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“Nico?”
“Yeah, Will?”, Nico replied. Will had gotten home from his shift at the hospital a couple of minutes ago, and had just changed out of his scrubs and taken a shower. Nico had finished cooking dinner, so he went to give Will a hug and a kiss.
“Is something wrong?”, asked Nico. There had been more monster attacks recently. What if something had happened at his boyfriend’s workplace?
“No, actually,” Will smiled. “I have something for you. Just a second.”
Nico relaxed a bit. He was glad his boyfriend was ok. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if Will wasn’t.
Nico nodded and went to sit on the couch in the living room as Will went and grabbed a piece of paper.
“I wrote this for you, my amazing and beautiful boyfriend.” Will winked, and Nico tried (and failed) to stop himself from blushing. Nico smiled as Will sat down beside him. What had he done to deserve such a perfect boyfriend?
He looked down at the paper again.
It read:
I don’t care if you think you’re broken. I don’t care if your heart is barely beating. I don’t care if you think it should stop. You are kind. You are beautiful. You make me happy. You helped me when I needed it. I don’t know if I’m capable of love, but you make me want to try to be. You can survive this. And even if I’m wrong, I will never blame you for it.
I love you always and forever.
-Will
Nico smiled at Will with tears in his eyes.
Will and Nico both had their own struggles. Nico dealt with feelings of insecurity and isolation so bad that sometimes he thought that his friends would be better off if he was dead.
Nico was always scared that his friends would abandon him. Bianca had. She had left him for immortality that she never got to use. He knew why, but he had never quite been able to forgive her for that.
He couldn’t always eat. He was almost never hungry, and he felt like food would be wasted on someone like him. Will helped by reminding Nico that food was necessary for his immediate survival.
Nico had also used to cut himself. He’d gotten better about it after Will sat him down and talked to him about coping mechanisms. It wasn’t perfect, but the old scars had started to fade, and new cuts rarely replaced them.
Will had his own problems too. Nico sometimes woke up in the middle of the night to find Will hyperventilating in bed next to him. Nico would sit next to him and hold his hands until the panic attack passed. Will didn’t always tell Nico what had triggered the panic attack, but it was usually about not being able to save someone.
Nico often wondered if his boyfriend tried so hard to save everyone because no one had saved him. Will had been thrust into the role of helper before he even knew what it truly meant.
Will didn’t always know what he was feeling. He went numb sometimes. Nothing could help except for time.
But they were both healing. That was what mattered.
“Will, this is beautiful.” Nico was trying his best to hold back tears, but the slight wobble in his voice gave him away. He kissed Will.
Will kissed him back. “Thank you, Nico. You’ve helped me so through so much. I don’t think I would ever have gotten this far without you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Nico gave up on trying to hold back his tears. He and Will were both crying now. They loved each other so much it hurt sometimes.
Nico and Will cuddled on the couch until Will fell asleep. Nico smiled at is unconscious boyfriend. Will was beautiful, ever when he was snoring slightly. Nico fell asleep a little later, safe and warm in his boyfriend’s embrace.
They both smiled as they slept.