How Icarus Fell From the Sun (a Solangelo fanfic)

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"Nico," Will finally said, at half past 8, after almost 7 hours on the lake. "We really should be getting back soon."

Nico nodded, as well as one can nod while lying on their back in the sand. He almost had the mind to complain about how terrible it would be to get it all out of his hair, but he'd do it all again and then some, just to get to sit and talk and stargaze with Will for hours on end again.

It was nearly autumn, so the sun had gone down two hours before, and the two boys were laying on their backs, Will faced towards the water, Nico faced towards the woods, their heads connecting as the midpoint of their joint body, their hands together, arms spread out on the sand in front of them, almost creating a star with their bodies. They had been stargazing- if you could call it that, considering the sun had been down for only two hours and they were in New York- ever since Will had noticed the sun begin to set, but they had also been talking.

The spoke about random little things, not always pertaining to sexuality or relationships, but often reflecting back on it.

Will told Nico about his experience with the Aphrodite cabin, specifically Drew Tanaka and her- ineffective- charm speak.

He told Nico about the first time she had tried to use it on him, in the infirmary after the battle of the labyrinth. She wanted to use him for Aphrodite's Rite of Passage, the tradition of making a camper fall in love with them and breaking their heart, but for some reason, Will wasn't affected by her charm speak. He was in the middle of dressing a particularly nasty wound, in the middle of trying to distract himself from the campers he wasn't able to save, that he didn't even realize she was attempting to use charm speak until she had repeated herself three times, and he had to ask her to leave, lest the demigod in from of him bleed out.

He didn't understand it at the time, and Drew merely stomped away, but his older brother, Micheal, the brand new counselor in the wake of Lee's death only that day, had taken time out of his hectic night to sit Will down, and ask him how he felt. It was then that Will first entertained the prospect that he might not like women, at least not in the way he was conditioned too, in church, at school, at camp. He cried, and Micheal held him, carefully, and told him he had time to think, the answer didn't need to come immediately. He told him that no matter what, he, and the rest of his siblings loved him.

"Nothing's going to change the fact that you're our best and favorite healer, blondie." He recounted him saying fondly, with a ruffle of his hair and a pat on his leg.

He was the only one who had known, and, like Lee, he had died. Only this time, it was Will who was forced to pick up in the chaos, promoted to camp counselor in the middle of a war, distracting himself from his grief with the dozens of wounded that were laid in from of him on Olympus. Then, when the war was over, and there were no more injuries that needed to be tended to, it was just Will, Austin, Kayla, their sister Briar, their brother Marcus. Every other one of their siblings had passed either during the battle or of injuries after. And Will had had nothing to do to distract himself from the fact that he could've saved them. He could have, he knew it. But it was too late, and all he could do was protect the ones he had left with his life, if he had to. His voice broke as he spoke to Nico, and Nico could feel his heart break along with it.

In return, Nico described his most recent memory of his mother, in more detail than before. He told Will of the way that his mama had never skipped grace before a meal, even in the deepest parts of the depression when he was a small boy, or on the brink of war.

He described the feeling he had gotten in his stomach watching the two men glance around, as if, somehow, his subconscious knew what was happening. He went into detail about the way the feeling had exploded when they'd kissed, even if only for the briefest of moments, and how he'd had to cool down the feeling so he could listen to his mother reprimand him and his sister, warn them.