The silence that enveloped the room was suddenly broken by a scream, and Hervey snapped awake, his hand reaching for his sword. He soon realized that the weapon wasn't where it should have been, and stared at the direction for a second. Right, of course his sword wasn't there; this was Lucas's room and the boy was...

He swiftly turned around in bed, now knowing what had awakened him. "Lucas? What's wrong?"

The boy was breathing heavily, and Hervey placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's all right. Must have been a nightmare..."

"Don't touch me," Lucas hissed at him. He moved away from the man and wrapped a blanket around himself. Hervey couldn't see much in the dark room, but there was something about how the boy looked and acted that made him worried. He wasn't too good on the comforting someone business though, and wondered if he should just let the boy calm down on his own.

"Sir Lucas!" Someone from the door called. "Are you all right?"

There was a moment of silence. Hervey glanced at the door and then at Lucas, not so sure if anyone was supposed to know that he was here. The question was repeated, and Hervey gritted his teeth. A little more, and the guard would want to come in and check and...

"I..." Lucas mumbled. He then cleared his throat. "I'm fine," he said, loud enough for the guard to hear. "Nothing to worry about."

The guard replied with an affirmative and left judging by the footsteps, and Hervey sighed in relief. Someone walking in was not what he needed right now, with him being naked in Lucas's bed and the boy not wearing too much either. He had pretty much sneaked in and no one knew he was here, aside from Sigurd who always seemed to know in the morning if Hervey had been in Lucas's bed.

He turned his attention to the boy, not daring to touch him yet. "Better now?"

Lucas nodded. "I'm sorry. I was still kind of half-asleep when you..."

"That's fine," Hervey replied. "Not a nice dream, then?"

The boy stayed silent for a moment. "Not just that. It's... hard to explain, though." He curled up in the bed, edged a little closer and finally rested his head against Hervey's arm.

"Well, if it was just a dream, try not to think about it too much," Hervey said. He then grinned a little and moved so that Lucas could lean against his shoulder. "I can think of a couple of distractions, if you're bothered by it..."

"No, this is fine," Lucas whispered, sounding quite relaxed. "Maybe later."

Hervey opened his mouth to reply but then decided it was probably better not to. Sigurd had told him that he was being a little too eager to do certain things sometimes, and that Lucas would surely appreciate if Hervey gave him more choice on the matter. Bah, he knew better than that. Of course he did, never mind the fact that Sigurd just tended to be right a lot of times.

He settled for petting the boy's hair, and Lucas fell asleep after a couple of minutes. Hervey closed his eyes, thinking. He could wait till tomorrow at least, no problem, as long as Lucas was fine with just being like this.

Besides, being close to the boy was sometimes enough.