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If it wasn’t required for all incoming freshmen to take a quantitative reasoning class, Nico di Angelo might still be asleep right now. Quantitative reasoning, he had quickly learned, was just a fancy word for basic math. And just his luck, the only open math class that fit in his schedule was Calculus I at eight in the morning, Mondays and Thursdays. Not counting recitation at nine on Wednesdays.
It helped a little, he supposed, that his only friend from high school that had gone to the same college as him was taking the class, too. Jason had a habit of unintentionally making Nico feel inferior in every way, but he was still good company, and if it boosted his ego to see Jason slumping into his seat in the lecture hall with bedhead and bags under his eyes, that was no one else’s business. Jason was a classics major, because of course he had to be deep and academic as well as everything else, and shared Nico’s pain of being a humanities major in a class full of STEM students.
September of Calculus I had passed in a blur of quizzes and impossible homework assignments that Jason and Nico had spent too many nights awake in the common room of their residence hall scratching their heads over. Even their RA Annabeth had looked at the work, intending to help, but given up with a shrug and, “Well, everyone fails Calc the first time, right?”
Walking into class the first Monday of October, the midterm only days away, Nico felt his heart sink. The brisk fall air had temporarily woken him up, but the overheated lecture hall told him he’d be falling asleep in the first five minutes of integrals. He had to stay awake today. This would be the only review day they’d get, and he knew he couldn’t count on Jason for notes.
“You look like you just woke up from the dead,” Jason said helpfully as soon as Nico slumped into his chair.
“Very original,” Nico said, rolling his eyes. “Leo stayed up half the night and as much as he says he’s trying, he just can’t shut up. I don’t think I got even three hours.” Leo was Nico’s hyperactive engineer roommate, thanks to the random roommate selection Nico had signed up for. He’d have roomed with Jason, but Jason insisted that they both “widen their horizons” in college, whatever that meant. Nico had tried being open minded, but all that got him was probably the most aggravating roommate possible.
Jason winced. “Sorry dude, that’s rough.”
“Do not even pretend to sympathize,” Nico glared at him. “It means nothing coming from you. You basically live in a single.”
“It’s not my fault Percy never sleeps in our room because he’s dating Annabeth!”
“Whatever.” Nico slid down in his seat, wishing he’d stopped by Hestia’s for a double shot of espresso and some kind of sugary baked good.
“Well, hey,” Jason leaned in to whisper. “At least your boyfriend’s here early today.”
Nico flushed and shoved Jason away from him, making his elbow slam into the desk. “Shut up, he is not—”
Nico cut himself off abruptly as the man in question turned around in his chair to see what the commotion was. There was only one row between the two of them and him, so Nico could see his blond curls and freckles and even the blue of his eyes from where he was sitting before he forced himself to lower his gaze.
Admittedly, the blond guy was the only salvation Nico had during Calc. It was worth staying awake just to look at the back of his head, hear him asking a question about derivatives, watch him bend over the tiny desk attached to the side of the auditorium-style lecture hall chairs. He’d caught Nico’s eye the first day of class, and Nico knew there’d be no hope. This guy was exactly his type: tall, sunny, and way out of his league. Nico was even willing to overlook his ridiculous sense of style. The guy wore slides with calf length socks almost every day, with a variety of plaid pajama pants, athletic shorts, and sweatshirts. Once, he’d worn a tank top and Nico had just about walked right out of class because he knew there’d be no hope of paying attention. He labelled his feelings as a hopeless crush on a stranger that he’d forget as soon as he walked out of the final exam: fleeting and not worth losing sleep over.
Now, Nico pretended to write the date on his notes again as he waited for the guy to turn back around. Judging the coast to be clear, he lifted his head.
Jason was smiling knowingly. “I think he was looking at you.”
“I am begging you to shut up,” Nico hissed.
“You’ll never know unless you shoot your shot.”
“Keep this up and you’re not getting my notes,” Nico retorted.
