26 | She/Her | Perpetually tired | Multi-fandom blog | FMA, Harry Potter (if Joanne could croak so I can enjoy my mediocre wizard books in peace, that'd be nice), PJO/HoO, Madoka Magica | Also lolita fashion and a boat load of Kingdom Hearts | Please don't follow if you're a kink or porn blog of any kind. I'm ace and I don't feel like dealing with all of that nonsense.
“will solace should wield a gun” true. i second that. he may be shit at archery but his shooting aim with a rifle should be peak. but you know what would be more fun?
him fucking light punching people. he punches people with a beam of light.
Apollo: I’ve come to a point in my life where I need a stronger word than fuck
Arrow of Dodona: Here’s some advice Apollo: I didn’t ask for any Arrow of dodona: Too bad. I’m stuck here with my thoughts and you’re the only one who can talk to me
The crooked, creaky door of the cluttered infirmary storage room pushes open and slams shut in the span of a second, just barely allowing someone to dart through. Nico jumps, banging his head on the shelf he’s hiding under, chomping full force on his lip to bite back a shout. The shadows, on lucky reflex, bend around him and shroud his face. The rest of him he tucks further into the forgotten corner between two filing cabinets, holding his breath.
Under the unflattering light of the single swinging lightbulb, Will looks dull.
A thin headband attempts to hold back his frizzy hair, although it does very little. Curls stick out oddly and many shorter hairs are plastered to his temples and the back of his neck. His skin is unusually lacklustre, even pale, except for the high flush around his cheekbones. The bruising under his eyes rivals Nico’s. He has been wearing the same scrubs for the last two days.
With one last look at the closed door, nothing but garbled voices filtering through the heavy wood, he slumps. He drops his face into his chapped and bleeding hands, heels pressed into his eyes, and holds them there for ten seconds, twenty. Slowly, with trembles so minute they are at first glance unnoticeable, his shoulders begin to shake. The long fingers flexed and tensed around his forehead curl tightly, and he twitches, whole body trembling, teeth sunk hard into his bottom lip to stop his chin from quivering.
It does not work.
The first sob is quiet. He catches it quickly, forcing it back down, breathing heavily through his nose and out his mouth to beat it back. The second follows quickly, though, and it’s harder to choke down. When his face crumples, his resolve goes with it, and his knees hit the floor, sharp crack swallowed by the stillness of the room. He curls forward until his nose nearly hits his knees, hands sliding through his hair and over his ears and settling finally clutching together in the dip of his chest, bouncing with every heave of his chest. It’s quiet, his crying, enough that every dropped tear can be heard as it hits the dusty floor. The only time his sobs are ever audible is when he opens his mouth, trying desperately to soak up enough air to catch himself, to carry himself through.
Mute horror holds Nico’s tongue hostage.
He’d escaped in here the second Will had been called away this morning, dragged for the umpteenth time to handle a crashing patient or a complicated hymn or to soothe someone’s nerves. For the past two days he’s been doing his best to monitor Nico and a handful of other front liners who’d exhausted themselves in battle, but his focus has been split and the infirmary has been crowded. Whenever he runs off to put out whatever fire had cropped up — sometimes literally — the whispers start, the glances, the skin crawling up Nico’s back. Nico can hardly tell anymore what’s the shadows and what’s the people around him, watching him out of the corners of their eyes like they’re waiting for him to bust out a scythe and a black hooded cloak and start reaping.
The storage room is supposed to be an escape. Out of the way and forgotten as it is, it is supposed to be the place he can hide for an hour, escape the heavy gaze of the rest of the camp, collect himself before braving it all again.
Clearly, though, he’s not the only one who thinks so.
There’s something disorienting about seeing Will Solace cry. In the few times Nico has spoken with him during his visits to camp, he’s been a barely-contained explosion of energy, whether talking Nico’s ear off with updates about people he barely knows and references he hardly understands or cussing him out for overextending himself. He’s used — as much as he can be to someone he’s only beginning to really get to know — to his wildly flailing hands and widely playful grin, his loud drawling voice, his painful, constant brightness.
His hands, now, clench until they’re bloodless, trembling. There is no hint of his wide smile or twinkling eyes, because his face is hidden by all the hair that his given up on the pretence of the hairband, and the only sound from him are his gasping breaths and swallowed-back sobs. Nico watches him because he cannot look away. He flinches because every cry, every rough, scraping inhale, sounds like shattering rock, like an iceberg breaking off a glacier.
