Stephen awoke in a dingy hotel bed, the sheets were thin and the blanket scratchy and well worn. The mattress had a spring out of place and was harder than he normally liked, and there was only one flat pillow each. That being said, he'd slept in way worse places, and he was sleeping next to Nick, so he couldn't complain.
He quietly got up and used the bathroom before sliding back into bed and curling into the other man's back; it was too early to be awake yet. He arranged an arm over Nick and kissed his neck, Nick hummed, half way between conscious and not.
"Go back to sleep, it's still early," Stephen soothed.
Another hum was all he got in response. Stephen smiled to himself and settled back in.
An hour later he was awake again, flat on his back with Nick draped half way across his chest. He sighed happily and closed his eyes again, just enjoying the moment. It was when Nick shifted in his sleep that Stephen became aware of the hard-on pressed against his leg, he smirked to himself. Stephen snaked his hand down to Nick's crouch and palmed his partner gently through his tighty whities.
Nick inhaled and made a small noise like a whine, so Stephen continued. Nick's eyes flicked open and Stephen could see his, suddenly awake, brain putting two and two together about what was happening.
"Good morning," Stephen greeted casually, as if he weren't fondling Nick through his underwear.
"Mmm, and a 'ery good morning ter you," Nick's Scottish accent was always thicker first thing in the morning.
"Fancy some tea?" Stephen asked trying to hide a smirk.
"I'd fancy ya finishing what you've started first," Nick replied, the sleep clearing from his brain and lust taking over.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah," Nick reciprocated Stephen's actions, rubbing the younger man through his underwear.
Stephen hummed his appreciation and only paused his ministrations to pull Nick more on top of him. Then his hand was back to it, except this time he touched skin to skin, stroking the hard length firmly but with a less than hasty pace.
Their lips met in a passionate kiss and Nick pulled Stephen's erection from it's confines, mimicking his lover's movements on his own member. They kissed some more, then Nick moved to align their lengths, allowing them to meet and rub against each other, he wrapped his hand around both of them, pre-come made it just slick enough and the friction was very much welcomed by both men.
Stephen gasped and Nick groaned, the younger man moved his hand lower to caress Nick's balls while Nick took care of them both. They continued to kiss between moans, until their breathing was too uncontrolled and their movements frantic.
"Fucckk…I'm so close," Stephen groaned, his hands moving to touch Nick all over, while his hips bucked up into the hand holding them.
Nick knew his partner well; he knew that Stephen needed a little extra stimulation to get him over the line right now. He pressed wet kisses up Stephen's neck and sucked on his earlobe, using just a little press of teeth.
That was just what Stephen needed, he moaned deeply as he shot his load. Nick continued to pump him until he was completely spent, then he wrapped his hand solely around himself, his eyes never left Stephen's naked body; bloody hell he was a lucky man. He only needed a few more tugs from his experienced hand before he joined Stephen in post orgasmic bliss. There was just enough brain cells left in his head to think about how he laid himself back down on the bed.
"Tell me, why don't we do that more often in the mornings?" Stephen asked as he laid flat on his back, eyes closed.
"Because you get up most mornings before the sun does and go for a run," Nick answered without hesitation.
Stephen opened his eyes and turned his head to look at Nick, "Oh, I see, it's my fault we don't have morning sex every day."
Nick also turned his head to look at Stephen, "Yes, exactly, I'm glad you understand."
"It helps when you actually come to bed before I get up for my run."
"That hasn't happened in at least two weeks," Nick protested.
They stared into each other's eyes for a moment and then broke down into laughter.
Stephen shook his head, smile still on his face, "I love you."
"I love you too, Stephen," Nick replied, "I think it's time for a shower."
It wasn't until Nick said about a shower that Stephen realised just how much he now needed one, "Good idea, shotgun first shower."
XXX
Eventually, they both wound up showered and dressed, minus underwear however, neither of them had thought to wash them out the previous night and all their spare clothes had been left at their camp site back in their own universe. Oops.
They decided it was probably time to return to the hospital and see how Remus was doing. They had agreed to go with Bruce and Tony, so they left their room and knocked on their neighbour's door; hoping they would be up.
