Work Text:
Will knew that most people tried to work somewhere related to their field while they were in college, because it looked better on a resume, and helped with networking, and blah, blah, blah. It wasn’t like it was easy to get a job working for a doctor when he didn’t have the degree to back it up, but he needed money to pay for the degree, so he worked wherever he would hire him.
He didn’t really look like he belonged behind the front desk at a tattoo parlor, but the people were nice, and the paycheck was livable, so he took what he could get.
His boss, Piper, was one of the tattoo artists and also happened to be the owner of the shop, and refused to wear anything with sleeves because it meant hiding the sleeves that had been inked into her skin. Her brother, Mitchell, was another artist, and their cousin Drew was the resident piercer. Lacy, who was maybe a distant cousin or maybe just an old family friend, ran their books, and seemed to only work one or two days a week, given how little Will had seen her since he started there.
In fact, he thought he saw her even less than he saw the florist who worked across the street - and not just because Will always found his eyes drawn out the windows in the hopes of catching sight of the most gorgeous man Will had ever seen.
The first time Will had met him, he’d probably made a fool of himself with the amount of stuttering and blushing he’d done, and he’d realized that he’d probably made a mistake in his choice of temporary career considering his recent discovery that tattoos were really fucking hot.
And, oh, did this man have tattoos. He had nowhere near the in-depth sleeves that Piper sported, though there were a smattering of colorful designs over each arm, and Will thought he could see the edges of one poking out from behind the collar of his t-shirt - which was worn under a pale pink apron with an embroidered logo on the front that read Persephone’s. Not to mention the handful of piercings Will had glimpsed - in his eyebrow, his lip, his nose, and a series in each ear. He’d clearly made great friends with Piper and her family, considering the fact that he knew them all seemingly by the sound of their footsteps - not to mention the way he looked - and the fact that he’d taken one look at Will upon their first meeting and said, “You’re new,” with a smirk playing at his lips.
Will had thought he was going to die.
The florist had dropped off a bouquet and asked Will to make sure Piper got her hands on it, then said that it could be added to his tab when Will asked if any sort of payment was necessary - though Will was pretty sure they didn’t do tabs, and had no idea what this guy’s name was, anyway. As he’d walked out, he turned back to Will from the doorway and called out, “See you around,” before he ducked outside and made his way to the store across the street.
Ever since then, Will had found himself staring at the greenery in the flower shop’s windows, praying for a glimpse of that beautiful man, until he would be interrupted by the phones, or a customer walking through the door.
He’d checked over that day’s schedule a handful of times so that he would know when the next customer was coming in, and so he would know exactly how long he had to gaze out the window, though he hadn’t been expecting an interruption in the form of a very huffy Piper storming into the lobby and planting her hands on the counter in front of him. “Can you call Nico? He’s not checking his texts, and I have to get everything ready for the guy coming in at three today.”
Will blinked. “Uh, sure. Who’s Nico?”
She raised an eyebrow. “di Angelo? The guy who works at Seph’s?” At Will’s still-blank stare, she tried again: “Persephone’s?”
“Oh!” Will felt himself flush just at the mention of the store, and his nerves spiked. Maybe there was another guy who worked across the street, and Will wouldn’t have to make a fool of himself in front of the very attractive florist again. “Uh, sure, yeah, I can do that. What do you want me to say?”
“Just tell him to answer his fucking phone,” she grumbled, and started to push off from the counter before she said and said, “Sorry, I’m not pissed at you, it’s just--”
“Don’t worry about it,” Will said quickly. “I get it. I’ll take care of this.”
Piper flashed him a tired smile. “Thanks.”
As soon as she rounded the corner back toward her office, Will looked up the number to the place across the street and picked up the phone.
A perky voice picked up the phone. “Persephone’s; this is Hazel.”
“Hi, Hazel,” Will said, turning his gaze toward the window as if he’d be able to see who he was talking to - or, as always, to try to get a glimpse of the hot florist, “this is Will over at Stick and Poke across the street.”
