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“When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.”
The late Sunday morning sunlight leaked through the windows of Nico’s dorm room, giving Nico the uncontrollable urge to die. Laying in bed, with his boyfriend's arms wrapped around him while Will lightly snored, wasn’t enough to fight off the raging headache and nausea swirling in his stomach. “One day, we’ll remember to close the blinds before bed,” Nico announced to the sleeping Will, eyeing his boyfriend jealously, wishing he himself was still asleep. Nico shut his eyes again, trying to work through the mental fog associated with a violent hangover, and attempted to piece together the previous night.
Even if you gave Nico all the money in the world, there was no way he would be able to recall in full what had happened at the Camp Paranormal Halloween party he had attended the night before. The Club always hosted Halloween parties and they were, as Percy lovingly put it when he announced the date of that year’s party, absolute ragers. They always ended in a bunch of blacked out young adults and at least one person yakking off the stoop, into the alleyway next to the apartment that the Camp Paranormal club presidents always occupied (this time it was the new transfer in, Leo, the poor guy). There was a lot of alcohol, a ton of weed, seas of people, and endless conversations about horror movies and ghost hunting. It was a blast.
The party also happened to be the anniversary of Nico and Will’s first kiss, meaning the whole night was a blur of them finding a dark corner to make out in for small bits of time, with all of their invasive friends coming up to them and gushing about what a great couple they were. It was sweet. There was nothing like all of your closest friends, drunk out of their minds, waxing poetic about how you and your boyfriend are the perfect couple, but it got old quickly. By the third time Piper had come up to them to gush about how she was so happy she transferred schools and joined Camp Paranormal and had become friends with them all, Nico had lost his patience. Still, the night was fun and they even won best costume as Stu and Billy from Scream, so it was, all in all, perfect. But, the best nights always had consequences.
Eventually, Will opened his eyes, looking at Nico, his hair tangled. He had red lines across his face from sleeping with his cheek pressed into his pillow. Nico thought he looked pretty, gorgeous even, in the morning sun, even with the dark circles under his eyes and messy bedhead. “You’re really sweaty,” Nico observed, resisting the urge to be overly mushy seconds after Will woke up. Nico kissed Will on the forehead to make up for it, despite the fact Nico felt like he was going to pass out at any second. Will gave him a look, his eyes narrowed like he was about to say something, before Will shot out of bed and ran to the bathroom. Nico gave Will a few minutes, ignoring how badly he was craving the water that sat on his bedside table. He couldn’t reach it unless he moved a few inches over to the right, and Nico wasn’t willing to move more than he had to.
After some time, which included a few minutes of what sounded like teeth brushing, Will returned, looking pale, but significantly less nauseous than he had when he woke up. Nico was envious. He still felt like he was a zombie, half living, half dead.
“Thalia giving us those edibles was the end of it all,” Will commented, grabbing a new t shirt to slip on, one that was not disgusting and sweaty from sleep. “If we weren’t gone from playing Kings for two hours, being crossed helped nothing.” Will grabbed a water bottle for himself, while Nico pointed helplessly at his water bottle, trying to make himself look as pathetic as possible. Will rolled his eyes in response. “Just sit up and grab it, you baby,” Will said, but gave Nico his water nonetheless.
“Being crossed hurts, especially when we followed it up with shots. But no one was as bad as Leo. He kept asking me to summon ghosts to add to the atmosphere. Or Annabeth. I have never seen her that drunk,” Nico commented, before he let out a croaky laugh, which made his head hurt even more. “The way she was convinced that someone stole her and Percy’s vacuum after everyone had left.” Nico and Will stayed after the party to half ass help Percy and Annabeth clean up. Their "help" mostly consisted of finishing people’s drinks and giggling intermittently while Percy and Annabeth shambled around, bickering and stumbling as they tried to pick up empty bags of chips, discarded costume props, and crushed beer cans.
“I love our friends," Will commented, climbing back into bed. "I need to be laying down. Do you think we are going to spend every post anniversary day like this?” Will asked. “Hungover as shit, fighting off nausea, ordering shitty food for delivery?”
“Probably,” Nico said, pulling out his phone and opening Uber eats, squinting at the bright light his phone was emitting. “It’s not the worst way to spend our day. Besides, our real anniversary was yesterday, and the anniversary of our first date isn’t until next weekend, so we can do this on our post first kiss anniversary. Now, do we want bagels or like a real breakfast?”
“I am about to become murderous if I don’t get hash browns within the next hour,” Will commented, laying down and stretching. “I will commit so many crimes.” Nico nodded before placing their order from the Denny’s that was a few blocks away. Once he was done, Nico went to kiss Will, who put his hand out and stopped Nico from getting any closer. “Teeth first. I know for a fact you didn’t brush last night before bed. I have five memories from last night and that is one of them.”
“Is this any way to treat your boyfriend of a year and a day?” Nico complained, but got up nonetheless to go to the bathroom.
