Work Text:
Tw: sensory overload, meltdown, self injury (not cutting), ghost stories/light horror
“I don’t wanna wake up,” Will groaned, burying himself in the covers, “it’s my birthday, let me sleep!”
A loud, definitely deliberate clarinet squeak sounded right by Will’s ear, sending a splitting pain through his ear and his head. “Austin, please don’t,” Will pleaded, covering his ears with his quilt. Kayla started bouncing on his bed, shaking him, and Will felt panicked, trapped, and overwhelmed. “Guys, don’t,” Will protested, but they seemed intent on waking him up. They didn’t realise just how overwhelming the situation was for Will- he buried himself deeper under the covers, wanting the noise and bouncing to stop. However, the longer he stayed under the covers, the louder Austin played wrong notes, and the more violently Kayla bounced.
Will panicked, shoving as hard as he could and running to the bathroom, bolting himself in and instantly dropping to the floor, hugging his knees to his chest. It was too bright- the small round studio lights overhead were disorientating, pure white light blaring down unrelenting, no dimmer switch, each light a new assault on his senses from a different direction, making it near impossible to process anything else- his senses were already overwhelmed. Then there was the yellow strobe lights around the mirror, each light a needle boring into him, and then the mismatch of orange, yellow, and red fairy lights hung around the room for at night, each light a bullet, each tiny movement of Will’s head blurring the lights, dizzying, disorientating. Will clamped his eyes shut, hoping to block it out.
Then the insistent banging on the bathroom door began, each loud pound a jolt of pain to Will’s ears. Every knock seemed to be sharper and louder and more painful than the last, and then of course, the shouting began, shrill voices yelling his name and trying to get his attention. Will was unable to process what they were saying- it was too loud, too much, and it hurt. And to make matters worse, Will didn’t have his headphones, so he settled for clamping his hands over his ears, but it only seemed to amplify everything, so he jammed his fingers as deep into his ears as he could get, painfully so, until the outside sounds muffled and all he could hear was the low groaning and creaking made my every minute twitch of his fingers, and the blurry rush of his pulse.
Everything was too hot suddenly, and the feather light touches of his cotton pyjamas only irritated him, his skin pricked with sweat and every small movement he made shifted the fabric and added more to the overwhelming cacophony of overloading sensory assaults. Will just wanted pressure, weight, a constant comforting force to make it all better. He rocked, the motion comforting, helping him to focus on the motion of rocking and not the sensory assault he was under.
The final straw that broke the camel’s back was the smells. Will had always been particularly sensitive to smells, more so than anything else. And there were many smells. There was the earthy smell of fresh cut grass, of the smell of the soil wet with rain from the night before, the smell of the heat in the air, the humidity. And then there was the smell of the cleaning products, sterile, but strong bleach, nauseating and dizzying, so clinical but so chemical, the smell of artificial pine scent, far too strong, far too much. The lingering smells of aftershaves and perfumes and deodorants from the morning, each scent overlapping and clashing and harmonising horribly, assaulting his nose with burning chemicals, making him sneeze. Then there was the slightly more muted smells of the soaps, but there was still the slight smell of caustic soda from the soaps and detergents left on the towels. There were the musky smells of sweat, even blood, from the towel rail right next to Will, all different body odors adding onto the already overwhelming smells. But the worst for Will was the still ever-present smell of faeces and urine from the toilet- smells lingered, even if most people didn’t notice them, and Will was sensitive to smell, and of course, the smell of human waste was nauseating. Will felt the bile rising in his throat, just about managing to crawl to the toilet and throw up. The smell of vomit and the choking feeling and the acidic bitter taste was more than enough to make him panic and overwhelm him further, and he found himself throwing up again.
