Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Two weeks into the spring quarter of his Master’s in Teaching, Mr. Solace—as the kids call him, which hasn’t stopped being weird—gets to teach his first solo lesson of his final student-teaching placement. Cesar E. Chavez Middle School. 7th grade science class. The topic for the week? Photosynthesis.

Which makes Lou, Valentina, Nico, and the entire 20something children of Apollo groupchat all separately laugh their asses off—and Will gets why, but for himself he mostly just feels kind of affectionate about it. Feels good, feels organic. Feels, for once, like the Fates lining something up in a way he doesn’t regard with doubt or suspicion for even a second.

The morning of, he’s more anxious about it than he’d expected to be—not about talking in front of the kids (he’s not his sister Gracie, the one and only child of Apollo Will’s ever known to have stage fright), but about being able to hold their attention. And manage all 31 to 34 of them, depending on the class period. Even if Will has mostly really loved the students he’s worked with in his placements so far—and he thinks they’ve mostly liked him fine—there is a reason basically all his adult friends have reacted with horror when he’s said he’s working in a middle school, and that that’s the age range he wants to teach in general. Thirteen-year-olds, famously, are kind of nightmares.

He gets through the first period, though, only stumbling a little bit and managing a quick save. A little self-deprecating humor goes over well with this group—and maybe he didn’t actually need to worry about the kids giving him too hard a time when his mentor teacher Steve’s still sitting in the back of the room. Or, this bunch are just too sleepy this early in the morning to care.

Regardless, Will goes into his second class of the day feeling much more like he’s got this. The jitters are out. A good thing, too, because ten minutes into the class period, the door swings open and Maya from the front office knocks on the frame.

“Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Gutierrez,” she says, looking expectantly towards the front and then around in confusion when her eyes land on Will instead of Steve— “Oh, um, and Mr. Solace. We’re just running a little behind schedule, but our new student is ready to join the class.” Standing with her is a tall, brown-skinned kid in a plain gray sweatshirt, long black hair pulled back in a ponytail.

“Yes! That’s right. Thanks, Ms. Kim,” says Steve, clapping his hands and standing up from his desk in the corner. “Everybody, this is Ana Guerrero. She’ll be joining us for the rest of the school year—I hope you’ll all make her feel welcome.”

That gets exactly zero enthusiasm from the students, who largely just glance at Ana and then back at Steve, Will, their notebooks, or—Will’s pretty sure in at least two cases—their phones under their desks. The phones don’t feel worth disrupting class any more to address if Steve isn’t going to, though. Will just waits for Ana to make her way to one of the two empty desks in the back of the classroom (walking quickly, with the hunch of a kid who wants to be perceived as little as possible) before he gets things rolling again.

“Welcome, Ana,” he says. “I’m Mr. Solace—I’m a student teacher working with Mr. Gutierrez. I’m gonna be teaching science class Tuesday through Thursday. Today we’re learning about photosynthesis. Like I was saying—” and he segues right back into his slides.

The rest of the class goes smoothly. By third period Will feels like he’s gotten into a good groove with this, and the rest of the morning just sails on by. He doesn’t think anything more of the new student until he mentions her arrival to Noel at lunch, and xir face gets all intense and conspiratorial.

“Have you heard the story?”

“—Yeah, no, what?” Will says, pausing his adrenaline-comedown ramble about his first real teaching experience to lean in. Noel is his closest thing to a work friend in this placement so far, a library assistant who started in the fall and has been showing him the ropes—and is very attractive, all big hazel eyes and floppy dark hair and elegant dexterous fingers, but Will’s telling himself he’s very dedicated to maintaining professional boundaries in this setting. So, work friends it is. Has been so far, anyway.

This is the first time something’s happened that’s new to both of them, and Will can’t help but be a little excited about getting to be completely on the same page for once.

“Is there parent drama or something?” he asks. Xe shakes xir head.

“It’s all about the kid,” xe says. “She got expelled and the district made her transfer. I guess at her last school they said she—allegedly—beat up half the boys’ basketball team. And set the gym on fire.”

Will hopes his eyes aren’t actually popping out of his head. He looks down at his sandwich, trying to draw his eyebrows together in confusion instead, and mask the mental alarm bells suddenly blaring.

“The fuck?” he says quietly.

“Right? There’s no way,” says Noel. “I mean, she’s not a tiny kid, but no way that girl beat up a basketball team. She’s not Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

“—Right.”

“And there were no other witnesses. Like, obviously we can’t say this, but it’s got to have been a setup. 1 million percent she was getting bullied, or worse, and the shitstains at that school wanted to cover for their jocks.”

Will swallows hard. “Yeah,” he says, in what hopefully sounds like a normal voice. “That would make a lot more sense, wouldn’t it.”

“Poor kid,” says Noel.

“Yeah.” Will hopes his voice doesn’t sound as hoarse as it feels suddenly. If his immediate instincts on hearing a story like that are right—and gods, he hopes they’re not, for Ana’s sake more than anyone’s—xe has no fucking idea.

It’s a sunny day in LA, and warm—neither of which Nico was prepared for, coming from the Bay, where Februaries are chilly and rainy. He has to take a second to get his bearings when he steps out of the alcove behind Arthur’s office’s stairs only to be blinded by sunlight streaming in through the front window.

“Nico?” His eyes adjust in perfect time for the door to open and his therapist to poke his head out. “It’s good to see you. Come on back.”

“So, exciting news,” Nico says once Arthur has led him back to the usual small office and he’s sitting down in his usual spot at one end of the couch, tugging his boot laces loose so he can slip out of them and pull his feet up. “We’re two weeks into the semester and I might already be in round two of dick versus academic ethics.”

“Uh-oh,” Arthur says casually, not missing a beat. “Please, tell me more.”

“It’s not about a professor this time,” Nico promises, curling up against the couch arm. “Just a grad student. But, he’s my history professor from last semester’s research assistant.”

“Oh, well—was he your TA or anything?” Arthur asks. When Nico shakes his head, his therapist waves a dismissive hand. “Then I’m pretty sure that’s fine,” he says. “As long as he’s not in any kind of position of authority over you in an academic capacity, I think you should be good. It’s not inherently an ethics violation for a grad student to date an undergrad, especially with how things work at NRU where there are a lot more nontraditional undergrads anyway.”

“Oh.” Nico raises his eyebrows. “Well, that’s, um—good news. I guess.” Arthur’s eyes narrow.

“Unless you were looking for a reason not to date this guy,” he says. Nico shrugs.

“No more than I ever am with any guy,” he says. “But I am trying not to, like, default to that as a starting place anymore, I promise.” Arthur nods.

“So what’s been going on?”

The answer, as Nico tells him, is… honestly, not a lot. So far. It’s very different from last semester’s debacle, which started with a casual encounter at the bathhouse and ended with Nico and Dr. Neil Manning, Associate Professor of Environmental Science, legacy of Ceres and Bacchus and newly minted Ph.D., agreeing that it didn’t have to be a big awkward thing or anything the university got involved in. Since Nico hadn’t known Neil was a professor, and Neil definitely hadn’t known Nico was a student, let alone a first-year undergrad—Nico’s only a few years younger than him; why the hell should he have?—so as long as it never happens again, they could just forget it ever happened in the first place and not worry about it.

This semester, Nico was very careful to make sure he enrolled in Intro Earth Science, not Intro Environmental Science, to minimize potential awkward run-ins. He’s also taking Italian 210, because Dr. Gallo managed to (lightly) bully him into trying to sign up for his 300-level gender and sexuality in Italian literature class—but the registrar insisted Nico couldn’t just skip directly to 300 level courses with no prereqs. So he had to take a language placement test—

And to Nico’s absolute mortification, even with the university’s built-in dyslexia accommodations he didn’t do well enough to get out of the basic language track, let alone for 300-level lit classes. Even though he basically has an adult level of spoken fluency in his mother tongue, most of the time, it turns out his 4th-grade education from 85 years ago doesn’t quite cut it for trying to take college classes where he’d have to read and write.

He’s doing his best to be okay with it and be willing to learn, to not let his wounded pride get in his own way. Even so, it’s probably his least favorite class so far this semester. And he knows he’s avoiding Dr. Gallo—who is also his friend, Antonio, who would never make Nico feel bad on purpose, but now that he feels like he’s failed in his eyes he can’t help but feel small and stupid and pitiful around him anyway. So instead of spending his on-campus free time hanging around the tiny Italian corner of the modern languages department like he did last semester, he’s been hiding out on the history floor instead.

That’s where Isaac came in. Well—really Isaac came in when he tried to hand-carry way too many books out of the library at once, and they overbalanced and went scattering everywhere, and Nico, passing by, stopped to help him. And then made the mistake of telling Piper about it, so she and Mitchell could put in his head that he’d had a “classic rom-com meet-cute!” But it wasn’t until the next day, when Nico was sitting in the Bellis 3rd floor colonnade before history class, that Isaac struck up a conversation and asked for his number.

Nico would be lying if he tried to deny that a big part of saying yes was just… being flattered. He’s dated some, hooked up a lot more, but having a guy come up and ask for his number in a neutral public place like that was actually new. Isaac really is cute, though, a gangly nerd with pretty eyes and a sweet smile. And from what little they’d said to each other he seemed smart and funny, too. That was definitely enough for Nico to be open to a date.

So they went on one: to New Rome’s version of a bowling alley, which claims, at least, to be the longest-operating bowling establishment in the world. Nico would also bet money that it’s the only bowling alley in the world with a snack bar that puts anchovies on their loaded fries.

As far as he can tell, it was a good first date. Isaac was terrible at bowling, Nico not much better, but it was a fun setting to get to know each other a little and test the waters with flirting and casual touch. Afterwards, at Isaac’s suggestion, Nico walked him home, and Isaac asked if Nico would like to hold hands, and Nico would, so they did that. Isaac’s hand was a nice size for Nico’s. Plus, since they aren’t too far apart in height, their arms could both just hang relaxed at their sides, fingers clasped, walking close.

“Here we are,” Isaac said eventually, slowing and steering Nico rather elegantly into a little courtyard between tall stacks of insulae. There was a gated arch at the other end with a call box next to it; they paused there. “So,” Isaac said, dropping Nico’s hand but also stepping closer. “I appreciate you walking me home.” He smiled. It was a little self-effacing, which itself was a little performative, but in a way where Nico felt like Isaac wanted him to be in on the joke: “I don’t sleep with guys on the first date,” he informed him, “but I liked holding your hand.”

Nico couldn’t help being a little surprised—he hadn’t been expecting to get invited in and naked, exactly, but he’d sort of assumed that was why Isaac was bringing him there. His mistake. He tried not to let surprise be disappointment, though, smiling back and turning the joke around: “I do sleep with guys on the first date sometimes,” he admitted, “but I liked holding your hand too.” Isaac laughed softly.

“Sometimes I kiss guys on the first date,” he amended. “Love to kiss guys on the first date.” His face was hovering closer and closer, so Nico just went for it. Isaac raised a hand to cup his cheek, holding Nico’s mouth against his for a long moment and bringing his whole body closer. Nico settled a hand on Isaac’s back, just at his waist, lightly—trying desperately not to be too forward, since that didn’t seem to be what he wanted.

When they broke apart, Isaac was smiling.

“I’d love to see you again,” he said, “and… see where things go on the second date.” Okay. That was promising. “If you’d like to see me again, I mean.”

“I would like that very much,” Nico agreed. “I’ll text you. And, um—hopefully I’ll see you around this week?”

“You can count on it,” Isaac told him, teasing and sweet, and he brushed his lips against the corner of Nico’s mouth one last time. “Well—see you.”

“Um, yeah. Bye,” Nico said, a little slow on the uptake—and incredibly awkward; he cringed at himself the second they both turned to go their separate ways, Isaac busying himself with the keypad, Nico walking back towards the sidewalk.

He decided to shadow-travel rather than take the long way home. It left him less time to think.

“That all sounds great,” says Arthur when Nico tells him about it the next week. “I haven’t actually heard a problem with Isaac yet—but it sounds like there’s something about this that’s bothering you?”

“I don’t know.” Nico frowns. “I guess I feel kind of… weird. Kind of behind? Like I should have more feelings than I do.”

“Feelings in general? Or do you mean romantic feelings?”

“Yeah. Romantic feelings.” There are some other feelings, after all. They have indeed seen each other around. Studied together, impromptu, between classes. Flirted. Texted, last night even bordering on salaciously. Nico likes Isaac as a person, and he’s definitely down to sleep with him. But.

“Oh. You’ve just been on the one date so far?” says Arthur. Nico nods. “I think it’s pretty normal to not have big romantic feelings for someone after just one date. A little interest, maybe, but—that’s why you go on dates, to see if you think those feelings could develop.”

“Mm. I guess.” Nico looks down. “I am interested. He’s attractive. It’s there for me physically, but emotionally—I don’t know. I do like him. That’s never been how it’s worked for me, though. In my romantic relationships, I always developed feelings before we started dating. Well—” he amends— “With everyone I’ve dated as an adult, we’d usually hooked up first, then the feelings followed, then we… usually never actually got far enough to make anything official, anyway. But—I guess I just don’t really know how to navigate this kind of dating where we, um—well—go on dates,” he says, losing steam as he realizes how dumb that sounds to his own ears. “To get to know each other. But I guess that’s what… dating… is?”

“Yeah,” says Arthur. “But that doesn’t mean it’s a way of forming relationships that works for everyone. What do you think you’d want that to look like for you? What are you looking for in a relationship right now?”

Nico only has to think about it for half a second before he feels all the blood drain from his face. He knows the answer, of course. He’s already kind of said it. It’s easy math: he’s only had two relationships in his whole life where he called the other party his boyfriend, and both of them escalated from friendship to mutual crushes to dating. Admittedly, he had fucked Aaron months before any of that went down with him, but that isn’t the point. Nor is that the problem.

