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As soon as the words were out of Lou’s mouth, Nico’s feet left the ground. The room seemed more crowded than he remembered as he tried to squeeze through the throngs of people, not wanting to cause a scene but needing to move. He had to get to Will - now - before he did something he might not be able to come back from.
The music overhead blared, the people crushing around him and causing his pulse to spike. He forced his feet to move, his lungs to draw in and expel air at a measured pace, his hands to guide him past and around people without grabbing or shoving.
He couldn’t panic. He needed Will.
After only a few seconds - too long, what if he was too late? - Nico finally reached the door that he’d watched close from across the room, and threw it open without a second thought. As he rushed inside, the door slamming shut and cutting off the sound from the rest of the party, Nico almost tripped over something laying across the floor.
Some one.
The room was sparsely lit, just a streak coming up from the crack under the door and the red glow of an exit sign on the opposite end of the room, but Nico could tell instantly that it wasn’t Will on the floor; the hair didn’t glow golden even in the dark.
He heard a hitch of breath off to one side, and there he was: Will, with his back pressed to the wall, was breathing rapidly, his body stock still aside from the fast movement of his chest.
Nico pushed himself onward, his hand finding Will’s shoulder in the dark as his eyes struggled to adjust and patting upward until he felt the skin of Will’s neck over the collar of his jacket, then a sticky, wet cheek. Tears, Nico assured himself, and nothing worse.
“Will,” Nico said, his voice low until it failed to earn a reaction. “Will.” With his hands on both sides of Will’s head, he tried to force Will to meet his eyes. Even in the dim lighting, Nico could tell that Will’s eyes were wide, his gaze frantically darting back and forth.
One of Nico’s hands slid below Will’s jawline, barely passing over his pulse point but still feeling the fast pounding of his heart. “What happened?” Nico tried again. “Will, what did you take?”
Will’s breath hitched again, his eyes finally snapping to meet Nico’s. “I didn’t take anything!” he exclaimed. Nico had adjusted to the dark just enough to note that Will’s pupils were blown wide, blacking them out more than Nico had ever seen.
Nico had had more experience with musicians on drugs than he cared to think about, but nothing could have prepared him for the wild look in Will’s eyes.
He kept a strong grip on the sides of Will’s head, not allowing him to turn away. “I know he had coke on him,” Nico said. “How much did you take?”
“I didn’t,” Will sobbed.
The door to the party opened, allowing more light into the room for a few brief seconds. In that time, at least, Nico could confirm that the stickiness of Will’s cheeks was the result of his tears, and that his eyes were colored only by the thinnest stripe of sky blue surrounding his giant pupils.
“What the fuck?” Kayla exclaimed. Nico’s head whipped toward the sound of her voice and caught a glimpse of Kayla standing just beyond the doorway before Lou slammed the door shut behind them.
Will shifted under Nico’s hold, a whimper of, “Oh, god,” the only warning that Will’s legs were about to give out from under him. Nico barely managed to catch Will under one arm to help slow his slide down the wall until he was seated on the ground. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I-- I didn’t mean to--”
Nico knelt at his side, keeping a hand on Will’s arm to remind Will that he was still there - and to assure Nico that Will wasn’t going to panic and take off.
“Lou, can you--” he started, and looked over to see Lou already kneeling beside the DOA executive that was spread out across the floor.
“Please tell me he isn’t dead,” Will begged.
Kayla, still standing above all of them, said, “What did you do?”
Will curled forward, burying his face in his hands.
Nico pulled Will closer to him, wrapping an arm around Will’s shaking shoulders. “Lou, I need you to take care of this. I need to get Will to a hospital or something - I think he had too much--”
“I didn’t take anything!” Will cried out, his voice cracking as he threw his arms out, almost pushing Nico away. “This isn’t even what I’m like on cocaine!”
Will’s breath caught as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and that was the last thing Nico heard for a few seconds. He tried to meet Lou’s gaze in the dark, just to make sure he’d heard that right, but then Will was curling up again, pressing his face into Nico’s chest.
His hand closed around the front of Nico’s shirt. “I wanna go home,” he whispered. “Can we please go home?”
“Okay,” Nico told him, wrapping both arms around him as he felt Will’s tears beginning to seep through his shirt. He looked toward Lou and Kayla. “I’m going to sneak Will out of here. Can the two of you--”
“I’m going wherever Will goes,” Kayla cut in, finally unfreezing from her spot near the door and crouching at Will’s other side, nearly overbalancing in her heels.
There wasn’t any point in arguing. Kayla wouldn’t give in, and it would only waste time. “Fine, whatever. Lou, can you make something up? Get help, and just say you… found him like this. Will was never here.”
“Got it,” Lou replied, rising to her feet. She pulled her phone from the pocket in her dress and clicked on the flashlight. “I’ll give you ten minutes to get out of here before I call for help. Make sure you don’t step on him on your way out.”
Nico turned to Kayla, now able to see the concern in her eyes under the glow of Lou’s flashlight. “Help me get him up,” Nico told her. They each grabbed him under an arm and hoisted him up, leading him out under the exit sign across the room.
“I’m sorry,” Will kept muttering as they took him down one flight of stairs after another, “I never wanted this to happen.”
Once they finally made it outside the building and across the parking lot to Nico’s car, Kayla told him, “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Will. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Under the streetlights, his face was horribly red and puffy, his cheeks shiny from tears and his lips trembling. “I’m a terrible brother,” he breathed before throwing himself at Kayla, sobbing into her shoulder.
“You’re not,” she assured him, growing misty eyed herself as fear and worry built. “You’re the best brother I’ve ever had. Can you-- Let’s get in the car, Will.”
The two siblings climbed into the backseat, Will still clinging to Kayla and muttering apologies as Nico got into the driver’s seat, starting the car.
He met Kayla’s eyes in the rearview mirror, matching terrified gazes as Will let out another sob.