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It was embarrassing to be on a first-name basis with the entirety of the Upper East Side’s fire department, but Nico supposed that’s what he got for voluntarily co-signing a lease with Leo Valdez.
Whenever he was introduced to someone new, Leo always referred to himself as an inventor. Not an engineer, not an entrepreneur - an inventor. Like they were living in the fucking eighteen-hundreds, and Leo thought he was about to create the first steam-powered engine by tearing apart the third toaster Nico had bought that month and mixing the pieces together with some hunks of scrap metal he probably picked up off the street.
He was somehow even still proud of his shitty little inventions when he had to explain to the fire captain - again - why their apartment building had had to be evacuated - again.
(Of course, Leo had never bothered to warn Nico about his tendency to set fires before they moved in together, which meant the first few times it happened, Nico had feared for his life, grabbing his laptop and whichever of his favorite books were closest before he sprinted down the stairs to wait at the curb with the rest of the building’s residents. He’d been scolded by the fire captain for bothering to take replaceable items with him rather than evacuating right away, but she was cut off when her eyes landed on Leo, and instead started cursing him out in Spanish. Nico was instantly a big fan of Captain Ramirez.)
Leo had probably received a hundred final warnings from the fire department, stating that if he set even one more fire and wasted the time and resources of the fire department, then he was going to be arrested for arson, but he always seemed to practically slip right out of the handcuffs whenever the lieutenant had a word with him.
“You’re a lifesaver, Lieutenant Grace,” Nico could hear Leo saying, watching in awe as the cops returned to their squad car and drove off.
“That is, by definition, my job,” Grace replied, and when Nico looked back at the two of them, he could see a sort of fond smile growing on the firefighter’s face, and, oh, fuck no--
Before either of them could say another word, Nico darted forward, grabbing Leo’s arm to start dragging him away as he said to the lieutenant, “Thanks again, and sorry about him.”
“Dude, what the fuck?” Leo demanded once they were back inside the lobby of their building, ripping his arm free of Nico’s hold.
Nico spun around to face him, glaring at his roommate as he hissed, “Are you intentionally lighting fires because you have the hots for a firefighter?”
Leo scoffed, rolling his eyes. “First of all, his name is Jason--”
Nico buried his face in his hands. “Oh my god, I need to move--”
“--and none of them have been intentional! It’s just a nice little pick-me-up whenever one of my inventions isn’t going as planned that I always get a visit from--”
“You’re insane,” Nico told him, turning and walking away, marching into the elevator and shoving through the crowd inside, ensuring that there wouldn’t be enough space left for Leo to follow after him.
He just needed a few minutes away to stew in his anger, and then he would be fine.
Living with Leo really wasn’t that bad. If you ignored the fires.
He did his fair share of the cooking. He cleaned up after himself. He took out the trash when it was his turn to do so without having to be reminded. He was quiet whenever Nico was trying to sleep, or when he was working on his writing, and he was always a good person for Nico to bounce ideas off of - and really, they worked well together in that way, because everything Leo did for Nico to help him in his writing process, Nico always did the same for Leo and his inventions, even if it inevitably led to another small fire.
Nico wasn’t entirely sure what this one was supposed to be. All he knew was that, as soon as it started letting off sparks, Leo quickly dove under the kitchen table - which he’d claimed as his work table immediately upon moving into the apartment - leaving Nico to run for the nearest fire extinguisher (which he’d taken to keeping at least one of in every room of the apartment). When the extinguisher came up empty, Nico was forced to run to the kitchen sink in search of the fire blanket he’d decided to splurge on a few months back, though when he turned around, he found Leo tossing a regular throw blanket over the now-flaming hunk of metal.
“Dude, what the fuck?” Nico shouted, hurrying forward to rip the blanket away before it could catch fire, though he was too late - flames were already starting to eat through the fabric at its center, and when Nico reached out for it, the fire licked over his arm, causing him to drop the blanket in shock.
“You’re supposed to throw a blanket over it!” Leo exclaimed, scrambling to grab the fire blanket that Nico had abandoned on the floor.
“Yeah, a fire blanket!” Nico yelled back, now clutching his burnt arm to his chest as he rushed to stomp out the flames that were melting the laminate tiles on the kitchen floor, thankful that he hadn’t bothered to take his shoes off right after he’d gotten home.
