EIGHT

His room was dark. Looking over at his clock, he was shocked to see it was only eight in the morning. Nico's alarm hadn't gone off, but a knocking on his door had woken him up. He mumbled something that vaguely sounded like 'come in' before burying his head back under the blanket. His room was freezing.

"Rise and shine sleepyhead. Power's out, there is a huge snowstorm, most of the roads are closed."

"Why aren't you at school?"

"Did you not understand any of what I just said? Roads are closed, school is cancelled, which means Christmas break is officially here. Now get up, get up, get up." Will had yanked the covers back and gasped. "You have a tattoo?" He exclaimed.

Nico quickly grabbed his shirt and pulled it on, covering the ink. "Yes. Now why did you wake me up this early?"

"Because there is only ten days until Christmas." Will said matter of factly, as if that would magically explain everything to Nico. At his blank stare, Will continued. "There's only ten days until Christmas and we don't have a single decoration set up in this place. I took the liberty of purchasing some from the dollar store the other day, and seeing as it's break, I figured today would be the perfect day to do it."

Nico knew there was no way he was going to get out of this. "Fix me up with six cups of coffee and we're good."

"Power is out, no coffee." Will said before practically dancing out of his bedroom in excitement. Nico had no idea how anyone could possibly had that much energy in the morning. He was also not prepared to face the day with no caffeine.

"You do know those things will kill you? I thought you cared about your body." Will said jokingly, seeing Nico drinking a Monster he had scavenged from a cupboard.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures. How are you even functioning right now?"

"It's called not staying up until two in the morning. You should try it sometime."

"I actually stayed up till four, and it's not like I do it willingly. So before you decide to tease me, just remember I only had four hours of sleep last night." Nico's attitude was never great in the mornings. Once he had downed the energy drink however, he was his normal self again.

Nico scrounged together a cold breakfast for them, though he would have preferred something warm seeing as the heat was off and the flat felt like it was made of ice.

"How long have you had your tattoo?" Will was curious. It was a larger piece done on the left side of Nico's ribcage. His skin looked like it was torn open and you could see gears through the ribs. It looked amazing on him, and he wasn't sure why Nico always covered it.

"I got it six years ago. Are you planning on going home for Christmas?" Nico answered, and tried moving the conversation in a different direction.

"Wait six years ago, that means you were...what, sixteen or seventeen? Isn't that too young to get a tattoo?"

Nico sighed. Apparently Will wasn't dropping that tattoo thing. "I was eighteen, which is a perfectly legal age to get a tattoo."
"You're older than me? Since when?" Will was surprised. He thought he was older, or at least the same age as each other.

"Since birth. That's how ages work. Look, are you going home for Christmas or not?"

"Are you?" Will countered.

"You know that this is home. I'm just trying to figure out whose house Christmas with Hazel is going to be at." Nico was annoyed at all the questions Will was throwing at him. His response effectively shut Will up though.

At least for a minute or two. "If you don't mind me asking, and you totally don't have to answer, what happened to your parents? You never mention them."

"I don't know." Nico said with complete honesty. "And I don't really care to know. Hazel is my family. What happened to your dad?"

"He knocked up my mom and split." Will said with no remorse. "I heard he's in jail, he tried to contact me, but he doesn't get to be my dad now that I'm all grown up."

"And when did Victor come into the story?" Nico was going to use this moment of Will opening up to find out as much as he could.

"The year I moved out. I don't really know him that well, and I am certainly not his biggest fan, but he makes my mom happy, and she deserves that."

"Well I'm not his biggest fan either. Homophobia aside, he treated you like crap."

"Yeah, well, I don't live there so he isn't my problem. I can handle a weekend or two of his comments. By the way, are you super rich or something?"

Nico was surprised that this was Will's next question. He hadn't given any indication of that whatsoever. "Why would you think that? I needed a roommate because they raised my rent."

"Well I just assumed because med school isn't cheap and as far as I know, you don't have a job. For all I know, you're Batman. No parents, you always wear black, you're super mysterious, and probably a billionaire." Will defensively put his hands up and smiled.

"I usually have a job, I just had a really heavy semester so I didn't work. After New Years I'll go back to working at Art 'n Soul. I pay rent from the money I had saved up for school, but I no longer have to pay for it." Will looked thoroughly confused. "There's a lot you don't know about me, William." Nico smirked, hoping to strike a nerve with his full name. It worked.

