Jacob sighed as he got out of bed, giving up on going to sleep for the night yet again.
This was absolutely pitiful. He was a grown-ass man, he should be able to go to sleep at night without someone around. In his head, he silently cursed Cassandra and Ezekiel both. The two of them were...insidious. That was a good word for it. Insidious, seeping through the cracks in his armour and winding themselves close and tight beneath his skin where he couldn't remove them without causing himself more pain than it was worth.
It had started long before Peru, but he hadn't noticed it until afterwards, when they left. After months of sharing hotel rooms and tents and even a bed on one memorable occasion where there was literally not a single other room available, Jacob had grown used to having them sleeping near him. He was so used to hearing Ezekiel's feather-light snoring and Cassandra's soft sighs that he actually felt lonely when he tried to sleep on his own. He liked being able to hold his breath and hear the two of them, and if they weren't there, then his bedroom felt entirely too still and quiet. It was pathetic.
He shuffled down the hallway to the kitchen, figuring he might grab a snack and then try to read himself to sleep. But much to his surprise, when he turned the corner into the kitchen, he was met with the sight of Cassandra already sitting at the table with a glass of milk, trying to quietly open a package of Oreos; whoever had made that damn plastic wrap stuff was the bane of sneaky children everywhere. Couldn't open the damn things without waking up everybody in the freaking house, he knew from personal experience. "Need a hand, darlin'?" he asked quietly.
Cassandra startled with a little squeak and a loud crackling of plastic. "Jeez, you scared me. A little warning next time," she muttered. Her gaze flicked downwards and then she hastily turned her head away, blushing a little in the dimness, and Jacob realised belatedly that he'd forgotten to put a shirt on.
"Sorry. Next time I'll try to shuffle a little louder," he grumbled back, then took a paring knife out of the rack and walked over to the table. "Here, like this." He cut across both ends of the package, then slid the knife across the top, effectively peeling the wrapper off. "Learned that trick when I was nine," he said knowledgably as he returned the paring knife to the rack and sat down at the table with her. "Just tip the rest of 'em in a Ziploc bag, and they'll be just fine."
"Well, aren't you just a regular Oreo thief," Cassandra teased, then swatted at his hand when he reached across the table and dunked one half of a cookie into the mug full of milk next to her elbow. "Hey, get your own. Milk thief, too."
"Someone say dashing anti-hero Ezekiel Jones?" asked the actual thief as he sauntered into the kitchen. How anybody could saunter whilst wearing pajamas with the Looney Tunes on them, Jacob had no idea.
Jacob rolled his eyes. "No, she said 'thief,'" he replied.
The young man shrugged. "Eh, same thing. Nice tattoo, Stone," he added as he walked around the table to sit on Cassandra's other side; Jacob showed him a very special finger.
"Boys, if you can't play nice, you can't play together," Cassandra said in an entirely solemn voice...which lasted for about three seconds before she cracked a grin and handed them each another cookie, having become de facto delegator given that she was sitting in the middle. "So...you guys can't sleep, either?" she asked after a moment, then stuttered, "Because I was having some weird dreams earlier, wondered if you had the same problem."
Jacob nearly winced at her God-awful attempts at lying. He didn't know why she even bothered, she was no good at it, especially trying to lie to them, who knew her and her mile-high tells better than anybody. He didn't answer the question, either, just shrugged and reached over to dunk another cookie in the mug. She swatted at his hand again.
"Well, I dunno about the two of you, but it was way too lonesome in my room for me," Ezekiel said, halving an Oreo and licking the crème out of the middle.
Cassandra let out a weak little laugh, looking down at her mug, relieved that she wasn't the first to say it. "Me, too. I...I miss having you guys around. Even if you do hog the covers."
The thief put on his best 'appalled' face, pressing a hand over his heart as if physically wounded by her words and how dare she implicate that he would ever do such a dishonorable thing. "I do no such thing!" he gasped.
