How Will Solace Became the Center of Nico's Universe

A Halloween Night Gives Nico a Fright

Turns out it was hard to not admire or be attracted to William Andrew Solace. Very hard.

Things started to change, once again, another week later, or Halloween.

Nico decided that he didn't really understand the point of the holiday, so he didn't dress up.

Well, that's what he wanted to do and planned on doing until Will stopped by his cabin the day before Halloween to make sure Nico had a costume. Of course he didn't, so Will got him one he found in the Big House. It was, to Nico's chagrin, a skeleton costume. Also, it was barely even qualified to be called one. The 'costume' was black clothes with fake bones taped or painted on, depending on where it was on the body. There wasn't even a mask or anything to cover his face to go with.

Nico thought it was odd that they celebrate Halloween, but when he asked Will, he just responded, "It's fun for the younger campers to get candy and the older ones, us, have a party after the trick-or-treating. We also do some Christmas traditions like gift-giving and decorating with a tree and lights." Will's eyes sparkled when he talked.

The smaller demigod learned that Mr.D and Chiron turned a blind eye to the party because they wanted the campers to feel like normal teens when they could. If he was being honest, Nico was not looking forward to the party since he never did well with socializing.

On Halloween, the older campers had to give out candy, chocolate and all different kinds of treats to the smaller ones. The counsellors for each cabin would be giving them out, but if the campers wanted to help or hang out with another cabin's counsellor, they could.

For Demeter it was Miranda Gardiner, Ares it was Sherman Yang and Ellis Wakefield, Athena was Malcolm Pace, Apollo was, of course, Will and, surprisingly, Cecil, Hephaestus was Nyssa Barrera, Valentina Diaz was doing it for Aphrodite, Hermes was Connor Stoll, Butch Walker was doing Iris cabin, Hypnos was supposed to be Clovis if he could wake up in time, Nemesis was Damien White, Laurel and Holly Victor were both doing Nike, Hebe was Paolo Montes, Chiara Benevenuti was doing Tyche's and Hecate was Lou Ellen.

Earlier that week, a group of them went out and bought what Nico had thought was enough to last a month. They purchased so many kinds, some for kids with allergies or food restrictions, some for variety between cabins, some of their favourite kinds for themselves or for the party.

Around 7:00, campers started trick-or-treating. Nico was decked out in his Halloween costume. All the demigods who wanted to go, went. A surprising amount of people came to Cabin 13 for candy, but he guessed that is what happens after being at camp for months and getting close with some of the others.

Nico was disappointed when he didn't see Will at all, though he didn't know why he was expecting to. Maybe he just got used to Will always being near to his person. But he knew Will would not come and get him after everyone was done with trick-or-treating, because he was doing the same thing Nico was, answering the door, handing out candies.

When the younger campers went around to every cabin and received a respectable amount of treats, everyone made their way to the Big House to watch movies. As predicted, Will came around with Cecil wearing a cowboy outfit. A freaking cowboy costume.

"Wow, Solace," Nico deadpanned.

"You like the costume, hon?" Will asked with an added extra twang that was usually only detectable in his voice when he was emotional.

Nico just sighed in answer.

"Okay, now that you two did that, let's go?"

Did what, Nico wasn't sure, but he followed the son of Hermes anyway.