“I’m not surprised you had one of your nightmares.” Lucas’s voice was quiet in the darkness of the room. “I should have just pulled you into my bed for the night.”
“I’m sure that would have gone over well with your boyfriend,” Snow muttered.
Lucas grunted. “Like you’d turn down a chance to snuggle with him.”
“Probably not.” Snow sat up again, feeling faintly ashamed that he’d needed the hug so badly and embarrassed that Andrei had surely heard him screaming. He could only hope the one that woke him had been the only one. “You don’t have to stay in here. I’m fine. This isn’t the first time and it certainly won’t be the last, so I’m used to it.”
“Shut up. Nobody grows used to nightmares, not if it’s the one you told me about before.” Lucas pulled him back so that Snow’s head was resting on his wide chest, the steady beat of his heart pounding under his ear. Snow wrapped his arms around Lucas’s waist and let himself sink into his friend’s warmth. Fingers threaded through his hair over and over, rubbing across his scalp and temple in a familiar caress that helped to fight back the last dark tendrils of the nightmare. “Was it the same dream?”
“Yeah. Only this time my mother turned into that guy in my house. There was even the same blood spatter on the wall over her bed.” Snow shuddered, his arms tightening for a moment. He said nothing about the man turning into Jude because the horror of that part of the dream hovered over his heart like a hungry black hole.
“Shit.” Lucas wrapped his arms around Snow, holding him tight as if he could absorb him into his own body for protection.
The nightmare had changed over the years, the first version coming before he entered medical school, before the Army even. Lucas had first witnessed it during a sleepover at his house when Snow had screamed the house down from the twin bed across his room. Then, just as he did now, Lucas had crawled under his covers and held him. The soft cotton of Lucas’s pajamas rubbing against his feet even felt the same, putting him back in that same cocoon of safety that only Lucas had ever been able to create for him. Damn man thought he could fix anything and everything.
What made Snow stop and think was the knowledge that already, Jude was proving to be someone he could feel safe with.
“Was the smell in this dream?” Lucas asked.
“It always is,” Snow said slowly. “And it always sticks around like it actually gets into my nose. I’m sorry you know what I’m talking about.”
“I’m not. It helps me understand what you go through in a small way.” He laid his cheek on top of Snow’s head. “I was in that house with you once when she was still alive. That…odor…stays in the memories. I’m so sorry it won’t leave yours.”
“Luckily you didn’t live with it for most of a year.” Sighing heavily, Snow sat up and placed his palm on Lucas’s hard thigh. “I do appreciate you charging to my rescue like always, but I really will be okay. I’m exhausted, so I should fall back to sleep fast.” He pushed Lucas toward the edge of the bed. “Go back to your man. That’s where you should be now.”
“Lie down, Ash,” Lucas said, shoving him in return. Lucas kept pushing until Snow finally turned over on his side and lay down under the blankets. Lucas followed him down, settling the blankets over both of them before pulling Snow’s back against his chest. “This is where I need to be right now. I’ll just stay until you fall asleep.”
Snow closed his eyes, knowing it was pointless to argue after so many years. He soaked in the feel of Lucas’s arm wrapped around him, his steady breathing lulling him back toward sleep. And yet a thought was still nagging at him.
“Why haven’t you told Andrei about your past?”
With their bodies pressed so close, there was no missing the way Lucas’s muscles tensed at his question. He started to pull away, but Snow grabbed his wrist holding him in place.
“No offense. Your childhood was bad, but not half as shitty as mine. What’s going on?” Snow pressed.
“Our lives were so tangled up when we were kids,” Lucas started, his voice barely more than a shaky whisper.
“Still are.”
Lucas huffed a weak laugh. “True.”
“But…”
“There’s so much that I can’t tell him, because I’ll have to tell him things about your past.”
Snow closed his eyes. Fucking Lucas. Still protecting him, even from the man he was completely lost in. “What does he know about you?”
“My past?” Lucas paused, the silence stretching so long that Snow had begun to wonder if Lucas had fallen asleep. “That I’m not from Cincinnati and that we lived in Baltimore with Rowe while you were going to medical school.”