June 23 04:23
Will opened his eyes, not knowing where he was. He began to look around and see he was in a cabin. But whose? He sat on the bed a moment more, letting his eyes become a little more accustomed to the darkness.
He eventually realized he was in Nico's cabin. It didn't look much like he expected it to. Instead of grunge decor, it had only a few parchment flower prints. It was incredibly organized, everything had a space and everything was in it. Minimalistic, some might call it.
He looked to the side and saw him. His pale skin, so soft, so supple. His black, curly hair laying messily atop his head, covering his eyes. Most people preferred blue or green eyes. But Will always found something so beautiful, so magical about brown eyes. And Nico had the most beautiful brown eyes. They were a deep brown, almost black. But in the light, they were almost a golden honey colour. Nico's eyes we're just like him. Most people chose to ignore the beauty, yet to Will it was undeniable just how sublime he was.
Will leaned over to Nico and kissed his cheek. Nico's delicate skin was so soft on Will's lips, it was just perfect. He then stood up, taking care to make as little noise as possible. He slipped his shoes on and out the door. Will made sure that he closed the door as carefully as he could. Into the cool night he was.
The air was slightly humid, as it usually was in the sound. The humidity was nice, it was refreshing. However, it did make the cool air much colder. Will pulled the sleeves of his hoodie down to the tips of his fingers and put the hood up. It was that cold where you weren't quite shivering, but it was pretty close.
Will walked across the damp lawn, his toes slowly becoming wet. He was walking into the forest, to see the tree.
When Will was a kid, his mom hated when he climbed trees. At least when she was sober, she cared. She was afraid he was going to fall and hurt himself, which was a very fair prediction. And he did fall. Quite a few times. He broke his arm once when he fell.
Though he was never allowed to when his mom was around, he would sneak into the forest behind their house and climb trees to his heart's content. Nothing could stop the boy, not even the sweltering heat of the summers in Austin. His absolute dream would have been to have had a treehouse as a kid. Just like the kids in the magic treehouse, where they had magical adventures every day.
Sadly though his dreams were never fruitful. And although he begged and begged his mother, she always said no.
Eventually though, Will began to blame some of his visible injuries on his hobby of climbing trees. This was a terrible excuse, no one got hand shaped bruises from falling ten feet from a tree. People's necks didn't become bruised and swollen all around from a tree branch. Yet people believed him. Perhaps they just didn't care. But people often just chose to believe what they wanted to believe. That Will was happy, that sweet Naomi couldn't hurt a fly.
He was there, just a few feet away. The largest tree in the forest, an oak. Will loved oak trees, they had such strong branches and they were so tall. Oak trees were perfect for climbing.
In the south, they grew up to 150 feet wide and sixty to a hundred feet tall. The oak tree was the one positive memory of his childhood, the only thing he could usually bare to think about.
He pulled his sleeves up to his elbows and began to climb. He didn't even need to think, he just knew exactly where to put his feet and hands. The tree was around eighty feet tall, a decent way from the ground but not as far as he could be.
The toilet paper had stuck to his scabs, causing them to tear off as he climbed. Will winced in pain but continued nonetheless.
Eventually, he reached his destination. The trunk of the tree split into two distinct, main branches. He sat in the middle of the two, eastward facing. A branch had withered and died, giving Will a perfect view of the horizon.
He leaned against the tree branch, resting and trying to control his breathing. He wasn't holding onto anything, nor was he anchoring his feet. If he fell, he fell. He would die and either way it would be fine.
The sky began to change colours. It changed from a deep, haunting blue to a vivid orange. It stayed orange, but not only at the horizon, further into the sky as the sky above him began to ignite with pink and orange hues.
Sunrises and sunsets were two of the most beautiful events in nature to Will. It took roughly fifteen minutes for the sun to fully transition from darkness to full sun. He sat and watched for another moment, admiring the sun in it's beauty and resenting it in every way all at once. If one thing in life was constant, truly constant, it was the sun.
When he started to be too cold, he began to climb down from the tree. His cuts didn't hurt that much on the way down but, his hands became raw as he was forced to support his weight against gravity in his emaciated state.
His feet finally hit the ground and he began the walk back to the infirmary, knowing that he would be in mega shit if he was found to be missing at that hour.
He began to shiver, from his toes to the top of his head. That had been happening to him a lot in the past few months. He was always cold. He was always shaky. He was always sick. But worst of all, he had no one to blame but himself.
Will was at the window of his room in the infirmary, he climbed in, making sure that he was absolutely silent. He went directly to the bathroom, getting undressed to have a shower.
Will leaned over the sink and took a look at himself in the mirror. The boy looked awful, his eyes almost sunken and there were large purple bags under them. His chest was also sunken, giving him a concave stomach. He had gained weight on TPN, as was it's primary mechanism. But he had lost it soon after. His shoulder blades jutted out and his hip bones did too. It seemed that every day Will was losing more weight.
