Chapter Text
Chiron gave Stede the green light to begin training the next day, so he set out to the training arena and met Jim and Oluwande there. Stede proved to be quite inept at hand-to-hand, but Jim was rather annoyed at that point and decided to continue with the lesson until it ended with a broken nose and a warm cup of nectar to make the medicine go down.
“Okay,” Stede breathed, taking a sip of much-needed water after the swelling and pain began to die down with the nectar. “So hand-to-hand is not my strong-suit.”
“Clearly,” muttered Jim, running a hand through their long, dark hair.
“Maybe we should see if you’re any good with any weapons,” Olu suggested.
“I don’t know–” Jim started.
“Great idea!” Stede jumped out of his seat and strode out of the infirmary, making a beeline for the weapons shed.
They quickly determined that Stede did not have the dexterity or speed to use a dagger, much less throw one, and he did not have the coordination or agility to be good with a sword, though Stede argued that he may be able to improve with the latter. Jim declared that he should never go near a dagger again, and Stede felt compelled to agree.
However, he proved to have some kind of natural talent with the bow and arrow, hitting the third and second rings on his first quiver. The bow felt well balanced in his hand and the quiver was almost weightless on his shoulder.
“There’s still room to grow, but I think we found your weapon.” Olu patted Stede on the shoulder, almost with pride.
“Too bad,” Jim threw a dagger at the bullseye. “It’s fun to watch the light drain from something’s eyes.”
Stede wrinkled his nose. “Oof. Why?”
Jim only grinned.
“I’ll stick with long-range weapons. I’d rather not see that, I think.”
“Suit yourself.”
In the coming days, Stede was beat up quite a bit more by Jim, who clearly took pleasure in the activity, and practiced the bow and arrow with vague supervision by Chiron. When he wasn’t having ribs bruised and skin broken by Jim, he was being shown around to the pegasus stables by Olu (he quickly decided that his favorite of the pegasi was one named Arthur, for his kind eyes, while a wayward Pete told him of the mighty Halifax a few stables down) or eating with Frenchie and his cabin mates.
Chiron and Stede got along quite swimmingly, and Chiron agreed to loan Stede whatever books he’d like from his library. Stede resolved to fill the gaps Chiron had by looting the Athena cabin’s bookshelves. Dionysus refused to learn Stede’s name while Stede persisted in correcting him, usually over a game of chess on the porch of the Big House.
At night, they sang campfire songs––mostly led by the Swede––and would tell stories of monsters and demigods. Somedays, Stede would go to the strawberry fields and read poetry, or sit at the edge of the docks and put his feet in the water while Buttons played his flute to the moon.
The only real problem was Pete’s brothers, two of whom followed Stede around with the chief purpose of humiliating him. The Badminton twins would lurk on the edge of the training arena, yelling invectives to throw off Stede’s aim or cheering for Jim to land a blow to Stede’s previously-broken nose. They’d leer at him and the Demeter kids while they picked strawberries, or unleash Halifax the pegasus to trample him in the stables. They’d say nasty things to Lucius and throw Roach’s tin of orange cookies on the ground and steal Frenchie’s lute to throw in the Sound.
One day, Stede sat with Pete and Lucius at the picnic tables while he tried and failed to string a bow. Pete was whittling some sort of sphere while Lucius sketched Pete in action.
“What’s it supposed to be?” Stede asked, pointing at Pete’s ball.
“It’ll be an orange, eventually.”
“Hmm,” Stede hummed, considering. “It could be an orange now. You’ve got the general shape.”
“It’s about the details, man,” Pete rolled his eyes.
“Right,” he murmured curiously, then turned his attention back to his bow, the string of which sprung free and nicked him on the arm. “Damn it.”
Stede sighed and picked up the string again, pulling it taut and beginning to wind the string around the top. The Sound glistened in the sun beyond, snagging his attention away from his task. “Maybe I could be a child of Poseidon,” he mused, staring off at the water. “I can swim pretty well.”
Lucius furrowed his eyebrows. “It’s usually a bit more than being able to swim.”
