ꜱᴏʟᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏ ᴏɴᴇꜱʜᴏᴛꜱ

Things You Said After You Kissed Me

I.

Their first kiss was half accident and half fate, or so Will liked to think. The two boys had reached a delicate sort of symbiosis over the years in which they'd been friends, the juxtaposition of their personalities making the relationship all the more tenuous.

Will liked Nico. He'd known that for a long, long time. He liked Nico's darkness, and the way he looked even darker standing next to Will. He liked Nico's voice and Nico's short temper and Nico's rash streak of aggressive bravery. He liked touching Nico most of all, because Nico used to scowl at him and slap him away, and now he blushed and stammered and turned his eyes towards the ground, and Will felt, absurdly, like things were changing.

So Will stooped down to press his lips to Nico's cheek one night before they retired to their respective cabins. So he craved contact and Nico's blush and the flash of sparks that exploded from wherever his skin and Nico's brushed. That was fine, wasn't it? Understandable. Innocent.

But then Nico turned his head to ask Will something, or tell him off, or maybe just say goodnight, and then their mouths collided.

Will shot backwards, his palms slapped over his mouth, and Nico's eyes flew open wide, one of his hands coming up to cover the flush of red spreading from the tips of his ears to his throat.

"I'm sorry," Will gasped. "Oh, my God, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-"

Nico's shoulders were very still, his mouth shaping words he couldn't seem to articulate. "No, I... I mean, whatever, it's not a big deal-"

"No, I'm - shit, I really-"

They had trouble making eye contact for a day or two after that.

II.

Their next kiss, by contrast, was deliberate, assured, insistent. They were playing video games in Nico's cabin, several weeks after The Incident, and, when Will won (for the first time ever), he laughed elatedly and did a stupid little dance, turning to point at Nico's face.

"Ha! Eat my ass, di Angelo!"

Nico was staring at him, almost contemplatively. And then, before Will fully understood what was happening, he was being tugged forward, Nico's fist closed in his collar.

Nico's mouth was warm and soft and he made very soft sounds in his throat when Will's lips parted, and it was heaven, Will thought. Surely this was heaven.

When they broke apart, Nico said, still deadpan (though there was a deep flush in his cheeks), "Want to go again?"

Will gaped at him. Nico gestured at the video game. "I won't lose this time."

He didn't.

III.

Their kisses changed and grew and Will kept them all cupped between his palms, the most precious secrets he possessed, the most beautiful treasures he owned. Three was on the forehead. Five was chaste and slow. Seven was smoldering and electric, Will's hands coming up to cup Nico's face, trace designs on his cheekbones, memorize the planes of his jaw.

Their lips parted in tandem, and Nico's mouth was deliciously hot and wet and Will wanted to feel it everywhere, everywhere, wanted to let this moment consume him. And Nico's tongue tasted like the future, and Will's fingers wouldn't stop shaking, and he couldn't help thinking he could die perfectly happy, just like this.

"I want to tell Jason and Hazel about us," Nico told him, after Kiss Number Seven.

Will nodded, his body still soaring, infected with Nico's smell and taste and feel.

"Okay." He hesitated, then murmured, "Um, Nico... What are we?"

Nico shrugged, ruffled a hand through his hair. "Just guys being dudes. Bros hanging out. You know. No homo, man."

Will coughed and Nico laughed and said, "I'm joking, Solace, good gods," and they came together again, and Kiss Number Eight was even better.

IV.

Their fifteenth kiss was under the stars, Nico folded in Will's ancient sweatshirt, Will's nose peeling from a sunburn and a nasty bruise on Nico's cheek from a fight the day before. Will caught Nico's lip between his teeth and their lips stuck as they parted, like their bodies didn't want it to end.

"Ow," they said simultaneously, each wincing and reaching up to touch their own respective injury. Sixteen was less kiss and more giggle.

V.

Thirty was sloppy and rushed, painted with fingers, twisted in hair and slipping under fabric and pulling impatiently at waistbands and belts. Their heavy, ragged breathing was punctuated by Will's voice, pressed against Nico's throat, at the corner of his lips, on the smooth lines of his stomach.

"I love you, I love you, I love you."

VI.

Thirty-one kiss was afterward, while they lay together with their arms and legs and minds intertwined. Will buried his face in Nico's hair, kissed the crown of his head gently, again and again and again.

"Okay?" he asked Nico, and Nico snorted.

"I crawled out of Tartarus, Solace, and you're asking me whether I can handle taking it in the ass?"

It took a solid half an hour for Will to stop blushing.

VII.

Fifty-seven was on the streets of Baltimore, on the campus of Johns Hopkins Medical School. Will's heart was beating so fast he could barely breathe, his pulse thrumming in his throat.

Nico slapped him on the back of the head gently.

"You'll be fine," he said. "Better than fine. So stop worrying like a loser."

Will beamed at him and brushed his lips at the base of Nico's skull, below his ear. "Aw, you do care. So sweet."

Nico nudged him with his shoulder. "Shut up."

VIII.

Will wasn't quite sure the exact numbers of the kisses Nico gave him when they moved in together. He was beginning to lose track, each kiss fading into the next, until Will's chest was full of a warm, yellowish glow that seemed to take up all of creation.

Will took Nico by the hand and led him from room to room, drawing their mouths together dramatically in each one. Nico finally stopped him in the kitchen. "What the hell are you doing, Solace?"

He tilted Nico's head up and traced his mouth along Nico's jawline, across the bridge of his nose. Nico growled and turned his face to capture Will's mouth with his own, his tongue tracing the interior of Will's mouth.

"I'm going to kiss you in every room," Will announced, when Nico allowed him to pull away. And he did.

IX.

Will stopped counting kisses long before their wedding day, but when they kissed for the first time as husbands, he could tell the taste was different. The onlookers cheered - Will could hear Leo and Percy wolf-whistling, and it sounded like Jason was crying in the front row. Nico was smiling against his mouth, so much so that it was hard to kiss him properly, and when they broke apart, his grin was so brilliant, it drowned out the sun.

Will pressed a soft kiss to his nose and wiped at the itchy heat in his own eyes.

"Love you," he chirped.

"I love you, too."