Solangelo Microfics

Day 3 of @solangelomicrofics ‘s Microfic blog for May

trigger warnings: generally angsty centered basically around Nico’s trauma and ostracism. Ends fluffy

Day 3–Woods. Words: 860. Est reading time: 3 1/2 mins

-.-All animals fear Nico. They all love Will. Will helps Nico interact with the animals in the woods-.-

“C’mon! It’s fine!”

Will was sitting cross legged with his back to a tree—bird on his shoulder, squirrel in his lap, butterfly in his hair. Nico’s heart ached to see it. 

And he was standing awkwardly almost eight feet away, mentally begging Will not to beckon him closer again. 

“I’ll scare them.” Nico deadpanned. Beneath the nonchalance he was almost hoping, wishing it would work out. Or to leave. 

His hands fidgeted with his zipper anxiously and Will could see it he knew. How desperately he wished Will hadn’t learned his tells. 

Will scooted so there was a portion of the tree open. “It’s alright. Look, she’s calm.” Will strokes the squirrels cheek, their eyes lulled drowsily. Even the bird was calm, but kept a wary eye on Nico. Like one would a lion in a cage. 

Nico took only two steps forward before the bird wailed, taking off in flight about the treetop. He’d been so careful. He’d gone slow, he made his feet gentle. Yet they were still scared. 

Tears welled in Nico’s eyes and he plopped down right there, still too far away for any good.

But at least he couldn’t do any bad either. 

“Hey, it’s okay.” Will shifted forward, butterfly still perched in his curls. He raised a finger and scooped it up with gentleness, extending his hand. “Here, try to hold them.” Will smiled. “It’s a blue one—they’re pretty.”

Nico shook his head. “Last time I tried to touch one when I was little I almost killed it. I- I don’t wanna. Again.”

Will smiled sadly. “It’s okay. It was a rough time… maybe it’s different?”

“No!” Nico felt his panic flair. “I-I’m older and my powers are much stronger.”

“But you also have more control.”

A beat of silence. 

“It will be okay. This one’s calm.”

Nico could feel the little bubble of anxiety creeping up the front of his throat. He’d been working on naming emotions—this was dread. Anxiety. Fear. 

But in the bubble was a little bead of hope that he’d fostered over the past few months of dating Will and living at Camp full time. Something he’d worked hard to achieve, to shove through every negative emotion that overtook his being and plant it in the middle. 

Nico took a deep and sobering breath, inching forward just a bit to open his hand. Will placed the thing on his knuckles, letting it settle before taking his own presence away. 

The little insect fluttered its wings but stayed, settling down with its wings in a relaxed position. 

Nico sniffed slightly, turning his head (slowly, without moving his hand even a millimeter) to hide the tears forming. 

The silence as Will kept petting the little fuzzy ball in his lap made Nico feel like he was going to bawl more. So he started talking. 

“I’ve never held an animal like this before.” Nico said. “Every animal I’ve ever touched is a monster—literally—or something of the underworld. Even the bugs and birds don’t like me. I’ve been able to touch some of the cows but it takes bribes and they’re uncomfortable. I-I don’t know why.”

He blinked rapidly, gaze flickering back to the butterfly. It wasn’t going to disappear if he didn’t look at it for a second. Or maybe it would. 

“I love animals. I want to pet them and love them and-and just protect them and keep them safe. B-but they just. Don’t. Like me.” He used his free hand to wipe the bridge of his nose where he felt a tear try to escape. 

“Well look, this one does.” Will was a lot closer when Nico looked back, squirrel still firmly in his lap and butterfly perched on his finger.

Will took the butterfly back and placed it on his hair, coming even closer.

He kept petting the little brown squirrel. “It’s okay. I can get… an idea of what she’s feeling. She’s okay with it. You can pet her.”

Nico’s hand was trembling, literally. The trees loomed over him and the clouds mocked his fear, the grass and insects sang about his dread. But.

He plugged his ears. He closed his eyes. He sewed his lips and eyes shut and the only sense he left open was touch. 

Touch, touch—the squirrel. He really was.

He opened his eyes and saw that it was there. It stayed. It let him touch it, and it was so soft—fine hair, gentle skin, tiny features. 

He withdrew his hand for only long enough to wipe his falling tears again and went back to petting the thing, in awe that it let him. He truly could not believe it, that something as pure and instinctual as an animal was finally letting him be in its presence.

He suddenly hugged Will, butterfly flittering a ways away at the jostle. He couldn’t care. The squirrel was still there.

