Part Twelve

Eventually he had to get up. As much as he wanted to remain indefinitely snuggled against Trevor and Sypha, Adrian knew that he would need to extricate himself from the comfortable tangle and put a few things in order. He could tell by how exhausted both of them were that they needed time to sleep, and he suspected that they also needed a decent meal. Or several. Fortunately he had a very large amount of bear meat that he could put to use for that purpose close at hand. He began to think about how best to approach that matter as he carefully wiggled free from the cots.

He supported Sypha's frame, laying her on her back after he managed to get himself out from between them both. Trevor slumped sideways, so deeply asleep that he didn't so much as stir. Adrian opted to simply shift him into a more comfortable position laying beside Sypha. He grunted quietly but didn't move otherwise. They really were exhausted, it was even more apparent now that they were actually asleep. The past weeks had taken a real toll on them and he was very curious as to what had actually transpired. They were both accustomed to traveling and it was surprising to him that they looked so beat up. Had they become spoiled by his hunting for them, or was it a product of unfavourable conditions? He could not help but kiss each of their faces numerous times, peppering their cheeks and stroking their hair. He felt like he had something precious that he needed to guard carefully or it would slip away. The panic over what had happened had receded marginally but he still felt like he had to keep very close eye on them lest they disappear. He couldn't stop smelling them. It was instinctual, it was soothing and seemed to reinforce the certainty that he was not dreaming. Finally he forced himself to leave them sleep while he attended to other matters.

Firstly he needed something to wear. Trevor's cloak was a pleasure, but did not pass for real clothes no matter how much he liked the feel of it swishing around his bare hips when he moved. He realized with some disdain that virtually everything he owned was destroyed save his sword. While he was not exactly materialistic, he had a decent appreciation for nice clothing, good workmanship, and soft textures. He missed his coat, and wondered what had ever happened to his boots and gloves. Perhaps some of what was left could be salvaged? He would have to brave the gory scene left at the Hold's entrance to find out. He decided to keep the cloak for the time being until he could find something else. He wasn't ready to examine the lasting damage to himself yet – the idea of even more scars marring his flesh was enough to make him sick.

He came upon the mess where the cage had once been and cringed, remembering well all the horrors which had transpired in that rectangle of Hell. The stones were now coated many times over in blood and the mangled remains of several animals. He focused on what mattered. It wouldn't do any good to relive it again, and it was no help to keep looking at the disaster and recalling the feeling of bones between his teeth snapping like so many twigs. He gathered up his pack in the hopes that some of the contents could be cleaned. He collected his sword, his remaining clothing, and anything else of use and ferried all of it down to the lower floors which were the most accommodating part of the massive Hold. He found the clothes he'd asked Trevor to clean laid out over a railing. He was surprised that the hunter had actually rinsed them and made some attempt to salvage them. His gloves and boots were among those items and seemed like they might be alright after some extra attention. Adrian spent some time soaking and rinsing everything he could, scrubbing away as much of the mess as possible. In the end he was not able to make a whole outfit. He had spare breeches from his pack which were fine, but no shirt, and the tattered remains of his coat were just not going to be saved no matter how many times he tried to get the blood out of the pale gold silk. He finally accepted that he would need to replace it and moved on to his next task. He donned his belt and boots and left the rest in a heap. He caught sight of the marks on his torso in the corner of his eye but refused to look any closer as panic loomed threateningly at the thought of bearing such disfigurements. Denial was a much more comforting prospect for now. He hunted through the Hold for something to cover himself, eventually finding some clothing tucked away into an old chest, all of it embroidered with the Belmont insignia. He resigned himself to a stiff linen shirt that he thought Trevor would probably wear with pride. It would have to do for now.