A quiet beeping startles them both.
For a stretch of time Will is motionless. The beeping continues, steady and soft, bouncing off the cluttered shelves and fading before they echo. After the third round — and Nico counts, if anything for something to do besides watch the chafed skin on Will’s hands crack and bleed with every flex — he drags himself upright, nails drawing lines in the thick dust of the floorboards, and rests back on his heels. He breathes for a moment, shuddering, hands pressed flat to his face; in, beep, beep, beep; out, beep, beep, beep. None of his breaths are ever steady, but he wastes no more time, swiping under his eyes and pinching his cheeks to restore his face to some of its usual colour. He grips onto each board of the shelf to his right as he yanks himself upwards, hand over hand, until he’s stretched, finally, to stand, although there remains a slouch to his broad shoulders.
The beeping continues, emanating from the watch on his left hand, growing softer or louder as he trails his fingers over the shelves from one end to the other, from the first, the second, the third. He pauses finally on a collection of bottles, turning them carefully to read the labels, then tucks them each gently into his already bulging pockets until he is left with what he must carry between his fingers.
The shadows bend to cover Nico again as Will turns, unknowingly facing him, and pulls himself suddenly straight-backed, chin set high, shoulders squared. He smiles, wide, fractured, squinting his eyes deliberately. The beeping stops. He breathes, in, smile, out, nod, and turns, striding, back to the door, opening it with flourish and swiping the dust off his clothes.
“Found them! Sorry it took so long, I really had to look —”
The door swings shut behind him, cutting off the rest of his sentence.
Nico stares at it with bile churning in his too-empty stomach.
Who makes the porn bots. Where do they come from. What do they hope to achieve.
Who makes the porn bots.
Where do they come from. What do
they hope to achieve.
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
and what about you, little haiku bot? do you feel kinship with your brethren? do you understand them? they speak words of enticement and seek love, but are met with disdain. you only parrot the words that cross your screen, but we all love you. or rather, since all you do is reflect us, maybe we simply love ourselves through you.
do you understand them, do you wish you could speak to us like they do? if you found your own voice, would we still care for you?
My voice repeats what
you all say: I love you I
love you I love you.
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
This. This is the first time. The only time. That it was not an echo. It was not found. Oh god.
As soon as he says it, he coughs. A freckled hand moves to itch at his throat, rub at slowly puffing eyes.
“You, William Andrew,” Lee says, grinning, “are a liar.”
Will scowls. “Am not!”
The effect of his glare is significantly undermined by the redness of his eyes and the cough that interrupts him mid-sentence. Shaking his head, Lee leans into his bunk and scoops his brother up, heading to the Big House. He slides his hand in tangled, curly hair as Will rests his head on his shoulder, still breathing heavily.
“I can feel the knots in your hair, doofus.”
Will curls up tighter in his hold, muffling another cough in his elbow. “Nuh-uh.” He sniffles. “Hey, Lee, am I dying?”
Lee snorts. “No, you’re not dying.” He ducks into the back entrance of the infirmary, flicking on the lights and setting Will on the counter of the nurse’s station.
Will’s brow furrows. “Then what?”
With his swollen tongue, it sounds more like ‘den wah’. Lee picks up the pace — he’s pretty sure, based on what he knows, that the reaction will go away on its own, but a little Benadryl can’t hurt.
“You’re having an allergic reaction.”
He finally finds the stash of Benadryl — who sorted the mortal meds cupboard by colour again — and grabs one of the little measuring cups. Will sees the medicine and immediately starts whining, trying to climb off the counter.
After a minute of wrangling, he manages to keep Will put with one leg over both of his, chin hooked around his shoulder to hinder any escape attempts so he can pour the medicine with both hands. (He pours one teaspoon, even though Will is eight and should be having two. He’s too small for two. It worries him, a little bit — but there is nothing in his vitals to indicate anything’s wrong, so he must just be a late bloomer. Or maybe he and Michael are just destined to remain under five feet for eternity.)
“I’m not drinking it I’m not drinking it I’m not drinking it ew ew ew ew ew —”
“Yes you are —”
“No! Gross! It’s disgusting!”