Nico mumbled into Will’s shoulder a quiet “Thank you”, emotions overwhelming him.

Will used a hand to tuck Nico’s head further into his neck, a protective casing. “Anything.”

Day 2 of @solangelomicrofics's Microfic blog for May trigger warnings: description of injury, medical inaccuracy, minor language

Day 2–Hospital. Words: 863. Est reading time: 3 mins

-.-Mortal!au Nico goes to the hospital because he sliced off a finger and took ‘leftover medical marijuana from last time’ so really he’s ok just needs a few stitches(-never said by any doctor ever—especially Will Solace!)-.-

“Will! Get your ass out here!” The receptionist yelled into the back room Will was steeping coffee in. Intended to be drank black, of course. Extra espresso. Four shots. 

“Yep?” He pokes his head out, hair a mess from the hairband it had been pulled in. 

“This guys bleeding all over the tile, come get him.”

“Oh—um?” His eyes flashed concern and then into professionalism as he walked around to enter the waiting room. Just one guy was waiting. 

True to her call, a boy with black hair was holding his hand with a hodge-podge stack of gauze pressing to the middle of the fingers. 

“Hello, sir, come to the back here with me please.”

“It ain’t that big of a deal, just need a few stitches.”

“Okay, uh, what did you do?”

“Chopped my finger. Goddamn, it’s my middle one too, how can I throw the bird now? It’s my dominant hand.”

It had been a long day. Will laughed so hard he slammed into a wall. 

“HAHAH— oh my— pfft— so sorry sir— HA!” He sobered his face with every piece of concentration he had to direct the boy, maybe his age actually, to a room he could tend to him. 

He had to be professional. Will Solace, fix yourself. 

He was worried though that he said “chopped”. Totally? Will had to check—the gauze was so thick that he couldn’t tell yet. 

“I’m Doctor Solace and will be tending to you, we’re shortstaffed on nurses for about an hour til Miss Stacy will be here so I should be the one stickin’ with you. May I look at the injury?”

The shorter boy sat on the bed and nodded, just pulling off the gauze to expose—oh. The entire finger is gone. 

Met with bone, Will just had to smile. Smile or scream was his motto. “Okay, well. Looks like a clean cut, I will… okay, let me—“ He found some things in the cabinet and began pressure wrapping it. 

The boy seemed none bothered by this. Just boredly watching Will work. How high was this kid? 

“Okay, I’m wrapping it to stop the bleeding and we’ll start procedures to close this up asap. Probably ER. Lucky for you, I am going to be your secondary ER doc! You’ll probably have Apollo being your head surgeon.”

“M’kay. Can I have ops?”

“Opioids? Probably. I was actually just about to start those to localize pain management. How are you feeling?”

“Hurts a bit but not bad.” The boy shrugged. 

“Okay, well—“ An easy patient, then? “Your name? Anything I need to know immediately? It sounds like your file was just dropped by the door, I’ll look in a sec.”

“Nico. Di Angelo.” He said. “It’s not bad because I had medical cannabis. Chopped my toe a few months ago.”

“Oh my.” Will said with no shock, finishing the wrap. As promised, he grabbed the file to read through while he talked. “Good to know, let me write that.” He scribbled a half inteligible note in.

He held up a finger in a universal one-moment gesture and held up his pager. “Paging Doctor Solace, Apollo. Needed in Emergency Operating Room Two within ten minutes.”

He turned back to Nico, sitting—laying—on the bed now. “Okay! Follow me. X-rays.”

Nico hopped up and followed Will. “Is this professional?”

Will shrugged. “Mostly. I’ve been awake for 19 hours now, twice in a row! We’re gonna getchu all fine ‘n dandy ‘n I can get on home.”

Nico chuckled. “I feel you. See these eye bags?”

Will nodded. “Yep. Purple and probably matching mine.”

“Yep.”

Will placed Nico’s hand where it needed to be and pressed the X-ray button to receive the image on the screen. Pretty good cut, just a bit of bone sculpting needed—he informed Nico as much. 

“Let’s flush that out and get to the OR.”

***

Nico had cannabis and opioids and felt a-okay. He was talking to Will again post-op. 

“Feel great. Thanks.” He nodded to Will, who was actively drinking his coffee at last. Nico asked for some and he said he couldn’t have any yet. Nico put on his famous pouty face and almost won. 

“Quit with ‘em Disney princess eyes, hon. Won’t work.”

“That’s a bit gay.” Nico said. 