The well where they were getting fresh water for drinking and washing was at the very lowest part of the Hold. A small corridor wound away beyond it and into the dark. Intrigued, Adrian listened carefully for several moments. He heard dripping, and echoes, and the faintest brush of the air moving through the tunnel. He grabbed a torch and followed the path into the darkness, the walls closing around him until the tunnel was only wide enough for a single person to pass through and he had to duck his head. He expected it to taper off into nothing but was quite surprised when it suddenly opened into another large space – an underground cavern. This was not man-made; it was a natural cave. His footsteps echoed loudly in the space and he saw the source of the dripping – water falling a few drops at a time into a circular pool in the middle of the cavern. The cool dry air of the Hold was being sucked into this warmer, more humid space. There must be another opening somewhere that was creating the negative air pressure or the Hold itself would have been a damp mouldy mess after all of this time. He raised the torch, illuminating a very tall ceiling made almost entirely of crystallized minerals.

He began to formulate a wonderful idea and spent a little longer searching the cavern, familiarizing himself with it and the path he'd used to find it. There was another opening on the far side which sloped upwards and widened – a traversable path. The current of hot moist air whooshed up this path. He flitted through the space and followed still more tunnels until he began to sense natural light. It couldn't be. He left the torch perched between two stones and eventually emerged from the caves into a rocky area surrounded by thick forest. The view was incredible, stretching out before him for miles and miles of pristine, undisturbed wilderness. The ruined Belmont Estate loomed far past the trees behind the cave mouth, but it was not visible from the opening. Everything else around him was forest dotted with small lakes and the odd interconnecting stream. It was perfect. He knew what he wanted to do now.

Adrian spent the next several hours moving as fast as he could (which was really fast) to accomplish everything he wanted to before Trevor and Sypha finally woke. He made good use of his preternatural gifts, going back and forth several times between the Hold and his newly discovered path. He searched the entire Hold as well as the Estate above it as thoroughly as he could to find what he needed. He was missing certain things, but he made due and for the most part was quite satisfied by his accomplishments. It was a good distraction; pushing himself and keeping occupied provided temporary relief from his thoughts. Finally he returned to the small room at the back of the laboratory where he had left Trevor and Sypha asleep.

He peered at them reverently, crawling onto the cots and sitting cross-legged at their feet. They had curled together in slumber adorably, Sypha's arm over Trevor's chest, and Trevor's arm around her back, pulling her against his body. Adrian felt like the luckiest man in the world as he watched them with a small smile on his lips. He had missed touching them so much. Somehow the relatively brief period since they had become intimate with one another had become his new normal. He longed to be close to them, to continue to explore the physical relationship which had blossomed once he realized what they wanted. His body seemed to be disconnected from the trauma he had suffered; it wanted them and it didn't pause to acknowledge that his head was full of doubts and confusion. It wanted to pick up exactly where they had left off.

He trailed his fingers over them, smoothing his hands over their feet and legs, avoiding the scrapes and cuts which both of them sported from traipsing through the forest, instead massaging the muscles of their calves, and their feet. He worked the appendages alternately between his hands, first one of Sypha's feet, then one of Trevor's. Slowly he felt them stirring.

"Mmmm" Sypha groaned, stretching and adjusting her position. Her eyes blinked sleepily, glittering in the light of the lanterns. Adrian had filled and lit many lanterns throughout the Hold to make it as comfortable as possible for them to see. He watched her silently, gently depositing her foot and smoothing his hands over Trevor's, working his thumbs into the arch, gripping the heel firmly and massaging between his toes. Yes, they needed to bathe, they were sweaty and dirty, and he could smell it on them. He didn't care. He wondered if it was normal to think that even their dirty feet somehow smelled good. Not good exactly… it was only that it was part of them and he wanted any part that he could have, even that.

Trevor stirred after a moment, blinking in a lazy manner that said he really was not completely awake yet.

Adrian stayed quiet, feeling an odd flutter in his stomach at the prospect of being able to make them both feel good after all the things they had done for him. He kept working their feet until Sypha sat up and blinked owlishly at him.

"What are you doing?" she yawned.