He climbed into the shower, just standing under the warm stream of water. He was relaxed but uneasy all at the same time.
Will used the generic shower gel from the dispenser on the wall to scrub the blood and dirt off of his skin. He used the same generic shampoo to wash his golden locks. And he then just stood there for many more moments, letting the water wash over him.
The boy eventually stepped out of the shower and began to dry himself with a towel. He then redressed in his clothes and stepped out of the bathroom. He put his wet towel into the laundry bin as he walked past it.
Will peered at the clock on the night table at the side of the bed, it read 6:45. He had nothing better to do, so he sat down on the bed and stared out the window.
He was in his own world, right there but a billion miles away at the same time.
Will was just so distracted that he didn't even hear Kayla come into the room. She didn't mean to sneak up on him, she made herself known just as she stepped in. But, apparently that was not enough.
June 23 6:48
She sat on the bed beside him and placed her hand on his arm. Will jumped up at the speed of light, he moved so fast that he bumped directly into the table behind him and knocked himself to the ground.
He was breathing quickly, his eyes darting in all directions.
Kayla knelt down quickly, so she was level with him.
"Will, it's just me," she said reaching for his hands.
He pushed her away and began to scream.
"GET AWAY FROM ME YOU MONSTER!" he screamed, thrashing around.
"Will please I need you to calm down," Kayla started to say calmly.
"I can't, nothing is," his breath hitched, "nothing will ever be okay!"
Kayla was helpless but thankfully, Austin came in at that exact moment.
"GO AWAY!" Will screeched as he cowered and cradled his head between his hands.
Kayla turned her head and looked at Austin.
"Get it," she said defeatedly.
"Will," she said trying to take his hand.
"NO DON'T TOUCH ME!"
Just a second later, Austin came in with the loaded syringe and cannula.
"You'll have to hold him," Kayla said to Austin.
He kneeled down beside her and reached for Will's leg.
"GET OFF OF ME!" Will was kicking desperately.
Though it wasn't ideal that they were going through his pants, it was alright. Kayla tried her best to line up an ideal site on his thigh, avoiding the pant seam. She stabbed the needle into his thigh and pushed in the midazolam.
"STOP IT WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
It wasn't ideal that the delivery was IM, but there was no way in hell that they would be able to get an IV in him. So this was the best they could do.
Will screamed, and he screamed. He cried, pulling his hair out and scratching his hands. He was rocking so violently against the wall that he was making, it seemed, the whole room shake.
The longest ten minutes of their lives later, he became motionless, limp.
Austin and Kayla lifted him onto the bed. Kayla then instructed Austin not to leave until she got back. She then left to do one of the hardest things she'd ever have to do.
Walking down the hallway to Chiron's office room, her tears began to flow. Her face was hot, her tears warm too as they began to fall from her eyes and down her cheeks. Kayla took a moment to lean against the wall and calm herself before she continued. Kayla wiped her face and took a deep breath as she knocked on the door.
"Come in," Chiron said.
She opened the door and stepped in. Chiron was sitting behind his desk, his glasses at his nose as he read a newspaper. He looked up and pulled his glasses off.
"What can I help you with Kayla?"
"Will's back," she took a breath, "and he's all out of sorts."
"Sit, child," he said, motioning to the chair across from him.
She took a breath and sat in the velvet chair. She crossed her arms and began to speak.
"In the past few months," her voice shook, "Will's been really depressed. And I didn't think it was very serious at first. But he's been having anxiety attacks and episodes of dissociation. He's been cutting. And-I-I don't know what to do, because I can't help him."
Kayla's tears began to fall into her lap, she took a shaky breath and continued.
"He just had an episode in the infirmary and Austin and I had to sedate him."
She wasn't just crying now, she was sobbing.
"I'm sorry I didn't say anything, I was afraid he would stop coming to me if he knew I had talked to you. I just-I-d-didn't know what to do."
Chiron came to the other side of the desk and sat beside her. He took her hands in his.
"Kayla, you've done the right thing, that's all that matters."
She looked up to him and nodded.
"I'll make some calls and see what we can do. Is he stable?"
She nodded.
"Yeah, we're gonna monitor him and get an IV for some saline and probably some sedation."
"Okay, well thank you for being so mature Kayla," Chiron said, giving her a small smile."
She stood up and wiped her hands on her pants, a nervous habit she often did.
"Thank you Chiron," she said, daring to make eye contact with him.
"Of course my child," he said as he opened the door for her.
She stepped out and walked back down the hallway, heading to the white double door to the infirmary. She walked through the rest of the ward and into the private bay in the back of the ward.