Desperate distressed sobs wrenched through his body, unable to take deep breaths through the crying, because he couldn’t control it. Eyes open and fingers out of his ears, and every sense was unbearably overstimulated, a suffocating panic and need for it to end only adding to the overwhelming mess. He felt dizzy and hot, so he stripped to his underwear, clawing at his skin to try to make the itching suffocating feeling from the sweat go away. He pulled at his hair and his teeth and his ears and anywhere he could grab, as though he could loosen his skin or make it stop. He screamed out, as though it would stop the panic in its tracks, and because he was frightened, it all wouldn’t stop and he couldn’t think straight, couldn’t process it all, and everything was suffocating him. Eventually, he resorted to hitting his head off the wall, because his head hurt, and it felt like he needed to break it out, he just wanted it to stop and he couldn’t breathe, it was all too much-
“Will?”
That was Nico’s voice, Nico knew how he was feeling, he knew Nico could help him. He forced himself to stand and open the door, and Nico lead him to the far corner of his cabin, the space by the bathroom where most cabins had book shelves or a dresser. Instead, the corner had thick curtains to block out the rest of the light from the cabin. Nico helped him to sit down and wrapped him in a weighted blanket, giving Will his headphones. It was quieter, darker, and far less overwhelming, and Will could focus enough to talk himself through calming down, to take slower breaths. Nico sat beside him, hugging his knees to his chest and reaching out to take Will’s hands, gently rocking. Will rocked too, following Nico’s comforting pace, the quiet music from his noise-cancelling headphones the only sound he could hear, and the music felt how he felt, hectic, and with each song change the music calmed, allowing him to slowly work through each emotion he was feeling and unwind them all. The alcove was only lit by a dark purple lava lamp, a stark contrast from the brightness outside, and the light was a soft glow, from one source, no reflective surfaces for it to bounce off. It was soothing to watch the bubbles, something he could visually focus on without feeling overwhelmed. The pressure of the blanket he had was comforting, heavy like a hug, grounding him nicely. The smells were muted here- it was cleaned, but without the use of strong chemical products. Plain smelling soaps were used to wash all the cushions and blankets that made the alcove so cosy, so the only smells were his own mild sandalwood and lemon body wash and peony shampoo, and Nico’s pomegranate shampoo.
Will wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but he felt a lot calmer, and everything was muted enough. He switched his headphones for earbuds so he could hear more and assess his surroundings, glad to only hear the chirp of birds and distant laughter. Nico looked up at him- or at least, somewhat towards him. Nico struggled with eye contact, and Will would be lying if he said he wouldn’t find eye contact overwhelming. “Are you feeling okay now,” Nico asked quietly, and Will took a few deep breaths to assess how he felt. He opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t manage to force any sounds out, so he nodded instead. “Is there anything you need?” Will thought for a moment, and gestured vaguely that he needed water and hugs if Nico was okay with it. Nico seemed to understand what Will was trying to communicate, leaving and returning with a bottle of water for Will, pulling him to his chest and gently running his fingers through Will’s hair. Will was able to relax, sitting there quietly with Nico.
Will wasn’t sure how long he was sat there with Nico, but he felt Nico gently push at his shoulder. Will reluctantly released Nico, mouthing ‘sorry’.
“It’s okay,” Nico explained quietly, “I just… too much physical contact.”
“That’s okay,” Will managed to reply, glad he hadn’t stayed non-verbal for long enough for it to be a barrier of communication with anybody.
“I’m sorry,” Nico said softly, “I just…”
“Overwhelming, kinda like you wanna rip your skin off?” Unlike Will, who was touch-seeking and tactile, Nico was rather touch averse, partly because he was touch-sensitive and partly because of all his trauma. He’d described physical contact he didn’t want as uncomfortable, like when a bug flies into your face and it still feels like the bug is there, but intense and everywhere, to the point it made him want to scrape his skin off.
