fightingevilbymoonknight | Annexed: IC Inbox

She startles at his touch, not quite bolting upright, but waking with a jerk and a short, sharp gasp, eyes wide and momentarily uncomprehending, until the details of the waking world filter in through sleep-jumbled senses enough to overwrite the lingering scraps of nightmare.

"Marc?" It comes out a little uncertain, and she reaches up to trap his hand against her cheek, as though half afraid he'll vanish along with the dream.

"Yeah, baby, it's me. I got you." He strokes her cheekbone with his thumb, the only way to reassure without pulling his hand away. He'll shift over onto his side to gather her up in a minute, if it seems like that's what she wants. "It was just a dream."

She doesn't completely relax, but some of the tension goes out of her frame, and she draws a shuddering breath, blinking away the dampness clinging to her lashes.

"Shit," she says. "I bet you're regretting spending the night now." It's a weak attempt at humour, at playing down just how shaken she is.

"Never," Marc assures her, and makes good on his thought to pull her into his arms now that she's awake, so long as she doesn't resist. "I'd rather be here even if you had nightmares every night and kicked me through all of 'em."

And it's true. He'd take kicking nightmares over his own quiet apartment any day. God, he's missed her. It's been months, both here and back home, since he's been able to sleep next to her. Or not sleep, as the case may be.

She doesn't resist. She burrows against him, head tipping forward to nestle in the crook of his shoulder, one arm threading around him in turn, clinging tight like some small, animal part of her is afraid of being torn away.

Her shoulders shift in something halfway between a laugh and a sob, and she manages, slightly muffled, "That doesn't sound very restful for either of us."

"Maybe not. But worth it," he promises, and kisses the top of her head, rubbing at her back gently. Then he braces himself just a little, and offers, "Wanna talk about it?"

She's quiet for a long moment. The nightmare is still vivid in her mind, not yet shredded by waking, and in the superstitious void of the witching hour, speaking of it feels perilously close to speaking it into being.

Staying silent hasn't exactly exorcised it.

"We were in the tomb," she says finally. "More or less. It wasn't an exact replay."

He sighs a little. Yeah, that's one he's had before, himself. Dying wasn't fun. Knowing he'd failed wasn't fun, either. Knowing he'd failed right after telling Layla the truth, and leaving her alone with it, was probably the worst.

"Close enough to be pretty horrible, though, I bet," he says quietly, petting her back slowly and soothingly.

"Yeah," she says. "I knew what was coming, and I couldn't-- I thought I'd lost you." Her voice catches on the last word; she swallows the 'again' that wants to follow.

She hadn't. She can feel his heart beating, his skin living-warm, and the tension begins to seep away, drop by drop. If she were alone, she'd be up for much of the remainder of the night, distracting herself with a map or a book she'd borrowed, or wandering down to the Xin Market in search of a distraction. It's almost become a habit, if a less frequent one than it would have been in the weeks immediately following the final confrontation with Ammit's cult.

"I know," he says. He's gone over that day in his head, and found so many ways he could have handled it better. All of it. Her, Harrow, Steven... but it's too late for that. Now it's just... being better, going forward. It's all he can do. "I know and I wish it coulda gone different. But I'm here now. And I'm stayin' here."

"Hey," she says softly, pulling back just enough that she can lift her head and see his face. "Hey, no. I'm not blaming you for not being bulletproof. But I am going to hold you to that. No matter what happens, you come home to me."

He looks back at her seriously, brushing at her hair so it's not in her face and she can see him clearly. "I promise," he tells her. "I'll always come home. On the rare occasions," he adds, a little less somberly, "that you aren't right out there with me and we can come home together."

That earns him a fleeting smile. "I can live with that," she says. "We do make a good team."

They always have, even when they've been out of sync. Better, now that they're not.

(When tethered, they will be absolutely terrifying.)

There's only so many things he can think of to say to that. He probably says the worst one for the middle of the night when Steven isn't there to weigh in: "Let's really do this every night. Let's stay in the same apartment."

Whatever response she might have been expecting, it isn't that, and she blinks at him in surprise for a moment before the words filter through the lingering haze of adrenaline and weariness.

"I like the sound of that," she admits once comprehension dawns, and turns her head slightly to press a kiss against the inside of his wrist. "It's been lonely here at night."

"Has been for me, too." He smiles at the kiss, at her, god, he loves her so much. Being in his own apartment knowing she was in another one had been terrible. But he also has to warn her, "I'll hafta run it by Steven, but if he says okay, we can pick whose apartment and move our stuff whenever you want."

"That's fair," she says. Her thumb strokes his spine, almost absently, like she's reminding herself of his solidity. Or reminding him of hers.

"If he's all right with it, we might want to look into finding a bigger space, if we're expecting to be here a while."

They're small apartments for three people, small even if those three people are spread across two bodies.

"What, you don't wanna be livin' on top of each other all the time, and that on top of alla Stevens' books?" he jabs gently. "Yeah, if Steven says it's okay, we'll start lookin' for a new place. Someplace with an actual living room and a kitchen bigger than a postage stamp." Steven will appreciate that. He likes cooking a lot more than Marc does.

"And my books, and any equipment we pull together..." She exhales a quiet huff of laughter, breath warm against his skin.

"Sounds a bit like early days, doesn't it? What was it we used for a planning station in Saint Petersburg? Milk crates?"

She manages to swallow the question that wants to follow, slightly melancholy - do you miss it? Things hadn't actually been simple then, she's fairly certain, but they'd felt that way. The missions had been smaller, when the gods and monsters were just starting to stir, before Ammit's cult had grown into a threat.

"I think they were wine crates, actually," Marc chuckles, with a little clear nostalgia, himself. He sighs, then, and strokes her back, mostly idly but a little for both their comfort. "We're starting from scratch, out here. That might be a good thing, y'know. There's no gods trying to get in the way, at least. And I'm not having to hide Steven."

"Mm. If we drank all the wine in them, that might be why my memory's a bit foggy."

She relaxes slowly into his touch, the familiar comfort of his presence. Her hand drifts up to curl at the base of his skull, fingers threading through his hair, scraching lightly against his scalp.

"A chance to do right by each other, sort some of our shit out before getting tossed back into our own lives?" She smiles, brief and flickering. "That might actually be worth the aliens."

"I am tryin' to do right by you, this time," he says, voice a little lower. "Aliens or not." And he's not holding his breath that they'll ever make it home, but he won't say that out loud. There's honestly not much he'd miss from London, if they never made it back; Layla's here, Steven's here, he's got a job to do... if it weren't for the alien threat, it'd be pretty great, actually.

"I know," she says quietly. "I know. And you are."

She uncurls a little, and leans in to kiss him, softly and with no intent other than affection.

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