Chapter Text
Flowers coming out of Nico’s lungs was nothing new. He did want it to stop, he really did, but he didn’t have feelings for just anyone. Nico had feelings for Percy Jackson. That wasn’t his only trouble, because he also had feelings for Will Solace. It wasn’t as simple as breaking up with Will and getting with Percy, Percy wouldn’t want him anyways. Ignoring his feelings wasn’t a viable option either, even if he made attempts to stomp them out for years.
Because he loved Will, he really did. Will didn’t deserve this, and he knew that. Sometimes he really thought about breaking up but, somehow, Will always assured him that he wasn’t a burden. That he was worth it. Nico could never understand his selflessness.
The flowers started when he was only ten years old. He remembered the Stoll brothers comforting him through his coughing, and then he was sent to the infirmary. He met Michael Yew, who at that time wasn’t the head counselor yet, and he was told about hanahaki as soon as he coughed out the blue blooms.
It terrified him, not because it spelled death for him, but because there was only one person he could think of that this could be about, and he wasn’t a girl. He simply didn’t consider death at the time. It barely registered as possible in his mind, and he didn’t become more afraid of it until his sister died. The most devastating thing to him at that moment was the confirmation he was a other.
He didn’t want to be different, but he just became more and more distant from everyone else as time and he pushed forward. The only of Hades, the Ghost King, and the only gay person he knew of in Camp Half-Blood. He just had to be crushing on Percy Jackson too, the hero who had no time for a romantic relationship in war.
Yet he couldn’t help but be enamored. He couldn’t help that he loved Percy, even when he believed Percy caused his sister’s death, and he couldn’t help that he still spewed flowers. It only convinced him he was more disgusting than he expected.
Staring down at the blue flowers he spewed every day was not a highlight of his life, and today he swore there were more in the trash can than usual.
“Maybe these damn plants are getting to my brain,” he muttered.
There was a knock on the bathroom door, and he jumped. He sometimes got lost in his memories, usually trauma. Snapping out of it, he opened the door, happy to see it was just his boyfriend on the other side. Nico sighed, looking down at Will’s yellow and black socks. “Cuddle time?“ Nico asked bluntly.
Will nodded, taking his hand and leading him over to the bed. They sat down facing each other, and Nico felt nervous. Nico knew they had cuddled countless times, and yet he still felt some resistance towards touch. ”You sound disappointed.” Will said simply before crawling onto the bed and laying down, his hair bright against dark bed sheets.
A memory, lingering in his mind, came to the forefront. At one point he was disappointed, but only in himself. He was afraid of being in love, even with Will. It took him a while to finally be able to kiss his boyfriend. As much as he loved Will, his fears of not being enough even when he tried stopped him from doing so. Things were different for them now.
“I’m not, really. I’m just tired.” Nico let himself cough his lungs out for a moment. Not having to hide his ailment around Will was a blessing, if he were to be honest with himself. Will helped him, even if the flowers were for another guy, and Nico couldn’t help but appreciate selfless men. He laid down beside his boyfriend, facing him.
“You can get some sleep if you feel you need it,“ Will seemed to misunderstand. His hand reached up, and fingers brushed against Nico’s cheek. “Maybe a little nap would help-?”
The misinterpretation of his words, though understandable, made him more irritable. “I’m tired of you having to take care of me, I wish I didn’t have to trouble you with this.”
“No, you aren’t troubling- Nico.” Will took a short breath and closed his eyes. The tone Nico heard Will slip into was one he knew well, it signaled a gentle reprimand was about to commence. “I understand feeling the way you do, but you have to understand I’m caring for you because I love you, and I have no doubt you love me too.”
He hoped Will didn’t have doubts, but it didn’t seem likely. If his boyfriend was throwing up flowers because he loved another man, it would be hard for Nico to look past that. He couldn’t imagine Will’s thought process. Instead of continuing the conversation, he let out a few coughs and then pressed himself against Will’s front to get comfortable.
Quiet was nice, really, but Nico didn’t feel like getting into his head right now. After it stretched on for too long in his opinion, he decided to ask about what was bugging him. “Why do you keep talking to Percy?”
Will shrugged, putting a hand in Nico’s hair and brushing through it with his fingers. Occasionally, he’d come across a knot and gently tug until the strands came apart. “He’s a friend.”
“Are you sure you’re not secretly planning his death so you get rid of my hanahaki?” A stupid joke, really, but this was his way of coping. He hated death, it took so much from him, so sometimes he wanted to find some hilarity in it. Will would understand, he was familiar with coping mechanisms after all.
