#duskandstarlight

Yet whilst it beckoned her - the lulling disconnect of sleep - Nesta had known that to stay in it would be cowardice.

For hours, Nesta had felt herself intermittently break the surface as she shifted in her sleep - as she came to recall loosely what had happened, the reason why the sheets smelt different, the very air - only to be dragged back under before her consciousness was able to fight it. It had been out of her control, a protective move that almost scared her. But now, with her consciousness awake and her senses creeping back into cognisance - the waters arousing, growing choppy - Nesta made herself force her eyes open. 

At first, the room was as lightless as the place she’d emerged from. Flat on her back, her arm stiff and extended above her head, bent at the elbow, forearm resting beneath the pillow. Wincing, Nesta tried to move and as she did so, she felt a sharp pain in her head. The sense that her brain had come untethered and was rattling around in her skull. 

There was a throbbing, bruising pain to her right temple. A waft of laundry detergent that was not hers, reminding her again of why she was here. Of what had happened. Tomas reclining in a chair. The stabbing fear that came from hearing his voice. Her proximity to him. His musky amber aroma choking her from where she sat behind him. 

Then, Cassian kneeling beside her. The worry in his hazel eyes as he stared up at her, the warmth of his hand, the strand of hair escaped from its tie. The sharp spikes of pebbledash, the splintering pain. Blood on her fingers. The glare of torchlight. A burgundy high-neck jumper. Slim, deft fingers turning her chin this way and that, rubber against her skin—

Scattering the images with a sharp exhale, Nesta waited for the reality of what had happened the day prior to come as a punch to the gut. Yet whilst the emotions Nesta knew she should be feeling were at the forefront of her mind - fear, shame, embarrassment - nothing came. Not even a glimmer, as if they had dissolved into the ether, thankfully melting before they had the chance to fully form.

After a beat, Nesta propped herself up onto an elbow. Then, when the lancing pain in her head subsided to that pulsing thud, she resignedly rubbed the grit from her eyes with her free hand and willed the room into focus.

At first, everything remained pitch black. Then, shapes grew in the darkness as their surroundings lightened, her eyes adjusting. Stark outlines sharpened into furniture: the chest of drawers opposite the foot of the bed, an armchair hosting some folded clothes on its seat in the corner, a desk across the length of the window. 

A foreign room she’d never set foot in before yesterday. Cassian’s sanctuary, where he slept, where he read, somewhere he’d realistically shared with other women. And here Nesta was in it, dressed yet vulnerable, stripped bare, all defences down.

She had thought she’d end up here in different circumstances. Now, it wasn’t something Nesta could even entertain. Her mind only threatened to sabotage her with yesterday. To remind her of how she’d been so thoroughly consumed by the fear of Tomas that she had forgotten to hide herself. And Cassian had seen all of her. Fragile, shaken, brittle. Ultimately weak.

And so had Azriel. Mor. 

Nesta needed to move, to get out of her head and the panic she knew would eventually set in. Away from yesterday and all the people she’d exposed herself to.

Swinging her legs over the side of the mattress, she slid cautiously off the bed. Her feet sunk into the soft pile of the carpet and she blindly groped for the headboard, levering herself up only to sit back down again, light-headed. Dark swept over Nesta in a wave, threatening to carry her off, but she gripped the wood hard, squeezed her eyes tightly shut and fought the sensation.

It took a while for the crackling static behind her eyelids to clear, for Nesta to feel her way to the door and pull it open.

Natural daylight poured into the dark bedroom from the large living room windows ahead of her. The flood of light was so sudden that Nesta found herself disorientated all over again. Wincing, she blinked rapidly to rid herself of the pressurised ache behind her eyes in the face of the overwhelming white. Grabbed sightlessly for the doorframe as that dizziness hit her again.

When the world had righted itself, her vision slowly bleeding back into colour, Cassian was there in side-profile. Sat up on the U-shaped length of couch facing the kitchen, a duvet over his legs, his laptop balanced on his knees. What she saw first was bed hair loose and tangled. It fell shadowily over his tan skin. What with that and the stubble shading his face, the dark startled eyes, it struck Nesta that this was a Cassian she had never seen before - untouched by performance or presentation, the pressure to remain upbeat and light. 

