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It was a strange thing, to watch somebody sleep.
To watch a person's body go lax, all guards down. How peaceful it is. How vulnerable. Any armour or mask they might hide behind came off, softening them around the edges into something so very real and intimately human. When in such a state, you were putting yourself at the mercy of two things: the people around you, and your subconscious. Both, Vanessa knew, had equal capacity to inflict harm. For her, falling asleep required either complete trust in her surroundings, or to be so thoroughly exhausted that she had no choice than to let the unforgiving hands of sleep drag her under, regardless of the consequences that doing so might bring.
That was the position Luis was in now, asleep beside her in her bed. Her bed, that they were currently sharing. He was lying on his back, one arm draped loosely over his stomach, and his head lolled slightly to the side away from her.
This… was not how Vanessa expected her night to go.
It had started off as any other hangout they often had together. Ordering takeout, playing video games, chatting—the usual stuff. Except, as Luis was getting ready to depart, a strange sort of reluctance to see him go had overcame her (despite them seeing each other nearly every day). Without thinking, she had blurted that he should stay the night.
She didn't expect him to say yes; the suggestion was so sudden and impulsive and bold for her standards. But to her surprise, he agreed.
Yet then came the issue of sleeping arrangements. Both insisted that they should take the couch so the other can have the bed. But then Freddy, meaning well, asked why they didn’t just share her bed because she "did so all the time with Gregory" and "how was that any different" and she was too embarrassed to try and explain why it was different, so… here they were.
But honestly, it wasn't as awkward as she thought it would be. If anything, once she got over the initial embarrassment and ignored all the societal implications that came with sharing a bed as two adults, she could even say that it was nice.
Not counting the times when Gregory would crawl into her bed, or they'd both camp out on the living room floor with Freddy, sleepovers weren't something Vanessa had much experience with. Friends had been a scarcity for her growing up, and Luis was the first one she'd made in… years, really.
But friend didn't seem like an adequate enough word to convey everything that Luis meant to her. He was the first person in her adult life to ever treat her as an equal instead of a weirdo. Who noticed when something was actually wrong, and reached out instead of writing her off as a lost cause or more trouble than she was worth. Who had very nearly became just another victim of hers. Who now, in the wake of everything, had stayed beside her and she had earned the privilege of being able to call a best friend. He was up there as one of the most important people in her life.
Looking over at him once more, Vanessa couldn't help but just… stare. Watching the gentle rise and fall of his abdomen underneath the covers, and listening to the rhythmic puffs of air that escaped his nose. She couldn't see his face, but could imagine that he looked peaceful, with lips parted slightly and his dark brown, almost black curls tousled around his forehead more than usual and smushed against his temple where his head met the pillow.
Even with the multiple inches of space between them, she could feel the warmth his body radiated. The man was like a heater. Or maybe she was just cold. Gregory had said so often enough, flinching and complaining about it on occasion when she’d go to hug or otherwise touch him.
For a moment, she wondered what it would feel like to snuggle closer, to feel his arms around her and be a part of that warmth while she drifted off into dreamland. The thought was fleeting, and as quickly as it came, she shut it down.
She should be asleep, too, instead of lying there watching him like some kind of creep. But of course, it's always when you want sleep the most that it seems to allude you. Vanessa didn't know the time, but she estimated that it must have been at least an hour since they first bid their goodnights. Sure, she could check the clock on her nightstand, but didn't dare roll over to do so, even the tiniest shifting of the sheets or creak of the mattress seemed to resonate double, triple its volume in the silence of the night. So, she stayed perfectly still, not daring to move even an inch, because in that moment she honestly thought that she'd rather chew glass than risk disturbing him.
She too was acutely aware of every little thing her body did. Was her breathing too loud? Was her positioning unnatural? Could he hear the way her heart couldn't seem to quiet down?
But the thing that was causing her the most restlessness wasn't any of this. It was the disbelief that he was able to—willing to—fall asleep next to her in the first place.
It’d been a few weeks now since she had sat him down and explained the truth of what happened to her. The virus, Vanny, the murders… She’d been fully prepared for him to run; any sane person would’ve been repulsed by her story (assuming they even believed it in the first place).
But he didn’t. Not only did he stay by her side, believing her wholeheartedly, but he’d actually already suspected more of the truth than he’d let on. His first reaction hadn’t been horror, or disgust, or anything else she’d steeled herself for: it’d been empathy.
