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When Nico takes in the sight of Will on his porch, wearing a stupidly bright hoodie and holding his stupid prom sign, he doesn’t even let Will open his big, stupid mouth.
“Absolutely not.”
Nico punctuates the sentence by slamming the door in Will’s face– mostly to spite Will, mostly so Nico can slump against it as dramatic tears leak from his eyes.
Will knocks again.
Nico opens the door, again, because he’s an idiot. He looks right at that stupid sign, and he already knows the sight of it will be burned into his eyelids when he tries to go to sleep tonight.
“What do you mean, ‘absolutely not’?” Will asks, sounding more annoyed and confused than anything.
“No, I’m not going to prom with you. I thought that was obvious.” Nico shuts the door again. He really needs that second satisfying thump to drown out the memory of all those gushing comments Will made this semester about his perfect plan to ask his perfect crush out to prom.
Well, just because Will’s perfect guy said no, or Will chickened out, or whatever circumstances brought Will to Nico’s door– none of that means Nico is going to be Will’s pity date to prom. He bites back the humiliating memory of what Nico did in Will’s car yesterday; he especially isn’t going to go to prom with Will if Will is the one pitying him .
Will knocks again.
Nico glares at the door. He’s not opening that. He’s going to ignore Will, block his number, pretend to do his pre-calc homework while not thinking about Will or his crush or his stupid promposal.
“Nico.” The word comes out as an irritated sigh. Will has apparently slipped even further into his ‘what do you mean you haven’t slept in thirty hours’ voice. “Open the door or I’m going to break in through a window.”
“That would be illegal.”
“So call the cops on me.”
Nico can’t deny that the idea of Will being put in jail for a day would be satisfying. But he also knows, logically, that it isn’t Will’s fault that he’s in love with someone who isn’t Nico. And, yeah, maybe it was a bit of a dick move for Will to say absolutely nothing after Nico all but confessed his love then kissed him, and it’s definitely a dick move for Will to show up now with that stupid sign, but if Nico wants to be able to take the moral high ground here, he needs to open the door.
So he does. He’s saving himself a broken window, if nothing else.
“What do you want, Solace?”
Nico shuts the door, leaning up against it and crossing his arms. He should’ve put on a hoodie or something; the black t-shirt he’s got on isn’t doing much against the chilly spring wind. But most of his hoodies were Will’s at one point, and he’s definitely not touching any of those today, and especially not in front of Will.
“I feel like we’re not on the same page.”
Yeah, no, Nico’s pretty sure they both know exactly where they stand. Will is the pretty, sunshine-y, outgoing senior, and Nico is the emo loner who Will somehow decided was the perfect candidate to help him plan the perfect promposal for his crush. And Nico, having been friends with Will for years, really thought he’d be able to handle seeing Will in love with someone else.
As it turns out, he can’t. Hence the… conversation they had, where Nico dumped out a lot of feelings he swore would only be between him and his stuffed animals, and the kiss that followed. Specifically, Nico kissing Will. And Will not kissing back. And Will watching Nico silently with a probably-horrified expression when Nico pulled away.
Hence Nico running away and considering changing his name or finding some weird magical casino where he can camp out for the next eighty years or so.
And, now, Will probably wants to talk, and Nico had been hoping for a gentle let-down, but it seems Will has decided to go the other route, of dangling the very thing Nico would love in front of his face, covered in a thin veil of…well, being a pity date to prom.
Nico can feel his eyes burning just a little, and he’s going to swear it’s the wind, but there’s another little piece of his dignity chipping off and getting dissolved in his stomach acid, anyway.
“So…” Will continues, looking like he’s starting to regret showing up– which, yes, he should. “We should probably talk about…that. How we both feel.”
“Absolutely not.”
Will sighs. The prom sign is lax in his fingers, in danger of falling onto Nico’s porch. Nico half-hopes Will just leaves it so he can curb-stomp it to death.
“Nico.”
“Will,” Nico mocks. “If I wanted to talk to you, I wouldn’t’ve ran out of your car after I– after that .”
“After you kissed me.”
Nico clenches his jaw. “Yes. That.”
“So you regret it? Kissing me?”
Nico rolls his eyes, crossing his arms a little tighter over his chest. “Wouldn’t you?”
Will stares at Nico for a long time, his mouth open. Then, he lets out a noise of pure frustration, dragging his free hand through his already-messy blonde curls. “I don’t get it. This year was supposed to be perfect–”
“Sorry I ruined your promposal,” Nico snaps. “I didn’t ask you to ask me.”
“Are you kidding? We’ve basically spent all year subtly flirting–”
“I was not flirting with you,” Nico protests, his face turning hot again. Yesterday aside, Nico would’ve rather died than tell Will how he felt. “The world doesn’t actually revolve around you–”
“We totally were! I was like ‘oh, I don’t know if he’ll say yes’ and you were like, ‘of course he will’, and then, sure enough, you professed your undying love for me–”
Before the night is over, Nico’s going to punch Will’s stupid face. He really should’ve never answered the door at all. “I told you I didn’t hate your face.”
“Yeah! Which, from you, is basically a love confession. I was going to finally prompose, and you were gonna say yes, and it was going to be great. So what do you mean, ‘absolutely not’?”
Nico’s voice dies in his throat. They’re staring at each other again.
Nico’s never been one to enjoy giving himself false hope, but it really sounds like Will has been planning to ask him out all along. No pity dates at all.
His arms fall to his sides. “If you were going to ask me to prom, then why’d you ask for my help planning?”
“You’re the one who said that if someone tried to ask you out with a pun, you’d say no. I had to find some excuse to run my pun ideas past you.”
“Hold on, you were trying to seduce me and you still went with ‘will you BB my d8 to prom’?”
“You laughed when you first heard that pun. You smiled– you’re smiling now,” Will says, giddy and triumphant, and Nico finds it even harder to fight the smile.
“It’s not the worst pun in the world,” Nico admits.
Will beams at him, and Nico ducks his head, trying to ignore the sudden swell of warmth in his chest.
“Can I start this whole promposal over?” Will asks. “And by that I mean, if you close the door, are you gonna open it again?”
Nico rolls his eyes. “If you were really serious about this, you’d find a window, but sure.”
Nico heads back inside, closing the door. Will knocks again, and Nico takes a deep breath before opening it.
Will is holding his sign– a big white poster board decorated with orange marker and a few stickers of the BB-8 robot from the new Star Wars movies– and he’s beaming, and Nico actually lets him ask this time.
“Nico di Angelo, I don’t want to force you, but will you be my date to prom?”
“Sure,” Nico says, feigning indifference and fighting a smile. “I don’t have anything else planned that day.”
“I’ll take it!” Will exclaims. “And, by the way, about our conversation yesterday, I don’t hate your stupidly attractive face, either.”
“I’m honored,” Nico replies, hoping for dry sarcasm but probably missing.
“And if you wanted to kiss me again, I promise not to freeze up this–”
Before Will can finish his sentence, Nico runs up to him, tugging him down by that stupid hoodie he’s wearing that will most definitely find itself in Nico’s closet. True to his word, Will kisses back, his warm hand cupping Nico’s face as their lips meet.
“Perfect,” Will breathes out as Nico pulls back, resting his forehead against Will’s.
Nico smiles. “Perfect.”