New story, and this one is really recent (I wrote it two weeks ago). I'll be honest: this is my first attempt with bromance and I don't know if I made it right. I tried to take inspiration from Winchester bros. and McDanno. Mirrored from my Deviant account. Still writing the final part, but it will be ready soon. Sorry for my bad english...

Old wounds

He just couldn't sleep that night. Dagran tried to change position in his pallet, but it was useless.

Cecil had allowed him, Zael and Lowell to sleep in his barn, apologizing for not having offered better accommodation and giving some blankets to get more comfortable.

«Until we are going to rebuild the village, we're running out of space. I am sorry I'm not able to offer better, after all you have done for us.»

They had willingly accepted, reassuring him that that was okay: with their craft, they adapted to sleeping in much worse conditions; also Dagran was raised in a farm like that before he became orphaned, and sleep in a barn brought back to him memories of happiest moments.

If only the circumstances that had led them there were equally upbeat...

They had been that way by accident, looking for a new mission, and they run in that village, during the attack by a gang of looters. The bandits were not many, but they had set fire to the houses and few among the inhabitants were able to wield a weapon, so the intervention of the three mercenaries had been providential. Not that the villagers thanked them: their were mercenaries, therefore, according to the villagers, they had helped them only in the hope of receiving a reward, even if Dagran and others had assured otherwise. Fortunately, Cecil, one of the farmers that had managed to assist them in the fight, had a different opinion about it.

«If it wasn't for your intervention, by now most of us would be dead or worse: offer my hospitality is the least I can do.»

And so the farmer had welcomed both the mercenaries and many of the villagers who had lost their homes in his farm, miraculously survived the fires, allowing them to spend a good night's sleep… or in the case of Dagran, trying to.

He turned back for the umpteenth time. No, he was too rough. He huffed irritably.

For fuck's sake. Why right tonight?

Resigned to spend a sleepless night, Dagran crossed his arms behind his head and stood staring at the ceiling. After what they had passed that afternoon, rest was crucial, but apparently the anxiety accumulated during the battle didn't want to give him a break.

Suddenly he heard a stifled groan, so he turned to control the situation. Moonlight seeped through the window of the barn, illuminating the environment and allowing him to see the silhouettes of his two companions. Lowell was the furthest and was sleeping peaceful, half hidden by straw. Zael wasn't equally serene, in fact he waving under his blanket. Dagran stared at him worried. He had already guessed what was happening to his friend; after the day's events it was inevitable.

Just as he expected, it didn't take long before Zael shutter stand up from his pallet, barely holding back a cry. He was sweating and had a terrified expression on his face. He observed panting for a few seconds before Zael noticed him.

«Ah, Dagran! Sorry if I woke you» he said in a low voice as he tried to calm down.

«No problem, I couldn't sleep anyway» he reassured him, then they both looked at Lowell. The Mage continued to sleep, as if he hadn't noticed anything. Zael glanced up with a sigh of relief, but the anxiety on his face did not escape to the trained eye of Dagran.

«Nightmares, eh?» he asked. Zael didn't answer, there was no need.

This is the first time after many years.

One thing was certain: Dagran wouldn't be the only one to spend a sleepless night. Seeing his friend to choose between getting back to sleep and stay awake, he remembered a thing of their childhood. A memory about their nightmares, and this gave him an idea. Maybe it was a silly thing, but try don't cost anything.

Zael watched him with curiosity while Dagran arose from his pallet, picked up as much straw as he could and used it to fill his cape. When he was satisfied with his work, he placed the improvised cushion against the wall and sat up, then he turned to his friend.

«Come here,» he said motioning Zael to sit down in front of him. Zael looked at him puzzled for a moment, then finally there was a flash of understanding in his eyes. He too remembered it it the end.

«Are you serious?» he asked skeptically. Dagran chuckled.

«Don't make a fuss and get over here!»

He stayed a moment stopped, then with a snort in exasperation Zael rose and joined him, sitting as Dagran had indicated.

