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buoyantsaturn · 6 years ago

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I’m in Hell (2/?)

summary: Nico and Will get closer as Christmas nears. Then there’s angst. And then it’s Nico’s birthday!

word count: 16,413 (31,375 current total)

read on ao3 | read part one

Will hardly ever texted Nico more than once without a response, so when Nico received three texts from him in a row, he was already concerned.

FROM: Will; Hey

FROM: Will; I have a weird question for you FROM: Will; Have you had the chickenpox vaccine?

TO: Will; why

FROM: Will; I need you to pick up some calamine lotion and bring it over

TO: Will; i’ll be there in half an hour

Nico rolled out of bed, having yet to leave his room that morning, and threw on whatever clothes he could find before heading out with a shout of, “I’m going to Will’s,” to Hazel before he left. He drove to the nearest drugstore to pick up the calamine lotion before heading to Will’s, using his key on the locked door once he arrived.

“Hello?” he called into the house as he kicked off his shoes by the door.

“In here,” Will’s voice came from somewhere else, but before Nico could go in to find him, Will continued, “Wait! You never told me if you had the vaccine!”

“I didn’t,” Nico replied, stepping around the corner toward the living room, where he guessed Will to be. “I had chickenpox when I was four.” He held up the grocery bag when he saw Will and Bianca sitting on the couch. “You asked for calamine?”

“Nico,” Bianca started, voice whiny as she reached out toward him with a mitten-covered hand, “can you get rid of my chickenpox?”

Nico took the bottle of lotion out of the bag and walked over to the couch to hand it over to Will as he said, “Sorry, Princess, you gotta let it run its course.” He looked up when Will took the lotion from his hand and Nico spotted red marks along his arm, mixed in amongst his freckles. “You...have the chickenpox.”

Will frowned up at him. “Yes?”

“You--” Nico snorted, and covered his mouth with his hand as he started to laugh. “A grown man. I’ve never seen an adult who has chickenpox.”

Will’s frown turned to a pout. “It’s not like I planned it. Bi got it from someone at school, and apparently the vaccine only works ninety-five percent of the time.”

“Aren’t you special, then,” Nico said, and sat down on the couch in between the two Solaces. He turned to Bianca and suggested, “Bi, why don’t you go put on some shorts and short sleeves, and then you can put on the calamine lotion to help with the itching.”

“But then I’ll be cold,” Bianca complained.

“It’ll help.”

“How?”

Nico paused. “Well, when my nephew had the chickenpox, he said that he felt better when his clothes weren’t rubbing on him and making him itchier. And the lotion might make your clothes stick to you and make it worse, if you’re wearing long pants and long sleeves.”

Bianca sighed. “Okay.” She hopped off the couch and went into her bedroom to change, shutting the door behind herself.

“You can take the mittens off to change, but don’t scratch or you’ll scar!” Will called after her.

Nico had to stop himself from jumping, having somehow forgotten that Will was there beside him. He wasn’t used to being around Will for longer than it took him to run out the door to go to work. He definitely wasn’t used to sitting and talking with him when Bianca wasn’t in the room, and now that she wasn’t hogging half of the couch, Nico suddenly felt much too close to Will.

“I, uh, I didn’t know you had a nephew,” Will said.

“There’s a lot of things we don’t know about each other,” Nico replied, and he felt the corner of his mouth quirk up. Wait a second, was he flirting? He shouldn’t be flirting, what if Will caught on? What if he somehow found out about that dream that Nico had of the two of them in bed together? Woah, Nico thought. Slow down.

“Was that true?” Will asked, and Nico’s mind went blank as he tried to remember the last thing he’d said. Had he been thinking out loud? Oh no, did he mention the dream? “About how the clothes rubbing on your nephew’s chickenpox made the itching worse?”

Nico’s racing heart suddenly stopped, and he felt his tension flood away from him. “Well, I wasn’t about to tell Bianca that he was only a year and a half old and preferred to run around in just his diaper most of the time, but yeah, it helped as far as I could tell.”

“I’m surprised you don’t have your own inside tips,” Nico said. “You know, being a doctor and all. I’d think you would know all the secrets.”

Will grinned. “Maybe for other things, but it’s not like I’m a pediatrician. I’ve clearly never interacted with somebody who has the chickenpox if I haven’t contracted them until now.”

Nico’s smile grew until it was almost as bright as Will’s. “I still think that’s hilarious. You: an adult with a child, just now catching the chickenpox, a baby’s disease.”

Will rolled his eyes and looked away, but Nico could still see that he was smiling. “Ha ha, sure, laugh at the man suffering from that baby’s disease.”

“I would hardly call it suffering, you seem fine!” Nico argued with a laugh. “I haven’t even seen you pretend to scratch this whole time. If I had to guess, I’d say you’re faking it.”

Of course, as soon as Nico said that, a spark of realization shone in Will’s eyes, and he reached up to scratch as his cheek before pulling his hand away just as quick. “I guess you distracted me just enough to keep my mind off of it.”

Before Nico could think of a response - but after he’d started to realize that he was staring straight into Will’s sky-like eyes - Bianca returned from her room and plopped herself right down in Nico’s lap, ignoring the open couch cushion next to him.

“I’m ready!” she announced, and with that, whatever was happening between Nico and Will seemed to break, and all attention was on Bianca once more.

Once both Solaces were coated in calamine lotion, Bianca insisted that Nico stay to watch a movie with them, which led to them watching the movie’s sequel. By the time the second movie was over, it was close enough to dinner time that they were all getting hungry, and Nico offered to make dinner. It wasn’t until Will was putting Bianca to bed that Nico started to head out, but Will called after him quietly and stopped him in the kitchen.

“Thanks again for stopping by,” Will told him. “I couldn’t exactly go out in public since I’m still contagious, and I can’t go back to work until next week because of this--”

“Oh. Okay, so you don’t need me,” Nico said, hoping that he didn’t let his disappointment show. “I guess just let me know--”

“You could still come over,” Will cut in hurriedly, and started to backtrack just as fast. “I mean, if you wanted to. You don’t have to, but, uh, I’m sure Bianca would appreciate it. But I know you probably have your own stuff to do, so, uh--”

“Sure, just...text me. If you want. Or call, or...whatever.” He stepped toward the door, throwing a thumb over his shoulder as he said, “I’m gonna go home now. I’ll see you--”

“Yeah, I’ll let you know.”

“Cool,” Nico said, and walked out the door.

He banged his head against his steering wheel a few times before driving home.

As soon as the Solaces were officially no longer contagious, Bianca returned to school and Will went back to work, which meant that Nico was at the Solace household almost every hour of the day once again - though he still tried to sleep in his own bed most of the time, because he was certain that couch was trying to kill him.

There was one morning - afternoon to Will, but still morning to Nico - that Will woke Nico up with a call, as usual.

“Hey, Nico,” Will greeted, and Nico made some kind of noise in response. “I have an overnight shift this week, from Tuesday into Wednesday, so I’ll need you to stay over Tuesday night to take Bi to school in the morning, but I’ll be home to pick her up. And then I’ll need you all day on Thursday, and--”

“Wait, Thursday?” Nico cut in. “Solace, that’s Thanksgiving. I’ll be in the Upper East Side all day.”

“It’s...oh. Right, of course it’s Thanksgiving. Okay, never mind about Thursday. I’ll, um. See you Tuesday.”

“Sure,” Nico said, seconds before Will ended the call.

Thursday morning, at what seemed like the crack of dawn to Nico but was really about nine-thirty, he and Hazel drove to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. They climbed the stairs to the third floor walk-up that Nico had lived in just a year earlier, and the door opened to reveal the smiling faces of Paul and Estelle Blofis.

Nico was immediately torn between taking the baby from her father’s arms and heading to the kitchen to help Sally with the cooking, so he walked into the living room to find Percy and Annabeth and their son Luke instead. It wasn’t until he’d made his rounds and said hello and gave too many hugs that he made his way into the kitchen.

Sally was the only one in the room, and Nico said a quick hello before he started peeling potatoes. Annabeth must have followed him into the kitchen, because she was suddenly at his side with her arms crossed over her chest.

“You haven’t called,” she told him.

“He hasn’t called me in a while either,” Sally chimed in.

Nico rolled his eyes. “I’ve been busy.”

“Oh, of course,” Annabeth teased. “With Will. How’s that going?”

Nico shrugged. “Fine, I guess, I dunno.”

“Will is the doctor, right?” Sally asked.

“Yes--”

“With the daughter that you’ve been taking care of,” Annabeth continued.

“Uh huh.”

“If you start talking, then we’ll stop asking questions.”

Nico sighed. “Alright, fine. Uh, the kid’s cute, it’s nice to have a reason to get out of my apartment every day. It actually is helping with my classes too, like, I’ve been getting new ideas all the time, and I finally have the motivation to do my homework. And Will’s great, too, he’s--” Nico stopped himself before he said something that could be used against him, and cleared his throat awkwardly. “Um. He’s...around, sometimes.”

“And this Will,” Annabeth said in a voice that put Nico on edge. “He wouldn’t happen to be the same guy you have a middle school crush on, would he?”

Sally turned toward them with an eyebrow raised and an amused smile. “What was that?”

“Oh, you haven’t seen the video?” Annabeth pulled out her phone with a devious grin.

Nico dropped the potato he was peeling on the counter alongside the peeler and lunged for Annabeth’s phone. “Annabeth, no!”

She played the video and forced the phone into Sally’s hands, holding Nico back as he fought to take the phone.

“No fighting in the kitchen, you two,” Sally told them, laughing as she handed the phone back to Annabeth. “And I think that’s cute, Nico.”

