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Six hours, he'd said. That's all I need. Swear.
Nico had given him six and a half.
On the crux of the minute, he creeps into the empty, echoing infirmary. Will does not notice him, or he pretends not to. He busies himself rushing from mussed cot to cot, gathering linens and snatching charts from bedsides. His hair has, sometime after Nico brought him lunch, worried its way out of the pigtail braids he had them in. The lunch remains untouched on the nurse station counter. Nico sighs.
"Will," he murmurs, letting his low voice bounce over the walls. Will does not stop, muttering to himself between papers.
Heat bursts hard and fast in Nico's stomach. He'd written out a plan, originally. There had been steps -- four, at least. A slow and steady escalation. He was unsurprised at the resistance and prepared to practice his own much-needed self control; this would not be the first time Will has bulldozed over his own advice, nor will it be the last. A spiral is a spiral and Will is a cranked pocket watch.
Will walks backwards, nose in a file, to a stool in a corner of the large room. He glances up, quickly, barely there through his curtaining hair -- and looks away.
Nico's eyes flash something low and dark and dangerous. He stalks over on silent, heavy bootsteps.
"Will," he says, voice carefully even.
Will huffs. "What."
Nico is careful, with the file. Careful not to rip it, at least, as he pulls it from Will's hands, ignoring his protests, and tosses it a distance behind them, hearing it flutter to the floor.
"Hey!" Will snaps, "I'm trying to file!"
He pushes himself to his feet, shoving Nico out of the way in the process. Or, he tries to. In seconds, Nico has him by the back of his neck -- careful, at first, to support his head as he spins him, pinching and squirming, into the open space of his legs; holding him steel-ironed in place.
"Let me -- Nico, I swear to the gods, I am going to flashbang you into next Tuesday --"
Steps one, two, three vanish into the still air. Left only is the fire in his gut and the challenging fire in Will's eyes, burning, burning, testing.
"Will," he warns, voice near silent.
There is a quiet, hidden thrill of having him like this: bratty, huffy, liquid in Nico's arms. He twists like he's itching for freedom but his hands only twitch at his sides; he mutters a thousand insults under his breath but when Nico loosens his hold he doesn't move. There is anger, in the hard set of his face, an indignant set of his jaw and unholy fury on his filthy tongue.
But his eyes beg him please.
He pushes, again, shrugging his shoulders hard. He puts strength in it, this time, like a bucking bull, and it takes effort to stay in place, to plant himself to the ground. Will feels the tensing of his muscles and the barest little smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth, cloudy, wanting eyes clearing ever so, and he bucks harder.
"Stop."
Nico grabs the tangled ends of Will's hair and yanks, quick and fast and stinging. Will gasps and his pupils erupt, black spreading over blue like paint over tile. He keens and the sound of it is solid want, solid knee-buckling need; it is static in his ear and the liquid Phlegethon in every hollow tube of Nico's veins.
"I got you," he murmurs, loosening slightly. Will whines, eyes fluttering closed. "What do you need, preda?"
Breathing heavy, Will slides up his hand, twisting his fingers around Nico's knuckles and guiding his hand onto his chest. Nico watches, puzzled, as he tucks the bell of his stethoscope into his palm, wrapping the frame under his fingertip. And then he wriggles his fingers under the loop of the tubing and pushes Nico's hand out, taking the stethoscope noose with him, choking, and --
Oh.
Oh.
Nico shudders, and steadies his hold on Will. When he pulls Will keens, loud and low and heavy, and the part of his panting, paling lips is like Atalanta's apples, like glittering garnet pomegranate. Nico lets his trembling muscles relax, lets Will slump onto the stool; he drags his head back and swallows him like Apep swallows the sun. He drinks down every wheeze and whimper and feels it settle, warm and writhing, in the base of his own lungs; he tastes the iron from the welt Will has bitten on the inside of his cheek and lets it flood in between his teeth. When Will reaches up to dig his nails into the meat of Nico's trapezius, he feels it in his toes.
"Don't," Will pleads, when Nico pulls back, "please, I don't want to hear, I don't want to think --"
The rasp of his voice curls in Nico's gut like roiling Vegas heat. "Okay," he soothes, he promises, "okay, trust me. I got you, baby. I got you."
