Will's POV

"A one, a two, a one, two-" 

"Hang on, hang on, something isn't right," Nico says. Will groans, turning around to throw him a glare. 

"What is it this time, Nico?" Will asks with a sigh. It's been everything this practice. First, Percy was drumming off the beat, then Jason's guitar was out of tune and now, Nico is stopping them even before they've started the song. 

"I thought we had agreed on counting in normally," Nico said. "Just, like, one, two, three. I don't like the other way." Percy and Jason sigh heavily behind them. 

"You really had to stop us for that?" Will asks. "We were just about to start. I mean, we have our first concert in a week. We have to start actually preparing." 

"Playing in a shitty bar downtown isn't exactly a concert," Nico says. "We get, like, two hundred bucks between the four of us for a night. Besides, I do want to actually start preparing. That's why I'm being so strict." 

"Can we just play?" Jason asks. "Dude, like, come on. We have to practice the songs at some point." 

Nico frowns, strumming at the guitar. He's easily the best guitarist Will has ever met, surpassing Jason by far, but he's been getting on everyone's nerves, especially with stress rising. Will wants to pull him aside, ask him what's wrong, but he's scared Nico might bite his head off if he did. "Fine. But can I count us in?" 

Will rolls his eyes. "If you insist." 

Nico smiles, fingers twitching at the strings of his guitar. "One, two, three..." 

------

After practice, they clean up. Nico and Jason bring their amps to the side of the garage, Will putting away his mic. Percy's mom had been nice enough to let them use her garage to practice so they don't have to store band equipment in the tiny apartment they share between the four of them, but more often than not, they forget to put their things away, leading to a decent-sized rant from Percy's mom. As practice had begun to pick up, Wil had started to push the cleanup. 

"You think he's just stressed?" Percy asks, sidling up to Will. His drum set is shoved in the back of the garage, and he holds his sticks loosely in his hands. 

"Nico?" 

"Yeah," Percy says. "I mean, he's been really on edge lately. It's weird, he's usually pretty chill." 

"I know," Will says. "I know we're all stressed, but I really didn't expect this from him. Especially him." He watches Nico sigh heavily, scrubs the bridge of his nose with his fingers. He sees Will looking and quickly look away. "Do you think you could talk to him? I mean, you're closer with him than Jason or me. Maybe you could get through to him, see what's wrong?" 

"Yeah, I'll talk to him tonight," Percy says. "I mean, he sucks at communicating. Big time. But I'll see if I can find out what's up." 

"Thanks, Perce," Will says. Percy pats him on the back and goes off to do his own thing, raid his mom's fridge, or text Annabeth. Will is left standing in the breezy garage, watching Nico strum his guitar. He plucks out a soft beat that reminds Will of his childhood, cool spring mornings, and a time in the band where their practices weren't filled with fighting. 

------

That night, Will finds that he has trouble sleeping. Even though it's mid-July the night isn't abnormally hot, and the apartment is quiet, but he's lying flat on his back long after two in the morning. In the room to his left, he can hear quiet snores from Nico. Will is sure that his face is smashed into the pillow; he always sleeps on his stomach, and in the room to his right, Percy is talking in his sleep. But those are normal night sounds and yet, Will still can't sleep. Even getting up, padding into their tiny kitchen for a glass of water, and chugging the whole thing, there's no tiredness. He stays awake until the first hints of sunlight, thinking about Nico, about his snappiness at practice, and what could possibly be wrong. 

Nico's POV

He doesn't sleep well that night. His dreams are filled with nightmares about what might happen Saturday night at the bar, with idealistic first dates with Will, first kisses that Nico knows will never happen. At six in the morning, after waking up for the fifth time that night, he decides it isn't worth trying to go back to sleep so, putting on a pair of slippers, he pads out into the kitchen. 

Percy is sitting at the round table in the middle of the room, shoveling cereal into his mouth with a tee shirt and his swimsuit on. "Hey," Nico says, getting himself a glass of water. He chugs half of it before refilling it, wiping stray drops from his chin. "You going swimming?" 

"Obviously," Percy says. "I mean, we both know how shredded I am. How could I have possibly reached my god-like physique if it wasn't for my daily habits?" Nico rolls his eyes, smiling into his water. His mind is a jumbled mess of emotions and his heart full of pain but somehow, Percy always seems to make him feel better. 

"You're not that muscular," Nico says. "I'd give you a seven out of ten, on a good day." 

