Thanks for the reviews everyone! I had a great weekend, hope you did too.
Now, your reward for that cliffie I left you with...
10
An avalanche of crashing filled the ice-chamber. The cacophony bounced back and forth off the walls, beating at the air so hard it hurt Eric's ears. It set up vibrations in his chest, in his teeth. Slowly the noise faded, and Eric was left in silent darkness.
He was pinned to the rubble. A hard lump dug into the small of his back, another poked at his shoulder, more under his thighs. The weight on top of him shifted and groaned. Sookie. She rolled off him and he sat up, reaching for her, demanding to know if she was okay as she asked the same of him.
"Bruised but alive," he answered, his hands running up the outside of her arms, over her shoulders. His fingers brushed her face and caught in matted hair. Her temple was wet, sticky, and he panicked. "Is that blood? Did a brick hit you?"
"No, I don't think so." She wiped at the spot. "Ugh. It's just mud. I'm okay."
"Are you sure? You're not hurt anywhere? You're shaking."
"Just bumps and scrapes. I'm a little shook up, is all."
His hands found her shoulders again, tightening on them. "You could've been killed!"
"So could you!" She grabbed his wrists and dug her nails in, hard, forcing him to relax his grip. "I should never have dragged you down here. I'm so sorry, Eric."
The regret in her voice quelled his temper and he let go of her. "I shouted a warning. Didn't you hear me?"
"No, I didn't. I was so focused on finding… I… I couldn't stop."
"You haven't been yourself since I found you sleepwalking. Once you got down here... It was like you were in a trance or something."
"It… It was like it was happening to someone else, you know? Like I wasn't the one pulling the strings. And then bricks were falling, and…" He heard her swallow, and her voice thickened. "If you hadn't grabbed me when you did—"
"Don't. Don't say it." He pulled her into a tight, crushing hug. She hugged him back just as fiercely, her face tucked into his neck. "I've never been so fucking scared," he whispered, pressing a kiss against her hair, and he didn't know if he meant seeing whatever the hell that face was or thinking she was about to get crushed.
He was still seeing that now, even with his eyes closed. Her, broken and bloody, under a tonne of bricks.
"Me either," she whispered, shuddering against him. "I wasn't in control of myself at all. That scares the shit outta me. Never experienced anything like it. "
His arms tightened around her and they stayed like that while he breathed her in, reassuring himself that she was warm and alive and still in one piece. When he opened his eyes, he saw light coming from under the rubble a few feet away. The torch, half-buried, but, miracle of miracles, working again.
"I see the torch," he said, letting her go.
Sookie got carefully to her feet while he retrieved it. He shone it at the wall first. The bricks didn't seem to be glowing any more, but he wasn't about to turn the torch off to check that, and anyway he was too busy inspecting the gaping hole in the wall. It was about eight feet across and seven high. He worried that the flood that brought it down had made the banked earth behind it unstable too, but it seemed to be holding.
In fact, there looked to be a second wall a foot or so behind the one that had fallen. Some sort of buttressing, perhaps. They built this place to last.
"I don't think any more is going to come down," he said to Sookie, "but don't get too close."
"You either. No playing the hero again, buster."
"Yes, ma'am," he said, sarcastic and irritated to be bossed around, but also secretly pleased to hear the fire back in her voice. He flicked the light to the left. "Let's move over there, where it's drier and we can see better."
The collapse had sent a tumble of loose bricks and chunks of wall spilling out across the chamber. Water had puddled around the messy heap and they skirted it, Eric moving the light over the wall, looking for the source of the flood.
"I can't see where the water came from," he said. "Helvete, it's freezing down here. We should go back soon, get warm."
As he turned from the wall, the torch-light caught something sticking out from the pile of bricks. Something small. Something that wasn't the right shape to be a brick. Something that didn't belong. Flicking the light back over it, he saw immediately what it was.
A hand. A hand that was attached to an arm, an arm to a shoulder, to a—
"Don't look!" He grabbed for Sookie, trying to shield her.
Too late. She'd already seen. Gasping, she snatched the torch clean out of his hand and shoved past him. The swinging light sent shadows racing across the ice-chamber.
And over the corpse that lay on top of the fallen masonry, its limbs tangled in the bricks.
"It's a child," Eric said in surprise.
"Henry," Sookie scolded gently. "His name was Henry."
