The rainbow seekers guide to seeking rainbows

Will

Will had never experienced true darkness before.

There was darkness, and there was darkness. His darkness was always punctuated by bursts of colour, no matter how dull. There was always something else. Something that wasn't part of the darkness.

No matter whether he closed his eyes, whether he was in a dark room, whether he was staring up at a starless sky - there was no true darkness.

The only true darkness Will could think of was death.

Was Nico close to death now? Was Will too late? He had no idea. There was no way of knowing. If Nico had done whatever he had intended to do, his phone would still reliably ping out his location. There was no failsafe way of guaranteeing that Nico was alive, and that realisation scared him.

"Here!" Will shouted when a familiar black motorcycle came into view. "Here's great, thanks!" Hurriedly, he shuffled towards the door, so he wouldn't lose any time.

"You sure, luv? I reckon I can go a bi' further."

Making a split-second decision, Will realised that going to the motorcycle for the sake of sentimentality and checking that Nico had left anything - an unlikely outcome - was probably a waste of time, and he sank into the back of the cab once more. Understanding, the elderly woman at the wheel continued past the vehicle at full throttle, skidding around a corner and throwing Will into the door.

Eventually, they reached a cul-de-sac, and Will jumped off after leaving some money - he didn't know how much - on his seat, before sprinting in the direction of the mockingly cartoonish avatar of Nico di Angelo.

"Nico?" he shouted, listening to his voice ring out in the open space.

There was no reply.

It seemed that Nico had made his way through an area of dense scrub, and Will didn't stop to make sure his clothes didn't get caught on the twigs that seemed to block his path in every direction. He was going to get to his fiancée as fast as humanly possible, because he didn't want to know what would happen if he got here late.

"Son, you good?"

Will halted and almost tripped over a particularly large stick, before looking around.

There was a man blinking at him with his wheelbarrow of wood, his clothes miraculously dry. His hat must've directed all the rain that managed to get through the canopy away from his body. Will's own clothes were sticking to his skin, and it made his movements feel ungainly and restricted.

"You're the second young lad to come running through here, son. Today must be fine weather for lassies to get missing." The elderly man grinned crookedly.

"Someone else passed through? Black hair, pale skin, brown eyes?"

"Eh." Clearly thinking, the old man's eyes rolled up slightly before his grin widened and he nodded in agreement. "That was him. You know him, son? Make sure he takes up my offer on tea, okay?"

"Uh, okay." Will pointed in front of him. "He went that way?"

"Yes."

"Thanks!"

He didn't wait to see the man nod as he took off in that direction, running as fast as his legs would allow. Will hoped he would get there on time. He hoped that nothing would happen, that they would return home, sodden wet from the rain and smiling like they always did.

Didn't Nico like the rain?

He remembered something about Nico enjoying it when it rained. Something about the sun making his skin feel uncomfortable. Speaking of which, Nico hadn't wanted to meet outdoors the first time Will had proposed a meeting between the two of them. Back then, he hadn't expected their relationship to blossom like this.