“Yeah, that,” Nico replied, and Will reached up to one of the shelves of stim toys. He picked out a tub of glittered sunset amber slime and scooped it out, squeezing it between his fingers. It felt cold and squidgy, but it was quite a dry slime, and it wasn’t sticking to his fingers, which he appreciated because it was murder to get from behind his nails. The glitter, however, Will figured, he’d be stuck with for a month at least. He kneaded the slime in his hands, squeezing it and stretching it and squashing it,feeling it warm up. He folded it and held it up and watched it slowly stretch out and droop, catching the slime in the palm of his other hand. It was oddly soothing and entertaining.
“I forgot… it’s my birthday,” Will said quietly, pressing the slime into his palm.
“You never told me,” Nico replied, and Will shrugged.
“I didn’t want you to feel pressured to get me anything. Plus I kinda still don’t know if you see me as a friend, and I didn’t want to scare you off like before.”
“I like to think we’re friends,” Nico replied quietly, and both boys blushed. Nico reached into his pocket and pulled out a ball of tangled pipe cleaners. “It’s not much but… I kinda made this for you when I had to help out in the arts and crafts building... you like rough textures, right? I uh- I made this for you. I thought you could fiddle with it when you’re trying to focus or feeling overwhelmed, and maybe the texture would help you to calm down.”
“That’s so thoughtful,” Will blushed, putting the slime away in favour of gently taking the pipe cleaner ball from Nico’s hand and tangling the ends around his fingers, tying knots in them and shaping them in his hand. “Thank you, Nico, I think this will help me better than the bandage I wrap around my hand.”
“That’s uh- that’s what I thought,” Nico replied awkwardly, “we missed breakfast.”
“That’s okay,” Will said quietly, “I’m not hungry anyway, I threw up this morning.”
“If you’re feeling ready to face the day now, you should get dressed and showered ready for today. I’m gonna leave you to get ready now, I’m still in my pyjamas because Austin and Kayla woke me up to come to you. I wanna help out at the infirmary today, but I’ll grab us some sandwiches so if we get hungry we have something to eat. I know you like yours as plain as possible because spice and strong flavours and smells make you gag, so not egg, maybe cheddar cheese or chicken?”
“Thanks, Nico,” Will smiled, “and I remembered you don’t like too many textures or clashing flavours in your food, so I got some better snacks in the infirmary that you might prefer over the granola bars.”
“Thanks,” Nico smiled, leaving Will to get ready.
The rest of the day went by relatively quickly- the familiarity of routine felt comfortable, and the unique challenges of every patient, demanding knowledge recall and practical applications, keeping his hands busy, took just the right amount of focus for Will’s comfort zone, calm in the chaos of injuries. When he felt stressed or overwhelmed, or when he was trying to keep his focus on lengthy discussions with a patient, trying to stay on topic, he instinctively fiddled with the pipe cleaner ball. He found it to be much more effective as a stim than wrapping and unwrapping a bandage on his hand, and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t make him think of Nico. Nico was thoughtful and kind, although he hid that behind layers of sarcasm and defensiveness. However, all of those defences had dropped the moment Will respected his boundaries without question. Sure, sometimes Will missed social cues and misread Nico, but he always immediately rectified any mistakes when Nico voiced his discomfort. Nico’s defences dropped because Will didn’t treat him like he was different, or stupid, or weird. Will didn’t tell him to stop talking if he info dumped about mythomagic. Because, despite all of their differences, they were the same, and they both understood things about each other that other people simply didn’t seem to understand, or make an effort to understand.
