WPOV

When I was fourteen, I learned about a philosopher who claimed that no matter how deeply you feel for another person, from the moment you kiss them no other kiss that comes after it will give you the same feeling as the first one. You can try and push your lips harder, throw them back against the wall or kiss with every little ounce of your being... It will never be like that first kiss. 

And here I am, Will Solace, almost 18 years old and the only living exception of that rule. I don't know what went through my head at that moment. Somehow the thought that I had kissed him a thousand times before didn't make it any easier. I don't remember any of those times. But I do remember the shivers running down my back when I looked at him, the way my throat would constrict with the mere thought of leaning in. How he would dance around in my dreams and I'd whisper all the things I'd always wanted to say into his ear. 

I wanted to know if maybe it was different for him. Maybe I didn't kiss the way I used to before. Id say; 'Let me try a couple of times' and he'd laugh.

But I never said any of those things. 

In some moments I'm grateful for it, for not laying my heart on my sleeve and make a fool out of myself. In other moments I wish more than anything in the world,

that I had said them. 

That's how it always goes isn't it? There are a thousand lives I could have led with the words I never said. 

Fool.

I can still see the wetness shimmering in his dark eyes when he pulled back, his fair face contorting into hurt. Soundlessly he looked away from me and I could see tears slipping past his cheeks. I wanted to reach out to brush them away but he took a step back and wiped them away with his own sleeve. 

Always his own.

Always himself.

He never lets anyone reach out to him. 

The unsaid words were stuck in my throat and for a moment the weight of a million memories I no longer have fell upon his shoulders and he started shaking. Before I could even open my mouth, the sound of running sneakers bounced against the empty square. Some pigeons hopped with loud coos to the side as he raced by. 

He ran to the horizon and disappeared into the sun.

"Son, you better fix that." the grandma on the bench had said. 

"How?"

My second first kiss with Nico, immediately became my last.

And I learned.

It's not that he once loved me before,

that he can do it one time more.

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NPOV

Tears still streamed down my face when I stood into the open door of Nathan's apartment. He looked at me with those wary green eyes and it was as if he already knew, only waited for me to say it out loud.

"He kissed me." 

My voice was barely above a whisper. 

He didn't scream or curse me, he just looked at me with that same defeated sadness he always wears whenever Will is mentioned. 

"I know."

He walked over to me and wrapped his strong arms around my shaking form. I leaned in with a desperate sob and he just quietly rocked us back and forth.

"I didn't want him to." My gut clenched at the memory of the absolute mortified look on his face. The way those wide blue eyes had looked at me, so expectedly waiting for anything at all.

But nothing.

I can only give him nothing.

Somehow I can't stop the tears from rolling over my cheeks.

"It was a mistake," Nath's voice is soft and I lean in to his warm embrace, "mistakes happen. He kissed you, you didn't want it."

"I don't." I shook my head against his chest. 

"I know."

He kissed the side of my face and pulled me even a bit closer against himself. 

"See how he's always hurting you?"

I didn't answer. Slowly he released his grip on me and walked back to the bathroom.

"Come," he commanded simply and even without wanting too, I followed. I watched him with my arms clasped over each other as he opened the drawer on the right top. His hand pulled the handle so gently, it felt as if a ghost was buried in there which he tried not to wake. When he took out the white, little suitcase that ghost only became touchable. My lungs squeezed together at the sight of it.

"I-is that?"

Nathan turned to me and took my hand in his. I could only blink back and forth between his serious face and the red cross sticker on the white surface. 

Will's doctor equipment.

"How.. How did you...?" 

He squeezes my hand tighter. I remember how happy Will was when I gave it to him. He was over the moon with joy, he literally flung himself around my neck and kept laughing into my ear while smooching me all over. With shaking fingers I reach up for my ear and press my cold hand against it, if only to drive out the ghost playing around it. Thinking about his shining blue eyes just makes my stomach knot up. I gaze back up at Nathan who's stare never left me.