The two had only grown closer in the time sense. They’d been friends for months by that point (a feat already incredible enough to Vanessa, given their complicated history) but once her truth had been revealed, it was like an invisible barrier between them had been smashed down, allowing their bond to grow that much deeper. Luis had seen her, the true her. He knew of the terrible things she did and the darkness that had festered within her, and still chose this. To laugh at stupid jokes with her, to be a shoulder to cry on when the weight of her sins got too heavy, to persistently and stubbornly show up as a fixture in her life… and to sleep beside her, apparently.
It was one thing to hear him say that he trusted her, but to see him in such a vulnerable state as this? So at peace when she had every ability to slit his throat or stab his chest before he’d even realize anything was wrong? It just didn't make sense.
The darker, insecure thoughts began to form, encroaching on her mind like the beginnings of a poisonous tide rolling in. Maybe he only said yes to this sleepover as to not offend her. Maybe he had been scared of saying no. Maybe he was only pretending to be asleep, and was waiting for her to follow suit so that he could slip away and go back to his own apartment where he wouldn't have to worry about being murdered in his sleep. As much as a part of her knew those thoughts weren't true, that Luis trusted her… that awful voice was louder, and in the darkness of the night were able to overtake her better sense.
After all, it was more than just the barrier of sleep that separated them. It often felt as though he was in another world, one that she could only look into through glass. He had a life outside of the nightmare of Fazbear's and everything that came with it. Family. Friends. A shred of normalcy. It was a world that, despite her best efforts, she could never do more than pretend to be a part of.
His warmth that had just felt so close now felt miles away, not inches.
A mistake, this whole thing was nothing but a mistake. A sleepover? Who was she kidding, that was the sort of thing normal, not-insane people did. Not her. It was never her. People like her didn't get those sorts of luxuries.
Any of the fuzzy, pleasant feelings she'd felt earlier had since fizzled out, leaving behind a strange sort of heartache—almost loneliness. Finally prying her eyes from Luis—certain that she'd majorly overstepped a boundary by watching him sleep—she dared to let out the tiniest of sighs, then closed her eyes, praying that sleep would take her soon, too.
It's always when you want something the most that the universe decides to be a cruel judge and give you the exact opposite. Vanessa wanted nothing more than to have a peaceful, uneventful sleep so that she could get the night over with. So of course, she had to be plagued with one of the worst nightmares she'd had in weeks.
Bolting upright, her breathing came in shallow gasps. Subconscious bled into reality; she wasn't quite yet able to differentiate between what was real and what wasn't. At that moment, nothing felt more real than the vision of a broken and desecrated body, and the sensation of blood dripping off her hands with the pulsating of a still-beating organ clasped in it. She gripped her hands into her hair near her scalp instead, willing the sensation away.
Lucidity returned to her bit by bit, enough for her to recognise that it had been just that: a dream. But even so, that knowledge couldn't stop the wave of nausea that rolled over her, nor the small, broken whine that bubbled out of her throat. At the very least, she'd had enough experience with nightmares that she'd trained herself to not scream.
Then the mattress creaked beside her. “Ness— Ness?!" A man's voice, both heavy with sleep and edged in panic, whispered.
In the wake of her nightmare, she'd forgotten the crucial fact that she wasn't alone in her bed. She startled at the unexpected sound, nervous system still on high-alert, before her brain caught up with the present and she remembered who was beside her—and who she'd just woken up. Jerking her head to the side, she found herself looking into the concerned eyes of the very man who had just been lying lifeless on the floor at her feet in her dream.
"S-shit…" she gasped, unable to muster any other words. She squeezed her eyes shut, and clutched at her tight chest that still heaved with too-quick breaths.
"Woah, hey…" Luis murmured. She heard shifting, like maybe he was sitting up, then felt a hand rest on her back. It was a gentle, barely-there touch, like he wasn't quite sure he was allowed to touch her. "You’re… you're okay, you’re okay," he soothed, and began rubbing small circles with his thumb between her shoulder blades.
The initial shock of his presence soon passed, and she slumped, face crumpling. Part of her knew she should push his hand away, to roll over and tell him to go back to sleep. But she was too exhausted to protest against his comforting, and instead found herself leaning into it, relishing in the physical reminder that he wasn't dead.
The tightness in her chest began to recede, and in its place came a hot wave of shame, followed by the acute, miserable conviction that she didn't deserve his kindness.
