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It's late.
Nico should really be fast asleep; curled up right next to Will in their bed. He can imagine it so well he can almost see it, he can almost feel it. The soft way Will’s breaths fall and collapse, the warmth he provides; and if Nico were to reach out just a little bit with his powers he would feel an aura of pure exuberant life along with Will's heartbeat.
But that is not here or now.
For now, Nico is curled up with his knees pressed to his chest. However, in this situation there is a wall pressed against the curve of his spine not Will’s body. Nico’s arms are wrapped around his knees tightly, rather than the casual, loose sort of way Will would fling an arm across his chest at night.
Nico’s toes are curled up inside his socks, and the flats of his feet press themselves into the tiled floor of their bathroom. If he were to look up he could see the mirror above their sink, but as he sits now he is staring straight forward at the cabinets beneath their sink.
All the lights are off, and if Nico looked over his shoulder he would see the window in the shower far above him casting the light of stars down upon the earth and into the room where he sits.
Breathing is getting a little hard, but Nico’s body won't cooperate enough to move. There's a tingling feeling settling into his bones and muscles, it's familiar, a soft part of darkness when it overtakes. It makes his limbs heavy and sleepy, and it makes moving hard for him. He wants to, he wants to adjust his body so that breath flows more easily in and out but he just can't.
In this boredom of self-loathing Nico reaches out to feel for Will’s presence in their bedroom just pass the door. His heart rate is a little too high for sleep, and his position seems to have shifted and it makes Nico worry that Will’s having a nightmare until he hears the soft padding of his feet on the floor walking towards Nico.
Will sits down in the doorframe of the bathroom next to Nico. Will’s leg closer to him is bent at the knee and Nico marvels at how tall Will is to have his toes still brush along the bottom of the cabinet with his knee bent.
“Want to talk about it?”
It's another one of those things Nico loves about Will; he knows when something is wrong and his steady surgeon hands cut true to the heart of the matter.
Nico wants to move, he really does, to talk to Will or to gesture his ideas but he just can't. His voice is stuck somewhere deep in his chest where his lungs and larynx connect and his body is still heavy with this sleepy, tingling feeling.
“That bad, huh?”
Yes.
It really is.
Will doesn't reach out for him, after six years together he knows how Nico works in panic and in pain.
Nico wants to thank Will, he wants to tell him that this time it's okay to touch him despite how he feels. He’s hurting, sure; broken, maybe; but he wants to hold Will’s hand, and maybe lay his head on his shoulder while he talks. But his body works against him, and Nico isn't sure if he has enough energy to talk, let alone move towards Will and his warmth.
Talking is hard, but Nico will think about it enough that he'll eventually be able to force the words out.
For now, he settles on admiring Will.
He’s put on a hoodie at some point, something he’s had since they were still at camp. It's a soft blue with yellow print which has cracked and peeled until the words on it are no longer readable. It's well loved by the both of them.
His one sock is bunched around his ankle and the other is pulled halfway up his calf, by morning it's most likely that at least one of them will be lost in their blankets somewhere for them to find it.
Will yawns and stretches his hands towards their ceiling, his nose scrunches and his fingers and toes wiggle when he does it. He turns to Nico when he’s done and gives him a tired cheesy grin. There's a glint in his eyes, moonlight hits the blue of his iris and there's some sort of comfort in that, some sort of strength that allows Nico to talk.
“I’m gay."
“You are.”
Will doesn't miss a beat, his voice is without judgement but not without care. It's a fact, he is.
Nico has to think about how to put the rest of his thoughts into words because although he doesn't doubt that he loves Will; he has to try and find a way to explain his confusion at that, since two men shouldn't love one another. At least, not in the way they do.
Will is undoubtedly his other half, the part of Nico that he loves a great more than anything else. Nobody would think two people so different could meet in the middle. Somehow, they do meet on steady ground, with the same morals and beliefs.
It's odd that two people with such polar opposite lives and stories could have so much similarity; or at least that's what other people say. Nico doesn't think it's so odd, ironic maybe, but never odd.
To Nico, family is important because he lost all of his and had to remake his own. But to Will, family is important because he has so much of it. The entirety of their lives together are built on the foundation of balance. Will is an abundance of what Nico doesn't have, and the opposite is just as tried and true. They're like two halves of the same thing, they're like a bridge that they built. Stumbling and overjoyed in their youth.
So yes, they meet in the middle of a bridge that they created.
No matter which way you divide a bridge, it is always two halves of the same thing. It has two entrances and two exits, two places to look over the side, and two faces. Bridges are steady and holdfast, perfectly balanced and evenly matched. He likes that, Nico likes the idea that he and Will are two halves of the same thing; a thing that is holdfast, true, steady, and evenly matched.
Sometimes, like right now, Nico thinks about their bridge, and the torrent of water that runs underneath. How easy it would be to drown in the rushing current they stand over; and although that water is often beneath them sometimes it's nice to dangle your feet over the edge, kick them back and forth while you hold hands.
But sometimes, when your feet dangle over the edge of the bridge your toes brush the water and the thousands of worries so far beneath you feel like they're right there, staring you in the face. It's why they have a pact, that when one person leans too far the other has to do their best to pull them back and dry them off.
Despite Nico’s thoughts being far off on something else, in the muddled slow working sleepiness of his mind he finds the answer he is looking for. He finds energy in his revelation, not much, but enough to lower his knees from his chest and to stretch out his legs before him. Unlike Will, Nico is not terribly tall; his feet don’t touch the cabinet like Will’s and he knocks them together at the thymus while he tries to sort through his thoughts.