Later at the campfire, everybody had gathered, and Will knew that there was going to be cake, much like on every camper’s birthday. Will was quite a sociable person- and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like all the attention. He’d recieved a pair of light blue denim cuffed jeans from Lou-Ellen, a fellow bisexual, which he was more than happy to wear. Cecil had gotten him a bi pride pin, which Will happily wore on his red turtleneck. And of course, he already had his trans converse from Clarisse. Kayla and Austin chipped in to buy him a ukulele, which was just about the only instrument Will could play. Will spent the afternoon socialising, walking around to talk to all the familiar campers, introducing himself with finger guns and peace signs like a true disaster bi, because this was his home and these people were his friends. He felt at home here at camp. He hadn’t seen Nico all night, but he figured that Nico wouldn’t turn up anyway- after all, crowds and people were two things where Nico would rather stick his eyeballs in a blender than endure them willingly. He was a little disappointed- mainly because of his probably-more-than-a-crush on the boy, which is why Will couldn’t contain his grin when he finally saw Nico, stood at the sidelines, swinging his arms gently by his sides and turning from side to side, a stim of his that he always indulged in when he thought nobody was looking, not forcing himself to socialise and remaining in his comfort zone.
Eventually, the camp settled down into seats, and Nico sat next to Will on the smallest log- that way, he wouldn’t have to share with anybody else. Will didn’t bother to hide the blush on his face- after all, he didn’t think Nico would look up at him given Nico’s strong dislike for eye contact, which is probably why he didn’t realise that Nico kept looking to him and blushing, smiling happily. Toasting marshmallows went as usual- campers scrambled to find a stick, Will and the Aphrodite kids pointed out that sticks on the floor were disgusting death sticks, Chiron handed out clean kebab skewers, and Nico ignored everybody’s protests and summoned a broken femur bone to use instead of a stick.
Ghost stories were Will’s favourite part of any campfire, and of course, Nico loved to tell ghost stories. That was, once the younger campers had taken slices of cake and gone to bed. “So,” Nico began, a small grin forming on his face, which Will found adorable, “twenty years ago today, some of the Ares kids were on patrol in the forest and they found a deer carcass. Which is nothing unusual, of course, because it’s a deer carcass, animals die. But the weird thing was, it was fully decomposed to a dry skeleton, and it hadn’t been there the night before. Now, Artemis and her hunters had been at camp, so naturally they blamed the hunters, but Artemis herself confirmed that it couldn’t have been her hunters. Now, interesting fact, I swear it’s relevant, if you’re going to dump a body, the decomposition will mean more nutrients like nitrogen for the grass, so the grass will grow greener. So if you place an animal carcass over a body dump, it’s less suspicious. If you bury the body vertically, at least six feet of space above the head, it’s unlikely they’ll find the body. But because of the sudden appearance, they excavated and found, shock horror, a corpse of a boy nobody remembered at camp. Now, these deaths kept happening every two years, except each animal carcass represented an animal that represented each cabin, going in order of the cabins. But nobody remembers anything about who the campers were, at all. No memories, no nothing. But we know from marks on the spines that all of the bodies were decapitated, strangled, or had their necks snapped, or hung. But there is no physical evidence, none at all to point to a human killer, plus no demigod has been at camp long enough to be responsible for all the murders, apart from the ghost boy, whose head is backwards from where his neck was snapped. He seeks revenge, and he refuses to communicate with me. In fact,” Nico smirked, pointing over to a spot by the forest, “that looks like an animal carcass right there.” Some campers screamed, but Will laughed- Nico was so very obviously bullshitting. “If you give me ten dollars each, I’ll make sure you’re not next. I can do that. Or he might possess me right now and you’re all doomed because he could use me to control the dead and make all the skeletons choke you-” Nico summoned a skeletal hand, and everybody ran. Will laughed lightly, and Nico blushed, looking somewhat proud of himself as Chiron rounded everybody up and reminded them that Nico’s ghost stories weren’t real and not to give him money, because he was now certainly not getting his allowance.
The tone lightened with some singing, which Will loved but was terrible at, and Nico hated but was amazing at. Campers finished off the cake and everybody shared happy stories for a while, or complained about their parents, although the highlight of the campfire was probably the appearance of bats from the trees. Pipistrelles, it appeared, according to Nico, which weren’t native. Nico immediately started bouncing, flapping his arms and grinning wildly. He loved bats more than he loved mythomagic, and Nico’s pure happiness and excitement seemed contagious, and Will found himself joining Nico in his flapping- it felt good and he was easily excitable, and besides, who the fuck would judge them for being happy?