After a few tense moments, they were finally able to put out both fires, leaving them both panting and exhausted, but at least it had seemed like this time, they wouldn’t have to worry about--
The final wisps of smoke drifted toward the ceiling, and a second later, the smoke detector began to screech.
Nico let out a long, loud groan of, “Fuck!” as he heard the building’s alarm system begin blaring in the hallway.
“I’m not helping you explain this one,” Nico called over the alarms before he started making his way toward the front door.
He took his time heading outside - as did most of his neighbors, who by this point knew that the likeliness of a real fire in the building was incredibly slim - which meant that the single fire truck was already waiting at the curb by the time Nico got there.
Jason hadn’t even bothered to put on his full gear, only in his uniform t-shirt, fireproof pants and heavy boots - and okay, sure, Nico could see the appeal, now that he could get a good look at those arms - and seemed to be searching the slowly evacuating building for Nico specifically. He stopped Nico halfway down the sidewalk with a hand on his shoulder and asked, “Where’s Leo?”
Nico rolled his eyes. “Either he’s right behind me, or he’s inside trying to clean up his mess. Apartment nine-thirteen, if you want to track him down.”
Jason looked like he was heavily considering it, but then his eyes caught on Nico’s arm and the way he was holding it against his stomach. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“Fine,” Nico insisted. “More pissed off than anything.”
Jason’s expression didn’t change. “Let me see your arm.”
Nico flinched back. “What? No, I said I’m fine.”
Jason raised an eyebrow, keeping a hand on Nico’s shoulder as he called back toward the truck, “Zhang! Do we have a medic en route?”
Another firefighter jogged up beside Jason, a beefy Asian dude who actually had put on all of his gear, though his jacket was left hanging open. “I was just about to call them off,” he told Jason as he came to a stop. “Do you want me to call?”
“No,” Jason replied. “Nico needs to get checked out. Can you make sure he’s seen to as soon as they get here?”
“I said I’m fucking fine,” Nico snapped, ducking out from under Jason’s hand, “and how the fuck do you know my name?”
Jason was already walking away, leaving Nico in Zhang’s care, who answered for him, “We’ve been called over here, like, over a hundred times in the last year. Of course we know who you and Leo are. If it makes you feel any less weird, my name is Frank.”
Nico huffed, his arms tightening around his stomach, the skin of one forearm stinging as his hand brushed against it. “It doesn’t,” he grumbled, and then said, louder, “Look, I’m seriously fine, okay? So, can I just--”
Before Nico could finish his sentence, an ambulance with its sirens blaring pulled up to the curb right behind the fire truck, an EMT hopping out before the vehicle had even come to a complete stop. He marched straight toward them, probably coming to Frank to see what the problem was, which gave Nico the perfect opportunity to take him in - tall, blond, tan and freckled, a serious look on his face, though from up close Nico could see faint laugh lines at the corners of his eyes despite his young appearance.
“Hey, Frank,” the EMT greeted even as he looked past the two of them toward Nico’s apartment building, as if expecting to see smoke pouring out of the windows. “Another false alarm?”
“Not quite,” Frank answered, and clapped Nico on the shoulder. “Nico, here, lives with our resident arsonist - he needs to be checked out.”
The EMT’s eyes flickered toward Nico, and it was like an electric current went down Nico’s spine when those blue, blue eyes landed on him. His eyes widened when he saw Nico, almost like he was surprised, like he hadn’t realized Nico was standing there until Frank pointed him out (and okay, yeah, Nico was short, but he wasn’t that short), but there was more to it than that. Something else held in his gaze that had Nico’s heart beating faster, but before he could figure out exactly what it was--
“Come with me,” the EMT said kindly, waving a hand back toward the rig behind him with a bright smile. “I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”
Nico took a hesitant step forward, and then the EMT’s other hand was coming up behind him, pressing lightly between Nico’s shoulderblades to keep him moving. His hand was warm, and Nico felt like the heat spread all the way down to his toes at the single touch. “I-- I’m fine, really,” Nico gave as a gentle assurance. “It really doesn’t even hurt anymore, and I should really get back upstairs to make sure my kitchen is still in one piece--”
The EMT dropped his hand from Nico’s back as they reached the ambulance. He opened up the back doors before patting his hand on the edge of the ambulance floor. “Come on, take a seat,” he said. “Nico, right?”
