Chapter Text
The morning at Camp Half-Blood should’ve been peaceful. The sun rose bright and warm over the cabins, glittering off the lake, and birds were chirping in the strawberry fields. But inside Cabin Seven—the Apollo cabin—peace had died before sunrise. Specifically, at 5:42 a.m., when one of Will Solace’s eleven younger siblings decided to test how loud a harmonica could be inside a wooden cabin.
“JESUS—fuck—” Will jolted upright, nearly smacking his head against the bunk above. “Okay, no. Absolutely not. Who the hell thought—Kai! Put that damn thing down before I feed it to a hellhound.”
The boy froze mid-blow, cheeks puffed. “Sorry, Will. I just—”
“Uh-uh.” Will swung his legs off the bed, hair sticking up in every possible direction. “No excuses before coffee. Cabin rule number one.”
Kayla Knowles, fully dressed and chipper, was leaning against the doorframe sipping from a mug. “Morning, sunshine.”
He blinked blearily at her. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Immensely. You look like death warmed over.”
“Death *is* warmed over,” Will muttered, rubbing his eyes. “I was up all night stitching a kid’s leg because he thought wrestling a drakon was an Olympic sport.”
She grinned. “Mom duties getting rough?”
He flipped her off. “Bite me, Knowles.”
Kayla cackled and sauntered off, calling over her shoulder, “Language! You’ve got impressionable ears in here.”
Impressionable ears, Will thought, hearing two of the younger campers immediately whisper, “What’s ‘bite me’ mean?”
He groaned. Gods. This was his life now.
By 8 a.m., the chaos had matured into something insidious. Will stood in the middle of the cabin with his hands on his hips. Every bunk bed looked like it had been attacked by a tornado. One kid was trying to balance an arrow on his nose. Another was arguing about whose turn it was to feed the therapy pegasi. Somewhere in the back, a sibling was practicing chords on a lyre with enthusiastic but *painfully wrong* notes.
“Sweetie,” Will said as evenly as he could to Mari, a stubborn twelve-year-old with a braid longer than her sword. “Please, for the love of Apollo, stop throwing darts at the wall.”
“They’re suction-cup darts,” she said innocently.
“They’re leaving *marks*.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” Will mimicked, rubbing his temple. “How wonderful. Oh. Maybe next time I’ll say, ‘oh’ when I have to repaint this godsdamn wall.”
Another voice chimed in, sing-song and smug. “You sound just like Mom.”
“Don’t make me fight you, Austin.”
Austin Lake smirked, polishing his trumpet. “Mom Solace has entered the chat.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Will said automatically, then froze as gasps rippled through the room. Eleven little faces stared at him like he’d just committed a mortal sin.
“Uh—new rule. No repeating anything Will says before coffee or after midnight, understood?”
They nodded in solemn silence.
“Good.” He flopped down on a trunk and sighed. “Kayla, please tell me you brought caffeine.”
“As a matter of fact…” Kayla waltzed back in, holding out an iced coffee so big it looked like she’d stolen it from the gods themselves. Condensation dripped down the side; Will practically drooled.
“Oh my *holy father’s lyre,* yes.” He grabbed it, took a long desperate gulp, and visibly revived. “I swear, I could marry you.”
“You’d have to fight your boyfriend first.”
Will smirked. “Nah, Nico would thank me for surviving this long.”
He downed another huge swallow of coffee, feeling life return to his limbs. The caffeine hit his brain like sunlight. For a whole thirty seconds, he felt almost human again. Then came the crash of something shattering.
He froze. “What. Was. That.”
No one moved.
Will inhaled deeply through his nose and exhaled like a yoga instructor trying not to ascend to godhood purely through rage. “Okay. Show of hands. Which one of you *broke the healing jar?*”
A small hand crept up in the corner. “It… fell.”
“It… fell. Sweetheart, jars don’t just *fall*. They *get knocked over* by kids who don’t listen when their exhausted counselor says not to play dodgeball indoors.”
“She started it!” another shouted.
“Did not!”
“Oh my gods, stop it!” Will threw his hands up. “I do not have the emotional bandwidth for sibling court today!”
Kayla leaned against the door with that infuriatingly serene smile. “Should I schedule you a nap, Mom?”
He glared. “I swear I will use you as target practice.”
Austin hummed something smug again from his bunk. Will threw a pillow at him. “Fuck *off,* Austin!”
“You’re corrupting the minors,” Kayla sang.
“They’re already corrupted!” Will snapped. “I’ve been here two months with eleven kids who can all glow in the dark when they sneeze. You think a few swear words are the problem?”
The cabin burst into giggles. He could feel his blood pressure rising, his Apollo temper flaring up from the depths of his tired soul. He was supposed to be the cheerful one—the healer, the sunshine boy. But right now, his sunny disposition had burned right the hell out.
“Sweetie, please get that arrow out of your nose before I lose my mind,” he said, voice trembling on the edge of laughter and hysteria.
“But Will, I’m practicing balance!”
“Balance? You’re bleeding!”
“It’s just a little!”
“Okay, that’s it,” he muttered, storming over. “Medical intervention mode activated. Sit your ass down.”
He patched the kid up, muttering curses under his breath the whole time. “I swear, if I survive summer without having a nervous breakdown, I’m sacrificing an entire case of Red Bull to Dad.”
When he finally finished, he dropped into a chair and let his head thunk against the table. “I don’t ever want to have children. Ever. I’m fixing everyone’s boo-boos, breaking up fights, pretending I’m fine—nope. I’m cashed out. Tap out. Stick a fork in me, I’m *done.*”
Kayla and Austin were both laughing too hard to breathe.
“You’re such a parent,” Austin gasped.
“I *hate* you,” Will said flatly, eyes still shut against the tabletop. “Both of you. Go mock me somewhere else.”
Kayla patted his shoulder. “Hang in there, Mom.”
He flipped her off again without looking up.
Outside, the sunlight filtered through the window, bathing the cabin in warm gold. The kids were laughing, somehow playing without disaster—at least for now. And despite every nerve in his body vibrating with exhaustion, Will found himself smiling against his will.
“Godsdamn it,” he muttered. “They’re cute when they’re not setting things on fire.”
“Language!” half the cabin shouted back in unison.
Will groaned, face still in his hands—but his shoulders were shaking with laughter now. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe.
“Fine, fine,” he said. “You little bastards win. But someone get me another iced coffee before I commit arson.”