“That would be stupid of me,” Will responded with a small sigh. “I don't even know if that would even work, and there’s no way I’d get away with murder at camp. No one has.”
That made him raise an eyebrow. How many murders have actually happened at camp? Maybe he should ask Mr. D. He continued to joke around despite questioning the statements internally, “You don’t know that.” Nico smirked up at Will, staring into his sky blue eyes. Blue was admittedly one of the prettiest colors to Nico, he loved it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Will took a little enjoyment in Nico’s bizarre way of joking around. He chuckled into Nico’s hair as he tucked his face into it. ”Gods, you’ve made me so okay with being morbid.”
Nico wouldn’t vocalize this, but he always saw a more morbid side of Will buried deep behind comforting smiles. Not that Will enjoyed darkness, but he was extremely accustomed to it. Nico could remember the times when his boyfriend would have to deal with people bleeding out, broken bones, and sickness. Will wasn’t new to morbidity, he was definitely interested in it, but he was new to accepting that part of himself.
That was what Nico thought anyway. Maybe Will truly was a pure ray of sunshine sent from the gods and didn’t have a bone in his body interested in the morbid parts of life before meeting Nico.
The tone got more serious for a moment as Will wrapped his arms around him tight, but not too tight. Nico didn’t pick up on the shift, but he felt safe. “I would never kill Percy.”
“Even if I asked you to? Begged? Paid you millions of drachmas?”
“When I say never, I mean never.” Nico was fixed with a serious look, and he felt a need to stop his joking here. Sometimes he didn’t understand when he should, he didn’t understand a lot of things about socializing. He was a pretty isolated kid from his peers, since he really only wanted to be friends with his sister and he was from a well off family.
“Okay, okay. I was kidding.”
Will continued to move a hand through Nico’s hair calmly. “I knew you were, love. You care about him too deeply to be serious, the flowers are proof. I’m sure he cares about you too.”
Why can’t he tell me what’s wrong then? If he cares so much, why doesn’t he trust me? Why did he go to you?
Coincidently, these thoughts would come to pass, because it seemed Percy was actively avoiding Will as time went on after that. For the next two weeks, he never saw them together, and Will seemed to grow more anxious. No matter how much he smiled, Nico could see a twinge of panic as his eyes gravitated towards Percy’s empty seat at a table or when Percy didn’t show up for sword fighting classes.
He didn’t understand the panic in the slightest, but he supported Will anyways. Mostly in the form of bringing him food and water while he was working alongside small kisses. Nico really enjoyed knowing his boyfriend could rely on him, which is why he felt a need to fix whatever was going on with Percy. ‘Fixing’ when it came to people was usually Will’s expertise, but Nico felt a need to try.
Percy and him had a tradition where they would sometimes meet up at the lakeside at night and simply talk, usually about the hard times in their life. After doing this just once, it cemented for him that Percy wasn’t a golden hero that should be worshiped and had no flaws whatsoever. His hanahaki came back tenfold after this, it sucked.
During the late morning hours, Nico wrote up a note and slid it under Percy’s cabin’s door. He felt too nervous to confront him directly and ask, so this was the only way he could bring himself to ask Percy to meet up.
The time he put on paper was eight, but he was fifteen minutes late. There was a mad dash to the lakefront in store for him, since he felt a need to make sure Will wasn’t worried sick about the man he was meeting up with again and could sleep. His feet skidded against the ground as he ran down a hill and finally made it to their usual spot. Percy was there. He let out a subtle sigh of relief before approaching the man who was standing with his back to him.
“Hey Percy,” Nico tapped his shoulder and Percy jumped, whirling around. Strange.
“Hey.” It was a short response, and hoarse. Maybe Percy was sick. Didn’t matter, he was fine with getting sick too, as long as he found out what was wrong. The man sat down on the end of their usual makeshift bench, a log. His back was turned, and Nico missed his face already, but he decided to keep standing. He planned to do their usual walk.
“What have you been up to? Any significant news?” He smirked, “Other than stealing my boyfriend, I mean?” Nico meant to say it in a joking way, and for a moment after he was under the impression Percy knew it.
Percy wheezed, and that was normal. Wheezing was common when Percy was laughing. But then he did it again, and again, and then he fell on the sand below their feet. All Nico could do was watch before he scrambled to be at Percy’s side.
“Percy!?” Nico noticed how Percy was struggling to breath as he put a hand on him, and realized he didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t experienced with this sort of thing, he wasn't a doctor- My boyfriend. His boyfriend was pretty much a medic, he could do something. Nico needed to go wake him up, which made him feel a little guilty, but he needed him now.
