Dying never feels as real as when you're falling from a tree, eyes wide open, knees locked and pants peed, a half-formed scream still surging from your lips, Nico thought. And there he sees him, too predictable for a movie, too perfect for reality. Beautiful cerulean eyes that capture the sunlight, hair swept sideways by the wind, arms that look tanned and sculpted and gorgeous. His angel. Nico closes his eyes, and smiles, knowing that the arms of love would catch him.
At least he only broke his leg, Nico grumbles, else he'd have to sue the little angel standing by his bed, looking curiously at him. Oh, the terrible injustice of life. His name was Percy, he learned, and he had just moved to their neighborhood a few days ago, before Nico had attempted his disastrous ascent to rescue a kite.
The hospital gave him three days of mandatory recovery, during which he alternated between fantasizing about punching Percy, and, well, fantasizing about him. He was cute, after all, with the way he kept mumbling about how sorry he was that he just didn't notice the falling body in front of him, or how he fidgeted when his mom, a really enthusiastic soccer-mom type, assured Nico for the millionth time that "her son was extremely sorry" and that "he really didn't think with his head" and that "maybe they should become best friends because they just moved here".
And on the third day, he rose again. With a crutch, and a massive pile of random baked goods and Tupperwares to haul back to his house, courtesy of Ms. Sally Jackson.
Shit. He hated eating alone.
He leaned over the couch, careful not to actually touch the other boy because that would be too much, and grabbed another macaron from a floral-lined box. Besides him, Percy sat transfixed at the sprawling television screen, as his character took the plunge off the road again. Beside them, the housekeeper hummed as she wiped off the trays of unused wine glasses and poured them each another glass of imported sparkling cider.
Miserable and wretched was thLe life of an orphan.
He had grown used to it, of course; three years ago, after that freak storm vanished his family somewhere in the mountains, he had turned away from the world, to a digital existence. After all, what else to expect of a ten-year-old boy, coping from grief? Mario Kart, porn, Smash, more porn, a meal, maybe toss in some class by reading an overtly sexual fanfiction.
Truth was, grief didn't register with him anymore. He looked thirteen, sure, and maybe younger with his scrawny limbs and gaping eyes, but it was as if pain had dulled his senses. He often looked in the mirror, shirtless, staring blankly at the scars cutting across his chest in elegant slashes. He struggled to work emotion into his annual speech at the family memorial, and so to him, pain seemed like the prisoner's freedom or beggar's meal- an abstract dream.
Nico felt a hand tapping his shoulder, and a controller slid onto his lap.
"Dude, help me beat this level."
Then there was Percy, who caused something to stir inside him he never knew was there. Not love, definitely, but more a surge of hormones that rushed into his ears, coursing through his blood and causing uncomfortableness and awkward adjustments to sprout.
His friends always called him wordy, his teachers called him gifted, and his bullies faggy, but he always seemed to conceptualize everything descriptively, with an almost overbearing prose. He couldn't help it, but it just sprang into his head- no one was cool or ugly or cute, but rather intimidatingly inimitable, or a visual travesty, or a match to his loins. Blame it on the fanfiction.
Speaking of which, Percy really was cute. He was a tiny bit shorter than Nico, but his frame was solid and almost muscular. His face was a lot more chiseled then most Nico had seen; truly, upon closer inspection, it sloped in and out at exactly the right places, and combined with those welling eyes, he was nothing if not an angel. An angel whom Nico could imagine doing many naughty things with.
Like holding hands, he thought, as Percy's slender fingers brushed against his palm, and he felt a shiver.
"Dude?"
He stared blankly at the hand for a second, then the controller, then Percy.
"Right, okay I'll play it for you, you stupid.
It was later that day, sitting on the ragged grass of Percy's lawn, sipping powdered lemonade, that Nico saw it again, the dance of the dandelions.
They were his mother's favorite plant, with their cute resemblance to a furry bubble. She used to blow on them, and watch as the seedlings twirled into the sky, catching the light that streamed from the sun, and they sure looked like baby angels to Nico. Bianca was in school, and his dad was busy litigating this or that, but Nico was there, and she cradled him.
And talked. Of a mysterious land called Italy, where bellos and ballerinos and bruschettas roamed the streets, and every day the sun rose and the hills caught ablaze with life. Where she'd grown up, in a small village she swore was "fairytale", and how she'd bring Nico one day there when they were older. That her father (his nonno, she'd remind him), would take him fishing with him, and go hide in the vineyards and fields together.
It may come as a surprise that none of that would ever happen.
But as he sat there, next to a softly snoring Percy (the boy had an absolutely incredible talent for sleeping), Nico felt the air blow through his hair, and the ragged dandelions took off.
They weren't as magically puffy, or unblemished, and many seeds were missing from their feathery parachutes. But they were there, and they were theirs.
Ours.
He stared at them, rising towards the sky, each one knowing they would fall but still rising and rising, hoping that they would fall in a sunnier land.
A soft giggle sounded next to him.
"What's so funny about the dandelions?"
"Nothing," Nico said. He wasn't defensive, of course not, they weren't even flowers so it was okay for him to like them. They were very masculine, rugged, weeds.
Percy shrugged. "It's okay if you like them. I like them too; they're sorta cool the way they scatter so freely into the air."
"Hm. If you say so, I guess they're okay to like," Nico said, a little flutter almost escaping through his voice.
"What?"
But there was no more response, only a peaceful hum.
It was the summer Nico came alive again.
They watched clouds, soared kites, tripped over tree branches and crashed their bikes. They swam lazy circles around in the pool, or raced from one end to the other, Nico always a sputtering mess while somehow Percy didn't even look wet. The housekeeper started making double portions, and in Nico's room, a spare mattress popped up, then a bed, then a home, until the room was a jarring mix of pastel blue and black, blurred across the nonexistent line that separated their lives.
It was their summer, Nico thought, and maybe, just maybe, he was in love.