The highlight of Will’s evening, however, was when everybody had left, and it was just him and Nico watching the campfire, still slightly buzzed from seeing the bats. They just sat in silence for a while, enjoying the cooler night’s air, enjoying watching the way the flames danced, the heat keeping them just warm enough to stay outside for a little while longer. It was Nico who spoke first. “So… did you enjoy your birthday?”
“Apart from this morning? Yeah, I did,” Will smiled, looking to Nico. Nico looked nervous, like he was building up the courage to say something.
“Uh- Will?”
“What’s up,” Will asked carefully, turning in his seat so he could see Nico better.
“I uh- I’m gay,” Nico said quietly, his voice strained as though he’d forced the words out.
“Thanks for trusting me, Nico,” Will said delicately. He reached out to touch Nico’s shoulder, but decided against it- Nico was jittery, and Will didn’t want to startle him.
“And I think I like you,” Nico blurted out, picking at his shoelaces and bouncing his leg nervously, chewing his lip. Will hadn’t expected that. He took a few seconds to make sure he’d heard correctly- his crush was gay and into him. Nico liked him. Or at least, Will hoped Nico meant he liked Will in that way. What if Nico meant as a friend?
“Nico,” Will began gently, “can you clarify what you mean by that for me, so I can respond appropriately?”
“I mean uh-” Nico cleared his throat and swallowed, and Will chewed the inside of his lip nervously. “I mean I… think you’re cute,” Nico blushed, “as in… I’m attracted to you…”
“Oh,” Will replied, trying to think about how to respond without jumping up and celebrating like an excitable puppy. “I… I like you too!”
“I know,” Nico replied quietly, and Will froze. He hadn’t expected that at all. “I… I know I’m bad at social cues, but… I- I’m good at analysing things, I mean- I play chess and mythomagic, you have to predict the next five moves at least, so- anyway, I… I noticed I make you blush, and you spend a lot of time with me, and I notice you staring at me when you think I can’t see you, and you’re always doing sweet things, so I asked Lou-Ellen, and she gave me a whole speech about how cute we apparently are.”
“Oh wow,” Will replied, taking in the situation. Nico liked him, and he knew Will liked him, which was probably why he told Will he liked him back. Which meant he was either going to ask they stay friends, or ask they date, or ask they part ways. Will hoped it was the second option. He got his answer when Nico moved his hand across the space between them, carefully intertwining their fingers together.
“I want to try to kiss you,” Nico admitted, before turning to face Will, looking at the log beside him, “but I don’t know if I’ll be overwhelmed or not, so I don’t want to get your hopes up,” he continued, “But… I’d like to try to kiss you, if you’d be comfortable with that.”
“I uh- I would,” Will replied, cheeks flamed pink, the tips of his ears red, “are you… are you sure you’re comfortable with this?”
“Yeah,” Nico replied, meeting Will’s eyes briefly, for a few seconds, and Will felt like Nico was looking into his soul, his heart fluttering as his eyes instinctively closing. Nico leaned close, and gently pressed his lips to Will’s. Nico gasped in surprise, reaching up to tangle his fingers in Will’s hair, and Will felt breathless, because Nico was kissing him, and he was kissing back, and nothing had ever felt so real before. Nico pulled away slowly, flushing puce and looking away. “That was… nice,” he admitted, and Will could see the smile tugging at his lips, “Happy Birthday, Will.”
“Wow,” Will laughed happily, “that’s the best birthday present I’ve ever had,” he grinned.
“Goodnight, Will,” Nico said softly, looking into Will’s eyes one more time with a coy smile before dissolving into the shadows. Will gently touched his lips with his fingertips, the cool tingle from where Nico’s had moved against his still there. His birthday had actually turned out okay after all.