Work Text:
Nico, as a rule of thumb, hated thirteen-year-old Redditors. He hated their constant flow of horny posts on r/teenagers. He hated how they defiled the cool Star Wars poster on r/place with those stupid little AmongUs characters. And, most importantly, he hated how some stupid blob group was trying to take control of the area he had already painstakingly claimed for the folklore album cover pixel art he'd painstakingly designed.
Nico watched, seething, as some Reddit user who probably thought fart jokes were funny replace one of his gray tiles with an ugly bright pink. Stupid u/Sunshine174.
He clicked on the offending tile, trying to intimidate it into turning dark gray again. He couldn't believe these blob people. Sure, they'd had a lot of struggles getting their design together, but they had a clearly marked out box where they were going to lay tiles down, and it wasn't fair of these prepubescent usurpers to just think they could waltz in and take it.
Before he knew what he's doing, he clicked on the name u/Sunshine174 and opened up the chat function.
Typing furiously, he sent "Hey! I see you're trying to build a blob in r/place!"
The reply from Sunshine was quicker than Nico thought, giving Nico zero time to reflect on why starting an argument over Reddit real estate was a bad idea.
"Yeah, we are! It was my idea actually, wanna help?"
That got Nico's blood boiling. No, he didn't want to help, he wanted his space back.
"Actually, I wanted to say that you're kind of encroaching on our territory. If you could move, that'd be great."
"Sorry if you were trying to build here, but we're actually expanding our blob and we need the space."
Right. They needed the space. For their stupid little pink blob shape, which wasn't even a cute design, not in the slightest.
"We were here first. We made the box. It's our space."
Nico hit sent, feeling a rush of triumph. The ball was in Sunshine's court now. If they refused to surrender Nico's rightful space, then Nico would have no qualms destroying their stupid blob, once and for all.
Sunshine's reply came through, and Nico was grinning eagerly, ready to take his space back once and for all.
"Respectfully, no <3" Sunshine had typed.
If this was a hacker movie, Nico would've cracked his fingers and started typing away at his keyboard, calling upon the power of dozens of bots to destroy Sunshine's ugly neon creation off the face of Reddit. But this wasn't a hacker movie, so instead Nico switched over to his discord tab, pulled up the coordination server, and announced what Sunshine's plans were.
"He's trying to what?" Jason replied immediately, adding a series of question marks after the message.
Nico smiled. At least his friends had his back. They'd never let his hard work go to waste because Sunshine was a dick. Watching the discord chat to make sure all of his friends (well, most of them were Jason’s friends who agreed to adopt Nico as their resident introvert) were on board, he switched back to his tab with Reddit open.
Seeing that his five minute timer was up, he picked through the ugly pink blob pieces until he found one with Sunshine’s username proudly displayed. A rush of spite-fueled joy surged through him as he turned the tile gray. His server had close to one hundred members, all Taylor Swift fans, all people dedicated to the folklore-album cause. There was no way Sunshine had even half the support he did for his stupid blob.
He leaned back in his gaming chair, smiling smugly. Soon, Sunshine would be wiped out, and he could go back to perfecting and defending the folklore album cover. He refreshed his Reddit screen.
He leaned forward again, stunned. He hit refresh again, watching in horror as pink tiles were dive-bombed into every corner of his half-completed folklore album. Sophisticated gray stick-trees became pink-leaved Truffula trees and then completely unrecognizable. They weren’t even going for a pattern now, just placing single pink tiles right in the spaces they somehow knew would annoy Nico the most.
How the hell?
Nico opened the discord server, watching as half the chat suggested they just move somewhere else. No, he wasn’t going to move somewhere else! This was their spot, and he was going to fight Sunshine to the death if he had to.
The fighting lasted approximately half an hour before Nico was forced to retreat to Sunshine’s dms again. He had been expecting Sunshine to give up a long time ago, but Sunshine was still there, still ruining his album cover. It was time for a last resort.
