Chapter Text
Bleary eyes blink once, twice, trying to push the unshed tears back, the blur of the world sinking in, the darkness creeping along with it. Exhaustion weighs at his body like quicksand, threatening to drag him under if he doesn't force himself to focus.
All the same, his head feels heavy, like he's wearing a hat made out of bricks and his eyelids are weighted by steel. He huffs a little bit into the soft linen of the white dress shirt under his face, nosing against the starched collar. Trying to ignore the repetitive movement behind his back, no doubt a knife being cleaned, inspected and polished. A set of them had been laid out on the coffee table when he had been begrudgingly accepted into a warm, if moderately unyielding, lap.
"Mira, solo cierra tus ojos y vete a dormir." The rumbling words are felt as much as heard but Steven just shakes his head, grumbles quietly as his gaze flickers to the front door of the loft before tiredly falling back to the back of the couch. A snort sounds from the body under his own, Steven's fingers toying with the black tie, trying to keep focused enough to stay awake. "Sinceramente, no sé quién es más terco, tú o él."
"Jake..." The name slips out in protest, but even his voice is tired, weak. He can't sleep till he knows, can't close his eyes until he's *sure*. Sometimes he envies the New Yorker's detachment, but he knows for all it helps in times of crisis, it's not what he's made for, not all the blessing it looks from the outside. It had taken ages for him to warm up even enough to let Steven sit close in a way that wasn't tinged with some sort of antagonism. He's decently sure if he wasn't so absolutely delirious with lack of sleep he'd never have been welcomed into his lap in the waking hours of the day, either.
"Marc puede cuidarse solo, estoy seguro que está bien." Steven huffs, because his Spanish is mediocre at best, but he understands enough-- knows Jake well enough now, he thinks, to get the gist of it. His fingers curl slightly as he grips the fabric, wrinkling the back of his shirt with no mind to the fact that he'll be irritated about it later.
He whines, low in his throat, something pained enough that the repetitive polishing and sharpening behind him gets a pause, cloth coated in high-grit stilled if only briefly before resuming like words had came to him and he chose to ignore them.
Despite all his struggles, the world wins, as it often does. His head dropping down into a familiar smell, comforting but not quite right. Not what he wants tonight, but... safe all the same. The world crumbles into darkness, rocked to sleep by the slow, repetitive movements and the steady, frighteningly even breaths.
Two hours later, exhaustion keeps him from rousing when the front door opens, duffle bag lowered down onto the floor, nudged out of the way with a muddy boot. An amused, gruff sound escaped. "Took longer than expected."
"Vale, bueno, ¿quieres cambiarte por mí?" Mismatched eyes turned onto Marc for several seconds and the man huffs and plants his hands on his hips.
"You going out?" He's already sliding into place, light touches trying to pry the sleeping figure off of the now entirely rumpled shirt and man below it.
"Si."
A flicker of a glance, something a little more meaningful, because if there's one thing the mercenary was never good at, it was expressing his own emotions. But that's fine, sometimes there's a way around that. "Estoy seguro que te extrañará. You know?"
There's a lingering second of silence before a huff escapes, not quite a laugh not quite a sigh. "Si."