how i wish it would be all the time
BENADRYL TW!!!!! (slash jay slash jay)
“I hope you get into a car accident just bad enough that it gives you brain damage that makes you not suck to be around.” Kayla slams her orange juice down on the infirmary desk, then the rest of her body on the extra-stained office chair.
“Are you mad at me?” Will asks. Until Kayla stormed in like a green-and-auburn tornado, he’d been enjoying the gentle calm of the empty infirmary, chimes twinkling on the porch, birds singing, nymphs laughing in the woods, and campers yelling in the fields. None of the shouts are shouts of pain, so he doesn’t worry quite yet. A warm breeze blew through the infirmary, ruffling his hair now and then.
Kayla spins a full rotation on the chair, and then a second, and slams her foot down, glaring at him.
“Whaddya think, William?”
Will sighs. “Is this because I had Chiron schedule you for the canoe race instead of me?”
“Yeah, it’s because you–” She pauses. “Wait, what the fuck, William? That was you?”
“No.” He answers immediately. Nico was competing, so how is it his fault that he wants to watch his hot boyfriend fall out of a canoe? Whatever. It’s basically Chirons fault, at that point. Then, Will's body betrays him, and his eyes start to water. He and Kayla make eye contact, and they both sit in complete silence until he coughs, throat tight. Kayla sighs, deep and tired like she just got home from her 9-5 in 1977. She tosses him some Benadryl, and he washes it down with her orange juice. It’s not his favorite these days, but it always leaves him with nostalgia for following his siblings around, sipping cold orange juice from the infirmary fridge. Kayla snatches the juice back, and takes a massive, loud, and completely obnoxious slurp for seemingly no reason other than disrupting his peace again.
“Whatever, you fucker. No, it’s because you put me on godsdamned Arts & Crafts with the Aphrodite cabin and now Valentina thinks I’m a terrible older sister and my reputation is probably in tatters in her eyes and I’ll literally never recover from this shame.” She says. Her face has twisted into such an adorable pout that he realizes how young she is. Then, she starts fiddling with a celestial bronze arrow, which is like, completely normal for her but weird for any mortal 13 year old and he has to stop thinking about it completely, lest he get a fifth gray hair. (Nico has counted.)
“Okay,” Will nods carefully, trying his best to project understanding older brother . “And this is my fault… Why?”
“Because your damn little siblings are absolute hellions and I yelled at Gracie because she tried to light Yan on fire and then Gracie started crying and then Yan started crying and then Jerry came over and started crying for fun, because the other two were crying. And Valentina watched the whole thing. And now she probably thinks I suck.”
“You have to understand your role in this, right? Those are our siblings, not mine.”
“I can’t do this. I’m gonna pull a Hyacinthus and become a flower.” Kayla groans. Most of her has vacated the stained office chair and now rests limply on the equally as stained infirmary floor. Will wants to tell her to get up, that’s disgusting, it was your job to mop last night and you didn’t so now the floor is super gross, but whatever . He doesn’t, because the last time this exact scenario played out and he tried to tell her to get up, she licked the floor instead, and threw up five minutes later.
It’s no wonder their dad is kind of a deadbeat, being a parent is hard .
“First of all, don’t do that. Second, I really don’t think Hyacinthus like, wanted to become a flower. At all, actually. He literally died first. Also, he didn’t become a flower, you know that, right? Am I seriously the only one who actually reads those books on dad?” Will wonders outloud, only stopping when he can see a murderous glint appear in Kayla's eye. Well. She really could stand to read some more, instead of spending all day, every day out on the archery range. He doesn’t say this, lest she try to commit fratricide for real this time.
“Ghrrrrmmmmarrrrggggg.” Kayla says. Will nods in agreement.
“Look, Kayla, I don’t think Valentina thinks you’re a terrible sister. What were her siblings doing when you guys were in there?” He asks. It’s a leading question, because he knows exactly what happened while this was going on, because Lou Ellen and her two younger siblings had been in Arts & Crafts at the same time, and watched it all go down. She’d immediately come to find Will after, because gossip is fun and morally okay.
Kayla’s face scrunches the way it always does when she’s trying to remember something. “They… uh… oh shit, I think Lacy actually did light Jonah on fire.”
“See? We aren’t the only cabin with absolute nightmares for little siblings. Lou Ellen told me that Lacy was able to get away with lighting Jonah on fire because Valentina was too busy watching you to stop them. So. You know, maybe you have a chance.” Will says, aiming for as casual as possible. He can’t help but smile anyway when Kayla shoots upright from the floor, bright eyes wide.
“Really?” She gasps. Her hair is wild and she's covered in dust from lying on the gross floor that she forgot to sweep, gross, but it's very charming anyway, and Will gets a rush of affection for this goofy kid.
Will laughs. “I said maybe you have a chance. Not like I know Valentina at all.” It’s true, he doesn’t. But he knows all of her older siblings, and he can get the gossip from them later.
Kayla is already on her feet, orange juice forgotten on the desk as she rushes off and out the door. Will has no idea where she could possibly be going, since he knows her well enough that she’s not going to talk to Valentina immediately. Maybe she’s going to go giggle with Billie behind the Demeter Cabin or something, since sometimes that's where she goes when something like this happens. Who knows, it's none of his business.
Will spins back to his paperwork, sipping at Kayla’s abandoned orange juice. It’s gotten a little warm, but it’s alright. The A/C in the infirmary has never been good, so he’s honestly more used to lukewarm orange juice than cold, at this point. He’s nearly done anyway, and then he’ll go find Nico and the two of them will find Lou Ellen and Cecil, and they’ll dick around together until dinner, and then dick around more until the campfire, and then through and after that.
This kind of peace is nice, and he wouldn’t give it up for the world.
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