Advid-vibe-stealer - I Steal The Vibes

As anyone who follows me knows... im a slut for turning fandom "Incorrect quotes" into comics. Have some EPIC.

Script is courtesy of SpraklyFrogs on Reddit.

Oh good I know where I'm spending 2025

On the couch like it wasn't going to happen anyways.

TEASER TEASER YEEEESSSSSSSSS

this is literally will in california making that painting for mike even though mike only called a couple times

Nico,Lou Ellen and Clovis on a daily basis when shit happens at CHB:

(They are a trio for me–we need to gave them a trio name)

(Guess who is who)

---

They honestly need this with the recent episodes 😩

teenagers in media acting like real teenagers will always hold a special place in my heart

Proof that everyone on the School bus graveyard Fandom needs therapy Part One

---

prev

-- -- --

The last thing Will destroys is --

The last thing Will destroys, is.

-- -- --

He picks, flowers, once. Fidgeting. 

He watches Anthracnose bloom from the cratered burns in the centres of his palms and devour the things up to the tips of their petals, leaves curling in blackened rot.

He burns them.

-- -- --

"You get quiet, sometimes."

Will faces him. Nico watches carefully, eyes blank. Will wonders if he learned that from his cautious father, from the undead that kept him company. He stares back, and prays his own eyes are ice. 

"Many do."

Nico smiles. Small, quick, fleeting. Amused. 

"Indeed."

He burns with questions. This, he cannot have learned from his father -- Will remembers a boy, dark-eyed and mischievous, wide-mouthed and non-stopping. He remembers the winter afternoon and Lee muttering to himself, scowling, about a motormouth worse than Will's. He remembers crouching by the entrance of the ampitheater, breath caught in his lungs. He remembers wild, cackling laughter, and cheering sons of thieves. 

That boy resurfaces, sometimes. 

"Are you thinking?" Nico grimaces as he says it, shrinking back; but it is too late, and Will has acknowledged him. "Of -- something, I mean. Working something out."

Will places his head on his knee. "I'm thinking," he agrees softly. "I wish I wasn't."

"How anti-intellectualist of you."

Will cracks a smile. "Yes. You've cracked my master plans -- once the rest of this foolhardy camp has succumbed to my brainwashing, I will easy control the complacent masses."

"I think I have to kill you," Nico says sagely. His eyes sparkle, like granite. "Your threat is too great."

Will tries to hide the panic in his face. He does not succeed, because Nico frowns. 

"Hey," Nico says, hand outstretched. "You --"

Will scoots back, pressing his back to his bunk. His heart thunders, his pupils shrink.

"Ha," he says, weakly. "You got me."

He turns so his forehead touches his patellae, and breathes carefully through his mouth. He stays there until Nico stops staring. 

He hides his fevered palms in between his thighs.

-- -- --

Sometimes Will thinks he was destined to die at four, in penance. He should have choked on his own disease, his own plague; but he did not, and the only thing that died in him was the sparking flame Prometheus gifted them all, blown to matted ember in the stalk of his chest. 

Instead his brothers watched his shame bubble out of his mouth, circle him in clouds of spores, and they lied for him. They clung to his bloody hands and pushed him behind them. And then they were slaughtered, as were the punished firstborns, for the crime of their knowing existence: Will, marked, stood on their shrouds and ashes. 

He smells of guilt, he thinks. Of guilt and germ and rot. He hides it, in all the antiseptic he can bathe in, in all the ethanol he can consume. But his breath still stinks of it and his lying tongue burns. He is tall, removed from those around him; they cannot see the sores in his mouth or the inflammation of his throat from years and years of choking hands. Bandages hide the bright red spots up and down his arms. Burn scars cover his blackened fingernails. 

But the tallest obelisks are swallowed by the length of their shadows. And nothing can hide from Fate, from the servants she sends to collect for her. 

Nico gets closer, and closer. His hands are cool compresses on the hidden sores on Will's skin. It is relief, as he is never felt it.

Will is afraid.

-- -- --

"Connor is cute," Will blurts, one day, catching Nico looking. He swallows, hard, and the wail of his failures -- his victims -- echo louder than the crack of his heart. "He's, uh. He's into boys, you know."