“Please,” Jason said with a laugh. “We both know your notes are as useless as mine.”
Refusing to concede defeat and admit that Jason was right, Nico slumped back down in his seat and leaned his head on the back of his chair. They had about five minutes until class started, and he knew the professor would be running in a few minutes late as usual. Nico closed his eyes for a moment before cracking them open to sneak another look at the blond guy. Today he was wearing a bright orange sweatshirt with the word STAFF in block letters on the back that somehow didn’t clash with his hair. He was pulling the lid off of a purple takeout coffee cup that Nico recognized as one from Hestia’s. The smell of fresh, black coffee wafted back toward Nico and his stomach gurgled. What he would do for just a sip to wake him up…
But blondie was leaning over and rummaging in his bag for something. Out of pure intellectual curiosity, he told himself, Nico sat up a bit straighter to see. The boy was a bit to the left of them, so Nico had a wonderful view of his forearms underneath the rolled up sweatshirt sleeves. Nico could feel Jason watching him and trying not to laugh, but Nico was too tired to call him out or to pretend to be doing anything else. He heard Jason pull out his phone, probably to text his girlfriend about how ridiculous Nico was being, so Nico decided to fully ignore him.
The blond guy was sitting back up, apparently having found what he needed. Nico squinted and saw the little paper packet in the guy’s long fingers being ripped open and… was that a tea bag?
In a state of abject horror, Nico watched as the guy pulled out the sachet of tea and splashed it directly into the cup of steaming Hestia’s coffee.
“What the fuck?” It was out of Nico’s mouth before he could stop himself.
The guy turned around, making such direct eye contact with Nico that his stomach swooped. Had he really said that so loud?
“Nico, what?” He heard Jason’s concerned voice next to him, but all he could focus on were those blue eyes.
“Were you talking to me?” The blond guy looked genuinely confused, his eyebrows knit in the most adorable expression Nico had ever seen. It was the first time he’d heard that voice directed at him, and it was a bit disorienting.
“You just… you just put a tea bag in your coffee,” Nico said, his brain-to-mouth filter evaporating entirely.
The guy’s eyes shifted around before meeting Nico’s again. “Sorry, what?”
“I saw you,” Nico said bluntly. “You just put a fucking tea bag in a cup of coffee.”
At least he has the decency to look ashamed, Nico thought as he watched the guy’s face turn red. And it wasn’t important at all that the blush made his freckles stand out even more.
“I can explain, I promise,” the blond boy said sheepishly. “I just—”
The door to the lecture hall banged open, and the boy jumped and whipped around at the sound of their professor’s booming voice announcing that they’d all better have done the review work and have questions prepared. Nico shifted in his seat, still frowning, torn between wanting to keep the only conversation he’d probably ever have with this boy going and cutting his losses.
“What was that?” Jason whispered, nudging Nico’s shoulder.
Nico shook his head pointedly, deciding to keep his head down and focus on his notes. In his peripheral vision, he saw the blond boy turn around to look at him again, but Nico forced himself not to look up. His face burned with embarrassment; his first conversation with this boy he’d been staring at for a month now started with Nico yelling at him for his beverage choices. If he ever had to talk to this guy again, Nico promised himself, he’d drop out.
~
As it turned out, Nico didn’t even have to wait for Wednesday’s recitation to see the blond guy again. Tuesday night, annoyed as always by Leo’s noise, Nico packed his Calc stuff into his backpack and headed to the basement common area, hoping to get some quiet studying in before their midterm in two days. That wasn’t to mention the paper he had due for his introductory writing class this week, which was completely destroying any self confidence he had in his writing.
The basement of his dorm was by far one of Nico’s favorite places to study. The library was always overcrowded, and the upstairs common area was too distracting with everyone coming in and out and Jason just about living in there, so when he needed to escape and get some real work done, he came down to the basement. It was a bit musty, but there were a few tables and couches set up, a TV next to a pool table in one corner, and almost no one came down there, so it made the perfect study spot.
