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“Sit down, Solace, you pain in the ass, I’ll get it.”
Will huffs moodily, trying in vain to continue hobbling towards the cupboards against the infirmary wall. Nico has to physically wrestle him back to his cot, which in theory should be way harder, but luckily he’s weak enough from the pain meds that once Nico manages to shove him against the cushions, he can’t get back up.
Ha. Karma.
“You can’t get it,” says the most dramatic drama queen alive, dramatically, “on account of you not know what ‘it’ is.”
Nico smiles patiently. It resembles, to the outside eye and perhaps the inner one also, the bared teeth of a grinning shark. “Tell me, then.”
“No.”
“Then tough shit for you.”
“I’m just gonna wait until you’re turned away again,” Will calls against his retreating back. Nico flips him the bird. “So this was futile, really.”
He’s stubborn, but he’s not an idiot, Nico reassures himself. Surely, the many years — formative years — he’s spent as head medic have made him smart. Surely, Mr. Nagging Nag shall heed his own advice, lest the entire camp descend upon him in swathes of shrieking, not quite righteous fury, intolerant or hypocrisy. Surely.
He hears the creak of a rickety bed, a thunk of something hitting the wooden floorboards, and a soft oof.
He closes his eyes and exhales deeply.
For fuck’s sake.
When he turns around, he sees William Andrew Solace, Best Healer in Generations, Paraded Progeny of Apollo, Also Notably Naomi Solace’s Son, That’s Kinda Sick, Isn’t It, sprawled on the floor, ridiculously long limbs outstretched, attempting to wiggle across the floor to the cupboards.
“Solace, I am going to kill you.”
“Some healer you are,” Will mutters, as if Nico is not playing healer right now purely because he is the only one in the entire camp with a half a chance of wrangling the dumbass head medic himself. He continues to wiggle.
Wrapping a hand around his uninjured ankle, Nico drags him bodily back to his cot, ignoring the shrieking.
“One day on bedrest, you dipshit. One. Day. That is all anyone is asking if you.”
“My binder!” he insists, because he is difficult. “I don’t need to sit down and do nothing, I need to run my infirmary!”
“You need to sit the fuck down and heal your body before it schedules healing for you,” Nico snaps. “For fuck’s sake, Will, does it matter to you at all that other people would like to see you safe and healthy, even if you couldn’t give a shit?”
For a glorifying moment, Will stares at him, eyes wide, face frozen. Nico meets his gaze, glaring, his own chest heaving where Will appears to have held his breath.
Then, Will bursts out laughing.
“That!” he says, wheezing. “That is what I have been trying to nail through your thick skull! Karma, you little turd!”
Mouth opening, and closing again, it’s Nico’s turn to freeze.
“Oh, gods.”
The horror in his voice is tangible. Will laughs harder.
“Oh, gods, I’m becoming you.”
He stumbles to the closest cot, sitting down quickly before he gets any dizzier than he already is. Nausea builds up his throat.
Gods, that was a direct quote.
“Not so fuckin’ easy to wrangle you clumsy shitheads, is it!”
Nico cradles his head in agony. No. No! It can’t be! He refuses to lend any credibility to Will’s mother-henning! He is obnoxious, and overbearing, and hell-bent on restricting Nico’s freedom; there is no way Nico is emulating him right now, because that would mean he has a point when he’s bossing Nico around, and — no. Cannot be.
“I told you,” Will says, smug as a godsdamn rooster in a hen house. (Oh, gods, now his stupid cowboy idioms are ringing in his head? He needs to spend less time with Will. Better yet, he should take another dip in the Lethe — willingly, this time. Anything is better than this.) “You clumsy fucks are the sole reason I am going to die from stress-induced heart failure at twenty-two, and then I am going to resurrect myself as a ghost through sheer stubborn will alone to haunt each and every one of you for eternity.”
Nico chooses to focus on the part of the sentence that he can conveniently argue with. “You don’t get to call anyone a clumsy fuck, on account of you shattering three bones in your ankle because you stomped your foot too hard when you were trying to make a point.”
“What was the point I was trying to make, again?”
Nico keeps his mouth shut.
“Something something reanimating entire dragons to scare the shit out of Cecil is going to drain you to dangerous levels of energy and make me have to drag you from the brink of death yet again something something.” He pauses. “Even if it was really funny and he nearly actually pissed himself.”
“Well, whatever,” Nico says, elegantly changing the subject. “You’re an idiot, and if you don’t let yourself heal than you’re worse than the rest of us and can never lecture us ever again. So. And I’ll rat you out, too, they’ll believe me.”
Will glares at him. Nico glares back.
“Get some rest,” Nico orders, still glaring. Will pulls a face and repeats his words back to him, mockingly.
“There’s a difference between me and the rest of you idiots,” he grumbles, petulantly ripping loose the blankets and shoving himself under them. Nico smacks his hands away, tucking them around him for him, checking his pillow, and then his forehead for good measure, just in case his stupid ass somehow gave himself a fever. Will squirms, just to make things difficult, so Nico, as acting healer in the room, has to smack him. “I can feel my limits.”
“And yet you pirouette right on over them. I think that makes you worse, actually.”
Will, son of the god of truth, has nothing to say to that.
“Stupid,” Nico says, fondly, squeezing a gentle hand in his cheek. “Sleep, okay? You can go back to being dictator of the infirmary when you’re healed.”
“Tomorrow,” he insists.
Nico rolls his eyes, smiling, and pulls his hand away. Will darts out and snatches his wrist before he goes far, eyes pleading, and Nico caves immediately. Will’s skin is warm, and smooth.
“If you’re healed by then.”
He traces his thumb across Will’s freckled cheekbone, shivering slightly as his long eyelashes tickle the tip of his fingerprint.
“Mhm.”
He’s already puffing out small, quiet snores, head lolling against Nico’s hand, body exhausted from working overtime to try and heal.
Shaking his head, Nico ducks down, pressing a kiss to the space between his eyes before pulling away. He watches him for a moment, peaceful, face smooth and un-creased, delicate cupid’s bow pink and poised, skin spattered with paintbrush freckles. Heart skipping, he can’t resist another quick peck, lingering, at the top of his nose, the middle of his cheek; again at the dip of his brow. It furrows, briefly, under his touch, before relaxing again.
“Goodnight, Will.” He brushes a knuckle over his cheek. “Thank you, you dork ass.”