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Lou Ellen slammed open the door to the infirmary’s office with as much bravado as possible, singing “Oh, William!” as high and as off key as possible.
Only Will’s eyes moved to look at her, the rest of him statuesque like he were a painting, and Lou Ellen couldn’t help but chuckle at the disappointment permeating off of the son of Apollo through just his glare.
“I don’t have perfect pitch like some of my siblings,” Will said, casually, which juxtaposed starkly with the look he was giving her. “But even I know that was cheese-gratingly awful.”
Lou Ellen crossed the room and perched herself on the edge of the desk between the two stacks of medical textbooks Will was meticulously combing through. “I aim to displease.”
Will sighed, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “I can tell.”
She grinned as she leant over, glancing at the book Will had open in front of him: a diagram of muscles in the hand. “Do you really need to know all this stuff?”
“If I plan on majoring in biology in college; yeah.”
“You’re fifteen.”
Will shrugged, uncrossing his arms and adjusting his posture so he was sitting up straight. “Doesn’t hurt to prepare.”
Lou Ellen rolled her eyes, exaggerated to such a degree that Will flicked her in her upper arm. Lou Ellen had the mature response of flicking him back in the same spot.
Will rubbed his arm. “Ass.”
“What muscle did I flick?”
“Bicep brachii.”
Lou Ellen flipped the book shut so that it slammed in tandem with her final word, “There we go!”
Will glanced at the shut book on his desk. “I was reading about the hand muscles, not the upper arm muscles; I already knew those.”
“You’re an overachiever, Will.” Lou Ellen stood up and held out her hand for Will to grab. “You’ll get to study when you actually go to college, but for now? We only get to be teens once, let’s be teens.”
Will took her hand and let Lou Ellen pull him up. “I’m a combat medic, though. I think I left my childhood years ago.”
Lou Ellen swung their still conjoined hands. “Let’s steal it back, then. Let’s go frolicking.”
Will raised an eyebrow. “Frolicking?”
“Yeah, frolicking! I’m like ninety-two percent sure it’s a verb, and it means—”
“I know what frolicking means, Lou,” Will said, “And it is a verb.”
“Look at me go, I’m literally the smartest person I know. I’m such a genius.”
“And humble too,” tacked on Will.
“The humblest,” agreed Lou Ellen. She pulled Will, skipping merrily as the son of Apollo sludged behind her. “Dude, some pep? I thought you were the son of the sun god.”
“And I thought you were the daughter of a chthonic one.”
Lou Ellen stopped to glare at him for a moment. “You’re a terrible frolicking buddy right now, William. Where’s your whimsy? Your fun?”
“With my anatomy textbook.”
“Diabolical,” Lou Ellen shook her head. “Truly evil.”
Will shrugged. “I try.”
“This is aphobia.”
“You cannot call everything that makes you angry aphobic since you came out yesterday, Lou Ellen.”
Lou Ellen let go of Will’s hand. “Watch me. I’m getting Cecil, he’ll skip to the lou, my darling with me.”
She skipped off, though she heard Will’s exasperated sigh from behind him as he jogged to catch up. “You do know that’s a folk dance, right? And not actual skipping?”
“You’re not skipping,” Lou Ellen pointed out. “And besides, the song has my nickname in it, not yours. So one of us is valid, and the other not.”
Will made a hilarious fishy sound. “The song is not about you, Lou! It was written in like the 1840s!”
“You’re just jealous it’s not ‘skip to the Will’, so you’re not an expert.”
“I hate you,” Will said. “I don’t say it enough, but it’s true.”
“Love you too,” laughed Lou Ellen as she jumped onto the first step of Cabin 11, knocking twice violently.
Unsurprisingly, Connor cracked open the door, before sighing and leaning against the doorframe. “Cecil, your posse’s here.”
“I am not Cecil’s posse,” Lou Ellen declared. “If anything, Will and Cecil are my posse.”
“In your dreams, Lou,” Cecil laughed as he swung the door open the rest of the way. “So, what’s up?”
“The sky,” Will replied.
“Fuck you,” Cecil said as he waved off Connor, shutting the door as he stepped outside. “What’re we doing? Pranking Ares?”
“We’re going frolicking around camp,” Lou Ellen declared.
“Yes!” Cecil jumped. “I love frolicking! It’s so joyous and whimsical.”
Lou Ellen glared at Will. “See, I told you!”
