Chapter Text
Will never knew wind could be slow before. He never imagined the possibility, being from Kansas and all. But his eyes are closed and wind is floating around him, playing with his hair, brushing the space between his fingers. It’s nice. It’s a kind of nice Will hasn’t felt in so long, it’s a serenity that forces you to live in the moment. And for the past few months, Will has been forced to look to the future constantly. But this wind is resting its hands on his shoulders. This feels nice.
The wind’s hands squeeze him, its grip wider than just on his shoulders now. Will opens his eyes. He doesn’t know what he’s looking at.
The wind is blue. No, that’s not wind. He’s underwater. And there’s a black blob in front of him, squeezing tighter and tighter, and trying to pull him up. And Will just stares.
The black blob gets closer. Oh, that’s not a blob, that’s Nico. Their long, black hair spans out around them like squid ink. It’s all Will can see as they get closer. Nico gets a better grip on Will, switching to gripping his forearm and kicking him in the shin. They jump, and Will follows. (Goodbye, serenity. Who knows when we’ll meet again?)
The first thing Will hears when his head pops out of the water is gasping. He rubs at his eyes, snaps his head, and finds Nico, with their squid ink hair plastered to their face, neck, and shoulders.
The one other time Will has seen Nico in such a state was when the two of them were at a fair on campus and Nico got in the dunking booth (because they were so sure that Will’s aim was so shit). Out of instinct, or out of an urge for understanding, Will looks down.
Blue. Deep, deep blue, shimmering below him, wrapping around his legs and clinging to his arms as he treds water. It’s a cartoon shade of blue, too beautiful for Will to ever believe it was real. But it is, and he’s in it. He’s treading water in the bluest ocean, and when he looks down, the only thing he sees past his feet is more blue.
A small wave hits his face. Spitting out water, he grasps the air, and finally lands on Nico. “Where– the fuck?” he gasps. He pushes hair out of Nico’s eyes, and Nico blinks back at them.
“Ocean?” Nico says. Will waits for them to say more. “Um, we’re in the middle of the ocean.” They lift a hand from gripping Will’s shoulder to wave around in a full circle. Will’s eyes follow it, and all they see is splashing waves. It’s not until a full one-eighty degree turn, directly behind him, that Will can see some semblance of land. And, even then, the land is far.
Will looks down. His feet, kicking, and the deep blue.
“I can’t swim…” Will breathes.
“Yes, you can,” Nico says behind him. Will just shakes his head. Nico gently turns him by pulling his shoulders, but his eyes remain on his feet, kicking, and the deep blue. “Well, you are,” Nico continues. “You’re swimming.”
“I’m treading water,” Will says. Then, it clicks. He looks up to Nico’s eyes, deep brown, and screams, “We’re in the middle of the fucking ocean!”
“Will-!”
“We can’t fucking swim!? We’re from Kansas!”
“Will-!”
“Oh my God, I’m dreaming, there's no way this is real. What's the last thing I remember? Oh no, Nico, Nico, Nico, what's the last thing you remember?”
Nico shrugs. “Storm. Tree.”
“Oh my God, the tree crushed us and we fucking died!”
Nico starts squeezing Will’s right shoulder. “Will-”
“I can’t believe we died, I’m supposed to go to med school!”
Nico’s eyes are somewhere behind Will’s head, and they’re getting larger by the minute. “Will-”
“I’m still waiting on fifteen other schools, how are they supposed to know I died!?”
“Will! Oh my God, look!” Nico’s last word turns Will’s head for him, and rings in Will’s ears as he takes in what he’s seeing.
People. Running. Close. Will squints and watches as they break into the water. Briefly, he thinks: they’re coming to help! But, no, the people have their eyes glued to the waves just out of Will and Nico’s reach. Then, Will has another thought: they’re drowning. “I don’t know,” he says in an attempt to soothe himself, but the words die on his tongue. The people, once hidden by the waves, are emerging on top of them, victorious, beautiful, and laughing. They steal the breath from Will’s lungs.
