#powerful will solace

[vixen-vibe]

Will Solace has plague powers like deadly diseases but I think it would be hilarious if him and Nico dance and he's infected the camp with a dancing plague so now everyone in the camp starts dancing and they cant stop.

[mediumgayitalian]

“I want you to have this.”

“Will —”

“Nico,” Will interrupts, voice stern, “take it.”

He fiddles with the clasp of his watch, sliding it off and holding it between them. The Celestial bronze frame has long since worn smooth, leather straps molded to the shape of Will’s wrist after years and years of use. He can even see the indent on the side of the bottom strap, where the Ace bandage Will often fidgets with has worn a groove.

“Please.”

Nico glances up to meet Will’s wide, pleading blue eyes. They’re darker, in the setting sun; almost midnight blue. Like the Raleigh reflection that colours the sky happens somehow in the tiny rings of his irises, too.

He sighs, holding out his wrist. Will’s expression melts into something almost relieved, corners of his lips turned up in a grateful smile. He wraps his warm hands around Nico’s forearm and fingertips, flipping over his arm, and presses the cool watch face the the middle of his wrist, buckling up the straps. Nico’s wrists are thinner than Will’s, and the worn-wide hole third down from the tip of the strap is skipped for the long-forgotten fifth. The watch fits comfortably and snugly, light enough that Nico almost — almost — forgets it’s there.

“It’s nothing like Percy’s,” he says quietly. His hands linger on the skin of Nico’s forearm, blunt fingernails picking at the watch’s grooves. “It can’t protect you. It doesn’t have a shield or a sword or anything like that. It’s just a watch.”

Nico hums. Gently, careful not to shrug off Will’s hands, he brings the watch closer to his face, inspecting it. There are nicks and chips, as expected for a watch Will has worn longer than Nico has known him, but there’s not a flaw in sight. It even ticks, pleasantly, a sound almost musical.

“Beckendorf?”

A tiny, punched-out sigh slumps from Will’s mouth.

“Yeah.”

“I can tell.” He taps his thumb on the face. “He did good work.”

“He gave it to me when I was eight,” Will says softly. “I used to — freak out, a lot. My anxiety was a lot worse as a kid. I’d panic if someone was late to breakfast, if I woke up late and no one was in the cabin. I didn’t like not knowing when things were supposed to happen.” Will’s lips quirk up. “Set it on the table when he walked by me one day. Didn’t say a word, just mussed my hair and smiled at me like he didn’t just fix my shit better than Xanax ever could.” His smile turned wry. “I had the hugest crush on him for years.”

It startles a laugh out of Nico, the admission, imagining Will’s motormouth trailing after Beckendorf, his bemused indulgence.

“There’s no way he didn’t know, either. I am not a subtle person.”

His shoulders shake. Gods, what a sight. He’s almost sad he missed it — he’ll have to ask Clarisse or Annabeth about it. Hell, maybe even Chiron. Will even looks like he’ll allow him, wide grin on his face, red as his ears may be.

“Not a bad choice,” Nico agrees, calming down a little. The watch feels heavier, now, knowing the significance, and he looks at it, lips pursing. “You sure you want me to take it?”

Will’s hand drags down his his arm until it rests in the palm of his hands for one, two, three seconds; glancing up at Nico, glancing down, nodding to himself. He twists their fingers together, squeezing. Nico’s breath hitches.

“You know how my energy kinda — goes everywhere?”

Nico nods. Will has more healing ability than pretty much anyone the camp has seen — and the more power, the harder it is to control. He’s got a pretty good handle on it, but if you stand near enough to him while he’s healing it’s impossible not to feel the affects; the ease to your joints, soothing of your tense muscles, pleasant warmth over your skin. Nico has been healed of scrapes and bruises just by virtue of one of Will’s beaming smiles, he’s gotten so good. Nico only wishes it didn’t drain him.

“I’ve been wearing that watch over seven years,” Will says. His fingers twitch. “The bronze is magic, of course, but that leather — that leather was living, once. Beckendorf made the whole thing with his bare hands ‘cause he saw me struggling. As far as ordinary objects go —” Will shrugs helplessly. “Might as we’ll be a sponge. It’s been absorbing my magic nonstop for nearly a decade. It’s as connected to me as my eyes, my hair.”

