Chapter Text
Between classes on Thursday, Will crammed himself into one of the tiny study rooms in the middle of the math and science building at his university. He had thirty minutes between classes, which would hopefully be enough time for him to eat his lunch, reorganize his to-do lists, prioritize the homework that needed to be done that night, and check his email, YouTube comments, and replies on Twitter. Within five minutes, he’d made a mess of his borrowed desk, with papers and textbooks and his laptop strewn all over the surface.
With one hand, Will held an apple that he took a bite out of every few seconds, while his other hand held his phone, thumb brushing across the screen as he scrolled through his feed. His eyes skimmed the headline of some news article somebody had tagged him in, claiming that he was on his way to becoming the next Crash Course - and he was flattered, really, but he didn’t intend to keep this up after he finished med school.
As he scrolled, his phone buzzed in his hand, and a notification came across his screen - a direct message from a username he didn’t recognize. So far, he hadn’t had to change his settings to mutuals only, because until recently, he hadn’t been popular enough to have to deal with creepy DMs - and those still only came once in a blue moon. For the most part, people kept their messages to the replies, or his comments section on YouTube.
Will opened up the DM, bracing himself for whatever creepy message might be awaiting him, though he was relieved to see that it was nothing weird.
[@GhostKing: hey you do those homework help youtube videos right? can you help me with some chem stuff? i can’t balance equations for the life of me]
Will frowned. If this GhostKing person knew that Will did homework help videos, then shouldn’t they know that Will only helped people on stream? Will pulled up the keyboard and started typing a reply.
[@WillSolace: I’d love to help, but i’m not streaming until tomorrow night when I have a break from classes. If you send me your equations tomorrow, i’ll gladly help you out on stream!]
The reply came so fast that Will wondered how it was possible for another human to type that quickly.
[@GhostKing: ok but im doing my own stream at the same time that you normally stream, and my test is tomorrow morning. so i could really use some help if you have like 10 free minutes at any time today]
Will huffed. First of all, that was kind of rude, right? He just said no, and this person is just going to keep pushing? Will was a busy guy!
Although, at the same time, the mention of their own stream piqued Will’s interest. What kind of stream did they run? Was this somebody internet-famous that Will had heard the name of in passing once or twice, but never made the connection?
Rather than replying again, Will clicked on the username, which took him to the profile of Ghost King. he/him. twitch streams every friday. He scrolled down the page, where he found a pinned tweet that read: MYTHOMAGIC streams friday 7pm EST twitch.tv/ghostking. MINECRAFT streams whenever i feel like it. JACKBOX streams will never happen again if i have any say in it.
Will kept scrolling. There were a handful of tweets announcing the start of a stream, a reminder of a stream to come, or thank god leo’s computer crashed, no jackbox tonight. Further down were what looked to be fan-made stream highlight videos that Ghost King had retweeted. Will clicked on one.
The game must have been Mythomagic, because Will had never heard of it before, and he certainly didn’t recognize what was on screen. Mainly, it looked like a lot of single-player violence - maybe someone trying to escape some sort of labyrinth? In the bottom corner of the screen, where the streamer’s face would normally sit, Will saw the shoulders of a person, though their face was hidden by some sort of CGI skull mask. Whatever technology used in making that mask must’ve taken a lot of work, because the CGI followed Ghost King’s every move, keeping his face perfectly concealed no matter what.
Nothing seemed to be altering his voice, though.
And, shouting profanities at a computer screen or not, that was a voice Will wouldn’t mind hearing more of.
Will skipped through the video, not having the time to watch the entire thing, though after a short montage of Ghost King dying and some grumbled complaints that didn’t sound entirely like English, the Mythomagic screen disappeared, replaced by the Minecraft loading screen. “Fuck Elysium and fuck those fallen hero assholes or whatever they are. I wanna look at some Minecraft cows,” Ghost King announced, and Will felt like something inside his chest was filling with helium. If he wasn’t careful, he might fall in love with that voice.
He chewed on his lip as his thumbs moved on their own, swiping back to his DMs and typing out a new message.
[@WillSolace: let me check my schedule!! I should be free after my last class tonight. maybe around 7:30est?]
[@GhostKing: cool]
Will was about to start rearranging his schedule for the rest of the night - maybe if he pushed back his lab report one more day, or skipped his shower that night - when he glanced at the corner of his screen and saw the time. He had five minutes to pack his bag and catch an elevator up seven floors.
He scrambled to get everything together, and booked up to his next class. Somehow, he managed to make it before his professor arrived, and ripped his phone back out of his pocket to send one more message.
[@WillSolace: add me on discord!! that way we can vc and i’ll talk you through everything: sunshinesolace#3542]
Will was lucky enough to get an early release from class, meaning he had a little more free time to finish up some homework. He had one more class that evening, and then he was back to his apartment by seven, where he threw together a quick microwave meal - though he tended to save those for Fridays since he didn’t want to be late for his stream.
He was shoveling Easy Mac in his mouth as he sat down at his desk, plugging in his laptop and loading Discord. He had a friend request from ghostking#7876, which he accepted right away, and then he was sending a message to let Ghost King know, I’m ready when you are!
