#nanowill

It wasn’t like he didn’t want to kiss her. He thought about it every time she was within ten feet of him, or whenever he watched her talk, or sometimes just when he wasn’t distracting himself with anything else. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to kiss her, because he very much did; he was just a damn coward, was all.

“Could you come take a look at this?” she asked from her work bench, across the room from his.

Strife made a show of sighing and grumbling and setting aside his own work before going over to look at hers. In reality, of course, he’d been dawdling in the extreme, but it wouldn’t do to let her know that.

“What is it this time?” he said, leaning over her. He dared to put a hand on the back of her chair. She didn’t object, and his heart thrilled with the successful maneuver.

“It’s just that I think I’ve got the circuitry wrong,” she said, frowning down at the unassembled head of the disassembler, “and I can’t work out what it is I’ve done wrong.”

He bent down, peering at the electronics. The smell of her was overpowering. Something seemed to be miswired in his brain, nevermind the disassembler.

“It uh,” he said, and cleared his throat to chase off the squeak in his voice, “it looks fine to me.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, eyeing him. “Because it’s not working.”

“I um,” he said, and tugged at his collar. “Yeah, I can’t help you there.”

She really was quite close to him.

“Strife,” she said, “are you all right?”

“Fine! Fine, I’m fine,” he said, straightening up. “Yeah, no, just–just check your … things, resistors, that could be … I mean it’s usually resistors….”

Nano reached up, and grabbed his tie, and pulled him down and kissed him.

He stared at her. She stared at him. She was blushing. She turned her face away and tucked her hair behind her ear.

“Sorry,” she said. “That was sort of inapp–”

He took her face in both hands and kissed her again, and for longer.

“Couldn’t you? Well, that’s a shame. Could you, possibly, have known that I am not your maid?”

Strife paused. “Huh?”

“I’m not here,” she explained, as though to a child, “to clean up your messes.”

“Nobody said you were!”

“Good, I’m glad we’re clear on that. Would you like a broom, or are you going to pick the glass shards out of the ceiling first?”

He sighed like his throat was full of gravel. “Nano, I have important--”

“Things to be doing? Yes, you do. Cleaning up whatever this was, for example.”

“An electrolytic separator, I told you a thousand times.”

“Uh-huh, whatever. Looks like now, it’s a mess. Your mess. That you should be cleaning up.”

“I don’t do clean-up! That’s somebody else’s department. It’s always been somebody else’s department.”

Nano rolled her eyes at him. “Good God, you’re almost as bad as Lalna.”

“How dare you. How very dare you. I--I--do not mix science and magic, like that filthy ... electrowizard, or whatever he calls himself. Disgusting.”

“If you want to be less filthy,” Nano told him, smirking, “you could start by cleaning up your own messes.”

“But--but--”

“You’re a big whiny baby, you are. Just like Lalna.”

“Okay. Okay, you know what? Fine. I’ll clean it up. I’ll clean it up with science. Because I have integrity.”

“Is that what they’re calling it these days? You poor thing.”

Strife ground his teeth. “Would you, at least, help? So that it goes faster? And because that’s what apprentices do?”

“Apprentice? Are you still deluding yourself into thinking I’m your apprentice?”

“I’m not deluding myself, you came here asking to be my apprentice!”

“That’s what I said,” Nano allowed, “but let’s be honest here, we’re far past that.”

The slow flush that rose to his cheeks was, in its own way, rather satisfying.

“Uh,” he said, “in ... in what way, are we talking, here?”

“I’ll go get the broom,” Nano said, fighting down a smile, “and you can start picking the glass out of the ceiling.”

“Wait wait wait, you didn’t answer me.”

But the final straw that tipped everything from fighting-chance down into no-hope-in-sight wasn’t the roommate situation. It wasn’t even the roommate himself. Instead it came in the form of a short girl with tumbling black hair who swept into his room like a thunderstorm.

She put her hands on her hips, glaring almost automatically at the other bed before she realized it was empty. She blinked, turned, and looked at Will. The lightning in her gaze fizzled out, replaced with an almost gentle warmth, like the sun on a spring day.

Will fell in love instantly.

“Nano Suns,” she said, holding out a hand. “You must be Lalna’s roommate.”

“Will Strife,” he said, taking her hand to shake. “You two already know each other, I take it?”

Nano beamed. “We’re queerplatonic partners. We’ve known each other a couple years, mostly online. It’s nice to know I can finally see him without worrying over time zones.”

“Queerplatonic,” Will said slowly, trying out how the word sounded. He’d seen it before, but never heard it spoken out loud. “That’s when you’re dating someone without any romance, right?”

“That’s the basic gist of it, although the actual feeling is …. a bit harder to explain.” Nano frowned, as if vexed she had to try and express her feelings in words. “But I won’t bore you with the logistics.”

