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It happened while Will was eating dinner.
He was sitting at the Apollo table, smack-dab between Kayla and Austin, laughing through a mouthful of mashed potatoes when suddenly it felt like a hot iron was embedded in his gut. He couldn’t control the wail of pain that burst free from his lips as he crumpled, nearly falling out of his seat.
“Oh my gods, Will!” Kayla shrieked. “What–What’s going on?”
Will tried to answer, but all that came out was more howling. The thick, burning pain that had started in his stomach was rippling out until his whole body felt like it was in flames. Bile climbed up his throat and he started retching up his dinner. Will hadn’t felt pain like this in years–not since the war with Gaea–and even then, it had never been this horrible. And it was worse now than before, because now, he knew what it meant. He knew whose pain he was feeling.
“What happened? What happened to him?” Lou Ellen was yelling from the Hecate table. She had to scream to be heard over the chattering, concerned voices that the dining pavilion was quickly filling with.
Austin and Kayla were trying to haul him up, but Will was too far gone to be any help. Every cell in his body was screaming, but he managed to cough out, “It’s not me. It’s him.”
“Fuck,” Austin cursed under his breath.
“He’s hurt so bad,” Will sobbed. “He’s dying. Nico’s dying.”
At that, all Hades broke loose. Everybody was up on their feet, yelling and shouting and arguing. Chiron was trying his hardest to calm everyone down, but it was too much even for him.
Finally, Austin and Kayla managed to get Will standing, and with lots of shared difficulty, started dragging away from the mayhem. Once they got to the infirmary, they laid him down on a bed, but when they tried to examine him, he hit their hands away. “There’s nothing wrong with me! It’s him!”
“I know, Will,” Kayla said, reaching for him again. “But your heart rate is really high right now and we need to get it under control.”
He smacked her hands away again. “I don’t need anything! We have to do something! We have to help him!”
Austin and Kayla’s faces both dropped at once. “Will, you know there’s nothing we can do. We don’t even know where he is right now,” Austin said.
Now Will felt like throwing up for a reason other than the pain. He knew Nico should never have taken that stupid assignment. But he and Chiron had insisted that it would be safe, that it was a routine extraction mission for two new demigods. That Nico would be back in no more than a couple of days. But now, Will wasn’t so sure Nico would be coming back at all.
Will was lying on an infirmary bed at camp, completely safe, while his boyfriend was out there somewhere in the worst pain of his life. In the kind of pain that killed you. It was times like this where Will kind of hated the whole soulmate concept, because how was it fair that he got to know Nico was hurt, but couldn’t actually do anything about it?
“There has to be something we can do,” Will insisted, his words coming out like heaves of breath, his throat constricting and his stomach cramping up even more. “There has to be–” He was cut off by a fresh wave of agony and cried out again, curling onto his side.
Will couldn’t breathe. Everything hurt. Every inch of him hurt. Nico was in danger. Nico was dying. He was going to–
“Will!” Kayla shouted, grabbing onto his wrist. “You need to breathe, okay?”
“But he’s dying,” Will sobbed.
“As long as you can still feel the pain, it means he’s still alive!” she argued. “Focus on that. Use that.”
“But it hurts. It hurts so bad.”
“I know, Will. But we can’t do anything to help Nico right now other than help you. He can feel what you’re feeling too, so we need to keep you as calm as possible to help him stay strong enough to get through this. So we need you to breathe. Can you do that?” Kayla said.
Will nodded weakly, his eyes still squeezed shut.
“Okay, with me. In, hold, out, hold. In, hold, out, hold. Keep going,” Kayla instructed. Will obliged, but it was hard to focus on anything other than the fire destroying his body and the terror destroying his mind.
“Austin, can you get the–”
“Got it.”
Will felt something sharp pinch his arm. “There. That should do the trick,” Austin muttered.
Suddenly, everything was going fuzzy around the edges. It was all tunneling black, and Will had enough strength of mind to hold onto one thought before he lost consciousness: as long as he could still feel the pain, it meant Nico was still alive.
* * *
Will didn’t dream. He didn’t know how long he’d been out when Austin shook him awake. It took him about a second to remember what had happened, and then another for him to take enough stock of his body to realize that he still hurt. Not as severely as he had before he’d passed out, but the pain was still there. Which meant Nico hadn’t died yet.
“Get up! He’s back!” Austin was saying.
“He is? Where?” Will asked, jumping off the bed and then nearly keeling over again. Austin had to steady him and give him something to lean on.
“He was over by the entrance. They’re bringing him–”
But Austin was interrupted by the chaos entering the infirmary. Nico was on a stretcher being carried by two Ares campers. Kayla was already next to him, assessing the damage while she walked and shouting instructions at the other campers filing in.
Will’s heart stopped when he looked at Nico. He was pale, much paler than he’d been in years. Since he started staying at camp full-time, he’d regained a much healthier olive-toned complexion, but now he looked like he did right after the war, when he was withered from torture and too much shadow travel. There was blood splattered all over his black clothing, and Will could see the deep, long gash running across his whole stomach, the skin around it red and taut. He looked dead. Will would think he was dead, if he couldn’t feel the evidence of his continual suffering in his own skin.
