for the snooze button, Nico opened his eyes and groggily looked at me.

"Morning sunshine," he said while yawning, "this is nice.  How did we end up sleeping like this?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing.  I kind of like it though."

"Mmm humm, wake me back up in an hour."

He shut his eyes again, trying to go back to sleep.  I knew that I would have to do something soon or he was going to be a bear when I woke him up.  I slowly moved the hand that was holding his shoulder around it to his arm pit.  Nico's arm pits had just the right amount of hair, not too thin and not too thick.  After wrapping my other arm around his back the best that I could, I found the soft hairs and started tickling him.

"Wait, No, Stop," he started squirming and giggling.  "Not... Fair... Stop... It..."

"Fine, I'll stop."  I pulled his still giggling face up to mine and gave him his morning kiss.  After the giggling stopped, I gave him a hug.  "We need to get ready to go.  I want to stop for a quick breakfast before class starts."

"OK, now that the 'Tickle Monster' has gone away, I suppose that I can get up and get ready."

We got out bed, showered, and get dressed.  Even though we were in California, it was a little chilly this morning.  I got dressed in jeans, a Camp Half-Blood t-shirt, and of course my flip flops.  Nico wore his black jeans, boat shoes, and his Camp Half-Blood hoodie.  He had a black tank top on underneath, but I knew that the hoodie wouldn't be coming off.  We went upstairs and gathered our books for the day.  I didn't notice them yesterday, but there were also Camp Jupiter book bags with our college books.  We crammed the books in the book bags along with some of the notebooks and pencils that they had gotten us as well.  When we finished gathering our things, we went downstairs and headed out the door.  When we got to the front of the house, we ran into Percy and Annabeth.

"Good morning, do you two mind if we walk to the campus with you?"

"Not at all," Annabeth replied, "in fact, we'd be glad to show the two of you around."

Nico said, "thank you Annabeth.  We really appreciate it."

This time Percy chimed in, "it would be our pleasure.  Luckily, the campus is only a short walk from here."

They led us through the streets, eventually arriving at the New Rome College.  It wasn't huge like you would expect a college to be, more like a community college layout.  I had asked them along the way to show us where the cafeteria was first.  They took us to the big building in the center of the campus.

"This is the main building for the campus," Annabeth said.  "All of the college offices are in here along with the cafeteria and campus store.  We prefer the bagel shop for breakfast, their breakfast sandwiches are amazing."