Title: Tangible

Ship: SOLANGELO YES YES YES

Rating: G

Word Count: 1,616 (!)

Summary: Tangible. Adjective. Capable of being touched. Real or actual, rather than imaginary or visionary. Definite.

Nico di Angelo does not know if this word applies to him anymore.

When given the choice, Nico would prefer not going to sleep. With no Gaea and no quest to dream about, his dreams are mostly of his memories. In particular, his memories of Tartarus. He could tell when he was going to dream about Tartarus but try as he might he could not escape, could not block the horrible memories out.

Tartarus tends to do funny things to your head, after all.

He'd be back in Tartarus, doing everything in his power to stay away from the monsters. The environment itself sapped his strength. His body burned with the liquid fire that kept him alive. Every pain-filled movement was sluggish and frustratingly slow, like he was moving through thick syrup. He felt closer to death then than he'd ever had before. He would always stumble upon Akhlys who, like always, drowned herself in her sorrow and tears. But in Nico's dreams, she would change into someone else.

Mostly it was Bianca, his dead sister. She would wail, her yellowed nails tearing at her decayed face. She would blame him for taking away her childhood. She would curse him for not bringing her back to the world of the living. He owed her that much, didn't he? After all that he'd done to her? He was a failure. It would've been better if Bianca had survived instead.

Dozens of monsters would come at him from the darkness. There were claws tearing at him, teeth gnawing at his bones, poison burning away his skin. He would be unable to protect himself, even to move sometimes. The darkness would roll over him in waves, suffocating him, dragging him down and under.

On this particular night, his nightmare repeats itself. But this time around, it's a hundred times more vivid. The monsters and the pain are too real to be just in his head. Nico jolts awake with a silent scream on his lips and the ghost of claws and teeth and poison prickling painfully across his skin. It's dark in the infirmary at Camp Half-Blood. The moonlight streams in through the small windows in between the curtained cubicles. The world is quiet and everyone is asleep except for Nico.

He sits up slowly. His sweat feels as cold as ice against his skin. He reaches up to wipe the trickling sweat from his forehead but freezes halfway through. His arm passes through a shaft of moonlight but he cannot see his own arm. All he can see is a black wisp of smoke and shadows disintegrating in the bright moonlight where his arm should be. He knows his arm is still there, he can feel it. But his eyes say otherwise. He clutches the limb to his chest and looks down at himself.

He's disappearing, fading away into the black darkness.

He can hazily see the bed sheets through his own body. A cold terror seizes him then. He panics, his breaths coming in short, fast gasps.

Nico di Angelo does not want to die.

He startles when a hand parts the curtain surrounding his bed. He shrinks into himself, into the shadows where he belongs, not wanting anyone to see him like this.

"Hey, Nico?" Will Solace asks quietly, careful not to wake his patient up.

When Nico does not respond, he pushes the curtains aside and steps into the cubicle. The smile drains from his face. For a split second, he does not see Nico at all. He only sees the thick shadows on the bed where Nico should be. He starts to see that the shadows are actually in the shape of a boy's body. He cannot tell where Nico ends and the shadows begin. Nico is physically disappearing into the shadows.

Will very nearly stumbles over himself as he rushes over to Nico's side. He leans forward, tries to touch Nico, but his hand passes clean through. Will recoils in shock at the tingling cold in his fingers and at the rush of secondhand fear that shoots through his body.

"Nico, what… Did you try shadow-traveling again?" Will asks almost jokingly, hoping against hope that he would get a yes in reply.

"N-No… I was having this nightmare… Then I woke up like this," Nico explains, his shaking voice a mere whisper.

Will feels the dread heavy in his stomach. This has never happened before. Will sees the fear plain on Nico's face and his shaking hands. He felt Nico's fear for himself when he tried to touch him. He's seen plenty of dying demigods in his time at Camp Half-Blood. Not one of them wanted to die; they held on to this futile hope of survival as the life drained away from their bodies. Will personally knew some of them, but their deaths were detached from him. To him, they were just more casualties in the war. Sure he felt sad that they were gone, but he couldn't do anything more about it. He didn't feel the overwhelming dread that he felt now as he sits beside Nico. It's never been this personal.

