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That morning had been as normal as mornings at CHB could be, which was fairly abnormal but getting to the point where Nico could expect anything. He had been resting in his cabin after breakfast before sword practice when he had felt an odd pull in the back of his head, but thought nothing of it. Sometimes he got weird feelings, it certainly wasn’t anything new for Nico as he emerged from his cabin. However, when Kayla ran up to him looking like she had just endure five rounds on a rollercoaster Nico knew something was very very wrong.
“Nico—Will!”
Those were the only words that came out of Kayla’s mouth, and Nico was sent running and scrambling. Kayla was hot on his heels as he nearly hurtled himself towards the infirmary. He knew that was where Will had been after they had separated after lunch, since the climbing wall was one of Will’s least favorite activities and Will liked to complain about it. Something must have happened, something terrible must have happened—
When Nico burst into the infirmary, nearly smashing the door off the handle in the process. He absorbed everything he saw in sharp battle-honed fragments. He saw Will kneeling on the floor, his arms submerged in a mixture of antibiotic and water. His face was pale as milk and shining with a sheen of sweat, blue eyes glittering in pain that made Nico’s stomach ache. The sunlight filtering through the curtains which should have made him glow was instead waning him like a sliver of moonlight. There was a kid in the cot, one of the younger girls from Aphrodite Cabin with her head in one of those braces and with an older brother at her side. The windows were sealed closed, which never happened unless they were trying to keep things out. Kayla brushed past him. Will was alive, Will was alive even though Nico knew in the logical part of him that if he had died (oh gods oh gods) he would have known. But Will was hurt, Will was hurt and that was the only thing that mattered at all.
“Second degree burns,” Chiron explained with a clinical tone to Nico, though by his tone the intended audience wasn’t really him. “It happens when children of Apollo over extend themselves. Will, of course, knows better.”
“I’m sorry, Chiron,” Will’s voice came and it hurt Nico. Instead of his usual warm and cheerful drawl, it sounded thin and watered down.
“I…” Nico tried to make his words work, but just like everything, suddenly things didn’t seem to make sense. He didn’t know what to do, or where to put his hands, or how to make anything right because everything seemed to be wrong.
“Nico, perhaps now isn’t the best time. Maybe you should come back a little later,” Chiron’s voice was calm and collected, and it started Nico from his numbness and his concentration. Suddenly Nico wasn’t separated from everything as a casual onlooker, because that was his boyfriend sitting in the middle of the infirmary in probably almost unbearable pain. And it had to be unbearable, because Nico knew for a fact that Will would never willingly subject himself to being a patient if it wasn’t unbearable.
“No, no, Chiron it’s okay I’m—I’m fine,” Will said, but the waver in his voice was so obvious, and he tried to smile but it was so limp and shallow that Nico couldn’t stand it and was almost getting physically ill looking at it. “Nico, come here.”
Nico walked as stiff and jarred as a wooden solider, before sitting down next to Will with little grace. For a moment he had no idea of what to do, or where he should touch (because being the cause of more of Will’s pain was nearly incomprehensible to him, he would rather face down two more Gaia armies then that), but he settled on rubbing circles into Will’s back.
“It was lucky I was there,” Will was blathering out his arms were trembling in barely held back pain but Nico could tell by the slow way the blisters upon his skin disappeared that the ambrosia was doing it’s work, “thank the gods, thank the gods I was there. If I hadn’t been there…”
“She would have died,” Nico agreed before rubbing the back of his own head. “I had the feeling that someone snatched a person from death. But by the Gods, Will, how much energy did you smash into her? Is that why your arms burned up?”
“Her C3 was fractured, I had to—“ Will tried to explain before he heavily winced. “I managed to heal most of it but I still need—“
“No,” Nico said immediately. “Not until you are healed up all the way.”
“But I…”
“No, remember your rule for me about shadow travel, I am now immediately enforcing this rule on healing. The rule being, don’t be stupid Will,” Nico snapped at him with the heat generated by his catastrophic levels of worry.
For a moment Will didn’t say anything, and Nico worried that maybe he had gone too far or had sounded too angry. Well, yes, Nico was angry. But only angry at the fact that Will was far too kind. Seeing anyone in pain destroyed Will so much that this could be the result, and in that way they were a lot alike. But Will’s smile, still pained but more genuine, allowed those worries to subside.
“Fine, I’ll follow my own rule,” Will said as he lifted his arms out of the water with a heavy flinch. They still looked bad, bad enough that Nico felt laughably faint.
“Put them back in! You could catch a disease or something!” Nico squealed in an obviously extremely manly tone.
“If I caught something, would you nurse me back to health?” Will asked, his flirting still weak but his eyes bright and that was enough.
“No,” Nico said with a roll of his eyes as he settled himself against Will as he tried to give him as much comfort as possible, “doctors make the worst patients.”
Nico kissed Will quickly, sweetly, and with enough pressure to let Will know he was there. Will returned it.