Nico nodded as he hefted himself up to sit, his feet resting on the bumper, his arm still cradled to his stomach. The EMT stepped closer to him, practically standing between Nico’s knees, and reached around behind Nico, sliding a medical bag out from under one of the seats inside.
“My name is Will,” he said as he pulled a pair of latex gloves out of the bag, putting them on, and Nico silently mourned the fact that he wouldn’t get to feel Will’s warm skin against his own. “You said it was a kitchen fire?”
“It--” Nico hesitated. “It was in the kitchen, yeah.”
Will nodded, waiting patiently to see if Nico would continue, and when he didn’t, Will told him, “You know, burns can be pretty nasty. They require special treatment, they take longer to heal, and they’re at a higher risk for infection, if they sink in too deep. And, did you know that a burn that goes untreated will continue to burn deeper into the skin for a while, unless you treat it quickly?”
“I…didn’t know any of that,” Nico told him, finally loosening his hold on his arm and giving in to the treatment, setting his wrist in Will’s awaiting hand.
Will smiled triumphantly. “That’s because I just made most of that up - I have no idea if any of that was actually true. But it sounded convincing, didn’t it?”
Nico let out a bark of laughter that surprised even himself. “Are you allowed to lie to people like that?”
Will reached for something in his bag, though his eyes flickered back to Nico’s as he asked, “Are you going to turn me in?”
Nico shook his head, and caught himself biting his lip to keep his smile contained.
“This looks pretty bad,” Will told him, “but don’t worry - I’ve seen much worse.”
Nico rolled his eyes. “Considering that this really doesn’t seem that bad at all, I would kind of hope so.”
“Hey, now,” Will admonished, “this is second degree - that’s not exactly great.”
Nico leaned back on his uninjured arm and shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s not third degree, either, so…big whoop.”
“You’re being very cavalier about this,” Will commented before he pulled an alcohol wipe out of his bag, ripping open the container with his teeth - which didn’t seem very sanitary for an EMT, but Nico thought it was kind of hot, so he wasn’t going to point it out.
“Like that other guy said, I live with the neighborhood arsonist,” Nico reminded him, hoping he came off as cool and relaxed even though he felt like every twitch of Will’s fingers against his arm might send him jumping out of his skin. “I’m used to putting out fires, at this point. The fire department should have me on speed dial for how many fires I put out.”
“Is that what happened today?” Will asked as he carefully unfolded the alcohol wipe. “You put out the fire your roommate started?” When Nico nodded, Will continued, “That was incredibly brave of you.”
Nico felt himself flush down to his toes. “Like I said,” he muttered, trying his very best not to stutter, “I’m used to it.”
“You shouldn’t have to be,” Will pointed out. “You know, in my medical professional opinion, I think you should maybe get a new roommate. One that doesn’t start fires in your kitchen.”
Nico caught himself smiling again. “This might be hard to believe, but he’s really not that bad. I mean, I’ve had worse roommates.”
Will grinned. “This is New York City. Of course you’ve had worse roommates.” Nico laughed, and Will’s smile seemed to grow brighter. “Okay, okay, I really do have to do my job now. So, uh, brace yourself, because this is probably going to hurt.”
“I was just temporarily on fire,” Nico commented with a roll of his eyes, “what could be worse than-- Mother fucker!”
“I know, I’m sorry,” Will said in a rush as he wiped down Nico’s arm, keeping a firm grip on his wrist even as Nico tried to rip his arm away. “Almost done-- Okay, okay, I’m sorry.”
He released Nico’s arm entirely, allowing Nico to flinch back, though he didn’t dare try to press his hand over the wound again - not when it was still stinging so badly. “Fuck, you weren’t kidding.”
Will shrugged. “I told you, burns suck. But I promise, that was the worst part. Do you trust me?” He held out his hand, looking at Nico almost pleadingly, and Nico’s heart jumped in his chest.
“This feels very Disney,” Nico commented, though he set his burned arm in Will’s hand once more.