Will growled and lunged playfully at Nico, who dodged and ran into his room, locking the door behind him. Will banged on it for a minute before giving up.

Nico stood in front of the mirror and tugged the side of his shirt up, revealing his tattoo. He had to look really closely in order to see the faint, raised skin under the ink. Scars he had done his best to cover up and move on from.

He still loved the design he chose, and he would never regret covering up the reminder of his past. The past year, he had been debating getting another one, and right now he was leaning towards yes, it was just a matter of what and where.

It would have to be when he started working again and could save up for it. Good ink wasn't cheap. He tugged his shirt back down and turned away from his reflection. It had been a few minutes since Will had stopped banging on his door, so he figured it was safe. He figured wrong.

When he exited his room, he was hit with a blast of freezing water, drenching his entire front side. "William! I am going to kill you!" He called out.

Wiping the water out of his eyes, he saw Will running away to his room, but he didn't close his door on time. Nico had stuck his foot in the door and although it hurt like hell, managed to keep Will from shutting the door.

Will retreated farther into his room as Nico slowly advanced. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Nico laughed at his silent pun, seeing as how a deer had literally been caught in his headlights the other night.

Will tripped and fell onto the bed. Nico took this moment to flop down on top of him. "Stop it!" Will laughed. "That's c-c-cold!" Nico remained where he was, pinning down the younger boy.

"No shit, Sherlock." Will tried to struggle free, but Nico held him solidly in place for another minute, before finally having mercy and letting him go. They were both freezing when they had separated, the cold water chilling tem to the bones in an already freezing apartment.

- - - - -

Nico was still shivering, but less so, and he had changed into dry clothes. Only problem was that he couldn't find a hoodie besides his (now) pink one. He knew he had left one at Hazel's, but he couldn't remember where he had left his other one. "William Solace. Give me a hoodie. You owe me." He pounded on his door.

Will still hadn't exited his room yet, and Nico wasn't just going to barge in as he had no idea what state of dress Will was currently in. The door swung open, and Will had a hoodie in his hand that he handed over the Nico. "Here. I guess it's only fair."

Nico slipped it on. The sleeves were long, and it was a bit baggier than he would have liked, but it was warm and he wasn't in a position to be picky. "You can have it back when I can find my other one or when Hazel gives me back the one I left at her place." He looked down and saw the logo for a band he wasn't familiar with. "Who's U2?"

Will gasped at Nico's ignorance. "Only one of the greatest bands. You should look them up sometime, my favourite song of theirs is Beautiful Day." He herded Nico out of his room after grabbing a box by his door. "Now, let's get our Christmas on." Will smiled and plopped the contents of the box out in the middle of the living room.

There were a lot of gold, red, and green streamers, which looked like they were for a birthday party, a few Christmas window stickers, and a bunch of gold stars. "As you can see, we will have to get a bit creative, and the lack of a tree might make things interesting, but I believe that with my supervision and your artistic talent, we can make it look not half bad."

"Alright, I'll see what I can do. You're in charge of window stickers, you can put some in here and stick some on the fridge." Nico ordered before sitting down and unwrapping some rolls of streamer. He decided the twist the colours into a braid, and got to work. It was several minutes until he had enough to string along the roof of one wall. Will was already done with the stickers and was sat beside him braiding his own rolls of streamer.

They worked together in silence until they had braided more streamers than Nico ever cared to see in his life. Will went to grab a chair from the kitchen so that they could hang the streamers, and Nico had grabbed a jar of tacks from his desk.

He made Will hang them, as he was taller. It was a long process, but their house felt tons more festive when they were finished, and Nico was finally starting to feel the Christmas spirit. "We have one more roll of green, and we still have the stars." Will piped up.

"Hand me the streamer, and you can go put the stars wherever you see fit." Will handed over the streamer and left the room to hang more decorations. Nico got to work. They didn't have an actual tree, but he figured it wouldn't be too hard to make one out of the leftover streamer in poor college student fashion.

He used a lot of tacks, and the wall would probably be filled with tiny holes when they took it down, but neither the landlord nor he would care. The tree turned out really well, but he didn't have a trunk so he grabbed some paper from his room, cut it to the right shape, and coloured it brown, adding the wood grain in with a brown marker.

