16. 16.
16.
S hrill cries wrenched Folke upright. So violently, it felt like his head was left abandoned on the pillow. Dragging his legs off the side of the bed, he released a groan pitiful to his own ears.
Thomas’ atrocious singing sawed straight through him. The dull echo and proximity of the tone-deaf wailing suggested he was in the lavatory.
Folke tried to wait him out.
Thomas kept singing.
All manner of things were foolish but fun, apparently. Leaving Folke no choice but to shuffle out of the bedroom. The yowling transcended new levels of intolerable the moment he entered the lavatory.
“Be quiet!” Folke snapped.
A shocked gasp. “You’re grumpier than Fin! Both Darach and him like my singing, you know.”
“Unless they’re both insane, I highly doubt it.” Folke perched himself on the lidded toilet. “Get out.”
Thomas’ voice heightened to several pitches of disbelief, “Are you hearing this?”
Folke started at the grunts of mirth. Metal scraped over hard stubble, slashing water moments later.
“If your caterwauling hadn’t just shattered my eardrums, I might’ve.” Amused and somnolent, Finlay’s twang was even more obvious.
Folke inhaled deeply, hoping to catch the scent of tobacco. He couldn’t, only something woodsy.
“I can’t believe this.” Thomas stalked past, a draft rushing after him. “I'll never sing again!”
“My ears thank you,” Folke grumbled.
“Morning, Precious.”
Nervousness curled him over his thighs. “Good. . .morning.”
When was the last time he’d said that to anyone?
Folke listened to the razor blade, meticulous in the way it scraped. Over and over again. Then the distinct suck of water, swishing down pipes. Folke kept fiddling with the hem of his pyjama bottoms, trying to remember how long since he’d gotten a new set. How old and tired this one felt.
Finlay shifted, his bare feet soft over tiles. Cream tiles. Running diagonally. A crack in the one just by the door—
“You look deep in thought.” Finlay brought with him that woodsy allure. Dampened fingers connected with Folke’s forehead, then disappeared. “Mind. . .?”
“Please,” Folke blurted, horrified at his breathlessness.
Finlay’s admission the previous night had served to ameliorate Folke’s opinion of him. Thoughts of lips grazing his neck and hands stroking his face and tongues gliding over his own had chased him into his sleep. Brimming his dreams with desire that left him aching.
Longing.
Needing more.
His anticipation for a kiss withered when all Finlay did was weave through his hair, catching knots.
“Ow.” Folke pushed the hand away.
“Hold on.”
Finlay’s intoxicating warmth momentarily disappeared. He returned, and the teeth of a comb edged over his scalp. Catching even more knots. At Folke’s complaint, Finlay clicked his tongue. Left, then returned. This time with a brush.
That sound of soft bristles, resonant on a wood paddle.
His mother’s hair brush.
The one he always knocked into the sink by accident, until she learned to set it aside elsewhere.
Folke had never found it, despite braving a search once, after her passing.
“Where was it?” he asked, hushed.
“Hm?” Finlay had found a rhythm brushing, an open hand smoothing over Folke’s head after each stroke. “The windowsill.”
Right there all along.
Strangely comforting to know.
More comforting, the way Finlay tended to him. Humming a tune he didn't recognise, low and slightly hoarse. Lulling Folke forward. His forehead connected with a stomach, hard and bare. Stilling all movement.
Hair tickled the tip of his nose. Folke wondered how much there was. Would have reached to find out were it not for firm fingers pressing into his shoulders, nudging him back.
“Have you given it some thought?” Finlay asked.
He hadn't.
Not in the way Folke said he would. Preoccupied with thoughts of broad shoulders and hot breath tickling over his ear. Muscular arms entwining, keeping him close and warm.
“It’s fine if you need longer,” Finlay said when he stayed silent, jolting a cluster of nerves up into his stomach. Rose and camphor swirled his senses. “But unlike Darach, I'm not that patient.”
“Not exactly a revelation,” Folke muttered. “What will happen if I say no?”
“That'd be a darn shame, but we're not about to force ourselves on you.”
Folke’s mouth strained. “Will you tell me why you're pretending to be British?”
And failing so miserably, too.
“Not a big secret.” Soft bristles continued their way through his hair. “I'm just tired of people calling me The American . Besides,” fingers replaced the brush, “my family is of Irish descent.”
“Family?” Folke swayed where he sat, the attention delivered to his hair soothing.
“No wife, don't worry.”
Right. Adultery. A big deal to most from what he understood. Blurry lines of a book drifted into his mind. A heated affair between two lacklustre characters. He'd been curious enough about the sensual parts, not enough about anything else to pay it much mind. Content to listen to his mother’s voice.
“Stuck in your head again?”