Almost absentmindedly, his free hand reaches out for Nico’s. He curls their fingers together, meeting them in the middle, and squeezes, hard enough to ground. Will blinks back into focus.

“I can feel you wearing it,” he whispers. “Your — heartbeat, vitals. Your life force.” He brings their clasped hands close to his chest, tapping right above his heart. “Here. I can feel you.”

Nico holds his breath. “Not just ‘cause you’re close to me?”

“No. I’ve never felt it like this before. Started the second you put on that watch. Focus for a second, can you feel it?”

Closing his eyes, he tries — imagining the click of the watch, gentle and soft, and the rise and swell of Will’s breathing. It’s in his hands, at first, every place they’re clutching Will’s, but in a second he can almost feel it pound — the ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump of Will’s heart, right next to his. The knot of anxiety in his stomach that isn’t his. The worry, golden and protective, spilling over him in waves.

“An empathy link,” Nico breathes. He stares at Will in pure awe. “You — you made an empathy link.”

That kind of life-force magic…you have to be deeply connected to the core of basically everything to access it. Satyrs have it easy, being nature spirits. Gods spend so long grappling with time that they can manage, too.

But mortals? Even half-divine ones?

Nico has spent a lot of time with the mythical, alive and dead. He’s met theoi from pantheons forgotten to every living soul, foreign to even most of the dead. He knows his history twice over and backwards.

He’s never heard of that before.

“Holy shit, Will.”

“Just — come back to me,” Will says. He tugs on Nico’s arms and faces him head-on, eyes now almost black that the sun has set down. “Promise me, Nico. Stay safe. Stay outta trouble as much as you can. Keep your head on straight. And —” He squeezes their hands together, to hide the tremble in his fingers. “I mean it, okay? Come back to me.”

Slowly, giving him time to pull away, Nico frees his hands, sliding them up to cup Will’s face. He pulls him down, standing on his tiptoes to meet him halfway, and lingers, breath mixing, warm, in the millimeters of space between them.

“I promise,” he whispers. “I swear it, Will, I’ll come back to you. I swear it on the Styx.”

Thunder rumbles above them.

“Good.”

Will closes the tiny stretch of space separating them, and their hearts beat in tapping harmony.

[yonemurishiroku]

I think we're overlooking a very fascinating fact.

No? i mean. Nico's the nephew Zeus tried to kill but failed. His father (Hades)'s power rivals Zeus'. Will defeats the only goddess Zeus is terrified of. His father (Apollo) was mortal-ized by Zeus twice. And these two kids are a couple whose love overcame Tartarus.

I mean. If I was Zeus I'd be pretty concerned----

[lexyvey]

Thought I might try and write a Plague Will fic of my own after hyper-fixating on his character for who knows how long.

Anyway, Check out ‘These Are a Healer’s Hands’ on AO3 and Wattpad.

Chapter 1 out now

Summary:

Most of Apollo's kids would curse you into speaking in rhyming couplets for days — possibly weeks — if you angered them, but Will wasn't like his siblings. He never excelled at archery, his singing voice sounded like a dying pegasus, and he couldn't make people sound like Shakespeare when aggravated with them. Instead, Will inherited his father's healing abilities, and with it his power over plagues and diseases. So, on the very rare occasion that Will let himself become truly furious... well, Will doesn't talk about it.

Excerpt:

Beau had fallen from the playground stairs, scraping his knee badly. It was bleeding a lot, and Will dropped everything to help the boy. He didn’t know what he was doing at the time, just placed his hands over Beau’s injured knee and began humming some song that came as naturally as breathing to Will. It was entirely instinctive, and before either boy knew it, the scrape had magically healed itself leaving not even a scar. Both old friends looked at each other in complete shock before Will made ran away making himself scarce. When he was alone, he chanced a look down at his hands, studying them as if they were some kind of alien.

When his mom came to pick him up after school that day, Will told his mom all about the incident. Will had never been good at keeping secrets from her, nor did he ever really want to. It confused Will when as he explained what happened, his mom’s reaction was more worried than shocked. When they reached the next red light, she turned to face her son, smiling at him and reaching out her hand for Will to grab and hold.

