SOLANGELO

Part 6 fantastic

As Nico and Will walked out of the forest, neither of them said a single word.

No one heard them enter the campfire. Everybody was hudled in a circle, and it was obvious something was wrong. They were all too involved with what they were discussing. At least, until Will shouted "Hey!"

Everybody looked up. Piper ran over to Nico and threw her arms around him. She immediately let go.

"Sorry," she muttered.

"Don't worry about it, it's fine," Nico replied. He was allowing people to touch him now, and it was quite a weird feeling. Annabeth stomped over and hit Will on the arm.

"Hey!" he said rubbing his arm.

"What were you doing in there? Do you realize how long it has been? It's 11. You were in there for four hours while everyone else got back within one hour!" Nico and Will exchanged confused look.

"Felt like thirty minutes," muttered Nico. By then, most of the campers had come over.

"Yeah, well, time tends to fly when you're having fun," said Percy with a smirk. Nico felt his cheeks redden and could only hope Will didn't notice. Little did he know that it was too dark to even see his cheeks and also that Will was blushing even more. There was a 10 second silence that followed Percy's comment and it seemed to last forever.

Will coughed. "We had found everything on the list, thanks to Nico, but we went to the spot where the unicorn hair was and we couldn't find it. Then there were wolves so we ran way deep into the woods to escape them and then we walked back here." Nico noticed he didn't include the part about Nico making him happy, for which he was grateful.

"Well, had you actually been listening to Chiron, you would have known to ignore the last item. He said there was no hair left because they had used it during the war. Clearly something, or someone, was distracting you," said Drew, that snotty Aphrodite girl who everyone hated.

"Look, the only thing that matters is that Will and Nico are safe. We thought something horrible had happened to you two and we were preparing to send out search parties," said Piper, putting her arm around Nico. He was happy to have Piper as a friend. Her charmspeak worked magic and to be honest, Nico was a little bit jealous of that power.

Chiron jogged, or trotted, toward them.

"Well, now that we are done with our little reunion, let's get to bed. Class begins tomorrow morning and I need you all to be well-rested and ready to go," Chrion said. Everyone started walking toward their cabins and Nico walked alone toward his. He heard footsteps behind him and felt a hand on his shoulder and turned his head to find the smiling face of Will Solace.

"Hey," Nico muttered, still embarassed. He wondered why Will had followed him here. He expected Will to never speak to him again after embarassing him in front of all the other campers. Actaully, it wasn't really Nico's fault. It was Drew and Percy who had to say something about it.

"Hey? That's all I get?" Will asked smiling, eyebrows raised. Damn, his eyebrows are on fleek, Nico thought.

"Hey, how are you?" Nico said monotonously, although he was being slightly flirtacious.

"I'm great actually." This response surprised Nico. "Come on, I have to show you something." Will grabbed Nico's hand. He prayed his hand wasn't too sweaty while his entire body tingled from the touch. Will started running, dragging Nico along with him.

"Where are we going?"

Will smiled. "You'll see."