Will would have liked nothing less than to listen to Nano talk about anything for an extended amount of time, but his carefully constructed brain-to-mouth filter caught the thought before it did any real damage.

“So why use that instead of just saying you’re romantic partners? It seems inconvenient to use a label no one’s familiar with.”

Clearly Will’s brain to mouth filter was slacking on the job. He winced, waiting for the typical reaction, the universal glance-sigh-frown that meant “this fucking idiot, who even asks this question, so rude, doesn’t even understand basic social cues.” But Nano just shrugged.

“I can’t say I haven’t gotten asked that before,” she said. “But the main reason is that I’m aro-spec. I don’t experience romantic attraction, at least not the way most people do. It’s rare, and only if I’ve known the person for a long time. So Lal and I aren’t really compatible.”

“Who are you,” he demanded, “and why are your feet on my desk?”

Nano grinned up at him. “My desk,” she corrected.

“Your--no. No! Get out of my chair, get out of my facility, who let you in here?” He was making shooing motions with his hands--big, long-fingered hands, calloused and rough.

“Nobody,” she answered, moving not an inch. “I came in on my own. I thought, ‘There’s a nice building, I think I’ll have it.’”

He stormed over to her and reached out to grab her shirt. His hand stopped just short of the fabric when she pressed a very large, very noisily humming gun to his forehead. He gulped, going crosseyed as he attempted to watch her trigger finger.

“Now,” she said, “you’ve got a nice head, and I’d hate to blow it off, but if you try to take my desk and my shiny new building, I’ll definitely be moved to violence.”

His eyes shifted to her face and lingered there.

“Okay,” he said. “Your desk, your building. Now take your gun off my head, hey?”

She treated him to a smile and lowered the weapon. He took a step back and straightened his vest.

“If you’re interested,” she proposed, “I could definitely use a partner.”

He choked. “Partner?”

“Oh, not that kind of partner.” She winked at him. “Unless you’d like to.”

He went red as a tomato and spluttered. It was curiously endearing.

“I--well, I--” He coughed into his hand and mastered himself. “I suppose I could do with a--a business partner. Strife Solutions is, er, expanding, and I can’t do everything, after all.”

“Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart,” she drawled. “Now if you don’t mind, my feet are killing me, and I could do with a massage.

He opened his mouth to object, and she leveled the gun at him again. Lips pressed to a thin line, he sat on his desk and tugged her shoes off. She sighed, grinning.

Not a Professor: Xephos called Nano on skype himself and is just calmly explaining what happened while in the background Will looks like he's about to vibrate out of this plane of existance

a very small faun: "Uh. Is he alright?"

"Oh, don't worry, I've done this before."

"That's... really not helping."

Not a Professor: "What did he take?"

"Oh, I just gave him some coffee."

"I know what caffeine high looks like. That's not a caffeine high. That's not even close."

a very small faun: "That's like... twenty caffeine highs at once. With a cubic fuckton of sugar."

"Well, it keeps him awake."

Not a Professor: "But at what cost"

a very small faun: Will doesn't even know Nano's talking to Xeph. He's functioning in an entirely different dimension.

Not a Professor: his brain isn't programmed to intercept mortal communication at the moment

a very small faun: Eventually Xeph goes to bed and it's just Nano watching Will to make sure he doesn't suddenly blink out of existence. She still doesn't know what kind of satanic beverage Xephos made him drink.

Not a Professor: at some point he has a conversation with the couch about his love life. The couch is urging him to confess his feelings to Nano but Will is insisting that he knows it won't work. Nano is completely in the dark because Will is having the entire conversation in Russian.

a very small faun: Nano is seriously debating on whether she should call her sibling to buy her a plane ticket just so she can make sure Will doesn't somehow end up hurting himself. She's at least forty percent sure Will doesn't even speak Russian.

Not a Professor: he took the class for like two weeks and then dropped it. He didn't even get to the point where they read green eggs and ham.

a very small faun: Oh no. Nano actually does go over there and Xeph is like ????? and Will doesn't even realise she's really there because of all the pure caffeine thats probably replaced his blood by now

Not a Professor: "Hey Xeph, how long is his thesis supposed to be?"

"Um, ten to fifteen pages I think."

"This is twenty and a half."

"Wow. I may have overdosed him."

"You don't fucking say."

a very small faun: "I think he's filled half a page with just smashing his keyboard furiously and being convinced this mess is meant to be legible."

"Um. It's a first draft?"

"It's a fucking disaster."

Not a Professor: "Here. Just. Distract him. I'll edit this into less of a mess."

"I'll put on sesame street and give him one of my fidget toys."

"Perfect."

a very small faun: Xeph ends up basically babysitting Will while Nano fights her jet lag and edits. At one point Xephos offers her some coffee to keep her awake and is met with a very firm fuck no.

