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It took them several failed attempts before Nico and Will finally got around and actually kissed. To be precise: three failed, shy and terribly awkward attempts.
I.
“How did it even look in here before you redecorated?”
They were sitting next to each other on Nico’s bed in cabin 13, and Nico was reminded that Will had never been inside his cabin until maybe a few weeks ago. And he had never asked how it had looked before Nico showed his little home mercy from the hideous décor. The son of Hades snorted.
“You should be glad you never saw it”, he said. “I mean it was a pain just to be in here, I actually camped up on the roof some nights before I managed to get new beds”.
“Really?” Will raised his eyebrows and grinned. “What was wrong with the beds?”
“Did you ever suspect me of being a vampire or something when you first met me?” Nico asked a curious looking Will.
“No… should I?”
Nico rolled his eyes.
“No, idiot. But the people who decorated this place obviously thought so. The beds looked like coffins”.
At this image, Will doubled over laughing next to Nico until he almost rolled onto the floor. He managed to stay on the mattress, though, and had soon gained enough breath to speak.
“They didn’t really look like coffins?”
“No, I swear”, Nico said, smiling from the boy next to him who tried to stifle his laughter. “I mean, it wasn’t that they weren’t comfortable, surprisingly enough, but I am not sleeping in a coffin. People already think I’m weird enough, I don’t wanna set off a rumor that I’m a vampire as well”.
“That’s honestly the best thing I’ve heard all day”, Will said, pretending to wipe a tear from his eye when he had finished laughing.
“Was it really that funny?”
“Yeah! Or maybe it’s just you”, he said, nudging Nico’s arm with his elbow.
“I’m not funny, I’m intimidating”, Nico insisted, but he knew he didn’t sound very convincing. Will chuckled.
“Yeah right. If you were intimidating, I’d never have wondered with ya in to your dark cabin when the sun’s about to set”.
Nico shoved his shoulder and Will fell down on the mattress again, laughing.
“I’m serious!” he said, lifting himself up to sit next to Nico again. “You’re not intimidating at all, you’re really cute”.
He was still smiling, but the tone in his voice was more serious this time, and it made Nico blush and look away. He didn’t say anything else, and when Nico looked back up Will was suddenly a lot closer than he had been seconds before. He was so close that Nico could feel his hot breath on his own skin, and it made him shiver. Nico felt his face heat up even more as Will leaned in until they were only inches apart.
Then the door suddenly burst open, and the two of them jumped apart as Hazel barged inside.
“Nico, you promised to come to the campfire tonigh–”
She stopped midsentence when she realized she had interrupted something. Nico could have sworn she was blushing brightly under her dark skin as she smiled sheepishly.
“Oh. Uh… sorry, I’ll just… um, yeah”, she muttered awkwardly and retreated out of the cabin. The two boys sat in stunned silence for a few seconds after Hazel shut the door. Then Will cleared his throat.
“Maybe we should…”
“Yeah, uh, the campfire”, Nico muttered in agreement.
They got up and walked together to the campfire. The walk was filled with a very awkward silence.
II.
A few days later, Nico had had time to think about what had nearly happened in his cabin with Will. And naturally, he always overthought things like this and ended up realizing that he’d never kissed anyone and had absolutely no idea how to do it. What if he was really bad and awkward at it? He didn’t know how it was supposed to work, like, how was he supposed to move his lips? What was he supposed to do once they were actually kissing? (Given they ever got around to it that was).
The problem wasn’t that he didn’t want to kiss Will, because he did. When they had been so close a few days ago, Nico could feel his entire body aching to get closer to Will, to touch him and press their lips together. It was just now that he was thinking about it that he got so nervous.
That was why he panicked and messed up the second almost-kiss.
He stood in the storage room of the infirmary, looking for a pink ointment Will had asked him to find. After searching for several minutes, he finally spotted it on the top shelf to the left. He groaned, as he doubted he would be able to reach it.
“Did you find it?” Will asked from the door where he had just appeared.
“Well, yeah, but I dunno if I can reach it…”
Nico glared at the stupid ointment, hating that he was so short.
“Oh, right. Hold on”.
Will reached over Nico’s head and grabbed the medicine with ease, and in the meantime showing off a line of tanned skin where his shirt lifted that Nico couldn’t help but stare at before it disappeared. Will handed him the ointment with a wry smile.
“Here”.
As Nico took it their fingers brushed, but Will didn’t quite let go of it. Nico felt a blush creep up his neck as Will looked at him and pulled him a little closer with both his hands on Nico’s one holding the little container. Nico’s mind worked fanatically towards an answer on what the bloody hell he should do as he started panicking.
