Work Text:
Nico slams the front door shut with a kick of his boot, immediately sheds his coat onto the floor, and drops his keys with a metallic clatter on the hardwood.
Will’s laughter echoes from their bedroom in the back of the apartment. “Sounds like someone had a nice day,” he calls.
Nico groans in response. It had been an absolutely shit day.
He’d slept terribly the night before—their heater had been on the fritz again and Will had been working the late shift at the hospital, so Nico couldn’t even roll closer to him for some extra body heat. Since he’d slept so badly, he missed his alarm, and since he overslept, he missed his train. He was late to his first consultation, and subsequently, every meeting he had after that—until lunch, that is, which he skipped to get back on track. Besides his lack of punctuality, his clients were more dense than ever, blatantly ignoring his FAQ (which trails every email) and making ridiculous, asinine demands for their designs.
All this topped off by the blanket of deep snow that buried the entire city, for lucky Nico to trudge through when his shift finally ended.
Shit. Day.
He makes his way to the bedroom slowly, shedding his boots in the hall and pulling his tight black turtleneck off over his head. By the time he makes it to their room, he’s unbuckling his belt.
He bumps the door open with his hip, scoops the hoodie he slept in off the floor and has it on before Will can even turn to face him.
He also manages to wriggle out of his Super Professional black jeans and into his sweats before Will looks at him.
When he pulls his hair down from its bun, flops dramatically on their bed, and sighs loudly enough that their neighbor bangs on the wall, and Will still hasn’t turned, Nico realizes that perhaps something is wrong.
“How are you?” he asks the back of Will’s head.
Will clicks away at his laptop for a couple of seconds before he says “Fine,” perfectly casually. Nico’s brow furrows. His dark eyes dart over Will’s frame.
He’s sitting at their desk, twisting gently back and forth in their swivel chair, the movement measured and mechanical. The stimming itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but when it’s not accompanied by it’s usual chatter it makes Nico’s eyes narrow. The dismissive tone, the lack of eye contact, the way he keeps his head propped up on his fist—perhaps Nico is not the only one who had a rough day.
“Are you sure?” He coaxes gently, rising from the bed. He crosses the room and spins the chair, looking into Will’s eyes for the first time.
They’re a little tired, probably from whatever class is on his laptop, but otherwise, Will looks as he said: perfectly fine. He regards Nico with a slightly amused smile, one brow raised. “I’m sure,” he responds.
Nico frowns.
He is positive, with 100% certainty, that Will is not fine.
But he also knows how stubborn Will can be when he closes up like this, so he sighs and stands up straight. For now, he decides, has no choice but to drop it. If Will isn't ready to discuss whatever is bugging him, Nico has no problem with distracting him from it instead.
He stretches, groaning, “Well, my day was a nightmare. You’ll never believe what these idiots said to me.”
For the next half hour or so, Nico gripes about his clients; one who wanted their logo to be a “light black, or a dark white, but not grey, because grey is too bland,” and one who attempted to collect her illustration for a third of the agreed price—and a date with her daughter. (Yippee.) He’s made himself comfortable in front of Will, sitting cross legged on the bed and playing with his hands. Once, Will begins to turn back to his laptop, but Nico runs a finger between his knuckles and just as easily has his full attention again.
“Plus,” Nico huffs, “when I finally managed to catch a break and talk to my coworkers, they made fun of me!”
Will looks up from Nico’s hands, tangled with his own in his lap. “Made fun of you?” he repeats, and Nico nods furiously.
“For my taste in movies.”
Will suddenly looks away. “Well,” he says.
Nico gapes at him. “No.”
“They kind of have a point, baby.”
“Et tu, brute?”
Will laughs, swatting at Nico’s chest, and Nico feels something inside loosen just a touch. “The movies you watch are scary! And you get so intense when you talk about them.”
“So what,” Nico says, rolling his eyes. “Besides, I only bring them up if people ask.”
“So when you talk about ‘Martyrs’ loudly in front of my Aunt Dana—”
“Your Aunt Dana has it coming and you know it.”
Will laughs his bright, loud laugh again, and this time his hand stays on Nico’s chest. It’s light and warm, and Nico brings his own up to touch it gently. He needed this, he knows—they both did. But then Will lets his hand fall and looks away and goes back to smiling the same, vacant smile, and Nico feels everything they managed to wiggle loose in his chest tighten back up again. He bites the inside of his cheek.
