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When Nico first sees him, it’s like he can’t breathe. One moment, he’s enjoying his perfectly normal McDonald burger. The next, he’s sprawled (metaphorically) on the floor.
The boy’s unfamiliar, all sunshine and hair like fucking threads of gold. He smells like clean cotton soaked in pure sunlight, with a hint of honey somewhere. He’s utterly strange, with the easy smile he greets the cashier with, messy curls drooping over his forehead. Laughter startles Nico out of his daze, and in a second, he’s tense and ready to run.
Because under the scent of golden dew and fresh sheets, the boy radiates a warning to the supernatural. Gunpowder and salt, tucked under his cheerful façade like grim reminders of the dead. And oh, can Nico be any dumber? The boy has iron rings wrapped around his fingers, and a silver chain around his neck glints when he shifts.
Swallowing nervously, Nico grabs his paper bag. He’s definitely intrigued by the hunter, but he’s not stupid enough to hang around one of them.
Not when he’s one of the things they try to kill.
So, Will figures. It’s safe to say the moody boy at McDonald’s earlier was not the cause of the weird deaths in the neighborhood.
There’s a couple of Grecian shapeshifters chasing him- he’s not sure what they are, or even how to gank them (which sucks, really). He thought they were vampires, at first, or even succubae, but those don’t have bronze / serpentine legs. There was a section on Greek monsters in Lou Ellen’s library, and Will regrets never reading much about them. Even so, he’s pretty sure these things are Enchiladas, or something starting with an E.
“Come back, child of sssun!” one of them hisses.
“We can make you feel better,” the other adds.
Will ducks under a squawking, indignant bird, and throws the monsters a backward glance, just in case they turned back into normal looking women. Nope, still pointy and scaly.
“No thanks!” he yells, “you’re too flashy for my tastes!”
Just as he reaches the end of the river bank, he stops himself before he falls into the rivers. Darn it, he’s estimated the waterfall wrongly; instead of a calm, swimmable current, the river’s a roaring, wild mess.
When Will turns to look at the pair, he feels the familiar thrum of excitement and dread coil in his stomach. He has an assortment of weapons hidden in the lines of his clothing, knives tucked into belts and a gun at his side. Most of them are iron and silver, because those are what harms the most monsters.
But for these monsters, Will really has no idea what’ll work. Cold iron? Pure silver? Borax?
There’s only one hunter he knows to have hunted Greek monsters. It’s Artemis, his aunt, and the last time he’d seen her, she was with her band of female hunters, traveling the northern regions of America. She’d handed him a quiver full of silver, enchanted arrows, solemnly warning him about the recent disturbances. (With Lucifer rising and the Winchesters dying and all, it was generally a crappy era to be a hunter.)
Perhaps, he thinks. Perhaps.
“Well,” he mutters, as the two monsters grow closer and closer. “Worth a try.”
When one of them steps close enough into his range, Will places his whistle-ring between his teeth and blows, a shrieking, deafening sound that seems to momentarily catch the monsters off-guard. Side stepping a clumsy lunge, he burrows his foot into the stomach of one of them. She loses her balance, veering away from him. Will takes her stumbling as his chance, and plunges the tip of his arrow into her chest. The arrow digs deep into her skin.
She bursts into flame with an unearthly, screeching howl.
Oh, Will thinks, that’s new.
He barely has time to react when the second one snarls in anger. It lunges towards him, hands outstretched, fangs glinting maliciously. As it is, his arm barely escapes her snapping jaws.
Will tries to reach for another arrow. There’s at least two of them still in his quiver, and his fingers graze against the feathered end when the remaining monster snatches his ankle, toppling him over.
In a loud, resounding thump, he lands on his back. The arrows have fallen from his quiver. One lies a few feet away snapped in half. The other, he can’t see.
“You killed her!” the monster spits. Will cocks an eyebrow, because really? That’s going to be what she says?
“Oops,” he replies.
He tries to make a go for it and grab the silver arrow tip, but the monster’s faster than she seems. Strong, clawed hands slash his arm, and ow does that hurt. She doesn’t seem to want to waste any more time clawing him up- those sharp, wicked talons are reaching for his neck and Will’s certain he’s going to die. A shiver freezes his bones, locking his jaw in place as he braces himself for the inevitable.
After all, half of being a hunter was dying.
Then he hears it.
A deadly slice of air, the near silent sound as something heavy (and wet) drops to the ground. Will’s left dumbstruck for the entirety of one second before he rolls away from the monster’s body, snatching up his fallen arrow in the process. Automatically, his body shifts into a defensive position.
The monster is dead. Her head is fallen, lifeless eyes staring. Blood, dark green and instantly drying up into a dirt-gold dust, pools and dissipates around her fallen form. It’s different from how normal monster corpses look.
Will manages to tear his eyes away from the horribly fascinating sight. His heart stutters, just for a moment- in fear, and in surprise. And something else.