Nico, fresh off a harrowing phone call with his sister that involved a significant amount of interrogation about his first month of classes, hefted his backpack up his shoulder as he trudged down the steps and threw his weight on the door leading into the basement from the stairs. Every time Nico came down the door was stuck, so when it burst open with little effort, he nearly tripped over himself trying to keep his balance. As he was righting himself, he saw a lone figure at a far table sitting up and looking right at him.
“It’s you,” Nico said, verbal filter again abandoning him when he spotted the blond curls. It was too late to make an escape without making things even more awkward.
The boy looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. “And it’s you.”
Nico took a few tentative steps forward. Would it be rude if he sat at a different table? Was he obligated to go and sit with this boy? They didn’t really know each other, but what was the decorum for studying with someone you yelled at once and then ignored?
The boy gestured toward the seat opposite him, seeming to sense Nico’s indecision about the whole thing. “You can sit here if you want.”
“Thanks,” Nico said. He slung his bag down onto the floor next to the chair, but didn’t sit down. “Look, I feel like I should apologize. I don’t normally yell at people in lecture, but—”
The boy laughed. It was a full body thing that he seemed to have been holding in, but now he let it spread over his whole face, covering his mouth with one hand, shoulders shaking. Nico wasn’t sure if he was being laughed at, but either way he didn’t appreciate it. He felt his features twist into a frown, which the boy immediately noticed. He stopped laughing.
“No, it’s not you, it’s just…” He ran a hand through his hair and Nico hated himself for noticing that the orange sweatshirt was abandoned on the chair next to him and the boy was only wearing a tank top underneath, revealing tanned and toned arms that Nico was struggling to keep his eyes from. “I probably deserved you yelling at me. I really ruined that cup of coffee.”
Still feeling a little uncertain, Nico slid into the opposite seat and raised his eyebrows, daring the boy to explain.
The boy sighed. “Okay, I know it’s not an excuse, but I got, like, less than an hour of sleep the night before because I was studying for an exam and my roommate is a nightmare, and all I could think about was how to maximize caffeine intake so I could actually make it through the day.”
“So you put a teabag in a cup of coffee.”
The boy cringed and shrugged in a way that should not have been as endearing as it was.
“A cup of Hestia’s coffee."
The boy raised his eyebrows. “You saw where my cup was from?”
It was Nico’s turn to look embarrassed. “I wasn’t really looking. I just go there a lot.”
To avoid the boy’s piercing eyes and upturned lips, Nico leaned down to look through his backpack and pull out the Calc review work. He slapped it on the table and grabbed a pencil, determined not to meet the boy’s gaze.
“I’m Will, by the way.”
Nico looked up. The boy, Will, was looking at him with such an earnest smile that he couldn’t help but return it half heartedly. “I’m Nico.”
“Nico,” Will repeated, like he was committing the name to memory, eyes still bright and on Nico’s face.
Feeling heat rising to his face, Nico looked down at his Calc work. The numbers were scrambling themselves like they usually did, but he managed to work his way through the first page of them, listening to Will type on his laptop and occasionally scribble down a few notes, before Will broke the silence.
“Working on Calc?”
Nico’s eyes flicked up, pencil poised over a particularly tricky chain rule problem. “Yeah. I think I’m definitely about to fail this midterm. You?”
“Writing a paper about Toni Morrison,” Will wrinkled his nose. “Have you ever read Beloved ?”
It felt like Nico’s heart had been punctured. Will had been doing so well, with those eyes and his arms, and his musical voice. He had to go and ruin it by wrinkling his nose at Toni Morrison, one of Nico’s favorite authors.
“I love that book,” Nico said defiantly. “I’m hoping to major in English, and she’s one of my favorites.”
Will raised his eyebrows. “Good choice. Better than me, I’m going bio, on a pre-med track.” He seemed to notice Nico’s frown and quickly added, “And I like the book, it’s just hard to understand. Maybe you could help me?”