She was well aware of how ridiculous she was being, that it was just a dream, that it wasn't real. But she was also keenly aware of how close they'd become to a scenario like the one she'd just dreamt up being reality. If she hadn't been transferred to the Pizzaplex when she did, thereby forcing her to cut contact with the man… she had no doubt in her mind that he wouldn't be here right now. Even now, firmly awake, she had trouble divorcing that outcome from reality.
"Do you… um, wanna tell me what happened?" Luis asked quietly as he let his hand drop, apparently gauging that she'd calmed down enough.
Vanessa swiped at her cheeks, hoping that he wouldn't notice the redness of her eyes in the dimness of the room. “Just a bad dream," she muttered, drawing away from him. "I’m sorry for waking you up. Go back to sleep.”
"Not with that answer I'm not," he retorted in a way that she knew left no room for argument. "Talk to me, okay? Tell me about your dream. I'm here now.”
She considered ignoring him, she really did, but if there was one thing she knew about Luis, it was that he wouldn't let the matter drop so easily. It was something she both hated and appreciated about him, and right then, she was leaning towards the former.
“Same as it always is," she huffed, pulling her knees up to her chin as she looked out over the familiar landscape of her room to ground her. "About… you know, her.” She didn’t have to elaborate on who "her" was, Luis knew. “And it was about you. Back when we both worked in the office together. She said you… you ‘got too nosy’ and needed to be taught a lesson. So she grabbed you by the throat and pinned you to the wall a-and—" She cut herself off, swallowing heavily. "Forget it, you don't need to hear this.”
“No, keep talking. Let it all out."
That was the last bit of encouragement she needed to break through what poor attempt at equanimity she had left. The rest of the story came tumbling out. “I— she told you that if you made a peep, she'd slit your throat. It— it wasn’t a quick death. She wanted you to suffer. I wrestled you to the ground and sat on your legs so you couldn’t move and used my knife to carve a rabbit face into your back. And then— and then I flipped you over so I could watch your face as I finished the job. You were still alive when I cut your heart right out of your chest," she nearly sobbed, catching herself just in time so as to not risk waking up any other members of the household.
Luis was silent for a moment, and in those few seconds she began to sorely regret ever opening her mouth to begin with. Then he let out a low, controlled breath. "Wow, that's… And you… You have dreams like this often?"
"Yeah." She sniffed. "Some are worse than others, and some are… memories. Sometimes I can't even remember them after waking up, and the only reason I know that it happened is a pit in my stomach. Usually I'm better at not freaking out like that though. I haven't, um, had one this intense in a while."
"That sounds awful," he said sympathetically. "But hey, listen, I'm fine, see? You didn't hurt me."
“I know you’re fine,” she hissed through gritted teeth, hating the tear slipped down her cheek as she did. “I know, I’m just being an idiot.”
Luis frowned—a look she never liked to see on him. "You're not being an idiot at all. Anybody would be shaken up by seeing something like that, dream or no."
“How?” The question bubbled out before she could stop it, and following it came every insecurity that had been crowding her mind not just that night, but had been brewing underneath the surface ever since they'd first rekindled their friendship. “How can you sit there and comfort me? How could you be okay with sleeping next to me? You know what I’ve done.”
"Because it wasn't you." He sighed gently. "We've been over this, Ness. I’m not afraid of you.”
She scoffed ruefully. “You should be.”
“Since when have I ever been one to listen to reason?”
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
Vanessa dropped her eyes to the floral patterns on her bedspread, filled with the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake some damn self-preservation into him. He didn't get it. He never did, when it came to her. He still thought that she was some… some sort of saint who could do and had done nothing wrong.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Luis repeated firmly. And before she could process what was happening, he grabbed her by her wrists, lifting her hands up to his neck and gently wrapped her fingers around it.
“Luis,” she whispered, mouth drying up, “what are you doing…?”
“You could kill me right now," he said, and there was an undercurrent to his tone, something weighty and solemn, that was so unlike him it was almost unnerving. "All you’d have to do is squeeze. I don’t doubt that you know the most effective spot to dig in your fingers to cut off my windpipe. I wouldn’t be able to scream or fight back.” He looked right into her eyes. “You could kill me right here, right now. And I’m still not afraid of you.”
Frozen, all she could do was stare back at him, into those warm brown eyes that shined with compassion and another emotion she didn’t dare try to put a name to. Dread seeped through her veins, cold and paralyzing, while blood coursed in her ears until it was the only thing that she could hear. He was the one with hands wrapped around his throat, and yet, she felt as though she couldn’t breathe.