“I’m not cute,” Nico grumbled, and stomped out of the kitchen.

Frank had been given a two-day leave from West Point which allowed him to make it to Sally’s just in time for dinner. However, Frank’s arrival also meant that he and Hazel would be sharing the pull-out couch that night, which put Nico on the living room floor while the Jackson-Chases were crammed into the guest room-slash-Estelle’s room.

Nico was used to not being able to sleep, especially when everyone else was heading to bad much earlier than he usually did himself, so he wasn’t surprised when he tossed and turned half of the night until he finally fell asleep at what he guessed was around three. He also wasn’t surprised - irritated, but not surprised - when his phone started ringing, waking him up so that he could hear everyone else already awake and in the kitchen.

“Hello?” Nico grumbled as he sat up off the floor.

“Good morning!” Will said cheerily on the other end of the call. “Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?”

Nico made a noncommittal noise in response as he stood up and started toward the kitchen. He was pretty sure he smelled coffee, and he desperately needed some of that.

Will laughed. “Alright, I get that. Did you make it home yet? I have to go into work this afternoon, so I need you to come over.”

Nico pulled a mug down from one of the cabinets before pouring himself a cup of coffee. He tried to ignore the eyes he could feel on his back and how quiet the room around him had become. “I stayed the night up here, but I can be home in a couple of hours. What time do you need me?”

“Can you be here by one?”

Nico pulled the phone away from his face to read the time: 9:20am. He held back a groan; he should not be awake this early. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Great! Thanks, Nico. I’ll see you later!”

“Bye,” Nico said, and ended the call.

“Aw, Neeks, you’re so whipped!” Percy called out to him with a giant smile, and Nico made sure that Luke and Estelle weren’t looking his way when he flipped Percy off while taking a sip of his coffee.

Annabeth shoved at Percy’s shoulder before telling Nico, “You two should come over for dinner sometime after you get together. No! All three of you. I bet Will’s daughter and Luke will get along great!”

“You can’t just assume that all kids are gonna get along, Annabeth.” Nico rolled his eyes and sat down at the table next to his sister. “Hazel, I need to leave soon. Are you coming with me, or are you going with Frank?”

Instead of answering, Hazel turned to Frank and gave him a look. Frank said to Nico, “I’ll drive her home.”

“I hope you’re not thinking of leaving before breakfast,” Sally said as she set down a plate of blue pancakes in front of him. “Paul made plenty so you had better eat your fair share.”

Nico didn’t argue. He didn’t know what Paul put in his pancakes, but Nico could never make his own taste quite as good.

After he finished eating, he said his goodbyes and started toward the door, but Annabeth stopped him before he could step out.

“You should call more often, you know,” Annabeth told him, forcing a hug on him, though he only pretended to hate it. “Maybe I can give you some tips on raising your kid.”

“She’s not my kid,” Nico reminded her, pulling out of the hug. “I’m not raising her, either, just...looking after her sometimes.”

Annabeth winked. “Maybe one day.”

Nico rolled his eyes so hard that his head tipped back with the force of it, and he walked out the door.

Will would never tell anyone - especially not Lou Ellen - how much he loved calling Nico every morning. No matter how terrible his morning could be, hearing Nico’s sleepy voice always put a smile on his face.

One particular morning had been pretty terrible, full of a cranky Bianca who didn’t want to go to school and angry patients who refused to cooperate, and Will knew there was only one thing that could make his day better.

He called Nico.

And somebody else picked up the phone.

“Hello?” came a perky female voice through the speaker.

Will was so taken aback that he forgot to answer until the voice said another, slightly more confused hello? “Oh, uh, hi! I’m sorry, I must have the wrong number...somehow.”

“Wait, no! You’re Will, right?” she asked. “Nico’s told me a lot about you.”

Will wanted to feel flattered but he was too confused to know what he should be feeling. “Um. Yes, I’m Will. Is he, um. Is Nico there? Can I talk to him?”

There was a short hesitation before, “Nico’s a little...under the weather. I don’t think he’s really up for talking to anyone right now.”

“Is he okay?” Will felt his confusion vanish as worry filled him like ice through his veins. “I’m a doctor, I could come check him out--over, I could come check him over--” He took a breath and said, quieter this time, “Is he okay?”

“No, no, don’t trouble yourself with him,” she said with a gentle laugh. “This is just his annual thing. You know how it is, right? He’ll be back to his normal self soon enough.”

Will wasn’t really sure he understood, but he still said, “Yeah, I...get it. Um. Do you think he’ll be okay by tomorrow? I was kind of hoping he could pick my daughter up from school today, but I can figure something out.”

“Give me just a second and I’ll go see how he’s feeling, okay?”

Hazel set Nico’s phone down on the coffee table where he’d left it a few days earlier and went to his room, knocking before she entered. Nico was laying on his side, facing the wall, but somehow Hazel knew that he wasn’t asleep. She sat on the edge of his mattress and placed a hand on his arm comfortingly.

She had tried speaking to him many times in the past few days, asking if he was hungry, or if he was feeling any better, but she never got any response from him. She’d barely even gotten him to drink any water.

“Nico,” she said softly, “Will called.” He shifted under her hand - the most reaction he’s shown in days. “He wants to know if you’ll be okay tomorrow for Bianca.” He flinched at the mention of her name, though Hazel knew it was a different Bianca he was thinking of. “He’ll understand if you can’t be there, but he does need an answer soon, okay?”

She waited a moment, giving him an opportunity to respond like she always did, but stood up when he said nothing. She made it to the door before she was stopped by the sound of her brother’s voice.

“I’ll be there,” Nico croaked.

Hazel walked back over to him and pressed a kiss to the side of his head. “I’ll let him know.”

She left the room, shutting the door behind herself, and returned to the living room where Will was still waiting for his answer. “Nico said he’ll be there,” she told him.

“Are you sure he’s okay?” Will asked one final time, and Hazel could hear the sincere worry in Will’s tone.

She thought back to the video she had saved on her phone of Nico practically confessing his love for the other man, and smiled to herself. Maybe Hazel couldn’t do much to help her brother, but if anyone could, she was sure it was Will. “He’ll be just fine.”

Will couldn’t get that woman’s voice out of his head for the rest of the day. He tried to continue about his day after venting to a very interested Lou Ellen during lunch, and he had to sneak out for a little over half an hour to pick Bianca up from school and bring her back to the hospital. He really hoped the hospital’s daycare was open to kids over the age of five, otherwise he might have to hide Bianca away in Lou’s room until his shift was over.

When he walked into the school’s front office and found Bianca waiting amongst a small crowd of other children, Will saw this his daughter looked confused.

“Where’s Nico?” she asked without greeting.

“He’s...sick,” Will answered, and led her out to the car where he buckled her into her carseat and returned to the driver’s seat.

“He didn’t catch my chickenpox, did he?”

“No, he doesn’t have chickenpox. You can only get those once, and he had them when he was your age.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, Bi.”

“Do you think he’s sad?”

Will met his daughter’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Why do you think he would be sad?”

“Nico told me that his sister started living on the moon in December,” Bianca said. “It’s December right now. Do you think he misses his sister?”

Will thought back to the story Bianca had told him of Nico’s sister, remembering how he’d doubted any truth in the story, but realizing now that there might have been one very real part of it. He felt himself filling with dread at the thought of Nico being so sad that he couldn’t even leave his own house. Will was a doctor - he knew exactly what to prescribe to fix just about any physical ailment that he came across, but sadness? How could Will fix that?

“You might be right, Bianca,” he said after a short pause. “But the only thing that can make sadness better is time.”

“And cookies!” Bianca exclaimed. “We should make cookies for him. Cookies make everybody happy.”

Will smiled. “Okay, sure. We’ll make cookies for him tomorrow morning before I have to go to work.”

Thankfully, when they got to the hospital, Bianca was accepted happily into the daycare so that Will could return to work. Even more thankfully, there were no severe emergencies that couldn’t be handled by the surgical interns and emergency room nurses, which meant that Will and Bianca were able to leave, swing through a fast food drive-through, stop by the store for cookie ingredients, and arrive home just in time for Bianca to get ready for bed.

Will felt ready to collapse in his own bed, but knew that he needed clean clothes for the next day and a shower wouldn’t kill him, plus there was a sink full of dishes that he knew Nico would normally wash but Will felt bad intentionally leaving them for him when Nico wasn’t in the healthiest state.

Of course, unfortunately for Will, all the mindless activities gave him time to think, to remember the perky voice he’d heard through the phone and overthink everything about her. Who was she? Why was she in Nico’s apartment? Why would she answer Nico’s phone? Was she Nico’s girlfriend? Why would she say that she’d heard so much about him in such a knowing tone?

Will tried to force those thoughts out of his head as he finally laid down in bed that night, but the thought of that woman being in Nico’s apartment when Will was in his own home so far away drove Will to pulling out his phone and sending a quick text to Nico before he shut his eyes and tried to fall asleep.

TO: Nico; Call me if you need anything. And I really do mean anything.

When he woke up the next morning, there was no response and no missed calls.

Nico was assaulted by the smell of chocolate when he walked into the Solace house. He didn’t call out a hello as he usually did, just kicked his shoes off by the door and walked into the kitchen where he found a heaping plate of chocolate chip cookies sitting on the island.

“Oh,” came a voice to his left, and Nico turned to see Will standing in the hallway. He smiled brightly at Nico as he unfroze himself and continued into the kitchen. “I wasn’t sure if you were still coming.”

“Do you...not need me?” Nico asked quietly, voice hoarse from disuse, and he cleared his throat after speaking to ward off the cough he felt coming.

