It begins before the sun rises, when the threat of dawn is nothing but a purple bruise on the eastern horizon. The snap of bone, like the sound of a crushed egg breaks the silence of the room where two figures sleep. Some time later, a blue-white rune flashes into existence on the inside of Cris's left forearm, sinking into his flesh. Minutes then pass, another crunch follows. The scent of blood hits the air. Wet, thick and fresh, like a river without a bank to hold it in, it pools on his chest and runs in all directions. Finally, a solid crunch. Meaty, a fist into a punching bag. Crimson stains stretch on the sleeping figure whose eyelids had not fluttered.
Blame it on Lenore's feline nature that she sleeps heavily enough that the first crunch does nothing to stir her from her curled position draped across the Nephilim. Or the flash of a fresh Rune or the second crunch. It's the scent of blood that tickles her nostrils. Warm, metallic, and out of place in their room. She stirs and her first bit of drowsy surprise is to see Cris' sleeping face considering he never falls asleep with her, he only rests. The gentle surprise turns to delayed shock when her slick hand is lifted from his chest and it's stained with blood, bright red stark against pale skin even in the cover of darkness. She can't even begin to comprehend how it came to be before the last crunch rallies a yowl from her. "Cris!" Hands slip in a panic across his skin, trying to stir him without causing him more harm. "Cris, wake up! Wake up!"
He does not stir beneath her hands, his breathing surprisingly even considering the damage to his chest. The blood comes from a long slash in the center of his chest, crossing his sternum, right over a large Mark. The moments turn into a minute, where the beat of his heart, slow with sleep, begins to fade. It's not by her administrations that he wakes, but by the dream finally deciding it was done with him. His eyes open and a ripple goes through his body.
Crimson like a leaky faucet bubbles in his mouth and he turns his head so that he can spit it wetly onto the floor. Fear and pain make the spasmodic breaths he takes grate down his throat. All he can see is darkness. Darkness different from the smoke and the sunlight that he'd seen before he woke up. He groans, the sound akin to a wounded animal in its last ditch effort to get away from a predator and he attempts to pitch to the side. This close to the edge of the bed, he'll wind up on the floor and he does not seem to realize that Lenore is still on him.
She's so careful at first while trying to wake him, but the longer he stays like that the more panic overtakes her. The howling sounds of distress and calling his name turn into sobbing when she can hear the thud of his heart begin to weaken. She's not even sure what's happening, or how, but she's positive that she's witnessing Cris die right in front of her and there's nothing she can do aside from wail in sorrow, still pawing uselessly at sticky skin coated in thick blood. It's with the crescendo of her sobbing that his eyes open and he hacks a clot of blood aside. It was vile and comforting and she couldn't process it all quickly enough to stop her waterworks.
He's moving too much for all the blood he's lost and all the other injuries he could mysteriously have that she's not even aware of. Lenore clutches at his arm in an attempt to keep him in place on the bed. "Cris, stop! Please stop! You're going to hurt yourself, just stop!" With his blood covering him, her and the bedding, her pleading is clearly overwhelmed but trying to grab hold of the situation.
She does not have to clutch much. Most of his strength was going to making sure he could breathe. The violent pain had chased away the dregs of the dream, the confusion of waking up first to Salome's frantic, crying face, then to the darkness with another holding him back. The sheets stick to his face, wet with sweat and tears that had run back out of his eyes without his knowledge. Pain was not something he was unfamiliar with, but this agony inside him...he could live without. Red painted lips move around words and he clutches for anything of hers he can reach. "Stele...where is it. Go get--go get my... Go get it...stele." His other hand slides unsteadily into place over the wound in his chest and with each breath, he feels like all the air is escaping through it.
Stele. It's the first thought of action she's able to grasp onto since her mind is a jumbled mess of uncertainty. The moment he says it, even before he's asking where it is or telling her to get it, she's a mess of red stained skin and colt like limbs scrambling out of bed to find his boot and the Stele he kept hidden within. With it in hand, moving so diligently even though she can't completely stop herself from crying, she's at the edge of the bed to put the Stele in his hand with hers wrapped around it as they had done just a few nights earlier on a whim from him. "Come on, Cris. Just like before." Restraining her sobs by biting at her bottom lip, not wanting them to wrack her body and fumble the Rune. It took all the concentration she had to keep the hand wrapped around his as still as possible. "Do you have one I can finish?" Searching through puddles of red for a familiar Iratze in need.