“Oh! Hi, Will from Stick and Poke, I don’t think we’ve met,” she said, and a second later, Will saw a face appear in the window across the street - a pretty black girl with her hair tied back in a lavender bandana, wearing the same pink apron Will had see on the other florist. She waved at him through the window, and Will waved back before she disappeared, probably heading back to work. “What can I do for you?”
“Piper asked me to give you a call,” he answered. “She’s been trying to get a hold of, uh, Nico all day, but I guess he hasn’t been answering.”
Will thought he could hear an eye roll through the phone. “That’s my brother, alright. Thanks, Will, I’ll let him know. And, hey, welcome to the neighborhood!”
“Yeah, thanks,” Will said with a light laugh, “maybe I’ll see y’all around sometime.”
He ended the call with relief uncoiling in his chest. If Hazel and Nico were siblings, then the hot florist had to be somebody else. Maybe the chances of Will running into him again were slim to none.
Although, it would be a shame not to see that pretty face again.
Seeing as Will was the one that made the schedules for the other employees in the shop, he was confused to see time blocked off on Piper’s schedule when that space had been open when he’d left the day before. He figured he must have made a mistake - an appointment for a piercing should’ve gone on Drew’s schedule, not Piper’s, and he would’ve put way more information in the appointment block, not to mention that it was technically way too early for an appointment to be scheduled, considering the person should’ve been walking in the door right that second--
The bell chimed over the door, startling him, and his head snapped up. Standing in the door was a man in a leather jacket, carrying two takeout coffee cups, and when he turned away from the door, Will’s heart stopped.
It was him.
The hot florist smiled as he started toward the front counter. He cradled one of the cups between his arm and his chest so that he could push a pair of sunglasses up onto the top of his head. He had a bandage over one of his eyebrows, the same one that Will remembered seeing a piercing in before. “Hey,” he said, setting both of the coffees on the counter between them.
“Hi,” Will replied, only a little bit breathless by the sight of him, “uh--”
The bell chimed again, breaking whatever imaginary moment was between them, and Piper burst through the door, already talking as though midway through a conversation. “--meant to be here way earlier, but the fucking traffic--”
The hot florist grabbed one of the coffees and spun around, holding the drink out to her without a word.
“You got me coffee?” Piper said, cutting off whatever complaints she had as she threw herself at the man, pulling him into a hug. “Have I told you how much I love you?”
He snorted, patting her on the back as he replied, “Love you, too. Now, can you fix my face, or what?”
“Oh, sure, c’mon, right over here,” she said, taking the drink from his hand and leading him toward the back of the parlor. On his way back, he grabbed his own coffee, shooting Will a grin as he passed.
Will tried to keep his head down and get his work done while the two of them were there, but he couldn’t help listening in - there wasn’t anything else to listen to, after all, and they weren’t exactly being quiet. He flinched when he heard that the man’s eyebrow piercing had gotten accidentally ripped out, though he breathed out a sigh of relief when Piper insisted that it should heal well enough for her to redo the piercing in a few weeks. Then, he tensed when Piper told him he could make an appointment up at the front, and Will rushed to look busy - which wasn’t easy to do when there wasn’t, well…much to do.
“Hey,” he said, stopping on the other side of the counter once more, and Will pretended to be surprised by the man’s sudden appearance. “Piper said I should make an appointment a few weeks out - sometime around noon, if you have it, so I can swing over on my lunch break?”
“Uh, sure,” Will told him, and flipped through Piper’s schedule for the end of the month, offering up a few dates and times for the other man to pick from. Once he had, Will readied his fingers over his keyboard and asked, “And, uh, what name should I put for the appointment?”
“Sorry, have you guys not met?” Piper asked as she stepped back into the lobby, pulling a pair of black latex gloves off her hands. “That’s weird, I could’ve sworn you had. Anyway, Nico, this is Will, the new front desk guy. Will, this is Nico, the guy I told you about before.”
Nico - fuck, this was Nico - quirked an eyebrow, a newly-placed bandage rippling with the movement. “You talk about me?”