“I gotta go!” he blurted out and backed away from Will and towards the door as fast as he could. Will looked confused, to say it least.
“Wh… why?”
“Uh… I just forgot…” Think, think, think! “…that Jason wanted me to help him out with something! Yeah, uh, see you later”.
With that excuse, he ran out of the infirmary while mentally kicking himself for his own stupidity.
III.
The third attempt was by far the most embarrassing one.
Will had come looking for Nico a couple of hours after he had run away from the infirmary, and found him sitting against a tree only a few yards into the woods. Will sat down next to him.
“Hey”.
“Hey”. Nico didn’t look at him.
Will spoke again after a few moments of silence.
“Did Jason really need your help?”
“...No”.
Will had already seen through his excuse, so why lie? The boy nodded, and for once, he didn’t look happy at all. Nico felt extremely guilty.
“Is it that you don’t want me to…”
“No! Will it’s not that, I just… I panicked. I don’t know, I’m just not…” Nico sighed in frustration. “I want to kiss you, Will. I was just nervous”, he finally said.
This seemed to lighten up Will’s mood almost instantly.
“So you want to kiss me?” he asked, leaning a little closer. Nico nodded.
“You wouldn’t mind if I did this?” Will put a hand on Nico’s shoulder and gently pushed him down so Will was lying on top of him on the ground. Sky blue eyes held Nico’s gaze. “Okay?”
“Yeah”. Nico’s voice was barely audible.
Will had almost closed the distance between their lips when he stopped, and gave Nico a curious look.
“What?” Nico asked.
“Really?”
“What?”
“I haven’t even done anything yet”, Will said, sounding almost amused, and Nico had no idea what was going on.
“What are you talking about?” he demanded.
Will lifted himself a little off him and glanced down. So did Nico, and they both realized. Will rolled off him laughing, and Nico covered his face in his hands, as he had never felt so embarrassed in his life.
“It’s a bloody sword, Will!” he groaned.
What Will had obviously thought was something entirely different was Nico’s Stygian iron sword, propped up against his side so that it had probably felt like… something else when it had touched Will’s thigh.
Nico’s face was burning and Will was laughing so hard that he was no longer making any sound, just lying on the ground gasping for air. When he had stifled his laughter and was able to breathe, he sat up and brushed some dirt off his T-shirt.
“I’m sorry if that was cruel”, he said, although he didn’t seem very sorry. “I just didn’t expect that”.
“You’re an idiot, Will”.
“No, but I was actually kinda flattered”, he explained, and Nico raised an eyebrow.
“You were flattered because you thought I was having a boner?”
“Well, yeah. I hadn’t even kissed ya yet, and I thought like, ‘geez, is he really that into me?’”
Nico’s face refused to stop burning, and Will was not making it any better.
“I’m not having this conversation with you”, he said, and got up to leave before he could die of embarrassment.
“Wait, where are you goin’?”
“See ya later, Will”.
Nico shadow travelled to his cabin before Will could follow him.
When they finally got around and actually kissed:
It didn’t start out very romantic at all.
They were fighting like… archenemies or and old married couple – I don’t know what’s worst.
Nico didn’t get why Will was so mad all of a sudden. Sure, he’d just shadow travelled to Manhattan to get some medical supplies and he knew Will didn’t like it, but it was the easiest way. Will apparently didn’t think it had been such a good idea, though.
“I CANT BELIEVE YOU JUST DID THAT!”
“WHAT IS SO FUCKING HARD TO BELIEVE, SOLACE? I WAS JUST GETTING SUPPLIES!”
“IT WASN’T THAT URGENT! YOU CAN’T JUST DO STUFF LIKE THAT!”
“THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I CAN! YOU’RE NOT MY MOM!”
“I DON’T CARE, YOU COULD HAVE DIED!”
Nico hesitated. All of a sudden, he realized that Will didn’t nag him about the shadow travel stuff all day because he was trying to be annoying. He was annoying, though, but Nico realized that he was actually worried that Nico would dissolve into shadows and die, and this drowned his anger completely.
Will hadn’t spotted his hesitation and ranted on and on about what Nico had done, but he didn’t care. Without giving himself a chance to think about it, Nico quickly walked the few steps that made the space between them and crashed his lips onto Will’s, stopping him mid-sentence.
He wrapped his arms around his neck, twirled his fingers in Will’s yellow hair, and was met by two familiar arms around his waist, pulling him closer.
The kiss he had been so worried about came so naturally, and Nico almost felt an urge to laugh. It was messy and unexperienced, but it was right, and it was amazing.
When they broke apart they were panting, and they were grinning like complete idiots.
“That was about time”, Will stated.
“It was”.
“Wanna do it again?”
“Mhm”.