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Nico had made a mistake, a very big, mildly dangerous, mistake. He had insisted to Will about fifty times over that he was fine, that he could play Capture the Flag, that his legs weren't going to give out on him like they had been doing earlier in the week because he was fine.
I bet you can guess what happened to him. So now here he is; sat propped up against the tree hidden in the forest hoping no one would come and try and capture him because he didn't think he could stand. He had promised to Will his knees weren't that bad, they had been they were they'd only gotten worse turns out running when you have fucked up knees doesn't help them being fucked up.
“Hey Nico, why are you on the floor? Wait, shit! You're not on my team” Lou Ellen Glanced around checking no one saw her making friends with the ‘Enemy’ team “eh.. fuck it no one's over here why are you on the floor?” she asked, tilting her head at him.
“If I tell you you can't tell Will,” Nico said, trying to sit up straighter and be somewhat convincing. She simply raised an eyebrow at him and gave a look that screamed ‘I'm absolutely telling Will now, specifically because you just told me not to’.
“Your knees gave out even though you promised him like five times over they wouldn't?”
“Please don't tell him,” he begged.
“I kind of have to, he is the main medical professional at camp Nico.”
“Gods dammit, that gets more and more inconvenient every day,” Nico grumbled though he didn't actually mean it; he loved Will, he loved that Will cared about him so much but it did get inconvenient when he wanted to do things and his over-concerned boyfriend to panicked at the thought of him potentially accidentally hurting himself.
“I don't think it would be anywhere near as inconvenient if you actually just listened to him when he told you ‘hey don't do this thing I'm a doctor’.” Lou Ellen argued sitting next to him her attempts to ‘not fraternize with the enemy team’, or whatever this would be considered, completely going out the window in favor of annoying her friend.
“But then he gets all protective and it's annoying,” he whined dramatically.
“Nico your knees gave out in the middle of Capture the Flag, the game where the Only Rule is ‘no maiming’ and people half the time don't even listen to that rule, I feel like maybe he has a reason for being protective.” Lou Ellen nudged her shoulder against his.
“Yeah yeah I know I know” he sighed, nudging her back. “Can you help me back to the infirmary? I don't think I can walk on my own and I do not want to be out here by myself, I mean I doubt anyone would find me but..” he trailed off.
“But the Ares cabin is insane?” Lou Ellen filled in the rest of the sentence; most of the cabins were incredibly competitive about Capture the Flag, that was part of the whole point of the game, but the cabin five kids and the cabin seventeen kids were a particular breed of insane and competitive about Capture the Flag. Of course it made sense given their parents were the God of War and the goddess of Victory respectively but it still made it a bit intense, especially if they were on the same team, which they weren't in this game, thank the gods.
“But Cabin five is fucking insane, yep, and so are the Cabin seventeen kids. Wait, is it even allowed for you to help me back to the Infirmary since we're like on opposite teams?”
“If only one of us or neither of us have our helmets on then yes it is allowed, because that means ‘time out and I’m injured’ And people do respect that if only because Will would only his wrath upon them if they didn't.”
“Really? I don't remember that being a rule.” Nico furrowed his brow.
“Yeah someone got their leg or something broken, just from like falling, and so we kinda had to make new rules or Will had to make new rules around like ‘hey maybe we don't keep attacking people after they have broken bones’.”
“Yeah that, that seems like a good rule” Nico nodded, “Wait who broke their leg?”
“Yeah, wait it wasn't a leg, it was an arm! And it was Cecil, I watched him fall into a rock and then he kind of had to keep playing and hope his arm didn't get too messed up, he was fine, obviously; we just saw him at lunch, he’s still a little wary about playing Capture the Flag against the Cabin five kids though.. and then I witnessed Will having to be like ‘okay let's not do that in the future’ after that Capture the Flag game because he didn't want to deal with it.”
Nico laughs mainly from horror and shock at that whole situation but also now very very glad Will had banned that from being allowed to happen in the future, goodness knows how many injuries were made worse than they needed to be because some poor camper felt they couldn't leave Capture the Flag to get medical care.
“So can I help you now?” Lou Ellen asks, standing up and offering Nico her hand.
“Yes please,” he agreed, happily taking it and leaning against her as he took off his helmet and tossed it against the tree he had been sitting against, not particularly caring what happened to it.
“Do you know what's wrong with your knees? Is that rude? Can I ask that?” Lou Ellen asked, tossing her own helmet next to his.
“Apparently I'm hypermobile and then I think Will was going to tell me more information after he told me that but someone had an arrow in their shoulder so he kind of couldn't”
“Yeah I feel like that would kind of interrupt a conversation, Wait your hyper mobile?”
