Chapter Text
The room is void of light, a blackness near tangible in its thickness filling every inch of the space. It flattens itself against the walls, finding and forcing its way into the cracks of the door, the slits in the blinds. Pressing. Invading. And when Cosima takes a breath—slow and deep, heavy with the weight of sleep—the darkness slips in, smooth at first then blooming with heat like bourbon tossed rather than sipped. The heat intensifies, igniting into flame as it sears a blazing trail down her airway. Easy breaths turn to smoke and ash, jolting her awake as she chokes and gasps, lungs heaving.
Lurching sideways with a movement so fluid and precise it may as well be a reflex, her hand finds the bedside table, needing neither light nor lenses for her palm to land immediately upon the box of Kleenex, extracting one harshly and crushing it to her lips in anticipation of the blood spewing from her mouth like magma in response to her body’s eruption. She coughs and hacks, torso quaking from the sheer force of it, until at last the spell subsides, leaving only her breath to shake and her limbs to tremble as anxiety fills the singed, aching cavity of her chest.
Sniffling, Cosima habitually swipes at the corners of her mouth with the tissue, then stretches to reach the lamp at her bedside, hand shaking as she fumbles with the switch until a faint click washes the room in a dull, honey glow. She glances expectantly at the tissue still clenched in her hand, swallowing thickly with disbelief at the sight of white marred by saliva and flecks of mucus, blood absent despite the ghostly tang of iron that paints itself along the backs of her teeth, taunting her much like the crimson stains that now appear only behind closed eyes, in dreams and in flashbacks.
Tossing the crumpled tissue aside with a shuddering sigh of relief, Cosima turns off the light and eases herself back down into silken sheets. The sheets, now cool from her brief absence, raise chills on her fevered flesh, and she snuggles backwards in search of the warm body next to her only to find the other side of the bed barren, her lover gone.
“Delphine?” she calls into the dark anyway, brow furrowing as she runs her hand fruitlessly over the cold, ruffled mess of bedclothes.
Turning to her stomach, Cosima pushes herself up, disheveled dreadlocks messily framing her face then falling back into place as she rests on her knees, comforter pooling around her bare waist. She finds her cat-eye frames on the nightstand and slips them on, then fishes her oversized nightshirt from where it lay by the bed—abandoned on the floor just hours before—pulling it over her head and simultaneously sliding off the side of the mattress in one flowing motion.
The faint crunch of carpet beneath her feet sounds unnervingly loud, cutting through the stillness as Cosima pads down the darkened apartment corridor. The flicker of the television filters through the living room doorway, causing shadows and varying degrees of fluorescence to dance irregularly along the hallway walls as she draws near. Rounding the corner, her heart flutters in surprise as her gaze lands almost instantly upon Delphine, and her still buzzing nerves find a small semblance of peace at the sight. The Frenchwoman is slumped against the arm of their leather couch, one arm resting beneath her head while the other drapes across the front of the sofa, fingertips mere inches from the floor. Her legs are half drawn up beneath her, an all but abandoned blanket twisted loosely around them doing nothing to cover her lithe figure, clad only in grey boyshort underwear and one of Cosima’s too short, purple pajama tops. Bright flashes of the TV screen bathe her form, bleaching the mussed, golden ringlets of her hair silver as they spill halfway down her back like sifting waves of moonlit seafoam.
Cosima leans against the doorframe, teeth sinking into her lower lip as she twirls a dread idly between her fingers and silently admires the sleeping form. Delphine looks so peaceful even as the half-light sharpens the lines of her face and deepens the slight crease in her brow. I shouldn’t wake her, Cosima thinks, but a nearly imperceptible glimmer draws her attention to the sturdy glass bottle of amber liquid on the end table closest Delphine. Realization dawning, she quickly changes her mind, crossing the room and sinking to her knees before the resting woman. Taking hold of the arm hanging off the sofa, Cosima runs her hand lightly over soft skin, trailing down until her fingers find Delphine’s palm. She caresses it tenderly for a moment, reveling in the warmth before she interlocks their fingers and leans in, dragging her lips feather-light across smooth knuckles. With her other hand, she brushes a stray curl carefully behind an ear, not failing to notice the subtle twitch of her lover’s face as she does so—flinching even in her sleep.
“Hey, Delphine,” Cosima whispers, giving her hand a series of gentle squeezes. “Delphine.”