If it had not been for the worry etching itself deep amongst the grooves of sleep, Cassian would have painted a picture that was sleepy and soft. Before the morning coffee, the rigour of the day that wiped away the gentle light of dawn, the muskiness of sleep faint against his skin. 

But instead, his eyes widened further - panicked - as she swayed. 

His laptop clattered against the surface of the coffee table as he moved to stand until, just as abruptly, he seemed to decide against it. 

Cassian sank back into the cushions with a stricken sort of hesitancy that had Nesta’s breath hitching up an octave, fluttering unsurely, as if it had lost its footing, stumbled.

“Ok?” 

Cassian’s voice was a concerned rasp, scratchy in her throat, reaching across the room towards her, like an arm outstretched.

Nesta wanted to reply, but found suddenly that she couldn’t. Instead, she fisted her hands into the wrists of the long-sleeved jersey she’d found the night prior and fought the temptation to rub her eyes. Went to nod but then immediately regretted it when her head bleated in protest.

The consternation etched on Cassian’s face intensified, carving into ravines of guilt. The worry in his voice surfaced again. “Is it your head, Nesta?”

He was still half-sunk into the couch, the position awkward and unnatural, as if he was halfway between standing and sitting. That sharpness in Nesta’s throat pierced deeper at the sight - his awkwardness - her breath growing thinner. 

And that? That she could feel. 

And Nesta wished she couldn’t, wished she could make it all go away. That they could pretend yesterday hadn’t happened, but Cassian continued - as if he couldn’t stop himself, “I’m sorry about that.”

As he spoke, his eyes shifted to a spot on the wall beside her - as if he couldn’t meet her eye.

And there was such suppressed grief in his apology, a devastation that was further wreckage to Nesta’s insides, that she finally found herself impelled to speak, the words a rasped truth. “Don’t be.”

There was a bob of his Adam’s apple. A painful tug at the corners of his mouth; the curved and unconvincing attempt at a smile. Eyes sliding back to hers, vulnerable, troubled and achingly sad to look at. Snagging at the spot at her temple that pulsed before they locked with hers. “Hard not to be.”

The subsequent silence was as painful and brittle as Cassian’s weak smile. He seemed to realise this and attempted to hitch one corner of his mouth higher into a ghost of his signature crooked grin. 

The feeble sight of it was too much. Sensations crowded Nesta as abruptly as something dropping from the sky. 

She couldn’t talk about yesterday. Not now, not yet.

Tearing her gaze away from him, Nesta intended to look towards the kitchenette. But she only made it a fraction, her eyes catching on the coffee table, drawn unwillingly to the laptop abandoned askew atop it.

“Do you have my laptop?”

The question was clearly not one Cassian had been expecting. Nesta could tell because it took him a moment too long to reply. It added to the stilted interaction, another brick added to the wall between them. 

His concern grew stricken. “Mor said to gradually increase your exposure to the screen over time…”

Awkwardness transfigured into something else, the only outlet Nesta could summon. A muted sort of anger that he was continuing to talk of yesterday, when all she wanted to do was run, stay numb. That for once, he hadn’t read her. Hadn’t understood that her laptop was her income, her livelihood. A story unfurled and coaxed from inside of her head. The strike of letters against a keyboard. The expectant blink of a cursor. “But do you have it?”

A frown knotted Cassian’s brow, but then his expression smoothed, understanding dawning - too late. “Your satchel is hanging by the door.”

Nesta sagged in relief. The doorframe held her up like a spine. “I couldn’t remember…”

She never could, not when it came to Tomas and events like yesterday. It was like her memory was wiped in snatches, huge fragments missing, jagged holes that cut through skin like butter when you tried to recall them.

Cassian’s head tilted ever so slightly, his gaze watchful, his eyes swallowing the light in the room rather than reflecting it. “I carried it out for you, that’s probably why.” 

