"I don't think that I've been in love as such

although I liked a few folk pretty well

Love must be vaster than my smiles or touch

for brave men died and empires rose and fell

for love, girls follow boys to foreign lands

and men have followed women into hell

In plays and poems someone understands

there's something makes us more than blood and bone

And more than biological demands

for me love's like the wind unseen, unknown

I see the trees are bending where it's been

I know that it leaves wreckage where it's blown

I really don't know what I love you means

I think it means don't leave me here alone"

---Neil Gaiman, Dark Sonnet

"So what is the meaning of I love you? Now that's a question worthy of Plato."

Mr. Chiron was leaning on the podium in what most would see as a casual, laid back slouch, but Will knew to be a product of chronic back pain and deep set stubbornness. Or maybe stubbornness wasn't the right word, because Will had known some pretty stubborn people in his time and Chiron wasn't one of them. Determination was probably a better word.

He was as wise as he was cheery and as cheery as he was grim. Most people abhorred his class, seeing only the essays and long lectures on obscure and confusing topics, but Will saw the loveliness of human wonderment and the truths hidden in the texts and poems laid out before them. Chiron, with his graying beard and suits with threadbare elbows, taught about their meaning with a kind of hushed respect that only comes from hard-earned love.

"However, it's one that has countless answers, none of them truly incorrect, although none of them unanimously accepted. Neil suggests that it's based on the basic human instinct to avoid abandonment at all costs, Anaïs Nin simply said that it boils down to acceptance, Stendhal wrote that it's a fever completely independent of will-- yes, Nico?"

Will's hand tightened on his pencil, beside him, Cecil rolled his eyes dramatically.

From the back of the classroom came the voice Will had learned to know and loathe over the last four months, "And why does it matter what all of these old dead guys thought of love if we have our own views of it anyway?"

Will blew out a long breath.

Nico di Angelo was exactly the type of person Will would describe as stubborn. (Read as: unbearable, dark, pessimistic, and antipathetic to just about everything.) Will was certain that if he glanced back now, he'd find him with his legs kicked up on the table in front of him, arms folded across his chest, expression closed off and jaw clenched in the subtle signs of a taunt.

One of Chiron's eyebrows took a brief vacation under his hairline. "Ah, but not all of them are old and dead. Neil Gaiman is quite alive. As for the second portion of your question, it is true that everyone has their own unique view, as love is a very fluid and liberal concept, and it is also true that others' opinions may not line up with or effect your own. But, nonetheless, I think it's a very important subject indeed. Which brings us to our next topic.

"Over the course of the next few weeks, each one of you will be writing me a 1,000-word essay." Around the classroom, students were already busy sharing pained glances and heavy sighs, "It won't be on your own views, what would you learn from that? Instead, you will be interviewing a person of my choice. The purpose of this assignment is to analyze and dissect another's beliefs and compare them to your own. Philosophy is, after all, the study of ideas about knowledge, truth, the nature and meaning of life and concepts surrounding it, so how could we possibly study it without understanding the views of others as well? Which also answers your previous question, Mr. di Angelo..."

-

An essay, Will could have dealt with. Asking a random stranger personal questions for the sake of school, he could have at least gritted his teeth and pushed through. But this. (If this was a punishment for that one time he crashed Lou Ellen's car into a Taco Bell drive-thru sign, he was sorry.)

Nico di Angelo in a classroom was obnoxious. Nico di Angelo lounging on Will's couch was absolutely unbearable.

Of course, if he was sitting there, praying to everything good and holy and pure, that he didn't get paired with Nico di Angelo, that was exactly the person Chiron would stick him with.

They just sat and stared each other down for too long and then Will jerked his notebook into his lap, broke the eye contact with harsh abruptness. "Let's just get this over with."

Nico smirked at him. "Whatever you say, Sunshine."

Will closed his eyes, blew out a breath, "Don't call me that."

"What should I call you then?" He had eyes like a rose bush, something dangerous and dark (irises the color of petrified wood) veiled by a layer of deceptive beauty and charm (impossibly long eyelashes).

"Will."

And so the night went.

Over the course of a couple of hours, too many caffeinated beverages, and a marvelous amount of self-restraint, Will quickly learned that writing an essay about love was never going to be easy if it involved Nico di Angelo.

"Love is selfless," Will said softly, staring down into the dark depths of his coffee, "it's good and pure. It's one of the only genuine things about human nature."

Nico just scoffed. "No, Solace, love is completely selfish. People only 'love' for their own sake. The only reason people don't want another to get hurt is because it would also hurt them, the only reason any human does anything is purely for their own good, even if it looks to be for the benefit of another."

"If you really think that, then you've obviously never been in love." Their eyes were locked again, boring into each other with a kind of intensity that made electric shocks behind Will's eyelids.

Nico shook his head, "If you don't then you've never had your heart broken. What a guarded and safe creature you are." His tone was all mockery.

Will's jaw clenched at that. "No, I'm just not bent on tearing the world down like you."