Austin was sitting on the chair beside the bed, staring blankly, apathetic towards Will's comatose body. He was obviously in shock, just as Kayla was. She stepped over to him and placed her hand gently on his shoulder, rousing him from his gaze.
"Austin are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," he said looking at her with a small smile.
"I'll need you to take over elsewhere for the next couple hours," Kayla said, rubbing his back gently in small circles.
"Okay," he said as he stood up, "are you sure you're okay?"
She nodded. Kayla couldn't respond, she knew that the only answer she could utter was a lie, so it didn't matter anyways.
"I'll be right outside should you need me," Austin said as he walked out the door.
"Hmm," she said and turned to Will.
"What am I going to do with you?" she sighed.
Kayla began to gather her supplies, a five lead, her trauma shears, an IV kit, a giving set and some saline. She pulled an antibacterial wipe from the cupboard and wiped the tray down. She layed out all of her supplies.
She stepped over to Will and cut off his shirt and hoodie. That's when she saw them.
His cuts. He had them on his sides from his armpits to his waist. She wanted to cry, but she couldn't, she didn't have the time.
Kayla placed the five lead on his chest and plugged them into the cardiac monitor. She took his finger and put the oxygen node on it, plugging it in too. She finally put the blood pressure cuff on him, taking a reading.
Kayla couldn't deny it, she was absolutely distraught. It seemed that every day that Will was just getting worse and worse. She couldn't do anything and for the first time in her life, she was useless, utterly useless.
She used some betadine and began to disinfect and dress his cuts. She then moved slightly further down, and pulled his pants down, taking care to leave his underwear in place.
Most people would scream at the thought of undressing their siblings, but Kayla had seen so many injuries, so many cases of trauma, that a body was just a body now, no matter whose it was. She had learned to be comfortable with seeing too much of so many people, and she never let it affect her relationships.
To her surprise, or rather to her dismay, she saw more cuts, tenfold all down his thighs.
"William, why do you do this to yourself," she said.
He uttered no response and she didn't quite know why she had almost expected one. It was a logical fallacy, a failure of humanity, that a boy with the gift of Apollo, such a gifted boy, couldn't take care of himself, that he hurt himself.
She cleaned and dressed them, knowing that he never would. She looked at his stomach, seeing a thick purple scar from just under his ribs to his pantline. He would have it forever, he would always have a reminder of how she had failed him, how society had.
She grabbed a paper gown and put it on him, pulling his arms through the holes, and tucking it under him.
Kayla prepped his skin and started an IV in his hand, and she then spiked the bag of saline, loaded the set into the pump, primed the line and set the rate. After she hooked up his IV, she wrapped the tubing through the webbing of his thumb and down his wrist and then secured it all with the gauze.
Will, being underweight, didn't need the added challenge of keeping his body warm with IV fluids running so she made sure that the tubing ran along enough skin to keep it warm.
She grabbed another blanket and put it over him, though it was unbelievably thin.
Kayla grabbed all the garbage and threw it out, then she grabbed Will's shirt and hoodie and threw that out too. She carefully folded his pants and put them on the counter.
Then, she did something she hadn't in many years. She kneeled by his side and placed one of her hands between hers.
"Dad, it's me, Kayla," she began shakily, "I don't know if you can hear me, and I don't know if you care. But we don't know what to do. Please, please help us. Help Will, he needs you. He acts like he doesn't need anyone, but he needs you, he needs you so badly."
She stood up and left the room. She walked, absentmindedly, towards the dining pavilion. She sat at the table with her siblings, though there weren't many of them, since it was almost 7:45 now, much later than breakfast. Kayla ate her bagel and tea calmly, her mind racing.
When she was done, she stood up and walked to her cabin, which was thankfully completely empty. Kayla didn't know if she would be able to emotionally handle having to talk to someone. She walked past her own bunk and to Will's the one one away from her. She grabbed his blanket, a fluffy turquoise and white checkered one. He had had that blanket ever since he came to camp, and he slept with it every night.
She pulled it into her arms and sat on his bed, taking in the scent of the blanket. It smelled like Will, like soap and calm. It was a hard smell to describe but it was his smell.
She held it to her face for a minute longer before grabbing her book and walking down the narrow aisle through the cabin, the wooden boards creaking under her. She shut the door behind her and made her way back to the infirmary. She walked through the ward and to Will's room.
Carefully closing the door behind her, she stepped beside him and covered him in the blanket, trying her best to make him comfortable. Once she did, she stepped over to the other side of the bed and sat in the chair. Kayla couldn't lie, the chairs sucked, they were terribly uncomfortable and they just sucked in general. She tried her best to make herself comfortable and started to read her book by the light of the window behind her.
