Work Text:
Will went to the address that Nico had sent him. After the way things went during their last two writing-and-revising sessions, Will was still mostly convinced that Nico was luring him away to kill him and hide his body someplace where no one would ever find him, so he was a bit surprised that his GPS led him into some residential area rather than to some old, abandoned warehouse or something similar.
His brain refused to let him believe that the house belonged to Nico. There was a short white fence that lined the front of the yard - more likely to keep a small animal in than to keep people out, though Will didn’t see any signs of a dog throughout the yard. The fence opened up with a slightly creaky gate, and led him to a somewhat overgrown, slightly cracked walkway. The house he walked up to was a soft shade of blue, one storey, with window boxes overflowing with plants, and shutters, and Will was certain that he’d either walked into an alternate dimension, or that he’d punched the address in wrong.
Once he got up to the door, though, he knew he couldn’t have been mistaken. There was a note closed in the door with his name on it.
Will, it started in loopy handwriting that Will recognized as being from someone who had been forced to write in cursive even after laptops and tablets and phones with notes apps had made letter writing obsolete, the door’s open. I’m recording in the basement, don’t come down.
Okay, so that was probably a test of some kind, right? Maybe he wasn’t actually supposed to come into Nico’s house at all, or maybe this was the perfect opportunity for Will to go inside and snoop through Nico’s stuff to figure out why he was such an asshole all the time. He bet the inside of Nico’s house was either a total disaster like his office, or everything would be so perfectly lined up that Nico would know if Will moved anything even an inch out of place.
He stepped inside, careful to be as quiet as possible. If Nico really was recording something in the basement, then surely he’d hear footsteps or a slamming door, and Will couldn’t afford to give Nico one more reason to be pissed at him. There was a mostly-empty shoe rack by the door, so Will kicked off his shoes. It was the polite thing to do, he figured, and it would soften his footsteps as he moved through the house.
From the entryway, Will could see just about everything, aside from whatever was on the other side of a few closed doors. The living room off to his left was mostly bare, aside from an overstuffed chair, a loveseat, and a coffee table. There was a sweatshirt thrown over the back of the chair, and a small stack of books on the table, but it wasn’t overly messy. The dining table directly across the room from him looked like it hadn’t been touched, possibly ever, and the kitchen looked so bare that Will figured half of the cabinets had to be empty. He had to stop himself from walking over and opening up the fridge just to confirm his suspicions that there probably wasn’t much of anything inside. From what Will knew of Nico so far, nearly two weeks after meeting him, was that Nico tended not to leave the studio. His house was probably so bare because he only ever used it to sleep.
If he ever even slept - the bags under his eyes that only seemed to darken the longer Will knew him seemed to suggest otherwise.
Still, despite the bare main room of the house, Will was curious - and mainly, bored - so he took a quick look around. Between the living room and the kitchen was a single door that led to a bedroom - unmade bed, a dusty TV propped up on the dresser across the room, and another door that led into a bathroom. Across the house, between the dining room and entryway, were three more doors. Will went down the line searching through those, next - a guest bedroom with a made-up bed that was just as unimpressive as the rest of Nico’s boring house, a guest bathroom, and finally, the stairs leading down to the basement. Up until opening the basement door, the house was silent. Then, once the door had been opened, Will could hear muted music coming from the other side of another door at the bottom of the stairs.
Once again, this whole thing kind of felt like a trick, like Will would head down into the basement, lured by the sound of music like a pirate into the clutches of a siren, and then Nico would - what, kill him? Did Will really believe Nico was capable of anything more than an indifferent stare and a few biting comments? Still, Will couldn’t afford to mess this up - he had to tread lightly.
He started down the stairs, but he didn’t dare open the second door. Once he got close enough, he could hear a little bit better, though he’d come to the conclusion that the basement must have been heavily soundproofed to keep the sound so muffled, even from just on the other side of a door.
Will took a seat on the stairs, leaning back against one wall and effectively blocking the entire staircase were somebody to attempt to walk up or down. He sat there for a while, listening to the muffled guitar sounds on the other side of the door. At first, Will thought it was the same riff over and over again, though once he started listening closer, he could hear a few slight differences with each iteration - Nico wasn’t just recording something, he was writing it as he went.
