Okay, wow, it has been a long time since I've written. Not that I ever wrote a lot, but damn.

Anyway, this is dedicated to spoopywillsolace/Taylor. Happy Birthday! You're such a wonderful person, I managed to break out of my writing block to bust out this mess of Solangelo for you. I hope you like it :D (please excuse my rusty, chunky writing, it really has been a while and I haven't read Solangelo in a long time)

This is a college/fantasy/magic AU that I've been playing around with, because I'm incapable of reading something without making a fantasy AU out of it. Also it's really self-indulgent, as I think will be evident fairly quickly. I've never been even a little bit good at one-shots, and even on a good day my sentences always tend to get really convoluted, and I am sorry about everything.

Disclaimer: I don't own shit.

Nico swore to himself he wouldn't.

He was dimly aware of the fact that he'd spent the entire lecture staring at the blond boy—at some point the girl sitting to Blondie's right turned, noticed, and actually winked at Nico—but he just couldn't tear his eyes away. The boy had fluffy golden hair, like sunshine, dazzling against his medium-brown skin; when he turned to say something to the boy on his left, Nico caught a glimpse of his open, white-toothed smile and the white headband he was tangling and untangling his fingers in.

Also, there were two ghosts hovering around him—one sitting on the back of his seat, his feet up in Nico's face, whistling a grating tune; the other lounging horizontally in the air above his head, occasionally rolling over to peer down at his notes.

I will not intervene. I will not intervene. I will—

Yet another ghost strolled into the classroom, cutting off Nico's mental chant, and settled down in the seat behind Blondie. Was this boy some kind of ghost magnet?

Nico tried to focus. Organic chemistry wasn't one of his best subjects, which was unfortunate since a forensics science major would kind of need it to be. He squinted at the board, trying to see through the crowd of ghosts directly in his field of vision, but all he could really make out was the pattern in Bad Whistler's shoes. Fuck Blondie, coming in late to class and deciding to sit directly in front of Nico with his entourage of shades. That was just rude.

Also, how many ghosts could a person have before they started feeling the weight?

Nico didn't even realize the lecture had ended until the ghosts stood up to follow Blondie out. The girl—Nico decided to call her Leaping To Conclusions—gave Nico another considering look as they passed. Nico fixed his gaze on the last ghost, a blond pudgy kid who looked a little drunk despite also looking about twelve or thirteen years old, and pretended not to notice her.

Do not engage, Nico repeated, watching them make their way down the aisle towards the door with all the other students. Do not engage. You are done with this world.

Bad Whistler, who had been discussing something with Drunk Child, turned to flip the Levitator off, and his arm passed right through Blondie. Nico watched as Blondie stiffened and turned around, a slight frown on his face, his expression for a split second open and vulnerable and tragically beautiful as if he was perfectly aware of how many dead people hung around him.

Then he noticed Nico, gave him a brief, forced grin, and stepped outside.

Goddammit.

As it turned out, Nico didn't really have a say in whether or not he would deal with Blondie and Co. If Organic Chem was the only time Nico would ever see them, he would've had no problem ignoring them. But then he stepped into the bar, flanked by Reyna and Hazel, and there Blondie was, chatting with Leaping To Conclusions over the counter.

Apparently, Leaping To Conclusions was a bartender at Jason and Reyna's favorite bar. Nico couldn't even bring himself to be surprised. He'd always had shitty luck.

"Hey!" she called out, before Reyna could even order anything. "You in the black shirt! You're in our O-Chem class, right?"

Nico briefly wondered if it was bad that he'd gotten used to being addressed as "you in the black shirt." He also briefly thought about running for the bathroom, but Reyna and Hazel each had an arm around him.

"Uh," he said.

Drunk Child was sprawled across the counter, twirling a tiny umbrella and looking drunker than ever. Not sure where he got the umbrella, but Nico wasn't about to ask. Bad Whistler was whistling again, this time dangling upside down from the ceiling. (Why do ghosts do that? Is that comfortable?) The Levitator appeared to be taking a nap on the floor.

