Nico's POV

"The usual?" Nico asks.

"Yeah," Will says, sliding onto his usual stool at the booth. His normally styled blond hair is frizzled on top of his head and a sweatshirt hangs off of his thin frame, covered in cat hair and a spot of some strange substance on his sleeve, most likely from one of his labs. He rubs his face, heaves a heavy sigh, and Nico watches him as he makes Will's drink. Dark circles ring his eyes. "Thanks."

"Yeah, no problem," Nico says. He leans over the counter, handing Will the drink and studying him more intently. The bar is quiet that night, as it is most nights; it's more of an underground type of bar and usually, it's just a couple of regulars scattered around the tables or at the counter. It gives Nico a chance to be more observant, to notice the tiny details that he might not have noticed otherwise.

Will drinks as if his life depends on it; Nico can see the liquid going down his throat, and when he's a fourth of the way through the cup he sets it down with a heavy thump on the counter. He looks paler than usual and Nico frowns. "You doing okay tonight?" he asks, offering a rare smile.

Will smiles back but the gesture doesn't meet his eyes; instead, it just looks forced and paired next to his tired eyes, it just looks wrong. "Yeah," he says, rubbing at his face. "I'm just tired. It's been one of those days, you know?"

"Yeah," Nico says. "I know." Will has gone back to his drink and he stares directly into it, making eye contact with the cup, the counter, anything but Nico. Nico gets the hint to drop it.

Will's POV

He can't stop thinking about that test. Getting the paper back in front of the entire class, seeing the bring red number written on top of it with see me after class scribbled on top of it. He hadn't expected to do well, but, really, a 43? He isn't even a semester into med school, and it's already killing him.

That had been nothing to the shame of lingering behind after all his other classmates filtered out, having his professor explain to him in the softest of tones every single thing he had done wrong. It was so clearly patronizing, and he so clearly knew that however well Will may have done in undergrad, he wasn't cut out for med school.

He had broken down crying immediately after leaving his professor's office. It had been embarrassing; huge, gulping sobs in the middle of the hallway, right outside the door. He knew that his professor could hear him, but he didn't care. It was like every wall inside of him was crashing down on top of one another until he couldn't hold himself up and he was slumped against the wall, sobbing into a failed test with red pen marks on every question.

The bar is a nice end to his day. Two drinks; that's it. Two drinks and he's back home, studying for whatever test or quiz he has the next day. But for those two drinks, it's like he's in another world. Nico, the bartender, is always nice to him; Will thinks that Nico might be harboring a tiny crush, although that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. But as Will's life spirals into a stressful, school-centered hell, he can tell that Nico is starting to notice changes. The dark circles underneath his eyes, the way his head lolls on his shoulders, the constant yawning; Will can tell that Nico is noticing it all. And it's starting to get on his nerves.

"You okay?" Nico asks as he hands Will his second drink. "You look exhausted."

"Yeah," Will says with a tight smile. He runs his hands through his hair. It's messy, hasn't been brushed in a day or two, and he knows that he looks like he just rolled out of bed. "I'm just tired. That's all."

"Yeah, well, you've been just tired for the last week," Nico says with a tiny smile that does a poor job at hiding his concern. Has it really only been a week? It feels like months since failing that test that had sent Will spiraling, questioning his presence in med school. It hurts to think about his failures, and it hurts even more that he's wearing them on his sleeve. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"You're my bartender, not my friend," Will snaps. "It's not your job to care about me."

"You know, I kinda think that if you serve a drink to someone every night, you start to get to know him pretty well," Nico says tentatively. "I couldn't exactly help getting to know you." Will sighs, playing with the rim of his cup. He stares into his drink, willing the conversation to disappear into thin air. Nico could leave and he'd be left to his sad little drink and his sad little life. But when he looks up Nico is still staring at him with those intense brown eyes, and Will knows that he won't go away. "So, you ready to tell me what's going on?"

Will breaks. He tells Nico everything. The lonely evenings, the late nights, the excruciating pain of feeling like a failure day in and day out. Throughout the story, Nico's gaze doesn't waver. Granted, the bar isn't very busy, and Nico probably doesn't have much else to do anyway, but there's something in his eyes that tells Will that he cares. Between school and work and trying to find a good internship in the school year, he hasn't had a stable relationship in a long time. It's been too long since someone has looked at him with true care in their eyes.

"You know, I know this is controversial, but med school sounds like it sucks ass," Nico says. "Sure, maybe a bartender doesn't exactly match up to the wild hopes and dreams that my parents had for me, but at least I have a life." He looks Will up and down as if he's trying to decide some difficult decision, like picking the right answer on a math test. "You don't have anything going on tonight, right? It's a Friday, so I'd assume not."

"I was just gonna go home and sleep for twenty hours," Will says. "I've got half a frozen pizza in my apartment calling my name."

