So it's almost two in the morning and I'm currently on holidays and staying with my cousins. After watching 50% religiously for an hour with my cousin, we hit up some Love Stage! and are now probably going to be sleep deprived. Happy summer everyone!

DISCLAIMER: Still working on plans to kidnap the rights to these characters. Might start up a kick-starter.

When Nico slammed his locker shut he almost had a heart attack. He was not expecting to see a certain blonde standing behind the door. He tried to catch his breath, but being scared half-to-death wasn't an easy thing to recover from.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he yelled once he found his voice.

"Why didn't you tell me you were our fill in? Was that what Mrs. A wanted to talk to you about on the stairs?" Will asked with a dopey smile.

"Are you stalking me?"

"I was wondering what time would work best for our date," Will continued, completely ignoring Nico at this point. "I was thinking that, if you weren't so busy on, say, maybe Saturday, that I could take you out that night?"

Nico completely gave up trying to change the topic due to his multiply failed attempts of trying to interrupt Will.

"Sure, whatever," Nico waved off, "But what I'm trying to say is that I-"

"Great! I'll swing by around six on Saturday and pick you up," he said cheerfully. Jason came down the hall and hit Will upside his head and Will started yelling back to him. He looked down at Nico, still smiling from his kerfuffle with Jason, ruffled Nico's hair, and kissed him quickly on the top of his head before running off after Jason, who you could hear from all the way down the hall.

Nico sunk back onto his locker and sighed. He fixed his hair and wiped his forehead. He was just about to leave his locker when Piper popped up.

Piper seemed out of breath when she arrived at his locker.

"Have you seen Jason? You can hear him throughout the school so it's hard to pinpoint the exact location of him," she said out of breath.

"Ummm, yeah, just down the hall. He just ran off with Will," he replied sheepish.

Piper came over and leaned onto the locker next to Nico's. Piper always seemed like a nice girl by the way Annabeth talked about her. She seemed to be the type of girl that would be full of herself, but the way Annabeth talks about her, she seems almost like Mother Theresa. Piper was a pretty girl, even without trying. Her eyes seemed to change colour with every glance and her hair was choppy yet it had a simple grace about it.

"God, can they be anymore immature?" she asked with a joking undertone in her voice.

"I guess…"

Piper looked at Nico with a slight lopsided smile. "Lighten up. You know, I've heard a lot about you from Annabeth. I didn't know you two were such good friends."

"I've known her for a while, nothing to go writing home about."

"You should hang out with us," she stood in front of Nico and poked his nose.

Nico looked at her in utter confusion. Why was she trying to be so nice to him; Nico wasn't used to people wanting to be friends, everybody usually just stayed away from him.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because you're adorable," she said, ruffling his hair. She started playing with it while she spoke. "And it's a little known fact that I just adore cute things," she added with a wink.

"I'm not cute," he scowled, swatting away her hand.

She smiled at him, laughing a little while at it. "It's so cute how you don't know that your adorable, which makes you even more adorable."

"I told you, I'm not cute!" he yelled back with his face redder than an apple. Piper couldn't help but laugh at him.

"Yes you are," Jason said running up behind Piper, hugging and kissing her on her cheek. He kept his arms wrapped around her, rocking her back and forth. "Hey babe," he told Piper who replied back with a simple 'Hi'.

"I think you are super adorable," a voice came from behind, and before Nico could turn around to see who it was, Will wrapped his arms around Nico, picked him up and spun him. Nico squealed, his voice cracking a few times, kicking and flailing.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Nico yelled. "Let go of me!"

Will didn't let go of him, but he did put him back on the ground. Nico tried to get away, but Will was too strong, he held on so tight Nico thought he was going to suffocate.

"Nah, rather not," Will purred.

"What is your problem?!" Nico's voice kept cracking as he talked, well, squealed.

"What problem?" he squeezed him again, rocking him back and forth, resting his chin beside Nico's neck.

Jason and Piper were watching them, laughing extremely hard. The sight of Will constricting Nico was super adorable-at least from Piper's point of view (later when Piper told this story to Annabeth, she agreed with her). Nico was at least a foot shorter than Will and half his size in muscle mass. If one didn't know any better, it would seem like a typical big brother little brother relationship.