The problem is that, for the first time in at least two years, when he tried to think about what he’s looking for—Nico just pictured Will.

No. No. They’ve been through this—Will doesn’t want him back. Nico’s supposed to have moved on. He did move on. He has. He has. He isn’t—

“Nico?” says Arthur. “You okay? Your face just got kind of bleak.”

“Yeah, I just—” Nico drops his head into his hands, pressing his palms over his eyes. “I went back to a place of, like—despair, over, like—all my relationships being doomed, so why bother? But no, I—I mean, I guess, if I’m on a different trajectory here, maybe I should just. I don’t know. Spend time with him and see how it goes?” With Isaac, he tells his own brain. With Isaac. Isaac.

“I think that’s more than fair,” says Arthur. “Maybe try not to put so much pressure on yourself. You’ve been trying for a long time to form deeper romantic bonds with people again, and I’ve watched you make really great progress there. But there’s a lot of space to explore between no strings attached and true love, you know?” Nico does not flinch. “Maybe it can be more than what it has been without having to be everything, right away.”

“Yeah.” Nico licks his lips, because his mouth is very dry, suddenly. “Yeah. I think I—yeah. I’m going to try to take it one step at a time.” Arthur nods.

“I think that’s a great idea.”

By the end of the week, Will is so tired and all over the place that he keeps meaning to cancel on Nico right up until his friend texts that he’s about to shadow-travel down. And then it feels too late—it would be way too rude to tell him, actually, never mind. So Will doesn’t.

It’s now just far enough into the year that it isn’t dark out at 7 PM, so Nico doesn’t knock at the front door—instead, when he knocks, it’s coming from inside the closed, dark bathroom. By the time Will opens the door Odie is already pacing on this side, meowing excitedly.

“Boo,” says Nico, pale face emerging from the darkness.

“Welcome.” They aren’t really hugging friends, not casually, but Will claps him awkwardly on the arm and turns to lead him into the rest of the apartment. “How’re you?”

“Been a lot worse,” says Nico. He flops onto the couch; Odie’s in his lap within seconds. “You?”

“Fucking wiped,” says Will. “Have you eaten?”

“Not since lunchtime.”

“You want dinner?”

“If you’re offering.”

“Of course I am.” Will sighs as he opens his fridge to look at the less-than-ideal options in front of him—maybe a little too heavily, because Nico sits up straighter and looks at him through narrowed eyes over the back of the couch.

“You sure? You don’t have to be the one who cooks dinner, just because I’m a guest. I don’t give a shit about that rule. If you’re fucking wiped, seems to me you should be the one resting with the cat.”

Will considers it. Prickles against the idea, strains his instincts not snapping at Nico to shut it down. Then, once he’s taken three deep breaths, he nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “You’re right. I was gonna try and cook, but maybe we should just order takeout.”

“That’s—not quite what I meant,” says Nico, “but sure. I wouldn’t say no to takeout.”

They end up ordering sushi. By the time it arrives they’re settled into an episode of Chopped and Will is, in fact, the one on the couch, stretched out with a blanket over his legs. He sighs at the knock on the door, and starts to move to get up—but Nico doesn’t give a shit about the rules of cat hospitality, either, apparently, because he hops up first to get the food, dumping Odie on Will along the way. Not that Odie seems bothered.

“Thanks,” Will says when Nico comes back, trying not to feel too stupidly warm about any of it as his friend hands him his tray of rolls and the small plastic container of inari.

When they first started making serious efforts to rebuild a friendship—almost a year ago now, though it feels like it can’t possibly have been that long—they mostly hung out in groups with other people. Which, in the beginning, usually just meant Malcolm, and sometimes Leo. But then in July Miranda had moved back up from Santa Barbara to Fremont, a godsend, and for about a month there they actually had a critical-enough mass of their high school D&D group all within an hour’s drive and talking to each other again for them to try reinstating it.

Of course, the campaign had lasted all of two sessions before Nico started at NRU, Will started his Master’s program, and Malcolm went to Indianapolis for a month. He’s back now, albeit after another six-week trip over the November and December holidays, and they all still talk about it occasionally, but nobody’s schedule has worked out for more than two of them at a time to pick it up again since.

That, in a roundabout way, was how it became normal for Will and Nico to hang out one-on-one again. Sometimes being the two people actually available for a game night. Then, when Will got himself Dune Part 1 on DVD for his birthday, a movie night. Then, just, can I come over and hang out with your cat? And now, months later, here they are.

It’s been… nice. It feels like a normal friendship, Will thinks, mostly. Not totally unlike others he’s had, with Lou and Tessa and even Connor, once they got back to being friends after they had broken up in college. It also kind of feels like a grown-up version of his first few months of real friendship with Nico, back when they were kids, before they started dating—but Will tries not to dwell on that too much, because that isn’t what’s going to happen now.

They’re friends. He’s glad they’re friends. And last week Nico showed up to hang out chipper as hell, and when Will commented on it, Nico eventually, awkwardly, told him he’d met a cute guy at school and had a date.

“At school? Like, in one of your classes? Aren’t college kids a little young for you?” Will had teased.

“Oh, gods, no,” Nico had said quickly, maybe even a little more vehemently than Will would have expected. “No, he’s a grad student. I—guess I don’t actually know exactly how old he is, but he’s around our age.” His frown had deepened as he’d said that, though, brow furrowing even as his eyes widened in a flash of sudden fear— “Wait, actually. You guys might’ve been in undergrad at the same time. Did you ever meet an Isaac Fleming?”

“No,” Will had said, “I didn’t,” only realizing as the words came out of his mouth that he felt as relieved by them as Nico looked.

So apparently their friendship is one where they talk about their dating lives now. When they exist. And Will is glad about that, too, or he’s trying to be. It is nice to think they can be this to each other now. It’s great. Growth, or whatever.

Tonight Nico’s a lot more subdued, but he’s visibly relaxed and smiling a lot and he keeps checking his phone more than usual. And at first glance Will had taken the small dark reddish shape mostly hidden by his collar for the top of a new tattoo, maybe a flower or something, but now, when he reaches down to hand Will his food, his shirt shifts enough for Will to realize it’s actually a fading plum-colored bruise at the base of his neck. Conspicuously mouth-shaped. No way for it to have landed there, looking like that, by any accident.

Will shoves a whole inari into his mouth and tells himself it’s just because he doesn’t care about having table manners with a friend who’s seen him so badly hurt he almost died at least twice and naked a lot more than that, and not at all that he’s eating his feelings. There are no particular feelings to eat. He isn’t even into Nico anymore. Not really. No more than he’s into any other objectively hot person he’s friends with, or has had sex with, or used to daydream about marrying someday. Whatever. He lets Odie have a bite of sushi.

When he can finally bring himself to look at Nico again, Nico’s looking at him. Then he looks at Odie, then back at Will, and raises an eyebrow pointedly.

“What?” Will shrugs. “He can have a little imitation crab, as a treat.”

“Okay,” Nico says doubtfully, “I guess. But your inconsistent rules about human food seem very unfair.”

“What are you, his lawyer?”

“Someone’s got to be on his side.”

“I am the Nico, I speak for the cats,” says Will in a terrible impression of Nico’s voice. Nico rolls his eyes. “Hey, how was your date last weekend?” Will asks in the pause while the end of the episode rolls into the next, mainly to see how Nico reacts.

“Uh—good.” Nico looks surprised, mostly. “Have you ever been to the Bowling Forum in New Rome?”

“No, but I’ve walked by it.”

“We went there. It was fun.”

“Yeah?” says Will, then—daring to prod further—he adds, “Do you think you’ll see him again?”

There—that makes Nico squirm. “I have seen him again,” he says, “you know, on campus. And we hung out last night.” He adjusts his collar in a way Will thinks he thinks is subtle. He had briefly wondered why Nico was wearing a collared shirt just to hang out in Will’s living room—that’s a little dressed-up, for him, usually—and now, complicated feelings aside, it is kind of funny.

“So… you like him?” To Will’s surprise this time, Nico takes a moment to think about it, dark eyes narrowing, brow furrowing. He looks down. Then he nods.

“Yeah.” He sounds a little hesitant. “I do, so far.”

“Well, cool.” From the looks of that hickey, I’d sure hope so.

“Yeah.” Nico glances at something on his phone. His expression slackens, goes from thoughtful to neutral. “Not to conspicuously change the subject—” Will snorts— “but do you still read the Acta?”

“Generous of you to assume I ever read the Acta,” says Will. Nico smiles, a crooked, fond thing.

“Yeah, fair,” he says. “I just got a notification and that reminded me, that’s all. I’ve been trying to—ugh—network, because I think someone needs to fix their Greek translation.” The Acta Publica is New Rome’s daily newspaper. It’s been published for centuries, and in the time since the Greeks and the Romans have been in contact, it’s made the move to the twenty-first. It has an online edition now, available in four languages—Latin, English, Spanish, and… Koiné.

Which is the Ancient Greek of Ancient Rome, not the Ancient Greek that Greek demigods speak, and they still render it in the Latin alphabet. Which, in every Greek demigod who’s ever lived in New Rome’s opinion, kind of totally defeats the point.

“Oh, really?” Will actually finds himself perking up. “I’ve thought someone should do that for years. But I feel like there aren’t that many of us who’ve… you know, learned Latin well enough.” Gods know he sure hasn’t.

“I know,” Nico says. “I can think of maybe five of us who might be even close to fluent enough, and we all have other stuff going on.”

“Might be nice if some of the fucking Romans would learn Ancient Greek, ever,” Will suggests, and Nico makes a disgusted noise of solidarity.

“Right!” He sighs. “Well, anyway. I’ve been asking around, but hey, if you can think of anyone—I don’t know, you’re still in touch with some different people than I am.” Will shrugs.

“Sure. I doubt I’ll be any more successful, but I can try.” His food gone, Will sets his trays aside and settles back into the couch. “You know who could probably do it in his sleep, if he didn’t have, like, literally everything else in the world going on?”

“Chiron?” says Nico. Will points at him like he’s aiming at a bullseye. “Yeah.”

“There’s gotta be some ex-Legionnaire who learned our, like, fucked-up Camp Half-Blood dialect somewhere along the way,” he muses. “For espionage purposes or something.”

“Olympio-Attic,” says Nico. “That’s what Annabeth and I have been calling it.” Of course it is. Will shakes his head fondly. “And it’s not fucked-up,” Nico adds, softer. “I know what you mean, but—it’s the closest living form of an otherwise dead language. No different from New Rome’s Post-Classical Latin. No less of a bastardization, and no more.”

Gods. Will’s heart feels like it’s trying to squeeze through his ribs.

“Kinda sounds like you should major in this,” he says, only half-joking. Half is enough, thank the gods—Nico instantly defuses whatever the fuck is going on in Will’s chest by laughing it off and taking the segue to complain about his personally-humiliating Italian class.

He hasn’t decided on a major yet; every time Will’s asked what he’s leaning towards, he seems to have a different answer. He’d almost be worried that Nico’s freezing up again in the face of an uncertain future, except that every time he talks about not being able to pick a major it’s with self-effacing laughter and an almost childlike enthusiasm for all the possible options in front of him. Very different from the quiet anxiety Will remembers from around when they were both turning eighteen. It’s not that the world is too big now, it’s that it’s just big enough.

By the time Nico heads out, it’s dark enough for him to leave through the front door. They say goodbye and don’t linger, mostly because Will is—fortunately, he thinks—forced to shut the door quickly when Odie starts trying to meander through.

Will shuts things down, turns out the lights in his apartment’s tiny front room, and gets himself ready for bed. All his long pajama pants are in the laundry, but while he’s insanely lucky to be able to afford to live alone, in this state, in this economy—thanks pretty much entirely to being able to fall back on his mom and her music money, as hard as he’s tried not to—even he couldn’t avoid the omnipresent rickety-as-hell staircase down to a sketchy, filthy, coin-op-only laundry room. And now it’s dark out. He decides he can deal with that tomorrow, and sleep in just his underwear for tonight.

All the better to get a hand under when it’s time to try and help himself to sleep, but tonight he can’t even stay focused enough to get fully hard when he tries. His thoughts keep circling back to Nico, to the bruise on his neck, replaying his face when talking about the guy who put it there, how overly casual he was about carefully saying, we hung out last night. No matter what else Will tries to imagine—the usual vague visions of dark hair, bare skin, thighs, shoulder blades, hips—his mind just keeps coming back to all of that. The naked body in ecstasy becomes Nico’s, pressed into someone else. And his stomach churns and his chest just feels like a bottomless pit, and it’s stupid, and Will gives up on his dick and rolls over to curl up on his side with a groan of frustration—with himself, more than anything.

What does he care about that bruise? So what? So Nico got laid last night, or at least made out with unusually thoroughly. Will’s not sure which would be better, actually—if kissing is as far as it went, where it stopped, that might actually be worse. Except that it’s not a bad thing. Either way. It’s great. Nico’s his friend. Good for him.

Will tells himself he doesn’t know why his jaw is clicking when he shifts it, why he can’t quite stop a couple tears from leaking down his cheek and into his pillowcase. It’s stupid to care—as if he has a right. They’re friends. The only reason he would care would be if he wanted Nico to still be hung up on him, and what kind of selfish bullshit would that be? Just to stroke his own ego. That’s all. It’s not like he’s pathetic enough to—

Actually, no. He’s not too proud to acknowledge the young, hurt part of him that is always, in some way, even nine years later, still frozen under his favorite tree at the edge of the woods. Waiting for Nico to come back.

