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You woke violently in semi-darkness, flinging yourself off the bed with enough force to send you across the short room and against the dresser, knocking yourself against it hard enough to lose your breath and hit the ground with a groan, both tense and limp. Heart galloping against your ribs, you gasped for breath, wheezing it into your burning lungs. A buzzing sound swelled in your ears.
Something touched your shoulder. You flinched, tried to dart away.
The buzzing diminished into babbling, then into words: "I'm sorry, love, I didn't mean to frighten you, yeah? You're safe, yeah? We're back at the hotel, and you're safe."
The room, not semi-dark as you thought but illuminated in two places by lamps, resolved into focus-and with it, Steven, his eyes dripping with concern and his heart in his mouth. As he watched recognition flicker in your face, he breathed a quiet sigh of relief even as his own anxiety settled deep in his chest, pacing restlessly to the beating of his heart.
You stared and stared, recognition there but memory not quite sinking into place. He could see you struggling, could feel you trying to piece together the last twenty-four hours.
You had been unconscious for fourteen of them.
Marc had loaded you into a taxi and directed it to the hotel, then carried you into the elevator and into the hotel room after the shut debacle. Within him, Steven had fretted, his worry gnawing at the ends of Marc's nerves until he had been forced to cede control for the sake of his own sanity. Steven had fussed and fawned over you, checking you every half hour, a hand in front of your face monitoring your breathing, fingers gentle against your neck as he measured your pulse.
You had burned to the touch. He kept a cool, wet towel against your head and the back of your neck as sweat poured off you, soaking into the bedsheets until the room smelled like fever. What had concerned Steven the most was your utter stillness. But for the rise and fall of your chest and your pulse beneath his fingertips, you hadn't moved at all, hadn't tossed and turned in a fever daze.