“I’ll get you help.” Nico was panicking, and he knew it, but he didn’t have time to panic, actually he shouldn’t have been hesitating at all. He didn’t feel weak, and he could recover later, so it would be fine to shadow travel. He dropped himself in front of the Apollo cabin and rushed inside, his black boots thumping against the light colored wood.
His breaths came out desperately as he opened the door to the room Will slept in, stepping inside and shaking the man awake in a frenzy. He needed to. Will, or moreso Will’s body, didn’t like waking up when the sun wasn’t rising. It took some genuine shoves to his boyfriend’s side for him to finally pick up his head.
“Mn- Nico? What is it?” Will groggily sat up in his bed, and his eyes widened in instant alarm as he realized something wasn’t right. “What’s wrong??”
“Percy um… Collapsed by the shore… Need you to help him.” Shadow travel and dashing through the Apollo cabin made his words seperate as he took in more breaths.
Will nodded to him, his face morphing into determination. He threw himself out of bed and grabbed a box out from underneath. “Shadow travel me there. Now.“ His voice was kept low, likely trying to not wake up his siblings.
“You hate shadow travel-“
Before he could continue, Will gripped onto his forearm. “Now, Nico. We don’t have time for this.” He spoke firmly, and Nico couldn’t help but agree. Dipping into the shadows, accessible everywhere in the dead of night, he was able to bring the two of them right where Percy was.
Taking a moment to steady himself, Will then rushed over and dropped the box beside Percy. He rubbed his back, “You’re still breathing, good.” Will opened his box and held something in a closed fist while still digging for something else. “Nico, come over here.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Eat this,” Will threw a KitKat at Nico’s chest, where he did catch it, before digging through the box again, pulling out a recognizable bottle. That sort of bottle usually contained a medication that helped fight off the plants growing in Nico’s lungs, and he could recognize the familiar pills inside as Will opened it. Percy coughed.
“Isn’t that my-?”
“It’s a different bottle.” Will said shortly, “This box was originally for if you went through an emergency.“ When Will was in what Nico liked to call ‘Doctor Mode’ he was less willing to talk cordially. Nico knew this, so he didn’t feel offended by being cut off. It still was a little annoying. He silently opened his KitKat as Will sat Percy up and fed him two of the pills.
After seeing Percy be fed the pills and hunching over with Will’s arm around him, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking out loud again. “But it looks the same. He wouldn’t need that unless…” Nico finally noticed, in the darkness, that red sand was beside where Percy was laying. Not only that, but flowers. Two different kinds, two different colors.
Nico felt as if he himself was suddenly choking, he could only describe it as that. He no longer wanted to speak. It was okay for him to take a backseat right now. Will was the guy meant to deal with this, not him.
Will seemed to notice the flowers, his eyes widening. “You’re losing time, Percy. Fast. You need to end this.” He took Percy’s hand, rubbing a thumb over his knuckles. Nico felt a small pang of jealousy and resisted coughing himself.
“You can tell us who it is and Nico can go get them.”
Shoving a KitKat in his mouth, Nico nodded quietly. He couldn’t enjoy the chocolate right now, but it would help to eat if he needed to shadow travel for Percy’s sake. He watched Percy pull his legs closer to him, wrapping his arms around the limbs. Rarely was he able to see Percy so vulnerable.
“You’re both going to hate me.”
Will shook his head as soon as Percy finished speaking and took both of his hands slowly. “This is your life, Percy. You don’t control who you love. Whoever it is, it will be okay with the both of us. Right, Nico?”
Nico nodded, crossing his arms. “I understand, Percy. It’s hard to do, but you need to trust us. We don’t want you dead, that’s all.”
Despite what he said, Nico dreaded the idea of having to come to terms with whoever Percy was in love with, because it certainly couldn’t be him. He wondered if he would be the one to choke on flowers tonight instead of Percy. That would be fine with him, he valued Percy’s life over his own. He would just have to confront that his feelings would never be requited.
“I’m in love with you.” He looked up at Will, and Nico’s heart sank, but then Percy turned his head to look up further, at Nico. “And you.”
This had to be a dream, sent to taunt him, but one thing convinced him it wasn’t. His lungs felt clear, he could take a deeper breath and not feel like they were about to cave in. Breathing felt so much easier all of a sudden. For years he lived with hanahaki, to suddenly not feel its effects was startling. He even took a step back, trying to process what was happening.