“No, I do! I just--” Will scratched the back of his head awkwardly, “--wasn’t sure if you were...up for it.”

“Did Hazel say something to you?” Nico asked.

Before Will could answer, Bianca came running down the hall shouting Nico’s name, and attached herself to his side. “Nico, I missed you!”

Nico pulled her away from him so that he could crouch down and hug her properly. “I missed you too, Princess,” he whispered, hoping his voice didn’t shake as much as it felt like it had. When he pulled away, he could barely look at her - she looked so much like his Bianca, it was almost too much to bear. He stood back up and averted his eyes, blinking furiously to keep any tears from spilling.

“We made you cookies!” Bianca exclaimed and pointed to the plate on the island. “Cookies make everybody happy, so if you eat a lot of cookies then you won’t be sad anymore!”

“What makes you think I’m sad?” Nico asked.

“Well, aren’t you?”

That’s fair, Nico thought to himself. Instead, he said, “Thank you, Princess.”

“Hugs help too!” Bianca said, and wrapped her arms around Nico again. “Daddy gives really good hugs, they make me feel not sad anymore all the time, so you should hug him, too!”

Bianca released him once again, only to run over to Will and drag him closer until the two men were within hugging distance of each other. Will’s smile had turned a little uncomfortable, but Nico had his eyes locked on his shoulder so that he wouldn’t have to meet Will’s eyes. The blue of his scrubs were dull compared to his eyes; it was easier to look at and not feel quite so ashamed of his overwhelming sadness.

Will’s arms closed around him, and Nico was surrounded by warmth - a pleasant, living warmth, so unlike the uncomfortable heat of his blanket cocoon of depression that he’d been living in all weekend. He pressed his face into Will’s shoulder - was he really an entire head shorter than Will? He’d never noticed - and carefully wrapped his own arms around Will’s back, like he was afraid that too quick of a movement would scare him away.

“I’m sorry about your sister,” Will whispered, and Nico felt himself stiffen, one of his hands balling into a fist around the fabric of Will’s shirt. “You don’t have to stay. You can take another day if you need it. Take as much time as you need.”

Nico shook his head and pulled himself away. He hated the feeling of leaving Will’s warmth, of feeling the cool air surround him, only wishing he could press himself up against Will until he forgot all about ever being sad.

“I’m fine,” he lied.

“Are you sure?” Will asked. “I can try to bribe the daycare at the hospital to watch Bianca for another day, but I do need to leave, like, now.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Nico said, cracking the tiniest of smiles. It probably wasn’t even noticeable, but he could feel it.

Will stepped away from Nico and knelt down to kiss the top of Bianca’s head with a goodbye, I love you.

“Thanks for the cookies,” Nico said, eyes flickering up just long enough to catch Will’s brilliant smile.

“Please don’t let Bianca eat all of them.” He walked around Nico to put on his shoes and grab his coat and his keys. “I’ll see you later, and I’ll text you when I’m on my way home.”

When Will turned back around to face him, Nico held the plate of cookies out toward him. “Take one. Or three, it’s not like I’ll be able to eat them all.”

Will took a single cookie and bit into it, letting out an appreciative noise at the taste of chocolate. He swallowed the bite before saying, “Bye, Nico,” and started out the door.

“Bye, Sunshine.”

FROM: Kayla; Hey Will! It’s me, your favorite half-sister! I just remembered that you live in New York now, so I wanted to invite you to my Christmas party on Friday! It’ll be pretty small and you probably won’t know anyone besides me and Austin, but we would love to get to know you better, so you should come!!! And YES you should wear your ugliest sweater!

TO: Kayla; I’ll have to make sure I have someone to watch my daughter, but that sounds great! Also: who’s Austin?

FROM: Kayla; Our brother??

TO: Kayla; We have a brother???

Nico was still fragile after the anniversary of his sister’s death, and all Will wanted was to wrap Nico in his arms and hold him until his smile returned, but Will knew that the touch wouldn’t be welcomed. Nico flinched even when Bianca hugged him, and it broke Will’s heart to see him in such a state.

It made him feel even worse when he had to ask Nico to stay late on Friday just so that Will could go to a party. Nico told him continuously not to worry about it, and Will kept saying that he would try not to be out late and promised that he would finish the guest room soon.

Will changed into a pair of jeans and his only Christmas sweater before requesting an Uber and leaving for Kayla’s apartment - he didn’t want to drive himself in case he decided to have a few drinks. He realized that he’d made the right choice when Kayla insisted on doing a shot with him as soon as Will arrived, and then pushed a cup of spiked eggnog into his hands.

After just an hour into the party, Will was already well past tispy.

Nico never slept well in December, and had already been planning on leaving once Will came home so that he could try to sleep in his own bed. Then it was after two in the morning, and Nico heard a kind of faint scratching coming from the direction of the front door, like someone struggling to get a key into a lock.

Nico felt a surge of anger flow through him, and tensed when he finally heard the door open. “Honey, I’m home!” Will’s voice came from the kitchen, followed by drunken giggles and the sound of keys being dropped on the counter.

Nico rose from the couch and stood at the end of the hallway, stopping Will before he could leave the kitchen. “Bianca’s sleeping,” he said in a harsh whisper. “You should keep your voice down.”

Will was smiling brightly down at Nico, but he quickly melted into a childish pout. “Are you mad at me?”

Nico huffed, crossing his arms and glancing to the side. “No, I’m not mad, but you’re going to wake Bianca--”

“I don’t want you to be mad, at me or ever,” Will cut in, stepping forward. “I don’t want you to be sad anymore, either. I want you to be happy. Can I help you be happy?” Will came even closer until his hands were resting on Nico’s arms and he was leaning in, sky-blue eyes flickering from Nico’s eyes to his lips and back.

Nico felt frozen under Will’s hands, under his gaze, feeling Will press even closer until Nico could smell the alcohol on Will’s breath, and pushed him away. “Don’t touch me!” Nico exclaimed, stumbling backwards.

When he looked back up, Will was pouting again, looking like a puppy that Nico had just kicked away. Nico pointed down to the other end of the hall where Will’s room was located, and said, “Go sleep this off.”

“Come with me,” Will said, stopping directly in front of Nico once again.

“No,” Nico told him sternly and shoved Will toward his room. “Go to sleep. I’m going to get you some water.”

He waited until he heard Will’s door opening before he looked up again, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Nico started back toward Will’s room when he heard a loud thud, concerned at first before he heard laughter, loud and bubbly, and when Nico pushed open the door he saw Will sitting upright on the floor with his legs out in front of him.

“I tried to take my shoes off and I fell over!” Will cackled.

Nico walked past him and set the glass down on Will’s nightstand before he tugged off Will’s shoes and pulled him back to his feet. Will immediately dropped down onto the edge of his bed and pulled Nico in until he was standing between Will’s knees.

“Stop,” Nico said, shaking off Will’s grip and walking across the room to leave. “You’re going to overheat if you sleep in that sweater.”

“Why don’t you come over here and take it off of me?”

Nico froze, one hand on the doorknob. Why is this happening to me? he thought to himself. Since moving to New York, Nico had been relying on meaningless hookups to distract himself from the pain he felt, most frequently around that time of the year, when he was at his lowest. He’d been better since he’d started looking after Bianca - having another person to look after had proved to be a much better distraction than sex - but Nico had been starting to crave another person’s touch more than usual. Not just anyone, either, but Will’s touch specifically.

Why would Will only start to show interest in him when he was too drunk to take off his own shoes? Why did it have to be now, when Nico’s head was clouded by so many other thoughts and feelings that were normally exactly what he would want to be distracted from? Why wasn’t Nico jumping into bed with Will right now, when both of them so clearly wanted it?

Nico’s hand tightened around the doorknob, turning it and opening the door. “Goodnight, Will.”

He closed the door behind himself as he walked out, and flopped down on to the couch. Nico took out his phone and started to write out a text.

TO: RARA; are you awake? i need someone to talk to

Will felt like he’d just walked through Hell. His head was pounding and he felt like any movement would cause him to vomit. His ass hurt for some reason, so he assumed he must have slipped and fallen on some ice outside at some point. He couldn’t even remember how he’d gotten home the night before, but at least he knew he hadn’t had his own car.

Will crawled out of bed and left his room, making a pit stop in the bathroom and waiting there for the nausea to pass before he went out to the living room.

“Daddy!” Bianca exclaimed as soon as she saw him, and Will winced at the high pitch of her voice. She jumped up off the couch and ran toward him, wrapping her arms around him, and said, “You were asleep for so long! You never sleep longer than me!”

“I guess I was just really tired,” Will told her. He glanced back toward the couch where Nico’s eyes were fixed on the TV, and Will felt himself flood with some kind of guilt, but for what he wasn’t sure. “Why don’t you go watch some more TV, Bi?”

“Okay!” Bianca replied, and returned to the couch.

Will stood in the hall awkwardly for another moment before saying, “Um, Nico? Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Nico didn’t look at him as he stood up and walked into the kitchen. By the time Will met him there, Nico was already sitting at the table, so Will sat down across from him. Nico kept his eyes trained on the table.

Will didn’t know what to say, so he tried, “Are you mad at me?” Nico flinched, and Will tensed at the sight. “I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to drink that much, or--” He rested his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. “I don’t even know what time I got here, but it was probably really late, and I’m sorry if I woke you up when I got back.” Will groaned into his hands. “I bet I made a fool of myself in front of my brother. So much for first impressions, right?”

When a few moments passed where Nico didn’t respond, Will peeked at him over his fingers to see Nico staring back in disbelief. “You...don’t remember anything?”

Will tried to think past the pounding in his head, but couldn’t remember much after Kayla had called him a Lyft the night before. He shook his head.

