Archive of Our Own ^beta

                Looking back on it now, Will realized his brothers were both too young to have been tasked with what they were. Raising the younger campers, fighting monsters—being soldiers. But then, that was true for all of them, wasn’t it?

                The memory of his first day at camp had grown fuzzier over time, despite all his efforts to hold onto it. Maybe because he’d tried so hard to forget at first. Before…before….

                Well. He hadn’t wanted to keep it in his mind at first. His mother had finally told him about his father while he was with her on tour, that he was a god, that she couldn’t take care of him anymore. Then she introduced him to a man with hooves for feet and horns peeking out from under his baseball cap.

                “This is Coach Hedge,” She’d said. “He’s going to take you somewhere safe. I’d hoped we wouldn’t have to do this yet, but…you’ll be safer at camp.”

                He understood now, but then he was only nine. All he knew was that he wanted to stay with his mom; he wanted to hear her sing him to sleep every night and he wanted the monsters to stop following them wherever they went. He didn’t want to go to some camp; he wanted to stay with her. But he knew better than to throw a fit—she would never do anything to put him in danger. So he went with the goat man.

                Will couldn’t remember most of the trip. His mother kissed his forehead and buckled him into the back seat of a car she’d arranged to take him and the goat man, Coach Hedge, to somewhere in Long Island. He remembered a patchwork monster attacking the car, he remembered Coach Hedge fighting it when the driver sped off in the other direction—and he remembered the pain.

                When he woke up, he was in a bright white room, a bloody bandage on his ribs. There was an older, tired looking boy in the chair next to his bed. He grinned when he noticed Will was awake, his light brown bangs falling into his face so that he had to push them behind his ear.

                “Rise and shine, bud,” he said. “You’re a fighter, aren’t you?” He pressed the back of his hand to Will’s forehead to check for fever, his eyes shining. Will was confused and every part of him ached like nothing he’d ever felt before.

                “Fighter? Where am I?” he had demanded. “Where’s Coach Hedge?”

                The boy ruffled his hair and Will swatted his hand away—but the movement only made him hurt more. He winced, curling in on himself. Then the boy pressed a bottle to his mouth.

                “Drink this, nectar,” he explained. “It’ll help.”

                Will was desperate. He snatched the nectar and got three gulps down his throat before the boy got it back from his clenched little fists.

                “Careful,” he warned. “You’ll burn yourself up.”

                Will believed him. The stuff tasted like an orange creamcicle milkshake, cool hitting his stomach and practically giving him brainfreeze—but now his whole body felt warm, like the hottest day of Summer back home, 110 degrees outside and no shade in sight, But his side didn’t hurt nearly as much now, just the dull ache of a bruise was left.

                The boy sighed and shook his head. “Feelin’ better, Will?” he asked.

                “How do you know my name?”

                “Oh, right. Hedge told me—he’s out right now. One of his old charges just got back from a quest and I made him go see her. He’s been in here the whole time, he needed a break and I didn’t think you’d be up for another day at least. Didn’t expect you to be so spunky.” He held out his hand for Will to shake. “I’m Lee, head medic for Camp Half-Blood.”

                Will pulled his hand back and Lee popped his tongue. “Limp shake for a fighter. We’ll fix that,” he assure him. He muttered something under his breath and pushed aside the curtain to grab something—which he promptly threw at Will’s chest. “Camp shirt, should fit. Yours was shredded when Hedge carried you in.”

                Will slipped the oversized orange shirt over his head and was surprised when he was able to sit up without wincing. “Is this the safe camp my mom told me about?” He asked.

                Lee grinned. “Sure is—hungry?”

                Lee let Will sit next to him at table 7 that first night at the bonfire, even though technically he was supposed to be with Hermes cabin since he hadn’t been claimed yet. Whatever that meant. When Chiron, the half-horse camp director, wandered past with an eyebrow raised at the scrappy kid sitting next to him, Lee just shrugged.

                “He’s got a doctor’s note.”

                Chiron just nodded, suppressing a smile.

                Ultimately Will wasn’t claimed until fall (even though he arrived at camp before the summer session was even over)

                The Stolls were nice enough. He didn’t hate staying in Cabin 11—but he definitely preferred the nights Lee had midnight shift at the infirmary and would let him sleep on one of the cots there instead of in his sleeping bag on the floor of overcrowded cabin 11.

                Will was mulling around the infirmary one morning when a burn patient came in. Lava wall accident (Will would never get over that thing. How was that a good idea?”