“Children of the big three are legends,” Pete added. “No offense, but you don’t really seem like legend material.”
“Pete!” Lucius scolded, “Don’t be a dick.”
“Chauncey,” Stede heard from behind him, and he froze. “Chauncey, did you hear him? He said he thinks he might be a son of Poseidon.”
“Piss off,” Pete spat at Nigel, who rested a condescending hand on Stede’s shoulder. He flinched back at the touch and tried to shrug him off, literally, but Nigel was unmoved.
“What son of Poseidon spends his time picking flowers and strawberries?” Nigel asked. He removed his hand and sat on the bench beside Stede, swinging his feet over the edge with an annoying flourish. “Maybe Demeter. Her lot are known for being soft and weak, right?”
Chauncey nodded with a slight grin.
“Persephone’s long-lost sister, perhaps!”
Stede ground his teeth, and, thankfully, Lucius and Pete looked just as put off as him. Just as upset.
“He doesn’t seem like a son of any of the Olympians, to be honest,” Chauncey replied, standing menacingly still, as always.
“You’re absolutely right.” Nigel tilted his head as he looked at Stede, as if studying a rare specimen. “I could see you coming from that one—who is he, Chauncey?—the useful arts guy? The one who was in charge of bees and stuff?”
“Aristaeus,” Chauncey supplied.
“Yes, that’s the one!” Nigel watched Stede attempt to continue stringing the bow. “Though, again, you don’t seem that useful, so maybe not.”
Chauncey considered this. “Appropriately unknown, though.”
Stede steeled himself and said, “We were quite busy here, actually—”
Nigel cut him off. “You’ve got such a babyface,” he poked Stede’s cheek with an inspecting finger. He laughed when Stede slapped his pointer away. “Maybe Hebe. Younger than she meant, but… It’s possible, right, Chauncey?”
“For sure.”
Nigel went back in and pinched Stede’s cheek, hard enough to bruise. “Baby Bonnet.” He laughed, a reproachful sound.
Stede slapped his hand away, harder this time, and stood, dropping his bow and string. “Forget this,” he spat, and crawled out of the cage of the picnic table and stomped away.
“Come on, it’s just a joke, Bonnet!” Nigel yelled after him, laughing even harder when Lucius and Pete stood as well and followed Stede. “Don’t be such a baby, Bonnet!”
Stede stalked off into the forest, and behind him, he could vaguely hear Lucius and Pete.
Lucius’s concerned voice asked, “Where’s he going?”
“Dunno,” Pete answered.
“Maybe we should give him time. Maybe he wants to be alone.”
Stede was grateful to Lucius for the reprieve as he cleared the treeline and swatted away a low-hanging branch. Just his luck, the branch swung back with a vengeance and hit him in the back of his head. He swore louder than he meant to.
Frustrated tears started forming, and he couldn’t stop hearing his mother’s voice ringing in his ears, epithets ranging from boys don’t cry to I raised you to be stronger than this and your father would be so disappointed .
Whenever his mom said things like this, shaking his shoulders after he’d fallen off the monkey bars or telling him to stay in his room at one of her fancy parties so he wouldn’t embarrass her in front of her friends, he never fought back. Never once did he stick out his chin and say no , or tell her that she couldn’t talk to him that way.
He’d never stood up for himself when bullies called him names or pulled his chair out from under him or lied to teachers that he’d broken the science classroom’s test tubes. Never told the principal when they cut his hair in math class with safety scissors or made him kiss the class’s pet toad.
After all, the one time he did complain, the principal told him that his classmates were just having a bit of fun and to get over it . He’d given Stede a pencil and a sticker for his troubles and sent him on his way.
Stede was accustomed to bullies. He was used to swallowing his pride and swallowing his tears. He was used to locking his jaw and steeling his expression and keeping it in.
But that only meant that when he did cry, when he let his tears fall, it was an earthquake in his chest and a volcano from his eyes, tectonic plates shifting until the earth finally burst. He was nothing more than a compilation of failures and mistakes, building up until one final word, one final push, sent him falling off the cliff.
