Barely Breathing ~ 3 Days In The Infirmary Fic

Night One

It wasn't particularly rare for patients to not sleep. Either the pain was too much to even do so, or they were afraid of nightmares, or the adrenaline from whatever fight placed them in the Infirmary was still rushing through their veins.

All healers encouraged patients to sleep, of course; sleep was extremely helpful to the healing process. Allowing your body to relax completely was great.

So, when Nico was found awake the first night of his three days, Will couldn't say he was at all surprised. Still, he had to at least try to get the kid asleep.

"Psst," Will popped up, seemingly magically, next to Nico's cot, "Go to sleep."

Nico just stared at him confusedly. He didn't hear a word Will said. Some other camper loaned him a walkman, an old enough piece of technology that it wouldn't attract monsters.

Will sighed, pulling the headphones off of Nico's head. "Go to sleep."

"You go to sleep." Nico whispered back.

"I'm not the one with werewolf gashes."

"I'm not sleeping."

"Why?"

Nico had to debate whether or not to actually say why. He decided, sure, why not. Will wasn't the type to judge avoiding sleep due to nightmares, right?

"Nightmares."

"Ohhh. Well that's easy. I'll get a Hypnos kid in here, be right back."

"Wait-" Nico leaned forward, grabbing Will's wrist as he started to walk away, "The cleaning harpies?"

"Don't worry about it." Will waved him off with a smile, walking straight out of the Infirmary. Nico waited for a moment, thinking that maybe he'd hear Will get murdered and eaten by the harpies, but he heard no such thing, and the silence was getting to him, so he put the headphones back on.

Just a few minutes later, Will walked in with a camper Nico didn't quite recognize-presumably, one of the few Hypnos campers.

"She's gonna bless you with good dreams and make you sleep. Just for tonight." Will explained quietly. The Hypnos camper looked about half asleep-to be expected-as she closed her eyes and muttered something.

"You don't have to do that." Nico assured.

"Too late. Give me the device, young man." Will held his hand out like a teacher asking for a student's phone. Nico grumbled something, but gave him the walkman regardless, because he knew Will would probably end up fighting hi for it.

"Done." The Hypnos kid gave a small wave goodbye, and then walked sluggishly out of the Infirmary.

"Sleep." Will commanded.

Nico tried to resist doing so, partially out of fear of nightmares and partially just to spite Will, but the Hypnos kid's blessing did it's job at forcing him asleep, and he found himself drifting off fairly soon. The last thing he saw before falling asleep completely was a sly, self-satisfied smile from one Will Solace. Nico'd be lying if he said he wasn't totally okay with that.

a/n is that really how technology works in the universe? Hell if I know. do I care anymore? Nope!