Work Text:
Home.
You weren't supposed to feel out of place if you were at home. Except Nico didn't have one.
He used to, once.
There was the small house he shared with his mom and sister. He grew up there. But he didn't remember it very well. He'd tested his memory of it, by asking himself questions. What colour were the curtains? They'd been an olive green, until he'd asked himself if they were crimson or navy, and now he wasn't so sure which it was. He wasn't sure if the floor was wooden or stone. He couldn't remember what the seats were like. He couldn't remember the colours of his walls. All he could remember was how poor they were, huddled together sleeping in one room, cooking and living in another, and cloth hung around a bucket to wash in, and a chamber pot usually kept in the bedroom.
He remembered accepting the Lotus as his home, because it was fun. He was a child, and any place that was fun felt like a home. It couldn't have stopped being a home, because it was never a home. But to little Nico, lost in wonder at all the games and how fast they came through, from hook-a-duck one week to shooting lasers on a screen to dancing on a mat that made you show up on a screen- it felt like home amongst the lights and prizes and mythomagic cards.
Then there was the school. He'd lived there, and home was where you lived. Home wasn't where you were safe, it was just a roof. Home went from war to wonder to bullying and belittling. Home seemed to always be where you felt the most unsafe, he concluded, whilst being told you should be grateful for a roof over your head.
Then home became a tiny corner and a sleeping bag in a loud cabin full of kids older than him. Home was where your stuffed animal got ripped from your arms whilst you were sleeping and replaced with a sweaty shirt, home was where you woke up to the blanket your mama made dyed bright pink and cut up to make a flag, home became the place where you were mocked, and home became a place full of broken families and loss.
Home must have been a place of fear, because his home now was fear. Corridors upon corridors full of monsters and webs, so dark he couldn't see his own hand, nowhere to wash, nowhere safe. It became a place of confusion, the only clarity a ghost, and home became betrayal. Home became a place where Nico's only comfort was a jacket from a dead pilot, where he moved from labyrinth to street to Walmart bathroom to underworld river banks. Home wasn't comfort. Home wasn't even a place. Home was the desolate desperation and fear and numb madness that came with the first whisper of the shadows. Home was fear. Home was emptiness. Home was the place that made you wish you'd fall asleep painlessly. Home was homelessness and fear and war again. Home was the darkness in his mind, and his mind was never quiet. Home was the shadows he was afraid of. Home was uncertainty and instability and fear. Home was everybody having a place and Nico having none.
Home was a blur. He stopped remembering what his homes were, the people, the ghosts, the shadows, the injuries. Home was uncertainty.
Home was Tartarus. Home was trauma and pain and begging and pleading and bleeding and fighting and crying. Home was fighting out of fear, then staring into the flames regretting fighting back. Home was waiting for the dry mouth and sore head and painful stomach and fuzzy heart to ease forever with the next sleep. Home was only having the same dirty clothes he always had that had once been too tight barely hanging on. Home was stripping and feeling jutting hips and protruding ribs and bulging tendons and wondering how much more of him could be lost before he'd sleep for good. Home was the familiar feeling of blood warm and cold and dried and fresh and metallic and thick and dizzying. Home was fever and pain and poison veins and poison bodies. Home was fighting for a life he'd already lost in the hope the ocean never had to meet the brimstone.
Home was panic and vulnerability. Home was valentine red eyes and a burning shoulder. Home was being exposed. Home was being uncomfortable in your own skin, home was being the thorn in the flesh, home was internalised homophobia.
Nothingness was home. It was looking down at hands that weren't there, home was whispers, 'join us'. Home was giving up, or at least, waiting to give up, scared less of the fading hands than he was of his obligation to hang on long enough for the sun to live.
Home…
Home was warm.
Home was comfort.
Home was a reason to stay.
Home was a warm amber with hints of sunset yellow and sunrise orange. Home was safety. Home was a pair of arms holding him like he'd never been held, never expected to be held. Home was a soft gentle hum and a mumbled tune from sleepy kissable lips. Home was a mutual understanding of death and mortality, of deviance and norms. Home was the first time he heard the words 'it's okay to hurt', 'it's okay to be gay', 'I want you to stay, please…', 'I love you'. Home was the first time he stopped suggesting suicide missions. Home was the place where love and life happened, and for Nico, home wasn't a place, it was the sun, it was a boy, it was joy. Home wasn't trauma and fear and pain. Home was a warm giggle and a soft freckled glow and a whispered I love you and a tentative touch of the hand and soft hair beneath his fingers and whispered confessions into a pillow.
Home was a place to feel safe. Home was a place he would always come back to. Home was love.
Home was Will.
He was finally home, and he didn't realise he was waiting to find it until he did. Until he found him.
Will.
His home.