In front of him stands a small, slender boy, with dark, ragged hair and a full-out black outfit. A stencil skull is sketched on the boy’s t-shirt, smears of the golden blood-dust caking its edges. A sword forged of unfamiliar, dark metal. The blade screams in waves of misery, like it’s a literal death trap. Will finds that he wouldn’t be surprised if it was.
The boy looks bold and frightened at the same time. While he stands hunched and defensive, his eyes gleam with a certain steel to them. Will has seen them in countless people, hunters and monsters alike. Eyes that are pit-fires shrouded in shadows.
Those are the eyes of someone acquainted with death.
The silence is palpable, taut. It strains on Will’s nerves, and it isn’t long before he manages to crack open his dry lips and speak.
“Cool blade, huh?”
The moment the words leave his mouth, Will blushes. That sounds careless and arrogant, like Will knows many hunters can be like. He immediately follows it up, especially when the boy grows wary. “Oh! I’m sorry, I swear I can’t control my mouth sometimes… I mean, thanks. My name’s Will, by the way,” he babbles. He internally sighs in relief when the pale boy seems to relax, his shoulders straightening a mere fraction.
“Nico,” the boy replies. It takes Will a moment to realize that Nico is the boy’s name.
“Nice to meet you, Nico,” he says, grinning.
Nico eyes Will’s slashed arm hesitantly, as if he’s not sure what should be done with it.
“Is your arm okay?” he asks. He acts like it’s the first time he’s seen someone seriously injured. Will, however, can feel his skin and muscle already knitting themselves back together under the coat of scarlet blood.
“I’m fine, I heal fast enough,” Will says. “Bet you don’t see a lot of boys bleeding out around here,” he attempts.
Nico actually snorts at that. “No, it’s a daily occurrence. I see them all over the streets, every time I go to McDonald’s,” he says. ”Can’t even get a burger without stepping on one.” His voice is laced with sarcasm, but there’s also some genuine humor there. Dry humor. Will just gives him a cheeky grin. “But I’m not like all those boys, are I?”
He wonders for a moment who Nico is, but then he decides it’s not really important- not important at all, when Nico gives him a meek half-smile, half-smirk. Will decides, halfway in a blood-loss induced daze, that he likes Nico’s smile. It looks broody. And adorable. Like a tiny baby black duckling.
Okay, so maybe he’s not as fine as he seems to be.
Head spinning, Will stumbles, gripping at the riverbank’s railing to right himself. Nico takes a step closer, tentatively. His expression shifts into concern as he says, “Will, I don’t think you should be standing right now.”
Yeah. That makes sense. Super-healing or not, there’s definitely a large puddle of blood on the cement. Whoooo. Bi-g puddle. Will’s puddle. ‘I’m fine,’ he tries to say. Instead, he mumbles out, “Fff-nngh.”
The second time Will’s feet disobey him, Nico’s right next to him, sneakers squishing in blood as he grips Will’s shoulders. He checks the taller boy’s arm. After seeing the wound has already closed, his eyes widen in surprise before they grow determined.
“Will, I’m going to put you to sleep for a bit,” he says.
“Mmph,”
“Okay, you owe me at least two shirts and a pair of jeans after this,” Nico says, grunting. He wraps his arms around Will’s middle before pressing his fingers to Will’s forehead.
“Goodnight, hunter,” is the last thing Will hears before he’s asleep.
“Will,” a sweet, young voice says. “Will!” it repeats with a bit more force.
It takes him a few bleary blinks before he fully remembers what’d happened. The girl monsters. The boy. Nico. Blood.
“Enchiladas?” is what he first mutters, still disoriented. Nico turns to him, brows knitted in confusion. “What enchilada- oh, you mean the monsters. Empousai, actually,” he says.
Will frowns, shaking his head to clear it. Nico hands him a glass of water, which he barely inspects before downing it. After all, if Nico had wanted to kill him, there’d been plenty of chances before Will woke up. “Thanks,” he says, feeling much more oriented.
Nico shrugs heartlessly, before handing Will some pills. “Vitamins. And iron supplements. I’ve got some herbal tea, too.”
Swallowing the medicine takes him a few seconds. “So,” Will says casually. “What were you doing back there?” he asks.
Nico doesn’t answer, instead moving toward a tiny kitchenette on the other side of the room. Now that Will can see things better, his eyes flit across the place, memorizing details that every hunter does. One bedroom cabin, with a couch and a TV set next to the kitchenette and the bathroom door positioned opposite. Will’s lying on a narrow single bed with worn grey sheets and a sea-green quilt. There’s pots and pans cluttered over the kitchenette’s sink. Most everything is black, white, and grey, except for a few silver and gold frames clustered around the TV. One particular frame isn’t metallic like the others- instead, it seems to be made of smooth wood and covered in seashells and sprinkled with blue paint. It’s too far away for him to see the picture well, but there’s a jar of black and gold sand sitting next to it. Noticeably, there are a few more splashes of color around the place that seem to come from someone other than Nico. A wreath of feathers and wooden beads hanging on the wall. A tiny figurine of some kind placed on a narrow bookcase. A golden statue of an archer embedded with topaz- that seems, surprisingly, made of actual gold and gemstones. There’s even a tiny mobile hanging from the corner of the ceiling, one that looks like a floating city- but that has to be nearly impossible, right? Not in a miniscule model like that.
