Chapter Text
One moment everything is fine, the two of them sitting perched on an off-white couch in the middle of a roaring house party trying to play would-you-rather over the music, and the next moment Will spots something that makes his face fall.
"What?" Nico glances behind him, where Will's eyes are fixed.
"Don't look!" Will hisses, ducking his head. "That's the girl from my anatomy class, she won't stop asking me out."
Nico is still looking. "She doesn't look bad."
"Quick!" Will makes a helpless face at him. "Pretend to be my boyfriend."
Nico considers his roommate. The two of them only came to the party because a girl down their hall named Reyna insisted they come. Both of them have had a couple drinks each.
The girl is approaching. "Fine." Nico agrees grumpily, but he easily swings his legs over Will's lap, leaning a hand behind him. A strong surfer's arm immediately winds around his waist to keep him in place.
"Oh, hi Will!" The girl says, stopping in front of them. "I didn't know you were gonna be here."
Will's smile looks on the surface to be just as laid-back as always, but Nico can see the tremor of strain. "Hi Jenna. How are you?"
"I'm good. This party is sooo fun." she giggles.
"Yeah." Will agrees, easily enough.
"Hey, I was super confused in class today, could you talk me through it?" Jenna asks, smiling smoothly.
Nico can feel Will freeze up beneath him, and instantly understands the whole problem. Will can't stand to reject her, so he's been unintentionally leading her on. Nico curses his roommate for being too nice of a person, and decides he needs to help out more.
"Hey, I thought we were gonna..." Nico says lowly to Will, trailing off on purpose. It's deliberately intimate, speaking close with legs curled over and Will's arm still holding him firmly in place.
"Oh." Will says, bless him, actually catching on. "Sorry, Jenna, I've got plans with my boyfriend."
Jenna blinks a couple times. Nico hopes she doesn't focus on how Will stuttered on the term 'boyfriend'.
"Alright." Jenna says. Her smile is tighter, but not unfriendly. "See you, then."
"See you."
She walks away. Will doesn't look relieved.
"That was awful." Will bemoans, dropping his forehead to Nico's shoulder. "I'm a jerk."
"Nah." Nico pats his sunny hair in sympathy. "Let's get out of here." They don’t mention the pretend boyfriends thing, assuming it was over.
--
It doesn't come up again until, strangely enough, when they're in the library.
The two of them have a table in the corner by the windows, sharing an iPod and quietly bickering over music selection while ignoring the books in front of them. It's a Saturday afternoon and they both have too much studying to be anywhere else.
Will goes to the vending machines for Skittles and comes back looking a little pale.
"What's up?" Nico pops out the other side of the headphones, watching his roommate sit down quickly next to him.
Will gives him a flickering smile, twisting in the chair to face him and surprisingly, grabbing his hand on top of the table.
"Those young ladies across the library are in my anatomy class and they asked me as I walked by how my 'skinny pale boyfriend' was doing." Will explains, with a flirty smile afterwards that doesn't fit the sentence.
"Ouch. Skinny and pale? They couldn't just pick one?" Nico replies, giving in and curling his hand, smoothing his thumb across the top like he always sees couples do. "Fine. In for a penny. Let's just hope Reyna or Jason don't come around."
Will chuckles, but his face is turned privately towards him and shows gratefulness. "Thank you, Nico. Really. This is dumb."
"You can just owe me." Nico shrugs, offering back the iPod headphone. "I pick the music."
"Nooo." Will groans, squeezing his hand and settling in to study.
Much later, their free hands are still intertwined over the table, Nico's thumb smoothing patterns into his skin, when Will notices the girls leave. He pretends not to see.
--
"Honestly, I'm fine. I'm not lonely!" Nico protests into the phone, grimacing. He's sitting on the desk, while Will has the chair and is spinning mildly in circles. "Hazel, really."
Will's head twists with the chair to watch Nico's expression. They're alone in their room but there's the faint noise of other dorms beyond their door.