“Good job. I love you too, Percy. Really.” Will expressed this with a small smile on his face. He also looked relieved, though Nico assumed it was for a different reason currently. “You are amazing. Like I said, anyone would be flattered and I definitely am.”
Watching the two, Nico couldn’t bring himself to speak. At least not yet. He didn’t think this day would ever come, or was possible. Percy loving him seemed like a fairytale dream, impossible. But he wasn’t dreaming.
Percy started coughing again, hacking up some black flowers. The noise snapped Nico to attention. He knelt down by his long-time-crush’s side, grabbing one of Percy’s hands from Will. “Percy. I love you too. I have for a long time. Don’t you dare die right now, I’ll drag you back up here myself if you do.”
He hoped Percy would believe him, and it seems he did. His coughing stopped, and he took in a few gasping breaths. As Nico calmed down, seeing Percy was going to be okay, his calmness slowly morphed into unprecedented anger.
Grabbing onto Percy’s jacket, he held onto it tightly with both hands. They almost bumped heads as Nico pulled him forward. “Why didn’t you tell me you had hanahaki?! You were suffering and I didn’t know?! Was it that hard to trust me??”
He was met with silence. Will let go of Percy’s hand and instead hugged Nico from behind, his arms around Nico’s neck. Usually Nico was the one wrapping his arms around his boyfriend’s neck, this was new. “…I had hanahaki too.” Will whispered.
“Will!? Why didn’t you tell me??” That’s why he looked so relieved. His anger started to simmer down, everything was okay. If he thought about it properly, he was being hypocritical. If he was given the choice, Will would have never known about his hanahaki, and he never told Percy at all.
Quick to defend himself, Will squeezed him for a moment before loosening his arms up again during his explanation. “Well- We loved and were having hanahaki for the same person while dating each other. It was complicated, and I haven't had It for long. Percy got it about a month ago now.”
Percy seemed stunned by what was happening, staring at the two as Nico let go of his jacket and backed off. He rubbed one of his eyes, “Hold on, we were all crushing on each other? Wow.” He took a breath, “So, what can we do now?”
Nico really had no idea. They couldn’t just date two people at once. He never heard of that being possible before, and he wasn’t sure if the other two would want that either, even if he was worried about any of them getting hanahaki again. All he knew was every person had one person for them-
Just as the thought crossed his mind, Will spoke while racking a hand through Percy’s hair, getting some stray leaves out. “I mean, polyamory is a thing. We could all date.”
Nico hesitated before asking, “What is that?”
Percy shifted on his feet, looking around one of the rooms in the infirmary while his two boyfriends sat in the office chairs. Nico was spinning in slow circles before Will put a hand on one of the armrests to halt him. He didn’t like this, but he did realize he was making himself dizzy.
A month ago, Percy almost died. Will said if the flowers grew any more than they did, Percy could have died from internal bleeding. Percy responded, isn’t blood supposed to stay inside of you anyways? And Nico swore Will almost hit him with his clipboard. Things were figured out between them all, and they decided to start dating. It felt too good to be true, but slowly Nico started enjoying the new relationship.
“Do we really have time for this?” Percy asked as he decided to draw the blinds on the singular window in the room.
“I’d say we have ten minutes until injuries start coming in from Capture the Flag.” Will spoke reassuringly. “Right now, it will just be us.”
Most of the camp, including the Apollo Cabin, were playing Capture the Flag today. Will was on medic duty, while Percy and Nico didn’t want to play, so Will was able to get them doctor’s notes. Whether the statements in them were falsified or not, Nico believed the rest of camp would be happy with the two strongest demigods in the entire camp not unbalancing everything.
Nico smirked slightly as he scooted his chair close to Will’s, leaning in to kiss the edge of his lips. “Great, wanted alone time.”
He started kissing Will, but noticed out of the corner of his eye Percy had sat in a chair politely. He knew he and Will were much more forward than Percy himself was, likely because of their dating history. Nico broke the kiss, “Percy!” His other boyfriend looked up, having distracted himself by picking under his fingernails.
“Come here.” Nico hesitated, finding himself sounding too demanding. He opened his arms and added. “If you want, just don’t want you to sit out.”
Soon, Percy was sitting backwards in his lap while Nico simply planted a small kiss on his neck. He wrapped his arms around his waist and held on while facing Will, pressing his face into Percy’s shoulder. He couldn’t help as it was overcome by what he could only describe as a grin.
“Happy now?” Will sounded amused as he sat at Nico’s side in his own chair.
Nico sighed in contentment, “I was happy before this, y’know. I just never realized I could have been happier until I had you two.”