Work Text:
Anthony wakes suddenly, boiling alive, and kicks madly at his covers to free himself. He is sweating, drenched, though the air on his cheeks is cool. Disoriented and slightly panicked, the covers get stuck on something long, heavy, and hot by his side, and for a moment he cannot place where he is until that something thrusts its arm out to stop Anthony from squirming so much.
Benedict rolls over, his hand covering Anthony’s mouth. He is home. He has been home for less than twelve hours, and already his siblings are finding ways to torture him. After luncheon, Daphne demonstrated her cartwheel for fifteen straight minutes while Colin asked him incessant questions about Eton, and of course, about if Anthony knew about whatever it was that he and Daphne were learning about this week. Yes, Anthony had told him irritably, he knew how to do his sums. They do not let you go to school if you do not first learn your letters and your sums, but Colin, being not even six years old and quite a baby really, did not seem put out by this in the least.
Mother had been the worst, showering him in kisses before he had even stepped a foot out of the carriage, insisting that she understood that he was grown up now, and did not need nor want her in all of his affairs, but still could not resist asking him endless questions about how he was sleeping and eating and how he felt at school. He did not tell her the whole truth – that the first part of the term was nearly unbearable. That he should have been used to being surrounded by constant chatter and endless teasing, and yet the constant noise made him feel terribly lonely. Instead, he told her about Lady Danbury’s godson, and the fun they had, and he was doing well in his studies, and basked in Father’s warm praise.
And now – Benedict, the only member of his family who had seemed not to even care that he was home for the Christmas holiday, was sound asleep, snoring even, in his bed.
Anthony pokes him roughly in the stomach, but Benedict does nothing more than turn away from Anthony. Frustrated, Anthony pokes him again, this time more roughly, with all of his fingers between his ribs where he knows Benedict is most ticklish, and leans very close to his ear to whisper “Benedict!” most emphatically, and still, it is not until Anthony gets up and pulls the covers with Benedict in them on to the ground that Benedict stirs, disoriented by laughing, scrambling to his feet.
“You didn’t have to do that!” he insists.
“What are you doing in here?” Anthony says, ignoring him completely. As a matter of fact, he wants to say, he did have to, since Anthony had been trying to wake him for the better part of a quarter of an hour.
“I –” Benedict stutters, scuffing his feet, tossing the blankets back onto Anthony’s bed. “I – well, I was still awake, and I thought that perhaps you were as well.” Even in the low light, the moon shining bright through the curtains, Anthony can see Benedict blush. “I did not get to speak with you all afternoon. So I thought –” Benedict coughs and picks up the book that fell out of bed with him. “I shall be going. See you tomorrow, Anthony.”
“That’s all?” Anthony asks, dumbfounded. “You just…come in here and then leave.”
“You do not want me in here,” Benedict counters, clutching the book close to his chest. “I could not wake you, and so I thought I would read until you did wake, and then I fell asleep. Do not worry. I am going to bed.”
“You wanted to speak to me?” Anthony repeats, his brain still miles and miles away, across the snowy countryside, and upstairs in the nursey with Daphne doing her cartwheels as Eloise and Francesca tried to nap, the nurses shushing them all the while.
“It has been terribly boring here without you,” Benedict complains. “Most of the time. Mostly, I have to actually do my work in lessons now, and Colin wants very badly to act grown up, but Mother does not let me fence with him because he is still too small, and I have become acquainted with a young lady down the road – a Miss Maria Riley who is older than you, Anthony, but who thinks me very mature though I have explained to her that I am not yet twelve –”
“And this is why you are in my room in the middle of the night?” Anthony echoes. “Because you wanted to tell me you found Colin to be boring?”
“I wanted to tell you about Maria,” Benedict insists. “But I do not want Mother to find out. So you have to promise not to say anything to her.” Without waiting and with shining eyes, Benedict climbs back into Anthony’s bed, and Anthony, who had followed Benedict to the floor, now follows him back.
They sit, cross-legged and facing each other, and Benedict leans close, whispering conspiratorially. “Have you ever kissed a girl?” he hisses, smiling gleefully and Anthony cannot help himself.
“Benedict!” Benedict falls backward onto the bed in a fit of laughter. “You did not kiss her?”
“She kissed me!” he insists without sitting up. “It was perfectly innocent. I retrieved her hat and in thanks she kissed me! On the mouth!” He sighs dreamily. “Have you, Ant? Kissed a girl?”
Anthony blushes. “No,” he admits. “If you do not count Mother, who could not stop kissing me when I returned today.”
This makes Benedict laugh harder, and though Anthony is sure Benedict is only laughing at Mother and not at him, he cannot help but burn with embarrassment. The boys at school all speak of their exploits, but Anthony would never disrespect a proper young lady the way they all claim to. He is quite sure most of them are liars, anyhow, but to lie about a thing like this seems worse than to have done it. Benedict at least is not a liar. He sits back up. “Promise you do not tell Mother,” he begs. “Or Father, for that matter. But it is lovely. I did not want to beat you, but – she is very beautiful and very smart.”
Anthony, still burning with shame and irritation pushes Benedict over. “Just go to sleep,” he grouses. “I shall not tell anyone of this.”
“I think you will like it,” Benedict adds, laying down, pulling the covers up to his chin. “It is nice.”
Anthony lays down too, turning his back to him, listening to Benedict’s breathing even out as he drifts back to sleep, stretching and kicking until his cold feet find Anthony’s legs. His whole family, he thinks irritably, have found ways to torture him. He’s hardly been home for twelve hours.