"Appreciating you," he answered softly with a small smile. Trevor's eyes cleared as he wiped the sleep from them, looking down the length of his body at Adrian attending his bare foot. Adrian dipped and planted a kiss on the top of each of Trevor's feet, then Sypha's. Their eyes followed him, watching him lower his head, his long hair pooling around their legs. His cheeks warmed. Sypha bent towards him and carded her fingers through his hair. His eyes fell shut and he leaned into her hand, letting her fingers work against his scalp. It was real. They were real. They were here and they could touch each other again and there was no cage separating them, no pain wracking his body, no animal hunger tearing his mind apart. He still couldn't stop repeating it to himself. He wished he could communicate his relief somehow but there were no words that could really express what he was feeling.

"What time is it?" Trevor said, scratching his beard. "How long were we asleep? I feel like I got run over by a wagon," he punctuated this by stretching his shoulder, grunting in discomfort.

"I believe it was a bear," Adrian commented with a little smirk, hopping off the bed. "Get up. You've been sleeping for hours. You must be hungry and you are both filthy. I have a surprise for you. Follow me."

They both did as he asked, rising stiffly from the cots. Trevor gave him an odd look. "Are you wearing my shirt?"

Adrian had raided everything he could find in the Hold, and had managed to come up with some extra clothes even though they weren't to his taste. He did not want to go around half naked – his horribly scarred body bothered him deeply and he really did not want Trevor and Sypha to see him too closely just yet. He didn't want to see it himself. So the chest of old clothing had been a better option than nothing, and he was now wearing a scratchy linen tunic with a Belmont family crest embroidered on the left upper corner. "I found it in a chest of clothes, mine are ruined. We will have to circle back to a larger town where I can get something new soon, but for now it will service."

"Looks really weird to see you in that," Trevor commented, "Especially after all the love you were showing Belmonts when we got here."

Adrian scoffed, "I have no more love for Belmonts than I did before, I just needed a shirt."

"Oh please don't start," Sypha warned, "We've been apart all this time, can't you stop picking at one another for five minutes?"

"Are you hungry?" Adrian interjected as he led the pair out of the lab. A succulent scent was wafting from the next floor. He slowly made his way up the stairs, turning to glance at them both as they obediently followed.

"Something smells really good," Sypha said when she caught wind of it. Adrian would be able to hear her stomach growling from across the Hold.

"We are literally starving," Trevor added, nostrils flaring as he picked up the scent.

There was candlelight coming from the room he approached – more of an alcove that branched off of one of the main corridors – and the delicious smells of roasting meat. He stood aside, letting them walk into the room first so they could see what he had prepared.

He had done his best with what was available between the bear meat, the things he found in the Hold (not much, but there had been salt and a few dried herbs and other things) and what he had been able to forage from the nearby forest and lakes. He was actually very skilled in identifying wild plants and edibles. Foraging was something that his mother had taught him about because many plants and fungi had medicinal properties. It was important to have a thorough understanding of different plants in order to better recognize which ones were beneficial. A companion to that knowledge was the ability to identify which things were edible and how they could be harvested. Adrian had been successful in finding several species of edible nuts and berries, apples, fresh herbs including rosemary and chive, wild leafy greens, some small pearly onions, tuberous roots and even some flowers which he knew were palatable. He had painstakingly selected the best cuts of meat from the bear and had used them to prepare a feast which was now spread on an old table with three mismatched chairs from around the Hold pulled up to it. Several candles flickered on the table, and a few wall sconces had been lit, drenching the alcove in a warm glow which cast dancing shadows off of the spines of books that lined the walls.

The offerings were presented in an assortment of strange dishes; it had taken some real work to ransack the remains of the Estate for three plates that weren't broken to eat off of, and some silverware. Cooking the meal itself without a proper kitchen had been interesting. He'd had to make due once again with what he could salvage or what they had on hand, or in some cases weird decorative items which were not meant to actually be used. He had utilized them anyway, ornamental nature be damned. It wasn't perfect, but it was miles above cold cheese and stale tack. There was no bread, as he hadn't any flour, and no butter, but there was bear fat to cook with and it lent a nice flavour to everything. He had prepared a soup with herbs and meat and the small potatoes that had long since gone wild and reseeded in the old Estate gardens. Many of the things he found had been there, including the onions and some skinny carrots. It had taken him a good while to get the dirt out from under his nails after he'd spent such a long time crawling around in it digging up one random thing at a time for this meal. All the while he'd been smoking the rest of the bear meat so they could take it with them on their travels, and he'd stretched the hide as well, and hoped it could eventually be used for a cloak or bedroll. It was very fortunate that he had vampire speed on his side or it would have taken him days to accomplish everything he'd done that afternoon.

