Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

FlashFictionFriday #142 "Bursting the Bubble"

It doesn't sink in until they get back. Not really.

Not until they're back behind the borders that should be safe (not safe, never safe since the Labyrinth and Lee and death, death, death, too much death), their numbers slashed so dramatically he doesn't want to count them (Elias, Joy, Sally, Michael, Robyn). Not until the injured (survivors) are triaged, worst to the infirmary, everyone else to their cabins to rest, and the adrenaline fades away.

Because it's Will, now, they're all looking to. Will, who's only thirteen (Lee was seventeen, Michael was sixteen) but is the most experienced cabin seven camper left (the one who's survived the longest) and their best healer (not good enough to save Lee, no body to heal for Michael). Will, who has the broken remains of what was once the second-largest cabin (not any more, not when half their number didn't come back from Manhattan) to look after, who has no-one to look after him while he holds himself together with hastily applied band-aids that are peeling off almost as fast as he can place them.

He doesn't want to be in charge. He doesn't want to be the one his siblings look to with teared-up eyes and choked-up voices. He doesn't know how his brothers had done it (how Michael had done it; Lee had died first).

But he can't step aside and push the responsibility on others. Can't run away (like he ran away on Williamsburg Bridge and Michael-) so he steps up. Takes on the role, keeps applying band-aids to gaping wounds so no-one else can see he's falling apart, and takes charge. The cabin, the infirmary, both of those are his responsibility now (his brothers had always said the infirmary was his domain but technically it hadn't been, not when he had older brothers to make the decisions when he panicked) and Will stands tall and carries them both (even though his back is screaming with the weight, like it's the sky itself. Maybe it's his sky).

If anyone sees through him, sees the child (the screaming, mourning child who can't stop the tears) rather than the leader, they don't say (of course they don't, no-one wants to see that the one in charge is just as broken as the rest. Will never saw Lee, saw Michael as anything less than in control but they had to be, didn't they? Like Will does now).

No-one except one, an older teenager (Will's only thirteen, or is he fourteen now, he doesn't know what day it is and his birthday's barely after Percy's) with eyes like the sun on a cloudy day and gentle fingers hot to the touch. An older teenager (not a camper and he doesn't let himself think about who they really are because if he does he won't have the strength to keep slapping band-aids on himself over and over and over when they fall) who never quite leaves his vicinity, seventeen or so if Will has to guess an age (the same age as Lee, when he died) and brushes those hot, gentle, hands over his shoulders.

Each touch gives him a fresh burst of energy, driving away the darkness flickering around his vision as he heals, heals, heals (can't stop healing, they're not safe from death yet, he can feel the dark cloud over the infirmary as Thanatos waits for Will to fail again) and gives him the strength to keep going. Just a little bit longer ("you should rest," he's told even as he gets another boost. "I know you won't, you take your duties too seriously for that, but you should").

He doesn't mean to, but he starts relying on those touches, just a little. Keeps pushing because he knows they'll keep him upright while he saves lives (pretends he doesn't see the touches patients get, too, and how they immediately get a little colour in their cheeks again). Keeps going, going, going, until the darkness flickers around his vision again and he automatically seeks the hot touch for more.

It's a shock when it doesn't. How many days has it been? Will doesn't know, but he knows that there's a void where the touch should be (he hadn't meant to start relying on it to keep going, but he wasn't strong enough, wasn't good enough, to bear the weight of everything alone after all), bursting the bubble he hadn't realised he'd wrapped himself in and letting reality crash down on him again.

He wants to run away (he wants his siblings, wants Lee and Michael, wants someone else to take up the weight) but he can't. The darkness catches up with him, no longer held at bay by hot but gentle touches and the warmth of sunshine passing through his body, and he falters.

Then those hands are there again, a little late but not too late and he waits for the darkness to recede once more so he can keep going (he doesn't remember how to stop).

It doesn't.

"It's your turn now," he hears faintly, the words barely reaching him through the darkness. "You've done so well. I'm sorry you had to. I'm proud of you."

He's being carried, he thinks. Warmth surrounds him, but it's the warmth of a sunset, not the warmth of the dawn.

When he wakes, the older teenager's disappeared without a trace. But when he walks out of cabin seven (when did he end up in his own bed?) and looks up at the sun soaring overhead, he doesn't feel the absence at all.

(He wonders if Apollo ever did the same for Michael, after the Labyrinth, after Lee. He's not sure which answer he'd want to hear, so he never asks)

Originally I was gonna do something Tartarus-based for this prompt, but also there is a lack of post-TLO Will&Apollo out there so I decided to add to that pile instead.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari