A whisp of hair tickles his cheek, following the elbow resting on his shoulder. Lee glances over as Cass swipes the strands back behind her ear.
“So,” she says, very nearly dropping her plate. Lee reaches over and gently tilts it back upright. His sister Does Not notice.
He lets it fall. She doesn’t notice that, either. Rest in peace, Stale Piece of Olive Bread, Single Grape, and Sprig of Parsley (?). You will be missed.
“So,” Lee repeats. He follows her eyes, gaze landing on a frizzy mess of blond curls and vacant blue eyes. “…Ah. So.”
Cass’s fork twirls in the general direction of their new baby brother. Several other people in line at the braziers also look over to where she’s pointing, glance obviously back towards the two of them, leaning close, and then pretend to look away while very clearly straining to hear. What a place, Camp Half-Blood.
“We gotta fix that.”
Lee grunts. She’s right — rarely does he ever see a kid Will’s age so blasé and sad about camp for so long.
But.
The circumstances.
“We already talked to Luke, Cass.”
She waves a hand. Her fork very nearly misses his eye. Lee would like, for once, if she could maybe use perhaps one ounce of her prophetic abilities to be less of a klutz. “Eh, Luke doesn’t know everything. There’s gotta be something he didn’t try, something Will likes. I mean, I think I saw the barest little hint of a smile when Diana was cussing Michael out yesterday.”
“Achlys would smile at that,” Lee argues. “I mean, come on. He got flamed. It was embarrassing.”
“Fair, fair.”
Lee looks back at Will. He still sits at the edge of the Apollo picnic table, chin on the worn-smooth wood, poking vaguely at the food Diana got for him. There’s a decent spread — some of the roast chicken, some of the lemon potatoes, probably more vegetables than any eight year old would be willing to eat, but it’s not like they would know. Will barely eats anything. If it weren’t for the Twizzlers that keep disappearing from Lee’s stash under the floorboards, he would’ve stuck the kid on an IV already. It’s been weeks.
“We could maybe try the weapons rounds again,” Cass murmurs. “I know Luke did it on intake, but maybe —”
She glances over, peeking through the edge of her hair, and cuts herself off, mouth furrowing as she bites the inside of her cheek. The son of Hermes in question leans on one of his younger siblings, grinning as they shriek and complain, laughing as another kid empties out what looks like the entire camp stash of cutlery from her pockets. Lee’s not dumb — he saw the difference, too. There’s no demigod more kind and welcoming and determined than Luke Castellan, Lee knows it, Lee’s experienced it, but —
When Will came up Half-Blood Hill, he was sobbing. He scratched four other demigods trying to squirm his way back to where his mother was running back to her car, shoulders heaving with her own cries, face-tear streaked and laden with guilt as she watched him go. When Will was dragged to the Big House, he was there ‘til nightfall. When Will was placed, as all are, in Hermes, he didn’t leave the cabin for days.
Camp doesn’t usually see that. Luke doesn’t usually see that. And as much as the guy has seen everything, there’s nothing he can handle less than a demigod who desperately wants to go home.
It’s not something anyone brings up.
“We’ll give it a go after dinner,” Lee agrees.
It’s not a lot, but it’s better than nothing. It might help to get a tour of what Camp offers by someone a little more…qualified. Or enthusiastic, rather. Will’s eight, after all. What kind of eight-year-old doesn’t want to swing a real sword at a training dummy? Or, hell, at another eight-year-old? Not that there are many other eight-year-olds at camp this lovely April, but Annabeth is like…ten. Lee thinks. Eleven? Something like that. Maybe she’ll swing a sword around with the kid. She only tends to be lethal when someone is doubting her. She’ll probably be very lenient on someone who is just learning.
Well.
Like, one would hope.
Whatever. It’ll sort itself out.
He repeats it to himself as he sits down, plastering a wide smile on his face and meeting Will’s eyes. Will stares back, eyes big and dead, but Lee refuses to look away first, to look down. Eventually Will return his gaze to the brown mush he’s made out of his plate.