“You know how, according to the myths, when the first people existed they were two halves of the same whole?
Will looks away from their feet and up towards him.
“Two hands, and two faces and so on,” Nico makes a very flustered gesture towards his crotch, “They would have both and they would walk around having babies and stuff… But, because of their power, Zeus split them into two- man and woman.
“I don’t doubt that I love you, but I just- what-” Nico sighs heavily and does his best to recompose himself, “Where does that leave us? Are we, less than? Or are we broken, ill, just like The Church says?”
Nico brings his hands up to his face and presses his palms into his eyes, before threading his fingers through his hair in stress.
“Oh, so that's what has you so wound up this late?”There's no judgement again, nothing’s held against Nico for waking him up or for worrying him at such an hour. His hand slides towards Nico but he thinks better of it and sets it back on his thigh, “Nico, darlin’, where’d you read that version?”
“It was by Plato…”
“Was it a translation though?” Nico doesn’t respond but something in his features shifts, they're both fluent in Greek but sometimes it's hard to get your hands on Greek copies in America. Will pushes his arms forward so his shoulder blades pop and then he makes a relaxed inviting gesture at Nico, “I thought so. C’me here.”
Will shifts to stand and once he does so he holds his hands out to help Nico pull himself up (his chest is leaving the water and Nico’s feet are the only thing getting wet now), “Let’s go sit somewhere more comfortable, yeah?”
Will leads him to their bed and stands him beside it long enough to grab a blanket and wrap it around Nico like a cloak before he’s allowed to sit down. Will sits next to him and leaves a bit of space between them, just enough so their shoulders don’t brush against one another from where they sit. It’s an odd balance, having both too much space and not enough between them. Despite the fact that it will make him feel worse in some ways, Nico longs for comfort so he scoots towards the center of their bed more and tugs Will with him so he can get the touch he wants.
And there they sit; criss cross with their knees touching. Nico leans forward so that their foreheads are pushed together and if either of them were to move their head their noses would brush together at the ends. Will reaches out and grabs both of Nico’s hands and rests them on the shared space where their calfs touch.
Outside the french doors that lead to their balcony, soft yellow street lights flicker in the night. Moonlight casts a glow across the room, beams of soft gold and silver light spill across the floor. Overhead, on the ceiling, shadows turn over themselves and the little alarm clock next to their bed adds a minute to the early hour.
“That story you mentioned, have you ever heard the original version?” Will’s voice is soft, barely above a whisper and Nico can sense his heartbeat through the places where their skin touches; he feels Will reach back, a soft warmth created not just from Will’s powers courses through Nico’s body as Will takes his pulse in return.
His voice is soft, maybe a little broke, and it tapers off at the end, “No.”
“Do you want to hear it?”
“Mmhm," talking is still a lot of work.
“When man was first created- perhaps by Prometheus, or perhaps we were born from planets, or maybe there was a God who placed us down in the world, maybe it was science and bacteria- I don’t know. What I do know, however, based on the myth; was that each person had a double set of everything; four arms, four legs, two faces,” he squeezes Nico’s hands lightly, teasing him a bit, “two sets of genitals. What you forgot was that there were three types of people, the first you mentioned, androgyne; from the moon.
“Whatever translated version you read however failed to mention something because along with androgyne both man and woman were born as well. From the sun came man, and from the earth women were born.”
“Right, and man and woman were one in androgyne,” Nico slides his forehead down from resting against Will’s and buries his face where Will’s neck and shoulder meet.
“No,” Nico’s brow knits in confusion at Will’s words, “There was androgyne, but there was also woman and man; the same as adrogyne except for one slight difference, they were built the exact same on both sides.
“When they took on Zeus, and afterwards when he split them in two and when my father helped grant humanity its revised, and current form; those who had been double women sought out women, and those who had been part of androgyne sought out people opposite of them. And those who had been double men? They sought out men.”
Nico pulls back from where he rests against Will, their hands are still locked together and their knees still press into one another; but now Nico is pulled back staring into the deep azure of Will’s eyes
“Nico, love, there has always been a place for us in this world; Apollo and Hyacinthos, it’s Dionysus, Zeus and Ganymede, Hermaphroditos and Salmacis. Sappho and Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde, and Alan Turing. There’s Achilles and Patroclus, David and Johnathan forming a covenant beneath God; there are a dozen names or more, a hundred or more stories. Our feelings and our love are not new, erased, yes, but not new. We are just as normal, just as in love, as anyone else; we’re not new or different, dear, just repressed.”
Nico releases Will’s hands and sits back further, resting on his knees he drinks up the sight of Will. His honey blonde curls are soaked in his aunt’s light, and the silver beams showcase the freckles that dot his tanned cheeks like constellations. Nico’s chest feels tight, but it's different from when he was sitting on the bathroom floor; that was heavy like something large resting at the top of his lungs. But this, this is something different, it’s the blooming feeling in his chest like there’s a garden spreading from his heart and filling his lungs.
Where other things are heavy, this is light, buoyant; it’s love.
He launches himself forward and he can feel the not quite cold air of their bedroom strike his shoulder as the blanket Will draped around him falls off his shoulder. Nico wraps his arms around Will’s neck and buries his face into the hair atop Will’s head. He feels Will’s hands come to rest themselves along his hips and his middle fingers press into the dimples on the small of his back.
Nico places a kiss to the crown of Will’s head as he feels the burn of tears build up in his eyes, “Thank you."
Wills face is pressed into the hollow of his neck where he places a soft peck, “I love you too.”
Nico laughs as the tears start flowing from his eyes.
Will.