(Nico made a mental note to double-check on the whole ghosts being intoxicated thing. He had thought it'd be impossible, given the whole no-corporeal-form thing, but who knows.)

Reyna and Hazel jostled and nudged Nico until he was standing at the counter, next to Blondie, directly in front of Drunk Child's shoes.

"Hi!" Blondie said brightly, beaming down at Nico. "I'm Will Solace. This is Lou Ellen Chao," he said, nodding at Leaping To Conclusions—Lou Ellen, Nico corrected himself, because Bianca did not raise him to be a cheeky little shit, "and this is Cecil Jacobs," he said, gesturing to his other friend, the boy whom Nico had dubbed Blowing Shit Up at some point.

Nico realized after a moment (and a look from Hazel, who had moved over to talk to the other bartender with the rest of his traitorous friends) that Will, Lou Ellen, and Cecil were waiting. "Oh. Um. I'm Nico di Angelo."

"Mmhmm," Lou Ellen said, resting her chin on her hand. She had that considering look again, and Nico tried to figure out how to correct her assumption without sounding like a lunatic. "And what brings an underage college freshman to a bar on a Tuesday night?"

"Lou," Will said, laughing, saving Nico from accidentally blurting out "my friends think I need to socialize." "You work here."

"My mom owns this place," Lou Ellen pointed out. "Also, she doesn't allow friends and acquaintances discounts. So nice try, Cecil, but no."

Cecil pouted and flopped over the counter. Nico, who'd been only half paying attention, was wrenched back from wondering how he hadn't noticed Drunk Child disappearing by Will turning his I-can-outshine-the-sun-and-you-can't-stop-me smile back to him. He suddenly felt a little blinded. "What Lou was actually trying to say, probably," Will said with a placating smile, "was whether or not you've finished the O-Chem assignment due Friday."

Nico groaned. "Don't remind me." He'd been planning on pulling an all-nighter for it on Thursday. Or maybe just turning in a piece of blank paper. Both sounded equally appealing.

"You don't like O-Chem?" Lou Ellen asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Nobody likes O-Chem," Cecil said into the counter top.

Will gave him an injured look. "I like O-Chem." He turned to Nico again, gave him another smile, and Nico might have forgotten how to breathe. "If you want, we can work on it together. The more the merrier, right?"

Oh, come on, Nico thought, to karma and the universe and whoever else was listening to his inner monologue and made this happen. I was kidding about the shitty luck, okay? Out of the corner of his eye he could see Bad Whistler lean over in interest.

"Nico!" Jason, who always showed up late to these things (probably because he was making out with his girlfriend), appeared out of nowhere and slung his arm around Nico, banging Nico's ribs into the counter. Jason was one of those people whom Nico tacitly allowed to disregard his arm's-length personal space rule. "Are these your friends? Are you finally making friends at school?"

Nico generously ignored the finally part. "No," he said. "We were just going to do homework together."

Will didn't look even a little bit discouraged by his denial of friendship. In fact, he was grinning. Nico started feeling a little bleached, as if he'd been standing in the sun for too long. "Here, give me your number," Will said, pulling out his phone. "I'll text you about it."

Actually, Nico wasn't kidding. His luck was totally shitty.

They did meet to do homework, the next evening. Suspiciously, Lou Ellen and Cecil both opted out at the last minute, even though Nico knew that Cecil was frequently asleep in class and probably needed the help. Will sat right next to Nico, patiently explaining all the concepts that Nico didn't understand, and even though they were in the library, it felt as though they were the only two people in the room.

Okay, except for the fact that Drunk Child was snoring under the table by their feet. The Levitator and Bad Whistler were conspicuously absent, thankfully; Nico wasn't sure he'd be able to learn anything with them nearby. He wasn't joking about the bad whistling.

