"Nico?"

Nico jolted awake when he heard his name. He opened his eyes and saw a long hallway stretching beside him. He was utterly confused as to where he was. He shoulder was sore like he had slept on it wrong, but Nico chose to ignore it.

"What are you doing out here at 3 am?"

Nico looked up and saw Reyna standing in front of him.

Nico shifted slightly. Damn, his shoulder really hurt. What the hell had happened?

Nico groaned. "Its 3 am? What the fuck?"

Reyna extended her arm for Nico to grab.

"I just came back from the party and you were passed out in front of our room," She said as Nico stood up.

The memories from only hours before came rushing back to Nico. His head swung around but Will was nowhere to be seen. Nico felt his heart drop. Will had left. That means he probably didn't care about Nico. Nico turned back to Reyna.

"I-uh- I came back from the party early because I was so tired but I had left my phone next to my room key so the card didn't work. I was going to come and find you, but I sat down and ended up falling asleep. Sorry."

Reyna nodded. "Don't apologize. I should've been looking out for you. Come on, let's go inside."

Reyna pulled her key out and shoved it into the door. The door swung open and the pair quickly stumbled through the darkness to the beds, not even bothering with the lights. Nico heard Reyna shuffle the covers on her bed and climb in. Nico plugged his phone in, changed into his pajamas, and sat on his bed until he heard Reyna's breaths even out, signaling she had fallen asleep.

Nico took a deep breath and fell back onto his bed. He didn't get under the covers, but instead just chose to lay on top of the blanket. He laid there for hours, just thinking about life, about Will. Slowly, Nico felt himself drift off to sleep.

|LINE BREAK|

Nico blinked his eyes open as the sun streamed in through the window. Goddamnit. He had forgotten to close the curtains before he fell asleep. Nico pulled his phone out and checked the time. 9:36. That was way too fucking early.

Nico opened up the twitter app and looked through his feed. He favorited a few tweets about himself, retweeted a funny video or two. The works.

Nico closed the app and saw that he had a text.

[Jason]

hey nico! this is jason grace. i got your number from thalia and i was wondering if you wanted to stop by my room at some point to do a collab video with me and percy?

[Nico]

yeah, sure i'd love to! what time should i come?

[Jason]

well, a few of my friends and i are going to grab breakfast in a few minutes if you want to come. and afterward, we can just go back to my room. we're meeting at the actual breakfast place towards the lobby.

[Nico]

yeah sounds good. see you then

[Jason]

aight dude. see you soon

Nico shut his phone off and groaned. He couldn't believe he just agreed to go get breakfast with a bunch of strangers so early in the morning. Nico frowned when he realized that he had to go and sat up.

He threw on a dark grey Blink-182 sweatshirt and black ripped skinny jeans. He stuck his phone in his pocket and threw a twenty dollar bill into the other.

"Well, you're up early."

Nico jumped at Reyna's voice. He had assumed she was still asleep, yet when he turned around she was sitting up.

"Shit Reyna. You scared me." Nico laughed.

Reyna smiled. "That was the plan."

She got out of bed and headed towards her suitcase. "Now why are you up so early? Normally you sleep until at least 11."

Nico shrugged. "The sun was too bright and Jason invited me to go get breakfast with him."

Reyna grabbed her clothes and headed to the bathroom. "I'm probably going to go hang out with some people I met last night. Text me if you need me?"

Nico nodded and headed out the door. "Always."

Nico turned and headed towards the large banquet hall where the party was thrown. From there, he walked out through the doors that led him back to the public part of the hotel. It was only a short 30-second walk to the breakfast area after that.

"Nico! Over here!" He turned and saw Percy Jackson waving to him from a table of what looked like 9 people. It was Percy, Jason, Annabeth, Thalia, Frank, Hazel, Calypso, and two others that Nico didn't meet yet. It was a boy and a girl that Nico recognized from YouTube, but he couldn't quite remember their names.

The girl had two choppy braids the color of chestnut. She was very tan and had eyes that shifted color. The boy was also very tan and looked to be of Hispanic descent. His hair was brown and curly and he seemed to be fiddling with something under the table.

Jason pulled a seat out between Thalia and him. He motioned for Nico to sit down and turned to the rest of the table. "I know that most of you know Nico, but in case you don't, this is Nico di Angelo."

A chorus of 'hey Nico' went around the table. Kaleidoscope eyes leaned across the table to talk to him.

