15. 15.
15.
“ I f you’re offering because you think it’s a fair exchange for what you had to see with my aunt, then I don’t want to know.”
By the time Folke found his words, Finlay had returned. With him, he brought the scent of oil and fried egg. The plate pressed against Folke’s knees and a fork into his hand. Darach stopped mouthing his ear but wasn’t letting go. Hand spread across Folke’s chest as if to capture his nervous heart, leaving him without a choice but to eat as he was. Tipped back, flush against that firm abdomen.
“Naw, Folke, that isnae why we’re offering.”
“Then why?”
Should he be questioning it?
“Eat,” said Finlay.
No other response forthcoming, Folke did. An egg and shredded potatoes. Well fried, seasoned with salt and pepper. Easily the best meal he’d had in a long time. Gone too soon.
“Because we want ye, Folke.”
His fork screeched across the plate, halting its hopeful chase for remnants.
“If ye’ll have us.”
We.
Us.
Striking down all doubt.
“In. . .what way?”
Folke needed to ensure he understood, but winced the moment the question spilled. Finlay choked on something, likely a bon mot. Why he should restrain himself now was a mystery. Disappointing too, when Folke had already equipped himself to counter.
“In any way ye’ll allow.”
“We’d prefer to fuck you, obviously.”
Folke’s retort burned away, the heat rising instead up his neck.
And down to his groin .
“Och, ye have the subtlety of a blunted axe,” Darach muttered. Then, dulcetly, “But, aye. Ye’re breathtaking.”
Finlay hadn’t been ridiculing him, after all.
He should probably apologise for the misjudgement.
“When?” Folke asked, dismayed at the tremble in his voice.
That amused both men, their low, pleased sounds etching themselves into his bones.
And he was quivering again. His grip on the plate throbbed as Darach’s other hand slid around his hip to stroke over his stomach. Soothing circles.
“Whenever,” said Darach, hot across his ear.
“And wherever. That table in the dining room looks sturdy.”
Finlay’s insouciance made Folke want to curl in on himself, his own experience and knowledge about these things pitiful at best. Aware only of what men and women could do together.
And sheep. Folke knew about breeding sheep.
What possibilities there lay with two men, infinitely better versed than him, was as out of reach for him to imagine as the clouds in the sky.
“I still wonder about the sky.”
The plate eased from his hold, needing a gentle tug before Folke remembered to let go. Cutlery slipped across stoneware, connecting with flagstone nearby. Loud in the benumbed silence that had set itself firm in Folke’s mind.
Musclebound arms tightened around him, then relaxed with a touch of lips to his temple.
“What d’ye mean?”
Folke’s legs were guided out of their lock, eased over Finlay’s lap. Hands smoothed over his knees, so much steadier than Folke’s, whose fingers fidgeted around the metal button to the clasp of his trousers.
“Why?” Folke asked, realising too late he no longer made any sense.
“. . .Do you have any idea what you look like?”
A mess, probably. He still hadn’t combed his hair.
“Not especially,” he murmured.
Folke remembered pale skin, dark brown hair. Unruly, always. A straight nose and grey eyes.
Grey green.
No.
Grey blue.
Forever a point of contention between his mother and anyone willing to look close enough.
He’d been a boy then. The colour of his eyes could have changed, the sun might have set his skin to a different tone. His body now unquestionably different. More angles, a hard stomach. Hair ascending his pelvis to his navel. Dustings of it across his chest.
“This isnea just about looks,” Darach said.
“But fuck, it helps.”
Darach’s hand lifted off his heart to wrap around Folke’s jaw, thumb brushing over the corner of his mouth.
“Ye care deeply. No’ about a lot. I reckon ye would, if ye werenae so intent on locking yersel away. I saw it when we met in the storm, a shepherd more concerned for his flock than himself or his bleeding foot.”
Finlay’s slight shift under his legs presaged the touch to Folke’s fretful fingers, easing them away from the only button within reach.
“Keep playing with that and I’m going to assume you want your cock out.”
Rough stubble grazed his wrist as Folke struggled to unglue his jaw, stirring a fierce shiver. Darach’s tongue-click of disapproval was met with snorted mirth.
“I like the texture,” Folke managed.