She trailed the torch slowly over the body, sections of it appearing in the circle of light like flashes of a nightmare. Pale bedraggled hair hung over the face, mercifully sparing them that sight. A thin linen shirt that had perhaps been white, now stained and rotting, clung to the arms and back. The skin, where it showed through the fabric, had an oily sheen and was the colour of candle wax. Tattered breeches and decomposing woollen stockings hung loose about the legs, and the pitiful remains of a shoe flopped from the nearest foot.
"Oh Henry," Sookie whispered sadly.
She dropped to her knees on the wet ground, her hand reaching out as if to stroke that pale straw-like hair. Eric started forward, bile rising in his throat at the thought of her touching the foul thing, but she let her hand drop. When he crouched down beside her, he saw tears on her cheeks.
Ah, shit. He never knew what to do with crying women.
He patted her arm half-heartedly and murmured, "He's been dead a long time." That was comforting, right?
"Yeah. Too long." She choked back a sob. "Too long down here, all alone in the cold."
Shit, shit, shit. He put his arm awkwardly around her. "Don't cry." Please, please don't cry.
Her shoulders heaved once, twice. Then she blew out a long shaky breath of air, sniffed loudly, and wiped at her face with the back of her wrist. When he was sure she'd pulled herself back from the brink and she wasn't about to dissolve into hysterics, he slumped in relief.
Thank Christ for that.
"I dreamt about it," she whispered softly, wonder in her voice. "The night he died, I mean."
"You did?"
"He was the kitchen boy," she said slowly. "He fetched the water, the firewood. Swept the floor, took out the scraps. Ate them sometimes, when they didn't give him enough to eat. Turned the spit too, fat dripping and hissing on the logs, one side of him roasting like the meat, his mouth watering at the smell of food he couldn't have. He was dirty, and you could count his ribs. He didn't even have a proper bed, just a pile of straw in the corner of the scullery. That was all an orphan deserved, the cook said. Ought to be grateful the Master saved a wretch like him from the poorhouse."
The rubble pressed uncomfortably into Eric's knees, but he was caught up with her, caught in the past. She was completely still under his arm, her voice far away.
"The cook left the pantry unlocked that night. He knew it was risky, knew he shouldn't do it, knew it was a sin, but he was so hungry. It was the dead of night when he crept in there. Everyone in the house was a-bed, no-one to witness him stealing one lousy crust of stale bread and a hunk of ham so small he thought no-one would miss it. He ate by the kitchen fire. Fell asleep there too, his belly full for once. He didn't expect the Master to come in that way, roaring drunk and looking for the scullery maid, his black boots splattered with mud from the road.
"The Master was a cruel, cruel man. A big brute of a man, with hands like spades. He grabbed Henry by the scruff of his neck and shook him awake. Shouted at him, called him a thief, his breath reeking of drink, spittle spraying from his fat, red face. He was still holding..." She stopped and looked up at Eric, puzzled. "A switch, for his horse. Stiff and about so long."
"A riding crop," he said quietly.
She nodded absently. "Yes. He laid into Henry with it. Lashed him again and again, drawing blood. Henry screamed and fought, broke free of him, ran. Ran outside, into the dark. There was snow on the ground and he had no coat, but he ran across the lawn. Towards the gate, and the lane to the village."
"Not here, to the woods?"
"No, to the gate. The Master snatched up his lantern and gave chase. He caught him by the pond. Henry was sobbing, begging for mercy. The Master was furious, his face twisted and ugly. Like a demon was in him. He smacked Henry across the face with the lantern. Henry fell, scrambled backwards. There were reeds around him, water under him. Cold, freezing water. Hands closed around his neck, pressed him down. Henry kicked and thrashed for all he was worth, but the water was so cold, and..." Her voice hitched and filled with tears. "He drowned him, Eric. He was just a child. A little boy. And he died so afraid."
Eric didn't know what to say. The silence stretched.
"You don't believe me," she said, matter-of-fact, wiping briskly at her face. "That's okay. I wouldn't believe me either." She pulled away from him and he knew he had to do something.
"I saw a face," he blurted out.
"What? A face? Where?"
"In the wall," he said, swallowing hard. "Before it fell. A glowing face."
