12. 12.
12.
P artially melted pebbles led to wilted grass, where the texture smoothed into undulating gloss. Folke shuffled across on hands and knees, following with his fingers until it spread into thinning veins, tapering to nothing but more grass. He doubled back, exploring.
The lightning had created a wide, fanned circle.
Winds dragged above him, chilling an otherwise fluctuating warmth. The sun had to be making an appearance, its tentativeness spilling onto his back.
“What are ye up to?”
Folke’s heart pelted up into his throat, the sound he made undignified. He sat up. Mulled his answer. Blurted, “I’m trying to find out what happened, since you won’t tell me.”
The soles of Darach’s boots scuffed glaze, crackling and squeaking under the man’s weight. “A lightning storm.”
“Liar.” Folke hated that he'd said it without bite. “And the wolf magically disappeared?”
A knee clicked.
“Two,” said Darach, much closer now. “The lightning got them.”
“I’m supposed to believe that?”
“I hope ye will.” Said without a hint of insincerity.
“Where are the carcasses?”
“Buried. I didnae want the sheep to be scared.”
“And you want me to believe that, too.”
Not a question.
No response.
Folke suspired, defeated. As he rose, the faintest touch brushed his elbow.
“Would ye like some coffee?”
He frowned. “You have coffee?”
In these times?
“Ay. Soldier’s privilege.”
He wanted to argue that was unlikely to be true, but Darach didn’t wait around, his casual, “I’ll bring it out to ye,” already fading.
Folke scratched an itch along his neck, wincing as his nails dragged over a sore. He rubbed the blood dry across his thumb, collected his crook and returned to the kitchen. The milling and scratching of a coffee grinder was a sound he hadn’t heard in a long time. He guessed Darach’s location based on it, ignoring the pause when he manoeuvred about to gather the posser and washing board. His mother had always preferred the dolly stick, but Folke liked to use his hands.
“Will ye no’ be needing hot water?”
Folke froze by the back door. Shame crawled up his neck, stretching its threads over his head. “I. . .It’s. . .”
So much trouble.
Too much.
“If ye like, I can—”
“I don’t need help!”
Folke climbed down the steps, grass whipping his rubber boots while he kicked around until he found the laundry pile. Threw everything down to the ground. Got to his knees. Wrenched back his sleeves, rolling them until fabric cinched his biceps. Flakes of lye soap rustled around cardboard, spilling into water, dusting the edge of galvanised metal.
He tossed the box aside and didn’t bother using the posser, bludgeoning the clothes into the tub with his fists.
The back door squeaked open.
“Ye’re a difficult man, Folke.” Ryegrass swished around Darach’s feet, stopping in front of him. “I’ve handled rams less pertinacious than ye.”
Folke’s mouth opened, loaded with a rebuttal. He stopped himself, the man’s words snapping into place.
“Rams?”
“Oh, aye.” For once, Darach’s tone wasn’t calm. It wasn’t angry, exactly, but clipped. “I helped breed Dunface when I was younger.”
Folke had stopped beating the laundry, now leaning toward Darach with an eagerness to hear more. “Relatives of the Shetland sheep.”
Wood creaked around worn iron.
The bench. So old now it would be unreliable. Folke had forgotten it was there, resting against the cottage wall. The dog-rose near it would be in full bloom now, pink petals ever so pale.
“Ye ken yer sheep.”
“Mine have Shetland in them.” Folke sat back, wiping his hands across his thighs. “We considered the Scottish Dunface for cross breeding.”
“Come sit next to me, Folke.”
He gave pause. It was an invitation, but it didn’t feel like one. He kept drying his hands. Nudged the clothes that remained in the pile as if to straighten them. Ran his fingers over the edge of the tub to flick away flakes of soap.
Finally, Folke pushed up and sought the bench. His fingers connected with Darach’s hand, gentle in the way it guided him to sit, thigh to thigh. The wood creaked louder. This would end badly.
Something hot pressed into his hand. Folke wrapped his fingers around a hot mug. His favourite mug. Glazed, with small imperfections that caught his fingertips whenever he traced the rim near the handle.
He brought it to his face and inhaled.
Coffee.
Freshly ground, brewed coffee. Nutty, slightly smoky. Easing away any lingering frustration. Leaving only remorse.
