Will supposes that right now, he should probably be paying attention to his biology professor, who is currently reviewing the syllabus for the semester. But instead, he's zoning out, eyes fixated on one spot of his paper.

III. Human Body During Stalling

Now that is a topic Will is looking forward to. Stalling– when a person turns 18, they stay 18 until they meet their soulmate. He himself had turned 18 three years ago– he spent two of those extra years working to save money, and taking a break from education, and now he's in his second year of college. It's not uncommon for 18 year olds who haven't met their soulmate to do so; it both gives them more money to get through school (assuming they want to go through school) and gives them some time to just be free, a kid, for a little longer.

The weird thing to Will is that he has no idea how old anyone around him is, chronologically speaking. His sister, Kayla, who sits beside him, turned 18 a month ago. His friend, Hazel, who he worked with at a café before going to college, has been 18 since 1948.

Will had long ago grown curious about Stalling. He had long ago researched it, and learned that your cells stop growing, and you're essentially halted in time. Your body freezes, except the bare essentials. He had long ago moved on to a new curiosity: how the hell did the human body survive the experience?

His wonderings linger on the back of his mind for the rest of the day. The only other class he has that day is organic chemistry. His professor jumps straight into the subject, much to Will's delight (note the sarcasm). He tries to follow along, but to be frank, he's too far lost to ever be redeemed. At the end he looks over at the boy on his left, who seems like he followed along alright. The entire time, his peer had been rapidly typing notes on his laptop, stopping only to brush his long, dark hair out of his eyes.

"Excuse me," Will says politely after class. The boy flinches like he's been shocked. Will's brain stalls, and suddenly he realizes that he has no idea what to ask– 'hey, can you share your notes with me, a perfect stranger?' seemed a bit insufficient. But maybe that's the social anxiety talking.

"Yes?" the other student asks, more of a prompt than a question. Will feels an odd flutter in his stomach.

"Um. Uh. Well... I'm sorry. I forgot."

"It's okay," is the response, delivered with a light laugh. But the eyes of the boy seem hesitant. There's a pause. "I'm Nico, by the way."

"Will. Nice to meet you."

"You as well. You seemed a bit lost during class– do you want to review the material with me later? I find it helps with retaining information," offers Nico. Now that Will thinks about it, Nico's voice, albeit low in volume and pitch, has a slight lilt to it– an accent. Italian, if Will's guess is correct.

"Uh. Yeah, that'd be great, thanks." Will smiles, but inwardly, he cringes. Usually, he's all friendly and outgoing and grins. But for some reason, right now, all he can think is awkward awkward awkward. But he also feels very... how can he phrase it? It feels like Nico has some large gravitational pull about him, and Will is getting sucked in. But in a friendly, nonromantic way. Will doesn't plan on meeting his soulmate until he's graduated (or maybe later) if he can help it. So Nico can't be his soulmate. Besides, Nico's hair is long (well, just below his chin, at least). Stallers tend to keep their hair shaved short, to make it easier to know when it starts growing again– when they've met their soulmate. So he's probably already met his soulmate.

"Cool, great. Could you put your number into my phone? So we can arrange a time to meet up and go over everything?"

"Yeah. Yeah, for sure," Will agrees, grabbing Nico's phone and typing his number in. He labels his contact as 'will :-)', because, well, why not.

For a split second, Will lets himself think that maybe Nico hasn't met his soulmate. He kind of just asked for Will's number, right? But then he remembers, he kinda had to ask for Will's number, if he was gonna help Will catch up in chemistry. Day one and he's already behind.

Later that day, his phone pings with a message from an unknown number.

"Hey Will. It's Nico, from your organic chem class. Any days this week work for you to study?"

Will can't help but smile at his phone as he saves the number as 'nico'.

"would friday around noon work for you? we could study at my dorm– my roommate will be busy and when he is in the dorm he's absorbed in his computer" Will types back quickly.

"Friday is great. Just leave me your dorm building and number and I'll be there at noon!"

Will's smile becomes a grin. He can't help it, he can't explain it, but he really wants to be friends with Nico.

