Chapter 45: The Nightmare's Grip
The dark was water, cold and thick and full of things that brushed against her calves. Rosa moved through it with her hatchet raised, the beam of her headlamp cutting a weak yellow cone through the sewer tunnel. The walls dripped. Somewhere ahead, water rushed.
"Roy," she called, and her voice came back flat and wrong, swallowed by the concrete.
He was there. She could see him, full height, six-foot-five and broad-shouldered, his silhouette blocking the tunnel ahead. He turned when she called, and his face caught the light, calm and familiar. "I'm right here," he said. "Keep moving."
The water rose. It was at her knees, then her thighs. It was cold the way only forgotten places are cold, a deep bone-ache that had nothing to do with temperature. She pushed forward, each step a suction against the muck. Roy waited for her, patient, his hand extended.
Then the light came.
It wasn't from her headlamp. It was ahead of him, blinding white, a surgical glare that split the dark like a scalpel. Rosa threw up an arm. "Roy, get down!"
He didn't move. He stood in the light, frozen, his expression shifting to something she couldn't read. And then he wasn't six-foot-five anymore. He was shrinking, folding in on himself, his clothes collapsing around him like a deflating tent. The sound he made was small and startled, a breath punched out of him.
"Roy!"
He fell. He was three inches tall, tumbling from the ledge of his own shirt collar, dropping toward the black water. Rosa lunged, her fingers closing on empty air, on the space where he'd been. He hit the surface with a splash too loud for something so small, and the current took him, spinning him away from her, arms flailing, mouth open in a scream she couldn't hear.
She ran. The water was heavier now, pulling at her legs, dragging her down. She couldn't run, she could only wade, and he was getting smaller, farther, a speck of brown and black tumbling in the grime. "Roy! ROY!"
The current swept him under.
Roy woke to a heartbeat that was all wrong.
He came up from sleep in a single breath, his body already tensed before his mind caught up. The hollow of Rosa's collarbone had been warm and steady when he'd drifted off, her pulse a slow, familiar lullaby against his back. Now it was a drumbeat, fast and skipping, her chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven bursts beneath him.
He sat up, one hand braced against the curve of her throat. The skin there was clammy, taut. Her jaw was locked, her lips parted on a breath that came too quick and cut off too short. In the dim light of the LED strip, he could see the muscles of her neck corded tight, tendons standing out like wire.
"Rosa." His voice was barely a whisper, rough from sleep. He pressed his palm flat against her pulse point, feeling it jump. "Rosa, wake up."
She didn't stir. Her head was turned away from him, her braid a dark rope across the pillow, and her fingers were digging into the mattress, knuckles white. A low sound escaped her, a whimper that she would have been mortified to know she'd made.
Roy moved. He scrambled across the slope of her neck, his three-inch body navigating the terrain of her skin, and then pillow, with practiced ease. He reached her ear and gripped the shell of it, leaning in.
"Rosa. It's Roy. You're in your room. You're safe. Wake up."
The words were a command, but they came out soft, almost pleading. He knew her nightmares. He'd known them before he was small, back when he'd been tall enough to shake her shoulder and meet her eyes, back when his hands had been big enough to hold her face. Now his hands were the size of her fingernail, and all he could do was cling to her earlobe and repeat her name like a prayer.
Her breathing hitched. A shudder ran through her body, and for a moment he thought she was coming up. Her fingers loosened on the mattress. Her throat worked.
Then she sucked in a breath that sounded like drowning, and her whole body went rigid. A sob tore out of her, raw and frightened, and Roy felt his chest seize.
"Rosa." He said it louder, desperate. He climbed to her temple, pressing himself against her skin, trying to get closer to whatever was dragging her under. "Rosa, it's a dream. It's not real. You're here, in your room, in Anderson. Jason is across the hall. I'm here. I'm right here. Wake up."
He could feel the tension in her, the coiled muscle of a body poised for flight that had nowhere to go. Her jaw clenched. Her breath sawed through her teeth.
In the dark of her dream, Roy was in the water. He was small and tumbling and the current was taking him, and Rosa was reaching and reaching but her fingers never closed on him. The water was in her mouth now, sour and cold, and she couldn't scream his name because she had to breathe, and breathing meant swallowing the dark.
"ROY!"
She choked on the shout, a ragged, throat-shredding cry that filled the space.
Roy jerked back at the force of it, nearly losing his grip on her hairline. The sound was huge, a giant's shout made of terror, and for a moment he was just a small creature clinging to the skin of a woman much larger than him, overwhelmed by the volume of her fear.
But he didn't let go. He couldn't.
"I'm here," he shouted back, putting everything he had into his voice, willing it to reach her through the layers of sleep and nightmare and black water. "I'm HERE, Rosa. I'm safe. You saved me. You've always saved me. Wake up. Open your eyes. Prove me right."
Her body shuddered. A single tear escaped the corner of her closed eye, sliding down her temple, rolling past where Roy was braced. He watched it go, a tiny river carving its way down the side of her face, and he felt something crack open in his chest.
