Solangleo Stories

The Boy Who Liked to draw

Summary: * Trigger Warning * This one-shot references s.lf-h.rm (e,a)  so if that is in any way a trigger for you, please skip this story.

Based on the poem above :)

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There was a boy once, who carried with him death, darkness, and destruction. That was no secret. But with paper, a pencil and a few meticulous hours, he could bring anything to life.

Sketches littered his cabin floor. Many unfinished, but beautiful just the same. He was trying to gather them up and put them away somewhere orderly, but the memories that accompanied them required him to sit and behold each individually.

In his hand, he held works from his time aboard the Argo II. Beautiful skylines they had flown over, places they had visited. Several of Venice, how he remembered it as his first home, and how it looked when he returned, a different sister by his side.

He placed them neatly inside a box he'd had Leo make for him, with a false base he could hide them in, away from the prying eyes of his friends. 

Why? Because he had plenty of drawings of them too. Reyna leading the Romans into battle, the detail of her armor taking him days to complete. Piper, Annabeth and Hazel fighting side by side, with ferocious beauty. He had never quite got Piper's eyes right, though he had tried what must have been a hundred times.

He had drawings of Leo surrounded by flames, his impish grin standing out among the dark lines. Of Frank, changing between animals, half-human half-lion, all power. Of Jason, controlling the wind, his imperial gold gladius unsheathed, lightning crackling around him.

And Percy. Dozens of discarded papers lay around the floor with the son of Poseidon's sea-green eyes staring back at him. The day they first met, Percy standing over him, a god personified. There were pages of him, sword in hand, looking like a living breathing hero straight out of his Mythomagic card deck. The same hero, hanging on for dear life, gazing up at him from the chasm to Tartarus, begging him for help.

It made the boy embarrassed to review these drawings, showing Percy in such a romanticized way. He folded these and placed them in the box, out of sight and out of mind. He felt that way no longer, and he didn't need these works to remind him.

He turned to the remaining pieces, lying haphazardly around the floor. These hurt him more than those of his childhood fantasies, and he put them away quickly beneath his bed, not bearing to look.

He was just clicking in the base of his box, when a certain someone appeared at the door.

"Hey Nico, whatcha doing?"

Will Solace. The boy would be lying if he said there weren't pictures of Will he held deep in his heart. He had tried to put them to paper, but he could never do him justice. He was just too magnificent to behold in anything but the flesh, an idea that could only be confirmed seeing him standing in the doorway.

"Nothing much Will. Did you need anything?" The boy asked politely.

Will walked through the door and sat himself down on the bed next to the boy.

"Just to see your smiling face," he winked.

The boy did smile. How could he not?

"What's this?" The son of Apollo reached down and picked up a piece of paper from the floor.

It barely made its way into his hand before the boy took it from Will, stashing it back beneath the bunk.

"Nothing, let's go."

The boy grabbed Will's hand and led him from the room.

* * *

Later, Will came around for the cabin inspections. He was alone. He looked under the bed. He was transported to a world only the boy had seen; the depths of Tartarus.

Terrors and torments bled through each page. He could barely find the strength to look. How someone could survive there - how they could live with that horror in their head - was beyond him.

"Will?"

The boy had returned

"What are you doing?"

Will was so horrified.

"Nico I'm so sorry, I-I was just curious, and, well, um..."

"That's okay, Will"

They sat together on the bed.

"Would you like to see some more?"

"You would be okay with that?"

The boy nodded. He took out the box and the papers. Some, he did not show.

He handed Will sketches of Olympus, of the Seven, and of the son of Apollo himself.

Will was awed by each.

Then, the boy drew to forbidden works hesitantly from beneath the bed. Together, the pair relived some of the darkest corners of the abyss, the ones that had come to inhabit his mind.

"Oh Nico," Will's voice was so shocked, so full of concern. He turned to the boy, who remained expressionless.

He tugged nervously at his sleeves

"Those are not the worse things I have drawn."

He slid back his sleeve and revealed the patchwork of scars that covered his wrists.

Will wrapped him in a tight embrace, wanting to give the boy the support he had so desperately needed.

"I haven't," the boy whispered to him.

"I haven't, because of you,"

"Oh Nico, I love you," Will said.

The boy held that picture, that embrace, that blessing in his mind. And the face of the boy with him became the most beautiful piece of art in his life from that day on.

* * *

There was a boy who liked to draw.

He drew pictures only one person saw.

But he was more artistic at night.

By himself, out of sight.

He had kept a secret that now only Will knew.

He was the reason the scars were so few.

These drawings were different, no paper or pen.

But they did need a bandage, every now and then.

He rolled up his sleeve and showed Will the scars.

His eyes, how they glistened, reflecting the stars.

He felt so embarrassed, to know that Will knew.

Until he whispered, "Oh Nico. I love you."

No more would he feel the need to open a vein

No, he would not be alone, never again.

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