Nico, ashamed, typed out “Maybe we can reach a compromise.”
Sunshine’s reply was quick and full of smugness. “HA! I knew I could annoy you into leaving.”
“No, I’m not leaving,” Nico insisted. “I just think we can work together instead of destroying all my work.”
“I just want my blob there. Can’t you just build your gray thingies around it?”
Of course this uncultured thirteen-year-old would think that the folklore album cover was a “gray thingy”.
“It’s the folklore album cover. Can’t you just make your blob smaller?” Nico asked, trying to unclench his fists long enough to send the message. This Sunshine guy was making his blood boil.
“Ngl, I totally had to look up what ‘folklore’ was. I’m down to collaborate as long as our blobby gets to be Taylor.”
Well, he didn’t like the idea of his art being defiled by Sunshine’s stupid blob thing, but what choice did he have?
“Fine.”
“YES! Bloblore it is, nice working with you, DarkLord!”
Nico switched back to his Reddit tab, trying to tamper down his disgust as the pink blob took shape in the folklore album cover. He sent a message of defeat to his discord server, telling them that they were now working with the blob people.
Quite possibly the most annoying thing about Sunshine was the fact that he was, frustratingly, maddeningly, a very good ally. Sunshine added himself to Nico’s discord server, and asked Nico to join his, so they could share templates. When the folklore album started to be under attack by some streamer, Sunshine was the one in the discord server assembling the troops to defend their shared space.
Sunshine got along with his friends on discord, and when Nico tried to talk to Jason about how annoying Sunshine was, Jason replied with “idk, he seems cool”. Really, Jason? Sunshine seems cool? After he all but annoyed Nico into surrendering part of his precious folklore album cover art?
Nico’s phone pinged, warning him of another discord message from Sunshine. Sunshine was one of those people who matched their Reddit and their Discord usernames. Nico hated those people. Or maybe everything Sunshine did was just automatically infuriating.
He read Sunshine’s latest message: “Hey, saw you were online. If you have any pixels free, the wall of pride flags is under attack. We could use your help?”
Nico huffed. How was he supposed to be against everything Sunshine stood for when Sunshine was trying to defend pride flags from being invaded by country flags? Swallowing his pride, he was going to agree to help, but he decided to be mean instead. Just like r/place brought out the worst in large Twitch streamers who delighted in ruining the hard work of dozens of workers, Sunshine was bringing out the worst in Nico.
“I didn’t know twelve-year-olds were allowed to be gay.”
There. Nico opened Reddit again, scrolling over to where the line of pride flags was being invaded by the ridiculously large American flag.
“Okay, for the record, I’m sixteen. And I would defend my bi flag to my last breath.”
Nico snorted. “Would you keep the bi flag or the blob, Sunshine?”
“Don’t make me choose. That’s like picking favorite children.”
Nico glanced at the pride flags again. The bi flag, the top half of which was now in tatters, was in between the gay flag and the American flag. If he placed a few extra pixels to repair the bi flag, it wasn’t because he wanted to help Sunshine. No, it was just because he wanted to build up a barrier so his flag wouldn’t get hurt.
When he closed out of Reddit, there was a message from Sunshine waiting for him, thanking him for his help on the bi flag. Nico began to type out a snarky message, then paused. He and Sunshine were both LGBTQ+ teenagers, so they had more in common than Nico thought. For a brief, terrifying moment, Nico wondered what else they might have in common– would Sunshine think the constant horny posts on r/Teenagers were annoying, like Nico did? Would Sunshine team up with him to stop those stupid AmongUs people?
Before Nico was even really sure what he was doing, he’d opened up Sunshine’s Reddit profile and was scrolling through his subreddits– r/linguistics (because Sunshine was a massive nerd, apparently), r/LGBTQ, r/wholesomememes, r/StarWars, r/wingspan (which seemed to be just a bird version of Mythomagic). He started scrolling through Sunshine’s comments, too, out of pure curiosity– and hatred, of course. He was only stalking Sunshine to find more things to hate about him. Yeah, he wanted to find something objectively terrible that he could send to Jason to prove his vicious, undying, petty hatred was justified.
