"I'm bored," Bryce groused, tossing a magazine up on the desk and planting his feet on top of it with a sigh.
"Then do something," Hillary said absently as he dusted the living room.
"Somethin'," muttered Bryce. "That's all I get - 'somethin.'" He leaned back and closed his eyes.
Hillary wondered, not for the first time, just what it was that Bryce wanted.
The last week had been a blessed period of dullness following a highly not-dull chase of Lara's after the rumor of an undiscovered temple in the Peloponnese. It turned out to be a false trail, but in typical Lara-fashion, the investigation involved a great deal of running and leaping, several dicey encounters with an explorer who would not mind seeing Lara perish in an unfortunate accident, even if it required some assistance to occur, some chasing around on their parts, an unexplained pick-up late at night in a rather seedy part of London, and a lecture from Hillary about risks that they both knew she would completely disregard while he bandaged her cuts and a sprained wrist. With that done, it was time for another boring stretch of normalcy.
Hillary considered his life to be a delicate balance of excitement and dullness, insanity and routine. Lara's life had enough excitement to fill more than one lifetime, and Hillary felt that it was important to give her a stable hearth and home to return to from her exotic adventures. She might raid tombs, solve ancient and lethal puzzles, outwit and outleap competitors who had not a shred of scruple about causing harm to her if it got them there first, and face strange creatures out of the depths of time; but when she came home, the house would be clean, tea would be served, and her clothes would be neatly laid out. He knew that he was an integral part of her stable household; his life was fundamentally a rather staid one, defined by routine, and the adventures that punctuated it were the exception to the rule of extreme normalcy.
Bryce, on the other hand, wilted with normalcy. He had no set routine, and chafed at Hillary's adherence to his own habits. He could not do as Hillary did - straddle two extremes and consider himself comfortable on average. He seemed to go slightly bonkers over the personal risks that Lara took, not to mention the ones she casually assumed her two friends would take, when there was a job at hand. He seemed to go slightly bonkers with boredom during the peaceful interludes. Hillary felt powerless to alleviate either.
Hillary had always considered his life balanced, but when he tried to look at it through Bryce's eyes, it unsettled him to see no balance at all. Life swung between two ends of the spectrum, and did not rest at any midpoint. He was either staid or frantic. Any given day would be dull or life-threatening. Bryce's nuttily flippant and offhand approach to life seemed, in many ways, more sensible than Hillary's own. And he did not know what to do about this. In general, the life he offered to Bryce was either too boring to entertain him or exciting enough to scare him spitless, but never simply satisfying enough for day-to-day. And in specifics, he had no idea what 'something' to offer a bored Bryce at this moment. An outing? A game? Sex over the back of the couch?
"I'm goin' out," Bryce announced after a pronounced silence, sliding out of his chair and picking his jacket up from where it hung on the back.
"Would you like me to take you?"
"Nah, I can drive meself." Bryce walked out in the direction of the garage.
Hillary sat down for a few minutes after that, biting his lip and running his fingers absently along the feather duster.
He then went out to the sitting room to polish the silver.
Bryce did not return until very late that night, when Hillary was already in bed and well on his way to sleep. As usual, he woke fully as soon as Bryce came in; Bryce made more noise than he typically did, though, and Hillary's guess that he was drunk was confirmed by the breath in his face as Bryce leapt gracelessly into bed, straddled Hillary, and laughed. Hillary tentatively touched his face, running one finger down the lean and unshaven cheek, and said, "You should have let me give you a ride back..." Bryce snickered. "Yeh can give me a ride now, mate." Bryce leaned in to kiss him; sure enough, he tasted of beer and stale cigarette butts. Bryce was usually rougher when drunk, and Hillary grimaced as Bryce broke the kiss to bite him on the shoulder, hard enough to break the skin.
"Bryce..." Hillary sighed, starting to pull off the other man's shoes, which were currently tracking mud onto the coverlet. While Hillary's hands were tied up with this task, Bryce took the opportunity to suck and nip at Hillary's neck and shoulders; he'd have marks tomorrow. Hillary was not in the mood for this. He finally got the shoes off, dropped them over the side of the bed, and tried to push Bryce back. "Later," he said, doing his best to sound calming rather than petulant. Bryce sat back as the hands pushed, and leaned right back in as soon as they dropped. His nimble fingers pulled Hillary's dressing-gown open and ran down his chest and stomach, then further down. His tongue followed, licking and sucking over Hillary's torso, as his hands grasped Hillary's penis, stroking him to firmness. Hillary groaned and wound his hands through Bryce's tousled hair as he licked Hillary's navel and stroked his penis harder and faster. Then Bryce laughed, repeated Hillary's "Later," in a mockery of the butler's voice, fell onto his side, and immediately began to snore.
Hillary put his head back with a sigh. He was now irritated and extremely horny. He stepped out of bed and felt his way to the dark bathroom, closing the door and leaning against the cool tile wall. He felt feverishly hot as he stroked himself with one hand, running the other hand through the sticky saliva that was drying on his chest, his breath hitching in his throat. He could not help the vision of Bryce's grinning face coming to him as he came over his hand, biting his lip to keep from crying out. He paused to let the shudders pass and catch his breath, then fumbled his way to a washcloth, wet it from the tap, and cleaned himself. He opened the door and walked back into the bedroom, where Bryce continued to snore on the bed. Hillary felt for any hard or sharp objects, removing Bryce's belt and keys and putting them on the bedside table. He climbed into bed next to Bryce, dizzy and confused.
In only a few years, Bryce had become such an integral part of the household that Hillary had difficulty imagining the manor returning to the way it was before Bryce arrived. It was becoming clearer with every interlude between adventures, however, that whatever it was that Bryce needed, he did not get it here. Although his behavior irritated Hillary to no end, he recognized it as the flailing of an unsatisfied mind. And if Hillary was frustrated, it was only because Bryce was, as well. Hillary suspected that what he had to offer to Bryce was just not enough.