Chapter Text
Nico was going to lose his mind
There isn’t much etiquette for sitting in a lecture. Barely anything he would get too mad at on a good day. But he got here early. He claimed his seat in the back the second the class was open for seating. A seat right by the wall, with a direct path to the door, but still with an aisle to get to it, so there wouldn’t be a lot of traffic near him. An isolated seat at the back of the hall.
He picked this seat because he thought it would be quiet, in a desperate attempt to get rid of the overstimulated feeling he couldn’t shake since he woke up that morning.
And some random blonde motherfucker decided to sit right fucking next to him.
Honestly, he couldn’t fathom why weird blondes seemed to congregate near him, but the boy’s headphones were literally blaring Maisie Peters. Seriously, who the fuck blares music in a dead empty and silent lecture hall? That fucker apparently.
Trying to contain the urge to turn and fully glare at the guy, Nico let out a tiny huff of air, grinding his teeth together as people filed into the lecture hall. All of them seemed to follow the basic routine of spacing themselves out properly, he noted angrily.
The boy finally succumbed to turning off his dickhead music when the prof arrived and started their spiel.
Around 40 minutes into the lecture, Nico had just about had it all over again, homicidal thoughts returning with a fervor. For reasons unknown and inexplicable, the ass had decided to wrap a random bandage around his arm, foot tapping on the floor quietly.
A loud yelp came from the front of the hall, cutting off the professor’s speech, and an entire bookshelf’s worth of massive textbooks suddenly crashed to the floor, spreading across the carpet. The boy next to him let out a screech previously unheard of from human vocal cords and the pencil case he held suddenly went smashing into Nico’s face.
”Oh my gods, I am so sorry!” Nico’s eyes opened from their scrunched position to see the asshole himself hunched in front of him. “Are you alright?”
Most of the class had flocked to the front of the class, and Nico refused to feel grateful that this blonde jerk had prioritized him. After all, it was his fault Nico’s eye’s watered and throbbing pain radiated back from his nose.
So, because Nico was a very rational person who knew how to respond to people trying to help him, he squawked out the only reasonable thing that came to mind.
”What the fuck is your problem?”
Nico regretted the words the moment he opened his mouth. Just cause the guy had been a bit annoying didn’t mean that he deserved to be snapped at. It was just that literally nothing was going right for him and everything this boy did seemed to make it worse. The annoyance had been building up under his skin since he’d woken up that morning, and the tapping of this guy's foot and his headphones bleeding into the quiet that Nico had been praying for when he got his perfect seat was going to make him lose his mind.
Everything was so insanely overstimulating and the crash of the bookshelf was just the last fucking straw. He couldn’t actually blame this dude, but he also didn’t have the energy to take it back. His throbbing nose was just adding to the overwhelm.
He could clearly see when his words hit the boy in front of him. The way that he pulled back slightly, eyebrows raising even higher than they already sat on his forehead.
”Well, my sincerest apologies for trying to help.”
”Wha-“ Nico was this close to reconsidering his snap judgment of this guy, but now he could just fuck off, thank you very much. Today sucked. “You’re the one who hit me in the face!”
”It was an accident!”
”Still.” His chest was tight, almost close to hyperventilation and if there wasn’t still so much commotion in the front of the room, he would have probably made a break for it now.
The boy in front of him narrowed his eyes, making a concerned little hum in the back of his throat. “Okay, seriously. Are you okay?”
”Obviously not,” Nico mutters sarcastically, “You smacked me in the face.”
”No, I mean you’re hyperventilating. You need to breathe.”
“Oh wow, why didn’t I think of that.”
“Smartass,” The guy rolled his eyes, shifting into what Nico assumed was a more comfortable way to kneel. “Seriously, is there anything I can do to help?”
Nico shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut to at least block out one of his senses. “I’m just overstimulated.”
“I have noise canceling headphones if you want to borrow them. Would that help?” As much as Nico wanted to have someone to be annoyed at, this guy somehow seemed to say all of the correct stuff.
Reluctantly, Nico nodded, taking them from the boy’s hands the second he produced them from his bag.
”You okay?” He asked, once Nico’s breathing had evened out. Nico hummed his assent, pulling the headphones off and handing them back.
The boy pinched the bridge of his nose in a way that was so intensely movie-esque that it almost gave Nico whiplash. “Okay. Starting over,” He extended his hand out to Nico, giving a warm smile, “I’m Will Solace, and I’m very sorry about that dickhead who accidentally threw his pencil case at you. He obviously should be executed with haste. What’s your name?”
The spiel was corny, this Will guy did deserve to be executed, and Nico really wished he didn’t find this whole thing mildly endearing. But the corners of his lips twitched and the blonde seemed to take that as a win.
“Nico di Angelo,” he says, begrudgingly taking Will’s hand, “I hope you know this doesn’t mean I want to be friends or anything.”
“I just wanted to check if you were feeling okay after that evil man assaulted you like that.”
“…Thanks, Solace.”
Will grabbed his pencil case from the floor, shoving it into his bag as the prof announced to the class that they would be released early due to the ‘mishap’. “Last names are cold, di Angelo.”
Before he could gather his thoughts enough for an indignant squawk, Will had already slung his bag around his shoulders, heading down the aisle to the door. Nico groaned, rubbing his eyes until greenish bursts swirled behind his lids.
What an obnoxious man.