❛ it was a nightmare, it’s alright. you’re safe now. ❜ Maybe he’s helping her with a stakeout or something. I just needed to send this.
@echxdna || ANASTASIA STARTERS
An armoured wall bruises the fist that frantically knocks on its surface, the sound of the contact thundering through the metal halls that have swallowed her. The roar fills her head & leaves her disorientated — somehow she knows only she can hear her percussive pleas & it feels like she’s being mocked. She’s never been one to lose her head, but she feels the heat rise in her cheeks & the painful swell in her throat as she dares to check the device on her wrist, its timer still ticking down steadily.
It’s all over ( stuck like vermin in a trap — she thought the world would at least let her fight for her life ).
She can’t shake the feeling she’s been here before, but that doesn’t stop her from slumping over & pressing her forehead to the cold wall of her tomb, hope dwindling like the time she has to wait out. She’s alone, no one to see her here ( this time no one came back for you — no one’s here to save you since you couldn’t save yourself ), & yet she’s fighting the tears that line the rims of her eyes, as if she can’t bear to let them show even now. Frustration, despair, anger — it makes her shake as she grits her teeth & finally a tear spills down her cheek ( it feels odd in a way she can’t describe; the sensation cuts through everything else ).
Her legacy cut short, a gross anticlimax to her story — she thinks of all the plans she could never bring to fruition & the job that both helps & hinders her. She thinks of the friends she was too distant to keep, too busy to understand, too selfish to love. She thinks of her team. She thinks of him & the potential that dies with her, all the time they’ve wasted. She thinks about leaving him behind.
It’s her own hushed sob that wakes her — the soulless, grey wall she was staring at is replaced by the blue hues of night & the clouds that catch the moon on their edges. Her pulse thuds in her chest & it takes a moment to find her bearings, but her sigh is a wordless praise of thanks when his words cut through & ground her ( she remembers the mission & the briefing at HQ, she remembers inviting him to join her, she remembers their hike out here — this is real ).
Her last thought was of losing him & now he’s a worried face leaning over her, his reassurance exactly what she needed; even if residual fear has her uneasy, she can only smile.
She sits up & the evening breeze is sharply cold on her cheeks — she realises now she’d been crying in her sleep. Her relief is tinged by embarrassment, the thought of Knuckles seeing her all teary-eyed not one she likes ( had he ever seen her cry before? Had anyone—? Not in years ). She wipes at the wetness with the back of her hand, keeping her face turned from him.
There’s no need to apologise & she knows it, but she’s wondering what he thinks of her now, a grown woman crying over a nightmare with mascara blemishing her cheeks. A far cry from pristine, put-together Rouge — how she hates showing her faults, her imperfections. A part of her just wants to shrink away & hide.
& she can do just that, she thinks; she raises her arm so she can slip under it & lean against his torso, using the blanket that’d been draped over her ( by him after she’d dozed off, she assumes ) to cover their shoulders. Her head rests against his chest, adrenaline giving way to drowsiness & making the warmth of his body a comfort she couldn’t resist if she wanted to.
She doesn’t want to explain, she doesn’t want to dwell on her moment of weakness. She wants to slip back into sleep, but despite her stubbornness, she still manages a soft murmur into his fur:
❝ …Thanks. For being here. ❞
