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It’s just a nightmare.
That’s what’s tickling the back of his mind when Marc awakes with a gasp trapped in his tightening throat, sweat licking down his spine and his heart beating heavy in his chest.
It was just a nightmare, and as he listens to the sound of Layla stirring beside him; the soft rumple of sheets moving and her confused fumbling for the lamp that sits on her side of the bed, the nightmare in question starts to ebb away, retracting itself from the corner of his mind, he searches for Steven and for Jake.
He finds nothing.
“Are you okay?” Layla’s voice comes before he can see her. The quick flip of the switch and her face is bathed in a soft orange glow. Her brows are pinched together, her eyes are barely open, she looks tired but concerned still.
Marc clears his throat before speaking, unable to trust his voice. “Yeah,” he whispers, the room feels so quiet. “I’m sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep, honey.”
Layla makes a noise in the back of her throat, like she isn’t so convinced. She moves and the sheets fall around her waist. She finds his hand between hers, and that’s when she suddenly starts to sober out of her sleepiness.
“Your… your hands are shaking, Marc,” she says in disbelief. Her mouth is drawn into a frown. “Baby, what happened?”
Marc stares at her for a moment. Wonders how he got so damn lucky.
He lets out a watery sounding laugh, using his free hand to scrub at his face.
“Just a nightmare,” he croaks. He feels so small right now, like he could disappear between the folds of the sheets and never be found again. “About… Khonshu.”
He half expects a gust of wind to blow through the room at the mention of his name.
The room remains still, however.
Layla squeezes his hand between hers. It’s a comforting gesture.
“You wanna talk about it?” She asks, voice gentle, it’s so easy for Marc to feel embraced by it, even if he has a habit of pushing away, Layla does that effortlessly for him.
“Um. Kinda,” he says, feeling a bit awkward. Talking about feelings and past traumas and current traumas was something Marc would still consider a work in progress.
Ever since defeating Harrow and then discovering Jake, it’d been a pretty slow burn to finding his footing with Layla. They’d talked and they’d cried and they’d laughed and they’d argued like hell. But in the end Marc had broke down to her, there in Steven’s kitchen in the dead of night, sat on his knees as she’d perched on the edge of the bed, and he’d told her that he didn’t want a divorce. That he wanted to try again, if she’d let him.
And luckily for him, she had been willing to give it another go.
But it was still new territory for him to strip back all those protective layers he’d spent so long wrapping around himself. But her learning about Steven and about Jake had made that whole process a little less painful.
“Just some vague stuff about past missions,” he answers her with a shrug. The adrenaline is slowly being zapped away, and Layla must sense it, because she leans forward and presses a slow, warm kiss against his shoulder.
He swallows thickly, a stale taste lingers in the back of his mouth. “Just him, in my head.” He shudders. “I sometimes think he gets in there when I’m sleeping on purpose just to freak me out, y’know?”
Layla doesn’t pull away when she mumbles against his sleeve. “How dare he.”
Marc hums. His eyes suddenly feel heavy in his skull and his heart has returned to a normal rate in his chest, no longer rattling his ribs.
“Think you can sleep now?” Layla asks him, pulling away, her hand is still wrapped around his.
He’s able to give it a quick, reassuring squeeze.
“Yeah,” he croaks. “Thank you.”
She gives him a sleepy, lopsided grin. “I’m right here, okay?”
Neither of them say anything else as they settle back down, her hand in his still as they drift off, Marc wonders to himself how he ever allowed himself to believe that Layla needed protecting.
He wasn’t her savior, and her neither his. Protecting each other was a game of give and take in a marriage, and here in their bed, as he listens out to the sound of her breathing evening out, does he realise that Steven was right: no matter what, he does have Layla.