She was lying on the floor, struggling to breathe. She was dying. She knew she was dying.
She was in pain. So much pain. She touched her fingers to her abdomen, bringing them away covered in blood. Her blood. She started shaking, her heart pounding. She was afraid.
She didn't know where she was, couldn't see anything but the surrounding darkness. She called out, begged for help, for someone – anyone – to help her.
Suddenly, there was movement to her side, the scraping of wood on cement. She tried to turn her head to see what it was, but couldn't move. Then, a face was hovering over hers – a face she knew well.
"Ian..." she tried to say, but it came out as a strangled gasp.
He grinned widely, hauntingly. "Hello, Love." He reached out a hand, stroked her cheek almost tenderly. "It won't be long now."
"Help me," she choked out.
"Help you?" He laughed. "I'm here to punish you." His grin widened, inhumanly so – wider and wider, exposing more and more teeth until his face split, skin peeling away.
Underneath, his face was black and shiny, like dolphin skin. His teeth were sharp and pointed and numerous, row upon row of them.
Two horns sprouted from the top of his head, growing longer and longer. He started laughing – deep and gravelly and echoing – louder and louder, until the world around her shook. She tried to scream, but couldn't make a sound.
"Welcome home, Love..." he whispered in her ear.
Something prodded her in the chest, waking her with a start. For a moment, she couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Again, the prodding. Then, Nyx's face was hovering over hers, her eyes sad, inquisitive. She gave a little whimper, licked her cheek.
Emily reached a trembling hand out to stroke Nyx's head. As if sensing her tremulous emotional state, Nyx nuzzled her hand.
Nyx sighed, rested her head on Emily's chest.
Somehow, it suddenly seemed easier to breathe, everything seemed less frightening, less overwhelming. "Thank you," she murmured to the dog.
Emily padded into the kitchen, following the sounds of cupboard doors being opened and closed with perhaps more force than entirely necessary. "You don't have any coffee," Clyde muttered as soon as she was within earshot.
(She'd spent more than enough time in close proximity to him to know that Clyde Easter without coffee in his system was not a person you wanted to cross paths with...)
"I quit caffeine," she said on a yawn, pulling herself to sit on the counter, Nyx sitting dutifully at her feet. "But please, feel free to leave and get some...and not come back."
She was (mostly) kidding and he knew that. Probably.
Ignoring the jibe, though not without rolling his eyes, Clyde filled the kettle. "Tea?" he offered, even though it was her apartment, already getting her out a mug before she'd had the chance to answer.
She yawned, shivered at the early morning chill as the baseboard heater chugged and clanked to life. She pulled the oversized fisherman's sweater she'd borrowed from him years ago and never bothered to return tighter around herself.
After a long silence but for the sound of the kettle whining as it warmed, he said gently, "I heard you screaming in the night..."
She grunted once in response, a sound that might've meant 'Please shut up' though it was clear he had no intention of doing so. He never did.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"I thought they'd have gone away by now," she murmured, spilling her guts to him before she knew she was going to say anything at all. "I thought knowing he was dead would, I don't know, give me closure. Instead, it just feels like he has more power than ever."
She could feel his eyes on her, but avoided his gaze, instead focusing intently on a loose thread on her sweater. "Emily..." he said gently, but leaving the words unsaid, knowing she knew them, even if she didn't want to hear them.
"Please, don't say it," she begged. She'd heard everything he could have possibly said so many times already that the words had lost all meaning.
He reached out to gently cup her cheek, his hand warm and familiar against her skin, and she leaned in to the contact, eyes fluttering closed. "I just want you to be okay," he said at length, which was as true as anything else he might've said.
"Why?" she rasped, eyes still squeezed tightly shut. "Why do you care so much?"
"Because you matter, Emily," he said with surprising gentleness, one thumb stroking her cheekbone. "More than you realize."
"No, I don't," she whispered and it was clear she truly believed it.
"You don't see it yet," he insisted. "But you will..." Then, he did something completely unexpected by leaning in and capturing her lips in a tender kiss. He was rarely tender with her, rarely gentle and earnest and sentimental.
Part of her wanted to hate it, to hate that he seemed to care about her when she'd rather no one did at all because, God, wouldn't everything just be so much easier if people stopped looking at her like she had anything at all to offer them...
When they broke apart again, she was silent for a moment, barely breathing, scarcely sure she existed at all in that moment. "Clyde..." she eventually managed to stammer. "Clyde, I...can't do this. I can't..." She kept her eyes shut tight, even though the room was spinning, not sure if was so she didn't have to see his face or because it was easier to pretend this wasn't happening. Not sure what she didn't want to face, only that it was easier not to.
"I know," he said on a sigh. "I shouldn't have done that. But I just wanted you to see that you do matter. To me."
"I'm sorry, Clyde," she choked. "I can't be the person you need me to be."
