Worse Than His Bite

Chapter 8: Cold and stormy night

"I'm not looking for a fight." The voice was familiar. A Scottish accent so definitely not Leo. "I'm looking for the boy you were with. I know he's here. I just want to talk to him about his mum, ye ken?"

His mum? Oh!

Phineas leaned to the side to look around Sebastian's large frame. Standing in the tent was the man from the bar. What was his name again? Actually, Phineas was pretty sure he never got the strangers name.

"There he is!" The man exclaimed. Phineas could see his age in the dim light of the few lanterns that Sebastian had lit. The few lines among his forehead and the crinkle near the corners of his eyes, a sign of a man that smiled often and indeed he was in that moment. It only added to the man's relaxed handsomeness. His dark golden hair was tussled by the wind and he wore his clothes with a lazy posture. He was not an intimidating man, not that Sebastian seemed to share that opinion.

"Can I help you with something?" Asked Phineas, still stuck behind Sebastian.

"Kind of, not really. I just-" the man shrugged, "I don't feel like I made a very good impression earlier."

"You came all the way here to make a good impression? Why?"

"Because your Grace's boy. A friend of Grace's is a friend of mine. So a son of Grace's is... well, you get the idea."

"That's very kind of you."

The man nodded. He took a step further into the tent and thus Phineas was pulled tighter against Sebastian. The rumbling was faint but Phineas could still hear it and it was obvious the man could too, he simply chose to ignore it. Was rumbling even the correct way to describe it? It was more like a growl.

"I didn't know they'd brought in another lamb to do their dirty work." The man commented.

"What do you mean?" Asked Phineas.

"I knew the last few people who worked in this tent. Nice people. Well, two of them were. There was this one guy who was a total wankstain, but some people just are." He turned and looked directly at Phineas. "You shouldn't come up here anymore. I'll tell you what I told them: some things are best left buried."

"I've been employed to come up here and excavate. I can't back out of my contract."

"How will they know what you've done? Take the time to relax, have a wee holiday. You seem like a nice lad, plus you're Grace's boy which makes you extra special in my eyes. Stop coming here, you don't want what happened to them to happen to you."

"They were only injured." Said Phineas. "They're all still alive."

The man's smile dropped. His lazy posture straightened up. "Who told you that?"

Phineas dared not say anymore. Some strange man couldn't come barging in and tell Phineas to stop doing the job he had already agreed to and was being paid a very handsome amount to do. Plus, Phineas had seen the headlines and press reports about the archeologists. Each time they were always quoted to have relative or at least minor injuries, they were also very much alive. Still, a warning such as that probably shouldn't be taken too lightly.

The man shivered and rubbed his hands together. "It's fucking freezing in here. You're in the old forest view cabin, right? How about we go warm up a bit?"

Was it cold? Phineas had felt rather chilly when he was excavating earlier, but now he felt oddly warm. Sebastian was a huge hot water bottle. He didn't want to move away from him solely because as soon as he did, he knew the cold would come for him and take all the warmth he'd gotten from Sebastian.

"How do you know where we are staying?" Sebastian's low baritone voice was a shock to the calm atmosphere the man had brought with him.

"Because the last guys who were here stayed in the exact same house. Not sure if you've noticed, but the isle of Cernunn doesn't get much tourism. You're staying in the only vacant house on the island. We don't even have a hotel."

"So you literally get no one?" Asked Phineas.

"Aye. Well, there's the odd person here and there. Nature photographer, wilderness explorer, stuff like that. It's pretty rare though. Bet you've already got your fair amount of stares."

Phineas had never felt as judged in his life as he did walking down the streets of the town earlier. Leo seemed to like the attention, but Phineas couldn't stand it honestly.

"Yeah, you could say that." Phineas agreed.

The man shivered again, he buried his hands deep into his pockets. "Let's get a move on. I'll freeze to death if we stay here any longer."

The man left the tent, his feet crunching through the foliage and the wind threatening to push him over. He looked steady though. A local man like him had probably endured weather like this ten times over.

Phineas began to follow, Sebastian reluctantly following behind him. The warmth wasn't completely gone. It sure was a shock to the system when they got out the tent and Phineas thought he was slapped round the face with a hand made of ice. It left his teeth chattering, his body shivering and every hair on his body standing up on end. At least his hand was warm.

He did get terribly cold hands. Especially in winter. He'd inherited raynauds from his mum which caused the circulation in his body to not work properly when cold, specifically around his hands and feet. Sebastian's hand must've had a built in heater to it because...

He was still holding Sebastian's hand.

"I'm so sorry!" He ripped his hand away. Instantly regretting it as the cold bit into him.

Sebastian's face was its regular expression of being unfazed. It took him a moment to put his hand down once Phineas let go. The wind caused his long black hair to wave out behind him.

"Are you cold?" He asked.

Phineas shook his head even as his entire body aggressively vibrated, he'd never shivered so much in his life. "N-n-n-no, I'm fine. I'm much t-t-tougher than I look." His teeth chattered away making it hard to talk.

Sebastian didn't say anything else, so Phineas continued onwards. A heavy weight fell onto Phineas' shoulders and with it, he was protected from the wind.

"It's alright." Said Phineas. "I don't need your jacket. I'm wearing more layers than you are, you should have it."

Sebastian ignored him, making no response. No matter how much Phineas insisted that he take back the jacket, he didn't say a word. Eventually, Phineas accepted defeat. Not that he'd lost anything. The jacket was lovely and warm. It was thick and layered with a soft material on the inside contrasted by the black leather on the outside. It was a much visually nicer jacket than Leo's patchwork jacket that was an assault on the eyes.

It was such a nice jacket in fact, that Phineas kept it on even when they got back into the house.

He relaxed into a seat by the fireplace as the man they'd brought home with them gathered up some kindling and set it a blaze. The warmth from the fire was beautiful. He sank into the jacket, half his face becoming buried in its folds. The leathery smell with a hint of citrus was so distinctly Sebastian that Phineas hadn't realised that was what he smelled like until that moment. It was a nice smell, a relaxing smell that had his eyelids growing heavy and his head drooping from his shoulders.

He felt a slight pull at his leg. He struggled to open his eyes, but when he did he saw Sebastian taking off his shoes for him. Sebastian took care in undoing the laces and as gently as he could sliding the hiking boots off of Phineas' feet. His final conscious thought went back to the stranger that Leo had had on his knees. The oddly appealing sight of it. It wasn't quite the same, but Sebastian was on his knees.

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Thank you to my patreons
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Sucktosuck3
Aduk Manyuon
Allan Woolley
Lovuy Thomson
Cheyanne
Monica Torres
Samantha bonner
Senait
Megan Dow
Klara Rdn
Laura McCloud
The average teenager life
Jaikena Givens
Sam c.
Leonie Echternkamp
Riley
Linnea Anderson
DEME
Vanessa Arredondo
Dark&sour
Gabrielle Laforest
Ruby
tepy luon kongkea
Mel
Jenni Lyons
Katerina Whitney-syndone
Brandon Bradley
Gsweet