Nico snorts. "Connor is into money," he says, turning away. He meets Will's eyes with a grin. "He found out I have an infinite credit card and proposed on the spot. He wept when I turned him away."

Will fights the urge to sigh. He is unsurprised that Connor is a gold digger -- if anything he kind of respects the commitment to the bit -- but he just wishes --

He's not blind, Will. Or maybe he is and it's just that Nico is so obvious. He is always -- looking, always, when Will is standing, when he is slouching, when his hands twitch and when they are shoved into the hollow of his chest, hunched over at the campfire. Will can feel the pinprick of his gaze when he is startled into laughter and when he climbs out of the cabin in the middle of the night, gasping, and crawls onto the sun-warmed roof to face the stars. He watches and he touches, featherlight: Will's elbow, the shell of his ear, the sensitive small of his back. 

He guards, too. This one Will has noticed the most. When Will cannot find the breath to fill his lungs, or when his hands shake too badly to thread the suture needle, Nico stands like a shadow two paces ahead of him. And the whispering voices that follow Will's every stumble are glared into mute, mum terror. And the aching tired muscles of his back go lax. 

Connor is cute. 

Will wishes, with all the audacious hoping he has left, that Nico cared about that kind of thing.

-- -- --

"Will. Hey."

Will realizes, abruptly, that he has automatically leaned into Nico's gentle touch. He wrenches forward, bile rising in his throat -- if Nico is offended, he does not show it. 

But he does not move his arm. His big, sky-black eyes watch him, round and steady, until Will forces his breathing to even. 

"I have something to tell you."

The souls on Will's shoulder screech so loud he flinches.  Death! they cheer. Death! Death! D --

Nico watches him critically. "You know, I think."

"I can't," Will blurts, and hunches in on himself. "I can't, I'm not --"

"Into boys?" Nico finishes. He does a good job of hiding it. The hurt. He keeps his hand light and careful on Will's wrist, thumb brushing over the edge of his bandages, and a safe distance between them. Friendly. He has more strength than he realizes. It is only in the smallest twitch of his mouth, that it is obvious, in the watery gleam of his dark, dark eyes. 

Now, Will has -- 

He inhales, quick and short. No exhale comes after.

There is an easy escape, here. 

He cannot tell a lie. They burn him, coming up his throat, and are always shroud in smoke and warning. His father has many domains and it is the job of his heirs to reflect them: Lee had healing, and charm. Michael had the gift of the shot. Cass had prophecy, Diana poetry, Kayla her bow, Austin his music. Dozens more that Will met and loved and who died before him carried on dance, light, education. Will's father is a warm, bright man: he shines upon his children and endeavors to make them beacons among their peers, laughing, trustworthy fortune-tellers and music-makers. 

But there is more to the Sun than warmth and light. The Sun brings dry desert, and heady drought; the Sun cooks and it burns and drains a man's sanity out of his ears and onto the sizzling sands. The Sun is all-loving, and it is unforgiving. For every one hundred children there must be one to represent his father's shame, his rage, his fear; for every one hundred children one must coil the snake in which the Sun will meet His end, devoured and digesting. For every one hundred children there must be one who is marked, who is covered in rotting, rancid scales. Will has been shadding as long as he has been alive. For every hubric act of divine grace he forces he must match in decay from the bottom of his own soul. When he opens his mouth, his truth is obvious, it is evident: when he speaks, lies burn him, as they bolster the devil. Will cannot tell a lie. 

But he can nod, if someone guesses. If someone presumes his silence for contempt or his neglect for dismissal, he is not beholden to their correction. He cannot lie, but obstruction is outside of his father's domain, and he has no responsibility for it. 

Nico watches him, heartbroken. Hand still stubbornly extended, beating muscle bleeding with every pump. 

He could nod. He could say: sorry, and squeeze Nico's hand. He could take one step backwards and let his hand fall.

It would be so, so easy.