Nico glared down at his hands as they curled tightly into fists on the table. When he spoke, it was through gritted teeth. “And you...drove in that condition?”

“No!” Will exclaimed, and winced when the volume of his own voice caused a surge of pain through his skull. “No, I would never drive drunk, of course not! My sister sent me home in a Lyft, but that’s as far as I can remember. I know I got in a car, and then I woke up here.”

Nico sighed and visibly relaxed, his hands flattening out on the table, though he still didn’t look up. “Good.” He stood up slowly. “Don’t worry about last night.”

“Wait, please,” Will said, reaching out and covering one of Nico’s hands on the table before he could walk away. “Tell me what happened.”

Nico pulled his hand out from under Will’s in a flash, like he’d been burnt by the touch. He sat back down, this time keeping his hands on his lap to avoid any unwanted contact. “Bianca told you about my sister, right?”

“The one who lives on the moon,” Will recalled.

“She was killed by a drunk driver when I was fifteen.” Will felt the air leave his lungs like he’d been hit in the stomach. “We were walking in the woods behind my dad’s house, and I wanted to go inside but she didn’t, so I left her out there, all alone. I had a bad feeling, so I waited for her to come back before I went to bed, and… I think I fell asleep on the couch because the next thing I knew, somebody was pounding on the front door, so I went to open it--”

He took a deep breath to steady himself, and Will saw one of his hands tightening around his other forearm, squeezing at it like he was trying to keep his emotions under control. “This guy was standing there, and Bia was in his arms, and I knew she was already dead, but that asshole with alcohol on his breath kept shouting at me for a phone he could use. Said she came out of nowhere, ran right into his car, like it was her fault--”

“I’m so sorry,” Will whispered.

“I called the police, and he was arrested,” Nico continued, like Will hadn’t said a word. “The EMTs said that her spine was broken, and that if that drunk hadn’t touched her then maybe she wouldn’t have died.” Finally, Nico looked up again and met Will’s eyes, but Will shied away from the emptiness in his gaze. “So, you didn’t drive drunk, and you didn’t kill anybody. Don’t worry about anything else that happened.”

“Did I do something to upset you?” Will tried again. “I was drunk. Whatever I did or said, it didn’t mean anything, I promise.”

“I know it didn’t,” Nico said softly, and to Will his words sounded hollow - it was like Nico had turned into a complete shell of himself. He stood up again, but didn’t allow himself to get close enough for Will to stop him. He started toward the door, put on his shoes and coat, leaving Will frozen at the table. Finally, he turned back to Will and said, “You asked me to go to bed with you.”

He walked out the door before Will could make a sound.

Will stopped calling Nico during his lunch break, instead opting to only send him a text with a time, a place, a please, a thank you. He figured Nico didn’t have any interest in talking to him.

Will would text him when he was leaving work, whether it was at five in the afternoon or three in the morning, and every time Nico would leave as soon as Will walked through the door. Will hated the distance that was between them so suddenly - he felt like they were getting close, like they could soon be friends instead of whatever they were, or maybe they could even be more - but he ruined everything in one night. One night that he didn’t even remember.

He wanted to make it all better, but he didn’t know how. He would have to regain Nico’s trust, little by little, but he felt like he needed to do something for Nico to show him how truly sorry he was for the things he said and did while he was drunk.

He decided that it was finally time to finish the guest room.

During his lunch breaks, Will sat with Lou Ellen to pick out furniture, sheets, curtains, a mattress, and ordered everything online. With rush-order shipping, everything was delivered to his house by Christmas. He’d gotten the day off, watched as Bianca opened her presents - and opened one from Bianca, which she said Nico helped her to pick out - called his mom, and had a two-hour-long internal debate on whether or not to send Nico a merry Christmas text.

In the end, he only sent a merry Christmas in the same text asking Nico to come over the next day, but he figured it was better than nothing, and just polite nonetheless. Then, he spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the guest room and assembling the new furniture.

The next afternoon, when Nico returned - the bags under his eyes looking a little lighter than before - Bianca led him straight to the guest room to show it off. Nico had smiled, just barely, and even looked Will in the eyes when he thanked him.

That night, Will had a shift starting at midnight, so while Nico was there to watch Bianca, Will was in his room, trying to rest before he had to leave for work. Nico had started feeling a little more like his usual self, but interacting with others still exhausted him. So when he helped Bianca get settled in to sleep that night, Nico felt ready to fall asleep himself.

Instead, Nico went into the guest room - his room, as Will had said when Nico first stepped through the doorway - and called Annabeth.

“Hey, Nico, how are you feeling?” Annabeth greeted.

Nico hesitated. “I don’t know,” he finally decided to say. “Do you have time to talk?”

“I’m always happy when you decide to talk to someone.”

“Is that a yes?”

He could practically hear the eye roll on the other end of the line. “Yes.”

“I...think I messed something up,” Nico started, but couldn’t find it in himself to elaborate.

“Okay,” Annabeth said after a moment. “What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t feel like it’s my fault, but I don’t know who else I should blame. Maybe it really is my fault, or maybe it’s Will’s or maybe even Bianca’s.” He shook his head, though he knew that Annabeth couldn’t see him. “No, no, of course not, it couldn’t be Bianca’s fault. That drunk asshole, maybe, but never Bianca.”

He paused, waiting for Annabeth to start trying to fill in the blanks, but a full minute of silence passed between them instead.

“My head has been all messed up the last two weeks. I was barely speaking to anyone, and then-- Will got drunk. And he...said some stuff, and I really wanted to-- But he was so drunk that he couldn’t even remember anything in the morning. I got pissed at him because I thought he drove home while he was drunk, and then I told him about Bianca. And then I...left. And it’s been weird between us since then. I don’t know what to do, and I don’t want it to be like this anymore. I want to...fix this, but I don’t know how.”

For a moment, there was silence between them once again, before Nico heard Annabeth sigh, and he knew she had finished processing everything he said. “First of all, let go of your arm.”

“What? I--” He looked down and realized that one of his hands had wrapped itself around his other arm, his fingernails digging in until there were crescent-shaped indents in his arm. Thankfully, he had yet to draw blood. He picked up a pillow and hugged it to his chest instead.

“I know you, Nico,” Annabeth said. “Now, for the rest of that. Let’s see… You were mad because you’re uncomfortable around drunk people, even when said drunk person is someone you care about. Remember when you came over to celebrate Percy’s twenty-first birthday with us? You couldn’t even be in the same room with him. You care about Will, and you care about his daughter, and you were probably afraid that something bad might happen to them because you associate alcohol with what happened to Bianca. You need to understand that that is so incredibly unlikely to ever happen again. So you need to let go of whatever this is that you’re feeling, because Will is fine, and his daughter is fine. You’re just scared, and you’re allowed to be scared.”

“Thank you, Annabeth,” Nico said softly. “I think I...need to go to sleep now to think some things through. Did I tell you that Will was fixing up the guest room in his house so that I wouldn’t have to sleep on the couch anymore?”

When Annabeth replied, Nico could hear the smile in her voice. “You two are perfect for each other. Goodnight, Nico.”

“Goodnight.”

He hung up the phone, squeezing the pillow tighter to his chest for a second before rising off the bed. Nico changed into his pajamas and grabbed his toothbrush from his backpack before heading to the bathroom.

The door opened when he walked up to it, and he was momentarily blinded by the bright light that poured over him. He blinked a few times, his eyes finally adjusting enough that he could make out the shape of a person standing in the doorway, practically glowing in the light behind him. Nico saw Will standing in front of him, his hair damp like he’s just gotten out of the shower, water dripping down his tan and freckled chest, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.

Nico was frozen to the spot, his brain overloading at the sight in front of him, and he didn’t even register the embarrassed look that was growing on Will’s face.

Will ran a hand through his hair, shaking more water droplets onto his chest and shoulders as a blush rose up his neck. “Uh, sorry.”

He stepped around Nico and hurried into his own room. Nico stood stuck to the floor for a few more seconds before he could manage the couple of steps into the bathroom and finally allow himself to breathe.

Will had to be at the hospital at midnight for the start of his shift, but there weren’t any incoming emergencies so he was able to rest in one of the on-call rooms. Except that he couldn’t clear his head enough to fall asleep - the image of Nico staring up at him with wide eyes when Will got out of the shower kept popping into his head, and Will couldn’t think of anything else for the rest of his shift.

It left him tired and cranky by the time his shift was supposed to end, and so he was even more frustrated when he was told to stay for another eight-hour shift.

By the time is second shift was coming to an end, Will felt ready to drop, but he was paged to the emergency room about twenty minutes before he was free to leave. He dragged his feet all the way to the front desk and leaned heavily against it when he asked why he had been paged. The nurse behind the desk simply handed him a patient chart with a bed number on it.

Will heaved a sigh and walked toward the bed, going past an empty bed and momentarily debating whether he should climb in and take a nap instead of doing his job, but he continued forward instead.

He was already introducing himself before even looking at the person sitting on the bed, but when he finally did, he recognized Nico immediately through the tears pouring over his cheeks. Nico was curled up with his knees pulled close to his chest, his arms hidden from view by his legs, and to Will he looked so small and vulnerable.

Will cut off his own introduction and said, “Nico? What happened? Where’s Bianca?”

Nico’s head tipped forward until his forehead hit his knees, and he shook his head repeatedly. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I checked the allergy list, I swear I did! I’m so sorry!”

Will felt a shot of ice run up his spine that turned him stiff for half a second before he took a deep breath. “Nico, you wouldn’t be in your own bed if something weren’t wrong with you, so please tell me what happened.”

“I’m so sorry,” Nico said again.