Breath in and out through a minimal part in his lips, his face drawn and tight, pale under the blood and black Marks scattered all over him. His head full of his own mantras: that this would pass, that the next wave of pain was almost over, that soon he'd be able to breathe, the world would stop spinning, that he wasn't going to surrender. She puts the stele in his hand and the tip glows white-blue and throws the gore that is his body into harsh perspective. With goosebumps on his skin, he shivers like he'd been plunged into arctic waters. "No, I--I--on't. Like this." Hand leaves his chest, releasing a fresh spill of red and he shows her the black Mark on the inside of his forearm. "Just like this. Under the--wound. Don't s-stop at just--one."
She releases another choked yowl. Lenore is capable of seeing in the dark, but having the glowing tip of the Stele put Cris' maimed body even further on display is a hard thing to swallow. It only makes her that much more determined to fix this for him. She wavers briefly, tucking her face into her arm when more blood oozes but he's offering directions and hazel eyes lift to follow them. "I got it. Just hang on, okay? It's going to be okay, Cris. It'll be okay." She's saying his name to assure him but it's for herself as well. She doesn't have the luxury of hesitating and the Stele touches down on skin where he told her to, not as smooth as last time because she doesn't have an outline to follow and there's a lot more pressure this time around but she reminds herself to press down hard and that's an easy task since it helps keep her steady.
He can't think about anything but breathing, but the noises she makes and the pang of fear in her voice brushes at the outside of his perception. It was for this exact reason that he did not want to stay in her room, this close. The stele's tip drags through the blood, turning it black around the white-blue of the Mark she's drawing. Smoke curls, smelling like burned skin and metal, and the pain of it doesn't even come close to touching the agony already ripping through him. She finishes, that last sweep, a vertical line through the zigzagging first stroke and his face relaxes. His shivers come slower and with an abrupt gasp, he's finally able to draw in a long, much needed breath. Everything tingles, receiving long deprived oxygen. Over time, the steady ooze of crimson on his chest slows.
The smoke and the smell, Lenore had always hated them when witnessing this process before but now there was some assurance from them that she's doing it right. Her body heaves with leftover emotion still trying to get free but she manages to keep her hand still enough to finish the mark. She can see and hear the shift in him already, he's healing, and that is what propels her to down the tip of the Stele to skin nearby where she had just completed the mark to make another one. She would cover his entire body with them until her hand went numb if it meant he was going to be okay.
Without the pain there to distract him, without the effort to breathe to focus on, it comes rushing back. What he'd seen and heard, and felt. The dogs and the stench of the Forsaken. Bianca's defiance and Salome's terror. Perhaps it was the purpose for these twisted dreams to remind him of the exact events of that day. He tightens his hand around the stele, puts his other palm over his face. He can smell the blood, feel it on his brow. He'll have to shower anyway, so what was just one more stain? "I'm sorry," voice comes low, even, not completely devoid of ache but improved from what he'd woken with.
With all of her focus on what she's doing and the final stroke of the Stele through the zigzagging mark she made identical to the first she doesn't notice the tightening of his hand beneath hers. When he presses his palm to his forehead that catches her attention but it's a short distraction before she begins on a third iratzes. There's a shudder in the motion when he speaks and it threatens to send her walls crashing down. "Don't do that, Cris. Don't apologize. Just heal, that's all you have to do for me right now, okay? I need you to be alright. I need you." She had been trying so hard to stay strong and while she wasn't full out bawling like she had been previously the tears streaking down her cheeks lit up under the glow of the Stele.
The blood in his mouth is thick, salty and difficult to swallow. Every time he does, he clears his throat, scraping his teeth along his tongue to get rid of the flavor. The second iratze sinks into his skin and he can feel the last dents in his ribs fill themselves in. His body stiffens through the awkward feeling, like snakes in his clothes, and he exhales a long, low breath. Pulling his hand from his face, he swipes it along the gash in his chest, now an angry red line of scabs and smeared crimson. He had not once looked at the wreckage and even now he tried not to, his gaze instead on her face and the moisture from her eyes, the way they shone too brightly in the glow of the stele. His own gaze is fever bright, pupils wide, too aware of where he is and what is going on. When he feels the third iratze sink into his skin, he turns his hand in hers, directing the glowing tip away from his body. "You can stop..."