She was still drowning. Even here, even safe in her bed with the hum of the air filter and the flicker of the LED strip, she was under the water, and he was too small to pull her out.
He climbed. He moved across her cheek, his hands and feet finding purchase in the faint stubble of her skin, until he was positioned at the corner of her mouth. He pressed both palms against her lips, feeling the warmth of her breath gust against his fingers.
"Rosa," he said, calm now, the desperation folded away into something steadier. "I need you to hear me. I'm going to count. When I reach three, you're going to open your eyes, and you're going to see me. I'm going to be right here, on your face, being ridiculous, and you're going to laugh. You always laugh when I'm ridiculous. That's the deal."
Her breath hitched. Another tear fell.
"One." He felt her chest flutter. "Two." He squeezed his eyes shut, pouring everything he had into the word. "Three. Open your eyes, Rosa. That's an order."
She gasped.
It wasn't the sob of the nightmare, the drowning gasp of a body fighting for air. This was different, a sharp inhale, a body surfacing. Her eyes flew open, wild and unfocused, darting around the dark room, still caught in the grip of the dream.
Roy was ready. He waved his arms at the edge of her vision, a tiny frantic figure on her cheek.
"Hey," he said, softer now. "Hey, look at me. Just look at me. You're in your room, and I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere."
Her eyes found him. They were huge, green and glassy, still rimmed with the panic of the dream. She stared at him, unblinking as her brain tried to make sense of what her eyes were seeing.
"Roy," she breathed. Her voice was wrecked, hoarse from screaming.
"Yeah." He lowered his arms, crawling up so he was right before her right eye. "Yeah, it's me. I’m right here, big sister. We’re safe."
Her eyes stayed on him, but they weren't seeing him yet. They were still somewhere else, still in that tunnel, still reaching for a speck of brown and black tumbling in the current. The green of them was dark, pupils blown wide, and her breath kept hitching in that awful, wet way.
Roy stayed where he was, perched at the edge of her vision, letting her look at him. He knew better than to rush her. He'd seen her come up from nightmares before, back when he was full-sized, back when he could just sit on the edge of her bed and wait. The rules were the same. Let her find her way back. Don't grab her. Don't break the surface too fast or she'd thrash.
"Take your time," he said, soft. "I'm not going anywhere."
Her hand moved. It came up slow, trembling, and hovered near her face, fingers open. Roy watched it approach, the shadow of it falling over him. She didn't seem to know what she was doing, her hand moving on some old instinct, some need to touch and confirm.
"Careful," he said, but he didn't flinch. "Lotta real estate up here now."
Her fingertips brushed her own cheek, light, exploratory. They found him, the tiny warmth of his body, and stopped. For a long moment she just pressed two fingers against him, feeling the solid fact of him, the proof.
"Roy," she said again. This time the name came out different, less a cry and more a question.
"Yeah. Still me." He leaned into her fingers, letting her feel the weight of him. "You were dreaming, Rosa. The sewer. The water. None of it was real. I'm here, in your room, on your face, being ridiculous."
Her breath shuddered out of her. The tension in her shoulders didn't break all at once, but it started to, cracking in pieces like ice on a thawing river. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, they were clearer. More present.
"I dreamed you were small," she whispered. "You were in the water."
"I'm already small. I'm always small now." Roy smiled. "But I'm not in the water. I'm dry, I'm warm, and I'm extremely annoyed at being woken up in the middle of the night by you having a very loud, very dramatic dream."
A sound escaped her. It wasn't quite a laugh, wasn't quite a sob, but it was somewhere in between, and it broke something in the air between them.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to—"
"Don't." Roy held up a hand, palm out. "Don't apologize for a nightmare. You saved me, remember? You carried me home. You got me out of there. That's the story. That's the actual story, not whatever that was."
She stared at him for another long moment, and then something in her face shifted. Her breath came easier. The wild look in her eyes faded into something softer, more tired, more grateful.
"Okay," she said. "Okay."
Roy moved. It was a careful negotiation, the terrain of her face still slick with sweat and tears. He made his way over to the bridge of her nose. It was a narrow ridge, the bone prominent beneath the skin, and he straddled it, one leg on each side, settling his weight.
Rosa's eyes crossed slightly, trying to track him.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Shh." He lowered himself, lying flat along the bridge of her nose, his body stretched out. "This is a hug. A limited, miniature, very weird hug. Don't move your nose too much or I'll fall off."
She was silent for a moment. He could feel her breath moving under him, the subtle shift of the bone he was resting on. And then, impossibly, he felt her smile. The skin of her nose moved, crinkling at the edges, and she let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
"You're such an sap," she said, and her voice was thick with tears now, but they were different tears. The good kind.
"The biggest. A sap who is currently performing the emotional labor of lying on his big sister's nose to make her feel better." Roy settled deeper, letting his body relax into the warmth of her skin. "You should be grateful."
"I am." Her voice was quiet. "I'm so grateful, Roy."