“Surfers,” Nico says in a hush, right into his ear. The word shocks Will, right down his spine. “Come, swim,” Nico says, pushing themselves towards shore. “And, yes, you can swim, Will!” they cry before Will can argue.
One last look down into the deep blue. Well, if he can keep himself afloat, then surely he can kick himself to shore, right? Maybe he could pull out the doggy paddle?
(Will was never put into swimming lessons as a child because his mother, a farmer, thought it would be pointless. There’s no ocean, she would say. What, you’re going to jump into the reservoirs? He spent his summers harvesting wheat instead of swimming. He has never owned a bathing suit. What would he use it for, jumping into the reservoirs?)
Nico seems to know what they’re doing: they’re pushing and kicking in the way Will has seen swimmers do on TV, but with a bit of extra flail. Will watches them swim as he treads water (to observe and learn from example, obviously, no other reason, no he is not scared, thank you very much). After a few strokes, Will realizes that Nico is not gasping for air, or even breathing audibly heavily. Sure, it’s obvious that they don’t have much swimming experience, but they’re still swimming, and they’re way better at it here than they were in Wichita.
One last look at the deep blue below him, shimmering around his kicking legs. Without truly considering it, Will leans forward, letting the deep blue hug his chest, and makes a real, true, kick. He is propelled through the water, farther than he thought he could with his strength. That wasn’t hard, right? So he lifts his arm up, pulling himself forward with a, what’s it called, breaststroke? No, that’s different, but he knows he’s stroking– shit, no, that sounds wrong. Everything sounds wrong in this post-storm ocean, but he’s swimming towards shore, and Nico is looking back at him, and he can start to hear the cheers and laughs of people, which means he is close to civilization, and before he knows it, his toes and knees and hands are brushing against tiny rocks, the kind a classmate who knows the beach once told him that the ocean has, and he’s on all fours, scrambling until he reaches dry sand, dry sand everywhere, and he collapses, and he breathes, and he’s not out of breath like he should be, but he’s alert and paralyzed, lying on his side on dry sand that is quickly becoming wet as saltwater from his hair and clothes and skin drips into it, staining it dark, absorbing the radiant sun above them.
“Nico?” Will says. The volume of his voice shocks him as it comes out of his own mouth. It’s not a weak voice. it’s his usual voice. It’s Will’s voice. He adjusts his head and sees Nico, just a little bit below his line of vision. They’re lying on their back, one hand over their eyes, the rest of their body stretched out.
“Will,” they respond. Their voice is also their usual voice. Neither of them sound like they should sound in this situation, despite how a small cut on Will’s hand stings from the salt water, and despite how Nico’s hair sticks to their neck from all the saltwater.
Will sits up and nudges Nico with his foot in the process. When they’re both sitting up, facing each other, Will says, “What do you–”
Before he can finish that sentence, he is cut off by the beach suddenly ooh -ing. He flips his head around, searching for the source, and catches Nico scrambling to stand. Will’s first explanation for the ooh -ing is aliens. He’s from fucking Kansas, okay, he knows his aliens! But when he looks up at the sky, all he finds is a radiant sun that does not burn to look at, and absolutely no clouds and, worse of all, no UFOs.
Will digs his hands into the sand, because that sounds like a good idea when this beach you landed on after a freak storm starts to ooh, right? But all he finds is more sand filling the space between his fingers.
Nico gasps next to him, and Will pops up. They’re pointing farther down the beach, where the surfers came from. Their pointing finger pulls their whole body, dragging their chest and eyes forward until they become a human arrow, signaling to Will that there’s something over there.
Then he hears it: blue skies, gentle breeze, what a day! Sunshine and sweet harmonies, time to play!
Will knows a musical when he hears it. Nico’s eyes slowly find Will while the rest of them is still a human arrow.