Cecil gasped. “William Andrew! Don’t tell me your dissing joy and whimsy.”
Will rolled his eyes. “I didn’t diss joy and whimsy.”
“He basically did,” Lou Ellen corrected. “He said he left his in his anatomy textbook and then tried to correct me—Lou—on skip to my lou.”
Cecil gasped even louder. “William! Everyone knows it’s not skip to my Will.”
“Exactly!”
“I hate y’all,” Will said. “I don’t know why I spend any time with y’all. I need new friends, pronto.”
“Nah,” Lou Ellen slipped her hand back in Will’s, and Cecil slipped his in Will’s other. “You like us too much. Everyone else would run away the moment you start talking about blood transfusions and crap.”
“I know so much about Nico from your rants that last week him, me, and Malcolm were in Arts & Crafts, and Malcolm offered Nico some acrylic paint and I answered that Nico only uses watercolor because he dislikes how acrylic looks and Nico was like why do you even know that? And I was like wait, why do I even know that?” Cecil added. “And it’s because I listen to your sorry ass.”
“My ass would never apologize to a gremlin like you,” Will grumbled.
Lou Ellen leaned in front of Will. “Can you believe this is camp’s self-proclaimed sunshine?”
“Joyless and whimsyless,” Cecil agreed. “A life of tragedy, truly.”
“We should go find Nico,” Lou Ellen said, “Then at least sunshine here will seem whimsical in relation.”
“Nico’s probably in his cabin,” Will said.
Lou Ellen swung their intertwined hands, and Cecil did the same. “Let us frolic to Cabin 13 then.”
“It’s literally ten feet that way,” Will pointed out.
“Frolic, we shall!” Cecil exclaimed.
Will rolled his eyes, “All right, Yoda.”
They reached Cabin 13 in like 3 or 4 skips, before Lou Ellen dropped Will’s hand and knocked on the door.
It took a moment for Nico to open it. He surveyed the scene: Cecil and Will’s intertwined hands and Lou Ellen’s abnormally peppy attitude. Sue her, she just really felt in a frolicky mood.
“What did you do to my boyfriend?”
“He has no joy and whimsy!” Cecil exclaimed.
“And you came here looking for joy and whimsy?”
“You make him look joyous and whimsical by proxy,” Lou Ellen said. “Also, you’re not going to believe this, William here tried to correct me—Lou—on the song Skip to my Lou.”
Nico tutted. “For shame, mio sole, for shame.”
“I literally just said it was a folk dance and not for frolicking.”
Cecil let go of Will’s hand just so he could step back and point accusatorily at Will and proclaim, “Anti-joy-and-whimsy.”
“I hate them, Nico,” Will said, though Lou Ellen could tell his words had no bite to them. “I hate them so much.”
“They’re awful,” Nico agreed.
Lou Ellen stuck her tongue out at him. “Would you like to frolic with us?”
“I would rather fade.”
“No fading,” shouted Will.
“Well,” Nico said, “I hope you have fun frolicking the strawberry fields or whatever.”
Nico was about to shut the door when Lou Ellen jutted out her hand, proclaiming, “Wait!”
Behind her, she heard Cecil mumble, “they don’t love you like I love you,” before Will elbowed him.
Nico glared at her, “Yes, Lou?”
“You’re old.”
Nico narrowed his eyes. “Astute observation.”
Lou Ellen glanced back at Cecil and Will, before glancing back at Nico. “I don’t actually know where I was planning on going with that.”
“I can tell,” Nico said. “I’ll head back inside, then. Will, I’ll see you when you finish frolicking.”
“Hooray,” Will said, with the least amount of whimsy possible.
Lou Ellen rolled her eyes, “Stop being aphobic, Will.”
Nico, who had just shut the door, cracked it back open. “Yeah, Will, no being aphobic.”
“I literally—”
“Lou Ellen came out yesterday, and your already being aphobic,” Cecil tutted. “For shame.”
“You’re insufferable,” Will said. “Fine, let’s go frolic. And only because you came out yesterday. If you “Lou who cries aphobia” tomorrow, I still won’t frolic with you.”
“Aphobia,” Lou pointed.
Will rolled his eyes, and Lou Ellen grinned. “Let’s just skip around camp now.”
Cecil grabbed Will’s hand. “For joy and whimsy.”
Lou Ellen slipped between the two and slipped her own hands inside theirs. “For joy and whimsy.”