Will beamed. “Well, I could show you the world - and by the world, I mean the inside of this ambulance, because this is where I’ll be for the next…five or so hours until my shift ends, but, um--”
“Nico!” a voice called from the direction of the crowd still milling about in front of the apartment building, and suddenly Leo appeared beside Will. “Dude, okay, so, Jason totally just confiscated my last invention, and he also took that blanket that caught on fire, but he’s also writing up a report right now that we can send to the insurance company so that they can pay Chiron to pay somebody else to fix the floor in the kitchen, so-- Where’s our insurance information?”
Nico aimed a heavy glare at his roommate. “Do we need to do this right now?”
“Yeah, dude!” Leo insisted. “Jason said that if I can get him the insurance stuff, then he can send the report straight to them instead of sending it to Chiron and making us wait for Chiron to send it to us, so that we can send it to the insurance people. So? What insurance do we have? Do we have, like, an agent, or something?”
Will cleared his throat before quickly muttering, “This might feel cold,” as he started slathering burn cream across Nico’s arm. His head was ducked, his eyes focused intently on Nico’s arm, and Nico’s stomach dropped - Leo was ruining this!
“I don’t know, Leo, it’s probably in my room somewhere,” Nico told him.
“Great!” Leo replied, already taking half a step back. “I’ll go--”
“No!” Nico’s arm shot out, grabbing the collar of Leo’s shirt as he turned his back, catching him before he could run. “Do not go in my room. You can wait two minutes until I’m done here.”
“Actually, you’re all set,” Will announced, smoothing a bandage across Nico’s arm before pulling away entirely, even stepping off to the side so that he could repack his bag. “You should change the bandages in the morning, and if you notice any increased pain, or if you don’t feel that the healing process is working like it should, you should see a doctor.” He punctuated his sentence by quickly zipping shut his bag and sliding it back under the seat behind Nico. He smiled up at Nico, though it didn’t quite meet his eyes, and Nico’s heart sank. “Do you have any questions?”
“Nope!” Leo answered for him, grabbing Nico by the uninjured arm and tugging him to his feet. “Thanks, man!”
“No, wait--” Nico started, though Leo had already pulled him back onto the sidewalk, and Will was slamming the back doors of the ambulance shut. He ripped his arm out of Leo’s hold - too late, because Will was already back inside the driver’s seat of the ambulance - and exclaimed, “What the fuck, Leo?”
His roommate looked oblivious. “Dude, what? C’mon, we gotta find that insurance stuff--”
“No, dude,” Nico mocked, “did you not see how that paramedic was flirting with me? I think he was just about to ask me out! And then you butted in and ruined it!”
Leo scoffed, rolling his eyes. “So what? I bet he’ll show up again the next time the fire alarm goes off.”
“There won’t be a next time--”
“Then just go to the…paramedic station--”
“Ambulance bay?”
“--and track him down. Can you get the insurance stuff already? I think Jason’s starting to pack up!”
Nico spent a lot of time thinking about Will. Every distant siren he heard had him wondering if Will was on shift, and every time Nico caught Leo tinkering with one of his projects, he tried to figure out the probability of Will being sent back to their apartment building - if there are x amount of paramedics in New York City, and y number of emergency calls every day, then--
He’d even caught himself thinking of Will whenever he got bored at work, distracting himself from his mundane desk job with thoughts of Will’s hand pressing gently against Nico’s back, Will’s fingers delicately holding Nico’s arm, Will’s smile and laugh and freckles and and and--
Did he flirt with all of his patients? He was so charming, he had to know the effect he had on people, so the flirting was probably just a way to distract someone from their injury.
But what had he been about to say, about the end of his shift? That had sounded like he was going to ask if Nico was free, if maybe he wanted to go out on a date sometime. Right? Nico couldn’t have just been imagining that.
He’d almost ended up setting his own fire at home that night when he zoned out too far while making dinner, though the smell of burning pork hit his nose before the smoke could waft toward the nearest fire alarm. Nico shut off the stove and turned on the vent fan before things could get worse, scolding himself for thinking about what he might be able to cook to impress Will rather than paying attention to his own dinner.
Nico hardly had time to hold onto his frustration with himself before Leo’s latest invention - an attempted recreation of the machine that Jason had confiscated after the last event - started throwing sparks, and Nico was forced to abandon his dinner on the table. Leo stopped whatever he was doing, which caused the sparks to cease before a real flame could erupt, though it didn’t stop a steady stream of smoke from rising out of the device, faster than Leo could fan it away.
