Like most things that go wrong in my life, the problem began with Leo Valdez. Or, more specifically, the problem began with Leo Valdez shouting expletives in Spanish as I hear a cracking noise and the sound of a certain Piper McLean's loud, snorting laughter coming from my living room and filling my entire apartment. All this happened in the span of three seconds, following Piper's earlier loud crows of, "You won't!"

Really. All I wanted to do at the time was heat up some stir fry that was left over from the previous day, and all I get is Spanglish yelling and a crazed, endless stream of laughter. It is times like the one I am describing that make you question one's choice in friends. I closed my eyes, tilted back my head, and half-shouted into the next room, "What did you two do?"

Piper let out one more bit of laughter, and wheezed a few times. Composing herself, she half-shouted back from the other room,

"I blame Leo!"

A soft smack reached my ears, probably Leo punching Piper's arm for putting the blame on him. A louder smack, followed by more Spanish cursing, followed. "It was your fault, repair boy!"

"That doesn't mean you should hit me!"

I let out a highly exaggerated sigh. I stomped over to my living room. "Honestly, if you guys knocked over my DVD case agai-"

I paused. I nodded slightly, closing my eyes.

"Valdez."

"Yeah, Superman?"

"Why is there a huge hole in my wall?"

Because there was. There was a giant hole right through the drywall, the dust from the plaster scattered over my carpet and covering a poster of some alternative band Percy gave me with a light dusting of white powder. My living room looked like the set of Miley's "Wrecking Ball" video.

I shot Leo a not-so-kind look, and he grimaced under the daggers I was shooting him. He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "It was for science, yeah?"

"An experiment!" Piper added.

"What kind of experiment involves putting a huge hole in my living room wall?! How did you make a hole that big with just one kick?!"

They both gave me incredulous looks.

"To see if Leo could kick a hole through your wall."

"To see if I could kick a hole in your wall."

"Duh."

Neither of them answered my second question. Which probably meant there were multiple kicks, and I just didn't hear them. Why did I pick these people as friends?

Honestly, I had no idea how to respond to them. I spread my hands out, gesturing slightly in confusion. I let out a slight noise that could be described as a "Nnnguh?"

"That was eloquent," Piper said.

I finally gathered my thoughts. "What?" I asked.

"Eloquent, it means like, clearly expressing a thou-"

"I know what eloquent means, Pipes!"

"Then wh-"

"I mean what!"

"What?"

"What?"

I threw myself onto my ratty couch.

Leo hem-ed. "Well as interesting as it is to hear you two speak in conversational, how would you say it, Whattanese, I'm thinking you should explain what you mean by what, Superman." I stared at him. "Unless this is your rendition of a popular Lil-Jon chart topper, which I would like to join in if that's the case."

I blew a long huff of air through my nose. "My landlord is going to kill me, that's what."

Piper opened her mouth to respond when-

"Literally." A pause. "What the fuck?"

The voice came from the hole.

Leo, Piper, and I all turned towards the empty space, or not so empty space. It now held a head, followed by a set of shoulders, and a pair of hands to balance them.

"Would anyone want to explain why a dirty old work boot just kicked a hole into my apartment?"

I shot Leo another glare. The guy was getting a lot of glares at the time. See, the thing is, I live in a small apartment, that's a part of a large complex, next to another large complex. I live in the last set of rooms before the next building starts. Leo Valdez seriously had just kicked himself into the neighboring building, and into the apartment of a very angry young man.

The young and angry man in question had wavy black hair, that curled slightly over his ears, and spilled slightly over his glowering dark eyes, all the while tickling the back of his neck. He would have been extremely intimidating, and maybe a even terrifying, if he wasn't wearing a bright orange Dia de Los Muertos shirt. The dancing, grinning skeletons sort of killed the whole image. It looked like something that Leo would own unironically.

Before Leo or Piper could say anything to make the situation any worse that it already was, if it were even possible, I explained the situation to the guy.

Throughout my speech, my newfound neighbor shot Leo a series of especially devastating glares. I say that because he had been shooting all of us dirty looks, but Leo got the worst of it. Probably because the guy noticed Valdez's dirty work boots that he had mentioned earlier. When I finished explaining things, he leaned forward, and gave one final scathing gaze in Leo's direction.

