Busman's Holiday

Chapter Eight: Nightmare Games

OLEG IS PLAYING A NEW GAME, ONE LUCAS DOES NOT UNDERSTAND. At first he was warm; probably for the first time in months he was truly, comfortably warm, and resting in a soft bed, swaddled like a babe in cosy blankets. He was right to think it was some kind of trick, but it has gone in a completely different direction to what he was expecting.

At first, he lay there, enjoying the unexpected comfort, taking what pleasure he could, expecting a British traitor, someone with a perfect accent and command of all the correct idioms, to walk in at any moment, telling him he was home. Didn't he remember the rescue operation? Well, he was in bad shape when they found him, but he's doing much better now. As soon as they finish debriefing him and get him back on his feet, he can be on his way. As much as he wants to believe it could be true, he read Roald Dahl's "Beware of the Dog"* in school, so he knows better than to be taken in.

But no one has come in telling him he is home and safe on British soil. Instead, the room has just gotten warmer and warmer, the blankets tighter and tighter. Every time he moves, he is more restricted, like an insect struggling in a spider's web. Now, the air is stifling, hard to breathe, he's damp with perspiration, and there is something around his neck growing tighter each time he shifts, slowly choking him. It's not exactly a stress position, because he is not being made to hold himself in any one position, but just lying still is becoming stressful in itself.

Being isolated in his cell, alone in the dark is bad enough, being unable to stretch or move is torture. His shoulder aches from lying on it and his arm is going numb. He's got a stitch in his side where the bed does not conform to the curve of his body, and he has an itch that he can't scratch on the back of his left calf.

Usually he is able to hold out much longer, but today, tonight, whatever time it is, it doesn't matter because it is pitch black, this time, he has no patience. He might have been surprised if Oleg had been clever enough to go for the "Beware of the Dog" deception, but the fact that he has come up with something unique is unsettling. Oleg is an intelligent, reasonably well-educated man, but he is not creative. Anything new and unexpected makes Lucas worry that they have brought in a different interrogator. A new interrogator means new tactics, possibly new questions. Lucas will have to adjust his expectations and responses once again, and he really isn't sure how much more he can adapt before he loses it and either goes mad or starts telling them everything he knows.

Worry and anxiety are his greatest enemies. Better to be proactive, so he channels his fears into annoyance. Soon, besides being hot and uncomfortable and having trouble breathing, Lucas is thoroughly pissed off.

"I'm getting bored, Oleg!" he shouts at the top of his voice trying to fill his tone with mocking irritation. "If you've run out of questions, why don't you send me back to my cell and leave me alone?"

He struggles against the swaddling again, trying to free his numb arm and relieve the bothersome pressure he has just noticed on his left hip, and suddenly the thing around his throat is tight and choking.

"O-Oleg!" he gasps. "Guh! God! He-Help!"

SOMEONE IS SHAKING HIM. He feels cool fingers against his neck, a soft hand on his brow. He can breathe again

"Lucas? Lucas, it's all right," says a woman's voice.

"Christ! Not you again," he murmurs before he is fully aware.

"I'll try not to take that personally."

He hears a chuckle in her tone and his eyes snap open and squint nearly shut against a bright light. The bitch who tortured him before had no sense of humour. She was a bloody automaton.

He takes in a large, comfortable four-poster bed made of dark wood, probably antique, and hung with heavy, velvet drapes and a matching canopy in a gold and burgundy floral pattern on an ivory background. The bedroom is large and well-appointed with a carpet in an autumnal more-golden-than-brown shade and brocade wallpaper the colour of candlelit ivory. There is a chest of drawers with a large mirror, a tall wardrobe in the corner, matching bedside tables, and by the window, a pair of Victorian armchairs and a fainting couch upholstered in fabric to coordinate with the bed placed around a low coffee table decorated with fresh flowers.

"Lucas?"

He focuses on the woman. With her dark curls and dimpled smile, she looks lovely in her dark red satin robe.

"Josie," he mutters and begins to shake. Everything from the past few hours comes back to him at once. It is a disconcerting flood of memories, but better than the confusion of a few moments ago.

"Sorry," he apologises. "I didn't mean to wake you, I was just…"

"Having a nightmare?" she finishes for him when he trails off.

"Yeah," he nods.

"From the state of the bedclothes, it must have been a doosie!" she remarks lightly. "You even had the control cord for the electric blanket around your neck."

He looks down at the blankets. They are twisted in knots around him. Josie is holding the control dial in her hand. He remembers cool fingers on his neck and a violent tremor runs through him.

"I…Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," he repeats.

"It's all right," she reassures him. "I wasn't quite asleep yet anyway. I was just checking on Alexei before I turned in. It looks like, after I left, you woke up and turned the blanket up to maximum and then fell asleep before you could put the controller back on the nightstand. Then you got tangled in it while you were tossing and turning in your dream."

"Yeah," Lucas agrees.