“I can’t let them think I just let some random guy come in during non-business hours and hang out in my office sometimes,” Piper replied with a roll of her eyes. Then, she added sweetly, “Don’t worry, I’ve only told him bad things.”
“That’s good,” Nico replied, his eyes sliding back to Will’s, “wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong impression.”
“Do you need a reminder card?” Will asked, then cleared his throat and prayed that no one had heard the way his voice had started to squeak at the very end.
Nico waved him off. “Piper will find me if I forget.” He took a sip of his coffee, holding Will’s gaze for a second too long. “Anyway, I should get going before Hazel gets pissed. See you, Pipes. And good to meet you, Will.”
“You too,” Will said, a second too late, when Nico was already out the door.
“You alright, Will?” Piper asked, a concerned frown on her face. “Didn’t sleep well, or not enough coffee this morning? You seem like you’re moving a little slow.”
Will shook his head, both in answer, and to snap himself out of this funk. “I’m fine. Just got a little thrown off that somebody was here before we even opened.”
“Oh, right, sorry about that,” she told him, “I had to tweak the schedule last night after you left to make sure we could fit Nico in, but there shouldn’t be any other major changes you’ll need to worry about. Anyway, could you flip on the open sign so we can get rolling?”
The next time Will saw Nico, he was walking into Stick and Poke with a large, vibrant bouquet of flowers in his hands, and he marched right up to Will with a bright smile on his face, holding the flowers between them.
Will felt his heart skip a beat - that beautiful smiling face presenting him with a massive bouquet. Will could almost imagine himself getting swept off his feet, wrapped up in those tattooed arms, feeling the cool metal of that lip ring against his mouth as they kissed--
He would’ve smacked himself in the face to stop thinking like that if he could’ve managed to not look like an idiot for doing so. Besides, in what world could those flowers - that smile - possibly be for him?
“Hey,” Nico asked, “is Piper free?”
Crash - that was Will’s heart plummeting to the floor and breaking into a million pieces. “I think she’s in her office,” he answered, and watched as Nico disappeared around the corner with a wave.
A minute later, Will heard Piper’s excited cry of, “Oh my god, Nico!” as he started picking up the pieces of his shattered heart.
He forced himself to get back to work, checking in clients when they arrived for their appointments, answering calls to schedule new ones, and trying to ignore the sound of Piper’s voice to the best of his ability.
He was pulled out of focus as somebody walked past his desk on their way out the door, though they stopped on the other side of the counter, causing Will to look up. Nico was grinning down at him, his elbows resting on the counter between them - Will’s aching heart skipped a beat just at the sight of him. His hair was pulled back, half-up and out of his face but loose around his shoulders, and Will had a perfect view of the pink scar that cut through Nico’s eyebrow.
“Hey, Will,” Nico said, excitement in his voice, “check this out.”
He stuck out his tongue, showing off a silver stud pierced through the muscle.
Will felt himself flush.
“Put that fucking thing away,” Piper scolded, appearing around the corner to shove at Nico’s shoulder. “Don’t you have a job to get to?”
Nico laughed, shoving her back as he straightened up, leaving one palm on the counter in front of Will. He glanced at Will, offering him another smile. “See you later,” he said, tapping the counter twice before he turned on his heel and walked away.
“Sorry about him,” Piper said, rolling her eyes fondly. “Anyway, What’s my afternoon look like? I was hoping I could meet somebody for lunch.”
Will had warning the next time he saw Nico, at least. He had time to prepare. He knew that Nico was coming in to have his eyebrow piercing redone, and that it was on Piper’s schedule instead of Drew’s, just like Nico’s appointments always seemed to be.
Will could prepare himself as much as he wanted, but nothing could really get him ready for the sight of Nico’s smiling face.
He brought another bouquet with him - smaller, this time, more like it was intended to be held in someone’s hands, rather than on display in a vase. As always, he took the flowers with him back to Piper’s office, disappearing for a little while until he suddenly reappeared at the end of his appointment time, leaning against Will’s desk like owned the place. Will couldn’t stop himself from studying the new piercing in Nico’s eyebrow.