Nico’s shoulders relaxed. Maybe Will still had a chance. And he looked so helpless asking that, like Nico was his only hope; it was impossible to deny. “Well, uh, what aren’t you understanding?”
Pushing his laptop aside, Will leaned forward over the table, pushing the book toward Nico and pointing out a passage. “This scene doesn’t make sense to me. I understand that the four horsemen at the beginning are, like, a biblical reference and they’re coming to get her, but the language is so confusing. What’s going on here?”
Will had to be kidding him. Of all the scenes to explain to someone he just met. Nico looked up into his eyes and found they were just as earnest as before, only he was a lot closer. Their faces, leaning together over the table, were about a foot apart. On instinct, Nico leaned back in his chair. “Well, she’s… she kills her baby.”
Will’s mouth drops open. “ What ?”
Nico shuffled the math papers in front of him to have something to occupy his hands. “Yeah. In order to save her baby from the life that it’s destined to have, she kills her.” He looks down.
Sitting back, Will let out a breath. He pulled the book back toward him and rifled forward a few pages, apparently trying to put the plot together in his mind. “What a heartwarming story.”
Against his will, Nico huffed a laugh. “Get used to it with Morrison. She doesn’t have any happy books.”
Will looked up at Nico through his lashes, face still angled down toward the book, the same bright smile returning to his face. “I’ll really need you around for the rest of the semester. Do you come here to study often?”
“Really?” Nico raised an eyebrow. “‘Come here often?’”
Will choked. “No, I didn’t mean—”
“I come down every once in a while to study,” Nico was enjoying not being the one caught off guard for once. “It’s quieter.” He glanced around the basement. It was still completely empty, but their voices were muffled by the low ceilings and carpet, which gave the whole room a comforting, familiar feeling.
“Well, I’ll probably be here tomorrow night, studying for Calc, if you wanted to join?” Will asked. He looked almost nervous, which boosted Nico’s self esteem another few notches. He didn’t even have to think before answering.
“I’ll be there.”
~
Nico ended up passing the Calc midterm by just a hair, but his study sessions with Will didn’t end after they got their grades back. He was down in the basement three or four nights a week, seated across from Will and buried in the mountain of schoolwork that was now threatening to overwhelm him. The basement of the dorm became something of a hideout for the two of them, and they were hardly ever bothered. They still didn’t really talk in class or recitation, and Nico pointedly avoided Jason’s questions about where he was going to study so often with vague answers and changes of subject. He didn’t really know why he was avoiding the topic, other than that his and Will’s budding friendship seemed private and fragile, something that shouldn’t be shared with anyone in case it ended. Nico wanted to keep it to himself for as long as he could; he just knew Jason wouldn’t be able to hold back with the questions and the pestering about whether Nico was still interested.
It wasn’t that he had lost interest. If anything, what had been a simple admiration from afar was turning into a real crush much too fast for Nico’s liking. There were times he couldn’t help but look up from his work to watch Will biting his lip or furrowing his brow in concentration. Even Will’s little tics, like incessantly bouncing his leg and humming under his breath without noticing he was doing it didn’t bother Nico.
At least, it didn’t bother Nico much. One rainy Saturday night, Will had landed on some Taylor Swift song and hadn’t changed the tune for at least an hour before Nico threw a notebook at him.
Slowly, their study time turned into a real friendship.
It started with Will bringing Nico a Hestia’s latte on a chilly late October night, completely unprompted. Nico had been so stunned, and genuinely touched, that he hadn’t known what to say for a full minute before Will had teased him by saying, “You can say thanks, you know.” Then Nico, refusing to be one-upped, had brought a pastry from the dining hall for each of them, which Will scarfed down in a few seconds, explaining that he hadn’t eaten a full meal yet that day.