That was then, though. Will got over the denial and bargaining stages nine years ago, and he’s too old and tired to still believe in that impossible dream now. Why would he? He knows better. If anything, probably, he’s just jealous because he’s lonely. He wants to be the one having meet-cutes and makeouts and sex and maybe even falling in love again. That’s what he wants for himself.

But he doesn’t have it. Nothing’s clicked with any friends or classmates since he moved back to California—the closest he’s come to feeling a beginning like that is his little crush on Noel, and his work-life boundaries mean that’s not even worth testing to see if it could click. In the dark, already aching, it’s hard not to feel like maybe it’s just never going to click again.

It will. Will knows it will. If he were more open to risking a mess at work right now, maybe it already could have. It’s not that anything else is in the way—it’s just life. He’ll find someone, again, someday. And until then, he can be happy for Nico, because he wants Nico to be happy. Even if it’s with someone else—no, definitely with someone else. Nico should fall in love with someone else again, but whether he should or not, he’s going to. Eventually, Nico is going to spend the rest of his life with someone who isn’t Will. And that’s—

Will screams into his pillow until it’s tears again.

Chapter Text

“So,” Isaac says the morning after the third time Nico sleeps over. “When am I going to get to see your place?”

Nico blinks up at him—propped up by an elbow on one side and Nico’s chest on the other, tracing circles with a fingertip in the hair over Nico’s sternum in a way that feels nice. His eyes are on Nico’s face, not quite focused without the glasses he usually wears. He’s cute like this, but Nico feels more relief at feeling affectionate than he feels the affection itself. And then he feels bad about that.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I, um—I don’t usually host, I mean, uhhh—I haven’t, recently,” he backtracks—

Not that they’ve had any kind of exclusivity conversation, four dates in, but he doesn’t want to make it sound like he’s been… entertaining any gentleman callers, as Hazel would put it (mostly joking), lately. Because he isn’t trying to psych Isaac out, most importantly, he doesn’t want to let him think he’s playing mind games or whatever the fuck—but he also truly hasn’t had a guy over since he moved to New Rome. Because:

“I live in an insula over my sister’s domus,” he explains, “so I’m like—it would be weird, you know?”

“I guess?” Isaac makes a doubtful face. “I have neighbors here, too. We all do. It’s a city. And this isn’t American California,” he adds, teasing, “the walls are thick here—”

“Yeah, but—it would be too weird for me, I guess,” Nico admits, “if my family, like, saw guys—saw you—doing the walk of shame out of my apartment in the morning.” Isaac laughs.

“But it’s okay for them to see you doing the walk of shame back in?”

“Oh, they don’t,” Nico tells him. “You forget—I can shadow-travel.”

Isaac laughs some more. And about an hour later, once they’re up and dressed and both adequately plied with coffee, that’s exactly what Nico does: shadow-travels out of Isaac’s apartment and into his own. There, he gets his stuff together just in time to run down the stairs, out the side door next to the gate that would lead into his sister’s back garden if it was ever unlocked, and around the corner to catch the Number XVII bus to campus.

Hey you, says a text from Isaac when Nico checks his phone after his Earth Science class. Are we at a stage where a little PDA is permitted?

Nico smiles as he ducks through the main doors to Bellis Hall. He jogs up the stairs and swings around the corner and through a broad archway that opens out to the third-floor colonnade. On a warm, sunny day like today there are a lot of students hanging out up here. Most are baby-faced undergrads, crowded around the handful of iron tables that litter the patio in frantic little study groups. One of the few people who isn’t that is leaning back against the railing, bag on the tiles at his feet and eyes on Nico the moment he appears. Nico walks up to him and says:

“Yeah, I think so.” And when Isaac pulls him in and kisses him, he kisses back with all the enthusiasm he can muster.

Which is some. It is.

But sometimes—most of the time, just usually on the back burner behind like five other things—Nico worries that he’s kind of leading him on. He thinks Isaac likes him, genuinely. And it’s not that Nico doesn’t genuinely like him, too, but he’s not sure it should feel this much like work to make himself feel it. He’s not sure it’s work for Isaac.

He’s just not sure yet, in general. He likes this, mostly—it’s not perfect, but it’s not going to be perfect right away. Even if he was sure there’s any such thing. He knows that.

He just—needs more time. But the longer he spends figuring this out, he’s worried that to Isaac it’s going to end up looking like a lot more commitment than he means, a lot faster than he means it.

“So be honest about that,” says Leo, lounging upside-down on Nico’s couch, legs slung up over the back, because gods forbid anyone sits on furniture normally. (Nico is curled up with his feet on the seat of his armchair. Whatever.)

“But I’m trying to not be the guy who just strings people along because I’m terrified of commitment,” he says.

“So don’t string him along?” says Leo. Nico sighs.

“I don’t want to break his heart, either,” he admits. “I don’t want to be the guy who always does that anymore. But now I’m afraid I’ve dug myself right into that—” Nico stops just short of saying hole, lest he have to spend the rest of today listening to Leo snicker and say hole! at intervals. Instead he fills in, “... place.”

“Yeah, well, I’m no expert,” Leo says, “but I think the best way to avoid breaking his heart would probably be to not keep stringing him along.”

“Yeah, but…”

“But what? No way the dick’s that good.” Leo finally looks up from whatever game he’s been playing on his phone. “If it was we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. You’d be down way worse than—hey!” He just barely blocks with a forearm in time to not get hit in the face by the throw pillow Nico chucks at him. “Well, if you’re resorting to violence I’m just gonna take that as confirmation his dick game sucks.”

Nico hates that he isn’t entirely wrong—not that he’s right; that wouldn’t be fair to Isaac. The chemistry isn’t explosive, but it’s not nonexistent. But it’s also not the point. What Leo’s right about—and Nico also really fucking hates that he’s now getting not only serious but correct relationship advice from Leo, though in his defense this one’s pretty obvious—is that Nico should just be honest and upfront about what he’s feeling. Or not feeling.

Which he knows, in his heart of hearts—of course he does. But having someone else say it makes it harder to ignore.

What’s he supposed to say, though—sorry I’m not falling in love with you fast enough? What if he’s reading Isaac wrong, and that isn’t his expectation yet either, and he just ends up looking stupid? More stupid than he already feels.

That weekend Nico goes to the gay bath alone, and he steps through the curtains into the dim heat of the obscurium for the first time since, well, the end of last summer. The time he met Neil (for a given definition of met). It’s the same as he remembers—the same erotic frescoes, the same semi-opaque curtains on the more private alcoves, the same pottery bowls of condoms, even some of the same people. Mostly just faces, blurry in the low lighting, men Nico’s never directly interacted with and couldn’t put names to, but he catches sight of one of Aaron’s old bathhouse partners, Marco, wrapped up in a stranger on the tile lip at the far end of the shallow pool. He’s clearly distracted, and doesn’t seem to notice Nico. That’s… probably for the better.

Nico looks around. Watches for a few moments. Considers it. Then, rather than engage, he does what he was probably always going to do: ducks back through the curtains and heads over to the main caldarium. To gossip with the other old queens, as he and Aaron used to say on the visits where they’d part ways at these arches with a laugh and a kiss.

A year later, Nico doesn’t usually miss him anymore—it would be stupid to; it was never really going to work out—but there’s a little bit of weird nostalgia that tugs at his ribs in this antechamber. It was perfect right away with Aaron, an evil little voice in the back of his mind whispers. As close to perfect as the two of them could ever get.

But he and Aaron had also had months of getting to know each other before they started dating for real. Nico’s still getting to know Isaac. Just because they’re putting pieces together in a different order doesn’t mean they won’t add up the same a couple months from now.

He wonders if Isaac’s ever come here. Even just to the social baths, or the palaestra. He kind of doubts it. It doesn’t really seem like his scene.

“How are things going with the new guy?” Will asks the next time Nico sees him. His light, playful tone betrays nothing more than a friend asking a friend a casual question—and maybe giving him a little shit about what he probably assumes is a relationship that, by now, involves sex or feelings or both. He wouldn’t be wrong.

“Okay,” Nico says. “He’s—great.” He smiles, because it’s true, and says nothing else because he doesn’t know what else to say. Especially to Will, but to anyone, really.

Isaac is great. Objectively speaking. He’s a sweetheart. He’s brilliant. Nico likes listening to him talk about his research, his areas of interest, the stuff he loves. He’s pleasantly squishy and unscarred (physically or mentally) from never having served in the Legion (minimum third-generation legacy), and he wears a lot of soft sweaters and laughs easily. He prefers to bottom (the one time it’s gone there) and be the little spoon, which is… okay. Nico can work with that. Isaac’s even skinnier than he is and not much taller—it’s not like Nico would be able to snuggle into him and feel enveloped in his arms, so it’s not that he feels like he’s missing out on something there, exactly. He is good at the things he likes to do in bed. And so far he’s taken the lead out of it, in conversation, in planning.

He’s cute. He’s funny. He’s passionate. With the gifts of five different gods each diluted by the others in his lineage, he’s thoroughly New Roman but kind of beautifully human. He’s mature and responsible and as competent at taking care of himself and others as he can be while also swamped by grad school. Nico doesn’t feel too out-of-place in his apartment. He could imagine ending up in a long-term relationship with this guy, and that being fine.

All those things together should make for a great guy to tell a friend about. So Nico can’t quite put his finger on why, if he were to say it all out loud, it would sound… boring, to his own ears. Why it feels like there’s not really anything to tell.

But Isaac’s a good man, and Nico wants to do good by him. He definitely doesn’t want to hurt him just because of his own hangups. It’s not that it feels boring, he tells himself—and talks through with Arthur, at his March appointment—it’s that it feels safe. Nico isn’t about to run away from something just because it feels safe. He spent too many years doing that already.

“What about you?” he asks Will. “Are you seeing anyone?” Will shrugs and shakes his head.

“I haven’t really had the time,” he says. “Maybe once I’m out of school again.” That’s different from what Nico heard the last time he asked—admittedly, like a year and a half ago, but still. That makes it sound like Will isn’t as consciously on a break from dating anymore. Like he’s fully moved on.

From Eva. He moved on from Nico a long time ago. What he’s moved on from this time is med school, and Eva, and the version of himself he’d thought he was going to be until he wasn’t, Nico thinks—he knows how that part goes.

So he can be happy for Will. It seems like a good thing. Better for him, and whoever else he ends up finding. Will was made to be someone’s boyfriend. Someone’s husband, even. And Nico—

Well, Nico can keep trying.

After the fact, it occurs to Will that he could maybe stand to tell Nico about what’s been happening at work—that maybe he should. The hot coworker part, since they’re talking about their separate romantic lives now. And also, and maybe more critically, the new kid showing up who might be a demigod part.

The next time he sees Nico, Will does neither. He doesn’t want to talk about Noel, because there’s nothing to talk about, and the only thing to gain from bringing xem up would be trying to make Nico jealous back—which would be pathetic, and pointless, and just setting himself up for more pain when it doesn’t work. (It also seems unfair to Noel, who knows literally none of this at all and isn’t going to.) Will knows better, when he knows Nico’s happily dating and actively sleeping with someone else. He seems so casually content when he talks about it, and it tears at Will’s heart just like it did the last time this happened, but just like last time he swallows that down and tries to be happy for him.

He’s more surprised to find he doesn’t really want to talk about the new kid and the her-maybe-being-a-demigod situation. But he doesn’t. For one thing, Nico’s retired from demigod adventuring, as much as he can be—he’s been very deliberate about that. He has other things going on now, other worries to focus on. Will’s not trying to drag him back towards a part of his life he’s worked so hard to leave behind.

And even if it weren’t for that—Nico didn’t, Will reminds himself, have the version of a demigod childhood Will and most of their peers did. What Will fears he’s seeing play out again at school right now. He’s so comfortable in the world now that it’s surprisingly easy to forget, fifteen and some years on, that he’s not from this century (or the last decade of the last one, anyway), but Nico’s experience—Nico’s formative trauma—was so completely different from Will’s, or Lou’s, or Percy’s. A part of Will doesn’t want to bring up Ana because he just doesn’t think Nico will actually get it.

For another thing—Will doesn’t actually have any evidence that’s even what’s going on here. That part, though, it only takes him a couple days to figure out he can look into.

Will’s not sure he’s really supposed to look at his students’ administrative records, but—he has access to the same system Steve does, since he’s pretty much the teacher 3 out of 5 days a week, so it’s not like he’s doing anything he’s not technically permitted to. Right?

A bunch of kids in his classes have 504 plans. Ana Guerrero is one of them, and Will only has to glance at her documents, really, to get the exact picture he was afraid of: ADHD. Dyslexia. History of behavioral issues and conflict with other students, going back to early childhood. The only listed parent on any of her paperwork is her mom. It’s all right there: looking over this file, Will sees not only himself as a kid, but almost everyone he grew up with, almost everyone he loves.

Well, fuck.

It could be a coincidence, he tells himself. In Steve’s classroom, when Will sees her for second period every day he’s there, Ana just seems like a quiet kid who mostly keeps to herself. She doesn’t like group work, sure, and Will doesn’t think she’s really making friends, but she doesn’t cause any problems, and no one causes any for her—monstrous or otherwise. It sucks that she seems pretty isolated, but… that could just be because she’s the new kid, and it sounds like whatever happened at her last school had to be traumatic. Of course she’s taking a while to get comfortable here. It doesn’t mean she’s anything but a lonely, struggling, completely human kid. Will wants to believe it. But.

A month after Ana first arrived, sitting in the back of the room running down the attendance sheet on one of the now-rare days he’s just here to observe while Steve teaches, Will finds himself doing a double-take. There’s one more name than there had been, and when he thinks about it, he can’t match it to a face.

Until he looks for that face. By the process of elimination, Fred Ferngrove must be the tan-skinned, curly-haired kid in the beanie sitting in the back row next to Ana. And he must feel Will’s eyes on him, because he glances back over his shoulder and smiles awkwardly before he turns his eyes back to Steve at the front.