The soup was accompanied by a large dish (actually it was an upturned shield) that was laden with a small roast and the other root vegetables which had been cooked in the embers of a fire. They glistened in the candlelight. There was a saucer piled with blueberries and raspberries that was topped with violets, and a salad of mixed greens, walnuts and sliced apples. He had managed to secure an odd assortment of glassware from the displays around the Hold and there was a bottle of wine on the table, the green glass looking black in the candle's glow. The wine had been easier; there was a whole cellar buried under the rubble of the Estate – he'd only needed to lift away some large boulders to access it – and he'd discovered a few still unbroken bottles that had lasted through the years. The first one he had opened had not been good, the cork had rotted and it had turned to a foul syrupy mess, but he'd been luckier with the second, and there was a third that he'd tucked away for another time when Trevor got especially annoying.

To say that he was rather proud of himself was an understatement. Adrian knew he'd outdone himself. He stood aside with a knowing smile as Trevor and Sypha entered the room and both their jaws dropped.

"What in the actual fuck Adrian? How did you do all of this?" Trevor just stared, frozen in shock as the feast came into view. Sypha clapped her hands with glee and threw her arms around him, planting a kiss on his cheek and moving closer to the table to inspect the assortment of foods.

"I was resourceful," he said on his own behalf, darting with vampire speed to pull out a chair for Sypha before she could do it herself. It was his intention to be an absolute gentleman and to make them both feel pampered. She grinned at him and sat down, her eyes still taking it all in.

"Resourceful? This is impossible. Oh God, there's wine..." Trevor swallowed thickly, still just staring at it all. Adrian put a hand on the small of his back and guided him to a chair, pulling it out for him as he sat in it, still wearing that stunned look. He pushed the chair in and deftly snatched up the wine bottle, pouring Trevor a generous serving in an overwrought chalice that probably came from a tabernacle somewhere. He poured another for Sypha, her vessel being an ornamental crystal goblet he'd found in a glass case full of shiny relics. He set the bottle down and took a moment to kiss both of them on the cheek before taking his own seat.

"I wanted to thank you both for everything you did for me. I… I know it was difficult. I can see that you struggled and that the time took a toll on you both. There was such a large amount of meat left from the animal you brought me that I couldn't let it to go to waste. The rest of the meat is smoking, but much of it can't be preserved and I cannot possibly eat all of it myself."

As they talked they began to settle, everyone loading their plates with a variety of foods. Trevor took a long, grateful swallow from his cup, sighing in pleasure. "This is the best thing I have ever tasted," he said seriously.

Adrian raised a brow. "I guess I should have forgone the meal and just brought you the bottle."

He was met with a guilty look. "No! No I didn't mean it like that, Its just I never expected… its been a long couple of weeks."

Sypha laughed into her glass as she took a sip in between bites.

Adrian watched them for a few minutes until he was satisfied that everything was good, then he started to eat as well, selecting a little of everything. He was burning with curiosity and he could not contain his questions for very long.

"So… I would very much like to know what transpired between the time you left the Hold and the time you returned. You both seem like you haven't been eating well, you're scratched and dirty and your clothes are ripped. What happened?"

Sypha seemed to realize then that she was in fact filthy, and she put a hand to her hair, pulling a leaf out of it. "Er, we had a bit of a difficult time but its nothing compared to what you had to go through."

Trevor snorted. "It was shit. Obviously not the same shit, but still shit."

Adrian paused, remembering only too well his own experience during their absence. It really had not left his mind at all since they'd returned. He was haunted by the whole thing and was still having difficulty believing it was over. It would only take a tiny nudge to send him right back to dwelling on it, which he was determined not to do. "Why did it take so long for you to come back?"

