Chapter Text
When Will told Nico that he was due for three days in the infirmary, he thought it would be just for cutting bandages and helping organize things. Maybe eat some ambrosia and go back to his own cabin and stay up doing something ridiculous so that he won’t have to sleep and face his nightmares.
It wasn’t.
It was so much worse.
Nico dragged his hand across his face and sighed as Will rambled on about his stay in the infirmary. “Don’t worry, Nico,” he smiled, “It’ll pass quickly.” He clapped his hands together and helped Nico onto the bed after he washed his hands. He moved the blankets aside, only enforcing that Nico was going to actually be spending his time here.
Nico huffed and swung his legs from his spot on the tall bed, “When can I just go back to my own cabin?”
Will turned around and started fishing through the cabinets, “After three days...at least. Let’s be real Spooks,” Nico flinched at the use of the terrible nickname, “You’re running on adrenaline and a prayer right now.”
Nico blinked and brought his hand to his upper arm, the werewolf scratches still burned. The crude stitching job Reyna did still barely holding his skin together. Adding onto the small list he had made in his head; he hasn’t eaten a full meal in months, he hasn’t slept well since his time in Tartarus, he has numerous bruises and scratches from the battle that they just had a few hours ago, and lastly the only shirt he owned was this dumb Hawaiian one with the parrots on it. Nico shuddered from an unknown chill and looked up to see Will rifling through the cabinets quickly pulling out bottles and bandages.
Will handed him some long gauze rolled up into a cylinder and a pair of medical scissors, “You can still cut right? We’re running low on everything and since you got two working hands, we’ll use them.”
He made note of how he could tell Will was stressed based on the Texan accent that poked through. Despite the request of doing work, he found the accent cute.
Did he just say cute?
Will Solace was a lot of things. He was infuriating, calming, stubborn, reliable, but he was not cute. Nico shook his head to rid himself of the thought and started cutting. After a couple of seconds, he looked up from the scissors again to see Will drying his hands on a couple of paper towels. His gaze was locked outside of the curtains pulled over to give Nico some privacy while resting. He squinted a little to see if he could tell what Will was focused on outside. He could barely make out his lips moving, most likely a prayer to his father. Nico watched as his expression changed as he turned around to face him again. His smile seemed out of place, almost forced, after seeing the serious look before.
“Ya’know, I almost forgot you need help too. You’re so put together,” He tossed the towels in the bin and pulled out a small tray, “So, officially, what happened to your arm here?”
Nico looked at what Will was gesturing at; the werewolf scratches. They were oozing a mixture of blood and puss slowly down his arm through the spaces in the stitch work. Pain coursed through down to his hand when he moved his arm a little to get a better look at it. He thought back to how long it had been since he had gotten the wound, but he knew that werewolf scratches tend to reopen and never heal properly. In addition, after coming back he had passed out for three days? At least that’s what Reyna had said. He looked back up at Will, “A werewolf scratched me and Reyna stitched it up. I think it was five days ago.”
The son of Apollo blinked at him a couple of times, “Five days ago?” The tone of his voice was hard to read, but his eyes told him what he really meant. Five days is a long time to have a wound like this and not have it at least professionally looked at. Will put on a pair of gloves, “Okie dokie then, let’s give you some ambrosia and take these stitches out, then we’ll clean it out and make a plan from there.”
He looked up at the back of the blonde’s head as he was organizing the tools he needed on that small tray, “Shouldn’t you be helping out other campers?”
Will shrugged his shoulders absentmindedly. The sound of the metal clattering on metal was rough on his ears, but he ignored it and let out a small sigh, “We only have so many healers at the moment, it’s all case by case.”
Nico felt his head tilt, “Shouldn’t that make it more important for you to be out there then?”
Since there were only so many able healers around, shouldn’t Will, who is a very capable healer, go and help with the more serious cases? Was his injury that bad? He looked back down at it, the skin around looked yellowy-red with infection, and after sitting down and not moving, he notices a stench coming from it. Even then, he could just pour some disinfecting stuff on it and move along. It would give Nico time to sleep and time for the rush to calm down.
“Like I said, it's all case by case. That's it.” Will frowned as he turned back around, the tray was neatly laid out with the tools and even a small container with a square of ambrosia about the size of a quarter.
He seemed happy to be changing topics as he pushed the container towards Nico, “I know it’s not a lot, but I’m hoping this will help enough.”
Nico looked down and grabbed the square, “I’m sure it’s fine.” He tasted the bittersweet of dark chocolate and frowned a little. It reminded him of his mother. A flash memory of him as a kid holding onto Bianca’s hand tightly as they ran up to their mom in the middle of the train station. She looked beautiful with her hair down hanging over her shoulders. Her lips were a soft red, and the passing train only wind blew her beauty and her soft scent around passerbys. Quickly giving a shake to his head he cleared away those thoughts. He hated eating ambrosia, he hated the memories that they brought up. Clearing his throat, his mind wandered to what Will’s ambrosia would taste like, but he cleared that away too. He didn’t need to know what Will’s ambrosia tasted like. He didn’t care to know.