That was another thing Nico was quickly learning about Will. For someone who was pre-med, he didn’t know how to take care of himself; he stayed up late without needing to, overworked and beat himself up over his grades, and often forgot meals. After discovering this, Nico made it a point to nick a few pieces of fruit, sometimes a bagel or a muffin, from the dining hall every time he went with Jason or Reyna, a friend from his writing class, to give to Will. Will always accepted the food with shining eyes and a smile that made Nico weak in the knees. He’d devour whatever it was, smacking his lips and declaring his love and appreciation for Nico in a way that twisted Nico’s stomach.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, that meant Will also learned some of Nico’s vices. He seemed to understand right away Nico’s unwillingness to open up, and instead of pushing too much like Jason might without realizing, he kept his questions about Nico’s personal life to a minimum. Nico hated him for it, because it only made him want to spill his guts more. Will really, truly listened when Nico was talking, and the feeling of being heard and not judged was addicting. Even though he knew Will didn’t care about the books he was reading for his required writing class, he listened with his chin in his palm, eyes wide and engaged, every time Nico tried to explain a theme or a plot point to him. Nico once spent ten full minutes talking about the lighthouse in To the Lighthouse before he realized he was getting carried away, going full Italian with his hand gestures. But Will was still listening. Nico was half the reason he passed any of these papers, he explained, though Nico knew he wasn’t just trying to get a good grade.
Somehow, he actually cared about what Nico was saying.
~
It was the night after their second Calc midterm that Will suggested they forgo studying for once.
“We’ve earned it!” he reasoned, already closing Nico’s notebooks for him and standing up from his chair. “We deserve a night off, come on.” Will grabbed Nico’s hand, still holding a pencil, and dragged him toward the couch in front of the TV in the opposite corner of the basement.
Nico, understandably unable to control his swooping stomach because of the physical contact, took a second to catch up with Will’s train of thought. “What are we gonna do?”
“I dunno, watch a movie, have some junk food, drink, whatever we want,” Will said, pulling Nico down to the couch with that same bright smile that always made Nico melt just a little.
Pulling his legs up under him on the couch, Nico shrugged. The idea of a night off sounded amazing. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d existed without worrying about school for more than two seconds. And it didn’t hurt that Will was sitting so close to him, his bare arm was brushing Nico’s, making his hair stand up. It wasn’t quite fair that Will kept wearing those tank tops, even in late fall. “Alright, I’m in.”
“Perfect,” Will clapped his hands together. “We’re gonna need food and drinks. I’ll grab some stuff from my room, and if you wanna set up my laptop, I have an HDMI cord I can connect to the TV with and we can watch something?”
Nico nodded, and Will jumped up and pushed through the heavy basement door, sparing Nico one last bright-eyed smile.
It was a little embarrassing how gone he was, Nico mused as he pulled Will’s laptop out of his bag. Less than a semester of knowing someone and he was all in. He knew Will wasn’t straight, because he’d mentioned an ex-boyfriend once, but Nico knew better than to keep his hopes up. But still, he wanted to believe there was something in Will’s smile, his laugh, the way that he tilted his head just slightly when he was listening hard, that was just for Nico.
He was just brooding over those thoughts, feet up on the coffee table in front of the couch and scrolling mindlessly on his phone, when Will burst back into the room with a family sized bag of salt and pepper Ruffles under one arm and a six pack of something under the other. A black HDMI cord twisted between his fingers, which he dropped onto the table with the chips. He then waved the six pack in front of Nico’s face with a conspiratorial grin. “Don’t tell Annabeth.”
Nico reached up and grabbed the box as Will got started on setting up the screen. “What is this?”
“Hard seltzer,” Will said distractedly, typing on his laptop. “It’s like White Claw but less gross. I refuse to drink beer because it makes me throw up, so I promise this is actually good.”
Will must have taken Nico’s silence as hesitation, because he whipped around with a look of horror on his face. “Oh my god, I didn’t even ask if you want to drink. Do you drink? It’s okay if not, I won’t either, I’m so sorry for just assuming that you’d be okay with—”
“Shut up, Will,” Nico laughed and started to open the box. “It’s fine, I’ve just never tried this before.”
