ꜱᴏʟᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏ ᴏɴᴇꜱʜᴏᴛꜱ

Strings of Fate

The Drug In Me is You- Falling in Reverse

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Red. The color of blood, of seductive lips, of fire.

Nico could think of exactly three times the color red had entered his life. Blood: his sister had died in the same crash that had taken the mobility of legs. Now he was forever bound to a wheelchair. Lips: lipstick the color of blood was smeared ever so tenderly on the lower edge of Percy's lips. Nico told himself he'd never again fall in love with someone who wasn't his soulmate. Fire: he hadn't seen it this time. But that was when Hazel came into his life, curls still smelling of smoke that had killed her mom.

Soulmates. Nico's sitting on the couch when he feels an annoying itch on his wrist. He scratches at it absently, finally looking at his skin when the itch won't go away. He wastes about five to ten seconds in panic, wondering just how this is happening to him now.

"Frank!" he calls, his voice slipping into a mild panic.

"Yeah? What's wrong?" Frank rushes out of the bathroom, hands still wet. Any other time Nico would be assessing the fact that Frank might not have washed his hands completely, but right now he didn't care. Frank's carefully lifting Nico into his wheelchair, strapping him safely in even as Nico's powering it down the hall. They didn't have time for safety when Nico had been waiting his whole life for this moment.

The stupid elevator takes forever as it always does, but their apartment building had yet to respond to Nico and Hazel and Frank's requests to install a wheelchair ramp from the second to the first floor. (Nico felt too prideful to move to the first floor.) Then Nico's frantically glancing at the ever-shortening red line on his wrist, the slackening of the pull on the string, as he propels himself across the street. And then it's gone. Nico's one connection to his soulmate is gone.

"Nico!" Frank huffs. Nico doesn't pay attention to him. He's looking at the people around him. He doesn't quite know what he's looking for, maybe another disappointed face? He doesn't see anything. No one else is looking around. There's an older lady walking her dog, a man eating a sandwich, a blond-haired boy running into a coffee shop. Nico sighs.

"I thought today would be the day, you know?" he says. He'd been secretly (maybe not as secretly as he hoped) excited about the prospect of a soulmate. Someone who you were bonded with for life, someone who would always be there for you, no matter what. He'd seen them in real life. His parents were soulmates. Jason and Piper were soulmates.

"You get more chances," Frank says. Nico nods. He lets Frank push him back to the apartment. He doesn't have the heart to maneuver himself. "Don't worry, Nico. I bet they're just as disappointed." Nico nods. It's sort of a comfort that his soulmate is probably just as upset that they missed Nico.

Back in the apartment, he challenges Frank to match after match of Mytho-magic until he can't even remember the phantom itch of that red line on his wrist.
-
The best part of Will's day is when the dark-haired boy comes in. Sometimes he's alone; sometimes he's got a friend or two with him. Will likes it best when he's alone, which is most of the time. That way he can observe the soft smiles not meant for anyone's eyes, the way that the boy captures the outside world in that sketchbook he always carries around, the faint accent when Will asks how he's doing.

Will wanted to believe in soulmates. He wanted to believe that there was someone out there for him, that would love him and hold him late into the night. He wanted to believe that they were real, but he was skeptical. Did people really need their soulmates? Couldn't they be perfectly happy with someone else?Will's parents hadn't been soulmates, and they were still happily married. Will's brother had found his soulmate, only for his soulmate to die within the year, leaving him heartbroken and forever pledged to loneliness. Will, himself, had dated this girl once, only to be left alone when she'd chased her soulmate into oncoming traffic and died. If she'd stayed with him, she would have been safe. Will didn't believe in that little red line, in the strings of fate, tying him to someone else in the world. Will believed in things he could see, the hard, concrete facts.