Will nods and sinks into the grip of his hands, his words. When Nico loosens his fingers and lets the stethoscope fall to the ground he frowns, or pouts, but before he can protest Nico has him cradled in his arms, nose pressed to the crook of his neck, hand splayed wide over the reddened back of his neck, and disappears into the shadows.
-- -- --
In the golden glow of afternoon on Cabin 13's marble floors, Will stumbles. Nico holds him steady, counting the shakey breaths against his skin until he's settled.
"Please," Will says, again, voice small and reedy. "I'm -- tired."
He recognizes the lilt to Will's voice, the twist at the end of the word. Not tired as in 'sleepy', not tired as in 'bored' -- this desperate, pleading kind of tired Will gets when the spinning whir of his brain has not stopped in days, when he is so far away and so far gone that the sharpest adrenaline spike he can manage is too low to count, when he hides behind the simmering fight in his eyes and says make me forget.
And by the gods, will Nico make him.
"Desk," Nico urges, gentler than his earlier handling.
Will shoots him a warning look, and there are bags under his eyes. There is defeat in his shoulders. Nico stops him, stops them both, in the dead center of the cabin, and just...
Looks.
Will's favorite hobby is burning the candle at fifteen different ends.
Nico knows it's on purpose. He has been there on rough nights, where he wakes up to his own screaming only to find Will seizing next to him, eyes glowing green through the thin skin of his eyelids, unable to distinguish past from present reality from dream until the sun rises. He has been there on rough mornings, when his side of the bed is frigid, and the light of the ensuite has burned out. He has been there on rough afternoons when screaming echoes from out of Cabin Seven's soundproof walls and has been there for rough evenings when the strings of his guitar are pulled tighter than lines of Fate and his voice is wrecked six ways to Sunday. Will is bright-eyed and mischievous and shines a thousand times brighter than his father and his brothers and all who came before him, and when he smiles every synapse in your brain fires at once. It is his greatest strength. It is his downfall. It is beautiful, it is horrifying, it is an ember in the hollow stalk of fennel.
Every once in a while, it needs blown out.
When Nico kisses him, he does so softly. It is not what Will asked for and not exactly what he needs, but he melts into it, anyway, sighing into the careful press of Nico's mouth, sinking into the gentle press of his hands. Nico kisses him until his cloudy eyes come clear again, until he stares at Nico was desperate, holy wanting. Until he is close enough to alert that Nico has the privilege and pleasure of chipping it away again.
He pulls away, eyes hooded.
"On your knees," he orders, softly.
Will drops.
He doesn't need any further instruction but Nico gives it anyway, just to let him hear it, just to watch him listen.
"Jeans," he murmurs, and Will fingers are already fumbling for the button -- trembling, badly, but managing eventually, sliding the button through the loop and the jeans down their teeth, pulling, pulling.
"C'mon," he mutters to himself, endearingly. Nico slides his hands through his ruined hair, smiling.
"Eager."
"No shit."
Nico considers chiding him for his mouth, just to play into the character. But before he can decide the mouth in question descends upon him, not even bothering with his briefs; Will mouths at him through the fabric, breath hot and tongue hotter, and it takes Nico a moment to remember the plot, to remember the point. It takes him less than a moment to harden to a full erection, straining almost painfully against the fabric -- he was there, or close to it, already, and Will knows how to work him.
"Will," he tries, having to clear his throat to speak without groaning, "Will, off me for a second."
Will looks like he could cry. Nico holds a hand to his cheek, swiping a thumb under his eye, as he composes himself, breathing deeply, brokenly.
"What," he whines, high and frustrated, fist raking lines up his thighs.
Nico waits until he looks up. He tugs on Will's shirt, wordless, and he quickly gets the message, stripping out of his scrubs and tossing them carelessly aside, scrambling back to eye level with Nico's cock. He waits, this time, for permission, looking through his lashes, and Nico makes him wait, makes him tremble. He strokes Will's hair off his sweaty face, relishing in his shudder at every tug, the fluttering close of his eyelashes.
"You need something longer, huh."
