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It’s cold in the cabin, when she wakes up.
She sucks in as much frigid air as she can, feeling the ice seize and relieve her shuddering lungs, her raw throat. Michael has left the windows open, again, and she would complain about it, usually, throw things at him until he wakes up enough to stomp over and slam it shut. Camp's winters are hardly winters at all but they are winters, still, and the air is cold, and when he leaves the windows open from sunset to dawn she wakes up with her lips blue.
It’s not enough.
She claws the strangling sheets off her sweaty skin and stumbles, legs stiff, to the door; it takes her a minute, nails digging into the old wood, to catch her breath, to steady herself. She closes her eyes, exhaling, and when she can open her eyes without the darkened world in front of her blurring, she walks onto the porch, and sits on the swing.
It creaks, under her. Familiar as frog song.
Diana exhales and tries not to cry.
The dream is fading, by now. It usually does. But the scars on her back smart, still, and there is no use going back to bed now -- her sheets are sweat-soaked and coiled, probably even ripped under the twist of her rings; her skin prickles and bumps under the phantom hands gripping her biceps; her jaw aches something awful from the clenching she's doing. Besides, it is not far from morning. Two hours, at most.
She stays out on the porch swing, sighing. There is snow falling past Thalia's tree, she can see it, but the grass across the common is as green as ever, and the low-burning braziers burn gently dying orange, and the forest brings gentle noise in waves. Under the full, blinking moon, all of camp is awash in silver.
There is a creak at the door.
She startles, and almost falls off the swing; she flails, barely, black-tipped nails scrabbling for the worn fabric of the awning and bare heels digging into the roughened wood panels. There is a flash of imbalanced white, as Will's lips quirk, and she sighs, pressing a hand to her heart, taking a moment or six to calm her racing heart.
Will watches, half-hidden in the door.
"Hi, baby," she says, quieter than the singing crickets. She leans back onto the swing, drawing up one leg and opening her arms. "C'mere."
Will does, without question. He darts from the shadowy doorway and crawls along the ancient, peeling seat, curling up against her chest and settling against her shoulder, exhaling. His mussed hair tickles her nose, so she buries her face in the soft curls, exhaling.
"'M'sorry," she murmurs, kissing the crest of his forehead. "Did I wake you?"
She doesn't scream, usually. She didn't then. But she does, sometimes, or so Cass tells her. When in her mind her dreaming subconscious brings forth memories of not just the belt, but the buckle, too, and how it dug into the baby fat in her hips, along her padded ribs. Her bottom.
Will shakes his head. Diana raises her eyebrows, and he must anticipate it, because he murmurs, "Haven't slept yet." He pauses. "Followed you."
"Hm." Diana runs a hand down his spine, pressing firmer when he shivers. She turns so her cheek smushes against the top of his big head. "You were definitely sleeping, bug."
"No."
"Mhm. Heard you snoring and everything."
Will scowls. "I do not snore."
Diana smiles, and cannot help squeezing him. He squirms, huffy, but remains in the circle of her arms, tucked into the crook of her bent leg. He settles, after a moment, small hands balled up against her stomach. Trembling, a little.
"Oh. Must be Michael, then."
Will nods. "Mhm."
"And all the snoring I hear before Michael goes to bed…?"
Will pauses. "A trick of the wind."
He coughs.
"You're such a dweeb," Diana snorts. "I don't have any Benadryl on me, and the harpies are out. Quit fibbing or we're gonna end up needing the Epi-Pen."
Will opens his mouth, and Diana can tell he wants to push it further, argue harder. He's good at it, too, and were it not a baseless falsehood he could probably even convince her. But it is, and he can't, and he doesn't want to get stabbed with a needle half the size of his pinky any more than Diana particularly wants to stab him.
"I get the stupidest powers from Dad," he grumbles, instead. "Why can't I just…sing or something."
"You can sing."
"Ugh."
Diana smiles, and doesn't say anything. She rubs her hand up and down his back again, scratching every couple of strokes, and feels the tensed-up muscles in his back give, one by one, as he sinks into her.
"You get up a lot," he says, quiet. "I watch."
Diana closes her eyes.
She forgets, sometimes.
Will has big, observing eyes, and he is quiet, when he wants to be. She forgets his spent most of his life in the back of a van and the corners of bars, silent, out of the way, watching; big eyes scanning back and forth, end to end. Listening, memorizing; adult conversations, adult arguments, adult everything. Cataloguing, in that special way of his. Learning and lingering.
"Nothing escapes you, huh."
Will shakes his head.
He doesn't press for an answer, although he's burning for one. Diana supposes he's learned that, too, learned when to keep his mouth shut, when to let the information come to him. It is an odd skill for a nine-year-old but one she recognizes in herself; Will's situation is not like hers, not by a longshot, but he is a demigod, and he is going to be a powerful one. The Fates knew what would keep him alive, and were careful to stock him full of it.
Diana sits back, and sighs. Will tenses. She rocks the swing, slightly, with a push of her foot; she matches every exhale with a press of her heel to the wood floor, every swell of her inhale with a lift of her toes. In, back. Out, forward.
Will breathes out.
"I wanted to leave with Aunt Artemis, once," she says, changing the subject.
Will blinks, pulling back from her.
"…Really?"
It's not what he wanted to know but he is curious anyway; his huge, endless eyes are dark at this time of night, round wideness of his pupils blurring easily into his sky-black irises. He blinks, and it is the flash of shadow, of abyss.