The whole thing gives Will a weird feeling, kind of like deja vu, because it’s like—his brain is telling him to recognize the kid—like he’s been here all year, even though Will knows he wasn’t here yesterday—it almost feels like—

Wait. Unannounced new kid? In a beanie? Who might have been here the whole time? With a last name like Ferngrove?

Will finishes the attendance sheet and excuses himself to the single-stall staff restroom, just to have a private place to sit and breathe through the panic attack. Once he’s had a couple minutes to sit on the floor and count the tiles on the wall, he swipes into his phone and hits one of the contacts in his favorites. It rings twice, then,

“Hey, what’s up?”

Will breathes out. “Hey, Rachel,” he says. “How are you?”

“I’m good, um—are you okay?” his friend asks. “Aren’t you at work out there?”

“Yeah, I’m—on a break, uh—hey, I’m not going to ask for specifics, I don’t want to blow up anyone’s spot or tempt the Fates,” Will says, “but—do you know if any searchers have come out to California recently?”

“Um—yeah,” says Rachel, “there are always searchers in California? It’s the most populous state. And there are all the hotbeds of mystical activity, so—”

“Right,” says Will, feeling a little silly when she puts it like that. “But, like—”

“But—yeah, I’m not sure of anyone specifically—would you like to talk to Chiron?” she asks. “Or Kevin Stonehoof, he’s managing the searchers these days. I’m actually at camp this week, so we could—” Will squeezes his eyes shut as a new wave of anxiety squeezes his chest.

“No,” he says, “that’s okay. I’m sure it’s fine. There’s just a new kid today who—it seems like the Mist really wants me to think he’s not new.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you that it’s a satyr or a demigod, and not a monster,” Rachel tells him.

“He doesn’t look like a monster,” Will says. “I don’t get that sense off him, either. Big satyr vibes. That’s why I wanted to know about searchers.”

“Okay,” Rachel says, “but, still. Check in tonight so I know you’re safe?” Will manages to smile.

“You wouldn’t know anyway?” He hears Rachel snort, then either the Pythia—or a really good impression of her—says,

“Doesn’t really work like that, kiddo.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Will’s heart pumps a warm, familiar feeling into his blood, yearning but also grounding. “If you see Dad, tell him I say hi.”

“That I’m sure he’d know without my interference, but of course I will,” Rachel says. “If you see your dad, tell him he owes me a macchiato. I was about to start drinking one when the last prophecy hit, and—well—”

“Oh, shit.”

“Enough said.”

“Yeah, say no more.” Will laughs. “Well, okay. Thanks. Talk to you later.”

“Any time. Love you byeee!” says Rachel, and the call beeps as it ends.

Will breathes out, feeling more grounded, and he heads back to the classroom with about half an hour left to sit through. Since he’s not teaching today he spends each period partly observing his mentor teacher, partly prepping his next few lesson plans, and partly taking notes for this month’s busy-work assignment for the final placement seminar of his Master’s program.

That all eats up the rest of his day, so by the time sixth period is getting out and things are wrapping up he’s not really even thinking about the Ana question or the new, additional Fred question anymore. Any adult concerns outside work and school aren’t on his mind at all. He debriefs with Steve, packs his stuff up, and starts walking out to his car.

He almost makes it to the parking lot.

“Hey, um—Mr. Solace?” The kid’s voice startles Will so bad he almost trips over his own feet on the curb cut. “Sorry!” says Fred Ferngrove. He’s standing in the shadow of the science outbuilding, kind of tucked in beneath the roof overhang. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was hoping to catch you earlier in the day, maybe at lunch, but there wasn’t time.”

For a moment Will just stares at this kid, who looks all of thirteen but is addressing him with the gravitas of a peer. “Uh—okay,” he says. “What’s up?” Fred glances back at the door to the nearest classroom just five feet away and says,

“Can we talk somewhere less in the open?”

“Um,” says Will. “I think right here is fine. Are you waiting for a parent or somebody to come pick you up?” Fred rolls his eyes—that, at least, reads very middle-schooler.

“Your first name’s Will, right?” he says, pitching his voice lower. “Will Solace? Or do I have the wrong Mr. Solace?” Will blinks.

“No, yeah, I’m Will Solace—”

“Okay, then, come on, Will,” says Fred, looking him pointedly in the eye as his voice lowers—like, half an octave, maybe. Not as much as Will thinks he thinks it does, but the point is taken: “You and I both know I don’t have a parent coming for me.”

Well. That’ll cut right through whatever amount of Mist had still been lingering. Will sighs.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, lowering his own voice too—in volume, not in timbre, because he doesn’t need to, because he’s actually an adult. “But I also know I’m a student teacher, and as far as admin knows you’re a normal human seventh-grade student who’s been here all year. So here’s what we’re going to do: I’m going to get in my car and drive to the In-N-Out on Park Street, and you’re going to walk there, and we’re not going to have this conversation near a school building with security cameras.” Fred frowns.

“Buy me animal fries,” he says, “and you’ve got a deal.” Will snorts.

“Okay, sure. I’ll buy you animal fries.”

When he does get in his car, he has to take a minute to rest his forehead on the steering wheel and groan before he can get going. The In-N-Out is a two-minute drive but a ten-minute walk, though, so he still gets there well ahead of Fred. By the time the young—almost definitely satyr, but technically they haven’t actually confirmed that, just said a bunch of cryptic stuff like they’re on some epic spy mission trying to exchange intel or something—anyway, by the time Fred gets there, Will’s sitting in a booth with animal-style fries waiting for him.

“Oh, hell yes.” Fred slides into the seat facing him. He grabs a big bite of fries and caramelized onions, shoves them in his mouth, then says, garbled around them, “okay, what do you want to know?” Will raises his eyebrows.

“I don’t know,” he says. “You wanted to talk to me, dude. What did you want to talk about?”

“Oh, right. I guess I started it, huh?” Fred sits up a little, not slouching so much, and turns to rummage in his backpack for something. He slides a laminated card across the table, something Will immediately recognizes even though he’s not sure he’s ever actually seen what one physically looks like before: a Searcher’s license. “Fred Ferngrove,” Fred says, extending his hand above the table. Will shakes it.

“Will Solace,” he says. “But it seems like you knew that already.” Fred grins triumphantly.

“I did know—I knew it had to be you! You probably wouldn’t remember me from camp,” he goes on: “We’re about the same age in mortal years, but I was a little kid then—you know, satyr.” Okay, there it is. “But I knew who all the counselors were. You helped me once when I had a scraped elbow. And you delivered Chuck Hedge. It’s an honor to formally meet you.”

“Um—nice to officially meet you, too.” Will forces himself not to instinctively squirm away from the kid’s awe. It’s not comfortable, but it’s also not doing him any harm. He also doesn’t remember Fred at all, and that part he feels shittier about, but he tells himself it’s fine—Fred clearly expected it, and doesn’t seem to mind. “What brings you out here?” he asks, which immediately sounds dumb—

“Searcher duties, of course,” says Fred. “I was—well, I thought I had sensed a demigod at this school, so I was following that trail. Then I got there and realized, whoa, two demigods! Your scent is a lot fainter,” he adds, “since you’re a grown-up and all. That’s why I didn’t catch it at first. But there’s a younger one, a powerful one, in one of your classes. I think it’s the period I got myself placed in.” He pauses—Will would have thought to breathe, with how fast he’s talking, but no, it’s to shove another handful of animal fries into his mouth.

“I may have some insight there,” Will admits—sort of against his better judgment, but if Fred had asked, it’s not like he would have pretended not to know anything. “The kid you were next to today, in the back? I—I shouldn’t get into detail, it’s her business and you’re more like her peer in this situation, not mine, but—I have my suspicions. She checks a lot of the boxes you tend to see with young demigods.” Fred nods very seriously.

“Single parent? Dyslexia?”

“Been in trouble a lot.” Will sighs. “Not at this school so far, thank the gods, but—well, I just hope we can keep it that way for her.” Fred’s nod gets even more serious, which Will wouldn’t have thought was possible.

“I hope so too,” he says. “I’m really glad you’re here.” And even though Fred is a kid—he’s a licensed Searcher, Will reminds himself. He’s lived twice as long as it looks like, about as long as Will has. And he’s a being of the immortal world, without even the one foot in the mortal one that demigods have, really, and he gets it on probably a deeper level than even Will does because of that. So—for the first time all day, Will really breathes out.

“I’m glad you’re here too,” he says. “It’s a relief to not have to be the only person who knows what I’m dealing with here.” Fred grins.

“That’s what I’m here for,” he says. “To help demigods.”

Nico gets out of classes mid-afternoon most days. If he’s slept in his own bed the night before, he might stick around on campus to do his reading and hang out with his friends. He has those now. He mostly avoids the youngest undergrads, the eighteen and nineteen-year-old legacy civilians and the handful of early discharge demigods, but Nico’s found a few friends among the plenus decem veterans—those who served their full ten years, and are now starting college in their twenties too—and grad students, beyond just Isaac.

Jasmine is a quiet, hardened daughter of Ceres who Nico thanks every god he wound up sitting next to in their first-semester mandatory rhetoric seminar. Luke is a legacy of Vulcan and Sancus who lost a leg to Terra Mater’s liquefaction as one of the younger legionnaires to fight at Camp Half-Blood (Jesus Christ, almost thirteen years ago now) and has thoroughly redeemed his given name for Nico. Yesenia is a daughter of Mercury who’s getting a Master’s in sociology with a concentration on death and funerary practices, but she refuses to ask Nico any questions about her research because she says that would be cheating.

It’s good. It’s nice having friends his own (physical) age, who haven’t also known Nico since he was an absolute nightmare of a teenager. Last semester he often felt like he was learning who he is now, who he wants to be, through meeting them. Through experiencing them meeting him. Now they know each other, and with each of them—and Jasmine and Luke together, his fellow undergrad study buddies—he feels increasingly solid.

Since he’s been sleeping over at Isaac’s once or twice a week, though, on those days Nico often finds himself having to flake on them. By the time classes wrap up, he’s too wiped and his brain is buzzing too loud for him to do anything but go straight home.

Today, when he gets home, he dumps his backpack on the underutilized IKEA couch in his insula and heads back downstairs instead. Frank is at work and the kids are probably with their older neighbor Donna who usually watches them during the day after preschool, but Hazel’s car was in the driveway when the bus pulled up to the stop across the street—and so was a car Nico’s 90% sure is Lavinia’s. He thinks he should at least say hi.

When he walks in through the kitchen side door and hears their voices, though, he pauses. It’s the tone more than anything. But then the words:

“—gods know I don’t want to leave him.” Hazel sounds so defeated. What the fuck? Has Nico missed something—or, like, everything? Then his sister chuckles darkly. “Maybe I need to go to grad school.”

“I think everyone I know who’s in grad school would say you do not need to go to grad school,” says Lavinia’s voice.

“Yeah, I know.” Hazel sighs. “I love my husband. I love my babies. I don’t really wanna run off on them. I just hate feeling stuck, like, maybe I rushed into this just cause it’s what I was supposed to do. Or like Frank and I settled, like he’s only here cause he doesn’t think he can do better.“

“I mean, if he did think that,” says Lavinia, “he’d be right, cause you’re literally the best.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Hazel sighs. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be scaring you off marriage, that’s like—the exact opposite of the vibe.”

“No, it’s good,” says Lavinia with her usual good cheer. “I should know what I’m getting into.”

“Get into it. It’s gonna be good for you. It’s not bad for me, gods know it’s better than the alternative, it’s just—”

“You’re restless,” says Lavinia. “Seven-year itch.”

“We haven’t even been married for five.”

“Yeah, but you’ve been together for like thirteen, fourteen years, so it averages out, right?”

“No?”

“Okay—”

Nico takes this moment to open and shut the door he just came through loudly this time, so they go silent as he kicks off his shoes and walks into the triclinium. He tries to school his face into something unaffected; his sister and his friend are sitting at the dining table surrounded by piles of rainbow-watercolor cardstock.

“Nico!” Lavinia jumps up, grinning in delight. “Hey! How are you doing, friend?” Nico accepts a hug and says,

“Not bad. What are you guys up to? Wedding prep?”

“Stuffing invitations,” Lavinia explains. “Want to help?” Hazel shoots her a doubtful look Nico catches but can’t totally parse. He can guess, though—he figures maybe it’s just that he’d barged in on what sounded like the middle of a fairly intense venting conversation, that his sister clearly doesn’t want to have with him.

Which is fine, basically. She probably doesn’t want him to worry about her—which he’s obviously now very much going to. But Nico’s been on the other side of this before, not telling Hazel a lot of things about his personal life because it would have been uncomfortable and he knew she’d just worry, so he can easily do her the favor of keeping what he heard, that he heard it, to himself. And of leaving them alone again.

“Oh, I’m not—” he starts to say, but then to his surprise Hazel says,

“Yeah, join us!” so Nico says,

“—Okay, sure.” And he sits down to stuff envelopes.

It’s more complicated than he would have thought it would be—each invitation includes a card, an RSVP insert, a pressed violet, and some dried lavender, which all have to be tied together with a little white cord before they’re gently slid into the packaging. Hazel and Frank’s wedding invites weren’t this elaborate. Hell, Annabeth’s rich mortal dad shelled out for a fancy resort in Marin as her and Percy’s wedding venue, and their invites weren’t like this. But then, Nico has never known a lesbian to do anything like this less than about 110%.

“You can just hold onto that if you want,” Lavinia tells him when he finds himself picking up an envelope with his own name and address on it, and points it out, mostly just trying to be funny. “Or, no, hang on—you shouldn’t be stuffing your own invitation. That just seems wrong. Let me trade you.” She grabs another envelope off her stack, and when Nico takes it he looks down to see… Will’s name and address.

