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There is something poetic to be said about history repeating itself. Maybe he’s just being pedantic, and there’s really no time for being pedantic, not now anyways, but something in his brain makes him find this moment beautiful.
It’s sickening.
The way the sky is blood red and the rocks are tumbling towards the ground and he’s running and sweating and grasping at the last threads of the world – and all his brain can do is think: hey, this is something to remember. Something is wrong with him. With the way his mind is saying that maybe he should stop and take a photo of the world collapsing around him and put it in the scrapbook he has under his bed. The one shared with the rest of his siblings. Oh gods his siblings. He wonders if they’re okay, if Austin ate his vegetables that morning or if Kayla forgot to take inventory of the infirmary. He wonders if there are any new photos in the scrapbook. He wonders if he’ll get to see them.
(he won’t)
(but he wishes, with his heart, mind and soul that he will)
His skin is burning. His lungs are burning. His throat begs for water it cannot have. Nico clutches his hand like a lifeline as they run towards a destination neither of them had planned for, a place with no name except the one crafted from nightmares. Like fairytale stories with villains crafted from a single person’s mind. This place was built on bad memories and promises shattered like glass, everything bad in the world all balled up and thrown over the edge of the cliff. Forgotten, but still existing.
The rumbling of the ground beneath them gets gradually louder. Like an earthquake it shakes and throws them off balance when suddenly the ground beneath them lurches; no longer rock but skin and Nico lets go-
“WILL!”
The scream is vicious.
He can see Nico’s hair from just over a crater, but he can’t quite be sure with how his vision blurs and the darkness of this place overwhelms his senses. The last time this happened they were so close to losing.
(he thinks they might lose for real this time)
He finds Nico just beyond the crater, struggling to stand with a hand bent slightly backwards. He doesn’t speak, the motions of healing as familiar to him as breathing. His powers are useless down here but the hand gets bandaged, gets held, and they start running again.
It’s when Nico stumbles and the roaring gets louder that he sees a cave up ahead.
“Inside,” he whispers but he thinks the sound is lost under the rocks crashing down around them. Nico doesn’t object to the sudden detour, he has no grounds too, not when they abandoned their quest just hours before.
(failure failure failure failure)
He takes a deep breath and feels like he’s dying. He takes another one and sits with his back against the cave wall, facing the entrance. Nico stays standing.
“You should sit down,” he says after a moment, voice hoarse from the fiery water of the river, and Nico just looks at him. Really looks at him. Will can see the message behind his eyes.
He doesn’t want to be the one to say it. So instead he looks at the ceiling, feels the aftershocks of the ground moving like skin beneath them. He hears Nico moving. He fights for one more breath.
“I don’t-” his tears feel like acid, “I don’t think we win this one, Nico,”
To his credit Nico doesn’t put up a fight, instead, he smiles.
(and oh what a sad smile it is)
“I don’t think we do,” he says.
Will opens his arms and Nico comes tumbling into them, collapsing in a pile of skin and bones as Will hugs him as tight as he can. Nico clutches his shirt and Will buries his face in Nico’s hair and they sit like that for a while. Breathing. Existing in this space beneath the earth.
The ground shakes again. This time louder and closer and neither of them have the strength to stand up again as the cave threatens to come apart around them. It doesn’t, but rocks tumble overhead and begin falling, falling, falling until the cave is dark. Completely encased in darkness.
Akhyls is a horrible person, he thinks.
(he knows)
Nico starts to freak out, just a little bit, so Will calls on the last of the energy in a prayer to Apollo. He glows. Flickering, at first, but then into a dim light that reaches a metre or so from his body. Nico whirls around to face him.
“Are you insane?” he asks, voice breaking, “Will-”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe, you know that,” Will says sincerely. Nico looks like he wants to say something, so Will kisses him, allows a small bit of sunshine into the darkness. A tiny light at the end of a long tunnel. There’s no time for arguments here.
“I love you,” Nico says when they pull apart.
“I love you too,” he says, and his tears burn a path down his face.
Every so often the ground rumbles. A constant reminder of their failure. He lets his thoughts drift for a second: wonders about Austin and Kayla, Lou Ellen and Cecil, wonders about his mom. Chiron. Apollo.
Nico has tucked his head under Will’s, his eyes closed. The only signs of life being the little puffs of air Will can feel on his neck, and the stuttering heartbeat Will can sense through vitakinesis.
“Hey,” he says, because there’s no point conserving his energy at a time like this. “Remember those dinosaurs?”
“What?” Nico asks, lifting his head up to look at Will properly.
“Those two dinosaurs. The fossil they found of two dinosaurs huddled together to try and save themselves from the great dying,” he says. “It’s called the triassic cuddle,”
“Oh,” Nico says, and he’s crying. “They’re like us”
“Yeah,” Will holds him tighter, “they are,”
There’s something poetic about the way history repeats itself.