He wanted to say that it had just been his eyes playing tricks, that it had been too dark to see anything and his imagination had just filled in the gaps. He'd have given anything to be able to say that, and mean it, mean it with absolute certainty, but…
He just couldn't. The experience was too fresh, too raw to deny. He took the torch gently from her. "Let's see if the bod— If Henry can shed any light on all this."
Eric looked at the boy. At the shirt, which was thin and coarse and old. At the stains on it that could be dirt or blood, it was hard to say at this point. At the rents and tears in it that he could very easily believe had been made by a riding crop. At the fine, pale hair, bleached and brittle as straw now. And at something, tangled in that hair, that looked like it could have been, once, long ago, pond weed.
A shiver ran through him. The smell hit him then.
Not the healthy copper tang of fresh blood, not even the sour-sweet gone-off-meat smell of a week old animal carcass, familiar from his work. No, a rank, foul smell. Earthy, sulphurous, carrying the odour of rotting vegetation and thick suffocating mud. The stench of things long buried, things long drowned.
Things bricked up too long down here in this dark icy tomb.
Eric looked at Sookie. She looked back, her eyes wide, her face pale, her breath misting the air. Wordlessly, they made a collective decision to get the hell out of there.
They scrambled across the chamber, the rustle of their clothes and the clinks of shifting rubble not quite drowning out their panicked breaths. Eric boosted Sookie up the wall, threw the torch up to her, and climbed after her like the devil himself was on his heels, the back of his neck prickling the whole time. Round the corner, a rush down the passage, out of the ice-house, clambering and slipping up that muddy bank … and finally the fear that had driven their headlong flight began to lessen.
Clouds covered the moon. The wind had died and the rain had eased to a light drizzle, the kind that got you soaked through before you knew it. They were both wet already anyway, it was bitterly cold, and neither of them knew which way to go. Eric, worried they'd end up wandering the woods in circles, took command and struck out in one direction.
About five minutes later they hit the boundary fence. Sookie was shivering by then, so Eric set a fast pace, pushing her to keep up, barking at her whenever she slowed. They skirted the edge of the wood, following the fence. It was a long slog. A long, grim and mostly silent slog, the cold sapping their energy for anything beyond putting one foot in front of the other.
Eric's jeans clung to his thighs, chaffing uncomfortably, his jumper heavy and wet across his shoulders. Without adrenaline to warm him, the cold met no barrier to its seeking fingers. By the time he spotted the house, its chimneys rising over the trees, he was shivering too. Sookie was worse: her teeth chattered continuously, and every so often a great shudder ran through her. When they got to the back door, she tugged at his sleeve.
"M-muddy b-b-boots."
Was she crazy? They had to get warm. "Inside first," he ordered, practically shoving her through the door. "The floor will wash."
He got his boots off after a tussle with wet laces. Peeling off his waterlogged jumper, he tossed it in the butler's sink. All while Sookie stood on the mat, shaking with cold as she struggled to pull off those wellies. He helped her off with them; and his coat, her hands too numb to catch hold of the zip. Then he practically frog-marched her out of the kitchen and through the house.
She stopped dead at the stairs, and said something that came out more stutter than sense.
"What now?"
She pointed at his feet. He looked down. The bottom of his jeans were plastered in mud. He shrugged, but she gave him a look that said she was going to dig her heels in.
"C-carpet," she got out this time.
"Alright, woman! Just keep moving." He bent down to turn up his jeans, muttering, "For fuck's sake, who cares about the damn carpet!" His fingers were stiff with cold, and it took a moment.
Wiping his hands on his t-shirt, he took the stairs two at a time, grumbling under his breath about stubborn women. But he was glad he was behind her a second later, when another convulsive shudder ran through her and she almost fell down the stairs.
"Whoa there," he grunted, bracing against her weight as he caught her. "Shit, you're frozen solid. Come on. Lean on me."
He hunched down so she could sling her arm around his neck, wrapped an arm around her waist and half-carried her up the stairs, ignoring complaints about his cold hands. Another great shudder went through her as they got to her room. Not good. The light was on in the bathroom. He took her straight in there. Reaching past the shower curtain one-handed, he set the temperature and turned the water on.
"You go," she gritted out, pulling away from him. "I can m-manage."
"No you can't. Your lips are blue and you can hardly stand. This is no time for modesty, woman."