“I’m not stubborn.” Folke longed to take a sip. It smelled so good. “I’m just. . .”
“Ye don’t like accepting help.”
“That’s not it.” He curled over his thighs, cradling the mug close to his face, relishing in the way steam misted his lips. “I just. . .I’ve been doing these things for years. I don’t need to be coddled.”
“Have ye ever even been coddled?”
The question drew Folke’s brows together. Yes, he wanted to say. All the time.
But. . .
His mother never coddled him. Get up, she’d tell him, every time he fell after darkness claimed his vision. You have no choice, she'd say, whenever he complained about his inabilities.
Follow my voice.
Listen, feel.
Find your way.
Push through it.
No one will do it for you.
True for his mother, after his father had been conscripted. Died in the Great War that same year. Left her with a cottage woebegone even then, a herd of sheep, and a four year old boy. In a country they knew little of, could barely speak the language.
His mother had never been coddled, and so she never learned how to. Folke had no friends to rely on, only her. Then, only himself.
“Folke?”
He reached up to rub the base of his thumb across his cheeks. “My aunt does, all the time.”
“Oh, ye have an aunt here?”
A touch lightly pressed to the side of his hand, encouraging Folke to drink. He didn’t think about it this time, tipping the mug to his lips. What began as a tentative sip turned into a long, greedy and audible gulp. Multiple gulps. The brew still hot enough to burn, pleasantly.
“My God, this is amazing.”
A chuckle as Darach, too, drank. Faint, airy slurps ending with audible, but more reserved swallowing.
“I’m going to have to waive your rent,” Folke said, “if you keep giving me things.”
If Darach thought of something to say in response, he kept it to himself. They drank in an amicable silence, the man’s warmth keeping some of the fluctuating chill at bay. Until mugs were emptied. Set down into the grass.
“Will you ever tell me why you’re really here?” Somehow, the question had come loose and spilled past his lips. Folke hadn’t meant to ask it aloud.
“It’s better ye don’t know, sweet Shepherd.”
More than he’d hoped for, still not enough.
“How long are you staying?” Folke was under no illusion that this was permanent. These men were here to do something, and it was only a matter of time before they either failed or succeeded, then moved on.
Leaving him all by himself, yet again.
“As long as I can.”
An answer as vague as any other. A week, a year. It could be any length of time.
“It's beautiful out here,” Darach said eventually. “Peaceful.”
“Lightning and wolves aside,” Folke retorted, amiably.
Warmth came to rest over his thigh, just by the knee. Gently squeezed.
Remained.
Folke hesitated, but need and curiosity prevailed. Allowing him to run his fingers over the back of Darach’s hand. Lightly, at first. Growing bolder in the way he explored skin. Supple. Veins bouncing back under a tentative prod. Knuckles pronounced, unpredictable texture hinting at scarring on one. . .two of them. Of the index and middle fingers, twitching up as he traced his fingertips along the digits. Smooth, blunted fingernails.
The hand turned over. Callouses. Palm rough against his own while he slid down to continue tracing an uneven, raised line with the tip of his middle finger. To a wrist, the muscles flexing under his touch that he shifted over another prominent vein, disappearing when Darach turned his hand again.
Wrist bone, just as pronounced. Fine hairs coating a bare, toned forearm and more veins. Up past the elbow. Folke licked his lips, gone dry. Moved to better face the man, needing both hands to continue.
Hard, powerful biceps, skin slightly cool, and the hem of a shirt sleeve filled out entirely. He could scarcely get his finger under it. The fabric was thin. Cotton, maybe. Neatly stitched, and stretched over a massive shoulder.
“Plain dark green,” Darach murmured. “Like grass in a tree’s shadow.”
For once, Folke didn’t startle. His lips moved around an acknowledgement that remained soundless. Unlike his heart, beating more fiercely than as if he’d climbed a hundred hills.
Could Darach hear the fervent thrashing of his heart, witness the pulse in his throat?
Folke’s fingers found a collar, unstarched. Moved down and discovered buttons. Small, plastic. Pleasant in the way they fit under his nails, but plain.
Did Darach have trouble doing them up with such big hands?
Folke changed his position again, shifting a leg under himself. The bench creaked with the promise of collapsing, but he didn’t care, his knee resting atop some part of Darach. Whose soft exhales ghosted over his face. Folke arched into it, craving the scent of coffee.