“Like what you see?” Nico asked, that same eyebrow twitching upward.
“What happened?” Will asked instead of a response, proud of himself at first for not stuttering when he spoke, until he realized that the question probably hadn’t made the most sense. “I mean, to your last piercing?”
Nico blushed, his head ducking forward, and that sight was almost more beautiful than anything else Will had ever seen - Nico just kept surprising him. “It got caught on something,” he answered, sounding shy and embarrassed, and Will wanted to keep exploring this new side of him. Confident and cocky Nico was hot as fuck, but this new side of him might have been even more alluring - and didn’t make Will feel like he was constantly tripping over his tongue. “One sudden move, and-- Fucking hurt, I can tell you that.”
“What did it get caught on?” Will asked.
Nico waved it off. “It’s-- Hard to explain--”
“It was a sex injury,” Piper announced, appearing suddenly as she tended to, and Nico’s face burst into color.
“It was not a sex injury!” Nico exclaimed, sounding horrified - no, horribly embarrassed. It was definitely a sex injury. Will wasn’t sure whether he wanted to know more or run away with his fingers in his ears.
Piper glanced at Will, looking unimpressed. “Okay, fine. It was a foreplay injury. That amount of blood is gonna ruin the mood for anybody.” She hummed, her eyes flickering toward Nico. “Well, maybe not anybody.”
Will really did not need to know this much about their relationship.
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
They were in a relationship, weren’t they? It wasn’t just a flirtation - Nico didn’t bring Piper flowers all the time for nothing, and it certainly wasn’t to raise Piper’s interest in him. They were together. Piper got free flowers almost every day, and Nico got free tattoos and piercings and whatever else because how could Piper charge her…boyfriend, or partner, or whatever for these things that she had at her disposal?
It wasn’t like Will ever thought he actually had a chance with Nico, but… Still, how could he be so stupid?
“Shut up,” Nico snapped, and Will blinked back into focus just in time to watch Nico point a glare in Piper’s direction, then he turned to leave.
Once the door had closed behind him, Piper scoffed. “He can be such a baby sometimes,” she grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest. “I was just joking around.”
As upset as he was, Will couldn’t help feeling defensive of Nico, and wanted to change the topic as quickly as he could. “Your next appointment is here. She’s in chair two.”
Nico’s tab was nothing more than a sheet of printer paper taped to the wall behind Will’s desk. Drew had been the one to explain it to him, though only vaguely - anytime Nico came by and asked that something be added to his tab, he got another tally on the page. Sometimes, Piper told Will to add two at once, and sometimes she said, fuck you; don’t listen to him, Will, his tab’s big enough already.
Still, Will didn’t really get what it meant, until Nico chose to explain it to him.
He’d come by while Piper was out at lunch, leaning against the counter as he always did, and told Will that he wanted to cash in his tallies for some fresh ink. “So, is Piper around?”
“She’s taking an extended lunch break today,” Will replied, barely needing to glance at the screen that showed her schedule. He’d been much more relaxed while talking to Nico since realizing the nature of his relationship with Piper, and was enjoying the chance to talk to Nico like a normal person - rather than just some hot, unattainable godling who only pretended to work as a florist to blend in with the mortals around him.
Nico hummed in understanding. “Gotcha.” He rocked back and forth on his heels. “Well, I guess I can make an appointment, and come back then. Or,” he continued, drawing out the word, and leaning more heavily against the counter, “I could hang out until she gets back?”
“Um.” Will shrugged. “Sure. I mean, whichever you want to do, I guess. I’m sure Piper wouldn’t care if you hung out in her office--”
“Or I could keep you company, right?” Nico cut in, already swinging around the side of Will’s desk. He lifted himself up to sit on the edge, right beside Will’s keyboard.
