JE created all the characters below. I'm just having fun at their expense.
Jenny (JenRar) thank you for your tireless work as the beta on this story. I really appreciate your up for anything attitude.
Dina (aydinbydin), thanks for your comments and for being a sounding board for my many questions and reality checks.
Chapter 6 - Dreams
Stephanie's POV
Man, it was unnerving how easy it was to be comfortable about these two. I'd spent time with them in a big group, and I'd spent time with them individually, but I hadn't done as much with just them together as this last couple of weeks had allowed. And seeing them joking with each other, completely relaxed and not holding back, I could totally see why they'd been together so long. They obviously had a level of trust that had been tested and proven true over time. And even though they weren't overly affectionate, the occasional touch, or even a crooked smile as they snatched food off each other's plates, told me what they felt for each ran deep.
I was also seeing a side of Bobby I didn't know existed. Everybody knew Lester could play the part of a flirtatious playboy, but Bobby tended to be a little more serious. Tonight, they were equally goofy, and I felt like I was getting a rare glimpse into what they must be like together when they were in private. I felt honored that they were letting their guard down around me.
"Why don't we move this to someplace more comfortable," Lester suggested, "and see if there's anything in that bag we can all agree on watching?"
I jumped up and grabbed the dishes, hoping if I busied myself washing them that they would take the decision of what to watch upon themselves. I hated picking things like that, afraid that I'd choose something they wouldn't enjoy and they'd be forced to endure on my behalf. Nope, despite not really enjoying the domestic thing, either, I was more than happy to get my hands dirty in order to have them make the choice.
They went through a fast paced process of vetoing most everything in the bag, making me wonder who'd rented these movies in the first place, before finally settling on two.
"Hey, Beautiful, how about you come make the final call?" Lester suggested.
"No way," I bluntly refused, slowing down the rinsing of the dishes to be sure I was still covered by my excuse of what I was doing. "I'll be done in two minutes, and I expect to have something in the DVD player by then." I hoped by channeling someone assertive, they'd bend to my will.
"Damn," Bobby replied in a mock serious voice. "I think we'd better pick something."
When I walked into the den with a bottle of water for each of us, I noticed they were sitting at the two ends of my couch. It was a moderate-sized sofa, so there was definitely room between them for me, but I didn't want to assume they wanted me that close, so I pulled the coffee table out of the way and sat on the floor as the previews for upcoming releases began to roll. They were all movies that had been on video for several years, so I assumed whatever this was had to be old as well.
Before it could get to the feature film, the image stopped and the pause icon appeared in the upper right corner.
"What's wrong?" I asked, willing to get anything they needed.
Bobby spoke up first. "Why are you on the floor?"
"The chair is too far to the side to see the television straight on, so this is a better vantage point," I explained, confused about the question.
"But why didn't you sit on the couch with us?" Lester clarified.
"Oh..." I got it now. "Because there wasn't much room, and I didn't want to get between you guys for the movie."
They looked at each other and simultaneously took deep breaths. I watched their already snug t-shirts stretch tighter across their chests as the inhale expanded the hard planes there. Damn, they were good looking guys.
"Do you have an ice pack?" Bobby asked out of the blue.
I looked up, as though the answer were hiding on my ceiling, and did a quick mental check. "No, I don't think so."
"Can you grab the bag of frozen peas that I got last week?"
I figured he must have injured himself, so I got up and tried to hide the pain in my knee from where I'd landed on it tackling the creep that had shot Cal this morning.
I found the frozen vegetables he'd requested and thought it was strange how I hadn't even noticed it was in there when I'd first examined the food in my kitchen. I guess my mind knew there was no way in hell I'd ever eat peas that I'd cooked, so I hadn't bothered to catalogue it as a possibility.
When I made my way back to the den and handed him the bag of frozen pellets, he took my wrist and tugged while looking at the cushion between the two of them. I let him settle me down and covered up the shocked sound I made when he twisted me around so that my feet were in his lap, forcing my back to rest against Lester's side.
Then he put the ice cold vegetables on my hurt knee, which brought out a high pitched squeal, despite my efforts to hold it in. Even through yoga pants, that was freezing.
"You want me to look at it?" Bobby asked, bringing his serious side out again and making me instantly miss the more playful guy he'd been all through dinner.
"No, it's just bruised and a little scraped from where I fell on it this morning," I confessed, hoping he'd let it go and turn off the straight-faced medic mode he'd slipped back into.
His lips pressed together as he considered what I said, and then he announced, "You'll need to get out of those pants."
I was about to object, but Lester jumped in before I could. "Damn, man, usually you at least take a girl out on a date before trying to talk her out of her clothes. I know you're rusty at this, but that's a little on the fast side."