Sypha sighed, pausing her meal to pin Adrian with an apologetic expression. "It was the flower. We couldn't find it anywhere. When we left the Hold the first thing we did was go to the Belmont graveyard. Trevor knew where it was. It took about an hour to ride there but when we found it we realized that it had been destroyed when the family was excommunicated. The church pulled down all the headstones and had burned everything. I guess even the dead Belmonts weren't allowed to rest in peace after the whole family had been banished. There was no sign of the plant that we were looking for and we didn't know where else we could find it. So we decided to take the horses and try to go to the next town, in hopes that the plant might grow on some of the graves there. Trevor thought it was a few days ride. On the second evening we were attacked by night creatures. We were able to defeat them and get away, but we lost our food stores and our packs when the horses bolted, and we found both of them killed. That is what slowed us down. It took much longer to walk than it would have on horseback. It was three more days before we found the nearest village."

Trevor chimed in, speaking around the large bite of bear meat he was chewing. "When we got to the village we met a few locals. They weren't exactly friendly, probably because we were torn up and filthy and had no coins. They thought we were beggars. We did manage to find the graveyard though, and thank fuck the flowers were growing there. We started picking them and a lady came up to us and asked us what we were doing. She had recognized the crest on my tunic and knew I was a Belmont. I thought we were going to be driven out but it turns out she used to know my family and didn't believe they were black magicians. She asked us if we needed a place to stay so we went to her cottage, which was on the outskirts of the town. She was a wise woman, medicine woman, witch, whatever. She had a bunch of weird animal parts and dried plants hanging around her cottage. A little creepy for my tastes but we weren't in a position to refuse the hospitality. She and Sypha hit it off. I barely said a thing the whole time and those two never stopped talking. She made us tea that tasted like dirt- ow!" Trevor winced as Sypha smacked him in the back of the head.

"Trevor! Her name is Hana, and she was a huge help. She knew a lot about magic, and about making potions and medicine. She helped me to make the potion out of the flowers from the graveyard, and she also gave me an idea for how I could negate the spell on the cage, although we didn't tell her too many details. I had memorized the spell engraved on the bars. We looked at it together and she suggested a spell used to smooth or polish metal might make it lose effect. Essentially all I did was remove the engravings. It was a very good idea and I would not have thought of it myself. We stayed with her that night-"

"We slept in her barn Syph."

"It was better than sleeping outside," Sypha shot Trevor an exasperated look and he shrugged, unconvinced.

"I like it outside."

"Then maybe you would prefer to sleep there tonight. She gave us breakfast the next day and we got ready to leave. Trevor stole one of her goats-"

"We needed an animal," Trevor said to her as justification.

"It was still wrong. She was kind to us and we stole from her."

"I warned you that we were gonna need a lot when we got back here, especially after taking so long. He seemed to appreciate it," Trevor jerked a thumb at Adrian, who had been listening to the story in between bites of his meal. He stilled when the conversation turned on him, blinking uncomfortably. Bringing up what had transpired when they returned was the last thing he wanted. Before the incident with the cage he would never have allowed anyone to witness him satisfying his appetite for blood. It was a private matter that did not concern his human companions. "It was… appreciated," he said slowly, frowning into his plate.

"See?" Trevor said with a grin, ignoring Adrian's squirming. "Appreciated. Anyway, by the time we left it had already been six days since we'd gone to look for the flowers. We knew it was going to be really hard on you. We knew we needed to get back as soon as we could and I was going to go try and hunt something else after we saw you again. We had no horses, and we hadn't been able to get more than a small bit of bread for our trip back which was going take a week. I set snares each night to catch some food and Sypha foraged for anything edible. That combined with goat milk was all we had to live on in that time. The rabbits we brought back with us were the ones that didn't get killed immediately in the snares. I knew you were going to need more than a single goat after so long," he flicked his gaze up to meet Adrian's in acknowledgment of just how long it had been. "By that point we were going really slow with the goat and rabbits on us. Did you know rabbits scream when they are scared? Yeah. They scream like a baby getting murdered. Fucking awful. We knew we were making terrible time. We just wanted to get back as soon as we could."