Maybe the Badminton’s words didn’t warrant this reaction, but Stede loved to make himself more miserable than necessary. He had an active imagination and an even more active victim complex.
He wandered through the maze of trees that was the forest, blindly swatting at his wet cheeks and pushing away swooping leaves in his path. When he grew tired of wandering, he collapsed onto a rock and put his head in his hands.
Stede was tired of trying not to cry and being told not to cry. He was tired of being called weak and being pushed around. He was tired of feeling like what everyone thought of him. He was tired of feeling soft and helpless and inadequate.
But at the same time, he didn’t know how else to feel. He didn’t know how to be anything but what he was.
His wallowing in self-pity was interrupted by the crunch of leaves and the snap of a branch. “Are ye okay?”
Stede swiveled on his rock to find Buttons, standing stoic as ever with a woodpecker on his head, mussing up his long, red hair.
He wiped at his eyes and sniffed loudly, contradicting any affirmation he was about to supply. Still, he said, “I’m fine.”
“Ye was cryin’.”
“I’m okay, Buttons. Really.”
“Ye was cryin’ real loud. Seemed pretty upset.”
“Thanks for checking in,” he said and stood, turning away from the satyr. “But I’m fine.”
Still, Buttons persisted. “Wha’d made ya cry? Were tha squirrels bein’ mean?”
Stede sighed and rubbed at his aching eyes. He relented, “Some Ares kids, actually.”
“Oh,” Buttons murmured. “Should I send Sally after ‘em?”
This made Stede turn around. “Who’s Sally?”
Buttons looked up, as if to point to the woodpecker. “No one ever recovers from Sally’s fuck-eye. Don’t stand a chance.”
“Ah,” Stede exhaled, examining the bird. “That’s alright. Thanks for the offer.”
“Maybe a good hexin’ is in order. I been studyin’ up with Hecate’s cabin.”
“Oh. Tempting, but I think we better not.”
“Okay,” Buttons gave Stede a weird, toothless smile. “See ya around.” Then, the satyr and Sally turned and walked off into the forest away from Stede.
Stede blinked a few times. Out loud, he had to wonder, “What the fuck just happened?”
It almost occurred to Stede to tell Chiron about Nigel, since he knew for a fact that he was not the Badminton’s only victim. But with every step he took toward the Big House, he knew with more surety that it was the wrong move. If he ran crying right now, he would never live it down. He would be Baby Bonnet for the rest of his miserable life.
So instead, he sulked back to his cabin and continued trying to restring that goddamn bow. When he gave up, twirling the string around his finger instead while he reread one of his favorite retellings of The Iliad , Frenchie strolled in and told him that tomorrow was when the summer campers would begin rolling in. The Hermes cabin was about to get incredibly crowded, and as the most recent addition, he’d be the first to be demoted to a hammock in the corner.
This did not improve his mood.
It only got worse the next morning when he came back from a shower to see his sheets stripped and his belongings put in a pile on the side of the room. He hated when people touched his things without his permission, and he hated even more when they piled them up like trash ready for collection.
All day, kids and teenagers were streaming in through the camp gates on Half-Blood Hill, where they were greeted by Chiron and a very reluctant Mr. D. Stede escaped the Hermes cabin early to avoid the rush and sat out by the docks to watch the crowds gradually file in. He was joined by Buttons, who was floating naked in the water (did it count as naked when he had goat fur covering the important bits?) with a seagull sitting on his stomach.
The fire pit was already filling up with campers and their bright orange t-shirts, and the training arena had a cluster of kids laughing and pushing each other around while holding deadly weapons. In the training pit crowd, he spotted the Badmintons; Nigel, of course, was the main instigator of said pushing.
By the fire pit, he could see Lucius sitting with Pete and a new guy who wore an oversized leather vest thing and a black bandana on his forehead. When the new kid turned around, Stede spotted a rat tail braid and winced.
Near the cabins, Roach and Wee John were talking excitedly to a kid with half of his loc'd hair shaved off and a similar leather vest. Roach and Wee John were grinning and laughing and gasping, and Stede desperately wanted to know what they were talking about.
