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It was just a whisper at first, intruding into his dream and slowly coaxing him from sleep.
“Anders.”
“Hm?” he answered before he even was properly awake, but there was no answer. Blinking into the darkness around him, he pushed himself up on one elbow. It took him a moment to make sense of the mumbling next to him, the chopped-off words and choked sounds.
“No! You can’t- …No! No, don’t y-…”
Adriene. She seemed to have stolen into his room again while he was sleeping. When he had first moved in, she had woken him when her dreams got worse, until he had told her that she could just sneak in whenever she wanted. More than once, he had woken to find her curled into herself next to him, or wrapped around him. It wasn’t the first nightmare he had witnessed, either.
“Anders, no, please, I-”
A blunt hit into his side made him draw in a sharp breath, chasing the last bit of sleep from his mind. Before he could do anything, though, Adriene sat up abruptly, a sound half scream half sob wringing from her throat, her hands fluttering in the air as if reaching for something that wasn’t there.
“Adriene,” he said softly, sitting up as well and laying a hand on her shoulder.
The touch sent a full-body tremble through her, and with a choked “No!”, she swirled around, entangling herself in the blanket as she futilely tried to bring some distance between them.
His heart clenched as he saw tears streaking her cheeks, glittering in what little light fell in through the windows. Her breath came in short, heavy bursts. Anders still had one hand stretched out towards her, now he summoned a tiny mage light and sent it towards the ceiling. There, it hovered in the air, emitting a soft, golden glow. As the light appeared, Adriene stopped trying to get away, blinking a few times as she seemed to take in her surroundings for the first time since she had woken.
“It’s me,” Anders said soothingly, “you’re safe. Nothing here can hurt you.”
The sound of his voice made her eyes snap back to him. A strand of hair was plastered over her forehead that she carelessly wiped away.
“Anders?” she whispered.
“I’m here,” he nodded, giving her a reassuring smile.
Her lips formed a silent ‘Oh’, and the next second, she threw herself into his arms, pulling him into a nearly painfully tight hug. Another sob fell from her lips as she buried her face against his shoulder. “I thought they had taken you,” she mumbled, her words barely recognizable. Anders could feel hot tears staining his shirt, and put his arms around her, soothingly stroking her hair and running a hand over her back.
“I’m here,” he whispered. “Nobody has taken me.”
Her body was still wracked by sobs, and she desperately clung to him as she cried. “But they did, they took you, and I couldn’t do anything, and when I came to get you out, they had… they had…” Her voice broke upon the words and her arms tightened around him.
Anders held her close, placing small kisses on her brow without even thinking about it. A soft press of his lips against her skin that left the slight taste of salt behind which he found himself chasing with the tip of his tongue when he caught himself. His heart grew heavy at her words; an old, familiar pain that would never quite fade. If only he didn’t know that particular nightmare himself so very well.
“They didn’t take me,” he still assured her, “I’m here.”
“You’re here,” she repeated. Her fingers were no longer cramped into his shirt, searching for his skin instead, as if the feeling of it was the only thing that would assure her he was really here. Anders couldn’t help the warm shiver that ran over his back as they curled in his neck, then rested there, just holding him close. “You’re here.”
Slowly, Adriene calmed down as he continued to murmur soothing words into her hair until only the occasional shiver ran over her.
“That was a mean one, hm?” he asked quietly when the last tears had dried.
She only nodded. “It didn’t feel like a dream,” she whispered, not letting go of him.
“They never do,” he answered.