A hard gasp pierced the night, Pick shooting upright in bed, heart pounding so loud he could swear someone else could hear it—and given his company, that was most certainly true. He stuffed the side of his hand in his mouth and bit it, trying to breathe through his nose, watching the dying embers of a fire twinkle like stars in the fireplace. Cooling sweat drenched his skin, his hair damp with it, and he felt clammy, shivering in the chill that swept in to cool him.
From behind him, someone shifted, and then the bed frame creaked as someone moved. Then, large, warm, comforting arms encircled him from behind, and a chin came to rest on his right shoulder. Long hair brushed against Pick’s naked back, and the smell of milk and honey soap and the lingering underlying scent of mineral oil washed over him, soothing his bedraggled edges.
For a while, Pick sat there, gulping air and trying to slow the rabbiting of his heart, and his companion sat with him, still as stone, breathing long swathes of breath down Pick’s chest.
Then, when he was sure he was back within himself fully, Pick muttered, “My father.”
The chest behind him rumbled with acknowledgement. “Dead?”
Pick chuckled mirthlessly. “Certainly not. Much alive, in fact. Feeling particularly vengeful.”
The arms around him tightened infinitesimally. Pick ran a hand along a well-muscled forearm, hoping to soothe. “All he did was hit me once. Nothing so serious as all that.”
“Once was too many,” the man murmured, and Pick tilted his shoulder. The grip on him loosened enough for Pick to turn around in it, settling himself in his lover’s lap. He entwined his arms up and around Niall’s shoulders, threading his fingers through light caramel hair. Through the large window of their room, the moonlight caught Niall’s eyes, illuminating the icy blue as moonlight eliminates an untouched blanket of snow.
“He is far, far behind me,” Pick said, sliding his hand closer to him to run his thumb along Niall’s cheek. Pick peered over his shoulder—and yes, Aedelus was awake, too, his amber eyes wide in the dark, his weight propped on his elbow and the blanket pooled around his waist. He did not look scared, but rather concerned, the carefully blank expression on the rest of his face belying his desire to take revenge.
Pick smiled, warmth returning to his features, and he reached out his hand over Niall’s shoulder, beckoning Aedelus closer. Aedelus moved slowly, sitting just behind Niall’s left shoulder, and Pick nudged himself closer to Niall, chests meeting skin to skin, so he could crane his neck over Niall’s shoulder and kiss Aedelus gently. Niall hummed with contentment, claiming Pick’s kiss once he and Aedelus parted.
At length, when warmth had returned to his body and the sweat on his skin had dried, Pick, playing with a few strands of Aedelus’s hair, asked, “Did you hear my heartbeat? Did I wake you?”
Aedelus nodded, and Niall murmured, “yes,” even as he brushed a kiss to Pick’s cheek.
Aedelus stretched his hand to Pick’s thigh, his thumb rubbing soothing circles on his outer flank. He said, “We didn’t know if we should wake you.”
Pick frowned. “Why not?”
Even in the moonlit dark, Pick could make out Aedelus’s grin. “Remember the last time someone woke you abruptly?”
Pick groaned, thumping his head on Niall’s shoulder. “You were the ones to suggest I get knife lessons and sleep with a weapon near me, just in case.”
“As attractive as it is to see you fierce and ready to strike,” Aedelus continued, unheeding or perhaps uncaring of the burning blush streaking across Pick’s cheeks, “I’d much rather keep my throat intact, thank you very much.”
“Why, you—” Pick growled, and he lunged over Niall’s shoulder, tackling Aedelus to the bed and clambering onto his lap. Pick was much, much smaller than Aedelus, and he had no misapprehensions that Aedelus was not simply letting himself be overtaken. It was the principle of the matter. Pinning Aedelus’s wrists to the bed, Pick smiled down at Aedelus. “I wake up in a cold sweat from a nightmare and your first instinct is to tease me. Truly, your bedside manner could use some improvement.”
“Must you critique me at this hour in the morning?” Aedelus asked, and Pick huffed before a heavy weight pressed into his back, and he fell onto Aedelus completely, Niall’s arms coming to press down on the mattress next to Aedelus’s sides.
“Perhaps we can otherwise distract you,” Niall murmured dangerously close to Pick’s ear, and Pick shivered, his tired body suddenly thrumming awake.
“I, ah,” he stuttered as Aedelus’s hands rose to Pick’s sides, gliding up and down his ribs as if he were feeling for a divot in a wall of stone. “I can, ah, I can be persuaded, perhaps, to direct my ah-attentions elsewhere.”
In the dark, he could only feel his lovers’ smiles, and he let the warmth of their bodies and hearts engulf him as, with every continuing touch, they eased his nightmare further out of reach.
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