#nc-eikin

(She know, because she recognizes the emptiness, the black and gaping void that’s swallowed her friend down deep. She knows because, while she may not have been able to see herself while it happened, she’s felt that same bleeding wound; she knows what grief looks like - from the inside and out.)

“Mari?” she calls again, softly, sadly. She reaches out and lays her hand overtop the one resting on the other woman’s knee; the fingers are limp in her hold, chilled by the night air, but Reina gives them a gentle squeeze. 

Mari blinks. It’s slow, dazed, and her eyelids stutter as she creaks them back open, but her shoulders rise with a sudden quiet, deep breath, and that’s good.

Reina squeezes her friend’s hand again, and this time Mari turns her head and tilts her chin down to look at their joined fingers. 

It takes a few more minutes for Mari to completely return to her body. 

Reina just waits. 

Eventually, there is another deep pull of breath, followed by a long, low exhale. “...Rei?” she whispers, tone small and confused. Like a wounded, delirious child. 

Reina rolls their hands to the side and clasps her other one overtop, so that both of hers now hold Mari’s own - one on either side. “Hey,” she calls softly. “Welcome back.” She smiles at Mari, who finally looks up at her face with a dazed expression. 

Sluggishly, Mari relaxes back against her chair as if a pressure valve has been released. She bounches their combined hands once or twice against her knee, wobbling them back and forth as she grounds herself. 

“...How long was I gone?”

Reina shakes her head. Blue hair, mussed from sleep and slipping from its braid, falls into her eyes, and she goes to move a hand to push it away again - only for Mari to bring her own free hand up and clap it overtop the whole ball of fingers and palms. It takes Reina a momet to pick the gesture apart in her head, but when it finally clicks, she squeezes both of her hands tightly around the ones held in her grip. She blows awkwardly at the strands of dusky blue invading her sight; she’s willing to trade her own comfort for the comfort of her friend. 

“Dunno,” she finally says. “Chami woke me up about… uhm. Fifteen? Minutes ago?” She turns to look behind her as if she has any hope of seeing the little glowing green numbers on her kitchen stove from here. She gives up and turns back around. “So maybe about twenty? Thirty?”

Mari nods, shallow and slow, in acknowledgement. 

The pair sits in silence for a bit - Mari pursing her lips as she watches the street below and Reina conversely watching the sky. 

(It’s starless and clouded, reflecting the harsh yellow of the city streetlamps, and Reina feels a pang of something empty in the pit of her stomach. She shakes it off.)

“...I can’t sleep.”

Reina brings her gaze down to earth at the quiet words. She furrows her brows, confused. “Insomnia?” she guesses, though she knows her tone gives away her unsurity.

Mari shakes her head. “No, I… I don’t want to sleep.”

Oh.

Reina chews at her bottom lip, pulling at the dead skin there as a feeling of recognition trickles wet and too-warm down the back of her neck. Even without a confirmation, Reina can piece together what Mari’s words more than likely mean - she’s been there herself more times that she dares to count.

Without releasing her grip, Reina scoots her chair until she’s right at Mari’s side instead of facing her at an angle; she tugs at their combined hands, pulling Mari over until her friend leans into her, head on Reina’s shoulder. Reina then rests her cheek in Mari’s hair. “Nightmare?” she asks. “Or memory?”

Against her, Mari jerk slightly, as if she’s just huffed without a sound. “...Both,” she says at length. 

Reina hums. “Need silence or a distraction?”

This time Mari shrugs. 

Reina doesn’t speak again, instead allowing the other woman to sort through her own thoughts; If Mari wants to talk, then Reina will listen. If Mari wants to sit and watch the sun come up without speaking, then Reina won’t say another word. 

Eventually, though, Mari does speak, and despite being just below Reina’s ear, the barista still struggles to hear her.

“...Had a dream about Jake.”

Reina gives Mari’s fingers several rhythmic squeezes. “He was your partner, right?” 

Mari nods. 

(Reina doesn’t know much about the pokemon her friend used to have. Mari hasn’t offered up the information, and Reina isn’t one to pry - but she knows enough.) 

Gently, slowly, Reina pulls one of her hands loose from the knot of fingers, offering a quick squeeze when Mari tries to tighten her grip. Once freed, Reina quickly presses her thumb to each of her knuckles to crack them in turn, then wraps her entire arm around Mari’s shoulders and hugs her close. She tucks her feet up onto the chair with her and leans herself into Mari’s side as tightly as she can to maximize the spread of her body heat. 

Unconsciously (or maybe not), Mari presses herself into Reina’s side and turns her face to bury it in Reina’s sweater. She takes a shaky breath in through her nose, lets it out through her teeth.

Reina jostles her shoulder slightly, shifting the person slumped against it in a quiet show of affection. “I’m here,” she murmurs, “if you need to get it out of your head. I don’t mind.”

Beside her, at her collarbone, is another unsteady breath. 

With a heaviness that makes her seem as if she’s made of crumbled stones, Mari pulls herself away from Reina’s side - though not far enough to dislodge the arm from around her own shoulders. She flops limply against the chairback with all the grace of a ragdoll, and sighs. 

“You sure?” Mari whispers, so quietly it’s barely there. She doesn’t look at Reina; her glossy, distant stare fixes on some unknowable point far above them both, in the yellow-washed black of the Nimbasa City sky. 

Reina hums, nodding once. “I’m sure.”

For a moment there is more silence, the sound of far-off traffic and the hush of the chilly night breeze.

Then, with a painful, ragged inhale, Mari squeezes her hands tight around Reina’s own. She opens her mouth.