She stuck her chin out mutinously, but another shudder racked her and made his case for him. She gave in, with bad grace and a scowl. She struggled out of her dressing gown. The bottom of it was wet and plastered in mud. He chaffed at her arms, encouraging the blood to flow while she worked on undoing her pyjama top,. Her fingers fumbled at the buttons. Making an impatient noise, he took over. She cringed as he pushed the top off her shoulders, but he didn't know why.
She had a vest on underneath it. A long thermal vest.
Bloody good job too, probably kept her this side of hypothermia. Just.
He really didn't like that blue tinge to her lips. Her pyjama bottoms were muddy at the knees and soaked through. Giving her no chance to protest, he yanked them down. She yelped, grabbing onto his back for support as he pulled them off first one foot, then the other.
"Jesus, woman, your feet are blocks of ice. In the shower, now. You have to warm up."
"S-so do you."
"I'll get in with you," he bargained. Lifting her into the bath, he shoved her at the water.
She shied away from it, whining, "It's too hot."
"It's barely lukewarm. You're just too cold to feel it." He shucked his jeans, socks and t-shirt, and joined her in his underwear, a pair of snug-fitting jersey boxer-briefs. Rubbing her arms soothingly, he eased her back under the spray. She cringed away from it and curled against his chest, arms and head tucked in, the water hitting her back.
"There," he said, "that'll thaw you out. Give it a minute."
He counted to a hundred before he inched the dial up. His feet and hands prickled with returning blood. Sookie was relaxing too, her muscles unknotting little by little. Two more twists of the dial and she stopped shivering completely. Thank fuck. He turned it all the way. Steam filled the space, cocooning them in heat.
He groaned softly, luxuriating in the ability to feel his toes again. It surprised him when her arms slid around his waist. "Better?" he asked.
"Uh-huh," she said into his chest. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. Stay put a minute."
He gave her a quick squeeze, broke contact and got out to investigate the towel rail. Two hand towels, one big fluffy bath towel. One of the hand towels went round his waist, after he'd abandoned his wet boxers to the floor. He held the bath towel up against the shower curtain, high enough to block his eyes.
"I got you a towel. Take that wet vest off. It'll only make you cold again."
Wet cloth slapped against the bath, then she was stepping out into his arms. He wrapped the towel around her without taking so much as a peek. It swaddled her from shoulder to knee.
"Mmm, toasty," she said, pulling it tight. "Thank the Lord for heated towel rails. Wait, what are you doing?"
"Drying your hair," he said, blotting it with the remaining hand towel.
"But you're dripping wet too."
"I'm fine. Swedish blood, remember."
"Horseshit. Those are goosebumps on your chest and that towel you're wearing might as well be a postage stamp the size you are." She opened her towel, stepped close, and embraced him with it at chest height. The towel was just big enough for two, as long as they stayed sandwiched together. "There. Now we're both warm."
Eric, painfully aware of how inadequate his towel was now it was all there was between them, was beset by sudden urges: He wanted to ask which part of him she was comparing to the size of his towel and watch her blush. He wanted to rub up against her and bathe in the heat of her skin. He wanted look down.
He really, really wanted to look down. She'd moved so fast he hadn't seen a thing, and fuelled by what he could feel his imagination was running riot. But, displaying an epic level of self-control, he settled for clearing his throat and patting at her hair some more.
It meant he didn't have to look in her eyes and it kept his hands busy. Thank fuck his arms weren't trapped in the towel.
"My hair's just fine," she said, amused. "Dry yours."
He did as he was told, rubbing vigorously. Wet hair flopped over his eyes, so he didn't so much see her rise up on her toes as feel every wet inch of her slide against him. He groaned just as her mouth latched onto his, hungry and demanding. All thoughts of chivalrous behaviour left his head. Christ, he loved a confident woman.
Eventually kissing wasn't enough for either of them, not with his hands blocked by her towel and hers stuck holding it round them. Somehow they made it to the bed. They sprawled across the end of it, the towel spread out under them to protect the quilt, and there was no doubt where this was going now that their hands had joined the party.
Things proceeded rapidly in that direction until they rolled over and Eric settled on top of her.
"Wait," she breathed. "We need… Mm… We need a…"
Oh. Right.
"Don't move." Sealing the command with a firm press of his lips on hers, Eric leapt up and darted into the bathroom. Yes! Still in his pocket. He dropped his wet jeans back on the floor and emerged, waving his spoils triumphantly. Tearing the packet open, he got the damn thing on and laid down beside her again, grinning like a fool.
