Chapter Text
Initially, he wouldn’t place what had roused him from his slumber. He had always been a light sleeper—being a soldier in war did that to a person—so it was his instinct to stretch out his senses to find the disturbance. There were no quiet footsteps or the distinct presence of another in his room nor a shadow under his door. Everything seemed to be in place, but nothing was amiss that he could find.
His lights suddenly flickered on and then went off once… three times in rapid succession and once long… once. It took only twice more of this pattern for him to realize exactly what message the Library was giving him.
Eve.
He threw off his covers and barely had the presence of mind to put on slippers and grab his robe before he was out the door heading to the room that Eve had claimed not a month prior. It was not far from his own—only two doors down from him with the middle room being Flynn’s when he had the chance to return to rest. It was the most protected room, therefore as Caretaker and Guardian it only made sense for them to be on either side of him in case of an invasion (as unlikely as it was to be what with the new security systems Ezekiel had tediously put in place). To his knowledge, the Head Librarian was slumbering inside, unaware of the turmoil his Guardian was likely in.
A distant part of him wondered why the Library woke him instead of Flynn when the two obviously sought comfort from one another during such moments. He recalled once going to rouse Flynn upon the man’s request and had found him and Eve curled around one another protectively. The sight was new, but it wasn’t exactly surprising. He’d seen over the past few years exactly how close they were and how far they were willing to go to protect one another. For them to be there for one another to chase away nightmares only seemed natural.
He knocked on Eve’s door and called out to her. When he was met with silence, a sharp panic went through him as he imagined infinite possibilities of what was happening behind the door. Each was more despondent, more terrifying and more gruesome than the last. He tried knocking and calling for her once more before deciding he would enter with or without permission.
The door that was normally locked opened with ease—likely thanks to the Library—and he shot inside fully prepared to fight a horde of monsters. What he found was a less frightening, but no less alarming sight.
Eve was tangled in her sheets as she tried to escape, gasping breaths choking into the occasional sob. It was clear to him that she was not conscious, but rather caught in the throes of a nightmare. Her wordless cries gave him no hint as to what it could be, but he knew as long as Eve had been in the military and in the Library, she had accumulated plenty of memories to have nightmares about.
He closed the door after himself and rushed forward with her name on his lips, hesitant to grab her to wake her. He could withstand any blows she gave him, but if what she saw in her mind was about being grabbed, he didn’t want to make the night terror follow her into the waking realm. Instead, he called her name insistently, urging her to wake up and reminding her that all was well.
Her brilliant eyes snapped open with unadulterated terror and she surged forward to grab the front of his shirt and cocked back her fist.
“Eve! It’s just me,” he insisted in as gentle a manner as he could manage.
Recognition flashed in her eyes, and she withdrew sharply. “I-I’m sorry.”
He shook his head in exasperation. “There’s nothing to forgive.”
She shifted uncertainly and refused to meet his gaze. There was a sense of shame from her that he didn’t like but understood. She, like him, was proud and didn’t like to be vulnerable. Eve would never allow herself to be vulnerable unless she completely trusted a person and—somewhere along the way before they fell in love—he was one of them. It was a gift that he treasured because he’d seen how guarded she was with herself let alone her heart.
“May I hold you?” He asked softly.
She immediately moved forward, and he responded by hugging her close as her face burrowed into his chest. Her hug was tight, and hands bunched in his robes as if she were afraid she’d drown if she let go. It begged the question of what had plagued her sleep that affected her so.
As he rubbed her back and pressed kisses to her hair, he tried to think of how he could make her feel safe in this new environment. As much time as she had spent in the Library, it was vastly different from being in her familiar apartment. It was unfamiliar and, therefore, unsafe to a sleep-addled brain, most especially after a nightmare that was enough to leave her shaking in his arms.
“Please don’t leave,” she whispered.
“You’ll have me for all of your life,” he promised.
She lifted her face towards his and his breath caught in his chest seeing her teary powder blue eyes and reddened cheeks glistening. Eve looked so vulnerable that he wanted nothing more than to protect her from the demons that plagued her in her sleep.
“I meant… stay the night with me? Please?”
In the face of her desperation he was weak. “As you wish.”
He slipped under the covers beside her and had her on his chest as soon as his back hit the mattress. He held her close and lifted his chin so it could rest on the top of her head when she settled.
Her hand found his and she linked their fingers. “Thank you…”
“You’re welcome.”
“I feel safer with you here,” she confessed quietly.
He squeezed her gently. “I’m glad. I want you to feel safe.”
“Do you feel safe with me?”
“Incredibly,” he confessed. “You are one of the most fearsome Guardians I’ve ever met.”
“Are you just saying that because you want to stay in my bed?” She teased.
He grinned into the darkness. “No, but it’s not an unwelcome side effect of telling the truth.”
“I’d give a clever retort, but I’m too tired,” she grumbled.
“Then rest,” he sighed in fond exasperation. “I’ll be here when you wake.”
“Okay.”
Soon her breath became deep and steady with sleep and Jenkins relaxed. He stayed up for several hours, wanting to be sure that she would not wake up from a nightmare uncomforted, but he found that it was unnecessary.
The next night, he was reluctant to overstep any boundaries and had intended to sleep in his room when just as he’d turned down the covers, there was a knock on his door. He opened it to find Eve standing in her pajamas, wide eyes full of hope.
“Can I stay the night with you tonight?”
He didn’t even think before saying “Yes.”
