Solangelo ✔

The Hunt Begins

"He's warming up to you." Annabeth announced when they had all gathered at the docks later that evening. The sky was a deep blue with twinkling stars and the air warm with a cool breeze. But Nico wasn't there to share the gorgeous evening with Will, instead he was talking to his father in the Underworld about who knew what.

"Really?!" Will questioned excitedly.

"Yeah. He actually responded this time, didn't he?"

"Oh my gods he did!"

'It's working.' he thought in his head.

A large smile covered his face and everyone smiled at him. They were so glad Nico had someone like Will who was going to do whatever it takes for him. They were glad Will loved Nico in a completely pure and true way. They thought it was something Nico needed.

"I think it's time for the final showstopper, the grand finale!" Percy declared with a war face. He was childish sometimes, but his intentions were pure, he just wanted his little bro to be happy.

"OK, let's do this." said Will.

And they spent many hours, the sky had gone pitch black, coming up with a plan that was going to make Nico agree to going on a date with Will. This was it.

It was all or nothing.

The next day was spent with Nico training some of the new and younger demigods who had arrived in the past few months. To everyone's surprise Nico was great with children: he listened to them and explained what each child needed to work on. Whenever they got upset he would calm then down and summon cute little skeletal kittens for them to laugh and play with.

Nico would absolutely deny he did this except he didn't know the dozens of heads who all peaked into the training area at the same time to watch him and see his kindness. Small 'aww's escaped from the demigods. So the son of Hades had a soft spot after all.

Nico could even speak several languages! This came in handy as three new kids arrived in the past month all from different countries: France, South Korea and Japan. And yet again Nico surprised everyone by being able to talk to them in all of their native languages. Annabeth came out of the crowd and asked Nico how many languages he could speak.

"Ten." he replied with a shrug before leading the kids away to show them around...

Back to it. The day went from morning to evening and the training was over. He quickly walked past Will, who stopped him and asked if he would see him at dinner, and told him he was just going to shower and change before coming along.

"I'll see you there." he said.

However, when Nico left his cabin in black cargo pants, black t-shirt, black combat boots and black bomber jacket twenty minutes later he found the camp to be empty. He used his powers and sensed that they were all in their cabins.

'Odd.' he thought but didn't really care. He liked having space and time to himself. And recently everyone seemed to be near him, on purpose as well.

So he made sure the door was locked and jogged down the stairs. On the last step he heard a crunch and saw a small yellow sticky note standing out in the shadow of his cabin. With a confused face he picked up the note and turned it over. With a wave of realisation that there was Will's writing on the note, he brought it closer and read out:

Nico, we've been at this now for almost a month and I'm not giving up on you. So, if you follow these notes and give it a chance, you'll see just how much I love you.

(And yes, it is rhyming, I've got to make my dad proud right?)

Sunshine ☀

Nico let out a small laugh and re-read the note. With a sigh he decided to see where this was going and turned the note back over. There was another bit of writing on the back:

Head to the training area x

"Alright, let's do this." said Nico before starting the walk to the training area.