Will Solace does not want Nico di Angelo to die.

"Solace, you're the Apollo kid here. What do I do?" There is a note of desperation in his voice.

Will brainstorms for a minute and comes upon a possible solution.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do," Will says slowly, unsure if his idea is going to work or not. "You are going to calm yourself down, empty your mind, focus and all that jazz. Then you have to try and hold my hand, okay?"

"…Yeah sure. That makes sense. I should've thought of that," Nico nods.

Will watches as Nico closes his eyes and slowly breathes in and out. Nico shoves the memories to the back of his mind and focuses instead on the present. He's here, he's alive, and he sure as Hades isn't going to let Tartarus kill him now. He methodically relaxes his muscles one by one. He counts in his head, waiting for his heartbeat to slow down. When he feels that the panic and the fear are gone, he opens his eyes.

Wil lets out the nervous breath that he didn't know he was holding. Nico had stopped looking all blurry and smoky. Now he looks more solid and that is a great relief. Will smiles and holds his hand out in a shaft of moonlight. Nico has a moment of doubt as he stares at Will's hand that seemed to glow in the moonlight.

Nico reaches out and firmly grasps Will's hand.

Will lets out a relieved little laugh and squeezes back. Nico's hand is blessedly solid and a little warm in his. He offers up a silent prayer of thanks to his dad. He has to hold himself back from hugging Nico right then and there.

"Welcome back to the world of the living, di Angelo."

Nico gives him a small smile then and Will's heart completely melts. He throws caution to the wind and quickly wraps his arms around Nico's small frame before he could squirm away.

"H-Hey…!"

"Oh shut it, di Angelo. You almost died there. I'm glad you're back."

Nico opens his mouth to protest but decides otherwise. He lets Will hug him and reaches up a hand to awkwardly pat the blond's back. He absentmindedly observes that Will smells really pleasantly of sunshine. He can't really explain how sunshine smells like exactly but all he knows is that it's really warm.

"Nico, stop sniffing me."

Nico can hear the smile in Will's voice and he blushes.

"Am not."

"Riiiiiight."

"Also, you can let me go now. It's getting a bit awkward."

Will complies and laughs at the pink on Nico's cheeks. Nico shoots him a glare and looks away, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. He mumbles something but Will can't understand what he just said.

"What was that?"

"I said…" Nico pauses then forges on ahead. "I said thank you. I really mean it, Will."

Will thinks that his heart has definitely melted into a puddle at his feet.

"What was that again?" he smiles teasingly.

"Oh shut it, Solace," Nico huffs.

"Also, you called me by my first name."

"Did not."

"Yes, you did."

Will is really smiling at him now. His smile is blindingly bright. Nico tries his best to scowl at him. Will just smiles at him more.

"Don't you have anyone else to bother right about now?"

"Nope! In fact, I've just decided to stay with you the rest of the night. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to look for a chair to sleep in."

Will stands up to leave but Nico stops him with a hand on his arm.

"Well you don't have to sleep in a chair of all places. T-This bed is pretty big anyway." Nico immediately regrets letting his mouth go off on its own.

Will stares at him for a moment before straight-facedly saying, "Nico di Angelo, you're really something else."

Nico doesn't know what to do except to aggressively lie down on his side with his back to Will. He closes his eyes and ignores Will's laughter. He feels the bed dip as Will lies down too, also on his side and also with his back to Nico. Will shifts, his back barely brushing against Nico's. He can feel Will's radiating warmth and somehow, it's comforting to know that someone would be there to sweep his nightmares away with a steady hand and a bright smile.

"Good night, Nico."

Nico does not reply and pretends he is already asleep.

The rest of that night, Nico only dreams of sunshine: warm, bright, and comforting.

Just like Will.

-END-

i swear to god these two