"Ton angélon," Will chokes out. His hand twitches, in Nico's hold; Nico frowns and brings up his other hand to match, squeezing until the spasms stop. "You are celestial, Nico, you are breathtaking, you're --"

Nico inhales sharply. He blinks once and his eyes open wide, brown in the gold of the sun; amber, cassiterite, quartz. The bow of his perfect lips drops, slightly, mouth in a perfect, shocked little O. Will blinks and a crown of thorns digs into his marble temples; he shakes his head and necrosis climbs up his sharp jaw.

"I ruin everything I touch," Will says, hoarse. "I destroy -- all that is innocent, all that angels breathe life into." His heated hands glow, under bands of cotton; green pulses through his eyes and his pores, and he flinches wrenching them away. "There is nothing of me worth holding, Nico."

Will is expecting nothing because he has forbidden himself from imagining it. Or, he is expecting rejection. He is expecting disgust.

He cannot say in good conscience that he is expecting offense.

"I'm going to smack the shit out of you."

He opens his squeezed shut eyes. He sees Nico's hands, first. Still gentle. And then his narrowed eyes, his sideset jaws. 

The failures resting on his shoulders are silent. 

Will stares, breathing heavy. His hands twitch. 

"You think," Nico begins, and stops himself, breathing out through pursed lips. "You think I -- care? That you've lost people?"

"It's more than that," Will says, desperately. Nico takes a step forward and all the thousands of souls on Will's head scream, at once; he flinches, shoulders aching, hollow stomach scraping against the shake of his spine. "Nico, you guide people, you shepherd them --"

"And you save them from me!"

Nico takes another stubborn step forward and Will can't turn away fast enough, he cannot duck out of his strong fingers on either side of his chin and can't pull away from his magmatic, furious eyes.

"Death is inevitable," Nico says calmly, firmly. "Some deaths cannot be prevented. I'm -- making my peace with that, Solace. I am not the plague I think I am." Will makes a low, groaning noise. Nico smiles sadly. "You are not to blame for your mistakes, either."

Will realizes, abruptly, that he will never be able to say it.

He is not sure who has designed this. It could be the shame, balling solidly in the back of his throat; it could be his many victims, coiling tightly around his neck. It could be his father's warning hand: grow out your hair, child. Keep your marked forehead to yourself.

He swallows, and pulls back. Nico lets him, dark eyes narrowed and curious, head tilted. In the Hades cabin there is nothing for him to destroy -- there are bones, and stones, and raging fires -- but the only lively thing is Nico, and he is doing a fine enough job on his own trying to wiggle under Will's stained palms, drying to swim close enough to the blood he is drowning in to choke to death on it.

Instead, he picks at the yellowed bandages. It takes time, to unroll the layers, but the cotton piles at his feet, and his forearms are bare: layered, upon unflinching burn scars, are varicella spots, EB blisters. Open, weeping sores, cracked skin and inflamed blisters. A spot, where the first drop of Lee's blood hit his skin, that is black and rotted. A patch of reddened rashing that wraps around his elbows.

Nico lurches. Will tucks his arms quickly away.

"I'm contagious," he says, softly. He ducks down and scoops up the bandages, stumbling fingers pressing them back against his skin. "I'm okay, in small doses. But loving me is -- poisonous." He always struggles to tie the last strand. He is not, for all his trying, ambidextrous, and his right hand is clumsy along the cut of his wrist. He blinks aware the moisture in his eyes and yanks on it, frustrated -- he has to leave, quickly, before he can endure the humiliation of Nico's horror, of his disgust. But if he leaves his arms uncovered than someone will -- see.

They'll see, and they'll know.

Deathdeathdeathdeath, murmur his spirits.

Will swallows. I know.

"Stop," says Nico, voice cracking and hoarse. Will squeezes his eyes shut, as his voice gets clearer. "Will, stop it."

"Please," Will begs. "Don't tell. I'm careful, I promise, I can -- I can keep it under wraps, I can control myself --"

He is surprised, again, by Nico's sob. By the balm of his cool fingers on the heel of his hands and the contained unit of his weeping.