"For science?" he asked, his voice dripping with poison.

Leo had been sinking lower and lower into my ratty brown couch throughout the entire exchange, but he made one final effort to descend completely between the cushions to avoid answering the question.

"I am so sorry, man," I said. "We can just tell our landlords and the whole thi-"

"We are not telling either of our landlords."

I stared at the kid. I had been looking anywhere besides him the whole time. He was sort of scary for such a little guy. "Why would we not tell them?"

"Well, one," he said, "They would charge us, or rather, you, more than the necessary cost to fix the hole. Someone could just run to a home goods store and fix it for half the cost the landlord would charge."

"Fair enough," I said.

"And second, I am already this close," he held up his hand, and pinched his forefinger and thumb together, so that there was the tiniest bit of space between the two, "to being kicked out of my apartment. I will not be evicted because some dickweed in the next building kicked a hole through the damn drywall."

I knew that Leo would not appreciate being called a dickweed, so I decided to say something before he did. I held up my hands in surrender and said, "Okay, okay, so we are just going to keep the hole?"

"Ah, ah, ah."

I raised my eyebrows. "What?"

"You are going to fix this hole." He waved his hand around the gap.

"You mean Leo is going to fix the hole?" I nodded in Leo's direction. He was trying his best to hide behind Piper at this point.

The kid shrugged. "I don't care who fixes it," he said. "As long as it gets fixed."

"Alright, man. That's only fair."

He nodded in agreement. And continued to lean through the hole. And continued to glare. Leo, Piper, and I all just sort of looked at him until he caught himself.

"Oh, yeah, right, not my apartment. I'll just be going now."

"Bye," I said.

"So long," Piper added.

"Adios," Leo said, in his most formal Spanish accent. Everyone in the room turned to glare at him.

"Like, out out. Outside."

"Okay."

"Please don't steal anything from my apartment."

With that, he ducked back into his rooms.

We all sat there on the couch until we saw the neighbor's lights go out through the hole and we thought we heard the guy's lock click. It took about twenty minutes. After that, I grabbed a pillow that was sitting next to me and whacked Leo with it.

"Mmm mM!" he said. His face was covered with pillow. Leo grabbed the pillow, threw it at me, and then clarified what he was trying to say. "Okay! I know, that was probably really stupid."

"Probably?" Piper asked.

"It was really stupid."

"Better," she said.

"When are you going to come fix it?" I asked him.

I watched Leo chew his lip as he went through his schedule in his head. "I'm not sure," he shrugged. "Honestly, this was the last free day I'll have for about two weeks. I'm going to be working at Mom's shop like all day, since Raphael decided to take a long vacation."

Piper looked at me and grinned. "That guy is going to kill you!"

"I think I should leave Valdez here as a decoy."

"Hey!"

Piper and I high-fived as Leo rolled his eyes.

It was around eleven at night when I saw the guy's lights come on through the hole. I live life on the edge, of course, so I shouted, "Welcome home!" towards the hole. A loud clatter and a string of curses in something that sounded a bit like Italian came in reply.

I heard my newfound neighbor's stomping before I saw his face poke through the hole. His dark eyes were narrowed.

"You scared the crap out of me!" he accused.

"Sorry man. Couldn't resist."

He let out a grunt in reply, glowering at me. I remember wondering if the kid ever smiled.

In turn, I felt a smile ghost across my face. "You look nice," I said. He did. He was dressed sharply in a blue button-up and high-waisted grey slacks that should have made him look like an old man, but he pulled them off pretty well.

"Thanks," he said, a little sharply.

"Hot date?"

"Excuse me?"

I put up my hands in surrender, not the first time that day. "No need to overreact, man. Sorry."

He sighed. "Its fine. And it was not a hot date, by the way, I had to go out to dinner with my family."

"How was that?"

He shot me a glare, one that seemed to say, 'You should stop asking questions, bub.'

"I see the hole still isn't fixed," he said, instead of answering.

"Leo had to go to work."

"And you can't fix it yourself?"

