Solangelo Oneshots

Voicemails

Hey

I don't know why I'm leaving this voice message. Maybe it's out of the hope that you're busy and not that you saw my number and deliberately ignored my call. I don't know.

I'm in town for a bit. Visiting Hazel and stuff. You probably don't want to see me. If you do, I'm leaving in a week. If you don't, then... yeah. I understand, Will. Or maybe I don't? Or you don't? That was the problem with us I guess.

Sorry, just wanted to let you know. Call me back. Or don't. Just do what's best for you, okay? Um, that's all.

Bye

Nico rubbed his eyes, leaning on his elbows at the kitchen table and listening back to the stupid voicemail he'd just recorded for the seventeenth time trying to send it to his ex-boyfriend. God, this was pathetic.

"How you holding up?" Hazel asked as she entered, squeezing her brother's shoulder and taking a seat beside him. Nico stared at the salt and pepper. Two opposites always found in a pair. The sentimentality was getting out of control.

"I'm fine," he lied. He wasn't looking at Hazel but he could feel her raise an eyebrow. She tapped his head.

"Look at me."

Nico glanced up, meeting golden eyes filled with compassion but mostly sterness.

"How are you?" she asked again. Nico grumbled noncommitally.

It had been four years since he last came to visit. Usually, Hazel, Frank and the kids came to his. He hadn't moved far away since he got his job offer. It was only a couple of hours, just far enough to be nearing the middle of the city. However, this was the time that Hazel had put her foot down and forced him to make the trip back to where they spent their teenage years and early twenties.

Avoidance was one of Nico’s special skills. Determination was one of Hazel's.

"Nobody likes seeing their ex for the first time after a break up," Hazel tried to reason.

"Most of them aren't stumbling over their words trying to call said ex," Nico objected. "And I don't know how many of them were rejected by a boyfriend of three years when they asked for them to both move to the city and were left utterly heartbroken."

"Actually it's a common movie trope so maybe it happens more than you think."

Nico glared at Hazel. She rolled her eyes.

"We get it. You're heartbroken. You're pining. But for god's sake, Nico, it's been years and you're here to have a nice week with the kids so with all due respect pull yourself together!"

When Nico first met Hazel, he'd been taken aback at how such a seemingly sweet, small girl could be so harsh and blunt. Nowadays he was used to it. One thing he'd learned from Hazel coming to live with him was that sometimes, even when all he wanted to do was mope, he had to learn how to muddle through. It was a shame as he was a good moper.

"Alright," he agreed. "But if I run into him then I'm entitled to a good long bath and a cry."

Hazel slapped him with a napkin. "You're utterly ridiculous sometimes."

"Runs in the family."

-

Through some sort of luck, good or bad, Nico had a happy two days without running into Will. He'd tried to stay inside mostly but Hazel had forced him out by promising the kids that he'd take them for ice cream. It wasn't that he had anything against Francis and Jade or ice cream, quite the opposite. It was more that the outside meant people.