If I Wanted That I’d Just Watch The Show

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Will likes to be praised. True / False

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The first theory he tests he is so sure of he barely bothers with a notebook. There is a paper, crumpled into his pocket. And a broken pencil.

"Hey," he says, appearing next to Kayla, who yells in surprise, "I have forty dollars for you."

She recovers quickly. "American?"

"No, Icelandic." He pulls several crinkled ones and fives he hustled out of the Hermes cabin last week. "Obviously American."

"Good, good." Kayla counts them obnoxiously, rolls them, and tucks them in her pocket, turning back to Nico. "What can I do for you, Scrooge McDuck?"

"I need you to switch your archery block with me and not tell Will," Nico says, ignoring the insult. "No further questions allowed."

"No questions will be an extra seven dollars."

"What? No way!"

"One dollar per question, Tony Stark." She scowls. "Curse our society for making rich characters cool. I'm trying to insult you."

Nico really considers telling her to stuff it. One dollar per question is a ridiculous rate and he refuses to pay on principle.

However.

There is no way he is getting the forty dollars he has already given to her back, so.

"Your bloodline will be cursed a generation per bill," mutters Nico darkly, counting out the bills. He is in fact short, and has to reach through the shadows to the loose panel under Cecil's bed and borrow a few quarters.

"Yeah, yeah. Alright." She squares her shoulders, staring up at him. She has a way of appearing as if she is six feet tall, when in fact she is four-foot-three. "I will do this for you. But note: I don't need that archery practice." She plants her feet on the ground, tilts her chin up, and stares. Nico realizes abruptly that this is not playfulness on her end, this is not the character she plays when they have these such interactions — her face is darkly serious, mouth drawn into a thin line. "I think it's funny what you're doing, di Angelo. But my brother is sensitive. This better not be a joke."

Nico's eyes widen. "It's not. I — swear, Kayla, I'd never do that."

She nods. "Good."

She makes a show of slinging her bow, stalking across the common with the sun glinting off her arrows. Nico is under no such delusions that it is unintentional. He watches her gather her siblings, rushing them away between the stables and strawberry fields before Will notices.

Nico breathes deeply, shaking himself. Will steps finally out of his cabin, tripping down the last porch step, and the confused little pout on his face is so obvious Nico can see it on the other side of camp.

He jogs over to the archery range, grinning.

Five minutes later, as he's setting up the last target, Will wanders over.

"Nico? Do you — have you seen the kids?"

The kids— the fourteen and twelve and nine and seven year olds that he, sixteen year old, mother-hens. The kids.

"There has been a change of plans," says Nico evasively. He clears his throat. "I, uh, thought we could spend a period together."

Will smiles a soft, pretty thing, squinting his eyes around the edges. "Change of plans, huh?" His smile turns cheeky. "Wanted to be alone with me that badly?"

Part of Nico curls and twitches at the tease, balks and flushes up to his roots. But the bigger, more curious part of him stops, relaxing his shoulders and softening his brow into something genuine, something determined. He holds the silence between them, curling it like rope, and says:

"Yes."

And then he waits.

There is no glowing red, not yet. There is a flash of surprise in Will's bright eyes; the blue narrows as his pupils dilate, as his blond blond eyebrows snap up to his forehead and breath nicks sharply along the back of his throat. But he recovers, or at least tries to, and busies himself with a practice quiver.

"Oh," he says, pressing his finger into an arrowhead. The tight skin of his fingertip snaps and beads a sphere of red, which he stuffs quickly in his mouth, sucking gently. Nico fights back the twitch of his own mouth and a comment about sepsis. When Will speaks again, his voice is quiet. Almost shy. "I'd like that, Nico."

Nico shivers. The hard k of the turn in his name sounds good in Will's mouth. Nico wants to press his ear to Will's throat, to feel the beat of it in his eardrums.

Instead, he grabs his own arrow, his own quiver.

He will always be clumsy in archery. Part of it is simply physiology — he does not have the armspan for it — but most of it, he feels, is the discipline. Archery is measured breathing, it is laying in wait, it is distance and sharp eyes and a bow string taut against your eye that can hurt you as much or more than your enemies if you twitch one muscle out of place. Archery is friendly fire and airborne plague. Archery is a thousand raining arrows, shot by one man — there is power, in archery, in the way there is power in a cook, in a janitor. Unassuming and easily equipped. It is not the discipline Nico knows, of the bellowed yell and the double-fisted blade, of closeness enough to your enemy to see the sweat on her skin and hate in her eyes. The heaviness for archery comes later, counting the arrows parallel to the ground, the half-cross graveyards released from your two pointer fingers.

Archery is for the tall, borne from willowtree bark.

He tries, though, matching his shots with Will's. Matching their breathing, the wideness of their stances; every time Will inhales, so does Nico, every time his arrow kathunks in the pupil of the target's eye, Nico's follows in the sclera.