Diana smiles.
"Yes," she murmurs, brushing a hand over his cheek. She traces the freckles she knows are there, tapping him on his silver-lit nose and grinning wider when it wrinkles. "Yes, I wanted to join them. They were smart and brave and dressed cool. I wanted to be a part of that."
"Why didn't you?"
"Well." She hums. "You gotta swear off relationships, to join them. No kissing anybody ever."
Will wrinkles his nose. "I wish I could join the Hunters."
Diana snorts. "Oh, now you say." She keeps her thoughts about those big blue eyes and all the following they do of Beckendorf to herself. She's a good big sister, see. "Well, I was not quite that certain."
"…Really? It would be that hard to never kiss a boy again?"
He is so dry and so judgmental that Diana cannot help but laugh; her back hurts, still, and her heart still pounds, but Will has so much attitude for such a small kid and it kills her every time. If there was anyone made to go toe-to-toe with Michael, it's him, and she delights in it, in his thoughtless mouthiness. She pinches his cheeks and beams when he bats her hands away.
"It's not just boys, you little doofus. I knew better than to promise I could hang out with a bunch of pretty girls every day of the week and not try to be with one of them." She shrugs. "Some of Dad's genes are unavoidable."
"Dad doesn't have any DNA," Will says, because he is a twerp. He settles back against her, back to her chest this time, reaching over to fiddle with her fingers. "But, fair."
"I'll show you DNA, brat."
"Like, now?"
He glances over at her, intrigued. She cannot physically stop herself from squeezing his face together until he looks like a guinea pig. He sighs, as if the world has been thrust unjustly upon his shoulders, but allows it. Diana envisions him in a too-big lab coat and giant glasses ala Flint Lockwood and nearly explodes. Will notices and rolls his eyes.
"You would be cooler if you were a Hunter," he complains. "You wouldn't baby me all the time."
"I baby you because you are a baby."
"I'm nine and two-fifteenths!"
"I am going to smother you." She presses a loud, exaggerated kiss to his cheek. "Smother you to death."
"That's actually called gigil, borrowed from Tagalog, or sometimes called 'cute aggression', wherein you are so overloaded with positive and negative emotions that you --"
Diana bites him.
A little.
He shouts, so she slaps a hand over his mouth to muffle it, staring wide-eyed out for the harpies. Will watches, too, and when none of the bird-women come screeching, they slump, sighing in tandem, and Diana pulls her hand from his mouth.
"You," Will says, recovering. He stares at her with all the righteous indignation he can muster, waving his pointed finger around, which just kind of reminds her that his hands are still babyish enough to have the little indents in the knuckle and she has to clamp her teeth down on her tongue to avoid biting him again. "You bit me!"
"Barely," Diana insists. She pokes him and he slaps her hand away. "More of a nibble than anything."
"Bite!" He waves his hands around. "Me! Not food!"
"I would bite you less if you were less endearing. It's your fault, you know."
"That is called victim blaming!"
He is so tiny and so Texan and so testy that she cannot help a giggle. And it only serves to tick him off further, but he remains, still, in her hold, muscles relaxed, fingers gripping the palm of her hand. Breathing even, still. Loose, and a little bit sleepy.
"I love you," she says, heavier than she means to. She drops a kiss on her forehead and it lingers and he is so warm, and she is cold, still. She wraps herself around him and holds and in a minute Will worms his short arms around her, too, squeezing, deliberate, determined.
"I love you too," he says, measuring out the words. He squeezes and Diana forces back the lump in her throat, squeezing her eyes shut. "Am I making you feel better?"
"Yes," she says, voice small, tucked into his hair. She shakes but flashes of angry, drunk eyes cannot reach her, here, in the moonlight, wrapped around her little brother. Cicadas sing, lavender shampoo sits light and delicate in her nose, relaxing her coiled shoulders.
Will nods. "Good."
He reaches up, after a minute, and rests both palms against her wet cheeks; he wriggles forward enough that there is space between them, so he can meet her eyes. His narrow eyebrows are drawn close together, and he nods, again, and brings her head gently down, until he can press a kiss to her forehead. It is wet, a little, like kid kisses are. It is almost painfully warm.
"Cass told me to watch for you," he says, seriously. "She said you might need a kind word sometimes."
"I do," she whispers, hoarse, chin trembling. The love she has for him bubbles like soda up from her stomach and through all of her tubes, her veins and intestines and arteries. It grows and expands inside her like vinegar and baking soda and spills right out of her, everywhere, and she prays that it washes over him, that it stains his skin so when he looks onto his older palms he can see it. She ducks forward, and wraps her arms around him, pulling them, tightly, together; him tucked against her, her cheek pressed to his. He squeezes back just as tightly.
"You always make me feel better," she whispers. "Will Solace, you are a beam of bright light in this world."
Will smiles, she can feel it. Pleased and shy.
"You are light too," he says, meaning it. He nods once to himself. "Yeah."
She holds him as long as he will let her. And when he starts to sag, eyelids getting heavy, she leans back, and pulls him against her; he goes, melting, into her hold, matching his breathing to hers.
"Can you sing to me?" he asks, quiet. "Please?"
She swallows, and nods. She slides her hand into his thick hair and hums along to the crack of dying fires, the click of clouds of fireflies:
T he sun travels far
All the length of the Earth
And with every day passing I know
I have my own sun,
In the crook of my arm
Who warms my whole life with his glow.