Work Text:
They’d shared a bed so often before. Effortlessly.
Now the air in the shitty hotel room they’d managed to find was thick with more than just the heat of the evening, and Marc, teeth clenched, was laying an ocean away from Layla on the other side of the bed. He’d crossed his arms and put his eyes on the ceiling, but he could see the wilds of her hair bobbing as she made herself comfortable in his peripheral vision, and was helpless against the need to look at her whilst she wasn’t watching. Take in the sight of her bleary eyed and soft in her nightgown.
He missed her.
He missed her, and he knew the awkwardness was his fault. He knew that every second that she was here with him was putting her in danger, and he was angry at himself for not being strong enough to let her go, and manage it on his own.
He would go, he would, if Khonshu made himself known.
But.
But he’d become acutely attuned to the way his body felt when he and Steven needed to rest, and that was now. And he was here and Layla was here. And he was trying his hardest to keep his distance.
**********
Layla did get it. She settled herself and glanced across at Marc, eyebrows drawn down dark, the set to his jaw. It was awkward. She was still mad. And Marc seemed determined not to talk about it. About more or less anything. She knew him. And so she knew that he thought that if he just threw himself into the mission and nothing but the mission he could bull-in-a-china-shop his way through the wreck their lives had become and things would resolve themselves out of pure stubbornness.
It exasperated her. Of course it did.
But she loved him. She looked across at him there and saw past the hard demeanour. Marc was adrift on the wreckage of his old life and as she lay there, she saw him willing himself to be fine without her. Without anyone.
So she took his hand.
He held it back, smoothing his thumb over her skin like he couldn’t help it, screwing his eyes closed. She saw the self-admonishment in the way his jaw flexed even tighter, a split second before he made the conscious decision to pull away and roll over.
She didn’t let him get that far. She did not release his hand and in truth he did not try especially hard to make her.
“Don’t,” he said. Not an admonishment, or a plea. Just a word. He risked looking at her.
She exhaled, hard. She didn’t want to speak, to argue. Just tugged on his hand and shifted in a way that clearly made room for him against her side.
His eyes were agonised. His hand still clutched hers.
“Layla, we can’t -”
“Marc.” She levelled him a look. “I’m not going to be able to sleep if I know you’re over there, also unable to sleep.”
The sternness on his face flickered. She made the decision for him. Went over.
For maybe three seconds as she settled herself around him, he resisted. She pushed a curl out of his eye and he sagged in defeat. They melted into each other.
**********
Layla was perfect. If Marc allowed himself he could pretend everything was fine. That their marriage and their life was uncomplicated, with the way her legs were nudging against his and her arms rested across his waist. But he couldn’t allow himself to.
Layla had already closed her eyes, but she moved a finger up to his lips to hush him. “Shhh. I can hear you thinking, and for once I’m with you – now is not the time to talk.”
An errant lump in the mattress dug into his back. He nodded. Her hand slipped down and rested, splayed, across his heart. He closed his eyes.
**********
“Oh bloody hell!”
She woke with a start.
She struggled up from her pillow, hair bouncing into bleary eyes that she tried to push out of her way with one hand as she propped herself up with the other. The mattress was dipping and lunging almost violently beneath her and her chest and stomach were suddenly cool, air working its way under the neck of her nightgown, and it took a moment but she realised the crux of the situation the second the accent settled in.
Steven was scrambling out from her arms. Bright red and embarrassment in his averted eyes as he wriggled over to as far away on the bed as it was possible to go without falling off – he almost fell off – and babbling all the while.
“Sorry, sorry, oh god. I’ll just go - ” he shucked the covers and looked wildly about the room, “Oh. Of course there’s only one bed. Right. Okay. I’ll just…” a second of wide-eyed indecision and he laid back down stiffly, so similar to how Marc had lain just hours ago, yet nothing alike at all. Marc had seemed actively restrained. Steven was holding himself like he was a stick bobbing in a river. He was still talking. “I’ll just. Stay on. On my side.” There was a slight pause. “Sorry.”
It had been a rude awakening, Layla allowed herself as she took a minute to assess. It was still dark. Middle of the night dark, rather than the creeping lifting grey of near morning. She had no idea what had roused Steven, but it was clear that he couldn’t yet start the day with so little hours of sleep.
It was hot. Most of the covers were pooling around Layla’s waist; Steven clutching at a very corner, wringing it with both hands up by his chin. She was damp with the sweat of sleep and could see Steven was too – hair a mess and eyes still on the ceiling. Yet still she shivered in the wake of the yawning gap between them.
At the movement – tiny, really, but Steven still saw – he snapped his eyes over. “Sorry, are you cold? Do you want - ” he offered the tiny handful of covers he’d taken with him, completely sincerely, as if he was hogging them, and she shook her head. Her hair stuck to her neck. She kicked the covers away. Steven let go of his corner to let her do it.
She felt like she should say something, but she was too tired to make her words come out the way she wanted them too, and she could see Steven was tired too – though he always looked tired. Both he and Marc did. It was in their eyes.
It was as she was trying to work out what to say to reassure Steven that she saw how he – instinctively, quite without seeming aware of it – curled up. Drew up his knees and ducked his head. Half-formed words died in her throat as his arms came up and crossed over his chest and he hugged himself protectively as she watched.
It reminded her violently, with a sharp and aching inhale, of that other time. When she’d hugged him. And it came to her that – she didn’t need words.
She was nervous to offer, and she licked her lips. But she was certain it was the right thing to do.
