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One thing Nico didn’t have was timing.
The first time Nico and Will meet each other, they are ten years old. Nico has just moved to New York City, after his mother’s death in Washington DC. He lives three houses down from Will, in the one house that had been abandoned for years. Each day Nico wakes up entangled in his sister Bianca, he yawns, he turns and sleeps some more. Each day Alecto, their legal guardian, rudely shakes them awake and gets them to school.
A blond haired boy asks Nico to play tag with him and a few of his friends, and by the end of the day he proclaims Nico his best friend for life. Three months later they get married during recess, and Nico starts calling himself Nico di Angelo-Solace. Six months after that, Bianca dies and Nico is taken away to a boarding school. He forgets all about Will, but he keeps the friendship bracelet the other gave him.
When Nico is sixteen, his cousin Percy, two years his senior, gets in contact with him. Without anything better to do, Nico decides to spend the summer in the old house in the suburban side of NYC he shared with Bianca and Alecto for less than a year.
On the first day of his staying, there’s a knock to his door. When he opens, he finds himself in front of a blond boy, but it’s not Will. This time it’s Jason. They talk, and so Nico discovers he has another cousin, who is Thalia’s little brother and he’s never met before.
“So you have all this place to yourself?” Jason asks later, as they share a pizza.
Nico hums, swallowing a too big bite before he can talk. “I doubt my father’s coming here anytime soon.”
“Thalia told me he’s not even in the US.”
Nico shrugs. “I don’t know. He travels around a lot. I haven’t seen him in a year or so, but he usually sends birthday cards.”
“That sounds horrendous,” Jason says. The worst part is, he looks like he means it.
Nico shrugs again. There’s not much to be said about it.
The following morning Nico goes over to Sally’s house. He meets his other baby cousin, who isn’t technically blood-related to him. Estelle is barely a month old, and she screams whenever anybody gets their face too close to hers. She wraps her fingers in Nico’s hair and pulls with a force Nico didn’t think babies had.
In the afternoon, Percy insists that Nico goes on a walk with him, his girlfriend and Estelle. Estelle sleeps for most of the time, content enough with the TV remote safely tucked in the blankets with her. Annabeth and Percy tell him all about college, and how they are going together and all. Even if Nico has always thought Percy and Annabeth would end up together, he starts wondering whether one day they’ll regret compromising so much about college. After all, nothing is written in stone.
Nico himself has never thought much about college, and he only realises that as he is eating ice cream on a bench in the middle of the other two. They keep talking and talking, and he’s never planned his life beyond his next meal. When he thinks about his future, all he sees is a blank space. The last plan he made was to go on a cruise with Bianca, and that was years ago.
Percy elbows Nico in the ribs none too gently, and that’s when Nico notices the boy standing in front of them. A lanky blond boy, whose name Nico can’t quite remember. He remembers those eyes though, how could he not? Still, he can’t place them.
“You weren’t around long,” the boy says. He smiles from ear to ear. “I’m Will Solace. We got married.”
Nico’s own lips twitch in a smile. “I think we qualify for an annulment.”
Will shrugs. “I don’t know, it’s worked for me so far.”
Nico doesn’t know how it happens. Somehow Will Solace finds himself in every place Nico is, and it’s always pleasant to have him around. At some point, they start spending time openly with each other. They mostly use Nico’s house, Will even helps him cleaning it. They go in the attic one day, and find old furniture. They sell it and use the money to go in the city.
And then Nico’s heart begins fluttering whenever Will is present. He wants to be near Will, he wants to hold hands and do more. On the night of the Fourth of July, after spending the day separately, Will cups Nico’s jaw with his hands, and then they kiss.
The following morning, Nico receives a text from a private investigator. He leaves by the end of the day.
“I’m not good at keeping in touch with people.”
Hazel sends Nico a blank look, her eyebrows raised. She’s less than a year younger than Nico, which makes him kind of sick when he thinks about it since she’s his biological half-sister. He’s always known his father is one who stoops low, but cheating on his wife while she was pregnant? That was a new low even for him.
“No, Nico,” she says. She’s knelt on the floor, in front of the closet she’s trying to put her clothes in, while her brother is sprawled on the bed. “You’re not good at Maths. You suck at keeping in touch.”
Nico scoffs. “Whatever,” is all he comes up with.
She shakes her head with a soft sigh, turning her attention back on the job at hand. Nico keeps goes back to eating his popsicle. It’s gone bad, but that’s not surprising considering that Nico bought it two years ago from a discount with Will.
Will, the object of his discussion with Hazel. She knows little about Will, as Nico chose to not tell her too much. She knows that they were close friends, and somehow she understood that Nico was a bit taken by him. She doesn’t know of the kiss, if only because she would blow it out of proportion and organise their marriage. And Nico doesn’t need her to do it. He’s had plenty of time to do it all in his head in the past two years.
This time they don’t meet in a park. Nico shows up unannounced on Will’s doorstep. Will isn’t there, so it’s Naomi who lets him - and Hazel - in. She brings them tea and biscuits, she wants to know everything about Hazel. She’s always been kind to Nico, so he isn’t surprised that she’s so lovely with Hazel.
