Chapter Text
Three-years-and-six-months ago, when someone asked Will Solace what was needed for life, for survival, he wouldn’t have responded with water, or air, or sustenance. He’d respond with four letters. One syllable. A small word that meant everything, and nothing, and anything. He’d respond with hope. Hope to survive the next day. Hope that the world can change. Hope that life isn’t only a game of cat and mouse, running in circles over and over again.
Hope that he could build a future.
But Hope was proving to be rather difficult to come by.
He rubbed his left eye, fighting the eternal battle to stay awake, as he stared up at the stacks of boxes and papers. Surprisingly, he didn’t have to shadow the older doctors in the hospital today, or finish some med work, or anything other than the mundane task of inventory. That hadn’t happened in the entirety of the time he’d been here, which-well. He’d been here for six months. Six months since he’d completed his second year of med school. Three-years-and-six-months since everything and nothing. Three-years-and-six-months since the day he swore to save lives. Three-years-and-six-months since the day he’d say people needed Hope.
Three-years-and-six-months since he’d lost his.
Will sighed. The bare walls and bare floors and bare desk were devoid of soul, of any sign that life was inhabiting it. The sheer nothingness of the room was crawling under his skin, crawling into the darkness that only night should have brought. He’d never liked the Dark, not when he was younger and definitely not when he was older. There was too much hiding in the Shadows, too much that Will didn't trust.
Will flicked over the inventory list in his head, checking it once, twice, over and over until he could escape from this newfound form of torture.
It was his own fault, really, for finishing everything too quickly, for not seeing that he’d be given the extra work until his shift was over. He hated being alone, hated how darkness would always try to creep at the edge of his mind, and preferred the busy halls of the hospital, or the rush of the students all over campus, or the reliable background whispers in the library. It was easier being a shining light than sitting in the darkness.
Will glanced at his watch after being halfway through his sweep of the room. 12:29. His shift ended at 1:30.
This was going to be a long, long day.
———
Will trudged through the mud puddles, determined to make it to his apartment as dry as remotely possible-which wouldn't be that dry, considering the torrents of rain pounding around him, threatening to tear through the pathetic excuse of an umbrella he had.
He sighed. Kayla was proving herself right for the thousandth time. Ever since he’d turned sixteen, his little sister had been badgering him on and on about how “Everyone has a car, Will” and “you can drive anyone everywhere, don't you love helping anyways?” and “what will you do in the rain? Walk?”. Will had laughed then, laughed at the far away prospect of ever having to think of the possibility that he’d be walking more than a few hundred metres. Laughed at the possibility that he'd ever leave home for long enough where he couldn't call an Uber and it not deplete his already bare bank account.
He wasn't laughing now.
Will hadn't realized back then how much he'd hated the rain. He hated it as much as the Darkness that crept up to him in the middle of the night, or the persistent murmurs of the Ghosts he’d tried to forget, or the thought of being alone. The clouds would always cover the sunshine, cover up the light that helped him power through the day. That light was what Will needed, and its sudden absences were both exhausting and uncertain in their own way, a way which he didn't understand.
Or, perhaps, the rain was just a painful reminder of the Ghosts that lingered, lingered in his mind, his house, his world. Perhaps it was the way his mind would flood with the Darkness the way the streets had flooded. Perhaps it was the Almost-Thoughts that took shape during the pounding of the water, took more shape than just a simmering at the edges. Or, perhaps, it was as simple as Will hating the strange wetness that came with the downpour. He didn't know, didn't stay in one place long enough to take the Almost-Thoughts and try to unblur the edges.
Will groaned as he felt the inching water seep into his worn sneakers. Any more of this and he’d be drowning in his own clothes. His umbrella was about as helpful as a badger mole would have been at the moment, and he couldn't go far with wet socks anyways.
Will scanned the street, scanned it as if he hadn't walked this road dozens of times before, as if his feet weren't already moving even before he'd properly thought about it. But if there was one place Solace found solace (a play on words which never failed to make his roommate, Cecil, cackle as if it was a newfound linguistic term) it was the Library.
Two minutes and twenty-six seconds later, Will walked through the doors of the safe haven he'd found. His hair (how did his head get wet?) dripped a little bit of water on the floors as he stood in the entryway, taking a moment to let the warmth fill him. He breathed in the smell of books, of different worlds waiting to be discovered, and immediately felt warmer, felt whole .
Or, really, as whole as someone like Will could be.
