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Klint knew the sound of the footsteps coming down the hall, furtive as they were. The weight behind them, the slow strides, and the way they knew to avoid every loud floorboard in the old van Zieks manor, so he only heard them a few steps outside his door. His wife was still sleeping in the other room. Barok must have been the one quietly opening the door.
Klint rolled over to face him. His younger brother’s silhouette, lit from behind by the dim lantern-light of the hallway, lingered large and silent in the doorway. He was always so much bigger than Klint’s mental image of him, still influenced by the memories of a tiny boy reaching upward just to grasp at his brother’s hand. And yet, somehow, he could still look so small.
Like the way he looked now, closing the door behind him and creeping into the room like a guilty child. Klint sat up on an elbow and swiped the hair out of his face, fondness and concern wearing away at the edges of the annoyance he’d felt having been awoken in the middle of the night.
“Barok?” he called, his voice low. “What’s the matter?”
Barok didn’t answer, and his movements were so mechanical Klint almost began to believe he was sleepwalking. But their eyes met as Barok drew back the covers and wordlessly slipped into bed beside him.
Klint rolled onto his back to gaze at the ceiling, and gave a quiet sigh. “Barok. Don’t you think you’re a bit too old for this?”
“…I missed you.” Barok’s voice was tiny.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Klint admitted. He’d have to be paying very little attention not to have noticed, the way Barok had been acting since his return from university. But Klint hadn’t known how to broach the subject, and now here they were.
“You must have been homesick,” he said at last. “I suppose I never really let you prepare to leave home. It will pass, Barok, you’ll find your footing.”
Barok just shifted closer to him, clearly uninterested in a lecture. His hands slid past Klint’s waist to interweave themselves behind his back.
“Can I just stay here a while?”
Klint winced. “It’s not… proper.”
“Lady Baskerville won't know. I’ll go back to my room before she wakes up.”
“It’s not about that, Barok…”
Klint could protest, but they both knew his resolve was weakening, as it always did where his little brother was concerned. He wouldn’t be in this situation if he’d ever learned how to say no to Barok. And what could he do now, when Barok was pulling ever closer, pressing his face to Klint’s neck so his soft, messy hair was right there for Klint to bury his nose in— god, this was all so much less complicated when Barok was off at school.
He truly did worry about the boy— he was intelligent and thoughtful but also immature in so many ways, and Klint knew he only had himself to blame for coddling him. Yet he could tell himself as much as he liked that Barok was better off on his own, making new friends, learning how to be independent, hopefully finding a wife and starting a family of his own someday. It made no difference at times like this.
And after all, it was the middle of the night. He couldn’t be expected to think about the ramifications of sleeping with his adult brother right now.
“Only a short while,” Klint muttered, already knowing that when the time came to kick Barok out of bed, he’d fold like a house of cards.