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It was to be known that none of the half-bloods residing at the camp half-blood were strangers to pranks, it wasn't uncommon to walk into the aftermath of a prank orchestrated by the Hermes cabin, after all.
It was, however, also to be known that days fly by fast at camp, and more often than not, people didn't know what day it was other than the weekday and month.
Now, why does that matter?
Because it's April first and nobody had realized yet.
And oh boy was Nico ready to prank the hell out of some... specific people, call it a pay-back for all the times they had annoyed and teased him.
>->->->->-|-<-<-<-<-<
"Morning Nico!" Will, Nico's amaizing, absolutely adorable boyfriend catched up to him, not far from the dining pavillion.
Normally Will wouldn't be at camp in the middle of spring, but his mother was, being a famous singer, touring Europe this month and didn't want Will to be alone.
Nico turned to the sun-kissed boy, letting himself smile seeing the other. "Good morning sunshine," Nico greeted him back, waiting until Will was right beside him, before continuing walking, trusting that the other would follow.
True to this, the son of Apollo fell into step right next to Nico, basking in the comfortable silence enveloping the two teens on their way for breakfast.
After they had sat down at the Apollo table to eat, ignoring the tired sigh Chiron let out as he noticed, Nico decided that Will should be his first victim.
"It's so dumb," Nico mumbled suddenly, nearly whining.
"What's dumb, death boy?" Will looked up from his PB&J to lock eyes with Nico for a second.
"It's getting close to the harvesting season and I can't participate since it doesn't grow here in the states," Nico explained, playing his food. Gods, he sounded so sad he nearly had himself fooled.
Will paused, and Nico could basically hear the gears turning in his head. After a moment he just shot Nico a questioning look.
"You know, spaghetti?" Nico paused shuffling the food around the plate to look up with the most serious and dead-pan expression he could muster without cracking up, even going as far as to raise an eyebrow for added effect.
"Wha-"
"I mean I guess it's alright you don't know, I've heard the plant doesn't do well in the american weather, so I doubt you would've came across them before," Nico finally took a bite out of his sandwich. "The spaghetti tree."
From the corner of his eye, Nico saw that Will had stopped completely, processing what Nico had just said to him. Gods Nico is good at acting, even if he says so himself.
"The... what?"
"The spaghetti tree, the harvest season is starting any day now."
"Spaghetti doesn't grow on trees though?" Will catched up to Nico's fooling fast. Damnit.
"No it doesn't, April fools, idiot," Nico nudged Will gently, which the other returned, along with a 'loving' hair ruffle. Will knows Nico doesn't like it, but he'll let it slide since he was his boyfriend and Nico did just pull an April fool's on him.
"Are you planning on pranking anyone else with that, ghosty?" Will hummed thoughtfully after a moment of silent eating.
"Maybe. Why do you ask, oh my dear sunshine?"
"Do you want help with making it more convincing?"
>->->->->-|-<-<-<-<-<
"Leo?" Nico peeked in the Hephaestus cabin, but no avail, as he couldn't see the fire bearer anywhere. He had already checked bunker 9 and all the other spots Leo could be found at. Guess he won't be able to give the other payback for all the pranks and such today.
But just as Nico was about to go back and find Will, something sticky and slimy dropped on his neck. It was cold, and felt like someone had just slapped him with some kind of seaweed or something.
A hand to tentativelly check what it was revealed it to be, in fact, some kind of neon pink slime. It also seemed to stain. Nico did not want to know how long it'd stay
Nico looked around, skanning his surroundings for the offending half-blood. Whoever had the guts to drop slime on the son of Hades was on for a ride, game on. The culprit would be Nico's next victim, he decided on a whim.
A sudden sound of loud cackles, annoyingly familiar cackles at that, rang throughout the cabin, and Nico looked up just to see Leo gods-damn Valdez, somehow sticking to the wall above the door with some kind of claw-like invention, an empty, glaringly pink bucket clutched in the other hand.
"You should've seen your face Nico!" He wheezed out between the laughs. Leo probably should try to breathe at some point. "Happy April Fools, emo boi"
"For the last time Valdez, I'm not emo, I'm just depressed," Nico quipped, the joke having became an ever-lasting jab between the two after they had both been utterly sleep deprived. Nico can't even remember what they were doing, if he was honest, just that Leo called him emo and he answered as previously stated. "And even so, I was just about to ask if you can make a plant house, but now I don't want to."
"Don't be so sour," Leo let go of the claw-thing and carefully dropped down next to Nico, "For what do you need a plant house? I didn't take you as someone interested in gardening, that's Demeter's children's job."
Nico scoffed lightly, hiding a small smile that was trying to force itself's way to his face. "A tree," he eventually stated, keeping his face and voice level and calm.
