Eight Months fic!

Get on Skype! :-P

What's the magic word?

NOW!

Add another tally to the amount of punches I owe you when I see you next.

XoXOxO

The moment a little green light appeared next to Nico's profile, Will hastened to start a chat, nearly bouncing in his seat with excitement. As usual, it took a few minutes for the connection to stick and the image to filter into view. But then there was Nico, wrapped up in a cozy afghan and looking adorable in an overlarge plaid shirt.

Upon taking in Will's appearance, Nico let out a single loud shout of laughter, covering his mouth to hide it. "WHAT are you wearing?"

Will grinned victoriously and straightened out his fake beard. "I'm Santa!"

Nico burst into laughter again, still trying to hide it behind both hands. "Y-you look so ridiculous!"

Will was just happy his plan had worked. Getting Nico to laugh – fully, heartily laugh – should become an Olympic sport. Will was certain he'd at least get the bronze medal and wear it proudly. He'd missed the sound desperately over the last month and, even though they still had over seven months to go, Will thought he would be able to through it if he could always get Nico to laugh like that. "I wore this to work, yanno!" he huffed in a faux-offended tone.

Nico cracked up even harder, falling forward to let his head smack against the keyboard. "Wh-why would you…?"

"C'mon, now," Will drawled out and waited for Nico to raise his gaze. Then Will kicked up the charm. He leaned one elbow on the table, cocked a suggestive eyebrow, and winked. "Tell Santa whether you've been naughty or nice!"

He had hoped the conversation would have taken a much more romantic route, but he hadn't expected Nico to let out a loud howl of laughter and quite literally fall out of his chair. Will winced at the sound of his boyfriend crashing onto the floor, chortling the whole time, and blushed.

"I'm being serious!" he called to him.

"O-oh! Will, stop it! I can't b-breathe!"

Will shook his head with a fond smile as his boyfriend climbed back into his chair, wiping at his eyes with the overly long sleeves of his plaid shirt that looked awfully familiar. Will gaped at him. "Is that my shirt?"

Nico turned a deep shade of red and glanced down at himself before hugging his arms protectively. "S-so? You have one of my hoodies!"

"Yeah, but you have a hundred of those! That was my favorite shirt!" Will pouted. "I thought I'd lost it!"

"You want me to mail it back to you?"

Will sighed and shook his head. "No. It looks better on you anyways. But I will come and get it."

Nico smiled and leaned back in his chair. "All right then. So… how exactly do you gauge whether someone's been naughty or nice, Mr. Claus?"

Oh, that was definitely more like it. Will put a finger on his chin in mock thought. "Hm… well, you stole my shirt so that definitely steers you more towards the naughty list." He nodded authoritatively. "Then, of course, there's the matter of the other thing you stole."

Nico glared. "Other thing? What other thing?"

Will gasped, splaying a hand across his heart like he'd been shot. "Do you really not know?"

"Know what? What are you accusing me of stealing?"

He batted his eyelashes at him and stuck out his bottom lip in the failsafe way he knew would make Nico flustered. "My heart."

Nico stared at him for a few moments then guffawed, holding his sides as he nearly cried with laughter.

Will's face heated up. "H-hey! That was some serious romance! Quit laughing!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Nico held his hands up in surrender, unable to quell the humor in his voice. "Just… just take off the beard! Please!"

Will rolled his eyes. "Well, I would if I could, sweetheart," he said before becoming abruptly serious and staring Nico dead in the eyes. "But it's real."

Nico gave that adorable snort again, ducking out of the camera in embarrassment. "Dio mio, Will, just take it off! I can't take it!"

Will blew out a sigh but did as he was told. "All right, all right! Better?"

Nico peeked into view again, cautiously gauging Will's appearance, before letting his full face be seen. "Much."

"I didn't know beards got you going so much!" Will winked. "Maybe I should grow my own."

"Oh, God, please don't." Nico wrinkled his nose. "I prefer my doctors clean-shaven, thank you."

Will snorted and ran a hand along his cheek. "It is baby-smooth."

Nico shook his head in a "Why me?" gesture. "Anyways, did you get my present yet?"

"OH, right!" Will grinned. "It just came today! I was gonna wait to open it until you got the one I sent you."

Nico nodded. "I got it today, too, but I figured you would want to open them together."

He rolled his eyes. "Sure. Right. I wanted to."

"Shut up, Solace."

"Hold up. Lemme go grab it!" He rocketed out of his chair and searched around his messy room for the package.

"It's on the top shelf," Nico called out. "I can see it from here."

Will glanced at his bookcase and spotted it at once. "Ah! Thanks, babe!"

"Don't call me that."

"Sure, Pudding Pop."

"Add another tally to the amount of times I have to hit you. Where are we at now?"

"I believe that's fourteen."

"And it hasn't even been a month yet."

Will sat back down, holding the silver and gold wrapped present in his hand. He smiled at the tag, at his name scribbled in Nico's neat cursive. "Got mine?"

Nico held up a red and green present with a black bow on top. "To the Italian, love the Cowboy," Nico read aloud with a sigh. "Are you ever going to let that go?"

"You're the one with the cowboy fetish, dude."

"I hate you."

Will winked. "Yeah, yeah. You gonna open it or what?"

"Bossy." Nico tore at the paper eagerly and immediately glared up at Will, who burst into laughter as Nico held up a fake white beard of his own.

"Oh my God! Look at your face!" Will cried. "Put it on, put it on, put it on!"

