A/N: This chapter is by nicostolemybones on Tumblr and Ao3, reposted with their permission!
Nico couldn't sleep. He'd tried- and by tried, he meant closed his eyes for two hours, but his thoughts wouldn't stop racing. It was finally hitting him what a diagnosis of a chronic pain condition would truly mean. It meant pain wasn't temporary. It meant he wouldn't recover. It meant he was disabled. And that wasn't a bad thing, or a new thing- but it changed how he viewed his capabilities. He'd always had aches and pains in general, from fatigue and malnourishment he was sure, chronic nausea too. He knew he'd need more tests to determine the exact condition- there was a fair amount of damage to his limbs from the various injuries, nerve damage that flared up, and aches from the constant fatigue made worse by the damp, but his back had started to really hurt more over time, especially in the mornings. It was a deep, dull ache. His back and hips and shoulders ached and his dumb eyes were prone to inflammation and light sensitivity and blurred vision and his posture was terrible but honestly some days his pain stopped him getting out of bed of a morning.
He reached across his bed for the notes Will had made, skimming them. There were vague notes about watching out for fusing vertebrae and fractures and curvature and further breathing issues and future heart issues- something to do with the aorta and a risk of the valve- something going wrong with it, and that Arthur thing old people get in their joints (arthritis) and some other thing Nico wasn't even going to pretend to understand. Will's writing was terrible, and Nico was confused about ankles and spores written on the page (it did not, in fact, say anything about ankles ankles and spores, just that Will predicted it may have been ankylosing spondylitis, but he'd to run way more tests because onset was usually early adulthood and he couldn't rule out other conditions yet).
Nico put the notes away- he could barely understand them, and honestly, he didn't really want to. Especially because he'd barely been here a few days and Will couldn't accurately diagnose something that fast. He rolled onto his side, although rolling onto werewolf scratches was apparently horrendously painful, so he rolled back onto his back with a huff, gave up, and sat up in bed. Insomnia was here to stay and Nico craved death.
He reached for his water, ecstatic to find a small collection of pills- he didn't bother checking what they were- he just hoped they took the pain away. He stared at the wall, contemplating his life from now on. Maybe he'd have access to mobility aids that would help him get around easier, but also he might have to cut down on his training. He didn't know what to think. The idea of finally having answers appealed to him greatly, but he wasn't sure if he was going to get the answers he truly wanted. That wasn't anybody's fault, though. He decided not to dwell on it until he knew more.
Given the fact he'd be awake a while, he decided to make his way to the bathroom to take a long shower- and he realised he didn't even remember the last time he had showered, or really even stripped his clothes off completely for more than a few seconds. The water was so warm on his body, yet the patter of water was an intrusive sensation he wasn't used to. He was used to sink washes and river washes and bucket washes by now.
His skin was grey. Grey with patches of clean skin where he'd scratched, but otherwise otherwise a flaky grey brown tinge masked the olive skin beneath. He knew his hair was badly matted, and regretted that he'd most likely have to cut it out, both out of shame and pain prevention. He remembered the time when he was a little younger and his hair hadn't been brushed for a while, and it took five hours and a lot of crying to get his hair smooth again.
Nico was shaking. The dirt was so ingrained in his skin that this was his third time soaping himself up, flannel white with dead flakes of skin, trying to make his skin as clear as possible, although he was beginning to suspect that some of the mottled grayish tone over his olive brown skin was more to do with poor health. He'd been in the shower for so long his legs were aching and he was shaking despite the aid of a shower chair, and as Nico cupped his hip joint in his hand, he let out a shaky sob at the realisation that he'd lost weight. He felt fragile, weak, scared- because this wasn't healthy, he wasn't healthy, and he'd been so caught up in the trauma of war that he hadn't noticed the toll it was taking on his body.
He wanted to be healthy. He wanted his skin to return its usual healthy rich tan, he wanted the dull shade of pallor to fade. He looked like a ghost, or like a fresh corpse, drained of colour like there was no blood beneath the darker melanin of his skin. He was paler than he had been as a bouncy kid, sick.
