when nico doesn’t respond, will doesn’t take offense. really, he’s used to moving a conversation forward when people didn’t respond – he would always talk while he worked. and he knew that nico wasn’t exactly the most sociable kid at camp. so, he just pulled a chair over to the boy’s bed, taking his hand with a smile and an ‘ i need to check how your underworld-y stuff is, my dude ‘. he’s not swayed by the intensity of nico’s gaze, his own only breaking contact because it was hard to focus with his eyes wide open.
the smile mostly lingers, but it fell just a bit in his focus, his brows pulling together. he wasn’t attempting any vaguely-worded healing method from the early 1800′s today ( really, there had to have been a hades kid or two more recent than that that wasn’t nico, because the lack of resources on underworld magic was absurd ), but even just sensing any improvement took his concentration. after a few seconds, he lets go and his grin returns nearly full force.
❛ told you rest would work ! it’s just about fifty-fifty now – darkness versus not-darkness, i mean. that’s way better than before. ❜ he stands up as he speaks, back to working, to straightening up stuff in the area because will wasn’t exactly a sit-around-and-talk kind of guy. move-around-and-talk ? that’s much more his speed. he looks over his shoulder while putting some gauze one of the other healers left out back in place, still talking. ❛ y’know, when you’re completely better, you’re gonna have to show me how your shadow stuff actually works, i’m kind of curious. all our books have question marks about it. ❜
honestly, will didn’t have just one solid reason for the request, no matter how much he made it seem so. he was curious, the blond hadn’t lied about that, but there was also the part of him that wanted to make friends with nico still at work. because he wouldn’t lie and say that when he was younger, when the son of hades would make rare visits to half-blood hill and he’d see him step out of the shadows from across camp, he didn’t furrow his brows and think about how odd of a power it was. even though it wasn’t, it wasn’t any different from his hymns, from lou ellen’s mist. will realized that now. now he just wanted to understand why exactly people seemed to hear it, if there was any reason.