Work Text:
It’s not that you want to be awake at 3 am when you have a full day of work ahead of you in a mere few hours - a Monday, no less.
But it’s how you find yourself one bitterly cold January morning, technically still in the middle of the night. Outside the trees coated in frost look barren in the inky black sky, like gnarled limbs twisting in the darkness, tapping against the windows. It looks cold, feels colder, and as you lay awake beside Marcus, your limbs feel heavy and numb with dread. You reach for him in the dark to feel the contours of his face with your fingertips to prove he’s still there; he’s blissfully unaware as he sleeps. If only you were that lucky - to sleep through the night without your own mind being your worst torment.
…
It came on like it always did, seeping into your mind like a plague in the early afternoon hours as the ease of the weekend wore off and reality set in. It’s been building for days now, but only then do you realize the full force of it; this will be a bad one. It comes with the reality that it would be another week of the inevitable grind and Friday is so far away- a five day ratrace. The delicate balance you set could easily be thrown into a tailspin with just the slightest shift - a harshly worded email, a few extra minutes of traffic that made you late, a spilled coffee or a last minute project with an impossible deadline. You’d become quieter as the sun shifted in the sky and near silent after dinner, every what if scenario starting to flash in your mind, one after the other, wearing you down to silence like it always did.
Then came the doubt, the spiraling thoughts - what if it’s not enough? What if you’re just a disappointment; that everyone merely puts up with you? You’d forced a few bites of Italian takeout, pushed symmetrical pasta noodles around your plate before you couldn’t eat anymore, slapping the remains into a Pyrex dish for lunch the next day, if you remembered to pack lunch at all.
There’s a football game on TV. Neither of you are actually paying attention, but you know it’s a playoff game. It's essentially background noise but you know Marcus watches so he has something to contribute to the discussions in his office on Monday mornings when it undoubtedly will come up over coffee in between briefings. For a fleeting moment it makes you smile, picturing him stumbling over the conversation amidst some security meeting. You never even knew there was an art theft department within the FBI until you met him.
“That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile all afternoon,” Marcus says softly, gripping the remote in his hand. “Is everything okay?” He somehow manages to notice everything, even when he’s not actually looking. His other hand is warm on your knee, a gentle reminder that he’s right there, and yet you still feel more alone than ever.
“Fine,” you manage even though nothing is further from the truth as you shift out from his touch. “Just tired.”
He isn’t convinced at all, but gives you the space you crave as the evening bleeds on, until you know if you don’t start getting ready for bed you’ll regret it come Monday. You feel his eyes as you tidy up the living room - the remnants of your weekend linger as if mocking you. A forgotten pair of shoes, a few crumpled blankets. Your work bag propped by the door where you’d abandoned it Friday afternoon when you slipped through the door, your mood much lighter when he pulled you down onto the couch with him. Your eyes linger on the bag; tears well in your eyes and burn.
“Sweetheart?” He asks again, this time a little more insistent.
“I’m fine, Marcus.” This time it’s harsher than intended but you can’t help it. You want him to know, innately of course, what’s wrong almost as much as you want to be left alone. “I’m going to get ready for bed.” You hear his sharp inhale, as if he’s debating whether or not to start a discussion that will inevitably lead to an argument given your mood.
“You don’t seem fine. You’ve been so quiet all night.”
You say nothing; you pretend like you don’t hear him as you drag yourself down the hallway, using every last bit of mental energy you have to keep yourself from crying.
He doesn’t deserve this, and you don’t deserve him.
You skip your shower and skincare regimen, unable to motivate yourself to do anything besides the bare minimum of brushing your teeth and raking a brush through your hair. It’s another sign of what’s to come; you’re helpless to it. The process seems so arduous now. He still hasn’t come to bed when you emerge from the bathroom - the television is off, but you hear the gentle sound of his fingers tapping away at computer keys. You briefly contemplate leaving. But it’s freezing , and it would only worry him more, and putting him through that seems unfair. You’ll come up with an excuse to spend the night at your place tomorrow. Then you won’t burden him more than you already have.
Your eyes are heavy when you close them with the unrelenting hope that tomorrow will be a better day.