"Who is it?" asked a man's voice from the other side of the door.
"It's Stephen and Nick!" Stephen called back.
The door opened and Bruce appeared in the doorway, "Sorry can't be too careful."
Caution was a good idea. They had experienced way too many things go wrong through anomalies to not be cautious.
"No worries, we were going to head back up to the hospital now and see how Remus is doing, if you're ready to go?" Stephen checked.
Bruce pushed his glasses up and smiled, "Yes, we're almost ready, just give us two minutes."
"Of course, we'll wait here."
Bruce nodded and closed the door, Stephen took a step back to join Nick.
Tony and Bruce were quite literally only two minutes.
"Thank you for waiting," Bruce said as he and Tony joined the other two men.
"No problem. Apparently, there is a little café attached to the hospital and we would be very grateful for a real coffee; the tea in the room was awful," Nick asked in a backwards way. They didn't really want to ask Bruce to pay for them again, but they had eaten the only food they had brought with them through the anomaly last night for dinner, and the tea Nick had tried to consume while Stephen was in the shower had been nothing but hot leaf juice; purely undrinkable.
"Good morning," greeted two men, one short and one tall, in suits as they walked past and went into their own room.
"Morning," the four replied in unison and they set off walking towards the hospital.
"We would be happy to shout you both coffee. Did you guys hear the howling last night?" Bruce asked.
"Thank you," Stephen said.
Nick glanced at them, "Yes, we did, it sounded like a wolf," it was quite an impressive howl, and it seemed to be rather close, possibly an alpha.
Tony nodded, "That was our conclusion also, California is known to have wolves, I just didn't realise they would be so close to civilisation."
They made it to the hospital and found their way over the little café, if you could even call it that, attached to the far side of the building. They established themselves at a table in the corner while Bruce placed their order.
"So, how long have you been studying these anomalies?" Tony started the conversation.
"A few years," Nick answered.
"Do they always lead to the same places?"
"No, not often, they might take you to the same time period but rarely will they open in the exact same spot. We have seen things from the past and future that no one else has. We often find out about an anomaly because of a creature coming through and causing trouble unfortunately. Which is why we have a response team now, and we've also managed to develop technology to detect when an anomaly opens so that we can be on scene as soon as possible," Nick explained as well as he could.
"Other developments were also necessary, we created a device that is able to lock down an anomaly, essentially preventing anything coming through from the other side, and another to determine the when and where, and how long an anomaly will stay stable for," Stephen added.
Bruce found them in the corner; he was holding three tall coffees, one tea and four croissants. He put a croissant and coffee down in front of each person and the tea in front of himself.
"Thank you so much, Bruce, we really appreciate it," Stephen expressed his gratitude.
"Thank you," Nick said also, he hugged the cup in his hands and took a sip straight away, sighing happily.
"They were just telling me more about these anomalies, they seem to be very similar what Strange and his wizards can do, only a lot less controlled," Tony updated Bruce.
Stephen and Nick had no idea who Tony was talking about but it obviously made sense to Bruce, "We noticed they have a strong energy reading, have you been able to identify a cause for them to 'spring' into existence?" he asked.
Stephen looked at Nick, "We still haven't been able to completely work that out, as far as we can tell it seems to be like a tear in the fabric of time, it unstitches and sows itself back up at seemingly random intervals."
"This isn't the largest grouping we've seen either, but it is the oddest. Perhaps there is something here in this town, some sort of energy source that has caused the tears," Nick added, they needed to find out more about this town, god forbid that this should happen elsewhere; there would be people walking in and out of their own times all over the place.
"We should ask around, do a bit of investigating after checking in on our friends inside," Tony suggested through a mouthful of croissant.
Bruce chastised Tony for speaking with his mouth full, but they all agreed. It didn't take long for them to inhale their breakfast. As soon as they were finished, the rubbish was put in the bin and they headed inside.
The hospital was just as they remembered and they easily navigated their way back to Remus' room. Bruce knocked on the closed door and there was a lot of commotion on the other side before the door opened slightly; it was Sirius.