It takes minimal coaxing to wake the sleeping woman. Fluttering eyelids work to clear sleep-fogged vision, bringing clarity to the dim room as Delphine inhales deeply before releasing the breath with an exaggerated stretch. A lazy smile graces her lips as she regains her awareness, taking note of the silhouette kneeling before her—Cosima’s petite form regarding her from the floor with darkened eyes, chin sinking slightly into the couch cushion while a hot cheek rests flush against the back of her right hand.
“Cosima?” The roughness of her voice contrasts deeply with the inherent smoothness of her accent, heavier than usual as it always is upon waking. She clears her throat and continues. “Are you alright?”
“Yea—” Just thinking about her dream causes Cosima’s throat to tingle unpleasantly. She pauses, coughing reflexively in an attempt to quell the feeling, an act that does not go unnoticed by Delphine. “Yeah, of course.”
Cosima offers her a broad smile, one meant to reassure, but she sees through it straightaway, her own smile fading as her features wrinkle with concern. “Another nightmare, chérie?”
Delphine’s perceptiveness fills Cosima’s chest with warmth far removed from the painful scorching that she has grown accustomed to waking with on nights like this, when dreams of suffocation and death set her lungs aflame as her subconscious relives memories she desperately hopes to someday forget. Her expression falters as a swell of mixed emotions rises up at her lover’s inquiry, but she fights it back, deciding she is too tired for tears tonight. Instead, Cosima slowly nods, and when she finally speaks, her voice aims for levity.
“I had that dream again and woke up coughing. No blood though, so nothing to worry about. I’m still the poster child for miraculous recoveries.” She chuckles and turns her face, lips finding Delphine’s palm to kiss it lightly before she speaks again. “You, too, huh?”
“Mmm” Delphine sits up slightly, propping up on her elbow and cradling her head in her free hand. Her irises are shimmering pools of onyx as she regards Cosima intently for a moment. “How did you know?”
Arching a brow, Cosima glances pointedly at the bottle on the table next to them then back to Delphine, an expression somewhere between a knowing smirk and a grimace spreading across her face. “You know, I don’t think I’ve seen you touch anything but wine since the funeral.”
“Hmm?” Following up Cosima’s glance with one of her own, the sight of the whiskey brings about a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, an odd combination of disdain at falling asleep before hiding the evidence of her rough night and of guilt for intending to hide it in the first place. They were supposed to be beyond secrets now, after all.
Delphine extracts her hand from Cosima’s, running it over her face with a heavy sigh. “I didn’t actually drink any, but I… I thought about it.”
“You should have woken me up.”
“Non, you needed to rest.”
“Yeah, yeah. You weren’t too concerned about my need for sleep, like, five hours ago,” Cosima replies with a roll of her eyes and a mischievous grin, eye-teeth flashing.
Giggling, Delphine shifts so that she is lying flush against the back of the sofa and gently tugs Cosima to her. “Come here,” she whispers.
“Ooh, how do you want me, Dr. Cormier?” Cosima teases, waggling her eyebrows suggestively and eliciting another chuckle from her love.
“Turn around,” Delphine purrs with a wink, playing along. Then, more seriously, “I want to hold you.”
Nodding, Cosima discards her glasses before getting up and sliding into the free space in front of the other woman, disentangling the forgotten blanket as she does so and drawing it over the both of them. She presses back into Delphine, who immediately wraps her arm around the smaller woman’s waist to hold her close. Their bodies slot together perfectly, and it takes no time at all for their breathing to synchronize, chests rising and falling in tandem.
Warmed by the petite body in her arms—figure fuller and stronger now than it had been months before—Delphine tiptoes easily back to the precipice between waking life and the realm of dreams. Cosima remains awake, staring ahead, her eyes trained on the blurry television in a halfhearted attempt at watching what appears to be a French documentary of some sort. She makes it until the next commercial break before her attention wavers completely, pictures on the screen fading out as she loses herself in thought.
She knows better than to revisit it, and yet she cannot help but think of her dream. The thought process is innocent enough—simple analysis of the content through the lens of different psychoanalytical theories. Comparison with Freud’s psychosexual theories even makes her snigger—Ol’ Siggy would probably think she had a choking fetish. She sobers quickly, however, when the mental image of a hand around her neck reminds her of something far less pleasant. One memory from her time on the Island of Dr. Moreau, connected to a hundred other memories that are all suddenly begging her attention, rushing to the forefront of her brain in an uncontrollable firing of synapses. Wide awake, Cosima finds herself in a nightmare all over again.