“Romeo and Juli-Wet,” Nico whispers, the same way people do in a beautiful church. They give a tiny wave with their non-pointing hand, but it’s not enough of a movement to disturb the human arrow position. Will steps forward, the sand below his socked feet giving way as he walks. He stands close to Nico, and Nico drops their arm, and they both stare across the beach.
Nico blinks twice, and the beach remains. Well, they tried! They really did try to convince themself that this is a hallucination, nothing more than a bad weed trip, but nope! Right in front of them, right next to this sparkling ocean that could not possibly exist in America, are the surfers of Romeo and Juli-Wet. They have their surfboards, glistening with fresh paint. They have their beach balls, all in vibrant colors. They have their swimsuits, mixed and matched for optimal gender-fuckery. And they have their song, Surf Crazy! The opening number of the film! It’s 1965, a group of queer film school dropouts have made a surf-and-turf movie musical which would incredibly shape Nico’s life and identity, and now they’re here, dropped into the midst of it. It’s a miracle!
One of the surfers does a particularly impressive trick– a backflip into a split and something else Nico doesn’t know how to name– and they can’t help the grin that stretches across their face. Will laughs next to them, the sound fitting perfectly with the music.
Romeo and Juli-Wet is technically a rom-com. Which means that, even though the tree interrupted Nico’s planned love confession, they’ll have many, many, many more opportunities to woo Will. Opportunities featuring music, biking, surfing, hairspray, and total disregard to gender conventions. Oh God, this is going to be perfect.
“Oh my God, Will,” Nico says in a whisper (speaking too loudly during such magical art is sacrilegious), slapping the back of their hand against Will’s chest. “It’s the roll call.” Will is in the middle of saying what? when Nico takes off, sand flying behind them, wet hair unstuck from their face and neck as they sprint through this beach. (Nico di Angelo, sprinting? Nico di Angelo, on a beach?)
The surfers are flying through the roll call. None of them pay attention to the five-foot-four, soaking wet goth racing towards them. As the roll call moves down the line and before the guitar riff could signal the move to the next dance formation, Nico cries, waving their arms, “Nico!” It’s reminiscent of the Hunger Games, I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute! But this is Romeo and Juli-Wet, and no one is off to die.
But Nico feels like they might die when all the surfers in the roll call line turn to them. Behind the surfers, a beach ball is tossed in the air and lands without anyone to catch it. The music is still playing, but the surfers are staring at Nico, the five-foot-four, soaking wet goth.
“Oh! Me,” Will says behind Nico. Nico jumps in surprise– they hadn’t even noticed Will had followed. “I’m, um, Will.”
“Cowabunga attack!” one of the surfers cheers, with the same exact tone and physicality as they do in the movie. And the cheer perfectly fits with the music, like there was never a pause to ogle the five-foot-four, soaking wet goth and their six-foot, soaking wet nerd. The surfers resume their song and dance, doing their usual surfboard tosses and harmonies. Nico steps in, ready to show off the choreography he learned over ten years ago and has never had the chance to show off, when Will grabs their upper arm and yanks them back.
“Ouch– Will, what the fuck?” They say as Will continues to drag them somewhere away from the surfers. (Is this the direction of civilization? Who knows.) “Will, can’t you see–”
“So let’s figure this out.” Will lets go of Nico, but still with enough force to make them stagger. He shakes out his arms in the same way he does when he’s preparing to power through a flashcard set that Nico is going to drill him on. “What’s the last thing we remember? Okay, we’re lying in the grass during the worst thunderstorm of the century–”
“That’s an exaggeration. If it was the worst then we would've gotten evacuation orders–”
“Let me figure this out! So the tree falls on us, then boom, we’re in the middle of the ocean! And, Nico, lest you forget, we are from Kansas, over a thousand miles from the ocean. And, Nico, neither of us know how to swim!”
