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It was two a.m. – or, at least, it had been two a.m. the last time Barry had managed to lift his head from his cluttered desk to glance at the clock. He had no way of knowing how much time had slipped away since then, his eyelids just as heavy as his head, desperate to fight off the headache that was brewing and the panic that was rising. All he could manage was a low, frustrated groan every couple of minutes, which was nothing to mark time by.
I’m going to fail. It was the sole and constant thought pinging around his head, immutable despite his best efforts to refocus on the annotated bibliography and flashcards open on the screen before him. I’m going to fail, and everyone back home was right, and nothing is going to be okay. Earlier in the night he’d even squeezed out a few tears on the subject, but right now he’d sunk into blithe acceptance. It didn’t matter that he’d been top of his class for the last three years, nor that he’d done well on previous exams in these courses – he was absolutely going to fail, and that was the end of it.
He’d reached the end of another long, painful groan when the door hinges squeaked behind him and a soft voice said, “Bar? You awake?”
The sound of Lup’s voice, which usually filled him with warmth and happiness, now made Barry press his eyelids together to block another volley of tears. They’d been together for about six months now, long enough for her injuries to heal and many wonderful memories to be made, but at times it all still felt a little surreal, like reality would snap back to itself at any moment and leave Barry alone once again. Somewhere, deep inside his rattled brain, he knew that Lup had seen him cry before, had seen him in much worse shape than now, but this was no time for logic. Between the sleep deprivation and the certainty of failure, he could only think she can’t see me like this, because she’ll be disgusted and leave me for sure.
Squeezing his eyes made very little difference, as it turned out. A muffled sob broke his lips, and the door hinges squeaked again behind him before a gentle hand smoothed across his shoulder blades.
“Babe? You doing okay?”
The pressure of her hand on his back caused whatever resolve he had to crumble, and he turned his face into her stomach with another raw sob. Lup responded with a surprised grunt, but quickly brought her arms around his shoulders and held him tight as he cried.
“Oh, babe, it’s okay, I’m here and it’s gonna be okay. What’s more helpful, me staying quiet or me chatting ‘til you calm down, hmm? Nod for quiet and shake your head for chatting.”
Through his worry Barry recognized the familiar words, the signal they’d often ask of each other when they were particularly stressed or upset beyond cogency. He was generally a silence kind of guy, Lup’s anchoring touch more than enough to draw him back out of the dark, but the oppressive quiet of his study room felt like its own kind of ear-ringing after so many hours at the desk. Tentatively, he shook his head, and felt Lup’s arms give him a reassuring squeeze.
“Of course, babe, coming right up. Let’s see, what’s been going on today, hmm. Well for starters, that girl who keeps coming into the writing center that Luce has a big nerd crush on? I ran into her at the coffee shop and struck up a conversation and she’s absolutely perfect for our girl. Her name’s Maureen – actually, you might have seen her around the technomagical lab building before, I think she’s younger than the rest of us though – and she’s studying planar science and interplanar magic and seems juuuuuust a little manic but in a friendly way, ya know? AND apparently she’s in the middle of adopting her cousin’s toddler, Lucas, so she’s going to be a full-time grad student and a single parent—which, frankly, completely fits her vibe, I talked to her for maybe fifteen minutes and it fully seems like she wants to do everything on earth and beyond. Lucretia would be a nervous wreck about it but I think she’d be a good stepmom-like figure, don’t you think? Of course we have to get her to actually talk to Maureen first, so like, one step at a time.
“Hmm, what else? Krav and ‘Ko are having some big argument about what to do with the third bedroom now that Kravitz’s mom is letting him have a full office at her mortuary, they’ve both been super huffy about it all week. I think Taako even spent the night with Mags and Julia the other night to ‘prove a point’, but I’m pretty sure it was one of the nights Kravitz worked overnight so he wasn’t even there for anything to be proven to him? And honestly the whole thing is extra dumb because I think we all know that whatever Angus wants is what’s going to happen, so it’s probably going to be some sort of murder-mystery library or something.”
Barry, tears drying on his cheeks and sobs finally subsiding, gave a little chuckle at that, and Lup gave him another squeeze at the sound. She hummed to herself for a moment, the vibrations spreading pleasantly through his face and arms, before she started again, quieter.
“And you know the other thing? There’s this rad guy I’m seeing, smarter than anyone I know, a little hard on himself sometimes but so, so good at the things he loves, and the best part? He loves me. And I love him back, more than any legend or fairytale happily-ever-after, because that’s not how it really is, ya know? I love him as much for the panic attacks and sloppy drunk nights and sinus headaches and insomnia as I do for the candlelit dinners and ocean sunsets and airport reunions, and I know he feels the same. We’re always gonna get through whatever life throws at us because we have each other, and no matter how scary or stressful or fucking crazy things get, I’ve got his back.”
He felt his eyes getting misty again, albeit for a pleasanter reason, but blinked the tears away as he managed to say, “Wow, babe, should I be jealous of this guy? It sounds like I should be jealous of this g—hey!”
Lup cut him off with an indignant noise and a quick jab to the ribs, which tickled more than it hurt. Laughing, Barry loosened his grip on her waist and looked up at her. She smiled back sleepily, a missed smudge of eyeliner in the outer crease of her right eye and stray glitter catching the lamp light across her cheekbones. She was perfect, and she loved him.
“Hi.”
“Hi yourself, babe. Feeling a little better?”
Barry exhaled heavily, bonking his forehead on her stomach once more for good measure. “A little, thanks to you. Sorry you had to see me like that.”
“Mm-mm-mm, nope, no apology necessary, Bar. You’d do the same for me and in fact have on multiple occasions.” She brought her hand up and cupped his face, smoothing a lock of hair away from his eyes. “Sometimes loving someone means reminding them that it’s okay to freak out, but aaaaaalso reminding them that they’re very smart and capable and things are going to be okay. Now come on, sleep for a little bit, it’ll help.”
He turned his head towards his laptop, ready to protest and reference the bibliography he needed to finish, but after catching a glimpse of the desk clock reading 3:47am the words died in his throat. “Oh. Yeah, yikes, okay. You’re right.”
“Of course I’m right, c’mon, this is me we’re talking about here.” Lup grinned, tugging gently on his arm to pull him from his chair.
Barry went willingly, following the promise of her warm embrace until he was once again wrapped in her arms in the bed that was more ‘theirs’ than ‘his’. All the while, Lup kept humming, some abstract little nonsense tune that nonetheless ironed out the stress wrinkles in his forehead. The tune sounded like I love you; the gentle fingers removing his glasses and folding them onto the beside table felt like I love you; the soft breath on the side of his face felt like I love you, too. And his tired mind, succumbing to oblivion feeling safe and held and maybe, just maybe, like he wasn’t a failure, was powerless to do anything but echo the same—
“I love you.”