You’re wise enough to know better.
…
You awaken with a start, as if it clawed its way out of your mind itself. It being the daily battle you fight with your own brain just to convince yourself to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to keep breathing and eating and all the menial things others manage to do so easily. You often envied them, wondered what it would be like to not live like this.
You tell yourself not to check your phone. But you can’t stand the darkness, or the silence, any longer and when the screen brightens, your heart twists at the photo background that stares back at you. It’s a picture of you and Marcus at a wedding, about two months ago, taken on an unseasonably warm November evening at a winery in Virginia just before sunset. It’s one of your favorite pictures, the first formal event you attended together. You’d been in a markedly better headspace then - things had only gotten bad in the last few weeks as the holiday season wrapped and the new year began. It’s a cycle, one you’re too familiar with. He just hasn’t seen the worst of it, how bad it can get.
Yet .
And with that, you’re throwing the covers back, freeing your legs from the tangle of sheets and blankets, the cool air making your skin pebble immediately even though there’s a cold sweat trickling its way down your back. You’re careful not to disturb him; you clamp a hand over your mouth to stifle your own breathing when he stirs for the briefest of seconds. He mumbles in his sleep but doesn’t awaken, and rolls over with a groan.
You’ve been coming over long enough to know his place well. You know where the squeaky floorboards are, where he keeps the spare towels and extra toothpaste and you’ve mostly stopped feeling weird about reaching for what you need when you need it. Since you’ve started spending most of your time there, you notice that the shelf in the closet is consistently well stocked with your essential products - face wash and makeup remover, even the shampoo you use and an extra razor. You sidestep the squeakiest floorboard with just the subtle glow of a night light to guide you, shouldering the bathroom door open and shutting it softly.
When you sink to the floor with your head in your hands, the tears have already started to fall. If anyone asked, you wouldn’t even be able to explain what ’s wrong, because everything feels wrong yet you can’t explain it even if you tried. Marcus is a caretaker by nature. He does everything in his power to ensure your comfort at any given moment, in both words and actions. It’s little things - the way he fills your water bottle in the evenings - so you don’t dehydrate at work in the morning - he chides you often, or the way his hand cups your jaw tenderly when your body is full of his, his eyes seeking permission to move once he’s finally inside of you, every inch pressing into you snugly as if you were made perfectly for him. It’s how he lifts you on the counter after a long day just to ask what you want for dinner; to ask how your day was even though he has his suspicions when you rest your forehead against his shoulder and seek solace in his arms.
He would hate to see just how bad it’s gotten, and there’s no predicting how bad it can get.
“Sweetheart?”
A startled sob escapes your throat as you lift your head to find Marcus leaning in the doorway. He blinks as his eyes adjust to the harshness of the bathroom light he’s turned on. You blink a few times, stare up at him, and wrap your arms around yourself as he surveys the scene before him. Despite the fact he’s a talker - Marcus always wants to talk - he says not a word, just drops to the floor next to you and pulls your body to settle between his legs and rest against his chest. The bathroom floor is unforgiving, certainly not close to comfortable, but his arms wrap you in and he’s murmuring to you, telling you to breathe and counting to ten as you attempt to follow his directions. It helps a little, gets you through the worst of it. His voice is your rock, what grounds you back to reality as he asks you to tell him something you notice, something you feel. Your responses are garbled through your tears and hiccups but it works.
Where did he learn this? How does he know how to get you through the worst of it?
Marcus rubs your back in sweeping circles, waiting until you can breathe semi normally again, slumping against him with exhaustion. “How long have you been in here?” His tone is patient, like he’ll wait all night for an answer if that’s what it takes.
“A while.” It’s a non-committal answer; it could have been an hour, or maybe ten minutes. You aren’t sure you even want to know yourself. “What time is it?”
“Close to four.”
So not that long after all.
He pushes some hair from your face, uses his thumb to brush away the tears that linger on your eyelashes. “You could have -”
“I wasn’t going to wake you, Marcus. It’s the middle of the night”
“You should have.” Marcus cups your chin, his thumb now gently stroking your jaw. His words are firm but the kisses he leaves on your cheeks are reassuring. He looks almost regretful as he cradles you in closer. You breathe him in - his smells like sleep and laundry soap and the familiar safety you’ve come to find in his arms on good days and bad. “I wish you would have.”