Oh. Oh.
Nico swallowed, throat feeling dry, as his cursor hovered over one of Sunshine’s posts. This was terrible, and not even in a send-screenshots-to-Jason way.
Nico’s worst fears had come true. Sunshine was hot. Like, really hot.
Out at the pride parade in downtown Austin with my sister! The post title read, over a picture of a guy with bright blonde curls, tanned skin, and a bi pride flag painted on his face. He was smiling at the camera, one arm slung around his sister, eyes bright and carefree and the sort of blue that you could absolutely get lost in.
Okay, Nico, he thought to himself, drawing his eyes away from the captivating curve of Sunshine’s smile. Sunshine probably doesn’t look that good in real life. It was probably perfected in photoshop or something for Reddit.
But he had to know. For sure. A few keystrokes and a reverse Google image search brought him to Sunshine’s–Will Solace, apparently– Instagram page. And…oh no. Will actually was that hot. Nico scrolled through the pictures, mostly him with his family or friends. Even when he looked arguably terrible– hair messy, face washed out by poor lighting– he still looked good. The kind of good that made Nico’s heart skip down 16th Avenue in his chest.
Right. That was…something.
Nico was starting to wish Will really was some twerpy, 13-year-old. At least then he wouldn’t have to worry about Will being attractive.
Nope! Nico slumped over his desk, burying his face in his hands. He was not going to do this. He wasn’t going to develop a crush on Will Solace, Sunshine, the Blobber himself. That would be ridiculous. They were enemies. Nico was going to make sure of it.
He looked up from his face, and horror quickly overtook him as he realized he’d accidentally liked the picture. Oh shit. That wasn’t good.
He sat up quickly. Now Will was going to know that Nico was basically Internet-stalking him. What heterosexual defense did Nico have for that?
No, this was okay, maybe he could still salvage it. He pulled up Instagram on his phone, finding the exact picture he’d accidentally liked. He scrolled through his available emojis, finding the closest thing he could to a blob and posting a comment with it.
There. Now Will would think Nico was just trolling him, because as far as Will was concerned, Nico hated him.
Discord pinged, alerting him with a new direct message. Nico groaned, resisting the urge to throw his laptop out the window.
Yep, that had completely backfired in a solid three seconds. That message was going to be from Will, probably with some adorable– nope, annoying, it was going to be annoying– comment, and now Will knew Nico’s name and face and the fact that Nico looked like a little gremlin on his best days. Great going, di Angelo, he scolded himself.
He opened the message.
“Hey DarkLord. Thinking about me?”
Okay, that was a comment. Nico’s cheeks were bright pink. He really didn’t want Will knowing how much Nico actually thought about Will (which averaged about every five minutes, when his Reddit tab dinged at him, reminding him he could place a tile), just in case Will used it against Nico to get more space on the folklore album for his horrendous, not-at-all-cute blob.
All Nico needed to do was reply with something dismissive and snarky, and pretend like he was totally indifferent to Will’s stupidly attractive face.
“You wish, Sunshine.”
Oh no, no, no, no, no.
He gulped. That sounded like flirting, didn’t it? Will was going to think he was flirting. Uh oh.
“Right, right, right. You’re more in love with folklore than me. I bet James would be proud of you.”
Nico’s brain fizzled out into a blank canvas of white pixels. Was Will…did Will just make a folklore reference at him? Was Will flirting back ? He didn’t even realize Will had listened to folklore. Did Will listen to folklore for him ?
“Since when do you know what folklore is?”
Will started to type, and then stopped, and then started again, and Nico found himself eagerly awaiting the answer. What was Will Solace even doing to him?
“I looked it up after we collabed.”
Nico snorted.
“More like you annoyed me into not taking you off the map.”