Their meetings persisted day after day. They shot refutations back and forth, let insults sneak up and bite without any warning.

Will said, "To love is to have a second armor, a person to back you up at all costs," and Nico countered, "To love is to be vulnerable, and to be loved is to be broken. The moment you open your heart, you risk letting a person tear it to shreds. And the heart is the most vital piece of a human being, why do think people fall apart because of it?"

Will let himself look straight into his eyes and bleed out words from his mouth like subtle threats, "The only way to close yourself off from love is to shut down completely. You can run away from every person who even shows the slightest chance of getting close and your heart will be protected in its safe little cage, but it will harden and die."

Nico's breathing was the only thing in the air for several seconds. Just withdrawn and deliberate ripples of air and a clenched jaw, clenched fists, clenched heart. "You know what every feeling is made up of? Chemicals racing around in your skull and setting off nerves and making the world feel like it's ending or being rebuilt." He moved his hands a lot when he spoke. They fluttered through the air like insects and his eyes followed them around, lit up like a bonfire. When they set on Will, his world was all flames and dark, dark, dark. "Love is no different. It's just a group of chemicals setting in, a phenomenon built from evolution to keep the human race chugging on. And there's no way that some lab experiment in my brain is going to be the thing that keeps my heart intact."

Will laughed at that, "You think that love has the power to tear you down, but not to build you up? You think that something that's so thoroughly engrained into us can't have any positive effects? That's absurd, di Angelo."

The room was very, very quiet.

"I know that it does more damage than it does good." His tone was so carefully placed that it was brittle, his eyes were so guarded that they were breakable.

Will thought he might understand him just a little bit better.

-

They started calling each other night and day with questions, they met in coffee shops and walked around malls and almost always got into heated debates.

Will was starting to notice things. Tiny, insignificant things. Like how Nico's hair curled softly around his ears, like how his smiles were always small and secretive things, like the dark circles under his eyes. He wasn't just rash and antagonistic. He was also quiet and passionate and he got carried away easily.

And Nico was noticing things too. Tiny, terrifying things. Like how Will's freckles were most abundant over the bridge of his nose, like how his laugh was rich and carefree, like the easy way he moved. He wasn't just contradictory and overly sure of himself. He was also caring and thoughtful and he got distracted easily.

Neither of them understood the heat curling in their chests. Surely, it had to be hatred. They knew exactly how to push each other's buttons. Nico just waited until he struck a certain chord and then sat back in a pretense of casualness, acted like he had no idea why Will, who felt too deeply--plunged headfirst into everything he did with his whole soul and never once glanced back--was getting so worked up, and watched him boil and froth over the limits of his temper. Will just worked right around the truth, dancing at its edges, never quite getting there, and watched Nico, who always cut straight to the point--past skin and bones and through the heart, out the other side--let his frustration get the best of him until he snapped.

It was late at night. Much too late to be sitting up talking to some guy who rubbed him all the wrong ways, but that's exactly what he was doing.

Nico wasn't just guarded and hardened and broken beyond belief. He also had a soul and a light behind his eyes and, Will found then, that he also had a tendency to soften as hours passed.

"Love has the ability to turn cold people into something liveable again," Will said, and Nico countered, "Love has the ability meddle brains and confuse emotions." But he was staring up at the ceiling, laid out across Will's bed with his hands folded over his chest and he sounded scared; looked small, dwarfed by the hugeness of responsibility and human carelessness.

Will didn't let himself look for too long, he'd placed himself in his office chair deliberately away from him, "People have the ability to make or break anything lovely."

Movement caught at the edge of his vision and he glanced over to find Nico reaching up at the ceiling with limp fingers. The embodiment of searching for something you have no hopes of finding. He let his arm drop back against the mattress and closed his eyes. "People always break things that are lovely."

"That's why we have to hold them close." Will had the distinct impression that they were talking about something specific.

For a long, long time, Nico just laid there and willed his eyes to stay dry, "I tried. I tried." He was bitter and shattered and had pushed away the ability to trust years ago.

For a long, long time, Will sat there and willed himself not to say anything toxic. He'd spewed too many toxic words at this boy. "Who was it?" His voice was the quietest, softest thing and Nico let himself drown in it.

"Bianca." His throat was clogged with emotion and he had no hopes of keeping his eyes dry anymore, "Her name was Bianca. My sister."

Will's breath caught in his throat, "What happened? How did she. . ." Break you. They both heard the unsaid words. A dangerous trip-wire.

"She didn't break me, they broke her. She--" But that was too much, too close to letting Will in. He was up in a single second, out the door before Will could even stutter out a startled, "Wait!"

Long after Nico was gone, Will's fingers stuttered over his keyboard every time he typed the word love.

-

It was two days before the deadline the next time Will heard from him, hours before he had to wake up and across crappy cell reception, just Nico whispering, "Solace. Solace, I think love can be beautiful if you're careful with it."

Will closed his eyes and breathed in, breathed out. He didn't let himself think about it. (It had been lurking at the back of his brain for so long, there was hardly any point). He just said, "I think so too."