Not a Professor: "If you want to be helpful, you can make me some tea. Black. Don't brew it longer than eight minutes."

a very small faun: At least that's something he can do. Will is very focused on watching Dora the Explorer and fidgeting with Xephos' toys. Lalna and Honeydew come home from a party and decide to not even ask about the strange girl sitting at their dining table and editing what looks like, in Nano's words, "like an illiterate toddler Einstein tried to write a bedtime story."

Not a Professor: Lalna makes fettuccini for dinner and just slides a bowl towards her

a very small faun: Will needs Dew's supervision while eating. It's a rough week. It's nothing compared to Will finally crashing after the high and finding Nano in his house. Where she's apparently been for the last three days.

Not a Professor: he just walks downstairs and finds her asleep on the couch wearing a pair of honeydew's sweatpants and one of Will's old t shirts

a very small faun: Lalna is making breakfast and just asks Will to throw a blanket over her since she kicked it off in her sleep. He's too confused to argue.

Not a Professor: His first instinct is this will make sense after coffee but the thought of drinking any caffeine whatsoever makes him want to throw up.

a very small faun: Lalna puts a mug of tea in his hands instead. "Nano said this'll help. She doesn't trust you with coffee after having watched you yell at children's shows."

Not a Professor: Will mutters something about Elmo not knowing how to spell and drinks his tea

a very small faun: fuk c

a very small faun: By the time Nano, Xeph, and Dew are awake Will is still having a hard time believing she's there. And that she edited his thesis into something that's actually decent.

Not a Professor: "You gave me twice the pages I needed. Frankly it was difficult to keep it under the limit. There's a lot of good stuff in there.

Not a Professor: Will blushes

a very small faun: "You owe me for this, you know. A date before I leave, or something."

a very small faun: Will blushes even more.

Not a Professor: "I- sure. Yeah. That sounds great."

a very small faun: Lalna winks and makes some very specific hand gestures while Nano's not watching.

Not a Professor: Will stumbles and almost drops his tea.

a very small faun: pfffft

a very small faun: Honeydew makes not-so-subtle jokes when Nano's out to help Xeph with shopping and do some sightseeing.

Not a Professor: They come back to Will attempting to smother his housemates with pillows

a very small faun: "Uh. What's going on here?"

"NOTHING!"

Not a Professor: "Someone didn't like us teasing him about his girlfriend."

"Lalna- shut up, no one asked you."

a very small faun: Nano frowns. "Girlfriend?"

a very small faun: Will very nervously tries to make up like, five excuses at once. No one must know of his horribly embarrassing crush.

Not a Professor: "I- I told them we weren't dating, it's not like we ever could. I mean, not that I want to. Er, or that I don't want to, since you're beautiful and wonderful and all- but like, we live on opposite sides of the world, and long distance relationships never work out-"

You never appreciate my cooking :(

The text came just when Nano had successfully managed to drag Lying into a cab, not at all without some hair pulling and thinly veiled threats conveyed entirely through glares and one-handed gestures, and she couldn't hold back a soft chuckle when she imagined Lalna's mock-offended expression.

I admire your cooking, love, but not nearly enough to skip lunch with Kirin after I've had to risk my life to meet his ridiculous demands. And your sandwiches aren't art.

The reply came almost immediately,distracting Nano before she could stop Lying from wrestling with the seatbelt and triumphantly digging the heels of their louboutins into her side.

Just tell him to go pick lying up himself! I dont want to have to hear you whining about your sibling when you come home

Nano was halfway through replying when the heels digged further into her side, just above her hips, and she was seriously starting to regret allowing Lying the rare chance of sitting in her blind spot. Now she had to actually turn her head to glare at them properly.

Half-sibling. I'll order Thai for dinner, you can feed my lunch to Will if you see him. Probably moping about in the library.

Did you tell him yet?

About lunch? No, I didn't see him all morning.

Not that. The other thing

Nano frowned, glancing from her screen to Lying (who was staring out of the window and not trying to injure her anymore, thank God), to the recent purple ink swirling over jagged scars and old burns in flowers and vines and swirls, covering most of the damage to the point where people didn't see, and finally to her clothes. The jumper carelessly thrown on instead of a coat was Will's, but the rest of her clothes probably cost more than her textbooks and laptop combined, even with the faux wear and tear. 

No, there was an awful lot she hadn't told Will yet. Some of it was down to plain stubbornness that she didn't need her father's money to attract a boyfriend after The Accident, but... most of it was just because she didn't want to scare him away. Fancy uni or not, Will was there on a scholarship with a parttime job and lots of budgeting, while Nano could probably bathe in her trust fund money. It was oddly unfair.

Nano...

The text startled her out of her thoughts, and Nano frowned at her phone as if it just personally insulted everything she stood for.

It's not important, Lal. I'll tell him later.