Suddenly, he felt so incredibly far away from everyone.
So far away, and he knew it was partly his doing, but still, he sat on the dock and watched as life went on around him, without him.
“Campers!” Chiron’s voice echoed around the dining pavilion, silencing the loud chatter of dinner. “In exactly one hour, we will play our annual game of capture the flag.”
Whoops and hollers erupted through the crowd, grins and laughter overtaking everyone’s expressions. Stede grew quite cranky as the whispering and excitement continued through Chiron’s explanation of the game, which Stede was quite keen on hearing. The object of the game was simple enough, but they would be playing in the potentially monster-infested forest, and therefore would be armed and armored to the teeth. The teams would be Hades vs. Ares, with the other cabins falling into step behind either team.
It was his first sign of luck in days when he was placed on the Hades team.
Olu helped him get fitted for armor, and Stede picked out a bow from the weapons shed. He may not have been perfect with a bow and arrows, but it was his best bet. He surely wasn’t going to go into the game without a weapon, and he wasn’t going to stumble through with a blade and get himself hurt.
The sun was still bright in the sky as the campers entered the forest. Each flag was a large piece of fabric that would be tied up in a tall tree on either end of the woods. Red for Hades, blue for Ares. He didn’t quite understand the color symbolism, but he was not here to judge the meaning behind the flags; he was here to play a game. And he was determined to win it.
Stede was placed on defense, one of a few campers standing in a ring around the large tree that held the prized red fabric. On one side, there was Olu and Frenchie, along with another camper he guessed was from Athena. On the other side stood a very short, very cranky-looking satyr with his hand on a sheathed blade.
When the satyr seemed to feel Stede’s gaze on him, he whipped his head around to glare at Stede. His black, slicked-back hair didn’t shift much with the motion. “What the fuck are you looking at?”
“What?” Stede asked, immediately defensive. “Can I not look at people?”
“Not me, you can’t.” The guy had the most gravelly voice Stede had ever heard.
“God, what stick crawled up your ass?” Stede murmured, turning away and deciding that the tree in front of him was very fascinating and worthy of his attention.
“What was that?” the satyr asked, and Stede ignored the question. “What’d you say?”
“I didn’t say anything!”
Quietly, the guy said, “Capture the flag isn’t exactly archery practice.”
Stede shot him a confused look. “What are all the archers at camp supposed to do, then?”
“Learn how to use a real weapon, maybe.”
He had to roll his eyes. “Yeah? Maybe we should see who takes down more attackers, then.”
“Um, Stede,” Olu cut in. Stede had forgotten he was there. Olu shuffled up to his side and muttered, “He’s, like… Really good with a sword. I wouldn’t go around making bets based on skill.”
Behind Olu, Frenchie was nodding his head to agree with Olu almost aggressively. He mouthed, Don’t do it.
“Oh, please. He can’t be that good.”
“What does the winner get?” the satyr asked, and Stede turned back to his opponent.
Stede considered it. “The loser has to join the harpies in the kitchen for a night. How about that?”
“Hm. Interesting,” the satyr tilted his head and stared at Stede down his nose. Really, the guy was several inches shorter than Stede, but he was acting like he was 7 feet tall. “Make it a week, and it’s a deal.”
Stede stepped forward and offered a hand, and the satyr met him in the middle with a death-grip of a handshake. “Stede Bonnet.”
“Izzy Hands,” the satyr said, and they returned to their places.
So this was the Hellhound’s right-hand man. Not much of a man, by the looks of him. Right-hand boy, maybe. Right-hand goat.
The call of a conch horn blew out, echoing through the trees: the game had begun.
It took a few minutes for the first attackers to reach them, the others no doubt dispatched by the first few rings of defense. A Hephestus camper was the first to charge at them, barreling through the trees with an axe. They were not allowed to maim or hurt each other, according to Chiron’s rules, so Stede would have to evade the swing of the axe to tag him out without shooting at him.