June 23 5:49
Nico opened his eyes and shut off his alarm, cursing himself for having agreed to run with Percy that early. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, then turned on his lamp, illuminating the room. And then he realized.
Nico whipped around and looked at the bed beside him. But there was no one there. He could have sworn there had been someone. He pushed the thought out of his mind and stood to make his bed, he then pulled on his shorts, a t-shirt and some socks, walking over to the door, he finger combed his hair and finally pulled his shoes on.
The boy grabbed a hoodie and headed out into the cold morning. It was always cold just after dawn but not for much longer. He jogged lightly across the field and into the forest. Nico found himself at Thalia's tree and waited for Percy. As he waited, he peered at the trees above him and how the light was prying its way through the branches. Nico loved to stare at the sky, how quickly and violently it could change yet how similar it was day after day. The sky filled the world with something it didn't even know it was missing.
Soon enough, Percy joined Nico and they set off on their run. They started with a quarter mile warmup and then three quarter mile heats with a quarter mile recovery after each. Percy, having a watch with a pedometer, was the one who kept track of the time and distance. To Nico, some of the miles felt much longer than others and he had a distinct feeling why.
Though the cool morning air was mostly wicking his sweat, there was still sweat dripping into both boy's eyes and down their faces.
Roughly half way through the run, Nico began to really feel it. "It" being the endorphin rush or what people usually call the runners high. For Nico, the high hit really hard, it made him feel like he could run forever, he could barely feel his feet other than their impact and his breathing was deep and controlled.
Percy, being an athlete, was never out of breath. His strides were impeccably even and he always kept perfect pace, even on inclines and declines. Nico really wanted to achieve this level of fitness, though he wasn't quite there.
By the sixth heat, Nico was basically panting. He knew that he could finish the last mile and a half yet, his muscles were begging for more and more oxygen. As his feet continued to rhythmically pound against the ground, he kept focusing on the number in his head. In the past few weeks that he had been running with Percy, he always found it particularly helpful to count up or down from numbers in his head. The numbers didn't mean anything of course, they just helped him mentally focus on something other than his burning chest.
The last quarter mile of the heat was always undeniably the hardest, Nico's legs wanted to crumble under him, yet he somehow kept his momentum and finished the three quarter mile.
The pair eventually made their way back to Thalia's tree and were able to stop running. Nico was really proud of himself, though the run hadn't been easy, it was certainly easier.
"Nice job dude," Percy said as he slapped his back in a very dude-bro way.
"Thank you, Perce," Nico said, still out of breath.
"Get yourself cleaned up and I'll see you at breakfast," Percy said as he began to walk back towards his cabin.
Nico followed behind him by about five meters, clearly much more tired than Percy. When Nico did finally manage to drag himself all the way to his cabin, he peeled off his clothes and stepped into the shower.
The cold water felt so nice on his skin, giving it goose bumps and making him shiver, but internally, he still needed to be colder.
Nico went through his normal shower routine, shivering and his breath catching in his throat. When he was done, he stepped out to comb his hair, brush his teeth and wash his face. The greatest thing about taking a cold shower as opposed to a hot one was that the mirror never fogged up.
Stepping out of the humid bathroom, Nico pulled on a pair of light wash jeans, and a striped sweater. It wasn't particularly cold that day, but Nico knew he would be cold after his shower so he figured he would be better safe than sorry.
Nico slipped on his vans and turned the knob of the wooden door. He then stepped out into the blazing sunlight.
June 23 00:13
Percy and Nico had had a really good day, a long one but a good one. They went canoeing, which did not end with them stuck in the marsh this time, both to their great enjoyment. At dinner, Nico sat with the Hephaestus cabin and helped them design a blimp. A blimp for what he was unsure but the concept piqued his interest nonetheless.
Nico was ready for bed and was just about to turn off the lamp when he heard a gentle knock at the door.
Nico stood, his bare feet on the cold, dusty floor. He was having déjà-vu, major déjà-vu. The boy could have sworn that this exact scenario had happened not too long before.
He turned the knob and opened the heavy wooden door to...Kayla?
"Hey Nico," she said, obviously exhausted.
"Hey Kayla," he swallowed nervously, "what's up?"
"He's asking for you," she said, rubbing her eyes.
"He...who?"
"Will."
Nico didn't need a second invitation, he pulled his shoes on and stepped into the night with Kayla. She led him across the field by flashlight, bugs flying everywhere in the moist air.
The pair stepped up the wooden steps and through the rustic door. Inside the big house was always slightly warmer when it was cold and slightly cooler when it was hot. And though the house never really seemed to have a modern heating or cooling system, it always held these qualities.
As Kayla led him through the infirmary, Nico's vans scuffed gently along the linoleum floors. She knocked and pushed open the door to the private room, motioning for Nico to enter. When he did, he almost couldn't believe what he saw.