Chapter Text
Prologue.
In which Nico decides to move in with Will Solace.
Nico Di Angelo honestly wasn’t sure when or where he first met Will Solace. It might have been when he was working a late-shift at a bar downtown. Will (though there was a good chance it hadn’t been Will at all) had come in with a group of friends who were every bit as bubbly, attractive and incessantly cheerful as Will himself was. He vaguely remembered someone blonde and sunshine-like chattering as they ordered shots. Of course, that could also have been any other of Will’s friends. Nico would freely admit he hadn’t really been paying attention, not to the face and certainly not to the words. He tried as hard as he could not to pay attention to his any of his customers, no matter how much his complete disinterest annoyed his manager.
It was quite possible that the first time they had met was in Nico’s cafe. It wasn’t in any legal-ownership sense of the word actually his, but it was a short walk away from his old apartment, was reasonably quiet and had a strong wifi connection so Nico had adopted it as his own. He’d been trying to research places to rent: he’d been sharing with Leo (tiny, scrappy, latino, and a constant fidgeter) but then Leo had met Calypso (pretty waitress who worked at a cake shop and did the gardens of people who actually had space for a garden) and the two had decided to go on a soul-searching trip around the world and/or open up a café slash garage. That left Nico with either finding someone to go halves on the rent, or finding a new place to stay. Both options seemed like a circle of hell designed especially for him, but he’d eventually decided to just try and find somewhere new since interviewing potential roommates was more than he could bear.
He’d been enjoying a cup of black coffee, the quiet, and the wifi which allowed him to cry at rental prices on one of the many old laptops they had lying around that Leo had got tired of jury-rigging or tinkering with. Then the door had opened and in stalked a bunch of people who were so self-aware of their own beauty and good fortune that they created a kind of vortex of wealth and power that forced others to look at them so they could be simultaneously awed and jealous. The group were followed by a gaggle of interested onlookers and hangers-on, mostly star-struck girls in their teens and early twenties, but there was the occasional guy too, presumably for variety and so that the couple of girls in the group had someone to show off for. Nico wasn’t at all interested in sticking around so he’d packed up his laptop and left. He’d brushed past someone tall and blonde on his way out and he’d briefly wondered if he’d just walked into Will Solace but he was tired, irritable and frankly didn’t care enough to check.
The first time they met could equally have been at one of Percy’s many parties. Percy Jackson was the son of one of his dad’s two business partners and as such the two of them had often been thrown together while growing up. Nico had had a painfully painful crush on Percy for the majority of his teenage years and though he was positively and completely over Percy, for sure, it was difficult seeing him and his long-term girlfriend together. Annabeth was perfect for Percy in every way that Nico wasn’t, and he knew now that dating Percy would never have worked out, he had begun to focus on some of Percy’s faults. So, almost two years after he and Annabeth had gone off to college together and Nico had had to accept they weren’t going to do the decent thing and split up, he was able to be in the same room as him without thinking thoughts better suited to moody poetry written by the moody-trash-teen he knew he still was at heart.
But Percy was his first crush. And being around a very drunk Percy was often about as fun as having teeth pulled. A very drunk Percy usually went between 1) PDAs with the long-suffering Annabeth, to 2) telling Nico how he was the luckiest guy on earth to have such a great girl put up with him, and then 3) telling Nico he was the luckiest guy on earth to have such a great friend because Nico you’re just, you’re like the little brother that I like, never had, man. It was probably selfish but at times like that Nico did not want to be Percy’s friend. And even now when he was pretty sure he was almost 100% over Percy Jackson there was still a little part of him that still hoped. It was a pathetic part of him prone to mooning about his room and hopeless daydreams but it was a part of him nonetheless no matter how much he wished it would shut up and let him move on. The only saving grace (ha!) of that particular party had been Jason, the son of the other business partner and as such the other kid he’d been frequently thrown together with. Jason was at college over in LA and his trip back to the city had been short and whirl-wind and the only reason Nico deigned to turn up at Percy and Annabeth’s apartment at all.
