I'm not yet completely sold on Solangelo being canon but I am so totally down for the count when it comes to this AU.

Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or Heroes of Olympus.

Life and Death

Nico's boots echoed against the floor as he walked through the doors of Ogygia Medical Center for his shift. There weren't many people about, so he managed to get an elevator headed down pretty quickly.

"Hey, hold that!" A voice yelled just as the elevator doors were about to close. Nico stuck his boot out to keep the them open, allowing a tall, lean man to enter a few beats later.

"Thanks," the man said, ruffling his blond hair. When he saw Nico, his blue eyes brightened, and he gave the younger man a grin, his pearly whites contrasting brightly against his tan.

"Oh, hey, Nico," Dr. Will Solace greeted. Then, as if he'd just realized something, he grimaced, "I took the wrong elevator again didn't I."

Nico was torn between amusement and exasperation. Will had a bad habit of not paying proper attention to elevators. In fact, the first time Nico managed to have a proper conversation with Will was because of a similar situation. He chose not to point that out.

"What're you doing here?" He asked instead. As far as he knew, Will didn't have any operations lined up for the night, or the day after. The blonde had been talking about the-night-he-was-fucking-finally-going-home-early all week, so it was weird for him to show up at the hospital, especially at 11 in the evening.

Will shrugged, and the gesture caused the bright elevator lights to glint off of his silver earring. "I'm taking over for one of the other surgeons today. His wife is about to give birth in the maternity ward." He held his palms up as if to say 'babies, what are you gonna do?' He glanced at his watch, frowned slightly, and looked at Nico. "You're early. Did a body drop?"

"Yeah, Annabeth mentioned something about a guy being found in Battery Park an hour ago." Nico replied.

Will nodded. "Oh, cool. I might as well go say hi to her since I seem to be headed that way, anyway. Does she know Percy's here?"

Nico looked at him curiously. "Most probably. Percy's here?"

"Yeah. He got assigned to guard one of my patients."

The rest of the ride down was spent with Will talking about how his patient was an important witness against a major drug ring in the city, which was why the man needed the NYPD to stand guard in front of his room while he recuperates from surgery.

When they got to the morgue, Annabeth was already standing over a fresh stiff on one of the metallic examination tables, intensely focused as always. The chest cavity of the victim – male, Caucasian, most likely mid-40's – was already open, and Annabeth was knuckles-deep in his gastrointestinal track.

"Hey, Annabeth!" Will greeted.

"Bye, Will." She replied, not taking her eyes off of her vic. Will chuckled and, with one last "see you!" directed at nobody in particular, he turned around and headed back for the elevator.

Nico switched his leather jacket for his lab coat, rolled up the sleeves, and traded his motorcycle gloves for a pair of surgical ones. He took his place next to Annabeth and joined her in prodding the body in front of them.

They worked with their usual banter on what could have happened to the poor bastard on their examination table. Everything was like it always was, so it surprised Nico when Annabeth switched from talking about the vic's shattered sternum as a possible COD to asking: "So, are you and Sunshine together yet?"

It was a good thing Nico had already placed the foreign debris he'd picked up from the vic's throat down on the tray, because he fumbled slightly with the forceps in his hand. "I don't know what you're talking about, Chase."

But he totally did. He had a crush on Will, and he wouldn't put it past Annabeth to figure it out. Yes, Will Solace was hot as fuck with an amazing personality to boot, and Nico was attracted to him, but so was half the nursing staff of Ogygia. Nico didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell.

"That's too bad," she commented, "seeing as he's totally into you."

At that, he choked. Meanwhile, Annabeth was completely concentrated on the beat-up liver she was pulling out of her vic. "What?"

"Ugh, I know, right. Vic was poinsoned. We'll need to do a full tox screen later, but judging by his other symptoms and the bag of meds I found in his pocket, he most likely OD'ed on acetaminophen. Probably Tylenol. Mystery solved. How… ordinary."

"Annabeth!" He sputtered, not entirely sure if he was trying to berate her for her callous statement about the victim's death, or for trying to change the topic on him.

"He's been coming by the morgue everyday for the past two weeks." She replied, referring to Will. "He's never done that before, nor does he have a reason to be here."

