abraxaslogs | April Log

He folds around Will, chin curling against his shoulder. It doesn't matter that they're not close friends, that they haven't known each other very long. Will reached out to him, and Wilhelm doesn't want to face the chasm of loneliness that Kelson's disappearance has cleaved open. For a long moment, he says nothing. There's nothing he could say that isn't better articulated by the desperate lock of his arms, the way he sags against him.

When he feels that he's spent all the time he's allowed, Wilhelm steps back, clearing his throat and pushing a hand through his hair as a distraction.

"Thanks," he manages. "For checking on me and everything."

Edited 2024-05-19 03:03 (UTC)

Will gathered him into a hug, holding him for as long as he needed it. He knew what it was like to long for someone, to feel the emptiness when they're not around, to need to touch. So, he let him, supporting the other boy as he sagged against him, leaning into the hug with all the comfort he could muster.

The son of Apollo would have held him for hours if he wanted, letting him feel and work through his emotions, but, Wille pulls back, and so, he lets him.

"Hey, that's what friends are for. Do you want to talk about it? Or do you just want a smore?" Will produced a marshmallow on a stick, and nodded toward the box of graham crackers and chocolate. "Or both?"

"A s'more sounds good."

Wilhelm has never had one, and he has only a vague idea of what it even is, but that doesn't really matter. He accepts the marshmallow-on-a-stick from Will. Twiddling with it, he appraises the campfire.

"Do I just...hold it over the fire?"

He would talk about it eventually, but for now learning how the fuck to make a s'more provides a good distraction. It's like wading into frigid waters: you pace the shore, deferring the bite of confronting it, working up the courage to take the plunge.

"Wait you've never roasted marshmallows before? Woah. Yeah, just hold it over the fire until it's nice and crispy. Burned. Whatever your preferred flavor is. I like mine on the darker side."

After his journey in Tartarus Will was now aware just how hilarious that in fact was.

Will was well aware with Wille's style of coping. Distraction, burying the pain deep down until you could learn to touch it again or just keep going until you broke.

He just shrugs and shakes his head and tries to pull together a smile as he explains, "I've seen it in movies and stuff."

Following Will's instructions, he pokes the marshmallow toward the tongues of flame. He settles onto one of the benches boxing in the campfire. Then...there's not much to do but stare into the blaze and make sure his marshmallow doesn't combust — he's not sure that he trusts Will's recommendation of crispy.

Only, he's not that good at distracting himself. Wallowing is a better fit for his talents. Even now, as he rotates the stick, his thoughts spin through the same what could've beens that they've been wearing a rut into for days.

"So it's like one of those things in movies that you've seen done but wasn't sure was actually a real thing? Yeah, I suppose we all have a couple of those." Will's involved a real family with real family dinners. Not that he didn't love what he had going on with his siblings at Camp or the time he spent with his mom. It just wasn't what he saw on TV.

Will roasted his own marshmallow over the fire, totally letting his combust into flames. He watched Wille, slowly spinning his, getting lost in thought. Well that wouldn't do.

"You're thinking too hard."

Wilhelm has a few of those things too. Like families that actually talk to each other and parents who give a shit about your feelings. Now he can add relationships that actually work out to the list.

Pulling his marshmallow out of the fire, he snuffs out an errant flame that's decided to come along with a quick gesture of his hand. Magic feels more practical than puffing it out with his breath. It saves his marshmallow from burning, and it gives him a moment to answer Will too.

"I don't know how to stop."

He couches it in a joke, but it's not exactly funny. Groaning, he scrubs his free hand through his hair.

Normally when Nico thought too hard, or was caught in an emo loop, Will would do something silly, call him a cute nickname or give him a kiss. That....probably wouldn't work well here. And Nico would be pissed about it. But Will hated that he wasn't entirely sure how to help Wille.

The 'joke' was definitely something Nico would have said too. A dark, twisted kind of a joke. The kind of joke that Will was only just getting to accept and understand.