When he came out to add it on, Will was stood staring at the 'tree' on the wall with a giant smile on his face. Hearing Nico enter, he turned. "And this is why I stuck you on decorations." Nico gave a small smile at the praise, feeling happy that Will liked it. When he added the trunk, it looked perfect, and he was looking forwards to the holidays. Will removed a star from the door and tacked it on the top of the tree, standing on his tippy toes.

- - - - -

It was getting increasingly darker in the house as it was evening and the sun was going down. The power was still out. Will grabbed a flashlight and a book before settling down on the couch under a blanket to read. Nico was already sitting on the couch, playing on his phone. He didn't even look up as Will sat down.

Will liked the sight of Nico in his hoodie, and would definitely be okay with him keeping it. I mean, it's only fair, right? He propped the flashlight up so he could read without holding it. It was quiet.

"Crap. My phone died." Nico exclaimed after half an hour. "Will, can I play games on yours please, since your being boring and reading a book?"

"I didn't plug mine in yesterday so it's been dead all day, sorry." He ignored Nico and went back to his book. He heard him sigh before flopping across the couch, head on Will's legs and feet touching the end.

Will heard his breathing slowly steady after a few minutes, and he figured Nico had gone to sleep, not wanting to check and risk waking him up. That boy didn't get nearly enough sleep, and it wasn't healthy.

Will knew it was something more than just staying up late on his phone, he figured probably insomnia or something, because ever since he had met Nico, he had always had giant bags under his eyes, and drank a lot of coffee. Nico might eat healthy, but he clearly wasn't good at taking care of himself.

The snow was falling more slowly outside, and he figured roads would be cleared again at some point the next day. Will put his book down, Nico was definitely asleep. He pulled another blanket off the back of the couch to cover Nico with, and leaned back, staring out the window into the dark sky, fingers gently working their way through Nico's black strands as Will drifted off himself.

- - - - -

Nico woke up with a stiff neck and not in his bedroom. What? His eyes shot open and realized he was just on the couch in the living room. With Will. He sat up, knocking the blanket that was covering him onto the floor. The sun was shining through the windows brightly; the curtains didn't get closed last night.

Will slowly blinked awake, bending his head side to side, cracking his neck. "Oh. Good morning Sunshine."

"How many times do I have to tell you not to call me Sunshine?" Nico groaned. At least the power was back on.

"At least a few more. I'll go make coffee. I was going to go Christmas shopping today, you're welcome to join me if you want. I'll probably just go to the mall or something." They walked to the kitchen together, and Nico got out a pan to scramble some eggs.

He liked their mornings together. Even if they wouldn't see each other during the day, every morning Will made coffee while Nico made breakfast, and they would eat together if Will didn't have class right away. It was nice.

"What time were you planning on leaving? My car is still in the shop, so if I want to get any shopping done, I should probably tag along."

"Which reminds me, how is your cut doing? Have you cleaned it since I bandaged you up?" Will placed a cup of coffee in front of the darker haired boy, who in turn, rolled his eyes at him.

"I'm fine. It wasn't that bad. What time were you planning on leaving?" They were seated beside each other at the island.

"Whenever, I don't really have an agenda for the day. I need to find my list of people to buy for. I made one so I wouldn't forget anyone, cause knowing me, I will. Which reminds me, what should I get Hazel for Christmas?" Will asked, hoping Nico would have an idea, because he was completely blanking.

Nico looked around the kitchen, noting all the stars Will had hung on the wall and the Santa sticker on the fridge beside a Frosty the Snowman. "You don't have to get her anything, but I don't know, she likes tea?" He hoped that would be sufficient enough, as Will was a tea drinker so he would know what she liked better than he did.

"Yes I do have to get her something, cause I'm staying home for Christmas, so Hazel should come over. It wouldn't be very nice of you to go round hers and leave me here all alone."

"You'd be invited if it was at her house you know. I'm pretty sure she likes you more than me." Nico smirked.

"Either way I spend the day with her. It would be rude not to get her one. Plus, I like her, she's cool."

"She has a boyfriend." Nico said protectively. They was no way Will was allowed to make a move on his sister. No way.

"Woah," Will put his hands up defensively. "I'm not interested in her. I just meant I like her as a friend. Purely platonic. Nothing going on remotely romantically."

"Good. I do know how to make your death look like an accident." Nico stared him down until he believed Will had properly understood and got up. "I'm going to go get ready. Let me know when you're leaving."