Katie Gardner, library volunteer and one of Will’s friends (“friends”?), grinned at him behind the desk as he passed by and said, “Hey, Will, did the apartment get flooded?” Will let the easy smile slip onto his face as he rolled his eyes and said, “Nope, just the price of education.” Katie laughed, and Will felt warmer at that too-at making someone smile, someone laugh, because it meant that maybe, even if only for a moment, Will had been able to give someone light.
And as someone who hadn't had any for The Darkest time of his life, he understood just how much light meant.
After a few more comments on the weather (was he becoming an old man?), Will excused himself to the quiet bliss of the bookshelves to find his comfort book. He walked on to the shelf he’d walked to for months, walked to the book he’d almost memorized, and almost sat down right then and there with the copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The thought that nothing could make sense and still be okay was a concept Will never understood, but he always-wanted? Hoped? No, those weren't the words- tried to. It was almost like a cure to the Darkness that threatened to pull Will under the surface, a strange source of light for whenever night was stretching on without any end in sight.
The Darkness of the inventory room, the lightless sky, the Shadows seeping through his mind, that was all Will needed to pick up the book and find a soft, cozy spot where he could read in peace.
Unfortunately, people must have had the same idea as him. Every single table was full, occupied by people who probably wanted to escape the downpour. It was mostly college students, hunched over their homework or textbooks, or avidly conversing with one another in what seemed to be study groups, or, like Will, sitting with a novel and just enjoying what little good came out of the rain.
Will studied the tables, watched who was alone and who was happy, who wouldn't immediately hate him on sight. He stood there, watching, as the study groups laughed and the lone students hunched over their work, until his eyes fell upon a boy.
The boy was alone in a corner, curled up in a way where he looked like he was tuning the world out-or, maybe, making the world tune out him. He wore no real sign of color, his black jeans ripped at the knees and black shirt with a skeleton and black headphones and black nails. The Boy was pale, too-pale as the walls of the inventory, pale as the Ghosts of Will’s world, pale as the Almost-Thoughts. There was something about him, something that made Will want to curl up in a ball as well, something that Will didn't understand until The Boy shuffled his chair back a little-away from the light.
He looked like a shadow.
Will’s first instinct was to run far, far away, away from the Shadows and Ghosts and Darkness. But there was something pained about the way The Boy was alone, something that pulled Will in until he found himself squeaking out, “Can I sit here?”
Will wanted to hit himself. There were a thousand ways to start a conversation-all on varying degrees of socially acceptable, but that was besides the point-and he’d chosen to say what should have come easily as a half-choked sentence. But, unfortunately, Will didn't have the powers of manipulating time and space to his advantage-an Almost-Thought was brewing at the edges (should have been me)-so he'd have to carry on.
The Boy flinched, just slightly, and Will considered whether it would be worse to stand here or throw himself off the balcony. Instead, he did the thing he did best (other than pretending. Perhaps that was on the list too): rambling before anyone could stop him. “There just wasn't room, and it's quiet here, and I wanted to avoid the downpour-gods, maybe I should leave-”
“Sure,” The Boy said, soft as a whisper, still not looking up from his little ball. Will paused. “Sure, I can stay, or sure, please get out of my sight as fast as I can so I can read in peace?” The Boy laughed at that, a laugh that was tinkly and quiet and somehow pained at the edges, and said (louder? Will wasn't sure) “Sure, you can stay without standing there like a deer in headlights.” He scoffed and looked up at Will, up so Will could finally see who he was talking to.
The first thing Will noticed was The Boy’s eyes. Obsidian black, but not black in darkness. Black as the ink on the pages of the worlds disguised as little words on paper, as the comfort of Wonderland. The second thing was that The Boy looked… lonely.
And then an Almost-Thought sharpened at the edges, and for a moment Will was swept in the memory of pelting rain, and screams, and then a loneliness that whipped through him like a storm, crashing into him over and over and over for days upon weeks upon months. And the rain was pelting on the windows now, and The Boy looked just as lonely as Will had three years and six months ago. There was a desperate sort of pain there, as desperate as the waves in a hurricane.
Will smiled at The Boy, smiled bright and wide and warm. Smiled the way he always did, letting the Almost-Thoughts dive down under the surface again, and shone for The Boy. Shone so that The Boy didn't have to rely on the Sun or the Shadows. Or, perhaps, Will shone so that the Darkness in his mind was driven away by the light he made, shone so that he wouldn't have to face the Almost-Thoughts today.