Every sound he makes she stops just long enough to toss a look up at him, to make sure he's as alright as he's going to be in this situation, then she continues working on the Rune. It's when he turns their hands, tells her she can stop, that she releases the stele and his hand and sinks back to thump onto the floor like a lost ragdoll. Her torso is curled in on itself, legs bent oddly, and her hands are draped in her lap. She stares back at him, at eye level since he's laying down, and it's when she catches that look from him that she loses it again. Both hands lift, covered in blood but she doesn't care, to press against her face to muffle her outburst. "I thought... you were going... to die!" The words coming out between deep heaving breaths and mingling with tears.
The stele's glow winks out on an expression tight with pain that has nothing to do with the physical state of his body. To Shadowhunters, blood and pain and wounds came with the territory. Early on, most of those sensitivities were layered over with strength and determination, with focus. They were used to seeing themselves and their comrades in various states of distress. But she wasn't a Shadowhunter. She was not used to this. Even he, having not been in a battle in weeks, was more shaken by his own memories than the wounds he'd sustained. He opens his hand to let the stele go and he turns on the bed. His body is slow to accept the idea of moving, and he swallows a grunt, effort only showing itself in tight exhales as he feels his way upright. "Come here..." Reaching for her in the dark. She was not that far away, but he did not have the benefit of Night-Vision this time.
The clatter of the Stele isn't enough to draw her attention but those two simple words, that beckoning call from him, that would have caused her to cross any sort of distance between them to seek him out. Her face is smudged with blood and tears when she lifts her head to look at him and long legs are drawing up underneath her so she can take his hand and move closer to him. Rolling to her knees to crawl towards him, her free hand reaching up to touch fingertips to his cheek. "I'm sorry." For being emotional mostly even if she doesn't explain. "I don't know what happened. I was sleeping and... I think you were too... and the next thing I know, there was so much blood." A deep shuddering inhale and it quivers just as badly on the exhale.
It was better for the both of them that they were still in the dark, though now outside the window, the coming dawn seems to be a little bit closer. Her soft touch after so much pain makes his throat hurt and he sighs, tilting his cheek to her hand. "I know." Sitting up, though the room still doesn't feel solid. There is nothing to anchor him. The darkness seems endless, like he'll disappear into it and open his eyes on a fresh level of Hell that he's yet to see. He grips her hand with fingers wet with blood, cold with sweat and unsteady. "I was. I dreamt... They surprised us. An ax." That did not make much sense, but he's apprehensive about going any deeper than that. She'd seen his body, he was certain she could figure out just who had been hit by that weapon. Forearms to knees, he hangs his head in the space between them, his hair matted, sticking to his brow. "I am...better. Now. Not alright. That will take some time."
Her hand wraps tighter around his and the touch to his cheek is still soft and present. After all of that there was very little chance of her letting go of him anytime soon under her own freewill. He's explaining what happened in his dream and it's when he mentions the ax that it clicks, as unbelievable as it might be, and she exhales sharply like she just got the wind knocked out of her. "Oh, Cris..." He bows his head and she nudges her nose to the top of it. "That's what happens when you dream? That's... why you try to not sleep around me." She's aware that she's covered in blood, that he is too, but for now she wants to ignore it despite the overpowering scent of it all over and focus on him. "What else can I do for you, Cris? Anything you need. Do you want me to run the shower for you?" Unsure if telling him to lay back down would be offensive since that was the cause of all this.
Smiling in the dark. It never took her long to piece anything together. Her intelligence, the way he could tell her so much with two words, was one of the things that he loved--loved? Loved...about her. "Yes. If I do nothing, if I let the day run its course, that is what happens. That is what happened, that day." She asks her questions, he can hear the desperation in her voice to find some way to comfort him. He brings her hand to his bloody mouth and presses his lips to her knuckles, covering them with his other palm. "Don't move. Stay with me, like this..." Swallows after his request, the lump that formed in his throat at her caress to his cheek now the size of a boulder. Putting her fingers against his lowered brow, her hand locked between his, he exhales. Long, shaky. Several moments of silence pass, then he sniffs. He does not bother to disguise it as an inhale this time.