“Romance dies after the first year of dating. Anyone will tell you that,” Will called out. Nico gave him the finger in response. Still, Nico did as instructed, albeit begrudgingly, but he would do most things if it meant that Will would kiss him. He was properly rewarded with a long kiss from Will.
The two decided on a Dawn of the Dead rewatch (the Dario Argento cut, thank you very much, they weren’t animals) while they laid around, complaining about their hangovers and intermittently showing each other bits of evidence from the previous night from posts on various social media platforms. By the time their food came, they had pieced together a vague timeline of the night, just in time for them to start eating while the gore in the movie really picked up.
“Love being desensitized to blood. Oh look at that,” Nico said, pointing out a zombie getting stabbed in the ear while he shoved pancakes into his mouth. "The special effects in this movie really were ahead of their time."
“Absolutely foul,” Will commented, holding out his fork for Nico to take a taste of his omelet. The movie passed by, the two of them getting quieter and quieter as the movie went on, slowly inching towards each other to cuddle. They let the credits roll in full, sitting in silence, both too exhausted to really get up.
Will finally broke the silence. “Are we being people today?” Nico gave Will a look that clearly said are you kidding me? and Will laughed. “Alright, my turn to pick then if we are staying here for the next ten hours. Monster movie day. It’s time to watch The Thing.”
The best cure to hangovers, Nico and Will had come to learn, was ordering take out and watching horror movies. Nothing like some good old fashioned blood and guts to shock your system and make you feel alive once more. They had done it enough times to be firm believers of this method. After the Thing came Hellraiser, with some intermittent napping and showering. Nico was just starting to feel like his normal self, headache almost totally gone, when finally they came to The Lost Boys, a movie that Will had never seen, much to Nico’s dismay and shock.
“How have we been dating for a year and a day and you still have never seen it? Terrible, truly. Gay beach vampires. What is there not to love?” Nico asked, finding it easily on Shudder.
“I was saving it to watch with you because I know you love it,” Will said, in that sappy as hell way he did that made Nico’s heart twist a little. Even after being in love with Will for as long as he was, Nico was never used to it when Will showed him he loved him. It was the simplest gesture, but it still made Nico feel special. Nico pressed play, and then pressed a kiss to Will’s slightly damp hair, before leaning into Will's side and throwing an arm around him.
“This movie is gay as hell dude,” Will observed halfway through the movie. “You were right when you talked about it at the one club meeting last year and Luke seemed skeptical. That guy really has some off opinions. It’s totally gay.”
“Fucking, thank you. Monsters and horror movies are gay coded,” Nico said, feeling himself gearing up for a rant. “It’s all about seeing yourself as the ‘other,’ as the villain, as the one who doesn’t deserve a happy ending. Horror is queer and all that. Straight men shouldn’t be allowed horror opinions,” Nico said with a huff.
“So true. For the girls and gays,” Will replied. “I love when you get on your proverbial soapbox about things. You're so endearing. Like yeah dude, keep talking about themes in horror movies. Give us more!”
Nico felt himself go a little red. "You're annoying," Nico responded, before giving Will a half smile, which made Will poke his cheek in return.
They popped in another movie (Dracula) to halfwatch while they bickered about what takeout to order (“The dining hall is too far,” Will whined, while Nico agreed and added, “No way am I putting on shoes today"). Once that one had ended too, it was getting to 9pm and the quickly approaching school day was looming over them.
“Thank God I stayed up late all week to do my homework,” Will said, squeezing Nico tightly while the credits to the movie played. “Imagine trying to do work today. I think I would rather be set on fire.”
“It would be torture,” Nico admitted. “Annotating Nathaniel Hawthorne short stories with a raging hangover? No thanks. I would rather perish.” The two sat in a comfortable silence. Will ran a hand through Nico’s hair, his fingers catching on the small knots that always came with Nico letting his wavy hair air dry while he laid in bed. If Nico could get his way, he would never go to class again and instead just spend forever in the position they were in now.
“I can’t believe it’s been a year, by the way,” Will commented and Nico nodded. Will laced one of his hands into Nico's. “It passes way too quickly. I wish it didn’t.” Nico squeezed Will’s hand in response, understanding the feeling. It was hard to believe they had been together for a whole year. A whole year of kissing and bickering, of dates to the dining hall and Chinese takeout in bed, of ghost hunting and drinking with friends. Nico never expected to love college as much as he did. He remembered being scared and apprehensive about the whole thing, but this was one of the happiest parts of his life so far. He didn't want to wish it all away, didn't want to wish away being young and in love.
“It is going by pretty quickly,” Nico commented, pushing away the thoughts of it all ending from his mind. “But that’s okay. I am anticipating, at the very least, fifty more years of post Halloween party hangovers, so we have tons of time.” Will snorted and flicked Nico’s forehead, before pulling him in closer. Nico laughed in response, hangover totally gone, feeling so in love that he felt like he would reach into his chest and give Will his heart if he asked for it. “Happy one year and one day anniversary,” Nico said, kissing Will.