Once he was given the go-ahead, Will started up a voice call, his foot tapping anxiously as he waited for Ghost King to connect.
Then, there was a slight crackle in Will’s headphones, and a soft, low, lightly accented voice that Will recognized from the highlight video saying, “Um, hi.”
Will grinned, his heart fluttering at the thought that, right now, that voice was just for him. “Hey, uh, Ghost King!”
“Oh, god,” he replied, almost a groan, and added, “would you please call me Nico? I hate when people call me ghost king, like, out loud. Where my ears can hear it. Just don’t, like...advertise that that’s my name, you know? If you wouldn’t mind.”
Nico, Will repeated in his head. Nico, Nico, his name is Nico!
“Yeah, no problem, Nico,” Will replied, feeling giddy just from the taste of his name on his lips. “But I gotta ask: if you hate the nickname so much, why don’t you just go by your real name?”
“I just...like my privacy, you know?” Nico told him, sounding almost sheepish, like he was worried Will would pick on him. “I’ve never shown my face, and I try not to share any personal information, because...it’s my business, not anybody else’s. I don’t want somebody on the street to recognize me from my streams and try to become my new best friend. Or worse.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Will said with a laugh that he hoped was more friendly than condescending. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m the kind of idiot who started showing my face and using my full, legal name on the internet at the ripe old age of fifteen, and I’ve never had any horribly awkward encounters.”
“Right,” Nico said after a second, and then, “So, um. Chemistry?”
Will was halfway to thinking, I think we might have chemistry, when instead he said, “Yeah, can you send a picture of the equation you’re trying to balance?”
For about ten minutes - exactly as long as Nico assumed it would take for Will to walk him through the problem - they balanced equations. Nico sent pictures, and Will shared his screen so that he could walk Nico through what needed to be done. Then, since they were already there, and Will had already decided to push back his lab report, he helped Nico through the rest of his study guide. And then...they talked.
Nico still tried to avoid saying anything too personal, though that didn’t stop him from sharing stories about his idiot classmates. Will tried to one-up him with stories of his own, but somehow, Nico always had him beat.
It was when Will was starting to yawn - he always tried to be in bed by ten every night, and he was already pushing it - that Nico started to say goodbye, though Will couldn’t let him sign off without asking one last question.
“Feel free to not answer if this is too personal, but… How does your video filter thing on Twitch work?”
“Oh!” Nico replied, and Will could almost imagine his eyes widening in surprise - hazel eyes, or maybe golden brown. “It’s, um. Hard to explain. And by that, I mean that, um, my friend Leo made it for me. He got bored one day, I guess, and learned how to make VTuber models, and then when I wanted to start streaming, I asked if he could make a skin for me. I just know that the mask covers my face without obstructing my view of the screen, so. Really, that’s all that matters to me.”
Will grinned, resting his chin on his hand as he said, “Cool.” He wanted to sit there and talk to Nico for the rest of the night, but he knew that if he didn’t say goodbye soon, the call would never end. “Um, anyway,” he said, straightening up again, “I’ve got homework to finish up still tonight, so, um. I’ll talk to you later, okay? Whenever you need more homework help, or...just to hang out.”
“Yeah,” Nico said, “I’ll...let you know.”
“Cool,” Will replied, “see you.” He waited until Nico repeated the sentiment before ending the call and slouching back in his seat. He stretched his arms over his head and sighed happily. Will couldn’t even find it in himself to be irritated at the late hour - he was tired, a little hungry, and still had so much homework to get done - but most important of all: he had a new crush.
After Will’s first class the next morning, he opened up Twitter. He posted a reminder for his stream that evening, and told his followers to prepare any questions they wanted him to help them through on stream.
Then, since he already had his phone out, he switched over to Discord. His texts with Nico appeared on screen as soon as the app loaded. There wasn’t anything new since the night before, and Nico wasn’t even online, but Will started typing anyway.
[sunshinesolace: hey good luck on your test today!!]
He stared at the screen for a few minutes, reading over his last text and some of their messages from the night before - plus the reminder that their ten-minute call from the night before actually lasted closer to three hours. He swiped to the side to see if Nico had come online - he hadn’t - and he periodically glanced at the bottom of the screen to see if Nico had started typing. After a few more minutes of waiting and successfully chewing off the end of his thumbnail, Will realized that he was going to be late for his next class, so he stuffed his phone in his pocket and hurried off.
He was thinking about Nico for the rest of the day - whether or not he’d done well on his test, or trying to imagine what his face might look like underneath the VTuber mask.
(Nico’s hands sometimes appeared on screen, whenever he gestured as he spoke or if he ran a hand through his hair, so Will knew he was relatively pale. Did he have freckles on his cheeks? Dimples? His hair was always down, so Will knew it was dark brown, lightly curled, and about shoulder length. Did he ever pull it back to keep it out of his face? Did he have facial hair, or was he clean shaven?)
Will didn’t do a great job of participating in his classes, or paying much attention at all during his lecture, but then he was finally free to head home and prepare for his stream. He made himself a quick dinner and tried to clear his mind of anything that wasn’t math or science related, and then he set himself up at his desk.