“I like to look on the bright side of things ;)”
Nico’s face heated up. They were escalating to winky faces now? Nico was not going to survive this. And…did Will really listen to a whole album for him? That was…
It really did kinda feel like flirting, an idea that made Nico smile a little.
Okay, maybe he and Will weren’t enemies after all.
Maybe he did find it a little adorable that Will annoyed him into working together. Maybe he did like hanging around Will's discord server, helping them defend pride flags from the country flags, and helping Will’s friends tease him about the sheer number of emojis Will always used. And, yeah, okay, he was definitely attracted to Will.
Maybe he did have a crush on Will. Just a little one.
Nico groaned. Oh god, Jason was going to be insufferable about this.
Nico’s phone pinged again. He perked up, thinking of Will, a smile already creeping up on his face.
It wasn’t from Will. Nico frowned. It was a link to a server, clearly one of Will’s servers based on the name (only Will could make “Sunshine Lair” sound endearing). He thought he recognized one of the names, maybe as one of Will’s friends?
“Come get your boy”, the message read.
Cryptic, but Nico definitely remembered seeing LouDooWitch’s name in Will’s server. His thumb hovered over the accept invite button. He couldn’t help but be a little curious…
Before he knew it, he clicked and joined the server. Yeah, it seemed like this was Will’s personal server, not just his r/place server. The idea of being considered one of Will’s personal friends sent a little thrill up his spine…though he wondered why Will didn’t send the invite himself.
He scrolled through the channels, reading the names, before realizing that everyone was gathered in the voice chat channel. And Will was talking in the voice chat channel.
Nico had never joined a call so quickly in his life, barely making sure that his headphones were connected to his phone.
Will’s voice filled his ears and, ugh, even his voice was perfect– deep, musical, with a hint of a Southern accent. Nico was so absorbed by the sound that he barely registered what Will was saying.
“Was it weird?” Will was saying, sounding genuinely nervous. “Was it too much?”
Someone else, a girl’s voice, was snickering. “He’s probably just so enchanted by your charm–”
“Shut up, Kayla, he still hasn’t replied. Did I chase him off?”
Oh. Nico felt himself deflating a little. It sounded like Will was trying to impress someone. Someone who was definitely not Nico–
“Well, if I had known he was hot I wouldn’t have tried to invade his album cover. I’m pretty sure he hates me now.”
Nico’s phone slipped from his hands and landed on his desk with a thud. Will was talking about Nico. Unless Will annoyed someone else into giving up space on their album cover. Which Nico really didn’t think was possible.
“Who invited Nico here?” from Will’s panicked (but still hot) voice was the last thing that Nico heard before the voice call ended.
Barely a second went by before Will was messaging Nico privately, and Nico couldn’t help but grin at how panicked Will sounded.
“So um how much did you hear?”
Will must’ve been really nervous, because there wasn’t even an emoji. Right, Will didn’t know Nico liked him back. Well, what would be the fun in putting Will out of his misery too early?
“Just the part where I was supposed to be “enchanted” by your “charm,”” Nico replied.
He could totally imagine Will groaning out loud. It was a cute image. Even cuter than bloblore (not that Nico would ever admit that).
“Omg I’m so sorry, you weren’t supposed to hear that.”
“Don’t be sorry, I think it’s kind of cute, the fact that you needed a support group to flirt with me.”
“If you’re going to reject me, pls just get it over with now so I can cut my losses and drown my feelings in Red (Taylor’s Version)”
Well, at least Will had enough taste to listen to Taylor’s Version. Nico smiled, already typing out his next text, already internally imagining a future with him and Will and a white picket fence and seven dogs.
“What about Lover instead ;)”
Nico was fairly sure he broke Will after the influx of keyboard smashing and emotes he received.
“ARE YOU FLIRTING WITH ME”
Yeah, Jason was totally going to make fun of Nico, but Nico was pretty sure Will might be worth getting teased for.
“Yeah, Sunshine, I am. What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m going to tell Kayla that I totally don’t regret invading hot guy’s album cover.”