Eventually, they managed to finish the assignment. Nico was about to excuse himself as quickly as possible—now that Lou Ellen had put the idea in his head, it was awkward being around Will alone—when his stomach grumbled loudly.

Will laughed. "Want to grab dinner together?"

Nico might not be a social butterfly, but he wasn't blind; he could see the hopefulness in Will's expression and the nervousness in his fidgeting (it wasn't a headband, Nico had realized, but a length of bandage). The Levitator had finally shown up, drifting slowly into view, still horizontal. Bad Whistler appeared beside him, frowning at Nico. Nico wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean. "Sure, I guess."

Nico let Will carry most of the effort in making conversation on the way to Wendy's, and Will seemed perfectly comfortable with it. He talked about Lou Ellen and Cecil for the most part, how they were friends throughout high school, how they decided to rent an apartment together, how Will was always having to make sure they ate actual cooked food and did their homework and didn't stay up too late. Nico wasn't sure why he was so fixated on Will being the mom friend of the group—it was pretty obvious from the get-go—but he suddenly couldn't get the image of Will cooking out of his mind. He shook his head. Bad Whistler gave him another squinty look over Will's shoulder.

"I live with my sister and her boyfriend," Nico said, when Will had paused to smile fondly into the middle distance.

"That must be nice," Will said.

Nico didn't reply. It was nice, he admitted, but he was really only there because he didn't have anywhere else to stay. He didn't have any friends to room with, and he didn't want to room with someone he'd never met.

"It might be weird living with a couple, though," Will added hurriedly; he must have mistaken Nico's silence for disagreement. "Thank God Lou's usually at her girlfriend's place, not the other way around."

It sounded like a lighthearted, offhand remark, but Nico knew Will was watching for his reaction. He knew, because he'd used the same trick several times himself. And also because the Levitator and Bad Whistler were both blatantly staring at him. "I don't think it's that awkward," he said, his mind going a mile a minute. There were really only a handful of reasons for this kind of maneuver; Nico wondered which one was Will's. "But I'm not home that much. And anyway, they're pretty cute. I guess."

He looked up to see Will staring at his face. After a moment, Will smiled. "I see."

Nico completely failed to see what Will saw, but he was more than ready to change the subject. "What major are you?"

"Pre-med," Will said, because of course, Nico should've known. "My mother was a doctor, and I hung out at the hospital a lot as a kid. I still volunteer there on weekends."

Nico was about to nod when his mind ground to a halt at the past tense. He looked up at Will, who was in turn looking up at the sky; he opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Will glanced back down and said, "Ah, here we are."

Drunk Child moved closer, drinking bubble tea and peering at Nico curiously as Will started talking about volunteering at the hospital, making friends with some of the patients, the looks on their faces when he brought them flowers and magazines. Nico watched Will out of the corner of his eye as he ordered his food, remained silent when Will scolded him for picking the onions and pickles out of his burger. There were so many things at the tip of his tongue—I lost my mother, too; how old were you when it happened? how can you be in a place that will only remind you of her constantly?

Nico washed them down his throat with his soda.

And, afterward they ate, when Will asked if Nico wanted to study together again next week, Nico could only nod.

They studied together once or twice every week, they had dinner together after class, they started sitting together (although Bad Whistler's shoes were still constantly up in Nico's face), and it became a sort of routine. Lou Ellen and Cecil still kind of disappeared occasionally, when they were studying, but for the most part it was the four of them. It reminded Nico of when Jason and Reyna basically adopted Nico, except this was less of a werewolf pack and more of an actual college friend group.

And then, somehow, Nico found himself at the hospital with Will at eight in the morning on a Saturday. How did this even happen?

"Please come with me?" Will had begged the night before, when they were sitting across from each other at Wendy's again. "Lou will be out with her girlfriend, and Cecil is refusing to leave his room tomorrow because apparently a new season of his favorite anime is starting."

So here they were, signing in for a three-hour shift reading to kids in the pediatric wing. "I feel like I have to warn you," Nico said. "I am really not good with kids."