Folke pulled himself out of his daze. “Are you done? I need to relieve myself.”
As fingertips dusted his cheek, Thomas' singing kicked up again, blustering past the door and downstairs. Uncouth, it sounded like a marching song.
“For now.”
A final rake through his hair before the touch vanished, along with Finlay’s warmth. Leaving Folke to go about his morning routine.
Early winds washed over him as he made for the barn. He ignored the expanse of melted gravel, sliding open the doors.
Socks and Shawl bleated in greeting, cloven feet scrambling to him. The pen gate creaked and he extended his hand to let fuzzy lips flap over the knuckles.
“Come on, then, let’s stretch our legs.”
Folke rounded the cottage corner, the lilac's fading aroma chasing.
“Where are you going, Precious?”
He jerked to a stop, clutching his crook. “I'm taking them to pasture. What are you doing?”
Daft question, when the stink of smoke clawed its way down his throat. Prompting a cough.
“Do you need to?”
Finlay’s question, while nonchalant, held authority. Drawing Folke’s shoulders up in defiance.
“I want to.”
“Without breakfast, with a concussion?”
He bristled. “I don't normally eat first thing.”
“That’s going to change. No,” Finlay charged on, “don't argue. We already made you breakfast.”
“Oh.” Folke paused to consider. “I suppose. . .they can graze here.”
The rhythmic ruminations said his Garments didn't mind one bit. There was plenty of tall grass for just two sheep. Not to mention it would be rude to refuse the offer, if the men had gone through the trouble of cooking breakfast for him.
So much for stretching his legs.
A long, sharp exhale brought more smoke up his nose. Folke’s cough earned him a chuckle.
“This can't be good for my health, or yours,” Folke grumbled, turning back. Smooth, heart-shaped leaves slapped him across the face. He countered with a smack of his own, flinging the branch straight back across his nose.
Finlay’s barking laughter and, “Neither is starving yourself, Gorgeous,” tracked him until Folke rounded the corner again.
Thomas, seemingly having forgotten all about the slight delivered to his singing, pushed a hot bowl into Folke’s hands the second he hung his coat up.
“Cooked it myself,” Thomas said. “Oi, don’t make that face!”
Darach’s presence was notably missing. Not heard upstairs or in the front room, or even the dining room, where Folke normally took his meals.
Maybe he had run out of patience already.
Folke tried to ignore the twinge of regret. Focused instead on the way his bowl connected with and slid across wood, spoon rattling against the rim.
The tablecloth was gone.
He didn’t know what to make of that. He didn’t know what to make of the porridge, either. As watery as broth, but at least the oats weren’t undercooked.
“Find any others?”
“Na worse than we expected.”
Folke jerked toward the voices, floating in through the window.
Open.
Hidden behind the yew tree.
Sarcastically, “Great, can’t wait for the next bunch.”
“Folke?”
Folke froze in the midst of standing up, heart lurching painfully.
“Grumpy little minx in the mornings. He’s up.”
No time for mortification when boots stomped up the stoop and inside. Folke hurried to spoon watery porridge into his mouth. Coats brushed the door frame the same moment he sucked oats down the wrong pipe.
“Yeah,” Finlay said over Folke’s hacking, “The kid can’t cook for shit.”
“Good morning, Folke,” said Darach once he regained control over the itch in his throat. “Ye look lovely.”
“You puffed up like a dandelion.” Finlay’s smoky warmth claimed a seat next to him. “I’ll put some oil in it next time.”
Folke pushed the bowl away to fret with his hair, working to subdue the perpetually windswept tresses. A fruitless effort. “No. I don’t like the greasy texture.”
“You don’t?” Shock inflected Finlay’s tone.
“Is there anything ye’d like to do today?” Darach moved further into the room. The deep thrum of a chair being pulled out. Wood creaking. “Anything that doesnae aggravate yer head, o’ course.”
Folke’s hands drifted under his jumper to grab a shirt much too old, but he loved the bevelled metal of its buttons. They helped him think better than others.
“There are a lot of things I want to do,” he said, mostly to himself.
Wants that weighed heavy.
If not fully understanding who Finlay and Darach were didn’t bother him, then the fact this wasn’t permanent should .
And it did bother him.
More than expected.
His iron tower showed signs of rust. The snowstorm dwindling to a flurry.
“I can take ye to town? Before ye say naw,” Darach continued, “I spied a bookshop yesterday.”
Folke closed his mouth around the reflex of refusal. “I suppose. . .that would be alright. I’ll need to put the sheep back into the barn.”
Finlay’s astonished, “Wow,” was entirely overblown. “If you finish your porridge, I’ll buy you any book you want.”
Folke scoffed. “I don’t need to be bribed to eat.” Yet he pulled the bowl toward himself and ate as much as his stomach would permit.
