He wakes with a startled gasp, his breath a cold bubble of air lodged in his throat behind his Adam’s apple, making him choke desperately on the spittle and fear bitter in his mouth. His eyes open wide to the swirling blackness around him, the shadows of the room cast by eerie moonlight indicating a threat, his heart jumping with each slight flicker of movement in the unknown. He lurches, his arms flying forward in long swooping motions, hands clenched around the handles of blades he isn’t holding, slashing at the steaming skin of monsters that aren’t there but still lurk in the darkness beyond, ready to trap him in their wet, lolling jaws.
The lump of terror in his throat breaks apart, about to fly up into his mouth and out of his lips in a grating scream when something grabs his wrist, his arm growing stiff in the air mid-swipe. He coughs out a gasp, about to attack his restraint when he feels gentle fingertips massage his arm, the softest lilt of a voice snapping him from his terror.
“Mike?”
He stares at his hand, still in front of him, hand in a balled fist. He loosens it, splaying each finger, a spreading web of shadow in the dim of the room, blending into its darkness. His arm grows lax, only held by the gentle grip that slowly slides up his bicep, moves close to him to envelope his trembling body.
He leans into it, seeking whatever small comfort he can gain, solid and grounding while the rest of his mind still reels in his disorientation. He heaves in a breath, another, sucking air into his aching lungs. Slowly, he takes in the setting around him; his hands move down, brushing against the rough fabric of his sheets, pressing down into the plushness of the mattress; his ears take in the silence of the night, nothing but the lulling chirp of crickets muffled by the walls of the room, soft breath enticing against his ear felt more than heard; straining his eyes, he can see the outlines of dressers and rickety chairs in the black of the bedroom.
He closes his mouth, taking in his next breath deeply through his nose. Musty air tickles in his throat, the scent of dust and old wood and cloth flooding calm through him. When he turns to the warmth next to him, sniffing the ever-familiar smell of sweet sweat and pollenated earth he knows only belongs to the skin of one person, he can finally relax, taking in the reality that he is safe.
“Mike?” Nanaba’s voice is music to him, and he lets her warmth surround him as she takes his massive, stooped form into her arms, pulling him away from the fear that he sheds off of him like a second skin. His arms wrap around her, hands running over her, tracing over the angles of her shoulder blades, the toned muscles of her lower back. He can feel her nose dig into the crook of his neck, breath flitting against sheen of sweat plastered against his skin.
“Nana,” he sputters, a sob rising like a gurgle up from his chest, one that he clamps down with the thickness of his voice. He buries his face into her downy hair, sucking in all the air he can, earth and lye and the sickly honeyed scent of the oils on her hair filling his nostrils. Each whiff calms his thrashing heart, eases his throbbing chest and the sting of terrified tears behind his eyes.
“You’re alright,” she coos, words a breath of a whisper. She shushes him as he shakes in her arms, the tips of her fingers running smooth patterns into the back of his nightshirt, gentle against his muscular back; the fabric of it clings to him with his cold sweat. “You’re okay. It’s just a useless dream, it can’t hurt you.”
He wants to protest, the image of yellowed and rotting teeth flashing on the back of his eyeballs, almost feeling the same rancid, hot breath from his nightmare melting his skin like acid, hear the brittle crack of bones grind between the gaps of molars the size of his head. He takes another deep breath of her hair, trying to drown out the scented inklings of metallic blood that had overwhelmed him in his nightmare.
He begins to sputter his worries into her scalp, deny his safety; those terrors were real, and he had seen them, been a split second from becoming a victim to their boiling grips, their childlike, menacing smiles close to being the last thing he might have ever seen. His jittery words are stopped in their tracks as her nimble fingers trace over his shoulders, gliding over the tendons in his neck, taut and stiff like wires straining under the thin cover of his skin. They give way under her touch, muscles left limp and loose under the soft massage of her hands as they continue their journey to his face. Palms cup the stubble on his cheeks, thumbs brushing away the tears pooling in the dark crevices of circles under his eyes. Her hands move, joining momentarily at the back of his neck, using it as leverage as she leans up to peck him on the lips.
“I know,” she mumbles against his lips; she fights alongside him to kill the same monstrosities that haunt both their dreams, has been in his arms screaming and gasping for breath just like he is in hers right now. He pulls her closer to steal another kiss, desperate for intimacy, for touch, for reassurance. Instead she folds against him again, wedging her chin on top of his shoulder to let his face nuzzle into her blonde bedhead, feel his stubble brush against her cheek. “I’m here now. We’re safe right now. That’s all that matters.”
Her fingers continue to move upwards, brushing through the shaved hair at the nape of his neck, nails scraping delicate, firm lines into his scalp. He sighs in relieved bliss, closing his burning eyes. She is so angelic in her tenderness that in his delirious exhaustion he almost thinks they might be ascending into heaven itself. His arms wrap tighter around her, as if keeping her from flying up and out of this world, and he almost feels guilty for keeping her grounded in a hell disguised as their worldly society only for the sake of his love.
She doesn’t seem to mind, the ministrations of her embrace just growing more soothing by the minute. He presses his lips to her head as a sign of gratitude, glad to even have had the opportunity to share a bed and a life – no matter how short. He thinks of her own frantic breath after a nightmare, shrieking the names of past friends now nothing more than rotting bodies vomited from titan stomachs, the way her nimble fingers would dig into his skin almost painfully as if to anchor him to her, and he feels just a little bit better wanting her to stay on this earth with him knowing that she wants the same of him.
His breathing starts to slow, her body leaning into his; he gives way to the push of it, letting his back fall onto the mattress. His pillow is damp with sweaty drool and tears.