"Did you steal it?" My voice sounds scratchy from crying. But he doesn't mind. He never does. He puts the box down and lays both his hands on my face, cupping my head in their hold. 

"You know I would never do that." 

His eyes shine so fiercely that I can only believe him.

"Octavian gave them to me because Will didn't know what he was doing with it."

I frown at him.

I never knew anyone who seemed to know more what he was doing than Will.

Nathan sighs as he sees the confused look I give him and drops his hands from my face again. 

"He is not a healer Nico. Other people could use this equipment better, real healers, who genuinely want to make people better and not just pretend." 

I'm already shaking my head before he even has a chance to finish his sentence. His voice grows louder, more urgent.

"It's true! I know you don't want to believe me but it's true." 

Another desperate shake.

"Ever since he came back into your life he has hurt you, is that what a healer does? Hurt people?" 

My shaking becomes doubtful and he notices as always. He takes a step forwards and smiles at me as if I'm the most heart-breaking thing he has ever seen. I suppose, sometimes I am.

"It was my own fault." 

His hands are caressing my jaw again. "It's not, it's really not." He whispers as a wetness shimmers in his eyes, "It's his. Can't you see that?"

"That's just not what he's like Nath, he isn't like us." 

His fingers thread through my hair before pressing down on the spot where I hit my head a month or two ago. I wince as the distant pain starts throbbing harder. Realization slowly settles in and it makes me nauseous to my core. 

"You can lie to yourself as much as you want, nothing will ever hide the fact that this is still here. Not makeup, not words, not apologies. You know what he did," Nathan says as he taps his finger against the sore spot the prove his point. My heartbeat throbs between my ears and I don't dare breathing out until he pulls his hand back. 

The image of a smiling Will waving his new equipment at me distorts into the pale angered face that looked down on me as I lay next to the concrete doorstep. Who's blue eyes ignored the red on my fingers. Who told me to never come back.

"Don't come back." 

I close my eyes to let the overwhelming wave of pain wash over me.

He didn't meant to.

It was an accident.

Right?

Right?

When I open my eyes again, Nathan is still there and for a moment I'm not sure wether that makes me happy or not.

"He's good," a tear drips down on my shirt, leaving behind a dark grey circle, "He wouldn't."

Nathan opens the suitcase to reveal the spotless collection of operation tools. The distant smell of disinfectant fills the room. His fingers tremble as he takes a small knife out of it.

"He would, he did. it doesn't take a bad man to do bad things, all you need is a load of unspoken emotions and a little, eeny mini flicker of rage," He pinches his fingers together, "And with that Nico Di Angelo, you could commit sins you never even heard of."

"Will doesn't hurt people." My own voice sounds unnatural in my ears.

Nathan lets the flat surface of the knife slowly slide over my arm. The metal shimmers in the dusty sunlight that filters through the curtain. The cold touch of it makes goosebumps rise up all over my skin. 

"Were you happy when he kissed you Nico?" Nathan asks out of the blue.

I look at him with confused brown eyes. 

"No." My voice sounds further and further away.

He rolls up up my shirt and strokes over one bad bruise on my side.

"If you aren't happy Nico, you are hurt. It's as simply as that."

I breath in deeply, dreading the way his big hands slide over my skin but craving it at the same time. His face is immensely close to mine. 

"It's because of him, it always is. Can you remember the last time you cried about something else then Will Solace?" 

His big, green cat-like eyes swallow me whole as I'm completely lost in them. I love those eyes, beautiful green eyes, a colour I could never resist. My stomach is as heavy as a load of bricks as I try to bring up any moment at all but all the buckets I had ever filled were all,

for him.

The green in his eyes lights up and I'm trapped by it. "See, that's what I mean. He hurts you."

He holds the little knife against my skin before slowly rotating it onto its sharp side. The metal pushes into my flesh and I grasp his arm with a shaky breath.

"Everything about him, hurts you."

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Vote.