Not a whole lot.
Mercifully, the two accepted his efforts and waited in the hallway while Folke grabbed his things. His coat and a spare bit of money from a tin, tucked away in the left-most kitchen cupboard.
“Where are we going?” Thomas piped up from the front room.
“ We’re going into town. You’re staying here,” said Finlay.
“Keep an eye on the sheep,” Darach added.
Thomas had plenty to say about that, regressing into hoarse squawks. Muffled, once Folke left through the front door and shut it behind him.
“Are you sure he’s eighteen?” he asked once pebbles ground to dust under Darach’s weight.
Right behind him came that calescence and scent of wilderness. Like an embrace on its own. Pulling Folke into it. He swayed, his back connecting with a thick coat. A pressure on his shoulder trailed to the collars of his chore coat. The fabric briefly toyed with before fingertips moved to the bare skin of his neck. Only a wisp of, and it sent a cascade of shivers down his body.
“Folke.” Murmured huskily against the back of his head. “I’d like to remind ye of what ye’d be getting.”
Folke fought against the urge to blurt, yes.
Please.
Reiterate.
There came no reminding touch, however. Warmth and wilderness dissipating as boots stepped away. Leaving Folke confused and aching with want. Finlay galloped down the stoop and toward him, grumbling. Stopped, when he came up beside Folke.
“Mm, nothing like seeing you blush to lift my mood.”
Words that pushed even more heat up his neck to spread over his face .
“I do not blush,” Folke said.
Finlay’s contesting, “Yeah,” and laughter moved forward.
“It’s yes , not yeah.”
Ill-mannered. . .
Walking down the uneven path, Darach’s hands didn’t find their way to his rib cage like before. In fact, the man was behind him by several paces, while Finlay tromped ahead.
Should’ve said yes. Or a least acknowledged the request to be given a reminder.
By the time they reached the stream, Folke’s grip on his crook hurt. Mind awhirl with what-ifs and should-haves and no you-shouldn’t-haves. This was fine, the way it was meant to be.
Not until he nearly took a spill down naturally occurring stone steps did Folke yank himself out of his head. Keys jingled just as his crook knocked into metal. The car, most likely.
God. He was headed into town again in the span of a day, and for what? Books?
The car door opened. Slammed.
He had plenty of books. There was no need to get more.
Footfalls came up behind him.
Rereading never hurt anyone, in fact it was fun. It let him pick up details previously missed. No need to go all the way to town and be around people .
“Folke.”
He couldn’t leave his sheep alone, anyway.
“Folke.”
Folke pivoted. “I’ve changed my—”
Strong, large hands cupped his face, both silencing and preventing escape. Breath laced with spice brushed his nose. Folke’s only warning before he was caught by a kiss. Gentle at first, flourishing as Darach’s tongue coaxed his lips to part and stroked into his mouth.
Cinnamon.
He tasted of cinnamon and lingering hints of camphor. Folke chased after it, pressing up on his toes to better reach, but Darach pulled away from him.
No.
Not enough.
Crook carelessly abandoned with a clatter to the ground, Folke clawed downy fur and yanked with all his might. There came a grunt but no resistance, Darach’s lips colliding with his. Folke opened his mouth to a low groan. Greedily swallowed it, shoved his tongue forward to meet with Darach’s. To tangle and slide and taste.
Hands fell to his hips.
Slid down.
Cupped his backside. Squeezed and kneaded and wrenched him close until their hips pressed together. Folke’s back crashed against the car, begetting a groan of his own .
Darach growled, low and heady, sending vibrations deep into the back of Folke’s throat. Then those hands on his rear lifted him further up. Until his upper back was without support. Folke flailed, hands slapping across a damp rooftop before he enfolded Darack’s neck with both arms. Wrapped his legs around powerful thighs. Wove his fingers through soft hair, unable to help twisting into the locks as Darach ground against him.
God, it felt good. The friction of it had him writhing in the hold. Folke shocked himself by how freely his moans spilled, each sound dutifully swallowed by the mouth working his.
A startled inhale, when a hard bulge pressed against the inside of his thigh. Unmuffled, as Darach had been sucking on his lower lip. Released it. Leaving the saliva-moistened skin to cool in the whisking breeze. Beard hair nudged the side of Folke’s face. A kiss pressed by his ear.
“Ye’ve denied yersel for so long, it’s become a habit.”
Folke’s body lowered, feet unsteady in grass. Fur greeted his palms once he relinquished his vise-like hold. Darach stepped away and the last traces of suspiration caressing Folke’s face waned. Then the warmth was gone entirely, leaving him to slide bonelessly to the ground.
Heart pounding. Exhaling in sharp, jagged puffs. His erection straining against his trousers.
The car lurched against his back. A door snapped shut.