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It's as if he's taking his first gulp of air.
With an anguished gasp, Steven Grant jolts from his mattress in a cold sweat. Sometimes it's always like this: seconds that feel like minutes, minutes that feel like hours, to get his bearings of where he's been. Tingles at the tips of his fingers are a good sign. It means his body's working - their body, the body that was once torn apart - and his second instinct is to stare.
In the dark, in the mirror, until he sees a familiar silhouette.
Except it isn't his, not really. Not entirely.
The sheets beside him move, and in the gentle hue from the London street lights peering through the bedroom window he can see the relief in Marc's face when you wrap a hand around Steven's bare bicep.
"Steven?"
Concern. You're not meant to be concerned, not about him. And if Steven wasn't so frightful at the idea of Marc's eyes disappearing from view, then maybe he would have turned faster.
"Are you alright?" he asks, but not to you.
Swallowing thick to calm the tremble in his throat, Steven waits for Marc to say something, anything, between the reflection keeping them separate.
(There was a space where the alters were tangible. Is that how close they'll ever get, when Death is a mere few feet away?)
"Answer her, Steven," Marc answers instead, jaw tense.
Always so closed off. Always so worried about everyone else.
"Is Marc okay?" you murmur, cautious in your approach to be the middleman of the equation. Approaching the two can often feel like trying not to spook a wild animal - while one will respond, the other is prone to run.