“Will honey, I’m so proud of you. You’re such a good kindhearted kid and I couldn’t be luckier to have you in my life… but I’m gonna need you to not use these miraculous healing hands,” she told him wiggling their joint hands and eliciting a small laugh from the boy, “in public, ok? Next time, just help Beau to the nurse’s office, please.”

[yonemurishiroku]

Sorry I found it hysterical that TSATS felt the need to give Will 'dark' plague powers after going on and on about his sun powers because we literally had an entire book about how dangerous and violent and destructive the sun can be. That was definitely a theme in The Burning Maze. When Nico's upset the air around him freezes and when Will gets upset it should get uncomfortably hot to the point where his touch burns. Normally he can calm people down by making them feel like standing in the sunshine on a nice day but he can also make it sweltering and stifling. If Nico feels too dead to the living then Will should feel too alive to the dead. Will doesn't mean to make Nico uncomfortable with his light- but it often means there's no longer any shadows for Nico to fall back on; there's nowhere for him to hide or reach out to for comfort.

Ikr?

I mean. Yeah it's great that Rick went for the "opposite but actually complement" and I like Plague!Will as the next person but like. There could be more to the originial Dark & Light dynamic - which happens to be the one major thing about them.

Especially considering the fact that - as you've mentioned - part of it has already been established. Gosh Rick needs to keep notes of his canon materials. There're also abundant materials to work with, as well! Those you sent^^^ for example. Brilliant representation. I'd take it anyway.

I guess Rick thought Plague is a somewhat resemblance of Nico's Death-thing so it'd be a figure of their Death vs Life dynamic. And in a way, it is! I'm just disappointed that we could have had so much more, you know?

Among Apollo's children, we have Kayla as the archer, Austin as the musician, and Will as a healer. We have yet to have any child with his Driver of the Sun Chariot status - which, as it is, turns out to have the most potentials to be downright destructive if you play your cards right (I mean. look at Hyperion).

Though, in hindsight, I suppose we might be a little bit delusional to put Will in that Sun category. I'm not sure. Rick plans to have Will as the healer - who inherits Apollo's healing talents, not a fighter who supposedly embraces his Sunny side, so maybe that's why our ideas don't align.

(Also? Forever salty that Will's plague power is brushed away like it's nothing. The guy gave the primordial of Night hay fever for Tartarus' sake. Srsly the next step should be wrapping him up to avoid spreading and treating him like a biology terrorist)

[yonemurishiroku]

tbh the most alarming thing from the preview to me was the fact that Will was dying but like. have we really considered the full implications of that. this is WILL SOLACE. the most powerful healer in the world? who can reattach limbs? stated by Apollo to rival Asclepius, the god of doctors who can cure death? what the hell happened to Will Solace that Will Solace can't fix??

Idk about yall but in a game, healers/supports are those I would invest in first and foremost.

People usually underestimate how significant a difference they can make in the grand scheme of things, but I guarantee, seeing your team practically immortal to the enemies’ hits is the most powerful feeling ever. Mainly bc I'm a horrible being but still---

Now, back to the main topic. I don't recall Will being compared to Asclepius, yet in that case, then the family dinner would be very fun because, in the myth, Hades isn't quite fond of Asclepius' masterpiece of resurrection spell lmao.

That is to say, it'd be a nice surprise to see Will as the OP one - bc as far as I'm aware of, Plague!Will is currently the only considerably powerful version of him. Be it as it may, the style itself leans towards the fighting/damaging style - technically, a fighter still - whereas Will's spies of expertise are written to be: healing. I'm all for creative writing, but I do think we should also stick to what he's best at to accentuate his role, what he is and what he wishes for - rather than altering him just to fit in a preference.

And if we can somehow make it shine even in the lightless land of Tartarus, then all the power to us.

Bet you'd be surprised if Will's limbs start reattaching themselves. Straight-up a golden version of Venom. Ha. Didn't see that coming, did you.

I vote for the pain to remain tho like it heals but it still hurts bc i said so