When Friday comes, Will thinks that his cleaning has become borderline obsessive. Every time his roommate, Austin, so much as moves, Will is there, ready to clean anything left behind. He thinks he's picked up the ten thousandth Reese's wrapper when there's a knock at the door.

Nico has arrived.

Austin shoots Will a grin. "It's Nico, right? The kid you have a crush on?"

Will goes scarlet. "I do not have a crush on him," he hisses ferociously as he rushes for the door. Austin mumbles something about Will's obsessive chattering begging to differ, and the boy in question shoots his roommate a fierce glare before opening the door and donning a smile. "Hey, Nico. Thanks for helping me out."

Nico, standing on the other side of the now open door, gives a small wave. "Hey. Don't worry 'bout it, like I said, it helps me retain the information."

"So you're Nico, eh?" Austin asks from Will's shoulder, who flinches in surprises. "I'm Austin, Will's roommate. I gotta go meet with my band, but it's great to meet you. See ya."

Will nearly deflates with relief that his roommate can no longer embarrass him.

"Awesome, see ya, have fun at band practice," Will says, nearly pushing his roommate out the door. Then he turns to Nico and welcomes him into the dorm. "Sorry, so take a seat wherever. That's my side of the room, so you can sit at my desk, on my bed, or on... the floor? I guess?"

Will cringes, looking around his small room. There's his bed, Austin's bed, and their respective desks. And there's a beige carpeted ground. While Austin's bed is a hot mess of strewn about blankets and covers wrenched from the mattress, Will's bed is painfully neat, made and remade several times in Will's frantic anxiety. There's a soft stuffie with sentimental value next to his pillow, but other than that, it's all neutral colors, greys and blacks and whites.

Nico pauses for a moment, looking around, before sitting carefully on the edge of Will's bed, resting his bag carefully beside him. He pulls out a laptop and starts messing with it for a moment while Will snags his rolling desk chair and slides it towards his bed, sitting so he's backwards on the chair, facing Nico. His own laptop is resting before him, ready to type in the materials Nico shares.

"Hmm. I think it's best if I share my notes directly with you, like, share the document. Then you can retype if you want, or type on the document," Nico suggests.

"That's a sound idea to me," Will agrees. At Nico's prompting, he types in his email, sharing the notes, and from there they begin to review.

Time begins to blur and pass, when Will hears a stomach growl and feels a dull ache of hunger. "Uh, maybe we could take a break for fifteen, thirty minutes? Eat a snack, let our brains rest?"

By now they are working on homework, and Will feels like his mind is swimming.

"Sounds good. I noticed a café on my walk here. Do we want to go there for coffee before we keep working?"

Will nods. "That sounds great, I could definitely go for a coffee right about now."

So off the two went, making idle conversation.

"How old are you?" Will asks, curious, at one point.

Nico gives a bitter, jaded laugh. "18, always and forever."

"Oh. Really?" Will can't help but feel surprised. "I just assumed, because, well, your hair is long and... I don't know. You give a mature vibe. Stalling slows maturity, I've read."

A snort escapes Nico. "I mean. I've been 18 since 1946. Not even slowed maturity can keep me from growing up emotionally or mentally."

Will shoots out a breath of air, impressed. "1946... oldest 18 year old I've met, but you've only just barely got my friend, Hazel, beat."

Nico shifts at the name. "Hazel? Hazel Levesque? 18 since, oh... 1950...?"

"Yeah! Levesque! Though I think she stalled in 1948. We used to work at the same coffeeshop. We're friends, I can put you into contact with her, if you want."

Nico has a faint smile on his face. "Yeah. That'd be great. What a pair we were, back in the day. We were pals during the civil rights movement. A black girl and a–" Nico hesitates, glancing at Will, then seems to remember something. "Black girl and a gay Italian. Fighting discrimination. She was like a sister to me."

Will hates the flutter in his stomach (which remind him of Austin's snide crush comments) that appear at Nico's outage.

It is also so jarring to realize that Nico had been 18 for so long. Like yes, Will knows he turned 18 in 1946, but what that means in relation to how long Will has been 18? It is, for lack of a better term, absolutely bonkers.

With a jolt, Will remembers he's in the middle of a conversation, and now Nico is eyeing him warily.

"Sorry. Not judging you, I'm bi, I just got lost in thought. That's. Wow. What was it like then?"