As soon as he was clean enough he exited the shower, looking in the mirror whilst he leaned against the sink to catch his breath. His eyes were sunken, the delicate flesh below looking almost bruised in its grey/purple discolouration, and he looked… normal.
It surprised him.
Because he was so sure his distress was obvious, but he could only really see it in the dull pleading expression he wore in his eyes, the rest of his face neutral, maybe angry at best. He experimented with a pained expression, one so deeply ingrained into muscle memory that it almost felt more natural than resting, and almost cried when he saw he looked angry- or at least, what people told him angry was supposed to look like. He slowly closed his eyes, taking a shaky breath before towelling himself off and picking up his clothes.
His clothes… now they were off his body and his sinuses were full of steam and the pleasant aroma of carbolic soap, he was finally able to detect that his clothes smelled like sour milk at best. The pits of his shirt were stained and particularly pungent, and Nico felt so ashamed that he hadn't noticed. The shirt was stained with various foods, months old, and there were small holes everywhere, like it was mothbitten or badly worn. His jeans smelled like eyeball dissections, a weird smell that whilst not exactly intense certainly wasn't pleasant by normal standards, a slight smell of rotting fresh too- and Nico supposed his skin had been flaking and rotting, confirmed by the inside of his jeans, which was coated liberally in dead skin cells that seemed stubborn to shift despite the copious amounts that fell to the floor. The denim was shiny and worn in some parts, and he decided not to give any more thought to the state of his jeans after thinking about all the lack of sanitation and choice that came with tartarus and the jar.
Nico never wanted his clothes to be discovered. He never wanted anybody to see the state they were in, the stains he didn't want to think about, or the smell of bad hygiene. He scrubbed them furiously in the sink, but he never wanted to wear them again, too small and too worn and too tight and too dirty and too traumatic- he'd endured so much trauma whilst in these clothes. He threw them in the bin, pulling off as much tissue as possible to shove over the top of his clothes in the bin, hoping the weight of them wouldn't raise suspicion.
And then it dawned on him that almost everything he owned was now in the bin so he scrambled to fetch them back out and scrub them until his skin was irritated, but he could swear that he could still smell every unpleasant stain and every unpleasant sweat patch and every unpleasant smell from the garbage. He hadn't realised that the blur to his vision was significantly worse, hindered and impaired and impeded by the hot rush of tears and panic as he pulled on his wet clothes.
He eventually sat back in the bed, cold and wet and hair still matted, his curls damaged and matting worse after months of no care and Nico using the wrong soap. He was shivering violently, but the cold felt almost comforting, a chilled relief he never had in Tartarus. It granted him some relief from the encompassing heat spreading through his body at patchy memories of Tartarus, but he had so much racing through his heads that it wasn't even a prominent thought or a flashback.
The cold soon became insidious, like the cold of the shadows, the dark, the sensation of fading, numb, intangible. His focus still didn't pick just one thought, but now he was hyperaware of them- from the burning throat from the waters of the Phlegathon to the icy nothingness of shadows, to the intrusive thoughts of graphic violence and horrifyingly strange acts of self mutilation to mental bombardment with his triggers.
He felt like existence was this room, was the bedsheets he voila numbly trust and a door with a light void upon the other side. It felt like the rest of the world didn't really exist, like it couldn't exist, because he couldn't perceive, interact with, or process and comprehend that it was real. It felt like he wasn't real, dissociated, seeing and suffering but not there, like he was in a dream or a coma. Was he?
He didn't have time to dwell on it, the sudden nauseous drop in his gut and the lump in his throat and tightening in his chest signifying the start of a panic attack.
The problem was, Nico was either terrible at controlling them, or did not outwardly react at all. The first option usually involved lots of zombies and dead plants, whilst the second usually meant people trying to hug him and talk to him during sensory overload. This time, Nico was alone and he needed to scream it out, but when he tried, he found himself non-verbal.