“I’m sorry he wasn’t there,” Hazel says later, as they’re walking home. She holds Nico’s wrist, and leans her head on his shoulder as they walk. “And that he has a girlfriend.”
Nico rolls his eyes. “I told you, I don’t have a crush on him.”
Hazel hums. “Sure. I forgot to tell you, I thought I’d do it after you saw this Will boy, so maybe you’d be happy enough to let it slide but, uh…”
Nico stops in his tracks. There’s only one thing Hazel is so nervous talking to him about. “What does he want?”
Hazel looks down at her shoes as she answers. “Dad is sending someone over tomorrow to look over at the house. He says if we want to use it, he’ll have it fixed.”
Nico grunts. He starts walking again, but Hazel doesn’t lean on him. “Nothing else?”
“Well, he asked me how we were doing.”
Nico grunts again.
“And he also said he’d call Sally.”
This gets Nico’s attention. “What for?”
“He knows we can’t cook for shit. So either he gives Sally money to cook us something, or he sends a chef.”
Thinking about it, Nico wouldn’t mind having a personal chef, if it’s someone like the one they had in Washington.
Nico wakes up grumpy. There’s a noise keeping him awake, and it’s coming from the outside. He steps over to the window, cursing underneath his breath, and then he stops breathing altogether. Will is in the garden, throwing rocks at his window. The grumpiness disappears.
“What are you doing there?” Nico asks in the quiet of the night.
Will smiles. “My mom told me you’re back.”
It’s like an addiction. If he spends an hour with Will, he needs another. If they are together for a whole day, he needs another. So days morph together, and they spend a week attached to each other’s hip before the world comes back to them.
Will doesn’t have only Nico in his life. He has his mother, his friends and his girlfriend. Some days he can’t hang out with Nico, and it’s quickly clear that those are the days he spends with Katie. She is a ghost to Nico, who never even catches a glimpse of her. She is mentioned between conversations, sometimes by Lou Ellen, and then Cecil quickly changes the subject.
Lou Ellen takes a liking to Hazel. They start hanging out alone, which is a bummer to Cecil, who is left alone to sulk. It’s by accident that Nico overhears a part of their conversation one night.
“-nice but just not for him, you know? I tried bringing it up to him, but he won’t listen,” Lou Ellen is saying.
Hazel is nodding along to the other’s words. She’s applying nail polish to herself, but sometimes her eyes glance up to Lou Ellen.
“But I know he sees it, too. Like, the other day he was telling me about the apartment he’s getting in the City. It’s his dad’s, but he doesn’t use it so Will is going to live there with three roommates, and I asked, ‘Is Katie going to be one of those roommates?’ And I swear to God, I never saw him look so scared! Like, the idea hadn’t even remotely crossed his mind. So I’m just left to asking myself whether he actually even likes her or…”
Nico tunes out the conversation. He takes careful steps backward, not daring to breathe until he’s back in his room. He glances over at the window. It’s in days like this one that Will shows up at night with a bag of snacks under his arm, throwing pebbles at the window until Nico wakes up.
Nico closes the blinds. Hopefully, that will be enough to keep out the sound.
Thanatos shows up announced on a Tuesday while they are out shopping. When they come back with their groceries, he’s sat on the patio.
“This is private property,” Hazel says.
Nico shakes his head. “He works with father,” is what he says. They open the door, and Thanatos enters like he owns the place.
“Your mother chose this one herself,” he tells Nico, as he inspects the few pictures left on the wall.
Nico doesn’t reply. He goes in the kitchen and fixes himself coffee. Hazel asks him questions he doesn’t know the answer to, and at the end she says she’ll call their father. She goes upstairs to do that despite Nico’s opinion.
“Your father showed me countless pictures of her,” Thanatos says, nodding his head in the direction Hazel has disappeared into.
Nico hums. He sits on a stool at the counter, and Thanatos sits next to him, silent as he scrolls through his phone. Hazel is Nico’s sister on Hades’ side, only one year younger than him. She was born from his father’s affair, but Marie, the mother, never told Hades about the kid. They only discovered it once Marie died.
Thanatos puts his phone down on the counter, next to his bag. “But that’s not the reason I came here,” he says.
Nico glances at the other. “What is it then?”
“Your grandfather died. It’s time to talk about your inheritance.”
“It’s not like I’m sorry about it. I never even met him, and from what I know, he was an ass.”
Hazel snorts at her brother’s words. They are sitting on the living room blue carpet, Lou Ellen and Cecil with them. They eat Chinese takeout, there’s even an order for Will, but he stood them up last minute. Nico won’t lie and say he doesn’t feel bitter about it.
“And you’re richer now,” Cecil adds.
Nico nods.
“Buy me a pony,” Hazel says.
Lou Ellen hums. “Then I want a bike.”
“And I really need a Maserati,” Cecil says in a serious tone.
Hazel sighs. “Mark my words, my friends. We’re going to spend next Summer in one of Nico’s newly acquired mansions in Italy.”
“Let’s bury the man, first,” Nico says. He thinks about it for a moment, then adds, “And he also had a yacht.”