«Great ...» Zael mumbled turning his back.

Dagran smiled. He put on him the blanket, then, surrounding Zael with his arms, he pulled him to his self and leaned against the padded cape.

And to think that at the beginning he was asking me that!

When they were still children and they had just started traveling together, Zael had nightmares almost every night and then Dagran, worried for his friend – but also fed up with not being able to sleep because of him – had tried to do the same thing his parents did with him when they were still alive. So when the friend had woken up once again in the middle of the night, he had slipped under the covers with him and had kept him cuddled until the sobs ceased. Since that moment, for a long time the two had spent the nights that way, embraced each other to ward off their demons at night, until Zael had declared to be too grown up for such a thing.

«I want to become as strong as you are, Dagran,» he said at the time «so I will no longer be a burden!»

Dagran drove those memories from his mind to concentrate on the present. Zael stood stiffly in his arms and drummed nervous with fingers on his knee, undoubtedly embarrassed about the situation.

«Now relax» Dagran told him resting his chin on his friend's shoulder, like he did in the old days.

«Easy to say! What if someone came in and got the wrong idea?»

At that point was Dagran to puff exasperated. «Zael, we are in a barn in the middle of the night: who do you want to come here now? And even so, perhaps do you have seen some girls around here that you wanted to impress?» he asked.

Zael leaped. He was always so when it came to women in that direction: toasty red and mute as a fish. Dagran wondered amused what his reaction would have been if he had tried to bring him along during his visits to brothels.

Probably he'll faint once he understood the destination!

As expected, Zael remain long in silence.

«No» he admitted after a while, with just a bit of annoyance.

«Neither do I, so our reputation is in no danger for now.»

The man snorted unconvinced, but he didn't reply. They remained silent for a while, before Zael decides to speak again.

«Do you really think that's for something?» there wasn't annoyance in his voice this time, but mere curiosity. Dagran mused a second.

«Well, why not? In the past it has always worked, after all.»

«Yes, but it was different. We were kids… and you weren't so hairy!» Zael added with a sneer while he pull aside his face. It seemed Dagran's beard tickled him when he spoke.

«Women love me just as I am. No one never complained about my hair» he said scratching his chin regardless.

That quick exchange was enough to realize that his idea was really having an effect: Zael was much more relaxed now, and to be honest he felt better having him close. However, the return of nightmares worried him.

«It is always the same, isn't it?» he asked seriously. There was no need to specify further, indeed Zael nodded shortly thereafter.

«As I thought» Dagran said with a sigh.

He knew all too well that dream, in fact it was the same that had tormented him well, even if with small differences. People screaming, burning houses, killers in search of the next victim...

Those were not mere nightmares, but memories. Of the days they had become orphans. Those images plagued them for a long time, marking indelibly their lives. And that afternoon, it was like they relived it all over again. For a second, during that battle, Dagran and Zael had ceased to be two adult mercenaries and were back to being frightened children that witnessed impotent to the destruction of everything that they hold most dear.

«I was stuck, today.»

«Huh?» Dagran roused himself to those words and looked at the man with the corner of my eye.

Zael sighed, before explaining. «When we were there, amidst all that fire... I was paralyzed» he seemed to be getting smaller as he spoke. «It was just like that day. I even seemed to see the same faces! If it wasn't for you and Lowell to move me, I don't know if...»

He suspended the sentence. Dagran understood very well. It was the same thing that happened to him, only that his anger, for once, was able to have a positive effect on him and to get him back almost lucid, allowing him to charge the enemy with all the strength he had in his body, instead of blind him completely and make him act reckless. His fighting style was rather impetuous, and his friends knew it, but that day he flung himself on the bandits with a fury that he had never shown before: in his mind, the faces of the Knights who had slaughtered his village and his family were superimposed to the ones of the bandits, and that awakened in him an uncontrollable bloodlust.

Zael instead remained motionless, as if in a trance. Lowell and Dagran had had to almost throw him on the ground to collect. While trying not to show it, Lowell was left shocked by the attitude of his fellow, so different from the usual, and Dagran noticed it. Maybe the next morning he would have explained the matter, if the Mage had pulled out of the question.