Everything felt off and it was too bright, too loud, too dark, too clinical- although he'd lost his sense of smell and taste, so thankfully, the clinical scent of antiseptic and blood couldn't assault his senses. But that didn't stop the shrill metallic beep of the heart monitor from giving Nico sharp jolts of pain, the small lights on the various monitors far too bright whilst the electric buzzing of the electrical outlets filled his head- and they all sounded different, because of different devices, which made it worse. And it was blindingly dark in the room now, which made the shadows whisper in a way that had his head pounding, trying to process if they were even real, and it was all just too much-
He clamped his hands painfully over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut so tightly that he could feel the strain in his cheeks. He tugged at his hair, not even a distressed whimper or a cry for help able to escape, trapped by his own lack of voice in a time of distress.
His brain was shutting down and melting down, the racing thoughts unable to process like a browser with too many tabs open, nothing pausing but nothing closing, frozen with plenty of horrifying podcasts and videos playing with no pause at the same time, only it felt like they could touch him, and he couldn't shut them off.
He had nothing left to comfort himself, no way to voice his distress, only able to rock back and fourth in a vain attempt to soothe himself as the onslaught continued, and all he could do was sit there and cry hysterically for hours, hours of distress until…
How long had he been… staring at the wall for?
Nico shivered, emotionally and physically drained. He knew he was still non-verbal, so he didn't call for help. He briefly considered the panic button, but he didn't want to be a burden over a now resolved emotional breakdown of some kind. There had been flashbacks and sensory overload and he was pretty sure he'd experienced some kind of meltdown or shutdown, but he wasn't exactly a stranger to them.
He sat in his bed until the sky began to turn blue and the smallest hints of light eased the crawling feeling of the insidious, suffocating dark of a confined space, a closed door room, a claustrophobic nightmare.
Much to Will's chagrin, he woke to find several of the infirmary's plants officially dead, although as his sleep induced haze lifted with the stabilising buzz of caffeine to help organise his thoughts, he processed that Nico must have had a bad night. He grabbed a quick breakfast and some for Nico and rushed there as quick as he could.
Nico most certainly hadn't slept, his face puffy with both exhaustion and crying. He took a moment to observe, and Nico didn't seem to notice his presence, dissociated. It wasn't until Will moved his hand and little too fast that Nico suddenly snapped out of it, his hypervigilance kicking in as he flinched harshly, looking just about ready to put up a fight.
"It's okay," Will began gently, backing away slightly to show his intentions weren't to violate Nico's personal space boundaries. He waited until Nico visibly relaxed enough to hunch his shoulders before he proceeded to step fully into the room and take a seat on the chair besides him. Nico looked up at him with what looked like hope, or maybe a pleading expression- maybe something mistaken for anger in different circumstances, and whilst Will struggled to read people's emotions sometimes, he'd begun to learn Nico's, folding his expressions away neatly in a mental schema full of flowcharts amend checklists designed to accurately mentally code for different emotions.
Will had certainly observed levels of hypervigilance in Nico, but the way he would glance between the door and the shadows had Will distinctly concerned for his mental wellbeing- he appeared paranoid, skittish, and Will had on occasion poked his head around to find Nico mumbling to the shadows. Will had no way of knowing if that was because of genuine shadows or some form of psychosis that Nico seemed familiar with handling well on his own. He'd considered asking Hazel, but she may not have the exact same powers as Nico, and may not have been able to reliably tell Will whether the whispering shadows were normal or not if she didn't experience them herself. He'd have to ask Hades somehow. But not right now.
Will also didn't need a professional to tell him that Nico was severely depressed- he'd experienced it enough himself to know how to recognise it, and given the trauma that Will already knew about Nico, there was no logical way that Nico could be okay.