"Those look like they hurt," Nico whispers, lump in his throat. He traces his fingers, slowly, over the criss-crossing bandages, removing them carefully. Will, stunned, lets him. He peels them all off and stands, on hand on either wrist, turned so he can inspect the scarred and infected insides. "Gods, Will, this -- you must be in agony --"

He is, he supposes. Or: he always has been. But it is quiet most mornings, and the ache is dull by evenings. The pressure of elasticized cotton is as familiar as the weight of a t-shirt.

"I can handle it," Will insists. He tugs, but Nico holds firm. "It is penance, anyway. There was none of this -- before."

Before he watched his cousin burn into the air. Before he heard his brother's back crack clean across Manhattan. Before he poisoned dozens of demigods, as hurting as any other, for the crime of pain and anger. Before he pieced together the fractured pieces of Lee's skull. Before the shriveled crow cawed three times, beady eyes reading the black rot of his soul.

They came one by one by one.

Slowly, Nico walks him back, until his tailbone hits his bed. He presses, gently, on his aching shoulders; Will sits, bewildered, and watches him flit away, watches him sink into the shadows and appear halfway across the room, with an armful of new bandages, first, then a tube of cream, a jar of nectar.

"Nico," he says, quietly.

"Shut up," says Nico hotly. There are still tears in his eyes, and every fifth breath shudders. "Just -- sit down and be quiet."

Will sits. The roar, even, of the dead, is only simmering; curious as he is.

Nico is gentle, when he heals.

"Drink this," he orders.

Will takes the nectar. "It won't work." He drums his fingers against the glass. "These are -- marks, Nico." He exhales. "Punishments."

Nico stares, jaw set.

Will drinks.

It tastes like cloying sweet. It always does. Like a strawberry on the wrong side of soft, like the underbrush of autumn. It does not fix the viruses who have made home in his systems -- he knows the sound of them dying -- but it does, for a moment, ease the ache.

"You're dumb," Nico says, when he has finished. His voice is short, eyes hard. "For -- the best medic in centuries, you're fucking stupid."

"Comes with the self-destructive tendencies," Will says drily. "Takes one to know one."

"That -- okay, fair. Fair. But." He tilts Will's face to meet his eyes, softening. "That means you have to listen to me, okay. I know what I am talking about." He pulls down the collar of his shirt, stretching down to his sternum. Will inhales, sharp -- where there should be skin, and muscle, there is nothing but dry, gnarled ribcage, right in the patch of space around his beating heart. Nico breathes slowly, heart slowing. He releases the shirt and Will stares through it, eyes wide.

He kneels by the edge of the bed. "I'm marked, too."

Will takes his hands when he offers. The shouts of his victims scream: death! Death! Look what you have done to him!

But the ice cool of Nico's hands reminds him: not everything is yours.

"We can be outcasts together," Nico suggests. He quirks a smile. "Something very Greek about that, I think."

A bubble of hysteric laughter escapes Will's chest. "Like -- Patroclus."

"And Achilles long after."

Nico's breath is warm against the scarred skin of his knees. He stays there, eyes soft, hands gentle around the ring of Will's wrists. He doesn't seem to mind Will's twitching, or the awful, palliative smell of him. He seems drawn to it, actually, breathing deeply.

"I'm scared," Will admits, voice small. "I don't want to hurt you."

Nico inclines his head. "I'm half-dead anyway." He squeezes gently. "You'd have to try pretty hard."

The last thing Will destroys is --

Will is going to be destroying things for a long time.

There will be other wars. Battles. There will be moments, when there is screaming, when Will's lungs coil in his chest, and smoke pours from his mouth. There will be moments when the herbs he picks wither and die in his hands.

Deathdeathdeathdeath, wail the voices.

Will inhales. The clean air settles deep in his ruined lungs, sweet and cooling.

"Try," Nico says, jaw set. "Me. Us. You -- loving, I mean."

Will nods. The pressure lifts from his throat.

"I will."