Will hobbled over to where they had placed the stretcher down. “What happened to him?”
“Apparently they ran into some dracaena last night. Nico killed them, but not before one of them got him pretty bad. The satyr had to carry him here on his back,” Sherman Yang, one of the people carrying him in, said. Will could tell how worried Sherman was, as well as the other campers milling around the infirmary. Nico may have always thought of himself as an outsider, but it was evident now more than ever how much he mattered to everybody here.
Kayla was in the process of cleaning the wound, still barking orders at some of the younger Apollo kids, but Will crossed over to her side. “Let me help.”
“You know I can’t let you do that,” she answered.
“And you know you need my help if you’re going to…If he’s going to…” Will couldn’t even say the words. But he knew he was right. Kayla and Austin and some of his younger siblings were all fine healers, but Will was the best. And at the state Nico was in, he needed the best.
She turned to look at him. “It’s going to hurt. A lot.”
“I can handle it,” he said, and the second the words left his lips he knew they were true. He could handle any amount of pain if it meant Nico would be okay.
She stared at him for a second, like she was trying to gauge whether or not to trust him, but finally she handed him her cleaning supplies and stepped to the side. “We already gave him some nectar and ambrosia, but he’s lost a ton of blood. We're pretty sure the blade the dracaena got him with must have been poisoned, because there's something wrong with his nervous system, and the wound is already infected. Plus, we’re not 100% sure whether or not it hit any of his organs. So basically we don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with yet.”
“Got it,” Will replied, going right in. When he touched the wound, it made his own stomach flare in pain, but he ignored it. He kept his hands steady. Nico needed him, and that was all that mattered.
He paused for just a second, leaning down to press a soft kiss to Nico’s cold forehead. “It’s gonna be okay, Sunshine. You just gotta hold on a little bit longer.”
And then he got to work.
* * *
Twelve hours later, Will was nearly asleep, sprawled in a chair next to Nico’s bed, gripping his hand so tight he could never slip away. His wound had been cleaned and stitched and no internal organs had been too severely damaged. He’d been given blood and fluids and nectar and the best healing magic imaginable. Had it taken any longer to get him here, or had Will been a less competent healer, he wouldn’t have made it. But he was going to live.
Will was exhausted–he’d never had to work in pain or discomfort like that before, and he’d never been so emotionally connected to a case, and it was taking a heavy toll on him. The only thing keeping him awake was the knowledge that Nico might wake up soon, and Will wanted to be here when he did.
He gripped his hand even tighter and laid his head down next to Nico’s arm, placing a kiss to the skin there. “I’m here, love. Whenever you wanna wake up, I’m here.”
He drifted off without even realizing. When he woke up, the sun had gone down and the infirmary had cleared out. Nico was groaning softly.
Will shot up to attention at once, running a hand through Nico’s hair. “Hey, Sunshine,” he whispered. He didn’t ask him how he was feeling, because he knew.
“Will?” Nico croaked, finally peeling open his eyes.
“I’m here. I got you.” He grabbed a cup of water, bringing it to Nico’s lips and helping him sip.
“What…what happened?” Nico asked, laying back down.
“You guys got attacked on your way back. Dracaena. It got you real bad,” Will answered. “You gave us quite the scare. Do you really not remember any of it?”
Nico thought for a minute. “I remember pain. It hurt. Really, really bad.”
Will smiled a sad smile. “I know, love.”
Suddenly, Nico’s eyes went wide. “Oh, gods, Will. You…I’m so sorry! I—“
“Nico. Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault,” Will cut him off. “I was just…worried. I—I thought you were dying.”
“I kind of thought I was dying too.”
Will pressed a kiss to his forehead. “But you’re okay now. You’re going to be fine.”
Nico glanced down at his still mangled-looking stomach. “Did you…?”
“Yeah.”
“How did you do it? With the pain?”
Will ran a hand through his hair. It was tangled and sweaty and a complete mess. “It was hard. But I knew I had to do it. For you.”
Then Nico blushed, and it was the best thing Will had ever seen. Color on his pale skin. Proof that he was alive, that he would stay alive.
“Gods, I love you, Nico,” he said tearfully. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
“I love you too,” Nico whispered back, tears filling in his own eyes.
Will kissed him then. Nico’s lips were dry and chapped but warm. Kissing him felt like coming home.
He pulled away to ask, “Can I…?” gesturing to the bed.
“Please.”
Will hopped on the bed next to him, careful not to disturb his IV or his wound, and pulled Nico until his body was slotted against his own. Will could finally breathe again, with Nico in his arms.
“You can rest now, Sunshine. I got you. I’m not going to let anything happen to you again.”
He felt Nico relax into him. He needed rest to heal. And Will was going to be here for every minute. He was never letting him go again.