- - - - -

They took Will's truck for obvious reasons, the main one being that Nico's wasn't present at the moment. The mall looked busy, and neither of them were looking forward to braving the masses, but knew it was now or never. They had to park in the back, as far away from the mall entrance as they could possibly get because that was the closet spot.

The noise inside was deafening, but they agreed to split up and meet for lunch in the food court. Nico knew it wouldn't take that long, as he was only planning on buying for four people, and the only person he had no idea what to buy was Will. Will had him thoroughly stumped. What was a good 'We live together, and are finally speaking to each other again' present? He had absolutely no idea.

The first store he passed that had something he needed was the home store. Winona had been complaining about how her daughter had stolen her favourite blanket for herself, so he figured he'd get her a new one. Or she would trade it with her daughter for her own back. Either way, she ended up with a blanket.

He picked the softest one, and since he couldn't decide on colour or pattern, he just got a solid black one. You could never go wrong with black. Next, he bought Reyna's gift and headed into the sporting goods store. He had never stepped foot in this store in his life, he wasn't the sporty type. He much preferred staying indoors with his paints and avoiding human interaction.

He had to walk around the entire store trying to find what he needed. He reached the knives section, more specifically, pocket knives. Hazel was living on her own on the outskirts of town. He'd be damned if she didn't have some sort of protection.

None were too pleasing to the eye, considering they were practical, so they didn't need to be pretty. In the very corner on the lowest shelf, he saw one that looked like a feather. He wouldn't go so far and say it was 'pretty' but he supposed knives weren't meant to be, and it was one of the few not in camouflage print. It was a decent price, too.

He didn't know much about knives, but it looked sharp, and Hazel could easily stab and intruder with it if need be. Looking down at his clock, he saw it was already almost noon. If the mall had been emptier, he could have been in and out in half an hour. That was impossible with the lines at the checkout tills.

Finally, he had made his purchase and headed to the food court, getting out his phone to text Will. He saw his tall, blonde head standing by Taco Bell. "Get everything you need?" He asked him.

"Gods no." Will replied. "I have no idea what to get my mom. She's impossible. I'll probably just end up getting her a cook book, she'll use one recipe, and never open it again."

"I mean, it's the thought that counts?" Will merely chuckled at Nico's response. It was Will's turn to order.

He turned to Nico. "What do you want?" Nico ordered, and was about to say 'no' when the cashier asked if he wanted anything else, but Will nudged him to the side and tacked on his order, paying for both of them.

"You didn't have to pay for me." Nico grumbled, taking their number and moving to the side to wait for the food.

"You know, a normal person would say 'Gee, thanks!'" Will smiled.

"It's a good thing I'm not normal." Nico countered. Will left to go try and find a table while Nico waited to grab the food. It didn't take much longer, and soon he had the tray in hand and was searching for Will. It didn't take long to spot him either.

They remained silent, too focused on eating to try and have a conversation. They were done quickly. "I just need to stop at the bookstore before we leave, is that alright?" Will asked, grabbing his bags and standing up. Nico did the same.

"Yeah, of course."

Will in the bookstore was similar to a kid in a candy store, which made Nico smile. He didn't understand how passionate some people were about reading, but that didn't mean he was going to mock Will for it. He figured he was probably the same in an art store.

Nico saw Will eye a book, read the synopsis, and put it back on the shelf. He saw pure longing in his eyes, but walked away after a minute, heading to the cookbook aisle. When Will was out of sight, Nico picked up the book, and the next one in the series.

If Will didn't like it, or already owned it, he could always return it. Nico would be sure to keep the receipt just in case. Buying a book for someone could be hit or miss. He made his way to the till, and the books were placed in a bag just as he saw Will heading towards him with his own bag from the store.

"Find something good?" Will asked, nudging Nico's bag with his own.

Nico shrugged. "Just something I thought Hazel would like." He lied and left the store, Will following close behind, and headed for the truck.

When they got back to the flat, Nico stashed his presents in his room, slipped on Will's hoodie, and headed back out to the living room, planning on starting a movie.

"Mind if I join you?" Will asked as he sat beside Nico, laying down and sprawling his legs across Nico's lap.

"Not at all, make yourself at home." The sarcasm dripped from his voice, but Will ignored and pulled a blanket over him, turning to the screen.

(A/N This is the pocket knife Nico got for Hazel. Because Nico is the kind of person who would get his sister a pocket knife to stab intruders with. But a pretty pocket knife, so she could look cool while doing so)