Will just grinned at him. "Relax, they'll love you!"

Nico sighed.

The kids cheered when Will stepped inside, as though they'd been waiting for him for a long time. "It's more fun to act out the stories," Will explained between greeting each kid individually with a hug. "So I always try to get Lou or Cecil to come with me."

"Will, is that the boy you talked about last time?" a girl, Janie, asked.

Will crouched down and quickly shushed her.

Janie frowned at Nico, then whispered (though she didn't seem to actually decrease her volume), "I think Cecil is prettier."

Nico felt heat rush to his face. He turned away and coughed while Will whispered back something along the lines of "Please don't mention that" and "oh my God Janie why."

They started reading where Will had left off last time in The Little Prince. Will made Nico act out all the dialogue with him, and several times Nico actually had to stop because he was laughing too hard from trying to do impressions of roses and strange adults.

"Okay, okay, now we have to act it out again," Will said, barely holding back his own laughter. "You're the fox, I'm the little prince."

Nico tried to figure out what a fox sounded like. Then he remembered that terrible song with all the weird sounds and decided he should stop this train of thought before it was too late. "Good morning," he read in a normal voice.

They continued reading like that, trying to remain serious in the face of the kids' commentary ("Be funnier!" "Do the fox sound!" "Why does the little prince sound stupid?")

"My life is very monotonous," Nico read. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life." Nico's throat was suddenly dry. He was aware that he might be blushing again. "I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair—" here Nico was truly struggling to maintain a straight face "—that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought—"

Nico started coughing, and Will scrambled to get him some water, giving him time to compose himself. Some of the children were giving Nico a look that reminded him strongly of Lou Ellen. Nico wanted to squirm.

Thankfully, it was soon lunchtime; the kids dispersed to eat. Will and Nico headed down to get some food at a nearby fast food place. The fox's lines—it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life—still echoed in Nico's mind, so he nearly missed it when Will smiled his sunny smile (Nico wondered if it would be weird if he started wearing sunglasses when they studied together) and said, "Wasn't that fun?"

"Yeah," Nico admitted. "I haven't read The Little Prince since Bianca died."

He didn't even realize that he'd said that; it was the first time he talked about Bianca so calmly and painlessly. Will, however, panicked. "Oh! I—um—I'm sorry if—oh my God—"

Nico smiled reassuringly, although he'd surprised himself, too. "It's fine. She passed away a few years back. We were really close; we only really ever had each other, since we lost our mom when we were really young."

They walked in silence.

"My mom died when I was twelve," Will said. "Cancer. That's why I volunteer most with cancer patients. It's scary, because some of them—" he coughed, unsure of himself. "I've watched a lot of kids pass away, and it always hurts, but I want to make sure they have the best life they can, you know?"

"Yeah." Nico had noticed that Will didn't greet several of the kids; it took him a few moments (and the Levitator cheerfully clapping one on the back) to realize that these kids had passed away. It seemed simultaneously sweet and terrible to him, that they came back to see Will; he wanted to talk to them about moving on, but this was neither the time nor the place.

And then Nico was distracted by Will squatting down to pet a cat by the side of the street, and it was so cute and beautiful that Nico thought he might expire, from cheesiness alone if nothing else, and he was starting to understand why all those ghosts were sticking around.

Falling for Will was so easy, Nico couldn't even lie to himself. He could pretend all he wanted that he was being distracted by Will's ghosts, but he couldn't pretend to not notice the way his heart stuttered when Will smiled, the way his pulse sped up when Will sat too close to him. It wasn't that Will was particularly attractive or anything; in fact, he was built more or less like a flagpole, skinny and gangly as though he still hadn't finished his growth spurt (which would be extremely unfair, given that he was already a whole head taller than Nico). But Nico found himself mesmerized by the way Will's fingers twined around the bandage, the line between Will's eyebrows when he was concentrating, the way he hummed while writing something down. It was all so quick and sudden and maybe Lou Ellen's conclusions had made sense, maybe she'd just been more perceptive about Nico than he himself was.