“Forget about Bianca for a second and tell me what’s wrong,” Will tried again in his most soothing voice.

Nico seemed to curl in tighter on himself, almost like he was trying to hide something that was held close to his chest, and he continued to apologize though his voice had faded to a whisper.

“Nico, show me your hands, please.”

He didn’t budge.

Will set his hands on Nico’s arms, just beneath his shoulders, and Nico seemed to flinch away from the touch. Will pressed Nico’s shoulders back until his hands were no longer hidden from view. He looked down to see Nico’s hands and forearms splattered with blood, almost up to the elbow, and Will gasped at the sight.

He took one of Nico’s arms in his hand, gripping it tightly despite how Nico tried to pull away from him, and examined him for injury. There appeared to be tiny gouges taken out of his skin, most crescent-shaped though a few seemed to have been torn to a larger size.

Will examined Nico’s other arm next, though most of the blood stopped at his wrist and was more concentrated around the tips of his fingers - as if Nico had clawed open his own skin until he drew blood.

Nico continued to apologize.

“Stop apologizing,” Will snapped, his patience having been drained away after hours of working with no rest in between. Nico’s jaw snapped shut with so much force that Will heard his teeth click.

In silence, Will wiped the blood from Nico’s arms and hands, and noticed a series of similar crescent-shaped marks along his arms.

“What are these?” Will asked. Nico didn’t respond, but tried to pull his arm from Will’s grasp once again. “Nico. Why do you have scars on your arm?”

“My dad used to yell at me, and...and hit me,” Nico said cautiously, like he was afraid that saying the words would cause his father to appear out of nowhere and do exactly that. “When I kept my mouth shut, I didn’t get hit as often. This was the only way to shut myself up.”

Will saw his hand closing into a tight fist and quickly pried it open, wrapping the palm in a few layers of gauze before Nico’s fingernails could break his skin. He tried to be quick about bandaging up Nico’s arm, though some of the larger tears needed a couple of stitches each. Once Will had finished up, Nico’s panicked breathing had returned to normal, so Will deemed it a safe time to ask about his daughter once again.

“She wanted to make brownies,” Nico told him. “She wanted to taste the batter but I told her not to because of the raw eggs, but I turned my back for a second, and she just have tasted it anyway because then she was choking but I couldn’t figure out why. So I took the...the pen from the drawer, the epi pen that you keep in the kitchen, and I used that and then called an ambulance, but I-- They separated us because I was panicking so I didn’t see where she went, but I’m so sorry--”

“I told you to stop apologizing.” He gathered up the supplies he’d used to dispose of them and stood to leave. “Wait here,” he said to Nico, and closed the curtain around his bed as he left.

His shift had officially ended about ten minutes ago, but he knew he would be staying much longer than that already. Will returned to the front desk to ask where Bianca had been taken, then tracked her down in her own bed with a single doctor standing over her.

“Bianca!” Will exclaimed upon seeing her, and rushed forward to press a kiss to her forehead. “I was so worried when Nico didn’t know where you were. How are you feeling, Bi?”

“I’m okay, Daddy,” Bianca replied, her voice slightly raspy.

Will looked up to the doctor who appeared to be checking the readings on the machines around them - he recognized the other man immediately. “Cecil, how is she?”

“Like she said, she’s okay,” Cecil replied. “That babysitter did everything right; perfect use of the epi pen, got her here in good time. It really freaked him out, though, huh?”

“Is Nico okay?” Bianca asked suddenly, looking around Will to see if Nico was hiding behind him somewhere. “Where is he?”

Will felt a little hurt, a small part of him feeling like Nico was almost starting to replace him as Bianca’s dad - wasn’t he good enough for his own daughter?

“Nico got hurt when the ambulance was bringing you here,” Will explained, trying to leave out as many details as possible. “I helped him out, though, so he’s just fine now.”

“You’re such a good doctor, Daddy,” Bianca told him. “Can Nico come over here?”

Will tried not to outwardly frown. “Of course he can. I’ll be right back.”

Before he could step away, Cecil caught Will’s attention by saying, “I’m going to get her discharge paperwork started. Should I grab you an extra for the babysitter?”

“Yeah, thanks, Cecil,” Will replied, and went back to where he’d left Nico.

He’d curled up on himself again, picking absently at the edges of his bandages, but he seemed to have stopped crying for the time being. Will approached him, told him that Bianca wanted to see him, and started walking away again. He didn’t want to deal with Nico, he just wanted to take his daughter home and fall asleep on the couch while they watched a movie together. He didn’t want to be replaced by Nico as Bianca’s father, no matter how stupid the thought made him feel - of course he couldn’t be replaced, but was he not providing enough for her on his own?

He needed to sleep, most of all. That would reset his brain and make him stop thinking such stupid, selfish thoughts. Could it really be that he was unable to stop thinking about Nico just hours beforehand?

Nico had started crying again by the time they walked up to Bianca’s bed, and Will had to stop himself from rolling his eyes - what was wrong with him today?

“Nico, why are you crying?” Bianca asked.

“I was worried about you,” he replied, reaching out and wrapping one of his hands around hers.

“Don’t worry about me! I’m okay!” Bianca told him with a bright smile. She turned her focus to Will and asked, “If I’m okay, that means we can go home now, right? I want Nico to make mac and cheese for dinner.”

“We’ll be home soon,” Will replied, and planned to end the thought there, but something pushed out of him, “I’ll make mac and cheese for you when we get home. I think Nico needs to go to his own home and take a break.”

Nico stared back at him with shock clear on his face. “No, I’m fine, it was just an accident, Solace.”

Before Will could argue, Cecil returned with two clipboards, one of which he handed to Will, and the other was given to Nico. Will checked a few boxes and signed on a couple of the lines before offering the clipboard back and scooping his daughter up in his arms.

“Let’s go home, Bi,” Will said, and started walking toward the doors.

Nico hadn’t even picked up his pen, instead watching them leave with an expression mixed with shock and sadness. “It was one mistake.”

The last time Nico spoke was two days ago when he left Annabeth a voicemail that said, “I think I might’ve been fired,” and then proceeded to ignore any call or text he got afterwards that wasn’t from Will - there hadn’t been any from Will.

He didn’t sleep, or he was pretty sure that he didn’t sleep, just stared blankly at the wall and checked his phone every time it buzzed on the mattress beside his head. He never checked in on his online classes, never did any of the work, never ate or drank unless Hazel forced it upon him.

Nico would have missed his own New Year’s party if Percy hadn’t gone into his room and physically carried him out to the couch to socialize with Annabeth and Hazel, and Luke who took up residence on Nico’s lap for a majority of the night, playing video games on Percy’s phone.

Percy tried to talk to him a few times, though nothing he said managed to get through to him. Hazel had most likely gotten fed up with Nico’s mood swings, if her blatant ignoring of him was any clue. Annabeth, however, had sat down next to Nico and started reminding him of the conversation they’d had a few nights before, and coaxed Nico into explaining what had happened that brought him to the state he was in now.

“If it was an accident, then there’s no reason for him to fire you,” Annabeth assured him. “You’re worrying for nothing again, just give him some time to calm down.”

Nico nodded slowly. “Thank you.”

“There’s nothing else you’re upset about, is there? Nothing about your sister?”

He shook his head. No, just Will. Everything was about Will nowadays, wasn’t it?

After the Jackson-Chases had left and Hazel had gone to bed, Nico made his way into the kitchen for the first time in days. He drank a few glasses of water, ate some of the raw vegetables that had been on some veggie tray Annabeth had brought over and left there, and then started baking cookies until the early hours of the morning. That night, he finally managed to sleep.

He was woken up by the feeling of something landing on his legs.

Nico sat up with a groan, rubbing at his eyes before looking to see what had fallen on him, and saw Bianca sitting on his shins. “Bianca?” Nico asked, taking a quick glance around to make sure he was in his own room. He was, so how did she get there?

“You’re awake!” Bianca exclaimed with a bright smile. “Hazel told me to wake you up.” She hopped off the bed and started pulling at Nico’s arm until he rose from the bed as well. He was dizzy when he stood, and he desperately needed a glass of water. “Come on! Daddy wants to talk to you!”

Nico wouldn’t have been able to move if Bianca hadn’t been tugging him out the door.

“Daddy! Hazel! I woke up Nico!” Bianca called as she walked Nico into the living room where Will and Hazel were sitting on the couch.

“That’s great, Bianca,” Hazel said, getting up and walking toward them. She took Bianca’s free hand and said, “Let’s go to the kitchen and give your dad and Nico some time to talk. Nico stayed up really late last night making cookies, and I bet he made them just for you.”

She glanced up at Nico with a raised eyebrow, silently asking if it was okay to leave him alone, or maybe asking if it was okay for them to eat the cookies. Nico mentally scanned Bianca’s allergy list that he’d memorized months before - though he still wasn’t sure what had caused her reaction a few days prior - and nodded once. Yes, they could leave, and yes, the cookies were safe for Bianca to eat.

He watched them leave the room, and when he turned back, Will had risen to his feet, staring right back at Nico with a completely neutral expression on his face. Nico felt himself shrinking under Will’s gaze, his arms crossing over his stomach, one hand absentmindedly starting to scratch at his arm - he’d taken the bandages off already, though the cuts were still pretty fresh.

Nico was waiting for Will to speak first, but when he didn’t, Nico blurted out, “Are you going to fire me?”

Will’s neutral expression broke in surprise. “What? No, you thought I came all the way over here just to fire you? I wanted to make sure you’re okay.” He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and shuffled his feet uncomfortably. “I tried calling you, but Hazel answered and said she didn’t know what was wrong because you weren’t talking to her. She gave me your address so I could come check on you myself.”