"It was... very different," Nico says after a moment of thinking. "There's been a lot of progress made since then."

Will feels a spark of interest, watching Nico from the corner of his eye as they enter the coffeeshop. He's never been that interested in history before, but now, looking at the man beside him who had lived through so much, he thinks that he'd be willing to give up on learning medicine if it meant learning the history Nico had lived through.

Fighting to squash down the sudden surge of emotion, Will turns toward the menu board, focusing on what he should order.

When they have their drinks (Nico a black coffee, Will a sugary latte) and are walking back to Will's dorm, a question surfaces in Will's mind that he asks before second-guessing himself.

"Why do you keep your hair long? If you're still 18?" Will blurts out before he can stop himself. Nico shifts, looking a little uncomfortable, and Will adds, "That is, if you don't mind me asking. If you'd rather not share, then that's fine."

"I don't... really know," Nico confesses. "I suppose I didn't have much hope that I'd find my soulmate to begin with. I mean, it was a pretty homophobic time and all that. But also, next to no one in my family had found their soulmate. Bianca, my older sister... she was 18 for a few years before she died. Car accident. My mother did meet her soulmate, my father, but both died young. Most of my relatives died serving in World War Two, or in accidents, or etc."

Will frowns. "Okay, that sucks." He falls silent, thinking. Finally, he says "I don't know if I'm overstepping, but showing a little bit of hope can't hurt, right? Maybe showing you believe you'll find your soulmate will make it easier. Um. Maybe?"

Nico's eyes flash as several expressions cross his face. "That was overstepping, a little. Actually, I'd say a lot. You've been 18 for what, a few years? I've been 18 for nearly eight decades. We have very different ideas of hope regarding this subject." He pauses, and Will feels his heart sinking as a single thought (I've screwed up) plays in his mind on repeat. "That said. Maybe you have somewhat of a point. A shorter haircut certainly can't hurt. I have been craving a change of some sorts."

And with that sentence, Will's heart lifts a little. Yeah, he still messed up with his unsolicited advice, but Nico doesn't seem to suddenly hate him.

When Nico packs up his bag in Will's dorm and leaves, Will just smiles, a fluttering content settling in his chest. He can't express why he's so glad to have gotten a chance to bond with Nico, but it certainly helps when, the next day, he receives a picture of Nico's new hair, a short and shaved undercut, but a strip of fluffy, messy hair still on top.

And their studying together becomes more recurrent. And as they meet in the library one week, about a half a month after moving, and Will runs his hands over his own shaved hair habitually, he suddenly notices the unevenness of his usually uniform hair.

"Holy mother of God," Will blurts. Nico stops, halfway through a review of molecular geometry, and looks at the boy sitting directly next to him.

"What is it?" he asks. He looks curious, but also a little disappointed. There's a new sag in his shoulders, like he can already guess what's going to happen.

"My hair," Will explains. "It's grown."

Nico shifts uncomfortably. "Well," he says after several agonizingly long and silent moments, "who do you think is the lucky gal? Or guy?"

Will thinks back to his first interaction with Nico, to that little flutter (that felt familiar, yet new, and flashed through him instantaneously) he felt, and he wonders if maybe that was his body starting up again, so to speak. And he looks at Nico's hair, shaved and short. He can't tell if it's uniform or growing already. He wants to reach out and feel, but he can't imagine a normal way to do it. And he dreads finding out his soulmate isn't Nico, because, yeah, okay, maybe he does have a crush on him, and Will can't have a soulmate he knows and a crush on somebody else.

But still, he goes through the mental production of counting off the people he's met recently. None of them gave him that lightning flash feeling. He can't help but say it. "I mean, for one, you, obviously."

Nico gives a little snort and goes to run his hand through his hair, as if to prove more to himself than to Will that no, they are not soulmates.

But then he freezes. And does it again, carefully. Then a third time.

"... Nico? You okay?"

He looks like he's about to cry. And Will doesn't know what to do, what to think. It's just about to click for him. It hits him just as Nico speaks.

"My hair."

His eyes are wide and dark and threatening to fill with tears. His left hand, raised halfway to his head, tremulously freezes. He's staring dead at Will.