"I'm off in an hour," Nico says. "Hang around till then and you can crash at my place. I've got a relatively comfortable couch, and I can cook up a mean chicken noodle soup. We can watch Netflix and you can sleep until one in the afternoon." Nico watches Will's face with a brightness in his eyes that isn't usually present. Will knows that it's a pity invite, but part of him is too tired and too lonely to care.

"Yeah, sure," Will says. He flashes Nico a tired smile, and he knows that he's probably coming off as completely and totally ingenuine but he truly hopes that Nico registers his appreciation. "Thank you. Seriously."

"Just hang tight for the next hour," Nico says. A couple has just come in and Nico's eyes flit over to them. Will feels a tight burn in his chest at the thought of Nico leaving. "I'll be out soon." He walks to the other side of the counter, smiles at the customers who have just sat down, and Will is left staring into his drink, yet again alone.

Nico's POV

At some point during Nico's shift, Will had fallen asleep at the counter. His head buried in his arms, his hair spilling out onto his sleeve; he looks peaceful, almost angelic in sleep. Nico doesn't know if he's ever seen Will so peaceful. It most certainly was a good idea to invite Will over that night. The thought of Will alone in a tiny apartment eating half a frozen pizza with the weight of the world on his shoulders makes Nico's heart break.

His shift goes on longer than expected. The bar had gotten hit within the last five minutes of his shift, and he had spent twenty minutes trying to get everything caught up. Not like Will had minded; he was still passed out on the counter, snoring gently into his arms. When it's over, Nico walks up to Will, shaking him gently awake. His drink is still sitting half-empty on the counter but Nico pours it out. He doesn't think Will will mind. "Hey," he says as Will picks up his head, groaning. He scrubs at his eyes, pats down his hair. The dark circles underneath his eyes are even darker, and his mouth is hanging ajar. He's the picture of exhaustion, and Nico considers skipping the homemade chicken noodle soup and sending Will straight to bed. "Come on, my shifts over. Time to get going."

They take the subway back to Nico's apartment, with Will's head nodding against Nico's shoulder the whole way there. Nico's street is quiet, the building dark, but his apartment is warm and when they step inside Will breathes a sigh of relief. Nico glances over; Will still looks like he might pass out at any moment, but the color is back in his cheeks, and he's smiling a genuine smile. "I know it's not big," Nico says. "But I can set you up a bed on the couch, and I've got Netflix." He scratches at his arm. It feels strange to be combining his work and home life but here he is, with his favorite customer standing in his doorway.

"Thanks," Will says. "It means a lot. Seriously. It's been a while since anyone's really noticed I existed." He blinks hard, and Nico feels his eyes sting. He leaves Will to grab blankets from his closet, but not without a squeeze of the shoulder and a soft smile. Nico won't let Will go unnoticed. Not anymore.

Soon Will is lounging on a soft bed of pillows and blankets and buried underneath a mountain of both. Nico stirs his soup, humming softly as he cooks. The scent of broth drifts through the house, and a warm sense of home erupts in his chest. Maybe this isn't just therapeutic for Will. All those years away from home and, finally, it was taking someone into his apartment, even just for a night, that brought him back home. As Nico stirs memories of his childhood resurface; of his sisters, his mom's cooking and his dad's warm smile. By the time he's done the apartment is warmer, and there's a perpetual smile on his face when he brings the soup over to the couch.

"Here," Nico says, handing Will a bowl. "Handmade. It's good, I promise, even if you don't trust your local friendly bartender as a professional chef."

"After eating frozen stuff for the better part of the semester, I'll take whatever I can get," Will says. Tendrils of steam rise up from the soup but if it hurts Will, he doesn't let on. He slurps up the broth as Nico flips through his Netflix account, finally deciding on a show he's seen thousand times over. Nico doesn't think that Will will care. His head is currently drooping, and the bags underneath his eyes tell stories of exhaustion. He'll be out cold a quarter of the way through.

Nico's prediction rings true. A half-filled bowl of leftover broth and mushy carrots sits on the table before them, and Will has slipped down to let his head rest on Nico's shoulder, and Nico is somehow comforted by the warm weight of Will's body and the feeling of his hair on Nico's neck. It's been forever since he's felt half this close to someone, and he wishes that he could stay watching that show forever, but he feels the exhaustion from that day start to catch up to him and when his eyes begin to burn from exhaustion he shuts off the tv, glancing at Will.

He's settled into a slumped position against Nico's arm in his sleep and he's snoring softly. There's a tiny smile on his face and Nico feels bad moving him, but he stands up anyway, catching Will's head in his hands and adjusting him so that he's lying across the couch, covered in a mountain of blankets. He groans, murmuring something in his sleep, but he doesn't wake up, and he goes back to the same peaceful resting place as before. Nico wants to stay on that couch forever, but he can't sleep with Will on the couch and he can't watch tv the whole night so with a quiet murmur of "good night" he heads to his room, shutting the door with a soft click behind him. It doesn't matter, anyway, if he has to leave Will in the living room for a night, because he'll be there in the morning when Will wakes up.