---

PAUSE would you have any more hcs about cecil/will 😭😭i love cecil thirsting over will (as he should because will is a blonde bombshell)

cecil and will met when they were very little and in the same cabin together (hermes). neither had been claimed yet.

will's coming to camp was...rough. it wasn't something camp saw often. no one really knew how to handle this eight year old who hated everything and anyone and never responded to anything.

when he cried, at night, people put a pillow over their ears.

but cecil has these giant brown eyes. and he would sit up and watch, on his bedroll, as this boy cried and cried and cried, never running out of tears, freckles glowing in his fury and sobbing until he was sick.

once cecil decided to sit with him.

he didnt say anything. will glared at him anyway.

but he sat there. watching. quiet. all the way until the sun came out, and he blinked awake to will's quiet snoring.

he got the hell out of dodge before will woke up. he didn't really want to learn what morning-grouchy will looked like, and besides if he skipped out of the cabin fast enough he didn't have to help sweep.

(cecil will saw off his own arms to avoid chores. he'll take a monster attack any day of the week.)

he barely sees will all day. their cabin is huge and the camp is huger.

but at night will cries again.

and he comes again.

and he sits.

and watches.

this time will talks to him. snaps at him, rather, but it's something.

cecil just shrugs.

will gets used to his presence eventually. cecil's mama tells him he is like a a hissing baby monkey; grip like a steel trap and impossible to shake. will finds this too.

they talk, eventually. it would be hard not to. plus, will didn't know the camp store had candy. neither of them have any money, but will is a really good lookout and he's faster than cecil is.

(twizzlers is a balanced meal. there's protein in there.)

it takes some time for will to warm up to anybody. but cecil is funny, even though will doesn't like to admit it, and if he can make will laugh more than five times in the day will has to give him his bedroll for extra padding and sleep on the floor. them's the Rules.

it's boredom, really.

there aren't a lot of kids at camp. well, there are, but not kid kids, you know? mostly tweens, and they all suck and think they're too cool for anything fun. cecil and will form an alliance to avoid being wedgied from the top of thalia's tree again. they make a pretty good team anyway.

plus. as mentioned. cecil is tricky and will is fast.

together they bleed the camp store dry, along with most hip-length pockets.

they are friends first. it just happens over time. they spend most of their time together and they have similar interests. duh.

there is also the marriage incident.

the dumbass flirting is a result of the most poorly timed romantic relationship in the world.

look, they're both kind-of year rounders. moms are busy and travel. camp is stable, and neither fares well in the mortal world. and camp is fun but when it's not crowded, it's barren, and there is fuck all to do.

there's like.

studying.

and homework.

but homework is for people whose parents care about them, so.

what will and cecil do is a lot of fucking around.

they live in eternal summer and have a forest to screw around in, and will went ahead and got tall this summer, which cecil didn't know was allowed, and also he's starting to look more like his dad every day and not that cecil was looking, or anything, but field trips to olympus are boring as all fuck and apollo is literally the sun god, okay. he glows. he's hot. cecil has Eyes and he notices.

he also has eyes when he is not bored and those eyes are not blind to the fact that will is hot when he's mad and boy is it easy to make him mad. cecil is a growing boy with urges. there is no wifi at camp. what is he meant to do.

so one day they are thirteen years old (well, cecil is thirteen years old, and busy lording that over twelve year old will's head for five months) will comes to him, chin trembling, hands shaking, and says i like boys. im bisexual.

and cecil thinks very very quickly. son of the god of cunning, you see.

and says bullshit you are.

and will blinks.

he had a list of contingencies and responses. cass helped him write them out and something.

i. fucking of course i am, cecil.

eh.

i am. allergic to lying, you jackass.

no, i just mean -- you dont know. youve never kissed a boy in your life. maybe youre just trying to impress your dad.

are you????? fucking??? unwell???

and cecil is very good at keeping a poker face. it is a genuinely god-given right of his.

along with, of course.

trickery.

especially trickery in the name of Getting It.

and so he keeps a straight face and goes, nah. i'll believe it when i see it.

and will is very clever and very observant and an excellent planner etc etc. but he also has a temper. and cecil's number one favourite hobby is poking the bear.