"C- can I feel?" Will asks. He doesn't think he'll believe it until he feels the uneven hair. When Nico nods, Will leans over and runs a hand up the back of the dark head of hair. Sure enough, tufts stick out slightly, getting snagged on his tanned hand. "Oh my God."

"When we first met," Nico says quietly, "and you spoke to me, I felt this..."

"Flash," Will whispers. "A sort of flutter, but it flashed. Scorching, nearly."

Nico nods. "Yeah."

Will realizes that while his hand has dropped from Nico's hair, he hasn't leaned back. They're face to face, and mere inches apart, and suddenly Will finds himself consumed with one thought: kiss Nico.

"Can I... kiss you?" he asks. Nico nods. One of Will's hands twitch, and he wants to reach out and cup his soulmate's face. So he does, slowly, so Nico can back away if he changes his mind, if he doesn't want this.

But he doesn't flinch, so Will leans in, and they kiss.

And that's when he knows that Nico is his soulmate, not just somebody he likes, that he's interested in romantically. Because this kiss is unlike any other.

He's grinning, and Nico's grinning until suddenly Nico's sobbing in the middle of the library, and then neither of them are grinning.

"Hey, are you okay?" Will asks gently, his hand falling. "Is it... is it me? Would you like me to back off a bit?"

Nico shakes his head, almost frantically. "No!" he insists, and almost chokes on a sob. "No, I just... I spent so long. Thinking I was never going to find love. There were too many reasons. I- I had given up."

Will wraps his arms around the dark haired boy and pulls him into a hug, tight and hopefully comforting. Nico shifts slightly to wrap his arms around Will as he burrows his face into the crook of Will's next.

Will doesn't know what to do or say. On one hand, yes, he understands that feeling of being unlovable, of never being able to find somebody. But not like Nico had felt it. He had probably spent so long telling himself it, and feeling as though his fears had been confirmed, that it would take more than just a kiss from his soulmate to undo the damage. It would take time, and Will wouldn't be able to fix it for him.

What Will can do, and what he does, is tightening the hug, one hand slowly rubbing Nico's back.

"You are loved," he whispers into Nico's ear. Is there such a thing as saying 'I love you' too early to your soulmate? Will doesn't know so he settles for the middle ground of saying are loved. "You are loved."

Nico pulls back to face Will again, and gives a watery smile. "And you. You are loved too." One of his cold hands brush the side of Will's face, wiping away a tear Will didn't know was there. In response, Will brings his hand up to Nico's cheek and wipes away his tears.

"I knew it!" came a voice suddenly, slamming down at the seat across the table from Will. "I knew you like each other!"

"For fuck's sake, Austin, please!" Will yelps, whipping his head to glare at his relentlessly teasing roommate. "I'm trying to have a moment with my soulmate, who I just realized is my soulmate. Can you please, just... not?"

Austin gasps, leaning closer over the table. "Deadass?"

"Yes, now please go away."

"Fine, but I'll be over that way. So, uh. The dorm is empty if you guys want to... canoodle," Austin offers, waggling his eyebrows.

"I hate you," Will says in response, glaring. As Austin scurries away, leaving Will glowering at the spoiled moment, Nico starts to laugh. Quietly, at first, but progressively growing more boisterous. A flash of self-consciousness sears through Will's veins. "What?"

"That... I don't know. So pure, even if you said fuck. You said please so many times. Such a diplomatic way to deal with him." Nico's grinning, laughter subsiding, and he rests his forehead against Will's. "I liked it. I like you."

"You do?" Will asks, voice catching.

"I mean. I should hope so, given that we're soulmates." He gives a small laugh– Will would call it a giggle, were it not for the fact that it was coming out of Nico's mouth, and Nico does not giggle. "Even before now. I was so obvious."

"No you weren't!" Will protests. "If you were, I would've kissed you sooner!"

Nico flushes, but smiles. "I mean. I laugh a lot around you. I don't really laugh otherwise."

"Well, how am I supposed to know that?" Will complains. Still, he, too, smiles.

"Okay, fair point. But the important thing is that you know now. You can kiss me now."

"Well, cheers to that," Will says with a grin, closing the distance between them.