He carefully avoids commenting on that one—just quietly slides the insert into the card, ties the cord, and slips the stems of the dried flowers under the knot. If his face gets a little warm when he licks the envelope to seal it, well…

He should text Isaac. He gets his phone out to do just that.

hey how was the rest of your day?

Dumb. Pathetic. Nico cringes at himself.

“You have a plus-one if you want it, by the way,” says Lavinia, out of like nowhere. “I mean, you don’t have to bring anyone, but just in case.” Nico frowns at her, confused.

“I’m not seeing anyone that seriously right now,” he says, “but—thanks?”

“That’s not what I’ve heard,” says Lavinia, at the same time Hazel says,

“What do you mean, that seriously?” giving Nico a very frightening, teasing look that’s the exact reason why he usually tries to avoid talking to his sister about boys. Men. Whatever. Fuck. “Oh? What have you heard?” she asks Lavinia, eyes alight with mischief. Lavinia’s grin matches.

“No names or anything,” she says, “can’t name ‘em, but my sources suggest—”

“Your sources?” Nico protests. “What sources?”

“—that you may have been seen around campus canoodling with a grad student twink.”

“He’s not—” Nico sighs. He can’t even argue with that, not really. “Yeah. I—okay.”

“But it’s not that serious?” says Hazel, turning back to him with terrible glee. “I guess that explains why your loving family hasn’t heard a peep, huh?”

“I’m not—it’s just—we’ve only been, like, kind of dating for a month,” Nico protests. “Ish. We’ve been on—I guess nine dates? Now?” Doing homework together and then sleeping over doesn’t really feel like it’s worthy of the label, but if this is how he’s counting he’s going to include the five times they’ve done that.

“Nine is a lot of dates!” Hazel exclaims, which is… fair.

“That’s three times the sex number of dates,” Lavinia agrees, “by straight people standards. Though by gay people standards, it’s kinda nine times the—”

“Lavinia,” Nico groans.

“Ew,” says Hazel, and points at Nico— “Um, big brother?” Nico’s not even offended. He’s just glad she said it so he didn’t have to.

“Okay, okay. Sorry.” Lavinia holds her hands up. “I know it’s not everyone’s thing, either. But Jay and I had sex on the first date, just saying.”

Well, Isaac and I didn’t, so there. Nico’s sense of self-preservation is far too strong to actually say that, though. He knows Lavinia’s response would probably be yeah, and what about the second date?, and then he’d have to say no comment in front of Hazel, and there’s no coming back from that. “Only after spending twelve straight hours together,” he points out instead.

“Excuse you, there was nothing straight about those twelve hours—”

“And now you’re getting married!” Hazel says, too-cheerfully steering the conversation back to the actual matter at hand by sheer force. “Do we get any more details about the party yet, or is it all a surprise?”

Lavinia laughs her off and changes the subject again—to the guest list this time, and whether anyone in particular will or won’t be able to make it, which isn’t totally off-topic either. Nico sits quietly, assembling invitations almost mechanically now and thinking about the idea of having a plus-one. Of bringing a date to a wedding. He hasn’t done that since he was seventeen.

But if he’s still dating Isaac by the time this wedding actually rolls around—right now it’s been a month, but by then they’ll have been together closer to five. By that point, probably he should plan to bring Isaac.

“What’s the deadline to RSVP to these, anyway?” he asks Lavinia, cutting awkwardly back into the discussion.

“End of April if you don’t wanna stress me out,” says Lavinia. “May 15th if ya nasty.” Nico nods.

“Okay. Thanks.” End of April—that’s only about six weeks away, but, he tells himself, that’s still plenty of time to see where this goes.

“Why?” Lavinia frowns. “Don’t tell me there’s a chance you’re not coming.”

“Oh, no, I’ll be there,” Nico assures her. “It was just about the plus-one thing.”

“So it might get serious, is what I’m hearing,” says Hazel, catching on immediately. Nico shrugs.

“I don’t know yet,” he says honestly. “It might.”

Between the three of them, they get through all the invitations. Nico hangs onto his; Hazel opts to leave her and Frank’s in the pile and let it get sent through the mail, saying there’s too big a risk she sets it down somewhere and forgets about it otherwise. It’s gotta go through the normal process.

Lavinia thanks them and kisses their cheeks profusely, then gets on her way. Nico trails behind Hazel up to the fauces door to see her out. Once it’s shut behind her, Hazel sighs—her shoulders droop—and she turns to face him.

“All right,” she says, “how much of my bitching did you hear?”

“Huh?” says Nico, who by this time had honestly kind of forgotten what he’d originally started to walk in on. Hazel cocks an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“You never make a noise coming in the house. You barely make noise moving anywhere. The only reason you’d slam a door and kick your shoes around was if you’d already been there and wanted me to hear you’re coming, to save us some awkwardness,” she says, because of course she knows that. Gods damn it. Nico loves having a sister. “So. What all did you hear?”

Nico sighs. “You’re unhappy?” he says, sort of a question, sort of not. “You and Frank are having trouble? You’re sick of the kids?” At that one she goes to emphatically shake her head—“No, I know. I’m not gonna panic about it, Hazel. But—what’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on.” Hazel sighs too. “We’re not having trouble. I’m just—” She crosses her arms, drawing in on herself, and casts a fierce gaze around the atrium of her own house. “The grass is looking greener outside New Rome again, y’know?”

Nico does know. Halfway through her degree, Hazel had transferred from NRU to Spelman College—she wanted to experience the mortal world and modern Black culture, she’d said. She’d come back to life and gone straight into the bubble of New Rome. She needed to know what was outside of it. So she and Frank had taken a break (they’d say now, though at the time it sure seemed like a full break-up as far as Nico could tell) and she’d moved to Georgia. She’d lived in the world for a year. She’d gone on a few dates that didn’t pan out, and made a few friends that did—one of them, Dominique, she’d gotten close enough with to let in on the big secret, and ultimately invite to her wedding.

“But I’m fine,” she says now. “I’m good.”

“You know—if you’re missing the modern world, I’m sure you guys could move out to the mortal Bay,” Nico points out. Hazel shrugs.

“Maybe. But we own this place. Anywhere out there, we’d have to rent, and it would be almost twice as expensive just to live—I’ve looked into it. And Frank’s work is all here. So.” She smiles a little sadly. “I don’t think I’m going anywhere. I just—miss Atlanta.”

Nico raises an eyebrow. For all the good Atlanta had done Hazel, she’d also been viciously homesick. She’d called Nico crying half a dozen times. He doesn’t know how many times she’d done the same with Frank, but something happened in the months she was gone that led to them getting back together over spring break. She’d finished out the year and transferred back to NRU, which had seemed like a huge relief at the time. So now, to hear her say she misses it—

“I know. I know!” She throws her hands up. “But sometimes—the seclusion, and the way the fuckin’ novacenti Senators talk to us, or God forbid the Americani—and the ones who aren’t actively racist still get all weird about us being heroes. I don’t want to live my whole adult life as a statue of a teenager.” (The statue of Jason that the Senate commissioned for the decennial a couple years ago had actually made Hazel even more upset than it made Nico.) “But then, out there…”

“Yeah.” She doesn’t have to elaborate. Nico knows. He’s lived in the mortal world far longer than just about any of his demigod peers, save for Piper.

He also knows it’s even more different and difficult for his sister. They’re both dislocated in time, but at least this time is better for him in literally every way possible. Like, if Nico had stayed in their original time somehow—he struggles to imagine a version of himself at this same age, in 1958 or so, who wouldn’t have already been long dead by his own hand, if not his uncle’s, or even his father’s. So inasmuch as he likes being alive, which these days is almost always, Nico will never be able to repay his father for giving him the ability to be alive now instead of dead then.

He’s pretty sure it’s better now than the ’50s would have been for Hazel, too, with all the advances of civil rights and feminism—like, he’d think surely it would have to be—but the older they get the more he’s not actually sure she really agrees. But being alive then was never truly an option for her. She already did die long before she could get there.

“Do you miss LA?” Hazel asks, head tilting to one side, regarding him thoughtfully. Nico shrugs.

“Sometimes,” he says. “I don’t miss the tourists or the Hollywood influencer grindset jerks. But I miss the food and the regular, interesting people.“ Perversely, he does miss the traffic sometimes—it was like white noise. It’s been harder to get to sleep in his apartment here without the constant hum. “And I miss the anonymity. But I don’t miss the mask.”

“Yeah.” Hazel sighs. “Do you think you’re gonna stay here?”

“I don’t know.” But the idea of staying in New Rome forever immediately makes Nico feel caged, so maybe he kind of does know, actually. “Probably not.” He crosses his arms, mirroring his sister’s posture, and looks her over. “You know, there are people who live out in the mortal cities and commute. My friend Yesenia lives in El Cerrito and just comes in a few hours a week for classes. You guys could live in Berkeley—it’d be an even shorter drive. Will did that in college.”

“Yeah, I know. But I’m not the one who’d have to make the commute,” says Hazel. “And Frank’s not the one who wants out. And, even if—there’s still the money.”

“You know I’d help with that if you’d let me,” Nico tells her, and,

“I don’t want your money,” says Hazel, just like he knew she would. “Or his money.”

It isn’t entirely a no, though. And it’s not the first time. It wouldn’t be the first time. It’s like pulling teeth, but she’s accepted money from Pluto, via Nico, before. He’s not sure what it’ll take this time—something tells him think of it as back child support he owes for you won’t work as well now that they’re twenty-seven (and she has her own children) as it did when they were eighteen.

They don’t reach any kind of solution or conclusion, because there isn’t an easy one. Nico just hugs his sister tight and, tired though he is, stays to be an extra set of hands for dinner. Emily talks his ear off about her different toys and their life stories. Eli, less verbose than his sister, is determined to mash his butternut macaroni into a thick yellow paste with his hands before he eats it, no matter how many times his parents try to redirect him. When Frank takes him to wash his hands after dinner, he has to be carried and screams bloody murder all the way. Nico bids Hazel good night and good luck and gets the hell out of there.

sorry sent that then got sucked into family dinner, he sends in response to Isaac’s cheerful reply to his earlier message. toddlers r a nightmare

Terrible twos?

3s now but yeah

Good thing they grow out of it, says Isaac. Or are you anti-kids in general? Nico frowns, not sure what to do with that.

i love my nece and nephew dont get me wrong, he says. theyre the best. just a LOT

Aw we love a guncle

lol, Nico sends. Then, a question that’s been percolating just behind his conscious mind for hours, he knows now: unrelated q but have u always lived in nova roma?

Kinda? says Isaac. I did the joint program at Cal and studied abroad in Old Roma but my permanent address was always here lol. Why?

jusr curious, Nico sends. i lived mostly in la for 8 yrs and ny for 4 yrs before that obvi so im always curious caus it seems like a lot of ppl here dont ever leave

Oh yeah lol, says Isaac. A lot of ppl do leave for a year or two but most of us come back. It’s hard tryna pretend to be normal out there. There’s no place like home 🌈

It’s not that Nico’s heart sinks, exactly. But something in it feels a little heavier. He can’t even properly appreciate the reference to Bianca’s favorite movie, one of his rare pre-1941 memories that’s fully intact. yeah makes sense, he says, and knows once and for all that even if he does fall in love with him—and he does think he’s starting to, or could—Isaac’s probably not going to be the one.

Chapter Text

Every time Will makes the drive up to New Rome, he finds himself thinking it’s way too much of a hassle to justify coming all the way up here every other Saturday afternoon. Too much traffic. Too much gasoline. Too easy to miss the Mist-obscured sharp turn off the back road on the far side of the Caldecott Tunnel and have to keep driving half a mile around the hill before there’s a safe place to turn around and double back. By the time he’s halfway through his therapy session, though, every single time, he finds himself glad he made the effort.

Ian isn’t Rebecca. Not just in the obvious ways—he’s about twenty years younger, and a man (straight but not narrow, as far as Will can tell, though he’s never really gotten into it, so who knows)—but he’s also much less interested in directing their sessions. More inclined to let Will just kind of ramble and flail until he’s forced to think through things on his own. Less that sounds like a problem and more okay, and?

In some ways, sometimes, he almost reminds Will of Mr. D—which is extra weird, because he’s not even descended from Bacchus. It makes Will wonder what Nico’s therapist is like, now, because gods know as much as Mr. D tried (and Will’s never been sure how much that really was, given it’s Mr. D, but he does think he made a serious, genuine effort), his style didn’t exactly work out for Nico. Not in the end, at that time, in that place.

Ian’s style has worked pretty well for Will, though. He’s always been good at intellectualizing his problems, for better and worse—Ian just pushes him a step further and forces him to confront the ways they’re still problems. Just because he’s aware of them, aware he’s living with them and getting by, doesn’t mean they don’t affect him. Don’t still hurt him. So Will isn’t really surprised to end up in a place where he finds himself saying,

“Like, I don’t think I’m supposed to do anything about it. I want to, like—but I don’t even know how I’d intervene. What would I do, try to stop her from ending up at camp?”

“I don’t know,” says Ian, his tone as usual almost infuriatingly light and curious. “Would you?”

“No,” Will says. “No. Of course not. I want her to go to camp. She’ll be safer there.”

“But?” Ian prompts. Will groans.

“But,” he says, “it kind of sucks to sit by and watch a kid get prepped to be sent into the same, like—I don’t know. Crucible? That I grew up in. I survived, but not everyone did. But—on the other hand—like, I know it’s not the same as it was when I was their age. We fought the wars. They won’t have to. It’s just gonna be the normal danger level, which is just, like—a pretty good chance of making it through her teens, as long as she steers clear of monsters as much as possible. So it’s fine. She’s almost thirteen, so she’s gotta get claimed this summer. It’s just a waiting game now. But even that—” He leans forward, resting his face in his hands. “I fucking hate sitting on my hands like this. But there’s nothing I can do.”

