Work Text:
“Steve?! Steve, where are you?”
Murph whirled around in circles amid the clouds of dust. The cave collapse had happened without warning, huge chunks of rock cascading from the ceiling. Murph had bolted for the nearest tunnel exit, and Steve should have been just behind them, but now he was nowhere to be seen.
“Steve?”
Murph's voice bounced back in a splintered echo but got no reply. The tunnel they'd emerged from was completely sealed off. It must have been at least a ton of rubble that fell. Impossible to shift in time to save anything underneath. Panic roiled in their stomach and their heart twisted into knots.
“Steve, answer me!”
Murph slapped their hands against the wall of rock and strained to listen, but all they could hear was a high-pitched whine in their ears.
“STEVE!”
Their voice cracked on the single syllable. If there were still scouts down here below the lake, they would certainly have heard the shout, but Murph didn’t care. Only one person needed to hear it.
“Here!”
A pile of rocks behind Murph crumbled into pebbles with an orange glow of magic. Steve emerged from a second, smaller tunnel, a few hundred feet away from the one that collapsed. He was coated in silver dust and coughing heavily, but he was still on his own two feet as he stumbled towards them.
“Sorry,” he panted. “It came down right in between us. The tunnel was too unstable to dig through, I went back through the-”
The second half of his sentence was knocked out of him as Murph threw their arms around his shoulders and crushed him tight against their chest. The ice-cold stabs of fear in their gut were melted by a warm and heady wash of relief, and the rapid thaw left them feeling dizzy. They clung to him feverishly as their heartbeat knocked against his chest, and they felt his thump back in return, at half the pace.
“Hey,” Steve wheezed quietly. “You okay?”
Murph pulled away from the softness in his voice and grabbed his face in their gloved hand.
“Are you hurt?” they demanded. They turned his head this way and that, a little roughly in their haste, trying to find any injury. Steve went loose in their grip.
“No, I’m fine. Think I pulled my shoulder a bit, and something hit my head at one point, but I can still-”
Without asking, Murph pulled back his hair to reveal a shallow gash on his forehead, the blood turned to a claggy pink clay by the dust. They hissed in a sharp breath at the torn skin and their heart twisted again. Murph had seen more than their fair share of blood, probably gallons of it, but seeing Steve’s always frightened them in a way their own never did.
“It’s not that bad,” Steve tried to reassure them. “I-”
Steve was cut off for a second time when Murph, too distressed to act politely, clasped his face in both their palms and pressed their forehead against his. A tiny spark of magic glowed at their fingertips and a spell circle formed where their faces touched. Steve’s ears fluttered against their fingers as the injury was undone, a momentary spike of discomfort. They cradled him for far longer than they needed to, eyes squeezed tight shut, and when they opened them again, the only evidence he’d ever been hurt was a patch of clean skin amid the dust.
Their faces were still barely an inch from each other. The rocks had long since fallen to rest, and the cavern was completely silent save for two sets of shaky breathing. Steve’s eyes flickered between theirs, concerned and searching. At some point he’d put his hand on Murph’s side without them noticing, and now it was all they could feel. They poured their focus into it, if only to stop thinking about how close his lips were to theirs. They should let go and step away, job done, but something kept them locked in place.
“I’m glad you’re okay too,” he murmured. “For a second, when the rocks went down…I thought I lost you.” His voice was hoarse, like he’d been screaming too. Tenderly, he brushed a chunk of hair from Murph’s face, and as he tucked it behind their ear, his fingers grazed their skin and lingered there. His eyes met theirs, and for the briefest of seconds, Murph allowed the hungry, animal part of their brain to entertain an impulse.
Then their mind was flooded with an awful vision; the crumbling pile of rock in the tunnel, but this time with Steve’s mangled body crushed beneath it. Blood soaking into the clay and nothing they could do to save him. It was gone as soon as it appeared but phantom grief crushed their chest and a different kind of panic set in. Snapping to their senses, they let go of his chin and wrenched themself free from his hold. Heart still racing, they turned away so he couldn’t see their face.
“Don’t let that happen again,” they said, voice pulled taut. They pressed a fist against their breastbone to massage the pounding in their chest but it did little to dull the pain.
“Let what happen?” Steve sounded lost. “Did I- did I do something wrong?”
“No,” they snapped. “No,” more gently this time. “Just…” They looked over their shoulder to see him staring at them, wide-eyed and worried. His flushed face under all the dust made him look ghostly. “Just stay where I can see you.”
Murph set off towards the opposite side of the cavern, hoping to find an exit tunnel. Steve stared after them in bewilderment, his fingers absent-mindedly touching the mark on his forehead. Then he shook himself, dust showering onto the cave floor, and took off after Murph, murmuring something under his breath. When he caught up to them, he made sure to stick to their side, well within their eyeline.