And despite the whole pounding-heart stomach-butterflies thing, Nico found himself more and more comfortable around Will. Because Will didn't force Nico to talk, didn't treat Nico like glass just because of what had happened to Bianca, didn't try to fix Nico's aversion to social situations and large crowds. He did mother him a little, and on several occasions actually interrogated Nico on how much vegetables he ate that week and how much sleep he got, but that Nico could deal with, because Will did that to everyone else, too.

It was so simple. Apparently all it took for Nico to fall in love was for someone to treat him normally. Not like the little brother of a dead friend, not a boy in a black shirt, but just him, just Nico.

And maybe it was because he'd gotten so comfortable, he'd let his guard down. Maybe that was why, when Will leaned back in his chair and smiled at Nico in that particularly heart-stopping way and teased him about how Lou Ellen had said Nico was staring at Will during class, Nico blurted, "That's not my fault, your ghosts were distracting me."

It didn't even register, that slip, until Will unlaced his fingers and put his hands on the table. "My… my what?"

Bad Whistler stopped whistling. Cecil (who was actually studying with them this time) looked up from his paper slowly. Lou Ellen's eyes darted between Will and Nico. Nico swallowed hard; his mouth suddenly tasted like dust. "Your ghosts," he repeated. There was a ringing in his ears, a little voice screaming that he should be making up a cover, laughing it off, doing something, but his mind was blank, immobile. Somewhere along the way he had forgotten how to lie to Will. And what could he have said, anyway? "You have so many of them I couldn't even see the professor."

Drunk Child actually choked on his soda. (Where was he getting these drinks anyway?)

There was deafening silence. Nico forced himself to look up at Will's face, just as Will reached over to place the back of his hand against Nico's forehead.

For a moment Nico couldn't think of anything except Will's skin on his, the warmth of his hand.

Then he flinched, batted Will's hand away, stood up so quickly that his chair fell over, because he was done with people thinking that he had lost his mind. He couldn't bear Will, of all people, treating him differently.

How could I be so stupid?

Will, the Levitator, and Lou Ellen all opened their mouths, but Nico didn't wait for them to say anything; he yanked his binder off the table, didn't even bother zipping up his backpack before he was out the library doors.

He managed to sulk successfully for three whole days—never leaving the room except for class, skipping Organic Chem altogether, turning away whenever he saw Will on campus—before Jason burst into his room with an entire crowd in tow. Nico was about to tell them to fuck off before he took a good look at them—Jason and Reyna wearing matching BI PRIDE shirts, Calypso, Leo, Hazel, and Frank together forming the ace flag colors, Drew Tanaka wearing a hand-sewn blue-pink-white dress, Piper brandishing a massive pan flag that actually almost hit Leo in the face—and remembered what day it was.

"Nico, come on!" Jason said, yanking Nico to his feet. "Aren't you excited for pride?"

Nico sighed, reached over and pulled a rainbow flag out of his desk drawer. "Yay," he said, as sarcastically as he could, mustering a little wave.

It didn't matter to the rest of them; Jason probably had enough enthusiasm for all of them put together, anyway. As they made their way to the pride parade, Reyna did her thing where she made sure Nico didn't sneak off by putting an arm around his shoulder. Nico pretended to accidentally whack her in the face with his flag, and Reyna glared at him.

"Hazel says you've been hiding in your room," she said abruptly.

Nico looked away, but he knew that he wasn't fooling anyone. "I wasn't hiding."

Reyna made a noncommittal sound. That was the nice thing about Reyna; unlike Jason, Reyna didn't usually push Nico before he was ready.