“Isn’t there?”

“I don’t know!” Will shakes his head. “What would I even do?” he asks again. “Pull her aside and be like, surprise, random kid who probably barely gives a shit who I am, your absent dad is actually a god just like mine? No, I don’t know which one. They suck like that sometimes. Sorry? And once she knows—then she’s just a bigger monster target. So—no.” He sinks his fingers into his hair. “I don’t know what else to do except just help Fred keep an eye on her, and then at the end of the year he’ll take her to camp.”

He isn’t completely sure how—surely it can’t really just be demigod smell, right?—but Fred did confirm that Ana’s the kid he’s looking for. A demigod, he thinks of a similar divinity to Will’s. Of course, Will has no idea—neither of them does—if that means she’s just also a demigod, or also a child of an Olympian, or also a grandchild of Zeus, specifically, or what. He knows she’s not a child of Apollo, because he’s always recognized his own siblings when he looks for them. But at least it’s something confirmed. Even if that something was kind of all his worst anxieties.

“Great,” says Ian. “So?”

“So… it’s all good, I guess.” Will shrugs.

“Is it?” Ian asks. God damn it.

“I don’t know! No. I don’t feel good about it. I hate—I hate the idea of her going to camp.” That actually kind of startles Will even as it comes out of his own mouth. “I don’t want her to go to camp,” he says, repeating, sort of testing the words to see if they feel real. And, motherfucker—they do.

“Why?” Ian asks. “Was it a bad experience for you?”

“No, I loved camp, it’s just—” Will sighs. “I don’t know. I did love it, when I was a kid. I loved it there. It was my home for almost ten years of my life. But—the only reason I was able to, like, feel good there, was that I literally didn’t get how much stress I was under until I wasn’t anymore.” Ian nods. “Kids now—I want her to just get to be normal. I want her to have a regular life. And I know that’s literally not possible, any more than it was for me. But it sucks so bad to just have to, like—stand by and watch.”

“It’s admirable to want to do better for her than the adults in your life did for you,” says Ian, the rare observation that isn’t a question. Except, isn’t it, though?

“The adults in my life did the best they could have done for me in those circumstances,” Will says, not even to remind himself anymore. Just to get it out there.

“So what are you doing?” Ian asks. There it is.

“… The best I can, given the circumstances,” Will grumbles. Ian hums thoughtfully.

“There are a lot of adults in New Rome who served in the Legion,” he says. “There are a lot of them who had awesome experiences, loved it, and—as far as I can tell—see it as an unalloyed good. They get excited when new demigods arrive every year. They encourage legacy kids who seem like they’re up to the challenge to go out for training with Lupa. Some of them are in positions very similar to yours, just… on this side of the Pomerian Line.”

Will sits with that statement for a couple moments, unsure exactly how he feels about it. “Yeah,” he finally says. “I mean—I loved camp. When I was in it. When we weren’t at war. I had some awesome experiences there. I learned a lot about leadership, and independence, and survival, and—I mean—teaching, honestly. It’s cause of camp that I have skills, like, to work with people and take care of kids and handle emergencies. And I met most of my best friends, and two romantic relationships—the two exes I’m still in touch with—and a whole family I wouldn’t have known I had otherwise. I probably should want another kid to get to have that kind of experience now, it’s just—yeah. I know it’s just my own trauma getting in the way.”

“Sure,” says Ian. “But… is that only a bad thing?”

“No?” says Will. “I don’t know. I guess… it’s good I’m not just… all in on camp, either. Because it was scary, and dangerous, and a lot more responsibility than I was maybe ready for. And a lot of kids died,” he adds. Ian nods.

“Yep,” he says. “And a lot of kids died.”

“You don’t like the New Roman adults who are completely pro-Legion,” Will realizes. Ian shrugs.

“This isn’t about my beliefs,” he says. “For what it’s worth—they’re never the ones I see sitting in that chair. But I don’t think that’s because they’re totally fine, either.”

“Mm.” Will nods. “Yeah. That makes sense.”

“And,” Ian adds— “for whatever else it’s worth, I also have no shortage of patients I work with who never served in the Legion at all. Who did just have, quote-unquote, ‘normal’ childhoods.”

“Yeah.” Will sighs. “Yeah. Fair.”

“So you’re doing the best you can, given the circumstances, for this young demigod in your class,” Ian says kindly, and it does actually feel better now that they’ve talked through the rest of that. “What are you doing for yourself?”

Will sighs. Gods damn it.

“Laundry,” he says. “Cooking. Taking the trash out. Dishes, I guess. I talked to my mom this week. I talked to Lou. I didn’t offer to let them stay with me while they’re recovering, which would be stupid, anyway, cause they’ll really need to be up here.”

He’d offered to help Nico move when it came to it, last summer, because they were friends and Will liked helping people and Nico didn’t drive and he couldn’t exactly shadow-travel all of his furniture from Los Angeles to New Rome. But he’d also been kind of relieved when Nico had immediately turned him down—Leo was already lined up to drive most of the way, and Malcolm to help once they reached Mountain View.

Will had still gone up to help unload, because he wanted to, and he wasn’t going to miss a chance to hang out with Annabeth and Percy and their kid. But he hadn’t gotten himself stuck in the cab of a U-Haul alone with Nico for six hours. That seems like entirely the better outcome.

Not just because of Nico and him and everything. It’s a bigger thing he’s been talking with Ian about since then—not jumping at every chance to help someone with something that presents itself, or, hell, that he can create. Not offering before he’s even asked, and saying no sometimes when he is.

Ian nods approvingly. “What about dating?”

And then there’s that. If he’s honest, Will’s been less figuring himself out than just putting off having to put himself out there again for a while now. He does want to have a partner, in the long run. Of, like, his life, in general. He’s been citing work and school as a reason not to bother, but the truth is he’s only really working three days a week, and he’s probably never going to be less busy than he is right now.

As for his options, well. Connor has made very clear they’re not going back there. So has Nico—Will’s pretty sure, most of the time—and he’s dating someone else anyway. All of the other queer people and more than half the straight women in his program seem to already be partnered. Noel wasn’t an option in the first place, because Will decided so—and now he knows xe definitely isn’t, after xe mentioned a partner for the first time in a nervous, repressed-excited way that gave major puppy love. That was a stark, stomach-dropping reminder that Will doesn’t actually know xem that well outside of work, anyway—and he hasn’t met basically anyone outside of work or school.

So, apps it is. Will knows from experience they don’t not work, at least for him. “I actually, um—had a date yesterday,” he admits.

“Hey!” Ian exclaims, lighting up in pleasant surprise. “That’s huge! Congratulations!” Will rolls his eyes—

“It was just a coffee date with someone from Hinge. It’s not a big deal.”

It kind of is a big deal. Not counting anything that’s happened with Nico or Connor in the last two and a half years, this was Will’s first date in over three. His first first date in almost four.

Her name is Kasey. She’s mortal. She’s 26 and a social work grad student, nerdy and cute and also bi, but Will’s trying not to even think about who she is on paper and whether that should, by all rights, be absolutely perfect for him. He doesn’t want to get ahead of himself.

They got coffee. They talked about their programs and their jobs and their favorite movies. She was a little awkward. He’s sure he was too. She was a little chubbier and a lot hotter than he’d been expecting from her app profile, and she’d kept having to brush her thick swoop of bangs back from her face, the longest part of her wavy brown pixie cut, and his fingers had itched to reach out and do it himself. He’d wanted to—well. One of the prompts on her profile said she’s demisexual, so he was trying extra hard not to project any, like, expectations, so he kind of kept it to, just… he wanted to kiss her.

He didn’t do that either. He wasn’t entirely sure if she felt it too, but it was more that there just wasn’t quite a moment to ask.

Will thinks he’d probably like to see her again. To see if it goes anywhere. He thinks it probably has potential. But—he also thinks he wouldn’t be heartbroken if she’s not on the same page. It was just a first date. There are probably like a million people out there who could be cute, and funny, and perfect for Will on paper.

“So what’s your plan from here?” Ian asks. “What are your next steps?”

“I don’t know,” says Will. “It’s dating, not a shareholder meeting.”

“Will you see her again?”

“Maybe. I was gonna message her to ask after this.”

“Yeah, it sounds like you should.”

They wrap up therapy. Will walks out of the building where Ian has his office—a five-story insula, the ground floor all tabernae, the top two still serving their original purpose, Ian and some other professionals tucked in between. It faces the western edge of Plaza Pompona, a public square much smaller than the Forum—but still pretty large by modern standards—named for the goddess whose Domus stands at the other side. Mosaics depicting fruits and leaves surround a central fountain with a statue that has always, for better and worse, reminded Will of the one in front of the Plaza Hotel. At least this one has never thrown metal fruit at his head.

Since it’s Saturday, there’s a small farmer’s market set up around the plaza. Will should have brought reusable shopping bags, but he always forgets—they’re still in his car, street-parked at the west edge of the Forum like ten blocks away. He’s not walking all the way there and back. Oh well—he’ll just have to bite the extra charge for a paper bag. He starts across the plaza to the kiosk to pick one up, and—

He double-takes, on the verge of shaming his heart for jumping just at the sight of a short, black-haired man in a black jacket. Then he cycles through another roller coaster of emotions in pretty quick succession as he processes: no, his peripheral vision was right—that is Nico. Nico buying strawberries. Nico buying strawberries and laughing. Nico laughing with a man Will’s never seen before, but who he’s immediately 99% sure is the guy he’s been dating.

He’s not a very tall guy (taller than Nico, but that’s not saying a lot), and he’s skinny, brown-haired and pale, a little bit scruffy, in big round glasses and a t-shirt for a band Will doesn’t recognize. He’s really cute, Will thinks, in a kind of dorky way he’s actually a little surprised Nico’s into—Will would’ve had this guy pegged as more of his own type.

Korrasami that bitch! says Austin’s voice in his head, which is stupid and Will ignores it. He wants Nico to be happy. And gods, Nico does look happy.

Nico looks happy, that is, until he turns, makes eye contact with Will, and blanches. He quickly turns away again like he can pretend not to have seen him—

And honestly, Will could let it go. That would be fine. He’d give him shit about it by text, later. But Nico’s reaction was equally obvious to his companion, who gives him a look of confusion and says something, then looks around and—also catches sight of Will, who’s definitely been just standing here staring at them. Oops.

The guy clearly doesn’t recognize him, which makes sense. But he jostles Nico gently, affectionately, and asks a question, and Nico softens and mutters something, and his guy grabs his hand and gently, affectionately starts tugging him towards Will. Will can’t read lips, usually, but he can tell he’s saying something like, aw, come on, let’s say hi.

“Hey!” Will says as they approach. “Fancy running into you here.” Nico gives him a wary look. “Is this the fella I’ve heard so much about?” Fella? Who the fuck is he?

“This is Isaac,” says Nico, which isn’t a direct answer, but it is an answer. “Isaac, this is Will.” Isaac, for himself, looks thrilled.

“Aw, you told your ex about me?” Oh, thank the gods—Will doesn’t have to worry about that part of it coming out.

“I’ve told my friends about you,” Nico corrects. “Just like I’ve told you about my friends.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” says Isaac, reaching out to shake Will’s hand. His is almost as cold as Nico’s are, but unlike Nico’s it’s kind of clammy, which isn’t Will’s favorite. He’s sure his palms are a little sweaty too, though, so he can’t complain. “I’ve heard about you, too. All good things!” he adds quickly. “You’re getting your Master’s in teaching, right?”

“Yeah, at UC Santa Cruz.” Will shoves his hands in his pockets, for lack of anything better to do with them. “You’re getting your Master’s in history up here?”

“On track to a Ph.D., yeah,” says Isaac. “Teaching’s the part I’m least psyched about, so, the more power to you!” Before Will can ask about his research, since that must be his actual priority,

“What are you doing up here?” Nico asks, awkwardly brusque. Will shrugs.

“Therapy.”

“Oh, we love a man who’s in therapy.” Isaac nudges Nico fondly. Will laughs.

“Yeah, it’s kinda necessary. All things considered.”

“Yeah. All things.” Nico rolls his lips between his teeth and drops his eyes to the ground—shit. Will didn’t mean him. Will didn’t mean him at all, but he also doesn’t want to get into that right now and make it weird in front of Isaac. There’s no way that wouldn’t be weird.

“Well,” he says instead, “I figured, since I’m up here I thought I’d see about getting some produce. I miss Roman carrots,” he adds, mostly for Isaac’s benefit.

“They are better than mortal carrots!” Isaac agrees. “I think everything they grow out on the villae rusticae is better. We came to pick up some strawberries while they’re still in season.” He hefts his own market bag—off-white string, very traditional.

“Eh, I’m sure they’re all right,” Will jokes. “No Delphi Farms.” Isaac looks confused—

“That’s Camp Half-Blood’s cover story,” Nico explains with a fond little half-smile. “Organic strawberry farming.”

”Oh, okay, I get it.” Isaac laughs a little awkwardly.

“There, strawberries are always in season,” Will adds. “But we didn’t have carrots. So. I’d better go find those, and, um—let you guys get back to your cute farmer’s market date. Good to meet you, Isaac.”

“You too!” says Isaac, perking back up. Will gives Nico a parting smile and a wave, and—Nico meets his eyes and returns the smile with one that’s grim in a way Will can’t quite read.

“See you around,” he says.

Will finds himself back at his car without even processing the walk, and he doesn’t remember to message Kasey until the next day.

“Will seems cool,” says Isaac, taking Nico’s hand again as they walk away like it’s as natural as anything. It does actually feel like it.