Nesta tried to remember leaving the cafe, but when she tried to cast her mind back, it was only in physical sensations she could remember. The way she had begun to shake as she stood, the adrenaline coursing through her veins, making her jittery. The desire to break into a sprint, to outrun it all, her breath, her lungs burning, so fierce that she barely recalled the phantom pressure of a hand on her lower back, light but steady as it guided her out. 

“Are you hungry?”

The sudden change in conversation had Nesta blinking. Despite the fact that Cassian’s expression was clean, careful, neutral, she got the impression that she’d been very far away. That he was disquieted. Or perhaps it was what Nesta expected from him. Her mind jumping ahead a step, waiting for the next thing, reading him so she couldn’t be surprised or caught out by anything ever again.

That had happened before, too.  

If Nesta could, she’d allow herself to press the button on the remote and skip her life forward so she was privy to what was going to happen before anyone else. That would rid herself of the fear she knew would inevitably set in, solid and immovable until suddenly it lurched, a weight in your stomach, panic clawing up your throat, heart in your mouth, racing, racing—

Swallowing, Nesta went to shake her head, but stopped herself before she came to regret it. “Just a shower.”

Again, she dissected an emotion in Cassian even though his relaxed countenance didn’t change - disappointment. 

But all Cassian did was nod. Slowly, he made to stand as if she might spook.

And the worst thing about it all, was that if he lurched forward, if he even just moved at a normal speed, Nesta knew she would.

“I’ll grab you a towel.”

***

The bathroom was as clean as the rest of Cassian’s apartment. Now Nesta was fully awake, she could see what she hadn’t been able to the day before. Then, she’d only seen the reflection of her pale face in the mirror, the cool metal of the black tap, the underfloor heating warming the floor beneath her socked feet. 

Now, she took it all in. Straight ahead, an exposed brick wall housed a charcoal grey sink unit and the mirror above it. Large warehouse windows, just like in the living room, flooded the room with natural daylight including the free-standing bath beside it. There was a large climbing Devil’s Ivy that Nesta only recognised because Elain had gifted it to her a few years earlier. Then, to her right, a walk-in shower partitioned by a black grid glass screen. 

Somehow, the room balanced the industrial-style of the warehouse loft without seeming cold. Nor did it give off the aura of a bachelor pad - the latter of which, Nesta didn’t want to think about.

Stripping off, she stood in the shower and brushed her teeth with the toothbrush Cassian had pointed her to the day before. Water cascaded down like warm rain and Nesta closed her eyes to it, gave way to the sensation as heat crept over her scalp, her shoulders, her stomach. The taste of mint in her mouth, the scent of warm wood, sweet notes of spice and resin, suds down the drain.

When she finally shut off the water, Nesta wrapped herself tightly in a towel that smelt like his bedding. Studied her face blankly in the mirror. Drawn, ashen, like she wasn’t really there. How she felt, really. 

She tugged on yesterday’s clothes, turned her underwear inside out, put the jersey that she’d taken from his drawers the night before into the rattan laundry basket. Ran her fingers through her hair, fingers snagging on the knots. 

Cassian was in the kitchen when she stepped out of the bathroom, her hair wet around her shoulders. His back was to her, and items clanked in the sink. A theme, it seemed.

The bedding was gone from the couch, his laptop was now closed on the dining table. He had changed into fresh clothes, ready for the day, the world, the people in it, like the Cassian she was acquainted with rather than the barer version of himself she’d seen moments before. Only his hair remained down, loose and wavy rather than tangled back into a topknot.

On the counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the living room was her satchel. Her phone charging to the right of it, the screen lit up.

Nesta began to move towards it when Cassian spoke over his shoulder— 

“I spoke to Emerie yesterday.”

Nesta had known he might speak. Had expected it, yet, the deepness of his voice startled her all the same. Quickly, she tried to recover herself, swallow down the heart pounding in her throat, even though she knew it was too late. Made her way round to the dining table side of the countertop, so there was something between them, something concrete, even though she knew he’d never hurt her. Never harm her like Tomas had.

But her body wasn’t cooperating with reason. She knew it and Cassian seemed to know it too - with his sad, troubled eyes and the way he’d grown very still, his hands still submerged in the bubbles. 