His hands lifted, guided by Darach, to a soft beard. Perfectly groomed, bristling under his trembling curiosity. Not a long beard, but full, reaching over strong jawlines and thinning by the ears. Stubble, the sides of his head shaved. Hair left at the top, soft and curling around his fingers, running to the back where more had been shaved.
“Mostly brown.” Murmurous, still. So very near his face. “Dark red in the sunlight.”
“Some silver, white?” Folke urged, a tremor in his whisper.
An amused grunt puffed across his nose. The response, whatever it might have been, disappeared into Folke’s mouth, parted over Darach’s. Moustache hairs tickled his upper lip as Folke stole a hot breath, drawing it in with a long, quivering inhale.
Soft lips closed to capture Folke’s lower in a gentle, sucking kiss.
His heart lurched. Heat pooled his stomach. He gasped.
A low, strained growl. Hands cupped either side of his face, gentle yet unhesitating. Those luscious, supple lips pressed back to his own. And again, harder, nudging his head back. They parted with a faint smack. Long enough for him to take in some air, laced with coffee and musk and sweet notes of dog-rose.
Folke’s thumbs twitched where they rested against Darach’s temples. Moved down a long forehead, running over thick brows, to a solid nose. Its bridge faintly askew, as though it might have been broken once.
The tip of his nose blunt, lightly flared nostrils leading back to the thick moustache. Folke raised himself to a knee on the bench, settled his touch over the rounded cheekbones and chased away the hint of a distance between them. He trailed his tongue over the supple fold of Darach’s lower lip, the taste of coffee clinging to it.
Another growl, this one promising to satiate some of Folke’s hunger.
Hands grasped the back of his thighs, squeezing hard. The bench voiced a loud crack the instant Darach stood, lifting Folke against him in a singular, graceful move. Their chests pressed together and for one, stupefying moment, Folke could feel Darach’s heart trouncing alongside his own.
The man’s strained grunt was less graceful. Folke’s feet reconnected with the ground, arms sliding away from where he’d automatically wrapped them around wide shoulders.
“Ye don’t look it, but ye’re hefty.”
Folke’s laugh was too breathless. His grip had slid down to Darach’s stomach, and he moved in again, dizzy with need. A mouth caught him in a kiss that melted into drawn out decadence. Thrived, their lips parting and tongues tentative in the way they explored, tasted. Then lashed and pushed hot, sticky saliva around. Darach prompted his body closer, one hand again cupping Folke’s head, the other clenched tightly around his left hip.
Then backtracked by easing Folke away.
Saliva coated his lower lip, the corner of his mouth. He didn’t wipe it, only stood there, hands still raised but clutching nothing. Entirely dazed, his manhood throbbing.
He didn’t know what to do with himself. Darach’s hand was still around his face. A tender stroke of a thumb before the touch disappeared entirely.
“Ye rouse me, Folke.” Breathlessly spoken. “In ways I’m na longer used to.”
Folke wanted to ask if that was good, then remembered that it was. He’d heard something like it before in romance novels, the ones his mother bluntly read to him once he’d turned sixteen.
Thickly, he swallowed. Tried to say something, yet nothing sprang forth.
“If it werenae for that misguided lad, I’d take ye upstairs right now.”
Nuisance. Misguided lad.
They had to be talking about Thomas.
What would Thomas’ issue be, exactly?
The breath Folke had been working into his lungs suddenly stopped, trapping itself in a realisation.
Have you right here.
Take you upstairs.
Finlay and Darach both had to be talking about the same thing. About. . .
Sex.
Gooseflesh flooded his skin, fright and thrill and need twisting around in his stomach, forming a whirlwind.
Folke wanted to argue. Say it would be fine. It wouldn’t make a spot of difference to Thomas. Why would it?
“I’ll help with the washing. Dinnae, Folke,” Darach cut in before he could even react. “It’s no’ a curse word and no’ a reflection on yer capabilities. I want ye to finish sooner so I can read to ye.”
Folke stilled. “You'll read to me?”
“Would ye like that?”
“ Yes .”
“Then let's get to it.”
There was no arguing when Darach moved away. Folke didn’t want to argue, anyway.