Nico’s reflex is to say he is not cool—that man is a massive dork, but he keeps that one restrained. Instead he squeezes Isaac’s hand and says, “yeah, he’s a great guy.” He pauses and leans over, into Isaac’s space, until Isaac gets the cue and reaches over for the kiss he’s offering.

“What?” he says, smiling, teasing—but with his eyes narrowed a little, inches from Nico’s, searching. Nico shrugs.

“I like you.”

He thinks he sees Isaac’s brow furrow for half a second, but then he’s not so sure. Isaac tips his head forward to knock his forehead gently against Nico’s and nuzzle into his temple. It feels uncomfortably sweet for just how public a display this affection is, but Nico only has to bear it a couple seconds before Isaac pulls back with a quick peck to Nico’s cheek.

“I like you too.” He squeezes back. They keep walking, and as far as Nico can tell the ground still looks like it’s totally firm under Isaac’s feet.

His own aren’t so sure.

Lou Blackstone hasn’t missed New Rome. They always felt a little too out of place there, a little too out of step—and it wasn’t just the Greek thing. Maybe they’re too much a child of the modern world. The outside world. The world of magic bigger than any one pantheon. Though they can’t pinpoint exactly why, gods know the years away, of not living there anymore, don’t make them feel less alienated when they do return.

They text Will when the plane hits the tarmac in San Jose, not that they expect to hear back for a few hours yet. I better not catch you texting in class though, they add. Set a good example for the children! Then they text Hazel, since she and Frank are generously letting them stay with them for most of the time they’ll be in town. Then they text Nico.

sweet omw, he says.

See you soon! says Lou, and puts their phone in their pocket to focus on deplaning and finding their way the fuck out of here.

“I feel kinda useless,” Nico admits once they’re reunited, settling into the passenger seat of their almost-disconcertingly clean rental car. “Isn’t picking your friends up from the airport supposed to mean you’re the one driving them?”

“We can just say you came to meet me and call it good.” Lou puts the car in gear and pulls out of the parking lot. “I still appreciate it.”

“Of course,” says Nico, softening. He smiles, not as wide as when he first caught sight of them at baggage claim, but still distractingly—not least because as his mouth moves the light catches on his silver snake bites, new since the last time Lou saw him face-to-face. “It’s good to see you.”

Lou can’t not smile back. “It’s good to see you, too.”

More than it should be. Not because of the many years they spent mad at him—it’s been long enough that it’s not surprising anymore, it being good to see him—but the way it is now is kind of obnoxious, actually. What has been a surprise (and an unwelcome one), in the last year, since they’ve been friends again and, separately, Lou started their low dose of T and made the decision that led them back out here, has been the little voice in the back of their brain that occasionally pops out to be like, what if I get masc enough that Nico would—

No. It’s not a thought worth entertaining. Lou isn’t about to throw a grenade in the middle of two of their own friendships at once by throwing themself at their old frenemy who is also their best friend’s ex. Who is a gay man who probably still sees them as—okay, they’ll give him the credit to believe Nico doesn’t secretly still see them as a woman, per se, but they kind of suspect he’d still see them as, like—outside of his sexual orientation. And they also don’t need to risk getting into that and feeling shitty because of it. They are still mostly into women themself, in a way that still feels extremely sapphic. They’ve just also recognized, increasingly, that when they like guys it’s in a pretty gay way too.

But it’s not like they’d actually want to be with Nico. Not when they really think about it. That’s another reason to ignore it. Whatever this is, it’s as much gender envy as a crush, probably—more like they just want to be him, in the reverse of the way where as a younger queer they confused wanting to kiss pretty girls with wanting to look like them and be their friend.

Not that they’d want to literally be Nico, either, though, not least because he has, in their opinion, embarrassingly mediocre taste in men. It’s just that Nico falls squarely in the middle of what their own taste in men has always been. But maybe that was some gender envy, too—it wasn’t like those relationships were ever particularly functional. Lou wasn’t actually the soft domme big-titty goth girlfriend a lot of those guys wanted them to be, in the end, so. Who the fuck knows.

Soon they won’t be a big-titty anything at all. It’s the one thing that could draw them back to New Rome: top surgery at a cost and recovery time less than half what it would be in the mortal world. Technically they’re getting a radical reduction, but it should end up the same difference as far as what they want their body to look like. They’ll go under in a little under 48 hours, then they’ll be staying in what they’ve heard used to basically be Nico’s bedroom at his sister and brother-in-law’s house for a week, while their friends hang out and help them with recovery until they fly home again.

“Are we not going up to Hazel’s?” Nico asks, glancing over in confusion as Lou’s map directions start directing them towards the southbound freeway, instead of north.

“Nah, not yet,” Lou says, “if it’s all right with you—” Which it will be, or else they wouldn’t be just deciding, but also it had better be, because he’s trapped in their car now, so if not, too bad— “I think since we’re this far south and it’s only 1:30, we should go surprise Will at work first. That way we won’t have to double back twice.”

They keep their eyes on the road, but do glance at Nico’s face in the side mirror—his eyes widen minutely, but he keeps his expression normal. Maybe too normal.

“Oh,” he says. “Are you—sure he’ll be okay with that?”

“I think so,” says Lou. “We should be getting there around the end of the school day, anyway.”

“Right.” Nico shrugs. “Okay. I’m on board.”

They let him control the aux, as long as he promises not to subject them to any former Disney starlets or Taylor Swift. (“Ew—who would do that?” “A surprising number of lesbians,” Lou says, long-suffering, “and Will.”) They maybe should have also ruled out slutty hyperpop, they realize within about ten minutes, but at least it’s annoying in a fresh and different way. And has, in the words of one of their own few tolerable overlaps with Will’s music taste, a fucking beat.

Everyone’s sexual orientations aside—they’ve been back in touch for two years now, but Real Adult Nico in person hasn’t stopped being a pleasant surprise when they get to see him. He’s settled into a kind of queer as in fuck you energy in a way he hadn’t quite yet when they were younger, when he was vacillating back and forth between visibly trying to mask his gayness behind a hardened badass thing, or else playing it up in a way that came off a little forced, like he felt like he had to try extra hard to prove he was comfortable with himself. Now, the edges are still there, but the space they protect seems more centered. Softer, more gentle. This is a Nico Lou remembers from the rare times they saw him so happy and present and secure he forgot to front, but now Nico is himself pretty much all the time. And they love it for him.

“So, am I gonna get to meet your boyfriend?” they ask, just to get him to groan and slump in his seat. Talk about a Nico Lou remembers from when they were kids.

“I told you, he’s not my boyfriend,” he says. “We’re not—labeling anything right now. Yet. I don’t know. We haven’t defined the relationship yet.”

“Really?” Lou raises their eyebrows. “How long has it been now?”

“I’ve only been seeing him for eight weeks. Two months Tuesday. That’s not that long. I don’t know.” He sighs. “My last relationship I think we hit boyfriend-label official like—well, okay. Two months into dating, but we’d known each other and been hanging out and hooking up on and off for like—seven.”

“Yeah. I mean, every relationship’s different, I guess. And I can’t really give you any shit,” Lou admits— “I’m back with an ex. Again.” They’re going to have to tell Will on this trip—they don’t think they can get around it. They might as well run a dress rehearsal on Nico first. He won’t give them nearly as much grief.

“Wait, which one?” Nico frowns. “Jade? I mean, that’s just, like—” been how things go with her, it’s true, but.

“No—” Lou sighs. “His name’s Jack, and, um—you remember the cafe by my old house?” Now Nico sits bolt upright.

“Wait, hot cocoa twink?”

“Hot—what?”

“That guy from the cafe? With gauges? He sold me and Will hot cocoa and then Will said actually we hated him because he’d ghosted you?”

“Oh, shit,” says Lou. “Fuck. I didn’t realize he was working when you guys went there—you met him? Will never told me.” Nico shrugs. “Anyway, yeah. That guy.” Nico nods, looking way too pleased with himself.

“Okay,” he says. “Well. How’s that going?”

“Fine.” Lou shrugs. “Better than before.” It’s not like they were seeing Jack for long, a couple years ago—they’ve already more than tripled the length of that fling. It feels worth calling more than that, this time. He’s on different meds and fewer recreational drugs and long since out of the messy, under-negotiated polycule he was dating then, and actually working a job with benefits in his preferred field now. They’re at the same boring desk job, still practicing with the same coven, but not bouncing between situationships to avoid thinking about their own dysphoria and long-term desires. (Nor are they dealing with a best friend and roommate in a rock-bottom depressive episode who barely left the house, assuming he even made it out of bed.)

Jack likes himself better. Lou knows themself better. They’ve been treating each other more like adults. The sex feels less like pegging and more like fucking, and that contrast doesn’t work as literally the other way around, of course, but it’s the same in all dimensions. It’s better. It’s been good.

It’s not serious enough for him to have come with them for this, but it is serious enough that they let him in on the full story of why they’re doing this the way they are. Showed him some magic. He didn’t freak out. He’s also been completely chill and supportive about them planning to chop their tits off in general, which is the bare minimum, but also something they were genuinely nervous about how it would go while dating a cis person, bi or not. He’s passed that very basic don’t-be-shitty test with flying colors so far.

“That’s good, then,” says Nico. “I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks.” Still waiting for some other shoe to drop, Lou looks at him a second too long, maybe, because he raises his eyebrows and says,

“What?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Lou sighs. “Will’s gonna give me shit about it, that’s all. I wasn’t sure if you would.”

“If you’re having a good time, then good for you,” Nico says firmly. “I don’t have a single leg to stand on when it comes to judging other people’s relationship choices.” Lou snorts.

“Yeah, well. Neither does Will, when it comes to sleeping with your exes, but that doesn’t stop him.”

“—You mean because of me?” Nico laughs after a moment, a little uncertain, and Lou realizes they may just have stepped in it just a smidge, if he doesn’t know about Will and Connor and their whole benefits situation. Possibly now-former, last they heard. “I mean, we didn’t even have sex the once, but I guess that’s still fair.”

“No, not you,” they say, choosing their words carefully. “Not—just you, anyway.”

“Oh.” Nico goes quiet for a moment. “Okay. I—huh. Well. Again—I wouldn’t really have a leg to stand on there, either.”

The drive feels more awkward for a while after that, as they lapse into silence behind the screeching synths and grinding trap beats from whatever fuckass playlist Nico’s got on shuffle. Fortunately, it’s not too much farther before they get down the other side of the hills between San Jose and Santa Cruz.

“Are you gonna need me to navigate?” Nico asks. Lou shrugs.

“Do you know where Will’s school is?”

“I have no idea,” says Nico. “I think I know the name of it.”

“I have it too, somewhere. If you can find it, please.”

“All right.” So, Nico pulls out his phone and—rather than turn on the GPS, actually zooms in on the map and gives them directions himself.

When they finally pull into a visitor spot in the middle school parking lot, it looks like school isn’t quite out yet. There are some kids in what‘s probably PE gear running around in a soccer field, and only a few other cars parked. Lou spots Will’s white sedan in one of the staff spaces, badly in need of a run through a car wash.

“Thanks for reading the map, Grandpa,” they say as they turn off the ignition. Nico flips them off.

They agree it’ll probably be less disruptive if they wait to go find Will until school actually gets out. That’s a weird and awkward twenty minutes of sitting in the car, two random twentysomethings dawdling in a middle school parking lot where they have no real reason to be, albeit less terrible for Nico being there. At least they’re in this together. Finally a shrill bell rings, the kids on the field run inside, and then about five minutes later another bell rings and a whole lot more children start streaming out of the building. A lot more cars have pulled up in the time they’ve been waiting, along with three school buses in the bus loop across a concrete verge.

Lou looks at Nico. Nico looks at Lou. They both nod, and together they climb out of the car and brave the fray.

One immediate problem, Lou quickly realizes, is that neither of them has actually been in a mortal middle school even once since either of them was, like, eleven. They don’t know why they were expecting to just sort of be able to walk in and start searching the halls until they found Will’s classroom—no, there’s a reception desk and a whole-ass cop just in the front door.

The receptionist is on the phone when they enter, but she smiles and holds up a finger. Lou nods and grabs Nico’s arm so he doesn’t try to walk right past the cop in singular-focused oblivion. Then they quickly drop his arm again, lest anyone mistake them for a heterosexual couple. Or something. Nico continues to appear oblivious, which is good.

“Hi!” the receptionist—Ms. Kim, according to her desk nameplate—says once she’s hung up. “Can I help you? You folks here for pickup?”

“No, we’re actually looking for Will Solace,” says Lou. “He’s a student teacher here?”

“Oh, big blondie!” Ms. Kim grins. Nico poorly stifles a laugh. “Just a sec. I’ll page Steve.”

Who’s Steve? Lou mouths at Nico when she turns her back to dial something on the phone.

No idea, Nico mouths back. Then he whispers, “Big Blondie,” and collapses into silent giggles. Lou bites their lips to keep from totally losing it, too.

“HI, MR. GUTIERREZ,” says Ms. Kim’s voice over the intercom, “CAN MR. SOLACE COME TO THE FRONT OFFICE, PLEASE?” Mr. Solace, Lou mouths. Nico laughs harder. When Ms. Kim turns around, she doesn’t comment—just raises her eyebrows.

“We’ve known Will since we were in middle school,” Lou feels compelled to explain. Ms. Kim just nods.

Fortunately, it only takes about a minute for Will to appear, jogging around a corner into the short front hallway and stopping short at the sight of them. More than just his face—though not literally—his whole being lights up.

“Holy—crap!” he says, clearly catching himself. “Lou! And—Nico? You made it! And you’re here! Oh my gosh!”

