How Icarus Fell From the Sun (a Solangelo fanfic)

nico misses will, pass it on

As soon as he was there, he knew he shouldn't be. He was still wiped out, from the poison, from the shadow travel. From Will. It would be at least a few hours before he could get back. He had stupidly dropped the gatorade on the cot as he left, so unless he found somewhere to crash, he would need some time to recharge.

Tired, alone, and in a far away city he hadn't visited in four years, Nico's first idea was to find a map. Simple enough.

He knew where he was, the Bishop's Garden surrounding the Washington National Cathedral, but he needed to find somewhere to go. He had no money, no food or water, and had just shadow travelled almost four hundred miles in one go.

Perhaps, subconsciously, he knew what he was looking for as he left the Gardens. Perhaps, subconsciously, it was what he wanted. Or, perhaps, he really did accidentally stumble upon a map containing a brochure for the very hotel he told himself to avoid.

As soon as he exited the gardens, he was almost run over by two men on bicycles, who gave him the finger as they rode away. Nico payed them no attention, his eyes flitting over each and every building, taking it all in. He had lost all of his memories at seven, yes, but he had spent three more years in D.C. Three years sneaking in and out of his military school with Bianca, three years of milkshakes at the diner a few blocks away, three years with no monsters or gods, outside of a card game.

So many things were different. But so many things were the same.

There was a new president now, Nico knew, who had replaced the one who had been in office when he and Bianca had left the casino. He'd heard a lot about the man, and from what he knew, he reminded him a lot of the men he met at military school, back in the early forties. White, mean, and lacking in the area of general brain function. Nico much preferred FDR.

The buildings were different, too. More modern. More colorful.

It was a strange experience for Nico, being back there. It was almost nostalgic, but there was a hint of longing, of wistfulness at the memories he had once had, but didn't anymore. He wished he remembered more than the two fairly shit memories he did. Maybe they meant something, Nico thought. Or maybe Morpheus and Mnemosyne just had it out for him.

Either way, it didn't change his current situation, and was therefore a problem for another time. Right then, Nico needed to find somewhere to go towards. A destination.

As soon as he started to walk, Nico realized that he was missing his jacket. He had been changed into new clothes than the ones from capture the flag, his own, thank the gods. He hadn't been given the jacket Will had given him though, and assumed someone had thrown it in his cabin rather than on him, because the infirmary was known to grow very hot. But now, he was cold, even here in the middle of August. Nico didn't grow hot very easily. He would've liked having a sense of new familiarity, instead of the strange feeling he got from this place. He missed Will. He missed Bianca. He didn't miss D.C.

Nico looked inside a couple of restaurants, and, in doing so, he also discovered that it was Monday. He had slept for two days straight. He kept looking, until he finally found a restaurant with a map, tucked next to the menu posters outside.

It was there that he found it. The brochure. He was leaning against the outside of the restaurant, flipping through the packet the map was in, and there it was. Omni Hotels and Resorts. Your business. Our pleasure. The page went on to describe how amazing, how special the hotel was. Built in 1930. Renovated in 1939 after a freak lightning storm. The Omni Shoreham Hotel. Shaking only slightly, Nico turned the page, hoping to find a picture. When he did, he sucked in his breath, and tried impossibly hard not to gasp.

Looking back, he didn't know how he had known. A gut feeling, maybe. An instinct. Maybe it was another memory, hidden beneath the layers of the Lethe.

When he turned the paper, the picture he found was either exactly what the was expecting, or the opposite. He wasn't sure.