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Will was very verbally affectionate. He'd shower down compliments on anyone who was caught under his storm and when he truly loved someone he would tell the world. His sentences were littered with "love you"s and reassurances. It was helpful for a Cabin Counsellor to be a good talker, especially a genuine one.
Nico was more of a physically affectionate kind of person. Words tended to get stuck and tangled in his throat. He preferred kisses and hugs and lingering touches and the way the warmth of another person felt against his skin. He liked hearing someone's heartbeat or feeling their breath. It was rare to get to be someone close to Nico but once you were he'd suddenly be all over you.
"Emotional constipation!" Percy declared loudly. Annabeth wrinkled her nose.
"Excuse me?"
"That's my diagnosis!" Percy gestured at Nico with broad arms, narrowly avoiding knocking over a vase. "Nico is emotionally constipated but when you get to know him it's like taking a relaxing pill and his bowels of affection start diarrhoeaing out!"
Nico pinched the bridge of his nose. "You couldn't think of any better way to phrase that?"
"Nope." Percy grinned with mostly gum.
"That's it." Nico threw his hands up. "I'm ending the Iris Message. I don't know why I came to you!"
He pulled at his bedsheets, moving to sit cross-legged on his pillow. Percy and Annabeth's apartment in New Rome was full of decorations from vases to artwork to mini models of architecture. It seemed like a hazard with Percy around. Percy was demonstrating that hazard by waving his arms around as he spoke like he was the Italian one.
"I think what Seaweed Brain is trying to say," Annabeth interrupted smoothly, "is that you take a long time to trust people. People have to come to you and earn your trust first and, once they're in, you express your feelings a lot more."
"You make me sound like I'm a cat," Nico grumbled. Percy gasped dramatically.
"Oh my gods! Neko Nico!"
"No!" Nico's eyes widened. "No! Shut up! Shut up right now! This is not about your weird kink about me in cat ears."
"It's not a kink." Percy folded his arms. "It's a vision."
"If that's your kind of vision then don't go replacing Rachel any time soon," Nico deadpanned.
"I would make a great Oracle," Percy protested. "Apollo hit on me once."
Nico winced and rubbed a hand across his face. "That was information I didn't need to know."
"He did!" Percy pressed on. "He had a thing for me!"
Annabeth snorted. "Yeah, you and everyone else on the planet."
"We had a profound bond," Percy disputed.
"Profoundly absurd."
"Aw, you jealous? Don't worry, you're the only woman for me. Unless you were open to a threesome with a Greek god or something-"
"Not happening. Besides, if we ever have a threesome it's going to be with Jason or Piper."
"Or both. That's a definite no on the Apollo thing?"
"Definitely-"
"Guys!" Nico burst out, finally catching their attention. "That's my boyfriend's dad you're talking about!"
"We could be your parents-in-law," Annabeth said solemnly. Nico looked at her with the expression cast on Julius Caesar's face when Brutus stabbed him in the back.
"He's corrupted you," Nico said.
Percy winked. "Actually she was like this when I found her."
"Okay, goodbye. I will talk to you never." Nico swiped his hand across Percy and Annabeth's shimmering faces, cutting the call.
He leaned his head against the wall and sighed loudly.
A knock sounded on his door not three minutes later.
"Nico!" Will's unmistakable voice called. Nico ran a hand through his hair, checking he looked presentable in the mirror on his way to opening the door.
As usual, Will didn't wait for an invitation. He simply barged in the second the door was open.
"Hey, babe!" he chirped, grinning around the lollipop he had in his mouth. "What flavour?"
"Cherry," Nico said, catching the lollipop that was subsequently thrown at him with a type of skill that only comes with experience. He didn't eat it just yet. Instead, he put it in his pocket to find a few months later after he'd long forgotten it. Forgotten lollipops were the nicest.
"I picked apple," Will said.
"You picked wrong," Nico replied. Will's grin only widened.
"I love you."
With the amount of times daily that Will said it, usually completely out of the blue, Nico really shouldn't have been surprised. All the same, he never could stop being caught off guard.
Nico smiled a little. "I love you too."
He was proud that he got the whole thing out. Words often overwhelmed him. Feelings did so even more frequently. "I love you too"s were a lot harder than "love you too"s which were a lot harder than "you too"s which were a lot harder than just kissing Will and hoping the message came across. "I love you too"s with eye contact were very rare.
He decided to kiss Will, who by now had finished his lollipop, despite having been able to said it to try and make extra sure that Will knew.
Will responded with a happy hum, hands roaming over his torso, his shoulders and his back before coming to settle on his waist. Nico pulled back a bit only for Will to close the gap again, following after him eagerly. Nico's fingers trailed along Will's collarbones and then his cheekbones. He didn't have to have his eyes open to know they were flushed.
They were both smiling between kisses and eventually Nico had to pull back to see the smile he could feel. It was bright and lopsided and dopey in the most endearing way.
"I do love you, you know," Nico said, his hands gently cupping Will's face as if he were holding a piece of art. And who's to say he wasn't?
"I know," Will replied, ducking his head to hide his blush. "I love you too. A lot."
"I know," Nico parroted with a grin. "It's just... I'm not good with feelings. They get to be a lot and I clam up and I feel things but I can't say them. The words get lost between my brain and my mouth and it gets all garbled and if I try to force myself to say it then it comes out not right. I can be so happy that it gets to be a lot and it comes out as anger or anxiety or numbness and I don't want you to think I don't love you. I'm just.... emotionally constipated."
Will pressed a kiss to Nico's forehead, pulling them closer together. Nico tucked his head in the dip between Will's throat and shoulder, his hands slipping down to Will's chest.
"I know," Will said. "I'll admit that I didn't know immediately. I thought I was doing something wrong at first or I was going too fast. But then I realised that you show me you love me all the time. You might not say things but you show them through every little worry and gift and touch."
Nico could feel the steady thud of Will's heart, could smell his cologne, could count every freckle on his skin.
"You know," Will said, "there's something my Ma taught me when I was younger. When she'd perform, it would usually be in bars and they'd be busy and loud and crowded. I couldn't hear myself think let alone make out what she was saying. So when she was holding my hand, she would squeeze it three times. She said three times means 'I love you'."
He kissed Nico's curls three times.
"Like that," he said softly.
Nico felt three taps on his waist.
"Or like that."
Nico breathed in and patted Will's chest three times in time with his heartbeats.
"Like that?" Nico said quietly, enjoying the peacefulness of it all.
"Yeah," Will said. "If you can't express anything but you can manage touch then you could always do that and I'd know. I know anyway but if you wanted to."
"Yeah," Nico repeated, moving to catch Will's lips in his own. He kissed him three short times and pulled back. They collapsed into each other, giddy over a number.
After that, Nico started saying I love you almost constantly.
Tap, tap, tap while Will walked through the door.
Tap, tap, tap while Will was stitching up a patient.
Tap, tap, tap while they were drifting off together, wrapped in Will's Star Wars sheets.
Tap, tap, tap while everyone else was watching because they didn't know and they didn't need to. Nico's love was for Will, not for anyone else.
Nico's friends started getting tapped too. If they weren't physically there then Nico would tap his own leg instead. He didn't know if any of them realised what it meant but they accepted it warmly and Nico kept tapping away.
tap, tap, tap
tap, tap, tap
tap, tap, tap