(will is, aforementioned, hot when he is mad.)

and will stomps his foot and his face gets tinkerbell red and says i'll SHOW you kissing a boy!! dickhead!!

and well.

he sure does.

and it takes him approximately ten seconds to realise he's been Duped but he's kind of charmed by the idea of being manipulated into getting kissed.

and they're already techincally husbands.

so they date.

it's not that cecil is unattractive. he's cute actually.

and it is not that will does not have the occasional dream.

again.

attractive.

good with his hands etc.

it's just that.

well.

they forget.

to do boyfriend things.

they've been friends for so LONG okay.

literally the vast majority of their waking days for five fucking years. no weekends or summers off. constant.

they FORGOT.

three months later they're both like oh shit we're supposed to be making out aren't we.

and it's like. cecil has been flirting. but he ALWAYS does that bc it makes will roll his eyes and it's for the bit

he forgot it was not for the bit anymore

so they try again but they keep FORGETTING and adhd is their enemy in this moment and another month later they're like kay i give up. if you feel inclined to ravage me go for it i guess.

and cecil is like yeah good plan. i will hot stuff. and will Rolls His Eyes and they move on.

the issue now is that 1.

theyre married. technically.

2.

every time this greasy angsty emo boy comes to camp will is a kicked puppy about it. has been for years.

3.

cecil's literal favourite hobby is pissing his best friend off.

4.

he knows will thinks he's cute.

so sometimes he just...influences things.

will would jump off a bridge before admitting it but he has a thing for nerds. so when cecil wants to bother him he locks in for the month and picks up a really intricate hobby and stops wearing his contacts.

and lo and behold.

a couple weeks later.

there is Screeching in the night.

YOU ARE DOING THIS ONE PURPOSE.

bat eyelashes. bat eyelashes.

whatever do you mean, my darling.

KISS MY ASS, MARKOWITZ.

can i?

SHUT THE FUCK UP AND -- PUT THE EYES AWAY!!!

they're never going to date. they would never even bother it goes Nowhere. but hoo boy are they both attracted to each other and is it not the funniest ordeal in the world

it's funnier bc they were genuinely each other's first time. they decided to before the manhattan war bc they both didn't want to die virgins as in their Lifetime Pact.

but the issue is that cecil thought it would be funny to show up to the Event™️ in a honkable clown nose and will has never forgiven him.

so.

it is in the dream sometimes.

I love things about Cecil and Lou ellen they are so underrated.

They need more love

Some Will, Lou Ellen, Cecil, and Nico hcs because their friendship is underrated:

Will's favorite movie specifically is The Empire Strikes Back. Cecil's is Turbo, Lou Ellen's is A Nightmare Before Christmas, and Nico's is The Wizard of Oz

Adding onto that, Cecil's top song of 2024 was The Snail is Fast and absolutely no one at camp was surprised at all.

Nico usually claims his favorite movie is something else (probably some slasher film, which he does like) but the real reason is because one of his only memories he got back pre-Lethe is going to see The Wizard of Oz in theaters with his moter and Bianca a bit after moving to the U.S.

I read a fic once where Lou Ellen was from Albany and it stuck in my mind.

In that vein, I hc that Cecil was the son of Hermes from Wisconsin that Hermes mentions in TLO.

Naomi took all of them to get piercings once when she was visiting. It was Nico's first piercing, so he just got his lobes pierced, but Will, Lou Ellen, and Cecil got matching industrial piercings on their left ears.

Will and Lou Ellen have matching stick and poke tattoos (a heart) on their ankles from when they were 14. Cecil was going to get it as well but he's afraid of needles and couldn't do it.

Lou Ellen tried to teach Nico simple mist manipulation when she found out his sister could, but Nico turned out to be pretty hopeless.

Cecil invited Will and Lou Ellen to his bar mitzvah even though he's only known them for like 5 weeks when he had it. His mother wasn't the happiest about having to find 2 additional plates with little time, but it happened.

All four of them listen to Naomi's music together, and even though Lou Ellen is goth and traditionally goth music she makes an exception for Naomi and will (and has) fought someone in her mortal school over them saying all country music sucks.

Lou Ellen does goth makeup on the Nico and Cecil, usually Nico though. She did it once on Will and everyone agreed he looked so weird they vowed to never do it again.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN SBG??????