His Friday night streams were always pretty straightforward. He signed on, said hello, and then his viewers would leave questions from their homework in the chat. There was probably an easier way to go about it, especially considering how his fanbase had grown over the years - and the fact that sometimes he got so many questions at once that he couldn’t read one before the chat zoomed by. Still, this way was familiar, and seeing someone ask him the question on the spot always made Will feel like he was helping actual people, instead of if he’d just been responding to old comments - like he did sometimes on his pre-filmed videos.
For an hour and a half, that’s how things went. As soon as the stream ended, he started yawning, his energy suddenly drained as soon as the end stream button was clicked. It had been a long day - a long week - and he was tired, and kind of hungry, and still dreading doing his own homework. (Why couldn’t he get credit for doing other people’s homework, instead?)
Instead of crawling straight into bed, Will forced himself up and into his kitchen to grab a snack, and then he was back at his desk, flipping open textbooks and notebooks and…
...staring blankly down at the pages.
Maybe he needed some background noise.
...Nico was streaming tonight, too, wasn’t he? Maybe his stream was still going.
Will pushed his textbooks aside to get to his keyboard, heading to Nico’s Twitter first to find the link to his Twitch. His most recent tweet was an announcement of his stream about to start - almost two hours ago. Will felt his heart sink at the realization that he’d probably missed all of it, but he clicked the link anyway.
Nico’s voice came through his speakers as soon as the page loaded, cursing out some big bad on the screen. Nico’s health bar at the bottom of the screen was rapidly depleted as he shouted, “Fuck! Damn it, I was so close, I--” Something flashed on screen, and where the health bar had been at zero before, the red bar jumped back up to 50%. “Oh, shit! I forgot I had another Death Defiance!”
Will grinned, and he knew instantly that he wouldn’t be getting any homework done while the stream was on.
Nico’s character did end up dying a few short minutes later, not with a loud curse but a quiet huff of frustration from Nico, who slouched back in his chair. “God, I hate the Twin Fists. Worst weapon, hands down. Haha, get it? Hands-- Because they’re, like, gloves? Whatever. Anyway, uh, same time next week for another Mythomagic stream, and look at Twitter to see when I’m streaming Minecraft, or whatever. Um. Yeah, that’s it. See you-- Or, well, you’ll see me, I guess. Bye.”
The stream ended, and Will and the rest of Nico’s viewers were thrown into the audience of some other stream, though Will didn’t bother to see who or what it was before he closed the tab.
He was about to dive back into his homework when Discord pinged, and Will saw a notification appear in the corner of his screen before it swiped itself away.
Did that say ghostking?
Will scrambled for his mouse, clicking over to his Discord window and frantically clicking on his DMs.
[ghostking: hey sorry i didn’t check discord until right before i started streaming but thanks]
[ghostking: i think the test went well thanks to you]
Will read over the messages three times each, his heart fluttering in his chest and almost making it hard to breathe. Nico did well, thanks to him!
[sunshinesolace: glad i could help!!]
[sunshinesolace: hey so anyway, i watched some of your stream tonight!! that game looked cool, what is it?]
[ghostking: mythomagic, it’s a roguelite based on greek mythology, specifically the myths about hades and erebos]
[sunshinesolace: cool! what’s a roguelite?]
[sunshinesolace: sorry i know next to nothing about video games, unless its pokemon or minecraft]
[sunshinesolace: but mythomagic looks cool! it looks like it would be fun to play but id probably suck at it lol]
Will bit his lip, his heel tapping nervously on the ground as he watched the ghostking is typing… notification appear and reappear along the bottom of the window. Maybe he shouldn’t double and triple text like that. Was he being annoying? Was Nico just as exhausted after his stream as Will usually was after his own? Maybe he should let Nico get to bed - he wasn’t even sure what time it was for him, after all.
Then, Nico’s next message - practically a novel in and of itself - appeared on his screen, and Will found himself grinning. Okay, if he was getting responses like that, then he could pretend he knew stuff about video games.
Will and Nico started texting each other almost every day. Will watched Nico’s Minecraft streams throughout the week, and Nico sometimes asked for more help on his homework - though they found a time that was better for both of them, so that Will didn’t miss out on sleep again. (It almost seemed like Nico didn’t sleep, considering how late some of his streams went, and how many classes he was supposedly taking.)
They had gotten into the habit of voice chatting while they did homework together, whether Nico needed Will’s help that night or not - sometimes it was just nice to have the company, even if there was nobody physically in the room. It was how, for the first time, Will was able to ask for Nico’s help, for a change.
“Hey, Nico,” Will said suddenly, lifting his gaze from the study guide in front of him. He’d been scanning pages in his world history textbook for what felt like an hour, and could not for the life of him find what he was looking for. When he received a hum in response, Will continued, “What do you know about the first world war?”
“Everything,” Nico replied, “Why? What do you need to know?”
“I can’t find the name of that...message,” Will told him, searching his study guide for the question again. “The one that some British guy intercepted about--”
“The Zimmermann Telegram,” Nico cut in. “It was a message from Germany to Mexico, asking for an alliance in the war.”