“Yeah” He nodded as they headed back towards camp.
“Maybe you have Ehlers-Danlos.”
“Ellen who now?”
“It's a connective tissue thing”
“As in like my skin?”
“No, well, actually yes, connective tissue is like every part of your body.”
“How do you know that? Do you have it?” Nico didn't want to assume but she never had seemed to have the same limitations and joint problems he had, though there was no way for him to know for sure without asking.
“Uh my sister has it, well my she's my half sister technically but she has it, and she's not sure which parent gave it to her so she went ‘hey if you ever start feeling these symptoms tell me and I can help you’ ‘cause she had to fight tooth and nail to get herself diagnosed, even with our parents vouching for her, er- my mom and stepdad vouching for her.”
“You have a sister?”
“Yeah! She's older than me and mortal though.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah, Hecate is a maiden goddess and I mean my mom at least was a Hellenistic pagan before I was.. conceived? if that's the right word for it but yeah, so probably not a traditional conception method.”
“So like Annabeth’s.. Being made but because of magic?”
“Yeah kinda, I guess? I promise you it's just easier if you don't ask questions, I’m perfectly content not knowing if I was created the normal way or through some weird magic stuff like Annabeth, I don't need to know the details and I really really don’t want to.”
“Yeahhh that's fair.”
The two finally got out of the more isolated parts of the , since both had removed their helmets they were not viewed as targets but more as obstacles to be moved around by their fellow campers. Which meant less being charged and more being dashed around or, in a few occasions, being stumbled into by younger campers.
It was pure chaos incarnate, so a typical Capture the Flag game at Camp.
They mainly stayed to the sides of the main paths, quickly crossing across paths only when needed, to avoid accidentally being trampled by overzealous campers who were eager to fulfill whatever missions their team leaders had assigned them.
Slowly but surely they made their way back to camp, Nico debated asking Lou Ellen just to take him to Hades cabin and maybe grab him some ambrosia from anywhere but the Infirmary, “You know-” He started but was quickly cut off.
“I'm not taking you just to your Cabin,” She interrupted him, not even letting him get the words out before denying his request. Part of him debated arguing that that wasn't what he was about to say but it totally was and he didn't want to lie, especially because he didn't have a lie prepared and coming up with one on the spot seemed like too much effort.
“It would be easier?” he tried to argue but it sounded weak even to his own ears.
“You need to go to the doctor.”
“But do I really?”
“You really need to go to the doctor and the fact that the doctor is also your boyfriend who's going to lovingly yell at you does not change the fact that you need to go to the doctor.”
Nico scrunched up his face at her but didn't argue any further, she was right and he knew that but dear Gods he did not want to deal with an angry Will right now, well Will was more likely to be concerned than angry but honestly that was kind of worse. Nico hated making the other boy concerned over him even if that concern did make his stomach flutter sometimes, he liked being cared over by his boyfriend sue him.
They made it to the Infirmary and Nico could see Will inside hunched over some paperwork, probably an incident and injury log; he tended to use Capture the Flag as time to fill out those for all of the injuries before Capture the Flag as usually the infirmary got filled to the brim and then some afterwards.
The rules were ‘no maiming’, not ‘no injuring’ and also when you set off a bunch of mildly crazy children into the woods someone's more than likely going to end up getting hurt over tripping over some branch or tree root or rock or falling off a cliff, though that last one only happens two or three times a month which was pretty good considering Capture the Flag was every week.
Lou Ellen helped him to the infirmary door and knocked on the door frame as Will had left it open most likely knowing that someone would get hurt mid game and need to be brought to him.
“Yeah? Who’s hurt and what’s the injury?” he didn't look up from the incident log to even glance at who was at the door. Lou Ellen looked at Nico expectedly.
“Why do I have to tell him?” Nico whispered.
“You're the one who's hurt!” she whispered back, she was right of course but he really really did not want to tell Will that all his insistence that he would be fine to play Capture the Flag turned out to be untrue.
“I didn't hear any thumps so I'm assuming whoever is in the doorway is still conscious so why aren't you-” he turned to look at the door “Nico?”
Nico turned to look at him, truly looking like a deer in headlights “Hey” he managed in a shaky voice and with a forced smile.
“Nico, what happened?” Will asked, looking between Nico and Lou Ellen; trying to figure out what had happened and very clearly not liking what he was deducing from the situation before him.
“So remember how I told you my legs were doing better..” Nico trailed off, he didn't want to finish the sentence, he didn't lie; he had been doing better, they just hadn't stayed doing better.
Will sighed “Help him to one of the beds, Lou.” Will ordered, popping his back and finishing the last few notes on the incident report he had been working on.
“You got it, Doctor Solace.”
