Page 61 of Essa

When he starts shaking his head back and forth, I get out of bed and move to his side. I don't think he'd appreciate being in the middle of our sandwich, but he's unconscious. Plus, it isn't like I'm about to lie beside him and hold him. No, he's in the middle of his terrors, and constricting his movements won't be good for anyone.

"Adam," I say his name clearly, keeping my hands to myself in case he takes them as a threat when he regains enough consciousness. I'm kneeling over him, which probably isn't the best either, but my instincts are begging me to make this better for him, to ease his pain.

"Adam," I repeat, trying to pull him back into wakefulness. I've never dealt with someone who has nightmares. Maybe I should ask Phial how he helps Avery with hers.

"He's going to be out for a while." Seth's voice is a surprise, though I suppose it shouldn't be. He's lying right next to the male, who's making sounds of anguish that have my heart breaking. I'm sure Seth feels the same as I do, but he's had to deal with these for far longer. "I haven't been able to wake him from them once. Even banged some pots together one night and he was still passed out."

I grind my teeth at the idea that Adam's to be put through his terrors with no escape. "What are we to do then?"

"I usually just play with his hair and try to soothe him as much as I can."

Seth shrugs as he sits up in the bed. His pale fingers slide over Adam's dark hair in a rhythmic motion. He leans his head against the headboard, eyes closing like he expects to find sleep while Adam's like this. Maybe he will. Maybe that's how often this occurs.

"He'll wake up eventually, and he'll be pissed. Just be prepared for that."

"I can handle him when he's upset," I mutter, mimicking how Seth sits against the headboard as I wiggle underneath the blankets. My tail tries to wrap around Adam again, but I don't wish for him to feel constricted in his dream, so I grab it and hold it close to my leg until it settles.

"Let it around him," Seth murmurs, his voice already sleepy again, but he keeps his hand moving through Adam's hair as though this is natural and normal for them. "He won't tell you, but he likes it. He likes that you claim him."

I don't need more prompting than that before my tail snakes between Adam's thighs and twists around the upper one until I'm sure he's nice and secure. I might also flick the tip of his cock with the end of my tail, but that's mostly an accident.

Seth snorts, and I think I've been caught. But his eyes are still closed, and his movements are still lazy. I narrow my eyes on him, trying to figure out what could be amusing about all of this when we were woken from our sleep by our shared male in pain.

"You're going to turn his nightmare into a fucked up wet dream if you do that," Seth tells me, his eyes finally cracking. With very little light in the room, his eyes look almost entirely white except for his pupils. "I've tried making it better by blowing him before. It doesn't. He just ends up in a nightmare that's also somehow erotic. The experiments they did on him, on Original Adam too, they weren't always just cutting into him or seeing what injuries he could survive."

I grip the bedsheets underneath my hands hard as the tip of my tail moves as far away from the juncture of Adam's thighs as it can. "I didn't know. I'm sorry."

Seth shakes his head, offering me a small smile. "I just told you I tried the same thing. We both want to help him, but there's nothing for us to do other than be here for him when he wakes."

I nod as Seth speaks, his words reassuring me. I'm grateful he's the male I share with Adam. He's much more easygoing than his partner, and he doesn't make me feel bad for things I don't know. He's an easy male to love, and I see how Adam has done it so effortlessly.

"You don't have any scars on you," I say as my fingers drift over the open skin on Adam's back. I steer clear of the many patches of puckered scar tissue that crisscross all along his skin in shiny pink lines. There aren't many places that haven't been marred, but there's enough that I can touch him without touching places that might bring him even more bad memories.

"I was treated better than either Adam was," Seth says, his head turning to face me, his eyelids still half-hooded with sleep. "He was created to be a super soldier. Which, if you've seen any superhero movies from the time our originals were around, you'd know it's mostly the bad guys who do that kind of shit."

I open my mouth to tell him I have no idea what he means by superhero movies or which bad guys he's referring to, but I don't want to interrupt this insight into their lives before they came aboard the Jolly Folly. Seth's told me some about himself but avoids discussing the research facility and never speaks about what happened to Adam.

"Anyway, they kept our originals separated for most of their time together. I was given pictures of Adam in various forms of distress and asked to read his emotions as though that's how it worked." Seth rolls those pretty blue eyes as he smirks. "I was useless to them for so many years. When I finally had a purpose, it turned out that I was still useless. It was pretty funny since I didn't want to help them. I was kidnapped off the street with the pretense of pay that never came. I was more than a little defiant by the time they brought Adam in. Honestly, I was hoping the invasion would wipe out the facility we were kept, but that didn't happen."

"How did you finally connect with Adam then?" I ask, wanting to know more about the two, about what they can do for one another and how they grew close. I'm joining their relationship and wish to know them as well as they know one another, but I can't share my thoughts with them like they can with each other. So, I'll settle for stories.

"They made me watch one of his sessions through a glass partition. I was strapped to a chair while they cut into him to see how quickly he could heal. It was the first time I saw him as another human being. That was the sickest part about it because up until that point, I hadn't realized how much I'd detached myself from him, how much I pretended he wasn't an actual human that was being hurt over and over again."

A low growl fills the air around us, and it takes me far too long to realize it is coming from my chest. I clear my throat, but the growl still rumbles for a second longer. Seth's cheeks are tinted the prettiest shade of pink. I'd love to run my fingers across them, but Adam makes another low groan. We both move to him, trying to ease his pain.

"I'm not growling at you," I tell Seth when Adam has calmed again. "You did nothing wrong. You were trying to survive in an impossible situation. Your mind wished not to be burdened with the knowledge that horrible things you couldn't stop were being done to someone. There's nothing wrong with protecting yourself."

Seth's cheeks are even pinker now. My words are sincere, but I can understand why he might not believe them. The male he cares about more than any other was suffering, and he chose not to believe it. I've never gone through what either of them has, and I won't cast judgment on either of them for how they handled those situations.

"Well, protecting myself ended that day." Seth shakes his head as he pulls his hand away from Adam's hair and curls it intoa tight fist before shaking out the tension. He's shaking when his fingers resume their scratching of Adam's scalp. "Whatever weird mental thing they wanted to happen happened. I just might've pretended it didn't for a little while."

I bite back my smile when I see the small one playing on Seth's lips.

"I don't know if that was the right call or not, but I was so mad at the scientists that I would've done anything just to spite them."

"Was this when you were Original Seth or after?" I hope the question isn't too prying, but I want to make sure I have the timeline right. Adam never talks about Original Adam as though they are the same man, but Seth has no such issue. I assume it's because Original Adam had a wife and family, a whole life outside the research facility, whereas Seth didn't. He was all alone until he found Adam. Even then, he doesn't know what happened to his clone once the memories stopped.

"This was Original Seth and Adam," Seth says, looking down at Adam, whose face is screwed up in pain but isn't making any sounds. We keep moving our hands over him, and where I touch, his muscles relax. I wish he'd wake soon so I can know he's no longer in pain, and if he is, I can find a way to fix it.

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