14. 14.
14.
F olke waited in his bedroom.
All he could do, until they left.
He’d closed the door, sat on his bed. Waited. Still he heard movement, low chatter. Dishes and cutlery clattered. Scents of a supper he couldn’t identify snuck under the door into his room, cruel in its reminder that he hadn’t eaten since the previous night. Someone eventually came upstairs. Made use of the lavatory.
Stately. Maybe Darach, briefly pausing outside his door.
Folke’s heart twisted around itself. Longing for Darach to come to him. Wishing they would all just go away forever. Let him mop up every spill of emotion and stitch himself back together in peace.
Fatigue eventually caught up to him. His head throbbed. He laid down.
And waited.
“Folke!”
Loud banging stirred Folke into swinging his legs off the bed’s side. His head trailed after him, clouded with sleep. The stomping up the staircase didn’t fully reach him until a familiar voice again shouted, “Folke!”
The door rattled open, as if shoulder-barged.
He ground his palms against his face in an attempt to clear the slog of restless sleep. “Eleanor?”
“Oh my God, you’re okay!”
“We told you he’s fine,” said Thomas from the hallway.
A squeak of the lamp’s spigot before Eleanor rushed over to him. The slide of smooth soles suggested she was still in her uniform. Slender fingers combed through his hair, and Folke, as always, wrenched out of her invasive touch. She tutted in frustration, then grabbed his head and yanked him forward, launching the stink of tobacco up his nose.
“I’m fine,” he grumbled, squirming away as she parted his hair to look at the welt. “Stop touching me.”
She relented. Folke retrieved his socks from the floor, deliberately moved to the other side of the bed, and put them on to get up.
“Doctor Hibbett told me you had strangers with you. Folke, what’s going on? Did they hurt you?”
“Oi, we’re right here!”
For one, terrible moment, Folke debated saying yes.
It wouldn’t be too far from the truth. The affront to his ego hadn’t yet dissipated, and he didn’t think he could ever confront Finlay again. Or Darach, for that matter, knowing the two discussed him to a certain extent. Eleanor would drag them out of his life forever, if he requested it.
Folke didn’t say yes. Instead, “Does it look like they’ve been hurting me?”
A moment’s hesitation. “Do you mind? I’m trying to have a conversation with him in private.”
The grunt that followed sunk Folke’s heart into the bottom of his stomach.
“Do you want me to toss her out?” Finlay asked, too close to be outside the room.
“Toss me out?” Eleanor echoed in disbelief. “Who do you think you are—”
“My guests,” Folke weaved in. “Who have done more for me the past two days than you have in fucking years.”
“Folke!”
“What,” he continued, turning to her, “you think changing things around my home and ruining Mor’s hard work helps me? You think coming up here to tell me what to do, who to date, how to dress, how to live my life does me any favours?”
Finlay cleared his throat. “Holler if you need us, Shepherd.”
Not until his footfalls reached the bottom step did Eleanor speak up again, her voice trembling. “Astrid only ever wanted you to be happy. I’m trying to get you there, Folke. I really am trying.”
She was hurt, and Folke hated it. More so, he hated the way she spoke of his mother. Like she knew her at all.
“Mor wanted me to be self-sufficient, which I am!”
Reproachfully, “Are you?”
Something hideous manifested inside him, sucking dry his willpower not to erupt. “Yes, I am.”
“The state of this place, Folke.”
“What about it?”
Don’t say it.
“Do you know there’s hay inside your bedroom ? I could draw pictures in the dust on the windowsills. There’s dirt on your floors thick enough that I can see foot tracks in them! There are mouse droppings in your kitchen.”
His jaw was beginning to hurt.
“And you’ve. . .”
Don’t say it.
“You’ve lost so much weight. I hardly recognise you. It’s like you’re starving yourself on purpose. Just existing isn’t being self-sufficient.”
Don’t —
“You’ve even given up on your sheep.”
The last strings of his inhibition snapped. His shout, “Get out!” so thunderous it struck his throat raw.
“You know it’s true!”
Folke whipped out of the room, rage rattling his very bones, culling any pain in his foot as he escaped into the kitchen.
“Stop running away!” Eleanor called, close behind.
He whirled on her. “I am not running. I am trying to get away before I say something I’ll regret.”
“Just say it, Folke! Feel something for once so you can move on!”
“Your name was on her last breath!”
A shuddering silence.
“What?”
Folke clutched the door frame to the back porch. “The last thing Mor said before she dropped into the water was your name.”
Not, I love you.
Or, you’ll be fine.
Only, Eleanor .
Said in a pained, breathless rasp, a splash following. Echoing in his mind in a perpetual, haunting loop.
His mother and Eleanor had a row that day, something to do with him. Because it always did.
“When I finally found her and dragged her out of the water, do you know what I thought?” Silence. “Aunt Eleanor will come and help.”
Three days.
Two nights.
“Where were you at her funeral?”
Hadn’t spoken one word to him.
“When you dropped me off here, afterwards?”
Left him on his own in an empty home, the aroma of the stew his mother had prepared days prior gone foul.
Leaving him to sit in front of her clothes, in her bedroom, where he could still smell her on the bedding.
“When Needle died, do you know what I told myself?” No response. “You’d come visit soon. Any moment now, you’d come and help me bury her.”
Two days he’d waited.
No sign of Eleanor for over a week.
“Every day I counted one sheep less, I hoped you’d come and help me find their remains.”
He’d discovered only a handful of them. Mangled by wolves, although he would never know for sure. “I should have learned after that. Thought I had, until that supposed sinkhole.”
Eleanor stammered, her voice gone thick. “You know I couldn’t do anything about that. They threatened my job if I carried on trying to investigate.”