Reaching for the bag, unable to look at him, Nesta felt for the shape of her laptop within the material. Tried to calm the adrenaline that wanted to chase her out of breath. 

She didn’t touch her phone, even though she could see Emerie’s name lighting up the screen, message upon message upon message.

So, she replied. “You did.” 

It should have been a question, but it came out more like a statement, lifeless and unchanging.  

Cassian swallowed. Nesta watched his Adam’s apple bob, the way it travelled up and down the column of his throat. “I did. She’s back today.”

“I’m aware.”

There was a stilted movement, a dip of his chin as he processed the lack of bite in her delivery. He placed a mug on the drying rack, the expected clink of porcelain against metal. Him carefully reaching for the tea towel, casually drying his hands. “Well, she said she could swing by and get you.”

Dread was setting in now. The awful reality of it concrete in Nesta’s stomach. Here it was, a whole operation around her, the weak link. The person that was such a mess that everyone had to organise her life. Scared and brittle, pieces chipping away from her bit by bit until Nesta was nothing but that fearful girl from before, afraid to live her life, terrified to leave someone who treated her so abhorrently.

Nesta saw it all unfold in the same moment that she was dragged back in time, to a place she thought she’d clawed her way out of - painstakingly, agonisingly and utterly destroying in its slowness - as she tried to heal. To weather the storm that physically battered her, shaped her anew.

Consumed by it all, Nesta only realised it was too long since Cassian had spoken until the silence had carried on too long. He was watching her again in a way she recognised, reading all of her, too much, knowing that she was in her in head, too deep and couldn’t get out. 

The words came out even more limp now. If the way she spoke before was lifeless. Now, her words were dead, buried in the cemetery, lost to an unmarked grave. “She did.”

“Or if you want to stay…” Cassian began, even more unsure now, but Nesta didn’t allow him to continue.

“It’s fine.”

An uncomfortable silence issued and Nesta couldn’t bear it. So, she picked up her phone, moved to the couch. Sat in the exact corner that she’d been in yesterday, when Mor had sat on the coffee table opposite her and rifled through her medical bag. 

“Was it wrong of me to get in touch with her?” Cassian’s voice again, closer than the kitchenette. “I thought you might prefer her or Gwyn to me…”

He trailed off, uncertain. 

Was it wrong, Nesta wondered, as she stared blankly ahead at the television screen? For him to try and do what was he thought was right by her. To make sure she had her found family around her when she was like this - spooked and fearful. Even now, in his home, when he’d rescued her, looked after her, given her a bed, a warm place to stay when she’d treated him the way she had.

A sudden emotion clogged in her throat. Something she was unable to swallow down. The time in the alleyway, the coffee shop before it, was still a fragmented blur. But she remembered the wall. The jerk of her body as she’d been sick, her stomach lurching painfully. The violence of it. How she’d seen movement out of the corner of her eye and her body had reacted without her will. The all-consuming fear, the sudden terror screaming inside of her that made her bolt straight into the concrete. The way the pain that had come after it was nothing compared to the horror on Cassian’s face as he held his hands up in surrender and stepped back.

And Nesta already had so many ghosts in the closet she couldn’t keep track of them. But this would be one that haunted her as life continued to unfold around her. Something her mind would keep coming back to. 

Kind, dependable Cassian who would never, ever hurt her. 

Nesta wanted to die of shame but she was too tired.

So, she just said, “It was right.”

Cassian nodded, relieved and then neither of them said anything. He joined her on the couch, in her periphery, on the length that ran to her left, just far enough away that she didn’t feel the fenced in.

The television screen played out softly in the background and Nesta took that moment to finally check her phone. Sure enough, Emerie had left her more than one message. The first barrage had been cursing Tomas to a fate worse than death and declaring her love for Nesta. The second had been about reporting the incident to Nesta’s lawyer. The third set was all specifics, the tone carefully light:

Emerie-Board, 22:12: Plane gets in at ten, Loch Nessie. Shall I pick you up from Cassian’s? I can come straight from the airport and you can stay with me for a few days.

Emerie-Board, 22:13: Or would you like to stay in his bed apartment for the foreseeable future? Let a girl know when you can. Love you. 