“Oh, hell yeah, thank you,” Will said, quickly scribbling down Nico’s response in the correct section on his study guide. “I can’t believe you just, like, knew that.”
Nico snorted. “There’s a video of you out there somewhere that’s just you naming all of the bones in the human hand from memory. But I can’t know what the Zimmermann Telegram is? You’re not the only one who knows everything about your major.”
“Okay, fair,” Will replied instead of demanding, how did you know about that video? Do you watch my videos? “But I hope you know that you’ve just opened yourself up to so many history questions from me this semester.”
Nico laughed lightly, and Will’s stomach swooped at the sound. “Consider it a repayment for you helping me, then, I guess.”
“I can do that,” Will replied, his voice coming out softer than he intended. And then, because his mouth liked to work faster than his brain sometimes, he asked, “So, you’ve watched some of my videos?”
He almost slapped a hand over his mouth, as if that would prevent the words from traveling through Nico’s speakers, but then Nico hummed an affirmative. “I definitely would’ve failed my algebra class freshman year if it wasn’t for you. I can’t watch your streams ever, because, you know, I have my own, but I’ve seen a lot of your pre-recorded stuff.”
“Oh,” Will replied, trying very hard not to vibrate right out of his chair, and hoping he was keeping the giddiness out of his voice, “cool.”
“Don’t you ever get… I don’t know, nervous?” Nico asked, becoming quiet again and almost...embarrassed. “Sorry, it’s hard for me to imagine, like, willingly sharing my face on the internet. Don’t you ever worry about, like, stalkers?”
“Most people are too nice to be stalkers,” Will said, though he heard his mother’s voice in his head, telling him that he was going to get kidnapped if he put too much personal information out on the internet - like his face and his real name. “But, yeah, I was pretty nervous when I first started out. Then I kept getting a bunch of nice comments about how much I was helping people, and that made most of the anxiety go away.”
“So, nobody ever recognizes you?” Nico asked. “In class, or out on the street?”
Will laughed softly. “Well, I wouldn’t say never, but most of the time it’s just like, hey, you’re that YouTube guy! Thanks for the free tutoring!”
Nico hummed. “I guess I should say thanks for the free tutoring, huh?”
“Oh, no, you’re not getting it for free anymore,” Will reminded him. “This is a trade system, now. In return for all of my math and science expertise, you’re going to teach me all about history and video games. And maybe even some video game history!”
Nico snorted. “You wanna learn about video games, too, now?”
“Hell, yeah! I’ve played Minecraft before, and some Pokemon when I was younger, but that’s pretty much the extent of my video game knowledge. So, I’m banking on you to educate me here, Neeks.”
“I don’t know,” Nico said around a laugh, and it was like music to Will’s ears, “that sounds like a pretty big task. What’s in it for me?”
“You mean, besides the free homework help?” Will asked.
“Yeah, besides that.”
Will hummed in thought. “How about the most embarrassing story I have from being a YouTuber?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Nico replied, and Will could hear the smile in his voice.
“Okay, so, I started making videos when I was like, fourteen or something, right?” Will started. “So there’s a lot of babyface Will out there. So, freshman year of college, I’m in this intro to bio class, which is covering all the basic boring stuff I learned in high school. One day, the professor is like, I could explain punnett squares myself, but instead here’s a video of some high schooler explaining them instead. And, like, it’s punnett squares, so I was already kind of zoning out, but then I look at the big projector screen at the front of the room, and there’s my fifteen-year-old self in my childhood bedroom with my shitty webcam. I got so many weird looks for the rest of the semester; it was mortifying.”
As horrible as it was to relive that moment in his head, hearing Nico laughing through his headphones made it all worth it.
As midterms approached, Will announced that, rather than posting a pre-recorded homework help video, he would have a second live stream in the middle of the week to make sure his followers were feeling prepared for their upcoming exams. Unfortunately, this meant that he wouldn’t be able to talk to Nico that night while they did their homework together, but maybe after he finished streaming, Will would be able to catch one of Nico’s unscheduled Minecraft streams, instead.
On Wednesday night, Will started up his live stream the same way he always did, and jumped right in to helping his viewers with their math and science questions. He managed about half an hour before he started seeing questions in the chat that he knew he wouldn’t be able to answer.
“Guys, please,” Will said with a sigh, scrolling through the chat to see different history and social studies-related questions, “you know this is math and science only. I can’t help with-- Okay, actually, I do know that one. Um, victoriousholly, the message from Germany to Mexico that was intercepted by Britain during the first world war was called the Zimmermann Telegram.” He scrolled a little further, and his eyes caught on another question. “Okay, actually, I might know someone who can help with some of these, if y’all could just bear with me for a second.”
Will pulled out his phone, which was normally kept on silent and stored in his backpack for the duration of his stream, and he opened up Discord. Nico was online, though he didn’t appear to be playing anything, at least according to his status. Rather than typing out a message, Will hit call, and held the phone up to his ear.
He was prepared to start working on another question while he waited for Nico to answer, though his phone barely rang for five seconds before the call was picked up. “Will?” Nico asked. “Aren’t you streaming right now?”