As the flashback begins, her mind becomes a kaleidoscope, twisting, crisscrossing, and shifting with a dead face at every turn. Jennifer Fitzsimmons. Seth. Kendall. Helena. Hallucinations of fire flicker before her open eyes and her ears ring with gunshot and phantom screams of anguish and of rage. And blood—always blood—on her hands, in her mouth, and saturating every stitch of her clothing as it pools along the cracks of a dusty mansion floor.
Somewhere in a far corner of her mind, Cosima is aware that her body has started trembling. It is from that same distant place that Delphine’s voice calls to her, so faintly she almost does not hear it over the crackling flames, the screams, and the chaos.
“Cosima. Cosima, can you hear me?”
Suddenly, the vision shifts. In her mind’s eye, Cosima is no longer sitting on aging wooden planks; she is lying on polished tile. There is still blood on the floor, but this time it is her own. Her body is shaking harder now, and Delphine is leaning over her, the fluorescent lights of their laboratory casting the frantic woman’s face in shadow as she speaks. The doctor’s words, no longer faint, seem to echo in the small space.
Cosima, can you hear me? Cosima. Cosima!
Cosima tries to answer, but her mouth will not cooperate. Her tongue is heavy with the taste of iron and copper. There is blood, warm and thick in the back of her throat again, and she can’t breathe. Oh god, she can’t breathe.
“I’m right here, Cosima. It’s just a memory. Come back, mon amour.”
Delphine repeats the same phrase again and again, soft and reassuring as she strokes Cosima’s face, runs her fingertips lightly along the length of her arm. Propped up on her elbow once more, she looks down at the shivering brunette with tears in her eyes, waiting anxiously to see that spark of awareness light Cosima’s fearful, spaced-out gaze.
“Reviens à moi, mon ange.”
Finally, after minutes that feel like hours, the slightest glimmer. “Cosima?”
Turning her head slightly, Cosima’s eyes follow the sound of her name to its source. “Del-phine?” she chokes, blinking fiercely, still caught between fantasy and reality. “Am I dying?”
The tears in Delphine’s eyes fall at that, leaving trails of salt down her cheeks. She stifles a sob with the back of her hand, fighting back her own twisted memories that Cosima’s question provokes. “Shhh. No, Cosima. Just listen to me. Focus on my voice. I’m right here. It’s just a memory…”
Delphine falls into her mantra once more, never ceasing until Cosima begins to echo along with her own whispered phrase. “They’re just memories. I’m okay. They’re just memories...” She inhales so deeply that it hurts then releases the breath in a slow, shuddering exhale. “Delphine, I’m with you. I’m okay.”
Delphine offers Cosima a weak smile, cupping her cheek and leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead, undeterred by the sheen of sweat now covering the brunette's cool skin. At that, Cosima shifts, rolling over so that their bodies are no longer facing away from one another. She tucks her head beneath Delphine’s, and soft dreads lightly scratch the underside of the blonde’s chin as she nuzzles her neck. Cosima tucks one arm against her own chest while the other snakes its way into an unbuttoned pajama top and around a slim torso, clutching Delphine to her with a tightness that screams of desperation, as if holding onto Delphine meant holding onto life—a sentiment that, for Cosima, could not be closer to the truth. Delphine returns the embrace with equal fervor, and the two cling to one another until Cosima’s breathing evens out and the anxious tension drains from her muscles, allowing her body to relax as she sags against her lover, physically and mentally exhausted.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Delphine asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
There is a heavy silence, broken at last by a jaded sigh. “No.”
Delphine squeezes her gently and then takes to tracing soothing spirals along Cosima’s back with her fingertips. “Okay.”
Cosima nestles closer, and Delphine can feel the wetness of Cosima’s tears against her collarbone. “What a fucking trip, man,” she says with an empty laugh, her voice muffled against Delphine’s skin. “I need a vacation.”
Delphine chuckles, relieved slightly by the small joke. “Bien sûr. Anywhere you want to go. But first, try to rest.”
Disentangling herself from Delphine, Cosima peppers kisses up her neck and along the curve of her jaw before capturing soft lips with her own. The kiss is sweet, lingering for several heartbeats before Cosima pulls away. She nudges Delphine’s nose gently with her own and is rewarded with a smile so beautiful and genuine, it melts her from the inside out. She holds fast to the sight, committing every shadow, line, and beauty mark to memory as she wiggles back into the Frenchwoman’s embrace. As Cosima closes her eyes and prepares to dream, she hopes this time that smiling face will be all she sees.