Will’s cry is so loud that Nico frantically turns to the dancing surfers. The dancing surfers haven’t noticed them– most of them aren’t even facing Nico and Will– but they’re not dancing anymore. Nico knows what they’re doing: the next scene is the surfers’ entrance to Big Momma’s, the diner that they fight over with the bikers. Right now, they’re prepping what to do when they see those nasty bikers, what zingers they’ll use, how they’ll take up as much space as they can. Though Nico is far out of earshot, they can hear the dialogue in their head. They’ve memorized every word, after all. Right now, Nico knows how to slide into those surfers’ world. Right now, Will just snapped in front of Nico’s face. Two different worlds.
Nico sighs. “Then how did we swim to shore? Will, pause for a second, calm down. We’re in Romeo and Juli-Wet! There’s the surfers! This is so cool!”
Will sighs. His sigh is much longer than Nico’s. “Cool? Sure. But, Nico, Jesus Christ, we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Will’s voice trails off, and his hands flap weakly before dropping to his sides. Nico picks up the dropped energy, fiddling with their ring. It’s sliding much more easily now than it usually does. Nico and Will both stand there awkwardly, the sound of residual chatter and crashing waves taking up space between them.
Nico inhales through their nose. They press the toes of their boots into the sand, feeling the warmth. And then, suddenly–
“Hiya,” says a voice behind Nico (because everything is happening behind Nico today). It’s a voice Nico has memorized years ago, amidst Am I Gay? quizzes on their dad’s computer. They don’t have to turn their head to see the grin of that surfer.
“Oh my goodness,” Will exhales, smushing the three words together so they become one. Nico won’t look at the surfer, but they will look at Will, who is such a deer in the headlights right now that they have to bite the inside of their cheek to not smile.
“Hiya!” The surfer says again, with a little more pep. “I don’t think I’ve seen you cats around.”
The bite isn’t working, Nico outright laughs at the word cats. And they can’t return to staring at the sand as it collects the water dripping from their jeans, so they turn their head, and they look, and, oh God, it’s Percy, the leader of the surfers.
Nico stares with wide eyes. Will stares with wide eyes. Percy poses casually, nodding between them like he has all the time in the world to get to know this five-foot-four, soaking wet goth and their six-foot, soaking wet nerd. Which he does, technically, because he is frozen in 1965.
“Okay! Haha,” Percy says into their silence. It is his only acknowledgement of their awkwardness.
Looking at Percy, Nico has a brief flashback to the video games of their youth, with NPCs who gave side quests but would stare at you or just be really annoying until you did what they wanted. Nico clears their throat. “So, uh, I’m Nico. This is my friend, Will.”
Percy’s teeth literally sparkle. Nico outright laughs at that. They turn to Will, who is still very much a deer in the headlights. They step on his foot, earning a yelp and a frantic “Hi! I’m Will!”
“Coolio, Nico and Will. I’m Percy.”
“We know,” Nico says, then smacks their forehead. Jesus Christ, why is their tongue faster than their brain? Percy tilts his head like a puppy.
“Oh, Percy!” Will interjects. “It’s so nice to meet you! Um, it’s so nice to see, ah, people! Like you. No, you’re a person. Yes. You–”
“We’re new here,” Nico says, silencing Will with another step on his feet. This time, they keep the toes of their boot pressing into Will’s foot, letting it hold their weight. Will’s eye starts to twitch.
“Oh, cool! Where are you from?”
Nico puts their all into stepping on Will’s foot, not holding anything back anymore. Will yelps, but Nico keeps on. They quickly glance at him out of the corner of their eye. He’s shivering. “Follow my lead,” they whisper.
“Is it leading us home?” Will responds through gritted teeth.
Nico finds their best surfer smile and says, “We’re from not far–”
“Far away,” Will interjects. He’s too confident. Where is this confidence at literally any other time?
Nico inhales sharply through their nose. “Far away–”
“Not far away…” Well, at least Will has the grace to sound embarrassed this time.
There’s still a clump of wet hair sticking to the back of Nico’s neck. But, hey, while they’re here, why shouldn’t they run their fingers through their hair, mess it up until it looks presentable? Shouldn’t they just look into Percy’s sea green eyes and speak fluent surfer lingo, like they’ve been practicing for the past decade? The name of this game is blending in, playing the right part, and Nico has been studying this film for long enough to succeed, to take home the gold.