“Uh, yep! I am, but, um--” He scratched at the back of his head, suddenly realizing how weird it probably was for him to take a phone call on stream. He should probably get right to the point. “Can you, um.” Will scrolled back up to one of the questions in the chat, and asked, “Can you describe the system of government in place in ancient Athens?”
“It was the first known democracy,” Nico answered easily, “why?”
“No reason!” Will said quickly. “Um, thanks, I’ll call you back later. Um, bye!”
He tapped the end call button about four times before the call screen finally disappeared, and then he tossed his phone aside to get back to the stream. “Okay, um-- Well, the question disappeared again, but to whoever asked about the system of government in ancient Athens, apparently it was the first known democracy. But, anyway! Back to math and science questions only, please.”
Will moved on to the next question he saw in the chat, and dove into his explanation. It wasn’t until he started scrolling to find another suitable question that he saw a lot more activity in the chat than usual. Sometimes, his followers would help each other out, if somebody asked a question that Will didn’t know the answer to - history questions, for example - or if Will somehow skipped over one question for any reason. When he looked this time, though, he saw paragraph after paragraph of responses to certain messages, and more and more history-related questions being asked. Will almost gave another reminder not to ask for history help, but then he noticed the name of the person giving out such detailed responses, and found himself smiling at the realization that Nico was watching his stream. Nico was helping his followers!
Will cleared his throat to get himself back on task, and said, “Okay, next question!”
The second he ended his stream that night, Will opened up Discord on his computer. At some point during the stream, Nico had disappeared again - maybe he got bored, or maybe he ran out of questions to answer - and had apparently started playing Minecraft. In another window, Will opened up Twitter, and saw that Nico’s most recent tweet was a link to his current stream. He clicked the link, and as he waited for the page to load, he switched back to Discord.
[sunshinesolace: thanks for the help tonight :) ]
Nico’s voice came through his headphones once the stream loaded, and Will watched him mess around on Minecraft for a few minutes as he tried to think of some other way that he could thank Nico for the help.
Before now, Will hadn’t had a Twitch account. Sure, he’d been watching Nico’s streams for the last month or so whenever he had the time, but he’d never found it necessary to make an account, since he was perfectly content with streaming on YouTube. Didn’t streamers get more money when they had more followers, though?
Opening up a new tab - so that he could keep Nico’s stream in view - Will worked on making himself an account. Then, once that was finished, Will made sure to follow Nico’s account, and then - because apparently following and subscribing were two different things on Twitch - he hit subscribe, too.
Something ping ed in Nico’s video, and then he was saying, “Thanks for the sub, uh--” He cut himself off with a quiet laugh, and continued, “Did you make an account just to follow me, Sunshine?”
Will’s heart skipped a beat at the nickname, and he hurried to click over to the Twitch chat to type out his reply.
[sunshinesolace: yes i did! :D ]
God, Will wished he could see Nico’s face without that skull mask in the way. Was he smiling? Was he annoyed at Will, or did this make him uncomfortable, like Will was invading his privacy?
“You know,” Nico started, and Will held his breath to hear his reply, “you said you would call me later, so don’t go thinking that you’re getting out of that so easily, just because you came to watch my stream.”
[sunshinesolace: wouldn’t dream of it]
Will went back to Texas for a week over Thanksgiving break, and to make it a true break, he even pushed back both his next video release and his Friday night stream.
All that meant, though, was that by Wednesday afternoon, he was bored. His mama still had to work, so he had the house to himself for the rest of the day with nothing to do. He’d finished most of his homework on the flight out, and was saving the rest for his flight back. The only thing he could think to do was fire up his old desktop computer in his room and see if his Minecraft file was still usable.
As he waited for the ancient machinery to turn on, Will opened up Discord on his phone, and went to his texts with Nico.
[sunshinesolace: so, you know how ive been watching your minecraft streams while i do homework sometimes? well. I miss playing minecraft now bc of u, so really i think its only fair if u play with me now that i have access to my old computer]
[ghostking: sure that sounds fair]
[ghostking: do u mind if i stream it?]
Will made sure that Minecraft would load to begin with before he agreed to stream with Nico. He set up his laptop on the desk beside his monitor so that he could be on voice chat with Nico while they played, and suddenly felt his nerves spike higher than they had in years. He hadn’t played Minecraft since high school, probably, and he’d never streamed a video game before. What if he fucked up Nico’s ratings, or something?
“You sure you don’t mind me crashing your stream?” Will asked as Nico typed out an announcement tweet.
“If I didn’t want to stream with you, I wouldn’t have offered,” Nico reminded him. “Are you ready? Do you have the stream open?”
“No,” Will answered, “should I?”
“It might be nice to keep an eye on the chat,” Nico pointed out, “in case anybody asks you any questions directly, since you’re not streaming this yourself. Unless you wanted to stream, too? I wouldn’t mind if you did.”
“No, my whole setup is back in New York,” Will replied, “so I’ll leave the streaming to you. I am gonna send out a tweet, though, if that’s cool. You can go ahead and start, if you want, and I’ll jump in when I’m ready.”