Unfortunately, the Hephestus kid was fast, and Izzy was faster. Izzy ducked under the axe and deflected the blade with his, pushing it back with enough force to disable its swing and point the tip of his sword at the attacker’s throat. With a smug grin thrown to Stede, he slapped the Hephestus camper on the shoulder and shoved him in the direction of the Ares side.
Izzy’s blade seemed to leave the slightest cut on the kid’s throat, and as the camper walked away dejectedly, he wiped at his neck with the edge of his shirt. “Fuck you, Hands.”
Izzy just laughed hoarsely and cleaned his blade on the grass.
The next few attackers were tagged out quite efficiently, one by Izzy, another by Olu. Stede got one Dionysus kid whose strategy, it seemed, was just to run blindly and hope for the best. Stede chased him around the tree for a few minutes until they were both panting and he could take a solid swing at the guy’s arm, sending him back from whence he came.
Stede then tagged out an Aphrodite girl who was seemingly trying to seduce him into letting her pass. This did not work, and he tagged her out as Izzy fought off an Ares kid and Olu wrestled with a Hephestus girl. He tagged a Demeter boy who came at him with a vine fashioned into a lasso, which Stede clumsily sent flying by hitting it with his bow like a baseball bat. Still, even though he teetered with the swing and potentially damaged his weapon in the process, he caught the kid off guard enough to tag him, and that was enough for him. Frenchie had given up trying to defend the flag and now sat on a low branch of a tree and plucked at his lute. He gave Stede a tentative thumbs up and very kindly did not laugh at his unconventional tactics.
However, even with Izzy’s agility and Olu’s strategy, none of them were fully prepared for the onslaught of Ares campers that then attacked, five coming in all at once. At the back of the crowd, Stede spotted Nigel and immediately froze up.
Nigel screwed his face up and laughed. “Why’d the Hellhound put Baby Bonnet on guard duty?”
Stede straightened up and knocked an arrow in his bow; if Nigel was coming at him, he wasn’t backing away from this one without a fight. He cleared his throat, wanting to seem confident, even if he wasn’t. “I guess he wanted to win.”
The Ares kids laughed. They really were like a gang, weren’t they? He wouldn’t be surprised if he spotted one of them with iron knuckles as his weapon.
One boy went straight for Izzy, blade extended for a duel. Another went for Olu. Two came at Stede, one wielding a spear and the other a broadsword. Stede was incredibly unprepared, and the broadsword kid knocked the bow out of his hand with one blow. Spear boy pushed Stede off his feet with the blunt end of the staff, before broadsword kid fell to his knees and punched Stede in the nose.
He cried out in pain, hands lifting to his face and coming away bloody.
“Stede!” Olu shouted, but he was busy fighting off his own opponent. He couldn’t help Stede now. Still, he yelled to Stede’s attackers, “Oi! No maiming!”
The boys ignored Olu and continued dealing blows to his face, sending a shot of pain through Stede every time their fists connected with his nose, his cheek, his jaw.
Nigel, who had been standing back and watching, walked up with a grin, and the other boys rose to stand behind Nigel. “Baby Bonnet. I think you got lost on your way to the nursery.”
Stede grunted something, which was probably a very witty rebuke.
“What was that?” Nigel asked, cupping his ear. “I couldn’t quite hear you.”
Stede tried again, but he didn’t think it was much more successful.
“Maybe it’s time for you to go to beddy-bye.”
“Mmhmm,” Stede groaned, trying to push himself up onto his elbows.
Nigel kicked Stede in the side, hard, and he seized up, arms giving out and sending him falling onto his back again. The boys laughed, and spear boy headed in Olu’s direction, broadsword kid in Izzy’s. Nigel, meanwhile, began to walk straight to the flag hanging in the tree. He didn’t run, didn’t even walk briskly; he swaggered, taking his sweet time.
Stede moaned, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain as he flung an arm out towards the fallen bow and tried to inch his way toward it. The arrow he’d had knocked had ended up closer to him, and he held tight to it as he attempted to scoop up the bow with the tip of the arrow.
