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[“That definitely looks broken”]
Will Solace has always deemed himself a person of incredible luck, like the Gods themselves are watching over him to keep him safe and sound. He never had the misfortune of suffering broken bones or impaled objects or body-wracking fever. In all the years he been a demigod, trained at Camp Half Blood, fought in the 2nd Titan War and against the Romans, the worst injury he sustained was a splinter.
(“But if we’re counting self-inflicted over exhaustion you’ll take the cake, Will!” “We’re not talking about that, Travis.”)
Unfortunately, his luck just ran out.
Because in one unfortunate mission to retrieve Mr. D’s precious pet leopard in Michigan, one unfortunate ambush by a pack of cyclops, one very unfortunate fist to fist fight with a 400 pound monster versus his just barely 160-pound frame, he broke his leg.
He isn’t too sure what lead to that point, how he got pinned on his stomach or how the cyclops got a burly hand on his poor leg. But he has an idea. His fighting skills are elementary. He probably got taken down embarrassingly fast and struggled out of self-preservation. The cyclops must have snapped his leg in two in retaliation.
He didn’t feel anything at first.
He just hears this loud snap and this deafening silence that follows and Travis and Connor’s heads snapping to him, horror blossoming on their faces.
Connor curses. Travis too. Travis never curses.
Then the pain comes and he couldn’t stifle the scream that follows. This excruciating pain bursting from his leg is the worst thing he ever experiences. With exhaustion, it’s gradual. A dull ache that he can push to the back of his mind by focusing on the task on hand and downing a whole cup of coffee (maybe two or three). It’s a type of pain he’s every used too. The pain of breaking a leg though… new, foreign, agonizing, something he never wants to experience again.
He wails unbridled for a minute or two before he could restrain himself. In that minute where his world was pain and only pain, he hears Travis or Connor yelling. He hears the cyclops yelling back. The hand on his leg and the weight on his back disappear. He hears more shouting, shrieking, screaming. Then silence. Complete, utter silence save for his gritted wheezing.
Everything is quiet.
Nothing makes a sound.
And with tremendous effort, Will forces his eyes open.
The abandoned warehouse they were ambushed in is empty. Golden dust dances under the sunlight from the patchy ceiling.
Someone is holding his hand. Travis is, he realizes. Except Travis is silent and Travis is never ever quiet. Not even when he’s asleep. (He sleeptalks.)
“Travis,” he gasps out.
The hand in his tightens. “Don’t worry, Will. Connor’s finding ambrosia right now. He’ll be back soon and your leg will be fixed and the pain will go away.”
Ah. That’s right. A crow stole their ambrosia stash in Chicago. Travis chased after it for five minutes before Will himself said it’s okay. They don’t need it. They'll be fine without it. It’s just a simple retrieval mission for a tamed leopard. What could go wrong? Hahaha … the irony. Someone go back in time and punch his idiot self in the face, please.
Will groans and curls his body inwards. “How does it look?”
“T… The leg? Um, as I said, it definitely… looks broken.”
“More. Give me more details.”
“Aw jeez, um, okay well there’s … a lot of blood. The cyclops … broke … It broke through… your bone broke through, okay, um, I—”
His bone broke through the skin. So an open fracture and severe muscle damage. Not something ambrosia can heal in one go. He’s going to bed locked for a week at least. Crap. There goes his hiking plans with the others this weekend.
Travis’s hand around his loosen and tries to slip out and in contrast, Will tightens his grip. “Where are you going?”
Travis’s face is blurred by his tears but Will can see the guilt wrecking his face for some reason. It’s not a good look. “I was going to get you something for your head to rest on. I’ll be right back.”
“Be my pillow.”
“What?”
“Be. My. Pillow.” He made the awful mistake of trying to scoot forward but that jostle his leg too much and a flash of white, hot pain flares through his leg.
For a few, pathetic minutes, he’s aware of only that flaring. It decreases slowly in increments and when the pain is finally manageable again, he hears Travis’s sobbing first and that’s really not a good sound. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” he asks, eyes opening to find Travis leaning over him.
And the wrenching sound of Travis crying harder opens a new gash in his heart.
“‘What’s wrong?’ A monster broke your leg! You’re bleeding out! You’re gonna die! That’s what’s wrong!”
Will raises his head and glances down. He can’t see much but he does see Travis’s jacket tied around his leg and he lowers his head back down.
“I think you did a good job stopping the bleeding.”
“It shouldn’t have happened in the first place! I was supposed to protect you and I got distracted and lost track of where you went and now you’re hurt. You’re dying. I lost our ambrosia packet and you’re suffering because of that too.”
Ah. That’s also right. Travis did say something like that jokingly on the Uber drive to the abandoned warehouse. Jokingly. Humorously. Sans seriousness. He couldn’t seriously have meant it, right?
“I should have protected myself.”
Travis blubbers something indecipherable and Will pats his knee.
“It’s okay. Don’t leave. Be my pillow.”
Travis blubbers some more.
And Will is pretty sure this is the hypovolemic shock acting, but he intertwines his fingers with Travis’s and tugs it to his forehead, mumbling the beginning of a hymn to induce calmness.
Travis shrieks and clams a hand over his mouth. “What are you doing? I’m not the one dying! You need to conserve your energy!”
“Be my pillow,” he mumbles behind the hand.
Three seconds tick by before Travis’s head lowers and he whispers disbelievingly, “I’m dating an idiot.”
But Travis slinks closer and Will cheers in silent victory as he lifts his head and nestles it on Travis’s lap.
It’s nice, comfy, a great distraction from the pain. A hand starts carding through his hair and that’s even better. Except, Travis is still sniffling and hiccuping and that’s not good. It’s a really horrible sound actually.
“Travis, it’s okay. It wasn’t your fault,” he mutters into the thigh.
“You’re smiling. You’re bleeding out and you’re smiling,” Travis says, “Did you hit your head too? Are you suffering from a concussion?”
Will only hums and nuzzles his cheeks in the cloth. He isn’t too sure what happened next. He’s just aware of the aching pain and the more blissful feeling of Travis’s hand in his hair. Sometime later Connor comes back without ambrosia. Which sucks big time. But there’s a hospital 3 miles away which doesn’t suck. And Connor found a car to take them there which is great. But he’s going to have to be lifted into the car which is not so great.
And the second his leg is handled, he passes out.