Boys In Love [Solangelo One-Shots]

Ticket Boy

The theater is styled after a quaint city street, apartments and shops rising up on either side, complete with balconies and window boxes. Rows of court restaurants are disguised as sidewalk cafés dyed in a milliard of color, street lamps dot the corridors, providing most of the light, and neon signs blare messages across the way, catching eyes and turning heads. The air is all sugar and grease: popcorn pumped full of butter, chicken fingers and fries sitting in heaps of crackling oil.

Nico used to get lost in the confusion of hallways and the vastness of the place, but now he's been there enough times to know it like the back of his hand. He likes traveling here alone, undistracted. He likes the feeling of solitude in a haze of faces (just as long as the solitude is a choice), likes the way it makes him feel more in control of himself.

He makes his way up to the ticket counter and blinks up at the array of films displayed up on the screen while he waits in line. The endless hubbub of voices settles into a specific place within him, the laughter and varying tones and infinite topics. It's all much too much if he lets himself dwell on it all at once.

But he gets to the front of the line and it all just stops, fades away. Feels insignificant. It's impractical that any of it would have had an effect at all.

The boy at the checkout counter has eyes the color of the sky that's missing from the theme of the place. He grins and says hello, seems genuinely excited when Nico tells him what movie he's seeing. ("I watched that a few days ago! It's amazing, you'll love it.")

Nico walks away in such a daze that he drifts down completely the wrong hallway and gets so lost he's almost late for the show.

(Ticket Boy was right, it was fantastic.)

-

The next time Nico ventures there, he's almost forgotten the kind boy at the ticket counter, but it all comes rushing back when he grins at him from behind the gelato stall. Nico is feeling short of breath, his palms are sweating. Ticket Boy is just as beautiful as he remembers.

"Hey," he says, and leans one elbow on the counter like he's talking to an old friend, "what can I get for you?"

Nico blinks, opens his mouth, closes it. Swallows. And mutters, "Hopefully some gelato."

The boy's face opens up like a flower blooming. It's enthralling, the way his eyes blow open and his lips part in shock and delight before he drops his head back and laughs at the ceiling. Like he's got nothing to lose, like he's spilling himself out for everyone to see. Like he's unafraid.

Nico is grinning without meaning to. He wants to laugh too, he wants this boy to teach him how to be unafraid.

His eyes flicker downward–the nametag on the guy's chest says Will– and then dart back upward to catch him coming back to himself. Will is still huffing quietly shaking his head as he pulls his gaze back down, "You're going to need to narrow your choices down a bit. It makes my job much easier."

I'll have vanilla, he would've usually said, but his heart is still dancing and his chest is still too warm, so he leans forward, "What's your favorite flavor?" and when Will replies, "Tiramisu," Nico bites his lip and tells him, "Then I'll have that."

Will's expression is charged and awed, his cheeks flushed. He looks like he just skied down a steep mountain; he's all adrenaline. "Of course."

Nico takes the cup from his hand with a wink and walks away with a fire raging under his ribcage.

-

His third visit comes on a rainy day and he runs inside and shakes his head like a dog trying to dry its coat. Today, he didn't come for a movie, but instead spends at least ten minutes trying to find where Will has been stationed and then stands in line for another two just to get some candied nuts, which he's not even a huge fan of.