Seconds passed, neither person moving.
His flesh was warm, and slightly prickly from stubble, she dimly noted. Beneath her fingers, his carotid arteries thrummed with a rapid tempo.
That last aspect was what finally broke her out of her paralysis. She swallowed. “Your pulse says otherwise.”
“Maybe I am a little bit nervous,” he admitted. “But it’s— um, it's not because I’m worried of you hurting me.” He let out a breathy laugh.
She squeezed, and that laugh got cut off. Not nearly enough to actually hurt him, but enough for him to feel it. She wanted him to feel it. She wanted a reaction, wanted to see the fear flash in his eyes, wanted to be proven right.
But he didn’t. Not an ounce of fear entered the gaze that was still calmly locked onto hers, and the stupid smile on his face—although strained—never faltered.
This man had put his life into her hands and didn’t flinch.
She tightened her grip, vision blurring. Why? Why wasn’t he reacting? Why didn’t he see her for the monster that she was? She wanted to squeeze harder, cut off the blood flow to his brain, dig her thumbs into his trachea until his eyes rolled back and his lips turned blue and his neck was a mosaic of bruises because maybe then he would finally see her for who she truly—
What was she doing?
The temptation dissolved and she released him, hands flying back to cover her own mouth instead.
“Oh g-god.” The words came out in a strangled whisper. Horrified, she curled away from him and in on herself. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what— I didn’t mean—”
“Ness—” Luis tried, a slight rasp to his voice.
“No!” she cried in a whimper, burying her face in her knees. “Get away from me.”
She couldn’t bear to lift her head, to see the hurt that would undoubtedly be on Luis’s face—a look that just seconds ago she had been seeking out. Her stunted breaths bordered on sobs as she curled herself tighter, tighter, tighter, pulse rushing in her ears like the crashing of a wave. What did she just do?
No, she knew exactly what she just did. For a moment, a brief, euphoric moment, she had wanted to hurt him. Did hurt him. No amount of blubbered “I’m sorry”’s or “I didn’t mean to”’s would change that.
Maybe she wasn’t Vanny anymore, but at the end of the day, how much difference did that make? Vanny was still a part of her, she was a part of Vanny. They were not opposites, but two sides of the same coin. Because the fact of the matter was, Vanny did not spawn from nothing. She had grown from a seed, one that the virus cultivated and nurtured until it grew and grew into something beautifully grotesque. It choked out any good that might’ve once existed within her like an invasive weed. Compassion, innocence, docility… none of those could survive where the shadows overtook.
But that seed had existed inside of Vanessa from the beginning, too. An ugly, shrivelled little thing with roots in her very soul, leeching its poison into her mind with sickly temptations of violence and despair.
It had always been there; the voices had only gotten louder in the wake of the virus.
A good person didn’t have that. A good person didn’t fantasize about strangling their best friend.
The real monster had always been her. All Glitchtrap had done was let that monster out of its cage.
And Luis could see that now. So really, hadn’t she done exactly what she wanted to? Stripped away that delusion of a bubbly, bright-eyed, innocent girl she was sure he still held about her.
Oh, Luis. Poor, naive Luis, still chasing the affections of a girl who had died long ago. Died the moment she put that accursed headset on.
Or maybe she had never even been there to begin with.
A shapeless noise rose from her throat as the weight of it all threatened to pull her under. She bit down on her lip to stop the sound, and it took all the strength she had left to not start full-on sobbing. But what right did she have to be the one hurting in this situation? None, that's what.
All she could do was hug herself tighter, rebuilding the barricades between her stupid emotions and the outside world that should have never came down.
“Ness…” Luis tried again.
"Just go away," she begged, barely even recognizing her own voice.
"Do you really want me to leave?" he asked quietly. He didn't sound upset, not exactly, just… defeated. "Because if that's what you want, I will. Just say the word."
Yes. The word dissolved in her throat on the way out. You should go. Leave, get as far away from me as you can. It's for your own good.
One word. That was all she had to say.
Leave.
Go.
"Stay." The word tore itself from somewhere deep inside her. And then, even more pathetically, she added, "Please."
I don't want to be alone.
The bed seemed to let out a sigh as he sat back down again. "Then I'm not going anywhere."