Some of the tension eased from Will’s face. “It’s good, I swear.”
“I’m holding you to that,” Nico said, already pulling a can out, popping the tab and tilting it back for a swig. It was sweet and light, with a citrusy flavor and bubbles that went straight to Nico’s head. “Wow, that is…” Nico trailed off, looking at Will in confusion.
He was staring at Nico, his expression unreadable. His mouth was slightly open, eyebrows raised a bit like he was almost surprised, and a flush was creeping up his neck. His fingers were frozen on his laptop keyboard.
“Are you okay?” Nico asked with uncertainty. “Should I be worried about you drinking?”
As if snapping out of a reverie, Will shook his head and laughed nervously. “Sorry, just spaced out. What did you wanna watch?”
They settled on some sitcom Nico had never heard of but Will insisted was the height of comedy, which Nico doubted very much. Will turned off the basement lights, ripped open the chip bag, and they settled in for the first episode.
It was hard to focus, mostly because Will kept interjecting his own commentary and Nico kept biting back with snarky replies. There was also the crunching of the chips between drinks to contend with, not to mention Will asking to try Nico’s flavor and Nico’s brain unhelpfully shouting that their lips were touching the same can. Then there was their sidetracking conversations that made them miss huge chunks of episodes; during the third episode, one line a character said reminded Nico of a card game he used to play as a kid, and upon mentioning it, he discovered Will had played the same game, and they spent the rest of the episode swapping stories about childhood friends. Halfway through his second can of seltzer, his head pleasantly light, Nico noticed he’d stopped holding back in the conversation, having realized that he didn’t need to be guarded or embarrassed about his stupid roleplaying card game around Will.
By the end of the sixth episode, the entire bag of chips and the six pack was taken care of, and Nico just tipsy enough that he felt warm and comfortable. Judging by the way Will’s eyes were glassing over as he stared at the screen, he felt about the same. The seventh episode autoplayed, but Will stretched over to the remote and turned the sound down a few clicks, before settling back into the couch.
“Why’d you do that?” Nico asked quietly, feeling like speaking too loud might shatter the moment.
“I’m not paying attention anymore,” Will said sleepily, before leaning his head down on Nico’s shoulder, his entire right arm pressed against Nico’s left.
Nico did his best to remain completely still in fear that Will might pull away. He looked down at Will, and saw that his eyes were drooping closed, making his face look adorably peaceful. Hoping that the fluttering in his stomach would stop, Nico closed his eyes too and rested his own head on Will’s.
What felt like a few moments later, Nico lifted his head and opened his eyes, looking around to reorient himself, the bubbles from the seltzer still giving him that lightheaded, warm feeling. He felt Will lift his head but not move away. Turning his head, Nico got a shock when he saw that those blue eyes he had memorized from Calc class were open and looking right at him. He was just a few inches from Will’s face.
“I think I fell asleep,” Will murmured. “I think you did, too.”
Nico hummed. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“Sorry.”
A grin split Will’s face at that. “You’re great, Nico.”
Nico had no idea what to say to that. The stomach flutters were returning. “So’re you,” Nico mumbled, still foggy from sleep, unable to resist the soft smile working its way onto his own face. He felt Will’s arm move against his and prepared for the warmth to leave him, but instead, Will’s fingers tangled into his own and squeezed. Nico squeezed back, heart thudding.
“No, but… you’re really wonderful,” Will insisted. “You’re so nice to me all the time, even when I definitely don’t deserve it.”
“Are you drunk?” Nico tried to joke to lift the weight of the moment. “You always deserve it.”
“Even when I’m humming and you’re trying to study?”
Nico rolled his eyes. “Yes.”
“Even when I forget to eat?”
Will’s eyes were still focused so intently on Nico’s that Nico almost forgot to respond. “Especially then.”