Will kicked his feet against the floor, putting a few inches between them. Just because his brain knew not to feel anything toward Nico didn’t mean that his heart wanted to stick with the program. “I, uh, could still help you make an appointment, if you wanted. I doubt she’ll have time to fit you in today anyway,” he added, leaning in to check her schedule for the afternoon - pretty full, though there was a small opening late in the afternoon. “Especially for a new tattoo; that would need a longer appointment, I think.”
“It’s not a new tattoo,” Nico told him, leaning away from Will and tugging at the hem of his shirt until he was exposing the side of his ribcage - thick black outlines of flowers clustered around some sort of bulbous fruit, dropping petals and seeds. “The lineart’s already done, it just needs to be colored.”
“Wow,” Will said, trying not to stare, though it was hard not to take it all in. “Did Piper do all that?”
“My sister designed it,” Nico answered, “but Piper did the ink. It’s pomegranate fruits and blossoms, so it’ll all be in shades of red - the plan is for the petals to look like fresh scars, and the seeds to look like drops of blood. Cool, right?”
“Yeah,” Will breathed, then cleared his throat and added, “You’ll have to show me when it’s all done.”
Nico beamed. “Deal! I’ve got this other one, too, that I think you might like--” He started wrestling his way out of his shirt, managing to free one arm before Drew came around the corner as she walked her client out, and she swatted him on the back of the head as she passed.
“Have some fucking decency, would you?” she snapped, and Nico quickly pulled his shirt back into place as Drew passed on pricing information to Will, who ran the client’s card and traded them a receipt.
Once the two of them were alone again, neither spoke for a few minutes, a strange sort of tension in the air between them.
“I’ve always wanted to get a tattoo,” Will blurted, unsure of where the words had come from, because that sound couldn’t have come out of his mouth, right?
“Really?” Nico asked, brightening up and leaning in eagerly. “What? Where?”
Will could already feel himself floundering. He’d only just recently started entertaining the idea of getting a tattoo, and that was probably only because he was around them all day, every day. “Somewhere I could easily hide it, for sure,” Will answered, the only part that he really had considered. “I don’t know what the job market is going to be like once I’m done with school, and I don’t want to do anything that’ll keep me from getting hired.”
“So, somewhere hidden…” Nico repeated, his eyes scanning Will’s torso, sparkling with interest. “Where?”
Will lifted a hand, rubbing it over a spot on his chest - over his heart. “Here, maybe. But I’m afraid it’s going to hurt.”
“There?” Nico scoffed. “No way. But this?” He pointed at his own ribs, where the pomegranates now laid hidden by the fabric of Nico’s t-shirt. “This hurt like a bitch. Trust me, you’ll barely feel a thing. But if you’re worried, I could always hold your hand through the pain.” He grinned, and Will felt a blush spread down into his chest.
“I don’t know,” Will said, turning his gaze back to his computer screen just so he had something other than Nico to look at. “It’s a lot of commitment, you know? I’ll have to find a design that I like - maybe Piper can draw something for me-- But I’m supposed to be saving up right now--”
“I’ll take care of it,” Nico cut in.
“Huh?”
Nico shrugged. “I can hold off on getting my coloring done for a little while longer, especially if it means getting you some ink. I’m a firm believer that everybody deserves one free tattoo - Piper owes me, anyway. And if you don’t like any of her designs, I can see if my sister could hook you up with something.”
Will blinked up at him in surprise. “I can’t ask you to do all that. Don’t use up your tab on me.”
“I want to,” Nico insisted. “And I expect you to let me know when it’s happening so that I can be here to hold your hand through it.”
“Okay,” Will said after a beat, his voice soft. “Yeah, sure. I’ll…let you know.”
Nico grinned. “Cool.” He hopped down off of Will’s desk. “Well, I should probably get back to my own job, since Piper’s not around. Could you tell her to text me when she’s back? We’ve got some stuff to take care of before next weekend.”
“Sure, I can do that,” Will answered, and watched as Nico stepped back around the side of his desk, heading toward the door. “See you around.”
Nico turned back to him, his momentum carrying him backwards a few steps, as he shot a wink in Will’s direction. “See you later, sunshine.”