“You can come back, if you’d like,” she said, and at his startled look and before he could start waffling, she clarified. Flopped back down onto her pillow with a slight rush of air and beckoned gently with the arm laid lazily across the sheet toward him; lifted the other a little aloft. It was as clear an invitation for another hug as she could make, but she made sure to keep her face just the kind side of normal as she waited to see what he wanted to do.
She wouldn’t push him.
But she remembered. Remembered the way he’d held on to her like he’d never let go.
Steven was pulling anxiously at the neck of his top. “I’m not Marc,” he said bluntly, as if it was possible she hadn’t noticed.
Layla dropped her arms but made sure not to close herself off. “I know, Steven,” she said quietly.
“You know,” he repeated, a little perplexed. Like he’d never expected her to offer him comfort again. She swallowed.
“Just thought you might like another hug – of sorts.” There was an eyelash in her eye. She wiped at it and Steven followed the path of her hand before clenching his own in the fabric of his top. The second he realised he was doing it he dropped his hands from his chest.
She could see him worrying. In his eyes.
“But you’re married to Marc. I’m not anything to you.”
The worst thing, is that it wasn’t a question; wasn’t even self-pitying. He just said it. Layla was suddenly wide awake.
“That’s not true.” He didn’t look at her. “Steven,” she said, a little firmer, and waited till he met her eyes, “that’s not true, okay?”
No, she had not known about Steven. But she knew now. She was getting to know him, and his infectious enthusiasm for Egyptology even when in mortal danger, and she couldn’t let him go around thinking that she only cared about one of them. Because –
She didn’t. They were both important.
They looked at each other across the pillows. Layla could pick out the shape of their luggage in the dark. The tiny lights that showed her phone was charging.
When Steven looked away, she was ready to repeat herself until he believed it, but then she saw how his eyes flickered to her still outstretched hand, curling limply on the sheet between them, and then nervously back to her face, and she understood. He was wondering if it was too late. To take up her offer.
A small sound to get his attention, and she lifted her arms like before. Such a look of utter relief crossed Steven’s face before he tentatively ducked his head and began to shuffle over that she swallowed to ease the tightness of her throat.
“If you change your mind just kick me or somethin’,” Steven mumbled, and it was so very Steven that she couldn’t help the quirk of her lips. She could see he was lost about how to settle himself. So she helped. Guided him down.
They didn’t meld together without thinking the way she and Marc did. She had to arrange Steven gently so no elbows or knees or heads knocked together and he didn’t trap her hair beneath his weight.
But then he’d shuffled low enough to put his head where he’d had it before. In the crook of her neck. Nose almost pressed to her clavicle. One of her arms curled to very lightly brush his hair and the over made its way around his middle. Not tight. But tight enough so he could feel her.
It was quiet again for a while. Slow breaths slightly out of sync. The phone on the bedside table suddenly and silently circled green as it finished charging.
“Thank you,” said Steven, raw in the darkness.
She inhaled, and his hands between them brushed her stomach. She closed her eyes. Gave him a squeeze. “Anytime.”
**********
It was morning. Still hot. But the heat of a risen sun and not muggy night air. Marc could tell before he even opened his eyes, from the red glow beyond his eyelids.
Once his eyelashes had fluttered open he realised why his feet were chilly but the rest of him was sweltering. Because the covers had been kicked off and he was curled into Layla’s chest as he slept. It didn’t take long to recognise the way he was huddled up; Steven. The way he slept. The way Marc had awoken time and time again in the apartment before he had to rise.
And Layla was holding him – them. A loose arm around his shoulders.
He blinked at the nearness of her nightgown.
He had to extract himself, so slowly, so silently, to the bathroom. As he was about to leave he caught sight of Steven looking sleep rumpled in the mirror. They looked at each other. Then Marc looked over at Layla, still asleep, and when he turned back Steven had turned bashful.
I, er, he was whispering, because it was the still kind of morning that required whispering even if nobody else could hear him, woke up in the night. Probably a – a moth, or something. The awkward gesture he made was halfway to a shrug. I didn’t mean to… he made a little back and forth gesture between them, and Layla, but Layla, she um. She said it was alright.
The last bit was barely audible, and his eyes were wide.
Marc looked over at Layla. They needed to get up. Get going. It wasn’t safe to waste time.
But even though sensibly he should get ready and wake her; even more simply steal way without her and free her from the shit he’d dragged her into, he didn’t. He took another glance at Steven, hesitant and with his teeth at his lip –
And went back to bed.
He tried his hardest not to wake her. He did. But she rolled into the depression made by the weight of his knee on the mattress as he settled back down and curled around her, and her eyes flickered open questioningly.
He held her and put his face in her hair. “Thank you for doing that for Steven,” he said gruffly.
A moment passed, and she found his hand, tangling their fingers together. “Of course,” she said, hushed, and trailed her fingertip along the crease in his palm. “For any of you.”
From where Marc was laying, his head just above hers on a pillow that infused with her scent, he could see her phone on the bedside table, and Steven glimmering in its reflection, staring down at their joined hands.
Bloody hell Marc, he said softly, you’re an idiot. She’s a keeper.
Marc stared at the slice of him he could see. Swallowed hard. “I know.”
“What’s that?”
Layla’s words were still a little sleep dusted. Marc buried his nose deeper in her hair. Brushed the tip against her nape and didn’t mind the tickle of it. His jaw worked for a second as he contemplated telling her he’d been talking to Steven.
“Steven’s saying I’m an idiot.”
There was a pause. And Marc panicked. And then Layla laughed. Mostly just a shake of her shoulders. “Steven’s right.”
An odd glimmer of ever so slightly smug elation from Steven, and Marc rolled his eyes and smiled against Layla’s skin.