“In my defense” Nico started pausing for a moment at the look Will gave him “they genuinely were doing better and then.. and then they weren't and I was in the middle of the forest and I couldn't really do anything about it because you got really upset with me for pushing myself with Shadow traveling yesterday so I assumed that would not help this,” He just gestured at his knees, now sitting on the bed legs sprawled out before him thanks to Lou Ellen’s help.
“No it wouldn't, it wouldn't, it would not, it would not, it would not help, it-it would not help any of it no, it wouldn't help.” Will stammered out his words pacing
“Wow too mad for complex sentences,” Lou Ellen mumbled, now sitting on the chair next to the bed Nico was propped up in.
“I'm not mad I'm just-” Nico cut him off “please don't say disappointed.”
“I'm concerned, upset, maybe yes, a little disappointed even, mainly concerned and confused because I don't actually know how to fix whatever the problem is because of your knee is just giving out and that's the kind of Ambrosia because that's not really an injury, I mean it can cause physical injury, wait did you- are you- injury?”
“Not as far as I can tell, do you want me to just sit on bed for a little bit?” Nico asked, Will nodded; his breathes very shaky. “Sunshine, remember how to breathe properly,” Nico gently encouraged.
“That would be great, that would be great ‘cause I mean I'm- I'm- I'm- I'm- yep that's.. yeah yep, That's my- that's- that's my- that would- that's my- that's- yep” will buried his face in his hands and took a few deep breaths. “No physical injuries?” Will asked, peaking through his fingers at Nico.
“Nope, I have not gained any that I'm aware of and there is not enough adrenaline to distract me from pain going through my body as far as I can tell right now.”
“So you would be aware of any?”
“I would hope so.”
“Okay.” Will puffed his cheeks up like a chipmunk and exhaled heavily “Any injuries from Capture the Flag?”
“No, I mostly stayed to the sidelines.. uh my job was to be sneaky and just kind of pop up, without using shadowtravel, and grab the flag>
“Okay, okay so you're- you're okay, okay” Will nodded, calming down then turned to Lou Ellen, “do you have any injuries Lou?”
“No more than some scrapes.” She shrugged.
“Okay, great, okay, okay, and I should not be needed out there for any reason?” The question seemed to be directed at both of them but Nico turned his attention towards Lou Ellen as she was the one who had been around people most recently and likely knew whether or not any incidents had occurred.
“No one fell off any cliffs, yet, as far as I'm aware” she said like it was the most normal everyday thing to be said about a Capture the Flag game, which in their case it was but sometimes the absurdity of Camp Half-Blood made Nico want to laugh a little bit.
“Okay great, so we should be good.” he paused for a moment and pinched the bridge of his nose “shit like this is why I don't tell my mom about Capture the Flag.”
“Actually I have a question about something Lou told me about.” Nico glanced at Lou Ellen for support and she nodded.
“Yeah? Related to medical or-or just in general?” Will asked, sounding a bit nervous again.
“Medical, medical related,” Nico specified, reaching out to rub Will's arm soothingly.
“Okay yeah, I mean either way you could have just asked but just trying to..” Will gestured vaguely, trying to fit ‘just trying to prepare’, ‘just trying to make sure I don't panic an inappropriate amount’ and ‘just trying to rationalize before I just to the worst options’ in one wave of his hand.
“It's not bad, I should not be dying.” Nico got what he was trying to say.
Will laugh shakily, “I fucking hope not.”
“But she mentioned something called Ellen del- el eller den- elohs-” He stumbled over the word. His dyslexia wasn't that bad but occasionally it did completely screw him when it came to pronouncing the word, he could visualize it in his head but that didn't mean it would come out of his mouth properly, and right now just happened to be one of those times because of course it was.
“Ehlers-danlos Syndrome,” Lou helpfully supplied, Nico nodded and pointed at her as if to say ‘yes that’.
“Did I not tell you you probably have that?” Will asked.
“You said I'm hypermobile and then I told her that and she went ‘you might have Elo- Ehler- that’ and I went ‘Will might have tried to tell me that’ but then you know there was that kid with the Arrow in his shoulder so.”
“Oh yeah, I guess John did interrupt us, but yeah you probably have it.” Will nodded and leaned down to kiss the top of Nico's head.
“Ewwwww!” Lou whined like a little kid who just saw her parents kiss, which got a laugh out of both boys.
The three just stayed in the calm infirmary until Capture the Flag ended; Will and Lou using the time to body-double and get incident and injury log for the infirmary done and use Nico to help with flash cards of Latin words in an attempt to learn the language of the other camp, respectively.
Nico was happy to test Lou on her knowledge of Latin words and watch his boyfriend note down all the day's incidents so far.