"There can't be anything wrong with me, not when I'm with you," Will said, squeezing Nico once again. The younger boy squirmed and tried to wiggle his way out, but the blonde refused to let go. While Will had a hold of Nico, he stopped flailing the boy around gently, and leaned down into his ear. Just loud enough for Nico, Jason, and Piper to hear, he whispered gently, "But there might be one problem, I might be falling in love with you."

Will let his grip loosen, and Nico took advantage of it. He pushed and jumped away, his face burning. Piper walked away from Jason and put her arms around the bright red boy and hugged him. He felt like he wanted to curl up into a ball and die.

When the bell sounded for class, Nico picked up his things from off the ground and ran off to his first class. When he got into Mrs. A's English class, his face was still bright red. He slammed his books and head on the table. This wasn't how his life was supposed to go, he was supposed to have a normal high school experience and he was supposed to have a pretty girl with the same number. He wasn't supposed to be pushed around until some dude rolls around and finds out that they're 'meant to be' because they weren't. Even though they shared a number, they weren't… right? They couldn't be, could they? This is not how Nico pictured his life to be at all.

After school was the second practice for the play and things were going great! Well, sort of. It started out like always, or so Nico thought; he hadn't exactly been to a practice before, so when the girls started trying to befriend him, he just went along with it. He found out some information about the part that he hadn't know before, the girls were really helpful.

"It's so nice of you to help us out in our time of need."

"Yeah, you're the best!"

Nico laughed awkwardly as the girls around him spoke; they seemed kind of weird, but nice.

"So, real talk," a brunette spoke. "You and Will, it's true, right? You know, the day the rumours started flying around, he was acting pretty strange, so we all figured something about them was true, but you? We would have never suspected; no offence."

Nico just sat there looking at the girl. He knew he was nothing special, but to hear people say it was a different story.

"So, can we see it? You know, the number; your wrist."

Nodding his head, he flipped his forearm upwards and shook his wrist to remove the bracelet from overtop of the marking. The girls looked at it with awe. If Nico didn't know any better, by the way they were looking at it, you'd guess that they had never seen a wrist before. Girls poked and giggled at each other, looking at one another then at Nico's wrist.

"Wow."

"That's so cool."

"I ship it."

"You two are so cute together."

"Did you see how they acted together? It was like they were meant to be!"

"Idiot! They are meant to be."

Nico was looking at the girls; they were talking about him like he wasn't even there. They started cooing and awing over him and it was starting to make him the slightest bit uncomfortable. He tried to slip away, but the girls wouldn't have it that way. They held him down with brute force, damn these girls were strong!

"Alright, time to get started!" thank god-or more accurately-Mrs. A broke the uncomfortable conversation he was having with the girls. "We are going to start from where we left off."

The girls broke off their conversation and started to set up for the scene. Nico was able to slip away before running into a Will Solace who was late-once again-causing Nico to fall over. Right before Nico was about to hit the floor, Will was able to catch him with his free arm because the other was holding a bottle of pop.

Nico stared at Will, who was looking at him directly in the eyes. Nico's heart began to race looking into his endless pools. Will slowly brought Nico back to his feet, never braking contact. Nico was helpless in the older man's arms; all he could do now was hope and pray he wasn't shaking too badly, at least not enough for Will to feel.

When Nico came too, he pushed Will away. Will watched as Nico walked away and got ready for the scene. He set his pop down and got ready next to Nico.

They had made it to one of the last scenes with everything going good. Nico was able to memorize some of his lines from time to time, so the scenes felt a little more real.

The scene they had just finished was where they had just brought down Carmen, a drug lord who hired someone to kill Kory, the guy who died and started the whole story in the first place. Nico's character, Faven, had just left the scene when Lily, played by Will's little sister, Kayla, had just entered the scene to talk with Ash/Will, one-on-one.

"Can't believe you guys just did that," Kayla said.

"Well, Faven did most of the work; he's the brains of this whole operation. The piecing together the information that connected Kory to Carmen was thanks to Faven figuring it out," Will said with longing in his voice. "You know, the way people talk about him is all wrong."