They lay there in the dark, the LED strip flickering its dying constellation around them. Rosa's hand came up again, but this time it didn't hover. It settled gently on her own face, fingers spread, the edge of her palm brushing against him without pressing. A careful, protective cage over the small thing resting on the bridge of her nose.
"You need to go back to sleep," Roy said.
"In a minute."
"Rosa—"
"Let me have this, okay?" Her thumb moved, a ghost of a touch near him. "Let me just... lie here with my idiot brother on my face for a little while, and then I'll go back to sleep."
Roy huffed, but he didn't argue. He closed his eyes, letting himself feel the rhythm of her breathing, the slow steady pulse that had returned to her throat. The nightmare was still there, somewhere, lurking in the dark behind her eyes. But it was done now. They were both above the water.
"Fine," he said. "But if you start snoring, I'm relocating to the pillow."
She let her eyes close, the weight of him still there on the bridge of her nose. It was a strange thing, how such a small presence could anchor her so completely. The nightmare was still close, a shadow pressed against the edges of her mind, but he was here. He was warm. He was breathing.
Her hand moved without her looking, reaching toward the bedside table where she'd left the strip of fabric. It was a length of soft cotton she'd scavenged from a torn bedsheet, pale grey, worn smooth from washing. She'd been planning to sew it into something warmer for him, a proper blanket sized to his impossible scale, something he could wrap around himself when the cold crept through the dorm's drafty halls.
Her fingers found it. The fabric was cool against her skin, a contrast to the warmth of her own face, and she drew it up slowly, careful not to disturb him.
"What are you doing?" Roy's voice was a small murmur against the bridge of her nose.
"Shh." She draped the fabric over him, tucking it around his tiny form. It settled over him like a shroud, a single layer of cotton that must have felt like a thick blanket to him. Then she drew the rest of it up over her own eyes, covering them.
There was a moment of silence. Then Roy shifted beneath the fabric, and she could feel him moving, a small bump in the grey.
"Rosa," he said, and there was something in his voice she couldn't quite read. "This is... you made this for me."
"I was going to make it into a proper blanket," she said, her voice muffled by the cloth. "Sew it, add a hem. But you're cold at night, and I keep putting it off, and..." She trailed off. "It's just a sheet right now. It'll work for now."
The fabric over her nose shifted as he moved, and she felt his hands press against the cotton, testing it.
"It's perfect," he said. His voice was quiet, rough, and she could hear the emotion in it. "It's the softest thing I've felt in months."
"It's just an old sheet."
"It's yours." He paused. "It smells like you."
She didn't know what to say to that. Her throat tightened, and she was glad for the fabric covering her eyes, hiding the way her expression crumpled for a moment. She'd been carrying this guilt for so long, the weight of what had happened to him, of failing to protect him in that moment, that the idea of him finding comfort in something so simple was almost unbearable.
"Rosa." He said her name like he knew what she was thinking. "You know this isn't your fault, right?"
"You've said that."
"I'll keep saying it." He settled himself in the fabric, and she could feel him nestling down, making a small nest of the cotton. "I know you. You're going to carry this forever, whether I want you to or not. But you need to know that if I had to do it again, if I had to choose between you getting hit and me getting hit... I'd make the same choice. Every time."
"Don't say that."
"It's true." His voice was calm, steady, and she could hear the stubbornness underneath it. The same stubbornness that had always been there, even when he was six-foot-five and she was the one looking up at him. "You're my sister. You're the reason I'm alive. You're the reason any of us are alive, some days. I'm not going to apologize for protecting you."
She inhaled, then exhaled. The fabric over her eyes grew damp at the corners. "You're my brother, you idiot. I'm supposed to protect you."
"You did." He was quiet for a moment. "You carried me home. You've carried me every day since. And now you've given me the softest blanket in the world and I'm lying on your face, which is weird, but honestly? I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."
A laugh escaped her, wet and breathless. It was too big a sound for the middle of the night, too big for the quiet of her room, but she couldn't stop it. It came out of her like something that had been trapped inside, and it bubbled up and spilled over.
"You're ridiculous," she said.
"Professionally, yes." She could feel him smiling beneath the fabric. "Now go to sleep. If you snore, we're both going to have a problem, because this blanket is staying on my side."
She settled deeper into the mattress, the fabric still covering her eyes. The darkness behind it was soft and warm, and she could feel the weight of him against the bridge of her nose, the steady rhythm of his breathing.
The nightmare was still there, somewhere in the back of her mind. The water, the cold, the speck of brown and black tumbling away from her. But it was muted now, dulled by the warmth of his presence, muffled by the cloth that smelled like her and now carried the faint scent of him.
"Roy?" she whispered.
"Mm."
"I love you. You know that, right?"
There was a long pause. Then, so quiet she almost missed it: "I know. I love you too, Rosa."
She let the breath settle out of her. The fabric over her eyes grew heavier, and somewhere in the dark, she felt the nightmare losing its grip. It would return. They always returned. But for now, there was only this: her brother, tiny and warm on the bridge of her nose, wrapped in the blanket she'd been too afraid to finish.
For now, that was enough.