#me back on my will wears threader earrings agenda

[mediumgayitalian]

Will wears earrings that glint in the sunlight.

Nico is very aware of them.

He’s never seen anything like them before. Bianca wore earrings, little citrine gems that dotted both earlobes, and Hazel wears little hoops in each ear. Piper has dozens of beaded earrings she made herself. Annabeth wears little owl charms. Percy has a diamond stud, Connor’s ears are pierced all over, and Lou Ellen has gauges she’s slowly stretching out. Most people in camp have a piercing or two, really, some of them done by the Apollo or Aphrodite campers, and really sunny days they glint together like the massive disco ball that spun over the slot machines of the Lotus.

But Will’s earrings are different.

There’s no…pokey part, is the best way Nico can describe it. Each piece is a delicate gold chain, maybe two inches long each, with a thin blue sapphire hanging off one end. He threads them through the tiny holes in his lobes, and they dangle, glittering every time he moves. The sapphires refract the light when he tucks back his hair, shining an array of tiny rainbows on his neck, on his jaw.

He is distracted by them, often.

“You’re staring.”

Nico blinks, twitching back to his body. The blue sapphires he’d been staring at are replaced with blue eyes, twinkling with amusement, and he flushes.

“I was — spaced out.”

“Mhm.” Will turns back to his arts & crafts project, dragging a brushful of lavender paint over stained wood. A jewelry box, by the looks of it. “If by spaced out, you mean staring at me.”

Nico returns resolutely to his own project. His is much less delicate than Will’s — the sheath he has strapped to his calf at all times broke, last week, and he’s felt naked without his dagger — and there’s a warp in the leather, where his attention slipped. He focuses on smoothing it.

“Not on purpose.”

“No?” Coming from anyone else, the teasing tone of voice would have him raising his shoulders, twisting his face. But from Will it’s — tolerable, somehow. Perhaps it’s the hand that rests gently on his wrist. “You space out at me a lot, then. Crazy coincidence.”

Nico stars at the freckly, tanned hand, waiting for it to move. It doesn’t. Will keeps it there, callused fingers brushing gentle circles on the base of his thumb, dipping and swooping along with his quiet humming.

Nico swallows. “You’re — distracting.”

Will’s smile spreads slowly across his face; stilted, almost, like he’d tried to bite it back.

“How?”

“You’re —” Nico gestures, vaguely, at all of him. Will’s smile grows, and his cheeks slowly grow pink, blonde ringlets falling out of place and curtaining his face.

“I’m?” he presses.

His voice is soft, near silent; searching, prodding. Hoping. Nico’s breath hitches, and his palms sweat, and Will’s gentle tracing pauses, briefly. He bites his lip, worrying the chapped skin, breathing quick; in, out, in, out. In a slow, calculated movement, watching Nico carefully, carefully, out of the corner of his eyes, he slides their palms together, fingers resting loosely in the spaces of Nico’s open, twitching hand.

“…Is this okay?”

Nico feels lightheaded. He’s sure his palms are clammy, although he can’t tell against Will’s. He gnaws at his lip again. Nico’s exhales are quick, short.

He curls his fingers until they rest on Will’s cracked knuckles.

“You’re striking,” he says quietly.

Ducking his head, Will turns back to his painting. He dips his brush in a deep, blooming green, now, tracing it along the edge of the lavender.

He’s smiling.