"Oh, hello," he opened the door wider to allow them access into the room. They all crammed into the tiny room, it was a tight squeeze with eight adult men. Severus stood in the corner as far away from everyone as he could get, Harry stuck with him.
"Do we know these people?" a weak and weary voice asked from the bed.
They hadn't even noticed that Remus was fully conscious and sitting up in the bed.
Sirius went and sat on the bed next to him, he drew one of Remus' hands into his own, "Yes, these are the men I was telling you about, who came through the other portals."
"Anomalies," Nick corrected softly.
"This is Bruce and Tony," Sirius gestured to the two mentioned, "and Stephen and Nick," his hand swept over them next. Their argument from yesterday seemed to have been forgotten; Sirius appeared to be in a better mood now Remus was awake.
"It's good to see you awake," Bruce told Remus with a smile.
"I'm told that I'm lucky to be alive," Remus seemed dubious.
"Well, it did seem like a pretty nasty crash," Stephen agreed.
"When will you be released?" Nick asked.
Remus gently shook his head, "I can't say, I would very much like to go home though."
"Don't worry, we'll make sure everyone gets home," Tony assured him.
There was another knock on the door; it had been left open to make the room less claustrophobic, they all turned towards the disturbance.
"Uh, hello everyone, I'm sorry but it's Mr Lupin's lunch time, everybody who isn't immediate family is going to have to clear out, you'll be welcome to come back later," the nurse was a fairly handsome, well-toned man with short dark hair and a goatee to match. His name tag read 'Jesus.'
Of course, Tony had to say something, "Is your name really Jesus?"
The nurse smiled, "Yes, however my name is pronounced 'Heh-soos,'" he obviously got that question a lot.
"Right, well, we better head off," Nick announced.
"It was good to meet you properly, Remus, we'll check back in later," Bruce told him.
Stephen was aware of Severus' dark eyes following them out of the door.
"Thanks for coming," Harry chimed.
The four men left the room, which allowed the nurse to enter and attend to Remus. They walked down the hall and back to the exit.
"So, what now?" Tony asked.
"I guess we try to find out what's causing the cluster of anomalies," Stephen suggested, he wasn't sure where to start, they could only get places on foot, so it either meant a lot of walking, which he wouldn't attest to, or talking to the nurses and any other locals.
Bruce looked thoughtful as he went over to the nurse's desk, "Excuse me, if we wanted to learn a bit about the town, where would we go?"
"Oh, um, you could try the library I suppose," the nurse suggested.
"And where would I find the library?" he asked.
"It's down the road a bit, about a ten minute drive," she told him and upon seeing that he was still unsure, she grabbed a map of the town and drew a circle around the hospital and then the library before handing it to Bruce.
"Thank you."
They headed for the automatic doors and almost bumped into a small group of people trying to come in as they were going out.
"Oh! Sorry, sorry," Nick apologised.
"Sorry about that, you go first," the man in front said and stood aside.
"Hey, you guys were at the hotel this morning, you working a case?" Tony stuck his nose in.
"Uh…"
The shorter of the two men they'd seen this morning spoke clearly, with an air of authority, "Yes, we are. However, we can't discuss it with civilians."
"We understand, come on, Tony," Bruce said and gripped Tony's arm to keep him from prying any further.
Once they were outside Tony made a fuss, "Did anyone else get weird vibes from that lot?"
"What do you mean?" Nick inquired, they seemed fairly normal to him.
"They were pretty quick to dismiss any conversation, and why were there six of them? Just feels a bit off to me," Tony argued.
"You know, Tony's got a point; when something smells fishy, it usually is," Bruce agreed.
"Maybe we should stick around and see what we can find out," Tony proposed.
"How about you two stay here and Stephen and I will go to library, see what we can find out there, we'll meet you back at the hotel this evening," Nick countered, they could cover more ground that way.
"Alright, good idea, we'll see you later," Tony agreed.
Bruce handed them the map, "Don't get lost."
"We won't," Stephen laughed, he took Nick's hand in his free one and they took off to find the library.