As one, they both turned to look at Jacob. He grunted and broke another cookie in half. "It's quieter without ya," he muttered at last. It wasn't a lie. It was quieter without them...he just hadn't said that 'quieter' didn't necessarily meant 'better.' It was about as close to admitting that he missed having both of them around that he was willing to come.
Cassandra's smile faded out of her face with a dejected little, "Oh," and he wished that he wasn't such a stubborn ass all the time.
Ezekiel kicked him under the table, and he didn't kick back.
"I'm gonna head back to bed. Goodnight," Jacob muttered, pushing back from the table and padding out of the kitchen. He paused mid-step and turned to stare at a door he was almost certain hadn't been there when he got up. It didn't look familiar. Had it only just appeared? He stood there staring at it for a moment, debating whether or not it would be safe to open. He'd seen enough slasher flicks to know that opening a mysterious closed door in the middle of the night in your pajamas was a good way to end up the first guy killed.
He didn't even notice that Cassandra and Ezekiel were both leaving the kitchen until the mathematician spoke, "Is there something wrong with the door?"
"Was it here before?" he asked, turning to look at the pair of them. "I...I don't think this door was here before."
Cassandra frowned. "Now that I think about it...I don't think it was, either," she murmured. "But that happens all the time, doesn't it?"
"I guess so..."
Ezekiel rolled his eyes. "If it's that big of a deal, then just open the bloody thing," he muttered, reaching past Jacob and pulling open the new door. All at once, he went very still and let out a quiet, "Oh," of his own.
Jacob peered around the thief and winced.
The Library had provided. Behind the mystery door was a new bedroom—a new bedroom that hosted a very comfy-looking bed that was certainly big enough to hold three people. And with a extra layer of covers just in case one of those people was prone to blanket-hogging. For a moment, they just stood there, neither man willing to make the first move towards the bed, but finally Cassandra rolled her eyes. "Oh, for God's sake." She pushed past Jacob and Ezekiel, climbed up the middle of the bed, slid beneath the covers, and looked at the pair of them expectantly.
Jacob actually laughed a little. Cassandra might pussyfoot around near every uncomfortable subject there was, but he could trust her to be direct when it came to this. She'd done the same thing in Beijing, where they'd gotten stuck with a room with only one bed, except there she'd called them both immature idiots and told them to get their asses in bed already.
That stubborn-ass part of him tried to resist, refusing to give in and admit that he needed these two to sleep at night, he wasn't dependent on anybody like that...but hell, he was so tired. He hadn't slept a night through this week.
A sleepless Librarian is a careless Librarian after all...
He came around to the left side of the bed, pulled back the blankets, and got in beside her. Immediately, Cassandra turned over on her side facing him and scooted forward until her head rested on his chest, one arm going around his waist as she put her leg over his. Almost automatically, Jacob settled his arm around her back. He'd gotten used to this, too. After a lifetime of people never wanting to touch her, from parents that were afraid she might break and peers that thought her illness was contagious, she had a habit of being very cuddly in bed. And once she got a hold, she held on hard, like she might never get another chance. And he didn't mind that, either. God, he was pitiful.
"Now I do feel left out," Ezekiel said from the other side of the bed.
"Promise not to try anything?" Jacob asked without opening his eyes to look at the other man.
"I promise to be good."
"Not what I asked."
He could practically hear the thief's smirk. "You're pretty good at this game, cowboy. Alright. I promise not to try anything."
"Then c'mon." He moved his arm from Cassandra's back.
The bedsheets rustled, and Jacob opened one eye lazily. Ezekiel had curled against Cassandra's back; they were almost the exact same height, so spooning was easy for the two of them. The thief had put one arm over her waist, and since she was pressed so close against Jacob, Ezekiel's hand ended up resting against Jacob's side, too. He closed his eyes, hand now resting over the back of Ezekiel's neck.
Insidious little sneaks, the both of them.