The knock came a second later.
Boreas lifted his head from Dean's thigh and looked toward the outer room with the grave patience of a creature who had already decided whether the visitor deserved to keep all their fingers.
Dean did not move immediately.
He was still in bed, still warm, still half-wrapped in the expensive effects of the last few days, and still not ready to face the morning in a respectable way if morning couldn't first prove it had earned the right.
"Come in," he called, voice rough with sleep and disuse and absolutely no desire to improve the effect.
The door opened.
Nero stepped in, then stopped just inside the room; took in Dean in bed, Boreas occupying half the lower mattress like a territorial mountain, the state of the sheets, the open curtains, and the general atmosphere of aggressively reclaimed domesticity; and then had the decency to look only mildly entertained rather than fully unbearable.
"That," Nero said, "is a very specific visual argument."