Nothing else happened for a minute. She only sat there in the middle of her bed, face in her knees, no longer even having the energy to cry. There was nothing there. She was but a shell of a girl, like a porcelain doll that had been shattered and put back together into an approximation of a person, and all it would take was the slightest wrong move to have it all come falling apart again. She didn't know if it was better or worse that Luis had listened to her pathetic cry. Either way, all she wanted was the mattress to swallow her up to not have to face him ever again.
“Vanessa, can you look at me?"
If there was anything Luis could have said to get her attention, it was that. She could probably count on one hand the amount of times she'd heard her actual name come out of the man's mouth. Against her desire to curl up and disappear from the world, she raised her head, just a tad.
Luis was smiling at her. A soft sort of smile, tinted in empathy. The kind that should be reserved for butterflies with injured wings and other such things that were worthy of being handled with care, not her.
“Hi," he said gently. And when that didn't elicit a response, he scooted closer to her, enough that their knees almost touched. "I don't know what's going through that head of yours, or what you think you did, but I promise you, I'm fine.”
She raised her head more, carefully studying him in the dim, golden glow that the fairy lights on her ceiling cast over the room. Sure enough, his neck was unblemished. No wounds, no bruises, not even a red mark. But hadn't she just…?
Fuck, she was losing her mind.
“But I…" she struggled to get the words out as her mind reacquainted to this reality. "I-I could’ve hurt you.”
“Exactly!" He replied with a nod, as if this was the very answer he'd been looking for. "You could’ve hurt me; it was completely within your power to do so. But you didn’t. You stopped yourself. Don’t you see how strong that makes you?"
“A good person wouldn’t fantasize about strangling someone!" she cried bitterly.
Undeterred, he put a hand on her knee. “A bad person wouldn’t be worried about being bad."
She stared down at the hand, knowing that the smart, safe to do would be to push it away and put up those walls again.
Instead, she opened her mouth.
“S-sometimes I’m messing around with Gregory and I wonder about what it would feel like to snap his neck. What… what his face would look like the exact moment he realizes we aren’t playfighting anymore. Or how long it would take for the light to leave his eyes if I took one of our kitchen knives and stabbed it between his third and fourth ribs,” she admitted thickly. “And— and I’m terrified. I don’t wanna hurt him, o-or Freddy, or you. But I feel like it’s only a matter of time until I lose control. Bad things always happen when people get close to me.”
"Oh, Ness…" whispered Luis, and his voice somehow felt softer than the cotton sheets that surrounded them. "That can't be true. Because you are one of the best things to ever happen to me."
The declaration cut deep and struck some part of her that was so seldom exposed that it felt raw, like touching a wound, and caused her breath to hitch so hard it almost hurt.
In response, Luis grabbed her shoulders. Slowly, giving her ample time to move away if she wanted to. She didn't, offering up no resistance to being pulled in. He hugged her, tentative at first, but his hold grew firmer as she all but melted against him. Their heads rested in the crook of each other's necks like they belonged there. And maybe they did; she'd believe it. All of her sorrows felt small in his embrace. A few more tears squeezed past her lashes because evidently her body had found something new to be overwhelmed by, only for them to get soaked up by his shirt as if they never happened.
The voice in her head telling her to push him away had gone very quiet.
"Listen," he spoke into her hair, "I'm not gonna sit here and tell you to 'just ignore those thoughts', because I know it's not that easy, and I can only imagine how distressing they are for you. But I will tell you that they don't define you as a person. What does, is your actions. And you know what I see? I see an incredible girl who always strives to put others first, even if it's to her own detriment. Who once cried because she saw a puppy that was 'too cute'. Who volunteered to take in a kid even when she wasn't sure she could take care of herself, because she couldn't bear to leave him to fend for himself any longer. Who risked life and limb to get a new body for Freddy. Who right now, is so distraught by the mere idea of hurting someone that she's in tears. That is who you are," he told her with absolute conviction. "I lo— You, uh, mean a lot to me, okay? And it… it kills me to see how hard you are on yourself. I promise you, you're not a monster. Not to me, not to Gregory, not to anybody."
Drawing back slightly, he gently took her hand, and pressed it to his chest, right above his heart.
"Feel that?" he whispered. "I'm alive, and I'm not going anywhere, I promise. You haven't hurt me."
Through the thin material of his t-shirt, she could feel the heat of his skin, and beneath it, past the firm muscle and connective tissue and his ribcage, the steady rhythm of his heart tucked safely in his chest, not bleeding out in her palm. She let her hand rest there for another moment, then reluctantly moving it away from his chest, she slid her fingers around to his back, hovering them at the hem of his shirt.