My face turned bright red, and if it was possible, Bobby's face seemed to darken as well while he stammered, "No…no, that's not what I…hell, Steph, I just need to see the whole knee, I didn't mean to imply that…"
Les took pity on us both and leaned over to smack Bobby's shoulder and say, "I'm just shitting you, man. We know that's not what you meant."
I grabbed the bottom of my pants and pulled it up and over my knee, thankful that they were made of enough spandex to easily allow for that kind of pulling. Bobby took the olive branch I was offering him and focused solely on the ugly, bruised joint in front of him, pressing on each of the sides and then bending it expertly, testing for tenderness. He made a face at one point that made me wonder what he was thinking, but he gave nothing away. I was able to keep from demanding what he was thinking by losing myself in looking at him up close. I don't know why I hadn't taken advantage of all the times he'd patched me up to stare at him. Bobby was a good looking guy and had his hair done up in corn rows at the moment, making me wonder who had done them and how long it had taken. I felt the peas go back on my knee and sucked in a quick breath before looking into his deep brown eyes.
"What were you thinking?" he asked, looking genuinely curious.
I blame the deep shade of brown staring at me for creating a space so safe that I didn't think before responding. "I was wondering what your hair would feel like."
He smiled, and I sucked in another breath, getting caught anew at how handsome he was, especially when his guard was down. He leaned forward, lowering his head slightly, and said, "You don't even need to ask. You can always feel free to touch me."
I didn't know what to say to that, but I wasn't going to miss such a golden opportunity, either. I lifted my hand, set it softly over the tightly braided hair, and then used just my middle fingertip to trace over one of the rows, thinking it was softer than I'd imagined it would be.
My family didn't do much touching. If you wanted someone to know you loved them, you offered them something to eat. I had been criticized enough growing up and told to stop hanging on my mom, and to a lesser degree my dad, so I'd learned to keep my hands to myself. In truth, I was always curious about how things felt, so I had to keep on guard that I didn't accidently reach out and touch someone when I shouldn't.
Being given free reign was too much to pass up, so I let myself touch several of the braids, following them to the back of his head, where a few beads had been put on before tying off the hair. I followed the row closest to his ear and then traced the shell of his ear, marveling again at how baby soft he was. I guess I'd spent so much time drooling over their hard muscles that I didn't think about how tender they could be, too.
As soon as that thought passed through my mind, both of the guys cracked up laughing.
Lester confirmed that I'd spoken the last part out loud. "Beautiful, I can guarantee that parts of us are just as hard you imagine. It's only the skin over it that's baby smooth."
The moment was slightly ruined by my big fat mouth, so I took my hand back and put it in my lap before asking, "Weren't you guys here to watch a movie?"
Lester put his arm around me and pulled me over to lean against his chest, while Bobby put his hand over the make shift ice pack on my knee and let the other hand rub up and down my uninjured leg. It didn't tickle at all, which was strange. I figured his medical training probably taught him how to touch people without making them jumpy. Of course, that didn't explain why my body was getting warmer, despite the presence of a block of ice on it.
The movie began, and the guys seemed to transfer their attention to it, so I fully relaxed, feeling slightly like a cat, just absorbing the attention being given to me. I knew I shouldn't allow them to do this, because it would end when the movie did, and then I'd have to go back to being the girl everybody liked to see, but no one really touched anymore. It only took a few seconds to realize I didn't have the strength to move and I knew I could examine why I was a leper in everyone's eyes later. Right now, I was comfortable, and since the guys seemed perfectly happy the way we were, I wasn't going to move until they made me.
I guess I took it a little too far, because I allowed myself to drift off, and when I woke up, I was back in my bed with the covers tucked around me. It was dark, and I was feeling cozy – and slightly confused about how I'd gotten here and what had woken me up, since a quick glance at the window showed it was still dark outside. Then I heard something coming from the other side of my bedroom door that sounded an awful lot like a fist fight. I jumped up and ran out to the living room to see what was going on.
I didn't understand the scene in front of me. Bobby was stretched out on the couch, with Lester straddling his waist. Lester's lower arms were pressing into Bobby's biceps, pinning them enough to restrict the movement without stopping it all together. He was calling out to his partner in a firm voice all the while taking the blows from Bobby's fist to his torso. I knew the hold he had on Bobby's arms was greatly reducing the strength of the hits, but it wasn't completely taking away the force he was capable of.
"What's going on?" I asked, feeling like I needed to warn Lester that I was gawking at them.
He didn't look up at me to reply, "He's just having one of his dreams. He'll fight it out and go back to sleep soon."
That was all I needed to know to move in closer.
"You need to stay back. He doesn't know where he is or who is around him, and it would kill him to think he hurt you," Lester said through gritted teeth.
I could see the strain it was putting on Lester to hold Bobby back, so I knelt at the edge of the couch behind Bobby's head where he couldn't reach me easily and put both my hands on his scalp. Then I made soft shushing noises, like a mother would to a fussing baby.