Will hesitates, then nods.
"Okay. Hold on."
There is a mahogany desk tucked against the window, bought when they were fifteen and younger and not very much lighter but maybe a little less weighed down. And it is ancient and massive, and the space under it is huge, more than enough legroom for when Will remembers his paperwork can be done outside the infirmary, more than enough for more than legs. Nico pulls the thinnest blanket off his unmade bed, folding it, and tucks it along the bottom of the cavity, smoothing it out with his palms. He pulls over the creaking desk chair and a stack of his own paperwork, from the last errand he ran for his father, gathering dust in the top drawer. He blows it off, sits heavily down onto the chair, and meets Will's watching eyes.
"Let's try something," he says quietly.
Will crawls over without a word.
If Nico wasn't already hard, that would do it. Will is freckled all over, and it is never more obvious than on the long expanse of his perfect back, the cresting hills of his ass. Nico watches the muscles contract and expand under his tanned skin, wanting. There is a flush along his cheekbones, his shoulders, even hidden along his bare, tattooed chest, and later when they are in between soft sheets and deafening shadow Nico will trace lines between each dot with his tongue, with his teeth. He will memorize again the dips and valleys along his torso and the raised mountains of his nipples. He will devour him, teeth and all, from his wide shoulders to his narrow hips, biting until he is marked and bruised. And Will will muffle his shouts in the hollow of Nico's throat and beg him to keep going, to bite harder, to thrust deeper, and Nico will keep up with his every demand and every want, desperate to please, hopeless to pleasure, to taste the sweat and spit and spend of him.
But now, Will crawls. Now, he tucks himself into the hollow under the ancient desk, in between the crevice between Nico's legs; he wraps his lips around the head of Nico's cock and sucks, hard, sliding up and down his shaft, burying his face into the kinky curls at the base of Nico's groin until he is choking and gagging and tears trace lines down his cheeks and drop onto Nico's thighs. And he stays there until his muscles start to relax and his bone starts to sway, and Nico curls his hands in his hair and yanks him back just to make sure he is breathing.
When he looks, under the desk, he is breathing slow, one for every three of Nico's shuddering gasps, and there is empty nothing reflected in the black mirrors of his eyes, and he is finally, finally distant. The blue of his irises has all but retreated and taken his pained, conscious mind with them, hiding in the warm place of his mind, where he can be still, where he can be a body, a person, without the agony of remembering. Of thinking. Where he will stay, until Nico pulls him gently out.
Nico exhales, long and hard, and leaves his hands in Will's hair, leaves his cock in his throat.
-- -- --
It is early dusk when Will comes back.
"Hngh," he says, or tries to.
Nico smiles, tucking away his paperwork -- of which he made the smallest possible dent -- and ducking back under the desk, watching Will's face. He pulls off and rubs his jaw, stretches his neck, wincing. He rolls his shoulders as well as he can in the small space and settles back into himself, resting his cheek on Nico's thigh.
"Okay?"
Will nods.
Nico keeps a gentle hand in his hair, brushing through his curls. It is rare to see Will like this; waking up, blinking the bleariness away. Nico is almost never the first to wake. He stares quietly at the crease on Will's right cheek, from the seam of his jeans, and the stubborn ringlet curl sticking out by his forehead.
"You're cute when you're half asleep."
"I'm cute 'cause I just had your cock in my mouth," Will corrects.
Nico grins. "That, too." He rests his palm on the soft line of Will's jaw, fingers sliding behind his neck. "You better?"
"Yes." Will turns to press his lips to Nico's palm, exhaling. "Thank you."
"Of course, amate."
They rest like that for a moment. Until the last rays of sun pull out of the range of the window, Nico holds his hand to Will's face, and Will remains buried in it. His breaths are warm, tickling his tired skin.
"You wanna go to bed?"
"I -- soon." He can feel Will's throat as he swallows, tender and careful. "Just a little longer. To sit."
"Okay." Without moving his hand, he slides off the chair, scooting under the desk and folding Will into his arms. Will breathes out and melts into him, bare skin hot through Nico's thin t-shirt, and stays there, steady and tired and safe. "As long as you need."