From the safety of the doorway, with his coat and shoes already on, Nico called over the piercing sound of the fire alarm, “If anybody asks, we don’t know each other,” before he started making his way out of the building.
Part of him wanted to get to Jason before Leo could, to tell him it was a false alarm and convince him to leave without checking out the apartment - just to get back at Leo for scaring off Will last time - but Nico knew deep down that he really just wanted a chance to see Will again. He crossed his fingers and prayed that the ambulance that pulled up to the curb behind the fire truck was driven by the blond that had taken up residence in Nico’s head.
Still, he went to Jason before he even checked to see if Will was there. Nico rounded the front of the truck just as Jason was jumping out of the driver’s seat and onto the pavement below. “Hey,” Nico said as soon as Jason nodded in acknowledgement, “another false alarm. Sorry about that.”
Jason sighed heavily, slamming the door shut as he said, “I was afraid you were going to say that.”
Nico frowned. Shouldn’t it be a good thing that there was no actual fire?
“Alright, where’s Leo?” Jason continued as he started toward the sidewalk.
“Probably hiding his most recent invention so that you don’t take it from him again,” Nico answered with a roll of his eyes as he followed after Jason. “He should be on his way down. But like I said, it’s a false alarm, so you guys can go, really.” He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and Nico’s head snapped toward the ambulance - toward Will, who had just stepped up onto the curb about twenty feet away.
“We’ll be out of your hair as soon as Leo gets here,” Jason assured him. “We need to have a conversation, first.”
Nico nodded. “Cool. Well, uh, like I said, he should be down here any second. So, if you’ll excuse me, I need to--” He took a step in Will’s direction, though he was stopped by a heavy hand on his shoulder.
“I meant both of you,” Jason clarified.
“What?” Nico squawked. “I’m not the one setting fires! And besides, I’ll just be right over there, so when Leo shows up--” He looked over his shoulder, making sure that Will hadn’t left, and found that other firefighter, Zhang, starting up a conversation with him. Will’s gaze flickered toward Nico for half a second before he said something to Zhang, and then stepped back out into the road. “No, wait!”
He tried to weasel out of Jason’s grip, but he held fast, and Nico was forced to stand there and watch as Will’s ambulance drove off.
Leo finally appeared a few seconds later, and Jason finally released Nico’s shoulder.
“Jason!” Leo said with a big grin. “So good to see you again! Sorry, but, like I’m sure Nico already explained, this was just another false alarm. No biggie.”
Jason pinched the bridge of his nose. “Except it kind of is a… biggie. Captain Ramirez has decided that shipping us out here once a week is a waste of station funds.”
Nico frowned. “Doing your job is a waste of funds?”
“When every call is a false alarm, yes,” Jason continued. “And every time we come here for a false alarm is another chance that we could risk being too late to save someone else. Ramirez had decided that…” He sighed, hanging his head. “You two are no longer protected by the New York City Fire Department.”
Nico actually laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not,” Jason replied around another heavy sigh.
“Is that even legal?”
Jason shrugged - but Nico would kind of really like a definitive answer right now. He lived with the neighborhood arsonist, and the fire department was just going to ignore him?
“If you call 9-1-1, we’ll come,” Jason explained, “but we won’t be responding to any smoke detector alerts from your building from now on.” He cleared his throat, and took a step back, keeping his gaze on the ground between them almost like…he was afraid to look Leo in the eye. “Sorry. Try not to set any more fires, and you should be fine.”
He stepped around them, making his way back to his rig.
Nico smacked Leo in the arm as soon as Jason was out of sight. “See what you did? See what your stupid flirting did? I’m going to die in a fire now, because of you!”
Leo looked like his heart had been crushed, still staring off in the direction Jason had gone, even as the firetruck started to pull away. “I wasn’t doing it on purpose…”
“I’m never going to see Will again!” Nico wailed.
“How do you think I feel?” Leo argued. “Jason basically just told me to get lost! My knight in shining… Uh, fire-retardant armor is gone forever!”
Nico woke up with a cough.
His first thought was relief that he wouldn’t have to go to work before remembering that it was his day off, anyway. No work, and no Leo in the apartment all day, and Nico was going to waste the day away with a cough.