"Hey, from you, I'll take it," Percy says, cramming the last bite of his cereal into his mouth. Nico loves this early morning Percy, the one with the tousled hair and the tired eyes and the bad jokes punctuated by yawns. Ever since they were kids, this was always the Percy that Nico preferred(although he was head over heels for Percy at all hours of the day) but ever since they had joined the band on a whim, answering an ad that Will had posted asking for a lead guitarist and a drummer, his dreams had been punctuated by another face. "Can I ask you something?" Percy asks. He stands up, rinsing out his dish and setting it into the dishwasher that's practically falling apart. Nico feels a lump rise up in his throat. Percy never asks to talk, not unless it's serious. 

"Sure," Nico says. "I mean, I don't know why you had to ask. I don't even recognize you anymore." 

"Can it, Neeks, this is important," Percy says. "I mean, what's been up with you lately?" 

"What?" Nico says. The lump in his throat gets bigger. "Nothing. I've been normal." 

"You've been super snappy," Percy says. "Like, all the time. It's weird. Like, yeah, you're usually all moody and shit-" 

"I am not moody." 

"Well, anyway, you've been worse lately," Percy continues, as if he hadn't even heard Nico's objections. He isn't moody. At all. "Did something happen? Are you just stressed about our show on Saturday?" 

"You know, that's the thing," Nico says. "Will keeps calling it a show, but it's really not a show. Like, no one's gonna be at the bar just to listen to us. It's more like we're background noise for a bunch of drunk adults. Like, it's stupid, you know? He makes us out to be way bigger than we actually are when we kinda suck. He's just so upbeat about the whole thing. Like, we're not gonna be the next big thing. We're gonna stay in the city and play more gross bars and he's just gonna get everyone's hopes up because he's so good at it. He just makes everyone around him so excited for such tiny things and it's so-" Nico pauses, searching for the perfect word. He has to nail this on the head, to really get his point across. "So- so- so stupid!" That was horrible.

Percy tilts his head, and his gaze is more intense than it's ever been. His eyes feel like lasers, boring into Nico, and making him sweat. He wants to hide as Percy squints his eyes, trying to see into his soul. And then, out of nowhere, he laughs. "Oh, you totally like him." 

"That's stupid," Nico says. His face flushes thinking about his dreams from last night, his hands on Will's chest as they kissed. "I don't like him. He's annoying and stupid, and we wouldn't even work together. Like, really? Me and Will? That would be a disaster! Truly, truly, horrible. I'm gagging just thinking about it. I'm-" Percy puts a hand on his shoulder and with one squeeze, he slows the beat of Nico's heart. 

"Oh, so you really like him," he says with a grin. "This was exactly how you acted around me when you liked me. Don't think I forgot about that." 

Nico's face is being flame-broiled by embarrassment, and he fights the urge to give Percy a nice, solid punch. "Yeah, when we were, like, kids." 

"It was pretty far into high school if I remember right." 

"I stopped liking you in eighth grade, and I won't talk about this anymore." It was more like sophomore year. Or maybe junior. And when he started dating Annabeth, he might have felt a tiny bit of jealousy flare up. But that was it. Mostly.

"Ok, well, I can still tell that you like him," Percy says. "You really haven't changed. And it's fine. Because I think he likes you, too. But we can talk about it after my swim." 

"Percy, what?" Nico says. Percy grabs his swim bag, keys from the counter, slips on his shoes. "You're just going to drop that and leave?" 

"Sorry," Percy says with a grin. "Figure it out. It's pretty obvious if you look hard enough." He shuts the door and leaves Nico fuming, with hope and anger battling for attention in his mind. 

Nico doesn't go back to sleep that morning, even though he's up about five hours earlier than usual. He doesn't think he could if he tried. Instead, he chugs coffee that he hates to get rid of his exhaustion and combs through his memories, for any sign of reciprocated feelings. He draws a blank and by the time he hears Jason and Will start to wake up he's been up for hours, choking down coffee and cursing Percy's entire existence.

Will's POV

He keeps an eye on Nico over the next week. On the short walk to Percy's mom's garage, while they set up the amps, while they practice their songs that just keep getting better and better. Nico is the band's primary lyricist and even though they've all chipped in to help, Will listens closer than he ever has before, picking up on all the nuances and metaphors that he never noticed before, and by the time they're wrapping up the practice, he feels as if he knows Nico deeper as if he just saw into a tiny piece of his soul. He watches as Nico unplugs the amps with care, giving his guitar one final strum before setting it gently back into its case. His exterior is so guarded, but Will knows that if he could somehow get closer, he would see an entirely new person. They've been a band for a year, lived together for six months, and even after so much time, he barely knows him.