"A... Tree...?" Leo echoed, a questioning edge in his voice. Nico nodded, and Leo shot him a look Nico could identify as 'are you sleep deprived or serious'. Unsurprisingly, this was far from the first time said look was directed at him. "What kind... of tree...?"
"A spaghetti tree," Nico said and it was a miracle he still could keep his face deadpan.
"There are spaghetti trees..?" Leo asked, looking caught off-guard. Which he was, not that Nico could blame the fiery boy. Most people would be, if you asked them to build you a plant house to grow a spaghetti tree. Which does not exist, for the record.
When Nico didn't answer, just tilted his head slightly as if asking whether or not Leo could do it, the older of the two sighed and gave in.
"Oh, and one more thing," Nico said just as he was about to leave after giving fictive measurements to Leo, "Spaghetti trees aren't real, Happy April Fools."
Leo was left baffled in the workshop, while Nico practically ran to Will to laugh about the reaction.
>->->->->-|-<-<-<-<-<
It was nearing campfire, and Nico hadn't been able to successfully prank anyone else after Leo. Currently, he and Will were just chilling behind the infirmary where nobody really came, enjoying the weather, warm for spring.
"Have you tried pranking Hazel or Frank yet?" Will asked, playing with Nico's hair absentmindedly.
"I haven't, why? They're at camp Jupiter anyway"
"I mean you could always Iris message them. I bet they'd love to hear from you anyway," the healer suggested, and Nico couldn't help but to agree. It had been a while since Nico had seen his sister and Frank.
"I guess so. Can we just stay like this for a moment though? My spine is killing me again," Nico nearly mumbled the last part, making Will have to strain to hear it fully. And it was true, Nico's back truly felt as if someone was pressing a hot iron to it, and not just pressinf, stabbing it into his back and organs.
Luckily today the pain wasn't centered near his lungs and it was painless to breathe. Moving let alone walking, however...
"Sure my star," Will nuzzled his face to the youngers hair, making Nico flush from embarassment from both the new pet name and from the public physical attention, he was still not completely used to it.
He still loved every second of it, being woth his boyfriend.
>->->->->-|-<-<-<-<-<
"Oh Iris, goddess of messages, show me Hazel Levesque at Camp Jupiter," Nico mumbled before throwing the golden coin in the mist at the faucet.
Not long after, the image of the familiar face of Hazel Levesque, his dear older-younger sister appeared before him.
"Neeks, how are you doing?" She smiled brightly, her dimples showing. "It's been a while."
Nico resisted the urge to shadow travel to the other camp, just to see his sister in the flesh. "I've been good, and so have been all the others, too. How about you and Frank, anything interesting happening with you two being praetors and all that?"
"It's been fairly calm, all things considered, we just got a couple new kids, we've been busy doing all the paperwork," she laughed good-naturelly.
"Cool. I should come visit some day, it really has been a while"
"What have you been up to?"
"I've started helping with teaching the younger campers some sword fighting, it has been... Something..." Nico almost shivered, remembering how sociable the young demi-gods had been during yesterday. "I still am not sure why Chiron thought it was a good idea. I feel like I shouldn't be given responsibility over living beings," he joked.
That was when Will 'conventionally' overheard the conversation, and poked his head in from the other room. "Is that self-deprecation I hear?"
"Hi Will!" Hazel greeted Will, waving a bit. "Nico is just dramatic about responsibility"
Will sat down next to Nico, throwing an arm over the younger's shoulders. "Hi Hazel!"
"I didn't know that you're at camp right now, isn't it still in the middle of the spring semester?" Hazel asked, tilting her head like she always did when confused.
"Oh, yeah it is, but otherwise I'd be home alone and my mom doesn't really like it," Will smiled a bit sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "She's on a tour in Europe, I would have gone with her but the tour takes over a month! A month, Hazel! Without getting to see any of my friends!"
She chuckled lightly, before Nico spoke up again. "You should've asked if I could've gone with you, maybe we could have seen the harvesting," he looked at Will, a teasing half-smile on his face.
"I get it I get it," Will rolled his light blue eyes fondly.
Hazel was quiet for a moment. "What harvesting time?"
"Oh, the spaghetti tree season is upon us. It's a shame the american weather doesn't fit it," the lie rolled off Nico's tongue like it wasn't a lie to begin with.
"Isn't spaghetti made out of flour, or is my whole life a lie?" Hazel asked a bit sceptical now.
"That's artificial spaghetti. True, authentic spaghetti grows in trees without anything extra in it," Will added his own two cents to the conversation.
The rest of the call went by normally, well, as normally as a call between demi-gods usually went, before at the very last second Nico revealed his complete goal.
"See you Hazel! Happy April Fools!" and he had already swiped at the message, evaporaging it into nothingness.