tw;; ment. depression

Bianca had tried to make him help with dinner preparations, but Nico made the argument that he'd already asked Will and Andy over, which, for Nico, was enough of an annoying job for one day, and she relented, so Nico spent a few much-needed hours listening to loud music and trying to mentally prepare for the ordeal.

Luckily for the two of them, Maria had been the one to go get their dad a few minutes before Will and Andy were supposed to come over; Nico always felt a knot of anger tangle in his stomache when he looked at his dad. But Maria could always make Henry do what she wanted; Nico saw the guilt in his eyes whenever he looked at her. He fucking deserved to feel guilty, in Nico's opinion. Maria's depression, or whatever the hell it was, was Henry's fault, in part. His distance from his family hadn't done shit for them.

Eventually they were all waiting in the living room for Andy and Will, Nico's gaze fixed firmly on the fireplace and Bianca's on her clasped hands, both of them looking anywhere but at their parents, who looked so out of place together on the couch, Maria smiling at the two of them and Henry doing an impressively good job of hiding his impatience.

"So." Nico's dad fixed his glasses and cleared his throat. "Bianca, how's your schoolwork been going so far? Did your professers give you a lot to do over break?"

"Not a lot," Bianca replied, meeting his eyes for a few seconds before dropping her gaze to the coffee table. "I have to write a few more essays, and finish a book for my law professer, but that's it."

Nico found a little joy in the muscle that jumped in his father's jaw at the word "law." Bianca wanted to be a civil rights attorney, and was majoring in law, a fact that really fucking annoyed Nico's father, who wanted her to be a businessperson and thought she was "wasting her life." Nico remembered the huge fight they got into when Bianca told Henry, who left the house for three hours when Bianca screamed that she was taking law because "who the hell would want to be like you?"

That had been almost two years ago, and though they'd been speaking civilly since Bianca had come home for winter break, they tiptoed around each other (when their father wasn't shut up in his office, working).

So Nico was almost greatful when the doorbell chimed, and Bianca rose from her seat in the armchair to get the door while Maria hurried into the kitchen to get the food, and the palpable tension in the room dispersed.

Nico pushed himself up from the floor before his dad could say anything and followed Maria into the kitchen to help bring the food into the dining room.

He set down the salad and pitcher of water, and seated himself at the center of the table, conveniently away from his father's seat at the head of the table.

Nico plastered on a smile as Bianca lead their guests into the room, and made himself say "hi." He felt morally obligied to warn Will as he took the seat between Nico and his father, who'd hurried in behind Bianca, but Nico didn't give that much of a shit and also suspected that his father would act like a decent human being because technically they were his customers (Henry always wanted to make a good impression on the people who powered his business).

Andy took the seat across from Will, and Nico cringed internally a bit as his father did the stereotypical "you-must-have-met-my-children" introduction and shook Andy's hand with a seemingly cheerful smile on his face. Nico was starting to think that his family fucking invented the idea of hiding emotions.

.

Once they'd gotten all the pleasantries aside and finished eating, Nico's father promptly began asking Andy about the new house and shit, and Nico decided he had to get out of the dining room, so he turned to Will, and, against his better judgment, said "Hey, do you want to go upstairs and listen to music or something?" and was eternally grateful when Will responded with a "yeah, sure."

"We're gonna go upstairs," Nico said, pushing his chair away from the table and standing up.

"Great," Andy said. "We might need to leave soon, though, so maybe come down in like half an hour?" He looked to Will, who nodded and offered an "okay" as Nico practically ran out of the room.

"Ugh, sorry my dad was getting so boring," Nico said as they started up the stairs. "He owns the company that sold your house, and work is basically all he cares about."

"It's okay," Will replied as Nico lead him down the hallway. "I'd much rather listen to music than hear my dad talk about the mini bar in the basement again."

Nico laughed a bit as he opened the door to his room and lead Will in, who looked around appreciatively then promptly gravitated to the shelves of CDs against one wall. Nico followed him, jamming his hands into his front pockets as Will pulled out an CD and turned to Nico.

"'From Under the Cork Tree,' I love this album," Will exclaimed, tapping the cover with one finger.

"Really?" Nico replied, surprised. "You don't seem like the type."

"May I?" Nico nodded, and Will opened the case as Nico reached up to the top of the shelves to turn on the CD player. Will continued, "I would say 'don't judge a book by its cover' but that's cliché. Anyway, you don't need to have a type to enjoy good music."

"Mm, true," Nico said, taking the CD from Will's outstretched hand and popping it into the player.

Nico sat on the edge of his bed and gestured to a black armchair next to the shelves. "If you wanna sit down, um..."

"Sure, thanks," Will said, sitting down. His tan skin and blond hair contrasted sharply with the black fabric, and Nico couldn't help but think that it was so weird that something as simple as music could connect two such radically different people.

Nico tossed his bangs out of his eyes and nodded his head to the beat as Will asked "Okay, so since you like Fall Out Boy, did you go for the full stereotype and listen to My Chemical Romance and Panic! at the Disco, too?"

Nico laughed a bit. "Yup. I'm the literal fucking embodiment of the emo cliché."

Will grinned at him. "Definitely. I mean, you have the fringe and black jeans - by the way, how are you not dead from the heat in long pants?"

Nico shrugged. "No idea. I mean, I stay inside with the air conditioning most of the time and it's usually bearable if I do have to go outside. Anyway, I don't think I even own any shorts."

Will laughed, and Nico found himself legitimately smiling because of another human being besides Bianca, a rare occurance in his pathetically depressing shit life.

"Sugar, We're Going Down" was interrupted by Bianca poking her head around the edge of Nico's door and saying "Hi guys. Um, Will, your dad said you're gonna leave soon."

"Okay, thanks." Will got up from the chair and headed toward the door. "I guess I should come down now."

Nico followed him, actually kind of disappointed that he was leaving.

"You should definitely come over again sometime and we can listen to more music," Nico said as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Yeah," Will said, joining Andy, who was still speaking animatedly to Nico's dad, at the door. "Talk to you soon, then?"

"Yeah, great," Nico replied, not lying at all and pretty fucking happy about it.

.

As soon as Will and Andy left, Henry retreated back upstairs to his office, leaving Bianca and Nico alone in the foyer.

"Well, that was surprisingly not a train wreck," Nico said.

"I know, right?" Bianca replied. "I think you might have actually made a friend, against all laws of the universe."

"Oh, shut up. Anyway, where's Mom?" Nico asked, heading back upstairs.

Bianca trailed behind him. "She crashed halfway through doing the dishes and went upstairs."

Nico sighed. "I was hoping she'd last a few days this time."

"Not anymore," Bianca replied, walking past Nico's room to get to her own. "See you in the morning."

"Yeah, 'night," Nico replied, closing his door.

As he was replacing "From Under the Cork Tree" in its case, Nico thought that his day had taken a surprisingly good turn near the end and that if his life was one of those shitty coming-of-age movies, this would be the part where a voice-over narrator would say that his life had also just taken a turn for the better, but his life wasn't a movie, so Nico decided that maybe he'd just try to have a friendship like a fucking normal person and see where it lead him.
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hi people - i hope you liked this chapter; it was suprisingly good for an early chapter (the really good ones are coming up).

xo - lucy