But the bad part is at some point she didn’t notice anymore.

Her couch is very short. That much she does notice, over and over again. More of a loveseat than a couch, but the most that would fit in her labyrinthine excuse for a living room and a very nice antique she’d found for cheap. Shiloh is also very warm, which she does notice, over and over again, draped into the couch and dozed off across from her. By which she means he makes a nice cushion for her aching head, because her couch is very short. She would sincerely like to follow his example, if she can manage, already.

It’s late in the day; the only thing she’s done is play video games on their new old GameCube and the pain is getting worse. Sore. Itching—badly. Her leg is hardly half-regrown, a thick gelatinous mass of pitch-dark blue ink, her skin on fire where it frays at the end. Into... whatever used to be her limb.

The rush of a maws through ink, the ceramic click of its jaw interlocking. The sequence plays in her head without her asking for it. She knows the sound on instinct, a rhythm, a melody she autocompletes faster than her own heartsbeat. The moment of hesitation, the burst of ink, the clink of its tackle gear against the ground. Over and over again. Clanging of a stinger. Whistle of a flyfish. That makeshift rattle, gunning of an engine she always expects a scream to punctuate—

Every blue thing in her room has turned purple under the ludicrously rich orange sunset. She flicks the c-stick back and forth, fidgets. The start screen doesn’t respond.

Her head is stupidly thick, like lined with cotton. Lethally so—the shift set to automatic Play in her mind’s eye starts and stops and fades in and out, unresponsive. Shiloh is very warm, and she is comfortable. Ultimately. Aching with exhaustion, but the adrenaline is just theoretical: she doesn’t have to stay awake. She’s not trying to, dammit.

She’s alone, tired and resting. With him.

She blinks drowsily at the paisley pattern of her wallpaper without processing it. It’s very quiet. On some distant level traffic drones faintly through the door. The game’s menu music is almost muted, a jaunty, idle loop she tuned out forever ago. Infinite and halcyon.

And this—is what she’s going to wake up to again tomorrow.

And her FUCKING LEG ITCHES.

It aches so badly it hurts.

She’s never going to hear the surge of a maws beneath her or behind her in person ever again. As in, she could if she wanted. She’s healing fine; doctor said it’ll be like normal once she goes through physical therapy. But that’s not what she wants. It’s so quiet that she can hear him breathing—soft and shallow, in the same slow time as the resonant pulse of a slammin’ lid’s field. Same as the rush of ocean waves in the dark beneath her. She focuses on a trio of dark blue dots in the pattern, frowning in concentration, cognizant even now of the hysterical tremor in his voice pleading not to die.

The bite of the wind on their long roundabout walk, her yanking sharply at his wrist, the insulting total of his payout. Shiloh shifts beneath her, unconscious, and she doesn’t react. More important is the heavy, gratifying weight of her slumping back onto him. They’d paid for each other’s dinner so many times it became tradition; she’d learned a long time ago that Grizzco was Grizzco, and there was no use crying about it.

But the bad part was the point where she didn’t notice anymore. The faint haze of the question, as in: when had it engraved itself in her head like this. When had the water started boiling. Made her the frog. Her fingertips’ tracing over the slick scab of her leg makes her motion-sick, anticipation for an attack already come and gone. She can’t think past the itch, gaze fixed on the paisley, in her mind’s eye watching herself tug on the hem of her athletic shorts instead.

She’s so tired. For what.

Ten years. Years of grime and muck and air that tasted like metal in her mouth. Of on-your-six, side-step, hollow-boned reflexes. A year of this, at home, no sound but the click of joysticks dampened by embroidered pillows, drowsing with the sunset spilling in, until she’s healed. She leaves the lights off to mitigate her headache. Shiloh is very warm.

Her couch is very short. When Shiloh goes to bed at night, his legs fold over the edge of it. He makes her coffee in the morning, and he’s starting to get the hang of it.

It hurts.

But the bad part was—at some point she didn’t care anymore. If she woke up in the morning. It wasn’t like it wouldn’t just be the same old tune, over and over again. She can’t make her eyes stay open now. Her head is heavy. Thick and aching. She’s alone—no sticky film of the slopsuit against her damp skin, no ghost of her coworkers through the fog, no headset clamped down on her ear and staticky taped voice filtering through the cacophony. Once the sun sinks past the horizon she won’t listen for the whisper and rustle of glowflies. Instead it’s this, warm stale air of her living room, dry blankets and the faint rhythm of Shiloh’s breath, his shoulder gradually rising and falling.

It’ll be the same thing tomorrow. For a lot of days after that.

In her lap the controller is warm, gone silent. Dusk blurs the white and blue pattern into a wavering plum color. Makes her vision murky, the polished knickknacks on her shelves blending in with the gloom. She doesn’t know when she got used to it.

This. Indefinite purple dusk braided with phantom pain and never another thundering beat of the helicopter’s blades reverberating in her veins. Never another of her signatures on the splintered sign-in board for a shift. She doesn’t have to stay awake. She’s not trying to stay awake.

She’s sore to the point of nausea, but at some point the exhaustion has to win out.

No sunrise over Sockeye’s worth it.

There’s nothing left but the quiet and his heartsbeat. Which she does notice. Over and over. And over again.