#bailci

heroes of olympus ships: →    solangelo: nico di angelo + will solace

74. Boarding School AU

I am so glad you asked this one because boarding school AUs are my fav!

Nico had been attending boarding school ever since their mother and older sister died. His father had always been distant because of his job and he just didn’t have time for children. His stepmother didn’t particularly want to know him. It was a good school though and he got to go home during the holidays, if he could call his fathers mansion a home. 

Will never wanted to go to boarding school, he hated it. His mother had said it would do him good, help him get into medical school. He didn’t see why he had to board, he guessed it was because his dad had sent his mum enough money to allow her to send him away, get him out of her hair. He wasn’t gonna lie and say he was the perfect child, he had caused enough trouble and worry for his mum with his ADHD impulses and his need to always and constantly be outside in the sun - and yes that meant at 6am too, but he didn’t think he’d been that bad. Maybe she just needed a break, whatever. Maybe it was her new boyfriend that didn’t like him, not many of her boyfriends ever liked Will. He was wild, she’d tell them as he ran past screaming. It wasn’t his fault he was an energetic kid. She said maybe boarding school could put that energy to rest, use it in better ways like on a track team or something. Will wasn’t convinced. He didn’t want to be stuck in some old building with a curfew and set meal times and other horrible kids. 

When he got there it was just as bad as he had built it up to be. He was twelve and nearly at the bottom of the pecking order. The youngest kids were ten and the oldest were nearly eighteen. Staring into the busy dining hall at lunchtime on his first day Will wanted to cry. He wanted his mum and his dog and his TV and his games and his swing set that sat in the middle of the back garden. He didn’t want any of this all boys boarding school crap. At least he got his own room.

When school finished on the first day the guy that had been showing him round all day, the head boy, took him to his room. It was down a long brightly lit corridor that was harsh on the eyes and inside was a single bed, a desk and a chest of drawers. Simplistic. Will was in room 108. He sat down on his bed defeatedly. His cases were already there. He didn’t want this. 

He realised he’d forgotten to close his door when someone knocked on it and peered his head round the door. It was a kid about his age, black hair, dark circles under his eyes. ‘Hi.’ He said. ‘I’m across the hall, Nico di Angelo.’ He said. 

Will nodded. ‘Will Solace.’ He said. 

‘Nice to meet you Will.’ Nico replied, and he smiled. He was the first person that had taken time out to introduce themselves to Will apart from the people that had been told to show him around. Damn, some of them hadn’t even introduced themselves properly, they’d just gotten on with the chore.  ‘You probably haven’t made any friends yet so you can sit with me for dinner if you like.’ Nico said expectantly. ‘I don’t usually do this but, you look sad.’ He continued. 

‘I don’t really want to be here.’ Will said with a half hearted smile.

‘Neither do I.’ Nico said sadly. 

So when it was time for dinner Will found Nico and sat with him and for every meal after that. 

Turned out that Will loved mythomagic, a card game that Nico loved, he wasn’t very good at it but Nico was willing to teach him, and that they both had dogs and missed them a whole lot. 

They became best friends in no time and were always hanging out in each others rooms. 

Being on the ground floor, Will liked to sneak out to be outside and got better at it as he got older. Nico got into this habit too after being friends with Will for so long, and Nico was really really good at not getting caught. 

One night when they were sixteen years old and just realising that they might want a little more than friendship with each other they snuck out onto the field and laid there on a picnic blanket watching the stars. Then they got caught. They heard footprints and a voice ‘some troublesome kids not honouring curfew I see.’ it said. They got up and ran for their lives and when they were sure they’d got away and were hidden behind an old bike shed, out of breath, they kissed and kissed and kissed and didn’t want the night to ever end.

ok!!! we’re gonna go with just some regular old headcanons then instead of any aus so here we go!

after a few months living at camp will realizes that nico??? can’t see like at all. 