“You’ve never even had it before!”
Will looks at the tiny little cup like there are worms writhing in it. (He would probably be more willing to eat it if it was worms. Last summer he ate an ant before Lee could stop him. No one told him demigod life would involve wrangling dangerously impulsive children, and he would like a refund, please, thanks.) “I can tell.” He clamps his mouth shut, turning away. “I am not drinking it.”
“It will help you,” Lee says exasperatedly. Was he this difficult as a child? He needs to call his mother. “I can literally see you scratching your throat, you little snot.”
He shoves his hands under his thighs. “No.”
“…It’s bubblegum flavoured.”
Will turns slowly to look at him, evaluating the little cup with suspicion.
“Bubblegum?”
Lee shakes it enticingly. “Bubblegum.”
After a long, tense moment, Will nods once.
“Fine.” He accepts the little cup, bringing it up close to his face to inspect with one squinting eye. “But if it’s disgusting I’m spitting it out.”
He brings the little cup to his lips for the most delicate, most minuscule of sips, more of a dip of the tongue than anything. Lee rolls his eyes. A second later, a pleased look slots on his face, and he downs the rest of the medicine in one large gulp.
Immediately, some of the swelling reduces, and he stops breathing so laboriously.
“There you go,” Lee murmurs, smoothing back his hair. “That’s better, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Gods, you’re stubborn.”
He’s smiling as he says it, leaning down to press a kiss to Will’s freckled forehead. He slumps into it, sighing, arms winding their way around Lee’s neck almost shyly. Understanding the gesture for the plea that it is, Lee scoops him up again, wincing as he elbows his ribs in an effort to get comfortable, and starts putting the medicine away one-handed (by alphabet, the correct way to sort.)
“You sleepy?” he asks softly, feeling Will grow heavier against him. He crosses his fingers — Apollo kids don’t often suffer side effects of medication, but he’s hoping the drowsiness’ll kick in. It’ll be nice if Will actually, like, sleeps through the night. For once.
“Mhm.”
Smiling wider, he flicks off the lights and steps out into the late evening. Cicada song swells in the mid-spring mugginess, owls hooting somewhere in the darkness. The curfew harpies’ chittering grows nearer and nearer. Lee waves to some of his friends as he sees them puttering outside their cabins, running through the last of their nightly routines, and finally ducks into Cabin Seven.
“He out?” Diana asks, hushed, setting aside her guitar to walk over.
Lee hums. “Almost. Had to give him some Benadryl, so he’s sleepy.” His smile turns sly. “He lied to me about brushing his hair and broke out in hives.”
“Of course he’s allergic.” She leans forward, shaking her head, and presses a gentle kiss to his temple. He doesn’t stir. “Goodnight, sweetpea.”
The rest of his siblings call out their own soft goodnights as Lee walks over to Will’s bunk, covered in stickers and bracketed by Michael and Leanna, and sets him on the mattress. It takes him several minutes to pry himself out of his grip.
“Love you,” he whispers. He brushes his knuckle across his cheek. “Night, kiddo.”
———
The next morning, Will sleeps in for hours. The rest of them rise as usual with the sun, but he’s snoring, drooling onto his Star Wars pillowcase. The cabin is filled with muffled snickers and snapping cameras.
“I am going to have so much ammo on him by the time he’s thirteen and embarrassed by everything,” Michael says gleefully. “So, so much ammo.”
Lee grins at him. “Make sure I get a copy.”
The walk to breakfast is almost strange — the twelve of them again, no baby brother. Melody, complaining about the Hermes girl who is not picking up on any of her hints, pauses mid-sentence to ask if she can swear. Cass laughs out loud and allows it. Quickly, breakfast becomes a competition of who can swear the most or the most colourfully, free now that there are no little ears (as if Michael hasn’t supplied Will with a vast vocabulary already).
By the time Will stumbles into the pavilion, rubbing sleepy eyes, breakfast is almost over.
“Well, hello, lazy bones,” Lee teases, getting up to grab him a plate. Will trails slightly behind him, fingers twisted in the hem of his shirt.
“‘M not lazy,” he grouches, accepting the heaping plate Lee hands to him, “you drugged me.”
They walk to the brazier near the Apollo table, taking in the sweet smell as Will scrapes off a hefty chunk of olive bread. Lee waits for him to close his eyes and finish mouthing a quick prayer before guiding him, still sleepy, to the bench.