Will realizes, belatedly, that it smells and feels like a home.
Nico seems to be cooking something. There’s a pot sizzling, and a kettle has begun to let out a low, pitched whine. Will sits up carefully- his arm looks like it’s nearly healed, but his healing always took longer when it came to his soft, mushy insides.
“So, what are you? A hunter? Or a monster?” Will asks, almost casually. Nico freezes, back still turned pointedly away from him. The side of his jaw is barely visible, but in the way only doctors can, Will sees the way the muscles in his neck pulse. He’s searching for an answer. He’s afraid, Will realizes. Afraid. Of him.
“Hey, I’m not going to hurt you,” Will says softly. “You saved my life- contrary to some hunters, I don’t kill everything supernatural that I see.”
Nico doesn’t relax, but he does answer.
“Both,” he says in a small voice. “I hunt the evil ones.”
Will lets out a tiny breath of relief. He tries to relax, but his hunter instincts make him want to assess the threat, make sure Nico’s not a danger. His (gayer) normal instincts, on the other hand, make him want to snuggle the thin boy and feed him chocolate.
He watches as Nico tries to juggle two plates and a bowl in one hand and silverware in the other. Shadows shift at the boy’s feet, even though the light is steady. It looks like they’re ready to catch Nico.
Bringing himself up to Nico, Will takes the bowl and plates. “Here,” he says brightly. “I’ll place them on the table.” Which is (by all means) not really a table. It’s rather a tiny desk that seems to be not only Nico’s work-table, with a laptop perched on the edge, but a dining table too. A worn blue tablecloth is draped across it.
Nico nods his head in thanks, dark eyes flitting over Will. He lifts the lid of the pot for a moment, scrunching his nose rather adorably. Then, the bowl in Will’s hands is being filled with a white, thin soup with eggs and shrimp swimming amongst carrots and what looked like spinach.
“What’s this?” he asks.
Nico gives him a noncommittal grunt. “Homemade recipe. One of my aunts used to have anemia.”
Will’s eyebrows shift a fraction before he sets the bowl on the table, and the empty plates next to it. “Anemia?”
“You asked me about who- what I am. My mother was a natural-born witch; my aunts were part of her coven. Marie Levesque’s coven- you might’ve heard of it.”
As in fact, Will has heard of it. His own father being a psychic, there’d been talk of good witches helping some hunters out and such. His aunt had been the one to tell him about the Levesque clan; odd, yet powerful.
“But that usually doesn’t count as being a monster,” Will says. That’s true. Hunters don’t harm psychics or good witches, because they’re allied with them. They’re pretty much reliable sources for certain spells and rituals hunters need.
Nico shrinks away, as if Will’s burnt him. “Well,” he says, “that didn’t stop the Argents from killing Marie.”
The room falls silent. Will can tell Nico’s hiding something- something else, but he doesn’t press. Instead, he sits on one of the two stools around the desk.
“Why did the empousai cause me so much blood loss?” he asks. “Normally cuts don’t knock me out.”
Neither, he doesn’t mention, do monsters turn to dust.
Nico sits in the other stool, placing two slices of raisin bread on Will’s plate, and digs out a McDonald’s cheeseburger. Will eyes it with disapproval- if his memory serves him right, Nico had been eating a burger when he first saw him. Not healthy, really.
“They have numbing poison,” Nico mutters, “Not like what their Mythomagic cards say, by the way.”
Will feels surprised for a moment when he hears the name of the old game. Then he realizes, it’s not long ago that Nico would’ve been a child. He smiles to himself, and tears off a bit of bread. “I’d say the Hydra card is even more inaccurate. It can be destroyed by a Pegasus, of all things.”
Nico’s eyes widen in amazement, and Will feels like he just gave a lost kid his favorite dinosaur.
The rest of the meal is blurred with an animated, excited Nico waving his hands a lot and not even touching his cheeseburger. Will learns that Nico likes card games and older music, and that his mom is originally from the 1940s in Italy. He learns the way Nico smiles and snorts, never really laughing but amused in his own way.
He also senses there’s more to the strange enigma of a boy, the jumpy hunter who’s part of his own prey. The hidden predator with dulled doe-eyes and fear-ridden suspicion.
Will watches as Nico’s lips quirk upwards, rinsing the dishes as Will dries them. He thinks, hesitantly, that maybe he wants to learn more about him.
Will asks if Nico wants to travel together. He can tell the boy is surprised, the way his nose scrunches up and he looks confused. He feels unbearably happy when Nico, at last nods. “We can hunt better together, I guess,” he says. Will thinks they can do much more better together.
And so, the Sun met Death, and a prophecy was broken.