Most demigods presented with symptoms of PTSD, and he recognised the most similarities between Percy and Annabeth and Nico's symptoms and severity, most likely because to some degree they had the shared trauma of Tartarus. Some demigods with traumatic backgrounds had gone on to develop some form of psychotic disorder, or OCD or eating disorders, and there were a few traumagenic systems at camp who Will had gotten to know personally. So Nico having C-PTSD wasn't a surprise. Of course, Will needed a lot more time than a few days to accurately assess and diagnose Nico, but he was fairly confident that Nico was presenting with many symptoms of PTSD and likely had been long enough to officially meet the criteria for a PTSD diagnosis.
And then there was Nico's overall neurodivergence- of course, the ADHD and dyslexia were confirmed, but Will suspected that Nico could be on the spectrum, like Will was. Autism wasn't uncommon in demigods either, sharing many similarities to ADHD. They were practically brain cousins.
Will pulled himself out of his musings, focusing on how to talk to the trembling boy before him. His clothes looked wet, and Nico made as if to speak before looking sadly down, shrugging and offering a half smile greeting that Will had become familiar with during Nico's quieter days. Nico struggled anyways with communicating and expressing his emotions, and he was even worse at reading them- as a general rule, unless he knew you well, Nico didn't appear to pick up on body language cues indicating someone's distress unless they cried or explicitly stated how they felt. Yet, once Nico was clued in, and was able to rationalise the situation by drawing parallels and drawing from his own personal experiences, Nico tended to grasp a very nuanced and deep understanding of exactly how somebody was feeling, allowing him to better empathise- what was Will's point again?
Will let out a frustrated huff, wishing his brain to just do the focus thing on his patient. And then he realised he hadn't taken his meds in a few days and oh. That explained it. Will realised he definitely hadn't showered in like- at least a week, and he definitely needed a shower but his usual soaps were in his cabin and he couldn't be bothered to get them- but he could use that deodorant, the musk one with the cinnamon and citrus undertones in the black spray can or he could just use old spice but what about his strawberry shampoo would it go-
Will took a deep breath, looking back to Nico. Right. Doctor, patient, mental health- Will absolutely needed to suddenly start a full on a case study project- no, never mind, focus. Somehow. Please. Right. Okay. Breathe.
Will gave Nico a gentle smile, taking out his stim putty to squish in his hand to ground himself and focus better. Nico usually would have spoken by now, so Will figured that he must have gone non-verbal- and now Will's focus to do that case study project was gone forever, great, well done, you're a failure Will, oh great, now your mood's dropped, just great- Nico must have had a meltdown maybe, although that didn't explain the damp clothes.
"Hey Neeks," Will began gently, "do you want some fresh clothes?" Nico looked at him pleasingly, before curling in on himself with his knees bunched up and gripping his shirt as though it was a comfort to him. It took Will a moment to decipher, but he figured Nico wanted dry clothes but was reluctant to part with his clothes.
"I can get you some pyjamas," he said softly, quietly- he didn't want to overwhelm Nico if the guy had just had a meltdown, because sensory overload sucked. "You could put your clothes on the chair to dry." Nico seemed to consider that, before giving a slight frown and pout, but a slight smile. He was considering it, but still reluctant.
"The pyjamas are cotton," Will continued, "with the labels cut out, and the seam is sewn down so it isn't scratchy." Nico nodded jerkily, and Will smiled reassuringly, standing up slowly with a determined look in his eye. "I'll go get those for you, we don't want you catching hypothermia now, do we? You don't need pneumonia with the state of your lungs right now."
Will fetched the pyjamas and granted Nico the privacy to change whilst he quickly took his meds- which reminded him to set about figuring out a treatment plan for Nico going forwards- then returned to see the pyjamas fitted well and Nico looked comfortable, discreetly rubbing the soft fabric against his cheek, eyes closed. Will liked the smell of the fresh linen more than he liked the feel of them, but Nico appeared to be touch sensitive, perhaps explaining why he was so easily overwhelmed by touch. Will had a sense of smell like a sniffer dog, and hearing that left him unable to find silence or sleep without loud music blaring through his headphones.