Lenore is no where close to smiling, her features heavy with emotion when he comes clean about it all. "And you re-live it... again and again." It's hard to not dwell on that but she nods. "Of course, Cris. If that's what you want I'm not going anywhere." Allowing him to shift her hand where he wants while the other continues to stroke his cheek. It's at the sniffle that she leans forward to press her lips against his hairline. "I'm not going anywhere." Assuring him again, whispering the words against his skin. "I don't know how to make the dreams stop, Cris, but I won't leave you to mend from them on your own. You don't have to do it alone."
Silently wishing she would stop talking, would just sit with him in silence because the more she speaks, the more her words sink into him and the more he wants to believe them. It wasn't exactly his desire to do all of it on his own, but that was the card he'd drawn when he'd burned the only bridge he had. It was a position that he was willing to deal with if only because he'd gone at it so hard. He has no choice but to let her words comfort him like a warm blanket and his brow under her hand wrinkles with tension. He grips her fingers tightly in his like it would somehow stop what was coming. He did not cry often. And even when he did, it did not last long. But over the past few days, the need to do something about everything he held within his own mind became something he couldn't ignore. Leaning harder into his knees, one hand cracks open from hers to hold his own head, palm there to catch the tears from his eyes before they got anywhere else.
He's silent and she doesn't know what he's thinking, if he's still okay. His hand tightens on hers and she's unsure what's coming, if anything, but it's at the release when he tries brushing away his own tears that she realizes what's happening. She straightens on her knees in front of him and wraps her arms around him in an offer of comfort. This is what he has done for her before when she cried and she felt it helped so she would do the same for him. If he allows it she tries to guide his head to his shoulder, to the crook where it met her neck to bury himself there and get lost. There's not an ounce of hesitation from her in all of this, no surprise or horror that he's crying. As she had just said, he doesn't have to handle it alone and she's staying true to her words with her actions.
He was never more than a very pliable collection of muscle and bone under her hands, but this time, he fights to remain where he is. Stiff and unyielding. Part of him still wants to believe he's not doing this; not in front of her, not at all. His head aches from restrained tears, but at least they're not falling anymore. Relenting, he puts his brow to her shoulder, where she'd tried to get him to rest earlier. One last sniff, one last swallow, and a noise low in his throat, a marriage of a moan and an exasperated sigh. Here within her arms, it doesn't feel like anything can touch him. That he was not covered in blood, that he had not almost lost his life because of his own subconscious or whatever it was in this town that had its fingers in him, that he really was worth the aid and the comfort and the affection she was giving him. His palm slides down the outside of her shoulder. "Thank you." His voice had not cracked like that in years.
Him fighting her is a little more than surprising but she doesn't force him. Much. A small amount of pressure knowing that if he would give in and relax somewhat it could help ease him even more after the hellish morning they've had. He gives in, not to crying and letting it out but at least he settles against her shoulder and with a gentle turn of her head she can brush her lips against the cusp of his ear. One hand wraps fingers into hair at the nape of his neck and the other drags nails in a soft path up and down his spine to ward off some of the tension there. "You're welcome, Cris. You know you would do the same for me if the tables were turned. It's... what we do."
Making another noise low in his throat, though this one is borne purely from the pleasure of surrender and the feeling of fingernails on his back. Never before had he been so quickly snapped out of an emotionally sensitive rut. The fine hairs on his neck and arms rise and he wipes his eyes against her shoulder. "That does not stop me feeling grateful though, yes...?"
For the first time since she opened her eyes to all of this the weight of her expression lightens at the sound he makes, something about it allowing her to breathe just a little easier. Still, it only makes her tighten her hold on him a little more and the motion of her hand doesn't stop. "No, I will not stop you from feeling grateful because I feel the same way every time you comfort me, too. I'm glad I could be here for you. I mean that."
No doubt her fingertips pass over collections of scars between his shoulder blades and on them, fanning out from his spine. In sets of three and four, thin and long, easily followed by her fingers. Others stand out alone, the flesh raised, like he had been cut by a blade or whipped. Errant, old puncture marks dot him, groups of two, few and far between. He's silent for a long moment, weighing what he wanted to say. Was he truly grateful she was here? Could he have done without her help? "So am I..." No, he decided, he couldn't.