"Is this why you've been ignoring me?" she asked, walking over to where Will was standing and placing her hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah, it's not the easiest to keep up your usual life when you're trying to bring down a drug lord," he laughed slightly.

Kayla shook her head with a slight smile plastered on her face. "That's not what I mean, Ash"

"Then, what is it that you're talking about?" he asked, raising a brow.

"Do I have to say or are you a smart enough boy to figure it out?" she asked with a smug look on her face.

"I don't have a clue," he said plainly.

"God, what does he see in you?" she muttered to herself before sighing and turning towards Will. "Okay, I'm going to spell it out for you; Faven, the way you act around him, when are you going to tell him?"

"Tell him what?" he asked.

"Oh, come on, don't tell me that you're that oblivious," she said with aggression, walking right up to his face. "You're not allowed to tell me that you've been around him for this long with those googly eyes and you haven't noticed the way you feel about him? Dude, it's clear as day and I've only ever been around you lately for a few moments at max and even I can tell. Why can't you just see it for yourself?" she raised her voice.

"Feel? What are you talking about?" Will walked away from Kayla, shaking his head; looking back at her, he said, "How crazy do you have to be to think I'm into Faven? I didn't even know the guy until a few weeks ago, and now here you are, trying to tell me I have, what, a crush on a guy I just met? You, my friend, are the crazy one."

Will headed over to where his bag was and started ruffling through it. He started to pull things out, then put them back in. Kayla walked over, sighing, never turning her back to the audience, and stood beside him.

"You're not fooling anyone here, you know that?" she said while crossing her arms.

Will stopped what he was doing and turned to look at her. They stared at each other, forcing the other to break first.

Will stood up and faced Kayla. "What do you want me to say?" he said seriously.

"I want you to stop lying to yourself and say the truth for once!"

"You want the truth? Fine! I'll tell you the god damn truth, yes! Yes to the fact I haven't been one hundred present honest, and yes, maybe I don't want to admit that I have feelings for him because, you know what, it is kind of weird for a straight guy to have a crush on another straight guy after only knowing the other dude for barely a few days!" by the time Will finished his scripted rant, he was out of breath.

The emotion Will was able to put in his character was amazing. Every voice crack and every twitch of his lip added to the show, and it was more than incredible. Once he was done, even Kayla had to take a step back. When she was able to regain herself, she found her character again and had a smug smile painted on her face.

"There it is," she said solemnly. "That's what I've been dying to hear."

Kayla walked up to Will, who was still out of breath, and hugged him. She stood there with her arms around him for a moment before Will returned the favour and wrapped his arms around her.

Kayla got on her tip-toes, and whispered into his ears, "Now go tell him that."

Nico walked on stage and saw them hugging. As scripted, Will kissed his sisters character on the cheek. Nico backed up and ran off stage; a short cameo, but it got the job done.

When they broke the hug, Will thanked her for all of her help and ran off, grabbing his bag before ditching the girl in the empty street.

The next scene was between Ash and Faven, so Nico got ready, script in hand. This scene called for him to be packing his bag aggressively, so he did just that. When the teacher called for silence to signal the next scene was starting, Will ran on.

"Faven!" he called, apportioning the younger.

Faven continued to ignore Ash while aggressively organizing his bag.

"Hey, Faven!" he called again.

Nico looked up with a scowl on his face. Will stepped back when the dark haired boy looked at him. His face was filled with anger.

"Hey, dude, what's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing," Nico muttered just loud enough to be heard.

"Faven? Are you okay?" Will walked up to the younger slowly, placing his hand gently on his shoulder, but Nico shook it off.

"I'm fine."

"No you're not, what's wrong?"

"Why the hell do you want to know?" he yelled back, standing up to face Will.

"Because I thought we were friends and I'm worried about you," he replied caringly. The look in Will's eyes was full of concern.

"Well, we aren't. And you wanna know why? It's because we were only forced together to do this, not because we actually liked each other!" he spat with venom.

Will was taken back, not just because it was in the script, but because it felt like Nico meant it.

"Yeah, at first we weren't friends, but now we are," Will's voice darkened.

"No we aren't. After today, you're going to go back to your popular friends," he went back down to his bag and started furiously rummaging through it again. "You even get to start hanging out with your girlfriend again," he mumbled.