No matter what people said, Nico wasn’t anti-social as such. He just preferred his social in careful measures, and not all at once. That was not at all possible at Percy’s. He was accosted by several of Percy’s friends within thirty seconds of him walking through the door. Nico had tried propping up the wall and putting on his emo-teen-don’t-talk-to-me-loner-aura but either he was getting worse at projecting the leave-me-alone vibe, or Percy’s friends were getting friendlier. Or drunker. One of the two. Quite possibly both. Jason hadn’t yet arrived and Nico wasn’t going to leave until he said hi and bye and why did you make me come? So, he’d tried hanging out in the bathroom where the door had a lock (and if anyone wanted to throw up they’d just have to do it in a bin or something and that was the price Percy paid for having Nico here).
He had been surprised to find there was already somebody in there: lying in the bathtub so still that for a moment Nico thought that someone had been murdered. He was envisioning scenarios of him, Percy and Jason trying to pretend this person was still alive until they found a way to identify and then dispose of the body, when the dead person moved slightly proving themselves not dead after all. He had an arm over his face so Nico couldn’t make out any features. He did see a mop of blonde hair and so when his half-sister Hazel texted him the next day if it were true that William Solace, professional rich-person and minor celebrity thanks to the fact he was an influencer who presumably influenced people about something online, had been at Percy’s party Nico had shrugged and said possibly and that there was a chance he’d met him in a bathtub. Admittedly Percy had had lots of blonde friends and most of them looked alike, so really it was far more likely that that wasn’t Will at all, but it had made for a good story and Hazel (admittedly the only person he’d told it to) had enjoyed it.
The first time Nico could actually remember meeting Will for sure, was when Will had intercepted him on his way to the library. The first thing he could recall was bumping into someone very solid and then there was the impression of tanned skin and a constellation of freckles and very, very blue eyes. His stomach exploded into butterflies and he was simultaneously disgusted in himself for being so weak, and clinically interested in his attraction to someone who a) wasn’t Percy, and b) was so stereotypically stunning that he should have been boring (and not at all interested in stopping Nico in the street and babbling at him but that was a different matter entirely).
Nico had stepped back automatically and regarded the individual. He was tall and yep, he had golden blonde hair and a nice smile. He was also notably happy, like someone had distilled down the sun and poured it out into one golden person. Nico was taking a moment to decide whether he should dislike him on principle, when it occurred to him Sunshine was dressed all in black (which wasn’t all that strange to Nico considering his own dress), and had dark make-up smudged over his cheeks (which was and kind of reminded Nico simultaneously of a raccoon and his own early and disastrous attempts to operate eyeliner).
“Is this one of those dumb hazing things?” Nico asked.
Will looked too lazy to play sport, though Nico was pretty sure he was fit enough to excel if he’d wanted. Nico struggled not to look at the outline of his shoulders or the suggestion of abs that were hidden beneath a dark top that was just tight enough to hint at his physique but not tight enough to confirm it. Instead he focused on attempting to communicate how stupid he thought Will’s get up was, and consequently how stupid Will himself was, through only his eyes.
“It’s supposed to be a recon simulation or something. I’m blending in with the shadows or whatever.”
“Your hair is bright gold. And it’s 2pm. The sun is up. You are not blending in with anything.”
Will studied Nico for a moment and then shrugged.
“Mostly I’m just relying on my friends to distract the other guys so I don’t have to.”
Nico thought that Will was perfectly distracting on his own what with the way the sun glinted through his stupid golden hair and his eyes sparkled cheerfully. And Nico’s lunchbreak was only half an hour and he had to return some books on behalf of one of his friends who actually attended the university. And Will might have perfect abs (probably) but that did not entitle him to Nico’s library-book-returning-and-quick-sandwich break.
“Whatever.” he said, sidestepping Will. “I need to get to the library. I’ll see you around or whatever.”