“Oh.” Nico’s hand tightened around his arm, his gaze dropping to the floor. “You...didn’t have to do that.”

Suddenly, Will’s shoes were in Nico’s line of sight, and Will’s hands were wrapping around Nico’s wrists and pulling his hands apart. Nico’s immediate reaction was to try to tug his hands from Will’s grasp, but Will didn’t let go. “Stop--” Will started sternly, but caught himself and continued in a much more relaxed voice, his grip on Nico’s wrists loosening but still not letting go. “Stop hurting yourself. Stop beating yourself up over this. It’s not your fault that Bianca had a reaction, and I’m sorry for snapping at you. I was tired and worried, and I know that’s not an excuse for how I acted, but...I’m sorry.”

Nico’s eyes flickered up to meet Will’s, and for the first time in days, Nico saw the sky.

“I never should have said that you couldn’t come home with us,” Will continued. “You were just as worried about Bianca as I was, and you should’ve been at home with us that night so that you could’ve known she was okay. And… And so we could’ve known that you were okay. She-- I--” Will sighed. “We both miss you. Please come back?”

Nico felt his chest swell up when Will looked at him. Like his lungs were filling with water, or panic was rising up in him. Or maybe it was something else.

“Okay.”

Nico had been back for about a week. He still seemed cautious about what to cook for Bianca, but he’d started to let loose a little. He’d started spending the night more and more often, cooking breakfast and driving Bianca to school almost every morning, and still sometimes falling asleep on the couch with his laptop on his lap.

They were almost back to where they were before Christmas. Where that was exactly, Will wasn’t sure. Something closer to friends than boss-and-employee, but with hints of something more.

Which left Will feeling jealous.

It took him a while to come to that conclusion, but he couldn’t find any other words to describe how he was feeling. How he wanted to change the topic whenever Nico mentioned Hazel, or how angry Will felt whenever he even thought of her. She was quite possibly the sweetest person Will had ever met, and she obviously made Nico very happy, and Will wanted Nico to be happy, right?

No. Will wanted Nico to be happy with him. Not Hazel.

So. Will was jealous.

And then, just days after Will had made this revelation, Nico’s car had broken down. Nico’s shiny, expensive, never-had-a-problem, high-school-graduation-present car had broken down.

Nico didn’t bother telling this to Will until he arrived a few minutes late one day with Hazel trailing into the house behind him.

“Hey,” Nico called into the house, and Will rushed around the corner, smiling brightly until he saw her. “Sorry I’m late, my car broke down. Hazel had to drive me.”

Will tried to smile back at Hazel, greeting her politely, but he just wanted her out of his house.

“Thanks for driving me,” Nico said to Hazel, leaning in to kiss her cheek, and Will felt his blood boil. “I’ll let you know if I need you to pick me up.”

“I can take you home,” Will cut in. “Uh. Probably.”

Nico smiled. God, Will had missed that smile. “Sure, we’ll see.” He stepped to the side, opening the door for Hazel to leave, and said, “I’ll see you later.”

“Bye, Will,” Hazel said to him with a quick wave. “It was nice to see you again! And bye, Nico, I love you!”

“Love you, too,” Nico said, shutting the door after Hazel walked out. He turned back to Will and rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling.

Will needed to get out of there before he did something stupid.

“I’ll text you when I’m on my way home,” Will forced out, stepping into his shoes and grabbing his coat.

“Sounds good,” Nico replied, already walking away. He turned back just for a second and smiled. “Bye, Sunshine.”

God, Will had missed that, too.

Will could barely get through his shift with the jealousy rooted so deeply in his bones. He kept hearing Hazel’s voice in his head, telling him things like how she’d met Nico, or what they’d done for their first anniversary. Will had had to scream into a pillow in a locked on-call room for about a minute before he could get back to work. He desperately wanted his shift to end so that he could go home and have dinner with Nico and Bianca. And after Bianca went to bed, Will would have Nico all to himself, even if it was just platonically.

When Will got home - hours after his shift was supposed to end, and too late for his platonic fantasy dinner-and-a-movie plan - the only thing he could hear was the TV playing in the living room. It was unusual, since it was past Bianca’s bedtime and Nico tended not to watch TV on his own, and so for a second Will feared that Hazel had returned.

However, when Will rounded the corner, he saw only Nico sitting on the couch. He was slouching, staring just to the right of the TV as he chewed on his thumbnail, his knee bouncing as his foot tapped to an unheard beat. He looked nervous. Will had never seen him like that before.

“Nico?” Will asked quietly as he walked further into the room, and Nico jumped, head snapping toward Will. He really must’ve been distracted. “Are you alright?”

Nico shrugged, looking down at his hands.

“Nico,” Will tried again, sitting next to him on the couch. “Tell me what’s wrong. Please.”

Nico took a deep breath. “Bianca asked if I had a girlfriend,” he rushed out.

Now Will was even more confused. “Okay. And?”

Nico groaned, grinding the palms of his hands into his forehead, leaning forward with so much force that he almost tipped right off the couch.. “No, not okay! It’s not, because I don’t-- I’m not--”

Will felt a spark of hope. I don’t...have a girlfriend? I’m not...straight? Will held his breath.

“I’m gay and I didn’t know if you were okay with that, so I didn’t tell Bianca anything, because I didn’t want to teach her something that you weren’t okay with.”

Will forgot to breathe. For a little while. He figured by now his face was pretty red, but from blushing or lack of oxygen, he didn’t know. When Nico realized he wasn’t talking, he looked up at him, finally pulling his hands away from his face. “Solace?”

“I’m okay with it!” he said, probably a little bit too loud. “I’m okay with it because I am, too. I’m-- I mean, I’m bi, and she knows, and I think she understands it, but yeah, anyway. Yes, I’m okay with it, you can tell her. If you want.”

Nico’s eyes were wide - and Will’s probably were, too, but he was still trying to catch his breath and couldn’t really control what the rest of his body was doing right then. He was pretty sure he was smiling like a maniac, but he couldn’t help it. Nico’s gay! And not dating Hazel! Will might actually have a chance with him!

“You’re...” Nico started. “Okay. Okay.” He stood up and grabbed his backpack off the ground next to him. “I have to go home.” Nico rushed out of the living room, and made it all the way to the front door before Will remembered that Nico didn’t have a car. Frankly, he probably remembered before Nico did.

Will shot up, running after him and catching him before it seemed like he was about to start walking home. “Nico! Hang on, it’s like, zero degrees out, what are you doing? Come back inside, I’ll drive you home in the morning.”

Nico was already visibly shivering when he turned back around. “Okay. Okay.” He brushed past Will on his way back inside.

Will hated storms. He hated the rain, and he hated being stuck inside the house, and he hated thunder that shook a house’s foundation. Bianca hated the flashes of lightning that made a room as bright as day for just a second before the thunder boomed around her. Nico hated storms for a completely different reason.

There was a snowstorm coming down from the north, bringing with it at least an inch of snowfall and a high chance of thunder and lightning. Will had already gotten an email from Bianca’s school that announced the building’s closure in anticipation for the storm, and Will started to worry that he wouldn’t be able to make it to work in the morning.

He had hurried home after work that evening, partly because of the forecast, and partly because he’d gotten a text from Nico saying, text me if youll be home by 6 and ill make enough dinner for the 3 of us. Will, loyal fan of Nico’s cooking that he was, would have traded shifts with someone if he had to be at the hospital later than six that night. He would not miss out on Nico’s cooking.

So he made it home just as the snow was starting to pick up. When he walked in the door, Nico was putting the finishing touches on the meal, and Bianca had her face pressed into a window, watching the giant snowflakes fall. She’d never seen snow like that in Nashville.

Will stomped the snow off his boots, untying them and leaving them by the door, then hung up his jacket and scarf. After living in Nashville for most of his life, Will still wasn’t used to the negative temperatures that hit New York.

“Please tell me dinner will warm me up,” Will said, rubbing his hands together.

Nico rolled his eyes (he’d gotten used to the cold weather, unlike somebody) and pointed to each pot and pan, naming off each food and giving a brief description before Will could ask (because he knew Will would ask).

Will helped Bianca set places at the table as Nico brought the food over, and as soon as they all sat down to eat, Nico’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket as Will and Bianca looked at him in confusion. Nico’s phone had never once rang in front of them in all of the time that Nico had spent at the house. He never got a call, he never got a text, he never so much as got a twitter notification. They watched him press end call and set the phone down next to his plate.

When Nico noticed them watching him, he gestured to the food. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

Will scooped some food onto Bianca’s plate, not exactly sure what he was giving her, just making sure it was small portions in case she didn’t like something, and then gave himself slightly larger servings of everything.

He saw that Nico had just taken a bite of something when his phone went off again, only this time what sounded like a call was really just a large amount of texts coming in all at once.

“I’m sorry,” Nico said as he picked up the phone to stop it from vibrating the entire table. “I had my phone turned off today for this exact reason, I don’t really know why I turned it back on now.”

“It’s fine,” Will said, though he was worried that something was wrong. “Is it something important?”

“No.” Nico took another bite and his phone started buzzing again in his hand. He looked at the screen and winced. “I’m sorry. I have to take this.”

He stood up and headed toward the guest room, answering the call when he was only halfway through the living room. “Hello, Father, does this have to happen right now?” There was a pause, and then, “I was trying to enjoy a nice dinner--” and then the door shut, and Will could hear no more.

Him and Bianca picked at their food for a little while in silence. Will still had no idea what he was eating, but it was good. Some kind of pasta with vegetables, though not with any kind of sauce that Will recognized. Normally, he would have been concerned about Bianca’s allergies, but he trusted Nico not to cook something that she couldn’t eat.

