Ready to Suffer, Ready to Hope *Matt Murdock* (book three of Damned-3b) x Arrow

10) Friends like these

The first thing she was aware of was a warm body being in bed with her. That she wasn't used to, not for the past few days. It felt incredibly nice and comforting, which would explain the other thing too.

The other thing was her limbs being wrapped about the said body like an octopus. Vera squeezed her eyes shut and cursed under her breath. That was not what she had wanted to do.

Yes, she had said 'maybe' to Matt. But it was 'maybe' and not an enthusiastic 'YES'. Yes, he had kissed her forehead and cheek and she had liked it – because she had been high on meds-- yeah, definitely, one aspirin was the thing to blame it on – and so they had kissed a little, like kissed, and she had liked that even more. And they had touched hands and she... yeah, okay, she had definitely clung on his forearm when going to sleep. But this?! The sleepy octopus thing? That was a fucking treason. Her body had been being naughty when liking touching Matt the evening before, but this was it being an actual traitor.

Vera opened her eyes, only meeting Matt's shirt. This was new too – was she clinging on him that much that he hadn't even stripped and changed? Oh god, Vera.... She carefully untangled her legs from between his first, startled at the sound of his sleepy hum.

She quickly snapped her head up – his eyes were half open as if the weak daylight at the base was hurting him. She didn't bother with careful when freeing him of her arms.

"Sorry," she whispered, not sure if she was apologizing for waking him up or for... attacking him in his sleep.

Matt's gaze was focused to nowhere, soft with sleep; the instinct to just snuggle him and fall asleep again was strong, but the pang in her stomach was warning her and for a good reason. She gulped.

"I didn't mind," he murmured, voice low, still rough with sleep. Her fingers actually itched to straighten his bedhead a little, her heart warm and aching at the same time at the sight.

She scanned him again. "Matt, the position you're in cannot be comfortable and my grabby limbs were preventing you from moving," she stated, intentionally avoiding the fact that he might have liked it, liked the closeness the same way she did. That was a dangerous territory she didn't want to enter.

"I didn't mind," he repeated quietly and she closed her eyes at that. So much for avoiding it.

" 'kay." Vera cowardly rolled over to check her phone and mainly, the time. "It's almost nine. We should get up."

When she turned back to him, he was already supporting himself on his elbow, his free hand running down his face.

"And I should get a shower. Is there... a free towel somewhere? I didn't really-" he stopped in the middle of the sentence, grimacing. Vera could only imagine how the sentence ended in his head. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"Yeah, I'll give you one."

"Thanks."

She was sitting in the spacy room in silence, her mind racing. Okay, this... would be messy. She had wanted to stay at the base so they wouldn't be alone, because... because... she wasn't sure how to treat him. And here they were.

She was still pissed. Oh god, she was so pissed and betrayed, even though the feeling was fading away slowly, because she... she actually believed he hadn't picked Elektra over her. No, he had picked... his freaking guilt or whatever over her and while it was slightly better, it still hurt. Breaking promises wasn't much better.

And of course, yesterday, her own guilt had mixed up with that and had made it even messier.

The other feelings she was trying to drown, vainly; the urge to slip into their familiarity, into his embrace, meet his lips again and in a different way than just pecking them, to tell him she loved him just to see his smile, the one special smile— yeah, crap, but she knew there was no denying it; she loved him, even between all of that. And maybe it was making her a bitch, but she was not about to admit it out loud, not any time soon.