The resulting smile from her made a thousand sunsets seem pale and lifeless.
She slipped into his room further and looked around curiously despite having been in the room a number of times for late night conversations. Granted, none of those conversations led to her staying the night in his bed. It felt intimate in a way the previous night hadn’t (likely due to the fact that he was comforting her after a nightmare and hadn’t really thought about the implications of staying the night in her room). There was no other reason for Eve to be in his room than the fact she wanted to spend the night beside him.
As Eve slipped into the bed beside him, he was filled with warmth at the thought that one day this would likely become their new normal. He looked forward to waking up in the morning and his first sight being (for the second night in a row) the woman that held his heart.
“Your bed’s so comfortable,” she sighed as she sank in and rolled over to throw an arm around his middle. “I don’t know how you get out.”
“A great deal of self-discipline,” he assured with a quiet chuckle as his arm went around her shoulders. “However, that self-discipline will be tested in the morning.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder to look at him curiously. “Why’s that?”
“Because I won’t need to rise from my bed to see you,” he answered with a lovesick grin.
To his delight, her face flushed as she complained. “You old flirt.”
His smile was unrepentant. “You love it.”
“I do.” She leaned forward and kissed him softly. “Now, let’s go to sleep. Stone wanted to make breakfast for everyone and there’s no way he’s not gonna come knocking down our door if we’re not down there by eight.”
He groaned quietly. “The things I do for the sake of our resident chef’s delightful concoctions.”
Eve laughed and resettled after he turned off the light on his nightstand.
To both of their surprises, there was frantic knocking on the door in the middle of the night. Both were alert and ready to face whatever disaster there was, but Jenkins was the first to get to his feet and rush to the door.
Flynn stood there frantic and in his pajamas with a robe hastily thrown over. “Jenkins! Eve’s missing!”
Jenkins’ hackles lowered and he let out a sigh of relief that no real emergency was happening. “Calm yourself, Mr. Carsen.”
Eve stepped forward with a concerned expression that turned to surprise when she was lifted into a twirling hug by the excitable Librarian. “Whoa! Hey, Flynn. I’m fine.”
He lowered her to the ground and kept his arms around her. Even from where Jenkins was standing, he could see the man was trembling.
“It’s okay,” Eve assured, glancing up at Jenkins with a question in her eyes.
“Yes?” Jenkins prompted.
“Could Flynn stay with us?”
It didn’t take much for Jenkins to gather that their Librarian had had a nightmare about Eve—likely one of their many near-death experiences—and that he, like Eve occasionally had need of, needed to sleep in her presence to assure himself she was alive. Understanding this, Jenkins closed the door and herded the pair to his bed.
“I-I don’t want to intrude,” Flynn insisted.
“Be quiet and lie down,” Jenkins groused while gently guiding Flynn to the center of the bed as Eve went around to the other side.
“I-I don’t think—”
Eve pushed him down by his chest. “It’s fine, Flynn.”
Jenkins laid down on Flynn’s other side and got comfortable on his back. “Just rest.”
“Oh… Okay.”
There was a distinct discomfort from Flynn beside him and he realized that he had not ever reached out to the man quite like he’d reached out to the other Librarians. He had always kept himself a respectable distance from the Librarians of years past and the habit kept up with their Head Librarian. He recognized he needed to bridge the gap between them not only because he was Eve’s best friend, but because the man had made an effort. He remembered when Flynn had stepped forward and apologized for what he said while under the influence of the Apple of Discord, how the man was vulnerable and guilt-ridden. They had an amicable and professional relationship after that, but it was always stilted. Jenkins only now realized it was because of his own reluctance.
“You’re safe now,” he assured the younger man, reaching out and patting his wrist. “We’ll be here when you wake.”
He felt the body next to his relax and the hand under his turn to squeeze his hand in brief appreciation.
The two mortals slipped off to sleep quickly, leaving him to ponder what this latest crop of Staff had done to him.
There had been Librarians and Guardians in the past that he had grown close to and loved, but in recent decades he’d hardened his heart and done what he could to distance himself from all Librarians and Guardians. He knew of them due to Charlene’s insistence, had tended to several in their unconscious states when he was the only one available to retrieve them after a particularly gruesome battle and kept to his Annex as much as he could.
These hoodlums (and he used the term fondly) were much more than reluctant associates as they had been in the beginning. The walls he kept around his heart began to crumble as time went on. It crumbled with every excited question, every quiet moment of vulnerability, every joke and every moment he spent with these beautiful souls. He had no idea exactly when they all sneaked into his heart, but he knew now that he would do anything for them to be safe and happy. He loved each and every one of them with a fierceness he had not felt since he was much, much younger.
He startled when an unfamiliar arm was thrown over his chest and hand covering his neck. When he looked down, Flynn had turned over onto his stomach with one arm protectively thrown over Eve whose arms covered his torso even in her sleep. It was the positioning of their hands on one another that made his realize they were covering one another’s vital organs.
It made his chest tighten with emotion as he came to the realization that Flynn—for all his emotional distance—saw Jenkins as someone to protect, as a friend. He did for Jenkins what he did for Eve out of pure instinct despite the fact that Jenkins was the least vulnerable in the room.
Jenkins shook his head and smiled down at the sleeping Librarian. “What am I to do with you?”
There was no answer, but he hadn’t expected one.
He turned to his side to let Flynn’s hand drop to the mattress and used his arm to cover what Eve could not.
As he drifted to sleep, he found that he had a new appreciation for one Flynn Carsen.