Nico jokes around with Percy on the walk back, and Will tries to ease the tension in his chest. Nico is fine, Will tells himself as he walks in silence, internal dialogue on one side of his brain and the lyrics to his favorite song of theirs on the other. Nico wouldn't be making bad butt jokes and talking about the cute guy down the street if there was something wrong, would he? Even so, Will can't get the thought out of his head that there might still be something wrong. Like a bug crawling on his skin, his worry sits with him for the walk home. 

After dinner(pizza in front of Jason's laptop as they watched Netflix) the worry reaches a boiling point, and Will can't take it anymore. He hovers in front of Nico's door, preparing himself to knock. He can hear Nico listening to music and scribbling something down in a notebook, the quiet scratch of the pencil led on paper somehow making it out through the music. With a deep breath, he knocks and the music stops, Nico stops writing, and footsteps start coming closer to the door. 

"Hey," Will says once Nico opens the door. "What's up?" 

"I don't know," Nico says, scratching the back of his head. "Working on a new song. Kinda. It's not great, but it's getting there." 

"Good," Will says. "Let me know if you need any help with it. Anyway, there's something I wanted to ask you." 

Nico blinks. "Uh, yeah. Shoot." 

"Everything's okay, right?" Will says. "Like, are you just nervous for the show? Or is something else going on?" There's a long silence, filled with the beating in Will's heart and the faint sounds coming from Jason's laptop. 

"I think I'm mostly just nervous," Nico says. His eyes dart around, hitting everything but Will's face. "And I'm trying to figure stuff out. But I'll be fine for Saturday." He drums his fingers across the doorframe, and his face goes red. 

"Ok, well, let me know if you need anything," Will says. "You know I'm here for you, right?" 

"Yeah, I know," Nico says. He scratches the back of his head again. "Hey, actually, can I get some help on this song? I'm kinda stumped." 

"Yeah, sure," Will says. His chest feels warm. "Lemme see what I can do." 

They flop down on Nico's bed and Nico reads off the lyrics, line by line in speech that's jolty with pauses and throat clears. Even though Nico isn't the smoothest reader, Will feels a mix of emotions build up in his chest and when he's done, he feels like he's seen yet another side of Nico. The song tells the story of the first bud of romance when the emotions are fresh and raw and everything feels brighter. And, for the first time, Will has something substantial to add to the song. He writes the verse of the second person, about how it feels to slowly fall for someone who's been right in front of them the whole time. 

Nico's POV

The bar is loud, even from the tiny backstage area that the manager had given them. Behind the curtain they set up their amps, go over the music and the lyrics one more time, make sure Percy's drums are set up the right way. Nico can hear his heart pounding in his throat, and he wipes the sweat off of his forehead. He feels mildly nauseous, although it's probably partially his fault for eating nachos at the bar half an hour before he went on. He swallows hard, strumming at the strings of his guitar. He plays out a nice melody, one filled with melancholy and love. 

"Sounds nice," Wil says, stepping up to him. Nico blushes, putting the final twang on his song. 

"You say that about everything I write." 

"Yeah, well, everything you write sounds nice," Will says. "There's a reason you're the writer of the group, you know." 

Nico smiles, and he feels his chest bloom. "I like the verse you wrote for the latest song, though. It's really good." 

"Nothing compared to what you can do," Will says. "But thanks." He tilts his head, and Nico feels as if he's truly being seen. "You're gonna do great out there, you know. We've been practicing a ton." 

"You, too," Nico says. "You're pretty much the backbone of the band." 

"Not really," Will says. "We're all important. And I couldn't do it without all of you guys. Anyway, I gotta get out there, test the waters. Check out the crowd. All that stuff. But I'll see you out there when curtains open." He leans in, pressing a quick kiss to Nico's cheek. It's nothing more than a peck, but butterflies erupt in Nico's stomach, and suddenly, he feels like he's floating. After they've broken apart, Nico leans in and their lips meet. Nico feels like he's on cloud nine, and he feels Will smile as they kiss. 

"See you out there," Nico says. He clutches his guitar to his chest as Will walks out in front of the curtain, butterflies still flapping their wings in his stomach. And as he prepares to join Will on the stage, he feels like he's walking on air. 

Hi guys, just wanted to let you know that I'll be taking a quick break next week! For my last five parts(which is crazy to write out since the book is almost full) I'm doing a series but I want to make sure it's well planned and researched so I'll work on that and be back in two weeks! Also, hope you liked it!

Nina