Nico had stopped by every day over the last week - sometimes empty handed, other times not. He always managed to throw a smile in Will’s direction as he passed by on the way to Piper’s office, though more often than not, he seemed to be in a rush, and hadn’t had time to chat. Piper had been in the same boat, always seeming like she was seconds away from tearing her hair out from stress, unless she was actively tattooing somebody. She always seemed to calm down once she had a needle in her hand.
Only once had Nico brought anything for Will in all the times he’d stopped in - usually it was a huge amount of flowers that he took back to Piper’s office, all following a similar color scheme, or boxes filled with matching vases. He’d almost forgotten about it, too, from the looks of how he’d made it halfway to the door on his way out before spinning back around and fishing something out of his pocket.
“I asked my sister to sketch out a few things,” he said, sliding a folded-up piece of paper across the counter toward Will. He shot Will a smile as he backed away from his desk. “I can’t wait to see what you pick.”
Will had spent just about the next two days straight looking over the series of sketches, and had tried copying some of them onto a separate page to make a few tweaks, though nothing he came up with was any better than what Hazel had designed. Whenever somebody came up to his desk, he had them weigh in on his options - Mitchell had drawn a new version of his favorite on the page, and Drew had offered up her top three choices from what was provided. He’d been about to ask Piper’s opinion on all of it at a time when Will knew she had a few minutes to spare, though Nico had chosen that same moment to step through the doors.
“No,” Piper said to him before Nico could so much as open his mouth. “I don’t even want to look at you right now. I’ve seen too much of you lately.”
Nico’s eyes slid toward Will. “What if I’m not here to see you?”
“I don’t care,” she answered, “you’re still in my presence.”
“So…go somewhere else?”
“It’s my parlor!”
“What’s the problem?” Will asked, though he feared that maybe he shouldn’t get in the middle of a lover’s spat.
Piper let out a groan. “All this wedding setup stuff is making me go insane.”
Will’s heart fell through the floor - sure, he’d put two and two together and figured out all on his own that Nico and Piper were more involved than they’d let on, but he hadn’t realized their relationship was so…set in stone. Will wanted to blame his ignorance on the fact that he’d never seen an engagement ring on Piper’s finger, but it wasn’t exactly easy to wear a ring underneath the latex gloves she needed to wear every day.
“I mean, since when is the maid of honor supposed to do so much?” she continued, and Will nearly gave himself whiplash trying to keep up. “Seriously, if I ever have to do this much work for a wedding again, I’d better be the one walking down the aisle. Which means somebody needs to start ring shopping.”
Nico snorted. “If you say so.”
Will’s eyes flickered between the two of them. Maybe…Piper was ready to make that step, but Nico wasn’t? Or maybe Nico was playing dumb, and already had a ring picked out - both of their lives seemed to be so wrapped up around this shop that Will was probably going to accidentally witness the proposal.
He wasn’t sure he would survive if he had to be a part of that.
Piper huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re really not leaving?”
Nico leaned against the counter in front of Will’s desk, popping his chin up on his hand, and hummed. “Doesn’t look like it, does it?”
With a roll of her eyes, Piper spun on her heel and took off toward her office.
As soon as she was gone, Nico was pointing that dazzling smile of his back at Will and asking, “So, have you put any more thought into your ink?”
Will had been counting down the minutes with nervous taps of his fingers against his desk, though the moment only started to feel real when Nico burst through the door, smiling brightly in Will’s direction as he bounded inside.
“Hey!” Nico greeted excitedly. “Today’s the day! How are you feeling?”
Will wiped his sweaty palms against his thighs. “Nervous. But I'm excited.”
“Good,” Nico replied, “to the excitement, I mean. You don’t need to be nervous. Besides, I’ll be here to hold your hand through the whole thing - that should help, right?”
Will wasn’t sure how to answer, and was luckily saved from having to do so when Mitchell appeared at his side, having volunteered to hang out at the front for an hour or so while Will got his first tattoo. While he got settled in at Will’s desk, Nico led the way back toward Piper’s usual chair, where the artist herself was finishing setting up.