Will like stopped by the arena one day while nico was training, and close-up Nico seemed to be able to see everything just fine but when Will tried to get his attention he just kind of glared at him??? Turns out it was a squint and Nico actually had no idea who that was on the other side of the room

so will checks Nico’s eyes and his vision is very bad and the conversation kind of goes like that one scene in parks and rec (”Oh my god you drove us here!”) where Nico’s reading off an eye test chart and hes not even reading letters anymore and will’s like “oh my gods youve fought in wars and you can’t even see???”

since nico lost his jacket due to werewolves he turns into a jacket thief basically as soon as the weather drops below 70

it has to be the perfect jacket so most of the time he would take someone’s (like jason’s or frank’s or percy’s) and then return it as soon as he had worn it for like 5 minutes because it wasn’t Good Enough

But then???? he didn’t have to steal one of Will’s jackets because will is super nice and he noticed one night that nico was cold so he let nico borrow one of his jackets and nico just,,,, never gave it back it’s comfy and warm and used to smell like will but then nico wore it too often so now it just smells like him

sometimes nico will get a super minor injury like basically a paper cut and will insists that nico go to the infirmary because he is wounded!!! but then other times when nico has an Actual Injury nico always tries to play it off like he’s fine and limps around for a few hours until someone else forces him to go to the infirmary (will is usually pretty smug when nico has to admit that he was wrong and then ask for help before he bleeds out and dies)

those boys probably have so many inside jokes tbh like nico could just sit down across from will during dinner, straight-faced stare right into his eyes and say like two words and will starts laughing so hard he starts choking

that seems like a pretty decent list to me i guess??? i hope you think so too

Listen.  I KNOW i rave about this fic a lot. It’s my favorite fic ever in the world. But if you want some quality William backstory with amazing Solangelo development, check out Courting Death by MsMay. Read it. Fall in love with it. Review it and message me about it so we can rave about it together, it’s amazing I promise. The latest chapter made me (๑>ᴗ<๑) Anyways here’s some Will backstory with a hefty addition of OCs.

- William Fitzgerald Solace rolls into Camp Half-Blood at the tender age of say 11.

- After just finishing Harry Potter and being sEVERELY disappointed by the lack of Hogwarts letter (Hufflepuff for life) this is the coolest thing ever

- It’s….pretty obvs he’s a sunshine boy. He looks just like apollo, radiates actual sunshine when he smiles, etc.

- Still, it takes him a few days to be formally claimed. Apollo’s a self-proclaimed busy guy, kay? And the Hermes cabin isn’t that bad for those first few days. Even if he does have to keep a tight arm around his single backpack full of items, it’s alright, and it’s where he meets Cecil. 

- Cecil and him become fast friends after Cecil offers to, and actually does, steal a few warm pops and candy bars from the camp store for them to eat on the beach. 

- And yeah, a few hundred miles from his mother and the few friends he left behind, curled in an unfamiliar, temporary mattress, he really needed that friendship.  To this day, he and Cecil are great friends. 

- Anyways, after he’s claimed he heads over to the solid gold cabin, claims an empty bunk and meets his siblings.

- They’re all nice and extremely welcoming - Elenor’s the oldest and the counselor, Lee’s her second-in-command and head of the infirmary, Michael’s a bit too sarcastic and angsty for a pre-teen, Victoria smiles at him and shows him how to sacrifice half his breakfast to their father. There’s a few younger then him too - Hina, by a few months, and who won’t stop sizing him up (Elenor warns him with a grin that she’ll probably try luring him into a sparring match) Kayla, at ten, who immediately runs in for a hug the moment the claiming symbol fades from the sky.

- And then he discovers the infirmary. (more like dragged into but eh. Michael needed help and Will was on the only one of his siblings not yet put off by the busy, sterile room.)

- It’s busy and messy and slightly chaotic from the intercabin civil war the Ares cabin got in earlier that morning. Lee’s barely got a hold on his patients, nearly all the beds are full, and Will’s got moon-eyes the size of drachmas.