Before embarrassment could get the better of her, she started, "Can I—"
She didn't even have to finish the sentence. Wordlessly, he lifted his shirt enough for her to slip her hands under, and she nestled her face into his shoulder as she traced the lines her knife had made in her dream on his bare skin with a feather-light touch. His back beneath her fingers was unmarred, no torn flesh or sticky blood met her fingertips.
He shivered.
She then pressed her palm flat against his back, up near his shoulders, and did the same with her other hand, simply holding him in his whole, undamaged state.
The touch wasn't one of desire, or of sensuality, or anything like that. He knew, without her even having to say, that she needed this tactile reassurance that he was okay; this physical contact to ground her.
And above all else, she needed to not be alone.
He returned the hold, and it was less reserved than their previous hug. More deliberate. She couldn't help but wonder if he found the pressure to be almost as soothing for himself as it was for her. He hugged her as if his arms were the only thing keeping her from falling apart. She hugged him as if he might disappear the moment she let go. She was virtually in his lap, but neither of them cared or were even aware enough to be bashful about it. If anything she pressed herself closer, as if she could absorb some of his goodness by doing so, and in turn, perhaps convey to him even a fraction of the gratitude she held for him. It left no space between them for any separation of their worlds. And it was also close enough that she could feel his heartrate had once more taken on an irregular beat.
"Luis?" she spoke, hushed, afraid of disrupting whatever this moment between them was.
"Yeah?"
"Your heart's beating fast again."
The soft, sheepish laugh he let out said more than any words would have, and might've caused her own heart to do something funny too.
Somehow, they manoeuvered into a laying position back on the pillows without hardly letting go of each other. He ended up on his back, with Vanessa laying half on top of him, ear pressed to his chest. She had one hand curled into his shirt, and he had one arm around her back with the other up at the nape of her neck, fingers tangling in her hair. He released her just long enough to pull the forgotten covers up snugly around them.
She breathed in, and he smelled like— well, he smelled like Luis. She didn't have the words to describe it. It wasn't sandalwood or musk or any of those fancy, distinct fragrances you'd hear in a cologne advertisement. It was just him. Human and him with maybe a hint of the detergent she'd used to wash her sheets, and— and god, was it ever nice.
And if that wasn't enough, then there was the hand on her neck, thumb idly running along her nape; and the heat of his body beneath her; and the arm on her back that was secure yet not restricting; and she couldn't help but selfishly think it would be really nice to fall asleep like this every night.
Despite the moon outside beyond the curtains and window having long since past its zenith and was making its graceful descent back down towards dawn, her eyelids, miraculously, had begun to lose their fight with gravity again.
Luis must've noticed this, as he murmured, “Go to sleep. I’ll make sure any bad dreams keep their distance.”
“You can fight dreams?” she questioned drowsily.
“If I can fight off imaginary boyfriends, I’m sure I can take on a nightmare.”
She hummed in lieu of a proper response, to sleepy and wonderfully comfortable for anything more coherent. Her eyes fluttered once, twice, and didn't open back up.
For a moment, while she teetered on that cusp of consciousness, she wanted to slice open his chest, just as she’d done in her dream. To crack him open and hold his heart in her hands. To sink her fingers into the thin membranes of his lungs. To pull back his skin and curl up inside of his ribcage. She wanted to know what he was inside, to find the anomaly, the symptom, that let him love her. Because, that’s what it was, wasn’t it? The reason that she’d been so reluctant to see him go earlier that night; the reason her heartrate seemed to spike whenever he so much as smiled at her; the reason she felt so safe in his arms, even safe enough to trust him with the darkest parts of her self; there was only one word for it. And… from the way he’d looked at her when he put his life into her hands; the way his arms enveloped even now; the tenderness behind every gentle touch, every murmured word, every fond gaze… part of her couldn’t help but wonder— no, know that he felt the same.
Love. She mulled the word and its implications over in her mind with what little tether to the waking world she had left. It was terrifying, it was exhilarating, and it was hopelessly true.
Something irrevocable had shifted in their relationship that night, she knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Whether it would prove to be a good or bad thing remained to be seen. For now, she let herself relax in his embrace, bask in his warmth, and let his beating heart be her lullaby.
The monster inside of her didn't seem quite so large and horrible, suddenly. It purred when it slept.