Chapter Text
Two children, seemingly around the age of seven, ran around a field. One, slightly taller and blonde, wore a large green shirt with black shorts. The other, with brown hair so dark it looked brown until the sun shone through it, wore a dark blue shirt with grey shorts. The dark-haired boy was being pulled along through the field by the blonde, though they both wore a smile.
”C’mon, Nico!” the blonde said, tumbling forward as the grass grew longer, the sun shining through it in such a way that it looked golden, “We’re gonna miss it!”
The second boy– Nico– picked up his pace so that the blonde wouldn’t tear his arm out of its socket, laughing as he wriggled his way out of the blonde's grasp, running ahead of him into the tall grass. His dark hair and clothes stuck out like a sore thumb against the golden grass, spinning and laughing as he bound ahead, toward a large tree that stood alone in a clearing. Its branches were long and leafy, covering a large area in shade. Nico bound towards the trunk, swinging on one of the lower branches, hooking himself up on top of it and climbing higher up it, until he was near the very top, where a small treehouse sat.
The blonde boy barreled after him, yelling as Nico made it to the top of the tree before him, his anger pure and innocent.
” You're so slow, Will” Nico said, catching his breath as he sat on the wooden board floor of the tree house, breathing heavily. “Even I made it here first!”
”Hey! It's not my fault you're better at climbing than me!” Will spoke between breaths, staring out one of the makeshift windows the treehouse had, seemingly looking out at the field, the city line far beyond it. “My mama said she gonna come out here to pick me up today,” he said, pointing out toward the city, “She said she doesn't like me walking back in the dark”
Nico didn’t say anything, still catching his breath, but after a few minutes, he spoke, his voice practically vibrating with excitement as he pulled a box out of his pocket. “Do you want to see the new cards I got???”
—-
Nico di Angelo knew that he should not hold grudges. He shouldn’t hold a grudge against his father, he should hold a grudge against the drunk drivers that killed his sister and mother, and he definitely shouldn't hold a grudge against William Solace, the boy he was friends with from ages six to ten.
He had no reason to hate him. They were friends, then Will disappeared, and they weren't friends. It was a simple falling out, nothing more. Yet here Nico was, a bitter taste in his mouth as he walked into his first class on his first day of his senior year, seeing none other than Will sitting in the front row of seats, looking at something on his phone.
He had absolutely no reason to hate him. They were children. Will had left over seven years ago, and Nico had long accepted that he would never see him again, and never get the reasonings for his disappearance. But here he was, blonde hair and all, back in New York. Nico had a strong urge to punch him in the face.
Instead, he opted to sit in the very back of the classroom, as far away from Will as he could manage. He glared at the back of his head, years of resentment and anger bubbling up inside of him. For years, he had planned out every single thing he would say to Will when he saw him again– Where the fuck was he? What happened? Why did he just leave? Why, why, why. But now that that moment had come, Nico found himself silenced, his mind unable to hold a thought. He felt like a volcano that had been dormant for years and was about to explode, just by the smallest shake.
Seeing Will’s face just made it worse.
He looked pretty similar to how he had as a kid– curly blonde hair, although now it was longer, soft yet prominent features, and piercing, terrifying blue eyes. He wore a painfully bright shirt with an equally as bright flannel, and smiled as he talked to another blond kid that sat next to him. Nico found himself staring with such intensity that his eyes hurt, as if he were attempting to blow the two people up with nothing but a glare. Something about Will looking the exact same, about him acting the same way he did with Nico when they were younger, but with a completely different person, filled Nico with such amounts of rage that he had to look away, pulling out his phone just so he wouldn’t break something. He checked his messages, pretending to be surprised when he saw he had no new ones, then set his phone to the side, forcing himself to take a breath.
This was fine. Will probably didn't even recognize him, and there would be nothing to come of sharing a class together. He wouldn't have to sit near him, or talk to him, or even look at him. All he had to do was survive being in the same room as him for eighty minutes, every other day.
He could manage that. He had dealt with worse people. Will was just a long-lost childhood friend that Nico had cried over and yearned for for years. Now, he was nothing– simply another person in the school he disliked. Nico would ignore him and go on with his day like nothing happened.
There was no use in bringing up the past, and there was no use in making a big deal out of nothing– if he could ignore Percy Jackson, he could ignore WIll Solace no problem.
—
Nico quickly learned that he could, in fact, not ignore Will. his chest was filled with a wicked fire of rage by the time class was over, and no amount of fanning the flames calmed them down. Nico felt as though the rage had embodied him, and he had absolutely no idea what to do about it.
He couldn't talk to anyone. That was completely off the table. Nico didn’t have many friends, but the ones he did have would never let him live it down if he told them about seeing Will again. Sure, none of them even knew of WIll’s existence, but Nico knew exactly how they’d react; Hazel would lightly tease him about it every moment she had, Jason would either completely brush it off or over-exaggerate the situation to the point that it seemed more catastrophic than it really was, and Reyna would look at Nico with an amused smile, saying almost nothing about the situation itself.