I felt like Lester was about to warn me again, but when I began to move my fingertips at his hair line, Bobby stopped fighting immediately and tilted his chin up so that I'd have easier access to his skin.
"That's right, big guy," I kept babbling. "You don't need to fight them anymore. It's just Stephanie and Lester, and you're okay."
His arms gradually lost the tension and eventually went limp against Lester's bracing. I kept touching and rambling until his head began to tilt to the side, telling me he had given up and was back asleep, but without the nightmare this time. When I was convinced he was out, I leaned forward and kissed the hair I had been stroking, and then plopped down Indian style on the floor.
"Does that happen a lot?" I asked Lester.
He rubbed his face with his hand, like he was gearing up for a discussion he wasn't entirely convinced he wanted to have. "I'd say between the two of us, we probably have one a week."
"Are yours like that, too?" I wondered, feeling like the darkness of the room made it easier to pry into things that were most certainly none of my business.
Les didn't answer right away, and I decided to try waiting him out, in the hope that he'd give me at least a partial response. Eventually, his eyes narrowed, like he was looking at something far away.
"What Bobby and I have is complicated," he whispered, moving so the floor so that he wasn't on top of the man he was talking about, but sitting across from me. "We've each been through enough shit that we were quickly becoming shells of the men we once were. I'm not complaining about it, and if I had to do it all over again, I doubt I'd make any different decisions, but the truth of it is, by the time we settled in at RangeMan, we were both a mess. We fought the bad guys all day, and at night, we refought the ones from our past. That kind of thing wears a man down over time, and we're no different than anyone else."
I wanted to interrupt and tell him he was so wrong about that last part, but I tried to keep my mouth shut, afraid that if I stopped him from talking that he wouldn't start up again, and I knew this was important.
"A few years ago when we got together, we realized what we shared helped us to function better. We didn't melt down and lose our control at work, and over time, we started to rest better at night, too. I think when we're together, we are so much healthier, because the two shells we were became meshed somehow and we made one whole man. It's still a flawed and damaged man, but we've learned to compensate for that."
I put my hand on Lester's, trying to encourage him that what he was saying, while hard to hear, wasn't scaring me away.
He looked at our hands and spoke once more. "Night time is when we are still at our most vulnerable, because our eyes close and we lose sight of the fact that there is someone out there to hang onto. When he's exhausted or when it's been too long since he let go, he tends to have the dreams. He's right back in the hell he's already survived, trying to make it through. We've tried all kinds of shit, but it seems to be best if I just keep him from hurting himself and let him get it out. The next morning, he'll be exhausted from the effort, but he doesn't wake up fixated on it the way he used to."
"How long does it usually last?" I wondered, unable to stop myself from blurting the question out.
Les shrugged. "It depends, but anywhere from a short five minutes to an hour or so."
"How can you hold him back that long?" I asked.
This time, he looked away. "We have a deal that we try for an hour, and if nothing else gets through, we have to end it."
"What does that mean?" I felt a little nervous at what he was suggesting.
"I would have let him go, waited for his arms to drop, and then hit that magic spot on his chin to knock him out," Les admitted.
I covered my mouth with my free hand, not wanting to say how horrible that sounded.
"It's no worse than when we spar in the ring, and it saves him from having to endure the dream for any longer," Les defended. "It's what he told me to do, and I've asked the same thing of him. We don't hold any grudges if it comes down to it."
"How often does it come to that?" I needed to know this answer.
"Half the time, I guess. Probably a little more than that with him, and little less with me, but on average – half," Les stated, not trying to sugar coat it. "We're already asleep, so it doesn't hurt us."
I pulled away the hand that had been hovering near my mouth to say, "I'm not worried about the person having the dream," I explained. "I was feeling badly for the person that has to hit the dreamer to knock them out. That must be horrible."
He opened his mouth to respond and then shut it, as though he was at a complete loss about what to say. Suddenly, his head lifted and he said, "You're incredible. You know that, right?"
I chuckled slightly and replied, "In case you haven't read the papers lately, that's not the commonly held opinion of my worth."
He put his index finger under my chin, forcing me to look up at him and stare into his eyes. "I don't give a shit what the rest of the world thinks. They're obviously misinformed and too damn lazy to see the truth in front of them. You're amazing, and I'm not going to let you say otherwise."
I held his gaze for a moment, wishing it were easier to believe him, but knowing one nice thing whispered in the middle of the night couldn't wash away years worth of the exact opposite said to my face during the day.
"I'm going to tell Bobby what you did for him," Les told me as he dropped his grip on my face.
"I just wanted to help," I explained. "I know what it's like to have dreams you need to escape, and I just did what I wished someone had done for me."
