Solace, Solace

Chapter 5

Nico didn't go to lunch, he thought about going to New Rome, or shadow traveling as far away as possible. He wandered into the woods, lost in his thoughts that were eating away at him. Will hadn't even said anything to him, he had simply left.
Maybe he thought I was hiding something else from him, something other than feelings.

Nico sat down on a log and buried his hands in his face. He knew he had to confront him, but he was way too scared. He was bad enough at normal communication, let alone confrontation.

He sat on the log, bawling his eyes out until he felt a hand on his shoulder. He half-hoped it was Will, but he looked up to see that it was Jason. "Hey," he said smiling warmly "Are you okay?"

Nico wiped his tears with his sleeves and said "Look at me. Do you think I'm okay?"

Jason sat down next to him. "Boy problems?" he asked.
"You make it sound so cheesy," said Nico
"Spill the tea, bro."

Nico did not want to tell Jason what had happened, but he also felt like he owed him some sort of explanation. As a result, dead silence.

"Look, Nico-" started Jason.
"No, don't you 'look Nico' me. You have a fucking perfect relationship. You didn't go through all the awkward introductions, the feelings, you just woke up on a bus with a fucking girlfriend so shut up."

Jason was speechless at first, but then opened his mouth to say "That is what I regret the most"
Nico looked at him confused.

"I wish I had the moment of first seeing Piper from across the room, the awkward small-talk, the butterflies-"
"Spiders, fucking spiders." Nico muttered under his breath.
"Anyway, I wish I could have gone through all the cheesy teenage stuff." said Jason.

"Yeah," Nico scoffed, "Except it's not what you see in American movies. Trust me, you don't want to go through this shit."

"Trust me, Nico, everything will turn out fine." said Jason, patting Nico's back.
"Now, how about we get some lunch, they're serving burritos" Jason liked his lips at the thought of tex-mex.

"Are you out of your mind?" said Nico. almost yelling. "I'm not stepping foot anywhere in sight of the Apollo kids."

"Well, too late." said a voice from behind them.
Jason and Nico both turned around to see a sun-kissed, tan, blonde boy with ocean-blue eyes making his way towards them. Nico dropped his forehead into one of his hands, feeling like he might start crying again.

Nico heard Will's footsteps getting closer, and then felt his hand at the back of his neck, his thumb gently runbbing back and forth.

"Well, I am starving, so I'll just leave you two-" said Jason, dashing off.
Will sat next to Nico, not letting his hand off Nico's neck so that his arm wrapped around his shoulder.

"Why did you come here?" asked Nico, even though he imagined it was to talk about his conversation with Percy earlier.

"Well, I didn't see you at lunch so I went to your cabin then came to look for you here. See, when Percy came in I snuck out the window because I figured he would want to talk about the sword practice thing, and I didn't want to be a part of that conversation. Plus, I checked my watch and saw it was almost lunch and since I'm head of the Apollo cabin, I need to lead the Apollo kids to meals so they would have noticed me being missing.

"Wait, you snuck out the window?" said Nico, his eyes widening so much it was creepy.
"Oh yeah, sorry. Did I worry you? Were you looking for me?" Will seemed concerned but Nico was smiling, and seeing him smile made Will less worried.
"Yeah, I snuck out as soon as Percy said 'You owe me an apology and an explanation!'"

Will's imitation of Percy made Nico giggle and he was already smiling in relief. Will hadn't heard any of his conversation with Percy, well nothing juicy.

He turned around and hugged Will tight."You son of a bitch!" he whispered
"No," said Will, wrapping his arms around Nico "Son of a God,"

Nico laughed and buried his face into Will's neck. They stayed like that for a while, both not wanting to let go of the other.

Nico eventually pulled away, convincing himself that this was the moment when he would confess his feelings to Will, this was it. He opened his mouth "Solace," he said slowly.
"Yes?"
Nico couldn't back out now, he couldn't chicken out. "How about we go grab some burritos?" was what eventually came out.

Nico scrunched up his nose, frustrated at himself, but Will patted him on the back and said "Sure"

He got up and helped Nico up with one arm. "Stupid spiders" muttered Nico under his breath, cursing his lack of confidence.
"What?" said Will
"Oh nothing, nothing."

They walked out of the forest, Will's arm around Nico's shoulder. Nico didn't even want to go to lunch: he had no appetite whatsoever. They parted when they got to the tables, disappointment sweeping Nico's face when Will's arm left his shoulder

Nico sat down at the Hades table and stared at his burrito. He looked up and in the distance saw Clarisse holding hands with some Athena girl. He longed for that to be him and Will, and went back to staring at his burrito.

Someone sat down next to him he turned around to see Leo, his mouth full of food, how surprising. He nodded his head towards Nico's burrito and said "You gonna eat that?" Nico rolled his eyes and pushed the tray towards Leo. He grinned widely and took a huge bite of the burrito, and then started to talk again, gross.

"You know my mama used to make burritos, they were amazing. She would make the tortillas and everything fresh. These are pretty good but uncomparable to hers."

Nico listened without looking at him and didn't say anything."I bet your mom could make great spaghetti." Leo said through mouthfulls; this earned him a glare from Nico, but he ignored it and kept on talking.

"This evening there's a pride parade, you participating?"
"Pride Parade?" asked Nico, alarmed.
"Yeah, and the best floats wins. Wanna ride the Efesto float?"

Nico couldn't process everything. A pride parade?  This was basically a war camp and tonight there would be rainbows and hearts everywhere. Plus, people wanted him, the least cheerful, loving, happy kid at camp to ride on their floats. This was too much.

Nico got up and left without saying anything, rushing away. Leo was left sitting at the Hades table confused, his mouth stuffed with burrito.