“You know what would make me feel better?” he says. “I wanna cook us dinner.”
“Oh really,” Will challenges, eyebrows raised.
“I can cook!” Nico squawks indignantly, “I just don’t usually feel like it!”
“I know, I know.”
Nico stands, taking Will’s hands and tugging. Will groans, “You just said you were cooking,” leaning backwards in protest.
Nico tugs a little harder. “I just want you near me,” he says.
Will worries at his bottom lip, his blue eyes flicking over Nico’s face. Then he sighs with great agony and pulls himself up.
They tread softly into the kitchen, hand in hand.
A few moments later, after bickering lightly over what to eat, Nico busies himself by filling a pot with water and collecting vegetables from the fridge. He pauses to slip his phone into Will’s hand. “You pick,” he says simply, turning back to the cabinets to pull out a cutting board.
“Pick what?”
“Put on something nice. You want me to cook with no music? What is this, prison?”
“Alright your majesty, relax,” Will smiles softly, rolling his eyes.
He shuffles through a few songs, the first few overly cheery and too loud. Nico resists the urge to wrinkle his nose; they weren’t bad songs, but he couldn’t help but feel like Will was still trying to sell just how “fine” he was.
At least they were good for chopping onions to.
By the time they have noodles in one pot and sauce simmering in the other, the music has shifted to something a little softer and Nico has gravitated back towards the other side of the counter. He reaches for Will, and marvels silently at how effortlessly they wrap themselves around each other. He doesn’t fit perfectly under Will’s chin like he used to, yet still it is so easy to be held by him. It continues to amaze him, just a little, even after all these years.
He leans his weight fully into Will’s chest as they sway gently back and forth, Will’s head resting atop his. One song ends, another begins, and Nico feels Will’s back shift under his hands. He’s taking in a slow breath, preparing himself to speak, and Nico prepares himself to listen.
“You know I love you,” Will says softly into Nico’s hair.
“I love you,” Nico agrees, just as quietly.
Will hums, kisses the crown of his head, and stays there. “But you have to stop talking about those fucked up movies around my Aunt Dana.”
Nico immediately whines in protest, pulling away. “She’s a homophobe, Will, and she stole my phone charger!”
“I know, I know,” Will shushes him.
“She acts like it’s hers but it literally had my initials on it!”
“I know, baby, I know.”
Nico allows himself to be pulled back into Will’s chest, and together they sway for a moment or two longer to the sweet, gentle song that plays from the phone on the kitchen counter.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Nico asks, his tone low once more.
“My Aunt Dana?”
Nico snorts and steps on Will’s foot. “You know what I mean. What’s wrong?”
Will continues to rock for a beat or two. “Nothing, really,” he says lightly after a moment, like he really stopped to think about it.
If he’d said it to anyone else, they might have bought it.
But Nico hears the same flippant, wave-away tone from earlier and sighs, pressing his forehead into Will’s collarbone. He squeezes his fists in the back of Will’s sweatshirt, squeezes his eyes shut, squeezes Will closer. “I wanna help fix it for you,” he says achingly, “the way you help fix things for me. Don’t you want me to make it better?”
At this, Will seems to shudder, his breath fanning haltingly over the top of Nico’s head. He buries his face in his hair and takes a long time collecting his thoughts, and Nico waits with his arms around his waist, rubbing his back.
“I do,” Will says finally, his voice very small. “I do want you to make it better.”
There is a very painful moment where Nico can’t seem to swallow around the rough lump in his throat and Will breathes harshly through his nose and then, suddenly, he lets him go. “Take the pasta off,” he says, rubbing his jaw. Nico goes to do as he’s told, but when he looks back at Will over his shoulder, the little fake smile is finally gone.
He strains the pasta and sets their small table, trying to give Will a moment to breathe. The last thing he wants is for Will to feel the same way he often used to—utterly suffocated under his loved ones’ concerned doting—but the moment passes quickly when Will wraps his arms around Nico’s waist from behind. Nico aches; Will’s always a bit more clingy when he’s truly upset.
“I’m sorry,” he says to Nico’s shoulder. Nico pets his arm. “You don’t need to be. Talk to me.”
