Summary: An ongoing collection of short vignettes all taking place within canon universe featuring Chris and Jill. Almost every piece will be shipping, but a few are about them individually (and often involves the other). Notes: For Lee and the infinite inspiration that she provides. CHAPTER 1: TIGERS WALK BEHIND ME (2009, POST-5).

In her dreams, it isn't always her who is falling. Like a spool of thread spilling out from her fingertips further away than her arm can reach, just barely sweeping against his shirt. It feels paper thin and brittle, like her petty jealousies that Jill can only vocalize with a teasing joke. Her heart is a surreptitious thing, unable to speak and only given form when she is the one diving through a window.

The same sentiment remains when it is her, though she's able to scream but one word before she moves at a speed she didn't know she was capable of. His body thrown around like beneath his skin is only feathers. A trail smears against the table that he's dragged across, dark blossoms of purple and red. And her stomach is a rock and her tongue feels swollen, eyes sharp and dry and full of tingly needles dragging around until she feels tears gather beneath her lids. They're too dry, though. Dry and hoarse. Like her voice.

It unfolds in stop-motion flickers with her always one step forward but too few back. Then she's there and she can't even spare him a glance to see if he's alright. Moving too quickly, she can't look away. She can only hold tighter, more desperately, hoping that her arms can't be escaped. It's all she has now because she can feel the rush to her nose and her forehead and the pressure building and it's all black. Encroaching shadows, each darker than the next like there's something moving in the depths below. Reaching out toward her, pulling her down with the full force of gravity. Heart slamming against her chest so hard that it feels like it might burst, she only has one thought on her mind. One word. One name.

She feels everything. Then she feels nothing.

And she wakes up with her bangs sticking to her forehead and her shoulder blades aching over the curves of her spine down to her coccyx and femur. Tight, spiraling, pulling her muscles taut. When she breathes her chest rises and falls; the first few are sharp and trembling, like she's swallowed sand. The sheets stick to her and twist around her legs, the cold sweat raising bumps over her skin. The space beside her isn't empty, isn't cold, isn't leg room then a fall to the floor.

His body is warm. Palpable. Different than she last recalled, but not quite as different as she'd first thought. Her eyes drag over Chris's sleeping form, back toward her though his legs hit hers, skin separated from hers by the cotton sweatpants he wears. He's bigger, Jill thinks. Stronger. There are a few new scars she's noticed and probably more she hasn't. Hidden things that she desperately wants to uncover, a feeling that's strong. An itchy palm.

One thing lead to another. It was too late. A few drinks and she was asking him to stay. Sleepovers had been a thing before Kijuju, sometimes. Not often in the same bed when there was the option to do otherwise. Sometimes they'd fall asleep together on the sofa, but rarely in bed. There was something intimate about it, even if it was only in her mind. Maybe it was just the way she'd find herself leaning against him, an arm strewn over his waist. Or the way it would make her feel when it was him.

Chris was in her good dreams, too.

When she was trapped in the confines of that battlesuit and mask, sometimes Jill would dream of moments like this. the soft undulating motion of his shoulders and the way she fit against him like a missing piece of the puzzle she's so long known how to solve but been too afraid of what the consequences might be. Sometimes it's less and sometimes it's more. Sometimes it gets heated in a way that makes her feel a little bit of guilt - but only a little.

Still jilted from the nightmare, she decides on indulgence. Chris was already here. Inviting and gentle in a way he seemed to reserve for her alone, she thinks that he might be alright with it were he awake. She shifts further beneath the blankets and closer to him, first with an arm beneath his, curved over his chest. Closer, her torso against his back. Tentatively, she presses her forehead between his shoulder blades and she feels Chris stir. It stills her.

Until he slips his hand over hers and knits his fingers between hers. Too tight to be an unconscious gesture.