"In case you haven't noticed, he works here." He pointed out, not believing for a single moment that Will could be into him. There was no way, no way in hell, that Will Solace, Ogygia's own McDreamy, liked him.

"In case you haven't noticed, he's a heart surgeon. Last I checked, that requires patients with a beating heart; and this guy?" She pointed to the cadaver on the examination table. "He doesn't even have a heart anymore. I took it out just before you arrived."

Nico tossed the forceps onto the tray, completely abandoning all pretenses of examining the corpse. "We bump into each other! As in, accidentally!"

"And, what, he takes a scenic little detour to the lowest level of the hospital before leaving or, in today's case, going to the 18th floor?" Annabeth snorted, "For gods' sake, he even changed his aftershave and, judging by the infuriatingly immaculate state of his hair, he's been styling it just before he leaves his office for the night."

Huh. So that's what's been different about Will. Nico had been trying to figure it out since last Tuesday; but he couldn't quite put his finger on it until Annabeth had pointed it out just now. Will normally smelled like a sunny day (and before meeting Will, Nico hadn't even known anyone could smell like sunshine). Now, as Nico was recalling, he smelled a bit earthier. Sandalwood, probably. Nico bet he could get Annabeth to confirm it, too—

Hold on, that wasn't the point here.

He scrambled for a counter. "He greets you every time he's here, too! You ever think he's here for you?"

"I'm not the one he's constantly trying to impress." At his blank stare, Annabeth sighed. "Really? The hair, the aftershave, the calculatedly tired sigh about how his latest operation was 'so tiring but worth seeing that little girl smile and thank him for saving her brother?' The practically giddy way he looks at you for your reaction? Those are textbook 'notice me!' gestures. Hell, I'll even bet your 'accidental' meetings with him aren't accidental at all on his part."

Whoa, there.

"So, what you're saying is that Will has been purposefully finding ways to meet up and talk to me." He clarified.

"You don't coincidentally bump into a person for two straight weeks, especially not with his unusual hours and your flexible shift." Well, she did have a point. "That's why I called you in earlier, actually. I didn't really need you until later, but I wanted to see what he'd do if you arrived out of your regular schedule. Given that he still managed to meet up with you, I'm inclined to assume he waits for you somewhere near the elevators."

Nico figured he should've been angry that she dicked him around and used him as a test subject for an experiment again, but all he could do was incredulously exclaim: "Are you aware how crazy you sound right now?"

Annabeth stopped fussing with the victim and directed her gaze straight at him. "People have done crazier things for the person they're crazy about."

Her words and, more importantly, how she delivered them made him deflate. Holy shit, she was being serious about this. She seriously thought Will had a crush on him.

He wasn't sure how to feel. Elated, maybe? Sure, a tiny part of him was starting to hope that Will really did like him. The rest of him, though… The rest of him still didn't want to believe Annabeth, even if she'd only been wrong less than a handful of times since he met her.

Will is… amazing, for a lack of a better word. He's the youngest surgeon in the hospital, yet he can successfully perform operations that normally only have a low survival rate. The only other ones who could do that were the head neurosurgeon and the hospital director (both of whom were, coincidentally enough, Will's older brother and their father respectfully. Damn skill ran in the family). He even served as a combat medic overseas last year.

Meanwhile, Nico was the strange medical examiner who, on more than one occasion, ended up striking a conversation with the dead. Granted, he was one of the best ME's Ogygia had, and his skill in determining specifics of a victim's death trumps even Annabeth's. But what's Will going to like about a guy who knows exactly how and when a person died, when he's off preventing deaths?

Besides, it's not like Nico had the sunniest personality. He was sort of a recluse. He didn't really talk to the other hospital staff, especially since he worked the graveyard shift and rarely left the morgue. Before Will befriended him two weeks ago, the only regular (live) human interaction he'd had was with Annabeth, which mostly consisted of shop talk, and Jason or Reyna or whichever detective needed him to do an autopsy. A lot of the other staff found him creepy as well, partly thanks to his pasty skin and the dark circles under his eyes, partly thanks to his job, but mostly due to his socially awkward personality.

He just didn't understand how anyone like Will, who was his complete opposite in looks and pretty much everything else, could even like him a little, much less in a romantic sense.

"So, tox screen?" He said, pointedly changing the subject. Thankfully, Annabeth picked up on the fact that he didn't want to talk about his… thing with Will. The two of them continued the autopsy without any further topic changes.

