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Vaggi was grateful she didn’t live up to the cliche of waking up from a nightmare by sitting upright and yelling.
Probably nobody actually did that. The closest she ever got was when she jerked up off her pillow one night.
Her heart was pounding, her head was spinning. She was sure she’d be shaking if she’d been standing up, and not buried under layer upon layer of linen, silk and cotton. And her back and shoulders were throbbing.
Her head fell back onto her pillow with a frustrated sigh. It hadn’t even been a particularly coherent dream! It had been a mixed up mess of the battle with the exorcists months back, except she was dodging blasts of Vox’s superweapon, and then Lute caught her from behind and tore her wings off. Again.
Except she didn’t, Vaggi reminded herself sternly. That was years ago. This pain was psychosomatic, or whatever the word was. She’d just gotten salt rubbed into all that by her wounds after defending the hotel, after helping Emily when her wing got mangled saving people from Vox, after being called out by Carmilla right in the middle of the mayhem.
Her wings were back, they were fine. There was no need to sit up and spread them just to make sure they were there. She’d dragged Charlie to an early bedtime after weathering the new rush on the hotel. Her beloved princess was fast asleep on Vaggi’s right, and she’d be - ha ha - damned if she woke…
She’d kept still, but Vaggi realized too late how fast and hard, and noisily, she was breathing. Charlie stirred next to her. The Princess of Hell wriggled across the mattress to slide her arm around Vaggi’s waist. “Y’okay Vaggi?”
Charlie’s voice was fuzzy and slurred, in a way that told Vaggi she wasn’t really awake. Vaggi felt herself grow heavy and boneless as the throbbing phantom pain began to subside. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Charlie nuzzled into Vaggi’s shoulder. “Sure?”
Vaggi smiled, turning her head to press her lips on Charlie’s forehead, “Uh-huh. I’m sure, babe.”
“M’kay,” Charlie mumbled, giving Vaggi a squeeze, “love you.”
“Love you too,” Vaggie said softly, sliding a hand over Charlie’s arm, where it was wrapped round her.
One of these days, Vaggi was going to have to work on herself, to make it so nightmares and flashbacks weren’t something she had to deal with so often. But the head counselor of the hotel needed her sleep first, and so did the manager.
Vaggi dozed off again with Charlie’s arm around her.