Hesitantly, Will took a seat in Piper’s chair while Nico grabbed a rolling chair from Mitchell’s station and wheeled it over to Will’s side. He spun it around so that the back of it faced Will, and when Nico sat down, he rested his arms over the back of the chair, leaning forward. “What’s the plan?”
With permission, Will lifted the stencil off of Piper’s tray table, holding it out for Nico to see - a stylized sun that Hazel had drawn originally, though Piper had put a bit of her own spin on it, which Will had been more than happy with.
“Cool,” Nico told him, grinning brightly at the design. “And where did you say it was going? On your chest, right? So that it stays hidden when you need it to be?”
“Right,” Will answered, and only then did he realize that he would need to take off his t-shirt in order to get inked. Oh, god, why hadn’t he worn a button-up shirt that day? At least then he wouldn’t have to get totally shirtless in front of Nico - and his boss.
“You better strip, then,” Piper told him before she tested the tattoo gun in her hand, a dull buzz sounding from the machine. A second later, her head snapped up, and her cheeks colored slightly. “I’m so sorry, please pretend that I didn’t just say that to you. I promise, I don’t condone sexual harassment in the workplace, it was a total accident--”
“Don’t worry about it,” Will replied, laughing it off, though he stopped laughing as soon as the shirt was pulled over his head. He thought he could feel NIco’s eyes on him - but that didn’t make sense. Nico shouldn’t have a single care in the world over how Will looked, not when he should be looking at Piper.
Will settled back against the chair, locking his eyes on the ceiling and releasing a slow, steady breath. After a beat, he felt fingers brushing against his own a moment before locking together. Will tipped his head to the side and met Nico’s eyes, finding him already grinning back.
“Last chance to back out,” Nico joked, giving Will’s hand a squeeze.
“I’m not sure you would let me, even if I wanted to.”
Piper appeared a second later with an alcohol wipe in hand, cleaning that skin where Will directed her as she explained, “First is just alcohol - sorry if it’s cold. Then, I’ll place the stencil. We’ll make sure it’s in the right spot, the right size, blah blah blah. That’s your last chance to back out. Because after that is permanent ink, and I won’t let you call it quits halfway through.”
She went through the steps just as she’d described them, wiping Will’s skin clean, placing a stencil, and then handing Will a small mirror to get a look at the outline on his chest. He caught himself grinning back at his reflection. Without much more than a nod from Will, Piper got to work.
Will tried not to take too deep of breaths while Piper was working, not wanting to make her job any harder by having a moving canvas, though once he heard the familiar buzz and felt the first prick of the needle against his skin, his anxiety spiked.
Nico’s hand slipped back into his, almost as if it belonged there. It took Will a second to realize that Piper and Nico had struck up a conversation around him, only catching on once Piper raised her voice over the sound of the tattoo gun: “You little bitch!” She lifted her head to point a glare in Nico’s direction, the needle leaving Will’s skin while her eyes were away. “You’re the reason Shel’s been asking about wedding stuff recently, aren’t you?”
Nico rolled his eyes, though Will doubted that Piper saw it - she’d already gotten back to work. “Or maybe it’s the fact that we were all just at Jason and Leo’s wedding last weekend. People start thinking about weddings when they’re surrounded by one.”
Will really did not want to hear Nico and Piper talk about weddings - and being literally pinned to a chair between the two of them was maybe the worst possible place to be during that conversation. He couldn’t even escape by trying to drown out the conversation; his own head was swimming with thoughts that sprung from every little thing that Nico and Piper had said. Shel was probably a mutual friend of theirs - one that was close enough to Piper to spend time alone with her, and one that might plant seeds of thought into Piper’s brain on Nico’s request. Nico was probably using Shel as a sort of spy to help him plan the perfect proposal, once the time came.
If only Nico would let go of his hand. Maybe then Will might be able to think a single normal thought by the time his tattoo was finished.
