Apples and cinnamon.
That was the first thing he breathed in when he walked in the front door every night. Well, when his job allowed him to come home. It was oddly comforting. Something he counted on. Enough to make his heart flutter and eyes come to life.
Tonight was no different.
But it was in a way. He was different. The whole case with the missing girls, their father's urgency, what he had done to the boy in the abandoned house, the look on his face when Loki found him there. Shivering. Face bloodied. All of it had changed him somehow. His insides didn't feel the same.
Which is why he had to see her face as fast as his tired legs could carry him. If he didn't, his overactive brain would explode. She was his calm and his anchor. The only reason to believe everything wasn't shit. That the world could have a silver lining at the end of the dark abyss he stepped into every day.
It was a little after two, which meant she had been asleep for the past few hours. When he started working the Dover case a little over a week ago, he explained from day one that this one would mean long nights. Maybe nights where he wouldn't be there with her, so there was no reason to wait up for him and be exhausted at work the next day.
But she did it any way. She was always waiting up for him, and selfishly, he counted on that too.
She was lying on their bed twisted up in the sheets. Marian was always a restless sleeper. He didn't understand how he managed to stay on the bed and not topple onto the floor most nights. Her long legs were a problem. Only during sleep, of course.
He sighed heavily, collapsing quietly next to her dark shape. Even in blackness she was beautiful. An angel. He peeked over her shoulder at her sweet face lit by the moonlight coming from the window. Ran his hand gently over her long brunette tresses and brushed his lips over the back of her pale hand.
Even in childhood pictures, Marian was pale like a breakable porcelain doll in a glass case. He worried sometimes that she didn't get enough sun, but even in the sun she didn't tan. Her skin stayed ivory. Like Snow White. Literally.
He chuckled under his breath at that. It was what he called her the first day they met.