Nico sighed, glanced over his shoulder anxiously, and rose the beard to his face, securing it behind his ears. "How do I look?"

Will understood exactly why Nico had had a laughing fit earlier. Will could scarcely breathe let alone get out an answer. "Y-yo-you l-look s-so cute!" he choked out. "I-I can't take it!"

"Sometimes I wonder why I put up with you and your awful jokes," Nico huffed, going to take it off.

"W-wait!" Will reached out and took a screenshot of his laptop. It made an obvious clicking noise, like the lens of a camera fluttering shut.

Nico made an outraged noise. "William Solace! Did you just take a picture of me?"

Will grinned cheekily. "Maybe!"

"I am going to KILL YOU! Delete that right now!"

"No way! Never!"

"WILL!"

"Sorry, not happening! It's too precious to me!"

Nico scowled, which looked far too adorable when he was still wearing a fake beard. Knowing he'd pay for it later, he took a second screenshot. As soon as Nico heard the sound he squawked in indignation, ripping the beard off and angrily sputtering out in Italian. Will didn't even care if he was being called a thousand different horrible words; he could listen to Nico speak Italian all night long.

"There's more, you know," Will interrupted and pointed at the present. "I didn't just get you embarrassment for Christmas."

Nico huffed, muttering that Will better not have just gotten him a scratchy, cheap beard. He heard him digging in the wrapping paper. Nico lifted out a large jar filled with tiny envelopes. He looked questioningly at Will, so he explained. "There are two hundred and nineteen little notes in there. One for every day between now and August eighth, when I get to see you again." There was something unreadable in Nico's expression. Will gulped. "Uh, Annabeth told me about it. Only some of them are romantic. Mostly they're jokes and random facts because I couldn't think of enough nice things to say." He glanced away. "If it's too sappy, I… uh…"

Nico shook his head vigorously and hugged the jar closer to him. "No! No, uh, it's just, uh… it makes my gift look dumb."

Will clicked his tongue. "Now, I'm sure that's not true at all!" He looked down at the present and smiled. "You could have gotten me a piece of coal and I would've been happy."

"…I actually considered that as a gag."

"Can I open it now?"

He nodded.

Will carefully removed the wrapping paper, trying hard not to tear it. Nico barked at him to hurry it up but Will shushed him. Slowly, he managed to uncover a small little box. Grinning, he opened it. The smile slipped off his face as he pulled out a nice-looking watch. The face showed a globe, with two hour hands instead of one. One of them, Will noticed, said "ME" and the other said "HIM". It looked, and felt, expensive and well-made.

"It, uh… tells both of our times," Nico muttered, hiding himself again. "I figured if anything it would be useful. You know…"

Will's heart ached when he saw an engraving on the back. Made in Italy. "Nico," he whispered, "you seriously shouldn't have. This is… this is seriously too much!"

"It's nothing…"

"No, for real!" Will gaped. "Is this real gold? How much was this? You shouldn't spend so much on me!"

"I don't care about that, Will."

"Well, you should!" Will huffed, but immediately fastened the watch around his wrist. It fit perfectly. "But, it's nice. Really."

"It's not as thoughtful as a jar full of heartfelt notes," Nico muttered, looking away with red cheeks.

"Shut up. I love it." Will watched as the minute hand slowly chased after the second hand. "Thank you."

Nico shrugged. "I should be thanking you."

"For what?"

"Just… for…" Nico sighed. "For being you."

Will smiled. He reached out to touch Nico's face, obstructed by the thin screen. "I miss you."

Nico frowned. He looked down. "I miss you, too. And, uh… I—"

Nico's bedroom door opened. "NICO! Stop flirting with your boyfriend and go to sleep! It's one in the morning, for God's sake!"

Nico flushed angrily and he spun around. "Get out of my room, Bianca! I'm kind of in the middle of something!"

"I bet! Just keep it down, will you? It's bad enough I have to hear you moping about him during the day!"

"GET OUT!" Nico shouted, scrambling out of his chair to shut the door on his sister's face.

"I'll tell Dad!"

"Go ahead! Wake him up and see what happens!" Nico rushed back and blew his hair out of his face. "Sorry, amore, I have to go."

"No problem." Will grinned and tapped his new watch. "It's getting late, after all."

Nico smiled sheepishly and glanced at his door. "I'll, uh, message you tomorrow."

"I'll be waiting." He leaned forward expectantly. "See you."

Nico did the same, until their faces were both pressed up against the camera. Will's lips pressed against the lens just ever so slightly and received a shock for his troubles. He lurched back, cursing as Nico gave a nervous laugh. "Goodnight, Will," he said.

Will held his lips and smiled. "Night, Sunshine. Merry Christmas."

Nico's smile could have melted the snow outside his window. "Buon Natale." He reached forward and, with one last goodbye, hung up, leaving Will feeling strangely alone.

He sighed and looked down at his watch, tracing the face delicately. It was one-fifteen in the morning in Venice – December 25th. As he was admiring his gift, he realized something. Nico had called him something Italian. A moor or something. Amore. That was it.

Curiously, he googled it and almost slid right off his chair in his haste to message Nico.

So… I'm your 'Love' am I? XD XOXO

It didn't take long for him to get a response.

IOU 15 punches.

A/N: I wrote this so fast and it probably shows but I wanted to do a Christmas-fic with this AU and I'm an idiot who has three stories to finish and instead starts writing two more. Anywho, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all of you guys! Travel carefully, practice safe caroling, and enjoy your day off! :3