He began to walk off. He could hear a voice in his head (it sounded like Jason) telling him that a cute guy was paying attention to him and that he should at least get the cute guy’s number. Nico was good at ignoring Jason, and even better at ignoring the Jason who resided in his head and gave him advice like: don’t stay up all night watching Netflix, don’t eat all that ice cream in one go, and broccoli will be yummy if you eat it enough. He was also good at self-sabotage. It was one of his only talents.
“Hey,” Will said, falling into step with a very surprised Nico. “You’re Nico right?”
Nico had to stop himself from stopping dead because attractive, internet famous, arguably talented (Will presumably did something other than being attractive) guys didn’t usually know his name, let alone stop him in the street and attempt a conversation.
“Are you stalking me?” Nico asked. “Because that would be a lot more effective if you didn’t stand out so much.”
“No, not stalking I swear. Though I’ll admit this probably does look a little creepy.” Will gave a self-conscious shrug as though the concept that randomly stopping a stranger in the street might be classed as creepy had only just occurred to him.
“Percy mentioned you,” Will continued. “He says you were looking for somewhere to live.”
“Percy talks way too much,” Nico commented vowing to slowly kill Percy later the interfering little –
“Yeah, he kind of does,” Will agreed easily. “Look, I know this is really out-of-nowhere but I’m looking for someone to live with me and that’s why Percy said I should talk to you and I guess I just assumed he’d mentioned me to you and I’m just now thinking I could probably have approached this better –“
“You think?”
“I looked out for you at Percy’s party the other week? He said you’d be there.”
“Percy is a traitor and whatever he’s told you about me it probably isn’t true.”
Will raised an eyebrow.
“So, you’re not looking for somewhere?”
“Okay,” Nico admitted grudgingly. “That part was true.”
Will regarded Nico thoughtfully and then pulled a slim notebook out of his pocket, followed by a lime green sharpie. He scribbled something down , tore it off, and then held it out to Nico.
“You don’t have to decide now, but at least take my number. The offer is there if you can’t find anywhere else.”
Nico thought that over for a moment. On one hand, he was loathe to start living with one of Percy’s friends on Percy’s suggestion because while Percy didn’t have a terrible taste in friends as such, they did tend to be very full on. On the other hand, Will had really beautiful eyes and he could pull off a puppy dog expression far too well for a grown adult individual.
He took Will’s number. He didn’t have to text him. He could always throw away the scrap of paper after Will left. He wasn’t weak and he didn’t have a new-found appreciation for blue eyes and smiles that felt like the warmth of the sun.
In the week following his meeting with Will, Nico had been desperately trying to find somewhere to live but everywhere was either too expensive, wasn’t habitable, or was co-inhabited by someone creepy (one who apparently hadn’t needed to blink and could outstare a statue, one who was weirdly into Nico, and one who collection of antique dolls and medical tools through the ages). He rejected everything on offer and told himself that something would come along.
It was only as he watched Leo begin the process of packing that Nico realised he had to make a decision. And Will was (probably) better than the doll and medical tools guy.
He’d kept a hold of the scrap of paper but hadn’t input Will’s number into his phone because that had seemed like admitting defeat. Now the innocuous bit of paper seemed to follow him around everywhere he went, taunting him. It didn’t need to. Nico had the numbers memorised from all the times he’d stared at it in indecision. He could reproduce it from memory: the slightly swirly zeros, the weird way Will crossed through his sevens and the oddly skinny eight.
He’d spent an hour agonising over the text he would send: adding and deleting emojis and rewriting and rearranging words. In the end when he was almost ready to give up and settle for creepy-doll-guy, he went for simple and to the point. The fact he got a reply within seconds full of emojis and apparently brimming with excitement made him resentful he had spent so long crafting the text. He was pretty sure Will would have reacted with the same nauseating good natured-ness no matter what he’d sent.
They’d arranged a time to meet and now after a grand total of one to a possible four meetings with the guy, Nico found himself standing outside an unfamiliar door that could potentially be the door to his new home, waiting for Will-freaking-Solace to answer. He knocked again, louder this time then pressed his ear to the door. He thought he could hear singing. He knocked once more, deciding that is Will didn’t come to the door in thirty seconds he was going to give up on the whole thing.