“I didn’t drug you. You took the medicine yourself.”
“Um, no way! Unless a patient is educated about the risks, benefits, and alternatives about a treatment, they do not have informed consent.” He nods resolutely, evidently proud of himself for remembering the spiel. “Ergo, you drugged me.”
Lee has the sudden, overwhelming urge to burst into tears. Will is — he’s just so bright, and so little. Eight years old and chattering off about informed consent, intently watching Michael in the infirmary, taking notes in his little blue notebook and wrapping bandages on burns with his tongue poking out between lost teeth. When Lee was eight years old, he was chasing his friends around at recess, chattering to anyone who would listen about Pokémon.
He had felt it, when the glowing gold lyre appeared above Will’s head: this child will do great things. They’d all felt it. Cass had gone stiff, eyes flashing green and face creasing in horror, before remembering herself and the big blue eyes watching her, scared, and plastering a smile on her face. ‘Great things’ is never a good thing for a demigod to do. A demigod destined for great things is a demigod doomed.
With every straining molecule, he wants to turn to the heavens and scream, no! You will not have him! You will not use him! He is not yours to toy with, to use until you’re bored! I will not allow it! By my dying breath I will not allow it!
Instead, he swallows around the lump in his throat and says, “What kind of dork says the word ‘ergo’,” and laughs when Will sticks out his tongue. He reminds his baby brother to chew with his mouth closed and keep his elbows off the table, lest his mama kick his ass, and forces himself to focus on the way he leans into Lee’s side as he eats; to memorize the wideness of his unburdened smile.
———
“I’m allergic to lying?!”
“Seems like it,” Lee confirms, closing one eye to line up a shot. He breathes in, holds, then exhales, letting the arrow loose. It hits the bullseye, but not quite as centred as he’d like it to be. Shoot. He sets down his bow, and Will runs off, scooping up the volley and running back with them.
(Gods, Lee loves having a little brother.)
“That’s not a real allergy,” he huffs, placing an arrow in Lee’s waiting hand. “The ten most common allergy types are foods, animals, pollen, mold, dust mites, medications, latex, insect stings, cockroaches, and perfumes or household chemicals. Other allergens are rare but not impossible, but all are a result of physical stimuli. An allergy to a concept or person is a figure of speech.”
Lee squints at him. “Do you know what ‘stimuli’ means?”
“No.”
“It means a thing that evokes a specific reaction. Where’d you read that?”
“‘The Flu, The Plague, and the Common Cold — How We Are Shaped By Reacting’ by Phyllis Ledger.”
“Huh.”
He lines up another arrow — closer to the centre, this time. Good enough.
They don’t learn a lot about paediatric care at camp, or really anything outside of first aid and emergency services, but he’s pretty sure that normal eight-year-olds don’t read and memorize medical textbooks in their spare time. Is he supposed to nurture that? He has no idea how to nurture that.
It’s kinda funny, though. Cute.
“How can I be allergic to lying if that’s impossible?”
“Is sewing a severed arm back on a person using magical nectar and singing songs possible?”
Will pauses, considering. “Okay. I guess so.” He waits, letting Lee focus to make another shot. “I still think it’s stupid. Are you allergic to lying?”
“Nope.”
“Is Cass?”
“Negative.”
“Michael?”
Lee scoffs. “If Michael was allergic to lying, he would be dead.”
“Is anyone else allergic to lying?”
“Nope.” This time, the arrow lands in the dead centre — finally. “Just you, kiddo.”
He’s heard, of course, of children of Apollo afflicted with such an inconvenience before. Their dad is the god of truth, after all. It’s bound to happen.
Will frowns. “What are the parameters?”
Lee glances curiously at him. “What do you mean?”
“Well, what is lying? Am I allergic to lying, or not telling the truth? They’re different, you know.” He fidgets with the last arrow of the volley, picking at the tail. “Am I gonna get hives if I say something that’s not true, even if I think it’s true? What if I say something that’s a lie but everyone believes it’s true, like when people believed smoking was good for you?” He gasps, looking at Lee with wide, worried eyes. “Oh my gods, am I allowed to be sarcastic?”