A dozen in, he stops, turning to watch his friend. Will doesn't notice, exhaling, still, for ever release, inhaling for every line-up. Blinking only when shadow passes over the bright sun.

It is a rare thing for Will to stand at his full height.

He is still when he shoots. Aside from the blink of his eyes, every shot is lined up for entire infinite moments: muscles locked, hands steady, fletch clutched between his middle and pointer fingers. He exhales, once, and the arrow flies neatly and cleanly through the dead center of the target, and there is a half-second of movement where he turns, lining up the next one. But then he is still, again. Quiet. Measured.

"You're good," Nico says, quietly.

He sees first the defensive curl of Will's shoulder, the immediate, reflective frown. The I am not! pre-written on the tip of his tongue. But there is something, maybe, in the ease of Nico's stance, or maybe in the quirk of his lips. He keeps his eyes relaxed and open, meets his searching gaze.

"Bullseye after bullseye," Nico repeats, in answer to Will's unasked question. "I hit, like, two." He flicks his eyes over the dozens of targets, appraising. "You're good with a bow, Will."

Maybe he can hear the truth in Nico's voice. Maybe his affection is obvious. Maybe it is the use of his given name, stretched in the cavern of Nico's mouth: Will rocks back on his heels, huffing, and his pretty, rounded face burns.

"I'm — okay, barely!"

Nico smiles indulgently. "'Okay' hits seventeen straight targets?"

Will sets his stubborn jaw when he argues. It is different, significantly, when he cannot decide what to do with his heated cheeks. "Kayla can hit at least forty. In a row! Last week, she even —"

"I'm not complimenting Kayla," Nico interrupts, recognizing the deflection for what it is. "I'm complimenting you." He pauses. "You're talented, Will. Good job."

Will squirms, even as Nico gives him the space free from his gaze. He fiddles with the arrow clenched in his fists — it is warped, now, and even if he shoots it with the best technique on the planet only a blessing from his father will land it anywhere. He flicks it, over his fingers, near dropping it, and stuffs it back in his quiver.

"Thank you," he says, quietly. The tiniest smile Nico has ever seen on him quirks his lips, and he shivers at the sight of it. Like the edge of a solar eclipse, like the crack before an erupting volcano. "I — thank you, Nico."

Nico wants to say more. Suddenly, lit up like fire inside of him, is the urge to stand on a table, a soap box, and read off in any expanding order the plethora of things he has noticed: Will's gentleness, his smart-mouth grin, the flutter of his wide hands when he is excited and the careful way he positions his body to show people he is listening when they speak. Even if no one else is. Especially if no one else is.

But Will is embarrassed, already. He breathes quickly and stands hunched and keeps a foot of space between the two of them, although his shaking hands twitch, as if to reach over. As if to rest on his hips, like they do when he pushes, when he questions.

Sensitive, Kayla called him.

Shy, Nico adds.

"Anytime," he says. They are close enough together still that Nico can bump their hips together and this makes him snort, has him eye the space between where Nico's waist begins and Will's thighs just begin to meet torso, until Nico shoves him in exasperation. He snickers, pleased, comfortable, and catches Nico's poking hand.

"This block ends in twenty," he says. "Want to ditch early and throw things at Ellis from the roof of the Big House?"

"Yes," Nico agrees quickly, tossing his borrow bow haphazardly onto the stands. "If I ever say no to that, assume I'm a clone and shoot me."

Will snorts, taking much more care with his bow. "I'll keep that in mind, Death Boy."

They walk quickly to the Big House, scaling the wall and hiding beside the crumbling chimney. Will chucks pebbles with half as much accuracy as he shoots, but he still lands them, and muffles his cackling into his hands.

Nico hides his crumpled paper until his knees, and immortalizes the shape of Will's smile.

———

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Live laugh love em dash

"If you use em dash in your works, it makes them look AI generated. No real human uses em dash."

Imaging thinking actual human writers are Not Real because they use... professional writing in their works.

Imagine thinking millions of people who have been using em dash way before AI becomes a thing are all robots.

REBLOG IF YOU'RE A HUMAN AND YOU USE EM DASH

reblog if you have skilled writer friends and you're damn proud of them

Mythology my beloved

it's so funny to me that people assume I don't know actual mythology just because I'm a pjo and epic fan. guess what bucko I'm autistic so i do in fact know everything about this subject. this is a threat I will info dump if you tell me I don't know shit

Brother snapped a photo of hector this morning while I was asleep

My poor baby :(

The fact Jason grabs onto people when he’s scared will always get me. My poor sweet boy someone give him a hug.

Pros of re-reading your own fic

a good time;

Has exactly the tropes you like and the characterization you want to read;

Gratification: yes you did finish a thing and yes you did do good;

just a very fun time all around.

Cons of re-reading your own fic:

Is that another TYpO

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“what’s your writing process” i put a pathetic guy in a blender and blend blend blend