Maybe one day you’ll be able to explain how in your mind, waking him would render you a burden, that any argument he made against you would float in one ear and immediately out the other. Maybe one day you won’t twist his words to fit your own fucked up narrative.
“You aren’t a burden,” he adds, and your heart simultaneously shatters and soars at those words. The thing is, you believe him with all of your heart. You’ve learned over the months that life hasn’t been exactly fair to him when it comes to love, yet he still puts his heart on the line, a man of honor. You should probably do the same, give him the decency of an explanation.
“You don’t have to explain,” Marcus says patiently as you grapple for the right words. “Not now. Let’s get you back to bed.”
“I have to get up in an hour.” Mentally you run through your perfectly planned morning routine, working backwards from the time you absolutely need to be out the door. It’s a schedule you’ve created - one you depend on but are also bound to - another hallmark of your highly anxious personality. Depending on your headspace, any deviation from it can trigger a series of reactions ranging from irritation to lethargy to pure disgust, render the day a failure in your eyes. Marcus knows the importance of your schedules.
“What time is your spin class?” Sometimes it still amazes you just how much he pays attention to little details. You don’t even remember telling him you booked one.
“5:30.” Now that the tears have subsided you’re exhausted, limbs heavy and uncoordinated. Your fingers wrap tightly around his shirt, grateful for the solid weight of his
He shakes his head. “That sounds like a bad idea. You need to get some sleep.”
“And get charged a cancellation fee?”
“Switch it to an afternoon class.” He knows how important it is to you to go, the way you value exercise and prioritize it in your day. “That way you can sleep, and if it’s later, I can go with you,” he adds, and you snort back a laugh. It hurts your aching head but anything feels better than the constant fog that’s plagued you all night. It almost feels strange to smile.
“Last time you went you couldn’t clip into the bike. You almost fell off.” It’s a hilarious memory - your fourth date had been to that infamous spin class - and he’d bravely agreed to go with you when you suggested it despite the clear apprehension on his face. Only as you stepped into the bustling studio did he admit he’d never actually tried a spin class before. I’m more of a runner, when I find the time, was his response, his cheeks turning red.
“I was a first timer!”
“Marcus, the bike wasn’t even moving,” you tease, tracing your fingers over his arms - the ones that are still holding you against him. You still aren’t sure what you did to deserve him, what he sees in you, especially now.
“You know I read some things earlier,” he says softly against your ear. “About how to help … when you start to feel like this. I don’t want you to end up in the bathroom at 4 AM while I’m sleeping, Sweetheart.”
You lift your head from his chest, hastily swiping the back of your hand against your face. Your mind shifts back to a few hours ago, when you heard him tapping away at his computer. You assumed it was work related, or in truth you barely could see beyond your thoughts to ask exactly what he was doing. It never even occurred to you to do so. “You did?”
“Yeah. Just some articles and stuff but I found some other things to look over this week. I have a lot of learning to do, but I want to be able to help. Have some strategies we can try, you know?” He laces one of his big hands through yours, stares at your entwined fingers. “If that’s something you’re comfortable with.”
He’s such a good man, proving himself time and time again. How someone could look past his heart, his kindness, is something you might never understand. You squeeze his fingers, shift out from between his legs and haul yourself to your feet. “Okay.” You’ve never actually shared this side of you with anyone else, some days you deny it to yourself too. It’ll get better, it’s just a phase. If I were just better, smarter, the list went on yet somehow the right words never fit.
But acceptance didn’t come easy. It never has.
“I love you,” is what he tells you once you’re back in bed. He snakes two arms around you as he guides you back to bed and tucks the covers around you both. You let him curl himself around you, chest pressed against your back and his chin over your shoulder. He takes your hand in his own, kisses your cheek as your eyes flutter closed. “And you’re not alone. We’ll face this together. You and me.”
You believe every word as you fall asleep in his arms.