“Cool.” He listened with one ear as Nico introduced the stream, while Will pulled it up on his laptop, the audio muted to avoid any weird echo on Will’s end, and once that was settled, he opened up Twitter.
[@WillSolace: take a break from studying and come chill with me and @ GhostKing while i try to remember how minecraft works! twitch.tv/ghostking]
“Will?” Nico said, and Will’s attention jumped back to his desktop monitor, where his character was standing still in a field somewhere. “Are you ready? Do you want to, like, introduce yourself?”
“Yeah, sure!” Will said, slipping back into his online persona in an instant. “I’m Will, some of you might know me from my YouTube videos - and sorry for the shitty audio, because I left my good mic up at school. But today, I’m going to annoy the hell out of Ni-- Uh, Ghost King, here, because I can barely even remember how to move around in this game. Any tips, Ghostie?”
Nico coughed, and Will glanced at his laptop screen, though he couldn’t read Nico’s expression through the mask. Was the nickname too much? Was he worried that Will might slip up and call him by his real name?
“Yeah,” Nico said after a second, “there should be tons of stuff on Google. So, while you figure that out, I’m going to try to find you. Lucky for you, I decided against survival mode for today, so you won’t die before I get to you.”
Will opened up a new tab on his laptop to do a quick search as he replied, “That’s so kind of you, Ghostie, and totally unexpected. I would’ve thought that the king of ghosts would want more ghosts for his ghost army, but I guess not, huh?”
“God, shut up,” Nico said with a laugh. “Did you figure out how to move, yet? I’m closing in on you, so we’re gonna have to figure out what we want to do with this blank canvas of a server.”
“I want to build something,” Will told him as he tested out the controls supplied to him by the internet. He jumped, ran in a few circles, and figured out how to open his inventory. “Like, a house, or something. Oh, or a farm! Fun fact, actually: since I’m back home in Texas for the holidays, I could look out my bedroom window and see the neighbor’s farm. Mostly just their horses, really. Anyway, can we build a farm?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever you want,” Nico said, a touch of fondness in his voice, just as Will saw something appear on his screen. He started moving toward it - it being Nico’s character - as Nico continued, “There you are-- Sunshine Solace, again, really? God, you have no concept of internet self-preservation, do you?”
“Hey! In my defense, solace is just a word.”
“A word that’s also your last name.”
Will gasped. “Ghostie! Now the whole world knows my secret identity! How could you do this to me?”
“Hate to break it to you, Sunshine, but I think they already figured it out.”
Nico gave him a quick refresher course on how to gather building materials before they started constructing a basic house that so far contained nothing but two beds inside. Nico then put Will on the task of constructing a fence, while Nico went off in search of farm animals.
“Hurry back, Ghostie!” Will said as Nico’s character ran off, and Will chuckled at the soft sound of irritation Nico released. “Not a fan of Ghostie? Do you prefer the formal Ghost King, instead?”
“Either is...fine,” Nico grumbled.
“How’d you come up with that name, by the way?” Will asked. “I don’t think you ever told me.”
“What’s there to tell,” Nico replied blandly. “I was eleven. I thought it would be cool as hell. I was right. End of story.”
“You know, you could’ve changed it before you started streaming,” Will pointed out, “since you hate being called that so much.”
His eyes flickered to his other screen, and watched as Nico’s head tipped back slightly - Will thought he might’ve been rolling his eyes. “I don’t hate it,” Nico argued, “and besides, it’s too late now. It’s already my whole brand, so it’s not like I can ditch it and start over from scratch.”
Will hummed. “Maybe not. I bet I could help you come up with some good alternatives, though. Thoughts on… Death Boy?”
“How is that better?”
“I never said it was,” Will said, and paused for a second before he thought of another name, “Death Breath.”
“That’s not fair! You don’t even know what my breath smells like!”
“You’re right. Sorry, Death the Kid.”
“I knew it!” Nico exclaimed. “I knew you had an anime phase!”
Will grinned. “You just outed yourself as also having an anime phase.”
“No, I had a Soul Eater was fucking good phase.”
“Okay, and how close in time were the events of you naming yourself Ghost King and you watching Soul Eater for the first time?”
Nico paused. “Shut up.”
Will tipped his head back and laughed. “Oh, man, I am never going to let you live this down, Spooky Scary Skeletons.”
Will turned his gaze to the stream window again, and watched as Nico rocked backward with the force of his laughter, the sound traveling like music through Will’s headphones. “What did you just call me?” Nico shrieked once he was able to breathe properly again.
“You heard me,” Will replied around a grin. “But I’ll admit, it is a little long. Maybe I’ll just stick to Spooky, instead.”
“God, you’re the worst,” Nico said, though the remnants of laughter softened the blow of his words. “I hope you’re not slacking on that fence, Sunshine.”
Will scoffed. “Me, a slacker? It’s like you don’t even know me.” As he said it, Will ditched the half-finished fence altogether and sneaked into the house. He didn’t know if Minecraft flirting techniques had changed over the years, but he was pretty sure he’d heard good things about one tactic recently.
“Will?” Nico said. “This fence isn’t even close to being done! Where’d you go?”
