Chapter Text
Will scurries around the infirmary, legs moving faster than he can follow, body in autopilot, tying and cutting and soothing and smiling, knees very near about to give out under him. He runs his hands through his hair about a trillion times- a nervous habit he has held for years- tussling and retussling.
Dead on his feet. That is how he would say he feels, if he stopped to think about it, but he doesn’t. He lets the screams and cries and fluorescent lights wash over him, seep through him, so that he and they are one and the same. He is the flickering bulb, the starched bedsheets, and the smell of antiseptic. He is the infected flesh, the lava burns, and the shaving cuts. He is the infirmary, and the infirmary is him. Not a feeling if stress, but one of exhaustion- nor one of misery, but one of pressure. It is a feeling of rightness. A feeling that Will’s place in the world is so utterly accounted for. It is a feeling of happiness, of completion.
Then he is back in Cabin Seven, plastered across yellow cotton sheets and staring blankly up at the wooden beams that crisscross over his head every night as he sleeps. He knows each knot in the aeons-old wood that creaks and groans and cracks above him as Austin clambers up the ladder, moving almost as though scripted.
Aching with bone-deep exhaustion, Will stretches out his arm and rummages blindly beneath his bed for the decrepit old phone keeps at camp to call his mama and listen to podcasts. Slipping the cracked earbuds into his ears, he unlocks the cell with a few well-placed taps and scrolls through his Spotify downloads, searching for just the right thing.
It takes a while, bloodied motifs glaring up at him from the dark background, to find what he wants to listen to. He has heard it all, of course, many times, and promises himself he’ll download newer episodes when he’s near enough to a source and not constantly surrounded by high risk demigods. The Devlin House is too gory for tonight, and What the Ghost is too trivial. Sherlock and Co is little… annoying, he can find, in the end he settles on an old show- very home-grown podcast, with crackly audio and a tried sounding narrator recording on a very cheap microphone.
Will considers himself something of a connoisseur of true crime, or- he would like to, if it didn’t make him sound like such a pretentious ass. He has been listening to true crime since he was probably far, far too young, enthralled by the dark and scary world that he lived in. As a bright and cheerful person, Will isn’t sure why or how true crime fits him so well; dosent understand the attraction he feels; the need. He just knows that it is there.
The narrator rattles on tinnily in his ears, all background and controversy, not ready to cut into the brutal violence of this particular case. Will dosent love this episode format, but he likes it more than the overdramatic melodrama of some shows, although he listens to them all the same, like a drug. The voice in his earbuds is deep and lilted with a gentle, sloping, looping accent that he has grown used to. His consciousness cuts off before the story really begins, but when he is awake again he will not mind.
He knows what happens already.
Nico is say where Will lay hours before, fidgeting incessantly. He taps his feet and rubs circles into the soft sheets. He scratches his nails on the bedpost and toys with his hair.
“Are you sure she wants to see me?” He asks for the fiftieth time, and Will laughs, although he is trying not to. The smile that beams from his lips lights up his face as he reaches across to Nico’s hand and promises him,
“She can’t wait.”
“Can’t she?” Nico asks, voice pitching a little, “Because maybe that’s some creepy serial killer shit right there. You- you I could understand, somebody excitedly impatient to meet you, because you’re kind and funny and light up the room- literally, I mean- but me? People who can’t wait to meet me are autistic queer teens or monsters who want me dead, and I very much doubt she’s the former.”
Will snorts. “How many autistic queer teens have you met? I hardly see them crawling all over you now.”
“You should see the new ones at Camp Jupiter.” Fondness seeps into Nico’s voice. “I’m a hero to them- and not just a sword fighting one either.” For a moment, all seems to be calmed- Nico lost in soothing memories of his amateur combat classes and Will lost in the rhythm of packing- until Nico remembers to snap back to his anxiety. “Don’t distract me, Will! I’m trying to freak out here!” He exclaims, but his tone is light and joking, if a little faulty.
“Don’t freak out,” Will offers, and is immediately aware of how stupid he sounds, “She’ll love you- she already loves you.”
“Look, maybe- maybe we shouldn’t go. Not this summer, anyways. I mean, are we sure Kayla can hold down the infirmary without you?”
“For four nights?”
“…Well, what if there’s an emergency? What if Paolo detaches his stupid arms again or something?”