He didn't need any of that– he just needed the fire burning inside of him to be snuffed out, or at the very least tamed, so that he could go about his life normally again. But he didn’t have time for that. It was nine in the morning, and he was sitting in the back of another class, stewing in his own anger that seemed to put a forcefeild around him. He didn't miss how no one sat next to him, or how people would glance at him for seconds only to turn away quickly as if he would snap at them if he caught them staring. Nico didn’t mind the staring, not anymore at least– he knew the exact reason everyone was staring at him.
Even if it was old news, getting outed by some dumb popular kid would change how people viewed you, even if you didn't know them. Nico had learned to not care– it wasn't like he could do anything about it now. The moment was done and over, and everyone continued to stare. If they wanted to act like he was some freak of nature, so be it. No one directly said anything to him anymore, so he really didn’t care.
The rest of the school day went by quickly. He knew the teachers he had, and he didn’t bother listening to anything they had to say about themselves or their classes, so he absentmindedly scrolled his phone for the whole day. He ate lunch (if you considered an orange lunch) alone, he sat in every class alone, and he rode the bus home alone. Being alone was simply part of his life, a part of his life he had gotten used to seven years ago. He didn't hang out with anyone outside of school, he didn't hang out with anyone inside of school– he just occasionally texted people, then occasionally got dragged to their houses for some meet up with a large group of people that Nico would have to assume would be considered his friend group– not that he considered himself friends with most of them. Jason, Hazel, and Reyna? They were his friends. But everyone else– Percy, Annabeth, Grover, Piper, Rachel, Leo… He had never felt close to them, not in the way he felt with the others. Everything between them felt so forced, and ever since his forced outing, he felt the strain in the relationship even more. Part of Nico knew that it was very likely he was making up that strain, but regardless of if it were real or not, he didn’t know how to navigate it, so he shut himself out, blocking off all parts of himself from everyone, acting cold and mean, acting as though he didn’t care, when in all reality, he knew he cared too much.
He didn’t let the group know how much he enjoyed art, even when Rachel forced them all to have painting sessions. He didn't let the group know how scared he was for the one sort of constant in his life to disappear. It was already straining, caused by most of the group being in college, and Nico knew it was only a matter of time before it collapsed in on itself, crushing everyone under a pile of rubble.
But that time had not yet come, so all Nico could do was watch with a stinging and lingering feeling as small cracks formed. Monthly meetings became every other month meetings. The group chats– all of which Nico had muted– had all become less active. It was a slow and steady fall, and Nico felt the urge to grasp onto it like a child would to a teddy bear.
He didn’t though, because he knew the ways of life, and he knew that sometimes, being alone was unavoidable.
He supposed, despite everything, that was why he sat in the weathered down treehouse, the sun filtering through the broken boards of the walls and roof, reading a book.
The place had been long abandoned, and he could never be bothered to fix it up, even with his frequent visits. At first, he had visited every day, waiting for Will to show up again. When he realized Will wouldn't be coming back, the visits happened less and less. For a year or two, he didn't come back to the treehouse at all. The place brought back too much pain and sadness, too many unanswered questions. But as he grew, he found those unanswered questions almost comforting– or at least more comforting than his actual home could ever be. The treehouse became a place where he read and did homework, and sometimes he drew– he would draw the memories he had when he was young, running around the field with Will, he would draw the golden grass as the sun set, he would draw random miscellaneous things that crossed his mind. The treehouse became his sanctuary, rather than a place of empty memories, random notes and drawings taped all over the walls and half-fallen apart ceiling.
He had a makeshift bed in one corner of the treehouse–a couple of pillows and a blanket– just in case things in his real home were too much. He would never admit how many times he had slept in the treehouse, though he was sure that the days he did, his friends knew something was up– whether it was because he never replied to their texts on those days, or if it was because the splinters of wood that would be stuck in his hair and clothes for the days afterward. He never told them where he had gone, and they never asked, knowing he wouldn't tell.
Nico didn’t know why he kept going back to the treehouse, but he also didn’t know what he would do without it. Even when he sat on the floor reading some random book, he felt at more peace than he did anywhere else. Maybe it was the silence, maybe it was the fact that he was alone and uninterrupted, maybe it was even because of the way the sun filtered through the pieces of wood– but Nico knew deep down it was because of the memories he had made in the treehouse all those years ago, the moments he shared with Will, spanning from their races to the top of the tree to each and every moment they talked about Mythomagic.
Despite the bitter taste in his mouth, Nico found himself faintly smiling at the memories– times when life was simple, and the biggest issues in his life were getting home in time for dinner.
He missed those days, and even though he would never admit it aloud, he suspected a small part of him, but a part of him nonetheless, missed Will.