It was slow work, between his injuries and his now cloudy vision, but still, he tried to hook the bowstring with the arrowhead. Nigel was hopping down from the tree with the red flag in hand as Stede finally made contact with the bow and pulled it toward himself.
“Bonnet.” Nigel smirked, waving the red flag in front of Stede as he walked backward toward victory. “Be good. I’ll be watching with the Nanny Cam.”
Stede decided that his best chance here was to play dead and wait. So he closed his eyes and said nothing, making a pathetic little whimpering noise that, sadly, wasn’t totally uncharacteristic of him.
“Good boy. Stay.”
Apparently, Nigel couldn’t decide if Stede was a baby or a dog. Either way, it pissed Stede off.
As soon as Nigel’s back was turned, Stede began to push himself up into a sitting position, straining with the effort to 1. be in any position other than fetal, and 2. not make any noise while doing so.
Still, though slowly, he managed it, pulling his legs underneath him so he leaned on his knees. Wincing with every movement, he knocked the arrow and pulled the bow string back. Nigel was marching back to the Ares camp, flag gripped tight in one hand.
He’d shoot Nigel in the shoulder, or the upper arm. That wouldn’t do much damage. At least, no more damage than they’d done to Stede, right? Sure, he might get in trouble with Chiron, but what’s the most that could happen? He’d be sentenced to kitchen duty? If he lost to Izzy, that’d already be his punishment. He might as well take the damn shot.
Around them, the trees swayed with the wind, leaves moving to decorate Stede in warm sunlight that felt like nectar in his veins. He steeled himself and released the string, sending the arrow flying toward his target. He saw it happen in slow motion, biting his lip and watching in nervous anticipation as it inched closer and closer to Nigel… Closer to Stede saving his reputation… Closer to not being the camp laughingstock…
Closer to… Nigel’s armpit. Stede had missed Nigel’s shoulder or arm, missing contact with the body altogether. Missing skin, but catching in Nigel’s baggy orange sleeve, and nailing him to a nearby tree.
“Wh–?” Nigel’s head whipped around, but he couldn’t turn all the way to look at Stede, to see his attacker take revenge. “Who was that?”
Stede sat in still silence, looking at how he had failed so spectacularly and so perfectly.
“What are you doing, man?” Olu shouted from behind him. “Get the flag!”
“Go! Go!” Frenchie yelled from the tree, gesturing for him to stand.
But Stede couldn’t stand. Right? He looked down at himself, bathed in evening sunlight, and all of a sudden, he didn’t feel like he’d just been the loser of a WWE fight; he felt fine. He felt good, even.
After stumbling on his way to stand, he almost tripped over his own legs as he ran toward Nigel, who was struggling to free himself. The arrow was not budging, and Stede was soon upon him, his strength somehow back and his balance improving with every step.
Stede barreled into Nigel, grabbing the red flag from his hand and hitting his arm with enough force that no one could argue that the Ares boy hadn’t been tagged out.
Gripping the flag, he held it high above his head for Olu and Frenchie to see.
Somewhere behind him, the conch horn blew, marking the end of the game.
He looked around with wide eyes and whooped, waving the flag furiously now.
He knew he wasn’t the one who had won the game, but he felt like it, waving the flag above his head and marching back to his friends in victory. He may not have won the game for his team, but he had made sure they didn’t lose.
Olu and Frenchie, though, weren’t reacting like he thought they would. They weren’t cheering and whooping; they were staring at the space above his head. Long enough for Stede to be concerned, and he tilted his head back to see what they were looking at.
Above him hung a floating, shimmering, golden laurel wreath.
His eyebrows shot up. “Wh… What does that mean?”
“You’ve been claimed,” Olu said, coming forward to clap Stede on the shoulder.
Frenchie jumped down from his branch and hugged his lute to his chest, eyes wide as he stared at the glowing symbol above Stede’s head. “You’re a son of Apollo.”
After the conch blew and Stede’s golden laurel disappeared, Izzy stomped off in the direction of the base camp, muttering something that sounded a lot like, “Stupid fucking Stede Bonnet,” but Stede couldn’t be sure.
