Definitely not Cloud Nine

[terresdebrume]

✗ TECHNICAL DETAILS

FANDOM: Percy Jackson
SERIES: -
RATING: General Audiences
WORDCOUNT: 473
PAIRING(S): -
CHARACTER(S): Nico Di Angelo, Will Solace
GENRE: Bit angsty
TRIGGER WARNING(S): None
SUMMARY: It’s as if people in Camp Half Blood think, if they convince themselves hard enough, their delusions will come true.
NOTE(S): So something like forever ago, @talysalankil​ (at least I’m about 99% sure it was you since you’re more or less the only one who posts PJO on my dash) prompted me with “Things you said with too much distance between us” during a prompt drive. I don’t know how I forgot it, but I did, and then yesterday I stumbled on the draft and decided to finish it. I got it at the same time as the prompt for How to choose your Doctor and wanting to do something a little symmetrical to that fic, although they’re not related beyond that. That, and I also wanted to adress/look into a thing that peeved me a lot when reading HOO. I didn’t end up going too in-depth about it, but it’s there anyway. Enjoy the read, I guess :P

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There’s a dull thump and a quiet ‘fuck’ and Nico’s lips turn into a sneer, hand on his knife before he can think better of it.

Will Solace sees him and glows, the light of him painting the roof a cheerful orange, and Nico turns back around, shoulders pulling together as he braces himself for whatever’s coming.

Down in the amphitheater, too far to be seen from the Big House, Camp Half-Blood celebrates another summer survived. Nico sits alone, away, and listens to the scraps of music the wind carries towards him—tradition at its finest, really, except for the son of Apollo who stands behind him and sighs:

“You know, we’re not supposed to climb here.”

“I didn’t climb,” Nico replies, angling his head further into his arm so his hair can shield his eyes from Will’s glow.

The other boy grunts—something that sounds a lot like ‘impossible’ and twists Nico’s chest with emotions he’s not sure he wants to examine—before he sighs again and asks:

“Shadow-traveling aside, do I even want to know why you decided to come here of all places?”

Nico shrugs. There’s a better answer to this, but it would take far too long and bare far too many dark corners of his life to a complete stranger, and even then there’s no guarantee he’d manage to make Will understand. Sometimes, Nico isn’t even sure he understands what he does himself, anyway.

Shrugging is just safer.

“Fine,” Solace says after a long stretch of silence—he doesn’t sigh, but the way he sits down next to Nico feels heavy with the weight of it anyway— “We’re back on brooding cloud, I see.”

He’s quiet for a while after that, and Nico’s stomach sinks with the memory of his mother’s face after he made a particularly big mistake, the dark brown of her eyes wondering what, if anything, she’d ever do with that awkward a son. At least back then, Nico only had to get a hug from Bianca to make things better—nowadays there isn’t much to do but swallow hard, grit his teeth, and wait for the moment to pass.

“You know,” Solace continues next to Nico, “I know I’ve already said it but you seriously need to get over it.”

Nico’s stomach sinks lower, so sudden it cuts his breathing and sends his heart racing as he shrugs, the move harder than lifting a scepter with the powers of Hell.

“I’m serious, Nico. People like you here. Get that chip off your shoulder, you’ll feel better.”

He falls silent again, possibly waiting for an answer, but Nico doesn’t have one for him—nothing, at least, that he feels he could get past the stone in his throat.

It did, after all, take Will almost an hour before he noticed Nico had left the party.