Chapter Text
The scariest part about having bipolar disorder is that you never know when the episodes are gonna hit. Life could be going as perfect as it could be until all of a sudden your brain decides to flip a switch and everything you’ve worked hard to recover from comes flying back in the blink of an eye. Sometimes theres a trigger, sometimes its predictable. Its the episodes that come with none that are the worst. They’re impossible to avoid and all the much harder to get free from.
***
Will was having a good several weeks, hell, even the past several months had been going great. The hospital stays, breakdowns, the attempts, and self harm, all seemed like a thing of the past. His loved ones all thought him to be cured. Naively, he let himself latch onto the belief as well. He shouldn’t have. He should have known that sooner or later shit would hit the fan and he’d spiral all over again. But he couldn’t help it. It’d been so nice to put his struggles on the back burner and think that even an incurable mental disorder could healed if he worked hard enough.
Maybe, if his sight hadn’t been so shrouded by relief of being “free” of his illness, he could have seen it coming sooner. The signs were all there; he woke up with an ache in his chest a few days prior, that familiar heavy feeling creeping its way back into his body. He wrote it off as not getting enough sleep. Food stopped tasting good and his favorite hobbies stopped being interesting, he figured it was his adhd making him lose interest, trying with no succuss to find something else he could enjoy. He stopped wanting to be around his favorite people, even being around Nico came with a sense of dread, which should have been the main clue, yet he disregarded it as just being tired. It's funny what you’ll believe when you get desperate enough.
It wasn’t until the self harm urges came back full force that he realized what was happening. Sure those urges never truly went away. Hurting himself had kept him alive for so long, they’d always be there in the back of his mind. “Your body and mind get attached to that feeling just like an addiction. Similar to substance addicts, you will always crave it someway or another.” His psychiatrist had explained. Despite this he’d at least had them under control.
By the time he was able to comprehend that a depressive episode had hit, he’d already gone to far. The itch on his arms grew too strong to resist and now he found himself on the floor of his head medic office with blood running down his forearms and tears flooding his cheeks. He cursed himself for not calling someone before it hit this point. He knew they’d all be mad at him for relapsing, especially since they all thought he was better. ( “Its unfair of them to think you’ll never fall backwards.” A bitter part of his mind spit before he quickly stamped the thought). Despite this he knew he had to call someone, it would just be worse if he tried to hide it. Gods know he’d been down that road several times before.
While he struggled with a way to get someone he trusted into him, he was startled by a knock on the door.
His heart about jumped out of his chest, “Yeah?” He prayed his voice didn’t sound as shaky as he felt.
“Hey Will-,” Thank goodness it was just Khale, (an older Aphrodite camper that had started to help out in the infirmary since the Apollo cabin could no longer keep it running at full staff with just them), the last thing he wanted was for one of his little siblings to see him like this. “You’d just been in there a while and I wanted to check on you. You okay?”
“Uh-” He wanted desperately to respond with “its fine,” or get up with a smile and go back, to normal, but the rational part of his brain stopped him. He needed help. “Khale-,” he choked out, “Can, uh, can you get Nico?”
After a brief moment she responded, her voice softer, “Of course, hon, I’ll be right back.”
He heard Nicos footsteps in the infirmary very soon after Khale had left. He didn’t know what she told him but she had stitched him up enough times in the past that he figured she already knew what was going on. Nicos quick paced gait only solidified that theory.
“Will?” His voice called, an anxious tilt to his tone immediately making Will feel guilty for worrying him. “Can I come in?”
He choked out a broken “Yeah.” By the time the door opened he was having trouble breathing.
“Oh, love…” Nico murmured, sitting down by his side.
“I’m sorry- ‘m so sorry.” He sobbed, his body shaking.
Nico took one of his hands in his own, situating Will infront of him so he could lean against his chest. “Take a deep breath,” he soothed, “It’ll be okay, Tesoro, try to breathe.” He did his best to focus on the feeling of his boyfriends breathing against his back, trying to match it as well as he could. Nico planted a kiss to his temple, rubbing circles on his hand with his thumb.
As his sobs died down to sniffles, Khale came back the office with a first aide kit and sat down next to the two boys, quickly followed by Chiron rolling just out side the door. A pit of dread opened inside him as he remembered the conversation he’d have to have with the centaur once they got him cleaned up.
“May I?” Khale asked, gently lifting his right arm, a wet cloth in her hand. He nodded, allowing her to start gently cleaning the cuts. She quickly moved onto his left arm where the worst of his cuts were. He hissed in pain as she applied quite a bit of pressure to get the bleeding to stop. “Sorry, sweetheart,” she said softly, before adding with an apologetic look on her face, “Two of these are gonna need stitches unfortunately.”
He hummed a response, numbness setting in, making even the task of talking too much of a boulder to push.
“Gonna apply the local anesthetic, now.” Khale informed him, pulling out a rather long needle. He just nodded, turning his head back into Nico, letting her work. “I’ll make this as quick as possible, hon.” She promised.
Once she finished with the stitches she put a large bandage over both his arms. Though this wasn’t necessary due to the fact that none of them were still bleeding or infected (Thank the gods it hadn’t gotten that bad this time), he was grateful she did so that he wouldn’t have to look at the proof of his failure.
She cleaned up the medical supplies and got up, ruffling his hair lightly as she did so, before leaving the room.
“Will,” Chiron cut in, causing his anxiety to spike once again, “Lets go to the Big House.” He ordered gently.
Will nodded again, reluctantly pulling himself away from Nicos arms to stand up.
“Would you like to shadow there or walk?” The younger boy asked.
“Shadow please.” Will mumbled, not wanting any of the other campers to see him like this.
Chiron nodded, starting to roll away from the office door, “I’ll meet you boys there.”