“You look gay.”

“Cause I am.”

“Same.”

“I feel like this goes against some sorta doctor-patient rule or something.”

“Oh, it does. But I’m clocked out.”

“Is that-?”

“Shh. Let it happen.” Will patted Nico’s cheeks, eyes drooping with sleep. His part of the operation—stitches—and all went well so Will’s brain decided it was okay to clock out too. “See ya round, Neeks.”

“That’s not my-“

“Shhh.”

Will shut the door. 

***

note that this is NOT medically accurate, especially the end. procedures leading to op are rooted in medical practice but in a fictionalized, stylized manner. don’t take anything from this as medical advice til you do your own research. thx <3

Day 1 of @solangelomicrofics ‘s Microfic blog for May

trigger warnings: canon typical mentions of past violence, non-graphic

Day 1–Notebook. Words: 703. Est reading time: 3 mins

-.- Will got Nico a notebook to use as a journal but didn’t know that Nico didn’t know how to write in English, so Nico uses it as a sketchbook -.-

Nico sat on Will’s bunk in Cabin 7, pencil in hand. He never considered himself a ‘good’ artist, but he didn’t think he was bad either. Intermediate, he believed was the word. He enjoyed the way images in his head came to life beneath his fingers—from something intangible to something he could hold. 

Will was plucking at strings on a harp, eyes closed to let the music flow. He was not as skilled as his siblings in music, especially not the harp, but he said it helped him feel connected to his Apollon divinity in times of stress. 

This notebook he had in his hands had been gifted to him by none other than the Will he was semi-ogling. It was black—“You can put stickers on it, see?” Will had said when he gifted it to him, stamping a large skeleton sticker on the middle—and spiral bound, Nico’s preference. How Will knew that in the first place, he didn’t know, but now every book he’s given to use is spiral bound. 

It was meant to be used as a diary, Will said. For anything he needed to get out of his system. 

Sounds great. Real trauma-helpful. 

The issue? 

Nico didn’t know how to write. 

Reading, he could… figure it out. Maybe. 

But writing any bigger-than-three-letter word? He’d have better luck crossing Tartarus again. 

It was a long, long game of sounding out painstakingly each and every word, then guessing Is that a c or a k? How do I write a q again? How many n’s in running? 

So, kindly—screw that. He’d rather just draw. Less stressful, which is the point of journaling in the first place, no? 

He was drawing a dracaena, one he remembered from during the Titan War when he was little. She tried seducing him to get him go come closer from his little cave he was hiding in, but upon realizing he had no interest, she just attacked. 

Nico shudders remembering it, when he was so little and grief ridden… six years ago, now. He still has the chunk taken out of the top of his ear to remember it. 

“Oh—hi.” Nico looked down to see Will flopping down on the top bunk with him. 

“Wanna talk about it?” Will asked, purposefully not peering at the book in Nico’s hands. 

“About what?”

“Whatever you’re writing.”

Nico’s cheeks burned. He hadn’t told anyone he couldn’t read or write. He just always made Will read the menus at restaurants because “It would take me too long to decide myself.” Not wrong, not the truth. Lying by omission, perhaps?

“Um.” Nico traced the side of his nail along the metal spine. “I…” He tilted the book so Will could see it didn’t have any words. “Cant… write.” He spat out quickly, “Or read.”

Will’s silence didn’t last long, but the sounds that followed weren’t what Nico expected. It was laughter. 

“Excuse me?” Nico couldn’t help but have the corners of his lips tilt up too.

Will was giggling now, a hand over his mouth. “That explains so much!”

Nico swatted Will’s blond curls, tugging a piece and rolling away to face the wall. 

Will quickly tilted Nico’s head back and pressed about a hundred thousand kisses on his face quickly. “No, no, no, I’m not laughing at you baby. I just noticed that you don’t usually read things or you struggle with instructions sometimes unless someone explains them.”

Nico huffed, sticking his tongue out. Will booped it. Ew. 

Will snickered. “Hon, I could’ve taught you.”

Nico rolled his eyes. “I’m dyslexic.”

“I am too. But I took lessons and can read really well now.”

Nico held the notebook to his face. “But I’m so dyslexic. I barely even can read Italian, I was literally held back in school. Do you know how crazy that is in catholic private school?”

“Okay, okay—it’s worth a try though, right?”

Stupid Will and his stupid optimism and his stupid smile and his stupid way to make Nico feel optimistic too…

Me when I know that Solangelo microfics are starting in five days!!!