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“So if I disappeared right now, how would people know I was gone?” Will feels like a million tiny somethings are trying to pop out of his skin like termites or lice or bed bugs. Nico’s stare, wide-eyed and silent, does not make him feel better. “I- no, I don’t mean, like, die. I’m not talking about, like killing myself– ” he laughs here, the same kind he does to keep things light when patients start getting snappy. Well, he’s already ran out of the infirmary, so he lost home field advantage. “I mean, let’s say I vanished. Poof, gone. Not suicide. Just, like, one morning, I was not in the infirmary, and there were no signs leading to where I was. Like, I was there and now I wasn’t, how would people know I vanished?”
Nico should slap him. His stillness unnerves Will. Will flaps his hands and uses his eyes to rip around his surroundings, like a monster can be hiding just beyond the light from the open infirmary back door. “Not how long, ” Will continues, “just how. I’m not interested in a time frame, I’m interested in exactly what would have to happen for people to notice that Will is gone. Like, when the infirmary line gets too long? When we run out of ambrosia? When it’s captures the flag and everyone is wondering why they can’t treat their injuries? When a prank goes wrong or, fuck it, goes right and there’s no first aid kit? When someone dies? No, that’s not right–”
“Will!” Nico yells. It initially feels rushed, like there was no buildup, but Will brings his eyes out of the shadows and sees Nico, with his mouth agape and an odd heart rate. Will thinks Nico must have been trying to get his attention for a while now. When did he follow Will out of the infirmary? How did they end up together in this patch of grass with the backdoor of the infirmary hanging open?
“I would know,” Nico says, loud and defiant, like a battle cry.
“I know people would know ,” Will says. “But I’m starting to think that I’m so locked into that goddamn cage that if I vanished no one would care until the cage wasn’t working right.” He punches the last T. The taste of these words in his mouth scares him. His arm flaps out to his side, in the direction of the infirmary. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” His arm drops without him telling it to (but then again, it started without him telling it to).
And he fucking cries. Sobs, really. There’s a lot of snot. He can’t wipe it on the sleeve of his scrubs.
“Hey,” Nico says softly. One of his hands flutters up. “Will…” Cautiously, like he was scared Will would break, he rested that one hand behind Will’s shoulder. Nico swallows, his throat bobs. He blinks in his own way that means fuck it or why not? . And slowly, a bit robotically, hugs Will, with one limb at a time.
Nico squeezes. “Hug me back.”
“I’m gross.”
“I don’t care.”
Slowly, a bit robotically, Will hugs Nico with one limb at a time. He sniffs to cover his snot and it doesn’t work.
“So is this a Thanos Snap situation? Or are you raptured?”
Will grips his sleeves like he’s tying himself around Nico. (It makes hugging easier.) “What?”
“Your disappearance.”
“Oh. Um… Thanos Snap.”
“So you’re Thanos Snapped in the middle of the night while everyone is asleep.” Nico rises to his tiptoes– Will can feel it as Nico places his chin on his shoulder. “Morning bell goes off, and you’re nowhere to be found, with no sign of where you’ve gone.” (Will squeezes his eyes shut, like preparing for the drop on a rollercoaster.) “But we both know I’m never awake with the morning bell. So let’s say I wake up and leave my cabin at noon. I need breakfast, and since you insist on being my meal buddy, I’d go to the infirmary to find you.”
“And I’m not there,” Will says.
“Which is not an immediate alarm. It’s still noon, so you could be grabbing your own lunch, or at the arts & crafts tent, or in your own cabin. And that’s not to mention that you can be somewhere else in the infirmary that I wouldn’t immediately see on walking in, like the basement, storage closet, private rooms, or the bathroom. But there would be one thing to tick me off that something is wrong.” Nico squeezes again. “The CD player.”
“What?”
“Every morning, when it’s just you in the infirmary, you put on a country CD while you start your day. It stays there until Austin arrives in the afternoon, and puts in a CD that is very much not country. So everyday, you put in a country CD in the morning, Austin takes it out in the afternoon, you put it back in in the morning, on and on and on. But. If I showed up to the infirmary at noon, before Austin starts his shift, and do not find a country CD in the player, that means you were not there this morning to put one in, meaning that you have been MIA for a while. At least four hours.”
Will makes a noise similar to a squeaking dog toy. Nico pulls back and uses the sleeves of his own hoodie to wipe away Will’s tears. He does it with such precision that Will forgets to breathe.
“But that’s not all. Four hours doesn’t make someone missing. So, at this point, I would know there was a possibility of a problem. So I would grab a balanced breakfast–” he lightly pats Will’s cheek here– “and then start my search.”
“There's no signs,” Will says. “I vanished.”
“I don’t care if there’s no signs, I’d still look. I’d look forever until I found you.”
Tears well up in Will’s eyes, and Nico is so close, and his hands are still cupping Will’s face. And sometimes responsibilities are thrown at Will’s head, and everyone expects him to do a million things with precision, and of course he’s overworked and would love to visit his mom if he could ever leave the infirmary long enough, and–
Nico hugs him. “I would care.”
Will inhales. “Thank you.”