"I don't clean up Repair Boy's messes," I shrug. "It'll get fixed, don't worry."

"It better." He craned his neck to get a better look into my apartment. "Is that the Spongebob Squarepants Movie I hear?"

"Maybe," I side-eyed him and maybe smirked a little bit. It was.

"What are you, like twelve?"

"You caught me," I spread my hands and shot him a grin."You wanna watch it with me?"

He cocked his head, contemplating the question. Ultimately, he shrugged,"Sure, man."

With that, and a bit of trouble, he began to maneuver the rest of his body through the hole that connected our apartments.

I laughed. "Dude, what are you doing?"

He grunted as he contorted his body to get his chest through the gap in the wall. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Having troubles?" I suggested.

"I'll tell you what I'm doing," he said. "I'm going into the apartment of a strange guy who may or may not have kicked a hole through my wall so I can watch a children's movie with him."

I laughed again. By then, he had his whole torso through the hole. He got his legs through, and that was that.

"Ta-da." He said monotonously, flinging his arms out.

I clapped. "Very impressive, man." He just stood there. "You know, you could have just come into my apartment the regular way." He shrugged.

"Too much work."

"And what you just did wasn't"

"Nope." He smirked.

He continued to just stand there. "You can sit down, you know." I patted a part of the couch that wasn't completely threadbare. And then he did just as I suggested, sinking deeply into the ratty old cushions of my couch. "Do you want anything to eat or drink?" I asked.

He patted his belly. "Just ate, man."

"Okay, well I'm going to get a Pepsi. Are you sure you don't want anything?"

He made a face. "Pepsi?" He made a small, faked retching noise. "I don't know if I can stay in this room with you anymore."

"Good luck getting back into your room, then."

"I think I could manage it."

"I think you could manage being a gymnast. Those were some pretty sick contortions."

"I probably looked like one of those blow up wavy arm things trying to get through that hole."

"A little bit, yeah."

Clearly bored with the conversation, the kid just turned away from me and watched the screen. The corners of his eyes crinkled at Spongebob's ice cream drunkenness.

"You a Coke type of guy, then?" I asked him, bringing the conversation back to when he insulted my choice in soft drink.

"No shit, Sherlock."

"Fuck you, Watson." He laughed a little at that. I smiled. "I also have Dr. Pepper, instead of Pepsi, is that cool with you for a drink?"

"Sure, I guess."

While he watched Spongebob's managerial dreams get crushed, I grabbed the two sodas from my mini-fridge. When I came back to the guy, he was busy picking at a loose thread in the armrest of my couch.

"Hey, hey, hey!" I said, handing him his pop. "Don't hurt Phyllis."

He popped the top of the drink. "You named your couch Phyllis?"

I stroked the cushion next to me. "We've been through a lot together." I traced an imaginary tear down my cheek.

He just stared at me.

"You are a total freak." I sipped my Pepsi, and then grinned. His eyes focused on the scar on my lip. I think I saw the corners of his mouth flip up a little bit.

He held out his hand. "I'm Nico, by the way."

"I'm Jason Grace." I took his hand and shook it. His hands were freezing, but he had a nice, firm handshake.

"Nice to meet you, Grace."

"Nice to meet you too, Nico."

I took another drink of Pepsi, and basically just watched the kid, or Nico, watch the movie. He didn't so much laugh at the movie, but mostly just let out huffs of air through his nose. He snorted at the Hasselhoff scene.

The only other time he laughed the entire night was when he caught me staring at him. He started to give me a dirty look before I started wagging my eyebrows wildly from behind my soda can. At that, he laughed and laughed, and then cursed wildly when he got a noseful of Dr. Pepper after a violent snort.

"Shit!" he shouted, getting a spray of soda all over Phyllis.

It was the start of a beautiful thing.

A/N: Hey all! I'm not dead! I am so so so sorry that I haven't updated anything recently. I know everyone was expecting an update for a Hetalia fic for a while, but this idea would not leave me alone and I had to get it down before anything else. School is finally coming to a close, so hopefully I will be able to actually update things now. Thank you so much for reading. You guys should let me know if I should continue this business through a review or a favorite ;^ )