"Okay, maybe I was hiding a little," Nico admitted, because Reyna had a very compelling silence. "I just didn't really want to talk to anyone, and I didn't want to run into—"

And then he swore and ducked out of Reyna's arm, because God-fucking-dammit, what is Percy Jackson doing at pride? Out of the list of people Nico really did not need to meet right now, Percy was probably close to the top. Unfortunately, Nico's reaction only made Percy look over in their direction, and before he knew it Percy was heading this way and doing his bro-clap thing with Jason, and Nico needed to not be here.

"Nico?" Reyna called, but Nico had already started fleeing in the opposite direction.

And because it was just his luck, he ran straight into none other than Will Solace, making him drop his side of the TRANS IS BEAUTIFUL banner that he was holding with Cecil.

Will yelped. "Nico?"

Nico let out what could only be described as a squeak. The observant part of his mind noted that the Levitator was wearing a rainbow outfit, Drunk Child had a party noisemaker in his mouth, and Bad Whistler was humming Kiss Kiss Fall in Love and sprinkling ghostly cherry blossom petals onto... Lou Ellen, behind Will, all decked out in pink-yellow-blue, making out with Katie Gardner's little sister. Wow. Maybe it wasn't that Nico had shitty luck; maybe it was just a really tiny world.

But most of Nico's head was screaming shitshitshit, and he turned in yet another direction and bolted.

"Wait, Nico! Wait!"

Nico actually made it all the way to a more deserted alley before Will caught his wrist and turned him around. He opened his mouth to tell Will to let go, but the look on Will's face was so earnest and upset and apologetic that it would have felt like kicking a puppy.

"I'm sorry, okay?" Will blurted. "I shouldn't have reacted that way about the ghosts. Lou Ellen already yelled at me about that."

Nico stared up at him. They stayed that way for so long that Nico's neck was starting to hurt. "Um," he said.

Will seemed to just realize that he was still holding Nico's hand. He released it quickly, stepped back, scratched the back of his neck. When Nico opened his mouth, Will cut him off immediately. His words tumbled out of his mouth so quickly that Nico struggled to keep up. "I was just really confused and really surprised, you know? But I still should have believed you. I shouldn't have acted like you were sick or something. Lou Ellen told me that ghosts are real and that it's not that uncommon for people to see them. She also told me that she's a witch, which was completely new information for me, and that Cecil's part faerie; that was a really awkward discussion. But anyway—"

"Cecil's part fae?" Nico repeated. He was not aware that this was legal again. Or was it?

"My point is," Will plowed on, "I'm really, really sorry, I know that it really hurts for people not to take part of you seriously, please forgive—"

"Will," Nico said, because it was starting to look like Will would never stop. All the sulking and moping and awkwardness of the past few days crumbled in the face of Will's rapid-fire speech. "You only have to apologize to me once. I get it. It's okay."

Will's mouth hung half-open for a few more minutes. "Please don't run away from me," he finally said, starting to pout a little.

Nico actually had to laugh. Will had just found out that his two best friends were witch and part fae, and that he had several ghosts hanging over him—one of whom had appeared around the corner and was coming towards them, actually—and that was what Will was worried about? "I won't," he said. "I'm sorry I ran away. I know that must have been really confusing." He didn't add that he actually wasn't running away from Will this time. Percy Jackson was a conversation he was not ready to have with Will.

"Okay." Will smiled tentatively, and God, Nico hadn't realized how much he'd missed that. "Is—uh—is there a ghost around me right now?"

The Levitator froze mid-stride, looking like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Yeah." Nico leaned around Will. "Hey, what's your name?"

The Levitator looked over his shoulder, as though Nico could be talking to anyone other than him. "Lee Fletcher," he finally admitted.

Nico relayed that to Will, who blinked in surprise. "Lee?" He turned, looked over his shoulder, but of course he couldn't see the Levi—Lee Fletcher.

Lee Fletcher made a tiny eep sound and sprinted away.

"Uh, he left," Nico said. "I think you startled him." He waited a little more. "Um—"

Will finally stopped staring at nothing. He gave Nico a watery smile. "Lee was my cousin. I lived with him for a little when my mom died." There was a pause. "Do you—are any of the ghosts—you know—my mom?"