"Hey. I'm Piper McLean and the elf sitting next to me is Leo Valdez." She said with a smile.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Nico." He replied.

Leo Valdez turned to look at him. "Nico. Nico di Angelo. Where do I know that name? I heard it somewhere this morning but I just can't place where."

Nico shrugged. "I don't know."

Leo grinned. "It'll come back to me eventually."

Nico turned back to Piper. "Is he always like this?"

Piper laughed and grinned sheepishly. "You get used to it after a while."

The group continued talking and soon enough a waitress came around to take their order.

"Hey, guys! What can I get y'all?" She asked.

Jason spoke up first. "Actually we're all going to do the buffet, but we're still waiting on a few more people."

The waitress smiled and nodded. "Alrighty! If you guess need anything, just wave!"

She bounced away and Nico couldn't help but feel a little annoyed at her sunshiny composure.

"God. Her smile was so wide. I thought her jaw was going to break." He whispered to Thalia.

Thalia choked on her water and spit it out. "Oh my god. Tell me about it! I thought her cheeks were going to split right open and she was going to look like the joker!"

Nico smiled at Thalia's remark. He actually thought it was hilarious but he didn't quite feel 100% safe around this wild group of young adults. If you could even call them that. Percy was currently flinging pieces of balled up straw wrappers at Leo's head. Leo retaliated by creating a little robot to march over to Percy and steal his sugar packets.

Nico rolled his eyes at the boys' antics and turned to Jason. "Who else are we waiting for?"

Jason opened his mouth to answer but was cut off by a new voice.

"That would be us."

Nico heard that voice. Nico recognized that voice. That was the voice that haunted his dreams. Well, for one night at least. That was the voice of probably the first and last person Nico wanted to see right now. Nico turned slowly and standing in front of him in the flesh and blood, was none other than Will Solace, along with his two laggies, Cecil Markowitz and Lou Ellen Blackstone.

He was wearing a white t-shirt that said 'Surf's Up!' in blue lettering along with khaki shorts and sandals. The shirt looked so perfect against his tan skin and Nico could feel his own face heating up.

"Hey, Nico!" Will said, staring down at him.

Will had said his name. Nico was NOT panicking. Okay, maybe he was panicking a little bit. Alright. Nico was panicking a whole lot. So he did what was wired into his brain to do. Act like he didn't care.

"Will." He said, turning back to the table in front of him.

He could feel Will's confused glaze searing into the back of his head and he could feel Jason wondering what the hell was going on with him.

"Well!" A loud clap interrupted his antagonizing thoughts. "The party has arrived so what are we waiting for?" Cecil yelled. "Let's get some breakfast!"

The large group cheered and walked up to be the buffet. Nico lagged behind the group a little bit, taking his time with standing up and grabbing his plate. He had planned that he wouldn't get stuck in line with Will, who seemed as though he was a breakfast fanatic and raced ahead of everyone to be first. Of course, though, Nico somehow ended up wedged between Will and Piper.

They went through the line so slowly that Nico thought he was going to bark due to the scents of all the different foods mixing together. The worst part? Around all these new people, Nico was too nervous to eat so all he did was stand in that horrifying line for god knows how line so no god damn reason.

"Aren't you gonna eat something?" He felt Will nudge him.

'I-um I'm not sure what to get?" Nico said it as though it was a question. Which surprised him because he hadn't planned on eating. That Will Solace just did something to him.

Will leaned across him and grabbed two pieces of sausage. He dropped one on his plate and placed the other on Nico's.

He leaned into Nico's ear and whispered: "I personally think the sausage is just divine."

He leaned back, winked at Nico (who could feel a blush spreading fiercely across his face), and walked out of the line and back to the table.

Nico stood still in pure shook before regaining his composure.

"What the fuck?" He whispered to himself.

He turned around to face Piper who he could hear sighing softly to herself.

"Did that just happen or am I going fucking crazy?" He asked her.

Smiled and him and gave him a knowing look. "Oh, it happened alright. And you look like you enjoyed it quite immensely."

She patted him on the shoulder and walked away.

Nico stared at himself in his reflection of his silver tray. He signed and walked back to the table. Nico only had one thought as he sat down, starting eating, and watched Will's face light up at the different antics around the table.

'Will Solace is going to be the death of me.'

hey guys sorry for taking so long to update! high school is v stressful and finals are next week and we missed a lot of school where i am because of snow so its been wild. but im back and (hopefully) better than ever!