Top Hats and Thoracic Vertebrae
Will sits on his bed to revise, it's the comfiest place in the cabin. Usually Nico sits with him, playing with the other boy's hair, or fiddling with something he "just found, Jason, I don't go out of my way to buy Mythomagic".
This month, however, he's revising for the most important exam he'll ever take, and he can feel the stress getting to him. He should remember most of this stuff from previous courses, but it's incredibly hard to concentrate when your adorable Italian boyfriend is combing his fingers through your hair. As much as Will loves Nico, he's too easily distracted, and if yet another revision session turns into a make-out session, he might not get the marks he needs.
"Nico?"
"Mmm?" As Nico leans over Will's shoulder, he has to brush tantalisingly messy curly hair out of his eyes, and Will regrets what he's about to say even more.
"Would you stop touching me, just for now?" It's one of the hardest things he's ever had to say, but if this carries on, soon he'll be the one touching Nico.
"Not that it's bothering me," he hastens to add. "I just can't remember the difference between the sacral vertebrae and the cervical vertebrae when-" his breath catches in his throat as one of Nico's fingers brushes his air, and he loses his train of thought.
"That keeps happening." He finishes.
Nico's eyebrows wrinkle together, and leaps up and runs out of the cabin. He's back in a few minutes, carrying a book almost as big as a newborn baby – and Will's certainly seen a few of them in his time – and throws it onto the bed, collapsing after it with a huff.
"Nico, where-" He doesn't get to finish the sentence before a hand comes up and covers his mouth.
"Shush. Concentrate."
Maybe it was a good idea to revise together, and although Will can't help but sneak glances out of the corner of his eye at the faces Nico pulls when concentrating, he doesn't have as much of an urge to kiss him when he can no longer feel delicate fingers ghosting over his skin.
Will moves to leave when he smells the food coming from the pavilion, but a hand locks around his wrist, stopping him.
"Watch this," Nico says, eyes closed and legs crossed. He muttered something in Ancient Greek, and suddenly a skeleton bursts through the ground at Will's feet.
"Right, now pass the textbook. This one here is the Thoracic vertebrae, you got that?"
Nico spends the next hour pointing out where every bone is on his assistant, who is perfectly happy to show off with the bonus of jazz hands and a top hat one of the other campers had left in the cabin.
Unsurprisingly to Nico, Will received the highest mark in that exam he could get. Unsurprisingly to Will, Nico refuses to give the top hat back.
A/n: Inspired by a photograph on Tumblr of Necronomion for Children.