"There, all dressed for the occasion and yours to command, milady."
She grinned right back. "I do so like a man who comes prepared. Now, where were we," and she tugged him back into position.
He didn't reply, his body blanketing hers, his mouth otherwise occupied on her neck, and the time for talking clearly past.
Somewhere at the back of his mind he knew that this explosion of passion was just a celebration of life, something they both needed to banish the horrors they'd found in the ice-house, but he couldn't care less. A short but wonderful and (he hoped) mutually satisfying interval later, he collapsed on top of her.
"Fuck, I needed that," he said into her shoulder, his toes tingling and laughter bubbling in his throat. She giggled underneath him, which was all sorts of lovely, both the sound and the feel of it.
"Coming off a dry spell, huh?"
"Ah…" Disengaging carefully, he rolled off her and flopped onto his back, squinting at the ceiling while he counted. "Four months, give or take a week."
"I win. Six. No, wait, almost seven."
"Are all the men in Louisiana blind?"
"Nope. I'm just picky."
He smirked. "Nice to know I made the cut, then."
"Well, not as picky as I was seven months ago, obviously. I lowered the bar a lot for you."
"I didn't hear any complaints." He trailed a hand down her side as a prelude to ticking her, but stopped, frowning, when goosebumps rose in its wake. "You're cold."
"Good. I need to cool off, Mr Hot-blooded," she said, rolling to face him and licking her lips. "You got me all overheated."
"Get under the covers." The stubborn tilt to her jaw told him he'd been too abrupt, too domineering. To soften his words, he surprised her with a kiss on the tip of her nose. "Getting cold again is a bad idea. Humour me."
Without waiting for her to agree, he got up and went to the bathroom. He threw the condom in the bin, took a piss, washed his hands and came back. She was in bed, the covers pulled tight under her chin. Lifting the blankets, he slid under them and shuffled over to join her.
"You're staying," she said, surprised.
"Someone has to teach you how to keep warm. First, we tent." He pulled the covers over their heads, trapping their breath, then wrapped himself around her. "Second, we share body heat. Mmm. Best way to ward off a chill. Scientifically proven."
"Is it scientifically proven that you have to stroke my ass too?"
"Oh yes. It's the friction, you see. It's very … warming."
"You are so full of shit."
He laughed into the warming darkness. "But you're still not complaining."
"No, I'm not. Not now your hands are warm."
Hot breath tickled his ear. Lips followed and he groaned, shivers racing down his spine. "Not that I'm complaining" — fuck no, she could nibble on him like that all night — "but I only came prepared to, ah, dress for the occasion once."
"Mm-hmm. Well, we could improvise…" She kissed his neck while he ran through several possibilities for that, all of them fantastically appealing. Then she said, "Or we could just open the box on the nightstand."
"You bought a whole box?" He chuckled. "You wicked girl, you."
"Not me," she denied, despite the very wicked things her hands were doing to him at that exact moment. "Amelia picked them up when she went grocery shopping with Pam."
"I'll have to thank her." Later. Much, much later.
If the first time had been fast and fierce, and filled with a desperate joy; the second, in contrast, was slow and sensual. Leisurely even. They took their time, savouring every kiss and caress, Sookie drowning in pleasure twice before she dragged him under with her, the spectacular sight of her riding him in the light spilling from the bathroom etched in his memory. The third time — and that there was a third took Eric by surprise, because he hadn't been a teenager for almost a decade and he thought that level of ardour was behind him — the third time was just a delight. Teasing and playful, and full of laughter.
He like that, very much, that they could laugh together.
The room was light when he woke up. Sookie was warm beside him. He pushed himself up on his elbow so he could look down at her. Fast asleep, her breathing even, her hair tangled on the pillow — a lovely reminder of what they'd got up to last night. He grinned, remembering.
And so remembered other things. The cold, the rain, the ice-house, the body.
Fuck, what a night.
He slipped out of bed, smiling a little when he found his underwear and t-shirt hanging on the bathroom radiator next to her vest. She must've got up after he passed out and hung them up to dry. They were lovely and warm when he put them on. His socks were still crusted with mud, though. Grimacing, he picked them up, along with his jeans which were still damp. He carried them through the bedroom, sparing Sleeping Beauty a glance from the door. She hadn't stirred. He blew her a kiss and slipped out into the corridor.
...