Held onto this idea for the majority of the year with some besties, might as well release it into the wild. Florid(a) idea of post-NRC (note the tags)
Floyd has been coasting along for years, doing as he pleases without much care, and it’s pretty much worked out just fine. NRC was a blast wasn’t it? Sure the adjusting to legs sucked, but there’s so much new stuff on land~
Fashion, new foods, fun fishies to mess about with.
In fact, he’s been chasing the tail of this one tiny goldfish, ever so colorful especially when angry. Even better! This fish actually puts up a decent fight (magically at least. Physically? Nah. No chance), and Floyd is ever entertained by trying to provoke and tease him.
Ah but, wouldn’t it be fun to see different reactions? To capture his attention even longer? So he keeps at it, trying to get new ways to play and get bigger reactions, not wanting to parse the exacts of why because he knows himself! He’s here for the fun and entertainment he can find.
And then he gets his big reaction out of Riddle! A big, giant outburst right before it’s time for the two of them to go from third years to fourth years. It should really be something to cap off their time together, something to cheer him up when he’s listlessly letting a roulette choose for where he’ll end up next year.
Yet it doesn’t really feel like it.
He doesn’t get over the moon at this new face, full of raw upset to the point of boiling over in tears. There’s no laughing that comes, not even as Riddle storms off without an ounce of his prance.
It’s not boredom he’s left with…instead it’s something crawling under his skin and making him more restless.
Cut to post-NRC years, he’s still trying to coast along, just follow Jade for the time being. There’s no aspirations he looks to in particular, he just wants to chase after fun. But Jade’s going to take the bulk of responsibility for the family’s business, he’s very busy and Floyd finds himself disinterested in the bureaucracy.
And their old man wants him to “be more responsible,” to “find direction in his life.” He has expectations, Floyd isn’t having any of that, and the longer this stalemate goes the worse Floyd’s mood gets.
So he escapes out to land, somewhere he’s had plenty of fun in before.
Meanwhile, for Riddle.
Post-NRC, he has a strong obligation to keep the Rosehearts’s reputation going, even if his interests may lay elsewhere. His parents—for all they’ve done…and have not—were all he had ever known, especially his mother. To disappoint them would be a grave offense to all he’s ever braced and faced.
So maybe, he tells himself, he can study law on the side? To perhaps show that he is worthy of the name of Rosehearts—great, powerful, esteemed healers who have magic running deep in their blood—while carving things out as Riddle, the man whose tongue carries the law of the Queendom by heart? To see if his mother would change her tune and praise him earnestly?
And yet he finds himself dissatisfied. At a loss.
Riddle looks around and he realizes things have not changed over the years, not for the overall better. The freedom he had in NRC isn’t here, the brief reins on life he had have been taken away once more, the sweet taste of tarts…in the company of those who were amiable. In those he could maybe call friends.
Nothing new would happen or be gained further in these walls. With these rules that never changed, these expectations which never wavered. There was cold comfort in their familiarity, but there was so much better things he could have.
So, as if admitting defeat—or maybe just making his big getaway—Riddle left home.
And imagine. The luck it must have been.
For Floyd and Riddle to meet again on the road.
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Blue, blue, blue eyes, wet and red-rimmed. White knuckles clenched around worn canvas. Salty cheeks and bitten-bruised lips.
“I’m running away.”
Echoes in a too-large room, quiet breathing in stale air. Freezing toes on marble floor. Struggling lamplight, gaunt shadows.
“Gimme a minute to pack a bag.”
———
“Shh,” Nico hisses, clamping a hand over Will’s mouth to muffle a shriek. A too-warm hand clutches his hip, scrambling for balance. The rickety wooden lattice creaks under their weight.
The freeze, for one, two, three seconds. Nico strains to hear, watching the crystal-clear, freshly-polished Jalousie window.
No light.
They let out their breath at the same time, Will’s exhale making Nico’s cold hands tingle. At Will’s glare, he removes his hand, wrapping it back around the rung.
“Be more careful, you clumsy fuck.”
“I’m trying!”
To his credit, he really is. He checks and double checks before putting his full weight on the lopsided strips of wood only meant to hold up vines. He doesn’t let go of the rung above him until his feet are firmly planted, and he doesn’t stray far enough from Nico that he couldn’t catch him. He knows the drill.