He looked down at the wound to see the skin glowing softly. The smell of it had at least gone down. Will leaned forward and nodded, “Okay, time to get those things out.”
The blonde gently grabbed Nico’s arm and put it in a resting position on a small table so that it was a proper angle. The warmth of his hand was enough to make chills slide down Nico’s spine as it mixed with the cold from the disinfectant that he was rubbing around the wound. There was a dull burn, and the closer Will got to it, the worse the throbbing got, but he held himself still. Nico had been through worse.
Keeping his grip on Nico’s arm, he turned a little to toss the small cloth onto the metal tray away from all of the other materials. As Will’s thumb rubbed the underside of Nico’s wrist he almost instinctively pulled his arm back, but forced through his discomfort to hold still as best as he could.
Will looked up at Nico while his head tilted a little as he reached for the scissors, “You’re pale as a sheet, did that hurt?”
Nico shook his head, “No. Just didn’t notice how bad it was before.” He lied through his teeth, his gaze traced down to Will’s hand on his forearm. He felt a pulsing heat that radiated up his arm to his chest. Apollo’s children were known to be personal space heaters, but this felt different.
Will released his arm and Nico forced down his disappointment. He watched as Will grabbed the tweezers and scissors, noting how still his hands were in contrast to when he had just delivered Coach Hedge and Mellie’s baby.
He was mesmerized for a second, watching as Will grabbed one side of the stitches with the tweezers and then cut through the gap carefully with the scissors. He kept his gaze on his arm, seeing the tension in the stitch release slightly.
“This shouldn’t hurt, but let me know if it does. I can give you something more for the pain.” Will looked up at Nico to make sure the demigod understood. Almost everyone knew Nico had a tendency to suffer through things, even unnecessary things just for the sake of not complaining or seeming weak.
Once Nico nodded in confirmation, he gently pulled the thread out. Nico winced, but not out of pain. It hardly hurt, but the feeling of it being pulled through his skin was uncomfortable. Almost like something was inside of him and was pushing up against his skin. He felt the demigod’s eyes on him so he quickly added, “It didn’t hurt. It’s just weird.”
Will dropped the thread into a small bowl shaped item and shook his head, “Are you lying?” He went back and used the tool to grab onto the next one, “Cause if you’re lying, then I can extend your stay here for two more days.”
Nico looked down at the blonde and gave him a weak scowl, “No, thank you.” The repulsion from the joke was enough to make his face pink. He wanted to spend as little time here as was possible. Freedom to leave camp and get away from all of these people who didn’t care about him was only three days away, and any extension of this date would only make leaving harder.
The blonde chuckled weakly clearly not noticing the glare, “It was a joke, Neeks,” He cut through another thread, “You said you would tell me if it hurts and you haven’t. I trust you.” He pulled it out slowly and disposed of it in the same dish and continued working, “You just looked so serious, had to make sure you still had your humerus.”
He blinked with his mouth pressed in a firm line, “Was that a pun?”
Will looked up at him and smiled. Nico swore he felt the sun’s rays on his face, “Yeah. You like puns?”
“No.” Nico heard the sound of the metal tools hitting the metal tray, and noticed Will putting it up on the counter.
“That’s truly a shame, since you’ll be here helping. Puns are our main method of communication in the Apollo cabin, so you better start to like them.”
Nico let out a short fake laugh, but cut it off to look at his arm. Without the stitches and with some help from the ambrosia the coloring had gone back to his normal pale olive color. Plus the scent had died down to stale blood which was significantly better. He moved his arm a little and saw fresh blood leak out. Will was quick to hop over and wipe it with some gauze.
“Whoa whoa,” He spoke like he was trying to calm a wild horse, “Gotta finish patching you up before you can move it too much. Don’t want you leaking all over the place.”
Still in a daze, he continued to wiggle his arm a little. It didn’t hurt thanks to the ambrosia, but he could feel that it should hurt. He wiggled his wrist a little, feeling the tingle spread. He looked up to Will rolling his eyes, "Your body is fighting that infection, it's probably making your arm feel weird, but you can't wave it around like that."
He looked back down and clenched his fist, at least that felt somewhat normal. His eyes scanned over to the pillow, that looked really nice. He thought about just dragging Will over so that he could at least lay down while they fix his arm.
Will let some of the pressure off of Nico's arm so that he could get the supplies he needed, digging around on the tray he pulled out a suture kit and wheeled it towards him. "Alright, Spooks! This'll be over in a jiffy!" He looked up from the tray to see Nico swaying back and forth. He was dazed looking and every second or so he would fall down a little then shock himself back upright only to repeat the process.
Letting out a quiet chuckle, he put the kit back down and helped Nico pick his legs up, making sure that the pillow was propped up enough for Nico to be a little more upright. He tossed the covers over him and used another pillow to keep his arm up. This wasn't proper in any medical book, but when his patient was half asleep and falling over he decided that this would be better than trying to keep him awake.
Will pulled out the suture kit and started sewing up Nico's wound.