If only Will could keep up.
“Right,” Nico says, “not far, but–”
“Far.”
“A close far.”
Percy blinks like he’s expecting more. His grin does not falter. Jeez, is it glued onto his face or something? No, it’s not, Nico knows it isn’t– Percy’s ballad in the third act of the movie is a heart-wrenchingly beautiful masterpiece of music, performance, and drama that only a bisexual man can possess, so there is definitely some emotional depth to him. Nico has to cling onto that ballad as he watches Percy blink. There’s something behind those eyes…
“Coolio,” Percy says on the fourth blink. “Delphi Beach isn’t too isolated, though. We’ve got everything a gang of surfers can need, right?”
Will nods quickly, like he’s trying to snap his neck on purpose. “Yeah, definitely–”
“Sun, waves, music, what more could you want?”
Nico smiles organically. “You’re right, Percy. What more could you ask for? God, Will and I haven’t been here for too long, but Delphi Beach is already so beautiful.”
“Yes,” Will says, a bit robotic. Kinda like the tone Nico used to take as a small child when their mom saw a friend at the supermarket and they would be forced to chat.
“What brings you to Delphi Beach, Nico and Will?” Percy’s words slide in so casually through Will’s awkwardness that it baffles Nico. Can Will feel it, too? Is Will baffled, or is he mentally calculating how far he could be from his apartment in Wichita? Or searching the sky for cell phone towers in case a med school gets back to him and he needs reception to check his email? Nico leans away from Will. Subsequently, they lift their weight from Will’s foot.
“We’re travelers,” Nico says. “You know, just… trampling the earth, trying to find all the universe has to offer.”
“Ah, that’s the true surfer spirit, dude. Have you been surfing through the earth, too?”
Nico laughs outright, because ‘outright’ is, apparently, the only way they know how to laugh now. All they can do is laugh outright and blink. They sway their weight a bit, waving their hands slightly. “Sometimes.” Nico’s ears go on high alert after that answer, but Will doesn’t butt in.
“So you’re surfers?” Percy says. Nico turns their head. Percy is swaying, too, to the beat of the waves crashing on the sand not too far. He was swaying the whole time, Nico realizes. This is how Percy stands. “Hey, us Delphi surfers are always accepting of fresh fish. Why don’t you catch a wave with us sometime?” In that last sentence, Percy literally mimes a wave with his hands and arms.
“Yes,” Nico says.
“Mhm. Have you ever biked?”
Nico knows when they’re being sized up. You have to know when you’ve spent a lifetime sizing others up. They shrug, smirk, tilt their chin up, all nonchalant. “What’s a bike?”
Percy grins. “That’s what I like to hear.”
“Percy!” Before Nico could register it, another surfer pops up behind Percy. She’s in the same surfer attire as Percy, with hair carefully tousled in a style that can only be attained by the ocean air. “Percy, you’re headed to the Shredder Shindig tonight, right?”
Percy’s eyes widen. “Oh, right–”
“Come on, I need a pool partner. You know I can’t think when I’m looking at Shel across the table, come on–”
“Nico, Will, meet Piper. Piper, meet Nico and Will. They're new here, from a close far.”
Piper sizes them up, but her smirk is playful. “Far from what?”
“A close far,” Will says.
Percy nods. “A close far.” Somehow, when he says it, it sounds more thoughtful, like he actually pondered it.
“Percy,” Piper says. “Big Momma’s. Surfers are meeting on the boardwalk to march in five minutes. Be there.” With a quick wink to Nico and Will, she says, “Bring your friends, too,” then treks off toward the boardwalk. Despite the uneven layers of sand and Piper’s seemingly lack of shoes, she treks with almost elegance, like she’s been living this life for a while. (She may have been, seeing she’s stuck in 1965 for who knows how long.) Nico follows her path with their eyes, and finds the rest of the surfers around the boardwalk, either cleaning and buffing their boards or laughing at jokes out of Nico’s reach.