And, yet.
(Truly, Nico has no idea how he climbed up by himself.)
Thankfully, they make it to the soft lawn in one piece. Will stumbles into a hydrangea bush the second he lets go of the lattice. Nico lands with much more grace, snickering.
“This house hates me,” he whispers, pouting. There are several blue flower petals tangled in his hair; Nico decides not to tell him. “Like, actively.”
“You and me both.”
They sneak quickly across the lawn once Will’s upright again, booking it to Nico’s Jeep. Will takes their bags, tossing them in the back, then slides behind the massive, creepy gargoyle-thing that sits between the garage doors as Nico opens the driver’s door as quietly as physically possible. Once he’s seated, he glances over at Will, waiting for his signal — hand held up in wait, four seconds, five, six — then a rapid shooing motion, eyes trained at the security camera. Fast as he can, Nico shifts into neutral without starting the car, craning his neck to watch out the back window as he peels out of the driveway and onto the street. Once safely behind the massive pine tree that marks the edge of the property, he parks, turning the car on and wincing at the noise.
Two minutes later, Will comes barrelling down the driveway, nearly tripping over untied shoelaces.
“I fucked up, they totally saw me, go go go!”
Nico doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s in drive and racing down the empty street before Will has the door closed.
For a while, he lets their heart rates settle back into something normal. The headlights are dim, no streetlights to make anything brighter, and he squints through the windshield, tense. If a deer jumps out, they’re fucked.
“So,” he says, relaxing as they turn onto familiarly torn-up roads. No street lights here, either, but he knows the woods on either side of the road are a farce. Hardly more than a copse of trees — nothing but farmland for hundreds of acres. No risk of death by Cervidae, thank God. “Running away?”
“There’s a rest stop an hour east,” Will says instead of answering, face buried in a map. “We can sleep there and keep going in the morning.”
Go where, Nico wants to ask, but he knows better than that. There’s a tenseness to Will’s jaw, and something transparently pleading in his eyes.
“Okay,” he finally relents. Will’s obvious relief eases his discomfort. “You gotta direct me, though. And, I swear to God, if you get us lost again, Solace —”
And Will laughs, finally, and it’s small and stilted and there are still tears drying on his cheeks, but it’s real, and stars shine brighter, brighter, brighter.
The two hours to the rest stop pass quickly. Nico is used to long drives, and thankfully he’d filled up a couple days ago, so all he worries about is staying awake and watching for cops. There shouldn’t be any, really, because he’s been the only car on this road the entire time, but Nico isn’t going to chance it. Not again. (He doesn’t have Piper to talk them out of trouble, this time, although Will could possibly manage.)
(Maybe.)
(Well, never say never.)
“How prepared are we to run away?”
Will is quiet for several long, telling moments.
“Well,” he says finally, and Nico sighs. “I think there’s still blankets and pillows in the trunk from last time.”
“Christ alive, William.”
“It’s June! We’re – sheltered! We’ll be fine.”
“Christ alive, William.”
“Oh, can it.”
He bites his tongue, grinning. He doesn’t actually mind – it is June, and they have blankets, and their certainly not going to succumb to the elements in the Jeep. Will, too, is like a goddamn space heater; if anything, they’ll wake up in the morning with the windows fogged.
“I suppose I’ll manage,” he says, watching with interest as a flash of bare skin as Will leans over the seat, sweatshirt riding up his arched back as he digs around for the blankets. He turns back right before Will does, huffing dramatically. “Since there are no other options.”
He fully expects the pillow to the face.
“You’re a dickhead.”
“Dickhead with a license and a vehicle, Sunny Boy, so maybe count your blessings.”
“...Lou Ellen has a car. So there.”
Nico snorts, thinking of the piece of shit Bug that broke down for the twelfth time this year in her driveway, earlier this week. Likely story.
“And, yet.”