Just as Nico’s character swung open the door to the house, Will pushed one of the beds so that it lined up perfectly beside the other.
Nico’s character didn’t move, and neither did the real-life Nico on Will’s other monitor. Part of Will hoped that maybe both of his computers had frozen simultaneously, but then Nico was saying, “Did you...just…?”
“Wrong button!” Will exclaimed, laughing nervously as he started hitting buttons on his keyboard, making his character spin in a few awkward circles. “Sorry, how do I put that back? I can’t seem to--”
“Don’t worry about it,” Nico cut in, and Will froze so quickly that he stopped breathing for a few seconds. “Just… Just leave it. Come back outside and help me with this fence so I can go track down the cow I tried to bring you.”
Will’s mouth fell open, and he was suddenly so grateful that he hadn’t chosen to stream to his own channel. Did Nico want their Minecraft beds to be pushed together?
“Will?” Nico asked, sounding almost nervous, so Will instantly put his character into motion.
“Sorry! Uh, laggy internet, but I think I’m good now. Let’s go!”
Will had been getting a steady stream of new subscribers ever since he streamed Minecraft with Nico - and for Nico’s sake, he hoped the flow was happening in the opposite direction, as well. He’d texted Nico a day or two later, informing him that his numbers were rising faster than ever before, and Nico had replied with a link to some article, saying, this might be why.
[Will Solace and Ghost King: the Collab We Didn’t Know We Needed]
Will skimmed the article, his eyes catching on a few lines that talked about their on-screen chemistry, and nicknames so cute I could die. There was a screenshot of Will’s tweet announcing that he would be joining the stream, and another tweet from someone Will had never heard of that just said, dare i say…………….ship? #SunshineSpooky
Will...wasn’t sure how to feel about any of it. He’d always thought it might be kind of funny if somebody shipped him with some other YouTuber he barely knew, but this… This was weird. They were friends, and sure, Will had a crush on Nico the size of Texas, but… Well, to put it plainly, Will had had a bisexual flag hanging on the wall behind him in every video since he moved to New York, but Nico… Will didn’t know how Nico was reacting to any of it.
Whenever Will tried to broach the subject, Nico took a while to respond - longer than usual, even when he was online and supposedly not-busy. Will figured it was for the best that he not push anything.
Will tried to stay on the down-low for the rest of his stay in Texas. He stayed off social media (though that was more due to the fact that his curiosity had gotten the best of him, and he’d glanced at the #SunshineSpooky tag to all sorts of theories and even fanart about him and Nico). He spent as much time as he could with his mama. He watched Nico’s Friday night stream from start to finish for once, though he made sure to stay out of the chat, so that he wouldn’t be noticed, only texting Nico after the stream had ended to say, hey, I think I finally understand how Mythomagic works!
He flew back to New York on Sunday morning, and had enough time to unpack and take a quick nap before he had to start preparing for the stream he’d pushed back to that night, now that he was back at his proper recording setup.
The chat raced by at a mile a minute all night. For each question about algebra or biology, there were two more asking about Ghost King, or how Will had met him, or the nature of their relationship. He was tempted to end the stream early that night, because he wasn’t in the mood to have random strangers digging into his personal life, but as he watched the chat fly by, he thought he saw a familiar name.
[ghostking: hey sunshine, got time to help me with some more chem stuff?]
Will felt himself start to smile, but his brain was still moving faster than he could process the thoughts. Had Nico not actually read the article he sent to Will? Did he not know how many people were about to be gossiping about the nature of his relationship with Will? Did he...not actually care about any of that? Maybe Nico was playing into it all, hoping to earn more subscribers since Will had helped him get his name out into the world again, and figured that Will could benefit from it in the same way.
Or maybe, a tiny voice of hope in the back of Will’s mind said, he likes you back and wants to make sure you know it.
Except that couldn’t be true, could it? Why wouldn’t Nico just say that, if that was the case?
Will plastered on a smile - something he’d gotten good at over the years of being on YouTube - and decided to take his best guess at Nico’s intentions, putting it all on the line as he said, “Aw, Spooky, you know I’d help you with your homework anytime. I’ll call you when I end the stream, okay? Anyway, who’s next?”
When he finally shut off his camera, Will was so physically and emotionally exhausted that he almost didn’t want to call Nico, but he knew that hearing the other man’s voice would cheer him up. He took a few moments to stretch, to breathe, to clear his mind, and then he was opening up Discord and starting a call with Nico.
“Hey,” Will said, hoping he didn’t sound as tired as he felt.
“Hey,” Nico replied. “Sorry I haven’t been on much this weekend - a bunch of other gaming sites wrote articles about our stream, and I was trying to make sure none of them somehow found information about me.”
“Oh,” Will said, having not been expecting that at all. At least he knew that he hadn’t made Nico uncomfortable in some way - having read back some of the quotes that had been pulled from the stream and thrown into random “news” articles, Will had been afraid that Nico would hate him for all the flirting he’d done on stream. “And did they find anything?”
