Work Text:
Hey
I don't know why I'm leaving this voice message. Maybe it's out of the hope that you're busy and not that you saw my number and deliberately ignored my call. I don't know.
I'm in town for a bit. Visiting Hazel and stuff. You probably don't want to see me. If you do, I'm leaving in a week. If you don't, then... yeah. I understand, Will. Or maybe I don't? Or you don't? That was the problem with us I guess.
Sorry, just wanted to let you know. Call me back. Or don't. Just do what's best for you, okay? Um, that's all.
Bye
Nico rubbed his eyes, leaning on his elbows at the kitchen table and listening back to the stupid voicemail he'd just recorded for the seventeenth time trying to send it to his ex-boyfriend. God, this was pathetic.
"How you holding up?" Hazel asked as she entered, squeezing her brother's shoulder and taking a seat beside him. Nico stared at the salt and pepper. Two opposites always found in a pair. The sentimentality was getting out of control.
"I'm fine," he lied. He wasn't looking at Hazel but he could feel her raise an eyebrow. She tapped his head.
"Look at me."
Nico glanced up, meeting golden eyes filled with compassion but mostly sterness.
"How are you?" she asked again. Nico grumbled noncommitally.
It had been four years since he last came to visit. Usually, Hazel, Frank and the kids came to his. He hadn't moved far away since he got his job offer. It was only a couple of hours, just far enough to be nearing the middle of the city. However, this was the time that Hazel had put her foot down and forced him to make the trip back to where they spent their teenage years and early twenties.
Avoidance was one of Nico’s special skills. Determination was one of Hazel's.
"Nobody likes seeing their ex for the first time after a break up," Hazel tried to reason.
"Most of them aren't stumbling over their words trying to call said ex," Nico objected. "And I don't know how many of them were rejected by a boyfriend of three years when they asked for them to both move to the city and were left utterly heartbroken."
"Actually it's a common movie trope so maybe it happens more than you think."
Nico glared at Hazel. She rolled her eyes.
"We get it. You're heartbroken. You're pining. But for god's sake, Nico, it's been years and you're here to have a nice week with the kids so with all due respect pull yourself together!"
When Nico first met Hazel, he'd been taken aback at how such a seemingly sweet, small girl could be so harsh and blunt. Nowadays he was used to it. One thing he'd learned from Hazel coming to live with him was that sometimes, even when all he wanted to do was mope, he had to learn how to muddle through. It was a shame as he was a good moper.
"Alright," he agreed. "But if I run into him then I'm entitled to a good long bath and a cry."
Hazel slapped him with a napkin. "You're utterly ridiculous sometimes."
"Runs in the family."
-
Through some sort of luck, good or bad, Nico had a happy two days without running into Will. He'd tried to stay inside mostly but Hazel had forced him out by promising the kids that he'd take them for ice cream. It wasn't that he had anything against Francis and Jade or ice cream, quite the opposite. It was more that the outside meant people.
"I want chocolate with extra sprinkles!" Francis announced, his eyes expectant and his smile lopsided.
"I'll have strawberry, Zio Nico," Jade concluded in a very professional tone of voice.
Nico dug his wallet out of his pocket and payed the ice cream man. Francis was happy to smear his food all over his face as they sat on the bench. Jade decided she was in the mood to be inquisitive today.
"What do you do now?" she asked. Jade was a bright young girl of nine with Frank's eyes and Hazel's curls. She was sharp, a little blunt and had from a young age been asking the ageless question of 'why' in response to just about anything.
"I still do photography," Nico explained. "It's just easier to do in the city."
"Why?"
"Because there are more clients there and you don't have to travel as far."
"But there are more friends here," Jade retorted. Nico shoved his hands in his pockets, swinging his legs absentmindedly.
"There are a lot of friends out in the city too," Nico reminded her. "I stayed with Uncle Percy and Aunt Annabeth until I found my own apartment."
"Is that why Uncle Will couldn't come with you? Because Uncle Percy and Aunt Annabeth had no space?"
Nico winced. "Uncle Will couldn't come with me for other reasons."
"Like what?"
Nico thought back to their arguments; crying, kissing, making up, desperate attempts to keep and take and give and receive and forgive and forget.
"Differences."
"I thought you loved Uncle Will being different."
"Oh, I did. But love can only get you so far and you have to do what's best for you. Sometimes you want strawberry and chocolate ice cream but you can only get strawberry."
Jade frowned. "Then I'd get strawberry, Francis would get chocolate and I'd steal Francis'."