It wasn’t Nico’s imagination; Will was definitely moving closer. He could feel Will’s breath on his face. And then Will’s eyes weren’t on his anymore, but somewhere lower. “Nico?” The word came out barely louder than a breath.
“Yeah?”
Nico heard Will swallow, saw his eyes flick up and back down. “Can I…”
“God, please,” Nico said before finally, finally pressing their lips together. He felt the chuckle deep in Will’s throat, but ignored it in favor of adjusting the angle of their mouths. He sat up, moved his head a bit to the left and… yes, that was perfect. Their mouths moved together tentatively, awkwardly at first, their placement on the couch not the most effective. Nico could taste citrus and sleep on Will’s lips and it made him want more.
Apparently reading Nico’s mind, Will groaned and pulled away for just a moment, squeezing Nico’s hand. “Can you just…” He grabbed Nico’s hip with his free hand and pulled him over and on top of him. “Yeah.”
Now with one leg on either side of Will’s, chest to chest, his hands on Will’s neck and Will’s on his back, Nico fell into the rhythm of the kiss easily. His mind was spiralling and it was all he could do to keep his mouth moving while trying to ignore his pounding heart. It didn’t feel real, more like a very lucid dream or some kind of accident, but Nico wasn’t about to let that stop him. Especially when Will had just opened his mouth slightly and sighed into Nico’s like that.
Almost without realizing, Nico wove his hand into Will’s hair, getting a handful of the golden curls he’d seen all too much of in Calc. He pulled his hand through them and Will made a muffled mmph sound that Nico couldn’t help but laugh at.
“Don’ laugh a’ me,” Will mumbled, halfway between kissing Nico and laughing himself. “Tryna enjoy… the moment.”
Nico would have rolled his eyes, if Will hadn’t moved down to his neck, pressing wet kisses to the exposed skin and making Nico shiver. Nico pulled gently on Will’s hair again. “Come back up here.” Will obliged, sliding his hands up the back of Nico’s shirt as he did so. Nico could have stayed like that forever, Will’s tongue slipping into his mouth and his hands moving lower, lower—
The basement door banged open. Nico leapt off of Will’s lap with a grace he didn’t know he possessed. Will frantically adjusted his pants, which totally did not make Nico blush, while looking wildly around for who had ruined the moment.
It was Annabeth, doing her nightly RA rounds. Nico had never stayed down in the basement late enough to see her come around, but now she was peering around the basement, clad in sweats and her hair pulled up into a ponytail. She spotted them and started walking over. “What are you guys doing down here? It’s almost two in the morning.”
Nice couldn’t meet her eyes, instead choosing to look at a space just over her head as he gestured toward the TV screen. “Just celebrating a midterm being over.”
Will, still bright red and completely silent, nodded unhelpfully.
Annabeth raised her eyebrows. “So I’m supposed to just ignore the alcohol? This is a dry dorm.”
Shit. They hadn’t put the empty seltzer cans away before falling asleep and they were still sitting on the table for Annabeth to clearly see. Worst case scenario, that could be a code of conduct violation. “Uh…” Nico searched for an explanation or excuse that she might believe, but his brain was still completely fried from being in Will’s lap two seconds ago.
Then Annabeth’s eyes fell to the couch between the two boys, where their hands were still tangled together and her mouth dropped open, betraying the smallest amount of surprise, before she quickly rearranged her face into her usual stern RA look. “Okay. I’m gonna let it slide just this once, but you need to be more careful. Maybe stick to one of your rooms.” She raised her eyebrows in a way that implied she wasn’t just talking about the drinking. Nico didn’t think his face could get any hotter.
“Right, sorry,” Will seemed to have snapped out of his reverie and was starting to get up. “We’ll clean up and be more careful next time.” He was bustling around more than was strictly necessary, turning the TV off and putting everything back into his backpack. Nico just sat and watched it happen, wondering how the moment had gone so wrong. He made accidental eye contact with Annabeth, who gave him a small smile and shook her head as if to say, look at these fools, before she pushed back out the basement door.