Then I heard Bobby's deep voice from the couch and jumped slightly, not realizing we'd gradually gotten louder as we spoke and had woken him. "Why didn't anybody ease your dreams?"
This was getting to be too much really quickly. There were certain things I didn't want to admit to myself, not to mention the two great guys in my living room. I shrugged and then remembered Bobby couldn't see me since he was still stretched out on the sofa.
"Nobody around at night but me and Rex, and he's not much of a soother," I said, trying to make light of it.
"What about the cop? You guys were together for a long time," Les jumped in.
I looked at the ceiling again, wishing it would somehow split open so I didn't have to confess the truth about me and Joe. Since it seemed to be especially stable at the moment, I took a deep breath and said, "Honestly, most nights with Joe, we'd do whatever we were going to do, and then one of us would go home. The periods where we were trying a little harder and I stayed at his house, he was usually working late nights and coming in when I was getting up. I think the only way we could get along well enough to live together was when we saw less of each other. It's pretty sad, actually."
Bobby's voice came from the couch again. "No, it's pathetic. No decent man would ever have you in his arms and let you go. That dude has serious issues if he went home when he could have been sleeping next to you."
There was a little voice in the back of my mind that noted that when I fell asleep on them, they'd put me in bed and then walked out, too, so it seemed to be a little bit of a double standard.
Lester then moved, bringing my attention back to him when he asked, "What about Ranger?"
My shoulders rose on their own at that question. "I don't really know. I don't remember ever having a nightmare when he was around. I guess the dreams knew better than to try and cross him." Then, because I was exhausted, my mouth kept on running. "Of course, he does get up before the crack of dawn, and since he usually slipped in well past my bed time, I don't know that I've spent an entire night with him, either."
"Ever?" Bobby asked, rolling over and pulling himself up so that his shin was on the armrest of the couch so that he could see me.
"Well, once, but that got ruined the next morning when he told me to patch things up with Joe," I responded.
I wished it hadn't been so dark so that I could better understand the strange sounds both of them made at that response. "He had you in bed all night, and when the sun came up, he told you to go back to the cop?" Lester repeated, like he was trying to verify he'd heard me right.
"Not my best morning," I replied.
"No, it was not his best morning," Bobby corrected my opinion of what happened that day.
"My cousin is a good man, but he's got these rules he lives by," Lester seemed to want to explain, but wasn't sure how to.
I put my hand up to stop him. "It's all right, really. It was a long time ago, and Ranger was always up front with me that we did not have, nor could we ever have a relationship, so I can't fault him for just behaving in a way that matched what he'd already warned me was true."
"It still doesn't mean it was right," Bobby spoke up once more. After a few beats of silence went by, he spoke up once more. "Anybody want to tell me why we're talking about nightmares?"
Lester put his hand on Bobby's shoulder and squeezed. No words were spoken until Bobby started shaking his head from side to side, before saying, "Damn, I was hoping after chilling today, I'd be immune." He let his forehead rest on the sofa before adding, "This has monumentally bad idea written all over it."
"Want to know what got you out of it?" Lester asked, causing Bobby's head to snap up. Not waiting for a real answer, Les told him, "Stephanie heard the struggle out here and knelt right there to touch your face and talk to you. It took her maybe thirty seconds to calm you down, and after a couple of minutes, you were out cold."
"You didn't…" He left the question out there.
Les shook his head no. "Hadn't been near long enough, and then you just settled down."
They were silent, just looking at each other for long enough that I began to wonder if I was intruding on a personal moment. Then Bobby's head shifted in my direction.
"I could have hurt you."
"You wouldn't have," I blurted out. "Les was holding you, and I didn't put myself in front of your fists."
"You're amazing," he said on the heels of my words. "Fearless and…amazing."
I yawned as the rush from having been awakened began to wane, and as soon as I finished, Lester seemed to have the same need.
Bobby looked between the two of us and then announced, "All right, everybody, back to bed."
I didn't like the idea of being sent back to my room alone, but I respected that they might need some time without a third wheel, so I stood up and began walking to my room. I spun around to say goodnight and ran into Lester's hard chest. He kept me from falling over, catching my elbows and hanging onto them.
Bobby was right behind Lester and stepped out to put a hand on my arm as well. "You okay?" he asked, concerned about what stopped me.
I nodded and then explained, "I didn't expect you to be there, that's all."
They looked at each other quickly, before Bobby spoke on their behalf. "I did say we were all going to bed, and if you don't mind being between us like you were on the couch, I'm pretty sure your queen size mattress will fit us all for a few hours until the sun rises."
I climbed in and easily found a place that was perfectly comfortable when Bobby brought my face to rest on his shoulder and Lester put his hand on my hip. I might eventually begin to suffer from too much affection without follow through, but at this moment, I was so happy and peaceful that I knew it would be totally worth it.