Chapter Text
Despite it being the end of semester, the breeze when Nico steps outside is enough to make him shiver. He sees Hazel do the same as she steps out after him. Bianca – ahead of both of them already – seems perfectly comfy. Her everpresent jacket draped around her shoulders is still unzipped, and Nico feels a small lump at the base of his throat.
(Mama was always warm. Nico was the odd one out in that regard. He may have more of her mannerisms, more of her interests. But down to flesh and bones, Bianca was her mirror.)
Just outside the doors, a short wall of rocks hem in a basin of flowers. Hazel beelines for it, leading him and Bianca to sit on either side. She slips her fingers between Nico’s own, squeezing once as Bianca turns to face him over Hazel's shoulder.
“Bee,” he says softly, listening to cars beep in the distance. “Is this gonna be mean?”
She doesn’t answer immediately, mulling over the question as Hazel twists a long fern through her free hand. “Your pick, what’ll get through?”
It’s just another way, he remembers with a surge of guilt, that she learned to fill Mama’s shoes. It makes him kind of want to scream. “If I say nice, are you gonna be really sincere and awkward?”
“Yes.” Bianca smiles with half her face, pilling a violet out at the root and handing it to Hazel. She pockets the flower, and Nico suspects he may be leaving here with another goddamned flower crown. Nefarious work, truly.
“In that case, can we do both?”
“What, like that weird game?” Hazel squints at him. “Good cop bad cop?”
“The police are an inherently corrupt organization–” Bianca is cut off by Hazels glare, and she rolls her eyes. “Fine. Am I both, or is Hazel gonna be the good one?”
“You’re both,” Hazel clarifies.
“Alright.” Bianca cracks her neck. Nico deserves credit for not laughing. “Could you tell me when Will moved in?”
“A few months ago, after his roommate kicked him out.”
“And your so-called freakout?” She prompts again.
“A bit before exam season. Jason pestered me to admit I had a crush on Will.” Neither ask him to explain why he’d had a breakdown over that. They’ve seen him in that state enough to puzzle it out for themselves. Hazel squeezes his hand again. Bianca doesn’t ask another question, opting to instead stay very still. Watching him like a spooked animal, while she holds food gently out in front of herself. Nico breathes through his nose. “I ended up staring enough that he thought I’d noticed something he keeps pretty secret.”
“But you thought the staring was the problem?” Hazel probes gently, and Nico sighs. “How are you two getting by now?”
She already knows the answer. Nico can see it in her face. “We basically act like we’re dating,” he says finally. “We’re just not and I don’t know what to do with that information.”
Bianca crosses her legs, tucking her boots onto a ridge in the rocks. “Do you think he’d say yes if you asked him out?”
“I do,” he sighs, “I just don’t know what I’d do if it didn’t work out with him.”
Hazels eyebrows raise, and her gaze grows intense. She exchanges a look with Bee, who runs a hand slowly through her curtain of hair. After a minute, she gives Hazel a little ‘go ahead’ motion, and she turns back to Nico. “You are very much not talking like someone with a crush.”
Nico’s face is on fire, and he tilts it away slightly to catch the breeze. His voice is small when he speaks. “I know that.”
“Do you–”
“I don’t know,” Nico interrupts, “I could, and I probably almost do. But we haven't even renewed the lease yet, so I don’t really want to think about it.”
There’s a million other questions he has about the whole thing. Stuff he doesn’t even want to go through in his own mind, too ashamed to think the words. Would he be able to live with Will if they broke up, and Will still didn’t have anywhere to go? Is it even a good idea to live with someone you’ve just started dating?
It’s humiliating, he realizes belatedly, how even his catastrophizing is a world where Will is at least interested for a time.
Hazel slips a ring of wildflowers around his wrist, rousing him back to the present. “We should head back in.”
Nico nods. Bianca pulls open the door for her younger siblings to file through. Out of habit, he ducks just fast enough to avoid the ambush hair ruffling. Hazel doesn’t quite make it.
~~~
Hazel’s snoring wakes him. Not that anyone believes she snores, but they haven’t spent years sleeping in irritatingly close quarters with her. What little of the sky can be seen through Piper's half-drawn curtains is still tinged pink. Dull paint throbs down the side of his thing. Slowly, Nico extracts the offending phone from his pocket.