Folke’s hold on the frame grew slack, hands dropping at his sides. The terrible rage waned, leaving nothing but a wasteland in its wake.
“Right. That’s what you were doing, wasn’t it? When Mor died. Helping some old goat who should’ve been dead ages ago find his way back home, just so you could impress that manure-filled sack of a Sergeant?”
“No one’s life comes before another’s, no matter their age. You can’t seriously blame me for Astrid’s heart attack?”
“I don’t blame you for that,” said Folke, easily. “I blame you for not being there when we needed you.”
Slight movement caught his attention, opposite of where he knew Eleanor stood. Musk-laced talcum powder imbued his senses. He didn’t feel any particular way about Darach having overheard all of that. Folke slipped into the rubber boots, grabbed his crook and left through the back door.
Dampness clung to the air, particularly chilly when he wore only a long-sleeved undershirt. He suspected the sun had long since gone, taking its elusive warmth with it.
“Garments?”
He was given a response only in the way of tinging bells from the barn. Socks and Shawl were safely tucked away in their pen, their lips flapping over his fingers while he investigated the troughs. Full of feed, full of water. Fresh, crunchy hay beneath his feet. He rubbed his neck, unsure of what to do. Left the pen to run his palms over the mended wall, the scent of cedarwood strong.
When had they gotten wood, and where?
All that work done in an afternoon without complaint, or even needing to be asked, or demanding anything in return. His sheep tended to. The washing no longer an issue. Still mostly wet as he cinched fabric between his fingers, back outside.
Folke lingered by the steps, listening for any sign Eleanor hadn’t gone.
Silent but for the drag of hillside winds. Hesitantly, he walked into the kitchen, taking care to leave his boots and crook where he could find them, instead of forcing someone else to tidy up after him.
Assuming they hadn’t left alongside his aunt.
Faint cracks and pops of a fire didn’t ease his sudden fear that Darach and Finlay had finally done as he’d been demanding since they got here. They could have just left the fire to burn out.
It was so quiet.
“Are you just going to linger there like a bad smell?”
“God’s sake,” Folke breathed, rubbing his chest to soothe his startled heart. “Can I. . .come in?”
Stupid question, probably.
“Are you going to hit my dick again?”
Folke faltered. He couldn’t believe he’d done that.
Should probably apologise.
Instead, “You could’ve stopped me.”
Finlay snorted. “Fucking right, I could’ve. Thought I’d let you get one in, though. Make your day. ”
Darach chuckled, low and kind. “Ye deserved it.”
“So you’ve said. Get in here already.”
Folke shot forward, then halted. Lingered by the chair, indeed like a smell. Hopefully not an intolerable one.
“I’m—” He reached for buttons, but there were none to grasp. “I’m. . .”
Took a deep breath. Exhaled.
Put that bloody ego aside.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what, Precious?”
“Dinnae be a tadger. It’s alright, Folke. Come, sit wi us.”
Folke’s surprised laugh was too breathless to be discernible. He hadn’t thought Darach capable of foul language.
The chair was empty, but he couldn’t bear sitting in it, still. Drifted to the settee, and strong hands caught both of his. One in Darach’s hold, the other in Finlay’s. Both distinctive yet similar in boldness. He sat between them, enclosed by their heat, his hands unreleased. Darach on his left, Finlay to his right.
“Where’s Thomas?” Folke asked, hushed.
“Sent him to bed,” said Finlay, a hint of dryness to his tone. “He gets cranky when it’s past his bedtime.”
Thomas fit right in, then.
They said nothing else for a while, the silence not uncomfortable. Reflective, as thumbs and fingers stroked the backs of Folke’s hands, consolingly. He tried not to fool himself into thinking it sensual, regardless of how tender the touches. Trailing over his knuckles, up his wrists. Finlay going as far as the inside of his elbow, where Folke discovered he was ticklish.
“No chance you didn’t hear any of that?” he asked at length.
“Caught sight of every bit of dirty laundry swinging in the wind.”
Folke’s face strained with dismay. “I’m sorry.”
“Twice?” Finlay, near his face. “I’ll be swooning at this rate.”
A statement antecedent to parted lips dragging over his jaw. Folke would have reacted, were it not for Darach shifting to wrap an arm around his shoulders. Pulling him back against that imposing body.
“Alright?” Darach asked.
Folke could only grunt. Darach’s leg folded around the backs of his thighs, and Folke’s feet nudged into Finlay. Who grabbed hold of his calves as if to lift his legs.
“Fetch his supper.”
Finlay’s manoeuvring froze, while Folke struggled to catch up with what was happening. Held captive by one of the most consuming embraces he’d ever been in. Folke didn’t think himself short. He could reach the kitchen cupboards with ease, but Darach’s stature was ubiquitous.
“Go on,” murmured Darach even as he mouthed Folke’s ear, sparking a series of shivers to course through his spine.
“What the serpent wants, the serpent gets,” Finlay grumbled. He left in a huff .
Serpent.
A nickname?
“I suppose you won’t tell me what that’s about.”
“Have ye any guesses?”
He truly didn’t.
“Wait.” His thoughts finally caught up to him. “I didn’t make myself any—I should be making you supper for the work you’ve put into—”
Me, he might have said. He’d never know now, cut off as Darach caressed his cheek with a whisper of a kiss. Folke hesitated to lean into it, unsure if he could tolerate much more today. He dug his fingernails into his knees. Arms tightened their hold, as if Darach sensed his struggle.
“I said I’d read ye a book.”
“Yes.”
“I will, if ye’d like.”
“That would—”
“But would ye rather like to learn about us?”