She sits there for several moments rubbing his back while he shakes. Finally, into the silence she asks, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I…" Yes, actually, he does, but, "I don't remember. It's just a blank."

"Hmmm. That is the nature of dreams sometimes," she comments. "Maybe it's best you don't remember that one."

They're silent again for a bit. Lucas realizes he is sweating, so he unzips the hoodie and pulls it off. Then he sits there feeling stupid and looking around for somewhere to put it. With a smile, Josie takes it from his hands.

As she crosses to the wardrobe, she says, "You're never going to be able to sleep in the bed the state it's in. Why don't you go into the bathroom and splash some water on your face while I make it up for you?"

"You don't have to," Lucas says as he begins extricating himself from the tangled bedclothes.

"I want to," she says.

He doesn't feel like arguing, so he just does as she says. He's a little wobbly and can feel her eyes on him as he crosses the room, but he manages to get to the loo on his own. Standing at the sink, he realizes the t-shirt and track pants she has loaned him are soaked with sweat and it makes him feel disgusting. So he strips them off and washes himself down quickly with a flannel and some warm water from the sink. Then he relieves himself and washes his hands. He wishes he had a pair of shorts to sleep in, but since he doesn't have any, he wraps a fluffy towel around his waist. He waits a few minutes, hoping Josie will leave, but when he goes out into the bedroom, she is just pulling the curtains shut at one of the windows. He glances at the clock on the chest of drawers and realizes dawn is less than thirty minutes away. When she crosses to the other window, he tosses the towel across the foot of the bed and quickly slides under the covers while her back is turned.

"Thank you for re-making the bed for me," he says, plumping the pillows behind him and leaning against the headboard.

"You're welcome," comes the kind reply. "I took away the electric blanket. You seem warm enough now without it, and that cord is a risk I'd rather not take again."

He smirks sheepishly, adjusts the blankets a little higher round his waist, and says, "I can't argue with that."

"Do you often have nightmares?" she asks and she closes the drapes first on the side of the bed and then at the foot.

"I…I don't think so," he says. "If I do, I don't wake up fully enough to remember them."

"Do you usually wake feeling well-rested?" she asks going into the toilet.

"I'm not sure I can recall what well-rested feels like," he admits. "Most mornings I feel like I've been hit by a lorry."

She comes out of the loo with a glass of water. He looks dumbly from it to her.

"You were bathed in perspiration when I came in," she says. "I don't want you getting dehydrated."

He doesn't argue. She's had her way with everything tonight, and he doesn't expect her to back down now. When he takes the glass, he notices his hand is shaking. So does she.

"You're trembling," she says.

She reaches up and touches his cheek. At first he leans into her caress and then realises what he is doing and pulls away. She reaches down and squeezes his free hand. Feeling sheepish, he gives the water glass back to her and slides down under the covers.

"You're not cold, but you're trembling," she repeats.

"So?"

"I know a trauma survivor when I see one, Lucas," she says gently.

"I'll be all right," he insists softly.

There is a quiet moment as she runs her fingers comfortingly through his hair and he can almost feel her thinking.

"Scoot over," she says, picking up the bath towel and the water glass.

"What?"

"Make room," she calls from the loo.

"For what?"

"For me."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Look," she says practically as she sits on the edge of the bed beside him, "you've had a hell of a night, and that likely wasn't the last nightmare you'll have before time to get up. If I don't get to sleep before dawn, I might as well not bother, and you really don't want to face me when I've not had any beauty sleep at all. This is the only room in the house that has drapes heavy enough to block out the sun. If I can just roll over and give you a nudge to shake you out of a bad dream, that's a whole lot easier on both of us than if I have to roll out of bed, put on my robe and slippers, come all the way down the hall, turn on the light, pull the drapes back from the bed, shake you awake, remind you where you are and that you're ok now, get you settled in again, trudge back to my room, undress, and crawl back into my own bed."

Lucas is touched that she plans to take such good care of him. It's more than anyone has done in a very long time. Even when he first came back from Russia, he was mostly left on his own except for the doddering old biddy who lived downstairs and baked him macaroons and spied on him for Harry.

"Please let's just do this the easy way," she begs when he is quiet for too long.

He notices the dark circles under her eyes for the first time and realises he is not the only one who has had a difficult evening. Without another word, he moves over and lifts the blankets for her.

"Thank you," she says, getting up quickly to flip the switch and then sliding in beside him.

As he settles himself under the covers, she snuggles close to him. His breath catches in his throat when he feels soft skin against his bare flesh, and then he feels her arm go around his waist.

"Thank you," he whispers and drops a kiss on her forehead.

Then he is asleep.

TBC

Author's note: I know this chapter came up a bit short, but it made sense to stop here. If you want to know what's going on inside Lucas's head when he wakes, go read "Beware of the Dog" by Welsh-born author Roald Dahl. short/beware_of_the_