Ships Adrift in a Strong Tide

Lunacy

He can't help but think that he doesn't deserve her.

She's curled against him so peacefully, warm against the chill that won't quite leave the mid-January air, and he's running his fingers through her hair because he can't sleep.

He thinks about it sometimes. About how familiar a sword feels when it slices through flesh, about how tightly he has to flex his arm to crush a throat beneath it, about how many times in his life his hands have been coated in blood.

His fingers flinch away from her automatically, and suddenly she's too warm curled against him like this, her chin on his chest too sharp and too heavy.

The moon shines persistently over them, a rectangle of light through the wide windows falling over the width of the bed. Moonlight pales Damian's skin, whitewashing his features and sharpening the shadows beneath his eyes, but it sparkles off Mar'i's golden skin, shines off the dark tendrils of her hair, paints shadows over her cheeks that move with the flutter of her eyelashes.

Gritting his teeth against the sour taste that coats the back of his tongue, he balls the sheets in his fists. He isn't even meant to be alive. The Lazarus Pit did that, forced him back from the dead, drove him mad–

Mar'i shifts against him, her hair brushing against his face. He wants to touch her, to wind his arms around her waist until she's pressed into him, to stroke his fingers along her skin–

–leaving a trail of blood and acid from the Lazarus Pit–

"Damian?"

He woke her up with his thrashing. "Sorry," he gasps, and his voice tastes like metal. "Mar'i, I–"

Her green eyes are filled with worry. Even though he finds her eyes less expressive without the hologram projector, he can still tell that she's worried. It only makes him feel worse, and his skin roils with uncomfortable heat.

"You're sweating," she observes, and she props herself up to look at him.

"I'm–" Fine, he means to assure her, but his voice cracks and he can't speak.

"Here," she soothes, and before he can protest she's gone. He was hot before, but at the absence of her body heat, a chill sweeps over him, making him shiver.

Cool fabric presses against his forehead, making him squeeze has eyes shut.

"Mar'i–"

"Aunt Raven said that you might need–"

Her wrist fits perfectly in his hand, his thumb overlapping with his middle finger as he squeezes gently. "Please," he murmurs, although he isn't really sure what he's pleading for.

Her eyes widen with concern but she doesn't interrupt.

"Just let me look at you." His fingers loosen around her wrist as he guides her onto the bed, pulling himself into a sitting position with his back against the wall.

Her top teeth worry her bottom lip, and even without pupils he can tell that her gaze is flicking over his face, searching for a sign of illness or whatever else she suspects is wrong with him.

"Close your eyes," he instructs, and the furrow in her brow deepens but she does.

She's wearing pajamas, a plain shirt with thin spaghetti straps and plaid shorts. There's no perfect human, and probably no perfect Tamaranean, but looking at her in the moonlight he can believe that half human, half Tamaraneans are the perfect mix of both. Her hair waves elegantly, giving way to the curve of her breasts, then her waist curves to her hips, and her knees curves to her calves. It's a perfect series of waves, and it's oddly comforting to him now. Shapes he can understand.