At around 2 A.M., just as Nico was starting to process the last of the evidence and Annabeth was writing their findings in the autopsy report, the elevator chimed. A few moments later, Percy Jackson came into view, still dressed in his NYPD uniform.

"My shift is officially over! And according to my watch, yours should have been done an hour ago, you workaholic. And that's with overtime." He proclaimed, dropping a kiss to his girlfriend's temple. Annabeth let an annoyed grunt escape through her nose at his bothering her, but he only laughed. He then smiled at Nico. "Hey, Nico. What's up?"

Nico grunted noncommittally, still focused on his work.

"Hey, has Will been by yet?" Percy asked.

At this, the ME looked up from his work. He stared at the older man strangely, sliding his incredulous gaze towards Annabeth before returning to Percy. She couldn't have told Percy, could she?

"Uhh, yeah…?" He said, not really knowing how else to reply.

"I hope he finally had the guts to ask you out." The cop said. "Poor guy spent days figuring out how to talk to you in the first place."

Nico froze.

No fuckin' way.

"Told you." Annabeth said lowly, not once stopping or looking away from the report she was writing. Her smug, almost sing-song tone reminded him of how much a prideful, know-it-all asshole his coworker could be.

"Shut up, Chase." He barked, irritated. He then rounded on her boyfriend. "You're shitting me, Jackson."

Percy raised his hands. "No, really. We bumped into each other a few weeks back, around before he had to operate on my witness. He kept asking me how to talk to you and stuff, and that's how he eventually came up with the elevator thing."

Nico didn't know what to say to that.

In the following awkward silence, Annabeth finally set the autopsy report aside. Percy's eyes flickered to her. "Ready to go?" He asked.

She nodded. She proceeded to remove her lab coat while Percy got her bag and trenchcoat for her.

"I'll leave you to add the results of the last of the evidence to the autopsy report." She told Nico. "Make sure Reyna gets the report when you're done. She'll want to know about the fractures on the vic's sternum. And, for the love of God, finish it before your shift ends, or else Pointy Ass will fuck it up on purpose to discredit us again."

Percy rolled his eyes. "Relax, Annabeth. Nico's got this. Right, Nico?"

"Sure thing." He replied, getting back to work. This, he could do. "I'll finish everything and get it to Reyna before Octavian gets here." There was no way he was letting Octavian near any of Reyna's cases, anyway. The morning-shift ME was a power-hungry asshole who liked to play dirty. Nico hated him, and the feeling was mutual.

Annabeth smiled fleetingly at him. "Thanks. See you later."

Percy waved at him as he tugged Annabeth towards the elevator. "See you around, Nico! The three of us should go have drinks with Jason and Reyna sometime."

"Yeah, sure."

The two of them left, and the next few hours passed quickly as Nico threw himself into his work. He finished up the autopsy at around 4:30 A.M. (Annabeth's hunch about the acetaminophen had been right). With nothing to distract his mind with, his thoughts went back to what Annabeth and Percy had told him that night.

He had met Will Solace properly two weeks ago. As the elevator opened up to the lobby and Nico had stepped in, Will had been concentrating really hard on one the files in his hands. By the time the surgeon had resurfaced from what he was reading and looked up, the elevator had gone past the lobby and was already on its way to the morgue. After that, he'd introduced himself to Nico, who had been the only other person present.

Back then, Nico hadn't thought twice about what had happened. It wasn't exactly abnormal for someone to become completely absorbed in something. Nico got lost in his work all the time, and so did Annabeth. And when Will had had elevator-related mishaps again and again after that, Nico had just assumed the other man was just distracted.

It would have never occurred to him that the entire thing was staged. Even though they'd bumped into each other constantly, it was never in the exact same scenario, though elevator-related mishaps occured the most. One time, Nico had wandered into the cafeteria in search of his sister, who was working the graveyard shift that week to complete her nursing internship, and he'd bumped into Will who'd been having a coffee break. The night after that, Nico hadn't seen him until the early morning. He'd come down to the morgue after his rounds to relay a message from Hazel. If Percy was telling the truth and Will had been staging the meet-ups, then Will had been putting a hell of an effort into talking to him.

At around 5, which Nico knew should be just right after Will's rounds to his patients, the heart surgeon entered the morgue.