The mouth vigilantly teasing his palm stopped. Lifted upward, Finlay’s nose pressing into Folke’s fingers. Startling him into freeing his hand to push his fingertips against lips. To feel for that smile.
He hadn’t thought Finlay the type to smile. Yet there it was, a delicate curve to the corner of his mouth. Folke sat up to better reach.
Lips thinner than Darach’s. A defined cupid’s bow. And a divot.
Several, scattered around his left cheek. The texture uneven over a solid nose, fanning out like raised veins.
Scars.
“Yeah, that,” Finlay said at Folke’s sharp intake of breath. “I guess I’ll start?”
Darach guided Folke against him once more, but the arm slung over his chest jostled with the sound of an open palm connecting with it.
“My turn,” Finlay snapped.
Silence encroached, heavy and intense in the way it writhed.
Then, “If ye like, Folke, ye can go to him.”
How he ought to respond escaped Folke. He liked where he was, nestled so comfortably in Darach’s all-encompassing hold. Warm and strange and stranger still, protected . Despite not needing any protection. Curiosity to continue discovering Finlay tugged Folke forward, however, and Finlay in turn grabbed hold. Emboldened hands sliding around Folke’s rib cage, pulling until his rear slid over muscular, denim-clad thighs and he could lean sideways against Finlay’s abdomen.
Could, but couldn’t.
“Stiff as a plank,” Finlay grumbled. “ Relax . Here—”
Finlay led Folke’s hand to slam into his chest, where there were plenty of buttons. He’d barely dug his fingernails under them before his head was shoved down to rest along the crook of Finlay’s neck. Skin soft against his nose. Smoky, tinged with sweat. An arm secured around his hip.
Darach spoke in Gaelic, sternly.
“Fuck.” Hissed through teeth. Several firm pats to Folke’s cheek followed. “There. You’re fine, right? Comfortable?”
He wasn’t not comfortable.
“It’s fine,” Folke said.
Baffling, more than anything.
Bizarre. The situation entirely outlandish .
“Good. Settle down, Precious, because we’ve got things to tell you.”
“An’ if after,” Darach continued, “ye decide ye want nothing to do wi us, we’ll respect that.”
“Alright,” Folke said, uncertain.
“You’ve already guessed we’re soldiers before we told you,” Finlay said.
“I pieced together the information you provided through carelessness, yes.” Folke’s mouth strained at Darach’s chuckle.
Finlay, on the other hand, didn’t seem too amused. “Alright, alright. Well it was a bit of a lie, anyway. We were with the army. Not anymore.”
Folke traced the pad of his thumb over one button in particular. It was still plastic and small, but unlike the others, it had a nick. “Because the war ended?”
Finlay said, “Because of dishonourable discharges.”
His hand stilled.
Discharges, plural .
What terrible crimes could they have committed?
Did that include Darach? Thomas?
“Will you tell me?”
“Refusal to treat the enemy, in my case,” said Finlay without a hint of remorse. “I told you, I’m a shit medic.”
Folke didn’t know how to respond. He said nothing.
“I’d like to think my reason was good enough.” Pause. “Spent a day mopping up what was left of my fellow soldiers. Bad intel led to us wandering into a minefield. I got called in a few hours after that. Told to treat a Heinie they captured and beat too hard for one thing or another. I told them, very politely, where to stick it.”
He tried to imagine what that would have been like. Found that he couldn’t. Only discovered a sadness for the nightmare Finlay must have endured.
He wanted to say, I’m sorry.
That must have been awful.
Don’t blame you for walking away from that.
I’ve walked away from far less.
Instead he raised his hand to Finlay’s face, sweeping his fingers over the scars. Straying across defined cheekbones, to hair combed back. A careening wave of softness led to shorter sides still slick with residual oil.
“That’s where your scars are from?”
“Some.” Finlay offered no further explanation.
“What colour is your hair?” Folke asked, quietly.
“Dark blond.” A grunt. “What, does that surprise you?”
“Not especially.”
He’d not pictured Finlay any particular way. Only a swaggering, burly body, irritation forever grating his voice. As virile as the rough stubble on his face and the herbaceous scent clinging to his skin.
Now he could add stern brows and frown lines to that. A long forehead, rounded ears. Shoulders as broad and muscular as he’d suspected. Finlay’s stature nothing like Darach’s, but powerful and hard all the same .
