“It’s half past eleven, Nico. I told you to get some rest.”
Nico’s face twists somewhere between a scowl and a frown.
“I don’t need to.”
He’s sorted the medicine cabinet eight billion times in his life — Will doesn’t need to think about it. Instead, he lets his mind wander, lets his hands handle themselves, lets his eyes stray to the hunched way Nico is standing, one knee resting on the cot Will assigned him, the other straight, foot resting, pointed, towards the door. His fingers twist and steeple together, thumb worrying his skull ring, faint scratches picked and scabbed over. His clothes sag off of him.
“It’s safe,” Will assures softly. Nico startles, turning his big, dark eyes to face him, and Will meets them head on, determined to let the seriousness show in his face. “Argus is watching the door, and Peleus is awake at the border. Nothing is going to attack us while you sleep.”
Nico worries his lip. “That’s not it.”
Half-lie. He was worried about being attacked — Will can feel it, the same way you can feel a bug crawling on your skin. Tiny brushes of something foreign along the sensitive nerves of his skin. But he’s shifty, still, beyond that, beyond the same fear they all carry.
“What is it, then?”
Nico shrugs. Squeezing his eyes briefly shut, Will focuses his energy, sending out teeny tiny vibrations too tightly wound for regular human senses to pick up, waiting for them to bounce back at him. Usually, he hates doing this — too much input. He can feel the ions shaking on the metal bed frames, feel the cling of every microbe on non-sterile surfaces, feel microscopic patch of skin flake off every person’s body, feel the ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk of every heartbeat. It’s hard to sort and hard to interpret. A massive wall of noise beyond auditory.
But he focuses, channels the input as much as he can, and interprets like Rachel taught him — like picking up a handful of silt and focusing on one grain of sand at a time. One person out of the masses — one input at a time.
Sweat, gathering in the palms of his hands, chock full of DHEA and adrenaline. Pinpriked with serotonin and a sprinkling of cortisol. Elevated heart rate, barely so; increased blood pressure. Fourteen hundred hair follicle deaths. Minor lactic acid buildup in the muscles. Contracted veins and capillaries.
“You’re feeling guilty,” Will guesses.
Nico gapes.
“How did you — there’s no possible way you — lucky guess,” he lands on eventually.
“Stress is just pouring off of you, man,” Will says, holding back a small smile, “I can feel it.”
Ha. If only he knew.
“Whatever. I just —”
Will waits, tucking away the last of the half-used bottles. They’re going to have to start rationing nectar, soon. And he might have Nico cut some bandages if he’s up for it, tomorrow; it’ll save him some time before Chris’s surgery.
“You just?”
Nico gestures helplessly at where Will is finishing up the last of the inventory. “There are a dozen more deserving people than me of this bed, I can’t —”
“You’re important too, you know.”
The click of Nico’s jaw snapping shut rings throughout the quiet infirmary. It’s just barely louder than sleeping patients shifting in the cots, and a little quieter than Miranda’s snoring.
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
Hesitation. Cortisol and adrenaline, again, even higher heart rate.
“…Yes?”
Hm. Interesting.
“You’re telling the truth,” Will muses. He tilts his head. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
The immediate honesty in Nico’s voice is flattering. Will smiles, and he flushes, slightly.
Serotonin flash. Salivary gland inhibition.
Interesting.
“Listen to me, then: you’re important. And you’re still dangerously exhausted — medically exhausted. You’re a step and a half away from a coma, dude. You need this bed as much as anyone else here.”
“There are stab wounds in some of them,” Nico argues. “And missing limbs and slash marks and —”
“And they’re all stable,” Will interrupts. He raises a challenging eyebrow. “D’you think I maybe know what I’m doing after three years of this, Nico? I know how to triage. Is anyone close to death?”
Nico purses his lips. “No.”
“Right.” Will shrugs. “I know you’ve been teetering on the edge of fading, which isn’t great. The only reason I waited until now to get you in here was because I had people in worse condition. They’re stable now — and so I have space to prioritize you. Okay?”
Slowly, Nico nods. Gut serotonin and heavy endorphin release — good.
“Okay,” he says quietly.
Truth.
“You’ll sleep?”
A ghost — ha — of a smile flashes on his face. “Yeah, you nag, I’ll sleep.”
“That’s all I ask,” Will responds, meeting his smile. “Night, Nico.”
“Goodnight.” He hesitates. “Thank you, Will.”
Will grins wider.
“Anytime.”