“Hey! Paolo’s arms are not stupid!” Will complains. “Besides, Kayla is a strong, independent woman. She can handle whatever’s thrown at her. Including beautiful arms.”
Nico raises his eyebrow, teasing. “Still caught up on those arms?”
“You started it- you literally started it, I’m just coming to his humble defense.”
“Honourable.”
Zipping his suitcase shut, Will twirls around to face Nico, dropping to one knee and placing a gentle kiss on the back of his hand. “Always.”
Nico rolls his eyes, offering Will a hand up. “You are ridiculous, Will- utterly ridiculous.”
Opening his arms for a hug, Will tilts his head to the side. “But you love me?”
“Of course I love you.”
The door swings open as Nico buried his face in Wills neck, loud enough for the two to jump apart and for Nico to turn and glare at the doorway, guard up.
Backlit by golden rays of sunlight, Kayla stands in the door frame, long green tendrils of hair coiling over her shoulders. She readjusts her fluorescent green hair clips, laughing, “Did I interrupt something, lovebirds?”
“I’m packing.” Will tells her defiantly.
“You always are. Might want to swap that packet out for-“
“Kayla! Packing for Texas, you idiot.”
“I know, I know! Jesus, can’t a girl make a joke around here?” Pausing, she adds, “I’m teasing,” and struts her way into the cabin, letting the door swing shut behind her. “Do you still have any of those, uhm, those candies?”
“The sour ones?” Will asks, checking his pockets.
“Mmhm, green if possible. They dye my tongue.”
“Yeah, of course, let me see… hey, that’s funny.”
“What?”
“The packet’s gone…” Will turns his head slowly toward Nico, who has been suspiciously quiet since Kayla’s appearance. He has the face of a guilty man.
“Nico-"
“What? What did Nico do?” Kayla asks.
“I think…” Will hisses, narrowing his eyes, “He stole… my sweets.”
Kayla gasps as Nico shakes his head frantically, has clamped shut. Before Will knows what’s happened, she’s dived at Nico, and hes scampering back, sprinting around the room as Kayla pursues him, and then Will is chasing too, and Nico is laughing and screaming as Kayla grabs at his limbs wildly. The three of them run around and around the empty cabin until Will has a stroke of genius. Spinning on the spot, he waits until Nico nearly collided with him before tackling him onto the nearest bed.
“Open your mouth!” Will demands from above Nico, “Open your mouth! Open your mouth!”
Slowly, reluctantly, Nico allows a multicoloured tongue to slip out from between his lips.
“You bitch!” Kayla screams, hurling herself at the pair, resulting in a confused tangle of limbs and bodies and sheets as all three of them try to right themselves at once.
“This is-“ Kayla manages between desperate breaths as she tries to wrestle Will’s foot out of her face, “-transphobia.”
Nico cackles, used to these outcries after months of Apollo Cabin ‘family bonding’ nights.
“I mean it this time.” She hisses, and Nico grins at her, weird and wonky and so, so happy.
After a few moments, and then a few more, Will and Kayla and Nico are all mostly detangled, and sit side by side om whoever’s bed they have now completely messed up. Nico takes a toy rabbit that had fallen to the floor amidst the chaos and tilts it side to side, watching the ears flop. “So,” Kayla starts, still gasping for air “Did you say- did you say Texas?”
“You’re over the sweets now, are you?” Nico asks.
“Don’t. Still a sore subject.”
“We’re going to Texas.” Will confirms. “Nico still hasn’t met my mama.”
“Naomi! Oh my Gods, she’ll love you, Nico, shes such a weirdo.”
“Is that a… compliment?”
“When do you leave?”
“‘Few hours.” Nico says, letting her dodge the question. “Will won’t let me shadow travel, so we have to go by train.”
“Argus offered to drive us.”
“I’m not making Argus drive from New York to Texas, Will. He’s a nice guy. And anyways, I like trains.”
“Weren’t you just complaining about me making you take the train?”
“I like trains. I don’t like you.”
“You two are too sweet it makes me sick,” Kayla interjects, before they can start fighting again.
“Are you packed?” Will asks, ignoring his sister.
“Of course I’m packed. What do I even need to bring?”
“So that’s a no then, stupid. Come on, you can’t steal all my underwear.” Will takes Nico’s hand and pulls him to standing. He leads the two of them to the Hades Cabin, chiding Nico for his irresponsibility.