                Lee set to work immediately, splashing some nectar into the kid’s mouth and humming quietly, like saying a prayer. Will kept dead silent while Lee treated her burns, and slowly, like magic, the wound began to heal over right before their eyes.

                When it was all over and the camper was asleep behind a curtain, Will stared at Lee with wide eyes.

                “How do you do that?” he asked.

                Lee looked a little drained, more than usual—but Will figured the burn was worse than the wounds he usually had to treat.

                “I say a hymn to my father, Apollo. He’s the god of the sun. And archery. And medicine. Anyway, the hymn is like me asking for his help to heal someone.”

                “Can I do that?”

                Lee looked at him, his brows pinched together in thought. “I don’t know If you’ll be able to heal like I do, but knowing how to ask the gods for help never hurt anyone.”

                Will repeated the words carefully, knowing how important they were to Lee and the other children of Apollo. When the hymn was done, Will opened his eyes to see Lee staring at him, wide-eyed.

                “Did I do something wrong?”

                The grin slowly tugged  at the corners of Lee’s mouth. “Look up.”

                When he did, will saw something yellow and glowing—he jumped practically a foot out of his seat. “What is that?”

                Lee pumped his fist in the air, pulling Will out of his seat and out of the building all together. “It’s the symbol of Apollo—we’ve got to show Chiron. You’ve just been claimed.”

***

                Michael, on the other hand, was claimed at his first bon-fire. But that wasn’t really a surprise; he was only eleven and fought his way into camp with nothing but a bow and arrow and a map his mother had drawn him before the monsters got her.

                If Lee had thought Will was a fighter, well, the Michael was some sort of trained mercenary. He was only a year older than Will, but he was ruthless. Convincing him to let them treat his wounds was like collaring a hellhound. Needless to say Will was ecstatic when he found out they were brothers.

                Michael taught him a lot of stuff. Sometimes it felt like he’d lived more in that extra year than Will could in a decade, and he was always eager to practice shooting arrows or swordfight or strategize for capture the flag with him.

                Maybe that was why Will went to him first instead of Lee when he started to have confusing feelings about the new kid at camp, the boy who waved his hands too much when he talked and rambled for hours about a card game and was always asking questions about the gods.

                Michael, of course, had no idea how to advise his brother on crushes. But he could keep a secret.

                “Why don’t you ask Lee? He’s probably dated girls before. Boys can’t be that different.”

                Will just pouted. “I dunno. Because. Just don’t tell, alright?”

                Michael sighed and rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” Stared intently at his deck of Uno cards. “Skip, skip, reverse, skip, reverse, skip, change the color to green and pick up four cards. Uno.”

                (When Lee asked Michael and Will about their respective black eyes, neither of them ratted the other out. Their Uno deck mysteriously disappeared after that.)

                They managed to keep their brother completely in the dark about Will’s secret. That is, until Percy Jackson returned from his latest quest that Summer. When he had to tell Nico di Angelo that his sister died, when the last of the skeleton soldiers showed up in camp—and Nico banished them to the underworld. When the son of Hades left for good, or so they thought.

                Will cried for…hours. He really thought he and Nico had become, well, friends. Eventually Michael had to tell Lee why he was so upset. Once Will admitted his feelings for the son of hades to his older brother, a weight lifted off of his chest. Lee had just tilted his head and pulled him into his arms. He let Will cry into his shirt and tried to tell him that first loves always hurt more than they’re worth. Will would always be grateful for those moments with his brother.

                Will wasn’t allowed to go on the Drakon quest Lee led that year, but Michael was. Will was sore with Lee about that quite literally until the day he died.

                Will was on the battlefield when Kronos’ army attacked camp that Summer. He was there, stumbling and struggling to shoot arrows at the people who were attacking his home. He stumbled right into the path of a giant. He could smell its rotten breath, feel it hot on his skin, but he was frozen in place. He didn’t even have enough power over his limbs to flinch when the giant raised its meaty fist, about to flatten him—

                And suddenly he was hitting the grass five feet away. When the giant’s fist hit Lee instead of him there was a disgusting squelch paired with crunching that Will knew were his bones breaking—then the giant itself shaking the ground as it fell, one of Michael’s arrows sticking from its neck. They were both too late to save their brother.

                That’s how it went. No last words, no time for will to apologize or say goodbye.

                He had rushed to his brother’s side, knelt beside him and started to say the hymn that Lee had taught his so long ago now; but Michael ripped him up by his arm and had them running as soon as he’d crossed the green to them.