- That’s when he decides that one day he’s going to be head of the infirmary.

- (this one day comes a lot sooner than he ever wanted.)

Nico has The Box that he doesn’t touch.

His father gave it to him on his 15th birthday (or 85th, depending on how one looked at it, but Nico agrees that time is a man-made construct and ignores it) and told him, quite bluntly, “This is all I have left of our time with Maria.”

Maria. Nico’s Mama.

So of course, Nico took The Box and shoved it under his bed with his feelings and the rest of the other junk Nico didn’t feel like compartmentalizing in his brain on a day-to-day basis. And there The Box stayed for a whole year; until Will decided that his boyfriend needed to be introduced to the concept of Spring Cleaning.

With a feather duster in one hand and multi-purpose cleaner in the other, Will invited himself into Cabin 13 and set to work. Nico had long ago learned not to get in his boyfriend’s way.

Bookshelves were dusted, counters wiped down, boxes emptied and moved around. And then Will got to Nico’s bedroom, and discovered The Box.

“You want to go through this one, hon?” Will called to his boyfriend, who was currently in the kitchenette, getting them cold drinks.

“Probably,” Nico called back, “don’t touch my stuff.”

Will disregarded him and touched his stuff anyways. He dusted off the top of the box and found the words “Niccólo di Angelo: 19XX- ” written in neat, Palmer-method cursive. The cardboard lid creaked when Will cracked The Box open.

“Ohmygods are THESE YOUR BABY PICTURES?!” Will was exclaiming before he could reel in his emotions. Nico appeared, quite literally out of the shadows, with two tall glasses of iced tea in his hands and a frown on his face.

“Oh,” he said, “you opened it.”

“Was I not supposed to?” Will asked, ready to apologize about the interference of personal space. Nico only shrugged, “It’s fine I guess, I just never have. It’s all the stuff my dad had left from his time with my mom.”

Will picked up the first photo on the top of the stack of papers in The Box. It was Nico and Bianca, maybe about two and four respectively, seated on the front stoop of a Venetian town house with only semi-serious expressions on their faces. It took Will a minute to realize that the man sitting between them was actually the Lord of the Underworld.

“It’s weird, seeing your dad…”

“So normal looking?” Nico finishes for him, “yeah, I know. It freaks me out when he and Persephone sometimes go to Starbucks in Santa Monica together.”

Will giggled, “You were a cute kid, though.”

“Are you saying I’ve only gotten less cute?” Nico asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Of course not,” Will answered, “You’re like a fine wine, better with age.”

“You hate wine.”

“It’s rotten grape juice,” Will confirmed, “do you want to go through this box or shall I put it back where it came from?”

Nico sighed, “Might as well, I should probably know the rest of its contents.”

“Could be some good blackmail material in here.” Will suggested.

“I hate you.” Nico groused, not really upset but having a reputation to uphold. (He however completely ruined this reputation by pecking Will’s check before crawling between his legs to recline comfortably against his boyfriend’s chest.)

“Comfortable?” Will asked, amused.

“Sure.” Nico said. Together, cleaning forgotten, they dive into the contents of the box.

read on ao3

It’s during the summer. Another one of those days when Will drags Nico outside to enjoy the sunshine and soak up the vitamin D.

Nico complains, because of course he does, but really he doesn’t feel any sort of reluctance. Even when the sun burns his legs, because they’re clothed in black jeans, and he has to squint when looking up at Will. Because he’s tall, and the sun is bright, and it kind of obscures his vision.

Not that he mentions that part.

“So what’s your actual plan here?” Nico asks, trying not to flush because Will’s hand is tight around his wrist, pulling him forward. The two of them are making their way through the Camp Half-Blood grounds, and when you get past the cabins and the hoards of people just arriving back for summer, there is so much green.