"No matter how much I distract you, the problem's still going to be there in the end, isn't it?" Wille would still have to exit the Horizon and Kelson wouldn't be there. He reached out to gently put a hand on Wille's shoulder, ready to pull back if he showed any....Nico-esque tendencies of not wanting to be touched.

He accepts Will's hand on his shoulder, sagging into a sigh and leaning a few degrees toward him. Will is right, of course — the hurt is too big to just shut it away and hope it will die. The darkness is where it thrives. Wilhelm spends another moment contemplating his unevenly browned marshmallow, aware that there's a next step he's supposed to be taking but too weighted with inertia.

Then he admits, "I never told him I love him."

It's a form of mourning, like throwing flowers down onto the casket as it's lowered into the ground.

"I wanted to, but...I wasn't sure he felt the same way. I was afraid I wouldn't hear what I wanted." I hope you have a nice Christmas. That's what he got the last time he said I love you. "Now I wish I'd said it anyway."

Will thought about Nico, and how he would feel if something had happened to him before they were able to share their feelings. But they had already shared so much, that it was just a verbal sharing of feelings already physically exhibited. What Wille was describe was different. He wasn't sure if Kelson felt the same way. So he had held back. They hadn't quite been ready to share that yet.

"I'm sure he knew, Wille. There are so many ways to say I love you besides those words." Will said it with every touch he gave Nico, ever glare, every cookie he shoved at his boyfriend. It was in every action, if one took the time to look. Wille seemed to be very hung up on those words though.

Wilhelm thinks back on all the ways he communicated his love when he was with Kelson. Sitting with him in the library and listening to him explain whatever historical tome he had his nose buried in that day. Coaxing him out of the castle to take a walk or share a drink together. Holding his hand, resting his head on his shoulder, playing with his hair, so many little touches that felt like something big to him. Kissing him, slow and sweet and deep — and stopping before they plunged in too far, when Kelson would hit that invisible wall and freeze up. Wilhelm didn't mind waiting for him.

It stings now, knowing that he'd never get to communicate his love for him in that way.

Taking a slow breath in, he tries to absorb Will's reassurance, to supplant those doubts. In the back of his mind, though, he can still hear Kelson whispering, I think I might be broken. He thinks those words will haunt him for the rest of his life.

"How did you and Nico meet?" he asks, reaching for something happier to think about. He finally makes to pull the marshmallow off the stick.

That was a question. One he had heard asked again not so long ago, along the banks of the Acheron. Nico and Will had shared their story to the nymph Gorgyra, before plunging into Tartarus. At least this time, the atmosphere was not a raging river of pain. Still it was a loaded question, although it wouldn't have seemed like it at first. A simple question, with a not so simple answer.

"There's actually a couple different answers to that question." Will sat back, preparing to tell the story he had only a little while ago, to a very different person. And this time he wasn't bleeding to death! "I met Nico shortly after he came to camp. We were ten, and he had just cut himself with his own sword after arguing with Chiron. I was still training as a medic," Will stopped, his own voice breaking slightly, "with my brother Michael. Nico was bouncing and shaking so hard I had to try and calm him down enough so I could work."

Will took a breath. "Nico left shortly after though. He was a bit of a flight risk back then. But that's how we met. Originally. Not quite the same as when we really got to know each other. Or when we considered each other friends, and then something more. Someone once told me we've been orbiting each other for a long time." He still liked the way that sounded.

The story is short, but it opens Will's world a little wider for him. Training to be a medic and fighting with swords at the age of ten? Being the child of a god is no joke. Sure, Wilhelm had been groomed into royal life from the moment he was born, but he didn't adopt any official duties until the summer he turned sixteen.

He understands what the breaking in Will's voice means when he names his brother. In the same way, Wilhelm still has a hard time saying out loud that Erik is dead. As he listens, he scrapes his marshmallow onto a graham cracker, an ordeal that gets his fingers all sticky.

"That sounds really nice. I mean, meeting someone when you're young, and having them in your life for a while, and...just being able to come back to them. It's nice."

That he's sincerely happy for Will makes it a little easier to hold down the bitter envy that's shooting up like weeds from his loneliness.

April Log

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