Maybe, a small part of him thought, he could play up his symptoms and call himself an ambulance in the hopes that Will would come to his rescue.
He opened his eyes, though quickly shut them again as the air seemed to cause them to burn and sting. Maybe he would be calling an ambulance after all, if this kept up. He rolled out of bed, landing on his hands and knees to avoid running into anything, and opened the door as soon as he reached it.
Light streamed in through the living room windows when Nico just barely cracked his eyes open, and either his vision was horribly blurry, or…
Something wasn’t right.
Nico pulled his shirt up over his mouth and nose, hoping to filter the smoke from the air he breathed as he moved as quickly as he could toward the kitchen. He tried to stay low, knowing that smoke was supposed to rise, though it seemed like every part of the room was thick with the stuff.
He was coughing more often than not by the time he reached the stove, checking each of the burners to make sure they were all off. He went to the table next, though Leo’s latest invention looked as though it hadn’t been touched in a few days.
This time, it wasn’t their fault.
Nico lived with the neighborhood arsonist, but he was going to die from someone else’s fire.
He made his way out of the apartment, where the ringing in his ears grew stronger and he realized that it was actually a distant fire alarm sounding throughout the entire building. From the looks of the other open doors in the hall, all of Nico’s neighbors had made their escape, leaving Nico alone to race toward the stairway.
Another terrible coughing fit overtook him about halfway down the first flight of stairs, and he lost his balance, tumbling down the rest of the way to the next landing. He tried to breathe as deeply as he could through the fabric of his shirt, though his coughs were coming so fast that he could barely get any air in before it was expelled once more.
His eyes were still stinging, his lungs and throat were burning, and his head had started to swim. The ringing in his ears - he was sure that it was ringing, now, and not just the intermittent alarms - had grown even stronger, to the point where he almost didn’t hear a voice calling out to him.
A knight in fire-retardant armor, gas mask and all, rose up from the next flight of stairs, just as Nico’s body decided that he wouldn’t have to keep fighting.
“Will,” he croaked with the last of the air from his lungs as the firefighter scooped him up and pressed an oxygen mask over his face.
“You’re gonna be alright, Nico,” the distorted voice told him, and Nico let his eyes slip shut as he felt himself being carried quickly down a flight of stairs. “Where’s Leo?”
Nico had deja vu.
He woke up coughing, his ears ringing, his eyes burning. The difference now was that he felt colder, with only a thin blanket covering him rather than the half-dozen quilts that covered his bed, and when he opened his eyes, there wasn’t a haze filtering his view.
His view of a hospital room. With its scratchy sheets and annoying, beeping machines. He half expected to take a whiff through his nose and smell nothing but antiseptic, though if the tickling of his nose hairs was any indication, he probably had a direct feed of oxygen into his nose. Better than one of those plastic masks over his mouth, he supposed.
He scanned his surroundings. He couldn’t tell what time it was from the way the blinds had been shut, allowing only the faintest streams of light in through the cracks. If he craned his neck just right, he could see the heart monitor just over his shoulder. He door to his room was closed, but if he listened close enough, he could hear the sounds of people talking in the hallway outside.
And tucked away in the corner of the room, right beside the head of Nico’s hospital bed, curled up in a chair with his neck twisted in a way that would no doubt be unpleasant soon, Nico found Will, fast asleep, dressed the same way he had been the last two times Nico saw him in his EMT uniform, like he’d just gotten off work.
Nico’s heart fluttered in his chest, the feeling punctuated by a slight change in tempo on the machine behind him. He opened his mouth, attempting to call out to Will, to wake him up, but what came out instead was a terrible, scratching cough that felt like glass ripping through Nico’s throat.
Will startled awake, flinching as he straightened out his neck before he scrambled for a cup and a pitcher of water near Nico’s bedside. “Just try to breathe,” Will told him, waiting until the wave had passed before he handed over the cup. “Little sips - it might hurt to swallow.”
Sip by sip, Nico drank the whole cup before passing it back to Will, who set it back down on the table. When their eyes met again, Nico’s heart skipped a beat, and Will smiled brightly.
“Uh, hi,” Nico said, his voice hoarse. “What are you doing here?”