Francis made a sound as if Jade had just declared that she would be hacking off both his legs.
"You can't steal my ice cream! It's mine!"
-
It turned out to be a cup of coffee that was Nico’s downfall. He was thirsty and tired and he couldn't for the life of him find where Hazel had hid the coffee and couldn't ask her because she and Frank has taken the kids out for a walk and she was useless with her phone. So there he was at the familiar coffee shop with its tables and decoration the same all the way down to the green bunting.
Grover's Garden was a great coffee shop even if the name of the shop had nothing to do with coffee. It was run by one of Percy and Annabeth’s university friends and his wife after they'd taken over from Grover's grandfather. It was a family buisness although Grover had given it a bit of a rebrand. They still hung the picture of Grover's great great great great grandfather, Pan, by the front door as he stood proudly in front of his coffee shop.
"Nico?"
Nico was rather taken aback to find Grover at the counter. It wasn't unexpected it had just been so long. He'd grown a beard. Nico wasn't sure he liked it. Underneath that beard, though, was still the geeky guy with the limp who once swallowed plastic and let his garden be Nico’s little photography project.
"Grover! Good to see you."
Grover grinned. "Good to see you too. How's the city?"
"I've loved it," Nico admitted. "I missed you though. How's Juniper?"
"Pregnant," Grover announced proudly. Nico’s jaw dropped.
"Seriously? Congratulations! I feel like a little kid coming back and finding everyone so grown up! Even Clovis has opened a sleep clinic."
"You'll catch up with us eventually." Grover winked. "In the mean time, black coffee?"
"Yes, please. Can't believe you remember."
"Of course I do. It was all you ordered when..." Grover trailed off, stammering a little. The silence was filled with unspoken words. When you and Will used to come here.
Grover's Garden was where Nico and Will met. They'd gone to the same school but they'd never really talked. Then one day they got talking whilst waiting in line for some coffee and ended up sitting together and having their first date. It was a regular date spot. It was where Will asked Nico to move in with him. It was where Nico broke the news of his job offer too.
"Thanks." Nico gave a tight lipped smile. He took his coffee and sat in the corner, sipping slowly.
There was a short cough.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
Nico made a small, strangled noise as he looked up to see Will. Holy shit he was even prettier than Nico remembered. He had the same bright eyes that Nico would stare ingo, the same long tangle of curls that he would run his hands through when they kissed and those freckles that Nico would trace pattern after pattern on. Dear lord, did Will have stubble now?
"Can I sit down?" Will asked. Nico nodded as best he could. Will took his seat opposite with a smile that floated in between cheerfulness and despair.
"I didn't realise you were in town," Will said. Nico found his voice.
"Um, I meant to leave a message and let you know I didn't randomly call you but I didn't know if that would be weird."
"Is it weird?"
"Well, yeah."
"Good weird or bad weird?" Will asked with a tone of curiosity. Nico hesitated.
"I'm not sure."
Will shrugged, seeming satisfied with that answer.
"How's work?"
"It's been good." Nico didn't see the point in lying. "I've had a lot of fun and I've learned so much. Kind of hectic but I love it. It was... really hard at first. How's the pharmacy?"
"We're doing well. I'm well past the days of assistant now."
"Glad to hear it," Nico said and he meant it.
They eased into conversation and it started flowing just like it used to. There were those inside jokes they had, the people they knew, the memories they shared. Even so, there was a sense of something different. Not good different or bad different, just different. They were a few years older with new experiences and new ways of living. For the first time since arriving, Nico felt almost as grown up as the rest of his old friends.
"I did miss you," Nico managed to say. Will smiled fondly.
"I missed you too. I think we made the right decision at the time."
"Hurt like hell though." Nico laughed bitterly.
"It did," Will agreed readily, "and we handled it terribly, which probably proves that we did the right thing even more."
"We were dumb kids, weren't we?"
"We were."
"Never moved on."
"Me neither. Hope you know I got plenty of opportunities."
Nico snorted. "I bet you did, you handsome bastard."
Will grinned, leaning over the table. "Are you flirting with me, Mr Di Angelo?"
Nico put down his coffee. "So what if I am? Poetic isn't it? First date second time around in the same place."
"So now this is a date?"
"If you want it to be." Nico was trying to be brazen but inside he was a nervous wreck. Will leaned back with an expression Nico couldn't quite decipher.
"Yeah," he said after a moment. "I think I would like it to be."