Solangelo~ One Shots

The Aftermath

TRIGGER WARNINGS AND A SAD, SAD CHAPTER

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There were many variations of the word gone; there was gone as in no longer being around, and that could be true, but it wasn't the gone that Nico was suffering. There was gone like the permanently cold side of the bed and a single toothbrush in the bathroom and no dirty articles of clothing on the floor. There was the moment in between sleep and wakefulness, the moment you never can seem to remember. Perhaps the freckles that faded and were replaced with an array of wrinkles. Gone was permanent or temporary, but that doesn't mean it ever got easier. Will was gone, but he hadn't left. The choice had not been his to make.

It started, as most things seem to, with a quest. It ended in literal flames that Nico could still see every time he blinked. His eyelids were out to get him.

Nico had always known there would be no happy ending for himself- he had just assumed that "The End" would've meant literal death. How could you be dead and still breathe all the while? This emotion was beyond numbness, beyond something that could be reached with the comfort and condolences of his friends. He hadn't the energy to cut smiles into his wrists or end his torment- was living really living if the sun was gone? What was night, then, if not temporary death? Nico closed his eyes and saw a blank, starless sky and then he opened his eyes and nothing changed.

In the back of his mind, he knew he could probably guilt his father into bringing Will back or killing himself, but Hades had placed some sort of a spell on Nico. Hades wanted Nico to live for himself. Nico didn't.

A sudden fit of fury had Nico knocking his books and artifacts off of his desk and upending a glass of water over the piece of paper he had been writing on. Stumbling to his bed, he stared at the ceiling with frosty eyes until the morning light shone through the windows. 

He didn't notice.