The high points on Will’s cheekbones grew pink as his eyes darted to the side, and he laughed lightly. “There hadn’t been any calls to your building in over a month, so when one came in, I jumped at the chance to… To see you again. But then… I got there, and there was actual smoke pouring out of the windows, and I watched Jason carry you out, and--” He reached out for Nico’s hand, holding it between both of his own as his thumb stroked across Nico’s knuckles. “I was so worried about you that I couldn’t drive - my coworker had to take over for me, while I stayed in the back with you. I didn’t want to leave your side until I knew you were okay.”
Nico blinked in surprise. “Oh,” he whispered. There was no way Will got that attached to all of his patients - that meant Nico had to be special. “What… How long have we been here?”
Will glanced up at the clock on the wall. “A few hours - I’m not exactly sure. I know that my shift technically ended right before the call came in, but we were still out and about, so I insisted we take the call.”
“You were working all night?” Nico asked. “And you still stayed here to make sure I was okay, instead of getting some sleep?”
Will smiled sheepishly. “Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but I did fall asleep. That’s what happens when you work the occasional midnight shift, I suppose. You kind of just fall asleep anywhere.”
“But… You didn’t have to stay,” Nico said, hoping to make his point more clear.
“I…know,” Will replied, dropping his gaze to their joined hands. “Would now be a bad time to mention that I have kind of a huge crush on you?”
Nico had to bite his lip to keep from breaking out into a huge grin. “Only if you think it’s weird that I really, really like you, too.”
Will beamed. “I had a feeling you might.”
“What gave it away?”
“Jason told me that, when he found you,” Will explained, “you called out my name.”
Nico felt his face erupt, and he suddenly wished he’d died in the fire. He pressed his head back into the pillow and ran his free hand over his face and through his hair, laughing awkwardly. “Fuck, that’s embarrassing.”
Will squeezed his other hand. “Maybe a little bit. But I think it’s sweet, too.”
Nico snorted. “At least one of us thinks so.” He let his head loll to the side, meeting Will’s eyes once more and finding him gazing at him sweetly. “When I stop feeling like shit, I’m going to kiss you. That’s a promise.”
“I look forward to it,” Will replied. “I, on the other hand, feel totally fine, so--” He leaned forward quickly, pressing a kiss to Nico’s forehead. “Now, can I get your phone number?”
“Why would you need it? Don’t I just need to light something on fire the next time I want to see you?”
Will ducked his head to hide his laughter. “Believe it or not, there are actually much easier ways of getting a hold of me.”
Nico did not expect his first date with Will to take place in a hospital, but he’d been on worse dates. After Nico gave Will his phone number - Nico’s phone was nowhere to be found, which meant it was likely still in his apartment - Will caught a ride back to the ambulance bay to pick up his car, and returned within the hour. He brought Nico lunch from the hospital’s cafeteria - mediocre soup for Nico because his throat was still so sore, and a sandwich for Will - which was eaten on the tiny rolling table between Nico’s bed and Will’s chair.
Once Nico was finally discharged later that evening, Will drove him back home, going so far as to walk him into the lobby of his apartment building before pressing a kiss to his cheek and wishing him a good night.
Nico was glad to see that his apartment was still standing, even if the place smelled faintly of smoke. The living room windows were open to air the place out, and Nico made quick work of swapping out his pillow case and his top-most blanket to get rid of as much smoke smell as possible before he passed out early that night.
In the morning, he woke up to a handful of texts from Will, full of smiley faces and heart emojis that talked about how happy Will was to spend the day with Nico yesterday, and how much he was looking forward to seeing him again.
I’m already feeling a lot better, Nico replied before he even got out of bed. When can we meet up so I can finally kiss you?
He climbed out of bed with a smile on his face, making his way out into the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee while he waited for Will to respond. With a mug in hand, Nico went to sit on the couch, about to turn on the TV for a little while before he had to get ready for work when Leo’s bedroom door opened, and Nico watched as Jason stepped out into the living room.
In silence, they stared at each other - Nico trying to reign in his laughter, and Jason looking as though he wanted the ground to swallow him whole.
“Hi,” Jason said finally, his tone flat. “I thought you were in the hospital.”
Nico grinned. “Nope. Will drove me back last night.”
Jason’s shoulders sagged as he ran a hand over his face. “Oh god, he’s not here, too, is he?”
Nico held up his phone. “Would you like him to be?”