But the answer didn't matter, because the small pearl of an almost-smile The Boy made was warmer than any sunshine Will could ever know.
———
Will had sat down to read, but he found himself talking with The Boy, who was slowly uncurling from the little ball he’d made. The conversation really started out how most would in a library: books.
“What are you reading?” Will asked, about ten and a half pages through his own. For some reason, the words were swimming and running away from him, and his mind kept on drifting to The Boy.
He glanced up then, glanced up with the black-ink eyes, and wordlessly held up a copy of The Outsiders. Will remembered reading that in middle school, remembered how he’d never really understood the point, why Johnny and Dally had to die. He hadn't touched the book since, had felt a growing hole of despair every time he saw the cover in the last three-years-and-six-months.
Will nodded, the easy smile back on his face, and held up his own book while saying, “Yeah, reliving the childhood days when I didn't have to worry about strange adult problems like roommates and taxes.”
The Boy rolled his eyes and said, “The good old days.” Then he focused back on his book.
Will got a good two and a quarter pages in before he spoke again. “What do you think of it?”
The Boy raised his eyebrows-dark, inky black-and replied, “What do you mean?”
What did Will mean? He hadn't really been thinking before blurting out something, anything, but it was too vague of a word to have any meaning without spinning off into the possibilities. It could be the book, or the library, or the rain, or the incredible awkwardness of Will’s horrible habit of filling silence with words that meant nothing more than empty sounds.
“The Outsiders,” Will settled on, because if he thought any more about the possibilities of it, he’d go down the road of Almost-Thoughts and then he’d quite possibly die in the next five minutes out of sheet embarrassment.
The Boy seemed to hesitate, and the silence stretched out just a little before he said, “I think a lot of things about it.” A Non-Answer that filled the air with more meaningless words, a Non-Answer that seemed more uncertain than hateful. “Which is?” Will prompted.
The Boy frowned at Will. “Why do you care?” The Boy muttered-another Non-Answer, but Will would have to settle for a question instead of a reply. “You seem interesting,” he said, which was a lie wrapped up in a truth that was wrapped in more lies, but it was far enough from a Non-Answer that The Boy seemed to believe it. “I’d start rambling if I say anything,” he told Will, farther from a Non-Answer as well, and Will grinned a grin with all his teeth, a grin that felt less practiced than his normal smiles. “You haven't run for the hills from me yet,” he pointed out, and The Boy snorted. He said, “Fair enough,” and started a long dissection of the theme and how it tied rather nicely into the patterns of humankind, and the ambiguity of good and evil. At some point Will had stopped listening to the actual words The Boy had said and started hearing the soft cadence of his words, the small tilt to The Boy’s head, and the strange comfort that Will found in a stranger he’d probably never see again.
A stranger…
Outside the window, the rain was starting to pause, starting to let in a drop of sunshine from the sky, and Will knew that meant he’d have to leave soon, have to move on to the next thing. The Boy seemed to know it too; he kept on glancing in between Will, then the window, then down in his lap. Would Will ever see him again? He doubted it, didn’t think this small moment would be more than a small memory during the passing days, but he’d felt lighter with The Boy in a way that he hadn’t felt for months.
Will was sure that it was rather pathetic, this light feeling, when he didn’t even know The Boy’s name.
Will sighed, and The Boy stopped halfway through a sentence, looking at him before saying, “You need to go, right?” Will nodded, and The Boy fidgeted with his skull ring-Will hadn’t noticed it before, but now that he saw the ring, it was hard not to notice how The Boy kept on twisting it as if it was his lifeline.
For a moment, the two of them stared at each other, stared as if waiting for someone to move, or scream, or do anything, before Will suddenly blurted out, “Um, can I-can you give me your name? Before I go?” The Boy paused, then blinked once, twice, before saying, “What's yours?”
Will smiled, letting the practiced warmth show through his face, and said, “Will Solace, in the flesh.” The Boy nodded and said, soft as the brush of a feather, “My name is Nico.” A moment, then: “Nico di Angelo.”
Will nodded, took the name and imprinted it in his mind so that he could remember this light that came from the Shadows, and then said, “Well then, goodbye, Nico di Angelo.” Will turned on his heels, turned fast enough to rush to his bio class, turned before Nico di Angelo would say anything.
But the matching smiles on their lips spoke years more than any words.