Now Lou can’t not crack up, too—they haven’t heard Will’s peppy, self-censoring camp counselor voice in almost ten years, but of course it’s his teacher voice now. Of course. He crosses the hall in a few long steps to wrap them up in a tight hug. Then, even funnier, Lou watches him and Nico very awkwardly not hug, just sort of clap each other on their shoulders like they’re… bros. Now that’s just bizarre.

“I need to grab my stuff,” Will’s saying, “if y’all wanna see the classroom. And meet Steve!” He glances at Ms. Kim—“Do they need passes or anything, Maya?” She shrugs.

“School’s out, pal. Do whatever you want.” Will just laughs at that and beckons for Lou and Nico to follow him. They do.

This school doesn’t look much like the schools Lou’s seen in movies, though they suppose those were mostly high schools. There aren’t rows of shiny lockers under fluorescent lights. Instead the main hallway has a long wall of classroom doors and bulletin boards on one side, and mid-height windows onto a central courtyard along the other. Will leads them around a corner into a hall with classrooms on either side, then to the second door on the right. He pauses for a second to glance back at Lou and Nico.

“Please be normal?” Then he opens the door and says, “I’m back!”

“What did they want up front?” the friendly-faced older guy in the classroom asks. This must be Steve Gutierrez, Will’s mentor teacher. Lou’s immediate impression is that he looks like Latino Columbo. Minus the trenchcoat. That probably wouldn’t fly in a school nowadays. “Oh—hello!” He catches sight of Lou and Nico, or maybe just processes their presence. “Welcome! Are you guys friends of Will’s?”

“You could say that,” says Nico, apparently defaulting to his usual weird, unnecessary crypticism. Lou grins and gives him a conspicuous thumbs-up.

“Nice! Super normal!” they stage-whisper. Will closes his eyes, inhales through his nose, and tips his face skyward for a second.

“Steve, this is Lou and Nico,” he says. “Some of my oldest and dearest friends in the world. Lou and Nico, this is Steve, my mentor teacher who I respect very much and really want to think I’m a normal, well-adjusted adult—”

“Normal and well-adjusted?” says Steve. “Aw, come on, Will, why would you want to be that? I thought you wanted me to think you were cool.” He winks at Lou. Will laughs.

“All right, got me there.” He heads to the back of the classroom and starts loading very official work-looking stuff—file folders, notebooks, laptop—into a gray backpack that he must have bought since he moved here, because Lou doesn’t recognize it. They linger awkwardly near the front with Nico.

“So, Lou, is it?” says Steve. He extends a hand to be shaken, then turns and offers the same to Nico. “Great to meet you guys.”

“It’s very nice to meet you,” Nico says politely. “I’ve heard all wonderful things. Will thinks the world of you.”

“Nico, shut up,” Will says from the back of the classroom, “I told you not to embarrass me.” He’s clearly mostly kidding; Steve laughs. So does Lou. Nico just gives Will a slightly-evil grin, and Lou’s eyes don’t miss how Will suddenly looks like he doesn’t know what to do with his own face at all.

They know that look. Oh. Well.

“I heard you were coming to visit,” Steve’s saying to Lou. “Will’s been looking forward to it. How was your flight?”

“Oh, it was fine.” Lou shrugs. “Flying’s never my favorite, but I’m glad I can fly on airplanes at all. This guy can’t.” They nod at Nico. He shoots them a very dirty look. Fair.

“Motion sickness?” Steve says knowingly. “Or fear of heights?”

“Yeah,” says Nico. “Uh. Those.”

“Claustrophobia,” Lou puts in. Nico’s face softens in relief—that one’s actually true, they know, even if it’s not the real reason he doesn’t fly.

“Yeah. That too.”

“So, how’s our little Will doing in school?” Lou asks as the man himself comes back up to the front, shouldering his backpack. “Is he causing any problems? Being disruptive? Starting food fights in the cafeteria?”

“Jesus Christ,” Will mutters, shaking his head.

“He’s a great teacher,” says Steve. “I’m sure you can imagine. The kids love him.”

“Of course they do,” says Nico, who has a half-sad little half-smile—like he is imagining. “He’s always been great with kids.”

“Oh, really?” Now Steve glances between the three of them, then looks at Nico like he’s reevaluating something. Lou bets they know what it is.

“We were camp counselors together in high school,” Will explains quickly. “That’s how we all know each other. From summer camp.”

“Oh! Wow,” says Steve, finally turning the smile back on Will. “I knew you’d worked for camps before, but I didn’t realize you’d been working in the field for that long. That makes a lot of sense.”

“You should see him apply his first-aid training,” Nico deadpans. “He can really work magic.”

“Okay,” Will says as everyone else cracks up for slightly different reasons, “that’s enough out of you. Come on. Steve, have a great weekend!”

They head down the hall—what Will indicates is a back way out to the parking lot. Once they’re out of sight of anyone else, he slings his arm around Lou’s shoulders and pulls them in to kiss their cheek. Lou hugs him back. Nico strolls along beside them, hands in his jacket pockets. It feels so weird—same configuration of bodies as any given day ten years ago, but their places switched.

Not because they don’t love their best friend, Lou ducks out from under his arm and wraps theirs around Nico instead as they get to the doors. He wrinkles his nose, but doesn’t shove them off before they let him go of their own accord.

“I can’t believe y’all did this,” says Will, a little giddy. “I mean, I’m not complaining—but isn’t this the opposite direction from where you need to be?”

“I wanted to see you first,” says Lou. “Can’t speak for Nico, but he was kinda along for the ride. Locked in.”

“Literally,” says Nico. “Locked inside their rental car.”

“Well—” Will shoulders open a big metal side door, then whatever he was going to say gets forgotten in, “Oh, Jesus Christ, Fred! Sorry!”

“That’s okay,” says the kid who just fell to the ground in front of them—Lou thinks because he was startled and lost his balance, not because they walked into him, so, good. Okay. “I—whoa. Will—uh, Mr. Solace, are they—?”

He’s staring up at Lou and Nico, not at Will, jaws agape. Lou looks back at him, blinks, and double-takes—

Because the Mist is visibly rippling around him, and they know that pattern of wild-magic wards and glamours like the back of their hand, even if they haven’t seen it in a few years. That’s a kid, all right, but not the human kind. As he clambers up to his feet, he clatters, too, on the pavement—filtered through the Mist, it’s kind of like Lou has noise-cancelling headphones on, but yeah. There it is. Cloven hooves.

“This is Fred Ferngrove,” Will says, clearly for Lou and Nico’s benefit. “He’s—well, right now he’s technically a student here. Fred, these are my friends, Lou and Nico.”

“Holy crap!” says Fred. Nico looks at Lou, completely bewildered. They snort and lean in to whisper in his ear,

“Satyr.”

“Oh.” Nico frowns deeper, though. “Will, what—?”

“You—you’re Nico di Angelo!” Fred exclaims. Nico sighs.

“In the flesh.”

“I remember you! I thought you were so cool!”

“Thanks.” Nico shoots the death glare Will’s way this time, and it does absolutely nothing to wipe away the shit-eating grin it’s his turn to give back. Some things really never change, Lou thinks.

“He’s all right,” they say, and hold out their hand. Fred shakes it. “Hi. Fred? I’m Lou. Child of Hecate. You a searcher?” Fred nods, posture stiffening with a very juvenile but very real kind of officiousness. He produces a laminated Searcher’s license and holds it up.

“At your service.”

“So—yeah.” Will adjusts his backpack on his shoulders and turns inward, so they’re all standing in a little huddle. “Fred is a satyr. He’s our age, so he was little when we were at camp, but—now he’s a searcher, and he’s here looking for demigods.”

Lou snorts. “Well, shit,” they say. “Guess he found one.” Will rolls his eyes.

“Two, actually,” Fred pipes up, all conspiratorial teenage enthusiasm. Nico’s head whips toward Will so fast that Lou, standing between them, almost jumps. Will smiles nervously, and maybe a little guiltily.

“Really,” says Nico. “Hang on—so there’s, what, a kid here, like, a student? How long have you known?” Will holds up his hands in placating surrender, and Nico stands down. Sort of. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“A while, but—at first I wasn’t sure,” Will says. “Then—well, now Fred’s here to handle it. That’s his job. I’ve just been helping keep an eye on her.”

“Okay, but—” Nico frowns. “Have they been claimed? I guess we may not know, if you’re here—” He glances at Fred.

“Probably no,” says Fred. “We’re pretty sure she doesn’t know, but we don’t really know if she knows. That’s actually—the reason I wanted to talk to you, Will,” he adds, “was I—well, I’ve been trying to get close to her. But she doesn’t want to seem to talk to me. Or anyone. Except maybe Nevaeh Santos, but—I think they think I’m too weird,” he finishes, with a little pout that’s the first time he’s actually come off as the middle-schooler he sort of is, since they’ve all been standing here. They’d never thought much of it when they were a kid, but as an adult the whole satyr aging deal is a little uncanny.

“... Okay,” says Will, shifting back towards teacher mode, “I’m… sorry, bud. I don’t think I have the power to make you popular, though.” Nico snorts. Fortunately, Fred cracks a smile too.

“Obviously not,” he says in a tone that’s very middle-schooler.

“Hey!” Will laughs.

“But you do have the power to put us on a group project together. Right?”

Will raises his eyebrows—for a moment he looks like a deer in the headlights. Then he grimaces and says,

“Uh—maybe? I guess I can—yeah. Okay. I’ll check in with Steve about lesson plans and—see if that’s gonna be possible. Won’t happen in this unit, though.”

“That’s okay,” says Fred. “Just—as soon as you can. Okay? I’m getting nervous about how close we are to summer.” Will softens a little.

“You’ve got time, dude,” he says. “It’s only April, and you don’t have to be best friends to be able to help her when it comes to it. I’ll back you up however I can. Don’t stress too much.”

They part ways with Fred and head out to the parking lot. Will lingers alongside Lou and Nico, looking uncertain now.

“Are y’all just headed right up to the hills now?” he asks. “Or do we have time to hang out a while?”

“I have time to hang out,” says Lou. Nico shrugs and nods. “Can we come visit Odie?” Will grins.

“Of course you can come see Odie. It’s gonna be the best day of his life.”

It’s about a fifteen-minute drive from the school to Will’s apartment. They walk up the steps a pace behind Will, Nico behind them, and as he opens the door they’re greeted by Odie already on the mat just inside, pacing a pattern that quickly turns into weaving between all of their legs, meowing in loud delight.

Lou drops into a squat to scritch him. He gives them a good sniff; accepts the attention dutifully; and then ducks out from under their hand to get to Nico.

Well. That hurts a little. Lou gets it, though—he used to live with them, but that was two years ago. He’s probably seen Nico a lot more often than he’s seen them in the intervening time. If nothing else, that’s clear from the way Nico settles right in without the slightest hint of discomfort at being in Will’s space anymore, unlacing his boots and plopping down on the couch to create a lap for Odie to climb into like he’s done it many times. Like he knows he’s always welcome here. Like he is.

That part isn’t remarkable. That Odie adores him isn’t either, not really—Odie made that call weirdly fast, when he and Nico first met, and Lou’s never been able to explain it, but they accept it as fact. But how at home Nico looks here—and the way he gets quieter, looks a little sadder when Will’s out of the room, and…

Will is a welcoming host. A good friend. A warm, sweet, loving soul. And Lou has almost never seen him look at anyone with as much tenderness as the way they catch him looking at Nico and Odie when the former can’t see him.

Well. Fuck.

“Does your boyfriend know about Will?” Lou can’t not ask as soon as they’re alone in the car again, hitting the 17 on the way up to New Rome. Nico frowns at them.

“Not my boyfriend,” he repeats. “And—yeah, he knows, like… the ex thing. That we dated as teenagers, I was an asshole, we didn’t talk for a long time, but now we’re friends again. They’ve met, actually—not for long, but we ran into each other a couple weeks ago. It was chill. It’s fine.”

“Oh,” says Lou, who honestly hadn’t been expecting the answer to be yes to that degree. “Well—good.”

“I don’t keep it from people I date,” Nico elaborates. “I don’t want them to get, like—to feel betrayed, if I didn’t tell them and then they found out later.”

“… Right,” says Lou. “And so—does he know about the—whole thing with the goddess?”

Nico clams up, and doesn’t that just say it all. After about a solid minute of loud, awkward silence, he sighs.

“No,” he says. “That part I—I haven’t told him. I don’t think it—”

“Like, he knows you’re exes,” Lou interrupts, “but does he know you’ve, like—hooked up since then? That’s all I’m saying.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Nico says, startling them with how harsh his voice goes, how immediately. “It’s not—I don’t tell my partners about everyone I’ve hooked up with. The last thing I want is to get stuck comparing body counts all night.” (And that’s just the sex one, Lou does not say.) “And it’s not—I try not to count it different from anything else, because compared to most of them? It wasn’t even anything. It was stupid and nothing actually happened. Nothing’s going to happen, because we’re not—” He shakes his head. “So it doesn’t matter.”

“Okay,” Lou says after a moment, just waiting to make sure he’s done. “Sorry.”

“You’re fine.” Nico slumps in his seat. “I’m sorry for snapping at you.”

“Nah, you’re good,” Lou returns. “I was prying. I didn’t need to be.” Nico shrugs.

Lou doesn’t say what they really meant, which was more along the lines of, does your boyfriend know that Will’s back in love with you? Because based on what Nico just said, clearly he hasn’t clocked that (which, gods and goddesses, of course he hasn’t)—and they’re not about to blow up Will’s spot. They just keep driving north, past the beginnings of a glorious sunset, letting Nico DJ his loud, loud playlist, until they hit the Caldecott Tunnel.

At least, they think as their stomach drops at the sight of the two children guarding the security door in the verge, now they’ll have something else to worry about—to take their mind off of this part.