Adrian straightened in his chair, the burning question finally too much for him to hold back. "I still don't understand how that resulted in the bear. Truthfully, after hearing your story I wish you would have simply brought me one of the horses from the beginning. It would have been less complicated, especially since they are both dead now."

Sypha held up a finger, swallowing her mouthful of greens before speaking. "But it was useful to go to the village. You may have still been trapped and poisoned if we hadn't. I want to go back and repay Hana for the goat and for helping us once we leave here. It wasn't right to steal from her after she was so kind."

Adrian wanted to retort that at least he wouldn't have lost himself if they'd done it another way, but he resisted making the snide remark, not wanting to seem ungrateful.

"The bear was never planned," Trevor admitted, finishing his wine and pouring another helping into his odd looking chalice. He speared his fork into a piece of meat. It had a deep red colouration and a sweet flavour. "The fucking thing attacked our camp the night before we got back. It was trying to eat the damned goat and had been following us for a few days. We knew there was something tailing us, but we had never actually seen it. Its amazing how stealthy such a huge animal can be. We had almost no warning that it was going to attack, just some crashing in the brush and then the goat was freaking out. It was before dawn, we were still asleep. Do you have any idea how hard it is to fight a fucking bear in the dark? It almost killed the shit out of me. I got it in the ass with my sword and hit it with a few daggers but that barely slowed it down. The whip stunned it, but since its not a night creature the consecration is useless. Sypha had the idea to electrocute it. She can do thunder magic but its her worst element so it was hard on her. We lassoed it and used the thunder magic and a bit of ice and fire magic and my whip to keep it on track. It fought hard. It was huge, powerful. Its one of the hardest things I've ever tried to do. We were lucky that we were close to the Hold when it attacked or we never would have been able to bring it here. Those few hours felt like a whole day. Its a fucking miracle that we managed to coax it as far as we did. A couple times it bolted and just dragged me through the woods on my face and Syph stopped it with a wall of ice. Without her I think it would have eaten me."

Sypha beamed at that, not denying it.

Adrian stared at them both, trying to imagine two humans wrestling with an animal that he'd had a hard time subduing. Hunter or not, mage or not, it was incredible.

Trevor continued, "When we got back here I tried to knock it out, but it woke up before you got to it. I knew it would be a bad idea to give you a gigantic angry bear when you had spent almost three weeks starving and were going to be weak. When we got down here… well… it was fucked. You were fucked. That… it was bad. Adrian its my fault that this happened and you had to go through that. You sent us out to help you and instead we left you in here alone for two weeks while you starved and went feral. As much as I'm glad you're alright I can't really imagine what it must have been like to go through that. I'm sorry." Trevor surprised him then. He wiped the grease off his hand and reached over the table, closing his palm over Adrian's. He stared hard at him. "We never meant to let that happen to you."

Adrian was at a loss for words. He was right, they had left him down there for so long, alone, hurt, starving, it wasn't something he could just brush off as if it were nothing. His body was marked with scars that might take years to fade and his mind… he had learned things about himself that he had never thought possible. He may have gone another five hundred years never knowing what slept deep inside him. Now he couldn't forget it. He pulled his hand free, suddenly losing his appetite for the meal spread on the table. He looked at Trevor, then at Sypha, trying not to show how deeply it had shaken him. He felt a tremble run through him. "Why… why didn't you come back? When you realized the flowers were not in the Belmont cemetery? You could have told me what happened. We could have discussed a course of action together."

Sypha bowed her head, setting her fork down. "That was my fault. I didn't want to come back with nothing for you. Trevor said we should regroup, and I said no. I didn't know we would be so long. I wanted to find something to help."

Adrian stared at her for a second, trying to imagine what he would have done in their position. He didn't know. "I thought you were never coming back. I thought you had died. The starvation… its… it was..." he trailed off, realizing he didn't want to talk about it. He had to forcibly school himself to make a calm expression. He observed Trevor draining his cup, tipping it up until the last drops rolled into his mouth. Sypha was twisting her hands in her lap and examining her plate. His thank you dinner was turning badly off course. He sat up straighter in his chair and forced himself to pick up his fork. "I'm sorry. I'm very grateful for everything you did for me. I know it was dangerous. I wish it had gone differently."