Eventually, sometime after Will had gotten bored and pulled out his phone to scroll through Twitter, the guitar stopped. He hadn’t really been paying attention, though, so he jumped in surprise when the door beside him opened, and watched Nico do the same with his own quiet exclamation of, fuck!
“I thought I said not to come down here,” Nico reminded him with a glare once the shock had quickly faded from his expression. “You could’ve interrupted something.”
“Right, but technically I didn’t go into the basement,” Will pointed out. “I’m still on the stairs.”
“And I will step on you if you don’t move out of my way,” Nico replied, barely giving Will a chance to scramble to one side of the staircase before Nico started climbing. “I’m just refilling my water bottle, don’t touch anything.”
Will watched Nico pass, eyes lingering longer than necessary as he appreciated the view from a new angle, but who could blame him? He was but an unattached bisexual male, and Nico’s affinity for jeans that clung to his legs like that would turn a priest gay.
Bad analogy, Will figured, especially considering his limited knowledge of priests involved a lot of preying on young boys. And that was not what Will wanted to think about ever again, but especially not when he was staring at Nico’s ass.
Once Nico had reached the top of the stairs, Will jumped to his feet and pushed the door in front of him further open to reveal the large, open basement. He had been right in guessing that the place had been soundproofed, considering the plush carpet and thick panels that covered every inch of the walls and ceiling. In one corner of the room, Will saw a full drum kit, and the wall nearby was lined with replacement pieces and spare drumsticks. Against another wall was a row of guitars resting on stands - a couple of acoustics, electrics, and basses with one empty stand near the middle of the row - and a nearly floor-to-ceiling shelf full of foot pedalboards and different attachments in every color of the rainbow. Will spotted a few different types of keyboards, rolling carts full of electrical cords, portable amps of varying sizes. It was like Nico had taken one of DOA’s private studios and teleported it into his basement, complete with a plexiglass window that took up half of one wall which no doubt contained an array of recording equipment.
Everything in the room seemed to sit perfectly in place, aside from a single electric guitar that had been laid across a table, resting on top of an open journal, a pair of corded headphones sitting nearby and plugged into a laptop.
Will had just taken a step closer to the table to see what Nico had been working on when the door closed behind him. He whipped around to see Nico approaching, taking a long drink from his water bottle - and Will really tried not to stare at the length of his neck when Nico could so easily catch him doing so - before he waved Will aside and went to pick up the guitar. “I’m almost done here,” he said as he pulled the strap over his head, “so you can go hang out upstairs for a few more minutes, and I’ll come get you when I’m done.”
“What are you working on?”
“A song for one of my bands,” Nico answered simply, reaching for the headphones next. “So, if you could--”
“You’re in a band?” Will wasn’t sure why that surprised him. Nico had all of the connections, and he was clearly talented, so why wouldn’t he use all of that to live out every teenager’s dream? He certainly had the look - and the attitude - of a rockstar.
Nico rolled his eyes. “No, one of my clients. You didn’t think you were the only one that I did all of this for, right?”
Will only had a second to consider what he meant - antagonize and patronize, or spend hours on end critiquing his work to make it the best that it could be and even inviting him into his house to make the most of their time together? - before he said, “No, I just thought--”
“You’re not my only client, Solace,” Nico snapped, “and I have other deadlines to meet, so would you just--”
“Can I stay?” Will cut in. “I’ll be quiet, I swear, but I-- I’m going to be doing this myself soon enough, right? So can’t I…see how it’s done before it’s my turn? It might make your job easier later on if I know what I’m doing ahead of time.”
Nico huffed in frustration, but at least when he ran a hand over his face, he was nodding. “Yeah, fine. Just sit there--” he pointed to a chair - what might have been the only chair in the room - beside the table, “--and don’t make a sound. Don’t even move.”
“Do I need headphones?” Will asked quickly before Nico could pull his own over his ears.