It’s there, in front of their ugly Goodwill table and while Nico is holding a fork, that Will finally relents. He sinks against Nico’s back. “It’s usually—I don’t know, not good, but manageable,” he says.
Nico nods to himself as the realization dawns on him: Will’s sporadic bouts of depression have been a recent development the past few years, and he still struggles to open up to Nico about it at the best of times. He brushes past them quickly, taking a day or two off from work to watch the same Christmas movies over and over, and occasionally calling his mother to ask her about her day. But he never wants to talk to Nico about it. Says it’s not Nico’s responsibility. Smiles and kisses him and always goes straight to bed.
Today is different.
Nico sighs, petting Will’s arm again. Today is shit.
“It took me so long to get out of bed today,” Will near-whimpers into Nico’s shirt, “and all I want is to go back. Everything hurts. I don’t…” Will shudders, huffs, shakes his head. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
“You’re not doing anything wrong,” Nico says quietly, “You’re sick. You need to rest.” He reaches behind him to stroke the top of Will’s head. Will shakes it again, harder, rubbing his forehead against Nico’s shoulder. “It’s been getting worse for days. I just don’t understand.”
Nico shushes him gently, still stroking his hair. Behind them, their faulty heater suddenly sputters to life. Will shivers at the warmth crawling up his back and Nico blinks, his brow furrowing.
Their heater. The Christmas movies. The snow. The relentlessly gray sky.
It dawns on Nico so abruptly he almost laughs. Will’s depressive episodes weren’t sporadic.
“It’s seasonal,” Nico breathes.
“Hmm?” Will says.
“Your depression,” Nico says, turning to face him, taking his cheeks in his hands. “I think it’s… probably seasonal. Right?”
Will stares back at him, his brows knitting together. His eyes flicker back and forth over Nico’s head as he scrubs his memory for his worst episodes.
Slowly, his eyes widen. “Oh my god.”
“Right?”
“Oh my god,” he says again, clapping his hands over Nico’s. “Maybe you—shit. I think you’re probably right.”
“I mean, the way it seems to come out of nowhere?”
“Yeah, I think…” Will shakes his head, blinking owlishly. “Yeah.” He sniffs, rubbing his hands over his face, then scrubbing them through his hair. He steps back from Nico and paces in a slow, wide circle. “I can’t believe I never noticed.”
Nico feels a cold prickle of guilt for not realizing earlier—but then he shakes the thought away. He was kept in the dark about Will’s mental state so often, he reluctantly tells himself that he couldn’t help when he didn’t know. And, he thinks with more confidence, this wasn’t about how he felt anyway.
“I guess I should call my psychiatrist,” Will mutters, mostly to himself.
Nico bites the inside of his cheek. “I guess, yeah,” he says, “A higher dosage in the winter would probably help.”
Will raises a brow at him. “But?”
“But it would probably also help if you told me when you felt like this,” Nico says, leaning back against their table.
Will grimaces. “I don’t want—”
“Your mental health isn’t my responsibility. I know. But when there’s something I can do to make days like this a little easier for you, I want you to tell me.” Nico comes close and brings his hand to Will’s face, stroking his thumb over the freckles just beneath his eye. “Isn’t that what you do for me? Don’t you think I want to take care of you, too?”
Will leans into Nico’s touch, closing his eyes. He breathes in deeply through his nose and out through his mouth.
“So what can I do, Will? Is there anything?”
Will’s eyes stay closed, but his brow furrows just a bit. He hums quietly.
When he speaks, his voice stays low. “I’m just… still so tired.”
Nico smiles softly, just a corner of his mouth twitched up. “So go to bed.”
It takes a few minutes of reassurance, but eventually Will gives in and begins to trudge back to their bedroom, exhaustion weighing heavily on his shoulders. Nico collects his phone from the counter and turns down the music he all but forgot was playing. He unsets the table, moves the pasta from the pot to a tupperware, and dumps the sauce into a jar before he realizes Will is still watching him from the doorway.
“Nico?” he says.
“Will?”
“You’ll come, won’t you?”
Nico gives him another small smile. “Don’t be dense, love. I just need to get us some plates.”
At this, Will smiles back, and Nico feels himself flush with satisfaction. This one, he knows, is real.