Solangelo One Shots

I Grow for You, You Grow for Me(p2)

Hi guys, so just want to let you know that I wrote this on a five-hour bus trip with like thirty other people around me, so please be grateful because it was nervewracking and I almost got caught a couple of times. Anyway, enjoy!

Nico's POV

They're both sticky with sweat in the burning heat of the sun, bare arms rubbing together as Will presses Nico up against the trunk of the tree, their lips locked together. Nico can feel the heat of Wil's body and when he opens his eyes for a split second he can see the flush in his cheeks from the sun, bright red against the normal pale of the skin. Will doesn't tan, he's learned as summer has set in, even despite the hours they've spent walking the city, eating ice cream and talking about absolutely nothing. But he likes it, and it's funny to listen to him complain about burning so easily when Nico can brag because he never gets a sunburn, even when he lies out in the sun for hours on end with nothing to protect him from the rays.

He breaks apart from the kiss, running the back of his hand down Will's cheek. When he's this close he can see the colors of Will's eyes, and he watches the light of the sun glitter in it. There was a time when all he knew about them was that they were blue; three months ago if you had asked him about the flecks of green or how long his lashes were, he wouldn't have an answer. But he's spent what feels like hours in this position, with his chest still heaving from the kiss and his smile wide, just looking. He could map out the colors of Will's eyes from memory, and the thought makes his heart leap. "What?" Will asks, giving him the same idiotic smile that he always does, the one that turns up more on the right than the left, the one that brings out the curves of his dimples. Nico opens his mouth but it suddenly occurs to him that he can't put into words why he's smiling. He doesn't think he'll ever be able to describe the feeling of warmth that blossoms in his chest every time he sees Will, the way his heart skips a beat and then makes up for it by beating five times faster.

"Nothing," he says, shaking his head. Will frowns, his eyebrows creasing in the middle and Nico leans in to kiss him again, cupping a hand around WIll's cheek. When they break apart, the frown is gone.

"We should go," Will says quietly, tentatively, like it takes effort to force himself to say it. "My grandparents are coming in a few hours, and my parents want me home."

"Your grandparents aren't coming for a few hours," Nico says, giving Will's arm a squeeze. Will's face flushes more, and Nico has to refrain from laughing. "You can stay a little longer."

"I have to go home," Will says again, laughing softly. He kisses Nico, a soft peck on the lips, before grabbing his hand. "Come on, I'll walk you home."

Nico kicks at the gravel underneath his feet, feeling it press through the worn soles of his shoes. He needs to get new ones; the color in these ones are faded, and there's a hole in the bottom and there's mud permanently caked onto the ends of the laces. But he wants to wear them through the summer, at least. These are the shoes that he pulled hastily just before stumbling out of Will's house more hungover than he's ever been in his life on that first morning after, these are the shoes that to the disappointment of his friends walked him up that podium to get his diploma, and these are the shoes that he wore when he had to push himself up to kiss Will for the first time completely sober. It feels that each step in them brings a new memory, and he feels like when he tosses them into the back of his closet for the last time, the memories will be buried underneath a mountain of old clothes and papers with them.

They push branches out of the trees as they walk, mud caking to the soles of their shoes. The leaves rustle as a bird takes off from where it had been perched, swallowed up by the bright blue sky. Nico's seen these woods hundreds of times, the most popular hookup spot in the town. It was just a fact, that if you walked through them on any given day, there was a good chance you'd see two people wrapped in each other's arms, their faces mashing together. It was where Percy took him, gave Nico his half-hearted kisses while his mind was occupied by a girl with long blonde hair. It was where Octavian took him, kissing him with such a ferocious passion that it was still hard to believe that he had taken Rachel Peterson there just hours before he and Octavian had gone. The branches still sometimes feel like claws, reaching for his clothes and threatening to tear them off and do something that ended up being meaningless to them, but carried so much depth to Nico. He shivers despite the heat as he slips back into memories of the past, and when he steps across the border that separates the woods from the school recess area, he feels warmer.