Emerie-Board, 23:07: I’m taking your silence as a ‘yes, I would like picking up’. So, I’ll see you at ten tomorrow morning.

Emerie-Board, 09:31: Just getting in the car from the airport. See you soon.

Quickly, Nesta replied to Emerie telling her to drive safe. Then, she messaged Gwyn wishing her luck for her exam, before discarding her phone beside her.

“All ok?”

Nesta swallowed again, but that emotion remained stuck, lodged in her throat.

“Emerie is on her way.” There was a pause, a beat where she tried to remain silent. But she couldn’t stop herself from asking, just as she couldn’t help but steal a glance his way. “Did you have to cancel clients?”

For an instant, Cassian studied her. And Nesta could tell by his hesitation that he was considering whether to lie. Thought better of it. 

Steadily he met her gaze, locked onto her, those hazel eyes boring into her. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry—”

Slowly, Cassian tilted his head back until it met the couch cushion, but he was still looking right at her, when he echoed her words from earlier, “Don’t be.”

Nesta looked resolutely down. Played with a stray thread of fabric on the sleeve of her jumper that had come loose, out of place. Thought of herself, woven out of the fabric of her life again, another deep pothole in the road she needed to patch up, to mend.

And it was that thought, coupled with Cassian’s earnest expression, that made it happen. The stark, beautiful line of his eyebrows, the way the dark in them made his hazel eyes appear like sincere pools of swimming gold. 

It all happened without warning. A new wave of emotion surmounted inside of her, a deluge that was more forceful than before. It rose like a tide from her stomach up to her throat, the pressure of it dislodging what was already stuck there and suddenly Nesta’s eyes felt hot. Her eyelids burned, limned with tears even though she couldn’t feel the fullness of the emotions attached to them - the sadness, the shame, the guilt - just the force of it that wanted, needed to get out. 

Everything inside of Nesta tensed, clamped down. Ready to lock down that sharp rush of breath, the tears that were about to swell and spill over, slide down her cheeks like rivers.

But then Cassian said her name and it was all over. 

It was the weight in his voice that broke her—the unspoken understanding, the quiet knowledge that she now stood on the edge of something vast and terrifying. She was here, truly here, in this moment, even though the full gravity of it was still muted, muffled.

And still, it was too much.

Control slipped through Nesta’s fingers, and there was no point in chasing it. The tears came unbidden, silent and unrelenting, falling down her cheeks like lifeless rivers.

And she knew Cassian had clocked them. Knew because the silence carried too much weight to it. As if it were bulging at the seams, ready to spill open.

“I’m sorry.” 

The words slipped out of Nesta on a wavering exhale, pitchy and uncontrolled. And Nesta’s face crumpled at the sound. She dragged in another breath, trying to stop the flow of tears, but they were flowing independently from her will, her body and mind two separate entities, the latter unable to control the former. 

She raised her hands to cover her face, but Nesta forgot about her head and the painful reminder of it just made the tears come faster. Her breath hitched, sharp and strained, the pain twisting it into a higher pitch as her head throbbed relentlessly.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. Followed it with another strangled intake of breath that sounded too like a sob.

“Don’t be. Hey, you’re ok.” Cassian’s voice now, urgently quiet, desperately soothing. 

There was the rustle of fabric, the sound of the cushions moving beneath his weight, but Nesta didn’t look up. She knew he wanted to get to her, to comfort her but wasn’t sure if she’d flinch. 

That only made the tears come faster. 

“Nesta.” His voice even closer now. Pained. “Can I hug you?”

And again, that gentle patience undid her. She buried her face further into her left hand, her right hovering over the sore and bruised skin at her temple as she nodded, forgetting again, the pain it brought.

Then he was there. The couch cushions moving under his weight, as he sat down beside her. It was the heat of him first, then the scent of him winding around her. But then his calloused fingers were at her wrists, prying her hands from her face. Cassian’s arms came around her, the fibres of his sweater tickling her skin, his nose in her hair.

They stayed like that even when Nesta’s phone rang, her focus solely on the lulling rise and fall of his chest. When the ringing stopped, there was only a short reprieve, and then Cassian’s phone sounded. 