                “He’s gone. If you die it’ll have been for nothing. Move.”

                Michael stashed him in a tree and told him to stay put and shoot anything that wasn’t dressed in orange.

                He wouldn’t stay there long. It wasn’t more than an hour later when Percy Jackson led his friends out of the Labrynth, along with a hundred-handed one and a hellhound—and Grover Underwood, who let out a screech that ran up the spines of friends and foes alike and sent what was left of Kronos’ army running.

                By the time the sun set that night, the battle was over and the dryads were coming out of their trees to help what remained of Camp Half-Blood collect their dead. Lee’s burial shroud was plain gold, along with everyone else they buried that night. Will made a mental note to start making personalized shrouds for everyone at camp—morbid, yes, but at least they’d be on hand in time for a sudden funeral. Even then they all knew the final death toll was far from being counted. Kronos’ army was still out there and that hadn’t won the war yet.

                Even though Will had been there longer, Michael became the new head counselor for cabin 7. He was older, he was fiercer, he was a leader—he hadn’t frozen when one of his brothers was in danger.  Will, though, Will was a shell-shocked eleven year old who spent his nights in the infirmary instead of sleeping. It took a long time for Cabin 7 to feel like home again without Lee in the bunk next to him.

                It felt like he spent an eternity waiting for the other shoe to drop. In the meantime, he sewed shrouds and trained other Apollo kids on how to heal. It was urgent they all learn before it was too late. Apollo’s gifts could save lives.

                When disaster hit again, there were no trees to hide in. War was on their doorstep and there was nowhere Will could hide this time. Even worse, there was nowhere he could hide the people he loved. Michael didn’t make things any easier.

                “We can’t win this war without the Ares kids, Michael.”

                Michael was correcting a child of Aphrodite’s foot stance, teaching her how to shoot a bow—she couldn’t be more than eight, but there wouldn’t be anyone who was left out of this fight. He barely acknowledged Will as there.

                “The chariot is ours. Clarisse can wrench it from our cold, dead hands.

                Will slammed his fist into the nearest tree, shaking leaves from the branches. Michael’s head turned slowly, and  gods, if looks could kill.

                “You will be dead if you don’t give this to her. We all will. Don’t be a dumbass, Michael. I won’t lose you, too.”

                But in the end  it wouldn’t matter that Michael gave in and left the golden chariot to cabin 5—Silena would still lead them in Clarisse’s stead, she would still die—and in the end, so would Michael.

                Will lit Michael’s shroud himself, without a body to lay to rest along with it. He was barely thirteen, will himself didn’t even turn twelve until the end of the month. He watched the threads he’d so carefully sewn for his brother go up in flame. He said a prayer to their father, their long absent father, and went to stand with the rest of his siblings, his family.

                The son of Hades stood on the outskirts of the mourning crowd, bruises under his eyes, looking quite dead himself. Things stirred in Will’s chest. Nico di Angelo used to look so alive, he used to make Will’s face go red and his heart stutter.

                Nico caused the battle of the Labyrinth. Nico did so many things that caused a train reaction of tragedy for this camp. Nico…Nico showed up at the eleventh hour of the Battle of Manhattan with reinforcements and a major god to back them all up. He fought side by side with the rest of camp—he turned the tides. Will decided that even after everything he’d done, they were even now.

                Will turned to his sister, the one with a face full of freckles and a green buzzcut where her natural orange was starting to grow in. The last child of Apollo that Michael would ever take under his wing. Her name was Kayla Knowles. She fought with everything she had until her last arrow—and then continued with a sword when her quiver was empty. She had the wounds to prove it, gashes and cuts that would scar and remind her of that day for the rest of her life. She had remained stone-faced through the entire ceremony, but her fierce expression loosened ever so slightly when she saw Will.

                He slipped Michael’s bow and sonic arrows off of his shoulder, the only things left on the Williamsburg Bridge when his body was washed away. He held them out to her and she looked at him quizzically.

                “Michael’s,” he said simply. “Special arrows, blessed by Apollo to make a noise so loud all the monsters in a ten mile radius drop their weapons and cover their ears. It buys time.” He set the bow and quiver in her arms. Michael’s most prized possessions—his mother’s bow. “He’d want you to have them.”

                Her face buckled for just a moment before she composed herself. Will mussed up her buzzcut even though there wasn’t much hair to disturb, and slung an arm around her shoulder.

                He wasn’t sure how to be a head counselor, but as he headed back to Cabin 7 with his sister, he hoped he’d learned enough about being a good brother that it would come naturally to him.