The Talk (small Solangelo and finally, kids get the talk. (Sort of))
“Nico, could you grab me a tampon?” Will called Nico in the back room. The thirteen year old girl that was sitting in front of him turned red with embarrassment. “Or-wait, actually, scratch that. A pad.” He turned to the small girl. “Don’t worry, it’s a natural part of puberty and adulthood and all that.”
Nico came back three minutes later, looking bemused. “I can’t find any.”
“Wait, what? We just restocked,” Will stood and went to the back. On the first shelf sat a ten-gallon bucket filled with packages of them.
“Here they are, Neeks. How’d you miss them?” Will teased Nico as he turned to face him.
“Those are what pads are?” Nico looked even more confused. “Why are those pads?”
Will felt life slow. “Do you...do you not know what these are for?”
Nico just shrugged. “Should I?”
“I-! Yes?? Yes you should,” Will went back to the small Hermes camper. “Can you go ask Kayla with help on this? I need to yell at my boyfriend, but I understand if you’d want me to still tell you.”
The girl shook her head. “If it’s okay, I think I want to go ask Kayla.”
Will grinned at her. “You’ve got it.” Then he turned to Nico. “Why hasn’t anyone sat you down? And explained any of this to you?”
Nico shrugged. “I mean, I was like...twelve? Ten? When I came here, and I didn’t know then, my mom just...didn’t tell me. And then I was here, and then on the run...so yeah, no...no one really...told me.”
“Huh.” Will thought for a moment before his eyes bulged. “How many of the campers don’t know about The Talk?!”
That week, though embarrassing all of the camp, a survey went out with one question: Have you had The Talk?
About a shocking thirty percent replied yes.
The rest however, had not.
Thus, Will got Chiron’s permission and got Chiron and Mr. D, as well as that small thirty percent, (Mostly Aphrodite and Apollo kids, with quite a few Athena ones mixed in,) to teach some groups.
The seventy percent was told to choose the teachers they’d be most comfortable with, (So about two picked Mr. D, unsurprisingly one of his children who felt bad, and a weird Apollo kid, while fifty or more tried to get Will or Kayla). Will took his final group of twenty kids to the side of the Apollo cabin. “So, show of hands, how many of you get periods?”
Nine hands raised.
“How many of you bleed once a month, unrelated to injuries while fighting?”
Two more hands were raised along the nine.
Well, crap. “That’s a period. If you didn’t know and just let that happen, come talk to me afterwards. I’ll give you some extra pads with the rest of the class.”
And thus the class went, with Will explaining any questions that were from hands, or from little slips of paper that were eventually passed to the box at the front.
And though Will felt incredibly uncomfortable, (he was a teenaged doctor, not separated from his feelings, for crying out loud,) he answered each and every one, and at the end of the classes, everyone was a little red. (Minus Mr. D and Chiron, who, being immortal and used to this, were not as easily embarrassed.)
Thanks to Will, Camp Half-Blood started a sex ed class to be held every year for children who just didn’t know.