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Osiris wakes a passenger in his own body, and his heart goes cold with dread. His eyes dart in the darkness; he tries to flex his fingers, but they are numb and unresponsive on the sheets. A great, dark weight is upon him, heavy and suffocating, and although he clenches every muscle in his chest, he cannot even muster the voice to scream. At his side, Saint snores gently.
Then the sleep paralysis passes, and Osiris flings the blankets aside and crosses the room to wrench the curtains open. Sunlight streams through the window and washes over his skin. He inhales deeply, tasting the scents of the City.
He is home. His body is his own—and so are its nightmares.
From the bed, he hears a groan. "Osiris," Saint grumbles, flinging a hand over his eyes. "It is too early. Come back to bed."
"No," says Osiris. Now that his body is his own again, he finds himself reluctant to consign it to sleep. "I'll make breakfast."
"It is too early for breakfast," Saint replies, but there's no heat in it. He stretches his arms above his head until his joints creak, then he swings his legs over the side of the bed and heaves himself to his feet. He is nude but for a pair of soft sleeping shorts, which somehow only emphasize the nakedness of the rest of him.
Osiris has always admired the seeming solidity of Saint's body—the sculpted musculature, the neat joints, the unobtrusive screws countersunk so that the heads lie flush with his frame. On another morning, he might have delighted in running his hands over that familiar architecture, waking Saint by degrees to pleasure.
Today, Osiris throws on a robe and goes to make toast and coffee.
It's Saint who makes Osiris's burnt bread into a meal, setting out margarine and marmalade and onion chutney. He slices strawberries and places them on the bread in neat ranks. "Sweet," Osiris observes.
"Don't tell me you've lost your taste for marmalade," says Saint. It's teasing, but Osiris can't help hearing the undercurrent of warning in it. Are you the Osiris I knew? Saint doesn't ask. How would I know if you were?
"I never had a taste for marmalade," Osiris replies, when he realizes how long he's stood aching at those unasked questions. "I tolerated yours."
"Bah!" Saint leans in to press a kiss to Osiris's temple, and for a moment, Osiris revels in the closeness and heat of him. "Then I will keep it all to myself."
"And what will I eat?"
"Your pride, you fat-headed old man," says Saint fondly, and sets more bread to toasting. While Saint fries eggs and Osiris slices tomatoes, Saint hums a song that sounds nothing like Savathûn's.
The more Osiris listens, though, the less sure he is of that.
They sit across from each other in the early slanting sunlight and eat their breakfast, passing the jar of onion chutney back and forth across the table. Steam unfurls over their coffee. Saint drinks, then swipes the back of his hand over his mouth.
The sight of coffee lying wet upon Saint's lip should not rouse something in Osiris, but it does. He finds himself reaching across the table to wipe away the last drops, and Saint stills at his touch. Osiris feels more than hears his low indrawn breath.
"Osiris," Saint whispers. His eyes are bright with what Osiris recognizes dimly is longing. His expression is soft and open, held in abeyance, waiting to break into the keen sweetness of desire.
Osiris withdraws his hand and presses the pad of his thumb to his own lips.
"Osiris," Saint says again, and in his voice is an ember of tenderness that has never yet been quenched. "You will be the death of me."
"I was the death of you."
"You know what I mean." Saint glances down at his coffee cup, still half-full. "When I thought I had lost you, I would have died a thousand deaths to have you in my arms again. I would have torn the galaxy apart for you."
He does not say which time he means—when Osiris lost himself in the corridors of time, or when the Witch Queen wore his face and kissed Saint's mouth and lay beside him in their bed. They both understand that it does not matter whether it was this time, or the last time, or the uncountable times that may lie in their future. Wherever Osiris goes, Saint will follow.
Whenever he is lost, Saint will find him.
Osiris lays his hand upon the table, and Saint reaches out to clasp it. "I … have had bad dreams," Osiris admits after a moment. "I used to dream of the Light. When I lay in meditation, the Light would find me, and I would bask in its radiance. Now—now, I see only darkness. I try to reach out for the Light, but my hands are no longer my own."
Saint makes a listening noise and turns Osiris's hand over in his own. "Once, the Light had chosen you. Now, my bird, you must choose the Light. Turn away from these shadows. They have no hold over you anymore."
It isn't so easy as choosing the Light, Osiris wants to say. Once, choosing the Light meant choosing Sagira, meant choosing the elemental possibility that ran through his veins; it meant choosing the Last Safe City and its Guardians. It meant taking a side in that primal conflict that always, always ends with humanity's triumph or its annihilation.
The Light is now foreclosed to him. He may still have a part to play in the drama of Light and Darkness, but it cannot be the part that he knows.
His body is no longer Savathûn's, but neither is it the Traveler's.
For the first time in his long unlife, it is truly his own.
"I will need to meditate more on it," says Osiris at last. He presses Saint's hand in his own and rises from the table, gathering up their dishes and taking them to the sink.
There, he hesitates. One last strawberry is waiting on the cutting board, next to the open jar of marmalade.
He reaches for it before he can second-guess himself and pops it into his mouth. By now, it is warm and soft, and it melts into tart sweetness on his tongue.
When he looks at Saint again, mirth is shining in his eyes. "I thought you had no taste for strawberries and marmalade," Saint teases.
"Perhaps I am not the man I once was," Osiris answers. "Perhaps I am becoming a new one."