“No, thank god,” Nico replied, relief clear in his voice. “A lot of them were more focused on the fanbase, which I thought was kind of weird. Did you see all the stuff about SunshineSpooky? Like, you couldn’t have at least come up with a better name? It doesn’t even sound like either of us are involved.”
Will frowned. How was Nico talking so casually about all of this? “So, you’re not freaked out by it?”
“No, I’m okay, you know, surprisingly,” Nico replied. “I mean, it’s certainly not fun getting so many notifications all about gossip, but it could be worse, you know? My next stream might suck - and speaking of, I’m sorry that your chat was so shitty tonight. I thought that maybe if I jumped in, it might make them all shut up, but I probably just made things worse.”
“No, no, that’s okay,” Will replied. “It was nice to see a friendly name in the chat after...all that. It’s good hearing a friendly voice, too.”
Nico snorted. “Me? My voice?”
“It’s a nice voice,” Will replied, and snapped his jaw shut so quickly that he almost bit off the tip of his tongue. He coughed lightly, and before Nico could respond, he hurried to say, “So, um. You needed chemistry help? Or was that just something you were saying to throw people off?”
“Oh, no, yeah, I definitely need help,” Nico told him. Will could hear a rustling of papers through his headphones, and then Nico started walking him through the problem.
Being as drained as he was, Will was having a hard time following what Nico was saying - something about moles, but that was pretty much the extent of Will’s understanding - so Will had to stop him with a, “Sorry, um. It’s been kind of a long day, so I’m not really processing...any of that. Can you send me a picture of the question? And maybe when I read it for myself, I’ll be able to help.”
“Yeah, sure,” Nico replied, and Will heard more shuffling on his end. “Okay, um. Don’t freak out.”
Will’s heart leapt into his throat. “Everything okay?”
“Well, I can’t find my phone, so, um. I guess I’m going to turn my camera on for a second and hold the page up, and you can take a screenshot of it. That should work, right? As long as I manage to keep my face out of view.”
Will’s heart was pounding in his chest. He wasn’t even going to see Nico’s face, but just the thought of coming so close… “Yeah, uh, no problem! As long as you’re comfortable with that, I mean.”
He could hear Nico taking a deep breath. “Yeah, it’ll be fine. Um. Okay, here it goes.”
Will’s screen changed, suddenly showing a dimly-lit piece of paper covered in printed text, with Nico’s chipped black nail polish barely visible on the edge of the screen.
“Can you see it?” Nico asked. “It’s question three.”
Will leaned closer, searching for the number, and when he did, he hit the screenshot command on his keyboard. “Got it,” Will told him, “you can turn off your camera now.”
“Cool. Okay, so, how do I…”
As Nico mumbled to himself, Will pulled up the image he had captured, zooming in on the page and taking another screenshot so that he would be able to read it better without accidentally zooming in and out with every brush of his trackpad.
When he finally glanced up at Discord again, the video screen was gone, replaced by their text conversation.
“So, Doctor Solace,” Nico said teasingly, “what’s the prognosis?”
Will pouted. “See, this is how I know you’re just using me for my big brain.”
“Maybe,” Nico said with a laugh, “but it doesn’t hurt that I get to look at a pretty face, too.”
Will’s mouth dropped open, then snapped shut again. Then, when he heard snickering through his headphones, he exclaimed, “That’s not fair! You know I can’t say the same back!”
“You could,” Nico argued, “you just wouldn’t have any facts to back it up with.”
“Maybe I don’t need facts. Maybe it’s a gut feeling.”
Nico snorted. “Sure, Solace. Can you read the fucking question, already?”
After ending the call with Nico, Will closed out of Discord and started cleaning up his desktop of all the screenshots he’d taken of Nico’s homework. He meant to simply highlight all of them and drag them to the trash, but his finger twitched on the trackpad, and accidentally opened one of the images.
Will already had his fingers on the quit shortcut, but he froze when the full image appeared on his screen.
For the most part, really, it was just Nico’s homework. There was a tiny portion of the page that Nico had written on in neat, swooping cursive, but that wasn’t what caught Will’s eye.
Above the page, in the video chat still open on Discord, Will saw a face. He must’ve managed to capture the image in a split second where Nico had his guard down, which meant…
That was Nico’s face.
And it might’ve been the prettiest face Will had ever seen!
His face was thin, with high cheekbones and a strong jawline. He was clean shaven, had no evidence of dimples, and may or may not have had a light smattering of freckles across his cheeks. Will had been wrong about his eye color - dark brown, not any of the lighter shades Will had suspected - and where Nico’s hair was usually down during his streams, in this image it was tied up in a bun on the top of his head.
Will couldn’t stop staring until the image was burned into his brain. That was Nico.
Nico, Nico, Nico.
Will could hardly breathe. If he had thought his crush was huge before... god, had he been wrong.
He caught himself just as he’d started zooming in on the image, realizing that he was being a bit of a creep, and that this was Nico! If Nico ever found out that Will had this picture of him, he might never speak to Will again, and Will could not let that happen.
He had to delete the picture - but if he did, then he might never have the opportunity to see Nico’s face again.
He couldn’t keep it - what if somebody got a hold of Will’s laptop, found the picture, and connected the dots?
Shit. Will was so fucked.