024— CREEP

                   ~KAI~

I heard her through the wall.

Not words at first. Just muffled sounds.

My hand was already on the door handle before I finished identifying what it was.

I told myself I was just going to check.

             …

Her door wasn't locked.

I pushed it open and the room was dark except for the moonlight cutting through the curtains and I saw her immediately. On the floor beside the bed, half tangled in the sheets she'd dragged down with her, her whole body shaking.

My chest seized up completely.

"Mum… please… I'm sorry—"

I crossed the room in four steps.

"I should have stayed… I should have fought… why didn't I fight—"

She was burning. Sweat had soaked through her shirt and her hair was everywhere. Her hands were clutching the carpet like she was trying to hold onto something that kept disappearing. 

I crouched down.

Slid one arm under her knees and one behind her back and lifted her from the floor. She weighed almost nothing.

I put her on the bed.

Still shaking and murmuring her mother's name, her father's name, ‘I'm sorry’ on a loop that went through me like a knife every time. 

I sat on the edge of the bed and put my hand over hers and started patting it the way — I don't know where that came from. 

It worked.

Slowly, the shaking eased. Her breathing changed. Her fingers, which had been clawing at the sheets, gradually uncurled and went still.

I kept going.

Her hand steadied completely under mine and I should have stopped then. I had no tactical reason to remain in this room. The crisis was resolved.

I didn't stop.

I sat there listening to her breathe and thought about ‘I should have stayed, I should have fought.’ 

She'd been carrying that. The crushing weight of having survived when the people she loved didn't. I understood that weight in a way I genuinely wished I didn't.

Her fingers moved.

Found mine and closed around them.

I looked at our hands in the dark. Her grip was loose — still mostly asleep.

I didn't move my hand.

               …

Hours passed.

The moonlight shifted. The mansion made its nighttime sounds. I sat at the edge of her bed holding her hand and told myself this was monitoring a compromised asset through a psychological episode and believed it for approximately fifteen minutes before I stopped insulting my own intelligence.

At some point I looked at her face.

This was a mistake.

I had categorized her appearance before. The way I categorized everything useful. Dark auburn hair, storm-gray eyes, pale skin, freckles across her nose. 

Irrelevant.

What I had not accounted for was what she looked like when every single layer of defense was completely gone.

Her face in sleep was… I didn't have adequate language for it. Her hair was everywhere, half across her face, tangled from the nightmare, making her look younger than she was. 

Her lips were slightly parted and her breathing was slow and even. She looked absolutely nothing like the woman who’d spat on me on an ice rink or called me insufferable in several creative variations.

She looked like someone who was exhausted all the way to her bones.

My chest did something I was not going to document.

I looked at her mouth.

This was a significantly worse mistake than looking at her face.

The lower lip was slightly fuller than the upper. She'd bitten it at some point and there was a faint mark. 

I was aware of a pulling sensation low in my stomach that had everything to do with the fact that I had been in proximity to this woman for weeks and I was not made of whatever material I'd been pretending to be made of.

My hand moved before I authorized it.

My thumb brushed her lower lip.

One second. Barely contact. The softest thing I'd done in longer than I could accurately calculate.

I pulled back immediately.

“Get a grip, Kai.” 

 “Get an actual grip right now.”

I looked at the wall. The window. Anywhere that wasn't her mouth.

Then I reached out and pushed the hair from her face instead. One strand at a time, carefully, tucking it back, because I had clearly lost the capacity for sensible decisions tonight and at least this was marginally less catastrophic.

Her face was clear now.

I put my head down on the edge of the bed.

Just for a moment, I told myself.

Just until I was certain the nightmare wouldn't come back.

                …

Something screamed.

I was upright before I finished waking, my hand moving toward a threat that resolved itself into Sloane.

She was upright in bed, pointing at me with an expression of total horror.

"WHAT…" She scrambled backward against the headboard. 

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY ROOM—"

"You were having a nightmare—"

"GET OUT—"

"I came to check—"

"CHECK WHAT? WHAT WERE YOU CHECKING? WHAT DID YOU DO WHILE I WAS ASLEEP—"

"Nothing," I said. Truthfully. Mostly.

"WHY IS YOUR HEAD ON MY BED—"

"I fell asleep—"

"You FELL ASLEEP? In my ROOM? On my BED?" She grabbed the pillow and swung it at my head. I let it connect because it seemed like the least I could do. 

"You absolute CREEP—"

"Yesterday," I said, with what I felt was admirable calm given the circumstances, 

"I recall you holding my hand rather tightly and refusing to let go for several hours." I paused. "So I'm not entirely certain who the creep is here."

She froze.

The pillow lowered approximately three centimeters.

I watched her face cycle through fury, then embarrassment, then considerably more fury, and land back on fury.

"GET OUT," she said.

"I'm going."

"NOW."

"I'm going." I stood. Straightened my shirt. Moved toward the door with what I considered to be reasonable dignity.

Her hand closed around my wrist.

She marched me the remaining steps to the door with impressive force for someone her size, shoved me through it, slammed it behind me hard enough to rattle the frame.

I stood in the corridor.

Straightened my shirt again.

"You're welcome," I said, to the closed door. "For the nightmare intervention. Very gracious of you."

Something hit the door from the inside.

Another pillow, presumably.

I walked down the corridor.

The corner of my mouth did something.

I let it.