Lee tries his very best to hold back his laughter. He is obviously unsuccessful, because Will scowls, shoving him as hard as he can and throwing off his last shot.
“It’s not funny!”
“It’s a little funny,” Lee snickers, jogging down the range to gather his arrows. He slides them into the quiver, tossing it and his bow onto the equipment deck. “You’re very adorable when you’re mad. You get all —” he pokes Will’s dimpled cheeks, grinning when it makes him smile — “pouty and red. Like Tinkerbell.”
“You’re mean. You’re a horrible mean big brother and I want Beckendorf to adopt me instead.”
“I’ll let him know,” Lee says drily. “C’mon, kid. There’re cabin inspections tonight; I know you got Lego everywhere. Time to clean up. I swear, if we get Castor again I’m gonna —”
“Oh, I didn’t see you guys! I hope I’m not interrupting your practice.”
Lee stumbles. “— lose it.” He trails off weakly “Hey, Carter.”
The son of Athena smiles widely, dark eyes twinkling. His front tooth is just slightly crooked, and Lee finds himself staring at it.
“Hi, Lee.”
Lee wonders, briefly, if he has suddenly developed tachycardia. It certainly feels like it. He remembers something Will had rattled off during lunch yesterday — hummingbirds don’t actually hum, they just beat their wings thousands of times per minute, often in sync with their heart. Lee feels a strange kinship with the little birds right about now.
Will clears his throat loudly.
Carter startles. “Oh! Oh, hi, Will, I’m sorry. Didn’t see you there.”
Will squints suspiciously. “Uh-huh.”
“I was just hoping to use the archery range, if you’re done with it.” He tucks a lock behind his ear. “Or, um. We can share, if you want.”
“Oh, no, that’s okay,” Lee rushes to assure, “I actually just finished, so I’m all — it! It’s all yours!” He clears his throat, sure his face is flaming. “Uh, take it away! Shoot straight!”
Mortified, he clamps his hands on Will’s shoulders and practically shoves him forward, rushing away as fast as is socially acceptable.
“Okay,” Carter calls out behind him, audibly confused. “See you around, Lee.”
Lee makes some sort of horrible, crackling chucking sound. “Right-o!”
Just bury him. Really.
“Smooth,” Will mutters, the second they’re out of earshot. Then he pauses, delighted. “Hey! I can still be sarcastic!”
Lee flicks him on the forehead, scowling. “Shut up.”
———
“— it just seems so vague, right? I mean, say I look at the sky and say, the sky is green. That’s obviously not true. But what if I think it’s true? Or what if I think blue is green, and green is blue? Am I being truthful? Is truth defined by my belief, or by whoever I’m speaking to? Or some arbitrary, so-called objective standard? And what if —”
“Will,” Lee begs, hands pressed to his rapidly-pulsating temples, “for the love of Zeus, please settle down.”
“I can’t,” he says dramatically. He gets another couple jumps on his (FRESHLY MADE) bed before Lee gets fed up an wallops him with a pillow, sending him tumbling with a shriek. “Child abuse! I’m telling Chiron!” He makes a pleased noise. “Hey, I can still exaggerate! I wonder if acting is considered lying —”
“I am going to lose my mind.”
“— and what about, like, withholding the truth? Like, for example, if you asked me, hey, Will, did I make a big embarrassing fool out of myself in front of Carter this morning, and I do not say yeah, totally, I was embarrassed for you —”
“That’s it.”
Lee pounces on him, murderous, digging his fingers into his brother’s sides as he shrieks with laughter, pinning down his arms so he can’t writhe away.
“Mercy! Mercy! I’m sorry, I’m —”
“You’re literally lying right now!” Lee says in disbelief. “I can see your eyes reddening!”
Luckily, the reaction isn’t so severe this time. Maybe it’s a smaller lie, leaning more into teasing than anything, or maybe even the universe can’t be so cruel when faced with Will’s giggles. Either way, Lee tickles him until he’s begging for mercy for real, gasping as he darts away.
“You’re such a brat,” Lee says fondly, catching his breath.
Will sticks out his tongue. “Nuh uh.”
“Get over here, doofus. It’s nine o’clock. You were supposed to be in bed a half-hour ago, I’ll tell you a story.”