The first thing Will did after Piper had finished was slip his hand free from Nico’s and lift himself from the chair. He stretched his arms over his head as he walked toward a full-length mirror that rested against one wall, giving himself a minute to breathe away from Nico while also checking out his new tattoo.
The sun had been perfectly drawn, the middle of it about the size of Will’s palm with flares stretching out away from the neatly drawn edges. Will couldn’t have asked for a better first tattoo, and he was going to be thanking Piper for it every day for the foreseeable future. And Nico - he’d have to thank him, too, for using up his tab to pay for it.
“Looks great,” Nico said, appearing over Will’s shoulder and spying on the ink in the mirror.
“Thanks,” Will replied as he turned to face the other man, “and thanks again for paying for it.”
“Happy to.” Nico shifted closer, reaching up with one hand to trace the outline of the sun with the tips of his ice cold fingers - Will suppressed a shiver at the touch. “It really is amazing,” Nico continued, and a moment later, his eyes dipped down, then up again, as though he was scanning Will, “though I guess anything would look good on such a pretty canvas.”
Will startled back a half step, his hand catching Nico’s and holding it away from him. His gaze flickered toward Piper, who was still across the room, cleaning up her station. “Look, Nico,” Will started, trying to keep his voice down so that Piper wouldn’t overhear. “I don’t know if this is intentional or not, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to survive if you keep flirting with me like this, okay? Partially because, oh my god, but also, like-- Whatever’s going on between you and Piper seems pretty serious, and I really like his job, so I don’t want her to think that I’m trying to get in the middle of anything and end up firing me. Because I also, like, need this job. And I’m not saying that you’re not great! You’re super great, and I really like you, but I couldn’t do that to Piper, you know?”
The only word Will could think of to describe Nico’s face was shock.
That is, before he burst out laughing.
Maybe Will had been reading this the wrong way.
He was suddenly getting flashbacks to middle school gym class, with his shirt off and a pretty boy laughing at him. At least there wasn’t anybody else in the shop at that time of day.
“Piper’s gay,” Nico said, once he was able to get the words out, halfway hunched over and holding his stomach, “and I’m, like, really gay.”
Will’s jaw dropped. “But you-- You kept talking about weddings, and getting married--”
“Because we were both in our best friends’ wedding,” Nico explained. “I was the best man, and she was the maid of honor.”
“So, all of the flowers--”
Nico grinned. “I gave them a discount.”
“But you always brought them over here--”
“Yeah, because Piper has a car, and I don’t,” Nico answered. “She took everything to the venue for me.”
Will threw his arms out to his sides. “She was asking you to propose!”
Nico snorted. “Her and her girlfriend have been hinting at each other to propose for years. I’m just trying to help her get her head out of her ass!”
Will felt like he might collapse. “Have I been a complete idiot this entire time?”
“Only a little bit,” Nico teased, shifting closer with another bright grin. “Would it help if I spelled it out for you?”
“It couldn’t hurt,” Will answered. Somehow, he’d only just realized how much shorter Nico was - the perfect height for Will to press a kiss to his forehead, really. And now, with Nico standing so close, Will had to tilt his head down just to keep his eyes on Nico’s.
“Alright. I like you,” Nico told him, his smile only growing. “I had thought I’d made that clear, but apparently not. I mean, I don’t use up my tab on just anybody.”
Will frowned. “I thought you said that everybody deserves a free tattoo.”
“Yeah, because I was flirting with you,” Nico pointed out with a roll of his eyes, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “And, actually, I’ve changed my mind. I’m taking back your free tattoo.”
Will glanced down at the ink now permanently embedded in his skin. “Uh.”
“You can pay me back by taking me out to dinner sometime.”
“Oh.” Will blinked, then nodded. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Good. Now, I have to get back to work, but I’ll see you around, Sunshine.” Nico lightly patted the tattoo on Will’s chest before stepping around him and heading toward the door. Will stood frozen for a moment, racing to process everything that had just happened.
“Took you long enough,” Piper commented as she started toward her office.
Will felt his face catch fire, and he called back after her, “Propose to your girlfriend, and then we’ll talk!”