"Does that feel any better," Will asked, and Nico nodded, turning pink and smiling slightly. "Is it okay if I ask you some questions and you can nod or shake your head? Nod if yes, shake your head if you need some time first, it's okay. Nico nodded gingerly, and Will gave a gentle smile.
He went through the standard questionnaires first, looking for markers of depression and anxiety levels, and finding, unsurprisingly, that Nico was at crisis point. Will briefly considered keeping Nico in the infirmary, but he didn't see Nico as particularly needing that kind of treatment. Nico would be better coping in comfort.
Nico gradually became verbal again, and finally Will was able to investigate deeper. Nico was slowly beginning to open up, and Will was more than happy to listen, perhaps a little intrigued.
"It feels like… I'm not here, like I don't exist. Like I'm just… observing, but I'm not… feeling. It feels like I'm in warm heavy water, and I'm stood outside, and inside is bright and colourful, but I don't have the energy to move my limbs and step inside. Sometimes I'm able to say hello but I can't move when I'm invited in, I can only stand there. And I want to, I want to go inside. But I can't, and instead of coming outside to me, people carry on the party, and I'm just… outside, creepy. To them, I'm a disembodied voice, and ghost in the dark. An apparition with a slightly off centre smile and an unsettling artificial expression. I'm in an alley and I beckon them and they freak and run. I'm like something from The Magnus Archives to them, like the Angler Fish episode. And I don't feel empty, I feel… heavy, but like I'm on cotton wool. Everything feels off, all of the time, too dark and too bright all together, like shining objects in low light. I want to scream for help, and I am screaming, but nothing comes out. And when I scream I scream loud and their eyes turn in and their ears fold back and their mouths seal shut and their hands become bound and they carry on as though everything is perfectly normal, like I never even existed in the first place. They turn a blind eye because I make them uncomfortable, not realising how uncomfortable they make me too. And it buries me in a warm coffin, scratching to be let out whenever somebody uses me."
Will didn't know how to respond to that. There was no sane way to respond to that. Partly because Will had a vivid imagination and now had a horrifyingly graphic mental image in his head that was guaranteed to give him nightmares tonight. But Will loved horror, so he ended up distracted thinking of Nico as a horror podcaster. Occasionally his voice took on a velvet husk with a slow manner of speaking that made his voice perfect for horror. The other times, it was horribly squeaky and breaking. Then Will remembered that he was procrastinating assessing Nico's mental health. "You should be a horror writer," Will said, to buy himself some time to process and respond.
"I wanna do scare acting or horror podcasts," Nico replied, "so people are supposed to find me creepy. It hurts when I'm not trying to be creepy and people find me creepy. But if I'm intentionally creepy, I can make it fun, and maybe, when I reveal the real me, it's such a far cry from my scaresona that they don't register me as creepy."
"Scaresona-" Will repeated, trying to fully process that like it was a cursed post on tumblr.
"Yeah," Nico replied casually, "maybe a zombie because I feel like one. I wouldn't be a ghost, because I'm already invisible."
"You're not invisible to me, Nico," Will cemented in ages firm but gentle tone. "You matter, I'm listening to you, and I believe everything that you are saying to be true. You're not faking or attention seeking- actually scrap that, the term should be support seeking- I believe that your struggles are valid and I would like to support you through this."
"Thanks, Will…" Nico began, mouth open as if to say something when the infirmary doors burst open. There was yelling, and Will's pager beeped not soon after, and he had to prioritise the medical emergency first.
"I'll try be back later, definitely in the morning, okay? Take care, death boy!" And with that, Will switched to clinical cold emergency combat medic. Didn't mean he was quite used to the bad smells, though. Nobody ever really was. He vaguely remembered the joke spray liquid ass was used by the military to train combat medics for the smell of the battlefield, and with one last thought to the ironic hilarity of that, Will was at the side of the patient and ready to save a life.