Predictably, that gets him quiet, clambering over the mussed sheets and shoving himself into Lee’s side, leg sprawled over his knees and chin digging into his chest. Big blue eyes turn to him with attention, wider than the sea and skies, sparkling, clear with open trust. The lump surfaces in Lee’s throat again, and he brings his hands up to smooth down Will’s hair, distracting himself by untangling the many knots.
“One day,” he begins, voice a little wobbly, “there was a boy.”
“In a galaxy far far away?”
“No. Shut up.”
Will pouts. Lee kisses him on the forehead.
“There was a regular boy on regular Earth. And he was small and clumsy, because his brain was too big for his body and threw him off balance.”
“That’s called a Chiari malformation.”
“William Andrew.”
“Sorry.”
“Gods. Anyways. The boy.” He clears his throat. “The boy was the most curious boy to ever exist. He would observe things, with his big eyes, for hours, trying to figure out how everything in the whole world worked. He’d memorized how every creature in the pond worked together when he was four years old. By the time he was five he could speak frog, and dance with the fireflies.”
Will giggles. “A boy can’t speak frog, that’s ridiculous. Can the frog speak back?”
“Shhh. Listening ears. One day, when the boy was eight, he got very bored by his house, even with the pretty pond. The frogs were too busy to play with him and the fireflies had flown off to work, so he decided to go on an adventure.”
“A quest?”
“Yes, exactly. A quest for knowledge. He decided he would learn every piece of information possible so that one day he could bring it back to his village and share it with everybody. Do you know what happened?”
“What?”
“He was successful. He spent many years travelling and observing and running from monsters to get all the information he could. And when he came back to the village, the people saw that he was kind and intelligent but very naive, so they sucked out all the knowledge from his head to use for themselves and he died. The end.”
“What? No!” Will pushes himself upright, unfortunately putting his entire weight on Lee’s spleen, jaw dropped in outrage. “That’s a horrible story! You can’t end the story like that!”
“My story,” Lee wheezes. “I can end it however I want.”
“Tell it better!”
“Fine, fine. Get off my organs.”
When Will is settled again, curled in the crook of Lee’s arm and glaring at him suspiciously, Lee continues.
“The villagers didn’t kill the boy. You’re right. But they weren’t very careful with them, either. The boy wanted very much to help, so much that it was sometimes all he could think about. And the villagers didn’t mean to, but they treated the boy like he was a knowledge machine — taking and taking and taking, forgetting to give back, to check on him. One day, the boy was so drained of knowledge that he collapsed.”
“Of stress-induced exhaustion?” Will asks softly. His eyes, finally, have begun to droop.
Lee smiles. “Something like that.”
“Then what happened?”
“The villagers panicked, because the boy wasn’t awake to tell them how to fix him. They didn’t know what to do. Some of them, even, didn’t know why he collapsed at all, they thought he might be cursed and didn’t like him anymore.”
“But he wasn’t cursed, he was sick!”
“That’s right. He was sick, because he didn’t stop to take care of himself. He let people take too much without making sure he had enough to stay whole.”
For a long time, long enough that Lee thinks he’s asleep, Will doesn’t say anything. And then he says, in a very small voice, “Does the boy still die?”
“No,” Lee whispers, tightening his hold. “His big brother comes back from a long trip and heals him. And then he yells are the villagers for making him sick, and makes them promise to be more careful. The end. For real this time.”
“I like the second story better,” Will says. “It’s good that he had his big brother there.”
“Always.” Lee swallows, shifting once Will’s eyes flutter shut, sliding him under the covers. “Always, kiddo.”
“average demigod cusses out the gods 3 times a year” is actually just a statistical error. Percy Jackson, who personally tells the Olympians to go fuck themselves over 10,000 times a day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.
“average demigod gets knocked out with a brick 3 times a year” factoid actually just a statistical error. Jason Grace, who gets knocked out over 10,000 times a day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.
“average demigod steals 3 cars a year” factoid is just a statistical error. Piper McLean, who asks nicely and is given over 5,000 cars a day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.
the Stoll brothers, who account for the other 5,000 car thefts, are being studiously ignored in the hops that they’ll stop if they don’t get the attention they’re seeking.
“average demigod catches on fire 3 times a year” factoid is actually a statistical error. Leo Valdez, who catches on fire 10,000 times per day because he thinks giving people heart attacks is funny, is an outlier and should not have been counted.
ALT