Nico shook his head. "It's mostly three guys."

Will's face didn't seem to know what expression to have, and Nico wanted to say that he gets it, he knows how it feels to know that your loved ones decided not to stay with you, knows the hurt, the guilt for ever wanting them not to move on to a better place. But that wasn't something that could really be said, so Nico waited as Will closed his eyes and exhaled carefully.

Finally, Will gave Nico another smile, significantly less teary this time. "Let's go back," he said. "Cecil can't hold that thing up by himself."

Nico nodded. "Yeah. And Leo's probably set his shirt on fire by now."

"Who's—what?"

"Are any of the ghosts here right now?" Will asked.

Lately, Will had begun every conversation this way. Nico supposed that it must have been weird to find out that there were people watching you when you thought you were alone. The first time he had asked, Drunk Child (Will said his name was Castor, when Nico described his appearance) snorted milk out of his nose, all over Bad Whistler ("Michael Yew," Will had replied immediately, when Nico mentioned the whistling. "God, how did such a tone-deaf person become a marching band section leader?"). "No," Nico replied, which was honestly a first. The ghosts have stopped appearing as often, but usually at least one or two were still there.

"Oh, finally," Will said, sighing in relief.

Nico raised his eyebrows. Finally? "Um, that doesn't mean that they've passed on; they're probably just visiting other people right now."

"Oh, that's not what I meant," Will quickly corrected. "I just—um—wanted to ask this when we're alone. So that you wouldn't have any pressure to, uh—"

Will seemed to lose his ability to speak. Nico sighed, because look, Will wasn't exactly hard to read. "Do you want to ask me out?"

Will nodded.

"Okay." Nico smiled. "My answer is yes."

Will nodded again, looking relieved but still nervous. Nico frowned. "Is there… something else you want to ask?"

After another moment of tongue-tiedness, Will took a deep breath and looked Nico in the eyes and blurted, in that adorably frantic way of his, "Can I kiss you?"

Nico grinned. "Oh my God, finally. Yes."

Just as Nico leaned up to kiss Will, Michael and Castor popped up through the table, blowing their noisemakers in unison, and Nico accidentally rammed his head into Will's nose.

(They did kiss, after Nico had finished dying of embarrassment and Will had finished laughing and Lee had finished his lecture on taking it slow. And it was great, and Nico decided that he needed to take up exorcism again to make sure that he and Will can kiss without Michael and Castor calling out "Leave room for Jesus!" and "Be safe, kids!")

(He's kidding, mostly.)

I don't know if anyone other than me would be interested in this AU, but

1. Yes, Jason and Reyna are werewolves. That just kind of happened.

2. Trans Drew Tanaka is something near and dear to my heart. As is pansexual Taiwanese Lou Ellen. In case it's not clear, queer Asians are super important to me.

3. Leo is a dragon. I'm still working on the logistics of that, but let's face it, he would totally rip off his shirt and set it on fire to make a statement. Frank is a shapeshifter; I'm not real clear on this yet, but it probably has something to do with the Monkey King, because how would I ever write something without making references to Chinese mythology.

4. It is totally not legal for part fae to exist.

5. Castor was one of the kids whom Will got to know at the hospital.

6. I wanted to put Drew and Calypso in somewhere, preferably holding hands and acting really married, but I couldn't really fit it in without making it feel forced. But if you wish, please imagine Drew and Calypso (who are both nature spirits of some kind) (long story) holding hands and acting really married.

7. Yes, Katie Gardner's little sister refers to Miranda Gardiner.

8. The other bartender at Lou Ellen's mom's bar is Ethan Nakamura. I refuse to have an AU where he is dead. It's just not a thing. I will protect all my Asian babies to the death.

Again: happy birthday, Taylor! I hope you have a wonderful day and that this terribly-written pulled-out-of-my-ass-at-one-in-the-morning fic didn't ruin it.

Thank you and good night!