Lullaby(Solangelo High School AU)

Sette

Thankfully, no one was home.

Jeremy has work, and won't be home until eight. Naomi is...somewhere. Work? A bar? Whichever. Luna completely ditched Will and left to hang out with her friends like the Sister Of The Year she is.

Nico scanned Will's house with a blank expression. His eyes slowly drifted from one place to another as he followed Will upstairs.

Will quickly did a mental check of his bedroom as they lumbered down the hall. He hadn't folded his bed. There were drawings in a folder in his desk. Nico better not be one of those assholes that go through your drawers and demand to see everything regardless if it makes you uncomfortable or not. He had a jacket wrapped around his chair, but that was it.

Will gave weak jazz hands as he stood in the middle of his room. "Welcome to my Man Cave."

Nico spun around as he viewed Will's room. Luckily, he was not immediately drawn to the drawers, which Will found was a good sign. He pointed at the stuffed hamster on Will's bed though. 

"You still have stuffed animals?" He asked, eye brow raising.

Will blushed. "Um, that's actually my sister Kayla's."

Nico sauntered over and picked it up. Will felt a prick of protectiveness for the hamster, but flicked it off.

"Stellar," he said bluntly. He pushed a hand through his hair. Will felt a strange urge to run his hand through Nico's hair as well. Then he mentally slapped himself. He shouldn't be such an idiot and think such thoughts.

"Fuck you Piper," Nico muttered to himself. "This is harder than I thought."

"We can just work on the project," Will offered. Nico scoffed.

"No."

"Alright."

The two stared the opposite way the other one was. With an inwardly exasperated groan, Will noticed another thick blanket of awkward tension. Why were they still standing in the middle of his room anyway?

"Ever played twenty questions?" Will asked.

Nico nodded.

Silence.

"Do you wanna uh..?"

"Uh....yeaaaah."

Silence.

"What's your favorite color?" Will asked.

"Black. Yours?"

"Yellow." Will blushed and gestured around his room, where the color yellow exploded from every corner. "In case you couldn't tell."

Nico nodded. Will scratched the back of his neck. "Uh," he started, immediately winning the award for best conversationalist without breaking a sweat, "do you...have a dog...?"

"Nope."

"I take that as personal offense. What about a cat?"

"One question only, Solace." The smallest hint of a smile-maybe a smirk-shown on Nico's lips. "And for the record, I take it as personal offense you don't have any dark colors in this room."

Will gestured at the black Fall Out Boy poster he had. Nico rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Why do you have your sister's stuffed animal?"

Will felt his shoulders droop as his gaze dropped to the floor. "After she died, I just couldn't let it be thrown out. It was her favorite stuffed animal and...and it feels like a piece of her with me."

Nico's eyes softened from his usual guarded look. He sat down on the bed, gesturing for Will to do the same.

"Tell me about her," he said softly when Will sat down. Will reached and placed the stuffed hamster on his lap, he hands resting on its head.

"She...she looked more like my mom than my dad," Will whispered. Nico leaned forward to hear him better. "My mom's dad had ginger hair, and whatever science happened, Kayla had the same. She told me she wanted to dye it green when she was older. She had so many freckles, like me, but they made her beautiful. Sometimes I wonder how we were even related. She wanted to be an Olympic archer."

Will continued to tell Nico everything about his sister. Nico listened intently the whole time, only chiming in to ask a few questions. For the first time, Will felt like he could breathe. Talking to Nico about Kayla made him feel so much better.

"I loved her," Will said, his eyes brimming with tears. "I love her. But she's dead and I don't know what to do anymore."

Nico gazed at him intensely. "My sister died too," he finally said after a few tense moments of silence. Will perked up. "Her name was Bianca. She wasn't Persephone's daughter. Our mom was named Maria who died in a lightning strike."

The next few minutes were filled with Nico telling Will about Bianca. And her death. Will repeated the action Nico had did for him: listening carefully. He learned how Bianca had made new friends with a couple of girls from school that called themselves the Hunters. They hung out a junk yard. One day, while they were exploring, an old car that tested on a small tower of other trash fell on Bianca. When the police came, they found she had thrown a bag out of harms way before she was crushed. Inside was a figurine form a card game Nico used to like.

"It's all my fault," Nico said. "If she hadn't gone to buy that and just happened to run into the Hunters as they were heading for the junkyard..." he shook his head. "I killed my sister."

"No," Will said firmly. "The car fell. It crushed her. You had absolutely no fault in the whole thing."

Nico stared at Will with curious eyes. "You're an interesting one, you know Solace?"

"No, not really..?"

Nico smiled softly, which Will found was much better than his frown. It made him look happy, and made Will's chest bubble up for whatever reason.

"You like Fall Out Boy?" Nico asked suddenly, pointed at the poster.

"Well I mean if that wasn't obvious enough-"

Nico grinned, and Will was in the process of deciding whether he liked Grinning Nico or Smiling Nico better when the boy pulled out his phone and earbuds.

"Ever heard of My Chemical Romance?"

"Um, no?"

Now Smirking Nico made his appearance. It was definitely causing Will's stomach to tie into knots. Which, he added, was not a very comfortable feeling. He would advice others out there to avoid getting your guts tied up.

"Put in the earbud, Solace. Let me introduce you to the other member of Emo Music."