Will never thought when he moved in with 'Mr. Doom and Gloom'--as he called him for the first week-- at the beginning of the year that they would ever get along. He was 'Actual Sunshine'--as Nico called him for that week as well--and theoretically the opposite to Nico. Where he smiled, Nico frowned. Where Nico grew up isolated, Will had a huge family. But Will gave something Nico needed--whether it was stability or caring or anything--and Will found unwavering loyalty, and Nico's faith in his abilities that Will lacked in himself. Will was willing to stay up and watch sitcoms when Nico couldn't sleep, and Nico would tell Will he was being an idiot when he was convinced he wasn't good at medicine.
"If I told you I was dating someone, would that be better?" Nico asks his phone, then the expression on his face says he instantly regrets the decision. "I meant--hypothetically--"
He gets cut off by a chattering on the other end and listens.
"I maybe have a boyfriend." Nico says, and Will abruptly brings his spinning to a stop, staring wide-eyed at him. Nico makes a helpless gesture back. "Yeah, he's like literal sunshine."
Will gestures as well. Tries to convey confusion but support.
"Uh, I guess he's pretty tall." Nico mouths an apology. Will pauses, shrugs, then gives a double thumbs up.
"Don't worry about it now, I'm not lonely." Nico says.
Later, Nico is in the shower while Will is contemplating take-out menus. Nico's phone rings on the desk.
"Can you get that?" Nico's voice calls from the bathroom.
"Nico's phone." Will answers, weighing the options of Chinese food.
"Are you the literal sunshine?" a warm, female voice asks.
Will's brain says shit and his mouth says, "Yup."
When Nico gets out of the shower Will has traded numbers with Hazel and gotten the best embarrassing stories from her.
--
After walking to an out-of-place theater to see a hilarious old horror movie, the two stop at a diner in the middle of downtown. Only do the construction paper hearts and silly pink signs remind them that it is February 14th.
"Couples get half-off their meals." Will reads.
Nico pauses, then loops his arm through Will's. "Lucky for us.”
"Sure is, boyfriend." Will agrees. They sit in a booth and play footsie and joke about it also being their anniversary! to the waiter and Nico laughs for three whole minutes when Will orders a single milkshake with two straws. They play the would you still be pretend dating me if I had the same voice as Samuel Jackson/had a beaver tail/talked only in poems game.
They get half-off their meal and Will smiled so much his face hurts. Nico's face is flushed as well, and when they untangle from each other when out of sight of the diner Will wishes they had stayed longer.
--
Getting inside the club wasn't hard. Will had been kind of hoping it would have been harder so they could just head back to the dorms. Instead, he found himself perched on a unstable wooden stool, drunk, which wouldn't have been so bad if Nico was there, but he didn't know where Nico was. The rest of their dormmates were in sight, but Will was alone.
Will was slightly worried. On drunken feet, he crossed the thriving club, eyes peeled for dark hair and pale skin.
He didn't spot him until he reached the bar itself, seeing his best friend and roommate facing a taller guy with a strange grin. Nico looks uncomfortable and Will moves instantly.
Nico spots his approach and points at him. The guy turns, scowling and unimpressed. Will's jaw ticks, and he gets close enough to curl an arm around Nico protectively.
"Hi." Will says shortly to the other man, glaring at him and daring him to challenge him. Will thinks he might be able to take him. (Will’s never been in a fight but he’d do it for Nico, but that’s probably just because he’s drunk.)
"Hi." the guy replies with narrowing eyes.
"Please leave my boyfriend alone." Will grinds out, squeezing Nico close to him. "Let's go, love."
They walk away, Nico whispering, "My hero." in Will's ear and for the first time he can't tell if he's joking or not. They get back to the table and sit apart, their dormmates coming around and announcing that they're ready to go.
Once outside, the cool air is welcome. Will and Nico end up at the back of their group, stepping into the hazy streetlights. The same guy is smoking a cigarette on the curb.
"Psst." Will whispers, admittedly a little drunker than he'd like to be in this situation. He jerks his head minutely to the guy, and Nico flickers a glance, face hardening. He steps closer to Will.
"May I?" Will whispers again, leaning forward, making sure that no one from their dorm is looking their way.
Nico meets him halfway, hands folding into the creases of Will's jacket, pressing them together in a kiss. Will winds his arms around his waist, leaning down to reach Nico's height, and meeting him with enthusiasm.
They part, staying centimeters away. "Showed him." Nico breathes on his lips.
"Sure did." Will laughs, then grins, and they leave without looking at the guy they were performing for, catching up to their group.