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When Connor Stoll showed up on the Apollo cabin doorstep at midnight holding a small child, Will strongly refuses the urge to slam the door in his (and Will’s presumably new sibling’s) face. Instead, he stares for a few seconds and tries to decide mentally if he can put on the Cheery Apollo Cabin Head Counselor And Camp Head Medic smile for the child or if he’ll just end up grimacing and looking more threatening. He’s sad to say it might be the latter.
Connor hasn’t said a word through all of Will’s thought process and Will really isn’t awake enough to deal with all the implications that may carry. As far as Will’s concerned, his lack of speaking only means that Will is gonna have to be the one to start this conversation, which was. Great. Totally.
“Connor. What are you doing here?” Okay maybe that wasn’t the best wording considering the kid still in Connors arms but Will tried his best okay? He never claimed words were his strong suit.
Connor shuffled nervously, which was never a good sign. Especially for a Stoll. “Well, firstly, uh, we got news from the questing group.”
Will’s heart just about stopped from hearing that sentence. Because Lou Ellen, Cecil, and Nico were on that questing group. And that quest was supposed to be fun and easy. And if one of them got hurt, Will was going to forever regret his decision to stay behind, no matter the duties he held at camp or the three person questing rule.
As if sensing Will’s anxiety, Connor hurriedly rushed to his next sentence. “They’re fine!”
Thank the gods.
“I think.”
Nevermind.
“I mean, Cecil and Lou Ellen IM’d the big house a little while ago and said something about the quest going wrong, but they also didn’t mention any injuries or deaths, so. There’s that at least.”
Will opened his mouth, a question on the tip of his tongue.
“And before you ask, no I didn’t see Nico in the IM. But then pretty soon after that whole thing, this guy,” Connor hiked the child up higher into his grip to show who he meant, “showed up and I’ve been trying to console him ever since. And he absolutely refuses to go inside the Hermes cabin and so I figured I’d bring him to you, since, yknow you’re-”
Will tuned Connor out as he mentally started connecting the dots. There was obviously something Connor was leaving out. Will just had to figure out what. Connor had this kid that showed up right after the IM with Cecil and Lou Ellen where Nico was missing, the kid refused the Hermes cabin, Connor brought him to Will… Will’s eyes widened in silent realization.
Holy Shit. That kid Connor was holding was Nico. When Cecil and Lou Ellen said that something went wrong, they meant that Nico had been cursed to be a kid again. Then kid Nico probably got scared because of the IM or the seemingly strangers surrounding him and shadow traveled while thinking ‘home’ which brought him to camp. Then Connor found him and probably tried to treat him like every other unclaimed child demigod that came into camp before the kid rejected the Hermes cabin and Connor started putting two and two together and figured out the little kid was Nico. That led him into bringing kid Nico over to the Apollo cabin because he figured Nico would behave better in Will’s watch until Lou Ellen and Cecil got themselves back to camp and Lou Ellen could fix whatever curse was brought upon Nico. Of course.
And Nico had the audacity to tell him that he didn’t have common sense. Once Lou Ellen fixed the curse, Will was so gonna rub this in his face.
“...Will?” Connor’s voice cut through his thoughts and quickly hummed in acknowledgment. He understood what Connor was doing now and that was really all that mattered. “You can look over him tonight right? Until we figure something else out?”
“What? Oh, of course.” Will could totally deal with his boyfriend until Lou Ellen got back. (Not that he didn’t trust anyone else in the Hecate cabin, it was just, Lou Ellen was the best with this sort of stuff. And she had also presumably been there when the curse was administered to Nico. And Nico trusted her the most out of everyone in the Hecate cabin. So overall it was the best idea to wait until she was able to deal with this, and if Will knew his friends, they were already on their way back to camp.)
“Great!” Connor exclaimed, looking far too relieved. He immediately made quick work of detaching child Nico from himself and handing him over to Will before he started booking it back to the Hermes cabin. Typical. He probably was planning a grand prank for Cecil's return.
Will turned his focus to Nico, child Nico, in front of him. Well, technically attached to him. He still looked terrified. Will kinda forgot that he probably only had his childhood memories and didn’t know who Will was. Hopefully he still understood english.
“Hey buddy, my name is Will. We’re gonna be friends okay? We just need to go to bed first, does that sound good for you?” Shit. Will was very out of practice with talking to small children. He really hoped Lou Ellen got here quickly.
Hesitantly, tiny Nico nodded. Good. At least that problem was solved.
WIll slowly started walking back into the Apollo cabin, wincing when the door creaked. Kayla was way too light of a sleeper to not hear that.
“Will? What’s in your arms?” Kayla was obviously sleep rumpled and grumpy, half sitting up in her bed at his entrance.
“Don’t worry about it Kayla, just go back to sleep.” Will watched as she flopped back into her bed with no preamble and seemingly fell back asleep very quickly.
Will worked as quickly as he could with a child still in his arms to child proof a bottom bunk before setting Nico in it. The boy at first tried to refuse being set down before he seemingly got with the program and instead layed down and snuggled with the blankets Will had provided.
Will knelt down for a quick second and faced the boy, trying to make his words quick so the boy wouldn’t fall asleep before he finished. “I’ll be in the bed right next to you okay? If you need help, just tap me and I’ll help you. Goodnight bud.”
