for all the countless things she’s been eager to tell him now that he’s back and safe, it’s now apparent that there’s been a glaring omission when it comes to the drastic changes in her sleeping habits ----------- she’s not the girl who always was the last one up out of the two of them; the one he took so much delight in nudging awake when he got tired of being the only one up. now it’s flailing arms and tangled sheets in the middle of the night; gasping sobs cutting his name in two. she isn’t yet thinking about how she’ll try to explain this away over the breakfast table later on ----- maybe she’ll insist it simply slipped her mind in favor of much more important things, but it’s only a matter of time before it becomes glaringly obvious that the forgetfulness on her part was planned and not the accident she’d like to hope he’ll think it is.
@antisupe’s hand finds the small of her back now that she’s sitting up ------- it’s just as warm as she remembers; and he still has the gift of giving her goosebumps over the slightest brush of skin against skin. but despite how grounding something as simple as a touch is in this moment, all she can think about now is how she’s woken him up ( and how ridiculous it is for her to be making any kind of fuss after everything he’s been through. ) “i woke you up, i’m sorry,” she pulls her knees in towards her, resting her cheek against the top of them as she tries to make out his face in the darkness while simultaneously dreading the look that she assumes will be waiting for her once she finds him.
“bad dream,” she begins to explain while knowing she doesn’t really have to, considering the fashion with which she managed to wreck the linens and wake him up all at the same time. she rocks once, lifting her head long enough to transfer her chin from the tops of her knees to resting in her open palm . for a moment she thinks it might just be better to leave that statement where it is, let it be enough --------- but she knows that the odds of her seeing it all again when she closes her eyes is too much to bet against an encore. “dreamt about you being gone again.” gone being a kinder word than ‘dead’; but that’s what it was --------- a reoccurring dream born out of grief and guilt, frustration and resentment towards herself and everyone around her that had been all - too - eager to move on. ‘i’m alive. i’m not dead. remember?’
her chin slides off the meat of her palm, teeth gently sinking into flesh while she takes a moment to let his words sink in a little deeper. i’m alive. i’m not dead. words she’s sure she’ll never tire of hearing now; words she might need to hear over and over again before she’ll stop worrying that all of this is a dream, too. maybe that’s why she bites down on her palm a little harder a second time ---- just to make sure. “i know,” but really, she’s always known ----------- the problem was that no one wanted to believe her. “i’ve just heard everyone else say you are for so long,” she presses her palms to her eyes, eclipsing what little light there is in the room so she can sit there in a secondary level of darkness for a few moments ---------- or at least until she can manage to get her heartbeat back in her chest where it belongs and not up in her ears. even now with eyes covered, she’s able to find him in that self - made blackout, leaning over so she can rest her forehead against his arm. him being tangible again ( finally ) seems to help, at least a little.
she exhales quietly, finally free of the sound of her heartbeat in her ears --- at least for now. “i asked them where you were. i asked them why weren’t they looking for you.” she doesn’t need to explain vought’s way of doing things; he knows just as well as she does how they operate. and he knows that they’re capable of everything and nothing at all. ( that, coupled with edgar’s eagerness to ‘mourn’ and move on with his own aspirations ------ everyone seemed to be in agreement, except for her. and not even lady luck can topple vought all on her own when the odds are stacked that highly against her. ) “i shouldn’t have stopped pushing vought to keep looking for you ... i should have kept looking instead of just coming here.” a point those nightmares like to make over and over and over again.