“Is something wrong with Nico?” Bianca asked, and Will noticed she was just pushing most of the food around on her plate.

“I don’t know, Bi,” Will answered honestly. It was shaping up to be a strange evening, and Nico sure was taking a while with that phone call. “I just hope he doesn’t have to leave,” he said as he looked out the window. “I don’t think there’s any getting through that snow, no matter how long you’ve lived in New York.”

The two went back to eating, not speaking, and hearing only the increasingly powerful gusts of wind, the sounds of forks scraping across plates, and the occasional muffled noise coming from the guest room whenever Nico raised his voice.

Will wanted to go check on him, but thought it might be an invasion of his privacy.

The thunder started not long after. Will hadn’t noticed any lightning mixed in with the snow, but the deep rumbles that shook the house were unmistakable. It made him wish he’d bought a house with a basement, someplace that he wouldn’t feel the ground shake under his feet.

Bianca had finished eating, and Will was starting to feel full, but Nico’s plate remained full and almost untouched. Will’s worry grew.

He didn’t know how long he poked around at the small amount of food left on his plate before he couldn’t see it anymore. He looked up, looked around, but he couldn’t see anything anymore, except the now-present lightning that gave him flashes of his own home.

And that’s when he finally heard a door opening.

“Thank god,” he heard Nico say from the direction of the guest room, but he still couldn’t see him. “The cell towers must be out.”

Will heard his footsteps stop as he entered the kitchen.

“So much for a nice warm meal,” Nico muttered, and suddenly the flashlight on his phone lit up.

“Nico are you okay?” Bianca asked, and Will could see just enough to spot the confused look that Nico gave her.

“Yeah, Princess, of course I’m okay. Why would you think I’m not okay?”

“You were on the phone for a really long time and I heard you shouting.”

Nico winced before starting to clear the table. “I’m sorry. I never should have turned my phone on today.”

“If it was your father, then I’m sure it was important,” Will said stood to help. “Bi, can you help clear the table please?”

Bianca took her plate to the sink as Nico huffed. “It wasn’t. Nothing he couldn’t have said in a text. A two word text, instead of--” he looked at the time on his phone “--a thirty six minute phone call. God, I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” Will told him. “It’s not like this was supposed to be some special family dinner or something.”

But suddenly, Will got the feeling like it was supposed to be something exactly like that.

“Right,” Nico muttered, then louder said, “Do you have any candles anywhere?”

Will packed up the leftovers while Nico ate a little bit more of his now-cold food, but he quickly lost his appetite at the taste. It wasn’t the same when it wasn’t warm anymore.

The three of them each carried a flashlight, and Nico had gone around lighting candles in the kitchen, living room, and bathroom, though the faint light in the house only made the flashes of lightning outside so much more prominent. Will noticed that with each lightning strike, both Nico and Bianca flinched. Will made sure to close the curtains in the living room to help block out the lightning, and moved the candles from the kitchen into the living room as they all settled down there. The candlelight made Will’s hair look golden, but only succeeded in making Nico look tired.

The three of them sat on the floor in the living room playing Go Fish in the candlelight, until Bianca got too tired to play anymore.

“It’s dark and scary and I don’t wanna sleep in my room by myself,” Bianca complained when Will decided it was time for her to go to bed.

“What if we all sleep out here?” Nico suggested. “We can all bring out a bunch of pillows and blankets, then it’ll be like a sleepover.”

“Okay!” Bianca said, and she jumped up and ran to her room, clicking on her flashlight as she went. She came back quickly with her arms loaded full of pillows and blankets, and dropped them all on the floor in a heap. She plopped down on top of the heap and curled up like she was going to fall asleep right then.

“Just because it’s a sleepover doesn’t mean you don’t have to brush your teeth, Bi,” Will said in a very dad voice. “And put on some warm pajamas, too.”

When Bianca complained, Will stood and ushered her toward her bedroom to make sure he had warm enough pajamas. Nico cleaned up the cards before heading off to the guest room to change into his own pajamas. Thankfully, he’d been keeping some of his clothes in the dresser, since it was easier than bringing a change of clothes every time he came over. He changed into sweatpants and a long sleeve t-shirt, grabbing his backpack, a pillow, and the comforter and a pillow off the bed before heading back to the living room.

Bianca and Will were both in the bathroom brushing their teeth when he walked past the open door, Bianca in footie pajamas, and Will still in his scrubs.

Nico set his things down next to the couch. He went to brush his teeth when he noticed that both Will and Bianca were out of the bathroom, and when he came back to the living room, Bianca looked ready to fall asleep, and Will was nowhere to be seen.

The coffee table had been moved away from the couch so that there was more room for them all to spread out, which must’ve been Will’s doing. Nico sat on the ground, leaning back against the couch, and pulled out his phone. He might as well read all those texts he’d gotten earlier.

As soon as he’d opened up the messaging app, Will came into the room with a pile of blankets in his arms, and plopped them down next to Nico, revealing his blue flannel pajama pants and luminescent orange sweatshirt with the name of some college across the front.

“You’re practically glowing in the dark,” Nico commented, putting his phone off to the side.

“It’s going to get pretty cold with the heater not working,” Will said with a shrug, stuffing his hands in the pocket of his hoodie. “Gotta keep warm.”

The two of them were quiet as they situated themselves, and in a couple of minutes, they were both wrapped up in blankets and listening to the quiet snores coming from the six year old across the room.

“I figured she’d be out pretty quick,” Will said, smiling at his daughter.

Nico hummed, eyes flickering down toward his phone, when he heard Will speak again.

“So, I’m sorry if this is kind of intrusive, but I have to ask,” he started, “you seemed...angry, with your dad. Is everything alright? I mean, I know you said that he wasn’t the greatest, so I kind of assumed you wouldn’t keep in touch with him anymore.”

Nico sighed and seemed to consider his words carefully. “He’s my dad, you know? He’s the only dad I’ve ever had, and he’s trying to be better, but I wish he wouldn’t just done it years ago, when it mattered.”

“I get that,” Will said. “My dad was pretty awful when I was a kid, too, but he never ended up trying to do anything to change it. He tricked my mom into believing that he loved her, and they got married for about two months, which was enough time for him to cheat on her. I didn’t find out until I was around ten that the reason my dad wasn’t around was because he had another family. Or, well, a lot of other families. Turns out I had at least four siblings I’d never met.”

“Four?” Nico asked incredulously.

Will nodded, and started counting them off on his fingers. “There was Lee - the oldest - and Michael came next, both with different moms, and both of them joined the military. I don’t remember which branches, but I don’t think they ever met. They were both killed in action, so I never actually got to meet them, just heard about them. And then there’s Kayla, the one who had the...the, um, Christmas party.” Nico hid a grin. Will sounded embarrassed. “A-and Austin. I just met him at Kayla’s, but he lives in Manhattan, so I’m hoping I can get to know him better. He’s a musician, goes to Juilliard. He can play anything, like when I first asked him about it, he just listed off all the instruments he can play, which was a ton. And he’s just like, ‘Right now I’m learning the violin, but strings are kind of hard for me, so we’ll see how it goes.’”

Nico smiled down at his lap and let Will’s words hang in the air between them for a moment before he said, “A few months after Bianca died, I found out I had another sister,” The air flew out of Will’s lungs. “Turns out that my dad had gone on a business trip to New Orleans once, and met some fortune teller and had a fling. Child services called our house once, and I answered the phone. This lady just kept saying something about how Marie somebody died and since my father was financially stable enough to support another child, they were flying his daughter to California to live with us. I got really mad at my dad about that, like he’d planned to have another kid to replace Bia, or something stupid like that. After I got over the shock, the first thought I had was, I can’t believe he married a Maria and had another kid with a Marie.”

“So Maria is your mother?” Will asked.

“Was,” Nico corrected. “She died when I was four. It was a car accident during a thunderstorm.” Coincidentally, thunder shook the house right at that moment, and Will saw Nico trying to repress a flinch. “My father had remarried a little while after that, to a woman named Persephone. When she found out about Hazel, she got super pissed at my father and didn’t talk to him for a couple of days, even though that ‘business trip’ had happened in between wives.”

Will gasped. “Hazel’s your sister?”

Nico turned to look at Will. “Yeah. Why, who did you think she was?”

Will shrugged and looked away, thankful for the dim lighting that hid his blush. “A friend, I guess. You don’t exactly look alike.”

“Yeah, but we’re still family. She’s been living with me for a few months until her boyfriend graduates from West Point. I have a feeling they’re going to get married pretty soon, especially if he ends up in the army, which is bound to happen sooner or later.”

“I considered joining up for a little while,” Will said, eyes on Bianca. “Go in as a doctor, they’d pay off my student loans, but then Bi came along, and I couldn’t just leave her alone at my mom’s or someplace for so long that she wouldn’t know me when I came back.”

In the faint light, Will noticed Nico shiver and wrap the comforter tighter around himself.

“Are you cold?” Will asked. “Let me go get you a sweatshirt.” He was up and out of the room before Nico could reply. Truthfully, Will was thankful for the break in the conversation. He wasn’t sure that he was ready to tell Nico about how he’d come to be the sole caretaker for Bianca. He returned quickly, a light grey sweatshirt in his hands, which he tossed to Nico before sitting back down.

“Thanks,” Nico said, once the sweatshirt was pulled over his head. “I hope you don’t mind me staying here tonight.”

“Are you kidding? I could barely get home from work, there’s no way someone could’ve driven you home! I would have insisted you stay, even if you did have your big, fancy car.”

Nico rolled his eyes; Will could see that even in the dark. “It’s not fancy.”