“Which means we have a yacht,” Cecil says, putting his arm around Nico’s shoulders.
The following day, Will shows up at their doorstep with a box of chocolates.
“I’m sorry about your loss,” he says, like the well-instructed southern-boy he is. “Want to take a walk?”
And since Nico can never bring himself to be denied of time with Will, he puts the chocolates in the fridge and follows Will outside.
“I’ve started packing my things,” Will says as they are on the swings. “When are you leaving?”
Nico shrugs. “It’s not important.”
“It is. We need to have a farewell party or something!”
“I’ll probably be back for Christmas,” Nico says. “Maybe even sooner, seeing how much Hazel likes this place.”
Will scoffs. “Yeah. But it would be nice to know when you leave. To properly say goodbye this time.”
Nico studies his nail. “Next Thursday.”
Will’s mouth hangs open. “What?”
“I need to go to Italy to sort out a few things about the inheritance.”
“Well shit.” Will clears his throat. He doesn’t look at Nico. “That’s really soon.”
“We almost have a week.”
Will bumps his shoulder into Nico’s. “That’s not enough, though.”
“Well, what would you want to do?”
Will shrugs. He doesn’t look at Nico, and it’s annoying. “I don’t know. A lot of things. Nothing.”
Nico bites his cheek. “Do you want to go see a movie?”
Years pass by, and Nico turns twenty-three. He hasn’t been part of Will’s life directly, but Hazel has never strayed too far from New York, and more than once she brings her friends up in conversation. Her birthday party is held in a fancy building of Manhattan, she’s dressed in gold, and Nico hasn’t seen her in person in something close to six months. He stays glued to her side, even if it means he’s closer to his father that way.
Annabeth’s arm is linked in Percy’s, but she leaves him to give Nico a hug as they greet each other.
“You must have worked wonders to bring this one home,” she tells Hazel.
Hades raises his eyebrows in agreement. Their relationship is still strained, but at least Nico doesn’t want to jump to his father’s throat whenever they see each other.
“I thought I’d have to go to Italy and drag him here by the ear,” Hazel replies, sending Nico an amused smile.
“That’s not true,” he says weakly.
“How long are you staying?” Percy asks.
“I’m leaving the day after tomorrow.”
Percy nods, but disappointment is clearly etched on his face. His eyes flicker down to the ring on Nico’s finger. “Have you chosen a date, yet?”
Hades excuses himself from the conversation, clearly faking a business class. Nico knows his father hasn’t even brought his phone.
Hazel awkwardly clears her throat, bringing Nico back to the conversation.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I think summer. I’d prefer winter or autumn.”
“Don’t sound so enthusiastic,” Percy says mockingly. Annabeth elbows him in the ribs.
Nico rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t bother replying. It’s not a secret what his sister’s friends think of Minos, his fiancé. They share Hades’ opinion, and Nico tries not to let it get to him.
He doesn’t let it get to him. He’s stronger than that.
Two years, in April, Nico has been married for one. He celebrates his anniversary with Minos’ friends, he hasn’t seen his sister’s (his own) since before the wedding. Minos doesn’t like them as much as he doesn’t like Hades, and since it’s reciprocated Nico doesn’t bother trying to get them in the same room. He only ever sees Hazel these days. They even go on vacation together, and Hazel takes some of her friends. Just two, actually. Frank, who’s family, and Will, who Nico can’t look straight in the eyes, even after years.
They remain alone with a bottle of Bordeaux on the balcony, one night. When they wake up, they’re both on the loveseat, Nico’s head in the crook of Will’s neck. Nico runs away, as fast as he can, and goes to find Hazel.
“You should leave Minos,” she then tells him over breakfast.
Minos is twelve years his senior, and sometimes the age-difference is unbearable, because Minos thinks he knows better than anybody. But he’s Nico’s husband, and Nico loves him alright.
Will almost spits his juice, and Frank chokes over his croissant. They both leave.
“Why?” Nico asks instead of getting angry. He’s a bit angry, actually.
“Because you look dead,” she says.
“I think you’re overreacting,” Nico replies.
She tries to continue, and Nico cuts her off. They have a fight, that lasts about two hours, and Nico cries alone in his room. He hasn’t heard from Minos in a whole day, and he knows he’ll find somebody’s things when he goes home.
It’s Will who finds Nico on the beach that night. He’s managed to hide from everybody, but it always seems Will knows where to find Nico.
“I got us matching bracelets,” Will says. “For all of us. Here, yours is black and white. But it has some gold, like, you know, Hazel’s eyes. I don’t know, I thought it was cute.”
Nico kisses him. Will reciprocates.
They don’t see each other for a month after that.
After the divorce, Nico goes back to his father’s house. He chooses to mend his relationship with his father, even if he feels it’s too late for that. It’s not easy, but both Nico and Hades try, and the penthouse is big enough that somedays they don’t even see each other.
Nico finds Will in the elevator. Nico can only ask what Will is doing there.
“I live under the penthouse,” Will says. “Are you visiting your father?”
And so they meet again, and maybe the timing is right.