Okay so I finished Blood of Olympus within the first seven hours that I owned it, and that's only because I worked. The amount of pumped for this book I was is legendary. I ran across the mall and had my nose in the book as my friends steered me around and was squealing in all the public places and generally embarrassing those around me. It was a mixture of excitement and sadness though. I don't think that we're done with the Greco-Roman universe based on RR's various tweets and foreshadowing, we'll see it (and its characters) again... but now we know how Gaia is defeated, who survives the process, what the prophecy means... no more conspiracy theories (I love conspiracy theories). No more anxious waiting for the next book. No more fanfiction based on the next book's title, no more PJO ship weeks, no more caring about the future of these characters until your face is red and blue and your screams have stopped sounding like 'DONT HURT MY BABIES' and turned into some guttural, primal scream of terror. I think that RR deserves an awful lot of credit for even installing all of these things within thousands of young people in the first place, and thousands of young people to come.

PM me if you want to talk about the pros and cons of the book (I have a lot to say about this), but for now- on with the story! This is the first one I post following the release and, unlike last time, I'm making it a happy one. So there. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters portrayed below. Here's your last warning that this is a spoiler alert for BoO. This is a recording.

Dedication: Rick Riordan. Heaven knows you'll never read this, and Olympus knows this is cheesy. But gods, after all the stories you gave me, here's one for you. Cheers.

In My Arms

The Apollo cabin had quite a hefty library buried in its many secret rooms –one for each art. The Literature Room was the latest one that Will had snuck Nico into. It had solid and daunting shelves stretching the floor to the ceiling, where quotes glided across the skylights, as if the ink had gotten slippery with the energy of so many words and so much meaning.

They walked up and down, Will looking for something to read to Nico until his latest catastrophic run-in with a hellhound pack healed over. Story time seemed to be the cherry on top of the Will-Solace-Treatment-Plan sundae.

"I'm assuming you know Shakespeare," Will said seriously, going through the books, his blue eyes fixed on the titles and his fingers quickly running up and down spines as he moved across the shelves.

"No and that's okay," Nico said. He'd heard Percy and the other demigods who went to school complain about it more than enough to know that he wasn't interested.

Will's face oozed disdain. If there was one thing he was trying to change in Nico, it was his title as "uncultured swine".

"What about Verne? Do you like Verne?" Will asked.

"Is he the one who wrote about going to the center of the earth? Mmm, too soon."

"True," Will said. "My bad. Dickens?"

"Nope."

"1984?"

"More apocalypse stuff now?" Nico asked from his spot int he wheelchair.

"It's not apocalyptic fiction, it's dystopian. It'd be post-apocalyptic if anything," Will said. "Okay, how do we feel about Gatsby?"

"No clue, but the fourties is kind of just bleh to me," Nico said. "Same old, same old, you know?"

"Jesus, di Angelo," Will huffed.

"You don't have to read to me," Nico said. "Just invent a story. Off the top of your head."

Will mumbled something indistinguishable and wandered further into the maze of shelves and leather binding and crisp, yellowed pages. There was no use arguing with him, Nico knew. Not only was Will stubborn, but he was also guilty right now. He and Nico had been supposed to go into the city together, but he'd canceled at the last minute for an emergency trip home. Since Nico had been so far away from him when he'd gotten trapped in the stampede, Will had taken it upon himself to shoulder the blame and to make sure that Nico didn't leave his arms after that. Nico hadn't complained much. If he was going to be in pain with his arms at awkward angles and his level of conscience faltering, it may as well be with his head against Will's chest and his hands checking for a fever or twirling strands of his hair.

His boyfriend had vanished from sight and into the paper world around them, and Nico got bored of waiting. He got up (sure, Will had wheeled Nico down in a wheelchair, but they both knew that Will was just overprotective) and wandered around until a name in golden font and ancient Greek letters caught his eye:

COMPLETE WORKS OF PLATO.

"You. In the chair. What did I tell you about the doctor's orders?" Will snapped, turning the corner, coming out of nowhere like a demented Healer-in-the-Box, minus the creepy tunes. He froze when he saw the concentration on Nico's face. "What are you reading? You're not supposed to be reading when you're concussed."

"I'm only possibly concussed," Nico pointed out.

"I'm 99% sure you're concussed no matter what the stupid tests say." He frowned at the title. "Complete Works of Plato?"

"Yeah," Nico said. "Have you ever read it?"

"Can't say I have, no," Will said. "Well, not entirely."

"Do you know that one story in it? About how humans used to be these four-armed, four-legged monsters with two heads at the beginning of time? But then Zeus thought that they were too powerful so he separated the bodies into men and women. And since then, humans have always searched for their other half."

"That's quite romantic of you," Will said. "You really are concussed."

"I used to think about that story all the time," Nico said. "You know, before I came out and stuff?"

"Yeah," Will said.

"Because I always used to think where does that leave me?" Nico said. His mouth was dry. Saying it out loud made the pain feel much more real.

Will, thanks to some kind of healing god genetics or something equally magical, found a way to hug Nico without touching any of the broken parts. He gathered his battered and bruised boyfriend in his arms.

"It leaves you right in my arms and don't you forget it," he said kissing Nico's hair.