Plus, he didn’t much care. He had saved the game for his team––for the Hellhound ’s team––and his father, who was the immortal god of the sun, had claimed him as his own. Apollo was his father. And he had just claimed him. Like he was proud of him. Like he was proud to call Stede a son.
As Izzy faded into the trees, Chauncey Badminton emerged, looking around aimlessly for his brother, then running toward the tree that Nigel was still stapled to. Stede hadn’t bothered trying to help Nigel, and he wasn’t going to start now.
“Bonnet!” Chauncey yelled, and Stede turned to see the boy stomping toward Stede, unsheathing a dagger at his waist and pointing it at Stede. “You did that to my brother?”
Stede glanced between Olu and Frenchie before muttering, “No?” He knew it wasn’t convincing.
“Izzy Hands told me on the way over,” he growled, gaining on Stede. He spat out each word like a curse. “But I didn’t believe it. Until I heard it from Nigel himself.”
“Hey, calm down!” Stede held his hands up in surrender, gripping the red flag tightly. “It’s just a game! I didn’t even hurt him!”
“You’ll regret it, Stede Bonnet.” Chauncey was close now, too close, and he wasn’t putting his dagger down.
Olu stepped forward. “Hey! What are you doing?”
“Can’t do that, man!” Frenchie waved his hands to motion Chauncey to stop.
Stede was still holding his hands up, fingernails digging into his palm through the red fabric as Chauncey drove his dagger into Stede’s abdomen.
“What the–” Stede gasped, looking down at the place where the dagger entered. Chauncey pulled the blade out and blood spilled, pooling over his orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt.
In seconds, he went from feeling fine, feeling great, to feeling like he was dying, like his stomach was going to cave in on itself and all his blood would leave his body. The Apollo magic that healed his broken nose, bruised jaw, and split lip was nowhere to be seen, and he had a feeling it was not going to come back. The skin of his abdomen was not stitching itself back together, the blood wasn’t evaporating into thin air.
Chauncey began to run towards his brother, only looking back at Stede with one reproachful look. He turned just in time to see Stede fall back into Olu and Frenchie’s arms.
“Woah, woah, stay with us, man,” Olu muttered, catching Stede’s chest as he began to tip forward. “Come on, let’s get him to Chiron.”
Olu and Frenchie pulled Stede’s body forward, his limbs turning more and more limp as he became more and more lightheaded. The trees around him were fading out into a blur of green, and with every jarring movement that sent a pang through his abdomen, the trees became less solid, more abstract.
“Oh, shit,” someone who might’ve been Jim muttered. “What happened?”
“Chauncey Badminton happened,” Olu replied, and then the blob of Jim got closer and suddenly Stede didn’t feel quite as heavy anymore. Voices around him continued yelling, but Stede couldn’t tell whose heads they were coming from.
“Pete! Lucius! Come help!”
“I am in no state to carry a body right now.”
“Someone get Chiron.”
“What the fuck?”
“Pete, get Fang or Ivan.”
“He’s losing a lot of blood.”
“Useless, isn’t he?”
“Shut up, Izzy.”
“He doesn't look so good.”
Stede’s head was lolling, and stars were dancing in his vision, circling a dark figure approaching him.
A voice Stede was sure he’d never heard before asked, “Is this Stede Bonnet?”
“Sure is, Ed.”
“Yeah, can you help us get him to the infirmary?”
Stede raised his chin as much as he could and tried to keep his eyes open. “You’ve heard of me?”
“I’ve heard all about you.” The new kid grinned and slipped the fabric out of Stede’s loosened grasp. “Thanks for saving my flag.”
Stede’s ears were ringing, and the light and stars around him were fading together, fading out, fading into a blackness that consumed him.
“Come on, let’s go.”
“Edward, your leg—”
“Shut up, Izzy.”
“Forget Chiron, let’s just get him to the infirmary.”
"Hey, hey, stay with us, man." It was the new voice. Stede liked that voice. "Stay with me."