The Sixth

Thunder booms.

Berwald lays on his back and watches the rain lash out against the window, streams forming quickly, dying quickly, as the heavy drops slide down the glass. It is still light out, too light for a storm like this. There is no lightning.

Thunder booms.

As a child the storms never scared him; he and he alone of them three were not afraid. A little Danish boy would sit in his bed insisting he was not frightened but his voice would shake and a young Swede knows what that means. The other Norse boy would crawl in under the sheets with him, being held by him. When the one from just west of his home was in his arms, that boy was not afraid. Berwald knows it was his arms around young Lukas that made him not afraid.

Thunder booms.

A tree shakes by the window, a tall thing. Berwald remembers a tall tree outside his room in Denmark, during the union. He remembers Christen insisting he had never been afraid of the storms, though those eyes would still gloss over as the lightning would strike and the thunder resonate throughout the stone castle. Lukas was more truthful, because as he'd hold his brother by the window, Emil whimpering to move away, he was not afraid. His eyes would be dark as they met Berwald's across the room, challenging, but never afraid, now the one to hold another. Timo at the Swede's feet would shake; Berwald would hold him.

Thunder booms.

A door downstairs is closed, the creaks of the stairs sounding soft as someone comes up them. He'd have to tighten the boards; this had been the first house Berwald had built by hand. Nothing like the bed he made that never whines under weight, nothing like the desk he made that will last as long as the Swedish kingdom it serves. Thunder reverberates through the countryside as Lukas lets himself into the room, the lightning finally coming and illuminating the space.

Thunder booms.

The Norwegian crawls across the bed to him, ducking in under one of his arms as if they were in a longhouse of their youth once more. "I would have thought you would be in Denmark this week, as there is nothing to keep you here." Every time he can be with Christen for the Dane's birthday he has been, with very few exceptions.

Thunder booms and Lukas shifts to straddle Berwald's hips, leaning over his chest to tease him with lips that never quite meet lips.

"The sixth day of the sixth month in the sixth house on the street: I am right where I belong." Swedish hands pull Lukas down to kiss him, press into him, rolling their bodies over so that Berwald can pull off their shirts and boxers. He devours the man, so hungry for him.

Thunder booms.