“Nico, that car cost more than my mom’s house,” Will insisted. “I still can’t believe that it was a high school graduation present.”

“Fine, it’s not that expensive for my family.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means...” Nico tucked his hands into the sleeves of the sweatshirt and looked down at his lap. “My father owns a recording studio in LA, so we’ve never exactly been tight on money. And my mother’s father was an Italian ambassador, who left trust funds for Bianca and me. And then when Bia died, her trust was merged with mine. And my mother’s insurance money paid for my college classes and the private schools I went to when I was younger.”

“You’re loaded?” Will asked, voice loud in shock and jaw left hanging open.

Nico’s head snapped up towards his, hands coming out of the sleeves as he held a finger up to his lips, the other hand pointing toward the still-sleeping Bianca.

Their faces were close. Nico could’ve counted Will’s freckles. Will could’ve finally seen the separation of iris and pupil in Nico’s eyes if the lighting had been better. Instead, Will’s eyes dropped to the finger over Nico’s lips. His eyes lingered there for longer than he’d intended them to, and he snapped his jaw shut when he managed to focus his eyes back on Nico’s.

“I can’t believe you’re rich,” Will whispered, finally pulling his eyes away from Nico’s face. Nico had returned his hands to his sleeves relaxing back against the couch again. He looked so small in Will’s oversized sweatshirt, head tilted down sheepishly. “I can’t believe you’re rich and I’ve been sneaking extra money into your paychecks to help you fix your car!”

Nico laughed lightly. “You have?”

“And you didn’t even notice! Do you even look at your paychecks?”

“Not really,” Nico admitted.

“Alright, you owe me now,” Will decided.

“What, you want me to pay you back the money you didn’t have to give me?”

“No, no, keep the money, whatever,” Will said, waving a hand at Nico. “You owe me one answer to any question I ask you.”

“Can I veto something I’m not comfortable answering?”

Will thought about it for a second. “I guess so. But only one!”

“Okay, go ahead, then.”

Will didn’t even hesitate. “What were all the texts and calls about earlier?”

Nico sighed, glancing off to the side where his phone was sitting on the ground. “Well, to be fair, I haven’t actually looked at the texts.” He picked up the phone, turning on the screen and holding it in a way that Will could see just as well as he could. The messaging app was still open, and Nico tapped on the first thread at the top.

FROM: Frank; Happy Birthday, Nico! :)

FROM: Hazel; happy birthday!!! i love u!!!

FROM: Annabeth; Happy Birthday!

FROM: Sally; Happy birthday, Nico. I hope you have a great day!

FROM: Percy; Happy birthday man

FROM: Percy; hppy birhtday unkle nico

FROM: Percy; That last one was from Luke

FROM: ra-ra; Happy birthday, it’s your turn to visit.

FROM: Leo; happy old day bro

FROM: Jason; Happy birthday son

FROM: Piper; Happy birthday!

FROM: Thalia; happy birthday

“It’s your birthday?” Will asked.

Nico shrugged, eyes locked on his phone.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve taken the day off or something! You didn’t have to come here today, you could’ve-- I don’t know, hung out with your friends, or something!”

“My friends all have jobs, Solace,” Nico responded. “They all had to work today, and I’d much rather be here than sitting by myself in my room all day.”

Will was hit with a realization. Punched in the gut with this realization. “It was supposed to be some kind of special family dinner, wasn’t it?”

Nico shrugged again, putting his phone down in his lap. He seemed almost uncomfortable. “I guess. I made a bunch of my favorite foods, there were cannoli for dessert, too, but we didn’t exactly get to that. My father only called because he was trying to make up for never calling me on my birthday, and I couldn’t get him to shut up. And then he put Seph on the phone.” He sighed again, tossing his head back to rest against the couch cushions. “I just wanted to have a nice dinner for once.”

“If it makes you feel any better, it was a nice dinner,” Will offered, bumping his shoulder against Nico’s. “Would’ve been better with you there, but the food was good.”

Nico’s head lolled to the side so we could look at Will. He had the tiniest smile on his face, and Will wanted to keep it there.

“Tell me about your friends,” Will blurted.

Nico picked up his head. “Why?”

“I--” Will didn’t know. “How do you know all of them?”

Nico paused for a second, staring at Will as if to try to find some kind of ulterior motive. He clicked his phone screen back on and read down the list of names.

“Okay, well. I told you about Frank already, he’s Hazel’s boyfriend,” Nico started. “Hazel, of course, is my sister. Percy and Annabeth are married, and Luke is their son. I actually, uh, really hated them in high school. I was closeted and had a crush on Percy, so I hated him for that, and I hated Annabeth because she was dating him, but I got over my crush and learned to like them both. Oh, and, uh, Sally is Percy’s mom. I lived with her for about a year when I first moved out to New York.

“Ra-Ra is my best friend Reyna. She lives in San Francisco, so I haven’t seen her in a little over a year. We also met in high school, but she was a senior when I was a sophomore, so we only met because we were partnered for a class project. Next is Leo, he’s my cousin Jason’s best friend, and he’s accidentally set himself on fire more than a few times.”

“Accidentally?” Will asked.

Nico shrugged. “It’s a gift, or so he claims. Anyway, uh. Jason, my cousin. He calls me son sometimes because I once gave him a Father’s Day card as a joke but he took it to heart. Piper is Jason’s fiancee. I introduced her to Jason after we met at one of our fathers’ business meetings or whatever. And last is Thalia, Jason’s older sister. Her and Bia used to have a No Boys club when we were kids because they thought me and Jason were annoying.”

Nico closed out of the messaging app and pulled up his photo gallery. “I think I have pictures of everyone, hang on.”

He leaned against Will’s side and held his phone out as he scrolled through a few albums, showing Will pictures of Frank and Hazel; Percy and Annabeth; himself and Luke when he’d been asked to babysit once; Leo that one time he accidentally set his jacket on fire and didn’t notice for over a minute. At some point, Nico’s head fell onto Will’s shoulder as they scrolled through pictures. Piper surfing and Jason falling into the water. Hazel and him scrunching up their noses at the camera. Thalia somewhere in South America doing some wildlife preservation something. Reyna sitting outside a cafe drinking a latte and glaring at people that passed by on the street.

Nico’s eyes were starting to fall closed when he finally put his phone away, having exhausted his gallery of all pictures of his friends. Will had started talking, something about a couple of the friends he’d had in high school, and Nico had tried to listen, he really had, but his eyes had slipped closed and he’d fallen asleep.

He woke up on the floor, pillow under his head and comforter off the guest bed wrapped around him, and he had no recollection of how he’d gotten there.

The floor around him was littered with pillows and blankets, and there were burnt out candles on the tables and TV stand. He sat up and blinked a few times, and then Will and Bianca were there in front of him. He rubbed at his eyes and looked at them again, their smiles unmistakably real.

“Happy birthday!” Bianca shouted at him, and held out a small plate with one of the cannoli he’d made yesterday.

Will was beaming at him, obviously proud of himself, and Nico couldn’t help but grin back.

The snowstorm kept schools closed for the next two days, which meant that Nico stayed over night after night. The power had returned the morning after Nico’s birthday, and while Will had taken the opportunity to shower after their quick birthday celebration, Nico had taken advantage of the newly recovered cell signal to call Hazel. He had her pick him up and take him to get his car, which he’d been planning on picking up the night before, until the snow hit.

When he got his car, Nico returned to his own home, showered, changed his clothes, and grabbed some more clean clothes to keep at Will’s.

He went back to the Solace household and was immediately greeted with Bianca telling him that her school had already been closed for the next day. Good thing he’d grabbed more clothes.

Bianca had insisted on playing video games, and then got angry at Will whenever he walked in front of the screen. He was trying to get ready for work, running back and forth between the kitchen and living room and his bedroom, and by the fourth or fifth time, Bianca had had enough, and gave up on the game.

When Will came over to say goodbye, he suggested, “Why don’t you do the homework you were supposed to do last night, so you don’t have to worry about it later?”

Bianca, still upset, huffed and crossed her arms. Nico just said, “Bye, Solace,” and kept playing the game that Bianca had abandoned.

Will rolled his eyes and muttered something about having two children, and Nico shouted, “I heard that!” before Will walked out the door.

When he returned later that night, Will noticed first the tray of brownies cooling on the counter. Bianca’s bag was where it had been when he left, and a quick look around the corner showed that Nico and Bianca were still sitting on the floor playing video games, right where he’d left them.

Will walked up and stood in front of the TV, arms crossed and with what he hoped was a stern look on his face. “Did you even do your homework like I said to?” he demanded.

Nico paused the game and looked up at him with the biggest shit-eating grin Will had ever seen and said, “Yeah, it’s in her backpack, all ready to go when school starts back up. You wanna check everything over, make sure it’s all right?”

They stared each other down for a little while. Will felt something swell up in his chest. Maybe his lung were filling with fluid and he was dying. Maybe it was something else that had to do with Nico smiling up at him like that.

Will rolled his eyes and turned back toward the kitchen, hearing Nico snicker before starting up the game again.

“The brownies are probably cool by now if you want one,” Nico called to him.

Will sighed in frustration, but went over to the counter and cut himself a brownie. Dammit if it wasn’t the best thing he’d eaten in days. Well, except maybe that cannoli he’d split with Nico the day before. But the brownie had chocolate.

thanks for reading!!

buy me a coffee | other nico birthday event stuff

#mine #my writing #nico di angelo #will solace #solangelo #nicobirthdayevent #i'm in hell #i wanted to uhhhh change nicos birthday and aftermath a little more but i also needed to make sure i posted this by today so

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