Liminal Spaces and Missing Person, part six

The nightmares were were worse than usual this time. He was... spread out, his body layered across a multi-level ruin, turned into a massive room with many doors. He reached out through those doors, crafted passages on the far side, made those passages into traps that brought people into him. And when they came, he ate their bones and left the rest of them to rot...

Chris shook himself awake, gasping. Across the fire, Antoinette raised an eyebrow in his direction. "It's okay," she said softly. "We're warded. We're safe."

Sherri, Adam, and Thorin were asleep around the fire, much like he had been. The night was quiet and pleasantly cool; even the fire had settled into a silent warmth. There were creatures moving in the darkness outside their camp, but nothing large or dangerous; nothing that might try to come through the wards. He nodded slowly, acknowledging what she'd said, and sat up slowly so as not to wake the others.

"Nightmare," he said, since there was no point in denying it. 

"Chris..." Antoinette looked frustrated. "What happened to you? I've never seen someone so eager to get himself killed."

Chris looked at the fire for a long moment, then met his partner's eyes. "I'm not suicidal, you know," he said after a moment. "I know it looks that way, but I'm not."

"What is it, then?" she asked. "The risks you take..." She trailed off. 

He sniffed, faintly amused. "I don't know how to say 'I appreciate the concern' without it sounding condescending, so I won't try." He paused, searching for words, and finally said: "I'm a wolf. I'm a lot harder to kill than most people -- even magi -- understand. I can recover from things that would cripple you if you didn't have magical healing. So I don't worry about getting injured the way you do."

Antoinette considered that. "Okay," she said at last, "I can see that. But it still seems like there's more to it than that. When that Master had me, you could have just snuck back out and set the place on fire on the way. Instead, you started shooting him." 

"He had his fangs in your throat," Chris said quietly. 

Antoinette swallowed. "So you couldn't stay safe because I was in danger?" 

Chris frowned. "It's not--" 

"It's not romantic," Antoinette said firmly. "I got that earlier. It's... loyalty?"

"...Somewhat," he admitted after a moment. 

"So you went after the bone-taker because... it had already attacked you and you knew what it was capable of? And because it was attacking us?"

"And because it might have decided to kill Adam at any moment," Chris added. "Seemed less likely if something else had its attention. So I got its attention." He looked back at the fire. "But yeah, also because I was angry." 

"Angry." 

"Angry." Chris swallowed, but since he sharing confidences already he continued: "That thing had been sitting down there for... I don't know. Centuries, maybe. Luring people in through passages they couldn't escape, terrifying them, devouring them. It needed to die." He fell silent for a long moment, staring at the flames. "I would have let the magi handle it, I really would've. But then I fell down inside it and saw its heart, and... well... that was an opportunity that I wasn't going to miss." He grinned an unsettling grin, and his eyes sparkled as they caught the reflections of the fire. "And it was the perfect distraction."

Antoinette nodded slowly, then shivered. "Do you mind if I... Could I lie down next to you? Not for... you know... just... for warmth, and to have somebody next to me?"

Chris considered that for a long moment, then he stood. "Do you mind if I...?"

Antoinette shook her head. "Whatever you need to do."

He turned into a wolf, and curled up at a comfortable distance from the fire. 

Antoinette approached slowly, then settled and and curled up beside him, putting her back to his back. If she was bothered by his being a wolf in truth, she didn't show any sign of it and her scent was, if anything, relieved. He stayed still as her breathing slowed and her body relaxed, keeping an eye on the fire and tracking the sounds and scents of the night. We're warded, he reminded himself. We're safe. 

He didn't know if he still believed in the concept of safe anymore, but after a time he felt his body begin to relax and his attention begin to drift. He let himself go, and eventually he slept. 

This time his dreams were undisturbed.