“Hi,” he hedges.
“Hey, kiddo.”
Will hums. From beside him, Diana sighs — that is the extent of what they usually get. A little more, actually. The hi was slightly more animated than usual. More like a single two-by-four than a rotting corpse, in terms of spirited greetings.
If Lee is anything, though, it’s annoying and persistent. It’s actually what led to his getting claimed last winter.
“You get something to drink?”
Will shrugs. Lee glances into his cup to see that he has not, in fact, gotten anything to drink.
“They’re enchanted, you know.” He taps his own cup. “Anything you ask for, you get. I get Green Apple Kool-Aid.”
“‘Cus you’re a freak,” Michael mutters. Lee shoves him off the table.
Will scrunches his nose. “…Enchanted cups?”
The look he levels in Lee’s direction is equivalent, he imagines, to the look the jury gave OJ Simpson on his first foray of the witness stand, but the allure of discontinued novelty drinks must be stronger than his suspicion, because he tilts his cup closer to him, thinks for a minute, and then says, “Coke.”
All three of them hold their breath. Even Michael, who is recovering from his recent trip to the ground. The cup slowly fills with sparkling amber liquid.
Will frowns.
“Hey,” he says, something akin to a pout taking over his face, “I asked for coke.”
The drink stops fizzing. It, too, seems to regard the young boy in confusion.
“That would indeed be Coke,” Diana says eventually.
Will scowls. (It is, probably unfortunately for him, a little bit adorable, because his cheeks are very pudgy and he has quite a lot of freckles and his whole face seems to scrunch with the movement. Like a baby hippo. Lee tries really very hard not to smile but it’s something of a losing battle, he thinks.)
“It gave me cola!”
Lee looks at Cass. Cass looks at Lee. Cass looks at Michael, then, and Lee looks at Diana, and they all kind of look at each other and envision the words what the fuck floating between them in wavy comic sans.
“That would be the case,” tries Michael. Lee can see that he tries very hard not to tack ‘you dumbass’ on the end there. Lee pats him on the shoulder in recognition for his efforts.
“I asked for coke!”
“Okay, let’s maybe back up a bit,” Cass thankfully says, before Lee can utter his very eloquent ‘huh’. “What are you asking for, hun?”
“Coke!”
“No, I — I, uh, I got that part.” She purses her lips very thoughtfully. “Are you thinking of, maybe, Diet Coke?”
“No! Regular orange coke!”
“Okay,” mutters Diana. “Okay, awesome, I love it when everything makes sense.”
“Orange coke!” insists Will again. And, like, yeah, they brought this on themselves. When Lee scraped off a portion of his food and prayed for more emotion from Will, he did not specify. He was under the unfortunate misconception that his father loved him and was not a sociopathic genie. That’s on him. But still. “The fruity one! With the orange lid an’ the F on the bottle an’ not the one with no bubbles! The coke one!”
“Are you thinking maybe of Fanta?” Cass says, finally. She makes a weird shape with her fingers. “Odd bottle shape? Neon?”
“Yes!” exclaims Will, visibly relieved. “The orange coke! The good one!”
The cup quickly ripples and changes into a liquid the approximate colour of their shirts, only harder to look at. Will narrows his eyes, drags it over, dips his tongue into it, and then lights up, chugging it down with the zeal and zest Aphrodite kids do cranberry juice.
“One thing they got right up here,” he says happily, wiping the sticky moustache off his top lip. He, for the first time, looks a little less like there is a giant aching hole in the centre of him.
All at once, Lee remembers the one time his mother took him with her to one of her conferences, deep down in Arkansas. They stopped for Wendy’s on the drive. Lee requested Coke. The cashier asked ‘what kind’. Lee stared blankly at her for a total of at least seventeen solid seconds before replying ‘uh, the…Coke…kind?’ and received a large disappointing cup of Sprite.
“Oh my gods,” he says. He now knows, he feels, at least an approximation of the shock Phaethon felt that one time. “You’re Texan.”
