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He wakes in the middle of the night, disorientated. Already, the echoes of his nightmares are fading, leaving only an unnameable anxiety.
The blankets are in disarray; he must have been thrashing in his sleep. He disentangles himself and sits up, vaguely aware that he’s shivering. He doesn’t really care. The bone-chilling cold numbs him a little.
He knows he should go back to sleep, but he can’t see the point. Lately, his dreams are always the same: his finger on the trigger, the explosion, the flames that persisted long after they left.
The flames were white. He remembers that. He remembers everything.
He doesn’t regret it, not exactly. It’s more resignation than anything. He doesn’t see a way out now; the only option is to push forward. Finish it.
Next to him, Yoru shifts in his sleep but doesn’t wake. The pattern of scars pulses with blue light – once, twice.
There are so many of them running down his body. Some faded, some still inflamed and glowing softly. The light is too faint to be seen anywhere but in the dark.
He can’t help himself. He reaches out a finger to trace the tears, his fingers brushing over the back of Yoru’s hand, up his arm, and his shoulder. There’s a maze of scars blossoming from a point just above his clavicle, and his fingers dance over them reverently.
The criss-crossing lines are like cracks in marble, and he can almost convince himself that his lover has turned into a statue.
The story of Galatea has always fascinated him; the gifted sculptor, falling in love with his perfect creation. He’d begged Aphrodite to bring her to life, beseeching her to see how pure his love was. And she had granted his wish, breathing through him as he kissed the statue. That divine breath had opened the statue’s lips, flowed into newly created lungs. The statue had woken up, cold marble turning to warm flesh.
But the gods are unkind – or rather, beyond the human concepts of kind and unkind. Galatea did not love him, though she bore his child. Desperate to escape the mad sculptor’s attachment to a perfect ideal that wore her face, she ran away and drowned herself.
He never understood how the sculptor, whose keen eye never missed a detail, could be so blind to what was in front of him.
But perhaps the sculptor was unaware of the harm he caused his wife. Perhaps he thought that being her lover and her jailer were the same thing.
Shaking, he presses a kiss to Yoru’s forehead, then to his lips.
And Yoru stirs to life and it’s a beautiful thing, his eyes sharp and watchful a moment after he wakes up. He sees Chamber, and the gaze softens a little.
“You should go back to sleep,” whispers Chamber, knowing his lover needs to rest. A small part of him wants, selfishly, for him to stay up, talk with him until the sun comes up.
Yoru sits up and doesn’t say anything, just looks at him questioningly, and it turns out the small part of him isn’t so small after all.
Chamber shakes his head, not quite knowing why, and Yoru yawns and lifts the corner of the blanket for him.
It turns out that no words are necessary. They stay under the covers, the comfortable silence bridging the time until the dawn.