“And, yet,” Will agrees, voice significantly softer. He’s fully burrowed in his blanket when Nico looks over; seat reclined as far as it’ll go so he can curl up, knees to chest, all six two of him compressed to something small, delicate. The pillow smushes half his face, and the blanket is pulled up to his nose, and Nico swallows, roughly, because his eyes are bright in the moonlight, and his hair fans, frizzy and damp, slightly, out onto the pillow, and Nico doesn’t need to be a poet to compare his freckled forehead to the starry sky. There is a fragility in him, one he keeps firmly locked inside the deepest parts of him, and as Nico watches it he can see it spilling, pouring, bleeding out of him. In the car, in the dark, in front of Nico. “Goodnight, Nico.”
“Goodnight,” Nico says hoarsely.
By the time he gets the courage to look at Will again, his eyes are already closed, breaths slow and even.
———
“Neeks. Neeks. Nico. Hey, Thanatos. Anubis. Gerard Way. I got more, man, I made a list –”
“Will you stop fucking poking me,” Nico groans, peeking out from his blankets to glare at his aggressor. He regrets it immediately, hissing as the sun burns his retinae.
He can feel Will smiling. “Up and at ‘em, Sunshine. It’s road trip time.” He pauses. “And, also, I’m starving. I packed granola bars for us but I ate them all already. Sorry.”
“Fucker.” Reluctantly, he tugs the blanket fully off, sitting upright and stretching his arms above his head. His back cracks satisfyingly. “Don’t suppose you know where the nearest Dunkin’ is, then.”
“Uh, no.” He looks back to find Will’s eyes snapping back to his, face flushed. “We’re just outside of Arcadia, though? So. I’m. Sure there’s one –”
“Are you good?” Nico asks, squinting. “It’s too early for you to be a weirdo, Will, it’s only –” He checks his phone – “Oh, you motherfucker, it’s like six thirty in the morning! Why the hell are we awake?”
“Road trip!” he says. His face, no longer all screwed up and blotchy, returns to its usual blinding beam.
Great. Now there are two things trying to blind him.
“C’mon, you dork,” Will says again, laughing. He tugs the blanket from Nico’s grip, tossing it haphazardly in the back and pestering him until he scowls, biting out a “Fine, you prick, Jesus,” and rubs the sleep out of his eyes.
He’s still not all the way awake, but he dutifully sits up, buckling his seat belt and starting the car. “Nav,” he mutters, tuning out Will’s chatter.
He loves the guy, but, fuck. It’s six thirty in the goddamned morning. He hasn’t seen six thirty in the morning in a long ass fucking time – even before he graduated at the end of May, he was late to homeroom every single day, without fail. Six thirty is an absurd time to be awake.
“Left here, straight for a bit, and it’ll be on the corner.”
“You’re pointing to the right,” Nico says, patiently, not bothering to fight the smirk cropping up on his face. "Am I turning right?"
This, he’s used to.
“I meant right,” Will sulks. “...I said right in my brain.”
“Sure,” says Nico generously, grin widening.
“Fuck off.”
“What? You try very hard, Will. I’m very proud of you.”
“Choke.”
“Few more years, and you’ll be caught up to the kindergarteners.”
“That’s it, di Angelo –”
He laughs, batting away Will’s smacking hands. “Hey! Hey! No hitting the driver, do you want me to crash –”
By the time Will is done trying to beat him up, Nico has long spotted the sad-looking Dunkin’ Donuts, pulling into the empty parking lot and peering inside.
“Is it even open?” he asks, frowning. The lights are on, but it looks…more soulless than usual, somehow.
“Yep,” Will chirps, clicking off his seatbelt. “The chain opens at five. There's a location in Omaha that's open at 4:30, but as far as their policy goes, five is go time.”
“Nerd.”
“It’s okay, Nico. I’ll stay friends with you even if you get dumber than you already are.”
He grins wickedly. “Least I know my lefts and rights.”
He cackles when Will slams the door, stomping to the Dunkin’s entrance. He’s not really mad – he gets quiet when he gets mad – but it’s good to know that he’s won. (Not that it’s hard. Will is witty, sure, and wicked smart, but his buttons are just a smidge too easy to press. Great fun for Nico, who has raging ADHD and could not resist the allure of a shiny red button if it was going to blow up the Earth with him on it.)
Will is nowhere to be found when Nico gets inside, so he assumes he’s in the washroom and walks up to the counter to make their order. A bored girl a couple years younger than him flips a magazine behind the register, nodding as he comes up.