They ignored it all. Waited until Nesta had a semblance of control again, that surging wave inside of her having crested into quieter waters. 

Even so, Nesta couldn’t bear to answer Emerie. Instead, she groped blindly for her, handed it to Cassian when it rang again. Allowed him to answer, one arm still around her, holding her close. 

His chin moved against the crown of Nesta’s head as he spoke but she just squeezed her eyes tightly shut, allowed the last of the tears to escape. “Hey. Ok, one second. We’ll be down.”

Silence descended as he hung up. He didn’t pull away from her, didn’t do anything but give her time. 

Eventually, when her breathing had evened out to match his, Nesta straightened a little, pulled away, turned her head. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, not when they were this close, even though his chin was purposefully tilted down to look at her, to try and catch her in the serious concern of his gaze. 

He gave her a beat. Two. But then his hands rose to cup her face. The movement was purposefully slow, giving her time to acknowledge his intention, to pull away, but Nesta found that she didn’t want to stop him. Tenderly, he brushed his thumbs over her cheeks, swiping away the tear tracks and the action was so pure, so gentle, so Cassian that Nesta found herself doing the thing she’d been so afraid of.

This close up, his eyes weren’t as gold. Amongst the amber, she could see the threads of green in them, the hazel, and she found herself leaning into his touch, wanting more of it. Needing to be reeled into the sudden reminder of the comfort he had always brought her, the safety. Something solid to hold onto, something dependable, something she wasn’t afraid of.

“Sorry.”

It came out hoarse. Cassian’s brows knit together but that calloused thumb continued to stroke at her cheek. 

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

His breath fluttered over her skin, another caress.  

“I can’t do it again.”

That thumb at her cheek stilled. Somehow, Cassian’s voice dipped into something even lower. “Do what?”

But the truth of it had hit Nesta now. Of what was to come. The thing she had not wanted to truly accept. Her isolating herself, ruled by a fear she couldn’t control. She heaved a breath, a suppressed, shaky sob stuttering out of her. Pressed her hands into her stomach, trying to hold in that fear. Stop it from spilling out of her.

“Put myself back together again. I’ve barely just done it and now I’ve got to do it all over and I just…” She stopped, tried to wrangle her breathing under control so she could continue speaking, but it turned out that she had run out of words. And what else was there to say, other than, “I can’t.”

There was a stillness, a few heartbeats where Cassian seemed to remain frozen.

And Nesta didn’t know what she expected from him now. By the end of her speech, she had mainly been talking to herself. Confessing this truth, this understanding that she had to begin anew. 

Gently, Cassian layered his hands over hers. And that was his only response. Silent support rather than a verbal one. Helping her to cage in the terror that resided in her stomach, lurking, waiting to leap out at her at any moment. 

Together, they walked down in silence. Down the hall, into the lift. Nesta focussed on the sensation of her feet on the ground, ignoring the dizziness, the way the world seemed to streak and whirl around her, unstable. 

As soon as Cassian opened the door to the front entrance of the apartments, fresh air rushed in on a fierce wind. It sobered Nesta up and she blinked, once, twice.

Patiently, Cassian waited, one hand propping the door. He raised the other in greeting to Emerie, who was just getting out of the car, before he turned his focus back to Nesta.

For a moment, he just stared down at her. Deliberated.

But then he said, quietly, fervently, “For what it’s worth, I know you can do this.”

Those eyes searched hers as if he was looking for something. A glimpse of who she’d been before yesterday, perhaps. 

“Can I—” He began, but then he broke off, unsure. His hair, snagged by the fierce wind, was pulled behind him. Nesta’s own wet strands whipped around her, across her face. It was punishingly cold, but she didn’t care. “Can I text you?”

Nesta bit her lip hard before she released it. Looked away. “Ok.”

“Ok, sweetheart.” His hand inched across the space between them. It hovered over her arm, tentative unsure, before it fell away.

The saddest of smiles ghosted Cassian’s lips, tugging at the corners but failing to blossom into something true. “Be kind to yourself.”

And that was it. 

Nesta walked away and didn’t look back.