The man’s hand lifted from where he’d been stroking Folke’s thighs to grasp his chin. Inching him nearer. The tips of their noses bumped, the hark back to clumsiness giving Folke pause.
“Hold still.”
Folke froze as lips trapped his. Lingered, then disappeared with a faint suck. A resolute deviation from earlier, the fire spreading in his belly leaving him delirious.
Huskily, Finlay murmured, “That’s better, hm?”
“Yes,” Folke breathed. “Not being insulted helps.”
Finlay’s huff was one of disbelief, tinged with amusement. Coaxing Folke into a faint laugh. He would have been embarrassed, but the sounds both Finlay and Darach made were. . .He didn’t know what they were. Wasn’t given time to scrutinise when his body suddenly heaved sideways and crashed into Darach.
Folke flailed with a startled cry, neck at an odd angle before arms helped him sit upright.
“Fuck. Sorry, Precious,” Finlay grated. “I need to walk this off.”
His heavy stride vanished out the front door, for once not slammed shut. Filling the front room with the waning flutter of flames and Folke’s confusion.
Darach stroked between his shoulder blades. “Ye rouse him, too.”
Something that shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Both men had made it perfectly clear they desired him. It surprised Folke, regardless, the thought bringing his turbulent mind to a grinding stop. For so long, it prompted Darach to stroke his back with added firmness. Folke leant toward him, his shoulder connecting with a solid chest.
“There ye are.” Amused.
Folke rubbed his chin with the length of his thumb, embarrassed still, but now for an entirely different reason. He could guess what had happened to Finlay now.
“What about—” Folke cleared his throat, voice thick with arousal. He fidgeted, uncomfortable, needing a distraction. “Finlay said discharges .”
Darach’s touch left his shoulder blades, the shift of his large form subtle, the settee’s cushioning long lost to persistent use. Folke realised with appreciation that he was being given space to consider whatever would be confessed next. Allowing him room to breathe, to think.
“I wasnae the man I am now.” Darach paused, as if this was a revelation needing to sink in. “I was wrathful, an’ arrogant. I made terrible decisions that caused the deaths of many.”
“That just sounds like typical military service to me.” Folke knew he sounded bitter.
“I canae go into details, sweet Folke, but trust me when I tell ye, this wasnae typical. I am no’ a typical man.”
“I’ll believe that,” Folke said without thinking. Wavered, then pushed on, “Does this have anything to do with the lightning? You can’t tell me that was natural.”
For a while, there came no response. Long enough for sweat to build on his palms, for the front door to creak open. Click shut. Cigarette smoke encapsulated him, recent and overbold, Finlay’s thigh pressing against Folke’s when he sat back down.
“I shouldnae, Folke,” Darach finally murmured.
Unsurprising.
Yet he’d hoped for one extra snippet. Something else for him to stitch into the tapestry he had of the men. Men whom he barely knew. Been kissed and touched by. Who made Folke hunger for closeness like none before.
“It’s better I don’t know,” Folke said, echoing Darach’s words from before. “What will happen if I do? Will that change my perception of you?”
Consideration thickened the muteness that followed.
“It will change yer perception of the entire world, Folke.”
He stopped grinding his palms into his thighs. The breath blowing from his lips trembled.
This was more than a snippet. This felt like the beginnings of a jumper being undone right at the hem, the first few stitches pulled loose. The thread now there for him to tug on. Fibres might snag, knots might build, but he could work his way through it. He could unravel it all if he were determined enough to be without the warmth of the jumper.
Darach would tell him. If he wanted to know. If Folke pushed enough. The promise was there, in that more-than snippet.
Folke did not tug the thread.
“Alright,” he said. Added, “I need to think about it.”
“O’ course,” said Darach, gently.
Felt like the man had more to say, but as the cracks of the dying embers remained the only sound, Folke stood.
“I better get to bed.” He drifted to the door. “We can. . .We can clear out the other room tomorrow. I know we’ll still be a room short but. . .It’s a start.”
“Ye're very kind, Folke.”
His fingers connected with the door frame, where he paused. Unsure if he wanted to leave, despite knowing he should. He needed to breathe, just for one night. Gather his thoughts.
Leave.
Now.
Down the hallway, Finlay wishing him a goodnight floated after him.