"You don't get to decide what I do and if I- wait, did you say girlfriend?" Will asked. "Is this what this is all about?"

Nico didn't reply.

"Faven, I don't have a girlfriend," she said softly.

"Then what about Lily?" even though his voice was soft, it still sounded poisonous.

"Lily? She's my best friend, not my girlfriend," he said with a smile; Will started to laugh a little. "Between you and me, I think she has a thing for Caz.

"Well, I still don't care," he picked up his backpack and started to leave.

Will grabbed his hand before he could get too far.

"I care, you know… if that helps a little," Will's voice was soft and caring.

"Why?" Nico asked almost too quiet to hear.

"Because I…" Ash couldn't finish the sentence; Will couldn't finish the sentence.

"What? You what?!" Nico turned around, his voice full of hostility; Will could feel holes being burned into him with the gaze that Nico was giving him.

They stayed like that, staring at each other for quite some time, neither one giving an inch to the other. Will still had a strong hold on Nico's wrist and refused to let go.

What happened next confused both Will and Nico: Will started to run his thumb over the written symbol on Nico's wrist.

Nico's heart started to beat faster and faster, his breath becoming shaky and unstable. He wanted to run, but he couldn't, not here, not now. Nico was determined to finish the scene, even if he dropped dead in the middle.

"Because, Faven," Will paused. He didn't want to say Faven, he really didn't. Will didn't know when it happened, whether it was a few days ago or whether it was the first time he laid his eyes on this boy, but somewhere down the line Will noticed the boy and now he had him in his grip and he intended to never let him go again. "Because I like you," he said it.

There was silence that had fallen over both the actors on stage and the audience of actors. There was nothing to say about the feeling that fell over the stage at that moment. Words were not powerful enough to explain or even start to. A feeling that could only be described of love flooded the room, drowning anyone within hearing distance.

"I don't know when it started, but all I know is that when it did, there was no going back," Will squeezed Nico's wrist, still running his thumb over the marking. If those were the lines he was supposed to say, he said them only by accident.

Nico stayed quiet. By now, both boys didn't know if they were following the script or not, but they didn't care. Nico was trying his best not to pass out while Will was trying not to kiss the boy right then and there. Even though it was written in that he would eventually, not right now, Will knew he couldn't handle it.

"I, uhh… I, I…" if Faven couldn't find the words, Nico sure as hell couldn't.

Will removed the space between them, still having a hold on his wrist, and looked down at the younger. Nico tried to resist the look in Will's endless blue eyes, but he couldn't. Nico raised his head only to meet Will's longing gaze. Nico looked at the older boy through his eyelashes and that sent an electric shock through Will; he never noticed how long the boy's eyelashes were until now.

Raising his hand to cress Nico's cheek, his heart began to race faster and faster. He brushed a piece of hair out of his face before making his way behind his ear. Slow and shallow breaths escaped both of their lips. Will leaned down slowly to kiss the younger boy, and just before he was about to kiss him, he changed his direction and kissed Nico right between his eyebrows.

When Will pulled away, where he had just kissed Nico burned. Nico was in a daze, unable to move. He forced himself to keep going and they finished the scene.

They finished the play and got everything put away. Will was about to walk up to Nico who was across the room, he was talking to some other guys, when Nico saw, grabbed his stuff and left. Will was slightly disappointed, but he just carried on like nothing had happened.

Nico ran home, barely stopping until he reached his front door. When he opened the door, his family tried to ask him how things went, but Nico just ignored him and ran to his room. He stayed there the entire night, not coming out for anything. When his sisters tried to ask him what happened, he just waved them off. Nico stayed in his room uninterrupted for the rest of the night. Today had been long enough for him and he just wanted it to be over, but if today was to be over, tomorrow was to come and he wasn't sure if he could handle tomorrow if it was anything like today.

Thanks to those who stuck around and didn't want to kill their self's, that makes me really happy. Id like to thank my editor for complaining about my bad timing when she's with her boyfriend and putting up with the fact that she might want to kill me. Thank you to those who Favorite, Review, and Follow. You are my favorite people in the world because you put up with my bullshit and half assed ideas and you support them. I wish I could give you all cookies and hugs!

Kitty out!