He was at twenty-eight when without any kind of warning the door swung open and Will was there.
He was sans make-up this time. His blonde hair was damp, sticking up in little clumps and he was in an old pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. He grinned at Nico like Nico was the best thing he’d seen that year and opened the door wider, stepping aside to let him pass.
“I’m so sorry,” he said as Nico entered. “I had to take a shower. I was walking Drew’s dogs because –“
Nico tuned him out in pure self defence against inane babble, and glanced around the apartment instead. The living space was open plan and big, far bigger than the place he had shared with Leo. The kitchen was clean and the combined living and dining areas were neat and well decorated though they did seem a little impersonal: he’d thought Will would be the messy type, and the type to have stuff and trinkets and mementos cluttering every available surface. There were a couple of posters – stylised framed images of posters for theatre shows - but he couldn’t tell if they were Will’s or whether they had been part of the furnishings when Will had moved in.
Will showed him around. Aside from the living areas there were two bedrooms, a bathroom and a laundry room. Will’s room was gloomier than Nico had expected with the curtains fully drawn, and was significantly messier than the communal areas (that wasn’t hard) though it still had the same odd sense of almost clinical detachedness. Still while it didn’t exactly go with his mental picture of Will it wasn’t all that strange in of itself: perhaps Will just hadn’t been living there very long. The other room – Nico’s room – was slightly smaller, squarish but had an attached bathroom. There was a double bed, good closet space and a hefty set of drawers for storing the clothes he couldn’t be bothered to hang, along with the rest of his junk. It was a surprisingly decent room in a surprisingly decent apartment.
After the tour Will asked if Nico wanted anything to drink in the manner of someone determined to be a good and attentive host. Nico wasn’t going to pass up the offer for free anything so he sat the breakfast bar while Will made him coffee.
“What do you think?” Will asked. His eyes were very earnest as he poured out Nico’s drink, but he seemed to be avoiding Nico’s gaze. He looked almost nervous, distracting himself by staring down into his own mug. He drank his coffee black. That was a surprise.
“It’s tolerable,” Nico said.
Will looked up at him in surprise and gave him a small smile. It wasn’t his mega-watt supernova bright grin and somehow it was all the more attractive for how understated it was. Nico almost found himself smiling back.
“So do you want to move in?” Will asked. He still seemed nervous, hesitant. He was employing the puppy dog eyes again – Nico wondered if Will even realised he was doing it.
“How much do you want?” Nico asked.
“Oh I don’t need anything,” Will said with an easy shrug that looked far more like his usual confident self.
“Huh?” Nico said unintelligently.
“You don’t have to pay. I don’t need anything.”
“But you said you needed someone to-"
“I do,” Will admitted. “But I don’t need the money.”
Nico gave him an odd look.
“You’re not some kind of criminal are you? A murderer who needs me around so you don’t give in to the urge to kill?”
“You’re kind of dark, you know that?”
Nico raised an eyebrow skeptically at that.
“Really Sunshine?” he asked. “You’re only getting that now?”
Will giggled, actually giggled, and it was oddly endearing.
“How about a trial?” Will suggested. “Two weeks. If you still think I’m a murderer after that I’ll let you go and won’t kill you at all. I promise.”
Nico stared at him. On one hand, the situation was a little weird and he’d only just met Will and this was all kind of impulsive. On the other it was hard to imagine Will killing anyone. Besides Nico worked two jobs and still had barely made enough to keep up with his rent at Leo’s. If he moved in with Will, he would be close to his jobs and close enough to Percy that if he ever had an attack of sociability he could visit him. It was pretty much perfect if only he could put up with Will, and how much he talked.
“Three days,” Nico said. “I think by then I’ll have figured out whether you’re a murderer or not. And whether I’m likely to murder you or not.”
Will’s eyes flicked up to his. He looked excited, happy, so cheerful, but Nico also thought he saw relief there.
“Deal,” Will said.