“I’ll have a black coffee and a…” He squints. “God. A butter pecan swirl signature iced latte.”
“With whipped cream and caramel drizzle?”
Nico sighs, resisting the urge to physically wince. “Yes.”
“Anything else?” says the girl, smile pulling at her lips. “I can put sugar in a cup to go, if you want.”
“He’d probably take that, too,” he agrees snorting. “But nah. Just a couple breakfast sandwiches, if you don’t mind.”
“‘Course.”
She rings him up, letting him know it’s gonna take a minute as the machines boot up. He wanders while he waits, curiously observing a wall of what appears to be scrawled pencil graffiti. Nothing talented, but he has to fight the urge to walk out to the payphone he saw outside and call a few of the numbers, just to see what would happen.
“Hey,” Will says, startling him. He’s changed his shirt and tied his hair back, looking a million times better than last night. Nico finds himself relieved, shoulders slumping imperceptibly.
“Hey.”
“D’you order for us?”
“Got you your morning milkshake monstrosity, don’t worry.”
Will grins. “Drinking black coffee doesn’t make you cool.”
“It does, actually. At any given time I am forty-seven percent cooler than you. More, if you’re wearing cargo shorts.” He glances down. “It’s a forty-nine percent day, apparently.”
“Go wash your face,” Will laughs, shoving him. “I’ll get the food, then we can look at the map.”
He doesn’t take nearly as long as Will did. He brushes his teeth, splashes water on his face, decides his hair looks awesome the way it is – of course he didn’t forget a brush, why would he be a big enough dumbass to forget a brush and also more than one pair of socks – and walks back out. He finds Will tucked in a booth in a corner, chewing on a pink straw, eyeing their giant map intently.
“So,” he says as Nico approaches, handing him his coffee, “I did some math.”
Nico notices a napkin scrawled with ink that he could not read even if he wasn’t dyslexic.
“Geek.”
Will chucks his balled up straw wrapper at him. “We can go five hours-ish on a full tank of gas, and you’re a bit above a half tank, so we got maybe three hours before we need to stop.” He circles a little dot about a quarter way into the state, letters too small for Nico to read. “And since going anywhere near Orlando in the summer is asking to stick us in bumper-to-bumper traffic, that puts us in Anthony.”
“I did not know there was a town named Anthony,” Nico says sagely. “That’s a shit name for a town, if I’m being honest.”
WIll shrugs. “Welcome to Florida. Anyways. Want me to drive? You drove last night.”
“Barely,” Nico dismisses, waving his hand. He likes driving – it’s just scattered enough that he doesn’t get antsy. It’s being a passenger that kills him, although he’s sure they’ll switch on the way back so he can rest. “I’ll drive.”
“‘Kay.”
Will turns his attention back to the map, tapping his pen against the table in between bites of his breakfast sandwich. Every so often he returns to the napkin, scribbling something down and making little hums of concentration.
Nico begins to notice the route he’s drawing extends a ways past state lines.
“So,” he says carefully, eyes trained on his best friend. “Running away.”
Will tenses, again, at the mention of it, although this time he looks more stubborn than lost. Good.
“Road trip,” he corrects. “It’s our last summer, Nico. I turn eighteen in a couple months, and then…” He trails off. Nico waits out the silence, seven seconds, eight, nine. “Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? One last huzzah, road trip around the nation, or whatever?”
“Did you happen to tell your mother about this road trip?”
Will shrugs. “I left a note.”
Nico hums. “Sounds an awful lot like running away. I would know. I’ve been picked up by social services in three separate states.”
“Road trip,” Will corrects again, stubborn set to his brow.
Nico decides to let it go for now.
“Road trip,” he agrees. Will looks at him gratefully. “Where to?”
“That defeats the point of a road trip.” He rolls up the map, looking at Nico like it’s obvious. “Duh. Journey, not the destination, et cetera, et cetera.”
Privately, Nico bets that by tomorrow, Will be be restless and guilty and they will be on their way home. Outwardly, he says, “You have seen a truly disgusting amount of movies,” and Will laughs, and Nico follows him to the Jeep, and knows, as he always does, that he will follow him regardless; across the world, across the country, even back to Shit Fuck, Florida.
———
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