There’s only one notification when he unlocks it. A single red heart, sent at 12:02 am. Vaguely, Nico can recall sending something of a ‘don’t wait up’ message – and doesn’t that just make him want to crawl into a hole – and tucking his phone away.
He wiggles his foot free from Hazel, probably leaving her significantly more comfortable. The room looks more like the 12 year old's first sleepover birthday than a college end-of-semester party. Leo is fully drooling in Piper’s lap, one leg cast over Jason torso. Bianca is curled up on yet another mystery couch cushion, just a foot away from Piper. Not much she can really do, dating a perma-third wheel.
Patting himself down by the door – phone, wallet, keys, and no additional bits of Leo’s machinery that somehow ended up on his person – there’s a rustling sound from the sea of sleepers. Nico freezes, not wanting to incur the wrath of the unwillingly roused.
Silence lays heavy on his ears for a minute. Then Hazel’s face pops up, eyes half lidded and confused. Her eyes lock onto Nico, and she slowly pulls backwards, stepping gingerly onto the messy floor.
Nico holds out her shoes, slipping on his second once she reaches him. Hazel turns to snag a hoodie from the wall that he’s 80 percent sure isn’t hers, and he heads out into the hall. Neither speaks when she follows.
The yellowish lightbulbs in the complex’s halls look an awful lot like the sort of bulbs used in a microwave, and when Hazel plops down on the dingy grey carpet, Nico follows suit. “Glad I came last night,” he says, voice hoarse with sleep. In the corner of his eye, Hazel tilts her face slightly towards him. “Missed you.”
“I missed you too,” Hazel hums. “You’re headed home awfully early?”
It shouldn’t be a question, but the quiet bit isn’t lost on him. “I’m gonna talk to him.” She stays silent, and Nico wraps his arms around his torso, inhaling slowly. “Not really sure what I’ll say yet, but I’m gonna try.”
Hazel scoots a bit closer. She still won’t look at him, won’t make him sit under her gaze. Just tips her head until it just barely rests against his shoulder. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
~~~
An alarm is going off somewhere, muffled by the walls. Recent carpet removal means that his footsteps echo up the stairwell. The elevator is back in service, but he will not be the one caught in it when that inevitably changes. Their apartment is only slightly louder when he pulls open the door. Will must be showering, if the running water is to be trusted. The fan’s running when he passes the kitchen, beelining for his bedroom.
Tucking into the still warm duvet, Nico stuffs his face into a pillow. Sleeping on a couch wasn’t his best call last night, all things considered. Something akin to seasickness churns in his upper abdomen, forcing his mouth to water. It’s just Will. The sheets smell like him.
The faucet squeaks, like a weird sense of deja vu. How many times will he lay here, packicked at the very thought of Will in the next room? Hear the curtain rod scream as the shower opens, and frantically plan out his next purely platonic interaction?
“Mornin’,” Will yawns, watching from the door as Nico rotates in bed like a rotisserie chicken to face him. “When’d you get home?”
He is not, as Nico had hoped, wearing a shirt. The rolling continues until he’s simply facing the ceiling. “It’s not the morning.”
“The morning is whenever you wake up.” Will leans forward, scrubbing his hair with a towel. He’s wearing the stolen pants again.
Nico sighs, forcing eyes back to the chip of paint above him. The one that looks vaguely like a very round rat. “That explains way too much about you.”
“Hush.” Will flops down at the foot of the bed. “Have you seen my Star Wars shirt? The bad one.”
“No.” It comes slightly too quick, and he shoots Nico a look, eyebrows high. “I haven't!"
“Sure.” Will doesn’t push further, instead clambering up to the top of the mattress, and collapsing at Nico’s side. “Nap time.”
“Didn’t you just get up?” He digs his head a bit further into the pillow, dodging the hand Will waves dismissively in his face. “Ass.”
Through the fluffy blanket terrain, Nico catches a glimpse of Will’s left ear as it flushes bright pink. “Didn’t sleep very well.”
“Why not?” Nico tests, raising his chin a bit to see Will’s face.
Will sighs as though going through some excruciating trial. “You weren’t here.”
Nico’s own face warms, and he drops back out of view. Both have gone excruciatingly still. Straining his ears, he could almost swear Will’s heartbeat is louder than his own. “You’re a dork.”
“Shhhhh,” He casts a hand over. Nico doesn’t dodge quickly enough this time, knuckles bumping softly against his cheek. “Nap time.”