The heavy door thudded back into place, leaving Nico and Will in complete silence. Will was still trying to keep his hands as busy as possible, fiddling with the zippers on his backpack, then the empty chip bag, then the tab of a seltzer can.
“So, um,” Nico started without having any idea where he was going.
Still avoiding his eyes, Will laughed softly. “Yeah.” His hands stilled, and he sat back on the couch stiffly, a pointed few inches between him and Nico.
“Could you at least, I don’t know, look at me?” Nico said, exasperated. “You don’t have to make this awkward.”
“I am so not the one making it awkward,” Will said, meeting Nico’s eyes for the first time and immediately flushing and looking down again.
Nico made a sound of indignance. “What are you doing right now, then?”
“Shut up.”
Nico thought about responding with make me , but he thought that might just make things more awkward. Instead, out of sheer force of will, he reached out and grabbed Will’s hand again, giving it a soft squeeze. Will looked up and smiled at him, the same brightness returning to his eyes that Nico had gotten used to during their study sessions. It seemed silly after what they’d just done, but the smile still made Nico’s stomach flip with a happiness he couldn’t explain.
“So, I’ve been meaning to ask for a while,” Will said sheepishly. “Would you wanna get Hestia’s with me sometime? Maybe tomorrow when we’re both done with class?”
“I was wondering when you’d ask,” Nico responded, surprising even himself with the steadiness and confidence of his voice. “I’d like that.”
Still smiling, Will rolled his eyes and leaned in toward Nico to press a short, sweet kiss on his cheek. The stomach flips quickly turned into a full stomach gymnastics routine.
“I can’t believe it took a six pack of hard seltzer and Annabeth to get you to ask me out,” Nico said, because he didn’t quite know how to say thank you, I like you a lot yet. And he sure as hell wasn’t about to say I’m very relieved I didn’t have to be the one to make the first move.
“Please, it’s not like you — wait,” Will frowned. “All those times we did work together, weren’t those technically dates?”
"Um, no?” Nico spluttered indignantly. “Are you serious? It’s not a date until you explicitly ask to go on a date. And studying is not a date.”
“Studying is totally a date,” Will leaned back, enjoying Nico’s frustration. “Come on, since the first time you came down here, we’ve been dating.”
"You’re wrong. Shut up.”
“Make me.”
Well, at least one of them had said it. And it didn’t matter that Nico was now the one blushing, because he was leaning in and pressing his lips to Will’s again, forgetting completely about what Annabeth had just told them. And if she found them the next morning, curled up on the couch together and fast asleep, no one had to know.
~
Their Calc final was a month later on a Thursday. Nico and Will moved their study sessions, which were still just as regular as they had been, to Will’s single room, even though it was much easier to get distracted that way. That was what had happened the night before the final; they’d studied for an hour or two on the floor of Will’s room, papers spread out all around them, before Will’s fingers tracing patterns on Nico’s thigh became too distracting and they wordlessly decided to stop studying for the night.
It was only by chance that Will remembered to set his alarm for the next morning, when they both stumbled out of bed to dress, pack up their stuff, and head to the final, hand in hand. As they walked into the lecture hall together, Nico heard a shout of surprise from across the room from Jason, a wide, knowing smile on his face as he looked at their intertwined hands.
With a last kiss on the cheek, Will went to sit in his usual seat next to his friends while Nico walked toward Jason, resigned to an unavoidable interrogation.
“When did that become a thing?” Jason was practically bouncing in his seat by the time Nico got to him. “Nice sweatshirt by the way.”
Nico looked down. In the hurry of leaving Will’s room that morning, he’d grabbed Will’s orange sweatshirt by accident. Fuck. He looked up into Jason’s gleeful smile. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m about to fail a final, I don’t need you interrogating me.”
“Whatever, dude, I’m happy it finally happened for you guys,” Jason shrugged, settling back into his seat. “Just wait ‘til I tell Reyna about this.”