Will remained kneeling for a few seconds to make sure tiny Nico started to sleep before quickly returning to his own bed and falling unconscious . He would need all the energy he could get if tomorrow was going to be as eventful as he thought it would.
~
When Will rose with the sun the next morning, he was very pleased to see that child Nico had yet to fall off the bed and seemed to be resting peacefully. Well, if he shadow traveled like Will assumed he did, he certainly needed it.
Kayla and Austin were both blinking awake and seemed to notice at the same time that their cabin had gained another member. They both blinked owlishly before Kayla shrugged it off and Austin looked at Will questionaly.
“Will? Did we gain another sibling in the middle of the night?” Austin’s voice was cracking from sleep but still managed to convey how utterly confused he was.
Will did his best to level him with a loom that said ‘dumbass’. He really hoped it worked. “No, that’s Nico. I'm pretty sure he got cursed while on the quest.”
That comment got both of his siblings to look at him with even wider eyes, which frank;y, Will didn’t even know was possible for them to do. They both seemed to be switching their gazes between Nico and Will like they were calculating something. Then they both looked at each other and seemed like they reached a conclusion at the same time before focusing back on Will.
Their faces looked way too similar to Nico’s ‘Will, you’re being a dumbass’ face for WIll’s comfort.
“Will,” Kayla started slowly, “the boy in that bed, is Nico?” She pointed over at Nico and Will humored her by taking another look at him before turning back to her. She was making a face like she was catching Will in a trap but Will had no idea what she could be trapping him for.
“Yes? Duh.” He answered instead. Austin and Kayla just looked at him for another minute before (finally) going back to doing their own thing. Good. Will didn’t need to try and decipher their weird shenanigans and thoughts today.
All three of them continued to get ready in silence. Will only broke it eight before Kayla and Austin went out the door. “I’m gonna try to let him catch up on sleep, I’ll catch y’all later.”
Austin made a sound like a dying pig while Kayla merely hummed in acknowledgment before they both rushed out the cabin door. Weird.
~
It took a few more hours, but eventually tiny Nico woke up. It was nearing lunchtime by then, and Will was almost certain the questing group should be returning by then. He gave tiny Nico some of Kayla’s old clothing (she was the smallest out of the three siblings) and then quickly rushed them outside, bursting with anticipation to meet Lou Ellen and get his regular sized boyfriend back.
He took tiny Nico to the dining pavilion where they both quickly ate their lunch. Will was debating on where he should take tiny Nico next when more commotion started. Will tried to listen around and while he didn’t heat everything, he got the general idea. The questing group had returned.
Will quickly picked up tiny Nico and started making his way to the big house, where he knew the customary after quest meeting spot was. He started walking as fast as he could with a child in his hands as soon as he spotted Lou Ellen’s hair. He was walking so fast, in fact, that he completely missed that Lou Ellen and Cecil weren’t the only ones in that spot until he reached them. There was a third person, and that person was--
Nico?
Will stared in shock at the group before him, questions rising to his tongue that he couldn’t force out. If Nico was there then… who was he holding in his arms?
Will’s brain was working overtime, trying to figure out where he had miscalculated when Nico spoke up and broke him out of his stupor.
“Solace? Did you become a father in the three days we were gone? Where’d you get a child?” Nico’s teasing tone relaxed Will somewhat. At least now he didn’t have to worry about making Lou Ellen decurse a child. He was holding an actual child in his arms, not just a teenager in a child’s body.
“Uh…” How did Will explain this without sounding crazy? Actually, scratch that. There was no way to explain this without sounding crazy. He was just gonna have to bite the bullet. “I thought he was Nico?”
He got blank stares in return and he inwardly sighed. “Look, I know it sounds a little outlandish but Connor knocked on my door at like midnight with a child and talked about y’all saying something went wrong and how Nico wasn’t there and then this child refuses the hermes cabin and Connor thought to bring him to me, so sure I jumped to a few conclusions but some of the evidence is there if-”
“Solace. What the actual fuck. How did you think that was me?”
“I just explained how! Sure, i didn’t use the best knowledge but also I came to that conclusion at midnight so-”
“Will,” Cecil's voice butted in and he sounded like he was on the verge of devolving into a laughing fit, “the child you’re currently holding is blond.” Will looked down in surprise, an objection forming on his lips when--
Oh. The child was blond. That explained a lot.
His realization must have shown on his face because the questing group fell into laughter that Will could hardly reisst after a few moments. He had been a dumbass, hadn’t he?
Eventually the laughter calmed down and Lou Ellen explained, “The thing that went wrong was that we set off a trap. Nico had to shadow travel us out of there quickly and he kinda panicked and took us top far. So when we IM’d camp he didn’t appear because he was asleep to recover from that. That was all. No deaging curses, you idiot.”
And okay, maybe Will was literally never gonna live this down for the rest of his life. But, as he let the child he sort of half kidnapped go run off with the other children and Nico dragged him into a ‘welcome back’ kiss that got them immediate groaning from Cecil and Lou Ellen, he let himself think that it wasn’t the worst that could have happened.
After all, Nico was right in front of him and not a child. And that mattered to Will more than any perceived intelligence he held.