Meanwhile, he had other things to think about.

«Hey, it happens to everyone to lose focus and do some stupid shit from time to time,» he said to Zael «it's nothing to worry about.»

It really wasn't like that at all: as mercenaries, a moment of distraction like that could lead to a quick and untimely death, and in other circumstances Dagran would told Zael off so loud to make the ground shake under his feet. However, that night, he didn't want to turn the finger in the wound, not to mention that he himself had previously threatened several times to be killed for the opposite reason.

This should serve as a lesson to us.

«I know you're lying, Dagran. I was an idiot! I can't afford to get overwhelmed by my emotions in the midst of a battle. What would happen if I freeze again and you two weren't at my side? Or if something happens to you because of me? I would never forgive myself!»

Dagran mused on the words of his friend. His friend was far too sensitive to be a mercenary, however he didn't want him to change. If it wasn't for his goodness, maybe by now his desire for revenge would have turned him into a bloodthirsty monster. The presence of Zael by his side, while failing to cancel altogether his anger, was able to give him hope, make him believe that one day even someone like him could have a normal and peaceful life.

You are a good person, Zael. Not like me...

Dagran hugged him even stronger.

«You don't have to worry about it, okay?» he said «We three can take care of ourselves. And still we are a family: we can always count on each other.»

A family that kept losing the pieces, but that it was better not to remember. Zoran's betrayal, few months earlier, when he escaped taking most of their belongings and making them almost slamming into prison, was a still fresh wound. And the death of Celes… Dagran knew that that wound would never be healed; not in his spirit and unfortunately even in his body.

Zael shook his arm, and though he could not see his face, Dagran felt that he was smiling. At least they were still together, after all this time and despite adversity.

«Do you feel better now?» he asked. Once he receive an affirmative nod, Dagran was satisfied.

«All right, then. I would say that is the case to go back to sleep.»

He had to pull himself up, but he realized that Zael still clutched his arm.

«Dagran?» he called him shortly after turning to him. Dagran could feel the uncertainty in his voice. «Do… do you mind if for tonight..?»

At the beginning he didn't understand what he meant. And when he did, he gave him a mock look of reproach.

«Seriously? A grown man like you who uses means for children to sleep?» he teased, and as a reply, he received an ironic smirk and an eloquent shrug. They had started it, so they might finish as well.

«Okay,» he granted him «just don't drool on me!»

«Well, then you don't snore, at least for tonight. Why do you think me and Lowell were so far from you?»

Once they finished exchanging taunts, the two moved back the pallet and when all was ready, they stretched themselves both next to each other, but this time Zael hugged him on purpose, putting his head on Dagran's chest. For a moment he had thought his friend had forgotten that detail, but it was obvious that he was wrong.

The first time they had resorted to that trick, he confided that the thing that would relax him the most when his parents huddled him that way, was the possibility to hear their heartbeat. It gave him a feeling of security. Intrigued, Zael had tried to do the same, and after several attempts he was able to perceive it.

«There, I feel it now.»

Still lost in memories, Dagran remained banned on hearing that whisper. They were the same words that as a child Zael said every time, just before sleep. He heard him breathe a sigh of relief. Within a couple of minutes, his breathing became deeper, and Dagran realized that Zael had fallen asleep.

He observed him quietly, managing to find a little peace. That day was undoubtedly a continuous blast from the past. They were returned children, stranded at the worst possible time of their lives, but now they were reliving some of their best memories together.

Trying to move as little as possible, he grabbed the blanket and settled it better on Zael's shoulders. He thought of the words he had said just before; they were a family and that they can always count on each other. Yes, he would have done anything for his family, for him, even sinking to hell, if necessary. He passed his hand in Zael's hair, and in a whisper that only they could hear, he reiterated his commitment.

«I'll always be here for you.»

He closed his eyes, and soon after he was finally able to sleep.