An uncomfortable silence settled over the three, punctuated by the sputtering of one of the candles and the sounds of Trevor's chair creaking when he leaned on the backrest.

Sypha finally broke through the thick quiet. "This meal is really amazing Adrian. Thank you so much. How did you manage it with the entrance still sealed? How did you get all of the ingredients? Where did you prepare it?"

He was grateful for the change in topic. "I discovered an alternate exit this afternoon, while you were sleeping."

"Really?" Trevor was obviously surprised by that. "Nobody ever told me about another exit."

"Its a system of natural caves that connect to the hall just past the well. I will show you after we finish."

That seemed to help break up some of the tension and they were able to move past the unpleasant details of Adrian's confinement, for which he was most thankful. He was having a hard enough time with his own thoughts – he didn't need anymore scrutiny. It was all he could do to maintain his composure as it was. When the discussion turned towards him specifically he felt paralyzed and there was an awful tremor that would wind through his guts and make his hands tremble. He hoped neither of them had noticed how he gripped his fork like it was going to escape if he let go.

As they grew full and the wine bottle emptied they finally decided that the meal was over. They had kept the conversation steered carefully away from serious matters after the mid-meal discomfort. The intention this evening had been to relax and to take a break from the horrors of the past weeks. They all needed it. After the food was gone Sypha helped stack the empty dishes and Trevor went around blowing out some of the candles so as not to waste them.

Sypha and Adrian made their way to the well to clean what they could. She stacked the dishes to one side as Adrian scrubbed them furiously with a rag. He was throwing himself wholly into the task, as keeping his hands busy helped to stave off the anxiety which was returning in full force as the distraction of the meal waned. He needed to keep busy. He didn't realize how fast he was going, moving inhumanly through the stack in effort to keep himself occupied. Sypha's hand on his shoulder startled him and he dropped the goblet he'd been rinsing. It smashed to the stones with a high pitched tinkling of broken crystalline shards. He stared at it in surprise.

Sypha's hand squeezed his shoulder, "Its alright. Its only some old junk."

He stared at her, trying to hide how shaken he was. He thought he'd done a commendable job of it throughout the meal, but he should have known she would be far too perceptive for his nervousness to go unnoticed entirely. She pulled him against her in a reassuring hug. Her head only came a little higher than his shoulder but he wilted against her, feeling suddenly like she was holding him up despite her petite frame. She was steady and warm and her arm circled his waist gently, her hand at his back. He felt like he would break as easily as the goblet.

Trevor's boots announced his descent on the stairs and he soon joined them on the lowest floor, pausing when he came upon the scene of them embracing. He grinned at them. "Aww you didn't wait for me? You're both so cute," he teased and joined them, wrapping them both in a hug and kissing Adrian's cheek. His breath smelled like herbs and wine. Up close it was evident that his cheeks had a rosy tint and there were still leaves in his hair. He brought a hand up to brush some blonde strands over Adrian's shoulder, then brushed his knuckles along the side of his neck affectionately. Adrian trembled as the fingers touched his skin, just grazing the scars on his throat. He withdrew, wrapping his arms around his middle. He was torn between wanting to be close to them and feeling panic edging in when attention was drawn to the scarring.

"I can show you the caverns now," he said by way of distraction and moved a few paces back, out of the hug. Its not that he didn't want to touch them, of course he did. But when Trevor touched his neck and drew attention to the evidence of his mutilation it made him feel sick. He suddenly wondered if the second part of his little surprise was a good idea or not.

~o~O~o~

A/N: I know his part cuts off rather abruptly. Things were getting really long and I needed to chop it somewhere or it was going to be a monster. I know I embellished a little here... Adrian really wanted to do something nice for them and if anyone could have pulled this off it'd be him! Bit of a slower chapter, but after all the intensity its nice to have a break.

More soon!