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As he woke up, Nico wondered if the day after capture the flag games had always ended up this way, or if he was the first to sit on the infirmary floor with Will Solace slumped halfway against the wall and halfway against his shoulder.
Frankly, he hoped it was the former. He’d only started spending time with Will after the fight with Gaea, but it had quickly become evident that the healer was ironically pretty awful at taking care of himself. He’d chide Nico for hours if he slept for less than nine hours, yet it seemed like everytime Nico tried to point out that he did the same Will had some ready excuse about needing to patch up some kid’s cut knee or having to monitor a camper in the infirmary overnight.
So more than anything it was a relief to have Will at least half-asleep, even if it was only as a result of another late night spent stitching Paolo’s arms back on and bandaging a new stab wound for Sherman Yang. Nico took in the room, slowly readjusting to consciousness. As per usual, a Dolly Parton song was quietly playing from a tiny phone. Her constant presence in the infirmary had annoyed Nico at first, but after a few days spent recovering after the trip back to New York he’d reluctantly gotten used to the music and hated to admit that he actually enjoyed most of what he’d heard. Aside from that, it was silent, and uncharacteristically peaceful without anyone in need of medical attention. The clock hanging on the wall told Nico it was just past eleven in the morning, meaning they’d lucked out and nobody had fallen from the climbing wall yet.
Nico didn’t move, carefully keeping his breathing even in fear of waking Will up. He knew for a fact his friend was a light sleeper, presumably from years of working overtime to make sure campers staying for the night were alright. Nico stayed still, trying to avoid thinking about Will’s head propped up on his shoulder without much success. That went on for a few more minutes, just long enough that he almost fell back asleep.
Beside him, Will began to stir. For a moment Nico panicked and debated between faking sleep or shadow-traveling back to his cabin, but by the time he’d realized how stupid of an idea that was Will was sitting up. Immediately Nico missed the weight on his shoulder and subsequently muffled the thought.
“Mornin’.”
The thick southern accent threw Nico off for a minute. He knew Will was from Texas (“Born and raised!” he’d said proudly a few weeks ago) but usually the slight lilt in his voice was less obvious, only really perceptible in certain words or if you were really invested in whatever he was talking about. He just hummed in response, stretching out his arms and watching as Will was already standing up with more energy than Nico would have in an hour.
Nico cleared his throat. “Do you usually fall asleep on the floor after capture the flag?” His voice came out scratchy and dry, a stark contrast to Will’s, already as smooth as honey.
Will looked over. “Not usually,” he responded almost sheepishly. “Usually I don’t really fall asleep afterwards. In case anyone’s still hurt or needs help later.”
“You get onto me if I sleep for eight and a half hours, Solace, and this is how you live?”
Will flapped his hands in the air. “That’s different!”
Nico groaned but didn’t respond. WIll sat down again, apparently not having found anything to do without any other campers around. “Why’d you stay here overnight?” He paused, then corrected himself. “I mean, you’re always welcome to spend the night. But I doubt sleeping on the floor was preferable to at least one of the empty beds.”
He thought about it for a minute. They’d both been up late, and memories of the previous night came back to Nico in bits and pieces. All he could really remember was cutting bandages (his default job when he spent time with Will in the infirmary) with Will occasionally floating by, usually making sure to stop for a brief moment to ask how he was or make some crappy pun. Eventually he’d fallen asleep, and apparently Will had done the same. Nico shrugged. “I didn’t want to leave you alone all night.”
Will smiled softly and didn’t look over, just staring forward. The pair was quiet for a moment, and it didn't take long for Nico to become hyper-aware of how close they were. It was an odd thing to focus on, especially considering that they’d just been propped against each other all night, but being completely awake and actively taking notice of their proximity was a totally different experience.
Without any warning, Will stood up again, purposefully striding towards a nearby cabinet. He opened its wooden doors and rifled through disorganized piles of band-aid boxes and multivitamin bottles before pulling out a cardboard box. He sat back down cross-legged and pulled the small box onto his lap.
“What’s that?” Nico asked curiously.
Will didn’t say anything at first as he opened the lid and turned it towards Nico. Inside was a mess of stickers, stars with smiley faces and valentine’s candy hearts and tiny cartoonish cats. Will looked immensely proud of himself. Whether the pride was just from the discovery of the stickers or some plan just put into motion, Nico wasn’t sure.
“What are those for?”
Will shrugged. “We just like to keep them on hand, sometimes for Austin’s instrument cases, sometimes for the younger campers.”
That at least explained why they were stored in the infirmary in the first place, but… “No, why do you have them out?”
“Oh!” Will looked embarrassed but leaned forward in excitement. “It’s a surprise. Sit like this.” Nico mimicked the pose he shifted into, facing him with his knees partially pulled towards his chest.
Quickly, like he thought he’d be stopped, Will peeled the paper backing off a sticker and stuck it onto the toe of Nico’s boots. It was a simple, cutesy design, a little curved rainbow with a puffy white cloud on either end. It looked out of place, all bright colors and tiny bits of glitter sitting on the toe of his scuffed combat boot.
“Hey,” Nico complained without really meaning it. Even if he had, it would’ve been useless- Will was on the warpath by now, carefully but rushedly placing more stickers on both shoes.
“There!” It had only taken Will a minute to do his work. Tiny sheets of sticker paper littered the ground beside him. Nico’s boots were decked out in all sorts of little designs, most along the lines of cupcakes and flowers. The son of Apollo looked disproportionately proud of his handiwork, like he’d painted the Mona Lisa instead of… whatever this was.
“You do know I’m just gonna take these off later, right?” Nico immediately reached down and started picking at the flimsy corner of one candy heart reading “CALL ME!” in an obnoxiously bright red font. “Jesus, Will, you’re the reason emo’s dying.”
“You can’t!”
Nico raised an eyebrow, peeling off more of the sticker. “And why is that, sunshine?”
“We won’t match anymore.” As they’d been talking, Will had peeled the backing off a blue rose and stuck it to his torn converse.
Nico laughed dryly. “I don’t think it’ll stick to fabric all that well, but good try.”
Will paused, glancing around like he could find some other excuse hidden on the tile floors. Suddenly his eyes lit up, making Nico groan internally at whatever idea he’d come up with. With a mischievous grin reminiscent of Cecil or the Stoll brothers, Will grabbed another few stickers. Before Nico could prepare for it there was a sticker on his forehead, the placement matching one on Will’s face perfectly.
“Seriously, Solace?” It was hard to take him seriously with a smiling pink cat on his forehead.
“There! Now we are matching.”
Nico didn’t even point out the fact that they weren’t, really, not with stickers on his shoes existing as a totally separate thing from the one on his face. Instead he chose to retaliate, practically throwing a little sun with sunglasses at Will. That was either the worst or best choice possible, because apparently Will was stubborn in ways Nico hadn’t seen yet, and it turned into an all-out sticker war until a Demeter kid walked (more like hobbled) in with a twisted ankle. She gaped at the mess in the infirmary, and it took a few minutes for Will to stop laughing long enough to help her.
Sometime in between laughing fits Nico slipped out and headed back to his cabin. He took off his shoes inside, fully planning on getting rid of Will’s decor, but something stopped him. It was stupid, especially considering that they were probably cheap dollar store stickers that would be worn off within the week, but some embarrassing sentimental part of him wanted to keep them there as long as possible.
Nico tossed his shoes to the side and immediately crashed onto his bed. He’d slept much less restfully than he’d thought, and he was asleep within minutes. For once, he didn’t have any nightmares.