“So!” Percy says with a clap. “Nico and Will, are you coming with us? We need as many surfers as we can to scare the bikers. And, of course, you are dedicated surfers, right?”
With a wide wave of their arm, like a ringleader introducing a circus, Nico says, “Why wouldn’t we be?” They’re smirking as they say it, and Percy is grinning and waving them away, but internally, Nico feels like their skin has been ripped off their arm because they have a way wider range of motion than they once did a few seconds ago.
There, on their arm, where their reliable and comfortable and goth jacket always used to rest, was their own bare skin. Their eyes follow the trail of fear up to their shoulder and no, nope, just skin, and Nico has had a league of nightmares but was always proud to say they never dreamt of being naked in front of a crowd. This can’t be how they lose their streak, right?
Nico’s eyes continue moving, and– “Oh thank God!” they cry. “Oh God, thank God, oh fuck, Jesus Christ, I’m wearing clothes, thank God…” Their panicked cackle bursts through the beach as they slap their hands to their chest, stomach, back, and thighs.
Sure, Nico would never be caught dead wearing this. The gods of Romeo and Juli-Wet have blessed them with period- and culturally-appropriate beach wear. They’re wearing a slim top that hugs them in a way they’ve never felt, with a pair of shorts (crime number one). This is the most color they’ve ever worn in their whole life (crime number two), with the royal-purple floral pattern of the top and the blue denim going against their goth morals. (At least the denim is a dark wash.) The outfit kind of reminds Nico of those vintage advertisements Hazel likes to collect, the ones from the 1940s or 1950s– actually, 1960s would make the most sense for this. It’s vintage and chic and feminine. But not aggressively so, more like touching the waters of femininity. Hey, at least their hair is long enough to cloak their shoulders and a bit of their chest. They grab a few pieces of their hair and fluff it across their shoulders. “Oh, hey, God, I’m dry.”
“Me, too,” Will says. Nico turns to him, and they can’t help how their jaw drops. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Will says, rolling his eyes with his whole head. Nico takes that as an order, doubling over as Will processes his new reality.
“Could be worse,” Nico says between gasps for air. “This is close to how you usually dress, anyway.”
“True. Board shorts aren’t that bad.”
“Yellow looks good on you.”
Will shoots his tongue out at Nico. “Barney purple looks good on you.”
“Please, Barney purple? What Barney were you watching, I’m much darker.” Nico pinches the fabric of their tank top and is surprised to find that it doesn’t stretch much. “God, I feel like a plastic doll.”
“I feel like Ken,” Will whines, slouching and everything.
Nico needs to take several deep breaths so they don’t lose themselves to cackling again. “Oh, yeah. I’m feeling the Ken-ergy.”
That is what makes Will smile for the first time since they popped up in that ocean. In true Will Solace fashion, the smile leads to giggles, which leads to laughter, which leads to him genuinely curled into a ball on the sand. Nico drops next to him without question. Will reaches up and pulls Nico on top of him without question. They’re curled together, limbs interlocked. This is their usual position when they finish Romeo and Juli-Wet in Nico’s apartment, when the credits are rolling and sleepiness gives way to the sillies.
“Oh my goodness, we’re going to meet the bikers,” Will whispers. (Since they’re so close, Nico hears the words loud and clear, crisp like they’re playing in their headphones.)
“Excited?” Nico asks, voice low.
“I mean, like…” Will’s voice takes a while to trail off, stretching out the last vowels. Nico feels cold in the pause. Ocean breezes are cold, apparently. “Yeah, let’s do this,” Will settles on. He pushes up, which also means he pushes Nico up. “We need as many as we can surfers to scare the bikers, after all.”
Nico slaps the back of Will’s neck, already marching through the sand ahead of him. “Oh, absolutely. What else would we do?”