None of his siblings share in the euphoria of this realization. This eureka moment, really. Least of all Will, who seems to be wondering if he can, perhaps, put in a request to be claimed by another god with smarter children.
“Lee,” says Cass gently, “have you gotten dumber?”
“No, no, he’s Texan,” Lee repeats. “They’re like. They say weird shit down there.” He gestures at Will, who is rapidly shifting from bewildered to offended. Lee would feel bad if it wasn’t a little bit funny. “Coke means pop. Fixin’ means intending. Might could — actually, I’m not sure what might could means, and at this point I’m too afraid to ask.”
“It means might could!” Will cries. He throws his hands up in exasperation which would be better conveyed where his hands not still pudgy enough to have the little indents on the knuckles. Lee melts to the actual floor. “That’s like askin’ — askin’ what ‘the’ means! It means ‘the’!”
“Oh my gods,” breathes Diana, hand pressed to her mouth. “Oh my gods, he’s adorable.”
“What does ‘might could’ mean, he says! Nex’ thing I’mma hear’s gonna be some stupid Yank quest’n ‘bout y’all, I bet —”
There is a thump as Michael slides right off the bench. This time, Lee doesn’t even need to push him.
“Yank,” he wheezes, from the floor. There are real tears in his eyes. “You’re my favourite, kid, holy fuck —”
Will stomps his little foot. It’s so — tiny. Bite sized. The lights in the sole twinkle like crazy. He’s got Princess Leia on the heels.
Lee is going to melt into goo.
“Who authorized him to be this goddamn cute,” Lee whisper-yells. “Like, genuinely. Look at him.
“Believe me, I’m looking,” Cass says, smiling softly. She knocks their shoulders together, snorting as Will chokes on his own indignity, hollering something about and there’s no such thing as healthy brisket! how about that! til’ his freckly face glows.
“Oh, wait, shit, that’s real,” Lee says. “That’s — yo, he’s actually bioluminescing. Are you seeing this? I am seeing this.”
“Didn’t know that was something we could do,” Diana comments. She grabs her cup, empties it into Michael’s (making a truly — truly — rank concoction of milk and Mountain Dew, Lee physically recoils) and stares at it until it refills.
“Hey, Glowstick.”
Will freezes. The most affronted look Lee has ever seen on a child scrunches his squishy face. Cass coos. Michael starts cackling again.
“Who are you talking to,” Will demands, scowling.
Diana looks at him. She raises her eyebrows.
“You tell me, Johnny Storm.”
“That’s a — that’s a bad reference!”
“Just — here.” Diana slides over the cup before Will can get started again. “Here’s your coke, kid.”
Will squints at the cup for several seconds. Diana holds it out dutifully. Well, for a dutiful seven seconds before her arm gets tired, then she sets it down and moves her hand away.
“Mama says I’m not allowed two cokes in a row,” he says finally.
Lee glances over at Cass. She grimaces back.
Here we go.
Diana just blinks.
“What does your Mama say about throwing stones at people named Clarisse from the roof of the Big House?”
“She never mentioned.”
“Well, we’re allowed to do that here. The rules say you can have two cokes, too, if you want.”
Will screws up his face. He gnaws on his bottom lip. Lee holds his breath.
Finally, he takes the tiniest of little sips.
“I guess two cokes is kind of nice,” he says.
Lee smiles. He reaches over, paying close attention in case Will’s a biter — you never know at Camp Half-Blood — and ruffles the kid’s frizzy curls.
“Some good things about camp, huh?”
Will huffs. “It’s still not great.” He sets his cup down. His soda moustache sits at a firm handlebar. Cass muffles a snort in her hands. “But not bad for a bunch of Yanks.”
Lee decides that he will take that. A stubborn, sarcastic Will is better than a miserable one. They got time. They’ll get there.
Plus, when Michael takes a mindless sip of his Surprise Concoction and sprays it all over Diana’s face, hacking and cussing up a storm, Will even smiles.
Yeah. They might even get there soon.