With another huff, Nico pulled the headphones off from around his neck and removed the guitar as well, grumbling something that sounded like, “--need a new face soon, if you don’t shut--” as he crossed the room to retrieve a second pair of headphones and a cable splitter. After a moment, he tossed the headphones to Will and got himself re-situated to record. “Are you good, now?”
Will gave him a thumbs up, figuring that was a safer bet than speaking, and pulled on the headphones.
He watched as Nico placed his headphones on his head so that one ear was still free, and hurried to do the same before Nico tapped something on the laptop in front of him. Will heard the clicking of drumsticks before the beat kicked in, followed by bass and rhythm guitar, and after another second, Nico began to play.
It was an amazing thing to watch, not just because Nico looked like he was made to wrap himself around a guitar, but because his playing fit in so flawlessly to the rest of the track. Will could’ve gotten so lost that he forgot where he was if the chorus hadn’t kicked in at just the right moment, snapping him back into himself. The lead singer for this band had a beautiful voice, but either somebody in this recording didn’t know how to harmonize, or those backing tracks were just filler waiting to be replaced by the real deal. Either way, it left Will cringing.
He managed to make it through to the end of the song without making a sound, though he was sure his face showed his…displeasure at having to sit through the whole thing without being able to complain. As soon as Nico stopped the recording, he glanced at Will with a tired kind of recognition and said, “You hear it too, right?”
“That’s not the final track, is it?” Will asked, knowing they were both referring to the horrendous harmonies. “Like, you’re planning on recording over that?”
Nico sighed, unplugging his guitar and turning to put it back in its stand against the wall. “If you were to ask the band, they would tell you that the lead guitar was the last part to record.”
“And if I were to ask you?” Will pressed.
“I would point out that good harmonies take more than a good voice,” Nico replied, “but I’m not a vocal coach. I did everything I could to make them as good as they are now - trust me, that used to be worse - so unless I bring in somebody else--”
“Let me try,” Will said instantly, jumping to his feet. “I know we’re both on a schedule here, but just give me ten minutes. Even if my voice doesn’t make it into the track, you can at least have them try to match my tracks if you like what I can do.”
Will wasn’t sure why he was so eager to fix somebody else’s song, but Nico’s hesitancy only served to make him more nervous about saying anything. Maybe he wanted to prove to Nico that he was just as talented as him, albeit in a different vein. Nico could play any instrument under the sun it seemed, sure, but he’d admitted himself a few times now that he wasn’t a vocalist.
“Fine,” Nico replied, picking up the laptop and carrying it through the door that would take him into the actual recording studio. “C’mon, I don’t have any high-quality mics here, so you’ll have to make do with the shitty laptop mic.”
Will scrambled to follow after him, his headphones still hooked up to the laptop and tugging him along after Nico. “Do you have lyrics? And can I listen to just the melody track?”
Nico hummed an affirmative, dropping into a desk chair and setting the laptop on the table in front of him. He tapped a few things on his audio editing software before he pulled up a file, quickly sending it in an email. “Check your phone,” he replied just as Will felt it buzz in his pocket.
He stood beside the desk as Nico played the track, everything - including the freshly recorded lead guitar - playing out, though Will breathed a sigh of relief when the harmonies remained absent. He skimmed the credits at the top of the lyric sheet before getting to the actual song, reading the lyrics as they were sung, and eventually started humming along to what the harmonies should have been. After the end of the first chorus, he signaled for Nico to stop and restart the song, nodding when Nico asked if he wanted to record.
He blew through the chorus with ease, and when Nico played it back, Will breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t perfect - he hadn’t warmed up before coming over because he hadn’t been planning on singing, just reworking some of his lyrics - but it was already better than what had been on the track before. Nico played through it one more time, and Will found himself humming along to the second harmony.
After recording both layers of vocals, Nico listened through the chorus another couple of times before nodding. He actually looked… impressed. “Alright,” he said after a moment, “not bad for…nine minutes. But let’s see what you can do with your own lyrics.”
Will sighed, feeling his shoulders slump. He’d have to count that as his win for the day, because he had a feeling he wasn’t going to be getting another one once Nico saw his revisions.