"Hey." He greeted, and Nico couldn't help but notice the way his blond hair curled just so against his temples and, when he took a seat next to Nico, notice the smell of his aftershave – like sandalwood and bottled sunshine. Damn Annabeth for pointing those out.

"Did Annabeth finally leave?" He inquired, casually browsing the autopsy report on the desk.

"Percy dragged her out a couple of hours ago, yeah." Nico replied.

"That woman works too much." Will chuckled, but Nico could hear the undercurrent of worry in his tone.

"She'll be fine. Percy will make sure she gets enough rest." Nico assured him.

"That's true." Will sighed as he leaned back. "Must be nice to have someone care as much as they do for each other."

"Yeah…" Nico stole a glance at the heart surgeon. His mind went back to their first meeting, the one that Percy had said was the product of meticulous planning on the blonde's part. When Nico first mentioned how he worked the graveyard-shift, Will had looked concerned and asked if he was getting enough rest in the morning. Nico had just shrugged and said he was used to it, to which Will had frowned.

That counted as caring, right? Did Will really care about him, the way Percy cared for Annabeth? Was Annabeth right all along?

"Did you stage it?" Nico found himself blurting out.

Will looked at him. "What are you talking about?"

Nico turned to face him fully. No turning back now. "Last week. Did you miss the lobby on purpose to talk to me?"

Will's face was comical, like he couldn't decide if he wanted to be horrified or embarrassed. Then, he glowered. "I'm going to kill Percy. You can help me hide the body."

"Can't do that. Have you seen how scary Annabeth is? When she finds out, she'll kill us both and make it look like an accident." Nico replied, causing a brief, embarrassed laugh to escape Will as he covered his reddening face.

Dammit. Even his embarrassment was cute. Everything about this stupid, wonderful idiot was cute.

"Yeah. I staged it." He murmured. It was soft, but it reverberated around the morgue and into Nico's bones. The hope he was trying to quell earlier had risen up his throat.

"Why?" He asked. He needed to hear it for himself.

"Well, isn't it obvious? I like you. You care about people. Not just your friends and family, but even people like the guy in that autopsy report. Your patients might not be alive, but you make sure death doesn't silence them." Will gestured to the autopsy report. Then, he admitted shyly: "I kind of find you really amazing."

Annabeth was right. Surprise, surprise.

"I'm amazing?" Nico sputtered, "You— you dedicate yourself to saving people's lives. Hell, you went into a warzone to save people and it's because of you that that little girl you mentioned the other day still has a brother and—"

"You remember that?" He asked in awe, as if he hadn't expected that Nico would remember the anecdotes he'd told.

"Of course I do!" Nico replied heatedly. Then, when he didn't know what else to say, he mumbled: "I kind of find you really amazing too."

"Wow. Umm," Will rubbed the back of his neck. "So, what now?"

Now, Nico needed the guts to ask him out. Will had put so much effort into seeing him. He actively sought Nico out for two weeks straight, just to talk to him about anything and everything, Very few precious people did that. Nico figured it was only fair that he should step up to the plate and put himself out there, too.

"Listen," he began, "you have the day off, right? My shift ends in a few hours, and unless a body drops, things down here are going to be pretty uneventful. I'd— I'd love some company.

"And then after that," he quickly added while he still had the courage, "I just need to drop something off at Detective Ramirez-Arellano's. Then my shift won't start up again until evening. Do you… want to hang out or something? Outside of the hospital, I mean. We could grab breakfast and you could show me that vintage comic book collection you're always boasting about and… Yeah."

When his blabbering puttered out, the morgue became unbearably silent. Will looked kind of shell-shocked, but then he smiled. His smile was tentative at first, but when he figured out Nico was awkwardly trying to ask him out on a date, his grin was almost blinding.

"Yeah, I'd like that."

When Nico showed up for a multiple homicide later that afternoon, he was completely aware that he was in the same clothes he wore the night before, with his shirt unnaturally crumpled at the sides of his waist, like someone had gripped them in their fists. He was also aware that he smelled just like sandalwood and sunshine. Annabeth took one look at him and raised an eyebrow, smirking knowingly.

"Not a word, Chase."

"I didn't say anything.

Nico never let Will live the elevator incidents down.

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